Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: My name is Matt, my name is They.
Speaker 4: Called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super
Speaker 4: producer Andrew treyfors Howard. Most importantly, you are you. You
Speaker 4: are here That makes this the stuff they don't want
Speaker 4: you to know. If you are hearing our strange news
Speaker 4: program the Evening it publishes, let us officially welcome you
Speaker 4: to Monday, January twentieth, twenty twenty five. Happy Mlkday, guys.
Speaker 2: Indeed, yeah, go back and listen to the MLK tapes
Speaker 2: if you get a chance.
Speaker 3: It's a podcast, top notch pod.
Speaker 4: And check out our earlier epies on this show for
Speaker 4: co intelpro and several Civil rights era related conspiracies. We've
Speaker 4: got a pretty deep catalog there. There's so many things ongoing,
Speaker 4: things happening in the world today. The president of South
Speaker 4: Korea they mentioned earlier, we talked a bit about, just
Speaker 4: got arrested in an incredibly high stakes operation. He has
Speaker 4: impeached his own security force was fighting against the military
Speaker 4: forces of South Korea. We're going to talk about wildfires,
Speaker 4: a breakthrough in the Jack the Ripper case, Pizzagate, a
Speaker 4: little bit of nuclear material trafficking. Before we do any
Speaker 4: of that, we're talking a little bit off air. Guys
Speaker 4: excited to share this story because it pertains to some
Speaker 4: discussions we had had in the past. The government of
Speaker 4: the United Kingdom has officially warned people that sex toys
Speaker 4: are tempting target for hackers and can't be potentially weaponized.
Speaker 4: Remember we were talking about all technology is smart and
Speaker 4: if it's cloud connected, you can get to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got it.
Speaker 5: There's an app for that to control your dolphin or
Speaker 5: your rabbit.
Speaker 3: Or whatever the hell they're called.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it definitely seems rifer meddling.
Speaker 2: Well, and there was a there was a small section
Speaker 2: in a story we covered recently about a plane crash
Speaker 2: where it was possibly personal massagers in quotations that may
Speaker 2: have been the culprit.
Speaker 4: Right that were weaponized to explode in that way.
Speaker 2: Are we saying people could explode sex toys.
Speaker 4: It would be possible, but it'd be very difficult. You'd
Speaker 4: have to do a masade pager type thing for that.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: That makes me think of that case where it turned
Speaker 5: out that you can't just hack something and make it
Speaker 5: explode without introducing some fissile material.
Speaker 4: Right, fiscile material. You nailed it. But what this is,
Speaker 4: this is more a vector or a beachhead for creating
Speaker 4: a larger hack. Because these Internet of Things devices are
Speaker 4: connected through Bluetooth or through Wi Fi, and if they're
Speaker 4: running Linux, the idea is you can get your hooks
Speaker 4: into one device, then you can pivot to other devices
Speaker 4: that share that network.
Speaker 3: So it's like a backdoor.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, gosh, yes, very much. A couple levels well
Speaker 4: died direinal. There's a story by the Thar Tribune. The
Speaker 4: journalist here is per Thomish Cabra, who talks about this warning.
Speaker 4: So we're not here to yuck anybody's yum. You know,
Speaker 4: as long as you're not hurting other people, do as
Speaker 4: though wilt, but you know, do be aware. It's it's strange,
Speaker 4: maybe it's maybe it's the old age kicking in, but
Speaker 4: do you guys, when you're given the choice between one
Speaker 4: piece of technology that is cloud connected and one that
Speaker 4: is not, do you have a strong preference, Like if
Speaker 4: you're buying a fridge, do you want it to have
Speaker 4: or not have the Internet.
Speaker 5: I don't think I need that technology and my fridge
Speaker 5: per se, but I'm not opposed to it. I really
Speaker 5: like my smart speaker system for example, like Sono's. It's
Speaker 5: a really really convenient way of connecting you know, your
Speaker 5: music playback and records and stuff to every room in
Speaker 5: the house.
Speaker 3: But there's some stuff that it just feels like inappropriate.
Speaker 5: Although I will say I do have a Bluetooth toothbrush,
Speaker 5: a blue toothbrush. I don't use that feature, but it
Speaker 5: just kind of was there and it was like on sale.
Speaker 5: I didn't really want it, but there it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I probably don't want them in my stuff. Do you, ben,
Speaker 2: Do you use anything that like connects your devices together
Speaker 2: like that. I don't have anything like that in my eyes.
Speaker 4: No, I don't enjoy it. Have some without giving too
Speaker 4: many details, right, have have some things that are required
Speaker 4: to be connected to this wide world of Weberry. But
Speaker 4: the most recent example, this may be funny for some
Speaker 4: of us in the crowd, This evening most recent example,
Speaker 4: through a series of strange events, got a super advanced
Speaker 4: Japanese automated cat litter box, which required me to get
Speaker 4: an app. And now I'm in a cold war with
Speaker 4: this robot because I think I don't need it. I'll
Speaker 4: just go to where the cat poop is and clean it.
Speaker 4: I don't need an update. Like hey, you know, for
Speaker 4: some people who are very concerned about, you know, a
Speaker 4: sensitive condition for their pets, they might like that functionality.
Speaker 4: But as our old pal connall BRN was wont to say,
Speaker 4: it solves a problem I don't have.
Speaker 3: And often creates new ones.
Speaker 5: I mean, like a lot of times cloud connected stuff
Speaker 5: will totally jam you up until you get that update.
Speaker 5: And sometimes I can take a man.
Speaker 3: It's like I always wanted to brush my teeth.
Speaker 4: So be aware, folks that a lot of those devices,
Speaker 4: whatever their use may be, their use case may be
Speaker 4: a lot of them that have Bluetooth or Wi Fi
Speaker 4: connectivity do.
Speaker 3: Not have encryption. Like you couldn't even do it if
Speaker 3: you wanted to.
Speaker 5: I mean, Bluetooth in particular is notoriously vulnerable to these
Speaker 5: types of.
Speaker 4: Hacks and to the note about including fissile material. According
Speaker 4: to this report from the UK by their Department for Science,
Speaker 4: Innovation and Technology or DECENT there is physical harm on
Speaker 4: the table because you could overheat the device, or I
Speaker 4: don't to get too specific here, I think of something
Speaker 4: like a chastity belt. What if you locked it and
Speaker 4: then engage in ransomware tactics. Buddy, if you want this
Speaker 4: thing off, give us that bitcoin.
Speaker 2: Ar Wait, are there cloud connected chastity belts?
Speaker 3: I mean that is a case that can It certainly
Speaker 3: can be.
Speaker 4: I'm thankfully never going to experience that firsthand, but it's
Speaker 4: a wide world out there, gentlemen.
Speaker 2: No ding ding without the wedding ring. Sorry, Okay, continue.
Speaker 5: I've never seen a cloud connected jassity bell, but I
Speaker 5: absolutely believe they exist.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna google that.
Speaker 4: There's a Vice article related to this, and we'll we'll
Speaker 4: move on to more strange news. But it was fascinating
Speaker 4: to find that really happened. Users of something called the
Speaker 4: cellmate connected chastity belt said hackers were taking over their
Speaker 4: paraphernalia and demanding seven hundred and fifty US dollars equivalent
Speaker 4: in bitcoin to unlock the apparatus.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's.
Speaker 4: That's a different case.
Speaker 2: Imagine trying and explain that to your local police department
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 5: Uh So, On the flip side of that, there have
Speaker 5: been for many years websites that have this kind of
Speaker 5: interactive element with cloud connected sex toys.
Speaker 3: Sure vibras by design.
Speaker 5: You can pay a token or whatever and then it'll
Speaker 5: make the thing buzz on the performer, the cam individual.
Speaker 4: So what we're saying there, without sounding like a bunch
Speaker 4: of brudes, is you don't want to be that person
Speaker 4: in the in the police department who desperately, you know,
Speaker 4: needs the use of bathroom or something saying I don't know, officer,
Speaker 4: I say, we just give them the money in the next,
Speaker 4: you know, forty minutes, please, So everybody be safe out there,
Speaker 4: have fun, have adventures. We're going to pause for a
Speaker 4: word from our sponsors and then we'll return with more
Speaker 4: strange news. And we have returned with something serious and topical.
Speaker 4: As we record it is January fifteenth. This is publishing
Speaker 4: on the twentieth, so this may not be up to date,
Speaker 4: but we, like the rest of the United States and
Speaker 4: indeed the world, witnessed the heartbreaking situation as wildfires ran
Speaker 4: through California. As we're recording now, California continues to battle
Speaker 4: these fires, with fears growing regarding the Santa Ana Winds.
Speaker 4: We have personally, without going public with our friends information,
Speaker 4: we have personal close relationships with people who have had
Speaker 4: to evacuate, had to literally use their go bags and
Speaker 4: get out of town, people who lost their homes entirely.
