Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nol.
Speaker 3: They call be Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. Ed, we are pleased
Speaker 3: as punch that you are joining us tonight, folks. This
Speaker 3: is going to be an exploration of memes, an exploration
Speaker 3: of conspiracies, and the just the ridiculous, surreal situation of
Speaker 3: something called doge.
Speaker 4: That's the stuff they Doze wants you to know.
Speaker 3: We're gonna play a bit of doge ball as we're
Speaker 3: talking off air. Okay, Department of Government Efficiency, we've heard
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 4: I love it when you like walk backwards into the acronym,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: A backronym that's weird for it?
Speaker 4: Is that really true? Yeah? Yeah, If it's not, then
Speaker 4: you've coined it, and I do I doff my cap
Speaker 4: to you, sir, oh man.
Speaker 3: It's a whole thing. Uh, let's get right into it, guys.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts. Despite the name, the Department of
Speaker 3: Government Efficiency is not an official department.
Speaker 4: But it has department in the name.
Speaker 3: Man, true department in the name. And what do we
Speaker 3: always say about innocuous names.
Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't it of another service that did exist.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm in twenty fourteen. Yeah, this thing technically is
Speaker 3: an initial from the second Trump administration. Look at it
Speaker 3: on paper. The idea is DOZE will modernize government. It
Speaker 3: Doze will reduce harmful spending and financial waste, and it
Speaker 3: will at the same time cut all those pesky regulations
Speaker 3: and fraud getting waste and fraud keeps. Yeah, maximize productivity. Right,
Speaker 3: that doesn't sound too bad. We got to introduce one
Speaker 3: of our first players here. Doze is the brainchild of
Speaker 3: Ellen Musk. This guy was the largest known individual donor
Speaker 3: to the twenty twenty four US election cycle, more than
Speaker 3: two hundred and ninety million dollars.
Speaker 4: This guy is fine. That seems fine.
Speaker 3: I mean, we could have we could have done cool stuff.
Speaker 4: It just seems interesting that the guy that you know
Speaker 4: spent all that money on the election is the one
Speaker 4: that then gets to single handedly gut the government.
Speaker 2: Well, it's going to get to one of the theories
Speaker 2: they're going to put forward today.
Speaker 4: About the.
Speaker 2: The real meaning and goals of doge as it was
Speaker 2: thought about and then implemented.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, nailed it, okay.
Speaker 3: Doge is technically the result of an executive order EO
Speaker 3: one four one five eight, which is really a rebranding
Speaker 3: of another thing. Also, starting an initiative like this via
Speaker 3: an executive order means that you're already starting in a
Speaker 3: pretty sticky place with Congress, because they're super into laws
Speaker 3: and institutions, in theory, in theory on paper. Yes, come
Speaker 3: election time, everybody's a good boy. Doge is to our
Speaker 3: earlier point there, no. Doge is a purposeful backronym. A
Speaker 3: backronym is where you take an exisiting word and then
Speaker 3: turn it into an acronym.
Speaker 4: Right an existing word. Also, you can refer to a
Speaker 4: cute pupper, a doggo, a little doge. It also refers
Speaker 4: to a cryptocurrency that was I believe named after the
Speaker 4: shiba enu meme.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kabosu kubasu. I don't know how to say the
Speaker 2: actual name of the cute little doge.
Speaker 4: I don't know that I really was in on the
Speaker 4: original Doge or what you're talking about. Can you describe it?
Speaker 3: Very? Wow much dog much dog? Oh, heck right, Doge.
Speaker 3: It's a it's an adorable sheba eud sometimes doing a
Speaker 3: very excited face. Oh, sometimes doing a very like side
Speaker 3: eye face.
Speaker 4: Of course I know this guy. Yeah, yeah, it's very
Speaker 4: You've seen his word too many situations. So it is
Speaker 4: a bit of a side eye sort of a surprised look.
Speaker 4: But also depending on the text that you accompany it with,
Speaker 4: could be the side eye situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like a knowing look.
Speaker 3: The things left unsaid Doge. We also know that the
Speaker 3: real name for Doge is, to your earlier point, Matt,
Speaker 3: the US Digital Service. This was created by the Obama
Speaker 3: administration President Barack Obama on August eleventh, twenty fourteen. So Doge,
Speaker 3: as it's being sold to you in the media now,
Speaker 3: is not an original thought. It is a rebranding, or,
Speaker 3: according to critics, it is a weaponization of an existing thing.
Speaker 2: Yes, and interestingly enough, the department or the digital service
Speaker 2: in this thing that was created in twenty fourteen is
Speaker 2: a direct result of the botched healthcare dot gov launch.
Speaker 4: Right, that was such a nightmare.
Speaker 2: Yes, So back then they went, ooh, we should probably
Speaker 2: get better at websites and you know, digital technology and
Speaker 2: stuff as a government. So that's what this thing was
Speaker 2: supposed to do. It's it was designed in twenty fourteen
Speaker 2: to just do a better job on the internet basically.
Speaker 3: And I want to take a moment to that excellent point.
Speaker 3: I want to take a moment and just congratulate all
Speaker 3: of us for being able to talk so much valid
Speaker 3: trash about this government and not get black backed.
Speaker 2: Bye for now, for now.
Speaker 4: Interestingly enough, it's described on the Obama White House dot
Speaker 4: archives dot org site as a startup at the White
Speaker 4: Holes that pairs the country's top technology talent with the
Speaker 4: best public servants to improve the usefulness and reliability of
Speaker 4: the country's most important digital services.
Speaker 3: And then everybody clapped.
Speaker 2: Well, hey, I hear what you're saying, Ben, But I
Speaker 2: also think that's kind of a great thing. I think
Speaker 2: maybe we've all over the course of our years, had
Speaker 2: to do some thing for either a local government, state government,
Speaker 2: or the federal government online and it was just through
Speaker 2: some web portal that was clearly developed twenty years.
Speaker 3: For geo cities style, you know, construction, add in regulatory capture.
Speaker 3: Like the entire reason that it is difficult to pay
Speaker 3: your taxes is do it's because there is a industry
Speaker 3: of middlemen. Right Look, the private public thing, as you
Speaker 3: were pointing out there and all the private public thing
Speaker 3: is always going to come back to bite you in
Speaker 3: the butt as a civilization right now, Alon Musk his
Speaker 3: role with Doge is a little murky. We were talking
Speaker 3: about this off air. There are numerous clips memes that
Speaker 3: went viral of the guy holding a chainsaw or standing
Speaker 3: next to the current President of the United States in
Speaker 3: the Oval office while they talked about Doge and wearing
Speaker 3: multiple hats, messing with his spinners, his kid, I think stemming.
Speaker 3: I wonder if the kid picks his nose anyway?
Speaker 2: They all do? We all do? We all did?
Speaker 4: What was the thing that the kid mauthed at Trump
Speaker 4: like you're a horrible person or I hate you, or
Speaker 4: you don't know anything. It was something very sinister like that.
Speaker 2: We talked about it just looking at that picture though, guys,
Speaker 2: I mean, we've often brought back the WWE imagery of
Speaker 2: it all, you know, relating to the recent politics in
Speaker 2: the US and that image that you're referencing Ben. I'm
Speaker 2: looking at it. It's posted on an MPR finger and oh,
Speaker 2: it's like an America chainsaw.
