This episode is sponsored by Zano, the privacy-based crypto we use right here at the Free Thought Project.
While Bitcoin's been hijacked by surveillance exchanges and institutional control,
Zano stays true to what crypto is supposed to be.
Private, peer-to-peer, and censorship-free.
It's more than just a coin.
Zano is a full-blown ecosystem.
Private transactions, atomic swaps, confidential assets, escrow trades,
and even a decentralized marketplace where people are already buying and selling real goods and services.
All without a third party looking over your shoulder.
And unlike that fiat that you're forced to use,
every Zano transaction burns a bit of the supply, making it deflationary over time.
Imagine that.
A cryptocurrency that gets more valuable the more people use it.
And the best part?
It just works.
No KYC.
No Big Brother.
Just a tool for people who actually value freedom.
Zano.
Because the Free Thought Project doesn't just talk liberty, we transact with it.
Governments should be afraid of people.
No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
The world.
Ideas can change the world.
An idea whose time has come cannot be destroyed by armies or governments.
It's too pervasive and we still have tools to spread the message.
Welcome to the Free Thought Project Podcast.
A hub for free thinking conversations about the promotion of liberty
and the daunting task of government accountability.
Here are your hosts, Jason Bassler and Matt Agarist.
Hello again, free thinkers.
Welcome back to the Free Thought Project Podcast.
My name is Jason Bassler.
And joining me is the Free Thought Project Editor-in-Chief, Matt Agarist.
All right, guys, we have another great show lined up for you today.
Another powerful podcast.
Thanks again for joining us.
Our guest today is a longtime friend of the Free Thought Project and an all-around awesome dude.
And I will be introducing him here shortly.
But another week has passed and another week with more questions and answers regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
It's still basically impossible to escape the story on social media,
but we did just have another shooting yesterday, this time in Dallas.
And apparently it was a 29-year-old sniper who targeted an ICE facility.
Now, of course, Trump, Vance, Kristi Noem and FBI Director Cash Patel
all took the opportunity to continue the fear narrative of the radical left terrorists.
And as always, didn't let a crisis go to waste.
But the bullets once again were inscribed with messages, kind of like the Charlie Kirk assassination.
And this time they read Anti-ICE, which certainly isn't the most profound statement ever,
but many people are skeptical and are already starting to reject the narrative.
Of course, Trump and the right immediately blamed the left-wing extremists.
And there were reports of the left claiming the shooter was interested in Ron Paul, if you can believe that.
It seems like the blame game is only escalating, as is the polarization and division in this country.
Now, I have a strong suspicion that we'll be talking about that today with our guests.
But before we get into that, I wanted to remind our listeners that the podcast we released last week
with our former writer Kevin Whitson, a grieving father who is dedicated to ending addiction with psychedelic plant medicines.
It was actually one of the most download episodes that we've had in a while, guys.
Now, Kevin shared his heartfelt story of when he learned his son had passed
and how that grieving process led to writing his book.
It was a bit of a departure in some ways from our normal conversation,
but it clearly resonated with a lot of people.
So definitely take a moment to download that and listen to it after this episode.
Also, Freethinkers, please take a moment to ensure that you are subscribed to this podcast on your podcast player of choice.
And while you're there, go ahead and rate and review the podcast as well.
And if you have been a longtime listener and feel like you've gained value from the show,
head over to thefreethoughtproject.com.
At the top, there's a tab there to subscribe to TFTP.
Now, just $10 a month helps us keep the lights on, helps keep our fire lit,
and new episodes rolling out each and every week.
All right, guys. So as I mentioned, we have a friend of the Freethought project joining us today.
The last time he was on the podcast was actually four years ago in 2021,
so this conversation is long overdue.
But he's a frontline documentarian in the battle for public accountability.
He's a man who's incredibly brave.
He's a cop watcher, a First Amendment auditor.
His YouTube channel has 627,000 subscribers and has become a digital archive of resistance,
rice education, and raw encounters with police employees.
Today, we are joined by David from San Joaquin Valley Transparency.
So what's up, David? Thanks for joining us.
And welcome back to the Freethought Project podcast, man.
Hey, Jason and Matt, thank you guys for having me back on
and thank you for everybody tuning in.
And yeah, man, it's nice to speak to you guys again.
And also, man, thank you for the kind words.
That's pretty cool to hear that.
I never really think of myself like that.
For sure, man.
Now, we'll certainly give you credit if you're not going to do that for yourself.
I know sometimes it's easy to kind of overlook all the hard work that we put in doing this.
And yeah, as I mentioned, this conversation is long overdue.
Not only did we have to bump you back in the schedule here a couple months until today,
but we haven't talked to you since 2021, man.
So definitely ready to get into this.
And obviously, there has been a lot to process over the past couple weeks
and actually really just the past couple months.
It all seems to be moving super fast and maybe even intentionally so.
But I know you've been keeping an eye on Border Patrol and ICE in your community,
the community of Bakersfield, California.
And you've been organizing and cop watching and showing up and showing out
where there are reports of ICE and Border Patrol in your city.
And while, you know, Governor Gavin Newsom did just recently sign a bill for ICE
to not be wearing masks while performing their duties,
it feels like it's too little too late, right?
Especially when you consider that there are National Guard troops in D.C. right now
and, you know, Trump has obviously threatened to send them to other cities
like Chicago and New York and Los Angeles, which is close to you, you know?
And we also know that Trump is a huge proponent of law enforcement
and giving police these extra rights and additional resources
and even more military equipment like they really need that.
So I think it's safe to say that, you know, America will probably look a lot different
by the end of Trump's term here if he gets his way with a lot of this stuff
and continues to, you know, expand the police state.
Now, in the intro, you know, I touched on the Charlie Kirk shooting,
but also the ICE shooting that happened yesterday.
And of course, those are only two of the most recent incidents.
Apparently there's been at least four mass shootings since the beginning of August.
