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 Noa.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined with our guest superproducer
Speaker 3: Max the Free Train Williams. Most importantly, you are here.
Speaker 3: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: We're at the beginning of birthday month, as we call
Speaker 3: it here on this show, and for anybody with an
Speaker 3: August birthday, we wish you well and grand adventure. We
Speaker 3: have so much stuff to get to the epas it's
Speaker 3: getting on message with some things that we talked about
Speaker 3: a few years ago. We've got some notable politicians in
Speaker 3: the news, but maybe not in the way you think.
Speaker 3: We promise we did want to start. We're talking off air,
Speaker 3: but with one quick update. A while back we reported
Speaker 3: on a Kansas City, small town newspaper raid. Do you
Speaker 3: guys remember that one?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so that was a big deal. Someone died
Speaker 2: in someone died in connection with the raid on the
Speaker 2: newspaper or the house, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, the big news, the big update is that
Speaker 3: the former police chief who led the raid on this
Speaker 3: Kansas City newspaper for doing their journalistic duty. His name
Speaker 3: is Gideon Cody. He is going to be charged in
Speaker 3: the Marion County District Court. And the report says that
Speaker 3: this guy, a actual police chief at the time, committed
Speaker 3: the crime of obstruction of justice by knowingly or intentionally
Speaker 3: inducing a witness to withhold or unreasonably delay the production
Speaker 3: of testimony, info, or documents. You can read more about
Speaker 3: this on multiple outlets, but I think we're all very
Speaker 3: happy to see that there were consequences for this, because, like,
Speaker 3: cast your memory back just last year, it felt like
Speaker 3: this could be a harbinger of other crackdowns on the press, right, oh.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent.
Speaker 5: I mean, it really does feel like a kind of
Speaker 5: bullying tactic to make the free press scared to exercise
Speaker 5: the rights of the free press.
Speaker 3: And speaking of free press, will take a brief pause here,
Speaker 3: and then we're going to technically give some free press
Speaker 3: to several crazy stories, starting with your favorite guy, Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: We're back. Probably the most conservative opinion of this strange
Speaker 3: enterprise of hours is that we refuse to call a
Speaker 3: certain social media platform X. We still call it Twitter
Speaker 3: and a funny thing. I know, we all clock so
Speaker 3: many of the same stories. A funny thing that I
Speaker 3: saw a headline and wanted to share with everybody is
Speaker 3: the following from AP News quote Elon Musk X sues
Speaker 3: advertisers over alleged massive advertiser boycott after Twitter takeover. So
Speaker 3: even AP news isn't on board with calling it X,
Speaker 3: they're still calling it Twitter.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think I maybe mentioned I don't remember if I
Speaker 5: saw this in an official news source, but it's definitely
Speaker 5: accurate that just about every news source out there still
Speaker 5: refers to it as X formerly known as Twitter, making
Speaker 5: it probably one of the least successful rebrands in the
Speaker 5: history of rebrands. It's just not taking. People don't like it,
Speaker 5: and people don't want to say it.
Speaker 3: I mean, AP News, the Daily Zeitgeist, the top journalism
Speaker 3: of America, the top two, for sure. I'll call it Twitter, you, oh,
Speaker 3: the top two. We're not picking favorites, but those are
Speaker 3: the top two. This is the story, guys. The social
Speaker 3: media platform under Musk's management and ownership, has sued a
Speaker 3: bevy of advertisers and they're saying there's a massive advertiser
Speaker 3: boycott that has somehow illegally deprived the company of billions
Speaker 3: of dollars and also violated anti trust laws. We're going
Speaker 3: to see some more anti trust kind of stuff coming
Speaker 3: up later in tonight's program regarding Google. But it's funny
Speaker 3: to me this story, because hopefully funny to all of us,
Speaker 3: because not too long ago, didn't Musk tell advertisers to go,
Speaker 3: you know, take a long walk off a short.
Speaker 4: Pier in no uncertain terms. I believe he maybe even
Speaker 4: swore at them, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 5: But isn't it funny to see the language of a
Speaker 5: lawsuit like this more or less to the layman reads, well,
Speaker 5: if you're not going to advertise with me, then I'm
Speaker 5: going to assue you for not advertising with me.
Speaker 4: No one has to advertise with anybody, right, Like, I
Speaker 4: don't know. I mean, it's so easy to be gas
Speaker 4: lit by these very powerful people where you're like, maybe
Speaker 4: I missed the memo, or there's some legal footnote I'm
Speaker 4: not aware of, or maybe they do have to advertise
Speaker 4: with them for reasons unknown.
Speaker 5: But no, let's just shake ourselves out of that stupor.
Speaker 5: I don't believe that's the case, guys. I believe the
Speaker 5: free market means you can advertise with whoever the hell
Speaker 5: you want to and or not advertise with whoever the
Speaker 5: hell you want to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they isn't the idea or some attorneys, some
Speaker 2: powerful attorneys somewhere working for Musk, decided it was illegal
Speaker 2: for at least a blanket organization to say don't buy Twitter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what. Yes, that's why. Like ideally, in strange news,
Speaker 3: we always want to include stories that are a little
Speaker 3: below the fold and involved in some way with the
Speaker 3: concept of conspiracy. And you nailed it there. Because the
Speaker 3: suit is against something called the World Federation of Advertisers.
Speaker 3: It's an anti trust suit, meaning they're saying a single
Speaker 3: organization has too much power. Member companies of the World
Speaker 3: Federation of Advertisers include things like Unilever, CVS Health, and Mars.
Speaker 3: Yeah this is not the planet, but the candy company
Speaker 3: Bars okay, yeah, the other one and so and maybe Mars.
Speaker 3: Maybe he got soured on the Mars explorations. But in
Speaker 3: that case, it does seem to have some theoretical sand
Speaker 3: if you're saying that the if you're alleging that this
Speaker 3: massive organization pretty much the specter level or the freemason
Speaker 3: level of advertisers, has banded against you, then you might
Speaker 3: have a case you can take to court.
Speaker 4: That's interesting, and apologies if I misspoke.
Speaker 5: I still think I'm somewhat correct in thinking that this
Speaker 5: is still, at the end of the day, up to
Speaker 5: the individual members whether or not they choose to advertise
Speaker 5: with a particular brand or a particular you know, platform.
Speaker 5: I guess it's just a recommendation or it's sort of
Speaker 5: like laying out sort of like, hey, we as an
Speaker 5: organization think that it's bad business to advertise with this
Speaker 5: platform because of X, Y and Z.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you nailed it. Because the specifically they're targeting something
Speaker 3: called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which is a
Speaker 3: safety initiative that is under the auspice or the control
Speaker 3: of the World Federation of Advertisers, and they're saying this
Speaker 3: brand safety initiative sort of orchestrated a pause in advertising.
Speaker 3: And to your point, Noel, there's not a there's not
Speaker 3: a provable case of like this kind of organization is
Speaker 3: not the United Nations, you know what I mean, it's
Speaker 3: not the International criminal court. They can't lock up the
Speaker 3: top six people at Unilever if they want to advertise
Speaker 3: with whomever.
Speaker 5: But even the United Nations more or less issues recommendations
Speaker 5: on a lot of which are pretty toothless and up
Speaker 5: to the member nations to decide whether or not they
Speaker 5: want to play ball or not.
Speaker 4: And I mean, I guess if the argument.
Speaker 5: Is there is some threat of retribution if our member
Speaker 5: organizations are member brands, et cetera, don't follow these guidelines
Speaker 5: set out.
Speaker 4: But that was seemingly would be pretty easy to prove.
Speaker 4: And if that's the case, then yeah, I think that
Speaker 4: is too much power. But isn't it the job of
Speaker 4: organizations like this to kind of have ethical guidelines that
Speaker 4: they sort of lay out.
