Ep. 96 - I'm So Fancy I'm EXCLUSIVE

Welcome to a program where if you hear the phrase tick-tock you can rest assured we are talking about either a clock or the time of day… it’s the Modern Moron

Little bit of a long episode for you  and in it we spend a great deal of time talking about exclusivity.  That’s a good thing right?  You hear about something being exclusive that means not everyone can get it, or experience it.  And not only does it mean you do get to experience it, most people do NOT get to experience it… whatever “it” is… they’re excluded.   Now that I say it out loud, this podcast seems pretty exclusive because it’s basically it’s you, me and maybe one other person we don’t know.  That’s pretty exclusive!

We talk about exclusive brands of alcohol like George Clooney’s Tequila who started Casamigos Tequila in 2013 along with two other partners for about 1.8 million… so $600K a piece.  In 2018 they sold it for $1B, that’s billion with a B, which made him the highest paid actor in 2018 even though he didn’t make film. 

So be looking for Senator Single Barrel Rye Whiskey coming to a… specialty liquor store?  Hmm I think it’s going to be more exclusive than that.  You’ll probably have to go straight to him.

Next up, we talk about the latest investigation into Trump searching for people leaking information to the news media during his administration.  Trump went to Apple to get phone records.  The Senator is upset because he says Obama did the same thing while he was in office.

Now, you know that the last thing I would ever want to do is agree blindly with the Senator.  So… I did look up a couple of things and when I say I looked it up I mean barely… no, I do not read the entire article from newspapers, that’s why most decent journalists should write with the traditional inverted pyramid goddammit.  

Okay, the articles I’m citing are from a NYT Op Ed.  Yes it’s an opinion article BUT, it’s the NY Times.  Also  Wired Magazine.  You may be thinking, “why Wired?”  And I will tell you if you’ll calm down and listen to me for a second.  I chose Wired because A) I’ve heard of it, even though they are a tech magazine that focuses on technology as it effects areas of our life including politics, B) because it’s another left leaning source… left center and C) because mediabiasfactcheck.org rates them HIGH due to proper sourcing.

From a 2013 Wired article - The Department of Justice secretly obtained phone records for reporters and editors who work for the Associated Press news agency, including records for the home phones and cell phones of individual journalists, according to the AP, in what the agency characterized as "serious interference with AP's constitutional rights to gather and report the news."

The records, covering all of April and May 2012, were seized by the DoJ earlier that year and covered more than 20 separate phone lines. The records listed outgoing calls for both the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, as well as the general phone lines for AP bureaus in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and a main number used by AP reporters in the House of Representatives.

And this is from the December 2016 OP ED in the New York Times: 

If Donald Trump decides as president to throw a whistle-blower in jail for trying to talk to a reporter, or gets the F.B.I. to spy on a journalist, he will have one man to thank for bequeathing him such expansive power: Barack Obama.

Mr. Trump made his animus toward the news media clear during the presidential campaign, often expressing his disgust with coverage through Twitter or in diatribes at rallies. So if his campaign is any guide, Mr. Trump seems likely to enthusiastically embrace the aggressive crackdown on journalists and whistle-blowers that is an important yet little understood component of Mr. Obama’s presidential legacy.

Criticism of Mr. Obama’s stance on press freedom, government transparency and secrecy is hotly disputed by the White House, but many journalism groups say the record is clear. Over the past eight years, (remember this was written in 2016) the administration has prosecuted nine cases involving whistle-blowers and leakers, compared with only three by all previous administrations combined. It has repeatedly used the Espionage Act, a relic of World War I-era red-baiting, not to prosecute spies but to go after government officials who talked to journalists.

Under Mr. Obama, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. have spied on reporters by monitoring their phone records, labeled one journalist an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal case for simply doing reporting and issued subpoenas to other reporters to try to force them to reveal their sources and testify in criminal cases.

Now I don’t think this article would be allowed to go to print in the NY Times if those statements were untrue, especially citing the number of cases.  Again, I’d take Obama over Trump any day of the week as a president but it’s good to point out hypocrisy when it occurs.  

And of course, no politician, regardless of party affiliation, wants what they consider classified information to get leaked from someone who is supposedly on their team.  

Okay, so then we get to my favorite part of this episode where the Senator tells me he’s going on a retreat to one of the most exclusive social clubs on the west coast.  The fun part is trying to figure out WHO decided this club is so exclusive.  Because when I try to search for it guess which club doesn’t show up in any top ten lists of exclusive clubs?  He finally has me go to the Wikipedia page for the club he’s talking about, but you and I know that either of us can make any statement we want on a wikipedia page so apparently this club is so exclusive that nobody knows about it.  Hell, my house is just as exclusive as this goddamn place.  I’m the only member.  How’s that for exclusive?  Okay, I’ve talked to much already and the episode hasn’t even started.  It’s time to get fancy and really exclusive on the Modern Moron.

CLOSE - Wow, long winded.  By the way the tequila from way back at the beginning of the episode isn’t Geroge Clooney Tequila, it’s Casamigos tequila as I said. George Clooney didn’t sell his name or anything, that’s just me being an idiot.  That’s it, thank you for listening to this 96th episode of The Modern Moron… you know, for old people.  See you next time.

Geroge Clooney of George Clooney Tequila - The $1 billion sale of George Clooney's tequila company just made him 2018's highest-paid actor — here's the story of how the brand was set up by accident - Business Insider

Opinion | If Donald Trump Targets Journalists, Thank Obama - NY Times 

Obama Administration Secretly Obtains Phone Records of AP Journalists - Wired