The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 666 - Re-release - The Resnicks: Water Monsters

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

As fires surrounds us, we have not been able to do a new episode, so we are re-releasing an old favorite about a couple who received recent attention due to the fires. Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the Resnicks, their businesses, and their enjoyment of the water in California. SOURCES TOUR DATES OFFICIAL MERCH Public Rec   Code - Dollop The TED Talk

We're going on tour and this is it's been a while March 2025 is when our tour is happening. First of all, we're going to Tempe, Arizona Maybe our best city of all time. It's the best that is on March 16th And then we go to Albuquerque, New Mexico, maybe our favorite city ever. We really never love the city We've ever gone to that's on March 17th and then we go to Oklahoma City, which is our faith We often say that it's our number one. Yeah, it's our number one. The best city I've ever been to.

That's on March 18th. On March 19th, we're going to be in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Our favorite city without question. And then we head to Dallas, Texas on March 20th. Our favorite city. That's why there's never been a better city. If you don't like it, you're a Dallas asshole. Thank you.

And then we go to Houston, Texas on March 23rd, which is by far the best city. And then we end our tour in Austin, Texas, on March 22nd at the Cap City Comedy Club. It's the best city in the entire world. Number one city in the world. You can get tickets at dollopodcast.com slash tour. You're listening to the...

Oh, boy. Well, we'll get to that in a minute anyway. You'll hear the intro to this episode in a second, but we just wanted to quickly discuss what this episode is going to be. This episode is an episode that's already been put out by us a little while ago. We put out this episode and because of what has happened over the last week in California, we're putting this episode out one because we're having some logistical issues because of the fire.

Dave doesn't have power consistently enough right now, and I think just in general it's a little strange. So we're not going to put out a new episode. What we are going to do is Put out an episode that we already did That we think is important now more than ever You know I think a lot of the stuff that happens on this show is Dave brings things to light that should be discussed Should have been discussed a while ago and when when we discuss them, it's sometimes maybe

with the eye to the future. And this is one of those episodes where I think if you're really looking for maybe some context on some places to point the finger, this episode will do that. Truly appreciate everyone who's been reaching out and asking about us, but you know we're both okay and you know there's obviously a lot of people who are suffering and you know it's just the way this all seems to

be meant to play out at this moment. But this is also, there's some laughs in this episode too. So, you know, we should be back with a new episode next week. But in lieu of that, please enjoy a replay of an episode titled, The Resnick's Water Monsters. There we go. And by the way, it Resinix Water Monsters. There we go. And by the way, it's Gareth, not Gary. G-A-R-E-T-H.

Alright. December 24th, 1936, the year of our Lord. A-D. Christmas Eve. In 1936? year of our Lord Christmas Eve in 1936 yeah, okay, that's when all the shit. That's when the best shit was happening sure Stuart resnick was born in Middlebush, New Jersey. It's the middle of the bush sure His father owned a bar. He was a tough guy a big drinker and a gambler

Stuart once came home and the family car was gone dad had lost it in a bet Wow. Wow. That's how much of a gambler he was. Yeah. So he lived on the edge. They never knew if they're going to have a home or not. Or a car. Right. You could get lost in a game even. Yeah. Yeah. He was tough on the outside, but inside he had these weaknesses. It's a nice thing to say about your pop. Yeah. I was thinking you would maybe have a little more upside as far as like, but inside he had a good heart It's like but inside he was really weak His will was weak. He was terrible awful on the inside. Yeah Stewart's friends were all from upper-class families He was the only poor one now when Stewart was in his first year of college at Rutgers

The family got a call from an uncle in California. Mm-hmm. He'd gotten into building strip malls and said it was easy money Oh, how many times you heard that get into the strip mall business? It's super easy I would relish living in a time where people were like strip malls. I don't know if that's gonna work out Instead of now where it's like all strip malls. Yeah The family headed out West Stuart went to UCLA and joined a fraternity. Oh The family headed out west Stuart went to UCLA and joined a fraternity. Oh So fun and one of his frat brothers his dad had a janitorial business and Stuart and his friend bought a machine from him That scrubbed and waxed floors Okay

Soon they had a cleaning business. Okay Stuart then bought out his buddy because it was doing so well. This is like goodwill clean. He really cared is to Google cleaning. Yeah, I Don't like it when Aaron gets up. Look at him. Uh, so the business takes off. Okay. Uh, pretty soon he's got two trucks and crews. Remember he's still a student at UCLA.

Sure. Uh, when he graduated from UCLA in 1960, he was making 40 K year, which today would be about 320,000 Jesus. Okay. That's a lot. It's a a lot it's like Van Wilder when I got out of college I was like what kind of top ramen am I getting yeah and in college yeah when he he noticed what was your ramen flavor oh it's chicken shrimp really yeah which which people I guess yes it's like a scarlet letter. I guess that's bad

Yeah It's a supportive person. Yeah, I'm not not on that not a shrimp. No It's just it's just it's a great flavor shrimp in a package. No, I don't want the flavor shrimp We need shrimp on each shrimp. I don't want the flavor of sure Yeah, that sounds like a way to tell someone to fuck off. Hey, why don't you go eat shrimp? Tell this guy to go eat some shrimp, would ya? He wanted you to go eat some shrimp flavoring, buddy. All right, well you either come over here and get your teeth knocked out.

Go eat shrimp. He noticed when he was cleaning buildings at night that there were no guards. So he decided to sell the cleaning business and he started a security guard business. And become the bad guy from Dime? And become a robber. No, he started a security guard business. And become the bad guy from Dyer? He became a robber. No, he started a security guard business.

He sold his cleaning business for 2.5 million. And he's like early 20s. Yeah, he's just out of law school now. Wow. Okay, so a little later. Okay. So Linda, no, Linda Ray Harris was born in 1942 and raised in Philadelphia. Okay.

Hey, Phil, how you doing? Nobody supports this. He her dad was a film distributor. And when she was 15, her dad moved to LA to be a movie producer. So Linda and Stuart, Stuart and Linda. Okay, right. So her dad produced the blob 1958 cult movie. One of the best, a great movie. The best. My favorite movie about gelatin eating people by far The best one. It's that and the

rest. Of all the gelatin movies. Top. Yeah. It cost $240,000 to make and eventually grossed more than a hundred times that. So he's rolling it. Yeah. Linda was now a kid living in Beverly Hills. After high school, she wanted to go to art school, but her father refused to help with tuition. So instead she got a job working in a dress shop. The man was like I'm not gonna help you go to school Yeah, he was cool. Okay If he had done that none of this might have happened Well, I don't know what's about to happen, but she started making ads for the store and was very good at it Okay, so she went into when she went to working in advertising. Okay, great

And while she's doing all this way up until you're creating a great sort of Character type someone who grew up in Beverly Hills with money and then went into advertising I mean if you meet this person get next to him at a party, you're gonna want to hear about them So while she's doing all this she got married and had kids right so by the time she was 24 Linda had started her own advertising agency called Linda limited and was divorced with three kids Interesting. Okay, so that's a lot of it's a lot. It's a different time Yeah, a lot's going on early because now if you're 24 you're like man, what am I gonna move out? Yeah, now you're like man. What am I gonna get that shrimp ramen?

Mmm. Love it. He's just a regular person is like man that's shrimp ramen there about that yum yum yum so at this point Stewart Resnick was also divorced and had three kids wait a minute he needed some advertising here's a story of a man named Stewart yep oh boy yeah he needs some advertising work and someone recommended Linda okay they were married in 1973. Stuart's guard company landed a big contract to handle security at LAX. They guarded incoming international airplanes until the planes could be inspected by customs. Three of the airport guards were arrested selling two pounds of heroin. That's illegal. Back then it was. Okay. Stewart said it was a few bad apples

in the company and they had already been fired. Okay. Yeah. But the federal organized crime and racketeering strike force started investigating the company for quote possible infiltration of airport security by organized crime. Wow. The LA Times quote during the seven during the five month investigation that led to the arrest several of the suspects told undercover agents They had access to a large supply as much as a hundred pounds at a time of the oriental heroin Which they said was being shipped into this country on commercial airlines And and and that gives the undercover guys some information that that shows that maybe heroin is being brought into the country legally through them, right? Okay, a little bit and so it's a successful sting operation. Yeah, like when you're going through that you're like, hey, man

Why'd you get such a huge boner just now? He's like nothing just keep that talking more to my chest Stewart sold the business movement to the alarm business There's no guards Okay business moved into the alarm business. Because there's no guards. Okay. Then he sold the alarm company for a hundred million. So now he's sort of a hundred million. Jesus Christ. Yeah, he's kind of moving up in the world. Yeah.

