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Speaker 1: Mmm, Hello, dear friends, I remembered Evans And this is

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Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards to show where we tell you everything

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Speaker 1: you don't know about the very worst people in all

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Speaker 1: of history. Now, this is part two of our epic

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Speaker 1: two part episode on Charles Coke. Uh and with me

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Speaker 1: as within. The first episode is Ever Maynard Hello, Star

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Speaker 1: of the Fields on Netflix Kickboxing Expert. Yeah you can

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Speaker 1: say that, m M a commentor yeah, yeah, definitely, big

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Speaker 1: YouTube commenter. I love yeah, read it, yelped any any

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Speaker 1: platform where I can make a comment. I'm going to comment.

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Speaker 1: You know what I love about the Internet is lets you,

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Speaker 1: lets you anonymously threatened people. Oh it's never anonymous? Yes,

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Speaker 1: fight me. So last episode, how would you sum up

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Speaker 1: what we learned about Charles Coke? Last episode? No joke.

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Speaker 1: My tummy started rumbling and I thought I was going

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Speaker 1: to have to run out to the bathroom because I

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Speaker 1: was filled with a lot of sorrow. And then how

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Speaker 1: many lives were destroyed even through like cancer and that

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Speaker 1: like lineage of of that one story, like you know,

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Speaker 1: like his family's fucked, but then you know at one point,

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Speaker 1: like what a blessing is a job? He has stability,

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Speaker 1: but then that thing ended up being the snake that

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Speaker 1: bit him. Yeah, yeah, you know, and that's I mean,

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Speaker 1: we don't even know about in a way, that's him,

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Speaker 1: but being like, hey, like what it what was it?

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Speaker 1: Like you can pay to be a slave or get Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Freedom School, which Charles Coke funded early on in

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Speaker 1: his life. In a way, it's sort of like that

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Speaker 1: without them realizing it. Yeah, that's what's going on. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you won't sell yourself into slavery, I will show

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Speaker 1: you as little human concern as I would show for

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Speaker 1: a slave, and then just trust that most of you

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Speaker 1: won't realize how badly you got sucked over and sue me. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because like Daniel Carlson, that guy sued. But I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: guess there's a lot of people who didn't sue, who

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Speaker 1: got sucked over and just didn't connect the dots well enough,

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Speaker 1: you know, got Leukemian assumed it was their cigarette smoking

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Speaker 1: rather than being bathed in benzene all day long. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: let's yeah, I want to open this up by repeating

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Speaker 1: a quote Charles Coke wrote in that nineteen seventy eight

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Speaker 1: Libertarian Reader article where he sort of argued that business

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Speaker 1: owners should fight against government regulation at all costs. Do

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Speaker 1: not cooperate voluntarily. Instead, resist wherever and to whatever extent

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Speaker 1: you legally can, and do so in the name of justice.

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Speaker 1: So let's start today by talking about some more of

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Speaker 1: the ship Charles Coke and his company did in the

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Speaker 1: name of justice. I'm going to quote from the book

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Speaker 1: Dark Money here. Carnell Green was a pipeline technician and

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Speaker 1: gas meter serviceman for Coke Industries. When he ran a

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Speaker 1: foul of the management. He had to work for the

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Speaker 1: company from nineteen seventy six until nineteen ninety six, during

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Speaker 1: which time he said he was told to sweep mercury

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Speaker 1: spills from the thirty six guests meters he monitored out

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Speaker 1: on the door and onto the ground. He said that

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Speaker 1: he was also told to dispose of the old meters,

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Speaker 1: which contained about a quart of mercury each, in dumpsters,

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Speaker 1: and to pour additional containers of mercury down the sink.

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Speaker 1: As he witnessed his supervisor doing. You're lying, Green said

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Speaker 1: the mercury was so pervasive. When he got home, balls

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Speaker 1: of it would roll off of his clothes and out

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Speaker 1: of his shoes. That's not right, that's not good. That's

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Speaker 1: supposed to pour mercury down the sink, get in the

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Speaker 1: water tables bad. Wow. Yeah, I don't think Charles Coke

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Speaker 1: drinks a lot of tap water. So when Green made

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Speaker 1: a fuss about the rampant mercury exposure, he was approached

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Speaker 1: by FBI Special Agent Mormon, who told him that he

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Speaker 1: was lying about this and he'd better shut up if

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Speaker 1: he knew it was good for him. Green supervisor gave

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Speaker 1: him a statement to sign to confirm that he hadn't

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Speaker 1: seen any mercury and coke buildings, so he got the

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Speaker 1: FBI invall. Okay, when FBI at all, My gosh, there's

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Speaker 1: an episode in Riverdale where okay, where this guy's like,

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Speaker 1: I'm an FBI agent or she's like I don't know

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Speaker 1: what to do, and he's like, honey, to be a mall.

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Speaker 1: And then it turned out, oh, ding dong, it was

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Speaker 1: that dude's dad guy pretending to be an FBI agent.

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Speaker 1: Now I see where the writers got it. It happens

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Speaker 1: as shipload in the Coke story. This is the only

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Speaker 1: time we're bringing it up in here, but in Dark

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Speaker 1: Money and in other reports, there's a ton of times

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Speaker 1: where Coke secure like by the way, were and then

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Speaker 1: they bullied them. Wow, okay, didn't interrupt but continue. No, no,

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Speaker 1: it's fine. So Green, the guy who was not comfortable

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Speaker 1: with all of the mercury poisoning he was seeing, filed

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Speaker 1: to complaint with OSHA anyway and was fired from making

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Speaker 1: false statements. It later turned out that Special Agent Mormon

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Speaker 1: was a Coke security employee and not an FBI agent

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Speaker 1: as you guessed. That's got to feel really good for

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Speaker 1: that all all parties involved, that fake FBI agent the manager. Wow,

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Speaker 1: it's fun. Um. So there is a long history, as

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Speaker 1: you might have guessed, of regulatory fer you by Coke Industries.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to a tangled web of India's hush payments and

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Speaker 1: law nonsense. It's often hard to pin down the exact nonsense.

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Speaker 1: It's a good name for a TV show. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: hard for us though, to get like exact numbers. This

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Speaker 1: is how many people were hospitalized or made sick or whatever. Um.

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Speaker 1: But there are some crystal clear examples we get of

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Speaker 1: times Charles Coke's corporate philosophy got people killed. A man

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Speaker 1: in Kemp, Texas he noticed an odd gassy smell all

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Speaker 1: around his neighborhood we're both Texans listeners to these. She

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Speaker 1: didn't cast this from the first one. Yeah, I get it.

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Speaker 1: Cooke brothers really fucked around the lot in Texas. Yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: a man in Kemp noticed an odd gassy smell around

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Speaker 1: his neighborhood. He sent his daughter, Danielle Smalley and her

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Speaker 1: friend Jason stone Uh to go report it. The two

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Speaker 1: seventeen year olds got into their car and turned it on,

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Speaker 1: and a spark from the ignition lit the gas and

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Speaker 1: caused a gigantic explosion that killed them both instantly. Here

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Speaker 1: is a quote from South Coast Today, a newspaper reporting

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Speaker 1: on it at the time. Quote flames reaching dozens of

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Speaker 1: feet high and a column of black smoke could be

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Speaker 1: seen from miles and firefighters from six communities were called in.

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Speaker 1: While I was sitting there at ignited, said resident Rick Burgett.

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Speaker 1: The flames came almost up to the front door of

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Speaker 1: my house. It was probably about a hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: degrees on my porch. The culprit was found to be

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Speaker 1: an eight inch wide gas pipeline stretching from the Medford

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Speaker 1: stretching from Medford, Oklahoma to Mount Bellevue, Texas, and operated

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Speaker 1: by Coke Industries. Calls to company headquarters in Wichita, Kansas,

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Speaker 1: Saturday night were not answered, so when the FED started

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Speaker 1: examining the pipeline, they found severe corrosion and mechanical damage

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Speaker 1: so extensive it was described as quote Swiss cheese. Coke

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Speaker 1: Industries had actually stopped using the pipeline in N two,

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Speaker 1: but in ninetive they realized they could start making a

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Speaker 1: few million dollars extra a year if they got it

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Speaker 1: back into service, so they did the minimum amount of

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Speaker 1: necessary repair work. I'm going to quote now from a

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Speaker 1: Rolling Stone article inside the Coke Brothers Toxic Empire. When

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Speaker 1: Coke decided to started up again in n a water

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Speaker 1: pressure test had blown the pipe open. An inspection of

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Speaker 1: just a few dozen miles of pipe near the Smalley

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Speaker 1: home found five hundred and thirty eight corrosion defects. The

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Speaker 1: industry's term of art for a pipeline in this condition

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Speaker 1: is Swiss cheese. According to the testimony, even expert witness,

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Speaker 1: essentially the pipeline is gone. This is what a witness

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Speaker 1: says at time, like the pipeline almost doesn't exist, it's

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Speaker 1: so full of holes. So Coke Industries repaired eighty of

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Speaker 1: the five hundred and thirty eight defects just yet, just

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Speaker 1: enough that it could pass the pressure test again, and

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Speaker 1: then they started flowing highly explosive ship through it. Now,

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Speaker 1: one month after they started running fluid again, Coke employees

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Speaker 1: found that one of the anti corrosion systems they'd installed

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Speaker 1: had malfunctioned. They just didn't fix it. The pipeline repair

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Speaker 1: efforts had occurred during a time when Charles Coke had

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Speaker 1: told his managers he wanted costs cut so that they

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Speaker 1: could increase profits by five and fifty million per year.

