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 this 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 Nola.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
Speaker 3: you are you. You are here. That makes this the
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. It is the
Speaker 3: top of the week. Happy May sixth to everybody tuning in,
Speaker 3: Happy May the fourth and so on. We knew we
Speaker 3: had to start tonight's program with well, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff we have to get to, but first I
Speaker 3: think we can all agree there is some incredibly important
Speaker 3: brain making news that we have to get the word
Speaker 3: out about. The rumors are true. Our long standing dream
Speaker 3: has finally come to fruition. Gentlemen, folks, people, conspiracy realist, everybody.
Speaker 3: You can now gamble at Dave and Busters what very
Speaker 3: soon you can wait.
Speaker 4: So this is what I wanted to clarify. Ben. I
Speaker 4: saw this. You said it to our group text.
Speaker 5: It said something about gambling on arcade machines. Do this
Speaker 5: mean you'll be placing bets on like Street Fighter?
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you asked, because here is how it works.
Speaker 3: You get the DMB app, which obviously all of us
Speaker 3: already have, and then you, through the app, you can
Speaker 3: make what they call friendly wagers.
Speaker 4: Ah. Yes, I love a friendly wager.
Speaker 3: Games that people are played during to the Dave and
Speaker 3: Buster's statement quote, customers can soon make a friendly five
Speaker 3: dollars wager on a hot shots basketball game, a bet
Speaker 3: on a ski ball competition, or on another arcade game.
Speaker 3: The betting function is expected to launch in the next
Speaker 3: few months. So if you have ever been getting house
Speaker 3: drunk with your adult friends at Dave and Busters and
Speaker 3: decided to put some money on one of the kids
Speaker 3: playing ski ball, your time has come.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, eight chocolate shoe choose deep? I got So?
Speaker 5: Is this like only being rolled out in states where
Speaker 5: gambling is legal, or because you're using an app? Is
Speaker 5: it somehow a loopholey kind of thing?
Speaker 4: Well? Yeah, this is very confusing.
Speaker 3: We're talking about this because I wanted to surprise you
Speaker 3: guys on air given the gravity of this news. However,
Speaker 3: got too excited a little bit sleep deprived. As Ever,
Speaker 3: it looks like they did loophole it. As we're talking
Speaker 3: about in our group chat. It looks as though the
Speaker 3: kind of the way that online gambling apps or like
Speaker 3: draftking stuff works. Regardless, it looks like that's what Dave
Speaker 3: and Busters is doing. Because from what I can tell,
Speaker 3: and Dave Buster please write and big fans correct us
Speaker 3: if we're wrong here. But from what we can tell,
Speaker 3: it seems that this is going to take place in
Speaker 3: every DMB location, including our own, so we may have
Speaker 3: to change our weekend.
Speaker 5: Trapping dangerous, dude, dangerous. Imagine people losing their shirt betting
Speaker 5: on Mortal Kombat.
Speaker 3: I can I can't. I mean, like, okay, first off,
Speaker 3: is Dave and Busters not only like jokes aside? Is
Speaker 3: it not somewhat grooming kids for a casino experience a
Speaker 3: little bit?
Speaker 5: I mean you could argue, I mean, they would probably
Speaker 5: argue that Dave and Busters is for families. You know,
Speaker 5: it's a place where kids and their parents can both
Speaker 5: enjoy things and equal amounts. I mean, chuck E cheese,
Speaker 5: I would argue is way more gratuitously that thing than
Speaker 5: Dave and Busters.
Speaker 4: But I don't know who's to say.
Speaker 3: Well, before the courts get to it, I guess the
Speaker 3: courts are just saying. The courts are probably gonna say that.
Speaker 3: I think they have bigger fish to fry now. We
Speaker 3: just wanted to open with that and let you know
Speaker 3: some of the favorite comments. The audience response has been
Speaker 3: largely positive, and I want to give a shout out
Speaker 3: to sc Irish eight forty three on Reddit, who said,
Speaker 3: as someone who has bet on reruns of Legends of
Speaker 3: the Hidden Temple, reruns four AM Women's ping Pong, and
Speaker 3: those little tabletop magnetic horse racing games, I know plenty
Speaker 3: of people who gladly sit at the table with their
Speaker 3: buddies drinking beer, gambling on children playing hoop fever. What
Speaker 3: could go wrong?
Speaker 5: A lot of pressure if someone's putting money on your
Speaker 5: performance too right.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine being seriously, can you imagine being like
Speaker 3: nine years old and you're just you're at a birthday
Speaker 3: party or something, and then all of a sudden, from
Speaker 3: behind where for the rest at or bar is you
Speaker 3: hear some guy go like, sak this one.
Speaker 6: You know, Jenny Duddy, daddy needs a new pair of shoes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Or you see some kid fail miserably, and
Speaker 2: then somebody from across the room throws a chair because
Speaker 2: he's so upset, and he really did just lose a
Speaker 2: lot of money.
Speaker 3: So I wonder if they're gonna have to do the
Speaker 3: same thing that Vegas does where they deploy those gambling
Speaker 3: problem pamphlets. Yes, I think they'll have to. But anyway,
Speaker 3: as we were saying, there is there's much more and
Speaker 3: much stranger news that we have to get to this evening.
Speaker 3: We are going to We're going to learn a little
Speaker 3: bit about a situation in New Orleans, UH, situation in Detroit,
Speaker 3: the UH the home state of our own code named
Speaker 3: Doc Holliday. We're also gonna, you know, we'll get to
Speaker 3: some other things. Not all of it is terrible, but
Speaker 3: I think or pause. We're going to look at the
Speaker 3: campus protest, and we have returned one of the first
Speaker 3: stories we wanted to cover this evening. It's something that
Speaker 3: everybody in the United States has heard about. You have
Speaker 3: probably also heard about this, regardless of where you live.
Speaker 3: In recent days, starting April seventeenth of this year, the
Speaker 3: US saw one of the largest the largest occurrences of
Speaker 3: campus protests since the era of Vietnam War protest and
Speaker 3: their protests on university campuses that later spread to other countries,
Speaker 3: all regarding the war, the Israel Hamas war, and these
Speaker 3: are to be clear, at least, what you'll see in
Speaker 3: the news is portrayals of someone being like rapidly anti
Speaker 3: Semitic or just by being pro Palestinian. Obviously, we know
Speaker 3: the truth is much more complicated, and arguing for arguing
Speaker 3: that innocent people should not be murdered does not automatically
Speaker 3: make you a bad person by any means. But this
Speaker 3: is still this is still happening as we're recording on
Speaker 3: May first, Wednesday, and this is going to come to
Speaker 3: you on May sixth, at the beginning of next week.
Speaker 3: Have you guys been keeping eyes on the protest on
Speaker 3: the breaking news?
Speaker 5: Absolutely been one of the biggest, I guess, most egregious
Speaker 5: examples has happened right here in our backyard at Emory University,
Speaker 5: where police went from you know, zero to tayze and
Speaker 5: like boots on backs of necks, like and then the
Speaker 5: span of no time. And I've been very perplexed as
Speaker 5: to where this escalation is coming from, you know, in
Speaker 5: what seemed to be.
Speaker 6: Very reasonable exercising.
Speaker 5: Of you know, our right, our rights as Americans to protest.
Speaker 5: I just it's suspicious to me. I don't get it
Speaker 5: where the escalation comes from. I think maybe I do
Speaker 5: get it sort of, but it's still mind boggling. We'll
Speaker 5: get into it.
Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, my attention has been pretty sharply focused on
Speaker 2: Columbia University. I mean, certainly Emery. You know, I think
Speaker 2: hit all of us a little differently because it's here.
