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Sept. 10, 2018 - Knowledge Fight
01:35:31
#203: March 2-4, 2009

Today, Dan and Jordan return to their investigation of what Alex Jones was up to in 2009, as the Tea Party began to become ascendant in right wing politics. On this installment, the gents examine the week after the Nationwide Chicago Tea Parties and see if Alex has noticed it yet. Along the way, they learn what sort of people Alex thinks are "legitimate tax researchers."

Participants
Main voices
a
alex jones
08:44
d
dan friesen
01:00:35
j
jordan holmes
21:21
| Copy link to current segment

Speaker Time Text
alex jones
Andy in Kansas, you're on the air.
Thanks for holding.
unidentified
Hello, Alex.
I'm a first-time caller.
I'm a huge fan.
I love your work.
alex jones
I love you.
dan friesen
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to Knowledge Fight.
I'm Dan.
jordan holmes
I'm Jordan.
dan friesen
We're a couple dudes like to sit around, drink novelty beverages, and talk a little bit about Alex Jones.
jordan holmes
Indeed we are.
Dan?
dan friesen
Hey.
jordan holmes
Dan?
unidentified
What?
jordan holmes
When was the last time you lost a game of tennis?
dan friesen
Boy, I don't know if I've ever actually played tennis.
jordan holmes
You don't think you've ever actually played tennis?
dan friesen
I think I've played it, like, recreationally, just fucking around with friends or something like that, but no, I don't think I've ever played, like...
jordan holmes
You've never played, like, a game.
dan friesen
I've never played a game that actually kept score, let's say.
jordan holmes
Okay, all right.
dan friesen
I have a couple buddies, my buddy CB and my buddy James Desolation Williams.
jordan holmes
Both of them are actually radios.
dan friesen
The two of them used to play tennis in high school, and I watched them play a couple times.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
It was really funny because CB is kind of like a smaller Indian gentleman.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
And James Desolation Williams is a tall beanpole of a man.
jordan holmes
Oh yeah?
dan friesen
Really funny.
Sort of playing together.
But no, I'm not much of a tennis guy.
I think I played racquetball once.
jordan holmes
You played racquetball?
I don't even know what that means.
dan friesen
Is that one where you're in a little glass enclosure?
jordan holmes
Yeah.
What even is that game?
dan friesen
I was just messing around at the gym.
jordan holmes
That's a crime.
dan friesen
That game is just a box.
Right.
It's for rich people to have business meetings while they sweat.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
dan friesen
Or something like that.
jordan holmes
Like squash or something.
dan friesen
I guess that means I've never lost a tennis game.
So that's inspiring.
jordan holmes
That is inspiring.
dan friesen
Yeah, I'm one of the best.
jordan holmes
Think of what you can do when you don't do it.
dan friesen
Yeah, look at all these people who have losing records.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
dan friesen
Better than them.
jordan holmes
Hell yeah.
dan friesen
All right.
So, this is a show where I'm one of the best tennis players in the world, and I know a lot about Alex Jones.
jordan holmes
And I am marginally better than you at tennis, and I know nothing about Alex Jones.
Right.
dan friesen
So, Jordan, we got an episode to do today, but before we get to that, I thought it might be best just to talk a tiny bit about our last episode.
Not to put too much of a shitty veneer on our show, but I don't think either of us were happy with it.
jordan holmes
No, no, I don't think so.
dan friesen
For those who, you know, people who listen to it, we got into a bit of an argument about whether or not the New York Times should burn their source, their anonymous source.
And I think that one criticism that came back was the idea of it being an editorial.
Instead of like a journalistic piece and there's a little bit of a difference there, I still stand by my position that you do much more damage than good by revealing an anonymous source.
jordan holmes
Yeah, I too stand by your position.
I thought about it a lot and I was like...
Ugh!
After, like, calming down.
Like, that was a rough day.
dan friesen
Right.
jordan holmes
As far as being alive is concerned.
dan friesen
We're all a little bit out of sorts.
There's a lot going on.
A lot going on.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
So I just fucked up, man.
That was a bad argument.
It was stupid.
dan friesen
I respect your ability to say so.
I don't think any less of you for holding those positions.
And I think people...
The reason that I ended up leaving it in, even though I don't feel good about it, is that I think that there's a value for people to see that we don't agree about everything, you and I. Right.
Let's say.
jordan holmes
Well, we do later whenever I'm not furious at you.
unidentified
Maybe.
jordan holmes
Well, it's not at you.
dan friesen
Right, right.
jordan holmes
When I'm not furious.
dan friesen
But even beyond that, I think that there's a value to people disagreeing and whether it gets anywhere or not being able to discuss.
Varying viewpoints.
I think that there's something to that.
Whether or not it's the best bit of podcasting we've ever done, I'll say no, probably not.
No.
unidentified
And then there's another further value, and this is just about my psychological state, and that is that I feel a great, tremendous amount of anxiety when I put out a product that I don't think is very great.
dan friesen
I don't feel great about it and I didn't die the next day.
There's that.
Anyway, if that frustrated you a great deal, sorry about that.
jordan holmes
Us too?
dan friesen
Anyway, onward and upward and on to greener pastures.
jordan holmes
Anyways, the point being, don't give in to your blood, lust, and fury.
That's my advice.
dan friesen
There's an even greater value in you passing that message along to people.
Speaking of great value, I'd like to give us...
jordan holmes
True Value Hardware?
Are we talking about them?
dan friesen
We have a new sponsor.
jordan holmes
We have a new sponsor.
dan friesen
True Value Hardware.
No, but we do need to give a couple shout-outs to some new donors.
Very excited about this, and I'd like to say thank you so much for joining up with the team and becoming a policy wonk.
Sarah?
alex jones
I'm a policy wonk.
dan friesen
That almost sounded like a question because of my elision.
Because I lost track.
jordan holmes
I was a little bit confused.
dan friesen
Lost track of my clips.
jordan holmes
Sarah?
dan friesen
No, thank you so much, Sarah.
We appreciate it very much.
Also, I'd like to say thank you to another person who has joined up with the team.
I'd like to say thank you so much.
You are now a policy wonk, Stephen.
alex jones
I'm a policy wonk.
dan friesen
Thank you, Stephen.
jordan holmes
Thank you very much, Stephen.
dan friesen
If you would like to become a policy wonk and support our show, you can do so by going to knowledgefight.com, clicking that support the show button.
We would appreciate it.
jordan holmes
Indeed you can.
That would be nice.
dan friesen
Yeah.
So, Jordan, today we are back in 2009.
jordan holmes
Hey!
dan friesen
We have passed the point where the Tea Party has gone nationwide with the National Chicago Tea Parties on February 27th of 2009.
jordan holmes
Whenever people of all shades of white got together to really talk about...
What were they mad at?
Taxes?
dan friesen
Something like that.
jordan holmes
Sounds more like a black guy was president.
dan friesen
We've got some real interesting tax stuff to talk about today, but that's...
jordan holmes
Tax stuff?
dan friesen
Oh boy.
I got some stuff I'm very excited to get into, but we need to track this as it goes, so we're going to start where we left off on March 2nd, 2009, and we will get through about March 4th.
I'll be honest, we're going halfway through March 4th.
jordan holmes
We're going halfway through March 4th.
dan friesen
I turned off the show and walked away from it.
jordan holmes
It got a bit bad.
dan friesen
It's not that it's bad.
I was just like, there's a point of surreality that Alex Jones' show gets to at some points.
Especially back in 2009.
And I just kind of felt high a little bit.
unidentified
I was like, I gotta get away from this.
dan friesen
His show made so little sense.
Later, I'll go back and listen to the rest of the 4th, and if there's anything else to amend or add as an addendum, we'll do that.
But for now, March 2nd through halfway through March 4th.
jordan holmes
It was the equivalent of listening to LSD.
dan friesen
Somewhat, yeah.
So we're going to start, as we generally do, with an out-of-context drop from today's episode.
alex jones
I'll tell you right now that we're making through this martial law and can back this new world order off that I do intend.
To adopt little brown babies.
unidentified
All right, Alex.
alex jones
All right.
jordan holmes
Woo!
unidentified
It's a conditional statement.
jordan holmes
Wait, what?
dan friesen
Should we defeat the New World Order?
jordan holmes
Should we defeat the New World Order?
Which, never we will.
unidentified
Probably not.
jordan holmes
Never.
dan friesen
Even based on his own mythology, there's no way to really defeat them.
We can just push them back.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
dan friesen
But if he pushes them back far enough...
He's going to adopt some little brown babies.
jordan holmes
What is it?
Is this like every ten yards he adopts a new brown baby?
Is this like a football match?
Football match.
dan friesen
Something along those lines.
Yeah, very weird.
I will say that was a part of where I needed to turn it off.
jordan holmes
Yeah, I believe that.
I believe that entirely.
dan friesen
So, we'll start here on the second.
And I believe the last time we were in 2009, I mentioned that Bob Chapman had been on, and Bob Chapman mentioned George Soros in passing, and Alex didn't respond to that at all.
And I predicted, hey, I bet pretty soon Alex is going to start talking about George Soros.
Shockingly, our first clip here on March 2nd, Alex brings up George Soros.
alex jones
I forgot to even play this last week.
I've got to pull it up.
John, I sent it to you.
It's the George Soros clip.
Kurt Nemo wrote an article about it, Steve Watson.
George Soros admits elite plunging oil to bankrupt Middle East.
They now admit they're doing it!
dan friesen
So, a couple of very fine points that I think are appropriate to make here.
The first is that this is still not his normal George Soros is running all this nonsense.
So he still isn't on the George Soros tip as...
I'm not satisfied with that.
But it is really interesting because in this time that we've been covering, and some 2008 stuff that I listened to before our coverage of this began, he's not talked about Zoros at all.
This is the first time that he's brought him up as some sort of an evil, nefarious force.
jordan holmes
And he doesn't sound familiar with Zoros at all.
If you listen to the tone of his voice there, it's like...
This guy Soros?
Pull that clip up of this guy Soros.
Who's Soros over here?
dan friesen
Anybody got Soros?
What's going on here?
So I looked into it in like...
I can't find this article by Curt Nemo.
I searched InfoWars' site.
I can't find it.
But I did find some interesting stuff about Soros and oil in the end of 2008.
jordan holmes
Are you sure you didn't?
Did you search InfoWars' site for like...
I hate Jews!
Jews, Jews, Jews, Jews!
With a bunch of exclamation points, because I think that would have found it.
dan friesen
I didn't find that.
jordan holmes
You didn't find that?
dan friesen
No, but what I did find is this...
There's an interesting piece in the New York Review of Books that goes over...
Soros went before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee oversight at a hearing on June 3, 2008, and they give...
Slightly amended version of all of his comments.
And what he is expressing to the House Oversight Committee here is that you look at the price of oil and how it's gone up Dramatically at this period of time.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
You see a 90% increase in just 18 months.
unidentified
That's a lot.
dan friesen
The situation is at the time.
You see an average price of $2.50 a gallon at the pump go up to over $4 a gallon.
He's discussing about how this probably is representative of a bubble.
This is a piece of over-speculation.
People over-trading in commodities is what's causing this.
There's nothing in his speech here, nor any of the other pieces that I've been able to find from around that time of source being like, the elites are going to plunge this shit.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
He's cautioning against the idea that people are amateur investors, let's say, getting in and hyper-inflating the price of oil, and it has nothing to do with the actual supply and demand of what a market would do.
jordan holmes
What kind of genius could possibly predict that?
Dan, that is too brilliant.
That's like if somebody were looking at...
And I'm just going to choose something from just at random.
Let's go with Bitcoin.