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Speaker 1: That April, he'd sent out a message that demanded expense

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Speaker 1: cuts of ten quote through the elimination of waste. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure they're is much more than that. Of course, the

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Speaker 1: getting this pipeline back an option and not putting in

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Speaker 1: proper like, not properly repairing it was part of this

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Speaker 1: cost cutting thing, and it led to two deaths in

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Speaker 1: a huge amount of property damage. I think it led

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Speaker 1: to a lot more than two deaths. Yeah, it led

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Speaker 1: to two deaths that are very easy to trace to. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean who knows from the poisoning wid Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: because gas is leaking out everywhere. It can't be good

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Speaker 1: for people there the water to soil and crops grown

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Speaker 1: exactly what Yeah, uh, there was a trial, of course,

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Speaker 1: and it did not go well for Coke Industries. Here's

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Speaker 1: the rolling stone again. A former Coke manager Kenneth Whitstein

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Speaker 1: with Stein with Stein. Yeah, a look at how this name.

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Speaker 1: Look at how this name is spelled. Everything is spelled wrong.

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Speaker 1: Cannot a former coach manager kin Off white steinet Off

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Speaker 1: get over here? A former Coke manager Kenneth white Stein

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Speaker 1: testified to indictments or to incidents in which Coke Industries

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Speaker 1: placed profits over public safety. As one supervisor had told him,

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Speaker 1: regulatory finds quote usually didn't amount to much, and besides,

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Speaker 1: the company had quote a stable full of lawyers in

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Speaker 1: Wichita that handled those situations. When whitt Stein told another

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Speaker 1: manager he was concerned that unsafe pipelines could cause a

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Speaker 1: deadly accident, this manager said that it was more profitable

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Speaker 1: for the company to risk litigation than to repair faulty equipment.

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Speaker 1: A lot like life insurance or car insurance insurance companies

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Speaker 1: in general. Weird that all of these people are terrible.

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Speaker 1: In the same way, the company could quote pay off

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Speaker 1: a lawsuit from an incident and still be money ahead,

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Speaker 1: he said, describing the principles of market based management to

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Speaker 1: a t. Yeah. So uh, kinn Off, No, Kinnoth is

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Speaker 1: the guy who tried to report some of the unsafe

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Speaker 1: stuff it did. Yeah, we should, but just kin Off

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Speaker 1: k E N O T H. It's Kenneth. We all

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Speaker 1: know the name. No, it's I'm judgmental and angry. Talk

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Speaker 1: about a witch alignment. So yeah, Rolling Stone draws a

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Speaker 1: direct connection between these deaths and what was done with

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Speaker 1: that pipeline and market based management um because undermarket based management,

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Speaker 1: again the whole company, all these business units are competing.

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Speaker 1: But it also sort of encourages people to look at fines.

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Speaker 1: You know, a fine is supposed to be it's supposed

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Speaker 1: to be a punishment for doing something wrong, for causing damage.

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Speaker 1: But in coke companies, it wasn't. They weren't seen that

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Speaker 1: they would. They were seen as essentially a cheaper alternative

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Speaker 1: to the repairs. The fines cost this much. The repairs

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Speaker 1: cost this much. Oh, it's much more sound to pay

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Speaker 1: for the pay for the fines if we incur them.

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Speaker 1: So Coke Industries was ordered to pay two nine six

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Speaker 1: million dollars to Danielle's father. At that point in time,

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Speaker 1: it was the largest wrongful death suit in US legal history.

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Speaker 1: They settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, but

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Speaker 1: it was probably a significant amount of money, and this

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Speaker 1: judgment actually hurt. It wasn't the only one either. As

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Speaker 1: Coke Industries got in increasing hot water over the nineteen nineties,

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Speaker 1: they paid out more and more in legal fees and

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Speaker 1: in fines. Charles Coke was even forced to acknowledge this

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Speaker 1: sort of in his two thousand and seven self help

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Speaker 1: book The Science of Success. Excuse me, it was more

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Speaker 1: of like a business book, but one of those books

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Speaker 1: people who want to start businesses read. Have you guys

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Speaker 1: while we're talking about him, Uh, there's a documentary on Netflix.

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Speaker 1: It's about this wine guy that fooled everybody. Have you

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Speaker 1: heard about this? It's like a fake wine dude. And

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Speaker 1: I think they Yeah, but he's like selling people all

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Speaker 1: these like wines or like you know, see that. I

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Speaker 1: support I think that he They interview one of the

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Speaker 1: coach brothers. Brothers. I hope, I hope you can tricked him.

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Speaker 1: I hope he tricked hope. They're always getting swindled Okay. Anyways,

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Speaker 1: he wrote a self help book. Yeah, he wrote a

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Speaker 1: self well he wrote yeah, he wrote this book, The

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Speaker 1: Science of Success, where he sort of acknowledged all of

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Speaker 1: the Yeah, this is what he wrote. At the time,

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Speaker 1: while business was booming, it was becoming increasingly regulated, we

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Speaker 1: kept thinking and acting as if we lived in a

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Speaker 1: pure market economy. The reality was far different. So this

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Speaker 1: is what he also down to is, oh, we just

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Speaker 1: were acting like it was a pure market economy. And

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Speaker 1: in a pure market economy, you can flow explosive gas

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Speaker 1: through a pipeline that's not even functioning as a pipeline

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Speaker 1: and runs directly under the homes of human beings because

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Speaker 1: that's fine. The market says it's fine. So whatever you're

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Speaker 1: doing is okay, it's all about it's all about the market.

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Speaker 1: The markets. His fucking that's his child, that's his child,

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Speaker 1: that's the force to Charles Coke, and he's again Luke

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Speaker 1: Skywalker of rich people. I don't know, maybe I shouldn't

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Speaker 1: keep trying to draw it back to Star Wars, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what I'm doing, and you can't knowing to stop me.

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Speaker 1: It's already been a theme running through the show. So

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Speaker 1: the increasing regulatory costs and whatnot had a number of

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Speaker 1: effects on Charles Coke and his businesses. One of these

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Speaker 1: effects seems to be that his company started to obey

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Speaker 1: more regulations and commit fewer blatant environmental crimes in the

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Speaker 1: late nineties and early two thousand's. Charles viewed this as

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Speaker 1: a temporary setback. The laws were just a reflection of

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Speaker 1: the culture, and he had a plan to change both.

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Speaker 1: In n Charles Coke helped to launch viatins of thousands

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Speaker 1: of dollars in funding the Center for Libertarian Studies in

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Speaker 1: New York City. Now libertarianism wasn't as wasn't much of

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Speaker 1: a force in society at this point. Charles wanted to

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Speaker 1: change that, and he knew he had to start by

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Speaker 1: incubating a new generation or nineteen seventy six did I

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Speaker 1: say I'm gonna read this again? Sorry? In nineteen seventy six,

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Speaker 1: Charles Coke had helped to launch, via tens of thousands

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Speaker 1: of dollars, the Center for Libertarian Studies in New York City.

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Speaker 1: Now libertarianism wasn't much of a force in society at

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Speaker 1: this point, and Charles wanted to change that. He knew

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Speaker 1: he had to start by incubating a new generation of

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Speaker 1: political pundits who could help sell his ideology to the

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Speaker 1: nation at large. There's a quote from Charles, the development

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Speaker 1: of talent is or should be, the major point of

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Speaker 1: all these efforts. By talent, I mean those rare, exceptionally

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Speaker 1: capable scholars or communicators willing to dedicate their lives to

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Speaker 1: the cause of individual liberty. Charles's actual political goals were

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Speaker 1: terrifying the most Americans, even most conservatives. He supported an

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Speaker 1: into social security, to all forms of public welfare, to

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Speaker 1: most of the military. One libertarian writer who interviewed him

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Speaker 1: said his goal was to destroy government quote at the route.

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Speaker 1: Now there are a number of theories as to why

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Speaker 1: this was Charles's mission in life. Clayton Coppin, that researcher

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Speaker 1: who worked for Bill and Charles Coke and wrote a

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Speaker 1: book about him, basically thinks the latter's hatred of the

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Speaker 1: government came out of the harsh discipline of his childhood. Quote.

