We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily de Shenski,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the
show at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr
LST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts as well. Happy
Friday. I'm joined today by the one and only Mark Hemingway's senior investigative writer
over at Real Clear Investigations, also books editor here at The Federalist. Mark,
thanks for joining us. Glad to be here. Now. You have
a story that's gotten some attention, It's made some waves, and rightfully so
because despite you know, some coverage. I think there's been a little coverage
from like Ken Vogel, Philip Wegman at Real Politics, Hans your I'm not
gonna say this right, Hans your Weiss Swiss billionaire huge footprint in American politics.
You dug in investigated what that footprint sort of actually looks like. Can
you tell us, ay how to pronounce this ostensible movie villain's name and be
what the hell is going on? I believe it's pronounced Hans your vs.
Yeah, it's w Y S S. Believe it or not. I had
five years of German in school growing up, but that was a long time
ago. I think my pronunciations correct. I'll accept it. Sounds great to
me. Yeah, anyway, Yeah, Weiss has pumped something like four hundred
and seventy five million dollars into left wing advocacy groups. You know, he
spent seventy two million dollars in twenty twenty one alone, and uh, and
this is pretty concerning consider during that device is a not an American citizen,
and the way that he's using this money is you know, also sort of
raising alarms, which is that he's been put at pouring into all these you
know five O one see four dark money groups, specifically Arabel Advisors, which
is a big you know, sort of like left wing umbrella network for a
lot of these organizations. And you know what happens, of course, is
that you know, Arabel Advisors has like, you know, a bunch of
smaller groups underneath it, and those groups in turn have a bunch of smaller
groups underneath those, and so it ends up being this like giant like you
know passed through game where you know, he maybe he gives the money to
a five O one S four entity in a way that he's allowed to do
under the law. But at the time that money gets shuffled from two or
three groups all you know, down the line, all of a sudden,
it's being used. His foreign money is being used to directly influence elections,
and there's been obviously a great deal concerned about that. Yeah, I want
to kind of dive into the legality of this, because you have a as
you point out, and as you report here, a foreign billionaire influencing American
elections to the tune of millions of dollars, basically nobody in the media paying
attention to it. And the question of whether or not this is ultimately legal
based on our campaign finance regulations looms large over all of this. So as
you were just describing there, it seems as though he's been careful and intentional.
Is that a fair interpretation? It seems like he's trying to avoid any
problems even if so. Are there not problems legal problems that could dog him
that linger? Yeah, this is a good question, and you know,
obviously a lot of people are trying to sort that out. So according to
Vice's people, I mean, they straight up told me that they when they
give grants to these organizations, they get these pledges in return that they're not
going to use that money to do anything you spressly political, you know,
which is you know nice, and it shows that they're concerned about this.
But I mean none of this is necessarily like binding in any way. You
know, the money is extremely fungible. I mean, once you give it
to one entity that has several other sub entities, and you know, by
end you'd all of a sudden you're passing from one organization to another organization that
has a different class sorry at different tax status. Maybe you know, all
kinds of crazy things can happen with the money. So there's really no way
to tell because you have to depend on not just vice being honest about what's
happening, but you know what the groups he's giving the money to being honest
about it. And you know, if you know anything about Arabella Advisors and
a lot of these left wing dark money groups and the things that they've been
doing in terms of the stuff they've been involved in in terms of directly influencing
elections, you know, like they do a lot of stuff you know where
even if it's at an explicitly partisan thing, like they fund voter registration measures
but only in like democratic neighborhoods and swing states. They know very well that
this is you know, basically get out the vote operation for Democrats. So
you're depending on you know, complete honor system in terms of how that money
gets shuttled around. And then there's this other problem, which is that on
the one of the few accountability mechanisms for this stuff involves you know, say,
filing and complaint with the Federal Election Commission, which, by the way,
a you know, a right leaning nonprofit watchdock group called Americans Republic Choice
has fouled an FEC complaint against VICE and this arrangement. But the problem is
is the Federal Election Commission is there are six commissioners on that that make collective
decisions and by law, three year Democrats and three year Republicans, and anytime
you get a split decision, it's basically like, you know, nothing's ever
enforced. And that's exactly what happened with WEICE. But what was interesting was
that the FEC Council put out a report basically saying that not necessarily implicating WIS,
but you know, showing a lot of the money that was flushing around
there and in the funds that he was giving money to should be probably be
registering his political action committees, and in which case that would you know,
very much alter what they do in terms of you know, transparency and all
kinds of other issues. And so it's it's pretty interesting. And I would
also note that one very telling detail is that the attorney that represented Vice in
the Federal election Commission matter was Mark Elias. It's the Democratic super lawyer.
