Knowledge Fight - #880: March 31, 2004
Aired: 2023-12-25
Duration: 01:19:28


=== Knowledge Fight: Dan & Jordan (02:16) ===

[00:00:21]  I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys, saying we are the bad guys.
[00:00:29]  Knowledge fight.
[00:00:30]  Dan and Jordan, knowledge fight.
[00:00:34]  I need money.
[00:00:36]  Andy in Kansas.
[00:00:44]  It's time to pray.
[00:00:47]  Andy in Kansas, you're on the air.
[00:00:48]  Thanks for holding me.
[00:00:49]  Hello, Alex.
[00:00:50]  I'm a first time caller.
[00:00:51]  I'm a huge fan.
[00:00:51]  I love your room.
[00:00:52]  Knowledge Fight.
[00:00:53]  KnowledgeFight.com.
[00:00:57]  I love you.
[00:00:59]  Hey, everybody!
[00:01:00]  Welcome back to Knowledge Fight.
[00:01:01]  I'm Dan.
[00:01:01]  I'm Jordan.
[00:01:02]  We're a couple dudes like to sit around, worship at the altar of Selene, talk a little bit about Alex Jones.
[00:01:07]  Oh, indeed we are.
[00:01:07]  Dan.
[00:01:08]  Jordan.
[00:01:09]  Quick question for you.
[00:01:10]  What's up?
[00:01:11]  What's your bright spot today, buddy?
[00:01:13]  Well, I would say that I have a friend in town, and so I decided to go to dinner at the Thai place.
[00:01:21]  Oh!
[00:01:22]  Those spicy Thai.
[00:01:24]  Okay.
[00:01:25]  That I have known to be.
[00:01:27]  It's been a long time.
[00:01:28]  Yes.
[00:01:29]  Wow.
[00:01:29]  It has been, and one of the things that I'm thrilled to report is that I am still on the wall.
[00:01:36]  Yay!
[00:01:39]  Scanning the wall for all the pictures.
[00:01:42]  And the time that I had the level 6 spicy...
[00:01:46]  You only have to do level 5 to get on the wall, but I did level 6. No big deal.
[00:01:50]  Obviously.
[00:01:50]  Well, you'd already done level 5. It's still up there.
[00:01:53]  It's been so long.
[00:01:55]  It's still up there.
[00:01:56]  It's been almost a decade, hasn't it?
[00:01:59]  Probably.
[00:02:00]  And that brings me to my next point.
[00:02:02]  And that is that it was a humbling experience.
[00:02:05]  Because I got hot.
[00:02:06]  And, you know, it's not even extra hot.
[00:02:08]  No, that's not even one.
[00:02:09]  And oof.
[00:02:11]  Oof.
[00:02:12]  I could get by.
[00:02:15]  Yeah.
[00:02:15]  But it was a much more intense experience than I remember it used to being.
[00:02:20]  And it really, really hurt my stomach.
[00:02:22]  Oh, I believe it.

=== Bright Spot: Pullover Hoodie (03:05) ===

[00:02:23]  I believe it.
[00:02:24]  So, yeah, I'm not the man that I once was, spice-wise.
[00:02:27]  It's tough to get old.
[00:02:28]  It's tough.
[00:02:29]  It is, yeah.
[00:02:29]  And, you know, a little trip.
[00:02:32]  To know that my name still rings out on the streets.
[00:02:34]  It is nice.
[00:02:35]  It is nice.
[00:02:36]  But also that I can't hang anymore.
[00:02:38]  I mean, nobody's expecting Holyfield to keep fighting.
[00:02:43]  See?
[00:02:44]  That's how old I am.
[00:02:45]  That reference is old.
[00:02:46]  Sure.
[00:02:47]  So what about you?
[00:02:48]  What's your bright spot?
[00:02:48]  My bright spot is, I don't know if you can see this, the shirt that I am wearing is a pullover hoodie, Dan.
[00:02:55]  Yeah.
[00:02:56]  The greatest kind of shirt.
[00:02:58]  Sure.
[00:02:58]  I love a pullover hoodie.
[00:03:00]  Okay.
[00:03:00]  And I am outfit in them.
[00:03:02]  My wife for the holiday.
[00:03:03]  It's kind of just a hoodie but a shirt?
[00:03:05]  Yeah, it's a hoodie but a shirt, but I just love it.
[00:03:07]  Okay.
[00:03:08]  It's this type of shirt, then there's three-quarter length baseball shirt.
[00:03:12]  Yeah.
[00:03:12]  And then there's...
[00:03:13]  No, that's it.
[00:03:14]  Those are the only two types of shirt that are good.
[00:03:17]  And so, yeah, for the holidays, my wife essentially dressed me.
[00:03:21]  It's a back-to-school holiday for me.
[00:03:23]  I got a shirt.
[00:03:24]  I got socks.
[00:03:25]  I got underwear.
[00:03:27]  I mean, I'm covered, right?
[00:03:29]  So that's my bright spot, because she found these, which are the only shirts that I like.
[00:03:34]  Well, that's very sweet.
[00:03:34]  Yes, it is very sweet.
[00:03:35]  I'm glad you two are having a nice holiday.
[00:03:37]  It is quite nice.
[00:03:38]  As we are recording this, it is Christmas Eve day.
[00:03:41]  Indeed.
[00:03:42]  You know, there's something about not taking holidays off that, weirdly, I've always liked.
[00:03:49]  I know.
[00:03:52]  But, you know, I used to work at a movie theater.
[00:03:55]  Right.
[00:03:55]  And it was always, like, people wanted the holidays off.
[00:03:59]  Yeah.
[00:03:59]  And I always felt like, nah, work.
[00:04:02]  And I think part of it was me and my buddy Dr. Gums got stuck working a Christmas shift one time.
[00:04:09]  And we had a blast.
[00:04:10]  Had a blast working at the movie theater.
[00:04:12]  Almost nobody coming in on that Christmas Eve and just dicking around.
[00:04:17]  And I think that maybe seared in my mind, a love of working on holidays.
[00:04:22]  I mean, I've always appreciated working on holidays.
[00:04:26]  Because I like ticking off when everybody else is working, you know?
[00:04:30]  Like, I love a good...
[00:04:32]  I'll work on Christmas, and then for the next week, you know, everybody else goes back to work, and they're like, ah, you know?
[00:04:39]  So, yeah, I'm with you.
[00:04:41]  And I think I also...
[00:04:43]  Another part of it was the...
[00:04:45]  Like, it didn't...
[00:04:46]  It didn't feel like that great of an inconvenience to me, but it felt like such a favor to the people who want it off.
[00:04:53]  Sure.
[00:04:53]  You know, and so that felt like I could do a little, and it feels like a lot to them.
[00:04:58]  Right.
[00:04:58]  I mean, I think there's also the everything that people associate with the holidays is stuff that you and I don't particularly care for.
[00:05:08]  True.
[00:05:08]  So that makes it a lot easier for us to not care about the holidays.
[00:05:11]  That's why I'm saying it's a little.
[00:05:12]  I'm only sacrificing a little.

=== Count Chocula's Corn Flakes (03:10) ===

[00:05:14]  Really not sacrificing much at all.
[00:05:16]  So we have an episode to go over.
[00:05:18]  Indeed.
[00:05:18]  And I decided we would be in the past.
[00:05:20]  Hey!
[00:05:21]  So we're going to be talking about March 31st, 2004.
[00:05:24]  Indeed.
[00:05:25]  Yes.
[00:05:25]  And we do get visited by a ghost.
[00:05:27]  That's amazing.
[00:05:28]  And that I mean that there's a guy who died in 2007 who's on the episode today.
[00:05:32]  Okay.
[00:05:33]  And it's actually, I would say, a landmark episode.
[00:05:37]  In Alex's career.
[00:05:39]  Interesting.
[00:05:39]  And so we're going to go over that in a moment.
[00:05:43]  But first, let's say hello to some new walks.
[00:05:45]  Ooh, that's a great idea.
[00:05:46]  So first, Dan, two sodomites from Columbia, Missouri have been looking to contact you regarding a personal loan on a bucket of poop.
[00:05:52]  Thank you so much.
[00:05:53]  You're now a policy wonk.
[00:05:54]  I'm a policy wonk.
[00:05:55]  Thank you very much!
[00:05:56]  Just curious.
[00:05:58]  I don't know who this...
[00:05:59]  I don't like a loan.
[00:06:00]  Do I know these people?
[00:06:01]  Nope.
[00:06:02]  From Columbia?
[00:06:02]  I doubt it.
[00:06:03]  Okay.
[00:06:04]  I don't want a bucket of poop.
[00:06:05]  Anyway, next, my sister Abby is listening to this shout-out and I want her to know that her cat is a bitch.
[00:06:11]  Thank you so much.
[00:06:11]  You're now a policy wonk.
[00:06:12]  I'm a policy wonk.
[00:06:13]  Thank you very much.
[00:06:14]  I guess I didn't read the end of that.
[00:06:16]  Okay.
[00:06:18]  We were both surprised.
[00:06:20]  Sometimes you just copy and paste and you don't really, yeah, that'll happen.
[00:06:23]  Next, Kayla, pronounced Kayla, nailed it.
[00:06:26]  Definitely crushed the LSAT on Wednesday.
[00:06:29]  Thank you so much.
[00:06:29]  You are now a policy wonk.
[00:06:30]  I'm a policy wonk.
[00:06:31]  Thank you very much.
[00:06:32]  Congrats.
[00:06:33]  And take the earbuds off, Lou.
[00:06:35]  I've probably been calling for you from the other room for the last five minutes.
[00:06:38]  Thank you so much.
[00:06:39]  You are now a policy wonk.
[00:06:40]  I'm a policy wonk.
[00:06:41]  Thank you very much.
[00:06:42]  And we had a couple of technocrats in the mix, Jordan.
[00:06:44]  So first, Dr. Nanner's PhD.
[00:06:46]  Thank you so much.
[00:06:47]  You are now a technocrat.
[00:06:48]  And my roommate's grandfather served under John Birch in China.
[00:06:52]  Thank you so much.
[00:06:53]  You are now a technocrat.
[00:06:54]  I'm a policy wonk.
[00:06:55]  Four stars.
[00:06:56]  Go home to your mother and tell her you're brilliant.
[00:06:58]  Someone sodomite sent me a bucket of poop.
[00:07:01]  Daddy Shark.
[00:07:01]  Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp.
[00:07:03]  Jar Jar Binks has a Caribbean black accent.
[00:07:07]  He's a loser little titty baby.
[00:07:10]  I don't want to hate black people.
[00:07:12]  I renounce Jesus Christ!
[00:07:14]  I'd be interested in talking to this roommate's...
[00:07:16]  I don't care about John Perch the person.
[00:07:19]  I guess it is interesting the way that the John Perch Society has corrupted his image or co-opted it so intensely, but I don't know.
[00:07:26]  That's not my battle.
[00:07:27]  Yeah, it would be...
[00:07:28]  I mean, in a sense, what you really want to talk to is Count Chocula, because that's what John Perch they've turned into, you know, like a mascot.
[00:07:36]  I also have some things I'd like to get straightened out with Count Chocula.
[00:07:39]  Wow.
[00:07:40]  What is he doing with that Boo Berry?
[00:07:41]  Where is the Fruit Brute?
[00:07:43]  Where are you hiding the Fruit Brute?
[00:07:45]  Wait, what's the Fruit Brute?
[00:07:47]  It was like a King Kong type mascot for a fruit cereal.
[00:07:49]  Get the fuck out of here.
[00:07:49]  It was part of the monster's rotation.
[00:07:51]  I think it still might be.
[00:07:52]  There was Boo Berry, Count Chocula.
[00:07:55]  Frankenberry.
[00:07:55]  Frankenberry.
[00:07:56]  Yeah.
[00:07:56]  And then the Fruit Brute?
[00:07:57]  The Fruit Brute.
[00:07:59]  I want to eat that.
[00:08:00]  Yeah.
[00:08:02]  He was included in that famously, if you'll recall.
[00:08:06]  Found a box of cereal that was like the Monster Mash.

