Hi, and welcome once again to History Weeks. I am Tim, and the topic of our podcast today is the assassination of Huey P. Long. Huey Long, for those of you who are not familiar with the story, was governor of Louisiana for a long time.
He was also a U.S. senator, and he was assassinated. And we're going to talk about his life and the events leading up to his assassination, some of which are still kind of in dispute today. But before we do, I'd like to introduce my co-host.
I should start off by saying Brandy is not with us today. She has some family issues going on, so she won't be here for this podcast, but we hope that she'll be back with us soon. But in the meantime, let me introduce my co-host very honorable, the moral compass of our podcast, and really a leader among men, the very honorable Reverend Colonel Charles Beauregard, Hawk Waters III, affectionately known as the Southern Gentleman. How are you today, Carl?
Couldn't be better today, Timmy. I got to go to Chicago, spend some time with the boys. It was over Thanksgiving. Over Thanksgiving.
So did you have a good time? We had a really good time. The boys didn't torment me. Well, I mean, they tormented me to the point where, you know.
Yeah, they just limited torments. Yeah, they kept it down. They kept it down, too. You know, Taylor asked me a very interesting question, Timmy.
He said, Dad, and we're just sitting on the couch, and Taylor's reading a book, and he just says, Dad, you ever think about birdhouses? About birdhouses. Birdhouses. Okay.
And I said, Taylor, I spent very little time, so I'm thinking about birdhouses. He's like, where do birds live, Dad? I said, well, they live in nests and trees. And he said, so we cut down the trees to get the wood to make the birdhouses.
That does seem a contradiction, doesn't it, fair enough? It just, it scares me how the boys' mind works. He's got a point, though. He does have a point.
But I'm excited. We're very sad for the devil. She's got some, and the devil's not private about this stuff, so we'll just say it. Her grandmother's not doing well.
Yes. And she is in our thoughts. Absolutely. And, you know, she cannot be here today.
So while, since the devil cannot be here today, Timmy, it allows us, and she can't be here to do higher-level history, Timmy. So you mean we're going to be able to do some topics that we, kind of above her head? Above her head. And, you know, everybody talks about Donald.
Everybody wants to talk about Donald. Donald Trump? No, Donald Duck, Timmy. Okay.
But nobody wants to get into the details, because it's a shady history. It's a sordid thing about Huey, Louie, and Dewey. How did they come about? No, no, no.
This is about Huey Long, Colonel. Not Huey, the nephew of Donald Duck. Huey Long, who was the U.S. Senator and Governor and potential presidential candidate.
The Kingfish? The Kingfish, yes, yes, yes. Okay, well, I've got a bunch of stuff here on a bunch of ducks. Maybe we'll do that one next time, Colonel.
Let me, before we get started. Okay, can you give me a couple minutes to regroup it, Timmy? Absolutely. Regroup a little bit, Colonel, and while you're doing that, I'll give a shout-out to our sponsors on Patreon.
How does that sound? That sounds good to me. This is a... I know.
You're a little unprepared now. You're a little embarrassed, you see. Okay, so we want to give a shout-out to the folks who support us so generously on Patreon. If you would like to support the podcast, you can go to patreon.com slash historyweeds.
You can give a little, you can give a lot, or how much, Colonel? You can just give a wee little bit. Everything helps, and we're very, very grateful for all the support that you provide us. And we have a list of patrons that we'd like to give a shout-out to because they do support the podcast, and we're very grateful to them.
And those are... We got a new Patreon sponsor who's very sweet, and she also is new to our group on Facebook, and that's Jen Moyer. Jen, very generous. Thank you so much for your support and for joining our group.
She says she's been listening for a while, and she just joined the group and also now a Patreon supporter, so thank you very much, Jen. Brandy McBride, thank you, Brandy, for your support. Andrew Happ, Lisa. I hope I said that right, Lisa.
Amber Scoville, Jahara, of course, Jennifer Siemens and her son, Hunter, and Mom, Linda. Thank you very much. Angelo. Angelo, thank you for your support.
Bridget Klavy, thank you, Bridget. Cindy Lou has been a sponsor for us for sometime now, as has Charlie from the Insight Podcast. We thank you all very much. And, of course, the Wonder Dog, Rudy, who is a...
I think he's using this for tax purposes, but, you know, he's not really... He's not really, you know, going above and beyond. Rudy's always working an angle on something, too. Yeah, I think he's...
I think he's anticipating some of the changes in the tax laws and thought he'd jump in and support us, but we appreciate it, Rudy. You know, and this is a... I found my dog to be embarrassing at times to me. Oh, really?
Why is that? Yeah, because the dog can be incredibly sexist. Oh, really? I didn't know that.
Yeah, see, if Renee is walking him and a male approaches, you will hear a low growl emitting from Rudy's throat. Okay. And you've been around, Rudy, right? Rudy's a friendly dog.
He is a lovable guy. But if it's just Renee and she's just walking just her alone, Rudy will... Every man that he sees is like, yeah, I know what you want to do to my mom, or just move along, nothing to see her, or... So he's in protective mode.
I think he's jealous. That's what I think it is. Yeah, you don't want to share her actions. Yeah, he's a good boy, and he can keep the love offerings coming.
His back is healing up. No, that's good. But he's... He's in recovery.
Pushed a disc in his back, yeah. Is he on Oxycontin yet? He's on Tramadol, Doggy Pain Killers. And it was kind of funny to see him because you get a little...
Rudy's an energetic dog. Uh-huh. So he's like mellowed out? Yeah, he's all chilling.
He's got Netflix on. I'll come in. He's got his headphones on. Eating Doritos.
I think it works like marijuana. Yeah. All right. But he's doing good, so I'm glad.
Shout out to Rudy. Thank you for your support, Rudy. All right. Let's talk about Huey Pierce Long.
Want to? Let's do that, Timmy. Okay, so Huey Pierce Long, Jr. was born on August 30th, 1893 in Winfield, which is in the Wind Parish, a small town in north-central Louisiana.
So I know you, being a southern gentleman, you're very familiar with that. That's close to close to the heart, Timmy. That's where the Cardinal family hails from. Yeah, so you probably have a lot of...
You're very familiar with Huey Long. I know the Kingfish well, and luckily, you know, you threw me off because when you said we were doing Huey, I assumed we do as brothers. But luckily, I'm able to adapt quickly because I know a lot about Huey. All right, well, good.
I'm glad. So our listeners, I'm sure, are probably relieved. He was born the son of Huey Pierce Long, Sr., obviously, and his name was Catalonia, which is kind of a weird name, but whatever. He was the seventh of nine surviving children.
So he grew up in a farm family, but they were middle class. And he was homeschooled as a young man. He later attended school, but at first he was homeschooled. And he had a remarkable memory.
He did well. I mean, he comes... I mean, if you know the story of Huey Long, if you ever see him on Newsreel's old Newsreel, he looks kind of like a buffoon, but he actually was pretty intelligent in terms of... I mean, I think he went one year of college at Louisiana State and before he took the bar exam...
And he talked him into allowing him to take the bar. Yeah, Louisiana is one of the few states in the country where you can just sit for the bar exam. You don't have to have a law degree or anything. So...
You know, this is a timely one, Timmy, because there's some... What you're going to notice, Andrew, here are, you know... Again, we don't get too political on our show, but there are some... You know, this election we have was a...
