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.
Speaker 3: My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
Speaker 4: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 4: super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
Speaker 4: you are you. You are here, and that makes this
Speaker 4: the stuff they don't want you to know. This is,
Speaker 4: I believe, one of the very last listener male segments
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty three. We hope you join us soon,
Speaker 4: whether that's twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five. Human
Speaker 4: calendars are kind of made up. We're so glad, as always,
Speaker 4: so grateful that you are here to say, spend some
Speaker 4: time with us. Time is the only real currency in
Speaker 4: the world. Tonight, we're gonna hear from Hoboken Johnny with
Speaker 4: a story that has at least fascinated me at least
Speaker 4: for several years.
Speaker 3: Not to be confused with Hobo Johnson.
Speaker 4: Just for the record, Just for the record, We're also
Speaker 4: going to hear from some anonymous callers. We're gonna hear
Speaker 4: from Kibo, and we're gonna talk about burn bitch, We're
Speaker 4: gonna talk about Oh gosh, I didn't even want to
Speaker 4: spoil all this stuff. Maybe we start this way with
Speaker 4: a question from Whatnot, why would you say no to
Speaker 4: a free tablet?
Speaker 3: Well, I sure wouldn't, and I didn't. In fact, when
Speaker 3: I got a new phone account, I think through T Mobile,
Speaker 3: and you know, they always like to rope you into contracts,
Speaker 3: so they're like, hey, do you want the free Apple
Speaker 3: Watch free quote unquote the one you'll be paying installments
Speaker 3: on for you know, the duration of the contract, or
Speaker 3: the iPad? And I went with the iPad because, frankly,
Speaker 3: a tablet is a much more multi functional device than
Speaker 3: an Apple Watch. Here we go. Whatnot writes in saying
Speaker 3: you can call me Whatnot. I have recently discovered your
Speaker 3: podcast in the last year and religiously listen to it
Speaker 3: during my overnight stocking shift. Thank you, Whatnot. I appreciate
Speaker 3: your guys work and insight into topics. This is my
Speaker 3: first time emailing you, and it's because I keep seeing
Speaker 3: ads on my Facebook for a company called Whoop Connect,
Speaker 3: Like Whoop there it is. That's that's very funny. It
Speaker 3: advertises a free tablet and internet connection for just an
Speaker 3: eleven dollars copay for those who are on government programs
Speaker 3: such as EBT, WICIC, Medicaid, and pell grant. My first
Speaker 3: thoughts slash questions about this is why are they targeting
Speaker 3: free tablets to those who are on government programs? It
Speaker 3: could be from the goodness of their heart, yeah, right,
Speaker 3: and wanting to get more people access to these technologies
Speaker 3: we are using every day. Another thought goes back to surveillance,
Speaker 3: is there's something they don't want us to know about
Speaker 3: why they're giving out free tablets to those of lower
Speaker 3: socioeconomic status. Do they just want to track these individuals
Speaker 3: or get internet access to those who don't have any
Speaker 3: so everybody can continue being tracked through our devices. I
Speaker 3: don't know. Something feels off about this to me, and
Speaker 3: I was curious on your guys thoughts. Here's a link
Speaker 3: to the website for whoop Connect. It's literally www dot
Speaker 3: whoopconnect dot com. Who came up with that and why?
Speaker 3: I did see a similar program but with phones instead
Speaker 3: of tablets. Now, that's a thing, the Obama phone, and
Speaker 3: that is absolutely very valuable to a lot of people
Speaker 3: that couldn't afford to have phones. This is me interjecting,
Speaker 3: but by the way, those Obama phones were like the
Speaker 3: dumbest of dumb phones. You possibly could get literally a
Speaker 3: flip phone, So it's not getting any benefit from from
Speaker 3: your data or like internet browsing habits. I have thought
Speaker 3: about emailing before in the past, since hearing the Divine
Speaker 3: Intervention episode. Going into the show, I had a way
Speaker 3: different idea of spiritual intervention than how you guys discussed it.
Speaker 3: I have my own story that differs from those discussed
Speaker 3: in your listener mail episodes. I will gladly tell you
Speaker 3: just email me back and we certainly will thank you
Speaker 3: for taking the time to read this. Feel free to
Speaker 3: use whatever you'd like in this email for your creative purposes.
Speaker 3: You can also email me back with questions or comments
Speaker 3: as I'd appreciate it. Yeah, I made my interjection about
Speaker 3: the Obama phones, and this is not a political stance here,
Speaker 3: But I have a dear, dear friend who is you know,
Speaker 3: on a fixed income and would not have otherwise been
Speaker 3: able to afford to have a cell phone were it
Speaker 3: not for this Obama phone. But it is literally like
Speaker 3: sub razor Motorola Raser technology. It's like one of those
Speaker 3: old school Nokia brick type phones. So I'm wondering if
Speaker 3: this is just sort of a benevolent evolution of that program,
Speaker 3: or if whatnot is onto something here. What do you
Speaker 3: guys think?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm right now, I'm on the WOOP connect I'm
Speaker 4: on their website looking at the looking at the program
Speaker 4: or describing the affordable Connectivity program I believe is related
Speaker 4: to this, right, you get the new tablet. When we
Speaker 4: see offers like this, unfortunately, we have to be a
Speaker 4: little bit regnie about it. We have to trust but verify, right,
Speaker 4: So I'm looking at the legal disclaimer under terms of
Speaker 4: use and what we would be what we would be
Speaker 4: looking for when reading these things. You don't have to
Speaker 4: be a lawyer to do this is look at data use,
Speaker 4: look for things like third parties. You know, that's who
Speaker 4: they would be giving this data to. I mean, the
Speaker 4: opportunity for shenanigans is there. It is real, It is plausible.
Speaker 4: The question and I think what you're saying, whatnot? And
Speaker 4: I love your name, by the way. The question becomes
Speaker 4: a matter of whether this opportunity would be leveraged and
Speaker 4: if so in what way?
