Here is a classic episode for our fellow conspiracy realist, Ben.
Never never speak against the family ever again in front of outsiders.
You never speak against the family, right.
We can't. We don't speak against the family, and I hope you all hear Nol's capital T capital F on the family there. We don't speak against the family really in this episode, but we do ask why things seem so weird in Washington, DC.
Right, Unless you think this is a story about like the LaCOSA Nostra or like the mafia or something, it's about a kind of a different mafia, a political mafia, one that purportedly pulls the strings on political machinations from behind the scenes.
And this might also, as I recall, folks check us here, this might be one of the episodes where we get super into fundraiser dinners or breakfasts like eggs.
And issues kind of eggs you remember that came up because we wanted to see the menu that this conspiracy.
We did discuss that. I believe there were maybe waffles. I cannot confirm nor deny that, But now that you mentioned it, Ben, this is a real organization, right, and this is an organization that has a lot of kind of sinister whisperings about it about to what degree does it control what goes on in Washington and the kind of you know, christianification of politics. Now I don't use that term to say that's inherently like Christianity is bad,
but there, you know, we did. We do have a nation that is sort of meant to be founded where that kind of stuff is a little bit its own thing, you know, hence separation of church and state. But there are organizations.
That would seek to do away with that kind of thinking, which I don't think is great.
Let's call this Shadows of Project.
Twenty twenty five a little bit. Yeah, let's roll.
It 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.
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noel.
Our close compatriot Matt is on adventures but will be returning soon. They called me Ben. We are joined with our super producer Paul Michigan, controlled decand and most importantly, you are you. You are here that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. In the course of the research for today's episode, it hit me and maybe it hit you guys as well, that there are so many groups that refer to them selves as the family. The original title for today's episode was going to be
what is the family? But we had to be more specific because you know, different groups call themselves the family. Our families call themselves the family, yeah, or not.
Even to mention like bluegrass groups like the Carter family, or like the Handsome Family or what have you, right, the Manson family.
Right, cults as well. For a lot of listening today, this kind of Moniker sounds cultish. Today's story is a little bit different. It could touch on cults, it could touch on secret societies. It's kind of in the eye of the beholder, and we'd like your opinion on it. So we are going on a journey strap in. Here are the facts. Political influence, right, big money, A lot of stuff happens with it. It comes from a plethora of organizations,
some of which are more transparent than others. Plethora, by the way, means an overabundance, so much of something that it's too much. And here in the United States, special interest groups use lobbyists to gain legislative support and I can't believe it. No, we still have not done an episode on lobbyists or lobbying, even though it's a weird thing.
It's come up, for sure, piecemeal here and there, but I think it might be time for a deep dive.
And some of our fellow listeners on our Facebook community page Here's where it Gets Crazy also pointed out we have yet to do an mk Ultra episode.
That's not possible.
I it's maybe it's one of those things where we're having a bit of a Mandela effect because it's come up in so many things, most recently and touched vaguely in the same sphere. In our interview with Russell Targ, it also.
Came up with Targ that maybe it'd be fun to do an mk ultra esque episode with him as a guest talking about LSD research.
Yeah, in general, yep, yep, yep. Was Sydney Gottlieb. That's right, right, because they they worked together. In the United States this with this lobbying thing. For anyone who's not familiar with that, in the US, it is legal for an individual or a group of people, whether that's whether that's a local community activist group or whether it's something big like the
Koch brothers. It's legal for them to try to convince members of Congress to vote for things that they think will make themselves or the country better off.
And since mind control is not really a universally accepted thing, it's technically legal for them to use that as well. I guess.
So now some people will falsely claim that one lobby, now there are hundreds and hundreds of these, Some people will say that one lobby or another in particular exerts undue influence on the United States government. Typically, these claims are meant to paint the agenda of given group as inherently corrupt, smear tactics, smear tactics exactly somebody, And this goes across the political spectrum. Somebody will say, well, you know, the NRA secretly runs the US government, or they'll say
APAC secretly runs the US government. But if we talk about pure traceable that's important funding. The biggest lobbies as of twenty seventeen are not geopolitical, and they're not really pushing a lot of the hot button issues that are so popular and divisive in the public eye. You know, it's not gun control or gun rights, it's not pro life or pro choice. As a matter of fact, it's
not anything about partnerships with the foreign country. The biggest lobbying dollars come predominantly from the medical industry.
