August 25, 2017 • 54 mins
It sounds like pure fiction: A tiny part of the United States, tucked away in Yellowstone, where you can commit any crime you like and never go to trial. So what is this so-called Zone of Death, exactly? How does it work? Perhaps most importantly -- could you really get away with... anything?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,
(00:23):
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan. They called me Ben You are
you that makes this stuff? They don't want you to know?
You guys traveled pretty extensively, right. We've talked about that
past episodes. Not so much currently, but in the past
for sure. I'm what they called a man of the world. Yes, yes,
(00:44):
it's a man of the States, which is different from
being a globalist. We have other episodes on that. Have
you all ever been to Yellowstone? Never? I would really
like to go. In a previous episode, we explored something
called the Yellows Stone. Is it supervolcano? Up? Yeah? Yeah.
You can listen to that episode for full details, folks.
(01:07):
But the gist of it is that there's this gigantic
disaster catastrophe waiting to occur. It's not if it's when
right right, And the problem is when we talk about
time and geological terms, you know, thousands of years are
well within a margin of error, so we don't know. Luckily, um,
(01:27):
if you are listening now, hopefully that means it has
not exploded yet. Well, as we record this, that's the
best thing we can say. It has not exploded yet.
But we have a another adventure that takes place in
the inner part of the United States. Like most countries,
the United States strives to function under the rule of law,
(01:49):
and that means that the most basic level, there's a
code of taboo behavior stuff you're not supposed to do, crimes,
and the public and the government in theory agree that
these behaviors should be prevented, or if we can't prevent them,
they should be punished. And you know, each crime has
a number of possible legal consequences. It could be anything
from like a small citation, like a like a parking ticket,
(02:12):
you know, like Nolan, I go to a Primus concert
and we get a parking ticket and we say, well
that was twenty five extra bucks, but still it was
worth it. We saw Primus, it was just yeah, you
you paid a little extra fee, you're good to go.
Or you know, you could go to a prison for
the rest of your life, right depending on the crime, yes,
(02:33):
or in some cases, you could be executed in this
country at least that's that's how it is on paper. Unfortunately,
and again like in most countries, the real life application
of these codes doesn't always measure up to the noble
intentions of the written legal system, which is tremendously complex. Here,
criminals can get away with all sorts of crimes for
all sorts of reasons. One of the biggest ones is
(02:56):
if some tiny little thing occur is during the investigation
that doesn't follow protocol or isn't a legal operation, you
can invalidate the entire thing, sure, like a certain witnesses
testimony becomes inadmissible or tampering of evidence in a way
that even unintentionally just destroys it. Right because they have
(03:19):
to obey rules. The criminal also might just never be apprehended,
or uh, the criminal might have a huge influence, a rich,
wealthy family with a lot of political pull um, financial
influence that could result in a desirable outcome for that individual,
(03:39):
or a like a much reduced sentence, a lesser charge um.
And then it happens more often than we'd like to think. Right,
And then this is really strange one which I didn't
know much about, this idea of jury nullification, and I
guess it makes sense. We put a lot of power
in uh installing jury members, and they are basically the
ones they get, you know, advised by the judge and
(04:02):
they listened to the arguments of the different size, but
ultimately it is up to them to decide the fate
of this person on trial. And there is this pretty
rare occurrence, uh where they kind of banned together and
decide they don't like a particular law or the way
it's been enacted, and they decide to, I guess, rebel
(04:22):
against that law. Right, yeah, they're ruling what so. So
for example, if um, someone I'm not saying are super
producer Tristan, But if someone was convicted of possessing a drug,
for example, possessing marijuana, and Tristan invoked his right to
a trial by jury, then a jury of his peers, whoosh, whoosh,
(04:45):
a jury his peers would be selected. And these people
do have the right as jury members to practice jury
nullification and say, look, we don't care whether or not
he had it. We think the law govern or making
possession marijuana illegal is itself unsound, so we're going to
(05:06):
like nullify this case. What an odd you know, collection
of circumstances you'd have to have for that to actually work.
