History's largest credit card merger looms on the horizon. Commentary on not-quite-space and a celebrity named Katy Perry. Ben takes the crew around the globe to learn more about wildlife piracy, the horrors of Kenyan cults, and the fascinating web of fentanyl, casinos, China and Mexican drug cartels. All this this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. If you are tuning
in to our strange news program, The Evening It publishes,
let us be the first to welcome you to Monday,
April twenty eighth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to April.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
It's so spooky. Wait, this isn't the spooky?
Speaker 5 (00:57):
Is that an RSKA impression? That's pretty good?
Speaker 4 (00:59):
No, No, just spooking would be like welcome.
Speaker 6 (01:03):
If he has a waiver, he has a bit of
h he's got to make him a cryptkeeper knows it's
very hard to do that voice without choking on your
own spit.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I also learned recently guys on the Daily zeite guys that,
apparently as a ute Tom Waits would scream into his
pillow to help create his raspy voice.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
Do that every night, just in the state of the world.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
What it's like, the most screamable pillow.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
Oh, it's just the my pillow.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah great, that guy's in the news as well as Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:36):
Oh real quick up top, I just wanted to ask
you guys something, since you're having a minute to catch us.
I was watching some YouTube doom scrolly type things. A
little shorts have been up on the shorts lately, and
somebody pointed out a new arrangement for the press briefing
room at the White House, which is essentially a standing
room section that is devoted to quote unquote new media. Yeah,
(02:00):
but a lot of these folks, one of which I
saw a quote from whose name escapes me, represents particularly
far right unless, let's just say journalists, journalist d kind
of news.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I thought I thought you were going to say, No,
I thought you were going to say, represents the Lollipop Kids.
Speaker 6 (02:18):
That's also true, definitely Lollipop Guild. Indeed, lollipip gild.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
You're absolutely correct. By the way, I did write to
the current administration because they have an open h application
online where you can request to be a as a
new media member podcaster, you can request credentials, and to
be all out there.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
I guess what I was getting at is it seems like,
since it is at the discretion of the White House
Press Secretary as to who gets to ask questions, when
the deck is stacked.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
A little bit with some of these let's call.
Speaker 6 (02:53):
Them sympathetic folks end up opinion generating lot of news
bites that are very pro administration, and some of these
folks literally ask just I mean, beyond softball questions like
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
True that's the best president in the history of the
concept of humanity? Isn't it true that you're also fun
at parties?
Speaker 6 (03:17):
It is very much that vibe, and it just I
don't know, maybe I'm stating the obvious here. Doesn't it
feel like at ploy or a tactic to erode journalism,
to erode the idea of what constitutes journalism, And obviously
it fits in with the whole concept of the fake
news and it just feels another like a very nineteen
eighty four kind of thing.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
That's all.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, guy, Speaking of tertiary characters in your favorite movies,
can we talk about how dirty The Lost Boys did?
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Rufio didn't talk about this.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, oh my gosh, this is going to be our
cold open.
Speaker 6 (03:53):
I just listened to a discussion on my favorite podcast,
blank Check with Griffin and David about Hook and.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I seriously, yeah, I watched it last night.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
Well, Banger Rang Bang Rang.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
Indeed, listen to the episode, Matt, You're going to be
fresh on all the details. And it's a great podcast
in and of itself. But they're doing the latter day
career of Steven Spielberg. They do directors kind of filmographies
in series, and there was so much I forgot about
Hook and I've been It's been on my.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
List to rewatch as well. It's not good right, like.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
It's it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Okay, what do you it's banger range. They invented the
word banger range.
Speaker 6 (04:27):
I remember their clubhouse was a kid's dream come true.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Everybody's eating like brightly colored gag.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
That's exactly right, and skateboarding.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
I want to say it reminded me of the Foot
Clans hideout in the first Ninja Turtles movie, which made
made me when to join the gang.
Speaker 5 (04:41):
It really made.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
It's a very specific vibe for the nineties.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
This is nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
And yes, uh, they're imagining eating magically colored stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And if you believe Robin Williams, if you believe in
the power of imagination, then you'll never be hungry again.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Okay, that's nice, dude, Rufio spoiler alert ready three two
to one. When Ruffio takes that hit from Dustin Hoffman, right, Captain, Yes,
he dies immediately and everybody just he's going and that's it.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
They did him so dirty in hook. I do remember,
I do remember watching that thinking what happened to the
power of imagination? Can't they just like believe this guy
back into life?
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Dang man, that's a good point. You think they could
just does it? Snap your fingers? Clap your hands, that's
you clap your hands. Yeah yeah, watch out for that uh,
watch out for that gator. We're going to talk about
some likewise surreal things. We had had some conversations off
Mike about people who that we've already we've already dunked
(05:51):
on this industry before getting to not white space, edging
into space for maybe ten to eleven minutes. Uh, as
we're recording this, there's going to be a huge merger
on the horizon for credit card companies so any credit
card companies in the audience tonight, that one's going to
be for you. Please don't get on a list when
(06:12):
you are.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Please don't get on a list with your personal medical records.
We've got so much to get to. A new crime
just dropped that I think we all will learn about.
We're gonna have ken you come up in a little bit.
But before we do any of that, why don't we
take a break for a word from our sponsors, and
we'll come back with some credit where do and some
(06:37):
FDA news.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
We're getting federal government up in here, everybody.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
The sexiest thing to say at a party.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Oh yeah, let's talk federal government, guys. On April twenty second,
Reuters reported US f DA suspends milk quality tests amid
workforce cuts. Right, you know what I like? Untested milk?
Speaker 7 (07:08):
Yeah, yeah, we're talking about this earlier. You know, would
I walk through a grocery store. What I like to
feel is the sensation of risk, you know what I mean.
I like to think we're rolling beat me here, Dylan.
I like to think we're rolling the in dice, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Is there cyclospora in this milk or cheese, maybe bird flu.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
Does this figure into the conversation around raw milk? Isn't
DARFK a big fan of raw milk, and it's sort
of been like state by status to whether it's legal
or not unprocessed, unpasteurized milk.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Raw it may. But in this case, this is the agency,
the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, that is suspending
its proficiency testing for Grade A raw milk and finished products.
So any milk you can buy that would be considered
Grade A that you buy in your store shelves, the
kind for human consumption, it is suspending the testing for that.
Speaker 6 (08:07):
So the assumption is it's probably fine, nothing to worry about.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Uh, yeah, everything's fine.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
I can't about yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
To be clear, nothing is improving for the cows.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yep, cows still in their enclosures, continually just given milk
through all kinds of weird tubing.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And are they okay? So they're suspending their quality control.
But Matt, from what I understand, the argument is that
the FDA is outsourcing this or transferring Hey.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, okay. According to the FDA, it's being transferred to
this place, the FDA's Moffit Center Proficiency testing laboratory is
quote no longer able to provide laboratory support for proficiency
testing and data analysis.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
This is all according to an email official that was sent.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
However, a Health and Human Services spokesperson said the laboratory
was Don't worry, guys, already set to be decommissioned before
the staff cuts, and proficiency testing will be paused during
the transition to a new laboratory. But product testing will continue, guys,
It will continue.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
All right. Wait, question, what's the difference between proficiency testing
and product testing?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Who knows?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Who knows? There's a proposed forty billion dollar cut currently
happening at the agency via the Trump administration. And this
is also really coming about because of the twenty thousand
employees that were lost from the Department of Health and
Human Services. So you know, milk testing will happen. It
just won't be happening in the same way by the
(09:47):
same people at the same places. It'll just be new, guys,
and new is better, he said, hopefully, speaking of changes
in the federal government. Guys, the SEA recently had to
say sorry, we can't help you to a couple of cities.
They were dealing with some lad stuff officials in Milwaukee
(10:10):
and Wisconsin's state health department formally requested the CDC's help
on March twenty sixth, after many of the city's schools
were found to have quote significant lead hazards exposing children,
and according to CBS News and Alexander ten on April eleventh,
the CDC basically reached out and said, no, we cannot
(10:31):
help you. A statement from the email received by CBS
News is quote, I sincerely regret to inform you that
due to the complete loss of our LED program, we
will be unable to support you with this. As in,
because of the staff cuts at the federal level at
the CDC, there is no longer a LEAD program that
can help out any city, state, whatever, with testing lead
(10:57):
and providing basically ways to fit a LET exposure problem
like within a school per chance, or maybe a citywide problem.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Yeah, despite the fact that there are pretty rigorous studies
showing LET exposure, especially during formative years, can have consequences
down the road. It's it's kind of a thing we
were talking about off air. We have an episode coming
up on let exposure and it's a I mean, Matt Noel, Dylan,
(11:28):
Folks at home it's a blood bath over there right now.
Like the amount of cuts. I think we all probably
have a couple of friends who were working in public
service who were unceremoniously given their walking papers or they
got that really weird email for voluntary resignation, depending on
(11:49):
their department. I'm gonna say it, I don't think this
is like a good idea long term. If you if
you support the US as a as a ONCET.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I would agree with you. Other officials, like within this
story about Milwaukee schools, they are saying, this is why
it is so important to have state level and local
level folks who do things like test products, you know, milk,
test for lead in pipes and then know how to
actually go through a triage and help the students or
(12:25):
you know, human beings who've been exposed to that lead,
and then fix the pipes that have the lead in
them that are seeping it into the water supply. They're
basically it's an interesting argument. It's both we no longer
have help at the federal level, but also this is
why we need to be as good as whoever those
folks were at the local and state level, Which is
(12:46):
an interesting argument, right because there are budgets, you know,
local and state budgets to maybe create things like this.
It's just how much of that money coming in via
whatever taxes or whatever incentive programs do you actually put
towards health and human services stuff?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Right? And how different should should thresholds and priorities and
accuracy be from state.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
To state city right?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Or city to city? Right? Yeah. People who are critics
of the current direction are going to argue that this
feels like Balkanizing the United States, turning each of the
fifty states into their own sort of sovereign territory with
(13:36):
an erosion of federal law. And there is I mean,
not to be alarmists, there is some validity to that argument.
Like what if you imagine, oh gosh, what's a city.
A lot of people don't think about Bismarck. Right, Okay,
so we're in Bismarck and people love Bismarck because now
it's a tourism advertisement thing to say, hey, we're known
(14:00):
for not having poison in the milk. Yeah, come to Bismarck.
You know what, the town of clean milk. M hm.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
It's just weird because how do you test all of
the products coming into Bismarck. I mean, how you test
every single how do you do that?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
How do you afford it?
Speaker 4 (14:18):
You know, I feel like you.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Need a federal program or something larger, at least sitting
on top of everybody who's producing a product and say, hey,
those folks are going to look at everything.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
If not, I don't know, welcome.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
To El Paso. You might get a finger in the chili.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
But the milk is just following.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Guys, let's continue a little bit on a previous discussion
we've had before about Red thirty, that is an artificial
petroleum based food dye that recently we talked on the
show about how the US government is looking to cut
that out, cut it out of our food supplies. If
you imagine that scene, if you have seen the nineteen
(15:02):
ninety one Banger Rang of a film hook, you may
imagine the props department using a whole crap ton of
petroleum based food dies to create those I don't know,
sloppy pies.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
They're basically they're like neon colored gack, but also rufio.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
Yes, that was prime Nickelodeon's slime time, you know, zwise, Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Well they sure used it a whole bunch and now
the FDA again, the Food and Drug Administration at the
federal level of the US government, is phasing out the
use of petroleum based synthetic dies by the end of
the year, according to an announcement by the agency that
occurred yesterday as we're recording Tuesday for twenty second. This
comes to us via CNBC. By the way, guys, this
(15:52):
could be huge, it's not. It's one of those things
we talked about even before all of this other stuff,
when we talked about food additive so that are allowed
within the United States government according to the FDA, and
those same food additives that are banned in most other countries. Yeah,
and how maybe it's a good idea to jump on
the old bandwagon and get those out of our systems
(16:15):
as well. The FDA appears to be taking steps.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
The people left at the FDA appear to be taking steps.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yes, and specifically I was gonna say Robert Downey Junior,
but it's not him. It's the other guy and Robert
Kennedy Junior. But but anyway, it is interesting that it's
happening now. We're talking red forty, yellow five, yellow six,
jazz all getting out of here, including red three.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
So I'm not read three.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yes, read three is the reason we started this show.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
I only drink sports beverages that have read three in them.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
I will die on that hill, possibly literally.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
As an entity that doesn't have, like you, guys, full
spectrum of color. I appreciate that the additives have numbers
beside them.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
They just make the bevy hit different.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
You know that's right?
