Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noelah.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Alexis codenamed Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here, and that makes this the
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. A lot of
Speaker 3: news in the world these days, these evenings, A lot
Speaker 3: of it surprise surprise, folks, is strange. So, fellow conspiracy realists,
Speaker 3: we return to you again at the top of the
Speaker 3: week with some very strange news. There are a lot
Speaker 3: of stories we might not get to in full, but
Speaker 3: we're going to explore some stuff Congress doesn't want you
Speaker 3: to know. Maybe depending on your representative. We're going to
Speaker 3: have an intensely troubling story about fast food joint spoiler,
Speaker 3: have you ever felt like the person at the drive
Speaker 3: through didn't want to be there? But before we do
Speaker 3: any of that, we're going to talk a little bit
Speaker 3: about how do you want to put a bent products.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we'll just talk about some products. It's about
Speaker 2: imports and exports boys products. Ah oh yeah. This is
Speaker 2: a story that comes to us from the BBC News.
Speaker 2: It's an article that was published on Monday, December eleventh,
Speaker 2: and the tale is from a little place called Stratfordshire.
Speaker 2: It's just north of Birmingham, not Alabama, but in the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom.
Speaker 4: Is it upon Avon or is that a different Stratfordshire.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's on Sandwich.
Speaker 4: Carry on.
Speaker 2: There's one town within this Stratfordshire, I guess county called
Speaker 2: Burton upon Trent, which is kind of nice. Okay, But
Speaker 2: here's the story. It's a little vague at first, and
Speaker 2: we're doing this purposefully, so it's kind of a surprise
Speaker 2: when you find out what the products are. Here we
Speaker 2: go from the article in Stratfordshire, Trading Standard officers seized
Speaker 2: eight pounds of illegal products from twenty two shops in
Speaker 2: one rate and Burtened upon Trent. Over three hundred pounds
Speaker 2: worth of band product was found in a local corner shop.
Speaker 2: Last year, twenty five million pounds worth of US products
Speaker 2: were imported, which is seventy percent more than in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: What are we talking about here, guys?
Speaker 3: Products?
Speaker 2: Products, So let's jump to a quote from John Herriman.
Speaker 2: I think Herriman. He's the chief executive of the Chartered
Speaker 2: Trading Standards Institute or CTSI. This is the quote. Trading
Speaker 2: standards work extremely hard to protect the public by removing
Speaker 2: dangerous products from sale, but the popularity of these items
Speaker 2: is being increased by videos on social media platforms such
Speaker 2: as TikTok. The increase in demand means importers are sending
Speaker 2: these through our ports and borders in the millions, and
Speaker 2: these are then being widely distributed and ending up in
Speaker 2: retail stores and in the hands of children.
Speaker 4: Wait, and we're not talking about drugs here, are we?
Speaker 4: Retail stores? What kind of affront is this?
Speaker 3: What do children buy? Like?
Speaker 2: Nuclear weapons, tires, dirty weapons, slam shots. No, here's a
Speaker 2: short list of some of the products. The dangerous products
Speaker 2: that were removed. Mountain dew, double bubble gum, Jolly Rancher
Speaker 2: gummies and hard candies, Starburst gummies, hot to mollies, you know,
Speaker 2: the candy Swedish fish, lemonheads and Little Debbie cupcakes.
Speaker 3: The white phosphorus of snacks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it will be the first one to say that
Speaker 4: Swedish fish should be categorized as carcinogenic toxins because they're
Speaker 4: really gross and they get stuck in your teeth.
Speaker 3: No, thank you, but thanks for laughing at the phosphorus joke. Man,
Speaker 3: I go in a little place with this. So why
Speaker 3: why these Why these specific?
Speaker 2: Well, specifically because the United Kingdom has past legislation that
Speaker 2: makes specific food additives that are in all of these products,
Speaker 2: it makes them illegal. You cannot buy or sell food
Speaker 2: products that have some of these things in them. Several
Speaker 2: of them they classify, I guess you would say, as
Speaker 2: being carcinogenic or genotoxic.
Speaker 4: Yeah. When I first hear you talking about this, I'm
Speaker 4: picturing this as being another one of the popular recall
Speaker 4: stories of twenty twenty three. That's not the case. These
Speaker 4: products are shipping as intended right, Like.
Speaker 2: No, these are illegally being shipped into the United Kingdom
Speaker 2: because these are it's essentially contraband. It's these are products
Speaker 2: that you cannot sell inside the United Kingdom.
Speaker 4: But the formula, it's not like there's some adulterants, Like
Speaker 4: the stuff that's in these is what's the formula. It's
Speaker 4: not legally incidental.
Speaker 3: Yes, I got it, Okay, legally manufactured in the United States. However, again,
Speaker 3: the EU and the US have different standards, widely different
Speaker 3: standards the and the UK and the UK. Oh, right,
Speaker 3: shout out Brexit. But the main thing is the on
Speaker 3: the other side of the pond, as you know, when
Speaker 3: you look into this, on the other side of the pond,
Speaker 3: the EU and the UK seem a little bit more
Speaker 3: concerned about the safety of their residents.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's fascinating, and we're going to end this segment
Speaker 2: with a one more quote from a professor that is
Speaker 2: just I think it's perfectly British and exactly like the
Speaker 2: way the thinking differs between the FDA and then the
Speaker 2: organizations within the UK government that monitor these kinds of
Speaker 2: food additives. Right, so let's just talk about some of
Speaker 2: those the ingredients that are the dangerous thing that's banned.
Speaker 2: So if you look at Jolly Ranchers, the hard candies,
Speaker 2: they contain mineral oil, which according to the UK government,
Speaker 2: if contaminated with other compounds, can quote initiate cancer formations.
Speaker 2: But again totally fine for us to have it here
Speaker 2: in the good old US. But again it's approved by
Speaker 2: the FDA, So everything's fine.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and it's not like they're on the board
Speaker 3: of Okay, well, you know what, leave it in. Just
Speaker 3: play along at home, folks, choose your own adventure and
Speaker 3: let us know your opinion on privatized healthcare.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, then let's look at something like Mountain dew.
