WEBVTT - CZM Rewind: Morton Downey Junior: The Ur-Media Grifter 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:02.920 Fl media. 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:04.800 Hey everybody, Robert here. 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:07.600 As a lot of you probably know, about two months ago, 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:09.879 my dad took al I spent most of a month 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:13.840 in the hospital with him the ICU while he got sicker. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.000 He passed a couple of weeks ago, so I have 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.360 lost some worktime. Needless to say, we'll be taking another 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:22.119 break this week, and then we should be back with 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.880 new episodes for the foreseeable future. I just needed another 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:31.120 week to get back ahead, get myself going again for reruns. 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:33.960 This week, we're running a trio of great episodes that 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:35.800 we did a couple of years ago with Tom Ryman 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:39.640 from Game for the Unemployed about right wing talk show 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:42.239 guys of the past, the dudes who kind of like 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.800 laid down the groundwork that made Tucker Carlson and Glenn 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:50.080 Beck possible. So they're great episodes. Check them out. And 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.440 I also wanted to plug the Portland Diaper Bank. Every 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.040 year around this time we do a fundraiser for the 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:58.760 Portland Diaper Bank. This is our fifth year in a row. 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.640 Last year raised nearly thirty thousand dollars to provide diapers 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.200 to low income people, and over the course of the 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.360 last four years, this will be our fifth year Behind 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.200 the Bastards listeners have raised more than one hundred thousand dollars. 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:13.520 So if you want to help out, just google go 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.800 fund me bTB fundraiser for PDX Diaper Bank. That's go 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:23.000 fund me bTB fundraiser for PDX Diaper Bank. Thanks everybody. 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:31.840 Fall Yeer I was a German name for paratrooper. I 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:34.720 don't know why. I started the episode saying, Tom's why 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:35.200 you did that? 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:37.679 How are how are you doing? Do you know that 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:40.720 the German word for paratrooper is falschwormjegger. 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:42.800 I did not know that. Well, now you do, thank you. 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.640 They had a you know, the the Nazis had an 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.200 aquatic little jeep that could go on the water. They 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:53.320 called a sh Fimenwagen. That's sweet, that's kind of funny. Yeah, 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:57.120 what do we call it? That's our swimming wagon head is, yeah, 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:02.800 gijoe vehicle. It does the women, Tom, how are you 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.640 feeling two pieces of ship into this? I'm vibing on 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.120 some clown shoes right now you are vibing on some 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:13.320 clown shoes. Well, right now, Tom, this exact moment, this 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.079 second in time, that we both inhabit, which may be 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:19.720 eternal if certain philosophers are right. This very moment could 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:23.000 go on forever, both forwards and backwards in time, could 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:27.119 be completely encompassing, as all moments are. This moment, we're 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:28.720 going to talk about a guy you have heard of, 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:36.360 mister Morton Downey dances all the way down just just 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:37.280 six my ears. 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.839 Yeah, oh yeah, that's a name. That's a name. 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.880 Yeah, Tom, what do you know about Morton Danny Jr. 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.480 Oh Man Jay as we call him. 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:48.959 He's like a pinky ring that fell into a puddle 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:54.600 of toxic waste and became a man. He's he's he 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:58.799 plays the he plays the slimy journalist that Danny Glover 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.680 punches in the face and Predator two, and he. 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:05.200 Sure is in Predator too, you god damn right, playing himself. 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:13.160 Yeah, he's absolutely playing himself in Predator Too, which is incredible. Yeah, 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:15.600 easily the second best Predator movie. 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.200 It's it's easily the second Predator film. Yeah, yeah, definitely, 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:21.320 you can't take that away from it. It is the 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.480 second one of them, indisputably the second Predator film. 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.640 Yeah, I know, he's like a he's a he was sort. 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:28.880 Of like the uh. 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.520 The ying to Phil Dona Hughes Yang at the time, 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.520 where Phil Donahue was like kind of nice and personable 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:37.840 and Morton Downey was a real son of a bitch. 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.160 When he was a real piece of shit. Yeah. 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.000 And the fun thing about Morton Downey Junior, tom Uh 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.200 is that if you start researching Morton Downey Junior, the 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.000 first like Google result that tries to auto fill when 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:51.560 you start typing his name in is is Morton Downey 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.440 Junior related to Robert Downey Jr. And my answer to 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.040 that is it does not appear to be. So No, 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:01.120 just just just a fun coincidence, which is weird because 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.880 he does have a famous dad, like Robert Downey Junior. Yeah, 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.520 but just a completely different one. I just that's that's 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:13.360 very funny. Yeah, so let's let's let's let's talk about MDJ. 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:14.040 So. 