And I don't think that's going to slow down anytime soon here.
So with these equations in mind, like, I think it's safe to suggest that,
you know, these events might be orchestrated to some degree
or at the very least there is incentive to orchestrate them, right?
There's more laws that could be rolled out.
You know, there's more restrictions, more fear, more division,
more police and a justification for, you know, an even bigger police state.
Now, I know your work doesn't always touch on, you know, conspiracy theories, David,
but I wanted to get your take on this.
Like, do you think there is a chance that some of these recent events
could have been planned or staged just to expand the police and surveillance state?
Or it doesn't make more sense to be cautious and not to jump to conclusions
and, you know, just trust the media and FBI on these matters?
That's a hell of a great question.
You know, I think about a lot of these things that happen,
and I try to, you know, narrow down if these things are true, if they're fake,
if they're Psyops, if they're, you know, incidents that really happen.
You know, I'm sure you guys have heard of the Hegelian dialectic.
You know, is it, is this an incident that was orchestrated
or is it something that they just can capitalize, you know, from what happens?
I think when you think about these things, about what happened with Charlie Kirk
and about the incident, first and foremost,
like I've gotten, like in a state of mind, in my heart and soul,
I feel like whenever the FBI says anything at all,
like I would be surprised if I actually believe them.
You know, it seems like everything they say, I don't believe anything they say.
You know, and so whether these things are real or fake,
whether it's a Psyop or whether it's a real incident that happened,
I think the thing to think about and to look out for is,
like you said, the implementation of new laws.
You know, what's going to come of this?
You know, what's going to happen?
Are we going to, you know, look at more of a police state?
And so that's kind of the way I look at all these things.
I try not to spend too much effort into the conspiracy theory of it all.
I try to look more along the lines of maybe I'm programmed that way
to look to see what's going to, what's going to come of this?
What's going to be the big outcome?
More laws, stuff like that, and both sides seem to do it anyways.
Sure. And you know, there's a part of me that also feels like
we don't need to know all the specifics as to what's going on
with the Charlie Kirk assassination, because let's be honest,
there's a lot of conflicting information out there.
There's a lot of plot holes and inconsistencies.
And so I don't know if it's intentionally being rolled out that way
or if the media and the government and the FBI are just incompetent, you know?
But either way, I think it speaks to a larger picture
that there is something going on.
There is a cover up.
And I think a lot of people sense that.
I think a lot of people don't know if it's necessarily a false flag
or some type of PSIOP or MKUltra, or maybe it's even legit,
but there's just so many questions.
And this isn't even necessarily by the online conspiracy theorists
who are, you know, presenting these questions.
A lot of these people just are the regular normie class
who just feels through their intuition and through their gut
that something's wrong about this.
And I completely agree, man.
You know, we often say in the police accountability community
that police earn the hate.
They earn the hate that they have.
There's a reason why people don't like police in these countries
because they've earned the hate over the past few decades.
And I think the same could be said about the FBI, right?
They've lied so many times.
They've misattributed information.
They've produced misinformation.
They've, you know, what is it?
Say the line, you know?
Like there's that popular meme, that Simpsons meme.
Because the FBI not only is aware of these shooters oftentimes,
sometimes they even groom them.
Sometimes they even facilitate these shootings to happen
by grooming mentally ill people
and putting them in these types of positions.
So yeah, it's hard to believe, you know, everything that's going on
and it's hard to even trust a lot of government,
especially after COVID.
And you think that our friends on the right
would probably be a little more skeptical
about buying these narratives hook, lion, sinker.
But unfortunately, it feels like they learned very little
after the COVID years.
But, you know, after the Dallas ice shooting,
we've seen a wave of statements from federal officials
basically labeling it domestic terrorism.
And I think this kind of gets to the heart of what you're talking about.
That there is going to be some type of repercussions
from these things, right?
And now they're really focusing on the ideological threat, right?
That there's this notable shift in tone,
talking more about like cracking down.
They're talking about more surveillance,
more pressure on activists.
And as somebody like yourself who documents police behavior
and does stand up, you know, adamantly for the First Amendment,
do you feel like this is going to be something that does target
the auditors and cop watchers to somehow be swept up
in this narrative?
Do you think that that line between accountability
and extremism is being blurred on purpose?
I do. I believe so.
I believe that the First Amendment is under attack as well.
You know, the whole thing with, you know,
Stephen Colbert and, you know, Jimmy Kimmel,
that feels like a sigh up as well.
Now, I don't know if it's true or not.
I don't know what's going on there.
But like when Trump supposedly filed a lawsuit
and won like so much, so many millions of dollars on the lawsuit,
I'm just like this dude is not even in the private sector anymore.
He's in the public sector.
And what's crazy is this community,
the First Amendment Auditing Community,
we learned these things like fucking a long time ago.
So this is this kind of stuff is elementary to us.
And we're, and I'm sitting here watching this and I'm just like,
why is this big news?
Why did they cave in?
Why did they pay this out?
And, you know, when it comes to politics and Trump and everything,
everything is, is a divide, you know,
everything is all the left and the Democrats and everything.
The FBI, this administration is saying,
whether it's Patel or everything is a division, you know,
it's jumped to conclusion.
Let's keep the divide going.
You know, you don't hear none of these politicians talking about like shit.
This whole Charlie Kirk incident should bring us all together.
You know what I mean?
And there's all kinds of conspiracy shit going on.
I'm not going to lie.
I fucking love it.
I love watching all this shit,
sharing some of this shit as well.
But who knows if this shit is theater,
the dog and pony show,
who knows if it's real or what's going on.
But I mean, I just seen the new videos of the,
the Snake Eyes movie, you know,
many years ago with Nicholas Cage,
the guy who was in the movie who got assassinated
was a politician named Charlie Kirkland.
It happened on September 10th.
