Ep 11 hell or high water
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no lnx
Episode 11: Hell Or High Water | Master Plan
2,711 views Oct 29, 2024 Master Plan podcast
We all live in the master planners’ world now, immersed in an ocean of corruption. The 2024 Republican presidential campaign is bankrolled by billionaires, while corporate interests’ power was in full display at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. What will it take to reclaim our democracy? Is there any hope of reversing the master plan?
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Transcript
0:04
when we fight when we
0:09
fight this was August 2024 American politics was on fire Donald Trump had
0:16
survived an assassination attempt Joe Biden had dropped out of the presidential race and kamla Harris had
0:22
been installed at the top of the democratic ticket amid all this chaos I decided to take a trip to see the insane
0:30
circus firsthand I am in the Hall of the Democratic National Convention I just
0:36
saw Mark Hamill Luke Skywalker walk by though this was a last minute trip and I
0:43
hadn't done any planning I managed to get into a few of the places you don't see on TV the private parties so I'm
0:51
here at the salt shed in Chicago which is a concert venue they're going to have
0:58
a y cliff concert and it's a climate
1:03
event clean power happy hour so a bunch of climate groups the Democrats
1:09
Gathering was in Chicago a place I know pretty well I went to college right outside of Chicago I worked my first
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newspaper job in Chicago I went to my first democratic convention in Chicago in 1996 I worked on my first political
1:23
campaign against a billionaire in Chicago and through that I got a taste of Chicago's notorious political IC
1:30
culture Chicago is the most corrupt city in the United States Based on data from the justice department now when you hear
1:36
the term Chicago style corruption you might imagine Smoke Filled back rooms and secret exchanges of envelopes of
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cash but one of the first things I noticed at the Democratic Convention in 2024 is that corruption today is much
1:52
cleaner and out in the open it's less dirty envelopes stuffed with cash and
1:57
more like the corruption you hear about on Wall Street or at a Swiss bank glossy
2:03
systematic mechanized sanitized and corporatized this is the new immersive
2:09
Corruption of the master plan era where it's right there on display for anyone
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bothering to look there's all the corporate stuff is sort of integrated into everything there was the Democratic
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cloak room sponsored by Microsoft I saw this kind of thing over and over at the
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DNC corporations sponsoring every event letting everyone know they're the real
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stakeholders the owners of American politics there's a big billboard that says with special thanks FedEx Reynolds
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the Tobacco Company sap Blue Cross Blue Shield stand with
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crypto that's the name of a group and the American clean Power Association the
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American Gas Association the Edison Electric Institute and the nuclear
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energy Institute and this is a postgel party celebrating power to the voters of
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course this wasn't about power to the voters as the sign at the event insisted
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the convention was a gathering of the most powerful public officials in America and so these sponsors are making
3:20
clear that politics is about the power of the corporations and billionaires now
3:25
permitted to buy everything after the master planners so successful F deregulated the campaign Finance system
3:32
and legalized corruption what started to freak me out at the DNC was not just how
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ubiquitous all the corruption is but how normal it seems no one's shaken by this
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no one's bothered by this at all maybe even I'm not bothered by it I'm I'm sitting here drinking drinking an
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IPA that's how corruption gets normalized nobody even notices the
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contradictions if I even said anything about the contradictions that anyone he look at me like I was an insane person
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these thoughts made me feel pretty lonely and pretty demoralized like maybe I really was the insane person and maybe
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looking at this bakanal of money politics it would be better to just succumb to the master planners I know
4:17
this St doesn't exist maybe it would be better to just live in The
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Matrix ignorance is bliss but the thing is not everyone at the convention has
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just decided ignorance is bliss while sulking around the convention hall one night I Heard a Voice I didn't expect to
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hear that same voice from those prescription drug bus trips I'd been on all those years ago we need an economy
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that works for all of us not just the billionaire
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class it was a voice that had been made out to be a pariah within much of the democratic party but was now getting
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some Applause get big money out of our political process
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Bernie Sanders diatribe seemed aimed directly at the lobbyists donors and
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master planers in the luxury boxes looking down on the convention floor billionaires in both parties should not
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be able to buy elections including primary elections and then came a
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proposed solution for the sake of our democracy we must overturn
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the disastrous citizens united Supreme Court
5:39
decision and move toward Public Funding of Elections this wasn't just a reminder
5:46
of what might have been had Bernie won the election in 2016 or 2020 this was a
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primal scream so yeah I cheered along with the crowd as it politely applauded
5:58
for a minute I felt this foreign weird feeling I I hadn't felt in a long time
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what's it called Joy no no not exactly hope in the face of difficulty hope in
6:10
the face of uncertainty oh right right hope thanks Obama yeah I I felt hope
6:17
which felt good and just like when Obama said it the Hope lasted for all of five
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minutes because literally the next speaker after Bernie was this guy
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fellow Democrats welcome to Chicago it was JB pritzker who spent
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$350 million of his Hyatt Hotel inheritance to buy the Illinois
6:44
governorship over the course of two campaigns and just minutes after Bernie's rant against billionaires
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Governor pritsker delivered the line of the night Donald Trump thinks that we should trust him on the economy because
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he claims to be very rich but take it from an actual
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billionaire I could feel my hope evaporating with the wild cheering Trump
