Rigged by Design, Episode 23 — Permanent Emergency

Rigged by Design, Episode 23 — Permanent Emergency

RIGGED BY DESIGN Episode 23 — Show Notes Aired: June 4, 2026 Episode 23 opened with a discussion about instability, both personal and political. After sharing the challenges of dealing with a family medical emergency involving cluster seizures, we shifted into the episode’s central theme: how instability that once would have dominated public attention now disappears almost immediately. The conversation began with the recent shooting near the White House during Memorial Day weekend and the broader question of why repeated incidents of political violence seem to vanish from public discussion within days. We explored how constant crisis cycles, media fragmentation, and public exhaustion create an environment where extraordinary events increasingly feel routine. From there, we moved into Congress’s attempt to reassert its constitutional authority over war powers. The House passed a War Powers Resolution regarding Iran by a vote of 215-208, following a similar effort in the Senate. Rather than focusing solely on the conflict itself, the discussion centered on what happens when Congress formally votes to limit military action while questions remain about whether those limits will ultimately be respected. We connected this to what has become a recurring theme on Rigged by Design: the “two-week cycle” of escalating rhetoric, delayed decisions, shifting timelines, and permanent uncertainty. Iran, Cuba speculation, military posturing, and repeated emergency narratives all pointed toward a larger concern that crisis itself is becoming a governing strategy rather than a temporary condition. The conversation then expanded into questions of wealth, power, and accountability. We discussed the growing divide between the wealthy and everyone else, the influence of billionaires over political systems, and the ways economic inequality increasingly shapes public policy. The discussion touched on healthcare, housing, homelessness, technological innovation, and how financial incentives often determine political priorities more than public need. Several examples were raised to illustrate how government spending decisions frequently reveal priorities that differ sharply from the daily concerns of ordinary Americans. We also examined recent reporting that National Park Service revenues are being redirected toward projects and events in Washington, D.C., including July Fourth celebrations, while maintenance backlogs continue to grow. The broader point was not the individual expenditure itself but what spending choices reveal about institutional priorities. Throughout the episode, we returned repeatedly to the idea that following the money often provides a clearer picture of power than following political rhetoric. The final portion of the episode focused on elections, voter confidence, and local civic engagement. Drawing from firsthand experience serving as a poll worker during San Francisco’s primary election, observations included strong voter interest in national politics, confusion about voting requirements, widespread use of ballot drop boxes rather than the postal system, and turnout levels that exceeded expectations for a local primary. The discussion also highlighted the availability of education ballots for eligible non-citizen parents in local school board races and the reality that no such voters appeared at the polling location observed. More broadly, we discussed public trust in elections, transparency, hand-counted paper ballots, precinct-level accountability, and the importance of state and local engagement in preserving democratic systems. Episode 23 ultimately returned to a simple question: what happens when crisis becomes permanent? White House violence, war powers disputes, economic inequality, election concerns, infrastructure spending, and international tensions may appear disconnected on the surface. Yet viewed together, they reveal a common pattern. Instability no longer feels like an interruption to normal life. Increasingly, it feels like the environment itself. Thank you Margaret Williams, MS, ACC [https://substack.com/profile/12044824-margaret-williams-ms-acc], Lizzy B [https://substack.com/profile/350838263-lizzy-b], KarenC-Book Collector📚⚖️🗽🗳️🧿♒️ [https://substack.com/profile/861075-karenc-book-collector], Dina b Porter [https://substack.com/profile/43596409-dina-b-porter], and everyone else who joined us despite our technical difficulties and second livestream launch. Join us next Thursday for another episode of Rigged by Design as we continue examining the stories, patterns, and systems operating beneath the headlines. Truth doesn’t come in neutral — Zorha. If this work matters to you, support it. Subscribe to Jason [https://substack.com/@jaystone4] and/or me as we continue documenting what others rush past or refuse to touch. This isn’t content for the sake of content. It’s ongoing, time-intensive work that requires digging, verifying, and staying on stories long after they fall out of the news cycle. If you’re able to support this work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. If a subscription isn’t feasible, you can still help support independent reporting with a one-time Buy Me a Coffee contribution. This episode along with others can be found on Apple Podcast. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zorhasbsfreezone.substack.com/subscribe [https://zorhasbsfreezone.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

