Speaker 1: Welcome to you. Stuff you should know from House Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Bush and Duccas on crime. Bush supports
Speaker 1: the death penalty for first degree murderers. Du Concas not
Speaker 1: only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first degree murderers
Speaker 1: to have weekend passes from prison. One was Willie Horton,
Speaker 1: who murdered a boy and a robbery, stabbing him nineteen times.
Speaker 1: Despite a life sentence, Horton received ten weekend passes from prison.
Speaker 1: Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man and
Speaker 1: repeatedly raping his girlfriend. Weekend prison passes. Ducacas on crime,
Speaker 1: Hey and welten to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's
Speaker 1: Charles to Be, Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. And
Speaker 1: what you've just heard was something we brought back with
Speaker 1: us from via the way back machine. An attack ad.
Speaker 1: The attack AD from the election between George Trebert Walker
Speaker 1: Bush and one Michael du Caucus and Uh. That ad
Speaker 1: is widely credited as turning the tide against du Caucus's campaign,
Speaker 1: which was doing pretty good at the time. Well, some
Speaker 1: people say so, other people say depends on who you asked.
Speaker 1: Always dissent that's politics. As it turns out, there's always
Speaker 1: more than one opinion. But the reason we bring up
Speaker 1: this ad which UM first aired on September twenty one, nineteen. Yes, UM,
Speaker 1: it's called weekend Passes for obvious reasons, and it was
Speaker 1: UM funded by something called the National Security Political Action
Speaker 1: Committee And n s PACK was a non affiliated pro
Speaker 1: Bush political action committee that was aimed at sinking du
Speaker 1: Caucus and getting Bush elected. Yeah. I think one of
Speaker 1: Bush's uh maybe it was his chief campaign guy said
Speaker 1: by the time we're done, people are gonna think Willie
Speaker 1: Horton is du Caucus is running mate. And it worked too.
Speaker 1: I mean, like still, if if you say the name
Speaker 1: Willie Horton, people of a certain age e g. R
Speaker 1: age can still say, oh I know who that is. Yeah. Well, quickly,
Speaker 1: the story of Willie Horton is he was he was
Speaker 1: in prison for murder, was furloughed as part of the
Speaker 1: UH for a weekend as part of the Massachusetts furlough
Speaker 1: program that was UM in effect at the time, and
Speaker 1: he raped and killed somebody on this weekend pass on
Speaker 1: the weekend pass, which was a big sign that it
Speaker 1: may not be a good idea to furlow murders. I
Speaker 1: guess they needed to test it out to find out
Speaker 1: one way or another. But yeah, that pretty much closed
Speaker 1: the book on it. And the thing was the Bush
Speaker 1: campaign linked du Caucus is well, du Caucus himself with
Speaker 1: the weekend passes and insinuated that he had come up
Speaker 1: with this and that he was in support of it. Well,
Speaker 1: he wasn't support of it. He didn't come up with
Speaker 1: it though. Yeah, he inherited it from his Republican predecessor,
Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah, it actually started in nine two, uh
Speaker 1: with a Republican governor governor of Massachusetts, which apparently things
Speaker 1: have been going fine up until then until Willie Horton
Speaker 1: came along. Yeah, it kind of had a weird uh
Speaker 1: along and winding road. Um. The initial program excluded first
Speaker 1: degree murderers, and then the Supreme Court said, no, the
Speaker 1: law doesn't specifically say that, so you can't exclude first
Speaker 1: degree murders. So the legislature said, well, we gotta put
Speaker 1: a stop to this, and we can't let first agree
Speaker 1: murderers out on leave, and Ducacus vetoed that. So he
Speaker 1: did support it until he decided to run for president,
Speaker 1: and that's when he said let's get this off. So
Speaker 1: the n speck ad was very um widely criticized. It
Speaker 1: was criticized as being misleading, It was criticized as fostering
Speaker 1: racist attitudes. Um. And but it still worked. A lot
Speaker 1: of people say, and I understand some people say, no,
Speaker 1: a lot of people say, this did work. So people
Speaker 1: say it was the tank gride remember that. Oh I
Speaker 1: forgot about this road around that tank. Yeah, I totally
Speaker 1: forgot about that. He was off the rails there for
Speaker 1: a little bit. Um. But the the thing is is
Speaker 1: George Bush's campaign I was able to say, hey, this
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with us, blame an s pack.
Speaker 1: So it still worked in George Bush's favor. But George
Speaker 1: Bush got to got to say, this had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with me. Remodel it. That was Clinton. I just did. Um.
Speaker 1: It was. It was pretty dead on Clinton. Really, it's
Speaker 1: called a political matchup. Um. And the whole way that
Speaker 1: this pack was was funded was with what's called dark money. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We should uh, we should just title this one how
Speaker 1: to Exploit a Loophole in America. Yeah, and the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court really screwed things up. Yeah. Or if you don't
Speaker 1: like Josh and chuck talking politics. Turn it off now,
Speaker 1: but we're taking down the system. Yeah. Yeah, here's the thing, man,
Speaker 1: Billionaires controlling who gets elected in the United States is
Speaker 1: not a conservative or liberal issue. We're all being screwed
Speaker 1: over equally. Here everyone, I got a stat for you,
Speaker 1: and then we'll get right into it. This will shake
Speaker 1: you to the core. Uh. Since two thousand ten of
Speaker 1: the one billion dollars spent in federal elections by superpacks,
Speaker 1: almost sixty of that money came from one hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety five people and their spouses one hundred and nine
Speaker 1: people of campaign of superpack spending. And as as it
Speaker 1: is crazy, but it's not that surprising if you really
Speaker 1: step back and look at what's been going on the
Speaker 1: last decade or so. And that's what people I mean,
Speaker 1: some people say like spending tons of money on a
Speaker 1: elections isn't bad. It's the fact that people are the
Speaker 1: ones doing the majority of the spending that it's not right.