Speaker 2: But the stuff in New York with Columbia University has been.
Speaker 4: That's the latest right.
Speaker 3: Which just got breached because they had the temerity to
Speaker 3: possess bike locks. Bike locks, that's the yellow cake in
Speaker 3: this situation, justified the aggression.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's an interesting echo of the past in
Speaker 2: the you know, the specific building that was used to
Speaker 2: barricade themselves into the protesters and you know, having it,
Speaker 2: having NYPD deployed into the building via I mean, you
Speaker 2: guys probably saw the pictures of that thing they use
Speaker 2: to like get into the story above all. Yeah, really,
Speaker 2: just I don't know it. Anytime we see stuff like this,
Speaker 2: it feels movie like in its I don't know, in
Speaker 2: the same way a movie, a big successful like summer blockbuster, right,
Speaker 2: one of the primary attributes of that type of film
Speaker 2: is the amount of money that's thrown at the screen, right,
Speaker 2: the amount of vehicles, human beings, special effects and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. In watching these things on the news, it
Speaker 2: feels again We've said this, I've said this personally about
Speaker 2: many things recently in the past what ten years, that
Speaker 2: just it doesn't feel real because of the almost production
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 5: But doesn't it just feel completely out of balance with
Speaker 5: what's happening. Yeah, the level of deployment of these bells
Speaker 5: and whistles, these riot squad and these you know, tear
Speaker 5: gas and rubber bullets and stuff. I mean, it's just
Speaker 5: like we've talked about it off the air a good
Speaker 5: bit lately, and it's a very difficult topic to discuss
Speaker 5: without people getting mad at you on one side or
Speaker 5: the other. But it has been very confusing for me.
Speaker 5: And we've talked about it a good bit and I
Speaker 5: think i've you know, have a little bit more understanding
Speaker 5: of it after talking to you guys.
Speaker 4: But where this just.
Speaker 5: Unilateral, like anyone in opposition to Israel is instantly.
Speaker 6: Like an enemy of the state. It's just it's I
Speaker 6: don't get it. It's it's it just seems so extreme
Speaker 6: and aggressive.
Speaker 5: And you know, there's even a lot of folks that
Speaker 5: are picipitating in these protests who are who are who
Speaker 5: are Jewish, who are saying, you know, Jews for Palestine,
Speaker 5: you know, And there there are a lot of you know,
Speaker 5: agitator types on the maybe faculties even of these schools,
Speaker 5: who are saying, I feel unsafe. I'm seeing folks that
Speaker 5: are you know, supporting Hamas and it's tanamount to terrorist activity.
Speaker 6: But all of that feels to me to be a
Speaker 6: lot of.
Speaker 4: Much ado about nothing.
Speaker 5: These are these are peaceful protests, and I haven't seen
Speaker 5: any evidence of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: It all just seems like a lot of hot air.
Speaker 3: And fury signifying very little. Yeah, I'm glad you mention
Speaker 3: the phrase agitation because one of the continual accusations or
Speaker 3: conspiracy theories about this, which we'll get to you in
Speaker 3: later episodes, is the idea of agent provocateurs or outside agitators,
Speaker 3: and that was indeed the calculus or the rationale stated
Speaker 3: by NYPD for their actions in Colombia. That's what other
Speaker 3: law enforcement agencies have been stating when they are cracking
Speaker 3: down on these protests. Which of these have been continuing
Speaker 3: for some time. Let's just give you a context folks here,
Speaker 3: because we know, depending on what kind of news we're encountering,
Speaker 3: you're gonna hear different narratives. So to give you a
Speaker 3: full list of the states that have campus protests going
Speaker 3: on right now about this and often other related issues.
Speaker 3: Strap in. I'll read as quick as I can. New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: It goes on Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
Speaker 3: New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington, Washington,
Speaker 3: d C, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin. Even Wisconsin's in the mix
Speaker 3: now because of the University of Wisconsin Madison. And in
Speaker 3: what we see with each of these protests is these
Speaker 3: occupying movements, is we see a troubling common narrative thread,
Speaker 3: which is law enforcement cracking down on college students who
Speaker 3: are peacefully protesting. And yes, to that earlier point, there
Speaker 3: are people who are doing counter protests, That's absolutely true.
Speaker 3: There are people who are saying, I myself do not
Speaker 3: feel safe on campus as a result of these things. However,
Speaker 3: out of all the people protesting, there's also a common
Speaker 3: theme of the people who are getting cracked down on
Speaker 3: by state power. And we don't have to You are
Speaker 3: always going to be your own person. You should never
Speaker 3: feel obligated or pushed into agreeing with something that you
Speaker 3: don't agree with. But we do have to realize, without
Speaker 3: into soapboxy, that a part of this country is inherently
Speaker 3: the First Amendment, the idea that you could speak your mind,
Speaker 3: and if you are not actively harming other people, you're
Speaker 3: not calling for them to be harmed, then you should
Speaker 3: have that speech protected. That's one thing that differentiates this
Speaker 3: place in theory from authoritarian regimes, from absolute monarchies and dictatorships.
Speaker 3: And you know, as we know right now, a lot
Speaker 3: of us listening may indeed be on a campus, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, You may be on a campus
Speaker 3: that gott in a lockdown that is just as strict,
Speaker 3: if not more strict, than the COVID lockdowns of a
Speaker 3: few years back. And these students, these protesters, you know,
Speaker 3: they're not third party operators, right like sent in because
Speaker 3: these days, you don't have to do that by and large.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying it's a stereotype. It's a convenient thing
Speaker 3: to hang on a hook.
Speaker 2: Oh, I do agree. I was looking at something this
Speaker 2: morning from Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City,
Speaker 2: and he was going on and on on about outside
Speaker 2: and individuals that were coming onto the campuses on various
Speaker 2: campuses and basically students to protest and organize in this
Speaker 2: way and to use tactics basically. And as you said, Ben,
Speaker 2: that's not something you need some outside group to come
Speaker 2: in and teach you. You can go online. We've talked
Speaker 2: about in the past, like just learning how to protest
Speaker 2: safely right and have things to protect yourself against things
Speaker 2: like tear gas and all that stuff.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you guys have heard anything about this,
Speaker 5: but the Atlanta Police apparently participates in sort of almost
Speaker 5: like like a police exchange program where we send Atlanta
Speaker 5: police over to Israel and are then they are trained
Speaker 5: in kind of military crowd suppression tactics and then sent
Speaker 5: back over here and then they're deployed into these protests
Speaker 5: to quash what I would argue is Palestinian voices, you know,
Speaker 5: I mean. And then this is all enmeshed in the
Speaker 5: whole Hop City debate as well. Here in Atlanta in particular,
Speaker 5: there's a really good piece on Democracy Now where Amy
Speaker 5: Goode was talking to the chair of the Emory Philosophy department.
Speaker 6: Who was just kind of wandering around checking out the protest.
Speaker 4: And the next thing she.
Speaker 3: Gets did some in this check on someone who was
Speaker 3: getting dropped.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, something turned and she saw someone getting dropped
Speaker 5: like you said, and just said, why are you doing this?
Speaker 4: Stop it? And then the police asked her to leave.
Speaker 5: She said, no, I need to be here to witness this,
Speaker 5: and at which point they you know, handcuffed her behind
Speaker 5: her back.
Speaker 4: And in the same segment they bring in a PhD.