Uh that Yeah, I mean that's almost too perfect, right, you know,
if Vice is on the level here, getting the Democratic Party's Democratic Party's
most ruthless attorney, you know, out there defending him, uh kind of
is telling. So yeah, well and can you sort of you're you know,
you know a lot about what Elias has been up to over the last
decade plus, but especially the last few years. Even it is almost,
I was gonna say, almost suspicious. It's obviously suspicious that these two are
linked up in that way because in the same way a lot of people associate
George Soros or the Cookes with very specific causes that they're funneling money intentionally into
we seems to very intentionally be targeting elections. So the connection with Elias is
actually feels nefarious. It does feel nefarious, although it would be very careful
here. I mean, I don't know, we know the Vice is specifically
targeting elections. I mean, he says he's not. But the problem here
is again we don't know what we don't know. And I would also add
that I didn't mention this earlier, but but Vice admits to camera with the
actually the actual amount was of the top of my of my head, but
it was it was tens of that. He admits who spending like a hundred
grand uh in political donations in the nineteen nineties directly two candidates, which was
grossly illegal and you know, brazenly. So Vice admits to doing that,
but the Statue of Limitations has passed on that, and you know, so
he's not going to be held accountable for it. So it's hard to take
him at his at his word. And then you get you have a guy
like Mark Elias, who you know, is not only the Democratic pitball in
terms of you know, contesting every close election that they've had in many recent
election cycles. You know, he's also the guy that was behind the dossier
operation on behalf of the TNC the Trump Russia dossier. So you know,
again, Elias is a guy that knows where the bodies are buried and is
willing to do anything to protect the Democratic Party. So in this case,
you know, they know that devices is so valuable to them in terms of
the money that he's giving them that you know they're willing to obviously do anything
they can to protect him and to protect this sort of arrangement that they have
going on. I mean, that's that's pretty clearly what's happening. And where
did his money come from? Do we know where he made his money?
Yeah, he owns a very he started and runs a very large medical device
company. H And I actually didn't go into this in the in the story,
but he's a very controversial figure because, among other things, his medical
device company was caught doing medical testing on some like spinal device without getting like
without getting sorry, what's the Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency's approval? Without getting the FDA's
approval, And they just did this like in this unlicensed way and put this
like device in a bunch of people and some of them died. And one
of his employees told a grand jury that that the person that directly made this
decision to do them the testing and the device without getting anta approval was Vice
himself. And Vice is apparently like such a hands on guy at his company
that like he literally approves, according to some employees, like what toilet paper
they use in the building, Like that's how involved he is and stuff.
So there's a lot of questions about him, you know, personally on that
level, you know, and he obviously has very much a political agenda.