So they got into agriculture in 1978 buying 2,500 acres of orange trees in Kern County, California. A little bit of a switch. Yeah. And I'm also, I'm a little, now I'm starting to be suspect because I don't like the numbers that are being thrown out as I do the math. The state was experiencing a horrible drought and they were able to get the land cheap. Stuart quote, they were selling 2,500 acres of oranges and lemons and the packing house

for a third of their appraised value. It was simply a place to park some money and have another opportunity I think it paid 9 million. I Think I paid 9 million. I think yeah, I can't remember Nine or ten. It's hard to keep track of the millions. Yeah, like it's like a backpack you bought on Craigslist I guess 13 I can't remember In 1978 they bought telephora a flower delivery company Mm-hmm Linda turned into a very lucrative business by selling the flowers in a glass vase

Or a teapot or with a teddy bear or some other shit. It was said she Revolutionized the flower delivery service so stupid. Yeah, so she's like a tea pot Oh my god, you're gonna sell something else with flowers Oh my lord. This woman's a genius. I don't know how she thought of this Wait a teddy bear with the flowers. Please. Let me lay down on this couch. No get a wet rag. Oh my lord I'm gonna pass out Flowers in a teapot my two favorite things So now they have a parent company called Roll International.

On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 American hostages. President Carter imposed sanctions on Iran. Iran had long been known for producing the world's best pistachios. Very buttery, very yummy. Everybody loves an Iranian pistachio. Is this seriously being highlighted for a reason or you're just okay? Now, now, hold on. Yeah. They have the best pistachios? Yeah.

Very buttery pistachios. Yeah. I'm going to show you. This is the Resnick's. This is the couple. Oh my god. They're older. I couldn't find the young pictures of them, but there they are. They're what they look like now. Well, she's got that, you know, kind of maybe a little nip

tuck going on. Whereas he's like, I'm aging. She's like, I'm 20 still. So now pistachios can't be sold in America, right? Because there's sanctions. Okay. So the Resnick saw opportunity and with a horrendous drought that had occurred in 1976 and 1977 in California, oil companies like Mobil and Texaco were trying to dump their

pistachio and almond orchards that they own for cheap. Okay. These were huge 20,000 and 40,000 acre plots of land. So they bought more and more acreage through the 80s for Stuart and Linda did. Okay. For rock bottom prices. Droughts always made land more affordable. In 1986, they bought they bought Franklin Mint, a commemorative coin and Medallion business for 167.5 million. Linda turned it into something much bigger, diving into jewelry, dolls, model cars, soon.

I put some of the coins in a teapot. But she did something like, she bought at auction Jackie Kennedy's pearls that she always wore, which were apparently fake, and she bought them at auction for 210,000 like everyone in the world made fun of her There's actually a Dewar's ad Made about her that was like did you just buy did you just buy fake pearls for 210,000? It's time for Dewar's and then she made like fucking 50 million off of selling replicas like so she yeah

So they made a shit. What up now Dewar's? Where are are you now doers? Huh? I've been printing retraction So pretty soon annual sales of the Franklin Mint hit 1 billion My god. Yeah and presidents kept pushing for tougher sanctions on Iran and the Resnick's kept buying farmland by the end of the 80s The Resnick's had a hundred thousand acres In 1987 they bought 18,000 acres from Prudential Life Insurance part of that was 180 acres of pomegranates. These enormous companies just owned in like huge plots either for nuts or I don't know look I know the oil companies had it because they wanted the oil that was under the ground and then they're also like why don't we

also have a farm like just use the land to make money. That's cute. I don't know why an insurance company would have yeah a farm land All right, boys. That's 1230 watering break get out there now boys Get out there get them nuts off them trees and sell some life insurance guys. What are the pomegranates? So they had a hundred eighty acres the pomegranates? So they had 180 acres of pomegranates He was gonna rip them up, but one of his workers was like just keep them and see what happens. Keep them They're like a puzzle that you can eat So water in California is a big deal. Oh, no, is this where we're headed? Hmm. Oh And the way it works is a fucking mess

The state's laws were designed to settle the frontier. So there's a first guy gets in gets the water rights rule. So first guy to get to wherever gets to own the water. So we have it as like the Black Friday rules. It's fucking ridiculous. And one guy, this guy named Miller literally went and just fucking got all the water of the state at one point. Like he just, he just got everything. He owned like all the fucking water at one point. So it's called senior rights, right?

Those are senior rights. Okay. Most senior water rights claims are the last to be restricted during droughts. So if you have senior water rights and there's a drought on, you still get water and other people don't. Oh, oh Dave. So some farmers can still flood their fields while residents of towns like Oakeyville and

East Porterville have to truck in water. So East Porterville has no water whatsoever and they have to truck in all their water now. That's a situation there where farmers get to pump their water. Also large urban areas would get water over many farmers. So like LA and San Francisco get water over a lot of the farmers. Right. Okay. But it's super complicated. In 1960, California created the State Water Project, the SWP. Takes water from rivers in the north and sends it to the dry south

through aquanooks, pipelines, and tunnels. You've seen that when you drive out the five. There's a big big aqueduct, but it was never completed Okay It's supposed to deliver four four point two three Sorry four point two three million acres of water a year But has only been able to deliver two point four million acres of water because it's not fully done Okay, so when droughts happen, the SWP rules say water should go to air urban areas first and farms could get cut off and have to use aquifers.

That seems smart. So Kern County where most of the Resnick's land is gets water, a lot of water from the SWP and then another another organization. But in 1988, the Department of Water Resources bought an aquifer along the Kern River to store surplus water for drought years so they bought this huge piece of land okay underneath is just this giant aquifer okay and and in and in that they're going to store water right here it is okay well it looks it looks very fertile yeah so so it's called the Kern water bank okay in plus years you just keep dumping water in

there when there's a drought right you can take it out right cost savings account it cut yeah it's a water savings account that yeah if that helps does that help it helps Aaron it cost the state 74 million. Okay, which would be like a hundred and forty million today. So after a couple more droughts Stewart resnick and others were unhappy. They weren't getting all the water they wanted Dave I have a feeling I'm about to really not like Stewart and Linda Now they had junior water rights So that's senior guys are ahead of them. Okay, right? Now they had junior water rights. So that senior guys are ahead of them. Okay. Right.

And, and they had to get around them. So a lawsuit was threatened against the, uh, DWR department, water resources, who has the, has the bank and, uh, it's led by Stuart. It's a coalition of guys led by Stuart. And they said the state wasn't delivering the four point two three million What acres of water was supposed to which is true? It's not right can't right? It's not fully built, right? So the DWR and the coalition had a secret meeting in Monterey, California Where Stuart resnick proposed a solution? California could give the water bank to the West Side Mutual Water Company, which is just a thing Stuart owns, and five water districts of all big ag, big ag guys. The West Side Mutual Water Company is owned by the Resnick's and all the water districts are controlled by agribusiness, including Paramount, which is the Resnick's farm company.

So not only is he going to get, he's not only one of the six, but then he also controls another one. So he's two of the six really. In return, the Resnicks would give up their junior water rights, which is water that doesn't exist anyway. So they are sacrificing nothing to get a ton. So they're threatening to sue because they're not getting water that they should Because it's never been built right into the system, right? but the system at the beginning was supposed to

Like legally supposed to send that much water down. So they're saying so from two to from zero From zero to two there's actual water right from two to four There's no water and that's where their water comes from. So they say they'll stop the lawsuit and give up the two to four water, which doesn't exist if the state hands over the water. And who is negotiating on behalf of the state? It's not great. Okay.

So, okay. Oh boy. Now, so, uh, so he also says the state can just pretend that the extra water exists. This feels foolhardy. As far as pretending extra water existed, this became known as paper water. What is happening? Yes, that's right. So they've created origami goes in. So they've created something called paper water, which is water that doesn't exist

Are you about to end run water you asshole, but legally it does exist. No, it doesn't dick What legally it does on paper it's water. No You're supposed to get the for paper. I'll get the goal. You want some paper? Goal to get the 4.2 million. So so you have rights to water even though it's a paper. I'll give you gold. You want some paper gold? You're supposed to get the 4.2 million. So you have rights to water, even though it's not real. You know, it's hard for you to throw out facts and then advocate for the other side. I'm like, it feels like you have an evil twin. It's yourself.

Okay. So the state went for it. Good. I say we close this deal up, boys. It ain't going to get worse. And just gave up the water bank, paid for by public money. What? Created by the public. It is now privatized. It is just given away. What year was this? This is 1994. Oh god. All happens behind closed doors.