Speaker 1: And the the that's a billion dollars spent by super
Speaker 1: packs or political action committees, and super packs up until
Speaker 1: recently had to disclose um who donated money to him.
Speaker 1: So this is just the money that's traceable, and what
Speaker 1: we're talking about is the money that's not traceable here.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna go back a little bit um in
Speaker 1: the way back machine, back to the early twentieth century
Speaker 1: once again. Yeah, and um, we're gonna talk about money
Speaker 1: in politics. There's this really good Mother Jones article called
Speaker 1: Follow the Dark Money, and it gives a bit of
Speaker 1: a history of politics and money. Uh and says Congress
Speaker 1: is always reacting to some sort of money scandal, but
Speaker 1: there's this long history and tradition of knowing who is
Speaker 1: funding campaigns transparency in America. Yeah, and it started with
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt ran as a trust buster. He
Speaker 1: was against the big corporations that controlled so much in
Speaker 1: the robber barons, but he was also simultaneously secretly going
Speaker 1: to these same corporations and robber barons and getting secret
Speaker 1: funding for his campaigns. Yes, one tycoon said Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 1: got down on his knees for us. That's not the
Speaker 1: normal description of Teddy Roosevelt. And as far as corporations
Speaker 1: are concerned, not the public image of him. Teddy Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't think got on his knees for anybody. So
Speaker 1: as a result, after Roosevelt was elected, he actually did
Speaker 1: something about it. He signed into law the Tilman Act
Speaker 1: that prevented it. Outlawed corporations from directly contributing to candidates.
Speaker 1: That's illegal, still is today. It is. That's why we
Speaker 1: need loopholes. Watergate came along in uh the I think
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy four, nineteen yeah, nine seventy two election
Speaker 1: when Nixon was running for UM office. He um, okay,
Speaker 1: he accepted twenty million dollars in nineteen seventy two money
Speaker 1: UM in secret political contributions. And we're talking like delivered
Speaker 1: in cash and checks in briefcases by couriers who were
Speaker 1: flying private jets from Texas to d C. For Pete's sake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and his personal attorney when Herbert Kombach Uh, he was
Speaker 1: the deputy finance chair for the Committee for re Election
Speaker 1: for President, he destroyed this evidence and went to prison
Speaker 1: for it. So it was a real thing that happened.
Speaker 1: What's crazy is their their Political Action Committee was the
Speaker 1: Committee to re Elect the President and the acronym was Creep.
Speaker 1: They called themselves creep and they were trying to reelect Nixon.
Speaker 1: Funny I mean, come on, it's a little on the nose.
Speaker 1: Don't you think maybe it was lost on them? So um,
Speaker 1: you fast forward and you just say, okay, guys, let's
Speaker 1: bashing Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. How about some some
Speaker 1: Democrats in there. And uh, Bill Clinton was a really
Speaker 1: good example of that as well. Yeah, you want to
Speaker 1: go jogging with Bill, I want to play a little
Speaker 1: golf six figure check. Please. Access to the president or
Speaker 1: even somebody who's running for the presidency is not supposed
Speaker 1: to be purchasable. You or you or I. We can't
Speaker 1: do that. We don't have access to the president because
Speaker 1: we don't have that much money. So it's just simply
Speaker 1: not fair for somebody who does have that much money
Speaker 1: to have that much more access to the president or
Speaker 1: somebody running for the president. So over the years have
Speaker 1: been scandal and then uh some sort of change to
Speaker 1: campaign finance laws. But there's been this through thread over
Speaker 1: the twentieth century that America has said, we want to
Speaker 1: know who is giving money to uh two candidates. We
Speaker 1: want to know who they're indebted to when they win. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's also a been at the head of every
Speaker 1: time law comes into action. There is a loophole that
Speaker 1: is invariably found that can get around that, created by
Speaker 1: the same politicians who passed the Act to begin with,
Speaker 1: because it's a game. They really upsetting if you think
Speaker 1: about it. Oh, it's very upsetting. I'm I'm really doing
Speaker 1: a good job here staying calm. Well, you have a
Speaker 1: vein in your forehead that's pulsing. I can see it is.
Speaker 1: There's this blood spurting out of it. So um chuck.
Speaker 1: There's a there's another thread to um to all of this.
Speaker 1: It's semi political, and that is the tax code. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you go look at the tax code after,
Speaker 1: you're going to see something called the five oh one
Speaker 1: C four organization called a social welfare organization, or you
Speaker 1: can also be a local association of employees and be
Speaker 1: a five one four Those are also known as unions. Right,
Speaker 1: And as of nineteen thirteen the Underwood terrorf Act, which
Speaker 1: brought back in taxes, five oh one four organizations are
Speaker 1: nonprofits that are tax exempt, right, Yeah, and they can
Speaker 1: accept donations. But because of this uh there five oh
Speaker 1: one C four status, they don't have to reveal who
Speaker 1: their donors are, right, which wouldn't seem like a big
Speaker 1: problem because all nonprofits are are people trying to save
Speaker 1: animals and save the rainforest. Right, social welfare. One. Sure,
Speaker 1: so you want to just donate your money and I
Speaker 1: want it to be anonymous and it's no big deal.