Speaker 3: Well, I did just do a Google of woop connect
Speaker 3: and one of the first Google instant results was is
Speaker 3: whoop connect legit? And then I immediately found a thread
Speaker 3: on Reddit whoop this is one big scam. Purchased a
Speaker 3: Whoop four point zero on March fifteenth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: realized it wasn't for me and put in a refund request.
Speaker 3: Not long after. They have never gotten back to me
Speaker 3: with a return label. I have put in several more
Speaker 3: with no response. I am currently on hold trying to
Speaker 3: get in contact with a rep, but no one has
Speaker 3: picked up after an hour plus. I tried canceling my membership,
Speaker 3: but they want to charge me three hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: dollars for my remaining commitment. This is beyond frustrating. I
Speaker 3: have showed support that I am still under thirty days.
Speaker 3: This company feels like an absolute scam am I alone.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 3: Are there any tips or suggestions to help me get
Speaker 3: this resolved? And if you've heard of the website trust Pilot, which,
Speaker 3: like you know, people are able to leave reviews for
Speaker 3: things like this. They have a half star rating on trust.
Speaker 4: I like you mentioned trust Pilot there and I saw
Speaker 4: that thread and some similar Reddit threads that one thing
Speaker 4: that sounds like old school, like we're on the Dave
Speaker 4: Clark Show or the Oh who's that other money guy
Speaker 4: famous in Atlanta?
Speaker 3: Oh gosh Savage.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's one. There's another Clark something Clark, right, right, Clark.
Speaker 4: What's his face? Yeah, Howard Howard, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 4: Matt Yeah, Clark Howard. So those guys are right. I
Speaker 4: don't agree with them and everything, but they're right when
Speaker 4: they say you should look at the Better Business Bureau
Speaker 4: for companies like this whenever you have a question. And
Speaker 4: I'm just going through.
Speaker 2: The But we've also heard the Better Business Bureau as
Speaker 2: a scam.
Speaker 3: It's not great, man. I was roped into something very shady. Recently.
Speaker 3: There was an ad that came up on Instagram for
Speaker 3: a cleaning service that connects you with house cleaner. It's
Speaker 3: called Dazzling Cleaning, and it's like, oh, first cleaning is
Speaker 3: like nine dollars, and y'all, if something seems too good
Speaker 3: to be true, nine times out of in it is
Speaker 3: absolutely too good to be true. I had a great
Speaker 3: experience with my very cheap cleaning and then had people
Speaker 3: not show up and still get charged, So I would
Speaker 3: to try to cancel it, and they said, oh, well,
Speaker 3: if you cancel now, you'll be charged for the full
Speaker 3: price of the first nine dollars cleaning. Plus there's this
Speaker 3: membership fee that we didn't tell you about. So basically
Speaker 3: at this point you're stuck, you know, just doing the year.
Speaker 3: And I went to Better Business Bureau and I'm talking
Speaker 3: thousands of negative reviews of people talking about and this
Speaker 3: is a very similar thing.
Speaker 4: That's why I'm bringing up Better Business Bureau because you
Speaker 4: don't I'm not saying they don't want to be misconstrued.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying they're a perfect entity. I'm saying it's
Speaker 4: a valuable resource for me.
Speaker 3: We had his own perspective about it being its own
Speaker 3: potential problematic entity.
Speaker 2: I was just pointing out that we've had people write
Speaker 2: into us about how, yeah, there's weird stuff going on
Speaker 2: with BBB two.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely there's. I think it's it's challenging to find
Speaker 4: any perfect institution. I would say the reason that I
Speaker 4: brought them up in the first place there is because
Speaker 4: I think it's a insightful way to read complaints that
Speaker 4: are legit. You know, Yelp is compromised. Obviously, that's that's true.
Speaker 4: But I'm just looking at, you know, similar to how
Speaker 4: you were talking with trust Pilot or talking about with
Speaker 4: Trust Pilot. I'm looking at complaints the complaint page from
Speaker 4: BBB about Whoop and it's not BBB accredited. That might
Speaker 4: be part of the grift, right, you might have to
Speaker 4: pay the BBB. And I'm stick yeah, right, And I'm
Speaker 4: seeing a lot of similar complaints here. So it does
Speaker 4: feel like it does kind of correct me on this NOL.
Speaker 4: It does kind of seem like the the typical complaints
Speaker 4: regarding maybe contract traps, some shoddy service or customer service.
Speaker 4: Maybe another way to look at this is to ask ourselves.
Speaker 4: Qult a company that, according to its detractors, already has
Speaker 4: some serious logistical problems, could they be capable of Sully
Speaker 4: data or information or would they be morally constrained in
Speaker 4: some way? I don't know, it's tough to tell. We're
Speaker 4: gonna have to read the terms and conditions.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's less the surveillance aspect and more
Speaker 3: just capitalizing on people that maybe you know, can't afford
Speaker 3: this thing and they want to have it. And then
Speaker 3: these people are like, oh, well, you can have it
Speaker 3: too if you just pay this copay. But then there's
Speaker 3: all these hidden things. One response on the Reddit threat
Speaker 3: is one hundred percent of big scam tried to cancel
Speaker 3: my free trial, and they are forcing me to pay
Speaker 3: for a full year of subscription in order to cancel.
Speaker 3: Stay away from them. I also tried to get in
Speaker 3: touch with them on Twitter and they blocked me, so
Speaker 3: I couldn't expose them to the public. If they had
Speaker 3: nothing to hide, they wouldn't block me. This to me
Speaker 3: reminds me of those like rent to own type places
Speaker 3: that are capitalizing on folks that want to keep up
Speaker 3: with the Joneses but maybe can't necessarily afford it to
Speaker 3: pay out in cash. I think this is entirely opportunistic
Speaker 3: and not necessarily about surveillance at all, just about ripping
Speaker 3: people off. You just want to be part of what
Speaker 3: everyone else is a part of.
