Podcast 13 - Watchdogs Go Quiet, Criminals Get Paid with Guest Michele Mitchell final

Episode Description

Richard Schreiber and Tom Martin welcome documentary filmmaker Michele Mitchell — Murrow Award winner, former CNN Headline News political anchor, and director of The Uncondemned — for a conversation recorded on the night CBS News Radio went dark after 98 years. The through line Richard names up front sets the tone: the watchdogs are going quiet, and the criminals are getting paid.

Mitchell, who calls her approach "responsibly rogue," traces how institutional journalism has been breaking for two decades — from a CBS president telling her in 2005 they were stepping away from investigative work, to Walter Isaacson ordering reporters to be "more patriotic" after 9/11. She connects that erosion to the $1.776 billion January 6 fund, the Epstein files, and a culture that now treats empathy as a weakness.

Her new film OG* — about the outlaw growers of California's Emerald Triangle and the unconstitutional military raid that tried to crush them — becomes the lens for the episode's central question: who gets to make the rules, and what makes someone a criminal versus an outlaw?

Topics Covered

• The Night CBS Radio Went Dark: Recorded as a 98-year-old news institution signs off for the last time — Murrow's house, gone quiet.
• Responsibly Rogue: Why Mitchell walked away from mainstream media to tell the stories the mergers and shareholders would never let her tell.
• "Be More Patriotic": Her firsthand account of Walter Isaacson pressuring CNN reporters to soften 9/11-era coverage of the Patriot Act.
• The $1.776 Billion Insult: The January 6 fund versus the 9/11 families who fought Congress for decades — rewarding the rioters while survivors were left to beg.
• Criminal or Outlaw?: The thesis behind OG* — "right side of history, wrong side of the law" — and the duty to break an unjust law.
• Operation Green Sweep: The 1990 deployment of the U.S. Army into the Emerald Triangle, a Posse Comitatus violation that foreshadows today's ICE tactics.
• "Quiet, Piggy": Misogyny in the newsroom, the press corps that won't defend its own, and the economic freedom driving the backlash against women.
• The True Alibi: Why everyone in the Epstein orbit "knew" — and the self-deception that let them take the money anyway.

About the Hosts

Richard Schreiber
Richard Schreiber is a strategic AI consultant, journalist, autism advocate, and fiction writer based in New York City. With a background spanning investigative reporting, technology consulting, and over 25 years in legal technology and procurement, Richard brings a rare combination of real-world experience and analytical depth to every conversation. He is the founder of a growing autism advocacy foundation and the author of multiple books, including Autism Care Revolution. His journalism is guided by one principle: facts first, always.

Tom Martin
Tom Martin is a veteran television news producer with more than 20 years at some of the most respected names in broadcasting. He got his start at the CBS News Washington Bureau in 1982 — where he witnessed history firsthand, including being in the room when Nixon delivered his infamous "I am not a crook" statement. The son of a legendary newspaper editor who helped launch USA Today, Tom grew up believing journalism is a sacred public trust. He carries that belief into every story he tells.

Guest: Michele Mitchell

Michele Mitchell is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, former CNN Headline News political anchor, and co-founder of Film at 11. She won the Edward R. Murrow Award for Haiti: Where Did the Money Go?, an investigation that tracked $1.4 billion in earthquake donations and found conditions on the ground had actually worsened. Her film The Uncondemned helped make rape a prosecutable war crime at the Rwanda Tribunal. Trained under mentors like Garrick Utley and Bill Moyers, Mitchell left mainstream media to tell the stories the mergers and shareholders would never allow — an approach she calls "responsibly rogue." Her latest project, OG*, documents the outlaw growers of California's Emerald Triangle and the question at the heart of this episode: who gets to decide what makes a criminal.

Our Mission

True Journalism exists because facts still matter. The press is a watchdog — not a lapdog — and the American public deserves reporting that shines a light rather than throws a shadow. This is not a political show. We do not have a party. We have one principle: if it is not a verified fact, we will say so.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello everyone, it's Friday, May 22nd, 2026. At 11 o'clock tonight, CBS News Radio will broadcast for the very last time. 98 years after Edward R. Murrow first went live from Vienna as Hitler's troops marched in. Wednesday night, Stephen Colbert said goodnight from the Yet Sullivan Theater after 11 years of holding power to account, in spite of being the number one rated late night talk show. And this week, the Trump administration set aside $1.776 billion, a number chosen to echo the date of the Capitol attack and America's own liberation date, to compensate people who stormed that building and killed DC cops. This was an affront to survivors of 9-11 who had to fight for benefits for their losses committed by terrorists. Three stories. One through line. Watchdogs are going quiet, and the criminals are getting paid. I'm Richard Schreiber.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Yeah, thanks, Richard. Great to be with you. And we'll introduce our wonderful guests in just a moment. Yeah, no, no, absolutely. CBS News Radio was an institution. I got my start in the early 80s at CBS News in the Washington Bureau, and many of my friends were really focused on the radio news, and it was the home of Edward R. Murrow, like you said, covering Hitler marching into Vienna in 1938. We also heard about Murray's boys. I did some work with Charles Osgood, who was certainly a CBS radio institution, and so on. Again, it's concerning. It's sad to see that chapter come to a close. The Fairness Doctrine of 1949 builds a legal framework to protect exactly that standard of integrity in broadcasting. President Reagan killed that doctrine in 1987. Stephen Colbert for The Late Show went dark last night after 11 years and 33 years of that show. I remember when uh David Letterman was David Letterman, the founder. Yeah. And as you said, Richard CBS Radio goes dark tonight. Really hard to believe. And our guest new film, our guest Michelle Mitchell's new film, OGs, is about people who broke unjust laws and waited decades for history to catch up. This is the insurrectionists are not waiting. We're going to talk about that more in a minute. They already are waiting for the check in the mail, so to speak. I'm Tom Martin. Again, this is true journalism. Back to you, Richard.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yes, our special guest today, Michelle Mitchell, has spent her career documenting exactly what happens when power decides who counts as the victim and who does not. She directed the uncondemned, which helped make rape a prosecutable war crime at the Rwanda tribunal. She tracked $1.4 billion in Haiti earthquake donations and found conditions actually worsened. Her latest project, as Tom mentioned, is Ogs regarding the early cannabis industry. She reported from the campaign trail and anchored at CNN. She's the co-founder of Film at Eleven. Michelle Mitchell, welcome to True Journalism. It's really a pleasure to have you.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