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Well, guys, According to FDA Commissioner Marty McCarey, the agency
FDA plans to authorize four additional color additives using natural
ingredients in the next few weeks, so maybe even by
the time you're hearing this, they are also expecting to
review and approve other natural ingredient colors.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Cool. How do we define natural.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Well, it's not based in the stuff we pull out
out of the ground and then refine and put in
our vehicles. Cool, which is very natural, I suppose in
a way. One last thing, and they were getting out
of here for the segment Huge news. Yes, I don't
(17:55):
know what's in your wallet, but this one company is
really stoked if they've got one of their pieces of
plastic in your wallet.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Capital one.
Speaker 6 (18:07):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
They had this little idea. They said, why don't we
buy Discover Financial Services and Discover Bank for around thirty
five billion dollars thirty five point three to be exact reason,
Let's buy that and let us become the credit card
company that exists on the planet, like the biggest one.
(18:28):
And the Federal Reserve had to check it out. The
guess who else guys the Office of the Comptroller of
the Currency You had to check out the dealer.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Unclear still to this.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Day, yeah, yeah, yeah, and the parliamentarian.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
What's the deal again, I'm sorry, we gotta we got
to remind everybody.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
The comptroller is the person with the stamps and the signage.
Speaker 6 (18:51):
They go, yes, they troll the comps, so they're like
a mega notary basically.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
No, No, they're the one that checks off every thing,
like the last line of defense for fiscal things services
depending on when you're.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
In right to them, Matt, I like that, the last
line of defense that's got to them. They probably make
custom stamp too, last light of fiscal defense. And they,
despite that excellent tagline match just gave them. They co
signed what is arguably a problematic monopolization of one of
(19:30):
the most sensitive parts of Western life.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Yeah, it's pretty weird. It's pretty weird.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Capital One has around one hundred million card holders, Discover
had around three hundred millions. So then you put them
all together, that's four hundred million cards out there. That's
not individual cardholders if you had those two up, because
many many folks have multiple cards. It is interesting with
the two of these companies combined because they have often
(19:59):
targeted folks who are considered by these financial services to
be either lower income or lower on the credit scale,
so around a credit score around six hundred, and they
offer cards often with cash back and things like that
that the financial services like Capital One and Discover and
Visa and all of them say are more popular with
(20:23):
folks of lower income. That is what that's the way
they talk about it. Sure, it's really gross.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Actually, he Evikre just had a happy accident. Companies money.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Sure, well, but basically they're they're teaming up to make
one giant financial credit services group with huge interest rates.
And I don't want to say praying on anybody.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I just mean, I mean, you kind of have to
if you're being accurate, but we don't want to say it.
That doesn't make it not true.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, because there's a There are a bunch
of credit card issuing banks like JP Morgan Chase, Bank
of America, City Group, Wells Fargo, a bunch of them
that are like, we're a bank, but we also offer
credit cards.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
This is like.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
One of the primary ones that are going after people
who don't have a lot of money and can't afford to,
you know, pay seventeen twenty three thirty percent interest rates
on stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Isirious.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, anyway, have fun with that one. We'll see where
all of that goes. Guess who's really happy the shareholders.
Everybody who owned Discover stock just got a bunch of
capital one stock. Discover stock was upwards of one hundred
dollars per share, and your capital one is well above that.
So everybody who held shares is going to make a
(21:48):
crap ton of money.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Everybody at the meeting is having a great day.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
That's a great way to put it.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Everybody at the met have a great day. Also, if
we could always be closing. If you want to learn
more about the history of credit cards as a concept
and why credit scores are absolutely ridiculous, check out our
pure podcast Ridiculous History. Matt. We're still trying to get
you to come back on the show.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
It's gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
We're gonna twist one day. I'll do that thing, but
not right now. Right now, we're gonna hear a word
from our sponsors.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
And we've returned with a with a oh man, this
is a real chestnut. Is that a thing? It's an
old chest nut. Whatever they are, they are, and they're
tough nuts to crack. Apparently, as often is the case
with a conspiracy theory run amuck, we do live in
a time where disinformation seems to be more prevalent than ever,
(22:49):
with all these accusations of fake news media and fake
news story and miss and disinformation and dare we say,
outright propaganda all over the world, and very much in
this country of ours, the United States of America, with
all of that stuff flowing around, kind of muddies the
waters to an alarming degree in terms of what is
(23:12):
to be believed, what is to be taken at face value,
And for good reason.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
I mean, we have deep fakes.
Speaker 6 (23:18):
We have more and more convincing uses of artificial intelligence
machine learning rather to create images that never really existed
that absolutely look convincing.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
Video footage have even gotten hands better.
Speaker 6 (23:31):
I don't know if you guys have seen that, but
the AI modeling tools are much much better at generating hands.
That was always the big tell as to whether something
was AI slop or not. This story isn't about AI necessarily.
This story is about space and conspiracies surrounding a particularly
(23:51):
I don't know, self congratulatory Let's just call it PR
space flight from Jeff Be's Blue Origin Space Program space company.
He's a competing, of course with Elon Musk's SpaceX and
definitely making some headway in terms of privatized spaceflight. Whatever
(24:14):
you think about that as a concept, it is happening,
and Bezos is one of the figures at the forefront
of that.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
I guess.
Speaker 6 (24:22):
As a way of drawing attention to his efforts, he
and his company devised a PR stunt photo op.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Let's just call it.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
We're in a handful of celebrities who are women were
gathered together, six of them in fact, for an eleven
minute spaceflight into near Earth orbit.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
I believe about.
Speaker 6 (24:45):
Space, not quite space, near Earth orbit. I believe about
sixty three miles above the Earth's atmosphere, which is high
enough to achieve zero gravity. Type effects and all of
that good stuff. The Internet, however, as it is wont
to do, is calling foul on this whole thing, saying
that it never really happened, that it was simulated. The
(25:08):
very familiar sounding conspiracy theories, given all of the talk
around the faked moon landing, the supposed faking of the
moon landing, the idea that it was something that was
devised and set up on a studio backlot in Hollywood,
potentially even directed by the great Stanley Kubrick, all of
that one of the classic conspiracy theories that we have
(25:29):
talked about a great length on this show.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
But that is true. By the way, Stanley Kubrick did
fake the moon landing. Cool okay, such an awe tour.
He said, the only way they could do it realistically
is to fake the moon landing on the moon.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Oh yeah, he was like the proto Christopher Nolan. That's
what Christopher Nolan would do.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
Like, there were all these jokes surrounding the idea that
he actually wanted to detonate an atomic bomb, you know,
for the shot in Oppenheimer.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
So the women in question are Katie Perry. One.
Speaker 6 (26:00):
Katie Perry, pop star of Matt pointed out, I kissed
a Girl. I think was her first big hit, Firework,
which I think is an absolute banger. I'm quite a
big fan of Firework, and then Our Fireworks perhaps, And
then a little later she had a song that was
pretty inescapable called dark Horse, with a pretty laughable verse
(26:20):
or feature from the rapper Juicy Jay, wherein he compares
the Beast of Karma to Jeffrey Dahmer in that it
can eat your heart out. So that's a real clever
turn of phrase in there. But I quite enjoy some
of the music of Katie Perry. She has a late
kind of been lampooned quite a bit by pop culture
(26:43):
aficionado's media critics, et cetera, because I don't know, she
did this whole kind of like the feminist kind of
rollout for her most recent record, and it just came
off very very heavy handed and very very kind of
look at me, rather than actually speaking to real things
(27:04):
behind the idea of feminism and empowering women, etc. It
was just, I don't know, kind of a little bit
tone deaf, you know, the rollout of that record she had.
I think she were, like, you know, she was dressed
up as like Rosie the Riveter and things like that
in a music video, and it just pretty much got
absolutely crapped on by just about anybody, and the record.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Did not do well.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
She does have a world tour coming up, and I
guess what better way of promoting your world tour than
participating in an elaborate spaceflight pr event. So was Katy Perry,
along with Gail King. Gail King is Oprah's best friend.
Oprah and Gail that's right, I'm sorry, a friend of
the show, Anna Host. I have a daily Zeitgeist, fame
(27:44):
and other things, lots colch Srista's all the big hits
these days. Just I saw she posted from a Broadway
play that she recommended, the name of which is Escaping Me,
but said that Gail and Oprah were sitting right behind her,
so it had their seal of approval. So along with
Katie and Gail, we also had Lauren Sanchez, who is
a journalist, helicopter pilot, and also the author of a
(28:06):
children's book called like Fritz the Fly or something like that.
I like beginning the name wrong, but she's also Jeff Bezos,
Blue Origin and Amazon CEO's fiance partner. We also have
Amanda Wynn, who is a civil rights activist, two advocates
for victims of sexual assaults and bio astronautics research scientists,
something that she also does, and she has worked with
(28:29):
NASA in the past on the Space Shuttle mission STS
one thirty five as well as NASA's exo planet Terry
Kepler space telescope. So no slouch there. We also have
film producer Carrie Ann Flynn and a former NASA rocket
scientist and CEO of engineering firm stem Board and founder
(28:51):
of a company called Lingo that teaches students technology skills.
Her name is Aisha Bo. So all of these women
canned in one of Blue Origins, West Texas launch facilities
for a big televised event wherein they boarded the ship
the Shuttle I guess should call it, were blasted off
(29:13):
into space and then posted videos from their near earth
orbit zero G experience and then returned back to Earth.
The whole thing lasted a whoppings twelve minutes I believe,
and this took place on April fourteenth, as we sit
here on April twenty third.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
What's the Internet stand.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
Well, there's a couple of points as to what they
believe or the collective they believe.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Is happening here.
Speaker 6 (29:38):
There was one particular clue that was highlighted quite frequently,
which is that when the ship landed, or it's called
the believe the New Shepherd is the name of the
pod or the shuttle when it landed. As part of
the ceremony of it all and the kind of photo
op of it all, Jeff Bezos was supposed to open
(29:59):
the the door, the pod door, let's just call in
for saying sci fi about it, with this special tool.
But before he got to it, you can actually see
the door opening inward and then quickly being closed. Okay,
So a lot of folks on the internet seem to
believe that the door should not have been able to
open from inside because it it's supposed to be pressurized,
(30:20):
and if it were to be openable in that direction,
that the pressure of space could potentially, you know, force
it open.
Speaker 5 (30:29):
So that's one thing.
Speaker 6 (30:29):
However, according to NASA, hatch doors should in fact be
able to be opened by a single crew member without
any special tools from both sides. So the idea here
would be that they opened it kind of jumped the
gun and then realizing they had made a mistake, closed
it really quickly and allowed Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
To have his photo op.
Speaker 6 (30:50):
The Daily Mail reports on this, and that is their conjecture,
and that is confirmed by some NASA scientists that they
spoke with. This whole mission, by the way, is called
taking up Space, and the idea was that it was
meant to promote stem education for young women. All of
the crew members were these fashionable, more fashionable than your
(31:13):
average space suit, very star treki honestly blue skin tight
jumpsuits that were designed by Lauren Sanchez. The central image
that I'm talking about is the one that is causing
folks to do a little bit of a head scratch,
at least.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
On the Internet.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
With all this talk of illuminati conspiracies surrounding celebrities and
you know dark satanic rituals, even dating back to things
like Pizzagate, the idea of the elite participating in these
you know, dark occult kind of activities. If you look
at the image, it is kind of a you know,
(31:49):
a space pod kind of image stylized with stars and
all of that stuff. It has the names of the
crew members emblazoned around the edges with a little corresponding
icons for each of them. Katy Perry gets a shooting
star microphone kind of thing, and the filmmaker gets a
little real of film. But if you flip it upside down,
(32:10):
it really does start to resemble the head of our
good old buddy, the dark Prince himself, Lord Baphamet, who
is often used as a symbol of the Church of Satan,
which as we know, isn't necessarily interested in the actual
worship of Satan in the occult. They are more of
(32:30):
an organization about civil liberty and about you know, owning
one's own destiny. Do what thou wilt, Let that be
the whole of the law and all of that good stuff.
Bapha Met for them is more of a symbol of
protests and of you know, kind of being down on
the man or you know, rejecting authority and all that.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
So when you flip it upside down, it does kind.
Speaker 6 (32:53):
Of look like a goat shaped head with a snout
at the bottom. The wings of the craft be come
the horns, and yeah, it's causing some folks to really,
you know, call into question whether or not this thing
was a pr stunt or some sort of elaborate Satanic ritual.