All deals are done behind closed doors. Governor is uh, Wilson, Republican. Ever since that day in 1994, California has been operating as if water that does not exist is real That's not good. Why? Because we're low already To make a large real estate development in California. You legally have to prove you have a water source available So if you want to build a bunch of houses, you got to prove that there's water to go to those people. Okay.

So now developers could just buy paper water from farmers and start building houses. Oh no. On top of all this, the state agreed there would no longer be a requirement that the water be scaled back for farms during droughts. Oh God. Oh god. Oh god. So it's literally the shittiest deal I've ever

heard of by a state in the history of the country. It's the worst deal ever. Who closed it? I mean Nobody fucking knows who was in the room. Nobody knows who was in the room for that. You know, Resnick was in there and some other guys, but we don't know who the fuck was in there.

So suddenly for some strange reason Linda and Stuart, Resnick became huge farmers. They nearly doubled their land holdings over the next three years. By 1996 the Resnicks owned more than a hundred thousand acres of pistachios and almonds. Sales are about 1.5 billion. Oh my God. And they had so much power and so much control over water that other huge farming families called on the state to intervene. Okay, right. Yeah. Sure. One was John, uh, that should be Vitovich, right? Uh, this guy, John Visevich. It's either Visevich or Vitovich. We'll know right here when we pull it up probably. All right, so that's one of the guys.

Okay. So I think it's Vitovitch. So Vitovitch, so he's been, his father's a farmer, he's been buying up insane amounts of property always near rivers or over large aquifers. Right. So he likes real water. He likes real water. He likes real water. So he accused the Resnicks of using shell companies

to monopolize control of the current water bank, which is exactly what they did. Right. A public resource had been privatized for the purposes of- It's weird for a pistachio to have a shell company. Keep going. Can we get a symbol? I don't think so.

Is there a rim shot? So a public resource has been privatized for the purpose of growing tens of thousands of acres of nuts. He charged. Okay. He's going to take him to court. Okay. And then Vidovich suddenly went to see Stuart.

No, I liked him. And then the lawsuit was dropped. No, I liked him right away. Damn it. Now other companies- When I fall, I fall hard. Now other companies took a look what the red... it kept auto-correcting into red necks. So the Resnicks had done with the water bank. Okay. And decided that was a good way to make a buck. In 1998, a company named Enron

bought a British water company for two billion dollars. You are literally Enroning water. God damn it. Dear God. They renamed the company Azzurix. I kind of missed when I knew nothing. It's kind of a simpler time. Azzurix bought the huge Madeira Ranch in the San Joaquin Valley. The ranch was on top of a giant aquifer that could hold 480 billion acres of

water. Okay. The Wall Street Journal quote, Asric Corp is launching an exchange on the internet for buying, selling, storing, and transporting water in the West, hoping to make water a traded commodity, much like natural gas or electricity. Enron wanted people to invest in water. Paper water. Oh, those m- what- they were just- they lived- they worked in Imagine Town? Enron's whole business motto is like, yes, but have you heard of bullshit? It's way easier. Okay, so Enron is Enroning water. Basically. Right.

The idea was to sell aquifer storage space in this aquifer, so farmers would send their, when they had excess water, like a year or there's a lot of rain, they could send their excess water to the storage. No. And they'd pay to keep it there. No. And then when they needed, they could get the water back. At the same time. No, no, no. The same time send their excess water to the storage They pay to keep it there and then when they need it, they can get the water back at the same time No, no, no the same time. They're getting water from the state that water they can sell and not a lot of that water is Paper water, right so they can sell it to a guy who wants to build you you are like three card money in your mouth right now

But no so they can sell their fake water to a guy who wants to build a build a town or a development. It's fine Why is this a problem? This is early and this is a train wreck So, you know you when you need to get your water dry here you go back to Enron's water bank Yeah, water believe it or not. That doesn't sound likely So it all sounds good, right? So from the guy, the opposite the whole time, the guy running it quote. So the way that water trading works is that you're not really actually trading the actual water molecule.

So wait, buddy, pal. So I have this amount of water and now let's swap it in such a way that I get access to water when I need it. But it's not the actual water that's going there. amount of water and now let's swap it in such a way that I get access to water when I need it but it's not the actual water that's going there it's an allocation of water huh so I have I I'm owed water so I'm gonna sell that to you and then that's yours if it ever is the thing I just want my water that I gave you yeah yeah I don't know if we can do that but let's why don't you trade it or sell it to somebody else but it just

sounds way worse trust me so it's much better than trying to take it we don't have it what was at the end there yep I like doing business with you okay hey you got to close up the bank it's three uh my water. The local farmers, however, were onto it and did not fall for it. They organized and told as a Ricks to fuck off and eventually and Ron and as Ricks had to give up and go home. Well, but they did try it in Texas, Florida and Argentina also. And they failed in all three places. They lost.

Can we end the episode now? Can we end the episode now? Because there's been a huge victory. It's only going to get better. In 1998, the Resnick's family doctor told them that the pomegranate was revered in folk medicine. That's 180 acres of. Yeah, granites. So they funded a study by an Israeli doctor at Technion University. Amazingly, quote, we found that the juice had more antioxidants than we'd ever found in red wine. They funded more studies. Linda quote, the news was off the charts.

The Resnick's decided to make pomegranate juice. Oh my God. In 2001, they also planted seedless mandarins. Mm hmm. But bees from nearby orchards were flying into the Resnick's groves. And if you pollinate a flower of a mandarin, it gets seeds. If they're not pollinated. Let's play a little God. Well, Stuart told his neighboring farmers to change which way the bees were flying or he'd sue

them for trespassing. Wait wait wait. Wait. He wait. Yeah go ahead. Are you a crazy man with all the money is telling other farmers to control their bees? Have you ever seen a rich person? Welcome to bee leashes.

Have you ever seen a rich person who thinks they can tell everything what to do? Well, this guy wants to control bees. I just, I think, and yes, there are a lot of entitled people out there, but normally people are able to see lines at the hive. What are your insects doing buddy? Get them out of here. Alright, listen, alright, listen guys, I'm going to make this short and sweet. Obviously you've turned your bees against me and my seedless mandarins.

Stop being assholes. Call off your bees. Otherwise I'm sending my army of wasps. I see one more bee. I'm gonna fuck up you and I'm gonna fuck up your hive. Oh honey, I'm gonna go outside. These fists, these fists, made for bees. Hold on, I'm gonna go grab one of these bees. Alright buddy, who do you work for? Which farmer do you work for, little bee?

Meow. Yeah, alright, well maybe you don't wanna talk now. I'm gonna punch through the bee gut. Meow. Yah! Meow. Yah. Bee fight. Hey hon?

Yeah? What happened to me? I don't know. Okay? I don't know Okay, I Don't know you have a lot of issues So they've invented pomegranate juice because of the answer antioxidants that are now off the charts and they're trying to control ways Yes, they're trying to control the farmers whose land the bees came from you mean the bee directors said they couldn't control the bees came from. You mean the bee directors? Said they couldn't control the bees flight path. So they're giving that talking point. Interesting. And then they threatened to sue Resnick back. Okay. So finally Resnick just put netting up around his mandarins that bees could not penetrate. Sure, make it a driving range.

That's how that went away. For sure. Okay. Now his, now their, the Resnick's mandarins are called halos if you've ever seen them in every grocery store in California, I go to the farmers. Okay. But there's two kinds of, of, I know small mandarins, right? Yeah. They're halos and they're cuties. Yeah. And the two they used to have, it was them and somebody else had these orchards together and sold them all as cuties. And then the Resnick split off cause they can't work with anybody. Right now. So Palm, sold them all as cuties and then the resinic split off because they can't work with anybody. Right.

No. So Palm, the pomegranate juice was launched in 2002. Oh no, these are the Palm people. At that time, only 4% of Americans had tasted a pomegranate. Okay. Linda kicked in and mark and marketed Palm as an anti antioxidant rich miracle food that might improve cardiovascular health, fight prostate cancer, erectile dysfunction, and even prevent Alzheimer's disease. So you're going to have a strong body cock and you'll remember a lot of stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. You fuck like a rhino. You're not getting sick. Good heart. And yeah. And most of this is just sort of what's from the studies that her own money paid for right? paper studies so The residents had become Hollywood players and big in the Democratic Party. They live in Beverly Hills

Linda quote I have David Bowie and you know, Rupert Murdoch and Summer Redstone. Who else? Well, sorry, can David Bowie get off the list if possible? I know. Everybody's on her list. Mike Milken, you know, just famous people. You know, OJ Simpson, Mel Gibson, Anna Nicole Smith, the A-listers, the normal people. All the heads of the Hollywood studio.

