Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: superproducer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3: You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know. If you are hearing this strange
Speaker 3: news segment on the day it publishes or the evening,
Speaker 3: let us be the first to welcome you to November
Speaker 3: twenty fifth, twenty twenty four. As people reckon the calendar.
Speaker 3: We have so many updates, we have so much strange
Speaker 3: news from across the globe. Maybe one that would be
Speaker 3: interesting for us to kick off with here is, do
Speaker 3: you guys hear about that Swedish leader who's terrified of bananas?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 4: No, but I can relate.
Speaker 5: I don't trust the shape and the peel and you
Speaker 5: slip on them, you're dead. I mean, come on, if
Speaker 5: Mario Kart has taught us anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're also radioactive.
Speaker 3: They are Yes, that is true. You know, the story
Speaker 3: of the banana is fascinating on its own, given the
Speaker 3: fact that you know, the reason banana candy, banana flavored
Speaker 3: candy doesn't taste the same as bananas in your grocery
Speaker 3: stores entirely because the gross Michelle almost got wiped out
Speaker 3: right and replaced by the cavendish banana.
Speaker 4: It's a nuts of.
Speaker 3: Story, maybe more for ridiculous history. We do have to
Speaker 3: give a quick trigger warning to our pal Paulina Berg,
Speaker 3: who is a Swedish minister with an intense phobia of bananas.
Speaker 3: Apparently part of it is due to physiological reasons. She
Speaker 3: has a strong allergy to bananas, and in multiple emails
Speaker 3: regarding you know, various international or domestic appearances, her team
Speaker 3: goes out of the way to say that no bananas
Speaker 3: are allowed on the premises entire.
Speaker 2: Wait, so she's actually allergic to the bananas.
Speaker 3: Let's go to a quote. Let's go to a quote
Speaker 3: she distrustful of them, like me, Well, let's go to
Speaker 3: the you know, we love a primary source. Brand Berg
Speaker 3: told an outfit called Expressing earlier, she said, quote, it's
Speaker 3: sort of an allergy. You could say, huh, it's something
Speaker 3: that I get professional help with. Oh, I have a
Speaker 3: phobia of bananas, so I don't know.
Speaker 5: It reminds me a lot of the Chuck character on
Speaker 5: Better Call Saul, who is allergic to electro electromatic you know.
Speaker 5: And that's a you know, a story we've talked about too,
Speaker 5: but it is yet to be fully recognized by medical science.
Speaker 2: It's like cats with cucumbers, you guys.
Speaker 3: Well they mistake them for reptiles.
Speaker 4: Okay, No, it's not like that, so well maybe it
Speaker 4: might be.
Speaker 3: Who are we to plumb the depths of every individual mind?
Speaker 3: We'll tell you after this gold open and we've returned.
Speaker 3: Speaking of phobias, here's one that I'm sure has stood
Speaker 3: out to all of us at some point in the darkness.
Speaker 3: The constant fear that a bear may approach you and
Speaker 3: break into your.
Speaker 2: Car with a banana.
Speaker 3: With a banana or a cucumber, you know, or both,
Speaker 3: just a dual wielding the most dangerous produce.
Speaker 2: Want some produce, it says, you know.
Speaker 5: I mean, let's just can we at least all agree
Speaker 5: that bananas do have a bit of a sinister vibe.
Speaker 3: I mean, they're useful for scale in a non metric system.
Speaker 3: They're also untrustworthy because a banana goes, a banana goes
Speaker 3: from perfect to bye bye so quickly.
Speaker 2: I was examining the one banana I have left after
Speaker 2: my son got here on Sunday. We purchased it on Monday.
Speaker 2: As we're recording today, it is Wednesday. I swear it
Speaker 2: is bad.
Speaker 3: It is terrgo. They go quick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can freeze them.
Speaker 3: You can freeze them. That's a great note. But the
Speaker 3: larger rules. But bears, so we all So That's where
Speaker 3: I'm going, right, Are we unanimous on this? Do we
Speaker 3: all have that completely understandable, ever present fear that a
Speaker 3: bear dual bananas and cucumbers might break into your car?
Speaker 2: Yes, ever since I've seen that black bear like literally
Speaker 2: in my cul de sac. Yes, I'm actually worried about.
Speaker 4: That, Ben.
Speaker 5: This is a fear I didn't know I had until
Speaker 5: you manifested it into existence with.
Speaker 4: Your very words.
Speaker 3: Oh geez, just gave you the words for that vibe. Man,
Speaker 3: It's been with you cradle to grave. California has seen
Speaker 3: a lot of bears breaking into cars, but it appears
Speaker 3: someone has been leveraging this again universal fear. I'm joking
Speaker 3: to perpetrate some crime, and we love a good silly crime.
Speaker 3: The California Insurance Department started noticing something was awry when
Speaker 3: four LA residents were arrested on previous Wednesday earlier this November.
Speaker 3: They were accused of defrauding insurance companies out of nearly
Speaker 3: one hundred and forty two thousand U S. Dollars by
Speaker 3: claiming a bear had randomly showed up and damaged their
Speaker 3: luxury vehicles, and they provided they provide a video footage
Speaker 3: of what they said was a bear moving within two Mercedes,
Speaker 3: popping into a Rolls Royce and claimed, you know, they
Speaker 3: needed the insurance payout. Apparently it was a guy dressed
Speaker 3: as a bear as part of a just delightful conspiracy.
Speaker 2: Okay, Ben, I'm looking at a photo on this ap
Speaker 2: article you shared it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there there is a bear suit that looks
Speaker 2: like it has a shirt on for some reason, and
Speaker 2: it looks like there are two claw like weapons that
Speaker 2: you would hold in your fists.