If somebody were looking at Bitcoin and seeing that price keep going higher and then buy their own Bitcoin, there's no way that enough people would be able to do that to create this massive bubble.
And no investor would be smart enough to say...
Anytime a massive bubble is created, there's probably going to be a crash.
dan friesen
Uh-huh.
jordan holmes
Too smart.
He has to be connected to the elites, Dan.
I rest my case.
dan friesen
Well, I mean, there's some really...
jordan holmes
Let's just think of housing!
That would never happen!
dan friesen
There's some really interesting things that he says within this address before this oversight hearing that are very counter to what Alex is saying his position is.
There's a strong prima facie case against institutional investors pursuing strategy of investing in commodity indexes.
It's intellectually unsound, potentially destabilizing, and particularly harmful in its economic consequences.
When it comes to taking any regulatory measures, however, the case is less clear.
Regulations may have unintended adverse consequences.
For instance, they may push investors further into unregulated markets, such as shiploads of oil, which are less transparent and offer less protection.
So he's making an argument that these are the consequences that you see when people get into irresponsible commodity index trading and stuff like that.
These are some of the things you can see.
It's bad, but...
What you also have is a possibility of like, oh, should we regulate this?
That might have negative consequences.
So even, I mean, all of this seems like stuff that Alex should be okay with.
jordan holmes
So you're saying that his speech was essentially, I know this is going to go wrong, but I don't know how to fix it.
dan friesen
No, no, not at all.
I think he does actually know how to fix it.
jordan holmes
What did he say?
dan friesen
Well, so he's talking about, quote, I find commodity index buying eerily reminiscent of a similar craze for portfolio insurance that led to the stock market crash of 1987.
jordan holmes
I remember that one.
I was born in it.
dan friesen
In both cases, institutional investors are piling in on one side of the market, and they have sufficient weight to unbalance it.
If the trend were reversed and the institutions as a group headed for the exit, as they did in 1987, there would be a crash.
index buying and speculation that follows trends reinforce the prevailing direction of prices and have a destabilizing effect by aggravating the prospects of a recession.
The effect will be reversed only when the recession begins to take hold and demand declines, but it would be desirable to rein in index buying and speculation while they are still inflating a bubble.
unidentified
So what you do is right there.
dan friesen
His advice is very clear.
It would be desirable to rein in this index buying and speculation while there's still a chance to do so.
jordan holmes
Yeah, but he also said that he doesn't know if regulation.
Regulation is the way to do it.
dan friesen
But he's not even, in that sense, he's not necessarily advocating for regulation.
jordan holmes
No, I know.
That's what I'm saying.
dan friesen
Wise investors should start reining it in of their own accord.
jordan holmes
Oh, he's cautioning investors.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Oh, all right.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Well, I'm still not okay with that.
I'm for regulation.
Yeah.
dan friesen
I understand, and I think that maybe there is something to that, but also the idea that it could have unforeseen consequences is also very valid.
jordan holmes
Absolutely.
dan friesen
My point is that I find no evidence that George Soros admitted that the elites are crashing oil at all.
jordan holmes
Oh, is that where we started?
dan friesen
I only see evidence of him being very concerned about the rise of prices in oil in the late part of 2008 and trying to advise...
Calmer heads and a better way to deal with it.
jordan holmes
Yeah, and he didn't even know what was coming.
Terminator had the rise of the machines next, so he never had a chance.
dan friesen
Now, you may think you know what's coming, but Alex actually knows what's coming.
alex jones
Well, we know what they're saying they're going to do next.
And let me tell you, it goes from bad to worse.
Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, Ladies and gentlemen.
They are going to destroy the economy and then right at the point of peaceful revolution with the states taking the nation back and the people waking up, the feds are going to bomb the daylights out of the United States, Israel and other countries.
You can guarantee it.
All the intellectual evidence.
jordan holmes
Guaranteed.
alex jones
All the data points.
And I have hundreds of them.
Literally thousands of different...
Systems and ideas and data and past operations and history that I integrate and bring forward.
That's when a good police detective, they say, oh, he's got a nose or he's got a hunch.
It's not a hunch.
It's doing the job for 10, 15, 20, 30 years.
It's eating, drinking, and sleeping something.
You get a very scary power of being able to understand what the establishment's going to do.
dan friesen
Except all of those predictions didn't happen.
None of that happened.
They didn't bomb the hell out of the United States or Israel.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
The market didn't crash.
It only got better from this point forward.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And by doing the things that he's warning are going to destroy everything.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
The states didn't come in and dissolve the union as he's masturbating thinking about at this point in his life.
jordan holmes
I still argue they should have.
dan friesen
He's the worst detective ever.
jordan holmes
Well, yeah, but I think that...
dan friesen
His nose is very off.
jordan holmes
But that's the myth of the detective.
None of them can do that shit.
That's why crimes weren't solved until, like, the 1990s.
Nobody knows who committed any crime before we got computers and forensic evidence.
dan friesen
That's a very interesting stance.
jordan holmes
That's a fact.
That is a 100% fact that until DNA...
dan friesen
I think DNA is almost...
jordan holmes
No, I know DNA!
Well, actually, that's probably true, too.
dan friesen
At least CSI-type shows certainly have in terms of our perception that you're expressing right now.
jordan holmes
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
No, nobody's ever solved a crime.
Actually, I'm going to lean towards that.
dan friesen
Ever.
jordan holmes
Ever.
dan friesen
All crimes?
jordan holmes
Not one.
dan friesen
Back open.
jordan holmes
Every hunch you've ever had, bullshit.
dan friesen
Uh-huh.
jordan holmes
Oh, yeah.
dan friesen
All right.
Well, if all detectives are as good as Alex, I say hurrah.
Let's reopen every cold case.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And warm case.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
Is that what they're called?
jordan holmes
Let's let everybody out of prison.
dan friesen
Is it called a warm case when it's solved?
No, it's not.
It's cooked.
jordan holmes
What?
dan friesen
It's done.
jordan holmes
What?
dan friesen
No, because a cold case is one that's gone cold.
Wouldn't it be a hot case?
jordan holmes
Well, but you didn't even say hot case.
You said warm case.
dan friesen
Well, there's got to be a middle ground.
jordan holmes
What, a case that's in purgatory?
A limbo case?
dan friesen
No, because the cases aren't called frozen cases.
They're just cold.
unidentified
Cold, warm, hot, frozen.
dan friesen
Who cares?
jordan holmes
All right, what do you got?
dan friesen
In this next clip, Alex expresses some of his views about geopolitics, which is interesting.
And it's good to take note of this, where we are in March of 2009.
This is still where he's at.
Your thoughts on Iran versus Russia.
unidentified
Is this all just WWF fake wrestling grandstanding or is there really a threat there?
alex jones
What, of Iran going to war with Russia?
Yes.
Do you think that's a possibility?
No.
I appreciate your call.
You know, they've had some problems in the past and Russia has tried to take over territory in Iran's mountainous north before.
jordan holmes
What?
alex jones
But it's Russia there that is building their peaceful nuclear reactors.
It's Russia giving them a lot of...
And so I don't see a big issue there.
I see Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu striking Iran and starting World War III.
dan friesen
Okay.
jordan holmes
All right.
dan friesen
So where we're at, very clearly, Russia and Iran, cool.
Israel, not cool.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
So that's where he's at in 2009.
jordan holmes
Yeah, in 2009, I think he was probably right on with that assessment, though.
Like, Netanyahu was wilding out.
dan friesen
Yeah, no, no, no.
I agree.
jordan holmes
He was our boy Jacob Williams back then.
dan friesen
Just because he may have been hanging out with Nick Cannon at the time.
I still think his assessments are wrong.
I do agree that he's much closer to on point in terms of like...
Iran's capabilities weren't offensive.
It was a peaceful nuclear program.
I think he's wrong about Russia quite a bit.
But he's more accurate about Iran and Israel at that time.
At least the governments of the countries.
So there's that.
But the only thing I find really all that interesting is denoting the difference.
Denoting the change.
And we're still here.
That hasn't changed yet.
He also expresses pro-net neutrality opinions on these episodes, so that's another thing that still hasn't changed.
jordan holmes
Everything is...
dan friesen
We're still waiting on the pivot.
jordan holmes
As long as it's anti-Obama, he's for it.
The moment it's pro his team, of course.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Stupid.
dan friesen
So he starts to take some calls, and he gets a very interesting call from a guy who reminds him of something that he should not need to be reminded of.
alex jones
George in Texas.
You're on the air.
Welcome, George.
The clown.
unidentified
Yeah, just to remind your listeners, today is Texas Independence Day.
alex jones
Victory or death, my friend.
Texas Independence Day.
Anything else?
unidentified
Yes.
You know, I was sitting there reading about the Alamo, and I can tell you one thing.
I was all inspired because even though they were outnumbered by the Mexican army, they stood their ground, and even though they all died, they would not succeed.
They would not bow to a dictator.
And that's something that listeners should take in their minds.
jordan holmes
What?
alex jones
Absolutely.
And, you know, they made that watered-down whitewash kind of demonizing the folks at the Alamo a few years ago when it was a dismal failure.
No amount of media propaganda against those men that died is going to work.
And we salute the defenders of the Alamo today.
Thanks for reminding me.
dan friesen
You should not need to be reminded of your favorite thing.
He's based his entire life on Colonel Travis.
That should be his birthday.
Texas Independence Day.
That's all he cares about.
jordan holmes
He only goes to church on Easter and Christmas.
You know what I'm saying?
dan friesen
Easter, Christmas, and Texas fucking Independence Day.
jordan holmes
Those should be...
dan friesen
He should have the Texas Independence Day tattooed on his arm, quite frankly.
He should not need a caller an hour into his show.
jordan holmes
You get busy.
I love trees.
I don't remember Arbor Day.
dan friesen
Well, Arbor Day...
unidentified
Fair.
dan friesen
But you don't make your whole life about what Arbor Day stands for.
jordan holmes
Oh, man.
Haven't you heard me refer to myself as an oak three million times?
dan friesen
No, but you have called yourself the Lorax more times than I'm comfortable with.
I speak for the trees.
jordan holmes
I write it on birch.
dan friesen
So Alex has some guests on this show, mostly unnotable.
But he does have an interview with a guy named Professor George Grayson about the menace that is coming from Mexico.
Now, Alex is not so much anti-immigrant at this point, although he is suspicious.
He is more concerned about the idea that Mexico is going to collapse and that is going to lead to everyone spilling over into America from a sort of globalist planned collapse.
jordan holmes
I have never heard anybody demonize immigrants before.
Or even demonize an entire country just in case immigrants come over?
That's crazy.
dan friesen
It's still so different than the current day version of it.
jordan holmes
Right.
No, it's not let's murder them at the borders, but it's still...
dan friesen
The demonization is still so much...
At this point, generally, although he may drift into it at times, it's still very different from placing an individual, hey, fuck you, immigrant person.
jordan holmes
It's more abstract.
dan friesen
Yes.
So, as far as I can tell, George Grayson doesn't seem like he's crazy.
Interesting.
He's a professor, and he's written extensively on cartels and the Mexican state.
And so Alex asks him what I would say is probably his, like, this is the big question, and he might not get the answer he wants.
alex jones
Let me throw this question out at you.
Homeland Security has said in Texas, Both state and federal.
I've had a state senator and a state rep on last week on the subject.
Quietly, they say the National Guard is on one of its highest alerts, preparing to even have to shut down the border if they have to, that they believe there is a chance.
They won't stay on air.
They say that's classified, but they say they know the percentage they claim.
But they say a good chance Mexico may completely collapse.
From deeply studying this professor, do you think that's accurate?
unidentified
No, Mexico's not going to collapse.
dan friesen
That's tough, man.