You know, we haven't really seen anything like it. Right. You know? I mean...
Yeah, and Huey Long has... I mean, Donald Trump has grown comparisons. There have been comparisons drawn to Huey Long. Huey Long got...
And you'll get into that, but he found a... A resource of power that had not been tapped before. Right. And most of these were people who had kind of been left behind.
Right. And so we'll get into that momentarily. But I mean, it's very... But it depends on what side of the fence you're on politically, I guess, or...
People, you know, like with Trump, I think people either love him or they hate him. And that was the way with Huey Long. And with Huey Long, they thought that he was either a savior or a Satan. Yes, exactly.
And there's arguments to be made for both. Yeah. And I think Huey Long turned out to be a little bit of both. I mean, you know, he turned out to be...
He's just to be one of the most interesting characters. He really is. So let me get back a little bit to his background. In 1908, after completing the 11th grade, he circulated a petition protesting...
They added the 12th grade, and he protested that he would have to go another year, and he got kicked out of school. But he won a debating scholarship, and he got a year's scholarship to Louisiana State LSU, which kind of became his alma mater. And when he later became governor and senator, he really built that school up a lot of, you know, through state funds that Louisiana State University became what it is today. And so he was a real supporter of LSU all the way up to his death.
But Huey got bored in college, so he had the gift of gab. And so he spent five years after high school as a traveling salesman, selling books, selling canned goods, patent medicines. So he also worked as an auctioneer, and he related well with people. And he had, like I said, he had a gift of gab, as I know you can relate to, Colonel.
You've been known to Telltale. You have, you have, so you can relate to that. So he was in sales. In 1913, he married Rose McConnell.
She was come to buy some, some called Cottoneil, which he was selling. It was a vegetable shortening. Like crystal. Yeah, like crystal at the time.
And they met. In 1913, they were soon married. They had a daughter named Rose. They had two sons, Russell, who later became a seven-term U.S.
senator, and Palmer, who later became an oil tycoon. When sales grew, a scarce during World War I, Huey decided he was going to go to seminary. So he went to Oklahoma Baptist University to become a preacher, because he had this gift of gab. But that kind of bored him.
So he decided instead he was going to be a lawyer. Well, the Lord's work is not for everybody. I know. And it takes a commitment to the field.
It's like, when a devil's in here, she likes to say she's a reverend, too. But she does not put the effort into it. She does not put the... Well, she's kind of representing the dark side.
And I was going to say, she doesn't put a heart and soul in it, but she doesn't have a soul. Exactly. And I don't know that she has a heart. We don't know.
But at some point, they'll do post-mortem on her, and we'll figure it out. I believe she has a heart, because you'd have to drive a state to it to kill her. I see. So anyway, he, Louie, attended Oklahoma School of Law in Norman, Oklahoma, for a while, until his funds ran out.
He transferred to Tulane University Law School at New Orleans. Again, after a year, he ran out of money, and money would be a problem. In 1915, though, he convinced the board to let him take the state bar exam. And he did well.
He passed. Let me tell you, as someone who's been to law school, there are a few chosen people who can sit for the bar without any prep after law school. Maybe if you're the top in your class, but most people do not. Most people study today for at least two or three months prior to taking it.
How he could take the bar exam without going to law school was amazing. What surprised me, a friend of mine just passed the bar a couple years ago, and she did it later. I say later in life. She was about 33 when she did it.
And I did not realize that it's basically once you graduate from law school, then you are taking other classes to prepare for the bar. And they're very expensive classes. She said, I believe she spent close to $5,000 preparing to take the bar. Absolutely.
And if you pass the first time, a lot of people don't pass the first time. So, yeah, that's why when I completed law school and I decided I didn't want to be a lawyer, I was not going to waste the time and energy to take the – Well, what would have been your advantage other than having – I mean, you would have had to do the continuing education. Exactly. And you would have the malpractice insurance you would have to care.
I mean, it's a very expensive proposition. And my focus was in on labor and employment law, which I can use in my job. So it just didn't seem – and when you graduate from law school, I don't want to get sidetracked on this. But if you're 22 and a firm hires you, you're going to spend – you're going to spend five to seven years without ever sitting inside of a courtroom.
You're just doing research, and you're working 80 hours a week, and it pays off eventually. But you have to put a lot of hours in. And they don't want someone who's 40 years old. They want someone who's 22.
Right, who's 22. They can pay very little and make them work $85 a week. Exactly, exactly. And so – and the other option is, as you mentioned, is private practice.
And that, you know, you need some money up front to establish a clientele. So he would be taking the bar exam and passing it. It's kind of astonishing. And that's what's kind of the contradiction in this guy that he came across as a – A boob.
Well, and, you know, the term that he used and the term that they used in Louisiana for the poor folk, poor rural folk, they called them shit kickers, shit kickers. And he was basically a shit kicker. And he was extremely intelligent, but he never really let that come to the fore. He never showed that side in public.
Right. He always seemed like a very simple, down-to-earth man. So he could relate to – and we have to talk, you know, to set the scene a little bit, Louisiana was, you know, a last in almost every measure that, you know, economically. You could have education, it was last.
Highway, it was last. Schools, it was last. Hospitals. Hospitals.
So Huey, you know, it was kind of a fertile environment for someone like Huey Long to come along and take advantage of it. But anyway, in 1915, he passed the bar exam. He begins private practice in Winfield, Louisiana. Later, he moved to Shreveport, a larger city.
And he represented small plaintiffs against large businesses, including workman's comp cases. So he was working for, you know, the little man, the little guy. And that was something that would continue throughout his political career. What did he brag about to me?
He said, I never took a case against a poor man. Oh, yes. Never took a case against a poor man. And, of course, one of the most powerful corporations in Louisiana at the time was Standard Oil, right, because they had all the oil fields.
They ran Louisiana. Yeah, in the Gulf. I'm pretty much. BP does today.
And Huey took them on. I mean, he sued them for unfair business practices. And he, you know, continued throughout his whole career, even after he became government senator, to really go after Standard Oil. And that, you know, he said they were exploiting the state and taking the state's resources without giving anything back.
And that made him a hero to, you know, the working class in Louisiana and the poor in Louisiana. It made him an enemy to the establishment in Indiana. In Louisiana, I'm sorry. And to, you know, into the wealthy, and to big business.
So he, you know, he started this David versus Goliath struggle. when he started his law career. Now, there's a great album, Randy Newman, Good Old Boys. You ever heard it?
No. It's basically about Huey Long, and it's about Louisiana, life in Louisiana during that time. Randy Newman's from Louisiana. Excellent name for short people.
Short people, and Buzz Lightyear's song. You got it for me. But Good Old Boys, it's from back in the 70s. You probably heard the song, Let's Drop the Big One Now.
Yes. That's on that. But he gets into, you know, he writes a couple songs about Kingfish. And we should explain.
Huey got the nickname. He was the nickname of Kingfish. And that name was given to him kind of as an insult. The Kingfish was, and we don't want anyone to jump too far ahead, but The Kingfish was a character on a radio show at the time called Amos and Andy.
And there was a character on there, kind of a boisterous boob, who was always trying to sell people things they didn't need. And his name was The Kingfish. His opponent started calling him. When he started his political career, Huey Long's opponent started referring to him as Kingfish.
