Latest / IndieNewsNow LIVE! Clips / Latin American Takeover, McBride Released from Prison, Squirming Officials, DNC's Elderly Phone Scam

Transcript

Latin American Takeover, McBride Released from Prison, Squirming Officials, DNC's Elderly Phone Scam · IndieNewsNow LIVE! Clips

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Who are these people?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there actually is some good news.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's not all Doomerism.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: I try not to bring Doomerism.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just going to bring headlines here.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'll whip through these and then we'll get to the GoFundMes because I know it's super late.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: So...
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: We've got USA's Latin American Takeover is in full swing.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: Arturo Dominguez, David McBride free.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_03: What?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of people seem to miss this.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: I did not naturally because that's somebody that we've been talking about for years.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: Local elected officials are squirming from this guy giving a speech to his town council.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: And then I do want to get into a little bit this article about
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_03: the DNC's elderly phone scam and all the text messages.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: And the pressure campaigns that are happening.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: There was a deep dive investigation,
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: and I'll get to it,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: but the New York Times throttled it and decided not to publish it.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: So the author went to Substack and published it themselves.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's fascinating what they uncovered.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm guessing that the New York Times didn't want to cover it because it implicated the...
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry, it implicated the Democrats.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: Jessica, I just wrote an article about it, but we need to be careful anyways.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay,
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: you can tag me on Twitter or tag me on Substack,
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: at Indie, on Notes, when you put up a note for that, and I'll take a look.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'd love to take
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: a look at it.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: So we're going to start with Arturo.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: The U.S. attempt to take over Latin America is moving full steam ahead.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: And he's specifically referencing here now Colombian President La Esprida is
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: the latest Latin American leader to join the U.S.-backed far-right coalition seeking
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: to control the Western Hemisphere and implement an Israel-first agenda on top of it.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: So after interfering with several elections,
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: the U.S.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: continues to declare its ownership of Latin America,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: even though nobody asked it to,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: and the Caribbean,
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: with a new propaganda video released in conjunction with various statements
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: and military incursions under the guise of counter-narcotics operations.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: Remember,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: that's why they were blowing up boats in the Caribbean as well,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: and the Atlantic Ocean.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: Those operations have so far served to create more violence and instability.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: Notably,
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: something rarely discussed in U.S.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: news media is that many of the leaders Donald Trump helped elect have ties to some
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: of the most notorious drug smugglers in recent history.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: The White House's recent interference in elections,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: beginning when Trump took office in 2025,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: to install U.S.-friendly right-wing leaders is nothing new.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: History speaks to this better than anyone can.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's common knowledge, even if laypeople don't know the details.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: The Monroe Doctrine is also well known, though not widely as the broader history.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: Since Trump took office in 2025 again,
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: however, it's been brought into the spotlight much more with his Donro Doctrine.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: However,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: it's the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that the White House latched
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: onto, which is that this hemisphere is ours.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_03: But they also claim that West Asia is ours and that Taiwan is ours and
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: that Alaska is ours and the
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: And of course,
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: Okinawa and the Philippines and the Monroe Doctrine is a demand
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: to European countries introduced by President James Monroe in 1823.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: The idea was to warn Europe that the Western Hemisphere was closed
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: to future colonization after Latin America liberated itself with some help from
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: the U.S. and Cuba and the Caribbean toward the end of decolonization.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: While it didn't explicitly declare control,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: the doctrine stated that attempts to interfere in the Americas would be treated as
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: a hostile act against the United States.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's like NATO.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's a pact.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: If you attack my little brother,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: you're attacking me and you're going to get attacked back by me.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: However,
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: in 1904,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: Teddy Roosevelt added his corollary,
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: claiming that the U.S.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: had the right to control Latin America as an international police power.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: So again, you can continue to read this piece by Arturo.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: Again, extremearturo.substack.com is his publication.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: Next,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to get to a case that we had been talking about on my shows and on INN News
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: for more than two years.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: And that would be the case of whistleblower and Assange supporter David McBride.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: He's an Australian, all right?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: Again, military whistleblower who revealed Australian war crimes that were committed
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: in Afghanistan has finally been released from federal prison after
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: a lung cancer diagnosis.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: So it's not all hunky-dory, though.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: Misty said if there's anyone that could beat lung cancer, it's David fucking McBride.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: David was on many action for Assange's,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: was a supporter of all of the efforts that By the activist community to free Julian.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: And David also is an Indie Media Award honoree.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: As, by the way, is Consortium News, Joe Lauria.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_03: David McBride,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: the military lawyer who leaked evidence of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan to
