0:14

Joining me today is

0:16

fair and balance, although that's not

0:18

your real last name, right?

0:20

No, it's, it's a Chicago Polish

0:22

last name?

0:23

Ah-huh. what? Balance.

0:25

No, my real last name is Faren Franza.

0:28

That's my TV name. Yes.

0:30

But you go by Fair and Balance and you've been doing

0:32

that for how long?

0:33

Fair and Balance Since last. Okay.

0:36

So we're right now, as of this broadcast,

0:38

February, 2023. I've

0:40

gone by it since like July,

0:42

2022.

0:44

Oh, so it's fairly new.

0:45

I'm very

0:45

I thought you'd been using this for a long time, cuz it seems

0:48

like such an obvious sort of

0:50

nickname to have.

0:50

I, okay, let me say this.

0:53

When I had my little,

0:55

like, reporter segment where I would

0:57

call out both the left and the right media, I

0:59

had like a segment. That's when my segment was

1:01

born called Fair and Balanced, but I never went

1:04

by it. But then that summer last summer

1:06

when I started covering the Johnny Depp

1:08

trial and all that stuff as like kind of a media analyst

1:10

cuz I used to cover court cases that's when I used

1:13

Fair and Balanced because I was like, Hey, why not?

1:15

You know, kind of don't need to have my name out there on the

1:17

internet too much. So,

1:20

but yeah, no, last name is Franza Polish

1:22

last name, no relation to Paul

1:24

Franza. The baby that was, that

1:26

was kidnapped from the hospital

1:28

in Chicago back in the sixties. Although

1:30

I get that, that's the one question that I get asked

1:32

all the time. if I'm related to that person

1:35

and I'm like, no, I think it's like very,

1:37

very, very distant cousins.

1:40

Hmm. So I think

1:42

when I first saw you, you were

1:44

on RT America,

1:45

Yep.

1:47

so we'll get to that, but let's actually

1:49

start a little further back. So

1:51

you grew up in Chicago, right?

1:53

Chicago Born and raised, west side.

1:56

So I, this is

1:58

one of the things that's, that's funny about Chicago

2:00

people. So if

2:02

you have, when you're

2:05

from Chicago, you

2:08

and you meet somebody else like in the world

2:10

and they ask you where you're from, you say, I'm

2:12

from Chicago. If you're from Chicago,

2:15

you immediately go, what part? Because

2:18

we know that most

2:20

people didn't grow up in the city. Cuz I come

2:22

from that era where my parents actually grew up

2:25

in the city, the boomers, and they

2:27

moved out to the suburbs. So

2:29

that's

2:29

you didn't grow up in Miracle Mile

2:31

and that's again, we never called it miracle

2:34

mile cause it wasn't a miracle but

2:37

no, so I grew up on the west side Chicago,

2:39

Catholic. Went to Catholic school all my

2:41

life until I went to Purdue University.

2:44

You know, one of six kids you know, your typical

2:47

Polish, Italian, Irish Russian,

2:50

you know, Chicago Mutt family.

2:53

Yeah. And I remember on the west side

2:55

there, there's some, well, there, there

2:58

was in the nineties when I to go Chicago,

3:00

there was some really nice Polish restaurants

3:02

out there.

3:03

Oh yeah. And that's, that's one of the great

3:05

finds now that I have, you know,

3:08

when you're young with your parent or like when

3:10

you're a kid with your parents, you're like, what

3:13

is it? Like they're your parent. But as

3:15

you get older, they're like your friend. And

3:17

one of the things that my dad and I love doing now

3:19

is we love going and searching for great,

3:22

authentic polish restaurants.

3:24

Like sca SKAs is a big one.

3:26

On like, kind of the, the Southwest side. I'm trying

3:28

to remember what the other ones, I mean there was one Warsaw

3:31

Inn is a huge, that's my dad's favorite

3:33

restaurant, Warsaw Inn. When they found out that

3:35

they were closed for Easter, my dad almost

3:37

like keeled over cuz it's just such

3:40

great Polish food.

3:42

Yeah. And it, I think

3:44

a lot of people don't really know what

3:47

Polish food is or just how much variety

3:49

there is that you can get an actual Polish

3:51

restaurant beyond just calabasa

3:54

and sour count and potatoes,

3:55

Mm-hmm.

3:56

And pierogi. But there

3:58

is definitely a distinction

4:00

between other Islamic

4:03

foods and Polish foods and everyone's

4:05

got their particular little, you know,

4:08

niche and uniqueness. And

4:11

Chicago, I think, is one of the American

4:13

cities, if not the American city,

4:16

that had the most authentic Polish

4:18

food that I remember.

4:19

Oh, a hundred percent. You know, and then a lot

4:22

also a really great authentic

4:24

Ukrainian and Russian food as well. I mean, there's

4:26

a whole, you know, neighborhood called

4:28

Ukrainian Village where, you know,

4:31

there's, they're all Ukrainian there. I have a

4:33

two sorority sisters. They were twins, born

4:35

and raised in Ukrainian Village. Parents were

4:37

Ukrainian from Ukraine. They spoke Ukrainian.

4:40

You know, and then, then you have the Russians too, like with the Russian

4:42

Tea room. Which, you know, my, my

4:44

Way overpriced. Way

4:45

right but, well, then there's another

4:47

one too. I think it's oh gosh, the name is escaping

4:49

me, but it's not like the Russian tea room, like

4:51

the bougie one. Like it's an actual, like, authentic

4:54

Russian restaurant. Cause my dad is

4:56

one side Russian, one side Polish, and my

4:58

mom was the Italian and Irish one.

5:01

Yeah. Well, you're right about the month.

5:03

Oh, yeah. But like, I will say this, we

5:05

were more raised on Italian food. Like

5:07

my dad, you know, my dad being super

5:10

Eastern European first time he had pizza

5:12

was when he kind of like, really met my mom.

5:15

Now there's, there's also the, the, the thought

5:17

too that my dad said was when he was 10 years old,

5:19

he had pizza and then he puked after

5:21

he had it, because he thinks it, and

5:23

he, he was like, he thought he was allergic to

5:25

pizza, so he never had it. But yeah, it

5:28

was,

5:29

Well, and yeah, the, the pizza

5:31

in Chicago. I'm a big fan of Deep Dish.

5:33

I know it's not very popular in

5:35

general around the world, but I, I definitely

5:39

always enjoyed the deep dish

5:41

experience. In fact the last time

5:43

I was in Chicago

5:46

was on a 15 hour layover

5:48

between planes, and

5:50

the first place I went to is to get some

5:53

pizza. Now, I can't remember the name, the place, but if you

5:55

rattle off something to Deep,

5:56

oh. Say, well, first of all, what airport were you

5:58

at? Midway or O'Hare?

6:00

I was at O'Hare.

6:01

Okay. So you're probably, there's Gino's

6:03

East, there's Pizzeria Uno, there's

6:06

Lu Maltis, which is the best pizza. There's only

6:08

one pizza, and it's Lu Maltis Connie's Pizza.

6:10

Ganos.

6:12

S

6:12

Yeah, that's, that's the one that I hate. It's cardboard

6:14

cheese on cardboard Well,

6:16

you know what it is? It's, it's just lu malati.

6:18

What they do is they use a cornbread

6:20

crust, and I never knew that

6:23

until like my cousin who's really, really big into

6:25

fitness and, and she lives in Corpus Christi

6:27

now. She's like, I always

6:29

ask if it's cornbread crust. And I'm like,

6:31

what do you mean cornbread crust? What, what are you talking about?

6:33

She's like, that's what Lu Malati does.

6:36

It's a cornbread crust because she's

6:38

super, you know, like health

6:40

nut. And she's like, yeah. She's like, I don't need, you don't need the carbs.

6:42

The cornbread crust is actually better for you. And

6:44

I was like, huh. That's why I love Lu Malati so

6:47

much.

6:47

Interesting. I'll have to check that out next time I'm up

6:50

Oh, lube nineties. It's, it's, it's so good.

6:52

So good.

6:53

But I, I, I got pizza and then I

6:55

bought another one Frozen to take

6:58

with me on my trip. So that was very

7:00

nice.

7:00

good.

7:01

But it's, it's hard to find good

7:03

deep dish places. When I lived in Dallas,

7:05

there was a place that was right near

7:07

in lit, literally a block away,

7:10

a deep dish. But you know,

7:12

like how often can you really have it? Like, you

7:15

know, once a month and then it takes

7:17

several days to eat it.

7:18

Well, not even that. I mean, you really

7:20

have to, like you don't like those

7:23

people that do the hot dog eating contests. Like,

7:25

you really have to prep for a deep dish

7:27

pizza because it's like a Thanksgiving dinner.

7:30

You know, like, like these, all these New

7:32

Yorkers, you know, where they're like, Hey, no, we

7:34

got the best pizza. And it's like, yeah. You

7:36

fold it and you're walking down the street as you're

7:38

eating it. Chicago, it's an experience.

7:40

You sit down you have a, you

7:42

eat it with a fork and a knife for Pete's sake.

7:45

And it's, it's, it's,

7:46

Yeah. Multi-layers of everything.

7:49

Yeah. And then you have a major,

7:51

major food coma nap afterwards,

7:54

you know? So, but I do

7:56

love New York pizza though, too.

7:58

yeah. Well, pizza in general I, it's,

8:01

it's definitely a good tasty

8:03

thing that you can overdo very

8:05

easily.

8:06

Mm-hmm.

8:07

And stepping on the scale definitely demonstrates that.

8:09

But it's good stuff. All right. Well enough about food.

8:11

So you, anyway, you grew up in Chicago. You went

8:13

to school. Did you go into journalism?

8:15

Where'd you go to school? What was your major?

8:17

I went to Purdue and my major was journalism.

8:19

You did. So what made you want to decide

8:21

to go into journalism?

8:24

you know, it's so interesting as a kid I

8:27

was always

8:30

a performer. I mean, I

8:32

was the kid where you know,

8:35

saying the ABCs, I remember there was videos

8:37

of me as a kid where, you know,

8:39

my mom had the ABCs, these little stickers

8:41

on the wall for me to start learning them. And

8:44

if I this was funny cuz

8:47

if I started and I messed up a little bit,

8:49

I was able to kind of just like roll through

8:51

it and go to the next line. Cuz I knew the tune

8:54

and my mom would stop me and be like, no, no,

8:56

no, no. This is the one. And so

8:58

there's one where sh I'm

9:00

doing A, B, C, D. And

9:02

she starts being like, no, no, no. Like,

9:04

you know, to remember it, I'm like A, B, C,

9:07

D, B, be quiet.

9:09

Let me do it. And that's

9:12

just one of those videos where my family's like,

9:14

that's Farin. Like, she's just always

9:16

kind of been that performer. So

9:18

I always knew from a young age, especially,

9:20

you know, when I was nine, I was on Broadway

9:22

with Donny Osmond and Joseph with the amazing technical or

9:24

Dreamcoat where I was with the kids

9:27

chorus. And we were on stage. I mean, I was

9:29

leaving fourth and fifth grade. every

9:31

day at noon to go downtown

9:33

and do a show. So I

9:35

learned firsthand kind of, you know, the

9:37

whole performance life and all that stuff.

9:40

And I really thought that I wanted to do that. But

9:42

then there was a moment where I

9:44

missed Thanksgiving and Christmas.

9:46

And as a kid, you know, I have so

9:49

many cousins you know, again, a big Catholic

9:51

family and I missed Christmas

9:53

and I missed Thanksgiving and I didn't see my cou.

9:55

And that's like the time when you see your cousins, because

9:57

then after that you really see 'em the next time at

10:00

Easter. And I

10:02

was like, man, like I really, you

10:04

know, and that's what my mom told me. She was like, cuz my

10:06

mom was a performer, but she was also was a nurse.

10:08

And she was like, that's one of the things you gotta look at, Farren

10:10

is you're gonna miss some stuff for this kind of thing.

10:13

So I was like, ah, well maybe, you

10:15

know, I, I used to watch Saturday Night Live with my

10:17

dad every weekend. That was the big thing that him and

10:19

I used to love watching. But then I would,

10:21

you know, on my way to school where we

10:23

were sitting and eating breakfast, I'd be sitting there

10:25

watching the Today Show or Good Morning

10:27

America. And my favorite journalist

10:30

at the time was Joan London. I thought

10:32

that

10:32

I remember her.

10:33

I thought she was like just so beautiful.

10:35

I loved her hair. You know, cuz I had really long

10:37

hair and I thought her short hair was really cool.

10:40

I liked Katie Keurig too when she was

10:42

young and like, kind of, you know, vibrant.

10:44

But my, my all time favorite, and I know every girl

10:46

says this, I loved Diane

10:48

Sawyer, but I really loved Barbara Walters.

10:51

Yes.

10:52

another one that I loved was Jane Pauly. But either way I,

10:54

yeah, I, I loved, yeah, B Bob 2020

10:57

but I also loved Jane Pauly too. So

10:59

I, but either way, I gravitated towards all

11:02

the females on tv and then

11:03

So journalism for you was always about

11:05

tv, not, not the written word.

11:09

the broadcasting. Yes. And

11:11

so what really

11:13

changed in, in looking at the news

11:15

was when I saw a weekend update and I was like,

11:17

oh, the news can be funny.

11:19

Mm-hmm.

11:20

So my initial,

11:22

doing it when you first saw it, or that you recall?

11:24

very first one I remember seeing was Norm

11:26

McDonald,

11:27

Okay. Well, he was, I think, pretty much

11:29

the best.

