The Worst Grifters of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Syphilis. I'm Robert Evans hosted Behind the Bastards, the only
podcast that is introduced as badly as this podcast is
and also talks about terrible people. Um, I didn't know
what else to say. Yeah, I shouted syphilis loud enough
to unsettle my neighbors. There used to be a lot

(00:24):
that that's the only way you can get that diagnosed.
You can't have a diagnosed, doesn't speaking volume, You gotta
shout syphilis. Look, this is a time of illness and disease,
So how better to express solidarity with everyone than shouting
the word syphilis as loud as I can. I think
that is the only way we can really show that
we care right now. We're all in this together. We're

(00:45):
all in this together. And musical style a hero, Jamie Robert.
Have you seen High School Musical? Um? I saw the
parody of it that was done by uh oh wait no,
there was a parody of Glee that they did on Community. No,
I have no idea what High School Musical is other
than what the title tells me. Well, honestly, that's more

(01:06):
than I expected. I feel like introduced our guest Robert
just so thought, do you want to just introduce our guests. Yes,
our guest today or I'll do it for you is
Jamie Elizabeth Thompson Jefferson Loft. This yes only bitches betel

(01:30):
cast it's destroyer of mensa. Yeah, I had to be
introduced completely. What it was the dragon lady's name? What's
her name? I had? Jamie of the House loftis first
of that breaker of mensa. Yeah, frequent podcast guest, feminist

(01:56):
icon and my really good friend. I love you so much.
So we're all we're all stuck in our individual homes
right now, as everyone listening to this pretty much his
survival cheese. I did. I I had a breakfast of
a spoonful of dried UH and powdered survival cheese this morning,
and it actually kind of ruled. I don't, I don't,

(02:20):
I don't know. I don't like that. Normally, when you
eat a spoonful of a powder, it's like tough to
choke down. But the survival cheese instantly turns into like
a mushy cheese. Was like substance in your mouth, So
it's not it's pretty good. Actually, I don't. I don't mushy.
I don't. I don't. Well I. You know, you know,
we're all doing I I. Some have survival cheese, some

(02:43):
have three boxes of Frenzy. Just yes, you are drinking
at two pm as we record this podcast. Okay, like
we all haven't been drinking at two pm. You're right,
You're right. As someone on Twitter put it, everyone everyone's
drinking is now on airport rules. So yeah, anything goes

(03:05):
I there there, there's no more Mike's hard at the
seven eleven. But we did find a case of white claw,
and so you know, we're making it work. We're making
it work here. So everyone is, uh, everyone right now
is making sacrifices and changes to deal with this situation. Uh,
whether it's differences in drinking, eating powdered cheeses, recording podcasts remotely, Uh,

(03:30):
we all we've all had to change our lives. But
there's a special, select, elite group of people in this
country who didn't just see this looming disaster and change
their own lives. They saw it as an opportunity to
make a shipload of money by lying to the entire country.
And today we're going to do a timely episode about
the grifters of the Great coronavirus pandemic. Wow. Oh what

(03:55):
a privilege. Yeah, yeah, I collected as many as I
had tie him to collect. Sophia has whipped out her machete.
It's as one does. Everybody hold their weapon of choice
right now. I want to get a pick, Robert, the
knife you gave me as any other room. I don't,
but I have it. I opened a box with it. Good,

(04:19):
I opened up a violin box with it. Well, that
box isn't gonna be hurting you anymore. This is wonderful,
Thanks Jamie. It wouldn't be a hellishly destructive and napocalyptic
pandemic if there weren't a funkload of grifters sailing into
profit from the mass destruction of human lives and livelihoods.
In the nineteen eighteen, as the Spanish flu burned its

(04:42):
way through tens of millions of souls, smooth talking conment
offered up salvation to the dying and the frightened. On
jen a public notice appeared in British newspapers purporting to
lay out the symptoms of this deadly flu. But this
public notice was in reality an ad for formaments of
my them in tablet and Mint, sold as a remedy

(05:02):
for influenza. These ments were claimed to be the best
means of preventing infectious processes. Everyone, especially vulnerable children, was
advised to suck a tablet whenever you enter a crowded,
germ laden place. That's way better than a tablet. You'll
be good. I wonder what the what our equivalent of, Like,

(05:24):
what if we if we do have descendants, what they'll
be Like? Can you fucking believe in they were just
telling you to like live stream red dead redemption and
then you'd live, you know, ship like that? Or can
you believe in? They had electricity there? Oh? My sweet
has Matt descendants? In the US, snake oil salesman build

(05:49):
the Spanish flu as an exaggerated form of the grip,
which is a funny thing that people used to call
kind of any like colder flu type sickness US. It's
like a Grandpa Simpson way of referring to an illness.
They've got the grip. Yeah, yeah. So one of the
treatments for the grip that killed tens of thousands of

(06:13):
Americans during the nineteen epidemic was the laxative bromo quineing,
taken in enormous quantities as a preventative measure. Now, quinine
was known to protect against malaria, so people figured, why
wouldn't it help against the flu. Uh. And interestingly enough,
this is one of the this is one of the
remedies to the Spanish flu that also popped right back

(06:33):
up again for the coronavirus um in the mouth of
the President of the United States. So we'll be talking
about that in a little bit. Oh hell yeah, yeah,
that's good and cool, right. Another another popular Spanish flu
remedy was beaver oil um, which I don't know what
it was, uh, but I also don't just ring out

(06:55):
a beaver. Ye, whatever drips out, maybe you get like
a beaver press and you really just sort of like
you really oh like, oh that's so growth. Yeah, you
just ring out a be like oh like the toothpaste
tube thing. You just do that to a beaver and
whatever comes out of their mouth that's beaver royal or
maybe up in you know, you know how the French

(07:16):
when they make their wine, they all they put all
their grips in a bucket and then they stomp on
the grapes. Maybe up in Canada they do that with
beavers and Canadian feet. Canadians sound off in the comments.
Yeah no, don't. I assume that is headcanon, that that
is this podcast canon for Canada. So if you are
a Canadian and a fan of the show, you just

(07:37):
have to accept that, all right, yep. Now, perhaps the
most successful influenza grift though, was a product that we
all know and I don't know. Love is probably too
strong a word, but we all know it. Uh. It
was a an invention of the Vix family remedy company,
Vix Vapo rub yea. Yeah. Yeah. It was a bullshit

(08:02):
treatment for the fucking the Spanish flu. Now, it had
no curative or preventative effect, but the vis company was
smart enough to focus on drumming up fears that their
medication was about to sell out instead of spending a
bunch of time lying about its medicinal property. So they
would just sort of allude to the fact that it
was a treatment for the flu and then would try
to scare people that they were going to run out
of it so that folks would buy up as much

(08:23):
Vicks vapor up as they could possibly get. Okay, well,
I mean vas vapor up. That's like the tingly stuff, right, yeah, yeah,
it's like your grandma has it, but it can also
make you horny. Wait wait what huh? No, you know what,
Let's move on. I think it's more like icy hot
for your lungs. Yeah, it's like your grandma has it,
but also make you horny. That is not at all Okay, Nope, nope, nope, nope.

