May 9, 2025 • 65 mins
What if the stories and narratives you hear in the average mainstream media reporting aren't the entire truth? What if there's something else going on, a secret war between a shadowy cabal and a small group of brave, outnumbered good guys fighting back against their insidious plans for world domination? This is, according to QAnon proponents, a true story. Join Ben, Matt and Noel as they dive into the origins of this uber-theory, the fact and fiction surrounding it, as well as the implications involved in this week's Classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realists travel back with us in twenty twenty.
During this classic episode, taking place during time of great
unrest is now just called the COVID pandemic, we asked ourselves,
what if the stories and narratives you hear in mainstream
media aren't the entire truth.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
What if there's.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Something else going on? This is the story of q Anon.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Who is q who are q Yeah? And what if
there's something else going on? A secret war between a
shadowy cabal and a small group of brave, outnumbered good
guys fighting back against their insidious plans for world domination.
That's what QAnon folks seem to think. Let's roll the tape.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nola.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission Controlled decad Most importantly, you
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. This is the first episode we are
recording in what the calendars call twenty twenty. So if
you're listening to this, congratulations you've made it at least
(01:33):
to January of that month.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Good for you.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Wait a go, you did a thing.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
We all did it. We're all here.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We are here in some shape or form. I'm already
enjoying the heck out out of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, well mainly I don't know, just personal choice. I
decided I wasn't gonna drink it all in January. It's
the thing people do, the dry January, Dryuary. Yeah, and
I've gotten so much done in six days, it's crazy.
I redecorated my whole house, been working on music again.
I've been just you know, be more present with my kid.
Not that I'm some kind of crazy alcoholic, but it's
easy to forget about the things that actually make you
(02:10):
happy when maybe work is a little stressful. You yes,
you'd rather just like have a couple of drinks with
friends instead. I've been like doing, you know, playing board
games and stuff, and it's great. Now friends come over
to my house and we play NERD games together.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
That's amazing, Noel, And I'm so proud of you for
not letting the current news cycle cause you to go
back to the drink.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I don't know what you're talking about. I've also chosen
to give up watching television, giving up with the news.
Please enlighten me.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Oh, nothing, just something to do with this country that
we've talked about on this show numerous times that is
surrounded on all sides by people that may want to
invade for various reasons. And you know there's just almost
a hot war between our country and that country occurs
invade us, Matt, No, no, anyway, Ben, how you doing good?
(02:58):
You good with a whole Iran situation.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Well, the reason is to congratulations to everyone for making
it to January of twenty twenty. It's because we are
very much in a what it feels like it, day
by day, week by week estimate of the future, which
may change precipitously. Of course, it's often said, at least
by me, that the world is ending for someone somewhere
(03:21):
every day. But you know, Australia is burning down the
ocean acidification that you warned me about years ago. Matt's
that's definitely in play. I have also, I have also
not gone completely dry, but I've been drinking a lot less,
just because I feel like I need to be aware
and alert at all times. Relaxation feels very twenty nineteen
(03:44):
for me.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Oh man, I swear to god, the news cycle is
starting to feel like that movie Children of Men, you know,
like it's very much like a near future dystopia thing
that we're starting to fall into a little bit. I'm
not being super hyper about that. It really if you
just take a minute, listen to the radio, watch TV.
Everything's on fire. It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, Well, let me tell you this and then we'll
I agree, let me tell you this just here. I'll
share this in the room. And this is the first
time I'm talking about this. Uh, and I'm speaking to you.
Person who called ben Nole Paul. We got a really
really wonderful series of calls on our hotline over like
(04:28):
right after the New year. Occurred from a gentleman who
told of how he he knew he had to quit
heroin and the only way he was going to do
it was to get a trusted friend and lock himself
in a place for you know, weeks on end. And
while he was doing that, he found our podcast and
(04:51):
he said, because the time goes by so excruciatingly slowly
during those times. Getting to have our pod cast gave
him a place to it gave him a group of
people essentially with whom to commune without having any kind
of fear of falling back, right, And he said he's
and he ended up getting through the entire show, and
(05:13):
he just thanked us on the phone for for just
existing and for talking.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Congratulations, man, We're glad you're here, right.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, Man, isn't that amazing? It's incredible. He actually had
reached out on Instagram or something, he said he did. Yeah,
but this is an update. That's that's that's new. Well,
we'll really really wonderful.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
We'll share it together just so everyone knows who was
listening to this first time we've actually hung out all
together in a while. But just want to put that
out there. The world, as scary as it seems, as
bad as the news seems, as crazy as the stuff
we're about to talk about, is in the end, we
have each other no, right.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Right, And that's why I wasn't joking when I said
my twenty is off to a really nice start. I'm
feeling pretty positive about things overall, despite the news cycle
and how you know, eminently weird things are getting. I mean,
at the end of the day, all we have our friends,
our loved ones, our families, and the little things that
we have to occupy our minds with to keep from
(06:15):
going completely insane.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
So this is the first episode we're recording in twenty twenty,
hopefully not the last. But you know, you know how
the nature of life is. It's like Ella Musk recently said,
it's a video game where the graphics are amazing, the
tutorials are too long. The problem with life is that
we're all working live right, no one really in charge.
(06:39):
There's not really a plan or is there, Because today
we are diving into one of the strangest, most controversial
conspiracy stories of the aughts, which I mean the recent aughts,
the twenty tens and so on. This is something that
many of our fellow listeners have written to us about
or communicated intro in to us via some platform or another.
(07:03):
As as always, we want to explore these ideas with
with with an emphasis on critical thinking and an emphasis
on the facts versus rumors, et cetera, et cetera. If
this is your first rodeo, you'll see what we mean
very quickly. And again, hopefully it's not your last rodeo.
(07:25):
You've heard the name before. You may have even accidentally
or purposely found yourself embroiled in a conversation about this thing.
But what exactly is q A noon, why has it
become a focal point for a certain genre of conspiracy literature,
and most importantly, what sort of claims do q A
(07:47):
non supporters make? If you are someone like like many
of us listening, who enjoys a bit of googling while
you're while you're listening to the podcast, take note that
q ANN is spelled capital Q capital ann. Anyhow, here
are the facts.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
So to begin this story, we have to jump back
to twenty seventeen, October twenty eighth of that year, and
we have to go to a place called four chan,
a message board, and within that there is a channel
called poll pol politics. And on that date, October twenty eighth,
(08:26):
twenty seventeen, there is a person, a user ostensibly anonymous,
that had the name q Clearance Patriot. And this user
started popping up on that slash pol that message board
and hoo buddy, oh yeah, we're not even going to
get to the message yet. Let's just let's explain some
(08:48):
of this.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, let's take a step back.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
So four Chan, Okay, you've heard about it.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, it's like the armpit of the internet more more
or less. Well, okay, okay, it was once like not
as bad as it has become, but it is certainly
gained a reputation for becoming a place where people can
anonymously spout pretty much whatever.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
They want, as they say in Star Wars, a hive
of scum and villainy. That's what it's been accused of
being in mainstream media.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
It's I would just sput out there and we're going
to talk about this. It is one of the places
that the Internet provides where you can literally say whatever
you want anonymously, right right.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
One of my old colleagues called it one of the
best arguments against free speech in the modern era. Four
Chan is, as you said, an anonymous English language website
or image board. It was created in two thousand and
three by a guy named Christopher Poole going under the
(09:43):
name mootot. You can hear a pretty great summation of
the origin and evolution of four chan on our pure
podcast Tech Stuff by Jonathan Strickland. So you won't get
two into the weeds here. Four Chan was originally, as
of two thousand and three, supposed to be a digital
(10:03):
space wherein anonymous posters could talk about anime and post
images related to anime. But it expanded and ad mission
creep as many things do, and today it's home to
message boards on any number of topics video games, music, politics, sports,
et cetera, et cetera, including some patently disturbing content. The
(10:27):
thing about four chan is, unlike a lot of similar
message boards, you cannot really register. You post anonymously. Threads
with recent replies get bumped to the top of the board,
and then old threads they get less and less attention
or automatically deleted as new ones appear. It's also huge.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
It's a big quick question for you guys as being
a bit of a four Chan nube. I mean, I
know a decent amount about it, but I've never really
interacted with it. Is what makes it different from say Reddit,
Like is it just less moderated or is it a
little more of a free for all?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Are there are moderators on four Chan? But Reddit requires
if you want to post on Reddit, you have to
have a registered name there.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
You go, so it's the anonymity that really sets it apart, right,
got it? So back to its size, It's true, it's
it's massive. Each month the site receives twenty two to
twenty seven million unique visitors, and every day users generate
around eight hundred thousand new posts. And much like Reddit,
(11:32):
you have groups with abbreviations like forward slash pol forward
slash which is the politically incorrect group, and that was starting.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, I would just have to say I incorrectly called
it politics because in my brain I just am in
Reddit world. So apologies, but it's still beans the same. Yeah,
I know, I just know. Don't don't hurt us?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Okay, continue, but again, don't I don't think that. I
think that's a good point, Matt, because I do feel
like Reddit versus Fortune four Chan is inherently a little
more fringy then Reddit. It seems to me, just as
an outsider, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
The fringe doth exist everywhere.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
That's very true. It seems like it's a little more
nurtured by the fact that you're able to post anonymously.
For sure. It was essentially a reboot of four chan's
news board new Slash new which had been deleted in
January twenty eleven because of flagrant racism.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Of a specific type as well, which was a white
supremacist type, far far right wing kind of racism. So
let's put that info to the side just for now.
All you need to remember is Pole exists as troubled history.
It's been repeatedly cited as a hub for racism, sexism,
(12:50):
neo Nazi ideology, and so on.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
You mean politically incorrect stuff, guys, right, And let's also
remember that you or Q a non as we explore
the evolution here, also became known as the Storm or
the Great Awakening.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
And the reason why is, oddly enough, it is clearly
traceable to a single incident in involving what many people
thought to be an offhand, sort of throwaway remark by
the current president of the United States.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
So let's just go back. October twenty eighth is when
Q clearance patriot shows up. Correct. October twenty eighth, twenty seventeen,
now twenty three days prior to that. On October fifth,
twenty seventeen, President Trump he made some comments while he
was hanging out in front of a bunch of reporters. Yeah,
(13:49):
they're taking a publicity photo with a ton of high
level military officials. They had a special gathering. They were
taking this photo and they're all standing around. Several people,
well you know, it's mostly photographers, but several are running
video and there's video of this you can watch right now.
This is a quote from President Trump. Do you guys
know what this represents? Maybe it's the calm before the storm?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
What what storm, mister President on Iran? Or isis? Or
what what's the storm?
Speaker 3 (14:20):
We've got the worlds As a continuing the quote, we've
got the world's great military people in this room. I
will tell you that we're gonna have a great meeting.
Thank you all for coming.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
What storm, mister president.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
You'll find out now just think about that.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
That's all it was. But it was in it's a
little longer than that. We're paraphrasing here, but that is.
Those are the exact quotes. This maybe is the calm
before the storm. And oh you'll find out when he's
asked what it is. It was a very vague statement.
And here's the deal that we need to kind of
note here. So in the context in October early October
(14:58):
twenty seventeen. They were all a lot of rumors floating around.
