Jen Briney | Our Corrupt Congress, The WTO, & The Push For Global Corporate Takeover

00:05 Puppet masters almost surely have up this clearly, maybe something ebby And until you've thoroughly tested every last close-tested think you know the less you really do That's true Dr. Seuss Without THC Cause we're their lion to us just don't know without THC The higher side chat show our one company

00:44 Hello again, Ironside Shatters. How the hell are you? Drinking a little drink and smoking a little smoke from sunny San Diego I'm Greg Carlwood and today is the return of a guest I really liked the first time around fellow podcaster Jen Briney of Congressional Dish And I thought it was a great time to have her back because when you look at a lot of the legislation now, we're seeing the push towards total corporate control and landmark conflicts and laws that will set the precedent in the future are happening now. A savvy mind can hear what's in these documents and trade agreements and read between the lines and cut straight to the core of the conspiratorial tiptoe. So I think it's a great thing to examine once in awhile, and nobody dissects it better than Jen. We did record the show a few weeks ago-I feel bad because I hung onto it for so long but I did not expect all those conference guests and I had to fit them in before their big day But one thing that has changed since we recorded this is we were talking about the Trans Pacific Partnership

01:42 I believe now they have actually locked in the final verbiage. And now it's just one step closer to ramming that thing through, but it is important to note that change has happened But here we are, back in the saddle. Kicking off November let's get into it telling it like it is my friend and yours Jen Briney bring us in plate scrapers Pack it and park it tune in and spark it cause Greg's about to open up your mind Armed with information about the secret manipulation And the wisest of aficionados he can find

02:24 And he's pulling back, parroting on what we thought we knew for certain So that we can see the world with a brand new set of eyes You're listening to The Higher Side All right, people. We know the shadowy elite have been working towards total global control for generations and with things like government corruption and corporate power reaching new bold levels it's getting easier to follow their moves on the big chessboard we call home and see these various pieces of plans start to fall into place yet with so many people screaming from the rafters that the sky is falling very few have tackled the daunting task of actually reading and understanding the legislation these overlords have been pushing through including those who vote on it

03:08 And with billions spent on lobbying, buying up the government and ensuring the media always turns a blind eye. That should tell us what's written on that paper is pretty important and thanks to today's guest we actually know what some of it says. Jen Briney is the host of Congressional Dish where she reads and researches the congressional record in all the bills that pass either the House or the Senate and reports on that information in a clear more digestible way She's been here once before just about a year ago and I thought it was time we check on her once again Thanks so much for being here. Welcome back to THC! Thank you for having me, it's always fun Yeah the pleasure is mine You've had some great shows lately breaking down all the bills they've tried to pass and some that they actually did over the summer And some of these international treaties which seem to be big red flags But before we really get into the details let me ask you in more of a broad sense what you have seen in the past year Bigger and bolder theft and corruption I'd assume?

04:02 You know, actually the 114th Congress hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. I mean that doesn't mean that its good but I was expecting more corruption than I've seen so yeah im pleasantly surprised with what I've seen Everything's getting weird now. I mean, the 114th Congress only started in January but we just had an almost shutdown and then the Speaker of the House just resigned so i think that the weirdness is about to start In the first congress that I did, the 113th things got weird in the summer So this one was a little bit delayed But yeah, it's about to get a little freaky. Especially there is no one really left that can replace Boehner that can really be on both sides of the Republican Party like the one side that cares about governing and then the other side that's really quite reckless I think we're going to get more reckless speaker That my guess so Yeah i think the craziest stuff has yet to come

04:57 Wow what do you think of john bainer's retirement i mean it was that surprising to you think he's probably just going to work in the public sector do you think something might have been coming down the pike that was gonna put pressure on him and wanted about gracefully with behind all that, It was yes and no. It was surprising in that it happened in the middle of his term, and the way that it did where he just out of nowhere said okay I'm not only out of the speakership but I'm out of Congress. That? I didn't see that coming! But I'm not surprised that he's leaving because he has had to deal with some pretty crazy stuff in the last five years as Speaker and everybody is blaming him for things that aren't really his fault

05:38 2010 half of the republican party became people that know very little about governing and they'll pick a topic so like last year or two years ago it was obama care they just had to repeal it. And now its planned parenthood they want to defund but don't pick something and there willing to go to the brink to, Get their way and it's just a really reckless way of governing until he's been in this position i'm trying to hold together not only the party but also keep congress functioning and it's just really hard, end my take on is that you just quit you know there might be some kind of scandal that we don't know about yet but the reason i don't really think that's the case is after he resigned he threw up

