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Hello, welcome back to the show.
My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. This is, I believe, one of the very last listener male segments of twenty twenty three. We hope you join us soon, whether that's twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five. Human calendars are kind of made up. We're so glad, as always, so grateful that you are here to say, spend some
time with us. Time is the only real currency in the world. Tonight, we're gonna hear from Hoboken Johnny with a story that has at least fascinated me at least for several years.
Not to be confused with Hobo Johnson.
Just for the record, Just for the record, We're also going to hear from some anonymous callers. We're gonna hear from Kibo, and we're gonna talk about burn bitch, We're gonna talk about Oh gosh, I didn't even want to spoil all this stuff. Maybe we start this way with a question from Whatnot, why would you say no to a free tablet?
Well, I sure wouldn't, and I didn't. In fact, when I got a new phone account, I think through T Mobile, and you know, they always like to rope you into contracts, so they're like, hey, do you want the free Apple Watch free quote unquote the one you'll be paying installments on for you know, the duration of the contract, or the iPad? And I went with the iPad because, frankly, a tablet is a much more multi functional device than an Apple Watch. Here we go. Whatnot writes in saying
you can call me Whatnot. I have recently discovered your podcast in the last year and religiously listen to it during my overnight stocking shift. Thank you, Whatnot. I appreciate your guys work and insight into topics. This is my first time emailing you, and it's because I keep seeing ads on my Facebook for a company called Whoop Connect,
Like Whoop there it is. That's that's very funny. It advertises a free tablet and internet connection for just an eleven dollars copay for those who are on government programs such as EBT, WICIC, Medicaid, and pell grant. My first thoughts slash questions about this is why are they targeting free tablets to those who are on government programs? It could be from the goodness of their heart, yeah, right, and wanting to get more people access to these technologies
we are using every day. Another thought goes back to surveillance, is there's something they don't want us to know about why they're giving out free tablets to those of lower socioeconomic status. Do they just want to track these individuals or get internet access to those who don't have any so everybody can continue being tracked through our devices. I don't know. Something feels off about this to me, and I was curious on your guys thoughts. Here's a link
to the website for whoop Connect. It's literally www dot whoopconnect dot com. Who came up with that and why? I did see a similar program but with phones instead of tablets. Now, that's a thing, the Obama phone, and that is absolutely very valuable to a lot of people that couldn't afford to have phones. This is me interjecting, but by the way, those Obama phones were like the dumbest of dumb phones. You possibly could get literally a flip phone, So it's not getting any benefit from from
your data or like internet browsing habits. I have thought about emailing before in the past, since hearing the Divine Intervention episode. Going into the show, I had a way different idea of spiritual intervention than how you guys discussed it. I have my own story that differs from those discussed in your listener mail episodes. I will gladly tell you just email me back and we certainly will thank you
for taking the time to read this. Feel free to use whatever you'd like in this email for your creative purposes. You can also email me back with questions or comments as I'd appreciate it. Yeah, I made my interjection about the Obama phones, and this is not a political stance here, But I have a dear, dear friend who is you know, on a fixed income and would not have otherwise been able to afford to have a cell phone were it not for this Obama phone. But it is literally like
sub razor Motorola Raser technology. It's like one of those old school Nokia brick type phones. So I'm wondering if this is just sort of a benevolent evolution of that program, or if whatnot is onto something here. What do you guys think?
Well, I'm right now, I'm on the WOOP connect I'm on their website looking at the looking at the program or describing the affordable Connectivity program I believe is related to this, right, you get the new tablet. When we see offers like this, unfortunately, we have to be a little bit regnie about it. We have to trust but verify, right, So I'm looking at the legal disclaimer under terms of use and what we would be what we would be
looking for when reading these things. You don't have to be a lawyer to do this is look at data use, look for things like third parties. You know, that's who they would be giving this data to. I mean, the opportunity for shenanigans is there. It is real, It is plausible. The question and I think what you're saying, whatnot? And I love your name, by the way. The question becomes a matter of whether this opportunity would be leveraged and if so in what way?
