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, my.
Speaker 3: Name is Noah. They goll be ben.
Speaker 4: We are joined as always with our super producer Dylan
Speaker 4: the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you. You
Speaker 4: are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want.
Speaker 3: You to know.
Speaker 4: If you are hearing our strange news program the Evening
Speaker 4: it publishes, let us be the first to officially welcome
Speaker 4: you to Monday, January twenty seventh. There's so much stuff
Speaker 4: going on. A shout out to everybody who had you
Speaker 4: know who is chasing the TikTok dragon and had to
Speaker 4: go into some hard like some hard with and then
Speaker 4: got it back.
Speaker 3: It was a real roller coaster of emotions over my
Speaker 3: house with the kids being like it's gone, everything is terrible,
Speaker 3: it's back. It's just yeah. It was. It was fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and uh TikTok is obviously a huge social media platform.
Speaker 4: It was pulled voluntarily by a TikTok's parent company due
Speaker 4: to the ongoing discourse between the US and China, and
Speaker 4: then it was reinstated kind of the same way that
Speaker 4: Coca Cola did New Coke and then came out with
Speaker 4: Coke Classic and it was an entirely different recipe.
Speaker 3: Hmmm, well, Ben, I mean you mentioned offline, you know,
Speaker 3: the need to maybe do a deeper dive into how
Speaker 3: social media affects our attention span, but also what an
Speaker 3: important potential means of opinion manipulation and control it could
Speaker 3: be in the hands of, say, a government that was
Speaker 3: using it in that fashion.
Speaker 4: I'd like to shout out you met for for noticing
Speaker 4: the historical precedence that maybe a play.
Speaker 2: What what you mean, limiting the access people have to
Speaker 2: certain information and then controlling the information that's fed to them,
Speaker 2: much like in the episode we just discussed where you
Speaker 2: take a hostage then you say, hey, you can only
Speaker 2: read these papers that we authored.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Orwell was right.
Speaker 3: I hate to say it. Orwell was right though, and
Speaker 3: a good writer for sure. And I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: if done with enough subtlety, it could almost go unnoticed
Speaker 3: for a while, you know, just manipulating the algorithm in
Speaker 3: just such a way to feed just enough stories that
Speaker 3: support a particular ideology or worldview, and then before you
Speaker 3: know it, kid's opinions are starting to change. I mean,
Speaker 3: and kids are smart. I'm not trying to say they're stupid,
Speaker 3: but this stuff is very difficult to combat. With the
Speaker 3: whole back to back video inging of TikTok, you almost
Speaker 3: won't even notice that you're kind of being fed propaganda, and.
Speaker 4: Social media does attack your attention span. Tune in for
Speaker 4: our episode on that. This part of the show is
Speaker 4: brought to you by Luigi Mangioti and the Tianamen Square
Speaker 4: Tourist Board.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back with our strange news and we've returned.
Speaker 4: We'll call the first part of tonight's program if I
Speaker 4: could get some Innio Morricone music, Dylan Pardons and commutations
Speaker 4: wah wah wah, the Good, the Bad, and the ugly.
Speaker 4: So first off, yeah, first off, check out our album. Secondly,
Speaker 4: we have to talk about the difference between a pardon
Speaker 4: and a commutation. Quite recently, we here in the still
Speaker 4: tenuously United States saw something extraordinary. One outgoing presidential administration
Speaker 4: released a wave of pardons and commutations. The incoming administration
Speaker 4: also launched a thousand ships technically more than a thousand
Speaker 4: of pardons, and this is something that needs to be examined.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: We know politics and ideology can be really sticky for
Speaker 4: a lot of people. We know that the American justice
Speaker 4: system has a ton of problems, but it is very
Speaker 4: important to begin with this. A pardon says you're fine,
Speaker 4: you're forgiven. A commutation says you are still guilty, but
Speaker 4: we're going to let you go.
Speaker 3: Are there versions of commutations where it could just be
Speaker 3: like a reduced sentence, or is it always okay?
Speaker 4: I thought so, Yeah, Yeah, commutation. Think of it as
Speaker 4: a spectrum, right, and a pardon is more absolute in
Speaker 4: that regard.
Speaker 2: Well, and a pardon restores all of your rights as
Speaker 2: a citizen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And this is where we see.
Speaker 4: The reason we're calling it the good, the bad, and
Speaker 4: the ugly is because depending upon your personal perspective, right,
Speaker 4: or depending upon whom you ask, some people will say
Speaker 4: a series of pardons are awesome. Other people will say
Speaker 4: a series of pardons or commutations are absolutely corrupt. One
Speaker 4: of the commutations we can begin with that we see,
Speaker 4: I believe, I hope collectively as an absolute win is
Speaker 4: Elder Leonard Peltier has had his sentence commuted. It was
Speaker 4: commuted in what we call an eleventh hour move by
Speaker 4: the outgoing US presidential administration, the Biden administration. Do now,
Speaker 4: we recently had an episode about Elder Peltier and we
Speaker 4: we actually wrote to him as well. We haven't heard back,
Speaker 4: and if you're listening, sir, we hope that you. We
Speaker 4: hope that you don't take the time to write us back.
Speaker 4: We hope that you enjoy your freedom. Do we want
Speaker 4: to talk a little bit about Leonard Peltier who he
Speaker 4: is just a quick recap for anybody who hasn't heard
Speaker 4: the episode yet.
Speaker 3: Sure. Yeah, And there's also a really great podcast out
Speaker 3: there called Leonard that's about his story. But he is
Speaker 3: an elder Native American tribesman who was caught up in
Speaker 3: a gunfight with the FBI essentially, and it would seem
Speaker 3: upon examination of the story that he was more or
Speaker 3: less defending himself from you know, folks who are coming
Speaker 3: into his territory aggressively. And he was of course convicted
Speaker 3: for a murder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there was a whole flight from the scene
Speaker 2: and you know, hiding out and then weapons charges and
Speaker 2: all this other stuff. It's a it's worth your time
Speaker 2: to listen to the episode we made on it, just
Speaker 2: so you can see the complexity of the issue and
Speaker 2: why maybe there are people out there who wanted him
Speaker 2: out immediately and then other people who wanted to keep
Speaker 2: him in indefinitely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, put there, guys.
Speaker 4: There was an executive grant of clemency signed by former
Speaker 4: President Joe Biden on January nineteenth. We're recording this on Wednesday,
Speaker 4: January second. The commutation goes into effect on February eighteenth,
Speaker 4: and to it seems that the administration was highlighting, underlining, italicizing,
Speaker 4: emphasizing that this was not a pardon. The former President
Speaker 4: Joe Biden said that Peltierre is to serve the remainder
Speaker 4: of his sentence. He's granted clemency, so he's not in jail,
Speaker 4: serving the remainder of his sentence at home, and then
Speaker 4: took extensive pains to reiterate that this was not a pardon.
Speaker 4: This was not to say that he didn't do things
Speaker 4: that US courts convicted him of doing. That's pretty controversial
Speaker 4: on both sides of the aisle, because a lot of
Speaker 4: law enforcement entities absolutely opposed even clemency, and we as
Speaker 4: we record, Leonard Peltier is eighty years old. So it's
Speaker 4: not as though he's going to be running triathlons.
Speaker 3: Just to be clear, I mean, he's certainly paid for
Speaker 3: what he was convicted of, you know, whatever you view
Speaker 3: the reality of that situation, I mean, that's a very
Speaker 3: very large portion of a man's life gone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and let's stay with the outgoing administration for a moment, because,
Speaker 4: as many of us doubtlessly doubtlessly know, there were a
Speaker 4: lot of pardons issued in that proverbial eleventh hour by
Speaker 4: the Biden administration as the Trump administration was coming into
Speaker 4: force right or was coming into the White House. The
Speaker 4: list here gets controversial for some people, especially folks who
Speaker 4: are not fans of the Biden administration, because there were
Speaker 4: a lot of family pardons. You know, there were pardons
Speaker 4: for the former president's brothers, James and Francis, as well
Speaker 4: as his sister, his sister in law, his brother in law.
Speaker 4: There were some pardons for people like Gerald Lundergrand who
Speaker 4: was convicted in twenty nineteen on campaign finance charges. The
Speaker 4: White House in that case said he demonstrated remorse. We
Speaker 4: don't often shout these out this media platform out, but
Speaker 4: Newsweek if you want to check them out, they have
Speaker 4: a pretty up to date list on the full Biden pardons.
Speaker 4: We also see that he here's our segue. We see
Speaker 4: that his administration collectively pardoned the members and staff of
Speaker 4: the Select Committee investigating the events of January sixth.
Speaker 2: Isn't that interesting? Preemptive pardons? It's so weird, Ben, did
Speaker 2: you call out the website. I didn't even know there
Speaker 2: was an Office of the Pardon Attorney.
Speaker 4: There is an Office of the Pardon Attorney. Yes, that's
Speaker 4: a true story. That's a real thing.