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:17.839 Morton Downey Junior was born on December ninth, nineteen thirty two, 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.839 in Los Angeles, California. His father was obviously a guy 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.800 named Morton Downey. Yeah, two thirds of these guys are Californians. 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:27.000 Well that in the thirties, I'm like, fuck, he's old, 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.200 like a lot of these far's ancient, dusty, old racist mummies. 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.720 That's because they were established by the time the eighties 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:35.839 got going, and they could really start fucking some shit 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:36.800 up for everybody. 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:38.880 That's true. I keep thinking that the eighties was four 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:39.599 decades ago. 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:43.120 Yeah, it's been a long time since the eighties, thank god. 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:47.920 So his father was obviously Morton Downey, which probably means 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.480 nothing to everyone listening, but I meant an awful lot 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.400 to people in the nineteen twenties and early thirties. Morton 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.880 Downey's nickname was the Irish Nightingale, and he was one 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.080 of the most popular singers of his day. He had 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.680 Morton Downey Junior, whose first name was Sean, with his 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.719 first wife, Barbara Bennett, and Barbara was famous because she 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.159 was the sister of two women who were famous actresses. 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.360 Morton Downey Senior would ultimately have five children, four sons 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:14.520 and a daughter. He was not a nice man, or 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:16.640 at least, people who knew Morton Downey Junior say he 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.120 did not think well of his father. There is, in fact, 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.800 significant evidence that he despised the man. He desperately wanted 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.440 to succeed as a singer, and he tried repeatedly as 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:27.920 a young man to follow in his father's footsteps. Appearing 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.640 on early game shows, where his performance was reviewed positively 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:33.760 by guys like Dean Martin. I thought he had an 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.279 all right voice, but most experts agree he just didn't 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.320 have what his father had. There was something lacking in 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:41.040 his voice that like he was just never going to 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:42.479 have the kind of career. 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:42.880 His dad had. 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.240 The Downey family were well to do. He grew up, 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.680 you know, richish. They lived in I mean, if you 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:51.440 want to know how well to do they were, they 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.640 lived in Hyannasport in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and their next 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.640 door neighbors were the Kennedys. Yeah, yes, it's like that's 0:05:58.680 --> 0:05:59.680 how much money they got. 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:01.360 His kids rich Ish? 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.559 Yeah, yeah, there hang in with the Kennedy's. Morton Downey 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.279 Junior was good friends with Joe Kennedy. Will Or Morton 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.440 Downey Senior was good friends with Joe Kennedy and as 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:13.920 when Morton Downey Junior was a child, he would hang 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.400 out regularly with the Kennedy boys, you know, like he 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:20.360 knew Robert and JFK when they were younger. They were 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:24.000 all buds together. I guess Downey Emmy's a bit younger. 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.599 But Downey attended New York University and like the others, 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.039 and like our other subjects, seems to have immediately known 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.600 he wanted a career in radio. He got a job 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:34.280 as the program director an announcer for a radio station 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.640 in Hartford, Connecticut, in the early nineteen fifties. Over the 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.440 next decade and change, he was hired primarily as a DJ, 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.360 although he also sang for several pop and country records 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.240 and wrote a handful of songs that saw modest success. 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:51.960 Like Wally, George Morton, Downey Junior bounced around various markets Phoenix, Miami, 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:56.040 Kansas City, San Diego, and Seattle. Also like Wally, he 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.480 was a huge asshole and had trouble working with people. 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.160 He was forced to resign from a Miami network when 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.599 he gave the home phone number for a competing DJ 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:06.320 out on the air and insulted the man's wife. 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.920 Oh like Docks, the guy on on the air. 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:13.920 I want to I want to hear I hear him croon. 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.320 I had no idea that was his background. Oh, I 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:17.560 mean we can't he cut an album? 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:19.960 Tom? Oh boy, you know what, Tom, We'll play this 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:21.720 right now. Sweet. Yeah, let's do it. 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:23.640 Yeah, Let's let's do this now. I need you to 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:25.800 hear his song about the war on drugs. 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:28.760 What's it called? Hey there, mister dealer, Oh. 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:33.240 Many name, mister taler. 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:41.320 Push son of the minds are the kids of America? 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:43.240 Just don't make your back. 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:51.040 You all the sleeves, bag on the country, garbage of all. 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.920 He's like attacking the microphone. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.440 Yeah, so welcome to his eternal mob. 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:07.080 He looks like a skeleton at a costume contest dressed. 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:07.560 As Dan Martin. 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.720 All right, that's probably enough of Hey there, mister dealer. 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:14.720 God it is so this will mean more. 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.680 When you've had Dean Martin was too kind to him. 