I had the opportunity to hear a recording of John Stadtmiller’s explanation of what he thinks happened at RBN last weekend. My congratulations to who ever pranked John with their so called “inside information”. There was no big conspiracy to bring down RBN from the inside, as John stated on his show on Monday. Here’s what really happened, and I should know because I was there; there are many people who can back this up.
Jan. 10, 2007, I arrive at RBN in the afternoon to hear John Stadtmiller and Chris Hanson talking about Alex Jones. They were talking about, what they thought, were references from Alex Jones, about John Stadtmiller, on Alex’s show. Chris tells John about a former GCN host making drug allegations about Alex years ago. My impression at the time was it sounded like total hearsay bullshit gossip. When I came back to the fridge to get a drink about 20 minutes before airtime, John is telling Chris to loop 6 minutes of Alex’s theme. I ask John “what are you going to do?” he tells me not to worry, “I promise you I’m going to be very subtle.” So, as it turns out, John’s statement that he hired a private investigator to spy on Alex was just a rumor from Chris in the office about some old gossip.
I’m always very busy on the phone, and as usual I’m on the phone when John airs his “subtle” piece, so I didn’t get to hear it. Shortly thereafter, Sandra was coming out her office and asked me, “What the hell did John just do?” (I guess she was starting to get phone calls). I told her, I didn’t hear that part of the show. John then comes into the office during the next break and proudly asks me if I heard the piece. I said no and I would have to listen to it later in the archives. Later that night, I heard the archived show, and I felt sick. As we all know now, John’s piece was as subtle as a lead pipe to the head. I knew right then this was going to have serious repercussions for RBN and that it wasn’t going to go away.
Jan. 11, 2007, (the next day) Alex responds and soon thereafter Jason Bermas leaves RBN, followed by Dan Abrahamson; with rumors flying that Webster Tarpley was soon to follow, (Nick Begich has since left as well). Now please understand my situation here, I was the person responsible for the programming innovations at RBN. I brought and produced Karen Kwiatowski, Nick Begich, Janis Karpinski, Jason Bermas, Dan Abrahamson, Kevin Barrett, Greg Szymanski, Jim Fetzer, Alex Ansary, Ingri Cassel, Don Harkins, Richard Reeves, Gary Franchi, Eric Shine and D’Anne Burley. By this time, I’m beginning to watch the people I consider my friends, start to bail from the network, not to mention the undoing of all my hard work.
If that was not bad enough, some our advertisers started dropping, and now RBN is converted from a stable workplace, to a group of pissed off people doing damage control; and for what? This on air debacle was as foolish as G.W. Bush’s “Bring Um On” statement. The change was immediate and it caused me to be concerned about the future of RBN and the great people who are really responsible for RBN’s success. By the way, I have nothing bad to say about Sandra who has worked harder than anybody there and has endured more bad treatment from John in front of the entire staff. It is her common sense about business that has kept RBN alive all this time.
A couple of days later John knows I’m bummed about what is happening to RBN and tries to assure me that things are going to be OK and that the people who were leaving were “no good anyway”; referring to Dan Abrahamson, he said “One less Jew on the network!” Wow; what a racist thing to say. This, from a man who goes on air and says he knows the difference between Jews, Judaism and Zionism? I guess he felt this was supposed to make me feel better. At this point I finally realize that John is never going to evolve past basic instincts.
Shortly thereafter, I called Wes because he has a web hosting business, and asked him to reserve WTPRN.com for me in case RBN failed on its own. Wes was not the initiator of WTPRN, but felt he might be able to help if the failure did come to pass. There was never an internal plot to take hosts or advertisers, as that would be unethical. Anybody who truly knows me knows that this is not my style. If anything, I felt very uncomfortable about John’s collusion with Mike Jones of RFA to take Alex Jones off the low power FMs, and force the other low powers to carry mostly RBN programming or lose the equipment that Mike Jones supplied.