Speaker 4: And in the wake of this, or as this is continuing,
Speaker 4: as we're in media arrests, we're also seeing other related
Speaker 4: stories that are very much strange news and quite disturbing.
Speaker 4: I think if we consider the next couple minutes a
Speaker 4: primer on wildfire controversy, we immediately see three big ones.
Speaker 4: I'd say actually four, but three big ones. The insurance
Speaker 4: timing right the fact, the insurance timing, the use of
Speaker 4: incarcerated people as firefighters, and the ongoing conversation about who
Speaker 4: should or can own water. Tip of the hat to
Speaker 4: the Resnick family.
Speaker 5: Yeah, e jeez, I didn't know about that one. Ben
Speaker 5: I recently was hipped to that as well. How can
Speaker 5: two private individuals own that much of a natural resource
Speaker 5: that should be available to give life to everybody?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it goes down to give life into save lives.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so let's start there. The Resnick family is Stuart
Speaker 4: and Linda Resnik. They bought the Franklin Mint back in
Speaker 4: the eighties, nineteen eighties. They're not that old. They sold
Speaker 4: it in two thousand and six. The Resnick himself, the
Speaker 4: pattern familias here is head of something called the Wonderful Company,
Speaker 4: and through his holding company with his wife, they own
Speaker 4: palm you know, like the pomegranate drink you see at
Speaker 4: the fancy juice part of your grocery store. And they
Speaker 4: own Fiji water brands. They also own here's where water
Speaker 4: control comes in. They own Wonderful pistachios and almonds, Wonderful halos,
Speaker 4: well citrus, treat seedless lemons, Justin Wines, Landmark Wines, another
Speaker 4: wine brand, Floral wire Service. And because they are involved
Speaker 4: in the agriculture business, that means that they enter into
Speaker 4: the great conversation about water rights, which we talked a
Speaker 4: little bit about when we looked at the interstate fight
Speaker 4: over the Colorado River and the Hoover Dam. Who gets
Speaker 4: to control that. Anybody who's worked in this type of
Speaker 4: agriculture knows that some of the products we named are
Speaker 4: enormously thirsty, like almonds need a lot of water to grow.
Speaker 4: As as the municipalities and the communities of California were
Speaker 4: searching for water to fight the fires. This great dare
Speaker 4: we call it a conspiracy of billionaire's ConTroll? A watcher
Speaker 4: once again came to the foe and is what else.
Speaker 5: Is there to say other than it just doesn't seem
Speaker 5: right and it seems entirely a product of you know,
Speaker 5: capitalism run amok.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Resnik is the wealthiest farmer in the United States
Speaker 4: technically now, He's to be clear, I don't think he's
Speaker 4: out there and overalls fixing his John Deere himself. I
Speaker 4: think he has people for that. They own also a
Speaker 4: majority stake in the Kern Water Bank, which is one
Speaker 4: of California's largest underground water storage facilities. It can store
Speaker 4: five hundred billion gallons of water.
Speaker 5: It just seems like with situations like this, given catash
Speaker 5: of this magnitude and beyond, we're just not that far
Speaker 5: away from these billionaires and these folks holding the keys
Speaker 5: to these kinds of resources literally withholding it and just
Speaker 5: giving it to whomever they choose and leaving others out
Speaker 5: in the cold or those who can't afford to pay.
Speaker 5: It just seems like there is just no ethics, there's
Speaker 5: no humanity, and like these types of arrangements, and I
Speaker 5: think down the line, we could see like a mad
Speaker 5: Max Fury Road situation where it's like, turn on the
Speaker 5: water for the people just for a minute, just to
Speaker 5: give them a taste aqua cola.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, don't grow addicted. The other thing that's disturbing
Speaker 4: about this case in particular is that the story only
Speaker 4: comes to the forefront when there is a disaster or
Speaker 4: when there is a drought like the twenty eleven to
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen California drought. That's what prompts these questions. The
Speaker 4: public thinks about it, it gets in the zeitgeist for
Speaker 4: a moment, and then the story disappears and nothing changes.
Speaker 4: But this is very much I think make a very
Speaker 4: strong case for resource extraction conspiracy, because Okay, every almond
Speaker 4: grown in the US represents a certain amount of water
Speaker 4: that was in the US. When you ship the almond
Speaker 4: to a different country, you're kind of shipping the value
Speaker 4: of what that water created. When in the problem makes
Speaker 4: exacerbated or the tendency is exacerbated in bottled water. Right,
Speaker 4: we talked about NESLI all the time. Nesli will buy
Speaker 4: up municipal public water sources for pennies on the dollar
Speaker 4: or pennies on the sip if you wish, and then
Speaker 4: they will remove that water from the local ecosystem by
Speaker 4: bottling it and selling it. Most def was correct. Check
Speaker 4: out New World Water with the rest in case they
Speaker 4: import Fiji bottled water from the South Pacific, hence the name.
Speaker 4: So I'm bringing that up to show that water as
Speaker 4: a business has a lot of knock on consequence is
Speaker 4: that people aren't fully aware of until till it's maybe
Speaker 4: too late, you know what I mean. Nesley gets excoriated
Speaker 4: in the court of public opinion, but to them that
Speaker 4: may be a cost of doing business. And is that
Speaker 4: the case with the restings as well. That's just one
Speaker 4: of the wildfire controversies.
Speaker 5: Not to mention, I also saw reporting about like literally
Speaker 5: firefighters not being able to get water out of hydrants
Speaker 5: and specific palisades, and I think they're still investigating that.
Speaker 5: But whether it was a water pressure issue or like
Speaker 5: a connectivity issue, whatever it might have been, at that
Speaker 5: absolutely crucial moment, there was no water available for you know,
Speaker 5: firefighters to fight fires.
Speaker 4: And this is a tragic point and a continuing issue.
Speaker 4: It's also a segue toward one of our second big
Speaker 4: issues for this primer on wild fire controversies. Those firefighters
Speaker 4: may not be free people. Those firefighters may be incarcerated.
Speaker 4: People go to multiple sources. Let's go to NPR. They're
Speaker 4: not perfect, but they do a great job overall. A
Speaker 4: journalist for MPR, Jacqueline Diaz, January fourteenth, put out a
Speaker 4: great piece via MPR about inmates fighting California wildfires. This
Speaker 4: is not a new thing, but just like the restnics
Speaker 4: control of so much water in California, this story went
Speaker 4: back to the forefront as more than one thousand incarcerated
Speaker 4: people joined the fight to preserve California against this series
Speaker 4: of natural disasters. California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spoke
Speaker 4: spoke with MPR earlier this month, and they said, quote
Speaker 4: oney fifteen fire camp firefighters had been working around the
Speaker 4: clock cutting fire lines, removing fuel from behind structures to
Speaker 4: slow the spread of the blaze. We know that it's
Speaker 4: a practice that's been going on since nineteen fifteen.
Speaker 5: Is this under the same laws that allow prison labor
Speaker 5: for private industry?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, similar to And some of the people who
Speaker 4: are incarcerated are supportive of this. I was talking with
Speaker 4: a lot of folks offline or on social media just
Speaker 4: to get more firsthand understanding. You can see countless interviews
Speaker 4: on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, establishment media. The point that a
Speaker 4: lot of the news seems to miss is that the
Speaker 4: vast majority of people who are incarcerated due to the
Speaker 4: laws of this country, they're not automatically bad people, right.
Speaker 4: They have families on the outside, they have friends, they
Speaker 4: have loved ones, they have communities, right, and they want
Speaker 4: that unity to be there when they get out. They
Speaker 4: want that community to do well. So if you are
Speaker 4: if we exercise empathy, let's say there is a natural
Speaker 4: disaster in your area and you are incarcerated, and you
Speaker 4: are offered the chance to help preserve your community, right,
Speaker 4: you may well feel all other things aside. You may
Speaker 4: well feel a moral compulsion to act, and we cannot
Speaker 4: discount that. Right. We also know, we also know that
Speaker 4: the US habit or policy of how to use incarcerated labor,
Speaker 4: and how to pay or not pay, or protect or
Speaker 4: not protect those people, it's a whole bag of badgers.
Speaker 4: Right now. The doc in California says everybody fighting those
Speaker 4: fires is a volunteer. No coerti they're paid between five
Speaker 4: dollars and eighty cents and ten dollars and twenty four
Speaker 4: cents per day, not per lay wages. Yeah, very much so.
Speaker 4: And with that, before we go to a tease with
Speaker 4: the with the insurance timing, I just wanted to ask you, guys,
Speaker 4: I think we're all familiar with this program and programs
Speaker 4: like it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, only just through this tragedy. I guess.
Speaker 5: Of course, I'm familiar with, you know, prisoners being used
Speaker 5: for labor and being paid peanuts. But this is a
Speaker 5: little different. This is putting their lives at risk in
Speaker 5: a very real way. And it also seems to be
Speaker 5: supplementing a firefighting force that is woefully under funded and
Speaker 5: that I believe funding was slashed for not long.