The shooter had the same name and called the executioner,
the boxer in the movie and just like, damn bro,
like how many coincidences, you know, can we see?
But it's all a divide, man.
You know, I think to myself with the whole Charlie Kirk incident,
like what if this girl, Erica, you know,
what if she is from the team,
the Miss Teen USA pageant winners
and what if she did come from Trump
and what if Charlie Kirk was actually used?
What if this shit is real
and Charlie Kirk was actually used by these people, right?
Don't you think that the Republicans and the Democrats
or whatever, whatever you want to live with yourself
should come together and be like, you know what, man?
They did that shit to this man or this young man.
Like, don't you think we should come together
and ask questions like, you guys did this shit to this man?
Who is this woman you guys hooked him up with?
You know what I mean?
I don't know if all this shit is true,
but you would think that instead of creating more divide,
people have questions.
They want answers to find out what happened.
Well, fuck man, don't we all?
On both sides of the spectrum,
instead of just pointing fingers like, it's this guy, it's that guy.
I just keep seeing a divide
and there's nothing of bringing the people together.
And I think that's one of the things
that the First Amendment Auditing Community did
is kind of brought everybody together.
Black, white, gay, straight, man, woman, you know, everybody.
Red, blue, left, left, right, all everybody.
I think that's why the First Amendment Auditing Community
took off so well.
And I think that a lot of this shit that's happening,
like your question, to circle back to your question,
hell yeah, it's an attack on the First Amendment.
They want us to be, to see all this shit happening
in the big theater so that we can be like, okay with it.
Okay, well fuck man, if they're taking Jimmy Kimmel down,
who the fuck am I?
They're gonna take me down than anybody else
that says something that they don't like.
Joe Biden's administration already got caught doing it.
Why not the Trump administration?
Why not every other administration?
Nothing happened, right?
I mean, they're still up and about
running these social media platforms and all these things
and nothing happens to them.
No, they just continue to censor, man.
And like you said earlier, the Hegelian dialectic,
we actually talked about that on the podcast
with Ben Swann a few weeks ago.
And regardless of what the cause was for this problem,
the reaction and the solution by the state is always the same.
You know, it's not bring people together,
shit a tragedy occurred, let's talk about this,
let's try to heal as a country.
No, both sides point the fucking finger at the other side
and stoke more divide like you just said.
And it creates far more of a reaction
and which then justifies the tyrannical
or police state solution that is imposed on the country.
And half of the people will be begging for it,
you know, because they're going to be tired of these fucking ice
shootings and everything else that all this reaction is
from society that gets bought into
or that buys into this crazy divide that keeps,
that their cults keep pushing on them.
It's fucking crazy to watch this unfold
and watch it unfold so rapidly.
Donald Trump could end this shit today
like all this divide.
He could hold a press conference and say like,
look, it's time, you know,
we have our differences with the left
and we have our differences with the right,
but we need to come together because
we can fucking watch this shit unfold right now.
But he has no intention of doing that,
nor does anybody in administration,
nor does anybody on the left in the government right now either.
That's why you have stocks like Palantir rising to the top,
you know, like they basically what you do
as a first man in Otterster is,
is try to provide transparency, right?
With a camera, but there's like a much larger
invisible surveillance grid being built on us
that's going to put cameras around all of us, right?
Powered by companies like Palantir.
And this isn't just like a cop on a power trip anymore.
It's about this AI driven police state
that predicts and polices our behavior
before we can even act.
And it's fucking scary
and it's being ready to be unveiled on us
and everybody's acting exactly how they should
that's going to help these people usher this in, right?
This technocratic machine was embraced by Trump.
And it's only and by Biden, you know,
Biden tried to roll this out during COVID and he did largely
and then Trump just picked up where he left off.
It's the ultimate bipartisan project, right?
And so your work with auditing
and it's all about what you can see, right?
So how do we as citizens even begin to audit
or create transparency around a secret,
digital fucking Panopticon
that is unfolding right in front of us?
Man, you know, you said it, bro.
You said it and I've never actually heard anybody say this
and it's so fucking simple and so powerful
when you said Donald Trump could end it all.
It could just say let's come together,
but he ain't going to fucking do that.
Not even his kids do that shit.
His kids even do the same shit.
Let's keep the divide going fucking Democrats and liberals.
They're the problem.
They're your problem, guys.
You know, and right now you asked the question,
you know, as far as like, where do we go from here?
As far as like, you know, this mass surveillance
and Palantir and everything.
And, you know, it's crazy, dude,
that everything is all tightened together
and the Trump administration is tightened
with these social media people
and all these fucking, the PayPal mafia people
and all this shit, right?
You know, what can we do as a people?
You know, whether we do it collectively or individually,
what can we do as a people, right?
You know, I asked that myself that question all the time.
I kind of started off as an asshole with the camera,
just recording cops, government officials
going into government buildings, asking questions,
demanding answers.
And the game has escalated to, you know,
getting record requests, going to city council meetings
and a lot of other different shit.
And I think this is kind of amazing because
me, like myself, who wasn't raised in politics,
didn't care too much about the shit,
never cared about the left or the right
or the Democrats or Republicans,
because I never really paid attention to police accountability.
I always thought growing up like whatever they say,
you got to do it.
And so along the lines, years,
along the lines just recording the police,
you know, I want to introduce you guys
to an Instagram account here in Bakersfield
called Current County Activities.
You got stickers, they got merch and shit like that.
And I don't know if what they did
was on purpose or on accident,
but they have an Instagram account.
And I think this is kind of important.
And recently I did some work locally,
kind of straight away from YouTube,
went to Instagram and connected
with a lot of local people.
I guess Instagram kind of connects you locally with people,
which is kind of cool.
So first I want to talk about
the Current County Activities account.
I want to talk about the Border Patrol work
that I did here really quick.
And I want to talk about how that led to a documentary
and how some of my videos also led
to a federal court injunction.