Speaker 2: Why is that banned before the show? Mapp Well, it
Speaker 2: is one of my favorites on this show. Numerous times
Speaker 2: we've talked about brominated vegetable oil, which is one of
Speaker 2: the big problems with that drink. You know, a flame
Speaker 2: retardant ingredient that's for other things. There's also calcium disodium edta,
Speaker 2: which is fully banned within any drinks in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 2: In animal studies, according to this article from the BBC,
Speaker 2: the crystalline powder caused adverse reproductive and developmental effects and
Speaker 2: has been shown to contribute to cancer in the colon.
Speaker 3: And obviously, obviously Swedish fish contain a lot of thlidamide, Right.
Speaker 2: Is that what it is?
Speaker 4: Or perhaps mercury maybe too right, I don't.
Speaker 3: Know, there's a question here, Matt. Before we continue, we
Speaker 3: know that the EU, the UK, and previously just the
Speaker 3: EU and the US have a booming trade relationship with
Speaker 3: these sorts of consumer products, and this has been a
Speaker 3: known issue for a while. But why the raid didn't
Speaker 3: this happen before? That these things would get shipped.
Speaker 2: Over This is a thing that occurs fairly regularly. That
Speaker 2: group we quoted a person, John Harriman, I think is
Speaker 2: how you would say it. The chief executive of the
Speaker 2: Chartered Trading Standards Institute, that person, and that group does
Speaker 2: these kinds of checks, almost like looking into shops to
Speaker 2: see if there's any kind of dangerous materials for sale.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's a real problem because again social media TikTok
Speaker 2: in particular, there are a lot of people putting out
Speaker 2: videos that just show someone enjoying, you know, any of
Speaker 2: these things. Lemonheads. Wow, these lemonheads are incredible, but you
Speaker 2: can't get them. You can't buy them on a high
Speaker 2: street anywhere in the UK. But well yeah, but then
Speaker 2: some big, big box chain stores are guilty of this,
Speaker 2: and then a lot of smaller stores will find a
Speaker 2: way to import these products and then put them for sale,
Speaker 2: you know, in a corner shop, right, a bodega type situation.
Speaker 2: And then this group goes in and just does checks basically,
Speaker 2: and they pull stuff off the shelves. They literally do that.
Speaker 2: In the UK, you can buy mountain dew, but it's
Speaker 2: a very different mountain dew with many fewer ingredients, and
Speaker 2: it tastes very different and it looks very different.
Speaker 3: I can vouch for that with soda in general and
Speaker 3: other parts of the world. The uh, the ingred It's
Speaker 3: refreshing to read an ingredient list in the United Kingdom
Speaker 3: or in Japan or something, or the EU as well,
Speaker 3: because there are far fewer difficult to pronounce chemical combinations
Speaker 3: added in at the end. And also, you know, shout
Speaker 3: out to Little's right, isn't that the grocery chain that's
Speaker 3: like the New Jersey of selling stuff. They might not
Speaker 3: sell you lemonheads, but they'll sell you like citrus uh,
Speaker 3: citrus cums. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well yes, it's just crazy to think of. I just
Speaker 2: really quickly, just to listen to more things. If you
Speaker 2: go down the cereal I in the UK, you're not
Speaker 2: gonna see fruit loops or lucky charms or frosted flakes
Speaker 2: because those are all banned because of the stuff that
Speaker 2: they've got in them. Gatorade, coffee, mate creamer, pop tarts,
Speaker 2: ritz crackers, depleted depleted uranium, wheat thins. I mean these
Speaker 2: are all.
Speaker 4: Things which wheat thins. I thought those were healthy.
Speaker 2: It's it's the again, the food additives that go into
Speaker 2: that stuff. BHD is what it's called, I think, beutilated.
Speaker 2: That's probably not wrong.
Speaker 4: Probably the sweetest breakfast cereal you get over there is
Speaker 4: like something like puffins.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, that's probably right.
Speaker 4: A lot of cereals are really popular too over there,
Speaker 4: are like musely and very very not vanilla flavor, just
Speaker 4: very like basic kind of health food type cereals.
Speaker 3: Hot cereals. Still a very big market for porridge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but not not oatmeal at least not Quaker oats
Speaker 2: because those also have additives in them. Most almost every
Speaker 2: single bread this manufactured in the US cannot be sold
Speaker 2: in the UK. Almost every chock full of sugar.
Speaker 3: Right people in People in other countries say the US
Speaker 3: doesn't make bread, it makes cake.
Speaker 2: But it is so weird that this stuff is just
Speaker 2: what we eat every day. Any any place you go
Speaker 2: and do to buy food in the US has most
Speaker 2: of these products, if not.
Speaker 4: All of these products totally. I mean, I did have
Speaker 4: one question. I didn't notice in any of the articles
Speaker 4: that you've shared any talk of like food dyes like
Speaker 4: yellow number five and.
Speaker 3: Red whatever all of that.
Speaker 4: Have you read anything about any of those being banned
Speaker 4: or is that a thing over there? Maybe that's less
Speaker 4: of an issue in this particular story.
Speaker 2: Yes, artificial colors as additives are also banned, such as
Speaker 2: yellow five, yellow six, and red forty. For sure.
Speaker 3: Check out our previous episode.
Speaker 2: Exactly for sure.
Speaker 4: It's so funny though, because my kid recently told me
Speaker 4: that a lot of these TikTok videos sharing this kind
Speaker 4: of stuff, they're almost kind of nihilistic in nature, where
Speaker 4: they acknowledge how potentially dangerous they are. It's almost like
Speaker 4: tempting fate. And they're really like like red forty and
Speaker 4: yellow five, those are almost like buzz terms in the
Speaker 4: in the gen z, you know, kind of parlance.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. I would recommend everybody, if you've got time,
Speaker 2: head over to Stratford Sure dot gov dot UK and
Speaker 2: check out their newsroom because they've got they've just got
Speaker 2: a little, i guess, an official statement about this this
Speaker 2: series of raids and the number of stores they went into,
Speaker 2: and you know, like basically the pounds of product that
Speaker 2: they pulled off the shelves, and it is a regularly
Speaker 2: occurring thing and I don't think it's gonna stop anytime soon.
Speaker 2: The real, I guess question here is is the United
Speaker 2: Kingdom's government being overly cautious about these things or is
Speaker 2: the FDA just you know, being do it do whatever,
Speaker 2: ye giant food corporations put whatever you want in there?
Speaker 2: Or is it somewhere in between.