11:30

right? Yeah. Him I remember him,

11:32

Colin Quinn. I did love the

11:34

Jimmy Fallon Na uh, Tina Faye era.

11:36

And then even the Tina Fay, Amy Polar era.

11:39

Mm-hmm.

11:40

But, but again, it was, it was a lot

11:42

of the women though that really stood

11:44

out to me. But so long story short, I thought

11:46

I wanted to be the weekend update anchor on snl.

11:49

And and I, and I saw that when I first saw

11:51

Tina Faye come on. And

11:53

and I'm trying to remember the lady who was in Coneheads

11:55

too, I can't remember her.

11:58

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:59

one of them too, cuz I remember, I will

12:01

never forget seeing it. They did an snl

12:04

Best of Christmas. I was at my aunt's house,

12:06

we were all in the basement and we were watching

12:08

the best of, and my dad and I were the only people

12:10

at the party sitting there watching the best of,

12:13

and it was my favorite one. One of my

12:15

favorite, you know, they where they had their like

12:17

little correspondent where it was John Belushi

12:20

and he, he talks about St.

12:22

Patrick's Day

12:24

Yeah. Jane. Cur.

12:25

Jean Cur. Okay. But yeah, she, she, she

12:27

tosses over to him and he's like, yeah,

12:30

you know, St. Patrick's Day and oh, they

12:32

love their mothers. And he's like,

12:34

you know, starting his whole bit. And I just

12:36

remember seeing her react and I was like, oh my God,

12:38

that must have been so fun sitting next to him. You

12:41

know? So yeah, so that's what I thought I wanted to do.

12:43

But then as I got more into

12:46

watching the news, I mean, I just became obsessed

12:48

with the news. I loved watching the news. Graduated

12:51

journalism school started

12:53

doing, I was, I I was dancing for

12:55

the Chicago Bulls at the time cuz I was a professional

12:57

dancer my entire life. And,

13:00

So when you say dancing, you mean you were like a

13:02

cheerleader.

13:02

I was a dancer.

13:03

So what, explain the difference to.

13:06

Well, if you've seen the movie, bring it on. The

13:09

guy says cheerleaders are dancers

13:12

who have got retarded.

13:13

Oh,

13:14

you have to have. major

13:16

skill. I remember I

13:19

auditioned against 5,000

13:21

girls

13:22

Wow.

13:23

and only 25 make the squad.

13:26

But by

13:29

the end of the day,

13:31

there's only about 300

13:33

girls that make it onto the training

13:35

camp because those

13:39

40, what is it, 40,

13:42

4700 other girls that

13:44

thought that they could make the dance team

13:46

realize that it's more than just dancing at

13:48

a club.

13:49

Mm-hmm.

13:49

You know? You gotta be able to do, you

13:52

know, advanced turns, leaps, jumps

13:55

you know, you gotta have your timing. You gotta do this in

13:57

heels, you gotta do it in gym shoes. I mean, it's,

14:00

it's intense and it's, it's for actual

14:02

people that have been dancing practically

14:05

all their lives. So, but

14:07

so I was doing that and then I was taking classes

14:09

at Second City and I was, and

14:11

I was doing improv there, and

14:13

I learned very quickly the life of a

14:15

comedian. And I saw

14:17

that, you know, you're

14:20

waiting tables during the day. You're

14:22

going in trying to do as many,

14:24

you know, open night mic nights as you can.

14:27

Met some great com comedic friends

14:29

and, and still to this day, remain friends with

14:31

them. But I

14:34

realized that the news

14:36

pays steady and also

14:39

I realized, you can't have fun

14:41

in the news, you know? And, and

14:43

it was my mother that actually told me, she's like, Faren,

14:46

you remember watching all the morning reports on

14:48

the Today Show where the puppies would come on,

14:50

or they'd go and they would, you know,

14:52

be with the, the Blue Angels or they'd

14:54

go do the fun stuff in the morning. She's like, that's what

14:57

you should do. So that's what I, how I started.

15:00

I got my first job in Rockford, Illinois 90

15:02

miles west of Chicago. And I found out

15:04

after I moved there, it was the ninth most dangerous

15:06

city in the country at that time in

15:08

2011. And I,

15:10

I always say my mom has every single gray

15:12

hair on her head because of me during that time,

15:14

because I was going from shooting

15:17

to homicide, to burglary, to,

15:20

you know, just, you can't even imagine

15:22

the amount that I was covering. But the difference

15:24

was is when I graduated, they

15:26

told me that I was gonna have, you know, they said,

15:28

you know, you're going into TV and, you know, I had internships

15:31

and all that other stuff. They're like, you're gonna have a camera

15:33

guy and you're gonna have a guy running the live truck. Like, it's

15:35

gonna be fine. And, you

15:38

know, I get there and they're like, okay,

15:40

so here's your camera and here's this and this

15:42

is how you're gonna operate it. And I'm like, whoa,

15:44

whoa, whoa. Hang on. I, I don't get a camera guy.

15:46

And they're like, no, you're gonna shoot all this yourself.

15:50

And so I learned and I became

15:52

like the guru of, cuz when you

15:54

were shooting by yourself, a lot of reporters at that

15:56

time didn't do what's called like a standup

15:58

where you're in front of the camera unless they had a camera.

16:02

well, I was able to rig it where I figured

16:04

out how to do a standup

16:06

where I would able to be flip the camera.

16:08

I was like, you know how you see the beauty gurus where

16:10

they, they focus their, their makeup

16:13

product and put their hand behind it? I

16:15

was able to figure out how to focus myself

16:17

and started doing live shots by myself

16:19

and here I'd be out at two in the morning at this homicide

16:22

and for breaking news. And

16:25

my mother was like, nobody's with you. What's going

16:27

on? You know? But yeah, and I,

16:29

I learned to like the excitement and the adrenaline

16:31

of it all. And that's where I learned too.

16:34

I can, there's like kind of like no really

16:36

gray area for me. I either love like the super, super

16:39

fun stuff or the super, super serious

16:41

stuff, you know? But, and then

16:43

went onto a bunch of cities after that and I was at South Bend,

16:45

Indiana. I was in El Paso, Texas, Austin,

16:47

Texas, grand Rapids, Michigan,

16:49

and then Washington, And just every place that I went,

16:52

I happened to kind of meet

16:54

somebody that was a

16:56

young buck at the time and then made it big. Like

16:58

Pete Buttigieg in South Bend, Indiana,

17:00

and Beto O'Rourke and El Paso,

17:03

and then Justin Amash and Grand Rapids,

17:05

and then, you know, DC and then

17:07

I'm like home. All my friends are following me here,

17:09

you know, or, and then, and what the, what's

17:11

the of the weirdest part is when your friends start running for president.

17:13

That's the weirdest thing.

17:15

Mm-hmm. So wait a minute. Put,

17:17

you're, you're saying Pete Budges, friend of yours?

17:19

Yeah. Mm-hmm. I used to cover 'em all the time

17:21

in South.

17:22

Mm-hmm.

17:23

Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing is like when you're in these smaller

17:25

towns, you get to know these people for, you know

17:27

who they are and you're hanging out with them, you know,

17:29

especially at Notre Dame games and stuff like that.

17:32

It's, yeah, you, you see these people

17:34

all the time.

17:36

Right. So how qualified

17:38

do you think he was for his current post?

17:40

Zero. Absolutely

17:41

we're on the same page there.

17:43

Yeah. I mean, the one thing that's interesting

17:45

is that, you know, people

17:48

to judge, and this is, this

17:50

is proven so this isn't like, you know, me speculating

17:53

at all. Cuz there he did reports on it. And

17:55

you know, there, there were times, you know, he used to, whenever

17:57

we'd be out, you know, and he would see me and he'd be like,

18:00

Fairen, you're a damn good anchor, but God

18:03

damn, leave me alone. You know what? I just used to

18:05

be like, I used to be like, Hey, we're not talking about

18:07

work here. You know, but I mean, he, he understood,

18:09

you know, he has got a great heart, I will say that.

18:11

Really kind, sweet spirited

18:13

guy. But but no, I mean, he's

18:16

acts like he turned South, bend around

18:18

and it's, you know, south Bend is, you

18:20

know, so wonderful. And it was like, no, dude,

18:23

like you sold

18:26

and like, gentrified the

18:29

rough and tough areas of Notre Dame

18:32

or of of South Bend and sold it to

18:34

Notre Dame. And now those are all,

18:36

you know, Brand new high rises

18:39

and new like off-campus,

18:41

you know, apartment housing. Like you

18:44

didn't help anybody you just, you

18:46

just sold more to Notre Dame. But South

18:48

Bend, I will say this is an amazing town.

18:50

I mean, if you could ask me the two

18:52

towns that I loved living in, it was South Bend,

18:54

Indiana and El Paso, Texas loved

18:56

it. Mm-hmm.

18:58

were you in El Paso?

19:00

I was there for two years

19:01

Okay. Yeah. My only exposure to

19:03

El Paso has been while staying there

19:05

on a drive out west a few times.

19:08

So I really haven't, like, I don't even

19:10

know if, if I've seen downtown El Paso

19:13

for that matter,

19:14

you know, and it's so interesting because a

19:16

lot of people tell me, they're like, there's

19:18

only one reason why you loved El Paso Faren.

19:21

And I was like, why? And they're like, cuz you had never been

19:23

to Phoenix yet. they call it the poor man's Phoenix.

19:26

But I, I had just loved

19:28

and that was the one thing that I did love about journalism

19:30

too, is that you, you can kind of go anywhere.

19:33

Now granted, you know, hopefully there's an opening, but

19:35

a lot of people don't understand how we're kind of nomadic

19:37

and we gotta move around here and there

19:39

all the time. You know, DC is

19:41

the one job that I've had where

19:44

I've actually been here the longest

19:46

now out of any job that I've had. South

19:48

Bend was the longest before

19:50

that with four years. DC

19:53

I've been here since 2019, so

19:55

almost going on five. But.

19:57

how do you like DC as, not

20:00

in terms of reporting, but

20:02

as a place to live.

20:04

You know, it's interesting if

20:07

short answer it sucks you know, tldr

20:10

it sucks. But I will say this you do

20:12

meet some amazing people here.

20:16

You do see how the sausage

20:18

is made in ways that,

20:20

you know, are unfathomable

20:24

in some cases. And

20:27

my parents even said, you know, they were always

20:29

like, you were the kind of kid that always wanted to report

20:31

what you heard or what you saw. Like you saw

20:33

it first. And that's like my dad always says

20:35

like, yeah, like, I knew you were gonna be a, a news reporter

20:37

cuz you always had to tell me first. You know, he's

20:40

like, he's like, you know, you'd run inside if something

20:42

happened with your brothers and sisters and you'd have to come

20:44

up and be the first one to tell me. So there is that knack

20:46

where, you know, I love telling people how DC operates.

20:49

Now granted, I haven't gone on the outskirts

20:51

to like the more Virginia area

20:53

like the, the northern area of Virginia

20:55

where people say it's much more calm

20:58

and people are more real there. But

21:00

you know, one of the things that's so interesting about

21:02

this place is that you know,

21:04

when there's a recession everywhere

21:06

else in the country, you don't see

21:08

it here cuz everybody works

21:10

in the government. Everybody's still gonna get

21:12

Right? Yeah.

21:13

You don't see

21:15

How about when the government shuts down?

21:18

and that's why they work really quick to make

21:20

sure that it doesn't

21:20

Yeah.

21:21

you know? But, but even with the government shuts

21:24

down, it's not like they're not

21:26

gonna really be getting paid. It's

21:28

just they're not gonna go to work, you

21:31

know? But they're still gonna get their salary, you

21:33

know, they're paid through that year. It's just, and

21:36

that's another thing that you don't know either, you know, like

21:38

there's just it's just, it's just so strange

21:40

the way things operate. You know, like another thing that

21:42

a lot of people don't know is, you know, we're

21:45

always thinking, oh, the

21:47

next four years, the next four years here

21:49

in DC they don't, they don't care about the next

21:51

four years. They're looking at the next

21:53

eight to 12 because

21:56

they're slowly, I mean, they're

21:59

always looking for like, that next new horse

22:01

that they're gonna bet on. You know, Roger

22:03

Stone was betting on Trump

22:06

in the nineties,

22:07

Mm.

22:08

you know, like, and, and if that doesn't tell you anything

22:11

that, that's when it started. You know, and that

22:13

was, you know, over 20 years ago now well

22:15

over 20 years ago. But you know,

22:17

here you, you can see

22:19

where they're always starting to

22:22

groom people. And that was one thing that I did

22:24

see that not a lot of people did see

22:27

with Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg

22:30

was Pete

22:33

Buttigieg when I saw

22:35

him and met him for the first time. And the way that he

22:37

acted as a. And then

22:39

I went through and I looked at his resume and stuff.

22:41

That was one thing that an ex-boyfriend told

22:43

me that this, and this is like some of the best advice

22:45

I've ever gotten, was he was like, always

22:48

look at what people's resume and like where they

22:50

went to school and all that stuff. He's like, because

22:53

you'll always either be able to find a connection

22:55

or you're, or you'll start to see a pattern. And

22:58

I remember thinking like, what? You know, and he,

23:00

he was a big business guy, you know, and

23:02

I look and I see, you know, he went to Oxford,

23:05

he's a Rhode Scholar, he's

23:07

in na, he's in the Navy, the Navy

23:09

reserves. And I'm sitting there

23:12

and you know, I've studied the presidents cuz I'm a nerd.