So everyone she knows gets samples of Palm before it launches and she just keeps sending them And people are just they're all drinking them shows on my TV shows like Desperate Housewives Quarries Scientology the beverage. Yeah, basically Where I other swag bags at the Grammys the Emmys the Golden Globes the palm teeny became a featured cocktail at the Oscars So palm takes off It was healing food Okay, right, which is no different than what we've talked about before with the crazy healing cure cures Oh, yeah with like electric water or whatever. Yeah, it's all the same shit

The national marketing campaign showed a palm bottle with a broken noose around its neck under the slogan cheat death Oh my god settled down. I didn't get that but here's the home. By the way and that is such a like that is yeah yeah that's that's what you see near where the salad dressings are. Yeah. Yes they fought to get it put in the healthy section. Because she said Oh boy. Yeah, it also, it's just like so easy to make people in Hollywood believe shit. Yeah, it's the easiest thing in the world. Hey, I got a swag bag. Hey, this is Ja Rule.

All I do is drink palm. All right. Thanks, Ja. That's awesome. In 2004, the Resnick's bought Fiji water. The thickest plastic bottled water there is. In 1995, the previous owner had gotten a 99-year lease over a 17-mile aquifer in Fiji with a tax-free status. From a wizard? Who gives that the I because he said I'll bring jobs

But he said the water the bottle water business is too risky and they went for it The tax breaks supposed to end in 2008. So in four years after they bought it, right? So Fiji water takes off When the previous guy had I think it was the third Third most selling one When the previous guy had, I think it was the third most selling one. But Fiji's still a super poverty stricken island. The owner called Fiji Square Bottles, quote, little ambassadors for the islands of Fiji. That's full of BPA. As soon as the Resnicks bought Fija, they pushed the bottles into celebrities' hands

at every opportunity. Wow, these dumb morons. Hey, we're the cast of Friends. This is all we drink. I mean, dude, they've got an Al Gore's hand and shit. Like they've got him in hands. You're like, it shouldn't be in your hand. It was on the Sopranos 24, The View, Desperate Housewives.

Soon Feachie was the number one selling bottled water in the US. We were just having fun, though. We were just a bunch of kids who were excited to have bottles of water with us, you know, no longer living by the shackles of the bubbler, being able to walk around with some water. That's all we wanted. We just wanted a simple treat on a hot summer's day. I know. Or something when you're on a road when you're sitting in traffic, you don't have time to

pull over and drink from a goddamn river. But imagine there's a God if there is a a god, and he comes back. She. And she comes back, and she goes, now tell me about this. And you go, OK, so we go to this island in the middle of the ocean you build, and we take water. You already know everything. Why are you making us tell you? And then we get, there's these guys that are called Chinese.

You know who the Chinese guys are. Chinese guys are Chinese guys They live over there and they make bottles for us and they're super different than a ball And then we put the box we put the water in bottles and then we put on ships and we take it across the ocean And then we all drink it here. I Don't think she'd be happy And then she goes well I gave you water where you are. I know, but this is in little square bottles.

Yeah, but they're little, let me handle this, Mark. They're little baby ambassadors. We like to look at each thick, thick plastic. And by the way, just to let you know, a lot of these bottles end up back in the ocean where water is so ubiquitous. That's right. It doesn't matter. And so the Fiji water goes home to the middle of the ocean on the island

The people in Fiji don't have they're like poor. So oh, yeah. Is that how you wanted them? Oh, no, they're on an awesome Oh, you're all seeing all knowing you obviously know you made the Fijians poor Yeah, and they are so happy to have their their resources stolen. They love it. They're really into it They like when we take their stuff Oh, yeah. No, we've got a bunch of them who will say that you know, yeah, but um Anywho's will be we should get moving Because we were talking about traffic earlier and it is awful time of it's a Friday And there's seven they maybe you should have done something about that. Two days ago. Yeah. You should have.

And there's seventh day. Maybe you should have. Yeah, seventh or eighth or whatever. Okey dokey. Anywho. Oh. You should meet with these guys at Nestle. Oh, absolutely.

You'll love them. Nestle's great. They make chocolate, kill people. It's unbelievable. Yeah. So soon Fiji becomes the number one water bottle selling company in the US. The slogan was quote, We'll kill everything.

And remember this, we saved you a trip to Fiji. Like the worst part of life. Thank you? Like going to Fiji. Yeah, like going to Fiji as some sort of penance. Thanks. Hey, without us, you'd have to go there. It's nice though.

It's an island. Shut up and drink your bottle I'm in paradise. Shut up. Yep. Yep. The Resnick's also relentlessly attacked tap water Calling it quote not a real viable alternative. It's true that you can't drink it that it can contain four thousand contaminants Which Fiji's quote living water did not this is just and these are repeated talking points These are things that have now don't know they've yeah You know, I didn't even I think I forgot to put this in here But they eventually yeah, they got fucked on that too Like they at one point they said our waters like they made fun of Cleveland and Cleveland water

They did tests and it's more pure than Fiji bottled water. Yeah, but it saved you a trip to Cleveland It's more pure than Fiji bottled water. Yeah, but it saved you a trip to Cleveland. Linda wrote quote, you can no longer trust public or private water supplies. Yeah, yeah. Trust this billionaire who told pomegranate juice, the thing that'll cure your cancer. Pistachios are also becoming bigger and bigger sellers, but the Resnick's knew if relations with Iran ever normalized, the country could sell its pistachios again, which are far.

Sweet God, sweet God. The nuts are so much better. The Iranian nuts are so much better than America's that Israelis buy Iranian pistachios shipped through Turkey and rebranded. So the Resnick's started sending money to right-wing think tanks and advocacy advocacy advocacy advocacy advocacy groups That push for hardline approaches on Iran. This is just now becoming a cartoon Like foreign policy based upon

Pistachio butteriness capitalism this includes economic sanctions sabotage and vilification between 1999 and 2004 the resnick foundation funneled one point 125 million to the American Jewish Committee one of the most active lobbyists pushing for Iran sanctions bill that was passed in 2009 oh my god other groups pushing for the sanctions were Hal Burton Exxon Mobile and Lockheed Martin. I gotta go. It's a list at like Satan's barbecue. Ed Ron and Lockheed.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. The Resnicks also gave money to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Think Tank, which calls for heavy sanctions and military strikes against Iran What must it be like to have this much money? I think you stop having any feeling you completely lose conscience. You have no feeling as a human being Uh steward is also a board member of the american friends of idc a non-for-profit foundation That is the fundraising arm of a think tank with close ties to the Israeli

intelligence and military establishment. American friends of IDC gave 10 million to the think tank in 2006. We do not know how much the Resnick's gave but Stuart is a board member along with Vegas tycoon Sheldon Adelson. Oh my god. I think I need a pomegranate juice. By the way, here's the Fuji plant. There it is making that's where they make the water and it's really beautiful. The facility background. Linda says others are jealous. Thanks for saving me a trip to there.

Yeah, sure. Linda says other people are jealous of their pistachio success well people um quote we've done more for the pistachio than anyone ever since it was planted in the Garden of Eden oh sorry can we just murder that sentence can I finish the sound yeah oh no they do the second one my husband should be canonized for all the work he's done. Oh my god. By the way, they've been canonizing people for nut quality for a long time. Oh my god.

Just you're deep in the pistachio game when you're talking like this. You know, I'm the Martin Luther King of pistachios. So just so people understand what sanctions do, sanctions kill people. Sanctions kill children and people who need medicine. They kill people. That's what sanctions do. They really hurt the poor and they kill the poor in other countries. So when they're trying to make money off their pistachios, they're killing people. They're begging for sanctions based on their nuts. Yeah.

Nuts. In 2006, the Fiji government was overthrown in a military coup. The Resnick's just kept doing business in the country saying they were helping the people by giving them jobs environmental activists targeted Fiji water for bottling water on a Pacific Island with oil made from bottles in China and Talking shit about tap water Linda responded with a new Fiji slogan quote every drop is green Shouldn't that be what you label tap water? She started. He started an ad campaign called Fiji Green that urged people to drink imported

water to fight climate change. Oh my get day, you know, sometimes you just got to go so far off the spectrum to hit a home run. You know what I mean? It's almost like you took a swing, missed the ball, but then when the bat crossed behind you, you accidentally bunted. You know? Like you've just gotta like, you know, oh yeah, well we're ruining the world.

Well, how about this? Buy Fiji water to save the world, bitch. How about that? Oh God. Oh, it's really, the Fiji Green website claims a 120% carbon offset and says that buying a large bottle of Fiji water creates the same carbon reduction as walking five blocks instead of driving.