This is your expert here, and he's really, really invalidating your state senators that you've had who have secret knowledge of percentages that they can't say publicly.
jordan holmes
When will he learn not to have an actual expert on?
dan friesen
It's tough.
I mean, that's right up there with that volcano, guys.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
No.
That's bullshit.
jordan holmes
Excuse me, Professor.
I am hearing that there will be a real-life version of Rainbow Bright brought into this world from Texas University.
Can you respond to that?
dan friesen
Based on my book, if you'd read it, I very clearly lay out that that's not going to happen.
jordan holmes
Okay.
All right.
dan friesen
You know what, though?
Here's the thing.
They were having a perfectly amicable interview up until this point, so Alex probably had every reason to think he's going to say this, and the guy's going to be like, you bet.
You bet it is.
jordan holmes
Just because the guy was polite?
dan friesen
No, not even just the politeness.
They were on a similar wavelength about a lot of stuff.
About the idea of cartels taking over patches of territory and stuff like that.
A lot of stuff that you can have a coherent conversation about.
It's just when Alex starts getting into his narratives, then...
Any academic is going to be like, eh, hold on now.
I don't know about that.
jordan holmes
It's just like you and me.
Whenever we're having a conversation, then all of a sudden I veer too far into bloodlust and you're going to be like, ah, no, we were having a great conversation up until that point.
dan friesen
Right, and sometimes I'm not wholly prepared to deal with it.
And you just keep going.
jordan holmes
I have a hard problem.
dan friesen
That's fine.
So, yeah, I agree, man.
He shouldn't have actual...
Smart people on the show.
jordan holmes
No, it's a terrible idea.
dan friesen
It makes the bubble a lot harder to maintain.
His information war bubble is very easily pierced when confronted with someone who's not playing ball.
And I think he's learned that lesson in modern day, certainly.
jordan holmes
Yeah, he has not had a reasonable person on there in, what, three years?
dan friesen
Look, I don't have a timeline, but I'd say that's probably very fair.
I think the last time...
Might have been.
Let's see.
jordan holmes
Was it one of our 2000...
Was it like a time travel episode in like 2013?
dan friesen
What do you mean?
jordan holmes
Was that whenever...
unidentified
Dina Dell?
jordan holmes
Dina Dell!
dan friesen
No, that was in 2008.
jordan holmes
Oh, shit!
That was way back.
dan friesen
Yeah, that's before this.
unidentified
Never mind.
dan friesen
No, no.
jordan holmes
I retract that.
dan friesen
I was just trying to think.
I don't know.
Would you call Russell Brand sane?
No.
Not entirely.
jordan holmes
Not entirely.
I would call him...
Often.
dan friesen
Oh, I guess he had Bill Ayers on.
That was...
jordan holmes
That's true.
dan friesen
That was just for a stunt.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
We gotta get Bill Ayers.
dan friesen
Anyway, also, the other thing, along with, like I said, we're just sort of tracing friends here a little bit.
You have Alex being pro-Iran, anti-Israel.
jordan holmes
Of course.
dan friesen
As I mentioned, he's still pro-neutrality at this point.
He's also still a bit against the military.
In this, he discusses how...
The military thinks of people of Arab descent.
This is very weird.
unidentified
I mean, Alex, it's ridiculous the way...
A lot of people say, well, hey, you're Muslim and you're guilty and it's okay.
You should be a patriot and let the police come in and spy on you.
alex jones
There's all this about how they love the Arabs and they're not racist or bigoted.
Let me tell you, in the military, you're called hajis.
unidentified
Right.
alex jones
And you're not human, and it's a big joke when they just shotgun a little kid, and the kid blows in half.
unidentified
They go, Rogue Leader!
alex jones
That little bastard!
Look at him crying!
I mean, it's just, you know, hey, let's get this family's car and run over it with a tank.
And there's video.
unidentified
Ah, look at this family drive by.
alex jones
And it's just like...
And these people think that they're going to be safe in a government run by people like this.
No, they're going to loot and rob all of us, folks.
Criminals are in control.
unidentified
You are 100% right, Alex.
alex jones
And by the way, they fund and train the military to commit these atrocities, and they put out the Abu Ghraib on purpose.
The CIA put that out, that's been documented, to make America be hated.
And now they're saying America's fault for everything.
It's going to implode.
A new Bank of the World is going to form.
You understand the mastermind setup of this?
jordan holmes
Make America hated again, Dan.
dan friesen
Right, that's what I guess he's saying.
jordan holmes
That's why in 2016 you vote white, Dan.
That way they can't do it to us.
Vote white!
You get a black president, all of a sudden they're going to mistreat Muslims, and then they might mistreat you.
dan friesen
I'm confused.
jordan holmes
You get a white president?
We're going to mistreat Muslims.
Who doesn't love to do that?
dan friesen
I'm confused by that line of thinking, but not so much confused to hear it, sort of being espoused by Alex.
Also, I don't know about the idea, like, if I just take a step back, I'm like, alright, so, he's saying that the CIA put out all the information about Abu Ghraib, like, as a way to make us look bad in the world.
I would ask, what else do you want to do?
You know, if that's going on, what are you going to do?
I don't want them to not tell the world about that.
It's a very serious issue, the abuse of prisoners and torturing people and shit like that.
You have to take your lumps.
The world thinking that that's bad is good.
jordan holmes
I mean, at the time, it's kind of like they had nothing to lose because everybody already knew it anyways.
Like, the CIA can release all the Abu Ghraib stuff they want in 2009, but everybody in the world was like...
You guys are fucking torturing people since 2004.
dan friesen
But I still don't understand Alex's angle on it.
I don't understand the nefarious piece.
And I further don't understand what he would prefer.
jordan holmes
That's a good question.
dan friesen
I don't get what the alternative that he would like is.
jordan holmes
America looking good?
dan friesen
I would like for the...
jordan holmes
But that doesn't seem like that's what he wants either.
dan friesen
I would like for them to have not behaved that way.
That's what I would like.
It seems what he would like is...
They don't keep that under wraps.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
Which kind of flies counter to his whole thing.
I don't know.
It's very confusing.
I don't understand.
jordan holmes
It's strange for Alex to be like, the government should have withheld this information from the public.
dan friesen
And I don't understand how all that tracks from what he was saying, and especially hearing all this, like, hey, in the military, they call you hajis, they hate you, all this stuff.
It's like...
Pretty soon, you're going to be talking about how the military is all patriots and stuff like that.
I don't get where...
I mean, I have my theories, but it's very weird to hear this, like, they're all full of racists and they fucking hate you.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
You know, like the cops.
dan friesen
Right.
jordan holmes
He said that before in 2009.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
He's like, anybody who's a symbol of authority in 2009 is associated with a government that's out of control, whereas now we have a government that is under control for him.
dan friesen
And even before that, he started to get the narrative that there is a counter-coup beneath the surface against globalist forces within the military and police and stuff like that.
You know, we talk a bit about why it's important to cover Alex Jones and why it's important to focus on this stuff.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
And one of the reasons is because I believe, and I think a lot of right-thinking people would agree with me in this, that often he is someone who serves as a conduit into much darker things.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
Now, on another level, more mainstream things than Alex, say Fox News, those sorts of things, serve as conduits to him.
Which then lead people further down the hole into overt white supremacy and white nationalism.
jordan holmes
It's like when you get lost on Wikipedia for a while and all of a sudden you're like, holy shit, when did I get into the Boer War?
dan friesen
You never know what you're going to learn.
But why I think that this is something I would like to bring up at this point is because towards the mid-end of this episode, Alex gets a call who actually expresses exactly that.
But as a positive thing.
jordan holmes
Interesting.
unidentified
Hey, how you doing?
alex jones
Good, sir.
unidentified
Hey, I just wanted to thank you, first and foremost, for what you're doing for the country.
And I believe that you're a patriot for what you do.
alex jones
Thank you.
I'm on a mission.
jordan holmes
God bless America.
alex jones
I'm on a mission.
Thank you.
unidentified
Thank you, sir.
I just wanted to say real quick that I'm new to all of this.
I'm new to politics, and it's been quite an eye-opener.
This past election is what got me into it.
My mom got me into watching Fox News at first.
jordan holmes
What's different about that election?
unidentified
One thing led to another.
I eventually found your show.
And you've opened my eyes to quite a few things.
And I listen to a lot of the radio shows out there, just about all of them, and I think you're the best out there because you're speaking the actual truth.
The other guys, they're great, but it's like they're scared to talk about what really needs to be talked about.
alex jones
Or they nitpick, a lot of them.
There's a lot of great folks, though.
Some of them nitpick about everybody else.
dan friesen
Just because it's fun, Alex complains literally all the time about Glenn Beck.
At this point in his career, he hates Michael Savage, calls him Michael Wiener all the time.
jordan holmes
That's because he's a nitpicker!
That's all he does, Dan!
dan friesen
He just nitpicks!
jordan holmes
What a wiener!
dan friesen
Well, that's what he's saying is the problem with all these other places.
jordan holmes
They're a bunch of wieners with their nitpicking, Dan!
dan friesen
But if you see there, this caller is talking about, like, okay, so my mom got me watching Fox News and I, you know, started to go down the rabbit hole, then I found you, and then once I found you, which is mostly, like, it's, like, hardcore drugs.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
The other stuff wasn't good enough anymore.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
Because you've convinced me that you are actually the one giving the real truth.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
So then I listen to other people and I think they're full of shit because you've trained me to think that they're full of shit.
This is how indoctrination works.
This caller is expressing exactly how the path downward works.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
So that's fun.
jordan holmes
Dead on.
dan friesen
Yeah, it's a bummer.
It's a bummer especially in the context of like, thank you for doing that to me.
jordan holmes
Yeah, I know.
I just found politics, which is like, okay, how did you?
All right, fine.
And then I went to InfoWars.
unidentified
Fuck!
jordan holmes
What?
You could have done anything if you just found politics.
You were a blank slate.
You didn't know anything could have happened, and instead you wound up going to Alex Jones?
Fuck, man.
dan friesen
Well, you know, people who maybe aren't that smart.
Things filter downwards.
And also, Alex Jones is really...
jordan holmes
Trickle-down bullshit.
dan friesen
I mean, if you're not paying that close of attention, Alex Jones is really entertaining.
So it makes sense that if you accidentally stumble onto him, and you're just kind of like, oh, this guy's blowing my mind.
jordan holmes
Yeah, he is more entertaining than Hannity, I'll give you that.
dan friesen
Yeah, no doubt.
Especially when Combs was around.
Those were dark times with Hannity and Combs.
unidentified
Oh, that's right.
jordan holmes
I remember that.
Why did he ever have a co-host?
That's a terrible idea.
dan friesen
They were trying to pretend they were fair and balanced.
jordan holmes
Ah, yeah.
Oh, those were fun times.
dan friesen
Good times.
jordan holmes
When they used to even...
They at least made the effort to pretend back then, you know?
dan friesen
Right, right.
Which you gotta tip the cap to a little bit, or not.
jordan holmes
Do you?
dan friesen
No.
jordan holmes
I'm pretty sure you don't.
dan friesen
But you do need to tip the cap to this.
jordan holmes
Nice transition.
dan friesen
And that is...
We've listened to a lot of Alex's show.
He sings along with a lot of music.
But we've never seen him become self-aware about the fact that he's singing along to a lot of music on his show.
unidentified
It seemed like yesterday, but it was long ago.
She was lovely, she was the queen of our lives.
We're in the darkness with the radio playing low.
jordan holmes
You are a nitpicker, sir.
unidentified
All those drifters days are past me now.
alex jones
I've got so much more.
unidentified
I've got so much more to think about.
alex jones
Deadlines.
unidentified
Deadlines and commitments.
alex jones
It's the Alex Jones Karaoke Show.
unidentified
All right.
alex jones
Brought to you by EkoaBlue.com.