There's an image that's also being noted where Katy Perry
(33:15):
is seen holding her hand over the patch, supposedly indicating
her swearing her allegiance to the Lord Bapha Met. One
observer on x commented, Katy Perry swearing her allegiance by
placing her hand adoringly and lovingly over her Bapha met logo.
They tell you in so many ways who they worship.
(33:38):
Some folks even pointed out that in twenty eleven, Katy
Perry had a music video for her song e Tea,
wherein she is depicted with goat legs. Goat like legs,
of course, a long standing symbol often related to like
Pan or other kind of pagan depictions of satyrs, and
of course Bapha Met himself.
Speaker 5 (33:57):
So what do you guys think? Do you see it?
It is kind of entertaining.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
There's also people talking about how an upside down cross
can be seen as well, if you really you know,
if you squint at it enough.
Speaker 7 (34:08):
Yeah, while you were walking us through, shared one of
those images with that badge upside down and I can
totally see the paradelia of it for sure.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Just here. Let's uh, let's that about pattern seeking right,
that's where you that's the human tendency to maybe see
faces or see patterns where there might not be. So
I'm going to reshare uh this uh, this thing you
were describing there for everybody as we can like as
we're as we're all looking at it now, would love
(34:40):
to hear just like group reactions. You know, I I
I get that if you are looking for something, you
are going to find the thing you are looking for
for sure. Not to sound like roomy, but.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
No, yeah, I get it's very as end of you.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
Ben another comment or had this to say, really sums
the whole thing up. Did you notice the logo on
Katie Perry and her fellow Blue Origin space traveler's patch
is the Satanic goat with an upside down cross If
you flip it over, goat horns celebs fake space. I
don't think space is in question here, but perhaps fake
space travel also acknowledging a reference to Two Corinthians eleven fourteen,
(35:19):
Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah, but Baphabet's not Satan.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
No, no, he's not.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
So like, let's get our lore together real for.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
Sure, Baha met would be perhaps considered like one of
the lesser demons, kind of like in the what is
it the Key of Solomon? Sort of like Paymon and
all of that stuff. Baphamet is is he like a
prince of Hell? What's what's Baphamet's deal?
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Well, bapha Met the name is relatively young as far
as the the demon game goes, but Bathamet had had
the distinct privilege of being part of the accusations against
the Knights Templar.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
That's right, and also considered a misinterpretation of Islamic beliefs.
Some scholars believe that the name is a corruption of
Mahammet or Mohammed right, right.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
This leads some historians or speculators to argue that the
Templars were indeed to some degree following is law.
Speaker 6 (36:27):
And if I'm not mistaken, ben, aren't the Knights Templark
often lumped in with Illuminati conspiracies?
Speaker 5 (36:33):
Isn't that sort of part of it?
Speaker 3 (36:35):
They know what they did, that's fair?
Speaker 6 (36:36):
Okay, So this is it does feel like part of
that larger conspiracy bubble of you know, celebrities being in
some way inducted into some sort of shadowy secret cabal
accusations have often flown around surrounding even like choreography of
like Beyonce. I think there was some some stuff talking
(36:57):
about Beyonce and jay Z are part of this. And
recently Coachella took place in the Indio Valley there in California,
and a lot of articles started swirling after Lady Gaga's
performance accusing that of being some sort of Satanic ritual.
So this isn't like the first, you know, satanic rodeo.
It's maybe just the first one that's accused of happening
(37:18):
in space, So you know, I know we're running along
in this. There's a couple other quick points I'd like
to hit, one being that when Katie Perry was in space,
she holds up a little butterfly sticky note kind of thing,
apparently it's really hard to read, has text on it
indicating her set list for her upcoming tour that I
was mentioning earlier. However, some Internet conspiracy theorists have said
(37:42):
that that is actually a reference to MK Ultra and
a form of mind control, because apparently the image of
the monarch butterfly representing metamorphosis and change has been long
associated with that program, which is actually something I didn't
fully realize, but it does make sense.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
So there's that.
Speaker 6 (38:02):
There's also a thing about like a fake hand that
was visible, Ben, Do I see you nodding? That one
sort of flummecks me a little bit. I didn't quite
get to the bottom of that one.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
There's a still that's going around as well as some
video footage after the capsule comes down of a view
through the window where there's a shiny looking hand that
many people in line have said, Hey, that's a mannequin's hand.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
That's a fake hand in the window.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
But again it's pretty baseless. It's just kind of the whole.
I don't know the rumor thing starts.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
I'm looking at that image again of the capsule flipped around,
the actual mission image.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
This is the patch. Yeah, they're the logo.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
This is an all female mission. It is about taking
up space and promoting promoting stem for girls.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yes, think about what the blue Origin space crafts look like.
They look like, so they do and not all.
Speaker 7 (39:09):
Of that, Not all of that is due to necessary function.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
There's a little bit of aesthetic interesting carry me.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Ben, this this image of the spacecraft is tilted in
such a way that it looks a little less phallic.
I think that was done purposefully. So I think any
shapes you're getting when you flip it over are due
to the desire to make it look a little less
like a huge dog.
Speaker 5 (39:35):
That's a really good point, Matt. So it's a PR move.
Speaker 6 (39:38):
It is further apart and parcel of the policity stunt
ness of it.
Speaker 5 (39:43):
All right, Well, it's.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
One hundred percent of PR move. We were talking off
Mike before we recorded tonight's program where I had asked
someone to explain who Katy Perry was because I'm super
plugged into human culture. And then the next part becomes this,
It would be fascinating to look at the financials a
(40:05):
Blue Origin and see whether this sort of PR stunt
is actually financially advantageous to them. Right, you can take
the hit. You can take the PR hit if the
investors are still coming through, because now they like your
mission more and they get to say, oh, look at
that badge. Blue Origin doesn't look that much like a
(40:26):
penis we should give them money.
Speaker 6 (40:28):
That's a very good point, Ben, and I will will
say too that the biggest takeaway from this whole thing
is just the sort of tone deafness of it all.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Kardashian, the.
Speaker 6 (40:39):
Pepsi percent that aspect, you know, Katy Perry coming down
and making these very kind of lackadaisical claims of like,
you know, we've heard of this idea of the overview effect,
and it is I'm sure it's very cathartic, and it's
something that maybe we can all one day experience as well,
But right now, the ability to experience that for regular
folks is absolutely out of range. Out of reach in
(41:03):
terms of price, like I believe it costs about a
million dollars once space tourism truly begins, you know, in earnest.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
That's about what you're looking to pay.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Are we making The real question here philosophically is if
we are making space, are we making space in this
conversation for other people who are not celebrities at multimillionaires
or is it just sort of like Jeff Bezos and
Blue Orged pitching ideas and not really hearing responses.
Speaker 6 (41:34):
One hundred percent that and then funny that you should say, Ben,
I think your version of the mission name is a
little less tone deaf. The real version was taking up space,
which is kind of what these billionaires do, you know,
in terms of taking stuff that other people could benefit
from and not giving back.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
So to me, like taking up space is just sort.
Speaker 6 (41:56):
Of absolutely ill conceived, and like I was getting Tokadiy
Perry making these comments of you know, you never know
truly how much love you have to give until you've
gone to space.
Speaker 5 (42:06):
It's like, cool, I guess we'll just have to, you know, settle.
Speaker 6 (42:10):
On the amount of love that we are aware that
we have to give without having that experience that you shared,
Katie Perry.
Speaker 5 (42:16):
So there you go.
Speaker 6 (42:17):
I don't know, it just felt a little gross to me.
I don't think it was faked. I do think that
stuff is interesting and very much part and parcel of
the kind of thought experiments that we enjoy on this show.
Speaker 5 (42:27):
But all of it checks out.
Speaker 6 (42:29):
I think it happened, and I think the fact that
it did happen is maybe even more offensive and obnoxious
than if it were faked, which why would they do that.
I will say one thing that hasn't been addressed that
I do think is interesting. I did see a video
of an actual, actual astronaut, a woman whose name is
escaping me. I apologize from I believe the International Space Station,
(42:50):
where her hair is absolutely up completely, you know, in like,
you know, a huge mess of hair. Katie Perry's hair
was much less unkempt looking. It was just gently kind
of hovering. I would argue that maybe the difference is
how deep in space you are that would increase the
(43:10):
gravitational effect.
Speaker 5 (43:11):
Am I right?
Speaker 6 (43:12):
That if you're further into space more than just sixty
three miles, you're gonna have a heavier amount of zero
gravity effect that would maybe cause your hair to react differently.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
What do you guys think about that?
Speaker 4 (43:24):
We'll never know.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
I guess not. I guess not.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
Well, what we do know is we're going to take
quick break here a word from our sponsor, then come
back with another piece of strange news.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
And we have returned. There is a lot of stuff
we're not going to get to, but we will follow
up on the promise of a new crime that just
dropped Dylan. If we could get an air horn, perfect,
we welcome to wildlife piracy cool a crime that that
(44:00):
we like for a very real thing. Just earlier this April,
as reported by Evelyd Moussambif for ap News, two Belgian
teenagers were charged with this crime wildlife piracy after they
were found with thousands of ants. They were smuggling ants.
(44:20):
They're nineteen year olds, apparently they they were arrested on
April fifth in Kenya at a guesthouse with five thousand
ants in their possession and they going.
Speaker 5 (44:32):
Into the ant farm business. They what to what end?
Speaker 3 (44:35):
They said they were collected ants for fun. They didn't
know it was illegal. If you guys go to the
article I mentioned there and shared, it looks like a
professional operation. They have the ants and these tiny graduated cylinders.
Speaker 5 (44:50):
When is this a score for ants?
Speaker 3 (44:54):
And what it gives me? One of my favorite recent
government statements, which is this the illegal export of the
ants not only undermines Kenya's sovereign rights over its biodiversity,
but it also deprives local communities and research institutions of
potential ecological and economic benefits. So word to the wise.
(45:16):
Remember when in Rome followed Roman law right, So so
no breaking the laws of the land that let you in. Also,
don't steal ants. I guess I don't know.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
I just love how is one to know?
Speaker 7 (45:28):
I mean, I feel like we've all about scale, we've
all accidentally stolen ants.
Speaker 6 (45:33):
It must be about scale, right, Like it's at a
certain point you're like mining a resource and maybe you
have to report that to the proper wildlife authorities. Like
is it illegal for me to collect ants from my
backyard and make myself a little ant farm situation?
Speaker 3 (45:48):
It depends on what kind of ant, honestly, and where
you're dangered ants, right, Because there's a very good, fascinating,
I should say, if not very good argument about which
life worm on Earth is the most successful. And when
it comes to higher order multi cellular life forms, ants
get a lot of a lot of credit for that
(46:11):
because of their adaptations. They do things without anthropomorphizing that
could seem very human and not. We're not talking about
just the nice things. There are ants that enslave other creatures,
things like that, like they got the classic human. I'm
bringing this up, Matt. Do you have any thoughts before
we move on this one.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I didn't know that that amount of ants is worth
around seven dollars.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
And I think we've all accidentally smuggled some insects before,
not naming names, but you know, we might go on
hikes and fine, we've accidentally smuggled some ticks.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
I smuggled a tick on my butt.
Speaker 5 (46:47):
Basically, it's your story to tell.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Bro.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
I was in the shower and he was like, hey,
I'm down here, man, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (46:56):
And I was like, stop, dude, that out.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
That is a perfect tick act. By the way, Yeah, people.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
Don't I don't know.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
He was just doing his thing. But yeah, and now
I'm on antibiotics.
Speaker 4 (47:08):
So thanks tick. Oh seriously, yes, just in.
Speaker 5 (47:11):
Case, in case I don't want to get that lime disease.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
Also, yeah, lime disease episode has been the works for
a few years here. But yeah, we're mentioning this because
it's a funny story. I regret to inform friends and neighbors,
fellow conspiracy realists that these two young men did not,
in fact have the ants in their pandemic, so missed
opportunity on that. We're going to take a sudden shift
(47:36):
in direction. We're going to stay with Kenya in a
few years back. You guys may remember in twenty twenty three,
we covered a story in our Strange News program about
a death cult in Kenya, mass suicide, Oregon theft. This
is one of those rare situations that made international news.
