Speaker
Noel King
Appearances over time
2 episodes
Episodes
2
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners is involved in a potential $1.6 billion development of Sazan Island and nearby wetlands into a luxury resort.
The DSA scored major primary victories in New York City, the Washington D.C. mayoral race, and a congressional race in Colorado in a single primary season.
New York DSA winner Daria-Liza Avila Chevalier had previously tweeted about wiping her hands on an American flag and suggesting white people shouldn't be in interracial relationships; she apologized and deleted her Twitter account.
After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, the DSA released a statement expressing solidarity with Palestine that condemned civilian killings but added the attack 'was not unprovoked.'
Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners is behind a $1.6 billion luxury resort development on Albania's protected southern coast, including Sazan Island and vital wildlife wetlands. Construction equipment arrived, fences went up, and Albanians took to the streets — hundreds of thousands of them.
Albania sheltered Jews during the Holocaust and maintains uniquely warm ties with Israel. Rama views preserving the Kushner deal as essential to protecting those relationships with both Israel and the United States — even as hundreds of thousands protest in the streets.
The land Kushner wants to develop is a rare, untouched wildlife sanctuary — home to endangered monk seals, flamingos, sea turtles, and migratory birds. It's also one of the few places ordinary Albanians can access nature, and now even that is under threat.
Ivanka Trump told a podcast she discovered Sazan Island by swimming ashore and hiking barefoot to the summit. Locals say it's impossible: the island is a former military base still riddled with explosive mines, broken glass, and dangerous snakes. The story going viral accelerated the protests.
What began as a few hundred environmentalists grew to 100,000–200,000 people in the streets — with diaspora Albanians driving in from the UK, Belgium, and Germany. The demands expanded from canceling the resort to healthcare, education, and Rama's resignation.
For over 50 years, Albanians couldn't talk to foreigners, leave their country, or dissent. Enver Hoxha executed thousands and kept the country hermetically sealed. That history of imprisonment makes foreign ownership of their land feel like a second invasion.
Supporters argue the Kushner resort will create jobs and infrastructure. But Albanians, burned by decades of corruption, don't trust that prosperity will reach them. Mass emigration tells the real story: the country's youth have already voted with their feet.
Edi Rama is 6'6", a former basketball player and painter, now in his 13th year as Albania's prime minister. He wears white sneakers to EU meetings, runs his own podcast, and dreams of turning Albania into the Maldives of Europe — while his inner circle crumbles under corruption charges.
Rama told reporters the protests only exist because of Jared Kushner's Trump connection, blamed Iranian hackers, and invoked antisemitism. The Iranian Foreign Ministry fired back: maybe the flamingos are the secret agents. It's a playbook straight from Enver Hoxha.
Albania's Flamingo Revolution has no designated leader — it's a pure people's movement with a list of demands but no one to channel them into power. Without a viable opposition figure to emerge, Rama may simply wait it out.
The DSA just knocked off a 30-year incumbent in Denver and won mayoral races in New York City and Washington D.C. all in the same primary season. Politico's Will Steakin calls it the biggest demonstration yet of left-flank insurgent power within the Democratic Party.
The Kamala Harris campaign's embrace of Liz Cheney was a turning point for the DSA's base. Politico's Will Steakin reports that DSA-aligned voters felt completely shut out, and the movement's response is to throw a 'Molotov cocktail' into the party and dare establishment Democrats to stop them.
DSA co-chair Megan Rohmer doesn't pretend the vetting problem doesn't exist. New York winner Daria-Liza Avila Chevalier tweeted about wiping her hands on an American flag and suggested white people shouldn't be in interracial relationships. Rohmer's defense: 'We're not forming candidates in a lab.'
The DSA does not equivocate: they call Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide and describe Gaza as an 'open-air concentration camp.' Megan Rohmer says the fury is justified by the facts, but concedes that people's words don't always carry the nuance they should.
The DSA conditioned its endorsement of AOC on a pledge to vote no on all Israeli military funding. AOC had previously voted 'present' on the Iron Dome. She ultimately came around. DSA co-chair Megan Rohmer: 'The pressure worked.'
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