23:14

And I'm like, this sounds

23:16

like a gay jfk.

23:20

And I call, I said to my newsroom, I was

23:22

like, you guys, he's gonna run for president one day. Like

23:25

Faron, he's a mayor. He's not going

23:27

to. And I was like, no, you guys, this guy is,

23:30

as they say, this guy's fixing to run for president.

23:34

And then when I went to Beto,

23:36

O'Rourke's resume with him

23:39

and you see who he's married to and

23:41

I was father was a judge and

23:45

all this other stuff of how he was

23:47

able to get into Congress and

23:49

how he was the Democrat, but was able to

23:51

work across the aisle. Like your Joe Biden

23:53

style, you know, came from humble

23:55

beginnings. But then the father was a ju you know,

23:58

you're like, oh, this

24:00

is the new young, like

24:03

j jfk, you know, like father's

24:06

a judge. Father's very powerful. Same

24:08

kind of thing, but just different, like the

24:10

different parts of the story, if that makes sense.

24:13

And you can, you can see these people shaping

24:16

as as they start. And that was, that's

24:18

been the funnest thing to, for me to, to watch

24:20

is how these people slowly

24:22

morph into what Washington needs

24:25

and that's how Washington operates. They're

24:27

looking at these people like Tim Scott, I,

24:29

I was looking at him two years ago and

24:31

already they're now talking about PO possible

24:33

vp v to be on the ticket for vp

24:36

and it's Nikki Haley that's looking at 'em,

24:39

you know, like it's these people,

24:41

they, they groom them years and years

24:43

out.

24:44

Yeah. Well, that makes sense. I mean, you pretty much

24:46

have to.

24:48

Right. But I mean, it's also, you know,

24:51

you also then see in the media cycle too. Like

24:53

all of a sudden you're, you're here, Gavin

24:56

Newsom over and over and over again. And then

24:58

he's gonna kind of go away, but then he might come back. It's

25:00

just all these people, you're

25:02

just like, it's, I

25:04

understand what people say. Everything's fixed, you

25:07

know, I really do get it. But you, but again, you can

25:09

also see how these people morph and

25:11

they turn into Washington and

25:13

then you're just like, not you You

25:15

know, I had hope, but not you.

25:19

So

25:21

Yeah. So is, is

25:23

DC gonna be the,

25:26

the place you think you're gonna be?

25:28

A long time?

25:31

You know, right now for the way

25:33

that it's going? Yes. It's,

25:36

you know, even my dad. Cause I was like, there was one

25:38

time I remember calling him and I was like, dad, I can't stand

25:41

DC I hate this. And he is

25:43

like, God, damnit

25:45

Faron. He's like, you know, you love dc.

25:47

He's like, you're just, just right now

25:49

you just don't like it because you know you're in a lull

25:52

or something. And I remember,

25:54

you know, then I moved back home for like a quick summer

25:57

because, you know, it was be when RT America shut

25:59

down. And I was like, okay, I

26:01

don't know where I wanna go next. Cause I, I have always loved

26:03

the south. I did love living in Texas.

26:06

And then I got the job back in DC and

26:09

I was driving in and I listened

26:11

to, I, I always do this whenever

26:13

I drive into DC I listen to the

26:15

House of Cards theme song. And

26:18

I just, and I, and I drove in at night just

26:20

like, this is of the first time when I drove in here and I moved

26:23

here. And when you see like the,

26:25

the monument and the Lincoln

26:27

Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial

26:29

and the Capitol, I

26:32

just, I just started crying again. This the, this

26:34

is the same, the same way that I did the

26:36

first time when I drove in. Cuz you're just like, God,

26:39

this is such a magical place. Then

26:42

this, then it sets in where you're like, I hate everybody.

26:44

But then, you know, you gotta get out a little

26:46

bit and you know, and then remember

26:48

how magical it is because it, it truly is a magical.

26:51

and what happens here, but

26:54

we'll see. We'll see.

26:57

Yeah. I mean, I, I can kind of see that,

26:59

although I wouldn't call it magical, but

27:01

it is definitely unique in the

27:03

country. It's, it's it's the only place in the country

27:06

that has that many bureaucrats

27:08

all in one place.

27:10

Yeah, it really is. And that's,

27:12

that's one thing that you've heard a lot of Republicans talk

27:15

about how they would wanna be able to move things

27:17

around the country, and

27:19

Yeah.

27:19

I understand that idea, but that

27:23

would've been, that would be way too difficult and

27:26

we would be wasting way too much

27:28

tax money.

27:29

Oh, I think that's the least of my worries.

27:31

that's, that's, this is true. Yes.

27:33

After. Oh,

27:36

I don't know, a hundred years of this country. That's, that's

27:38

really not a concern.

27:40

Oh, for sure.

27:41

the, yeah. The, the interesting

27:44

plan that I heard, which I don't think ever got very

27:46

far, was in relocating the capitol

27:49

to the center of the country for

27:51

multiple reasons, which would kind of place

27:53

it in, in St. Louis.

27:56

Yeah. I think, yeah. They were talking like St. Louis or

27:58

Springfield or like somewhere either way

28:00

in Missouri.

28:01

Yep.

28:02

Yeah. I mean, it, it could

28:04

work. Again, it would, it would save, you

28:07

know, flight times for

28:09

a lot of these folks. But

28:11

the other thing too is, is you know, folks,

28:13

a lot of these people. they

28:15

move their entire families up here and

28:18

Yeah.

28:18

they're gone like when they win, they're gone.

28:21

you know, you don't really see a lot of

28:24

the people that sit back home, you know, like I do

28:26

know Beto O'Rourke, his, his wife and

28:28

kids, they stayed in El Paso

28:30

and they, they, cuz they wanted them to go to

28:32

the same school and stay there.

28:35

But most of that, which actually was surprising

28:37

to me because most of the

28:39

time they move up here and they send their kids

28:41

to

28:43

yeah. Private

28:43

you know, the, yeah. The, you know, St. Andrews here

28:45

where Trump's son went. Yeah, there's some of the, if

28:48

not the best schools in the country,

28:50

Yeah.

28:51

but

28:51

Yeah. It, it's I think. It's

28:53

an interesting city cuz it's, it's also

28:56

given how young America is, it's one

28:58

of the cities that has tried to

29:00

emulate sort of European

29:03

architecture.

29:04

Oh

29:04

And, and that

29:07

doesn't really happen in most cities. You know,

29:09

Boston's got a little bit of that, but

29:11

New York, they've totally not

29:15

Philadelphia's got a little bit, but in DC

29:18

I think it was done by design because it, it

29:20

really was a city kinda like St. Petersburg, Russia,

29:22

which was built on a

29:24

swamp.

29:25

Mm-hmm.

29:26

And so, when you design a

29:28

city from scratch, you get to make a lot of choices

29:31

that organically grown cities don't.

29:33

oh.

29:34

which you also, I, I curse

29:36

the name of the guy whose name I forgot.

29:38

The guy, the guy who designed the, the

29:41

road systems in DC every

29:43

time I go there because they

29:46

are just that I like

29:48

grids, I like easy to

29:50

understand road systems. And that road system

29:53

is the opposite of that.

29:55

It was a French dude, I can't remember his Know who I'm talking about?

29:57

it was a surveyor named Andrew Ellicott.

30:01

Was it? Okay. Yeah,

30:03

Oh wait, hang on. Oh, LA Lawn font. Lawn font.

30:05

That's right. Lafa. Yep. That guy.

30:07

which there is a a, a metro stop

30:09

lawn font plaza. Now, now,

30:11

I didn't even know that. So I learned something

30:13

Yeah. Yeah, it's

30:16

this is not how I would've designed it, but,

30:18

you know, he got the job, not me.

30:21

Oh, well.

30:21

Well, and that was one of the things, I, I will tell you

30:23

this it Chicago, it's

30:27

Chicago is also a grid system. So I grew up knowing

30:30

that and we

30:32

always remembered, you know, state and state and Madison

30:34

we're kind of like the, was where

30:37

everything was North, southeast, west.

30:39

Mm-hmm.

30:40

But here in

30:42

DC they have like this number

30:45

system and letter system. So it's,

30:47

you know, first Street, second Street,

30:49

third Street, and then A, B, C,

30:51

D, G. So like, you know, my

30:53

first job was, you know, on G Street,

30:56

Northwest. but then you'll have

30:58

G Street Southwest and

31:00

it's like, there is no north and south.

31:02

Like I just, you know, it was like, you know, south, south

31:04

State Street or North State Street. No,

31:07

I gotta, I gotta learn four quadrants

31:09

now. And mind

31:11

you, the capital is the center of it. So,

31:15

and, and to me, I remember it was, I

31:17

was on a date with this guy and I remember

31:20

I was like, okay, wait a minute.

31:22

So how do I get back? Because I had like, kind of just moved

31:24

here and he is like, you know,

31:26

it's pretty easy to get, you know, you just go

31:28

four up that way and then another four and then over

31:31

two. And I was like, no.

31:33

See actually it's not easy for me because

31:35

I look at this city and I'm like, why did you do it like

31:37

this? You know?

31:39

Well, now you know who to blame.

31:40

south. Yeah. Now I know. Now I know

31:42

Yeah. It's, it's, it's retarded is what

31:44

it's, and I've been in DC I've

31:46

never lived there, but I've been there a lot

31:48

over the years for a variety of reasons. And

31:51

I think every, about half

31:53

the time I've been there, that seemed to be a snowstorm,

31:56

a once in a lifetime snowstorm hitting,

31:58

Oh

31:59

which always they're never prepared

32:01

for. But I don't know. It's, it, like

32:03

I love some aspects of dc

32:06

but other things

32:08

are just completely an athe.

32:11

Oh yeah. I mean, I will say the one

32:13

first thing that I had here, I

32:15

had never been through a hurricane before.

32:18

Hmm.

32:18

and I believe it was 2019

32:21

or 2020. Yeah, some are 2020.

32:24

And my brother and sister were visiting me and

32:26

I just remember it just raining and raining

32:28

and raining and raining. And I was like, hurricanes

32:32

don't seem that bad. See, I'm from the Midwest,

32:34

so we're used to tornado warnings, you know,

32:36

like, I was like, ah, this hurricane's kind of nice.

32:38

Nobody goes anywhere. Y'all kind of hunkered down.

32:40

This is like a Chicago snowstorm, you

32:42

know? But yeah, I'd never been through a hurricane before.

32:45

And yeah, I apparently sometimes DC

32:47

gets it. But snowstorm, I have

32:49

not been through that here yet.

32:51

Really interesting. Yeah. It's

32:54

think I've been through three of 'em out there.

32:56

Wow.

32:57

Yeah, it, it, it,

33:00

it seems I mean, definitely gets colder

33:02

there than a does in Texas here. So when there's

33:05

snow in Texas, people are,

33:07

they're, they're afraid to even look outside

33:10

the house because God forbid they might slip,

33:12

fall and break their neck by looking,

33:13

I know

33:14

growing up in a mid, you know, in Minnesota,

33:16

that obviously is not

33:19

a big deal. Like I, I learned how to drive

33:22

on snow when I was five years old, like everybody

33:24

in Minnesota. But it,

33:26

it's a, in DC it's like

33:28

in that in between region where it's by the

33:30

water. So it always kinda stays warmer

33:33

than other cities that are at the same

33:35

latitude. But occasionally

33:38

it will get cold enough to

33:40

get a snowstorm going through there. So

33:42

And you know, it's, it's always so funny to me when I would,

33:45

when I lived down in Texas when I was in Austin

33:48

there was an ice storm or like, they

33:50

were, you know, saying like an ice, which I

33:52

had never heard of an ice storm before.

33:54

It was just, you know, snowstorm. But they're like, it's an ice

33:56

storm. And I remember one of my

33:58

friends, I was like, what the hell is that? And mind

34:00

you, my friend was from Michigan, my

34:02

best friend that lives down there, and she's like, oh yeah.

34:05

She goes, these folks in their

34:07

ice storms. And I was like, what did that, what does that even

34:09

mean? She goes, well, apparently

34:11

the snow doesn't stay since

34:13

it's warmer. The snow doesn't, you

34:15

know, stay snow and it turns to ice. And

34:17

she goes, but it actually does get really slippery around

34:19

here. And I saw, you know, where they don't drive, they

34:21

don't literally Austin shut

34:24

down,

34:25

Yep.

34:26

but there was a snowstorm

34:28

though there too. And the,

34:30

the, the city still shut down. And I was like,

34:33

with my girlfriend, you know, again from Michigan, I'm from

34:35

Chicago, she's from like the Detroit

34:37

area. and I was like, these,

34:39

these little whipper snappers, like, oh,

34:42

it's an inch. It's like, really? Is it

34:44

three feet? You can still do it. You know,

34:46

like gimme a break. You

34:48

know, my grand, or my, my parents survived

34:50

the, what was it, snowstorm of 70,

34:53

79 or something like that. I can't

34:55

remember what it was. My mom said that the

34:57

snow literally went up to their garage

34:59

door.

34:59

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

35:02

I remember a few of those.

35:04

mean the top of the garage door, meaning that the top

35:06

of the garage door.

35:07

Yeah. We're the, all the basement windows

35:09

and all, and the garage door were just

35:11

snow over completely. And it's,

35:13

it's a combination of, you know, lots

35:15

of snow, but also wind. Which in

35:18

Chicago is there most

35:20

of the year.

35:20

Mm-hmm. Yep.

35:22

sometimes that's not a bad thing. In the middle of summer,

35:26

have that wind coming off the.