Speaker 4: Yeah, whatnot? Please if you have missed our rent to
Speaker 4: Own episode, please do check it out. The math is
Speaker 4: astonishing and it is not uncommon for vulnerable members of
Speaker 4: a population to be targeted by businesses. Again, seeing conflaints,
Speaker 4: but as far as as far as a conspiracy, we
Speaker 4: would just need to we would need to dig a
Speaker 4: little bit more.
Speaker 3: I think agreed.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the terms and conditions about d enrollment right,
Speaker 2: like how that functions. It says upon receiving a request
Speaker 2: them receiving a request, you will be d enrolled within
Speaker 2: two business days, and upon the enrollment from the ACP program,
Speaker 2: you will no longer receive free minutes, text messages or
Speaker 2: data each month, and will be required to requalify for
Speaker 2: service if you choose to re enroll. There's a whole
Speaker 2: thing in here, guys about becoming a distributor. Did you
Speaker 2: see that?
Speaker 3: That sounds like pyramid scam type stuff. You know, that's wild.
Speaker 4: There's also an inherent agreement to arbitration, which.
Speaker 3: Is there's an implied connection to the government. But I
Speaker 3: don't think it's that's real at all. They're just saying
Speaker 3: you can qualify for our thing if you are, you know,
Speaker 3: a member of these government services. But there's no connection
Speaker 3: to the to the government like the Obama phone.
Speaker 4: It could be it could be a matter of tax
Speaker 4: write offs, right. It could be a matter of favorable
Speaker 4: deals wholesale buying outdated technology, right, which helps.
Speaker 3: The mag at a deal, right, yep ye.
Speaker 4: And the arbitration agreement. I just want to close the
Speaker 4: loop on that one, because arbitration agreements are incredibly dangerous
Speaker 4: to you as a consumer. It removes legal rights that
Speaker 4: you would otherwise have, so always read those carefully. They're
Speaker 4: not necessarily sinister. It is just a part of doing business,
Speaker 4: but a lot of times companies will try to sort
Speaker 4: of slide those under the radar and hope that you
Speaker 4: are not the person who reads through the entirety of
Speaker 4: those things.
Speaker 2: Well, almost every major company that we sign agreements with
Speaker 2: to use their services now have that arbitration clause, which
Speaker 2: means like pretty much, no matter what happens, if it
Speaker 2: has to do with either an electronic device or a
Speaker 2: service you use, you're not going to be able to
Speaker 2: take legal action because you already sign the thing just
Speaker 2: by using That's.
Speaker 3: What arbitration agreement means. That like literally you're signing away
Speaker 3: your right to sue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you was what Ben was just saying. You'd have
Speaker 2: to go hang out with their lawyers, and their lawyers
Speaker 2: would just be like, hey, they're.
Speaker 3: Better than your lawyers. The question about it, yeah, uh weird.
Speaker 3: Last thing I just want to say, though, like this
Speaker 3: is very easy to get roped into this stuff. With
Speaker 3: the cleaning thing. With me, I tried canceling getting a
Speaker 3: new debit card because I really felt like this thing
Speaker 3: was a scam because of all the really horrible reviews.
Speaker 3: But I realized that I was genuinely trapped. And to
Speaker 3: your point, Matt about the Better Business Bureau, this dazzling
Speaker 3: cleaning thing, thousands of bad reviews and yet they're still
Speaker 3: doing business. So the question becomes, what is the value
Speaker 3: of a thing like the Better Business Bureau if you
Speaker 3: can have all of these negative reports and no action
Speaker 3: is taken. So I finally found a cleaner that I
Speaker 3: really liked, and I'm just gonna keep it for a year,
Speaker 3: and then once that year is up, I'm going to
Speaker 3: cancel it and just pay her directly. Because also talking
Speaker 3: to the cleaner, she's trapped in it too, oh, in
Speaker 3: a very similar way as me, where she signed something
Speaker 3: to be able to get these recommendations or to get
Speaker 3: you know, connected with clients, but now she's stuck for
Speaker 3: however long in the same way. So she was very
Speaker 3: did not have good things to say about the service.
Speaker 3: So all this to say that no one who quote
Speaker 3: unquote fell for this is stupid, you know, it's a
Speaker 3: very easy thing to fall into.
Speaker 4: So check out the privacy policy and we'll connect. I
Speaker 4: found it, of course, toward the bottom of some of
Speaker 4: this stuff about how they share or allow access to
Speaker 4: personal information. That includes sharing with their parent, subsidiary, affiliate
Speaker 4: companies for business, operational, and legal purposes, so they can
Speaker 4: do what they want by using it. You are unless
Speaker 4: you go to them and say, hey, I specifically want
Speaker 4: you to pull this part out of my agreement, which
Speaker 4: very few people will do, then you are signing away
Speaker 4: right to a class action lawsuit. You're signing away your
Speaker 4: right to even ask for your money back. Honestly, well,
Speaker 4: thank you?
Speaker 3: What not for?
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 3: Does seem that this is definitely some shade of a scam,
Speaker 3: so proceed with caution, folks enticed by whoop connect. If
Speaker 3: the name itself alone didn't give away that maybe something
Speaker 3: was a miss. We're going to take a quick break
Speaker 3: here a word from our sponsor, and come back with
Speaker 3: more messages from you.
Speaker 2: And we've returned. We are going to the phone lines
Speaker 2: and we're going to hear a message from Chemo who
Speaker 2: listened to our I think it was our strange news Ben,
Speaker 2: I can't remember streetchers or listener mail where we talked
Speaker 2: about the burn pits.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that would be listener mail.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yes, So we have somebody who had some personal
Speaker 2: experience with some burn pits who just wanted to give
Speaker 2: us a little more insight into what that was like.
Speaker 2: So here is Chemo.
