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 Noah.
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer Dylan Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. We are recorded on October ninth. If you're hearing this the evening this show publishes, then welcome to Strange News. And for all our friends in the path of Hurricane Milton, we hope this finds you in
good health. We will have an update with several conspiracy theories about these back to back hurricanes Helene and Milton in our listener mail program, publishing later this week.
Yeah, but we're recording this right now at three twenty nine pm ET and watching the radar as the hurricane is slamming all across Florida, and we're just thinking about everybody who's going through it in this moment as we're recording, and you know, fourth dimensionally, as you're hearing this.
Episode, just you know, hearing the I believe mayor of Tampa saying, if you don't leave these evacuation zones, you're going to die. I don't think I've ever heard an official say something quite that pointed. It made me scared for the couple of people I know in the area who luckily did evacuate. But I have one friend who made it to higher ground but is technically still in an evacuation zone.
And scares the crap out of me. You guys, so thinking.
About scares the crap out of them.
Dude, I can only imagine, of course, No, I mean, on his behalf. I'm just like thinking about putting myself in that position and thinking like I mean, he was so zen about it in the conversation that I was privy to. But I'm just thinking about you man. You know, you know you are if you're listening. I'm not going to name any names, but good Lord, what a thing to be a part of.
And we also, some of us have family members in the path of Milton, many of our fellow conspiracy realists tuning in tonight or in the path of these natural disasters.
We wanted to underline and emphasize that at the beginning of this evening Strange News, we have a lot of stuff we're going to explore, including some true crime, including some villainy on behalf of the irs, perhaps not in the way you might imagine, But before we go to our cold open, guys, this made me think again about something that is very familiar to those of us in
the Southeastern United States, specifically the waffle House Index. The waffle House Index is an unofficial thing that the US government and the media does treat as though it is official, with some of us in the audience tonight maybe asking what is the waffle House index, and some of us may be asking what is waffle house? Is it a house built of waffles? Very fair question. This is our cold open, and we've returned. We know the waffle house index, right, do you guys remember this one?
Oh? Yeah, I mean it's just the waffle house.
Waffle Houses are twenty four hour diners that are very popular around these parts on the Southeast, and they they never close. And when you start seeing them getting boarded up and them locking the doors, that's a bad sign.
M Yeah, I think that's a great insummation because waffle house is a chain. The first one is actually here in the Atlanta metro area.
There's a museum attached to it. Apparently.
Yeah, but you have to call in advance. Okay, But at least these days, it is best known for being a twenty four hour, three hundred and sixty five day a year operation. So when waffle House closes, therefore, it is seen as kind of a canary in the disaster coal mine. And right now old Tampa, Florida locations of waffle House have closed again as we're recording on the evening of October ninth. A lot of this is I
don't know. Again, it's unofficial, but I think most people in the southeastern United States do pay attention to the waffle House index. It's got three colors. If everything's green, the waffle house in your area has power minimal absent damage. If things go to yellow, they might be using a generator, and they might have a limited menu because supply chains are broken. And if it's red, like just what happened in Tampa, the restaurant is closed.
If it's beige, waffles aren't available. What color is beige unclear, somewhere between white and brown. I'm joking.
Obviously about the Waffle situation, but no, I mean gosh, in these situations, really, all you can do is make light occasionally, because it is absurd to gauge a disaster of the magnitude of Milton, also with a ridiculous name like Milton. I'm sorry to anyone out there named Milton. It's just seems like, does it seem like the name of something that has this much catastrophic power? But to gauge it using a chain of waffle restaurants does seem
a little absurd. But Ben, You're absolutely right, it is real. It is absolutely accurate. And one of the dudes from Internet today, it's just a show I think we all enjoy on YouTube. Ricky is from the Tampa area and he posted on his Instagram today they closed my hometown waffle House.
This is serious.
Yeah, Well, because they're so well known for disaster preparedness. Waffle House, along with a couple other big chains I think specifically, I know Home Depot and Walmart feel how you will feel about any of these organizations companies, but they are really good at having team members that go back in immediately after some kind of disaster, no matter how big or bad. It is and attempt at least to reopen so that there are materials available like at.
A home depot.
Right then you a homeowner might need some lumber real quick, or you know, just something a tart, and then you might need some eggs in dang bacon and if you if you can get to a waffle house, you can eat.
Or potable water as well, which is often given away for free. So big shout out to FEMA administrator Craig Fugate, who coined the term in May of twenty eleven. We may do a ridiculous history on the waffle house index unclear, maybe it's a wallfalls episode.
And really quickly, guys, I just want to I mentioned previously that I've experienced some catastrophic damage to the home that I owned in Augusta, Georgia, and I just wanted to say I had some success with the resource that anyone out there who's dealing with this might not be
aware of. I called the Army Corps of Engineers and they referred me to a site called Crisis Cleanup dot org where you give them all your information, your case info, and they put you on lists that go out to numerous different volunteer groups, and they said it was a
long shot. They had thousands and thousands of cases. But I did hear back from somebody from a group called Team Rubicon that is actually a team of a nonprofit that is staffed by veterans, Army veterans, and they, you know, are going to send somebody out to my property to help with the cleanup. And they even said, you know it is if you have an insurance, it's going to pay for water mitigation. We will come out and do it and it'll save you something on your policy.