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Speaker 1: Only the governments and the courts remained as sources of authority,

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Speaker 1: so Coke had to destroy them too. That's this guy's theory,

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Speaker 1: and it seems credible. By nineteen eighty Charles Coke decided

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Speaker 1: he had just about enough of sitting in the shadows,

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Speaker 1: funding libertarian think tanks and ignoring life saving regulations. It

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Speaker 1: was time to get political, or rather, it was time

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Speaker 1: for his brother David to get political, because Charles was

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Speaker 1: really really into being the whole guy pulling strings from

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Speaker 1: the shadows. So, since the Cooke brothers were by this

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Speaker 1: point billionaires and then sort of their own right, they

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Speaker 1: decided that jumping into state level politics or even running

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Speaker 1: for Congress was two small means for them. Since they

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Speaker 1: were already supporting Libertarian Party presidential candidate Ed Clark in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty election, they decided to just make David

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Speaker 1: his running mate. This allowed them to conveniently ignore all

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Speaker 1: limits on pain contributions. Since David was he could spend

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Speaker 1: all the money he wanted, which he did, providing six

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Speaker 1: of Libertarian parties election budget that year. During the election,

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Speaker 1: Clark told The Nation that magazine The Nation that Libertarians

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Speaker 1: planned quote a very big tea party because America was

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Speaker 1: quote sick to death of taxes. The Clark Coke campaign

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Speaker 1: advocated for, among other things, the repeal of the minimum wage,

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Speaker 1: the repeal of all child labor laws, the end of

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Speaker 1: all forms of public assistance, and the destruction of the

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Speaker 1: f d A. Yeah. Yeah, that that that famous enemy

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Speaker 1: of liberty. The You know what I hate is when

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Speaker 1: people tell me I can't sell expired food to kids.

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Speaker 1: Really pisses me, really gets going. They have the freedom

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Speaker 1: to eat expired food, they should have them. They should

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Speaker 1: make that decision themselves. Yeah, exactly, you get it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I understand, Yeah, he understand freedom. Freedom is lying about

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Speaker 1: the age of Shockingly, most Americans did not get on

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Speaker 1: board with the coke platform of let children work and

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Speaker 1: sell people poison. The Libertarian Party was probably received less

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Speaker 1: of the vote that year than perennial right and candidate

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Speaker 1: Batman told you Batman. Yeah. It was a heavy blow

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Speaker 1: to Charles, but being a heroic soul, he was not

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Speaker 1: about to let the bastards grind him down. He refined

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Speaker 1: his strategies in he finally got it right. During that

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Speaker 1: election cycle, he and his brother found a way to

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Speaker 1: funnel millions of dollars, probably more than they'd ever spent

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Speaker 1: on an election, towards a variety of right wing candidates.

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Speaker 1: We know that through their company they spent three hundred

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Speaker 1: and eight hundred dollars on congressional candidates that year, but

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Speaker 1: the Senate campaign finance investigators suspect they spent millions and

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Speaker 1: just funneled it through a variety of dark money groups.

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Speaker 1: One of these groups was a company called Triad Management.

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Speaker 1: Triad spent a huge amount of money running vicious attack

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Speaker 1: ads and several very close races. One of these was

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Speaker 1: the race between Sam brown Back, a Republican, and Jill Docking,

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Speaker 1: a Democrat, in Kansas. Shortly before the election, thousands of

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Speaker 1: voters received this phone call quote, we think it's important

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Speaker 1: for people to know that Jill talking is Jewish. Please

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Speaker 1: vote for Sam brown Back. That's the whole message. It's

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Speaker 1: important to note Jewish. She didn't make a point of

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Speaker 1: this in her campaign, so we'll let you know. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Now this had a major impact on the election, which

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Speaker 1: we'll get to in a minute, but it was noticed

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Speaker 1: at the time. The blowback from all of this dark

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Speaker 1: money and you know, rampant anti Semitism led to a

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Speaker 1: Senate investigation on illegal fundraising. America being America. The Republicans

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Speaker 1: in the Senate focused on investigating whether Clinton whether the

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Speaker 1: Clinton re election campaign had illegally accepted money from China. Well,

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Speaker 1: the Democrats focused on determining whether or not the Koke

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Speaker 1: brothers and their fellow rich people had violated campaign finance

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Speaker 1: law in order to support the Republican Party. To be

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Speaker 1: perfectly fair, there absolutely seems to have been some shadiness

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Speaker 1: between the Clintons, or at least their campaign and Chinese donors. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The Early Times actually broke that story. We're not going

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Speaker 1: to go into detail here, but I don't want anyone

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Speaker 1: to think that the Democrats are blameless in the dark

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Speaker 1: money game. Uh. That said, the Senate investigation into the

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Speaker 1: nineteen nine elections seems to have gotten so consumed with

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Speaker 1: what about ism that very little was actually done to

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Speaker 1: stop the problems that had led to both scandals. The

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Speaker 1: Democratic Minority report in the investigation stated, quote the facts

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Speaker 1: suggests that these individuals spent millions of dollars to effect

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Speaker 1: over two dozen federal elections despite operating completely outside of

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Speaker 1: federal election laws. Now we know that Triad spent three

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Speaker 1: million dollars on twenty six House and Senate races in

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Speaker 1: nineteen and we know that the Economic Education Trust, funded

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Speaker 1: by the Koch brothers paid for more than half of this.

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Speaker 1: Democratic investigators found that most of the purchase ads were

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Speaker 1: like that famous brown back jew ad, focused towards assaulting

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Speaker 1: specific candidates rather than promoting anything. Most of the candidates

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Speaker 1: targeted were in districts where the Koch brothers had large

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Speaker 1: business interests. The money that was put into Triad was

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Speaker 1: then poured out via two different nonprofits, Citizens for Reform

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Speaker 1: and Citizens for the Republic, neither of which had any

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Speaker 1: offices or desks, and both of which seemed to exist

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Speaker 1: as just away for Triad to further obvious skate the operations. Now,

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Speaker 1: like I said, the other half of this investigation was

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Speaker 1: into improprieties between China and the Clinton campaign. Republicans called

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Speaker 1: for three subpoenas to investigate this, and they got three

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen. Democrats meanwhile, called for two hundred subpoenas

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Speaker 1: to investigate all this coke shading nous and received eighty nine.

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Speaker 1: Excuse me, yeah, it doesn't seem fair, right, it seems

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Speaker 1: a little messed up. Whatever. The subpoenas that were issued revealed,

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Speaker 1: among other things, one million in spending on four congressional

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Speaker 1: races in Kansas, including four D twenty thousand on television

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Speaker 1: ads in the race between Sam brown Back and Jill Docking. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and Jill Docking who. I don't know if you caught on.

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Speaker 1: This was important, very important. Uh. In two thousand to,

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Speaker 1: the Federal Election Commission sued the owner of Triad Management

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Speaker 1: for failing to register as a political organization. The owner,

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Speaker 1: a lady named Malanik, was forced to pay a fine

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Speaker 1: and submit donor receipts to the FEC. She refused to

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Speaker 1: do this, She said, quote, the bottom line is you

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Speaker 1: can't buy your honor or integrity back. My word was

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Speaker 1: my bond. She followed for Chapter seven bankruptcy and two

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Speaker 1: thousand six, but still stands by her work in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. She's claimed that Tread's business model was ahead

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Speaker 1: of its time, which is hard to argue with. Holy

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Speaker 1: sh it, it's crazy how these guys really are the

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Speaker 1: pioneers and how much history they are. The Christopher Columbuses

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Speaker 1: of campaign finance slaughtering. Yeah, in a couple of ways.

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Speaker 1: In every way, you could be the Columbus. Yeah. Disgusting, terrible,

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Speaker 1: you know it's not disgusting into products and services that

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Speaker 1: support this podcast? Agree with you? Where are those products? Oh?

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Speaker 1: Just you wait and see, and we're back. We just

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Speaker 1: got finished talking about the nine elections in which the

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Speaker 1: Koch brothers pioneered what we would now just describe as

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Speaker 1: the way that election ads are funded. Uh, they sort

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Speaker 1: of invented that in the nineteen nineties. Yeah, funneling dark

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Speaker 1: money around through a bunch of different groups that when

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Speaker 1: you say dark money, it sounds almost exotic. So we

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Speaker 1: got a tiny change that dark Yeah, it's like dark chocolate.

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Speaker 1: It's money. I'm involved with some shady things, but don't worry,

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Speaker 1: it's just dark money. I would love to go out,

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Speaker 1: like with a friend to a restaurant and then tip

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Speaker 1: the waitress or waiter in dark money and be like,

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Speaker 1: you know what, because this was so good, I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to pay you in regular money. Here's some dark money,

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Speaker 1: than you spend that on something dark. I feel sad. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I feel very sad. I felt when I came into

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Speaker 1: this podcast. I felt great. I really did. I like

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Speaker 1: meditated for two hours today and then now I'm just like, like,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna go home and cry. Probably almost cried a

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Speaker 1: minute ago. Well, that's our goal with Behind the Bastards,

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Speaker 1: you know. I hope that when people listen to the

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Speaker 1: show in their morning commute or during their workout, they're

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Speaker 1: just a little bit more furious the rest of the day.

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Speaker 1: Perfect workout juice. Even what else is great? Workout juice, Celsius,

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Speaker 1: I thought you were going to do it. I'll do

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Speaker 1: a Dorito's at They're also great for workouts because they're

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Speaker 1: high end protein compared to nothing. Some amount of protein delightful.

