All right. If we can get our seats. Its kind of hard to break off the conversations. Its always so good to meet people. But weve got to get back to work. We hear a lot about how dangerous the u. S. Empire is. We learn about how were making enemies overseas. We learn about how immoral it is to bomb people overseas, but theres something that we also really need to, and this is a good argument to make by some people who arent swayed by the others and that is that the u. S. Empire is a big ripoff. It costs a lot of money and gives us very, very little in return and so thats why were really pleased to bring in someone who can speak to you, been reading and wright and lecturing for a while now and hes part of the next generation of intellectuals. He spoke yesterday at our student seminar and did a terrific job, and thats Nathan Goodman who is finishing his phd at George Mason University in economics, and he is a specialist in the economic of empire. Nathan, happy to have you join us. [ applause ]. Thank you so much, daniel. So in fiscal year 2019, the u. S. Department of defense has a budget of approximately 693 billion, and according to the costs of war project at Brown Universitys watson institute, the United States federal government has spent or obligated 5. 9 trillion on the wars in afghanistan, pakistan and iraq from their beginning to fiscal year 2019. Now in an important sense we need to remember that these are lower bound estimates. After all, american empire consists of more than the department of defense and the nsa, cia, department of homeland security, all of these are part of the National Security state. The dea isnt just enforcing a war on drugs at home. They are waging a war on drugs abroad throughout latin america and the world. The state department and usaid engage in foreign aid programs that large little serve pure till ambition so the costs are higher than the number gave you, but whenever names we put on the cost of american empire, its important to know that were not just talking about the Government Spending dollars. When they spend the dollars they will looking for alternative uses. When metal is used to build a fighter jet, thats being taken away from tractors, forks and knives or anything else that you can make with that same. They might develop a number of consumer approximate or medical devices or capital goods that could increase productivity, so we just think of military spending as moving money around. Were giving up goods and services which could enhance our lives. Is that cost worth it . To answer that question we need to consider two problems that playing the Central Planning. Economy don call this project the how do we know whether a particular use of resources makes peopleseveral resources makes People Better off or worse off . When an entrepreneur starts a business making, say, cell phones, theyre going to need to pay for various input. They need to buy materials like metals or minerals or plastics. They also need to hire engineers, factory workers, Sales Associates and countless other people. Both the materials and the people could be usefully employed elsewhere in the economy. And knowledge about what consumers value and what the alternative uses of these resources are, well, thats highly dispersed throughout the world. It cant be contained within a single mind. No single mind has all that knowledge. But, prices transmit that knowledge. If consumers become more interested in alternative products that use some of the inputs we are using to make that cell phone, the price of these inputs is going to rise. This encourages entrepreneurs to find ways to use less to economize on the resource, even if the entrepreneur does not know why the sites increase. Then profit and loss provides crucial signals. If the entrepreneur makes a profit, that indicate that people value the final product that they have made more than the values of the inputs or alternative uses of the inputs that go into it. On the other hand, making losses indicates that value is being destroyed. The input being used is, the inputs being used could be valued more on other alternative uses than the final output that the firm has made. So in a world where countless people cooperate all around the globe each with knowledge that they could not indicate directly, we have signals in the form of prices and profit and loss that encourage us to abandon projects that arent worth it. Does something analogous happen with state provided security and were . Unfortunately not. If a cell phone, burger, or cup of coffee isnt worth the price to me, i can choose not to buy the. Were you ever given an unsubscribe option from an empire . If i want to stop paying for the brutal saudi war in yemen, for instance, i have very few options. There is of course a tradition of vortex, with Henry David Thoreau you refusing to pay poll taxes that he believe funded the war, and noam chomsky and others refusing to pay taxes during the war. They risk garnishing of their wages. They risk having the property seized. And even moving out of the United States isnt enough to avoid paying for american empire. When you criticize u. S. Foreign policy you might get told, if you dont like it, you can leave. Even