10/31/18 - Best of Program - Guests, Joe Berlinger & Chris McDaniel

The Blaze Radio Network.

On demand.

Welcome to the podcast.

It's

Wednesday yet?

It is.

Because it's always downhill from here.

So, I mean, around here, it's always downhill.

Great podcast for you.

Yeah, we talk a lot about we have birthright citizenship talk, which isn't getting any better.

It's interesting because

it's been kind of talked about as a political issue, but I think it's opened up, maybe unintentionally, an interesting discussion on the right as to what the Constitution actually calls for.

There's people on the right who believe both things, whether it is birthright citizenship is part of the Constitution.

Where do you stand on this?

Because I'm not sure.

I need to know more.

I mean, we kind of get into the debate here a little bit.

I would say I don't have my mind made up yet.

It's not something I've studied a lot in the past.

It's an interesting debate, though.

I mean, both sides are

have compelling arguments.

The other part of it I think is interesting is that the left is just whatever they need that day.

Yeah.

Right?

Like they used to be back in the 90s, they were all.

Caesar Chavez was beating immigrants up at the border.

And he's a hero.

He's a hero.

That's amazing.

Okay, so we're going to talk a little bit about that.

We have some Halloween stuff.

We also are going to talk about tariffs, the bad stuff that's happening with tariffs.

Don't forget also, we go on tour.

Yes.

We go on tour.

Tomorrow we're going to be in Richmond.

Then we're going to be in Hershey, Pennsylvania on Friday.

Gonna be a great show.

And Saturday in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh.

And then Sunday in Cleveland.

Don't miss it.

And don't forget, we also talked to the director of a documentary about Voidy Bulger, which is really interesting.

He died yesterday in prison after being murdered.

The former mobster

goes into that story a little bit, which is really interesting as well.

So if you want to get tickets, go to glenback.com/slash tour.

You want to hear the podcast?

You're already here.

Here it is.

You're listening to

the best of the Glen Beck Program.

It's Wednesday, October 31st.

Glen Beck.

It's all Hallows' Eve.

It's upon us now.

And there is a terror more frightening than anything that has ever been unleashed on our streets.

Just lurking.

It's around the corner.

What if I were to tell you that 31% of the population has been infected

with this terror?

Over 100 million Americans are out to get you.

How will you ever know which one you can trust?

Well, I'm here to tell you you can't trust any of them.

100 million for crying out loud.

100 million.

They're coming to get you.

Now, who will shed light on this?

Who is it that will open our fingers because we're too afraid to look at the monster?

We're too afraid to look at the monster and identify it.

Well,

Don Lemon is that man.

So we have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right.

And we have to start doing something about them.

There is no travel ban on them.

Oh, my gosh.

There is no ban on, you know, they had the Muslim ban.

There is no white guy ban.

Oh, my God.

So what do we do about that?

We need a white man ban.

Okay.

We need a ban on white men.

I love this.

Could we just play this again?

We have to stop demonizing

and recognize It's not,

period, we have to stop demonizing.

It's we have to stop demonizing and recognize.

Listen to the beginning of this again.

So we have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men.

Okay.

Most of them.

Most of them white, most of them on the right, too.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but white men are literally everywhere.

And there's no travel ban.

There's no, I mean, please, if you haven't left the house yet, have you checked your children?

Especially if you have a white male in the house.

Have you checked your children?

Black people who are friends with white people, can you please call the white wife and make sure she hasn't been knived

by her

white husband?

They're all radicals.

The biggest terror threat is white men.

We should cancel Halloween.

I don't know how we can even do this.

We're going to have, we're just, are we going to have people just roaming the streets?

Have you seen the latest Halloween?

Have you seen it?

Jason, a white man, just

walking the streets, going up and ding-dong, trick-or-treat.

He goes in the back door.

He's a white man.

He just kills people.

I know it's really confusing because it's, you know, there's so many white men that are terrorists, the leading terrorist threat, but it's actually Michael Myers in Halloween.

Oh, it's Jason's Friday the 15th.

There's another white man.

Another white man, though, see?

I mean,

imagine.

Imagine if all the white men, disguised as middle-aged accountants that have just lived their life and never bothered anybody,

you're just going to let your little kids go up to that house and get candy?

We are screwed, man.

Don Lemon, God bless him,

has gone nuts.

He has.

There's a few people that have really, truly

lost it.

And they're not even listening to themselves anymore.

It's amazing.

First of all, one of the most contradictory things I've ever heard.

Let me quote again.

So we have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men.

Don, you're demonizing white men.

He went from zero, stop demonizing, basically don't be racist, to 100.

White men are scary.

We need a white man ban.

It's the most demonizing, racist thing I've heard.

Can I ask you, what is the definition of racism, Stu?

What is the definition?

Isn't it, isn't it saying

all people have this trait if they're part of this race?

Yeah, discrimination, antagonism, prejudice directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race.

So that would be it.

White men are the problem.

I've never said that about Islam.

All of the people who are Muslim are the problem.

It would be wrong to say that.

White men are the problem.

We're also eager to assign blame.

How many of us were rapidly refreshing social media, hoping like hell that the faux pipe bomber was someone from the left?

Why?

Why?

Everyone on the left was doing the same thing, except in reverse.

We're doing it because we want someone to point to and say, get them.

We want somebody to blame.

See, it's them.

We're not addressing the actual issues here.

White men are the problem.

Really?

You know, I'm so sick and tired of hearing what we did in the 1800s.