Speaker 5: Hey, guys, I was just listening to your most recent
Speaker 5: listener mail episode and the segment you guys were talking
Speaker 5: about burn pits overseas and the VA I just want
Speaker 5: to add my two cents worth. I was a medic
Speaker 5: in Afghanistan for an infantry platoon in two thousand and
Speaker 5: ten I believe it was, And we were in southern
Speaker 5: Kanda Hart, a place called and the biggest BOB in
Speaker 5: the area was and we were a few miles from
Speaker 5: fob had a huge burn pit, massive massive burn pit.
Speaker 5: The burn pits that we had at our patrol bases
Speaker 5: and our small cop combat outpost, they were generally just
Speaker 5: small holes doug like the ones that we had. Specifically,
Speaker 5: the engineers came in one day with a bulldozer and
Speaker 5: just bulldozed just out a couple of little holes in
Speaker 5: the ground and being as how I was a platoon medic.
Speaker 5: I got tasked with burning and the trash, and there
Speaker 5: was two separate burn pits, one for the and one
Speaker 5: for the trash. They were small burn pits, but it
Speaker 5: was still a lot of thick black smoke. You guys
Speaker 5: were talking about some sort of like face protection, face masks,
Speaker 5: face coverings, and it was nothing like that. It's whatever
Speaker 5: you had nearby that you could wrap around your face.
Speaker 5: There was no filtered face masks or anything like that. Anyway, Again,
Speaker 5: I love the show. You guys do great work. That's
Speaker 5: my two cents worth about the burn pits. It was
Speaker 5: chaotic cluster. Say the least, you guys feel free to
Speaker 5: reach out to me. Have a great day.
Speaker 2: There you go. That's from chemo. Just again like experiencing
Speaker 2: what it's like to have those burn pits, even in
Speaker 2: a smaller combat outpost like that, not one of the
Speaker 2: major what do he calls them fobs of the operating
Speaker 2: base exactly the larger bases where the larger burn pits were, right.
Speaker 2: He describes the burn pit at one specific fob near
Speaker 2: where his combat outpost was. That was massive, right, but
Speaker 2: just him being an individual basically having to go out
Speaker 2: there and burn the trash in human waste. Creating all
Speaker 2: that black smoke probably not great for the health, especially
Speaker 2: when you don't have any official protection for breathing that stuff.
Speaker 4: And No, I guess the way to say it is
Speaker 4: an at times hostile infrastructure amid the institutions that are
Speaker 4: supposed to support you after military service. And Chemo, I
Speaker 4: want to thank you for for giving us on the
Speaker 4: ground description here and to let you know that you
Speaker 4: this is something that we have We have heard stories
Speaker 4: like this too often for it to be a one
Speaker 4: off kind of situation in terms of, you know, it
Speaker 4: sounds weird saying it in a military application, but in
Speaker 4: terms of workplace safety, a lot of the rules that
Speaker 4: exist in papers seem to not exist in practice. And Matt,
Speaker 4: just while Matted, I want to thank you for the
Speaker 4: slick edits on that voicemail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Kimo asked us to edit out some specifics about
Speaker 2: the location. He was comfortable saying southern Kandahar in Afghanistan
Speaker 2: in the year but not like maybe the actual name
Speaker 2: of the base absolutely that makes sense, Yeah, and the
Speaker 2: district it was in. Chimo's great By the way, Kimo
Speaker 2: had some very nice things to say to you, guys,
Speaker 2: and just very kind person who's been listening for a
Speaker 2: long time and a pretty uciates when we bring up
Speaker 2: these subjects about you know, FETs.
Speaker 3: So I got you.
Speaker 4: Maybe we'll get a chance to talk with you.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just call the number. It's in the system.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 2: We can do it. We'll do it together, and I did.
Speaker 2: I will. We'll circle back to Chemo in just a
Speaker 2: moment after after we hear a next message, because I
Speaker 2: asked Chemo about the next message. You're about to hear
Speaker 2: from an anonymous person who did not pick up when
Speaker 2: I called back.
Speaker 6: Here we go, Hey guys, longtime listener, first time called her.
Speaker 6: Just guys, doesn't listen into your Agent Orange episode. Finally,
Speaker 6: and it made me think of some of the other
Speaker 6: stuff that the government and the VA is dodging, you know,
Speaker 6: as far as their responsibility for things that they've done,
Speaker 6: and specifically the Gulf War. And stop me if you've
Speaker 6: heard this before, but everybody talks about depleted uranium nerve
Speaker 6: agent all this other bullsh but the cause of all
Speaker 6: of that was a thing called PB pills that they
Speaker 6: gave us, which was ironically to help us me av
Speaker 6: of a nerve agent attack and they cast these huge
Speaker 6: white nests doing these surveys. But that's all just bullshywatch
Speaker 6: because you have to look at the very small group
Speaker 6: of people and figure out why some guys came out okay,
Speaker 6: and some guys came out really messed up. And I
Speaker 6: can tell you from my unit the guys that were
Speaker 6: really messed up, and I mean cancers, multiple sclerosis, those
Speaker 6: are the guys who took those TV pills religiously. And yeah,
Speaker 6: and I took it a little bit and I had
Speaker 6: some weird, little nagging problems, but the guys who didn't
Speaker 6: take it at all had no problems at all. So
Speaker 6: I'm not a scientist, but I would think there would
Speaker 6: be something to that. Ironically, also, when they do these
Speaker 6: studies which I've taken part in, they go through these
Speaker 6: huge laundry list of drugs.
Speaker 5: Did you take this?