35:28

Oh, yeah.

35:29

other times not so much. You know what I really

35:31

loved about being in Chicago, just jump

35:33

back for a second, is at night,

35:37

probably around like, about the time you're coming back from

35:39

the bars and where I stayed

35:41

and it was you know, like two blocks from the House of Blues

35:43

off Wacker Drive. There was this great

35:47

smell of chocolate

35:49

Oh yeah.

35:50

yeah. And no other city has

35:52

that, like, that to me will always

35:54

be a Chicago memory.

35:57

I actually used to live I lived on

35:59

Lake and Canal, and it's literally

36:02

across the, almost like directly

36:04

across the like, area of where that

36:06

chocolate factory is. And I used,

36:09

you talk about smelling that, try smelling

36:11

it every single day around like three

36:13

30, 4:00 PM in your apartment where

36:16

you're just like, oh my God, that smells

36:18

amazing. And that, that's one of the things though, I

36:20

will say that I do love about Chicago

36:23

in the sense that you know, moving here to DC

36:27

DC's like child's play you want, when it

36:29

comes to corruption. Like, I,

36:32

I felt like I came here and I'm like, this is your corruption,

36:34

but it's just kind of on a larger scale. Chicago,

36:38

one of the, if not the most

36:40

corrupt city in the country.

36:43

And I, you know, people, and I think

36:45

that's one of the things that a lot of people are like, Fairen, you're

36:47

able to see all these different politicians

36:50

and you're able to call this stuff out, like how they do on

36:52

House of Cards. And I'm like, I'm from

36:54

Chicago. Like I've seen this since I was

36:56

a kid. You know, because a lot

36:58

of it really does this,

37:00

it's like the stories are the same, but they're different characters,

37:03

you know? But a lot of the characters kind of run

37:06

the same type of way as

37:08

you know, many of the ones do here, as

37:10

they do here in.

37:12

mm-hmm.

37:12

But yeah, Chicago definitely groomed me. And,

37:15

and I, and I'm very lucky and grateful for that. But

37:17

yeah, Chicago was it was fun growing up

37:19

watching it with all the alderman and then the dailies

37:21

and watching all of that stuff happen and all

37:23

the corruption, you know, my parents,

37:26

they have a condo downtown and there

37:28

was a whole airstrip where, you know, you could,

37:30

and I remember the airstrip singing as a kid, cause we used

37:32

to watch the planes go in and fly

37:34

on this airstrip right off of like, you know,

37:36

Lakeshore Drive. And all of a sudden

37:39

they dailies got mad and overnight

37:41

crews are in there pu digging up the whole

37:43

airstrip, you know, totally messing

37:46

everything up. You know, the whole thing that happened

37:48

with Navy Pier at the, at, at the end and how

37:50

there was all this corruption going on with who was gonna get

37:52

the contracts. And you're just like,

37:54

Oh, yeah. It's the same stuff that was in Sopranos.

37:56

yeah, exactly. And you're just

37:58

like, oh, this is so, so this is how it works.

38:01

You know? That's how the world works, you

38:03

know, but

38:04

Yeah. Yeah. I, I remember driving

38:07

to Chicago in a a black Cadillac

38:10

in the mid nineties. And

38:12

I mean, it was definitely a very

38:14

Moby city even then. And

38:17

it was there's a lot of, there's a lot

38:19

of interesting characters that always

38:21

seem to emerge when places have corruption.

38:24

And Chicago was very much a

38:26

a character city

38:28

Oh, you wanna, you wanna hear a great story? So

38:30

the, the suburb that I grew up in, west of

38:32

Chicago, it's about 20 minutes outside of the

38:34

city with no traffic. It's

38:36

where all of

38:38

the sports players lived because

38:41

it's a little town called Oakbrook, Illinois, and

38:44

it's actually where the first world

38:47

headquarters for McDonald's were hamburger

38:49

University. And all my friends'

38:51

parents growing up, like they all were,

38:54

you know, heads of something at sea at McDonald's.

38:57

Like my friend's dad was

38:59

the guy who headed the photo

39:02

shoots for the food. And

39:04

that's where I first learned about how,

39:06

you know, in the commercials the cheese is actually,

39:08

you know, rubber and, you know,

39:10

yeah. And how all of that stuff works.

39:12

You know, it's, it's, it's, you know,

39:14

the, the friends, my friends and their parents,

39:17

it, it was inter, it's an interesting area, but either way,

39:19

the, the sports guys moved there because

39:22

we have the famous Oakbrook Mall

39:24

there. And they.

39:27

get kind of a people at Oakbrook, I guess like

39:29

their, their property taxes. It's something

39:31

to do with the mall helps cover it, or it's

39:33

something to do with property taxes or low

39:36

either way. So you had like guys like Frank

39:38

Thomas, Chris Cellos, Stan Makita

39:40

who just passed away, r i p or Big Black

39:43

Hawks guy you know, Dennis Sard. These

39:45

are all I'm playing naming all Black Hawk hockey players

39:47

and White Sox players. These people are probably like,

39:49

I don't know. But, and then you had the mob.

39:52

So a lot of my friends in school, their,

39:54

their parents or their, mainly

39:57

their fathers were involved in the

39:59

mob in some way. It's a very, very

40:01

Italian Irish neighborhood. And

40:04

there was a guy Oakbrook Oakbrook is different.

40:06

They don't have like a little downtown area. It's like a bunch

40:08

of different subdivisions. Cuz there, it used to

40:10

be a big Polo area too. Prince Charles

40:12

actually used to go there and, and play polo

40:15

at, at the Oakbrook. At the Oakbrook polo grounds.

40:17

Yeah. And so, you also

40:19

have Butler National Golf course where the Western Open

40:21

used to be. But then when Michael

40:23

Jordan got in it they had to move it because

40:26

Butler National doesn't allow black people

40:28

or women, which I

40:31

don't know if they do today. I haven't been home in

40:33

a while. But yeah, that was the one thing where every,

40:35

it was a big, you know, a lot happened with Oakbrook.

40:37

But, so it was one of the subdivisions

40:39

and it was a big mob. and

40:42

it was late at night and he was, it

40:45

was a gated community, or no, I'm sorry. It was, it was a

40:47

little subdivision. He's driving in at

40:49

night and he had like a long driveway and he had

40:51

his mailbox at the end and he

40:53

goes to grab his mail, you know, it's night

40:55

dark out and some

40:57

guy went behind

41:00

his mail, came from out behind his mailbox.

41:02

It was like a big brick mailbox, you know, where

41:04

he could hide and shot him in the face

41:07

and ran off. And this was like in like the

41:09

seventies, eighties, and

41:11

at Oakbrook, Illinois of all places. And

41:13

guy drives to the hospital

41:16

still alive, ends up

41:18

living all of a

41:20

sudden, pays a bunch of money

41:22

to the association, gets

41:24

the community gated and

41:27

has, and you could still see him, like

41:29

we, we as kids used to go through and see like,

41:31

if we could see the, the cameras. He

41:33

had a camera in his mailbox and then

41:35

lights going all the way down his

41:37

driveway with cameras and each fricking

41:39

lamp post. Oh yeah. I

41:41

mean, and you're just like, holy cow. You know, like

41:44

as a kid yeah, it's a big, big mob area,

41:46

but the Chicago mob

41:48

is kind of died out

41:50

a little bit cuz I think the

41:52

the kids don't have enough time now. you

41:55

know, between all their gig working and

41:57

whatever. you know, I think, I think, I think, I think

41:59

the big thing that they're all in now is like logistics

42:02

or so. you know, or like how

42:05

logistics is like a big thing that you're seeing with a

42:07

lot of mobsters now, but I

42:09

don't know, I haven't been home in a while. But,

42:11

but yeah, grew up with a lot of mobster

42:13

kids. It was fun. I learned loyalty,

42:16

you know, I learned loyalty very well, That's

42:19

why I have such a problem when people aren't loyal.

42:21

Yeah. Well, and I, I think the

42:24

Italian mobs, the, the Jewish

42:26

mob, they tended to be more

42:28

more into providing

42:32

illicit services and controlling

42:35

gambling and not so much

42:37

into drugs and sort of the

42:39

hardcore stuff. And that's where the

42:42

I think the Mexican cartels really kind of

42:44

picked up a lot of the,

42:46

Oh

42:47

growth that they've experienced is because

42:49

they were from day one, willing to do all

42:51

those things.

42:52

well, not to mention too, I mean, you really

42:54

saw kind of your rise of the mob in the beginning

42:57

with the Irish and the Italians. If you've ever watched

42:59

like Boardwalk Empire, you see this where

43:01

it was all during the bootlegging area, bootlegging

43:03

era. In fact, that was one of the coolest things

43:05

that I loved about working in South Bend. A

43:07

lot of people didn't know that. You know, you have

43:09

like your New York mob gangs and your

43:12

New York cronies and,

43:14

or like, not the cronies like the, the,

43:16

you know, like the big mobster names like your to me.

43:19

I know. Yeah, exactly. Chicago,

43:22

everybody knows Al Capone. But there's the biggest,

43:24

the biggest one that that created,

43:26

basically the f b I was John Dillinger.

43:29

Mm-hmm.

43:29

And the last I

43:32

did a really cool it was for a sweeps

43:34

piece. The last bank

43:37

that John Dillinger ever robbed was

43:39

in South Bend, Indiana, where

43:42

he actually shot and killed two officers,

43:45

but he spent time at the Michigan

43:47

City Prison, which is just outside of Chicago.

43:49

If you've seen public enemies with

43:51

Johnny Depp in the very beginning scene,

43:53

he's walking out of the actual Michigan

43:55

City prison. And I actually have a standup there

43:57

in everything. I mean, it was such a cool story to,

44:00

to learn about him and his life. But all

44:04

I, I then in South Bend did a ghost

44:06

hunt. I used to love doing that kind of weird

44:08

crap. And it was a ghost

44:11

hunting investigation. And it was at

44:13

this giant, it looked like a

44:15

giant, you know, barn, but it was at

44:17

actual like kind of a home, but it was an

44:19

antique store and

44:22

the basement was haunted and

44:25

it was an actual underground

44:27

railroad stop for the bootleggers.

44:29

Not, like, not what with the slaves. It was,

44:31

it was for the, the, the whiskey

44:34

or like the, the moonshine

44:35

Yeah. Yeah.

44:36

And didn't find anything with that. You

44:39

know, it was kind of like, okay, what. but

44:41

when I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I

44:44

did another ghost hunt and

44:46

it was the tavern where Al

44:48

Capone used to hang out, and

44:51

that's where I actually did

44:53

feel like I, I,

44:55

I went in as a skeptic and I'm not a believer

44:57

but it was, it was another spot, another bootlegging

44:59

spot where Al Capone and them would hang

45:01

out and it was, you just see like all

45:04

along that Chicago, Indiana, Michigan

45:06

area, that's where all these guys would go back

45:08

and forth, and they were able to cut

45:10

corners and cross state lines super quickly,

45:13

which is why then they ended up having to create the FBI

45:16

so they could, you know, not have to

45:18

rely on state to state, they could actually, you

45:20

know, make it federal

45:22

yeah. There, there's a St. Paul

45:24

was also a big destination

45:26

city for them because St. Paul had

45:30

a I don't wanna call it an amnesty necessarily,

45:32

but they were during the prohibition,

45:34

they were not prosecuting a lot

45:36

of the mobsters, so a lot

45:38

of them ended up going out there. Yeah.

45:41

There was a, a nightclub in the

45:43

1930s during the prohibition

45:45

that was in a literal underground

45:48

nightclub. It was in the caves on

45:50

the side of the Mississippi River that

45:53

were dug out. And

45:56

those caves it's a fairly large

45:59

man-made cave that

46:01

I think originally started as, you know, native American

46:04

caves, but then got expanded during

46:07

the late 18 hundreds,

46:09

early 19 hundreds to

46:12

be a used as ammunition

46:14

storage facilities. They were used as

46:17

cheese storage They

46:19

were used for a number of reasons, a number of different

46:21

things. But during the prohibition age,

46:24

the, the cave was owned by,

46:27

I can't remember which of the gangsters, I think it was

46:30

the bar, the Barker gang in West St.

46:32

Paul. And they were

46:34

set up as a speakeasy, kind

46:36

of nightclub. And I

46:38

used to hang out at the caves all the time

46:41

back in the nineties because the current

46:43

owners recreated the

46:46

original speakeasy

46:48

nightclub that the caves had back there. And

46:51

so there was a bar, there was a stage,

46:53

there was a big dance floor. And you're

46:55

literally inside of a cave,

46:58

like eight stories underground, but

47:01

you've got this whole facility there. So there there's

47:03

a lot of interesting sort of mob

47:06

ties in the Midwest that a lot of people don't

47:08

realize existed. People have heard of New York,

47:10

a lot of people have heard of Chicago, but but also

47:13

St. Paul, Kansas City had very

47:15

active mob scenes and

47:17

a lot of these guys were

47:19

frenemies, you know, so they,

47:22

they, they competed with each other

47:24

as different factions of mob usually

47:27

do. but they were also friendly

47:29

with each other because they're in the same business,

47:31

they have the same goals, and they're working against

47:34

really, you know, the the

47:36

law.

47:37

Right? And, and the other one too. I

47:40

remember hearing about was Wisconsin, cuz I think that's

47:42

where like Babyface Nelson I think was shot.