I'm thrilled to be here, especially as you both have pointed out this week. Very historically important moment in the world of journalism with C CBS radio going dark is just unbelievable to me. And as somebody who I'm one of the greatest days of my career was winning the Murrah Award for Haiti Where the Money Go. And it was so exciting because, and also my former my mentors were Garrick Utley, Bill Myers. These are that's how they all started. And then to just to have that fall away, I think it's important that so we have a game plan so that people coming up through the ranks right now get the appropriate training and guidance and and have the same public service that really drove so many of us into this career.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Yeah. And CBS Tom and I have talked about in particular. See, Tom, there's a lot of strong roots there. In particular, is under siege for understanding what Barry Weiss is doing with 60 Minutes, seeing Anderson Cooper's farewell and where that's all going. So one by one, voices are being silenced, which is just an affront to journalism. You describe your approach as responsibly rogue. When did you realize? When did you realize the story you need to tell couldn't really stay within the guidelines of institutional journalism?

SPEAKER_03 4:30

The thing is that journalism, what's happened this week, has been happening for a long time. And I'm going to give you an example because this is a direct lineback to CBS. I when I left Bill Moore's, that show came to an end. So my job came to an end. And I was actually up for a job at CBS. And I remember the then president of the network telling me, we're going to step away from investigative journalism. We're going to do more entertainment and big big interviews. And I thought, I just remember sitting in the office going, oh my God, I am about to get a job I don't want in an industry that is going to be dead and a brand that's going to be broken within five years. Now, uh it would it took a little longer than that, but look, that in that meeting was in 2005. So here we are all these years later, and the it's been a gradual breaking. And I'll give you another example because I love telling this story about Walter Isaacson. I know people think that he's amazing. I do not, and I will tell you why. When I was at CNN Headline News, I was the political anchor, as you mentioned. And during after 9-11, I was doing a lot of exposes on the fact that some of the legislation that was being passed by Congress, and that included suspending habeas corpus. I got called in, not just me, other journalists within the network also got called in and told directly by Walter Isaacson, you need to be more patriotic in your reporting. We're trying to win a war here. And I was like, wait, what? I think it's pretty patriotic that I read the Patriot Act, which was a. But I was new to broadcast journalism. I didn't, I really wish I had stood toe-to-toe with him and told him I thought that was absurd. But that was 2001. So this has been happening for quite some time. And so when I decided to break away, I honestly didn't think I'd work in documentaries. As Tom knows, I started, I had a I started a really tiny internet content company. We did some short things for YouTube and started experimenting. And then that led to me making documentary films, but it became pretty clear by 2010, 2011, that if I wanted to tell the kinds of stories that would move the needle and create real change, I had to look outside of what we call mainstream media because the the as these mergers were happening and as it became more of rewarding the shareholders as opposed to that idea of public service, there was not going to be space for the kinds of stories I wanted to do. So but I want to be responsible, right? I don't, I don't like I'm gonna be in the wild glass and making it my own rules. So that's why I came up with responsibly rogue.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

That's a great moniker.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

And I know questions bore you. There's so many intertwined forces here. It's how it's just a complicated picture, but it's important that we look at it. I believe I think all three of us believe. So you have these kind of twin forces, the Trump presidency, but also the evolution of technology and news distribution. I'm almost embarrassed or ashamed to say this, that when I heard about Barry Weiss's speech to all staff, you think telling people, hey, the times are changing. And I thought, times are changing and how people get their news is changing. Yes. But do we really have to abandon like you said in the Murrow days so beautiful that you won that award? I can see how that's the perfect fit for you, your dedication. Richard and I often talk about that sense of civic responsibility, but has that just been overrun? You hear about Jeff Mazo slashing the staff of the Washington Post in half again. And you you said you felt calling you saw the writing on the wall years ahead of time. And before we started rolling, you were talking about uh finding new distribution channels for people who do have the conscience. So all of these things seem seem intertwined a bit. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