Speaker 6: Did you take that? Not once did they ever ask
Speaker 6: you if they took PB pills? And I thought that
Speaker 6: was ironic, and I asked at the end of the study,
Speaker 6: It's like, well, what about these pills that they gave us,
Speaker 6: And they'll all look at you. I don't even know
Speaker 6: what that is. Never heard of it, so interestingly enough,
Speaker 6: they also don't ever talk about the fact they gave
Speaker 6: us speed and sleeping pills like Halsey on, which also
Speaker 6: caused the problems, but those are never mentioned on those
Speaker 6: surveys either. But anyway, if you've heard all this before,
Speaker 6: I'm sorry for wasting your time, but I think you
Speaker 6: guys should look into it because I've said it to
Speaker 6: all kinds of people and they just sort of look
Speaker 6: at you, and you know, nobody really seems to care,
Speaker 6: which I think is kind of interesting. But anyway, hey,
Speaker 6: love the show, you guys, take care and fight in
Speaker 6: a good fight.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: Here we go, anonymous person, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: that information you brought up with subject that I knew
Speaker 2: nothing about it. I know nothing about this, you guys
Speaker 2: until I started like looking into it after hearing that message.
Speaker 3: Well, I was gonna mention on the burn pit caller
Speaker 3: that it reminded me of like Agent Orange and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. Like to your point Dan about how a
Speaker 3: lot of times folks in these positions aren't looked after
Speaker 3: after the fact, and the rules seem to be very murky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's jump into what this is. These PB pills
Speaker 2: that our caller is referring to were largely given to
Speaker 2: I guess soldiers, Marines, army personnel during the Gulf War,
Speaker 2: what's known as the Gulf War. The I guess it's
Speaker 2: the first official time the United States entered Iraq on
Speaker 2: a unmilitary missions like this, and these PB pills are
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try and get this right, puriodostic mine bromide pills.
Speaker 2: These are pills that were used or I guess the
Speaker 2: usage at the time officially was as an anti nerve
Speaker 2: agent pill, so kind of to pre treat all of
Speaker 2: the soldiers in case at some point while they're on
Speaker 2: the ground they would get exposed to some kind of
Speaker 2: nerve agent, which was a big It was thought to
Speaker 2: be a major threat during the Gulf War. If you
Speaker 2: think back to the weapons of mass destruction claims that
Speaker 2: were there were going like swimming around in the world.
Speaker 2: When the United States entered Iraq again in two thousand
Speaker 2: and three, a lot of it had to do with
Speaker 2: weapons that were encountered back you know, when Iraq was
Speaker 2: at war with Kuwait and when the United States then intervened.
Speaker 2: Back then, nerve agents were a very big thing also
Speaker 2: used by Western powers. Nerve agents, chemical warfare fun times.
Speaker 3: Don't we say that we don't do that? Isn't that
Speaker 3: like the public stance.
Speaker 4: We don't say we don't. We say we don't in
Speaker 4: specific circumstances it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, white phosphorus, it's just for cover, right. Anyway, this
Speaker 2: is a very fascinating thing. There's a ton of writing
Speaker 2: on the official VA website. You can go to Publichealth
Speaker 2: dot VA dot gov. There is a large section about
Speaker 2: these PB pills in Gulf War veterans. They say these
Speaker 2: pills are quote a possible cause of chronic multisymptom illnesses.
Speaker 2: So it's definitely something the VA is looking at, tracking
Speaker 2: aware of. We have no idea how much actual work
Speaker 2: is going into assisting veterans who have been dealing with
Speaker 2: exposure to these substances.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I've anonymous. I've heard some. I feel like
Speaker 4: I've heard some that's mentioned this thing. But to that point,
Speaker 4: it's not I don't think it's widely known. We certainly
Speaker 4: don't know much about it. It's not widely known outside
Speaker 4: of military circles. But I was right there with you, Matt,
Speaker 4: looking at the VA itself, surprised to see returning guest
Speaker 4: the Rand corporation talk about risk that cannot be ruled
Speaker 4: out with certitude and linking it in their review of
Speaker 4: scientific literature to other unexplained or officially undiagnosed illnesses. One
Speaker 4: thing that really stood out here that they don't spend
Speaker 4: much time on in the VA the VA examination and
Speaker 4: their written statements is this one line further research is
Speaker 4: needed on PP and other agents as well as on
Speaker 4: genetic factors and long term health effects. That's some terrifying
Speaker 4: stuff to read if it's not explained genetic factors, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the weirdest things about this drug, you guys,
Speaker 2: it's been prescribed for decades to treat something called I'm
Speaker 2: going to try and get this correct as well, be
Speaker 2: as athenia gravis MA as athena gravis. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if that's correct. It's a neuro muscular disease of very
Speaker 2: rather rare disease. So this was a drug that was
Speaker 2: used it had a usage purpose, right, and then it
Speaker 2: was used in during the Gulf War for this other
Speaker 2: purpose that I guess just maybe there wasn't enough study
Speaker 2: that went into it. It seems really weird. I asked
Speaker 2: Chemo about this a veteran of the Afghanistan I guess
Speaker 2: the war in Afghanistan, and he was unaware of anything
Speaker 2: called peb pills or something similar to that. But he
Speaker 2: did tell us quite a bit about, you know, the
Speaker 2: stuff we've heard from other vets, the major rounds of
Speaker 2: vaccinations that you have to get, you know, particularly anti
Speaker 2: malaria stuff, smallpox, anthrax, all kinds of things that again,
Speaker 2: potentially these these soldiers could be exposed to. But there
Speaker 2: were other things, at least in Chemo's case that he
Speaker 2: was that were administered to him that he just wasn't
Speaker 2: even sure what it was, but he just kind of
Speaker 2: had to take it. When you go in right, yea.
Speaker 4: It's unfortunately, it's a normalized procedure. I also aw Matt
Speaker 4: in some of the literature on this. I'm looking at
Speaker 4: the National Library of Medicine on the Gulf War and
Speaker 4: Health publication. I'm noticing that there was probably fog of
Speaker 4: war and rush to deployment of this substance. Specifically, how
Speaker 4: the FDA allowed The Food Drug Administration in the US
Speaker 4: allowed the Department of Defense, or DODU, a waiver from
Speaker 4: the usual requirement to obtain informed consent from service members
Speaker 4: before they were taking this substance, and they said, look,
Speaker 4: we're in a hurry four point thirty on a Friday,
Speaker 4: energy you know, well, what was it? Henry Kissinger said, like,
Speaker 4: just make it happen. We'll worry about the constitutionality later.
