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, and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nolah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. If you are hearing
Speaker 3: our strange news program the Evening it publishes, let us
Speaker 3: welcome you to May fifth, twenty twenty five. As justin
Speaker 3: Timberlake so often says, it's going.
Speaker 4: To be May May the fifth be with you.
Speaker 3: May the Fifth be with you? Indeed, guys, how are
Speaker 3: we feeling super great?
Speaker 5: So stoke, no issues, no complaints, ten ten no notes,
Speaker 5: tent too's down.
Speaker 3: I love it when people say ten toes down, Matt?
Speaker 3: How are we just check it in?
Speaker 2: How are we feeling feeling very punch bully this morning?
Speaker 3: Punch bully?
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Well I'll tell you about it, all.
Speaker 3: Right, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. We're
Speaker 3: going to talk a little bit about a lot of
Speaker 3: things right now. Before we do anything, maybe we dip
Speaker 3: our toes in with this one for the headline alone.
Speaker 3: You guys remember Seattle, the city.
Speaker 4: Heard of it. Yeah, it made some kind of music popular.
Speaker 3: Hey, what's a rhyme?
Speaker 4: Was it?
Speaker 5: Grime?
Speaker 4: I'm gonna give us a crime?
Speaker 3: You're close. I'm sure there starts with a G. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Coffee, Oh yeah, good coffee there too, coffee as well.
Speaker 3: Ed. It turns out masturbation so news story.
Speaker 4: I hope this is related to your story. Man, It's
Speaker 4: not just out of left field.
Speaker 3: A story that broke on Monday, twenty eighth. We're recording
Speaker 3: this Wednesday, April thirtieth. Is the following headline. Thanks to
Speaker 3: our friends at the Independent, Neighbors demand answers after quote
Speaker 3: rampant masturbation takes over a Seattle park.
Speaker 5: First of all, I love the idea of demanding answers,
Speaker 5: just in any context.
Speaker 4: Who did this? We must know who did this?
Speaker 5: I need more context here, Ben, is this like what park?
Speaker 5: First of all, I know about the Seattle parks.
Speaker 3: This would be the Denny Blaine Park b Lai n
Speaker 3: E Park in Seattle, and residents of a surrounding neighborhood.
Speaker 3: There are, as you said, Nold, demanding answers, pushing for
Speaker 3: the city to do something about Again, I think it's
Speaker 3: just the modifier in the headline rantant masturbation.
Speaker 4: Is this pidemic?
Speaker 3: Yes, so a big thanks to Greg Grizzousi over in Washington,
Speaker 3: DC writing this article. Apparently there is an unofficial nude
Speaker 3: beach in the area and people are people are at
Speaker 3: loggerheads because residents of the neighborhood and fans of the
Speaker 3: beach have noticed an uptick in illegal illicit activities, masturbation
Speaker 3: coming on to people in the neighborhood, Guys pulling their
Speaker 3: Australia out and requesting someone to touch it. Washington is
Speaker 3: a state where nudity is legal. This has long been
Speaker 3: a safe spot. But let's give you the description from
Speaker 3: Lee Keller, who is a spokesman with the Denny Blaine
Speaker 3: Park for All Community movement, is talking to local news
Speaker 3: and Lee said, it's illegal, it's illicit. It's masturbation multiple
Speaker 3: times a day by men sitting on the wall, sitting
Speaker 3: at the park, in view of the homes, in view
Speaker 3: of everything, and it's non ending and it's really troubling.
Speaker 4: Non ending masturbation without end.
Speaker 3: These guys are like Jerkin and shifts.
Speaker 4: It would seem so. I mean, the scale of it
Speaker 4: all is staggering.
Speaker 3: So we bring that up again just for the headline.
Speaker 3: We have. We have a parable to take for this
Speaker 3: or a moral here, which is, you know, don't do that,
Speaker 3: don't do that in public, don't do it on the beach.
Speaker 5: Believe you know, nude beaches in general, there are still boundaries.
Speaker 5: You're not supposed to do things like that, even where
Speaker 5: nudity is permitted.
Speaker 2: Everybody's just doing their best every day, you know, guys.
Speaker 2: And sure some people's best is taking a little walk
Speaker 2: out to the bitch.
Speaker 3: Some people some people just misconstrued what their therapist said
Speaker 3: when they said, hey, it's time for you to believe
Speaker 3: in yourself.
Speaker 5: It's just to believe in yourself behind closed doors and
Speaker 5: in the night times.
Speaker 3: Believe in yourself in a way that doesn't purposely injure
Speaker 3: or hurt other people. But we only have this, we
Speaker 3: only have this story because the internet and electricity still
Speaker 3: work here in the United States. We're going to pause
Speaker 3: for a word from our sponsors. We're going to get
Speaker 3: into the BS science of polygraphs. We're gonna check in
Speaker 3: with the Justice Department. We'll probably talk about Tariff's GPT fluoride.
Speaker 3: Back in the news again, Disney worker who pulled kind
Speaker 3: of a cuisine version of Icarus flight, and then of
Speaker 3: course some Narco corridos.
Speaker 4: But first let's hear act little ad break.
Speaker 3: And we have returned. This is going to be relatively
Speaker 3: old beings, hopefully by the time we all we all
Speaker 3: joined together to hear our strange news program. But we
Speaker 3: all saw the reports right about the massive power outage
Speaker 3: in Spain.
Speaker 4: I did not, actually I know this is this is
Speaker 4: news to me.
Speaker 2: Portugal too, right in Portugal.
Speaker 3: Too touched a bit of fress as well.
Speaker 4: A brown out. What do you call this?
Speaker 3: It's one of the worst in European history. It started
Speaker 3: in the afternoon of Monday the twenty eighth, so just
Speaker 3: about forty eight hours after we record this. It lasted
Speaker 3: through the nightfall. It affected tens of millions of people.
Speaker 3: We're talking we're talking folks trapped on subways, We're talking
Speaker 3: folks trapped in elevators. All the cell phone networks, or
Speaker 3: a lot of the cell phone networks went down. Critical
Speaker 3: infrastructure just went to the dogs. If you want to
Speaker 3: read more about it, some of the One of the
Speaker 3: best summations comes from our friends at AP. The journalist
Speaker 3: Suman Niciatam wrote the following what we know about Monday's
Speaker 3: sweeping power outage in Spain and Portugal. It was shortly
Speaker 3: after twelve thirty pm local time. Spain lost fifteen gigawatts
Speaker 3: of electricity, which is about sixty percent of demand for
Speaker 3: the country overall. Spain is in terms of population, a
Speaker 3: smaller place than the United States country, about forty nine
Speaker 3: million people. And they're calling them disconnection events or interruptions
Speaker 3: in power the little before the big So there were signals,
Speaker 3: but as soon as the news broke, people were asking
Speaker 3: us whether there was some sort of conspiracy afoot, whether
Speaker 3: whether perhaps hostile powers, be they homegrown or be they
Speaker 3: foreign powers, whether they had purposely broken the electrical grid.
Speaker 3: It want to pause there, because before we sound all crazy, guys,
Speaker 3: I think we can agree disrupting electric grid is like
Speaker 3: a go to move for possible terrorist acts.