(08:51):
Smells really bad too. Just a thought, Frenzy and Jamie
is Grandma revealing a lot too? Yeah, Vix filled in
order to scare people into mass buying up h and
stockpiling vapor rub. Vix filled drug stores with advertisements like

(09:12):
this druggists exclamation point, exclamation point. Please note Vix vapor
rub over sold due to present epidemic. Jeez, all right,
I think doesn't work? Is over sold? Oh yeah, it's oversold,
so you gotta buy some of it. People wouldn't be
buying all this ship up if it wasn't oversold. It's
not dumb, not a dumb ball. So obviously, formaments didn't

(09:37):
treat the influenza um and Vix vapor rub didn't either,
but it is still a popular product, so go figure.
And as a new pandemic has settled down upon our world,
the descendants of these snake oiled treatments and the salesman
behind them have started to spread through the fertile soil
of the internet. On March nineteenth, Forbes published an article
about a series of mass text messages pushing a link

(09:59):
to a fake Fox News article that purported to prove
CBD oil treated the novel coronavirus. And there's a little
clip of the Fox News article with the wonderful title.
While the world is waiting for a vaccine, one mom
has found a solution to fight back against the coronavirus outbreak.
Man Fox News bringing moms into this. It's they always

(10:21):
do like that's like the I don't know. For whatever reason.
Years ago, scammers found out that claiming like a mom
had come up with something was a solution to hacking
twenty of the country's brain there. Yeah, yeah, I will
never understand it because my mom doesn't know how to
cure anything. No, my mom, I don't know. I'm just

(10:44):
trying to get my mom to watch less MSNBC. But
one hour, we're all trying to get our parents to
stop watching television. Um, my parents are being good kids now.
They listen to me this week. Last week they were like,
ahaw kid, this week, are like, yes, wise One, Yes
we shall wash our hands, Yes we shall not go outside. Yes,

(11:06):
O wise One think you think you? Thank you? So
I sent my dad. I sent my dad a link
to this podcast. I'll update you if if he starts listening.
My mom thinks that the panic is overblown by the
media to try to make the economy look bad, and
this is a liberal conspiracy. So whatever whatever's going to

(11:28):
happen to her is going to happen to her. Yeah,
there's nothing else to do at this point. I love it.
I love it. Love love a world on fire, and
that is why I adopted you and made you my
full time son. Thank you. Now, whoever is behind this
particular grift trying to sell CBD oil as a treatment

(11:51):
for the coronavirus um is ambitious. I'll give him some
points for that, but they have funck all on. Our
first real grifter of this episode, a fellow named Jim Baker,
host of The Jim Baker Show. Now, Jim is like
a like a Christian preacher grifter kind of guy, and
he is a convicted felon as a result of illegal

(12:12):
fundraising activities on his previous show, The Praise the Lord Club,
which put him in prison for like five years. He's
also star of some of the best Vig Burger videos
of all time. Are you familiar with vic Burger, Robert,
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's He's got some
great Baker content and he sells survival foods Baker buckets,

(12:37):
which are just like really overpriced dried food. He's a
he's a he's a cool dude. Now he's hundreds of
thousands and probably millions if I'm like really honest, but
I'm trying to be optimistic for the sake of my soul.
Right now, hundreds of thousands of Christians still trust Jim
Baker for reasons I can only describe as very dumb,
and as a reward for their faith and forgiveness, Jim

(12:57):
is selling them a magical silver spray he claims will
protect them from the virus. The specific product he was
talking on his show is Silver Solution, a hundred and
twenty five dollar tube of nonsense infused with nano silver. Yeah, baby,
you guys like nano nano silver. What can you that?
What is nano silver? Well, it's tiny, tiny trace amounts

(13:21):
of silver that you just shoven whatever else you're already selling.
The idea is that silver does have antimicrobial properties, like
back before antibiotics, it was used a lot in wound dressings.
There's some burn dressings, like I have some burn dressings
in my emergency kit that have some silver. It has
some uses, but people have taken Okay, there are there

(13:42):
are actual medical applications of silver in certain contexts and
use that as a justification for what if we put
an amount of silver too small to do anything in
every product and then light to people and say that
it will cure their illnesses. That's the that's the biz. Yeah, okay,
I love the biz. I love of business. Cool. So
the silver solution Jim Baker was selling was about a

(14:05):
hundred dollars for two, roughly the size of a tube
of toothpaste. And yeah, the the the silver solution he
was selling was a product hawked by a woman named
Cheryl Selman, and on the February twelfth episode of Baker's show,
he had missed Selman on as a guest. She didn't
quite say her product would cure the coronavirus, but she

(14:25):
edged right up to making that claim, saying, quote, let's
say it hasn't been tested on this strain of the coronavirus,
but it's been tested on other strains of the coronavirus
and has been able to eliminate it within twelve hours.
You know, I love a girl boss, and this is
just scarage in that edge. I hope that there was

(14:46):
like an article about her that was like, this female
entrepreneur is is changed your narrative on what cures corona?
Not with her, but we do have I will be
reading extended segments from an article about another lady grifter
a little later on. So don't you worry you god? Okay, good, No,
this is a very gender non discriminatory, uh episode of

(15:10):
Full of Grifters, although I do think they're all white. Um,
so well, I think that just says a lot about
who becomes a grifter in America. Yeah. Yeah, So a
few days after this episode of The Jim Baker Show aired,
Lisa Landau, the chief of New York State Attorney General's
Healthcare Bureau, sent a cease and desist letter to Baker,

(15:31):
demanding that he pully adds or face enormous finds. It
was like five thousand dollars per violation, and there's a
lot of violations when you're advertising two hundreds of thousands
of people. So Baker pulled the product, and that's great,
But I didn't. I wouldn't be doing my job if
I didn't point out that Cheryl Selman has been hawking
her nonsense silver on shows like Bakers for years now.
And the only reason it's almost the same name, right,

(15:55):
it's why, same same bitch, same vibe, same vibe. And
the only reason that her silver nonsense to drew like
federal anger now is that the coronavirus forced elements of
our governments to briefly care about the sale of snake oil.
And I want to play for you a video of
Cheryl on the Faith Shopping Network in two eighteen, singing

(16:16):
the praises of her various silver filled gels and oils
alongside a fake doctor who bears a striking resemblance to
the unit character from Game of Thrones. If it's a
little if my little booger gets a little bumper bruise,
he's like Pap Paul. He's like put the gel on it,
like he tells me. He knows exactly what he needs,
and he'll come to me because he sees us doing it.

(16:38):
And to me. You know that's that's changing a generation.
It's changing the generation absolutely and and so this silver
gel is so versatile. Again, the same thing as you're
like in the in the kitchen, in the bathrooms. Side
of the beds doesn't matter. I mean, you don't want
to get up out of bed, feel a little tickle

(16:58):
in your throat, Just pop the tube open, squirts them
on your toe, swallow it down and it actually goes
down slower than the liquids, so actually coat over that
soreness helps to kill those viruses, those bacteria. By the
time you wake up in the morning, you're feeling better. Um,
it's amazing. Absolutely, well this is for everyone. Yea, just
pop the tube open, squirt someone your top. It's all

(17:23):
it's viscous, so it'll just drip down the back of
your throat. And hear that. You know, I'm making a
cum reference because our audio engineer Daniel is wearing a
shirt that says come in large letters. And also they're
talking about squirting viscous liquids down the back of their throats,
so that's just where we are. They're so calm, it is.
It is like dystopian QVC. I like you Jim Baker. Yeah,

(17:48):
it's it feels like that's the Faith Shopping Network and
it feels like the end of the world watching that video,
Like it feels like it feels like this would be
the video that opens up Paul Verhoeven movie. Uh yeah,
like this little clip from it would be like part
of a run of ads. Uh, it's just so it's

(18:08):
just so apocalyptic. Yeah, that's like the emotion behind this video.
And it's from two thousand eighteen. So it's good that
Jim Baker is getting some pushback from the state now, um,
but it takes him a while to deal with this
sort of ship. Now, Cheryl and Jim are not the
only people to try and sell nonsense silver bullshit products

(18:30):
as a way to cure the coronavirus, and in fact,
my research into the different nonsense cures spreading around the
internet suggests that silver based cures are probably tied for
the most common nonsense care alongside huge doses of vitamin
c um. So yeah, that's interesting, but probably oh yeah, nothing,

(18:52):
nothing like eating a funk load of oranges to keep
you safe from the plague. Uh. So it's not just
Jim and Cheryl are pal Alex Jones also received a
cease and assist from the State of New York for
a silver based product he's been chilling as a surefire
way to kill the coronavirus. And here's the ad for
his super blue silver infused toothpaste, which I have to