What happened? What just happened? Who is the scientist? What what happened what just happened? Who is the scientist? Hello, I'm dr. Hostage Jesus so if you drink your Fiji today walk five blocks, okay The company insists that the water bottles travel on ships that would be making the trip anyway. So that doesn't count. Empty ships just making the trip?

Well what do you say we turn around and do it again with nothing on board, huh? For old times sake! They- wait, did I mention the Resnick's own Neptune Pacific line of shipping company? No. I didn't. Oh, they also own that. So maybe they're right. Maybe the ships are going that way

anyway They're not likable in 2008 the the way they were the way they were factoring it all was they were like it was like There's this there's this way that that certain companies do we're good for climate change. We're good for carbon Emissions is they like do it like it's like a decade form decades ahead formula. So it's like, so they're able to look at this over nine decades. We're actually pretty good. Right. So they use this math. That's just like fucking nonsense in future decades. Yeah. Yeah. Future decades. Like, so they're like, so nine decades on the ride. It all, it all works out. It's the Enron, Jeannie refusing to go back in the bottle again. In 2008, the tax break Fiji had given the water company was set to expire.

The government tried to impose a tax. Fiji Water called it, quote, draconian and shut down the plant. The government gave it. Fiji Water never called the military junta controlling the island draconian, just the attempt to get taxes. The military declared martial law in 2009. The dollop is brought to you by Public Rec. Public Rec is a clothing company and they make the most comfortable pants. I got a pair of what are known as daymakers so

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in 2007, the Resnick's 48% stake in the current water bank became even more valuable the AP reported that the Resnick share of the water bank amounted to 246 billion gallons enough to supply all the residents of San Francisco for 16 years Okay They were able to expand and water all of their orchards. Now each nut. Oh yeah. Takes a gallon of water. Yeah. Each nut. Oh, and they're insanely thirsty. You know that needs to be and this day and age instead of calorie counts. That's what needs to be listed next to the food item. How much water? How much water does it

take to produce this stuff? So they also sold water. So the Resnick's are selling water. Why do they need? What's in the water bag? Dime bags when they got ounces water. So the Resnick's are selling water. Why do they need what's in the water bag? Dime bags when they got ounces moving. They're selling water to the state of California. That is the this just further proves how bad this deal is. I say we take it. Why did you say yes to this?

Look, all right, they're pretty shrewd. I say we just let's move on this deal. I don't know how much better it's going to get. So this is water the state had owned and just gave way to the people now charging them for the water. They're giving us a great deal. Let's move on this. From 2000 to 2007, the state of California paid the Resnick's thirty point six million dollars for water and the water was used to protect native fish The Delta smelt in the fragile Sacramento San Joaquin Delta So they're saving a Fish that's a key a key

Animal in the food chain, okay Super key animal in the food chain. Okay. Super key animal in the food chain. And so they're selling water but again I think this is allotted water because they can't take water from the water bank. Move it up. I think it's just an allotment of water. So they're not taking the water that's going down the river and they're like yeah you can have that we'll just sell it to you. We just are not allowed to be shocked when we live in Mad Max. In 2010 the Fiji government said it was going to increase taxes again raising the tax on bottled water about eight cents in US money. You'll have to walk three more blocks. Yeah the Fiji bottle taxes were only bringing in $500,000 a

year and this would raise it to $22 million. The Resnick's making hundreds of millions a year from Fiji Water, not including all their other businesses, weren't about to pony up. How could they? Their net worth was $1.3 billion. How could they give up $22 million a year? The Resnick's immediately shut down the Fiji water plant and laid off the 400 Fijian employees.

Armed guards took over the plant. The Fiji water president said this was quote, a clear and unmistakable message to businesses operating in Fiji or looking to invest there. The country is increasingly unstable and is becoming a very risky place in which to invest. How about existence? quality of existence To this to do to do that to human beings and granted it's a military junta and whatnot

But that island needs money and you're fucking taking their water and you have 1.3 billion dollars And it's the story we've heard a number of times on this where it is. It's just This level of theft and and now they're and now they're calling out to the rest of the world that it's a shitty place to invest Yes hurting further business ventures because that's all that matters So challenging the resin x i'm gonna punch you. Okay, okay. Challenging the ResinX is not a thing that usually goes well. Well I'm glad we're doing that, allegedly. There was a there was a Pistachio Commission that like... Very serious. Well you know like the Milk Commission and stuff where they do advertising. We're with the PC. Excuse me ma'am, can we just borrow a moment of your time? We're with the PC, the Pistachio Coalition? Look, we're here to... When was the last time you saw your husband?

What? What with the Pistachio Coalition? Your husband might have died. Shouldn't you be doing pistachio work? It's a long story. You know what? We've broadened our reach. We're also doing murder investigation.

Anyway, look, the point, man. Take a seat. Your husband has been murdered. Actually, this is the first time I've had to let someone down from this. You might have to crack one of these. Oh, go for it. This is Tom. He's kind of a hothead, but he's also a puppy dog.

So there's a pistachio commission. They basically handle that. Hey, we're the PC. How you guys doing? Open up, PC. We're the Pistachio Coalition. What kind of nuts you got in your nut drawer? So they handle advertising, right?

It's all the farmers get together and they decide what kind of nuts you got your nut drawer So they handle advertising right? It's all the farmers get together and they decide Okay, and so when that when the Resnick's got control of 65% of pistachios They killed the Commission so they would just handle the marketing themselves. Sure. This is how monopolies get to have fun That's right So one guy on the Commission said quote Stuart wants to be a benevolent dictator. If he thinks you're defying him to be. Yeah. If he thinks you're defying him, he'll start with nobody realizes the good I've done for agriculture.

And then he moves on to, do you know who I am? Do you know what I am? I'm a billionaire. That's cool. That's super cool to hear. It doesn't matter who the billionaire is if a billionaire ever says I'm a billionaire Legally, you can kick them in the nuts as hard as you want right in the pistachios right in the pistachios

Like how you're sighing i'm going to continue the quote he's got an awful temper he's trying to control through kabbalah Dave I mean we're just we're checking a lot of boxes here He's trying to control through Kabbalah Dave We're checking a lot of boxes here. I mean, I don't know when the douche of the year is but uh, So the PR from this Fuji shut down is not good, right? The quotes that they're saying people read right through so there's a backlash So the day after shutting down the plant the Resnick's relent and accept the tax increase because it's 22 million dollars and they make one point three give them some credit that's so cool none of the so-called help the Rezniks give Fiji has stopped outbreaks of typhoid on

the islands typhoid fever is endemic there and incidents have been increasing over the last decade. What does that do to the investment prospects? Recent research identified the transmissions. The transmission of typhoid is predominantly through the consumption of contaminated surface water and unwashed produce. If only the people of Fiji had a source of water. produce if only the people of Fiji had a source of water so they're taking their aquifer water and the Fijians are drinking I assume out of reservoirs that are giving them typhoid how many blocks are they walking five not they're saving they gotta pick it up I'm pick it up. I don't think that's how you cure typhoid. No, you got to walk 10 blocks and jump. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. Yeah. What if you're on a really small island though? They should just open their own typhoid kind of

water. I mean, that's what the Resnicks did. Okay. Sorry for liking these people. I'm sorry. I'm following it. No, it's slowly come Smith. I know a winner. That same year the Federal Trade Commission ruled that Palms ads of health cures were not true. Weird. The FTC said Palm had overhyped the juices ability to prevent heart disease, prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction. Yeah, my dick still won't get hard you liars. I drank so much palm and I can't fuck I've been slinging the whole hour Linda quote

Linda quote I think it was unfair and I think it's a tragedy if the fresh fruits and vegetables that are really the medicine chest of the 21st century Have to adhere to the same rules as a drug that could possibly harm you The residents live in a house, oh, I don't want to see it cuz I'm gonna go burn it in Beverly Hills That's not a house that is valued at 25 million dollars That is valued at $25 million. Earth Island Journal quote, the Beverly Hills home looks more like an embassy than a house. Seriously. They entertain the rich and famous there. They've expanded the house by buying up and tearing down three adjacent properties.