Speaker 5: Dude, right before we started recording, I had a circuit
Speaker 5: breaker trip and even that it makes your heart skip
Speaker 5: a beat. I mean, you realize once you lose power,
Speaker 5: even temporarily er like internet or the kind of creature
Speaker 5: comforts that we're used to, you realize how dependent on
Speaker 5: that stuff you are. And it can be a little
Speaker 5: bit staggering on a large scale though, when you're say,
Speaker 5: at the mercy of the power grid and trapped somewhere
Speaker 5: in an elevator like you said, or a train station
Speaker 5: or what have you. I mean, yes, it is a
Speaker 5: surefire way of wreaking havoc on a large scale.
Speaker 3: These folks, all innocent people, were without power for about
Speaker 3: eighteen hours. Now we know for sure, I think enough
Speaker 3: time has passed to admit it. We know for sure
Speaker 3: that the few years ago, the brownouts in California, the
Speaker 3: rolling blackouts, were something that could have been avoided. They
Speaker 3: were They were the result of corruption within the energy industry.
Speaker 3: And that's not a conspiracy theory at this point, it's
Speaker 3: proven we conspired to do this kind of situation.
Speaker 5: Can I just say, really quickly to my question earlier,
Speaker 5: was it a brown out versus a blackout? I just
Speaker 5: looked this up because I wasn't sure myself, and it
Speaker 5: might be helpful. A brown out is a temporary, partial,
Speaker 5: abrupt drop in voltage followed by it coming back relatively quickly.
Speaker 5: While I blackout is a total crash and failure of
Speaker 5: the power grid and an area that can last for
Speaker 5: an extended period of time. Sometimes brownouts are actually done
Speaker 5: on purpose to lead off yes hundred percent voltage drops, however,
Speaker 5: can cause sensitive electronic equipment and appliances to become damaged.
Speaker 5: So blackouts are potentially less dangerous because they just shut
Speaker 5: the device off, whereas a change in voltage can absolutely
Speaker 5: damage certain types of equipment.
Speaker 3: And it's it's quite a bag of bat because a
Speaker 3: series of browdouts can also stress the electricity grids such
Speaker 3: that it leads to a blackout or it leads to
Speaker 3: a loss of function. Right now, as we're recording, this
Speaker 3: may change. But as we're recording, no one officially knows
Speaker 3: what caused the fluctuations and the eventual failure of the system.
Speaker 3: We do know that France got hit a little bit
Speaker 3: because European grids are incredibly interconnected. There's not you know,
Speaker 3: there's not like an air gap for that. Everybody is
Speaker 3: sharing sharing the same sort of font of power. So
Speaker 3: we'd love to hear theories, especially from our European conspiracy realist. Mainly,
Speaker 3: we think this is a way to emphasize that you
Speaker 3: should be prepared not to sound paranoid. Everybody thinks we're
Speaker 3: paranoid till the light shuts off.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Can you guess what I thought of when I
Speaker 2: heard the news that there was a sudden blackout and
Speaker 2: nobody could figure out what had.
Speaker 3: Happened Sonic the hedgehog.
Speaker 2: So close. I thought coronal mass ejection. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: because you know those those things can happen from the
Speaker 2: Sun and they can affect electric rids, and if a
Speaker 2: big enough one happens, the electric rids just fry and
Speaker 2: we go to we go into darkness for a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like Canada nineteen eighty four. Yeah, you just pull.
Speaker 4: Out off the top of your head. Ben, that's impressive.
Speaker 3: We talked about it. We went through a whole face
Speaker 3: m hm.
Speaker 2: Well guess what. There was a coronal mass ejection on
Speaker 2: April twenty eighth, guys, but it missed the Earth somewhere
Speaker 2: to the south.
Speaker 3: Officially, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that strong anyway.
Speaker 3: How much could you you know, how deeply can we
Speaker 3: trust tens of thousands of physicists and the astronomers.
Speaker 5: Why is my potty brain immediately thinking of Ben's Seattle
Speaker 5: masturbation story when I hear the term coronal mass ejection.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's the street name of one of those guys.
Speaker 5: It's the phenomenon that is taking place in darks across
Speaker 5: the Seattle metropolitan Come on, mass ejections.
Speaker 2: Come on down to the Seattle twenty twenty five mass ejections.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, and there are some tech bros who are
Speaker 3: actually doing doing sperm racing. Do you guys.
Speaker 2: Read saw that?
Speaker 3: Wy? Did you watch by it? I did. I watched
Speaker 3: the clip of it. I see.
Speaker 4: Is it like a microscope?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, that's amazing. I'm not the Democratic.
Speaker 4: I really can't put money on just about anything, can't you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Vegas baby. Also wait, wait, we've got a message
Speaker 3: from our Tennessee pal coming in live. Coronal massive Injection
Speaker 3: is a great jam band.
Speaker 4: True?
Speaker 3: Also true? Thank you, Dylan. Look, I've got another couple
Speaker 3: questions with the time we have real quick. Years ago
Speaker 3: we looked into the Great Floridation Conspiracy, and that has
Speaker 3: acquired new relevancy in the zeitgeist of late because states
Speaker 3: are banning fluoridation of water in a couple of different places,
Speaker 3: a couple of different municipalities have done the same, and
Speaker 3: as we record, the Great State of Florida is poised
Speaker 3: to ban fluoride from all public water systems.
Speaker 5: Well, we certainly know that there's a lot of rhetoric
Speaker 5: coming from RFK Junior about the evils of fluoridation, right,
Speaker 5: which really does harken back to our precious bodily fluids
Speaker 5: kind of stuff from Doctor Strange Love. It feels as
Speaker 5: though we're living more and more of a Doctor Strange
Speaker 5: Love esque situation these days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 4: Is this a result of that or is this separate?
Speaker 5: We know Florida can go for some wacky ideas in
Speaker 5: and of themselves without help from you know above.
Speaker 3: Dude, you nailed it. It's it's the push by the
Speaker 3: current US Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Junior. We know
Speaker 3: Utah just last month became the first state to ban fluoridation,
Speaker 3: and now as a result of this, we're seeing an
Speaker 3: accreational effect, a snowball effect, floride free snowball effect. People
Speaker 3: are following this idea. I'm bringing this up for the
Speaker 3: larger context because it is an incredibly durable conspiracy theory
Speaker 3: here in the West. So initial thoughts first off, before
Speaker 3: we continue.
Speaker 5: Well, my first question would be, what's the reasoning. I
Speaker 5: haven't really followed RFK Junior's rhetoric on this. I just
Speaker 5: know that he doesn't like it.
Speaker 2: Well, if you don't mind, know before we get into that,
Speaker 2: and we can talk about what we've talked about with
Speaker 2: floride in the past. It's one of the first videos
Speaker 2: we ever made was the fluoridation of.
Speaker 3: Water Hexa flora's sicilic acid.
Speaker 2: That sounds right. That sounds right to me. So the
Speaker 2: big question that the American Dental Association has been grappling
Speaker 2: with for a long time that is still unanswered is
Speaker 2: how effective is fluoride when it's ingested versus when it's applied. Right, So,
Speaker 2: fluoride applied to the teeth works great, and it functions
Speaker 2: exactly as we say it does as.