Do you know the Trail of Tears?

Yes, I know the Trail of Tears.

It was awful.

You know who did it?

Democratic President Jackson, a despicable human being.

He took our founding principles and turned them upside down.

That's not an American thing to do.

That's all you talk about.

Well, I got it.

I got it.

How about we talk about the Japanese and Unit 731?

Worse, worse

than the Nazis.

Now that's saying something.

Worse than the Nazis.

They went in and they said the only problem with Mongolia is all these Mongols.

Tried to kill them all.

They just stormed into China.

Where was the white man there?

Speaking of China, how about Mao?

50 million dead.

Was he led by a white man?

North Korea.

Concentration camps.

Where's the white guy?

Rwanda.

Rwanda.

Where's the white guy there?

You see, Don, it is not a race problem.

It is a human problem.

But nobody really wants to talk about that because nobody's really looking for an answer.

Good God Almighty, can we decide

if we want to save this or not?

Do you want to save it?

No one wants to discuss mental health.

No one wants to discuss addiction to drugs, loneliness, disconnection from community, the decline of religion.

The list goes on and on and on.

It's all about yes, but which party did you vote for?

It's easy to see why you hear, you know, when you hear people like Don Lemon spew this, and this is Don hate.

Spew this hate

that CNN actually has the gall to call objective reporting

and to the over 100 million white men out there

You can forget switching a Geico

You've just saved tons of money by never having to buy a Halloween costume ever again Because you're the biggest terror threat in the country Just show up in your golf pants.

Because I know what you want to do with that golf club.

You just want to beat people to death.

Read a great Washington Post editorial.

After a deranged Democrat living in his van nearly assassinated Republican Steve Scalise, firing more than 70 rounds at House Republicans practicing for the congressional baseball game, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi declared it outrageous that anyone would blame Democratic rhetoric for inspiring the shooter.

Quote, how dare they say such a thing?

Pelosi thundered.

Never mind that the shooter echoed Democratic vitriol against the president, ranting on Facebook that Trump is guilty and

should go to prison for treason, and that, quote, Democrat Trump has destroyed our democracy.

It's time to destroy Trump and company.

Now, Democrats are doing exactly what they condemned.

Man, it is so easy.

Doesn't it feel good, Stu, to get up in the morning and know that I don't have to answer for my positions in the past?

Because I've been consistent.

I didn't blame the Democrats for that shooting.

I'm not blaming Donald Trump for this.

Yeah, it feels good.

It feels really good.

Democrats are doing exactly what they condemn, blaming President Trump's divisive rhetoric for the recent spat of mail bomb attacks and the massacre at Pittsburgh Synagogue.

The truth is, they ceded the moral high ground years ago.

Our descent into vitriol began long before Trump, and Democrats and their allies are as culpable as the president.

Notice he even said this.

They're as culpable.

He didn't say they're responsible.

It's their fault.

Finally, somebody with reason is saying, yeah,

both sides.

Recall that in 2000, the NAACP spent millions on ugly ads accusing George W.

Bush of of moral equivalence with white supremacist who brutally lynched James Byrd in 1998.

Quote, my father was beaten, chained, and then dragged three miles to his death, all because he was black, said Byrd's daughter, as the screen flashed grainy images of a chain dragging a body behind a pickup truck.

So when Governor George W.

Bush refused to support hate crime legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again.

Was that the Republicans doing that?

Are you demonizing?

Could you look up demonizing?

I just want to make sure

it's assigning

characteristics of the devil.

No.

Barack Obama set the tone for his 2008 campaign against John McCain when he declared, if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.

John Lewis, Democrat from Georgia, answered that call

when he compared McCain to the segregationist

Alabama's governor George Wallace and declared McCain was replicating the climate of hatred and division.

John frickin' McCain

that led to the attacks on civil rights workers.

Four years later, a pro-Obama super PAC ran ads showing GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan pushing an old lady in a wheelchair over the side of a cliff, while another ran a false ad blaming Mitt Romney for a woman's death from cancer.

Can we just all agree on this?

Because I was not a supporter of Mitt Romney.

His policies are all screwed up.

However, Mitt Romney is a good guy.

He's a nice guy.

He's not a.

How do you demonize Mitt Romney?

They did.

And

when the left was honest for about five minutes after they got beaten by Donald Trump, I heard one of them say, you know what?

We kind of brought this on ourselves because we rejected and demonized people like Mitt Romney.

Yes, yes, you're exactly right.

During the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton compared Republicans to Nazis, saying regard to legal immigrants, they wanted to round them up and put them into boxcars.

So let's see.

Let's see.

Let's see.

Demonizing.

We got to stop with this rhetoric.

Putting them into boxcars.

You're saying that Donald Trump is going to round people up and put them into camps like Auschwitz?

She compared the GOP to terrorist, just what Don Limon did today.

Now, extreme views on women.

We expect that from some of the terrorist groups.

We expect that from people who don't want to live in a modern world, but it's a little hard to take from the Republicans.

She listed the Republicans alongside the Iranians as the enemies she was most proud of making.

So, press, don't tell me about Donald Trump calling you an enemy.

Unless you're also going to point out that maybe the other side should stop as well, because they both should stop.

I am not doing any good here I just don't know what I don't know how to do my job anymore

when Trump took office Democrats abandoned their role as opposition and declared themselves the resistance look up the word resistance in the Oxford dictionary you'll see the definition the use of force or violence to oppose someone or something

Professor of political science at University of Indiana

notes the word resistance, quote, first surfaces in debates about

tyrannicide, the violent removal from power of misbehaving kings who usurp authority not properly belonging to them.