Speaker 3: Before the events of the past couple weeks.
Speaker 2: It just seems crazy in a state that has so
Speaker 2: much money flowing into it through taxes, in a country
Speaker 2: that has so much money flowing through it via taxes,
Speaker 2: that you can't fund a firefighting force, You can't fund
Speaker 2: some of these very basic things to hire skilled people
Speaker 2: to do it, so you dip into essentially indentured servitude
Speaker 2: to make it happen. Doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and just to clarify our support with some facts,
Speaker 5: there's an article from the La Times from today or
Speaker 5: so ago. Did Mayor Karen Bass really cut the fire
Speaker 5: department budget? The answer gets tricky, But what isn't tricky
Speaker 5: is that in her proposed budget she did seek twenty
Speaker 5: three million in cuts to the department. A lot of
Speaker 5: that focused on reduced equipment purchases. I don't know if
Speaker 5: you guys saw this, And there are tons of videos
Speaker 5: of varying degrees of veracity floating around, not to mention
Speaker 5: the AI stuff of like the Hollywood sign on fire
Speaker 5: it's own thing, but I saw a video of like
Speaker 5: firefighters literally using women's purses filled with water to douse
Speaker 5: fires because they didn't have a hose.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and logistics are always credibly fragile. Their mission critical,
Speaker 4: but they're incredibly fragile in the wake of any natural disaster.
Speaker 4: It's also, you know, from a Machavelian standpoint or cost
Speaker 4: benefit analysis, it can be difficult for political figures to
Speaker 4: put the right kind of money and attention into infrastructure
Speaker 4: and into logistics because people don't appreciate it unless they
Speaker 4: need it, unless something goes wrong. Right, if you put
Speaker 4: a bunch of you put a bunch of funding toward,
Speaker 4: you know, shoring up levies, and a flood never occurs.
Speaker 4: Then your political opponents will say you're a person who
Speaker 4: waste money, waste taxpayer money because a disaster has not happened.
Speaker 2: No, we know.
Speaker 4: Also, speaking of timing, I don't know if we'll have
Speaker 4: time to get to the insurance stuff. But speaking of timing,
Speaker 4: we know that the fires hit just months after California
Speaker 4: voted against a ballot proposition to make it illegal for
Speaker 4: this kind of inmate servitude. And if that ballot proposition
Speaker 4: had gone through, it's quite possible that these incarcerated individuals
Speaker 4: would not be currently fighting fires and risking their lives
Speaker 4: around the clock. If you want to learn more about this,
Speaker 4: to go to your honestly, go to your media of
Speaker 4: choice in the US. Recommend NBC News. Their affiliates out
Speaker 4: in LA have live updates on the current state of
Speaker 4: the fires. Our thoughts are with everybody involved. We also
Speaker 4: can recommend one thing our close friend and colleague Miles Gray,
Speaker 4: pal of ours at Daily Zeitgeist. He has done a
Speaker 4: fantastic job of platforming social media awareness, letting people know
Speaker 4: different funds you can contribute to if you want to
Speaker 4: help out. Again, a lot of these folks don't have
Speaker 4: home insurance policies because in the way, a few months
Speaker 4: before the fires hit, their insurance companies dropped their policies.
Speaker 5: Could we touch on that a little bit, Ben, I
Speaker 5: don't mind giving the time. I think it's worthy. It
Speaker 5: was a lot of them just had their fire insurance canceled,
Speaker 5: not just their entire policy.
Speaker 3: I'm sure that happened too. But you know, with all
Speaker 3: of these.
Speaker 5: Natural disasters like here in Georgia, with the hurricanes and stuff,
Speaker 5: I mean, all of these insurance companies having to pay
Speaker 5: out all at once, it's got to be wreaking havoc
Speaker 5: on that industry. I'm just wondering what some of the
Speaker 5: calculus is behind this. And this is part of a
Speaker 5: larger problem that maybe involves some climate change questions that
Speaker 5: are worth discussing. Yeah, obviously, insurance you know they're sketchy.
Speaker 5: They can be sketchy, But I don't think everyone involved
Speaker 5: is entirely evil, And it's trying to see both sides
Speaker 5: a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the brutal honesty of the internet it this way.
Speaker 4: You know, who believes in climate change. Private home insurers.
Speaker 4: You can see that, you know, with the We've got
Speaker 4: previous episodes on this check it out. But in those
Speaker 4: we were focusing a lot on private insurance business in Florida,
Speaker 4: right where flooding becomes a statistical inevitability. Yeah, go to
Speaker 4: your media choice and check out what Travelers, USAA and
Speaker 4: Chubb did as the as the fires were on the way,
Speaker 4: they dropped people because to your question, they were faced
Speaker 4: with the numbers, there was a growing likelihood of paying
Speaker 4: billions and damage claims every single year, and because of
Speaker 4: California's slightly more consumer protections or slightly more robust consumer protections,
Speaker 4: these companies were not able to raise premiums to where
Speaker 4: they wanted those premiums to go, and as a result,
Speaker 4: logically from their end fix aside, they made the decision
Speaker 4: to either cut coverage for certain aspects or to cancel
Speaker 4: policies as a whole at the most at risk zones.
Speaker 2: It's so insane, but hey, can you really blame them.
Speaker 2: They've got to make profit, and if there's crazy high
Speaker 2: risk that the whole place is gonna burn down, they
Speaker 2: can't make money. So there you go. That's what we
Speaker 2: get for having for profit insurance.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Are we at a place though, guys, with some of
Speaker 5: these the increasing you know, occurrence of these type of
Speaker 5: disasters where they are going to be parts of the
Speaker 5: country that people just don't want to live anymore or
Speaker 5: can't or can't live anymore, is that on the table?
Speaker 5: It sure freaking feels like sure. It's a big question
Speaker 5: that goes past insurance. There are places in the US
Speaker 5: that probably within the lifetime of some of our young
Speaker 5: listeners tonight, those places may become practically inhospitable just due
Speaker 5: to you the wet bulb temperature kind of.
Speaker 3: It's without getting remind me that, Ben.
Speaker 4: It's the shorthand for when it gets so hot that
Speaker 4: it is impossible for a human being to survive outside
Speaker 4: for extended periods of time. You can't drink enough. If
Speaker 4: you are in the sun, no matter what you do,
Speaker 4: you will die perish in So that's going to happen.
Speaker 4: We also know there's a little bit of hope because
Speaker 4: California has something called the Fair Plan. It is a
Speaker 4: state run program that gives fire insurance to people who
Speaker 4: can't find it in you know, traditional private insurers. Currently
Speaker 4: they have a three percent market share, so most people
Speaker 4: are not on this fair plan. And I guess we
Speaker 4: have to say in full disclosure. We have done ads
Speaker 4: for I believe travelers.
Speaker 5: In USAA in the past, and I don't want to
Speaker 5: sound like I'm just being mister insurance, but I just
Speaker 5: do want a devil's advocate here and say that, like,
Speaker 5: I was treated very fairly by an insurance company with
Speaker 5: the destruction of my property due to Hurricane Helene. So
Speaker 5: I mean, I know there are circumstances where they do
Speaker 5: right by people. I was actually shocked at how little
Speaker 5: nickel and diming I felt from the people that I
Speaker 5: was working with. I was kind of blown away because
Speaker 5: all of our coverage on the show about the industry,
Speaker 5: I was really expecting the worst. So, I mean, it
Speaker 5: is a bigger question, like we also, I think it's
Speaker 5: worth exploring maybe in an update episode who Ensures Insurance Companies?
Speaker 5: There's a whole other industry called reinsurance companies that I
Speaker 5: think would be worth exploring, because it kind of boggles
Speaker 5: my mind these levels of betting on disasters, and once
Speaker 5: the disasters increase to a certain magnitude, how can you
Speaker 5: keep making those bets? You're going to have to make
Speaker 5: some of those calculations for certain parts of the world,
Speaker 5: certain parts of the country.
Speaker 4: If you want people to live in a place, you
Speaker 4: have to make it possible for them to do so,
Speaker 4: that's the easiest way to put it. There's so much
Speaker 4: we haven't gotten to. The allegations of arson right, the
Speaker 4: old ah god, the old sawhorse, of claiming people are
Speaker 4: looting when they're just running with the few things they
Speaker 4: could grab before their houses burned. Be very, very skeptical
Speaker 4: of a lot of the social media stuff you're seeing,
Speaker 4: and please, please, I'm begging you folks, exercise critical thinking.
Speaker 2: I saw one video of David Spade in his car
Speaker 2: and he had just witnessed somebody get arrested for arson,
Speaker 2: like the local authorities caught the person attempting to start
Speaker 2: a fire in a residential area, and it seemed to
Speaker 2: really he seemed very disturbed, and he offered five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars to anybody who could, you know, identify an arsonist
Speaker 2: out there in certain parts of the city at the time,
Speaker 2: which is really I don't know it. It was shocking
Speaker 2: to me just to see this person that we've seen
Speaker 2: on television offering money. You know, to get somebody somebody
Speaker 2: else arrested, but he had just witnessed it happen.