Speaker 3: The control dose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and it actually stays there on your teeth
Speaker 2: for a little bit while you're brushing. That's why you
Speaker 2: have to brush for a certain amount of time. Then
Speaker 2: you take it off and your rinse like crazy, and
Speaker 2: you don't swallow it because the fluoride is not good
Speaker 2: for you to swallow in those dosages. So then what
Speaker 2: does the floride actually do when it goes into your body?
Speaker 2: And then is you know, your stomach and your intestines
Speaker 2: are the things that are actually pulling the fluoride out
Speaker 2: of the water.
Speaker 3: Oh, does it calcify your pinal gland?
Speaker 2: Yes? Does it do that? Or does it even have
Speaker 2: any effect on your teeth whatsoever? When you just swallow it?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Is it just moving through the border of your mouth
Speaker 3: to all points inered?
Speaker 5: So are we maybe even slightly on board with this idea?
Speaker 5: I hear what you're saying sounds right, like, I totally
Speaker 5: get it, and that makes perfect sense. But isn't it
Speaker 5: being kind of I don't know, misconstrued in other ways
Speaker 5: as well, in terms of like what this is causing
Speaker 5: perhaps knock on consequences of fluoride ingestion that maybe.
Speaker 4: Are a little more conspiratorial, I mean possibly.
Speaker 3: That's the reason Matt and I instantly went full Larry David.
Speaker 3: They We were both like, ah.
Speaker 4: Because I got you.
Speaker 3: I guess it's a pickle. We can go to some
Speaker 3: more long term measurements. Here in Calgary and in part
Speaker 3: of Alaska, fluoridation was ended and if you talk with
Speaker 3: the dentist and dental hygietas, the experts in those areas,
Speaker 3: they didn't notice people suddenly becoming brainyacts, but they did
Speaker 3: notice a sharp market increase in tooth decay and cavities,
Speaker 3: especially in children.
Speaker 4: MM.
Speaker 3: So maybe that's the tradeoff. Maybe that's like the pyrrhic victory.
Speaker 3: You can either you can either have good teeth and
Speaker 3: then have your cognition slowed or other health problems, or
Speaker 3: you can have terrible teeth and not have those problems.
Speaker 3: That seems to be what RFK Junior.
Speaker 5: Is arguing, So we didn't quite pop into that aspect
Speaker 5: of it. The idea is that ingesting fluoride has potential
Speaker 5: long term knock on consequences on cognition.
Speaker 3: Right, the calcification of the right. That would be their idea,
Speaker 3: and then other I don't know. The issue is it's
Speaker 3: been so politicized and in some cases if we're looking
Speaker 3: past the headline, and in some cases we see I
Speaker 3: think that the case of Calgary specifically, Northern conspiracy realist
Speaker 3: give us more insight on this. In the case of
Speaker 3: Calgary specifically, it was a budget saving move. It wasn't conspiratorial.
Speaker 3: It was just very expensive to replace the machinery that
Speaker 3: added the stuff it got it mile.
Speaker 2: Well, it's such a weird thing. It's such a weird thing.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, guys. I'm getting caught up on the ADA
Speaker 2: website because you just you see things on there, and
Speaker 2: then you see papers come out. I mean, I'm thinking
Speaker 2: back to one in two thousand and four that came
Speaker 2: out that we cited back in our video that was
Speaker 2: discussing the issues with I think they call it systemic
Speaker 2: fluoride intake, so it's like going through your system. But
Speaker 2: they're talking about how on the ADA website now they're
Speaker 2: talking about how systemic fluoride goes into your body and
Speaker 2: then actually gets it finds its way to your teeth
Speaker 2: and it does a good job doing that. And it
Speaker 2: also is talking about how the recommended levels are zero
Speaker 2: point seven parts per million in white, which is crazy low, right,
Speaker 2: crazy crazy low. But then you imagine the amount of
Speaker 2: water you're drinking. So it all becomes this muddled thing
Speaker 2: to me, where what is the difference between what the
Speaker 2: science is actually saying in the best research, the latest stuff,
Speaker 2: versus all of the propaganda that comes out from both sides,
Speaker 2: because there are lobbies they want that fluoride in that water.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but they're also you know, people that don't
Speaker 2: want it in the water for political reasons.
Speaker 5: We're talking big fluoride guys, the lobbies in question, like
Speaker 5: they're literally this is a moneymaker for certain pharmaceutical companies
Speaker 5: that are producing this stuff.
Speaker 3: We did some good digging on that video, honestly, because yeah,
Speaker 3: if you to your point, if you follow the provenance
Speaker 3: of where this fluoride is produced, right, what other mechanisms
Speaker 3: create this this chemical, then you'll find anti fluoridation folks
Speaker 3: arguing that it is a best similar to the story
Speaker 3: of cream of tartar, which is a very weird thing
Speaker 3: to be normalized in the grocery store. Cream of tartar
Speaker 3: is a side effect of some other thing. And then
Speaker 3: people and I want to say, what the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 3: I'm spitballing here, said Oh, okay, yeah, let's also can
Speaker 3: this up and sell it, you know, let's make it
Speaker 3: a little larder additive.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like a tassium by tar trait chemical compound
Speaker 5: gets used for cooking.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 5: It's kind of like baking soda. And sorry, guys, I
Speaker 5: don't mean to get caught up on this. I've always
Speaker 5: wondered what it is.
Speaker 3: Oh it was actually I'm wrong. It was the eighteenth century,
Speaker 3: so seventeen hundreds they scraped it off wine barrels. It
Speaker 3: was a side effect of that.
Speaker 5: It is a flavor enhancer, is how it sold. The
Speaker 5: idea is that it sort of like MSG.
Speaker 3: You know, I guess what I'm getting close to saying here,
Speaker 3: So to say it explicitly, the anti fluoridation proponents will
Speaker 3: argue that this is not for public health. They will
Speaker 3: say it is a result of finding a way to
Speaker 3: monetize a byproduct of an earlier process. Now, not a
Speaker 3: lot of people, especially the ADA, agree with that. And again,
Speaker 3: the ADA is a group of dentists, the people who
Speaker 3: do work on your teeth. So they do have a
Speaker 3: horse in the race, you know what I mean, They
Speaker 3: get a tooth in the mouth on this one. Our
Speaker 3: question there, before we move on, there's a lot we're
Speaker 3: not going to get to our question there For all
Speaker 3: of us playing along at home, fellow listeners, friends, neighbors,
Speaker 3: conspiracy realists, where do you stand on the idea of
Speaker 3: fluoride in general, both fluoride in identifice and in controlled
Speaker 3: dosage and then fluoride in public water are effects? Is
Speaker 3: this generally a net good? Is it a net negative?
Speaker 3: Tell us your thoughts. We can't wait to hear from you. Also,
Speaker 3: chat GPT is creeping out users. We're going to talk
Speaker 3: about rare earth mineral access and how it is turing terrorism,
Speaker 3: war and our favorite private contractors in a later listener
Speaker 3: mail program. For now, we're going to pause for a
Speaker 3: word from our sponsors and we'll return with more strange news.
Speaker 5: And we have returned, and I am going to jump
Speaker 5: in real quick with.