06:14 party. They were calling it the Bainerland Bash and he had cases of beer, pizza and all this stuff delivered and they partied until the middle of the night so this isn't a man who's going out like in shame. He is like a second semester senior weight off his shoulder. He's throwing a party I think he's just done and he's going to make so much money as a lobbyist someday and so i think she's just served his time. He has amassed as much power as you need to go into the private sector and make boatloads I don't really blame him for getting out of this situation. It was just an ugly job to have." It's selfish though, I do have to say that. Leaving at this time is just not good for the country because I don't know who's going to hold it together better than he did." Well you know i think all these guys are pretty selfish to a degree and that's why they get involved or even if they start in government for the right reasons there are so many temptations and nobody stays informed enough to hold them accountable So they just think let me grab what I can while im here

07:12 But I sometimes have to laugh at these politicians who are 50, 60 years old and they're already multi-millionaires yet they still have to go and clock in every day. They still have to go to meetings, they're stil on the treadmill And i say the same thing about the Rockefellers David Rockefeller is 100 years old and he's still apparently involved in this high level backdoor meeting It's like just...go home man! Just retire and relax Yeah that's what i would do but i guess we don't understand the mindset of the rich and powerful right well maybe it is that ego they just can give up the addiction to power i guess but.

07:48 Last time we talked, you really were the one who put the Trans-Pacific Partnership on my radar. Which to remind the people is a trade agreement that gives unprecedented levels of power to big multinational corporations and puts their profits over the laws and regulations of a nation It is pretty creepy stuff I'm definitely more educated on it now than I was then but I am still a bit hazy on the state of the TPP Where is in process of actually becoming law? You know, it's really not that much different the TPP itself than it was last year because they haven't worked out a lot of provisions. There are countries that are actually fighting back against things like patents for pharmaceuticals and there are just issues that haven't been solved and so the TPP isn't done yet but its actually

08:34 it's a better place to become law that was last year because our congress pass something called fast track. What does is it allows trade agreements not only the tpv but also larger ones that are being negotiated right now and allows all of them until probably twenty twenty one to have an easier faster path towards becoming lost so what it does is it says that, When it comes up for a vote, Congress is not allowed to amend it. It limits the debate and its pretty much like the whole thing passes or none of it does so really takes away congress's ability to change anything that has been negotiated by executive branch and technically only goes until July 2018 but the process for renewing the fast track is so easy basically the president just have to write a letter in if congress does nothing extended into 2021

09:20 So what that means is that this easier, faster path for trade agreements is going to be for at least the end of Obama's term. For the entire first term of the next president and possibly six months of the next president if then the next person who wins his only a one-termer so this whole fast track thing was a big old mess and unfortunately it's now law and our Congress really limited their own ability to do anything about these international treaties other than say no entirely which so far they've never done Yeah is there a national treaty seem to be the new battleground and if it wasn't bad enough with them passing things like the bailout bill that are you know hundreds of pages that people can't even read congress's told you if this doesn't pass now everybody screwed,

10:04 And so of course, they're like well what can I do? And now they've made that even easier which is sad but the needle keeps moving. The goalpost keeps getting further away seems like they're just tiptoeing towards total control and they're putting a framework in place right now. Yes especially since we passed fast track because Fast Track isn't just for TPP it's for any trade agreements that are being negotiated and so everyone's focusing on TPP which is involving 12 countries. But we're also negotiating a trade agreement between us and the European Union, and we're also negotiating one called TISA which is between us in the TPP countries and the European Union countries at my account. The last time I checked it was 52 countries that are involved in this and no one's even talking about that trade agreement

10:48 And so what I see happening is that these trade agreements are creating a worldwide system for really dealing with how we interchange money. And that's fine, you know? We do have a global system now but it matters what the rules are and that's what's so concerning is all of these negotiations are happening behind closed doors and the system that is judge and jury is the World Trade Organization in their system which has corporate lawyers serving as the judges, and there's no appeal process. And so there's an undemocratic system being created in these behind-closed doors negotiations, and our Congress is really surrendering their right to do anything about it—to change the negotiations, to make it any more democratic, to have it be something that's modeled on our own system

11:34 So this whole world trade thing, it's being created fast and furiously. And I don't think most of the people in this country or even in this world really know what is going on we certainly don't know the details. Right you did an episode that was really good where you dug super deep into the World Trade Organization which is important because it seems like they are able to enact rules and regulations that are trumping the laws of countries and US law which seems pretty one-world governmenty to me It does and I was called a conspiracy theorist by one person after that episode but most of the reactions have been pretty good because i try to look at facts you know and not really get

12:15 let myself go too far down rabbit holes, but when it comes to the World Trade Organization I was looking at this bill and it was our Congress repealing our food safety law. The one that when you go and buy beef or chicken or vegetables or whatever you can find out what country they come from its called Country of Origin Labeling And they're repealing those labels because the World Trade Organization told them they had to So when I read that bill It just led to this whole well why are we doing something because the world trade organization says so and that's what led me down this rabbit hole to look into the World Trade Organization. Where did it come from? What is this system, who creates it, who runs it?" And I didn't really like what I saw and so that was the second-to last episode. Yeah, it's all really fascinating! So when people say New World Order or One World Government, it's not a conspiracy theory – It's happening!