Speaker 5: Medical student at Emory by the name of Umaya Mohammad,
Speaker 5: who speaks a lot about Emory's policies about you know,
Speaker 5: kind of even going so far as to refer to
Speaker 5: doxing of students and this kind of really iron fisted
Speaker 5: repression of this kind of free speech with zero evidence
Speaker 5: of violence, and it just seems like cultural And I
Speaker 5: feel like it's cultural in our country where there's this
Speaker 5: unilateral support where it's like Israel is one in the right,
Speaker 5: Palestine one hundred percent in the wrong, and they're basically
Speaker 5: being treated as enemies of the state. Well, I don't
Speaker 5: think that's right.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's attempting narrative, and it's a simple one, right,
Speaker 3: which people prefer simple explanations. Let's put it this way,
Speaker 3: because one of the big focuses we need to keep
Speaker 3: on here goes back to an episode we did years
Speaker 3: ago about the dangers of the militarization of police. The
Speaker 3: police are not the military. They're not supposed to be
Speaker 3: the military recently, and there are live updates that you
Speaker 3: can get in a couple of places if you have
Speaker 3: online access in the West. Nbcnews dot Com has a
Speaker 3: live update thing that I've been reading for a while.
Speaker 3: You can also check out you know what, let's go
Speaker 3: to a quote from Chris Isidore writing for CNN. This
Speaker 3: came out just today as we record. Here's what happened
Speaker 3: in Columbia. New York City police used flash bangs flash
Speaker 3: bang grenades to breach the building that have been occupied
Speaker 3: by these protesters for some time. The flash grenades, if
Speaker 3: you're not familiar with a flash bang, they are used
Speaker 3: as a shock and disorient kind of tactic. Right, they
Speaker 3: have a very bright flash, a very loud bang, but
Speaker 3: they're not themselves explosive fissile material.
Speaker 5: You know, your head ring and rom and your vision
Speaker 5: kind of just you know, if you can imagine just
Speaker 5: having like a really bright light shine in your eyes
Speaker 5: and what the after effects are of that. Maybe X
Speaker 5: that by you know, four or five.
Speaker 3: So just last night, as we record, from what we understand,
Speaker 3: officers arrested more than two hundred protesters, the majority of
Speaker 3: which are obviously peaceful protesters, overnight and then they went
Speaker 3: to City of City College of New York that's about
Speaker 3: a mile north of Manhattan as the crow flies, and
Speaker 3: they made dozens of extra arrest. This coincides with arrest,
Speaker 3: arrest and police attacks at like the University of Arizona
Speaker 3: at Tulane, where there have been a lot of and
Speaker 3: we'll get to Louisiana later in an unrelated story, there
Speaker 3: have been a lot of allegations there, in particular of
Speaker 3: these quote unquote outside agitators. I'm torn on this, guys,
Speaker 3: because the First Amendment is incredibly important to me and
Speaker 3: to this country. You know, public universities are part of
Speaker 3: the US government, so they have to follow any court
Speaker 3: decree over how the First Amendment exists, how it should
Speaker 3: be applied. Private universities and any private business really has
Speaker 3: a lot more agency in what their state and around
Speaker 3: speech and protest may be. If you want to learn
Speaker 3: more about that, go to a great New York Times
Speaker 3: article called What the First Amendment Means for Campus Protest
Speaker 3: by Alan Blinder, also published today. As we're going into
Speaker 3: record and with this, you know, these accusations of anti
Speaker 3: Semitism are often going to be made because there is
Speaker 3: some sort of anti Semitic action, But that same accusation
Speaker 3: logically can be weaponized right against people who simply don't
Speaker 3: agree with something that you agree with, and there's no
Speaker 3: way around that. To be clear, we have never on
Speaker 3: this show. We've never defended anything like anti semitism, nor
Speaker 3: have we defended Islamophobia. They're both just very nasty things
Speaker 3: that perhaps most irritatingly demonstrate a lack of critical thought
Speaker 3: or the ability to think through things critically. But we
Speaker 3: are and remain anti genocide, We are remain anti police state.
Speaker 3: Would we agree with that statement in general? I think
Speaker 3: maybe it's a little too general.
Speaker 4: No, I think it's just right. I mean, that's.
Speaker 5: Just what I cannot agree with is the weaponization of
Speaker 5: rhetoric and the other ring of people just trying to
Speaker 5: wrap their heads around an issue and be you know.
Speaker 4: Fair and be I don't know, just sort of.
Speaker 5: Like to your point, Ben, like there's a there's a
Speaker 5: lot of bullying going on, you know in this debate
Speaker 5: where if you're if you're this, then you're this. You know,
Speaker 5: if you say anything negative about Israel, then you're an
Speaker 5: anti semit you know, if you say anything positive about Israel,
Speaker 5: then you're supporting genocide. It's just a very damned if
Speaker 5: you do, Dan, If you don't, I think I would
Speaker 5: agree completely that what is happening in uh in Gaza,
Speaker 5: but that the hands of the Israelis is something that
Speaker 5: would certainly resemble genocide.
Speaker 2: Yes, and genocide bad. Agree. Yeah, I agreed, But you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's strange, I think, I don't know, guys. Strange
Speaker 2: for me because I know the episodes we've done in
Speaker 2: the past on the way student protest movements can arise,
Speaker 2: especially in other countries, when there are intelligence agencies involved
Speaker 2: from other countries. Sure, that is a thing, and we've
Speaker 2: talked about it before on the show. So it's weird
Speaker 2: for me to square all of this that's going on,
Speaker 2: when there's so much emotional response happening, to try and
Speaker 2: come at it and think, well, what are the actual
Speaker 2: possibilities here and mechanisms. To have this large of a
Speaker 2: protest movement occurring across the United States about something very
Speaker 2: specific that is not happening inside the United States, and
Speaker 2: right before a presidential election, that weirds me out a
Speaker 2: little bit. It makes my senses go off. It doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that I or anybody should think that that's what's
Speaker 2: happened here, but it is weird.
Speaker 3: It Also, we do know for reality Reality check, regardless
Speaker 3: of how the powers that be politically on both sides
Speaker 3: of the aisle, regardless how they try to spin it,
Speaker 3: it is known and it is true that adversarial governments
Speaker 3: have been quite successful in their asymmetric warfare tactics. Right
Speaker 3: Info war is real. Do check out, Do check out
Speaker 3: our earlier episodes on this. As you guys know, I
Speaker 3: researched this stuff kind of extensively. No, you say it's
Speaker 3: a real concern, it's a valid It's not crazy to
Speaker 3: ask yourself that question.
Speaker 2: I remember looking at this at great detail too when
Speaker 2: we were making those episodes a long time ago, and
Speaker 2: it really is a creepy thing if you look at
Speaker 2: the span of history and how often young young people,
Speaker 2: especially in colleges in any country can be targeted basically
Speaker 2: with these things.
Speaker 3: US did it and so America.
Speaker 5: It's because the youth can be a scary thing to
Speaker 5: the establishments, you know, because they represent new ideas, they
Speaker 5: represent a breaking of the status quo. And when enough
Speaker 5: of them organize and insist on having their voices heard
Speaker 5: in this framework of quote unquote free speech that we.
Speaker 6: Have, it freaks people out, you know.
Speaker 5: And then and we're seeing it, it's so gross and like,
Speaker 5: you know, transparent what's being done, what they're doing. And
Speaker 5: I just wanted to point to one other article in Vox,
Speaker 5: how today is anti war protests stack up against major
Speaker 5: student movements in history. They're saying, and I think we
Speaker 5: all agree that these campus protests are shaping up to
Speaker 5: be some of the biggest of the twenty first century.
Speaker 4: And they're just going to keep going.
Speaker 5: And I We're going to get to a point, I
Speaker 5: think where if we keep seeing this kind of violence
Speaker 5: perpetrator on peaceful protesters.