Speaker 4: I think it's that.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think it's in between. I mean, because you know, now,
Speaker 4: I don't want to overgeneralize here. Maybe this is offensive
Speaker 4: to even bring up, but I do feel like I
Speaker 4: have to. You know how, there's a reputation somewhat for
Speaker 4: British people not having the best of dental hygiene, you know,
Speaker 4: and then there's you can see that sometimes and maybe
Speaker 4: it has to do with insurance or whatever, just genes
Speaker 4: or something, which I wonder is that maybe a mitigating
Speaker 4: factor where it's like we've already were already a little
Speaker 4: bit behind the eight ball in terms of like mouthhealth.
Speaker 4: Maybe we don't want to tempt fate by having all
Speaker 4: this crazy stuff out there that could further, you know,
Speaker 4: cause issues with dental health care.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think it's to the points that
Speaker 3: we're exploring here. I think it's more a to answer
Speaker 3: your question, Matt, I would say if the three options
Speaker 3: you outlined in that question, the second, I do think
Speaker 3: there are a ton of great people working at the FDA,
Speaker 3: and they're experts, but I do think the FDA also
Speaker 3: has a systemic problem with a quiet sort of corruption.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. The revolving door with private
Speaker 3: and public policy is real. And to your point, with
Speaker 3: the idea of dental health, we know, for instance, if
Speaker 3: we look at a comp country, let's look at Iran.
Speaker 3: Iran has a lot of dental issues because the country
Speaker 3: loves suites. So if you want to make a lot
Speaker 3: of money in Iran, be a dentist, by the way,
Speaker 3: and maybe it's less of a like I see what
Speaker 3: you're saying. I think it's less of a United Kingdom
Speaker 3: fighting back against sugary foods and more a large scale,
Speaker 3: deep disagreement with what one country deems safe versus what
Speaker 3: another country is paid to deem safe.
Speaker 4: You're totally right, and I'm looking it up now and
Speaker 4: it feels like largely the idea of British people being
Speaker 4: more likely to have issues with their teeth. It's largely
Speaker 4: a myth. So I apologize if you can bring that up.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I just spitball, I retract, and I yield my time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because most of these bands have to do with
Speaker 2: again carcinogens or potential carcinogens or potential again gene damaging materials.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's talk about that. What genotoxic?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is stuff that can affect like the way
Speaker 2: your white blood cells function in your body. Not great,
Speaker 2: stuff that can have effects on the way your reproductive
Speaker 2: organs are functioning, or at least the let's say, the
Speaker 2: contents of your reproductive organs. I don't know, the stuff
Speaker 2: that you need to transfer your DNA into a new being.
Speaker 2: It can mess with that. It's really it's messed up stuff, guys.
Speaker 2: And just to get back to that thing of is
Speaker 2: it overly cautious? Is it too you know? Is the
Speaker 2: FDA just letting everybody do whatever? I'm gonna go to
Speaker 2: This quote from Eric Millstone or Millstone Millstone, I think
Speaker 2: is how you'd say it. He's from the University of Sussex.
Speaker 2: He's an emeritus professor there, and this is what he
Speaker 2: has to say, and I think this will tell us
Speaker 2: a lot about the UK government's perspective on these food additives. Quote.
Speaker 2: The US typically demands proof that something is harmful, whereas
Speaker 2: here we are prepared to restrict compounds even if there
Speaker 2: yet isn't solid proof. Don't panic about anything you've done
Speaker 2: in the past, but if you can avoid them in
Speaker 2: the future, that's a prudent thing to do. Basically saying
Speaker 2: it would be prudent for us to probably not allow
Speaker 2: some of these compounds that are suspect in our foods.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that they are actually cancer causing for humans, right,
Speaker 2: but it does seem as though there could be something there,
Speaker 2: so we're going to restrict it before it becomes a
Speaker 2: major problem for our healthcare system and our you know, citizens.
Speaker 3: Preventative Yeah, I mean that makes the argument of caution
Speaker 3: over caution, over valor or whatever makes sense. In the
Speaker 3: previous cases we see of things like lead contaminants or
Speaker 3: things like narcotics added to over the counter medicinal stuff
Speaker 3: shout out Coca cola, et cetera. I'm wondering there's an
Speaker 3: episode here, I think in the origin of why these
Speaker 3: things happen. Yeah, the FDA has had a problem with corruption,
Speaker 3: but also what if you are I mean, because the
Speaker 3: United Kingdom in particular has a lot of Venn diagrams
Speaker 3: of people at the top, and a lot of the
Speaker 3: people making the laws own an interest in a lot
Speaker 3: of the company's manufacturing stuff. So could this be a
Speaker 3: trade war in disguise, you know what I mean? An
Speaker 3: some to think about it could be.
Speaker 2: Remember at the start of this it was a very
Speaker 2: small number of products and small I guess of money
Speaker 2: that was going to be potentially made by these corner
Speaker 2: shops by having these products. So I don't know if
Speaker 2: there's going to be a major trade thing here. I
Speaker 2: think it's just more of a It was striking to
Speaker 2: me thinking that this was a BBC article. This was
Speaker 2: this was deemed dangerous enough that BBC News was like,
Speaker 2: oh man, these dangerous things are getting on our soil
Speaker 2: and let's write about it.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe that's my own weird perspective. I agree with it,
Speaker 2: but there is definitely something here in is fascinating. We
Speaker 2: would love to hear from anyone who lives in the
Speaker 2: UK that has seen this kind of stuff, like the
Speaker 2: American products that are not allowed, but they're still there somehow,
Speaker 2: and just what your opinions are on these things. We
Speaker 2: will be right back with more strange.
Speaker 3: News, and we have returned going into the idea. I
Speaker 3: love how you set up the idea of food here, Matt,
Speaker 3: because our second story takes us to something that everyone
Speaker 3: has experienced. If you have ever eaten fast food, have
Speaker 3: you gone through the drive through or entered the counter
Speaker 3: and thought, man, this person really doesn't want to be here.
Speaker 2: Yes, quite often.
Speaker 3: We've talked about it before. You know, there is a
Speaker 3: somewhat inverse relationship between how good the food is at
Speaker 3: some joints versus how not friendly the service might be.
Speaker 3: Like the best Popeyes in town here in Atlanta legendary,
Speaker 3: legendarily bad people's skills, but the chicken is amazing.