Yeah, it's like that great quote from the Wire. You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers, but you start to follow money and you don't know where that rabbit hole is going to take you.
Oh, perfect, yes, and in so astute, honestly, the top five we have a list. The top five are the US Chamber of Commerce. And you recognize the Chamber of Commerce. It's a business trade group. You probably have one in your city, right, There's one even here in Atlanta, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. Then there's the National Association of Realtors, which is a little surprising, but there's a lot of money in real estate. And then the other three are all healthcare or medicine related.
You got your Blue Cross, Blue Shield, he got your American Hospital Association, and you've got your Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, all very innocuous sounding names.
And people who have listened to our previous episode on the opioid crisis will we'll probably look as scance at that last one, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
That's what I'm saying. They're so straightforward, innocuous sounding names that have the potential to be the top of the umbrella of some very nefarious activities. Not a conspiracy theory, absolutely a fact people are going to jail or at least paying serious money for crimes there.
Then yeah, yeah, And the big question is will they be the right people?
Right?
Will they be the brains of the operation? Just some Patsy's and justin patsy some scapegoats. We also see the emergence of super PACs. These are political action committees. They've opened the door for massive amounts of money, but again, for the most part, without making an entire episode about lobbying just yet. For the most part, this is all very legal and very cool. There are other more secretive groups, however, influencing American politicians. These groups have agendas that may be
unfamiliar to most American citizens. Their cash and their influence are also much more difficult to trace. They're not necessarily filing a lot of reports. It's tough to follow the money. And this might sound like a fanciful conspiracy theory. But according to journalist Jeff Charlotte, at least one of these shadowy groups is very much real, incredibly effective, and quite possibly dangerous. Let's meet the Family after a word from our sponsor.
Why not, Here's where it gets crazy.
So the Family. They've got another name.
Too, right, Yeah, they're called like the what is it, the Fellowship? Not of the Ring necessarily low hanging fruit there, Yeah, no, the Fellowship. They are in fact a nonprofit evangelical Christian organization. But the issue is their members regularly deny that this group exists in the first place. In a book called The Family, The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, Jeff Charlotte really digs deep into the secret and puts
it as such quote. They believe they are most effective if they don't seek publicity and they minister to those who they consider what they call the up and up or key key men in positions of influence, if they minister to them privately, beyond the public eye. So to hear Charlotte describe their tactics, they tend to mins do direct ministry as opposed to open, publicly observable ministry directly to folks who they consider. They have these terms like up and out or key men, in other words, people
in positions of influence or power. If they minister them in private, beyond the public eye, that gives them. It's a weird situation. It's like a direct line to these individuals as opposed to them having to attend a church that could be observed and reported on elsewhere. Is that right, Ben, which you said, yeah, yeah, absolutely, because it depends on who we It depends on the key man in question, and again these overwhelmingly going to be dudes, key dudes.
What we found is that until Jeff Charlotte wrote this expose a, you would be hard pressed to find a lot of information about the family. But now, thanks to him, we have it. The family's origin dates all the way back to the nineteen thirties. Nineteen thirty five. There's a preacher named Abraham Verde and he experiences what he believes is a vision from God. So God speaks to Abraham and says, Christianity has been getting it wrong for two
thousand years. It's been getting it wrong, Abraham, because it's got an undue focus on the poor and the weak and the down and out what's all this focus on, like helping the poor and ministering to the to the down trodden of the world. No, no, no, no, no no. I say to you, Abraham, not that, Abraham, Abram.
Abraham V.
Abraham V. What God actually wants for you to do, Abraham and those who you deem worthy is to minister to what he refers to God as the up and out or the key man.