They were okay with that.
So I mean, that's it's just really neat the level of care they were offering, you know, even for me who does not rely on this place for my you know, main domicile, they were very willing to help. And I thought that was cool. So Chrisis Cleanup dot org check it out if it's not something you're aware of.
Right up there with Convoy of Hope, big thanks to GP Scooch forgive them a shout out. Pretty top tier charitable organizations, and I love the shout out you gave there, Noll, because resources do matter, and it can be so difficult to locate those especially at a very difficult time of your life.
Well yeah, I mean, and it's you know, even for me with not being someone who's out of home because of this, I just found it overwhelming, like not knowing the next step. I've been texting with you guys about it, just the levels of stress and just knowing what the next right thing to do is. So to have any kind of resource that you maybe weren't aware of of, anyone that can lend a hand, is a huge deal, just knowing. So just you know, thank you been in
first and Scooch for the other recommendation. But you know, I've talked to numerous people who are dealing with I had no idea what kind of resources might be available.
To them, because luckily, for now, this sort of emergency and disaster is not normalized larger questions about the future. Speaking of questions, I have a question for you guys and all of us listening along at home. Would you prefer to hear about espionage or space bricks? Space bricks?
Well, jeez, Ben, when you put it that way, how about space bricks to start?
Oh my gosh, all right, tilted the scale just a bit, just the gilded the lily, right, there we go. The question that I'm sure we are all asking at numerous times in our lives is when the age of space exploration reaches its apex, how are we going to build structures?
Now?
For a lot of fellow Nosferatu in the crowd, the answer is, of course, human blood.
Right, got one for sure?
Yeah? Okay, all right, I like that face. So there is a study that answered a question seriously, no one has asked. And this study out of Manchester, published in Open Engineering recently concluded that potatoes are better than human blood for making space bricks.
Congratulations, humanity, we figured it out.
This is a question. Who asked for this exactly?
Idaho potatoes and the.
Potato they're trying to extend it out into the cosmos.
Yeah, actually it was the vampires were like, yes, we need the bloods.
Yes, that's why potatoes greater than blood when it comes to space breaks. Is that? Okay? I'm just wondering where this equivalency came from. Where Where did the need to compare these two materials come from?
Well, you're getting situations. The portmanteau for it is star creet like concrete, but you know stars because of space. I don't think that's a long walk, but.
Ben was the idea of it. All the humans that are making these trips are gonna have blood, so we'll just take some of that and make bricks and urine.
They will be peeing the entire time.
What about of the poo poo, precious, precious, that's the night soil, right, we talked about that.
That's our gunk we mentioned earlier. So shout out to Alied Roberts, A L. E. Ed Roberts, the lead researcher for this thing called the star Crete project, and they're actually they're they're answering these questions that might sound silly in a popsy headline, but they do. I don't know, it's such it's such a weird after the fact kind of disclosure, like when we're talking about psychic power countermeasures when Stargate not star Crete, when Stargate was declassified and
people said, yeah, we we did look into that. It was cool, but we're not doing it anymore. You can get a little bit of fomo as a taxpayer or as an interested member of civilization. And so the idea, like the the idea of coming out with a study that says potato starch is better than human blood for making space bricks. There are at least three to four questions pulled it in to the least statement.
I think we addressed a couple of them. But why don't we Let's just knock them off one at a time.
I gotta say, but it doesn't help when space dot Com at the end of their article says Comma scientists say, yes, I feel like that phrase after anything makes you go oh the scientists said it, Oh okay.
Yeah, it's also like adding ellipses. Officially the two.
Things right according to officials.
Yeah.
The best statement from Roberts that tells us about this. This is a series of studies. Robert says, quote, astronauts probably don't want to be living in houses made from scabs and your We've all been there, you know what I mean.
Debatable.
There's like one astronaut who's super into it.
Yeah, that sounds great. Do you think he's the worst astronaut? Is that come along with Neil?
Yeah? Neil not Armstrong? Different Neil?
Yeah?
Yeah, that guy. Guy's a monster. He's at Applebee's right now.
Mmmm.
The leg wek and what they said.
Is uh, you know, as gross as it may sound, they are looking with real science, right, with genuine methodology and rigor. And in their initial study they explored the possibility of blood and urine and other human fluids as binding agents to create something like concrete. Because to your earlier point there, these should be considered renewable resources. They're one of the few things that will always be consistently produced by humans living in space and other you know,
terrestrial organisms. So they did this second study and they looked into potato flakes, and they found that not only are potato flakes and alternative source of star creet, but they are indeed less ghoulish and perhaps more efficient. The specific salt compound they're using as something called magnesium chloride. Without getting into the chemical weeds, the main wind for magnesium chloride is that you can get it from the
dirt on Mars. So looks like at this point either or preferable, but like, if any of it works, these are pretty great because, as we talk about so often, you can't actually move concrete through space, not in a reasonable way.