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is rich in only one thing stupidity pritsker literally touted his
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billionaire status and he got effusive Applause for it yeah that really
7:25
happened and pritsker was followed by a speech from a former credit card industry CEO reassuring the donor class
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that kamla Harris understands that government must work in partnership with the business
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Community much of the convention went this way some populist speeches mixed in
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with corporate speakers offering up vague platitudes like this speech from kamala Harris's brother-in-law an
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executive from Uber who promised that when it comes to Kamala as president I
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know she'll fight for you now let's be clear what was going on on the Republican side wasn't any better
8:05
than the depravity at the DNC the Republicans just offered a different even less subtle more in-your-face
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celebration of wealth and power just before the DNC word dropped that the
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richest man in the world would be launching a new super pack to bankroll the election bid of Donald Trump who if
8:25
he wins would be in a position to reward this same donor's company
8:30
with even more government contracts than they already had and you know Elon I love Elon most and I read I didn't even
:{know this he didn't even tell me about it but he gives me $45 million a
month a month so the Endless Summer of 2024 made crystal clear that we're
8:49
living in the master planner world and when I left Chicago I left with
8:55
questions which future will we choose at this fork in the road a a future in which we all decide we've had enough and
9:02
that we're going to reduce the power of billionaires corporations and master planners or a future in which we just
9:08
cheer for the billionaires as the master plan continues when we started this series we promised you 10 episodes
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you're on 10 on your guitar where can you go from there but because these are such big questions we decided to channel
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our inner spinal tap we need that extra push over the cliff you know what we do
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put it up to 11 11 exactly the 11th and final episode of this season we crank up the volume and ask the biggest question
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of all as corruption now threatens the survival of democracy what exactly will
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it take to forge a different path I'm David soda and this is master
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plan what about the master plan [Music]
9:58
huh thinking of a [Music]
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:{master
in the spring of 2005 right before the master planners turned the Supreme Court of Sandra de o’Conor and}:
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William renquist into the Supreme Court of John Roberts and Sam Alito the writer
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David Foster Wallace delivered a College commencement speech there are these two young fish swimming along and they
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happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says morning boys how's the water and the two
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young fish swim on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes what the hell is water
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the acclaimed author captured a feeling I had right at that particular time in
my own life that time I told you about all the way back in episode 1 that
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period of disillusionment that I experienced as a young person after spending five 5 years swimming in the
11:00
swampy Corruption of Washington the parable really spoke to me because as Wallace said it has everything to do
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with simple awareness awareness of what is so real and essential so hidden in
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plain sight all around us all the time that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over this is water this is
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water I've been thinking a lot about this speech as our team has reported this series over the last two years it's
11:29
:{on my mind because corruption is our society's water it's so immersive that
it can lead us to forget that it is all around us in this episode we're going to
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get into some of the ways we can reverse the master plan but before we do it's
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worth looking at how America is swimming through all this water in the here and now the water of corruption that the
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master planners took 50 years to flood into the system; let's start with elections this episode is being released
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one week before the 2024 presidential election and the defining feature of the
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contest isn't just how much money is being spent but also how at this point
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nobody's even trying to hide the transactional nature of all that cash; remember how Supreme Court Justices
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defined corruption as only explicit quid pro quo Latin for this for that
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well here's the quid Donald Trump summoned a who's who of top lobbyists and Executives from the oil and gas
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industry to the upscale la quinta? bribery Palace he calls Mara Lago and proceeded
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to solicit a billion dollars from the fossil fuel companies to get them elected and now here's the quot in
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exchange The Washington Post reports quote he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden's
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environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted and this kind of thing isn't just happening
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:{on the Republican side Rich Democratic donors and Business Leaders are contributing money to vice president Kamala
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Harris's presidential campaign but some are asking is there a catch some of these donors are now openly suggesting
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Harris should replace the head of the Federal Trade Commission Progressive darling Lina Khan and these aren't
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exactly mom and popop Grassroots donors media Mogul and Democratic donor Barry Diller said he would Lobby kamla Harris
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to remove Lena Khan and there is a similar sentiment being expressed by Mega donor Reed Hoffman who donated $10
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million to the Biden Harris campaign this doesn't even seem like an election anymore it seems like an
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auction sold to the billionaire in Balenciaga shoes but legalized
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corruption isn't confined just to the presidential election it's also all the
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spending to buy seemingly every election up and down the 2024 ballot APAC the