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: the media,
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: was released on parole Thursday after being diagnosed with cancer following more
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: than two years in prison.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: Reminder that he was sentenced to six years when he pleaded guilty after
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: the trial judge in November of 2023 denied him a public interest defense
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: and allowed government agents in the courtroom to seize reams
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: of his documentary evidence in the name of protecting national security,
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: which had never been done before.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: We covered that at the time.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: Unprecedented what they did to him.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: McBride was convicted of unlawfully communicating naval,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: military,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: or air force information other than in the course of his official duty as well
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: as publishing confidential information outside of his duty.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: He was also convicted of theft of government property.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: McBride gave the government documents to journalists at
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: which revealed covered up murders of unarmed civilians by Australian soldiers
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: in Afghanistan that McBride served with.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: A four-year government inquiry later found 23 possible war crimes,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: including the murder of 39 Afghan civilians.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: After that broadcast,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: the Australian Federal Police raided the ABC City headquarters,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: commandeering computers to seize a number of documents while making changes
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: to others.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: Prosecutors ultimately declined to pursue charges against the ABC journalist
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: that broadcast the report, deciding instead to go after McBride.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: The defense rested on the court accepting his argument that his oath to
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: the British crown meant that his duty to inform the nation
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: of his government wrongdoing transcended his obedience to military orders.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: Make sense?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: His lawyers invoked the Nuremberg Principles in which a soldier has duty,
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_03: has an obligation to break an oath to report serious war crimes.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: But his trial judge rejected that defense.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: And he accepted his attorney's advice that left with no viable defense,
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: he should plead guilty, like Luigi listening to his attorneys.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: But in this case, they were probably right.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: In its report Thursday, the ABC repeated a misconception about the McBride case.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_03: Why?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: Why?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: They're saying that his aim was to expose what he believed was
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_03: the over-investigation of soldiers in Afghanistan.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: But that's not true.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: But his decision backfired with the ABC's Afghan Files story,
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: instead revealing allegations that Australian Army soldiers were involved
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: in illegal killings.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: In fact,
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_03: David had alleged that lower-level Australian soldiers were being over-investigated
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: while their superiors were escaping scrutiny.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: Quote, I've always been about the leadership.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: I've always thought that we have serious problems in the defense force, he said.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: The war crimes were a symptom of bad leadership,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: and the people in my sights have always been the generals.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: There he is after he walked out of the courtroom in 2023,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: before he walked in for his trial,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: where then he was found guilty and taken to prison.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: He was made to pay a severe price for having the courage to reveal crimes of his government.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_03: His trial judge upheld the authoritarianism of a political system
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_03: that puts obedience to the military and to the state before justice with the blood
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: of innocent Afghans meaning too little to move the court.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_03: In May of last year,
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_03: his appeal was rejected, and I remember covering that on How Do We Miss That?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: In a hearing that lasted three minutes.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: They didn't even let his attorney get to the thing.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: They tried to call it so that nobody could actually get there on time,
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: and they changed the time to three hours early.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: McBride told Consortium News in Canberra on Thursday
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: that he believes he was released because of his lung cancer diagnosis.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: Australia's Attorney General,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: Michelle Rowland,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: who granted the parole,
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: initially wrote a 30-page assessment in June,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: giving reasons why he shouldn't be released.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: So it was kind of a surprise.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: His cancer was detected almost about a month ago,
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_03: and he said it would probably be bad optics
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: to keep him imprisoned once his illness was made public.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: He'll be operated on within the next four weeks to have part of his lung removed,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: and he'll be hospitalized for a week.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_03: In a statement after his release,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: McBride thanked the prison staff who treated him with professionalism,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: respect, and humor for his entire time in custody.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'd also like to thank my fellow prisoners at the Australian Military Complex.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_03: They too showed me humor, respect, and character I'll never forget.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: Many of them I hope to see again and help if I can as they help me.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: He thanked the Attorney General for sparing us another long fight over the question of parole.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: After all, we both want the same thing.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: A better Australia for our children.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: So it seems a waste to be fighting each other rather than working together.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I want to work together with them either.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: A joyous McBride met with his friends and supporters at a Canberra pub
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: on his first day of freedom.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: Kathy Vogan, our friend, was there and filmed her report.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um...