And instead of being insulted by it, he accepted the money. And actually turned it around and used it against him because one of his slogans became Every Man a King. Yes, yes. It's kind of like, I guess, with Obamacare.
You know how that was kind of an insult. And later on, President Obama said, I kind of like that. So same with him. But anyway, in 1918, he decided to get into politics.
And he did so for campaigning for the Railroad Commission. And he went door-to-door. It was a grassroots campaign. He drove all over Louisiana.
He printed circulars and posters. He did all these stops. And he would give these speeches wherever he could, at PTA meetings or at county fairs. It was really, like I said, a grassroots effort.
And he was elected. He was elected and moved to Streetport. That was 1928. And he also then ran for, while we commissioned, there were oral companies were replacing, the commission had a regulatory authority over the oil companies.
And he fought to raise their taxes on the oil companies. And he won. He won. And so there again, this whole, you know, he's starting early off in his career fighting for the little man against the interests of big oil and the monopolies at the time.
But, you know, it wasn't for long that he, the Railroad Commission was, you know, he had great ambitions. So he ran for governor in 1920. Oh, I'm sorry. He campaigned for John Parker, who was run for governor in 1920.
But when he was elected, he kind of had a falling out. So in 1924, Long ran against Parker. And he tied Parker to Standard Oil and political hierarchy. You know, he promised to drain the swamp.
And that's, and again, there's a contradiction with Huey Long here. Because he, Parker, he believed in him to campaign for him. And then he found out kind of the first reality of real politics. And Parker was really beholden to Standard Oil.
And that really disillusioned Huey Long. Yes. So four years later, 1924, he runs against him. And he was known for wearing white linen suits.
I know you wear a lot of white linen suits. Like an LCS, I can own it. Yeah, he became his trademark. Now, in the election in 1924, he came in third.
And he and another candidate had to privately oppose the Ku Klux Klan, which was very powerful at the time. Which, you know, in Louisiana at the time, the Klan was very prominent. That was a political organization. Yeah, exactly.
But Louie said that rain on election day was suppressing the voter turnout. It's a great election. And so his voters were in northern Louisiana, where he was a stronghold. They were unable to get to the polls because the dirt roads had turned to mud.
Again, you know, there was very few highways. I don't know that there was a blacktop road in northern Louisiana. So instead, Long was reelected to the Public Service Commission, and he spent the years between 1924 and 1928 building his reputation and his political organization. He started to get a name for himself, and in 1928, he ran again for governor.
And this time with the slogan, as you said, Colonel, he ran as a populist with the slogan, every man a king, but no one wears a crown. He adopted that from another populist, Huey Long was a Democrat, although he took on both parties. He was not your typical establishment. It's kind of Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders or, again, Donald Trump, without establishment support. But anyway, his slogan, every man a king, but no one wears a crown, he adopted that from the presidential candidate at the time, William Jennings Bryan, who, of course, ran for president, never did win. But he was a populist like Huey Long. And Huey ran in 1928, attacking the oil industry.
He attacked the utilities and the privileged, the wealthy. He said they were parasites who grabbed more than their fair share of the public wealth at the expense of the poor. He crisscrossed the state, campaigned in rural areas, where, again, people were disenfranchised. Like, you know, we were talking about the comparisons to the 2016 race.
So, at that point, you know, Louisiana was ran by political bosses in New Orleans. And he gives – it's kind of funny. He gives his political opponents funny nicknames, like Buzzard, in line with – Like Roque and Hillary. Yeah, like Donald Trump with low energy, both the Jeb and Lion Tech Cruz.
I mean – Little Marco Rubio. Yeah, so Huey Long did, you know, the same thing. At the time, as we mentioned, the entire state had about 300 miles of paved road and only three bridges in the entire state. The literacy rate at the time was in the nation – or in Louisiana – was most in the nation.
It had 75 percent illiterate rate in Louisiana. Literacy. Yeah, most families could not afford to purchase textbooks required to send their kids to school. So, if you were poor, even if you could go to school, you couldn't afford a textbook if you were out of luck.
There was poll patents, of course, that people had to pay. Poor white people had to pay just to vote alone. African Americans left entirely out of the voting process. And, you know, that suppressed two million votes right there.
So, only about 300,000 could afford to register to vote. In addition to – they were literacy tests for blacks. They had to take before they could, you know, vote. This was, you know, the Jim Crow South.
And so, there was a lot of barriers in the way, a lot of voter suppression going on. But Long won the 1928 gubernatorial race by tapping into class resentment among royal Louisianans. And like I said – and this is probably even true to this day. There are people in Louisiana who think Huey Long was the greatest thing that ever happened to the state.
And as you said, there's people who think he was a dictator. And probably the truth is he was a little bit of a vote. But he proposed government services far more expansive than any time in the state history. Once in office as governor on May 21st, 1928, he moved quickly to consolidate his power.
He fired hundreds of opponents in the state bureaucracy. So, at all ranks of the cabinet levels, all the way down to, you know, people working on roads. I mean, he put his people in – you know, it was a patronage system. And he used it to his full advantage, much like, you know, his opponents had done.
And one interesting thing that he did to me is that he – here's another one – is that he played the poor white working class against Cajun class down in New Orleans. You know, and one of the things that he said, you know, your house can burn down and ain't nobody in New Orleans care about you. You know, so there was that kind of – there was kind of a racial thing that he had going there, too. Sure.
The Cajun, you know, in the southern part of the state, they don't care about you. You know, I care about you. They don't care about you. I'm one of you.
I'm one of you. They're the problems. And it kind of got – you know, the people in the northern part of the state started thinking, oh, these poor Cajun people, they're my problem. Yeah.
You know, not Standard Oil, even though they knew Standard Oil was. And he came in, you know, with the thing, said, I'm going to take Standard Oil, and I'm going to kick their ass, and I'm going to do whatever. But he did. And so one of the interesting things he did was in his inauguration, he invited everybody from northern – because Louisiana was two states.
You had the north and you had the south. You got New Orleans, Baton Rouge. He invited everybody from the north down for his inauguration, his governor. And many of those people came, and they didn't really know what to make of these, you know, chick-tickers.
They showed up there. Yeah, it's kind of almost like Andrew Jackson bringing in, you know, his supporters into the White House after being inaugurated. Yeah, real. But, yeah, he was a man.
You know, he was the voice of the common man and woman there in Louisiana. But it didn't, of course, it didn't stand well with the establishment at the time. It certainly didn't stand well with the, you know, the corporate Standard Oil and the ruling class there. So – but he went about filling vacancies in the state with his people, putting his people in charge from the very bottom to the very top so that he not only was governor, but he was getting – you know, if you had a job at the state, you owed it to you at all.
And he made sure that, you know, there may be a time when that bill come due, you were accepted. If you didn't pay, you was gone. Yeah, right. Exactly.
So he pushed a number of bills through the Louisiana state legislature for filling his campaign promises. These included free textbooks for poor children. He established the first adult literacy programs, nine programs that taught 100,000 adults who had not been able to read and write to, you know, promote adult literacy. He started unprecedented work, public work programs, building roads, building bridges, hospitals, education institutions.