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American Israel public affairs committee is spending millions of dollars in primary races nearly half of all the
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corporate money flowing into the election this year is coming from the crypto industry the 2024 election will
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be the most expensive ever with an overall price tag of $15.9 billion and
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this is just the spending that we know about there's a whole ocean of dark money that's difficult to trace and
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quantify the question is what is all this money buying it's buying
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legislation court rulings and regulations for sure but it's also buying silence ; think about the world
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around us more than half of working age Americans are struggling to pay for health care even if they have insurance
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roughly half of all Americans ages 55 to 66 have nothing saved for retirement more
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than 137 million Americans are living in places with unhealthy levels of air pollution yeah not good news us life
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expectancy decreased by the biggest margin since World War II corruption
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deep master plan level corruption is the fact that in the face of all this
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preventable pain and suffering the reaction from the elected government is
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most often this that's right nothing at all just
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:{total silence; *
Beyond elections there's the whole other}:
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swampy nightmare of corruption in the courts okay just jump right into my nightmare the water is warm after all
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the revelations about billionaires treating justices to Lavish trips and Gifts Master planners are now trying to
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block any Crackdown on the most flagrant corruption Democrats in the Senate advance a bill to create an enforcable
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code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices the only members of the federal government who don't have one Republican
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Senators refuse to allow the bill to even come to a vote; the Court's conservatives
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also just created an entire new get out of jail free card for government corruption making it far harder to
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:{prosecute a president for bribery;
we're coming on the air with major breaking news from the US Supreme Court moments}:
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ago the justices is ruling on Donald Trump's claim of absolute immunity from Criminal prosecution the court deciding
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this morning presidents do have immunity for official acts remember when justices
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Roberts Alito and Kavanaugh said this in their Supreme Court confirmation hearing no one is above the law and that
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includes the president under the Constitution the president is not above the law; I don't think the president is
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above the law yeah uh that was BS gesundhite we'll see how that
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new immunity ruling from the Supreme Court plays out in the coming years but one thing we do know for sure is that
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the Supreme Court's other rulings are now threatening to undermine new corruption prosecutions * ;former
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Ohio House speaker Larry householder is fighting against his 20year sentence
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householders attorneys argue that his conviction relied on undisclosed campaign contributions permitted by
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federal law and protected by the First Amendment thus violating freedom of speech laws; a jury found that
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householder took a $61 million bribe in exchange for a billion doll bailout for
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First Energy the utility company already admitted to bribing him; next up remember
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last episode when we told you about the recent Supreme Court case actually legalizing bribery well that may now be
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used as a criminal defense strategy in corruption famous Illinois a 6 to3
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majority ruled that a gratuity was not bribery and therefore not illegal Mike
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Madigan the commed 4 Ed Burke even Rod blaovich today's Supreme Court ruling
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could have an impact on all Illinois public officials convicted or accused of bribery in New York City that same
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Supreme Court bribery case is now being invoked after mayor Eric Adams was indicted on corruption charges defense
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attorney Alex Spyro insisted today that Eric Adam should never have been charged
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courtesies to politicians are not federal crimes congressmen get upgrades
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they get better tables at restaurants that's just what happens Spyro filed a motion with the court to dismiss the
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bribery allegations against Adams all told worth more than
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$100,000 clearly this is the master planner world now but they aren't done
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trying to shape that world as evidenced by another recent bombshell revelation
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an ult secretive Chicago Industrial Mogul has quietly given $1.6 billion
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dollar to the architect of the right-wing take over of the courts the largest known political advocacy
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donation in US history in a stunning Expose propublica and the lever have
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revealed how Barre seid was given his fortune to a nonprofit run by Leonard
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Leo the co-chair of the Federalist society and what does Leonard Leo plan
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to do with all of that dark money in an October 2024 interview with a
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conservative website Leo laid it out in pow memo esque terms saying he wants to
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recruit people to quote control the choke points of society the folks who
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have the greatest capability of entering into and helping to control the choke
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points of society it's really important to find those people to identify them to recruit them then Leo said he aims to
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quote infiltrate the entire culture and that means being at the tip of the spear filing those
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lawsuits building those Talent pipelines placing Personnel in positions of influence and then of course also trying