47:44

But the part that you,

47:47

you learn in Boardwalk Empire, and like I said,

47:49

you know, boardwalk loosely based, but

47:51

you do see that part. And I think

47:54

it's like season three or four where,

47:56

you know, you know,

47:58

Steve Buscemi the main guy out of Atlantic City,

48:01

you know, where they're getting all of this stuff. You know, the

48:03

guy who plays Al Capone, he is like, yeah, he is like, we don't,

48:05

we don't need you anymore. We're we're gonna get it in from

48:07

Canada now. And

48:09

you see where he just gets pissed

48:11

because, you know, he was kind of

48:13

the line guy where it would go from him

48:15

to New York, Chicago, everywhere.

48:18

And you learn that. Yeah, like once Canada started

48:20

coming into play that, that's when the New York

48:22

and the Chicago mobs completely kinda like split.

48:24

Yep.

48:26

But I love, I love that stuff. And then,

48:28

then there was like a, there's a whole southern mob

48:31

that I was learning about with this.

48:33

I love Discovery Plus I just love,

48:35

I'm a huge documentary nerd. I will

48:37

literally, you tell me a documentary,

48:39

I will watch it like in the next hour that,

48:42

you know, you're like, oh, watch this one. And I'm like, all right, I'm on

48:44

the list. But it's called Rebel

48:46

Gold,

48:47

I've not seen that.

48:49

Oh, it's so interesting. So

48:51

allegedly journalist's, favorite word

48:54

allegedly. When oh God,

48:56

what's his name? The, he was the president of the Confederacy.

49:00

God, what was his name? His name's escaping

49:02

me.

49:03

yeah. I'm gonna get a lot of hate and mail for not

49:05

remembering instantly off the top of my head.

49:07

Oh, no. Well, I'm, I'm a Yankee

49:10

Ah-huh.

49:10

I, I will, I will never forget hearing in the first time

49:12

when I moved down south, somebody

49:15

was like, well, yeah, you're a Yankee. And

49:17

I was like,

49:18

Jefferson Davis.

49:19

Yes. But they go, you're,

49:21

you're a Yankee. And I'm

49:22

Mm-hmm.

49:23

no, I'm a White Sox fan. And

49:25

they're like, no, you're a

49:27

Yankee. Like beating, you're a Northerner. And

49:29

I was like, oh, okay. Whatever that means. But

49:33

That means he ain't one of us, is what it

49:35

ex Exactly. That's, I learned that real quick.

49:38

Just, it's just, it's so funny, like even

49:40

like when I moved here to DC I

49:42

went down to Fredericksburg, Virginia,

49:45

which is literally 45 minutes

49:48

outside of DC and

49:51

you leave DC you start driving, you

49:53

hit south, and there's just this

49:56

giant confederate flag waving

49:58

on this giant flagpole. And you're like,

50:01

oh, okay. But it's like a, as

50:03

a person that grew up, you know,

50:05

the North, you're just like, oh,

50:07

these peop those people are real. Okay.

50:10

You know, like, it's just, you don't see

50:12

it, you know? Cuz especially like in Austin,

50:14

like, I didn't see it El Paso, I didn't see it.

50:16

Grand Rapids, I definitely didn't see it, you know,

50:18

like just all these other places. Surprisingly

50:20

I didn't see it in South Bend, which is

50:22

not far from the original birthplace

50:25

of the K kk. But

50:27

wait, no. So back to my point with Rebel Gold. So

50:29

Well, and, and what you're referring to is

50:31

the Confederate flag is actually the Virginia

50:33

Confederate Navy flag.

50:36

Really?

50:37

So it's, it is a Virginia National

50:39

flag

50:40

Okay. Well, well

50:42

then I went and covered

50:44

a protest in Richmond, Virginia where it was all

50:46

over two A and it was going against Governor

50:48

Ralph Northam. And

50:51

the people that I had never met in my life

50:54

that, you know, some of them believe the

50:56

South will rise again. I was like,

50:58

Hell yeah.

50:59

you're just like, oh wow, okay. They, they are

51:01

real. You know, and then I, I've met some people from Tennessee.

51:04

One of my old co-hosts or

51:06

co-anchors was from Tennessee,

51:09

and, you know, her son was talking about

51:11

all the different things that happened during the Confederate war.

51:13

And he's like, yeah, he's like, you know, the War of Northern

51:15

Aggression. And I was

51:17

exactly what it was.

51:18

I was like, excuse me, I

51:20

even had a friend, a friend from Miami

51:23

who was a democrat. She's like, yeah,

51:25

the War of Northern Aggression. And I'm like, wait, when was that?

51:27

She's like, in the 18 hundreds. I'm like, wait,

51:30

was there a war that I didn't? No, but I'm,

51:32

I'm like the 18 hundreds. I'm like, is there a war that I

51:34

didn't know about? Did I miss this in school?

51:37

And she's like, yeah, like, we're the North

51:39

fought the South. And I'm like, oh,

51:41

you mean this Civil War You're

51:44

just like, oh, the War of

51:46

Northern Aggression. Okay,

51:49

Yeah. Well, this is a good time to plug my other

51:51

podcast just to good old boys,

51:54

where people like Farn can learn all about

51:57

the South Rising again and the War of Northern

51:59

Aggression.

52:00

That's actually, well, so you'll love this

52:02

rebel gold then. So,

52:04

cuz I, I love history. I love

52:07

a and i I love a good history story,

52:09

you know, so I guess

52:11

it's this group of guys that basically

52:14

are like treasure hunters. And

52:18

apparently, or allegedly, when Jefferson Davis

52:20

fled I Richmond, which was

52:22

the capitol of the Confederacy at the time they

52:25

went down this one railroad

52:27

track and then they stopped at certain

52:29

parts in like South Carolina and Georgia

52:33

to, to get him over to Texas.

52:35

But as he stopped, he learned

52:38

that there was Union armies,

52:40

union Army I guess troops after

52:42

him, cuz they had the south

52:45

had just surrendered. and they knew that

52:47

he was on a train with like a bunch of

52:49

like gold bars and like all this,

52:52

all these gold coins and everything. And

52:54

along the way he

52:56

stopped and he hid like

52:59

a lot of the money and stuff. And

53:01

so there is like a whole

53:03

thing in Southern Virginia

53:06

and North Carolina, South Carolina, that whole

53:08

train route where people

53:11

legit are looking for

53:13

where he might have s you know, allegedly

53:16

stopped and, and discarded

53:19

some of the, the goal that they had. And that's

53:21

where I learned they went to this one plantation

53:24

where they had an, I don't know if it's

53:26

like an ice house or what, but it's a

53:28

place underground where they would

53:30

build it, you know, and they would put a bunch of ice in

53:32

there with all of like their meats and stuff. And

53:34

it was to, they would take like the, the snow

53:36

basically from the winter and try to keep it

53:39

as cold as they could for. So then during the summer

53:41

it would keep stuff preserved. I mean, it was

53:43

just learning all of this stuff.

53:45

You're just like, oh, people didn't do that

53:47

in Chicago. Cause it was like cold a lot of the time,

53:50

you know, But they, they

53:52

do find like coins and stuff like that.

53:54

And you realize like all these

53:56

stories from the southern

53:58

era, the southern side of, of the

54:00

war are just super,

54:03

super interesting. Because again, being from Chicago,

54:06

you know, all we. was

54:09

about the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman,

54:11

all of that, because even in Oakbrook, Illinois, it's called

54:13

GRA Mill, it was a spot on the stop

54:16

on the Underground Railroad.

54:17

Mm-hmm.

54:18

And so that's, those are the stories that we heard,

54:21

not the, how Jefferson

54:23

Davis like hit his treasure along a

54:25

railroad in the south, you know,

54:28

Yeah.

54:29

So it's, but it's, it's, it's an interesting series

54:31

and you learn a lot about the war and what happened

54:33

and where he was taken in

54:35

and by the union soldiers and whatnot. So

54:38

it's, it's, I I love learning

54:40

that stuff.

54:41

Well, and I, I would totally agree with you. I think

54:44

growing up in Minnesota, Dan,

54:46

I had, I'm sure a very similar

54:48

history presented to me at school

54:50

that, that you did about the

54:53

civil war. But moving

54:55

to the south and spending more time here

54:57

and really like

55:00

becoming friends with people whose relatives

55:02

have been here for many generations. And they

55:04

have tons of stories, family stories

55:08

about the war in northern aggression and

55:10

sort of the the carpet baggers

55:13

coming down after the war, and really

55:15

how the south was fucked. Big

55:17

time as a result of that. And.

55:20

Is a very different perspective

55:23

than what is sort of standard

55:26

accepted school history,

55:28

which at this point, I,

55:30

I have to imagine given everything else going

55:32

on in, in the way that schools are teaching

55:35

history it's probably not even anywhere near

55:37

what we were taught in school at this

55:39

point. It's probably a

55:41

lot more fiction than the actual history

55:44

that describes you know, a

55:47

bunch of Trump lookalikes deciding

55:50

to go and kill all black people. And then Abraham

55:52

Lincoln saying, no, you're not

55:55

gonna kill these people. And then he

55:57

goes and defends everybody personally.

55:59

I mean, that's what I envision history looks like

56:01

in today's generations

56:03

Well, I have, I even remember thinking about

56:05

it when I first learned of like, you

56:08

know, and everybody loves a good conspiracy, but

56:10

one of the things that I, I really

56:12

love studying are

56:16

basically the

56:18

best way to call it a

56:20

coordinated United

56:22

States.

56:24

Mm-hmm.

56:24

Since the 1960s, the United States

56:27

has been involved in over 62 different

56:29

cos around the world to either

56:31

take over a country, overthrow a country,

56:34

and put in a dictator that we like, or

56:36

a leader that we like. And a lot

56:38

of Americans don't know that. When

56:40

I first got to RT America, and,

56:43

and mind you, I love my country.

56:45

I have grandfathers that fought for this

56:48

country distant relatives that fought and

56:50

died for this country. My, my father's

56:53

uncle was one of the first guys killed at Omaha

56:55

Beach. You know, I

56:58

love everything about this country. I love the freedoms

57:01

we used to have. You know, everything, everything

57:04

That's a good way of putting it. That's a very good way of putting

57:06

it.

57:06

I, I, I have to give it homage to him.

57:08

Yeah.

57:10

Jimmy Dora, his, he's the one that he says that, he's

57:12

like, I love this country. I love the

57:13

Jimmy Do is

57:14

to have. Oh,

57:15

He is really a funny

57:16

that's one of my favorite lines that he says.

57:18

yeah.

57:19

But when I found

57:21

out about Gulf

57:23

of Tonkin for the first time

57:27

and hearing, and, and I remember,

57:29

I, I was home one weekend and

57:32

I went and, and you. as

57:34

a kid, you know, my mom, like you would, there's

57:36

this, we have a little third floor area and it's,

57:38

it was like our study area and

57:41

we still have like the bookshelf with all

57:43

of our books, our history books and stuff,

57:45

because, you know, a lot of them were hand-me-downs,

57:48

from, you know, being all at the same school.

57:51

And I remember looking and I was like, I'm just gonna go into my history

57:54

book and see if there's anything about this.

57:57

Not anything about

58:00

it was fake. The United

58:02

States lied about it. Nothing

58:05

still there. A history

58:07

book from 2001

58:09

all about how the, the,

58:11

the damn Viet con, you know? And

58:13

that was when I realized, I was like, wow. And

58:15

then, so again, b b back to my point, I get to

58:17

RT America and

58:21

I start learning all of this stuff. And mind

58:23

you, I, I had also, I also heard about Gulf

58:25

of Tonkin, to be fair, from Joe Rogan when

58:27

he talked to, I forget what Ci I think it was

58:29

the guy who wrote oh God, what is it called?

58:33

Shit, the name is escaping me. He wrote a book

58:35

about how to overthrow

58:38

ec confessions of an economic

58:39

Oh, yeah.

58:40

Yeah. He had that guy on. And that's where I first heard

58:42

of, you know, Gulf of Tonkin

58:44

and how the United States, you know, c especially

58:47

the c I a, was able to figure out how to,

58:49

you know, drain countries of medical supplies

58:52

or, you know, drain their economy and all that other.

58:55

so,

58:56

Yeah. It's subversion tactics. It's basically

58:58

a way to achieve your goals through

59:01

non-traditional military means.

59:02

right. Yeah. Basically to bring a country to its sneeze.

59:06

And you know,

59:09

when I first read the book, because

59:11

after I saw that episode, I went and read the book and I

59:13

was like, you know, it makes sense.

59:15

Like if these dictators are so evil

59:17

and you know, this is so bad, you know, blah,

59:19

blah, blah, blah. I was like, you know, that makes sense.

59:22

You want these people, you know, to be okay.

59:24

But then as I get to RT America and I start

59:26

learning about what's really happening, like in Columbia

59:29

and Chile and Ukraine and

59:32

you know, Russia and all these, these other countries,

59:34

and you're kind of like, especially

59:36

Iraq, you're like, you're

59:38

like, these people didn't need any help. We

59:41

went in and screwed shit up

59:42

absolutely.

59:43

you know? And that's where you start learning and

59:45

you're like, and that was

59:47

a big place where I learned, you know, I, I actually worked

59:49

with more people that were from south America than

59:51

they were actually from Russia, believe it or not.