Speaker 3: You know, yes, that that is a solid argument. You know,
Speaker 3: all less aspects of that are completely vaid. What we
Speaker 3: can say here is, despite the fact that this is
Speaker 3: easily a turn of the heel for Musk based on
Speaker 3: his previous statements, we can say one of the big
Speaker 3: questions ultimately becomes one about the legality of boycotts. Now,
Speaker 3: it wasn't too long ago that there were some kind
Speaker 3: of polemical forces in the United States and abroad arguing
Speaker 3: that boycotts against certain countries should be illegal, even though
Speaker 3: that's very much a grassroots movement, and to this, you know,
Speaker 3: before we move to the next story here, I think
Speaker 3: it's a question for us and all of our conspiracy
Speaker 3: realists listening along at home, should people be able to
Speaker 3: make boycotts illegal? Like if a bunch of people decide
Speaker 3: they don't want to mess with you, should they be
Speaker 3: forced to mess with you if you're not the actual government.
Speaker 5: I think the term that pops up to me, and
Speaker 5: I just want to pop it up for you guys,
Speaker 5: is the idea of brand safety, and that's something that
Speaker 5: we see a lot here in pot casting and as
Speaker 5: a podcasting network. We have methods and mechanisms in place
Speaker 5: that ensure brand safety, you know, because brands have guidelines
Speaker 5: they don't want to be advertised on certain types of shows.
Speaker 5: Certain types of shows don't want certain types of brands
Speaker 5: advertised on them.
Speaker 4: You know. It's it's it's a.
Speaker 5: Very reasonable thing. And one could argue that for certain
Speaker 5: brands advertising on a platform that is so willy nilly
Speaker 5: and Lucy Gussey with hate speech and very you know,
Speaker 5: inflammatory content, it could well be something they might want
Speaker 5: to be aware of.
Speaker 3: Sure, and totally understandable. But to that earlier question, should
Speaker 3: it be illegal for people to boycott something as private
Speaker 3: private individuals or private entities?
Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: I don't think it should be illegal.
Speaker 4: That should know, it should be legal. I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: excuse me. It should be legal.
Speaker 5: Yes, that is exercising. I mean, hell, if corporations are people,
Speaker 5: you know, like, come on, shouldn't we be able to
Speaker 5: do what people do. I don't have to give my
Speaker 5: money or my business to anybody I don't want to.
Speaker 5: So it shouldn't be a double standard if we treat
Speaker 5: corporations like people in one respect, shouldn't we? I mean
Speaker 5: maybe that's a silly thing to mention, but I do
Speaker 5: think yes, of course, you should be able to boycott
Speaker 5: something that you see as being negative and toxic.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It gets sticky, though. It really does get sticky,
Speaker 2: because there are actions you could take to completely tank
Speaker 2: a corporation, to take a you know, an individual, even
Speaker 2: a sole proprietorship or an LLC or something. You could
Speaker 2: tank those things if you had enough players boycotting right
Speaker 2: that were big enough. In this case, major advertisers Mars
Speaker 2: and Utiliver. Come on, you've seen em and yeah, you've
Speaker 2: seen eminem ads recently probably, and you know all kinds
Speaker 2: of other ads that you know, all the products that
Speaker 2: Unilever has to have an organization come through with those
Speaker 2: massive conglomerates and say no, you cannot do this, you
Speaker 2: cannot take this one action.
Speaker 4: Sure, what what's the what's the recourse though, Guys?
Speaker 5: If this is overturned and it's determined, like, isn't it
Speaker 5: ultimately up to the brands? I mean there's I can't
Speaker 5: see any possible outcome where it would be like, no,
Speaker 5: you Unilever have to advertise with Twitter, Like, what's the outcome?
Speaker 4: I just don't see kind of what the outcome It.
Speaker 3: Will ultimately, I mean, obviously it will ultimately be litigated
Speaker 3: in courts. The primary, most immediate outcome is that this
Speaker 3: is awesome for the lawyers involved. They're going to make
Speaker 3: so much, like egregious, stupid amounts of money. One of
Speaker 3: them might buy Twitter. I don't know, but this this
Speaker 3: is going to wend on for a while and make
Speaker 3: it dismissed. If it gets dismissed, I mean, the rulings
Speaker 3: will be appealed, regardless of the courts the side. We're
Speaker 3: keeping an eye on it again because this is an
Speaker 3: allegation of conspiracy technically, and for the etymology nerds before
Speaker 3: we move on, right, because the law is always litigated constantly.
Speaker 3: That's our next that's our next story in this bit.
Speaker 3: The etymology of Boycott comes from a guy named Captain
Speaker 3: Charles C. Boycott back in the mid to late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3: Everybody in Ireland hated him, everybody in County Mayo specifically
Speaker 3: because he refused to lower rents for his tenant farmers,
Speaker 3: just like just like a lot of private corporations refuse
Speaker 3: to lower post pandemic prices today. We call that foreshadowing.
Speaker 3: So imagine being so hated that your last name became
Speaker 3: a word for when a group of people refuses to
Speaker 3: mess with you.
Speaker 5: Like Benedict Arnold or something. You know, it's like a
Speaker 5: stand in for being a trader.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we should call that arnoldy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 5: He got his whole name, you know, made into a
Speaker 5: concept of being a bad guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is very interesting.
Speaker 5: I mean there is politics involved too, obviously, because I
Speaker 5: believe some of these findings that are making this seemingly
Speaker 5: actionable word determined by a House Republican led committee that
Speaker 5: heard evidence and believe they determined that there were current
Speaker 5: laws in place sufficient to deter anti competitive collusion in
Speaker 5: online advertisement. So I mean there's a there's a political
Speaker 5: edge to this as well. Of course, not to say
Speaker 5: that there isn't always when it comes to lawsuits and such,
Speaker 5: but it does feel maybe a little loaded, and especially
Speaker 5: since Musk has been such an out such a you know,
Speaker 5: vocal supporter of the right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially in recent years. How the turn tables, as
Speaker 3: they say on the office. But this, this leads us
Speaker 3: to a setup for another story that we believe is
Speaker 3: very important for all of us to be aware of.
Speaker 3: The law is imperfect, law is fallible, and the law
Speaker 3: can be manipulated. So aside from our billionaire beefs and
Speaker 3: celebrity beefs that are so often mentioned in media, it's
Speaker 3: important to look at things like the recent case in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal
Speaker 3: from the family members of a woman who died in
Speaker 3: two thousand and eleven. Her death is currently ruled as
Speaker 3: a homicide. Ellen Greenberg, a first grade teacher at the
Speaker 3: age of twenty seven, was found in her apartment with
Speaker 3: twenty stab wounds. Ruled a suicide. What Yeah, originally ruled
Speaker 3: a homicide until the medical examiner encountered pressure from local
Speaker 3: law enforcement and switched the ruling at their order.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a really sticky, deep Well we could
Speaker 2: go into if we want to, just all of the things,
Speaker 2: all of the aspects he went into this case where
Speaker 2: the boyfriend, you know, is the person that found her.
Speaker 3: Yes, the boyfriend breaks down the door. We could also
Speaker 3: learn a little bit more about Philly medical examiner Marlon Osborne. Right,
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's.
Speaker 4: It's dirty pool the back of the neck. How does
Speaker 4: one stab oneself in the back of the neck.
Speaker 3: And this is coming from AP news, Well, this was
Speaker 3: this is a while ago.
Speaker 2: This is a case that was I think it all
Speaker 2: hit all of our true crime radar. I can't remember
Speaker 2: we talked about it on Strange News or not, but.
Speaker 4: I don't recall it until this point.
Speaker 2: It's really weird because the boyfriend apparently went down to
Speaker 2: the gym and then came back up and the door
Speaker 2: was locked, and found his girlfriend that way and there's
Speaker 2: all kinds of other fishy stuff I remember from like
Speaker 2: the initial uh, you know, before it even went to court.
Speaker 3: I believe, yes, exactly. And this also does a factor
Speaker 3: in a guy who was going to be a presumptive
Speaker 3: or he was in the running to be a vice
Speaker 3: presidential candidate pick. That would be Governor Josh Shapiro. He
Speaker 3: is now under scrutiny as well because he was in
Speaker 3: office during the time of this just tragic, tragic case.
Speaker 3: We're bringing this up to let you know that the
Speaker 3: law doesn't always get things right. Again, the law can
Speaker 3: be pushed, it is fallible, and perhaps this may be
Speaker 3: an actual episode in the future, because I agree that
Speaker 3: there is a lot to cover here. The case got
Speaker 3: it's thirteen years old, you know what I mean, It
Speaker 3: was more than a decade ago, and Greenberg's parents for
Speaker 3: more than a decade have been fighting to get the
Speaker 3: truth about their daughter's murder out there. And it's not
Speaker 3: just you know, people on Reddit or something who are
Speaker 3: saying it's fishy. We're talking about a bevy of for
Speaker 3: Ren experts who have said something similar to what you
Speaker 3: just said, Noel, you can't stab yourself ten times in
Speaker 3: the back in suicide.