Speaker 5: He did witness because Ben, are you saying that there
Speaker 5: have been maybe false reports of this kind of thing
Speaker 5: to demonize certain communities, et cetera.
Speaker 4: For the looting, yes, uh, for the leading, I'm yeah
Speaker 4: for arson perhaps because again a lot of the posts
Speaker 4: that you might see could be performative. That doesn't mean
Speaker 4: the real crimes are not occurring, just means we have
Speaker 4: to be very careful about the possible agenda or the
Speaker 4: framing of those things. And there's there's so much the
Speaker 4: potential lynch mob of it, all right, and we have
Speaker 4: to remember, of course opportunists love chaos, so there is
Speaker 4: there may well be people who always wanted to burn
Speaker 4: something or have always wanted to loot a building, and
Speaker 4: they were simply waiting for the right time when the
Speaker 4: rule of law broke down. There's so much else that
Speaker 4: we're we're not going to be able to get to
Speaker 4: will probably we'll probably follow up with an episode as
Speaker 4: as people learn more objective facts. The main thing is
Speaker 4: if you want to help, it is possible for you
Speaker 4: to do so right to the best of your abilities.
Speaker 4: We know that these kinds of disasters seem set inevitably
Speaker 4: to continue in the coming year, so please stay safe
Speaker 4: out there. Folks, write to us with your first hand
Speaker 4: accounts to the degree that you are comfortable sharing your story,
Speaker 4: and let us know what other allegations you see in
Speaker 4: the wake of the California fires. For now, we're gonna
Speaker 4: pause for word from our sponsors and we'll return with
Speaker 4: more strange news.
Speaker 5: And we've returned, guys, I've got two stories. I think
Speaker 5: I'll just lead with a quick update. You mentioned some
Speaker 5: developments in the Pizzagate scandal of some years ago. I
Speaker 5: don't think we need to relitigate pizza Gate Herezza.
Speaker 3: Not needed.
Speaker 5: I think a lot's been made of that, and then
Speaker 5: this is maybe the time or place for it. But
Speaker 5: I do think it is important to note that the gunman, Uh,
Speaker 5: the individual who drove from his home in uh North
Speaker 5: Carolina to that Comet pizzeria in Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: Place where a lot.
Speaker 5: Of lawmakers and lawyers would come for lunch, shot the
Speaker 5: place up because of concerns of a demonic cabal being
Speaker 5: housed in the basement of the place, which I believe
Speaker 5: it was determined that the place didn't even have a basement. Noah,
Speaker 5: with an assault rifle, mind you, during a routine traffic stop,
Speaker 5: it would seem in North Carolina. In Cannopolis, North Carolina,
Speaker 5: Edgar Madison Welch, who was a passenger in the vehicle
Speaker 5: that was stopped just a few days ago Saturday, as
Speaker 5: we were this on Wednesday, was shot and killed because
Speaker 5: he when faced with this traffic stop, he pulled a
Speaker 5: weapon out and pointed it at officers. He was taken
Speaker 5: to a hospital by emergency responders, and he died from
Speaker 5: his injuries a couple of days later. None of the
Speaker 5: officers or the driver were injured. So kind of a
Speaker 5: tragic end to a tragic story, because you know, a
Speaker 5: lot of To me, at least, what I remember about
Speaker 5: Pizzagate was that was kind of in the height of
Speaker 5: sort of pre QAnon, kind of just Internet insanity of
Speaker 5: a lot of these incredibly speculative and increasingly wild conspiracy
Speaker 5: theories that were just flowing around were beginning to see
Speaker 5: some action taken, you know. So yeah, this was not
Speaker 5: this was pre QAnon, but it had the flavor of
Speaker 5: what that would become.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Pizzagate occurred during an incredibly sensitive time in the
Speaker 4: United States the twenty sixteen election cycle, and as as
Speaker 4: you noted, NOLA was the belief that NYPD and some
Speaker 4: other forces had discovered a child abuse ring that was
Speaker 4: linked to the Democratic Party, and a lot of this,
Speaker 4: I think it's fair to say was was red meat
Speaker 4: for people who were opposed to the Democratic Party's presidential
Speaker 4: candidate at the time, former Sex State Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the emails, It was the email leak, which then
Speaker 2: spawned a lot of the q andon stuff.
Speaker 5: So like all because of keywords, right, like pizza, CP jeez,
Speaker 5: pizza or the other abbreviation, which is what they what
Speaker 5: they thought.
Speaker 3: Do you guys see what I'm getting at?
Speaker 4: Though?
Speaker 5: Doesn't this feel like an early example of what would
Speaker 5: kind of spin out of control even further during COVID
Speaker 5: with the q andon type of stuff. It just seems
Speaker 5: like that same kind of red meat.
Speaker 2: It's one of the building blocks for that, like one
Speaker 2: of the primary foundational things.
Speaker 4: If q andon is a cake, then you could say
Speaker 4: pizzagate is the flower. It's a key ingredient in the
Speaker 4: recipe and QAnon, as everybody knows, please check out our
Speaker 4: pal Jake Hanrahan's excellent work on this. QAnon Q clearance
Speaker 4: I believe was the name out. Yeah yeah, and QAnon
Speaker 4: itself really really gets its gas together around twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4: So these things happen very close, they are interrelated, and
Speaker 4: you know, there's it's such a danger. It's so easy
Speaker 4: for someone to be pushed over the edge, just one
Speaker 4: little nudge at a time. And I think Pizzagate was
Speaker 4: an example of this that really really let the public
Speaker 4: know about just how insidious these radicalization practices can be.
Speaker 5: How mainstream they can become, and how like I mean,
Speaker 5: I believe Jake Hanrahan used the term wine mums referring
Speaker 5: to like folks who are just kind of locked in,
Speaker 5: you know, during lock in and just looking for something
Speaker 5: to do. And we're just so susceptible to this kind
Speaker 5: of radicalization, if only out of a sense of boredom.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, and it's a hack of human psychology. We
Speaker 4: talked about this at linked in previous episodes. But basically,
Speaker 4: if you already don't like someone, then you are going
Speaker 4: you're going to be strongly biased toward things that seem
Speaker 4: like bad news about them, and it'll be strongly biased
Speaker 4: away from good things. About them. Like if you have
Speaker 4: a beef with someone, even just in your personal life
Speaker 4: or as a public figure, and you hear they did
Speaker 4: something good, then part of your brain is going to say, ah,
Speaker 4: caveat though someone else did it right right.
Speaker 3: Or they did it for the wrong reasons.
Speaker 5: They did it as a self aggrandizing thing, or as
Speaker 5: a way, you know what I mean, Like it was
Speaker 5: deceptive in something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like anything to stop them from anything that does
Speaker 4: that keeps your image of them as a bad person
Speaker 4: is what what your brain will find, maybe without your
Speaker 4: conscious assent, but it's There was a line by h.
Speaker 4: Louis c k before before all those things came out
Speaker 4: about him, where he said, you know what, if you
Speaker 4: don't like someone, you're just gonna find reasons not to
Speaker 4: like him. If you hate someone and you see them
Speaker 4: enjoying a sandwich, you'll think, look at this eating his sandwich.
Speaker 3: Who does he think he is? What a horrible person?
Speaker 4: So I think, so big, so big with your BLT foot,
Speaker 4: with your five dollar foot loss BLT.
Speaker 2: Sadly watching the British bake off by yourself.
Speaker 3: With sob we'll get out of my house.
Speaker 5: That uh huh?
Speaker 3: I love They're my friends. They're my parasocial friends.
Speaker 4: I love iron Chef. I think that that fits the
Speaker 4: deed for me. And I've caught myself eating you know,
Speaker 4: a denty more canned beef stew watching watching I love
Speaker 4: denty war watching some ornate uh, some ornate poetry in
Speaker 4: seafood and and just like sitting there eating out of
Speaker 4: a can like the punisher going dumb ass doesn't know
Speaker 4: how to caramelize.
Speaker 5: Hot hot hot hot take ben though, uh chef boy
Speaker 5: r d versus denty moore.
Speaker 4: Go denty boar okay or sugar content?
Speaker 3: Oh good, good, good to hear, Matt, you have.
Speaker 2: A pro must concur okay.
Speaker 5: I haven't eaten either in a hot minute, but I
Speaker 5: do like chunky soup from Camels.
Speaker 3: It's good quality can and.
Speaker 4: Good on their pr for pulling off chunky product name. Finally,
Speaker 4: like what other what other thing? A soup is such
Speaker 4: a weird thing too, We're gonna let's do a ridic history.
Speaker 2: How else are you going to get of your sodium
Speaker 2: intake drink Campbell soup, Yes, a salt let?