Speaker 3: It's we got a little idiocracy, to be honest, it's
Speaker 3: really quickly.
Speaker 4: I'm just so excited I had to share. I am
Speaker 4: going to my first WWE events on Monday. I'm going
Speaker 4: to see what w w E raw show. I'm pretty pumped.
Speaker 2: You should call hop okay.
Speaker 4: Get the special treatment.
Speaker 3: Speaking of special treatment, right, the White House has had
Speaker 3: some strangely I don't know, fluid information is not the
Speaker 3: right word, contradictory statements about the role of ELM. Musk
Speaker 3: in DOGE or Elon Musk, if you want to say
Speaker 3: it that way. At various times they have said he
Speaker 3: is a senior advisor to the president. At other times
Speaker 3: they have denied that he makes any decisions whatsoever. And
Speaker 3: then also from the President himself, they have claimed that
Speaker 3: Musk is in fact the head of DOGE and does
Speaker 3: make all the decisions. This is coming from the same place.
Speaker 4: Except when they're openly beefing on Twitter.
Speaker 3: Except when they're openly beefing on Twitter at least me five.
Speaker 3: That's when Musk said he was pivoting from this initiative,
Speaker 3: which again is not a real department, just to be
Speaker 3: very clear about that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's really strange to see initial reporting and
Speaker 2: statements from Elon Musk himself in the early stages of
Speaker 2: this January February twenty twenty five, when he's saying things like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm I think I'll probably spend a day, maybe two
Speaker 2: days a week on government work, and then just imagining
Speaker 2: being appointed to something that was touted as such an
Speaker 2: important part of an administration, thinking that the head guy
Speaker 2: would only be there, and he wasn't the only head guy, right,
Speaker 2: there was another dude that was going to there were
Speaker 2: gonna be co heads or something, Vivik Rebmaswami. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: then they just splipped it and said, well, we like
Speaker 2: this other we like Elon's way better.
Speaker 3: So per their official website, Doge's official website Doze dot gov,
Speaker 3: this initiative had already saved the United States hundreds of
Speaker 3: billions of dollars per them. But if you look at
Speaker 3: other government agencies gonna they're gonna tell you this has
Speaker 3: already cost Uncle Sam almost twenty two billion dollars. And
Speaker 3: then other analysts are gonna say doges actions will eventually
Speaker 3: cost this country as much as one hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: five billion bucks.
Speaker 4: Well, that seems counter to the spirit of the initiative,
Speaker 4: doesn't it. Right. It's almost as though there were another
Speaker 4: reason to do the whole thing.
Speaker 3: It's like starting a nonprofit called People for Cheese and
Speaker 3: our first thing is to eliminate all cheesemongers.
Speaker 4: Let just get rid of the middle. Yeah, yeah, go straight.
Speaker 3: Straight from the utter.
Speaker 2: Guys, I'm looking at the DOGE website.
Speaker 4: Exists. Yes, it is.
Speaker 2: Just a weird little legs out of different tables, I guess,
Speaker 2: and you click on a couple of things around here.
Speaker 3: It does Twitter speed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what it feels like. You can't join it,
Speaker 2: I guess. But it is weird to me that that exists.
Speaker 2: But the USDs dot gov also still exists. Note well,
Speaker 2: and now that we're gonna get to it, and I
Speaker 2: don't want to spoil too much, but DOGE had a
Speaker 2: limited time window that it was going to operate under,
Speaker 2: and we're still in that window. But for some reason,
Speaker 2: if you go to the USDs dot gov website, it's
Speaker 2: still You will find DOSEE references in there, but it's
Speaker 2: mostly back to USDs, which is weird.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it might be kind of a grift under the
Speaker 3: maybe leadership of Musk Vivek Ramaswami and Amy Gleeson at
Speaker 3: various points, Gleason's the one you're going to hear the
Speaker 3: most directly attached to policy or action by Doge because
Speaker 3: Gleason reports to the Chief of Staff for the White House.
Speaker 3: Doge got unprecedented access to sensitive information on individuals, on businesses,
Speaker 3: on government affairs, while also cutting tons and tons of funding,
Speaker 3: more money than we could ever imagine, cutting tons of
Speaker 3: funding to various existing government programs, as well as creating
Speaker 3: what they call deferred resignation.
Speaker 4: Remember that one, right, that was the letters that were
Speaker 4: sick in the road working the road. And I gotta ask,
Speaker 4: where does big Balls fit into this ORG chart?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was one of the kids, right mm hmm.
Speaker 4: I mean I believe he was kind of running the
Speaker 4: team that stormed into some government's offices and demanded all
Speaker 4: of these documents and access to terminals and sorry, terminals,
Speaker 4: what am I doing? In the fifties, very very raid
Speaker 4: like behavior. Folks were not giving the heads up. Heads
Speaker 4: of departments were not told what was going on, and
Speaker 4: it just felt very much like an invasion.
Speaker 2: When many judges stopped specific actions from happening, or at least,
Speaker 2: you know, put out we're going to get into it.
Speaker 2: But there are several times there are attempted to be stopped.
Speaker 2: But then there were also secret actions taking place that
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about. Even when there was a stoppage,
Speaker 2: a federal judge said no, and they're like, OK, well.
Speaker 4: You also can't stop what has already occurred. You can
Speaker 4: try to keep it from happening again, happening further. But
Speaker 4: a lot of these things were just such a swoop in,
Speaker 4: do the thing, the damage is done. Oh now the
Speaker 4: judge weighs in. If you don't really you know, pay
Speaker 4: attention or follow the orders of the judges, then it
Speaker 4: doesn't really have much effect.
Speaker 3: And to be clear, obviously one of the most important
Speaker 3: things here is that we don't body shame. The guy's
Speaker 3: street name is big Balls, and it might be a
Speaker 3: medical condition.
Speaker 4: It's more of an attitude.
Speaker 3: You know, well, please get yourself checked, folks, is what say?
Speaker 3: Walk down the street for that one ballsy.
Speaker 4: M down by your giant balls.
Speaker 3: Oh jeez, tell me about it. I mean, this is
Speaker 3: divisive stuff. Right. It might surprise a lot of us
Speaker 3: outside of the United States to know that some people,
Speaker 3: a not insignificant portion of this country loved the idea
Speaker 3: of DOGE because it spoke directly to ongoing concerns. Right,
Speaker 3: the idea of big red tape, of massive bureaucracy, inefficient government.
Speaker 3: You're taking my money and you're wasting it. Why so
Speaker 3: if we could save the government and the taxpayer a
Speaker 3: bit of scratch, a bit of cheddar, why not tighten
Speaker 3: the belt? So other people absolutely hate this idea, and
Speaker 3: they say, look, we're allowing a level of private involvement, influence,
Speaker 3: and interference into public institutions. This will bite us in
Speaker 3: the ass later. And now, as we record on February twentieth,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six, we are officially at later the Yeah,
Speaker 3: officially ass bitten. Would Yeah, the leopards have eaten the face. Uh,
Speaker 3: the ass has been didten. It's no surprise that a
Speaker 3: lot of these critics and even a few early supporters
Speaker 3: of DOGE have concluded it is less a government agency
Speaker 3: and more a conspiracy.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, let's not forget when this thing was initiated,
Speaker 2: the public statements were Doge is going to save the
Speaker 2: government two trillion dollars in spending, and that that goal
Speaker 2: went almost immediately down to one trillion, and then that
Speaker 2: got slashed down to one hundred and fifty billion.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, always start big, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But it makes you, it makes you call into question
Speaker 2: what is this thing really for?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: If it's not to save tremendous amounts of money on
Speaker 2: operating costs, and you know, government budgets, what are they
Speaker 2: actually doing.