Scalise would have been forgiven for pointing out that his would-be assassin took Democrats' calls to resistance literally.

More recently, some Democrats were peddling the unfounded accusations that Brett Kavanaugh participated in gang rapes in an effort to destroy the Supreme Court nominee.

Clinton defended smash mouth tactics, declaring you can't be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for.

Well, I gotta ask you this: what is it we stand for?

Hillary, what is it you stand for?

And don't use your fancy little political, all-your-focus group words.

What are the Democratic, what does the Democratic Party stand for?

And if you use use their focus group, well, equality, justice, and fairness.

But what does that mean?

Redistribution of wealth.

Redistribution of power

forcibly.

What does the Republican Party stand for?

I don't know.

I can tell you what I stand for.

I can tell you what I think the vast majority of Americans stand for.

All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That you have a right to freedom of speech, that nobody should be able to shut down the press.

That you have a right to assemble with whoever it is you want to assemble with.

You have a right to petition your government.

You have a right to protect yourself.

The government can't come in and just say, oh, yeah, by the way, we're just going to live here.

The government can't come in and tap your phones, go through your papers.

You can't be forced to testify against yourself.

There's no cruel and unusual punishment.

There's a lot more.

But those rights that we're not naming, they belong to the individual.

And there's some other powers, too, that those things belong to the state.

That's the Bill of Rights.

That's what we have in common.

That's what we should stand for.

That's what will bring us back together.

But no one wants to talk about that because that's a solution.

That's a solution.

You know, when we started this country,

we had a group of people in Congress that wanted a solution.

We don't have that now.

We don't have that.

And we are growing further and further apart to where the people aren't even looking for a solution anymore.

Well, once you've gotten to that point, you're done.

This is the best of the Glenbeck program.

Now, Pat, I don't know if you've seen the latest, but the environmentalists who, you know,

They they they care about,

you know, they care about the animals.

They care about the planet.

They care about everything.

They believe we should kill our pets now.

Because we have this compulsion

to seek out animal companionship, it is one of our primary factors

affecting our climate.

particularly in the United States, where there are 163 million companion animals, roughly one pet for every two Americans, the highest number of any country in the world.

And those 163 million pets have a detrimental impact on the environment from the food they consume to the waste they produce.

So the best thing we can do is kill our pets.

Euthanize

every one of our pets.

I don't know about you, but I care about the planet.

I'm willing to euthanize all of our pets.

I'm willing to get rid of all of them, yes.

All of the cats.

Get rid of all of them.

Just the cats, though.

Cats.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think so.

You seem to be a bit anti-cat.

That's why I'm just asking.

Well, did did you see also that the cats are responsible for killing over a billion birds a year?

Yeah.

Yeah, so.

Yeah, they're bad for the environment, too.

Six billion small animals.

Yeah.

But a billion birds specifically.

And for the

extinction of many bird species.

No,

there was a new story out that talked about the predator that is in your house.

And it is a cat.

And they are killing birds and billions of animals.

Billions of animals.

And

we have to euthanize the cats.

And I'm willing to go there.

I am too.

Because, first of all,

I've got a theory about cat owners.

And

I do too.

If you have one,

you're worth monitoring.

Okay, we should monitor.

I think you can have one, but your family should notice.

Yes.

Yes.

I don't want to monitor.

For two, you start monitoring.

Yes.

Two, you should have to register at the school.

You should have to, you You should have to register with maybe local law enforcement.

We should just know where you are.

Yeah, at all times.

At all times.

At all times.

If you have three,

you've got to be institutionalized.

Oh, really?

Institutionalized.

See,

I think more than three is when you need to be destroyed

or some way.

Why spend the money on institutionalization?

Yes.

Institutionalization.

We know you're crazy.

Something's going to happen.

Everybody's going to go to the bathroom.

Well, you're going to wind up dead, and the cats are going to to eat you anyway.

Yeah, so we might as well just, so you avoid all that.

Yeah.

But I think you're right.

Cat people are disturbing.

They really are.

Disturbing.

Can you do all this with executive order or do you need to get legislation?

No, this is perfectly fine from an executive order.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Trump can just do this.

Sure.

He wants to.

Sure.

He's got the power.

Just like he can with the executive order on the border.

Ah, Constitution.

Yeah, executive order.

I mean,

that's compelling.

Where do you stand on that executive order, Pat?

We heard this from Pat yesterday.

Yeah, he was in sent places yesterday.

So

we talked about this yesterday after we spoke.

And

there's a pretty good case made by originalists that say, no, no, no,

you, birthright,

anchor babies.

That's what they meant, and that's right.

Yeah, it's interesting that there's two sides of it among among people

among conservatives, which is why these are the types of issues I find most interesting.

What is the case for?

So, let me give you a little piece of it here.

I'll tweet this out at World of Stew as well if you want to read the whole thing.

You will dismantle it quickly because I did.

But it's interesting that it's coming from a conservative originalist.

You felt that you dismantled this quickly?

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

You don't feel like you did?

Yeah.

No, it's not.

I'll give you my case.

Okay.

You'll heal it for you.

So James Madison said it is an established maxim that there is a, that birth is a criterion of allegiance.

Birth, however, derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage.

But in general, place is the most certain criterion.