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Speaker 1: I'm always down for some amount of protein. That's the

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Speaker 1: right amount. All right, let's get back into the tail

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Speaker 1: um now. The money that the Cokes through directly at

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Speaker 1: elections during the late nineties and early two thousand's was

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Speaker 1: more of a stop gap than anything. From what I

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Speaker 1: can tell, it was targeted at races that would directly

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Speaker 1: impact coke industries business. So most of what they're spending

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Speaker 1: in this period, like the late nineties is towards races

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Speaker 1: where there was would be a direct impact based on

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Speaker 1: who one on their on their their business interests um

427
00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:49,240
Speaker 1: kind of what's going on right now and always it's

428
00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:54,000
Speaker 1: always going, always going on. Charles Coke does a step

429
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:56,640
Speaker 1: about it because he's not just for a lot of companies.

430
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:59,080
Speaker 1: I think funding races that are going to you know,

431
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:01,760
Speaker 1: wear a certain per and winds that benefits the company.

432
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:04,439
Speaker 1: That's kind of the end of their thinking. Coke is

433
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:07,639
Speaker 1: playing a very long game here. He's not just trying

434
00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:10,160
Speaker 1: to he's trying to change American culture. I bet he's

435
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:14,120
Speaker 1: really hard right now. Seeing what's going on, you might

436
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:19,359
Speaker 1: be surprised, uh so um in. From the late nineteen

437
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 1: seventies into the early two thousand's, the Coke brothers, namely Charles,

438
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:25,879
Speaker 1: seated a shipload of institutions and think tanks with their money.

439
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,000
Speaker 1: This was Charles Coke's long con. In nineteen seventy eight,

440
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:31,720
Speaker 1: he had written that quote, ideas do not spread by themselves.

441
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:34,439
Speaker 1: They spread only through people, which means we need a movement.

442
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:36,720
Speaker 1: Only with the movement can we build an effective force

443
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:39,720
Speaker 1: for social change. So for decades he's he'd embarked on

444
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:42,480
Speaker 1: a strategy of funding academics and pundits, people like Lafev

445
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:45,439
Speaker 1: and his Freedom School, but also more mainstream libertarian groups

446
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 1: like the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute in the

447
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:54,000
Speaker 1: diet No. His goal with all this was to achieve

448
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 1: something deeper than the short term anger a racy campaign

449
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 1: ad kit spark. Charles believed that by provoting enough voices

450
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: who would repeat his ideas throughout the culture. He could

451
00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: change that culture. Now, according to Charles, young people were

452
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:06,920
Speaker 1: quote the only group that is open to a radically

453
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:09,679
Speaker 1: different social philosophy. So they were the group he focused

454
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 1: most of his resources on. In order to accomplish this,

455
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:16,040
Speaker 1: he and his fellow travelers looked too. When you say travelers,

456
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: I think of like a merry band. No, are you

457
00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 1: going to guess who they look to for advice on

458
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:29,359
Speaker 1: recruiting children? Oh tell me it's the Nazis. The Nazis

459
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,359
Speaker 1: I quote from Dark Money here in support of building

460
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 1: their own youth movement. Another speaker, the libertarian historian Leonard Lego,

461
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 1: cited the success of the Nazi model in his paper

462
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:43,160
Speaker 1: titled National Socialist Political Strategy Social Change in a modern

463
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:47,439
Speaker 1: industrial society with an authoritarian tradition. Likio, who was affiliated

464
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:50,119
Speaker 1: with a Coke funded Institute for Humane Studies from nineteen

465
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:53,879
Speaker 1: seventy four until, described the Nazi successful creation of a

466
00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: youth movement as key to their capture of the state.

467
00:24:56,520 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 1: Like the Nazis, he suggested libertarians should organize university students

468
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:06,199
Speaker 1: to create group identity. Now, some people might say that

469
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 1: if you ever find yourself saying like the Nazis, we

470
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:13,200
Speaker 1: should do X. You're on the wrong side. That's that's

471
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:18,919
Speaker 1: my thinking. Don't don't do what the Nazis did. Ever, Yeah,

472
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 1: this is not how Charles Cooke felt. He was like, efficiency,

473
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: the Nazis, that's where our money comes from. It's important

474
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:30,719
Speaker 1: to note she's Jewish. Yeah, when you really tie together

475
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 1: all of the little strands, it doesn't Yeah, he looks, yeah, yeah, anyway.

476
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 1: Uh so. George Pearson, a former John Birch Society member

477
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 1: who later worked for Charles, was the first person to

478
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 1: suggest to him directly that a great way to recruit

479
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 1: the young would be to found scholarly institutes inside universities. Now,

480
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 1: the Coke said, for a while been giving money to universities.

481
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 1: But when you give a money, when you give money

482
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 1: to a school that can spend it on anything, including

483
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 1: on paying researchers and academics who might believe in things

484
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:02,320
Speaker 1: you don't agree with, might do research that counteracts your

485
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: own opinions. You don't want that. Now, if you find

486
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:09,239
Speaker 1: a found a scholarly institute within a college, however, you

487
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 1: have control over how that money is spent um, so

488
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: you can directly control new generations of thinkers and directly

489
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:18,919
Speaker 1: influence the pliant minds of their students. This brings us

490
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:21,880
Speaker 1: to the Mercadis Center, which The Chronicle of Higher Education

491
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,719
Speaker 1: describes as a quote libertarian style think tank within George

492
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 1: Mason University. From two thousand eleven to two thousand fourteen alone,

493
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: the Charles Coke Foundation put fifty million dollars into the

494
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 1: Mercadis Center. Now Mercadis was founded by Richard Fink, a

495
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 1: professor at the college who had all also been an

496
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 1: executive vice president member of the board of directors for

497
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 1: Coke Industries. Here's the Chronicle. Mr williams politics are no secret.

498
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: On his bookshelves rest a bust of Adam Smith, the

499
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 1: patron saint of unimpeded Capitalism, and a copy of The

500
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:54,479
Speaker 1: Libertarian Reader. But Mr Williams says that he is careful

501
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: not to bring his opinions, hardened as they are, into

502
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: the classroom. He's scoffed in and a suggestion that George

503
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: Mason's Economy next department indoctrinate students with anti regulatory free

504
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 1: market messages. He does, however, hope his pupils will come

505
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:08,399
Speaker 1: to see the world just as he does. I would

506
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,400
Speaker 1: like my students to share my subjective opinions. Mr Williams said,

507
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 1: if they become hard minded thinkers, they will adopt many

508
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 1: of my opinions. Now. George Masson is a public university

509
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:20,399
Speaker 1: in Virginia, and not everyone who works there was a

510
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:22,919
Speaker 1: sanguine about the impact the Marcadis Center had on the

511
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,919
Speaker 1: freedom of dialogue within the university. Here's Carry Meyer, an

512
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:30,119
Speaker 1: associate economics professor who describes herself as somewhat left of center. Quote.

513
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 1: Looking back on her career, miss Meyer said she had

514
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: held back in her scholarship at George Mason, gravitating towards

515
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 1: vanilla topics, such as a book based on the diaries

516
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 1: of her family's farm. She did not want to rock

517
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: the boat quote. I carefully chose my research so it

518
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: wouldn't be objectionable to them, she said. Mr miss Meyer,

519
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 1: described by her colleagues as miss Meyer described her colleagues

520
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: as smart economists, but said they collectively provide graduate students

521
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 1: with a narrow view of the discipline. I would tell

522
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:58,680
Speaker 1: people that it's better to go to a place where

523
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 1: they would get a broader education. Agency, she said. See

524
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:04,640
Speaker 1: the Marcadis Center was an independent body within the university,

525
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: so it's true that they had no formal power to

526
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 1: influence the kind of research people published, but many professors

527
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: at the school relied on the center for extra income.