I mean, his own sisters wrote over his biography and said that, you
know, his goal was to quote reinterpret the American Constitution a light of progressive
politics, and he's he's he's very much a big lefty. He does donate
to a lot of you know, I will say he does donate to a
lot of like environmental and conservationist causes that you know, people on the other
side of political events might not necessarily have a problem with. But he very
clearly has an ideological left wing you know, and things of agenda, and
that's coming out here for sure. Yeah, I was going to ask more
about that. The point from his sister is fascinating the fact that there's even
you know that that kind of personal insight is fascinating. And again, this
is somebody who's Swiss. Why on earth? You know, I'm not asking
you to like put him on the couch here and you do a Freudian analysis,
but like, what what do we know about why he's targeting American politics
that that last quote you said? Is there any way that you can kind
of flesh out what you've discovered and you're reporting? That's a really good question,
and I wish I could give you a better answer, but I mean,
I really just don't know. I Mean, the bottom line is that,
you know, I think he feels you know, he's an old billionaire,
and he feels very strongly about, you know, certain left wing causes,
and he feels that in the United States is the most important influential place
on Earth, and if he can get the United States to make a hard
left turn and it will make things better for everybody, And so he's throwing
his money in that direction. I mean, all of the statements about his
ideology tend to be pretty broad, you know. And the only thing I
can you know, I know for sure is that he you know, he
cares a lot about specific environmental causes, but you know, he's definitely you
know, down with you know, progressive change. But you know, as
far as I know, him giving them money to Arabella is just you know,
the entire like hard left, a liberal agenda in America that he's you
know, broadly supportive of. Hey, y'all, this is Sarah Carter,
investigative columnist and host of The Sarah Carter Show. Thanks for listening to the
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Andrew Kerr and Joe Simonson on to talk about their recent freebeacon reporting on Arabella.
And I know a lot of people who know about Arabella will associate it
with sorrows money. But Mark, as you're digging into Wes's cash infusions over
to Arabella, can you tell us a little bit more about how why a
that? You know, if you're an old billionaire with these ideological goals in
mind, that's kind of a logical place to follow your money into American politics
and be a little bit more about Arabella and how they might they might advance
the goals of somebody like that with all that money. Yeah, so,
you know, I kind of touched this a little bit, But I mean
Arabella Advisors is basically like one large umbrella group. They underneath Arabella Advisors is
you know, four or five other groups and then each of these you know,
the subgroups creates a lot of these what we call so they call pop
up groups or whatever, like they will you know, like, don't know,
citizens in North Carolina for you know, a Better Future or something like
this, and they make these groups look like their grassroots groups even though they're
like two people removed from being you know, puppeteered from by professional activists in
Washington. And you know, these groups will be you know, they'll create
a poppet issue for a specific issue that they think will affect a congressional race,
and then they'll you know, funnel the money down through there. And
it's kind of amazing because there's a bunch of these pop up groups that like
sort of come and go and very often that you know, even the major
press will be convinced that these are grassroots groups. You know, you'll see
PolitiFact or you know, you know, other newspapers like citing these groups like
they're just some sort of you know, you know, plucky, concerned local
citizens. That's very much not the case, and so that's kind of how
they operate. More specifically, want to peel back the curtain there. You
know. Arabella was founded by a guy named Eric Kessler, who's a former
Clinton White House employee and was big, big part of the Clinton Global Initiative,
which you know, if you know anything about the fundraising controversies over there,
you know how shady that was as well. And there's really no question
about like how plugged in Arabella Advisors is. There was this issue, Gosh,
I camera when exactly it was, but I mean, since Biden's been
president, somebody foyd I think it was the USDA Communications and they found this
like a big email chain involving something that was going on where it was like
the USDA Secretary, the Agriculture Secretary, and a whole bunch of agriculture employees
and for some reason, the head of Arabella Advisors was the only non governmental
employee on this this chain. You know they are you know obviously, you
know, the Biden White House isn't making any big decisions without consulting Arabella,
you know how you know, more consulting them regularly on things. So you
know, this is pretty sketchy in terms of how this stuff is operating.
And further, what's fascinating about this is, you know, the whole reason
why dark money as we know it exists was the twenty tens Supreme Court decision
the Citizens United, which at the time Democrats scream bloody murder about and they
complain that it would enable exactly what Arabella Advisors is doing. You know,
that was the initial complaint, and it went on for years. I mean,
when Barack Obama launched the superPAC in twenty twelve, you know who was
it was a rust Fine Gold you know, gave this you know speech crying
you know how corrupt this was. But the Obama campaign went and did it.