And although his bills – you know, his legislation met with opposition with many in the legislature and wealthy, as well as the media. The media did not particularly like him either. But he used very aggressive tactics to ensure that his legislation got passed. He would often show up on the floor on the mountain in the House and the Senate in Louisiana, you know, twisting arms.
He used the patronage system, as we said, and he would also threaten his rivals. He used them probably, you know, of course, and it's a big problem today, is gerrymandering. And that's where you kind of – you define congressional and, in this case, state legislature districts, define them to your advantage. And it would actually put legislators out of the job, and he would get bills passed to do that.
So he wanted to stay in the state legislature. Yeah, he could gerrymander you right out of a job. Yeah. And, you know, that's not to get too far off topic, but something very interesting happened in Wisconsin last week when they found that they were gerrymandering and it was unconstitutional.
And that could have serious ramification for them. So when you think about it, our House of Representatives is made up of Republicans primarily, and it's pretty much said that way because they got to draw the map in 2010. But that could very, very well change very quickly. It's supposed to happen again in 2020.
But that could change because I think Democrats got 65 percent of the vote for a House of Representatives, but they won very few of the races. Yeah. My home – not here, but my home is really weird. It is gerrymandered.
And it is like in the county next – if you look at it on a map, it looks like a snake. And that's what the one in Wisconsin. Now, mine, where I'm at, is pretty straightforward. But everybody in my neck of the woods is Republican, so they don't have to gerrymander that.
But then they have to work through – on the state legislature, I mean, it's chopped up into – part of my district is Avondale. But the ways through – Which is the primary African-American. African-American. So Avondale is a big block of my – for the state thing.
Avondale is across town. And in these little five, eight, ten blocks of my neighborhood, it's very Republican. It's lumped in with this because they know they're going to lose – you know what I mean? Yes, they'll dilute the minority vote.
And they don't need it in our district. They don't need the Republicans in our district, so they just throw a little chunk. So it's – And gerrymandering had been done by both parties, and it's nothing new. It's been around for a long time.
But Huey used this to his advantage. And when we get to his assassination, that is one of the – one of the theories is that – It might have came down to him, gerrymandering out the wrong person. But in 1929, as governor, Huey called a special session of both houses of the Louisiana legislature to enact a new five-cent-per-barrel occupational license tax. You know, he's got all these programs that he's instituting.
Now he needs some money to pay for it for all these social programs. And he's going to tap his favorite adversary, Standard Oil, right? So he's going to put a five-cent-per-barrel occupational license tax on Standard Oil. Well, you know, the Standard Oil and the lawmakers in their back pocket went crazy over this.
And it wasn't long that they were trying to impeach Huey on charges of blasphemy and abuse of power, bribery, misuse of state funds. But they failed. But, you know, Huey would say that, you know, he's been – they tried to – they tried to impeach him all the time, and he would always prevail. So they did try, but they fell short.
So he did not – they did not get the conviction in the Senate that they needed to remove him from office. But – and he got his own – you know, he got his occupation license taxed through, but he made a lot of enemies with that little move. And so it wasn't long. You know, Huey now had pretty much the state under his thumb, but he had greater aspirations.
It was 1932. It was the middle of the Depression. And Huey thought it would be – what he would like to do is to do what he did in Louisiana for the United States. So he needed a stepping stone so that he could go up to the next level.
So he decided in 1932 to run for the U.S. Senate. And since he basically controlled the whole state, it was a pretty easy election for him. He was elected U.S.
Senator in 1932. He had his – a guy named Oscar Allen was kind of his lackey to seat him as governor. So Huey had – even though he was elected to the U.S. Senate, he was still basically, for all intents and purposes, running – Yeah, Oscar Allen?
Yeah, running Louisiana with his hand-picked successor, Oscar Allen, in charge. So in 1932, Long was elected to the Senator, and he was known – and he didn't make a lot of enemies in the U.S. Senate. He would give these long, long speeches.
Oh, they hated him. They really did not like him at all. At the time, the Senate was different. today it was an old boys club and uh it was you know people who kind of uh they saw themselves as a the higher house and they saw themselves as the elite yeah they distinguished and he would get on the floor and just rail and uh about you know he had a program he called uh i'm sure you'll get into more share the wealth and again it was a club yeah the people was like almost a fan club yeah uh and uh he would get these long speeches about uh you remember this is 1932 so president roosevelt again he was an early supporter of president roosevelt uh and uh he took a lot of credit for a lot of the new deal programs that came along because he he argued that a you know this is what will work in louisiana we can do it nationally uh and maybe pushed roosevelt a little bit further to the left and he would have gone and he definitely made public works programs larger yes um and one thing that one thing huey long did huey lewis huey lewis um that he did was every time they opened a school every time they opened a hospital they opened a beautiful hospital up in northern louisiana but every time one of these places opened he was there saying i did this i did this he didn't let these things happen quietly no no so he became every you couldn't think of this school you couldn't think of this hospital this is the hospital that huey built these are the roads these are the schools your kids have textbooks to go to school because yeah and also he was the first politician to use radio yeah and he used it a lot to reach uh to reach his constituents his twitter yeah um so he was not well received in washington because again he even though he was a democratic uh senator from state louisiana um he did not necessarily go along with the program and uh he was not beholden to the establishment i mean the national democratic party could not help him get elected and he did not owe anything to them and as i said he early on supported uh franklin roosevelt but after he got up in washington as a senator he said that the roosevelt was not going far enough when he needed these uh he wanted to share the wealth program which would take from the rich and distribute it to those uh to those who are without at the time president uh roosevelt to franklin roosevelt called huey long the most dangerous man in america you know who he said the second most dangerous man in america was who's that this is for you uh that was carter oh yeah two of the most dangerous men in america at the time according franklin roosevelt most dangerous being huey long because because he had this appeal he was a populist but he also had a tendency to abuse power and he had this uh dictator strike in him yeah uh that he would not uh hesitate to use and so uh you know there's a great fear of huey actually running you know it was obvious that uh he was going to run for president in 1936 yeah timmy let's just stop and reflect for a minute okay it's just me here yes there has not been an obscenity thrown about no no vulgar terms no throwing of things no are you saying because brandy's not here i am saying that i'm implying that you know i think that our listeners might not i think our listeners kind of like that that tension yeah but you know our listeners don't have to sit next to them and they don't get things thrown out yeah they don't get pinched they don't get grabbed they don't get yeah it makes good podcast it makes for a good podcast but it's also dangerous if you're in a room yeah when you sit on the side of the day with colonel right arm all bruised up and beat up yeah well tell us about huey and washington well now he's in washington he's a senator now he's starting to think about the white house here okay now of course he's still managing things back home he's got oscar allen serving as a pig head and as you said he's not well liked by his colleagues in the senate even members of his own party would avoid him um and they viewed him as unclothed and backwards uh they were also annoyed by his political rhetoric and his ambitions he gave these like you said these lengthy uh floor speeches and he started started that nationwide share the wealth club and by the summer of 1935 timmy the share the wealth club had seven and a half million listeners nationwide yeah there's just really uh if you ever get a chance to look at on youtube or i'm sorry timmy i got that wrong the share the wealth club had seven and a half million members nationwide he had 25 million radio listeners yeah he was he was doing national broadcast and if you ever listen you can you can check him out on youtube and you know you have to think about it in terms of that time period but he spoke in a weird way yeah he was a little amateur i mean it looked kind of like a clown you know like you know now you look back at like a video of musseling and he seems like a fool but at the time he would get up and you know and he had his you know his tie that was always too small yeah and he would give these speeches and he would talk about uh you know he gave these these kind of down home country you know he was very intelligent but he was talking in a way that could relate to the conversation and he would give these examples one example is where he's saying you know it's okay if you got this feast and the rockefellas coming i was gonna say if you get a chance look up his rockefellas feast because mr rockefella when you when you got enough food for you and your children and your great-grandchildren and your great-grandchildren and their great-grandchildren yeah that's okay but leave some for us yeah and bring back some that grub yeah bring back some that grub when you got enough clothes for your for your family and for your children and for your great-grandchildren and he just he'd want to save just a little bit for us so he wasn't he put it in this in this uh context yeah and he wasn't trying to take anything that the rockefellas were even