528
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:16,080
Speaker 1: Marcadis paid out over four thousand dollars a year to

529
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: two dozen faculty members, people who then had vested financial

530
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: interest in not publishing any research that might disagree with

531
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:26,679
Speaker 1: Charles Coke's beliefs. Charles Coke himself said in an interview quote,

532
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 1: if we're going to give a lot of money, will

533
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 1: make darn sure they spend it in a way that

534
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:32,399
Speaker 1: goes along with our intent. And if they make a

535
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 1: wrong turn and start doing things we don't agree with,

536
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: we withdraw funding. So this is how you change a

537
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 1: university using tenden millions of dollars in dark money. Yeah,

538
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: it's horrifying. Right. This is not the only school. He

539
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: does this too. This is just the clearest example. Yeah,

540
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 1: h hope your listeners at the gym or getting jacked

541
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:56,719
Speaker 1: right now. Pump pump, real heart. Now, there are other

542
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 1: academic institutes that have received Coke money. It's hard to

543
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: say how many archers and professors and writers are in

544
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: the US have found themselves in a position of having

545
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 1: to avoid disagreeing with Charles Coke and their work. But

546
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:08,720
Speaker 1: in two thousand and thirteen, the Center for Media and Democracy,

547
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: which Politico describes as a quote liberal group, published research

548
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: into the State Policy Network. Now, the State Policy Network

549
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 1: operates in all fifty states and claims to be quote

550
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: dedicated solely to improving the practical effectiveness of independent, nonprofit,

551
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: market oriented state focused think tanks. Sence, the Center for

552
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: Media and Democracy basically says that the State Policy Network

553
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 1: is a vehicle for pouring dark money into right wing

554
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: think takes around the country. Here's Politico. According to the

555
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 1: reports analysis of i r S filings, the State Policy

556
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: Network and its think tanks combined revenue in two thousand

557
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: eleven topped eighty three million dollars, in large part with

558
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: funding from conservative dark money groups like the Donor's Trust

559
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 1: and Donors Capital Fund, which received large donations from groups

560
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: tied to the Koch Brothers and other prominent conservatives. But yeah,

561
00:29:56,360 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of different buckets they're putting money into,

562
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 1: and we will never know the extent of funding, but

563
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 1: it is in the hundreds of millions problems that they're

564
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: putting into just educational institutes. So with all this money

565
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 1: spent to change academia, Charles Cooke was essentially gambling that

566
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: he profit more by building a small but utterly dedicated

567
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: core of radical libertarian ideologists than he would by trying

568
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 1: to publicize his extreme beliefs to the masses. His thinking

569
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: here was entirely in line with what we know about

570
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: the way the human brain deals with extreme ideas. In

571
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, scientists at ren Sailor Polytechnic published a

572
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: bunch of research into how ideas in human society tip

573
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: from being the minority to the majority opinion. The scariest

574
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 1: thing they found, or the most optimistic, depending on your angle,

575
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 1: is that this happens very quickly once an idea reaches

576
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: a certain level of saturation. Here's Bolus losses Manski, a

577
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: distinguished professor at ren Sailor. When the number of committed

578
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 1: opinion holders is below ten percent, there is no visible

579
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 1: progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take

580
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: the amount of time comparable to the age of the

581
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: universe for this size group to reach the majority. Once

582
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:01,719
Speaker 1: that number grows above of ten percent, the idea spreads

583
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 1: like flame. Yeah, here's a quote from a physic org

584
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 1: right up on the research. In general, people do not

585
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 1: like to have an unpopular opinion and are always seeking

586
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 1: to try locally to come to a consensus. We set

587
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 1: up this dynamic in each of our models, uh says

588
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 1: one of the papers authors. To accomplish this, each of

589
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: the individuals and the models quote talked to each other

590
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 1: about their opinion. If the listener held the same opinions

591
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: as the speaker, it reinforced the listeners belief. If the

592
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: opinion was different, the listener considered it and moved on

593
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: to another person. If that person also held this new belief,

594
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 1: the listener then adopted that belief. So this was sort

595
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 1: of a a model that they set up in order

596
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: to sort of represent how ideas might spread throughout a culture.

597
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: And it's wise not to read too too much into

598
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: this because it's a study based on models of human

599
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: behavior rather than actual people, and the studies authors specifically

600
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: note that this model was not designed to replicate a

601
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: polarized society with a bunch of different radical ideas in it.

602
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: That said, if you spend a lot of time reading

603
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: about revolutions and protest movements. You can't can't deny that

604
00:31:56,800 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 1: this all sounds somewhat congruous with observable reality that there

605
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: is a point of saturation. Once you hit a certain

606
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: number of people pushing an extreme ideology, it can spread very,

607
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 1: very rapidly. Yeah. So that study came out in two

608
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, a year in which revolution and unrestpread across

609
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 1: the Arab world like wildfire. The city's authors were admittedly

610
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: more concerned with explaining that than anything else. You know,

611
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: they were trying to ask, like, how can a guy

612
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: like Cadafi be in charge for forty years and almost overnight,

613
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: you know, there's this movement builds up, steamed to put

614
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: him out or whatever. Nothing. Do you think it was overnight?

615
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: I think if you listen to if you talk to

616
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 1: a lot of people who were involved in it, they

617
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 1: would say that they were angry for years, but that

618
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 1: they did not believe it was possible until somebody was Yeah, exactly.

619
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 1: There is a point at which the feeling that something

620
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 1: like that is possible tips um. And it seems like

621
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: that's sort of what Charles is trying to ink. Okay,

622
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 1: if you can get just enough people that are real

623
00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 1: true believers and doesn't take a lot they can. You

624
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 1: can start seeing an idea that's pretty extreme spread like wildfire.

625
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: What is that? Is it bad religion? That song? True believers?

626
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 1: What is that? I don't know. I'm not good. Let's

627
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 1: up keeping it all in all right, hit me daddy

628
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 1: was the more facs. Alright, alright, alright, alright. So the

629
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: studies authors like I said, we're more interested in explaining yeah,

630
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: the herbs spring than anything else. But by that point,

631
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven, Charles Coke was two years into

632
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: fighting a revolution of his own to destroy a man

633
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 1: he viewed as a living death star, Rock Oboma. Despite

634
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 1: the regular Tory concerns, the nineteen nineties and early two

635
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 1: thousands has been a great time for the Koke brothers.

636
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: They diversified from fuel refining to every imaginable kind of

637
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 1: petro product. If it needed oil to produce, the Koke

638
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: Brothers were into that ship. They maintained ownership stake in

639
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 1: their company and put their profits right back into the business.

640
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: By two thousand six, Coke Industries made ninety billion per

641
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: year in profit, compared to seventy million in nineteen sixty.

642
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:11,600
Speaker 1: Great businessmen, Great businessmen speak up their books. It sounds

643
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: like it's probably full of great stuff that you can

644
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: generalize to your whole life without becoming a terrible monster. Yeah.

645
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 1: Uh so the bush Ears were good for them, pick surprise,

646
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: although they were super anti Iraq war. Uh that is

647
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 1: one thing you can say for Charles Coke has been

648
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:31,759
Speaker 1: consistently anti war, anti US intervention. Um. That is a

649
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:35,480
Speaker 1: pretty consistent with libertarian ideology. You know, you shouldn't be

650
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 1: fucking around. It's too expensive. It's not like, oh he

651
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 1: didn't do it for like beings. He just thought it

652
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: was a waste of money, like a spark of hope. Okay, no, no,

653
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: just the money, but the lives mean nothing. Yeah, um

654
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: so the dead. Sorry, the bush Ears were good for them,

655
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 1: but they've gotten a lot of what they wanted regulation

656
00:34:57,960 --> 00:34:59,759
Speaker 1: wise during his eight years in power, which may have

657
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:04,320
Speaker 1: had something to do with the two thousand eight crash.

658
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: But now we're digressing. Yeah, you may I pick up

659
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: on that digress I did here. Didn't he say that

660
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 1: there's going to be another crash coming up in like

661
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: two thousand one or twenty two. I mean, we're lucky

662
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: if it takes that long, right, Like somebody. I was

663
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: working a job this past weekend and like one of

664
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:22,080
Speaker 1: the camera I only got to like touch on them

665
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 1: for part of it, but he was saying that. One

666
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: of the brothers was like, Yeah, there's gonna be a

667
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:28,120
Speaker 1: crash coming up. Yeah, And it's like, oh, yeah, you're

668
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:30,799
Speaker 1: gonna cause this crash for some well, they're not they're

669
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 1: not much into real estate speculator. That might honestly just

670
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:35,880
Speaker 1: be them honestly looking at the market because a lot

671
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: of people are saying the housing market is due for

672
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 1: another big crash. Um Like, I don't want to be

673
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: fair to these guys because they're assholes. But that may

674
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: just be him looking at the writing just be like, hey,

675
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: he's coming. I'm going to say about my money. Look, dude,

676
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 1: I got like a couple under bucks. I'm trying to

677
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 1: get myself a down payment. You know that's more than

678
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 1: of Americans keeping saving. I think it's like the country

679
00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:00,919
Speaker 1: has less than a thousand dollars in savings. I believe it. Yeah,

680
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: it's gonna be great when the economy collapses and we

681
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:06,400
Speaker 1: eat these people. You know what's crazy is when the

682
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 1: economy collapse, the first time I'll get back on subject

683
00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:14,240
Speaker 1: I see your little fingers. Um. I was just a barista,

684
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 1: so it didn't affect me at all. I was like,

685
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 1: why is everybody so stressed? I'm still making it a homeway. Yeah, yeah, boy. Yeah.

686
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:26,840
Speaker 1: During the Bush years, yeah, they got a lot of

687
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:29,239
Speaker 1: what they wanted regulation wise, but they didn't like the

688
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: Iraq war. Um. Throughout this period they also did support

689
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 1: to their credit sentence reduction for non violent drug offenders,

690
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:37,880
Speaker 1: UM because they're not pro drug war guys. So again,

691
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:41,760
Speaker 1: it's not all bad with the ship the Koke Brothers funds,

692
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:44,799
Speaker 1: but it's a lot bad. Uh. In fact, David Coke,

693
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:48,239
Speaker 1: who retired from political life recently, has shown gasps of

694
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 1: being a human being over the last few years. In

695
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:53,080
Speaker 1: a two thousand three speech to alumniate his prep school

696
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:56,359
Speaker 1: after he received a lifetime trustee status for a million

697
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 1: dollar donation, David said this, You might ask, how does

698
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:02,320
Speaker 1: David happened to have the wealth to be so generous?