Speaker 4: They're trying to project twenty twenty five of five the
Speaker 4: government like.
Speaker 3: Five to five.
Speaker 4: That's nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, depending upon whom you ask, Doge is not a warm,
Speaker 3: fuzzy angel farts and Trumpet's good faith effort to clean
Speaker 3: up financial waste. There is one criticism we want to
Speaker 3: point out before we get to the crazy part, which
Speaker 3: is the following quote. Under the auspices of finding fraud, waste,
Speaker 3: and abuse, Doge has hurt the middle class, created chaos,
Speaker 3: and attempted to usurp Congress's power of the purse with
Speaker 3: illegal impoundments end quote. That quote is not from a
Speaker 3: random podcast or person on the internet. That is from
Speaker 3: the House Committee on the Budget. The government itself does
Speaker 3: not like what the government itself is doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or at least the new digital services. This thing is,
Speaker 2: let's do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, So what exactly is DOSE done? Why are
Speaker 3: so many people concerned? Perhaps most importantly, what's it really for?
Speaker 3: And what's it going to do in the future. We're
Speaker 3: going to pause for a word from our sponsors and
Speaker 3: hope our bosses don't catch up with us before we
Speaker 3: finish this episode. Here's where it gets crazy. Despite being
Speaker 3: around for a very short amount of time, DOGE has
Speaker 3: already created a massive amount of controversy tsunamis of controversy,
Speaker 3: some of which we talked about in earlier episodes, some
Speaker 3: of which we mentioned in Strange News. I'm thinking of usaid, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That thing is weird, I think specifically for the show,
Speaker 2: because we understand the positives that something like the United
Speaker 2: States Agency Agency for International Development can do, right, we
Speaker 2: also know the pitfalls of that kind of money injection
Speaker 2: to other countries, especially when you are quietly involved in
Speaker 2: nation building and coups and things like that.
Speaker 4: Well, let's also just point out too, that there is
Speaker 4: a lot of opportunity for waste abuse and fraud within
Speaker 4: these systems, which makes it such a solid cover story
Speaker 4: because who doesn't want to eliminate some of that stuff
Speaker 4: in bureaucracy and you know, to safeguard our tax dollars
Speaker 4: and make sure they're going to the right things and
Speaker 4: not being funneled into, you know, things that are a
Speaker 4: little more untoward.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but there's you bring up a great point because
Speaker 3: there is an interesting disconnect, a little bit of a
Speaker 3: logical leap that the supporters of DOGE failed to clock
Speaker 3: when the big cuts happened to fundy. It is not
Speaker 3: as though you the individual get some kind of money back,
Speaker 3: right USA funding gets cut. It's not as though everybody
Speaker 3: in the United States gets a dollar thirty five back,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: That is what the DOGE website says. Though it's like
Speaker 2: this is the amount of money saved per American. So
Speaker 2: it makes makes you feel as though, oh, I might
Speaker 2: get that money back.
Speaker 4: Wasn't there talk about issuing some kind of that was
Speaker 4: the tariffs, issuing a dividend?
Speaker 3: Cheh.
Speaker 4: A lot of talk about you know, getting.
Speaker 3: Anything but Epstein, you know.
Speaker 2: Did you guys see the news from the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: this morning on February twentieth, as we record the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court is basically shutting down his sweeping tariffs.
Speaker 4: Oh well, I'm cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, messing with the money and that's always going
Speaker 3: to be the third rail outside of the theater of culture,
Speaker 3: wars and politics.
Speaker 4: We also mentioned enough of Mike this whole ten billion
Speaker 4: dollars to the Bureau of Peace or whatever it's called.
Speaker 4: Lit'll put a pin in that and save that for
Speaker 4: another time, but very interesting use of our tax dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dylan. Dylan notes that there was a several thousand
Speaker 2: and five thousand dollars DOGE refund that was like discussed several.
Speaker 3: Times, discussed, discussed, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, like, oh yeah, we're gonna do this
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 3: I love discussing stuff because it's different. It's just close
Speaker 3: enough to doing stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have an idea of a concept of a.
Speaker 4: Concept of an idea concept.
Speaker 3: It's actually it's funny you say that, guys, because I
Speaker 3: was talking to our pal friend of the show, Josh
Speaker 3: Clark about a potential collaboration as we're out in the
Speaker 3: field and broad uh, and he said that sounds cool.
Speaker 3: What are you thinking. I said, I don't know. I
Speaker 3: think we should hang out. And he said so you
Speaker 3: don't have a plan, and I said, we got the
Speaker 3: concept of a plan, so you need Yeah. But the
Speaker 3: thing is, we're talking about podcasting and doing fun shows
Speaker 3: to entertain and educate. These folks are talking about billions
Speaker 3: of dollars and they are putting lives on the line. USAID.
Speaker 3: USAID was always targeted by Musk and the Doge folks
Speaker 3: at all. For a while, Musk repeatedly stated on his
Speaker 3: favorite social media platform that too much of the USAID
Speaker 3: budget was either misappropriated through fraud or they weren't putting
Speaker 3: the money in the right place. They were misprioritizing stuff.
Speaker 3: Up until Doge, USAID had like fourteen thousand full time employees,
Speaker 3: and now it's looking more like maybe three hundred, depending
Speaker 3: on all the court stuff works out.
Speaker 4: I think the part that really stuck with me too
Speaker 4: about this was the food aid that was not distributed right,
Speaker 4: that literally just sat in a warehouse to rhyme. So
Speaker 4: it just seems like cruelty is at the heart of
Speaker 4: a lot of that stuff, and not actual savings. Because
Speaker 4: the money's been spent, why wouldn't I just distribute it
Speaker 4: to the people who need it as opposed to like
Speaker 4: throwing it in the fire.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you brought that up, because, like we're
Speaker 3: saying on Strange News, when we first talked about that
Speaker 3: food waste, it's it's just unclean. You're right, it's a
Speaker 3: sunk cost. The food was already purchased, the food on
Speaker 3: expiration date. The only real cost would have been transportation
Speaker 3: and logistics, which already had a paid contract. Right, So
Speaker 3: what are we saving. We're not saving people. We're definitely
Speaker 3: not helping folks.
Speaker 4: Let's send a message too that we that we don't
Speaker 4: want to help folks, that we're trying to have much
Speaker 4: more of an isolationist kind of approach.
Speaker 2: It's also tremendously I was just gonna say, upsetting when
Speaker 2: you think about this forty billion dollars being targeted as
Speaker 2: the thing that's wasteful when everybody in the in that
Speaker 2: world knows that it's the Department of Defense and the
Speaker 2: military industrial congressional complex that is the thing that loses.
Speaker 2: As we've talked about on this show, palettes of billions
Speaker 2: of US dollars that loses, you know, who knows how
Speaker 2: much to black budgets that just goes away, Money that
Speaker 2: goes away that isn't officially appropriated, that doesn't officially exist.
Speaker 2: We know this is just a fact, and it's so
Speaker 2: much more than forty billion dollars.