You know, yeah, you have to make it there.
I mean whatever whatever it's made at, it would have to be manufactured on site with like movable materials. I mean that's true of construction sites too, like they mix the stuff like there, it would be prohibitively. I mean, there are certain I guess concrete structures you might see on the back of a flatbed, but it's pretty rare.
Usually you have to pour that stuff on the construction site.
I'm imagining you have to use some kind of water as well with the mixture, because you can't just make a powdered thing. You know, you make a powder thing, you add water to it. That's one of the first ways you get to being able to even form a brick, right and then dry the thing out. Have they thought about just spinning up all the waste together instead of separating the blood or the urine or any of the other stuff.
Like suicide, like well, you know when you mix all the sodas well.
I'm just imagining all of the waste products that the astronauts produce as one thing goes into one chamber, and that chamber then siphon's directly into wherever they're brick building.
Mm hmmm, yeah, yeah, there literal beating your their literal brickjit house.
Yeah, yeah, and you just feed the astronauts mostly potato flakes, and then there are it's already in there. It's just broken down a little.
And the weirdest thing is if you make this star creak with potato starch, that magnesium chloride, and what we believe to be lunar or martian dirt, it is twice as strong as the known concrete recipe we have on the planet today. If you want to learn more about it, check out that excellent article referenced earlier from space dot com by the journalist Josh Dinner, which is just an awesome name.
It's pretty great.
It's pretty great, you know, if you could choose a name, that's a good choice. And uh, I don't know, like it seems as though it's a silly question, but it does I think like a lot of a lot of
hypothetical research or theoretical research for space exploration. It tells us even more about life on the ground here, right, the you know, one of the big questions vampire stuff aside is the idea of whether or not we should use food sources as means of construction, and if so, to what degree kind of like water.
Power, right, I mean, it's interesting in like a futurist kind of conversation too, because it certainly does make you think about, like we talked about this, I believe even is the idea of building materials here on Earth and like things that are more sustainable and what like. I believe there was a story we did about like insect kitan that was used to generate some sort of futuristic kind of building material. I mean, I'm just I don't know.
It just got me thinking about that kind of stuff as well.
Yeah, and also, uh, to that point in the world of folklore and mythology, it reminds me a bit of ild Nordic myths about a ship made of fingernails to survive the end of the world.
Oh God, yeah, man, No, uh, I just got a picture now of Okay, if you let's say you're on the lunar surface, you're building these bricks, right, Let's say in this case, we're building the slightly less strong but more strong than bricks on Earth, bricks with blood and urine. We're making those, right, Yeah, And we're constructing stuff on
the moon. Are we creating some kind of giant artificial dome that all of those bricked buildings exist in where we can take off our helmets and smell the bricks or are we walking around in helmets in these things? Because how do you make the artificial atmosphere in a brick made building?
Ah, the smell that Matt like, just yeah, I mean, you're.
Gonna pump enough oxygen and nitrogen and carbon dioxide into that brick building that you made out of, you know, even if it's potato flake bricks.
Do you have to figure out you have to figure out a scrubbing method for the air. Also classic human for space exploration to work out. And every off Earth base smells vaguely of old French fries or piss, you know what I mean. Now that's there. These are all free Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, and uh and we're gonna we're gonna move on before we get to you an ad break. We do want you to know that the government of China has been confirmed to hack major US
telecom firms. This confirmed for firms. We'll let it ride.
Yeah, So what is it that you say, no, really, no way.
Yeah.
And we also know that, in addition to these accusations, the government of China has of course predictably ramped up information campaigns as we go into the US election doesn't matter what your ideology is. They want the chaos.
Well, when these types of allegations surface, does the government of China just say, how dare you, sir, accuse us of such malfeasance?
We would never.
Typically, historically the response has been, we didn't actually tell anyone to do this. You know, the fifty cent army which we mentioned earlier. It's just a bunch of private citizens who happen to be lockstep in march with party goals.
Some plausible deniability is sort of what they're leading. Yeah.
Absolutely, And if you want to learn more about the AI weaponization, which is going to be a thing going forward, check out the article in Fortune dot com by Diddy Tang David Klepper And, of course, with some love from the Associated Press, shout out to the seventy two year old man who has been sentenced to prison in Rush is a US national. He is allegedly, or conclusively, according
to the Russian government, a mercenary. Stephen James Hubbard sentenced to six years and ten months in prison as a seventy two year old man on accusations of being a mercenary for Ukraine. And we don't know how many merks are in the crowd tonight. We don't know how many you know, you have personally met in your life, but I think it's safe to say, you guys, most of them are not seventy two years old.
Well, I mean they will be, or they became seventy two at some point.
Yeah, but you know, probably after their careers, you know what I mean.