=== Blase Guest, Creepy Nominations (08:34) ===

[00:08:10]  It was all of them.
[00:08:11]  Right!
[00:08:11]  Yes, yes.
[00:08:12]  Yeah, they did the song.
[00:08:14]  I did find that in June, I believe, of one year, which leads me to believe it was...
[00:08:21]  Very old.
[00:08:21]  Yeah.
[00:08:22]  Yeah.
[00:08:22]  Still good.
[00:08:23]  Still good.
[00:08:24]  So the beginning of this episode is not very eventful.
[00:08:28]  Nothing is really going on.
[00:08:29]  But the reason that I believe that this is what we might call a landmark episode in Alex's career is that he has a guest.
[00:08:36]  Who died in 2007.
[00:08:38]  Who is on the show for the first time.
[00:08:41]  Okay.
[00:08:41]  This is Aaron Russo.
[00:08:43]  Okay.
[00:08:43]  He's the guy who made America freedom to fascism.
[00:08:46]  Right.
[00:08:47]  He's a big part of Alex's, a lot of his conspiracy stuff.
[00:08:51]  Is he related to the Russo brothers who do the Captain America movies?
[00:08:55]  I don't think so, but he was involved in show business.
[00:08:58]  See?
[00:08:59]  I don't know.
[00:08:59]  I don't think he is.
[00:09:00]  Okay.
[00:09:01]  But his career and his life is incredibly fascinating.
[00:09:04]  We've talked about him a little bit.
[00:09:05]  Yes.
[00:09:05]  We've talked about him some more.
[00:09:06]  Okay.
[00:09:06]  But this is the first time that the two of them have ever interacted.
[00:09:10]  Interesting.
[00:09:10]  So this is their origin story.
[00:09:11]  Okay.
[00:09:12]  And so the first hour- Like Captain America.
[00:09:14]  Yeah.
[00:09:14]  Yeah.
[00:09:15]  Russo Brothers.
[00:09:16]  So the first hour of the show, I would say, is not really all that interesting, kind of filling time.
[00:09:21]  And then at the beginning of the second hour, Aaron Russo shows up and Alex introduces him with a long list of credits.
[00:09:28]  He knows all about the New World Order and we're honored to have him on.
[00:09:33]  And also the network, he's been on a bunch of the shows, the network sends out some of his presidential material for free if you want to call and get any of that.
[00:09:43]  But, Mr. Russo, it's good to have you on the show.
[00:09:46]  Hey, thank you.
[00:09:46]  Glad to be here, bud.
[00:09:48]  For those that don't know who you are, tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll go to break and come back and just jump into all the news and get your take on it.
[00:09:55]  Sure.
[00:09:56]  All right, let's see.
[00:09:57]  I don't know where to start.
[00:09:58]  Let's see.
[00:09:59]  19 years old, I was in the ladies' lingerie business, and I designed the first ladies' bikini panties for everybody that's interested in that.
[00:10:07]  I'm in.
[00:10:08]  I'm in.
[00:10:10]  I opened a nightclub in Chicago and put on big-name rock and roll shows with Led Zeppelin, The Who, Grateful Dead...
[00:10:17]  I don't care if this is true.
[00:10:19]  ...in the 60s, and Chicago and Detroit, and then I ran into Bette Midler, and I started managing Bette Midler, and I produced the movie called The Rose, and the movie Trading Places with Eddie Murphy and Danny Aykroyd, and I received six Academy Award nominations.
[00:10:35]  I won an Emmy for a TV show I did with Dustin Hoffman.
[00:10:39]  What?
[00:10:40]  And a Golden Globe nomination.
[00:10:42]  Is this true?
[00:10:43]  A pleasure.
[00:10:44]  Thank you very much.
[00:10:46]  It was funny.
[00:10:47]  I always thought that was the most important thing I had done, but most people yell and scream and cheer when I tell them I brought Led Zeppelin to America.
[00:10:55]  Ha ha ha.
[00:10:56]  Hee hee hee hee.
[00:10:57]  Ha ha ha ha.
[00:10:57]  So I have no idea if he invented the bikini panty or whatever.
[00:11:01]  Yeah, I don't know.
[00:11:02]  But his family is in the garment business.
[00:11:03]  Okay.
[00:11:04]  And so when he was younger, he did work with them.
[00:11:06]  So it is possible that he might have created something.
[00:11:09]  I don't know about this, though.
[00:11:10]  Do all of these details, or do all of these things have a kernel of possible truth within them?
[00:11:15]  A lot of them are fairly true.
[00:11:16]  Okay, see?
[00:11:17]  Like, he was one of the producers on Trading Places.
[00:11:21]  Great.
[00:11:22]  He did date Bette Midler for a little while and was her manager for a lot longer than that.
[00:11:28]  Why not?
[00:11:30]  But, yeah, he's a fascinating weirdo, and now he's running for the Libertarian ticket for the nomination for the presidency in 2004.
[00:11:39]  Here's what I like about this guy.
[00:11:41]  Here's what I like about this guy, alright?
[00:11:44]  This is like when you watch a documentary on, say, Bette Midler.
[00:11:47]  You see Bette Midler's life, you see the important elements of her life, and then you have the dark section where she's got a manager who's probably a piece of shit.
[00:11:57]  Oh yeah.
[00:11:57]  Right, and so she has to overcome this problem, and so the manager has his section and then is gone from the world, right?
[00:12:05]  Now we're like, who the fuck is Bette Midler?
[00:12:07]  Get out of here, lady!
[00:12:09]  Let's follow creepy weirdo around.
[00:12:11]  That's where the info war is.
[00:12:13]  That's where we're going.
[00:12:14]  Okay.
[00:12:14]  But it is interesting because I think if you look into the history of their relationship and the way it went, he was a massive part of her rise.
[00:12:26]  Amazing.
[00:12:26]  Well, you know, you can take from whoever you want to listen to what was his input, what was her input.
[00:12:37]  Yeah, you know, I think...
[00:13:04]  And I think this might be the case.
[00:13:06]  For real people, like the world, you know, life is too short.
[00:13:11]  We gotta stuff it, you know?
[00:13:14]  But for people like this, it's too long.
[00:13:16]  You know, you get your section where you're kicking ass and then all of a sudden shit goes down and you're on InfoWars.
[00:13:21]  It's too long.
[00:13:22]  It's too long.
[00:13:23]  Running for Libya.
[00:13:24]  Too long.
[00:13:25]  Yeah.
[00:13:25]  But I do, you know, you're saying what you like about this guy.
[00:13:28]  And one of the things that I like is how blasé he is about all these credits.
[00:13:31]  He does feel like...
[00:13:32]  He's just delivering them as if it's a boring list of things.
[00:13:35]  Yeah.
[00:13:36]  Six Academy Award nominations up my butt.
[00:13:39]  Don't care.
[00:13:40]  I don't know about that.
[00:13:42]  Yeah.
[00:13:42]  But I do think that if...
[00:13:43]  If there were Academy Award nominations, they weren't for him.
[00:13:46]  Maybe they were related to the films that he was on.
[00:13:49]  But I mean, The Rose and Trading Places, I think, are the only actually big movies that he's even associated with.
[00:13:57]  The other ones are like...
[00:13:59]  Trash no one remembers.
[00:14:00]  Sure, sure.
[00:14:01]  But I mean, Robert Evans, you know, he's still remembered, and he wasn't associated with that many movies.
[00:14:06]  But they were huge.
[00:14:07]  They were huge.
[00:14:08]  So in 1968, Aaron Russo opened the Kinetic Playground here in Chicago, which is a fairly short-lived venue, but one that was a regular stop for the sort of bands that he's listing off.
[00:14:18]  From my understanding of it, it would be a huge stretch to say that he was responsible for bringing a band like Led Zeppelin to the US.
[00:14:24]  Sure.
[00:14:25]  That his venue was part of the circuit that rock acts of the 1960s, the late 60s, would go on.
[00:14:30]  It was usually their Chicago show.
[00:14:32]  Man.
[00:14:32]  So if you look over the...
[00:14:34]  Someone compiled a list of the handbills and the acts that were at the Kinetic Playground.
[00:14:41]  Yeah.
[00:14:41]  And it's fucking insane.
[00:14:43]  Is it?
[00:14:43]  Yes.
[00:14:44]  Jesus.
[00:14:45]  I mean, you got like...
[00:14:46]  All these bands that you remember, and then a bunch of like, what the fuck is this?
[00:14:49]  Yeah.
[00:14:50]  But yeah, you had Foghat.
[00:14:52]  Sure.
[00:14:52]  You had Blood, Sweat, and Tears.
[00:14:55]  Janis Joplin.
[00:14:56]  Jefferson Starship, or Jefferson Airplane at the time.
[00:15:00]  Who.
[00:15:01]  Led Zeppelin.
[00:15:03]  It's nuts.
[00:15:04]  Grateful Dead played there what seemed like fairly regularly.
[00:15:08]  Yeah.
[00:15:08]  Yeah, this, I mean, again, this is another thing.
[00:15:11]  Velvet Underground?
[00:15:12]  He's another guy in the movie.
[00:15:14]  Now he's a different guy in the movie.
[00:15:16]  Now you're watching the Led Zeppelin story.
[00:15:18]  You're watching their birth, their slow rise to the top.
[00:15:22]  You're watching their whirlwind tours around.
[00:15:24]  As the fame grows around them, they stop at these different places.
[00:15:27]  And what's that?
[00:15:28]  It's a creepy weirdo.
[00:15:30]  Screw you, Led Zeppelin!
[00:15:31]  We're done with you!
[00:15:32]  Yeah.
[00:15:33]  Let's follow the creepy weirdo.
[00:15:34]  Yeah.
[00:15:35]  Yeah.
[00:15:35]  And so, I just obviously, you know, lived a life.
[00:15:42]  Yeah, oh, totally.
[00:15:42]  But I do think he's overstating some of this.
[00:15:45]  Sure.
[00:15:46]  You know, like, there is a sincere resume that's pretty neat here, but I think there's a grandiosity and a...
[00:15:55]  Blurring of facts that might be indicative of how this guy rolls.
[00:15:59]  Now we're in the movie about a creepy weirdo.
[00:16:02]  Nothing's true.
[00:16:03]  So at a certain point, he pivoted from the entertainment industry into politics.
[00:16:08]  And so he brings up his first foray here.
[00:16:11]  And I've done so many different things.
[00:16:13]  I won a Tony on Broadway for a show I did with Lionel Hampton and Bette Midler.
[00:16:19]  I made the video called Mad as Hell, which millions of people across America have seen promoting freedom in the country.
[00:16:26]  I ran for governor of Nevada in 1998, and I got nearly 30% in a four-way race.