if you leave, you still are seen as owing taxes to the u. S. Government unless you go through the costly process of announcing your citizenship. And thats ignoring that there is also funds gained through inflation, through the printing of money. That is a tax on everyone that holds u. S. Dollars. Using the feedback provided by profit and loss. But, since empire rests on violations and private property rights, it lasts. Even if political leaders want to know what they are doing is worth it, they would lack the feedback necessary to know. The knowledge placed on all forms of Central Planning means even the best intentioned imperialists will squander scarce resources. In addition to the Knowledge Problem, the empire is subject to the power problem. That is, those with political power have incentive to act badly, to abuse their power. This takes various forms. Secrecy enables officials to conceal illegal and opportunistic activity. When he was director of national intelligence, James Clapper was asked whether the nsa collected data on millions of americans. He said, no, not wittingly. He committed perjury. We know he committed perjury because Edward Snowden heroically blew the whistle on the Prison Program and other programs of mass surveillance of americans. Snowden is essentially in exile and would be prosecuted if he returns home. Meanwhile, the statute of limitations has expired for clappers perjury. With great power comes great reduced account ability. Often, the perverse incentives of power come from opportunities to profit from government contracts. Individuals who work in the National Security state can often find lucrative jobs working for defense contractors were serving on the board. They then use the connections in government and their reputations for Public Service to direct taxpayer money to these businesses. This is called a revolving door. And, military leaders often walk through it repeatedly. Jim mad dogmatics recently resigned as Donald Trumps secretary of defense and really joined the board of directors which sells ammunition, weapons, and much more to the pentagon. He recently sat on General Dynamics board of directors before becoming secretary of defense. Until 2013, he had been commander of u. S. Central command. During his first stint at General Dynamics, mattis made almost 1 million. American empire can be quite lucrative. Former white house chief of staff john f kelly has also benefited from the revolving door. In 2016, he was or, rather, until 2016, he was commander of u. S. Southern command. He then worked at pfizer which contracts extensively with the pentagon. They paid him 166,666. And then later in 2016, he was nominated by trump to head the department of homeland security. Now, as secretary of homeland security, john kelly oversaw numerous Civil Liberties abuses including the detention of migrant children. He went on to work as white house chief of staff and now sits on the board of directors of caliber international, a company that runs federally funded detention camps for those migrant children. Given these lucrative opportunities, bureaucrats within the Security State have strong incentives to direct scarce resources towards funds in the military complex. Regardless of whether those projects serve the public interest. By elected officials, they face similar incentives. They can fund militarist projects that employ people in their district or home states. Meanwhile, most ordinary taxpayers have little incentive to monitor the spending. There is just too much of it and the costs are too dispersed on all of us but you know those jobs who are dependent on it will vote if their job is lost due to budget cuts. Even politicians who publicly criticize the military industrial complex, such as senator bernie sanders, will therefore tend to vote for wasteful military spending when the voters go to constituents. Standards often rally against the militaryindustrial complex and voted against more industrial bills than any 2020 democratic contender but has repeatedly voted for the wasteful f35 fighter jet program. And thats because it is being built by workers in his home state of vermont. Politically incentive concern even into imperialist, crony capitalists. Political power. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you. Political power does not create incentives for responsible foreignpolicy or responsible costbenefit analysis. Officials in the National Security state work under a shroud of secrecy which allows them to opportunistically abuse their power. They can find lucrative opportunities with their cronies and politicians have similar incentives to waste your money. But, even with the costs associated with the Knowledge Problem, and the power problem, some might argue that u. S. Empires is worth it. That its worth it to protect our freedom. After all, there are those who would use violence to threaten american liberties and who can put a price tag on liberty . But this argument misses that american empire it self is a threat to your liberty. As economists chris coyne and abigail hall document in their book, tierney comes home the domestic space of militarism, foreign dimensions often come back to undermine domestic liberty. Part