Speaker 4: There could well be a sea change. It's just how
Speaker 4: polarizing can you get.
Speaker 5: You know what if it were your kids just out
Speaker 5: there expressing their voices and not standing for violence against
Speaker 5: innocent people, sure of innocent people.
Speaker 3: Or protesting the Vietnam or the photographs right, the video
Speaker 3: footage here is distressingly similar. I'm not asking for people
Speaker 3: to solve problems, but I think we all agree it
Speaker 3: is important to realize how fragile things like the First
Speaker 3: Amendment and indeed the great experiment that is the United
Speaker 3: States can be, and police states are bad. It's not
Speaker 3: a hot take, it's just a reality. The only people
Speaker 3: who like police states are the dictators who run police states.
Speaker 3: Everybody else is just trying not to die. And that's
Speaker 3: not the kind of world or not the kind of
Speaker 3: country that people should want to grow up at. We
Speaker 3: don't have the answers. We pride ourselves on being honest
Speaker 3: when that's the case, but we do want to hear
Speaker 3: from you. You are the most important part of the show.
Speaker 3: We are glad that you are here, and thank you
Speaker 3: as always for taking the time to reach out and
Speaker 3: speak with us. Let us know what you think is
Speaker 3: going on these protests and if it's not too much,
Speaker 3: let us know what you think the end results will be.
Speaker 3: We're gonna pause for word from our sponsors and we'll
Speaker 3: return with more strange news.
Speaker 2: And we've returned, and for this story, we're headed to
Speaker 2: the three to one three aka Rock City aka Motown
Speaker 2: aka Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 4: Citro. Is that a thing Detroit? What did I hear that?
Speaker 7: In?
Speaker 5: Like a stand out, like a comedy thing. I don't
Speaker 5: know what that's from. Dope like that must be it?
Speaker 2: Did you say the city of champions, Ben? I just
Speaker 2: learned about that back in the day, back in the
Speaker 2: thirties when Detroit had all the best teams.
Speaker 6: It's still pretty good, right, The Lion's quite good, I'm sure.
Speaker 4: Well, they're very blue wise.
Speaker 3: We believe in things and support.
Speaker 7: The playoffs.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 7: We were bad for a long time. I will not
Speaker 7: tolerate any lionslander.
Speaker 3: Lias Slander, I said, it's good to believe in people
Speaker 3: and support things.
Speaker 4: It's sort of an angel in the outfield.
Speaker 2: No, it's funny there.
Speaker 3: Were mentioning that because I think I texted you Alexis
Speaker 3: at some point. Maybe I was doing the playoff things.
Speaker 3: I was texting some Detroit friends, and every single person
Speaker 3: from Detroit, including our friend Lucky Yates, doubled down. The
Speaker 3: residents of Detroit have a great and well earned pride
Speaker 3: in their city, and I always think we should explore
Speaker 3: it more. Just like the car stuff days, I just
Speaker 3: want to go see the packerd stuff, you know from
Speaker 3: the per Company.
Speaker 2: Look, so, if you're like me and you don't know
Speaker 2: much about Detroit, you may remember the enthralling film eight Miles,
Speaker 2: starring Marshall Mathers as an aspiring young battle rap artist.
Speaker 2: And if you'd like to imagine where this story is
Speaker 2: going to take place, just put your mind on that
Speaker 2: titular road from that cinematic masterpiece and then travel approximately
Speaker 2: seven miles northeast too fifteen mile road and the address
Speaker 2: is one nine one zero zero fifteen mile Road in
Speaker 2: Clinton Township. Clinton Township. Well, maybe you know more about
Speaker 2: this Alexis than we do. It appears to be in
Speaker 2: the greater Metropolitan Area of Detroit, like the city, but
Speaker 2: it is a township, so I don't know if it
Speaker 2: would be considered like a whole separate thing.
Speaker 7: Clinton Township is definitely like a considered a separate city
Speaker 7: is not considered Detroit. It's very far from Detroit. As
Speaker 7: you said, it's like seven miles northeast. It's like up
Speaker 7: you go like up ninety four to ninety four starts
Speaker 7: going north instead of like east and west, and then
Speaker 7: you get up to fourteen mile and that's where Clinton
Speaker 7: Township starts. So definitely definitely not Detroit and even further
Speaker 7: away from some of the other suburbs that are closer
Speaker 7: to Detroit than like border eight mile.
Speaker 3: Godd you call it an excerp than in that regard,
Speaker 3: I actually much.
Speaker 7: Of anything, because I don't really think about Clinton Township.
Speaker 4: But I.
Speaker 7: It's not a shade, but it's just it's far away.
Speaker 7: It's considered far away.
Speaker 3: Oh, I heard that Clinton Township email anyway, all right.
Speaker 2: So let's just maybe you've never been to one nine
Speaker 2: one zero zero fifteen mile road in Clinton Township, where
Speaker 2: if you do travel there now you will find a
Speaker 2: charred barren slab where once a building stood. And guys,
Speaker 2: I link to a picture there so you can look
Speaker 2: at this building. It's a single sizable building that has
Speaker 2: an entrance right in the center, and then it has
Speaker 2: two businesses inside that one building. On the left you'll
Speaker 2: find Dollar Palace, and on the right you will find
Speaker 2: a place that just says Goo g oo. And you
Speaker 2: may be curious as to what that means or stands for. Well,
Speaker 2: well it's called the Goo Smoke Shop slash as it
Speaker 2: has two businesses, select distributors wholesale.
Speaker 6: Hmmm uh.
Speaker 2: And if you did go there when the building is
Speaker 2: a vape situation, Ah, yes, okay, is it ye old
Speaker 2: smoke shop? And if you had traveled there at the
Speaker 2: time and then you saw this smoldering pile, that is
Speaker 2: that area? Now you may be asking yourself again.
Speaker 5: This barren slab, if you will, I got I gotta
Speaker 5: give you props on that turn of frame by the way,
Speaker 5: please carry you sure.
Speaker 2: Somebody else used it better than me. I've just put
Speaker 2: words together there. If you might be wondering what the
Speaker 2: heck happened here, well it all goes back to what
Speaker 2: was available for purchase at this good old goose smoke shop,
Speaker 2: and more importantly, what the goo.
Speaker 6: I just want to give me that goo.
Speaker 2: I think that's why I worked for him for so long.
Speaker 2: But more importantly, what was distributed by those select distributors
Speaker 2: wholesale So if we if we imagine the inside of
Speaker 2: a smoke shop, Guys, I think we've done this exercise before.
Speaker 2: But what are you gonna find in there?
Speaker 4: Hookah stuff?
Speaker 3: You will find, tinctures. You will find a lot of vapes.
Speaker 3: You will probably find vape refilled device or paraphernalia. Juice
Speaker 3: you might juice, you might find to pay on the states.
Speaker 3: You might find some CBD stuff. Some PC stuff.
Speaker 2: Is very popular, so like subplax supplements, snacks, sometimes, some prophylactics,
Speaker 2: some glassware, some metal and wooden products, and lots and
Speaker 2: lots of things that are probably flammable.
Speaker 5: I would say, like those coals that you get for
Speaker 5: for hookah setups.
Speaker 3: Those things are half half empty cans of paint with
Speaker 3: whally rags hanging out.
Speaker 5: Oh wait a minute, let's talk about pressurized butane canisters.
