Episode 80 · The GaS Digital / Ray Kump Era
Live From The NY Comedy Festival (with Russ Baker)
with Russ Baker
Jan 23, 2018 · 1:01:49 · 15 segments, 111 moments indexed
- 1 min
Music, applause, and TBS network branding introduce the live taping at the Comedy Hub, with a plug for the festival website and schedule.
1moment
- 0:43Tim compliments the show's graphics and jokes about someone who used to work for TBS now doing this work.
- 2 min
Introducing Russ Baker and Family of Secrets
#Tim jokes about the crowd not knowing the show, riffs on a running celebrity-scandal ticker gag with Tom Hanks, then introduces investigative journalist Russ Baker and his book Family of Secrets about the Bush family and deep power structures.
3moments
- 1:04Tim notes the terrifying percentage of the crowd that doesn't know what the show is about.
- 1:24Tim describes the show's ticker of real-time celebrity assault accusations running like CNN.
- 1:44Introducing guest Russ Baker, investigative journalist and founder of whowetwye.org.
Family of SecretsRuss Bakerwhowetwye.orgJFK assassinationTom Hanks
- 4 min
Russ explains how his interest in the Bush family began during the Iraq War and the 2004 Kerry-Bush campaign, including the collapse of the Swift Boat narrative flip and how CBS anchor Dan Rather was destroyed for pursuing Bush's National Guard story.
6moments
- 3:28Russ explains the cardinal rule of vocal performance: never eat cheese before speaking.
- 4:03Tim notes people immediately assume Family of Secrets is only about the Bush family and would rather hear about Trump instead.
- 4:47The Iraq War turned out to be fabricated—they made up reasons to go to war for oil and other interests.
- 5:19In 2004, John Kerry was a Vietnam war hero while Bush had skipped even the National Guard, making Kerry the obvious choice.
- 6:00Kerry got attacked over his Vietnam record while all allegations against Bush disappeared in a coordinated distraction.
- 6:21CBS under Dan Rather tried to investigate Bush's military record and got completely destroyed for it.
George W. BushIraq WarBush familyJohn KerryCBSFamily of SecretsDan RatherRuss
- 3 min
Russ details how he uncovered evidence that George W. Bush skipped military service and how his father covered it up, including the convenient destruction of military records in a fire, tying it to broader patterns of CIA document destruction.
5moments
- 6:46A $12 million anchorman was destroyed and forced out of his job for looking into Bush military records.
- 7:05Tim broke a story about George W. Bush's military service and cover-ups by his father.
- 7:55Evidence showed Bush had skipped out from the military and it was covered up at the highest levels.
- 8:35When Tim tried to access Bush's military records, the entire facility had burned down, destroying millions of records.
- 9:01Tim works on CIA research and notes that all evidence related to these cover-ups gets destroyed by design.
George H. W. BushGeorge W. BushDonald TrumpKennedyKevin Spacey
- 7 min
Russ traces how George H.W. Bush rose to CIA director despite no qualifications, revealing his family was already embedded with the agency, discusses Yale/CIA/Wall Street pipeline traditions, and jokes about aristocratic families designating a child to be a spy.
9moments
- 9:27George H.W. Bush claimed his first CIA involvement was as director in the 1970s, but the book reveals he was connected to the agency from its genesis.
- 10:51Tim traces the investigation back to wondering how George W. Bush became president when his major accomplishment was getting rich people to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team so he could wave at games.
- 11:55The father, despite being "kind of a doofus," somehow became president after serving as vice president, which came after becoming CIA director.
- 12:25New York Times articles presented Bush as a "surprise choice" for CIA director, claiming he was selected for his good looks and congressional background during a period of intense CIA scrutiny.
- 12:48The CIA had just admitted to killing people, overthrowing governments, conducting MKUltra mind control experiments, and the Church Committee was investigating them when Bush was appointed.
- 13:23They put a guy with no experience in intelligence in charge of the CIA, and the media didn't even question it.
- 13:56The author discovered through research that Bush actually was already in the CIA before becoming director, but was presented to the public as an outsider coming in to clean things up.
- 14:19Bush wasn't an outsider at all—he was part of the cover-up and one of the CIA's most loyal people with a long history of doing weird stuff.
- 14:52Everyone who attended Yale in the 1940s worked for the CIA, and wealthy families had a tradition of assigning one child to be a lawyer, one an educator, one a priest, and eventually one a spy.
- 5 min
Russ recounts discovering that George H.W. Bush couldn't remember where he was during the JFK assassination, then reveals the FBI memo showing Bush called in a tip about a possible shooter and the Hoover memo confirming a 'Mr. George Bush of the CIA' was briefed the day after.