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: So that's great news.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: And again, David McBride, Indie Media Award Honoree.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: Ah, wrong one.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_03: This one.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: The button's next to the support button.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: Indie Media Award Honoree for 2024 for special honors,
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: for going above and beyond and being that whistleblower and having the courage
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: to be willing to face prison and the charges that were in front of him.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_03: To pursue this.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: And there's more about his case and his story here.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: If you go to indiemediaawards.substack.com,
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: you go down to the special awards,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: special honors section,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: and you can see, you go to all of them and you can see the link to his.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: Now also, this.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, this is such fire.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: So this guy...
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know who Brandy Wells is, but we've been talking a lot about flock surveillance.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: This guy has an answer for his local officials.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: Let's listen to what he has to say.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I'm going to call for more flock cameras.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: I want more.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: I want them in the commissioner's offices.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: I want them in front of commissioner's houses.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: No big deal.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm totally not lying to you.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Chip said he wants as many as he can get.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's start here.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Don't forget to spring extra for the digital ID scrapers on them
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: so we can track your unique Bluetooth identification numbers in real time
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: as you move.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: These things even get the microchip in your dog.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: It is definitely not a slippery slope of constitutional liberty.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: The bought-off shill of a judge said so because they are on public land.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: I always thought public land belongs to the public,
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: but I guess we can just put whatever out there regardless if 70% of
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: the voters don't want it.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: We should keep going though.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: A judge hasn't stopped us yet.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Let's also livestream y'all's email boxes to the public 24-7.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: Every government phone should have a digital clone online that every taxpayer can go
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: and view your text messages,
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: listen to your phone conversations,
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: view your call history, app data, and voicemails on that device.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: All this data will only be stored for no more than 30 days though.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: You have my word on that.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: I've been totally honest to this point.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: That'll make it acceptable though, right?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: You can get all this for the low price of a few hundred thousand dollars a year.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: We're already about to flush 200 million down the crapper on a basin or boondoggle
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: while talking about making cuts to the animal shelter.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: So why not spring some extra money,
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: not on government surveillance, but surveillance on the government?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, hold on.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you are not willing to have this level of transparency in your public office as
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: a public servant while you erect surveillance state around the citizenry,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: you are a hypocrite.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus warned us about these things.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I should have specified to whom this opinion would be unpopular to.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: So how about we just call it a day and get rid of these geolocation
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: and target painting tracking systems that treats everyone like a criminal out
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: of our American community.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: I do...