=== Michael Eisner's Insights (15:30) ===

[00:16:34]  Really?
[00:16:34]  Yeah, you're very charismatic, and a lot of people try to know their facts, know their issues.
[00:16:39]  You know what you're talking about.
[00:16:40]  He knows his shit.
[00:16:42]  Sounds not true, but fine.
[00:16:43]  So it is true that Aaron Russo ran for governor of Nevada in 1998, but he did not get almost 30% of the vote.
[00:16:49]  He didn't even run in the general election because he lost the primary, which is what he's talking about.
[00:16:54]  He got 25.8% of the vote in the GOP primary compared to the 58% that the winning candidate, Kenny Gwynn, received.
[00:17:02]  Sure.
[00:17:02]  He came in second, but it was by a very wide margin, and it was the primary.
[00:17:06]  Sure.
[00:17:06]  You can already tell that Aaron Russo is the kind of guy who has a hard time not inflating his own story a little bit past the point of honesty.
[00:17:14]  This kind of makes sense, given that he comes from the world of music promoters.
[00:17:17]  He was Bette Midler's manager for a while, as well as serving the same role for the Manhattan Transfer.
[00:17:22]  So he's accustomed to being in a salesman-type role.
[00:17:25]  Right, right, right, right.
[00:17:26]  What he's doing here with Alex in laying out his resume is stretching the truth in order to sell himself, which isn't...
[00:17:31]  Really that important of an issue when the truth that's being stretched is about your show business career being a blowhard and all that.
[00:17:37]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:17:37]  It's promotion.
[00:17:38]  It starts to become more dicey when that same behavior is applied toward relevant political issues like it has become Aaron Russo's later career.
[00:17:47]  Sure.
[00:17:47]  Also, not for nothing, he didn't win a Tony.
[00:17:49]  And the production he produced with Bette Midler didn't win one either.
[00:17:53]  In 1974, he produced her show Clams on the Half Shell Review.
[00:17:57]  I'm sorry?
[00:17:58]  Yeah.
[00:17:58]  And Bette won a special Tony Award for, quote, adding luster to the Broadway season.
[00:18:04]  It's a special Tony.
[00:18:06]  I'm sorry.
[00:18:06]  I'm sorry.
[00:18:08]  Adding luster.
[00:18:09]  She added luster.
[00:18:10]  I like that.
[00:18:11]  That's a good award.
[00:18:12]  I wish I had that one.
[00:18:14]  Special Tony Awards are now basically just Lifetime Achievement Awards, but they used to be really weird.
[00:18:19]  Yeah.
[00:18:20]  Like in 1987, George Abbott got one just because he turned 100 years old.
[00:18:24]  See, this is the type of shit.
[00:18:26]  This is the type of shit that we don't have anymore.
[00:18:28]  We don't do the right kind of drugs, right?
[00:18:31]  The 70s, you added luster.
[00:18:33]  Entire country was high.
[00:18:35]  The 80s.
[00:18:36]  You're 100?
[00:18:37]  Who knew?
[00:18:38]  Everybody's on Coke, man.
[00:18:39]  Now we're just like, ah, we're mad.
[00:18:41]  You made it.
[00:18:42]  Here's an award.
[00:18:42]  It's a bummer.
[00:18:43]  Yeah, so that's the kind of thing that Russo's trying to take ownership of.
[00:18:49]  Sure.
[00:18:49]  Is this, like, I won a Tony with this production that, no, she did.
[00:18:54]  Yeah.
[00:18:55]  She did.
[00:18:55]  That was a special Tony that she won.
[00:18:59]  He's a bluffer.
[00:19:00]  He's a bluffer.
[00:19:01]  Doesn't seem like he's terribly interested in other people's contributions to his achievements.
[00:19:07]  Certainly not.
[00:19:08]  Certainly not.
[00:19:08]  So, now that Aaron has laid out his resume, Alex will just parrot it.
[00:19:16]  Waging war on corruption.
[00:19:18]  Crashing through the lies and disinformation.
[00:19:20]  Defending this country against tyranny.
[00:19:25]  Resisting the despotism that is upon us.
[00:19:28]  I'm honored to have him on this show, and I heard he was running for president about a month ago.
[00:19:32]  I wanted to get him on.
[00:19:33]  We finally got him on.
[00:19:33]  He's Aaron Russo.
[00:19:35]  And, again, this guy ran for governor in Nevada as a third-party candidate, got 30% of the vote.
[00:19:41]  That's a big deal.
[00:19:42]  He's passionate.
[00:19:43]  He's intelligent.
[00:19:44]  He's an award-winning, again, producer of major films.
[00:19:48]  And he's been out there fighting the New World Order for a long time.
[00:19:50]  So Alex just takes it as red because, you know, Aaron Russo has said that he got 30% in this race.
[00:19:57]  Yep.
[00:19:57]  It was in the primary.
[00:19:59]  He didn't run in the actual race.
[00:20:00]  Didn't, you know, 25.8%.
[00:20:03]  I guess that's close to 30. I'll give you 30. But he also didn't run third party.
[00:20:07]  Alex is saying that he was in the GOP primary.
[00:20:09]  Right.
[00:20:09]  So, like, there is just...
[00:20:11]  Factual problems that are happening because of this game of telephone where you have this vaguely dishonest person who's saying things and then now Alex is embellishing them even further.
[00:20:21]  Yeah, that is interesting.
[00:20:24]  His embellishments, his grandiosity is almost modest in a way compared to what Alex would do to it.
[00:20:34]  You know what I mean?
[00:20:35]  Alex would run a little more wild.
[00:20:37]  Right, right, right.
[00:20:38]  It's almost like he's in a Goldilocks zone.
[00:20:43]  Well, here's the thing.
[00:20:45]  Russo didn't say it was in the general.
[00:20:48]  No!
[00:20:48]  He just heavily implied that it was.
[00:20:50]  He didn't say that it was in the primary.
[00:20:52]  I let you say what you want to say, and I only say what's true.
[00:20:56]  All he said was it was a four-way race.
[00:20:58]  See?
[00:20:58]  And it was.
[00:20:58]  It was.
[00:20:59]  There were four ways.
[00:21:03]  So Alex, obviously, when he hears that it's a four-way race, obviously that means it's in the general.
[00:21:08]  Of course.
[00:21:09]  So they can't all be in the same party.
[00:21:10]  He must be third party.
[00:21:11]  So Alex takes things a step further by making assertions that are incorrect based on the bluffs and exaggerations that Russo makes.
[00:21:20]  And there's no reason for Russo to stop him now.
[00:21:22]  Hell no.
[00:21:22]  Uh-uh.
[00:21:23]  You rode with it, buddy.
[00:21:25]  So Alex and Aaron discuss Aaron waking up to the New World Order.
[00:21:30]  Oh, that New World.
[00:21:32]  And I think that there's a different story, but there's some kernels of truth here.
[00:21:37]  Aaron Russo, when did you wake up to the New World Order?
[00:21:41]  What was the process like for a big promoter who was bringing Led Zeppelin to America and making big films and doing all this?
[00:21:48]  What was the process like?
[00:21:50]  When did you wake up to what was going on?
[00:21:54]  Well, you know, it's an interesting question because, you know, it's sort of subtle.
[00:21:58]  It just grows on you a little bit at a time.
[00:22:00]  It's not like one day you just wake up and recognize it.
[00:22:03]  At least for me, it wasn't.
[00:22:04]  Exactly.
[00:22:05]  You know, for me, it was a gradual thing.
[00:22:07]  God told Alex one day.
[00:22:10]  These guys are really terrible.
[00:22:12]  How can they behave the way they behave?
[00:22:14]  And then you start reading books and you start seeing the police, you know.
[00:22:19]  Treating people poorly and treating people as if they were dogs and sheep.
[00:22:25]  How could this be this way?
[00:22:26]  I don't remember it was this way when I grew up.
[00:22:28]  And you start seeing more and more.
[00:22:30]  More and more it grows on you.
[00:22:31]  You begin to realize.
[00:22:32]  And then I left the country.
[00:22:35]  I said, you know, I was so fed up with America that I said, you know, there's only three things you can do.
[00:22:40]  And also add that you're also a veteran.
[00:22:42]  Oh, yeah.
[00:22:43]  But there's really only three things you can do.
[00:22:45]  You can either leave the country.
[00:22:47]  You can sort of work the way at it and be very quiet and just mind your own business and not be too obvious, as some people do it.
[00:22:54]  Or you can fight.
[00:22:55]  And so the first thing I did, I'm getting out of here, you know?
[00:22:59]  So you chose the path, though, of not being a coward.
[00:23:02]  Now you're fighting it.
[00:23:03]  Oh, now?
[00:23:04]  Yeah, I'm just trying to tell you how it's, you know, the evolution of everything.
[00:23:07]  And the path of the coward is just doing nothing and minding your own business.
[00:23:10]  Well, I agree with that.
[00:23:12]  It's not necessarily a coward.
[00:23:13]  You know, some people...
[00:23:14]  No, I'm not saying you're a coward.
[00:23:15]  What I'm saying is that...
[00:23:17]  It is that I've been cowardly before in the past fighting this, but I just decided to be as bold as possible.
[00:23:22]  I think you have to be.
[00:23:23]  Ultimately, that's where I came out as well.
[00:23:24]  I first left the country, and I moved to Tahiti, my family.
[00:23:27]  Oh, boy, that sounds good.
[00:23:29]  It was fabulous, you know.
[00:23:30]  But I began to realize, you know, particularly Ross Perot was very important for me.
[00:23:35]  Even though Ross Perot doesn't have a philosophy that I believe in, seeing that when he ran...
[00:23:41]  All the millions of people that were dissatisfied with America.
[00:23:45]  So up to then, I thought I was alone.
[00:23:47]  I didn't realize there were millions of others who felt like I did.
[00:23:50]  I thought I was this lonely voice all by myself.
[00:23:52]  So when Ross Perot ran, when I saw the dissatisfaction in the country, it gave me the courage and the energy to say, you know, I'm going to stand up now.
[00:24:00]  Now, that's a big part of it, is they make us feel alone, all compartmentalized.