7moments
- 16:15Tim reads about George H.W. Bush being asked on foreign TV where he was when JFK was shot, and Bush claiming he couldn't remember despite being 45 and a Texan in Dallas at the time.
- 17:10Tim describes asking audiences at his talks whether anyone over five years old in 1963 could remember where they were during the Kennedy assassination.
- 17:59Tim found a memo: a phone call to the FBI from George H.W. Bush on November 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was killed, saying he might know who shot the president.
- 19:04J. Edgar Hoover ran the FBI for roughly half a century from the 1920s until his death in the 1970s, wielding power no intelligence agency like the KGB ever matched.
- 19:30A second memo from Hoover dated November 23 mentions debriefing two people about the Kennedy assassination: Bob Smith of Naval Intelligence and George Bush of the CIA.
- 20:01When the CIA faced pressure about whether Bush worked for them, they denied it was the same George Bush and claimed it was another man, but a journalist quickly found and interviewed the other alleged operative.
- 20:29The other man said he was recruited to the CIA in November 1963 without knowing why and was let go shortly after, working as a file clerk with no significant duties.
- 5 min
They unpack the CIA tradecraft term 'block and bridge' using the story of a low-level file clerk falsely identified as the CIA's George Bush, plus the story of Bush informing on his own employee to establish an alibi call from Tyler, Texas.
8moments
- 21:05Tim learns that 'block and bridge' is a CIA tradecraft term for laying groundwork to anticipate and preempt future problems.
- 21:44The Bush family used block and bridge to manage George W. Bush's drug history by leaking a controlled admission of marijuana use.
- 22:57George H.W. Bush called the FBI after Kennedy's assassination claiming he might know who did it.
- 23:16Bush called the Houston FBI office instead of Dallas, and the agent who took the report was his personal friend.
- 23:44The suspect Bush fingered was his own employee, omitting that detail from the report.
- 24:27Bush appears to have been establishing an alibi by calling from Tyler, Texas about an hour after the shooting.
- 24:47The caller calculated Bush had been in Dallas that morning via private plane and was working for the CIA that day.
- 25:16Three—then four—presidents were in Dallas on November 22: Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson.
George H. W. BushGeorge W. BushJohn F. KennedyLyndon JohnsonRichard NixonCIAFBIThe Washington Post
- 2 min
Russ generalizes that politics comes down to money and power, using New York real estate as an example of an industry that quietly controls institutions like NYU, and notes how conspiratorial themes show up in movies like The Matrix and Seven Days in May.
6moments
- 25:39The American story as told by major newspapers leaves out the element of power and big money players in Wall Street, defense contractors, oil companies, and the CIA.
- 26:27Everything works according to money, power, or sex—which is often about power, which is often about money.
- 26:50The media doesn't like Bernie Sanders because he talks about money and power, which is dangerous to the system.
- 27:02Going deeper into these topics makes people uncomfortable and causes them to dismiss you as off or conspiratorial.
- 27:20Movies actually explore conspiratorial themes in films like The Matrix, The Truman Show, and Seven Days in May, but audiences treat them as pure fiction.
- 27:37People watch movies about military coups and wonder if it could happen, then dismiss the idea as crazy.
CIAHalliburtonRaytheonNew York TimesThe Washington PostBernie SandersSeven Days in MayThe Matrix+2 more
- 6 min
Russ discusses his reporting on Trump's Russia connections, focusing on Felix Sater, Trump's shady FBI-informant assistant with Russian mob links, and speculates on Russian hacking motives during the election.
9moments
- 28:27Tim observes that scheming is the most enjoyable pastime of the wealthy—they scheme on golf courses, at country clubs, in church.
- 28:57The Bush family represents a larger tendency in American society: powerful elites using their position to reduce taxes and eliminate obstacles.
- 29:42Real estate is the most powerful industry in New York City, with families who own buildings sitting on boards at institutions like NYU.
- 30:42Trusting the CIA's claims about Russian hacking is difficult because the same agency has been caught hacking people's mail during elections.
- 31:03Tim argues Putin has little choice but to employ cheap cyberwarfare through hackers rather than maintain a massive military like the US.
- 31:37Trump essentially self-hacked himself with Russians over the years by surrounding himself with people from Russia in his business dealings.
- 32:18Felix Sater and other Russians working around Trump were virtually keeping him afloat financially during his business career.
- 32:32Felix Sater, Trump's special assistant, had been convicted of attacking someone with a broken martini glass and involved in pump-and-dump schemes.
- 32:42Sater was turned into an FBI informant while working directly with Trump, meaning an FBI informant and alleged mob associate was Trump's special assistant.