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: I do have one quick question, guys.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: I noticed that Willie Nelson over here and Commissioner Barry,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: you guys had a little private powwow sidebar in the back there.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: As I understand, that is a sunshine violation.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: Everything at these meetings must be on the record.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: With the attorneys, only between the commissioners.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: So just make them squirm.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: I love making them squirm.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, if they're going to put flock cameras and surveil the rest of the neighborhood,
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's perfectly fair that we put one right in front of their houses
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_03: and track them and make a phone available and all the things that he suggested.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: And you want transparency?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: You want visibility into what everybody else is doing?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you're a public servant, so we should get visibility into what you're doing too.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: Amen
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: to that
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: man.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: Totally agree.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so the last thing, again, is this article called Hook and Squeeze.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: So Hook and Squeeze is an article written by this guy, Adam Bonica, all right?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: How Democratic consultants,
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: committees,
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: and party leaders built a fundraising spam pipeline that funnels money from
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_03: a captive pool of elderly donors into their own operations.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: This is why you see those emails that go out, you know, emergency, are you ignoring us?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Slashed and fear-mongering, right?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: So, this investigation was originally developed for the New York Times,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: where it underwent eight months of editing,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: multiple rounds of fact-checking,
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: and independent replication of the underlying methodology.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_03: The piece had a scheduled publication date when requests for comment were sent.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: It was only after the Times reached out to the subjects of the investigation
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: for routine comment that the Elias Law Group,
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: representing the DCCC and the Democratic Senate Committee,
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: sent a cease and desist letter demanding that the paper not publish.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: Although the paper's fact-checkers and legal department later cleared the piece
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: before sending out a second round of requests for comment,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: the Times ultimately decided to kill the piece.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_03: The piece was subsequently slated for publication at the Bulwark,
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: where it underwent additional fact-checking, data verification, and legal review.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: When requests for comment were sent to the subjects of that investigation,
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: lawyers representing progressive turnout project
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: and mothership strategies likewise responded with legal letters demanding that
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: the article not run.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: From there, the publication was repeatedly delayed.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: The piece cleared successive rounds of legal review.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: When asked for a committed publication date after months of delay,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: the Bulwark conditioned publication on his accepting an extensive rewrite prepared
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: by So,
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: what follows is the complete investigation that emerged from this year-long process.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just going to read the first couple of paragraphs and I'm going to give you
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: the link to this because this is long,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: but it's really, really important to understand.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: This is why they're sending out these emergency fear-mongering emails multiple times a day.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: If you've ever donated to a Democratic campaign,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_03: including Bernie's, you know the messages never stop.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: All hope is lost.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: We're begging.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: Quadruple match expires in 180 minutes.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: They arrive at all hours claiming to be close to tears because you haven't sent $15.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: Most of us dismiss them as annoying spam,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: but federal election records reveal a hidden population of seniors for
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: whom these messages prove surprisingly effective.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_03: What reads as parity to one recipient may be psychologically triggering for another.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: To understand how the system works,
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: this writer combined contribution data from the FEC with age data
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_03: from their voter registration lists covering more than 300 million donations.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: The donors who send money in response
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_03: to Democratic fundraising spam are overwhelmingly elderly and
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: a surprisingly concentrated group of them accounts for the bulk of the money raised.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: Looking closely at the donation data can be heartbreaking.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: An 85-year-old retiree in Oxford,
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: Ohio made more than 7,800 donations totaling over $648,000 to Democratic causes,
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: more than double the estimated value of his home.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: A 91-year-old woman residing in the senior living facility in Indianapolis donated
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_03: over 25,000 times,
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: totaling over a quarter million dollars,
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: burning through money she may need for care.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: As the New York Times reported in 2021,
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: the all caps writing and manufactured panic of
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: the political fundraising spam function is a filter,
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: repelling savvy donors and taking advantage of the same cognitive vulnerabilities
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: that make seniors targets for online fraud and scams.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: A 2024 CNN investigation quoted a complaint from one person who discovered
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_03: that their 93-year-old father was being inundated with Democratic donation appeals.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: Quote, These fraudsters need to stop defrauding other people,
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: it read, especially ones with mental impairments.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: Unquote.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_03: Who's behind this flood?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we find out that it's a thriving industry of digital fundraising consultants
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: who specialize in offering spam as a service and the political action committees
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: and candidates who adopt their methods.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: Together, they form a broader network of fundraising that deploys these methods at scale.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: The most visible players in this ecosystem are what I call spam packs,
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: organizations that use high-volume digital fundraising firms
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: to raise small-dollar contributions only to sink a disproportionate share
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: of those funds right back into fundraising.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: They're built on a common financial model,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_03: outside spending on aggressive digital messaging that repeatedly extracts donations
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: from a disproportionately elderly, and I would guess poor, group of donors.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: But these tactics have spread throughout the party.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_03: Even the party's own congressional campaign committees and some
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: of its most senior leaders have embraced the spam.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: Well, if it raises them money...