Well, I did just do a Google of woop connect and one of the first Google instant results was is whoop connect legit? And then I immediately found a thread on Reddit whoop this is one big scam. Purchased a Whoop four point zero on March fifteenth, twenty twenty three, realized it wasn't for me and put in a refund request. Not long after. They have never gotten back to me with a return label. I have put in several more
with no response. I am currently on hold trying to get in contact with a rep, but no one has picked up after an hour plus. I tried canceling my membership, but they want to charge me three hundred and fifty dollars for my remaining commitment. This is beyond frustrating. I have showed support that I am still under thirty days. This company feels like an absolute scam am I alone.
Here.
Are there any tips or suggestions to help me get this resolved? And if you've heard of the website trust Pilot, which, like you know, people are able to leave reviews for things like this. They have a half star rating on trust.
I like you mentioned trust Pilot there and I saw that thread and some similar Reddit threads that one thing that sounds like old school, like we're on the Dave Clark Show or the Oh who's that other money guy famous in Atlanta?
Oh gosh Savage.
Yeah, that's one. There's another Clark something Clark, right, right, Clark. What's his face? Yeah, Howard Howard, thank you, thank you, Matt Yeah, Clark Howard. So those guys are right. I don't agree with them and everything, but they're right when they say you should look at the Better Business Bureau for companies like this whenever you have a question. And I'm just going through.
The But we've also heard the Better Business Bureau as a scam.
It's not great, man. I was roped into something very shady. Recently. There was an ad that came up on Instagram for a cleaning service that connects you with house cleaner. It's called Dazzling Cleaning, and it's like, oh, first cleaning is like nine dollars, and y'all, if something seems too good to be true, nine times out of in it is
absolutely too good to be true. I had a great experience with my very cheap cleaning and then had people not show up and still get charged, So I would to try to cancel it, and they said, oh, well, if you cancel now, you'll be charged for the full price of the first nine dollars cleaning. Plus there's this membership fee that we didn't tell you about. So basically at this point you're stuck, you know, just doing the year.
And I went to Better Business Bureau and I'm talking thousands of negative reviews of people talking about and this is a very similar thing.
That's why I'm bringing up Better Business Bureau because you don't I'm not saying they don't want to be misconstrued. I'm not saying they're a perfect entity. I'm saying it's a valuable resource for me.
We had his own perspective about it being its own potential problematic entity.
I was just pointing out that we've had people write into us about how, yeah, there's weird stuff going on with BBB two.
Yeah, definitely there's. I think it's it's challenging to find any perfect institution. I would say the reason that I brought them up in the first place there is because I think it's a insightful way to read complaints that are legit. You know, Yelp is compromised. Obviously, that's that's true. But I'm just looking at, you know, similar to how you were talking with trust Pilot or talking about with Trust Pilot. I'm looking at complaints the complaint page from
BBB about Whoop and it's not BBB accredited. That might be part of the grift, right, you might have to pay the BBB. And I'm stick yeah, right, And I'm seeing a lot of similar complaints here. So it does feel like it does kind of correct me on this NOL. It does kind of seem like the the typical complaints regarding maybe contract traps, some shoddy service or customer service. Maybe another way to look at this is to ask ourselves.
Qult a company that, according to its detractors, already has some serious logistical problems, could they be capable of Sully data or information or would they be morally constrained in some way? I don't know, it's tough to tell. We're gonna have to read the terms and conditions.
Well, I think it's less the surveillance aspect and more just capitalizing on people that maybe you know, can't afford this thing and they want to have it. And then these people are like, oh, well, you can have it too if you just pay this copay. But then there's all these hidden things. One response on the Reddit threat is one hundred percent of big scam tried to cancel my free trial, and they are forcing me to pay for a full year of subscription in order to cancel.
Stay away from them. I also tried to get in touch with them on Twitter and they blocked me, so I couldn't expose them to the public. If they had nothing to hide, they wouldn't block me. This to me reminds me of those like rent to own type places that are capitalizing on folks that want to keep up with the Joneses but maybe can't necessarily afford it to pay out in cash. I think this is entirely opportunistic and not necessarily about surveillance at all, just about ripping
people off. You just want to be part of what everyone else is a part of.
