Busted Business Bureau Christian Borkey

Do you ever have a years-long hyperfixation with a company no one's heard about? 
Blender Bluid and Amy Do continue our millions-years-long season about private military contractors. This time, I'm telling them about the worst of the worst: Betsy DeVos' brother Erik Prince's rich kid lodge! Blackwater! Clean off your guns and meet me at the lodge - we're in for a real effing doozy.
Fair warning, this episode does brush over some truly horrific stuff. As mentioned mid-episode, my podcast isn't really the appropriate place to regale those stories in full detail, so only some of the key informational facts are mentioned out of respect for those who suffered cruel, pointless deaths during this war. Jeremy Scahill's book is a fantastic read to get the full picture on the politics, events, and horrors of Iraq, linked below. 
Jeremy, if you're listening, I'm so sorry sweetie please look away - this is a comedy podcast by a clown. But THIS clown loved your book! 
Follow @blenderbluid and @helloamydo. Thanks to the WONDERFUL Casey Synesael for fully editing this episode! Audio engineer and tastemaker, methinks. 
SOURCES: 

Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army - Jeremy Scahill, March 2007 (I read the revised 2008 version tho)
Firearms training centers on schools under assault - Jon Frank, The Virginian-Pilot, Oct 1999
Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy - Adam Ciralsky, Vanity Fair, January 2010
Erik Prince: An American Commando in Exile - Robert Young Pelton, Dangerous Magazine (originally published in Men’s Journal), November 2010
Blackwater founder takes aim at his critics in memoir - Bill Sizemore, The Virginian-Pilot, Nov 2013 (the “Field of Dreams” quote is in this)
Falluja lawsuit: Blackwater families settle case - BBC News, 2012
The Dark Truth about Blackwater - Peter Singer, Brookings Institution, October 2007
I scraped the Nisour Square legal timeline just from the Nisour Square Massacre wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre

Other recommended reading from the pod is Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine: The Rise

Been awhile, besties! Hello again! This is an episode that was ostensibly about Bechtel Corp (the construction company, not the lesbian cartoonist), but it got away from me and became an exploration into the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. An organized, peaceful method of resistance focused on boycotting business - what could go wrong? A LOT! 
Join myself and Amy Do+Blender Bluid to continue in the military-contracting deep dive season (remember that?) and let's get some ice cream on the way! Anybody want to stop at Ben&Jerry'sIsreal? Perhaps a SodaStream to tide you over? 
NOTE: The episode starts after bitching that took precisely 5 minutes. Ep begins at 5:00 
Follow @blenderbluid and @helloamydo - both of whom have released new music on Spotify!!!! We out here! 
Thanks to Casey Synesael for your genius audio engineering!!! SAVIOR!
SOURCES (sorry there are 23): 
-Illinois bars state pensions from owning Unilever over Israel, Ross Kerber, Reuters 2021
Ben&Jerry's 2015 statement found at this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210109062433/https://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/2015/ben-and-jerrys-business-in-israel
Ben&Jerry's 2021 statement found at this link: https://www.benjerry.com/about-us/media-center/opt-statement
40 ILCS 5/ Illinois Pension Code thingy quoted found here: https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?ActID=638&ChapterID=9&SeqStart=100000&SeqEnd=6300000
Illinois General Assembly, this Israel amendment to our investment codes passed 49-0 in the Senate and 102-0 in the House: https://www.illinois.gov/news/press-release.13202.html#:~:text=The%20legislation%2C%20which%20was%20modeled,held%20indirectly%20inside%20larger%20portfolios.
University of Texas email quoted found here: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/26/ut-wont-reimburse-for-airbnb-lodging-after-texas-decision-on-companys-israeli-settlement-stance/5610142007/
-AIRBNB statement from 2017: https://news.airbnb.com/listings-in-disputed-regions/
-Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's statement found here: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/executive-management/OAG%20advisory%20on%20SB%2013%20and%2019%2010.18.23.pdf
-Texas City Tells People No Hurricane Harvey Aid Unless They Promise Not to Boycott Israel, ACLU Press release re: case Koontz v. Watson — Challenge to Kansas Law Targeting Boycotts of Israel found here: 