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to influence social and cultural institutions infiltrating the Press infiltrating entertainment conservative
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movement building Beach heads in areas like news entertainment business and
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finance corporate C- Suites educational institutions the word unprecedented is
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overused in our society but taken together all of what's going on in the
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present moment is actually for real unprecedented we are now in uncharted
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waters and we are minnows swimming among sharks that's why when I heard Governor
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pritzker's line and all the boisterous cheering it generated at the Democratic
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Convention take it from an actual billionaire
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well I felt like simply leaving the convention hall and walking myself into Lake Michigan never to be heard from
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again, and if you've listened all the way to this point I'm guessing you feel the same way, but that's not what we should
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do after the break we're going to meet those who are reacting to this mess with a more positive proactive and
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constructive attitude a reaction that invokes a Clarion call from the era when
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the master plan was just getting started; I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this
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anymore; there is no America there is no democracy there is only IBM and it and
AT&T and Dupont dow Union Carbide and
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Exxon those are the nations of the world today; it's the mid- 1970s the powell memo
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is being implemented the post-watergate campaign Finance reforms are being gutted plans to roll back the New Deal
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are being formulated and outcomes network a movie that seems to completely
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understand how the master planners see the world and what they want to create the world is a college of Corporations
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inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business the world is a
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business Mr Beal in network this lecture from corporate management is aimed at
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the central protagonist a disgruntled newscaster named Howard Beal who started
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telling harsh truths on the air we know things are bad worse than bad they're crazy it's like everything everywhere is
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going crazy so we don't go out anymore; Network seems as resonant now in this era of legalized corruption as it was
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when it first came out in theaters nearly 50 years ago, and so does how Beal's demand you've got to get mad
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you've got to say I'm a human being godamn it my life has value, so I want
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you to get up now and go to the window open it and stick your head out and yell
I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore in the movie people
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start screaming out their Windows; it anymore I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore I'm mad as hell
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I'm not going to take it anymore but here in real life angrily screaming out your window or despondently jumping into
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a lake is probably not going to do much to stop the master planners, who don't like democracy and who see the world as
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one giant business that they own ; what might achieve better results is the stuff being done by people who are
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confronting the problem headon; so let's take a look at a few ways that those folks are trying to fight back first up
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let's start with the whole issue of transparency the idea that we should at least be able
24:01
to know who is spending all this money to buy elections throughout this series
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we've mentioned Senator Sheldon WhiteHouse's completely reasonable disclose act when corporations and other wealthy
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interests spend money more than $10,000 to influence our elections their identities must be disclosed White House
24:21
and campaign Finance reform groups have made real progress with this bill it's Now supported by every Senate Democrat
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getting any bill this far up the political food chain is real progress but of course there's Mitch
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McConnell and his fellow obstructionists Senate Republicans have blocked legislation to expose the names of
24:43
wealthy donors who give unlimited funds to so-called dark money organizations thanks to that kind of obstruction dark
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money is now not just a Washington problem it's everywhere so-called dark money has arrived in local elections
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dark money is pouring into the Denver Schoolboard race just who is pumping money into secret nonprofit funds linked
25:04
:{to Lancing lawmakers;
but there is good news there's progress being made far}:
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away from Washington DC take Arizona a swing state that was the home of
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campaign Finance reformer John McCain and that passed Landmark anti-corruption legislation in the late 1990s but in
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recent years utility companies used dark money to buy elections for friendly Arizona Regulators $8 million in dark
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money secured an Arizona gubinatorial win for Republican former ice cream CEO
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Doug Ducey and then in 2016 Arizona Republicans gutted the state's campaign
25:41
spending disclosure law and so right around then this guy had his Howard Beal
25:47
:{moment and then went to work;
Arizona voters have a right to know who's}:
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contributing to political advertising that's Terry Goddard a former mayor of Phoenix and Arizona attorney general and
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because of dark money so much of what we're seeing on the TV and and getting coming through our mailbox is mysterious
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it's paid for by some coward who's hiding and doesn't want us to know who it is that's paying for these ads Godard
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spearheaded a ballot measure to try to impose a dark money disclosure law on the politicians trying to keep all the
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corruption hidden if passed the ballot initiative would require organizations that run political ads to disclose their
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big donors the ballot measure campaign was not an overnight success in 2018
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they were derailed by a legal challenge in 2020 covid halted their efforts then