Speaker 1: But that is not always the case. Um. By the
Speaker 1: well late nineteen fifty nine, early nineteen sixties, the government
Speaker 1: realized that politics and uh five oh one see where
Speaker 1: they five one c fours at that time, Okay, um,
Speaker 1: they were intertwined. Uh, there was nothing they could do
Speaker 1: about it, and so they started loosening rules. In a
Speaker 1: nineteen eight one they said, you know what, you can
Speaker 1: be politically engaged as long as it's under the banner
Speaker 1: of the promotion of quote social welfare, or that the
Speaker 1: work you're doing is primarily social welfare. And the way
Speaker 1: that that translated as far as the I R S,
Speaker 1: who you know, um enforces the tax code. As far
Speaker 1: as the I R S was concerned, it was if
Speaker 1: fifty one of your funds are spent on social welfare,
Speaker 1: you can spend up to forty on political stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the I R S had to fight for that
Speaker 1: designation because previously it just said primarily which is such
Speaker 1: a loose uh word. You know, they said, you know,
Speaker 1: we what does this really mean? Right? And so that
Speaker 1: they just through I think they released an interpretation a
Speaker 1: rule that said this is what primarily means nine And
Speaker 1: that was the rule from one on basically, um and so, okay,
Speaker 1: you've got five ohen C. Four is they're hanging out
Speaker 1: there over there, they're doing their own thing. Nobody's paying
Speaker 1: too much attention to them. Uh. And then two ten
Speaker 1: rolls along, and there was a lawsuit that had made
Speaker 1: its way through the lower courts up to the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: and it was called Citizens United versus the Federal Election Committee.
Speaker 1: It sounds so boring that I hazard to say that
Speaker 1: Americans have never even heard of it. And it's and
Speaker 1: it may be one of the most influential Supreme Court
Speaker 1: rulings in the history of this country. But it just
Speaker 1: listened to it. Citizens United versus the FEC Snooze. So
Speaker 1: Citizens United was a m a political action committee and uh, well,
Speaker 1: I think it still is as a matter of fact.
Speaker 1: And Citizens United was spending money on advertisements for a
Speaker 1: video on demand movie that was basically um a attack
Speaker 1: ad one giant attack ad on Hillary Clinton. I thought
Speaker 1: you're gonna say it was one of those Kirk Camera
Speaker 1: in movies. I think it was similar. He had a
Speaker 1: cameo I think, right, and so in this movie, um,
Speaker 1: like the Citizens United didn't. I don't believe they funded
Speaker 1: the movie Your Finance if, but they were. They were
Speaker 1: running ads about it, and they were running ads within
Speaker 1: I think thirty days of the election, no, sixty days
Speaker 1: of the prime no, sorry, thirty days of a primary election,
Speaker 1: which under the McCain Fine Goal of Act, which is
Speaker 1: a campaign finance Reform Act that came along in two
Speaker 1: do to um, you're not allowed to do And Citizens
Speaker 1: United said, you know what, why wouldn't we be allowed
Speaker 1: to do? This is political speech. Um, We're going to
Speaker 1: sue the Federal Elections Commission, And they did, and the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruled on it, and the Supreme Court in
Speaker 1: Citizens United ruled in favor of Citizens United. But then
Speaker 1: they released one of the most sweeping explanations of what
Speaker 1: they'd ruled that just completely changed the face of American
Speaker 1: politics from that point on. It said, it's open season.
Speaker 1: Bring in as much money as you want uh into
Speaker 1: the American political system, because we are opening the floodgates
Speaker 1: as wide as they can go. Yeah, what they basically
Speaker 1: did was they equated speech with money. And they said,
Speaker 1: basically they took the term money talks to the reaches
Speaker 1: that we can't even comprehend that you can make huge
Speaker 1: donations and that is a political statement. That is, your
Speaker 1: speech is a corporation, and you are protected because corporations
Speaker 1: are individuals. Right, So, so that's exactly what they did.
Speaker 1: They said, spending money on political campaigns, any political contribution
Speaker 1: is a form of political speech. Speech is protected under
Speaker 1: the First Amendment, but the speech of individuals is protected. Well.
Speaker 1: Corporations are considered artificial people, so therefore they should have
Speaker 1: that same thing extended to them, right, And so that
Speaker 1: the ruling was that you can spend as much as
Speaker 1: you want as long as it doesn't go directly to
Speaker 1: a candidate. And um, you can also now that since
Speaker 1: there's five four's, you can funnel as much money as
Speaker 1: you want two or five O four and remain an
Speaker 1: anonymous donor. Yeah. And the problem, well, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of problems. One of the biggest problems is is
Speaker 1: these corporations are spending tons and tons, millions and millions
Speaker 1: of dollars. The court essentially said, uh, Joe Schmo on
Speaker 1: the street donating ten dollars to a campaign is the
Speaker 1: same thing as a corporation donating hundred thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: a campaign, because they're both individuals. So it created this
Speaker 1: huge loophole. And I think the Supreme Court they were
Speaker 1: relying on was uh that these groups would be independent
Speaker 1: of the candidates. And that's not only not how it
Speaker 1: worked out. That was the plan all along. It was
Speaker 1: extremely naive, the ruling was. And if you look at
Speaker 1: naive or was it, I don't know, but if you
Speaker 1: look at the I have the same questions. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people do the the If you look
Speaker 1: at the ruling though, there's a section on transparency where
Speaker 1: they say, with the Supreme Court uphold the constitutionality of
Speaker 1: requiring transparency in campaign finance eight to one, which is
Speaker 1: like they're the only person descending was Clarence Thomas, and
Speaker 1: it was like, yes, we're saying you need to be transparent,
Speaker 1: and they said, okay, well, then transparency is going to
Speaker 1: come through people demanding the corporations that they own stock
Speaker 1: in to release what what political donations they've done. That
Speaker 1: makes total sense. If you have stock in the company,
Speaker 1: if your life's fortune is invested in a corporation, you
Speaker 1: should know who are they're who they're giving their money to. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's one way. And they also said, well, the
Speaker 1: Federal Elections Commission, they've got their job to do, the
Speaker 1: I R S, the SEC. There's all these regulatory agencies
Speaker 1: that are tasked with keeping transparency in the political process,
Speaker 1: and um, we're we're just going to rely on them.
Speaker 1: And as we're about to see after this break, relying
Speaker 1: on that was an enormous mistake. Foolhardy. All all right,
Speaker 1: we're back boy. We're getting riled up today. I'm remaining calm.