Speaker 4: There was a story recently about a lot of military
Speaker 4: equipment that was just languishing in a warehouse and never opened,
Speaker 4: or something along those lines. It might be crossing some
Speaker 4: wires there, but stuff like that happens. Remember the electric
Speaker 4: coffee mugs, that whole sugarfuffle, toilet seats, the hammers. How
Speaker 4: much will Pentagon pay for one? Yeah, the pork barrel
Speaker 4: spending is true. The stereotypes about high level American financial
Speaker 4: corruption are true. These are not made up tall tales.
Speaker 4: But we have to remember USAID, despite some of their
Speaker 4: spooky doopy affiliations at times, this was the world's largest
Speaker 4: foreign aid agency. It fed and clothed children, It funded education,
Speaker 4: It helped people learn to read, It helped small businesses.
Speaker 4: It genuinely made the US look a little bit better
Speaker 4: in the global sphere. And the current administration via doge
Speaker 4: as well. Even pre Doge, the current administration, for some
Speaker 4: unknowable reason, wanted to hamstring USAID, so Doze was an
Speaker 4: easy way to directly attack this current administration cut eighty
Speaker 4: three percent of the existing USAID contracts, and then they
Speaker 4: moved them under the State Department, which is kind of
Speaker 4: like this sabitat.
Speaker 3: That's what they did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did. I like what you're saying, there been
Speaker 2: because in my mind, this is one of the only
Speaker 2: real open hand movements or or appendages that the US
Speaker 2: government had for a while there the whole like, here's
Speaker 2: some here's some goodwill right to anybody else outside of
Speaker 2: the US, we will we will send you our help.
Speaker 3: Right like the hospital boats kind of. Yeah, you don't
Speaker 3: have to take a pledge of allegiance to the United States.
Speaker 3: You don't have to agree with ideology. We just want
Speaker 3: to feed your kids.
Speaker 2: And install a couple of spies. That's it. That's one.
Speaker 3: There's like one. I T guy, Okay, yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 3: office is you know Steve. Yeah, Steve is a legend.
Speaker 3: And congrats on the promotion, Steve. Uh yeah, it's it's
Speaker 3: soft powers. It's a weird thing to cut to your
Speaker 3: earlier point there, guys. We also know this occurs in
Speaker 3: step with the federal firings. You can hold them deferred
Speaker 3: resignations if you like, folks, But they were firing people.
Speaker 3: They were offering to buy out federal employees. This was
Speaker 3: in the headlines. This was blamed on Doge, but it
Speaker 3: actually came from the Office of Personnel Management the OPM. Still,
Speaker 3: I think Doge was running point there, especially with things
Speaker 3: like musks fork in the Road email where he said
Speaker 3: what he gave people. We had a lot of you
Speaker 3: folks right into us about this. We have a lot
Speaker 3: of government employees in the crowd. There was such a
Speaker 3: limited time window, remember you guys, where they were like,
Speaker 3: justify your job, do the following things. Do it by
Speaker 3: you know, Tuesday or whatever. Because we're cleaning up the house,
Speaker 3: were dreaming, well.
Speaker 4: It's all such a you know, classic Silicon Valley hatchet
Speaker 4: man kind of behavior. You know, like when Musk, you know,
Speaker 4: took over Twitter and came into the office holding the
Speaker 4: what was it, the sink, right, Yeah, it's that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff. These letters with this kind of fork in
Speaker 4: the Road language is sort of like ultimatums. It is
Speaker 4: very Silicon Valley coded.
Speaker 2: The weird thing about it, I think in the moment
Speaker 2: when we were all going through that and reading it,
Speaker 2: we were doing some reading of the tea leaves. We're
Speaker 2: you know, trying to understand the message behind the message,
Speaker 2: and in that moment it did feel like a loyalty
Speaker 2: test of some sort, especially because of what else was
Speaker 2: happening in the news at the time, like to all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, get this, Hey, you can get out
Speaker 2: now if you want to, cause we're we're doing new things.
Speaker 2: That's while the Department of Defense, the Defense Department is
Speaker 2: turning into the Department of War. That's when there's all
Speaker 2: kinds of peat exists stuff happening in the news, and
Speaker 2: it just looks I would say, the optics of the
Speaker 2: administration where that we're changing things around here, and if
Speaker 2: you want to get out, here is here's our little
Speaker 2: rights offering or.
Speaker 3: Side a loyalty statement just so we know you're down
Speaker 3: to clown. This was also coupled with a lot of
Speaker 3: cryptic stream of consciousness post and statements by Musk himself.
Speaker 3: There was one on uh, want to say, December seventh,
Speaker 3: I can't remember exactly which year, but said, we have
Speaker 3: to make sure that civilization takes the path most likely
Speaker 3: to pass the Fermi Great filters.
Speaker 4: From some sci fi series. Yes, okay, y, yeah, it's
Speaker 4: the idea that.
Speaker 3: Civilization the reason humans have yet to meet extra terrestrial
Speaker 3: civilizations is because there is a series of predictable nigh
Speaker 3: inescapable factors, or filters that prevent those civilizations from expanding
Speaker 3: past a certain threshold. Actually, also, Musk said that Doge
Speaker 3: had to exist so he could go forward with the
Speaker 3: Mars colony. This guy was just like spitballing. He's got
Speaker 3: he must have an amazing writer's room. I don't know.
Speaker 4: We also way out to me. Oh by time, he's
Speaker 4: also done with Mars. Now he's fine.
Speaker 3: The Moon guy down, the Moon guy, he's a lunatic.
Speaker 3: Now that's funny for the etymology mark, Thank you, sir. So.
Speaker 3: The current administration said about seventy five thousand employees took
Speaker 3: this offer before it closed down, before that time window
Speaker 3: collapsed on February twelfth, twenty twenty six. That's roughly four
Speaker 3: percent of the federal workforce. Doesn't sound that big, right,
Speaker 3: four percent? Maybe not that big in the ratio numbers,
Speaker 3: but it's gonna have a serious impact on the day
Speaker 3: to day life of people who live in this country.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the day to day life of federal workers.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the thing that came after the Fork
Speaker 2: in the Road email. It was the thing about, hey,
Speaker 2: every week, we need you to send an email to
Speaker 2: the Department of Personnel Management and you need to put
Speaker 2: five things you accomplished this week in that email to
Speaker 2: justify your job. And they said it was because they
Speaker 2: were trying to identify federal workers that didn't exist but
Speaker 2: were still on a payroll somewhere.
Speaker 3: So much talk of that.
Speaker 4: Not only that, but in like social Security checks going
Speaker 4: to deceased people.
Speaker 3: Which has happened, but just not as often as it's
Speaker 3: used to dog whistles. So yeah, the federal employees did
Speaker 3: have to write to the Office of Personnel Management OPM
Speaker 3: and say like, here, my five good boy things.
Speaker 2: But doesn't it make you think a little bit about
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say spies, but people who work
Speaker 2: in intelligence that aren't officially listed as let's say, a
Speaker 2: member of the FBI or an agent somewhere in the CIA.
Speaker 2: But you wanted to have somebody that could function and
Speaker 2: travel and go places, you could put them I don't
Speaker 2: know in any governmental department, even those if you wanted to,
Speaker 2: but just give them a paycheck. They're a part of
Speaker 2: that thing. But really they're working for you know somebody.