Speaker 3: To do the damage.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's also it's fascinating because you say shirt, I feel
Speaker 3: like it looks like a lap coat. Yes, like doctor
Speaker 3: bear is so the bear quote unquote the woosh woosh.
Speaker 3: Bear reportedly damaged a twenty ten Rolls Royce ghost, which,
Speaker 3: just so you know, is an amazing piece of art,
Speaker 3: often confused with a car. It was look the video
Speaker 3: shows a bear trashing the car. They gave it to
Speaker 3: the insurance company. And here's my favorite quote from the
Speaker 3: California Insurance Department. They said, quote upon further scrutiny of
Speaker 3: the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a
Speaker 3: person in a bear costume.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: So the four people, Ruben tom Rizaian Ararat, chirknian vahe
Speaker 3: Mura Kanyan, and Alif Zuckerman, we're all arrested on charges
Speaker 3: of insurance fraud and of course conspiracy. San Bernardino County
Speaker 3: District Attorney Office said we don't have time for this.
Speaker 3: I'm kidding.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: They said they're going to do their job. So I
Speaker 3: don't know, man, it might be a sensitive time to
Speaker 3: order bear costumes. Our thoughts go out to all the
Speaker 3: furries out there, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Oh, I know what you mean. But I'm just looking
Speaker 2: at pictures of twenty ten Rolls Royce ghosts.
Speaker 3: Beautif see you see what I'm saying. Art confused with
Speaker 3: a car.
Speaker 5: Well, and can I just say my thoughts are always
Speaker 5: with all the furries out there.
Speaker 2: Just why we have a few furries who listen Confirmed
Speaker 2: furries guys. Oh yes, very kind, awesome humans that we've
Speaker 2: interacted with.
Speaker 4: Dude.
Speaker 3: Also, furries are great. You're not messing up anybody's life
Speaker 3: by doing what you want. You're not harming other people.
Speaker 3: I love it. I love when our pal Josh Clark
Speaker 3: was telling me a while back. He was telling me
Speaker 3: he was trying to get into a furry convention in
Speaker 3: Atlanta and security was super high. And I asked him, well,
Speaker 3: you know, Josh, what's going on with that? And he said, Ben,
Speaker 3: believe it or not, a lot of folks are mean
Speaker 3: to these people.
Speaker 5: And I was not joking when I said I often
Speaker 5: think of furries because it is a live and let
Speaker 5: live kind of lifestyle and I think it's delightful and
Speaker 5: if it gives them joy, I say, more power to them.
Speaker 5: And those costumes are very elaborate and really demonstrate a
Speaker 5: lot of craft.
Speaker 2: Generally, don't come with those clow fists though.
Speaker 3: Right, No, that was to mess up the cars for
Speaker 3: the Insurance podcast, So hashtag not all furries or no
Speaker 3: tall furries, depending on how you read this. It's a
Speaker 3: super Bowl superb Owl kind.
Speaker 4: Of word joke.
Speaker 3: We have a little bit of time before we move
Speaker 3: on to our next few stories. I would like to
Speaker 3: ask you, guys, there's a lot of geopolitical stuff at play.
Speaker 3: Syria is now having his water cut, the EU is
Speaker 3: doing a little bit of quid pro quo with Chinese
Speaker 3: tech giants. A rock is lowering the age of consent
Speaker 3: from eighteen to nine years old.
Speaker 4: That is not good clip.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, do you want to talk about that one
Speaker 3: for a second.
Speaker 6: No, No, I guess also experiencing declining birth rates, and
Speaker 6: this is some sort of I'm sorry, I'm just grasping
Speaker 6: a straws here.
Speaker 2: I would say, like, as much as personally I don't
Speaker 2: want to talk about it, let's at least get the
Speaker 2: facts out there so when people see that headline they
Speaker 2: understand what is happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is important and we need to be very
Speaker 3: aware of this. All of us joined around at the
Speaker 3: proverbial campfire this evening. This bill has not gone through.
Speaker 3: It is a proposed legal change. The current age of
Speaker 3: consent legally is eighteen years old. In the nation of
Speaker 3: a Rock. If this bill passes and becomes law, it
Speaker 3: will lower the age of consent to nine years old.
Speaker 3: It will not have a men max requirement for the
Speaker 3: age of someone marrying a nine year old, which means
Speaker 3: conceivably it could be a very much older person an adult.
Speaker 3: Iraq's parliament is a coalition enterprise and right now the
Speaker 3: folks running the legislative roost are a coalition of Shia
Speaker 3: Muslim parties. They're seeking to overturn Law one eighty eight,
Speaker 3: better known as the Personal Status Law, which has been
Speaker 3: around since nineteen fifty nine. It's supposed to be irreligious
Speaker 3: or secular, meaning it is not impacting certain people differently
Speaker 3: based upon their religious creeds. However, this is the second
Speaker 3: time Shia have attempted to amend that Personal Status law.
Speaker 3: They were not able to change it in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: try it again unsuccessfully in twenty seventeen. This has largely
Speaker 3: been rejected, thank goodness, due to female activists and female
Speaker 3: politicians in the country. But it has a lot of
Speaker 3: momentum right now and it's seen I don't know I
Speaker 3: so we have to wonder what these kind of things
Speaker 3: that would hopefully never pass in any country, we have
Speaker 3: to wonder what their motivation is. Is it to victimize children?
Speaker 5: I mean, it certainly seems to take a lot of
Speaker 5: agency away from children. I mean, maybe that's even too
Speaker 5: diplomatic a way of putting it. But a nine year
Speaker 5: old doesn't have the ability to make that choice for themselves.
Speaker 3: It doesn't have the ability to consent.
Speaker 5: Now, so this is a bit of a bastardization of
Speaker 5: a law that is intended to protect children.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an attack on it. And we could even
Speaker 3: argue if we look at the larger context, which we
Speaker 3: don't have time to do in our new segment.