Yeah, whatnot? Please if you have missed our rent to Own episode, please do check it out. The math is astonishing and it is not uncommon for vulnerable members of a population to be targeted by businesses. Again, seeing conflaints, but as far as as far as a conspiracy, we would just need to we would need to dig a little bit more.
I think agreed.
I'm looking at the terms and conditions about d enrollment right, like how that functions. It says upon receiving a request them receiving a request, you will be d enrolled within two business days, and upon the enrollment from the ACP program, you will no longer receive free minutes, text messages or data each month, and will be required to requalify for service if you choose to re enroll. There's a whole thing in here, guys about becoming a distributor. Did you see that?
That sounds like pyramid scam type stuff. You know, that's wild.
There's also an inherent agreement to arbitration, which.
Is there's an implied connection to the government. But I don't think it's that's real at all. They're just saying you can qualify for our thing if you are, you know, a member of these government services. But there's no connection to the to the government like the Obama phone.
It could be it could be a matter of tax write offs, right. It could be a matter of favorable deals wholesale buying outdated technology, right, which helps.
The mag at a deal, right, yep ye.
And the arbitration agreement. I just want to close the loop on that one, because arbitration agreements are incredibly dangerous to you as a consumer. It removes legal rights that you would otherwise have, so always read those carefully. They're not necessarily sinister. It is just a part of doing business, but a lot of times companies will try to sort of slide those under the radar and hope that you are not the person who reads through the entirety of those things.
Well, almost every major company that we sign agreements with to use their services now have that arbitration clause, which means like pretty much, no matter what happens, if it has to do with either an electronic device or a service you use, you're not going to be able to take legal action because you already sign the thing just by using That's.
What arbitration agreement means. That like literally you're signing away your right to sue.
Yeah, you was what Ben was just saying. You'd have to go hang out with their lawyers, and their lawyers would just be like, hey, they're.
Better than your lawyers. The question about it, yeah, uh weird. Last thing I just want to say, though, like this is very easy to get roped into this stuff. With the cleaning thing. With me, I tried canceling getting a new debit card because I really felt like this thing was a scam because of all the really horrible reviews.
But I realized that I was genuinely trapped. And to your point, Matt about the Better Business Bureau, this dazzling cleaning thing, thousands of bad reviews and yet they're still doing business. So the question becomes, what is the value of a thing like the Better Business Bureau if you can have all of these negative reports and no action is taken. So I finally found a cleaner that I really liked, and I'm just gonna keep it for a year, and then once that year is up, I'm going to
cancel it and just pay her directly. Because also talking to the cleaner, she's trapped in it too, oh, in a very similar way as me, where she signed something to be able to get these recommendations or to get you know, connected with clients, but now she's stuck for however long in the same way. So she was very did not have good things to say about the service. So all this to say that no one who quote unquote fell for this is stupid, you know, it's a very easy thing to fall into.
So check out the privacy policy and we'll connect. I found it, of course, toward the bottom of some of this stuff about how they share or allow access to personal information. That includes sharing with their parent, subsidiary, affiliate companies for business, operational, and legal purposes, so they can
do what they want by using it. You are unless you go to them and say, hey, I specifically want you to pull this part out of my agreement, which very few people will do, then you are signing away right to a class action lawsuit. You're signing away your right to even ask for your money back. Honestly, well, thank you?
What not for?
That?
Does seem that this is definitely some shade of a scam, so proceed with caution, folks enticed by whoop connect. If the name itself alone didn't give away that maybe something was a miss. We're going to take a quick break here a word from our sponsor, and come back with more messages from you.
And we've returned. We are going to the phone lines and we're going to hear a message from Chemo who listened to our I think it was our strange news Ben, I can't remember streetchers or listener mail where we talked about the burn pits.
Yeah, that would be listener mail.
Okay, Yes, So we have somebody who had some personal experience with some burn pits who just wanted to give us a little more insight into what that was like. So here is Chemo.