[00:24:04]  But, Aaron, I've done over 1,500 radio interviews the last three years.
[00:24:08]  And I'm telling you, we'll take 20, 30 calls, and they all agree, whereas five years ago, half of them disagreed.
[00:24:14]  I've seen a massive awakening take place.
[00:24:17]  There's no question about it.
[00:24:18]  That's one of the reasons why I run up for president.
[00:24:20]  I got so thrown in the middle of that clip because the first times I was listening to it, I didn't catch them saying that he's a veteran.
[00:24:26]  Yeah.
[00:24:27]  And I don't know that that's true or not.
[00:24:29]  Okay.
[00:24:29]  I don't have any indication in things that I've seen that he was in the service.
[00:24:34]  It really feels like that.
[00:24:35]  When?
[00:24:36]  I don't know.
[00:24:37]  Where would he have fit that time in?
[00:24:39]  It seems tough.
[00:24:40]  I mean, was he drafted at 17?
[00:24:44]  I don't know.
[00:24:45]  I don't want to, because I didn't look into this too heavily or anything, I don't want to make some kind of a statement like he was never, he never served.
[00:24:52]  Well, sure.
[00:24:53]  But I don't, I don't, I've never heard that.
[00:24:56]  The timeline based on his description seems difficult to fit that in.
[00:25:02]  It does.
[00:25:03]  At least for a length of time.
[00:25:05]  Yeah.
[00:25:06]  But this, what he's saying is all great and stuff, but I think that what really happened, Is that Aaron Russo doesn't like taxes.
[00:25:16]  Right.
[00:25:17]  Is that why he moved to Tahiti?
[00:25:19]  He owed a lot of taxes.
[00:25:21]  And at this point, he has about $2 million in liens.
[00:25:24]  Okay.
[00:25:24]  And doesn't like that.
[00:25:26]  And then he saw Ross Perot getting kind of successful, and he's like, here's a path I can follow.
[00:25:30]  That's one way to do it.
[00:25:31]  Yeah.
[00:25:32]  I think that's more realistic as a way that you wake up to the new world order.
[00:25:36]  Sure, sure.
[00:25:36]  Yeah, L. Ron Hubbard woke up to being Jesus one day when he didn't like the bill.
[00:25:41]  Yeah, it happens.
[00:25:42]  Yeah.
[00:25:43]  Yeah, that does seem to track.
[00:25:47]  He's running.
[00:25:48]  Yeah.
[00:25:49]  For the Libertarian ticket.
[00:25:50]  Sure.
[00:25:51]  And I think that Aaron Urso has the feeling that he's got a lot of possible people on his team.
[00:25:58]  Okay.
[00:25:59]  What type of feedback have you gotten from the neocons and the liberals?
[00:26:02]  Well, I'll tell you, when I ran for governor in Nevada, even Jack Nicholson, who's a liberal, supported me.
[00:26:08]  He made radio commercials for me.
[00:26:10]  Okay?
[00:26:11]  So if I can start getting the Hollywood community behind my campaign, it's going to get tons and tons of press.
[00:26:17]  And there's no third party in the race.
[00:26:18]  Ralph Nader is going to fade away.
[00:26:20]  You've got nothing to do.
[00:26:21]  So I'm going to be there to fulfill that.
[00:26:25]  And there are millions and millions of people across America who, if they had someone to vote for, who believed in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and getting rid of this gun control nonsense, they would come out and vote.
[00:26:36]  Absolutely.
[00:26:37]  And we have to tap into that, Alex.
[00:26:40]  That's the point.
[00:26:41]  We have to tap into the dissatisfaction of America and say to the American people, here's a guy who believes like you believe, and he's standing up and fighting for it.
[00:26:50]  That's all great, but in the 2004 election, Russo didn't even win the Libertarian Party nomination.
[00:26:55]  Yeah, I was going to say.
[00:26:56]  It feels like putting the cart before the horse here to have all these grand ideas about how you're going to win the election before you even secure your third-party candidacy.
[00:27:03]  Yeah.
[00:27:04]  While it is true that Russo has a fair amount of real entertainment industry credits, if you look at his resume, you might notice that they all end in 1991.
[00:27:11]  Ultimately, he didn't do anything notable outside of his work with Bette Midler, which ended very abruptly in 1979, and Trading Places, which he was one of four producers on.
[00:27:22]  So who knows what input he even had on that movie?
[00:27:24]  Oh, my God.
[00:27:28]  Russo put out a very long and very boring one-man show called Mad as Hell, where he's trying to do so hard to do a Howard Beale in Network impression.
[00:27:36]  Oh my god.
[00:27:36]  You'll often see people repost this video and claim that it's from 1991, even though in the show he complains about it.
[00:27:42]  It's about a bill that passed in 1995.
[00:27:44]  Right.
[00:27:44]  I suspect that the reason that people claim it came out in 91 is so that it explains his complete drop-off from any show business credits in a way that isn't the work dried up.
[00:27:53]  Right, right, right.
[00:27:54]  Because of this, he couldn't get work anymore.
[00:27:57]  He got blacklisted.
[00:27:57]  As opposed to, this sucked and so did everything else he did.
[00:28:01]  Right.
[00:28:01]  It's more emotionally satisfying to be like, he put out this dangerous, threatening film and he got blacklisted for it, as opposed to, the work dried up and he pivoted to...
[00:28:11]  Yeah.
[00:28:12]  Because he owed a lot of taxes.
[00:28:14]  It is funny that the people who are most likely to blacklist people are the most likely to claim they're blacklisted when they suck.
[00:28:21]  Anyway, I don't think at this point that he's running for the Libertarian nomination in 2004.
[00:28:25]  There's a whole lot of Hollywood that would have rallied around him.
[00:28:28]  I was able to find an interview between Bette Midler and Disney head Michael Eisner from 2006, where the two are making fun of Russo.
[00:28:35]  I'm sorry?
[00:28:36]  Yeah, they're talking about how Midler had excused Russo as her manager, and Eisner says, quote, he's got a documentary out about to come out about how you don't have to pay your taxes.
[00:28:45]  Midler replies laughing, quote, that sounds right.
[00:28:48]  Eisner says, quote, I've seen...
[00:28:50]  To which Bette replies, quote, I've been in, I was in a lot of very exciting police chases with him.
[00:28:56]  Then Eisner tells a story about the time that Russo jokingly threatened to kill him.
[00:29:00]  Not sure anyone took Russo all that seriously at this point outside of these hard right-wing circles.
[00:29:06]  Right, right, right, right.
[00:29:07]  Yes.
[00:29:07]  So he's like the kingpin in Boogie Nights if he was just a joke, though.
[00:29:13]  Yeah.
[00:29:14]  Yeah, okay.
[00:29:15]  So the...
[00:29:17]  The situation with the threatening to kill him was that before he was managing Bette Midler.
[00:29:23]  This was before managing Bette Midler.
[00:29:26]  He had the gall of the threatened murder then.
[00:29:29]  Well, Russo was managing some bands.
[00:29:31]  Sure, sure.
[00:29:32]  And apparently Michael Eisner was a landlord.
[00:29:34]  I'm sorry, what?
[00:29:35]  Yeah, so he tried to rent an apartment from Michael Eisner.
[00:29:38]  Okay.
[00:29:38]  And they'd come to a tentative agreement, but then the next day, after thinking about it, he's like, that guy, he manages bands.
[00:29:44]  I can't do it.
[00:29:45]  I can't, like, it might be too rock and roll.
[00:29:47]  So Michael Eisner said, I'm not going to rent this apartment to you.
[00:29:50]  And then Russo was like, come on, man, I have a family, please, this is great.
[00:29:54]  And so Michael Eisner agrees to it, and then thinks about it overnight again, and he's like, I can't do it, he manages bands.
[00:29:59]  And so he says the second time, I can't rent you this apartment.
[00:30:03]  And then he says, I'm gonna kill you.
[00:30:06]  So then, two years later...
[00:30:08]  I don't like any of this.
[00:30:10]  Two years later, Michael Eisner has a meeting about Bette Midler.
[00:30:14]  In walks Aaron Russo, and he's like, oh, you're that guy that I threatened to kill.
[00:30:18]  And then he just walks out of the meeting.
[00:30:20]  He's like, this is never gonna work.
[00:30:21]  And so, uh, that, uh, yeah.
[00:30:23]  That!
[00:30:24]  That!
[00:30:24]  Good times.
[00:30:29]  Ah, there's just not enough guys.
[00:30:31]  I think the moral of that story is there's just not enough guys.
[00:30:35]  One, why is Michael Eisner...
[00:30:36]  I don't like any part of this story.
[00:30:39]  I don't like Michael Eisner being a landlord and then suddenly being the Disney guy.
[00:30:43]  I don't like that.
[00:30:44]  I don't like how that...
[00:30:45]  I don't know what trajectory you go from landlord to head of Disney.
[00:30:50]  I think it was subsequent.
[00:30:51]  I think it was at the same time.
[00:30:52]  Excuse me.
[00:30:52]  I think it was concurrent.
[00:30:54]  Oh, okay.
[00:30:54]  He was probably managing his properties while also...
[00:30:59]  Oh, then he's that much of an asshole that he's going around tenant to tenant?
[00:31:07]  Choosing individually?
[00:31:08]  I would assume that they are pretty nice places.
[00:31:12]  I assume it's not like a little apartment that you could get.
[00:31:15]  Fair enough.
[00:31:17]  Not like most of the places we've lived.
[00:31:19]  You don't think he's a slumlord?
[00:31:21]  You don't think Eisner is...
[00:31:24]  Concurrently head of Disney and slumlording just for the fun of it?
[00:31:27]  Depends on your definitions.
[00:31:29]  That's a good point.
[00:31:30]  So, Russo is sure that all of this is going to amount to him winning the presidency.
[00:31:35]  I have no doubts.
[00:31:36]  Now, are you going to...
[00:31:37]  I'm pretty sure you're the most prominent candidate out there.
[00:31:40]  Obviously.
[00:31:40]  Obviously the best of libertarians.
[00:31:42]  Do you think you're going to get the libertarian nomination?