(19:16):
warn you, given his history, is very likely infused with
lead um. Now, before we play this, there's a couple
of things that are interesting to me. So he he
repeatedly cites this army study about how this product of
his can prevent the coronavirus. And the actual study is
talking about like a silver infused wound gel that can
stop like viral in fact or that has shown a

(19:38):
preventative effect on viral infections. He's claiming that means that
if you just shoot some of his toothpaste down your throat,
it'll protect you from the coronavirus. There's no evidence to
suggest this. It's it's pure nonsense. It's pure, very stupid nonsense.
But here is an ad for Alex Jones toothpaste that
will kill the coronavirus. Side down. If you haven't looked

(19:59):
up his latest arrest photo, look it up. Have a
lo oh his d u I photo. Yeah, yeah, come
right back with your calls. I promise see nine on
this Tuesday, Global transpaction. I'm not gonna belabor this. I'm

(20:20):
just gonna tell you that for it's just your daily
life and your gums and your teeth, and for regular
viruses and bacteria. The patented nano silver we have the
Pentagon has come out and documented in Homeland Security and
said this stuff kills the whole Stars Corona family at
point blank range. Well, of course it does. It kills
every virus. But it's then this is a this is

(20:41):
thirteen years ago, and the Pentagon uses the product we have,
and the product we have in private label is about
to be in Walmart coming up. They just ordered a
massive crap ton of the not the one they have,
but it's even better one that we have. So I'm
just saying we're always cutting edge. Thank to God. I
just I just go with the research, go with we
always have it than the nano silvertooth paste and the

(21:04):
super Blue with the tea tree and the ion and
that's the super Blue is amazing. And then we have
the whitening toothpaste that has the nano silver and a
lot more as well. Those are both excellent, third and
four short dot Commerce will discount to spite all the
hell breaking loast side note, has he gotten more like
blowdy like? Yeah, no, because he's been he's been back

(21:24):
on drinking heavily. Uh. During Sepack he held his own
event and he had like a bunch of speakers doing
a night of free speech. And by the end of
the event he was so drunk that he like passed
out and someone else had to end it for him. Um, Jesus, yeah,
he actually has a serious problem. Yeah, yeah, I do
think that. Um, if you put Billy, Wayne Davis and

(21:48):
Cris Crofton in a blender, they could sound exactly like
Alex Jones does, and the ship trying to do that,
and they keep saying, no, you can't put us in
a blab we put our friends in a blender. It's
I don't know the solid question. Why can't we put
our friends in a blunder? Also, why is Alex Jones saying,

(22:09):
of course no, it doesn't dude, shut them does not.
Don't buy it from Walmart, don't buy it anywhere, jesus.
Actually from Amazon dot com right now. Yeah. The the
Info Wars Life Super bluetoothpaste is available on Amazon dot

(22:29):
Com for even though the State of New York Attorney
General's offices and a ceasoned assist to Jones for selling it.
Um So that's cool Amazon, good work for you, guys,
but also don't but also don't and also maybe, as Sophie, Sophie,
it kills all viruses, you know what viruses Robert our

(22:53):
t shirts because they're impregnated with silver. That's right, that's right.
You're you're not getting the hint that it's time for ads,
and it's really hurting my heart. I thought I raised
you better well by these products. Assuming there are still advertisements.

(23:15):
We're back. Assuming there were advertisements. We were. There's advertising,
you know now more than ever I love to get
a podcast advertisement, being like, hey, will you advertise a
dangerous pharmaceutical in this the End of the World? And
then I say no, and then they say, well if
Robert says yes, and I say no, and then they

(23:36):
say why, uh, I will advertise. You know what. One
of the things I love is we we had an
opportunity to do some ads for Carnival Crews right as
the coronavirus outbreak was starting, and very wisely looked looked
around each other and said no do you want to
You know what the Caitlin and I got that same

(23:57):
email and we were like bed making for it. Well, yeah,
you guys wanted that free cruise. We wanted the free
cruise so bad and they and still they ghosted us.
If if I wonder why, I wonder why in February
Carnival would suddenly stop advertising. We couldn't get a curt

(24:21):
We couldn't even get a free Corona cruise. That's a bummer.
It's too bad. It's too bad. It really is so
um yeah, info Wars, Info Wars. So I know what
you're thinking, which is that surely selling silver impregnated toothpaste

(24:42):
that kills the coronavirus by slathering it all over your
face or whatever the funk Alex is suggesting there prenant. Yeah, yeah,
surely that's his only coronavirus grift. But of course it's not.
Of course it's not. So yeah, selling toothpaste as a
COVID nineteen cure is not even his main coronavirus grift.

(25:03):
This pandemic has actually been something of a lifesaver for
info Wars, and the weeks leading up to the virus
is spread throughout Wuhan, China. Jones and Info Wars racked
up a series of finds as a result of legal
malpractice between masty platforming and the legal bills for Info
Wars as many many lawsuits. Things were looking very, very grim,
But then came the coronavirus. Jones and his cronies lost

(25:25):
no time in drumming up terror over the virus as
soon as they could, primarily so that they could scare
people into buying their emergency survival food. Now, much of
this fear mongering was done by info wars is chief
health correspondent and former Bastard pod subject Mike Adams, The
Health Ranger. No, no, no, this is the Health Ranger baby,

(25:48):
And I guess I should just play this one for it.
So this is from January, and it's from info Wars
health correspondent Mike Adams, the Health Ranger. And this gives
you an idea of back in January, how Alex Jones
and his his crew were sort of setting up the
coronavirus outbreak. Okay, because the truth is so nightmarish, it's

(26:10):
so excuse me again, it's so horrific. It's such a nightmare.
What can we do as a human race. I'm here
to tell you it's over for humanity. There will only
be lone survivors. Strategy must now shift. You can be
a survivor. We can help you survive. The information here

(26:32):
at in for Wars and and what I do can
help you survive. I'll give you some practical things in
the next segment. But maybe maybe it's an astonishing statement
to hear from me, the health Ranger. But it's over
for humanity as a whole. The masses will be slaughtered dope.
So that's the health Ranger. That's the health Ranger. He's

(26:53):
given you good health advice. Now obviously, uh you know
he he says that he's going to come back can
give people some some practical advice for survival, and that
practical advice turned out to mostly be buying Info Wars
bulk food packages. Um oh go figure. Yeah. And the
price of these increase. Every company is selling these doubled

(27:15):
and tripled their prices um. But even like by kind
of the standards of the industry, Jones started jacking his
prices up early uh and to outrageous levels, while repeatedly
claiming that other sellers were sold out and that his
storable foods were the only affordable option for families looking
to stock up. Um. Because his whole thing is lying
to his audience. Um. Info Wars jacked up their prices

(27:38):
at the same time as they sought to convince their
audience that society was on the verge of collapse. Because
that's just good business. And I'm gonna quote from a
media matters right up now. Since December, the info War
Store has more than doubled the price of its largest package,
info Wars Life Select one year. On December twenty one,
the package was being sold for four hundred and forty
three dollars and fifty cents. The price increased to fifteen

(28:00):
by January. By jan the price that increased to almost
three thousand dollars, and the page was displaying emergency survival
Foods coronavirus clearance sale. So that's ethical and good, right, Yeah, No,
I think that that is. I think that that shows
a lot of concern and kindness towards your fellow man.

(28:24):
Is I mean the health it's so it's so saith
from the health rangers mouth. I couldn't come up with
a better name for a fake health professional than the
health ranger, Like they really I can outdo that. That's brilliant. Yeah,
I mean there's no one more trustworthy than a ranger

(28:47):
when it comes to health that a ranger health. Maybe
the health Shariff would be the only name, like the
only more fucking sinister way of saying that. Yeah, it's awesome.
So rules, it rules, It does rule, Jamie, thank you
for agreeing with me. So uh. Coronavirus has been a
near constant topic of discussion on on info wars is

(29:08):
various broadcasts. According to a search of info wars is
online streaming platform band dot video, at least a hundred
and forty five videos have been posted since January twenty
two that referenced the outbreak in their titles. Of these, seven,
we're published after info wars released its emergency Survival Foods
Coronavirus Clear and sale add for bulk food on January now.