Donald TrumpFelix SaterCIAFBINYUwho what whyBush familyVladimir Putin+6 more
- 4 min
Russ describes the FBI's pattern of infiltrating and entrapping suspects (citing Whitey Bulger and the Boston bombing), then connects this to a string of mass shooters with suspicious military/intelligence ties, including the Texas church shooter, the Orlando shooter, and the Boston bombers' family connections.
11moments
- 33:38Tim on how the FBI always seems to have prior knowledge of terrorist attacks and wars, with operatives already embedded
- 33:48The FBI's core operation: sending infiltrators into radical mosques and posing online as minors to entrap people
- 34:13Boston Marathon bombing example—Russian intelligence had to tell the FBI who the suspects were, contradicting claims of ignorance
- 34:39Whitey Bulger case shows feds allowed an informant to commit murders for years to preserve intelligence access
- 35:29Church shooter outside San Antonio had military service and worked in Air Force intelligence despite a documented bad temper
- 35:58Tim catalogs mass shootings people forgot about, noting how many involve people with military or government connections
- 36:39Pulse nightclub shooter in Orlando worked for Wackenhut, a major government contracting firm
- 36:50Boston Marathon bombers' uncle married into a top CIA family, and their swim coach was special forces
- 37:13Military training in elite units produces skilled killers, and when this backfires the government has incentive to cover it up
- 37:25Government avoids admitting trained operatives on their payroll committed these acts to limit liability
- 37:35Tim asks audience who's uncomfortable with this line of questioning
FBIWhitey BulgerDonald TrumpBoston bombingWackenhutCIAMueller
- 5 min
Tim and Russ joke about how uncomfortable the crowd is, then dig into the bizarre coincidence of Neil Bush's scheduled dinner with the Hinckley family the night Reagan was shot, and Russ recounts media friends warning him off the Bush story, including one Pulitzer winner telling him to 'watch your back.'
10moments
- 37:57People dismiss connections between powerful figures as mere coincidences, but the pattern is worth examining.
- 38:43Neil Bush was scheduled to have dinner with the Hinckley family the night John Hinckley Jr. shot Reagan.
- 39:01George H.W. Bush ran against Reagan, lost, then became his VP—only to have Reagan shot by someone connected to the Bush family almost immediately after taking office.
- 39:44Tim notes that people told him it has to be coincidence, because otherwise it would be too obvious.
- 39:58The Bush family operates on a different league than other powerful families when it comes to this kind of thing.
- 40:25Progressive media outlets never discuss this material in any substantive way, so they don't need to come after him.
- 40:59A former New York Times editor told him to skip the Kennedy assassination and Watergate material from his book, then Tim found a photo of that same editor with his arm around George H.W. Bush on his office wall.
- 41:27High-placed people in the media are friends with the people in power—it's a cozy relationship.
- 41:54Tim called a Pulitzer Prize-winning friend at the New York Times to ask if he'd lost perspective on his research findings.
- 42:20The Times editor's response: 'You better watch your back, buddy.'
George H. W. BushNew York TimesJohn Hinckley Jr.Ronald ReaganFamily Secretsthe Kennedy assassinationWatergateGeorge W. Bush+3 more
- 5 min
Russ contrasts his work with Alex Jones, revealing there's a different, legitimate journalist also named Alex Jones, and argues the conspiracy-monger Alex Jones serves the system by discrediting real investigative reporting as 'disinformation.'
10moments
- 42:42Tim appeared on Alex Jones's show once, and Jones claimed he hadn't read his book but knew about it anyway.
- 42:57There are two Alex Joneses: one is a New York Times writer who appears on the media criticism show On the Media.
- 43:23Tim attended a Martha's Vineyard dinner party where the New York Times Alex Jones made fun of the conspiracy theorist version to the assembled wealthy guests, none of whom had heard of him.
- 44:01Alex Jones is an opportunist who plays on people's fears and sells emergency products through ads on his show that normal people would never actually use.
- 44:38Jones serves a perfect purpose for the system by discrediting legitimate voices on real issues, making anyone raising similar concerns seem like they're in his camp.
- 44:52This tactic of using a discrediting figure is called disinformation and is standard practice in both intelligence work and corporate damage control.
- 45:13Louis C.K. confessed to everything rather than denying and going to therapy like other scandalized figures, which was itself a calculated strategy.
- 45:41People are trapped in a goldfish bowl of distraction, spending time on things that don't matter instead of understanding systemic problems.
- 46:09Sports outcomes and individual celebrity scandals don't directly affect most people's lives, even when they're genuinely important issues.
- 46:55When a couple of powerful men are thrown overboard for abuse, it obscures the larger systemic problem of abuse and media complicity.