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in 2022 another lawsuit tried to stop them in that case Governor Doug Ducey
26:45
and other Republican state leaders filed a brief supporting the argument that Arizona voters should not be allowed to
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vote on the dark money issue this November but Terry Goddard and campaign Finance reformers survived D the legal
26:59
Challenge and when the votes were finally counted Arizona V voters are making it very clear this election that
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they didn't want dark money in political campaigns here's a look at the results the AP confirming that prop 211 will
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pass with roughly three out of four voters approving it across party lines it'll Force donors of at least $5,000
27:19
and up that pay for all of those negative ads to publicly disclose their identities ; it won with a whopping 72% of
27:28
the vote 72% but of course that wasn't the final word because guess who is waiting to
27:35
file a lawsuit can you guess hi I'm Saul Goodman did you know that you have rights the Constitution says You Do You
27:42
Better Call Saul nope not Saul Goodman no no no waiting to file the lawsuit
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were of course the master planners at the koch Empire’s Americans for
27:54
Prosperity the same group that had previously filed that anti disclosure case at the Supreme Court in this new
28:01
case Americans for Prosperity tried to block Arizona's ballot measure from being implemented in the suit AFP
28:09
resurrected the old NAACP case from the 1950s that you heard about in the last
28:15
episode; the one that helped billionaire donors and corporations pretend to be the same as persecuted civil rights
28:22
activists in the Jim Crow South ; but so far at the time that we're recording this episode AFP is failing to find
28:31
:{success;
they've been rejected by a lower court of course the federal case is now}:
28:37
being appealed because as Terry Goddard told a local television station, so much
28:42
is at stake for the master planners; the Koch organization and the folks behind Americans for of prosperity are the
28:48
biggest dogs on the porch and they want to protect their franchise which is a dark money franchise so bottom line is I
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think they feel that this is something that they can ultimately weasel up to the Supreme Court whether or not that
29:01
happens the entire situation spotlights how states and cities can and are
29:07
fighting back even as Washington seems gridlocked of course disclosure isn't
29:13
some cural there are other necessary deterrents needed as well among them
29:18
criminal prosecutions and here again is some encouraging news even though the Roberts Supreme Court has made
29:25
corruption prosecutions more difficult, there are are some prosecutors trying to forge an anti-corruption path in the
29:32
last few years we've seen a trump appointed Republican Federal prosecutor bring that huge corruption case that we
29:39
mentioned earlier the bribery case involving Ohio's former Republican house Speakerr we've also seen a democratic
29:46
appointed Federal prosecutor bring corruption cases against New York's Democratic mayor Eric Adams and against
29:53
a top Democratic power broker in Washington Federal authorities announced bribery charges against New Jersey
29:59
Senator Bob Menendez and his wife FBI agents raided the Menendez home in June
30:04
of 2022 uncovering over $480,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes
30:11
and closets again the Supreme Court is making these prosecutions more difficult
30:17
but the cases are going forward which is a good thing, and in just the last year
30:23
public corruption cases have actually ticked up not a cure all but it's
30:28
something; the problem though is that these cases can all be appealed up to the same Roberts Supreme Court that's
30:36
:{been whittling down the federal bribery laws
; two potential solutions for that}:
30:41
are expanding the court and creating term limits for justices which would at
30:46
least provide the chance for a less corrupt Court in our lifetime and these ideas are finally part of the political
30:54
conversation Congressional Democrats are waiting into a political firestorm over the Supreme Court a group of lawmakers
31:00
plans to introduce legislation today that would expand the court from nine justices to 13 President Biden has a
31:07
compelling new pitch that includes major changes to the Supreme Court sources tell NBC News his proposed reforms which
31:14
:{would need Congressional approval include establishing term limits for justices ;
recent polls show majorities of}:
31:20
Americans support both Court expansion and term limits but once again there's
31:26
obstruction from yep Mitch McConnell and Senate
31:33
Republicans the Supreme Court is under attack the Big Kahuna of course would be doing what Bernie said at the Democratic
31:40
National Convention overturning citizens united that will almost certainly never
31:45
happen at the current Supreme Court but there is another way to do it I rise
31:50
today in support of the pending Constitutional Amendment which would restore to Congress and the states the
31:55
authority to reign in the enormous sums of money that are flooding into the political process; the people's rights
32:03
amendment would overturn citizens united; we need a constitutional amendment that will overturn Citizens United Okay so
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yeah I I know what you're thinking and you're right a constitutional amendment is a really long process but it's not
32:17
starting at square one here; you need 38 states to ratify such an amendment and
32:22
22 States and 842 local governments have already called for such an amendment
32:28
through ballot measures or legislative resolutions that includes Republican leaning states such as Montana and West
32:35
Virginia; but short of a constitutional amendment where does that leave things
32:40
I've thought about this for 25 years and I keep coming back to the same answer
32:46
that Bernie Sanders mentioned at the DNC; move toward Public Funding of Elections
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public financing of Elections yeah okay it's a mouthful and and yeah it sounds
32:59
like the kind of super theoretical and complicated idea that would put you to sleep during a lecture at Ferris buellers
33:06
High School; in 1930 in an effort to alleviate the effects of the anyone
33:12
anyone but don't fall asleep public financing really isn't boring or
33:17
complicated what it basically means is that the government provides funds to candidates so that those candidates can
33:24
run well-resourced campaigns without having to rely on private money that
33:30
comes with the expectation of legislative favors; the public money is given to any candidates of any party or
33:38
ideology who qualify and this isn't some crazy newfangled idea; it's been around
33:44
since Teddy Roosevelt first proposed it in 1907 in fact there was a viable
33:50
public financing system for presidential elections for a few decades after Watergate, and there are some versions of
33:57
Public Financing systems in a bunch of cities and in 13 States including in
34:02
:{swing States like Arizona Maine and Florida
; and three times in the last 50}:
34:07
years Congress got close to doing it at the federal level for all congressional
34:13
and Senate candidates the Senate passed it in 1973 but it was blocked in the
34:18
Democratic controlled house then in 1992 Congress actually did pass it but then
34:24
came the Sith Lord yep you guessed it uh clearly it was
34:31
crafted in a manner to benefit the Democratic party at the expense of the Republican party and that's why it's
34:37
been so uh divisive and partisan and um why the president will veto it and there
34:42
will be plenty of votes there to sustain The veto and that's exactly what President George HW Bush did he vetoed
34:49
it and then only a few years ago the house passed a public financing bill but
34:54