Yeah, I mean, I want to point to to your point about how do people get the news. If you talk to anybody under the age of 35, they're not reading the Washington Post, they're not watching the CBS news, they're not listening to CBS radio. So one of the things I always find interesting is okay, how do you hear it? And what's fascinating about the answer that nine times out of 10, what they say is, oh, I hear it from a friend I trust. And that is a really interesting thing happening because if in a world in which you don't trust your news sources, and there's a million reasons for them not to trust this, yes, that how do you break through? And so I love talking to my nieces and my nephew about this. And I remember asking them, I don't know if you guys remember that there was this rumor, no joke, on TikTok, that Helen Keller didn't exist. I asked my nieces, I was like, Hey, did you are you part of do you believe this that the Helen Keller didn't be hearsay or I say? My older niece said, Yeah, how could she accomplish everything they said she did? It doesn't make any sense. And I was like, but she did. And I'm like, they we know this. And she looks at me and says, How do you know, Aunt Shelly? Were you there? And I'm like, Oh my god, I realize you think I'm as old as dirt, but no, there. But that idea of how do you know, were you there? That so I will tell you, I as you I was mentioning to you before we started, I do I have this talk that I'm giving to go along with the movie as we're in production. But I make sure that I let people know I was there, I am there. I make sure that I actually sprinkle that in there because there is an authenticity. We are in a world in which truth and authenticity are luxury items. So it's really having that that experience is incredibly important. But again, how do you get how do you convey that out there? How does how does it break through everything else? And I saw the the Bezos interview. Did you guys see that that he gave to CNBC yesterday? Fascinating. What a piece of work, man. I get asked all the time, who do you hope will buy this movie? And I'm like, I don't have any faith that a Jeff Bezos wouldn't totally 86 my movie even like the Melania movie.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah, one more follow-up question then you you're back to you, Richard. A friend of mine, I've told Richard about this for 12, 13 years, I've had a friend in Newtown, Connecticut, Scarlett Lewis, and she's a mom who lost her six-year-old son Jesse, one of the 20 little children killed in that school shooting. And almost immediately after that, probably that same day, people started talking about they're probably going to take away our guns now, and things like that. But within certainly a couple of days, a couple of weeks, some people started saying, like the moon landing, that was all faked. Do you know his parents are real actors and so on? And so Scarlet, my friend Scarlet face down. I never listened to Alex John radio show or whatever. But like you said, the younger generation who listens to it's clear the pod the influential podcast and so on, uh, the terrible Charlie Kirk shooting and things like this. It's how do you get a handle on this world and make sure that the truth really gets through? Yeah, I think that's true.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

Well, but I'll even make it worse. The murder of Charlie Kirk was a very clear example of nihilism in action. And the last time that we have experienced a rise in nihilism like we are right now would have been at the turn of the 20th century, and that would be the anarchist movement, etc. But that there's a direct parallel, and it's very scary because if you don't believe in anything, if we're not giving you something to believe in, what do you do? I mean, it's that sense of hopelessness is out there. And that to me, uh, as try trying to be a truth teller out there is an incredibly alarming thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

And then you have Candace Owens who's trying to shine a light on that whole debacle and what actually did happen. And it's almost like the JFK. It's almost JFK in proportion to what she's purporting as a cover-up and what the real story is there. And you make a great point, Michelle, about news sources. And we've uncovered a lot of deep fakes on on YouTube. I think a lot of kids get their mess their news from YouTube, which is often distilled excerpts from MS Now, Fox, whatever. And sometimes they're edited in some ways because they're not really coming from official sources. And then, yeah, I see stuff all the time from Rachel Matto, from other reporters, that is clearly not them, just deep fake stuff. And George Will, who is a Republican that I've always appreciated because he loves baseball mostly. But yeah, ISO is him obviously.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

I have a little type girl, I saw.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah, I'm a Mets fan. Don't hold that against me.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

Oh dude, I'm sorry, you are off to a really rough start.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Oh my god, this year's been horrific. Anyway, but you made a you raised a good point because Tom and I, those of us who have studied journalism, and I have a book in the work called The Decline of American Journalism. And yeah, the Ferris Doctrine was like strike one when the Reagan administration actually was there was a bill to retain it, but Ronald Reagan vetoed it in 1987. And many people said it was to prevent what happened with Richard Nixon in the party to never happen again. It came under the guise of yes, because of evolving media, it was more and more difficult to provide equal access and so on and so forth. But that really was the start. And then, of course, in the 90s, with all the corporate acquisitions of news channels, and to your point, in that meeting in 2000 where they're talking about entertainment, people from advertising backgrounds became head of news organizations, and it just totally diminished the traditional aspects of journalism. You were seeing an anchor in Headline News.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

I said headline news, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Headline news, yes. And if and a female who once reported on the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly admonished women reporters, calling them piggy. I know Tom has deep thoughts about that on Air 41, dumb and terrible persons. You lived in that world before it got bad. What did institutional journalism do or fail to do to protect the the women in the newsroom for these days?

SPEAKER_03 14:55

Well I don't think anything has made me as angry as hearing the president of the United States saying, Quiet Piggy. And in fact, so I'm from your Belinda, birthplace of virtual edicts saying, and I was mine see my mom, and she's still there. These two little old ladies are sitting behind me, and that's all they could talk about. And one of them said, I'm a hardcore Republican, I am never voting for that man again. And I don't think he understands how absolutely it's a very triggering thing, especially for older women. We thought past that. So I thought a lot about that particular instance because I started out as a sports writer. And when I started out as in sports, I went to Western as we were discussing, and I wrote sports for the Chicago Tribune. And was in on the sports page around the time. Do you remember there was a reporter for the Boston Globe, a sports writer, where there was a very infamous incident where it was a she was covering the base, I think it was a Red Sox game.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah, I remember yeah, I went to school there. So I do remember the sports.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