Look, if somebody's been a mercenary, even at seventy two, you're not going to mess with that seventy two year old ex mercenary. No, it's what he's saying, there's.
A respect aside.
Yeah, there's probably damage to be done there if it was either necessary or intended.
Yeah, it's like what they lose in vinegar, they more than make up for inexperience and knowledge with that. If you happen to have some opinions we'll say, or hypothetical anecdotes about the world of merks and third party operators, we'd love to hear from you, conspiracydiheartradio dot com. We're going to take a pause for a word from our sponsors, and we will return with more strange news.
And we're back, guys. I have a tale for us today from our own backyard from the Atlanta Greater Metropolitan Area, and it is a strange one. It's a tragic story. It's pretty sad, it's very confusing, and that's why we're going to talk about it. This is a quick warning ahead here. You are going to hear audio in this segment of some of the final moments of a person's life. But it is not the moments when that person's life ended. It is just the run up to an incident where
shooting occurred. So just be aware of that that's going to happen in this segment. Okay, before we even get into the story, you guys, let's talk about something called Crime Is Toast. Have you ever heard of this before? Nope, Okay, I had never heard of it either. This is an annual awards ceremony. It's an awards breakfast that is put on by the Atlanta Police Foundation for the Atlanta Police Department.
This year, the Crime Is Toast Awards occurred on September twenty fourth, so you know what, a couple of weeks ago from the day we're recording this episode, and I'm just going to give you a couple of pieces of information from that awards ceremony. And this is coming from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. You can read about it search for officers recized for response to Atlanta food court shooting,
Comma bus hijacking. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens was there speaking, you know, to this audience of police officers and supporters of the APD, praising them for reducing homicides by twenty one percent over the course of the year. And here's a quick quote from Mayor Andre Dickens, and he's speaking about the APD together they have fostered a coordinated effort to fight crime, make our neighborhood safer, and provide opportunities for our youth. Many of you here today represent that
united effort. We know that the job of making Atlanta safer is never finished. This is important because this is just showing this is the City of Atlanta, at least the leadership of the City of Atlanta putting on you know, I don't know a PEP rally. I suppose in a way for the police officers that protect the city or are paid to serve and protect the city. There are several words of note that were given out that are mentioned in this a JC article that's the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
A police officer named Lamar Jacobs received the Medal of Honor award, which is the highest honor the APD can bestow, and that was for his response to the Midtown food court shooting. Do you guys remember hearing about that That happened on June eleventh. This is an area where Dragon Cohn occurs every year. Most people who don't live in Atlanta would know it as that area. It was a big deal, so he received the Medal of Honor. Sergeant Terrence Epps was recognized as Supervisor of the Year for
responding to a bus hijacking. Officers Francis Raymondville Watson, and Ruben Miranda were named Officers of the Year, and another man, investigator Aubrey Horton, was named Investigator of the Year. On September twenty fourth of this year. As we're recording this episode, Okay, remember that name, Aubrey Horton. Here we go. Let's move on to what has occurred in what this story is
actually about. According to eleven Alive News, who wrote an article titled APD investigator shot after breaking into Douglas County home, authorities say, see that thing we mentioned before, The authorities.
Said it like the scientist didn't say exactly.
I'm going to read directly from this article. Thank you for writing it. Eleven alive. An Atlanta Police Department officer died after being shot by a homeowner on the morning of Friday, October fourth, So from September twenty fourth to October fourth, Okay, that's not many days at all. The officer was identified as Investigator Aubrey Horton, the very same one we just spoke about, who received Investigator of the Year by the APD. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office and
deputies were called to a home. I'll give you the exact thing, so you can look it up if you'd like, to a home on orkneyrkn e Y Way, near East Carroll Road in the Saint Andrews Country Club neighborhood in Winston, Georgia. It was around five am when this occurred and there was a shooting, so the Sheriff's office were called almost
immediately after five am that morning. Investigator said Horton appeared to be either experiencing a mental health episode or under the influence of narcotics when he tried to break into a home in that neighborhood and Horton, according to tax records, lives in the same neighborhood. But at some point in whatever occurred, investigator Horton made his way into the home, was confronted by the homeowner and was shot, and he shot fatally and killed while inside the home that he
broke into. So, first of all, this is very strange that somebody who joined the police force in twenty fifteen has been doing I guess good enough work to be recognized, you know, as one out of all of the police officers in the Atlanta Police Department as Investigator of the Year. To go through something whatever it was, to then try to break into some home and then get shot and killed, very very weird. Do you guys have any thoughts initially just at all about this. I know we haven't really
talked about anything that we can even discuss yet. It's it's just weird.
Yeah, for contexts. As we mentioned age of death, again, the investigator was only in their early thirties in thirty two, so that's a very that's a very high career trajectory to get. As you mentioned, the highest possible award that can be bestowed the investigation of course, as you mentioned,
Matt is ongoing. However, Georgia does have self defense laws, so even if you know, it reminds me a bit of the Leonard Peltier case, where you know, a big a big part of the the shootout in which those two FBI agents were murdered, A big part of the questions the jury held where did the people know that
they were firing on FBI agents? To this point, it seems that if the guy lives just a half mile away from where the incident occurs, there's a very high likelihood that these folks may have been familiar with each other. Is that fair to conjecture?