Speaker 5: Am I missing where the pressure the initial pressure was
Speaker 5: coming from? I mean, I feel like that would be
Speaker 5: the red flag, like powerful parents, you know, with access
Speaker 5: to high powered lawyers, there's.
Speaker 4: Some inside person in the coroner's office.
Speaker 5: Because a big thing that's mentioned in this ap article
Speaker 5: is the idea that a coroner should not have quote
Speaker 5: absolute discretion that can't be challenged, which I think we
Speaker 5: would all probably agree with on its face, but like,
Speaker 5: what an odd ruling to happen, you know, right off
Speaker 5: the rip like that, And I just don't understand where
Speaker 5: the pressure would have been coming from.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you law Tube all of these there are
Speaker 2: so many YouTube channels that stream like cases every day,
Speaker 2: and Ellen Greenberg's case has been something that's been going
Speaker 2: on and on and on and on, and her family
Speaker 2: has been pushing really hard recently to see change.
Speaker 4: No, I'm saying the pressure initially to get yeah.
Speaker 3: To initial suicide, to the homicide. How who the flow
Speaker 3: did Osborne get pushed?
Speaker 5: Who's applying said pressure, or at least who is suspected
Speaker 5: of being the insider and that's maybe pulling the strings
Speaker 5: or something, Because that, to me is the first thing
Speaker 5: that my mind goes to, is if we know that
Speaker 5: oddball ruling like this, where's the political pressure being applied.
Speaker 3: Philly PD my guy.
Speaker 5: To be quite honest, you think so because it's easier
Speaker 5: for them because they don't have to do anything about it,
Speaker 5: because it's just like a case that's checked off.
Speaker 3: Well, you're asking who, and that question is why, so
Speaker 3: who is Philly PD? Why? Maybe it's clearing case. We
Speaker 3: have to do an episode to know for sure. We
Speaker 3: can say that the initial calculus on the side of
Speaker 3: law enforcement and the homicide detectives was that the door
Speaker 3: was broken down by the boyfriend, the paramore. We mentioned
Speaker 3: Goldberg right, the door was locked from the inside. The
Speaker 3: PD said there were no signs of an intruder and
Speaker 3: that Greenberg, the teacher, had no defensive wounds. And then
Speaker 3: later they said there were mental issues that Greenberg may
Speaker 3: have had and that was their primary impetus for coming
Speaker 3: back and pressuring the Medical Examiner's office to change the
Speaker 3: ruling to a suicide. But you know, again, without being lawyers,
Speaker 3: without being doctors, I think it's a pretty safe assumption
Speaker 3: that that would be a virtually impossible way to kill yourself,
Speaker 3: like stabbing yourself. That many times repeatedly without dying part
Speaker 3: way through. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, even in cases like the death
Speaker 5: of Elliott Smith, for example, the singer.
Speaker 3: Who stabbed himself stabbed himself in the.
Speaker 5: Chests, and there were immediate questions about whether his girlfriend
Speaker 5: was involved for that very reason, because it's just he
Speaker 5: like shot himself in the gut, want to say, which
Speaker 5: is also the worst possible way to go, and then
Speaker 5: stabbed himself in the heart. So I believe, again I'm
Speaker 5: not getting the details exactly right, but I think it was.
Speaker 5: There were initial questions that his girlfriend, who was either
Speaker 5: nearby or present, had something to do with it, but
Speaker 5: that was eventually quashed.
Speaker 4: But there were questions.
Speaker 3: M Yeah, and there are questions that hopefully and most importantly, uh,
Speaker 3: the family will the family of Greenberg again, Goldberg is
Speaker 3: the boyfriend, Greenberg is the victim. Hopefully the family of
Speaker 3: Greenberg will be able to get those answers. And if
Speaker 3: you guys think it's worth making an episode on it,
Speaker 3: I say, I say let's do it, because this is
Speaker 3: still this is still ongoing and hopefully hopefully investigations continue.
Speaker 3: How does that.
Speaker 2: Sound sounds good?
Speaker 3: Well, we can't leave you on that note. So we're
Speaker 3: gonna we're gonna move to something that is less disturbing
Speaker 3: to some of us but intensely disturbing to a few
Speaker 3: of our our fellow conspiracy realist. If you gets squiked
Speaker 3: out by food, fast forward about three to four minutes.
Speaker 3: The country of Singapore has some new stuff on the menu.
Speaker 3: You guys have eaten crickets right, like Sunday school crickets,
Speaker 3: sometimes tacos.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Singapore has approved edible insects at not because there
Speaker 3: was you know, some nepotism and some like kid of
Speaker 3: a billionaire is a edgy chef or something. It's because
Speaker 3: they have growing food security concerns, the same way that
Speaker 3: the European Union has a bunch of farm subsidies to
Speaker 3: keep their agricultural industry going despite rising costs. Singapore just
Speaker 3: approved edible insects. And if we want to call out
Speaker 3: a school early and head to Singapore's house at seafood restaurant,
Speaker 3: we can get the fishhead curry, Matt, you'lvecurry. We can
Speaker 3: get the fish head curry with a side of crunchy crickets.
Speaker 3: We can also get tofu that comes with the bugs,
Speaker 3: no extra charge.
Speaker 2: Delicious that crunch. Instead of those little crispy wantons, you
Speaker 2: just get some bugs.
Speaker 4: It's a feature, not a bug, but it's a bug.
Speaker 3: Worth it, worth it. It's sixteen species of different things
Speaker 3: that can be served in Singaporean restaurants now crickets, grasshoppers, grubs,
Speaker 3: meal worms. It took about two years for the notoriously
Speaker 3: strict Singaporean government to decide on this and say it
Speaker 3: it could actually happen. TikTok is going to go crazy
Speaker 3: for it. We also know the real reason it's happening
Speaker 3: is not because Singapore loves TikTok. It's not nepotism. It's
Speaker 3: because insects are primarily protein one. You can fry about
Speaker 3: anything and make it taste good too. And in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: Singapore looked around and realized ninety percent of its food
Speaker 3: is imported, and they're aiming to create thirty percent of
Speaker 3: their nutritional needs internally by twenty thirty. So there are
Speaker 3: a lot more bikes in the future. We talked about
Speaker 3: this a little while back. When did we gosh, it
Speaker 3: was years ago we talked about this idea. Was it
Speaker 3: lab grown meat something like that? Protein alternatives absolutely and
Speaker 3: you know, there's been a lot or much a do
Speaker 3: I think maybe in certain circles about like.
Speaker 5: This is the future that liberals want, you know, or
Speaker 5: we're eating bugs. Everything's bugs, you know, bug protein, and
Speaker 5: it is kind of the stuff of sci fi where
Speaker 5: like a dystopian future where everything is just sort of
Speaker 5: made of like an amalgamation of like insect kiten or something.
Speaker 4: Like that, you know.
Speaker 5: But it is certainly better for the environment than like
Speaker 5: with all the gases that come from slaughterhouses and cow
Speaker 5: cattle production and things like that, and of course the
Speaker 5: if you go that route, the inhumanity of meatduction in general.
Speaker 4: But it is a talking point that you hear about,
Speaker 4: like the idea they just want.
Speaker 3: To serve us bugs and before we go to an
Speaker 3: at break and we'll have to say that is a
Speaker 3: perfect setup. There's other news. We didn't get to corpse
Speaker 3: shortage due to rise in Scottish medical students. Clearly a
Speaker 3: necromancer wrote that headline. Heightened tensions in Lebanon. Hope everybody
Speaker 3: can get a flight out. Chinese American man has been
Speaker 3: convicted of spine on dissidence for China. There's way more
Speaker 3: to that story, but for now speaking of weird foods,
Speaker 3: would you ever eat a bear? Or if you had
Speaker 3: a dead bear, what would you do with it?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, Ben, they say, sometimes you eat the bear,
Speaker 5: and sometimes the bear, well he eats you.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 5: And we returned with I think one other stranger political
Speaker 5: stories in a political season that has been rife or
Speaker 5: as you point out, our friend Frank says, wide rife with.