Speaker 2: You could go to the Justice dot gov website. I
Speaker 2: think it's just slash pardon and you'll get to the
Speaker 2: Office of the Pardon Attorney and you can see that
Speaker 2: entire list Ben is talking about. And it is fascinating
Speaker 2: to look at the giant list over the years, just
Speaker 2: as they happen with each president. Wow, that is a
Speaker 2: whole that's a whole podcast series just examining the pardons.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's also I love that point, man, because
Speaker 4: it's also a way for us to do a kind
Speaker 4: of political dendo anology, you know, where you look at
Speaker 4: the rings of trees like this is a great way
Speaker 4: to see the passage of time. And this is very
Speaker 4: much one of the few presidential superpowers, right, yeah, just
Speaker 4: pardon people at the end, like some weird super move.
Speaker 4: It's up there with an executive order, and technically you
Speaker 4: put out an executive order, uh whatever you want, right,
Speaker 4: And it's the branch. It's the executive branch. So who's
Speaker 4: who's really going to fight you dude.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to George Bush from early jem earlier.
Speaker 2: Let's look at all the pardons that occurred as he
Speaker 2: was exiting, just to look at you know.
Speaker 3: Just to get a sense.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which ones are your favorite?
Speaker 4: George W. Bush pardons? You guys were awesome parties.
Speaker 3: Jeezus, nothing, nothing's ringing a bell right off the top.
Speaker 2: Well, I just imagine, Look, there's a speculation on my
Speaker 2: part because that list, and I haven't thought about it
Speaker 2: for a while, but I imagine there's some preemptive pardoning
Speaker 2: of potential war criminality. What to say?
Speaker 3: And I mean I was saying, you know, maybe we
Speaker 3: often think of pardons as something that happens at the
Speaker 3: end of an administration as well, but these can happen
Speaker 3: anytime throughout an administration. I'm looking at the lists of
Speaker 3: pardons granted by President George W. Bush at Justice dot gov,
Speaker 3: and they go from December of two thousand and two
Speaker 3: all the way to January first, two thousand and nine,
Speaker 3: which is obviously a much longer list than the ones. No,
Speaker 3: that's not true. November twenty fourth is a massive list. Boy,
Speaker 3: it would take a lot of doing to kind of
Speaker 3: dig into some of these technical William Bruce but was
Speaker 3: pardoned for bank embezzlement ninety you.
Speaker 4: Get in situations like obviously, also, we must say that
Speaker 4: almost anybody is eligible for a pardon in the United States.
Speaker 4: Henry le Lucas, prolific serial killer, was spared from the
Speaker 4: death chamber by George W. Bush at the time a
Speaker 4: governor who commuted his death sentence, and governor's powers are
Speaker 4: not quite on the same level as the Potus Holy Cow.
Speaker 3: This guy William Marcus McDonald, who was in the Air Force.
Speaker 3: Under the US Air Force General Court Martial, he was
Speaker 3: pardoned for a distribution of cocaine, possession of cocaine with
Speaker 3: intent to distribute, use of cocaine, possession of cocaine, and
Speaker 3: use of marijuana. I want to know what that backstory is.
Speaker 4: Small time or he was the plug. There's there's always
Speaker 4: that possibility, right, Maybe he was. Maybe he was like,
Speaker 4: come on, man, every time you texted me, I was there.
Speaker 3: A lot of these are drug charges.
Speaker 2: Yes, wild this poor guy Greg Biden, he was also
Speaker 2: in the Air Force. Biden pardoned him for wrongful use
Speaker 2: of cocaine.
Speaker 3: He just used him.
Speaker 4: As opposed to the rightful use right right, which is
Speaker 4: clearly to make eighties Bank is like, oh, make it,
Speaker 4: You're so fine. Clearly Coca was an executive producer on
Speaker 4: that one. Apologies to music. So the reason we're setting
Speaker 4: this up here is because we see that pardons, commutations, clemency,
Speaker 4: they can always be divisive. It's in fact, it's quite
Speaker 4: rare for these actions on the executive branch to not
Speaker 4: rub some people the wrong way, unless you're talking about
Speaker 4: clemency for clearly racially motivated stitch ups, you know, like
Speaker 4: civil rights activists and so on. I wanted to segue
Speaker 4: us to the other side of the pardons because right
Speaker 4: after Biden leaves, right after the Biden administration goes out,
Speaker 4: the Donald Trump administration comes in. They return right ll cool, Jay,
Speaker 4: don't call it a comeback, and they pardon a ton
Speaker 4: of people in a way that actually pisses off some Republicans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyone in particular, Ben, that you're thinking of.
Speaker 4: Well, for the most interesting purpose on our show here
Speaker 4: and all, I would say one thing that stood out
Speaker 4: to us was the pardon of the creator of the
Speaker 4: Silk Road two point zero, the creator of the dark
Speaker 4: web market, the Silk Road, which a lot of people
Speaker 4: used to buy their drugs, and I guess to the
Speaker 4: earlier point, hopefully they were using them the right way.
Speaker 4: This is a guy named Ross Olbricht, and Ross Olbricht
Speaker 4: we were talking about this offline and we received some
Speaker 4: messages from some of our fellow conspiracy realists about this.
Speaker 4: We have previous episodes on this. He was convicted in
Speaker 4: twenty fifteen in New York State here in US. In
Speaker 4: case anybody needs to be caught up on or read
Speaker 4: up on that accurate, Yeah, yeah, yeah, all true. He
Speaker 4: was convicted in convicted for distribution of narcotics for conspiracies
Speaker 4: related to money laundering. He was sentenced to life in prison,
Speaker 4: which was, as we noted previously in twenty fifteen, fairly unusual.
Speaker 4: Like the severity of his sentence as a first time offender,
Speaker 4: et cetera, et cetera. It really seemed to be a
Speaker 4: matter of, you could say, setting an example, or a
Speaker 4: matter of people saying, hey, we're aware of cyber crime
Speaker 4: and we're you know, we're not just some stodgy.
Speaker 3: Old I'm almost quoting Philip Larkin.
Speaker 4: We're not some stodgy old fools in hats and coats.
Speaker 2: We understand speaking of stodgy old fools and no offense
Speaker 2: guys or to myself. But ten years ago, approximately, we
Speaker 2: talked with Alex Winter about his documentary Deep Web about
Speaker 2: Ross Olbricht and the Silk Road and everything that was
Speaker 2: happening then, and it was basically, we need some justice
Speaker 2: for this guy, and feel how you feel about the
Speaker 2: Silk Road and Bitcoin and all of that stuff that
Speaker 2: was happening. But this guy kind of got he was
Speaker 2: made into an example just as you said.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, agreed, and great shout out to our pal Alex.
Speaker 4: Alex Winter is a phenomenal documentarian, one of our favorite
Speaker 4: behind the scenes moments there.
Speaker 3: I can't believe a decade ago.
Speaker 2: Well, and if you don't know the name Alex Winter,
Speaker 2: you might know Bill s Preston Esquire.
Speaker 3: Yes, of course, Yeah, I had some adventures. They were
Speaker 3: pretty excellent wild stallions.
Speaker 4: So he went on to become a phenomenal documentarian and
Speaker 4: a very kind, quite accomplished individual. My favorite behind the
Speaker 4: scenes moment again, oh jez a decade ago, was during
Speaker 4: the interview this guy's so erudite, he's so smart. He
Speaker 4: pauses for a second. We hear a beep in the
Speaker 4: background and he goes, oh yeah, guys, hold on off air,
Speaker 4: My hot pockets are done.
Speaker 3: That's right. Was amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So this has been for proponents of Ulbricht. This has
Speaker 4: been a long time in coming, and one of the
Speaker 4: many pardons or moves toward clemency granted by the incoming
Speaker 4: Trump administration was the pardon of Ross Ulbricht and this
Speaker 4: like please check out our interview with Alex, Please check
Speaker 4: out our earlier conversations about this, and also shout out
Speaker 4: to everybody wrote in about the dread pirate Roberts, because
Speaker 4: that is the alias albrid used.
Speaker 2: When he was running this h So that ken one
Speaker 2: more shout out, Oh please do shout out to dastardly
Speaker 2: Dan consummate voicemailer on the show and he he hips
Speaker 2: us to an album called Freedom by Akira the Dawn. Yes,
Speaker 2: that features It's basically a bunch of phone calls ross
Speaker 2: made from prison and I guess to you know Akira
Speaker 2: or somebody associated with Akira. Then Akira the Dawn put
Speaker 2: that to music and it's an entire, like thirty five
Speaker 2: minute album of that and it's.