Speaker 1: Still up election season. So the Supreme Court said, guys,
Speaker 1: spend as much money as you want, spend it anonymously
Speaker 1: if you want. Um, the only thing that remains illegal
Speaker 1: is UH corporations contributing directly to candidates, right, which, once
Speaker 1: you have these loopholes, who cares, you don't need to anymore. Right. Plus, also,
Speaker 1: don't even worry about the mega donors donating directly to
Speaker 1: candidates because you, um, there's there's requirements for reporting, there's
Speaker 1: transparency requirements. If you under McCain. Fine gold. If you
Speaker 1: contribute a thousand dollars or more to a candidate or
Speaker 1: a pack that has to report donors, um, you have
Speaker 1: to report it. Somebody's got to report it. Sure there's transparency, right,
Speaker 1: the Federal Elections Commission, the i R S, all these
Speaker 1: guys are tasked with making sure that happened. So we're fine.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court went home and took a giant NAT together
Speaker 1: on their enormous nine person bed. UH. And here's one
Speaker 1: of the other big problems is a lot of this
Speaker 1: money goes toward UH campaign ads, television ads, which have
Speaker 1: a lot of sway um nine out of ten and
Speaker 1: people have studied this. The uh Annenberg Public Policy Center
Speaker 1: UH determined that in the two thousand twelve campaign cycle,
Speaker 1: nine out of ten ads UH funded by dark money
Speaker 1: were negative. So that's why you see those negative ads.
Speaker 1: And not only that, but twenty of those were misleading.
Speaker 1: And there's no accountability. So they're being funded anonymously and
Speaker 1: there's no fact checker. They don't have to run it
Speaker 1: by anybody to get approval and say, well, this is
Speaker 1: all true, it's not misleading at all. So you could
Speaker 1: basically say whatever you want the ad runs, it's anonymously funded,
Speaker 1: and someone's campaign is destroyed in the process. So the
Speaker 1: point is, as long as the candidate is not coordinating
Speaker 1: with the political action committee, the superpacker, the five oh
Speaker 1: one CE four, then it's all kosher. It's all illegal coordinating,
Speaker 1: meaning like so blatantly like come on, it's still going on.
Speaker 1: So every every election season as it starts to kick off,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll see on the news like Ted Cruz or
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders or whoever just released of an eerie twelve
Speaker 1: hour tape of them doing different things with no soundtrack whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And and the whole thing is they they'll release a
Speaker 1: real and it's them hanging out with their mom, them
Speaker 1: writing a tractor, them like standing on like a mountain
Speaker 1: looking as the sun comes up, with their foot on
Speaker 1: the head of a small child. Sure, they're like there,
Speaker 1: and it's just that there's no sound to it whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And they just put it out there. I'm just putting
Speaker 1: it out there, and then anybody wants to use it
Speaker 1: can do whatever they want with it. And then the
Speaker 1: political action committees, the super from the come along use
Speaker 1: that footage to make their ads in support of the candidate.
Speaker 1: I kind of wondered. I was like, how are they
Speaker 1: getting this footage anyway? If they can't be directed putting
Speaker 1: it out there? I had no idea. Yeah, it's pretty
Speaker 1: cynical really if you think about it, the idea that
Speaker 1: they're not coordinating in any way, shape or form. They're
Speaker 1: just putting all this footage out there. And and again,
Speaker 1: guys like if you're getting riled up if you're a
Speaker 1: Republican when we say they like the Democrats do this too,
Speaker 1: But it's really disingenuous to say that all parties are
Speaker 1: equally equally at fault here for using dark money, because again,
Speaker 1: studies show that if you quantify the amount of money
Speaker 1: spent by the GOP and by the Democrats, the GOP
Speaker 1: has outspent the Democrats mind boggling anything to sevent Yes.
Speaker 1: As far as using dark money goes, it's it's definitely
Speaker 1: not a like. The Democrats do it, for sure, and
Speaker 1: they sometimes do it cynically. I wade about a a
Speaker 1: dark money committee that released an ad in favor of
Speaker 1: Harry Reid lambasting dark money. That's pretty cynical as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so both sides do it. The Republicans just do it way,
Speaker 1: way more. Yeah. And I think Hillary Clinton has come
Speaker 1: under fire for her reliance on super packs being attacked
Speaker 1: by Bernie of course, who's like, I don't want any
Speaker 1: part of that stuff. Um, although there are some super
Speaker 1: packs for Bernie, but I think he's disavowed them. Maybe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to look at George Bush disavowed the weekend
Speaker 1: passed his ad to you still benefit from it. It's
Speaker 1: not like he's like, guys, you have to stop. Well
Speaker 1: that was my Bernie standards. No, that was your Larry
Speaker 1: David right. Oh wait, same guy. Uh. Leading up to
Speaker 1: the primaries here in New Hampshire and Iowa not too
Speaker 1: long ago, Bernie came under fire from Hillary because there's
Speaker 1: a group called Friends of the Earth Action. Uh there
Speaker 1: are five oh one c four and um they are
Speaker 1: in strong support of Bernie. And she's like, hey, dude,
Speaker 1: you're getting dark money too from this outfit. Uh. Friends
Speaker 1: of Earth Action said, Hey, first of all, we've been
Speaker 1: around since early seventies. We've been around long before dark
Speaker 1: money has been around. Uh, that's not what we are.
