August 3, 2022 • 36 mins
The Shasta County recall campaign gets a boost from a vengeful out-of-state billionaire named Reverge Anselmo, who fought with the county years before. The campaign struggles to get off the ground. Meanwhile, Doni Chamberlain, a local journalist, accuses the campaign of spreading misinformation and having no plan to govern. She worries, if the campaign succeeds, the consequences will be dire.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It was April six and leaders of the Shasta County
(00:07):
recall campaign we're about to serve their formal notice of
intent to unseat three county supervisors. We met some of
the recall organizers in the last episode, Jeremy the Christian
music producer, Carlos the militia member and bar owner, and
Alyssa the woman with a bullhorn. Here's Alyssa announcing the
(00:29):
recall in front of the Board of Supervisors. Good morning, Supervisors,
Mody Rigord and commenting in a few minutes he will
be served an official notice of intent to be recalled.
This recall is, of course, correction for Shasta County. It
is not a wish hunt. It is a necessary performance
of crazy as leadership in this county during your position
(00:49):
has been critically assessed and you are being held accountable
by us, the citizens all in favor of a recall.
Say hi. And with that, more or less, the campaign
to recall Leonard Moody, Mary Rickart and Joe Commenti had begun,
or at least that was a dramatic part. Next up
(01:11):
the paperwork, and that took effort. Over the next several months.
Organizers would discover that mounting their campaign was not easy.
Volunteers and paid signature gatherers knocked on thousands of doors
across the three districts to get enough names on their petition.
There's times where there's a house every quarter mile with
(01:36):
a long driveway and it's gated because this is like
out in the sticks. And to gather over seven thousand
signatures in an area like that too, I mean these
people were going out every night. They'd go out full weekends.
You know, one person would go out for say like
eight hours and come back with like five signatures and
(01:57):
everybody's like cheering. It's like five signature or out of
seven thousand. That was Jeremy Edwardson, who you met in
the last episode as the producer of Red, White and Blueprint.
He was filming everything for his pro recall YouTube docuseries,
both Jeremy and the recall campaign. We're trying to raise
cash for their tandem efforts, a lot of cash and
(02:21):
that's where Reverge and Selmo comes in. He's the son
of a billionaire, a former marine and Hollywood filmmaker and
major right wing donor. He sounds like a villain from
a James Bond movie, right, But you can't make this
stuff up. In this episode, we're going to meet Revere,
(02:42):
or at least try to meet him, and find out
why he poured nearly half a million dollars into the
Shasta County recall. What made this guy so deeply invested
in influencing local politics in a place he no longer lived,
and why do the rules of our democracy cater to
people like him. We'll also follow the recall organizers as
(03:05):
they mounted their campaign and went to great lengths to win,
and boy did they want to win. Even if the
recall succeeded, would that be enough of a victory. This
is Bedrock USA, a production of Bloomberg City Lab and
I Heart Radio, a podcast about political extremism, small town life,
(03:27):
and the fight for democracy. I'm your host, Laura Bliss.
Leonard Moody was one of the Shasta County supervisors targeted
by the recall. I've talked to him a few times
over zoom to find out what it was like for him.
He's a clean shaven guy in his late sixties and
(03:50):
he has a somewhat e or like demeanor, but he
doesn't mince words about the pro recall activists who went
after him. And his colleagues. How do you mode me
of the whole situation with the Nazi Party in Germany
in thirties. I mean, that's how Hitler came to power
his group, you know, bullied, intimidated, threatened the people into silence.
(04:13):
Leonard stint as a county supervisor, started back in two
thousand nine after twenty five years serving as a police
officer in Reading, then six years as a chief of police.
He's been described as a Reagan Republican, fiscally conservative, socially moderate,
and an impeccable candidate for leadership. I hold my head
(04:34):
high based on my performance in my integrity while I
was in office. I think I tried to do what
was the right thing, and for that I was attacked.
When Leonard heard that the Shasta County recall was being
bankrolled by Revere and Salmo, he wasn't surprised. Revere had
been a notorious figure in local politics for many years,
(04:57):
but Leonard was worried because he knew Revere wasn't someone
who liked to lose. My impression was they see someone's
who was used to getting his way. From early on,
his dad was very, very wealthy, and uh he got
what he wanted when he wanted it real quick. Here's
what you need to know about Revere. He comes from money.
(05:20):
He's the son of the late Renee and Salmo, the
guy who founded the Spanish language TV network that later
became Univision, as well as a satellite company. Revere's mom,
Maryanne Salmo, made it on to Forbes two thousand eight
billionaire list. Revere grew up on the East Coast, served
in the Marines, and fought in Beirut. Then along the
(05:42):
way he became a Hollywood movie maker. Eventually, after moving
around a bit, he arrived in Shasta County in the
late two thousand's with his wife. And how did he
pick Shasta you might be wondering. Have a listen to Revere.
He's featured an episode two of Red, White, and Blueprint
My Horse. I had a very good bond with a horse,
(06:05):
so bought the ranch. I bought it in California, not
because I'm a fan of California, but I always knew
if I had to get rid of it, I could.
It's California, so I can dump it. So I only
bought California because of that, and because I had looked
up Shassa County was reported to be sixty seven registered Republicans.
(06:26):
So I said, at least I'm not going to do it.
I have to deal with any craziness up there, So
let's go. First of all, that music man Jeremy clearly
got the powerful son of a billionaire memo. And second,
did you catch that? Rivera says he moved to Shasta
(06:46):
because it was majority Republican and he wouldn't have to
deal with anything crazy because of that. If only anyway,
Rivera's bought acres near Shingletown, a place named for the
roofings lats made there during the Gold Rush. I'm telling
you all this because of what happens next. Revere wanted
(07:06):
to turn the property into a winery, restaurant, and ranch,
but when he went to prepare the land and build
the structures, Shasta County notified him that he had failed
to secure some of the necessary permits and that now
he needed to pay a fine. But instead of getting
the permits and paying the fine, Revere sued, insisting his
(07:29):
property rights were being violated. But it all sounds very
small potatoes. I did no wrong, was Shasta County. Shasta
County joined the team to try to beat up on
me on the pretext of an eighty dollar grading permit violation,
which everybody in agriculture knows. You don't need a grading
(07:51):
permit to work a pastor. That was him speaking in
two thousand twelve. This battle went on for years, escalating
through the courts, with the county serving up its own
legal complaints. County officials told Revere that since he didn't
have permits, he had to stop construction work on a
private chapel he was building. So Revere suit again. This time,
(08:15):
he said, his constitutional rights, his right to religion, we're
being violated today. I filed in the federal court on
the Amendment one violation of what that means to red
tag a private Catholic chapel. I said to the guy
who's doing it, you understand that's an establishment of religion, right?