Yes, absolutely, that's something you'd think, especially if because it is a country club kind of thing, it's likely that people at least that are aware of each other. He
didn't live far away at all, in the same neighborhood. However, investigators there have made it very clear that they did not know each other at least, and this is crucial to me at least as we continue forward, the homeowner, the man that lived there, who fired the fatal shot, who attempted to answer the door when this person came up to the door, and then the person broke in and then shot whoever this person was. He did not know who Officer Aubrey was.
And that's why I was asking, because I think that's one of the first questions those of us listening along at home will ask.
Yes, But there are multiple people who live at the house too, so it's unknown if just the homeowner was unaware of this person. So that is an answer that I kind of still have, but i'm you know, if I was an investigator, I'd be asking questions about that.
And one thing that came up in the Peltier story too, is like, does the fact that a police are entering your home automatically make that a legitimate act?
You know?
Or or the fact that police or federal agents or whatever are rating your property or coming for you in some form or fashion. If it's not legitimate, do you have the right to defend yourself?
Okay, yes, in a self defense situation in states that have that kind of legislation, you do have the right, depending on the first is it a uniformed member of El EO or is it some guy who is not in uniform does not have a warrant. We have to remember history is again closer than it looks in the
rear view mirror. It is not too long ago that people employed by the Atlanta Police Department conducted an erroneous kick door at the wrong address and they killed an elderly woman, absolutely a grandmother.
Well, that's something that has occurred across this country, right where the wrong door gets kicked in, wrong person gets attacked. But I have to go back to exactly what you're saying. If it is a police officer coming into your house, that's one thing this person. According to the AJAC. You can look this up. It is titled in more details and fatal shooting of APD investigator accused of breaking into home.
It's published on October seventh. This is a quote. When Sheriff's Office investigators arrived at the scene, they were initially unable to identify Horton because he didn't have ID, and he was not wearing shoes and not wearing a shirt.
And he was not well. This man was in a fugue state of some kind or under the inf I mean, something was going on.
What the hell something was wrong, which leads us guys to the video footage, which is then released. There were security cameras set up by the homeowner because his house had been burgled or an attempted burglary earlier, so he set up a bunch of ring cameras on his house. So the authorities released this video on Facebook, which was then picked up by everybody from you know, Fox five
Atlanta to eleven Alive to WSB and guys. Since this is an audio only medium, I figured we would listen to the audio and imagine being in the homeowner's shoes at least for a moment, and hearing this at five am in the morning, immediately after your spouse has left for work, like we're talking almost immediately after your spouse leaves for work. Then you hear this, yes, oh no, tell me recording. Now we should note this is happening on the front doorstep.
This is terrifying, isn't terrify ying that's someone having a psychotic episode or under the influence of serious drugs.
Yes, you can discern that something is very, very very wrong and what you cannot hear very well in this audio, but you can. I've enhanced it a little bit so we could hear the background in just a moment, but you can hear the homeowner speaking through the door and asking for his spouse's name, which I guess we can say because this video has been released. Her name is Pam, and he's calling out for Pam, like wondering if Pam is okay, because she literally just left. There's a moment
we maybe we don't have to. I don't know. Is this two morbid guys? To listen to this?
Oh? I mean it's fascinating and terrifying.
Yes, it's morbid, Matt, but I think it's an important part of the story.
Okay, Well, we're going to continue on and listen to what occurs because you can hear mister Horton's kind of just sitting there on the porch for a little bit and at some point he exclaims, which kind of again frightened the homeowner. And right after this audio ends is when there's some sort of altercation at the door where the homeowner opens the door just slightly, you know, like barely a jar, and Horton pushes his way in, and that's when the shooting occurs. So let's just continue a
little bit further here. That's the homeowner.
Yeah, who are you? Wow? What is going on with this guy?
I love you?
No, k.
That's him. Falling backwards. Sounds like he says, I miss happiness or something like that.
I love you, just kill me. Yeah, So.
I don't know.
Chilling, dude.
I just it is chilling. And to me, I'm trying to put my mind in everybody's position in this, especially the homeowner's position, or in the responding officer's position. Just in any and even in mister Horton's position, I can't imagine what you would have to be going through to to be saying those things and doing those things. But in the homeowner's position, just this is terrifying and you
want to find out what's going on. You live in a fairly uh what would be I do quotation marks safe area, so you're probably not expecting anything like this, although he did his house was broken into, right, That's why he put the cameras up, So he's also primed for another break in of some sort, because there's something that that does to you mentally when you put a bunch of security cameras up in your house and other you know, things to protect your home, you think about
it more often a little bit at least. I don't know we can continue on, guys. I just, uh, it really weirded me out this whole thing. Hearing all that stuff. It sounds like he's calling out to a specific person that maybe he thinks is in this house.