And now we have a situation where the Democrats were convinced that Republicans were
going to be the ones hoovering Paul the Court money and doing all this,
you know, these terrible things with these dark money groups. But it turns
out the Democrats didn't just aren't just like beating Republicans out of his stark money
game. I mean, they're just blowing Republicans out of the water, and
they're doing it really, really aggressively, and you know it's they're basically,
you know, corrupt in ways that the twenty three Democrats are, you know,
corrupt in ways that the twenty ten Democrats were, you know, seriously
worried about and that's kind of where we are. That's wild. I remember,
I think there's an orange cast and I think I maybe asked Orton about
this. Last time he was on the podcast, he gave a quote to
The New York Times saying, you know, it might be time for the
right to rethink Citizens United in light of the consequences that have unfolded over the
last ten or so years. Mark, as you've looked into it, do
you think there's any appetite or any sort of predicate for you know, maybe
even like Republican politicians, conservative movement groups to look over, you know,
the portfolio of somebody like weee and say yeah, as Arabella sort of starts
sprawling out and and you know you have Zuckbucks pouring in all of these different
things, what do you think about that? Well, that's a really good
question. I mean, the problem with Cistems United is there's legitimately a broader
free speech issue about outside spending. And remember what that case was about.
It hinged on the idea that it was illegal under campaign finance laws to show
a film criticizing Hillary Clinton within a certain time frame before an election, which
is like absolute insanity. So you know, Broadly speaking, I do think
that there are pretty legitimate free speech concerns on but uh that you know,
aren't adequately addressed that you know, campaign finance laws were prior to that we're
definitely stepping on. However, you know, obviously there are you know,
all kinds of problems that have come out of this. I do think though
that you know, it's not like an either or issue, you know,
either we repeal Citizens United or were stuck with this. I mean, there's
a lot that we could do with like you know, regulation, you know,
in between these things, you know, I mean, it wouldn't be
hard for instance, to say that, you know, foreigners can't give money
to you know, outside spending groups that you know, spend money on you
know, the Bible and C four groups or whatever they are. Uh,
you know, there's a lot of things that you could do. Like I
said, the you know, the FEC's own council's report was pretty skeptical of
this vice relationship. It's just you know matter I think of creating awareness and
momentum or whatever to get people to get off their butts and sort of you
know, actually do something about it. But but yeah, I mean I
do think that conservative. This is one of these areas where, you know,
sort of post Trump and you know, this has been kind of happening
for a while where I think that Conservas need to rethink their relationship with sort
of corporate oligarchy. You know, I think it's really become obvious. It
was starting to become obvious, I think with the rise of these you know,
massive silicon valley companies in the in the early mid offs. But like
you know, there's just so much wealth concentrated in so so few hands these
days that we really need to look at the effect that that's going to have
on the political system in terms of how they're able to spread that money around.
Yeah, and it's when the social consensus on ethics whenever breaks down that's
even more difficult. And that actually brings me to the next question, which
is how is weee able to stay in the shadows because there are some and
a does he want to do that? And then, be regardless of whether
or not it's been his goal to be really public, he actually has managed
to garner very little attention from the people you'd think would be you know,
raising a five alarm fire about some of this. So what's the what's the
deal there. Well, you're right, he hasn't gotten nearly as much attention
as you know, you would think considering i mean, spending half a billion
dollars on left wing political causes and being a foreigner. That said, it's
interesting because he's such this arrangement is so dodgy that you know then, like
you know you mentioned earlier on Ken Vogel, the New York Times has done
some pretty you know, hard hitting reporting on this. Associated Press actually,
which has been you know, just a font of hackery in recent years,
did a pretty big critical article on Vice in the last year or so as
well. So he has gotten some attention. But what's interesting, though,
is one of the reasons why he's gotten so much attention is that Vice is
very like outspoken about what he's doing and what he's done. I mean,
the whole reason why we know that, like he made illegal legal donations in
the nineties is you know, he cops to it publicly. You know,
he talks openly about the stuff that he does, and he's very unusual in
that regard, which brings us back to the point I was saying earlier about
what we don't know, what we don't know, you know, Vice has
been very public, you know, if you're paying it's you know, even
if he hasn't been covered by the American press, you know, who are
provincial and not interested in this stuff. He's been very open in the German
press, for instance, about like his desire to influence American politics and what
he's doing. And so he's kind of interesting in that he's not hiding it.
But that makes you wonder what are they doing with the sources of money
that they are hiding because you know, five W one C four groups like
this do not have to disclose what they're doing, who their donors are,
and you know, and so there could be all kinds of other shady things
that are happening, all kinds of other foreign billionaires that we don't know about.