You would have to have a relatively randomly selected jury
kind of band together. I guess maybe the foreman or
whatever could get everyone over to their side. And like,
is that how you would pitch it? It seems like
if if there was an understanding that this was a
(05:28):
discussion being had, would raise some eyebrows, right, Like, yeah, well,
that's like you said, it is a rare occurrence because
there are so many things I have to come together,
and the courts appear to really really dislike it is
discussed a lot of the courts. Right, You're recalling a
specific video, right, I'm recalling a specific video. But also
(05:51):
I've seen in other places encouraged to not discuss during
nullification around a courthouse. I mean also, honestly, I would
love to be on a jury, and I think that's
the reason why I never make it through. It feels
like an audition and never make it through. And then really,
(06:12):
if you if you are if you are called to
do your civic duty and you just flat out do
not have time or do you know, not think inclination
or do not want to participate in a trial, which
can drag on for a long time. I'll just tell
them that you are aware of and a huge proponent
of jury nullification and you want to tell everyone about it.
(06:34):
There's actually a couple of interesting cases in the sixth
Circuits basically said that there is quote no such thing
as valid jury nullification, and then in the United States
versus Thomas, the Second Circuit Court ruled that if there
is evidence of this kind of behavior, a juror can
in fact be removed, and that has since kind of
(06:55):
been held up in twe seventeen ninth Circuit cases as well. Uh,
it's it's almost like it's almost like vigilante justice in
a weird way. Yeah, it's it's it's a bureaucratic form
of vigilanty justice kind of. Yeah. That's uh, I mean, okay,
so that is a real thing, um that has occurred
in the past, and it is incredibly rare. It's it's
(07:17):
like in a different, unrelated show, I did a piece
on the so called insanity defense, which is also again
I I don't know about how common it is for
it to be presented as an argument, but it is
extremely uncommon for it to be accepted as an argument.
So experts continue to debate about how often this sort
(07:39):
of stuff actually occurs, how often this jury nullification occur,
how often do criminals just get away get paid, or corruption,
um or technicalities. We we know this occurs, but we
debate about how often it occurs, and the public increasingly
believes that in some cases the system is broken. If
you're lucky enough to live in a country that grants
(08:01):
you Internet access, you can go ahead and check out
something called affluenza A F F l U E n
z A. Honestly, we could do an entire episode on
this vocabulary word that we all started to learn a
couple of years ago. It's yeah, it's a portmanteau of
a combination of two separate words affluence, wealth and influenza
(08:23):
the flu And while we're here, we can go ahead
and describe a couple of examples for you. I guess
we should probably start with Ethan Couch, who was the
person most people learned about affluent through. Yeah. He um,
he killed four people while he was driving a vehicle
(08:45):
while intoxicated and using other drugs. This was in Texas,
and Uh, it didn't go the way you'd think it
would when something like that happens, one of those uh
taboos is broken. Right. So for people were killed in
the collision, total of nine people were injured, two of
them were passengers in couches vehicle, and one of them
(09:07):
was completely paralyzed. So he got four counts of intoxication
manslaughter for recklessly driving under the influence. In two thousand thirteen,
the judge sentenced him not to jail, but to ten
years of probation and ordered him to go to therapy
at a long term impatient facility. And this was after
his attorneys had argued that he had affluenza and he
(09:29):
had rehabilitation instead of prison. The idea is that he's
been so rich for so long, he's never encountered a
lot of the problems and the the issues facing the
common man. So he just doesn't understand what happened, and
there's no need to punish him for this. Right, if
it's it's painting, that painting that so socioeconomic condition as
(09:53):
an affliction, right. The first or primary works on this
defined affluenza as a painful, contained, is socially transmitted condition
of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged
pursuit of more. Wow, So that is an episode that
will probably have I have one more example, but it's
much darker. Oh the DuPont thing, Okay, you're talking about
(10:19):
Richard Robert H. Richards the fourth, Yes a DuPont air.
In two thousand nine, he was tried and convicted for
brutally sexually abusing his children, uh, one of whom was
an infant, and this is not the first time he
(10:42):
did this to one of his children. He was convicted
of rape and he was spared in two thousand nine
by this court in Delaware because according to the judge,
he would not farewell behind bars. So he's ordered eight
years probation and to get treatment register as a sex offender.