Against the wind.
jordan holmes
Against the wind.
alex jones
All right, Burmas.
unidentified
Yeah.
jordan holmes
See, now that's how I wish he would do his ads from now on.
dan friesen
Oh, totally.
jordan holmes
Oh, do the highwaymen and then drop in just like a...
Brought to you by a cola balloon.
unidentified
And we got Easter sails on the way.
dan friesen
Yeah, it's more fun, I would.
jordan holmes
That's way more fun.
dan friesen
And he's talking, Jason Burmess is in studio, and they're announcing that Jason Burmess is now going to be doing a 9 to midnight show on the InfoWars network, brought to you by the Genesis Communications Network.
I don't know how successful that was.
I don't ever care to find out.
Jason Burmess sucks.
jordan holmes
Who is Jason Burmiss?
I've never met this cast.
dan friesen
Yes, you have a hundred times.
jordan holmes
I have not met Jason Burmiss.
dan friesen
Yes, you have.
jordan holmes
What are you talking about?
dan friesen
You've talked about him a bit.
jordan holmes
What are you talking about?
Refresh my memory, then.
dan friesen
He's kind of Alex Jones' main sidekick at this point.
Like, he's a guy who's made some 9-11 documentaries.
Oh, yeah, now I remember him.
He's on a bit, but we don't listen to him all that much because he's kind of a David Knight-y character.
A little boring.
I don't know.
unidentified
No, that's fine.
jordan holmes
I remember him now.
I remember him now.
He's boring.
dan friesen
He's one of his main guys.
jordan holmes
He sucks.
dan friesen
Yeah, he does.
So that brings us to the end of March 2nd, and there's not a lot going on there.
There's nothing really about the Tea Party, nothing really about Soros, except for that first clip.
jordan holmes
We got our first mention.
dan friesen
Yeah, so that's some nice progress, but at the same time, really, there's not...
jordan holmes
Yeah, it's boring.
dan friesen
This is a no-man's land where we kind of hoped we would...
Find something.
jordan holmes
Yeah, we would see an acceleration at least.
dan friesen
And there's not.
jordan holmes
No.
We're in a holding pattern.
dan friesen
We go on March 3rd, and we get to Alex talking about some fears that metastasize and become something else a couple years down the road.
jordan holmes
Spider.
alex jones
We were told by Walmart managers...
In 2002, there was a secret program with Walmart distribution centers and Walmart facilities under martial law to be where people are taken to be given the forced inoculations, and people didn't believe us.
Then, two years ago, it came out in mainstream news that Walmart was indeed involved in, quote, helping during emergencies with emergency inoculations, and they did drills all over the country.
You can Google all of this.
You know, Walmart does vaccination drill.
unidentified
Or...
jordan holmes
Okay.
alex jones
Walmart does an emergency preparedness drill.
And people pull into the Walmart and drive through and they give you shots.
Now, first they did it with jelly beans.
They did drills where they would give you a jelly bean as if it was your pill.
jordan holmes
Jelly shots.
Jelly shots.
alex jones
Then they now have drills where you actually show up for the drill and they advertise it locally and the citizens get free flu shots and you drive up and the army sits there and injects you with the flu vaccine.
jordan holmes
How dare they give you free vaccinations?
alex jones
So they're beta testing this and drilling the firemen, drilling the police, drilling the National Guard, drilling the Walmart employees.
Other businesses are involved.
dan friesen
So, look.
Oh, this is really just misrepresenting the fact that they give out vaccines at Walmart.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
And they probably have done some drills in terms of, like, you know, should there be a crisis?
How can we effectively serve the population?
jordan holmes
Smallpox came back.
Guess what this huge-ass building is?
It's a Walmart.
Let's vaccinate people in a Walmart because it's a big fucking building.
dan friesen
And then further, you have to consider how many Walmarts there are in America and how many Walmarts are in towns that have no other central.
Yeah.
Like, if you didn't grow up in a small town, you don't understand that sometimes you live in a town where Walmart is the town square.
jordan holmes
It's where I hung out in my small bullshit town.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
That wasn't the case in Colombia when I was growing up, but Colombia is so close to a lot of small towns, I'd hang out with people who grew up in Mexico, Missouri, Avaz, places like those cities where it's like, there's nothing to do except go to the fucking Super Walmart.
So on Friday nights, the kids would all go hang out at Walmart.
jordan holmes
It's like a cheap version of being a mall rat.
There's just nowhere else to hang out.
No.
No, there's no mall.
dan friesen
So the idea that, like, hey, it would be a very strategic, smart thing to do for public health, too.
Work with Walmarts to give people vaccines.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
Not force vaccines on them or anything like that.
But also then you have to...
jordan holmes
As opposed to the local Pentecostal church.
dan friesen
So now you have to...
Well, not every town has one of those.
Most towns do have a Walmart.
Maybe not tiny, tiny towns.
jordan holmes
Tiny, tiny towns have...
They don't need them because they still have, like, you know, snake rituals.
unidentified
Sure.
jordan holmes
So they don't need vaccinations.
dan friesen
The snakes make them strong.
Yeah.
But the important thing here is that this...
Brand of fear is exactly what motivated Jade Helm.
This is exactly what was behind the Jade Helm fear of a government takeover.
There were all these Walmarts that closed down and people were like, oh my god, that's where they're going to house the detainees when they take over the cities.
So Alex, his whole thing in the present has been like, I didn't get on Jade Helm stuff.
It's like...
Six years before, you are given the proto-narrative that led to the Jade Helm fears.
So maybe, I don't know, we would still have to go through that period of time to find out exactly what he was saying when Jade Helm 15 was going on.
jordan holmes
Our next investigation is...
dan friesen
No.
No more investigations.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
He's laying the groundwork for the people who did make those conspiracies.
So whether or not he was actively involved...
He's the granddaddy.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
So that's fun.
Anyway.
jordan holmes
I mean, hey, look, it's not a terrible idea.
If I was going to put a lot of detainees somewhere, I would either surround them with a pit of snakes a la Indiana Jones.
dan friesen
And then they could get their vaccines that way.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
Or I would put them in a Walmart.
unidentified
Okay.
jordan holmes
You know how easy it is to keep people docile in a Walmart?
You never see people freaking out at a Walmart, even at the checkout aisle, because somebody has 12. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Everybody's cool in Walmart.
dan friesen
There's so many distractions.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
jordan holmes
It's easy to contain people there.
dan friesen
All right.
You just lock the doors and no one would notice.
I don't know if that's true.
But I know that this next clip represents...
jordan holmes
The greeters would have a very different job.
They'd be on the other side of that being like...
I'm sorry, you can't leave yet.
dan friesen
Do you want some peanut butter cups?
They're over there.
Just constantly trick people to walk away from the exits.
jordan holmes
Everybody will walk away when there's a peanut butter cup.
dan friesen
Sure.
Fire sale on peanut butter cups.
jordan holmes
Free peanut butter cups in the back.
dan friesen
So, like I said, I don't know if what you're saying is true, but I know what Alex is going to say in this next clip.
Not true.
And it's about how popular he is.
alex jones
We were up here working late last night, and I went and picked up hot dogs.
From a local hot dog place.
jordan holmes
That's what the guys wanted.
alex jones
And I go in and the two people behind the counter were fans of the show.
Everybody that came in.
Three different groups of people that came in while I was there getting hot dogs.
They were all fans.
Just an example of how big this show's getting and how effective, thanks to you out there spreading the word.
But one guy said, you know, you're kind of down on Obama.
Didn't he really close Guantanamo?
And I said, no.
He'll look at closing it in one year, and he has said they're going to continue rendition, secret arrest, and not follow the Constitution Bill of Rights for Geneva Convention.
And I gave him some of the headlines.
You know, Obama backs Bush on no rights for detainees.
jordan holmes
Credit where credit's due.
alex jones
And I said, just Google that.
But, and I had another guy.
When I was walking down the street the other day, he would come over and start talking to me and say, hey, I liked when you were on Bush, but it seems like you're even more against Obama.
That's because the globalists are making their move right now like never before and endowing him with this godlike, messianic, messiah-type system.
dan friesen
None of these people exist.
But, yeah, credit where credit's due.
Obama did continue a lot of those negative programs.
jordan holmes
Hey, it's a bummer.
Should be a black stain on his presidency forever.
dan friesen
But I don't believe those people at the hot dog stand existed.
I don't believe those conversations happened the way he's pretending they did.
jordan holmes
How big was this hot dog stand that there were that many people hanging out there?
dan friesen
It's, uh, Austin doesn't have a Walmart, so they have a hot dog stand.
jordan holmes
So they have a hot dog stand.
dan friesen
Exactly.
jordan holmes
They have the town hot dog stand.
dan friesen
It's the hub of social life.
My parents have told me all about that.
jordan holmes
Okay, okay, cool.
dan friesen
So, Jordan, I've told you, there's not a lot fucking going on on these episodes.
unidentified
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
This is going to be a bit of a shorter episode because of it.
Because a lot of this ends up being Alex plugging the Obama deception.
jordan holmes
Sure.
dan friesen
As I remember, that clip ends up spiraling into, like, the Obama deception's going to be huge.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right, right.
dan friesen
Great.
He interviews Mike Rivero on this show, and that's only interesting because, as we know...
Some point after this, Mike Rivera is going to call Alex a shill for Israel and not be welcome on his show anymore.
So that hasn't happened yet.
Their falling out hasn't happened.
And who else does he have?
He has an interview with Richard C. Cook.
It's nothing.
It's nothing.
jordan holmes
Who is Richard C. Cook?
dan friesen
It's not important.
jordan holmes
He's just a guy.
dan friesen
No, he's someone who, as I recall, he wrote about the Challenger explosion and actually got to the bottom of some of that in a very interesting way.
jordan holmes
Oh, that's cool as fuck.
dan friesen
Kind of put people's feet to the fire about it.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
But Alex doesn't bring that shit up at all.
jordan holmes
What?
Why not?
dan friesen
Because he wants to talk about the globalists.
unidentified
Wait, but...
The Challenger disaster is an incredibly fascinating period in American history.
jordan holmes
That's awesome.
dan friesen
But this guy has a good bit of experience about the economy.
He's fairly knowledgeable.
So Alex, he tries to push a lot of the, like, they're going to collapse things language with him.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And Cook is...
Maybe a little bit more polite and generous than he needs to be with the conversation.
Because when they're talking, Alex is like, they're going to collapse everything in order to have everything be super cheap so they can buy up everything after it's all over.
And...
jordan holmes
That's the only way we're going to rebuild the Challenger.
dan friesen
So Richard Cook comes in and he's talking about how, like...
Historically, when things have fallen apart, people are able to buy up resources at a much diminished price.
jordan holmes
Yeah, that's never happened with Puerto Rico now, as we're talking.
dan friesen
The fact that you can do that when things fall apart...
Does not prove that people do that intentionally so they can later do that.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
There are just predators who are evil people who swoop in in order to...
Not necessarily always evil.
Some people have done it as a force for good.
But let's go with the large majority who are like literal carpetbaggers, right?
dan friesen
I would be willing to believe that some people have tried to work things towards a collapse.
In order to buy things up on the other side.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
dan friesen
In order for you to get me to believe that that was a larger plan by some sort of coordinated group, you'd need to do a lot more in terms of evidence.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
And when Alex brings up, like, Soros, which he doesn't at this point, but this conversation, had it happened years later, he fucking would.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
Absolutely.
dan friesen
Also, but he brings up, like, the Rothschilds at Waterloo.
That whole thing.
That's not true.
