Giving a speech to all of us huddled masses democratic majority leader in the house of representatives stony hoyer and other democrats are naturally calling foul in a letter to the administration they wrote that the events will give an appearance somebody televise the partisan Campaign Rally on the ball at public expense frankly thats not what july 4th is about so it is present trouble tries in our holidays to ramp up national jingoism in an effort to boost his Reelection Campaign lets find some answers start watching the hawks. It looks like. Its like. What they like you know what i got. Was that we. Think. Its a. Welcome one watching the. Downtown. So youre ready for this july 4th im not going anywhere near military tanks on the ball potentially i would rather go to the mall that the oscars are held and. And get an Orange Julius then out of the mall and deal with that now absolutely not this is i mean theres nothing new about the idea of sort of having these you know. Military like parade like i get that i get. So for the july i think its strange that it came so quickly like this why would you do that the 1st year why when youre sloot of america your 1st year in office why did you wait until youre getting reelected but i think whats interesting is peoples outrage about that i mean for me im like now whatever doesnt come but you know i feel because the idea that this is somehow like new with trump i think is interesting and my favorite former pentagon and state Department Spokesman under president obama. Mr kirby i believe to he did he ordered military fly overs for his big speech on the 4th now according to the Washington Post trump is pushing for military attack this is who we are we should be better than this and far above this sort of crap. I hate to break it but this is exactly who we are. Welcome to do you see where like 75 percent of the people Walking Around are being paid in some fashion by a military Industrial Complex how much of our money goes to pay for all of this out how much of our safety goes away to make sure these people get more money for planes that fall out of the sky i mean im. Raising the already does nothing for me i mean i sort of. I understand democrats side hey youre turning this what should be a National Celebration that could potentially turn into one big Campaign Rally i guess their criticism i understand but. I mean im not a fan i dont want to see tanks on the streets here in washington d. C. But at the end of the day. The fact that people are outraged how dare he celebrated military life this is. So the former military guy who didnt know that nato is an anti Russian Organization thank you lets not play this like i dont know the military how scary we celebrate the military. Vehicles constantly in this country in this country i mean weve got fighter jets fly over Football Games all the time. Trolling at the pentagon estimates that just in 2010 we spent 1700000000. 00 and heres the key word advertising for the military 1700000000. 00. We spend 750000000000 on the the budget for the were planning to in the year 2020 thats what they want to try to spend 750000000000 for the military 2020. More than half of u. S. Discretionary spending in our budget goes to the u. S. Military but were not a jingoistic society you know we dont were not over here trumpeting the military often thats all we do its absolutely. But whats interesting is. This is what you said earlier this isnt the 1st time this has been pushing for this since but still this year so this is still day parade in france which is a layer of this because if we were in the french revolution trump would be the 1st person drugs from his home and products. Like the idea that that was the thing that really made him excited. Also theres the problem with this whole thing is bringing this was brought up before when he wanted to do a military parade here and try to do what the french said heres the problem our tanks will rip up every street in d. C. And if youve been do you see the streets are bad enough already so unless theyre ripping them up so that they can more easily replace the day after. Im sorry but i think that my ancestors who fought in the revolutionary war and helped get us that independence that we are celebrating this weekend would sort of roll their eyes at the whole thing the idea of trial of tanks rolling down and this sort of weird monarchy thats happening over here with. Me because that was the thing the government through the one other thing that kind of upset me about this too is that the whole sanction off the area of the front of the 1st half of the from like the front of the. Lincoln memorial back about house ways down on the. Half way down the reflecting on this all the payoff for you gave enough some america. A series of plans but unpermitted marches by far right and far left organizations class clashed both with each other and police this weekend in Portland Oregon leaving at least one journalist 3 Police Officers and over a dozen civilians injured demonstrations were planned by the Patriot Prayer proud boys and men Rights Groups him to which were then counter process protested by a number of and to follow groups while police tried to separate the groups to avoid violence it seems according to portland p. D. That the groups in Chapman Square and loosed in park square merged then began marching toward Waterfront Park this is when an unpermitted march was impeding vehicular traffic for a short time it was then that fights and assaults broke out as at least 5 separate regional and national far right and far left groups converged in this convergence and de niro and editor and photojournalist frustrating an online magazine the quill it was attacked by those identifying with the antiphon movement this isnt the 1st time and the neo has been harassed or