Yeah, exactly. And so I remember so when I started the sports page, I was the youngest by a lot. I was 19, and I was one of two women. And I have to tell you, I was so protected by the editors, by my fellow reporters, and I was in a lot of newsrooms, or not newsrooms, a lot of locker rooms, and I was at the conferences, and a couple of times maybe something happened and it got shut down by the other reporters and also the coaches, the minced up for the women. And that's really what it takes. The fact that none of the guys said anything, I think really speaks to another thing that's happening right now, which is accepted misogyny and it's infusing everything right now. And I'm blown away by how accepted that this has become. And it's enraging, but at the same time, one of the reasons it's happening is that for the first time in US history, women have as much of their own money to invest as men do. And that's before. So this economic freedom that didn't exist when I was growing up, up until the late 70s in the state of California, a woman couldn't have a bank account unless her husband You couldn't have a credit card until the mid-80s if you were. And a mortgage. But that so the economic freedom that women now have, you see there the rise of misogyny, it's in direct correlation to this, right? And trying to shut this down. And we're and you hear these smatterings of women shouldn't have the right to vote. We're gonna repeal that amendment, and blah blah. Good luck, buddy. But I think that the way that the president treats women, it's unvarnished. This is this is who he is. And it's I wish that somebody had turned to him in any of these instances and said, You can't talk that way. We'll get to that point, but certainly I think that the White House press corps, you gotta stand up for each other because nobody else is gonna do it.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

And it's interesting because he deploys women in high places and then demeans them, admonishes them, and diminishes them.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

Um he's a misogynist, let's face it. You know it's just and he looks at women as objects. And if you though God bless those three women who I never thought I'd want to have a drink with in Congress, he's Harvard Crane, Norm Grubert, and Nancy Mace, because they stood, they faced him down, and then we have the Epstein files because of them. Yeah, and all you need to know about that guy is the fact that he was so close to a person who everybody knew what Jeffrey Epstein was up to. Right. Look, the my I'm gonna tell another story about my mother. A total conservative, but when he paved over Jackie's Rose Garden, that was it. She was livid about that. He tore down the East Wing. What else do we need to know about how this rolls?

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Yeah, and this whole 1776. And I know, Tom, you wanted to talk more about that because it's not just about the slush fund, which is what people are calling it for the January 6th victims, which is really, as I mentioned earlier, a tremendous affront to the families of 9-11.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

I there was a woman on Facebook right after January 6th, and she's on the school board in Yorbalinda, my former hometown, and she was talking about oh, oh, I just happened to be in DC, and I just happened to wander into this. I posted on there on her Facebook. I'm like, I'm reporting you to the FBI right now, and I did. It was super satisfying. And anybody, I will take this argument with anybody who thinks that those guys were patriots or no, you you know that's people died, people were assaulted, people were killed. Yes, people were killed.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Because all yeah, because they were directed to do so by the ex-president and the complicity of his inner cabinet, all of which was laid out and all the indictments.

unknown 19:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

So the tagline of my new film, which is OG with an asterisk, and the asterisk is right side of history, wrong side of the law. And I have to say, history, the wheels of history grind slow, but fine. And the people who were complicit in that, they will find their day. Because as the my other film was about the trial that made rape an international war crime, which happened after the Verwanan genocide. Yes. And the top guys, they yes, were they caught, they were caught, they were sentenced. Many of them have since been released, but it's the middle guys who could have stopped it and who did it. And under Article 63 of the Geneva Accords, that makes you as culpable as the person giving the order. And so all those people in the middle who are just go going along to get along, dude. That's who history's gonna come for. You not Trump, but you, and you're in a lot of trouble. Because if I was Christy Gnome right now, I'd be lawyering up.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

And she is, and she is because Trump tried to smear her just as he did Marjorie Taylor Greene. I think every everyone in the MAGA party should be mandatorily have to review the Nuremberg trials, because that's where this is heading. You I was only following orders. I'm of German descent, so I've studied a lot of my own country's history and and the remorse that the generation of German people that were part of that whole is just extraordinary, which is why Germany is the second largest contributor to Israel for foreign aid, because they have a in perpetuity, they feel the necessity to make restitution for what happened during the Holocaust so that it never ever permeates their culture again.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

But's happening these days is just a trade and reconciliation process like they had in South Africa is probably what is going to be necessary. But one of the things that I find remarkable about what's happening now, and okay, and by the way, that I think Tom, you wanted to also address the fact that in addition to the slush fund, the oh, and for Forever. We will never audit you. World certainly.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

About is their line written into this deck corporate establishment of the fund.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

No surveillance, no. It's could the C I know that they're the government, so they have power. Yeah. But the CEO of a large corporation says I can never be surveilled. And my so I have to remember.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

Not only that, he here's where you can't really put that in the uh I love it because it means that he's guilty. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

That he just made our job opposite.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

He's been accused of insider trading, dropping dropping before his actions in the Iran War of Venezuela, whatever it is, so that when the market tanks, all of his billionaire-trillionaire friends can short the market and still make money as the market goes down and then make money on the uptick. In this agreement with the DOJ in this landmark settlement. He can't be convicted for any crimes of insider trading. He doesn't pay taxes on the windfall. If he cheats on his taxes, he's exempt from IRS prosecution.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

This is something that people can understand though. And that's why so, like when Bezos was trying in his interview, he was like, Well, I pay a lot of tax, but dude, we know you don't. Stop it. No, you don't. And you're so insulated with I think it was Krugman who calls it billionaire brain. You're so insulated that you aren't understanding how much people hate you right now. And you pay for people to like you. You can't. And and the pitchforks are gonna come. They historically speaking, we've been here before, we know what's gonna happen. The answer, the question really, and I don't have the answer for this, I've got a pretty good guess, is how do we all react? And then also, again, journalism is the first draft of history, right? We I think we all agree with that. And are we equipped to properly cover these things and get that information out in a responsible way and that people will read and pay attention to?