(29:30):
In one February twelfth video, Alex was bold enough to
actually merge his two key coronavirus grifts, claiming that the
natural components in certain quality food stuffs and other info
wars products can quote easily be used to combat viral infection.
Then he attempted to sell his audience more dried food, saying,
I am very sad about this virus and very sad

(29:51):
about the bioweapons and things that are going on, but
it is an opportunity for people to take advantage of
the products we have. We got food, we got guts,
we got red blood. Kick your ass if you attack
us with me. It's religious not to screw you over hell. Yeah, wow,
this is a matter. This is a grifting master class.

(30:13):
He's not bad at grifting, you have really good at it. Yeah,
he's really in the Malcolm Gladwell approach to being an
evil grifter. He's put in the ten. What's impressive about
that is that Malcolm Gladwell has also done the Malcolm Gladwell.
Do you think you figured it out? How do you
think I gotta get a drift going. I'm just telling

(30:37):
people to buy dried beans and go foraging. And there's
no profit in that. I need we need to there's
not a lot of money and exposing grifts. You really
have to establish your own I we need to get
like a branding deal going on with I don't know,
get on the I I have faith that Lazy Mosley
is going to find a good grift in all of this,

(30:57):
She'll figure it out. Yeah, that's a good option. I
was considering just starting a militia um and charging dues?
Can we so if you can, we start a militia.
Is that is that allowed? Do you think? Do you
think corporate is going to be cool with the militia?
No comment? Okay, Well send me and you will be
a member of my militia and that will improve your Sorry,

(31:22):
don't make five dollars off of starting a militia. If so,
they will happily started militia. If if every listener of
this podcast just sent me five dollars, I could fund
the militia. Oh for sure, you can go fund me
a militia. At any point time, I could buy two
tanks for Alex Jones as one, and we could really

(31:43):
we could really bear down on this. Let's go for people.
Do you know is Jim Baker Jim Baker Jim Baker's
Jim Baker those um? Is he still selling those like
buckets of slop? Yeah? Sure is Baker? Well I'm out
now so freaky Yeah no, and they're bad both. Like again,

(32:05):
this is something I am a nerd about both Alex
Jones and Jim Baker's survival foods are renowned within survival
nut jobs as being some of the worst quality products. Like,
they're just there. They cost as much as Mountain House,
and mountain House actually tastes good. Um, it's terrible. It's
terrible products. Don't buy them. Don't buy any of them

(32:27):
right now. Don't buy this. Let make your own slop
bucket bucket. Everyone listening right now is more than capable
of making their own slop bucket. They don't need. Yeah,
the only real survival food you need is to chew
up all of the food currently in your fridge, spit
it into a bucket and freeze it, and then you're
good to go. You can just baby birded back into

(32:49):
your mouth. You can. That's the empowerment that I need.
I can be my own mommy bird chew up my
food then eat it back later. That's as it falls. Yeah,
your that is the goop is about to come into this, Jamie.

(33:12):
So yeah, we can talk more about Alex Jones, but
there's way too much grifter ground to cover here, So
let's mosey on over to Amazon dot Com, which has
itself become a hub of coronavirus grifting so expansive it
puts even Info Wars to shame. See the Kindle Direct
Publishing service give sellers the ability to publish any e
book they want and even paperback books for free in

(33:34):
less than five minutes. This system services so many authors
that there's simply no time for any human monitoring. Books
are printed on demand and the whole processes as automated
as can be. Now, that's not an issue for all
of the people who want to self publish the erotic
novellas and fan fiction epics that they're writing, you know,
during their quarantine. And in fact, it's great for ghost. Hey,

(33:56):
Saddam Hussein's ghost and I have a really cool Google
doc cope and we're working at it with Berney Sanders
and it is horny as fuck. A so uh, this
is not Yeah, so it's fine for a lot of people. Um,
but the fact that this is completely automated does create
an issue when paired with an unspeakably contagious viral epidemic

(34:17):
that threatens to shatter the economy forever. I'm gonna quote
now from a rite up on the website un dark
dot org who kind of revealed this underground industry that
just sprung up around coronavirus quote. Since late January, hundreds
of titles related to COVID nineteen, as the disease caused
by the virus is known, have come up for sale online,
many of which appear to be written under falser misleading names.

(34:39):
One series of books, which includes Coronavirus one oh one
Everything you Should Know to Avoid Illness and Protect Yourself
from the Wuhan Outbreak and Coronavirus and Face Masks the Truth,
claimed to be co authored by Dr Zoe Gottlieb. Another
two books, which were available Wednesday but have since been removed,
listed their author as Dr Sanjay Gupta, who was said
to hold a medical degree along with tutiple master's degrees.

(35:01):
The biographical details did not match those of sin in
chief medical correspondent by the same name. Yet another publication
titled Coronavirus Disease Leave Alone. He's my coronavirus man, Harsh Monday,
This is bullshit. That's kind of brilliant, though to get
a decoy sang in the fake Yeah, that's pretty great.

(35:26):
It's not dumb. Yet another publication titled Coronavirus Disease A
Practical Guide for Preparation and Protection listed the U S
Department of Health and Human Services h h S as
its lead author and a non existent agency, the U.
S Department of Health, as a co author. It has
also been removed by Amazon, but remains available to order
from Barnes and Noble. Representatives of jh S did not

(35:47):
respond to multiple emails seeking comment regarding the book. So
that's cool. This is a cool industry, right, that's a
neat little thing. Is very cool. I like cool and good. Yeah. Now.
This undark write up notes that similar self publishing services
exist with Barnes and Noble, Walmart, and a number of
other companies. In fact, Barnes and Noble promises to have
your self published work available for sale in less than

(36:09):
twenty minutes. So that's good too. One particularly egregious example
on their site is the totally credible book Coronavirus Colon
wuhan Coronavirus Colon All Secrets Revelli ad they misspelled revealed.
Oh my god. Wait uh, that's good. I think that
this is good. This is good. I think that you know,

(36:30):
you know, fast forward a little bit in the future.
This will all be very fun once everything is Revelli
ad in the future. Yeah, it will be Revelli AD
soon and we'll realize how incredible this book was. For
just eight this title will provide you with quote, the
history and ways to combat it, spread and prevent another epidemic.
So that's good. And these viral pandemic tie in works

(36:53):
get a lot weirder too. Outside of these these big
hitters we've named, there's also equine coronavirus everything a horse
lover needs to know, and canine coronavirus everything a dog
lover needs to know. Okay, honestly I am not disinterested
in canine coronavirus. Well you should be, because these books

(37:14):
are written by a nonsense person. Uh. The authors claimed
to be Malick Hill, PhD, who no one can find
any real evidence or information about. But he also has
books on how to protect your fish and rabbits from coronavirus.
In addition to this, he's the author of the critical
work how to Buy a House for literally zero dollars, which,

(37:37):
given the rent crisis we're hitting, you know, maybe people
should look into Oh my god, yeah, holyish it literally
zero dollars. That's a deal. You know, that is a
good deal. I mean, I know, I mean there's been
there's been some people reclaiming empty houses, but I have
a feeling it's not the same thing. No, No, because

(37:57):
they got to spend money to like drive their get selene.
You know. Bolt cutters. All these things cost money, literally
zero dollars. They're not first. I mean, why don't they
should send us two thousand dollars in bolt cutters? The
government just males expensive bolt cutters. Yea stimulus package, burn
them all, good fucking luck. Here's a check in some

(38:21):
bolt cutters. See you in hell Like I would respect
that more than what's called. We can't pass a meaningful stimulus,
so we're sending bolt cutters in a nine millimeter to everyone.
Figure it out. Fantastic, feels good to laugh. It does,
it does. So this is all great. Um. Also great
is the recent work of beauty influencer Michelle Fawn our