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.080 He was better when he was younger too. 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:25.400 Yeah, his earlier, his earlier shit is I think because 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.480 he's he's what, he was famous when he recorded. 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.080 He's so he was like doing a thing. Yeah, but 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.840 he's still like yeah, it's yeah. 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.360 Yeah, I don't think he had a bad voice and 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:37.120 the stuff you can hear from younger. There's a good 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:38.880 documentary about his tours. 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:40.040 But yeah, he is. 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:44.319 He is going real agro there, and it's because you know, 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:46.280 he was already a name at that point. He was 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:48.280 he was doing a bit or maybe he just like 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:50.760 was out of his mind because that's what being famous 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:51.120 does to you. 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:51.920 After a while, I. 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.120 Don't know, you can see the cocaine, just like in 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:58.480 an aura. Yeah, yeah, it followed him around. In nineteen 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:01.640 sixty eight, Morton took a break from his work, his career, 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.160 which was again he was kind of a mix of 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.520 a DJ and a kind of a pinch hitter in 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.240 the music industry, coming into do background vocals and stuff 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.160 to work on that campaign for his good childhood friend 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:15.240 Bobby Kennedy. When Kennedy was assassinated, Morton wrote a book 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:19.120 of poetry with the title Quiet Thoughts Make the Loudest Noise. 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:21.880 The book was a way of processing grief, and you 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:24.400 can still find a handful of hardcover copies on Amazon 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.800 for like one hundred and forty eight dollars. Yes, I 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.439 am not buying one of them, but I did transcribe 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:33.400 one of the poems he wrote specifically about Robert Kennedy's death, 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.200 from the documentary Avocatur And I'm going to read that 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.199 to you now. Row upon row of grief racked followers, 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:43.400 sunken cheeks replacing their years ago happy faces, saying proudly 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.600 for their departed friend, their final hope and wondered why 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.439 a man must die to be a hero, and whether 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.640 we honor only those our own selfish hearts destroy. 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:55.360 Yeah, I don't think sunk in cheeks is what he 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.320 meant to say, But but yeah, it's kind of you know, 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:00.520 it's kind of profound, that's right. 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.520 He's certainly like a man who's thinking about like the 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.120 nature of Yeah, yeah, that it was thoughtful. You wouldn't 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.360 call him a shallow man based on that. He's a 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.719 man who's trying to process complicated and sorrowful emotions in 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:16.240 an artistic way. Clearly a person capable of not just 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.480 feeling grief, but of expressing it artistically. He continued to 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.959 sing occasionally, and he made his living as yet another 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.720 disc jockey until in nineteen eighty three, the same year 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.880 that the Wally George TV Show starts. A year before 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.800 Rush Limbaugh gots on talk radio, he gets a job 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.680 as a talk radio host on WDBO in Orlando, Florida. 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.800 So yeah, and again they're both kind of writing this 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:41.760 wave of right wing populism in the rise of the 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.560 religious right and Ronald Reagan like they're part of a thing. 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:48.120 They're not starting it, but they are also influencing the 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:52.280 way this thing grows. So Wally George and Morton Danny 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.559 Junior both rode that right wing wave and helped to 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.120 shape it. Morton Danny Junior was even more incendiary and 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.600 control uncontrolled than Wally. He lost his first talk show 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.040 gig after he punched a guest, an abortion rights activist 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.599 named Bill Baird, who he then called a son of 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:07.120 a bitch. 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.839 So how many episodes in that? 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:13.440 So? 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.840 Yeah, Wally George screams at people and stuff, and I 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.400 think shoved some folks a few times. Or Nanny Junior 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:25.079 just cold cock some motherfucker Like months into his first 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.960 talk show and again a radio talk show. 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:31.400 I wonder if you can hear like the meat sound 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:33.400 on the microphone. 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:35.760 I haven't found this audio, but I bet it's great. 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:36.679 Next. 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:39.760 According to the New York Times quote, mister Downey was 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:45.600 soon hired by KFBKAM Radio, a news talk station in Sacramento, California. There, 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:47.520 he told a joke in which he used the word 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:53.280 chinaman several times, angering Tom. Yeah, not that surprising, is it, Tom? 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:57.280 So Yeah, he tells a joke in which he uses 0:11:57.280 --> 0:11:59.920 the word chinaman several times, which pisses off Tom Chin, 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.400 a Chinese American member of Sacramento City Council who was 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:04.320 listening in his car. 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:06.240 Why. I wonder why that bothered him. 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.199 I wonder why he got angry at that. Mister Chin 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.480 called the station. According to the councilman and to Paul R. 