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Absolutely. I'd love to hear more about your current film, yeah, in terms of like you said, insight into history as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

I uh I have to make an admission. I grew up in New Calls, New York in the 1970s. So that should give you a little bit of a so I am a reformed whatever.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

I'm not I am not someone who smokes weed or does gummies or anything.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

And I don't recommend it. No.

SPEAKER_03 24:36

My lane is wine. Like there's a lot of honestly, I think that there's there's I've heard a lot about plant medicine and all that stuff. But what was interesting to me was, and the reason why I wanted to do this story was because when I went up into the Emerald Triangle is Mendocino, Kumboldt, and Trinity County. So it's in the redwood, it's north of wine country. And it really is the epicenter of what became became the marijuana industry as we know it in the United States, because people moved a lot of anti-war protesters and back to move back to the land, right? And a lot of Vietnam veterans were there as well. The land was inexpensive, and the idea was self-sufficiency. So they smoked weed, so they weren't gonna buy it. So they were like threw some seeds to the ground, but they were tinkerers. They had to be because they're off grid. They had to build everything themselves. And a lot of them were scientists, engineers, and scholars, and and they traveled a lot. So that you got all these different seeds coming, and they heard about the stuff in Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

It sounds like it's non-analogous to making wine, Michelle.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

It is a little bad, to be honest with you. So what they ended up crossing and tinkering with did change the world of marijuana, like around the world. But but what was interesting was when I went up there to start talking to people about this secret history, I saw what I were I saw physical signs of PTS, and I know what those are because I've had it. But anybody who's been in a conflict zone is very susceptible to to trauma. And I was like, wait a minute, what happened up here? And then that's when I heard about the helicopters and I heard about the asset forfeiture, and I heard about the home invasions and then kids being taken away from their parents under charges of child endangerment. And that's when this became a different story. And then I heard about something called Operation Green Sweep, which happened during 1990. George H. W. Bush sent in the US Army's 7th Infantry into the Emerald Triangle to enforce domestic criminal law, which of course is unconstitutional. It's in violation of the Pose Comitatis Act of 1878, to be very specific. And that community rightly read this as if we don't take a stand, they're gonna do this in more vulnerable communities under the guise of the war on drugs. And that community fought back and they did it in all sorts of interesting ways. They did it the anti-war protester way of a sit-in and a protest and a lawsuit. And then they did it, and the second generation of growers was a little bit more crazy because that's the go-go days. And they slashed tires and parked buses and abandoned vehicles. And my very favorite thing they did was they snuck into the VIP's hotel rooms and wiped down the sheets with poison oak and call it a special turn down service. So that was an operation that was supposed to last three weeks that lasted 10 days, and the federal government did not do it again. And so I to what as I'm learning about this, I'm like, you know what? There's so many parallels to what's happening today.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah, especially with ice.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Yeah. And when you see some of the footage, you and you realize we did this to our own people. What? But they not only push back, they created an industry that was never even meant to be an industry. And I think that they show us that you can take that road less traveled, even if everyone around you tells wrong because you might be right. But to the point that you guys started with when we began our conversation, this idea of what's a criminal and what's an outlaw. And one of the things that I wanted to add ask and answer in this movie is okay, who gets to make the rules? And what if those rules are made very specifically to keep you out, to oppress you, to marginalize you? Does it make you a criminal if you break those rules? And B, the people in my film, even though they are still regarded as federal criminals because cannabis is still federally illegal. Yeah, A, to me, those they're outlaws. The people who are the criminals are the ones in the Epstein files. Flat out. And I like this question of what makes a criminal what makes an outlaw, because as one of the OGs in my film says, it is the duty of every citizen to protest an unjust law. And I think that there's never been a better time for us to learn that civics lesson again.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Especially when we're being bombarded by executive actions that are not only unconstitutional but borderline illegal. Yes. We're pushing against the courts, the federal courts that kind of check that, but then the next ball gets handed off to the Supreme Court, and now we're basically being held at held up by whatever the Supreme Court decrees, and we know how their leanings are these days. But yeah, it's interesting because Tom and I have talked about a lot of these instances are apolitical. It's like more people were deported under Barack Obama than any other president because he was a good administrator. He was incredibly effective, whereas Trump is not. He's an incredibly bad administrator, which is why they've wasted billions of dollars on ICE and gotten ineffectual response. Those are facts. If Obama had given had been given that kind of money, I hate to I hate to think about how many people additionally would have been deported. Uh, Bill Clinton, the war on drugs that you mentioned, exploded under Bill Clinton. Over a million black Afric African American young men imprisoned because of drug crimes that really should have been misdemeanors or not even imprisoned.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

I were I actually uh talked about this in my my my lecture that I gave on Monday, which you will be at in in New York soon. But one of the things I talk about, I was on Capitol Hill in 1994 when we passed the crime bill, which established federal mandatory minimum sentencing. And that's exactly what sent all those all those young black men in particular to prison. And frankly, Bill Clinton was not a good president. I resent the fact that I ended up voting for his wife. And I only voted for her because I wasn't gonna vote for Donald Trump.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