Hey, guys, I was just listening to your most recent listener mail episode and the segment you guys were talking about burn pits overseas and the VA I just want to add my two cents worth. I was a medic in Afghanistan for an infantry platoon in two thousand and ten I believe it was, And we were in southern Kanda Hart, a place called and the biggest BOB in the area was and we were a few miles from fob had a huge burn pit, massive massive burn pit.
The burn pits that we had at our patrol bases and our small cop combat outpost, they were generally just small holes doug like the ones that we had. Specifically, the engineers came in one day with a bulldozer and just bulldozed just out a couple of little holes in the ground and being as how I was a platoon medic. I got tasked with burning and the trash, and there was two separate burn pits, one for the and one for the trash. They were small burn pits, but it
was still a lot of thick black smoke. You guys were talking about some sort of like face protection, face masks, face coverings, and it was nothing like that. It's whatever you had nearby that you could wrap around your face. There was no filtered face masks or anything like that. Anyway, Again, I love the show. You guys do great work. That's my two cents worth about the burn pits. It was chaotic cluster. Say the least, you guys feel free to reach out to me. Have a great day.
There you go. That's from chemo. Just again like experiencing what it's like to have those burn pits, even in a smaller combat outpost like that, not one of the major what do he calls them fobs of the operating base exactly the larger bases where the larger burn pits were, right. He describes the burn pit at one specific fob near where his combat outpost was. That was massive, right, but just him being an individual basically having to go out
there and burn the trash in human waste. Creating all that black smoke probably not great for the health, especially when you don't have any official protection for breathing that stuff.
And No, I guess the way to say it is an at times hostile infrastructure amid the institutions that are
supposed to support you after military service. And Chemo, I want to thank you for for giving us on the ground description here and to let you know that you this is something that we have We have heard stories like this too often for it to be a one off kind of situation in terms of, you know, it sounds weird saying it in a military application, but in terms of workplace safety, a lot of the rules that
exist in papers seem to not exist in practice. And Matt, just while Matted, I want to thank you for the slick edits on that voicemail.
Yeah, Kimo asked us to edit out some specifics about the location. He was comfortable saying southern Kandahar in Afghanistan in the year but not like maybe the actual name of the base absolutely that makes sense, Yeah, and the district it was in. Chimo's great By the way, Kimo had some very nice things to say to you, guys, and just very kind person who's been listening for a long time and a pretty uciates when we bring up these subjects about you know, FETs.
So I got you.
Maybe we'll get a chance to talk with you.
Man.
Yeah, just call the number. It's in the system.
Man.
We can do it. We'll do it together, and I did. I will. We'll circle back to Chemo in just a moment after after we hear a next message, because I asked Chemo about the next message. You're about to hear from an anonymous person who did not pick up when I called back.
Here we go, Hey guys, longtime listener, first time called her. Just guys, doesn't listen into your Agent Orange episode. Finally, and it made me think of some of the other stuff that the government and the VA is dodging, you know, as far as their responsibility for things that they've done,
and specifically the Gulf War. And stop me if you've heard this before, but everybody talks about depleted uranium nerve agent all this other bullsh but the cause of all of that was a thing called PB pills that they gave us, which was ironically to help us me av of a nerve agent attack and they cast these huge white nests doing these surveys. But that's all just bullshywatch because you have to look at the very small group of people and figure out why some guys came out okay,
and some guys came out really messed up. And I can tell you from my unit the guys that were really messed up, and I mean cancers, multiple sclerosis, those are the guys who took those TV pills religiously. And yeah, and I took it a little bit and I had some weird, little nagging problems, but the guys who didn't take it at all had no problems at all. So I'm not a scientist, but I would think there would
be something to that. Ironically, also, when they do these studies which I've taken part in, they go through these huge laundry list of drugs.
Did you take this?
Did you take that? Not once did they ever ask you if they took PB pills? And I thought that was ironic, and I asked at the end of the study, It's like, well, what about these pills that they gave us, And they'll all look at you. I don't even know what that is. Never heard of it, so interestingly enough, they also don't ever talk about the fact they gave us speed and sleeping pills like Halsey on, which also caused the problems, but those are never mentioned on those
surveys either. But anyway, if you've heard all this before, I'm sorry for wasting your time, but I think you guys should look into it because I've said it to all kinds of people and they just sort of look at you, and you know, nobody really seems to care, which I think is kind of interesting. But anyway, hey, love the show, you guys, take care and fight in a good fight.