Speaker 3: Brilliant, superb.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and thank you dastardly Dan, Thank you Agira
Speaker 4: the Dawn. It reminds me we were saving this fro
Speaker 4: on air. It reminds me of for any hip hop heads,
Speaker 4: the recordings you will hear from Mumia Abu Jamal, most notably,
Speaker 4: perhaps for backpacker nerds like us, most notably featured on
Speaker 4: several tracks by Immortal Technique. Mortal Technique is not for everybody,
Speaker 4: but do you check it out. We're just gonna lead
Speaker 4: you to the edge of that rabbit hole. Go ahead
Speaker 4: and dive in.
Speaker 3: I would you know.
Speaker 2: Those artists that you adore but you feel like they
Speaker 2: would probably hate your guts. I think that's that's the
Speaker 2: way I feel about Immortal Technique.
Speaker 4: Like True Story, they buried the hatchet. I hate pop
Speaker 4: culture talk, but I respect both these guys. He buried
Speaker 4: the hatchet with Lynn Manuel Miranda because Lin Manuel Miranda,
Speaker 4: the creator of Hamilton, said that Mortal Technique used to
Speaker 4: bully him when they were in school.
Speaker 3: Literally said, he used to shove him in a trash can. Yes.
Speaker 2: Look, I hate to say it, immortal, I can see it. Man.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I just say big bully energy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But he's incredible and prolific and it says stuff
Speaker 2: that makes your mind to go. Oh, I understand.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: Check out his statements on the Fourth Estate, right, the
Speaker 4: oh gosh f the Middle East and gave birth to
Speaker 4: a demon. Oh oh right, okay, moving on, moving on,
Speaker 4: moving on, Uh, do check out Mortal Technique again, not
Speaker 4: for everybody, but a prominent activist, and I would say
Speaker 4: often endeavors to speak truth to power.
Speaker 3: And that is what sidgway.
Speaker 4: That is what supporters of the incoming administration feel that
Speaker 4: the current potus has done with his more controversial pardons.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: The Trump administration or Trump Administration version two I guess,
Speaker 4: New Trump or Trump Classic, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 4: has officially pardoned a ton of people who were in
Speaker 4: trouble for attending the January sixth events. Not too long ago,
Speaker 4: and I remember when we we all learned the news
Speaker 4: like everybody else. So we got in our little nerd
Speaker 4: studio and we we were recording when we didn't know
Speaker 4: what was going to happen to Washington, DC.
Speaker 3: Do you guys remember that moment? Yeah? Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: I wish h folks, I wish you could see my
Speaker 4: guys eyes right now, because we all just got that seven.
Speaker 3: League stare and went yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: It was one of those moments that happens often to
Speaker 4: us where we say, Okay, this is crazy, but let's
Speaker 4: do our well podcast and hope we leave the booth
Speaker 4: to find the same country that was there when we
Speaker 4: walked in. These pardons that are official, it's almost sixteen
Speaker 4: hundred people, all of whom were charged with the with
Speaker 4: active criminal activity during the riot on January sixth, in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one of those charged, about and seventy have
Speaker 4: been convicted in about eleven hundred had already been sentenced,
Speaker 4: and the current US president said, these are hostages patriots. Yeah,
Speaker 4: full part right, hostages and patriots.
Speaker 3: Do you guys, I mean already before this I was
Speaker 3: sort of thinking, and I think I have in the past,
Speaker 3: maybe even mentioned how pardons in general have this sense
Speaker 3: to me of like eroding the legal system, eroding trust
Speaker 3: in the law, and when they become incredibly political, like
Speaker 3: the one that you're talking about, Ben, it just pushes
Speaker 3: that even further. I mean, just looking at this list
Speaker 3: of George W. Bush part and so many of them,
Speaker 3: and again not without knowing the full backstory behind them,
Speaker 3: are things like heroin trafficking, you know, the mega mega felonies,
Speaker 3: bank crimes, you know, all of this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: It just seems like, with the wave of a hand
Speaker 3: that almost imparts the kind of infinite godlike wisdom on
Speaker 3: a president that a king would have right compromising rule
Speaker 3: of law. That's right. It just doesn't seem right to
Speaker 3: me when it's just unilaterally able to be done, especially
Speaker 3: in a case like this that so directly had an
Speaker 3: impact on the image of this president and he's kind
Speaker 3: of tweaking the narrative in his favor in an interesting way.
Speaker 2: I don't disagree with you. I think the perspective I've
Speaker 2: got on it right now is that we've talked about
Speaker 2: how imperfect our justice system is, right and how many
Speaker 2: times somebody gets caught up in it and is either
Speaker 2: wrongfully convicted or the system messes up. Right, So it's
Speaker 2: cool to have that kind of emergency lever that if
Speaker 2: you make a good enough case, or a set of
Speaker 2: attorneys makes a good enough case, a president can just say,
Speaker 2: all right, yeah, that was a screw up, let's fix that.
Speaker 2: But you're absolutely right that they can do that with
Speaker 2: their family members or somebody who did them a solid
Speaker 2: back in the seventies.
Speaker 4: Right. Yeah, And for anybody listening, well said anybody listening.
Speaker 4: Outside of the United States, most people don't get preemptive pardons.
Speaker 4: It would be kind of dope to have one. I'm
Speaker 4: just going to be super honest with all of us
Speaker 4: together tonight. There's much more to get to where we're
Speaker 4: running at time a little bit. I think the most
Speaker 4: important point I wanted to make here. The reason we're
Speaker 4: talking about this is not because we ourselves have any
Speaker 4: sort of political horse in the race. You know, like
Speaker 4: everybody else, we in this country, we live here, we
Speaker 4: want things to go. Well, we're fans of democracy, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. So so for us, the the
Speaker 4: institutional power of a pardon or clemency is a very
Speaker 4: fascinating process. It's it's weird power to have, and at
Speaker 4: times it's definitely a necessary power to wield, But just
Speaker 4: like perhaps owning a gun or waving machete, the power
Speaker 4: itself has no moral compulsion. It's really up to the
Speaker 4: person who is wielding the weapon.
Speaker 3: Yep, that was mad. That's literally wielding in the checks
Speaker 3: out right now, cold trust cold trust it. But I mean, like,
Speaker 3: you know, I think whatever your political persuasion is, I
Speaker 3: would think that the actions of some of those Jan
Speaker 3: sixth rioters would be abhorrent to you. You know, if
Speaker 3: you do believe in the system that we have in
Speaker 3: this democracy. It just seems like that's just not really
Speaker 3: how these things are supposed to be done. You know,
Speaker 3: you're supposed to exercise your power with your vote and
Speaker 3: with the civic engagement, not with storming a government building
Speaker 3: and holding political appointees and elected officials hostage more or
Speaker 3: less in using a reign of terror. But then I
Speaker 3: guess people in supportive becauld say it's a revolution.
Speaker 4: So that's the tricky part, right, because this country was
Speaker 4: founded on a conspiracy, per exactly as it was. That
Speaker 4: is the native language I would argue of the American experiment,
Speaker 4: and that's what I want to point out here, and
Speaker 4: I love the set up there to continue what we're saying.
Speaker 4: We're talking about this because opponents on either side of
Speaker 4: any of these pardons or these moves for clemency, they
Speaker 4: see it as conspiracy. Now, several of the people in
Speaker 4: the involved in the January sixth events were convicted of
Speaker 4: seditious conspiracy, which is as hardcore as it sounds.
Speaker 3: It's like eight, it's.
Speaker 4: Not you know, forgetting to wear a seat belt, it's
Speaker 4: it's the bad stuff. And so this overthrow right right,
Speaker 4: this brings yes, edition, this brings us to a moment,
Speaker 4: and we're all here together in this moment, and we
Speaker 4: want to hear from you. We'd also love for God,
Speaker 4: I'd love for people to check out what's going on
Speaker 4: in the Republic of Korea or South Korea right now.
Speaker 4: You think January sixth was something here, check out the
Speaker 4: events in Korea quite recently, which we briefly alluded to.
Speaker 4: But yeah, give us your opinions, write to us, call us,
Speaker 4: we'll tell you how to get in touch. At the end,
Speaker 4: let us know if you ever got a preemptive pardon
Speaker 4: and what that lets you do, Like if you get
Speaker 4: a preemptive pardon. We should do an episode on diplomatic
Speaker 4: immunity and preemptive partons because I love the idea that
Speaker 4: if you were if you were a consular or diplomatic
Speaker 4: staff for the right country, you basically never pay for
Speaker 4: parking tickets in the United States. That's a weird specific superpower.
Speaker 3: And you get a cool what is it called, like
Speaker 3: a pouch, You get the diplomatic pouches.
Speaker 4: That's it until North Korea ruined it for everybody man.
Speaker 3: And this is literally it is like what a briefcase
Speaker 3: that is not allowed to be searched more or less?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, because every all the people in power, in
Speaker 4: state power collectively said let's keep our secrets, and then
Speaker 4: North Korea used it to smuggle hard drugs.
Speaker 3: EO, bad on you, North Korea. That's really crazy considering
Speaker 3: how hard they are on drug use and drug trafficking.