of this is because war is made by the Central Government and therefore tend to promote an increased centralized power at home. In addition to the centralizing tendency, empire requires developing new social control techniques that are often brought home. For instance, drones were developed to surveil and bomb abroad, killing people on the president ial kill list, for example. Today, customs and Border Protection uses drones to surveil the southwest borderlands, and that invades the privacy not just of immigrants but of u. S. Citizens who live there. Individuals who intervene abroad often learn skills that they later use to undermine your liberties. So for instance, around the turn of the 20th century, 1899, 1900, around that time, the u. S. Was occupying the philippines. Now, the filipinos did not want us there and, they resisted u. S. Occupations. The u. S. Responded, killing those who resisted, torturing those who resisted. And relentlessly surveilling those who resisted. Ralph van demon headed up those surveillance issues. And once he develops those surveillance skills and intelligence, he did not just let those skills languish when he came home. No, he built the roots of the modern surveillance space that invades all of your privacy today. Similarly, john nelson served as an elite force recon unit during the war. These force recon units were aggressors in 95 of their operations. And they killed 34 vietnamese for every man on their team that they lost. Later when he came home, nelson worked at the lapd, rather. He worked at the Los Angeles Police department. And he built the first s. W. A. T. Team. Today, s. W. A. T. Teams will kick down the doors of americans, often not to go after anyone accused of a violent crime, but instead, simply to serve warrants for nonviolent drug offenses. John burris also served in the vietnam war. When he came home, he worked for the Chicago Police department. And he administered a torture program that tortured around 200 black men. That torture technique was called by officers on the team the vietnam special. The techniques of social control and violent coercion and monitoring that are learned through americans interventions abroad come home to undermine your liberty. American militarism does not protect your freedom. It jeopardizes it. And you need to add that loss of liberty to the costs of u. S. Empires. The Knowledge Problem and the power problem that i discussed today are institutional problems that inherently result from centralized political power. We cannot solve these problems, simply by placing the right people in charge of the american empire. Many antiwar analysts focus on how morally reprehensible, particularly people in power are, and theyre often correct to do so. But even if we oust your least favorite washington warmongers tomorrow, these problems will persist as long as we have an empire. The only way to get the costs of american empire under control is to abolish it. [ applause ] thank you very much. Thanks very much for that powerful presentation. You can see kind of where we are going with this. We are looking at the different aspects of washingtons addictions to war. Weve talked about economics, weve talked about nato, weve talked about a number of issues. But there is one, really important component that we absolutely cannot forget. And thats the role of the media in perpetuating, propagandizing, and turning this into kind of a mindless state of jelly brains in the u. S. And, when we were planning this conference, we could think of no one better who has seen the spectrum, who has seen the totality of the u. S. Mainstream media and its alternatives, then someone like rick sanchez who has a long and storied career in the u. S. Media. Everyone recognizes his face and has for a long time. But, he is also a brilliant analyst of the media and hes got a lot of very important things to say. Mr. Sanchez . [ applause ] so, yeah. I think what he was trying to say is that i have worked for nbc, and msnbc, and fox news. And here comes the applause line. I was fired by cnn. [ applause ] so its funny. Because when dr. Paul reached out to me and asked if i was willing to come here and speak, i couldnt help but wonder why they would want, you know, some of the cool kids, man. Listen, you could have anderson cooper, cuomo, rachel, the tuxter. And when i asked dan and doctor paul, they said no, we actually prefer you on this one. And i was like, why . And they said, well, you are telling the truth. And, its a shame that weve got to watch some dude, some cuban guy on Russian Television to get the truth about america. So, thank you. [ applause ] you know, it is true. It is true, that we end up on our primetime newscast every night calling a lot of things and sharing a lot of stories that youre not going to hear anywhere else. That sucks. I mean, think about it. Look, recent example. Last week, i interviewed some dude named manuel zandella. True story, the former president of honduras. He was removed from power by a cia back to. By the way, i should mention as an aside that americans like myself, who descend from other places or know a little bit about what happens in our country historically, know that its almost