There were people talking in Washington, DC quite extensively about
whether or not the Iran nuclear Deal, which was negotiated
by President Trump's predecessor, President Obama, was on the table
as possibly being changed or altered or pulled out of
(15:19):
or there was there were rumors that something was going
to change there with regards to Iran.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Right, Yeah, yeah, that perhaps the administration at the time
would decertify or pull out of the nuclear deal.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yes, And he's in a room full of the top
military officials who would be concerned about that and or
you know, have something to say.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
But also to be fair, something like you'll find out is,
you know, it's not a declaration of policy at all.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
He's kind of fond of making those little wink wink,
nudge nudge kind of statements and a feeling like there's
you know, something big or at play than is on
the surface.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
It's a you know what it is, it's a statement
that makes you come back after the commercial break. That's right,
Does that make sense? Like it totally speaks to his his.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Uh, yeah, he's definitely you know, from his experience working
in television. He's got, he knows how to he knows
how to have a cliffhanger.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
It's also a bit of a it's it's also a
bit of a way to end a conversation. You know,
we have to I have to go. Yes, I have
a pretty busy schedule, just to be absolutely fair. And
this this gained uh, some some weight, some gravity online
(16:43):
in like a more serious version of cofefe, you know.
So it does represent a theme that we see pretty often,
which is it made people uncertain. To the point you
guys are making, there was a cliffhanger, but there wasn't
really a follow up at least on the president's end
(17:03):
at that point.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
That's right, and the connection we're about to draw as
well could be entirely coincidental. Doesn't want to put that
out there right now.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So in this case, that quotation, that single that single
dialogue seems to have not just bread speculation, but inspired
what is nowadays referred to an internet shorthand as q
or q andon. So what exactly is QAnon saying.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Here, mister president? What is q on saying?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
You'll find out.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
After a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Here's where it gets crazy. So once the quote is
out there, Q Clearance Patriot, the nickname, by the way,
is a reference to Q level security clearance, which is
a real thing in the Department of Energy. It's the
equivalent of top secret way. Q Clearance Patriot begins posting,
and we have the text of the first post made
(18:07):
by the entity claiming to be Q Clearance Patriot. We
can read it to you. We want to note that
it may feel a little bit obtuse. N G in
the following message stands for National Guard and HRC stands
for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
HRC extradition already in motion effective yesterday with several countries
in case of cross border run passport approved to be
flagged effective ten thirty at twelve oh one am. Expect
massive riots organized in defiance and others fleeing the US
to occur. US MS will conduct the operation while MNG
(18:44):
activated proof check, locate an NG member and ask if
activated for duty ten thirty across most major cities. I
don't think we explained MS.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, US Marines. So the idea here is that Hillary
Clinton is going to be extra guided and that somewhere yeah,
and then multiple countries are girding up their security to
prevent this person from getting successfully to another country or
(19:15):
a non extradition treaty country, that the passport will be
flagged rendered invalid. That's what that means. That there will
be massive riots that are heavily implied to be planned,
you know, kind of AstroTurf riots, so not the actual
people rising up, and that others, which would people would
later say were other democratic and democratic politicians leaders so on,
(19:41):
that they would be fleeing the US, and that marines
would conduct this mass arrest or this culling starrywhen Clinton,
and that the National Guard will be activated to be
kind of like the backup the reserves.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
So what's the implication here? The implication is that a
lot of high level democrats are about to be rounded
up and arrest and arrested and potentially indicted.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
For what, well, for the many crimes though for the many,
many crimes. That's that's the implication. But this is just
the first post. This is the first of what would
later be called breadcrumbs. And the thing is that Q
would claim access to secret information and followed up with
another post a few a few hours later, just hours later, and.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Because he's again he's this is on he's warning about
ten twenty he's posting on ten twenty.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Eight rights right, which we'll see as a pattern.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
And so Q in his next post writes a little
bit more coherently, but the language is replete with what
appear to be coded phrases. So Q is saying that
Clinton has already been detained by authorities and that Donald
Trump was aware of this, knew that criminal rogue elements,
(20:59):
including Clinton, had to be arrested. And then he also
references several other people popular in conspiracy theories, such as
the billionaire philanthropist George Soros. You know, regardless of what
you feel about the specifics of the allegations about against
George Soros, we would all agree billionaire philanthropists are potentially
(21:23):
supervillains just in general, we have the capacity to be so.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
So, do you want to read an example of one
of these posts? Yeah? No, one, I mean, just to
give us a little more.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
And then we can This one's a little juicier too.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah. So this is again made on the twenty eighth
of October twenty seventeen. Here it goes, you ready, mockingbird
HRC detained not arrested yet? Where is Huma follow Huma
and that, of course is Huma Abadeen that we've talked
about before in this show, with the emails in particular
(21:58):
and as well as with reference to her former husband.
I want to say, here we go, let's continue. This
has nothing to do with Russia yet. Why does Potis
surround himself with generals? What is military intelligence? What is
military intelligence? Guys? Okay, let's continue. Why go around the
three letter agencies?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
This reads like a very strange poem.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yes, what Supreme Court case allows for the use of
m I versus Congressional assembled and approved agencies? Who has
the ultimate authority over our branches of military without approval
conditions unless ninety plus in wartime conditions? What is the
military code? Where is AW being held? Why AW?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Anthony Wiener? No? Is that Andrew.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
The problem?
Speaker 3 (22:49):
But who knows?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Potis will not go on TV to address nation? Potis
must isolate himself to prevent negative optics. Potis knew removing
critical rogue elements as a first step. Was this central
to free and pass legislation? Who has access to everything classified?
Do you believe HRC Soros, Obama et cetera have more
power than Trump fantasy. Whoever controls the Office of the
(23:13):
Presidency controls this great land. They never believed for a
moment they Democrats and Republicans would lose control. This is
not RVD battle. Why did Soros donate all his money recently?
Why would he place all his funds in a rc
RC anyone rent control? Now I'm just kidding. I don't
know what RC is. Mockingbird ten thirty seventeen, God bless
(23:35):
fellow patriots.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Is that a Hunger Games references? That's the mocking Oh yeah,
so what's mockingbird? This is?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
This is first off, this is a pure sugar rush,
right for some pupil on fourtchan, this is candy now.
I also, I was reading this when this came out,
and I got so into it. I thought, you know,
I don't care if it's real, because we'll get to it.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
There's a problem.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
There's a problem with identity. You know, it's like this,
even if it's just mimetic. You know, people who have
enough knowledge of the reference points here can begin to
dive down the rabbit hole. So for people who already
deep into the world of conspiracy, especially those trending toward
the far right, fringe stuff. It's called they they were
(24:23):
elated and probably no small part terrified Operation Mockingbird. You're askmout, Well,
it's a reference to a real life CIA program to
blackmail journalists and control propaganda narrators, and that that thing
actually happened. And it is true that the laws preventing
(24:44):
the legal dissemination of US propaganda in the domestic sphere
have been rescinded.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, it's free reign, baby, what a time.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
And this this also references, like you said, Matt, it
references the idea that Huma Aberdeen, the former Clinton staffer,
was secretly working for the Muslim Brotherhood, which has the
nicest way it says, it has not been proven true.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yeah, and well, just referencing Huma is kind of one
of those triggers at that time, at least in twenty seventeen,
and a little prior to that, a trigger word that's
like and again it's just this, like you said, this
is candy, Ben, where all of these little things, these
little references just can send you down a rabbit hole.
A single one of them could. And this is basically
(25:37):
arming you with a handful of skittles. You're so right
about that reference. But okay, and here's the deal with
a post like this, It's not just a single post.
It exists within, you know, this ecosystem of everybody else
being able to ask a question like and again you're
kind of answering all of these questions because this is
(25:59):
all questions, almost almost ninety percent questions that are being
raised here in this post.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Right, but like leading questions kind of too.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Right, Well yeah, but it's also it's just it's it's
fairly odd but intriguing. Right, But what happened was this
started a movement.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Right, yeah, so Q the poster right is different from
the group to a nod yes, which is the supporters
of this idea later grew into what would be known
as the Storm or the Great Awakening. And this this
grew from fertile soil. Remember this follows on the heels
(26:43):
of things like Pizzagate, wherein where various folks were arguing,
based on some emails, that there was a secret cabal
of child abusers, a child abuse ring that was connected
to Hillary Clinton, that was operating out of a basement
(27:03):
in a pizza chain. Problem being the actual pizza restaurant
does not have a basement.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
But just the same. A believer of that particular conspiracy theory,
a guy by the name of Edgar Madison Welch went
into this pizza place, very popular political pizza hangout, and
supposed child sex dungeon. He went in there and shot
the place up. He didn't like kill anybody, but he
(27:30):
shut the lock off of a I believe it was
a door that was meant to lead down into the
secret basement, but there was no evidence of this ever uncovered.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, went to a closet actually, yeah, where he damaged
the computer.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
It is interesting how we don't have to get into
it too deeply, but Pizzagate, the way it evolved, we
were looking at it very closely as it was evolving,
and for it to focus on that one pizza restaurant
that we're not aiming here. By the way, we know
the name of it, we're not naming it here just
(28:03):
in case, just for whatever reason, people feel that you
how you may feel. But it was odd that these
emails that were all you know, leaked from it was
from the Hillary Clinton email breach and leak that came out.
Most of the people on those chains were Democrats, not
(28:25):
all of them, but most of them or high level
officials or assistance too high level officials, and the stuff
that was construed or misconstrued or you know, taken from
those emails. There was some odd stuff in there, and
I would be the first to say there was definitely
some odd stuff in there. But you can see it's
(28:48):
such a good example of how you get a little
bit of information or maybe a tiny peek into a
window or a flashlight's view in the darkness, and that's
all you see, and then you're assuming what is on
the other side that you can't see. That's we're kind
of going down that path already with just what QAnon
has said or with what q Clearance Patriot is.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
And we all already see the emphasis on creating connective tissue, yes,
on discerning and following and then ultimately predicting a pattern
an order of operations. But before we get to that,
you know, this is nested like Matroskdal's here. But before
we get to that, there's a problem of identity. Remember
(29:33):
how earlier we noted the strong anonymity on four Chan.
Q was aware of this and so attempted to provide
proof of his or her or their claims. They posted
images you can see online that some redditors, especially on
the our Conspiracy subreddit, believed confirmed Q was physically present
(29:55):
on Air Force one and thus was receiving this information
from none other than the current commander in chief, and
some followers started to argue about the true identity of Q.
You would see all kinds of all kinds of allegations.
Probably the most out there were that first Donald Trump
(30:18):
or Trump Junior were themselves Q, or that JFK Jr.
Faked his death to get away from the Deep State
and is himself.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Q to tell the truth about the Deep State.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
But now that we've set up all this background and
told you how the story began, what the origin point was,
and you can see a little bit about the explosive growth,
we have to ask ourselves what is q anon saying?
What are the claims? We'll tell you after a word
from our sponsor, and we're back, maybe a little bit
(31:01):
of a movie voice. In a world controlled by cannibals,
Satan worshipers, elite child abusers, only one man has the
I don't know, I'm falling off. Only one person. There's
an oubie Wan who is the only hope in this story,
(31:24):
and it's it is President Trump in this In this narrative,
the fact that Trump was formerly a Democrat and then
later a Republican is seen as proof that he belongs
to neither party, who are of course, both painted as
puppets on the hands of global elite. And Trump is
(31:46):
fighting an internal war, according again to QAnon, and has
to be protected by the military because the Secret Service,
the FBI, the CIA, the rest of the alphabet soup
has all been compromised.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
And yeah, compromised, and largely it's difficult to move those powers,
like the individuals that have power in those institutions, right right,
even though you've seen him cycle through several sure.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, yeah, and you've seen the narrative change too, But
he's saying, yes, that the alphabet souperintelligence agencies, they're all
Cerosian for lack of a better word. And then going
back to this question which you asked, No about the format,
because q's postings often do take that cryptic question format,
(32:35):
and so people who follow this Q and honors following
this will say that each question is some sort of
hint or a clue or a riddle containing some hidden
truth about the real nature of global governance, and that
astute minds can divine the meaning behind these postings.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
For me, it's almost like a puzzle game that if
you can answer one of the questions, then you can
and then you answer the next one, and then you
realize how those are connected, and then it just goes
down like.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
One. Yeah right, but like there's no rhyme or reason
to it. I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm being
abduced here. Actually that's the word you use, Ben, I
think quite astutely when you're talking about the way some
of these posts read. And I think I said some
of them came off as leading questions. Some of them do, like,
for example, who has ultimate authority over our branches of military?