Man.
Here we go, anonymous person, thank you so much for that information you brought up with subject that I knew nothing about it. I know nothing about this, you guys until I started like looking into it after hearing that message.
Well, I was gonna mention on the burn pit caller that it reminded me of like Agent Orange and stuff like that. Like to your point Dan about how a lot of times folks in these positions aren't looked after after the fact, and the rules seem to be very murky.
Yeah, let's jump into what this is. These PB pills that our caller is referring to were largely given to I guess soldiers, Marines, army personnel during the Gulf War, what's known as the Gulf War. The I guess it's the first official time the United States entered Iraq on a unmilitary missions like this, and these PB pills are I'm gonna try and get this right, puriodostic mine bromide pills.
These are pills that were used or I guess the usage at the time officially was as an anti nerve agent pill, so kind of to pre treat all of the soldiers in case at some point while they're on the ground they would get exposed to some kind of nerve agent, which was a big It was thought to be a major threat during the Gulf War. If you think back to the weapons of mass destruction claims that were there were going like swimming around in the world.
When the United States entered Iraq again in two thousand and three, a lot of it had to do with weapons that were encountered back you know, when Iraq was at war with Kuwait and when the United States then intervened. Back then, nerve agents were a very big thing also used by Western powers. Nerve agents, chemical warfare fun times.
Don't we say that we don't do that? Isn't that like the public stance.
We don't say we don't. We say we don't in specific circumstances it.
Yeah, white phosphorus, it's just for cover, right. Anyway, this is a very fascinating thing. There's a ton of writing on the official VA website. You can go to Publichealth dot VA dot gov. There is a large section about these PB pills in Gulf War veterans. They say these pills are quote a possible cause of chronic multisymptom illnesses. So it's definitely something the VA is looking at, tracking
aware of. We have no idea how much actual work is going into assisting veterans who have been dealing with exposure to these substances.
Yeah, and I've anonymous. I've heard some. I feel like I've heard some that's mentioned this thing. But to that point, it's not I don't think it's widely known. We certainly don't know much about it. It's not widely known outside of military circles. But I was right there with you, Matt, looking at the VA itself, surprised to see returning guest the Rand corporation talk about risk that cannot be ruled out with certitude and linking it in their review of
scientific literature to other unexplained or officially undiagnosed illnesses. One thing that really stood out here that they don't spend much time on in the VA the VA examination and their written statements is this one line further research is needed on PP and other agents as well as on genetic factors and long term health effects. That's some terrifying stuff to read if it's not explained genetic factors, right.
Yeah. One of the weirdest things about this drug, you guys, it's been prescribed for decades to treat something called I'm going to try and get this correct as well, be as athenia gravis MA as athena gravis. I'm not sure if that's correct. It's a neuro muscular disease of very rather rare disease. So this was a drug that was used it had a usage purpose, right, and then it was used in during the Gulf War for this other purpose that I guess just maybe there wasn't enough study
that went into it. It seems really weird. I asked Chemo about this a veteran of the Afghanistan I guess the war in Afghanistan, and he was unaware of anything called peb pills or something similar to that. But he did tell us quite a bit about, you know, the stuff we've heard from other vets, the major rounds of vaccinations that you have to get, you know, particularly anti malaria stuff, smallpox, anthrax, all kinds of things that again,
potentially these these soldiers could be exposed to. But there were other things, at least in Chemo's case that he was that were administered to him that he just wasn't even sure what it was, but he just kind of had to take it. When you go in right, yea.
It's unfortunately, it's a normalized procedure. I also aw Matt in some of the literature on this. I'm looking at the National Library of Medicine on the Gulf War and Health publication. I'm noticing that there was probably fog of
war and rush to deployment of this substance. Specifically, how the FDA allowed The Food Drug Administration in the US allowed the Department of Defense, or DODU, a waiver from the usual requirement to obtain informed consent from service members before they were taking this substance, and they said, look, we're in a hurry four point thirty on a Friday, energy you know, well, what was it? Henry Kissinger said, like, just make it happen. We'll worry about the constitutionality later.