Speaker 1: We are mainly small donor based. Um, do not compare
Speaker 1: us to these corporations. Uh, and you know they have
Speaker 1: a point in a lot of ways. You can't compare
Speaker 1: Friends of Earth action to the Koch brothers. UM. But
Speaker 1: I think Hillary was just trying to get in some like, hey,
Speaker 1: you're not completely clean either, Right, It's true. And the
Speaker 1: Koch brothers is good that you mentioned them because they
Speaker 1: are basically the poster boys for dark money contributions. Right,
Speaker 1: Americans for Prosperity spent thirty six million dollars and that's
Speaker 1: their group right in twelve, UM, and they actually got
Speaker 1: outspent by other groups like Karl Rove created UM Crossroads
Speaker 1: GPS and that are so dumb. They spent seventy one
Speaker 1: million in two thousand twelve. But the Koch Brothers in
Speaker 1: particular have pledged nine hundred million dollars for the two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen cycle. That's how much they're going to
Speaker 1: spend on the two thousand and sixteen cycle. And UM,
Speaker 1: if you read up on those guys and their dark
Speaker 1: money contributions UM or just their general political contributions, they've
Speaker 1: definitely amassed a lot of friends in state legislatures, in
Speaker 1: the Senate, in the in the the UM, the House,
Speaker 1: and the one that's left is the presidency, and they're
Speaker 1: spending a tremendous amount of money making friends with whoever
Speaker 1: is going to become president. All right, so let's talk
Speaker 1: for a second about does money when you in election?
Speaker 1: Because that's really what's it the route here? If money
Speaker 1: doesn't win the elections? And who cares? I take issue
Speaker 1: with that, but go ahead? What what was the issue? Well,
Speaker 1: the issue is like in this article, the author says,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people raise a lot of
Speaker 1: money and flame out, they don't make it even to
Speaker 1: the primary. Look at Jeb Bush. Yeah he I think
Speaker 1: he raised a hundred and three million through super PACs alone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and just burned right through it, didn't get anywhere
Speaker 1: with it. But that's a disingenuous that's a straw argument
Speaker 1: because it's it's saying like, yeah, you can raise all
Speaker 1: the money you want and you're still not gonna win.
Speaker 1: The thing is somebody's gonna win, and the people that
Speaker 1: help them win through these huge donations, they're gonna be
Speaker 1: indebted to those people. Well, I'll help you out even further,
Speaker 1: my friend. Uh. People that say you can spend a
Speaker 1: ton of money and still not win. Who he or
Speaker 1: she who spends the most money almost always wins. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: not sort of. Yeah. Nine out of ten uh in
Speaker 1: the House and eight out of ten in the Senate. Uh,
Speaker 1: winners are the people who spent the most money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: eight two. So you can't ignore that. If you raise
Speaker 1: the most money, you have an eight or nine out,
Speaker 1: it's a chance of winning. So money is buying elections,
Speaker 1: it is. And then people say, well, if these are
Speaker 1: as long as the packs and the super packs in
Speaker 1: the five and one C four is all stay separate
Speaker 1: from the candidate, then and there's no coordination and there's
Speaker 1: no crossover whatever, then the candidates not indebted to these
Speaker 1: people who gave nine million dollars to their campaign. Um,
Speaker 1: which is just the most ridiculous assertion you can possibly
Speaker 1: think of. And I really I read this this um.
Speaker 1: I think it was a Bloomberg article or U S News,
Speaker 1: I can't remember. And it basically explained it how you're
Speaker 1: indebted to these people. It's not necessarily nefarius, although I'm
Speaker 1: quite sure there is a tremendous amount of nefarious nous
Speaker 1: out there. But even if you remove the nefarious angle, right,
Speaker 1: if you are a presidential candidate, and you're moving and shaken. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're going to like the local diner and somewhere in
Speaker 1: like Rhode I Land or whatever and shaking hands or whatever.
Speaker 1: But the people you're really interacting with that you see
Speaker 1: over and over again at the same fundraisers. Those are
Speaker 1: the mega donors. You don't see the dude who's sitting
Speaker 1: at the diner asking you a question more than that
Speaker 1: one time at that one dime you you you do
Speaker 1: see the same mega donors time after time after time
Speaker 1: after time. So the very at least they have your ear,
Speaker 1: and even if they don't have your ear, they become
Speaker 1: who you think of when you think of your electorate,
Speaker 1: These people who you saw time and time and time again,
Speaker 1: who contributed money after money after money. So even if
Speaker 1: you're not saying, yeah, give me some money and I'll
Speaker 1: make your your legal troubles go away with the I
Speaker 1: R S, even if it's not quid pro quo like that,
Speaker 1: there's still a mentality that crops up where if you're
Speaker 1: exposed to these people who are giving you tons of
Speaker 1: cash to get you elected, you're going to equate their
Speaker 1: help with your success at being elected. That's at the
Speaker 1: very least how it influences politics. Yeah, all right, we
Speaker 1: definitely need to take a break now because I can't
Speaker 1: even coming out of your eye ducks. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: You're good, You got the tissue. Yeah good, you're crying
Speaker 1: bloody tears. Uh, I get riled up to man, It's
Speaker 1: just it's when you look at the state of American
Speaker 1: politics these days, it's very hard to not want to
Speaker 1: go live on a deserted island somewhere. Canada your own oligarchy. Yeah, myself,
Speaker 1: I wonder what it's. I don't know much about politics
Speaker 1: around the world. I know other like you know, wealthy
Speaker 1: countries are corrupt as well. Um, like we're leading the
Speaker 1: race though, the race downward. Yeah, I'd like to hear
Speaker 1: from other countries out there, other like big wealthy countries,
Speaker 1: Um about your systems. Yeah, I'm sure they're largely broken. Right.
Speaker 1: Are we the only ones? No, We're definitely not the
Speaker 1: only ones, right the Finns. I mean you look at
Speaker 1: Skaninavia and you're like, yeah, they're like a model of
Speaker 1: of you know, using taxes for good and all that.
Speaker 1: But how much of it do you not hear about?
Speaker 1: Like how much like like waste is there, How much
Speaker 1: graft is there? How you know? I'm like, well, they
Speaker 1: pay so much much in taxes over there. But everything
Speaker 1: we hear though from people in that part of the
Speaker 1: world say we're happy to because everything's great. It's like
Speaker 1: we have no crime, we have no gun violence, everyone's healthy,
Speaker 1: we all get healthcare, schools are awesome, We're all happy.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I'll move to Finland. So we
Speaker 1: we've talked about um, like why how money influences politics,
Speaker 1: But the underlying key is this is if you um,
Speaker 1: if you can purchase campaigns, you can purchase everything else.