(38:45):
next Grifter. Now. Michelle is a thirty two year old
entrepreneur with a net worth of around fifty million dollars.
She has million YouTube subscribers and two million Instagram followers.
So that's great. Yeah, I feel like I've I've heard
of this person, I've never watched their videos. Now, the
beauty industry entered a significant contraction at the start of

(39:08):
this year. Cosmetics and all that stuff like, the industry
started to kind of peel back a bit is even
before the outbreak really reached it's it's it's peak. Um
and Fan recognized that early and decided to pivot to
a new business. Earlier this year, she announced her plan
to create a podcast called Baby Steps. Quote from Michelle,
It's essentially to help people take steps into adulthood, buying bitcoin,

(39:31):
how to store it, what to do with it. You know,
the key thinks about it. Now she became a bunker
survival She pivoted from YouTube booty to beauty to being
a bunker survivalist. No just bitcoin, oh just a big
so she's just a winkle boss. Now. My viewers are
hungry for more than makeup and skincare. They want to

(39:52):
know how to protect their purchasing power. Today I made
an Instagram post telling my followers to buy the bitcoin,
dip and then hold. In mid March, is the panic
over coronavirus began to crest here in the United States,
Fan posted a picture of her Essential Oil diffuser with
the caption, if you are burning anti viral Essential oils
around you. This will kill all of the virus before
it enters your system. There's no such thing as anti

(40:16):
viral essential oils. This will not work. Don't do this,
um which a lot of people told Fan. There was
an enormous backlash, and to her credit, Michelle Fan eventually
responded by sheepishly claiming she had not intended to mislead anyone.
And this is not a great response, but it makes
her by far the most honest and decent person we're
going to cover in today's episode by a wide margin.

(40:39):
And this brings me, Oh yeah, Jamie, I well, I
just beauty. YouTube like is exclusively grifters. I think of
like YouTube. There there's a YouTube boot tube. They Yeah,
they're exclusively grifted. I feel like Maggie may Fish has
done a lot of good work on like documenting like
what the extent of those grip those griphs are. But

(41:02):
this is the first Corona graph I've heard. This is
a treat. Yeah, and she was clearly just dipping her
toes into the Corona gript And I think her followers
are kind of mainstream enough that it it backfired on
her and she I hopefully has peeled back from this um.
But you know who else did the same thing even

(41:22):
more sketchuly whom well you brought her up a little earlier,
our old friend Gwyneth Paltrow, the fifth Hound of the Apocalypse.
Now on March thirteen, gwyn Path is that what people
call her her? And we try not to call her anything.

(41:45):
If we can avoid it, we dare not speak her name.
We'll call her six six six the Beast. On March thirteenth,
she posted a now deleted picture to the Goop Instagram page,
and it was pretty innocuous on the surface, Gwyneth herself
in a white shirt, a skirt and sneakers with the caption.
Most days you'll find g P wearing g label with

(42:05):
a pair of sneakers, which is one reason we make
it an annual tradition to put together a fresh sneaker
guide each year. Get ready to cover some serious ground.
Run don't walk. First off, just editing note, you don't
have to say that it's an annual tradition you do
each year. Not necessary, it's a bit redundant. Yeah. Second note,

(42:25):
no one is going to call her g P. And
if they do, that is who is a society? We
should blame for the coronavirus epidemic is people who refer
to Gwyneth Paltrow as GP. I'm the fifth out of
the apocalypse beast. All of these are fair terms of

(42:46):
Gwyneth Paltrow, But okay, but that that other than the
you know, the the errors and grammar. Um, that's a
pretty unproblematic Instagram post, especially considering the kind of products
Goop has has sold. There's nothing wrong with wanting to
sell people at khaki shirt and sneakers, But it turns
out that skirt cost four hundred and fifty dollars and

(43:07):
those sneakers were four hundred dollars. And since this was
posted as cities around the US began to contemplate radical
quarantine procedures and millions found themselves instantly out of work.
People got kind of pisted at Gwyneth Paltrow for selling
nine dollars worth of skirt and shoes, even though this
is what she always does. It just it was suddenly grosser, right,

(43:29):
um So even Goop fans got angry at her. One
response on her Instagram read, I think it's irresponsible to
post this as a worldwide pandemic is going on. You
have a great platform around health. Now would be the
time to expand on that, which is an incredible post
and an incredible snapshot of where we are in America.
Because he's simultaneously right, he should be angry at this

(43:51):
soulless gool hawking nine D skirt shoes combos while a
quarter of the country finds itself edging towards breadlines. But
it's also baffling that his anger is that she's not
doing more to promote health products, because it's just never really,
I mean, it's kind of it's a bit of a
bummer too, because you're just like, oh, that is like
what her followers feel is like the health and wellness,

(44:12):
like she will have their best interests at heart. Like
it's a it's a bummer. I was honestly shocked and
appalled that Gwyneth was not um in the imagined video.
Jamie Chuk your Instagram dm s for Goop's latest posting
from the last two hours. I'd love for you to
describe that to Robert Evans before we go to an

(44:34):
ad brick imagine possessions. I wonder if you can. Okay,
here's the post. Oh god, I don't like the visual
The visual is really like oversaturated picture of someone putting
pressure on another person's hand with their hands, and it

(44:57):
says the following. Anyone can benefit from ACU pressure and
anyone can do it, says acupuncturist Mary Jane Newman, who
gave us the best breakdown and ACU pressure points and
how to best activate them at home. So it's just
it's something that has nothing to do with anything. Meanwhile,
millions of people are locked in their home and there's
an acupuncturist who's like, hey, ever heard of me? Is that? Basically?

(45:21):
It's Sophie Like she's basically her advice is basically like, hey,
you want to be really good advice right now? How
about you touch another person's hands? Yeah? Literally, it's by pressure.
I mean, I don't know, I'm going I'm licking a
lot of door knobs these days? Is that? Am I
not supposed to be doing that? Robert? If you're eating

(45:43):
survival cheese, you can like a door knob. I think
that that's the going exchange. But that's my hobby to sacrifices.
Want to know what you should make your hobby? Doing
the ad break just a thought? Remember? Are there more products?
There are always more products and maybe even a new service. Wow,

(46:14):
and we're back. We're back, and we are talking about goops.
So I read one post from the Goop instagram. Uh,
here's another. Come on, Goop, when you said g P
if I thought at first you were referring to doctor,
please use your platform in a more sensitive way. I
don't think it's the time to think about buying trainers
when people are struggling to buy day to day supplies.

(46:35):
We don't want doom and gloom, but maybe a post
on boosting your immune system, staying healthy, etcetera. It's amazing
what they get angry at and also what they want
from Gwyneth And unfortunately, yeah, Gwyneth Paltrow was only too
happy to do this. And I'm gonna quote now from
New York Magazine. Yeah. Goop is known for Yoni eggs

(46:56):
and the promotion of potentially dangerous treatments like colonic irrigation.
Also so addresses COVID nineteen on its website. Some of
its advice is perfectly legitimate. Wash your hands, disinfect your
filthy phone, get vaccinated, which prevents other potential illnesses if
not COVID nineteen. But this being goop. The page also
highlights entries on the flu prevention properties of elderberry chew
scientifically there are none, and an interview with a holistic

(47:18):
practitioner about what to do to prevent colds and flues.
Among her recommendations, the goop, wellness balls and the air
vitamin regimen which it best offers. No measures balls, you
don't you don't want to take? What drop some wellness
balls down your throat? I unfortunately know what the wellness
balls are. Are the wellness balls, because I imagine the

(47:39):
wellness balls shoot out that silver goop that coats the
back of your throat and a sticky fiscus. You know,
the drifts, drifts, real slow down at So I have
a dark past history where I used to be on
a series that tried out um goop stuff to see
if it actually worked. So I've tried a fair amount
of this stuff. I've done the Yoni egg number of times,

(48:04):
I've done the I've done the calonic irrigation that hurts,
I've done I mean, I've done a ton of group stuff.
None of it has like, I don't know, like it's
it all is very uncomfortable, and none of it has
resulted in anything positive, and if I had actually had
to pay for it, I would be very angry. Uh.