So, like, when your arguments about the idea of, like, causing a collapse in order to buy things up on the other end, when you hearken back to that, I don't care.
I'm not coming along with you for that ride.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
That was based on Nazi propaganda.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
That's not true.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
So, you need to do better than that, and I encourage you to.
If you want to, I'll listen.
I'll review the evidence.
But up till now...
There's none.
jordan holmes
And it's not like there aren't any actual examples of that.
Like, let's just go with Venezuela or Panama or fucking Hawaii.
Like, name any number of these things where a collapse is created in order to purchase all of this shit.
dan friesen
Are you going to prove to me that all those collapses were intentionally created by some sort of outside evil force?
Or are you just going to say that that happened, whether or not it was exacerbated by anyone, and then, like you say, predatory forces came in and took advantage of it?
jordan holmes
We have a store that's called a Banana Republic for a reason.
Like, that is a thing.
Right, right.
I'm not saying that it's a large conspiracy orchestrated.
I'm saying it's a government combining with a private interest in order to collapse a government and then take it over cheap.
dan friesen
Right.
jordan holmes
That's a thing.
It's not that it's not a thing.
The problem is he's using a non-thing to describe a thing that's a thing.
Do you see what I'm saying?
dan friesen
Somewhat.
Which I actually think is probably a succinct summation of Alex Jones' sort of intellectual strategy, which is...
Describe a non-thing by ignoring a thing.
jordan holmes
Yeah, that's right.
dan friesen
There's a real thing and he wants to talk about the fake version of the thing.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
Which is fun because that kind of leads us into this next clip.
jordan holmes
Nice.
dan friesen
This is the only thing that really was like, oh boy, this is going to be fun.
So this is a clip where, first of all, there's a lot of excitement going on here.
Because this is the first time I've heard Rob do on the show back in 2009.
Alex doesn't introduce him.
jordan holmes
I love the professionalism of this show!
dan friesen
Rob Dude just shows up after a commercial break and Alex is like, what do you think about that, Rob?
So they have a conversation about stuff and it's like...
jordan holmes
I like that.
dan friesen
Rob Duke kind of brings up the Tea Party.
He doesn't call it the Tea Party.
He talks about tax protesters.
jordan holmes
Sure.
dan friesen
Which is fine.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
It's close.
Alex doesn't seem all that interested.
jordan holmes
Tax protesting is boring.
dan friesen
No.
jordan holmes
It's lame.
dan friesen
No.
jordan holmes
It's not lame?
dan friesen
No, it's not lame to Alex.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
But he has a very specific group of people.
That he thinks are legitimate techs.
jordan holmes
Dan.
dan friesen
And he names them here.
jordan holmes
Dan, I don't want to know.
dan friesen
I swear to God, I would have ignored this entire clip if these names weren't really funny.
And then I looked into them and I'm like, holy shit, these people are all lunatics.
But man, these names are funny.
alex jones
Yeah, let's go ahead and get Bob Schultz with the People Foundation.
I haven't had him on in about two years.
Let's go ahead and get Joe Bannister on.
Let's go ahead and get all the usual suspects on.
Tommy Cryer.
unidentified
Leading up, the 15th is the middle of the week.
alex jones
In fact, you want to write that down?
jordan holmes
Good work, guys.
alex jones
We'll do producer meetings here on air, total transparency.
Let's get Tommy Cryer on.
Let's get Joe Bannister on.
jordan holmes
Gotta get him.
alex jones
Let's get Red Beckman on.
dan friesen
Red Beckman.
jordan holmes
Red Beckman?
alex jones
Let's get...
Who else should I get on here?
jordan holmes
Skip LaRouche.
alex jones
Did I tell you Bob Schultz?
dan friesen
Wait for it.
alex jones
Oh, and let's get Larry Becraft.
These are all legitimate researchers and activists who won't get you put in prison.
There's a lot of patriot mythology out there, and I wouldn't go throw people over cliffs.
I'm certainly not going to have baloney people on the show.
These are all legitimate.
Yeah, let's set them up for next week.
unidentified
Cool.
Sounds good.
alex jones
Thanks a lot, buddy.
We'll start doing it.
Appreciate that.
jordan holmes
Good work, guys.
dan friesen
When I heard those names, I was like, first of all, I love the names.
First, Red Beckman and Larry B. Craft.
jordan holmes
Larry B. Craft.
dan friesen
I was like, alright.
And then the idea that he's saying that there's patriot mythology out there and I wouldn't steer you wrong by bringing in a crazy person like that.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
Interesting that Erwin Schiff isn't on your list of names.
He's suspicious in his absence.
Peter Schiff isn't on his list of names.
jordan holmes
Definitely not there.
dan friesen
Of people who preach against the tax and stuff.
So I had to look into it.
I had to be like, who are these fucking people?
What are they all about?
Because some of them rang a little bit of a bell.
But most of those names, I was just like...
That could be a made-up name.
Larry B. Craft.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
Are you kidding me?
jordan holmes
Do you know what my favorite patriot mythology is?
It's when George Washington ate those six pomegranate seeds, and that's why we have the seasons.
dan friesen
That's why we have winter.
jordan holmes
Yeah, exactly.
dan friesen
Yeah, because his mom got sad.
jordan holmes
Yeah, totally right.
dan friesen
So I'm going to tell you all about these guys now.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
This is where my research took me.
It was into finding out about these legitimate tax protesters.
jordan holmes
The legitimate tax protesters.
dan friesen
So who do you want to hear about first?
jordan holmes
It's got to be Red Beckman.
dan friesen
Well, unfortunately, I have to leave him for last.
jordan holmes
What?
God damn it!
dan friesen
Yeah, sorry.
jordan holmes
All right.
Lynn, let's go with B-Craft.
dan friesen
Larry B-Craft.
jordan holmes
He can't even bring the A-Craft.
He's a solid B-Craft, though.
dan friesen
Uh-huh.
So, okay, Larry B-Craft is a tax attorney generally working in the world of defending tax protesters in court.
Though it does not mean that he himself is a sovereign citizen, it would be very fair to say that he spent most of his career making money off defending...
jordan holmes
He is currently 0-26 in court cases, but I'll tell you what, he's rich as fuck.
dan friesen
Quote, in 1985, B-Craft tried to defend one client, Jane Ferguson, by arguing that the 16th Amendment, which allowed the federal income tax, was void because 11 state legislatures slightly reworded it before ratifying it.
The judge was not impressed by his argument.
B-Craft is not...
jordan holmes
Now, hold on.
Was the judge nonplussed by his argument and yet impressed that he brought the argument?
Or was he not impressed with the argument itself?
dan friesen
The quote is, he was not impressed.
jordan holmes
Because the argument seems pretty impressive to go all the way to the 16th Amendment for it.
dan friesen
Well, we'll get back to that here in a little bit.
So Bcraft is known in tax protester circles as someone who's willing to try just about any argument in court to see if it sticks.
jordan holmes
Pretty impressive!
dan friesen
And possibly because of his willingness to be flexible and try anything, he's one of the only tax protester attorneys who's ever...
Wait, he won one?
Okay.
On October 15, 1993, Lloyd Long, underrepresentation from Larry Becraft...
jordan holmes
Lloyd Long represented by Larry Becraft?
dan friesen
It's a who's who funny name.
unidentified
What is this?
dan friesen
He was found not guilty in a criminal court on charges that he willingly evaded paying taxes.
Since that day, tax protesters have used that case as their smoking gun.
They're proof that they're right, and the courts have followed along and proved it too.
The only problem with their argument is that Long only won his criminal trial, for which the burden of proof involved the government proving that he knew he had to file taxes.
And the jury found that he sincerely did not believe that he needed to do so.
jordan holmes
We find you not guilty by reason of stupidity.
dan friesen
Yep, and thus they could not rule that he had willingly evaded taxes.
B-Craft even makes sure that this is the main issue of his defense in his opening statement.
I found an entire transcript of this.
jordan holmes
Before you read it, I'm going to try and pre-summate it, all right?
dan friesen
Fair.
jordan holmes
Look at how fucking dumb this guy is!
Look at how dumb he is!
You think he knows he needs to pay taxes?
He's too fucking stupid!
dan friesen
I think that would hurt his sort of stature in the tax protester world.
jordan holmes
Fair enough.
I was cementing.
dan friesen
Quote, the question is, did Lloyd Long willfully, meaning with a criminal state of mind, deliberately fail to file his returns?
Or, did he have an innocent good faith belief, a reason that he's done what he's done?
Now that's the bottom line issue.
jordan holmes
No, it's not.
dan friesen
So he's even trying to frame it as like, did he?
Do you think he was really trying to commit a crime here?
You're right.
I mean, the insinuation...
jordan holmes
Who among us has not forgotten that taxes need to be paid?
dan friesen
The insinuation is like he's too dumb or he's thoroughly convinced of this thing that I'm not going to say is wrong, but we all know is wrong.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
So also in civil trial, he was found guilty and he had to pay his back taxes.
jordan holmes
Your Honor.
Who among us can say that we haven't murdered somebody because we sincerely believed them to be a dragon?
That's crazy.
Do you really think this man committed murder?
unidentified
No.
jordan holmes
He fought a dragon.
dan friesen
Like a hero.
Well, I mean, like I said, he was still found guilty in his civil trial and had to pay all his back taxes.
Which is something that the tax protesters mysteriously don't ever really talk about.
They just talk about that...
Criminal case.
And act like he got off with it because Larry B. Craft had come in and proved that the fucking 16th doesn't work and the taxes are all bullshit.
It's an excise tax.
All this stuff.
I read so much stupid tax bullshit.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
But outside of all that...
He's not really been too big a player in the tax protester world, but he does pop up from time to time to advance bad arguments that get people thrown in jail pretty regularly.
Also, as of this recording, the only post on his blog is just him saying that you can contact him to be your lawyer, along with a picture of himself escorting his daughter across a football field when she was Auburn's homecoming queen.
I'm not sure that that's customary.
To be escorted by your father when you're the homecoming queen?
jordan holmes
What are his rates?
dan friesen
What?
jordan holmes
What are his rates?
dan friesen
To escort the homecoming queen?
jordan holmes
Yeah!
dan friesen
I think that's probably pro bono.
unidentified
I think he probably did that when you read it.
dan friesen
I don't know.
jordan holmes
I doubt it.
He charged by the hour.
dan friesen
I don't know.
jordan holmes
Those are billable hours, Dan.
dan friesen
I'm gonna guess that that was, like, his idea.
I don't know.
I don't want to get involved with family stuff, but it seems like he was like...
You're the homecoming queen?
I'm gonna fucking escort you.
You're not gonna take a boy.
jordan holmes
Uh-uh.
No.
No!
What if that boy pays taxes?
dan friesen
That would be scandalous.
jordan holmes
I would never have that in my house.
dan friesen
Alright, so now I guess...
jordan holmes
Guess who's coming to dinner?
Someone who pays taxes.
dan friesen
I guess we can go next with Tom Cryer.
Let's go with Tom Cryer.
jordan holmes
Tom Cryer.
Tom Cryer, the town crier.
dan friesen
He is yet another guy who decided not to pay his taxes, got in trouble for it in 2007, then in court pleaded, quote, I sincerely thought I didn't need to do that, using that as a defense in order to get out of criminal trouble.
His story is the absolute run-of-the-mill for idiotic tax protesting in that world.
You have a bad argument.
You rely on technicality to stay out of prison.
You end up losing in civil court.
You get forced to pay your back taxes.
You pretend that civil case never happened.
And then make tons of money in the tax protest circuit preaching that people should do the exact same thing that you got in trouble for in the first place.
jordan holmes
Fine.
You don't have to go to jail, but you still owe us this money.
Please pay it.
dan friesen
Basically.