Speaker 1: Because you get people who owe you or who you
Speaker 1: have influenced, or who you just share a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of common viewpoints with into office. You back the right horse,
Speaker 1: your guy got in there. Right. You can put it
Speaker 1: as crassly or as nicely as you want, but you
Speaker 1: help get somebody into office, and now they kind of
Speaker 1: owe you, and now the policies are probably going to
Speaker 1: fall into your favor. And just the ability to do
Speaker 1: this is such a symptom of the inequality in the
Speaker 1: United States that we're dealing with right now that I
Speaker 1: think that's what disheartens me the most. It's it's like
Speaker 1: when the Supreme Court rule in two thousand ten, we're
Speaker 1: opening the floodgates, you have a voice individual? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: yeah it did. But did we ever? Was the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court really just saying like, hey, we're gonna take the
Speaker 1: scales off your eyes. Right, We're not. We're gonna take
Speaker 1: away any pretense. Here's how it is. Here's probably how
Speaker 1: it's always been. But now it's legal. Man, just get
Speaker 1: used to it. Yeah, but no one was paying attention
Speaker 1: because people but I mean like back in the seventies
Speaker 1: when Watergate happened, people paid attention to that, you know,
Speaker 1: because the idea that if you were wealthy you could
Speaker 1: become an ambassador for k or that you add access
Speaker 1: to the president. It's always ticked Americans off. Uh. So
Speaker 1: remember when we talked a little bit ago about um,
Speaker 1: the five oh one c fours have to of their
Speaker 1: uh spending cannot be political. Uh no comment on that part.
Speaker 1: But it's unenforceable. Basically, Well, IRIS did try to enforce
Speaker 1: it once. Yes, that's where I was headed. The I
Speaker 1: R s uh made the mistake of going too hard
Speaker 1: at the tea party um because they felt like they
Speaker 1: were the worst offenders, and it backfard on him in
Speaker 1: a big way. Um to say the least, would you say, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: the GOP in Congress came down hard on the i
Speaker 1: r S. They got the I R S director removed
Speaker 1: from her position, got a new person installed, and this
Speaker 1: new guy has basically said, like you know this, I'm
Speaker 1: just going with everything the Supreme Court thinks. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stop enforcing this. And even if the I R
Speaker 1: S wanted to enforce these rules that that they're tasked
Speaker 1: with making sure that there's transparency, right. Um. Uh. The
Speaker 1: Senate actually inserted a couple of bills, and by Senate
Speaker 1: I mean Mitch McConnell, who hates campaign finance laws. Uh,
Speaker 1: he got a couple of bills inserted in the omnibus
Speaker 1: spending bill, a couple of writers. Yes. Um. And if
Speaker 1: you guys, a lot of people may not know what
Speaker 1: an omnibus spending bill is. It's basically a big, large, sweeping, uh,
Speaker 1: set of many many bills and writers all under one banner.
Speaker 1: It pays it's the government's budget. Well yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: a it's they don't have to do with one another.
Speaker 1: You can when you hear like a writer was attached
Speaker 1: to it. That that a lot of times means someone
Speaker 1: is trying to sort of sneak something through. Right, So
Speaker 1: if you attach a rider to the right bill, you
Speaker 1: can get almost anything passed. And you know, I shouldn't
Speaker 1: say sneak something through because it's not like it's in secret,
Speaker 1: but it's a way. It's a very convenient way to
Speaker 1: pass a controversial amendment. Right. Okay, So if you if
Speaker 1: you take a very cherry bill like one that has
Speaker 1: to pass, like the bill that pays for the government
Speaker 1: spending for the next year, and you insert a writer
Speaker 1: in there that says the I R. S is not
Speaker 1: allowed to make clearer rules on UH five oh one,
Speaker 1: S fours and political action committees spending politics, you're gonna
Speaker 1: get it passed. And it did get passed. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: another thing that got passed was, remember when we talked
Speaker 1: about the fact that shareholders wanted to know if their
Speaker 1: corporations who they were donating to, They also got a
Speaker 1: almost had snuck it in. They almost also got in
Speaker 1: a writer that said, no, corporations don't have to do that.
Speaker 1: They did, They said that they said that the SEC
Speaker 1: is not allowed to make rules considering making corporations disclosed
Speaker 1: political contribution. Yeah, you cannot force them to do that.
Speaker 1: So there's a ban on the I R S clarifying
Speaker 1: its rules and the SEC creating a rule just clarifying
Speaker 1: they just wanted it more clearly defined in existing You
Speaker 1: can't do that, but we like it really nebulous. So
Speaker 1: Congress said, sit down when it comes to campaign finance stuff.
Speaker 1: You you don't do your jobs anymore. Your regulatory stuff
Speaker 1: is over with now. Uh, individuals have petitioned uh these
Speaker 1: companies um, and sometimes they voluntarily given it up. But
Speaker 1: if that's the solution, then it's not much of one.
Speaker 1: And then so lastly, so the SEC is down, the
Speaker 1: I R S is down, um, And the last the
Speaker 1: last agency that was tasked with enforcing transparency was the
Speaker 1: Federal Elections Commission itself. Yeah, surely they would step up
Speaker 1: and do the right thing. So the Federal Elections Commission
Speaker 1: is now split three and three along party lines and
Speaker 1: apparently deadlocks as a matter of routine. So you need
Speaker 1: four commissioners for FEC commissioners to take action on anything
Speaker 1: to get a quorum, right, they can't even get a quorum.