(48:25):
And the Wellness ball it falls right into that that category.
So I mean, at this point it's like hack to
have to be like, don't do goop ship, but there
is still such a big audience for it. It's like
it sucks and it's like not nice people that are
getting grifted into a ball full of like I mean

(48:47):
literal goop that costs you know whatever seven bucks to manufacturer,
and then how much are they charging for it? I'm
gonna guess what some people spend on a car payment. Well, right,
Like it's it's it's yeah, it's infuriating and terrible. Uh

(49:07):
and in a sane society would be criminal. Um, but
it's not. And so Gwyneth Paltrow is gonna gonna be
fine throughout all this. She's going to handle this great um.
And speaking of Gwyneth, she has a lot to do
with the story of our next grifter. And Jamie, I'm
going to need you to batten down your hatches and
strap in to hear this person's name, because I get

(49:32):
a visceral reaction from just reading this name. Amanda chantal Bacon,
founder of moon j I hate moon Juice? Can we
start again? Can we start again? And then you just
like pause after every name, just to give people a
real chance to take it in. Amanda Okay Bacon, the

(50:01):
founder of moon Juice ye cream blocks away from the
original moon Juice, and I'm thrilled to announce that I
did burn it to the ground right before this recording,
Comrade loftus making the revolution happen. So just a few
days ago, Amanda Chantal Bacon posted this to her list

(50:22):
to her Instagram, clearly inspired by the coronavirus panic and
it's it's moon Juice branded their logos right up on
the top of this list The ten things I'm doing
for immunity right now in the morning, dry brushing to
stimulate limp flow and then getting a cold shower too.
Taking super U t M daily to keep calm elevated.
Cortisol directly affects the immune system. Frequently. Is that moon juice? Yeah,

(50:46):
it's one of the products that she sells, one of
the juices or powders or whatever. Three frequently, washing my
hands and my children's hands for keeping the air in
my home clean with a Heppe air filter. This has
been a game changer for my respiratory system. Five taking
vitamin C three times a day. Six adding power dust

(51:07):
and spirit dust to my morning tonics. These adapted genic
blends are particularly supportive of the immune system. Seven leaving
clothes at the front door after schoolwork, travel, and hopping
right in the shower. So just strip naked right at
the inner to your house, shift, then take some get
some of that dust in you. Oh yes, if you're not,

(51:30):
if you don't think that the Girl Bosses are riding
in on the apocalypse, you have to wake the funk up. No,
that is what they've been waiting to do their whole
Girl Boss lives. Yes. Eight drinking green juice, our elderberry
defense tonic and lots of water. Nine prioritizing sleep and
taking magneesiome, which is another one products. You know. I

(51:52):
think we can all see how that's spelled. Yeah, so
it's it's it's great love Amanda chantal bacon Um, who
I do not love. Uh No, I mean as someone
who literally burned her building to the ground this morning
for you, It's it's safe to say I also don't
love her. That's so I mean morning tonics. Not enough said, yeah,

(52:16):
tonics that you're selling like that would have not felt
People taking Spirit Dusk Tonics to ward off the flu
would have sounded normal if I had brought it up
as part of the nineteen eighteen pandemic grift. But this
is happening right now. I mean, honestly, bringing like the
word tonics into the mix at all feels kind of shortsighted.

(52:38):
I mean, I feel, even for the person newest to
the snake oil realm, the word tonic just seems to
be one to avoid across the board. The only acceptable
use of the word tonic is if you are from
New England and you enjoy a Moxie tonic. Um even
it's not acceptable to be from New England. So oh well,

(52:59):
I'm and I was canceled years ago, so it's fine.
I was specifically talking about you, Jamie. Yeah, so I'm sorry.
I'm sorry you had to find out this way. Uh.
Spirit dust and power dust are two of Bacon's most
popular products in her plant based alchemy line. Both include
a variety of ingredients like chaga and rishi and maka

(53:21):
that have absolutely no proven or even vaguely suggested benefits.
Against COVID nineteen, but there is no law against claiming
your products help immunity, and a lot of very dumb,
rich people will spend thirty nine in a small cylinder
of spirit dust in order to feel like they're doing something, anything,
to protect themselves. These people will be glad to know
that moon Juice is still open for pickups and deliveries

(53:42):
during the California lockdown, very happy to let everyone know that, well,
not anymore. They are still open to be burnt to
the ground. That's right, there is there. I unfortunately, there
was an employee that I had to get out when
I was burning it down, and she's still out in
the front. And I'm you know, I'm in solidarity with
with workers, so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna, you know,

(54:04):
burn the building down. You can continue to work, you know. Yeah,
that's thank you for supporting workers while you burn down
their workplaces in order to stop the spread of disinformation. Jamie,
you think you think that moon Juice is gonna stop
just because they're building burned down, You've got another thing coming, Okay.
So now, if you know me, my dear listeners, you

(54:27):
know there's no way I could hear a name like
Amanda Chantel Bacon and learn this person is selling power
dust and not want to know more about her. And
this is going to get a little bit off the
coronavirus topic. But this is just gonna make you so angry, Jamie,
that I have to read you some selections of this articles.
I found a New York Times article written by Molly
Young that's a profile on Amanda Chantel Bacon, published back

(54:51):
in two thousand seventeen, and it's absolutely fascinating. Molly's recollection
of her first visit to a Moon Juice store in
Brooklyn is really worth reading. Quote. I spotted a glass
jar labeled brain dust. It has this kind of packaging
that signals discrete, luxury, minimalist, matt label custom type, the
word organic. A two point two ounce jar cost fifty
five dollars. This adapted genic potion lights up your brain

(55:14):
and increases mental flow. The label said. Neuron velocity and
vision are fine tuned by toning the brain waves, in
particularly the alpha waves that connect to creativity. No, no, uh,
it's so good. It's so good. Yeah. So she finds

(55:37):
out that this is sold by Moon Juice, and so
she winds up looking into moon Juice and the company
gets on their newsletter, and so she receives an ad
for the moon Juice Cookbook, which included a biography of
Amanda Shantal Bacon, who described as a powerful influencer in
the wellness space. This ad mentioned that moon Juice has
come to prominence when it had been featured on Goop,
and Bacon had made something called sex bark in a

(55:58):
video with Gwyneth Paltrow herself sex I also appreciate the
way that you said it sex bar, sex bars. You
can't say it any other way. It's illegal, you know. I.
Sex bark is new to me. I don't know what
sex bark is, and I'm intrigued. Is it in bark
that makes you horny? Yeah? I think so, Jamie. That's

(56:19):
the only thing it could possibly be um, which we
know we can narrow down that it's not birch, which
is by far the least sexy kind of tree. Hey,
sex bark is the new x V vapor up in
that your groa might have it and it'll make you horny.
You were that baffling line, Jamie. All of this was

(56:41):
enough to convince Molly Young that an article needed to
be written about Amanda Chantel Bacon, so she went to
meet her quote. Growing up in New York City, she
was a sickly child bronchial stuff whose parents took her
to doctor's I got pumped through the Western medicine chain
without satisfactory results. Of course, nothing helped. One day, she
went shopping with her family at a downtown health food store,

(57:03):
where the story goes, an ir vetic doctor visiting from
India overheard Bacon coughing. The doctor came over and posed
some questions, very typical iro vetic ones, like how often
do you poop? And took the child's pulse. After examining
Bacon's tongue, the man provided her mother with a list
of forbidden foods cow's milk, wheat, and white sugar, among others.
Bacon stopped eating gluten at age four and became a

(57:24):
vegetarian and around seven. She's aware that these biographical details
invite ridicule, but Bacon doesn't care if people make fun
of her. She's used to it and anyway. Hers was
a challenging childhood. I was told growing up that I
had learning disabilities and mental illness. That was all the
rage in the nineties. She reflected on her past calmly.
I came from a family that was like, yes, what
after the doctor says, is right, just take the pills.