(33:32):
Who approves conditions unless ninety plus in wartime conditions? I mean,
that's sort of trying to push you to think a thing.
And some of them are super open ended. So if
there's a puzzle here, where's the solution? It seems like
a lot of projection going on.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's they're they're called breadcrumbs because
there's ought to be these tidbits of information, right, and
they're forming a trail that picture. You know, one of
my favorite sunny in Philadelphia moments when Charlie Day is
obsessed with the discovery of Pepe Lopez, remember, and he's
standing there and he's like chain smoking and pointing to
(34:10):
his conspiracy board. I think you're absolutely right here in that.
It reminds me a little bit of people who claim
to have interpreted Nostradamis. You know, there's a bit of
tea leaf reading that comes into this.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
You know, there was.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Without without verification or more explicit statements by Q itself.
Even assuming that we could prove Q s Q. You
can make those initials mean anything you want. Sure, RC
could be rent control. It could also be la right,
(34:48):
it could also be control. It could be robocow, you know,
or yeah, could be straight up. I don't know why
I went over the cop for the cow. I'm very
well aware of the yaz well, but you see what
I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
I see exactly what you're saying. And this kind of writing,
and what it does is it allows the interpreter, so
an end user, somebody who reads it who is loud
and influential enough to then say this is what that means,
and then that person almost gets more power or is
able to translate it in a way that then a
(35:27):
massive amount of people believes it has been translated.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yes, And there's another aspect here which I think if
we're thinking critically, we have to be even more skeptical
about at this point. There's another aspect wherein some some
people who purport to believe in the QAnon stuff will
say that they're not just they're not just correctly interpreting
the statements they find on four Chan related forums, they're
(35:53):
also interpreting the actions of the president, the physical individual,
and his own actions that would seem innocuous to mainstream media.
There's this one, for instance, there's this one moment in
a meeting where he is sitting next to the vice
president and I believe he takes a bottle of Fiji water,
(36:16):
drinks it, and then puts it on the floor.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Yeah, So there.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Were people arguing that this was not just someone handling
a water bottle, that this was a nonverbal signal that
he was planning to take down a child abuse ring
in guess where the Bahamas good close. They're both on
the planet Fiji.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
And when we get to that level of subjectivity, it's
tough to prove anything, you know, and that's the devilish
part about that, because barring a statement from the actual
president saying yeah, that's why I did it, or no,
oh I just put the water there, you know, there's
(37:03):
there's no proof. And then also even if people could
just choose to say the guy is line or he's dissembling.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I had said a thing before the first break of
the idea of Trump's offhanded statements about the storm the
coming storm, that that could well have been a complete
coincidence as related to this movement. But I think it's
the other way around. Actually, I think this movement hopped
on that innocuous ish statement and then created this notion
of the coming reckoning or whatever. I believe. We talked
(37:33):
about these high level officials that were corralled and rounded
up secretly, and supposedly they've all been fitted with ankle
monitors because they're already under indictment secretly. But we have
what we can't let anyone know that it's we got
to look like it's business as usual, Like no, who's
(37:56):
going to stand for that? I don't you know what
I mean? Like the whole We will get more into it,
but it's a very flow mixing the whole narrative behind this.
There's a lot of pieces that would have to fall
into place just so perfectly that just don't make sense
in a logistical way.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Yeah, it's not as unreasonable as a flat earth movement,
for example, for an extreme example. But it's difficult to
discern how all of this could be true at once,
and that's one of the structural problems here for being objective.
But according to QAnon, the US government has been controlled
for decades and decades, maybe more than a century, by
(38:34):
a very close knit group of powerful deep state actors,
and they are only part of a larger picture. The world,
according to q is controlled by a global ring of cannibalistic,
demon worshiping child abusers, a group that is responsible for
everything from the assassination of JFK to the rise of
terrorist groups like ISIS, to the escalation the continual frequency
(38:59):
of domestic mass shootings. And furthermore, they argue that every
single president elected since JFK. Pay attention to that one
Democrat or Republican has been a puppet for this cabal,
with one notable.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Exception, Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yes, give the man a cigar. Yeah, we're not supposed
to smoke cigars. Are you just I never got it.
It always felt too Freudian for me. It's like will
Will Smith, Welcome to Miami.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Welcome to Miami.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
You guys smoke cigars? Wrong?
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I guess you're right. No, we shouldn't teach us the ways.
I mainly just break mine open and put other things
into them. What just kidding, not kidding, I don't know.
I don't care anymore. What I do care about is
that this is all pretty intensely bonkers but also fascinating because,
(39:55):
like you said, Ben, there's so much tea leaf reading
that goes into this. And the way these narratives have
been generated by users, not by Q him or herself,
that was just kind of the red meat, you know,
for the masses to then just go ape over, you know,
and just like swarm over the stuff and create what
(40:16):
do what the Internet does best, which is generate bonkers
conspiracy theories or memes or just you know, baseless claims,
which is what most of this, if not all of this,
absolutely seems to be.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Well that's the problem too, So to continue with this,
The idea is that the president President Trump has been
working behind the scenes to expose the deep seat in
a carefully orchestrated fashion, and all will soon be revealed. Ultimately,
he will send the guilty parties to the quasi black
(40:51):
site known as Guantanamo Bay. And if you ask the
true believers, proof of this is all around you. If
you have the true believers, then the idea is not
whether or not there's proof, but it's why you, a
non believer, insist on having your head in the sand.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yeah, why you can't see it?
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Right, Because of course we've got some examples like the
Muller Report. Right, it turns out Robert Muller and Donald
Trump are secretly close colleagues. They're behind the scenes allies,
and that the Muller Report, while ostensibly investigating Russian interference
in the twenty sixteen US election, in what it was
(41:34):
in reality was an investigation into this deep state, and
that Donald Trump had to performatively cozy up to the
Russian state because that gave Muller the ability to investigate
the real problem, which was the deep state in the
(41:54):
US abroad, which is responsible for everything from Pizzagate to
the twenty seventeen mass shoot in Vegas.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, well, then you bring in the even more recent
stuff with the old Ukraine call with some quidded pro
quo and the whistleblowers who came forward and made everyone
aware of that, to the impeachment proceedings that have been
going on and went on to really to the supporters
of q and on. These are just ways for the
(42:22):
deep state essentially to fight back against the power that
Trump has it just to stimy a little bit his
efforts to reveal all of the truths eventually that he's
going to reveal.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Right, and this is where we get to the idea
of revelation, right, the problem with proof. So first, many
claims made by QAnon had an expiration date. This is
something that this is something that leads to the downfall
of a lot of apocalyptic belief systems right where you know,
(42:54):
we see it tail as old as time. There's a
charismatic cult leader. And I'm not saying this is what
q is and I'm not saying it's a cult. But
in the case of cults, there's a charismatic leader who says,
due to some divine revelation or another, I know that
the world will end on November third, sixteen forty five.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Get to a cave.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
We will be like the sons and daughters of Adam
and Eve strike down the unworthy, you know what I mean?
And then sure enough, the next day comes and the
world keeps spinning on its Mary Mary Sinister way. So
what happens here is that many of the claims made
by QAnon later it turned out to be demonstrably false.
(43:38):
John Podesta was not indicted on November third of twenty seventeen.
Huma Abideen was not indicted on November sixth, twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
That we're aware of, that, we're aware.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Of unless they're wearing those secret ankle bracelets.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
And then what if they actually were wearing ankle bracelets. Guys,
I'm gonna feel so silly, because I genuinely feel like
it's silly. I feel like it it's not possible, but
I've been surprised before.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
I'm gonna be honest and this, you know, I don't
want to say too much personal stuff, but this reminds
me of something. There is a religious aspect to this,
a fervance to it, and this reminds me of you know,
hearing about, like to say, which religions, but hearing about
specific religions with very specific requirements for behavior. Not just
(44:30):
the like don't be a dick stuff that most religions do,
but like very specific religions. And I always used to wonder.
I used to think, you know, what if that's the
one that's true. What if you die and it turns
out that it's just this one specific thing, like it's
a myth raism the whole time, that's what it was.
(44:50):
And I always thought, you know, if I get to
the afterlife, I feel like I'm gonna be one of
those people, as little Larry David about him, like, all right, fine,
you got me. But just to be fair, your pr stinks.
And those are weirdly specific rules, so weird in fact,
that I don't think I'd be comfortable hanging out with
the rest of your gang on the other side of
(45:10):
the gate. Yeah, there you go, Because I like polyesters.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
I was gonna say, you're mixing, you're mixing all that.
So it's pretty leviticoush we're talking about, which is a
great read. I would recommend it, oh yeah to anyone
out there.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
But you see, you see what I'm saying like this,
The problem here is if you're applying critical thinking of
the problem here is in the specificity of the claims, right,
because they can be disproven, and this is something that
QAnon notices and responds to.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
QAnon has said that these false predictions are necessary because
disinformation is necessary. So maybe they're saying, we know that
the bad guys, the deep state is also reading this,
so we need to get them off the trail the
same way, for instance, that in state craft, if you
(46:06):
have a compromised source, like a compromised spy source, a
compromise communication channel, or a compromised computer network, you never
shut it down. Ideally, you go to a redundancy channel, right,
you go to a backup channel, and you keep that
other stuff running, and then you just fill it with crap.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Yeah, exactly, and it's incredible before sorry, I just loved
the idea.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
And then you just fill it with crap. That's true.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
That's seriously what you do.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Uh So, now we know that this the specificity in
terms of the calendar claims. It ended up shooting this
concept in the foot for a lot of people, and
previous believers became somewhat dissillusion. But we also know that
due to the vague nature of those postings and the
(46:55):
sort of zen cone one liner of questions. People who
were proponents of this began saying, well, we can explain
some of the things that appear to be incorrect by
our interpretation, our understanding, our realization of what they're actually
saying in these statements, and now it leads us to
(47:20):
an ugly truth. It may sound like we're it may
sound like we are for some folks being harsh on
the concept of QAnon, But the fact is that the
stuff that has been presented as proof, and has indeed
been presented as the strongest indication of proof or sand
to the story, has just hasn't held up to scrutiny
(47:42):
at this point. Now, if it's wrong, if it turns
out that there are people who are wearing ankle monitor
bracelets and our or anklets or whatever and are just
playing a role in public life until the the I
don't know, the pendulum swings or the hammer falls, and
(48:04):
they all go to guantanamo. If that is true, then
it has been it is being pulled off immaculately. Well, yep,
it would be one of the most successful examples of
cooperation in the recent history of our species.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
You're welcome, right, right, But doing all this behind the scenes, guys,
But you're finally gonna let everyone know it was you.
Huh that it was not me?
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Oh right, classic move.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
But I want to talk about how the reason why
it feels unbelievable to a lot of people, and I
would say somewhat to myself, is because it's trying, or
it's attempting or it has been made to be an
uber conspiracy, like the reason behind everything. Right, all of
the things that are bad that are happening that we're
(48:52):
noticing out there are all a part of.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
This one thing.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Yeah, that's yeah. Did it just is it like that
poem where you know, the reach must exceed the grasp else,
what's a heaven for?