Speaker 4: Sort of a follow up.
Speaker 5: There's a related story, so tangentially anyway, you guys remember
Speaker 5: the lawsuit against Disney for an individual who basically was
Speaker 5: assured that a food item at a Irish themed pub
Speaker 5: at Disney Springs in Orlando, Florida was not going to
Speaker 5: have any ingredients that would affect this person's allergy. And
Speaker 5: then of course the person I believe went into anaphylactic shock.
Speaker 5: And I think the real kicker for that story was
Speaker 5: that there was something that came out from Disney's attorneys
Speaker 5: saying that they were not this this this party was
Speaker 5: not able to sue because of agreeing to the terms
Speaker 5: of services of Disney plus membership.
Speaker 4: Interesting.
Speaker 5: Okay, so the news story is apparently a disgruntled former
Speaker 5: Disney employee who was the once the I believe, menu
Speaker 5: director for Disney you know cuisine for the Disney you
Speaker 5: know food parts of the parks has been sentenced to
Speaker 5: three years in prison for, essentially as a retaliatory act,
Speaker 5: hacking the Disney system that stores all of the menu
Speaker 5: information and changing it, altering it to indicate that certain
Speaker 5: food dudes did not contain allergens, when in fact they did. Well,
Speaker 5: it's weird because it's not related. This is not something
Speaker 5: directly involved that previous lawsuit, but it's just kind of
Speaker 5: weird that it's so in the same wheelhouse.
Speaker 3: I saw the headline a little while back, and I
Speaker 3: don't know much more about this, but I agree with you, Noel,
Speaker 3: this seems weirdly related. Is it something where the mouse
Speaker 3: overall is just being like much more careful and cognizant
Speaker 3: of possible allergens or like, also, what's the motivation of
Speaker 3: this person? Why would you hack a menu like that?
Speaker 5: Well, like I was saying, this is a disgruntled former
Speaker 5: employee who was let go as their menu supervisor, I
Speaker 5: believe is the title. And you know, in much of
Speaker 5: the same way that perhaps a former employee might try
Speaker 5: to seek retaliatory action against perhaps another colleague who maybe
Speaker 5: they see as heavy, done them wrong or whatever. Michael Schuyer,
Speaker 5: a forty year old Winter Garden, Florida resident, essentially hacked
Speaker 5: the menu system. He was actually the menu production manager
Speaker 5: at Walt Disney World. After a contentious, as described by
Speaker 5: ABC News and the associated press, termination from his job,
Speaker 5: and here is a statement from federal prosecutors. These intrusions
Speaker 5: included manipulating allergen information in restaurant menus to indicate that
Speaker 5: food items were safe for customers with certain allergens when
Speaker 5: they were not. Schuyer also altered menu information related to
Speaker 5: wine regions to reflect locations of recent mass shootings. Very
Speaker 5: unusual form of retaliation and clearly not a particularly well person,
Speaker 5: because this is I'm all about sticking it to the
Speaker 5: man guys, but this is sticking it to hapless individuals
Speaker 5: who are trying to enjoy a vacation that they have
Speaker 5: paid a lot of money for potentially being poisoned. So
Speaker 5: there is no kind of empathy for this type of act.
Speaker 2: Can I just say the Wine region thing is really
Speaker 2: funny to be funny, and I imagine.
Speaker 5: That in and of itself, if that alone were the
Speaker 5: where the move, I'd be all thumbs up for this
Speaker 5: sticking it to the man.
Speaker 3: I love Discordianism, a little bit of social chaos. If
Speaker 3: it's well intentioned, it doesn't harm people.
Speaker 5: So, according to ABC News, he was fired in June
Speaker 5: for alleged misconduct. That's all we have, so clearly a
Speaker 5: bit of a of a of a pill in the
Speaker 5: first place. The termination was apparently quite contentious, which led
Speaker 5: to these retaliatory actions.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 5: In a federal criminal complaint reading from ABC News filed
Speaker 5: in US Distract Court for the Middle District of Florida,
Speaker 5: Michael Schuyer, who has been recently terminated, is accused of
Speaker 5: knowingly causing the transmission of a program to a protected
Speaker 5: computer and intentionally causing damage without authorization.
Speaker 3: I also so like the I know they have to
Speaker 3: write it that way legally, but I love damage paveat
Speaker 3: without authorization. The implication that you know, maybe there's a
Speaker 3: fixer intertal at Disney who goes in it just sews
Speaker 3: a little discord. It screws things up. He's authorized to
Speaker 3: callers damage. That's the problem.
Speaker 5: They handle a lot of things internally, you know, the
Speaker 5: Disney parks, they like to keep it in house for sure.
Speaker 3: No question, no one dies there. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I mean, even this being public, you know,
Speaker 5: is not the best. You know, they have to kind
Speaker 5: of soft sell it a little bit in terms of,
Speaker 5: you know, the potential damage to their reputation.
Speaker 4: And maybe part of.
Speaker 3: That is due to Florida's sunshine laws.
Speaker 5: Yes, that's certainly part of it, I would imagine, and
Speaker 5: especially given the previous lawsuit that I mentioned where negligence
Speaker 5: was determined to have been the cause, they really can't
Speaker 5: afford this kind of scrutiny. So you know, it could
Speaker 5: potentially have an eroding effect on the reputation of Disney restaurants,
Speaker 5: though super fan Disney Adult probably will give them a
Speaker 5: pass the allegations. According to David Haas, an attorney for Shoyer,
Speaker 5: acknowledge that no one was injured or harmed. I look
Speaker 5: forward to vigorously presenting my client's side of the story.
Speaker 5: He added that Schoyer has a disability and that he
Speaker 5: believes impacted his termination from Disney and sorry, that was
Speaker 5: prior to the conviction, so that was from October of
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four. I do not believe we covered this
Speaker 5: story when it first came out, so this is kind
Speaker 5: of we.
Speaker 3: We did in August twenty twenty four. The Raglan Road
Speaker 3: death right, the woman who passed away from Manuflexus.
Speaker 4: No, No, that's the other story.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, okay, that's.
Speaker 5: The other story where at a Irish themed pub at
Speaker 5: Disney Springs, a woman passed away due to anaphylactic shock
Speaker 5: and that was because the waiter incorrectly told them that
Speaker 5: the allergen was not residence.
Speaker 3: And maybe that inspired Disney to crack down so hard
Speaker 3: on this because I remember what first brought that one
Speaker 3: to Strange News like August last year. But it sounds
Speaker 3: like you're saying that there are multiple cases that might
Speaker 3: have informed this reaction. Is it normal for someone to
Speaker 3: get sentenced that.
Speaker 5: Seems intense and it seems a product of the iron
Speaker 5: fist of the mouse potentially or the gloved hand.
Speaker 4: Rather, you know. So, yeah, we'll leave that one for now.