Speaker 4: Strangeness, This comes from fledgling.
Speaker 5: I guess one could argue third party candidate and political
Speaker 5: dynasty member Robert F.
Speaker 4: Kennedy Junior. Guys, he would be the son of Bobby Kennedy,
Speaker 4: isn't that right? Son of Robert Kennedy senior.
Speaker 3: Yaes career, son of the assassinated assassinated Bobby Kennedy exactly.
Speaker 4: And I don't know.
Speaker 5: Political dynasties are fascinating, And I know that's one of
Speaker 5: your pet subjects, Ben, and one that you have mega
Speaker 5: problems with. The scruples shall we say, because I was
Speaker 5: talking to my kid the other day trying to explain
Speaker 5: to them what a political dynasty is and I couldn't help.
Speaker 5: Probably from your influence, Ben, just say it's basically like
Speaker 5: a monarchy, but it just sort of like plays by
Speaker 5: a different set of rules, but ultimately is kind of
Speaker 5: the same thing. It's like a lineage that yeah, sure
Speaker 5: they get elected, but it also calls into question all
Speaker 5: the things behind the scenes about what does it mean
Speaker 5: to get.
Speaker 3: Pold it's jag just as gross.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think so too, and it really again not
Speaker 5: this isn't really what the story is about, but it
Speaker 5: does call into question all of the machinations behind the
Speaker 5: scenes of what it takes to get elevated to that
Speaker 5: level and what it means to actually get you know,
Speaker 5: that level of prominence, and is it Is it fair?
Speaker 4: Because I would argue it.
Speaker 5: Can't possibly be with a number of repetitive entries into
Speaker 5: the political United States political history that do come from
Speaker 5: these dynasties.
Speaker 4: But we're talking about.
Speaker 5: RFK Junior, who you could also argue is a bit
Speaker 5: of a black sheep of the Kennedy political dynasty because
Speaker 5: the Kennedys have traditionally been pretty I guess liberal, I get,
Speaker 5: I don't know. I mean, that's means different things, you know,
Speaker 5: throughout history, but in general a little bit more on
Speaker 5: the progressive side, A little bit more from that kind
Speaker 5: of Boston lawyering kind of background, well spoken and well
Speaker 5: educated and typically you know, proponents of pretty progressive policies.
Speaker 5: RFK Junior, on the other hand, has had some real
Speaker 5: problematic bouts with the public. I I suppose in terms
Speaker 5: of his anti vax standpoint, his anti VAX's few viewpoints.
Speaker 5: I believe he even had like an organization that he
Speaker 5: founded that was intended to proliferate anti VAX sentiment, like
Speaker 5: shut down or at least like taken off of social
Speaker 5: media platforms for disseminating incorrect information let's just say determined
Speaker 5: to be incorrect.
Speaker 4: Also been in the news recently because he's.
Speaker 5: Running as this third party candidate, a lot of people
Speaker 5: are calling him kind of a spoiler candidate, which would
Speaker 5: be spoiler for the Democrat side, the Democrat ticket, and
Speaker 5: up until the point, you know, recently, when Joe Biden
Speaker 5: dropped out of the race, that certainly seemed like the case.
Speaker 4: But now his continued presence.
Speaker 5: Almost seems like it might actually be a spoiler for
Speaker 5: the Republicans because of the way things are sort of
Speaker 5: shaping up. So that's interesting in and of itself. No
Speaker 5: one certainly thinks he's a viable candidate. He is married
Speaker 5: to Cheryl Hines of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame, which I
Speaker 5: was a little bummed to here.
Speaker 4: I at least kind of like Cheryl.
Speaker 5: He does have a background of conservationism in a way.
Speaker 5: Was recently announced to have been diagnosed with having brainworms
Speaker 5: that he believes he may have gotten on his travels abroad,
Speaker 5: you know, for some of these humanity, you know, humanitarian efforts.
Speaker 5: But now it turns out he may actually have gotten
Speaker 5: these brain worms from a dead bear cub carcass that
Speaker 5: he decided in his wisdom to pick up off the
Speaker 5: road on his way on a falconing expedition with an
Speaker 5: unnamed buddy of his.
Speaker 4: He lives in.
Speaker 5: Westchester, which is a very affluent part And is it Connecticut, geyser?
Speaker 4: Is that upstate New New York?
Speaker 5: Connecticut and upstate New York almost blend together in my
Speaker 5: mind geographically in terms of like where the rich people
Speaker 5: who go into the city during the day for work
Speaker 5: actually live.
Speaker 4: But it does true, Okay, so it is it is upstate, isn't.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a Westchester county, Westchester County exactly.
Speaker 5: And I've never purported to be a master geographer, but
Speaker 5: I'm trying to do my best here. He was on
Speaker 5: his way to a falconing expedition, which is, I guess
Speaker 5: another thing rich people do in the Hudson Valley when
Speaker 5: apparently a car or a van as he describes it,
Speaker 5: in front of him, hit and killed a bear cub.
Speaker 5: How do we know about this, you guys might be asking, Well,
Speaker 5: he posted a video of himself essentially admitting to this
Speaker 5: whole affair we're going to get into the details of
Speaker 5: with Roseanne Barr, the I don't know troubled comedian. I
Speaker 5: guess it was once a household name for the Roseanne show,
Speaker 5: the sitcom with John Goodman that was, like, you know,
Speaker 5: a staple of nineties kind of televisual viewing.
Speaker 3: And she later became a poster child for ambient correct.
Speaker 5: Well because she said some things, some very offensive, racially insensitive.
Speaker 5: Dare I say hateful things that I'm not going to
Speaker 5: repeat here, but then claim that she only did it
Speaker 5: because she was on ambient And if anyone knows anyone
Speaker 5: who takes ambient or has any experience with themselves, you
Speaker 5: do know that there is a thing is.
Speaker 4: Like this ambient lore.
Speaker 5: It's true that it can cause you to say some
Speaker 5: weird stuff, or make weird food in the middle of
Speaker 5: the night, or just generally kind of have these like
Speaker 5: you know, fugue state moments, these incidents. And this is
Speaker 5: what she claimed was the case. But she's been problematic
Speaker 5: for other reasons. She's just been a real political firebrand
Speaker 5: and has some pretty insensitive views, let's just say.
Speaker 4: But that's not the point.
Speaker 5: The point is this is the venue which Rfka Junior
Speaker 5: chose to cop to this occurrence essentially. So what happened
Speaker 5: was he claims he saw the bear being hit, he
Speaker 5: got out of.
Speaker 4: His car, he picked up the bear, put it in his.
Speaker 5: Car, with the intention, he said, of taking it home,
Speaker 5: skinning it, butchering it, and saving the bear meat to
Speaker 5: consume at a later date. Berting it, yeah, dehydrating it,
Speaker 5: making bear jerky whatever.
Speaker 4: Really yeah really.
Speaker 5: And then he also went so far as to say,
Speaker 5: and this is totally legal in the state of New York.
Speaker 4: Because this is considered roadkill.
Speaker 3: Is true, it is legal. It's illegal to have people
Speaker 3: pay you to serve it to them, but it is
Speaker 3: legal to consume it yourself. And also I would argue.
Speaker 3: You know, it's an accident. He wasn't purposely hunting the bear.
Speaker 3: It is not an unethical thing to do. But he
Speaker 3: was on the way to the airport in a bit
Speaker 3: of a rush.
Speaker 4: Well, it gets weirder. He wasn't well, he wasn't on
Speaker 4: the way in the airport. Even yet, there's more. He
Speaker 4: was on the way to falconing.
Speaker 5: But Matt, I see you have some more questions before
Speaker 5: we get to the next bet.
Speaker 2: But he was going to eat the bear meat.
Speaker 5: Which is not a good It's it's apparently right though, guys,
Speaker 5: ye general.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're thinking of the viral video that posted recently
Speaker 3: with all the tapeworms coming out of it's but for years. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like it's it's true though, they are riddled because they
Speaker 3: eat a lot of raw salmon, eat a lot of
Speaker 3: raw raw food that already has parasites. It's part of
Speaker 3: the grand circle of life of creepy things. But yeah,
Speaker 3: people eat bear meat.