Well, I was going to ask, is there anything that protects the government from not getting consent from service people? Yeah?
Those waivers, Okay, the FDA is saying, hey, you don't due to due to extenuating circumstances or the ticking clock argument. We have to choose the greater good and we will sort it out as soon as we can afterwards, after the crisis has completed. And you know, the thing is, increasingly we're learning the crises never really end. They simply
transform and sometimes they drop out of the news. Matt I saw the DoD reported they had an estimated five point three north of five point three million doses that went out to service members, and around maybe more than two hundred and fifty thousand people took some measure of this. To your point, Anon Anonymous, some people were taking it a lot, said religiously. Some people were just taking it occasionally.
Yeah, And so when you think about a dose that's one pill, right, and then they were handed out in these twenty one pill blister packages, so that's a lot of pills they got distributed. And the reason, at least according to our caller, they're one of the major reasons that people would take these is because you are told, hey, there are nerve agents like saren gas that you might encounter if you take this. It was described as an antidote,
but not really. You know, you're gonna have less chance of being affected as fully by that nerve agent if you take this.
It's like an inoculation almost in kind of, but not really. You're right, now, that's different, yeah.
Because theoretically the substances molecules within that drug will bind to some of the molecules within that seren gas and they won't bind to your body in the same way. Right theoretically, but according to that same National Library of Medicine article that you pointed to, Ben, it's like not known if that actually would have happened, like when when exposure to seren gas would have occurred. It's like, theoretically that could have been beneficial and helped.
The science checks out right in theory.
But they also list a bunch of side effects of this, especially if you take too much of this stuff. It does not mention long term effects of being dosed with this material.
Yeah, like fifty percent of the people who took this had some sort of reported self reported side effect, primarily gastrointestinal in nature. I saw for anybody wondering that the dosage I believe is thirty milligrams per dablet yep, so it's not an insane amount. But we also have to wonder how quickly the body processes it, because I think it's one tablet every eight hours is the recommended dosage they were giving people, So you have to wonder whether
that is cumulative in effect. To your point, Anonymous, it does seem like they're we're stronger side effects and damaging effects for people who continue taking the dose. So whatever was happening was not evacuating the body fully without leaving something behind or some kind of effect. Very dangerous stuff.
Absolutely read up more on this. If you're interested, please let us know if you took PB pills, if you got any information about it. If you want to share a story, do call us or write to us. Our number is one eight three three stdwytk our email is conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. We'll be right back with more messages from you.
We have returned. We've got a message here from Hoboken Johnny, and just want to say at the top, this can be a controversial thing. It's something I and several of us have read on for a number of years, and it's a somewhat tricky thing to discuss. Just to be candid, so Hoboken Johnny says, season's greetings. My name is Hoboken Johnny. I have been a religious, un slightly intended listener for
the better part of a decade. First time writing in I always enjoyed the episodes mentioning New Jersey and our beloved leather winged Cryptid. But there are some much darker forces I play here in the Garden State, sadly ones that are affecting hundreds of lives and possibly generations. Hoboken Johnny says, this will be a long one, so buckle up, buckeroos.