=== Nolan's Victory Margin (15:15) ===

[00:31:45]  Well, let me put it this way.
[00:31:46]  I started weeks ago in this race, and...
[00:31:49]  I'm already in the lead and the wind's at my back.
[00:31:51]  I feel very, very secure of that, yes.
[00:31:54]  I don't feel that's a problem at all.
[00:31:56]  You know, I'm very secure in that situation.
[00:31:59]  In the 2004 Libertarian primaries, there were five primary contests held, and a man named Gary Nolan swept them all.
[00:32:07]  Russo came in second in the California primary, losing by 35%.
[00:32:10]  Oh, that's not bad.
[00:32:11]  He came in third in the Massachusetts primary, behind Nolan and No Preference.
[00:32:16]  That's rough.
[00:32:16]  He got 10.2% of the vote, compared to 22% for No Preference.
[00:32:20]  I like No Preference.
[00:32:21]  That's a good Libertarian vote right there.
[00:32:24]  Yeah.
[00:32:24]  So Gary Nolan was a conservative talk show host who quit his show in order to run for president.
[00:32:28]  It was roundly kicking people's asses in the primaries.
[00:32:31]  But here's the thing.
[00:32:32]  What?
[00:32:32]  For libertarians, the primaries don't actually mean anything, and it's all about who people vote for at the convention.
[00:32:38]  Great.
[00:32:38]  So we get to the convention.
[00:32:40]  The first ballot is a tight race for everyone except comedian Drew Carey, who gets three votes.
[00:32:45]  Wait, how did Drew Carey?
[00:32:46]  He tied for winning Utah.
[00:32:49]  Because he got two votes from delegates from Utah.
[00:32:52]  Did he run, or was...
[00:32:54]  I think people just nominated him.
[00:32:55]  Okay, I was going to say.
[00:32:56]  Yeah, so he ended up getting out in the first round.
[00:32:59]  I mean, he should...
[00:33:00]  I mean, obviously, he's the delegate from Ohio.
[00:33:04]  He can't be from...
[00:33:05]  Well, the people from Utah wanted him, though he is from Cleveland, which rocks.
[00:33:09]  I mean, yeah.
[00:33:10]  So, the first ballot, tight race at the top.
[00:33:14]  You had Aaron Russo with 258 votes.
[00:33:16]  Another conservative radio guy named Michael Badnerik had 256, so just two below.
[00:33:21]  And then Gary Nolan was in third with 246.
[00:33:24]  In the second round of voting, things went pretty similarly, but because Nolan was still in third, he ended up getting the boot and wasn't a candidate in the third ballot.
[00:33:33]  Despite having won all of the primaries.
[00:33:35]  The guy who had all the momentum.
[00:33:38]  So he's out on the way to the third ballot.
[00:33:40]  Don't hate the player.
[00:33:42]  Nolan gave a concession speech and endorsed Badneric, and most of his voters went to Badneric securing the nomination for him.
[00:33:48]  Right.
[00:33:49]  What a rollercoaster.
[00:33:50]  That was intense.
[00:33:51]  Anyway, in later interviews, Russo would claim that he withdrew from the race because of health issues, but in reality he just lost.
[00:33:57]  Right.
[00:33:58]  I find all of the effort and drama and just everything that goes into that to be...
[00:34:08]  Fascinating in its complete ineptitude and uselessness.
[00:34:11]  And I'm not going to sit here and pretend that the Democrat and Republican nominating processes are streamlined and make total sense.
[00:34:18]  Oh, sure.
[00:34:19]  But this one's also silly.
[00:34:20]  Oh, no, yeah, I mean, that's what I'm saying.
[00:34:21]  I mean, theirs is arcane and stupid, and at the end of it, we all lose.
[00:34:25]  That's fine, right?
[00:34:26]  Because at least, you know, a thing happens.
[00:34:29]  Whereas with this one, you're doing it for God knows why.
[00:34:32]  You're doing it for yourselves!
[00:34:34]  It might as well be a convention where you guys talk about...
[00:34:36]  It's like a ventriloquist convention.
[00:34:40]  You know, you're all having a great time, but it's not for the rest of us.
[00:34:43]  In the first round, a ventriloquist did get one vote.
[00:34:46]  I don't know if that's true.
[00:34:47]  I might be making that up.
[00:34:48]  I think you're supposed to get two votes at the very least.
[00:34:51]  Well, that is...
[00:34:52]  If your puppet doesn't vote for you, you are.
[00:34:54]  You're a bad candidate.
[00:34:56]  You're the dummy.
[00:34:57]  Hey.
[00:34:59]  You stopped.
[00:35:02]  I'm going to take that with...
[00:35:04]  That's my Christmas gift.
[00:35:05]  Yeah.
[00:35:05]  Merry Christmas.
[00:35:06]  Thank you.
[00:35:07]  So, there's one thing that Aaron Russo is really, really famous for.
[00:35:13]  Uh-huh.
[00:35:14]  And it's a cornerstone of his later documentary, The America Freedom to Fascism, and also a lot of the interviews that he does with various figures, including Alex in the future.
[00:35:27]  Okay.
[00:35:27]  And that is that he knows a member of the Rockefeller family.
[00:35:31]  And this is not true.
[00:35:34]  But it is important to recognize, and we'll play this clip here, that this is a part of his narrative from as far back as this.
[00:35:45]  Now, the CFR is a group publicly sworn to set up a world government.
[00:35:49]  Mr. Russo was saying he talked to a friend of his that's in the CFR.
[00:35:52]  Please continue.
[00:35:53]  Yeah, what I was saying was that, you know, coming out of the establishment after I made mad as hell, And right after I ran for governor, I was running for governor, rather, through a third-party source, I got a call from a lawyer who wanted me to meet with one of the Rockefeller family, and I did.
[00:36:13]  And this gentleman and I started hanging out together and talking, because he wanted to learn from me, and I wanted to learn from him.
[00:36:22]  And it was really, really quite amazing the way they look at the world.
[00:36:26]  Many of them, not necessarily, many people in the CFR actually think they're doing the right thing.
[00:36:33]  Let me guess what they said.
[00:36:35]  Yes.
[00:36:36]  Aaron, the world is very dangerous.
[00:36:38]  We have to be ruthless because all these other countries will get the weapons.
[00:36:41]  That's exactly what they said.
[00:36:42]  We know best, and we've got to organize society because people are so stupid.
[00:36:47]  Why don't you join the elite, Aaron?
[00:36:49]  Why don't you be with us?
[00:36:50]  Well, you pretty much hit it right on the head.
[00:36:54]  Crazy how he hit it right on the head!
[00:36:57]  Yeah.
[00:36:57]  All the things that this person 100% said.
[00:37:00]  Yeah, it does feel like almost collaborative storytelling where Alex is laying out the plot and like, here's where this is going.
[00:37:07]  Yep.
[00:37:07]  So, we have talked about Aaron Russo before.
[00:37:10]  We covered some of his stuff.
[00:37:14]  Particularly this stuff in a past episode.
[00:37:16]  But just to give you a little bit of a refresher, there's a guy named Nicholas Rockefeller that he claims to be friends with who told him all this stuff.
[00:37:24]  Right.
[00:37:24]  And that guy is not a Rockefeller family member.
[00:37:28]  I remember now.
[00:37:28]  It is a fake Rockefeller.
[00:37:29]  It is just a guy who took the name Rockefeller.
[00:37:33]  Yes.
[00:37:33]  And so there is a bunch of stuff that gets laundered through Aaron Russo of these Rockefeller conspiracy theories that have no basis in reality.
[00:37:42]  Right.
[00:37:43]  They do end up informing a lot of Alex's ideas.
[00:37:48]  It is like a little bit of, if you're an opportunist, just find somebody with that last name that you can exploit and then be like, hey, you're my friend, and then go from there.
[00:38:01]  It's not hard.
[00:38:02]  You don't need a credential.
[00:38:04]  I mean, it's like if you're a comic, you're like, oh, he was on The Late Show.
[00:38:08]  Don't need it.
[00:38:09]  I know a Rockefeller.
[00:38:10]  Done.
[00:38:11]  Same thing.
[00:38:12]  Go for it!
[00:38:13]  Right.
[00:38:13]  Yeah!
[00:38:14]  And I can say, this guy isn't related to the Rockefellers, and he can say, secret relative.
[00:38:18]  Absolutely!
[00:38:19]  There's no way around this.
[00:38:20]  Come get me!
[00:38:21]  Yeah.
[00:38:22]  So, one thing that I do find interesting is that at this point, Russo doesn't want to say who the Rockefeller is.
[00:38:32]  Right.
[00:38:32]  Now, Mr. Russo, now again, obviously it wasn't David Rockefeller.
[00:38:37]  You want to tell us which Rockefeller?
[00:38:38]  I'd rather not.
[00:38:40]  I'd rather not at the moment.
[00:38:41]  So you had the CFR try to recruit you, and they said, hey, once you're in with us, you know, you're above the law, so don't worry what we do to the sheep.
[00:38:49]  It's all done with information and winks and nods.
[00:38:52]  You know, it's never blatant.
[00:38:54]  You know, it's never really blatant.
[00:38:55]  Oh, I had one of the biggest networks five, six years ago try to recruit me, and they said, do you want to be a star, Alex, around this crusade that's going nowhere?
[00:39:03]  Here, here's your million-dollar contract.
[00:39:05]  Join us.
[00:39:06]  I mean, I've literally had the meeting with the devil.
[00:39:09]  First of all, that doesn't sound nefarious at all.
[00:39:12]  It sounds like somebody who maybe offered you a job.
[00:39:15]  Second, I think that when you have elaborate conspiracies that are based largely on winks and nods, and they never say this stuff, but it's based entirely on your interpretation of...
[00:39:31]  Subtle cues?
[00:39:32]  Yeah.
[00:39:32]  Then maybe I'm going to say I don't trust your reading of subtle cues.
[00:39:35]  Yeah.
[00:39:36]  Because I have surrounding context and the way that Aaron seems to deal with the rules of reality.
[00:39:44]  Sure.
[00:39:45]  He seems to bluff things a little bit.
[00:39:47]  Right.
[00:39:47]  Maybe his interpretations of the winks and nods that he got from these supposed Rockefellers maybe weren't accurate either.
[00:39:54]  I will say that I can go so far.
[00:39:58]  You know what?
[00:39:59]  Sometimes people don't put things in writing for a reason.
[00:40:03]  I will say that there are places wherein handshakes and winks and nods do occur.
[00:40:08]  I don't trust any of the Russo ones.
[00:40:11]  A wise fictional character once said, you don't take notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy.
[00:40:16]  Exactly!
[00:40:17]  And that guy was real.
[00:40:19]  Well, I mean in a fictional sense.
[00:40:21]  He's fictionally real.
[00:40:24]  So, Aaron Russo believes that Bush and Kerry are the same person, basically.
[00:40:29]  Wait.
[00:40:29]  Not literally.
[00:40:30]  That'd be more fun.
[00:40:31]  It would.
[00:40:31]  But then he goes on to a bizarre metaphor in order to explain his feelings.
[00:40:36]  They give us no choices.
[00:40:39]  I mean, Bush and Kerry are the same person.
[00:40:41]  I mean, it's ridiculous.
[00:40:43]  I use this analogy.
[00:40:45]  Imagine this beautiful woman was in a terrible car accident, and her face was completely disfigured, and it needs plastic surgery desperately.
[00:40:54]  And so George Bush says, okay, let's put a little eyeliner on the right side of the face, and John Kerry says, let's put a little mascara on the left side of the face, and that's what we're going to do.
[00:41:03]  This country needs plastic surgery.
[00:41:05]  It needs an overhaul from top to bottom.
[00:41:07]  We've lost everything that we ever had here, and we've got to restore it.
[00:41:11]  We've got to bring it back, and that's what's necessary, and there's no one out there doing it.
[00:41:15]  So I've decided to run and push it out there and use all my knowledge, everything I know in my life, to win this campaign.
[00:41:22]  You're a weird guy.
[00:41:23]  You are weird.
[00:41:25]  Here's the thing.
[00:41:26]  If that's off the dome, fine.
[00:41:29]  But, I mean...
[00:41:31]  The way he presented it is like, as I like to say, as though this is a regular thing that he tells people.
[00:41:36]  This is my chosen imagery.
[00:41:38]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:41:38]  This is the one that I've got in my back pocket that I bring out all the time.
[00:41:43]  I think that there's a hundred ways to make the same sort of allegorical point that aren't, like, weird like that is.
[00:41:51]  That aren't macabre in the street.
[00:41:54]  A beautiful woman in a terrible accident.
[00:41:59]  Your abusive adjectives for this is a little bit disingenuous.
[00:42:04]  Feels gross.
[00:42:05]  So, just to illustrate that Aaron Russo and Alex Jones are both not-profit types, and their predictions are generally very wrong.
[00:42:15]  This is mostly targeted at Alex, but Russo's along for the ride.
[00:42:18]  Here's some ding-dong stuff.
[00:42:20]  That Aaron is taking action...
[00:42:23]  Further educating himself and involved looking at all of this.
[00:42:27]  We've got a whole bunch of phone calls here that I'm sure want to talk about every issue under the sun, and it all ties into why you're running for president against this tyranny.
[00:42:35]  But before we do that, I know you've got a lot to talk about.
[00:42:38]  Any other key points you want to hit on, Aaron?
[00:42:40]  Well, I think it's very important that people have to learn about the military draft that's coming.
[00:42:44]  You know, the Department of Defense put up on their website a posting calling for people to manage draft boards.
[00:42:50]  That's a universal draft, by the way, men and women.
[00:42:53]  And you'll have to serve here domestically as their slaves.
[00:42:56]  And all men and women between the ages of 18 and 26. We all know that happened.
[00:43:01]  Yep.
[00:43:02]  That's certainly in the 20 years since.
[00:43:06]  I will say this.
[00:43:07]  For America, I think one thing that we have proven...
[00:43:12]  Is that a draft is not possible.
[00:43:14]  Because we cannot be trusted with guns.
[00:43:17]  Hmm.
[00:43:18]  I don't know if that's the reason.
[00:43:20]  I mean, I recognize that, but I mean...
[00:43:22]  I don't think a draft is possible for a hundred different reasons.
[00:43:26]  Sure.
[00:43:27]  I'm just saying, I wouldn't give a lot of people guns.
[00:43:30]  Sure, but I think a lot of those people already have guns.
[00:43:33]  And that's why you don't want to give them permission.
[00:43:37]  The authority of some sort.
[00:43:39]  Yeah, so this is a good obsession to have because it scares people a lot.
[00:43:44]  The idea of a draft is really scary, and you look back on Vietnam War era, the dynamics of the draft are things that still haunt people, and obviously it's very potent to scare people.
[00:43:59]  This is what the enemies are going to do!
[00:44:00]  Yeah, I mean, it's hard really to put myself into the headspace of a...
[00:44:06]  Of the idea of the government saying that I have to go to war.
[00:44:11]  Yeah.
[00:44:12]  Like, because, I mean, okay.
[00:44:15]  Because eventually they get to your door, you know, and you have the options of either going along with them or going to jail or some sort of thing like that, right?
[00:44:24]  Yep.
[00:44:24]  To me, I just cannot get into the headspace of like...
[00:44:30]  Uh, yeah, I'll go kill people.
[00:44:32]  Instead of like, oh, you're gonna put me in a room?
[00:44:34]  I mean, I guess I'll go into a room.
[00:44:36]  Is that what we're doing?
[00:44:37]  Yeah, I mean, I feel like that's kind of the choice that you end up in.
[00:44:41]  Right?
[00:44:41]  It's, uh, yeah.
[00:44:43]  But so many people were like, well, I guess I have to do this because the government says so.
[00:44:49]  Right.
[00:44:50]  Wild!
[00:44:50]  Wild!
[00:44:51]  I don't know.
[00:44:52]  I haven't looked too deeply into...
[00:44:55]  Into your draft soul?
[00:44:56]  Well, like, how capable people were of just being like, well, I'll go to jail then.
[00:45:00]  Sure, sure.
[00:45:01]  I imagine there's a fair amount of pretty coerced conscription.
[00:45:07]  There has to be.
[00:45:08]  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:45:10]  But the point is that it's something that you can really use to make people anxious.
[00:45:16]  And that is why it is something that Alex has used as a prediction that it's coming right around the corner for years and years constantly.
[00:45:24]  It's because it doesn't lose its ability to evoke that fear and that feeling in people.
[00:45:32]  And it's a good way to characterize your enemies.
[00:45:34]  See, I mean, and again, it's just wild to me that you would be afraid of something like that.
[00:45:40]  Because, seriously, okay.
[00:45:42]  So, fine.
[00:45:43]  Now we're past that.
[00:45:45]  I'm coerced.
[00:45:46]  I can't go sit in a room.
[00:45:47]  Now I gotta go do the war.
[00:45:49]  I gotta war, right?
[00:45:51]  The first thing you gotta do is teach me how to war, right?
[00:45:54]  Now, at that point in time, I can learn how to war or I can subtly sabotage the whole war thing to the point where you go, I don't want you to war with us because you're so bad at this.
[00:46:06]  Then you get killed in friendly fire or something.
[00:46:08]  Something, something.
[00:46:09]  But I mean, like, the idea of just being afraid of, like, You understand that I can just be so bad at this that you don't want me there.
[00:46:17]  But you understand also the dynamics of, you know, the military is not known for just being like, oh, no, he won't cooperate.
[00:46:26]  Whatever will we do?
[00:46:27]  Oh, no.
[00:46:28]  I mean, I'm talking like, whoops, I'm sorry I dropped this grenade over there.
[00:46:32]  Ah!
[00:46:33]  You know, wacky shenanigans.
[00:46:35]  All right?
[00:46:36]  I don't know if that qualifies as wacky.
[00:46:37]  I would get out of the military.
[00:46:40]  Through shenanigans.
[00:46:41]  That's my point.
[00:46:41]  So it would turn into, like, earnest goes to war or whatever.