An author who wrote a book about over the top houses called it quote, exaggerated, extravagant, crude, ridiculous, and a bit indecent. There is a seven foot marble statue of Napoleon in their drawing room. Sorry. They made Napoleon seven feet. Marble statues. So they had to reinforce the floor to put the statue in, you know, we're taking water from Waterloo. Interesting project. We have come up in the spring gold is everywhere

Legged gold furniture paintings and gold frames gold leaf carpet ceilings with gold leaf moldings and gold frame Drain new money. Am I right new I Mean, it's just fucking oh god. Could you imagine what the fuck? Why would you live in that? Yeah, it's just like my fucking table. Yeah living in a museum. It's just a gold ringed table It's like a crown table. It really is the the height of When you're obsessed with possessions, it's no longer matters what your livability or quality is. It's what a strangers think well When you when you think about the revolution French revolution you and your head picture these these rich people eating grapes and dancing around like There's no difference between this and and the Fiji well and the disparity is now

It's rising to the surface more and more so we will you know, like we just need to if I were an investor right now I'd invest in pikes It's gonna be huge for heads of the future But the resin x were about to become givers now. They're philanthropists. They've gone given to they give to museums and and and um Hey, sir. We took all your water. Here's a statue. They did like some neuro uh Wing in the ucla or something for neurological disorders, okay Linda's story what happened in 2010 that really made them change and help people

Is that they were at a dinner party with a Harvard professor by the way? I mean talk about a relatable premise It was an ethicist. Okay So there's some of the sentences you've said read like mad libs well Well having dinner with an ethicist is such a fucking rich person thing to do now Hey, let's have an ethicist over and he'll see well, we'll just talk and see how we're doing. I wouldn't use that fork. Why? There's a downside you're not thinking of What a nightmare that much pepper. He's really sarcastic and rude. Are you ready for this? No He asked the guests if they would be happy living in a town that was perfect in every possible way except for one terrible secret

Everyone in the town knew that somewhere in that village in a dank basement There was a small six-year-old child who was being tortured And you couldn't say anything about the torture because if you did, you had to leave the town. Sorry, Todd. I love the prime rib. I don't know what to. I want to put a pin in this.

I can't imagine what they. This is like that movie premise where it's like if you hit a button someone dies and you but you don't know So essentially are you okay knowing the truth in order for your life to be perfect? That's what he's saying. He's saying you're ignoring the truth, right? That but by them getting what he's sitting with a bunch of rich people saying by you guys getting all this you're fucking over people surely charging $65,000 for this dinner Linda quote and it changed my life that very day

They would do good from then on Now I'm sure this sudden philanthropy was because of a Harvard Harvard professor and a nothing to do with a story written by reporter John gibbler in the earth island journal just months before It was about the farm workers in the town of lost hills Kern County, the farm workers of the Resnick's farm. Quote, the farm workers of Lost Hills live in mobile homes and cannot drink the water from their taps. The crops they tend drink better and cheaper water than they do. Lost Hills is a 21st century company town. There is no bank, no pharmacy, no local government. The nearest place to deposit a check or go to a supermarket is Wasco, 20 miles away.

Nearly everyone labors in the field for a minimum wage. Nearly everyone in the town works for the Resnick's. The Los Angeles Business Journal estimates the Resnick's worth at $1.79 billion. One guy who worked 58 hours a week at $8 an hour was asked how many of the field workers were undocumented quote If not 100% then the majority the workers all complained about low wages One had been fired after injuring his knee on the job. One woman said quote. These are hunger wages The reporter called the Roll International Office to ask for an interview

The receptionist said the company didn't give information to the public. The reporter asked who he should address his research questions to quote, I suggest you don't research us and she hung up. The workers in Los Hills have no clean water source, have to buy bottled water which costs them 50 to 100 dollars a month. They have to buy bottled water for 50 to $100 a month while working for the number one water bottlers in the fucking world. They really did bring Fiji here though.

Jesus. And the Resnick's had control. I mean talk about gritting teeth when you're buying bottles of water the Resnick's also had control of 755 thousand acre feet of water in the Kern water bank at that time. Oh my god, I Mean they need an on-site ethicist They need to be like a gardener. You need a team of ethicists Linda can we talk to you real quick? That's an awful thing. You're doing. Oh it is. Have you heard of a soul replacement? No, how much I'll throw money at this

So the Resnicks began spending 50 to 80 million a year on philanthropy for poor people and they started strangely enough With their own workers in Lost Hills. That's not charity with their own workers in Lost Hills. That's not charity. That's not charity. What? God damn it. What are you talking about? We've decided to donate to our workers.

A brave, brave decision has been reached here. Stuart quote, look, there's poverty and sadness all over the planet, but I felt that if I was really going to do work, I should start to do work in the place where our employees work and live. That would be most meaningful. Stuart, brave, brave Stuart. So Lost Hills.

Oh, do I not have a picture there? Oh, lost picture. Oh, there it is. Oh, wow. Yeah, that looks, that looks shitty. The workers in the Valley got college scholarships and tutors a new school being built Linda is of course designing the curriculum. Oh good. Okay, so you're taking palm 101 It's about all about pomegranate and then we're gonna do a thing about how great Fiji water is

Okay, and then why immigrants are just rude also why it's good to lower the minimum wage paper water better than real water You can drink it. Yeah There's a free wellness center and free fruits and veggies put out for the workers Linda decided to get rid of the nacho chips french fries and soft drinks The workers weren't happy about it. So the residents started to begin to sell wellness to their 4,300 employees. This is just, I mean, this is not, this is Jonestowny now. Drink the Kool-Aid.

The second that you're offering your own, like that's the problem with the term wellness formula. Like I have a wellness formula, you know, I'm making an event. Um, they, uh, so they did stuff like they built a, they built a park. Um, they get bonuses for the workers. I should not have watched. Sorry to bother you. That movie is now like, well, what are you talking about? We made wonderful park.

They get bonuses for losing weight. Well, what are you talking about? We made wonderful park they get bonuses for losing weight 1150 workers have earned bonuses up to $500 for losing a collective 14,000 pounds between all of them over two years You know where that's not happening is Venezuela During paid breaks music starts blaring and they do 15 minutes of Zumba where they are. I think Teletubby has less weird laws. Teletubby lamb. Quote, a few dozen seasonal employees wearing orange reflective vests and hair nets sat

around folding tables evaluating samples from incoming truckloads of pistachios. Suddenly a boombox started blaring merengue and everyone stood up and danced. It was the daily Zumba break. At the cafeteria, Spanish rice isn't rice, but cauliflower that looks like rice. Pizza dough is cauliflower too. She's making them eat what she eats. Dave, she's making them do the Zumba, which you know, she does Dave, it's honestly taking on a dark turn. After work, a 10 hour workday. They are pushed to work out in the fitness center for an hour.

And they do it. There are trainer watches. The workers want the cash bonuses from the company's get fit program living in a timeshare. It's like a timeshare meeting. It's okay. So it's not is working out good for them. Yes, sure.

Is eating healthy good for them? Yes, sure. But also, if you're making minimum wage, fuck it. The one of the only joys you have is eating the food you like, not cauliflower fucking rice. Like you're already fucking also let them have their little moments of fucking joy. It's also easy to do that. It's also easy to insist on 15 minute Zumba breaks when your life is breaks. Yeah, totally. And so you're just like, Hey, everybody do zoom. They have no they have no idea what these people's lives are. Yeah. So most of these people came from northern Mexico, where their farm towns were taken over by

cartels. A lot of people were slaughtered in those towns and they fled to get to America, they have to pay coyotes to cross the border. The price now is $12,000 a head, which the families, they get a cousin over, then they pay off together over years. So out of their meager wages, they're saving up money to pay off the coyotes so they can never get ahead. So they will take the $100 that they get

for working out for a year, because they have to. Oh, you're paid to work out? Well, that's the whole incentive. Right, right, right. Yeah work out well that's the incentive she pays them and they need money so badly because their lives have been so fucked so by the way cauliflower is very versatile so don't mean yeah so it means they do if they do Zumba in the middle of a fucking pistachio field they'll do it which has got to be the most humiliating thing I can fucking think of like I just cannot imagine

Well, you you are just I mean you are in like a delusional paradise Yeah But they still live in train box cars that were turned into housing and their water comes out of a tap that is and it is Yellow and foul smelling they do not drink it That is sort of the beauty of the capitalists dream Is that they spent so long telling you that your tap water was dog shit long enough to make you believe it. So they turned your water into dog shit. Well, the water there is a fucking nightmare. An 11 year old girl quote, it comes out like P. They spend $50 a month or more on bottled water still. I wish there was a way around.

I wish there was something that the residents could do. Anyway, in 2014, Steve, I Steve would you show them a documentary about the resonance, right? Yeah in 2014 Stephen Colbert Did a Super Bowl ad for the resonance pistachios members head comes open and there's a statue inside Pistachio sales more than doubled in three months sales increased the following year to reach 114 million in more than the following year to reach 114 million in more than sorry in 2015 the Resnick's rebranded all their holdings from Roll International to the Wonderful Company to highlight their focus on healthy products and philanthropy. Linda quote, our company has always believed that success means doing well by doing good. No, it hasn't. No, no, She said there's a name. They named it. So, there's the school they're making.