Alex JonesKevin SpaceyLouis C.K.New York TimesMartha's VineyardOn the MediaGeorge W. Bush
- 5 min
They discuss why Weinstein stories got killed for 20 years before the media felt safe to run them, whether the #MeToo wave will produce lasting change, and how dynastic power persists with George P. Bush and rumors of a Chelsea Clinton run.
10moments
- 47:18Tim explains how the media functions as a pack animal, requiring a critical threshold before they feel safe attacking a powerful figure like Weinstein.
- 47:44Proposing a risky idea at work—like taking on Weinstein—gets your head cut off; everyone wants new ideas but only ones that keep you slightly ahead of the pack.
- 48:18Tim criticizes the term 'disruption,' saying companies using it are just making tiny incremental changes while calling themselves disruptors.
- 48:34After Watergate, the CIA faced serious scrutiny and funding restrictions, but eventually the attention faded and they returned to business as usual.
- 49:15Tim conducts seminars with entry-level journalists and acknowledges nobody knows if sex abuse reporting will sustain or become a temporary wave.
- 49:36Eventually people tune out sex scandals; the danger is numbness setting in when there are so many accusations that they become lists of who hasn't been accused.
- 50:18The old Yale club establishment never expected to deal with self-made billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Mark Cuban, who operate outside their traditional power structure.
- 50:54Tim notes the old white establishment split over Trump, with the Bushes opposing him while calling Bill Clinton a son.
- 51:23Both major parties are different branches of Wall Street, which is why Sanders and Trump got attention—people were sick of facing Clinton and Bush again.
- 51:50George P. Bush, a third-generation Bush, is positioned as the next governor of Texas and future president after serving as railroad or land commissioner.
Harvey WeinsteinMark ZuckerbergBill ClintonDonald TrumpGeorge P. BushCIAHillary ClintonBernie Sanders+2 more
- 4 min
Russ describes the deep, decades-long business ties between the Bush circle and Saudi Arabia, the ongoing Saudi power struggle, and how war has become America's most profitable industry, illustrated by his encounter with Halliburton contractors in Bosnia and Betsy DeVos's family ties to Blackwater.
8moments
- 52:19Tim details how Bush administration officials and contractors like Halliburton and the Carlisle Group are entrenched in business with Saudi Arabia.
- 52:52Trump allegedly in league with the Saudi family faction that placed a major prince and American company investor under house arrest.
- 53:13Tim jokes the Twitter character limit doubled because of the Saudi upheaval.
- 53:47War is America's largest and most profitable industry, never openly discussed.
- 54:08The military is the single biggest purchaser, so every business wants a piece of defense contracts.
- 54:48Betsy DeVos, education secretary, is Eric Prince's sister—he founded the mercenary company Blackwater, now called Academy.
- 55:23Pentagon lost track of $5 trillion in the five years after 9-11.
- 55:36SIGAR, the Afghanistan inspector general, reports that schools built with billions in US aid either don't exist or are collapsing with unqualified teachers.
warBlackwaterHalliburtonBetsy DeVosDick CheneyPentagonBush familyEric Prince+6 more
- 6 min
Russ discusses the Pentagon's trillions in unaccounted funds and Afghanistan reconstruction fraud, offers cautious optimism about fixing the system through better media and civic engagement, then closes with a quick aside on Anthony Weiner being possibly targeted deliberately before Tim wraps the show.
8moments
- 56:25There are a lot of people in the government who are great, and Tim defends government workers and the post office against blanket vilification.
- 57:01People working in government know they could make more money in the private sector, and many got rich off the Iraq War, Afghanistan, and Syria.
- 58:02Tim's guest says he's an optimist and believes the country's future could be fixed if the media improved, people cared about elected officials, and honest candidates were protected.
- 58:48The real problem is a communication breakdown—people don't know who's on the ballot or what ballot measures are, even for political journalists.
- 59:34Family of Secrets digs into post-Cold War America, covering the CIA, FBI, Richard Nixon, and George H.W. Bush based on five years of interviews and door-knocking.
- 1:00:12An eight-thousand-word piece documents connections between Donald Trump and Russia, described as real investigative journalism.
- 1:00:37Research suggests Anthony Weiner was deliberately targeted to access emails on his computer so the FBI could find Hillary Clinton evidence and swing the election.
- 1:01:06Tim met Weiner once at the Hamptons and pegged him as a self-absorbed douchebag, but notes that his personal failings are separate from how he was used for political purposes.
Anthony WeinerFamily of SecretsRuss BakerIraq Warpost officeDonald TrumpSyriaWashington DC+4 more