But didn't you say he said the spouse's name?
The husband, the homeowner calls out for his spouse.
Misunderstood, got it to my ears.
It sounds like Horton says, I miss happiness and then states a name or something or another word after that that I can't discern.
And if it's, if it's, we'll say this, folks. We are very well aware. Like when you see the video, Matt did a great job bringing out like so we can hear more clearly the statements there from someone who's, as we say, clearly disturbed. One thing that's important is we have to remember it can be dangerously tempting to read tea leaves from video or audio. There is, I assume,
and let me know if this is incorrect. There is an active investigation, perhaps into the circumstances surrounding these tragic events, like as far as what led this guy to this situation just days after the awards ceremony.
Oh, absolutely yes, it's a tragic situation. But there's also the thin blue line thing going on where there is an officer who knows what fully is going to come out about it because he is the one who ended up getting hurt. He did not make anybody else a victim, and the homeowner is not being charged. Well, I guess the victim is the homeowner because it was a break.
In, right, right, but again self defense, Yeah, exactly.
So homeowners not being charged. The authorities are saying there are a bunch of conspiracy theories basically being generated about this right now, mostly having to do with mister Horton knowing the homeowner or somebody else that he was trying to contact in that moment. Anyway, weird stuff. You can look more into this. It just felt strange enough that we should mention it. Let's move on and hear a word from our sponsor, and we'll be right back with more strange news.
And we're back with one more piece of strange news.
Guys.
You know the thing they say that they and stuff they don't want you to know maybe, is that there are two things that are certain in this life.
You know those aren't death and taxes.
Yeah, I've also heard death taxes in trouble. Shout out the black thought.
Yeah, there you go, not necessarily on that bingo card. Of the prerequisites for existence to become a hostage of a foreign entity, be it a terrorist group or a foreign country. We know this happens. US citizens traveling abroad can end up on the wrong side of the law, or are used as bargaining chips, or they can be used in order to leverage, you know, power against the US government, et cetera. And we talked about extradition and
hostage exchanges and all of that. We know that sometimes US citizens traveling abroad can be scooped up in order to leverage in exchange of a political prisoner, you know, the the US is holding, right Ben shut.
Yeah, that kind of stuff.
So we know this is something that happens oftentimes. You know, people are held obviously against their will for a long time. You know, it can be years, and hopefully, through the through diplomacy, they are returned to the United States in order to you know, return to their normal lives and and be with their families and you know, go back to their jobs and all of that. And you would think that the last thing that anyone in that situation would need to worry about would be answering the question
of did I pay my taxes? Well, the IRS seems to think that that's exactly what they should be asking themselves. And I told a friend of mine when I happened upon this story, is this not the most IRS thing you've ever heard? Just like the idea like no one is safe, even apparently political prisoners.
It's like that thing where if you sell drugs, the I R. S isn't mad at you, but they want you to report your income.
That's right.
Yeah, we even talked about I believe we had an interview. Oh my gosh, I'm forgetting his name now. I think it was we interviewed this that guy who was like buddies with Dick Gregory and so he was like a street performer in Venice Beach and he was like.
A poet and then a really interesting dude.
And he gosh, I'm so sorry that I'm forgetting his name, but we had him on the show and he was talking about how his street performances in Venice became so lucrative for him and so popular that they started sending undercover IRS agents to keep tabs on him and see how much income he was generating so they could then send him a bill.
So this is real.
This is the kind of stuff that the government does when it comes to getting paid.
They are all up in your business.
No, you're saying, this is not some kind of like accidental oversight.
This is like, this is the law of the land. O lord.
And this was the person interviewed referenced earlier was Michael Collier.
Yeah, and we'll get into some more specifics here too.
I wanted to reference a fabulous extended peace in the Economic policy section of the Washington Post written.
By Jacob Bogage or Bogage and Julie Zosmer.
Wile US hostages still owe taxes, Congress might not help.
So the implication here in the headline says it all is that this would take an Act of Congress to do something about because representatives from the IRS have said, yeah, I mean sure, this seems a little rough, but it is not within our legal rights to waive these fees, because we are talking about back taxes, the taxes themselves, but also late fees and interest fees, interest payments, you know, for the time spent away presumably under lock and key,
with zero access to any kind of ability to pay your taxes.
And this is not punitive. Like shout out to Hattah Errant and the concept of the banality of evil right and cold systems. This feels like at least well you tell me no. It feels as though this is one of those things where you might write to the IRS and say, hey, bt dubs, I barely survive being held hostage and I didn't really have income that year, and they might they might say, well, hey, man.
We'll cut you a check. You know, Hey, here's what.
You're saying, Well, we've got the system and we don't really have Like the IRS is very form oriented, right Well, I don't think there's a ten to forty z's right or whatever for a.
Hostage situation, right Ben.