Speaker 4: Perhaps one of their lines was Another of their pr
Speaker 4: lines I used to study these guys methods was soup
Speaker 4: so thick you can eat it with a fork, which
Speaker 4: is so unappealing.
Speaker 3: Oh that's like beer so good you can drink it
Speaker 3: with your mouth.
Speaker 4: Shout out to Miller Lite. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Indeed.
Speaker 5: Have you guys seen the Campbell Chunky soup ads featuring
Speaker 5: Travis Kelsey of Taylor Swift. I think I saw their
Speaker 5: new tagline, is it eats like a meal?
Speaker 4: Okay, so maybe maybe there's like maybe the person writing
Speaker 4: this is not a native speaker. But the other thing that.
Speaker 3: It's not a meal. It's like a meal. It eats
Speaker 3: like a meal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can't believe it's not. Butter is a very Also,
Speaker 4: you gotta eat, Yes, bring up you gotta eat all
Speaker 4: the time. I think that's a very honest tagl Like
Speaker 4: one last thing I know, got to get to this
Speaker 4: other story, you know, one last thing that I don't
Speaker 4: know if they still print it on the back of
Speaker 4: these Campbell soup containers or tens. But their marketing also
Speaker 4: snuck into their instructions and they wanted people to feel
Speaker 4: like they got more soup. So if you back in
Speaker 4: the day, if you looked at the heating instructions, they
Speaker 4: would say, all right, open the can and put it
Speaker 4: in one large bowl or two serving bowls. And that
Speaker 4: was just like their slick little wave of saying, hey,
Speaker 4: you're actually buying two meals of soup.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think it's reflected on the serving size. Probably.
Speaker 4: Oh well, come on, man, no one pays attention to
Speaker 4: the serving size.
Speaker 2: I do, guys.
Speaker 5: I've been calorie counting these days, and I very much
Speaker 5: can I scan it into my little app Well, it's
Speaker 5: been good for me. But the last thing that's unrelated.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry I have to bring it up. It's sort
Speaker 5: of tangentcy. But did they really used to put the
Speaker 5: photos of missing children on milk cartons?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Is that that's true?
Speaker 4: That's true. Okay, that's true. And found few of them too, thankfully,
Speaker 4: good job, Good on you, big milk. Well, we'll move
Speaker 4: on really quickly, guys.
Speaker 5: I didn't think that was going to yield as much
Speaker 5: conversation as it did, but I guess I should have known.
Speaker 5: I mean, we haven't talked about pizzagate in a minute.
Speaker 5: I hope the listeners do appreciate the refresher there, guys.
Speaker 5: But let's move for the second story to London Town
Speaker 5: in mary Old, England. The United Kingdom, some updates to
Speaker 5: the classic serial killer case. I guess, in many ways
Speaker 5: kind of the prototype for the modern serial killer. If
Speaker 5: I'm not mistaken. I'm sure there are other cases surrounded.
Speaker 5: But this was in eighteen eighty eighth.
Speaker 4: I have heard this news. No, I'm really this is.
Speaker 3: Cool, this is interesting.
Speaker 5: In eighteen eighty eight, in the Whitechapel district of London,
Speaker 5: a murderer, a mad killer, was on a spree, murdering
Speaker 5: at least five women. He went unidentified in a case
Speaker 5: that has remained unsolved for one hundred and thirty years,
Speaker 5: but now descendant of the victims of Jack the Ripper
Speaker 5: sorry bearing the lead. There are calling for a new
Speaker 5: in quest reopening of the one hundred year old case,
Speaker 5: hundred year plus old case due to new evidence that
Speaker 5: has come to light in the form of a bloodstained
Speaker 5: shawl that was shown to contain the DNA of someone
Speaker 5: who was once a suspect for these Jack the Ripper killings.
Speaker 5: A Polish barber by the name of Aaron Kosminsky who
Speaker 5: was a suspect at the time. Guys, do you remember
Speaker 5: if he was? Because I know that the Alan Moore
Speaker 5: incredible Alan Moore a very deep dive into the story.
Speaker 5: From Hell kind of took a very similar approach to
Speaker 5: like Zodiac, the David Fincher film, where it's like, you
Speaker 5: really do kind of get a sense that the crime
Speaker 5: was almost solved, but then things sort of went awry,
Speaker 5: or people died or the wrong people didn't come forward.
Speaker 5: Is kaus Minsky mentioned from Hell.
Speaker 3: It's okay, I can't remember I read it.
Speaker 5: I would as well, and I need too, because it's
Speaker 5: an incredible work. It's incredibly grizzly. The film is okay,
Speaker 5: but the graphic novel, in its very stark, kind of
Speaker 5: almost pencil style, kind of almost scrawled, is really arresting,
Speaker 5: and it's quite long and really goes into some very
Speaker 5: deep details about this historical murder case. I wouldn't be
Speaker 5: surprised if he was, but he was, in fact an
Speaker 5: actual facts as Lauren bogmamould say, suspect at the time.
Speaker 5: He was never arrested because police didn't have any hard
Speaker 5: evidence linking into the Achilles.
Speaker 3: Of course, in eighteen eighty eight.
Speaker 5: DNA was absolutely not a thing, and they didn't even
Speaker 5: have any circumstantial evidence. It would seem to tie Kuzminski
Speaker 5: to these horrific murders.
Speaker 4: But didn't he get locked away in an asylum like after?
Speaker 5: I don't have those details in this piece from the Telegraph,
Speaker 5: but it's entirely possible. I think the most important takeaway
Speaker 5: here is that this shawl, which is said to have
Speaker 5: been found on the box body of the victim, Katherine Edwards,
Speaker 5: the fourth victim to be precise, has been found to
Speaker 5: contain both her DNA and that of Kosminski. It was
Speaker 5: recently purchased at an auction by Russell Edwards, who is
Speaker 5: a Jack the Ripper enthusiast and author and researcher. Sorry,
Speaker 5: I don't mean to be dismissed. He was more than
Speaker 5: an enthusiast, He was a researcher and writer on the subject.
Speaker 5: He said, justice can be served by finally naming the killer,
Speaker 5: even though this case is you know, everyone involved directly
Speaker 5: is long since past. He In fact, the purchaser, Russell Edwards,
Speaker 5: has hired a legal team to try to secure another
Speaker 5: inquest Karen Miller, who is fifty three years old today
Speaker 5: and is the three times great granddaughter of the victim
Speaker 5: in question. Here, edoes I may have said Edwards because
Speaker 5: we were also talking about Russell Edwards. I may have misspoke,
Speaker 5: but Catherine Edoes was the name of the victim whose
Speaker 5: shawl was sold at auction and found to contain the
Speaker 5: DNA of Kosminsky. She provided her DNA, which was a
Speaker 5: match to the sample that was found on the shawl,
Speaker 5: and she told the Daily Mail the name Jack the
Speaker 5: Ripper has become sensationalized. It has gone down in history
Speaker 5: as this famous character. It's been all about him, but
Speaker 5: people have forgotten about the victims did not have justice
Speaker 5: at the time. And you know, guys, I would argue
Speaker 5: that that's absolutely true. You know, there is like a
Speaker 5: certain glorification of this figure of Jack the Ripper, you know,
Speaker 5: especially in like true crime enthusiast circles.
Speaker 3: So to take away.
Speaker 5: That sober quet, maybe I'm using that wrong, might be powerful,
Speaker 5: might have power, so to give you know, I would
Speaker 5: say that Aaron Kosminsky is a lot less sexy sounding
Speaker 5: than Jack the Ripper. So I could see this doing
Speaker 5: some good legacy wise, But it also seems like with
Speaker 5: a case this old, maybe this isn't the best way
Speaker 5: of spending public money.
Speaker 4: It may you know, even even when justice grinds incredibly slow.
Speaker 4: I would argue it is philosophically and ideologically important for
Speaker 4: a community, whatever its size, to have closure, to know
Speaker 4: to solve a case. Right, It's often thankless research. I'm
Speaker 4: interested in nol in learning, uh, learning, whatever this inquest
Speaker 4: it happens, may find because from what I recall, and
Speaker 4: I'm just off the dome here, a lot of Ripper
Speaker 4: Jack the Ripper researchers tended to consider and dismiss Kamenski
Speaker 4: because or Cosminski, uh, because of some timeline stuff, some
Speaker 4: of what they saw as as behavioral pattern and the
Speaker 4: one thing that I remember. Don't quote me on this
Speaker 4: because I have to check, but I think the asylum
Speaker 4: that took him in in eighteen ninety one, I think
Speaker 4: they said he only spoke Yiddish, and whomever authored those
Speaker 4: letters to the paper, if it was the actual Jack
Speaker 4: the Ripper, they clearly spoke and read English. Well.
Speaker 5: It does also beg the question of you know, does
Speaker 5: this trace of DNA evidence, one hundred and thirty year
Speaker 5: old DNA evidence, is that alone enough to one hundred
Speaker 5: percent pen this on that individual? There would have to
Speaker 5: be other factors, hence the need for a new investigation
Speaker 5: right right?