(08:37):
You understand you hang as a sign on it. You're
about to breach the First Amendment. There's no problem. You
have no problem understanding English, do you? He said, no, hope,
But I'm just doing what I was told. You know,
now you might be wondering why would anyone escalate such
a seemingly minor dispute into a drawn out legal crusade. Well,
(08:59):
it helps to remember this was the early tens. Tea
Party politics were royaling the Republican establishment across the country,
and so like much in this town, Reverge's battle became
a political spectacle, pitch perfect for Fox News and Culture
even showed up at one event to support Reverge. The
(09:22):
local Tea Party organized a petition to back his cause.
They held rallies at his chapel carrying don't tread on
me flags. Here's one supporter, and I would ask you
all to remember that this is not about Reverge, and
it's not about this one church. The system works fine
with the people we elect are doing their jobs. What
(09:44):
is happening now is you have a Shafta County board
of supervisors who is not doing their job. They Leonard
was dumbfounded by all this. In his mind, the county
was trying to help Reverage get his project built, and
re Vera's fury seemed way out of proportion with the
original citation. So we tried many times, several times to
(10:07):
try to resolve it with him. But I don't know
why he chose not to. If he just was mad,
if he was getting bad advice, if he was just
being stubborn about it, if he thought maybe just had
more money than he needed to spend on a lawsuit,
I'm not sure. Whatever the true reason for his fight,
Revere finally lost. Federal judge sided with Shasta County, and
(10:31):
in a settlement the following year, Verge was made to
pay over one point three million dollars in legal fines
and fees. I really wanted to know why Vere fought
such a long and costly battle, so I tried to
contact him, but I never heard back. After he lost
his battle Riverge, his winery and restaurant stayed open for
(10:54):
a while, but he eventually sold the property and moved
back east. Now days, according to campaign filings, it appears
he's based in Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the richest cities
in America. His family estate, modeled after Marie Antoinette's cottage
at First Sailles One on the market for thirty two
(11:18):
million dollars. But that wouldn't be the last Shasta County
would hear of him. That's coming up after the break.
Long after he left the Shasta County spotlight revers continue
to play a powerful role behind the scenes. Former Shasta
(11:38):
County landowner Revers and Selmo just dropped one hundred thousand
dollars into jones campaign war chest. Connecticut billionaire Revere John
Selmo's hundred thousand dollar donation to now county supervisor Patrick
Jones remains the largest single donation in county history. You
heard in the last episode about Patrick Jones, a local
politician who decided to run for county supervisor in on
(12:02):
a message of reopening Shasta Revege got behind his campaign
and kicked in a hundred thousand dollars. That is a
staggering some for a local candidate. According to Leonard, someone
given money like that into a national election might be
one thing, but in a local election like Shasta County
for just one district. Keeping the mind back then, most
(12:25):
of the campaigns spent maybe somewhere between thirty to fifty
thou total to run for an office. What it showed
me was he was willing to spend a heck of
a lot of money to try to change in an election.
Just think about it. The entire population of Shasta County
is about a hundred and eighty thousand people. District four,
(12:46):
where Patrick ran has less than forty thou people. So
Revenge alone provided two and a half dollars per person
for Patrick's campaign. Patrick one and Verge wasn't finished. In August,
he contributed to the pack that had formed to support
the recall, his first donation fifty thousand dollars. A cloud
(13:12):
of dread hungover Leonard Moody. With all this money flying around,
it felt like anything could happen. But again, when you
have that much money and not much air time and
not much resources, you can tell a lot of lies.
It's pretty hard to defend brevage is massive infusions of
cash into these local campaigns in a community where he
(13:34):
no longer lives, begs the question why does our system
allow this? I needed an expert to break this down
for me. I'm Jessica Levinson, and I'm a professor at
Loyal Law School, and I teach constitutional law and election law.
(13:54):
Professor Levinson explained that when it comes to campaign finance limits,
the Dreame Court has decided that money equals speech. So
I think we've essentially legalized a lot of what we
might view as corruption or even bribery in our country.
We've legalized a system where because money is speech, money
(14:16):
can speak very very loudly. So it was again about
half a century ago, back in six that we decided,
and by we, I mean the Supreme Court decided that
because you need money to reach the voters, that money
should be treated as either speech or speech ee. And therefore,
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when you try and limit that money that's either going
to a candidate or going to an outside group, or
going to a political party, or being spent by any
of those individuals or groups, that we would have to
analyze that as if it was a limit on somebody's speech.
That means it's really really difficult to have any sort
(15:00):
of campaign finance in this country. In other words, a
person who decides to make a donation to a pack,
even for a campaign thousands of miles from where they live,
is akin to that person writing a letter of support
for politician or attending a protest against the law they hate,
and you can't prohibit that. So Reverge was pouring money
(15:25):
into the recall campaign, and he was also giving money
to Red, White, and Blueprint, which was helping spread the word.
But despite the steady flow of cash, the recall campaign
was facing an uphill climb. It was tough for organizers
to get all the signatures they needed. Canvassing houses in
a big, spread out county like Shasta was a lot
(15:48):
of work. None of the organizers had any idea if
they'd be able to win. Jeremy told me, quite the
monumental task. Much harder than we ever thought. Hard enough
that in the end, the recall campaign failed to collect
all the signatures they needed by the required deadline, so
the campaign requested more time on account of they said
(16:10):
wildfire smoke impeding their collection process. That request was denied,
so the campaign filed a lawsuit against the county clerk.
The judge ruled against them, saying the group had not
provided concrete evidence proving their hardships. Then, finally, in October,
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the Shasta County supervisor recall effort will move forward, but
only for one of the three targeted supervisors. The group
recalled Shasta was only successful in gathering the required signatures
for one of those three, Leonard Moody. It was official
an election in February would decide whether Leonard Moody was
(16:52):
going to be recalled. The other two supervisors, Mary Rickard
and Joe Commenti were off the hook, at least for now.