Speaker 5: And I wanted to move on to a story out
Speaker 5: of Mexico, where there has been. There have been some changes,
Speaker 5: some considered quite positive and some a little controversial from
Speaker 5: the new president, Claudia Shinbaum, who recently launched a music
Speaker 5: contest sort of in the spirit of a Eurovision or
Speaker 5: an American Idol. But the intention here is to promote
Speaker 5: peace and to be a force against addiction, seeking to
Speaker 5: counter the popularity of something called narco corridos, which is
Speaker 5: I heard it described pretty accurately, I think in a
Speaker 5: Reddit thread that I was looking into about this. It's
Speaker 5: kind of the Mexican version of gangster rap. Here in America,
Speaker 5: where we have a lot of glorification of let's just
Speaker 5: be real criminals, you know, drug dealers, gang bangers, members of.
Speaker 4: Street gangs, et cetera.
Speaker 5: That you know has reached massive acclaim, massive popularity among
Speaker 5: folks even who have nothing to do with that kind
Speaker 5: of life.
Speaker 4: Ever, we'll never even see it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of suburban, you know, white folks who
Speaker 5: really did gangster rap, no question about it. Similarly, in Mexico,
Speaker 5: the tradition of narco corridos, it has really become a
Speaker 5: pop music sensation. And while the cartels are certainly feared
Speaker 5: and at large, I think most Mexican citizens would prefer
Speaker 5: that they, you know, not exist and that they were kept,
Speaker 5: you know, brought to heal let's just say a little
Speaker 5: bit better. But there are certain young folks, let's just say,
Speaker 5: that glorify this type of thing and that let's call
Speaker 5: them pro cartel clothing and paraphernalia and things like that,
Speaker 5: because they look at them as being like kind of
Speaker 5: these real life badasses, you know. But of course we
Speaker 5: know cartel violence is absolutely horrific. But it's a complex
Speaker 5: issue because we also know that cartels in smaller, more
Speaker 5: rural regions often are protective of citizens and actually provide
Speaker 5: them with financial support and almost act as a de
Speaker 5: facto form of government in places that the Mexican government
Speaker 5: perhaps does not service, you know, efficiently or effectively. So
Speaker 5: it's a really complex issue. We know that there are,
Speaker 5: of course Narco saints. There are certain emblems and candles
Speaker 5: and kind of you know, figurines that are meant to
Speaker 5: kind of revere some of these folks. And there is
Speaker 5: a pretty excellent episode of Breaking Bad that starts with
Speaker 5: a Narco corrido music video about Heisenberg character, you know,
Speaker 5: those spoilers for the show, But that's an important part
Speaker 5: of the show is this mythical drug manufacturer called Heisenberg
Speaker 5: who has taken out parts of the cartel and is
Speaker 5: being revered in.
Speaker 4: His own right. So I don't know, guys, what do
Speaker 4: you think.
Speaker 5: I think the spirit of this is cool, like the
Speaker 5: idea of having a contest wherein people are encouraged to
Speaker 5: write songs that are not necessarily anti cartel, but that
Speaker 5: are more maybe sending a positive message and trying to
Speaker 5: steer the culture away from this glorification of violence and
Speaker 5: drug trafficking.
Speaker 2: Sure, it's interesting that it's Mexico conta for peace and
Speaker 2: against addictions because I remember us talking not long ago
Speaker 2: about how a ton of the actual users of the
Speaker 2: products being made in Mexico the drugs end up in
Speaker 2: the United States. And it's interesting just thinking about it
Speaker 2: as an addiction, and I wonder, I do not know
Speaker 2: how much of an addiction problem the country of Mexico
Speaker 2: has with some of those same narcotics. But I don't
Speaker 2: know how it actually helps besides getting young people to
Speaker 2: focus on something like this where they can actually put
Speaker 2: their efforts into maybe writing a song, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: becoming a good enough singer or maybe becoming a good
Speaker 2: enough musician to end up on this show, and that
Speaker 2: takes them away from other activities that they could end
Speaker 2: up finding themselves.
Speaker 3: In Sure, the logic could be, for instance, that someone
Speaker 3: is a talented songwriter and having them aim for this
Speaker 3: genre of success or this sphere of success prevents them
Speaker 3: from becoming heroes to the cartels, right, and then being
Speaker 3: approached by the cartels right. Be our bar be our musician.
Speaker 3: So it's well intentioned. The question is will it you know,
Speaker 3: will it work? It reminds me a little bit in
Speaker 3: a tangential way. It reminds me of the infamous DARE
Speaker 3: program here in the United States, right where we have
Speaker 3: you know you promised yourself so long ago, right, never
Speaker 3: to walk it into one's shadow. The Children of Our
Speaker 3: Future was one of the songs, and that, of course
Speaker 3: the DARE theme song, and they had kids write essays,
Speaker 3: kids create songs about the dangers of addiction and illicit substances. However,
Speaker 3: long story short, folks, all US residents know this. Over time,
Speaker 3: it turns out that a lot of people who participated
Speaker 3: in the DARE program would go on to engage with
Speaker 3: illicit substances.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I've joked more than once about the
Speaker 5: suitcase full of drugs that brought into Clavering that I
Speaker 5: think maybe was more a situation where kids are like, ooh,
Speaker 5: I want to try that one. That one, right, that one,
Speaker 5: I mean, it's a little bit tone death. I agree
Speaker 5: with you on all those points. I do want to
Speaker 5: point out to just another story that really indicates how
Speaker 5: popular these are and how this could potentially cause a rift,
Speaker 5: you know. I mean, user on Reddit pointed out or
Speaker 5: post the question, would this really be a contest you
Speaker 5: would want to win with the potential that the cartel
Speaker 5: might see you as a target for being quote unquote
Speaker 5: anti cartel. But I don't think so, because the idea
Speaker 5: isn't to trash the cartels. It's just to sing about
Speaker 5: something different. And I'm going to get into my follow
Speaker 5: up in a second, but the contest is called, I
Speaker 5: believe it is called Mexico Canto.
Speaker 4: Yes, Mexico kanta, which means Mexico sinks. So just to.
Speaker 5: Backcheck, the related story kind of showing how popular these
Speaker 5: things are is from CBS News from April fourteenth of
Speaker 5: this year. Ban on music glorifying cartels, sparks chaos at
Speaker 5: concert in Mexico. Violent attack on our artist, band and crew.
Speaker 5: A Mexican artist was forced to flee concert stage on
Speaker 5: Saturday after enraging fans by saying he had been banned
Speaker 5: by the government from singing popular songs glorifying drug traffickers.
Speaker 5: Narco corridos are a controversial sub genre of music in
Speaker 5: Mexico which celebrates the exploits of the country's infamous drug cartels.
Speaker 5: The songs have caught the attention of President Claudia Scheinbaum,
Speaker 5: who in recent days launched a music contest for Peace
Speaker 5: and against Addictions, seeking to counter the popularity of narco
Speaker 5: corrito's among young people in Mexico.
Speaker 4: And in the United States.
Speaker 5: Last bit chaos erupted early Saturday in the city of Texacoco,
Speaker 5: fifteen miles outside of Mexico City, when Luis r. Conriquez
Speaker 5: told the crowd that he could not sing his popular
Speaker 5: songs praising leaders of the Sineloa cartel. He said, it's
Speaker 5: a law that must be respected. I also feel bad
Speaker 5: for not singing which you want to hear. Was followed
Speaker 5: by booze objects being thrown at the singer and his band,
Speaker 5: who were forced to flee the stage, and later twenty
Speaker 5: people stormed the stage and destroyed everything on there.