13:10 And I think people are uncomfortable with that reality because it does sound so scary and it sounds so devious. I don't think the people involved are trying to create a bad system, but I think that the people who are creating it are doing so in a way really benefits themselves and benefits the companies that they work for, and really isn't great for all of the workers. So it's not necessarily the fact that a one-world system is being created that's nefarious. We live in a time now where this podcast can be heard by people all over the world. This is one rock we're calling home. That's not the issue. We all need rules."

13:51 It matters who's writing them, it matters why they're writing them. It matters what the rules are and it matters what our role in the process is and in the process of creating these rules we have no role and we also have no way to challenge that so that was my problem with the world trade system as I saw it, as a research day. It's not a democratic system. It's not based on the system that we have here in United States and it's not something that I want to see expanded behind closed doors Yeah of course not and that is a criticism i get to whenever there's a solution that proposes bringing people together under sort of one umbrella everybody in sounds the alarms and raises the red flags but you're right that isn't necessarily bad me we are global community

14:32 I wish the world was more like the United States in the sense that, I can live in Florida and go to Colorado whenever I want. Now I don't have to check-in with anybody, I do not have to sign any special documents...I just go! And the rules in Florida and the rules in Colorado are radically different especially if you like marijuana so I wanna see a world where we can travel freely wherever we want to go and the only passport we need is our flesh and blood. I'm obviously a person, and why can't i freely travel? You know, I like the idea of a one world community it's just... It really does matter who is running that community." Exactly! Exactly but there are people that just don't even think that that's happening um..I think The World Trade Organization- I mean its new and thats apart that I didn't understand either The World Trade Organization was not a thing in 1993

15:22 it was created like very recently. And so I think that's the part that kind of blew me away is that this system is being created not behind closed doors, we knew that this was happening there were people who protested in Seattle its kinda on the news but we have so much fluff being told to us that it really been... That's a problem with it being done in plain sight but also kinda hidden because if you say world trade organization in polite company at a party, you're gonna get a lot of blank stares the either don't know what it is it all or they don't understand significance of it. So that's one of the problems how do you change assist them are how do you

16:03 get your Congress to be more involved in a system that's being created if you don't even know it's being created. That's part of my frustration, I don't necessarily think that its evil or the people who are doing it are evil like I just- I really believe in evil to begin with but we're so unaware what is happening in the world that were letting it happen and were losing our sovereignty to this system And we're not even aware of it and our congress isn't fighting back what they did when the world trade organization ruled against our country of origin labels. Is that they passed a bill to repeal them they didn't like if they didn't go through all of the appeal processes they didn't get all of the lawyers in all of arguments for labels are not fighting for our laws there just rolling over to the world trade systems dictates and,

16:49 Yeah and I had no idea that was happening until i started reading the actual bills. I should be able to get this information by opening a newspaper, and im not! Right you're doing the job of the entire media establishment when your just one person but so this world trade organization who makes up this group? I guess it all started with the Brenton Woods conference if Im not mistaken right? It was basically all the people that won World War II, they got together and decided how are we going to run the world. Which like I said in the episode is not an unreasonable thing to do! And so they wanted three things – they wanted The World Bank, they wanted The International Monetary Fund, and they wanted an international trade organization. Well our Congress didn't go along with the international trade organization back in the 1940s

17:36 And so that's how we ended up with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but the World Trade Organization which is you know it is the international trade organization with a different word as the first word. But we didn't get that until 1994 because our Congress back in the 1940s was aware of what were signing on to. We were signing onto world system that affected our sovereignty and our congress said no And so once all of those people were out of office and we have these new people, they said yes in the 1990s and Bill Clinton signed it into law. But yeah it all started around the same time as A lot of creepy stuff. Yeah, it all lines up it's kind of fascinating isn't? Right I mean the International Monetary Fund comes up here quite often and have a lot of guests talking about that It is a little bit creepy because over half the nations on the planet are in debt to it and of course they have ridiculous interest rates and fees you can never really repay They've got the world by the balls as long we're playing by the rules of green paper

18:36 That's a really good way to put it. The International Monetary Fund, they don't just give out loans. They always have conditions on these loans that these countries change their economic laws to match the world trade system so it all is connected you know if you need money and go to the International Monetary Fund they're going to say okay you can have it but you have to privatize your airports and your ports and your banks and you know thats all it's all working for the same thing and unfortunately i do think that this system is run by the owners of multinational corporations did they don't really care about countries in there not too concerned about workers conditions you know where just, we're labor people. I'm not really trying to make everything great and harmonious for all of the people they're trying to make the laws

19:22 open for business in every country and make it easier for every country. Sorry. Parodian slips! I know, they're trying to make it easier for these companies to go into any country that they wish extract their national resources use the labor for as cheap as possible make as much money as possible and have a few rules as possible That's not a world system that i think is designed for us And when I look at this system that they are creating that seems to be The effect if not the intent of me I don't know what there intend was but thats what the effect is we've had enough years. We've had enough experience in looking at what the International Monetary Fund does to know what the results are going to be and it's going to be privatization and lower wages, and in the United States I mean