I PROMISE this is the last part to our exploration of KBR! This episode features a big thematic swing of including the best food review of all time throughout the episode. If you’re into gargantuan oil failures, extensive explanations of holes, politically correct GOOP, or droopy baked alaskas then this episode is for YOU! Again, we’ll move on from this wound I’ve been picking for three weeks. 
Also, hello! It is nice to be back from tour and to have wi-fi! I am swamped with the thousands of other bits of work I have to do now that the holidays are allegedly over. I will get back to posting as regularly as possible. Thanks for your patience; I love making this podcast! 
Follow @blenderbluid, say hello to Amy Do, and thank Casey Synesael for wonderful audio doctoring as ALWAYS! 
Before we get to the sources...PLEASE VOTE FOR ME FOR BEST CHICAGO PODACST OF 2023: https://chicagoreader.com/best-of-chicago/2023-ballot/#/gallery?group=468483
I WANT TO WIN!
okay anyways heres my sources: 
SOURCES: 
As Not Seen on TV, Pete Wells, The New York Times, November 13 2012
Rebuilding of Iraqi Pipeline as Disaster Waiting to Happen, James Glanz, New York Times, April 25, 2006
OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION: Pipeline River Crossing Al Fatah, Iraq link here: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA533936.pdf
Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq, T Christian Miller, May 2007
Full text: George Bush's Iraq speech, The Guardian, June 28, 2005
Military Burn Pits: A Toxic Legacy of War, Pamela Lein, phD, UC Davis Veterinary Medicine
“Contracting Abuses in Iraq: Is the Bush Administration Safeguarding American Taxpayer Dollars?” Frank Cassaday testimony, Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing link here; https://www.dpc.senate.gov/hearings/hearing42/cassaday.pdf
I didn't get to this on pod but here's some other reading: 
ELECTRICITY -(testimony from Eric Peters, For

HI YALL! Forgive the delay; I am already on tour and didn't realize I wouldn't have wi-fi! This was uploaded as a labor of my hot spot's love. Here's the part 2 no one asked for! Let's perfect our Lois Griffin impression Whiplash-style, crack open a $247 soda, and order 50,000 pounds of nails to get ready to revisit the company I've been obsessed with for years: Kellogg, Brown and Root. Gosh, this private military contracting season is a DOOZY. Fraud, waste and abuse abound!
As always, follow @blenderbluid, keep Amy Do in your offline thoughts, and thank the fabulous audio engineer Casey Synesael!!!!! YIPPEEEE
And if you're the type of person inclined to read the show notes, here's a spoiler: I didn't even cover everything in THIS episode, so there's going to be a part 3. I'm presently on tour so it'll take a few weeks before I'm back to record. Sowwy, I'm just one girly who does NOT plan things out. Just podcastin' for funzies. Anyways, here's my sources: 
1. Blood Money: Wated Billions, Lost Lives and Corporate Greed in Iraq, T Christian Miller, May 2007
2. A Look Back at How Fear and False Beliefs Bolstered U.S. Public Support for War in Iraq, Carroll Doherty and Jocelyn Kiley, Pew Research Center, March 14, 2023
3. Excerpted from The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader, by Peter L. Bergen, accessed through Vanity Fair, January 1 2006
4. Here's a link to the Saddam playing cards published by the DIA: https://archive.org/details/030411D6570c001/030411-d-6570c-001/page/n27/mode/2up
5. Buyers beware: The real Iraq 'most wanted' cards are still awaiting distribution, Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes, April 17, 2003
6. Here's KBR employee Linda Warren's testimony (start at 21:30): https://www.c-span.org/video/?205080-1/contracting-abuses-iraq
7. Here is the 2005 testimony of KBR employee Rory Mayberry: https://www.dpc.senate.gov/hearings/hearing22/mayberry.pdf
8. Here's a link to the DPC report called Major Findings: DPC Oversight Hearings on Waste, Fraud, and Corruption in Iraq: https://www.dpc.senate.gov/dpcdocpr.cfm?doc_name=sr-111-1-116 (nails anecdote) 
9. Iraq War Whistleblowers Represented by Constantine Cannon Secure $108.75 Million Settlement with KBR, Constantine Cannon press release, July 5 2023
10. “One hundred point four billion dollars..." quote from Democrat Mike Ross from this link (time stamp 5:43:40): 