He was not a great president at all. And in fact, what he some of how he spent his time in office, oh my God, what a wasted opportunity. And he's saying I could go on and on, but he had his time and wasted it. But the the federal mandatory minimum sentencing, which still exists, by the way, our off-camera narrator is a black man who just finished his serving his sentence. And he got the mandatory minimum of 10 years without any priors, and he was and he had to serve out that time. My on-camera narrator, by the way, is also my producer, and that's Woody Harrelson.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

So somebody who's been on the right side of these arguments forever, and a chapeau to him for standing up for the people who have been voiceless. But yeah, be it the prison industrial complex, which frankly, there aren't as many people being sentenced now, uh, which is probably why they're building these detention centers, right? Gotta have some, yeah, gotta sleep.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Yeah, you gotta diversify, right? Because and Bill Clinton to his credit, at least subsequently said year many years later, he regretted passing that bill.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

You know what? I don't care, and I'll tell you why. He also said he regretted not getting in trying to prevent the Rwandan genocide. And it just it's unacceptable for these people to say years later, oh, I regret that. Guess what? A lot of people who there were people, there are people in history who have stood up at the right time and done the right thing, and they've done so at great harm to themselves mentally and physically, and they have had given up a lot to stand up and do that. And so when a total chicken like Bill Clinton says that, dude, not I'm sorry, history called you and you didn't pick up.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

And you yeah. Think of Abraham Lincoln. There's a man who stood up and faced the music.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

Yeah, there's him, and there's the and there's so many people that you don't even hear about who do the right thing. I'm I was just rereading King Leopold's and there was a guy, Edward Morrall, who is the reason why we even heard anything about what Leopold was doing in Congo and all of the horrific crimes against humanity that were occurring. This guy was a clerk. He was a clerk for a shipping company, it was a very comfortable job. And he looking at the records of okay, all this ivory is coming in and we're shipping out weapons, what's going on? And he's the one who blew the cover on this. And he also spoke out against World War I and said, All these countries had these secret agreements, and he was prosecuted by his own government of the youth, went to prison for this, but he was right. There were all these secret agreements. So, in a world in which you could be that guy or Bill Clinton, be that guy. I will I wouldn't, and I'll also say that the OGs in my film, I did ask them, was it worth it? And because they're not rich, they're not famous, they've suffered a lot. And all of them are like, yeah, look at the cool life I've led, and look at all the neat things I've done. And I thought, you know what, you want to finish well. And I'm sorry, I'm up on my soapbox because nothing like the people who are in a position of power and who screw it up.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

We have that in in common. Tom, you get the last question before we head to our section where we call the top five propaganda stories, which we would love you to dial in on also.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah, we uh yeah, no, you're welcome to join. I don't know. This is not a small question, but just I don't think you have any time limits here. Speaking of cowardly behavior, you mentioned the Epstein files earlier. What are your thoughts about that? We'd love to hear more about that.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

So okay, I've got a lot of thoughts on that. The main thought that I think is really important here, first of all, I met Jeffrey Epstein. I actually had to drink with him once. I met him, I was a I was in, it was very safe for me because I was 36 at the time. So all good. But here's the thing that I met him in 2006. And so that was post after his first arrest, right? And the infamous one where he didn't really have to serve much of a sentence. And then I was also on the guest, I was part of the Rolodex that Peggy Siegel had. Peggy Siegel being the PR guru who had a lot of events and everything, and she did a lot of Oscar campaigns, and so I was part of a seat filler, basically, for these different parties. But I have to say, everybody knew what was going on with Jeffrey Epstein. And so when I hear people say, Oh, I went to his house and I had dinner, but I didn't know, it's I'm sorry, you all knew. I was really low on the totem pole, and I knew. And Tina Brown blamed one of the very few people I've ever heard of who didn't go to his parties because she's no, you she called it like it was. But there were plenty of people in our profession who went to those parties and they knew what was going on. And I think that they're also culpable of carrying the water because and I always wonder about these people who were willing to take his money or his connections, and they knew how he accumulated all this stuff, right? And they were able to reason out in their brains that it was okay because, oh, I'll get to do my scientific study, or oh, I'll get to make my movie. And a phrase that describes what how they did this, and it also applies to Bill Clinton saying, Oh, I regret, blah, blah, blah. It's called a true alibi. So you're not lying to yourself. These are alibis, but they're true alibis because you believe this. You truly have convinced yourself of this. And shame on all of them, honestly. Like, and I think we actually have to call them on it and say, There has to be some sort of higher accountability, really, is what yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

And I think with respect to the Epstein, there's some people look at the atrocities that were done to the women, which are just incredibly unforgivable. That was just the entertainment. The real happening there was the power brokering.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

Was and Epstein's ability to gather intel, and some say he worked with Massad or whatever it is to create this blackmail scheme that he used against people either to keep them quiet or keep them coming back, or whatever that is. Yeah, it was it was the power cabal that introduced people of influence to one another. Deals were made, influence was peddled. And and to your point, yeah, to it's like you don't go into a barbershop unless you want to get a haircut. So if you're going there, you have eyes wide open.