It is what applies in the United States.

It will therefore be unnecessary to investigate any other.

This goes on to then quote,

this is Edward Bates, President Lincoln's Attorney General.

Wait, wait, wait.

Can we separate these two?

Because the first one is James Madison.

Hard to take it apart because it's James Madison, right?

However, James Madison, I think in this particular case, James Madison is

looking at something different.

He's looking at whether you came from Great Britain or not.

Correct.

He's not talking about people who are coming in trying to drop off to be able to take stuff

or bring the whole family in.

Were you born in the colonies or were you born in Great Britain?

Correct.

And they answered that two ways.

If you were born here, you don't need naturalization.

However,

you also have to be born here to be president.

And that's what they were worried about.

They were worried about these English coming in.

Try this out for size.

They were worried about the English coming in and just saying, hey,

I'm American.

I'm living here and I'm American.

So I can vote.

Because they knew that if all these English people came in, they would change the country.

That's why they didn't want

a foreigner as president as well.

You had to be born here.

So they were trying to protect it at that time from the English coming in and screwing up the country with a vote, which is what we're dealing with now.

I think I agree with that, although he's saying if you're born here, you are.

You do have

because

it was a different time and a different problem.

Yep.

And I say, like, as much as I love James Madison, I love the founders, it's almost less important what they thought about this particular issue because it was an amendment to the Constitution, right?

We're talking about the 14th Amendment.

And that's why you have to separate James Madison because that's not constitutional.

He didn't put that in the Constitution.

Well, that was put in under Lincoln.

And

so now go to that because that's a different argument as well.

So this is now Edward Bates is President Lincoln's Attorney General.

So we're in a pretty, this is, again, a few years right before they do the 14th Amendment.

It incorporates the language and is, this is from the article from National Review, properly understood to have codified Attorney General Bates' contemporary understanding.

This is what he says.

I am quite clear in the opinion that children born in the United States of alien parents who have never been naturalized are native-born citizens of the United States and, of course, do not require the formality of naturalization to entitle them to the rights and privileges of such citizenship.

Isn't there more?

That is the end of that quote.

I thought there was something else, too, about, or maybe it was in James Madison that they had come in the proper way or something.

I thought I heard that earlier today.

But

the Abraham Lincoln thing is just the same.

Remember,

it wasn't a constitutional thing because there wasn't a 14th Amendment yet.

I know.

I know he's writing it.

This is the beginning of it.

So the first one is: how do we know who a citizen is?

Because it's almost all, well, it is at that point, all immigrants, except those who had come over in the Mayflower or had their relatives come over before them.

So it was a very small number.

It was mainly immigrants.

So how do you know who is an American?

Well, were you born here?

That was the question of who's an American at that time because it was mainly.

you know, people from England and they were worried about the English coming in.

So you're born here, you're a citizen, you can serve, you can vote.

Starting to get a pretty serious German influx, too.

Yes, serious German, and they were freaked by that.

The second thing is

with Lincoln, he's trying to solve a different problem.

He's trying to solve at that point the Democrat, literally the Democratic Party.

This is their first attempt before poll taxes and, you know, moving the polling place and all of the crap that they did.

The first thing was, oh, well, you know, you're not, okay, you might be, you might be a citizen, but your kids.

Your kids weren't slaves, so your kids aren't citizens.

They're trying to say, stop it.

Stop it.

We're talking about the slaves.

The slaves are free, they're citizens, and so are their children.

That you have to look at the 13th and 14th Amendment for what it was talking about and what it was trying to do.

It was trying to say to the Democrats, stop it.

These are human beings and they are citizens.

It'd be fascinating to hear these two sides talk this out because they're both coming from the conservative perspective.

It's not like, you know, Chris Cuomo versus somebody you trust, right?

These are both sides of the argument I think are really interesting.

I don't, because I think you're right, but sometimes that is, because that is definitely what they were intending, right?

It was about slavery.

However, sometimes you,

that is also,

not unintended, but intended consequences where you would absorb a larger group to make sure one group is.

There is no way the intent is that if you come here from Mexico, Central, or South America and you have a baby, and everybody who does that is now a citizen.

There's Russian way that was.

There are Russian tours now that take you to Miami.

Chinese, too.

Yes.

Take you to Miami.

The Russians go to Miami.

You stay here for a few weeks.

You have the baby here.

Your child has American citizenship.

Same thing in Hawaii with the Asians.

It's big in Hawaii, but probably also big in California.

That's not what they were talking about.

This is a different problem.

The Constitution, the first 10 in the Bill of Rights, those are universal.

Those are gigantic.

So when somebody says, it's in the Bill of Rights, well, is it in the first 10?

Because the first 10 are global.

Pretty much, with an exception of new ideas,

pretty much

the rest of them are a restating of the first one, where they had to get very specific and say, no, dummy, women, women are part of, all men are created equal.

Women can vote.

Same thing with blacks in the 13th and 14th Amendment.

They were specific

where the amendments are very broad, the first 10.

Would it have made sense for them to think that in Dallas, Texas, United States of America, at Parkland Hospital, 75% of the babies born there are born to illegals and now they're all citizens?

No.

That doesn't make sense to anybody.

That does not.

I definitely don't think it's a good idea.

It's not a good idea.

The Constitution,

this is the best phrase, and I just, I can't understand how people don't

understand this.

The Constitution was not meant to be a suicide pact.

That's Posner, right?

But that's also a very dangerous phrase.