laughable to us when we hear these stories, that the Rachel Maddow of the world is telling us all the time. That we should be shocked, shocked, shocked. And that russia or any other country for that matter meddled or tried to influence in our elections using social media. I mean, its kind of hypocritical, right . And by the way, look, im not here to be a russia apologist by any stretch of the imagination. But whatever the russia seems to have done, as described as mr. Stockman noted a while ago by Robert Mueller in his report is about one onethousandth of the stuff weve done. I mean, its nuts. If you think intervening in elections is news in that sense, what weve done in central and south america and the caribbean, we are in the major leagues. The United States is the major leagues and everybody else is playing stickball. It could not be more clear. I mean, you can do, by the way, and this is maybe a message to those, you know, again, the guys on the other networks that i compete with every night. You could even just go to the associated press, they will even compile it for you. Cursory list. Ready . 1914, u. S. Troops occupy the Mexican Court of veracruz for months to influence the mexican revolution and elections there. 1954, guatemala elects this guy named jacabo. The guy comes out and promises land reforms for his people. The cia overthrows them with a u. S. Led coup , sparks a civil war, 100,000 people die. 100,000 people died because we did not like the guy that they democratically elected. By the way, at the time, and i think most of you guys know this, we had a guy in the cia named dulles. One guy ran the fruit company, the other guy ran the cia. He said, theres a guy out here, a politician who might hurt my business. He said, what do you need . The marines . And they sent them. This is crazy but its part of our history. The dr, dominican republic, we made sure that they won the civil war in 1965. Chile elects salvador who, the guy leans left, okay, fine. The cia, four months later in a coup, he was assassinated, and we replace them with augusto pinochet. In the 1980s, we know what happened there with the brutal wars in nicaragua and el salvador, in the political movements, that we are pushing for land reform and anticorporate measures were destroyed. 1983, the u. S. Forces invade the caribbean island of granada after accusing the caribbean of allying itself with cuba. 1989, we oust later reveals to me when i went to visit in prison that he worked for the cia. And he told me. And then he died. 1994, so, think about that. We had a guy who worked for the cia, and then we couped the guy that works for the cia. What the 1994, the cia removes 1994, hugo chavez ousted by a u. S. Led coup. These are the ones we know. These are the ones in the associated press. You can google, you know . And find. And ive got to tell you, as i was compiling that list, it certainly dawned on me. Is in that funny . Because, you know, you do this for a long time, and you cover a lot of stories, and you start to realize, or you start to forget some of the stuff youve done. As i was compiling this list to do this story last week, friday, by the way, i think it is up to 700,000 hits on youtube or Something Like that which is pretty cool, i started realizing that i covered a lot of these as a correspondent for cnn or cnbc when i was a reporter. I was in haiti. I cover the war in nicaragua and el salvador. I was in cuba. I was in venezuela. I was in guatemala. I interviewed after the invasion. I went in with the 82nd airborne during the invasion of granada. In many ways, i look back at my own career now as a correspondent, as a News Reporter who has, i guess, covered a lot of stuff. And, i kind of see my own culpability in covering these stories. And not because i did anything wrong. I was a good reporter. I could get to the scene, interview other people and tell you exactly whats going on. I could tell you all the stuff about the kill count and information about where we were. But you know what i did not tell . Context. Thats what we dont do sometimes. We go in but we dont give context as reporters. And, look, i mean, look, in the end, its not fair to say that everything that we as americans have done has been a nefarious act. History happens. You could argue that there was a time, especially when it comes to latin america where the United States felt like we are the big brother and this is the little brother and we are doing this for his own good, to set him straight. I get that. There might be some of that. But speaking as a reporter and someone who is a refugee to country who was born in latin america, i can tell you, that does not excuse the damage that has been done in a lot of countries. Countries in latin america are ruined to this day because of actions that really have more to do with power and might and greed than just about anything else. And you ask yourself, does the United States still engage in this type of meddling . This intervention . Do we still secretly remove elected president s . All president s that were elected. Do we still remove them by coups by the cia . Do you still promise, backed by the Church Committee in 1975 where we said we are just not going to be the