SPEAKER_03 37:26

And I can tell you like the circumstances in which I met him. I was actually going out with a guy at the time whose dad was really good friends with him, and we were going, he was introducing me to his dad, and there's Jeff Ritz.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

No boy.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Whoa. I remember asking me, What do you do? And I'm like, I'm an investigative reporter.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Oh, it was just who I want to talk to.

SPEAKER_02 37:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:51

No.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

All right. Yeah. This has been amazing.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Tom, you want to segue us to close our episodes with five stories in the news. We call it the wire, the top top five propaganda stories. I'll take the first two, just touch on them briefly. Michelle, if you want to add, and feel free. We've talked about some of this earlier, but number one is the January 6th Anti-Weaponization Fund. Again, 1776. Crazy billion, $1.776 billion fund to compensate victims of government weaponization, which is ridiculous. I do think it's those police officers and those are really the courageous heroes. And the fact that our attorney general, I guess, acting attorney general is the former defense attorney of the president. What the f what the F here? But anyway, that's number one. Number two.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Fortunately, Tom, we know that certain capital police officers have countersued to try to get this from happening. And we know that there's been some Republican support, possibly too. So the spin of the administration is being countered by those who were there, which is a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Yeah. Glad to see some Republicans saying this is finally going too far. When you said being complicit and on that minimal level, saying this is too far. So number two is the 9-11 families versus the January 6th fund. How would you describe this? Richard.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Yeah, so being a New Yorker and being here during 9-11 and knowing the aftermath of those families that were affected by it and what Jon Stewart did for many years to shame Congress and to keep the money flowing. Many of them have looked at this as a direct slap in their face because these were people who lost others because of terrorists. And now some are saying we're rewarding terrorists, terrorists with this fund. It's a juxtapose that is really shaking a lot of 9-11 and first responders who fought Congress for decades to get the money flowing. So now these people are eligible for cash payouts. This was reported in the Washington Post recently. It's just a really harmful juxtapose. But yeah, please freeze continue to reverse. Yeah, so next item we're talking about is the Gaza aid blockade, the documented versus what was declared. So Israel and US officials state humanitarian corridors are open and aid is reaching civilians in Gaza. But the UN and NGOs document systemic blockade. Conditions work net worsening. Israel's security minister releasing videos taunting flotilla activists. The Malaysian PM said Israel must face justice. So yeah, and of course, what's happening in Gaza is obviously a lightning rod for a lot of controversy, and we're not going to really go into that here. Uh other than in the context of the reporting, you know, what and Tom has often talked about the Iran war, and I know you have a pretty funny line about that. It's it between two authoritarian regimes, who can you trust in the press? Essentially. And then the next item was the U.S. reverses on the Ukraine war crime crown of accountability. The U.S. supports peace in a negotiated resolution in the Russian-Ukraine conflict. Carnegie Endowment for an international peace say U.S. policy reversals are directly under undermining international war crimes tribunals and accountability mechanisms for Russian aggression. And we've seen an uptick in the Russian aggression now that sanctions have been lifted and they're able to sell their oil and get weapons from other nations, and they've leveled up on the attacks in Ukraine. Of course, says the rest of the world is paying attention to the Iran war and other things. One question I wanted to ask you, Michelle, is this whole notion, and I've said this that and this is opinion, that it's almost like we're living in this reality show called Donald Trump's presidency. First was Venezuela, then Greenland, then all of these different things that people have obviously talked about was a distraction from Jeffrey Epstein and taking him out, knocking him off the headlines. But it just some of these things that happen just don't seem to make a lot of sense, you know, from a journalism standpoint.

SPEAKER_03 42:23

I think the Epstein files are not going away. And those are that we will eventually get to read them. And in fact, I I Thomas Massey, he's I got seven more months left. Let's do this. And I'm like, oh my God, this is gonna be fun. I have to tell you, I was having drinks the other night with a couple friends of mine who also had we were in the political game a long time. And I was like, dude, I cannot believe I missed Dick Cheney. That made a little more sense. Look, we are the really interesting thing right now that I've been keeping that I'm watching is that there's literally something for everybody to hate about this guy. It's it's just across the ideological board at this point. And I truly believe that we do give the people what they think they want. Do you think you don't want the government helping you out or whatever? You start to learn exactly how much government does for you. And then, and I don't, you know, I don't think people want to be angry all the time at their neighbor. What Americans mostly want to do is have a backyard barbecue and argue about sports. Yeah. And so I just I think that because there's literally something for everybody to be mad about, we're gonna watch those numbers go further and further down, and maybe we'll get ranked choice voting fast the part so that we can beat back the gerrymandering. But I guess one thing I just wanted to tack on to this, and we skirted around it a little bit, but in a world in which five people basically control all All of our distribution platforms is a very dangerous world. But there are other ways that people are getting information and stories out in the truth. And those are very exciting ways. And they're not digital. These are mostly analog. And that's a very exciting thing that's starting to happen. Because when you have these gatherings of people, that's when magic happens, right? When, and we're not talking about mobs, we're talking about there's a word for it called collective effervescence. And that's that feeling, the energy you get when you have a shared purpose. And that could be singing a song together or cheering in a game. But I think we're gonna see, I'm I am very optimistic, despite all of these terrible things that are happening, that shared humanity is gonna prevail. And I think that's why we're seeing this desperate grab for pouring money at the at Trump's level, because the end is coming for that.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