Speaker 2: I've seen now that this is where we get to
Speaker 2: the wholesale distributors. Here they sold large containers of butane,
Speaker 2: which is a very flammable substance used to fill all
Speaker 2: kinds of things that set fires. Right, so lighters of
Speaker 2: all shapes and style exactly, and also, interestingly enough, guys,
Speaker 2: crap ton of nitrous oxide which is an odorless, colorless,
Speaker 2: non flammable gas, but it treats fire a lot like
Speaker 2: oxygen does. It can be used as to fuel a
Speaker 2: fire the way oxygen does, but not in the same
Speaker 2: way as a buttane would, right, it would all of
Speaker 2: a sudden ignite.
Speaker 3: It functions as a propellant, though you're saying.
Speaker 2: It does precisely, and that is a whole I think
Speaker 2: that is maybe the crux of this story, those two substances,
Speaker 2: butane and nitrous oxide. Let's go to a story that is, honestly, guys,
Speaker 2: is a bit stale at this point, but it got
Speaker 2: renewed by another story we're going to bring in at
Speaker 2: the end here. But this is a story from March
Speaker 2: sixth out of the Washington Post. Explosion at vape supplier
Speaker 2: kills teen and flings gas canisters up to a mile.
Speaker 2: This is insane, guys. Back on March fifth, I guess
Speaker 2: between March fifth and sixth, there was some kind of
Speaker 2: fire that began, which is still under investigation as we
Speaker 2: record today. On Wednesday, May first, there was a fire
Speaker 2: at this location. Whether it was inside the building right
Speaker 2: behind the building, there's some information on that coming out,
Speaker 2: but it took place at this location, and it ignited
Speaker 2: all of these giant buttane canisters and the nitrous oxide canisters,
Speaker 2: and it even superheated all of those like vape batteries,
Speaker 2: all of those very powerful batteries that were located inside.
Speaker 6: Which they won't even let you bring in a check.
Speaker 4: Bag, you know, on an airplane, right.
Speaker 2: Because of the pressure changes and the possibility of fires. Well,
Speaker 2: there was such a massive explosion. You can see videos
Speaker 2: of this thing if you look online. It was almost
Speaker 2: you guys have seen videos of like a fireworks factory
Speaker 2: catching on fire, and just the kind of the chain
Speaker 2: continuous explosions that are occurring in some of them very small,
Speaker 2: some of them larger. You guys have seen something like that.
Speaker 4: Absolutely sure.
Speaker 2: It was like that, but with metal canisters being shot
Speaker 2: into the air and exploding, So there's shrapnel being fired
Speaker 2: for a mile around in a mile radius, sometimes up
Speaker 2: to two miles. There would be canisters found on roofs
Speaker 2: or embedded in the ground. And there was one unfortunate
Speaker 2: person who was nineteen years old who was standing literally
Speaker 2: a quarter of a mile away from this explosion at
Speaker 2: a gas station and a piece of shrapnel caused his
Speaker 2: life to end. Insane, terrible, horrible situation for that one person.
Speaker 2: And also imagine just walking outside where you live and
Speaker 2: seeing this in the distance and hearing this with these constant,
Speaker 2: consistent explosions. It was so loud that the fire chief
Speaker 2: there in Clinton Township, this guy named Tim Duncan, said
Speaker 2: he could hear the explosion from his house, which is
Speaker 2: seven miles away, roughly before he ever got deployed, you know,
Speaker 2: to go check out what the heck was going on?
Speaker 3: Do we know the cause?
Speaker 2: The cause was improperly stored giant containers of butane and
Speaker 2: nitrous oxide, so definitely accidental. Uh well, I didn't say that.
Speaker 3: Okay, improper storage, but I guess technically then by that
Speaker 3: definition you could purposely improperly store stuff. But yes, where
Speaker 3: are we going with this?
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I'm going to jump to something from the
Speaker 2: Macombe Daily m ACMB Daily. This is what they say.
Speaker 2: Authority said the building was not supposed to contain these
Speaker 2: butane and nitrous oxide tanks that were found on the property,
Speaker 2: and during the last inspection in twenty twenty two, none
Speaker 2: of those canisters were there. If they were there, they
Speaker 2: would have gotten a like hit for that right with
Speaker 2: serious fines. Because of the way this business is zoned.
Speaker 2: It's not zoned for industrial use and storing that those
Speaker 2: kinds of materials would fall into industrial use. It does appear,
Speaker 2: or at least according to these officials, the building didn't
Speaker 2: have the proper safety structures in place to house those
Speaker 2: types of tanks of materials, so.
Speaker 3: Like fire suppression would be an example.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think it also has to do with
Speaker 2: temperature and other potential you know, possibilities there are for
Speaker 2: damage to be done to those just one of those
Speaker 2: containers which could set off a chain reaction like it
Speaker 2: did copy. And one of the big scary things at
Speaker 2: the time when this was first happening was that there
Speaker 2: were unexploded canisters of both butane and nitrous oxide that
Speaker 2: were like lying on the ground as we said, or
Speaker 2: like just you know, landed on a roof, and residents
Speaker 2: were trying to recover them or dispose of them. But
Speaker 2: some of them were ruptured, like the metal containers ruptured
Speaker 2: so they could explode, or they a few of them
Speaker 2: did explode, so it was like grenades. They were just
Speaker 2: left all around.
Speaker 5: Dude, I mean, and this is obviously hugely dangerous for
Speaker 5: surrounding properties and anybody that might happen to be walking by.
Speaker 5: I mean, these things could be weaponized and launched, you know,
Speaker 5: out of windows, and it would chatter and really seriously
Speaker 5: injure or kill anyone that happened to be around when
Speaker 5: this went down.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh yeah, one hundred percent, super dangerous, super scary.
Speaker 6: Matt, isn't there kind of there's a twist here coming, right.
Speaker 2: There's a twist. Let's get to the twist. So Ben,
Speaker 2: you asked, like, what caused it, how did it happen?
Speaker 2: And ultimately who's responsible for this thing? Because it did
Speaker 2: damage other businesses and homes and property and it killed
Speaker 2: a human being. Jesus Okay, Well, the owner initially on
Speaker 2: the day that it happened, I guess the night that
Speaker 2: it happened, the owner of this these two businesses was
Speaker 2: in contact with both the police there in Clinton Township
Speaker 2: and the fire department and some of the city officials.
Speaker 2: So this person immediately like was reached out to and
Speaker 2: they were speaking and they were on good terms. But
Speaker 2: then on Saturday, April twentieth, so this is early March
Speaker 2: when this occurred. Right on Saturday April twentieth. The owner
Speaker 2: of these companies attempted to flee not just you know,
Speaker 2: the Detroit area, but the United States for Hong Kong,
Speaker 2: which is pretty I don't know, doesn't look good. Maybe
Speaker 2: attempt to flee the Clinton.
Speaker 3: Town Well was it a round trip ticket?
Speaker 2: No, it was not. It was a one way ticket.
Speaker 5: Is is this a national Like, what's this person's citizenship
Speaker 5: status or you know, visa status or I'm just curious
Speaker 5: if they are US.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, citizen of the United States. The man's name
Speaker 2: is Newer n R nol n O E L S
Speaker 2: two kestwo k E S t Uo. This is a
Speaker 2: thirty one year old person. He lives in Commerce Township,
Speaker 2: which is also there in the Detroit area. And yeah,
Speaker 2: he tried to use his passport to go from JFK
Speaker 2: in New York City to Hong Kong and basically the
Speaker 2: Clint Township PD let the authorities there at JFK International
Speaker 2: note and they picked him up.
Speaker 5: Oh Greek, it may sound like maybe Greek etymology, Okay, anyway,
Speaker 5: but yeah, so that makes sense.
Speaker 3: He got he got stopped with a one way ticket,
Speaker 3: which does provide reasonable suspicion that someone be attempting to
Speaker 3: flee the country exactly.