using right you know it's just you got way too much and you ain't even using it and these poor people bastards over here need it yeah especially at the height of the depression you know that sounds pretty good if you're if you're unemployed and you can't feed your family or you're you know in the uh in the dust bowl and you're in a place to stay and the bank is taking your home i mean that's a pretty powerful message you know and i told taylor tanner you know my son is younger and he was we were talking about the election i said you know you're some poor bastard you live in wisconsin maybe i went over this and you know it's easy for us to take political sides and say well trump's evil okay let's just use that narrative right and you remember when ross perot was running and he said you know that's that big sucking sound all the jobs going to mexico when you sign nafta and i said you're some poor bastard living up in kenosha wisconsin you used to work at the car factory up there but they closed car factory and sent it down to mexico right and you lost your job and you lost your house and you probably got a divorce from all the pressure and all the strain and everything else and uh who's the evil guy the guy who who signed nafta i mean you know from your point of view right right no i mean it's just or the guy who signed nafta right it's uh something that people can relate to and these people were the same way they they had you know the depression had come along they lost everything they were looking for 25 million people unemployed yeah i mean it's they were looking for somebody to say hey i hear you now i you know and i think you're getting too off track the difference the thing that i can't figure out here in this particular one is um what you know hughie lung was saying i'm gonna build this for you i'm gonna do this way i'm gonna do that for you and i i haven't it seems like people in this election just were saying the whole system's corrupt and it's broken and we need to do it i mean and you know i'm sure people voted for donald trump for different reasons but just for me observing it it's like the big middle finger it's not like there were a lot of right other than you know i'm gonna bring the jobs back i'm gonna kill up kill these treaties which you know you me and you being in the jobs we're in know that they're not coming back they're not coming back changes you know beyond our control happen but but i think that's the big difference is that he was talking about some very tangible things that people could really relate to yeah and if i i guess i would say if you you know on the spectrum hughie would be to trump's left yeah right he would be but they use very similar tactics very similar approaches they tapped into this um anger they tapped into this feeling that people had not have voices had been ignored had not been heard they have problems and they're being ignored and they were both smart enough to and they both were i mean and either one of them really a part of the establishment you know their own parties and so they so it gave them a sense of it gave people a sense that i can trust this guy because all the other people have screwed me and they're all against him right before me yeah the enemy of my enemy yeah is you know so so you know so it's very it's interesting if you if you look at the two but that's the one big difference that i saw was you know hughie long was and of course he limited himself to louisiana and it was just you know i'm gonna go well yeah he didn't have he didn't he didn't last long enough to uh well he he announced his uh run for the presidency but yeah he didn't get there 1935 so i think tropic's better i probably hope for a better outcome than he has yeah so in 35 he announces he's gonna he's gonna uh challenge fdr for the democratic national or the democratic nomination but as you said he has all these followers on this new thing called radio not twitter not twitter but this new thing called radio a lot of people 25 million that's a lot of national audience yeah you're talking about you know a time in the u.s population was probably 150 million something like that yeah the voting population was probably smaller yeah so he's got 25 million listening to him he's getting 60,000 letters a week from his supporters yeah that's a thing you also see if you get a chance to look up some hughie long on some of the youtube videos you can see all this mail i mean it's just bags and bags and bags i love him i'll find one of his good speeches that he gave him i'll put a link up there it's very good um but now long has unfinished business in baton rouge now there was a lot of there's a lot of rumors of plots to assassinate huey well yeah he was making again he's making he's made enemies along the way yeah and his the way he consolidated power i mean he basically was a dictator down in louisiana and it actually led to talk of an armed insurrection by his enemies there because he's now remember bp oil was not a trifling little company no no he had a lot of power he still do i mean bp has like standard oil at the time but um you know he was he was uh his adversaries were very powerful people right so now he's working with his cronies in the state legislatures on this redistricting plan gerrymandering that would eliminate some of his political adversaries now one of these opponents was an old political foe a state district judge named benjamin pavy to me i think he called him buzzard if i remember right yeah like i said yeah he had names for everybody they were enemies for a long time now pavy was a staunch republican he deposed long's redistribution of wealth in louisiana long even had pavy's wife marie pavy dismissed from a position as a third grade teaching eunice louisiana i mean so that's how petty hughie long would be you know so he was not a guy who i mean who often took the high road he was of any means necessary and he used his power he wasn't like he abused his power obviously but i mean he it wasn't uh he wasn't this even though a lot of his uh platform and a lot of his policies were idealistic his use of power wasn't i mean he had no problem no he would crush you he he was not a guy who wanted to sit down and debate and hash out ideas right he it was his way or he crushed you exactly and uh now in september a few he's in the state capitol building in baton rouge for a special session of louisiana legislation now they're pushing through a number of bills including a measure to gerrymandering opponent judge benjamin pavy out of his job now here's a generally accepted version of events to me okay pavy's son-in-law dr carl weiss walks up to you in a quarter i think he was a i think he was a dentist i think oh was he i think dr weiss was a dentist i'm wrong about that i think so he walks up to huey in the courthouse and he shoots him in close range in the abdomen huey's bodyguards immediately open fire on weiss and huey tried to run away now this is the son-in-law of pavy of the judge huey's up there for that purpose right there to pass through legislation he's gonna put this judge out of a job this is his son-in-law now weiss the shooter he was killed instantly now huey was brought to a hospital emergency surgery failed to stop his internal bleedings and two days later he hung off for two days to me um september 10th 1935 11 days after his 42nd birthday and his last words were god don't let me die i have so much to do yeah um so he's dead and so the you know i'm sorry he was an md i was mistaken carl weiss was an md but the so now let's get down to what the hell happened here yeah because on the surface it's uh you know he's defending his father-in-law you know his reputation and his family honor by just going and killing the man who his political enemy basically but that leaves a lot of questions well it leaves the first question of the jfk thing was part of a bigger plot right because he had so many enemies um another theory is that weiss was only weiss had only punched along and both men had been killed in a hail of bullets or ricochet fired by the senators i think he had six bodyguards yeah he was only he everywhere he went he had a large uh number of bodyguards and the theory you're talking about is they got a little yeah they basically and i've seen something on this the way that they were positioned they all pulled the guns out and started shooting they were lucky only two people got killed none of the bodyguards got shot which is an amazing thing because they basically set up a circular firing squad around them but carl weiss is killed weiss is killed and you were shot and you have him and he dies two days later i think he runs he runs away to an anti-chamber and he falls over and then they get into the hospital where he eventually yeah yeah and it's not like in a movie if you see a movie with sean penn and all the kingsman he didn't get to the middle of the thing he got yeah all the kingsman was based on the life of you shooting of long by his bodyguards that killed him now the official version of long shooting remained the generally accepted story that weiss just walked up to him and shot him until about 1960 when a reporter for the associated press named david zinman realized that no real investigative reporting had ever really been done about weiss and his motives nobody ever tried to figure out why you know why did this man who was an md a doctor why was he so invested in because it wasn't him that was gonna lose his job right and that's the problem i have with it it's like you go to medical school and you sacrifice and you finally establish yourself in your career he was married dead kids you're married you got kids independence and you're just gonna go shoot the u.s senator just because your father-in-law is gonna lose his job how does that make your family's life better right so anyway um this zinman zinman who's a reporter he interviews his wife's surviving relatives okay people with knowledge of the events and that's something no journalist had really ever pursued so in 1963 zinman publishes this book the day hui long was shot and it's a pretty balanced presentation of the story kind of reads like a murder mystery and zinman did not come up with a definite conclusion as to what happened but his work exposed serious doubts about the official version and gave the counter theorists uh more level debating field you know so it said you know it's kind of like the what was the war commission report on the kennedy assassination that not senior journalist from long era who was an unabashed kingfish fan herman deutsch published hui long the murder case an adoring portrait of hui long um and let's see here timmy it reinforced the official version of the shooting that was in my car weiss yeah well there was that was just a yeah weiss shotting now a somewhat more objective account based on the extensive interviews was t.d.