And you know, and I don't know that we're going to get into some some specifics of some individuals that were in this situation, so I don't know the specifics of their finances. But one would also imagine that that amount of time spent away would be time where you weren't earning income, and therefore you would think there would be something, some arrangement that could be made.
This would not be a punitive situation. But apparently the IRS.
There is a according to this article in the Post. The IBS is gonna quot it because I think it's very well said here. The IRS has a long standing practice of forgiveness for people who are held hostage by non state organizations, including hamas and groups like the Islamic State or BOCO.
So that's that's on the books, or again, I'm not sure exactly how it's codified.
This was from a Westerley Washington Post columnist, Jason Rezion, who actually was himself a hostage. He was returned to the United States in twenty sixteen after five hundred and forty four days in Iranian captivity, and awaiting him upon his return was a six thousand dollars tax bill.
Great, cool, tight, good job. Yeah, that's so messed up.
The way he puts it is this.
When I returned home from Iran in twenty sixteen after being imprisoned for nearly a year and a half, I found that the IRS had charged me with thousands of dollars in penalties for not filing my taxes on time. The usual penalties had compounded. I was sleeping less than three hours a night, repeatedly waking from nightmares that I was back in prison. During the day. I was distracted and having trouble concentrating, so I neglected to sit down and address the problem.
What a diplomatic way of like saying, f you the irs.
I had other things going on, you know, like PTSD, like night terrors, Like I mean, it's the kind of thing you think about when when you hear about often the way returning veterans can be treated, you know, like you've done this service for your country, You've given your life, you've put your life on the line, and then you come back and you are treated like a second class citizen.
And yeah, we should say, real quick, it might sound odd to hear this guy Jason's name and wonder why he was held for almost two years by Iran. To be very clear, folks, especially if you have Iranian heritage and you are American, the Iranian government considers you Iranian and has very few qualms about detaining you.
Right.
Well, yeah, and he was working for the Washington Post, right, he was, correct, Greg Hetty, He was bureau chief, so he was one of the top guys.
Well, there's another wrinkle in this story, guys.
I mentioned the whole idea of Congress of taking an Act of Congress to get this on the books. Well, this is being attempted. There are those in the legislature who are spearheading a bill that would deal with this unfortunate situation.
This unfortunate, I would argue, pretty egregious oversight.
There are members of Congress who are aligning in order to change the law so that Americans who are held wrongfully or detained by these terrorist organizations or foreign governments. Let's add that because again we know that the terrorist organization thing is already somewhat on the books, don't know exactly what the language around that is.
Seems like it.
Could also offer some wiggle room to prevent you know, the irs from going after these folks for these for these fees and back taxes.
And it's bipartisan, right.
It is bipartisan.
But the problem is that something that we often see in politics and in passing of laws is there's this quid pro quot kind of situation where it's like, yeah, well, we'll vote for your thing, or we'll pass this, but it has to we have to have this other thing attached to it, and oftentimes the other thing that's attached to the thing that is bipartisan is not bipartisan, and
that is the case here. Essentially, the bill was packaged with another measure that would essentially make it easier for the government to target tax exempt organizations like nonprofits and strip them of their tax exempt status if they are deemed to be in support of terrorism. And it seems to me the way the language of that act or that bill is structured, it would be a pretty easy way to go after groups that are against whatever your
political beliefs are. And that is exactly the position that the folks who are not in support of this measure are taking, and that you know, folks with the ACLU are taking, is that this is dangerous because apparently there are already laws on the books that allow you to go after nonprofits strip them of their tax exempt status if they are seen to be connected with any organizations
that are classified as terrorist groups. This just makes it easier and makes it like potentially able to be weaponized, you know, in a nasty way. So the whole thing is stalled essentially because of the way it was packaged, which makes.
Sense because they have to be incredibly careful about this. To recap what you said earlier, there are standing laws that say if a non state actor just broadly put, has kidnapped someone, you know, that could be a cartel, that could be your local terrorist front. Then they're not on the hook with the irs. They're a victim of a crime. So it may seem strange, dare I say legalistic to need an entirely new piece of legislation saying what happens when it's a state actor, when it's a Russia,
you know, when it's an Iran or whatever. But the point you make here, you know, just a moment ago, is perhaps the most mission critical aspect of this debate. It is stalling because there may be certain stakeholders or certain people in the conversation who want to twist this toward their own ends, which is always a danger in the legislative branch.
I feel like that's a thing that happens when when a law comes along, or you know, something like this is pretty clear cutting, straightforward, and everybody, especially this bipartisan everything, yeah, this is great, and then something else just attaches to it because.
They're not going to vote for the Patriot Act.
What does it do, right, Well, just tighten these other twenty three other measures.
It's the stop penalties on American hostages act like this is purposely branded as something that makes you look like a dick if you vote against it.
Let's quote the article again really quickly.
