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November 21, 2014

A Front

Stories about people and places that are fronting in order to hide the truth. We visit a bizarre store in Milwaukee called Fearless Distributing, government checkpoints scattered on highways out west, and a front in a doctor's office.

Prologue

Ira talks to reporters John Diedrich and Raquel Rutlidge, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They got a call from a landlord who said agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had trashed his place. (9 minutes)
Act One

WTF, ATF?

After John and Raquel published their story, the U.S. Congress got involved. And they found some very surprising things happening in other parts of the country. (10 minutes)

Act Two

The Border Between America and America

If you haven't spent much time in the southwest, you may not know about this, but there are these border patrol checkpoints that are just in the middle of interstate highways and other roads... not at the border. They're as far as a hundred miles away. Reporter Debbie Nathan used to go through these checkpoints regularly when she lived in El Paso in the '80s and '90s. But not long ago, she discovered something that made her see the checkpoints in a whole new way.

Debbie Nathan did another version of this story which broadcast on Latino USA. (25 minutes)