John also stated in his Monday spin piece that our alleged “conspiracy” included a talk show host and the president of another radio network. Nothing could be further from the truth and I absolutely had no agreements with anyone. He also stated that the hosts who left RBN first were probably part of that plot. I have never talked to any of those hosts who had left previously and anyone can clear this up by contacting those hosts. My only interest in establishing WTPRN was to make sure that the innocent people at RBN didn’t have to pay the price of John’s careless mistakes. John said he likes healthy competition, but he and Mike Jones were working feverishly to get Alex Jones off all the local low power FMs; and he always hoped to bring down GCN by going after their advertisers.
By the end of last week there were only two people at RBN who knew about the WTPRN site and about its true future purpose. Those individuals were specifically asked by me never to talk to any existing RBN advertisers or hosts, and to continue doing the jobs they were being paid to do. Sales were still being made, guests were still being booked, websites still updated, it was business as usual, except for that nagging feeling “what’s going to happen next?” No conspiracy here, just a safety net for the hard work we have all done trying to save our Constitutional Republic.
Friday Jan. 26, 2007, Wes calls Chris Hanson at home, and informs him that he’s not coming in because he feels it’s a hostile environment. He also informs Chris that he is not obligated to give RBN his intellectual property (Automated archives scripts) he wrote as an independent contractor. He also tells them, they need to pay him for these services if they want to continue to use his scripts. Chris is trembling with anger when he comes back to RBN to report this info to John and Sandra. Wes also requested that they give his payment (for the previous week’s service) to me, although none of this was prearranged with me, they declined to give me his payment.
Sat. evening Jan. 27, 2007, I log on to my computer after getting a call from John, and I see the statement posted by Wes on the RBN site. I was not informed by Wes he was going to do this, but John claimed on last Monday’s spin piece that this too was all orchestrated; more lies. John told me on Saturday night that he had already called the Round Rock Police and that he was probably going to call the FBI.
Not knowing what pushed Wes to take control of the website, I called him and he told me that he had been informed by another RBN insider, that Mike Jones of RFA had learned of Wes’s new address, and that Mike and John were overheard talking about calling the police on Wes’s warrants if he didn’t cooperate with the transition. Wes felt very threatened at that moment, given John’s history of irrational behavior. Morally, I was compelled to tell Wes what John had just said to me on the phone, because Wes has a wife and 3 small children.
After working closely with John for 2 ½ years I’ve seen a lot of disturbing behavior, and many past employees, ex-hosts and local supporters have also been subjected to his erratic behavior. Many of our listeners and supporters would email John with suggestions and minor criticisms, and he would email them back and basically tell them to go screw themselves. I guess I have been too consumed with the website in the morning, then coming in and booking guests and producing new programming, to deal with his lack of respect of the very people who made RBN successful.
I have read the theories on the internet about Wes starting “We the People Radio Network” to bring down RBN - this is not true. The real truth is John Stadtmiller struck the fatal blow to RBN by airing his bullshit hit piece on Alex Jones, trying to intimidate him. Now he’s blaming everyone else for his own stupidity. John forced Wes’s hand by his “I know where you live” threat. John did call the Police and told me he was going to call the FBI on Saturday night. What kind of patriot would do this? The incidents are so numerous it would take up way to much time to cover and I only wish to get all this crap behind us all.
I understand that many of you are upset with what happened to RBN, and I respect your concerns; we are all fighting the same battles for truth. Being the person who brought you most of the better programs at RBN, and Wes being the person who brought the technical innovation and invented the automated free archives, this situation is very difficult for us too. While I am proud for being involved in creating the best elements of RBN, it was not done for personal glory, and sometimes in life you have to stand up and do what’s right and walk away from a bad situation. I want to look forward now and continue the development of “We the People Radio Network” to bring you important programming, including important voices who have been kept off the air at RBN. I want to also be a vehicle to support Ron Paul for President. There’s much work to do and it’s time to put this behind us, if you want to support the honest efforts of WTPRN, you can temporarily contact me at zerosum50@yahoo.com. If you’re still a John Stadtmiller sycophant, I can only suggest you go over to RBN, as there are many job openings now and you can experience it all first hand.
Danny Romero