To date, he has not gotten treatment. He's just hanging
(11:06):
out in Delaware. Thankfully, he was at least prohibited from
having any kind of contact with children under sixteen, including
his own kids, because Delaware also like a sex offender
haven as well as being a tax haven. I don't know,
I have no I've always been really curiatekiding Delaware people.
But Jesus, it is the case kind of cases make
(11:28):
me so mad that with that case of that swimmer
from UH Stanford that got off, you know, for a girl,
and it was just like, you know, this is the thing.
I can't believe that people can actually, uh say that
because you're wealthy and you had all the opera, the
best opportunities, that you're less equipped to make the right decision.
(11:49):
Isn't that the argument? I kid, I don't understand. It's
kind of like saying, well, I'm such a narcissist, I
should be able to park in the handicap spot. You
know that you think that is a product of society,
right is you're dealing with because you truly believe it.
So this is I mean that I think you guys
are right. I think we should do an episode entirely
(12:11):
on this, and maybe we'll see if we can get
one of the authors of these works to let me
speak with us, so right in, let us know if
you think that's a good idea. We we show this
to illustrate that despite the noble intentions of the legal system,
and despite centuries of diligent effort to clarify and codify
it um, in real life application, terrible things happen, and equally,
(12:36):
if not more importantly, various groups in the US are
disproportionately persecuted rather than protected by this system. Again, and tragically,
this is common in many countries. While it's technically illegal
to discriminate against someone in this regard using their ethnicity, income, religion,
facial hair, clothing, or whatever to single them out for
(12:57):
more extreme punishment or profiling, even the most cursory of examinations,
even the laziest Google search, can show that this happens
every single day in every state, to one degree or another.
But despite all of these serious problems, the US is
full of determined people literally putting their lives on the
line to preserve the rule of law. So as of
(13:20):
the most recent UM solid day that we have is this,
there were one million, seventy six thousand, fifty four full
time UM law enforcement officers working in the US, or
three point four three per every one thousand people. That
includes both sworn and non sworn officers. I've always uh
(13:41):
kind of been a little mystified the distinction. Yeah, it's
funny you mentioned this because the data set included that
distinction when we were checking out checking out the info,
and so we went off air to learn about about
the distinction. And it's pretty interesting. So people who are
(14:02):
sworn professionals carry a firearm, can arrest you, and have
a badge. And so the people who are non sworn
UM don't have at least one of those three powers
or items. So they might be like criminal analysts, crime
scene text crime lab guys like Dexter would be a
(14:25):
non sworn office. That's awesome, that's good to know, UM,
But these folks only operate in certain areas. All of
the law enforcement that we just talked about, they've got
a place where they can be. There are lines drawn
in the sand where I am allowed to function as
a law enforcement office. Jurisdictions, yes, yeah, jurisdictions, and they
(14:46):
can be pretty complex. They can also transcend geography because
there are certain types of cases that one law enforcement
branch would handle rather than another. Or yeah, you might
have federal officers that it fits within the United States territory,
you can be there. Or you might have the Texas Rangers,
which are their own crazy thing, or the Royal Canadian
(15:08):
Mounted Police doesn't really well, I think it could do.
They ride mooses. Moose. Moose is its own plural, right,
I think it's moose. Yeah, they don't know that, I
mean it. That'd be cool if they did well. I
also just very glimpse. This is tangential, but I thought
I thought we would find it interesting. I read about
(15:28):
little known police agencies. Because there's so many, it can
be confusing to someone who's not from the US, and
don't feel too bad, it's confusing to most of us
who live here as well. Um, the Smithsonian has its
own police force. The Supreme Court has its own police force. Uh,
there are a couple of police forces. They're just like
one guy. The Vatican does. The Vatican has. The Vatican
(15:50):
is the only nation that can actually lock its door
at night and they have, Yeah, they have a police force,
they have ambulance team, they have they have all the
things the city would need to function. But they're all,
you know, like Vatican flavor dude. On NBR this morning,
there was a discussion about a county near Savannah, Georgia,
where there's a city council dissolved the I think the
(16:15):
the city's police department of really small department of like
five to seven people, and then we're coming into content
they're making a new contract with the county police rather
than the city police. And it was this big kerfuffle
where the city council literally just said, we're not gonna
have police force anymore. We're just gonna get the county
to do it. And it's interesting how those jurisdictional things
become real fights. And that's all might sound a little snoozeworthy,
(16:38):
but it really is leading up to the topic at hand.
