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.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Nola.
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. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. It is the top of the week. Happy May sixth to everybody tuning in,
Happy May the fourth and so on. We knew we had to start tonight's program with well, there's a lot of stuff we have to get to, but first I think we can all agree there is some incredibly important brain making news that we have to get the word out about. The rumors are true. Our long standing dream has finally come to fruition. Gentlemen, folks, people, conspiracy realist, everybody. You can now gamble at Dave and Busters what very soon you can wait.
So this is what I wanted to clarify. Ben. I saw this. You said it to our group text.
It said something about gambling on arcade machines. Do this mean you'll be placing bets on like Street Fighter?
I'm so glad you asked, because here is how it works. You get the DMB app, which obviously all of us already have, and then you, through the app, you can make what they call friendly wagers.
Ah. Yes, I love a friendly wager.
Games that people are played during to the Dave and Buster's statement quote, customers can soon make a friendly five dollars wager on a hot shots basketball game, a bet on a ski ball competition, or on another arcade game. The betting function is expected to launch in the next few months. So if you have ever been getting house drunk with your adult friends at Dave and Busters and decided to put some money on one of the kids playing ski ball, your time has come.
Yeah, man, eight chocolate shoe choose deep? I got So?
Is this like only being rolled out in states where gambling is legal, or because you're using an app? Is it somehow a loopholey kind of thing?
Well? Yeah, this is very confusing.
We're talking about this because I wanted to surprise you guys on air given the gravity of this news. However, got too excited a little bit sleep deprived. As Ever, it looks like they did loophole it. As we're talking about in our group chat. It looks as though the kind of the way that online gambling apps or like draftking stuff works. Regardless, it looks like that's what Dave and Busters is doing. Because from what I can tell, and Dave Buster please write and big fans correct us
if we're wrong here. But from what we can tell, it seems that this is going to take place in every DMB location, including our own, so we may have to change our weekend.
Trapping dangerous, dude, dangerous. Imagine people losing their shirt betting on Mortal Kombat.
I can I can't. I mean, like, okay, first off, is Dave and Busters not only like jokes aside? Is it not somewhat grooming kids for a casino experience a little bit?
I mean you could argue, I mean, they would probably argue that Dave and Busters is for families. You know, it's a place where kids and their parents can both enjoy things and equal amounts. I mean, chuck E cheese, I would argue is way more gratuitously that thing than Dave and Busters.
But I don't know who's to say.
Well, before the courts get to it, I guess the courts are just saying. The courts are probably gonna say that. I think they have bigger fish to fry now. We just wanted to open with that and let you know
some of the favorite comments. The audience response has been largely positive, and I want to give a shout out to sc Irish eight forty three on Reddit, who said, as someone who has bet on reruns of Legends of the Hidden Temple, reruns four AM Women's ping Pong, and those little tabletop magnetic horse racing games, I know plenty of people who gladly sit at the table with their buddies drinking beer, gambling on children playing hoop fever. What could go wrong?
A lot of pressure if someone's putting money on your performance too right.
Can you imagine being seriously, can you imagine being like nine years old and you're just you're at a birthday party or something, and then all of a sudden, from behind where for the rest at or bar is you hear some guy go like, sak this one.
You know, Jenny Duddy, daddy needs a new pair of shoes.
Yeah, yeah, Or you see some kid fail miserably, and then somebody from across the room throws a chair because he's so upset, and he really did just lose a lot of money.
So I wonder if they're gonna have to do the same thing that Vegas does where they deploy those gambling problem pamphlets. Yes, I think they'll have to. But anyway, as we were saying, there is there's much more and much stranger news that we have to get to this evening. We are going to We're going to learn a little bit about a situation in New Orleans, UH, situation in Detroit, the UH the home state of our own code named Doc Holliday. We're also gonna, you know, we'll get to
some other things. Not all of it is terrible, but I think or pause. We're going to look at the campus protest, and we have returned one of the first stories we wanted to cover this evening. It's something that everybody in the United States has heard about. You have probably also heard about this, regardless of where you live.
In recent days, starting April seventeenth of this year, the US saw one of the largest the largest occurrences of campus protests since the era of Vietnam War protest and their protests on university campuses that later spread to other countries, all regarding the war, the Israel Hamas war, and these are to be clear, at least, what you'll see in the news is portrayals of someone being like rapidly anti
Semitic or just by being pro Palestinian. Obviously, we know the truth is much more complicated, and arguing for arguing that innocent people should not be murdered does not automatically make you a bad person by any means. But this is still this is still happening as we're recording on May first, Wednesday, and this is going to come to you on May sixth, at the beginning of next week. Have you guys been keeping eyes on the protest on the breaking news?
Absolutely been one of the biggest, I guess, most egregious examples has happened right here in our backyard at Emory University, where police went from you know, zero to tayze and like boots on backs of necks, like and then the span of no time. And I've been very perplexed as to where this escalation is coming from, you know, in what seemed to be.
Very reasonable exercising.
Of you know, our right, our rights as Americans to protest. I just it's suspicious to me. I don't get it where the escalation comes from. I think maybe I do get it sort of, but it's still mind boggling. We'll get into it.