And they all hide behind that same thing.
That, like, I sincerely believed this stuff.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
So you don't have to go to prison, but then you still have to pay everything back.
jordan holmes
How long did they get away with it?
dan friesen
Dude, that story is so...
Regular.
jordan holmes
It's legion.
dan friesen
From all the stuff that I looked into, it's all people wiggling their way out of prison for the crimes that they very clearly committed.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And that's why people like Irwin Schiff are super rare, because he is like, I'm not going to bend on this.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
All right, you've got to go to prison.
jordan holmes
You can't be a believer.
Right.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
And so they end up just being forced to pay their back taxes.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
But because of the publicity they gain, they can shift the perception and make it like, I stood up to the man.
And then just not talk about the civil trial.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
So Tom Cryer died in 2012, and in the years just leading up to his death, he decided to not pay his taxes again.
jordan holmes
Well, what are you going to do?
Can't take it with you, Dan!
dan friesen
He did not agree that he owed back taxes, and he very clearly did owe them.
And he further thought that he shouldn't have to pay any penalties for wasting everyone's time in court with long-debunked and discredited bullshit theories.
The IRS said that he owed him just north of $1.7 million.
jordan holmes
Damn!
dan friesen
Whereas Tom Cryer believed that the number should be...
jordan holmes
Four!
dan friesen
Nice round number, let's say.
jordan holmes
Ten!
dan friesen
Zero.
jordan holmes
Come on, man.
You gotta compromise.
Give him, like, 50. Give him a good 50. No.
Bring a $50 bill into court.
Everybody will be fine.
Settle.
dan friesen
So let's talk Joe Bannister.
jordan holmes
Joe Bannister.
dan friesen
That's a hot name.
jordan holmes
You know what?
I don't find Joe Bannister as charming as you do.
dan friesen
If you were making like a...
I think that's a pretty good cop name for making a TV show.
jordan holmes
You know what?
You're right.
dan friesen
Detective Joe Bannister.
jordan holmes
Now that you've recontextualized it, I'm in.
dan friesen
Well, it's interesting because Joe Banner is a former IRS agent who turned into a tax protester and is, if by some sort of magic, ran afoul of tax law in some very serious ways.
jordan holmes
So you could say he slid down into the...
dan friesen
It seems like he probably had some of these ideas even before he ended up leaving the IRS, which is wild.
jordan holmes
That's a weird thing to be in the IRS.
dan friesen
So it appears he didn't file his taxes between 2002 and 2006 and ended up getting in some pretty big trouble about that.
Bannister's first real run-in with the law, though, regarding his tax beliefs happened in 2004, when Bannister was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, as well as three counts of aiding and assisting the filing of false tax returns.
A man named Thompson for the 1996, 1997, and 1998 tax years.
jordan holmes
He had one name like Cher?
No.
His name was just Thompson?
dan friesen
No.
That was just how I pulled the quote out of the Department of Justice press release.
unidentified
Okay.
dan friesen
The issue had to do with a client he was advising named Walter Thompson, the owner of SenCal Sales, a luggage manufacturing business.
Thompson, possibly due to Bannister's advice, stopped paying his employees income and employment taxes and also stopped filing necessary taxes.
Ha ha!
jordan holmes
Fooled ya!
You'll never catch me!
Did he also leave riddles instead?
He just sent the IRS just a, you'll find my money when you answer me these questions three.
dan friesen
So from that press release from the Department of Justice, quote, the indictment further alleges that there was a second meeting on October 11, 2000, at which Thompson and Bannister again falsely advised I'm sorry, what now?
not lie to them regarding tax issues.
jordan holmes
I'm sorry, what now?
dan friesen
So it has to do with this idea that a lot of tax protesters believe that the wording of the laws, the federal employees are the only people who have to actually pay taxes and the money I'm sorry, what now?
Classified as in common.
jordan holmes
All right.
dan friesen
It's all a mess.
unidentified
All right.
dan friesen
I mean, we could be here for another six hours.
jordan holmes
I'm going to be honest, there's got to be a little bit of that on you.
If I went to an employer and they were like, no, no, no, don't worry about it.
What I'm paying you is an income.
I'd be like, ah, you guys, I don't think I should work here.
dan friesen
I might report them.
You know, I might be like, they're giving out very bad advice.
But if you're someone who maybe trusts authority implicitly, something like that, they could really have screwed some people over with like...
Well, they said it.
I mean, that guy worked for the IRS.
Why shouldn't I believe him?
jordan holmes
That's the only time in court that I would accept the...
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Oh, yeah, I'm way too dumb to have known I was supposed to pay taxes on this.
Look at that fucking guy.
He was my boss!
dan friesen
Well, and then even beyond that, let's take another step and say that, like, no matter what these employees believed or didn't believe...
This guy, Thompson, maybe because he believed what Bannister said, stopped paying their employment taxes.
jordan holmes
That's not good.
dan friesen
And stopped filing these quarterly reports that needed to be filed in order for the employees to file their taxes.
jordan holmes
Paperwork is hard.
dan friesen
So he's just, like, administratively fucking these people over.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Whether or not it's all because of Bannister is a whole other issue.
So, yeah.
Of course, the issue is never just that these people don't pay taxes.
And if you think the money that they saved by not paying employment taxes went to the employees' pockets, you're fucking high.
jordan holmes
I believe it.
unidentified
That's ludicrous.
jordan holmes
I absolutely believe it.
dan friesen
So these people always end up getting greedy.
In amended tax returns they filed, they were trying to make the tax liability for the business zero dollars.
That doesn't sound right.
And reflect that they were entitled to a refund of $65,000 for both 1996 and 1997.
unidentified
That doesn't sound right either.
dan friesen
So they're trying to scam the government.
jordan holmes
Not only do I not owe you any money, you sir owe me money!
dan friesen
So, Thompson was found guilty and sentenced to 72 months in prison.
Bannister, however, was acquitted because he's a member of a very specific group of assholes, the promoters of a false and criminal ideology.
jordan holmes
To Bill Cain.
dan friesen
Jay Atkinson, a tax lawyer who studies tax protesters, told the New York Times, quote, It's hard to convict promoters.
Promoters make a lot of money off their marks, watch their marks go to jail for not paying their taxes, and then take advantage of a loophole that lets them prepare bogus returns that they characterize as protesters.
What?
Yes.
jordan holmes
How does that...
dan friesen
What?
unidentified
So he can get a banister as an advisor to the person who is not paying the taxes.
dan friesen
That doesn't get away by pretending that like, oh, we were doing this to sort of Ask a question of the IRS.
jordan holmes
Seems like somebody should have stopped that by now.
dan friesen
Or I can get away with it because I'm the accountant or whatever, and I'm just doing this at the direction of the client.
jordan holmes
You really don't think that's okay.
dan friesen
He's the one who's evading the taxes.
I'm just filing things at his direction.
jordan holmes
Then you're a bad accountant.
dan friesen
He ends up getting to slither away.
People like Bannister could profit off this weak shit, and he knows that when everything falls apart, he can hide behind even weaker arguments to pretend...
That he was either just You can't buy your own bullshit.
jordan holmes
You can't do it.
If you're going to scam, you can't.
Then scam yourself.
That's just a bad move.
dan friesen
So now we're three for three on people.
I guess Larry Becraft, I'm not entirely sure if he actually evaded taxes himself, but two for three people who actually put it into practice and then cowardly hid from the consequences of their actions.
Now, Bob Schultz.
Surprisingly.
jordan holmes
Bobby Schultz.
dan friesen
Bob Schultz is another guy who doesn't pay taxes.
jordan holmes
Oh, that's great.
Wait, wait, wait, what?
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Is he part of our murderer's row of non-taxpayers?
dan friesen
Yeah.
Bob Schultz is a little more interesting, though, perhaps only because he's a perfect example of how these scumbags are con men deep down, even more than they're driven by principles.
Bob Schultz started and ran the We the People Foundation for Constitutional Education.
He was the president, vice president, and pretty much every other important role in the company.
jordan holmes
I feel like you shouldn't have that many roles.
dan friesen
It was run out of his house, like all reputable tax protest advocacy groups who have been given tax-exempt status do.
jordan holmes
He's been...
Wait, what?
dan friesen
He had tax-exempt status.
jordan holmes
What?
How did he get tax-exempt status?
dan friesen
Over the years, Bob used We the People to put out his anti-tax views and lead a lot of people down the wrong paths, making a lot of money off it all the while.
Eventually, once Obama was in office, We the People pivoted from being a solely tax-based group and began spouting racist concerns.
conspiracy theories about how Obama wasn't a citizen.
Schultz used WTP money to buy full-page ads in the Chicago Tribune on December 1st and 3rd, 2008, claiming that Obama had not proven that he was a citizen and there could not be president.
And that would...
You know...
It would have been fine, legally speaking.
unidentified
When you're running a scam, just keep your head down.
jordan holmes
Just keep your head down.
Don't attract attention to yourself.
dan friesen
Bob would not have gotten in trouble for any of that.
He would be happy as a clam making nonsense accusations if he'd just paid his taxes.
His personal taxes.
jordan holmes
Oh, no!
dan friesen
We the People was tax-free, which made it a perfect place for him to hide his money.
Court documents reveal that he had made personal unsecured loans to WTP of over $100,000, and he practiced sole discretion over how the entire organization operated.
In short, the court found that Bob Schultz was using his tax-protesting tax-exempt organization as a, quote, abusive tax shelter.
On July 12, 2018, his request that a case against him for tax evasion using the WTP as a front be dismissed was rejected.
And he will, in all likelihood, end up being in prison before too long.
jordan holmes
You know, you can legally hide your money.
dan friesen
Sure.
jordan holmes
You could just put it in some sort of offshore bank account.
dan friesen
It's more fun.
jordan holmes
You don't have to take a stance.
dan friesen
It's more fun when you have a tax-free organization that you can use as a fund.
jordan holmes
I know.
I know.
It's like you're shaking your ass in front of the government.
I get it.
You're like, I hate taxes.
I'm going to create this tax-exempt business, and then I'm going to put all of my money in there, and that's kind of like a big middle finger to the government.
Fuck you.
See, look, I outsmarted your 16th Amendment or whatever that is.
Right.
What?
How many more amendments are you going to have, huh?
We should have stopped at nine.
dan friesen
No, they need the tenth.
They're big on the tenth.
I mean, Alex had two guests on earlier to talk about his fucking love of the tenth.
So now we come to Red Beckman.
jordan holmes
Anything before the 13th for these.
I think that should be the rallying cry for these white.
Instead of blood and soil and all that stuff, just be like, any amendment before the 13th.
dan friesen
Right.
I think they do.
I think they do do that.
unidentified
Yeah.
jordan holmes
That actually sounds right.
You're right.
dan friesen
So, Red Beckman.
jordan holmes
Red Beckman.
dan friesen
Martin.
jordan holmes
The headliner of this murderer's row.
dan friesen
Martin Red Beckman is the granddaddy of tax protesters.
He has an 1985 book, The Law That Never Was, The Fraud of the 16th Amendment, is one of the primary drivers behind the tax protest movement, despite the fact that claims made in the book have been repeatedly deemed to be fraudulent by courts.
Though the tax protester movement existed since long before the law that never was, this book led to a renaissance of idiots thinking they know something about the law.
Beckman and his co-author William Benson present the argument in their book that the 16th Amendment was never ratified and therefore people don't have to pay taxes.
What?
The courts have reviewed the argument and found it to be so baseless that they have legally classified the argument as frivolous.
You get hit with a penalty for just trying to make this argument in court.
jordan holmes
That's like, what's her fucking France?
Like, she's legally a fascist.
dan friesen
This is legally frivolous.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
This is legally the dumbest shit we've ever heard.