And I feel like that's the same argument people use with the Second Amendment.

Oh, well,

look, I mean, at the time, they only had these little weapons, and it was not.

Look, well, I'm sure they wanted freedom of guns.

I mean, these guns are too big and too brutal, and this is not meant to be a suicide pact.

No, when I'm talking about suicide pact, I mean on the principles.

on the principles it's not meant to be a suicide pack if we follow these principles you won't have a constitution you won't have america anymore you just won't because nobody is going to be doing it for 100 years and we still have america all right we are doing it differently now there was not the have a baby tourism back in 1900 no i mean it's certainly being exploited at some levels right i mean but that does not mean you then you know then

like let's just say we went throughout the argument is an argument to amend the constitution right let's just say if their intent was at the beginning let's just say it was that we wanted it we want aliens to just come in and have and drop babies over here and they're going to be anchor babies and they're going to get citizenship let's just say that was their intent i don't think it was but let's just say it was if that was true and and back then people weren't exploding it and now people are you'd have to

amend the constitution not to just say we now think you can't do it's a problem if you want to change guns don't make some slippery argument yeah just amend it 18th amendment 21st Amendment.

We said, you know what, we're going to ban all alcohol.

We did it.

Bad idea.

21st Amendment, forget the 18th Amendment.

We need a drink.

Right, yeah.

And that's the way you're supposed to do it.

Yeah.

And they don't want to do it that way because

it's hard, and they know that it's impossible to make the argument because when you do something that big, you actually have to think about it.

this is the best of the glenn beck program

hi it's glenn if you're a subscriber to the podcast can you do us a favor and rate us on itunes if you're not a subscriber become one today and listen on your own time you can subscribe on itunes thanks well a lot of social justice warriors were excited when they heard that whitey had died yesterday but a different whitey this was the mob guy um whitey bulger he was 89 years old found unresponsive yesterday at 8:20 in the morning.

He had been in custody since Monday.

They were transferring him.

They moved him from a prison in Florida and had a stop in Oklahoma City before moving to West Virginia.

He was attacked by three men in the general population sector of the prison.

One of the men used a lock tucked into a sock as a weapon.

It's a Dr.

Seuss thing.

I mean, it's a Halloween Dr.

Seuss.

We should write that.

Anyway, and then the group attempted to gouge his eyes out.

Okay, I mean, you know, why not?

I'm John Johnson, but everyone around here likes to call me Nancy.

So this guy is a notorious.

By the way, the guy who killed him, what a surprise, a mob hitman.

At least that's who they think.

This guy's notorious,

a legend in the mob world.

Here's a clip from a documentary about him.

Why are you just staring staring at me and just grinding his teeth.

He said, I'll kill you, I'll stab you, and then I'll kill you.

I'm like, holy dude.

Whitey killed my sister, took her teeth out.

Whitey popped them and killed Bulger as if he wanted one in the head and shot him in the head.

He murdered people there, he buried people there, and he went to sleep there.

There were over 25 years where Bulger ruled the organized crime world.

He was never charged with even a misdemeanor.

Whitey Bulger faces possible maximum life in prison.

This isn't really a typical criminal trial.

This is not about getting acquitted.

Don't you want to know what really went on?

Is the government excited about having Bulger come back?

Some people certainly are, but there are others who have many sleepless nights about what James Bulger is going to testify to.

I asked the questions, I got the answers for money.

This is from a documentary, a great documentary called Whitey, the United States of America versus James J.

Bulger.

The director is Joe Berlinger, and he's on with us now.

Hi, Joe.

How are you?

Hey, how are you?

Good.

Good to hear from you.

So for people who don't follow Whitey, give us,

tell his story.

It's a long and complicated tale, but in a nutshell,

you know, he ran South Boston, you know, a neighborhood called Southey.

And over a twenty-five-year period, he basically was allowed to kill with impunity.

As as we later found out, he was,

you know, allowed to be an informant for the FBI.

The FBI's mandate in the eighties was to bring down the mafia.

And to do that, they used Whitey and some of his associates as informants, and which in and of itself is okay, but they then turned a blind eye.

You know, when you're an informant for the federal government, it's not a license to kill.

And

he was allowed to basically run roughshod over the streets of South Boston.

He had a strange hold over the neighborhood as well.

There was a lot of folklore that he was like kind of a Robin Hood, you know, giving turkeys to family members and doing nice things for the neighborhood and keeping drugs out.

But as the trial that is the subject of my documentary

reveals,

a lot of that was just myth.

I mean, he was one of the biggest drug runners in the area.

But he was, you know, the big unknown story that's not being talked about is, you know, he's often thought of as an informant,

but his informing

really didn't produce much.

And

in fact, he was really allowed to just, you know, create a lot of victims.

So a lot of the victims of Bulger are still very angry with the federal government and the Department of Justice.

Who would the victims be?

Dozens of families who were the victims of Whitey's crimes.

I mean, Whitey would.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

But did he put anybody behind bars?

Did he rat out anybody that

in the end, did the government get anything?

That's open to debate.

You know, the Boston Globe would tell you that yes, yes, he was a wonderful informant and that they broke the story, but there's evidence to suggest that it was a greater cover for just protecting Whitey because with the

federal authorities trying to crack down on the mob, on the Italian mafia,

any hit on the mafia would have to run through Bulger's Winter Hill gang.

And some people

feel and claim, and there was strong evidence to suggest, that the informing part was just a cover, and really they were allowing Whitey to live so that the then head of the strike force in New England to bring down the Italian mafia, a guy named Jeremiah T.