(57:46):
Bacon's in parentheses. Bacon's mother was the CEO of the
fashion company Betsy Johnson, and her father was a musician. Oh,
I love this is like, this is like a level
of anapotism that it's a very gentle level because you
have all this one to one nepotism, you have all
these dynasties in certain industries, but the CEO of Betsy

(58:08):
Johnson to the founder of Moon Juice is a very
gentle form of adjacent nepotism that I really just appreciate.
You can't not respect is the wrong word, but it's
cool and good. Of course, your Betsy Johnson mom is
going to support your endeavor to start the worst business ever.
Of course, that's what the irony of her vegetarianism being

(58:32):
named Bacon. It's like a great dad joke in there. Yeah,
there is there. Take it away, Take it away. Dad's
Amanda Chantal Bacon is great. Uh, And I am so
happy that I found out about her. And all of
these grifters are very entertaining Jamie. But I would be

(58:54):
remiss if I did not point out at the end
of this that the greatest grifters are not the people
selling silver toothpaste that will cure your coronavirus, or silver
goop that will cure your coronavirus, or buckets of food
or anti viral essential oils or moon dust or whatever

(59:14):
the hell Paltrow was trying to push. No, the greatest
grifters in the coronavirus epidemic are our own Congress people.
I was wondering, so this is not going to be
a comprehensive ovary of what's going on, because this story
is like breaking as we're talking about it, Like more
stuff came out today, um so, and more stuff will

(59:38):
have come out by the time you hear this episode. Uh.
But the information started to come out the night that
I wrote this actually, which was the Friday or Thursday,
the nineteenth of March. Uh. That Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman
Richard Burr, a Republican senator from North Carolina, had unloaded
his holdings and dozens of stuff of stocks that lost

(59:58):
a huge amount of their value. And he did it
right before the start of the coronavirus panic. Um. He
and his wife sold between six d twenty thousand and
one point seven million dollars in publicly traded stocks on
February and bought no new positions, so they just straight
up cashed out. UM. Most of the companies he cast
out on were major corporations that were hit hard by

(01:00:20):
the collapse of the stock market. UM and reporting from
open secrets dot org and pro Publica and a number
of other organizations has revealed that at the same time
as he was selling off all this stock, he was
publicly expressed in confidence to the American people of the U. S.
Government's ability to fight the coronavirus and stop it from

(01:00:42):
turning into a pandemic state side. UM literally like a
scene from Veep, just like getting off stage from reassuring
people and then like calling like dump the stocks, like yeah, yeah,
it's unbelievably gross. And while he was telling the American
people in public that things were going to be fine,
he was privately warning in closed door meetings with other

(01:01:04):
lawmakers and major funders of senatorial and congressional campaigns that
this virus was quote much more aggressive in its transmission
than anything we have seen in recent history. And this
is in late February, when he's still very publicly being
like we got this. Um, so that's super cool. Uh
and good? Uh yeah. Um. For like an example of

(01:01:28):
the kind of stuff Burr was putting out while he
was selling off all of his assets, On February seven,
he wrote an opinion piece for Fox News with Senator
Lamar Alexander, Republican from Tennessee, that the US is better
prepared than ever before to deal with a health crisis. Um.
So that's great. Um, that's okay. Well, as long as
our as long as our public officials are still fucking up,

(01:01:50):
how bad could things possibly be? Yeah? Yeah. So on February,
when the US had fifteen confirmed cases of COVID nineteen
and President Trump said it's going to disappear like a
miracle very soon, Burr attended a luncheon at a social
club called the Capitol Hill Club, and he delivered this
message quote, There's one thing I can tell you about this.

(01:02:11):
It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything
we've seen in recent history. It's probably more akin to
the nineteen eighteen pandemic. Um. So that's great. Uh. Thirteen
days before the State Department began to warning its travel
to Europe in fifteen days before the Trump administration banned
European visitors. Uh Burr warned people in the room at
this meeting that they should be cognizant that they were

(01:02:32):
going to have to alter their lives very soon. Um. Again,
he was not making these kind of warnings publicly. He
was very much trying to calm people down publicly. Um.
And it's also worth noting that these were like like,
these sales were the largest that he has ever made
in his history as a stockholder, and he did not
reinvest any of them. This is pure cashing out now. Um.

(01:02:55):
Pro public or NPR asked for a comment on the
senator stocks sales and burst Bow person or in a
spokesperson for the campaign responded simply, l O L. Really Yeah,
wait was it was? It? Was it an in real life?
L O L? Or was it like a text? It
was I think a text over email or something. Yeah,

(01:03:16):
it does make a difference. That is that I mean,
not shocking at all, but that is just some end
days ship. It reminds me of to put it in
another uh stupid Jamie analog. It's like the scene in
Titanic where Kate Winslet asked the owner of the architect
of the ship, like, Hey, what's going on. He's like, Oh,

(01:03:37):
we're all gonna fucking die, but don't don't tell anybody.
Just try to save yourself. And uh, yeah, we're funed.
We're fu you know, speaking of people who are morally
identical to that Titanic engineer. Uh. Senator Carry Leftler, a
Republican from Georgia and the newest member of the Senate,

(01:03:57):
sold off seven figures worth of stockhold things in the
days and weeks after a private all Senators meeting on
the novel coronavirus uh that you know, helped to collapse
the economy a couple of weeks later. Um, so yeah,
it's awesome. At the time, she tweeted, appreciate today's briefing
from the president's top health officials on the novel coronavirus outbreak. Uh.

(01:04:18):
And then she started selling off stock like fucking gangbusters. Um,
while not you know, uh. Well, for example, on February
after she had had this meeting and after she had
started selling off her socks, which she did on February sixteenth,
she tweeted this twelve days after selling off her stocks
Democrats have dangerously and intentionally misled the American people on

(01:04:39):
coronavirus readiness. Here's the truth. Donald Trump and his administration
are doing a great job working to keep Americans healthy
and safe. On March tenth, she tweeted, concerned about coronavirus,
remember this, The consumer is strong, the economy is strong,
and drop jobs are growing, which puts US in the
best economic position to tackle COVID nineteen and keep America
is safe. Now. Another data point that's worth talking about

(01:04:59):
is Leffler had not made a single stock transition during
the three weeks she served in office prior to this one.
This was her first The day that she got the
coronavirus briefing is the first stock transaction she made during
her time in the Senate. Now, both she and Burr
claim that like all of their stocks are basically in
a blind trust, they don't have any control over where
they get invested. And I'm sure that's completely true and

(01:05:22):
something that will hold up in the subsequent investigations into
their behavior. And there's no chance that they informed anyone
about what they were hearing in these meetings. No, I
don't think that any of this is going to be
tampered with before it has to be examined or you know,
anything like that. I think we're fine. It's fine now
as of right now. And again the story is still breaking,

(01:05:43):
so the list may be larger by the time you
get it. Uh. Senators who are confirmed to have made
significant sell offs of stock in the wake up that
meeting are Richard Burr, who we talked about, Jim im
Hoff from Oklahoma, Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, and of course
Kelly Lefler. Now, there were also some sales by Ianne Feinstein. UM,
and I have no desire to defend Diane Einstein because

(01:06:04):
I hate her. But it's not it's not quite the same.
I'm gonna quote Keith Boykin from CNN here. Uh, the
Dianne Feinstein sale doesn't quite fit the pattern. Her husband
sold the biotech stock on January thirty one, when it
reached a low price of two. After the sale, the
stock actually rose to on mark four it's currently trading at.