What do you mean?
You can't just argue that an amendment wasn't actually ratified.
What's that?
What argument is that?
dan friesen
Well, Benson claimed he did a bunch of research and found, like...
The versions that were ratified had punctuation in different places and stuff like that, and therefore...
jordan holmes
Aha!
dan friesen
And then he also makes a ton of claims about the various states, and they said that they ratified it, but they didn't.
jordan holmes
This signature was made by a reptile, sir!
dan friesen
And then the courts have looked into all of the claims and been like, that's not, no, that's stupid.
So all of the arguments that people make is like, no one will look at his stuff.
Originally, when his arguments started to be used to defend people who got arrested for not paying their taxes, They did review that evidence and found it to be lacking.
So naturally, William Benson was arrested for not paying his taxes on over $100,000 of income and was found guilty and sentenced to four years in prison.
He tried to appeal and in the process insisted that he should be allowed to have a hearing on whether or not the 16th Amendment was ratified correctly.
The appeals court was not super into that, saying in their decision, quote, Benson is wrong.
In Thomas, which is a previous court case about this very same issue, we specifically examined the arguments made in the law that never was and concluded that Benson did not discover anything.
jordan holmes
Your Honor, I would like to challenge the 16th Amendment on the basis of fax machines didn't exist and so everyone had to transcribe it themselves.
dan friesen
In 2007, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled that the claims that Benson made in his 16th Amendment reliance $25 for a laminated card, baby.
stubblebine all over again.
Oh, hell yeah.
So they decided, they found that selling this 16th Amendment Reliance program constituted commercial fraud.
He was profiting off giving people specifically fraudulent advice.
The court ended up deciding that he could sell his book because that was covered by the First Amendment, but that he had to stop selling his packages online, some of which cost up to $3,500.
unidentified
Oh, Red.
jordan holmes
Oh, Red.
dan friesen
You shoot for the moon, baby.
Oh, okay.
jordan holmes
I was going to say.
Shoot for the moon, baby.
dan friesen
This has been about Benson, because he's the easier one of these two to get into.
William Benson is a fanciful, tax-protesting idiot.
Red Beckman is a monster in human disguise.
For instance...
jordan holmes
So we have our Roger Stone versus our Alex Jones.
dan friesen
Here's a choice quote about the Holocaust from Red Beckman's book.
jordan holmes
No, I don't need it.
There's no choice quote about the Holocaust other than, like, boo!
dan friesen
His book was called The Church Deceived.
Here's a quote.
Quote.
It was judgment, not holocaust.
The true and almighty God used the evil Nazi government to perform judgment upon the evil anti-Christ religion of those who had crucified the Christ.
jordan holmes
Bad.
dan friesen
They talk about the terrible holocaust of Hitler's Nazi Germany.
They are still with us today, still worshipping their god Satan, and they're still stealing from the people.
They're the ones who schemed and conspired to create a Federal Reserve banking system.
jordan holmes
Huh.
dan friesen
Huh.
jordan holmes
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Huh.
Wait, we went from the Holocaust to the Federal Reserve is fine?
dan friesen
Well, no, no.
jordan holmes
Or is evil?
dan friesen
Yeah, because he's saying that the Jews conspired to create it.
Huh, that sounds a lot like what Alex implies and is unwilling to do because he hides behind the term globalist.
jordan holmes
So if I understand correctly, the Jews created the Federal Reserve.
dan friesen
I think that a lot of people who side on Alex's side of things do think that.
unidentified
I...
jordan holmes
Boy, you know...
dan friesen
It's the same thing.
It's the Jew banker's shit.
jordan holmes
I'm fine with it.
You know what?
Look, you want to say bullshit like the Jews killed our savior or whatever, at least there's some kind of like words, not just like, eh, you know what?
The Jews killed all the unicorns.
Why not?
Let's just blame the Jews for everything.
That doesn't make any goddamn sense.
dan friesen
These people do.
jordan holmes
That is true.
dan friesen
Oh, also, Red Beckman believes that people of color are, quote, mud people, and has a long history of speaking at white supremacists.
jordan holmes
And who creates mud people, Dan?
dan friesen
I don't know why are you yelling at me.
jordan holmes
Who creates golems?
dan friesen
Why are you yelling at me?
jordan holmes
Who creates golems, Dan?
dan friesen
Stop yelling at me.
unidentified
The Jews!
dan friesen
Stop it.
jordan holmes
Also, he thinks that the Jews are responsible for colored people.
dan friesen
He has a long history of speaking.
jordan holmes
Which is his phraseology, not my.
unidentified
Apology.
dan friesen
He has a long history of speaking at white supremacist gatherings.
Alex should know that.
He has every reason to know that in 2009 when he's talking about having him on as a legitimate expert.
So, in 1994, Red sued a whole bunch of people, including Alan Greenspan, in the U.S. District Court of Montana, because back in 1977...
jordan holmes
That's a good place to sue people.
dan friesen
In 1977, because he didn't pay his taxes, there was a lien placed on his house.
He just decided, fuck it, I'm still going to stay here, even though they're trying to take away my property.
And then he got everything tangled up in court, and he didn't have to leave.
jordan holmes
Was he in Montana?
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Oh, okay.
Well, yeah, who's going to...
Who's going to kick you out of your place?
dan friesen
So he stayed there for years and years and kept tying up the courts with frivolous suits to try and postpone things.
And then in 1994, things sort of came to a head.
That case when he was trying to sue Alan Greenspan and a whole list of other people seems to have a little bit of a sense of finality to it.
And his case did not go great.
Red's argument largely boiled down to sovereign citizen lines about him not being a person.
Sure.
the land kind of stuff.
jordan holmes
Your honor, I am allergic to bees and therefore I am exempt from taxes.
dan friesen
Sure.
unidentified
He ended up being evicted from his land.
dan friesen
Of course.
jordan holmes
Not good.
dan friesen
Quote, no more Wacos.
When asked about things, he told the media, quote, this eviction isn't going to go the way the law enforcement plans.
jordan holmes
I don't like that.
dan friesen
There's going to be enough guns here to make sure of that.
jordan holmes
That's not the way you should say things.
dan friesen
Spoiler alert, the eviction did go the way the law enforcement plans.
jordan holmes
How many guns were there?
dan friesen
Plenty, but he got kicked off and they burned down his house.
unidentified
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Wait, wait, wait.
jordan holmes
They burned down his house?
dan friesen
Well, the people who owned the land.
jordan holmes
That seems...
Oh.
You don't need to burn it down.
dan friesen
They did, because they were going to build something on it.
It's either that or destroy it or whatever.
I don't know.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
I'm not going to...
I'm not going to squabble.
unidentified
Because I immediately saw the police carrying torches.
dan friesen
No, they said no more Wacos.
This was long after.
unidentified
Just long after he had vacated the premises.
jordan holmes
I just thought you put those in the same sentence together.
dan friesen
I understand why that could be kind of confusing.
jordan holmes
The eviction went exactly as planned.
They burned his house to the ground.
dan friesen
Well, later.
Again, later.
So, we have this list of dudes.
Bob Schultz, Tom Cryer, Red Beckman, Joe Bannister, and Larry Beecraft, who Alex says are legitimate tax researchers.
I think we've shown they are not.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
These are mostly crazy sovereign citizen adjacent or legit sovereign citizen dudes who have failed over and over again to make arguments in court that they shouldn't have to pay taxes and have largely gotten in big trouble because of it.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
dan friesen
And some of them have been told, you can't preach the things you're preaching because it's legally fraud.
jordan holmes
I'm going to go with Bannister is Mr. T. Okay.
Beckman is definitely face.
Come on.
dan friesen
Hannibal.
jordan holmes
Beckman's Hannibal?
dan friesen
Sure.
jordan holmes
Oh, okay.
All right.
Who's our face?
dan friesen
B-Craft.
jordan holmes
B-Craft is our face?
I don't know what he looks like.
dan friesen
He's the only one who successfully did one of these cases.
jordan holmes
Oh, you know what?
You're right.
You are crushing the A-team.
dan friesen
I don't remember who the fourth member of the A-team is.
jordan holmes
We don't need to worry about that.
dan friesen
And we have two other dudes anyway, so it'd be tough to fill out the team.
Like I said, so that brings us to the end of March 3rd.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And it's just fun, first of all, to see Rob do up in that piece.
And then the idea that, like, Alex thinks that there are people who are less reputable than these five who he refuses to have on the show.
jordan holmes
Well, of course!
dan friesen
That's amazing to me.
jordan holmes
Of course!
This is the A-team!
dan friesen
You couldn't have a goofier...
jordan holmes
With a B-craft.
dan friesen
You couldn't have a goofier troop than these assholes.
They're all crazy and very wrong.
jordan holmes
And they are a ragtag band of heroes ready to infiltrate the Death Star of the government.
dan friesen
Like I said, we're going to touch on a little bit of the fourth here just because I didn't want to end on that laundry list of tax protesters.
jordan holmes
Yeah, but they are fun.
dan friesen
So here's what happened for the first bit of the fourth.
Alex is like, he's mad at Glenn Beck.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And I think that that has a piece of the Tea Party stuff brewing.
Sure.
A little bit.
He's starting to get much more frustrated with Glenn Beck.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
But it doesn't really go anywhere.
He's kind of mad about the idea that Glenn Beck is talking about the FEMA camps and being like, I've got to research this.
I don't know if I can...
Alex is like, that's my bread and butter, you son of a bitch.
unidentified
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
So he gets on air and he's like, I'm going to spend a half hour...
Proving the FEMA can't.
You know what, though?
Whenever I try and do that, I just have too much evidence.
And so...
jordan holmes
That is something I hear all the time from people with all the evidence, Dan.
dan friesen
He's like, I've got so much that I can't do this.
jordan holmes
You can't even talk about it.
There's too much evidence.
dan friesen
And so I'm like, are you going to try?
jordan holmes
No!
You don't need to say any evidence.
dan friesen
Instead, what he does is he starts complaining weirdly about abortion stuff.
And talking about how, like, if you're sorry, you can repent and all this stuff.
Not mentioning his own history with abortion.
jordan holmes
Wait, of 10. Right.
Plus.
dan friesen
Not talking about all that.
Just gets really weird.
He mentions a story, he says it's from the Miami Herald, about an abortion doctor who threw a baby up against the wall and then threw it in the garbage and rats ate it for a couple days while the baby was still alive.
I found that Miami Herald article.
None of that is in there.
None of that is in there.
jordan holmes
He threw a baby up against the wall like the baby owed him money?
dan friesen
Yeah.
Yeah, more or less.
He's trying to shake down this fetus.
The instance in that Miami Herald story he's talking about is absolutely like a bad...
Poorly run abortion clinic.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Absolutely.
jordan holmes
They happen.
dan friesen
There were indications that what they were doing was malpractice.
And they do deserve to run afoul of the law and be punished for it.
But all the editorializing about throwing the fetus against the wall and rats eating a baby who's alive in a trash can for days.
jordan holmes
Really don't think a baby could do that.
dan friesen
Impossible.
And not in the article.
Can't find that anywhere except Alex's weird brain.
But it sends him down a fucking crazy path.
He ends up, like, he said he was going to get into the FEMA camp stuff, but didn't have enough time.
jordan holmes
He has so much evidence!
dan friesen
Then he spends 20 minutes talking about how great he is.
jordan holmes
Well, the rat ate that baby, and who is greater than the guy who covers the rat-eating babies?
dan friesen
That might be the Byzantine path his mind went down.
But it's just about, like...
Glory will come when we defeat globalists.
That's when you have the clip where he's talking about once we push them back, I'll adopt these brown babies.
jordan holmes
Sure, sure.
dan friesen
And I'm just listening to this.