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: Republicans went all in on these tactics first and offer a cautionary tale.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: After flooding supporters' phones with fundraising spam and recent election cycles,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: their grassroots donor base,
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: the party supporters who occasionally give when something moves them until
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: the spam drives them off, has been hollowed out.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: Republicans raised less from small and mid-sized donors in 2024,
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: a presidential year, than in the 2022 midterms.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: Also because they got gobs of money from Elon Musk and the crypto industry and Miriam Adelson.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: They didn't need to raise those same mid-sized donations.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: Plus they had all the shadow packs and LLCs and the help of Jack Cobb and the EAC
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: and all the thumbs that are on the scales.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: The organizations and individuals named in this investigation were offered
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: the chance to respond.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: Of those who did,
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: most answered through lawyers in letters demanding that
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: the investigation not be published.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: None identified an error in the underlying FEC records.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: One quantitative dispute over how expenditures are categories is addressed below.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: Much of what the letters deny this piece does not claim.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: Some of their objections went to the methodology,
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: but most were directed at the author,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: his credibility, his motives, his qualifications to write this at all.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: They're not disputing the data.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: He's a political scientist who studies money and politics, but he's also a lifelong Democrat.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_03: So he's investigating and doing a post-mortem on the party that he loves and is loyal to.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: I believe my party is doing itself a disservice by following Republicans down this dark path.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: Winning back the House this year on the back
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: of Donald Trump's unpopularity would not be enough.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: He thinks that they need a party capable of sustaining a durable majority
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: to force authoritarianism into permanent retreat.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: A party that commands genuine enthusiasm and broad public trust.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: You're not getting that out of the current Democrats led by Chuck Schumer,
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: pal, I hate to tell you, and Hakeem Jeffries.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: This fundraising model is not the way to build it, which I agree with.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: He said he's been documenting these tactics while also experiencing them himself.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: Like millions of Democrats,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: he finds his inbox and phone flooded with urgent appeals at all hours.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: When he used FEC records to look into who was lighting up his phone, a pattern emerged.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: The same handful of digital consulting firms kept appearing in the payment records
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: of the senders.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: One of these firms' mothership strategies has drawn particular scrutiny in recent years.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: Founded in 2014 by three veterans of the DCCC,
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: Mothership commercialized the party's most aggressive fundraising tactics.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: The firm's principals soon co-founded their own PAC, End Citizens United.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: Creating an arrangement in which, for a time, they were both client and vendor.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's incestuous.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: Between 2015 and 2023, ECU spent roughly $20 million on mothership services.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: Peter paying Paul.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_03: Where'd they get the $20 million from?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: In response to a request for comment,
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: ECU confirmed that Mothership helped launch them
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: and ran its digital fundraising campaign,
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_03: though it emphasized that Mothership had not had the decision-making authority
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: since 2016, and the vendor relationship ended over three years ago.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: Oh no, nothing to see here, folks.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: Nothing at all.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: But then the high-volume model has spawned competing firms.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: ECU simply hired new vendors and kept spamming.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: Spam packs rarely operate in isolation.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: This guy's analysis of FEC data shows that they cluster into networks linked by
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: a small number of treasurers who oversee multiple committees at once.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_03: This tracks what Rob Yeager, Indie Media Award honoree, has also been uncovering.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: The largest one he found here is the group of PACs connected to the Progressive Turnout Project.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_03: Harry Pascal,
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_03: a longtime accountant turned Democratic fundraiser,
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: is the treasurer for Progressive Turnout PAC and seven additional PACs
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: whose affiliated status allows them to operate as a single network.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: These are the treasurers for hire that were involved in the Clark Fork network
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: of fundraising that Robbie talked about and others as well.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: Through 2025, Pascal's network of PACs raised more than $390 million from individual donors.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: According to this guy's analysis of FEC filings,
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_03: roughly $20 million of that went directly to Democratic candidates
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: or funded independent expenditures supporting them.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: Another $100 million or so covered field and get out the vote programs and payroll
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_03: to staff them, and roughly $20 million went to administrative costs.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_03: That means that the rest,
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: an estimated $249 million,
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: or 64 cents of every dollar raised, went back into fundraising itself.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: They were funding their own spam.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: By a mile!