Speaker 2: Ben, I think that's a Popeye's thing because the one
Speaker 2: up near my parents' house and the one where I
Speaker 2: used to live, same problem. Amazing chicken. Just it seems
Speaker 2: like nobody wants to be there.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, the grouchy er, the serve us, the
Speaker 4: tasty or the chicken. That's the old, old expression from
Speaker 4: the old country.
Speaker 3: There's a yeah, I won't belabor the time to have
Speaker 3: with you guys today by talking too much about the
Speaker 3: legendary Popeyes at our old Alma matter of pods, de
Speaker 3: lay on. But if you're hearing this, you guys are
Speaker 3: the best. Thank you. There was something that stood out
Speaker 3: to me quite recently. This is a developing story. As
Speaker 3: we're listening this evening, a lawsuit came from Alabama again,
Speaker 3: just like we're recording this on Wednesday, December thirteenth, and
Speaker 3: on Tuesday, December twelfth, the lawsuit went public. The state
Speaker 3: of Alabama has apparently been using prisoners as slave labor
Speaker 3: at fast food joints. Jeez, yeah, it might sound hyperbolic,
Speaker 3: but I looked into it, and as far as I
Speaker 3: can tell, this is not a conspiracy theory. This is
Speaker 3: a genuine when conspiracy. Let's go to Michael Levinson, writing
Speaker 3: for the New York Times. He depicts the ins and
Speaker 3: outs of this lawsuit. I looked it up. We'll tell you.
Speaker 3: We'll tell you at the end of this how to
Speaker 3: find the lawsuit and read it yourself, and it is
Speaker 3: quite a read for legal ease. Here's what Levinson writes.
Speaker 3: A group of former and current prisoners sued Alabama the
Speaker 3: State of Alabama on Tuesday, saying that the state system
Speaker 3: of prison labor is a quote modern day form of
Speaker 3: slavery that forces them to work, often for little or
Speaker 3: no money, for the benefit of government agencies and private businesses.
Speaker 3: They go on to say the ten plaintiffs, who are
Speaker 3: all black Americans, say the state has regularly denied incarcerated
Speaker 3: people parole and instead leased them out to produce hundreds
Speaker 3: of millions of dollars in profits for local and state
Speaker 3: agencies as well as again and private businesses for years.
Speaker 3: I almost texted our pal Jason Flam about this from
Speaker 3: Lava for Good. I'm sure he knows about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Oh my gosh, this is I mean, hold on
Speaker 4: a second. So this is while they're incarcerated, Yes, and
Speaker 4: this is like they get a day passed or I
Speaker 4: don't understand these fast food restaurants. Where are they located?
Speaker 2: Well, isn't it like the work release program before?
Speaker 3: Yeah, prison work program, work release. It's not the kind
Speaker 3: of thing where you know, in some cases you'll have
Speaker 3: people who are incarcerated and serve their time, or they
Speaker 3: serve jail time, not prison time, but they serve jail
Speaker 3: time by checking in on the weekends to the World's
Speaker 3: worth sleepover. But what is happening with these folks is
Speaker 3: that the Alabama Parole Board is denying parole to anyone
Speaker 3: convicted of a violent offense, regardless of the contact, regardless
Speaker 3: of any mitigating or extenuating circumstance, and they are targeting
Speaker 3: people who are deemed low risk and most importantly, who
Speaker 3: are eligible to participate in these prison work programs. This
Speaker 3: lawsuit calls upon some powerful and quite disturbing precedent earlier conspiracies.
Speaker 3: I would call them the idea of convict leasing, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, eighteen seventy five until nineteen twenty eight in
Speaker 3: the state of Alabama, if you were in prison, and
Speaker 3: if you were black, you were going to be forced
Speaker 3: to work for these private companies and they weren't paying you, really,
Speaker 3: they were paying kickbacks to state and county governments.
Speaker 2: Dude. It's a little confusing to me because we know, again,
Speaker 2: I think collectively, maybe even as a country or even
Speaker 2: as a world, that the prison la favor system in
Speaker 2: the US's nuts, even when it comes to just inside
Speaker 2: the prison jobs, right like the hourly wage, if there
Speaker 2: is one at all, is so far below minimum wage.
Speaker 2: It's nuts. But the concept of private companies then benefiting
Speaker 2: is it's hurting me. It's hurting my brain a little bit.
Speaker 2: Do we know which companies are benefiting from this?
Speaker 3: Yes? We do, Yes, let's play these reindeer games. Since
Speaker 3: about twenty eighteen, a little less than six hundred different companies,
Speaker 3: so we can't name them all, wow, in the time
Speaker 3: we have today, but more than one hundred public agencies
Speaker 3: we're added to this, so let's call it six hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy five discrete entities. They have used incarcerated people
Speaker 3: as landscapers, janitors, drivers, metal fabricators, fast food workers every
Speaker 3: year since twenty eighteen. At least, lawsuit alleges they've made
Speaker 3: four hundred and fifty million dollars in that. Yeah, spoiler,
Speaker 3: The folks that are being forced to labor in these
Speaker 3: circumstances haven't seen much of that money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what does the lawsuit have to say about the
Speaker 4: pattern they're observing? And I mean, you would think that
Speaker 4: the prison you know, officials would be smart enough to
Speaker 4: cover their butts in a way where they could deny
Speaker 4: you know, that this was they were being denied a
Speaker 4: parole for any other reason than that they had done
Speaker 4: something you know, worthy of being denied parole. But does
Speaker 4: the lawsuit allege anything specific about how this pattern was
Speaker 4: kind of sussed out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the fig lea for the fig lea for the
Speaker 3: corruption here was the idea of violent crime. Right, So
Speaker 3: even if you even if you had been locked up
Speaker 3: fifteen or twenty years ago for an efense, you had
Speaker 3: made good on your time, you paid your debt, you know,
Speaker 3: then you would be a vulnerable target. Right, that's what
Speaker 3: they're looking for. They're looking for people who do not
Speaker 3: have the wherewithal to bring their case to court. They're
Speaker 3: looking for the people that do not have community or
Speaker 3: resources to avoid this sort of predation. And look, the
Speaker 3: plaintiffs also aren't just I don't want to say just.