20:09 We had a lot of laws protecting our wages and giving us health care, so that's why you're seeing companies moving overseas. That's what opening borders and lowering trade barriers is all about. It's making it easier for these companies to make money and not do it with our labor if they're selling us products here in the United States. It's disturbing if you are a United States citizen." Yeah, it really is! You know, this is something I thought we were past but I do get people who write me still and ask if I support Hillary Clinton. And they kind of write me as if they assume that I would and I don't know where anybody gets that But since Bill Clinton did sign the World Trade Organization into law...I mean how in bed with them is Hillary?

20:51 Oh she is negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership as Secretary of State. In fact, in my World Trade episode I really have been trying to stay out of the 2016 presidential election it's not for a year and half i don't care but when it comes to Hillary Clinton Well i was researching that she said I had nothing to do with the tp and I had a clip of her in singapore with the president of Singapore and all their most important politicians pushing the TPP I mean this woman was secretary of state who's the highest diplomat that we have. she was negotiating with this other country saying, this is good for you. This is what we're trying to do." She's a liar and so she's definitely on board with these trade agreements her husband signed not only NAFTA into law but also the World Trade Organization this family is deeply involved in this and so for anyone to think that Hillary Clinton is going to fight it? It's insane like no they're definitely involved

21:52 right people like her because she has a d next to her name cuz she's a democrat and it's like these parties don't mean anything either cuz the democrats have signed these trade agreements into law and so of the republicans in that's the part that makes me crazy too partisanship in this country means democrat versus republican we're not looking at as people that are working for multinationals some people there working for workers i think that's really the big divide. Oh, well said. Well said I definitely agree that that is the divide and it is an interesting side note that Bernie Sanders was one of the people who did vote against The World Trade Organization He's the only one! I looked through all of the people that are still in Congress And how they voted in 1994 on The World Trade Organization he was the ONLY person still in congress who voted no It's unbelievable

22:37 Like, yeah. So he's—when it comes to the 2016 election I'm... He has a very good chance of getting my vote at least in the primary because he has stood up to this system and i'm happy for that." Yeah and you also did play some pretty spot-on clips in that episode from Ralph Nader too! He seemed to have been trying to warn everybody a decade ago but nobody cared to listen Yeah and that was a surprise because all I did was go on to C-SPAN, and pretty much download anything I could about the World Trade Organization from 1994. And he just kept popping up! I wasn't looking for him but he testified to Congress and he talked on C-SPAN's Washington Journal show... He was everywhere! What i found fascinating is that

23:20 C-SPAN invited Ralph Nader and some libertarian guy from a think tank, and they both agreed that this was surrendering our sovereignty. So this is one of those issues that isn't partisan. People who are paying attention, they knew back then and now that this system trumps our own. Yeah it was fascinating how all over this he was He told a specific story he said this could be the repercussion we might have to repeal our laws and it was almost exactly what was happening right now with our country of origin label so when you look at someone say something twenty years ago and they're right i tend to look to that person again for my information in his still saying these trade agreements are problem.

24:03 Yeah, it's got to be so frustrating to be ahead of the curve like that. You've gotta feel like you're in the twilight zone speaking out about something that nobody seems to care about everybody's eyes glaze over That's definitely frustrating Another big example you could point too where we are seeing corporations trump nations and power is Philip Morris I mean Philip Morris' cigarette company right now I think they are suing two or three different countries because they say these countries put so many regulations on cigarettes, so many regulations on their marketing that it's hurt sales. And you can't make regulation that hurts corporate sales and that is asinine I mean that's ridiculous but that battle is playing out right now too

24:43 Yeah, and that's all because of trade agreements. It was Australia that put a plain packaging law into place and so if you buy cigarettes in Australia it's not going to come with like a happy camel on the front its going have plain packaging or its going to have pictures of lung cancer and um...and that was Australia's laws. So Philip Morris is technically an American company but we all know they're multinational And so they used a trade agreement that Australia had signed with China and got China to sue in the World Trade Organization system, we've got China to sue Australia against these plain packaging laws. And I think the lawsuits are still ongoing but that's exactly the point that this is something that is for public health and safety it's to tell teenagers who are thinking about smoking cigarettes hey these other repercussions of it on the actual labels and um...in Australia's sovereignty to determine their own laws into terming what's gonna be on there the product sold to their kids

25:38 that's being challenged right now in this system that we are actively expanding. And so one of the countries that is slowing down the TPP is Australia, they are concerned about signing more of these as they should be. Yeah, they should man when you see the depth of this corruption and the corruption in the voting system if you could mobilize people where would you focus their efforts to unravel some of this? The House of Representatives, hands down. Because in our system the House of Representatives was always the one that was supposed to represent the people and it's the most local I think every representative represents 285 thousand people which sounds like a lot but compared to the presidency that we're all paying so much attention too That's the person who cares most about you because your vote counts the most to them