harry williams 1969 pulitzer winning biography hughie long which concluded that weiss shot long and missteps by the doctors who treated long finished him off yeah that it was it was sort of malpractice or intentional or intentional yeah so now up to 1986 and a political analyst and public relations consultant ned reed offered a blockbuster interpretation with his book requiem for a kingfish the strange and unexplained after hughie long the traditional view of the shooting was that a single bullet from weiss's gun ran through long's abdomen using hospital records and fbi records interviews refocused on the theory that at least two bullets were fired into long's body all right it's been suggested that one of these bullets may have come from his bodyguards it ricocheted off marble columns in the statehouse and there was no investigation into this i mean it was just white shot him nobody even looked at the statehouse the you know there was a lot of gunshots fired in the statehouse none of these guys had to account for their bullets or whatever you know so now we'd examine the medical procedures in our lady of lake hospital operating room um that's where he was operated on during the surgery and it was crowded with long's political allies and doctors arriving from new orleans and elsewhere to assist with the emergency care now reed provides we provides evidence to me that long's urine was checked repeatedly this is important contrary to the popular notion that the lead doctor coleman had failed to check for fatal signs of urinary bleeding so that got you know kind of thrown out that the doctors were incompetent you know the doctors took good care of him but more importantly here's something that's really interesting reed said that the doctors that night pulled a bullet out of long's body and did not report it a second body was left a second bullet was left in the body he claimed the most significant evidence presented for this theory is a story related by excuse me by merle welsh the funeral director who served as a mortician for both whites and long in an interview with reed 50 years after the accident incident which you know would have helped if somebody would talk to me five years later yeah sure this some bitch is 110 years old anything but welsh said one of the operating room doctors came into the funeral home late at night reopened long sutures and probed the corpse until he pulled out a bullet so that would account for bullet number two yeah now now reed tracked down the funeral assistant who claimed to have the bullet on a key ring as a memento soon after the release of reed's book the writer zinman also interviewed welsh and heard essentially the same story but said the mortician then in his 80s was clearly losing his mind now reed reed though did back up the two shots theory with several references if true his version of events suggested someone other than weiss may have fired a shot or two in the long could that be a bodyguard or an unidentified assassin reed couldn't say for sure but he concluded the official theory of the shooting must now be relegated to the graveyard of hoaxes frauds and fairy tales timmy yeah we'll probably never know so now a new line of investigation opens up in 1985 when carl weiss senior he was three months old at the time so that's another thing you got to keep in mind this man had a three-month-old boy at home and he's going out and assassinated someone yeah and he had a cordial lunch with long's son u.s senator russell long who was as i said i think he was a seven-time u.s senator yeah oh he was the long uh the long family remained uh very powerful in louisiana for many years after long's death even up until you know recent decades yeah oh yeah so anyway that he had a cordial lunch with him and weiss said he learned at the meeting of the existence of his father's gun which had gone missing for 50 years weiss and james stars a lawyer and scientist at george washington university known for his forensic work on historic crimes began seeking a weapon now in this is a weapon that supposedly weiss used to kill hui long 1935 now in 18 1985 carl weiss um or i'm sorry it was kept in a safe deposit box of the mabel gerb binnings of new orleans the daughter of the late general louis gear the state's head of crime investigations in 1935 which is a peculiar thing that he would put in his own personal safety deposit yeah i guess it was because i guess it was historic or something yeah so there's a long legal battle um between these two and they had to give up possession of the box which was filled with memorabilia so the gear box the safe deposit box that supposedly held the gun and killed hui long contained three things of great interest a 32 caliber automatic pistol of the type weiss owned a 32 caliber bullet that had been fired and had a blunt tip from an impact and photos identified as long's coat showing bullet holes the gun was identified the gun was identified as the one owned by weiss the court ruled the gun belonged to his son who has allowed the pistol to sit on display in the old capital museum in baton rouge so carl weiss he ends up with the gun mine state police investigators fired a test bullet from the weiss pistol and compared it under a microscope with a blunt nose bullet the conclusion the spent 32 caliber found in gare's collection was not fired by the weiss gun so that makes it that makes everything kind of interesting because weiss owns his gun they pulled the 32 bullet out of hui long but it wasn't from that gun so it was probably not fired by one of the bodyguards because they carried larger they carried the typical old 38 larger caliber larger caliber no one's ever produced a bullet as evidence of the one he killed long then don't you think that's peculiar that they would not have pulled these bullets yeah i think there was a rush to get i think they were trying to put it to bed pretty quickly uh if you've ever seen that the uh kim burns has an excellent documentary on hui long you get a chance to watch it and i remember them interviewing the wife of hotting carter who was a uh a journalist in louisiana at the time one of the leading journalists and you know they she they were from the uh well-to-do class in louisiana and she said you know she said that uh there wasn't a dinner party that she attended as a young woman where there wasn't discussion about killing hui long and it was just something she said you talk like you talk about the weather it was like yeah how are we going to how are we going to get rid of that son of a bit well and you know the same thing happened at fdr this is a short story out the guy said fdr told him uh he said every day this guy went and got a paper and he just he paid for the paper he'd look at the headline and give it back to the guy and uh one day fdr or somebody asked him he's like you only look at the headlines and he said oh if what i'm he said i'm hoping for something to happen and he gave the paper back and he said well why don't you look in the paper and see what happens he said oh if what i want to happen happens it'll be the headline and what he was saying was he helped somebody shoot fdr yeah yeah because fdr for what you know the same he's like reagan right the same he is today right he was very very unpopular with a lot of people at that time so yeah so you had hui he was not only unpopular in louisiana well i mean he was again it depends on who you were yeah he had very people who loved him and i don't know if you're gonna you'll probably talk about his funeral and all the people who attended but um he was also not only uh hated by the ruling class in the establishment class in louisiana he was a threat now to the whole country because he was going to run the president right and uh as we already said he was already called the most dangerous man in america by franklin roosevelt um so there was concerns that he would run i guess it's like trump-like campaign that would find his way into the white house and that scared a lot of people it did scare a lot of people and there's a lot of people you know to this day and there's no things they think that maybe the democratic party or some of fdr's allies were behind this um you know nobody really knows although you know i tell you what you can you can lead a movement of almost about anything civil rights you look at like martin martin king jr led the civil rights you know movement got the you know 1964 civil rights legislation passed when did he get killed he got killed when he started talking about sharing the wealth right and he said you know he went down to memphis and went to bat for the uh garbage man when you start talking about sharing the wealth you're gonna make a lot of enemies well and