Speaker 1: So as far as campaign finance stuff goes, they have
Speaker 1: been sitting on their hands since two thousand ten. And
Speaker 1: there was a couple of rulings about um transparency that
Speaker 1: that that are about the last things they did. So
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven they said, you know that
Speaker 1: McCain fine Gold requirement that says if you spend a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars or more contributing to a political group or campaign,
Speaker 1: you have to disclose it. We the Federal Elections Commission,
Speaker 1: decided that that means that if you spend a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars or more on a political like communication like an AD,
Speaker 1: then you have to disclose it. So that means that
Speaker 1: if you if you contributed a thousand dollars to a
Speaker 1: political action committee, you would have to say this is
Speaker 1: for ads well and for this AD specifically. That came later,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's the way it is now, which no
Speaker 1: one ever does. It's another loophole. So this last thing,
Speaker 1: this last bastion of transparency, to where you had to
Speaker 1: say I donated a thousand dollars or more, you you
Speaker 1: would have to say it is not just for an
Speaker 1: attack AD, it's for attack AD number two thirty eight.
Speaker 1: Hillary hates America. That's what this money is for. And
Speaker 1: like you said, no one does that because they don't
Speaker 1: have to. So you so that as far as the
Speaker 1: Federal Elections Commission is concerned, you don't have to say
Speaker 1: you donated that thousand dollars. Yeah, they don't have to,
Speaker 1: so they won't because they don't want their name attached
Speaker 1: to it, which is the most cowardly thing you can do,
Speaker 1: you know if you think about it. Well, yeah, there's this,
Speaker 1: Well that's the argument. That's a lot of people's argument
Speaker 1: is anonymous political speech keeps you from, um getting blowback
Speaker 1: from the powers that be or whatever. And there was
Speaker 1: this woman who has caught handing out anonymous pamphlets that
Speaker 1: she wrote outside of a polling place, which apparently was
Speaker 1: illegal under McCain fine Gold, and everybody was like, well,
Speaker 1: there's a long, proud tradition of handing out anonymous right.
Speaker 1: The Federalist papers were originally anonymous, and Justice Scalia, who
Speaker 1: was who died recently. Um, he was actually very very conservative,
Speaker 1: and in his descent on that ruling in favor of
Speaker 1: the woman's right to handle out anonymous pamphlets said anonymous
Speaker 1: pamphlets have about as much historic tradition and precedents as
Speaker 1: anonymous phone calls in this country, they're not honorable. There's
Speaker 1: something honorable about anonymously lambasting something that didn't translate to
Speaker 1: the rest of the court as far as Citizens United
Speaker 1: is concerned. Yeah, it's the equivalent of of going in
Speaker 1: the dark of night and like spray painting something on
Speaker 1: a wall and running away. Right, it's true, you know.
Speaker 1: So here's where we're at right now. The Supreme Court
Speaker 1: ruled that corporations are people. They already had ruled that
Speaker 1: they upheld it. Political money is protected speech, right, So
Speaker 1: this opened the floodgates to unlimited money to five O
Speaker 1: one s fours, which are nonprofit action groups who do
Speaker 1: not need to disclose their donor's identities, which means that
Speaker 1: you could you could contribute as much money as you
Speaker 1: wanted to anonymously to a political campaign. So the SEC
Speaker 1: was banned from requiring corporate disclosure, the I r S
Speaker 1: was banned from investigating the political action groups themselves, and
Speaker 1: then the VC the Federal Elections Commission removed the last
Speaker 1: transparency requirements of the donors, and an estimated ten billion
Speaker 1: dollars is going to be spent on this two thousand
Speaker 1: sixteen campaign, five or six billion on the presidency right,
Speaker 1: two billion was spent in two thousand twelve. So the
Speaker 1: big question here is, are you the individual upping your
Speaker 1: political contribution five times? Do you account for this enormous
Speaker 1: increase from two billion to five or six billion dollars? No? No,
Speaker 1: of course not. So there are some folks that started
Speaker 1: digging around and said, all right, who's funding Who's funding
Speaker 1: some of these uh efforts? Uh? Maybe like climate change denial,
Speaker 1: Some somebody's funding this stuff. So there's a guy named
Speaker 1: well at direct the University and Environmental It's like a
Speaker 1: sociologist named Robert Brule. He said, you know what, let
Speaker 1: me look into this and see somebody is giving a
Speaker 1: lot of money to climate change. The aisle and um
Speaker 1: Xon was was given a ton of money like blatantly
Speaker 1: for years and years and again the Koke brothers, the
Speaker 1: Koke brothers, and we all knew that because it was
Speaker 1: all you know on record. But a weird thing happened
Speaker 1: once these changes came about. Um the Koch Brothers, A
Speaker 1: Coke Industries, and x On Mobile their cash flow to
Speaker 1: climate change, and I'll disappeared without a trace Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: traceable stuff. But a hundred and forty foundations funneled almost
Speaker 1: six hundred million dollars to about one hundred climate denial organizations,
Speaker 1: uh since then, and their money dried up, This money
Speaker 1: increased into anonymous five. You don't need to be a
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes to figure out what's going on here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the other thing about a five O one C
Speaker 1: four is, let's say you have a really great um,
Speaker 1: a really great political action committee. You're a really great
Speaker 1: um social uh social awareness group, right um or social
Speaker 1: welfare group, and you don't want to at that brand
Speaker 1: die because it's really established itself, but you don't want
Speaker 1: to keep funneling money to it because climate denial has
Speaker 1: a bad name these days. Right, You can funnel money
Speaker 1: to a five oh one C four that funnels money
Speaker 1: to that political action committee, and you your donation, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's basically laundered. You're laundering your donation, turning it anonymous.
Speaker 1: But it's still having the same effect, the same outcome
Speaker 1: thanks to that loophole. Yeah, and then one more chuck.