I love it when people say buckeroo in letters at least, so we're gonna paraphrase some of this because it is quite a thorough piece of correspondence, and you're an awesome writer. By the way Hoboken, which makes sense. So we do have to cut a couple things to help preserve Hoboken's identity. Just so you know, Hoboken says, I wanted to bring the tout of Lake New Jersey to your attention, as I feel it doesn't receive the attention and frankly the
scrutiny it needs on a state and national level. I've been a blank in the insert local government area for a number of years. I've been tossing around the idea of writing in on this subject. It needs to be discussed in a more public forum than we've been able to get locally in Lakewood. Lakewood is, for the most part, a fairly impoverished community with a majority population comprised of Hispanic and African American students, many of whom are first
generation immigrants with little to know English speaking experience. Historically, our district has a reputation for being poor and violent and dangerous and all around just a terrible place to be. We've suffered the issues a lot of impoverished districts face, lack of funding, lack of support, etc. And editorializing here. Unfortunately, that's a really common tale often in the United states
this lack of funding and support. What makes Lakewood a bit different, says Hoboken, is that these conditions are seemingly being purposely imposed upon us. And yeah, I know, right. And this is where Hoboken puts in a disclaimer. This might strike some people's sideways, but you'll see why it's a very important disclaimer very soon. Hoboken says, Before I get into this, I need to state for the record that I hold absolutely no anti Semitic beliefs, opinions, or
anything of the sort. What I have as a factual grievance based on what I have seen firsthand in the community, and I need to bring attention to this on behalf of the students. It's a well known fact around Ocean County, where Lakewood is based and the rest of the state that the town is run and controlled almost exclusively by and these are their words, the town's Hasidic Jewish population.
The school district has a non Hasidic superintendent, but it's a very poorly kept secret that the superintendent functions under direct orders of the school's district attorney, who is in this community that our writer is talking about. So apparently the big problem is corruption this guy, the district attorney, Michael Inzilbook, has pocketed over five million dollars off the books over the course of six years. That's like a little you know, we get just cocktail math and say
it's a pretty significant income every year. And then Hoboken points us to various articles that talk about corruption and oppression in this district and says, while all of this is terrible, of course, it goes much deeper than just misallocated funds. Here's where it gets crazy. The Hasidic community, says Hoboken, is essentially operating outside of the jurisdiction of
local and state authorities. This community has its own ems service. Yeah, well, that's like saying venda, but you know what I mean, emergency services and their own law enforcement bodies. A religious police force sounds, you know, which doesn't sound like something you would have in a secular country like the United States, and says further, many properties are registered as religious sites, which means they don't pay taxes in a lot of situations. Right,
and this goes on and on. I don't want to read it entirely in full, but we see the argument too that the public school system is being purposely cut off at the ankles, being denied funding, having future funding gutted, and that in place, members of the community are either confronting a lack of education therefore opportunity, or if they're in the Hasidic community, they're being sent to far better funded, better equipped private schools. And this is this is the
lay of the land with this. Do you guys remember hearing other stories about similar accusations. I'm thinking New Jersey, I'm thinking New York in particular.
No, But I mean, I do understand how a lot of these schools have a tendency to operate outside of the you know, traditional school system, and they probably have things in terms of like religious freedom that allow them to do that.
Well, you guys tell me if I'm just thinking incorrectly here. It reminds me a little bit of the Clearwater, Florida scientology situation that was going on, but that was more about property being purchased than public school zoning and you know, funding for schools in the area.
I think that's a compe maybe.
But I don't know. I guess it was a It was a religious community that was using the local power structures the local government to kind of get what they wanted.
You can also see aspects of this in offshoots of the Latter Day Saints, sure right, and carefully saying offshoots here the groups or communities that are not considered official parts of the LDS overall. And obviously this stuff becomes red meat for anti Semitic people in these crowds, you know, and that stuff can be weaponized dangerously. So but it got me digging too, because I wanted to find these
other cases we had read about. I'm thinking like the article from February of this year in New York Times by Jay Root, which talks about how another community, in this case, another Hasidic community, has leveraged, you know, local politics and municipal procedure to funnel public money into private schools. And these are schools that you know, the kids who are not in that community are not allowed to attend, but the taxes are going to that. It sounds maybe
somewhat like a dry, boring community meeting point. If you've ever been to a community meeting in your neighborhood, sure you know that they're either boring or unhinged.
And in the new season of Fargo, the first well sort of one of the inciting events is like a community type meeting where things go absolutely off the rails and somebody tases a cop.
I just want to point back. There's an article that's mentioned early in this message, been something about I forget the name of the publication Asbury Park Press, I think where they're just it's discussing the five million dollars that the one attorney has made.
Right.
