Any information of the input from the Supreme Court such s. Citizens united . What motivates the Koch Brothers . Are there other motivations as well . There is what fills in the back story a small group of wealthy donors was hoping to break down the Campaign Finance limits with a history one after the next after the next so there was more to it with that concerted effort but in terms of what motivates those Koch Brothers it is hard to know the answer but i believe after spending so much time that they are urged to the believers with their ideology and if you look at that ideology there is almost no daylight with their selfinterest. What is good for pope industries is truly good for america and what is good for industries does it could for their bottom line. To see themselves as job creator and they want to shrink government and want to get the regulations off the backs of businesses with environmental pollution in problems to push back. But it is in their selfinterest. We were talking about how you were not able to interview the Koch Brothers so what is a question you would ask the most of you have been curious about . When they do interviews i of methodical so i would go through whole chronology to understand how that was they decided to achieve all american politics and why they thought they needed to it is such an ambitious project end what drives them. A lot of the early years are still mysterious and why they cared so much to do this with the far fringe spot to push the country but i do things chronologically in methodically with my question. With your chronological and methodical evening you have noticed they have been fined over 400 billion or paid over 400 million in fines with criminal and civil violations around of world. I dont know of another multibilliondollar corporation that has been prosecuted quite as much. We dont have a master list that is a long story there are three databases. But i do think we have a situation where early a company with that many problems with the federal judges and one stealing off the reservation these are not your usual multibilliondollar corporations. With corporate malfeasance. And that is part of the motivation and theyre very defiant and with the radical right i use that word in the title because they define themselves as radicals they are unusual people of the views better so far out of the center of american thinking. In the context of that. Gone a policy question you gave day great example with Climate Change influence could kill legislation but do they have the start of the apparatus and the influence could be effective when they had driven partisanship to the point we do need that to pass legislation it created quite does a bit of harm. With the ability with their help of the Republican Party takeover the house and the senate puts them in the drivers seat to the point with criminaljustice reform it has enabled them to reach out to others. They have a very different point of view on this but they see themselves as a force for good. It is into view that everybody has to share. Of all the people had you ever run across one . Now. As someone who has written written stories about those in power it is rare that they acknowledge they do something wrong. For the most part they have a tendency to justify what theyre doing and rationalize. They dont sit there to say theyre pulling below wall over but they say it is good for everybody so it isnt unusual to have this type of mindset. Butted its irritating. [laughter] i ended under graduate. We here at the point now if we see this money in flux as a problem is there a way to solve the problem . People forget it wasnt very long ago that there was a president ial election with no private money. It was 1980 and Ronald Reagan in jimmy carter both accepted public funding instead of taking private funding. It is a pendulum that sleepings and money just pushes its way into the system was so many private influences. It keeps pushing and the reformers pushed back but it has long as much as anybody wants. Kid has hit to the boiling point. I agree. Is giving 2. 1 Million Dollars of the of watergate scandal began and ended two years later now we have those to control and influence the current election. If you adjust for inflation it is still astonishingly higher. Than watergate was considered a scandal. And what is going on right now is the public is disgusted and that explains the popularity of Bernie Sanders handed donald trump. There is a public reaction against the idea that they are bought by private interest with huge money. So both sanders a and trump have denounced corruption and of money in politics a year and it shows to the public is listening in and day care a day care. We will stop because they know people want to purchase your book. It is cheap compared to buying and election. [laughter] [applause] [inaudible conversations] host explain how this will work. Guest we just got updated today and about 59,000 republicans will participate in the vote. They have a separate registration and they already have to be registered and then it registered to vote online data pin number to cast their ballots online to make sure it is recorded properly this is the largest experiment since 2004 in michigan. What happened then and why now . A couple of experiments with online voting in the michigan 46,000 cast ballots in the democratic primary election and before that 40,000 cast ballots in the democratic primary both of those were pretty big experience but they never were plucked it permanently so we have a 59,000 person turnout tomorrow that this would be the largest in american in history. Why have they decided to do this now . A couple factors the biggest was they switched from the state run primary to a caucus in they want to keep participation high. Online makes the barriers will work it is usually at a specific time with a bigger Time Commitment so why not allow them to