8/3/26: MAGA Abuser Doubles Down, Spain Migrant Crisis, New York Sues Kalshi

24:23Give a little bit of backstory here about what this place is, what happened, and why it has so much significance. Yeah, so around 60 ,000 migrants over, I think it was on Friday or Thursday, cross over into the Spanish territory called Ceuta. And so Spain actually has these two enclaves across the Strait of Gibraltar on the coast with Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla. They're just these like two cities completely surrounded by Morocco. And they've actually controlled them since the 1400s. But, you know, it's been a point of contention between Spain and Morocco. Morocco says that it should be theirs on account of, you know, their geographical location.

25:05But, you know, this area of the world is really interesting if you're into decolonial stuff, because you have Gibraltar itself, which is, you know, controlled by the UK, which Spain says should be theirs. And then on the other hand, Morocco claims all of what's called Western Sahara further south, which used to be a Spanish territory as well. Spain handed control over to it in Morocco and there's been an insurgency there because the Sahrawis, the native people of Western Sahara don't want to be part of Morocco and this is horrific it's kind of like a Palestine situation they built a wall to keep out the separatists and have an exchange fire with these insurgents for a long time and actually for decades Morocco has used these two cities Ceuta and Melilla in order to get at Spain and also at Algeria for like supporting these Sahrawi separatists.

25:59And so a lot of analysts have thought that because Spain had been like forging closer relations with Algeria, which allegedly provides support to the Sahrawis, Morocco just decided, hey, you know what, we're just going to screw Spain like this. Now, going a step further, you know, Morocco doesn't really take orders from anyone. They're the king there. They have their own internal politics and whatnot. But I definitely think they feel emboldened because in recent years, Morocco has really forged close ties with Israel and the U.S. In 2020, under Trump's first administration, the Abraham Accords, Morocco was a signatory.

26:42And in exchange, the Trump administration recognized Morocco's control over Western Sahara. Then in more recent years, like the Trump administration hosted these like covert talks with like Morocco and other countries over like the Western Sahara issue. But the interesting thing is like if you look at MAGA, all of a sudden they care a lot about these two cities, Ceuta and Melilla. Why is that? and like in March Dias Representative Diaz-Balart from here in South Florida he said that Ceuta and Melilla should belong to Morocco and that Spain is a colonial power which is crazy he's basically like intoning Fidel Castro I argued in the piece so it's nuts Thomas Massey pointed out that last week the house passed a bill that would have given like $40 million to Morocco.

27:38And in the bill, it recognizes Ceuta and Melilla as part of Morocco. So this is crazy stuff. Days before this also, Morocco named its highway that goes through Western Sahara after Donald Trump. And Trump has a true social post where he says, thank you to the great king of Morocco. I hope to one day ride through this amazing, beautiful highway. And then the question kind of is, like, why now? And so I know there's been a lot of speculation, especially around Morocco and Israel's relationship. For example, we have D4. We can put here on the screen an extraordinary statement from Yair Netanyahu.

28:20He is the son of Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. He said in 2019, May 26, let's make a deal. We won't fund NGOs in your country calling you to give away Sueta and Maia, and you will stop funding NGOs in our country that calls us to give away Judea and Samaria. This is part of, obviously, the West Bank and Gaza in their parlance. This included, actually, a thread in a map that Yair posted, including direct threats by Morocco to take over Sueta and Maia. So the Israel connection here, somewhat interesting. This was one of many posts, including by Itamar Ben-Gavir, the Israeli foreign ministry and others attacking Spain after this migration wave.

29:10What is the connection there? Is it because of Spain's opposition to Israel and its conduct in Gaza? Exactly, exactly. Yeah, that was the last piece. So Spain under Prime Minister, Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been really critical both of the war in Gaza and now the Iran war. And even went as far as to not allow the U.S. to dock its planes and that we have two bases inside of Spain. This is a huge deal, the Rota and I forget the name of the other one. And so MAGA has branded Spain like public enemy number one. And there's also the factor that they refuse to keep up with their defense spending commitments under NATO.

29:48but um yeah the israelis also yeah they this is they've been saying these kinds of things for years just to get back at spain because uh sanchez has been in power since 2018 uh i believe so yeah i i definitely don't think it's a coincidence um oh yeah i mean i saw on like newsmax they were saying oh the spanish look at this it's because they're opposed to like western civilization well i mean it looks like you guys are kind of opposed to what's this western civilization right now Right. Let's go ahead and play to your point about the right wing interest here in Spain. Trump recently said there is sort of issued a threat, said that the Spanish are not, quote, behaving nicely, but they will learn.