Speaker 4: Could it have I mean, could that evidence have been contaminated?
Speaker 4: Do we really believe that it was held sacrisanct and
Speaker 4: you know, sealed off for so long. But still to
Speaker 4: your earlier point into what I think is launching the inquest,
Speaker 4: there must be other factors and it is it seriously
Speaker 4: bears looking into to find the DNA of a suspect
Speaker 4: on one of the possessions of a victim. There's no
Speaker 4: way around it. I feel like you have to investigate
Speaker 4: further otherwise it's willfully dismissive. It's purposely, it's on purpose
Speaker 4: choosing to remain ignorant about a lead, which, as you said,
Speaker 4: it is a breakthrough.
Speaker 3: Matt. I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on this.
Speaker 5: With all of your true crime podcast investigations and background,
Speaker 5: I know that Golden State Killer was a good example
Speaker 5: of new information coming to light in an old case,
Speaker 5: not as old as this, But I just wonder where
Speaker 5: you stand on is a new inquest funded by the
Speaker 5: public the right move or if it's such a wealthy
Speaker 5: person who bought the shawl, is it something more maybe
Speaker 5: that would be best served by private investors.
Speaker 2: I think there's enough interest in true crime in general
Speaker 2: for cool like go fund me situation to happen if
Speaker 2: if they really wanted to happen. I don't know. It's
Speaker 2: really tough when you're when you're looking at evidence that's
Speaker 2: that old, because you you think about how important chain
Speaker 2: of custody is and how important all of these things
Speaker 2: are in our in legal systems throughout the world, and
Speaker 2: you're looking at stuff from you know, that long ago.
Speaker 2: Who knows what kind of contamination may have occurred, who
Speaker 2: knows what kind of situation could have occurred, where that
Speaker 2: evidence is actually no longer viable and doesn't prove what
Speaker 2: everyone thinks it's proving when all the testing is you know, done.
Speaker 2: So it's just it's a tough situation.
Speaker 4: Well said.
Speaker 5: Now that I'm intrigued by this crowd funding notion, it
Speaker 5: does seem like you know, I mean, because there are
Speaker 5: so many unsolved crimes in the UK that don't get
Speaker 5: the funding or attention they deserve. Like in the comment
Speaker 5: section on this Telegraph piece that I was mentioning, this
Speaker 5: is a This comment from Frank W. Duh is pretty
Speaker 5: pretty much sums up the sentiment as much as I
Speaker 5: understand and sympathize with the relatives. I would much rather
Speaker 5: today's government invested the time and money into a deep
Speaker 5: and very thorough public inquest into the so called Asian
Speaker 5: and others rape gangs that go back at least fifty
Speaker 5: years with it another comment or privately funded. Only the
Speaker 5: government have better things to spend time and money on. Hey,
Speaker 5: looking at the unsolved knife crime stats in mister Cohn's London,
Speaker 5: I would say he's still about referring to Jackie the Ripper.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there are also some Clearly there are some
Speaker 4: politicized aspects to some of those comments. But that point
Speaker 4: reminds me of other investigations that we know did get
Speaker 4: covered up, like abuse rings in Parliament. Anybody who is
Speaker 4: looking into Operation U Tree things like that, they got
Speaker 4: knocked down. So there is I still say you would
Speaker 4: for a breakthrough of this magnitude, you should have an inquest. However,
Speaker 4: you should also exercise due diligence to advance understanding into
Speaker 4: in scrutiny of these other many crimes that do not
Speaker 4: receive the same attention because they have not been I'll
Speaker 4: say it glamorized right in popular culture. I don't know,
Speaker 4: it's a complex bag of badgers, and I really appreciate
Speaker 4: you bringing us this story and do we have any
Speaker 4: do we have any like timeline from people seeking an
Speaker 4: inquest or do we just know now it's just proposed.
Speaker 5: There's there's obviously co sign from multiple descendants of the victims,
Speaker 5: and interestingly from a descendant of these suspects who is
Speaker 5: also in support of finding out the truth in this case.
Speaker 5: Amanda Paulos, who is his three times great niece, said,
Speaker 5: I'm more than happy to finally establish what really happened.
Speaker 5: The corner of the original eighteen eighty eight investgation returned
Speaker 5: a verdict at the time of what was what was
Speaker 5: called willful murder, So it would require band answer question
Speaker 5: permission granted by Richard Hermer, who's the Attorney General, and
Speaker 5: with his you know sign on an inquest could go ahead.
Speaker 5: Sir Michael Ellis refused permission for a new inquiry when
Speaker 5: he was the Attorney General just a couple of years ago,
Speaker 5: so this has been an ongoing thing.
Speaker 3: So there you have it.
Speaker 5: Let's take a quick break here, a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 5: and then come back with our last few pieces of
Speaker 5: strange news for today's episode.
Speaker 2: And we've returned. Last time on Strange News. Guys, we
Speaker 2: mentioned Monster BTK. It's currently number one in true crime.
Speaker 2: So thank you so much for listening. If you're out
Speaker 2: there and you listened, amazing, amazing. We're going to start
Speaker 2: with a little something that we've all dealt with before.
Speaker 2: Color additives. Ooh, color additives. All of them that are
Speaker 2: used in the United States must be approved by the
Speaker 2: FDA before they are used in foods, before they can
Speaker 2: be put in a food and then sold. There are
Speaker 2: thirty six FDA approved color additives. Nine of those are synthetic.
Speaker 2: This is coming to us via NBC News in an
Speaker 2: article written January fifteenth. By the way, we'll tell you
Speaker 2: the title that article in a moment. One of those
Speaker 2: synthetic dyes is red number three. It was approved in
Speaker 2: nineteen oh seven for use in food. It's made from petroleum.
Speaker 2: That sounds delicious. That's the stuff that makes gas, you know,
Speaker 2: for cars and stuff.
Speaker 3: Dinosaur juice has been put it in a recent episode
Speaker 3: of Ridiculous Sister.
Speaker 2: There you go, guys. The FDA first became aware that
Speaker 2: read three, this specific one, was potentially carcinogenic when a
Speaker 2: study was released in the nineteen eighties and found that
Speaker 2: it created tumors male rats who were exposed to it
Speaker 2: in high doses. That's the nineteen eighties. Red number three
Speaker 2: is already banned in many countries outside of the US,
Speaker 2: including Australia, Japan, many countries within the European Union. Then
Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety, guys, the United States banned the
Speaker 2: use of red three in personal care products, so stuff
Speaker 2: that you put on your face or you use in
Speaker 2: your mouth, but not a food. Does that make sense,
Speaker 2: kind of like a toothpaste, dent, priss. There you go. Then,
Speaker 2: just a couple of years later, in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: I'm joking there, the California Food Safety Act banned Red
Speaker 2: three in all food products sold or distributed within their state.
Speaker 2: And now, guys, as of today, when we record on
Speaker 2: January fifteenth, that's a Wednesday, the FDA has banned the
Speaker 2: use of red three in all foods that are going
Speaker 2: to be manufactured or sold within the US.
Speaker 4: Am my ongoing attempts to be positive, I will say,
Speaker 4: better late than never.
Speaker 2: Yeah, only, you know, only like forty five fifty years
Speaker 2: later we figured it out. And I remember there are
Speaker 2: also a bunch of other additives eight in particular, other
Speaker 2: ones that are synthetically made so cool. This is the red,
Speaker 2: by the way, that gives that deep like cherry color
Speaker 2: or that red cherry color. It's the synthetic one that
Speaker 2: makes that color. I don't know. It's just kind of exciting, guys,
Speaker 2: because you know, there are a bunch of advocacy groups
Speaker 2: out there who have been talking about this for a
Speaker 2: long time, and they say all kinds of things, like
Speaker 2: it's directly tied to cancer as well as affecting children's
Speaker 2: behavior and all those kinds of things. The two sides
Speaker 2: that get created when an advocacy group comes out like that,
Speaker 2: essentially are the folks who use this stuff and make
Speaker 2: a crap ton of money by having the stuff in
Speaker 2: their products, versus the people who are you know, generally
Speaker 2: concerned with safety about that bronc.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's often a David and Goliath situation, at least
Speaker 4: here in the United States, because the people who are
Speaker 4: pushing for greater regulation often end up not having as
Speaker 4: much capital or infrastructure support as the folks who are
Speaker 4: profiting from those same things. Not to say that these
Speaker 4: folks are getting their jimmies off. Imagining terrible things happening
Speaker 4: because of food coloring. They're getting their jimmies off imagining
Speaker 4: how profitable this kind of product or additive is. And
Speaker 4: this leads us to something else. A question for the group.
Speaker 4: Do we think part of this ban is coming as
Speaker 4: a rush to get some policy enacted before the administration shift.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe do you think so?
Speaker 4: I'm just curious. No, it's just a question for the
Speaker 4: group for the time.