once again it was blocked in the Senate by MCCONNELL
35:00
yeah him again were you expecting someone else I find your lack of faith disturbing to be sure public financing
35:08
can sound like just another wasteful taxpayer handout to greedy politicians the attack ad that you don't like well
35:15
there's a good chance you help pay for it; Florida taxpayers have already shelled out more than $5 million this
35:21
year to publicly Finance political campaigns taxpayer money is being spent to help candidates in Denver run for
35:28
:{office I don't want to pay for campaigns I don't agree with ;
if you think about it}:
35:33
for only a second that does sound outrageous but if you think about it a bit more the current system is the real
35:40
:{problem;
my old boss Montana Governor Brian schweitzer put it pretty simply when he was asked about it so public}:
35:46
financing of all federal campaigns it'd be a good start we have the best government money can buy that's the
35:52
right way to think about it if the public doesn't Finance campaigns someone else will
35:58
and if we let campaign money from billionaires and corporations control every election then we're effectively
36:04
letting the master planners buy the best government for them not us that's what
36:10
we have now a government in which a recent study by Princeton researchers found that quote the preferences of the
36:17
average American appear to have only a minuscule near zero statistically
36:22
non-significant impact upon public policy it's a privately financed government sazed in that scene in the
36:29
comedy film The distinguished gentleman where a lobbyist takes a new Congressman to lunch I'd like to do more money for
36:36
you but first I've got to get your positions on a few issues now where are you on sugar price supports sugar price
36:42
supports where should I be Terry it makes no difference to me if you're for him I got money for you from my sugar
36:49
producers in Louisiana and Hawaii if you're against them I got money for you from the candy manufacturers you pick
36:55
let's say four yeah four four that's the system we have now it's great for the
37:01
master planners they love it which is why they so oppose a public financing system that would give people a way to
37:08
run for office that doesn't force them to rely on legalized bribes so if
37:13
disclosure laws prosecutions public financing of Elections and all these
37:19
other reforms are so obvious and so straightforward then why don't we have
37:24
them already is it just the master planners of destruction or is it something more that's after the
37:34
break there is no more important issue because the money comes into play
37:40
everywhere and reform is not for the short winded it's a long long battle
37:47
this is Fred wertheimer who you heard in episode two I mean you know this is about power and money equals power so
37:56
what you can do is curve it you can limit it but then you have to be ready
38:01
to fight again wertHeimer is one of the people from common cause who back in the
38:06
early 1970s helped shame Richard Nixon into signing the first campaign Finance
38:12
reform legislation in half a century I've thought a lot about our interview with him as I've considered all those
38:19
reforms I just reviewed it's a Continuum you fight for as long as you're in the
38:24
game and then someone comes along and picks up and they do the fighting wertheimer is alluding to the historical
38:31
cycles of corruption Scandal backlash and then reform the cycles that we've
38:37
seen in the United States for more than a century I'd like to believe we're moving into the backlash and reform part
38:43
of the cycle the mad as hell and not going to take it anymore stage and then the next Generation picks up and does
38:50
the fighting that wertheimer's generation did 50 years ago and then we get all those reforms we just reviewed
38:58
but I worry that the master planners have permanently broken the cycle by
39:03
capturing our psychology if corruption is the water in the David Foster Wallace
39:09
speech I worry there are signs we're becoming a culture that vilifies those
39:15
who ever dare mention the water this Insidious Trend started in
39:21
early 2020 I saw it firsthand when I was Bernie Sanders presidential campaign
39:27
speech writer in the weeks before the Iowa caucus all of the presidential campaigns were doing what campaigns do
39:35
enlisting their supporters to contrast their candidates records with the other
39:40
contenders our team enlisted law professor and anti-corruption Advocate Zephyr teachout who you heard in the last
39:47
episode I suggested she publish an oped reviewing Joe Biden's close ties to
39:53
corporate donors and detailing how Biden rewarded those donors with legislation
39:59
and proposals that would help them Zephyr Teachout a New York liberal and prominent Sanders surrogate argues that
40:05
Joe Biden has a corruption problem for taking contributions from wealthy donors she writes middle class Joe has
40:11
perfected the art of taking big contributions than representing his corporate donors at the cost of middle
40:16
and working class Americans the allegations were well documented in fact Biden had long been known as the senator
40:24
from MBNA a reference to the credit card company and he'd been hammered in an
40:29
interview with NBC's Tom broka in 2008 you received $214,000 in campaign contributions from
40:35
the company and from its employees uh at the same time you were fighting for a bankruptcy bill that uh
40:43
MBNA really wanted to get passed to the Senate making it much tougher for everyone to file bankruptcy but this
40:50
wasn't 1973 or even 2008 when corruption was considered a newsworthy topic when
40:57
teachout resurfaced this criticism it was 2020 after Decades of the master
41:03
planners normalizing such pay-to-play corruption and so when teachout op-ed came
41:08
out and we promoted it it was portrayed as a scandal not for Biden but for teachout and for Bernie does the campaign believe that Joe Biden has a corruption problem with the article is describing
41:22
is the fact that Joe Biden has made deals with Republicans repeatedly over the course of his career nobody
41:27
challenged the facts presented in the op-ed the Scandal was that calling
41:32
corruption corruption was apparently too impolite the Biden campaign quickly
41:38
swung back and other observers suggested the attacks are part of a pattern for Sanders dating back to his 2016 campaign
41:45
when he faced criticism for not stopping supporters from aggressively attacking opponents like Hillary Clinton this was
41:50
perfectly teed up for Bernie to have his own Howard Beal moment I'm not going to
41:56
take this anymore but but that didn't happen it is absolutely not my view that Joe is is corrupt in any way uh and I'm
42:03
sorry that that uh up bet appeared to me this could have been a John McCain moment a moment where Bernie Sanders
42:11
called an elevated pay-to-play corruption to the center of the
42:16
presidential election but Bernie backed down I was crushed I know a lot of
42:22
others who were crushed too if even Bernie Sanders missed anti- citizens united couldn't talk
42:30
about corruption in honest and blunt terms then who could of course the Press
42:37
Corps and the political class breathed a sigh of relief that manners had been restored I think it was Elton John who
42:44
once said sorry seems to be the hardest word for whatever reason last night Bernie Sanders could say it yeah and it
42:50
sounded good to a lot of people civil discourse it's a good thing seems rare these days horay for civility I'm sure
42:57
the master planners were thrilled that the c-word corruption had been banished from the discourse but that wasn't the
43:04
end of the attempt to turn corruption into a dirty unspeakable word two years
43:10
later a Texas oil tycoon is suing Betto o’rourke, billionaire Kelsey Warren is
43:16
Seeking a million dollars in Damages from the Democratic nominee for Texas governor the controversy in the 2022
43:23
Texas gubernatorial contest revolved around a 2021 winter power outage in the
43:28
state during a surprising cold snap for months now aor has been making