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: The progressive turnout pact declined to comment on the record,
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: but in a letter,
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: its lawyers claimed that the group spent $177 million on fundraising,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: $72 million less than his estimate,
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: and directed more than half of its budget to voter contact.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: That discrepancy comes down to labeling.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: Roughly $48 million of the difference was spent on Facebook ads
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: that they categorized as digital organizing,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: but which function almost uniformly as fundraising solicitations.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: Other payments went directly to firms specializing in high-volume donor solicitation.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: Even by their own accounting, fundraising consumed roughly 45 cents of every dollar.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: Harry Pascal, the treasurer, didn't respond to requests for comment.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: Why should he?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody's demanding that he do that of real substance.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a lot more here.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: And here are...
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_03: The number of donations,
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: individual donations to each individual pack that were made by small donors.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: Millions of donations.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: These are the emails that were sent, or is this the donations that were raised?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_03: 145, oh, these are the packs.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: Based on my analysis,
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: these PACs share a common profile,
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: heavy reliance on high-volume digital fundraising vendors,
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: fundraising costs that consume a disproportionate share of what they raise,
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: and a donor pool that skews overwhelmingly elderly, even compared to other PACs.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: More than that,
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: they draw on the same concentrated overlapping population,
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: people like the 85-year-old in Oxford, Ohio, and the 91-year-old in Indianapolis.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: Those are total itemized contribution transactions from individuals reported to
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: the FEC, not dollars raised.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: Those are individual donations, number of donations.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: So that's even higher.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: Again, Meta's Ad Library gives us a sense of whom these ads reach.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: Among the fundraising ads run by the largest spam packs,
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_03: 75 to 80% of the impressions are delivered to users 65 and older.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: What a shock.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: Though people in that age band account for just 14% of Meta's adult users in the U.S.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a fear campaign.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_03: These are seniors that are on there to see their grandkids
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: and their high school reunion friends and war buddies.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: And they're being flooded with these panicking Democratic Party ads.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_03: Again, very important, deep investigation.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: I highly recommend everybody go to On Data and Democracy.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: Data, the number four, democracy.substack.com.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: Again, I will link these all in Substack after the show is over.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: So that is our lightning round.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: And not so lightning because it's already after one o'clock.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: I know it's late.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, everyone, for hanging out.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to do the GoFundMes and then we'll get out of here.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: Again, thank you to everyone.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: Support and So did John Simonian and Martin Ludford
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: and Kimberly Bridges earlier this year at IndieNewsNow.com.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: And Hans Klein for an annual subscription over at IndieMediaToday.com.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: The ways to support financially,
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_03: Cash App, Dollar Sign, Indie News Network, go-free.com slash Indie News Network.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: At IndieMediaToday.com on Substack or at INNNewsletter.com.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: At IndieNewsNow.com, that's our website.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: Again, 24-7 news, and you can leave a tip for the network there, or you can...
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: Get merch as well or watch live.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_03: You do all that there.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: And that news is well more than it's over 100 sources.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: I curated it completely ad free just to get you to the good stuff that you need to see.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: I will see you next Tuesday.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's what she said.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: And support independent media because we need it more than ever.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: I love you all.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_03: See you next week, fam.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, we just fucking lost the stream.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: I guess this isn't such an awful place.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you want me to say?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: You prove it's possible to sleep for days.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I still think you're right here awake.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: The cost of living isn't much to make.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: But God, it's so hard to say.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: And when they told you everything I said, were you safe?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: You say.