Speaker 2: There are parts of the bear.
Speaker 5: There are parts of the bear that are apparently safer
Speaker 5: than others to consume. It is not my wheelhouse at all,
Speaker 5: so I couldn't tell you what it is. But you know,
Speaker 5: you've eaten exotic jerky's been that's sort of a thing
Speaker 5: that you've done in the past, and in our travels together,
Speaker 5: we went on a weird road rally in like West Virginia,
Speaker 5: down that part of the country where you might have
Speaker 5: a little more roadkill based culinary let's excursions, and there
Speaker 5: are lots of crazy road roadside shops that would sell
Speaker 5: rattlesnake jerky and all of this kind of stuff that's
Speaker 5: probably prepared regionally, So there's a certain acceptance for that
Speaker 5: kind of thing in certain parts of the country.
Speaker 4: But we yeah, so he and he's a guy.
Speaker 5: That's an outdoorsy guy. He likes to get out the
Speaker 5: great outdoors. He's going falconing. This sort of tracks, I
Speaker 5: would argue, But what gets a little suss is what
Speaker 5: happens next. He puts the bear in his car, he
Speaker 5: goes falconing, has such a lovely time falconing.
Speaker 4: Is that do you hunt when you're falconing?
Speaker 5: Is it literally just you send the falcon out and
Speaker 5: it catches small game and then it brings it back
Speaker 5: to you.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you can you can have it bring back game,
Speaker 3: or you can just set it for itself. The big
Speaker 3: trick is getting it to trust you enough to come back.
Speaker 4: You got the glove and everything.
Speaker 3: And he's also the falcon hat. You know about that, right.
Speaker 5: That's the one that it humps basically right like it.
Speaker 5: It's attracted to it sexually.
Speaker 3: And the reason the reason my friends and I are
Speaker 3: not falconers.
Speaker 5: Actually, if anyone listening to this show for any amount
Speaker 5: of time, they know there's many reasons that I'm not
Speaker 5: a fant falconer, and this whole hobby is mystifying to me.
Speaker 5: These are birds of prey, they got sharp beaks and
Speaker 5: claws and talons or whatever.
Speaker 4: I just I would be terrified.
Speaker 5: But so they had such a lovely time falconing, and
Speaker 5: then afterwards he's the idea was he was going to
Speaker 5: go back to his place in Westchester. Almost want to
Speaker 5: do some fact checking here with lebe a little Google map.
Speaker 5: So if we do Google maps, like from Hudson Valley
Speaker 5: to west Chester, you know it takes a long time
Speaker 5: to get anywhere in this part of the country because
Speaker 5: of traffic, and then especially if you're factoring in like
Speaker 5: going into the city. So let's see Hudson Valley, New York,
Speaker 5: get directions from there to west Chester, Westchester.
Speaker 4: New York. That is a good hour and forty minutes.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Also two questions. One did he have a bear tag?
Speaker 3: In Two? What time of year was it?
Speaker 5: Well, that's the thing, though, Ben. What he claims is
Speaker 5: that he didn't need one because it was roadkill. That's
Speaker 5: what he says to Roseanne. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But it's I think he said, at least if I'm
Speaker 3: remembering the video posted.
Speaker 4: To x he posted himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he got in front of the story. They
Speaker 3: would call it right. So if I'm remembering this correctly,
Speaker 3: didn't he say? It's legal in New York to take
Speaker 3: home route kill bear if you have a bear tag,
Speaker 3: it's a bear tag.
Speaker 5: There's no bear hunting in this part of the I guess,
Speaker 5: would you, I get maybe there is, I guess in
Speaker 5: the Hudson Valley air I mean they are wooded area.
Speaker 4: Maybe you could go bear. So it's a bear tag
Speaker 4: like a hunting license for bear.
Speaker 3: Like According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation,
Speaker 3: if you hit I think if you hit most wild
Speaker 3: animals with a vehicle, local law enforcement can and will
Speaker 3: allow you to take the animal by They just say,
Speaker 3: writing a tag for it. You can learn more by
Speaker 3: contacting the New York Bureau of Wildlife at five poet
Speaker 3: eight four oh two eight eight eight three. I'm reading
Speaker 3: straight off their twitter.
Speaker 5: I just I'm sorry not to get log jams here
Speaker 5: with this, but right like it's it's this form of
Speaker 5: a license.
Speaker 4: Then is it a one time thing? Who writes the tag?
Speaker 5: I'm also seeing that, you know, bears in the wilderness
Speaker 5: for research purposes, for various other conservation purposes are tagged.
Speaker 4: You know, that's a different kind. It is a different
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 5: I'm just making sure that I'm on the same page,
Speaker 5: right right, So I don't want to get caught up
Speaker 5: in the weeds here. So let's just for for auntents
Speaker 5: and purposes, let's just say that he thought what he
Speaker 5: was doing was legal, and he made that clear to
Speaker 5: Rosehirt and said that what I you know, what.
Speaker 4: I was doing. He actually goes out of his way
Speaker 4: to say that this is legal.
Speaker 5: All the while Roseanne is just kind of listening, seeming
Speaker 5: somewhat mystified by the whole thing. It's sort of like,
Speaker 5: why are you telling me this kind of and to
Speaker 5: your point, Ben, it does feel as though he was
Speaker 5: trying to get ahead of a story that he knew
Speaker 5: was going to drop about a news event that happened
Speaker 5: about ten years ago where a bear's carcass was found
Speaker 5: in New York City's Central Park next to like a
Speaker 5: broken down bicycle in a bike lane. And it was
Speaker 5: a big old mystery as to where this bear came from,
Speaker 5: because there's no bears in the Central Park.
Speaker 4: There are no bears in New York City.
Speaker 5: They would be much more relegated to the surrounding wilds
Speaker 5: of New York State and in Connecticut, et cetera. So
Speaker 5: this is our FK Junior coming out and saying, yeah,
Speaker 5: that was me. I dropped the bear there because he
Speaker 5: was having such a grand old time falconing that they
Speaker 5: didn't have time to go back to his home in Westchester,
Speaker 5: where he was going to deposit the bear into a
Speaker 5: freezer of some sort, I guess, until he had time
Speaker 5: to butcher it. Instead, he had to make it over
Speaker 5: to Peter Luger Peter Luga Steakhouse, where he had a
Speaker 5: business dinner. It's the kind of place the valet's okay,
Speaker 5: so presumably he valeid his car with a dead bear.
Speaker 5: KRK is in the back because another article written about
Speaker 5: him claimed that he has a really disgusting car, like
Speaker 5: really like covered in animal fur. Like instead of the
Speaker 5: back seat, there's just like a bench and like the
Speaker 5: side mirrors smashed.
Speaker 4: But I don't know, maybe he's self parked.
Speaker 5: But typically places like that you got a valet, so
Speaker 5: presumably the dead bear Carkers is still in there, rotting
Speaker 5: all the.
Speaker 2: While before we move on. It's sitting there. Let's pause
Speaker 2: there in time, dead bear sitting there in the car.
Speaker 2: It reminds me so much of the SNL sketch The Falconer,
Speaker 2: Like the basis of that sketch, do you guys remember it?
Speaker 4: And I don't know that one tell us it's.
Speaker 2: Will Forte playing a guy who just leaves his whole family,
Speaker 2: goes out in the woods, meets a falcon. I think
Speaker 2: its name is Donald, Yeah, it's Donald. He's always yelling,
Speaker 2: he gets trapped all the time. He yells for Donald
Speaker 2: to help him, who's his falcon? And then Donald goes
Speaker 2: and eats at a like crazy fancy luxurious restaurant instead
Speaker 2: of helping him. And it's just like it's an excuse
Speaker 2: to show a falcon doing bougie stuff. I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: but it reminds me so much of this.
Speaker 5: It's a Peter Luger steak house likely might have been
Speaker 5: a place that the Donald would have frequented, but presumably
Speaker 5: he had a change of clothes. You know, you don't
Speaker 5: go to Peter Luger wearing your falconing scrubs. I don't
Speaker 5: know what when falcon's in, to be honest. And then
Speaker 5: apparently it was running late for the airport. You didn't
Speaker 5: seem like he planned ahead very well in all of this,
Speaker 5: and so then thought that it would be a real
Speaker 5: hoot in a holler if he just dumped the bear
Speaker 5: in Central Park, which we'll get into this in a minute.