Prep Academy. Oh my God. What? Jesus Christ. They're people. They're great people. Oh, look at that. You know, they should be sentenced to drowning. 2015, it was revealed that for 20 years, the Resnicks and other farmers had been watering

their orchards with treated frac-wadding wastewater. That's right. Right. Fracking wastewater. Wastewater is a byproduct of fracking. It is being treated and sold to farmers who use it to water their crops, which are then sold in grocery stores to human beings. As the brutal drought wore on, farmers used more and more oil wastewater. California officials praised using oil wastewater to grow vegetables,

but some think it's not exactly safe. Well, and these people who are flagging it. I don't know basing this upon the idea Right they don't believe waste water You know, they're just fucking dumb by the way, it's gonna be really interesting like that, you know the next 30 years shall we give us are gonna be really fascinating because there's going to be a lot of fun mutations going on. Like, you know, X-Men's going to watch like a documentary in 20 years just while people have been like living on fracked food. Right.

And then people say, well, the EPA is being fucked by Trump, but it's already fucked. Oh yeah. It's already a fucking disaster guys. No one's doing shit about anything. I mean, sure, they do a lot of stuff, but it's so fucking bad Absolutely, I mean look at the amount of look at Flint the amount of pollution that is allowed to just be and of course It's getting worse, but it has it's like everything else It's kind of like if you're a president you're what you're really doing is biding your time

What is going to be part of your problem and what is going to be part of this next guy's problem or like a guy 30 years down the line? And we unfortunately are at the breaking point of this problem with the worst person possible. But it has been created. The corrosive nature of all of this goes back ages. Yeah, decades. Yeah. So for instance Benzene turned up in the waste water, but the state has set no standard for benzene irrigation water After complaints the water board started requiring the water the water board the water board Say yes

request requiring the water be tested for toxin and toxins and in point appointed a requiring the water be tested for toxins and in point appointed a committee to determine if chemicals in the water quote Pose a threat to public health at the concentrations detected. Yeah, let's see now Let's do that 20 years after we started doing it. Yeah, that's when we should do that for sure. Yeah, no find out. It's time California safety consultants are concerned quote current water district requirements for testing such waters before they are used for irrigation are not sufficient. No one knows what chemicals fracking companies use so they don't know what to test for. As fracking companies. I don't think anywhere does any government force any fracking company to disclose the

chemicals they use because it's copyright law. Why would they? Why would they? Why would you want to know that? Why would you want to know what you're blasting into earth? Some of the crops being grown with fracking water are subview raisins, that's probably wrong, but Sutter Home wines and wonderful citrus. Hmm. Halos. Hmm. Journalist, journalist Yasha Levin, he went down there and here's the pools. Oh God. Here's his quote, to really appreciate the toxicity of this place, all you have to do is stand by the mixing ponds where the oil waste is magically turned in that is so much worse than I would have imagined to clean irrigation water a whiff of the raw Petroleum and chemists makes your head. That's that's the water that is being used for the like. I mean essentially it's like huffing glue. He said So they put it in different pools and they move it from pool to pool and that's supposed to clean up the water

So it's different pools, but they're just moving the water through the water so it's different pools but they're just moving the water through but they're putting the fracking water through at least what they're saying is it's pretty tiny see the dark one and then the next one and then the next one so that's how they're cleaning it they all look pretty dark and then um crude oil and water oh god what who and then they're asked to draw that on something. You're like, no, that makes no sense. Wow. So they're using this water to all their fucking all the farmers because there's a drought and and at the same time the government was cracking down on fracking companies about how to get rid of wastewater. So it all worked out.

It all worked out. It all worked out. But that is part of the problem is that like when you do squeeze farmers to this extent, it's like what Monsanto does. It's like at some point. These guys aren't being squeezed. No, no, the farmer. Like when local farmers have to like make decisions,

they're going to make compromise decisions to survive. But I don't know how, I don't know how I don't know I mean the number of local farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and then I was probably very small I mean, this is agribusiness has destroyed everybody The Rednecks thirst for water shows no sign of ending they have used front groups and political pressure To try to get even more water from Northern California's Delta's damn. The biggest thing holding it all up is a fish called the Delta smelt. The smelt are considered smelted Delta. That's right.

The smelt are considered an indicator species used to gauge the overall health of the Delta's aquatic. Hey, I'm going to get out of here. And I, when you, because I'm sure this is going to be a pretty light fact. So I'm going to actually get out of here before you say this one. I sure this is gonna be a pretty light fact So I'm gonna actually get out of here before you you say this one I'm just gonna walk out with a pretty optimistic view as the smelt goes so go the other fish species in the Delta Lawsuits over the livelihood of the Delta smelt have kept more water from being pumped out of the Delta So the the smelt is basically saving the Delta, but it's also dwindling every year that I learned about the Delta smelt when I was in college in the fucking early 90s, like the Delta smelt, like with

the Delta smelt goes down, so did the sand, so did the salmon and if the salmon go down, they don't just go down and San Francisco, it affects the whole fucking West Coast. Like the Delta smelt is a big fucking deal. So a group called the coalition of a Coalition for Sustainable Delta started filing lawsuits to assign blame for the estuaries decline. It blamed everything from farming, housing development, dredging power plants, sport fishing, and pollution, but not but not big ag farming in the valley farming up north near the Delta. Weird. The coalition originally listed a paramount farms facts number and three of the four officers

on its early tax documents were Resnick employees. It's so simple. I mean, at some point you're just too cocky. Yeah. But they can get away with it. They are getting away with it. Yeah, that's what I mean. No one's going to stop them.

Yeah, what do you care? They have money. Yeah, you may as well let Linda do everything. After judges ruled in favor of the smelt, the Resnick started reaching out to politicians whom they had given tons of money to over the years. 734,000 to Governor Gray Davis, 270,000 to Schwarzenegger, 150,000 to Jerry Brown, plus 250,000 to his pet education project. Tons of money everywhere.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, a powerful energy and water panel, and spent a New Year's at the Resnick-Aspen House, tried to help out. The Senator asked the Interior and Commerce Agencies to reexamine the science behind the Delta Smelt Environmental Protection Plan. The agencies then spent $750,000 to come to the exact same conclusion that researchers had 2007 restrictions on Delta pumping were warranted. So Because Diane Feinstein is friends. They just wasted 750 thousand dollars of our money must be a nice guest room Linda says that they wield no political power when it comes to water policy quote. We have no influential

Influence politically. I swear to you. Nobody has a political influence in this nor would we use it? No, no We use it. No No, why would you governor Brown began pushing for a 15 billion dollar plan to construct two 40 foot wide tunnels to carry? 76,000 gallons of water per second from the Sacramento River to the Central Valley. The Resnicks then launched Californians for water security, a group of business people backing the tunnels. So they just started releasing all these ads and they said it was about safety.

It was about what if earthquakes happen? What are we going to do? It's all this fucking bullshit that had nothing to do with the fact that like they just want to fucking put pistachios everywhere 2016 Palm hits the skits the juice stopped selling after the FTC Had found wonderful guilty of false advertising in order the Resnick's to stop making false health claims Their tanks at the plant were filled with a three-year supply and the state's worst drought was having an effect. Oh, no. The Resnick's had gone through their allotment and the water

bank and the state water supplies had gone to almost zero for the farms. The pomegranate orchards were now being bulldozed up to 10,000 trees by 2016. But the Resnick's were still watering a lot of their orchards. How? Well, remember that guy, John Vitovich? Yeah, the guy who stood in front of the plane. He their orchards. How? Well, remember that guy, John Vitovich? Yeah, the guy who stood in front of the plane. He was good for a minute, then he turned bad.

Yeah, that guy. Yeah. He was going around buying up tons of land, right? I think he has like 100,000 acres of land now. It's all near water. It's all very, very select places. He was the guy who's gonna sue him but then didn't Well, he had bought land in nearby king's county and he was selling stewart water from the dudley ridge water district He was selling everyone water. He's not a farmer

He buys land And sells water or paper water. That's all he does and sells water or paper water. That's all he does. He literally one point in one in one interview said that he's doing it to show farmers that what they're doing is unsustainable. What a day. So wonderful is buying up 50,000 acre feet of water a year in a bunch of hidden secret deals in 2016.