30:31Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Ah, the Spanish, the members of NATO, but not very good members of NATO. They say, no, we don't want to help other people. What are we doing? huh? They are not behaving nicely, but they will learn soon after they relinquish their grip on Cuba and Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico. And they were all ours. They all we we got them all. So interesting comments there from Trump. I'm also reminded one of a couple of other historical events here. One is my friend Yegor said that in Belarus, Lukashenko did something very similar, bringing in migrants, mostly Iraqi Kurdish migrants, and using them and encouraging them, actually bringing them in on these like cheap flights and cheap tours, supposedly a Belarus, and then encouraging them to flutter over the border into Poland to sort of punish them for some things that they had done, sanctioning him and calling his election into question.

31:35It also, of course, reminds very much of the Texas strategy of busing migrants into blue cities, into New York City, into Chicago, using people as pawns to make this sort of political point and create difficult political situations for leaders that they're at odds with. So it's not like this would be a new tactic if it is, in fact, you know, the U.S. and Israel that are encouraging this to to go forward. Yeah, that's exactly right. Another good example is Turkey, which has long used migration in order to extort the EU for concessions. I mean, and that's just what Morocco has done for forever. And you pointed out to me that apparently they found Moroccan intelligence agents among the migrants that crossed over into Ceuta.

32:23And you think about it, unfortunately, I'm going to be real. So this is, you know, I think it's a confluence of things, but it's a savvy political move, depending on whether it's Morocco, Israel and or the U.S. staging this. Because, you know, Sanchez is now put in this really difficult position. In January, he actually passed this insane amnesty for basically everyone who was in Spain, who had come to Spain irregularly, which, you know, me personally, I'll say I think it's great for the migrants and it's great to not have this underclass of, you know, illegal workers. But on the other hand, the problem with these kinds of amnesties, it's true, if you don't have overwhelming enforcement on new arrivals, amnesties just create a further incentive for more illegal immigration.

33:14And so Sanchez now has to decide, it's like, oh, do I clamp down or do I just kind of do nothing? And Sanchez has done a number of good things. His stance against the U.S. and Israel and also raising the minimum wage a ton is extremely popular. You know what's not popular? The amnesty he did, which has like a 60 % disapproval rating. Wow. So it's extremely rough. It seems like, you know, I gave the advice that he should, the correct posture, I think, for leftists is to say, look, migrants are human beings. They should not be abused, but they also can't abuse the system. And we need to have, you know, have territorial integrity.

33:54And he, to his credit, said that, you know, this incident was a gross violation of Spain's sovereignty. And a majority of those that went into the city have already been expelled. So, you know, we'll see in the long term what the electoral consequences are. There's a general election next year in Spain. And Sanchez, he's a really crafty guy, but I don't know if he's going to be able to pull the rabbit out of the hat this time. He has these coalition partners, Sumar and Poemos, that are extremely progressive. They're the no human being is illegal type of people. But they've been tanking in the polls.

34:27And they and the socialists have consistently won less votes than the PP and Vox, which are the right-wing parties. So Sanchez needs to really figure things out. And like the last election, he managed to like cobble this coalition with like minor regional parties by granting amnesty, another amnesty to Catalan separatists. And that's a whole other issue. Yeah, let's leave that Spanish separatism on the back burner. As you said, I just want to emphasize your point, D6 up here on the screen, that Spanish police had found members of Moroccan intelligence amongst the migrants. This is from El Español in Spain in terms of their investigation into it.

35:12But as you said, I do think it will be a very interesting case. It caused a real diplomatic problem for Sanchez, not just with Morocco, but there were calls to expel or I think temporarily suspend their access to the Schengen, which is the free movement of orders inside of Europe, which would be a dramatic escalation for all the citizens, obviously, of Spain kind of defeats the entire purpose of the European Union and exactly the type of thing, as you said, that could invite electoral backlash to him because of how people in Europe really like that. So, wow, fascinating, fascinating situation, Wanda.