Speaker 5: And I'm sorry, this is how long after the actual
Speaker 5: uh you know, he.
Speaker 3: Said April twentieth closure explosion on March fourth, right, so
Speaker 3: he put some time in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, March fifth, sixth up to April twentieth, and then
Speaker 2: it took like four or five days for the detectives
Speaker 2: in the township there near Detroit to go and get
Speaker 2: him from New York and bring him back where he
Speaker 2: was then arraigned on Thursday day, April twenty fifth, in
Speaker 2: court in charge with one count of involuntary manslaughter.
Speaker 4: Ooh, which is.
Speaker 3: Gonna plea cannabis induced psychosis?
Speaker 2: I hope not. I don't think so. I don't know
Speaker 2: how that would work there. But is a felony charge
Speaker 2: and it has a maximum sentence of fifteen years.
Speaker 5: So this is at this point we're thinking more of
Speaker 5: a negligence case, you know, someone that wasn't storing their
Speaker 5: inventory correctly or is there any suspicion of a foul
Speaker 5: play in terms of trying to you know, burn down
Speaker 5: for the insurance money or whatever.
Speaker 2: It was illegal possession and improper storage of nitrous oxide
Speaker 2: and butane cans.
Speaker 6: Niger's oxide is not something you sell at smoke shops.
Speaker 4: That's illegal, no, right it is.
Speaker 5: People will huff that like a you know, to look
Speaker 5: at the fish parking lot out of balloons.
Speaker 2: This is the second twist, you guys, Maybe we need
Speaker 2: to do a whole episode on this. There there is
Speaker 2: an entire section of this story that we're not even
Speaker 2: going to fully get to today. Is the number of
Speaker 2: nitrous oxide large We're talking like foot tall tanks, nitrous
Speaker 2: oxide tanks that look like buttane refillers, just like if
Speaker 2: you you know, size them up by four sure, and
Speaker 2: they are designed to and it says on the Goo
Speaker 2: distributors like websites that they sell all these things. They
Speaker 2: were for sale on Walmart dot com, they were for
Speaker 2: sale on Amazon. They're huge. You are supposed to, at
Speaker 2: least according to the creators of these products. Connect it
Speaker 2: up to one of your whipped cream maker machines.
Speaker 6: Whippets them to people call them whippets and.
Speaker 2: Make whip cream. That's what they sell them for. That's
Speaker 2: what they're designed for.
Speaker 3: During the depression, when you could buy frozen grapejruice concentrate
Speaker 3: with explicit directions on what not to do to make
Speaker 3: it wine. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, guys, there's such a demand for this nitrous
Speaker 2: oxide in not only the Detroit area. Don't want to
Speaker 2: aligned Detroit, in all of the United States, you guys
Speaker 2: that at smoke shops. Now the most profitable item that
Speaker 2: exists in smoke shops is nitrous oxide.
Speaker 3: Data.
Speaker 5: It's're legal to sell if as long as it's like
Speaker 5: you can't tell what someone's gonna do with it. But
Speaker 5: there's all kinds of loopholes we know with those lab
Speaker 5: chemicals or things like what was it called spice, remember
Speaker 5: that where it was marketed as like this is not
Speaker 5: for human consumption, We'll only use this as an incense
Speaker 5: or something.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, or then you know, I mean, it's
Speaker 3: it's a problem people grapple with because you can't stop
Speaker 3: selling people, you know, cigarette lighters on the off chance
Speaker 3: that one person might use a lighter to start a
Speaker 3: forest fire.
Speaker 5: Well, and to be fair, if anyone's watched the Bear
Speaker 5: or any like fancy cooking competition, they use these nitrous
Speaker 5: canisters all the time to make foams of any variety,
Speaker 5: not just whipped cream, you know, So there does need
Speaker 5: should be and people who are using it for the
Speaker 5: right reasons, have every right to get stuff, but massive
Speaker 5: tanks of it in a smoke shop. The know gourmet
Speaker 5: is shopping there for this product.
Speaker 4: People whi cream.
Speaker 2: It's just weird. It does very weird for me. It's
Speaker 2: just strange, right, and it was very strange for the
Speaker 2: for the township fire chief Tim Duncan. That you can
Speaker 2: hear remarks from him, well, not these particular remarks, but
Speaker 2: remarks from him during a press conference that was given
Speaker 2: on March fifth. You can find that on YouTube via
Speaker 2: the Clinton Township Community TV YouTube channel. But here's a
Speaker 2: quote Tim Duncan gave when speaking with Detroit Free Press.
Speaker 6: Quote.
Speaker 2: What people are finding out is the community at large
Speaker 2: has a large desire for nitrous oxide and they can
Speaker 2: make a lot of money off selling these things. We're
Speaker 2: trying to get out there and make sure people are
Speaker 2: using this in the appropriate fashion, which I don't know
Speaker 2: how you do that, honestly, mister Duncan. But the nitrous
Speaker 2: is supposed to be used for the food service end
Speaker 2: of the industry, and obviously we're seeing that simply not
Speaker 2: what's happening. And this is problem not simply in Clinton Township,
Speaker 2: but it's throughout the state with the quantities that we
Speaker 2: had in this building. This per he's talking about the
Speaker 2: owner here, he's sending them somewhere. Now it's time to
Speaker 2: uncover where are they going. I thought that was just
Speaker 2: an interesting thing. It's it's following the rabbit hole basically
Speaker 2: because the ATF is heavily involved in this case now
Speaker 2: because of that nitrous oxide.
Speaker 3: As they should be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you're right, map this is there's a lot
Speaker 5: of things wrapped up in this one story, a lot
Speaker 5: of questions. But it reminds me of I don't know
Speaker 5: if you another item that used to be maybe not anymore,
Speaker 5: but sold at like smoke shops or maybe like kind
Speaker 5: of sex type shops was video cassette head cleaner, which
Speaker 5: if used in a certain way is poppers, which is
Speaker 5: a you know drug that is used often for sexual
Speaker 5: purposes that can you know, cause like euphoria and other
Speaker 5: kinds of you know effects that are good for sexy times.
Speaker 5: But they're marketed and you know it can be used
Speaker 5: to clean the heads of your VCR.
Speaker 2: I had no I had zero idea about that. What
Speaker 2: is the chemical? Well, there's uh amial nitrate.
Speaker 6: It's amal nitrate. That's that's what poppers are.
Speaker 5: But I think whatever video head cleaner is, it's got
Speaker 5: similar properties.
Speaker 4: But I don't think it's exactly.
Speaker 3: That amalka trade and other nitrates can be sold that way.
Speaker 5: That's right, Yeah, exactly, So well, I'm not sure there's
Speaker 5: different ones, but like audio, video head cleaner is tantamount
Speaker 5: to the same effects as anal nitrate.
Speaker 2: Weird, very weird. All right, Well, hey, guys, any any
Speaker 2: of their last thoughts on this one?
Speaker 4: They used to call them Amy's in the sixties.
Speaker 5: No, No, Matt, this is a wild ride, and I
Speaker 5: really do think there's a lot to unpack here that
Speaker 5: would probably be worthy of a deeper exploration.
Speaker 2: Okay, Alex, is anything else you need to say about
Speaker 2: Detroit before we get out?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 2: Go right, all right, we'll be right back with more
Speaker 2: strange news.
Speaker 6: And we're back with our last story of the day.