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (49:05):
It maybe went too big because if we look at
the structure of the argument, it did attempt to and
does attempt to incorporate more and more things because it
is crowdsourced. You know, there are there are people who
are getting their own hobby horse in the Q and
(49:26):
on conversation, right, and then they're they're pushing that and
that may actually contradict things that other people are saying,
although they are supposed to be on the same team.
And you know, former supporters have reacted to this by
saying Q itself is compromised, and also fairly persuasive arguments
that Twitter bots or other bots out of Russia got
(49:47):
a hold of the information and mainstreamed it to Twitter,
and the president himself does seem to be at times
tacitly supporting aspects of the theory is retweeted accounts or
statements or statements from accounts that are heavily linked to Q.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Well, and you know, there of course, here we just
have to talk about a lot of a lot of
people pointing out that at rallies, at political events in
the background, you will see quite often Q and On
posters or things that are written that appear to be
in support of the Q and on theory that is
just And then it appears that from an optic standpoint,
(50:24):
President Trump hasn't worked to get that out of his
you know, political events. But again, how would one actually
do that. There are a lot of things, Yeah, there's
a lot in there, and I'm just I'm so sorry.
I want to keep going here really quickly because as
someone and I'm going to speak openly here as someone
who has dismissed this, at least to a certain extent,
(50:52):
I have to acknowledge that the problems, the major problems
that are outlined by q Annon, whoever this person is is,
or whoever you know, whether or not they're compromised or whatever,
the major problems that are outlined there, I know for
a fact are real.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
Give me an example.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
Anyone running in this country for a Democratic or a
Republican in part of the two party system, running for president,
let's say, or high level position or the Senate. They
work on either side of that aisle with the same
many times the exact same money powers that help them
(51:32):
get there.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Sure we also know that giant corporations contribute equal amounts
to both parties. They're hedging their bets depending on who wins,
you know, they want to be on the right side
of whoever is in power.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
I want to go back to something here. There's something
else that I think the mainstream media is missing in
the story of QAnon, and it is this. They're so busy,
you know, harping on the things they're easily dismissible, easily disprovable,
but they're not hitting the primary question, which is why
(52:06):
I think you're gay at here, Matt. It's this. There
is no question that the world of politics operates in
two distinct spheres. First, what you the public, are sold,
and second, what happens behind the curtain. We talked about
this on the show before. It's pretty obvious there tends
to be more to the story than the official narrative states,
especially in high stake situations like state level politics. Do
(52:30):
you think diplomats of countries who hate each other are
not getting together on phone calls and going like, hey man,
you know the other guy was kind of unreasonable, but
let's see what we can work on with this together. Yes,
And then do you think they're not going to public
statements and going like, you know, death to disco or whatever,
and then calling the people who run the disco and saying,
(52:51):
hey man, you know it's kind of rough here, like
could you give me a little let's see what we
can work out. You know, there's negotiation there. And the
problem here is that they're also ignoring the fact that
something like a deep state does exist. It's just not
as monolithic as some theories would have us believe. Is
(53:14):
there a group of just one small group of people
that runs the world. Probably not. Are there dozens of
groups of very powerful people and institutions who feel like
they should run the world. Absolutely corporations right, private equity institutions,
you know what I mean, very insulated ruling families of
(53:37):
one nation or another. These are the things that operate
like the deep states that are talked about here. A
deep state is there's a banality.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
To evil, right, So follow the money, right, follow.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
The money, or follow unelected civil servants who have tremendous
power and have their hands on the levers of government
and may have their own political agendas. Now I'm not
saying they're all out automatically evil. I'm saying that if
you listen to this, you can't elect them, and it's
very difficult for them to get fired. In any case.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
The notion of evil in the situation is kind of
a misnomer. I think it's maybe it's greed or it's
just kind of control, but it's not necessarily inherently evil
by its very nature. It's not trying to rape and
pillage and.
Speaker 3 (54:24):
Have to throw in there. A lot of this theory
has to do with child sex abuse and other abuse
that's in there and other young adults. And we have
found recently no, no, no, last year. Don't that that
stuff is very much real, and powerful people.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Very specific like aberrant, you know, click of powerful people
that believe they deserve whatever it is that they want
and they're creepy fetishes or whatever that they feel like
they are.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Owed are the ones that we've identified. But we've identified.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
But I don't think that. I think the notion that
all powerful people are inherently like pedophilic sex fiends.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Is absolutely not sure. Yeah, no, absolutely that is not true.
That is one hundred percent not true. But like this
show does, and as we explore every time, sometimes it
is true.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
The UK, the Franklin scandal, the Epstein scandal, Belgium, it's
just four Yeah, so this is true, but it's also
it's it is you know, it works really well as
red meat to motivate people because it's something that it's
something that no decent human being would somehow justify, you
(55:34):
know what I mean. Anybody who supported that is a
bad person and also one other thing. So so the
truth is disturbing, right, this didn't come from nothing. There
are people that you will never meet, that you will
never elect, who control more aspects of your life and
the globe than any one person or one institution should However,
(55:55):
without solid proof, we also can't blame critics who say
that q itself was just an Internet troll stringing people
along for the lulls. You remember lulls, Matt.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
I remember the lulls. I got so many lulls, oh man,
and I did most everything for them.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
So there we are. This is the story of QAnon
so far, just a high level look, and you can
read more about it in depth, including specific claims which,
as we said, lead in all sorts of directions. The
idea that Angele Merkel is the daughter of Adolf Hitler,
that Kim Jong un was put in place by the
(56:38):
CIA to start a war if it was needed, that.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
His genetics didn't even factor into.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
It, right, right, And you can see, you can see
all these things. This is a crossover event. This is
also even linking to the Titanic, to the old idea
that JP Morgan sunk it so he can form the
Fed Reserve.
Speaker 3 (56:58):
Guys, it sounds a little bit like somebody took our show,
blasted it out into all these various things, and then
just connected them all back together a little bit, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
Paul was c all along.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
Oh, we were talking at the top of the show
about famous ces. Uh, and I didn't know this. This
is this is the thing that you you you hit
me to. The Q is a clearance level? Does that
mean it's like the number of clearances as Q is
chronologically in the alphabet. Are there that many? Or is
it just like there's like a clearance, C clearance and
then Q clearance?
Speaker 3 (57:34):
Is it just sounds dope, there's an L clearance.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
Q clearance is just the Doees equivalent of what we
would call top secret God of their places.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
But just to be clear, we don't know who Q is,
if it's one person, if it's some kind of weird
copy pasta thing like I mean and we have and
you know, just to the veracity of these claims in
these posts, to me, it sounds mostly like gobbledegook. Is
the way that it's formatted indicative of some kind of
(58:03):
you know, real brief? Is that the way a brief
like this would be disseminated. Do we have any reason
to believe that there's any veracity to these claims that
people are just going so gaga over?
Speaker 3 (58:14):
So?
Speaker 1 (58:15):
The interesting thing about that is there are plenty of
people who do believe that they have cracked the case,
and they believe it based on what they see as
their psychological their ability to divine or decipher the psychology
behind the statements. But to be completely honest, no one,
(58:35):
none of the true believers, unanimously agree on the identity.
Speaker 2 (58:40):
I think it's interesting too when you see reporting about this,
these folks are referred to as followers, which really does
give it like almost this cult like status, which makes
sense because it's based on what essentially amounts to some
sort of weird mystical political scriptures. I said at the
top of the show. It reminds it sounds like a
(59:01):
weird poem because the way it's written is almost like
a riddle or like some kind of strange incantation. Almost.
It does have this very odd religious quality to it.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yeah, there's a doomsday aspect, I think. And at this
point we have to mention that this is ongoing. You
can visit any number of sites now and you can
hear the current debate because despite the fact that numerous
predictions have proven to be untrue, the people do continue
(59:34):
to support this belief, and people do continue to argue
that the things that may appear to be missteps in
policy are purposeful and happening for some reason that will
be revealed at a later date, which has been predicted
numerous times, has never been the correct date, but apparently
(59:55):
may come to pass.
Speaker 2 (59:56):
Yes, how predictions go. And then it's always like that,
I will say in terms of like, how is this
going to continue to linger? I think largely it may
because of the fact that the president keeps retweeting some
of these sources. You know, folks with screen names like
jan bought three five four two two, the kinds of
(01:00:19):
screen names that are typically associated with these, you know,
Russian bots that are disseminating all this misinformation. And we've
talked about this off air. Whether the president I'm sorry
it was debport zero three seven five five zero seven six,
Whether or not the president is purposely trying to disseminate
this to criticize his rivals at any cost, whether or
(01:00:40):
not that cost is pushing dangerous, potentially dangerous misinformation out
to his what seventy million followers, or whether he just
thinks it's cute, funny. He does that often, and he'll
think something's just kind of a funny joke, or you know,
puts egg on the face of one of his political rivals.
I don't know which one it is, but the fact
(01:01:02):
is that over the holiday weekend he retweeted QAnon sources
something like twenty five times, and then kept retweeting responses
to his retweets from other qan on accounts.
Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
That's that's the thing, though, to a twitter like, once
you get once you get hooked in, I'm slapping my
arm with two fingers, and the impression of like addicts.
Once you get hooked into the tweets and the retweets,
you just start retweeting. It's so easy. It's a slippery,
slippery slope.
Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Be careful. Do you guys think he still does his
own tweets? Yes, like just he's got a device. He
refused He's not supposed to, but I believe he refused.
Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
To give it up.
Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Yeah. Recently, recently the President notified notified Congress via social
media that he that his tweets and declarations on social
media did count as official policy declarations or informing Congress.
You can read that. I don't think that tweet will
(01:01:59):
be deleted by the time this comes out. But don't
let the conversation and here, folks, we want to hear
from you. What's your opinion. Is there a q Andon
prediction that did come true? And if so, what we'd
like to hear about it. We'd like to hear about
it from you. You can find us and your fellow
(01:02:19):
listeners on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter. Where are some
derivation of conspiracy stuff where conspiracy stuff show. We highly
recommend our Facebook page. Here's where it gets crazy. And
you know the memes alone, Oh.
Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
It's going to be rife with them after this episode.
I can only imagine. You can head over to Amazon
search q and on and find the dozens of titles
that are based on this this topic. If you wish
to read more or just you know, consult your your
local slash pol slash which stands for politically incorrect. And
(01:02:57):
I know that now and I've learned my lesson and
it's okay. We are going to be fine. If you
don't want to do that stuff, you can find me
on Call of Duty Mobile where I'm st d W
I t K.
Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Wait there's a Call of Duty Mobile?
Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
Yes there is, And I would love to play around
a team deathmatch or domination with you totally into it,
loving it, and I'm I'm pretty good at it, So watch.
Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Out anyone else there. There's a Mario Kart mobile now
it's pretty damn good.
Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
And there's also.
Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Tony Hawk's skate Jam Yeah, which is like sort of
like a mobile version of pro skater Man. These mobile,
these little devices just keep getting stronger and stronger.
Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Well, I believe Call of Duty may be sponsoring this
show soon. That'd be cool, So watch out boys. From
what I hear, what's your weapon of choice? Are you
a groundsman? Are you a snipeman? Snipes snipester? Clearly, I
am not a gamer. I prefer a healthy assault rifle
with a nice scope on it. Got it that's accurate
(01:03:57):
and reliable.
Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
And if you don't Call of Duty you can call
us directly.
Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
We have a phone number as well.
Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
Yes, the number is one eight three three STDW.
Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
It's your duty call.