Speaker 3: I also my immediate question. I'm sure I'm not alone
Speaker 3: in this. When you have to list the five things,
Speaker 3: could you list responding to the email as one of
Speaker 3: those five things that gets you a four.
Speaker 4: We've all had to do employee self evaluations. They're all
Speaker 4: they're so silly. You have to just it's such a reach.
Speaker 4: Most of the time you even have to couch it
Speaker 4: in terms of like things that can be verified or
Speaker 4: that can be measured, and it can often seem like
Speaker 4: such a such a chore. You know, I am so
Speaker 4: on board with you in that one. Uh, maybe I've
Speaker 4: been a little bit too fast and loose with some
Speaker 4: of that bureaucracy here in.
Speaker 3: Our own corporate empire. Noel Matt Dillon. I started out
Speaker 3: a self review not too long ago saying this year
Speaker 3: was a wild vibe for a conspiracy show. I think
Speaker 3: we are doing good. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely no
Speaker 3: shortage of topics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it is a weird thing too, especially when
Speaker 2: you are kind of tattling on yourself or trying to
Speaker 2: be honest about how well you have performed or how
Speaker 2: well the thing you're creating performed. That's a weird Oh,
Speaker 2: that's a weird thing to do to somebody.
Speaker 3: Let's do it this way. Okay, guys, assuming the world
Speaker 3: doesn't burned down by the next time we have to
Speaker 3: do those self reviews. Can we in our goals and milestones?
Speaker 3: Can we all put complete did this self review as
Speaker 3: one of the things.
Speaker 2: I'm not doing it, man, I'm too scared.
Speaker 4: We've even been like, you know, kind of counseled by
Speaker 4: our you know, our direct reports on the kind of
Speaker 4: ways that you should word these things, you know, in
Speaker 4: order to make them quote unquote achievable or measurable. So
Speaker 4: all it's such an odd, bureaucratic little device.
Speaker 3: You know, one time I jazzed a little bit too
Speaker 3: much and I got a text from our top breast
Speaker 3: that just said, come on, man, you.
Speaker 4: Got kicked back.
Speaker 3: Anyway, So we know that labor unions are part of
Speaker 3: the federal workforce here, and they fought tooth and nail, hooked,
Speaker 3: tentacle and claw to stop these deferred resignation initiatives in
Speaker 3: the courts, but in the end all they got was
Speaker 3: a brief pause. Basically, they got a time out. They
Speaker 3: didn't get the problem solved. And opponents argue that it's
Speaker 3: not even guaranteed that the federal employees who did take
Speaker 3: deferred resignation are actually going to get their payouts. It's
Speaker 3: strangely similar to during the pandemic lockdown, notable US airlines
Speaker 3: started offering their employees buyout packages, but they paid immediately
Speaker 3: once you signed. That doesn't appear to be the case with.
Speaker 2: DOGE now, at least according to Gosh. There was a
Speaker 2: review by NPR that you can find by checking out
Speaker 2: All Things Considered, and it was dude, this was completed
Speaker 2: in April twenty eighth of last year, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Just it's titled what has DOGE done in Trump's First
Speaker 2: one hundred Days? So that's just way back then. But
Speaker 2: they were immediately in already finding that people were not
Speaker 2: actually getting payouts from any of the things that were
Speaker 2: happening and the incentives that were being pushed forward. And
Speaker 2: then you look at reviews and updates from like November
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty five, and it's still seems like some
Speaker 2: of that stuff was vaporware.
Speaker 3: Definitely, And I think vaporware is a great word for it,
Speaker 3: because you're running out the clock on the headlines, right
Speaker 3: on the Zeitgeist on that limited attention span. We don't
Speaker 3: have official confirmation yet even in twenty twenty six on
Speaker 3: how many workers have been fired or you know, iced,
Speaker 3: in total, but the latest figures available are something like
Speaker 3: two hundred and twenty thousand federal workers. This is pretty nuts.
Speaker 3: I guess you could say there's another there's another win
Speaker 3: for Doge, which gets into our conspiracy theory here. If
Speaker 3: we're all comfortable eliminating those pesky rats at the Consumer
Speaker 3: Financial Protection Bureau, what a bunch of buzzkills, what a
Speaker 3: bunch of fun police. The CFPB doesn't want you to party,
Speaker 3: say the billionaires.
Speaker 2: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau boo. Wait wait wait, I'm a consumer.
Speaker 2: I consume things are going to protect my financials.
Speaker 3: As a bureau, I don't know. I think it's a
Speaker 3: terrible idea, say the billionaires. This officially comes from a
Speaker 3: guy who was in charge of the Office of Management
Speaker 3: and Budget, Russell Vaught, back in twenty twenty five. Vough,
Speaker 3: in his professional role, instructed ol CFPB employees to stop
Speaker 3: performing quote any work task, just a stop doing stuff.
Speaker 2: Everybody, stop stop working, but also get back to the office.
Speaker 3: Right, stop working.
Speaker 4: Get back to the office.
Speaker 3: Make sure you look busy when our bosses dropped by. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but otherwise, you know, f you to the fullest.
Speaker 2: We know there aren't enough computers, we know the WiFi
Speaker 2: has down for at least two weeks. Just get back
Speaker 2: to the office and stop working.
Speaker 3: We have an open door policy, by which we mean
Speaker 3: the door is open and you should leave. That is
Speaker 3: how they treated the people here. The bureau does have
Speaker 3: a weird financial thing. To be fair, It's money comes
Speaker 3: from the Federal Reserve, not from a specific congressional decision
Speaker 3: or appropriation. But Vought said, also, we're just not going
Speaker 3: to fund it. Stop everybody, stop working. We're not going
Speaker 3: to fund this thing anymore. And critics immediately, I think
Speaker 3: this goes to our larger thesis here. Critics immediately said,
Speaker 3: this is not about government efficiency, right. The Consumer Financial
Speaker 3: Protection Bureau is an a political good thing for people
Speaker 3: who live in the United States. Noted that the CFPV
Speaker 3: had a couple of looming investigations into the businesses of
Speaker 3: Ela Musk stuff like X, stuff like Tesla, stuff like
Speaker 3: a third example.
Speaker 2: Speaking of a third example, I'm trying to figure out,
Speaker 2: actually what in the hell they do at the Consumer
Speaker 2: Financial Protection Bureau. I'm heading over to Consumer Finance dot
Speaker 2: gov and it says they aim to make consumer financial
Speaker 2: markets work for consumers, responsible providers, and the overall economy.
Speaker 3: Their hound dogs, dude, they they hunt for financial shenanigans.
Speaker 3: Oh really, that's their job. Yeah, they're supposed to. They're
Speaker 3: supposed to identify institutions or businesses that have defrauded the
Speaker 3: average person. So presatory lending practices or RELs fargo maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hidden fees, things like that, but also so private
Speaker 2: corporations also as like how what they do to their customers.
Speaker 2: I wonder how much they look at contracts and stuff
Speaker 2: like that that come down from the government. So, okay,
Speaker 2: it feels like a good thing, feels like a really
Speaker 2: good thing.
Speaker 3: It is a I think it is a good thing.