Right, the movers, the shake, the geopolitical bakers, as it were. So he partners up with a businessman named Walter Douglas and they begin a weekly breakfast meeting. It starts with nineteen executives and during this time they do pray. They have breakfast, and they pray for divine intervention to redeem Seattle and crush the unions as the true God would want them.
To.
Fast forward a little bit later. Right now, the family's most public gathering is the famous National Prayer Breakfast. You've heard about this all the time. It happens on the first Thursday of every February. It's been attended by multiple US presidents every president since Eisenhower's gone. They created this
as a recruiting device for their organization. Back in the nineteen forties and fifties, they were planning it, and their goal was to normalize this idea of prayer at the center of American political life, specifically Christian prayer, and they wanted this to be so normal that people would take it for granted. The first National Prayer Breakfast occurred in
nineteen fifty three, and Eisenhower attended, albeit reluctantly. He owed a debt to Billy Graham because Billy Graham had worked with the family to swing the evangelical vote for Eisenhower, and that's back when Southern evangelicals didn't vote Republican. So he went and his idea was, look, I'm paying off a favor, don't want any press. I don't want this to become a thing essentially, but become a thing it did.
You see, the family had tried this before with both Truman and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and they both said no. But it became a tradition because one president said yes. And now it's the family's only public event, and it is a pr caval case.
It takes ben one president saying yes.
No, I mean not really. I guess it's just the way that politics work here. Currently, if one president says yes to something faith based, especially Christian based, that's right, and another president says, I'm not doing it.
But now, wouldn't you say that this is sort of the beginnings of the power of the evangelical vote that is now such an important base in Republican circles.
It's definitely, it's definitely a facet of it. No religious vote, the religious vote is not necessarily a uniform block. It can swing in different directions, of course, of course. But yeah, this is this is a huge, a huge piston in the engine of elections.
Not to insult anyone's intelligence, but should we really quickly define what makes evangelical Christianity sure different than just standard Christianity? Sure?
I mean I've always thought of it as just being a more strict adherence to the Gospels and just like a little bit more more of a I don't know, pedantic sounds like a negative word, but I guess it just means a little bit almost like strict constructionism of the Constitution, you know, where you take everything literally and that face value is that is that your understanding?
Ben So from an outsider's perspective, it's the difference is Protestantism is just being in protest against the Roman Catholic Church. The evangelical perspective stresses personal conversion, right like being born again?
Aha, right, got it?
Now, please write to us. I know we have several religious studies scholars and experts here in the audience, so it'd be great to hear the breakdown of the nuances here, right, And.
I'm sure it's something that has evolved over time, as has the voting party of choice for this book, as as mentioned here.
Yeah, yeah, good point. So the thing about this National Prayer Breakfast is that, as the family has described, it is a recruiting device. The actual breakfast does happen on that first Thursday, but it is surrounded by a.
Week long.
Deluge of lobbying events. We're talking three thousand dignitaries who come from all around the world and from all sorts of corporate interests. They all pay.
Get that.
I thought this was a pretty low price. I think we could actually go, you guys all, if we all make it a thing. They pay four hundred and twenty five dollars each to attend for the breakfast. But it comes with a breakfast, right, I know, Yeah, it does come with a breakfast. I don't know if it's a buffet thing. I don't know if there's like salmon that's.
My Are there eggs, Benedict? Is it going to be? Is there a bagel bar? Will there be an omelet station?
Four twenty five is a lot, you know, And I've been to some swank buffets. I actually I would prefer a buffet if I'm paying foreigner and twenty five dollars. You know, it gets how we try to eat four and get some crab legs on there. Yeah, so this this is just for the ticket to the buffet, And for most people the breakfast is just that you have
some muffins and some praying. But a lot of people stay on for days and days of seminars organized around the message that they think Jesus Christ, the actual Jesus Christ has for particular industries.
Yeah. Yeah, the key industry is no doubt, right exactly the industry is dujure I suppose. I don't know. This is interesting. This sure sounds like a central leader who had this one on one with God and then is sort of allowing himself to be the conduit to God between God and his followers and he gets to decide what God's agenda is. Let's see if that's the direction that's going. It sure sounds like it. So we have the oil industry being a biggie right, and the defense industry,
defense contractors and many others also hold events. We've got foreign dignitaries that are just thirsty for access to all of these powerful powerful men.