Also this led to some work that in Arvin
where several public officials
have ended up being forced to resign
or were pushed out by the city council.
And these are things that
because I started connecting with the local people here,
a lot of people from Arvin reached out to me,
a private investigator,
and we ended up uncovering a bunch of corruption in Arvin
and we made an impact there.
And I'll explain how we were able to do that.
Some of the work that I did here locally
on Instagram as well,
we actually helped find a missing girl.
And so first I guess I can talk about
Current County Activities.
There's four people that run this account.
I'm not involved with this account.
Sometimes I wear their merch and people ask me,
hey, are you Current County Activities?
And I'm like, nah.
But these guys post everything local.
Car accidents,
they'll tell you where the street is,
what time it happened.
People will send them everything.
They don't go out with their cameras and record.
Everybody just sends them everything.
Fights, shit going down in the neighborhood
and in the local area
in the entire Current County.
So there's four people running that account,
pretty much 24 hours a day.
And so just so you guys know,
all the news agencies follow that account,
all the local police agencies follow that account.
A lot of the local people follow that account.
And I'm not gonna lie,
these motherfuckers have a sense of humor.
But what was cool about this account
is you see what's happening in town
in real time.
Like right when it happens, everybody sends them shit
and they're constantly posting.
And they actually grew to a big ass fucking
like 200,000 followers on Instagram.
Like I said, they got a sense of humor.
But I've seen Border Patrol
and I don't know if you guys know this
but Bakersfield in Current County
here in California,
Bakersfield is a testing ground.
A lot of shit happens here first.
They had a JBX grill
from Jack in the Box that opened up here.
They tried to make it like a restaurant where you could
drink a beer in there.
They didn't do very well so they didn't put it out
to the rest of the world.
So when the Border Patrol started
doing Operation Return Descender,
Biden was still in office.
So that's kind of how I know also that
all this shit, they're all just puppets, man.
They do what they're told.
And so Operation Return Descender started
happening here in Bakersfield.
They opened on day one,
we've seen on Current County activities
that Border Patrol
was conducting traffic stops.
And then come to find out
they had pulled over some woman
at a gas station near
not too far from our house.
So my son Nate Skates walks in
and he's like, hey, Pop, do you want to go and record?
And we're like, yeah.
So one of the things that we do is we record government.
All government.
Nobody is exempt.
We got a whole government accountable.
Whether it's the DMV,
everywhere, Border Patrol, police.
So if you're government,
you need to be held accountable and recorded in public.
And so we went out there and right away
I do what I do best, man.
I just started asking some questions.
Can I get a PIO out here?
Do you guys have probable cause to pull her over?
PIO comes out and it's assistant chief
Kim, the Border Patrol guy that wears that
the cowboy hat in the tight ass shirt.
And then right away I started asking him like,
hey, bro, like, why'd you guys pull her over?
Do you guys have probable cause? What's the deal?
He didn't know how to answer my questions.
And then after about 30, 45 minutes
that they had parked behind her,
which in my opinion was a clear case of
awesome imprisonment.
They didn't know how to answer the questions.
So they just fucking did.
They let her go.
We were able to save the lady that day.
And that shit was kind of a powerful moment.
Like those video clips were used in a documentary.
And because of that,
I had gone live on Instagram
and a lot of local people were just like
resharing my stuff and just
started following what I was doing.
And so next, you know, everybody kind of collaborated
and coordinated and just started driving around
looking for Border Patrol.
And we were doing that for like three, four days.
And then next, you know, we did like a little protest.
And then we started organizing with other community leaders.
And then they had like a group chat on Instagram.
And then we started organizing like a bigger protest,
which ended up happening at the Valley Plaza Mall
here in Bakersfield.
And it was just a massive, massive protest, man.
Like shit ton of people were there.
And it was kind of cool because I was like saying things like,
Hey man, you guys bring us waters.
You guys bring pull up with the food trucks.
You know, and then by the end of the day,
I was like telling Kern County activities like,
Hey bro, tell the youngsters not to burn out, man.
And they're like, yeah, man,
sending the message throughout Bakersfield.
Like don't burn out.
You know, don't burn out.
We got to stay at the top of the mountain today.
They want to make us look bad.
Let's stay up here.
The people first, you know, God first,
if you believe in God, the people in the government,
they're the bottom bitches.
Let's keep them there.
We need to stay at the top of the mountain.
And so we're, you know,
we're saying these things to coordinating.
I even said like, Hey man,
you guys local businesses around here,
you guys bring us some trash bags.
I'll start picking up trash and lead by example.
And I did, man.
I was live streaming stores, picking up trash and shit.
And I told this big ass truck like, Hey bro,
there's no trash cans.
Can I just pull these bags,
put them in the back of your truck?
You guys haul them out.
They're like, yeah, go for it.
Next, you know, people were picking up trash.
That whole damn place was cleaned by the time I went back
in the morning to pick up all the rest of the trash.
Hell no, bro, the people picked it up.
And so a lot of that shit came about.
And so the videos that came out of the documentary,
I started working with local community leaders.
And then the, the ACLU filed a lawsuit
against the border patrol.
And I went to the courthouse,
the court hearing in Fresno,
and the ACLU won against the border patrol.
So the judge basically told border patrol,
we don't have jurisdiction.
I don't have jurisdiction over the people
that you already picked up.
But I have jurisdiction over the people
that you haven't picked up right now.
You guys need to start identifying.
You guys need to, you know,
when, when asked, you need to identify
and you need to have probable cause due process.
Yada, yada, yada.
And next, you know,
Trump is like the next day's like,
Hey, I'm not,
we don't got to listen to federal fucking judges.
We don't have to do this.
We don't have to do that.
As a matter of fact, you guys are going to,
you guys don't have to identify
because we're going to use this nonsense
that, you know, people are threatening them
and yada, yada, yada.
Hell nah, man, that shit is full on tyranny.