Speaker 3: They've been persistently Look, this is a relatively new thing,
Speaker 3: a relatively new organization I think was twenty eleven maybe,
Speaker 3: And ever since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created,
Speaker 3: it has been persecuted by lobbyists in the financial sector, like,
Speaker 3: come on, man, why you're stressing me people over get
Speaker 3: overdraft fees. That's that's not my bad. Why are you
Speaker 3: being weird about it fun police. So it is no
Speaker 3: surprise that the CFPB was targeted, probably at the direction
Speaker 3: of DOGE. We know that there are some serious issues
Speaker 3: of conflict of interest of access. This occurred in step
Speaker 3: with the social media platform X formerly Twitter, announcing plans
Speaker 3: for a mobile payment service. It's going to be called
Speaker 3: an X money account, according to MPR. And I think
Speaker 3: we all saw this. If this went through and the
Speaker 3: CFPB was still a thing, then it would have had
Speaker 3: oversight on how this new digital payment system worked.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Yeah, huh so, okay, we see you.
Speaker 2: We see what you're doing here. I'm looking at a
Speaker 2: thing on Consumer Finance dot gov from the Council of
Speaker 2: Economic Advisors, you guys, and it's doing this thing, Ben,
Speaker 2: it's trying to estimate exactly how much the Consumer Financial
Speaker 2: Protection Bureau is going to cost Americans and how much
Speaker 2: it's already cost since twenty eleven. You know. It puts
Speaker 2: it up in like the three hundred and fifty billion
Speaker 2: dollar range, which you can you can understand why you
Speaker 2: could justify that as a target to go after to
Speaker 2: reduce spending.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, of course, if your.
Speaker 2: Goal is to take away some of those safeguards that
Speaker 2: the US people have against you know, moves corporations are
Speaker 2: going to make, or the government itself.
Speaker 3: All these regulations. Man, it reminds me of years ago.
Speaker 3: Some of us in the crowd may be old enough
Speaker 3: to remember this. Years ago, there were so many weird
Speaker 3: loopholes in the laws of Georgia and regulations. There was,
Speaker 3: in fact, an exception for seat belts. You have to
Speaker 3: wear a seat belt right if you're in a car
Speaker 3: and a vehicle, except for a while in Georgia, you
Speaker 3: did not have to wear a seat belt in a
Speaker 3: pickup truck because one of the members of our state's
Speaker 3: political class had a pickup truck and hated wearing seat belts.
Speaker 4: I thought it was curious that there are no seat
Speaker 4: builts on school buses.
Speaker 3: But that I thought about that too. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 3: good point. Oh, let's pause for a word from our
Speaker 3: sponsor and get to one of the biggest things which
Speaker 3: informs our conspiracy. Tonight, we're back the Treasury Department, all right,
Speaker 3: The Treasury Department is a conspiracy in itself. Check out
Speaker 3: our earlier episodes. Doge gained access to Treasury Department databases
Speaker 3: and files. The big question is how individualized that data was,
Speaker 3: so like, do they, for instance, have Noel Brown's Social
Speaker 3: Security number and all his W two's or what have
Speaker 3: you know? All his charitable contributions? Do they know the
Speaker 3: spending history of Dylan tennessee pal Fagan. They're very strict
Speaker 3: disclosure rules about this kind of stuff. Really, it's like
Speaker 3: ken Elon Musk, Now see my tax returns.
Speaker 2: This is tough because we we kind of don't know
Speaker 2: right right, and we've gotten mixed signals from news organizations
Speaker 2: because a lot of people just weren't talking. There were
Speaker 2: some whistleblowers though, that came forward to talk about what
Speaker 2: all they were getting access to. And weirdly enough, even
Speaker 2: even back in April of last year, the is it
Speaker 2: the Oversight Committee? The House Oversight Committee was putting forward
Speaker 2: and it is partisan, so it's like the Democratic side
Speaker 2: of that committee was putting forward the concept that Doge
Speaker 2: had access to way more than we were being told.
Speaker 2: I guess we'll get into it. Maybe we'll put the
Speaker 2: seed here. This is where that House Oversite Committee is
Speaker 2: where you get this concept that there is potentially a
Speaker 2: secret list and what would you guys call a data
Speaker 2: set of all Americans stuff all of our private information. Yes,
Speaker 2: that sounds creepy, but it also sounds like maybe why
Speaker 2: this thing was created in the first place.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, a bit of a false flag, you know,
Speaker 3: it's the the question is is it the wolf of
Speaker 3: big data aggregation wearing the sheep's wool of financial conservation convoluted?
Speaker 3: But we got there another thing. That another thing that
Speaker 3: folks are accusing Doze of. And to your point, Matt,
Speaker 3: these accusations are coming from inside the house. These are
Speaker 3: other members of the government and the political class, Pauli Malarkey.
Speaker 3: So one of the big concerns is that Doge may
Speaker 3: have gained access to something that honestly I had never
Speaker 3: heard about before. The Integrated Data Retrieval System IDRS. That's
Speaker 3: your treasure trove, right, that's your Aladdin's cavern with all
Speaker 3: the goodies and the bobbles. So this place I DRS
Speaker 3: includes very detailed financial information about every single person who
Speaker 3: pays taxes in the United States, every single business, every
Speaker 3: single nonprofit again a Laddin's cavern. No one thing should
Speaker 3: have all of this information of what's yep.
Speaker 2: And the scariest thing I think about that having access
Speaker 2: to that is that we know there were certain employees
Speaker 2: within DOGE that were uploading mass quantities of that data
Speaker 2: onto services like cloud flare and cloud services that should
Speaker 2: not have this sensitive materials on though, no matter how
Speaker 2: secure you think they are, the government has very specific,
Speaker 2: rigorous security protocols for that kind of sensitive data.
Speaker 4: We would like to think at the very least, I
Speaker 4: mean talk about the ultimate data leak, you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: this is this would be the big one.
Speaker 3: Also again to that wolf Sheep's wool thing, this had
Speaker 3: the petita of updating information technology, of modernizing tech. But
Speaker 3: we have to remember, and we've said this before in
Speaker 3: previous episodes, there is a series of very valid reasons
Speaker 3: that your government has dumb technology for some things.
Speaker 2: It makes so much sense, Ben, can you just tell
Speaker 2: us a little more about that, like why, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think I understand, but it would be good to
Speaker 2: get another understanding.
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, So we are let's say the five of
Speaker 3: us you listening along home. Let's say we're all hanging
Speaker 3: out and we're in charge of nuclear weapons, and it
Speaker 3: takes the five of us to agree whenever we are
Speaker 3: going to fire a puppy hug into Iran, Right, or
Speaker 3: earlier it's a new missile. We're working on the puppy hug.
Speaker 3: So okay, So if technology is modernized, we could agree
Speaker 3: on the cloud. Right. The old school stuff means that
Speaker 3: you don't touch the Internet in those kind of decisions
Speaker 3: you get together in your weird, creepy rooms. You might
Speaker 3: have a secure A to B conversation platform of some sort,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't touch the Internet, and then all five
Speaker 3: of us will say, okay.
Speaker 2: Inserting my key.
Speaker 4: We got to turn key three two one, go crack
Speaker 4: the code, read the code to each other, like physically
Speaker 4: written down on paper, analog style.
Speaker 3: So I hope that answers the question those That's one
Speaker 3: example of why technology is purposely nerved in some parts
Speaker 3: of government, and it should be. Unfortunately it has.
Speaker 4: To be same with voting systems. Right.