Arms, manufacturers, the energy industry.
Let me add them.
Let's say you're Boeing, right, or you're a working member of Congress and Boeing is big in the state or district you represent. But the optics and you want to sell some stuff, sure do, But the optics towards your voters would would would just be fatal to your political career if they saw you selling or facilitating the cell of some sort of technology.
To like a dictator, the gentleman must remain neutral, right.
Right, right, right? Do you seed your time?
The gentleman seeds his time? I do not, sir.
I love parliamentary procedure est I diging it so hard I have tried to pitch it in my personal life. I don't think to you guys.
Just in conversation of the bar, it would be a lot of fun.
Yeah, I would like for the gentleman's time has expired.
Does the gentleman seed his time? The gentleman does not seed his time. It would be a lot of fun, I say that now, but we'd have to take it out on the road and try it, and probably shouldn't do it during a live show, which just do it we're hanging out. But anyhow, Yes, you're absolutely right. They the group's real strength lies in its influential members working to facilitate this networking, but also to push their agenda,
which we'll get to in a second. Critics will tell you that the NPB or National Prayer Breakfast, is used by the Family to essentially circumvent the State Department. The meetings read like a rogues gallery. Charlotte called it a who's who of nasty figures, people who might not otherwise be able to go have a conversation with an arms
manufacturer or a nuclear power a nuclear power con colomerate. Right, So, they have this vision as as you as we established earlier, they have this vision of Jesus as a strong man, as a dictator, Jesus Christ, that is, and of helping not the sheep, but helping the wolves because they're more powerful, and the family believes that anyone who is in power like that, or those those people who are dictators and such, that they are there because they are supposed to be,
that they've been anointed by God to be in charge, and so they want to broker power. And this is this is weird, right, But these dictators and you can you can find list of suspected and confirmed members these days. Taters in many cases are the same people that the US publicly shuns, including including the Russian government that came to head quite recently. It turns out that the National Prayer Breakfast is home to a Russian connection.
Do you think they offer a little borsch on the on the on the buffet?
You know what? The hardest thing for me to find in all the research here, and I don't know if you found it yet either. I couldn't find the menu. And when we're talking about the buffet, I started. I try not to not to mess around too much on the computer when we're recording, No, but I had to try to search again and I could not find the menu. Serious, and it's haunting me because what if you're paying for four hundred and twenty five dollars just for muffins.
I just typed in who caters the National Prayer? Oh good, that's a way to go at it. Let's see. Ah, now we've got who attends, who spoke. I don't care about any of that. I want to know who caters it. Nope, Man, that is the most closely guarded secret surrounding this entire event. Man, we should do an episode entirely the menu at the National Prep breakfast. Well, i'llt us have to use our imagination. I'm hoping that it's a little bit a cut above
like Shawney's breakfast buffet. Yeah, you know, And I'm hoping.
Yeah, I'm hoping for seafood.
And I'm hoping they have some international choices for their foreign dignitaries, because that would only be fair.
That would only be fair. Yeah, yeah, especially when considered cultural dietary restrictions and so course.
And also the fact that like our idea of breakfast, I mean, I have to get it on a high horse here. But we've had this conversation. Breakfast food, you know, here is such a specific thing in other countries they eat like regular food for breakfast. In an Asian country especially, it's all like, you know, rice and noodles and things you eat any other time of the day, And I support that wholeheartedly.
Yeah, me too, Me too. I mean, if Edward Brenez had not come along, breakfast in the US would be a much different affair. But let's get back to this Russian connection. So remember Marie Buthina recently came up in the news as being an agent of a foreign government. According to the affidavit from the Department of Justice, she used the National Prayer Breakfast twice to set up some backdoor diplomacy between members of the US government and members
of the Russian power structure. She even brought Prayer Breakfast organizers with her to Moscow, where Charlotte suspects that they brainstormed the guest list for the Russian delegation. They saw her as access to and from the Family's perspective, we have to understand this is sort of the work that they pursue. They feel they are right.