RIGGED BY DESIGN – Who Controls the Code Controls the Midterms

RIGGED BY DESIGN Episode 22 — Show Notes Aired: May 21, 2026 Episode 22 opened with the idea that power has shifted underneath government into infrastructure: AI systems, data systems, communications platforms, predictive analytics, surveillance, and privately controlled technology. We began with the Ashley St. Clair TikTok video and the broader conversation surrounding Musk, AmericaPAC, satellites, and “real-time election data.” While the claims remain allegations rather than forensic proof, we discussed why references to stored evidence, predictive systems, and election-related technology deserve scrutiny instead of immediate dismissal. The conversation centered on the distinction between “voter fraud” and potential election/data/system fraud, which often gets blurred or intentionally collapsed in mainstream discussion. From there, we moved into the Kentucky Massie/Gallrein primary as a live example of why opaque election infrastructure continues triggering distrust. We discussed the unusual turnout surge in a midterm primary, the timing of absentee/mail-in ballots, Trump’s still-underwater approval rating even in Kentucky, the low visible enthusiasm for the Trump-backed challenger, and the role predictive systems and betting markets like Polymarket may play in shaping public perception before results are finalized. The larger point was not that this proves fraud, but that anomalies tied to privately controlled systems deserve verification, especially when billionaire-backed political infrastructure, AI systems, proprietary tabulators, and behavioral analytics increasingly overlap inside modern elections. The episode closed by returning to privatization and normalization. We connected AI-generated propaganda, algorithmic rage-bait, proprietary voting systems, private election vendors, media amplification pipelines, and surveillance-style infrastructure to a broader question: how can public trust survive when the systems shaping, transmitting, counting, and narrating elections are increasingly hidden from view? The focus remained on local and state-level action: pressuring attorneys general and election officials, demanding paper ballots, hand counts, transparency, open-source systems, and real public verification. Because once the infrastructure itself becomes opaque, every anomaly becomes magnified. Humans built systems too complicated for the public to meaningfully audit, then act shocked when trust collapses. Thank you MisterFuzzyGuy [https://substack.com/profile/318685228-misterfuzzyguy], Jeannie Flavin [https://substack.com/profile/141504447-jeannie-flavin], Dina b Porter [https://substack.com/profile/43596409-dina-b-porter], and many others for tuning into Rigged by Design with Jason [https://open.substack.com/users/14756640-jason?utm_source=mentions] and me. Join us for our next live video in the app on Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 10:05 a.m. PST / 1:05 p.m. EST. [https://open.substack.com/live-stream/215758?r=34v1yl&utm_medium=ios] Truth doesn’t come in neutral — Zorha. If this work matters to you, support it. Subscribe to Jason [https://substack.com/@jaystone4] and/or me as we continue documenting what others rush past or refuse to touch. This isn’t content for the sake of content. It’s ongoing, time-intensive work that requires digging, verifying, and staying on stories long after they fall out of the news cycle. If you’re able to support this work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. If a subscription isn’t feasible, you can still help support independent reporting with a one-time Buy Me a Coffee contribution. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zorhasbsfreezone.substack.com/subscribe [https://zorhasbsfreezone.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Rigged by Design — Episode 20: Everything Is Fucked