26:24 And so I would love to get people to shift their focus from the presidency, to the House of Representatives because that's the person that you can reach easiest and that is the branch that controls the money. There is nothing that can be done in this country without the House of Representatives appropriating cash to that cause. And so if you want to change what's going on in this country, that's how you do it. Also the House of Representatives... You can fire every one of them every two years a fact that I don't think a lot of people are aware of! That every one of them is up for election every 2 years and so they're constantly trying to get your vote and its also the fastest path for change. So we could spread this idea that we get new people in the House of Representatives

27:06 it's a two-year turn around and we really don't need to wait as long as we do for the presidency in the senate they elected every six years when house of representatives we can make a very big change very fast in the people who control the money again if we just started paying attention our own representatives and voting or not voted so on that's where I would focus my attention and that's why i focus my attention on the house of representatives In the last six months, I have started reading the bills that passed the Senate too. Luckily for me they don't do much work but um...I focus very hard in the House of Representatives that's still my boo if you will and uh...and that's the reason because that is where we can affect the most change federally the most efficiently

27:51 Yeah, I think you're right and it's kind of funny because all the time we talk about all these things going wrong and people are like what do we do? What do we do? And you say something like that to say something like get involved in government. People are like oh don't give me that We need actually fix things then I mean how else are you gonna Do it You have to somewhat get involved I heard your interview with Jack Abramoff one of the most famous DC lobbyists now is pretty insightful and even he said from the horse's mouth directly He said Making calls to your congressman really does make a difference. It makes the lobbyists job a lot harder and that's from one of the premier guys so take his advice and make their jobs harder people Absolutely, absolutely And that was great to hear because I had always suspected that but to hear it from Jack himself was amazing and it made me feel empowered

28:39 I also you asked him about being friendly with these politicians and i loved his term what's a friendship of convenience. Yeah but it makes perfect sense because the minute he got in trouble everybody turns their back on him and i know i mean you have to remember jack amiram office still a person, and he was trading on his friendships And when those friendships dissolved so quickly and there were so many people trashing him, I think he was personally hurt by that. You know? That's true. He said in other interviews but yeah it is a dirty business right now in politics. I don't think it has to be that way but the way that its done with the exchange of money being what people think matters – I think that's what made it so ugly but it's not the money that matters

29:27 You have to remember when a corporation or rich person or whoever gives money to a politician, well what do they use that money for? They're using it to court your vote. They're using it for advertisements. They are using it for that crap they send you in the mail. Yes they are throwing themselves open bar parties but those were mainly to get more money but really the goal of all the money, the reason we think Hillary Clinton making $28 million last month was such a big deal is because she can afford more ad time and she can afford more stuff in the mail so what that tells me is that they're still just courting your votes. She thought she had it in the bag in 2008, but we voted for Barack Obama. Remember how long she held on? That's true. Like she just wouldn't let go. She was like, but wait! It's my turn. But us voters

30:11 We were the ones who decided who that president was, not the money because she did have more money. So yeah it's still all about our votes it really is and the other thing I want to emphasize there are a lot of people here all the time that say well government is the problem I don't want to participate. Government is a tool! It's not a problem. Government is the most Powerful tool that we have to change our society and so if you're allowing other people to use that tool in your just sitting back well then whatever they build is what your gonna get if you're not shipping it using yourself. You have no control so i'm allowing other people to use government that's not the way to do this you have to think about it in that. You get a piece, you know like you get to hold on to a little piece of this government that changes your whole society and if you just surrender that wall. You're gonna go with other people want its it's not wise to let other people control it

31:05 It's not, and that sounds so obvious but a lot of us are ignorant and apathetic which plays right into their hands. But another thing critics of voting would say is how much control do we really have when an unaccountable private company like Diebold makes the voting machines? It's true, but even that. Like, Dbold is able to have electronic voting machines all over the country because we have hired people to make the laws who made that legal! So if we change the House of Representatives... First of all, we're not going to give any money to the Dbold machines We could easily say that every ballot in this country needs to be a paper-countable ballot This is all stuff that can be changed

31:47 Anything that's done can be easily undone, especially when you control the money. And so all these things that we're mad about and we say oh this government is out of control – we've allowed it to get out of control. We've allowed people that are untrustworthy to get control over our government and the goal now needs to find people we trust to get into office to make things better. That's the part where I think our generation in particular is doing a very poor job as of right now because we're sitting on the sidelines in the numbers back me up. The people that are voting are the same people have been voting for 40 years, the baby boomers and our grandparents generation were still not showing up. I mean Greg, we're both in California