Speaker 4: But what we.
Speaker 3: Can say is it's possible this is an attempt to
Speaker 3: earn some higher ideological legitimacy for the base for supporters,
Speaker 3: but it will inevitably lead to child marriage. You know,
Speaker 3: in a country where per the latest statistics, some twenty
Speaker 3: eight percent of women are already married consentially or non
Speaker 3: consensually by the age of eighteen, this personal status law
Speaker 3: is still a bag of badgers because it does allow
Speaker 3: for religious marriage in place of secular marriage. So a
Speaker 3: religious leader can officiate thousands of marriages per year up
Speaker 3: to and including children as young as fifteen. And you know, doubtlessly,
Speaker 3: given the number of us listening along tonight, there are
Speaker 3: several of us who have been involved in marriages at
Speaker 3: quite a young age. And it may it may have
Speaker 3: worked out, But nine nine years old, that's too far.
Speaker 4: That is like, that.
Speaker 3: Is technically physiologically gross.
Speaker 2: I hadn't even learned how to play magic the gathering
Speaker 2: at that age.
Speaker 4: Where are you?
Speaker 2: Well, well, I guess what I mean is I'm just
Speaker 2: trying to imagine who I was if I was married
Speaker 2: at nine?
Speaker 3: Like what?
Speaker 2: Because you're not you yet, not even close to the
Speaker 2: like an actualized human being.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is a tough one. We do want
Speaker 3: to raise awareness of this. We also want to give
Speaker 3: great thanks and appreciation to Coalition one eight eight uh,
Speaker 3: an Iraqi based group of femal activists who are opposed
Speaker 3: to allowing this law to pass. Please let us know
Speaker 3: your thoughts if you have experience in a rock or
Speaker 3: if you are in a rocky national conspiracy atiheartradio dot com.
Speaker 3: We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsors, and
Speaker 3: as we do so, shout out to the Psychic Crime
Speaker 3: Syndicate in Sydney, Australia. They all got arrested. How did
Speaker 3: they not see that coming?
Speaker 5: And we've returned with another piece of strange news.
Speaker 4: Strange indeed, it's like something out of.
Speaker 5: An Onion article, but it actually involves The Onion, the
Speaker 5: satirical newspaper that's been around since the eighties and in
Speaker 5: recent years has pivoted to more online kind of meme
Speaker 5: type presence, where like sometimes the headline and the picture
Speaker 5: alone is what gets shared. I got to wonder what
Speaker 5: their click through rate is on those. It's really shareable stuff,
Speaker 5: really fun, and it's been nice to see them kind
Speaker 5: of you know, popping up more and more. Apparently they
Speaker 5: are in fact about to reboot the print version of
Speaker 5: The Onion, which I think is also cool, in an
Speaker 5: effort to contribute to like raising their online subscription numbers.
Speaker 5: So kind of like an old school way of propping
Speaker 5: up a new school business model newer anyway.
Speaker 4: But The Onion, in fact, again.
Speaker 5: And something that sounds like a story they would write about,
Speaker 5: has purchased, or has one a bid to purchase Alex
Speaker 5: Jones's Info Wars Empire, at the very least his website.
Speaker 4: This is pretty wild stuff.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's like it's almost like cards against humanity,
Speaker 5: like buying up that lot to prevent Elon Musk from
Speaker 5: doing it. Like I just you gotta love to see
Speaker 5: this kind of bizarro satirical activism, sort of like the
Speaker 5: stuff that John Oliver does at the end of his
Speaker 5: episodes where he'll like literally buy all of the you know,
Speaker 5: leftover kitchen equipment from a red lobster in last week tonight.
Speaker 5: So I don't know, I was sorry to know exactly
Speaker 5: where to start the main story and then it's ongoing,
Speaker 5: is that, you know? Obviously, Alex Jones lost a massive
Speaker 5: defamation lawsuit class action lawsuit filed by the parents of
Speaker 5: children who were killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. We've
Speaker 5: covered this pretty extensively due to Alex Jones's flagrant abuse
Speaker 5: of his platform in calling this false flag attack, saying
Speaker 5: that there were crisis actors involved in not only that,
Speaker 5: but you know, literally asking his followers to kind of
Speaker 5: go after the parents of you know, these tragically murdered children.
Speaker 4: And he lost big time.
Speaker 5: You know, I believe he owes the families that were
Speaker 5: involved in the class action one point five billion dollars
Speaker 5: in pr puts it thusly for spreading false conspiracies at
Speaker 5: the elementary school shooting in Newton, Connecticut never happened, as
Speaker 5: followers then harassed and threatened them for years. So Jones
Speaker 5: is basically on the hook for just about everything. He owns,
Speaker 5: his entire business empire, multiple wings of his parent company,
Speaker 5: which I believe is called Free Speech LLC or Free
Speaker 5: Speech Systems. Rather, he has a division of that that
Speaker 5: has for many years pedled these kind of doomsday prepper kits,
Speaker 5: like bucket kind of meals, things like that, but also
Speaker 5: like bone broth and all of these pretty, you know,
Speaker 5: snake oily kind of life extension remedies. Right, guys, Does
Speaker 5: that kind of sum up the case as far as
Speaker 5: where we're.
Speaker 4: At right now?
Speaker 3: Sure? I believe so. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I just just Jones is on the hook for a
Speaker 5: lot of money and that is going to involve the
Speaker 5: liquidation of all his assets, and this bidding process was
Speaker 5: part of that. So apparently the Onion and their parent
Speaker 5: company which I'm not quite sure again it's the Onion
Speaker 5: where the joke ends and the truth begins. But apparently
Speaker 5: their parent company is called Global Tetrahedron LLC. But then
Speaker 5: it's also a kind of an illumination Global unlimited type
Speaker 5: figure within the lore of the Onion, and we're going
Speaker 5: to get to that in a minute. And hear a
Speaker 5: statement from their fictional CEO, Bryce P. Tetrator or tech Trader.