Speaker 2: It makes so much sense to me when you consider
Speaker 2: someone could take an action from any terminal, any you know,
Speaker 2: machine that has access to the Internet and then steal
Speaker 2: things from a machine that is also like, has access
Speaker 2: to the Internet. You can't do it. It could happen.
Speaker 2: In this case. When you're describing ben you have to
Speaker 2: go to a specific sub basement level four to access
Speaker 2: the filing the physical file records where the Social Security
Speaker 2: Administration keeps all this stuff, which is not how they
Speaker 2: do it. But if it were that way, right, you
Speaker 2: could you could put a ton of security on that
Speaker 2: building and people aren't getting in and they're definitely not
Speaker 2: getting out with mass quantities of you know, physical paper.
Speaker 4: Unless you like uploaded it to cloud flare, right.
Speaker 3: Right exactly, unless you bypass that air gap, you know. Uh,
Speaker 3: that's so that's the issue. And Washing Post had some
Speaker 3: great reporting on this as well as in PR. They said,
Speaker 3: this system allows you to access IRS records, which include
Speaker 3: stuff like your Social Security number, stuff like your bank
Speaker 3: account information. This was per the administration. This was legally
Speaker 3: done and with the appropriate security clearances because we have
Speaker 3: to bring efficiency to the FED, and also we want
Speaker 3: all of your info. All of your data are belonged
Speaker 3: to us. I mean, what me worrying?
Speaker 4: Gosh?
Speaker 3: Man? Yes, sorry, I got back into Mad magazine pretty hard.
Speaker 3: Remember that guy.
Speaker 2: The term that NPR used back in April to describe
Speaker 2: it as personal dossiers on every American citizen and non
Speaker 2: citizen that is within the United State.
Speaker 3: Record, your permanent record. Turns out that old grade school
Speaker 3: conspiracy was true, but not in the way we thought.
Speaker 3: And but wait, there's more conflicts of interest. Guys, We've
Speaker 3: got to talk about this one a little bit. How
Speaker 3: do we respond? I don't want to tip the scale, hero,
Speaker 3: I want to hear from guys. How do we respond
Speaker 3: to the accusations or speculation that Elon Musk could have
Speaker 3: been spearheading Doge for ulterior motives?
Speaker 4: No? What, I don't believe it?
Speaker 3: Okay, that says no.
Speaker 2: Look, just because a guy gives two undred ninety million
Speaker 2: dollars to some dude to run for president doesn't mean
Speaker 2: there's going to be a conflict of interest. Who cares
Speaker 2: if he's got government contracts with two count of two
Speaker 2: separate private entities that are now all becoming one weird
Speaker 2: conglomerate thing called X.
Speaker 3: I think the Fox has some great ideas about henhouse
Speaker 3: design and we should listen to them.
Speaker 4: Let's remove the doors, no more chicken wire, open door policy.
Speaker 3: So I mean, yeah, it's got to be a conflict
Speaker 3: of interest.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Logically we're not saying this is definitely happening, But logically
Speaker 3: it is naive to assume that it is not happening.
Speaker 4: It just seems so utterly clear that it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, you wanta you wanta cut regulations? U. We
Speaker 3: see that happening now. It's happening in the automotive industry
Speaker 3: quite recently, by the way.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: We see budget cuts, we see targeting of agencies that
Speaker 3: have previously investigated elon musk business dealings, rollback.
Speaker 4: Of environmental regulations that directly impact positively, you know, big
Speaker 4: energy companies.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You ever walk outside in the forest and you
Speaker 3: think this place?
Speaker 2: Yes, I wish I wish about a dozen technogarks would
Speaker 2: come out here, that's all. And I don't know tech,
Speaker 2: but did I wish they come out here really beautify
Speaker 2: this place and make it more efficient?
Speaker 4: Plopped some data centers on these redwoods?
Speaker 3: And thanks for the beet, Dylan. Sorry, I got a
Speaker 3: little irritated with this word.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're you're right.
Speaker 3: Guys like walk into a forest and then say, what
Speaker 3: if you had to subscribe to each of these trees?
Speaker 4: That's great? But no, I mean, we let's think about it.
Speaker 2: Let's go quickly just on data centers and weird stuff
Speaker 2: going on. I can't remember what episode it was I
Speaker 2: mentioned that I'm seeing some weird stuff going on with
Speaker 2: detention centers out where I am. Guys, about thirteen miles
Speaker 2: from I am, there is another warehouse really close to
Speaker 2: where I live that has been vacant for about a
Speaker 2: year and looks like it was at least sold or
Speaker 2: least to someone. But I went to the assessor's office,
Speaker 2: I can't find any information about it. I'm genuinely interested
Speaker 2: in this, and I'm trying to do the you know,
Speaker 2: the correct avenues to find stuff. Yeah, it's another one
Speaker 2: of these million square foot warehouses. I'm serious, million square
Speaker 2: foot warehouses that is just empty. But they're changing the
Speaker 2: outside of it right now, and it sure looks like
Speaker 2: it could be used as either a data center or one.
Speaker 3: Of these detention centers.
Speaker 4: Okay, it's like right down the road for me.
Speaker 2: It's freaking out.
Speaker 3: Let's go, let's go visit. I don't know if they
Speaker 3: can't stop us from like being on a public.
Speaker 2: Road, we could just be British. Oh yeah, like a tool.
Speaker 3: Like sure, come on in, just end every sentence, within't it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they've got a big warehouse, isn't it. So there's a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff happening. There are a lot of legal
Speaker 3: actions being taken against dose. So many what. I don't
Speaker 3: know how far we want to get into this, but
Speaker 3: there was a class action lawsuit filed in February of
Speaker 3: last year, twenty twenty five, almost exactly a year ago today.
Speaker 3: The lawsuit said, Hey, these Doge boys, big Balls, Musk
Speaker 3: and so on, they improperly accessed personal data, financial data
Speaker 3: from federal databases and they didn't have any legal reasoning.
Speaker 3: They didn't have a green light. There are more privacy
Speaker 3: and data security lawsuits, constitutional challenges, allegations of violating the
Speaker 3: Federal Advisory Committee Act FACA. We are drowning in acronyms today. Guys.
Speaker 3: I hate how the government does this. Why is there
Speaker 3: an initialism for everything?
Speaker 4: Efficiency? Efficiency?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's also just to make the whole thing
Speaker 2: seem so complicated. We were looking at that initial order
Speaker 2: that was put forward by the Trump administration establishing and
Speaker 2: implementing the President's Department of Government Efficiency, And if you
Speaker 2: just look through that pretty simple like two pager on
Speaker 2: this new thing called Doge, but you look at the
Speaker 2: way there's so many acronyms in there. There's so many
Speaker 2: things that are being talked about, and then the way
Speaker 2: they're being talked about, it just feels confusing, and it's
Speaker 2: such legal speak, you know. I think so often that occurs,
Speaker 2: so that it just becomes boring and you tune out.
Speaker 2: Ben you've said that before on purpose, like it's meant
Speaker 2: to make you tune out.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, you are meant to be bored. You are
Speaker 3: meant to stop doing difficult reading about numbers and acronyms
Speaker 3: and so on, and go over to your dopamine casino right.
Speaker 4: Needle in the haystack. Effect of all of it, like
Speaker 4: not to mention the Epstein files, I mean so many
Speaker 4: things that you're just have all this data dumped on
Speaker 4: you where maybe there's something of interest or of value
Speaker 4: hidden in there, but unless you are really, really, really diligent,
Speaker 4: they never gonna find it, and you will likely just
Speaker 4: get bored and give up.