Speaker 3: A friend of mine actually just got detained coming out
Speaker 3: of Korea because he had a weed vape on him
Speaker 3: and he was basically in Korean weed jail for three
Speaker 3: days and was only released right after the president was impeached.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I was going to ask you guys,
Speaker 3: do you think that's sort of a clearing the air
Speaker 3: kind of thing, where like things are tenuous, let's maybe
Speaker 3: let some of these potential political prisoners go because they
Speaker 3: can be used that way. You know what, We've seen
Speaker 3: it before them.
Speaker 4: I shout out to Dennis Rodman or tip of the
Speaker 4: cap to Dennis, tip of the machete. I'll keep it brief,
Speaker 4: and I want to talk too much about this on air,
Speaker 4: but for anybody who's been in a dicey situation, you
Speaker 4: are correct. No, there are often larger mechanics at play,
Speaker 4: and people can be used as leverage. The big takeaway,
Speaker 4: since we're a family show, is if you are going
Speaker 4: to a country that tells you not to take certain
Speaker 4: things there, don't don't just beat me here, Dylan, just
Speaker 4: believe them, cool man. Don't think you can roll for
Speaker 4: charisma on that one. So again, I know I've run
Speaker 4: a little long hair. Really appreciate this, and in folks,
Speaker 4: we are we are again, cannot emphasize this enough. We
Speaker 4: are here with you. We don't have any insider info
Speaker 4: on what happens next. We know that a lot of
Speaker 4: people are extremely sensitive to what's going on now. A
Speaker 4: lot of people feel that their existence is threatened. A
Speaker 4: lot of people feel that there is some great reckoning
Speaker 4: afoot right, and we're not here to pretend democracy is perfect.
Speaker 4: And I think that's one of the biggest takeaways. The
Speaker 4: number one is that we want to hear from you.
Speaker 3: And you know, and we care about all of you,
Speaker 3: all of our conspiracy realists, all of our wonderful listeners,
Speaker 3: and we're not here to force anything down your throat
Speaker 3: or tell you what to believe or tell you how
Speaker 3: to feel. We're just trying to navigate this world in
Speaker 3: this political climate with empathy and open mindedness and doing
Speaker 3: the best we can, just like everybody else.
Speaker 4: So as yeah well said so again, I just want
Speaker 4: to emphasize and end with this. Tell us what you
Speaker 4: believe the conspiracies may be. We are here with you.
Speaker 4: We are grateful for your time. We're going to pause
Speaker 4: for a word from our sponsors, and then we'll return
Speaker 4: and I'm just gonna go to Justice dot Gov real
Speaker 4: quick and check out if I got pardon too.
Speaker 3: And we have returned with another piece of strange. This
Speaker 3: one's been brewing for a hot minute, and I'm really
Speaker 3: excited to talk about this with both of you. But
Speaker 3: Matt maybe you specifically because of your I would argue
Speaker 3: slightly above average gamer status. You know, Ben, I think
Speaker 3: you're up there too. Certainly, I would consider myself a
Speaker 3: fair weather gamer a best I enjoy playing video games.
Speaker 3: I am not particularly great at any of them. I
Speaker 3: do sometimes get flum mixed with games like elden Ring.
Speaker 3: I never finished that because it just got a little
Speaker 3: too hard for me and I just didn't have time
Speaker 3: to get good. Maybe I'll pick it back up again.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing. I own my fair weather gamer status.
Speaker 3: I would never deign to attempt to compete in any
Speaker 3: kind of elite circles or you know, leaderboards or anything
Speaker 3: like that. And that's something and it's very important to
Speaker 3: a lot of people in the gaming community, obviously with
Speaker 3: Twitch streaming, and it's incredibly competitive and stats are so trackable,
Speaker 3: and you know, there are people that really want to
Speaker 3: be on top. But to be on top in any
Speaker 3: of these like elite games like Diablo for for example,
Speaker 3: or things like elden Ring, a game called Path of
Speaker 3: Exile two, it takes a lot of effort, of grinding,
Speaker 3: of sleepless nights of energy drinks to even crack the
Speaker 3: top one hundred in games like this, and someone who
Speaker 3: has made no secrets about what they describe as there.
Speaker 3: You know, in so many words, elite gamer status is
Speaker 3: Elon Musk, and he has long been a fan of
Speaker 3: video games, as far back as I believe Quake, some
Speaker 3: of the early ID software games he was one of these,
Speaker 3: even described in gamer communities as being an OG player,
Speaker 3: and some of those early kind of online and shooter
Speaker 3: games that sort of laid the groundwork for some of
Speaker 3: these way way more elaborately trackable and competitive kind of
Speaker 3: massive online games. In the controversy around Elon Musk is
Speaker 3: not limited to gaming, of course, But I just think
Speaker 3: this is a fun little microcosm of some of the
Speaker 3: larger controversy surrounding him, which maybe is something surrounding his credibility.
Speaker 3: Is this a person that is honest? Is this a
Speaker 3: person that is telling the truth about their ideas, their
Speaker 3: provenance of their ideas. You know, we know he's got
Speaker 3: a history of kind of taking credit for other people's
Speaker 3: ideas as far back as PayPal, and also with Tesla,
Speaker 3: he fought really really hard to be considered I believe,
Speaker 3: a co creator of Tesla. But the reality seems to
Speaker 3: be that he co opted that brand by purchasing it
Speaker 3: and then tried to kind of pass off some of
Speaker 3: those ideas as his own. Well, it seems like the
Speaker 3: blinders are off, or the veil has been lifted on
Speaker 3: Elon's elite gaming status. This is where I hope you
Speaker 3: can you guys can maybe help me make sense of
Speaker 3: some of this stuff. As recently as a December of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, I don't remember the exact I think
Speaker 3: there was a video that was published a stream of
Speaker 3: him playing this game Path of Exile too on the
Speaker 3: seventeenth of December. Some kind of eagle eyed viewers of
Speaker 3: this stream noticed there were a few things that were
Speaker 3: a little suspicious about Elon's gaming activity, especially for someone
Speaker 3: that I believe was level ninety six, which I think
Speaker 3: is pretty pretty insanely high. That's great time for sure. Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's my understanding that once you get past a certain
Speaker 3: point of leveling up in that game, as is the
Speaker 3: case in games like elden Ring, you have to collect
Speaker 3: so much more XP to get to the next level.
Speaker 3: Each level beyond that becomes exponentially harder to crack.
Speaker 2: So in a lot of hard a lot of games
Speaker 2: that have a long end game, like a long path
Speaker 2: to an endgame, will institute other things where your level
Speaker 2: gets capped. But then there's all kinds of other perks
Speaker 2: that get unlocked each time your quote level and stuff,
Speaker 2: and it becomes extremely, as you said, time consuming to
Speaker 2: do that stuff. And I think that's maybe the most
Speaker 2: important thing to this story, the time it takes, yeah
Speaker 2: to get specific gear or to you know, level up
Speaker 2: enough times.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like long division or good editing. There's not
Speaker 4: really a shortcut to it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And that's that's the question, because I love that we're
Speaker 4: bringing this up. I remember distinctly looking at this and thinking,
Speaker 4: even as guys never played Path of EXL two or whatever,
Speaker 4: I remember thinking.
Speaker 3: How does he find the time?
Speaker 4: And I wasn't trying to be a jerk with that question.
Speaker 4: I was just I was thinking of, you know, the
Speaker 4: twenty four hours that people have in a day, right,
Speaker 4: and the amount required for you know, sleep or like
Speaker 4: pooping or eating or you know the basics.
Speaker 3: So I mean, and like our podcast world, you know,
Speaker 3: we end up tied up with more meetings than we
Speaker 3: would like just in the course of a day. Well,
Speaker 3: you know, I love this, it results of me very
Speaker 3: but we don't run three of the world's top technology
Speaker 3: companies that with with shareholders, and I can't imagine the
Speaker 3: amount of stuff that someone like Elon Musk gets pulled
Speaker 3: into and to do, uh, the amount of gameplay that
Speaker 3: would be required to crack this level. I believe he
Speaker 3: claims he has the number and fifty nine hardcore character
Speaker 3: is named Kekius Maximus, and he also has several other
Speaker 3: hardcore characters who have died. This is a game mode,
Speaker 3: by the way, that is permanent death. Matt, can you
Speaker 3: explain that a little bit?
Speaker 2: Maybe permanent death you're talking about hardcore characters, like.
Speaker 3: That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. So that means the
Speaker 3: character is toast period. What you've built, what you put
Speaker 3: into it, it's all gone if you die.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it's It's the big old gamble for somebody
Speaker 2: who really likes to gamble with their life, like literally their.
Speaker 4: Life, and some game games would not allow you to
Speaker 4: opt out of it. I don't know if you guys
Speaker 4: ever played the Captain Planet game geez it was famously
Speaker 4: it was set to perma death. Like a man harder
Speaker 4: than Echo, the dolphin harder and yeah, yeah, I gut
Speaker 4: the dolphin was pretty, but boy, that was a slog.