=== Unfunded Liabilities Explained (05:06) ===

[00:46:46]  Earnest goes to Vietnam is exactly my lifestyle.
[00:46:49]  Okay.
[00:46:49]  Yeah.
[00:46:49]  So Alex asks Aaron Russo about the Federal Reserve, because this is one of his big issues, and this does not inspire confidence.
[00:47:00]  The Federal Reserve is what gives him so much power.
[00:47:02]  Yeah.
[00:47:02]  Whoever buys the money makes the rules.
[00:47:04]  Maggie, thanks for the call.
[00:47:05]  You keep bringing up the Federal Reserve.
[00:47:07]  It is.
[00:47:08]  The central point of their power, 1913, in a minute or two, break down what the Federal Reserve really is.
[00:47:14]  Sure.
[00:47:16]  You want me to do it now?
[00:47:17]  Yeah, go ahead and do it.
[00:47:18]  Oh, I'm sorry.
[00:47:18]  Well, essentially, first of all, you should realize America has $72 trillion in unfunded liabilities, which means that money has to be created out of thin air, further destroying the currency we have in this country, or they have to renege on the debt.
[00:47:33]  Okay?
[00:47:34]  So I'm not too inspired here.
[00:47:37]  When Alex asked what the Federal Reserve is, Russo launches into a bit about unfunded liabilities, essentially just parroting conservative anti-government spending talking points.
[00:47:45]  These unfunded liabilities aren't the terrifying thing that folks like Russo make them out to be.
[00:47:49]  These are things like future Social Security payments, which the government will need to pay, but the money to pay that out comes from future payments into the Social Security system.
[00:47:59]  You'll often hear that the government has unfunded obligations to pay X amount of money out of Medicare and Social Security over the next 50 or so years.
[00:48:06]  It'll seem like a giant amount of money and there's no money to pay it currently.
[00:48:10]  That's because the system relies on workers paying into that system over the course of the next 50 or so years, thereby funding those unfunded liabilities.
[00:48:18]  This is a favored boogeyman talking point of the right-wing types because they hate government spending on social welfare.
[00:48:24]  They don't want to pay taxes, and don't give a fuck if your grandparents can't afford their medications, but...
[00:48:29]  They know that is not a winning argument to sell to the public.
[00:48:32]  If they cause a bunch of panic about these unfunded liabilities, you can mask your real agenda behind a fake appearance of concern.
[00:48:38]  And that's the typical game.
[00:48:40]  You don't hear this unfunded liabilities stuff when you're in opposition to bailing out or subsidizing some big business stuff or whatever.
[00:48:51]  That's not the tack that's taken by these conservative types.
[00:48:55]  And there's a reason.
[00:48:56]  The whole money thing for the government.
[00:49:00]  The moment I looked into the military budget and how at a point they were like, oh yeah, so we tried to, but you cannot audit this money.
[00:49:13]  You'll never know where it's going to go.
[00:49:16]  And so the idea of the yearly, oh, we're going to give you $800 billion thing is purely ceremonial.
[00:49:22]  The idea is if the military wants something, they will get it.
[00:49:26]  There's no real money.
[00:49:27]  But what about the unfunded liabilities?
[00:49:28]  There's no real money.
[00:49:29]  It doesn't matter.
[00:49:30]  Did they spend $800 billion last year?
[00:49:33]  No one fucking knows!
[00:49:35]  Maybe they spent $10 billion.
[00:49:36]  No one knows.
[00:49:38]  No one's going to ask if they want something, though.
[00:49:40]  It's theirs.
[00:49:41]  I agree with you, generally speaking, but I also think that, like, broadly, I don't think that no one knows where any of the money goes.
[00:49:52]  Sure, sure!
[00:49:52]  I agree with you that there's not a precise accounting, but it's not like it's all a mystery.
[00:49:57]  No, no, no!
[00:49:57]  There is somebody who pays money, but, like, what do they need?
[00:50:02]  So, okay, the person who is writing the check for, like, the people...
[00:50:06]  With the plane or whatever.
[00:50:08]  The plane people.
[00:50:09]  Here's how much money we need for this amount of plane, right?
[00:50:13]  If he doesn't have that much money, he doesn't go like, oh, well, I guess we can't get the plane.
[00:50:17]  He just turns to somebody and he goes, put more money into the thing that gets the plane stuff.
[00:50:22]  And that person goes, okay.
[00:50:24]  Yeah.
[00:50:24]  Yeah, money's not real.
[00:50:26]  Sure.
[00:50:26]  And a great deal of the stuff that people like Aaron Russo and folks on the very much anti-government, anti-techs bandwagon, a lot of the stuff that they fearmonger about are these systems that they're misrepresenting, or they're things that we owe ourselves.
[00:50:43]  Yeah.
[00:50:43]  You know, it's not like someone's going to break your legs because you owe somebody X, Y, or Z amount.
[00:50:51]  Yeah, to continue the plane people thing, that guy you turned to and were like, hey, give me more money, is the guy you're getting the plane stuff from.
[00:50:59]  It's a circle.
[00:51:00]  Yeah, which isn't to say that that's...
[00:51:02]  It's real money.
[00:51:03]  And that's not to say that it's not an uncorrupt system in a lot of ways.
[00:51:07]  Sure.
[00:51:07]  But the way that it's being described as corrupt by people like Aaron Russo are in service of a different agenda.
[00:51:15]  Yeah.
[00:51:15]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:51:16]  So Aaron leaves.
[00:51:17]  It's a very friendly interview, and the two of them clearly are hitting it off.
[00:51:23]  Yeah, they seem nice.
[00:51:24]  Yeah.
[00:51:24]  And it does become a flowering.
[00:51:28]  Friendship between the two of them.
[00:51:30]  Aaron is a guest on Alex's show in the future.
[00:51:34]  The two of them have interviews about Nicholas Rockefeller and all kinds of crazy bullshit.

=== Planes Shot Down: Policy Update (05:12) ===

[00:51:39]  But he leaves, and we get to a little bit of news.
[00:51:44]  There's a little bit of news.
[00:51:45]  And we're going to continue with your phone calls at 800-259-9231.
[00:51:51]  Last hour, I got into part of the article.
[00:51:54]  Found the 9-11 stand-down order.
[00:51:58]  Jim Hoffman has discovered a document, which I believe may be very important to the 9-11 skeptic movement.
[00:52:03]  The document supersedes earlier DOD procedures.
[00:52:06]  And as of June 1, 2001, there was an order put out by the Joint Chiefs that generals could no longer shoot down derelict or hijacked aircraft, that it had to all go through Rumsfeld.
[00:52:19]  So another reason they didn't shoot down aircraft.
[00:52:22]  So Jim Hoffman is a very discredited conspiracy peddler, and this is not a stand-down order that he supposedly found.
[00:52:28]  Also, you hear it in the first person.
[00:52:29]  That's because Alex is reading a blog post off Jeff Rents' website, which is in the first person.
[00:52:34]  Jeff Rents, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:52:35]  We talked about him.
[00:52:36]  So this is an update to the guidelines for dealing with aircraft piracy, which makes changes like taking instances where the document says U.S. Element North American Aerospace Defense Command and changing them to North American Aerospace Defense Command.
[00:52:50]  So there's like those kinds of changes?
[00:52:52]  Sure.
[00:52:52]  And what have you?
[00:52:53]  Sure.
[00:52:53]  Updates like this to policy guidelines happen all the time, and conspiracy theorists love to pretend that they're making far more sweeping changes than they actually are.
[00:53:01]  In this case, the argument that Alex is putting forth is that the document made it so only Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, could have any say about shooting down civilian aircraft, whereas previously, any old general could make that determination.
[00:53:13]  Any old general!
[00:53:14]  This is absolutely not true.
[00:53:16]  This document updated an almost identical document from 1997, and it doesn't change anything about the chain of responsibility for decision making.
[00:53:24]  In both, they say that the FAA is responsible for monitoring flights and requesting help from the Department of Defense if they feel like it's needed.
[00:53:32]  In the updated 2001 version, as well as the 1997 version, they say, quote, In the event of a hijacking, the National Military Command Center will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA.
[00:53:45]  The NMCC will, with the exception of immediate responses as authorized by reference D, forward requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval.
[00:53:56]  When the document says, with the exception of immediate responses as authorized by reference D, it's talking about DOD policy that predated this document and wasn't changed by it.
[00:54:05]  Essentially, federal military commanders had the authority to respond to emergencies immediately if it was a situation where they could not reasonably get the permission from.
[00:54:14]  the Secretary of Defense.
[00:54:15]  Right.
[00:54:15]  It's pretty clear from the language of the document that this authority to respond doesn't extend to shooting down an aircraft full of civilians, and in fact it explicitly says, quote, immediate response authority does not permit actions that would subject civilians to Right.
[00:54:32]  Right.
[00:54:34]  This is Anglo and this is accurate.
[00:54:36]  Okay.
[00:54:38]  So...
[00:54:39]  What's it?
[00:54:41]  So, I mean, fewer planes get shot down.
[00:54:45]  That's the idea, right?
[00:54:47]  Of this update?
[00:54:48]  Is that the idea?
[00:54:49]  No.
[00:54:50]  No.
[00:54:51]  More planes get shot down?
[00:54:52]  No.
[00:54:53]  There are more possible situations wherein planes can get shot down.
[00:54:56]  No.
[00:54:57]  There are fewer possible situations?
[00:54:59]  Clarifying language.
[00:55:00]  And it's re...
[00:55:02]  I don't remember exactly what it is, but there's the category of derelict aircraft.
[00:55:08]  And that's like air balloons, unmanned things.
[00:55:11]  And so it added a couple things to that category of derelict things that can be shot down if they pose a threat to people.
[00:55:21]  And so it doesn't make anything about more planes being shot down, less planes being shot down.
[00:55:27]  It's just updating some language and stuff.
[00:55:29]  That happens all the time.
[00:55:31]  That's what I feel like.
[00:55:32]  If we're having a conversation that involves planes being shot down, my only interest is...
[00:55:38]  More or fewer, you know, larger or fewer the number of planes being shot down.
[00:55:43]  And then what we do...
[00:55:44]  I don't think any kind of bill could really determine that because it's really contingent on what the circumstances are.
[00:55:49]  Well, I mean, do you know what I mean?
[00:55:51]  Like, are we tightening the scenarios?
[00:55:53]  Are we allowing for more possibilities where you can shoot down?
[00:55:56]  And why?
[00:55:57]  Yeah, from my understanding, this does not change any of that.
[00:56:01]  If that's the case, then we don't need to talk about it.
[00:56:04]  Right.
[00:56:05]  If it's just like language, that's for other people.
[00:56:07]  Even under Alex, Alex's definition, I don't think that it changes that.
[00:56:10]  Because Alex's version of it is simply that it just made the Secretary of Defense responsible for making all of these decisions, as opposed to generals on the ground.
[00:56:20]  Because only the Secretary of Defense could make these decisions, Donald Rumsfeld was able to have a stand-down and make nobody respond.
[00:56:28]  To keep the generals from shooting the planes out of the sky.
[00:56:31]  From 9-11.
[00:56:32]  Right.
[00:56:32]  That, I think I got.