Speaker 3: Well, I was going to ask, is there anything that
Speaker 3: protects the government from not getting consent from service people? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Those waivers, Okay, the FDA is saying, hey, you don't
Speaker 4: due to due to extenuating circumstances or the ticking clock argument.
Speaker 4: We have to choose the greater good and we will
Speaker 4: sort it out as soon as we can afterwards, after
Speaker 4: the crisis has completed. And you know, the thing is,
Speaker 4: increasingly we're learning the crises never really end. They simply
Speaker 4: transform and sometimes they drop out of the news. Matt
Speaker 4: I saw the DoD reported they had an estimated five
Speaker 4: point three north of five point three million doses that
Speaker 4: went out to service members, and around maybe more than
Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty thousand people took some measure of this.
Speaker 4: To your point, Anon Anonymous, some people were taking it
Speaker 4: a lot, said religiously. Some people were just taking it occasionally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so when you think about a dose that's
Speaker 2: one pill, right, and then they were handed out in
Speaker 2: these twenty one pill blister packages, so that's a lot
Speaker 2: of pills they got distributed. And the reason, at least
Speaker 2: according to our caller, they're one of the major reasons
Speaker 2: that people would take these is because you are told, hey,
Speaker 2: there are nerve agents like saren gas that you might
Speaker 2: encounter if you take this. It was described as an antidote,
Speaker 2: but not really. You know, you're gonna have less chance
Speaker 2: of being affected as fully by that nerve agent if
Speaker 2: you take this.
Speaker 3: It's like an inoculation almost in kind of, but not really.
Speaker 3: You're right, now, that's different, yeah.
Speaker 2: Because theoretically the substances molecules within that drug will bind
Speaker 2: to some of the molecules within that seren gas and
Speaker 2: they won't bind to your body in the same way.
Speaker 2: Right theoretically, but according to that same National Library of
Speaker 2: Medicine article that you pointed to, Ben, it's like not
Speaker 2: known if that actually would have happened, like when when
Speaker 2: exposure to seren gas would have occurred. It's like, theoretically
Speaker 2: that could have been beneficial and helped.
Speaker 4: The science checks out right in theory.
Speaker 2: But they also list a bunch of side effects of this,
Speaker 2: especially if you take too much of this stuff. It
Speaker 2: does not mention long term effects of being dosed with
Speaker 2: this material.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like fifty percent of the people who took this
Speaker 4: had some sort of reported self reported side effect, primarily
Speaker 4: gastrointestinal in nature. I saw for anybody wondering that the
Speaker 4: dosage I believe is thirty milligrams per dablet yep, so
Speaker 4: it's not an insane amount. But we also have to
Speaker 4: wonder how quickly the body processes it, because I think
Speaker 4: it's one tablet every eight hours is the recommended dosage
Speaker 4: they were giving people, So you have to wonder whether
Speaker 4: that is cumulative in effect. To your point, Anonymous, it
Speaker 4: does seem like they're we're stronger side effects and damaging
Speaker 4: effects for people who continue taking the dose. So whatever
Speaker 4: was happening was not evacuating the body fully without leaving
Speaker 4: something behind or some kind of effect. Very dangerous stuff.
Speaker 2: Absolutely read up more on this. If you're interested, please
Speaker 2: let us know if you took PB pills, if you
Speaker 2: got any information about it. If you want to share
Speaker 2: a story, do call us or write to us. Our
Speaker 2: number is one eight three three stdwytk our email is
Speaker 2: conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. We'll be right back with
Speaker 2: more messages from you.
Speaker 4: We have returned. We've got a message here from Hoboken Johnny,
Speaker 4: and just want to say at the top, this can
Speaker 4: be a controversial thing. It's something I and several of
Speaker 4: us have read on for a number of years, and
Speaker 4: it's a somewhat tricky thing to discuss. Just to be candid,
Speaker 4: so Hoboken Johnny says, season's greetings. My name is Hoboken Johnny.
Speaker 4: I have been a religious, un slightly intended listener for
Speaker 4: the better part of a decade. First time writing in
Speaker 4: I always enjoyed the episodes mentioning New Jersey and our
Speaker 4: beloved leather winged Cryptid. But there are some much darker
Speaker 4: forces I play here in the Garden State, sadly ones
Speaker 4: that are affecting hundreds of lives and possibly generations. Hoboken
Speaker 4: Johnny says, this will be a long one, so buckle up, buckeroos.
Speaker 4: I love it when people say buckeroo in letters at least,
Speaker 4: so we're gonna paraphrase some of this because it is
Speaker 4: quite a thorough piece of correspondence, and you're an awesome writer.
Speaker 4: By the way Hoboken, which makes sense. So we do
Speaker 4: have to cut a couple things to help preserve Hoboken's identity.
Speaker 4: Just so you know, Hoboken says, I wanted to bring
Speaker 4: the tout of Lake New Jersey to your attention, as
Speaker 4: I feel it doesn't receive the attention and frankly the
Speaker 4: scrutiny it needs on a state and national level. I've
Speaker 4: been a blank in the insert local government area for
Speaker 4: a number of years. I've been tossing around the idea
Speaker 4: of writing in on this subject. It needs to be
Speaker 4: discussed in a more public forum than we've been able
Speaker 4: to get locally in Lakewood. Lakewood is, for the most part,
Speaker 4: a fairly impoverished community with a majority population comprised of
Speaker 4: Hispanic and African American students, many of whom are first
Speaker 4: generation immigrants with little to know English speaking experience. Historically,
Speaker 4: our district has a reputation for being poor and violent
Speaker 4: and dangerous and all around just a terrible place to be.