Speaker 2: So that is like a global three dimensional like pyramid, right,
Speaker 2: that's right, Okay, okay.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Global Tetrahedron. But I think it is the name
Speaker 5: of their parent company. But again it represents a lot
Speaker 5: of like shadowy lore and they have this fake CEO,
Speaker 5: Bryce P. Tet Trader, who has released a statement, a
Speaker 5: fictional statement which we will get to.
Speaker 4: But the Onion and their parent company, whether or not.
Speaker 5: That's what it's called and whether that's real, were one
Speaker 5: of only two bidders in a process intended to liquidate
Speaker 5: this asset InfoWars dot Com. The Onions bid, however, for
Speaker 5: Free Speech Systems was named the winning bid after this
Speaker 5: bankruptcy auction. The proceeds of the sale were intended for
Speaker 5: Sandy Hook families in order to pay them and make
Speaker 5: them whole for the pain and suffering and anguish that
Speaker 5: they were put through by Alex Jones again to the
Speaker 5: tune of one point five billion dollars. He is not liquid.
Speaker 5: He cannot just pay that out. It's going to require
Speaker 5: all of this various liquidations of his assets. If the
Speaker 5: purchase goes through successfully, it would basically allow the Onion
Speaker 5: to have their way with Jones's Info Wars brands, which
Speaker 5: they have lampooned pretty mercilessly for many years. They plan, apparently,
Speaker 5: according to some statements, for the company to relaunch the
Speaker 5: info Wars platform is a parody, which, if we're being honest,
Speaker 5: a lot of the time, that's what it felt like
Speaker 5: and of itself.
Speaker 4: So let's go to this quick.
Speaker 5: Statement from this faux CEO that I think it really
Speaker 5: sums up the Onions position on all of this, and
Speaker 5: I think there's some really good writing here. Here's why
Speaker 5: I decided to buy info Wars. Today we celebrate a
Speaker 5: new addition to the Global Tetrahedron LLC family of brands,
Speaker 5: and let me say, I really do see it as
Speaker 5: a family. Much like family members, our brands are abstract
Speaker 5: nodes of wealth, interchangeable assets for their patriarch to absorb
Speaker 5: and discard according to the opaque whims of the market.
Speaker 5: And just like family members, our brands regard one another
Speaker 5: with mutual suspicion and malice. All told, the decision to
Speaker 5: acquire info Wars was an easy one for the Global
Speaker 5: Tetrahedron executive board. They then go on to describe what
Speaker 5: they plan on doing with the portion of the website
Speaker 5: that did sell these vitamins and stuffing it says here,
Speaker 5: we are halting their sale immediately. Utilitarian logic dictates that
Speaker 5: if we can extend even one CEO's life by ten minutes,
Speaker 5: diluting these miracle elixirs for public consumption is an unethical waste. Instead,
Speaker 5: we plan to collect the entire stock of the info
Speaker 5: Wars warehouses into a large vat and boil the contents
Speaker 5: down into a single candy bar sized omni vitamin that
Speaker 5: one executive I will not name names may eat in
Speaker 5: order to increase his power and perhaps become immortal.
Speaker 4: All will be revealed in due time.
Speaker 5: For now, let's enjoy this win and toast to the
Speaker 5: continued consolidation of power and capital, infinite growth forever.
Speaker 4: Bryce p. Tetrader, Global Tetrahedron CEO.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Bryce, and also big big credit to the
Speaker 3: original writers of that commentary. I love the onion man.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, Noel. In case anybody missed it. Do we
Speaker 3: have the blow by blow on what's happening with this acquisition?
Speaker 3: Is it already done?
Speaker 5: We absolutely do. There are wrinkles upon wrinkles. Alex Jones
Speaker 5: is bucking, He is pushing back. He is suing, essentially
Speaker 5: saying that the bid was fraudulent, that the auction was
Speaker 5: not held fairly, and that he is essentially asking the judge,
Speaker 5: the bankruptcy judge presiding over this sale, to nullify it.
Speaker 5: Jones's lawsuit calls the Onion's offer a quote flagrantly non
Speaker 5: compliant Frankenstein bid and the black letter definition of collusive bidding.
Speaker 5: He says the judge should disqualify the offer and instead
Speaker 5: named the only other bidder, which was first United American
Speaker 5: Companies and Alex Jones affiliated Friendly f UAC. FUAC affiliated
Speaker 5: with Jones in his online nutritional supplement store. They bid
Speaker 5: three point five million in cash. The Onion, on the
Speaker 5: other hand, offered half that amount, but there was a sweetener.
Speaker 5: The Connecticut families promised to forego in order to make
Speaker 5: this bid go through some of their sale proceeds to
Speaker 5: help beat the offer from FUAK. So this was in
Speaker 5: the you know, the best interest and was the wishes
Speaker 5: of you know, the winners of this class action lawsuit.
Speaker 5: Reading from an NPR piece by Tovia Smith, the Onion
Speaker 5: attorneys say that deal would result in the highest payout
Speaker 5: to the other creditors, including a smaller group of families
Speaker 5: who want a separate defamation suit against Jones in Texas,
Speaker 5: and did not offer to forego any proceeds. Alex Jones
Speaker 5: argues the offer was based on quote fake dollars and
Speaker 5: that the rules of the auction were changed at the
Speaker 5: last minute in what he describes as a conspiracy against
Speaker 5: him in order to benefit the Onion and the Connecticut
Speaker 5: families and to deny FUAC a fair chance of winning
Speaker 5: the bid. He referred to it as monopoly money and
Speaker 5: refers all the while on a plan to rig the process.