=== Bribery and Beyond (15:20) ===

[00:56:34]  So that's the foundational element of...
[00:56:37]  Alex's conspiracy, and that is complete horseshit.
[00:56:39]  Yeah, that seems crazy.
[00:56:41]  But it's interesting to go back in time, because we can really see the way that Alex's MO has honestly never changed.
[00:56:46]  It's just that technology has.
[00:56:48]  In the present day, so much of his coverage is just skimming memes and Twitter posts and pretending that qualifies as a valid source, but in the past it was no different.
[00:56:56]  He was just using idiotic blog posts as the same thing he was skimming.
[00:56:59]  This is his workflow.
[00:57:01]  This is what he does.
[00:57:02]  Yeah, I mean, it was so...
[00:57:06]  Clear.
[00:57:07]  Like, how he became what he became is because at the time there weren't 10 million other YouTubers to go to who had the same blog post that they were reading.
[00:57:19]  Right.
[00:57:20]  Like, there was just so many fewer...
[00:57:24]  Jesus Christ.
[00:57:25]  That's some good modification.
[00:57:26]  So many fewer.
[00:57:27]  So many fewer!
[00:57:28]  No, it's just that the space was so available for the taking.
[00:57:32]  Yeah.
[00:57:33]  And he was there.
[00:57:33]  Well, you had, like, And the thing that set Alex apart was that he had no boss.
[00:57:52]  And no concern of pressure from advertisers and stuff like that.
[00:57:56]  Yeah.
[00:57:56]  So he could be free to lie and misrepresent things.
[00:57:59]  He could yell.
[00:57:59]  He could do basically whatever he wanted in a way that all those other talk show hosts couldn't.
[00:58:04]  And therefore he could make shit up and spread conspiracy shit that was much more interesting and exploited various fears and insecurities of the audience in a way that someone like Sean Hannity...
[00:58:16]  Probably couldn't get away with doing.
[00:58:18]  And so that's really, I believe, one of the biggest elements of his standing out back then.
[00:58:25]  It's more interesting.
[00:58:26]  It is, and it's a thing that plays out over and over and over again.
[00:58:31]  As any kind of new media pops up, this kind of same cannibalization happens.
[00:58:37]  The same space opens up, this guy breaks in, creates the space, and then it gets torn into little...
[00:58:44]  Eight million YouTubers all watching the same shit, making the same video about each other.
[00:58:48]  Yeah, I think that you have a proof of concept of something that somebody does, and then everybody is like, I'll try and do that.
[00:58:56]  And I think that Alex has probably been surpassed in some ways by the other people who saw him and was like, I can do that.
[00:59:05]  And because the internet exists the way it does...
[00:59:08]  Those previous pressures to people like Hannity or whatever who are on those radio stations, those don't apply to folks anymore.
[00:59:15]  And so that thing that made Alex kind of different and able to move in a different way than those other hosts, that's been eliminated.
[00:59:21]  It's not unique to him anymore.
[00:59:23]  Yeah, it is one of those things that you look at, and if you take a step back over the larger decade-long view, it does feel like there are just these sliders.
[00:59:34]  There's four different things that you alter, four different little attributes, and you have a different guy.
[00:59:39]  Remove the boss from Tucker Carlson, and you have Alex Jones.
[00:59:44]  Add energy.
[00:59:45]  It is so much that.
[00:59:47]  And that's just it.
[00:59:48]  That's all these people are.
[00:59:49]  There's nothing unique about them, truly.
[00:59:52]  It's just a...
[00:59:53]  A different scramble of the same shit.
[00:59:54]  Yeah.
[00:59:55]  Yeah.
[00:59:55]  There's something to that.
[00:59:57]  Yeah.
[00:59:57]  So we get another headline.
[00:59:58]  Another bit of news.
[01:00:00]  And I was very interested in this.
[01:00:02]  Oh, there's so much more here.
[01:00:04]  Later in the hour, I'm going to read over some of Senate Bill 742.
[01:00:08]  Because people can't believe this.
[01:00:10]  And I'm going to read over it again.
[01:00:12]  About putting you in a forest labor camp for life.
[01:00:15]  Sure.
[01:00:15]  If one protester blocks traffic, everyone gets life in prison.
[01:00:19]  And I wanted to read some of the other crimes you get life in prison for.
[01:00:22]  If they're able to pass this.
[01:00:25]  And here's the deal.
[01:00:28]  I'm going to take calls, and I'm giving each caller, and I want to hear from you.
[01:00:32]  We love you to death.
[01:00:33]  But I don't like the fact that people tell me they can't get into this show for weeks sometimes because the phones get loaded up and then we don't get to them.
[01:00:39]  I'm going to give each caller a minute, and I'm not going to interrupt you.
[01:00:43]  Questions, comments, anything you want to talk about, you've got 60 seconds.
[01:00:49]  Another thing that's been a constant thread through Alex's career is the insistence that he's going to go to calls and not talk.
[01:00:55]  Just giving callers a minute to say whatever they want.
[01:00:57]  Whatever you want.
[01:00:57]  He's been trying to do that for 20 years.
[01:00:59]  We have seen that a lot.
[01:01:00]  Now, I've heard Alex constantly talk about this supposed bill that would make everyone at a protest subjected to internment in a forest labor camp if someone blocks Okay, if I understand, that is the bill.
[01:01:28]  That will outlaw all protests and put everybody in jail forever.
[01:01:32]  Well, I mean, I'm just...
[01:01:32]  This is the first place you look.
[01:01:34]  Alright.
[01:01:35]  So, it was introduced by a Republican from Kansas, Sam Brownback, and it has literally zero to do with the stuff that Alex is talking about.
[01:01:41]  It was also referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations in March 2003 and died there.
[01:01:46]  I thought that maybe Alex was talking about a bill from the House and I accidentally said Senate, so I checked HR 742, but that was a proposed code change to reduce the age you're eligible for military retirement pay from 60 to 55. Okay, well that's nice.
[01:01:59]  Yeah, but it clearly isn't it.
[01:02:00]  Yeah.
[01:02:00]  So then I decided to check the 107th Congress, the previous one, but S742 that year was the Retirement Security and Savings Act of 2001, which also died in committee.
[01:02:10]  Yeah, that sounds right.
[01:02:11]  In the 106th Congress, S742 was a clarification on the requirements that would be needed.
[01:02:20]  That makes sense.
[01:02:24]  There just isn't a bill with this number that matches Alex's story in any way.
[01:02:29]  So a little later in this episode, Alex reads from a blog post about this bill.
[01:02:32]  And because he used precise language that's used in this blog, I was able to trace it down and get to the bottom of this.
[01:02:38]  It's not a bill in the U.S. Senate.
[01:02:40]  It's in the Oregon State Senate.
[01:02:42]  Sure.
[01:02:43]  And it didn't pass.
[01:02:44]  Wow.
[01:02:44]  Already.
[01:02:45]  By the time Alex is talking about it.
[01:02:46]  Great.
[01:02:47]  Alex's version of this is very cartoonish and disconnected from reality, but it also is way too broadly written to be...
[01:02:53]  An effective law.
[01:02:54]  It was essentially trying to create a catch-all type of offense called the crime of terrorism.
[01:02:59]  But as you can well imagine, terrorism is a term that has a million meanings, so trying to legislate a clear definition of it isn't going to be a smooth process.
[01:03:06]  Anybody who does something to make you afraid...
[01:03:09]  Oh, no, this is going to be...
[01:03:10]  In effect, this was meant to supplement already existing laws and crimes in Oregon by adding this terrorism distinction, which would allow for life sentences for people who commit other crimes in furtherance of terrorist goals.
[01:03:22]  Sure.
[01:03:23]  The issue is that some of the...
[01:03:27]  Okay, I was gonna say, is the IRA a huge problem in the Oregon at this time?
[01:03:37]  Maybe.
[01:03:37]  Okay.
[01:03:38]  I understand the intention of the bill, which is obviously to enable the state to more harshly prosecute terrorists for adjacent crimes.
[01:03:45]  Sure.
[01:03:45]  But it's also not really well thought out, and because of how nebulously it has to be written, it opens the door to the kind of propaganda optics that...
[01:03:53]  These games that Alex likes to play.
[01:03:56]  You are never going to be sent to a forest labor camp if you're at a protest and someone stops traffic.
[01:04:00]  but because of how the bill is written, Alex can make that impression.
[01:04:03]  The list of crimes that this applies to is at the bottom of the bill, but at the top, it says, quote, a person commits the crime of terrorism if the person knowingly plans, participates in, or carries out any act that is intended by at least one of its participants to disrupt A, the free and orderly assembly of the inhabitants of the state of Oregon, B, commerce or the transportation systems of the state of Oregon, or C, the educational or governmental institutions of Oregon, Yeah, that's not going to be applied.
[01:04:32]  Well, without the context of the acts that it's meant to apply to, it sounds like anything anybody does that's in any way disruptive is going to be classified as terrorism and make the person subject to life in prison.
[01:04:44]  Alex removes that context because it makes this job way easier.
[01:04:48]  You can pretty easily come up with an argument against this bill, even with the context intact, but it's so much easier to create this cartoon-ass version of it to attack.
[01:04:57]  It's lazy, but it's more interesting.
[01:05:00]  And it creates the impression of the comic book villain tyranny that you're pretending to be up against.
[01:05:07]  It reinforces that, and so why give the context?
[01:05:11]  Your audience doesn't demand it.
[01:05:12]  Who gives a shit?
[01:05:12]  Yeah.
[01:05:13]  Yeah, I was thinking that while this is going on, there are so many times where you think of people talking about these laws that they want, all that stuff, and what they're not thinking is, what if these laws were to apply to me?
[01:05:27]  The assumption is like, this is for other...
[01:05:29]  The smaller people.
[01:05:31]  That kind of thing.
[01:05:32]  Right?
[01:05:33]  Alex kind of seems to have the opposite point of view on this that I would expect from him.
[01:05:38]  Because if he was the person who was determining who was terrorists, he would love this bill.
[01:05:47]  This is exactly what they want.
[01:05:49]  That's why they make it okay for you to hit somebody at a protest with your car.
[01:05:53]  That is the bill that they are arguing against falsely here.
[01:06:00]  Sure.
[01:06:01]  The one that they want!
[01:06:02]  Yeah, okay.
[01:06:03]  Just wanted to be clear on this.
[01:06:05]  But, you know, I mean, even, like, your explanation and everything, it's all games.
[01:06:09]  It's a game of depriving the audience of information in order to paint the picture that you want to paint.
[01:06:15]  Yeah.
[01:06:16]  And I think that also Alex is, you know, I think maybe somewhat intentionally trying to obscure the fact that this is a Oregon State Senate bill that didn't pass.
[01:06:27]  Kind of takes the stakes down a little bit.
[01:06:30]  It does.
[01:06:30]  It does.
[01:06:31]  And that's why I've heard him talk about it so many times, but never had any kind of specific, like, that bill number that was able to latch on to, like, what is this?
[01:06:41]  What are you talking about?
[01:06:42]  And that makes it more difficult to realize what a fraud.
[01:06:47]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:06:49]  It should have been specifically the Oregon doesn't like Portland bill that he was talking about.
[01:06:54]  So Alex reads a little bit from this blog and bill, and something interesting is going on.
[01:07:01]  When a person is convicted of terrorism under this section, the court shall order that the person be confined for a minimum of 25 years without possibility of parole, and only to be released on work release to a forest or work camp.
[01:07:15]  You get 25 years if you agree to the forest work camp.
[01:07:19]  And so there you go.
[01:07:21]  And then they give the things that you can get life in prison for, not just blocking traffic.
[01:07:25]  And some of this stuff's bad.
[01:07:27]  Some of it's stuff that's not bad.
[01:07:29]  So they make some real crimes in with things that aren't crimes.
[01:07:31]  Sorry, what?
[01:07:33]  Bribes.
[01:07:34]  Giving as defined in Section 106-015 of Penal Code of Oregon.
[01:07:40]  Bribe receiving.
[01:07:41]  And it gives that.
[01:07:42]  Public investment fraud.
[01:07:44]  Bribing a witness.
[01:07:45]  Bribing receiving by a witness.
[01:07:47]  Simulating legal process.
[01:07:49]  So acting like you're a lawyer.
[01:07:51]  Official misconduct in the first degree.
[01:07:53]  Custodial interference in the second degree.
[01:07:56]  Custodial interference in the first degree.
[01:07:59]  Buying or selling a person under 18 years of age is defiant.
[01:08:02]  So they put a few things that are really bad there.
[01:08:03]  They put a few things that are bad there.
[01:08:05]  Sure there's custodial interference.
[01:08:07]  Conduct.
[01:08:09]  Encouraging child sexual abuse in the first degree.
[01:08:11]  And then it gives them more of those.
[01:08:13]  Possessing of materials depicting sexually explicit, you know, same stuff.
[01:08:19]  So blocking traffic isn't found anywhere in the bill, but you can see an interesting thing happen here.
[01:08:24]  Alex is reading off the offenses that this bill relates to, and all of it's pretty bad stuff, but he needs to be opposed to this bill.
[01:08:31]  In order to do that, he has to cling desperately to the idea that it also includes life sentences for people who block traffic, which he's just making up.
[01:08:39]  This is nonsense.
[01:08:40]  Yeah, this sounds too reasonable!
[01:08:42]  So the unreasonable thing that I thought it was...
[01:08:45]  I'm gonna make it that!
[01:08:46]  Yeah, and if you go down the full list of these offenses, there are ways that you can kind of understand how these could be part of a terrorist enterprise.
[01:08:57]  Sure.
[01:08:58]  You know, things like bribery, things like human trafficking, things like theft.
[01:09:03]  There's some that are a little bit like, I'm not exactly sure.
[01:09:07]  Where this would apply, like, unlawful recording of a live performance.
[01:09:12]  I'm not sure exactly how that...
[01:09:14]  What, did ASCAP get that in there?
[01:09:16]  What is going on?
[01:09:17]  Right, right.
[01:09:18]  There are a few things like that, but then the rest of it is stuff like, you know, fraudulent ID stuff, identity theft, illegal purchasing of handguns, things like that.
[01:09:29]  You know, a lot of it does make sense.
[01:09:32]  But Alex is pretending that it's like, oh, they threw a few things in here, and then it's blocking traffic.
[01:09:36]  It's not.
[01:09:37]  It's absolutely not.
[01:09:39]  That's also one of those things that's very much got that feel of like, how good are we doing on the regular bribes thing, right?
[01:09:47]  Like, how many bribery cases have we prosecuted in the past year?
[01:09:51]  Two?
[01:09:52]  Oh, great.
[01:09:53]  Why are we bothering with terrorism on top of this, you know?
[01:09:55]  I bet there's more.
[01:09:56]  I bet it's just something you never hear about, because why would you?
[01:09:59]  I mean, I feel like bribery is kind of a thing that you hear about.
[01:10:02]  It's not a juicy story.
[01:10:04]  I don't know.
[01:10:04]  Isn't bribery like a really juicy story?
[01:10:07]  I don't know.
[01:10:07]  I mean, if I'd known in advance you wanted to get into this, I could maybe see if I find some bribery convictions.
[01:10:13]  I mean, I kind of want to see some more bribery convictions, honestly.
[01:10:16]  All right.
[01:10:17]  I mean, whenever one of our Supreme Court justices is just a walking bribe, then it's hard to imagine that there's like regular bribe.
[01:10:25]  Convictions?
[01:10:26]  Well, here's the thing.
[01:10:26]  Like, that's really high stakes.
[01:10:29]  Sure.
[01:10:29]  So, like, it's, you know, obviously you're not going to see the conviction of a Supreme Court judge.
[01:10:36]  Sure, sure.
[01:10:38]  A problem.
[01:10:39]  So we got a former alderman of Chicago in Chicago.
[01:10:44]  Well, sure.
[01:10:45]  Found guilty of racketeering and bribery.
[01:10:48]  Well, yeah, but see, that's almost like...
[01:10:50]  Two days ago.
[01:10:50]  That's almost offensive, because they all are.
[01:10:53]  And we all know it.
[01:10:54]  Here's another headline.
[01:10:55]  Former Cincinnati councilman sentenced for bribery scheme.
[01:10:57]  That was three days ago.
[01:10:58]  Okay.
[01:10:59]  So most of our government...
[01:11:01]  Most local governments across this nation should probably have somebody right now being arrested and convicted of bribery.
[01:11:11]  Four days ago, former East Cleveland police officers found guilty in bribery trial.
[01:11:16]  So, I mean, like, what I'm saying is there are instances of this, and a lot of it is more local type stuff.
[01:11:22]  No, that makes sense.
[01:11:23]  You're not necessarily going to hear about it, so you feel like, yeah, we're not convicting anybody of bribery.
[01:11:26]  No, I mean, I feel like that's the, I think it's more of the problem is that we're apparently convicting a lot of people of bribery.
[01:11:33]  I mean, there was a number of cases just from a few days.
[01:11:37]  That doesn't even have a recent past.