Well, Yeah, my attention has been pretty sharply focused on Columbia University. I mean, certainly Emery. You know, I think hit all of us a little differently because it's here. But the stuff in New York with Columbia University has been.
That's the latest right.
Which just got breached because they had the temerity to possess bike locks. Bike locks, that's the yellow cake in this situation, justified the aggression.
Yeah, but it's an interesting echo of the past in the you know, the specific building that was used to barricade themselves into the protesters and you know, having it, having NYPD deployed into the building via I mean, you guys probably saw the pictures of that thing they use to like get into the story above all. Yeah, really,
just I don't know it. Anytime we see stuff like this, it feels movie like in its I don't know, in the same way a movie, a big successful like summer blockbuster, right, one of the primary attributes of that type of film is the amount of money that's thrown at the screen, right, the amount of vehicles, human beings, special effects and all
that stuff. In watching these things on the news, it feels again We've said this, I've said this personally about many things recently in the past what ten years, that just it doesn't feel real because of the almost production of it.
But doesn't it just feel completely out of balance with what's happening. Yeah, the level of deployment of these bells and whistles, these riot squad and these you know, tear gas and rubber bullets and stuff. I mean, it's just like we've talked about it off the air a good bit lately, and it's a very difficult topic to discuss without people getting mad at you on one side or the other. But it has been very confusing for me.
And we've talked about it a good bit and I think i've you know, have a little bit more understanding of it after talking to you guys.
But where this just.
Unilateral, like anyone in opposition to Israel is instantly.
Like an enemy of the state. It's just it's I don't get it. It's it's it just seems so extreme and aggressive.
And you know, there's even a lot of folks that are picipitating in these protests who are who are who are Jewish, who are saying, you know, Jews for Palestine, you know, And there there are a lot of you know, agitator types on the maybe faculties even of these schools, who are saying, I feel unsafe. I'm seeing folks that are you know, supporting Hamas and it's tanamount to terrorist activity.
But all of that feels to me to be a lot of.
Much ado about nothing.
These are these are peaceful protests, and I haven't seen any evidence of that kind of stuff.
It all just seems like a lot of hot air.
And fury signifying very little. Yeah, I'm glad you mention the phrase agitation because one of the continual accusations or conspiracy theories about this, which we'll get to you in later episodes, is the idea of agent provocateurs or outside agitators, and that was indeed the calculus or the rationale stated by NYPD for their actions in Colombia. That's what other law enforcement agencies have been stating when they are cracking down on these protests. Which of these have been continuing
for some time. Let's just give you a context folks here, because we know, depending on what kind of news we're encountering, you're gonna hear different narratives. So to give you a full list of the states that have campus protests going on right now about this and often other related issues. Strap in. I'll read as quick as I can. New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts.
It goes on Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington, Washington, d C, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin. Even Wisconsin's in the mix now because of the University of Wisconsin Madison. And in what we see with each of these protests is these occupying movements, is we see a troubling common narrative thread, which is law enforcement cracking down on college students who
are peacefully protesting. And yes, to that earlier point, there are people who are doing counter protests, That's absolutely true. There are people who are saying, I myself do not feel safe on campus as a result of these things. However, out of all the people protesting, there's also a common theme of the people who are getting cracked down on by state power. And we don't have to You are
always going to be your own person. You should never feel obligated or pushed into agreeing with something that you don't agree with. But we do have to realize, without into soapboxy, that a part of this country is inherently the First Amendment, the idea that you could speak your mind, and if you are not actively harming other people, you're not calling for them to be harmed, then you should
have that speech protected. That's one thing that differentiates this place in theory from authoritarian regimes, from absolute monarchies and dictatorships. And you know, as we know right now, a lot of us listening may indeed be on a campus, you know what I mean, You may be on a campus that gott in a lockdown that is just as strict, if not more strict, than the COVID lockdowns of a
few years back. And these students, these protesters, you know, they're not third party operators, right like sent in because these days, you don't have to do that by and large. I'm just saying it's a stereotype. It's a convenient thing to hang on a hook.
Oh, I do agree. I was looking at something this morning from Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, and he was going on and on on about outside and individuals that were coming onto the campuses on various campuses and basically students to protest and organize in this way and to use tactics basically. And as you said, Ben, that's not something you need some outside group to come
in and teach you. You can go online. We've talked about in the past, like just learning how to protest safely right and have things to protect yourself against things like tear gas and all that stuff.
I don't know if you guys have heard anything about this, but the Atlanta Police apparently participates in sort of almost like like a police exchange program where we send Atlanta police over to Israel and are then they are trained in kind of military crowd suppression tactics and then sent back over here and then they're deployed into these protests to quash what I would argue is Palestinian voices, you know, I mean. And then this is all enmeshed in the
whole Hop City debate as well. Here in Atlanta in particular, there's a really good piece on Democracy Now where Amy Goode was talking to the chair of the Emory Philosophy department.
Who was just kind of wandering around checking out the protest.
And the next thing she.
Gets did some in this check on someone who was getting dropped.
Well, yeah, something turned and she saw someone getting dropped like you said, and just said, why are you doing this?
Stop it? And then the police asked her to leave.
She said, no, I need to be here to witness this, and at which point they you know, handcuffed her behind her back.
And in the same segment they bring in a PhD.