43:33
accountability for last year's deadly power outages his key tenant of his campaign aor focused on one energy Giant
43:41
in particular that made big money during the crisis oror has said that one company in particular is dallas-based
43:48
Energy Transfer Partners it did make $2.4 billion in profit and oor says that
43:54
its CEO Kelsey Warren later gave Abbot a $1 million campaign donation all of that
44:00
is factual okay so if it's factual then what's the problem in a 16-page lawsuit
44:07
Kelsey Warren now says these accusations go well beyond the sorts of vague and generalized accusations and political
44:14
and corporate corruption that are often thrown around Warren says that oror is suggesting that he did something illegal
44:21
but Betto argues that he is being silenced the case was ultimately dismissed a year later and so you might
44:28
say hey no harm no foul right wrong the Betto oor case was an intensification of
44:35
the trend that had started with the Bernie situation in 2020 talking about
44:40
corruption won't just get you criticized and get you pressured to issue a sad apology it became an actionable offense
44:48
that a billionaire can use to drag you into court and sue you for a million dollars and even if you win you might
44:55
end up buried in legal bills boy that escalated quickly I mean that really got
45:02
out of hand fast yes it did Ron bergundy and this effort to erase the issue of
45:07
corruption from the political discourse it's still escalating; in early 2024 this
45:14
happened after failing to advance the general election in the California's US Senate race congresswoman Katie Porter
45:19
is now claiming that the race was rigged by billionaires on social media last night she thanked supporters for voting
45:25
posting quote we had The Establishment Running Scared withstanding 3 to1 in TV spending and an onslaught of
45:31
billionaires spending Millions to rig this election Porter's comments were statements of the obvious yes a Super
45:38
PAC funded by Crypt billionaires absolutely had spent $10 million against Porter yes Porter was outspent in the
45:46
senate race and yes getting outspent often sways election results but when
45:52
Porter dared to call that out in unvarnished terms it was whipped up into
45:57
a controversy Orange County Democrat Katie Porter now facing backlash within her own party after she said
46:02
billionaires spent Millions to rig the election Porter made very clear that she wasn't pulling a Donald Trump and
46:09
denying the election results or alleging voter fraud but that didn't matter the news media which is supposed to be a
46:17
watchdog against corruption it went on the attack with a barrage of headlines
46:22
slamming Porter here's CNN joining the dog pile Katie Porter democratic
46:27
congresswoman complained in her concession speech uh and since then on on Twitter saying her campaign had to
46:34
withstand quote an onslaught of billionaires spending Millions to rig this election let me just State that's
46:41
not what rigging an election is the whole thing was an attempt to control language as Porter's Democratic opponent
46:48
Adam Schiff made clear no Democrat should be using that language and what I think is notable is the Democratic party
46:55
quickly said hey you don't go there uh there is a real incredible difference between the parties when it comes to
47:01
defense of democracy but we just do not use that language talk about slimy this attempt to equate Porter's legitimate
47:08
criticism of the corrupt campaign Finance system with trumpi and lies it was grotesque but it worked and Porter
47:17
backtracked I wish I had chosen a different word because big money does
47:22
influence our elections yeah I have an additional wish I wish that we could talk honestly about corruption rather
47:29
than being polite about it, or ---- the bed anytime someone gets mad when corruption is discussed because if we're
47:37
polite about it or simply avoid the topic one thing is guaranteed we will
47:43
never reign in corruption we will never realize any of the reforms we've discussed and the master plan will
47:50
:{continue forever;
folks sorry to keep you waiting I apologize uh good afternoon I'm about}:
47:58
:{to head to New York for the annual UN General Assembly;
two years ago President Joe Biden called a White House Press}:
48:05
Conference to discuss a light topic the future of America I want to speak with
48:10
you very briefly about a vote in congress's week that addresses a serious problem facing our democracy in my view
48:17
Biden proceeded to point to reporting from our journalists at the lever as well as propublica and the New York
48:24
Times reporting that had just EXPosed the largest dark money transfer in
48:29
American history that you heard about earlier in this episode; The $ 1.6 billion that was secretly transferred to
48:37
Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo's Network; and the public only found out about this $1.6 billion transfer because
48:45
someone tipped off some of your reporters; otherwise we still wouldn't know about it but now we know there's
48:51
something we can do about it ;Biden said the revelations proved why the US Senate
48:56
had to pass the disclose act to force the disclosure of all the dark money
49:01
buying seemingly everything in Washington; Republicans should join Democrats to pass the disclosure act and
49:08
get it on my desk right away Biden concluded by invoking the memory of the last campaign Finance reformer who had
49:15
led a successful fight against the master planners; getting dark money out of our politics has been a bipartisan
49:21
issue in the past; my deceased friend John McCain spent a lot of time fighting
49:26
for campaign Finance reform for him it was a matter of fundamental fairness and
49:32
he was 100% right about that ultimately this comes down to public trust dark
49:38
money erodes public trust we need to protect public trust; I remember when
49:43
this happened in 2022 because a lot of people contacted me congratulating the lever on our reporting that Biden cited
49:50
but honestly I kind of ir rolled the White House speech because I'd already made up my mind about Joe Biden a long
49:58
time ago; I'd seen him help his pharmaceutical industry donors and his Wall Street donors he was the senator
50:04
from MBNA the guy who helped his credit card industry donors Crush millions of
50:09
debtors I'd viewed him as Mr corruption for most of my adult life; but as we were
50:16
finishing up 2 years of research for this podcast I stumbled onto some old
50:21
tape that kind of blew me away; it's prompted some difficult questions that I
50:27
can't get out of my mind; inherent in the system that we have
50:32
to run for elective office is corruption within the law; this is
50:38
1973; Watergate was raging the powell memo was beginning to go viral and somehow
50:45
Joe Biden had just done something Unthinkable ; as basically a nobody
50:50
Underdog he defeated a two-term incumbent and had won a US Senate race
50:55
at age 29; he was now appearing at the Cleveland City Club for one of his first
51:01
speaking events as a senator he proceeded to tell the assembled power Brokers donors and Elites something they
51:08
probably didn't want to hear; we're not going to begin to make an encroachment
51:13
on moral wrongdoing in government until we elect men and women to office who are
51:19
their own men and women, unfettered by influence from interest groups whether
51:24
they be business or labor , until they don't have to come back to you and beg
51:30
for money to run; Biden shared some Revelations he had from his own Longshot
51:35
campaign had in the beginning when I started big corporations or Big labor or
51:41
big wealthy individuals or big anybody come along and said here Biden we want to contribute $20,000 to you I probably
51:50
would have taken it; not probably, I would have taken it because I'm had to go out and borrow
51:59
$220,000 and put a second mortgage on my house to get that 20 to start; so what's
52:04
the answer we support the federal funding of federally elected offices
52:10