kind of country that does this anymore . Yeah, yeah. If you watch my interview, i mean, we did it in honduras. He was removed by a military coup. 2009, we removed somebody with a military coup. Where the is that story . You know, fomented by the cia and some secretary of state, i think some of you guys might know her in here, her name is hillary clinton. I just did a three part series interview and he took me through the history and what became of his country. And i think what became of his country has been quoted now. I think our president calls it a country. And heres what mr. Trump and many in the media will not tell you, we made it a country. We made in a country. Honduras today is one of the most dangerous countries in the world and because of that, it sends more americans to there per capita. They werent coming here before we did that. They were happy here. In fact, the economy was doing pretty good. C . Those are the unintended consequences of our Foreign Policy. The unintended consequences of our Foreign Policy, which is in good for most americans. That, it is for the few, as we know, and especially those in the business of war. Did you know that the military installation that we put in honduras post coup is now one of the biggest in the world . Huge. Huge, right . Do you know why we tell these stories . We should, because we can, because its the truth. And because i think just about everybody in this room loves this country. I guess cooper, cuomo, tucker, maddow, those guys love this country too, i think. You know . Im sure they do. I wish theyd love it enough to tell us the truth though. You know . Thats the real sign of love. Like a mom or dad who disciplines her children. If they are doing something wrong, if they are bringing ds and fs, youve got to tell them. Maybe theyre not allowed. By the way with those guys, its not about what they tell you. Its really about what they dont tell you. Its really about what they dont tell you. You know, its funny. I often try to tell these stories at cnn when i was there because i had, like, the highest ratings on cnn which was really weird. I also had, like, the youngest audience. And it was always a fight just to be able to put stories on the air that i knew were important. And then penguin came and offered me a book deal which is really cool. So i was excited. I signed a deal to write a book with penguin. And i wrote a book. But in my contract, cnn had the right to review the book before it was released. They had to go through the entire manuscript and redact and redact. And they said it was for legal reasons. I included a chapter in my book about everything i just told you. The history of the u. S. Intervention of latin america. They took it out. They said, you cant say that. I said, why cant i say that . They said, we just, we dont talk about that. This is the guy who runs the mid. The guy that runs the standard for cnn. Some standard, right . We dont tell the truth. Omission, man, omission, omission, omission. In journalism, its not its what we dont say that becomes our destiny. But we dont say that becomes our destiny. For example you want to do a story about the russians trying to influence the election through social media . Fine. Its a good story. We should do that story. Gifty russians somehow tried to influence the americans in pennsylvania and wisconsin, its a good story. But where is the story about our interference in elections in iran in 1953 . That gives you perspective about why we have the problems that we do today with iran. What about the fact that we literally installed boris yeltsin, a fall down drunk, as the president of russia, and then bragged about it with this big giant cover story on Time Magazine saying essentially, look what we did. Hey, cool, we got this drunken office to be the president of russia. So he can kind of run things over there. You know . What about the fact that we also tell only half truths. Benjamin franklin said something interesting. He said, providing only half the truth is really only a bigger lie. Wheres the mention of the uk interference on behalf of obama . Or israels meddling on behalf of rodney . Why werent those stories that were covered by Rachel Maddow every single night for 50 minutes of her one hourlong show . And for that matter, can you be elected in a seat of Congress Without being heavily influenced by israel in this country . Where is that story . [ applause ] foreignpolicy is Foreign Policy and any country should be criticize a bowl. Cool word. I just made it up. Criticizeable. Wow. English is my second language. These are the types of stores that i drilled down every newscast. If you get a chance to check it out check it out. Some of these stores are very critical of the United States. You know . The country that i love and that we all respect. Because i came here as a refugee from a communist country. Im here from cuba. You also are not allowed to criticize the state. Thats not a model we want to emulate. People say, there was a big article a couple of months ago in the herald that rick sanchez, raised in miami to hate communists, now works for the russians. Pretty cool, honestly. And i took her to i think in our country weve got to speak