Speaker 3: They're not simply people who have been incarcerated. There are
Speaker 3: labor unions like the Union of Southern Service Workers, the
Speaker 3: Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union, the Mid South Council,
Speaker 3: an Alabama nonprofit called the Woods Foundation. People on the outside, right,
Speaker 3: people who have people who represent fast food workers. We're saying,
Speaker 3: look at this, this is egregious. This is slavery with
Speaker 3: a euphemism painted over it.
Speaker 4: Well, we also certainly know that the state of Alabama
Speaker 4: doesn't exactly have the squeakiest clean of track records when
Speaker 4: it comes to dealing with people of color, you know,
Speaker 4: and treating them in the most inhumane of ways. So
Speaker 4: this to me feels extra egregious coming from a state
Speaker 4: like Alabama that really does have something to prove in
Speaker 4: terms of trying to make up for their past, you know,
Speaker 4: transgressions like under folks like George Wallace.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dirty, intergenerational friar Greece. Right. We also so we
Speaker 3: said that there are hundreds of people or entities alleged
Speaker 3: to have profited from this scheme since twenty eighteen. Some
Speaker 3: of those here's the tricky part. The big companies, three
Speaker 3: of whom I'm about to name on air, are going
Speaker 3: to get away with it. Just so you know, they're
Speaker 3: going to be fine. Those three fast food companies or four,
Speaker 3: I should say, would be McDonald's, KFC, sorry Japan, I
Speaker 3: know it's almost Christmas time, Wendy's and Burger King. However,
Speaker 3: here's how they're going to get away. They're going to
Speaker 3: get away because of the franchise model. So McDonald's corporate
Speaker 3: can say, uh, you know, we're kind of like, do
Speaker 3: what thou wilt. We have plausible deniability. We had no
Speaker 3: idea this was going on, and I don't know how
Speaker 3: the case is going to go yet. The defendants, there
Speaker 3: are quite a few defendants obviously, but they're taking shots
Speaker 3: at the king here in the lawsuit. We're talking about
Speaker 3: the current governor of Alabama Kivy, the state Attorney General,
Speaker 3: Steve Marshall. So they're fighting like the final boss of
Speaker 3: Alabama legislature and the chair of the Board for Pardons
Speaker 3: and Paroles. This is this is crazy because technically, if
Speaker 3: they're correct, if their arguments correct, then technically and in spirit,
Speaker 3: I would say this is a violation of some very
Speaker 3: important US laws, one of the primary being the federal
Speaker 3: law that protects victims of trafficking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what it is, especially if the prison
Speaker 2: system is really making forty percent off of any wage
Speaker 2: that any of these workers is getting.
Speaker 4: And that's the gross Yeah, and then they're claiming or
Speaker 4: whatever saying they're using it to offset the cost of
Speaker 4: their incarceration, which, as sure is expensive. But that's no
Speaker 4: damn excuse, is it.
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, it's as in a way I would say,
Speaker 3: it's a kissing cousin to the dangers of the company
Speaker 3: town right, or the company's store, because in your way,
Speaker 3: with your labors, right, and without a choice in your
Speaker 3: pursuit of labor. Also, these private companies that are legally
Speaker 3: required to pay people, you know, the bottom barrel minimum wage,
Speaker 3: they are ostensibly paying that to the individual, but then
Speaker 3: the individual is running into all these baked in cost,
Speaker 3: all these hidden fees to simply that you incur simply
Speaker 3: by existing day to day in the US prison system.
Speaker 3: We're talking like fifteen dollars a month for laundry, five
Speaker 3: dollars a day for transportation to work. And you know,
Speaker 3: I know, gas prices go up and down, but five
Speaker 3: dollars a day is a lot, especially if you're going
Speaker 3: every day. So again, our journalists for places like the
Speaker 3: Washington Post and New York Times break it down in
Speaker 3: simple what politicians would call dinner table conversation terms. A
Speaker 3: prisoner working for a private laundry service, you might get
Speaker 3: seven bucks and a quarter an hour, but then you've
Speaker 3: got forty percent of that going to the state prison system. Then,
Speaker 3: of course, guess what, folks, it's America. So unless you're
Speaker 3: a billionaire, you pay taxes. So then they have to
Speaker 3: pay federal taxes, state taxes, and then they have to
Speaker 3: pay that fifteen dollars a month laundry fee, they have
Speaker 3: to pay that five dollars day transportation costs. All told,
Speaker 3: the average person in this private laundry service makes two
Speaker 3: dollars and six cents an hour, no tips, by the way.
Speaker 4: And as taxpayers, we're subsidizing these kind of grease payments,
Speaker 4: right or like these sort of you know, sweetheart deals
Speaker 4: for these corporations because we're also paying for the cost
Speaker 4: of the incarceration, and then this labor is giving a
Speaker 4: sweet deal to these fat cats. And also, you know, subsidizing,
Speaker 4: are subsidizing, right, So it's like we're kind of getting
Speaker 4: screwed here too.
Speaker 3: It costs less in real terms to the American public
Speaker 3: to send someone in prison to college and to get
Speaker 3: them a four year degree than it does to keep
Speaker 3: them in prison for four years. That's it. And you know,
Speaker 3: not to mention the knock on effect of giving someone
Speaker 3: opportunity for higher education versus the knock on effect of
Speaker 3: sending them to criminal university, which is what a lot
Speaker 3: of federal and functions as at this point, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's unclean, and I'm startled
Speaker 3: that it's It's going to be one of those stories
Speaker 3: that I genuinely believe is going to make the rounds
Speaker 3: for a few weeks, right, and then when it goes
Speaker 3: to court, it goes to appeal process. We're talking about
Speaker 3: very disadvantaged people fighting very powerful people who are entrenched
Speaker 3: in a system of corruption and criminality. We'll get an
Speaker 3: update when it hits some sort of legal roadblock, and
Speaker 3: then the world quite possibly may forget about it because
Speaker 3: a lot of other terrible things are happening. But if
Speaker 3: you are listening to this and you live in the
Speaker 3: United States, you need to realize this is your fight
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there might be some cognitive dissonance in
Speaker 2: people's minds simply because some of the human beings of
Speaker 2: by these laws that are terrible were convicted of doing
Speaker 2: terrible things and they actually did those terrible things. Then
Speaker 2: some of the people that are being affected by this
Speaker 2: got convicted of terrible things and they didn't do anything,
Speaker 2: you know, or they at least didn't do that thing.