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.199 Errand then the station's program director, mister Chin was put 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.720 through to mister Downey, who let loose a verbal tirade 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.400 against him. Mister Downey was discharged the next day. So 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.560 he tells a racist joke on air. It offends a 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:27.160 member of the city council who calls, and then he 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.240 proceeds to be racist to that guy, lafe on. 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.280 The air and loses his job. Yeah, yeah, that's usually 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:33.760 probably should be what happens. 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.680 Yeah, yeah, Now the station had to obviously had to 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:37.640 shit can Morton Downy. 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:38.240 June I liked that. 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:40.320 He was like, Oh, I'm sorry, I'll just be racist 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.320 to you directly. Then, Yeah, do you do what would 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:43.600 you like me to just be a piece of shit 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:45.760 to your face? I did not mean to do it 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.760 to your back on the air. Absolutely not. Oh forgive me, 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:50.120 let me be an asshole directly. 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:52.200 To let me be an asshole directly to you, I 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:57.480 don't mean to be rude. So they had to fire him. 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:59.560 But he was also and you'll you'll hear different things 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.840 about how popular he was. By some accounts he was 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.040 he was very successful. By some accounts just modestly successful. 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.760 I can't tell you which. But he did well enough 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:12.600 that the station was like, well, this guy's built an audience. 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.720 They're very dedicated, and so when he leaves, they decide 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.120 they need to replace him with another right wing firebrand, 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.760 someone who can stir up the same kind of populist 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.200 rage but also isn't quite as racist. You know, they 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:26.720 picked Tom I don't know who followed him into the job. 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:28.480 You might have heard of this guy, little fella. He 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:33.600 might know his name, Rush Limbaugh. Oh that's how Rush 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.199 gets His first big political gig. 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.920 Was Morton Downey being too racist on the issue. 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.400 It was too racist, and so Rush Limbaugh came in 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.160 and said, I can be slightly less racist than that 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.680 for a while, for a little while. Eventually I'll be 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.040 much more racist than that. I could be slightly less 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.959 racist to people's faces. Yeah again, for a while, for 0:13:58.200 --> 0:13:59.079 a while. 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.560 I love like, man, that was too racist. Let's get 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.320 Russian here, let's get you get that Rush Limbaugh hit 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.320 in air. Yeah, we would tone things down somewhat. 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.240 Tom, Where do you go when you've just gotten fired 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.360 from your right wing radio job for being too much 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:14.040 of a racist? 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:15.680 Uh? Television? 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:15.840 No? 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:16.120 I mean? 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:17.320 But what city do you go to? 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:17.839 Mmm? 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:23.280 Portland? I don't know. No, Cleveland, Cleveland? Oh yeah sure, yeah, yeah. 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.520 Yeah you get yeah, you get your ass on down 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.320 to Cleveland. Hey, our rivers are very rarely on fire, 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.080 unlike Cleveland. So he gets hired by w E. R. 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:36.640 E a M. To improve the poor ratings of its 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:39.360 talk show department. He was forced out there when he 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.520 again hurled racial slurs at an elected leader. This one 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:48.000 of your municipal court seeing this coming, who could have guessed? 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.800 Wally George, the man who punched an abortion rights activist 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.880 and lost his first radio show, lost a second for 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.480 screaming racial slurs at a city councilor would lose his 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:01.560 third show for screaming racials? Is it a municipal court judge? 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.520 Oos among us. 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.680 Has not on a bad day a hurled racist slurs 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:08.840 at a circuit court judge? 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.760 Or or yeah, those of us who have not gone 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:17.640 to jail have done that. So while his former employer 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.200 wrestled with a lawsuit. As a result of this, Morton 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.000 Downey Junior moved to Chicago to do it all over again. 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:28.960 So during both of these strategy yeah the OK strategy Chicago, Yeah, 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:35.520 Chicago forgives all sense. During his first two dalliances with 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.480 talk radio, Morton Downey Junior had a regular segment on 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:42.080 his shows called the Executive Intelligence Report, which is him 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:45.320 reading from a magazine published by Lyndon LaRouche. 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:47.280 We're gonna have to do a whole. 