Speaker 3: Some of the things that some of these eagle eyed
Speaker 3: viewers of the of the stream noticed were things like this,
Speaker 3: he didn't seem to know this is all collected, by
Speaker 3: the way, and a great post on Reddit documenting the
Speaker 3: saga of Elon Musk's account.
Speaker 4: Or Adrian Dittman. That's another guy we should mention.
Speaker 3: Isn't that his alter ego? Yeah, I'm walking down the
Speaker 3: street today where he's like kind of defends himself from
Speaker 3: this this ghost account.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's kind of like when certain politicians would call
Speaker 4: radio shows and pretend to be someone different and talk
Speaker 4: about how great they are.
Speaker 3: Well, we had an instance of Adrian Dittman defending something
Speaker 3: that Elon posted on x and he kind of was
Speaker 3: so frustrated. I think that he forgot to change his voice.
Speaker 3: That happened recently. That's not in the gaming realm, but
Speaker 3: definitely No, No, it's about the credibility, Ben, It's your
Speaker 3: one hundred percent correct. It is about the credibility. And
Speaker 3: we're going to get further into this. So one thing
Speaker 3: that was noticed was he doesn't seem to know how
Speaker 3: to use a mana flask when out of Mana. Then
Speaker 3: he struggled with it for like over ten seconds, just
Speaker 3: like clicking around or whatever. He doesn't seem to understand
Speaker 3: that you can only run connected at liss nodes. These
Speaker 3: are maps in the game. I believe in a Path
Speaker 3: of Exile one they were called maps, but in the
Speaker 3: second one they're actually called waste stones or something like that,
Speaker 3: and they have to I don't know exactly how the
Speaker 3: game mechanic works, but they have to be connected in
Speaker 3: order to access them. And so the characters that he's
Speaker 3: playing and demonstrating are at levels that would imply that
Speaker 3: he had run hundreds, if not thousands of these atless nodes.
Speaker 3: So clicking around kind of dumbfoundedly as he did in
Speaker 3: the stream is a bit of a red flag. You
Speaker 3: guys might understand why this is a red flag. He
Speaker 3: picks up items by dragging them into his inventory manually.
Speaker 3: I imagine there's a shortcut that more seasoned gamers would use,
Speaker 3: especially for playing on a PC of hot key or
Speaker 3: you know, a shift click or something like that. But
Speaker 3: apparently he's just clicking and dragging them into his inventory.
Speaker 3: He seemingly struggles to understand why he cannot pick up
Speaker 3: an item win his inventory is full. I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: absolute fair weather gamer. I know stuff like that. I
Speaker 3: was just telling you guys, like a game like Balder's
Speaker 3: Gate seems a little above my pay grade, and these
Speaker 3: top down kind of games like this, more D and
Speaker 3: D based, I find a little bit confounding, But I
Speaker 3: understand that mechanic. He had this comment where he there
Speaker 3: were like, I guess four you know, on certain items.
Speaker 3: I guess there are I guess buffs that you can install.
Speaker 3: You've got like slots for them, maybe on a sword,
Speaker 3: like for certain stones, maybe they give it special powers.
Speaker 3: Apparently on certain maps it's got these slots for ways
Speaker 3: of buffing it in some way. But he referred to
Speaker 3: them as the four things map things, as opposed to
Speaker 3: like what they actually are, which is something like what
Speaker 3: I would do. He's always making comments about how his
Speaker 3: gear isn't good because it's low level. But what he
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to realize that most of the hardcore players
Speaker 3: of this game know is that a low level item
Speaker 3: or a low required level item can be better than
Speaker 3: a legendary piece of gear. Oftentimes you just have to
Speaker 3: know and you have to use it in practice. When
Speaker 3: he's making these comments about, oh, it's only level sixty five,
Speaker 3: et cetera, he seems to not understand the difference between
Speaker 3: item level and required level. I'll just give you one
Speaker 3: more and then we can kind of move on to
Speaker 3: the twist in the story. The account he is on
Speaker 3: puts their maps in a tab called Elon's Maps, So
Speaker 3: there's an implication here that this is a shared account,
Speaker 3: which is what is in question here, isau there's a
Speaker 3: thing called account boosting, or basically you pay someone to
Speaker 3: run your account for you, because the level of his character,
Speaker 3: the type of elite gear that he has, would require
Speaker 3: thousands and thousands of hours of play, and to your point, Ben,
Speaker 3: where does he find the time. Recently, an article came
Speaker 3: out where, due to a leaked I guess or published
Speaker 3: screenshot of some DMS between zach Asman gold Hoyt and
Speaker 3: Elon Musk, he has essentially admitted to doing just that,
Speaker 3: to paying to have his account boosted. This revelation came,
Speaker 3: by the way, this is a great article from Kotaku
Speaker 3: by Ethan Gatch. I'm just going to quote from him
Speaker 3: here for a second. That revelation came in DMS, he
Speaker 3: seemingly exchanged with YouTuber my mistake, it was Nico Rex,
Speaker 3: which is another gaming YouTuber, and which were subsequently shared
Speaker 3: in a video published on January eighteenth titled addressing All
Speaker 3: the Elon mus Drama in Poe two with Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: Apparently he was given permission to publish these screenshots. During
Speaker 3: the conversations, the Tesla CEO admitted to using account boosting
Speaker 3: to compete in Path of Exile two and Diablo four's endgame,
Speaker 3: but said there was nothing to apologize for because everyone
Speaker 3: is doing it. The question and answer session kind of
Speaker 3: went like this, Yeah, have you level boosted, had someone
Speaker 3: else's play your accounts and or purchased gear resources for
Speaker 3: POE two and Diablo four. Nico Rex asked to wish
Speaker 3: Musk responded with a one hundred percent emoji before adding
Speaker 3: that it is impossible to beat the players in Asia
Speaker 3: if you don't as they do. So when kind of
Speaker 3: pressed a little bit further as to his honesty around this,
Speaker 3: he kind of rebuffed this by saying that he never
Speaker 3: intended or you know, claimed that his top accounts were
Speaker 3: only played by him. But you know, in conversations that
Speaker 3: he's had on podcasts like Joe Rogan and other places,
Speaker 3: he's consistently bragged about this elite gaming status and being
Speaker 3: a literal world class gamer according to him. So it's
Speaker 3: a little hard to take that at face value because
Speaker 3: he really does seem like he's intended and wanted to
Speaker 3: be seen as part part of this community and as
Speaker 3: an elite player in this community. So it's myth building
Speaker 3: right like that.
Speaker 4: That's the big question, you know, part of the part
Speaker 4: of the continuing struggle that a lot of very powerful
Speaker 4: people have, and he is the world's currently documented most
Speaker 4: wealthy dude. The struggle that a lot of powerful people
Speaker 4: have is do I accumulate and exercise my powers behind
Speaker 4: the scene? Do I use my influence to become a
Speaker 4: public figure? And what we're seeing from critics of Musk
Speaker 4: pretty often is the idea that he has aired on
Speaker 4: the side of being a public figure more so than
Speaker 4: being you know, like, for instance, I'll be honest, a
Speaker 4: lot of the most powerful entities I have met don't
Speaker 4: have social media. Why would you you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: why would you open that door? So there is that,
Speaker 4: I guess egoistic, maybe ego driven struggle within oneself. And
Speaker 4: the thing is, I love that you're pointing out the
Speaker 4: conversations on the podcasting because it reminds me of the
Speaker 4: old Uh, what's the old narcissist edict? It's what is
Speaker 4: the narcissist prayer? That didn't happen? And if it did,
Speaker 4: it wasn't that bad. AKA, everyone does it, And if
Speaker 4: it was, then it's not a big deal. And if
Speaker 4: it is, it's not my fault. And if it was,
Speaker 4: I didn't mean it, and if I did, you deserved it.
Speaker 4: So really similar to the stages of grief where we're
Speaker 4: seeing this play out in real time, and gosh, I hope.
Speaker 4: I mean, of all things, you guys, video games are
Speaker 4: supposed to be fun.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the point too, is of all
Speaker 3: things to be dishonest about video games seems like such
Speaker 3: a low stakes thing to risk your reputation on and
Speaker 3: your credibility one lying about. And I guess the question
Speaker 3: that becomes, if you're that insecure that you're gonna lie
Speaker 3: about that, what else are you lying about? Right? The implication? Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I just want to just you know, not to
Speaker 3: throw him entirely under the bus here. I'm just kind
Speaker 3: of reporting what's being said. But his ex wife or
Speaker 3: ex partner, Grimes, the very interesting musician artist, did kind
Speaker 3: of vouch for him on x saying, just for my
Speaker 3: personal pride, I would like to state that the father
Speaker 3: of my children was the first American druid in Diablo
Speaker 3: to clear Abatoar of ze and ended that season as
Speaker 3: best in the USA. He was also ranking in Polytopia
Speaker 3: and beat Felix himself at the game. Don't know who
Speaker 3: that guy is. I did observe these things with my
Speaker 3: own eyes. There are other witnesses who can verify this.