So you know, there's a lot under the hood there that you know,
we probably should know. That's a happy thought. Well, that actually,
again is a good transition to the next question I wanted to ask,
which is basically, as you were going through public documents and trying to piece
this very comprehensive story together, how difficult was it to kind of nail down
the picture of what's happening because a lot of the stuff, from my impression
is intentionally convoluted. You're describing the kind of process through which this money goes,
you know, into C four, C three's whatever it is, and
ends up affecting elections. That has to be as a reporter, really difficult
to create a clear picture. Is sort of like get the fog out of
the way and see clearly what's happening. Yeah, absolutely, you're right about
that. And one of the things that's sort of a giant pain in the
pud about writing stories like this is you really have to spend a lot of
time thinking, you know, with some sort of trying to write it some
sort of clarity to explain a lot of sort of like convoluted things. But
I'll tell you, you know, I was speaking as an investigative reporter and
someone who's writting a million stories about policy and stuff over the last twenty years.
While not literally a million stories, but a lot of heavy pa policy
stories. This is the whole ballgame. It's weaponized complexity. You know,
they they you know, the reason why the laws and everything are so complicated
and stuff anymore is you know, almost by design, and they know that,
you know, they can hide in the complexity of it, and that
the people that are you know, really good at at manipulating that complexity are
the people that sort of you know, prosper and you know, gain power
and that you know, and that leaves the average citizen kind of in the
dust. I mean, you know, normal people reading the news don't have
time to necessarily even like follow this stuff, even when people like me put
a lot of effort to sort of like lay it out there, because I
mean, I admit it's just it's like, really really difficult. But I
do think that there is some sort of there's a growing consensus, you know,
emerging, and not just against the sort of shady stuff that's going on
with Vice. And I should add that I talked to some uh you know,
I talked to at least one you know, prominent left wing grassroots group
that has been very outspoken about this sort of stuff. I mean, there
are still a significant part of the left that has been remained fairly principled before
and after Citizens United in terms of the corruption the money and politics enables.
And certainly at the local level, you've seen Democrats at a state level in
Minnesota and Seattle also has a city ordinance spanning foreign money and elections. You
know, so this is an issue where it's kind of frustrating because as complex
that it is and needs to explain to people. You know, national Democrats
don't want to be put on the spot about this because you know, the
congressional Democrats and everything are benefiting so much from what Arabella is doing. But
if we could just get this issue up to a level where the ordinary person,
ordinary person understands what's going on, I mean, it's like a seventy
eighty percent you know issue where you know, Democrats Republicans alike look at this
and say foreigners should not be spending you know, half a billion dollars on
American politics. And you know there are some people out there. Marco Rubio
has been, you know, championing legislation to you know, wrack down on
this stuff. And he he's even attracted support from a couple of moderate dams.
But you know, it's still not anywhere it needs to be in terms
of public awareness. Is there any connection between WEIS and the Swiss government or
any I mean any foreign government. Obviously what I'm getting at is that would
raise Ferret concerns if he's acting on behalf of another government. It doesn't sound
like he is. But do we have any reason to believe that he's connected
in any direct way to these governments or maybe indirect ways that might be relevant.
Well, I don't have any proof about what Vice is up to specifically,
but we know in the past, for instance, there was a big
scannel in the nineteen nineties where the Chinese Gardment was funneling money to Democrats,
specifically to Clinton. Was Clinton's re election campaign on This all emerged in the
sort of mid late nineties, and it was a big deal and a big
scandal at the time, you know, and obviously anytime you're getting significant amounts
of sums from the from anyone in Chinese business in this case, and you
know, these were people that were like spending time at the embassy and stuff.