35:44One last one for you, just on the Israel connection here. Some of the speculation I saw is that, you know, Israel, in terms of being able to export their own goods, they got some problems in the Red Sea now, to put it mildly. And so their other alternative route is through the Mediterranean Sea, which, of course, you have to go through the Strait of Gibraltar. So they have very, you know, great interest in what's going on right there. Do you think that could be part of the motivation for their interest in Ceuta here? Yeah, that's a good point. Some analysts have pointed out why Ceuta and not Melilla.

36:22Because Melilla is far away from the Strait of Gibraltar itself. The thing is, without Ceuta, Spain would have no control over the Strait. Well, I guess arguably, but the two most important ports are Gibraltar and Ceuta. And another thing that reminded me, I'm not sure how much this applies now, but some months ago I saw that Iran had given like Spanish ships passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So, yeah, you can imagine that the Israelis and the U.S. have been furious about that. Right. A really good point. Man, fascinating stuff. Really had no idea. All goes back to the Treaty of Lisbon in 1688.

36:58Who am I? I'm such a fool for not having learned about it. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Decolonial MAGA. Yeah. MAGA third world. Who was it that said wars are how Americans learn geography? Apparently that applies to us. That's true. Genuinely true. Okay. Thanks, man. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii.

37:35My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout-outs to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports.

38:06Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

38:14Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather, you know them. Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made?

38:47Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia A-O Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

39:22This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'ma check you, okay? If you do some s*** in the news that don't sound good, I'ma play you. Join Yamanika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast, You're the Problem, with Yamanika. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? New episodes weekly every Wednesday as part of my new network, the Dear Chelsea Network. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men.

40:01Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

40:24A major lawsuit here in the United States between the state of New York and Calci. Let's put this up here on the screen. Calci now being sued by New York State saying that the prediction market is running a, quote, illegal gambling operation, an illegal unlicensed gambling operation, after Calci had originally proposed a framework to avoid a lawsuit with the state. Cal Sheep basically had come to the state and said, if you allow us to operate, we'll cut you in on revenue. They promised up to$10 billion in revenue for the state on an eventual basis if they were allowed to have some sort of – allowed some sort of action.

41:02The key sticking point is that Cal Sheep had proposed a North Carolina 6 % tax on trades while New York State currently has a 23 % tax on traditional gambling. So New York, they claim, would have raised$10 billion, like I said, over five years. Talks broke down and the states sued. But I do want to focus on that very specifically. This ultimately is about whether prediction markets will be allowed to operate nationwide. As in, do states have the right to regulate gambling in their state? Calci maintains until the day is long that they are not gambling, that they are a prediction market, which is authorized under event contracts, which is written into Dodd-Frank legislation, which specifically had said there are two things that you're not allowed to trade prediction or event contracts on.

41:52Ergo, under that legal framework, which has now been operationalized by the CFTC under Donald Trump, that any other event contract is allowed to be given nationwide. Thus, states are not allowed to regulate it. However, if you actually look into some of the details, a lot of that begs belief. In my opinion, let's go to the next one. For example, shall we? This is from Bloomberg, and they just showed, new data shows that Parley bets, quote, are burning gamblers, again, as their word there, as the market booms on Calci. So Calci likes to operate and to tell us that they are an event contracting website in which people can hedge risk.

42:31They famously very recently have pointed out an ice cream shop who hedges the risk of rain because their revenue is going to go down. And this guy is able to pay his rent. Or a guy who recently hosted a conference, but he wanted to hedge the risk that flights would get canceled and thus make sure that he would make his money no matter what. The truth, though, is that the vast majority of the contracts being traded on this website are just sports bets. So when we break down, like, for example, these parlay bets, the very same things, the degenerates are betting on FanDuel or DraftKings, they are losing some, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars.

43:04And what we can see in front of here, bettors on Calci's app and website, since the start of the year, excluding fees, have lost a net$294 million. The losses of these sports of wagers, quote, used to be largely captured by Sportsbook, but the prediction markets are now changing that dynamic by promoting similar trades to their small-time customers, again, the very same type of people who would be using these gambling apps in order to offer them. Of course, they demonstrate and talk to a lot of people who previously were on FanDuel. Now they're doing it on Calci. But if you're doing a quote unquote combo bet or a parlay bet, you are gambling at the end of the day.