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:51.280 Episode on Lyndon LaRouche at some point, but for now 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.640 you'll have to be satisfied with this quick description of 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.400 Lindon courtesy of a New York Times obituary. And again, 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.240 this is the source of Morton Downey Junior's execus Kative 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.240 Intelligence Report quote. Lyndon LaRouche, the quixotic, apocalyptic leader of 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:07.160 a cult like political organization who ran for president eight 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.840 times once more. Prison cell died on Tuesday. He was 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:15.320 ninety six. Defining what mister LaRue is yeah right, that's 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:21.680 a motherfucking sentence, is an entire sentence. Defining what mister 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.680 Larouge stood for was no easy task. He began his 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:26.800 political career on the far left and ended it on 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.320 the far right. He said he admired Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.960 Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan and loathed Hitler the composure 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.880 Richard Wagner and other anti Semites, though he himself made 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.360 anti Semitic statements and boy Diddy a lot of them. 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.000 He was a fascist tom He was a fascist political 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:44.680 cult leader. 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:46.760 I liked the obituary was like, we don't know what 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:48.040 the fuck he believed. 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.760 He believed in Lyndon Larouge having a bunch of like 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.400 he had a bunch of followers who basically it was 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:56.840 a cult, like they lived for this man, and they 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:58.960 would go out and proselytize on the street. They would 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.880 hand out papers at call campuses. LaRouche argued that environmentalists 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:04.639 were trying to wipe out the human race, which is 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.120 a claim that Alex Jones now parrots. He believed Queen 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.119 Elizabeth was trying to murder him personally. He argued that 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:14.439 Jews had founded the KKK, and he described Indigenous Americans 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.960 as lower beasts. So this is the source of Morton 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.399 Downey Junior's intel I'm finding a couple of consistent threads 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.760 in his belief structure that perhaps his obituary could have 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.480 latched onto it. May I think they may have gotten 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:30.960 into that later. That was like the first two paragraphs. 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.160 I just I read that obituorian was like, my god, 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:35.160 that is a sentence. 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.600 Yeahah, that first sentence almost knocked me out of my chair. Yeah, 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:43.080 what a fucking life the president eight times once from prison? 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.680 But what it was a tax thing? I think. 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:50.320 Again, we'll do I'll have to read into him and 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:53.040 we'll do a whole episode on Lyndon Larouge. He's quite 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:55.960 a character. Yeah, yeah, the head of Morton Downey Junior's 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:59.080 Intel program. Now, the fact that Morton Downey Junior platform 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.760 this guy is very and it's arguably more fucked up 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.800 because Morton Downey Junior did not really like him. As 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.040 he told The New York Times, I decided I was 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.160 going to be as friendly towards these people and get 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:11.359 as much information out of them as I could, because 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:14.680 someday I would expose them. Now that's bullshit. It's true 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.720 that he did eventually get Lyndon Larushe on his TV show, 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:19.680 and he tore him apart like it was a very 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.840 aggressive interview with Lyndon, but he also continued to spread 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.520 Laruche's newsletter and other publications after that point, calling the 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:30.520 fascist cult leader's intelligence information quote the second or third 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:31.720 best in the world. 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:35.439 Based on what Morton Downey Junior he Morton Downey Junior 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.920 doesn't know nice build cast member of Predator two. 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:43.480 Yeah, mother, I mean he did make the top ten 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.399 look look in fairness, that's more than either of us 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:48.719 have ever done in terms of predators. 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:49.200 That's true. 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:51.160 But I'm not out here saying this is the second 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.280 or third most reputable intelligence support in the world. 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:55.600 No, you're not. 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:59.159 No, based on your experience, which is you and I 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.040 both did get to look at the Predator costume. 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:04.240 Yes, oh wait, no, this was it. I didn't well, 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:06.960 oh you weren't there that it wasn't, But I saw 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:07.320 the video. 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.560 It was rad It seems like a. 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:14.199 Just knowing that I was that close to something that 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.960 had touched Morton Downey Junior was was just powerful. Tom 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.200 was really powerful. You know what else has touched Morton 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:23.119 Downey Junior in a sexual man? 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.960 He's products and services. Probably they fucked him. They fucked him. 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.280 Products and services have been inserted into Morton Downey Junior. 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.480 Absolutely, that is again the only promise we make about 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:35.439 our sponsors. So if he seems fine with us, so 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:36.360 I'm just gonna continue. 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.479 Yeah, that's an AD that's an AD throw, that's an 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:44.119 AD throw baby. 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:46.960 Oh we're back. 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.639 So by nineteen eighty seven, Rush Limbaugh's show had exploded 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.960 in popularity. Wally George was the talk of Orange County. 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:57.560 This is kind of the height of the Wally George 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:00.720 Show too. And despite Morton's mixed success on radio, a 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.560 station in New York slash New Jersey, I guess it 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:06.680