That seemed to be a pretty big setback to the
recall campaign's ambitions, and it was, but I want to
emphasize that the stakes were still high for the future
of Shasta County because remember, there were already two supervisors
(17:17):
on the five seat county board who were sympathetic to
the far right movement. To have majority, the recall campaign
only needed to unseat one supervisor and replace him with
one of their own candidates. So taking down Leonard alone
meant that the far right still had a shot at
(17:37):
taking control of the county and carrying out their constitutionalist
agenda or whatever it was that meant. And it wasn't
a coincidence that they had honed in on Leonard. He
made for an especially good target. Jeremy told me. Besides
some of the questionable things that he had done, there
(17:59):
was a brad sis and a real arrogance to his
demeanor in the board chambers. I'll get back to where
that perception came from in a second. But here's another
reason Leonard might have made an easier target. He had
been sitting on the Board of Supervisors for a long
long time, all the way back to the time of
(18:20):
Revere and Salmo's beef with Shasta County. So the stakes
got even higher in November when the recall campaign received
another huge donation from Revere four hundred thousand dollars. That
brought his contributions to the recall to nearly half a
(18:42):
million bucks, and it more than quadrupled the amount that
campaign had raised so far. In its final months, they
were able to spend nearly a hundred thousand dollars on
radio ads alone. They blasted their message of restoring local
government across TV and face book day in day out
(19:02):
to make sure voters heard. The TV airwaves were flooded.
Sinclair Broadcasting station Channel seven flooded with these ads, um
radio stations flooded with these ads. That's Donnie Chamberlain. She's
a founder, publisher, and one of the journalists at a
News Cafe, a local news site. She's made it her
(19:24):
job to document everything going on in Shasta County, where
she's lived almost her entire life. I wanted to talk
to Donny because she's been covering the recall closely, unpacking
the county board meetings in enormous detail. She really knows
for local politics. Hi, Laura. Earlier this year, my producer
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Kathleen and I met Donnie at her home and reading,
Oh my gosh, your home is so bright and inviting
a craftsman bungalow with an immaculate backyard. There's even a
treehouse where she likes to sit her morning coffee. Donnie
started a news cafe in two thousand seven after she
was laid off from her longtime columnist gig at the
(20:11):
Redding Record Searchlight. She thought her news site would be
a mix of local stories and articles about cooking and gardening,
but the rise of the far right has redefined her work.
She's relentlessly covered the recall in an oppositional, alarm raising way.
She calls the recall activists the Chef's taliban and compares
(20:35):
their campaign to a hostage situation. Donnie is an out
and proud liberal and anomaly in this town. But she's
also a trained reporter and she knows how to fact check.
And she says the recall campaign ads were dishonest. You know,
before we'd use more polite terms like, you know, a
campaign based on misinformation. No, it was a campaign based
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on lives. There were other mistruths, Donnie said, And at
the very end they just threw out like everything you know,
the stick to the wall. They did a photoshop of
Leonard moody and with a king's crown and a sceptor.
Jeremy mentioned this earlier, This image of Leonard as arrogant
(21:19):
and authoritarian. It was an image that the recall campaign
cultivated based on some real things Leonard had done. It
all sounds pretty petty, but bear with me as I
walk you through it. It's worth knowing and understanding because
it had a real impact on voters. One issue stemmed
(21:40):
from how Leonard behaved during the car fire, which broke
out in summer and turned into one of the largest
wildfires in California history. After the fire, Leonard had gone
with a sheriff's escort to tour restricted areas areas that
had burned, to check how homes and businesses and it's
district had fared. On a few of these official tours,
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he stopped by his own house to refuel his generator.
Two years went by, then a resident filed a complaint
to the county. It said Leonard had abused his power
after the fire by checking on his own home while
out on official government business. And while this might not
(22:26):
have been much of a scandal, in a normal year.
This was during the run up to the recall campaign.
Anti government outrage was running high, so the complaint went
to the Shasta County Grand Jury, a group of citizens
appointed to make decisions about civil matters. In May, the
(22:47):
grand jury found that while Leonard hadn't broken any laws,
he quote took advantage of the situation. After that, the
county board voted to censure Leonard. He apologized, but he
still maintains he didn't really do anything wrong. He thinks
the whole complaint and the fact that it went to
(23:09):
the grand jury was a setup to discredit him. So
I think that this was all part of an effort
by certain people to try to pull together a damaging
campaign to hurt me as well as the other supervisors.
So the car fire was one thing that the recall
campaign harked on. Another big sticking point was how Leonard
(23:32):
enforced meeting rules when he became the chair of the
Board of Supervisors in Remember, by this point, county meetings
were allowed and angry, and Leonard, an ex police chief,
didn't shy away from trying to restore law and order.
To avoid the hours long parades of outrage, he changed
(23:54):
the format so that public comment was split into two segments,
and he cracked down on the re minutes speaking limit.
The problem was playing cop didn't make him look so good,
especially since they were recall supporters who refused to follow
the rules. Microphone, if you can answer, if you can answer,
(24:16):
if you will see those funds, if you have a wordphone,
would you like to remove me? Please remove me? That
was from a pro recall ad that Red, White and
Blueprint put out portraying the aftermath of Leonard's rule change.
It made him look like a repressive dictator, even though
everything he was doing was in his authority. I'm telling
(24:39):
you all these excruciating details because I want you to
know what people in Shasta County were hearing when they
learned about the recall. Voters were hearing Mody wasn't a
true conservative, that he didn't tear about the common people,
and that he was personally responsible for things that voters
didn't like, even though Donnie said it just wasn't true,
(25:03):
because I know when I would go out to these
protests and rallies and I would interview people on you know,
Facebook lives, and I'd say, tell me why you want
Leonard Moody recalled. Well, because of our homeless problems, that
really has nothing to do with Leonard Moody personally. What else, Well,
because our kids have to wear masks, Well, that has
(25:24):
nothing to do with Leonyard Moody. That's a school decision. Well,
the hospitals are demanding that nurses be vaccinated. Well that
is I mean, one after the other. And then I
would watch people with clipboards wade into the crowd and say, hey,
are you sick of your kids having to wear masks? I? Sure,
am will sign here. This is why we want to
(25:45):
get rid of Leonard Moody. Hey, do you believe in
the constitution? I do. Leonard Moody doesn't. That's why we're
trying to get him recalled. And I was that was
a pivotal moment for me when I stopped believing in recalls.
I mean honestly, if I were going to a store
and somebody had a you know, a petition, you know,
(26:06):
to end cancer, I would be suspicious because the person
holding that clipboard can describe it however they want, and
nobody ever comes back to that to that person who
signed and says, do you remember the exact words that
that person holding the petition used to entice you or
encourage you to sign that petition, and I probably to
(26:27):
sort of blank look and like, well no, I just
you know, didn't want Leonard Moody anymore. Very general, and
that's why to me it's a dirty, nasty recall. Donnie's
rant made me wonder again, why do we have a
system that allows for this kind of talk. Well, according
(26:47):
to the constitutional law professor you heard earlier, campaign ads,
even dishonest ones, generally fall under perfectly legal free speech.