Speaker 5: WHOA and A US Bankruptcy Trustee Christopher R. Murray is
Speaker 5: overseeing these bankruptcy auctions, and he filed court papers as well,
Speaker 5: dismissing what he referred to as a barrage of baseless allegations,
Speaker 5: referring to them as just a disappointed bidder's improper attempt
Speaker 5: to influence an otherwise fair and open auction process.
Speaker 2: Dang Man I was looking at that AP News article
Speaker 2: you connected us to their NOLL and it was talking
Speaker 2: about from this guy named Ben Collins, who I guess
Speaker 2: is also associated with the parent company. That's right, And
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to understand this whole thing where it's
Speaker 2: a company making a bid and then there's also a
Speaker 2: background agreement with people who would actually be accepting the
Speaker 2: payment of the bid. That to me does feel weird,
Speaker 2: just does feel surface.
Speaker 5: I agree, there's something I don't understand this world. This
Speaker 5: is not my wheelhouse. It does feel like the rules
Speaker 5: were changed a little bit, but it was changed in
Speaker 5: order to I mean, the whole point of liquidating this
Speaker 5: stuff is to pay out the participants, the winners of
Speaker 5: this lawsuit. So it would be in the best interest
Speaker 5: for the outcome to give them the best deal. And
Speaker 5: while the cash offer for the Onion was less than
Speaker 5: the FUAC cash offer, which is three point five million dollars,
Speaker 5: Onion only offered one point five million. Their caveat of
Speaker 5: helping to take some of the proceeds and pay other
Speaker 5: creditors that Alex Jones owes money to would ultimately benefit
Speaker 5: the families of the Sandy Hook victims in the end.
Speaker 3: Which is the most important part it is, but.
Speaker 2: It's slippery still.
Speaker 5: I don't quite understand the machinations here. Well, I want,
Speaker 5: of course, I want the onion to win. I don't
Speaker 5: fully understand how this stuff, in these little behind the
Speaker 5: scenes kind of machinations work.
Speaker 4: It does seem a little weird.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's auctions with stakeholders, you know, so people
Speaker 3: have a prioritization to when they can step in. There's
Speaker 3: an order of operations for what can or cannot be
Speaker 3: so when or when we you know. One of the
Speaker 3: one of the best summations of this I have found
Speaker 3: recently was from the New York Times. Shout out to
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Williamson and Benjamin Mullen, not related to Ben Collins.
Speaker 3: I hate to say it, but I don't think all
Speaker 3: Ben's hang out just yet. They said that they're talking
Speaker 3: about some of the stuff you were signaling just a
Speaker 3: few minutes ago, Which is that the bid, because is
Speaker 3: still technically a bid to acquire info Wars, has gotten sticky.
Speaker 3: It's gotten messy. It's slippery. Your buddies at FUAC are still,
Speaker 3: you know, coming in eleventh hour trying to fight against this,
Speaker 3: and I think the most important thing, again, as I
Speaker 3: said at the very beginning of this, is to like
Speaker 3: prioritize the survivors of Sandy Hook who had their lives
Speaker 3: ruined by this disinformation.
Speaker 4: Well a million percent.
Speaker 5: And it also feels to me that for an organization
Speaker 5: affiliated with Joeans to win the bid is completely counter
Speaker 5: to that, because they're obviously just going to like put
Speaker 5: their resources into replatforming Alex Jones in some way, and
Speaker 5: we don't certainly know exactly what their intentions are. But
Speaker 5: I'll just end this segment before we go to a
Speaker 5: quick break with a quote from Robbie Parker, whose child
Speaker 5: Emily was killed in the twenty twelve Sandy Hook shootings
Speaker 5: there in Connecticut, said, through their lawyers, the dissolution of
Speaker 5: Alex Jones's assets and the death of Info Wars is
Speaker 5: the justice we have long awaited and fought for. So
Speaker 5: it seems to me like that's the only outcome that
Speaker 5: would be acceptable. And for the Onion to just perma
Speaker 5: lampoon the stuff and turn it into the satire that
Speaker 5: it deserves to.
Speaker 4: Be, I think is a win for everybody.
Speaker 5: Let's take a quick break here where from our sponsor,
Speaker 5: and then come back with one more piece of strange news.
Speaker 2: And we've returned. We're going to go over several updates here.
Speaker 4: Guys.
Speaker 2: Hey remember a guy named Jack to Shara?
Speaker 4: Jack to Shara?
Speaker 3: Wait wait wait t E I X E R I A.
Speaker 2: That's the one.
Speaker 3: How is Jack?
Speaker 2: Oh he's not great right now? Jack did Shara was
Speaker 2: a Massachusetts Air National Guard member actually still is, just
Speaker 2: on a probationary weird thing. But we talked about a
Speaker 2: last April because he became a household name. He was
Speaker 2: arrested and accused of leaking highly classified information to a
Speaker 2: bunch of his friends on Discord and a couple other
Speaker 2: places online where, at least from appearances, when we talked
Speaker 2: about it in April, it was like a boastful thing.
Speaker 2: Hey look what I got? Check this out? Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: look at these secret documents.
Speaker 3: I'm impressive, you guys. I'm not just some other dude
Speaker 3: talking mess on the internet. Here's some stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know. It turns out it was STDK
Speaker 3: and the streets were watching.
Speaker 4: Is that correct?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Not at first, because he was doing it for a
Speaker 2: while before anybody caught on and they went, wait a second,
Speaker 2: what is this Oh my god, this is like insider
Speaker 2: information on the United States relations with Ukraine while the
Speaker 2: active war is happening, and strategy about how the US
Speaker 2: moved some things around in Ukraine, stuff that we as
Speaker 2: the United States don't want anybody to know about for realsies.