And so I'm seeing all that happen
with the border patrol of federal injunction.
Trump is ignoring all of that.
And so next thing you know,
people reached out to me and they're like,
you got to do some work here locally.
And this is where I think I started
to learn some lessons, you know,
and it's crazy because you want to create
some kind of change on a grand scale.
But sometimes you have to start at home
first too, you know, if you don't,
maybe I didn't really want to work
and do work and expose politicians
or people around here
because I didn't want to shit where I eat.
But then I started going viral
on Instagram locally.
And so I'm like, well, fuck,
I might as well start connecting
with some of these people.
And so they started sending me all kinds of shit, man.
A private investigator sent me a packet
of fucking pretty much a criminal history
of the Arvin Chief of Police.
The Arvin Chief of Police,
his name was Alex Gazalpor.
But apparently he had been fired
many years ago from a different
police department in Palos Verdes
estates here in California.
He had been fired for stealing like $17,000.
This fool was fired,
arrested and convicted.
And then he was allowed to become
a reserve officer,
go through this probationary period.
And years later,
he was able to resubmit his plea
to a not guilty plea.
And they basically sweep his record
under the rug.
And now this guy goes on
and he goes to Maricopa, California,
which is here in Kern County as well.
And there's only like two cops there,
a really small town.
And he's under the chief, right?
And so this guy,
these cops are pulling people
over everybody around there.
And the people are like, man,
we're not going to drive through Maricopa no more.
Man, these cops are fucking crazy.
Impounding our cars for the stupidest shit.
Well, they started targeting like workers
that lit work in the fields
or whatever around the area.
And so they're just impounding everybody's fucking car.
Well, come to find out the grand jury did a fucking,
they came out with a grand jury report
and come to find out that these fools
were having like kickbacks
from the tow truck companies.
And they disbanded that whole damn department,
which is not a big department.
Like I said,
there was only two cops with a few reserve officers.
And this fool, Alex,
he washes his hands.
He goes to Arvin, California
and becomes a reserve officer there for a few years.
And then works,
he fucking weasels his way up
and becomes chief of police.
And all of a sudden he's using the name
Alex Gazalpor.
But when he got fired and arrested,
he was using Alex Gazarian.
And so this private investigator sent me all this shit.
And I walked up to him and I was like,
Hey, bro, can I get your name in badge number?
And he was like,
I'm Alex Gazalpor chief of Arvin.
And I'm like, well, that's funny.
I was like,
I have some reports right here saying that you used to use
a last name Gazarian.
Is it true that you used to use the last name somewhere else?
And he was like,
Well, my name's always been Alex Gazarian Gazalpor.
You know, yada, yada, yada.
And so I went and I spoke at the city council meeting
and I had spoke about how, you know,
a couple of different departments have offered to pay me
to come and teach the First Amendment.
Yada, yada, yada.
And so Alex heard that.
And so he walked out at the end of the council meeting
and he's trying to talk to me.
And he's like, you know, yo, you know,
I heard what you said and I just want you to know
that I'm not really a bad guy.
And, you know, there are some things that are being said
about me that are not true.
And he's like, and just, you know, I would,
you know, if you can come in here,
do you have a business where we can pay you
to come and teach our officers?
And what you said is correct and important.
And I'm just like, look, bro,
I'll come take your money, man.
Like I'll come in here and I'll take your money.
But at the same time,
I'm still going to hold you accountable, bro.
I have to expose this, man, you know,
and I didn't really care for that, you know,
but we ended up getting rid of the city attorney,
another lady that worked in the manager position there,
him, Alex, and, you know, another dude.
And so I was able to do some work in Arvin, California
that I believe was very powerful.
And the reason I think that this is important
is because the community in Arvin,
they didn't know any better.
It's predominantly like 96% Hispanic.
Most of them are Spanish speaking.
It's a small community.
They don't know shit.
And as far as like what these politicians are doing
because they're fucking constantly being lied to.
And so you have all these supposed
good government workers being pushed out
by all these bad government workers.
Alex Gazarian, Gazalpor,
ended up getting the position as,
as he was the chief of police,
he also got the position of code enforcement supervisor.
And it was supposed to go to somebody else
who had been there for a lot of years,
who had experience.
Hell no.
Alex got that position and ended up firing
that guy and other people as well.
And he'd been firing motherfuckers left and right.
This guy's like a damn bowling ball.
And so when we started doing the work there,
I realized something.
There was a new mayor there.
And when I went to go speak at the city council meeting,
the city attorney had interrupted me.
And then I was like, yo, you know,
can I get some of my time back because,
you know, you guys interrupted me.
And the mayor was like, yes, yes, you're right.
Everything you're saying is important, you know,
and your voice needs to be heard.
Yes, you know, you're right, you weren't interrupted.
You know, right away, I got a good feeling from her.
You know, and that plus I've already,
I've heard a lot of good things about this new mayor.
Well, the chief of police was trying to get her charged
for a lot of dumb shit.
And he tried to get me charged as well.
But he had nothing.
I always do my work in the form of a question anyways.
And so Alex,
he ends up getting fucking canned.
So what I realized was the community can't do it alone.
And sometimes you have good public officials
who are fighting with bad public officials.
They can't do it alone.
And me, the social media guy, right,
with many subscribers and all that,
I can't do it alone.
It almost seems like it takes a collaborative effort
of a small town or even a big town
of people going to the city council meeting,
filling up those empty seats.
We're actually paying money to go to the theaters
and watch movies and shit.
And these seats are free.
If you go in there and you start asking questions,
you're going to find a fucking circus.
Because these people are doing some shit
they ain't supposed to be doing.
And so it does take a lot of the community members
that reached out to me.
It did take some of the public officials
that were in there to vote a certain way.
It did take my social media as well,
my work to inform the people of Arvin
to put the pressure on some of these public officials
for these public officials
to start voting out these bad public officials
who are in there.