Speaker 2: And you know, as in as an individual looking at this,
Speaker 2: you know, from afar or from above. There's no way
Speaker 2: to differentiate between you know, people that maybe deserve like
Speaker 2: some serious like punishment to people who are just in
Speaker 2: there receiving this punishment because they got caught up in
Speaker 2: the system, which is a really awful. It's an awful
Speaker 2: thing all around. I guess I can imagine it being
Speaker 2: hard for people to get past the well, so one
Speaker 2: of the you know, some of them deserve it. When
Speaker 2: when you know, I've heard I've heard people in my
Speaker 2: family say stuff like that, you know, So it's just
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's it's it's tough, man.
Speaker 3: Hey, but guess what, there's more, wait, there's more. It
Speaker 3: does get worse. Let's talk Yeah, let's talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about unpaid labor forced upon people in the prison system.
Speaker 3: Right where you are. You are now your serving time,
Speaker 3: and now you are coerced into functioning as someone who
Speaker 3: does labor in the prison system in terms of like housekeeping, unloading,
Speaker 3: loading supplies, cooking things like that. What if you're not
Speaker 3: paid for that, why would you say yes to it? Well,
Speaker 3: according to folks like Lekira Walker, who was incarcerated for
Speaker 3: fifteen years, in Alabama. If you don't say yes to
Speaker 3: this stuff, then you are at risk of being sent
Speaker 3: back to prison, and they'll say, well, you don't get
Speaker 3: to choose your job work for these folks, or you're
Speaker 3: back to lock up. Or if you are in prison
Speaker 3: and refuse to participate in this modern day slavery scheme,
Speaker 3: you could get a discipline infraction which adds on to
Speaker 3: your prison sentence. And unfortunately, for anyone who has not
Speaker 3: had the dubious privilege of visiting the US prison system,
Speaker 3: disciplinary infractions are incredibly subjective and you have no real
Speaker 3: means of appealing a disciplinary infraction. It can be a
Speaker 3: case where it can be a case where a guard
Speaker 3: has a bad day and you just caught them at
Speaker 3: the wrong moment, or they didn't care for you for
Speaker 3: some reason. You may not have violated a rule and
Speaker 3: it could end up being months or years more off
Speaker 3: of your life. So I think we're going to follow
Speaker 3: this one for a while. We want to hear from you.
Speaker 3: We want to hear your opinion of this sort of practice.
Speaker 3: Do you think these allegations are hyperbolic or overblown? Do
Speaker 3: you think there's more to the story in your neck
Speaker 3: of the Global Woods. Is there something similar afoot? Is
Speaker 3: there something they don't want you to know? Conspiracy Guyheart
Speaker 3: Radio one eight three to three std WYTK will be
Speaker 3: back after word from our sponsor with one more piece
Speaker 3: of strange news.
Speaker 4: And we've returned with today's last piece of strange news.
Speaker 4: This one comes sort of by way of an update
Speaker 4: to a very intense piece of legislation that I know
Speaker 4: we have talked about in the past. This is called
Speaker 4: the Section seven two of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,
Speaker 4: or FISA, which of course allows the US government to
Speaker 4: essentially force domestic communications companies, organizations, corporations to aid them
Speaker 4: in surveilling any non US individuals who are outside of
Speaker 4: the country by giving access to their streams of communication,
Speaker 4: which sounds, I guess a little bit basic and not
Speaker 4: dull exactly, but when you start to really think about
Speaker 4: what is meant by streams of communication, that's when things
Speaker 4: get very interesting. This bill, which was set out by
Speaker 4: the Intelligence Committee, or a pair of bills rather by
Speaker 4: the Intelligence Committee and won by the Judiciary Committee, were
Speaker 4: intended to change the language and reauthorize Section seven O
Speaker 4: two of FAISA in order to completely overhaul the idea
Speaker 4: of what these communication streams might be referring to and
Speaker 4: what that language would have changed to were these to
Speaker 4: have gone forward, was that it would have expanded the
Speaker 4: definition of electronic communications service provider to include any types
Speaker 4: of equipment that are used to transmit from the language
Speaker 4: of the legislation to transmit or store such communication, which,
Speaker 4: if interpreted broadly enough, which would be the idea here,
Speaker 4: that could include something like a Wi Fi router at
Speaker 4: an Internet cafe or or a public library, perhaps essentially
Speaker 4: allowing this term to refer to any type of publicly
Speaker 4: available Internet stream.
Speaker 2: Can I just tell you how far down my thinking
Speaker 2: in this already? Oh?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 2: Just maybe in my negative assumptions about it.
Speaker 4: Nothing much positive to take from it?
Speaker 2: Please?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 2: Well, I just feel like that was already happening, and
Speaker 2: maybe I'm i dot.
Speaker 4: Okay, I have no doubt, But I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: we know that sometimes while a lot of legalese tends
Speaker 4: to be very bespoke and specific, you know, it also
Speaker 4: tends to be almost is equally vague, sometimes by design.
Speaker 4: But here's the good news. The update here is that
Speaker 4: you know, to your guys' point, this list, these laws
Speaker 4: already existed, and the expansion, while maybe not overt and
Speaker 4: like set forth in these reforms that were official. Of course,
Speaker 4: stuff like that was already happening. But I guess I
Speaker 4: would argue that, you know, if this stuff were to
Speaker 4: be broadened in such a way, then it would be
Speaker 4: even easier for them to do and they could probably
Speaker 4: secretly broaden them even further. Right, So the good news
Speaker 4: is that this was shot down. The House of Representatives
Speaker 4: will not, in fact vote on these two bills, these
Speaker 4: proposed surveillance bills that would have essentially given unilateral, you know,
Speaker 4: freedom to the government to surveil any kinds of these
Speaker 4: public streams.
Speaker 3: Still need that rubber stamp from PFISA. Right, they're famous
Speaker 3: for being I can't even finish at PISA's kind of
Speaker 3: bullshit right now, Oh for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and this was thanks to the Rules Committee, keed.
Speaker 4: You got your Rules Committee, you got your Intelligence Committee,
Speaker 4: and you got your Judiciary Committee, Intelligence and Judiciary. We're
Speaker 4: all about this, and that Rules decided to shoot it down.
Speaker 4: So take from that what you will. There is a
Speaker 4: term here, maybe you guys are familiar. They were said
Speaker 4: to be voted on simultaneously yesterday as we record this
Speaker 4: on December thirteenth, and what was referred to as a
Speaker 4: Queen of the Hill vote? Do you know what a
Speaker 4: Queen of the Hill vote is? The first time I've
Speaker 4: heard this term before.