(01:06:25):
So like, there was no real this isn't something that
was really affective. I don't know, maybe there was something
shady there. It's hard to say, but like, this isn't
the in the other cases you're looking at people who
sold off stock and like um in in Burr's case,
he was selling off stock in like hotels and cruise
lines and whatnot. Um there's never a bad time to say,
Diane Feinstein, never a bad time. I I support digging

(01:06:47):
into what her stock sales have been to see if
it does if she did do something shady. But this
biotech company just doesn't kind of fit the pattern because
it it really wasn't. Yeah, affected in the same way.
We'll see though, we should look into every Republican and
Democratic member of Congress and see what they've been doing
with their stocks and when they were briefed on how
bad things were actually going to be, and what they
said in public about how bad things were actually going

(01:07:09):
to be. Look into every one of them. Hang the
people who committed treason, because I don't unturned Yeah, we
could call this treason, right, like if this is an
act of war, we're on a war footing. These people
are lying to the American public when they know how
bad it's going to be and profiting off it. That
feels treasony. I mean calling himself a wartime president, as

(01:07:34):
you say, we're already asked even old tim because this
is an old timey situation. Yeah, it's so dumb to
when has he not been a wartime president? Right? Who?
When has any president in our lifetimes since fucking Clinton
not been a wartime president? Yeah, there has not been

(01:07:54):
not a wartime president. I don't think in my entire lifetime. Yeah,
they're all war time presidents. Like it's like bragging about
I don't know, Um, I don't know what it's like
bragging about. It's it's a nothing, I don't know. Fuck
fuck all this ship funk all of these people. Um, yeah, Jamie,

(01:08:15):
how you feeling today? You know I'm feeling I don't
usually get frenzia at the record, so this has actually
been This has been a nice medicinal one. Uh, I know,
I feel okay, I like, you know, it's just the
weird ship going on. How how are you feeling? You're
hunting pigeons? What are you doing? I'm definitely gonna I'm

(01:08:38):
actually looking I'm gonna go out this this weekend or
maybe a little bit next week and do some some
squirrel and rabbit hunting. Maybe maybe try to bag some
new Tria, get a stew going, Uh, do some brazing,
and frying and see how the different game foods work.
A friend of mine is going to take us out
and do some foraging, So getting getting ready to do
all the kind of like depressions, great depression stews that

(01:09:01):
I'll need to cook using vermin. My my main plan
is I'm going to become a professional ballerina and I'm
gonna I don't know, I think that that's that's my
only plan. I'm gonna become a professional ballerina and I'm
going to die before I'm thirty. Those are my two plans. Yeah, wait,
you're not thirty yet, oh Jamie. Oh that yeah, that's true.

(01:09:24):
Oh and I'm gonna read meat comments about me on
the internet. That's the other thing I've been doing today. Well,
I'm gonna hope we hang in for your thirtieth birthday.
You know what I realized it is? It is it
is our seventh year. It is our seventh year. If

(01:09:46):
Corona gets us were a genius is actually after all
that's that's the relief, is if it gets me I
was a genius. Seriousness, Jamie and Robert have been in
Daniel have all been extremely hell through full in this
first week of being home, alone, so you know, say

(01:10:07):
thank you to your friends, talk to each other, conicate,
you know, wave machetes from afar. Everyone has been great.
I mean, yeah, we've all been checking in on each
other all week. It's nice. It feels it feels nice.
Hunt squirrels and pigeons. Learn how to make mulligan stew.
The two Mulligan stew is what hoboes would eat during

(01:10:29):
the Great Depression, And it's basically just whatever you have.
If you boil anything, even rancid meat, for four or
five hours, it will be it will not kill you,
because nothing deadly can survive four or five hours of
of of boiling um. That's the whole basis of Casian food.
It's the old timey stuff. Old timey like language really

(01:10:50):
is fun, except when it's used to be very racist,
in which case it's not fun. And that's fun. Anderson's
sworn enemy is this squirrel that I named Edward. And uh,
I'm sending you guys a picture of Edward. Currently this week,
this lady is still giving him so much unbelievable dry
food that I'm like, piste, Yeah, well, I mean still thriving.

(01:11:14):
I mean, I know I have a machete and I
can do something with it. But also I don't know,
but I'm pissed that he has all these fucking seeds, Like,
come on, that is that's not okay, mostly because he's
my dog's sworn enemy. But that's where it is. Not
that Yeah, look at all those seeds. Guys. Sonny has

(01:11:34):
just been gloating about Biden's recent winds. It fuck, it sucks.
Imagine being walked in the house with a Biden supporter
right now. Just everyone send your send your thoughts and prayers.
I did see my first bite in my first Biden
it um um. You know the things that no no ghosts.

(01:11:58):
So if you listen to where you ever, you'll remember,
like a month or two ago, I said that I
saw my first Amy for America sign. Well, I drove
by that exact same house, and now they have an
Amy for America sign and a Joe bidenside. So the
logical conclusion, it's the logical conclusion. They also said they
want to adopt Sunny just you know it was good. Well,

(01:12:20):
I mean, I'm honestly trying to offload Sunny and it's
hard right now. So oh man, I mean, I'll use
you know, I'll turn them into a rug. I was
going to say a stu, Jamie. I've just been talking
about how we use every part. Yeah. Sure, there's a
solid couple of pounds of meat on him, and then

(01:12:40):
we'll turn the rest into a rug. Gotta use every
part of your beloved, every part of your very regressive
politically dog. Yeah, you're politically regressive dog. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways,
this has been a very long ending to this episode. Jamie,
do you have anything you want to plug? You wanna
tell people they can find you and what they can

(01:13:02):
listen to. Uh? Sure, Yeah, you can find me on
Twitter at Jamie Loftus, help on Instagram at Jamie crist
Superstar and doing something remote comedy shows. You can listen
to the Bechdel Cast. And you should find what your
local mutual aid fund is and give some money and
supplies to it. And that's all I have to say,

(01:13:25):
mm hmm. And also remember that that mutual aid is
fundamentally about building resiliency outside of the state. Uh and
and not just a stop gap way to deal with
the loss of state services, but a new way of
looking at the relationship of human beings to one another
in society. Without trust in a soulless UH government that

(01:13:49):
doesn't care about you anyway. Fucking yeah, heads up? Yep?
Is it my turn to plug your plugables? Robert? Yeah,
please please do it. You can follow Rob did I write?
Okay on Twitter. You can follow this podcast at bastards Pod.
You can also hear Robert on Worst Year Ever and
our newest show, The Women's Wear, which has episode one

(01:14:10):
on March look out for that. Uh. You can follow
Dan on Dan What is your twitch thing? Dan? Dan? Dan?
What is your twitch thing? Say it one more time? Yeah,
I know I want to say, yeah, yeah, I want

(01:14:31):
to say it. So you can watch Dan play cool
video games at UH. I'm gonna funk this up. I
know it. Can you type it to me? No, just
type it to me. God, damn it. I'm a hacking,
a fraud I wanted. I don't want to funk this up? No, no, no, sorry, Chris, Okay,
you can follow. You can watch Dan play video games
at twitch dot tv slash. Okay, h Twitch dot tv slash.

(01:15:00):
I fucked. I can't do it. I'm having under my
table at this point. I can't. I can't do what
I'm gonna go look at this Twitter and see it's
probably listed on there. I'm so sorry, Chris, I just
wanted to plug dance good life. Oh yeah, okay, fun, yeah, okay,
you can fall, you can watch okay, And if you

(01:15:21):
want to watch somebody who's really awesome play video games,
you can follow Daniel on twitch dot tv at dj
underscore Daniel. That's DJ Underscore d A n L on
twitch dot tv. Fucking did that ship? Um? Anyways, Robert,

(01:15:42):
you want to end your own podcast? Okay, so this
is out of the podcast. Thanks so much for listening.
Wash your hands or damn hands and burned down a
moon juice. Burned down a moon juice. M

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