attacked by and for protestors and literally it is twitter bio that they hate him it isnt even the 1st time that its been caught on camera however it does shine a light on the fact that no matter what actually happened this weekend years of media conglomerates turning our Political Landscape into a sporting event has had its consequences. Really observations all this does feel like it all feels like teams it feels like instead of going to the park on saturday and playing bob t. Ball or doing your dart league youre like oh lets go march against nazis so lets go be nazi its lets go do this you know look i just dont think they take it very seriously to be honest the thing is to lose its like youre show me these reports you know we look at. All these reports were looking at the video and all the thing that really jumped out at me too was my own after the initial thing happened and everyone went crazy on twitter talking about it was the amount of dishonesty that came out of it the amount of half truths that got cycled out right media sphere the blogosphere and all that like what were some of the biggest ones that you saw that was really one of the biggest ones i think was this the milkshake harry so you know about him a few weeks ago nigel faraj in the u. K. Had a milkshake thrown on him so that became a big thing became a sort of protest thing about throwing milkshakes you know promo checks on all the not. So a group had brought them there and giving a good milkshake by the way these are big and milkshakes. There were reports that were brought in that were sent in during the protests of a portland t. V. That said that these live liberal protesters connected to and you saw were handing out milkshakes laced with quick dry cement to throw it. So it turned out thats not true there was no quick dry cement they never found one and the problem with these things were being handed out and people were drinking it was part of a shake back the streets people were drinking the milk shake so if you would put it. There were times the people fell and people hadnt thrown in their face with andy no heres the thing this is someone who in a sweater bio says and if i hate. He goes to these and he puts himself in situations where hes filming them and hes in the middle of these things and like i said theres many you get the same reactions whenever he goes there to do at his gig as he shows up they dont like he says hes allowed to be there the whole thing happened but when you look at this i mean i dont see the point of this what does this tell anyone does that suddenly make an. And you know who suddenly everything he writes is pointless and oh my gosh who is ever going to follow him again it just it all of it feels so childish and when you watch the video of a bunch of these quote unquote intifada protesters which heres my thing about that i never trust a Grassroots Political Organization or any kind of movement that comes out of nowhere and most everybody involved with it is wearing a mask because ive read and ive done my research on the cia doing that in the fiftys and sixtys and seventys to everyone from you know black power movements to students organizations and the fact that youre out there doing that and purposely saying i am going to cause problems makes me believe more than nothing more than anything else that these people out there are there to cause a problem to make a political point. Because they may be part of Something Else and yeah im mad thats right c everyone the proud boy and whatever are meant to all of it theres something not right about any of these organizations extremism versus extremism isnt going to solve any problems at the end of the day i think you made a great point tablets like you know throwing milkshakes and throwing all this stuff on this on this writer and king about like you said thats not going to change his views thats not going to change the views really you know and the one thing that gets me that is if im sorry we talked about earlier you made a great point to me earlier that i have to commend you for is i dont see them out in the soup lines given out soup to the homeless i dont see and make in peoples lives a better deal as hamburgers did the black panthers at the only time i see and depose when theyre dressed in black causing a ruckus at a protest now they did do some good things theyve done some good things like protecting people during a protest the got heated but i dont see them doing in thing outside of that all i see is just extremism met with extremism of people fighting each other in the streets one believes have to try to figure it out doesnt going to solve this worlds problems im sorry all right as we go to break cork watchers dont forget to let us know what you think of the topics weve covered on facebook you tube or twitter and be sure to check out watching the box the podcast album spotify apple music and everywhere listen to your podcast and of course of course do not forget to see our poll shows about dot com coming up we delve into the world of the corporate with the hijacking of grass roots with author and journalist jason states those who watch. My son doing drugs my nephew switched. Dylan drugs my sister just with doing drugs it was like an epidemic of drug abuse americas public enemy number one in the United States is drug abusers started going after the users in the prison population who are we started treating sick people people who are addicted to these drugs like criminals while i was on the hill i increasingly became convinced that the war on drugs was a mistake there are countless numbers of people who are in prison for inconceivable sentence in this for being a minor minor offenders in the drug trade its a lot watching your children grow up and miss you in wave and say by day as youre walking out of a