Here's Jessica Levinson again, we allow for misrepresentations, we allow
at times for lies, and unless it gives rise to
(27:10):
a claim for defamation or false light, We're more comfortable
living in a world in which we allow the truth
to rise to the top by having a vigorous debate,
as opposed to silencing speech that we sometimes might agree
(27:31):
as a lie, or some judges might agree and other
judges might not. But in Shasta County, this misinformation had
an impact, and so did the behavior of some of
the recalls most ardent supporters. How that affected Donnie and
voters after the break Ye, there are people who believed
(27:58):
the claims they heard from the recall. Pain there were
also people who didn't, but very few were willing to
speak out against the far right in Shasta County. Why
not because at this point, for the people who are
paying attention, a lot of them felt afraid. People whore.
I think everybody is afraid law enforcement. Everyone is afraid
(28:21):
of what could possibly happen because Carlos, you know, he
says he has thousands and thousands of supporters. If you
look at his red, white, and blueprint page, you'll see
people from all over the country, and some of the
death threats against Leonard Moody, Hey, we'll come out, We'll
fly out for Montana. You know, we'll bring our own ropes. Well,
you know, I mean violent, horrible things like that. So
(28:43):
you know, you don't know when someone has violent rhetoric,
where the rhetoric stops and violence begins. When Donnie speaks
of violent threats, she's also speaking for herself. She recently
installed a security system in front of her house because
she herself has become a target. For instance, a few
(29:04):
months before the recall election, she was at the courthouse
to cover the trial of Carlos Sepata. Carlos is the
man she just mentioned, the man who became the face
of the recall movement after his threatening speech in August.
I'm going to spare you the details because it really
gets into the weeds, but you just need to know
(29:25):
that Carlos got into a fight with a recall opponent
and was tried for battery and disturbing the peace. What
I want to highlight is what that was like for Donnie.
She describes being verbally abused and harassed by Carlos's supporters.
Just listen, guy turns around, he goes you, Donnie Chamberlain.
(29:46):
I said, I am, and he said you're a piece
of ship. And he's a very menacing looking guy. In fact,
he was a guy during the arrangement who pressed his
body against me in the courtroom full view of bailiffs,
and was leaning over look my notebook. In retrospect, I
should have just flagged down a bailiff and reported that
I was embarrassed. The intimidation continued when she went to
(30:10):
cover a protest in support of Carlos. One of Donnie's
friends stood by her for protection and offered to walk
her to her car. She felt grateful for that, but
also conflicted, and I was just felt like, oh man,
I was grateful, but as a woman, you know, a grandmother,
(30:30):
sixty five year old journalists has been doing this for
thirty years, it kind of broke my heart because to
have to have, you know, another air quote, to have
a man and and he's a sweetheart, he's a great guy,
have to walk me to my car because he didn't
feel like it was safe, And frankly, I wasn't so
sure it was safe either. That atmosphere of fear. It
(30:53):
wasn't just Donnie feeling it or a handful of her
fellow liberals. Anti recall voters on both sides of the
political spectrum were nervous to make posts on social media,
to put out yard signs, or even to make donations
to Leonard's campaign, because that would mean putting their names
out in public. Business owners were afraid of the same
(31:14):
things and of losing customers. But despite the threats, Donnie
persevered because the stakes, in her mind, could not be
higher if the recall campaign succeeded and put one of
their own in leonard seat. She truly expected the end
of the rule of law. In some ways, I kind
(31:36):
of feel like it would be kind of a really
awful experiment, Like you know, bring your popcorn and just
watch what's going to happen, because um, I have no
clue what it would look like after if there was
a major takeover of all the departments in Shasta County
and apartment heads were fired and the rule of law
(31:57):
went into the you know, the garbage been. If all
that happened, she said, the impacts on residents, especially marginalized communities,
could be sweeping. Well, you know, public health takes care
of our most vulnerable populations, people who are low income,
homeless people, mentally ill people, and there are all kinds
(32:19):
of programs that protect those people or do the best
we can. But then there are school boards for example,
I mean, and issues about lgbt Q plus populations. A
lot of these people on the pro recall side are
also Christian nationalists, and so it's kind of every aspect
of you know, modern civilized life. Donnie believed that if
(32:44):
the recall succeeded, Shasta County was primed for a makeover,
a makeover based on the agenda of the far right.
Her hometown, it seemed, was fertile ground for a wholesale transformation.
I feel like on a speeding train and there's no
stop ahead that I can see no little deepot to
(33:06):
get off, and so I'm just going to write it
until something stops me, or until things calm down and
you know, it runs out of steam and things get
back to normal. And um, I almost still choked up
saying that, because I used to kind of complain about
Shasta County a lot, you know, for various reasons. And
(33:26):
now I just want things. I feel like Dorothy and
the Wizard of Oz. I just want things back the
way they were. We said goodbye to Donny after spending
a few minutes in her treehouse. This is like my dream. Yeah,
so you can. I've actually had meetings, business meetings up there.
It's like I have a friend who calls up the
(33:46):
therapy tree, the place she goes when she needs to
cool off, to gain some fresh perspective of actually up
here all the time when the weather is nice, to
come out here in the morning with Yeah, it's just
something about being in a treehouse. He just feel different,
like you're a different place. And I thought about what
she said. She was speaking to a feeling that I
(34:06):
think a lot of people in the US have this
feeling that in the last six years, we veered off
onto some kind of alternate timeline, a timeline where basic
things like neighborly kindness seems like a quaint artifact of
the past, where political messages matter more than the truth,
(34:27):
and where the drive to win is more important than
the good of the country. Reverge and Selmo sure wanted
to win, and not just the ill fated lawsuits he
mounted years ago. He wanted something bigger, So what was
his target now? He actually gave a partial explanation in
(34:48):
episode two of Red, White, and Blueprint. You can take
over your own government. You can fire at all if
if you're a successful with Patrick Jones, recall three, super
eliminate the whole Resources Management Division, which has no resources. Yeah,
if you did that, I'd go back. In other words,
(35:11):
he was saying the supervisor recall might only be step one.
If the far right managed to gut the local government.
Reverge might personally return to Shasta County, which side would win,
and if the recall actually succeeded, what would happen next?