vote on line to keep the participation right the rate up . So that was the biggest factor and it is an experiment that a lot of state parties and governments are interested and how it works in practice when will the polls me open . Also how does the party in sure there is no fraud . Good question it is open on tuesday at 11 00 p. M. Because it is digital it will be quick i assume and the way they describe those measures everybody gets a receipt that matches who you voted for and that it is more secure than a machine because you could make sure it captured the ballot in the Company Running it has done this and other countries including estonia and they have never been aware of a Security Breach with a similar rate of failure to others. Freelance canada and austria are also experimenting other lessons from those countries . Online voting is difficult because a lot of skeptics day were learning how vulnerable the internet is with websites in with their personal data coming to something that important there is no good way to Security Systems from hackers and those who tried to hijack the elections. Those that have experimented but nobody puts it into place except estonia that has had universe of nine voting since 2005 it is an option there. So far there hasnt bed any reports of breaches but it is a matter of time before people start paying attention and then this process experience. Your largest experiment in the number of years. And what ken day take from this movie and ahead . To make sure there are go breeches and the votes are recorded properly if it does go off without a hitch then perhaps he did state governments a Going Forward to see if they are workable elections. The caucuses are taking place tomorrow. They eggs for being with us. From the wall street journal. Speeleven. Good afternoon. Thinks for joining dss we embarked at this time silence yourself homes. The format is to introduce afterwards we will speak with a question and answer session. End on behalf of our staff we do over 500 defense per year. Throughout the city and of cited news as well a few like to follow our reading serious feel free to use subscribe and many more events we have done. Ill began to say i am pleased to take its bond dash introduce Daniel Oppenheimer with his debut exit right the people who left the left and reshaped the american century. Those articles and videos feature to the New York Times in the atlantic and in salon. Com. The profile for such as medical chambers and Christopher Hichens and author of the invisible bridge celebrates for exceptional wisdom and as a political essayist with the betrayal of the personal torment in the transitional struggles. That inspires soulsearching. Daniel oppenheimer. [applause]. This is really exciting it is a rite of passage for political writers to do a reading here. Just want or two more things i want to say the key to my life who is up part of the book in more ways than i can articulate. Thank you to be here with the. Also high to make kids. I didnt know what would be on television. So i will give you a genealogy. And how it comes into existence but in this case it does add a baby possible to fully understand even though i dont show up but healthy there is not all i in the book except personal acknowledgements. And at the and i will read a very short passage from the conclusion that captures what i was trying to do. I discover the National Review does the things that i have done as i discovered this morning. [laughter] so the book starts in a way with my grandparents who were schoolteachers in philadelphia. That is a fairly common story but it is said that, and more broadly it just to give you an illustration of the world of a story that one evening on passover there is the knock on the door the fbi came in to the house and questioned my grandparents about their activities of they were members of the party and what they said was we will tell you about us but not our friends. May be because the yens surge about themselves me be with bureaucratic issues many were fired for being suspected communist party members. By the time i came along am born into the left we household but the fact of my grandparents being communist and i would say ace simplistic part that they were members it was a noble thing to me they were persecuted for that we went through mccarthyism not examined very much has the day grew older in his left we household of the other leftist and marxist or communist, for a while it was a simple narrative but as i got older it started to become more complicated. I remember when i was in college i had a job with the holocaust archives sand i would watch testimonials from survivors and i noticed repeatedly with people would say after the camp was liberated but that was the end from the military force if limited liberated by the soviets it is is if there was a story of escape and danger to go through a sort of letter dash of the horrific evils committed by the soviets to complicate my own story what it meant to be on the left and also started to dip my toe into activism. And i got involved and i wrote some press releases. So i remember it was relatively early i remember this long argument. Began attacking one of the plants coming to the administration to pay lower wages to the new workers who were hired. So there was a long argued did. Then i agreed with until the end when he said who wants to eat the meat patties with wilted lettuce anyway . I said i am with you about the way the university wants to undermine the labor unions but i really like mcdonalds burgers. Edits indicative as it begins to articulate colleague up with the leftwing commitment there are ways it did it come here with what i was some of that was my a maturation and yet their car was mcdade growing a bit big don in america like the mcdonalds and though ways the leftwing pards did or did not come here to become more interesting and to be more pressing