Speaker 5: Kind of had to have a bit of a misery
Speaker 5: sandwich on our hands today. Not that Matt's story wasn't
Speaker 5: heavy in its own right, but I think it was
Speaker 5: what do we call it on the text chain, A
Speaker 5: lighter shade of nightmare fuel. A lot of actual fuel
Speaker 5: in that story too, But we've obviously discussed at length
Speaker 5: many of the accusations, both confirmed and alleged, you know,
Speaker 5: against the Catholic Church and high ranking officials when it
Speaker 5: comes to sexual abuse of children, you know, that have
Speaker 5: been covered up, brushed under the rug, allowed to continue indefinitely. Well,
Speaker 5: let's just up the anteus a little bit. As if
Speaker 5: that weren't enough, why don't we.
Speaker 6: Add child sex trafficking proper.
Speaker 5: To the lists of accusations and that are very very
Speaker 5: very much on the edge of being fully proven. In
Speaker 5: New Orleans, the New Orleans Archdiocese is the target of
Speaker 5: a child sex trafficking inquiry. Louisiana State Police served search
Speaker 5: warrants on the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans in
Speaker 5: what's to be the beginnings of a massive, unprecedented sweeping
Speaker 5: probe of this organization. These warrants were recently served alleging
Speaker 5: that for decades, the institution has been involved not only
Speaker 5: in the church's global clergy child molestation scandal, but also
Speaker 5: in something even more as you would say, been unclean,
Speaker 5: the trafficking and shipment and use and abuse of minors
Speaker 5: for the sexual gratification of predators, often high ranking officials
Speaker 5: within the church. Reading from a article in The Guardian
Speaker 5: by Ramon Antonio Vargas in New Orleans and David Hammer
Speaker 5: of WWL in Louisiana, which is a TV news channel,
Speaker 5: this is the primary source that I have for this,
Speaker 5: so I'm just going to read pretty liberally from this
Speaker 5: to start.
Speaker 4: But the article starts.
Speaker 5: The clerk at the state Criminal Courthouse where the warrant
Speaker 5: was signed released the eleven page document on Tuesday. It
Speaker 5: makes clear that troopers involved an appending rave prosecution case
Speaker 5: against one priest came to suspect that particular case was
Speaker 5: part of a broader pattern of widespread sexual abuse of
Speaker 5: minors dating back decades that was covered up and not
Speaker 5: reported to law enforcement.
Speaker 4: Goes on to note that.
Speaker 5: Previous archbishops, the highest ranking official in the archdiocese, not
Speaker 5: only knew of the sexual abuse and failed to report
Speaker 5: all the claims to law enforcement, but spent archdiocese funding
Speaker 5: to actually support the accused, and within the language of
Speaker 5: the warrants, any and all documents were required to be
Speaker 5: produced that pertain in any way to the sexual abuse
Speaker 5: of a minor by clergy members employed or otherwise associated
Speaker 5: with the Archdiocese of New Orleans, and the implication there
Speaker 5: is that these records are believed to constitute a violation
Speaker 5: of the state's laws against trafficking of children for sexual purposes.
Speaker 5: It also demands any and all communications between the Archbishop
Speaker 5: of New Orleans and any department within the Vatican. So
Speaker 5: they're trying to kind of breach that air gap, you know,
Speaker 5: into the wider organization any department within the Vatican pertaining
Speaker 5: to child sexual abuse, among various other files.
Speaker 3: And so this is on the heels of what some
Speaker 3: earlier reports that were apparently buried or suppressed or board.
Speaker 5: That's right, attorneys for victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by
Speaker 5: clergy were given access to the documents that formed kind
Speaker 5: of the basis of what's called the Key Memo. And
Speaker 5: that's because in these cases their clients became part of
Speaker 5: a bankruptcy proceeding against the church. So I think those
Speaker 5: lawyers that were handling the memo to law enforcement in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty two, that's when federal investigators, with the aid
Speaker 5: of state troopers, started to look further into what these
Speaker 5: memo kind of pointed to. So at this point, says
Speaker 5: they began investigating New Orleans clergy for possibly violating federal
Speaker 5: law by taking children across state lines.
Speaker 6: For the purposes of sexual abuse.
Speaker 4: Dude, no, no, no, I know, I know. They talk about some specifics.
Speaker 5: Additionally, it was reported that in some instances, gifts were
Speaker 5: given to abuse victims by the accused molesters with instructions
Speaker 5: to pass on.
Speaker 4: This is chilling to pass.
Speaker 5: On or give the gift to certain priests at the
Speaker 5: next school or church. It was said that the gift
Speaker 5: was a form of signaling to another priest that the
Speaker 5: person was to be a target of sexual abuse.
Speaker 6: And there apparently it's a system, guys.
Speaker 3: Of course, there often is, and there was an associated
Speaker 3: press investigation dating back to like twenty nineteen. The law
Speaker 3: knew about this, it appears yea.
Speaker 4: It would appear.
Speaker 6: So it just feels like an escalation to me.
Speaker 5: And you know, and if it's happening here, it's the
Speaker 5: kind of thing that doesn't feel isolated. It feels like
Speaker 5: with these types of systematic elements to identify like this
Speaker 5: was designed to be a network.
Speaker 3: With enough passing of the buck or just moving someone
Speaker 3: a town or a country over. I would also imagine
Speaker 3: I'm sure a lot of us, unfortunately have to think
Speaker 3: about this and how experienced one of this firsthand. Folks,
Speaker 3: if you have only lived in the United States, please
Speaker 3: be aware there are many other countries with a far
Speaker 3: looser grasp on the idea of rule of law. And indeed,
Speaker 3: in some of those parts of the world, regions, countries
Speaker 3: wherever you want to call it, the institution of the
Speaker 3: Catholic Church functions in the role of the state and
Speaker 3: has a lot of power, yes well.
Speaker 5: And also a looser grasp of consent or or a
Speaker 5: lot less emphasis placed on what that might look like.
Speaker 3: Consent does not enter the equation. These are monsters and
Speaker 3: these are victims. This is unfortunately, this is one of
Speaker 3: those things like we're talking about earlier in this evening's program.
Speaker 3: People want an uncomplicated narrative, well organized child abuse rings
Speaker 3: We posit are an uncomplicated narrative. These people need to
Speaker 3: be brought.
Speaker 2: Down, Yeah, absolutely, really quickly. I just want to mention
Speaker 2: something else that's in that memo, which is not as
Speaker 2: bad as the trafficking we're discussing here, but it is
Speaker 2: this type of insidious behavior that existed, at least in
Speaker 2: this case with the Archbishop of New Orleans. This guy
Speaker 2: named Gregory Amond, according to that memo, had previously made
Speaker 2: settlements with people so victims who claimed that a particular
Speaker 2: priest had molested them, and he authorized with official like
Speaker 2: church budgets to settlements, one for one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars, another for one hundred thousand dollars to
Speaker 2: resolve these situations out of court so they become secrets.
Speaker 2: The church essentially bought people's silence.
Speaker 4: Ye right, that I.
Speaker 3: Mean, I will say that you can sign an NDA
Speaker 3: that can be enforced like this out of court settlement,
Speaker 3: that agreement that doesn't really hold water if you're in
Speaker 3: da is agreeing to not check those but it's intimidation
Speaker 3: tactics as well, this very powerful institution. Of course, not
Speaker 3: all Catholics are evil, just no, forget that part.
Speaker 5: But this is we've all expressed tenuous relationships with the
Speaker 5: idea of settling out of court in general, especially when
Speaker 5: it comes to bringing powerful individuals and organizations to task.
Speaker 5: It just feels like a get out of jail free
Speaker 5: card and like a sweep everything under the rug card.
Speaker 3: Kendrick Lamar just taught me that apparently Drake had a
Speaker 3: five hundred something thousand dollars out of court settlement related
Speaker 3: to the long running rumors that he has attempted to
Speaker 3: groom young and underage women.