The post piece, free speech and pro Palestinian advocacy groups oppose that provision, concerned that it would be leveraged to silence organizations with the scent views or halt the work of humanitarian agencies that operate an area is controlled by terrorist entities, especially in the context of the Israel Hamas war in Gaza. That opposition probably dooms the House bills chances in the Senate. And here is an interesting that
Chris Kuhns. Senator Chris Kuhns of Delaware Democratic Delaware is one of the supporters who was referring to this, saying that he hopes that the House will recognize they have a chance to just send the bill to us and it goes directly to the President's desk because they tried to use something called a deeming resolution, which essentially, let's not get it the political minutia of it, but allows them to do what he just said, It allows it to kind of give it a fast path to ratification
because it just is so uncontroversial a thing like this, but because of the way the House packaged it up and added that unrelated bill to it, it changed the language of the original bill, which rendered that deeming resolution null and void essentially, So now they have to kind of go back to square one. An interesting perspective from the side of the Isle. I guess that is sort of holding things up here is worth reading as well.
The chair of the Ways and Means Committee, Jason T. Smith, who's a Republican from Montana, said the following, referring to the fact that Hamas are believed to be holding seven American hostages in Gaza, four of whom are thoughts to be alive when they are released. Even those folks could face these tax burdens when they return. So Smith had this to say, Our hearts break for the hostages kidnaped by Hamas on October seventh, including the Americans still being
held captive. Russia and other nations continue to wrongfully detain other Americans abroad as well. The last thing these Americans and their families need are penalties for the irs for a situation entirely out of their control. At the same time, sorry, it's like a butt, big old butt US based organizations that enjoy not for profit status in our tax code, while supporting terror or providing financial support to terrorist organizations should not be able to benefit from tax exempt status.
I just don't understand what those two things have to do with one another. He's making it. It's a false equivalent. See, it feels like it just seems like that that one is controversial, and by packaging it with such a non controversial build, it seems pretty slippery.
Guys, I don't know.
And because of that, it seems like anybody that does get released in the situation, they will also be facing these tax bills when they come back.
It's what happens when you build a giant machine that's way too big to see the ants that are running the machine. Does that make sense?
It does.
We're not people anymore, We're just batteries for the taxes.
Again, the bidality of evil. Right, there's the idea of dodging accountability by saying, oh, there's a system, and we don't have a form for that. Additionally, no, just to game this out, Devil's advocate a bit, we have to think through some painful hypotheticals like there's a non zero chance, for instance, and I'm sure some members of Congress are
thinking about this. There's a non zero chance that let's say you're a billionaire and you don't want to pay taxes, so you just go get kidnapped for legal reasons for you know, a year or two. That is cartoonish, but it is not outside the realm of possibility.
But billionaires already don't have to pay taxes.
I mean, you know, significantly less, it would seem because the loopholes in the tax code.
Yeah, what I'm saying, it could be weaponized.
That's a very not there's not a non zero chance that that could be attempted. It would be a way of a further loophole. Interesting stuff, pretty interesting view into the political process. And how to your point, Matt, heartless, it can be where it's like, well I love to help you out, but if you don't do this thing for me, then I can't do this thing for you. And it just seems, unfortunately all too common, and it is a it happens on both sides of the aisle.
You know, this is a pretty non part isn't problem. I would argue that there are people on both sides of the isle that play these types of cards when it comes to getting what they want politically, and it just.
Sort of sucks.
Yeah, speaking of sort of sucks, we obviously don't want anyone to ever be held hostage. I think that's that's how we can all agree. And you brought up some fantastic points things that we can chew on collectively here, not just about how the legislative sausage gets made, but again, like I was pointing out earlier, the work of Hannah Errant with the banality of evil, right, because most people
don't think of themselves as the bad guy. They think of themselves as someone working within a system, often with a of somehow changing that system for the better. So hopefully anybody who has survived the harrowing trauma of a hostage situation doesn't automatically get smacked with some whackadoo bill
by the boffins and the being counters. And we have people in the irs who are listening to this show, and we know that you know, I guess, without sounding too cavalier, we obviously know these are just people trying to do their best at their career. There's no one waking up one day steepling their hands. Monty Byrne style and saying, this guy just survived the DPRK. I can't wait to ruin his april, you know what I mean.
No one is doing that. And Noel again, can't thank you enough for bringing this story, which was in specific new to me. Do you have any last words.
Where particularly you guys both made excellent points, and I think this is something that people should be aware of and just and it makes you a little sick considering what I just said about how many loopholes there are that benefit the super rich, you know, and the folks that are put through the most traumatic experience they could possibly go through are coming home to this kind of draconian, you know, awfulness.
I just it really makes you a little bit, a little bit angry.
Weirdest thing about the United States, man, it's expensive to be poor in many cases. With that, we're going to call it an evening. We're out to noctificate, which is our fancy dancy word for night walk. In the meantime, we cannot wait to hear from you, fellow conspiracy realist. Be safe out there. Let us know your thoughts on the waffle House index. Let us know your thoughts on the ongoing investigations in your neck of the global woods. We'll come back with updates in the following weeks. Let
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