Speaker 6 (47:56):
Remember talking about this. Possibly that's been a minute. I
do remember that the basics though.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Yeah, more than two hundred people died at the time
of reporting, six hundred were reported missing. And now we
have another story coming to us via Reuters. Reuters has
reported that two bodies were recovered from a church in
Kenya and the discovery has not just the local population
(48:25):
but the authorities worried that there may be another kind
of starvation or self harm cult in play. The bodies
were retrieved from the premises of Saint Joseph Missions of
Africa Church in Macgory County and this like just happened.
We're recorded on April twenty third. This happened a couple
(48:47):
days ago. And you know we I always try to
keep the eye on these on the cult activities. In
addition to the two cadavers, they rescued almost sixty people
who were being held there against their will.
Speaker 5 (49:03):
Okay, doesn't sound good.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
Yeah, it's not good.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
And apparently they went to the hospital right, or they
were sent to the hospital, but then they reacted differently.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
Right when they were This is the part about what
the nature of consent, right, because, as you're saying, Matt,
when they rescued these fifty seven people and took them
to a nearby hospital for medical care. Many of them
refused treatment and instead began to sing religious songs. This
(49:34):
is creepy, yeah, yeah, but if people are adults, then
you know, they can do what they want, right as
long as they're not harming others, Oh for sure.
Speaker 5 (49:45):
But I just mean it just seems a little bit like.
Speaker 6 (49:48):
A spooky I don't know, like, were they doing this
in protest like or is it this is seeming spontaneous,
like they're reacting to some unforeseen indoctrination or force or something.
Speaker 5 (50:00):
I guess I'm just confused.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, things are getting things are getting hairy there. And
this is a story that we need to keep an
eye on because these charismatic cult like institutions, right, they
can they can do serious harm to people, and you're
not going to be able to tell sometimes as an
investigator or as just you know, bystander walking by, unless
(50:24):
you're in the inner circle, and it can these conspiracies
can have real life consequences. Obviously, we're not here to
denigrate anybody's you know, personal beliefs, but if your institution
of belief is asking you to do things that cause
harm to yourself or others, it's time to take a
quick think. Maybe take a walk around the block, you
(50:46):
know what I mean, Get a case ida right, listen
to some jazz. I don't know. I don't know what
the answers are, but I wanted to bring this up
because we have an upcoming episode, a continuing an installment,
and a continuing series on cults you've never heard of.
So this is a claring poll to all of our
fellow listeners to please let us know about some other
(51:08):
cults that you think the public should be aware of
before there's another Waco situation or another Jonestown, which unfortunately,
historically is always a non zero possibility.
Speaker 6 (51:22):
Ben, I sent to you guys in our group text
another kind of alarming cult. I think maybe that was it.
It was one that I was like questioning whether or
not we had covered because it had some things in
common with.
Speaker 5 (51:34):
The Mother Love. I believe the one that there was.
Speaker 6 (51:37):
A documentary made recently about. I'll have to put my
finger on what that was. To your point, though, Ben,
there's more than enough new entries for an updated episode coming.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Up right O. Yeah, agreed, And we actually didn't get
to the story of that cult whose name begins with
a Z, and we're short on time a little while back.
But while we have everybody I've got, I've got one
more thing that I think we do need to talk about.
We can save some of the rest of it for
a different program in the future. Guys, Mexican cartels, I'm
(52:10):
just going to give you some keywords. Mexican cartels one,
casinos two, China three fentanyl four. I see, yeah, my
money's run into the laundry like there's something smelly on me.
Mexican cartels are using casinos to launder money made from fentanyl.
(52:31):
In the US, at least one point four billion US
dollars linked to various cartels that are working in a
Charlie Day level red string map of proxy companies with
with if not the knowing cooperation of Chinese regulatory bodies,
(52:56):
at least with a wilful blind eye.
Speaker 6 (52:59):
I mean money spends Jeeze.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Casinos a great place to launder money.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
That's the old Vegas ad right.
Speaker 5 (53:10):
Second to what happens in Vegas. Stays in Vegas.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
Send your kids to the pool, launder the money. Circus circus,
circus circus.
Speaker 5 (53:19):
What a weird place, What a weird what a weird place.
Speaker 3 (53:23):
Apparently, the relationship between Mexican cartels and Chinese businesses involved
in the fentanyl supply chain goes way beyond just selling
the stuff that you can use to make fentanyl, you
know what I mean? Like, you can sell various metals,
right you can. Yeah, you could sell various metals which
could be a precursor to a firearm. You're not responsible
(53:47):
for what happens to that metal after you sell it, right,
If someone chooses to manufacture a gun, that's no longer
your remit. However, selling precursor chemicals and claiming well, I
didn't know, only goes so far.
Speaker 5 (54:02):
Yeah, you going, what else are they good for?
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Right?
Speaker 5 (54:05):
I mean is that the issue?
Speaker 3 (54:07):
Fent Ugh? What is it good for? Yet? We're what
we're finding is a couple of different things. I want
to shout out the Latin Times and the journalist Ector
Rios Morales, who had a great piece on this on
April twenty first, twenty twenty five. According to reports that
are coming from the US Department of the Treasury's Financial
(54:31):
Crimes Enforcement Network, Finn Sin, I wonder when those guys
are going to start getting layoffs. They looked at fentanyl
related illicit transactions tied to the two largest partels in Mexico.
And what they found was that between January and December
of twenty twenty four, various financial institutions filed well over
(54:54):
twelve hundred suspicious activity reports related to that point, the
purchase of precursor chemicals, the trafficking of fentanyl, and of
course money laundry. It goes so deep. It's not just like, Okay,
I'm bringing this up because we have a lot of
friends and family who are more familiar with casinos than
(55:17):
the four of us here. We actually did it. I
think you and I hung out at a casino for
your very first time a few years back. Is that correct?
Speaker 8 (55:27):
Yeah, you gave me like ten dollars and a clearing machine.
I hit the wrong button and I didn't get anything.
It was a big bang theory machine.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
So we yeah, yeah, we called it Goodbye money. I
think that's how you approach vegas. But this is for
these cartels and people participate in this global successful criminal conspiracy.
It's not goodbye money. It's hell o money, you know
what I mean. And my question for you guys, I
(56:00):
don't want amount of like My question for you guys
is how do you launder money in a casino? Do
you like, take dirty money and get a bunch of
chips and then take those chips back and get cash
for the chips? Is that it?
Speaker 5 (56:15):
I guess.
Speaker 6 (56:15):
I mean just the fact that it is such a
cash business and there's so few of those that are
by their very nature that thing that aren't going to
be looked at askance, that it totally makes sense that
this would be a way of going about that.
Speaker 5 (56:27):
But I don't know what the actual mechanism would be.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
Okay, Matt, you're shaking your head no as well, by okay,
what if we like, is there there must be? Is
there a financial threshold such that pass that amount of money?
If you try to get chips or cash in chips,
you have to fill out like a lot of heavy paperwork.
I know you have to fill out some stuff.
Speaker 6 (56:49):
Certainly for gambling winnings they are they do have to
be reported to the IRS.
Speaker 5 (56:54):
But I don't know what threshold.
Speaker 7 (56:56):
To yeah still works at the I R S Yeah,
exactly exactly in those poor guys. Look, this feels like
a further investigation ahead. I pause it to all of
us together tonight that it seems increasingly implausible and indeed
(57:19):
naive to argue that US authorities are not aware of this.
Maybe factions are complicit in this. I don't know what
do you guys think.
Speaker 3 (57:28):
Before I start well pulling an Oprah and be like
you're a corrupt, you're corrupt, and you're a corrupt.
Speaker 6 (57:33):
I will say that I do know that you know, gambling,
gaming licensing is a big deal, and that proprietors of
casinos are always very concerned with losing their gaming licenses,
and so they do, I believe, to the best of
my understanding, go to great lengths to make sure they're
in compliance. So this certainly wouldn't be something that would
(57:54):
be done willy nilly or without an appropriate amount of
kind of smoke screen, you know, because I think it
would be pretty easy, to your point bent for Uncle
Sam to to find out and then you know act.
Speaker 2 (58:08):
To me, casinos are just a weird thing to be okay.
I don't understand why it's okay.
Speaker 3 (58:14):
How is that a thing other than.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
There are people who agree that they're okay that get paid.
You pay somebody to say yes, it's okay. Then they
make a bunch of money and you get some of
that money.
Speaker 6 (58:25):
And therein lies the issue with the licensing where it's
like it's only okay up to if these conditions are met.
And it's the same reason that like when you have
advertising for any kind of gambling, you have to be
very clear and expressly state the resources for folks to
find help if they have gambling problems.
Speaker 3 (58:45):
Well to MAT's earlier point there too, it's a great
observation that there aren't any I am not aware of
any like grassroots nonprofit pro casino organization. Like I've never
seen an interview with someone on the news saying I
don't make any money off of this. I just think
(59:06):
it's important for people to have a hot hand blackjack.
That's what means, you know, step beside human trafficking. I
chose my thing that I am going to fight for.
You're right, you know, money is money is a superpower.
It's a physical or conceptual representation of labor over time. Right. Therefore,
(59:31):
money as power can be corrupting. It does make institutions
and individuals corruptible. So it feels like people are aware
of part of the connection with Cartel's Chinese companies, proxy
entities and casinos laundering money, but it also feels like
(59:55):
a lot of powerful people don't want those links to
be in mistigated in depth understandably, So so what do
we think, guys? We'll get to one piece of good
news before we wrap up. There's a lot we didn't
get to. But overall, does this feel this fentanyl casino
money laundering thing? Does this feel like an episode in
(01:00:16):
the future.
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Absolutely, let's break it down.
Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Yeah, let's get into it. Yeah, let's see if we
can make it back to Vegas. Right.
Speaker 7 (01:00:25):
Oh, I think we all have different personas in Vegas,
so we should be fine. It's not longe as that
can be the bag man, sir, We've saved the seat
for you.
Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
I got it. I got a little lost.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
I just want to go to Vallejo now and find
these dang Zizians.
Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
The Zizzy and cult. Yes, that's what we didn't get
to last time.
Speaker 5 (01:00:43):
Its strange news.
Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
It's a it's a disturbing story. Tune in for colts
you've never heard of. Part three will end on some
good news, I think, I hope.
Speaker 8 (01:00:55):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Studies show that more US residents are using psilocybin than
ever before. The rates are shooting up due to some
decriminalization acts right, which also makes people less hesitant to
self report or to you know, tell the truth on
a survey or something. There's a great study I found
(01:01:18):
out about it from Science Daily, but it was originally
published in the Annals of Internal Medicine just a few
days ago, on this Monday past. And what they found
is that people who are experiencing mental health conditions appear
to be finding some sort of mitigation or comfort in
(01:01:42):
the use of psilocybin aka magic mushrooms, probably the most
common version of that.
Speaker 6 (01:01:47):
Here in the US, absolutely, and there's it's becoming more
and more prevalent, and I think for a good reason
than when used appropriately under the supervision of like the
right kind of therapist.
Speaker 5 (01:01:59):
I have great results.
Speaker 6 (01:02:02):
From folks that I've spoken to that have participated in
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
And with that, we would love to hear from you,
fellow conspiracy realist, to the degree that you are comfortable,
tell us your experiences with hallucinogenic substances, tell us your
hot take for or against it. Let us know if
you have experience working with the federal government, let us
(01:02:26):
know what you're going through. We've had a lot of
great correspondence there. Let us know if you work at
a casino, give us the dirty business on that one. Right,
We did an episode on Stuff that Don't want you
to know about casinos and I think it holds up
so we can't wait to hear from you. For all
of that and for more. You can find us on
the internet. You can call us on the telephone. You
(01:02:47):
can also give us a line any old time you
like at our good old fashioned email address. That's right.
Speaker 6 (01:02:53):
You can find us in the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where
we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group.
Speaker 5 (01:02:56):
Here is where it gets crazy.
Speaker 6 (01:02:58):
Get in on the conversation, join your Hello Australian listeners
and recommending some Australian cinema for us to enjoy. You
want to thank all the folks who have reached out
giving us some really great recommendations for classic Australian films
to check out.
Speaker 5 (01:03:11):
Looking forward to doing that.
Speaker 6 (01:03:13):
You can also find us at Conspiracy Stuff on x FKA,
Twitter and on youtubehere we have video content glore for
your perusal on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 5 (01:03:21):
However, where Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Our phone number is one eight three three st d
w y t K. When you call in, it is
a voicemail system. Give yourself a cool nickname and let
us know within the message if we can use your
name and message.
Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
On the air.
Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
If you don't like voicemails and instead want to send
us an email, we've got that too.
Speaker 4 (01:03:44):
Shoot us a line.
Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet I'm afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back, what are we talking about? There's one
way to find out. Take a step further away from
the light. Join us here in the dark. Can iHeartRadio dot.
Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Com Stuff they Don't want you to know is a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
(01:04:25):
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. If you are tuning
in to our strange news program, The Evening It publishes,
let us be the first to welcome you to Monday,
April twenty eighth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to April.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
It's so spooky. Wait, this isn't the spooky?
Speaker 5 (00:57):
Is that an RSKA impression? That's pretty good?
Speaker 4 (00:59):
No, No, just spooking would be like welcome.
Speaker 6 (01:03):
If he has a waiver, he has a bit of
h he's got to make him a cryptkeeper knows it's
very hard to do that voice without choking on your
own spit.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I also learned recently guys on the Daily zeite guys that,
apparently as a ute Tom Waits would scream into his
pillow to help create his raspy voice.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
Do that every night, just in the state of the world.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
What it's like, the most screamable pillow.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
Oh, it's just the my pillow.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah great, that guy's in the news as well as Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:36):
Oh real quick up top, I just wanted to ask
you guys something, since you're having a minute to catch us.
I was watching some YouTube doom scrolly type things. A
little shorts have been up on the shorts lately, and
somebody pointed out a new arrangement for the press briefing
room at the White House, which is essentially a standing
room section that is devoted to quote unquote new media. Yeah,
(02:00):
but a lot of these folks, one of which I
saw a quote from whose name escapes me, represents particularly
far right unless, let's just say journalists, journalist d kind
of news.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I thought I thought you were going to say, No,
I thought you were going to say, represents the Lollipop Kids.
Speaker 6 (02:18):
That's also true, definitely Lollipop Guild. Indeed, lollipip gild.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
You're absolutely correct. By the way, I did write to
the current administration because they have an open h application
online where you can request to be a as a
new media member podcaster, you can request credentials, and to
be all out there.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
I guess what I was getting at is it seems like,
since it is at the discretion of the White House
Press Secretary as to who gets to ask questions, when
the deck is stacked.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
A little bit with some of these let's call.
Speaker 6 (02:53):
Them sympathetic folks end up opinion generating lot of news
bites that are very pro administration, and some of these
folks literally ask just I mean, beyond softball questions like
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
True that's the best president in the history of the
concept of humanity? Isn't it true that you're also fun
at parties?
Speaker 6 (03:17):
It is very much that vibe, and it just I
don't know, maybe I'm stating the obvious here. Doesn't it
feel like at ploy or a tactic to erode journalism,
to erode the idea of what constitutes journalism, And obviously
it fits in with the whole concept of the fake
news and it just feels another like a very nineteen
eighty four kind of thing.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
That's all.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, guy, Speaking of tertiary characters in your favorite movies,
can we talk about how dirty The Lost Boys did?
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Rufio didn't talk about this.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, oh my gosh, this is going to be our
cold open.
Speaker 6 (03:53):
I just listened to a discussion on my favorite podcast,
blank Check with Griffin and David about Hook and.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I seriously, yeah, I watched it last night.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
Well, Banger Rang Bang Rang.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
Indeed, listen to the episode, Matt, You're going to be
fresh on all the details. And it's a great podcast
in and of itself. But they're doing the latter day
career of Steven Spielberg. They do directors kind of filmographies
in series, and there was so much I forgot about
Hook and I've been It's been on my.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
List to rewatch as well. It's not good right, like.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
It's it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Okay, what do you it's banger range. They invented the
word banger range.
Speaker 6 (04:27):
I remember their clubhouse was a kid's dream come true.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Everybody's eating like brightly colored gag.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
That's exactly right, and skateboarding.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
I want to say it reminded me of the Foot
Clans hideout in the first Ninja Turtles movie, which made
made me when to join the gang.
Speaker 5 (04:41):
It really made.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
It's a very specific vibe for the nineties.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
This is nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
And yes, uh, they're imagining eating magically colored stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And if you believe Robin Williams, if you believe in
the power of imagination, then you'll never be hungry again.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Okay, that's nice, dude, Rufio spoiler alert ready three two
to one. When Ruffio takes that hit from Dustin Hoffman, right, Captain, Yes,
he dies immediately and everybody just he's going and that's it.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
They did him so dirty in hook. I do remember,
I do remember watching that thinking what happened to the
power of imagination? Can't they just like believe this guy
back into life?
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Dang man, that's a good point. You think they could
just does it? Snap your fingers? Clap your hands, that's
you clap your hands. Yeah yeah, watch out for that uh,
watch out for that gator. We're going to talk about
some likewise surreal things. We had had some conversations off
Mike about people who that we've already we've already dunked
(05:51):
on this industry before getting to not white space, edging
into space for maybe ten to eleven minutes. Uh, as
we're recording this, there's going to be a huge merger
on the horizon for credit card companies so any credit
card companies in the audience tonight, that one's going to
be for you. Please don't get on a list when
(06:12):
you are.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Please don't get on a list with your personal medical records.
We've got so much to get to. A new crime
just dropped that I think we all will learn about.
We're gonna have ken you come up in a little bit.
But before we do any of that, why don't we
take a break for a word from our sponsors, and
we'll come back with some credit where do and some
(06:37):
FDA news.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
We're getting federal government up in here, everybody.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
The sexiest thing to say at a party.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Oh yeah, let's talk federal government, guys. On April twenty second,
Reuters reported US f DA suspends milk quality tests amid
workforce cuts. Right, you know what I like? Untested milk?
Speaker 7 (07:08):
Yeah, yeah, we're talking about this earlier. You know, would
I walk through a grocery store. What I like to
feel is the sensation of risk, you know what I mean.
I like to think we're rolling beat me here, Dylan.
I like to think we're rolling the in dice, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Is there cyclospora in this milk or cheese, maybe bird flu.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
Does this figure into the conversation around raw milk? Isn't
DARFK a big fan of raw milk, and it's sort
of been like state by status to whether it's legal
or not unprocessed, unpasteurized milk.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Raw it may. But in this case, this is the agency,
the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, that is suspending
its proficiency testing for Grade A raw milk and finished products.
So any milk you can buy that would be considered
Grade A that you buy in your store shelves, the
kind for human consumption, it is suspending the testing for that.
Speaker 6 (08:07):
So the assumption is it's probably fine, nothing to worry about.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Uh, yeah, everything's fine.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
I can't about yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
To be clear, nothing is improving for the cows.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yep, cows still in their enclosures, continually just given milk
through all kinds of weird tubing.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And are they okay? So they're suspending their quality control.
But Matt, from what I understand, the argument is that
the FDA is outsourcing this or transferring Hey.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, okay. According to the FDA, it's being transferred to
this place, the FDA's Moffit Center Proficiency testing laboratory is
quote no longer able to provide laboratory support for proficiency
testing and data analysis.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
This is all according to an email official that was sent.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
However, a Health and Human Services spokesperson said the laboratory
was Don't worry, guys, already set to be decommissioned before
the staff cuts, and proficiency testing will be paused during
the transition to a new laboratory. But product testing will continue, guys,
It will continue.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
All right. Wait, question, what's the difference between proficiency testing
and product testing?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Who knows?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Who knows? There's a proposed forty billion dollar cut currently
happening at the agency via the Trump administration. And this
is also really coming about because of the twenty thousand
employees that were lost from the Department of Health and
Human Services. So you know, milk testing will happen. It
just won't be happening in the same way by the
(09:47):
same people at the same places. It'll just be new, guys,
and new is better, he said, hopefully, speaking of changes
in the federal government. Guys, the SEA recently had to
say sorry, we can't help you to a couple of cities.
They were dealing with some lad stuff officials in Milwaukee
(10:10):
and Wisconsin's state health department formally requested the CDC's help
on March twenty sixth, after many of the city's schools
were found to have quote significant lead hazards exposing children,
and according to CBS News and Alexander ten on April eleventh,
the CDC basically reached out and said, no, we cannot
(10:31):
help you. A statement from the email received by CBS
News is quote, I sincerely regret to inform you that
due to the complete loss of our LED program, we
will be unable to support you with this. As in,
because of the staff cuts at the federal level at
the CDC, there is no longer a LEAD program that
can help out any city, state, whatever, with testing lead
(10:57):
and providing basically ways to fit a LET exposure problem
like within a school per chance, or maybe a citywide problem.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Yeah, despite the fact that there are pretty rigorous studies
showing LET exposure, especially during formative years, can have consequences
down the road. It's it's kind of a thing we
were talking about off air. We have an episode coming
up on let exposure and it's a I mean, Matt Noel, Dylan,
(11:28):
Folks at home it's a blood bath over there right now.
Like the amount of cuts. I think we all probably
have a couple of friends who were working in public
service who were unceremoniously given their walking papers or they
got that really weird email for voluntary resignation, depending on
(11:49):
their department. I'm gonna say it, I don't think this
is like a good idea long term. If you if
you support the US as a as a ONCET.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I would agree with you. Other officials, like within this
story about Milwaukee schools, they are saying, this is why
it is so important to have state level and local
level folks who do things like test products, you know, milk,
test for lead in pipes and then know how to
actually go through a triage and help the students or
(12:25):
you know, human beings who've been exposed to that lead,
and then fix the pipes that have the lead in
them that are seeping it into the water supply. They're
basically it's an interesting argument. It's both we no longer
have help at the federal level, but also this is
why we need to be as good as whoever those
folks were at the local and state level, Which is
(12:46):
an interesting argument, right because there are budgets, you know,
local and state budgets to maybe create things like this.
It's just how much of that money coming in via
whatever taxes or whatever incentive programs do you actually put
towards health and human services stuff?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Right? And how different should should thresholds and priorities and
accuracy be from state.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
To state city right?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Or city to city? Right? Yeah. People who are critics
of the current direction are going to argue that this
feels like Balkanizing the United States, turning each of the
fifty states into their own sort of sovereign territory with
(13:36):
an erosion of federal law. And there is I mean,
not to be alarmists, there is some validity to that argument.
Like what if you imagine, oh gosh, what's a city.
A lot of people don't think about Bismarck. Right, Okay,
so we're in Bismarck and people love Bismarck because now
it's a tourism advertisement thing to say, hey, we're known
(14:00):
for not having poison in the milk. Yeah, come to Bismarck.
You know what, the town of clean milk. M hm.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
It's just weird because how do you test all of
the products coming into Bismarck. I mean, how you test
every single how do you do that?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
How do you afford it?
Speaker 4 (14:18):
You know, I feel like you.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Need a federal program or something larger, at least sitting
on top of everybody who's producing a product and say, hey,
those folks are going to look at everything.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
If not, I don't know, welcome.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
To El Paso. You might get a finger in the chili.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
But the milk is just following.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Guys, let's continue a little bit on a previous discussion
we've had before about Red thirty, that is an artificial
petroleum based food dye that recently we talked on the
show about how the US government is looking to cut
that out, cut it out of our food supplies. If
you imagine that scene, if you have seen the nineteen
(15:02):
ninety one Banger Rang of a film hook, you may
imagine the props department using a whole crap ton of
petroleum based food dies to create those I don't know,
sloppy pies.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
They're basically they're like neon colored gack, but also rufio.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
Yes, that was prime Nickelodeon's slime time, you know, zwise, Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Well they sure used it a whole bunch and now
the FDA again, the Food and Drug Administration at the
federal level of the US government, is phasing out the
use of petroleum based synthetic dies by the end of
the year, according to an announcement by the agency that
occurred yesterday as we're recording Tuesday for twenty second. This
comes to us via CNBC. By the way, guys, this
(15:52):
could be huge, it's not. It's one of those things
we talked about even before all of this other stuff,
when we talked about food additive so that are allowed
within the United States government according to the FDA, and
those same food additives that are banned in most other countries. Yeah,
and how maybe it's a good idea to jump on
the old bandwagon and get those out of our systems
(16:15):
as well. The FDA appears to be taking steps.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
The people left at the FDA appear to be taking steps.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yes, and specifically I was gonna say Robert Downey Junior,
but it's not him. It's the other guy and Robert
Kennedy Junior. But but anyway, it is interesting that it's
happening now. We're talking red forty, yellow five, yellow six,
jazz all getting out of here, including red three.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
So I'm not read three.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yes, read three is the reason we started this show.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
I only drink sports beverages that have read three in them.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
I will die on that hill, possibly literally.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
As an entity that doesn't have, like you, guys, full
spectrum of color. I appreciate that the additives have numbers
beside them.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
They just make the bevy hit different.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
You know that's right?