I'm like, you said you didn't have time.
This is 20 minutes, man.
jordan holmes
He doesn't have time.
dan friesen
You don't have time to prove the thing that you're mad about.
What are you doing?
jordan holmes
All right, damn.
dan friesen
And so I just got so confused I had to walk away from it.
I was just like, I can't do this.
I can't.
I can't.
It makes no sense.
If you want to prove this, prove this!
Instead of doing this weird psycho rant that clearly is motivated by him getting into this topic that he knows he feels guilt about but doesn't want to process that guilt.
jordan holmes
Nope.
dan friesen
So he does this rambling diatribe about nothing.
jordan holmes
Uh-uh.
No.
It's like, you know how when you studied really hard for a test and you know everything about that test, but...
You have a little bit of insomnia.
So the night before, you know, you don't really sleep.
And then the next morning, even though you know all the answers to this test, you can't stop thinking about drawing this incredible album art for Metallica's most recent album.
That is a thing that happens to everybody.
So sometimes you're going to prove that the government is destroying everybody's lives with FEMA camps.
But you get a little distracted and you start talking about rats eating a fetus.
Where do you go from there other than I'm the greatest there ever was?
dan friesen
Sure.
unidentified
That makes total sense.
jordan holmes
Yeah, come on.
dan friesen
So there's one clip that I wanted to play from this episode of the part that I watched.
Because I think it's indicative of a couple of interesting things that we're still tracking in Alex's history.
And we'd be here all day if we were going to break down that...
20-minute stupid rant.
And it's nothing he hasn't said before, which is the other thing.
It's also just boring.
jordan holmes
I am the baby that is being metaphorically eaten by the rats of Texas.
dan friesen
If he did go down that route, I would probably have played it.
Because that at least would be like, ah, interesting.
unidentified
Ah, alright.
dan friesen
It was just all, I'm great, globalist, bad, whoopty shit.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
So in this clip, there's two things that he brings up that I think are important in terms of us following a coherent...
Yeah.
Path through 2009.
jordan holmes
Right.
alex jones
Somebody who does something similar is Michael Wiener Savage.
The real name is Michael Wiener.
He'll say, yeah, there's a new world order of global government.
It's run by the Arabs, and we've got to counter it.
So they do this very simple bait-and-switch.
And then I saw a clip yesterday, now I've seen several others, where Glenn Beck is on the air saying...
Yeah, I keep hearing about these FEMA camps, and I'm going to have to investigate them and find out if they're real, that he makes a joke and says, but Fox News won't let me cover it, because I'm controlled, it's controlled, you know, a whole conspiracy theory, and then makes a joke.
So he brings up FEMA camps that are openly admitted, openly all over the news, and then he acts like he's the only person talking about it, then he makes a joke about it, and then next cuts to Vladimir Putin is going to attack us, and we've got to learn to single out evil.
And Russia wants to go after the United States.
Meanwhile, as you know, on 888, last year, a sneak attack was launched against Georgia, and then Russia came in with forces, and World War III almost commenced.
You know, it's just incredible propaganda.
dan friesen
It is.
Alex saying that, describing the sort of Russo-Georgian war that way, is very clearly indicative that at this point, he is...
Hook, line, and sinker believing the Russian line.
jordan holmes
Oh yeah, absolutely.
dan friesen
Because what happened in that conflict is not at all the way he's describing it.
They were separatists in the Abkhazian region in South Ossetia who started attacking Georgia.
They started attacking ethnic Georgian villages and started ethnically cleansing Georgians out of those areas in Georgia's...
Sovereign territory.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
So what ended up happening was Georgia started fighting back against those separatists who believed themselves to be closer aligned with Russia.
Russia came in and started fighting as well on the side of the separatists.
And then eventually they reached some sort of an agreement and the war ended.
So, I mean, look, the conflict in Georgia was more complicated than we're giving it service.
But the idea that the way Alex is describing it with Russia being the good guys in it, it's not.
There's very clear indications that the South Ossessions and the Abcasians were acting in Russia's interest in order to annex parts of Georgia.
Back into the Soviet Union.
jordan holmes
When was the last time that Russia was the good guy in any kind of action towards consolidating the old Soviet Union back into Russia?
dan friesen
Oh, also, they have occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
jordan holmes
Nah, come on.
dan friesen
Which is in direct violation of the ceasefire agreement.
unidentified
Hey!
dan friesen
So, I don't know, man.
It just seems like another instance of, you know, Russian incursions that Alex is...
You know, taking the Russian line on, which, I mean, is fine if you want to, but be more upfront about what you believe is truth.
And what he believes is truth is that Putin's the good guy who's going to save us from the new world order.
And he's clearly believed that since 2009 and probably before.
Now, what's interesting about that, and the reason that I think that this is something worthwhile to bring into our sphere of this investigation, is because it's not a part of whatever change he makes.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, all the other stuff is still different.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
The anti-military stuff, the pro-net neutrality stuff, the anti-Israel, pro-Iran business.
All this stuff is very different than where he will end up being.
But the Russia stuff has always been there.
It's always been there.
jordan holmes
Is it just because he thinks Russia is a white ethnostate?
Is that what it really is?
dan friesen
I mean, in 2015, when he was talking all that stuff about how Putin may save the world and shit like that, when he was talking about that, I mean, he talks about it as being like a masculine state.
And there's like a testosterone to it.
I think he believes that.
jordan holmes
Right, like you can still murder gay people in Russia.
dan friesen
I think that he thinks that it's close to a Christian state.
I think that he believes that.
jordan holmes
Which is crazy.
Because he doesn't respect any...
Like, if he looked into Russian Orthodox Church, he would be like, oh, no, never mind.
dan friesen
I think he believes those sorts of things on a baseline level.
And then further, I think he sees Russian media being very accommodating to his anti-Western viewpoints.
And there's different reasons.
I know that Alex is for, quote-unquote, the West now.
Alex is anti, quote, New World Order.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And Putin and his circle are anti-Atlanticism, anti-Western Europe and the United States.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
Having any kind of strategic alliances that don't allow them to encroach on their neighbors and what have you.
jordan holmes
Right.
Isn't that weird?
dan friesen
Right.
But so Alex sees...
Russia being willing to have him on as an expert in things.
He sees Russian media saying very similar things to what he's saying.
He doesn't understand that the reason for that is they're interested in weakening the alliances that the United States and Europe has.
He thinks like, oh yeah, they know about the globalists.
They're on the same team.
jordan holmes
Is it really just flattery?
I just have a hard time believing that it's...
dan friesen
I think it's partially flattery, partially like twisted familiarity.
Perhaps.
He sees a lot of his worldview mirrored in them, not realizing the reason that it's mirrored is because both are destructive to a status quo.
Maybe.
That's just a theory.
jordan holmes
That just seems too little.
For the amount of water that he carries for Russia, that just doesn't seem like enough, you know?
dan friesen
But I don't know if he's doing that much carrying now.
I think it might be the sort of thing that grows over time.
jordan holmes
Could be.
dan friesen
I think that that's probably the case.
I don't know.
It's weird.
So anyway, this brings us to the end of our little jaunt here through 2009.
I apologize in some ways that this is kind of like...
It's not satisfying in terms of what we're looking for, but it is what it is.
I like the idea that we got to learn about these weirdo text people.
jordan holmes
Those guys were great.
dan friesen
That, to me, makes things worthwhile on some level.
jordan holmes
They're the heroes of this episode, to be honest.
dan friesen
And then we can see these trends that...
jordan holmes
Of course not of their own life stories.
dan friesen
We can see these trends that have already been established in earlier 2009, certainly continuing.
We see no pivot.
We see Alex not be interested at all, almost a week now after the tea parties.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Not really interested in any way in it except for a rising sense of...
Disapproval of Glenn Beck.
And I think as Glenn Beck's star starts to rise...
jordan holmes
And, of course, Michael Wiener.
dan friesen
Michael Wiener.
jordan holmes
Not Michael Savage.
Michael Wiener Savage.
dan friesen
Who Alex will very soon be saying is a hero of the anti-globalist.
jordan holmes
He's a great man!
dan friesen
He's one of the best.
He's one of the first people who are saying these things.
jordan holmes
Look, his name is Wiener.
What are you going to do?
He's a wiener.
dan friesen
So, yeah, I mean, it's interesting.
jordan holmes
With his nitpicking.
dan friesen
I mean, we'll see what happens in the near future for now.
I'm not super interested in Alex's present day.
You know, he's been kicked off Twitter and now kicked off Apple iTunes app.
He's been kicked off.
I mean, we're just going to see.
We'll see what happens.
But it's not all that interesting to me.
Because I think we could get very easily too much into the world of sort of schadenfreude and rejoicing in his pain.
And I know it's easy to feel that and it's fun, but I don't think it's productive.
jordan holmes
Yeah, I think I'm actually past it this time.
dan friesen
I think it's, you know, let him wash down the drain and then become whatever he becomes.
And in the meantime, I think it's far more interesting to see what happened.
jordan holmes
Let him slide down the Joe Bannister, you know what I'm saying?
dan friesen
Indeed, indeed.
unidentified
Yeah, there we go.
dan friesen
So, if you like our show, please, you can check out our website, knowledgefight.com.
jordan holmes
Do we have a Twitter account, Dan?
dan friesen
Knowledge underscore fight.
jordan holmes
Were we banned forever?
dan friesen
Nope.
jordan holmes
No, we weren't.
Oh, shit.
dan friesen
And we're living proof that you can talk about Alex Jones and the ideas that he puts out into the world, and you will not get banned.
You'll get banned if you cause very serious harm to people and invade their privacy and slander folk.
jordan holmes
Which we try not to do.
And if you would like to hear us not do that, you can go to iTunes.
dan friesen
Also, with the supporting the show, we really appreciate it.
I have gotten word or the sense that one of the problems might be that we don't have any goals up on the Patreon page.
jordan holmes
Oh, do we not have any goals?
dan friesen
Well, we had two initial goals.
unidentified
I thought our goal was just rent.
dan friesen
We had two goals up, and the two of them were goals that we just went ahead and fulfilled before we even hit them.
jordan holmes
Oh, that's true.
dan friesen
One was a live show that we did two of now, and then the other was breaking down one of his documentaries, which we did with Endgame.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
And I realized, like, I didn't know what to do with any other goals, but I think people feel inspired by it or whatever.
jordan holmes
People like a goal.
dan friesen
And so I've set two new goals on the Patreon page, which we're working towards.
One of them, we'll do another documentary.
Okay.
Probably not the Obama deception.
I'm not sure.
We'll figure it out.
But we'll do another documentary if we reach that other goal.
unidentified
All right.
dan friesen
And then the further goal, I'm calling my magnum opus.
People have asked me to put out a book or write a book, basically, about this.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
I don't want to do that.
So I've come up with another form to put out the information I would put in a book.
And I will start releasing it if we hit that goal.
Probably start releasing it at some point anyway.
But if we hit that goal, I will feel guilty if we haven't started.
I'll put it that way.
unidentified
All right.
dan friesen
So anyone who supports the show, we really appreciate it.
And if you don't and you want to help us work towards these goals, that would be great.
jordan holmes
Yeah, that would be great.
dan friesen
So there's that.
Anyway, Jordan, this has been fun.
unidentified
But...
jordan holmes
What?
dan friesen
There's one thing that Alex Jones knew in 2009 that he is not being forthcoming about.
jordan holmes
I can't think of anything.
dan friesen
And that is that he probably killed a dude.
alex jones
Andy in Kansas, you're on the air.
Thanks for holding.
unidentified
Hello, Alex.
jordan holmes
I'm a first-time caller.
unidentified
I'm a huge fan.
I love your work.
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