In doing this.
Tensions are high between the US and Russia, and the Family sees itself as a power broker but also a peacemaker. So they think these two strong men, for lack of a better phration, meet and hammer things out, and that then Jesus Christ or God will shape these things to what is appropriate and Christian. So as far as they're concerned, they were not helping a Russian spy. They were helping
bring peace between two worthy and strong leaders. They again believe that if you were in power, you are supposed to be there. You are in power because God put you there. Never mind the voters. It's a dangerous attitude.
It really is in a slippery slope, my friend.
So we mentioned their agenda right now, what exactly is there? Is their agenda?
Well, according to our writer Pal Charlotte, the family believes that most Christians tend to misread, misinterpret the New Testament, and that at the heart of Christ's message was a message of not not peace, not kindness to the poor and downtrodden, but power, pure, abject unbridled power. Not love, no power, right right. Love through power is very aggressive read, very aggressive read of Christ because we think of Jesus
as this kind of barefoot hippie. Well, I mean, we know he had a temper with like flipping over the tables and the money changers and all that, and we knew that he meant business, but he's always been like kind of made out to seem like more of a you know, affecting change through non violence kind of way, and more like changing hearts and minds, rather than wielding some sort of iron fist.
Right right, helping the poor and downtrodden, the lepers, those outcasts from society. No no, no, no, no, no, no no no, say the members of the family. And then, according to an article by Lisa Getter in The La Times, the group wants to take this family global, a family of friends that will spread their agenda across the world. And when we see a global family of friends, we have to realize that, like many organizations, we can think of
it being arranged in concentric circles or domains. So, according to former Nixon aide and Watergate fell in Charles W. Coulson, the family numbered in nineteen seventy nine, family numbered about twenty thousand people, although the number of dedicated associates around the globe was much smaller, maybe as much as three hundred and fifty in two thousand and six.
So you can buy a ticket to the Prayer breakfast and doesn't make you like a member of the organization, right exactly? I would imagine do you apply to become a member? Do you have to be invited? Is it very closed door policy.
I think you need to be in power for them to have interest, and you got to be a key people. Yeah, yeah, it's not for somebody who just came for the salmon, which is again would be me.
That's right. So it's almost more of a Builderberg or Trilateral Commission kind of situation, right close.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's similar. So they have a closely guarded database of these associates members in Keyban, but they don't issue cards, they collect no official dues, and members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities. A member of the family's inner circle once said to the group's chief South African operative, the movement is simply inexplicable to people who are not intimately acquainted with it.
First rule of breakfast club. You don't talk about breakfast.
Club literally, the first rule.
Yes.
Yes, So they say that their initiatives have always been misunderstood by outsiders, and that they learn the hard way to never commit to paper any discussions or negotiations. There are no such things as confidential memos, because if you write something down, it will inevitably leak, so they urge people not to put anything relating to any of the work they're doing on paper unless you know the recipient well enough to put. Please destroy after reading at the
top of the page. Not exactly free and clear transparency.
See they ought to do it in Spectra Gadget style, this mass edge well self destruct. Yes, that'd be pretty cool.
Yes they should.
I'd be fun.
So they are longtime leader Doug co who ministered in private and led the organization kind of behind the scenes. He had a pretty rare interview in two thousand and one and he said, if I told you who has participated and who participates until this day, you would not believe it. You'd say, you mean that scoundrel, that despot. He passed away in twenty seventeen, but the practice continues, the institution exists. And this leads us to a question
is this legal? I mean, on the surface, it's not necessarily illegal.
Right.
People should be able to get together and at breakfast have a chat, and people constantly network, and I'm sure the secrecy is creepy, but there are hundreds of religious groups working to bring their values to a wider audience. You know what I mean, there's you know, they're all. There are spaghetti dinners across the world. There are breakfast meetings in and at churches all the time, and a lot of nonprofits and charities have religious roots as well.