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Well, guys, According to FDA Commissioner Marty McCarey, the agency
FDA plans to authorize four additional color additives using natural
ingredients in the next few weeks, so maybe even by
the time you're hearing this, they are also expecting to
review and approve other natural ingredient colors.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Cool. How do we define natural.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Well, it's not based in the stuff we pull out
out of the ground and then refine and put in
our vehicles. Cool, which is very natural, I suppose in
a way. One last thing, and they were getting out
of here for the segment Huge news. Yes, I don't
(17:55):
know what's in your wallet, but this one company is
really stoked if they've got one of their pieces of
plastic in your wallet.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Capital one.
Speaker 6 (18:07):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
They had this little idea. They said, why don't we
buy Discover Financial Services and Discover Bank for around thirty
five billion dollars thirty five point three to be exact reason,
Let's buy that and let us become the credit card
company that exists on the planet, like the biggest one.
(18:28):
And the Federal Reserve had to check it out. The
guess who else guys the Office of the Comptroller of
the Currency You had to check out the dealer.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Unclear still to this.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Day, yeah, yeah, yeah, and the parliamentarian.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
What's the deal again, I'm sorry, we gotta we got
to remind everybody.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
The comptroller is the person with the stamps and the signage.
Speaker 6 (18:51):
They go, yes, they troll the comps, so they're like
a mega notary basically.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
No, No, they're the one that checks off every thing,
like the last line of defense for fiscal things services
depending on when you're.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
In right to them, Matt, I like that, the last
line of defense that's got to them. They probably make
custom stamp too, last light of fiscal defense. And they,
despite that excellent tagline match just gave them. They co
signed what is arguably a problematic monopolization of one of
(19:30):
the most sensitive parts of Western life.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Yeah, it's pretty weird. It's pretty weird.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Capital One has around one hundred million card holders, Discover
had around three hundred millions. So then you put them
all together, that's four hundred million cards out there. That's
not individual cardholders if you had those two up, because
many many folks have multiple cards. It is interesting with
the two of these companies combined because they have often
(19:59):
targeted folks who are considered by these financial services to
be either lower income or lower on the credit scale,
so around a credit score around six hundred, and they
offer cards often with cash back and things like that
that the financial services like Capital One and Discover and
Visa and all of them say are more popular with
(20:23):
folks of lower income. That is what that's the way
they talk about it. Sure, it's really gross.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Actually, he Evikre just had a happy accident. Companies money.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Sure, well, but basically they're they're teaming up to make
one giant financial credit services group with huge interest rates.
And I don't want to say praying on anybody.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I just mean, I mean, you kind of have to
if you're being accurate, but we don't want to say it.
That doesn't make it not true.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, because there's a There are a bunch
of credit card issuing banks like JP Morgan Chase, Bank
of America, City Group, Wells Fargo, a bunch of them
that are like, we're a bank, but we also offer
credit cards.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
This is like.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
One of the primary ones that are going after people
who don't have a lot of money and can't afford to,
you know, pay seventeen twenty three thirty percent interest rates
on stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Isirious.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, anyway, have fun with that one. We'll see where
all of that goes. Guess who's really happy the shareholders.
Everybody who owned Discover stock just got a bunch of
capital one stock. Discover stock was upwards of one hundred
dollars per share, and your capital one is well above that.
So everybody who held shares is going to make a
(21:48):
crap ton of money.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Everybody at the meeting is having a great day.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
That's a great way to put it.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Everybody at the met have a great day. Also, if
we could always be closing. If you want to learn
more about the history of credit cards as a concept
and why credit scores are absolutely ridiculous, check out our
pure podcast Ridiculous History. Matt. We're still trying to get
you to come back on the show.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
It's gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
We're gonna twist one day. I'll do that thing, but
not right now. Right now, we're gonna hear a word
from our sponsors.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
And we've returned with a with a oh man, this
is a real chestnut. Is that a thing? It's an
old chest nut. Whatever they are, they are, and they're
tough nuts to crack. Apparently, as often is the case
with a conspiracy theory run amuck, we do live in
a time where disinformation seems to be more prevalent than ever,
(22:49):
with all these accusations of fake news media and fake
news story and miss and disinformation and dare we say,
outright propaganda all over the world, and very much in
this country of ours, the United States of America, with
all of that stuff flowing around, kind of muddies the
waters to an alarming degree in terms of what is
(23:12):
to be believed, what is to be taken at face value,
And for good reason.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
I mean, we have deep fakes.
Speaker 6 (23:18):
We have more and more convincing uses of artificial intelligence
machine learning rather to create images that never really existed
that absolutely look convincing.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
Video footage have even gotten hands better.
Speaker 6 (23:31):
I don't know if you guys have seen that, but
the AI modeling tools are much much better at generating hands.
That was always the big tell as to whether something
was AI slop or not. This story isn't about AI necessarily.
This story is about space and conspiracies surrounding a particularly
(23:51):
I don't know, self congratulatory Let's just call it PR
space flight from Jeff Be's Blue Origin Space Program space company.
He's a competing, of course with Elon Musk's SpaceX and
definitely making some headway in terms of privatized spaceflight. Whatever
(24:14):
you think about that as a concept, it is happening,
and Bezos is one of the figures at the forefront
of that.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
I guess.
Speaker 6 (24:22):
As a way of drawing attention to his efforts, he
and his company devised a PR stunt photo op.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Let's just call it.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
We're in a handful of celebrities who are women were
gathered together, six of them in fact, for an eleven
minute spaceflight into near Earth orbit.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
I believe about.
Speaker 6 (24:45):
Space, not quite space, near Earth orbit. I believe about
sixty three miles above the Earth's atmosphere, which is high
enough to achieve zero gravity. Type effects and all of
that good stuff. The Internet, however, as it is wont
to do, is calling foul on this whole thing, saying
that it never really happened, that it was simulated. The
(25:08):
very familiar sounding conspiracy theories, given all of the talk
around the faked moon landing, the supposed faking of the
moon landing, the idea that it was something that was
devised and set up on a studio backlot in Hollywood,
potentially even directed by the great Stanley Kubrick, all of
that one of the classic conspiracy theories that we have
(25:29):
talked about a great length on this show.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
But that is true. By the way, Stanley Kubrick did
fake the moon landing. Cool okay, such an awe tour.
He said, the only way they could do it realistically
is to fake the moon landing on the moon.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Oh yeah, he was like the proto Christopher Nolan. That's
what Christopher Nolan would do.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
Like, there were all these jokes surrounding the idea that
he actually wanted to detonate an atomic bomb, you know,
for the shot in Oppenheimer.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
So the women in question are Katie Perry. One.
Speaker 6 (26:00):
Katie Perry, pop star of Matt pointed out, I kissed
a Girl. I think was her first big hit, Firework,
which I think is an absolute banger. I'm quite a
big fan of Firework, and then Our Fireworks perhaps, And
then a little later she had a song that was
pretty inescapable called dark Horse, with a pretty laughable verse
(26:20):
or feature from the rapper Juicy Jay, wherein he compares
the Beast of Karma to Jeffrey Dahmer in that it
can eat your heart out. So that's a real clever
turn of phrase in there. But I quite enjoy some
of the music of Katie Perry. She has a late
kind of been lampooned quite a bit by pop culture
(26:43):
aficionado's media critics, et cetera, because I don't know, she
did this whole kind of like the feminist kind of
rollout for her most recent record, and it just came
off very very heavy handed and very very kind of
look at me, rather than actually speaking to real things
(27:04):
behind the idea of feminism and empowering women, etc. It
was just, I don't know, kind of a little bit
tone deaf, you know, the rollout of that record she had.
I think she were, like, you know, she was dressed
up as like Rosie the Riveter and things like that
in a music video, and it just pretty much got
absolutely crapped on by just about anybody, and the record.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Did not do well.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
She does have a world tour coming up, and I
guess what better way of promoting your world tour than
participating in an elaborate spaceflight pr event. So was Katy Perry,
along with Gail King. Gail King is Oprah's best friend.
Oprah and Gail that's right, I'm sorry, a friend of
the show, Anna Host. I have a daily Zeitgeist, fame
(27:44):
and other things, lots colch Srista's all the big hits
these days. Just I saw she posted from a Broadway
play that she recommended, the name of which is Escaping Me,
but said that Gail and Oprah were sitting right behind her,
so it had their seal of approval. So along with
Katie and Gail, we also had Lauren Sanchez, who is
a journalist, helicopter pilot, and also the author of a
(28:06):
children's book called like Fritz the Fly or something like that.
I like beginning the name wrong, but she's also Jeff Bezos,
Blue Origin and Amazon CEO's fiance partner. We also have
Amanda Wynn, who is a civil rights activist, two advocates
for victims of sexual assaults and bio astronautics research scientists,
something that she also does, and she has worked with
(28:29):
NASA in the past on the Space Shuttle mission STS
one thirty five as well as NASA's exo planet Terry
Kepler space telescope. So no slouch there. We also have
film producer Carrie Ann Flynn and a former NASA rocket
scientist and CEO of engineering firm stem Board and founder
(28:51):
of a company called Lingo that teaches students technology skills.
Her name is Aisha Bo. So all of these women
canned in one of Blue Origins, West Texas launch facilities
for a big televised event wherein they boarded the ship
the Shuttle I guess should call it, were blasted off
(29:13):
into space and then posted videos from their near earth
orbit zero G experience and then returned back to Earth.
The whole thing lasted a whoppings twelve minutes I believe,
and this took place on April fourteenth, as we sit
here on April twenty third.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
What's the Internet stand.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
Well, there's a couple of points as to what they
believe or the collective they believe.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Is happening here.
Speaker 6 (29:38):
There was one particular clue that was highlighted quite frequently,
which is that when the ship landed, or it's called
the believe the New Shepherd is the name of the
pod or the shuttle when it landed. As part of
the ceremony of it all and the kind of photo
op of it all, Jeff Bezos was supposed to open
(29:59):
the the door, the pod door, let's just call in
for saying sci fi about it, with this special tool.
But before he got to it, you can actually see
the door opening inward and then quickly being closed. Okay,
So a lot of folks on the internet seem to
believe that the door should not have been able to
open from inside because it it's supposed to be pressurized,
(30:20):
and if it were to be openable in that direction,
that the pressure of space could potentially, you know, force
it open.
Speaker 5 (30:29):
So that's one thing.
Speaker 6 (30:29):
However, according to NASA, hatch doors should in fact be
able to be opened by a single crew member without
any special tools from both sides. So the idea here
would be that they opened it kind of jumped the
gun and then realizing they had made a mistake, closed
it really quickly and allowed Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
To have his photo op.
Speaker 6 (30:50):
The Daily Mail reports on this, and that is their conjecture,
and that is confirmed by some NASA scientists that they
spoke with. This whole mission, by the way, is called
taking up Space, and the idea was that it was
meant to promote stem education for young women. All of
the crew members were these fashionable, more fashionable than your
(31:13):
average space suit, very star treki honestly blue skin tight
jumpsuits that were designed by Lauren Sanchez. The central image
that I'm talking about is the one that is causing
folks to do a little bit of a head scratch,
at least.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
On the Internet.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
With all this talk of illuminati conspiracies surrounding celebrities and
you know dark satanic rituals, even dating back to things
like Pizzagate, the idea of the elite participating in these
you know, dark occult kind of activities. If you look
at the image, it is kind of a you know,
(31:49):
a space pod kind of image stylized with stars and
all of that stuff. It has the names of the
crew members emblazoned around the edges with a little corresponding
icons for each of them. Katy Perry gets a shooting
star microphone kind of thing, and the filmmaker gets a
little real of film. But if you flip it upside down,
(32:10):
it really does start to resemble the head of our
good old buddy, the dark Prince himself, Lord Baphamet, who
is often used as a symbol of the Church of Satan,
which as we know, isn't necessarily interested in the actual
worship of Satan in the occult. They are more of
(32:30):
an organization about civil liberty and about you know, owning
one's own destiny. Do what thou wilt, Let that be
the whole of the law and all of that good stuff.
Bapha Met for them is more of a symbol of
protests and of you know, kind of being down on
the man or you know, rejecting authority and all that.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
So when you flip it upside down, it does kind.
Speaker 6 (32:53):
Of look like a goat shaped head with a snout
at the bottom. The wings of the craft be come
the horns, and yeah, it's causing some folks to really,
you know, call into question whether or not this thing
was a pr stunt or some sort of elaborate Satanic ritual.