Medical student at Emory by the name of Umaya Mohammad, who speaks a lot about Emory's policies about you know, kind of even going so far as to refer to doxing of students and this kind of really iron fisted repression of this kind of free speech with zero evidence of violence, and it just seems like cultural And I feel like it's cultural in our country where there's this unilateral support where it's like Israel is one in the right,
Palestine one hundred percent in the wrong, and they're basically being treated as enemies of the state. Well, I don't think that's right.
Well, it's it's attempting narrative, and it's a simple one, right, which people prefer simple explanations. Let's put it this way, because one of the big focuses we need to keep on here goes back to an episode we did years ago about the dangers of the militarization of police. The police are not the military. They're not supposed to be the military recently, and there are live updates that you can get in a couple of places if you have
online access in the West. Nbcnews dot Com has a live update thing that I've been reading for a while. You can also check out you know what, let's go to a quote from Chris Isidore writing for CNN. This came out just today as we record. Here's what happened in Columbia. New York City police used flash bangs flash bang grenades to breach the building that have been occupied by these protesters for some time. The flash grenades, if you're not familiar with a flash bang, they are used
as a shock and disorient kind of tactic. Right, they have a very bright flash, a very loud bang, but they're not themselves explosive fissile material.
You know, your head ring and rom and your vision kind of just you know, if you can imagine just having like a really bright light shine in your eyes and what the after effects are of that. Maybe X that by you know, four or five.
So just last night, as we record, from what we understand, officers arrested more than two hundred protesters, the majority of which are obviously peaceful protesters, overnight and then they went to City of City College of New York that's about a mile north of Manhattan as the crow flies, and
they made dozens of extra arrest. This coincides with arrest, arrest and police attacks at like the University of Arizona at Tulane, where there have been a lot of and we'll get to Louisiana later in an unrelated story, there have been a lot of allegations there, in particular of these quote unquote outside agitators. I'm torn on this, guys, because the First Amendment is incredibly important to me and
to this country. You know, public universities are part of the US government, so they have to follow any court decree over how the First Amendment exists, how it should be applied. Private universities and any private business really has a lot more agency in what their state and around speech and protest may be. If you want to learn more about that, go to a great New York Times article called What the First Amendment Means for Campus Protest
by Alan Blinder, also published today. As we're going into record and with this, you know, these accusations of anti Semitism are often going to be made because there is some sort of anti Semitic action, But that same accusation logically can be weaponized right against people who simply don't agree with something that you agree with, and there's no way around that. To be clear, we have never on this show. We've never defended anything like anti semitism, nor
have we defended Islamophobia. They're both just very nasty things that perhaps most irritatingly demonstrate a lack of critical thought or the ability to think through things critically. But we are and remain anti genocide, We are remain anti police state. Would we agree with that statement in general? I think maybe it's a little too general.
No, I think it's just right. I mean, that's.
Just what I cannot agree with is the weaponization of rhetoric and the other ring of people just trying to wrap their heads around an issue and be you know.
Fair and be I don't know, just sort of.
Like to your point, Ben, like there's a there's a lot of bullying going on, you know in this debate where if you're if you're this, then you're this. You know, if you say anything negative about Israel, then you're an anti semit you know, if you say anything positive about Israel,
then you're supporting genocide. It's just a very damned if you do, Dan, If you don't, I think I would agree completely that what is happening in uh in Gaza, but that the hands of the Israelis is something that would certainly resemble genocide.
Yes, and genocide bad. Agree. Yeah, I agreed, But you know, it's it's strange, I think, I don't know, guys. Strange for me because I know the episodes we've done in the past on the way student protest movements can arise, especially in other countries, when there are intelligence agencies involved from other countries. Sure, that is a thing, and we've
talked about it before on the show. So it's weird for me to square all of this that's going on, when there's so much emotional response happening, to try and come at it and think, well, what are the actual possibilities here and mechanisms. To have this large of a protest movement occurring across the United States about something very specific that is not happening inside the United States, and right before a presidential election, that weirds me out a
little bit. It makes my senses go off. It doesn't mean that I or anybody should think that that's what's happened here, but it is weird.
It Also, we do know for reality Reality check, regardless of how the powers that be politically on both sides of the aisle, regardless how they try to spin it, it is known and it is true that adversarial governments have been quite successful in their asymmetric warfare tactics. Right Info war is real. Do check out, Do check out our earlier episodes on this. As you guys know, I
researched this stuff kind of extensively. No, you say it's a real concern, it's a valid It's not crazy to ask yourself that question.
I remember looking at this at great detail too when we were making those episodes a long time ago, and it really is a creepy thing if you look at the span of history and how often young young people, especially in colleges in any country can be targeted basically with these things.
US did it and so America.
It's because the youth can be a scary thing to the establishments, you know, because they represent new ideas, they represent a breaking of the status quo. And when enough of them organize and insist on having their voices heard in this framework of quote unquote free speech that we.
Have, it freaks people out, you know.
And then and we're seeing it, it's so gross and like, you know, transparent what's being done, what they're doing. And I just wanted to point to one other article in Vox, how today is anti war protests stack up against major student movements in history. They're saying, and I think we all agree that these campus protests are shaping up to be some of the biggest of the twenty first century.
And they're just going to keep going.