Speaker 3 (01:04:12):
Yeah, we did it. If you don't want to do
any of that stuff and you want to reach out
to us with anything, any common, any idea that you've
got for another episode, you can write to us, send
us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of Iheartradios. How stuff works For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realists travel back with us in twenty twenty.
During this classic episode, taking place during time of great
unrest is now just called the COVID pandemic, we asked ourselves,
what if the stories and narratives you hear in mainstream
media aren't the entire truth.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
What if there's.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Something else going on? This is the story of q Anon.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Who is q who are q Yeah? And what if
there's something else going on? A secret war between a
shadowy cabal and a small group of brave, outnumbered good
guys fighting back against their insidious plans for world domination.
That's what QAnon folks seem to think. Let's roll the tape.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nola.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission Controlled decad Most importantly, you
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. This is the first episode we are
recording in what the calendars call twenty twenty. So if
you're listening to this, congratulations you've made it at least
(01:33):
to January of that month.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Good for you.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Wait a go, you did a thing.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
We all did it. We're all here.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We are here in some shape or form. I'm already
enjoying the heck out out of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, well mainly I don't know, just personal choice. I
decided I wasn't gonna drink it all in January. It's
the thing people do, the dry January, Dryuary. Yeah, and
I've gotten so much done in six days, it's crazy.
I redecorated my whole house, been working on music again.
I've been just you know, be more present with my kid.
Not that I'm some kind of crazy alcoholic, but it's
easy to forget about the things that actually make you
(02:10):
happy when maybe work is a little stressful. You yes,
you'd rather just like have a couple of drinks with
friends instead. I've been like doing, you know, playing board
games and stuff, and it's great. Now friends come over
to my house and we play NERD games together.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
That's amazing, Noel, And I'm so proud of you for
not letting the current news cycle cause you to go
back to the drink.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I don't know what you're talking about. I've also chosen
to give up watching television, giving up with the news.
Please enlighten me.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Oh, nothing, just something to do with this country that
we've talked about on this show numerous times that is
surrounded on all sides by people that may want to
invade for various reasons. And you know there's just almost
a hot war between our country and that country occurs
invade us, Matt, No, no, anyway, Ben, how you doing good?
(02:58):
You good with a whole Iran situation.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Well, the reason is to congratulations to everyone for making
it to January of twenty twenty. It's because we are
very much in a what it feels like it, day
by day, week by week estimate of the future, which
may change precipitously. Of course, it's often said, at least
by me, that the world is ending for someone somewhere
(03:21):
every day. But you know, Australia is burning down the
ocean acidification that you warned me about years ago. Matt's
that's definitely in play. I have also, I have also
not gone completely dry, but I've been drinking a lot less,
just because I feel like I need to be aware
and alert at all times. Relaxation feels very twenty nineteen
(03:44):
for me.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Oh man, I swear to god, the news cycle is
starting to feel like that movie Children of Men, you know,
like it's very much like a near future dystopia thing
that we're starting to fall into a little bit. I'm
not being super hyper about that. It really if you
just take a minute, listen to the radio, watch TV.
Everything's on fire. It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, Well, let me tell you this and then we'll
I agree, let me tell you this just here. I'll
share this in the room. And this is the first
time I'm talking about this. Uh, and I'm speaking to you.
Person who called ben Nole Paul. We got a really
really wonderful series of calls on our hotline over like
(04:28):
right after the New year. Occurred from a gentleman who
told of how he he knew he had to quit
heroin and the only way he was going to do
it was to get a trusted friend and lock himself
in a place for you know, weeks on end. And
while he was doing that, he found our podcast and
(04:51):
he said, because the time goes by so excruciatingly slowly
during those times. Getting to have our pod cast gave
him a place to it gave him a group of
people essentially with whom to commune without having any kind
of fear of falling back, right, And he said he's
and he ended up getting through the entire show, and
(05:13):
he just thanked us on the phone for for just
existing and for talking.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Congratulations, man, We're glad you're here, right.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, Man, isn't that amazing? It's incredible. He actually had
reached out on Instagram or something, he said he did. Yeah,
but this is an update. That's that's that's new. Well,
we'll really really wonderful.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
We'll share it together just so everyone knows who was
listening to this first time we've actually hung out all
together in a while. But just want to put that
out there. The world, as scary as it seems, as
bad as the news seems, as crazy as the stuff
we're about to talk about, is in the end, we
have each other no, right.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Right, And that's why I wasn't joking when I said
my twenty is off to a really nice start. I'm
feeling pretty positive about things overall, despite the news cycle
and how you know, eminently weird things are getting. I mean,
at the end of the day, all we have our friends,
our loved ones, our families, and the little things that
we have to occupy our minds with to keep from
(06:15):
going completely insane.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
So this is the first episode we're recording in twenty twenty,
hopefully not the last. But you know, you know how
the nature of life is. It's like Ella Musk recently said,
it's a video game where the graphics are amazing, the
tutorials are too long. The problem with life is that
we're all working live right, no one really in charge.
(06:39):
There's not really a plan or is there, Because today
we are diving into one of the strangest, most controversial
conspiracy stories of the aughts, which I mean the recent aughts,
the twenty tens and so on. This is something that
many of our fellow listeners have written to us about
or communicated intro in to us via some platform or another.
(07:03):
As as always, we want to explore these ideas with
with with an emphasis on critical thinking and an emphasis
on the facts versus rumors, et cetera, et cetera. If
this is your first rodeo, you'll see what we mean
very quickly. And again, hopefully it's not your last rodeo.
(07:25):
You've heard the name before. You may have even accidentally
or purposely found yourself embroiled in a conversation about this thing.
But what exactly is q A noon, why has it
become a focal point for a certain genre of conspiracy literature,
and most importantly, what sort of claims do q A
(07:47):
non supporters make? If you are someone like like many
of us listening, who enjoys a bit of googling while
you're while you're listening to the podcast, take note that
q ANN is spelled capital Q capital ann. Anyhow, here
are the facts.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
So to begin this story, we have to jump back
to twenty seventeen, October twenty eighth of that year, and
we have to go to a place called four chan,
a message board, and within that there is a channel
called poll pol politics. And on that date, October twenty eighth,
(08:26):
twenty seventeen, there is a person, a user ostensibly anonymous,
that had the name q Clearance Patriot. And this user
started popping up on that slash pol that message board
and hoo buddy, oh yeah, we're not even going to
get to the message yet. Let's just let's explain some
(08:48):
of this.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, let's take a step back.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
So four Chan, Okay, you've heard about it.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, it's like the armpit of the internet more more
or less. Well, okay, okay, it was once like not
as bad as it has become, but it is certainly
gained a reputation for becoming a place where people can
anonymously spout pretty much whatever.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
They want, as they say in Star Wars, a hive
of scum and villainy. That's what it's been accused of
being in mainstream media.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
It's I would just sput out there and we're going
to talk about this. It is one of the places
that the Internet provides where you can literally say whatever
you want anonymously, right right.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
One of my old colleagues called it one of the
best arguments against free speech in the modern era. Four
Chan is, as you said, an anonymous English language website
or image board. It was created in two thousand and
three by a guy named Christopher Poole going under the
(09:43):
name mootot. You can hear a pretty great summation of
the origin and evolution of four chan on our pure
podcast Tech Stuff by Jonathan Strickland. So you won't get
two into the weeds here. Four Chan was originally, as
of two thousand and three, supposed to be a digital
(10:03):
space wherein anonymous posters could talk about anime and post
images related to anime. But it expanded and ad mission
creep as many things do, and today it's home to
message boards on any number of topics video games, music, politics, sports,
et cetera, et cetera, including some patently disturbing content. The
(10:27):
thing about four chan is, unlike a lot of similar
message boards, you cannot really register. You post anonymously. Threads
with recent replies get bumped to the top of the board,
and then old threads they get less and less attention
or automatically deleted as new ones appear. It's also huge.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
It's a big quick question for you guys as being
a bit of a four Chan nube. I mean, I
know a decent amount about it, but I've never really
interacted with it. Is what makes it different from say Reddit,
Like is it just less moderated or is it a
little more of a free for all?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Are there are moderators on four Chan? But Reddit requires
if you want to post on Reddit, you have to
have a registered name there.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
You go, so it's the anonymity that really sets it apart, right,
got it? So back to its size, It's true, it's
it's massive. Each month the site receives twenty two to
twenty seven million unique visitors, and every day users generate
around eight hundred thousand new posts. And much like Reddit,
(11:32):
you have groups with abbreviations like forward slash pol forward
slash which is the politically incorrect group, and that was starting.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, I would just have to say I incorrectly called
it politics because in my brain I just am in
Reddit world. So apologies, but it's still beans the same. Yeah,
I know, I just know. Don't don't hurt us?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Okay, continue, but again, don't I don't think that. I
think that's a good point, Matt, because I do feel
like Reddit versus Fortune four Chan is inherently a little
more fringy then Reddit. It seems to me, just as
an outsider, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
The fringe doth exist everywhere.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
That's very true. It seems like it's a little more
nurtured by the fact that you're able to post anonymously.
For sure. It was essentially a reboot of four chan's
news board new Slash new which had been deleted in
January twenty eleven because of flagrant racism.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Of a specific type as well, which was a white
supremacist type, far far right wing kind of racism. So
let's put that info to the side just for now.
All you need to remember is Pole exists as troubled history.
It's been repeatedly cited as a hub for racism, sexism,
(12:50):
neo Nazi ideology, and so on.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
You mean politically incorrect stuff, guys, right, And let's also
remember that you or Q a non as we explore
the evolution here, also became known as the Storm or
the Great Awakening.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
And the reason why is, oddly enough, it is clearly
traceable to a single incident in involving what many people
thought to be an offhand, sort of throwaway remark by
the current president of the United States.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
So let's just go back. October twenty eighth is when
Q clearance patriot shows up. Correct. October twenty eighth, twenty seventeen,
now twenty three days prior to that. On October fifth,
twenty seventeen, President Trump he made some comments while he
was hanging out in front of a bunch of reporters. Yeah,
(13:49):
they're taking a publicity photo with a ton of high
level military officials. They had a special gathering. They were
taking this photo and they're all standing around. Several people,
well you know, it's mostly photographers, but several are running
video and there's video of this you can watch right now.
This is a quote from President Trump. Do you guys
know what this represents? Maybe it's the calm before the storm?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
What what storm, mister President on Iran? Or isis? Or
what what's the storm?
Speaker 3 (14:20):
We've got the worlds As a continuing the quote, we've
got the world's great military people in this room. I
will tell you that we're gonna have a great meeting.
Thank you all for coming.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
What storm, mister president.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
You'll find out now just think about that.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
That's all it was. But it was in it's a
little longer than that. We're paraphrasing here, but that is.
Those are the exact quotes. This maybe is the calm
before the storm. And oh you'll find out when he's
asked what it is. It was a very vague statement.
And here's the deal that we need to kind of
note here. So in the context in October early October
(14:58):
twenty seventeen. They were all a lot of rumors floating around.