699
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: Will let me tell you a story. It all started

700
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 1: when I was a little boy. One day, my father

701
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: gave me an apple. I soon sold it for five

702
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: dollars and bought two apples and sold them for ten.

703
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 1: That I bought four apples and sold them for twenty Well,

704
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: this one on day after day, week after week, month

705
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,200
Speaker 1: after month, year after year, until my father died and

706
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 1: left me three d million dollars. It's just a little bit,

707
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:25,840
Speaker 1: but that's David Coke. Charles Coke has not joked about

708
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 1: inherited wealth because he doesn't think a state taxes should

709
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 1: be a thing anyway. The election of Barack Obama was

710
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 1: a big watershed moment for Charles Coke. Uh He claimed

711
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: that the two election would lead America to quote its

712
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,800
Speaker 1: greatest loss of liberty and prosperity since the nineteen thirties,

713
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:44,400
Speaker 1: which didn't didn't happen. I mean, maybe I missed it.

714
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:46,719
Speaker 1: Maybe I missed us losing all of our wealth and prosperity,

715
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:50,840
Speaker 1: But yeah, I didn't notice that. In his inaugural address,

716
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 1: President Obama said quote, without a watchful eye, the economy

717
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:56,319
Speaker 1: can spin out of control, a clear reference to what

718
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: had just happened and as an eight financial christ crash.

719
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: This was receed to Charles Coke, the man who had

720
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:03,880
Speaker 1: urged resistance at all costs in the face of regulation.

721
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:06,200
Speaker 1: Never mind the fact that back in sept Timber of

722
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, the Coke political organization, Americans for Prosperity,

723
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 1: had reversed their opinion on bailouts when the Dow dropped

724
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:15,839
Speaker 1: seven seventy seven points in the stock market crash. Then

725
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 1: they'd supported seven hundred billion dollars worth of government intervention.

726
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:20,920
Speaker 1: But now that Obama was in the White House and

727
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:23,720
Speaker 1: talking about regulating Wall Street to avoid another crash, resistance

728
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:26,800
Speaker 1: to tyrants was the only option that remained for Charles

729
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 1: uh Now. Since two thousand three, Charles had been assembling

730
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:32,799
Speaker 1: a yearly meeting of major Republican donors, most of whom

731
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 1: were billionaires or multimillionaires who had inherited their fortunes. The

732
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:39,800
Speaker 1: first Coke Group meeting after Obama's election is best described

733
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:43,600
Speaker 1: as a war council Here's dark Money. Participants at the summits,

734
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:46,440
Speaker 1: for instance, were routinely admonished to destroy all copies of

735
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:49,960
Speaker 1: any paperwork, be mindful of the security and confidentiality of

736
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:53,800
Speaker 1: your meeting notes and materials. The invitation to one gathering warned.

737
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 1: Guests were told to say nothing to the news media

738
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: and post nothing about the meetings online. Elaborate security steps

739
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: were taken to keep both the names of the participants

740
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 1: and the meetings agendas from public scrutiny. When signing up

741
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,759
Speaker 1: to attend the conferences, participants were warned to make all

742
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 1: arrangements through the Coke staff rather than trusting the employees

743
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: at the resort, whose backgrounds were nonetheless investigated by the

744
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: Coke security detail. In an effort to detect intruders and impostors,

745
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 1: name tags were required at all functions, and smartphones, iPads, cameras,

746
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 1: and other recording gear were confiscated prior to sessions in

747
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:28,360
Speaker 1: order to foil eavesdroppers. During one such gathering, audio technicians

748
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:31,400
Speaker 1: planted white noise emitting loud speakers around the perimeters, aimed

749
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 1: outward towards any uninvited press in public. Yeah, they're treating

750
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: it like a rebellion, Like they're like they're like running

751
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 1: an underground revolutionary organization, which is what's happening. Um, it's

752
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 1: just that the people who were revolutionaries in this are

753
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: the richest people in the country. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's

754
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:57,239
Speaker 1: super gross. We're gonna get into something not gross. Ads. Oh,

755
00:39:57,280 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 1: they're so good, they're so good. Boy. Howdy, let's hear

756
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: what they have to say about how you can support

757
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:13,920
Speaker 1: this show. By spending money on other things. Okay, Uh,

758
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 1: so we've just gotten to the point where Charles Coke

759
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: goes into full on rebellion mode. Yeah yeah, yeah, he's

760
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:24,200
Speaker 1: he's doing all the spy stuff. He's portraying himself to

761
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 1: at least other rich guys as like the leader of

762
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 1: this rebellion. Um. Now, there are two possibilities as I

763
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:32,880
Speaker 1: see them here. Number one, he really is ideologically committed

764
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 1: to his course and all this secrecy in the extreme

765
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:38,719
Speaker 1: language he uses is totally honest and based on his

766
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 1: heartfelt beliefs about the world. Or he just wants more

767
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 1: money in his pocket and he donates what he has

768
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:46,800
Speaker 1: to donate because donation is better than paying taxes. His

769
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 1: principled stand that businessmen should resist all regulation is more

770
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 1: of an attempt to get other people to donate to

771
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,360
Speaker 1: his cause, since he's clearly willing to compromise with the

772
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:57,480
Speaker 1: government for his own interests. Um, you can come to

773
00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:00,399
Speaker 1: your own conclusion about whether or not Charles Coke's ideology

774
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:04,720
Speaker 1: is just a scam essentially, or if he really believes

775
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 1: this he's in his eighties now, yeah, hard to say.

776
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 1: Or maybe he's changed over time. Um. Whatever the case,

777
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 1: After Obama's election, the Koke brothers, mainly Charles, poured astronomic

778
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 1: amounts of money into fighting the Obama administration. Eighteen other

779
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,239
Speaker 1: billionaires joined them during the president's first term. Together, they

780
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:25,399
Speaker 1: pulled money and resources to support politicians sympathetic to all

781
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:27,959
Speaker 1: of their interests. In essence, they formed a trade union

782
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: for people who were born rich. They had held that

783
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 1: big secret meeting during the month Obama was sworn in,

784
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:35,880
Speaker 1: and it had involved a debate between two Republican senators,

785
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 1: because when you're rich, you can just have senators debate

786
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:41,399
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, the train what is it another train

787
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 1: union or maybe yeah, senator bought the union. Anyways, I

788
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 1: have some family members that work their train conductors and

789
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: the it's not the train union. Maybe it is, but

790
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: they bought a senator who who changed all these rules.

791
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: And it's like, oh, when you have money, you can

792
00:41:57,200 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 1: just buy, just buy, you can just buy these guys.

793
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:01,399
Speaker 1: So they had the rich guys had during that big

794
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 1: meeting to Republican senators John Cornyn and Jim de mint

795
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:07,919
Speaker 1: argue in front of them to basically determine what course

796
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:11,720
Speaker 1: the Republican Party should take. After McCain's big defeat by Obama.

797
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 1: So Cornin basically argued that the two thousand election proved

798
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: the Republican Party needed to get more moderate, make a

799
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:19,879
Speaker 1: bigger tint, and accommodate more people so that they could

800
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: win elections. Honestly again. Jim de Mint, on the other hand, said,

801
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: fuck that noise. We should only go further and further

802
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: to the right. Compromises for cowards. Can you guess which

803
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:32,000
Speaker 1: side of the argument Charles Cope backed, Yeah, compromises for cowards.

804
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 1: So the Cooke Brothers became a major force behind the

805
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: foundation of the Tea Party movement. One Republican campaign consultant

806
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: was quoted in The New Yorker is saying of the

807
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 1: Tea Party, the Koke Brothers gave the money that founded it.

808
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: It's like they put the seeds in the ground. Then

809
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:47,520
Speaker 1: the rainstorm comes and the frogs come out of the mud,

810
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:51,279
Speaker 1: and there are candidates. Which that's not how seeds or

811
00:42:51,320 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: frogs work. But he's in politics, not in farming or knowledge. Yeah, knowledge,

812
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: general knowledge about biology from the mud, classic mud. Frogs

813
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:10,880
Speaker 1: came out of seeds like frogs do. Two thousand ten

814
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: New York Times article broke it down this way, Or

815
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: broke down the funding of the Tea Party movement. The

816
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 1: other major sponsor of the Tea Party movement is Dick

817
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:22,719
Speaker 1: Army's Freedom Works, which, like Americans from Prosperity Army, Dick Army,

818
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:26,040
Speaker 1: he's a real guy. Yeah, okay, yeah, no, I mean

819
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:28,319
Speaker 1: we should it's it's fine. It's fine to marinate in

820
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:31,440
Speaker 1: the enjoyment of his name is Dick Army. Yeah, that's good.