Yeah, no, I I think you're right. And while authoritarianism, I think the latest number was 70% of governments around the world or authoritarianism, although probably now down to 67 since Victor Urban got booted. But America is we have never been a monarchy, we have never been under authoritarian rule, and we reject it. And we've been bombarded by it, obviously, with this administration, but the level of activism and protest is just at record levels, and they don't know what to do about this. We are not a nation of silent, herded people. We're not cheap.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

That's the fact, the the sort of the deciding factor here, right? Is that unlike Russia or even Hungary or some of these other places, there hasn't been, we've had a couple hundred years now of a form of democracy, and we're and no monarch and et cetera, et cetera. And so we're we will snap that. But I do think people needed to learn the lesson that when when you've got somebody standing up saying, I alone can fix it, there's something comforting about hearing someone say that because you're like, oh, thank God, because this it's overwhelming with all the craziness and all the changes and blah, blah, blah. It was comforting to people to hear that. But now we know there's no one person who can solve all this. We're all in this together, whether we like it or not. So we're just gonna have to find some ways to work together because big challenges are ahead of us. Just wait until the climate crisis migration hits, because we're not far away from when we're gonna have tens of millions of people on the move. And the only way we are going to survive this is together and with empathy.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

So and if we don't, there's Scandinavia and countries around the world, Amsterdam, that that will do this because they're more progressive-minded and they're really focused on the collective of their people. And we were too. And hopefully we'll learn some valuable lessons from. I look at Trump as an accelerant to a long-standing activity in history of behavior in America, that we just seem to not be held accountable on the world stage because we are the world's police, because we are the richest nation, because we do things for our European friends and whatnot. But yeah, we have gotten away with, and you know this as an investigative reporter around the world, whether it's Noriega or Saddam or whoever, that we've supported these regimes, Shah, Iran, etc., that we've never been held accountable for a lot of these things. And maybe Trump is just the accelerant to really show us as Americans we need to get back to our root and our core, what the founding fathers really built this country on. And that there's there is hope, I think, at least for my perspective, Michelle. Hopefully, you see it that way too.

SPEAKER_03 47:47

I'm obviously a delusional optimist. I make documentary films.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

God bless you. I like hearing that you have great perspective. I mean, you should your travels and your experience.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

So our last story was around Raul Castro being indicted by this international justice. The DOJ's viewpoint was the U.S. holds perpetrators of international crimes accountable wherever they are. That that should have a funny and ironic ring to it. It's the same administration that withdrew ICC cooperation for allies, dismantled Gaza accountability mechanisms, pardoning 1,600 January 6 defendants. Uh, in Castro's indictment for a 1996 plane shoot down precedes all domestic accountability collapses. So this is just an interesting word to put a pin on everything we talked about.

SPEAKER_03 48:41

It's enormously disturbing to me that this administration essentially starved that island. That blockade was about inflicting maximum pain on them. And that is a crime against humanity. And then to indict Royal Castros, I again wait until we we finally start really digging into all this stuff. I mean, Marco Rubio, I'm sorry, dude, you will never get my vote for president. But yeah, that's that's an important thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 49:15

Yeah, and I think we should start speaking out of that and say, no, that's not what we're supposed to be about. We're supposed to be about I like we don't want people to anyway.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

So before we forget, tell everyone where they can learn more about your work, including your new film.

SPEAKER_03 49:33

That kind of so I guess I do post a little bit on social media. So you can find me on Instagram at which is ML Mitchell70. And I do post a little bit about the movie. We'll be posting more as we're getting closer and closer to the release. And the uncondemned is on Amazon. How setting yeah, and then I uh I do have a subset called the Cocktail Conversations, and I'm very uh I'm not very assiduous at posting on that because I'm making a movie, but from but I do announce on Instagram and on Facebook when I do these talks and everything, so there'll be more of that being posted in the in the coming months.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

That was wonderful. We really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_03 50:15

We've expanded our minds today. I and provided reason for hope so uh I just I I think that I've seen the worst that people can do to one another in the course of my work, and but I've also seen the very best. And I will always believe that my faith in humanity is completely justified. And I just think we need to start sticking up for each other a little bit more. Like I was said earlier about the president calling women names. Come on, White House press score. Push back, stand up for each other. It's important that empathy becomes a good thing. And again, because we've heard so much from this administration and from the tech oligarchs that empathy is bad. There's actually a book out which the title is Empathy is a Sin and it's being promoted by the church that Pete Hags belongs to.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

And no surprise.

SPEAKER_03 51:04

Yeah, we need to start embracing these things that that have made us a stronger country, historically speaking. And also the reason why all of us got into this profession to begin with. Journalists don't become famous or rich, but boy, did you do some good out there?

SPEAKER_00 51:21

I'm with the two little old ladies behind you on the plane. I'm I'm that's right.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

And boy, you have done some good, Michelle. So we are blessed to have you today. And thank you again for sharing your amazing story and your insights and your humanity, I think, more than anything else. Yeah. We need civility and we need people in authority to start rediscovering that. And you go a long way to ushering that into our consciousness. Off the hook, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:52

Thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed it. And hopefully I'll get to come back when the movie force.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

We'd love it, and we'll make a movie. You can make the movie version of this at some point, Ryan. If George Clooney can do it, we can do it.

SPEAKER_03 52:05

Way more fun, I'm sure, than he is.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

This would be great. Real, really appreciate it. And we're gonna be cheering you wrong.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

Hope to see you in New York. Yes, I'd love to, please keep in touch. So we always close with Edward R. Murrow, what he said at the end of every broadcast. Good night and good luck.