Speaker 5: Not to be that guy, but he strikes me as
Speaker 5: that not being that far from the truth. I don't know,
Speaker 5: never matter what it is about him, there's something that's
Speaker 5: skeeaky about that guy. I don't know what it is,
Speaker 5: but I'm glad we're mentioning Drake, not Kendrick.
Speaker 3: We'll glad we're mentioning the out of court settlements guys.
Speaker 2: Just the whole point of for me is speaking of
Speaker 2: systems right that are in place, this practice of taking
Speaker 2: in insane amounts of money from all of the people
Speaker 2: that attend all of the churches right in one place,
Speaker 2: like let's say New Orleans or that area whatever the
Speaker 2: archbishop presides over, taking in that money from all of
Speaker 2: your parishioners, using it due to silence those who either
Speaker 2: speak up or you know, get abused or get abused
Speaker 2: and speak up right, and you know.
Speaker 5: That we you know, again, we talked about how sometimes
Speaker 5: some of this stuff it just feels like the movies.
Speaker 4: But people that get just hung like.
Speaker 5: Power mad, and who are like I can do whatever
Speaker 5: I want, because I am the mouth, I am the
Speaker 5: voice of God.
Speaker 4: You know, I am connected.
Speaker 5: Therefore I cannot be judged by the laws of.
Speaker 4: Man, you know.
Speaker 5: And I think there's probably a genuine delusional belief.
Speaker 4: Amongst some of these circles. That is the case me.
Speaker 3: But I prayed about it. I read some The only
Speaker 3: word for it is I read some infernal things regarding
Speaker 3: activities at the Vatican. And the network spans right and
Speaker 3: there are documented cases wherein people were saying that these victims,
Speaker 3: these children were tempting them, or was Satan tempting them,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. And maybe they really did
Speaker 3: believe that rationalization, but it doesn't make their actions not monstrous.
Speaker 3: I am very I am not in favor of rehabilitative acts.
Speaker 3: This is a take them down situation kind of thing
Speaker 3: for me, just because again we see an established network.
Speaker 3: We see one that has been able to practice to
Speaker 3: a degree what we will call regulatory capture, which is
Speaker 3: control over state and law enforcement institutions. And if this
Speaker 3: is horrific, our thoughts are with all the victims, all
Speaker 3: their loved ones, family members, But please please understand this
Speaker 3: is happening in the United states, and it shows us,
Speaker 3: It shows us the statistical inevitability that even worse things
Speaker 3: are happening in places that have more compromised governments. This
Speaker 3: is just horrific.
Speaker 6: And again, yeah, people are learning to speak with whales.
Speaker 3: Though. If we need good.
Speaker 4: News, Ben, can we please? That's all I've got to say.
Speaker 4: I washed my hand. Now, I don't wash my hands
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 5: This is something that needs to you know, these people
Speaker 5: need to be dragged out into the light, and no
Speaker 5: one should ever wash their hands of making sure these
Speaker 5: people see justice. But I washed my hands of this
Speaker 5: story for the moment, just to wash the ick off.
Speaker 5: I need a shower. Could we maybe like swim with
Speaker 5: the whales for a minute them.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, just for a second. We can tell you
Speaker 3: in good news for fans of animals in a world first.
Speaker 3: This April, scientists had a conversation with a humpback whale.
Speaker 3: What did they talk about? Here's the thing, They're not
Speaker 3: totally sure. I wish that'd be an amazing I can't.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine if extraterrestrials land and they're really really
Speaker 3: hot about something that's familiar on their planet, and they
Speaker 3: just only want to talk about that. I love that idea, Like,
Speaker 3: what if they you know, because I guess the way
Speaker 3: time and space work, they're a little behind right in
Speaker 3: musical trends, the way like Europe is continually catching up
Speaker 3: to us musical trends. I said it, whoa, that is
Speaker 3: in fact a hot take.
Speaker 4: One might argue the opposite. I'm with you.
Speaker 3: It depends on which genres we're talking about.
Speaker 2: But what if their equivalent of Avatar III is about
Speaker 2: to release, so they just came here to like get
Speaker 2: some hype going.
Speaker 3: They'll say, you don't really have to watch the first two. Yeah,
Speaker 3: apologies to Europe, of course, the Europe leads the way
Speaker 3: and so many of these things. I'm glad you didn't
Speaker 3: let me slide on that one, Nold. But here's what happened.
Speaker 3: The an animal behaviorists named Josie Hubbard. Her and her
Speaker 3: group have been working with a humpback whale named Twain
Speaker 3: and in the off the coast of Alaska. These six
Speaker 3: scientists were basically doing something that I'm sure a lot
Speaker 3: of us have done with animals in our neck of
Speaker 3: the woods. They were taking recordings of an actual animal communicating,
Speaker 3: and they were playing it back in this case, they
Speaker 3: were playing it back into the void of the waters
Speaker 3: off the coast of Alaska, playing humpback sounds and hoping
Speaker 3: to humpback whale answered them. And humans actually don't know
Speaker 3: very much about the whales at this time, so this
Speaker 3: is the first time they managed to get in a
Speaker 3: conversation with it. And it's kind of like if you
Speaker 3: were talking to someone online and you were using a
Speaker 3: set of emojis that you don't understand, but they were
Speaker 3: responding and you just sort of kept trying to respond
Speaker 3: with their replies. It's like large language model thing almost.
Speaker 3: So the next step is to figure out what the
Speaker 3: conversation was about. But apparently it went.
Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, I heard just a snippet of it just now, Ben,
Speaker 2: as you're driving it, just the yeah, these interesting sounds
Speaker 2: that were emitted by the scientists, and then the response
Speaker 2: that's very different but similar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like following up right, Yeah, they hit you
Speaker 3: back with some more emoji. We know that the cetaceans
Speaker 3: are incredibly intelligent. We know that, as hippy as it
Speaker 3: may sounds, we know that personhood should not be a
Speaker 3: concept restricted entirely to this one brand of primate. But
Speaker 3: it would be amazing to be able to decode this.
Speaker 3: They're using AI now, it's one of the few good
Speaker 3: uses of AI to try to decipher this situation to
Speaker 3: see if they can get to a Rosetta stone. But
Speaker 3: whales are so like they have accents, they have gangs,
Speaker 3: they have little clicks.
Speaker 4: They do cool little hand signals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a hand signal, which is wild because who knows
Speaker 3: where they get the hands they're getting from somewhere.
Speaker 5: Oh, I know, I always love that Kravana get lyne
Speaker 5: about how like dolphins have fins because they evolved so
Speaker 5: they couldn't hold machine guns, you know, and made them
Speaker 5: inherently more peaceful.
Speaker 4: That's the peaceful whales. No machine guns in those fins.
Speaker 3: Well with this, folks, We really appreciate your time. As always,
Speaker 3: we're all in this together. We want to hear from
Speaker 3: you regarding any of these stories we have explored. We
Speaker 3: want to hear what you think Wales would say. Honestly. Also,
Speaker 3: I think it would be hilarious if extra terrestrials landed
Speaker 3: and they weren't that impressive, like they had only worked
Speaker 3: out space travel and everything else that we had done
Speaker 3: amazed them. They would be like velcrow.
Speaker 4: Whoa sparkling water? What is all this glittery stuff in
Speaker 4: the ocean?
Speaker 3: Oh boy, they're probably just going to talk to the whales.
Speaker 3: But in the meantime you can talk to us. We'd
Speaker 3: love to hear from you. We try to be easy
Speaker 3: to find online.
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