43:44And Crystal, the reason why I wanted to highlight this is that I'm almost certain about what's going to happen. This state lawsuit is going to, what Calci is offering is something called preemption. They're moving it to federal court. They've had a mixed bag in terms of court rulings. their ultimate goal is to get this before the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, which is very libertarian, largely appointed here by Donald Trump, is almost certain to side with the Trump administration. The Trump administration, CFTC, as I said, argues that these prediction markets are explicitly allowed by Dodd-Frank.

44:16Thank you to Dodd-Frank, by the way. And what it means is that you can have nationwide event contracts, aka sports gambling. And why is that all important? Because first of all, it removes the ability, even though I don't support it, of the state to regulate at all. Number one, like we're talking here about the 23 % tax versus the 6 % tax. But two, none of us really signed up for this. None of us knew that a Supreme Court case from 2018 and now these websites capitalized with hundreds of billions of dollars with all kinds of insider trading concerns and others would make it so that there will be nationwide sports gambling and there's nothing that any of us can do about it at an individual state level where at the very least we had previously understood that we had some control.

44:57Yeah, no, that's exactly right. There's a reason why Calci is so insistent that this is not gambling. These are futures contracts because futures contracts are regulated by the feds. Gambling is regulated by the states. They don't want states, and New York's not the only one, but they don't want states to be able to rein them in and regulate them. They want it to be left all to the federal level and specifically to go to the Supreme Court because they know the libertarian bent there. Now, the flip side of this is you say, OK, well, if it's being regulated by the feds, then does that mean that at the federal level under maybe a different administration, we could ban or at least control this stuff?

45:33But you can bet if there was some law passed through Congress, the Supreme Court would probably find a way to say that was unconstitutional as well. And that's where we really get into a failure of democracy that I think people are really experiencing here, not just with gambling, certainly on that front, but also on the AI data center front. There are things that are being done in our country right now that are completely transforming everything from individual communities and states all the way up to the entire world and the way that labor is going to operate in the economy that people have had effectively no say in.

46:10And so while, you know, with the AI example on the data center front, there's been some local pushback that's been successful. I don't think anyone is under any illusion that nationwide they're going to build their data centers and they're going to get what they ultimately want. So it really does contribute to, you know, all of the ills that we've talked about here, the skyrocketing levels of depression, anxiety, suicide, bankruptcy, especially among young men, which have, you know, turned out to be quite a vulnerable demographic. But also in terms of the sense that, you know, society is being changed by oligarchs who stand to profit and make a lot of money.

46:46And we're being completely shut out of being able to shape that future and what it looks like at all. Right. Yeah. Can I give everyone a good example, too, for why everyone should just stay off of these? During the World Cup between Argentina and Spain, Calci users traded 30 ,000 unique same game combos, a.k.a. Parley, with many attracting thousands of bets. In the end, fewer than 3 % resolved to yes. What are we doing here? And people willingly throw their money into this. And did anybody else, including me, notice Chalamet in his little Calci ad? And then the Calci with stuff all around the World Cup.

47:25And, you know, I guess to their credit, they charge less and they make less than the sports book. It doesn't make it any worse. You know, the fact that they're still taking advantage of so many different people. I guess who are willingly throwing their money away. And to this point, let's put E4 up here on the screen. I mean, this is now the state of the United States. Gambling has now become America's favorite pastime. Americans now spend more on sports bets than movies, art, museums, and music combined. This happened in an eight-year period from the legalization in 2018 of the 2018 Supreme Court case to 2026.

48:09That's all it took for basically unfettered and exploitative oligarchical capitalism combined with states that completely fell for this nonsense about how great all the tax revenue would be to it becoming the most important entertainment industry in America. And again, how many of us really acquiesced to this? It all just came down to a Supreme Court case. People fell for a lot of lies. We now see an explosion in addiction and in bankruptcy. I've covered dozens of those types of cases. It will only continue to get worse, worse, and worse. Actually, much of the polling is beginning to turn against this at the very time that it is becoming a nationwide pastime.

48:54So I just encourage, again, everybody to look deep inside and to say, is this actually making our country better? Or is it a massively extractive tax on the vast majority of working class men? Because that's what it is, if you actually want to look at it empirically. Last thing I want to show you is that even the corrupt NFL thinks that all of this is bad. Let's put, what is it, E5 up here on the screen. Even they came to the feds and they were like, yeah, guys, you need to do more about insider trading. And by the way, this came after there were multiple insider trades that were placed. I think it was by Arizona in the lead up to the draft where a draft insider used his insider information literally to profit tens of thousands of dollars.