O'Sullivan, was looking for a little quid pro quo, like, hey, Whitey, we'll let you do your thing as long as you make sure the m-the mob doesn't hit, you know, kill me.

Because there were incidents of lawyers and prosecutors

getting

killed in retaliation for bringing down the mob.

So, you know, a lot of those allegations have not been proven, but his real connection to the information that he gave as being actually great and valid information is is to me one of the myths of this case.

You know, we'd we'd need much longer

time period to really discuss it, but the documentary kind of delves into the how much free reign the guy was given.

And again, if you're an informant for the government, it doesn't mean you can go out and commit crimes.

It means you're working hand in hand with the government in exchange for some benefit, like

not being prosecuted or a lesser sentence.

It doesn't mean, oh, please go out and rob, kill, steal, and maim people.

And there have been several civil suits brought against the Department of Justice that have not gone in the family's direction.

And so

there's still a lot of bitter feelings amongst the people who were victims of Bulger's crimes, some of whom were criminals themselves, but that doesn't

the end doesn't justify the means.

This guy for a quarter century

was allowed to just kill with impunity.

I mean, he was tipped off in advance

about wiretaps.

He was tipped off in advance about potential raids.

So it's really a complicated...

And in fact, some people believe that the 16 years he was on the lamb living in an apartment in Santa Monica with his girlfriend, Catherine Grieg.

There are many, including myself, who believe that the government really wasn't looking very hard for him until a new regime came in.

And then after 16 years, they decided to bring him to justice.

And there was a trial in the summer of 2013.

So let's talk a little bit about the first myth that you talked about, that he was known as

a good guy in the neighborhood.

Isn't that, I mean, this is my impression, and maybe I'm wrong on this.

Isn't that kind of the thing with, you know, Al Capone tried to do that?

And, you know, people like to think that, oh, no, these guys are just, you know, they're whacking just the bad guys.

They're actually good family men.

You know, there was a day when you would kill a man and then you'd send his wife flowers.

Yeah.

Is that is any of that true?

That seems to be the case.

That, you know, he also did some very good things as well, you know, for at times, but for some people.

And also, for example, there was a big busing crisis in South Boston.

You know, there was an attempt to

desegregate and there was a busing order issued.

And Whitey actually was very vociferous

in campaigning against it.

And that kind of rallied South Boston residents

to him.

But not because he was a good guy, but because, I mean, that helped create cover for him and goodwill.

Yeah, exactly.

And his brother was a famous politician, so there was a lot of confusion there as well, you know, with,

you know, Bill Bulger, president of University of Massachusetts and a prominent politician.

So there was a lot of messy gray areas there with the Bulger party.

So

was he involved, was he just the guy saying, yeah, whack him, or was he involved in the killings?

Oh, he took pleasure in being involved in the killings.

And, you know, his signature, because back then there was no DNA evidence, his signature was removing teeth of his victims

so that they couldn't be identified.

But no, no, he was a willing and ruthless participant in some very grisly murders.

And

there was a neighborhood house that they had called The Haunty, where a number of these victims were buried in the dirt basement of the actual house that they used as a meeting place.

So there's just there's just a lot

of

grisly detail with this case.

But

I mean the real for me the fascinating thing is after 16 years

on the lamb they finally caught him in Santa Monica living quiet you know living a a quiet life,

retirees life.

You know he had a almost $900,000 in cash and stuck in the walls and a coterie of machine guns and and weapons, but living a just a quiet life.

And when he's finally uh caught and brought back to Boston for trial, you know, he offered to plead y guilty in exchange for this is another I've been looking at some of the notices and s these are some of the things that have been left out.

You know, he offered to plead guilty if they would take it easy on his girlfriend, his you know, he his live-in girlfriend, Catherine Grieg, who joined him for the sixteen years of uh being on the run.

Uh and and off you know, he he wa he was willing to plead guilty if they would take it easy on her and give her some very light treatment.

And the government refused.

And you have to ask yourself,

why did we go through a multi-million dollar trial

for Whitey Bulger when the

conclusion was foregone at the start of that trial?

Nobody thought he would be found not guilty.

I mean, the evidence was just overwhelming.

And it probably would have saved the state quite a bit of money to not try him.

But

they didn't take it easy on him.

How'd they catch him?

How'd they catch him?

They d decided to focus on the girlfriend and they placed some advertisements

and

a woman

you know noticed

not Whitey, but the girlfriend and called it in and got a nice reward for that.

So wait, so they prosecuted the woman who turned him in?

Well,

no, no, no, no, not the woman who turned him in.

Oh, another, okay, another woman, not the girlfriend, another woman.

Correct.

Turned him in.

Okay, okay.

Now, he was killed yesterday.

I never,

I mean, I, besides Dr.

Seuss, I didn't know who would come up with a lock in a sock, but he apparently was killed by a guy they think is,

well, they, I should say this.

There's a guy in prison who was a mob hitman who they think killed him.

They know he was a mob hitman.

Who would

was everybody against this guy?

I mean, was he marked for death as soon as they could kill him?

Well, look, I don't have the details of yesterday, and it's you know, it's hard to say, but you know, he is responsible for helping or you know, bring down the Italian mafia.

So, you would imagine that there would be people who would be out for his

death,

and you have have to question

the security.

It's still unclear to me.

I'm still trying to get some information as to why he was being moved and why the multiple moves and why the lack of security.