59:54

But you learn very

59:56

quickly and, and, and people

59:58

around the world, they don't hold it against

1:00:00

Americans of today, meaning

1:00:03

like the younger kids, but

1:00:06

people around the world do

1:00:08

not like the United States mainly

1:00:10

during like the Bush years the Obama

1:00:13

years especially because of all the drone

1:00:15

strikes, I mean, There's

1:00:17

a lot of things and a lot of chaos that we've caused

1:00:20

around the world. So when they hear

1:00:22

an American say, we're the greatest country in

1:00:24

the world, they're like, well, yeah, cuz you screwed it up for

1:00:26

everybody else. You

1:00:28

know? And that was, that was a

1:00:30

really tough cold rag

1:00:33

in the face. And that's when I even

1:00:36

learned, wow, I

1:00:38

really haven't been doing journalism. Like,

1:00:41

I really haven't been looking

1:00:43

into this stuff because I've only

1:00:45

been seen one side to all of this.

1:00:47

And it really taught me how to look

1:00:49

at a lot of other publications.

1:00:52

You know, don't just read The New York Times and

1:00:54

the Wall Street Journal. No, no, no, no. You gotta read

1:00:56

The Intercept. You gotta read the Gray

1:00:58

Zone. You gotta read RT America,

1:01:00

you gotta read France 24. You

1:01:02

gotta read dw, you gotta,

1:01:04

I mean, basically a lot of those are international sources,

1:01:07

right.

1:01:08

Al Jazeera.

1:01:09

Al Jazeera is another big one too. And

1:01:11

you, you realize too, like after nine 11,

1:01:13

Al Jazeera was deemed like a

1:01:15

terrorist network. A, terrorist

1:01:18

tv. They used to call it.

1:01:19

Oh, just like rt.

1:01:21

Exactly. You know, over 20 years

1:01:23

later. And you know, that's the one thing that a lot of

1:01:25

people don't know. Who was the first person to call George

1:01:27

W. Bush after nine 11?

1:01:30

who

1:01:31

Putin, Putin was the first

1:01:33

immediately after it happened.

1:01:35

ame. After, after it was all over.

1:01:38

He was the first person to call George

1:01:40

W. Bush and say, whatever you need will come and help.

1:01:43

Yeah. Well, I,

1:01:45

I,

1:01:45

at that time, he had just asked Bill Clinton maybe

1:01:48

a year before that if he could

1:01:50

be part of nato.

1:01:51

right?

1:01:52

A lot of people don't know that

1:01:55

Well, more are finding out thankfully as

1:01:57

a result of what's been going on

1:01:59

in Ukraine, because more

1:02:02

questions are being raised. US is still extremely

1:02:04

isolated when it comes to news. It's,

1:02:06

Yes.

1:02:07

really is the propaganda capital of the world

1:02:09

where the people only

1:02:11

see what is

1:02:14

being fed to them by the government. But,

1:02:17

and it's not to say that government runs

1:02:19

these news media, it's just that it's

1:02:22

a very well controlled you know, messaging

1:02:24

that is going out. And everybody

1:02:27

knows that humans are lazy by nature. And

1:02:30

so these days, and

1:02:32

this is horrible to

1:02:34

me, and I think people, you know, around

1:02:37

my age is seeing that

1:02:39

the majority, over half the stories

1:02:41

in media start off with a tweet. It's

1:02:43

like, this is your source of information. Now this

1:02:45

is where you're getting these stories from, is you, you're,

1:02:47

you saw a tweet. Nobody's

1:02:50

doing actual investigative journalists except

1:02:52

for very small groups like

1:02:54

Project Veritas used to be. Whatever

1:02:57

their new name's gonna be I'm sure they'll continue

1:02:59

doing it, but it's,

1:03:01

it's certainly not

1:03:03

the free media that people think

1:03:06

it is.

1:03:07

No, it's not. And that's one

1:03:09

of the things that, you know, again, learning

1:03:11

about a lot of this, one

1:03:14

of the things that Americans don't do that

1:03:16

we're not taught, and

1:03:18

I say this as I'm like, you know, blabbing,

1:03:20

on and on and on, but I mean, it is about me,

1:03:22

right? but people don't

1:03:25

listen to each. people

1:03:27

talk through each other and think that

1:03:29

they're gonna change your mind, or people

1:03:31

just kind of look through you and just think like,

1:03:33

okay, I'm just having this conversation, but

1:03:35

I'm not really absorbing what the other person's

1:03:38

saying because Americans are now

1:03:40

taught to just be go, go, go, go,

1:03:42

go. You know, I gotta go. I gotta get to

1:03:44

this, I gotta get to that. You know, even though there

1:03:46

are people that you know that

1:03:49

don't, might not live in New York, we have that New

1:03:51

York mentality of, I gotta get to this thing.

1:03:53

I gotta go do this for myself. I gotta go do that.

1:03:56

We are very isolated and we're very

1:03:58

narcissistic, and

1:04:01

I hate when a lot of people throw that

1:04:03

word around, but we truly are. I

1:04:06

talk to my friends who have grown up

1:04:08

in Germany, Italy,

1:04:11

Russia what was Yugoslavia?

1:04:13

Venezuela, Columbia,

1:04:16

and every one of them pretty much

1:04:19

says the same thing about their news. You

1:04:22

know, you wanna look at an United

1:04:24

States newscast, okay? Has

1:04:26

a, as somebody that used to create

1:04:29

them and anchor them. You

1:04:32

start out with your biggest story of the day.

1:04:35

You go into your other big national

1:04:37

stories or your local stories,

1:04:39

you know, if it leads, it leads. Then

1:04:41

you have your weather break. Then

1:04:44

you have your D Block stories,

1:04:46

which would be like you. oh,

1:04:49

the cat fashion show and this,

1:04:51

this, this, and then you go to

1:04:53

sports and then you end with,

1:04:55

and here's, you know, a squirrel,

1:04:58

water skiing. Have a great night.

1:05:01

Where in that at all in

1:05:04

local news, do

1:05:06

you hear anything about international stuff?

1:05:09

Unless it's like the war in Ukraine, on

1:05:11

inter in international local news,

1:05:13

they start with their national

1:05:16

news, then they have entire

1:05:19

blocks of

1:05:21

straight international policy news

1:05:24

and what's going on, and then

1:05:26

they end with the hyper-local

1:05:28

news and then they,

1:05:31

you know, end the show and, and

1:05:33

this is what built cnn, and

1:05:35

again, I'm old enough to remember when Ted

1:05:37

Turner first got CNN to get

1:05:39

on the cable. And it was, you

1:05:42

know, it was a powerhouse because the concept

1:05:44

of a 24 hour

1:05:46

news network seemed insane

1:05:48

because, well, there isn't 24 hours worth the news

1:05:50

to talk about because everybody's

1:05:52

just used to watching their local news, which

1:05:55

you just very, very correctly. Was

1:05:57

using a formula that had been around for a long

1:05:59

time and it's still being utilized, and

1:06:02

now they're gonna have a network that is 24.

1:06:04

Well, they're gonna have to just repeat things

1:06:06

on and on. But what

1:06:09

they did very early on

1:06:11

was they started including more

1:06:13

coverage of international news. And

1:06:16

I think that was the first time a lot of people, a lot

1:06:18

of Americans were exposed. You know, over

1:06:21

half Americans don't have a passport.

1:06:23

Oh

1:06:23

They've never left the country,

1:06:25

Oh yeah. I believe it. And see a

1:06:27

lot of people overseas, the reason

1:06:29

why they study international, they have a whole

1:06:31

block of international news and policy

1:06:34

is because you can literally drive

1:06:36

from Italy to Germany and then over

1:06:38

to like, maybe like

1:06:41

if, if you kind of cut corners to Poland

1:06:44

in one day, you

1:06:46

know, or, or you can fly around,

1:06:48

you know, you, you could, you could visit multiple countries

1:06:50

in Europe in a day and guess what? It's like you

1:06:52

all have to get along because you're all pretty

1:06:54

much on top of each other over

1:06:56

And you've all fought each other for a thousand years.

1:06:58

Which is why Americans don't understand

1:07:01

when I say we're narcissistic,

1:07:03

yeah.

1:07:04

when you look at the war in Ukraine. Okay?

1:07:06

And I used to get a lot of crap for this

1:07:08

when it first happened. I was

1:07:10

like, you know, people were like, yeah, we gotta send bombs, we gotta

1:07:13

send this, we gotta send that. I was like, you people

1:07:15

don't understand that Ukraine

1:07:17

has been under like

1:07:20

17 different rulers from

1:07:22

the time of its inception, from the time of

1:07:24

this earth that humans were around.

1:07:27

You know, a lot of people don't even know the history of.

1:07:29

Yeah.

1:07:29

I, I did a major deep dive and

1:07:32

actually Roger Stone, or not Roger Stone Oliver Stone

1:07:35

has an amazing documentary with Igor Lap

1:07:37

Lapont, who I've interviewed who's

1:07:39

amazing, amazing mind, brilliant mind,

1:07:41

Ukrainian himself goes over the entire

1:07:44

history of Ukraine and how there has been

1:07:46

all these different rulers and how people

1:07:49

don't understand that there are ethnic

1:07:51

Russians in Ukraine, and then there's

1:07:53

Ukrainians, but most people all speak

1:07:55

Ukrainian and Russian, and then all of

1:07:57

a sudden they stopped. They had it where you couldn't speak Russian

1:08:00

anymore. But

1:08:02

Well, and then there's no such thing as a Ukrainian

1:08:05

there genetically. There are

1:08:07

no Ukrainians. It's just Russians. It's,

1:08:10

it's different people

1:08:12

with identical dna. There's

1:08:14

DNA differences between people

1:08:16

in Serbia and

1:08:18

Poland. Right? They're subtle, but there

1:08:20

are genetic differences. There are no

1:08:22

genetic differences whatsoever between

1:08:26

Russians and Ukrainians. And

1:08:28

that's because the history

1:08:31

of Russia is intimately tied

1:08:33

to that region which is called Ukraine

1:08:36

for a reason, which is borderlands.

1:08:39

yep.

1:08:39

it's, it's a region of Russia

1:08:42

that happened to have been occupied by a lot

1:08:44

of different countries over the. From

1:08:47

Mongos to the Tars to

1:08:49

you know, I, like, I remember

1:08:51

as a kid going

1:08:53

to Crimea

1:08:55

Oh wow.

1:08:56

see my my family's house down there. And

1:08:59

you know, the history in

1:09:02

Crimea was still recent

1:09:04

enough, a reminder of the, the invasion

1:09:06

of the Turks. Like there

1:09:09

was, there were a lot of elements

1:09:12

of the occupation of that

1:09:14

region by multiple

1:09:17

different ethnic groups, really,

1:09:19

you know, you can call 'em countries, but they're really

1:09:21

different ethnic groups over the years. Because

1:09:23

it's, it's a great location, and

1:09:26

everybody wants to have

1:09:28

good locations be part of their

1:09:30

empire. But people

1:09:33

that think somehow that Ukraine is

1:09:35

no different than Poland, meaning

1:09:38

it was a country that got taken over

1:09:40

by the Soviet Union, they're,

1:09:42

they have no concept of this history. That

1:09:46

that part of Russia, and it

1:09:48

is a part of Russia has been a part

1:09:50

of Russia other than during

1:09:52

the occupation for

1:09:54

about 700 years. So

1:09:57

the, the history of Ukraine is

1:10:00

the history of Russia.

1:10:01

A hundred, a hundred

1:10:02

separate 'em.

1:10:03

You can't, and, and that's why,

1:10:06

you know, when they go back

1:10:08

to, you know, the, the breakup

1:10:10

of the Soviet Union. I

1:10:13

mean, you guys, I always say

1:10:15

my friends, Ukraine has

1:10:18

been a country since 1991.

1:10:20

Before that they were Russians, you know,

1:10:23

and that's where you

1:10:25

just get a lot of Americans that

1:10:27

just don't know the history of it. And I don't blame

1:10:29

them because, you know, you

1:10:31

think, you think some high school kid

1:10:33

who can barely pass a, you

1:10:35

know, English class, you know,

1:10:38

in some poor neighborhood, is gonna

1:10:40

wanna sit and learn about the history of the Ukraine

1:10:42

too. You know, like, I don't, I wouldn't

1:10:44

blame them. But the point being though

1:10:46

is, is yes, you're absolutely right. And

1:10:48

there's been a lot of infighting,

1:10:51

a lot of people don't know that, you know,

1:10:53

they say, oh, Ukraine, the Ukraine's, the

1:10:55

Ukrainians sided with the Nazis

1:10:57

during World War ii. Well, some of the,

1:10:59

yeah, but they were considered Russians.

1:11:02

Then there were some Russian defectors that went

1:11:04

with the Nazis, you know, and then that's

1:11:06

where I will

1:11:06

Bun Bandera was the, the

1:11:08

big

1:11:09

Stefan Bond.

1:11:09

unifying force that was pro-Nazi.

1:11:12

He was a Ukrainian regional

1:11:15

nationalist, and he, he

1:11:18

very much advocated utilizing

1:11:21

the German invasion to.

1:11:25

The Russians and the Poles

1:11:27

out of that area. Because he was,

1:11:30

you know, he, he was, I

1:11:32

guess the best way to put it is if you think of like

1:11:35

Florida having a certain personality

1:11:38

or Georgia, or pick whatever state you want.

1:11:40

Could be Maine.

1:11:41

Think of Florida having a personality.

1:11:43

Okay.