truths. Even troubling truths. Thats why its so great to be here with so many people we are doing just that. How many wars are we fighting . Do we know . I had to look this up and im a journalist. We are in seven wars. Afghanistan, iraq, syria, somalia, and niger, officially. Military bases, 870 countries. These are crazy numbers and nobody knows. And when i say nobody knows, i mean the media doesnt report it. How many bombs are we dropping . Obama was dropping 20,000 a year . And trump has taken it to 44,000. David stockman and i were looking and said that they cant account for 20 million. I dont know. Where is it . I dont know how long i had to work to have that money taken out of my taxes. What did you do with it . I dont know. Crazy. Just crazy. Going on 18 years. The only time that war is mentioned is when a dad comes him to surprise his wife and kids at a football game. And by the way, i love that. Its a beautiful moment. It makes me feel good. I get teary eyed when i see the daughter that hasnt seen daddy in so long. But, why dont we tell the American People why daddy is there to begin with . Why dont we tell them anything about that war except when he comes home . Its mindboggling. We do as americans have the right to be informed. We think thats all it is, though. No. Its the responsibility. Thats why its so important that media tell us the truth. When cnn fired me, i think it is because maybe i was telling too many truths. By the way, that was painful. You lose your salary, you lose your livelihood. My wife, kids and i, we lost our home. I had to certainly try to make ends meet. I went back to miami like all good cubans do. 6 00 in the morning actually, i had to wake up and i did a radio show, sandwiched between hannity and, whats his name . Rush. Everybody knew right away. Oh, yeah. I know what comes after him. Then i did a show in spanish, you know . My mom and dad dont speak any english so it was the first time they have ever been able to watch me. And we founded a Healthcare Company which was really good. If years ago we started this new company in miami helping people. We started with one clinic. Now we have more than 50 across the state. This is really cool. Last week, make magazine ranked the company which im one of the founders of the Fastest GrowingHealthcare Company in america with revenues over 300 million. I know. Its a pretty cool. For a refugee. So, while i was out of the National Conversation, i watched the media landscape during those years. Papers were dying all over the place. Cnn, fox, msnbc doing basically what i learned to call reality show news. Thats what it is. Reality show news. And being controlled by corporations and trying to at scream each other with endless panels, talking about what President Trump eight that morning. It was tough for me to watch. It was tough for my wife. She was like, shut it off you are doing that anymore. She was always looking at me like, youre a healthcare professional now. Enjoy it. You know, if its in your gut, its in your gut. What do they say . Dont die with your music still inside of you. News didnt used to be that way, by the way. I dont know what happened. As an older guy who has done news for many years, as a correspondent and watched it evolve, something happened post watergate. After watergate, all of us guys my age you are starting the business, graduated, university of minnesota, go golden gophers, university degree, got my first job and then i saw what happened with watergate, a lot of us went in and wanted to be crusaders. Sometimes you cant be crusaders with harper and context either. I think a lot of reporters push too hard and try to turn every business guy into a court. Every politician was corrupt. Not every politician was corrupt. Not every business guy is on the take. I think the media back then late, early 70s overplayed his hand, which is what got the backlash from people in the business community. And from the right who were saying, look, the media is getting crazy. They do have too much power. They are being unfair. Just because here a businessman does not mean you are mean or evil or corrupt. I think thats where the whole Rush Limbaugh and eventually the fox news things started. I think it had good intentions. But that then turned us into fox news from the right. Msnbc news from the left. So you have msnbc and fox news telling their truths, right . Their truths, not the truth. And that in many ways is what happened to our business. It went from two guys take down the president now everybody wants to take down the president , the media becomes a little too strident. Somebody comes in and says, wait a minute, we are going to back off and create our own media look. The media says, you are going right . We are going left. On top of all of that, both of them are prowar and pro empire. So, its so confusing to watch what has happened. But its worse really when you consider, there was a time, old enough to remember, where, if a salesman, and by salesman, the tv commercials have to sell and all that crap. If a salesman walked into a newsroom to try to pitch a story from an advertiser or influence the news, he could be fired. He would literally be fired. If somebody found out he did