(35:32):
That's next time on bed Rock USA. This episode was
reported and hosted by me Laura Bliss. Kathleen Quillian is
our senior producer, Samantha Story is our story editor and
executive producer. We had additional editing help from Nicole Flato
and Francesco Levy, original music and scoring by Zachary Walter,
(35:55):
and audio engineering by Blake Naples. Jennifer Sandag is head
of Bloomer City Lab. Bedrock USA is a production of
Bloomberg City Lab and I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
It was April six and leaders of the Shasta County
(00:07):
recall campaign we're about to serve their formal notice of
intent to unseat three county supervisors. We met some of
the recall organizers in the last episode, Jeremy the Christian
music producer, Carlos the militia member and bar owner, and
Alyssa the woman with a bullhorn. Here's Alyssa announcing the
(00:29):
recall in front of the Board of Supervisors. Good morning, Supervisors,
Mody Rigord and commenting in a few minutes he will
be served an official notice of intent to be recalled.
This recall is, of course, correction for Shasta County. It
is not a wish hunt. It is a necessary performance
of crazy as leadership in this county during your position
(00:49):
has been critically assessed and you are being held accountable
by us, the citizens all in favor of a recall.
Say hi. And with that, more or less, the campaign
to recall Leonard Moody, Mary Rickart and Joe Commenti had begun,
or at least that was a dramatic part. Next up
(01:11):
the paperwork, and that took effort. Over the next several months.
Organizers would discover that mounting their campaign was not easy.
Volunteers and paid signature gatherers knocked on thousands of doors
across the three districts to get enough names on their petition.
There's times where there's a house every quarter mile with
(01:36):
a long driveway and it's gated because this is like
out in the sticks. And to gather over seven thousand
signatures in an area like that too, I mean these
people were going out every night. They'd go out full weekends.
You know, one person would go out for say like
eight hours and come back with like five signatures and
(01:57):
everybody's like cheering. It's like five signature or out of
seven thousand. That was Jeremy Edwardson, who you met in
the last episode as the producer of Red, White and Blueprint.
He was filming everything for his pro recall YouTube docuseries,
both Jeremy and the recall campaign. We're trying to raise
cash for their tandem efforts, a lot of cash and
(02:21):
that's where Reverge and Selmo comes in. He's the son
of a billionaire, a former marine and Hollywood filmmaker and
major right wing donor. He sounds like a villain from
a James Bond movie, right, But you can't make this
stuff up. In this episode, we're going to meet Revere,
(02:42):
or at least try to meet him, and find out
why he poured nearly half a million dollars into the
Shasta County recall. What made this guy so deeply invested
in influencing local politics in a place he no longer lived,
and why do the rules of our democracy cater to
people like him. We'll also follow the recall organizers as
(03:05):
they mounted their campaign and went to great lengths to win,
and boy did they want to win. Even if the
recall succeeded, would that be enough of a victory. This
is Bedrock USA, a production of Bloomberg City Lab and
I Heart Radio, a podcast about political extremism, small town life,
(03:27):
and the fight for democracy. I'm your host, Laura Bliss.
Leonard Moody was one of the Shasta County supervisors targeted
by the recall. I've talked to him a few times
over zoom to find out what it was like for him.
He's a clean shaven guy in his late sixties and
(03:50):
he has a somewhat e or like demeanor, but he
doesn't mince words about the pro recall activists who went
after him. And his colleagues. How do you mode me
of the whole situation with the Nazi Party in Germany
in thirties. I mean, that's how Hitler came to power
his group, you know, bullied, intimidated, threatened the people into silence.
(04:13):
Leonard stint as a county supervisor, started back in two
thousand nine after twenty five years serving as a police
officer in Reading, then six years as a chief of police.
He's been described as a Reagan Republican, fiscally conservative, socially moderate,
and an impeccable candidate for leadership. I hold my head
(04:34):
high based on my performance in my integrity while I
was in office. I think I tried to do what
was the right thing, and for that I was attacked.
When Leonard heard that the Shasta County recall was being
bankrolled by Revere and Salmo, he wasn't surprised. Revere had
been a notorious figure in local politics for many years,
(04:57):
but Leonard was worried because he knew Revere wasn't someone
who liked to lose. My impression was they see someone's
who was used to getting his way. From early on,
his dad was very, very wealthy, and uh he got
what he wanted when he wanted it real quick. Here's
what you need to know about Revere. He comes from money.
(05:20):
He's the son of the late Renee and Salmo, the
guy who founded the Spanish language TV network that later
became Univision, as well as a satellite company. Revere's mom,
Maryanne Salmo, made it on to Forbes two thousand eight
billionaire list. Revere grew up on the East Coast, served
in the Marines, and fought in Beirut. Then along the
(05:42):
way he became a Hollywood movie maker. Eventually, after moving
around a bit, he arrived in Shasta County in the
late two thousand's with his wife. And how did he
pick Shasta you might be wondering. Have a listen to Revere.
He's featured an episode two of Red, White, and Blueprint
My Horse. I had a very good bond with a horse,
(06:05):
so bought the ranch. I bought it in California, not
because I'm a fan of California, but I always knew
if I had to get rid of it, I could.
It's California, so I can dump it. So I only
bought California because of that, and because I had looked
up Shassa County was reported to be sixty seven registered Republicans.
(06:26):
So I said, at least I'm not going to do it.
I have to deal with any craziness up there, So
let's go. First of all, that music man Jeremy clearly
got the powerful son of a billionaire memo. And second,
did you catch that? Rivera says he moved to Shasta
(06:46):
because it was majority Republican and he wouldn't have to
deal with anything crazy because of that. If only anyway,
Rivera's bought acres near Shingletown, a place named for the
roofings lats made there during the Gold Rush. I'm telling
you all this because of what happens next. Revere wanted
(07:06):
to turn the property into a winery, restaurant, and ranch,
but when he went to prepare the land and build
the structures, Shasta County notified him that he had failed
to secure some of the necessary permits and that now
he needed to pay a fine. But instead of getting
the permits and paying the fine, Revere sued, insisting his
(07:29):
property rights were being violated. But it all sounds very
small potatoes. I did no wrong, was Shasta County. Shasta
County joined the team to try to beat up on
me on the pretext of an eighty dollar grading permit violation,
which everybody in agriculture knows. You don't need a grading
(07:51):
permit to work a pastor. That was him speaking in
two thousand twelve. This battle went on for years, escalating
through the courts, with the county serving up its own
legal complaints. County officials told Revere that since he didn't
have permits, he had to stop construction work on a
private chapel he was building. So Revere suit again. This time,
(08:15):
he said, his constitutional rights, his right to religion, we're
being violated today. I filed in the federal court on
the Amendment one violation of what that means to red
tag a private Catholic chapel. I said to the guy
who's doing it, you understand that's an establishment of religion, right?