And I We're going to get to a point, I think where if we keep seeing this kind of violence perpetrator on peaceful protesters.
There could well be a sea change. It's just how polarizing can you get.
You know what if it were your kids just out there expressing their voices and not standing for violence against innocent people, sure of innocent people.
Or protesting the Vietnam or the photographs right, the video footage here is distressingly similar. I'm not asking for people to solve problems, but I think we all agree it is important to realize how fragile things like the First Amendment and indeed the great experiment that is the United States can be, and police states are bad. It's not a hot take, it's just a reality. The only people who like police states are the dictators who run police states.
Everybody else is just trying not to die. And that's not the kind of world or not the kind of country that people should want to grow up at. We don't have the answers. We pride ourselves on being honest when that's the case, but we do want to hear from you. You are the most important part of the show. We are glad that you are here, and thank you as always for taking the time to reach out and
speak with us. Let us know what you think is going on these protests and if it's not too much, let us know what you think the end results will be. We're gonna pause for word from our sponsors and we'll return with more strange news.
And we've returned, and for this story, we're headed to the three to one three aka Rock City aka Motown aka Detroit, Michigan.
Citro. Is that a thing Detroit? What did I hear that?
In?
Like a stand out, like a comedy thing. I don't know what that's from. Dope like that must be it?
Did you say the city of champions, Ben? I just learned about that back in the day, back in the thirties when Detroit had all the best teams.
It's still pretty good, right, The Lion's quite good, I'm sure.
Well, they're very blue wise.
We believe in things and support.
The playoffs.
Thank you.
We were bad for a long time. I will not tolerate any lionslander.
Lias Slander, I said, it's good to believe in people and support things.
It's sort of an angel in the outfield.
No, it's funny there.
Were mentioning that because I think I texted you Alexis at some point. Maybe I was doing the playoff things. I was texting some Detroit friends, and every single person from Detroit, including our friend Lucky Yates, doubled down. The residents of Detroit have a great and well earned pride in their city, and I always think we should explore it more. Just like the car stuff days, I just want to go see the packerd stuff, you know from the per Company.
Look, so, if you're like me and you don't know much about Detroit, you may remember the enthralling film eight Miles, starring Marshall Mathers as an aspiring young battle rap artist. And if you'd like to imagine where this story is going to take place, just put your mind on that titular road from that cinematic masterpiece and then travel approximately seven miles northeast too fifteen mile road and the address is one nine one zero zero fifteen mile Road in
Clinton Township. Clinton Township. Well, maybe you know more about this Alexis than we do. It appears to be in the greater Metropolitan Area of Detroit, like the city, but it is a township, so I don't know if it would be considered like a whole separate thing.
Clinton Township is definitely like a considered a separate city is not considered Detroit. It's very far from Detroit. As you said, it's like seven miles northeast. It's like up you go like up ninety four to ninety four starts going north instead of like east and west, and then you get up to fourteen mile and that's where Clinton Township starts. So definitely definitely not Detroit and even further away from some of the other suburbs that are closer to Detroit than like border eight mile.
Godd you call it an excerp than in that regard, I actually much.
Of anything, because I don't really think about Clinton Township.
But I.
It's not a shade, but it's just it's far away. It's considered far away.
Oh, I heard that Clinton Township email anyway, all right.
So let's just maybe you've never been to one nine one zero zero fifteen mile road in Clinton Township, where if you do travel there now you will find a charred barren slab where once a building stood. And guys, I link to a picture there so you can look at this building. It's a single sizable building that has an entrance right in the center, and then it has two businesses inside that one building. On the left you'll find Dollar Palace, and on the right you will find
a place that just says Goo g oo. And you may be curious as to what that means or stands for. Well, well it's called the Goo Smoke Shop slash as it has two businesses, select distributors wholesale.
Hmmm uh.
And if you did go there when the building is a vape situation, Ah, yes, okay, is it ye old smoke shop? And if you had traveled there at the time and then you saw this smoldering pile, that is that area? Now you may be asking yourself again.
This barren slab, if you will, I got I gotta give you props on that turn of frame by the way, please carry you sure.
Somebody else used it better than me. I've just put words together there. If you might be wondering what the heck happened here, well it all goes back to what was available for purchase at this good old goose smoke shop, and more importantly, what the goo.
I just want to give me that goo.
I think that's why I worked for him for so long. But more importantly, what was distributed by those select distributors wholesale So if we if we imagine the inside of a smoke shop, Guys, I think we've done this exercise before. But what are you gonna find in there?
Hookah stuff?
You will find, tinctures. You will find a lot of vapes. You will probably find vape refilled device or paraphernalia. Juice you might juice, you might find to pay on the states. You might find some CBD stuff. Some PC stuff.
Is very popular, so like subplax supplements, snacks, sometimes, some prophylactics, some glassware, some metal and wooden products, and lots and lots of things that are probably flammable.
I would say, like those coals that you get for for hookah setups.
Those things are half half empty cans of paint with whally rags hanging out.
Oh wait a minute, let's talk about pressurized butane canisters.