821
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:34,799
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. The The other major sponsor of the Tea

822
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: Party movement is Dick Army's Freedom Works, which, like Americans

823
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: for Prosperities promoting events in Washington this weekend. Under its

824
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 1: original name Citizens for a Sound Economy, Freedom Works received

825
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:46,120
Speaker 1: twelve million twelve million dollars of its funding from Coke

826
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:49,239
Speaker 1: family donations. Using tax records, may Or found that Coke

827
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:51,840
Speaker 1: controlled foundations gave out a hundred and ninety six million

828
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 1: from nineteen to two thou eight, much of it to

829
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 1: conservative causes and institutions. That figure doesn't include the fifty

830
00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 1: million in Coke industries lobbying and four point a million

831
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 1: in campaign contributions by its political action committee, putting it

832
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: first among energy company peers like EXN Mobile and Chevron.

833
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 1: Since tax law permits anonymous personal donations to nonprofit political groups.

834
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 1: These figures may understate the case. The Coke surely matched

835
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 1: the in kind donations the Tea Party receives in free

836
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: promotion seven from Murdocks Fox News, where Beck and Palin

837
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:23,319
Speaker 1: are on the payroll. So Charles Coke and David have

838
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:25,759
Speaker 1: denied any part in the asteroid turfing of the Tea

839
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 1: Party movement, but investigative reporting by Tacky Oldham, director of

840
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:33,840
Speaker 1: AstroTurf Wars, which is a documentary, found very direct evidence

841
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: that this was bullshit. Here's a quote from The Guardian.

842
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:40,120
Speaker 1: Oldham infiltrated some of the movement's key organizing events, including

843
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 1: the two thousand nine defending the American Dreams Summit, convened

844
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 1: by a group called Americans for Prosperity. The film shows

845
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 1: David Coke addressing the summit five years ago. He explains,

846
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 1: my brother Charles and I provided the funds to start

847
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 1: Americans for Prosperity. It's beyond my wildest dreams how a

848
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 1: FP has grown into this enormous organization. The convenior tells

849
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:01,840
Speaker 1: the crowd how a FP mobalized opposition to Barack Obama's

850
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: healthcare reforms. Quote, we hit the button and we started

851
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 1: doing the twittering and Facebook and the phone calls and

852
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: the emails, and you turned up. Then a series of

853
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:11,359
Speaker 1: a FP organizers tell Mr Coke how they have set

854
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: up dozens of tea Party events in their home states.

855
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 1: He nods and beams from the podium like a chief

856
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 1: executive receiving rosie reports from his regional sales directors. Afterwards,

857
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:22,399
Speaker 1: the delegates crowd into a FP workshops where they are

858
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: told to run how to run further tea Party events.

859
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:28,359
Speaker 1: So the word that these guys went as the tea

860
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: Party is totally original movement that started on its own

861
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: and whatnot. But the evidence suggests that they funded and

862
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:36,840
Speaker 1: directly planned how it was going to be carried. And

863
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 1: if you remember back in nineteen eighty when David Coke

864
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: ran to be vice president of the Libertarian Party, his

865
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 1: running mate had said that that election would be the

866
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 1: cognition of quote a new tea Party. So they're thinking

867
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:51,800
Speaker 1: has been in this long before the election of Barack Obama.

868
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:57,640
Speaker 1: Polity had provided the political impetus to the fuel exactly.

869
00:45:57,760 --> 00:45:59,719
Speaker 1: And and also the time hadn't been right in the

870
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:02,319
Speaker 1: eighties because they spent the time the decades since then

871
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 1: pumping money into education, and subliminally it's it's been there,

872
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 1: has it been in the people's back of their minds?

873
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:12,240
Speaker 1: And I think it's more there because of their effort,

874
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? I think I think

875
00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:16,719
Speaker 1: in my mind I'm trying to say something else that

876
00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:19,440
Speaker 1: my mouth is saying. I mean, as the racism was

877
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:21,959
Speaker 1: a major factor. Because I don't disagree with you there either,

878
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:24,200
Speaker 1: but I think that, like I think it was already

879
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:26,759
Speaker 1: in the eighties, but for sure people are like, oh

880
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 1: oh that sounds familiar, you know, like, oh wait a second, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, anyways, anyways, anyways, anyways,

881
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 1: uh yeah. The timing hadn't been right then, um, for

882
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:39,360
Speaker 1: a variety of reasons, but by two thousand ten, the

883
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:41,759
Speaker 1: timing was right, and that's why the two thousand ten

884
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 1: mid terms did not go well for the Democratic Party,

885
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: uh or for Barack Obama. Now, in two thousand and twelve,

886
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: the Koch Brothers spent a record breaking four dred and

887
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 1: twelve million dollars on the election, more than what the

888
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 1: top ten unions in the United States had donated combined.

889
00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:02,600
Speaker 1: So they are essentially working as a union for rich people.

890
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: But there's a lot more money than that than any

891
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 1: trade union. Uh. Clearly, all that money wasn't enough to

892
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 1: stop Barack Obama from winning re election. But over all,

893
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: the Coke efforts were wildly successful, as Jane Mayer summarized

894
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:17,439
Speaker 1: in Dark Money, thanks in no small part to huge

895
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:19,799
Speaker 1: quantities of targeted money spent by the Cokes and their

896
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: allied donors, the Democratic Party lost both Houses of Congress,

897
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: fourteen governorships, and thirty state legislatures, compromising more than nine

898
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:31,840
Speaker 1: hundred seats during Obama's presidency. So their efforts are successful.

899
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:34,960
Speaker 1: This money does not go to nothing. Um. But if

900
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:37,320
Speaker 1: the last twenty years have seen Charles Coke's grand scheme

901
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 1: come close to fruition, it is beginning to look like

902
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 1: he may have reached the limits of what money can buy.

903
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:44,600
Speaker 1: During the two thousand and sixteen election, the Coke brothers,

904
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:48,200
Speaker 1: in their network of political organizations, had collectively a larger

905
00:47:48,239 --> 00:47:51,800
Speaker 1: payroll than the Republican Party. The Cokes employed sixteen hundred

906
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:54,240
Speaker 1: staffers in thirty five stags, which gave him three times

907
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:58,440
Speaker 1: the manpower of the Republican Party. UM. The Coke's originally

908
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 1: planned to spend close to a billion dollars in the

909
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen election, but the rise of Donald

910
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: Trump took them as much by surprise as it took

911
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 1: everyone else. See, the Cokes actually love immigration, illegal or otherwise.

912
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 1: They love free trade and trade deals like NAFTA and

913
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:13,239
Speaker 1: the Pacific Partnership because those things make shiploads of money

914
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 1: for business owners. Donald Trump was exactly the kind of

915
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 1: conservative they did not want to see win election, so

916
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: they cut their election spending by hundreds of millions of

917
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 1: dollars and put a huge chunk of what they were

918
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:26,520
Speaker 1: going to still spend into state races instead. The current

919
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: CIA director, for example, Michael Pompeo, received more funding than

920
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:33,399
Speaker 1: any other congressional candidate from the Cokes. UH Dark money

921
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:35,360
Speaker 1: suggests that what happened between two thousand and ten and

922
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:38,360
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen is that essentially the rabbid anti government,

923
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:41,480
Speaker 1: anti regulation, anti left sentiment that Charles and David Coke

924
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 1: spent hundreds of millions of dollars to inculcate finally grew

925
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:47,399
Speaker 1: beyond them. They helped create the movement that morphed into

926
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 1: trump is Um, but during its evolution they lost control

927
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 1: of it. One former Coke employee said this during the

928
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen election quote, we are partly responsible.

929
00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:58,480
Speaker 1: We invested a lot in training and arming a grassroots

930
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,279
Speaker 1: army that was not controllable. So conflicts have continued between

931
00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:04,600
Speaker 1: the Cokes and now President Trump. Most recently, the Coke

932
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 1: network refused to support a Republican and a tight race

933
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 1: in North Dakota because of his Trumps views on trade.

934
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 1: After that news broke, Donald Trump tweeted, quote, the globalist

935
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:16,359
Speaker 1: Koke brothers, who have become a total joke in real

936
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 1: Republican circles, are against strong borders in powerful trade. I

937
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:21,880
Speaker 1: never sought their support because I don't need their money

938
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 1: or bad ideas. They love my tax and regulation cuts,

939
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:27,480
Speaker 1: judicial picks and more. I made them richer. Their network

940
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:29,879
Speaker 1: is highly overrated. I have beaten them at every turn.

941
00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:32,319
Speaker 1: They want to protect their companies outside the US from

942
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:35,320
Speaker 1: being taxed. I'm for America first and the American worker,

943
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 1: A puppet for No. One. Two nice guys with bad

944
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:42,800
Speaker 1: ideas make America great again. I half agree with the

945
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 1: President there. The Cokes do have bad ideas. I do

946
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:48,320
Speaker 1: not agree about their being nice guys. Two nice guys

947
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 1: bad ideas. Still these guys. We had nice guys, but

948
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:56,080
Speaker 1: nice guys. I really like what they're doing with the

949
00:49:56,840 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: pipelines filled with holes blowing up neighborhoods. That's nice guy move.