There were people talking in Washington, DC quite extensively about
whether or not the Iran nuclear Deal, which was negotiated
by President Trump's predecessor, President Obama, was on the table
as possibly being changed or altered or pulled out of
(15:19):
or there was there were rumors that something was going
to change there with regards to Iran.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Right, Yeah, yeah, that perhaps the administration at the time
would decertify or pull out of the nuclear deal.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yes, And he's in a room full of the top
military officials who would be concerned about that and or
you know, have something to say.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
But also to be fair, something like you'll find out is,
you know, it's not a declaration of policy at all.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
He's kind of fond of making those little wink wink,
nudge nudge kind of statements and a feeling like there's
you know, something big or at play than is on
the surface.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
It's a you know what it is, it's a statement
that makes you come back after the commercial break. That's right,
Does that make sense? Like it totally speaks to his his.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Uh, yeah, he's definitely you know, from his experience working
in television. He's got, he knows how to he knows
how to have a cliffhanger.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
It's also a bit of a it's it's also a
bit of a way to end a conversation. You know,
we have to I have to go. Yes, I have
a pretty busy schedule, just to be absolutely fair. And
this this gained uh, some some weight, some gravity online
(16:43):
in like a more serious version of cofefe, you know.
So it does represent a theme that we see pretty often,
which is it made people uncertain. To the point you
guys are making, there was a cliffhanger, but there wasn't
really a follow up at least on the president's end
(17:03):
at that point.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
That's right, and the connection we're about to draw as
well could be entirely coincidental. Doesn't want to put that
out there right now.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So in this case, that quotation, that single that single
dialogue seems to have not just bread speculation, but inspired
what is nowadays referred to an internet shorthand as q
or q andon. So what exactly is QAnon saying.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Here, mister president? What is q on saying?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
You'll find out.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
After a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Here's where it gets crazy. So once the quote is
out there, Q Clearance Patriot, the nickname, by the way,
is a reference to Q level security clearance, which is
a real thing in the Department of Energy. It's the
equivalent of top secret way. Q Clearance Patriot begins posting,
and we have the text of the first post made
(18:07):
by the entity claiming to be Q Clearance Patriot. We
can read it to you. We want to note that
it may feel a little bit obtuse. N G in
the following message stands for National Guard and HRC stands
for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
HRC extradition already in motion effective yesterday with several countries
in case of cross border run passport approved to be
flagged effective ten thirty at twelve oh one am. Expect
massive riots organized in defiance and others fleeing the US
to occur. US MS will conduct the operation while MNG
(18:44):
activated proof check, locate an NG member and ask if
activated for duty ten thirty across most major cities. I
don't think we explained MS.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, US Marines. So the idea here is that Hillary
Clinton is going to be extra guided and that somewhere yeah,
and then multiple countries are girding up their security to
prevent this person from getting successfully to another country or
(19:15):
a non extradition treaty country, that the passport will be
flagged rendered invalid. That's what that means. That there will
be massive riots that are heavily implied to be planned,
you know, kind of AstroTurf riots, so not the actual
people rising up, and that others, which would people would
later say were other democratic and democratic politicians leaders so on,
(19:41):
that they would be fleeing the US, and that marines
would conduct this mass arrest or this culling starrywhen Clinton,
and that the National Guard will be activated to be
kind of like the backup the reserves.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
So what's the implication here? The implication is that a
lot of high level democrats are about to be rounded
up and arrest and arrested and potentially indicted.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
For what, well, for the many crimes though for the many,
many crimes. That's that's the implication. But this is just
the first post. This is the first of what would
later be called breadcrumbs. And the thing is that Q
would claim access to secret information and followed up with
another post a few a few hours later, just hours later, and.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Because he's again he's this is on he's warning about
ten twenty he's posting on ten twenty.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Eight rights right, which we'll see as a pattern.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
And so Q in his next post writes a little
bit more coherently, but the language is replete with what
appear to be coded phrases. So Q is saying that
Clinton has already been detained by authorities and that Donald
Trump was aware of this, knew that criminal rogue elements,
(20:59):
including Clinton, had to be arrested. And then he also
references several other people popular in conspiracy theories, such as
the billionaire philanthropist George Soros. You know, regardless of what
you feel about the specifics of the allegations about against
George Soros, we would all agree billionaire philanthropists are potentially
(21:23):
supervillains just in general, we have the capacity to be so.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
So, do you want to read an example of one
of these posts? Yeah? No, one, I mean, just to
give us a little more.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
And then we can This one's a little juicier too.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah. So this is again made on the twenty eighth
of October twenty seventeen. Here it goes, you ready, mockingbird
HRC detained not arrested yet? Where is Huma follow Huma
and that, of course is Huma Abadeen that we've talked
about before in this show, with the emails in particular
(21:58):
and as well as with reference to her former husband.
I want to say, here we go, let's continue. This
has nothing to do with Russia yet. Why does Potis
surround himself with generals? What is military intelligence? What is
military intelligence? Guys? Okay, let's continue. Why go around the
three letter agencies?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
This reads like a very strange poem.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yes, what Supreme Court case allows for the use of
m I versus Congressional assembled and approved agencies? Who has
the ultimate authority over our branches of military without approval
conditions unless ninety plus in wartime conditions? What is the
military code? Where is AW being held? Why AW?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Anthony Wiener? No? Is that Andrew.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
The problem?
Speaker 3 (22:49):
But who knows?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Potis will not go on TV to address nation? Potis
must isolate himself to prevent negative optics. Potis knew removing
critical rogue elements as a first step. Was this central
to free and pass legislation? Who has access to everything classified?
Do you believe HRC Soros, Obama et cetera have more
power than Trump fantasy. Whoever controls the Office of the
(23:13):
Presidency controls this great land. They never believed for a
moment they Democrats and Republicans would lose control. This is
not RVD battle. Why did Soros donate all his money recently?
Why would he place all his funds in a rc
RC anyone rent control? Now I'm just kidding. I don't
know what RC is. Mockingbird ten thirty seventeen, God bless
(23:35):
fellow patriots.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Is that a Hunger Games references? That's the mocking Oh yeah,
so what's mockingbird? This is?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
This is first off, this is a pure sugar rush,
right for some pupil on fourtchan, this is candy now.
I also, I was reading this when this came out,
and I got so into it. I thought, you know,
I don't care if it's real, because we'll get to it.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
There's a problem.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
There's a problem with identity. You know, it's like this,
even if it's just mimetic. You know, people who have
enough knowledge of the reference points here can begin to
dive down the rabbit hole. So for people who already
deep into the world of conspiracy, especially those trending toward
the far right, fringe stuff. It's called they they were
(24:23):
elated and probably no small part terrified Operation Mockingbird. You're askmout, Well,
it's a reference to a real life CIA program to
blackmail journalists and control propaganda narrators, and that that thing
actually happened. And it is true that the laws preventing
(24:44):
the legal dissemination of US propaganda in the domestic sphere
have been rescinded.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, it's free reign, baby, what a time.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
And this this also references, like you said, Matt, it
references the idea that Huma Aberdeen, the former Clinton staffer,
was secretly working for the Muslim Brotherhood, which has the
nicest way it says, it has not been proven true.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yeah, and well, just referencing Huma is kind of one
of those triggers at that time, at least in twenty seventeen,
and a little prior to that, a trigger word that's
like and again it's just this, like you said, this
is candy, Ben, where all of these little things, these
little references just can send you down a rabbit hole.
A single one of them could. And this is basically
(25:37):
arming you with a handful of skittles. You're so right
about that reference. But okay, and here's the deal with
a post like this, It's not just a single post.
It exists within, you know, this ecosystem of everybody else
being able to ask a question like and again you're
kind of answering all of these questions because this is
(25:59):
all questions, almost almost ninety percent questions that are being
raised here in this post.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Right, but like leading questions kind of too.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Right, Well yeah, but it's also it's just it's it's
fairly odd but intriguing. Right, But what happened was this
started a movement.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Right, yeah, so Q the poster right is different from
the group to a nod yes, which is the supporters
of this idea later grew into what would be known
as the Storm or the Great Awakening. And this this
grew from fertile soil. Remember this follows on the heels
(26:43):
of things like Pizzagate, wherein where various folks were arguing,
based on some emails, that there was a secret cabal
of child abusers, a child abuse ring that was connected
to Hillary Clinton, that was operating out of a basement
(27:03):
in a pizza chain. Problem being the actual pizza restaurant
does not have a basement.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
But just the same. A believer of that particular conspiracy theory,
a guy by the name of Edgar Madison Welch went
into this pizza place, very popular political pizza hangout, and
supposed child sex dungeon. He went in there and shot
the place up. He didn't like kill anybody, but he
(27:30):
shut the lock off of a I believe it was
a door that was meant to lead down into the
secret basement, but there was no evidence of this ever uncovered.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, went to a closet actually, yeah, where he damaged
the computer.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
It is interesting how we don't have to get into
it too deeply, but Pizzagate, the way it evolved, we
were looking at it very closely as it was evolving,
and for it to focus on that one pizza restaurant
that we're not aiming here. By the way, we know
the name of it, we're not naming it here just
(28:03):
in case, just for whatever reason, people feel that you
how you may feel. But it was odd that these
emails that were all you know, leaked from it was
from the Hillary Clinton email breach and leak that came out.
Most of the people on those chains were Democrats, not
(28:25):
all of them, but most of them or high level
officials or assistance too high level officials, and the stuff
that was construed or misconstrued or you know, taken from
those emails. There was some odd stuff in there, and
I would be the first to say there was definitely
some odd stuff in there. But you can see it's
(28:48):
such a good example of how you get a little
bit of information or maybe a tiny peek into a
window or a flashlight's view in the darkness, and that's
all you see, and then you're assuming what is on
the other side that you can't see. That's we're kind
of going down that path already with just what QAnon
has said or with what q Clearance Patriot is.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
And we all already see the emphasis on creating connective tissue, yes,
on discerning and following and then ultimately predicting a pattern
an order of operations. But before we get to that,
you know, this is nested like Matroskdal's here. But before
we get to that, there's a problem of identity. Remember
(29:33):
how earlier we noted the strong anonymity on four Chan.
Q was aware of this and so attempted to provide
proof of his or her or their claims. They posted
images you can see online that some redditors, especially on
the our Conspiracy subreddit, believed confirmed Q was physically present
(29:55):
on Air Force one and thus was receiving this information
from none other than the current commander in chief, and
some followers started to argue about the true identity of Q.
You would see all kinds of all kinds of allegations.
Probably the most out there were that first Donald Trump
(30:18):
or Trump Junior were themselves Q, or that JFK Jr.
Faked his death to get away from the Deep State
and is himself.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Q to tell the truth about the Deep State.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
But now that we've set up all this background and
told you how the story began, what the origin point was,
and you can see a little bit about the explosive growth,
we have to ask ourselves what is q anon saying?
What are the claims? We'll tell you after a word
from our sponsor, and we're back, maybe a little bit
(31:01):
of a movie voice. In a world controlled by cannibals,
Satan worshipers, elite child abusers, only one man has the
I don't know, I'm falling off. Only one person. There's
an oubie Wan who is the only hope in this story,
(31:24):
and it's it is President Trump in this In this narrative,
the fact that Trump was formerly a Democrat and then
later a Republican is seen as proof that he belongs
to neither party, who are of course, both painted as
puppets on the hands of global elite. And Trump is
(31:46):
fighting an internal war, according again to QAnon, and has
to be protected by the military because the Secret Service,
the FBI, the CIA, the rest of the alphabet soup
has all been compromised.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
And yeah, compromised, and largely it's difficult to move those powers,
like the individuals that have power in those institutions, right right,
even though you've seen him cycle through several sure.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, yeah, and you've seen the narrative change too, But
he's saying, yes, that the alphabet souperintelligence agencies, they're all
Cerosian for lack of a better word. And then going
back to this question which you asked, No about the format,
because q's postings often do take that cryptic question format,
(32:35):
and so people who follow this Q and honors following
this will say that each question is some sort of
hint or a clue or a riddle containing some hidden
truth about the real nature of global governance, and that
astute minds can divine the meaning behind these postings.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
For me, it's almost like a puzzle game that if
you can answer one of the questions, then you can
and then you answer the next one, and then you
realize how those are connected, and then it just goes
down like.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
One. Yeah right, but like there's no rhyme or reason
to it. I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm being
abduced here. Actually that's the word you use, Ben, I
think quite astutely when you're talking about the way some
of these posts read. And I think I said some
of them came off as leading questions. Some of them do, like,
for example, who has ultimate authority over our branches of military?