I've seen now that this is where we get to the wholesale distributors. Here they sold large containers of butane, which is a very flammable substance used to fill all kinds of things that set fires. Right, so lighters of all shapes and style exactly, and also, interestingly enough, guys, crap ton of nitrous oxide which is an odorless, colorless, non flammable gas, but it treats fire a lot like
oxygen does. It can be used as to fuel a fire the way oxygen does, but not in the same way as a buttane would, right, it would all of a sudden ignite.
It functions as a propellant, though you're saying.
It does precisely, and that is a whole I think that is maybe the crux of this story, those two substances, butane and nitrous oxide. Let's go to a story that is, honestly, guys, is a bit stale at this point, but it got renewed by another story we're going to bring in at the end here. But this is a story from March sixth out of the Washington Post. Explosion at vape supplier kills teen and flings gas canisters up to a mile.
This is insane, guys. Back on March fifth, I guess between March fifth and sixth, there was some kind of fire that began, which is still under investigation as we record today. On Wednesday, May first, there was a fire
at this location. Whether it was inside the building right behind the building, there's some information on that coming out, but it took place at this location, and it ignited all of these giant buttane canisters and the nitrous oxide canisters, and it even superheated all of those like vape batteries, all of those very powerful batteries that were located inside.
Which they won't even let you bring in a check.
Bag, you know, on an airplane, right.
Because of the pressure changes and the possibility of fires. Well, there was such a massive explosion. You can see videos of this thing if you look online. It was almost you guys have seen videos of like a fireworks factory catching on fire, and just the kind of the chain continuous explosions that are occurring in some of them very small, some of them larger. You guys have seen something like that.
Absolutely sure.
It was like that, but with metal canisters being shot into the air and exploding, So there's shrapnel being fired for a mile around in a mile radius, sometimes up to two miles. There would be canisters found on roofs or embedded in the ground. And there was one unfortunate person who was nineteen years old who was standing literally a quarter of a mile away from this explosion at a gas station and a piece of shrapnel caused his
life to end. Insane, terrible, horrible situation for that one person. And also imagine just walking outside where you live and seeing this in the distance and hearing this with these constant, consistent explosions. It was so loud that the fire chief there in Clinton Township, this guy named Tim Duncan, said he could hear the explosion from his house, which is seven miles away, roughly before he ever got deployed, you know, to go check out what the heck was going on?
Do we know the cause?
The cause was improperly stored giant containers of butane and nitrous oxide, so definitely accidental. Uh well, I didn't say that.
Okay, improper storage, but I guess technically then by that definition you could purposely improperly store stuff. But yes, where are we going with this?
Well, okay, I'm going to jump to something from the Macombe Daily m ACMB Daily. This is what they say. Authority said the building was not supposed to contain these butane and nitrous oxide tanks that were found on the property, and during the last inspection in twenty twenty two, none of those canisters were there. If they were there, they would have gotten a like hit for that right with serious fines. Because of the way this business is zoned.
It's not zoned for industrial use and storing that those kinds of materials would fall into industrial use. It does appear, or at least according to these officials, the building didn't have the proper safety structures in place to house those types of tanks of materials, so.
Like fire suppression would be an example.
Oh yeah, I think it also has to do with temperature and other potential you know, possibilities there are for damage to be done to those just one of those containers which could set off a chain reaction like it did copy. And one of the big scary things at the time when this was first happening was that there were unexploded canisters of both butane and nitrous oxide that were like lying on the ground as we said, or like just you know, landed on a roof, and residents
were trying to recover them or dispose of them. But some of them were ruptured, like the metal containers ruptured so they could explode, or they a few of them did explode, so it was like grenades. They were just left all around.
Dude, I mean, and this is obviously hugely dangerous for surrounding properties and anybody that might happen to be walking by. I mean, these things could be weaponized and launched, you know, out of windows, and it would chatter and really seriously injure or kill anyone that happened to be around when this went down.
Right, Oh yeah, one hundred percent, super dangerous, super scary.
Matt, isn't there kind of there's a twist here coming, right.
There's a twist. Let's get to the twist. So Ben, you asked, like, what caused it, how did it happen? And ultimately who's responsible for this thing? Because it did damage other businesses and homes and property and it killed a human being. Jesus Okay, Well, the owner initially on the day that it happened, I guess the night that it happened, the owner of this these two businesses was in contact with both the police there in Clinton Township and the fire department and some of the city officials.
So this person immediately like was reached out to and they were speaking and they were on good terms. But then on Saturday, April twentieth, so this is early March when this occurred. Right on Saturday April twentieth. The owner of these companies attempted to flee not just you know, the Detroit area, but the United States for Hong Kong, which is pretty I don't know, doesn't look good. Maybe attempt to flee the Clinton.
Town Well was it a round trip ticket?
No, it was not. It was a one way ticket.
Is is this a national Like, what's this person's citizenship status or you know, visa status or I'm just curious if they are US.
Right, Yes, citizen of the United States. The man's name is Newer n R nol n O E L S two kestwo k E S t Uo. This is a thirty one year old person. He lives in Commerce Township, which is also there in the Detroit area. And yeah, he tried to use his passport to go from JFK in New York City to Hong Kong and basically the Clint Township PD let the authorities there at JFK International note and they picked him up.
Oh Greek, it may sound like maybe Greek etymology, Okay, anyway, but yeah, so that makes sense.