With this in mind, the Family's not really unique, right.
Yeah, I mean I have a question for you man. You mentioned the name of Coulson, right, is the name of their their high level Are the names of their high level people, their board or whatever you want to call it. Is that public information or do they keep that pretty under wraps too?
They keep a lot of it pretty tight. We do know that membership includes people are serving in the US government, like Pence is a member being Commander in chief. Donald Trump and Barack Obama and Bill Clinton all attended the National Prayer Bakfast. But how intimately involved were they? We know that Hillary Clinton for a long long time received personal ministry services from Doug co. So that's the part
that we have to emphasize here. The family itself, their mission feels politicized, with a trend toward you know what they see as strong, powerful authoritarians, but their fan club goes across all sides of the political.
Right and My question is, what does this personal ministry business? What does that look like? Is that like hitting a house call?
They?
I mean, I don't know, man, it's a closed door thing, you know, and come into my office. Close the door. Let's pray together about the best way to help raytheon make a sale. You know, I don't know, I don't know. I'm being a little oglib, but we should talk about what the critics say and where this institution operating. After a word from our sponsor, we're back. So here's the thing, Noel. A lot of critics say, what's your take on this? A lot of critics say that there's more than breakfast
going on. It's not just some mag's benedict.
They are you saying they have lunch items as well? Then not in public behind the closed doors though there could be sandwiches. There could be like a deli tray, some soups, some fruit and cheese. I'll bets are of barbecue. I love the idea of this being exclusively food based organizations. I love that too.
So the fear is that they may be influencing politicians and voters have no control over their behavior whatsoever. That's what that's what the critics say, but I.
Mean, isn't that like we were talking about lobbying. Isn't that what lobbying is in general?
Right?
Right?
We don't have access to the lobbyist because they're paid by the corporations to interface directly with politicians, and we can sort of say, hey, politicians, please let me write your letter my congressman, please don't be swayed by the siren song of lobbyists. But that's only gonna take you. I don't know, I see.
Exactly what you're saying, though, Like if we if we got together and we crowdfunded five dollars from each of us and everyone listening, then we we could make a donation to a politician and then get their attention to say here's what I think you should do about a certain issue.
Yeah, but Ben, even you saying that it requires a donation goes against the entire system. It's they're supposed to listen to our phone calls, whether we give them money or not. Sure, that's what I'm saying. I think we're on the same pitch. I think our glibness, our glibnesses are aligned.
We've earned the citizens, and I think, so where where do they operate though. Do they do they just stay in DC?
No, I think not, ben because they need to branch out. They need to wield these powers beyond Washington, d C. And where do they do this. That's a very important question, especially in a modern nation that prizes the separation of church and state. We haven't even talked about that yet because that's the thing too. Lobbying is one thing, but at least that doesn't necessarily go against the separation of
church and state. This, on the other hand, very very weird gray area, especially when it has such across the aisle kind of support, you know, at least in terms of like the optics of it. So here the question to the families supporters, this organization has an ability to bridge political gas and unite antagonistic groups through a mutual spiritual understanding.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's the thing. We have examples of the kind of scandals they've encountered. They're most well known probably for now. It came about in two thousand and nine. Some investigators claimed the family had, through they're key men, influenced u Ganda's anti homosexuality legislation. This was this is a series of laws that allowed the death penalty for people who were attracted to the same sex or also
for quote harboring a known homosexual. So let's say you've got a friend or a family member and they are gay, and you live in Uganda, and they say they're coming to kill me because of my sexual orientation, and you say, that's fine, just hide here and we'll wait till the soldiers leave. If they are found, then the way the law was written or the way the law was proposed, then not only the person they were searching for, but the person hiding that person would be put to death.
That legislation was recently changed, I believe.
Yes, yeah, yeah, they were instrumental in pushing it through.
Not to mention that if I just typed in. There's a website called Focus on the Family. I don't know if it's their direct website, but it's definitely affiliated with them, and they have a resource page called when a loved One Says I'm Gay Research List, and it has things like titles like bringing Home the Prodigals, Is God Anti gay? And other questions about homosexuality. The Secret Thoughts of an
Unlikely convert An English Professor's journey into Christian faith. It feels largely like there is a negative, inherently negative spin on the treatment of LGBT individuals in the church. Yeah.