32:26 people under the age of 22, so like college-age people 18 to 22 we had an 8% turnout rate for those people in the last election. So that's depressing on one hand but it's also a huge untapped voting block! So if those 92 percent that just did nothing in the last election... If they actually showed up? That's a lot of votes for other people So I actually have a ton of hope now that i actually know the numbers and now that I know how few of us do vote because it means that people are sitting on the sidelines can jump in and make a huge, huge difference. That is true! And you can be very inspirational on these kinds of things You make them seem very hopeful and very easy It IS easy! Voting's so easy

33:09 easy. You can go online right now to the USPS, which is the U.S. Post Office. Go online and register to vote. It'll cost you a dollar. You can do it by changing your address which is probably the easiest way. It costs you $1 and even if you haven't moved just change your address to what you currently have. The post office doesn't pay that much attention. Then you're registered to vote in your district and you'll get something in the mail which tells you where to go. You take an hour on one Tuesday every two years and you vote. That easy it really isn't that hard you don't have to give money to politicians You don't have to be the person that stands outside with the petitions like you can be involved without making it your whole life But if you don't vote, you're hurting us. You know and it's it is lazy I have no excuses for people that say they can't vote because it is incredibly easy to do Yeah, there it is

34:01 So outside of these treaties and fast track and secret backdoor agreements where else do we see these people sidestepping traditional checks and balances lately? I mean honestly i haven't seen too much overt corruption it's just the stuff that i'm finding in the bills where they'll pass a bill on is just so clearly for our company that has given them money like its amazing how consistent it is that i look at a balance say well who would benefit from this oh and oil and gas company in then you look up the guys donations at all look it is number one contributing industry toiling gas i mean happens all the time although. Oil and gas has gotten less love with this congress made in the last one it's the banking industry that is making out like bandits right now wall street is just doing all kinds of deregulation ends what's concerning

34:50 is that, we're recording this on October 2nd. On September 30th our government basically ran out of money and so they did something called a continuing resolution which means that they take the funding for 2015 and extend it into the 2016 fiscal year. So fiscal years start at on October 1st and go till September 30th of the following year. So technically were already in 2016 So they extended that until December of 2011. Well, this has happened year after year after year and so what's happened every single year is they fund the entire government with one bill right before Christmas when no one is paying attention and they take these bills that couldn't get into law because President Obama has a veto pen... They take these bills which are often favors to Wall Street into all kinds of different companies. They attach it to this big bill that funds the entire government

35:40 and attachments to the budget. And so what we have set up right now is that our government's only been funded through December 11th, right before Christmas it's gonna happen again! So I've seen a lot of bills that have gotten veto threats and in general you would think okay like they're not going to become law but i've seen this happen before every year when they fund the government they attach stuff to that bill and I see that happening again I will be absolutely floored if that doesn't happen in December

36:19 Right and it being December that is an interesting point because it is right near the holidays where people aren't going to be paying attention. And we seem like we have no power, We feel like we have no power but if we didn't they wouldn't wait for these particular pockets of time to push through this stuff Absolutely, absolutely. They wouldn't wait until Christmas every single year and that's the thing like I pay attention to this stuff closer than pretty much anybody and they've gotten stuff passed me because they pass so many bills it's not just the budget they also passed the National Defense Authorization into law every December and that is what tells you what we're doing with all our war money which is half our discretionary funding in fact

36:59 well over half our discretionary funding but it's half a trillion dollars a year that were spending on basically bombing other people, that's the bill to thousand pages but that's the one that can tell you what they're doing but they pass at the same time as the budget so here i am with two thousand pages now that I'm supposed to read and pick apart. They make it show hard and i think its done by design really do Yeah, I really do too. The Federal Reserve Act which i think is one of the worst things that we've signed on to... That was signed on Christmas Eve and that's the indicator right there! People aren't going to like this so let's do it while everyone's at home with their families. It was only a fraction of the government that was even there to deal with it but they got it through Well now another thing that I've seen not in this Congress yet but I've also seen them pass bills through empty rooms

37:49 Because they'll wait until everybody's gone and someone will get up and say, oh I want to pass this bill. And then no one is there to object so it just passes It's stunning to me that this stuff is allowed to happen, but it's all allowed to happen because we're not paying attention. If there was an outcry every single time that happened it would not happen as often as it does but we are not watching mainly because C-SPAN is boring! But you don't need C-SPAN to know this is happening I don't watch C-SPAN. I do it all by looking through the congressional record its all there and in fact the one that I use... There something called The Daily Digest

38:26 It's never any more than 10 pages and it just tells you these are the bills that passed. It's very dry, it's just this is what happened. any journalist in this country can look at the daily digest the same way i do and it's disturbing to me how few of them actually did because its so accessible is available the next day. It is possible to get this stuff and it's not that hard i am not that smart like if i can do this anybody can do this yet when i turn on the tv a few times that i do, the stories are being talked about our just I don't know what planet everyone else is living on. My idea of what's happening in government is so different from the mainstream idea, like everyone right now is talking about Planned Parenthood there has been one bill about Planned Parenthood there has been a lot more deregulating Wall Street but if you watch the TV you think that debate is vastly different from what actually being legislated it's amazing

39:21 Right. Yeah, it's either about Planned Parenthood or race or a particular school shooting and it's nothing about all the huge things they're putting through the favors for banks all the things going on in the international stage with Russia and China that isn't really making the front page either Yeah, there's a lot of distraction stories going on. "-Like how the whole world seems to be bombing Syria right now? Like why is everybody bombing Syria?" I don't understand it but that's because i'm not being given much context, you know? Anything I do understand, I understand from watching congressional hearings, that's where you get the information."