Some of the water is coming from farmers in the Tulare Lake Basin who are pumping so much out of the ground that the levees protecting the town of Cochrane are sinking by feet to fix the subsidence and keep the town dry in the next flood. Residents and the state prison are having to pay 10 million dollars in extra taxes so these farmers are taking water out of the ground and just selling it to whoever the fuck they want and Now the town has to pay 10 million dollars because everything is getting so fucked up from the land collapsing At the same time the Resnick's had bought 300,000 acre feet of water for 200 million dollars from different people So John Vitovich was the one selling to the Resnick's but he had already been sued by nearby farmers in

King Kings County for taking too much water out of the ground and moving it. Yeah the court Settlement states water cannot go outside Kings County Okay, but the Resnick's had a pipeline going to Kings County and taking the water. Okay, Vitovich quote. They drink our oil Resnick's Resnick picks up the water in Dudley Ridge. It's his pipe not mine where he takes waters none of my business. Uh-huh God damn it This should all take place in the Cayman Islands After Resnick learned a reporter had discovered the pipeline he had it removed After resnick learned a reporter had discovered the pipeline he had it removed

All the right reasons now now the the the valley has been sinking forever and here is a picture from the 70s So that's a guy from National he's a geographer. So okay, so that's where the land was in 1925 Okay in 1955 and now in 1927. Wait, that's where the water was so that's where the land was in 1925. Okay in 1955 and now in 1927 That's where the water was. That's where the land was the land was. Okay, so the land has sunk a telephone size Right a telephone pole size crazy of human down at the down at the human bottom there What so it's still been it's still been sinking every year since 1977 It keeps going down hard thing to fathom. And during the strike, the sinking was insane.

Feet and feet and feet. So all the pumping of aquifers has everyone to have to dig deeper to find water. A raisin farmer in Selma had a well that ran dry. He said, quote, resnic, my old well can't compete with his new wells. I have to go deeper if I can. So he drives people out of business because if you're a farmer and you're living on the edge and you have to keep digging deeper, that means each well costs more. And what was 30,000 is not 250,000 because you're trying to keep up with the asshole and eventually you can't keep up with the asshole. So much water is being pulled out of aquifers that the state is sinking.

The sinking is destroying bridges, cracking irrigation canals and twisting highways. Some places in the state are sinking more than a foot per year. railroads, bridges, highways, wells, everything is being damaged. Instead of recording it, the different companies or whatever just go out and fix that one issue and then move on to the next one. Sure. Perfect. Yeah, don't worry about removing the disease, fix the finger. It started raining again in autumn of 2016 and the state water

project for the first time in six years had a surplus. What wonderful could irrigate its orchards again and even put more in the water bank. The Resnick started planting all the trees where they dug them up of the 22,000 acres they ripped up during the drought, 18,000 acres are being replanted as pistachios. Oh, god damn it. Well, obviously there's one big lesson. No more pistachios unless you're in Iran where I hear they're very good. Very buttery.

They also decided to get into the wine business in Paso Robles. They bought land and then brought in bulldozers and started tearing up the hillside, destroying thousands of California oak trees. People were furious. Restaurants up and down the coast said they would boycott the Resnick's wine, and then the media was alerted, and then the Resnick's claimed they were sorry. Quote, when we learned of the terrible situation, not to mention our poor reputation within the community, we were ashamed and are sorry. That's not how shame is supposed to work. We were asleep at the wheel.

We were horrified by the lack of regard. I'm going to throw up. Give me a bucket, Aaron. Our neighbor and nature. We hope that the community will accept our deepest and most sincere apologies. Listen to the level of ego that's at the heart of this apology. And find it in their hearts to forgive us. Oh my God.

They pledged to donate the 380 acres to charity, but the oaks, the 100-year-old oaks or more, are gone. They just destroyed a forest. But Dave, they're sorry. Once people found out and they knew, they felt bad. That's not how conscience is supposed to work. Once people got angry at us, we felt bad. Once everyone knew our secrets, we were guilty.

I love that the way it's written, they act like it's just something that happened they didn't know about. Reputation. In an apology about destroying nature, the level of your reputation should be something you can at least bite your fucking lip through. Yeah. Yeah. So. God damn.

I am like, I want to frame this picture and just get a punching bag. The state of California has adopted a new law that finally regulates pumping. But when it goes into a full effect in a decade or two, more than a million acres of cropland across the valley will have to be retired, but then how much water will be left in those aquifers? Now, an aquifer can be refilled, but when an aquifer dries up, then it turns into a substance that it like, it's almost like, I think the way it's been described to me is it's like a hard clay that then crumbles and now you can't refill it.

But as long as it's- Got something to it, you can always refill it. But once it's empty now you can't refill right but as long as it's got something something And I can always refill it, but once it's no once. It's empty. You can't refill right the Resnick's on 180,000 acres of California 281 square miles is the largest farmer in the country I believe well he looks like a farmer 121,000 of those acres are irrigated The Resnick's use more water than any other person in the West. Their 15 million trees consume more than 400,000 acre feet of water a year. The entire city of Los Angeles

consumes 587,000 acres a year. Oh my god. Linda on the company, quote, if you call yourself the wonderful company, you'd better damn well be wonderful, right? Are you asking Linda? Are you asking my God. So when people say there's a water problem in California, there isn't a water problem in California. And when people say there's a human problem, yeah, there's a human problem. People say that in the North, they're stealing our water in Southern California.

No, we're not. The people are stealing the water are these fucking assholes. And then they do a good job of making you think it's these other situations. They make it seem like everybody else. They can laugh all the way. We fight each other about the water and these motherfuckers. What should be is the state should be regulating What you can plant without question and you should be using things like cotton and stuff that does not Use tons of water and you and you have and you use a variety of fucking foods out there

But it should not be shit loads of the worst fucking crop for water in a place where you need water And you know you take the water bank back you go in there with fucking guns and you say the water bank is ours now Fuck this shit. I mean seriously fuck these fucking people You fucking sent a fucking police force in there and you say fuck off. It's our fucking water now That's the whole thing That's we talk about this all the time like moving the line forward as far as what you feel from a calamity, if you were able to right now be like, hey, we're out of water, well then obviously you're going to go to their place with guns and be like, knock this shit off.

But until there's something on the back, until there's something actually on people's front porch, it's just like, ah, well, it sucks. And you see how many pistachios there are now. Oh, the idea. It's just like ah, well it sucks and you see how many pistachios are now And my wife loves pistachios and I tell her this and she goes What kind of 90 pistachios anymore and I said it doesn't matter. Yeah, it They own so much so they're beyond boycott The only way to stop them is for the government to come in and stop them. They're beyond Anything that we could do is people that's frustrating. That's where they are. My wife goes, what would you do?

I said, I would get a gas truck and I would drive it through their orchards, spray the gas everywhere and set them on fire. It's been a fun day. She goes, well, we shouldn't talk about stuff like this. Okay. Well, I'm just not going to eat it if that's okay. But that's it. This is what a monopoly is.

This is what when a business gets too big'm just not going to eat it if that's okay. But there, but that's it. Like this is what a monopoly is. This is what, when a business gets too big unless the government wants to stop them, but they pay for the government because our government is because Diane Feinstein is the most fucking corrupt. And when Diane Feinstein, when Barbara Boxer was leaving office, she was always involved in, in, uh, in negotiations with water. And the day she was leaving office, Diane Feinstein went behind her back and made a deal with Republicans to fuck everybody over for the Central Valley Fucking farmers and Barbara Boxer was fucking livid but Diane Feinstein is to gov his shit because she's like I don't have to ever work With you again, but these are my these people give me money

So she fucked everybody also. They're all fucking people, the fucking water tunnels. I believe they're done now. I believe that they they there's been enough things against them that they cannot happen. But if those water tunnels go through the fucking delta smelt are done and if the delta smelt die, all the fish all the way up the chain fucking die. It's not like a thing that you have to worry about one fish. It's all the goddamn fish. Well, and you also don't know

You know, I mean that's what we're about to find out the ramifications of what happens when things in nature that are under Appreciated go away. What are the ramifications? Yeah, and that's going to be you know a very Difficult time. Yeah, you'll miss the days when you thought a crazy lady thought that you could just command bees When your kids will be like what are bees There's a guy who gives a TED talk about what happened when wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone Oh, right, and if you want to know how nature works together go listen to that TED talk and Literally the river changed shape. That's how much introducing an animal back into

an ecosystem makes a difference. It changed the river shape. Go listen to how it happened. When we take an animal out, it doesn't matter what animal it is, we're fucking ourselves. When we take an animal out, it doesn't matter what animal it is, we're fucking ourselves. You're also, yeah. Please join Planet Change 10. 10, P-L-A-N-I-T. New word. Change 10.

We're on Twitter. By the way, if you guys want to update on that, I'm still working on it. I've been so fucking busy because of the holidays and all this other shit, but we're going to go with some companies to get the website done and to get how we can talk to everybody at once. That's the biggest thing. It's communication and having everyone's numbers and information stored. So that's what we're working on now.

Okay. Really got a good feeling. Well people wanted more environmental ones.