Speaker 2: So he got in trouble, got arrested almost immediately, and
Speaker 2: then in March of this year, he pleaded guilty to
Speaker 2: six counts of quote, wilful retention and transmission of national
Speaker 2: defense information under the Espionage Act. And that was nearly
Speaker 2: a year after his initial arrest. So took a minute
Speaker 2: to get him through and he finally pleaded guilty. Well,
Speaker 2: he was just sentenced to fifteen years one to five
Speaker 2: years in prison by a federal judge.
Speaker 3: He did it, though, Matt, He did actually do these things.
Speaker 2: Correct, Um, he did do these things. Well, he at
Speaker 2: least admits to doing these things. It would appear by
Speaker 2: all counts that he did these things, and he is
Speaker 2: being punished for it. And there are many quotes you
Speaker 2: can find in places like the AP News where you
Speaker 2: can search for this. Pentagon secrets leaker Jack Tikshera sentenced
Speaker 2: to fifteen years in prison by a federal judge that
Speaker 2: was posted on November twelfth. There are tons of quotes
Speaker 2: that basically say, we have to make an example of
Speaker 2: this guy. That's how I would put it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd agree with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and it goes back to the problem that we've
Speaker 2: discussed on this show before about classification. Who gets access
Speaker 2: to classified secret documents? Who gets access to the stuff
Speaker 2: that they really don't want us to know? How easy
Speaker 2: is it to get that kind of access, and what
Speaker 2: are the consequences for mishandling it? Right? Well, there it
Speaker 2: gets deeper in here through the court case where basically
Speaker 2: his defense attorneys are saying, he well, I guess I
Speaker 2: can just I'll read this from the AP News article quote.
Speaker 2: Defense attorneys had described to Share as an autistic, isolated
Speaker 2: individual who spent most of his time online, especially with
Speaker 2: his discord community. They said his actions, though criminal, were
Speaker 2: never meant to quote harm the United States, and he
Speaker 2: had no prior criminal record. Instead, his intent was to
Speaker 2: educate his friends about world events to make certain they
Speaker 2: were not misled by misinformation.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, So painting it as a well intentioned yet
Speaker 3: super not traitorous action on his behalf and that's you know,
Speaker 3: that's that's a very there may be some validity to
Speaker 3: that argument.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, that's a good point because it is no
Speaker 2: you're right, though, you're absolutely right. But I think when
Speaker 2: it comes to sentencing, you should take some of those
Speaker 2: things into account, right, not whether or not you broke
Speaker 2: specific laws, but why what were you trying to do.
Speaker 2: It's not the same as giving secret documents to a
Speaker 2: known enemy, right, because you're acting as a spy, or
Speaker 2: you're getting paid, or you're being coerced in some way.
Speaker 2: This is basically a kid going you, guys, there's crazy
Speaker 2: stuff happening in Ukraine right now, because you know, everybody
Speaker 2: was seeing back in the in those times, seeing information
Speaker 2: about what's what's happening in Ukraine and freaking out a
Speaker 2: little bit because it looked like an active New World
Speaker 2: War that was starting up, and it kind of still is,
Speaker 2: as we're about to talk about. But that's that's different
Speaker 2: from being a spy. But again, the prosecution basically and
Speaker 2: the federal judge who sentenced him, said yeah, that doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: We've gotta we got to put this thing down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And for anybody wondering the Espionage Act in the
Speaker 3: United States is super duper old in comparison to the
Speaker 3: country it comes from, Like nineteen seventeen, it has not
Speaker 3: been universally applied. Just to be clear, so, fellow conspiracy realist,
Speaker 3: when our pal Matt is talking about the numerous statements
Speaker 3: saying someone needs to make an example of this guy, Jack,
Speaker 3: we are very well aware, painfully aware that this does
Speaker 3: not get applied in every situation. Got really close to
Speaker 3: naming a couple of people who should have the Espionage
Speaker 3: Act applied to them, But maybe tonight has not.
Speaker 2: That night, Nah, probably not.
Speaker 3: But you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: I do too. In other strange news, guys, segue, here
Speaker 2: is a little story from CNN written on November thirteenth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. I'm going to read the title US
Speaker 2: defense contractor to pay former Iraqi detainees forty two million
Speaker 2: dollars for its role in torture at notorious Abu Grab prison.
Speaker 2: Abagrad prison, Guys, we covered that extensively when we talked
Speaker 2: about black sites on this show, made a couple of
Speaker 2: videos about it, made a couple of podcast episodes about it.
Speaker 2: Abu Grab is one of those places that was functionally
Speaker 2: a prison that used to be a place for wholey
Speaker 2: different stuff, and then it was used to let's say,
Speaker 2: enhancedly interrogate people for quite a while.
Speaker 4: That's rough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that can be read as torture now,
Speaker 2: especially given this court proceeding. So we'll just go to this.
Speaker 2: This was three Iraqi men who endured what is considered torture,
Speaker 2: full on torture at Abergrab prison over two decades ago,
Speaker 2: so twenty years ago, and it was a US government contractor,
Speaker 2: so a third party company that was responsible for this abuse,
Speaker 2: which is kind of weird because of something we've talked
Speaker 2: about in that Black Side's episode. A lot of the
Speaker 2: let's say instructions, the playbooks or the let's say the
Speaker 2: generalized playbooks for how to perform these enhanced interrogation things,
Speaker 2: these putting people in stress positions, hitting people in certain
Speaker 2: parts of their.
Speaker 3: Bodies, psychological manipulation, sexual ac humiliation.
Speaker 2: All came from government sources down to the contractors, who
Speaker 2: then were the ones who actually did it. So it
Speaker 2: is kind of a passing the blame thing, and in
Speaker 2: this case, the well, they are the actual people who
Speaker 2: are torturing, right, these contractors, but ultimately they were doing
Speaker 2: it at the behest of government officials, which is sticky.