So I don't think there was any doubt this on how this money was
tied into Chinese intelligence. And you know, obviously we're looking at, you
know, some of the Hunter Biden stuff or whatever. There's definitely the you
know, own awareness among you know, America's biggest rivals, and frankly,
anyone that wants to have an impact on American policy, you know which is
you know, a real source of power and financial gain, knows that funneling
money into American politics can pay huge, huge dividends. And so yeah,
we should absolutely One reason why we should know ban this foreign money straight out
is because it would make a much hard or foreign influence operations and foreign intelligence
people to compromise or politicians. And I'm certain that that is happening right now,
whether or not the politicians themselves here you don't even realize they're being used
as pawns. And again, this is it takes me back to when a
Citizens United b Farah Farah comes out of World War Two, as we're trying
to crack down on foreign influence over like American discourse, you are people being
paid by Germany to sort of bang the isolationist drums and to prevent, you
know, influence or to create influence, undo influence that we should at least
know about. It's not illegal, but there should be some kind of measure
of transparency to it. Citizens United, as you say, has a really
fair kind of free speech complaint or lamentation at its heart, But when somebody
is a foreign agent or not even if they're whether they're just a foreign citizen
they're not, and maybe they're not acting on behalf of a government or anything
to afford them this kind of lack of transparency that even American citizens trying to
influence American politics. I mean, it just seems so completely skewed and insane.
Is there any interest other than Marco Rubio? Is there anything at all
coming from the left to crack down on this from a policy perspective? Well,
like I said, I think there are a number of grassroots groups on
the left that are interested in this and have been pushing model legislation that they've
they've gotten pasted in you know, cities and states, you know, specifically,
Uh gosh, what was the name of that group? Free Speech for
People is the name of the group that has been pushing this to the local
level. They also fouled an FEC complaint against President Trump because this inaugural committee
took a half a million dollar contribution from a Venezuelan owned oil companies, Sick
Go, you know. And you know, I think that, like I
said, the right and the left, this is an issue where they can
they can absolutely agree. I mean, I'm you know, you know,
there was also an issue in recent years where I think it was a Jeb
Bush superPAC got fined for taking I believe it was Chinese money. So you
know, it does happen on both sides. This is an issue where I
think, you know, everybody can agree, and uh, I don't and
and and I would also add that you know, a foreign citizen doesn't quite
have First Amendment rights the way that an American citizen would. So I mean,
I think this is just a matter really in a lot of ways,
of closing a loophole in some respects. I mean, I you know,
it's I have a hard time imagining if Congress passed a lot Ofmorrow saying that
you know, foreigners can give money to five O one C fours or other
adocacy groups that are you know, somehow affecting politics of the Supreme Court would
look at that and go like no, no, no more free speech.
I have a hard time imagining that that would still be in this situation here
where there would be a very expansive view of free speech in terms of how
it affects campaign spending, you know, or political spending, but you know,
would would filter out a lot of pernicious, seditious influences, and you
know, obviously Mark Elias would be out there doing his his darned us to
defend Weee every single second possible. Mark, A big question that I have
for you is simply, what is David Harsani most wrong about? You know?
It's funny. The thing about David is that we're close in age to
each other, and we have very similar music tastes, like very similar in
that, you know, we listen to a lot of like eighties alternative and
you know, punk and stuff growing up, and so like David and I
are like in total lock step when it comes to music, like and you
know, I cared deeply about this stuff and so does David. So you
know, we're both like total music nerds. And that's great, and usually
that would translate into other things, but it seems like every like Netflix or
TV show recommendation he's given Molly, I'm like, what is this? Like
the octopus one where the I'm just imagining David sitting at home watching the one
where the guy is in love with this I think it's called My Pet Octopus
something like that. Yeah, I know what you're talking about, it I
don't, I don't know. I remember like it was like really into this
show about how like I think it's like English people buy houses in other countries
or something like this and adapting to the local culture or whatever. And it
was like, and I'm, you know, an interested cosmics Halton guy,
and it was just like one of the most boring things that I hadn't ever
seen. You know, you should change your Twitter bill to just interesting cosmopolitan
guy. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to like praise myself there or
whatever. I think of myself as a you know, cosmopolitan enough guy,
I should say, yes, I'm a m I don't know. It's danger
really close to you know, America hating globalists these days, so I should
be very careful about that. Yes, it's coded language. I'm out of
you're trying to protect the country from foreigners, not you know. I noticed
this morning. I think it was this morning you retweeted a really good long
essay on Lucien to Williams. Did you get a chance to read her memoir
that came out this year? No, I did not, And I don't
know what tweet you're talking about. Oh, it was a real clear it
was a real clear like long reads. Oh okay, yeah, yeah,
I No, I did not read her memoir. Although I saw her perform
at a afl CIO Union event up in Philadelphia once, which was kind of
cool because I should have tried to cover the event. The next thing you
know, I'm seeing Lucy to Williams play perfect. Yeah, the Dems do
have better musicians and music musical acts at their political stuff. I will say
that she go ahead, Now, I was justn't saying fairness. This wasn't
a Dem event. This is an a fl CIO event, which, sure,
I'm not like the world's biggest union guy, but I have a lot
more respect for that than showing up at a for you know, for blue
collar union guys then than you know, the Democratic convention. She I saw
her in Milwaukee when all of the act ten Scott Walker stuff was going on,
like right smack in the middle of it, and she was, you
know, out and being sort of an advocate on behalf of the strikers.