Speaker 3: That is all so. I mean, the guy's clearly no
Speaker 3: sloutshit gaming, but it does seem like to get to
Speaker 3: the levels that he's purporting to have done on his own,
Speaker 3: it would seem, you know, requires a little outside help
Speaker 3: and investment, And now he's more or less acknowledged that
Speaker 3: he's done that. I don't know, take that for what
Speaker 3: it's worth, y'all, unless you think we are not going
Speaker 3: to mention the interesting hand signal that's being much debated
Speaker 3: that he did at the inauguration where he had that Yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 3: I'm just teasing the discussion because now it's not the
Speaker 3: time to fully get into that. Let's call it a salute.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about that in this week's Listener
Speaker 3: Mail episode. And just to wrap this up real quick, guys,
Speaker 3: I don't want to do another story because I don't
Speaker 3: have enough time, I don't think, but I did find
Speaker 3: a story about some potential arsonists that were detained, that
Speaker 3: were arrested for trying to infiltrate the evacuation zones in
Speaker 3: the Pacific Palisades area of California of Los Angeles where
Speaker 3: these horrific fires took place. They actually had a fake
Speaker 3: fire truck and we're dressed in fire gear and we're
Speaker 3: apparently it's unclear there were others that were trying to
Speaker 3: do this in order to loot houses because these evacuation
Speaker 3: zones are off limits for anyone except fire personnel. And
Speaker 3: these folks were caught doing this and have been arrested,
Speaker 3: and that is not indicated that they were intending to
Speaker 3: do arson. But one of the people that was detained,
Speaker 3: a man by the name of Dustin Nell, had previously
Speaker 3: been convicted for crimes in Oregon involving arson at golf courses.
Speaker 3: I was described as a setting off an explosion and
Speaker 3: damaging water infrastructure as well as you know some of
Speaker 3: the activities at this golf course. I wanted to bring
Speaker 3: this up also because I this is a pretty wild
Speaker 3: sounding story. We've been hearing a lot of wild sounding
Speaker 3: stories that are coming out of these fires. And we
Speaker 3: talked a lot when we discussed this last about how
Speaker 3: hard it is to parse out the real stories from
Speaker 3: the fake stories, the real images from the AI generated images.
Speaker 3: It's getting harder and harder, and I absolutely fell victim
Speaker 3: to this very thing, and a very helpful listener wrote
Speaker 3: in to set me straight. I'm just going to read
Speaker 3: that real quick from a listener named David. Hi, guys,
Speaker 3: I just started listening to your January twentieth episode and
Speaker 3: I had to stop it at the twenty five minute
Speaker 3: mark because it was said that firefighters were using women's
Speaker 3: purses to carry water. This is absolutely false and part
Speaker 3: of the propaganda campaign against California and the firefighters there.
Speaker 3: The bags you see are collapsible buckets that are designed
Speaker 3: to carry water that's their specific use, and are absolutely
Speaker 3: not women's purses. Check on things like this before you
Speaker 3: blindly report things you see online, you can use this
Speaker 3: on air, David, and I wrote back to David telling
Speaker 3: me these absolutely corrects and that we hear on the
Speaker 3: show are not perfect and are just as susceptible to
Speaker 3: some of this kind of stuff as everyone else. And
Speaker 3: I very much apologize for reporting something like that that
Speaker 3: was not true. It is a video of these firefighters
Speaker 3: using what do appear to be kind of large handled
Speaker 3: handbag type things in the commentary, and what I saw
Speaker 3: was reporting it as such that they were women's handbags,
Speaker 3: and it was meant to be a ding against the
Speaker 3: preparedness of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, and that
Speaker 3: absolutely was not the case here. So I just want
Speaker 3: to openly apologize for getting that wrong and openly say
Speaker 3: that I will do better and strive to parse out
Speaker 3: some of this stuff, but also acknowledge how tricky it
Speaker 3: can be. Yeah, yeah, well said.
Speaker 4: We appreciate you there, Dave, because one of the things
Speaker 4: one of the big takeaways from our conversation there previously
Speaker 4: was was about exercising critical thought, you know, and and
Speaker 4: we've talked about before. It's it's devilishly difficult to suss out,
Speaker 4: you know, agenda's origin point ulterior motivations with some things
Speaker 4: like we oh, gosh, noll what else. We also mentioned,
Speaker 4: you know, the way people might be fleeing from a
Speaker 4: home burning down, carrying just what they Yeah, so this
Speaker 4: is again where you're with you. This is a collective
Speaker 4: I sometimes refer to human existence as the world's longest
Speaker 4: non consensual game of improv Uh. So we're we're covering this.
Speaker 4: And one thing I really appreciated you pointing out there
Speaker 4: in our previous exploration on a Strange News program was,
Speaker 4: you know, we are like the rest of the world
Speaker 4: exercise and empathy.
Speaker 3: We're very concerned.
Speaker 4: We have friends, we have family, we have loved ones,
Speaker 4: just like everybody else out there in California fighting the fires.
Speaker 3: That's right, Yeah, well said Ben, And yeah, I know
Speaker 3: this ran long. I think we've got a lot on
Speaker 3: our minds today, and we've had a little bit of
Speaker 3: a break, so getting back together after a little bit
Speaker 3: of downtime, We've got a lot to say, and there's
Speaker 3: a lot going on in the world. So we are
Speaker 3: going to take a little break here and then come
Speaker 3: back with our last segment of Strange News for today's episode.
Speaker 2: And we've returned guys, I'm gonna start with a little quotation.
Speaker 2: It is long, but bear with me because I think
Speaker 2: it is worth bearing. Gentlemen, you remember a guy named
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders AAA, the Senator from Vermont.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, a king of Mitten's sick mien game I
Speaker 3: was about iconic. Remember the memes with that one with
Speaker 3: his cross leg at pose and his cherry brought from home.
Speaker 4: I mean he did some other stuff, sure, but this
Speaker 4: is not a quotation from Bernie about Mittens, is it.
Speaker 3: No, it is not.
Speaker 2: So I'm bringing you this quote because I had a
Speaker 2: moment sitting in my parents' basement while we were having
Speaker 2: some family time on MLK Day, and I happened to
Speaker 2: put on the inauguration of President Donald Trump, and I
Speaker 2: was struck by an image of a row, a singular
Speaker 2: row of human beings that were sitting behind the president
Speaker 2: and where the immediately behind where everything was taking place.
Speaker 2: And I saw that image, I thought back to some
Speaker 2: stuff that i'd heard from the Senator from Vermont, and
Speaker 2: it just it kind of crystallized in a moment, and
Speaker 2: it has to do with everything we've been talking about
Speaker 2: on this episode so far. So I'm going to read
Speaker 2: this here we go. This is Senator Sanders talking at
Speaker 2: the Brookings Institution, a think tank you should definitely look into.
Speaker 2: This is what he had to say in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: We are moving rapidly away from our democratic heritage into
Speaker 2: an oligarchic form of society, where today we are experiencing
Speaker 2: a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for
Speaker 2: the billionaires. Billionaire families are now able to spend hundreds
Speaker 2: and hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase the candidates
Speaker 2: of their choice. The billionaire class now owns the economy,
Speaker 2: and they're working day and night to make certain that
Speaker 2: they own the United States government. I know people are
Speaker 2: not comfortable when I say this. This is still the quote,
Speaker 2: but I want you to take a hard look at
Speaker 2: what's going on, take a deep breath, and you tell
Speaker 2: me whether or not we're looking at a democracy or
Speaker 2: whether we're looking at an oligarchy. When you have multiple
Speaker 2: single families that's modified a little bit, that have more
Speaker 2: political power than the Democratic Party than the Republican Party,
Speaker 2: families that can spend unlimited sums of money not only
Speaker 2: on campaigns but on think tanks like the one that
Speaker 2: he's speaking to and the media. I worry very very
Speaker 2: much about the future of democracy in this country.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: The reason why that quote was so prescient is because
Speaker 2: if you looked at that row of human beings standing
Speaker 2: behind a president who is being inaugurated, you saw nine
Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars worth of money represented in four families. Yeah,
Speaker 2: nine hundred billion dollars essentially in four individuals. But in
Speaker 2: the families, you know the family structures of those individuals,
Speaker 2: and that is not something that is uncommon for all presidents.
Speaker 2: In every inauguration, there are the power players, right, That's
Speaker 2: how you get a seat there at the inauguration. You
Speaker 2: spent either a lot of money or you got a
Speaker 2: lot of power or both.