(08:37):
You understand you hang as a sign on it. You're
about to breach the First Amendment. There's no problem. You
have no problem understanding English, do you? He said, no, hope,
But I'm just doing what I was told. You know,
now you might be wondering why would anyone escalate such
a seemingly minor dispute into a drawn out legal crusade. Well,
(08:59):
it helps to remember this was the early tens. Tea
Party politics were royaling the Republican establishment across the country,
and so like much in this town, Reverge's battle became
a political spectacle, pitch perfect for Fox News and Culture
even showed up at one event to support Reverge. The
(09:22):
local Tea Party organized a petition to back his cause.
They held rallies at his chapel carrying don't tread on
me flags. Here's one supporter, and I would ask you
all to remember that this is not about Reverge, and
it's not about this one church. The system works fine
with the people we elect are doing their jobs. What
(09:44):
is happening now is you have a Shafta County board
of supervisors who is not doing their job. They Leonard
was dumbfounded by all this. In his mind, the county
was trying to help Reverage get his project built, and
re Vera's fury seemed way out of proportion with the
original citation. So we tried many times, several times to
(10:07):
try to resolve it with him. But I don't know
why he chose not to. If he just was mad,
if he was getting bad advice, if he was just
being stubborn about it, if he thought maybe just had
more money than he needed to spend on a lawsuit,
I'm not sure. Whatever the true reason for his fight,
Revere finally lost. Federal judge sided with Shasta County, and
(10:31):
in a settlement the following year, Verge was made to
pay over one point three million dollars in legal fines
and fees. I really wanted to know why Vere fought
such a long and costly battle, so I tried to
contact him, but I never heard back. After he lost
his battle Riverge, his winery and restaurant stayed open for
(10:54):
a while, but he eventually sold the property and moved
back east. Now days, according to campaign filings, it appears
he's based in Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the richest cities
in America. His family estate, modeled after Marie Antoinette's cottage
at First Sailles One on the market for thirty two
(11:18):
million dollars. But that wouldn't be the last Shasta County
would hear of him. That's coming up after the break.
Long after he left the Shasta County spotlight revers continue
to play a powerful role behind the scenes. Former Shasta
(11:38):
County landowner Revers and Selmo just dropped one hundred thousand
dollars into jones campaign war chest. Connecticut billionaire Revere John
Selmo's hundred thousand dollar donation to now county supervisor Patrick
Jones remains the largest single donation in county history. You
heard in the last episode about Patrick Jones, a local
politician who decided to run for county supervisor in on
(12:02):
a message of reopening Shasta Revege got behind his campaign
and kicked in a hundred thousand dollars. That is a
staggering some for a local candidate. According to Leonard, someone
given money like that into a national election might be
one thing, but in a local election like Shasta County
for just one district. Keeping the mind back then, most
(12:25):
of the campaigns spent maybe somewhere between thirty to fifty
thou total to run for an office. What it showed
me was he was willing to spend a heck of
a lot of money to try to change in an election.
Just think about it. The entire population of Shasta County
is about a hundred and eighty thousand people. District four,
(12:46):
where Patrick ran has less than forty thou people. So
Revenge alone provided two and a half dollars per person
for Patrick's campaign. Patrick one and Verge wasn't finished. In August,
he contributed to the pack that had formed to support
the recall, his first donation fifty thousand dollars. A cloud
(13:12):
of dread hungover Leonard Moody. With all this money flying around,
it felt like anything could happen. But again, when you
have that much money and not much air time and
not much resources, you can tell a lot of lies.
It's pretty hard to defend brevage is massive infusions of
cash into these local campaigns in a community where he
(13:34):
no longer lives, begs the question why does our system
allow this? I needed an expert to break this down
for me. I'm Jessica Levinson, and I'm a professor at
Loyal Law School, and I teach constitutional law and election law.
(13:54):
Professor Levinson explained that when it comes to campaign finance limits,
the Dreame Court has decided that money equals speech. So
I think we've essentially legalized a lot of what we
might view as corruption or even bribery in our country.
We've legalized a system where because money is speech, money
(14:16):
can speak very very loudly. So it was again about
half a century ago, back in six that we decided,
and by we, I mean the Supreme Court decided that
because you need money to reach the voters, that money
should be treated as either speech or speech ee. And therefore,
(14:38):
when you try and limit that money that's either going
to a candidate or going to an outside group, or
going to a political party, or being spent by any
of those individuals or groups, that we would have to
analyze that as if it was a limit on somebody's speech.
That means it's really really difficult to have any sort
(15:00):
of campaign finance in this country. In other words, a
person who decides to make a donation to a pack,
even for a campaign thousands of miles from where they live,
is akin to that person writing a letter of support
for politician or attending a protest against the law they hate,
and you can't prohibit that. So Reverge was pouring money
(15:25):
into the recall campaign, and he was also giving money
to Red, White, and Blueprint, which was helping spread the word.
But despite the steady flow of cash, the recall campaign
was facing an uphill climb. It was tough for organizers
to get all the signatures they needed. Canvassing houses in
a big, spread out county like Shasta was a lot
(15:48):
of work. None of the organizers had any idea if
they'd be able to win. Jeremy told me, quite the
monumental task. Much harder than we ever thought. Hard enough
that in the end, the recall campaign failed to collect
all the signatures they needed by the required deadline, so
the campaign requested more time on account of they said
(16:10):
wildfire smoke impeding their collection process. That request was denied,
so the campaign filed a lawsuit against the county clerk.
The judge ruled against them, saying the group had not
provided concrete evidence proving their hardships. Then, finally, in October,
(16:31):
the Shasta County supervisor recall effort will move forward, but
only for one of the three targeted supervisors. The group
recalled Shasta was only successful in gathering the required signatures
for one of those three, Leonard Moody. It was official
an election in February would decide whether Leonard Moody was
(16:52):
going to be recalled. The other two supervisors, Mary Rickard
and Joe Commenti were off the hook, at least for now.