49:38Luckily, he was caught. But even the NFL is going to the CFTC today. And again, the same NFL, which is totally in league with the sports gambling companies, and saying that right now a lot of these prediction markets are not – there are not enough rules that are in place in order to catch insider traders. Calci, again, would come to me and say that they hate insider traders and that they go after them. But, you know, you basically have to self-regulate and trust that they themselves would come out and guarantee that they're going to investigate. No private company, obviously, should be able to do that.

50:11So I just want to highlight that even the NFL, who is totally in league with sports gambling, despite, you know, opposing it for decades, even they are going to the feds and saying you're not doing enough to actually punish any potential insider trading, which I do believe will explode massively. Because even if Kalshi, you know, worries about insider trades, polymarket is still quasi-legal here in the United States. And plenty of insider trades get placed there all the time, as we saw with a lot of these accounts that have been happily able to predict what's going on in Iran. So here we are. And Sagar, do you think with the NFL, are they just concerned that you get to a point where no one believes that there's anything real about the games and that will undermine the value of the league?

50:52Yeah, of course, because they see it firsthand. I just talked about that draft example. You literally had a guy on the draft council bet that his team was going to draft the player that they knew they were going to draft. I mean, he's an idiot because he did it so blatantly. But all he had to do was call his brother-in-law or somebody else to go place the trade on a poly market. Nobody would have known. And he would have made himself a ton of money, and they could have split the cash. And so if he was just a little bit smarter about it, how would they have been able to catch it? And that's just talking about the draft.

51:20Let's talk about the refs. Let's talk about all of the other individual trade bets that they offer. And that's the thing, too. It's not even just about player performance. It's about player movement. It's about, I mean, you know, Love Island, that show that was just broadcast recently. Calci was all over advertising, trying to get women to join on Calci so that they could gamble on who's going to win the Love Island finale. I'm sorry. You know what? a producer who's on the show in England or wherever can't see that market, have access, let's see, to some of the voting data by ITV or Peacock or whoever runs the show and can't make a little bit of money on that or call their cousin, brother or anything.

52:01Again, Calci will tell you that they'll catch that person. Do you really trust it? Or should we just not have a market on that? Why should anybody be able to gamble on the Love Island finale? It's complete insanity. We remember, I think it was either Golden Globes or Oscars, which included the odds within it. Again, these are voting decisions that come down to like the director's guild of where there's not even that many people. And which the decision is known to a small group who easily could be able to exploit their information. So at the very basis, it just comes down to these markets shouldn't exist at all.

52:33As the NFL is actually kind of hinting at inside of this. And that's as bad. And this is them already being okay with the individual player performance bets. Just to give an example of how concerned they are about the feds. But it's coming. And that's one of the reasons I want to do this segment is that very soon the Supreme Court is going to side with Calci. I'm almost 100 percent sure of it. And this will be absolutely nationwide legal. And unless there is a complete change in the way that we regulate this at the federal level, that is your fate now as a nation. Yeah. And to go back to that piece about how now this betting, gambling is the number one pastime, surpassed movie, art, museum, concert, everything all together.

53:13I mean, just think about what that means for society. So instead of actually going to a sporting event where you're with people, which is a social behavior, you're staying home and placing a bet on your phone instead of going to a concert. Again, a social activity. You are instead spending that money, like losing that money, just feeding it to, you know, oligarchs who run these companies. So it's a profound shift. And it's happened under our noses. And they're trying to take away our ability to have any say in whether this is what we want our society to be like. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that's very well said.

53:47Money actually is a literal finite resource. And so if you spend money on something else, then you're not going to have it for this, especially when we're looking at these World Cup bets and you're getting a 3 % win rate, which is so insane. I can't believe that that number is even legal, frankly. So yeah, there we go. Thank you to everybody who's been subscribing and supporting the show. We appreciate it. And we will see you all tomorrow.

54:43We'll see you next time. time. Plus, check out our weekly flyer on Menards.com for all the great deals happening now. Save big money at Menards.

55:15guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised not just words, but a song. Well, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia, AAO Rewatch, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and iHeart Women's Sports.

55:51We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka showing out. Shout-outs to you, Naomi. The viral moments. I've been obsessed with Kashawn Rock's boxing journey. She looks good. Her combos are swift. And the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.