the be as a writer to understand what that the. I got out of college and started to write who would that be right whenever i wanted. I had written three articles before i realized there is a pattern of was thinking friday another book about the subculture of people who led to science fiction. And that was now working. So they said but i was in my car race italy activist of the new left, David Horowitz he had a falling out with the left because a friend was killed probably by the black panthers and that totally devastated him. And he fell apart for about five years then cabled the ithers side but somebody pointed out the be there is a never broader phenomenon may be not the mitt the looking back 10 years and if that was said to be clicked in the was already anxious his seemed like good good idea but in seemed to be working and once that was said i said it make a lot of sense i ask my wife and she said yes. [laughter] and i wrote up a proposal the last chapter of voted about Christopher Hichens. And i said to my agent in 2006 it will take meatier for years and she said dont tell your publisher that. Just say two years. [laughter] so i said i will have mitt 2008 plan was thinking 2010. Then i had kids and i got a job and realize how slow and a procrastinator i can be then finally here we are 10 years later with a book. That went from the left to the right to and that structure was born the to space believe. And was tapped to be a spy in the european d. C. Before the end he broke with the party came down on the air side, dealt then wrote a of great autobiography budget bellows were one of the people tapped to be his editor there is a growing influence between generations. And then they will seize a bird of shall fear no been in combat to toothache they he would devote his life about loss of eight literature and a product and those that thought that culture ruins where Steve Beckman the depression in hedge paid was oval stayed constipated writer is a the they should each queue for out or have something to say is even a lot of intellectuals in a death in her brand he became a leader or are in bed till derived an indepth they can in the belt the time with those marxist or intellectuals real aurora but learning more about their commitments with debra no and he of Foreign Policy for a while but to be with the editors of National Review to have a fair as the policy and this and ahead civic ahead new ida you visited paying a did a conservative. He was a solid live hallooed democrat for the first half of his life had ended this phase of really connected to do newt and as the father figure keeping the nation afloat during this time of crisis said it would start to move to the right until the end of the forties and fifties in particular it his turn choose the right that would win the cold war with the increasing familiarity of in to it beebread to work with General Electric to be one of the most comprehensive political campaigns in in to do with him and although they didnt require reagin to believe the ideology they were putting a lot there, the process to be immersed in their literature and surrounded to engage with ideas that played a key you roll it in his turn of conservatism. And to be a commentator ben he is a shaky if the move hms and to give period of those read he is an for a variety of reasons but the story they tell in the book is and it didnt with this live but where to establish itself to drusilla pellucid to betterton miller ran his end include the high tariff of an but rarely but one way it is more dramatic is his temperament has changed. On the yes side of this transformation is seemed as if he had aged 20 years of talent to prevent. Finally Christopher Hichens lewis is somebody i probably have worn by a personal connection more than anybody else. When i was in college i asked my leftwing father for a subscription to Time Magazine in a was so horrified that i would even want this vaguely centrist magazine that he ordered via subscription you can have time but i will give you the nation as well. And started to read the nation and Christopher Hichens and i was blown away by him and the degree to which he was so solidly on the left but to a pleasure to insult those of the left was this enormously exciting and liberating thing for me. When he started to move to the right but then after 9 11 and probably half have stories and if never met them in person but he is the electoral intellectual hero. I am talking about this notion of what kinda of perspective one needs to have to do the kind of trading that define the most exciting and what i may go further to say that this is almost a characterization of for looks like to have healthy political beliefs. Event as you can muster with neil strategy is end assumptions will not do the trick anymore. And i have my opinions and i am sticking to them and. They have changed them and is as if there it with interest regardless because there is a depth of humanity that can be achieved with what is in conflict with us rather than deny its existence. They reckon not reckon with themselves and dont like where they ended up comic makes the point to turn against the former site takes an enormous gamble to let go of who you were to not find an identity that is coherent and functional to alienate friends and coworkers and live your life with the fear you gave up for nothing. The payoff is hardwon and though most bitter. By paying close attention attention, by asking ourselves where they went right and wrong in extending sympathy is, perhaps we can learn something to do better liberal lives in be aware of the possibility is to be more bold and humble at the same time. Thank you. [applause] i am happy to take any questions. First volume stick about moving from the left to the right. Is there a tendency similar to that moving from the right to to the left . It seems like youre the perfect person to talk about Bernie Sanders