He got he got stopped with a one way ticket, which does provide reasonable suspicion that someone be attempting to flee the country exactly.
And I'm sorry, this is how long after the actual uh you know, he.
Said April twentieth closure explosion on March fourth, right, so he put some time in there.
Yeah, March fifth, sixth up to April twentieth, and then it took like four or five days for the detectives in the township there near Detroit to go and get him from New York and bring him back where he was then arraigned on Thursday day, April twenty fifth, in court in charge with one count of involuntary manslaughter.
Ooh, which is.
Gonna plea cannabis induced psychosis?
I hope not. I don't think so. I don't know how that would work there. But is a felony charge and it has a maximum sentence of fifteen years.
So this is at this point we're thinking more of a negligence case, you know, someone that wasn't storing their inventory correctly or is there any suspicion of a foul play in terms of trying to you know, burn down for the insurance money or whatever.
It was illegal possession and improper storage of nitrous oxide and butane cans.
Niger's oxide is not something you sell at smoke shops.
That's illegal, no, right it is.
People will huff that like a you know, to look at the fish parking lot out of balloons.
This is the second twist, you guys, Maybe we need to do a whole episode on this. There there is an entire section of this story that we're not even going to fully get to today. Is the number of nitrous oxide large We're talking like foot tall tanks, nitrous oxide tanks that look like buttane refillers, just like if you you know, size them up by four sure, and they are designed to and it says on the Goo
distributors like websites that they sell all these things. They were for sale on Walmart dot com, they were for sale on Amazon. They're huge. You are supposed to, at least according to the creators of these products. Connect it up to one of your whipped cream maker machines.
Whippets them to people call them whippets and.
Make whip cream. That's what they sell them for. That's what they're designed for.
During the depression, when you could buy frozen grapejruice concentrate with explicit directions on what not to do to make it wine. Yeah.
Yeah, well, guys, there's such a demand for this nitrous oxide in not only the Detroit area. Don't want to aligned Detroit, in all of the United States, you guys that at smoke shops. Now the most profitable item that exists in smoke shops is nitrous oxide.
Data.
It's're legal to sell if as long as it's like you can't tell what someone's gonna do with it. But there's all kinds of loopholes we know with those lab chemicals or things like what was it called spice, remember that where it was marketed as like this is not for human consumption, We'll only use this as an incense or something.
You know, yeah, or then you know, I mean, it's it's a problem people grapple with because you can't stop selling people, you know, cigarette lighters on the off chance that one person might use a lighter to start a forest fire.
Well, and to be fair, if anyone's watched the Bear or any like fancy cooking competition, they use these nitrous canisters all the time to make foams of any variety, not just whipped cream, you know, So there does need should be and people who are using it for the right reasons, have every right to get stuff, but massive tanks of it in a smoke shop. The know gourmet is shopping there for this product.
People whi cream.
It's just weird. It does very weird for me. It's just strange, right, and it was very strange for the for the township fire chief Tim Duncan. That you can hear remarks from him, well, not these particular remarks, but remarks from him during a press conference that was given on March fifth. You can find that on YouTube via the Clinton Township Community TV YouTube channel. But here's a quote Tim Duncan gave when speaking with Detroit Free Press.
Quote.
What people are finding out is the community at large has a large desire for nitrous oxide and they can make a lot of money off selling these things. We're trying to get out there and make sure people are using this in the appropriate fashion, which I don't know how you do that, honestly, mister Duncan. But the nitrous is supposed to be used for the food service end of the industry, and obviously we're seeing that simply not
what's happening. And this is problem not simply in Clinton Township, but it's throughout the state with the quantities that we had in this building. This per he's talking about the owner here, he's sending them somewhere. Now it's time to uncover where are they going. I thought that was just an interesting thing. It's it's following the rabbit hole basically because the ATF is heavily involved in this case now because of that nitrous oxide.
As they should be.
Yeah, and you're right, map this is there's a lot of things wrapped up in this one story, a lot
of questions. But it reminds me of I don't know if you another item that used to be maybe not anymore, but sold at like smoke shops or maybe like kind of sex type shops was video cassette head cleaner, which if used in a certain way is poppers, which is a you know drug that is used often for sexual purposes that can you know, cause like euphoria and other kinds of you know effects that are good for sexy times. But they're marketed and you know it can be used to clean the heads of your VCR.
I had no I had zero idea about that. What is the chemical? Well, there's uh amial nitrate.
It's amal nitrate. That's that's what poppers are.
But I think whatever video head cleaner is, it's got similar properties.
But I don't think it's exactly.
That amalka trade and other nitrates can be sold that way.
That's right, Yeah, exactly, So well, I'm not sure there's different ones, but like audio, video head cleaner is tantamount to the same effects as anal nitrate.
Weird, very weird. All right, Well, hey, guys, any any of their last thoughts on this one?
They used to call them Amy's in the sixties.
No, No, Matt, this is a wild ride, and I really do think there's a lot to unpack here that would probably be worthy of a deeper exploration.
Okay, Alex, is anything else you need to say about Detroit before we get out?
All right?
Go right, all right, we'll be right back with more strange news.
And we're back with our last story of the day.