There's an image that's also being noted where Katy Perry
(33:15):
is seen holding her hand over the patch, supposedly indicating
her swearing her allegiance to the Lord Bapha Met. One
observer on x commented, Katy Perry swearing her allegiance by
placing her hand adoringly and lovingly over her Bapha met logo.
They tell you in so many ways who they worship.
(33:38):
Some folks even pointed out that in twenty eleven, Katy
Perry had a music video for her song e Tea,
wherein she is depicted with goat legs. Goat like legs,
of course, a long standing symbol often related to like
Pan or other kind of pagan depictions of satyrs, and
of course Bapha Met himself.
Speaker 5 (33:57):
So what do you guys think? Do you see it?
It is kind of entertaining.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
There's also people talking about how an upside down cross
can be seen as well, if you really you know,
if you squint at it enough.
Speaker 7 (34:08):
Yeah, while you were walking us through, shared one of
those images with that badge upside down and I can
totally see the paradelia of it for sure.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Just here. Let's uh, let's that about pattern seeking right,
that's where you that's the human tendency to maybe see
faces or see patterns where there might not be. So
I'm going to reshare uh this uh, this thing you
were describing there for everybody as we can like as
we're as we're all looking at it now, would love
(34:40):
to hear just like group reactions. You know, I I
I get that if you are looking for something, you
are going to find the thing you are looking for
for sure. Not to sound like roomy, but.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
No, yeah, I get it's very as end of you.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
Ben another comment or had this to say, really sums
the whole thing up. Did you notice the logo on
Katie Perry and her fellow Blue Origin space traveler's patch
is the Satanic goat with an upside down cross If
you flip it over, goat horns celebs fake space. I
don't think space is in question here, but perhaps fake
space travel also acknowledging a reference to Two Corinthians eleven fourteen,
(35:19):
Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah, but Baphabet's not Satan.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
No, no, he's not.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
So like, let's get our lore together real for.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
Sure, Baha met would be perhaps considered like one of
the lesser demons, kind of like in the what is
it the Key of Solomon? Sort of like Paymon and
all of that stuff. Baphamet is is he like a
prince of Hell? What's what's Baphamet's deal?
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Well, bapha Met the name is relatively young as far
as the the demon game goes, but Bathamet had had
the distinct privilege of being part of the accusations against
the Knights Templar.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
That's right, and also considered a misinterpretation of Islamic beliefs.
Some scholars believe that the name is a corruption of
Mahammet or Mohammed right, right.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
This leads some historians or speculators to argue that the
Templars were indeed to some degree following is law.
Speaker 6 (36:27):
And if I'm not mistaken, ben, aren't the Knights Templark
often lumped in with Illuminati conspiracies?
Speaker 5 (36:33):
Isn't that sort of part of it?
Speaker 3 (36:35):
They know what they did, that's fair?
Speaker 6 (36:36):
Okay, So this is it does feel like part of
that larger conspiracy bubble of you know, celebrities being in
some way inducted into some sort of shadowy secret cabal
accusations have often flown around surrounding even like choreography of
like Beyonce. I think there was some some stuff talking
(36:57):
about Beyonce and jay Z are part of this. And
recently Coachella took place in the Indio Valley there in California,
and a lot of articles started swirling after Lady Gaga's
performance accusing that of being some sort of Satanic ritual.
So this isn't like the first, you know, satanic rodeo.
It's maybe just the first one that's accused of happening
(37:18):
in space, So you know, I know we're running along
in this. There's a couple other quick points I'd like
to hit, one being that when Katie Perry was in space,
she holds up a little butterfly sticky note kind of thing,
apparently it's really hard to read, has text on it
indicating her set list for her upcoming tour that I
was mentioning earlier. However, some Internet conspiracy theorists have said
(37:42):
that that is actually a reference to MK Ultra and
a form of mind control, because apparently the image of
the monarch butterfly representing metamorphosis and change has been long
associated with that program, which is actually something I didn't
fully realize, but it does make sense.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
So there's that.
Speaker 6 (38:02):
There's also a thing about like a fake hand that
was visible, Ben, Do I see you nodding? That one
sort of flummecks me a little bit. I didn't quite
get to the bottom of that one.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
There's a still that's going around as well as some
video footage after the capsule comes down of a view
through the window where there's a shiny looking hand that
many people in line have said, Hey, that's a mannequin's hand.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
That's a fake hand in the window.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
But again it's pretty baseless. It's just kind of the whole.
I don't know the rumor thing starts.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
I'm looking at that image again of the capsule flipped around,
the actual mission image.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
This is the patch. Yeah, they're the logo.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
This is an all female mission. It is about taking
up space and promoting promoting stem for girls.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yes, think about what the blue Origin space crafts look like.
They look like, so they do and not all.
Speaker 7 (39:09):
Of that, Not all of that is due to necessary function.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
There's a little bit of aesthetic interesting carry me.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Ben, this this image of the spacecraft is tilted in
such a way that it looks a little less phallic.
I think that was done purposefully. So I think any
shapes you're getting when you flip it over are due
to the desire to make it look a little less
like a huge dog.
Speaker 5 (39:35):
That's a really good point, Matt. So it's a PR move.
Speaker 6 (39:38):
It is further apart and parcel of the policity stunt
ness of it.
Speaker 5 (39:43):
All right, Well, it's.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
One hundred percent of PR move. We were talking off
Mike before we recorded tonight's program where I had asked
someone to explain who Katy Perry was because I'm super
plugged into human culture. And then the next part becomes this,
It would be fascinating to look at the financials a
(40:05):
Blue Origin and see whether this sort of PR stunt
is actually financially advantageous to them. Right, you can take
the hit. You can take the PR hit if the
investors are still coming through, because now they like your
mission more and they get to say, oh, look at
that badge. Blue Origin doesn't look that much like a
(40:26):
penis we should give them money.
Speaker 6 (40:28):
That's a very good point, Ben, and I will will
say too that the biggest takeaway from this whole thing
is just the sort of tone deafness of it all.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Kardashian, the.
Speaker 6 (40:39):
Pepsi percent that aspect, you know, Katy Perry coming down
and making these very kind of lackadaisical claims of like,
you know, we've heard of this idea of the overview effect,
and it is I'm sure it's very cathartic, and it's
something that maybe we can all one day experience as well,
But right now, the ability to experience that for regular
folks is absolutely out of range. Out of reach in
(41:03):
terms of price, like I believe it costs about a
million dollars once space tourism truly begins, you know, in earnest.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
That's about what you're looking to pay.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Are we making The real question here philosophically is if
we are making space, are we making space in this
conversation for other people who are not celebrities at multimillionaires
or is it just sort of like Jeff Bezos and
Blue Orged pitching ideas and not really hearing responses.
Speaker 6 (41:34):
One hundred percent that and then funny that you should say, Ben,
I think your version of the mission name is a
little less tone deaf. The real version was taking up space,
which is kind of what these billionaires do, you know,
in terms of taking stuff that other people could benefit
from and not giving back.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
So to me, like taking up space is just sort.
Speaker 6 (41:56):
Of absolutely ill conceived, and like I was getting Tokadiy
Perry making these comments of you know, you never know
truly how much love you have to give until you've
gone to space.
Speaker 5 (42:06):
It's like, cool, I guess we'll just have to, you know, settle.
Speaker 6 (42:10):
On the amount of love that we are aware that
we have to give without having that experience that you shared,
Katie Perry.
Speaker 5 (42:16):
So there you go.
Speaker 6 (42:17):
I don't know, it just felt a little gross to me.
I don't think it was faked. I do think that
stuff is interesting and very much part and parcel of
the kind of thought experiments that we enjoy on this show.
Speaker 5 (42:27):
But all of it checks out.
Speaker 6 (42:29):
I think it happened, and I think the fact that
it did happen is maybe even more offensive and obnoxious
than if it were faked, which why would they do that.
I will say one thing that hasn't been addressed that
I do think is interesting. I did see a video
of an actual, actual astronaut, a woman whose name is
escaping me. I apologize from I believe the International Space Station,
(42:50):
where her hair is absolutely up completely, you know, in like,
you know, a huge mess of hair. Katie Perry's hair
was much less unkempt looking. It was just gently kind
of hovering. I would argue that maybe the difference is
how deep in space you are that would increase the
(43:10):
gravitational effect.
Speaker 5 (43:11):
Am I right?
Speaker 6 (43:12):
That if you're further into space more than just sixty
three miles, you're gonna have a heavier amount of zero
gravity effect that would maybe cause your hair to react differently.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
What do you guys think about that?
Speaker 4 (43:24):
We'll never know.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
I guess not. I guess not.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
Well, what we do know is we're going to take
quick break here a word from our sponsor, then come
back with another piece of strange news.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
And we have returned. There is a lot of stuff
we're not going to get to, but we will follow
up on the promise of a new crime that just
dropped Dylan. If we could get an air horn, perfect,
we welcome to wildlife piracy cool a crime that that
(44:00):
we like for a very real thing. Just earlier this April,
as reported by Evelyd Moussambif for ap News, two Belgian
teenagers were charged with this crime wildlife piracy after they
were found with thousands of ants. They were smuggling ants.
(44:20):
They're nineteen year olds, apparently they they were arrested on
April fifth in Kenya at a guesthouse with five thousand
ants in their possession and they going.
Speaker 5 (44:32):
Into the ant farm business. They what to what end?
Speaker 3 (44:35):
They said they were collected ants for fun. They didn't
know it was illegal. If you guys go to the
article I mentioned there and shared, it looks like a
professional operation. They have the ants and these tiny graduated cylinders.
Speaker 5 (44:50):
When is this a score for ants?
Speaker 3 (44:54):
And what it gives me? One of my favorite recent
government statements, which is this the illegal export of the
ants not only undermines Kenya's sovereign rights over its biodiversity,
but it also deprives local communities and research institutions of
potential ecological and economic benefits. So word to the wise.
(45:16):
Remember when in Rome followed Roman law right, So so
no breaking the laws of the land that let you in. Also,
don't steal ants. I guess I don't know.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
I just love how is one to know?
Speaker 7 (45:28):
I mean, I feel like we've all about scale, we've
all accidentally stolen ants.
Speaker 6 (45:33):
It must be about scale, right, Like it's at a
certain point you're like mining a resource and maybe you
have to report that to the proper wildlife authorities. Like
is it illegal for me to collect ants from my
backyard and make myself a little ant farm situation?
Speaker 3 (45:48):
It depends on what kind of ant, honestly, and where
you're dangered ants, right, Because there's a very good, fascinating,
I should say, if not very good argument about which
life worm on Earth is the most successful. And when
it comes to higher order multi cellular life forms, ants
get a lot of a lot of credit for that
(46:11):
because of their adaptations. They do things without anthropomorphizing that
could seem very human and not. We're not talking about
just the nice things. There are ants that enslave other creatures,
things like that, like they got the classic human. I'm
bringing this up, Matt. Do you have any thoughts before
we move on this one.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I didn't know that that amount of ants is worth
around seven dollars.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
And I think we've all accidentally smuggled some insects before,
not naming names, but you know, we might go on
hikes and fine, we've accidentally smuggled some ticks.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
I smuggled a tick on my butt.
Speaker 5 (46:47):
Basically, it's your story to tell.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Bro.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
I was in the shower and he was like, hey,
I'm down here, man, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (46:56):
And I was like, stop, dude, that out.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
That is a perfect tick act. By the way, Yeah, people.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
Don't I don't know.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
He was just doing his thing. But yeah, and now
I'm on antibiotics.
Speaker 4 (47:08):
So thanks tick. Oh seriously, yes, just in.
Speaker 5 (47:11):
Case, in case I don't want to get that lime disease.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
Also, yeah, lime disease episode has been the works for
a few years here. But yeah, we're mentioning this because
it's a funny story. I regret to inform friends and neighbors,
fellow conspiracy realists that these two young men did not,
in fact have the ants in their pandemic, so missed
opportunity on that. We're going to take a sudden shift
(47:36):
in direction. We're going to stay with Kenya in a
few years back. You guys may remember in twenty twenty three,
we covered a story in our Strange News program about
a death cult in Kenya, mass suicide, Oregon theft. This
is one of those rare situations that made international news.
Speaker 6 (47:56):
Remember talking about this. Possibly that's been a minute. I
do remember that the basics though.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Yeah, more than two hundred people died at the time
of reporting, six hundred were reported missing. And now we
have another story coming to us via Reuters. Reuters has
reported that two bodies were recovered from a church in
Kenya and the discovery has not just the local population
(48:25):
but the authorities worried that there may be another kind
of starvation or self harm cult in play. The bodies
were retrieved from the premises of Saint Joseph Missions of
Africa Church in Macgory County and this like just happened.