I just wanted to see if I could find that article. Right, that particular article exists and you can click on it, but you can't read it unless you subscribe to that press. So I found I guess a retelling of it, let's say, in something called the New Jersey Education Report njedreport dot com. And in here it's specifically speaking about this one attorney for Lakewood Public Schools that I think has made eight hundred thousand dollars per year as an attorney for a
public school system. Which feels a little crazy.
No, that is not a thing.
Let's just cite Laura Waters is the journalist's name who's writing this in early October twenty twenty three, and it is very interesting to see like this guy is, according to this the author of this article. The highest paid of government employee in New Jersey.
Which is weird because as our friends at Daily's I guys know, and I've talked about before, typically the highest paid public employee is going to be a sports coach.
A public public employee.
I think about like public universities and stuff like in a state.
I could see that, but it's definitely not the governor, right, because even the governor.
Is governors do side bigs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The governor's is quoted in this story, Governor Phil Murphy saying I don't have insight into the particulars of it, but the number is eye popping.
Yeah.
I want to go back to that New York Times article just to show that there is a larger like it's not just restricted to community tensions in Lakewood and Ocean County. This article I just mentioned is talking about the Curiositol Village Union Free School District, and it's they call them villages up in the northeast. It's north of New York City. It has what the journalists are calling one of the most unusual public school districts in the world.
The question for people who are outside of these communities is there's enophobia to it. Honestly some of it. But they're asking things like, why are we having the choice removed for our kids? Why are opportunities being removed for our kids? Why are we having a hard time like buying property. Why do we feel then there's these folks in these communities, why do we feel that we are being pushed out of our own place where we live.
If we're talking just in discrete moments, discrete cases, then what we see is a confrontation between the role of the state and the role of spiritual or religious beliefs. Right, the US has never fully solved that question in practice. Right the division of church and state is all well and good on paper, but it's very difficult to see it shake out successfully in practice.
But Catholic schools, for example, don't necessarily get the same lack of oversight that these schools do. Am I correct, I would have to look into it more to speak on that point. But I do think it's a great question, and I do also wonder there's not really one hundred percent way to prevent corruption, right like Singapore figured out how to become less corrupt by kind of incorporating and owning corruption, right like now pat system, Yeah, they made.
It a business. But in this case, at the local level, where politics are so often ignored and so often have tremendous impact, I wonder if there is is there a way that is fair to people to prevent someone from coming in and, you know, stacking the school board and saying, hey, we're cutting all of the funding, right, and if you have a problem with it, then you'll have to vote. But we know you don't have the votes. I don't know, man,
It's it's a pickle. And so the Ashbury Park Press, that story we mentioned has been quoted in places like forward dot com. You can find what they're called the Lakewood Welfare fraud scheme. And this goes in so many different directions it's hard to follow all of the money, especially when you get into things like LLCs limited liability companies that functioned as proxy companies to hide the movement
of money. And then you look at how people were apparently enlisting their relatives to be the face of different shell companies. Again, this has happened in This had happened in Utah, right, This happened in splinter groups that claim to be the correct authorities of the LDS Church. The LDS Church obviously does not agree, and I just don't know.
I mean, one of the things we have to clearly acknowledge is that in this country, again in theory, people cannot be discriminated against for their own personal spiritual beliefs. That is a not starter. You should not as a state attempt to force people to do things that contradict their spiritual beliefs if they're not hurting anyone, you know
what I mean. We see this again with the debates raging in Europe regarding hjah, but regarding headscarves, you know, like can you tell people what they can and cannot wear?
Well, as we know with any time, anytime there are these sorts of dispensations that go along with very legitimate beliefs, there will be people that will be ready to try to take advantage of them as a loophole, just saying.
Yeah, can you get paid seven to eight times more than the average person in your position? And that's everybody's fine with that, even if your school district is, you know, impoverished, just like trying to get money to pay for its.
Programs, you shouldn't be able to.
I think we'd all agree and with that folks, you know we would like to hear your on this, on all of these things. Before we end. We wanted to say thank you so much. We say it pretty often and we mean it sincerely every time. We can't do this without you. We are so grateful that you too are a conspiracy realist, and we hope that you will go on air with us on the show one day. We try to be easy to find online. There are tons of ways to contact us.
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