Now, I'm not saying that these supposed good public officials
are never going to get corrupted
because, man, if you stay in politics long enough,
you're probably going to become corrupt.
Who knows?
No doubt.
Man, it sounds like Alex was a gypsy cop.
He was fired from one place,
went to the next place.
But a whole new level gypsy cop,
like the final boss in gypsy cop
that becomes a police chief
and then the code inspector.
Man, I know Jason and I both talked before this
about wanting to know what you've been doing
since we last caught up
and you basically filled us all in, man.
Thanks for that.
It catches us up
and it sounds like you've been hard at work, man.
You had mentioned some things about the ICE raids
and how they were rounding up workers and stuff.
And I know San Joaquin Valley,
they do have like a bit of a,
like some farmland out there that's worked.
But like nationally, you know,
the political narratives all about demographics
and voting blocks and, you know,
Trump ran on a platform of economic prosperity
and getting tough on crime.
And he supposedly, you know,
made a big headway with Latino voters.
But my guess is that shifting, right?
When the reality of the police state kicks in,
we got, you know, this abstract policy becomes
this crazy action we see on the street
where we see, you know, reports of ICE raids
where they're not just rounding up fucking
MS-13 criminals like they claimed to do in the beginning,
but they're going into these agricultural communities
with sweeping raids and mass arrests
and they're building these fucking concentration camps
on U.S. soil.
It's absolutely flabbergasting what they're doing, man.
And there's this huge disconnect
between like the tough on crime rhetoric, right,
that wins votes and then the brood reality
of seeing kids ripped from parents' arms
and fucking, and like right in your own backyard, you know,
and people's, like, that they've known for 20 years
that have worked in their house forever
and all these different people that are clearly no threat
and have been here for a long time
being rounded up and shipped off and pulled from their families.
It's a crazy scene and it's weird to see that happening.
It's sad to see that happening in the United States.
But so from your perspective on the ground,
like, what is the sentiment in your town right now?
Like, are you seeing a shift?
I mean, I'm sure you saw a shift
if there were people supporting Trump, right?
If there's a big Latino community supporting Trump,
are they having second thoughts
as they witness the reality of these raids
on their streets now?
And like, what's the word on the ground,
like, away from the talking heads in D.C.?
Damn good fucking question, bro.
On point, my neighbor across the street
just took down his Latinos for Trump flag.
I don't know if he's an ice worker or what.
He's never home.
Since all this started, he's never home.
I really don't know, but there is...
Here in Kern County where I live,
Kern County is a conservative county in California.
Imagine that.
So there are a lot of Latinos for Trump here.
There's some famous ones too, man,
that do like podcasts and shit.
And I gotta say, man,
like, I'd be seeing their shit on Instagram
and the rhetoric they still spew to this very day
is fucking unbelievable.
But it does seem like Trump
is losing supporters along the way.
He has lost some Latinos for Trump.
He has lost some of his own,
I would say, voters.
When they had the No Kings rally here in Bakersfield,
I attended.
I was recording.
I was documenting.
And I gotta say, man, it's not just Trump.
It's the Democrats.
I'm standing on stage
and I'm trying to get a chance to speak
because I want to remind everybody to go record the police.
And I'm waiting there to speak
and there's this guy who's getting ready to vote against
David Valadeo, Congressman.
And he's standing on the podium
and he's saying like,
we need to vote all these Republicans out.
And I look...
Because I'm standing on stage looking out
into the crowd of people.
And I gotta say, like I said,
Bakersfield is a conservative county
and there were some Republicans and conservatives
that actually came out to the No Kings rally.
Bakersfield was packed with people.
But when I looked into the crowd,
when the guy said that,
I seemed like a handful of people just kind of duck their heads
and just turn around and walk away.
And I'm like, this motherfucker right here
just possibly lost like a handful of Republican voters
that he could have actually went over
because these guys,
it was several different MAGA hats in the fucking street
that people were throwing and shit too.
I don't know if these are MAGA hats that people bought
just to throw,
but it could be that people were just like
leaving the MAGA party.
You know, I don't know.
You know, especially when Trump started talking about
the Epstein files as a fucking hoax
and this guy's losing his fucking support, man.
And you know, it's all the crazy shit, man.
And this guy fucking ran on,
he's gonna drain the swamp
and come to find out the motherfucker's fucking
and God damn runs the swamp and shit too, you know.
Our friend, Sal DiAgaris posted a tweet the other day
when it said Trump ran on a platform of drain the swamp
and I didn't realize that swamp was just another word
from Netanyahu's ballsack.
Yeah, I've seen that shit.
It's hilarious.
Well, I think that really highlights, yeah,
the power of what we can do, you know,
in our own communities as far as just, you know,
having these types of actions and protests and stuff.
And, you know, I guess we might have some mixed feelings
as to ultimately, you know, what protests accomplish.
And there's a lot of people on the right
who try to kind of naysay.
I think in some ways they are visual representations
of the people around us
and where we currently sit with our sentiments
towards politics.
But it sounds like people are hungry,
especially in your community.
Ultimately, it is important for us
to express ourselves one way or another,
regardless if you know all the ins and outs
of every topic, whether you have
a big social media following or not.
All these things I think help kind of push
the ball in a certain direction
and kind of help swing the pendulum back.
It's all important, man,
and very grateful that you're out there doing that.
And you've evolved, man.
You know, we talked about that a bit here
with your work, you know.
It's one thing to stay on the internet
and, you know, to produce information
and share ideas.
I think it's equally as valid,
but ultimately we need to be doing more work
in our communities, right?
And I could say that for myself as well.
Sometimes it is easy to kind of get lost
in the bigger picture of things
in the national conversation
and not participate in the things
that are in your backyard, you know.
And I think, yeah, if we all did that
and there is a term for it, you know,
it's localism.
If we all participated more in the localism,
our own individual communities
probably would be a lot better.