Speaker 4: So it's a.
Speaker 5: Tricky situation, really, like a divided feeling around the cartels there.
Speaker 5: And I actually asked our buddy Alex, you know, who
Speaker 5: has spent some time in Mexico City, what that's like,
Speaker 5: and he really indicated that Shinebaum is sort of a
Speaker 5: divisive figure because there are some folks that revere the cartels,
Speaker 5: and there are of course, a lot of folks who
Speaker 5: fear and wish them to be eliminated.
Speaker 3: So there you go.
Speaker 5: Any closing thoughts around that, guys, I appreciate your perspective
Speaker 5: on the tenuousness of this whole thing and the good nature,
Speaker 5: you know, vibes behind it, but also is it a
Speaker 5: little tone deaf and is it maybe tackling this problem
Speaker 5: in kind of the wrong way.
Speaker 2: It's something, it is, it's not nothing, that's true, and
Speaker 2: it's gonna make a few folks a lot of money.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of concerts, that's a lot of airtime.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, fair enough, with which folks.
Speaker 2: What do you mean people? The people running the concerts
Speaker 2: and the music that ends up or the let's say,
Speaker 2: the music business folks that end up getting all of
Speaker 2: these newly minted stars.
Speaker 4: That's a good go. A big part of the rhetoric.
Speaker 5: I haven't gotten into this enough, but behind the contest
Speaker 5: is that they want to sort of americanize the music industry.
Speaker 4: And there you go, Mexico. So you're spot on there.
Speaker 2: Crippling contracts for everyone.
Speaker 5: Hey, you get one, and you get one, and you
Speaker 5: get a break and a word from our sponsor, and
Speaker 5: then you also get some more strange news.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back, we've returned. Fun fact, guys, punch
Speaker 2: bowl that I mentioned at the top is the secret
Speaker 2: services nickname for the Capitol Building.
Speaker 3: It's kind of weird. It looks like, you know, well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you imagine flipping the punch bowl the top of
Speaker 2: the Capitol Building over filling it with punch, and now
Speaker 2: it's a punch.
Speaker 3: Bowl, and it would take too long to say upside
Speaker 3: down punch bowl every time.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. Shout out to punch Bowl News
Speaker 2: for teaching all of us that today, guys. On Tuesday,
Speaker 2: April twenty ninth, the very same network, punch Bowl News
Speaker 2: reported that Amazon was considering something and here is a
Speaker 2: direct quote from what they wrote, quote, Amazon doesn't want
Speaker 2: to shoulder the blame for the cost of the trade war,
Speaker 2: so the e commerce giant will soon show how much
Speaker 2: tariffs are adding to the price of each product. According
Speaker 2: to a person familiar with the plan, let's remember that
Speaker 2: the shopping site will display how much an item's cost
Speaker 2: is derived from tariffs right next to the product's total
Speaker 2: listed price.
Speaker 3: Kind of like how Temu has already done.
Speaker 2: Ah, yes, very very good. Temu customers in the US
Speaker 2: are being hit with steep import charges due to tariffs.
Speaker 2: That is happening right now. That was reported by NBC
Speaker 2: News on the twenty eighth of April, and this punch
Speaker 2: bowl thing came out on the twenty ninth. Temu is
Speaker 2: apparently doing the old import charges because of you know,
Speaker 2: the import what do we call it? Guys, it's not
Speaker 2: a trade war. It's not a trade war.
Speaker 3: It's a healthy conversation.
Speaker 2: The healthy economic exchange of ideas. That's happening right now
Speaker 2: across the world.
Speaker 4: The discourse, Yeah, more like discord.
Speaker 2: The team website is doing this thing. It's like, hey,
Speaker 2: guess what, you know, shipping is a lot more because
Speaker 2: there's an import charge.
Speaker 3: Now, that's what it's a line item, it's a separate
Speaker 3: light item from shipping. It's like also, I think.
Speaker 5: Most people would see that as being transparent and as
Speaker 5: you know, letting the consumer know where this is coming from. Right.
Speaker 5: But if I'm not mistaken, the Trump administration uh clapped
Speaker 5: back at this pretty significantly, calling it a political and
Speaker 5: hostile move.
Speaker 2: Well, let's go to NBC News again to get some
Speaker 2: more information, because according to them, Amazon actually made no
Speaker 2: changes like that to its platform. But the reporting bi
Speaker 2: punch Bowl News made its way all the way to
Speaker 2: the White House very quickly, and President Trump did, according
Speaker 2: to NBC News and a White House official, he did
Speaker 2: put in a call to Jeff Bezos personally, and a
Speaker 2: White House official did confirm that this happened. Happened on Tuesday,
Speaker 2: the day that this kind of amounds to stay, April
Speaker 2: twenty ninth.
Speaker 3: And I'm laughing and stickering in a supportive way.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure sure. And the
Speaker 2: quote from the White House official is that the President
Speaker 2: expressed his displeasure at the concept of what was reported
Speaker 2: in punch Bowl News again, the idea of putting a
Speaker 2: whole separate tariff's price next to something on an Amazon website,
Speaker 2: but not Amazon by the way, we're not talking about
Speaker 2: Amazon Proper, like if you go to Amazon Prime right now.
Speaker 2: They're talking about Amazon Hall Haul, which is a whole
Speaker 2: other site that is meant to be a competitor of
Speaker 2: TMU and Wish and all these old it's like.
Speaker 3: Ultra low cost mm hmmm.
Speaker 5: So like a lot of the like Amazon Select kind
Speaker 5: of products that they make in house, things like that.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know exactly what they sell, but they
Speaker 2: are cheap, cheap, cheap products compared to what you get
Speaker 2: on Amazon.
Speaker 3: Proper, Amazon Hall Find new faves for way.
Speaker 2: Less, got it?
Speaker 4: This is the first for me.
Speaker 5: Well, guys, it seems like the administration has been taking
Speaker 5: the stance that this is not a tax and that
Speaker 5: the other countries are going to be carrying this, which
Speaker 5: is clearly not the case.
Speaker 4: And all this to me is is making that clear.
Speaker 5: But it seems to be a defiance of a lie,
Speaker 5: therefore an inconvenient truth.
Speaker 3: Let's call it right, Well, let's uh, let's point everybody
Speaker 3: to our previous episode on tariffs. I think that addresses
Speaker 3: some of the economic questions, some of the arguments of proponents,
Speaker 3: and some of the arguments of critics. But to your point, Noal,
Speaker 3: the way that tariffs are understood here in the US
Speaker 3: is really coming to bear because there are a lot
Speaker 3: of misconceptions. The origin country, the origin company right or
Speaker 3: manufacturer is not going to seek to pay those tariffs.
Speaker 3: They are going to what passed the cost on to
Speaker 3: the consumer. Hence the line item, Hence the I would posit, Matt,
Speaker 3: Hence the White House calling Jeff and say, hey, man,
Speaker 3: come on, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So the at the heart of it, it will it
Speaker 2: will make the the Amazons of the world look bad
Speaker 2: because now when you go on as a consumer to
Speaker 2: purchase a product and object or whatever it is, you
Speaker 2: see that prices way higher, right, so you think, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, these Amazon or whatever prices are way too high.