Speaker 4: Why a lot of this doesn't quite make sense.
Speaker 5: And he recently there had been a spate of cyclists,
Speaker 5: like the new bike lanes had been put in and
Speaker 5: around Central Park and people were getting pancaked by bicyclists.
Speaker 5: So he thought it'd be funny if he staged a
Speaker 5: crime scene to make it look like the bear was
Speaker 5: hit by a cyclist. So he left his disheveled bike
Speaker 5: Lely also had in his vehicle on top of the bear,
Speaker 5: and then skid addled.
Speaker 3: And that would be the conspiratorial part of the story.
Speaker 5: Well, there's a bunch because the report, you know, from
Speaker 5: the original discovery of this bear carcass was.
Speaker 4: That it had stab wounds.
Speaker 5: It was determined to have been you know, that life
Speaker 5: was determined to have been ended by a vehicle, But
Speaker 5: it also was reported to have had stab wounds.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's certainly possible.
Speaker 5: There are also images out there. I don't know exactly
Speaker 5: where they came from. It must he must have posted
Speaker 5: them himself, but of RFK like posing with the bear carcass,
Speaker 5: like putting his hand down its throat and kind of
Speaker 5: weird stuff like yeah, yeah, because graphic picture here shows
Speaker 5: RFK Junior posing with dead bear code before dumping it
Speaker 5: in Central Park, and it does show him like with
Speaker 5: the bear cub like propped up and got his hand
Speaker 5: in his mouth looking like pretending like he's being bitten,
Speaker 5: and he's making this face like oh my hand with
Speaker 5: this kind of messed up looking bear carcass. And he
Speaker 5: claims that he just had to get to the airport
Speaker 5: and didn't have time and so he dumped it in
Speaker 5: Central Park as a goof.
Speaker 4: But guys, Central Park isn't near the airport. There's a
Speaker 4: million places, like you know, in the woods.
Speaker 5: If he's out there, he's I think I think Peter
Speaker 5: Lugers is in Jersey, and then the depending on which
Speaker 5: airport he's going to with JFK or LaGuardia or even Newark,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of like kind of wooded areas around there.
Speaker 5: They're not like smack in the middle of the city,
Speaker 5: and it takes an hour to get to Central Park
Speaker 5: or more from the airport.
Speaker 4: You know, I know this isn't a mere mortal.
Speaker 5: He probably has special transportation or maybe even a choppa,
Speaker 5: who knows, but it just doesn't track.
Speaker 4: It's super weird, and it's.
Speaker 5: Also super weird that he was like, see, this is funny,
Speaker 5: and I told Roseanne, so it's funny, she's a comedian.
Speaker 4: It's just mega weird the whole thing.
Speaker 5: And then he even joked when asked about it, like
Speaker 5: that maybe he got his brain worms from the bear carcass.
Speaker 4: So I don't know that.
Speaker 5: That's the best I can do to sum up this
Speaker 5: bizarre hotale. Maybe you guys have some stuff to add,
Speaker 5: or we could chat back and forth about it for
Speaker 5: a little bit, because I'm a little mystic.
Speaker 4: Fine the conspiratorial angle are plenty, Like what was he thinking?
Speaker 4: Why did he do this? He said he was playing.
Speaker 5: A prank more or less. But it's like ten years
Speaker 5: had passed. He had to know that it was reported
Speaker 5: on you know, I don't know guys.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it always makes you wonder about supremely wealthy,
Speaker 2: powerful families like the Kennedys, like you know a lot
Speaker 2: of others. What do they get up to, just, you know,
Speaker 2: for a little laugh.
Speaker 4: That's what I was.
Speaker 2: That's literally the vision. But that's not fun that's not funny.
Speaker 2: It's funny that you said it in that way, but
Speaker 2: chap equittic is not funny at all. But but it
Speaker 2: does make me wonder about just the little things that
Speaker 2: they do for a laugh. When I'm just imagining my
Speaker 2: family didn't have much money, we would we would just
Speaker 2: go outside, or we would play lawn darts, or we would.
Speaker 4: Make illegal matt.
Speaker 5: That is a privileged position, you playing your illegal hunger games.
Speaker 2: When we were young, back when when I was growing
Speaker 2: up as a kid, like, I just wonder what a
Speaker 2: supremely powerful, wealthy family considers. Oh that's silly, let's do
Speaker 2: that's a prank.
Speaker 5: Yeah, tap equittic was Ted Kennedy, right, Yeah, who who
Speaker 5: you know ended up drunk driving and taking the life
Speaker 5: of one of his passengers, married Joe Kopecney. Out there
Speaker 5: in Martha's vineyard, another place where the rich and powerful
Speaker 5: l like to frolic.
Speaker 3: There were consequences of a sort. It's the reason he
Speaker 3: didn't become president.
Speaker 5: Well, but the one could argue that it is barely
Speaker 5: at It is a consequence if that's.
Speaker 4: Your whole bag and that's your whole life's goal.
Speaker 3: But I can say it again more sarcastically.
Speaker 5: No, no, I get what you say. I'm man, We're
Speaker 5: on the same page there. I'm just saying, like, it's
Speaker 5: not the same consequence as if someone.
Speaker 4: Like you or I did something like this.
Speaker 5: And speaking of consequences, I do believe what he did
Speaker 5: was illegal. Dumping a bear carcass in a public park
Speaker 5: in that way, I believe that's like a biohazard at
Speaker 5: the very least.
Speaker 4: If not something has.
Speaker 3: Leased against the city ordinance, it has to be otherwise
Speaker 3: it's New York City. They'd be riddled with bear carcasses
Speaker 3: because that's how people work. I'm kidding there, but I
Speaker 3: don't know it does seem, it does seem like, without
Speaker 3: being a Bureau of Wildlife Management experts ourselves, ourselves, that
Speaker 3: there would be some other less controversial way to dispose
Speaker 3: of that, Like you could get I'm making things up,
Speaker 3: but surely you could call some kind of wildlife removal
Speaker 3: and ask them to pick it up. Right. Even here
Speaker 3: in Georgia we have some we have various sorts of
Speaker 3: roadkill management.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, you let somebody know and then you
Speaker 2: drive on.
Speaker 5: I just sounded like he was just tickled by the
Speaker 5: whole thing, you know, like he just thought this was
Speaker 5: a real silly goof, only to then realize that it
Speaker 5: was reported quite widely, even outside of New York City
Speaker 5: like this certainly made some headlines. I guess it was
Speaker 5: a slow news day, but it does appear that he
Speaker 5: could well have faced some fines for dumping a dead
Speaker 5: bear in Central Park. The state agency, the New York
Speaker 5: State Department of Environmental Conservation, that led an actual forensic
Speaker 5: investigation into the bear dumping, set in a statement this week,
Speaker 5: but the statute of limitations had long expired on that,
Speaker 5: so really just kind of another embarrassing gaff for for
Speaker 5: old RFK Junior By.
Speaker 2: The way, listen to episode what was the chapiquetic Incident?
Speaker 2: It was put out in twenty eighteen and then again
Speaker 2: as a classic last year.
Speaker 3: Thanks for that, Matt.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So with that, let's take a quick break and hear
Speaker 5: a word from our sponsors, and then we'll come back
Speaker 5: with one more piece of strange news.
Speaker 2: We've returned and we are jumping to a story from
Speaker 2: the EPA, really an announcement maybe from the EPA that's
Speaker 2: been covered to a lot of places. But before we
Speaker 2: get there, let's talk about a specific herbicide product that's
Speaker 2: produced by this outfit, am VAC Chemical Corporation, a subsidiary
Speaker 2: of the American Vanguard Corporation. The herbicide brand in question
Speaker 2: is dakthal dac t h a L fluwable herbicide herbicide
Speaker 2: excuse me, aka dimethyl tetrachlor tariff tholate aka DCPA. For
Speaker 2: the rest of this evening, we're going to call it DCPA.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, this substance DCPA
Speaker 2: is quote and herbicide applied to control grasses and certain
Speaker 2: broad leaf weeds in both agricultural and non agricultural settings.