RIGGED BY DESIGN Episode 20 — Show Notes Aired: May 7, 2026 Twenty episodes into Rigged by Design, the pattern is no longer just difficult to explain away. The instability itself has become the environment people are expected to function inside. Every week brings another crisis, another escalation timeline, another distraction cycle, and another expansion of power quietly moving underneath it all. This episode centered on the growing disconnect between the scale of what is happening and the complete lack of coherent public explanation surrounding it. The administration’s messaging around Iran continued shifting in real time — from warnings against escalation, to vague military timelines, to peace negotiations, to officials openly suggesting a return to essentially the same geopolitical position that existed before military action began. Meanwhile, billions continue being spent with no clearly defined endpoint, objective, or public understanding of what success is even supposed to look like. At the same time, the domestic machinery of surveillance and enforcement continues expanding with remarkably little public attention. Congress quietly extended Section 702 surveillance powers again, first through a short-term extension and then through a longer 45-day extension that now stretches into mid-June. Temporary emergency powers continue functioning as semi-permanent infrastructure, normalized through repetition and public exhaustion rather than meaningful public debate. The discussion also returned to how surveillance powers introduced after 9/11 continue operating under the language of “national security” more than two decades later, while increasingly overlapping with political speech, online activity, and growing public fears around retaliation and selective enforcement. The episode also examined the growing instability surrounding election structures themselves. Louisiana’s congressional maps and election processes were thrown into uncertainty following recent court rulings tied to redistricting and Voting Rights Act protections. As maps shift, elections pause, and district battles intensify ahead of 2026, the larger question becomes unavoidable: what does it mean when election structures themselves remain in flux while the public is simultaneously told to simply “wait for the next election”? The conversation also explored broader concerns surrounding aggressive gerrymandering, election administration, and continued attacks on mail-in voting systems. The discussion repeatedly returned to how systemic pressure increasingly falls on ordinary people while political and corporate systems continue protecting themselves. Personal examples involving caregiving, IHSS work, Social Security limitations, rising costs of living, and economic instability highlighted the widening disconnect between how policy decisions are made and how people are actually expected to survive underneath them. As grocery prices continue rising and corporate profits remain protected, the burden increasingly shifts onto families already operating in survival mode. Throughout the episode, another recurring pattern continued surfacing — major scandals disappearing through exhaustion cycles rather than resolution. Epstein faded once again from mainstream attention, not because questions were answered or accountability was achieved, but because the public cycle moved on. The same dynamic applies broadly across political corruption, retaliation, surveillance expansion, selective enforcement, and institutional failures. The discussion also examined growing concerns surrounding DOJ retaliation, political intimidation, attacks on critics and journalists, and the broader normalization of authoritarian-style governance. ICE expansion also came up in the closing section, when an audience member asked for the location of California’s newest detention facility. The facility is the Central Valley Annex in McFarland, Kern County, a 700-bed ICE detention center operated by GEO Group. Its location matters. This is not happening in a highly visible civic space where the public can easily monitor conditions or organize around what is taking place. It is being placed in what was described on-air as “out of nowhere land,” raising the concern that detention infrastructure pushed away from public visibility becomes easier to normalize while privatized profiteering and abuse continue with limited scrutiny. The conversation ultimately returned to the larger framework that has increasingly defined Rigged by Design itself: different headlines, same pattern. Crisis fragments public attention. Fragmented attention weakens scrutiny. And while the public struggles to keep pace with shifting narratives, systems of surveillance, enforcement, detention, privatization, and political power continue expanding underneath the confusion. At some point, instability stops feeling temporary and starts functioning as governance itself. Thank you M Hope [https://substack.com/profile/392818336-m-hope], Lizzy B [https://substack.com/profile/350838263-lizzy-b], and many others for tuning into Rigged by Design with Jason [https://substack.com/profile/14756640-jason] and me. Join us for our next live video in the app on Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. PST / 1:00 p.m. EST. [https://open.substack.com/live-stream/198644?] Truth doesn’t come in neutral — Zorha. If this work matters to you, support it. Subscribe to Jason [https://substack.com/@jaystone4] or me as we continue documenting what others rush past or refuse to touch. This isn’t content for the sake of content. It’s ongoing, time-intensive work that requires digging, verifying, and staying on stories long after they fall out of the news cycle. If you’re able to support this work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. If a subscription isn’t feasible, you can still help support independent reporting with a one-time Buy Me a Coffee contribution. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zorhasbsfreezone.substack.com/subscribe [https://zorhasbsfreezone.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Rigged by Design: Episode 19 – The Only Branch Left: We the People