Some people are speculating that this was a purposeful move.

I can't say that, but

a guy who's involved in multiple murders over decades and involved in bringing down the mafia

would be a target.

We're talking to Joe Berliger.

He is the director of Whitey, United States of America versus James J.

Bulger, who is Whitey.

And

I guess what was it that attracted you to the story?

Why did you make the film and

what attracted you to it and what did you take away from it?

Yeah, I mean, I thought that,

you know,

Bulger finally being brought to trial, because there's such a myth about the guy, there's such folklore.

You know, in our society, unfortunately, we tend to glamorize and make heroes out of criminals.

Bulger probably is the greatest example of that.

So much folklore surrounding him, so much hero worship,

films that kind of downplay the grisly side of or the or the aftermath of what he's responsible for, even if it does show the details of how people are killed.

You know, we celebrate criminals in this society,

which is an odd phenomenon.

And so the idea that he was being brought back to trial, finally, to face the music, I thought would be a great opportunity to kind of separate fact from fiction and to really understand the crimes.

That was my going-in assumption.

But sitting through that trial and witnessing it and getting to know Bulger, in fact, I was the only journalist allowed to actually interview him because the defense attorneys basically trusted me versus some other journalists in part because of my previous work films like Paradise Lost.

You know,

what fascinated me and what my big turn was was just how culpable the government has been in allowing a killer to run roughshod over the streets of Boston and how, you know, he his informant, you know, if you're going to allow somebody to evade justice for 25 years, you would hope that the record of

what you got out of it is so rock solid.

It so points to like, oh my God, this guy was invaluable.

But the evidence was just not there for me.

You know,

he was in the logbooks as being an informant.

But, you know, if you really drill into it, there's very little information he gave that the feds didn't already have.

And so then the question is, why was he allowed?

I mean, even if he gave the best information on the planet and he's directly responsible for the end of the mafia in New England as we know it, which was not the case,

you still have to question the wisdom of the government allowing somebody like that to commit murder.

And they knew it.

Joe,

multiple times.

Thank you very much.

And if you want to see the video, you can

check it out online and watch watch it out.

It's got kind of a good, kind of a weird Halloween kind of movie to check out.

Thank you very much, Joe.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Hey, Stu, what's the date today?

It's October 31st, Glenn.

Which is currently Halloween.

Currently Halloween.

It's always October 31st.

And on October 31st, what do we do?

Besides get fat with candy?

Well, that's the main thing, but also we play the Telltale Heart because

it's a Halloween tradition,

and people love it.

We always hear about people when they're trick-or-treating at the house.

When they have people coming to the house to trick-or-treat, they play it on speakers by the house.

Your telling of the telltale heart.

Yeah, very cool.

You can get it on iTunes and everything else.

Lots of Edgar Allan Poe this year.

Just the Telltale Heart.

It's Wednesday, October 31st.

You're listening to the Glen Beck program.

It was a crime of contempt.

One young man's logic misguided through the onslaught of insanity.

His name remains unspoken, but his crime is unforgettable.

This is his story.

True.

Nervous.

Very, very dreadfully nervous, I had been and am.

Why would you say that I'm mad?

The disease sharpened my senses, not destroyed me.

Not bull,

the sense of hearing was acute.

I heard all things in heaven and in hell.

Oh, I heard many things in hell.

How then, am I mad?

Hearken and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story.

It's impossible to say how the first idea entered my brain, but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.

Object, there was none.

Passion, there was none.

I loved the old man.

He had never wronged me, he had never given me insult.

For his gold, I had no desire.

I think it was his eye.

Yes.

It was this.

He had an eye of a vulture, a pale blue eye with film over it.

Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold, and so, by degrees, very gradually,

I made up my mind to take the life of the old man.

and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Now, this is the point.

You fancy me mad.

Madmen know nothing.

But you should have seen me.

You should have seen how wisely I proceeded, with what caution, with what foresight, with what dissimulation I went to work.

I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.

And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it oh so gently.

And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a lantern dark, all closed, closed, so no light shone out.

And then, I thrust in my head.

Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in.

I moved it in slowly, very,

very slowly, so I may not disturb the old man's sleep.

Oh, it took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening, so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed.

Ha!

Would a madman have done something as wise as this?

And then, when my head was well within the room, I undid the lantern cautiously, oh, so cautiously, cautiously, for the hinges creaked.

I did it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.

And this

I did for seven long nights, every night just at midnight.

But I found the eye always closed.

So it was impossible to do the work.

Or it was not the old man who vexed me, but his evil eye.

And every morning when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone and inquiring how he had passed the night.

So you see, he would have been a very profound old man indeed to suspect that every night, just at twelve,

I looked in on him while he slept.

Upon the eighth night, I was more than usually cautious in opening the door.

A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine.

Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers, of my sagacity.

I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph to think that I was there opening the door little by little and he not even dream of my secret deeds or thoughts.

I fairly chuckled at the idea, and perhaps he heard me, for he moved on the bed suddenly as if startled.

Now, you may think that I drew back, but no.

His room was black as pitch with thick darkness, for the shutters were closed and fastened through the fear of robbers.

And so I knew he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on.

Steadily.

Steadily.

I had my head head in.

I was about to open the lantern when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening and the old man sprang up in the bed, crying out, Who's there?

I kept quiet, still.

I said nothing.

For a whole hour, I did not move a muscle.

And in the meantime, I did not hear him lie down.