1:11:44

Hardy. Hard. But my my point being is

1:11:46

like, there, there are states within the United

1:11:48

States in this analogy that have

1:11:51

certain attributes, certain characteristics,

1:11:54

and let's pick Texas, cuz I live here,

1:11:56

right? So people can say Texas,

1:11:59

if Texas has certain percentage

1:12:01

of people that want Texas independence back,

1:12:04

and I, I think that'd be super cool. I don't think it's gonna

1:12:06

happen, but I'm not opposed

1:12:08

to it. But there are people that

1:12:11

are really gung-ho for

1:12:13

the independence of Texas and

1:12:15

if they manage to pull it off because

1:12:17

the United States defaults on its debts

1:12:19

and China effectively owns

1:12:21

large chunks of the United States. They can't hold

1:12:24

the government together. I'm writing fiction now,

1:12:26

right? I'm not predicting the future. I'm just

1:12:28

like free, free forming

1:12:30

ideas of a fiction novel. You could see

1:12:32

different regions break

1:12:35

off the United States and say, well screw you.

1:12:38

We're gonna do our own thing cuz we actually

1:12:40

know how to, you know, run a

1:12:42

state. And now we're just gonna become our own little

1:12:44

country. Well if that happens, You

1:12:47

gotta imagine that not everybody on

1:12:49

the first day in Texas is going

1:12:51

to agree with that decision for independence.

1:12:54

Not everybody in Texas is from

1:12:56

Texas and has families that have lived there

1:12:59

for, you know, dozens of generations.

1:13:01

So there's, there has to be a

1:13:04

lot of people that become

1:13:07

separated from their

1:13:09

families and, and their histories

1:13:12

if they happen to find themselves in an area

1:13:14

that is now no longer part

1:13:16

of the United States. So,

1:13:18

kind of take that analogy with what

1:13:20

happened with the fall of the Soviet Union, where

1:13:23

they took what were effectively

1:13:26

Russian states. They were regions within

1:13:28

Russia, the Empire, the Russian Empire.

1:13:31

They were regions within the Russian Empire. When

1:13:33

the communists took over, they kept those

1:13:36

regions. And in a,

1:13:38

in a move of frankly brilliance

1:13:40

Lennon wanted to

1:13:42

ensure that these different regions

1:13:45

didn't turn into

1:13:48

into regional nationalistic

1:13:51

uprisings. So the idea

1:13:53

of communism was, let's

1:13:55

convert the whole country to communism instead

1:13:57

of breaking the country up and having

1:14:00

each little area kind

1:14:02

of become their own little communist country.

1:14:04

Cuz the communists didn't want to lose.

1:14:08

And so they created their, the representative

1:14:11

system that became the Duma

1:14:13

in Russia, which which has

1:14:16

representation and

1:14:18

somewhat local control in each of these

1:14:20

regions, and thereby keeping the, the

1:14:22

whole country of what was the

1:14:24

Russian Empire as the Soviet Union.

1:14:27

But, but those moves

1:14:30

were politically motivated. And

1:14:32

so when the breakup happened finally

1:14:34

in 91, the,

1:14:38

there was a, a move for

1:14:41

giving full autonomous control and

1:14:43

effectively areas that had been

1:14:45

regions for hundreds of years, all

1:14:48

of a sudden became independent nations. And

1:14:51

that was very welcomed by some people,

1:14:54

but also it gave rise

1:14:57

to a lot of nationalism and

1:14:59

the growth of nationalism in Ukraine with

1:15:02

the Bandera movement. The what do they

1:15:04

call the right patrol? Wright Guard? I

1:15:06

can't right guard. Yeah, that'd be a great name

1:15:08

for a group. Wright

1:15:09

Yeah, exactly. You'll never

1:15:11

smell when you

1:15:12

yeah, yeah. But essentially

1:15:15

Bandera influenced strong,

1:15:17

nationalistic friendly

1:15:20

towards Nazi Germany World

1:15:22

War II types that started

1:15:24

really growing substantially in. A

1:15:27

lot more so than they did in other regions that were also

1:15:30

previously part of the Soviet Union.

1:15:31

Mm-hmm. And it's just, that

1:15:34

is something, that is

1:15:36

another example that is

1:15:38

not taught in our history books

1:15:41

here. You know, like we're

1:15:43

taught that German's bad.

1:15:46

Russians, Russians

1:15:49

bad uk, K France,

1:15:52

weak you know, Germany evil, Japan

1:15:55

evil US ultimate

1:15:58

Evil. I mean, everybody's basically bad.

1:16:00

It's

1:16:00

But.

1:16:01

US is

1:16:02

Yeah. Us

1:16:03

English speaking countries are okay.

1:16:05

Yeah, us ultimate hero, you

1:16:07

know? Whereas you find out that

1:16:09

the United States kind of came in at

1:16:11

the last minute and

1:16:13

they also wouldn't have been able to win

1:16:15

had it not been for the Russians,

1:16:18

Oh, absolutely. And, and I think there's an argument be

1:16:20

made that the Russians would've won without the United States.

1:16:23

Now, I don't think it would've been nearly

1:16:25

as quick for sure.

1:16:27

But ultimately Germany

1:16:29

just did not have the manpower

1:16:32

in the end. And the Russia was

1:16:34

able to create supply lines

1:16:36

and manufacturing to

1:16:38

the point where they were making, you know, a tank

1:16:41

every few hours coming off the

1:16:43

assembly lines in Siberia with

1:16:45

the German tanks were much better. No

1:16:47

doubt. But they took much

1:16:49

longer to make because those BMW and Mercedes

1:16:52

factories just could not crank 'em out as

1:16:54

fast.

1:16:55

Yeah. And you never hear about like how

1:16:58

IBM helped, you know, make

1:17:00

the list for those going into the gas

1:17:02

Oh, you hear that on my podcast, but yes,

1:17:06

you know, but like, yeah, it's, it's

1:17:08

like, that's why I say I love like the untold

1:17:10

history of things, of how

1:17:12

Well, between Walt Disney and

1:17:14

Ford and, you know, a lot

1:17:17

of the big, and let's just

1:17:19

use the modern terminology, big

1:17:21

oligarchs in the United States were very

1:17:24

much pro Germany and pro

1:17:26

Hitler. And it

1:17:28

was I, I don't, this is why I,

1:17:30

I love the man in the oh shit. I'm, now

1:17:32

I'm blanking, man. The high tower.

1:17:34

Oh yeah, the, the show where it's if the Nazis

1:17:36

won.

1:17:37

yeah, yeah. So it's, it's, it's a it

1:17:39

was a book and then they made the show about it. But

1:17:41

it's a, an alternate sort of very

1:17:43

slightly sci-fi ish history

1:17:46

of the world. The

1:17:49

went in a different direction to where

1:17:51

it was. In fact, the Germans

1:17:54

that created the first atomic bomb,

1:17:57

and that ended World War II with

1:17:59

the surrender of United States. And

1:18:03

so the, the Eastern United States,

1:18:06

Became a German controlled

1:18:08

territory. And then west

1:18:11

of the Rockies was a Japanese controlled

1:18:13

territory.

1:18:14

Oh.

1:18:14

So the, the access powers effectively

1:18:17

one World War II took

1:18:19

over all of the regions in Asia and

1:18:21

Europe and then in the United States was carved

1:18:24

out in, in the, it wasn't even half, it was like

1:18:26

two thirds, one third, but basically

1:18:28

in half. And the, the movie I really,

1:18:30

or the TV series, I thought was very good up

1:18:32

until the last season where it kind of deviated

1:18:35

from the book quite a bit.

1:18:36

Mm-hmm. Always when it goes bad.

1:18:37

I know it's like they just, they cannot

1:18:40

stand not doing

1:18:42

one more season. That's the trouble with all these

1:18:44

just completely skipping topics here. But that's the

1:18:46

biggest problem I think with most TV shows. When

1:18:49

they do good, when they create a

1:18:51

very good TV show, their

1:18:54

drive for more profit will

1:18:56

not let them stop it. At

1:18:59

a good point. They have to make that last

1:19:01

season, which always is the weakest.

1:19:03

Mm-hmm. and just ruins it. And

1:19:05

it's like you couldn't, you couldn't just make merch or something.

1:19:07

it's un it's unfortunate, but,

1:19:10

you know, this is this has been par for the course

1:19:12

on everything and I think the biggest example

1:19:15

of recently that we've had of this is

1:19:17

Game of Thrones, which was

1:19:20

heralded as one of the best TV shows ever made

1:19:23

up until the last two seasons where it completely

1:19:25

blew

1:19:26

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

1:19:29

but Yeah. So anyway, you getting back

1:19:31

to, I, and I've kind of talked more than I try

1:19:33

to on these

1:19:33

No, no, no. Cuz it's, I I, I love that World War II

1:19:35

stuff, because I'll even tell you another cruel story

1:19:38

that I

1:19:38

mm-hmm.

1:19:38

out was my great-grandfather

1:19:41

was in what

1:19:43

would be considered the Russian Secret

1:19:46

Service for Zara Nicholas and

1:19:49

Zara Nicholas. My, my grandfather was

1:19:51

born in St. Petersburg. And then I had another,

1:19:53

that's where I'm from.

1:19:54

another great-grandfather who was born in

1:19:56

Munich. So I'm like kind of Belarusian

1:19:58

too, but again, it's all the same. And

1:20:01

he was one of his Nicholas's,

1:20:05

you know, top body guards used to chop

1:20:07

wood with him all the time. And

1:20:10

then there was the whole spiel where

1:20:13

they were getting ready for him to escape.

1:20:16

My great-grandfather was sitting there waiting for him

1:20:18

in St. Petersburg to arrive, never

1:20:21

did got word, and

1:20:23

immediately fled for the United States.

1:20:26

And that's kind of how the Russian side of my family

1:20:28

was, you know, started.

1:20:30

Yeah. And

1:20:31

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

1:20:32

but you know, it's, it's those stories

1:20:34

that you hear about where here,

1:20:37

you know, as a kid, like you always heard

1:20:39

Anastasia, cuz they did the little, you know, the,

1:20:41

the Dreamworks production, you know, of Anastasia.

1:20:44

But you don't, you find out though,

1:20:46

especially like with the Crown, And

1:20:49

maybe they don't tell us as kids because they don't think

1:20:51

that we'll understand it. And also,

1:20:53

I don't think they're gonna tell a bunch of kids now, you

1:20:55

know, kids, his cousin, king

1:20:57

George could have saved him, but then just

1:20:59

let him to an execution. And

1:21:01

that's where we get the wonderful cartoon

1:21:04

of Anastasia. Like, they're not gonna

1:21:06

say that. But again, just

1:21:08

all these stories in time, you're just

1:21:10

like, what? And then this

1:21:12

was my father's grandfather, the one that was in the

1:21:14

Secret Service

1:21:15

Mm-hmm.

1:21:15

My father was about three years old and

1:21:19

he said three or four, I think he said. And

1:21:21

he was in a little red rider wagon.

1:21:24

His grandfather was pulling him and

1:21:26

he tripped on the sidewalk. This is now

1:21:28

in Chicago, tripped on the sidewalk

1:21:31

and hit his head. And

1:21:33

my father, who is grew up

1:21:35

to be a neurosurgeon now knows

1:21:37

it was a, basically a subdural hematoma.

1:21:40

Mm.

1:21:41

my great-grandfather started losing, you

1:21:44

know, started becoming paralyzed and losing

1:21:46

feelings in certain places. And

1:21:48

my grand, my dad said, you know, that you

1:21:51

know, cause I think my dad might have been like maybe six or seven,

1:21:53

maybe, cuz he's like, I remember certain things,

1:21:55

you know, as far as the story and I'll, you'll

1:21:57

understand why. And he said that his grandmother

1:21:59

started, you know, having to take care of him more.

1:22:02

And he started losing more and more feeling

1:22:05

and becoming slowly. and

1:22:08

he said he remembered leaving. Cuz in Chicago,

1:22:11

you know, the immigrant families, you'd have like,

1:22:14

his, his parents lived on the, the main

1:22:16

floor. The grandparents lived

1:22:18

above him, and then his

1:22:20

aunt and uncle lived below him. You

1:22:23

know, that's how the immigrants did it. You know, like

1:22:25

these three story houses like these rowhouses

1:22:27

kind of a thing. And he's like, I remember

1:22:29

going out the back and going up the stairs

1:22:32

to go see grandpa,

1:22:35

and it was my Uncle Ed. And he said, you can't

1:22:37

go upstairs right now. And he's like, oh, but I

1:22:39

wanna see grandpa. And he's like, you can't see grandpa

1:22:41

right now. You gotta go back downstairs. And

1:22:44

it's like that Russian mentality that

1:22:46

if they feel like they're a burden,

1:22:50

they off themselves.

1:22:52

Mm-hmm.

1:22:53

And my grandpa, my great-grandfather committed suicide,

1:22:56

Wow.

1:22:57

and I believe he hung himself. And

1:23:00

that's one of those stories where you, you hear

1:23:02

about those generations, you

1:23:05

know, and you're just like, wow. You know, like

1:23:07

these people that, it's

1:23:09

like, you, you see China and how they all

1:23:11

celebrate their birthday on the same day, you

1:23:13

know? Or like how everything is for the greater good.

1:23:16

Like, that's how Americans and even

1:23:18

immigrants used to be. Now

1:23:21

it's like, well if it ain't good for me, I ain't

1:23:23

doing it. You know, like, there's,

1:23:26

there was this sense of, you

1:23:28

know, the family I'm not gonna, you know,

1:23:30

do that to all these people. You know, like

1:23:32

it was this, this selfless. you're

1:23:35

not saying that you gotta, if you're a burden, you gotta go off

1:23:37

yourself. But what I'm saying is, is you know, you

1:23:40

and, and plus he was also very old, but

1:23:43

you just see there was that sense of selflessness

1:23:46

that we used to have. And it always reminds

1:23:48

me of the oh God,

1:23:50

what's the guy's name in the second guy in Dumb and Dumber

1:23:53

Jeff Daniels, when he is

1:23:55

in the, the beginning, everybody always talks about,

1:23:57

you know, the beginning scene in newsroom.