that. I remember cases where our news director got into a fist fight with a salesman who came into the newsroom. I mean, he tried to kick his because he was coming in there to influence the news. You just dont do that. There used to be a wall between those two. Today, sales departments essentially control the news. It does. Have you checked to see who sits on the boards of companies who on cnn, fox, the new york times, cnn, msnbc . Its going to scare you. Lets close the loop. You know why they dont cover endless wars and the waste of your taxpayers money . Because theyve got raytheon sitting on their boards. And of course if hes sitting on your board, hes influencing your company. And yes, it does filter down through interlochen. If they dont do critical stories with our poisoning our kids with chemicals in the food, its because there is a guy from monsanto sitting on the boards of these companies i mean, duh if they dont explain the disastrous effect of our horribly corrupt in many ways medical insurance system in this country where we overpay for what the rest of the world gets much more cheaply, its because conglomerate Insurance Companies are sitting on the board. This is interlocking and it used to not reach the media in that regard but it is today, and its there for you to see. If you wonder sometimes, why didnt he tell me that story about this guy who was ousted by a cia coup in 2009, which is not that far back, thats why. Why did they get in trouble for mentioning this story . Well, it kind of feeds down. So how did i end up in the National Conversation . Good question, daniel. Just about the time i was getting settled in miami, i created this Healthcare Company. Some guy reached out to me with a really long unpronounceable russian name. As i like to call home was on the phone. He asked me, whatever happened to rick sanchez because i did disappear for time. He had already built rt america into what was a legitimate alternative to what i just described. But last year he lost his main anchor. A fellow named ed schultz. Decent man. Nice guy. I had known him throughout my career as a colleague. Great communicator, but he passed away. So, micha reached out to me and i immediately said no and told him my plate was super full. Deep down though, i had that music still playing. Right . The music was still playing. After a series of meetings, we realize, if not now, when . It has probably never been as bad as it is now. When are we ever going to have the opportunity to create a newscast that actually tells the truth to people about whats really going on . As important than i am, as important than we really are, we try to do that and to encounter this slop that you see on most cable news channels. Well, since we started this little thing, we are now reaching millions and millions of very engaged viewers a week on the news with rick sanchez. Its mind blowing, we have about a 90 approval from viewers who say theyre hooked on the program because they truly believe its giving them the news straight. When i was at cnn, i was lucky if i could get 40 approval. Really, its a very divided audience when you go to social media and stuff like that. Especially with comments on newscast. And they do tell us every night how bizarre it is that they have to turn on a russian tv channel to get the truth about america. Something, daniel, you said, which is kind of ironic. Me, because i worked in business, i kind of compare it to a business model. Think about it. If i want a true measure of how my company is doing, i dont ask my finance guys to give me a report, right . I hire auditors from someplace else and they bring them in and say, look at my books. Tell me if im straight. Im not going to have the guy who wrote the book tell me if my book is straight. Right . Think about it. The news is the same way. If you ask yourself, given what i just told you but interlocking that we trust msnbc, fox, and cnn to tell us the truth about our company . About our news . Im not sure id trust rt to, the truth about russia but i trust rt to tell me whats going on in my country. Because theyre like the outside auditors who came in and took a look. I think we may be onto something with this. As a journalist, i feel more independent working there than i did working on cnn. To doesnt that Say Something . It doesnt feel good to be told by so many people that you are appreciated for what you are doing, that they watch the show to get the truth that they arent getting from other networks. But its especially nice to hear it from fellow Truth Tellers, many of which are in this room. The prolific Truth Tellers who go out there and you washed them recently on cnbc. The announcers are, like, you could tell they were saying, get them off get them off that will ifb thing that we put in our ears. The Little Machine thing. So, it is nice. But, none better. Known better than to me, the guy who has created the model about truth telling. And, its great to hear that from none other than dr. Ron paul. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. [ applause ] and thank you. God bless. Well, well have the equivalent of an after lunch double espresso in our next speaker who gives a double dose of reality. And