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