We're recorded on April twenty third. This happened a couple
(48:47):
days ago. And you know we I always try to
keep the eye on these on the cult activities. In
addition to the two cadavers, they rescued almost sixty people
who were being held there against their will.
Speaker 5 (49:03):
Okay, doesn't sound good.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
Yeah, it's not good.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
And apparently they went to the hospital right, or they
were sent to the hospital, but then they reacted differently.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
Right when they were This is the part about what
the nature of consent, right, because, as you're saying, Matt,
when they rescued these fifty seven people and took them
to a nearby hospital for medical care. Many of them
refused treatment and instead began to sing religious songs. This
(49:34):
is creepy, yeah, yeah, but if people are adults, then
you know, they can do what they want, right as
long as they're not harming others, Oh for sure.
Speaker 5 (49:45):
But I just mean it just seems a little bit like.
Speaker 6 (49:48):
A spooky I don't know, like, were they doing this
in protest like or is it this is seeming spontaneous,
like they're reacting to some unforeseen indoctrination or force or something.
Speaker 5 (50:00):
I guess I'm just confused.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, things are getting things are getting hairy there. And
this is a story that we need to keep an
eye on because these charismatic cult like institutions, right, they
can they can do serious harm to people, and you're
not going to be able to tell sometimes as an
investigator or as just you know, bystander walking by, unless
(50:24):
you're in the inner circle, and it can these conspiracies
can have real life consequences. Obviously, we're not here to
denigrate anybody's you know, personal beliefs, but if your institution
of belief is asking you to do things that cause
harm to yourself or others, it's time to take a
quick think. Maybe take a walk around the block, you
(50:46):
know what I mean, Get a case ida right, listen
to some jazz. I don't know. I don't know what
the answers are, but I wanted to bring this up
because we have an upcoming episode, a continuing an installment,
and a continuing series on cults you've never heard of.
So this is a claring poll to all of our
fellow listeners to please let us know about some other
(51:08):
cults that you think the public should be aware of
before there's another Waco situation or another Jonestown, which unfortunately,
historically is always a non zero possibility.
Speaker 6 (51:22):
Ben, I sent to you guys in our group text
another kind of alarming cult. I think maybe that was it.
It was one that I was like questioning whether or
not we had covered because it had some things in
common with.
Speaker 5 (51:34):
The Mother Love. I believe the one that there was.
Speaker 6 (51:37):
A documentary made recently about. I'll have to put my
finger on what that was. To your point, though, Ben,
there's more than enough new entries for an updated episode coming.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Up right O. Yeah, agreed, And we actually didn't get
to the story of that cult whose name begins with
a Z, and we're short on time a little while back.
But while we have everybody I've got, I've got one
more thing that I think we do need to talk about.
We can save some of the rest of it for
a different program in the future. Guys, Mexican cartels, I'm
(52:10):
just going to give you some keywords. Mexican cartels one,
casinos two, China three fentanyl four. I see, yeah, my
money's run into the laundry like there's something smelly on me.
Mexican cartels are using casinos to launder money made from fentanyl.
(52:31):
In the US, at least one point four billion US
dollars linked to various cartels that are working in a
Charlie Day level red string map of proxy companies with
with if not the knowing cooperation of Chinese regulatory bodies,
(52:56):
at least with a wilful blind eye.
Speaker 6 (52:59):
I mean money spends Jeeze.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Casinos a great place to launder money.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
That's the old Vegas ad right.
Speaker 5 (53:10):
Second to what happens in Vegas. Stays in Vegas.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
Send your kids to the pool, launder the money. Circus circus,
circus circus.
Speaker 5 (53:19):
What a weird place, What a weird what a weird place.
Speaker 3 (53:23):
Apparently, the relationship between Mexican cartels and Chinese businesses involved
in the fentanyl supply chain goes way beyond just selling
the stuff that you can use to make fentanyl, you
know what I mean? Like, you can sell various metals,
right you can. Yeah, you could sell various metals which
could be a precursor to a firearm. You're not responsible
(53:47):
for what happens to that metal after you sell it, right,
If someone chooses to manufacture a gun, that's no longer
your remit. However, selling precursor chemicals and claiming well, I
didn't know, only goes so far.
Speaker 5 (54:02):
Yeah, you going, what else are they good for?
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Right?
Speaker 5 (54:05):
I mean is that the issue?
Speaker 3 (54:07):
Fent Ugh? What is it good for? Yet? We're what
we're finding is a couple of different things. I want
to shout out the Latin Times and the journalist Ector
Rios Morales, who had a great piece on this on
April twenty first, twenty twenty five. According to reports that
are coming from the US Department of the Treasury's Financial
(54:31):
Crimes Enforcement Network, Finn Sin, I wonder when those guys
are going to start getting layoffs. They looked at fentanyl
related illicit transactions tied to the two largest partels in Mexico.
And what they found was that between January and December
of twenty twenty four, various financial institutions filed well over
(54:54):
twelve hundred suspicious activity reports related to that point, the
purchase of precursor chemicals, the trafficking of fentanyl, and of
course money laundry. It goes so deep. It's not just like, Okay,
I'm bringing this up because we have a lot of
friends and family who are more familiar with casinos than
(55:17):
the four of us here. We actually did it. I
think you and I hung out at a casino for
your very first time a few years back. Is that correct?
Speaker 8 (55:27):
Yeah, you gave me like ten dollars and a clearing machine.
I hit the wrong button and I didn't get anything.
It was a big bang theory machine.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
So we yeah, yeah, we called it Goodbye money. I
think that's how you approach vegas. But this is for
these cartels and people participate in this global successful criminal conspiracy.
It's not goodbye money. It's hell o money, you know
what I mean. And my question for you guys, I
(56:00):
don't want amount of like My question for you guys
is how do you launder money in a casino? Do
you like, take dirty money and get a bunch of
chips and then take those chips back and get cash
for the chips? Is that it?
Speaker 5 (56:15):
I guess.
Speaker 6 (56:15):
I mean just the fact that it is such a
cash business and there's so few of those that are
by their very nature that thing that aren't going to
be looked at askance, that it totally makes sense that
this would be a way of going about that.
Speaker 5 (56:27):
But I don't know what the actual mechanism would be.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
Okay, Matt, you're shaking your head no as well, by okay,
what if we like, is there there must be? Is
there a financial threshold such that pass that amount of money?
If you try to get chips or cash in chips,
you have to fill out like a lot of heavy paperwork.
I know you have to fill out some stuff.
Speaker 6 (56:49):
Certainly for gambling winnings they are they do have to
be reported to the IRS.
Speaker 5 (56:54):
But I don't know what threshold.
Speaker 7 (56:56):
To yeah still works at the I R S Yeah,
exactly exactly in those poor guys. Look, this feels like
a further investigation ahead. I pause it to all of
us together tonight that it seems increasingly implausible and indeed
(57:19):
naive to argue that US authorities are not aware of this.
Maybe factions are complicit in this. I don't know what
do you guys think.
Speaker 3 (57:28):
Before I start well pulling an Oprah and be like
you're a corrupt, you're corrupt, and you're a corrupt.
Speaker 6 (57:33):
I will say that I do know that you know, gambling,
gaming licensing is a big deal, and that proprietors of
casinos are always very concerned with losing their gaming licenses,
and so they do, I believe, to the best of
my understanding, go to great lengths to make sure they're
in compliance. So this certainly wouldn't be something that would
(57:54):
be done willy nilly or without an appropriate amount of
kind of smoke screen, you know, because I think it
would be pretty easy, to your point bent for Uncle
Sam to to find out and then you know act.
Speaker 2 (58:08):
To me, casinos are just a weird thing to be okay.
I don't understand why it's okay.
Speaker 3 (58:14):
How is that a thing other than.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
There are people who agree that they're okay that get paid.
You pay somebody to say yes, it's okay. Then they
make a bunch of money and you get some of
that money.
Speaker 6 (58:25):
And therein lies the issue with the licensing where it's
like it's only okay up to if these conditions are met.
And it's the same reason that like when you have
advertising for any kind of gambling, you have to be
very clear and expressly state the resources for folks to
find help if they have gambling problems.
Speaker 3 (58:45):
Well to MAT's earlier point there too, it's a great
observation that there aren't any I am not aware of
any like grassroots nonprofit pro casino organization. Like I've never
seen an interview with someone on the news saying I
don't make any money off of this. I just think
(59:06):
it's important for people to have a hot hand blackjack.
That's what means, you know, step beside human trafficking. I
chose my thing that I am going to fight for.
You're right, you know, money is money is a superpower.
It's a physical or conceptual representation of labor over time. Right. Therefore,
(59:31):
money as power can be corrupting. It does make institutions
and individuals corruptible. So it feels like people are aware
of part of the connection with Cartel's Chinese companies, proxy
entities and casinos laundering money, but it also feels like
(59:55):
a lot of powerful people don't want those links to
be in mistigated in depth understandably, So so what do
we think, guys? We'll get to one piece of good
news before we wrap up. There's a lot we didn't
get to. But overall, does this feel this fentanyl casino
money laundering thing? Does this feel like an episode in
(01:00:16):
the future.
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Absolutely, let's break it down.
Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Yeah, let's get into it. Yeah, let's see if we
can make it back to Vegas. Right.
Speaker 7 (01:00:25):
Oh, I think we all have different personas in Vegas,
so we should be fine. It's not longe as that
can be the bag man, sir, We've saved the seat
for you.
Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
I got it. I got a little lost.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
I just want to go to Vallejo now and find
these dang Zizians.
Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
The Zizzy and cult. Yes, that's what we didn't get
to last time.
Speaker 5 (01:00:43):
Its strange news.
Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
It's a it's a disturbing story. Tune in for colts
you've never heard of. Part three will end on some
good news, I think, I hope.
Speaker 8 (01:00:55):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Studies show that more US residents are using psilocybin than
ever before. The rates are shooting up due to some
decriminalization acts right, which also makes people less hesitant to
self report or to you know, tell the truth on
a survey or something. There's a great study I found
(01:01:18):
out about it from Science Daily, but it was originally
published in the Annals of Internal Medicine just a few
days ago, on this Monday past. And what they found
is that people who are experiencing mental health conditions appear
to be finding some sort of mitigation or comfort in
(01:01:42):
the use of psilocybin aka magic mushrooms, probably the most
common version of that.
Speaker 6 (01:01:47):
Here in the US, absolutely, and there's it's becoming more
and more prevalent, and I think for a good reason
than when used appropriately under the supervision of like the
right kind of therapist.
Speaker 5 (01:01:59):
I have great results.
Speaker 6 (01:02:02):
From folks that I've spoken to that have participated in
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
And with that, we would love to hear from you,
fellow conspiracy realist, to the degree that you are comfortable,
tell us your experiences with hallucinogenic substances, tell us your
hot take for or against it. Let us know if
you have experience working with the federal government, let us
(01:02:26):
know what you're going through. We've had a lot of
great correspondence there. Let us know if you work at
a casino, give us the dirty business on that one. Right,
We did an episode on Stuff that Don't want you
to know about casinos and I think it holds up
so we can't wait to hear from you. For all
of that and for more. You can find us on
the internet. You can call us on the telephone. You
(01:02:47):
can also give us a line any old time you
like at our good old fashioned email address. That's right.
Speaker 6 (01:02:53):
You can find us in the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where
we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group.
Speaker 5 (01:02:56):
Here is where it gets crazy.
Speaker 6 (01:02:58):
Get in on the conversation, join your Hello Australian listeners
and recommending some Australian cinema for us to enjoy. You
want to thank all the folks who have reached out
giving us some really great recommendations for classic Australian films
to check out.
Speaker 5 (01:03:11):
Looking forward to doing that.
Speaker 6 (01:03:13):
You can also find us at Conspiracy Stuff on x FKA,
Twitter and on youtubehere we have video content glore for
your perusal on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 5 (01:03:21):
However, where Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Our phone number is one eight three three st d
w y t K. When you call in, it is
a voicemail system. Give yourself a cool nickname and let
us know within the message if we can use your
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Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
On the air.
Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
If you don't like voicemails and instead want to send
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Speaker 4 (01:03:44):
Shoot us a line.
Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet I'm afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back, what are we talking about? There's one
way to find out. Take a step further away from
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Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Com Stuff they Don't want you to know is a
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