Speaker 2: I mean, oh, yeah, I could see that. I could
Speaker 2: see that as being a thing, especially if some of
Speaker 2: these government agencies are going to be nerfed a bit
Speaker 2: with the new administration. Yeah, it would be nice if
Speaker 2: somebody was, you know, watching our backs a little bit.
Speaker 2: That would be cool.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you gotta get America Plus. You have to
Speaker 4: subscribe to America Premium Citizenship for that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, double plus.
Speaker 4: Good.
Speaker 2: This, by the way, you can look up right now.
Speaker 2: The NBC News article is titled FDA bands red number
Speaker 2: three artificial coloring used in beverages, candy, and other foods.
Speaker 2: There are thousands of products, by the way, which use
Speaker 2: right now red three, and manufacturers will have until January fifteenth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty seven to reformulate their products, so we'll still
Speaker 2: be eating lots of it for some time. If you
Speaker 2: eat anything that is red and the uses this dye, yikes.
Speaker 2: Hey guys, you ever use protein powders? You ever used
Speaker 2: that as part of your daily thing?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have. Well, guess what I guess some news
Speaker 2: A quick reminder. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency,
Speaker 2: there is no level of lead that is safe for humans.
Speaker 4: Oh I read, Oh god, yeah, I know what we're
Speaker 4: getting to yep.
Speaker 2: Additionally, according to the US Department of Labour's Occupational Safety
Speaker 2: and Health Administration, cadmium is a carcinogen which is also
Speaker 2: toxic to the body's heart, kidneys, gut, brain, and respiratory
Speaker 2: and reproductive systems. Well, guys. According to a fresh investigation
Speaker 2: from the nonprofit outfit the Clean Label Project, many of
Speaker 2: the over the counter protein powders that you can buy
Speaker 2: right now may contain disturbing levels of both lead and cadmium.
Speaker 4: I remember reading about this and then deciding this is
Speaker 4: so terrible. But I remember thinking, well, I have found
Speaker 4: a good reason not to exercise today.
Speaker 2: Hey, there you go, there you go. Well, this is
Speaker 2: a reminder, just like in some of the individual investigations
Speaker 2: and reports that were made about Red three that we
Speaker 2: just talked about. This is an independent investigation by a
Speaker 2: nonprofit organization that potentially has you know, some kind of
Speaker 2: skin in the game, right, potentially, and I use that
Speaker 2: word potentially, so you have to take it with a
Speaker 2: bit of a grain of salt. It's a single report
Speaker 2: that is what other larger advocacy organizations are saying. Some
Speaker 2: other organizations are just saying, hey, this is a really
Speaker 2: good piece of info to have, we need to do
Speaker 2: more testing to find out how dangerous this actually is
Speaker 2: and you know where the potential contamination is coming from
Speaker 2: and how it's getting in there. You can find the
Speaker 2: whole report if you search for Clean Label Project twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four DASH twenty five Protein Powder Category Report. It's
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff, and it's it's really bad. It
Speaker 2: basically says the chocolate flavored drinks have way higher levels
Speaker 2: of these heavy metals and toxins than like vanilla flavored
Speaker 2: ones or other flavored ones. It also said the organic
Speaker 2: versions have intensely higher levels than ones that are quote
Speaker 2: not organic, right, so it's just very strange. The plant
Speaker 2: based ones were the most egregious versions, And we've talked
Speaker 2: about that before with potential leeching from soil. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: if the soil itself is contaminated by water runoff or
Speaker 2: just however else the soil could get contaminated. The plant
Speaker 2: based ones are made from plants, and the plants soak
Speaker 2: up those kinds of metals, and then when they're you know,
Speaker 2: ground up and used in the manufacturing process, there's potentially
Speaker 2: higher levels of lead and cadmium.
Speaker 4: Organic does not necessarily, despite what companies want you to believe,
Speaker 4: organic does not necessarily always necessitate something being better. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there's a whole there's a whole conspiratorial nomenclature of vocabulary
Speaker 4: set about this kind of stuff. All natural.
Speaker 3: Okay, buddy, gotta watch out.
Speaker 2: It's all in the language and it can be used
Speaker 2: against you, guys. I've got a bunch more stuff. Maybe
Speaker 2: I'll just give a couple of quick ones here. Remember
Speaker 2: when we talked about that New York mayor guy Eric
Speaker 2: Adams M.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's huge in Turkey.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he is very popular, very busch looks really imposing
Speaker 5: on that perp walk with Luigi Manjohnny.
Speaker 2: There you go. So we talked about him back in September,
Speaker 2: when he was charged with five criminal accounts, including bribery,
Speaker 2: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and solicitation of a contribution
Speaker 2: by a foreign national. This is coming to us again
Speaker 2: from NBC News. You can read about it. It was posted
Speaker 2: on January seventh, twenty twenty five. Title is Federal prosecutors
Speaker 2: say they've uncovered additional criminal conduct by New York Mayor
Speaker 2: Eric Adams. That week, it was announced by the Attorney's
Speaker 2: Office for the Southern District of New York. That quote,
Speaker 2: law enforcement has continued to identify additional individuals involved in
Speaker 2: Adam's conduct, and they've uncovered additional criminal conduct by the mayor.
Speaker 2: The mayor responded at a news conference the following day
Speaker 2: after this, guys, we've just got a quick quote here.
Speaker 2: It is. These are the words of New York Mayor
Speaker 2: Eric Adams. Quote. Even Ray Charles can see what's going on.
Speaker 2: Ray Charles, if you're unaware, was a very famous blind musician, singer, songwriter,
Speaker 2: an incredibly talented individual. He goes on, I've said it
Speaker 2: over and over again. I've done nothing wrong, so assuring words.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's fine to say things in sale kinds of things.
Speaker 4: I just said that.
Speaker 2: Oh magic, there's one other thing. Maybe we say this
Speaker 2: for later. There was a smaller town in Louisiana, Boga Lusa,
Speaker 2: where a mayor was arrested as a part of a
Speaker 2: large drug distribution investigation where opioids, high grade THHD products
Speaker 2: and MDMA were being sold, and then those proceeds were
Speaker 2: being used to purchase weapons, and then those weapons were
Speaker 2: going to individuals who are legally not allowed to have
Speaker 2: said weapons. It was a big deal. You can read
Speaker 2: about that in CBS News just search for Louisiana mayor
Speaker 2: arrested after drug trafficking investigation. There's a lot of interesting
Speaker 2: stuff in that article. The mayor was only twenty five
Speaker 2: years old. Is this yes? I remember, yes, yes, tyring
Speaker 2: T y R I N T R U O N
Speaker 2: G and you can read all about this thing is
Speaker 2: very very strange. It's what you would imagine charges of
Speaker 2: conspiracy to distribute substances, and it has to do with
Speaker 2: you know, it's like separate charges for Schedule one substances
Speaker 2: and Schedule two substances and schedule whatever. But ultimately it's
Speaker 2: just drug trafficking. And the mayor there in Bogalusa is
Speaker 2: somehow wrapped up in it. Last thing, guys, weapons trafficking,
Speaker 2: not just drug trafficking. Weapons trafficking, that's a there's big
Speaker 2: money in both of those. But weapons trafficking now, especially internationally,
Speaker 2: there's legendary enrichment potential there, right, big deal. Okay, So
Speaker 2: here is something coming to us from CNN. We'll tell
Speaker 2: you the title in a moment. And this is all
Speaker 2: according to the US Department of Justice and gentlemen named
Speaker 2: Takeshi Ibisawa. This is a sixty year old alleged leader
Speaker 2: from Japan's Yakuza crime syndicates. So potentially one of the
Speaker 2: individual groups there has pled guilty to quote trafficking nuclear
Speaker 2: materials from me and Mar. Yes, yes, as part of
Speaker 2: a global web of trades and drugs, weapons and laundered cash.
Speaker 2: So the weapons trade is already existing here and according
Speaker 2: to this guy again, he pled guilty to it. He
Speaker 2: was trafficking in fissile material. Okay, let's jump into this.
Speaker 2: You can find the article alleged to Yukuza leader admitst
Speaker 2: trafficking nuclear materials from me and Mar. That's MOI A N.
Speaker 4: M A R.
Speaker 2: During an undercover investigation by the US DEEA This is
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty one. This gentleman, Takeshi, tried to
Speaker 2: sell the materials, including uranium and weapons grade plutonium. Remember
Speaker 2: in our discussions with fissile materials, weapons grade plutonium means
Speaker 2: this stuff has been spun up in centrifuges to the
Speaker 2: point where it can go. It can make the big
Speaker 2: boom if you want it to. When you've just got
Speaker 2: regular role plutonium or uranium. That stuff is radioactive and
Speaker 2: extremely dangerous, but it wouldn't be able to trigger a
Speaker 2: nuclear reaction the way stuff that's inside a nukewood right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but weapons a great plutonium ding ding, that's the stuff.