Absolutely. The thing is that because they're pushing this power based authoritarian agenda, of course they will naturally tend to gravitate toward despots, toward dictators, but they see this as an effort of reconciliation. They also, for instance, in nineteen ninety four, they helped persuade South African Zulu chief Buthalse
to avoid civil war with Nelson Mandela. And their defenders such as former President George W. Bush, have praised their work and they say, yeah, they're out of the public sphere, but they're making the world a better place because they're stopping war. And this leads us to the question just how much influence does the family wield in Washington, DC? You know, like you said, The supporters say it can
bridge political gaps and unite antagonistic groups. But to the critics, this kind of combination of political power and religious zeal historically leads to disaster, and there are some very strong
precedents for that throughout human civilization. And for critics, the most important and most frightening part of the entire equation is that citizens everywhere it can be affected by this secretive legislation process without having any input upon it, Like Uganda may just be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There are other things like the Youth Core, which is a network of Christian youth groups that attract teenagers and
then later steer them to Jesus. And this youth Core is active in places like Russia, Ukraine, Romania, India, Pakistan, Yuganda, of course, Nepaul, Bhutan, Ecuador, Honduras, and Peru. This is big stuff. We might not hear about it a lot here in the States other than that national prayer breakfast, but powerful geopolitical things are happening outside of the public eye.
And at this point we know the family is still working quietly behind the scenes in the US and abroad, but on what specifically for now, that's something they don't want you to know. I have to ask you, though, Noel, do you think this kind of thing should be legal or illegal? It's tough.
It feels like a loophole to me. I mean, it feels like extra legal in a lot of ways, because lobbying is not leg is not illegal, but we are supposed to have separation of church and state, and it feels like hiding behind the guise of like this feel good kind of let's bridge the gap between the aisle, when it also has this legacy that sort of forces participation because of not wanting to offend the evangelical voter base. And it just feels kind of inherently like dirty money.
I don't like it. I don't like it one bit, especially when you consider their ideology and their very exclusionary attitude towards LGBTQ or or the poor exactly. I mean, it's it's just it feels like a very like Tom Cruise's character in Magnolia kind of pyramid scheme reinterpretation of something that you know, say what you will about Christianity, I think at its heart there is goodness. There is a sort of do unto others' mentality, and people use it in all kinds of horrible ways, But I think
at its heart there's a good message there. Some in some parts of the Bible, it feels to me like a little bit of a bastardization of that and turning it into a tool to manipulate people more than even some forms of Christianity. Well tell us what you think.
We hope that you enjoyed this episode and we want to hear from you. Have you encountered other secretive organizations like this and how much influence do they actually wield? You can let us know on Instagram. You can let us know on Facebook. You can let us know on Twitter. Find the favorite part of our show our fellow listeners on our Facebook community page. Here's where it gets crazy, and you can follow our shenanigans personally on Instagram. I'm at Ben Bollen.
I am at Embryonic Insider and our friend Matt these days, as I believe, operating under the account Kylie Jenner. Yep, that's it, Kylie Jenner.
Yeah, I had no idea that was It's true, but it makes sense when you think about it.
Do you have any idea how much money he gets for one single Instagram post? It's outrageous.
That's what he's doing right now, He's off negotiating Instagram posts.
Yeah, some kind of facial cleanser.
So if you would like to call us directly, we'd love to hear from you. We have a phone number. It's one eight three three std WYTK. That was beautiful and please do remember that has a three minute cutoff, which I can tell you from personal experience. We'll sneak up on you.
Yep.
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Otherwise you know. And again if even if you don't mind, if we use it and you want us to keep your identity anonymous, we've in the past used them and disguised voices and stuff. The people have given us the inside scoop for companies they work for. Don't want to jeopardize their relationship with their employers, but do want us to get the info. We totally respect that and treat it with care.
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