Speaker 2: I can't afford this anymore. Amazon doesn't want you to
Speaker 2: feel that way. Amazon wants you to know these prices
Speaker 2: are a direct result of these policies or this thing
Speaker 2: that's happening right.
Speaker 3: Right, Like this is not more money for us as Amazon, Yes, exactly,
Speaker 3: the result of things beyond our control. Now, can you
Speaker 3: use a VPN to spoof a Canadian address and maybe
Speaker 3: drive up well, that's up to.
Speaker 2: You, man, maybe, but in this case, at least personally, guys,
Speaker 2: it was interesting to me to see this because that
Speaker 2: phone call did happen. The head of the United States
Speaker 2: government called the head of Amazon and said, hey, what
Speaker 2: gives and then something appears to have maybe altered maybe maybe.
Speaker 2: This is a quote from President Donald Trump. He was
Speaker 2: asked about the call, he said, quote, Jeff Bezos was
Speaker 2: very nice, he was terrific. He solved the problem very quickly,
Speaker 2: and he did the right thing. Right now, this concept
Speaker 2: of he solved a problem, he did the right thing.
Speaker 2: That means that the influence, or if that is true,
Speaker 2: it means the influence that the White House has over
Speaker 2: major industrial players is pretty steep, right sure. But counter
Speaker 2: to that, here's what an Amazon spokesperson told the NEC
Speaker 2: News quote. The team that runs our ultra low cost
Speaker 2: Amazon Hall store considered the idea of listing import charges
Speaker 2: on certain products. This was never approved and is not
Speaker 2: going to happen. This was never a consideration for the
Speaker 2: main Amazon site, and nothing has been implemented on any
Speaker 2: Amazon property.
Speaker 5: Why controversial? Why is this controversial? I don't understand. It
Speaker 5: seems like it's only controversial because it is shedding light
Speaker 5: on something very real that is actually happening.
Speaker 3: Sure, I would argue there's a second controversy a play,
Speaker 3: but we'll save that for a second.
Speaker 4: I guess what I'm saying is that shouldn't be controversial.
Speaker 5: If this is what it is, why not call it
Speaker 5: what it is unless it is something different than what
Speaker 5: the administration says it is.
Speaker 4: Right, clearly is the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The the problem here is that it has the
Speaker 2: potential to make decisions look maybe like not the best decisions,
Speaker 2: to paint an administration maybe not in the best light,
Speaker 2: and that administration then has the power to pull a
Speaker 2: lever and say, hey, don't do that thing that makes
Speaker 2: us look.
Speaker 3: Bad, especially a very administration that campaigned on being quite
Speaker 3: pro business, right, quite economically focused, future economically future focused.
Speaker 3: So the idea then that look, the ugly truth about
Speaker 3: the US and many other countries is that conversations like
Speaker 3: that happen beat Medling constantly. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: This is different.
Speaker 5: Behind closed doors, right usually, this is what this is
Speaker 5: what I would propose as a second controversy.
Speaker 3: Jeff, you got a leaky ship, my guy, Because someone
Speaker 3: close to the thing said a thing that happened, discussed,
Speaker 3: and it immediately reached sixteen hundred Pennsylvania, and then you
Speaker 3: had that hot phone call. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Some people are going to get fired off that one
Speaker 3: because they've messed with Jeff's afternoon.
Speaker 2: And the big question is who are these punch bowl
Speaker 2: news people? You can look it up on there about us.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting. They're insiders and a bunch of journalists
Speaker 2: who are trying to do their own thing.
Speaker 5: It's kind of cool to this point though maybe as
Speaker 5: a follow up, like it hasn't a lot of this
Speaker 5: tariff business sort of been shifted as a result of
Speaker 5: a meeting that took place between Trump and some high
Speaker 5: level execs. For some retailers, some big box retailers.
Speaker 3: Ooh, conversations are ongoing. Is going to be our official line.
Speaker 3: But yeah, people are watching the stock market, like hawks,
Speaker 3: the Walton family or the people who do the actual
Speaker 3: work for the Walton family. Right from Walmart fame a
Speaker 3: couple of other big businesses, especially Target, and then especially
Speaker 3: other industrial manufacturers, steel manufacturers, the automotive industry. For anybody
Speaker 3: who watched the recent the recent speech by the president
Speaker 3: to mark the one hundred days, right, that's the milestone
Speaker 3: we'll use for a new administration in the US. He's
Speaker 3: in Michigan, and he spends a lot of time talking
Speaker 3: about how advantageous the tariffs are. So apolitically, the current
Speaker 3: administration has really pinned their future and penned their pr
Speaker 3: and optics on the concept of tariffs being a success. Therefore,
Speaker 3: things that run counter to that, especially if they're from
Speaker 3: people who are considered allied with the administration one way
Speaker 3: or another, that can be seen as a betrayal. That's
Speaker 3: the logic that the potus is walking.
Speaker 5: Through, But wasn't the line that came through the execs,
Speaker 5: Like if in two weeks, if you continue down this course,
Speaker 5: shelves will be empty.
Speaker 4: We won't have any stuff left.
Speaker 5: And that is from Axios reporting from Kelly Tycho and
Speaker 5: Nathan bomy Bornie. I think Boey retail wipe out Trump
Speaker 5: tariff stoke fears of shortages and price hikes. Executives from
Speaker 5: big box retailers like Walmart and Target and Home Depot,
Speaker 5: in a meeting Monday of this week, warned Trump that
Speaker 5: his trade policy could trigger massive product shortages and price spikes.
Speaker 4: This is from the Axios piece.
Speaker 5: The largest companies are reportedly pressuring suppliers to absorb extra costs.
Speaker 5: We have decades of experience with buyers plus long standing
Speaker 5: supplier relationships, Walmart CEO Doug McMillan told reporters earlier this month,
Speaker 5: with smaller retailers of course having fewer options.
Speaker 3: And then you can see another Axios piece a little
Speaker 3: bit later that is titled Trump softens tariff toad amid
Speaker 3: empty shelves, warning and market slump by Mark Kapudo Ben Berkowitz.
Speaker 3: So Axios is following this. They've been pretty close to
Speaker 3: the post on it, and it supports what you were
Speaker 3: saying there and all the idea that there are backroom
Speaker 3: conversations happening and there are hard economic realities that don't
Speaker 3: always fit ideology and campaign speeches, which again is not
Speaker 3: is not unique to any administration.
Speaker 5: And as of today at least, the line from the
Speaker 5: Press secretary is that there are no plans to roll
Speaker 5: back to so there is still this disconnect again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I was saying earlier, there's been so much
Speaker 3: emphasis put on this right and this is not you know,
Speaker 3: to derail us too far. They are, Matt, but it
Speaker 3: is something a lot of folks are paying attention to.
Speaker 3: And if you go to you know, your local community,
Speaker 3: you will hear people fear fearful that there is a
Speaker 3: series of massive price hikes on the horizon, maybe something
Speaker 3: similar to the price hikes encounter during the COVID pandemic.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And just to jump back to that NBC News article,
Speaker 2: the original one. It mentions the response of White House
Speaker 2: Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt, who, upon being asked a question
Speaker 2: about the whole situation with Amazon Hall, she responded, quote,
Speaker 2: I just got off the phone with the President about
Speaker 2: Amazon's announcement. This is a hostile and political act by Amazon.