(33:32):
Who approves conditions unless ninety plus in wartime conditions? I mean,
that's sort of trying to push you to think a thing.
And some of them are super open ended. So if
there's a puzzle here, where's the solution? It seems like
a lot of projection going on.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's they're they're called breadcrumbs because
there's ought to be these tidbits of information, right, and
they're forming a trail that picture. You know, one of
my favorite sunny in Philadelphia moments when Charlie Day is
obsessed with the discovery of Pepe Lopez, remember, and he's
standing there and he's like chain smoking and pointing to
(34:10):
his conspiracy board. I think you're absolutely right here in that.
It reminds me a little bit of people who claim
to have interpreted Nostradamis. You know, there's a bit of
tea leaf reading that comes into this.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
You know, there was.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Without without verification or more explicit statements by Q itself.
Even assuming that we could prove Q s Q. You
can make those initials mean anything you want. Sure, RC
could be rent control. It could also be la right,
(34:48):
it could also be control. It could be robocow, you know,
or yeah, could be straight up. I don't know why
I went over the cop for the cow. I'm very
well aware of the yaz well, but you see what
I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
I see exactly what you're saying. And this kind of writing,
and what it does is it allows the interpreter, so
an end user, somebody who reads it who is loud
and influential enough to then say this is what that means,
and then that person almost gets more power or is
able to translate it in a way that then a
(35:27):
massive amount of people believes it has been translated.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yes, And there's another aspect here which I think if
we're thinking critically, we have to be even more skeptical
about at this point. There's another aspect wherein some some
people who purport to believe in the QAnon stuff will
say that they're not just they're not just correctly interpreting
the statements they find on four Chan related forums, they're
(35:53):
also interpreting the actions of the president, the physical individual,
and his own actions that would seem innocuous to mainstream media.
There's this one, for instance, there's this one moment in
a meeting where he is sitting next to the vice
president and I believe he takes a bottle of Fiji water,
(36:16):
drinks it, and then puts it on the floor.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Yeah, So there.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Were people arguing that this was not just someone handling
a water bottle, that this was a nonverbal signal that
he was planning to take down a child abuse ring
in guess where the Bahamas good close. They're both on
the planet Fiji.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
And when we get to that level of subjectivity, it's
tough to prove anything, you know, and that's the devilish
part about that, because barring a statement from the actual
president saying yeah, that's why I did it, or no,
oh I just put the water there, you know, there's
(37:03):
there's no proof. And then also even if people could
just choose to say the guy is line or he's dissembling.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I had said a thing before the first break of
the idea of Trump's offhanded statements about the storm the
coming storm, that that could well have been a complete
coincidence as related to this movement. But I think it's
the other way around. Actually, I think this movement hopped
on that innocuous ish statement and then created this notion
of the coming reckoning or whatever. I believe. We talked
(37:33):
about these high level officials that were corralled and rounded
up secretly, and supposedly they've all been fitted with ankle
monitors because they're already under indictment secretly. But we have
what we can't let anyone know that it's we got
to look like it's business as usual, Like no, who's
(37:56):
going to stand for that? I don't you know what
I mean? Like the whole We will get more into it,
but it's a very flow mixing the whole narrative behind this.
There's a lot of pieces that would have to fall
into place just so perfectly that just don't make sense
in a logistical way.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Yeah, it's not as unreasonable as a flat earth movement,
for example, for an extreme example. But it's difficult to
discern how all of this could be true at once,
and that's one of the structural problems here for being objective.
But according to QAnon, the US government has been controlled
for decades and decades, maybe more than a century, by
(38:34):
a very close knit group of powerful deep state actors,
and they are only part of a larger picture. The world,
according to q is controlled by a global ring of cannibalistic,
demon worshiping child abusers, a group that is responsible for
everything from the assassination of JFK to the rise of
terrorist groups like ISIS, to the escalation the continual frequency
(38:59):
of domestic mass shootings. And furthermore, they argue that every
single president elected since JFK. Pay attention to that one
Democrat or Republican has been a puppet for this cabal,
with one notable.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Exception, Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yes, give the man a cigar. Yeah, we're not supposed
to smoke cigars. Are you just I never got it.
It always felt too Freudian for me. It's like will
Will Smith, Welcome to Miami.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Welcome to Miami.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
You guys smoke cigars? Wrong?
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I guess you're right. No, we shouldn't teach us the ways.
I mainly just break mine open and put other things
into them. What just kidding, not kidding, I don't know.
I don't care anymore. What I do care about is
that this is all pretty intensely bonkers but also fascinating because,
(39:55):
like you said, Ben, there's so much tea leaf reading
that goes into this. And the way these narratives have
been generated by users, not by Q him or herself,
that was just kind of the red meat, you know,
for the masses to then just go ape over, you know,
and just like swarm over the stuff and create what
(40:16):
do what the Internet does best, which is generate bonkers
conspiracy theories or memes or just you know, baseless claims,
which is what most of this, if not all of this,
absolutely seems to be.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Well that's the problem too, So to continue with this,
The idea is that the president President Trump has been
working behind the scenes to expose the deep seat in
a carefully orchestrated fashion, and all will soon be revealed. Ultimately,
he will send the guilty parties to the quasi black
(40:51):
site known as Guantanamo Bay. And if you ask the
true believers, proof of this is all around you. If
you have the true believers, then the idea is not
whether or not there's proof, but it's why you, a
non believer, insist on having your head in the sand.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yeah, why you can't see it?
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Right, Because of course we've got some examples like the
Muller Report. Right, it turns out Robert Muller and Donald
Trump are secretly close colleagues. They're behind the scenes allies,
and that the Muller Report, while ostensibly investigating Russian interference
in the twenty sixteen US election, in what it was
(41:34):
in reality was an investigation into this deep state, and
that Donald Trump had to performatively cozy up to the
Russian state because that gave Muller the ability to investigate
the real problem, which was the deep state in the
(41:54):
US abroad, which is responsible for everything from Pizzagate to
the twenty seventeen mass shoot in Vegas.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, well, then you bring in the even more recent
stuff with the old Ukraine call with some quidded pro
quo and the whistleblowers who came forward and made everyone
aware of that, to the impeachment proceedings that have been
going on and went on to really to the supporters
of q and on. These are just ways for the
(42:22):
deep state essentially to fight back against the power that
Trump has it just to stimy a little bit his
efforts to reveal all of the truths eventually that he's
going to reveal.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Right, and this is where we get to the idea
of revelation, right, the problem with proof. So first, many
claims made by QAnon had an expiration date. This is
something that this is something that leads to the downfall
of a lot of apocalyptic belief systems right where you know,
(42:54):
we see it tail as old as time. There's a
charismatic cult leader. And I'm not saying this is what
q is and I'm not saying it's a cult. But
in the case of cults, there's a charismatic leader who says,
due to some divine revelation or another, I know that
the world will end on November third, sixteen forty five.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Get to a cave.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
We will be like the sons and daughters of Adam
and Eve strike down the unworthy, you know what I mean?
And then sure enough, the next day comes and the
world keeps spinning on its Mary Mary Sinister way. So
what happens here is that many of the claims made
by QAnon later it turned out to be demonstrably false.
(43:38):
John Podesta was not indicted on November third of twenty seventeen.
Huma Abideen was not indicted on November sixth, twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
That we're aware of, that, we're aware.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Of unless they're wearing those secret ankle bracelets.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
And then what if they actually were wearing ankle bracelets. Guys,
I'm gonna feel so silly, because I genuinely feel like
it's silly. I feel like it it's not possible, but
I've been surprised before.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
I'm gonna be honest and this, you know, I don't
want to say too much personal stuff, but this reminds
me of something. There is a religious aspect to this,
a fervance to it, and this reminds me of you know,
hearing about, like to say, which religions, but hearing about
specific religions with very specific requirements for behavior. Not just
(44:30):
the like don't be a dick stuff that most religions do,
but like very specific religions. And I always used to wonder.
I used to think, you know, what if that's the
one that's true. What if you die and it turns
out that it's just this one specific thing, like it's
a myth raism the whole time, that's what it was.
(44:50):
And I always thought, you know, if I get to
the afterlife, I feel like I'm gonna be one of
those people, as little Larry David about him, like, all right, fine,
you got me. But just to be fair, your pr stinks.
And those are weirdly specific rules, so weird in fact,
that I don't think I'd be comfortable hanging out with
the rest of your gang on the other side of
(45:10):
the gate. Yeah, there you go, Because I like polyesters.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
I was gonna say, you're mixing, you're mixing all that.
So it's pretty leviticoush we're talking about, which is a
great read. I would recommend it, oh yeah to anyone
out there.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
But you see, you see what I'm saying like this,
The problem here is if you're applying critical thinking of
the problem here is in the specificity of the claims, right,
because they can be disproven, and this is something that
QAnon notices and responds to.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
QAnon has said that these false predictions are necessary because
disinformation is necessary. So maybe they're saying, we know that
the bad guys, the deep state is also reading this,
so we need to get them off the trail the
same way, for instance, that in state craft, if you
(46:06):
have a compromised source, like a compromised spy source, a
compromise communication channel, or a compromised computer network, you never
shut it down. Ideally, you go to a redundancy channel, right,
you go to a backup channel, and you keep that
other stuff running, and then you just fill it with crap.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Yeah, exactly, and it's incredible before sorry, I just loved
the idea.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
And then you just fill it with crap. That's true.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
That's seriously what you do.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Uh So, now we know that this the specificity in
terms of the calendar claims. It ended up shooting this
concept in the foot for a lot of people, and
previous believers became somewhat dissillusion. But we also know that
due to the vague nature of those postings and the
(46:55):
sort of zen cone one liner of questions. People who
were proponents of this began saying, well, we can explain
some of the things that appear to be incorrect by
our interpretation, our understanding, our realization of what they're actually
saying in these statements, and now it leads us to
(47:20):
an ugly truth. It may sound like we're it may
sound like we are for some folks being harsh on
the concept of QAnon, But the fact is that the
stuff that has been presented as proof, and has indeed
been presented as the strongest indication of proof or sand
to the story, has just hasn't held up to scrutiny
(47:42):
at this point. Now, if it's wrong, if it turns
out that there are people who are wearing ankle monitor
bracelets and our or anklets or whatever and are just
playing a role in public life until the the I
don't know, the pendulum swings or the hammer falls, and
(48:04):
they all go to guantanamo. If that is true, then
it has been it is being pulled off immaculately. Well, yep,
it would be one of the most successful examples of
cooperation in the recent history of our species.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
You're welcome, right, right, But doing all this behind the scenes, guys,
But you're finally gonna let everyone know it was you.
Huh that it was not me?
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Oh right, classic move.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
But I want to talk about how the reason why
it feels unbelievable to a lot of people, and I
would say somewhat to myself, is because it's trying, or
it's attempting or it has been made to be an
uber conspiracy, like the reason behind everything. Right, all of
the things that are bad that are happening that we're
(48:52):
noticing out there are all a part of.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
This one thing.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Yeah, that's yeah. Did it just is it like that
poem where you know, the reach must exceed the grasp else,
what's a heaven for?