Speaker 2: Not great.
Speaker 3: It's not kaka, but it is Kasi, right.
Speaker 2: Oh, CACI Premier Technology Incorporated. That's the defense contractor that
Speaker 2: we're talking about. I'll just read this from that CNN
Speaker 2: article quote. The plaintiffs alleged the company was hired by
Speaker 2: the US government following the US invasion of Iraq to
Speaker 2: interrogation services at Abu Grab, a US Army detention facility
Speaker 2: where Iraqi detainees were brutally tortured. And hey, you want
Speaker 2: to get into who these people were. It's a middle
Speaker 2: school principle, a fruit vendor, and a journalist. And they
Speaker 2: each received three million dollars in compensatory damages and eleven
Speaker 2: million impunitive damages.
Speaker 3: And for larger context, folks, please consider obviously more than
Speaker 3: just these plaintiffs, there were there were many more people
Speaker 3: held in before the US took over, during the Hussein regime.
Speaker 3: This was already a prison, So things just got worse
Speaker 3: and worse and worse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not great at all. And there are a lot
Speaker 2: more people who went through that system and were tortured
Speaker 2: who haven't yet to file a formal complaint like this.
Speaker 2: And to sue you know, a contractor or the US
Speaker 2: government anything else. We need to talk about this, guys
Speaker 2: before we move on to the last update for today.
Speaker 2: Good here, all right, here we go. This is a
Speaker 2: big one, guys, Oh, it sure is. We've been hearing
Speaker 2: a lot about tariffs lately, and specifically that the incoming
Speaker 2: American presidential administration is going to or has pledged to
Speaker 2: enact a lot of tariffs or taxes on goods and
Speaker 2: products coming in from other countries into the United States.
Speaker 2: We've heard anywhere from twenty percent tariffs to sixty percent tariffs,
Speaker 2: ranging all the way up to two hundred percent tariffs.
Speaker 2: A lot of this is just rhetoric or talk, right,
Speaker 2: none of it's actually on paper yet, but it is
Speaker 2: something that I wanted to bring up with you guys,
Speaker 2: because there is an interesting story coming out of the BBC.
Speaker 2: Was written on November fifteenth. Here is the title, and
Speaker 2: on the surface it's not related. But then as we
Speaker 2: start thinking about the future in the next couple of years,
Speaker 2: couple of decades, it could be a major story. I
Speaker 2: think the title is Mega Port Mega PRT opens up
Speaker 2: in Latin America to Chinese trade as US looks on
Speaker 2: why is this important? Let's I'm gonna read directly from
Speaker 2: the top of this article is written by Robert Plummer
Speaker 2: for the BBC. As the world waits to see how
Speaker 2: the return of Donald Trump will reshape relations between Washington
Speaker 2: and Beijing, China has just taken decisive action to entrench
Speaker 2: its position in Latin America. And he goes on to
Speaker 2: talk about one of the main platforms that now President
Speaker 2: elect Trump was talking about, where these tariffs as highs
Speaker 2: sixty percent, specifically on Chinese made goods. So if we're
Speaker 2: thinking for d chess moves here, we're thinking big picture
Speaker 2: global politics, China and maybe seeing the future, maybe hearing
Speaker 2: some of this stuff taking action. This feels like something
Speaker 2: that's been in the works for a long time, and
Speaker 2: actually has been in the works for a long time.
Speaker 2: China made the move to open Megaport, which has the
Speaker 2: potential to create whole new trade routes that fully bypass
Speaker 2: North America. Yeah, so potentially if the US, if you
Speaker 2: just imagine a map with the US on it, if
Speaker 2: you wanted to send any goods into that place, you'd
Speaker 2: have to pay sixty percent, you know, extra on whatever
Speaker 2: you are selling there. Now, imagine instead of doing that,
Speaker 2: you just go a little further south to Latin America,
Speaker 2: and now you can move stuff around the United States
Speaker 2: if you need to. You can move stuff, you know,
Speaker 2: further north, if you need to, You can fully bypass
Speaker 2: needing to deal with the US at all, and even
Speaker 2: further down the road, you cut off trade almost completely,
Speaker 2: or at least whittle it down to almost nothing, which,
Speaker 2: guys made me think about, what was that thing that
Speaker 2: happened the Great Depression? And there's this guy, this president
Speaker 2: named Hoover, and he he put forth the thing. It
Speaker 2: was the Smoot Holly Tariff Act. Do you guys remember
Speaker 2: hearing about this back in the day. Have you ever
Speaker 2: covered that on Ridiculous History?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 5: I certainly remember covering it an actual history class, but
Speaker 5: it's been a long time and I haven't really thought
Speaker 5: about it. Can you remind us and the listeners what
Speaker 5: the Smoot Holly Tariff Act was all about?
Speaker 2: It was a very similar action back in nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: to what is being talked about today in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: where massive tariffs were put on any international goods coming
Speaker 2: into the US, like very high tariffs.
Speaker 4: Well, how to work out then not great.
Speaker 2: It is considered, at least from what I'm reading via
Speaker 2: the Cato Institute in several other places, as one of
Speaker 2: the major contributing factors to ongoing economic issues following the crash,
Speaker 2: right the stock market crash and at the very start
Speaker 2: of what is considered the Great Depression in the United
Speaker 2: States in the late nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties.
Speaker 3: Which still we we know is a terrible name, folks,
Speaker 3: Great Depression. It just describes the magnitude of how crappy
Speaker 3: things were. Nobody's saying it's you know, double plus good.
Speaker 3: I love that you're bringing up that historical contact men, But.
Speaker 2: Make America great again, guys.
