Borglum's own journal describes the four presidents of Mount Rushmore as 'a group of empire makers,' connecting each to a phase of American expansion: Washington to founding, Jefferson to the Louisiana Purchase, Lincoln to preservation, and Roosevelt to the Panama Canal. This explicit imperial framing has been completely erased from the monument's official narrative.
Where this was said
At 43:30 · chapter starts 40:20
Once in South Dakota, Borglum wasted no time asserting control. Robinson had wanted the Needles as the location, but Borglum dismissed them as too thin and vertical. He hiked with Robinson to the top of the Black Hills — then called Harney Peak — surveyed the range, and identified the Six Grandfathers as the canvas. His declaration, as quoted by Davis from Borglum's own writings: 'Here is the place American history shall march on the skyline.' The irony is blunt — American history marching on someone else's sacred mountain. He also overruled Robinson's frontier characters, choosing four presidents instead. And crucially, he was explicit about his reasoning: his journal entry describes them as 'a group of empire makers — Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Washington was already a foregone conclusion,' connecting each to a phase of American imperial expansion.
Factories that replaced coal engines with electric ones in the early 1900s got only 6% efficiency gains. Those that redesigned their entire factory around electricity got a 3x productivity improvement. Swapping AI tools into your existing structure will give you 6%. Rebuilding around AI will give you 10x.
Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
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