you know it's kind of funny but we always joke about prostitutes you know the prostitutes it's the only time sex becomes illegal is when money exchanges hands you know and that's a way in a sense i think i put it on the page the other day it's a way for people to keep women out not give them power um but anyway you have the uh of all the versions of the shooting moreau who um his his belief is that why shot him um if you have his coat you have two holes in the coat you have a coat a bullet going in and a hole coming out now that does not account for the two bullets being in his body one could come from the front one could come from the back um there was not a you know long autopsy done because they just tried to deal with him and he died and buried him so anyway the final state police investigated the determination that happened at that time in the photos they support a one-shot version of events the hole in the front of logan's or long's coat was consistent with a very close range shot from a 32 caliber handgun the hole in the back of his clothing was consistent with a bullet execute and here's what's peculiar about this to me if you know a lot about guns you know a 32 is probably not going to pass through a guy who was after you know it's going to it's going to go in there and tumble around a lot of damage so if there's if there's two holes there's probably a good possibility there's two bullets yeah so that doesn't that doesn't make sense to me you know you can you can shoot a high power 22 through to through somebody but 32 chances are it's not going to go through through the person yeah you hit him in the leg or calf or something through the abdomen that's a lot of fat a lot of tissue to go through so the theories here are one this uh carl weiss just as you know the the the uh accepted story is he was assassinated by this carl weiss who then was murdered there by the bodyguards who just unloaded it and unloaded their weapons into weiss yeah uh the second theory is he was shot by weiss but also by the bodyguards during this shootout uh and the third theory is any combination of the first two he survived that but it was mal medical malpractice once he was taken to the hospital the doctors did not treat him appropriately and he may have survived had it not been for uh the doctors uh for medical care given to him now his son carl weiss's son who met with russell long the senator to this day insists that his father did not even shoot him yeah and i guess then the fourth theory is this is all sham and there were there were more powerful people there were more powerful people there's um because a couple theories that his own bodyguard shot him on purpose not accidentally um that weiss came up and punched him in the stomach but you know that that kind of that leads into a long conspiracy but you know lee harvey oswald look at him he was dead a day later yeah you know and that weiss was part of something larger and you can i can see the rationale for someone who is angry that you know they're screwing over you know my father-in-law they're screwing i'm gonna take a swing at the son of a bitch that you can see right but here i am a doctor i've got a one-year-old child at home i'm and if my father-in-law is going to be out of a job uh you know he's an elderly man at this point the judge i forget how old he was but he was elderly at this point this is before you know there was social security it's 1932 yeah so security didn't come back until 35 so you know he's gonna be the sole breadwinner of that whole family uh are you gonna go and with a one-year-old son at home and and kill this man i mean it doesn't you know it doesn't make logically it doesn't make sense now people commit murder for a lot of different reasons and it's not always logical but it doesn't seem like it would be something that was well thought out no and there were several witnesses to me but the better part of these were his bodyguards yeah and when you think about it from that if he comes up and just says you son of a bitch and goes to punch him in the stomach and his bodyguards overreact his bodyguards are just gonna you know because bodyguards they carry a 38 you know police special yeah i don't know that thing only holds eight six shots you know whatever type it's gonna be um so it's it's not out of the realm of possibility that somebody's got a gun in their sock somebody's got a gun tucked away and they shoot the son of a bitch and realize they shot huey long too and they got a dead body laying on the floor that they've shot 45 times it doesn't have a gun and huey shot too yes it's not all that you know out of the realm of possibility that somebody says oh yeah here's the gun came up and tried to shoot him with because remember that bullet did not match yeah yeah and then the other thing the other i guess the other possibility was it was the bullet ricocheted off one of the columns off one of the columns and saying that huey long built by the way yeah which is a funny another funny thing because the 32 again not carrying that much power ricocheting off of a column would definitely not cause a thing to go through you yeah you know lose too much energy so there's a lot of questions about this death steal what do you have a favorite theory my favorite theory is that he did punch him in the stomach that he didn't have a gun at all and then the bodyguards open fire on him yeah and uh inadvertently shot huey long yeah and there may have been some uh you know there may have been some medical malpractice as well now it did not end his political strength or long family to me his widow took over his seat in the senate and then his son was elected to the senate in 1948 and he served until he retired in 1987 so that's 40 39 years along yeah they were still a strong political force i know but you know when i was growing up you always heard about the long family of yeah earl long served his brother started three terms as governor not consecutive three terms as governor of louisiana um after his death his body was laid in state at the capitol building in baton rouge and millions of louisiana poor and working class lined up for miles and miles to me to pay their last respects to the kingfish and that is the end of huey but yeah i think there's there are there are uh some there are similarities between this and we don't know because you know donald trump has never been a senator or anything else we don't know what his ruling style will be but but there are many many parallels and i think the biggest part well i think i think it's easy to see it would not be hard to see him being autocratic and that certainly would describe huey long he was autocratic yeah i think though huey long was going to run into problems because it's very easy to be autocratic as you've seen as you know we see in our own state um it's very easy to be autocratic at a state level um when you get into a federal level you know and we were talking politics you know the boys are pretty interested in politics and i said you know the the problem that you run into right now if you're if you're donald trump coming in is that you have again you really are part of the republican establishment some are going to fall in line some aren't um but they don't necessarily like you and in the senate it's only a 52-48 split so you only need a few to flip you know what i mean so it's going to be very autocratic and i think even at state level i think jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse jesse j he was governor in Minnesota, he couldn't get nothing done. Well, Arnold, I mean, Schwarzenegger, he found, Arnold got some few things done, but again, when you run as Schwarzenegger, as Jesse Ventura, as a populist, making a lot of promises that we're going to get this done, we're going to drain the swamp, we're going to do this, do that, you're running against a whole machine that it's very easy to shut you down. And that they have no allegiance to you. And it's in their interest to keep things the way that it is.
Absolutely. Hard to drain the swamp. All right, interesting story. You know what, and it's nice to be able to do something where I don't feel so dirty, Timmy.
Well, I'm sorry that, you know, we didn't do Huey, Louie, and Louie for you. Well, I would have been quite prepared for that had we done it. We did pretty well on Huey Long, though. Well, because Louie, what many people don't know, is he spent some time in prison.
Oh, Louie, the nephew of Donald Duck? Yeah, Louie was an heir to well. He was... Well, I heard that Dewey had an alternative lifestyle, but I didn't know.
Yeah, Dewey was part of the DLGBT community. What's the early name? Well, it's the F, LBG, foul, LBGT community. I didn't realize that.