Kind of had to have a bit of a misery sandwich on our hands today. Not that Matt's story wasn't heavy in its own right, but I think it was what do we call it on the text chain, A lighter shade of nightmare fuel. A lot of actual fuel in that story too, But we've obviously discussed at length many of the accusations, both confirmed and alleged, you know, against the Catholic Church and high ranking officials when it comes to sexual abuse of children, you know, that have
been covered up, brushed under the rug, allowed to continue indefinitely. Well, let's just up the anteus a little bit. As if that weren't enough, why don't we.
Add child sex trafficking proper.
To the lists of accusations and that are very very very much on the edge of being fully proven. In New Orleans, the New Orleans Archdiocese is the target of a child sex trafficking inquiry. Louisiana State Police served search warrants on the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans in what's to be the beginnings of a massive, unprecedented sweeping
probe of this organization. These warrants were recently served alleging that for decades, the institution has been involved not only in the church's global clergy child molestation scandal, but also in something even more as you would say, been unclean, the trafficking and shipment and use and abuse of minors for the sexual gratification of predators, often high ranking officials
within the church. Reading from a article in The Guardian by Ramon Antonio Vargas in New Orleans and David Hammer of WWL in Louisiana, which is a TV news channel, this is the primary source that I have for this, so I'm just going to read pretty liberally from this to start.
But the article starts.
The clerk at the state Criminal Courthouse where the warrant was signed released the eleven page document on Tuesday. It makes clear that troopers involved an appending rave prosecution case against one priest came to suspect that particular case was part of a broader pattern of widespread sexual abuse of minors dating back decades that was covered up and not reported to law enforcement.
Goes on to note that.
Previous archbishops, the highest ranking official in the archdiocese, not only knew of the sexual abuse and failed to report all the claims to law enforcement, but spent archdiocese funding to actually support the accused, and within the language of the warrants, any and all documents were required to be produced that pertain in any way to the sexual abuse of a minor by clergy members employed or otherwise associated with the Archdiocese of New Orleans, and the implication there
is that these records are believed to constitute a violation of the state's laws against trafficking of children for sexual purposes. It also demands any and all communications between the Archbishop of New Orleans and any department within the Vatican. So they're trying to kind of breach that air gap, you know, into the wider organization any department within the Vatican pertaining to child sexual abuse, among various other files.
And so this is on the heels of what some earlier reports that were apparently buried or suppressed or board.
That's right, attorneys for victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy were given access to the documents that formed kind of the basis of what's called the Key Memo. And that's because in these cases their clients became part of a bankruptcy proceeding against the church. So I think those lawyers that were handling the memo to law enforcement in twenty twenty two, that's when federal investigators, with the aid of state troopers, started to look further into what these
memo kind of pointed to. So at this point, says they began investigating New Orleans clergy for possibly violating federal law by taking children across state lines.
For the purposes of sexual abuse.
Dude, no, no, no, I know, I know. They talk about some specifics.
Additionally, it was reported that in some instances, gifts were given to abuse victims by the accused molesters with instructions to pass on.
This is chilling to pass.
On or give the gift to certain priests at the next school or church. It was said that the gift was a form of signaling to another priest that the person was to be a target of sexual abuse.
And there apparently it's a system, guys.
Of course, there often is, and there was an associated press investigation dating back to like twenty nineteen. The law knew about this, it appears yea.
It would appear.
So it just feels like an escalation to me.
And you know, and if it's happening here, it's the kind of thing that doesn't feel isolated. It feels like with these types of systematic elements to identify like this was designed to be a network.
With enough passing of the buck or just moving someone a town or a country over. I would also imagine I'm sure a lot of us, unfortunately have to think about this and how experienced one of this firsthand. Folks, if you have only lived in the United States, please be aware there are many other countries with a far
looser grasp on the idea of rule of law. And indeed, in some of those parts of the world, regions, countries wherever you want to call it, the institution of the Catholic Church functions in the role of the state and has a lot of power, yes well.
And also a looser grasp of consent or or a lot less emphasis placed on what that might look like.
Consent does not enter the equation. These are monsters and these are victims. This is unfortunately, this is one of those things like we're talking about earlier in this evening's program. People want an uncomplicated narrative, well organized child abuse rings We posit are an uncomplicated narrative. These people need to be brought.
Down, Yeah, absolutely, really quickly. I just want to mention something else that's in that memo, which is not as bad as the trafficking we're discussing here, but it is this type of insidious behavior that existed, at least in
this case with the Archbishop of New Orleans. This guy named Gregory Amond, according to that memo, had previously made settlements with people so victims who claimed that a particular priest had molested them, and he authorized with official like church budgets to settlements, one for one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars, another for one hundred thousand dollars to resolve these situations out of court so they become secrets. The church essentially bought people's silence.
Ye right, that I.
Mean, I will say that you can sign an NDA that can be enforced like this out of court settlement, that agreement that doesn't really hold water if you're in da is agreeing to not check those but it's intimidation tactics as well, this very powerful institution. Of course, not all Catholics are evil, just no, forget that part.
But this is we've all expressed tenuous relationships with the idea of settling out of court in general, especially when it comes to bringing powerful individuals and organizations to task. It just feels like a get out of jail free card and like a sweep everything under the rug card.
Kendrick Lamar just taught me that apparently Drake had a five hundred something thousand dollars out of court settlement related to the long running rumors that he has attempted to groom young and underage women.