950
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 1: Classic nice guy move. Bad ideas. Uh. In nineteen nine,

951
00:50:05,440 --> 00:50:08,839
Speaker 1: when their mother died, Charles Coke basically hid information about

952
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:11,560
Speaker 1: the funeral from his brother's Frederick and Bill. Frederick missed

953
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:13,480
Speaker 1: his mom's funeral, and Bill had to charter a private

954
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: plane to get their own time. Not nice guys. Charles

955
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 1: grew up to be just as much of a terrible

956
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:19,959
Speaker 1: parent as his own dad had been. When he saw

957
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: his son Chase play what Dark Money describes as a

958
00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 1: half hearted tennis match, Charles ordered him sent to work

959
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 1: in a filthy feed lot seven days a week, twelve

960
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 1: hours a day until he got better at tennis. Presumably Meanwhile,

961
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 1: Charles's daughter Elizabeth had this to say about coming home

962
00:50:34,120 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 1: to see her father during the summer while she was

963
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:38,759
Speaker 1: at college. Quote. As soon as we arrived, I felt

964
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 1: an overwhelming urge to prostrate myself on the floor and

965
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:43,759
Speaker 1: eat dirt in order to illustrate how grateful I am

966
00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:45,759
Speaker 1: for everything they've done for me. That I'm not the

967
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 1: spoiled monster they warned me I'd become if I wasn't careful.

968
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:52,320
Speaker 1: She described trying to earn her father's approval as staring

969
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 1: down that dark well of nothing you do will ever

970
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 1: be good enough, You privileged, waste of flesh. This is

971
00:50:57,440 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: how Charles's daughter describes how she feels in her dad's presence.

972
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:04,280
Speaker 1: It's impossible to say right now whether Chase or Elizabeth

973
00:51:04,280 --> 00:51:07,680
Speaker 1: will also concoct a decades long conspiracy to influence American

974
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 1: political thought. What I will say is that it seems

975
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:12,320
Speaker 1: like the unique mix of obscene wealth and insane, abusive

976
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:14,560
Speaker 1: pettiness that made Charles Coke the man he is today

977
00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:17,440
Speaker 1: will at least have a chance with another generation of

978
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:24,640
Speaker 1: born billionaires. Boy, howdy, isn't inherited wealth grand? Speechless? Yeah?

979
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:28,719
Speaker 1: What else is there to say? I feel my heartbreaks

980
00:51:29,239 --> 00:51:33,720
Speaker 1: in a sad way for these kids generations. Huh Yeah, Because,

981
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:36,600
Speaker 1: like Charles Coke didn't have to be the asshole he is,

982
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:39,279
Speaker 1: but there was. The way he was raised made it

983
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 1: very low odds that he was going to turn out

984
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: to be this very compassionate guy. For sure, I hope

985
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:45,879
Speaker 1: his kids are compassionate. I hope his kids are better

986
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:48,319
Speaker 1: than him. I hope they've looked at the life their

987
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:50,360
Speaker 1: dad's let him realized. He doesn't. I doubt he's a

988
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:54,440
Speaker 1: happy man because I don't think he's capable of having

989
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:59,960
Speaker 1: close relationships with people. Yeah, he's probably blinded by his ideas. Yeah.

990
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:04,120
Speaker 1: Who can say what's really in another person's heart. Yeah. Yeah,

991
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:07,280
Speaker 1: And maybe maybe I'm just being hopeful that he's miserable

992
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,400
Speaker 1: because he's done miserable things. He's just the happiest clam

993
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:13,120
Speaker 1: and the clam factor. No, he's probably a miserable person,

994
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 1: but he's unaware that he's a miserable person. Yeah, because

995
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 1: he doesn't know what it can be to like have

996
00:52:19,760 --> 00:52:23,879
Speaker 1: a father who cares about you and and kids that

997
00:52:23,920 --> 00:52:26,960
Speaker 1: you feel warmly towards and are proud of those they're

998
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:32,160
Speaker 1: alien to him. Yeah. Yeah, he lost that boxing once,

999
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:36,840
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah he did lose. Yeah, protesters, if you

1000
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:39,600
Speaker 1: wind up protesting a coke thing in the future, really

1001
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:42,600
Speaker 1: hit dry, really drive home that he's bad at boxing.

1002
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 1: That seems to be a sure pot. Wouldn't he'll probably die,

1003
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: probably put a hit on you. Yeah. I truly enjoyed this.

1004
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:55,720
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Glad you enjoyed this terrible story

1005
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:59,000
Speaker 1: of a terrible person. Yeah, I mean it's definitely. I've

1006
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:01,239
Speaker 1: definitely been thinking a lot and got sad for a

1007
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:03,640
Speaker 1: little while, and I got happy again, and then I

1008
00:53:03,680 --> 00:53:06,479
Speaker 1: got sad a lot, and then I was just like, wow, yeah,

1009
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:11,040
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go get in my carder day. So at

1010
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 1: the end of this, are you more or less optimistic? Oh? Less? Oh,

1011
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 1: for sure, less, but also a little bit more. It's

1012
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:22,799
Speaker 1: nice to hear that his kids are like aware enough

1013
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:24,520
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, when I come home, this is

1014
00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:26,040
Speaker 1: how I feel and this is not how I want

1015
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:28,879
Speaker 1: to feel, And maybe they'll change, maybe they can be like, hey,

1016
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:31,160
Speaker 1: actually we can make a difference. But yeah, you know,

1017
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 1: it probably has it all lined up with the industry

1018
00:53:34,640 --> 00:53:37,319
Speaker 1: that somebody else just like him is going to take over,

1019
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 1: and it's hard to imagine. Yeah, someone good taking over.

1020
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:43,240
Speaker 1: It is kind of heartening to me, even though Trump

1021
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:45,719
Speaker 1: is the result that they did lose control of this

1022
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 1: movement that they built, because it does mean that there

1023
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:52,640
Speaker 1: are limits to what wealth can buy. Even though I

1024
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:55,040
Speaker 1: don't like what it ran out of control and turned into,

1025
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 1: uh foreshadowing of things you come anyway. Yeah, well, well,

1026
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 1: well I'll see. I feel like America is on a

1027
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:03,359
Speaker 1: good road right now. And you know what I love

1028
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:09,759
Speaker 1: to have on those good road trips around Well, well,

1029
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 1: I eat the rest of this bag of Doritos like

1030
00:54:12,160 --> 00:54:15,239
Speaker 1: like some sort of cheese goblets. Please save some for me.

1031
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 1: We'll do. Why don't you plug your plug doubles first? Great? Uh?

1032
00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 1: You can catch me on the internet at ever Maynard

1033
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:25,239
Speaker 1: dot com U M A I N A R D

1034
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:30,840
Speaker 1: and ever like the word Twitter, Instagram at ever Maynard. Um,

1035
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:33,960
Speaker 1: I'm doing shows all around l A, maybe at a

1036
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:37,000
Speaker 1: place near you soon, um, who knows. And then I'm

1037
00:54:37,040 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 1: on Netflix in a movie called The Fields. Um watch it,

1038
00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:45,719
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, watch it again? Watch it. Tweet at

1039
00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 1: me no haters please, um, sensitive soul um. But also I,

1040
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 1: like I said, I love to comment and I do

1041
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 1: so aggressively. Yelp read it any any place. Sometimes I'll

1042
00:54:58,160 --> 00:55:02,640
Speaker 1: just go to Yahoo my man. Yeah, I love answering

1043
00:55:02,680 --> 00:55:04,880
Speaker 1: things wrong on who Answers. I didn't know I can

1044
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:08,399
Speaker 1: do that, But I will be aggressively commenting on who Answers. Yeah.

1045
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:11,080
Speaker 1: I really stuff like that, Cora. I really like just

1046
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:14,479
Speaker 1: sabotaging it, giving people bad advice on how to treat

1047
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:18,319
Speaker 1: first aid injuries and stuff. Okay, that's not okay, Oh,

1048
00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:22,880
Speaker 1: I'm just you're not kidding. We all try to seed

1049
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:24,879
Speaker 1: the world in our own I guess. So let those

1050
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:28,960
Speaker 1: mud frogs come up. You plant the seeds, and the

1051
00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:32,879
Speaker 1: frogs come up. And what did I tell you about

1052
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 1: those mud frogs? All right? You can find this mud

1053
00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:38,880
Speaker 1: frog on Twitter at I right, okay, you can find

1054
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:42,040
Speaker 1: this podcast on the internet at behind the Bastards dot com.

1055
00:55:42,120 --> 00:55:45,040
Speaker 1: We'll have all of the many, many sources for this

1056
00:55:45,160 --> 00:55:48,960
Speaker 1: episode listed, and you can also find us at at

1057
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:52,799
Speaker 1: bastards pot on Twitter and Instagram, where we will be

1058
00:55:52,840 --> 00:55:59,000
Speaker 1: tweeting and instagramming things. Yeah, so until next week, we'll

1059
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:02,720
Speaker 1: be talking about some other terrible person or group of people.

1060
00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans Uh and you know I love about

1061
00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 1: statistically m m h m hm