39:58 When's the last time you turned on TV and watched a congressional hearing? They're just not airing them instead You get 24 hours of what the Kardashians are up to and like you said like Planned Parenthood in the 2016 election That is the mother of all distractions It's a giant pageant. And the problem is most of us have already made up our minds We don't need this much coverage Of these individuals most of them who won't even be in the race by the time we vote So that is the biggest distraction and what really disturbs me is that people think that they're politically aware if they're aware of what Hillary or Trump or Jeb said recently, and that's become a substitute for knowing what's going on in the country. And it just... That makes me crazy! There are so many like this is a refreshing podcast to go on because there are so many like I'll do radio shows all over the country and they will just be like, so what did you think about debate last night? It was like, I didn't watch it

40:50 Like, I don't watch The Bachelor either. You know? It's become that ridiculous. Even when people get the opportunity to talk to me they don't. They talk about the pageant. They don't talk about the Bells because quite frankly they don't know what's in them and it's disturbing to me." Right, it's such a waste of time. I've also noticed that so many of the bills you've been talking about on your show seem to pass by voice vote which to my understanding means they aren't even recording who votes what is that a newer trend or has that always been a little loophole of theirs? No, it's they do this by... It's called suspension of the rules. And so you don't have to go through the Rules Committee if there is a bill that is completely uncontroversial and this has a place in our system because for instance the post office has some wacky rules like you can't rename it without Congress doing it. So there is no reason in the world why we have to have a whole committee meeting about renaming a post office. There is a place for

41:44 But what's happening is, especially in June which was my last episode they passed so many large funding bills that I don't think they really had time to read all the little ones and so they just pass them by voice vote. And what's beautiful about voice vote if you're a congressman is there's no accountability because you didn't have to say yes or no, and so there were 30 bills that passed the House of Representatives that I read for the last episode 21 of them were passed by voice vote and Voice vote happens all the time But this was it was extraordinary the number of them for this last month. I am I personally think it's unacceptable I think I think most votes should have at least, you know whether the person said yes or no. But yeah right now over the summer they really haven't been doing that

42:29 Last time we did talk a little bit about the idea that you potentially would run for office in the future or mobilize your audience in some way to fight back. Has there been any kind of progress on that front? Well, I just moved to new district and so what I'm doing right now is my audience and I have been collecting information on how to get on the ballot all 50 states And so I will be doing an episode to tell people in the order of the easiest to the hardest this is how you get on the ballot and i'll probably do it like really fast. You know, I don't wanna make a long boring episode but my hope is that in some of the easier states

43:07 to get people to get their names on the ballot because there's some where it's 25 signatures and you're in. It's that easy, and it's amazing but here in California I think right now we're 49th out of 50th in ease of getting onto the ballot because for me to do so I would have to collect 3 000 signatures and I would have to win the primary in order to get my name on the ballot which is crazy, crazy, crazy. It's really been rigged by the Democratic and Republican parties because of out of our 54 districts we had four people that were not Democrat or Republican that made it onto the actual ballot so I'm definitely willing to put my name on the ballot The problem i'm running into now is that my work-life balance is completely out of control and just working all the time and just trying keep my head above water So to collect 3 000 signatures and then win a primary in the next six months

44:01 in a district that I've lived in for literally six weeks. Like, I don't know if that's the best use of my time. One of the things that like I said, my husband he's working at a company that he loves right now and he still building up his resume but one of the goals that we have is to get it so that we can live wherever we want and possibly move somewhat frequently. And if we can do that, I'd be willing to move to a place if there was a group of people that want me to represent them because with like There's a lot of I mean, I'd obviously be a carpetbagger. I'm aware of that but if these people are allowed to Buy their congressman why can't a group of people that want me to go and represent their district? Why can't I go to their district to do that you know Or move to a place that You know like I've I like tornadoes. I'm a freak so I would move to Oklahoma and that's one of the places where it's like