Speaker 2: Agricultural uses include coal, crops such as broccoli, kale, and cabbage,
Speaker 2: cucurbits such as squash, pumpkin, and zucchini, tomatoes, onions, and
Speaker 2: many herbs. And they also note that this is primarily
Speaker 2: used on crops such as broccoli, brussels, and cabbage, also onions.
Speaker 2: The EPA also notes that this herbicide is commonly used
Speaker 2: for non agricultural purposes on sites that have quote non
Speaker 2: residential turf. What do you think that means, guys, non
Speaker 2: residential turf?
Speaker 4: You mean, like, no, I don't think I do know.
Speaker 3: The neighborhoods is yeah.
Speaker 2: Well there's a neighborhood around a thing.
Speaker 3: That it's not on the actual Just to clarify, I'm
Speaker 3: saying it's not used technically in the neighborhood. Yes, it's
Speaker 3: used Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Pretty much the golf course. That's what that reads or
Speaker 2: should read.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's why I was getting exactly Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They also say it's used on ornamentals, but I
Speaker 2: don't think we need to worry about that for this.
Speaker 2: The reason why we are concerned is because it is
Speaker 2: used on a ton of crops that a ton of
Speaker 2: us consume, and it is used It was used on
Speaker 2: golf courses where a ton of I'm gonna say it,
Speaker 2: mostly wealthy people go and hang out. Maybe that's is that,
Speaker 2: Maybe that's not right. I'm sure there are a lot
Speaker 2: of public golf courses that are available to everyone that
Speaker 2: many people use. Perhaps in my personal experience, the golf
Speaker 2: courses are reserved for people who have quite a bit
Speaker 2: of money to spend in.
Speaker 3: Say, country can country clubs.
Speaker 4: You gotta be like invited, you know, you gotta it's like.
Speaker 3: Well the gut ones. Yeah, there are a lot where
Speaker 3: you can just pay it and they'll let you in. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Probably in my experience, it's people who have that that
Speaker 2: that money to spend to get in and play golf
Speaker 2: frequently enough for the purposes of this episode, to play
Speaker 2: golf frequently enough to be exposed enough to this chemical.
Speaker 3: An important distinction. This is an herbicide, not a pesticide, but.
Speaker 2: It has been called a pesticide in a lot of
Speaker 2: the reporting, which I do too. They call it a
Speaker 2: pesticide that targets weeds. Right, what you don't do you
Speaker 2: mean an herbicide? Sorry? The EPA even called it a
Speaker 2: pesticide after previously calling it an herbicide. In September twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three release, which is just whatever. So why are
Speaker 2: we talking about this thing? It's because, for the first
Speaker 2: time in forty years, the seriously, the first time in
Speaker 2: forty years, the Environmental Protection Agency has taken an emergency
Speaker 2: action to stop the use of a chemical herbicideer pesticide
Speaker 2: linked to serious health risks for fetuses for unborn babies. Sure,
Speaker 2: so why is it dangerous? Well, according to the EPA,
Speaker 2: unborn babies whose pregnant mothers are exposed to this substance,
Speaker 2: sometimes even without knowing exposure has occurred, can experience changes
Speaker 2: in fetal thyroid hormone levels, and these changes are generally
Speaker 2: linked to low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ,
Speaker 2: and impaired motor skills later on in life, and a
Speaker 2: lot of that can be completely irreversible. These are birth
Speaker 2: defects that this chemical, at least according to the EPA,
Speaker 2: may cause.
Speaker 3: So there are mitigation strategies, but there is no way
Speaker 3: to fix it.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: Speaking of fixing things, Matt, I'm so sorry to intertect
Speaker 3: before we get to before we get too far. If
Speaker 3: you're writing the email, yes, we understand. Pesticides are the
Speaker 3: umbrella category, and plants count as pest in some cases,
Speaker 3: so herbicides are more under that umbrella specifically focused on
Speaker 3: unwanted plants.
Speaker 2: But that's what this thing is. That's why I'm so
Speaker 2: upset about it. This thing doesn't target creatures. It targets
Speaker 2: the weeds that you don't want growing next to your
Speaker 2: cabbage and your broccoli and your backchoi or whatever.
Speaker 3: And unborn humans. Clear. Oh but that's thet I mean.
Speaker 3: I'm just putting the pesticide herbicide thing there to get
Speaker 3: again in front of the email.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, short, short, st sure and write the email please.
Speaker 2: We will still read it. So this is very very strange,
Speaker 2: you guys, because this substance DCPA has been looked at
Speaker 2: by the EPA for a long time. It goes way
Speaker 2: back to twenty thirteen. Well, actually goes back to two
Speaker 2: thousand and two when this company started producing the substance.
Speaker 2: But in twenty thirteen there was basically what's known as
Speaker 2: a data call in or a DCI, issued by the EPA.
Speaker 2: They send it out to let's say the manufacturer of
Speaker 2: a chemical in this case AMVAC, and they say, hey,
Speaker 2: we need you to conduct these internal studies on your product,
Speaker 2: and we need you to send us all of the data.
Speaker 2: And it was requiring them to submit more than twenty
Speaker 2: studies to support the existing registrations of this specific chemical.
Speaker 2: So it's a lot of that what we were talking
Speaker 2: about with the Supreme Court decision right pretty recently, where
Speaker 2: the EPA is going to going to war or you know,
Speaker 2: let's say battle with a company that's producing a chemical
Speaker 2: like this. And now the Supreme Court doesn't have to
Speaker 2: rely on the previous rulings or the previous decisions by
Speaker 2: a federal body like the EPA. Now they can look
Speaker 2: at whatever in this case, AMVAC says, and so we'll
Speaker 2: go with that. They don't have to go with the
Speaker 2: EPA's ruling in this case. So it goes back to
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen. EPA is trying to get information on the
Speaker 2: product from the company that produces it. They are failing
Speaker 2: to send in this information. They fail to do so
Speaker 2: for almost ten years. They don't get all the information
Speaker 2: needed on this chemical substance that is being applied to
Speaker 2: broccoli and cabbage and kale and all kinds of pumpkins
Speaker 2: and stuff across the United States. But the company making
Speaker 2: the product doesn't care enough, I guess, or is concerned
Speaker 2: enough with their own product that they don't want to
Speaker 2: get it taken off shelves because they're making a lot
Speaker 2: of money's and that's my own words there as my accusation.
Speaker 2: But eventually, in I think it's in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: finally all of the information gets from this company to
Speaker 2: the EPA. The APA can finally evaluate it, and when
Speaker 2: they do, they realize, oh crap, there is there is
Speaker 2: serious risk. And back in twenty twenty three, this is
Speaker 2: why I bring up the turf so much. Guys, back
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three, there was basically a voluntary cessation
Speaker 2: of the use of this substance on turfs, so like
Speaker 2: on golf courses for things like that, because the risk
Speaker 2: was unacceptable.
Speaker 4: Guys.
Speaker 2: On the label for this substance, when you are buying
Speaker 2: it as an herbicide and you're gonna put it on
Speaker 2: your golf course, let's say it says after you apply
Speaker 2: this stuff, you get like twelve hours, don't go out
Speaker 2: there on the golf course, and you should be fine
Speaker 2: after that. But according to the EPA and the internal
Speaker 2: studies that were submitted, it takes around twenty five days
Speaker 2: for it to be safe to go back out on
Speaker 2: the turf, which in my mind I imagine CEOs, wealthy
Speaker 2: business owners and entrepreneurs that are out there on the
Speaker 2: links and realizing, oh crap, we were being exposed to
Speaker 2: like a really dangerous chemical. We should probably stop doing that.
Speaker 2: And you know, well over a year later it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: the fetuses are at risk too. I guess we should
Speaker 2: probably stop that.
Speaker 3: But unlike public school playgrounds, the victims here have the
Speaker 3: legal and financial wherewithal to prosecute their case.
Speaker 4: Do something about it. Yeah, dude, Yes, it does kind
Speaker 4: of call into start or place in stark contrast that
Speaker 4: kind of you know, upstairs downstairs model of these kinds
Speaker 4: of things, like the folks who really you know, are
Speaker 4: just in communities where these kinds of things have been
Speaker 4: used or even tested. Uh, And just the lack of transparency.