But I also get the fear because
by doing so, and if you do so effectively,
you are essentially painting a target on your back
and we all know, you know, us three
in this conversation know how easy it is
for police to manipulate the facts,
for police to criminalize non-criminal offenses,
to try to justify some type of legal action
against you, or even just make your life miserable
by harassing you or gangstalking.
I mean, all these things aren't completely outside
of the spectrum of possibility.
So I for one am grateful that you've, you know,
shifted your focus a bit, David,
even though, you know, you were incredibly effective
creating the videos on YouTube
and doing the auditing.
But when duty calls, you know,
we have to step up to the plate.
It sounds like that's exactly what you're doing.
Now, I do have one more question here.
I know we're getting a little bit low on time
and we did start a little bit late today,
so we'll probably have a shorter podcast than normal.
But, you know, there has been a wave of protests
this year against things like surveillance tech
and facial recognition and Palantir
and what they do with predictive policing.
And, you know, 10 years ago,
people would have called it all paranoia
to say that cops would be scanning license plates
or using drones to, you know,
spy on us essentially in real time.
But now it's becoming a standard practice
and a lot of departments,
a growing number of departments across the country
with systems like, you know, Flock and Clearview.
It's not just about watching.
It's about identifying.
It's about documenting and cataloging
and profiling people, you know,
and the predictive policing services
that Palantir provides
only seems to be kind of gaining steam.
So I was curious if you think that this kind of tech
is going to have some type of chilling effect
on independent media and protests, you know,
because if people feel like they're going to be targeted,
they feel like they're going to be tracked and flagged.
And yeah, essentially creating that target on their back,
there might be more hesitancy
to show up and speak out and film
and do these things that we know is important
to create some type of level of transparency and accountability.
So do you think that that's part of
why they're pushing so hard with the surveillance state?
And yeah, do you feel like this is going to
negatively affect some of the progress
that we've made through protest
and activism over the years?
Yeah, absolutely.
And I do got to say that I'm not sure if you know this,
but, you know, I learned,
you said that I've progressed and I want to thank you for that
and I do believe that knowing you and talking to you
actually helped me along the way.
And I've, like I said,
I talked to a lot of different people
and I tried to learn from everyone.
But I don't know if you guys know this, you and Matt,
but I, you know, I learned a lot from you guys.
Like I read your posts,
like I know I learned about Palantir through you guys.
And I'll say that, you know,
you just spoke about the flock camera systems.
Because of you guys, I spoke about
against the flock camera systems
in this small town of Arvin, California
that I just spoke about.
Because of you guys, I was able to go in there
and speak and talk to the people,
talk to the mayor, talk to some of the people
at the public meeting
and speak against the flock camera system.
Just so you guys know,
your work has actually helped Arvin
stop, you know, these flock camera systems
from being put up in Arvin.
So I want to thank you guys for that as well.
Through you guys, I learned about that.
So I was able to speak on that
and able to halt that just a little bit.
But are we a little too late?
You know, they do have the flock camera systems
here in Bakersfield.
Bakersfield is a fucking pretty big place.
They do have these, you know, a lot everywhere.
Already.
Before we even knew what the fuck was happening,
they already did this.
And the government is 10 steps ahead of all of us.
You know, I think it needs to get to the point
where we stop being confused
and finding each other and start questioning government.
You know, why isn't the...
In reality, you know, it's funny, you guys,
some of the posts you guys put up,
there's some of the most realist fucking shit ever.
You know, like, why is nobody talking about this?
This is one of the biggest stories now.
You know, you guys continuously pushed that
because it's true.
We're not fucking talking about Palantir, you know, enough.
You know, and like I said, man,
a lot of these people, man, you have...
And the social media influencers, man,
they're big, you know, might as touch on the left.
You know, you have other folks on the right,
both sides, and they get tons and tons of views, man,
hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of views and shit
on the same shit, same topics and everything,
but they're not talking about these things, man.
And it seems like the people who are on kind of like,
you know, I'm not leaning left nor right,
I'm just gonna move forward, you know,
I'm gonna try to bring everybody together
and have some kind of... find some kind of common ground.
Those channels are not going anywhere.
You don't really see them, you know, going anywhere.
People that are trying to talk about these types of things,
they try to, you know, halt these videos from being shared.
You know, my channel is being shadow banned
because I talk about some of these things.
You know, I try to sneak them in like Easter eggs
or fucking breadcrumbs and throw it in there,
but I believe they catch on to that shit
and they be making my videos not go viral sometimes.
But, you know, like I said, man,
all this stuff, yeah, bro,
I think we should be talking about it more.
We should be collectively Democrats and Republicans,
questioning this, trying to stop it,
doing what we can, you know,
living off grid, if possible.
You know, even back in the day
when everybody talked about global warming and shit,
I used to think to myself,
well, fuck, if that's the case,
why don't we just live like cavemen and shit, you know?
We're gonna stop all the craziness,
we just gotta go back and live like cavemen.
But we're too fucking dependent.
You know, we're dependent on teachers
to teach us to educate us,
kind of cops to fucking to protect and serve
and, you know, keep us safe.
And lawyers, we depend on them to fucking,
you know, defend us in court.
We depend on doctors to heal us.
And we're just, we as a people have become dependent.
We depend on government to fix things.
They ain't fixing shit, people.
And one more thing, Jason, before,
you know, I end this, I guess,
or my everything I wanted to share.
You know, when you talked about,
we all need to try to, you know,
work a little bit more in our communities.
There's many different things you can do in your communities.
It's not just police accountability.
If you're a little bit too afraid to approach
police accountability, you know, everybody out there,
there's things you can do.
Clean up local, clean up efforts,
you know, just different type of shit.
And one of the things that I was able to do,
you know, connecting locally with the people
was save a girl.