Speaker 3: Greatly expensive for imports. Sure, that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 5: You know, guys, I do have a question, and I mean,
Speaker 5: you know, the moment that it appeared that Trump was
Speaker 5: going to win the election, cryptocurrency markets went crazy through
Speaker 5: the roof. The stock market went bonkers and has continued
Speaker 5: to do so. So I you know, I just wonder
Speaker 5: what is it about Trump's election that is so appealing
Speaker 5: to the powers that be and the folks that are,
Speaker 5: you know, movers and systems like these.
Speaker 3: I don't want to take us too far away from
Speaker 3: this incident of the Chinese megaport, which is improved part
Speaker 3: of the Belton Roade initiative. But to answer that question,
Speaker 3: or at least give some context to it, we have
Speaker 3: to realize that the United States is increasingly run by
Speaker 3: business interest and business interests that feel that feel their
Speaker 3: long term survivability will be advantageous under one administration or
Speaker 3: the next. They will respond in logical ways to that,
Speaker 3: which means investors will also follow up. What we're seeing
Speaker 3: is a bunch of people kind of raising their hands
Speaker 3: together and then saying, oh, this is great. We're all
Speaker 3: raising our hands, kind of like when you do a
Speaker 3: wave at the stadium.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, but it is I don't know, guys,
Speaker 2: maybe this is me reading tea leaves. It's exactly what
Speaker 2: happened in nineteen twenty and nineteen twenty nine the stock
Speaker 2: market hit its highest levels it had ever hit. Because again,
Speaker 2: it's all speculation.
Speaker 3: Skilded age.
Speaker 2: It's what people think is going to happen, right, or
Speaker 2: what people anticipate, and often that's tied directly to laws
Speaker 2: that are not on the books yet, they haven't been
Speaker 2: signed yet. But they are intercombissed in the way, right,
Speaker 2: so people are anticipating a law coming into effect. I'm
Speaker 2: just pointing out right now, on November twentieth, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: that I'm looking here in the tea leaves that are
Speaker 2: completely speculation on my part, appear to be very similar
Speaker 2: to a situation where it gets really tough for any
Speaker 2: country that is attempting to be super isolationists. The way
Speaker 2: some of the things that have been said appear to
Speaker 2: be pushing us towards or the way Hoover it hoped
Speaker 2: exactly because the tariff theoretically is a way to bring
Speaker 2: money into a government, right, Hi, tariffs mean, oh we're gonna,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, we're gonna make an extra twenty percent,
Speaker 2: an extra thirty, maybe sixty percent on all these goods.
Speaker 5: But there's an economic argument that's just kicking the can
Speaker 5: down the road, because is when you up those tariffs,
Speaker 5: then that money has to come from somewhere, and it
Speaker 5: often gets passed on to consumers.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, or the people who were bringing goods in
Speaker 2: just say beat me here for you.
Speaker 4: That's what I and it goes so well, But that's
Speaker 4: what I mean.
Speaker 5: It could cause a scarcity, and it could cause an
Speaker 5: issue with supply and demand, and then prices because of
Speaker 5: that scarcity could go up for consumers.
Speaker 3: The efficacy or the function, right, the economic function of
Speaker 3: a tariff is protectionist. To your earlier point, Matt, it
Speaker 3: is to protect domestic industries. However, if you are assigning
Speaker 3: tariffs to things that do not have a domestic manufacturing capability,
Speaker 3: then what you're doing is carrying costs toward the companies
Speaker 3: and then toward the consumers. The foreign government and the
Speaker 3: foreign companies exporting those goods will not experience a hit
Speaker 3: directly in the same way. If I could to the
Speaker 3: earlier point about historical context. History doesn't always repeat, but
Speaker 3: it sure as heck rhymes. If I could plug one show,
Speaker 3: please do check out Let's Start a Coup, which studies,
Speaker 3: in part the economic factors that led to a high
Speaker 3: level of instability in the United States government. And it's
Speaker 3: not a one to one rhyme, but it's a Flanneriocotter
Speaker 3: level slant rhyme. History is closer than it looks in
Speaker 3: the rear view.
Speaker 2: Man, dude, all right, head over to the Cato Institute
Speaker 2: and read the May seventh, twenty sixteen article. I know
Speaker 2: it's from a long time ago, but this is like
Speaker 2: history analysis stuff, so it doesn't really matter that much.
Speaker 2: It is titled the Smoot Holly that is Smoot dash
Speaker 2: hawl e Y Tariff and the Great Depression, and it
Speaker 2: goes into essentially the trade wars that followed suit after
Speaker 2: that legislation was passed, and also how the anticipation of
Speaker 2: that legislation affected the stock market. Oh, it's all fastating stuff.
Speaker 2: And then also read about that megaport for sure, because
Speaker 2: that is a three point five billion dollar project run
Speaker 2: by Costco Shipping Cosco Shipping. It's not the Costco that
Speaker 2: you're probably aware of, not yet, oh man. And there's
Speaker 2: a lot to learn about that. There's a lot more
Speaker 2: detail in there too, and especially about that bridge and road.
Speaker 2: Is that what it is? Bridge Belton Belt Belton Road Initiative,
Speaker 2: which is a whole thing. I think we have an
Speaker 2: episode on it, and if not, we need to just
Speaker 2: do another one because there are lots of developments going
Speaker 2: on there.
Speaker 4: Oh man.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's it for today's strange news.
Speaker 3: We can't wait to hear from you folks. Give us
Speaker 3: the update if you happen to be in Peru or
Speaker 3: Peruvian national we'd love some on the ground information about
Speaker 3: that megaport which has cough cough, taken up some of
Speaker 3: our time offlide. Look, we try to be easy to
Speaker 3: find email, telefonic device all over the Internet. Speaking of segues,
Speaker 3: how do people find us?
Speaker 4: There?
Speaker 5: Boy, hottie, that's a good segue, right there, Ben, You
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Speaker 5: the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist.
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