Speaker 2: Isn't that where there are two basically competing bills that
Speaker 2: get voted on and then instead of like voting one
Speaker 2: yes or no, you've you know what I mean, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: both of them don't get a yes or no. It's
Speaker 2: basically a or B.
Speaker 3: Yeah, most votes. When I see I say, got done
Speaker 3: in a Queen of the Hill thing, I think it's
Speaker 3: also it's also a snapshot into what I see is
Speaker 3: a very serious problem in US discourse. Congress has a
Speaker 3: lot of parliamentary rules, procedural rules, you know, just housekeeping things,
Speaker 3: and the US public is by a large not aware
Speaker 3: of a lot of these. So when you read some
Speaker 3: kind of street name for a slick procedural move like
Speaker 3: Quaene of the Hill, then the first thing you think is,
Speaker 3: you know, if you're most Americans, you think, wait, didn't
Speaker 3: we have a war about not having a queen? What's
Speaker 3: really going on? And next thing you know, you're in
Speaker 3: a TikTok rabbit hole where there's further misinformation propagating, and
Speaker 3: if bills like this go through, then the surveillance state
Speaker 3: only extends even further. I would I would posit this
Speaker 3: is not about, in terms of practice and operation, expanding
Speaker 3: government surveillance abilities. This is about laying the groundwork to
Speaker 3: justify previous and current That's right.
Speaker 4: And now let's hear a little bit from the Electronic
Speaker 4: Frontier Foundation, which had this to say about Section seven
Speaker 4: O two that it was by the way, this is
Speaker 4: from some great reporting done and vice by Jules Roscoe,
Speaker 4: and this is what they had to say. It was
Speaker 4: designed to allow government to warrantlessly surveil non US citizens
Speaker 4: abroad for foreign intelligence purposes. Increasingly, it's this US side
Speaker 4: of digital conversation that domestic law enforcement agencies trawl through,
Speaker 4: all without a warrant. FBI agents have been using the
Speaker 4: Section seven to two databases to conduct millions of invasive
Speaker 4: searches for Americans, and that includes things relating to protesters,
Speaker 4: racial justice activists. Remember what happened with the Rico cases
Speaker 4: against some of the forest defenders here in Atlanta. You know,
Speaker 4: it's similar to that, and probably we were using this
Speaker 4: type of expanded you know, language to surveil those folks
Speaker 4: and then build these reco charges against them, journalists, donors
Speaker 4: to congressional campaigns, and even members of Congress themselves.
Speaker 2: Okay, and yeah, yeah, podcasters don't for you podcasters, Sure
Speaker 2: you guys noticed the weird sounds on your phones when
Speaker 2: you make calls? Well, do you guys ever notice that?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: Uh, cool, it's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's just stay in Plato's cavern of surveillance for
Speaker 3: a moment here. But let's also point out, you know, folks,
Speaker 3: not to always be plugging our book, but we do
Speaker 3: have a pretty solid chapter on the expansion of surveillance.
Speaker 3: And there's something else here happening, which is seven O
Speaker 3: two is sort of attempting to podify or to justify
Speaker 3: or rationalize things that are always already happening via the
Speaker 3: five eyes loophole. Right, Like, you can't spy on your
Speaker 3: own citizens, but New Zealand and the UK sure can.
Speaker 3: And if they happen to slide just some information at
Speaker 3: the next embassy hangout, or even if it's just a
Speaker 3: couple guys at a bar, well then it's all in
Speaker 3: the service of a greater good. So I think they're
Speaker 3: just trying to This feels like trying to put some
Speaker 3: trying to put some touch up paint over something they've
Speaker 3: already marred.
Speaker 4: You're a hundred recent, right, Ben. And just to follow up,
Speaker 4: statement from some folks opposing this from the Brennan Center
Speaker 4: for Justice and the Electronic Privacy Information Center or EPIC,
Speaker 4: which is an EPIC acronym, referred to the bill as
Speaker 4: a wolf in sheep's clothing that would target businesses far
Speaker 4: outside the tech sector that do not even have access
Speaker 4: to communications, and they listed some potential misuses of this
Speaker 4: in monitoring places like hotels, libraries, coffee shops, other businesses
Speaker 4: that provide Wi Fi could be compelled to serve as
Speaker 4: surrogate spies, structuring their systems so that they can give
Speaker 4: the government access to entire communication streams.
Speaker 2: Dude, it's it's exactly what inward facing in outward facing
Speaker 2: intelligence agencies want. Just let us have the keys to
Speaker 2: all the stuff given it. If we need to look,
Speaker 2: will look because we're trying to protect What do you do?
Speaker 3: You do you not support the troops?
Speaker 4: You know, like safety?
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Come on, god, oh my god, we're just watching.
Speaker 3: The protect and hey, by the way, bro, we saw
Speaker 3: that you read War's racket well carefully right, shout out
Speaker 3: Smethley Butler. I mean that there's I don't know there.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you brought this story up. No, because there
Speaker 3: are all sorts of conflicts of interest here, But to
Speaker 3: your earlier point, this is right.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Overall, this is good news because they did say no, right, yeah.
Speaker 4: No again, And I thought it was I didn't remember
Speaker 4: if we had specifically talked about this being up potentially,
Speaker 4: and it seemed initially like it was gonna just kind
Speaker 4: of be just sail right through. But thankfully it didn't,
Speaker 4: so I did want to go into some of the background.
Speaker 4: Hopefully it wasn't too redundant. But the good news here
Speaker 4: is that this attempt, at the very least, you know,
Speaker 4: was not successful. But that's not to say that it
Speaker 4: won't be attempted again and again, you know, with just
Speaker 4: slightly tweaked language to make whoever may have objected to
Speaker 4: it in this case happier, or you know, maybe they
Speaker 4: just needed a little something something to agree, because I
Speaker 4: have no doubt in my mind that so many of
Speaker 4: these types of decisions are not about what's right, they're
Speaker 4: about what are you going to do for me? And
Speaker 4: how can you help me in my efforts legislatively speaking
Speaker 4: moving forward?
Speaker 2: Because it's directly tied to the National Defense Authorization Act
Speaker 2: that happens every year, right, Like they have to do
Speaker 2: that every year.