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (49:05):
It maybe went too big because if we look at
the structure of the argument, it did attempt to and
does attempt to incorporate more and more things because it
is crowdsourced. You know, there are there are people who
are getting their own hobby horse in the Q and
(49:26):
on conversation, right, and then they're they're pushing that and
that may actually contradict things that other people are saying,
although they are supposed to be on the same team.
And you know, former supporters have reacted to this by
saying Q itself is compromised, and also fairly persuasive arguments
that Twitter bots or other bots out of Russia got
(49:47):
a hold of the information and mainstreamed it to Twitter,
and the president himself does seem to be at times
tacitly supporting aspects of the theory is retweeted accounts or
statements or statements from accounts that are heavily linked to Q.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Well, and you know, there of course, here we just
have to talk about a lot of a lot of
people pointing out that at rallies, at political events in
the background, you will see quite often Q and On
posters or things that are written that appear to be
in support of the Q and on theory that is
just And then it appears that from an optic standpoint,
(50:24):
President Trump hasn't worked to get that out of his
you know, political events. But again, how would one actually
do that. There are a lot of things, Yeah, there's
a lot in there, and I'm just I'm so sorry.
I want to keep going here really quickly because as
someone and I'm going to speak openly here as someone
who has dismissed this, at least to a certain extent,
(50:52):
I have to acknowledge that the problems, the major problems
that are outlined by q Annon, whoever this person is is,
or whoever you know, whether or not they're compromised or whatever,
the major problems that are outlined there, I know for
a fact are real.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
Give me an example.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
Anyone running in this country for a Democratic or a
Republican in part of the two party system, running for president,
let's say, or high level position or the Senate. They
work on either side of that aisle with the same
many times the exact same money powers that help them
(51:32):
get there.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Sure we also know that giant corporations contribute equal amounts
to both parties. They're hedging their bets depending on who wins,
you know, they want to be on the right side
of whoever is in power.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
I want to go back to something here. There's something
else that I think the mainstream media is missing in
the story of QAnon, and it is this. They're so busy,
you know, harping on the things they're easily dismissible, easily disprovable,
but they're not hitting the primary question, which is why
(52:06):
I think you're gay at here, Matt. It's this. There
is no question that the world of politics operates in
two distinct spheres. First, what you the public, are sold,
and second, what happens behind the curtain. We talked about
this on the show before. It's pretty obvious there tends
to be more to the story than the official narrative states,
especially in high stake situations like state level politics. Do
(52:30):
you think diplomats of countries who hate each other are
not getting together on phone calls and going like, hey man,
you know the other guy was kind of unreasonable, but
let's see what we can work on with this together. Yes,
And then do you think they're not going to public
statements and going like, you know, death to disco or whatever,
and then calling the people who run the disco and saying,
(52:51):
hey man, you know it's kind of rough here, like
could you give me a little let's see what we
can work out. You know, there's negotiation there. And the
problem here is that they're also ignoring the fact that
something like a deep state does exist. It's just not
as monolithic as some theories would have us believe. Is
(53:14):
there a group of just one small group of people
that runs the world. Probably not. Are there dozens of
groups of very powerful people and institutions who feel like
they should run the world. Absolutely corporations right, private equity institutions,
you know what I mean, very insulated ruling families of
(53:37):
one nation or another. These are the things that operate
like the deep states that are talked about here. A
deep state is there's a banality.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
To evil, right, So follow the money, right, follow.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
The money, or follow unelected civil servants who have tremendous
power and have their hands on the levers of government
and may have their own political agendas. Now I'm not
saying they're all out automatically evil. I'm saying that if
you listen to this, you can't elect them, and it's
very difficult for them to get fired. In any case.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
The notion of evil in the situation is kind of
a misnomer. I think it's maybe it's greed or it's
just kind of control, but it's not necessarily inherently evil
by its very nature. It's not trying to rape and
pillage and.
Speaker 3 (54:24):
Have to throw in there. A lot of this theory
has to do with child sex abuse and other abuse
that's in there and other young adults. And we have
found recently no, no, no, last year. Don't that that
stuff is very much real, and powerful people.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Very specific like aberrant, you know, click of powerful people
that believe they deserve whatever it is that they want
and they're creepy fetishes or whatever that they feel like
they are.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Owed are the ones that we've identified. But we've identified.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
But I don't think that. I think the notion that
all powerful people are inherently like pedophilic sex fiends.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Is absolutely not sure. Yeah, no, absolutely that is not true.
That is one hundred percent not true. But like this
show does, and as we explore every time, sometimes it
is true.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
The UK, the Franklin scandal, the Epstein scandal, Belgium, it's
just four Yeah, so this is true, but it's also
it's it is you know, it works really well as
red meat to motivate people because it's something that it's
something that no decent human being would somehow justify, you
(55:34):
know what I mean. Anybody who supported that is a
bad person and also one other thing. So so the
truth is disturbing, right, this didn't come from nothing. There
are people that you will never meet, that you will
never elect, who control more aspects of your life and
the globe than any one person or one institution should However,
(55:55):
without solid proof, we also can't blame critics who say
that q itself was just an Internet troll stringing people
along for the lulls. You remember lulls, Matt.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
I remember the lulls. I got so many lulls, oh man,
and I did most everything for them.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
So there we are. This is the story of QAnon
so far, just a high level look, and you can
read more about it in depth, including specific claims which,
as we said, lead in all sorts of directions. The
idea that Angele Merkel is the daughter of Adolf Hitler,
that Kim Jong un was put in place by the
(56:38):
CIA to start a war if it was needed, that.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
His genetics didn't even factor into.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
It, right, right, And you can see, you can see
all these things. This is a crossover event. This is
also even linking to the Titanic, to the old idea
that JP Morgan sunk it so he can form the
Fed Reserve.
Speaker 3 (56:58):
Guys, it sounds a little bit like somebody took our show,
blasted it out into all these various things, and then
just connected them all back together a little bit, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
Paul was c all along.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
Oh, we were talking at the top of the show
about famous ces. Uh, and I didn't know this. This
is this is the thing that you you you hit
me to. The Q is a clearance level? Does that
mean it's like the number of clearances as Q is
chronologically in the alphabet. Are there that many? Or is
it just like there's like a clearance, C clearance and
then Q clearance?
Speaker 3 (57:34):
Is it just sounds dope, there's an L clearance.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
Q clearance is just the Doees equivalent of what we
would call top secret God of their places.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
But just to be clear, we don't know who Q is,
if it's one person, if it's some kind of weird
copy pasta thing like I mean and we have and
you know, just to the veracity of these claims in
these posts, to me, it sounds mostly like gobbledegook. Is
the way that it's formatted indicative of some kind of
(58:03):
you know, real brief? Is that the way a brief
like this would be disseminated. Do we have any reason
to believe that there's any veracity to these claims that
people are just going so gaga over?
Speaker 3 (58:14):
So?
Speaker 1 (58:15):
The interesting thing about that is there are plenty of
people who do believe that they have cracked the case,
and they believe it based on what they see as
their psychological their ability to divine or decipher the psychology
behind the statements. But to be completely honest, no one,
(58:35):
none of the true believers, unanimously agree on the identity.
Speaker 2 (58:40):
I think it's interesting too when you see reporting about this,
these folks are referred to as followers, which really does
give it like almost this cult like status, which makes
sense because it's based on what essentially amounts to some
sort of weird mystical political scriptures. I said at the
top of the show. It reminds it sounds like a
(59:01):
weird poem because the way it's written is almost like
a riddle or like some kind of strange incantation. Almost.
It does have this very odd religious quality to it.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yeah, there's a doomsday aspect, I think. And at this
point we have to mention that this is ongoing. You
can visit any number of sites now and you can
hear the current debate because despite the fact that numerous
predictions have proven to be untrue, the people do continue
(59:34):
to support this belief, and people do continue to argue
that the things that may appear to be missteps in
policy are purposeful and happening for some reason that will
be revealed at a later date, which has been predicted
numerous times, has never been the correct date, but apparently
(59:55):
may come to pass.
Speaker 2 (59:56):
Yes, how predictions go. And then it's always like that,
I will say in terms of like, how is this
going to continue to linger? I think largely it may
because of the fact that the president keeps retweeting some
of these sources. You know, folks with screen names like
jan bought three five four two two, the kinds of
(01:00:19):
screen names that are typically associated with these, you know,
Russian bots that are disseminating all this misinformation. And we've
talked about this off air. Whether the president I'm sorry
it was debport zero three seven five five zero seven six,
Whether or not the president is purposely trying to disseminate
this to criticize his rivals at any cost, whether or
(01:00:40):
not that cost is pushing dangerous, potentially dangerous misinformation out
to his what seventy million followers, or whether he just
thinks it's cute, funny. He does that often, and he'll
think something's just kind of a funny joke, or you know,
puts egg on the face of one of his political rivals.
I don't know which one it is, but the fact
(01:01:02):
is that over the holiday weekend he retweeted QAnon sources
something like twenty five times, and then kept retweeting responses
to his retweets from other qan on accounts.
Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
That's that's the thing, though, to a twitter like, once
you get once you get hooked in, I'm slapping my
arm with two fingers, and the impression of like addicts.
Once you get hooked into the tweets and the retweets,
you just start retweeting. It's so easy. It's a slippery,
slippery slope.
Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Be careful. Do you guys think he still does his
own tweets? Yes, like just he's got a device. He
refused He's not supposed to, but I believe he refused.
Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
To give it up.
Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Yeah. Recently, recently the President notified notified Congress via social
media that he that his tweets and declarations on social
media did count as official policy declarations or informing Congress.
You can read that. I don't think that tweet will
(01:01:59):
be deleted by the time this comes out. But don't
let the conversation and here, folks, we want to hear
from you. What's your opinion. Is there a q Andon
prediction that did come true? And if so, what we'd
like to hear about it. We'd like to hear about
it from you. You can find us and your fellow
(01:02:19):
listeners on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter. Where are some
derivation of conspiracy stuff where conspiracy stuff show. We highly
recommend our Facebook page. Here's where it gets crazy. And
you know the memes alone, Oh.
Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
It's going to be rife with them after this episode.
I can only imagine. You can head over to Amazon
search q and on and find the dozens of titles
that are based on this this topic. If you wish
to read more or just you know, consult your your
local slash pol slash which stands for politically incorrect. And
(01:02:57):
I know that now and I've learned my lesson and
it's okay. We are going to be fine. If you
don't want to do that stuff, you can find me
on Call of Duty Mobile where I'm st d W
I t K.
Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Wait there's a Call of Duty Mobile?
Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
Yes there is, And I would love to play around
a team deathmatch or domination with you totally into it,
loving it, and I'm I'm pretty good at it, So watch.
Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Out anyone else there. There's a Mario Kart mobile now
it's pretty damn good.
Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
And there's also.
Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Tony Hawk's skate Jam Yeah, which is like sort of
like a mobile version of pro skater Man. These mobile,
these little devices just keep getting stronger and stronger.
Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Well, I believe Call of Duty may be sponsoring this
show soon. That'd be cool, So watch out boys. From
what I hear, what's your weapon of choice? Are you
a groundsman? Are you a snipeman? Snipes snipester? Clearly, I
am not a gamer. I prefer a healthy assault rifle
with a nice scope on it. Got it that's accurate
(01:03:57):
and reliable.
Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
And if you don't Call of Duty you can call
us directly.
Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
We have a phone number as well.
Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
Yes, the number is one eight three three STDW.
Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
It's your duty call.
Speaker 3 (01:04:12):
Yeah, we did it. If you don't want to do
any of that stuff and you want to reach out
to us with anything, any common, any idea that you've
got for another episode, you can write to us, send
us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of Iheartradios. How stuff works For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.