That seemed to be a pretty big setback to the
recall campaign's ambitions, and it was, but I want to
emphasize that the stakes were still high for the future
of Shasta County because remember, there were already two supervisors
(17:17):
on the five seat county board who were sympathetic to
the far right movement. To have majority, the recall campaign
only needed to unseat one supervisor and replace him with
one of their own candidates. So taking down Leonard alone
meant that the far right still had a shot at
(17:37):
taking control of the county and carrying out their constitutionalist
agenda or whatever it was that meant. And it wasn't
a coincidence that they had honed in on Leonard. He
made for an especially good target. Jeremy told me. Besides
some of the questionable things that he had done, there
(17:59):
was a brad sis and a real arrogance to his
demeanor in the board chambers. I'll get back to where
that perception came from in a second. But here's another
reason Leonard might have made an easier target. He had
been sitting on the Board of Supervisors for a long
long time, all the way back to the time of
(18:20):
Revere and Salmo's beef with Shasta County. So the stakes
got even higher in November when the recall campaign received
another huge donation from Revere four hundred thousand dollars. That
brought his contributions to the recall to nearly half a
(18:42):
million bucks, and it more than quadrupled the amount that
campaign had raised so far. In its final months, they
were able to spend nearly a hundred thousand dollars on
radio ads alone. They blasted their message of restoring local
government across TV and face book day in day out
(19:02):
to make sure voters heard. The TV airwaves were flooded.
Sinclair Broadcasting station Channel seven flooded with these ads, um
radio stations flooded with these ads. That's Donnie Chamberlain. She's
a founder, publisher, and one of the journalists at a
News Cafe, a local news site. She's made it her
(19:24):
job to document everything going on in Shasta County, where
she's lived almost her entire life. I wanted to talk
to Donny because she's been covering the recall closely, unpacking
the county board meetings in enormous detail. She really knows
for local politics. Hi, Laura. Earlier this year, my producer
(19:50):
Kathleen and I met Donnie at her home and reading,
Oh my gosh, your home is so bright and inviting
a craftsman bungalow with an immaculate backyard. There's even a
treehouse where she likes to sit her morning coffee. Donnie
started a news cafe in two thousand seven after she
was laid off from her longtime columnist gig at the
(20:11):
Redding Record Searchlight. She thought her news site would be
a mix of local stories and articles about cooking and gardening,
but the rise of the far right has redefined her work.
She's relentlessly covered the recall in an oppositional, alarm raising way.
She calls the recall activists the Chef's taliban and compares
(20:35):
their campaign to a hostage situation. Donnie is an out
and proud liberal and anomaly in this town. But she's
also a trained reporter and she knows how to fact check.
And she says the recall campaign ads were dishonest. You know,
before we'd use more polite terms like, you know, a
campaign based on misinformation. No, it was a campaign based
(20:59):
on lives. There were other mistruths, Donnie said, And at
the very end they just threw out like everything you know,
the stick to the wall. They did a photoshop of
Leonard moody and with a king's crown and a sceptor.
Jeremy mentioned this earlier, This image of Leonard as arrogant
(21:19):
and authoritarian. It was an image that the recall campaign
cultivated based on some real things Leonard had done. It
all sounds pretty petty, but bear with me as I
walk you through it. It's worth knowing and understanding because
it had a real impact on voters. One issue stemmed
(21:40):
from how Leonard behaved during the car fire, which broke
out in summer and turned into one of the largest
wildfires in California history. After the fire, Leonard had gone
with a sheriff's escort to tour restricted areas areas that
had burned, to check how homes and businesses and it's
district had fared. On a few of these official tours,
(22:04):
he stopped by his own house to refuel his generator.
Two years went by, then a resident filed a complaint
to the county. It said Leonard had abused his power
after the fire by checking on his own home while
out on official government business. And while this might not
(22:26):
have been much of a scandal, in a normal year.
This was during the run up to the recall campaign.
Anti government outrage was running high, so the complaint went
to the Shasta County Grand Jury, a group of citizens
appointed to make decisions about civil matters. In May, the
(22:47):
grand jury found that while Leonard hadn't broken any laws,
he quote took advantage of the situation. After that, the
county board voted to censure Leonard. He apologized, but he
still maintains he didn't really do anything wrong. He thinks
the whole complaint and the fact that it went to
(23:09):
the grand jury was a setup to discredit him. So
I think that this was all part of an effort
by certain people to try to pull together a damaging
campaign to hurt me as well as the other supervisors.
So the car fire was one thing that the recall
campaign harked on. Another big sticking point was how Leonard
(23:32):
enforced meeting rules when he became the chair of the
Board of Supervisors in Remember, by this point, county meetings
were allowed and angry, and Leonard, an ex police chief,
didn't shy away from trying to restore law and order.
To avoid the hours long parades of outrage, he changed
(23:54):
the format so that public comment was split into two segments,
and he cracked down on the re minutes speaking limit.
The problem was playing cop didn't make him look so good,
especially since they were recall supporters who refused to follow
the rules. Microphone, if you can answer, if you can answer,
(24:16):
if you will see those funds, if you have a wordphone,
would you like to remove me? Please remove me? That
was from a pro recall ad that Red, White and
Blueprint put out portraying the aftermath of Leonard's rule change.
It made him look like a repressive dictator, even though
everything he was doing was in his authority. I'm telling
(24:39):
you all these excruciating details because I want you to
know what people in Shasta County were hearing when they
learned about the recall. Voters were hearing Mody wasn't a
true conservative, that he didn't tear about the common people,
and that he was personally responsible for things that voters
didn't like, even though Donnie said it just wasn't true,
(25:03):
because I know when I would go out to these
protests and rallies and I would interview people on you know,
Facebook lives, and I'd say, tell me why you want
Leonard Moody recalled. Well, because of our homeless problems, that
really has nothing to do with Leonard Moody personally. What else, Well,
because our kids have to wear masks, Well, that has
(25:24):
nothing to do with Leonyard Moody. That's a school decision. Well,
the hospitals are demanding that nurses be vaccinated. Well that
is I mean, one after the other. And then I
would watch people with clipboards wade into the crowd and say, hey,
are you sick of your kids having to wear masks? I? Sure,
am will sign here. This is why we want to
(25:45):
get rid of Leonard Moody. Hey, do you believe in
the constitution? I do. Leonard Moody doesn't. That's why we're
trying to get him recalled. And I was that was
a pivotal moment for me when I stopped believing in recalls.
I mean honestly, if I were going to a store
and somebody had a you know, a petition, you know,
(26:06):
to end cancer, I would be suspicious because the person
holding that clipboard can describe it however they want, and
nobody ever comes back to that to that person who
signed and says, do you remember the exact words that
that person holding the petition used to entice you or
encourage you to sign that petition, and I probably to
(26:27):
sort of blank look and like, well no, I just
you know, didn't want Leonard Moody anymore. Very general, and
that's why to me it's a dirty, nasty recall. Donnie's
rant made me wonder again, why do we have a
system that allows for this kind of talk. Well, according
(26:47):
to the constitutional law professor you heard earlier, campaign ads,
even dishonest ones, generally fall under perfectly legal free speech.