Amy Do and Blender Bluid continue on our season-long journey into private military contracting! Avarice incarnate with a healthy heap of political parasitism, we're talking about the origins of KBR. Do you know how to build a nuclear power plant? No? Who gives a hoot! Let's try it anyway! Along the way we'll get 100,000 meals to throw out, Blender Bluid's RuPaul impression, and of course more war profiteering than you previously thought imaginable. It is still nuts to me that we're having the exact same conversation in different fonts all these years later re: KBR's failures, waste, fraud and abuse. 
Amy's recording remotely on a USB microphone which is why she sounds different. Additionally, Casey went nuts on some of the audio editing and I'm SO excited for y'all to hear this one. 
Follow @BlenderBluid on socials, keep Amy Do in your thoughts, please clap for Casey Synesael, and plzzzzz vote for me on the Chicago Reader Awards starting 12/13! https://chicagoreader.com/best-of-chicago/2023-ballot/#//
SOURCES: 
1) I made it up
2) THE TRANSFORMATION OF DON LUCE, Ted Lieverman, HistoryNet.com (lol), 2017
3) Saigon Is Investigating ‘Tiger Cage’ Cells at a Prison, New York Times, 1970
4) 4 South Vietnamese Describe Torture in Prison ‘Tiger Cage’, New York Times, 1973
5) Here's the link to the 1970 Life Magazine with the story/Tom Harkin's pics: https://books.google.com/books?id=jVUEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
6) Donald Sanders Luce (1934-2022): Exposed the Truth About the Tiger Cages, Mark Ashwill, Vietnam Full Disclosure/Veterans for Peace, 2022
7) Recalling Don Luce, the high-profile Vietnam War critic who did PR for a Falls soup kitchen, Mark Sheer, Niagara Gazette, Nov 2022
8) American Innocence, Robert N. Strassfeld, Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons, 1997
9) American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity by Christian G. Appy, 2015 (where the Don Luce interview about KBR's cages being 'in every way worse than the original ones' 
10) Brown & Root helped pave way for Houston's growth, David Hunn, Houston Chronicle 2016
11) The Candidate from Brown and Root, Robert Bryce, The Texas Observer, October 2000 
12) 

Dipping my toe into making things way too personal with this episode about a giant oil conglomerate! Who doesn't fucking love that? Amy Do and Blender Bluid are BACK, baby, to do just a tiny bit more set dressing on this season. We're talking about procurement; how did the companies in the upcoming season get their contracts in the first place? Turns out, even THAT is laden with some busted-ass shenanigans! 
Ultimately, this is a podcast that is entirely informed by my comedic and artistic point of view. This particular episode on Halliburton is admittedly not as dense as they typically come - that's intentional. I've already lost sleep from jolting awake at night, haunted by the images, descriptions, and horrors that keep coming up in this research. So fuck it, let's do an episode about Dick Cheney's heart! Let's talk about B.O.B. and G-Unit! Let's discuss how I ruined the name Christian for my high school religion teachers!
Follow @blenderbluid and please, sincerely, keep Amy Do in your thoughts right now. 
Audio engineering by the wickedly talented Casey Synesael
SOURCES: 
Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq by T. Christian Miller, May 2007
A Web of Truth: Whistle-Blower or Troublemaker, Neely Tucker, Washington Post, 2005
Whistleblower exposes $7 billion no-bid Defense Department contract, CBS News, 2019
The Whistleblower’s Tale: How An Accountant Took on Halliburton, Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica, 2015
Australian academics apologise for false AI-generated allegations against big four consultancy firms, Harry Belot, The Guardian, Nov 2023
Heart: An American Medical Odyssey, by (I'm sorry) Dick Cheney and Jonathan Reiner, MD
NBC's "Meet the Press" Transcript, Chuck Todd interviewing Dick Cheney, 2014
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032102482_pf.html
Cheney Dismisses Critic With Obscenity, Helen Dewar and Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 2004
Iraq The Halliburton Connection: The Master Builder, Jyoti Thottam, TIME Magazine 2004