1:24:00

Have you seen that show

1:24:02

Yeah. Yeah.

1:24:02

where he, he's at the college and they're like,

1:24:04

why is America the greatest country in the world? And

1:24:06

they keep pressing him and he is like, all right, fine. America's not

1:24:09

the greatest country in the world or like last

1:24:11

in education. We're last in healthcare, we're last

1:24:13

in this, we're last in that. And he

1:24:15

is like, but we used to be, you know,

1:24:17

funny story, true story. When I was at

1:24:19

RT America my mentor

1:24:22

Rick Sanchez, who used to be on cnn

1:24:24

when newsroom was just

1:24:26

coming out I believe is Taylor Sorkin

1:24:29

is No, oh,

1:24:31

Aaron Sorkin is with the creator. Yes.

1:24:34

He followed, he the least, this

1:24:36

is from Rick. He told me that he followed him around

1:24:38

for a week and loved Rick

1:24:40

so much that he kind of based the Jeff Daniels

1:24:42

character off of Rick

1:24:45

Sanchez at c n n when he was there after

1:24:48

watching the newsroom again. I totally see it. I'm like,

1:24:50

he totally.

1:24:51

Mm-hmm.

1:24:52

because Rick was that kind of news anchor

1:24:54

at RT America that now I

1:24:56

knew he's a Cuban immigrant. That was the type that

1:24:58

would say like, no, we're not the best.

1:25:01

Like, look at this country. Look at that country.

1:25:03

Look at how, look at how some socialist

1:25:05

countries have much better healthcare

1:25:07

than capitalized healthcare here. Like,

1:25:10

look at some of these countries. Look at some of that, those countries.

1:25:12

And just by saying that, I get people, oh,

1:25:14

so you're a socialist. It's like, no,

1:25:18

but why does our healthcare system suck?

1:25:20

Like, why aren't we fixing that?

1:25:22

Yeah.

1:25:23

You know?

1:25:23

And I, I think, I think that

1:25:26

it's literally impossible to make this statement

1:25:28

the greatest about any country

1:25:31

or even any person. I think

1:25:33

there are aspects to every country that are better

1:25:35

than others, aspects that are worse than others. I

1:25:38

think the US is absolutely

1:25:41

had up until now anyway, had

1:25:44

the best secret service in the world. We've

1:25:47

been managed to, like you mentioned, to

1:25:49

instigate you know, revolutions if

1:25:51

you want to be nice about it or overthrows

1:25:54

in 68 different countries. We've done

1:25:57

a great job of ensuring that the

1:26:00

that all these countries are

1:26:03

in line with the interest

1:26:05

of the United States, which leads to the prosperity

1:26:08

of the United States. The United States absolutely

1:26:10

figured out how to cash in on World War II

1:26:14

with a long-term benefit and

1:26:16

not just a short-term one. And I

1:26:18

think in a lot of ways, the sort

1:26:21

of what people are referred to as the deep state

1:26:23

in the United States, and you don't have to

1:26:25

like the deep state to agree

1:26:28

and acknowledge that no

1:26:30

other empire has managed to pull this

1:26:32

off in a way that the United States

1:26:34

has. The, the British Empire was

1:26:37

a good one, but their method of operation

1:26:40

was very different. It was effectively,

1:26:43

we leave you guys alone and

1:26:45

we just give you taxes to pay.

1:26:48

But for the most part you know, you, you

1:26:50

now have the protection of

1:26:52

the British Empire. You know, it

1:26:54

was not a a

1:26:57

complete optimization of the

1:27:00

other country for the sole benefit

1:27:02

of England. There were aspects of that, but

1:27:05

that they were a lot more interested

1:27:07

in territory and

1:27:10

access to more

1:27:12

natural resources than they were

1:27:14

in actual deliberate control

1:27:16

of the population. And I think the United

1:27:18

States kind of took that model and expanded it

1:27:20

to say, well, we can do both. We can

1:27:22

get the raw materials, but if we

1:27:24

can also control that

1:27:27

population to

1:27:30

not resist what they clearly

1:27:32

see as their, their resources being stolen

1:27:35

from that. So the

1:27:37

United States has been very effective in that. You

1:27:40

can say that's not a good thing. I don't, I

1:27:42

wouldn't necessarily say that it is a good thing,

1:27:44

but it is effective.

1:27:45

Yeah, absolutely. And you

1:27:47

see that in, they're

1:27:50

also very effective at

1:27:52

telling the people in their own country

1:27:55

that it, it, it's gonna be effective for

1:27:57

that country too. You know,

1:27:59

like, for example, like, you know, oh

1:28:01

yeah, we're gonna, you know what, there's this thing

1:28:03

called NAFTA

1:28:05

Mm-hmm.

1:28:05

and it's the North Atlantic Free

1:28:07

trade.

1:28:08

Yep.

1:28:09

you know, this is gonna be great because

1:28:11

we're gonna be helping out people in Mexico

1:28:13

and Canada, and it's gonna be great.

1:28:16

Your businesses are gonna boom and yada, yada

1:28:18

yada. Your, your towns are gonna get

1:28:20

bigger. There's gonna be so many jobs,

1:28:23

and you're able gonna, you're gonna be able to trade

1:28:25

everything over the border of Canada

1:28:27

and Mexico. It's gonna be great. And

1:28:30

then it's like two weeks later, four

1:28:32

GM Chrysler. See you

1:28:34

later going to Mexico. And you're like,

1:28:36

wait a minute. Hang on a second. You

1:28:38

know? And th this country

1:28:40

is so good at, at telling, you know,

1:28:42

it's people and, and they, we

1:28:44

just blindly believe. But I, that's

1:28:46

where I think we're at a, at a, at a turning

1:28:49

point in this country, is

1:28:51

that with the internet, with,

1:28:53

with more and more call

1:28:55

them citizen journalists, independent journalists,

1:28:58

whatever you wanna call them out there that are, that

1:29:00

are growing in numbers people don't

1:29:02

take you for your word anymore. And,

1:29:05

and politicians have to learn how

1:29:08

to be a little bit more skillful in

1:29:10

what they tell you. And

1:29:13

people have learned how to

1:29:16

ask tougher questions and demand

1:29:19

the answers. You know, like the one

1:29:21

thing that I always talk about with my audience is

1:29:25

what irks me to the

1:29:27

bone is the

1:29:30

amount that these folks

1:29:32

and Congress and, and the. how

1:29:35

much they make and how often they have time

1:29:37

off. Okay? I did a whole fair and balanced

1:29:39

report on this when I was at RT America where

1:29:43

these folks get 170 to $175,000

1:29:47

a year. Speaker of the house

1:29:49

gets $225,000 a year.

1:29:51

And that's just your base, okay?

1:29:54

That's like in, in sales.

1:29:56

That's your base. We're not talking about

1:29:59

your lobbying money or all

1:30:01

your donor money and all that other stuff.

1:30:03

That's, that's a whole different, you know,

1:30:06

file folder. But these folks

1:30:08

get every single federal holiday

1:30:10

off, which they don't just get the federal holiday

1:30:13

off. They get the week of that federal

1:30:15

holiday off. They get a spring

1:30:17

break. They get the entire month

1:30:19

of August off and they get

1:30:21

the entire month of the Democratic

1:30:24

and the national I'm sorry, the Democratic and the Republican

1:30:26

National Conventions off, which

1:30:28

is why you always see them in two

1:30:31

different months before the election. Notice

1:30:33

one is like at the end of September and

1:30:35

the other one's early October. Like

1:30:38

it's so they all can get a month off

1:30:41

cuz both sides get a month off.

1:30:43

Yep.

1:30:43

They basically work, the house

1:30:46

works 135 days a year. The

1:30:48

Senate works 165 days a year, roughly

1:30:52

est on average. And

1:30:56

what irks. is

1:30:59

the amount that they do not work and the amount that they get

1:31:02

if I am on Capitol Hill. And

1:31:04

you know, you always see it, these reporters where they'll be, they,

1:31:07

they see them walking into the house or the Senate

1:31:09

and they're like, Hey, you know, can you answer this,

1:31:11

this, this, you know, like, you know, like

1:31:14

a A O C or a bunch of them and

1:31:16

they just keep walking, don't

1:31:18

even stop to answer. And

1:31:20

I look at that and I'm like, you know, you

1:31:23

really have to give it to them. They think

1:31:27

they don't have to stop and answer a question.

1:31:30

And that's where, you

1:31:32

know, I love guys like

1:31:34

Alex Stein, and this is why, like, I,

1:31:36

I first, when I first saw him

1:31:38

come on the radar from Tucker Carlson and

1:31:41

I saw him where he was talking about, you know,

1:31:44

do it for the Ukraine, put a bullet

1:31:46

in Putin's brain, you know, like where

1:31:48

he was doing that. And then when I saw

1:31:51

him going more and more to city councils, there's

1:31:53

one where he goes to, I

1:31:55

believe it's McKinney, Texas.

1:31:58

Yep.

1:31:59

And he's like, yeah, I just

1:32:01

wanted to know Mr. Why

1:32:03

is it that you won't answer any of the questions

1:32:06

about, you know, the finances? Because I

1:32:08

have a thing here where you were a Dallas City Council

1:32:10

member and you were embezzling money and

1:32:12

they just, they try to shut him up. And he goes, no,

1:32:15

no, no, no, no. And he goes, you know, see, you work for me

1:32:17

bucko. He's like, I'm gonna go after

1:32:19

all of you. He goes, Karen, you don't know what

1:32:21

the hell you're doing, Brian, with your, with

1:32:23

your weirdo tie. And he just goes

1:32:25

after all of them. And

1:32:28

I, I've talked to him about

1:32:29

Mm-hmm.

1:32:30

I'm like, the reason that I would show your videos in

1:32:32

my newscasts when I was at RT America

1:32:34

was because I wanted people to see,

1:32:37

look, you can go

1:32:39

up to your city council members, get

1:32:41

in their face and say, you work for me.

1:32:44

What are you doing? There

1:32:46

came this. And, and I don't think it's that,

1:32:49

that it's, it's a passive thing where people

1:32:51

don't want to hold these people accountable.

1:32:54

It's just people don't have time.

1:32:57

People are working more hours for less

1:32:59

money. People by the time,

1:33:01

you know, both parents. Now, if you

1:33:03

want your kids to go to good schools, both parents

1:33:06

are gonna have to work. Do you wanna have a nice

1:33:08

house? Yeah. You, you know, it's,

1:33:10

it's, it's basically, you

1:33:12

know, designed so that,

1:33:14

you know, like when people say, oh, they're, they're, you

1:33:17

know, like, you know, I will say Marjorie

1:33:19

Taylor Greene does answer questions, but when I see her

1:33:21

being like America, who here, they, they are

1:33:23

bringing socialism in this country.

1:33:25

And I'm like, bitch, it's already. it's

1:33:28

already here. Again, both parents

1:33:30

working. You know, you wanna see, you wanna

1:33:32

know why kids, like you see all these videos

1:33:34

of these kids where they're acting out

1:33:37

in school. Like, I saw this video yesterday of this

1:33:39

kid yelling at his Chinese teacher

1:33:41

being like, oh, Mr. Chung, Mr. Chung.

1:33:43

And he's like, yeah, get out of my fucking

1:33:45

face. And he's yelling this

1:33:47

in his teacher's face. You

1:33:49

wanna know why these kids are like this cuz there's no

1:33:51

parent at home. They're working,

1:33:55

you know, and, and they're working. So this little asshole

1:33:57

can go to a good school. Mind

1:33:59

you, there's no discipline happening because.

1:34:01

yeah. It's not just that they're working and it's also

1:34:03

parents suck right now. They, they don't

1:34:05

like, we're at a point where now

1:34:07

the people that are parents were

1:34:11

not taught by their parents

1:34:14

how to actually raise children, because

1:34:17

that was a whole generation of Dr.

1:34:19

Spock Never touch a kid.

1:34:21

You can't spank 'em, you can't make 'em

1:34:23

feel bad. You gotta understand

1:34:25

what they're trying to say and all this bullshit

1:34:28

that is just created within the last

1:34:30

50 years. And we're now in a

1:34:33

second generation of kids going through it. So

1:34:36

it's, it's absolutely no surprise

1:34:38

whatsoever to me. And this

1:34:40

is why we have things like the

1:34:42

I'm sure you saw the, the commercial

1:34:45

comparison between the commercial for

1:34:47

the US military that starts off

1:34:49

with a woman talking about her two moms

1:34:52

and how she learned the importance

1:34:54

of protesting. And

1:34:57

now she's going into the military

1:34:59

you know, with that kind of

1:35:02

upbringing in mind. And

1:35:04

then compared to the Russian

1:35:06

ad, which is do you, you know, do you,

1:35:08

do you like to kick ass and kill

1:35:11

wolf with your bare hands and then eat it raw?

1:35:14

Well, maybe you should come and join the military. It's

1:35:16

like

1:35:17

and, and, and you know, that's the one thing that

1:35:19

when a Russian has a gun to your head, they're gonna

1:35:21

ask you, how many times

1:35:23

did you protest last year? Like,

1:35:27

what, you know, like,

1:35:29

gimme a break.