Here's Jessica Levinson again, we allow for misrepresentations, we allow
at times for lies, and unless it gives rise to
(27:10):
a claim for defamation or false light, We're more comfortable
living in a world in which we allow the truth
to rise to the top by having a vigorous debate,
as opposed to silencing speech that we sometimes might agree
(27:31):
as a lie, or some judges might agree and other
judges might not. But in Shasta County, this misinformation had
an impact, and so did the behavior of some of
the recalls most ardent supporters. How that affected Donnie and
voters after the break Ye, there are people who believed
(27:58):
the claims they heard from the recall. Pain there were
also people who didn't, but very few were willing to
speak out against the far right in Shasta County. Why
not because at this point, for the people who are
paying attention, a lot of them felt afraid. People whore.
I think everybody is afraid law enforcement. Everyone is afraid
(28:21):
of what could possibly happen because Carlos, you know, he
says he has thousands and thousands of supporters. If you
look at his red, white, and blueprint page, you'll see
people from all over the country, and some of the
death threats against Leonard Moody, Hey, we'll come out, We'll
fly out for Montana. You know, we'll bring our own ropes. Well,
you know, I mean violent, horrible things like that. So
(28:43):
you know, you don't know when someone has violent rhetoric,
where the rhetoric stops and violence begins. When Donnie speaks
of violent threats, she's also speaking for herself. She recently
installed a security system in front of her house because
she herself has become a target. For instance, a few
(29:04):
months before the recall election, she was at the courthouse
to cover the trial of Carlos Sepata. Carlos is the
man she just mentioned, the man who became the face
of the recall movement after his threatening speech in August.
I'm going to spare you the details because it really
gets into the weeds, but you just need to know
(29:25):
that Carlos got into a fight with a recall opponent
and was tried for battery and disturbing the peace. What
I want to highlight is what that was like for Donnie.
She describes being verbally abused and harassed by Carlos's supporters.
Just listen, guy turns around, he goes you, Donnie Chamberlain.
(29:46):
I said, I am, and he said you're a piece
of ship. And he's a very menacing looking guy. In fact,
he was a guy during the arrangement who pressed his
body against me in the courtroom full view of bailiffs,
and was leaning over look my notebook. In retrospect, I
should have just flagged down a bailiff and reported that
I was embarrassed. The intimidation continued when she went to
(30:10):
cover a protest in support of Carlos. One of Donnie's
friends stood by her for protection and offered to walk
her to her car. She felt grateful for that, but
also conflicted, and I was just felt like, oh man,
I was grateful, but as a woman, you know, a grandmother,
(30:30):
sixty five year old journalists has been doing this for
thirty years, it kind of broke my heart because to
have to have, you know, another air quote, to have
a man and and he's a sweetheart, he's a great guy,
have to walk me to my car because he didn't
feel like it was safe, And frankly, I wasn't so
sure it was safe either. That atmosphere of fear. It
(30:53):
wasn't just Donnie feeling it or a handful of her
fellow liberals. Anti recall voters on both sides of the
political spectrum were nervous to make posts on social media,
to put out yard signs, or even to make donations
to Leonard's campaign, because that would mean putting their names
out in public. Business owners were afraid of the same
(31:14):
things and of losing customers. But despite the threats, Donnie
persevered because the stakes, in her mind, could not be
higher if the recall campaign succeeded and put one of
their own in leonard seat. She truly expected the end
of the rule of law. In some ways, I kind
(31:36):
of feel like it would be kind of a really
awful experiment, Like you know, bring your popcorn and just
watch what's going to happen, because um, I have no
clue what it would look like after if there was
a major takeover of all the departments in Shasta County
and apartment heads were fired and the rule of law
(31:57):
went into the you know, the garbage been. If all
that happened, she said, the impacts on residents, especially marginalized communities,
could be sweeping. Well, you know, public health takes care
of our most vulnerable populations, people who are low income,
homeless people, mentally ill people, and there are all kinds
(32:19):
of programs that protect those people or do the best
we can. But then there are school boards for example,
I mean, and issues about lgbt Q plus populations. A
lot of these people on the pro recall side are
also Christian nationalists, and so it's kind of every aspect
of you know, modern civilized life. Donnie believed that if
(32:44):
the recall succeeded, Shasta County was primed for a makeover,
a makeover based on the agenda of the far right.
Her hometown, it seemed, was fertile ground for a wholesale transformation.
I feel like on a speeding train and there's no
stop ahead that I can see no little deepot to
(33:06):
get off, and so I'm just going to write it
until something stops me, or until things calm down and
you know, it runs out of steam and things get
back to normal. And um, I almost still choked up
saying that, because I used to kind of complain about
Shasta County a lot, you know, for various reasons. And
(33:26):
now I just want things. I feel like Dorothy and
the Wizard of Oz. I just want things back the
way they were. We said goodbye to Donny after spending
a few minutes in her treehouse. This is like my dream. Yeah,
so you can. I've actually had meetings, business meetings up there.
It's like I have a friend who calls up the
(33:46):
therapy tree, the place she goes when she needs to
cool off, to gain some fresh perspective of actually up
here all the time when the weather is nice, to
come out here in the morning with Yeah, it's just
something about being in a treehouse. He just feel different,
like you're a different place. And I thought about what
she said. She was speaking to a feeling that I
(34:06):
think a lot of people in the US have this
feeling that in the last six years, we veered off
onto some kind of alternate timeline, a timeline where basic
things like neighborly kindness seems like a quaint artifact of
the past, where political messages matter more than the truth,
(34:27):
and where the drive to win is more important than
the good of the country. Reverge and Selmo sure wanted
to win, and not just the ill fated lawsuits he
mounted years ago. He wanted something bigger, So what was
his target now? He actually gave a partial explanation in
(34:48):
episode two of Red, White, and Blueprint. You can take
over your own government. You can fire at all if
if you're a successful with Patrick Jones, recall three, super
eliminate the whole Resources Management Division, which has no resources. Yeah,
if you did that, I'd go back. In other words,
(35:11):
he was saying the supervisor recall might only be step one.
If the far right managed to gut the local government.
Reverge might personally return to Shasta County, which side would win,
and if the recall actually succeeded, what would happen next?
(35:32):
That's next time on bed Rock USA. This episode was
reported and hosted by me Laura Bliss. Kathleen Quillian is
our senior producer, Samantha Story is our story editor and
executive producer. We had additional editing help from Nicole Flato
and Francesco Levy, original music and scoring by Zachary Walter,
(35:55):
and audio engineering by Blake Naples. Jennifer Sandag is head
of Bloomer City Lab. Bedrock USA is a production of
Bloomberg City Lab and I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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