Speaker 2: Now why is that worth commenting on? Because the concept
Speaker 2: that a company, a private company, can make a decision
Speaker 2: or even float, making a decision based on the situation,
Speaker 2: the lay of the land, how everything's going, that an administration,
Speaker 2: at least the spokesperson of an administration can say out
Speaker 2: loud that that was a political and hostile act.
Speaker 4: And got shut down before any hits right.
Speaker 2: Well, and then the president can make a call and
Speaker 2: shut it down. So it's just the concept that the
Speaker 2: administration can have and wield that power over private industry
Speaker 2: is interesting, right, it's interesting, and it continues. This concept
Speaker 2: continues over to the FBI, and it continues with all media,
Speaker 2: all news media. When we jump over to an NPR
Speaker 2: article written by Ryan Lucas on April twenty fifth, and
Speaker 2: it is discussing certain protections that journalists have when they
Speaker 2: are speaking with sources for stories. So we'll go directly
Speaker 2: to the article. The Justice Department rescinded a Biden era
Speaker 2: policy that provided protections to journalists in leak investigations, paving
Speaker 2: the way for authorities to once again use subpoenas and
Speaker 2: compel testimony from reporters in probes targeting leakers. So specifically,
Speaker 2: when they're using the term leakers, which is interesting.
Speaker 3: It's not bla leakers.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that would be good.
Speaker 4: That's fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it. These are also human beings, generally referred
Speaker 2: to as whistleblowers, people who are inside something and they
Speaker 2: put a hand up or sometimes quietly say something to
Speaker 2: a journalist who can then write about it and let
Speaker 2: everybody know.
Speaker 5: Well, and the big line from the administration would be
Speaker 5: that these the sources are not to be believed because
Speaker 5: they are anonymous, and therefore it's a way of shutting
Speaker 5: down potential factuality, right.
Speaker 2: Which is unfortunate because that is also sometimes true quite often.
Speaker 2: We've talked about it in the show. Well, ye, just
Speaker 2: as in the in the previous thing, the original reporting
Speaker 2: that came out of punch Bowl News was quote someone
Speaker 2: close to the thing, right, an anonymous person in this case, Uh,
Speaker 2: at least within this memo that was sent out by
Speaker 2: Attorney General Pam BONDI. Uh, the I'll just read I'll
Speaker 2: read it directly quote federal government employees intentionally leaking sensitive
Speaker 2: information to the media undermines the ability of the Department
Speaker 2: of Justice to uphold the rule of law, protect civil rights,
Speaker 2: and keep America safe. This conduct is illegal and wrong,
Speaker 2: and it must stop. And when she is saying federal employees,
Speaker 2: that's you know, anybody working for the federal government. But
Speaker 2: it also is hinting at a very specific group within
Speaker 2: the government, the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Because we're going
Speaker 2: to connect it to a Reuter's piece from the twenty
Speaker 2: ninth of April, FBI starts using polygraph tests in internal
Speaker 2: leak investigations, right, So the Federal Bureau of Investigations is
Speaker 2: cracking down on its own team members because it's out
Speaker 2: the moles, right, Yeah, it's it is. All of this
Speaker 2: is culminating in my mind to paint a picture of
Speaker 2: a very paranoid, chaotic situation time and perhaps administration.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we see some McCarthyism on the rise. There is
Speaker 3: always a precedent, you know, even in a country as
Speaker 3: young as the United States, the continuing experiment in which
Speaker 3: we reside, we can also see, to add to the
Speaker 3: point made earlier there, Matt, we can also see descriptions
Speaker 3: of Defense Secretary Pete Hexith, who purportedly reportedly excuse me,
Speaker 3: spent about half his time just trying to root out leaks,
Speaker 3: in addition, of course to being super bad at his
Speaker 3: own opsect with signal and those communications. But yeah, there
Speaker 3: does seem to be a is a phrase that hasn't
Speaker 3: aged well. But there does seem to be an intense
Speaker 3: circling of the wagons, a deficit of trust internally, and
Speaker 3: people are scrambling to prove themselves the most loyal and
Speaker 3: in doing so, often scrambling as a result to discover
Speaker 3: disloyalty in other.
Speaker 5: People, which often can lead to discovering things where nothing
Speaker 5: exists to your McCarthyism and the witchness of it all.
Speaker 5: And I was just gonnadd There's always going to be
Speaker 5: some leaks here and there, But when you start to
Speaker 5: see a proliferation of them, as we do in this situation,
Speaker 5: you start to think about discontent within an organization and
Speaker 5: folks trying to affect change from within.
Speaker 3: It seems that way when the leaks begin to agree.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like eyewitness accounts, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's tough because you can't verify this some of this stuff.
Speaker 3: I believe that all of us would argue that journalistic
Speaker 3: rights and protections for sources are one of the things
Speaker 3: that makes this country better than a lot of other places.
Speaker 3: And again that's not saying the US is perfect. I'm
Speaker 3: saying the ability for the US US at its best,
Speaker 3: to be honest with itself and its population is a
Speaker 3: big deal. It's like diplomatic.
Speaker 5: Community, and that it's a tenant that protects a larger situation.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of the things that makes democracies function
Speaker 2: at all. Right, if you can know the truth, then
Speaker 2: you can vote on whatever the truth is. But if
Speaker 2: everything is just quiet, covered up, kept secret and hidden,
Speaker 2: then who knows.
Speaker 3: Just talking about sources, anonymous sources close to the investigation.
Speaker 2: That's right. Just to jump back to Pete Hegsath, it
Speaker 2: reminds me of the banality of evil that we've talked
Speaker 2: about on the show many a time, where people are
Speaker 2: attempting to compensate for or cover up their own accidents,
Speaker 2: their own like whoopsies and incompetence and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Where Pete Hegsath wrote a memo, His initial memo is
Speaker 2: the thing that left open the idea of, hey, we
Speaker 2: might have to polygraph you know, members of the FBI
Speaker 2: to figure out who's leaking all of this information. And
Speaker 2: he is the guy who got confidential information and just
Speaker 2: send it out to family members and others.
Speaker 5: And we know polygraphs are notoriously unreliable too, So when
Speaker 5: you start basing a system throwing people into polygraphs, you
Speaker 5: really have the potential for a witch hunt on your hands,
Speaker 5: don't you have?
Speaker 3: You guys ever take it on polygraph I have not.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And if I know you can fake it by
Speaker 4: tightening your sphincter, we.
Speaker 3: Have an episode about it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It really does worry me that if the kind of
Speaker 2: mistakes are made and continually made that are that would
Speaker 2: make a group of people within the government look bad.
Speaker 2: Then there's just going to be compensation, external compensation for
Speaker 2: those mistakes by making other people somehow suffer the consequences.
Speaker 4: Yeah, fall guys, Uh, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's all I got today. There's lots a lot.
Speaker 3: Talk, a lot, got well with the best possible wishes
Speaker 3: to innocent people in Pakistan and India. We're gonna call
Speaker 3: it for this evening, We're off to noctivigate. We cannot
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