But I also in her memoir she starts off by sort of how the politics
of her parents and of the fifties and sixties in the South informed her her
music. So I was just curious if you'd read them, Mark, because
it's excellent. But no, but it sounds like the kind of thing i'd
be interested in, that's for sure. Would you would know? You totally
would anything else that we've we've missed in this conversation, or any music you
want to recommend to people for the early Fallmark, well, I'm not going
to recommend Taylor Swift. But you broke the internet again. Yeah, I
don't know. Well, it had to be said. The thing is,
I don't care that people like Taylor Swift. What really was starting to bother
me was like the New York or the New York Times or like all coming
out of the woodwork and force to say that she will just stayd No,
No, she's really terrific, when that's just not true. Yeah, that's
what we have to We have to some standards here people. That's fine,
I get it if you like her, but let's not pretend that she's Yeah,
well, if you if you missed what we're referencing. Mark has a
great story up at The Federalist this week on the decline of civilization and the
rise of Taylor Swift and how two things might be connected. Is there any
quick teas or you want to offer the audience if they haven't checked the piece
out yet. Oh no, I mean, I just just go ahead and
read the piece because I kind of like had to back into this and be
very careful because as it is, I'm filling out paperwork for the witness Protection
program. It could have been worse if I hadn't been some cautious and sort
of explaining my views. I like that you said you had to back into
it, because the other piece, of course that really broke the internet mark
was your We've never talked about it on the podcast speaking of backing into it
parking, but market is adamant that people should not be backing into parking spots,
and this infuriated people worldwide. I have never written anything like that.
I'm not kidding. I wrote that article in I think was it January.
Yeah, and I still get approached about twice a week by total strangers like
you're the backing in the parking space this guy, and let me tell you
why you're right or why you're wrong. People aren't coming up and saying,
let me tell you why you're right. No, well people people are actually
saying thank you. No, I get that a lot, actually, thank
you so much for writing it. It is true that like certain very large
trucks it's easier to back into, and that makes some sort of sense.
And there are other a few random circumstances, but like I see this all
the time, like I mean, and I live in a very sort of
high density area, and I'm I'm convinced that, you know, a good
twenty minutes of my life is wasted every week by waiting for people to back
into spaces because they're just not as efficient in backing up as they'd like to
think they are. Yeah, that's true. It's it's a fair point.
It's another Yeah, I go if you want to, if you want to
be angry, go ahead and toggle over to Mark's office page at the Federalist.
I'm busy thinking up of you know things, What can I do that
will divide society and cleave society into two? Right now? Do you have
any other ideas that you want me to do to foment civil war? Just
let me know. Marks over there, just trying to figure out how to
heighten my contradictions, imantize the escaton. Yes, Mark having away as senior
investigative writer over at Real Clear Investigations, Books editor at Federalist and just all
around Cosmopolitan interesting guy. Thanks so much for joining this Saturday, Mark,
thanks for having me. You've been listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio
Hour. I'm Emilia Shinski, culture editor here at The Federalist. We'll be
back soon with more. Until then, belover's freedom and anxious for the frame,
heard the fame, the reason, and then it faded away.