Speaker 5: But of course when it's on the golf course and
Speaker 5: people are gonna stand up and say something about it
Speaker 5: and use their you know, clout to have it rectified.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmmm, it should be noted here, guys, are just
Speaker 2: a couple more things The EPA attempted to stop the
Speaker 2: production of like the maybe you can think about it
Speaker 2: as a concentrated version of this pesticide. The EPA tried
Speaker 2: to do that last year, but they it's one of
Speaker 2: those weird things where but any of that stuff that
Speaker 2: was already in the marketplace or had already been purchased
Speaker 2: by a consumer or you know, by a big company
Speaker 2: that's got to use it on a huge farm. All
Speaker 2: of that's fine, you can still use all of that.
Speaker 2: That's all gravy. Just company don't make anymore. And it
Speaker 2: was all because they were working on they're waiting on
Speaker 2: paperwork still.
Speaker 3: So not a recall. Knowing a lot of these larger
Speaker 3: private entities or even municipalities might be buying a ton
Speaker 3: of this at once, like in bulk literal tons.
Speaker 2: Exactly, but then for less than a year later to
Speaker 2: come out and issue an emergency order to stop use.
Speaker 2: So that isn't to stop selling, to stop producing, that is,
Speaker 2: to stop using this product no more can you use it?
Speaker 2: The EPA says. They say, this order is a effective immediately,
Speaker 2: and this is interesting to me. This is why they're
Speaker 2: taking this action right now. They say that The EPA
Speaker 2: says that the continued sale and use of DCPA products
Speaker 2: during the time it would take to follow the normal
Speaker 2: cancelation process poses an imminent hazard to unborn babies. And
Speaker 2: they said the company Amvac, attempted to address these concerns
Speaker 2: and they note that here, but they've determined that there's
Speaker 2: no practical mitigation measures that could be put into place
Speaker 2: to allow its continued use. So like Amvac proposed a
Speaker 2: couple of changes to the product itself, a couple of
Speaker 2: changes to you know, what the product would say, and
Speaker 2: all this other stuff, but the EVA came back and said, no, no,
Speaker 2: we got to stop this thing right now. This is
Speaker 2: really scary for me guys personally, considering literally how many
Speaker 2: Brussels sprouts and like broccolis and broccolini and all this
Speaker 2: other stuff that I feed my son and vegetable yali, yes,
Speaker 2: all the onions and just all these things that you
Speaker 2: use in normal everyday cooking, especially for meals that you
Speaker 2: wouldn't even think about onions being in your dish, but
Speaker 2: you're using it, you know, for the flavor or as
Speaker 2: you know, part of a trinity.
Speaker 4: It's just.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it really freaks me out, and I'm
Speaker 2: glad this is happening. But I kind of feel like
Speaker 2: this thing, this power that the EPA is flexing right here,
Speaker 2: should be happening like once a month.
Speaker 4: Isn't that kind of the issue it? Maybe correct me
Speaker 4: if I'm if I'm misunderstanding it isn't.
Speaker 5: What led to them actually doing something about it was
Speaker 5: the you know, complaints from the halves.
Speaker 2: I'm not a I'm not sure about that. Maybe what
Speaker 2: I'm seeing is more this back and forth between the
Speaker 2: EPA and the company and EPA trying to get internal
Speaker 2: document and in studies that they're conducting themselves, which is
Speaker 2: a major problem.
Speaker 3: Also, Yeah, it's a long time in coming, but I
Speaker 3: think I would agree with Noel there that it is
Speaker 3: at least partially due to the demographic of people affected
Speaker 3: in some circumstances. Still, cruciferous vegetables in particular are such
Speaker 3: a common part of the diet. If you could clarify
Speaker 3: for this, just to be sure everybody knows, this is
Speaker 3: not the kind of thing you can just wash off
Speaker 3: the vegetable.
Speaker 2: Right No, no, no, like it's.
Speaker 3: Inside it, it will it can get to people. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the consumption check.
Speaker 2: One of the big selling points on the website for
Speaker 2: this product, the one that's got a brand name.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 2: A dackthel is just how long it sticks around after
Speaker 2: you apply it. You know, basically, you plant your seeds,
Speaker 2: you've already weeded or treated your soil to some extent.
Speaker 2: You've planted your seeds. Then you put this stuff on
Speaker 2: and it's supposed to stick around for a long time
Speaker 2: and it's it has staying power, and that's why it's
Speaker 2: so good.
Speaker 3: Just once. I want one of these environmental contaminants to
Speaker 3: have a positive effect on the population, like microplastics that
Speaker 3: are good for your balls, you know, lead that makes
Speaker 3: you smarter. Just one, just give us one win.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be cool. But I don't think it's
Speaker 2: gonna have been the tie a runoff and everything. We're
Speaker 2: going down as a species. Silver lining silver lining, sorry,
Speaker 2: silver lining.
Speaker 3: We're for Genie news species.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. The silver lining is is they got it.
Speaker 4: They did They did good. They you know it's not the.
Speaker 2: EPA did its job. That is an awesome thing. And
Speaker 2: you know, thankfully, if Project twenty twenty five goes its way,
Speaker 2: the EPA will no longer exist and they won't have
Speaker 2: to do this anymore.
Speaker 3: It'll well it's colloidal silver.
Speaker 4: You're doing a bad job at silver lining this sorry escort.
Speaker 3: It's a EPA the sole proprietorship right of a guy
Speaker 3: who's retired from DuPont a while back. And you know, everybody,
Speaker 3: it's like Lord Michael's where you pitch Saturday Night Live
Speaker 3: guest appearances. You if you have a complaint about contaminants
Speaker 3: in the environment, you get three minutes in front of
Speaker 3: this guy, shark tank style, and he gives you a
Speaker 3: yes or no, whether or not he believes you.
Speaker 2: Hmm, I believe you, guys. This is a I'm gonna
Speaker 2: end with this. This is a statement from Assistant Administrator
Speaker 2: for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Michael Friedolf.
Speaker 2: He says DCPA is so dangerous that it needs to
Speaker 2: be removed from the market immediately. It's EPA's job to
Speaker 2: protect people from exposure to dangerous chemicals. In this case,
Speaker 2: pregnant women who may never even though they were exposed,
Speaker 2: could give birth to babies that experience irreversible lifelong health problems.
Speaker 2: That's why, for the first time in almost forty years,
Speaker 2: EPA is using its emergency Suspension authority to stop the
Speaker 2: use of a pesticide boom again every month, Michael, every month,
Speaker 2: we need another chemical out of there.
Speaker 3: And I hope please freight train keep that clap it.
Speaker 3: Because these emergency powers exist for a reason, and in
Speaker 3: just because something doesn't seem as I'm using the word
Speaker 3: in the old school sense here as spectacular as a
Speaker 3: natural disaster, it doesn't mean it's not disastrous.
Speaker 2: And I guess we'll have to tackle several other stories
Speaker 2: that we didn't talk about today, maybe next week, or
Speaker 2: maybe we won't talk about them at all because there's
Speaker 2: so much happening. Oh, do look up the attorneys general
Speaker 2: that when on a France trip with this really ah man,
Speaker 2: I wrote all this stuff out and it's just it's
Speaker 2: just gross. It's another example of kind of ben It
Speaker 2: was a lot like your story, where it's a conglomerate
Speaker 2: kind of blanket umbrella thing that's really hard to even
Speaker 2: see through where all the campaign finance donations come from
Speaker 2: and where all the lobbyist money comes from. But all
Speaker 2: of these attorneys general get to go hang out somewhere
Speaker 2: every year or even every you know, a couple of
Speaker 2: quarters and half of them, right, Yeah, in this case,
Speaker 2: I think it's twenty six of them got to go
Speaker 2: out to France on a trip sponsored by these donors
Speaker 2: or lobbyists of some sort a company called sh Yeah,
Speaker 2: you can look it up. It's gross.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Check out also the story of Shu Zhun Wang. That
Speaker 3: is one we didn't get to. There are so many
Speaker 3: stories we haven't gotten to. We want to thank everybody
Speaker 3: for tuning in. Will be back next week, still birthday month,
Speaker 3: still strange news. You know the score. Fellow conspiracy realists,
Speaker 3: Please please, please please make our evening and become part
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