He was still sitting up in bed, listening, just as I had done night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently,

I heard a slight groan,

and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror.

It was not a groan of pain or of grief.

Oh no, it was the low, stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe.

I knew the sound well.

Many a night, just at midnight when all the world slept, it had welled up from my own bosom, deepening with a dreadful dreadful echo.

The terrors that distracted me.

Oh, I say I knew it well.

I knew what the old man felt and pitied him.

Although I chuckled at heart, I knew that he had been laying awake ever since the first slight noise when he turned in the bed.

His fears had been ever since growing upon him.

He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not.

He had been saying to himself, it's nothing but the wind in the chimney.

It's only a mouse crossing the floor.

Or, it's merely a cricket who's made a single chirp.

Oh yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions, but he found them all in vain.

All in vain.

Because death, in approaching him, had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim.

And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel,

although he never saw nor heard, to feel

the presence of my hand within the room.

When I had waited a very long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little, a very, very little crevice in the lantern.

So I opened it.

Oh, you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily, until, at length, a single dim ray, like the thread of a spider, shot from the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye.

It was open.

It was wide, wide open, and I grew furious as I gazed upon it.

I saw it with perfect distinctness, a dull blue with a hideous veil over that chilled my very marrow in my bones.

But I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person, for I directed directed the ray as if by instinct precisely upon the damned spot.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but an over-acuteness of the sense?

Now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound,

such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.

I knew that sound.

I knew that sound well, too.

It was the beating of the old man's heart.

It increased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates a soldier into courage.

But even yet, I refrained.

I kept still.

I scarcely breathed.

I held the lantern motionless.

I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye.

Meantime, the hellish tattoo of the heart increased.

It grew quicker and quicker and louder and louder every instant.

The old man's terror must have been extreme.

It grew louder.

I say louder every moment.

Do you mark me well?

I told you that I was nervous, and so I am.

And now,

at the dead hour of night,

amid the dreadful silence of that old house,

so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.

Yet, for some minutes longer, I I refrained and stood still.

But the beating grew louder and louder.

I thought his heart must burst, and then a new anxiety seized me.

The sound.

The sound would be heard by a neighbor.

The old man's hour had come.

With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room.

He shrieked once.

Only?

Once.

In an instant, I dragged him to the floor and pulled the heavy bed over him.

Then I smiled gayly to find the deed so far done.

But for many minutes, his heart beat on with a muffled sound.

This, however, didn't vex me.

It would not be heard through the wall.

At length, it ceased.

The old man

was dead.

I removed the bed and examined the corpse.

Yes,

he was stone.

stone dead.

I placed my hands upon the heart.

I felt it for many minutes.

There was no pulsation.

He was stone dead.

His eye

would trouble me

no more.

If you still think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.

The night waned.

I worked hastily, but in silence.

First of all, I dismembered the corpse.

I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

Then I took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber and deposited all between the scantalings.

Then I replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye, not even his, could have detected anything wrong.

There was nothing nothing to wash out no stain of any kind no blood spot whatever

I had been too wary for that

a tub had caught it all

when I had made an end of these labors it was four o'clock still dark as midnight as the bell sounded the hour There came a knocking at the street door.

I went down to open it with a light heart, for what now do I have to fear?

There entered three men who introduced themselves with perfect suavity as officers of the police.

A shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night.

Suspicion of foul play had been aroused.

Information had been lodged at the police office, and they, the officers, had been deputed to search the premises.

I bade the gentleman welcome.

The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream.

The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country.

I took my visitors all over the house.

I bade them search.

Search well.

I led them at length to his chamber.

I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed.

In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room and desired them here to rest from your fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the the victim.

The officers were satisfied.

My manner convinced them.

I was simply at ease.

They sat, while I answered cheerily.

They chatted of familiar things.

But

ere long,

I felt myself getting paled and wished them gone.

I headached and I fancied a ringing in my ears, but they sat and still chatted.

Ringing became more distinct.

I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling, but it continued and gained definitiveness until at length I found that the noise was not within my ears.

Now,

no doubt I grew very pale, but I talked more frequently and with a heightened voice, yet the sound increased.

What could I do?

It was a low, dull, quick sound.

Much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.

I gasped for breath.

And yet the officers heard it not.

I talked more quickly, more vehemently, but the noise steadily increased.

I arose and argued about trifles, a high key, with violent gesticulations, but the noise steadily increased.

Oh, why would they not be gone?

I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men.

But the noise steadily increased.

Oh, God, what could I do?

I foamed, I raved, I swore, I swung the chair in which I had been sitting and grated it across the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased.

It grew louder and louder and louder, and still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled.

Was it possible they heard not?

Almighty God, no.

No, they heard.

They suspected.

They knew.

They were making a mockery of my horror.

This I thought, and this I think.

But anything was better than this this agony.

Anything was more tolerable than this derision.

I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer.

I felt that I must scream or die, and now again, hark, hark, louder and louder and louder.

Villains, I shrieked.

Dissemble no more.

I admit the deed.

Tear up the planks.

Here,

here is the beating of his hideous heart.

I read that to my daughter's third grade class

the first year I did it.

The teacher was horrified.

Wait, you're reading what?

I'm like, my kids love it.

No, yeah, the rest of the kids really didn't.

But anyway, it's been a tradition on this program, and you can get it on iTunes.

And we're going to send it out on social and share it with a friend.

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On demand.