Speaker 2: So he was trying to sell this stuff to a
Speaker 2: person he believed was an Iranian general. So a general
Speaker 2: from the country of Iran who wanted them for a
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons program. Yikes, yikes, especially considering what's going on
Speaker 2: right now in the world and the wars being fought
Speaker 2: and human beings being killed, and the aspirations of leaders
Speaker 2: in various countries. That's dangerous, scary stuff. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but it's something we talked about before. I suppose for
Speaker 2: a weapons dealer, and it doesn't matter who you're selling
Speaker 2: the weapons to. And we know that weapons can be
Speaker 2: sold strategically to, you know, an enemy force, depending on
Speaker 2: who the opposing force is, and it can be done
Speaker 2: in a very strategic manner to do the old pick
Speaker 2: up the gun situation.
Speaker 4: Right. Yeah, in this case too. I remember, before this
Speaker 4: guy admitted or confessed, one of the one of the
Speaker 4: big parts of this kind of investigation is, like you said, Matt,
Speaker 4: getting the person boxed in to prove that they have
Speaker 4: intent and full awareness, right, So that part of the
Speaker 4: theater here is making sure that this that this dude
Speaker 4: knows vaguely what the purported general is planning to do,
Speaker 4: like you are supporting the possibility of nuclear warfare. Otherwise,
Speaker 4: you know, you can try to squirrel away legally speaking,
Speaker 4: into something where you could say, oh, I didn't know,
Speaker 4: you know, look at me. I'm an old school criminal.
Speaker 4: I don't understand the ins and outs of nuclear weaponry.
Speaker 4: This was just another thing for me to sell. I mean,
Speaker 4: my main thing is Pachinko parlors. Guys, if we're being
Speaker 4: honest and now, that won't work. And that's part of
Speaker 4: the brilliance of these sorts of the I would say
Speaker 4: the long term intricacy of those kind of investigations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah. This guy, by the way, also is
Speaker 2: accused of a lot of things, including trying to sell
Speaker 2: surface to air missiles, and you know, he's admitted to
Speaker 2: a lot of other things like selling specific weapons to
Speaker 2: other countries. It tons and tons of international narcotics trade stuff. Sure,
Speaker 2: which again, if you you know, you imagine a crime syndicate, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's kind of kind of what you do. But selling
Speaker 2: facal materials maybe that's a whole other that's a whole
Speaker 2: other thing. There were photos exchange in this whole undercover
Speaker 2: investigation where some substance that looks to be uranium or
Speaker 2: plutonium is photographed right next to a Geiger counter that
Speaker 2: is showing whatever it is, it's radioactive. Who knows. This
Speaker 2: is a big investigation. There's lots of stuff at.
Speaker 4: Play, surprisingly endearing pictures of the suspect yourself, yeah, oh yeah, toys.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, holding some kind of RPG just with his
Speaker 2: glasses on. He's just like, hey, check out this leather jacket.
Speaker 4: It's the energy of your favorite uncle when they catch
Speaker 4: a big fish. Yeah, I have to get a picture
Speaker 4: of it. This is also I guess we should mention, Matt,
Speaker 4: this is not a solo arrest, correct, there are two
Speaker 4: other defendants?
Speaker 2: Oh sure, Yeah? Who are those guys right now?
Speaker 4: Where we haven't pulled their names? We would have to,
Speaker 4: We would have to dig into this a little bit
Speaker 4: more there. Look, this happens because often folks like this
Speaker 4: are not going. You can't do this by yourself, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean? Even in what was that Nicholas
Speaker 4: Gage film Lord of War, he had to have a
Speaker 4: lot of connections to traffic weaponry on an international scale.
Speaker 4: So this means this is just our opinion speculation. This
Speaker 4: means the most logical move for this ongoing thing is
Speaker 4: to keep pulling the threads. Right. Who are you meeting
Speaker 4: on the other side of the table here, right? Because
Speaker 4: they don't manufacture this stuff in Japan? So are the
Speaker 4: triads involved? Do we look toward North Korea? Those are
Speaker 4: the conversations and investigations happening now, and I think we
Speaker 4: can expect more arrest or more progress. The question is
Speaker 4: whether any of that will be in the public sphere. Also,
Speaker 4: Japan's got some problems with this justice, very different problems
Speaker 4: than the problems here in the good old US of A.
Speaker 4: But you guys know the old the old chippoleth about
Speaker 4: Japan's ninety nine percent conviction rates. They h they'll get you.
Speaker 4: There's there's not a way in hell unless unless some serious,
Speaker 4: high level negotiations happen in some smoky back room. This
Speaker 4: guy's going down.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure. Let's end here with a quote
Speaker 2: from Acting US Attorney Edward Y. Kim for the Southern
Speaker 2: District of New York. Uh, here we go. As he
Speaker 2: admitted in court today, Takashi Ibisawa brazen Lea trafficked nuclear material,
Speaker 2: including weapons grade plutonium, out of Burma. So in this case,
Speaker 2: the US attorney is is calling ME and R Burma
Speaker 2: because that is what it was formerly known as. It's
Speaker 2: like kind of the we talked about that kind of interchange.
Speaker 2: The but ME and Mar is what it is known
Speaker 2: as and referred to you mostly now men.
Speaker 4: R is what the people of that country want it
Speaker 4: to be referred to as.
Speaker 2: Yes, continuing the quote. At the same time, he worked
Speaker 2: to send massive quantities of heroin and methamphetamine to the
Speaker 2: United States in exchange for heavy duty weaponry such as
Speaker 2: surface to air missiles to be used in Burma, or
Speaker 2: ME and Mar and laundered what he believed to be
Speaker 2: drug money from New York to Tokyo. And this is
Speaker 2: all part of that undercover investigation where basically this guy
Speaker 2: is just being strung along by DA agents. There we go, guys,
Speaker 2: That's all I've got for this week.
Speaker 4: And there's so much more, As we always say, there's
Speaker 4: so much more that we have yet to get to.
Speaker 4: We want to hear from you, folks. We've explored several
Speaker 4: ongoing stories. We didn't even mention our boy, the millionaire
Speaker 4: who wants to live forever. Talked about him previously. Remember
Speaker 4: the guy who was using his kid as blood bag. Yes,
Speaker 4: and beat a blood bag to his grandfather as well.
Speaker 4: Just to let you know there was a circle of
Speaker 4: life there. He quit one of the drugs on his
Speaker 4: regimen because he said it was making him older.
Speaker 5: I did see that, and wasn't it like the longevity drug?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, So let us know your experiences with anti
Speaker 4: aging drugs. If you are your loved ones are affected
Speaker 4: by the California wildfires, please feel free to reach out
Speaker 4: to us to share your story. We are holding you
Speaker 4: in our thoughts and you know, given the chance, do
Speaker 4: your best not to not to smuggle weapons or nuclear
Speaker 4: material internationally. We hate to be the uncool dads, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. Go have fun, but don't get
Speaker 4: too wild. Instead of participating in cover ups and conspiracies,
Speaker 4: why don't you help us shed light on them. We
Speaker 4: try to be easy to find on our email address
Speaker 4: open twenty four to seven, on our telephonic line, and
Speaker 4: of course on the other lines, the lines that are
Speaker 4: on the lines that you're sex toys use. Sorry, next story.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 5: You can find the handle conspiracy Stuff where we exist
Speaker 5: in all those places, including Facebook, where we have our
Speaker 5: Facebook group here's where it gets crazy, on xfka, Twitter,
Speaker 5: and on YouTube, where we have video content colore for
Speaker 5: your perusing enjoyment. On Instagram and TikTok, however, I guess
Speaker 5: at least until mister Beast buys it should guys see that.
Speaker 3: That's kind of funny.
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 3: He said?
Speaker 5: He's mister Beast is apparently leaking up with all his
Speaker 5: billionaire friends to buy TikTok. Maybe as a goof AnyWho.
Speaker 5: On TikTok and Instagram, we are conspiracy Stuff show. You
Speaker 5: can also find us as individuals.
Speaker 3: I'm how now. Noel Brown on Instagram and bullet.
Speaker 4: First you need to take the boos of a young
Speaker 4: willow tree, arrange them in the correct pattern, dance witter
Speaker 4: shins under a new moon and light black flame. Or
Speaker 4: you can find me at Instagram and a burst of
Speaker 4: Creativity at Ben Bollin on x or Twitter at Ben
Speaker 4: Bullin hsw tk traphouse mutually Assured distraction. There's a website
Speaker 4: as well. Go forth, Go forth, Matt, you got anything?
Speaker 2: What is tiki traphouse?
Speaker 3: That's for him to know and you to find out.
Speaker 2: Bud, No, is that a real thing?
Speaker 3: Unclear?
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, all right, Hey, we have a phone number.
Speaker 2: It is one eight three three std WYTK. When you
Speaker 2: call in, give yourself a cool nickname and let us
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