Speaker 3: Well, and in past, the previous Trump administration, a lot
Speaker 3: of these folks were distancing themselves, and it seems like
Speaker 3: that narrative has shifted wildly. Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, no matter how you feel about President Trump,
Speaker 2: no matter how you feel about any of the political
Speaker 2: stuff surrounding it, the understanding that those folks, the money,
Speaker 2: the real real money, is just sitting there kind of
Speaker 2: basking in the glory of the power that you know,
Speaker 2: a presidential administration represents and kissing.
Speaker 4: The ring, which is a or presenting their rings to
Speaker 4: be kissed.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: That's right, that's part of it, because it's interesting. I'd
Speaker 4: love that we're bringing this up, Matt. One of the
Speaker 4: great tech giants from the US who did not show
Speaker 4: up was Bill Gates. And and I'm bringing that into
Speaker 4: our conversation here at the end of strange news to
Speaker 4: to just ask, uh, how how much higher would that
Speaker 4: accreational total value have been if old Bill rolled through?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean? What about Warren Buffett? He's
Speaker 3: not He's not throwing his hat in the ring? Has he?
Speaker 3: Warren is?
Speaker 4: He made some very Paul warrant, He's made some very
Speaker 4: interesting financial moves lately. From what I understand, he's sitting
Speaker 4: on a lot of cash, a lot of liquidity. This
Speaker 4: is unrelated to our conversation other than the fact that
Speaker 4: people who read the buffet tea leaves are pretty sure
Speaker 4: he's waiting to see what falls and.
Speaker 2: How Yeah, well, I mean, and if he was there,
Speaker 2: it would have increased that nine hundred billion dollar number
Speaker 2: by one hundred and forty six billion dollars roughly. And
Speaker 2: again with Bill Gates, I don't even know where his
Speaker 2: who knows? Just add another one hundred billion.
Speaker 4: Let's say just what between friends, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: just for the table, but you.
Speaker 2: Would get over a trillion dollars worth of power. Because money,
Speaker 2: as we've talked about before, is a superpower and you
Speaker 2: can use it, you can exercise it in all kinds
Speaker 2: of different ways. The reason why I'm bringing all this
Speaker 2: up because of this discussion today is because there was
Speaker 2: a little thing that was posted on PBS via AP News,
Speaker 2: written by James Keaton. It was posted on January twenty first,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, and the title is Billionaires Wealth soared
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four at least five trillionaires, with a
Speaker 2: t expected in next decade. Anti Poverty Group says, okay,
Speaker 2: so one of the major one of the major things here.
Speaker 2: We just talked about one point seven million dollars as
Speaker 2: being a massive sum of money in nineteen twenty, nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: nineteen nineteen, and just how much money that was and
Speaker 2: how much power that gave you one point seven million.
Speaker 2: And then you know, over the course of our lives,
Speaker 2: we've seen that number and it's joked about in the
Speaker 2: Austin Powers films, right, one billion dollars. How a billion
Speaker 2: then became the crazy number that people would not get to.
Speaker 2: That's insane, That's that's volcano layer money.
Speaker 3: I mean, the idea of a millionaire is quaint, you
Speaker 3: know the day and it's going to starter home in
Speaker 3: some cities is a million dollars you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, looking at you, Austin. But the crazy thing now
Speaker 2: is thinking that within ten years there could potentially be trillionaires,
Speaker 2: like real true trillionaires, at least according to Oxfam International.
Speaker 2: All of these you know organizations, the Brooking Is Institute,
Speaker 2: Oxfam International. There are things that are worth your time
Speaker 2: to look into, just so you have an understanding of
Speaker 2: the institution, who formed it, why they formed it.
Speaker 4: Ooh, and check out our earlier episodes on Think Takes.
Speaker 2: Yes, episodes on Thing Takes so many episodes to go
Speaker 2: back to to really ponder some of this stuff. But
Speaker 2: just to me, if you read through that article that
Speaker 2: I just mentioned that you can find on PBS right now,
Speaker 2: it is astounding to imagine the Davos.
Speaker 3: Didn't we talk about Davos in Think Tanks, Yes?
Speaker 4: Or was it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It happens in Switzerland where the most powerful influential, rich
Speaker 2: human beings get together and just have ideas together.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like, uh, it's it's like the first class
Speaker 4: version of Ted Talks. Yes, or actually it's the it's
Speaker 4: the private plane of Ted Talks and oh gosh, yeah,
Speaker 4: we have an episode on that.
Speaker 3: It's in Bohemian Grove type vibe. I mean, it really
Speaker 3: is where the big big players go to have kind
Speaker 3: of closed door yeah, you negotiations statues.
Speaker 4: But I would say Bohemian Grove is kind of JV
Speaker 4: to the Yeah, Davos is to our earlier point. I
Speaker 4: love how you're sewing this together, Matt. Davos is where
Speaker 4: you're going to see those folks who have made the
Speaker 4: decision not to be a public figure but rather to
Speaker 4: acquire further power behind the scenes. And they're saying what
Speaker 4: they think they're going to make the world a better place,
Speaker 4: but for whom?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well and who knows.
Speaker 2: But I don't have I have enough wisdom to sit
Speaker 2: here and say, well, maybe you know, these billionaire guys
Speaker 2: are all bad, but I do know that it is
Speaker 2: concentrated power and to watch, you know, and they are guys,
Speaker 2: these four guys, to watch them stand there as the
Speaker 2: you know, proceedings were occurring, all the presidential stuff, and
Speaker 2: just to kind of examine their eyes a little bit.
Speaker 3: It does it did give me pause.
Speaker 2: It made me wonder what was brewing because it is
Speaker 2: actual actionable power that then they are potentially wielding.
Speaker 4: And what is their you know, what is their connection is?
Speaker 4: It is a very you know, high stakes drama like
Speaker 4: you would see on prestige television like Game of Thrones
Speaker 4: or something like that. I love that you're playing this out.
Speaker 4: And I hate to say it, guys, this is not
Speaker 4: Devil's Advocate. I'm not doing a Pacino move here, but
Speaker 4: I will point out that no matter who you are,
Speaker 4: it gets super awkward when you have to stand there
Speaker 4: and watch a thing for a long time and there's
Speaker 4: a camera on you. Oh yeah, you know that's I'm
Speaker 4: aware of that. But I do have to I do
Speaker 4: have to back you up there, Matt on the on
Speaker 4: the the haunting question. Right, for any of these things,
Speaker 4: in the absence of transparency, speculation only thrives. What do
Speaker 4: these guys talk about?
Speaker 3: Right? What's their interaction? Like?
Speaker 4: What brings them to the same physical location which is
Speaker 4: a huge security risk as well. Well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you just have to hope that it those
Speaker 2: discussions aren't based on further accumulation of wealth for themselves
Speaker 2: and there is some kind of bigger picture we can
Speaker 2: make this world a better place and it's not self serving.
Speaker 2: You just you hope in your heart. Oh man, it.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm not feeling a lot of that recently in the world.
Speaker 3: It's uncaps There's just no way. When you get past
Speaker 3: a certain point of wealth, you're basically above the law
Speaker 3: and you can do and say just about anything you want.
Speaker 3: I mean, we've just seen it. At a certain level
Speaker 3: of wealth, it's really hard to go after these folks
Speaker 3: as individuals or as you know, their corporations, which also
Speaker 3: have all this massive political contribution power now because of
Speaker 3: Citizens United.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's also I got to shout it out.
Speaker 4: The monopoly experiment, you guys. The monopoly experiment is a
Speaker 4: microcosmic examination of why we are so concerned. Check out
Speaker 4: our what was that episode? Does be wealthy make you
Speaker 4: a bad person? We talk at length about. Oh gosh,
Speaker 4: it's it's fascinating. Go to your platform, your browser of
Speaker 4: choice and check out the Monopoly Experiment Wealthy, and you
Speaker 4: will have a harrowing, look at why we are so concerned.
Speaker 3: But yeah, up with you man? Maybe optimism.
Speaker 4: You know what, if they get together and they just
Speaker 4: talk about like how the Atlanta Felt Falcns never win,
Speaker 4: or cooking tips for crock pots.
Speaker 3: Maybe I don't think they do.
Speaker 2: I'm I just want.
Speaker 3: To stress this.
Speaker 2: Sitting here as I speak into this microphone, I do
Speaker 2: not see those individuals as bad people or good people.
Speaker 2: I see those guys as people with tremendous potential, and
Speaker 2: it's like they get to decide what they do with
Speaker 2: that power they have. And I you know, I know
Speaker 2: they'll never hear this, but dang, I don't know. As
Speaker 2: a whole of humanity, if we could somehow just send
Speaker 2: our psychic energy to the billionaires, it'd be like, let's
Speaker 2: do let's do some cool stuff that's not about profit anymore.
Speaker 3: Dude.
Speaker 4: Money is a religion. It's the dominant religion in this age.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to stop saying that, and I love it.