A father reached out to me and he was like,
hey man, we're trying to find my daughter
and she's in the Oildale area
and she's 13 years old
and she ran away with some tweaker fool
and she's in that area and people have seen her
and I'm trying to find her.
Can you post this on your story on YouTube?
I mean, on Instagram.
And I was like, you know what, bro?
Yeah, why not?
And so I did and then I was,
and he ended up calling me when we were talking
and I was like, you know what, bro?
I just dropped my daughter off right here at school.
I'm in the fucking area.
I'll just drive around, bro.
Give me a description, send me a picture, whatever.
And I'll drive around.
I'll just, I'll just start looking for it, bro.
Why the fuck not?
And so I did.
I was driving around and then I went live
and then I was like asking people to join in
and then people started joining in looking for her.
Bro, I was going to stores.
I was going to trailer parks
and asking the managers like, hey man,
you guys see everybody that comes in and out of here.
You guys got cameras.
This is her flyer.
You guys fucking see her.
Call the police.
Let's get her home.
Call her dad.
Here's the dad's number.
And I don't like, you know, people call police and shit,
but missing girl running away with a tweaker.
I'm like, fuck, bro.
The dad's giving the number here.
I was pulling over.
I was talking to people who were sitting outside the yards
and we kind of had an area of where she was at.
And we were putting the pressure on, man.
We were going live.
And then my daughter, I picked up from school
and she joined in on the search.
And then I went back all fucking night.
I was looking for her.
And then the next day I went out looking for her.
I'm not in line, man.
She was tiring, but it was, I don't want to say it was fun,
but it was kind of exciting.
Like I was like, fuck, let's find this motherfucker.
And I was like, you guys find that full green light?
If you guys find this full green light, the motherfucker.
But sure enough, man, after a couple of days of doing that,
she called her dad and she was like,
I want to come home.
Dad, like the guy kicked me out already.
Like he's afraid.
It's that guy with the hat because I was wearing my fucking
This is that guy with the hat driving around, man.
Everybody's saying to watch out, you know,
that guy's going to find you guys.
And everybody's sending him information.
We put a lot of pressure on, man.
And the little girl came home.
And I got to say, man, just connecting
like some of these things that we're able to do locally.
It's big, man.
You know, it feels so fucking good to do some of these things.
And I just want to do it a hell of a lot more, you know,
try to help locally, if possible.
Dude, that's fucking awesome, David.
I mean, that's great, brother.
This isn't just about supporting a podcast.
It's about standing for freedom, exposing corruption,
and building a movement that inspires real change.
And if you want to go beyond liking and sharing,
we'd love for you to become a member of the Free Thought Project.
Just head over to the freethoughtproject.com
and click on the TF2 podcast.
T.P. membership link at the top of the page.
As a member, you'll be directly supporting our mission
and helping us to stay independent.
Your support is what keeps this platform alive and fighting.
So, thank you for being part of this journey,
for sharing these ideas, and for standing with us.
And we do actually, we have time for one more question, man.
But before we let you go, I just want to say,
thanks for coming back home, man.
It's been really great, dude.
Four years, I guess, has been way too long.
You know, we've been following your work since the beginning.
That's how we all met back in the day and it's been incredible to watch your evolution, dude
Like you're not just filming cops anymore
You know you started out as one of the top auditors and for good reason, you know, you quickly ascended to the top there
But you've grown into a mission like you what you were describing dude is pretty awesome like something way more powerful
You're not just documenting, you know the broken system
You're you're going to the source and going to these these city council meetings pressure and politicians
That's what fucking finding lost children. That's that's awesome, dude
That is real. That's how you get real systemic change, man
You're a you're a testament to how one person can evolve their activism and strike the root
As peter air would say, yeah, we talked about a lot of stuff today, man
Some of it was kind of heavy, you know, and it's it's a lot people can easily get blackpilled
Listening to this or talking about this all the time
But you you you are like a walking solution, man
What you're doing is is how this gets undone. This is how we reverse this
total fucking
Spiral in the despotism, right? You work's a constant reminder that fight for liberty is worth it
So to close this out, man, what what gives you hope right now? What is your white deal?
Honestly, man, it's it's talking to you guys right now, you know, first of all, you guys are showering showering me with all these
Compliments and I just got to say fuck, bro. Thank you
You know, sometimes you crave that and you don't get it
But today you guys gave that to me, you know
You guys see the work that I that I have done and I'm trying to do and and you guys appreciate it and see it
And I appreciate you appreciating that so thank you guys and and also thank you for the tremendous work
You guys do as well
I believe that what happened in effort was also some of the salt that you guys sprinkled on to all of this
You know, you guys it's your work as well, too, man, you know, it's a collective effort from a lot of people
It's having an open mind talking to people look bro. I didn't cut people off because there were Democrats or liberals
I didn't cut people off because they were
Maga, you know, I still have a homie who's fucking all for Trump big time and I have another homie who's fucking all the way left and
I try to keep an open communication with everyone because I think we can all learn from each other
it's important to know the other guys argument and solutions man
You know, it's crazy to say that because I think we can always bitch and complain about things
But if we're not trying to find a solution for it, then what are we doing other than bitching and complaining and
You know, I think that
You know, sometimes we have to bring this information out. You guys bring information out a lot
And I don't know if you guys sometimes see the impact that you guys make as far as that like
You know, like I said, you guys had a hand to Narvin as well. So thank you guys Mary takes a collaborative effort. Oh
Yeah, man, I think that was well said you have a friend. That's a Maga guy and a friend
It's far left like that's the fucking solution right there
This is stop being an asshole talk to people
Find that common ground and that's how we move forward man. We're David. Thank you so much for coming on brother
It was been it's been awesome. Thank you guys for the opportunity man. So much respect for you guys and your work
Thank you brother. That means a lot man. Thank you brother till next time free thinkers
Thank you
Thank you for listening to the free thought project podcast and please don't forget to rate review and subscribe
Free minds free people