Not to be that guy, but he strikes me as that not being that far from the truth. I don't know, never matter what it is about him, there's something that's skeeaky about that guy. I don't know what it is, but I'm glad we're mentioning Drake, not Kendrick.
We'll glad we're mentioning the out of court settlements guys.
Just the whole point of for me is speaking of systems right that are in place, this practice of taking in insane amounts of money from all of the people that attend all of the churches right in one place, like let's say New Orleans or that area whatever the archbishop presides over, taking in that money from all of your parishioners, using it due to silence those who either speak up or you know, get abused or get abused and speak up right, and you know.
That we you know, again, we talked about how sometimes some of this stuff it just feels like the movies.
But people that get just hung like.
Power mad, and who are like I can do whatever I want, because I am the mouth, I am the voice of God.
You know, I am connected.
Therefore I cannot be judged by the laws of.
Man, you know.
And I think there's probably a genuine delusional belief.
Amongst some of these circles. That is the case me.
But I prayed about it. I read some The only word for it is I read some infernal things regarding activities at the Vatican. And the network spans right and there are documented cases wherein people were saying that these victims, these children were tempting them, or was Satan tempting them, you know what I mean. And maybe they really did believe that rationalization, but it doesn't make their actions not monstrous. I am very I am not in favor of rehabilitative acts.
This is a take them down situation kind of thing for me, just because again we see an established network. We see one that has been able to practice to a degree what we will call regulatory capture, which is
control over state and law enforcement institutions. And if this is horrific, our thoughts are with all the victims, all their loved ones, family members, But please please understand this is happening in the United states, and it shows us, It shows us the statistical inevitability that even worse things are happening in places that have more compromised governments. This is just horrific.
And again, yeah, people are learning to speak with whales.
Though. If we need good.
News, Ben, can we please? That's all I've got to say. I washed my hand. Now, I don't wash my hands of it.
This is something that needs to you know, these people need to be dragged out into the light, and no one should ever wash their hands of making sure these people see justice. But I washed my hands of this story for the moment, just to wash the ick off. I need a shower. Could we maybe like swim with the whales for a minute them.
Yes, sir, just for a second. We can tell you in good news for fans of animals in a world first. This April, scientists had a conversation with a humpback whale. What did they talk about? Here's the thing, They're not totally sure. I wish that'd be an amazing I can't. Can you imagine if extraterrestrials land and they're really really hot about something that's familiar on their planet, and they
just only want to talk about that. I love that idea, Like, what if they you know, because I guess the way time and space work, they're a little behind right in musical trends, the way like Europe is continually catching up to us musical trends. I said it, whoa, that is in fact a hot take.
One might argue the opposite. I'm with you.
It depends on which genres we're talking about.
But what if their equivalent of Avatar III is about to release, so they just came here to like get some hype going.
They'll say, you don't really have to watch the first two. Yeah, apologies to Europe, of course, the Europe leads the way and so many of these things. I'm glad you didn't let me slide on that one, Nold. But here's what happened. The an animal behaviorists named Josie Hubbard. Her and her group have been working with a humpback whale named Twain and in the off the coast of Alaska. These six scientists were basically doing something that I'm sure a lot of us have done with animals in our neck of
the woods. They were taking recordings of an actual animal communicating, and they were playing it back in this case, they were playing it back into the void of the waters off the coast of Alaska, playing humpback sounds and hoping to humpback whale answered them. And humans actually don't know very much about the whales at this time, so this is the first time they managed to get in a
conversation with it. And it's kind of like if you were talking to someone online and you were using a set of emojis that you don't understand, but they were responding and you just sort of kept trying to respond with their replies. It's like large language model thing almost. So the next step is to figure out what the conversation was about. But apparently it went.
Well, Yeah, I heard just a snippet of it just now, Ben, as you're driving it, just the yeah, these interesting sounds that were emitted by the scientists, and then the response that's very different but similar.
Yeah, it's like following up right, Yeah, they hit you back with some more emoji. We know that the cetaceans are incredibly intelligent. We know that, as hippy as it may sounds, we know that personhood should not be a concept restricted entirely to this one brand of primate. But it would be amazing to be able to decode this. They're using AI now, it's one of the few good uses of AI to try to decipher this situation to
see if they can get to a Rosetta stone. But whales are so like they have accents, they have gangs, they have little clicks.
They do cool little hand signals.
Yeah, a hand signal, which is wild because who knows where they get the hands they're getting from somewhere.
Oh, I know, I always love that Kravana get lyne about how like dolphins have fins because they evolved so they couldn't hold machine guns, you know, and made them inherently more peaceful.
That's the peaceful whales. No machine guns in those fins.
Well with this, folks, We really appreciate your time. As always, we're all in this together. We want to hear from you regarding any of these stories we have explored. We want to hear what you think Wales would say. Honestly. Also, I think it would be hilarious if extra terrestrials landed and they weren't that impressive, like they had only worked out space travel and everything else that we had done amazed them. They would be like velcrow.
Whoa sparkling water? What is all this glittery stuff in the ocean?
Oh boy, they're probably just going to talk to the whales. But in the meantime you can talk to us. We'd love to hear from you. We try to be easy to find online.
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