Speaker 4: We've suffered the issues a lot of impoverished districts face,
Speaker 4: lack of funding, lack of support, etc. And editorializing here. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: that's a really common tale often in the United states
Speaker 4: this lack of funding and support. What makes Lakewood a
Speaker 4: bit different, says Hoboken, is that these conditions are seemingly
Speaker 4: being purposely imposed upon us. And yeah, I know, right.
Speaker 4: And this is where Hoboken puts in a disclaimer. This
Speaker 4: might strike some people's sideways, but you'll see why it's
Speaker 4: a very important disclaimer very soon. Hoboken says, Before I
Speaker 4: get into this, I need to state for the record
Speaker 4: that I hold absolutely no anti Semitic beliefs, opinions, or
Speaker 4: anything of the sort. What I have as a factual
Speaker 4: grievance based on what I have seen firsthand in the community,
Speaker 4: and I need to bring attention to this on behalf
Speaker 4: of the students. It's a well known fact around Ocean County,
Speaker 4: where Lakewood is based and the rest of the state
Speaker 4: that the town is run and controlled almost exclusively by
Speaker 4: and these are their words, the town's Hasidic Jewish population.
Speaker 4: The school district has a non Hasidic superintendent, but it's
Speaker 4: a very poorly kept secret that the superintendent functions under
Speaker 4: direct orders of the school's district attorney, who is in
Speaker 4: this community that our writer is talking about. So apparently
Speaker 4: the big problem is corruption this guy, the district attorney,
Speaker 4: Michael Inzilbook, has pocketed over five million dollars off the
Speaker 4: books over the course of six years. That's like a
Speaker 4: little you know, we get just cocktail math and say
Speaker 4: it's a pretty significant income every year. And then Hoboken
Speaker 4: points us to various articles that talk about corruption and
Speaker 4: oppression in this district and says, while all of this
Speaker 4: is terrible, of course, it goes much deeper than just
Speaker 4: misallocated funds. Here's where it gets crazy. The Hasidic community,
Speaker 4: says Hoboken, is essentially operating outside of the jurisdiction of
Speaker 4: local and state authorities. This community has its own ems service. Yeah, well,
Speaker 4: that's like saying venda, but you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: emergency services and their own law enforcement bodies. A religious
Speaker 4: police force sounds, you know, which doesn't sound like something
Speaker 4: you would have in a secular country like the United States,
Speaker 4: and says further, many properties are registered as religious sites,
Speaker 4: which means they don't pay taxes in a lot of situations. Right,
Speaker 4: and this goes on and on. I don't want to
Speaker 4: read it entirely in full, but we see the argument
Speaker 4: too that the public school system is being purposely cut
Speaker 4: off at the ankles, being denied funding, having future funding gutted,
Speaker 4: and that in place, members of the community are either
Speaker 4: confronting a lack of education therefore opportunity, or if they're
Speaker 4: in the Hasidic community, they're being sent to far better funded,
Speaker 4: better equipped private schools. And this is this is the
Speaker 4: lay of the land with this. Do you guys remember
Speaker 4: hearing other stories about similar accusations. I'm thinking New Jersey,
Speaker 4: I'm thinking New York in particular.
Speaker 3: No, But I mean, I do understand how a lot
Speaker 3: of these schools have a tendency to operate outside of
Speaker 3: the you know, traditional school system, and they probably have
Speaker 3: things in terms of like religious freedom that allow them
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 2: Well, you guys tell me if I'm just thinking incorrectly here.
Speaker 2: It reminds me a little bit of the Clearwater, Florida
Speaker 2: scientology situation that was going on, but that was more
Speaker 2: about property being purchased than public school zoning and you know,
Speaker 2: funding for schools in the area.
Speaker 4: I think that's a compe maybe.
Speaker 2: But I don't know. I guess it was a It
Speaker 2: was a religious community that was using the local power
Speaker 2: structures the local government to kind of get what they wanted.
Speaker 4: You can also see aspects of this in offshoots of
Speaker 4: the Latter Day Saints, sure right, and carefully saying offshoots
Speaker 4: here the groups or communities that are not considered official
Speaker 4: parts of the LDS overall. And obviously this stuff becomes
Speaker 4: red meat for anti Semitic people in these crowds, you know,
Speaker 4: and that stuff can be weaponized dangerously. So but it
Speaker 4: got me digging too, because I wanted to find these
Speaker 4: other cases we had read about. I'm thinking like the
Speaker 4: article from February of this year in New York Times
Speaker 4: by Jay Root, which talks about how another community, in
Speaker 4: this case, another Hasidic community, has leveraged, you know, local
Speaker 4: politics and municipal procedure to funnel public money into private schools.
Speaker 4: And these are schools that you know, the kids who
Speaker 4: are not in that community are not allowed to attend,
Speaker 4: but the taxes are going to that. It sounds maybe
Speaker 4: somewhat like a dry, boring community meeting point. If you've
Speaker 4: ever been to a community meeting in your neighborhood, sure
Speaker 4: you know that they're either boring or unhinged.
Speaker 3: And in the new season of Fargo, the first well
Speaker 3: sort of one of the inciting events is like a
Speaker 3: community type meeting where things go absolutely off the rails
Speaker 3: and somebody tases a cop.
Speaker 2: I just want to point back. There's an article that's
Speaker 2: mentioned early in this message, been something about I forget
Speaker 2: the name of the publication Asbury Park Press, I think
Speaker 2: where they're just it's discussing the five million dollars that
Speaker 2: the one attorney has made.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to see if I could find that article. Right,
Speaker 2: that particular article exists and you can click on it,
Speaker 2: but you can't read it unless you subscribe to that press.
Speaker 2: So I found I guess a retelling of it, let's say,
Speaker 2: in something called the New Jersey Education Report njedreport dot com.