Speaker 1: One more criticism of this whole thing is if you say,
Speaker 1: so what who cares? This is the way the world works,
Speaker 1: especially with corporations in particular, if they start doing what's
Speaker 1: called rent seeking, which is there's a there's an established pie,
Speaker 1: and when you rent seek, you go to get your
Speaker 1: piece of the pie. It keeps you from innovating. You
Speaker 1: start going spending your money on legislation. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: renting is basically if you're a big corporation spending a
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars on lobbying for regulations against your competitor
Speaker 1: instead of spending that one hundred million dollars investing in
Speaker 1: your own corporation to grow, which is no good for shareholders. No,
Speaker 1: your bottom line still kind of goes up, but really
Speaker 1: you're just reaching the path towards stagnation because you're not
Speaker 1: innovating anymore. And the public loses out because regulation decreases. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: jobs are lost because you're not innovating, and then as
Speaker 1: far as consumers are concerned, there's like less stuff to
Speaker 1: buy because the corporations are going for the piece of
Speaker 1: the pie rather than making the pie bigger or creating
Speaker 1: new pies. Yeah, they going for the money that's already
Speaker 1: out there. So so the solution I think is strictly
Speaker 1: public financing of campaigns, like I have no problem with that.
Speaker 1: Just say, here's a hundred million dollars to the candidates
Speaker 1: who won the primaries, right and um, get creative. This
Speaker 1: is all you got, you are. It's illegal to use
Speaker 1: another penny outside of these public funds that were just
Speaker 1: given to you as the the party candidates go to it.
Speaker 1: Everything else is totally illegal. I can't imagine what a
Speaker 1: sea change it would be in politics. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: there would be another loophole. Well, you know what would
Speaker 1: happen is suddenly these um, these political action committees would
Speaker 1: start attacking this idea, saying, you, Joe Schmo, you can't
Speaker 1: vote with your or you can't your political speech from
Speaker 1: your campaign contributions being restricted. Your First Amendment rights are
Speaker 1: being restricted. Going to give which is suddenly taken on
Speaker 1: huge dimensions of import Uh, it's being restricted. And that's
Speaker 1: exactly what would happen. Who So we moved into Finland. No,
Speaker 1: we need to take this country back. Man. What's the
Speaker 1: best country? That's what I want to know from listeners,
Speaker 1: which one is the best? I can't wait to hear
Speaker 1: Costa Rica. That's pretty nice, right if you want to
Speaker 1: know more about campaign finance, dark money, all that jazz,
Speaker 1: we want you to go check it out. Look up
Speaker 1: dark money in the search bar at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com, and just check out dark money all over
Speaker 1: the web, including Jane Mayer from The New Yorker wrote
Speaker 1: a really interesting book called dark Money All about the
Speaker 1: Koch Brothers. Yeah, fantastic. Well, since I said Jane Mayer,
Speaker 1: it's time for listener now, all right, I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: this one uh maybe appropriate for this well, not really
Speaker 1: somebody funding us. This is from a coal miner about
Speaker 1: our Bill Gates podcast. He said, Hey, guys, one problem
Speaker 1: that no one ever seems to talk about with renewable
Speaker 1: energy is the people. The people you ask, well, I
Speaker 1: was an underground coal miner for seven years until the
Speaker 1: market got so bad that I lost my job. And
Speaker 1: I'm just one of seven thousand plus people here in
Speaker 1: eastern Kentucky that has been hit hard by this. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying we need to stick with coal, it's just
Speaker 1: the people. Don't think about the people that are behind
Speaker 1: the fossil fuel industry losing jobs. Not only are people
Speaker 1: losing their way of life, but entire towns are being killed.
Speaker 1: I can't count how many people have had to leave
Speaker 1: the place that they've called home their entire life to
Speaker 1: find work. Along with new renewable, cheaper energy, we need
Speaker 1: to find jobs to fill that void of those who
Speaker 1: have been lost. Yeah you know. I mean it's not
Speaker 1: like because creating renewable energy creates a lot of jobs,
Speaker 1: but they're not going to the coal miners. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But however, this is kind of neat. UM.
Speaker 1: I was lucky enough to find work at bit Source,
Speaker 1: a tech start up here. Uh. The company hired ten
Speaker 1: former coal miners and began teaching us how to web
Speaker 1: and how to be web and software developers. Uh. The
Speaker 1: only problem is there only ten of us, uh, and
Speaker 1: it's just this one company, and they cannot feel the
Speaker 1: void of all those who lost jobs. I know that
Speaker 1: you guys might be able to help shed some light
Speaker 1: on this problem. Like I said, no one thinks about
Speaker 1: the people and the families that are hurt by progress,
Speaker 1: but it happens. Someone told me once, you can be
Speaker 1: the best wheelmaker out there, but if no one needs
Speaker 1: wheels anymore, doesn't matter how good you are. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the podcast. I love to listen on my drive to
Speaker 1: and from work. That is Michael Harrison. That is a
Speaker 1: great point, Michael. Everybody should do something or maybe train
Speaker 1: these people in new renewable energy boards. Sure, and this
Speaker 1: bit source company is a pretty good example of how
Speaker 1: the market can can swoop in and in foster progress basically, right. Sure,
Speaker 1: But the fact that they're hiring ten coal miners out
Speaker 1: of seven thousand who need jobs is also an example
Speaker 1: of how the market doesn't do that. And like you could,
Speaker 1: this is where government comes in government spending. Say okay,
Speaker 1: let's move forward and lay the infrastructure for an enormous
Speaker 1: high speed internet um national grid. We need people to
Speaker 1: install that, we need people to design it, we need
Speaker 1: people to develop it, we need people to maintain it.
Speaker 1: Let's take people who don't have jobs, train them to
Speaker 1: do this stuff, build this infrastruct sure, and just take
Speaker 1: off like a rocket from there. That's one thing you
Speaker 1: could do, agreed. Uh. Man, we're gonna get some mail
Speaker 1: for this whole episode. Good. Uh. If you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us to let us know what
Speaker 1: you think about this whole jam, you can tweet to
Speaker 1: us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
Speaker 1: us on Facebook, dot com slash Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to stuff podcast how
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