Speaker 4: Like you, if you could do anything, then why do
Speaker 4: you like? How do you choose what you want to do?
Speaker 4: It's the bubble of normalcy right because these people have
Speaker 4: roughly the same factory equipment as any other human being. Right,
Speaker 4: so maybe they suffer from the controversy of Dunbar's number.
Speaker 4: Imperfect science, but pretty interesting. Yeah, I'm just thinking, like,
Speaker 4: you know, what if you what we see these stats
Speaker 4: all the time, dude. People will say, look, you make
Speaker 4: x billion dollars, right, even if you don't do anything,
Speaker 4: just your interest therefore will be millions of dollars.
Speaker 3: What if you just took that.
Speaker 4: Adjusting for inflation, meaning that you will never lose money.
Speaker 4: What if you just put that extra stuff into things
Speaker 4: like sanitation, literacy, infrastructure, all the boring beat me here, Dylan,
Speaker 4: all the boring that makes civilization possible.
Speaker 3: Why yeah, why are you doing that.
Speaker 2: That doesn't prop up a single philosophy, a single culture,
Speaker 2: a single country, a single anything, stuff that helps human
Speaker 2: beings proliferate in a really healthy and beautiful way.
Speaker 3: Could I read a quick quote? I think I maybe
Speaker 3: have mentioned this before. It might have been about something else.
Speaker 3: But there's this clip making the rounds of the musician
Speaker 3: Frank Zappa from an interview that he did. I think
Speaker 3: it was on Crossfire in the eighties. In the late eighties,
Speaker 3: when he was against President Ronald Reagan's policy he actually
Speaker 3: testified about censorship at the Parents' Music Resource Center Senate
Speaker 3: Hearings ninet eighty five. But he just had this to
Speaker 3: say on this segment. The biggest threat to America today
Speaker 3: is not communism. It's moving America toward a fascist theocracy.
Speaker 3: And everything that's happened during the Reagan administration is steering
Speaker 3: us right down that pipe. When you have a government
Speaker 3: that prefers a certain moral code derived from a certain religion,
Speaker 3: that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain
Speaker 3: religious point of view, and if that code happens to
Speaker 3: be very very very far right wing, almost Attila the
Speaker 3: hun type stuff can happen. And I just think, you know,
Speaker 3: in this case, religion or theocracy could also just be
Speaker 3: like money that is a religiou and that is the
Speaker 3: primary mover and the primary motivator for these billionaires that
Speaker 3: are now in power, and it just kind of throws
Speaker 3: a lot of other moral decisions and ideas about what's
Speaker 3: right and wrong for regular people kind of out the window.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and you can take any dogmatic belief and
Speaker 2: stretch it all the way out to the edge, and
Speaker 2: it can become terrifying for everybody. Right, it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: if it's right, left, center, or anything. It can become
Speaker 2: terrifying for everybody else that doesn't view the world in
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 4: Self justification is a hell of a drug, and people
Speaker 4: do it in your own environment.
Speaker 3: All the time.
Speaker 4: Right, Everybody sees themselves as the main character, the good guy. Therefore,
Speaker 4: anybody who is not immediately like worshiping it that ideology
Speaker 4: becomes treated like an enemy.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, unfortunately. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and somebody who's so entrenched in that kind of
Speaker 2: thing can see everybody as an enemy, and then that's
Speaker 2: how you get to the demagogue stuff. So it's just
Speaker 2: it's horrifying in a lot of ways. But I want
Speaker 2: to point out one last thing I noticed at the
Speaker 2: inauguration that I think is a cool little lesson for everybody.
Speaker 2: When I tuned in, it happened to be right at
Speaker 2: the tail end of when President Trump was speaking, and
Speaker 2: they introduced Carrie Underwood, who was a singer, a country
Speaker 2: singer is coming out to sing a song, and she
Speaker 2: was going to sing America the Beautiful And she was
Speaker 2: flanked by a military officer who was going to be
Speaker 2: a part of the I guess a choir that was
Speaker 2: singing America the Beautiful with her, and there's a backing
Speaker 2: track that is supposed to begin playing, but the tech
Speaker 2: side couldn't could not get the backing track to play.
Speaker 2: Carrie just stood there a bit awkwardly with the microphone, waiting,
Speaker 2: you know, for the track to play so that she
Speaker 2: could begin singing, and just kept waiting and nothing happened.
Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden, a tiny snippet of the song,
Speaker 2: you know, a minute into the song began playing over
Speaker 2: the loudspeakers and then shut off and then start playing
Speaker 2: again and then stopped. And everybody's looking around awkwardly, just
Speaker 2: like what do we do in this moment? And they're
Speaker 2: all just human beings standing quietly in that rotunda together
Speaker 2: in silence. As the murmurations start to, you know, the
Speaker 2: tiny talking begins. Everyone's talking around, and finally a producer
Speaker 2: walks up to carry and just says, hey, there's something
Speaker 2: akin to the track's not working. And you can't hear that,
Speaker 2: but you see the person who's got you know, a headset.
Speaker 2: You walk up to her or the clipboard and be like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, and she goes all right, y'all you
Speaker 2: know the words, and she just begins singing a cappella
Speaker 2: and it is a beautiful song about a country that
Speaker 2: we're all a part of and at least the you
Speaker 2: know on this recording. And it was actually a really
Speaker 2: nice moment because the humanity of everybody in that room
Speaker 2: was there because everybody was singing, everybody was singing together,
Speaker 2: and nobody was different from one another in that moment.
Speaker 2: And I know this is weird, and I'm sorry. It's
Speaker 2: all like America, Yah yah.
Speaker 3: I think I do think we all want the best
Speaker 3: for this country and want to be united, and I
Speaker 3: don't think any of us on this podcast are looking
Speaker 3: for division. That is the last thing that we want.
Speaker 2: But at the heart of it, it's it's humanity. That's
Speaker 2: what I saw, right, So it's it wasn't actually it
Speaker 2: was about a country. It was a song about a country.
Speaker 2: It was celebrating of the president of you know, the
Speaker 2: country with the most powerful navy or whatever. But at
Speaker 2: the heart of it, it was human beings together celebrating humanity,
Speaker 2: and it was kind of beautiful. And no matter how
Speaker 2: you feel about any of that stuff, I would just say,
Speaker 2: there's something to that that we can all we can
Speaker 2: all learn.
Speaker 4: From and we can all aspire to uh to participate
Speaker 4: within you know very well, said Map beautifully put. This
Speaker 4: is again the secret is that there are a lot
Speaker 4: of people who have a lot of plants, but if
Speaker 4: you get down to it, nobody's really in charge. That's
Speaker 4: the that's the craziest part. People are working hopefully working together,
Speaker 4: and we in that spirit hope that you will work
Speaker 4: with us, you will join us and gosh, dare I
Speaker 4: say it, Matt sing along with us in these moments.
Speaker 4: There are several ways to do so, please reach out
Speaker 4: and contact us, reach out and touch faith again. As
Speaker 4: we said at the top, we are here with you
Speaker 4: in this long, non consensual improv game called life. You
Speaker 4: can find us on email. Just wrote a couple of
Speaker 4: had a great correspondence earlier today. You can call us
Speaker 4: on the telephone. We're excited to hear from you. You
Speaker 4: can also reach us on the internets, so long as
Speaker 4: the Internet doesn't go full dead Internet.
Speaker 3: Theory, that's right. You can find us at the handle
Speaker 3: conspiracy stuff or we exist on the usual social media
Speaker 3: platforms of note, including YouTube, where we have video content
Speaker 3: galor for your perusing enjoyment x FKA, Twitter, and Facebook,
Speaker 3: where we have our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3: On Instagram and for the meantime TikTok. You can find
Speaker 3: us handleg at Spirac Stuff Show. We're also human people,
Speaker 3: the three of us, and you can find us that
Speaker 3: way too. I'm on Instagram at how Now, Noel Brown,
Speaker 3: mister Ben Bullen.
Speaker 4: No comment reassuming humanity. You can find me at Ben
Speaker 4: Bullen on Instagram. You can, of course if you have
Speaker 4: the right scrine, mirror or a pall and teer. Always
Speaker 4: just knock thrice if you know the code, I'll drop by.
Speaker 3: Matt.
Speaker 4: I want to shout you out for a video that
Speaker 4: was posted recently on social media pertaining to some of
Speaker 4: our future activities in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, why not check out on AirFest. It's happening
Speaker 2: this February in Brooklyn, New York. Specifically, we are doing
Speaker 2: a live show at National Sawdust on February nineteenth, So
Speaker 2: if you want to come hang with us in Brooklyn,
Speaker 2: why not do that? Yeah, just check it out. Make
Speaker 2: your way over there to National Sawdust. It's an awesome
Speaker 2: venue and we're going to do some stuff about conspiracies
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Speaker 3: We are ooh ooh before we get to the email.
Speaker 4: We are the people who are excited to tell you
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