And then, you know, Louie was more of a... He was a duck gun runner. Really? Yeah.
I didn't see. I always learn something when I do these podcasts with you. Never learn much from Brandy, but I always learn something. Well, you know what you do learn from Brandy?
Some of the most vile words and terms you ever... I mean, and I'm going to say this. Cock coaster? Exactly.
Forgive us fellow listeners, but she's a vile woman. Disgusting. Oh, it's just... And it feels like almost...
I mean, it feels like we're doing a real podcast. I know. It feels like a real history podcast. Like somebody else that might have learned something, you know?
But I'm sure we'll be back to serial killers when Brandy comes back. Well, we've got to do a serial killer for Dottie. Yeah, she likes serial killers. My mom is very fond of serial killers.
You got some shout-outs for us, Colonel? Today, I got a bunch of shout-outs. All right, let me have it. Stay with me, people.
Of course, we always start our shout-outs with Tasha. Yeah, lovely Tasha from California. Tasha, it's always great to see you when you have time to show up on the page. Hope she had a great Thanksgiving.
Oh, we hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. Now, I got to give a special shout-out, and I got to spend a little bit of time on this one, Timmy, because this is something else. Okay. Tiffany.
Tiffany, yes. Tiffany Bell. Tiffany Bell. In Michigan.
In Michigan. Her son, Bo, last Saturday. Bo Bell. The Lumen Christy...
He sounds like a football player. He is a football player. Bo Bell. He just sounds like a...
Bo knows. He sounds like a... He's going to be a Heisman winner, a trophy winner. Bo knows football.
His team, Lumen Christy team up in Jackson, Michigan, won a Division VI state title. Wow, congratulations. Bo was named the Jackson City Player of the Year. Wow.
And football is not... That is not a small achievement up there. That's a big deal. If you've seen some of the running backs that are coming out of that area, some of these guys are going on to big, big-time schools.
Well, congratulations to Bo and to Tiffany. And you know the thing I always loved, really, about... Tiffany will post about this team. And one of the things I noticed in a theme I caught on is Tiffany never, ever posted about her son.
She always posted about how great the team did, how great the team did. And I seen an interview with her son, and her son really kind of... He's a very mature young man. And he really kind of played down what he has achieved, as opposed to what the guys...
What his offensive line has done, what his team has done, what his... Oh, that's great. How it was just his job... It was his job to step up and do something, because these guys were working so hard for somebody to be able to step up and do something.
Provide the opportunity. Yeah, so a big shout-out, a big congratulations to you, Bo. That's an amazing achievement. Jeff Girdley, how are you doing?
Sam Hildebrand. Hey, Sam. Angie Ball. And, of course, Jennifer and Linda.
We got them on the front end, but we always give them another one. Missy Dean Horton. Britton Chris. Celine.
Hey, Celine. Jeff Chestnut and Teresa Slavin. And I like to just call them Tommy Boom Boom. Tommy Boomershine.
And we got Shonda and Larry. Yes, doing the guys' work out there for the folks in South Dakota. Yeah, and they are a committed couple, ain't they? Yeah, they really are.
I mean, they are... If everybody in the country was as committed to righteous causes as they were, we'd be a much better place. Shannon is, too. Shannon.
Oh, Shannon Rossi, yeah. And Shonda... Shonda, I did it? Shonda?
She asked me, what was it I always said after her name? And she thought I was saying the toll bridges, and it's the Troll Bridges. All right, you got that right. The Troll Bridge couples.
Yes. Thank you for listening, guys. Yeah, Colton and Phyllis Munson, Aaron Wins, and of course, Donna Curran and that dog of hers, Brian and Lisa Lawton, Livia Meyer, a lovely young Fallon, and a lovely young Katja. Fallon had, I think, a rough holiday, so...
Oh, did you, Fallon? Yeah, especially a shout-out to her. I seen that Fallon had posted that somebody was having medical problems, but I did not have context of who that was. Yeah, special thoughts about her.
So, Fallon, yes, we are definitely thinking about you. Monica, I'm going to get this right this time. Monica D. Agostino.
Yeah, I think she's my Fitbit buddy. Oh, is she? I don't think that she's... Like, I've challenged her, but I don't think we've started yet, so...
Well, Monica, I double dare you to be my Fitbit buddy. Oh, you're killing me. I was up in Chicago while I was putting in so many stuff. If you walk across the floor, Monica, you'll be shocked.
Let's see. Bridget Clavey, Byron Snellings, Big Denny Mack, William Truax. Is Denny from this area? I saw a picture of him.
He posted at a Bengals game a long time ago. Yeah, so I don't know if he's originally from here, but hey, Denny, let us know what's going on. Angie Cove's. Amber Croup with a peanut butter pie.
She was bragging about that again. Gina Spillane and Trixie. Stephanie Quick. Sidney and Michael.
Yay, Michael just had a birthday, so happy birthday, Michael. Jamie Tarantino. Hey, Jamie. Laura O'Reilly.
Gabby Lewis. Tara V. Bod. Gene Bod.
That's right. Lydia Brandy McBride. Maggie Glover. Maggie Glover.
I'm sorry. Jeff Appel. Christine. Bourgeois.
All right. And Katie. Moorhead. Katie Moorhead.
Oh, I just hit my own mic. Lovely. Lovely Katie Moorhead. Mary Ray.
Hey, Mary. We haven't heard from Mary in a while, so post up to Mary. Post up to Mary. We know you're okay, Mary.
They're in upstate New York. Rebecca Montanday. Hey, Rebecca. Mike Eisenhower.
Hey, Mike. Danielle Fredrickson. Valerio Bishop. Nancy Palomino.
Hey, Nancy. Jim Kamikaze. Jennifer Hawkins. Tara Nee.
Lindsey O'Brien McMillan. Sunyana Satish. Eddie Rushing. Yo'Handler.
Sammy James. Jason Dykes. Amy Carol Payne. Tyra Jenkins.
Annette Petrie. Steph Glenn. Niloi Khan. Christina Montana.
Hey, Christina. How you doing, Christina? Maria Barber. Jennifer Potts.
Cindy Overstreet-Hamilton, of course. Paul Manpelli. Mike Arnold. Melissa Debrano.
I always want to make a lube joke out of her name, but I don't. Craig the strength here, girl. Brittany Powell. Heather Hall.
Heather Poole. Jeff Hopkins. Now, we've got some new listeners. Oh, good.
I want to give some shout-outs to you. Well, maybe not new listeners, but new to our Facebook page. Yeah, on our Facebook page is History Tweets, the podcast. You join us.
We interact with everyone there and some great group of people. Yeah, you can learn some very disturbing things about the people there. Yes, you can. But it's fine.
I've got Ron Radsky. Gatano Sapienza. Kevin Behan. Carol Nash.
Sheila Mae Cebu. Heather Marshall. Susanna Sheldon. Caroline Stoffel.
Romani. Now, that's my middle name, too. Romani Danger Howard. Your middle name is Danger.
Yeah, I don't know about that. You're kind of like Carlos Danger. Anthony Weiner. Yes, exactly.
I posted a picture of my thumb on that, by the way, today. Oh, good. I'm glad it was your thumb and nothing else. Well, have you noticed I've got an exceptionally long thumb?