Speaker 2: And in here it's specifically speaking about this one attorney
Speaker 2: for Lakewood Public Schools that I think has made eight
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars per year as an attorney for a
Speaker 2: public school system. Which feels a little crazy.
Speaker 3: No, that is not a thing.
Speaker 2: Let's just cite Laura Waters is the journalist's name who's
Speaker 2: writing this in early October twenty twenty three, and it
Speaker 2: is very interesting to see like this guy is, according
Speaker 2: to this the author of this article. The highest paid
Speaker 2: of government employee in New Jersey.
Speaker 4: Which is weird because as our friends at Daily's I
Speaker 4: guys know, and I've talked about before, typically the highest
Speaker 4: paid public employee is going to be a sports coach.
Speaker 2: A public public employee.
Speaker 4: I think about like public universities and stuff like in
Speaker 4: a state.
Speaker 2: I could see that, but it's definitely not the governor, right,
Speaker 2: because even the governor.
Speaker 4: Is governors do side bigs.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The governor's is quoted in this story, Governor Phil Murphy
Speaker 2: saying I don't have insight into the particulars of it,
Speaker 2: but the number is eye popping.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I want to go back to that New York Times
Speaker 4: article just to show that there is a larger like
Speaker 4: it's not just restricted to community tensions in Lakewood and
Speaker 4: Ocean County. This article I just mentioned is talking about
Speaker 4: the Curiositol Village Union Free School District, and it's they
Speaker 4: call them villages up in the northeast. It's north of
Speaker 4: New York City. It has what the journalists are calling
Speaker 4: one of the most unusual public school districts in the world.
Speaker 4: The question for people who are outside of these communities
Speaker 4: is there's enophobia to it. Honestly some of it. But
Speaker 4: they're asking things like, why are we having the choice
Speaker 4: removed for our kids? Why are opportunities being removed for
Speaker 4: our kids? Why are we having a hard time like
Speaker 4: buying property. Why do we feel then there's these folks
Speaker 4: in these communities, why do we feel that we are
Speaker 4: being pushed out of our own place where we live.
Speaker 4: If we're talking just in discrete moments, discrete cases, then
Speaker 4: what we see is a confrontation between the role of
Speaker 4: the state and the role of spiritual or religious beliefs. Right,
Speaker 4: the US has never fully solved that question in practice.
Speaker 4: Right the division of church and state is all well
Speaker 4: and good on paper, but it's very difficult to see
Speaker 4: it shake out successfully in practice.
Speaker 3: But Catholic schools, for example, don't necessarily get the same
Speaker 3: lack of oversight that these schools do. Am I correct,
Speaker 3: I would have to look into it more to speak
Speaker 3: on that point. But I do think it's a great question,
Speaker 3: and I do also wonder there's not really one hundred
Speaker 3: percent way to prevent corruption, right like Singapore figured out
Speaker 3: how to become less corrupt by kind of incorporating and
Speaker 3: owning corruption, right like now pat system, Yeah, they made.
Speaker 4: It a business. But in this case, at the local level,
Speaker 4: where politics are so often ignored and so often have
Speaker 4: tremendous impact, I wonder if there is is there a
Speaker 4: way that is fair to people to prevent someone from
Speaker 4: coming in and, you know, stacking the school board and saying, hey,
Speaker 4: we're cutting all of the funding, right, and if you
Speaker 4: have a problem with it, then you'll have to vote.
Speaker 4: But we know you don't have the votes. I don't know, man,
Speaker 4: It's it's a pickle. And so the Ashbury Park Press,
Speaker 4: that story we mentioned has been quoted in places like
Speaker 4: forward dot com. You can find what they're called the
Speaker 4: Lakewood Welfare fraud scheme. And this goes in so many
Speaker 4: different directions it's hard to follow all of the money,
Speaker 4: especially when you get into things like LLCs limited liability
Speaker 4: companies that functioned as proxy companies to hide the movement
Speaker 4: of money. And then you look at how people were
Speaker 4: apparently enlisting their relatives to be the face of different
Speaker 4: shell companies. Again, this has happened in This had happened
Speaker 4: in Utah, right, This happened in splinter groups that claim
Speaker 4: to be the correct authorities of the LDS Church. The
Speaker 4: LDS Church obviously does not agree, and I just don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, one of the things we have to clearly
Speaker 4: acknowledge is that in this country, again in theory, people
Speaker 4: cannot be discriminated against for their own personal spiritual beliefs.
Speaker 4: That is a not starter. You should not as a
Speaker 4: state attempt to force people to do things that contradict
Speaker 4: their spiritual beliefs if they're not hurting anyone, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. We see this again with the debates
Speaker 4: raging in Europe regarding hjah, but regarding headscarves, you know,
Speaker 4: like can you tell people what they can and cannot wear?
Speaker 3: Well, as we know with any time, anytime there are
Speaker 3: these sorts of dispensations that go along with very legitimate beliefs,
Speaker 3: there will be people that will be ready to try
Speaker 3: to take advantage of them as a loophole, just saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can you get paid seven to eight times more
Speaker 2: than the average person in your position? And that's everybody's
Speaker 2: fine with that, even if your school district is, you know, impoverished,
Speaker 2: just like trying to get money to pay for its.
Speaker 3: Programs, you shouldn't be able to.
Speaker 4: I think we'd all agree and with that folks, you
Speaker 4: know we would like to hear your on this, on
Speaker 4: all of these things. Before we end. We wanted to
Speaker 4: say thank you so much. We say it pretty often
Speaker 4: and we mean it sincerely every time. We can't do
Speaker 4: this without you. We are so grateful that you too
Speaker 4: are a conspiracy realist, and we hope that you will
Speaker 4: go on air with us on the show one day.
Speaker 4: We try to be easy to find online. There are
Speaker 4: tons of ways to contact us.
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