business its just it doesnt get easy. Shots seem wrong why dont we all just dont call. Me. Yet to shape out just to become educated and in detroit because the trail. When something find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. Kind of financial survival job today with the Money Laundering 1st to visit this cash into 3 different. Good this is a good start well we have our 3 banks all set up here maybe something in europe something in america something overseas in the Cayman Islands or do we do all these banks are complicit in the progress we just have to call and say hey im ready to do some serious Money Laundering ok lets see how we did while weve got a nice laundry watch for max and for stacy oh beautiful jewelry how about. Luxury automobile again you know what Money Laundering is highly illegal here for a watch guys record. The United States of america was built on a Grassroots Movement what started as a small grassroots set of demonstrations against over taxation grew into a Boston Tea Party and then evolved into a full on revolution that eventually saw the birth of a brand new country but Grassroots Movements for change the United States didnt and in 776 from the fight for unions and womens rights in the 1800s to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950 s. And sixtys to the 21st centuries occupy wall street in black lives matter Grassroots Movements are an interval of an fabric of u. S. Political history one could argue that they are one of the purest forms of political expression but what happens when a Grassroots Movement is coopted by the very power as it seeks to change or even worse was started by those very powers and order to influence Public Opinion in favor of a corrupt government or corporation well thats called astroturfing and it is one of the many famous journalist photographer and author jason biz not explores and his new book fake politics how corporate and government groups create and maintain a monopoly on truth and he joins us today now from new york city to take us down the rabbit hole a fake politics thank you for joining us jason. Thanks for having me yes jason i think just so people get my idea of what this is what what is astroturfing when you see it in politics and can you give our audience sort of a real world example of that youve seen used in our political system. Will typically rather than simply throwing money at a campaign or doing a lot of things that wealthy people do to influence politics that the would like to see come to fruition this really set up of a much Deeper Network of advocacy it could be think tanks that are often cited in studies that are conveniently towards one goal. Thats one the more common things. The examples range from a single issue big tobacco trying to delay the regulation too big or sustained campaigns like the Koch Brothers pretty much holding back climate legislation for going on 2 decades one thing you mentioned major corporations have also used this sort of astroturf and to push their agenda you brought up the idea of tobacco corporations but how does that work in a in a corporate world and and who are besides a big tobacco who are some of the biggest offenders. Big tobacco definitely is very good at what they do. Gas Companies Walmart had instance in the book its basically i mean you got to keep my never breaking the law but its greatly dishonest it can be through p. R. Companies it can be through blogs but its easier now than ever because the internet has democratized information. And thats whats so interesting is that its so simple i think people get is that there their own idea is that you think kind of what grew up in your own head that largo are kind of support this right really like this it could be something thats completely influenced by these kind of behind the scenes operators and youre suddenly now joining like a like a sort of Political Movement or you know or getting information that is completely true that that is being used to influence your politics at the end of the day i dont im curious are these types of influencing operations exclusive to you know one i mean we have the 2 party tragically a 2 party system here in the United States. Are these kind of things exclusive to one Political Party or the other or their offenders on the whole spectrum of politics here. I dont think its a party specific thing in my book openly there are a couple examples that are right of center but thats because the Koch Brothers and. The mercers are particularly wealthy and had particular views they want to see an active but they also typically you know wealthier people do tend to vote right of center as well so that it creates a connection but it really isnt one specific side and when you say how secure it is to not be to find it it took me months to research those books so in a day to day life trying to get work done trying to live your life these are going to things youre not going to realize are impacting Decision Making both for individuals and in washington. Now weve seen that is whats interesting is is that weve seen this in certain kinds of government situations. In which you know certain ideas get pushed forward certain things become a much more important thing in the in the process or in the media than they do than they seem to be to the rest of us in real life is this one of those situations where you know you turn on the news and theyre saying americans are so worried about x. Y. And z. And yet you cant find any people who actually care about that is that kind of where this poll then is making an issue seem like your neighbors are more upset about it than they really are. I dont know if ive done these to these examples of that actually know that thats incorrect i mean people talking about. Different reasons for your neighbors arent as concerned about x