Speaker 3: She should be cool. You're absolutely Matt, You're absolutely right,
Speaker 3: you know. And sometimes it's like a matter of pr messaging,
Speaker 3: like what is the what is the most non objectionable
Speaker 3: name we can find for? Like this the Patriot Act?
Speaker 3: Oh what you vote against? Patriots? Dog? Like it sounds weird,
Speaker 3: but that that's how it works, you know. Like maybe
Speaker 3: seven o two returns uh sooner than we think. And
Speaker 3: now it's just called the the the Puppy Act or something, Right.
Speaker 2: Do Sweet Widow Puppies, Sweet.
Speaker 3: Widows Puppies Act?
Speaker 4: You have to do dona against cuteness. You don't like snuggles, this,
Speaker 4: you don't like kisses? You don't like kisses.
Speaker 3: Now, I'm sure we can all agree that there are
Speaker 3: some real cute little vomments out there in American soil,
Speaker 3: and it's our job to do our best to protect them,
Speaker 3: God and our country. However, my opponent seems to have
Speaker 3: a problem with children.
Speaker 4: As I yield the floor to you, this hot wet
Speaker 4: down there, sir.
Speaker 3: Do you deny that your childhood puppy has indeed expired
Speaker 3: under your ka.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, like that's how she was hidden between
Speaker 4: the couch cushions.
Speaker 2: It was an accident.
Speaker 4: It was a horrible accidents.
Speaker 3: But that's how it's that's how it's framed, you know,
Speaker 3: and that's why this work. Like you know, you said
Speaker 3: at the top, you're worried maybe this would be dry
Speaker 3: or in the weeds, but I think it is absolutely not.
Speaker 3: I think this is mission critical stuff to understand, you know,
Speaker 3: And it's not going to get a ton of news
Speaker 3: coverage because there's not a celebrity face attached to it,
Speaker 3: right sadly.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: But the people that are going to encounter consequences for this,
Speaker 3: some may be celebrities, a lot are going to be
Speaker 3: journalists that we rely on to learn more about the world.
Speaker 3: A lot are going to be protesters, like you said
Speaker 3: with stop Coop City, with forest defenders, those folks got rico,
Speaker 3: laude and unfairly and law and as this stuff. As
Speaker 3: these sorts of things, these mac nations occur in the background,
Speaker 3: then We're going to see more and more clamping down,
Speaker 3: more and more attempts. I think it. I mean, maybe
Speaker 3: it verges upon conspiratorial to say we have to be vigilant,
Speaker 3: because I know that's a dog whistle for some people.
Speaker 3: But you do have to keep an eye on this,
Speaker 3: and I don't know. Sometimes it's tough. It's tough to
Speaker 3: not be nihilistic. Right to the point about TikTok candy experiments, right, like,
Speaker 3: what can one do? The truth of the matter is,
Speaker 3: I would say what one can do is collaborate with many,
Speaker 3: right and through the many we move. There are more
Speaker 3: good people than there are bad people out there.
Speaker 2: Yes, good people who move to farmland in the mountains
Speaker 2: somewhere in North Georgia.
Speaker 3: Faiza loves our group chats.
Speaker 2: By the way, guys, really, you guys think we get
Speaker 2: looked at a little bit. I think we have to
Speaker 2: be probably. I think it's like it's literally just a
Speaker 2: checking a box kind of well, and just make sure
Speaker 2: they're not doing anything other than talking about this story.
Speaker 3: We get algorithmically checked, so the checking on us is automated.
Speaker 3: Intern Steve, I am happy to report, is now a
Speaker 3: tourist traveling certain segments of the world. Best of luck, Steve,
Speaker 3: how do you know that he just sends us? He
Speaker 3: sends us communicats every so often. But yeah, to answer
Speaker 3: your question, I think for a lot of us, right,
Speaker 3: the idea like paranoia can be so tempting, right.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not not paranoia in my mind. It's like,
Speaker 2: I guess, just if they have this stuff in place
Speaker 2: around the capability right well, I mean I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you though, it's these systems are also pretty lazy.
Speaker 4: Oh exactly, that's a great point.
Speaker 3: The first past, dude, It's just it's algorithmically hoovering up
Speaker 3: stuff right in an automated How how close are you
Speaker 3: to knowing Kevin Bacon or and ser Kevin Bacon here?
Speaker 3: And then like maybe there are key words for things
Speaker 3: that you talk about. I don't know. I genuinely guys,
Speaker 3: I doubt that there is someone at the Puzzle Palace
Speaker 3: who is like I got to tune in to stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. Did they figure out
Speaker 3: Glenn Miller, because that's still important to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I hear you. We don't have to talk
Speaker 2: about this now together. It's just I think about some
Speaker 2: of the travel that we've been doing recently, and because
Speaker 2: generally outside of the US is what these you know,
Speaker 2: these courts are for, right, and these authorizations and all
Speaker 2: of this stuff. It just makes me nervous even traveling
Speaker 2: in country just to different states and stuff. It just
Speaker 2: feels I don't know, it feels like what the thing
Speaker 2: was made for.
Speaker 4: Oh, one hundred percent, and yeah, I know. Thanks for
Speaker 4: all the additional perspective on this, guys, And again, hey,
Speaker 4: let's look at this one as a win, shall we.
Speaker 4: Maybe we end this episode with feeling a little less
Speaker 4: hopeless when it comes to this kind of stuff. But unfortunately,
Speaker 4: there always will be the next swing. But for now
Speaker 4: seems like we've at the very least staved off making
Speaker 4: this stuff even more egregiously invasively agreed.
Speaker 3: And while unfortunately activities or attempts like this will always occur,
Speaker 3: we can say that we are very fortunate to be
Speaker 3: hanging out with you this evening, folks, and we would
Speaker 3: consider it a win. If you join up with the show.
Speaker 3: Let us know your thoughts, let us let us know
Speaker 3: where you get the good limit heads or the good
Speaker 3: Mountain do with the bodega. Let us know if you
Speaker 3: have seen any any programs similar to that horrifying thing
Speaker 3: in Alabama and your neck of the global woods, wherever
Speaker 3: those may be. We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 4: It's right. You can find us with the handle of
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Speaker 4: our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy. On Instagram
Speaker 4: and TikTok, you can find us a Conspiracy Stuff show.
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