44:55 like super easy to get on the ballot. I can go to the grocery store, talk to 100 people and then go and shake hands in a place that's less populated you know what I mean? And I'm not afraid of red states or blue states because I think the red-blue divide is all crap so I'll go anywhere." That's kind of how my idea about this is shifting because this show would definitely suffer if I had to do it the California way and winning the primary I just don't know how we do it without calling myself a Democrat or Republican. And I just won't do that." So yeah, the part I'm going to play in this is to try and encourage congressional dish listeners to at least get their name on the ballot practice for the midterm because that's where I have my hope to tell you the truth in a presidential election. You can already see it turn on the TV right now when you see it's already a circus

45:45 But in a midterm election, so few people vote that if we could spread the idea in the internet age of taking over the midterm. So getting a bunch of people who have never voted before to go into midterms and vote in new people at House of Representatives. My hope for something like that happening is actually any mid-term elections or 2018 election was where I'd really like to make difference and hopefully have the audience be able to pull out off but for 2016 I mean, most people if they're voters do vote in the presidential election and the presidential election alone. It's the midterms where we could really mess with them so that would be fun but yeah i can't run in California not now gotta get creative but it sounds like you've got a plan! I like it trying...I'm disappointed I mean I tell people all the time to put their names on the ballot so for me to be like nope can't do it um I do feel

46:43 shitty about that. I feel like i'm not putting my money where my mouth is but at the same time there's only so much time I have and um, I'm struggling so much already that my choice has really continued congressional dish or Not be able to put my name on the ballot. I don't know how he'd win a primary here I just I don't know how it would do that Um, I'd only have six months There's only so much you can do somebody else should step up and uh and run in an honest way because Congressional Dish is really great and to lose it would be a serious disservice, because I really do think you're doing the job of the entire news media. You know all of them combined they're supposed to be doing one thing and that's what you're doing and they aren't so

47:30 It definitely fills a hole that really needs to be there, but great job. I mean that pretty much brings us to the end of the line Jen thanks again for all you do Of course shows like ours both run on funds of those who want to keep them around and i'm glad we've both had A pretty good year of course congressional dish is the show congressionaldish.com Is the website anything else? You'd like to tell the people before we call it in No, I just want to thank you for having back on this is a great conversation. I love talking to Greg Oh, thank you. It's always a pleasure and very cool keep doing what you do. I take it back there is one more thing. Sure my Twitter handle at Jen Briney that's the best way to reach me and I would love to talk to each every one of you. I'm obsessed with Twitter so join me on the Twitter boom There you have it people contact Jen on twitter big props to you take care yourself this has been a pleasure and I'll talk to you next time sounds great thanks bye

48:24 Alright guys, there it is. I know that looking into what the government is actually signing and voting on isn't always the sexiest but you can't deny its where you see legislation that actually moves us towards many of the big conspiratorial campaigns we talk about And I think it's really interesting to see Jen, who really wouldn't consider herself a conspiracy person getting into the details of the World Trade Organization and just telling it like it is that yeah this sort of sounds like stuff you hear from the conspiracy crowd about the One World Government. But I'm confident that in the coming years you will see people like Abby Martin and an organization like The Young Turks get a lot more fringe and come out to these weird waters because

49:06 It's gonna be harder and harder to deny. We will see, but we also talk about here how much of the social conditioning and culture shaping that goes on involves things like developing a negative connotation to a label like conspiracy theorists I mean we know this i embrace it but they even made truther a negative label And the point is, you can take someone who normally would tune out conspiracy talk and show them things like the World Trade Organization or the International Monetary Fund and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And bring them around if you know what to point too. That's what I think a show like this helps do, to help bridge that gap

49:45 Because there is a small one. But this show, and by extension Congressional Dish as a whole... ...is something you could probably show to your parents or your partner or your brother... Or whoever might need to dip their toe into conspiracy light Plus maybe the show was a little self-serving cuz it's fun to have a guest that in my age group who also podcast sometimes i feel bit isolated as the weird conspiracy guy, in the podcast community and we are young stoner in the conspiracy community. I'm a man without a country. But if you enjoyed the show and this surfacing for air from the depths of our typical rabbit hole, in the plus show we got more into some of the economic cyber security and medical related legislation as well as a lot of other good stuff few people know the drill but also check out Congressional Dish and i'll see you next week so be awake... Be ready

50:39 I've done all i can. Your move backdoor wheelers and dealers of the corporate takeover, your fricken move. As they're sent to the game and torn apart We twist this tourniquet upon the pipeline That it carries all the pain in the wounds As we blindly clap and cheer from the sidelines It's clear, on a losing streak from the very start And that's where they found us

51:29 In that cemetery A smoking gun in my hand I'm down for the land of the free THC, The American Scream They took that faded ribbon off the oak tree They've worn out all hope in their arms For so long thought I was doing right

52:12 Now I'm lying in a pool of my blood And that's where they found me In the cemetery A smoking gun in my hand From the land of the free Sing with me, and that's where they found me In the cemetery A smoking gun in my hand Now I'm damned from the land of the free

52:54 THC, the American Scream! The American Scream And that's where they found me In my cemetery A smoking gun and mocked down from the letter pre Sing with me The American Scream