=== Higher Odds of Escape (03:43) ===

[01:11:38]  Maybe it's just clearing out the docket.
[01:11:40]  Could be.
[01:11:41]  End of the year.
[01:11:42]  End of the year.
[01:11:43]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:11:43]  So anyway, back to Alex.
[01:11:44]  He completely fucked up reading the act here.
[01:11:48]  He says that you can get out of prison if you go to a forest labor camp, but actually this says the opposite.
[01:11:54]  Quote, "When a person is convicted of terrorism under this section, the court shall order that person to be confined for a minimum of 25 years without the possibility of parole, release to post-prison supervision, release on work release, or any form of temporary leave or employment at a forest or work camp." The Forrester work camp stuff is only in this bill as an example of a thing that you would be prohibited from being sent to if you're convicted of terrorism under this.
[01:12:19]  Yeah.
[01:12:20]  I would normally say that this is a case of Alex being lazy, but as he's reading that passage, you can hear him pause and add additional words so it fits his narrative.
[01:12:29]  Listen to this.
[01:12:30]  The court shall order that the person be confined for a minimum of 25 years without possibility of parole and only to be released on work release.
[01:12:39]  To a forest or work camp.
[01:12:41]  So you get 25 years if you agree to the forest work camp.
[01:12:44]  He paused and added, and only to be released in there, because he needs those words to make the narrative work.
[01:12:50]  He's intentionally lying to the audience to scare them about this bullshit, and it's a bill that didn't pass already by this point, and he's just making shit up about it.
[01:12:59]  What a weird...
[01:13:00]  You know, I don't think about it too often, but that is such a weird thing for people writing laws to specify...
[01:13:09]  What you can do while you're in prison.
[01:13:12]  What do you want out of that?
[01:13:13]  If you can't go to work, you can't do anything, you can't work, you can't do any of this stuff.
[01:13:19]  So you just want this person in a hole?
[01:13:23]  That's the idea, that you're writing a bill in advance to be like, let's put this person in a hole.
[01:13:28]  The instinct there, or the thought process, is this would not be applied to people who weren't Sure.
[01:13:38]  Totally.
[01:13:39]  Probably someone who's at a forest work kind of place could be able to escape or something.
[01:13:45]  I think the odds are higher of that than if you were just in prison.
[01:13:49]  Totally.
[01:13:50]  So I think that that's probably the impetus for, like, if you're convicted under this, you can't go to any place where it's easier for you to escape.
[01:13:57]  Sure, sure.
[01:13:57]  I mean, obviously I have my reputation, but I'm not ascribing anything nefarious to this.
[01:14:02]  It just seems very interesting to me, this idea.
[01:14:06]  I mean, it's...
[01:14:23]  Sure.
[01:14:24]  I think it is weird, but I bet it's not that weird if you have a habit of writing bills and stuff.
[01:14:29]  I imagine there's a whole list of considerations that we never even consider because we don't do that.
[01:14:35]  And there are people who love to do that shit.
[01:14:36]  Yeah, that's true.
[01:14:37]  I'm sure.
[01:14:38]  Which strikes some people as weird, but I love to listen to Alex's bullshit from 20 years ago.
[01:14:47]  And that's not common.
[01:14:49]  I love that they love that.
[01:14:50]  I'm bummed out whenever people are doing it and they hate it.
[01:14:54]  That sucks.
[01:14:55]  You don't like the person who...
[01:14:58]  Sadly is forced to come up with incarceration schemes.
[01:15:04]  I hate incarcerating people.
[01:15:05]  Then don't do it, man.

=== Alex Seeks Pop Culture Showbiz (03:42) ===

[01:15:07]  So, we come to the end of this, and we got a couple of bullshit headlines, certainly.
[01:15:12]  And Alex is the beginning of his relationship with Aaron Russo.
[01:15:17]  The first time they spoke on air, and presumably, from what it appears, first time they've ever spoke.
[01:15:22]  Yeah, okay.
[01:15:24]  I think it's immediate, like right out the gate.
[01:15:28]  Alex is...
[01:15:29]  This person is showbiz.
[01:15:33]  He wants part of the showbiz of this person.
[01:15:36]  And that's such a common thing.
[01:15:39]  I feel like people, particularly on the pretty far right, are very desperate for anybody who has the appearance of mainstream pop culture kind of adjacency.
[01:15:51]  They really, really like those people.
[01:15:53]  And Aaron Russo is a perfect...
[01:15:56]  Example of that, because you can't take away the fact that he was a rock band promoter, that he was Bette Midler's manager, that he did produce one of the producers on Trading Places.
[01:16:09]  Those things are not in dispute.
[01:16:13]  And so he has a really easy thing to be like, this showbiz guy, he knows everything about the inner workings of how the machine works, the establishment.
[01:16:22]  I'm not sure.
[01:16:23]  I'm not sure about that.
[01:16:24]  Yeah!
[01:16:25]  It is like the right gets the bizarro version of every pop culture thing that they can.
[01:16:31]  Like even Clint Eastwood, they got the version of Clint Eastwood that talks to a chair.
[01:16:35]  You know, like there's a bizarro version of Aaron Russo.
[01:16:38]  The Russo brothers!
[01:16:40]  Just regular producers!
[01:16:41]  Who've done Marvel movies!
[01:16:43]  Who've won Academy Awards!
[01:16:45]  You know, the whole thing.
[01:16:45]  I bet they managed Ben Mittler's end of her career.
[01:16:50]  You don't think so?
[01:16:52]  I don't know.
[01:16:52]  But, yeah, you know, it does, you know, that instinct of desperate clinging to anybody who's, like, mainstream popular who will go along with your stuff.
[01:17:05]  It explains a lot of the stuff, like, why...
[01:17:08]  Tucker Carlson interviewed Kid Rock.
[01:17:10]  And as we're recording this, apparently it just came out that he interviewed Kevin Spacey.
[01:17:17]  It's that desperation of pop culture adjacency.
[01:17:23]  Because it's something that they're denied.
[01:17:26]  It's something that they do not have access to because of their fringeness.
[01:17:31]  They are not accepted into the mainstream of people's...
[01:17:37]  Celebrity-ness.
[01:17:38]  It's just that constant, like, the harder you try to get it, the more it is impossible to get.
[01:17:44]  And the more you want it, the less people want to give it to you.
[01:17:48]  And then you get Kid Rock.
[01:17:50]  Like, that's what happens.
[01:17:51]  Like, it is that vicious cycle of because you desire it, it is not available to you.
[01:17:57]  And here's Kid Rock.
[01:17:59]  That's Buddhist in a way.
[01:18:00]  And you know what I say to that?
[01:18:01]  Ba-wa-da-ba.
[01:18:05]  I am the bull god.
[01:18:11]  That is when the hood, when the dark hood, and the skeletal finger points, and you hear bah with the bah, you know that's the ghost of Christmas future coming for you.
[01:18:26]  You should listen to that Kid Rock interview with Tucker.
[01:18:33]  If only because I want to see if he brings up Joe C. Three foot tall with a ten foot dick.

=== Social Media Lyrics (00:53) ===

[01:18:39]  I can't imagine.
[01:18:40]  I can't imagine.
[01:18:43]  Anyway, we'll be back.
[01:18:45]  But until then, we have a website.
[01:18:47]  Indeed we do.
[01:18:48]  It's knowledgefight.com.
[01:18:49]  Yep, we're also on Twitter.
[01:18:49]  We are on Twitter and in a blue sky and whatever those things are.
[01:18:54]  The social media.
[01:18:55]  Yep.
[01:18:55]  Anyway, we'll be back.
[01:18:56]  But until then, I forgot to say I'm Neil DGX.
[01:19:04]  I think I could probably recite all of the lyrics to that.
[01:19:08]  I know, and it scares me.
[01:19:09]  This is for the questions that don't have any answers.
[01:19:11]  The midnight glancers and the topless dancers.
[01:19:13]  Get out while you can!
[01:19:15]  All right.
[01:19:16]  Okay.
[01:19:17]  Woo, yeah!
[01:19:18]  Woo, yeah!
[01:19:19]  And now here comes the sex robot.
[01:19:21]  Andy in Kansas, you're on the air.
[01:19:22]  Thanks for holding.
[01:19:25]  Hello, Alex.
[01:19:26]  I'm a first-time caller.
[01:19:27]  I'm a huge fan.
[01:19:27]  I love your work.