Speaker 2: Some of the Epstein files. Of course, you add a
Speaker 2: little a couple buckets of trauma and you know horrific
Speaker 2: details in there, which further makes it you want to
Speaker 2: look away even more.
Speaker 3: Mmmm. Yeah, that's a great point. I've got. I've got
Speaker 3: a question, uh for us all have you guys been
Speaker 3: to Fort Knox yet?
Speaker 4: I have not.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's been on a list before, and I was
Speaker 2: near there, but I never got to go in.
Speaker 3: Ben I didn't. Well, it depends on what we mean
Speaker 3: by in, but.
Speaker 2: I wanted to get in.
Speaker 3: Oh, I get in Baby, Let me.
Speaker 4: Bond movie A knock.
Speaker 3: Well, there's this longstanding conspiracy theory in the United States
Speaker 3: that you'll find in any number of uh folklore branches
Speaker 3: right of conspiracy, which is that Fort Knox doesn't actually
Speaker 3: have any gold in the vault, and that it is
Speaker 3: just a tall tale that Uncle Sam has told other
Speaker 3: countries so that it looks more wealthy than it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we can hide all the alien bodies there. Duh.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: It's so weird that in step of the birth of Doge,
Speaker 3: Musk brought up this conspiracy theory. Who was replying to
Speaker 3: a post from a senator named Mike Lee out of Utah,
Speaker 3: and Senator Lee said, I was I'm a senator. I
Speaker 3: was not able to enter Fort Knox. Why are they
Speaker 3: denying access? Musk loved this, and he said, who's confirming
Speaker 3: the gold wasn't stolen from Fort Knox? Maybe it's there,
Speaker 3: Maybe it's not. That gold is owned by the American public.
Speaker 3: We want to know if it's still there. So on
Speaker 3: top of all the other things. This guy just added
Speaker 3: the Fort Knox conspiracy.
Speaker 2: Dude, isn't funny? I think, yes, we'll go check for you,
Speaker 2: mister Musk. The weirdest thing is this all, this thing,
Speaker 2: this doge concept is pulling away the facade that presidents
Speaker 2: and senators used to always talk about. You know, you
Speaker 2: wouldn't say anything bad about Fort Knox and the gold
Speaker 2: supply on purpose because we have to pretend. We all
Speaker 2: have to pretend or this whole thing falls apart. The
Speaker 2: US is extremely wealthy, and yeah, a ton of it's
Speaker 2: in Fort Knox and it's great. And also we don't
Speaker 2: spend too much money. We make so much money, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: But then you look at how some of these things,
Speaker 2: these pillars are just being yanked away. It just makes
Speaker 2: you wonder why.
Speaker 3: It does make one wonder. Also side note, just to
Speaker 3: be objective, folks, you cannot visit the vaults at Fort Knox.
Speaker 3: You can go on the base depending on your circumstances.
Speaker 3: You can walk around depending on your circumstances, but you
Speaker 3: cannot go it. It's kind of like the It's kind
Speaker 3: of like that church in Ethiopia that apparently houses the
Speaker 3: arc of the Covenant. You can walk around it, you
Speaker 3: could talk to people outside all the livelong day, but
Speaker 3: you cannot enter. I don't know. It's strange because we
Speaker 3: have a billion, perhaps a trillion dollar question here what
Speaker 3: happens next answer is, we don't know, but we do know.
Speaker 3: They're very disturbing signals from the halls of power. There
Speaker 3: is clear internal descent which should not be occurring in
Speaker 3: the way it's occurring now. It seems like a heist.
Speaker 3: It seems like Doge is a heist. It seems like
Speaker 3: it's kind of not very well thought out organized crime,
Speaker 3: right like Hamstring. The coppers who are coming to get
Speaker 3: me also give me leverage for future stuff and swindle
Speaker 3: the American people think about the consequences later. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Zabarra, I agree. There might be something even more insidious
Speaker 2: here in a connection to the Department of Homeland Security
Speaker 2: coming out of this NPR article, I'm just gonna read
Speaker 2: these two sentences. The access Doge had is also being
Speaker 2: used to further the administration's immigration policies. The Department of
Speaker 2: Homeland Security announced last week that Doge helped overhaul an
Speaker 2: immigration database to serve as a quote single reliable source
Speaker 2: for verifying non citizen status nationwide.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, So if.
Speaker 2: You get access to all that that information that not
Speaker 2: one group is supposed to have access to all of it,
Speaker 2: then you can decide who is okay and who is
Speaker 2: not okay according to the administration.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: The other weird thing to me is that DOGE only
Speaker 2: had until July fourth this year, twenty twenty six to
Speaker 2: a comp all of its goals, but already in November
Speaker 2: of last year, twenty twenty five, they've already seemed to
Speaker 2: have dissolved, as though dose doesn't actually exist anymore, at
Speaker 2: least according to Reuter's.
Speaker 4: Well, let's mission accomplished though, Man, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: But so that mission was save you know, one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty to two hundred billion dollars in operating costs
Speaker 2: and then make these lists.
Speaker 4: That was, well, we were told the mission was, but
Speaker 4: I do not believe that was in fact the actual mission.
Speaker 3: I agree with you, Noel. The part of the mission
Speaker 3: was to appear to be doing those good faith things right,
Speaker 3: but the real mission again seems to be on the
Speaker 3: level of not super well thought out organized crime. The
Speaker 3: heist doesn't need to continue after you leave the bank,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. For instance, if we are
Speaker 3: bank robbers and we dress in cool costumes, what's a costume?
Speaker 3: Somebody give me at.
Speaker 4: A stripey you burglar outfit and that's that bag man
Speaker 4: right there.
Speaker 3: All right, So we've got we've got our outfits on.
Speaker 3: We rob the bank, we get away. We're probably not
Speaker 3: going to wear those costumes for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 3: The heist is over, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 3: on to the next score unless.
Speaker 4: You build a back door to the bank and that
Speaker 4: allows you to continue to heist over the time, right,
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, Look, there's so much more to explore here, folks.
Speaker 3: We cannot wait to hear your thoughts. Thank you so
Speaker 3: much for tuning in. Tell us what is the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know about Doge and what
Speaker 3: happens next? Please find us on the lines, give us
Speaker 3: a call on a phone, or shoot us an email
Speaker 3: in the dark.
Speaker 4: If you are on the lines, you can find us
Speaker 4: at the handle Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending
Speaker 4: on your social media platform of choice. And there's more, Yes,
Speaker 4: there is.
Speaker 2: We have a phone number. It is one eight three
Speaker 2: three STD WYTK. Turn those letters into numbers, call them
Speaker 2: with your phone. You're gonna hear Ben's voice, and then
Speaker 2: you've got a voicemail system three minutes. You have give
Speaker 2: yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we
Speaker 2: can use your name and message on one of our
Speaker 2: listener mail episodes that show up in the audio feed,
Speaker 2: So you have to go find it, not on Netflix.
Speaker 2: If you want to send us an email, you can
Speaker 2: do that too.
Speaker 3: We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
Speaker 3: we receive. Be well aware, yet's unafraid. Sometimes the void
Speaker 3: writes back. Hit us up with a random fact, get
Speaker 3: one in return. We'll see you out there in the dark.
Speaker 3: Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.