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zorhasbsfreezone.substack.com/subscribe [https://zorhasbsfreezone.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

RIGGED BY DESIGN: Episode 16 — While They Rename Post Offices, Power Expands

RIGGED BY DESIGN Episode 16 — Show NotesAired: April 23, 2026 Due to CNN’s reporting on what’s now being referred to as “Rape Academy,” this episode pivoted early from the original topic, because there are moments where what’s in front of you is too significant to ignore. What’s being exposed is not fringe behavior sitting on the edges of society. It is happening at a scale that should force a reckoning, yet somehow it isn’t. We’re talking about networks of men openly sharing tactics on how to drug women, how to sexually exploit them, how to record it, and how to profit from it. Not hidden in the way people like to imagine these things exist, but normalized within spaces that continue to operate without meaningful disruption. Inside ICE detention centers, reports of sexual abuse involving women and children continue to surface. These are not new allegations. They have been documented, raised, dismissed, buried, and then repeated over years. The pattern is not subtle, and it is not isolated. Sexual abuse is an act of violence — point blank. Stripping it down to anything less is a deliberate minimization of what is actually happening. During the same period as the CNN report, platforms continue to elevate and normalize the very culture that feeds this — rape culture. You now have figures like Andrew Tate not pushed to the margins, but given space, visibility, and in many cases, monetization. The manosphere isn’t some abstract corner of the internet anymore. It is being absorbed into mainstream platforms and treated as just another perspective. So the episode starts here, not because it is comfortable, but because it is necessary. Because ignoring it is not neutrality, it is participation in the silence that allows it to continue. At some point, you have to sit with what is being allowed to exist in plain sight and stop asking whether it’s real, and start asking why it is still being allowed to happen. As Congress reconvenes, the question of priorities becomes unavoidable. While systemic abuse, exploitation, and violence continue in plain sight, the focus shifts to symbolic actions and procedural movement, creating the appearance of governance without addressing the substance of what is unfolding. Surveillance expands, policies move forward, and power consolidates, yet the issues that demand confrontation remain largely untouched. What is addressed, what is delayed, and what is ignored altogether reflects a system that manages narrative as much as it manages policy. Upcoming — Join Us Episode 17: We are continuing this conversation on Wednesday, April 22, 2026 at 10:05 a.m. PST / 1:05 p.m. EST [https://open.substack.com/live-stream/170708] with our special guest Jenn Budd [https://substack.com/profile/16870857-jenn-budd] former Border Patrol agent turned whistleblower, bringing insider context to the systems we began unpacking during our livestream. Episode 18: On Thursday, April 23, 2026 at 10:05 a.m. PST / 1:05 p.m. EST [https://open.substack.com/live-stream/170715], we shift into elections with This Will Hold [https://substack.com/profile/315023719-this-will-hold], focusing on Michigan and continuing the broader investigation into systemic vulnerabilities and data concerns. Thank you to everyone who tuned into into Rigged by Design with Jason [https://open.substack.com/users/14756640-jason?utm_source=mentions] and me. Truth doesn’t come in neutral — Zorha. If this work matters to you, support it. Subscribe to Jason [https://substack.com/@jaystone4] or me as we continue documenting what others rush past or refuse to touch. This isn’t content for the sake of content. It’s ongoing, time-intensive work that requires digging, verifying, and staying on stories long after they fall out of the news cycle. If you’re able to support this work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. If a subscription isn’t feasible, you can still help support independent reporting with a one-time Buy Me a Coffee contribution. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zorhasbsfreezone.substack.com/subscribe [https://zorhasbsfreezone.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]