Biden's support for public financing of Elections came right from his personal experience running for office without
52:17
access to big money ; and soon after this Cleveland speech in 1973 Biden helped add a public financing
52:24
provision to a bill that pass passed the US Senate later that year side note it
52:30
died in the house months after that happened he sounded off at an event televised by PBS; the system does produce
52:39
corruption and and I think implicit in the system is corruption when in fact whether or not you can run for public
52:45
office and it cost a great deal of money to run for the United States Senate even from a small state like Delaware uh you have to go to those people who have
52:51
money and they always want something; Biden then implied that money's influence in politics was threatening to
52:58
turn America into an oligarchy. where a handful of big donors control the entire
53:04
electoral process ; how long is the American public going to put up with a small group of men and organizations
53:11
determining the political process; I wasn't expecting to end this whole
53:16
series thinking about Joe Biden, but I think there's something profoundly
53:21
important here ; Biden's political career has spanned the entire 50 years year
53:26
history of the master plan, and hearing Biden back in the 1970s makes his recent
53:32
White House speech about the disclose act seem more authentic, but it also makes me wonder how a politician who can
53:40
voice such blunt and taboo truths about corruption, how can that same politician
53:46
also swim for so long inside that corrupt system; what does that mean; what
53:53
does it mean that there's the Joe Biden who says in the 19 7s the system does
53:59
produce corruption and 50 years later there's that same Joe Biden saying there's much too much money that flows
54:06
in the shadows to influence our elections ; and yet there's also the Joe Biden who did this: you received
54:13
$214,000 in campaign contributions from the company and from its employees at the same time you were fighting for a
54:20
bankruptcy Bill ;and there's the Joe Biden who was rightly lampooned on late night TV for doing this: Biden spoke at a
54:28
private fundraiser earlier this week and told the big donors that he didn't want to demonize the wealthy and added that
54:35
under his presidency no one's standard of living will change ; nothing will fundamentally change; what is it all mean
54:43
the cynic in me says that it means nothing more than Joe Biden is a professional politician who periodically
54:49
said some nice stuff about campaign Finance just for show ; but who got swallowed by the system; once the Senate
54:56
from MBNA always the senator from MBNA and maybe that's true God knows I'm not
55:03
here to try to convince you what to think about Joe Biden; but here's the thing maybe two things can be true at
55:10
the same time; maybe it's also true that Biden embodies a much more significant
55:16
truth about something way way bigger than just Joe Biden ; a truth about the
55:22
system and about our responsibility to force the system to change; maybe
55:29
Biden is the older fish in the David Foster Wallace speech asking how's the
55:34
water ; and maybe his contradictions prove that even if people inside the system
55:40
can see the corruption all around us and lament that it's destroying our country
55:45
and really want to do something about it. maybe they still can't single-handedly
55:51
do much if we keep blindly swimming along and don't force them to act ; maybe
55:58
it's on us to stop giving politicians a pass when they sell out; and maybe we
56:03
should stop letting them off the hook ;even if we like them and even if we voted for them maybe it's on us to
56:11
produce enough righteous anger and outside pressure to force real
56:17
change; Biden seemed to make this very point in another speech that I found
56:23
when I was digging through Archives of his career; it was late in the second term of the Obama Administration when
56:30
Biden was vice president ; he was speaking to a big group of young people; let me
56:35
ask you a rhetorical question : if you could do only one single thing only one
56:42
to increase fairness Equity opportunity to middle class, pass rational gun control, deal with immigration Etc what
56:49
would it be I can tell you what one thing I would do get private money out
56:55
of political
57:02
process; Biden concluded that all this corruption created by the master
57:08
planners had become a democracy crisis ; what are we doing we're cutting off
57:13
access for so many of you for so many Bright Young Minds; who the only way they
57:19
can get engaged is you have to go where the money is and where the money is there's almost always implicitly some
57:27
string attached; Biden wondered aloud about whether if he was starting out in today's world of huge money if he could
57:34
have ever gotten elected to the Senate like he did back in 1972; he asked those kids in the audience
57:41
to keep demanding the kind of campaign Finance reforms that he had pushed; I don't want you to get discouraged I
57:48
don't want you to get discouraged; I promise you if you keep doing what you're doing if you generate and
57:55
increase your number ; if you never apologize for your passion ; if you always Gird yourself against the
58:01
temptation to rationalize; if you're actually willing to listen to the other side to generate a consensus this can
58:08
all get done and then came what sounded almost like a plea; like a cry for help
58:15
from deep within the swamp itself ;we badly badly badly need you so don't get
58:21
despondent don't disengage ; disrupt the status quo make
58:27
noise take everybody on , and don't ever settle for it can't be done God bless
58:36
:{you all and may God protect our Troops;
thanks whether you love or hate Joe}:
58:41
Biden doesn't matter this is not about Joe Biden or any other politician it's
58:47
about the bigger truth this democracy badly needs all of us; the master
58:54
planners will win if we all disengage and let politicians including Biden
59:00
himself off the hook; but if we don't settle if we do make noise if we do take
59:07
everybody on, including the politicians that we think are our friends then we do
59:13
still have a chance to disrupt this crushing and corrupt status quo, and we
59:19
:{do still have a chance to create a different future a better one.
59:28
[Music]
59:38
up [Music]
59:43
Master I've earned everything I
59:50
got think master
59:56
well I'm not a I earned everything I got master plan is a production of the lever
1:00:03
this episode was written by me David serota our editor is Ron Doyle our production team includes Jared Mayer
1:00:09
Laura CR Ula kulpa Arjun Singh and Ronnie Rick aen factchecking of this
1:00:15
episode by Chris Walker original music is by Nick Byron Campbell mixing by
1:00:20
Louis weeks for our final episode of this season we want to give some special thanks to folks who helped us throughout
1:00:27
the whole series first and foremost a huge thanks to all of our paid supporters at the lever who helped make
1:00:34
this series possible we'd also like to thank Sheldon White House Jane mayor
1:00:39
Robert mutch Ann Southworth Adam Winkler and Jeffrey tubin whose previous
1:00:44
reporting and research were so instrumental in telling this story big thanks to Lewis Black Brett Saunders
1:00:51
Ralph nater Tom dashel Ben Clarkson Armand avaram Michael Balin and Steve
1:00:57
zburg at zburg Balin LLC also thank you to Jeff Joanie Morgan and Vanessa and
1:01:04
the entire team at the Pod glomerate thank you as well to Joel Warner and the entire team at the lever who continue to
1:01:11
report on corruption every day at leverne news.com and of course a very
1:01:18
special thank you to all of our spouses and children and family who endured our
1:01:24
long days and nights and and angst and anxiety about this whole series one last
1:01:30
thing I want to dedicate this series to my friend the recently passed jeie
1:01:35
Kaplan a true Fighter for social justice and a true friend who's inspired me in
1:01:41
so many ways I know she would have loved to hear this whole series we miss you
1:01:46
---