And we're gonna leave you with a question. What happens
when you don't have a jury? What happens when law
enforcement is powerless or there is no law enforcement in
a certain area? Is there a place like that? Is
there any place in the US where it's possible to
legally get away with murder? We'll tell you right after
(17:00):
a word from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy.
Enter the zone of death, the zone of what what?
What are you doing? It's the highway to the zone
(17:20):
of death. I don't want to go there. We couldn't
get the rights. The highway to the dangers. You have
your warning. There we go. So this there's a huge
controversy playing out in the US right now, and it's
it's been playing for a number of years, but it
came to our attention again, um nol you brought it
up off air, and we we're beflummixed. I don't know.
(17:47):
We couldn't believe. I couldn't believe that it was true. Well,
I couldn't believe that we hadn't done an episode on
it before. So this controversy starts years ago in turn
of the millennium nine or so. Uh, Princess Song is
getting more airtime than it ever has before. Perfect Yeah,
(18:07):
And the controversy starts when a fellowe named Dr Brian Coult,
a professor at the Michigan State University of Law, writes
a research paper called the Perfect Crime. In his research,
he discovered a strange loophole in US law, specifically concerning Yellowstone.
It all hinges on two things. Venue that's where a
(18:27):
trial occurs, and visnage or visionage if you're being fancied,
the place from which jurors are drawn. So first things, First, geography.
Yellowstone is comprised of land from three states. The majority
of Yellowstone is in Wyoming, but parts of it are
in Idaho and Montana, as well as a total area
(18:48):
of about three thousand, four hundred and sixty eight point
four square miles, which I did not convert to metric,
but I should have you monster, I know that's just
the beginning. Will I be able to get away with
this r'me of not converting to metric? I see how
your sick mind works. But because Wyoming holds the majority
of the property that comprises Yellowstone for federal purposes, it's
(19:10):
also the law of Yellowstone, so it has jurisdiction over
the entire area of the park. Okay, I get it.
So Wyoming's holding sway even though it's in other states.
That's where we are, right, because when states would join
the Union, they would see uh jurisdiction or control over
running park territory directly to the US, to the fetes.
(19:35):
So imagine, let's say you and a friend went hiking
and Yellowstone and while they are specifically in the fifty
or so miles of the park that are on Idaho land,
you decided to murder somebody who knows who knows why
things happen, Things escalate it. It doesn't matter why you
killed them. I mean, I'm sure it matters to you.
And let's say that instead of covering your tracks, you
(19:55):
and your friends told the police what you had done.
And let's say the police believe you and they find
the body and the murder weapon if there is one,
the whole nine, the whole bank um the like most simple,
straight to the point law and order episode. Ever, during
legal proceedings, you invoked the sixth Amendment and you demand
a trial by jury. The jury is composed of people
(20:17):
from the state where the murder was committed, Idaho, and
from the federal district where it was committed, which would
be the District of Wyoming. WHOA, and this is where
it gets um well well tricky, all right, because invoking
your right to a jury automatically means a jury composed
of people from that state where the murder was committed.
(20:39):
So like if if um, like nol Mett, if you
guys get together and go camping, you kill somebody, and
you're in Idaho, then the jury has to come from Idaho. Uh,
and it has to come from the federal district where
it was committed. Normally this would not be a problem,
but the District of Wyoming, sin says, per view overall
(21:01):
of Yellowstone, even the parts of Montana or Idaho complicates things.
You have a right to a jury composed entirely people
living only in both the Idaho and the District of
Wyoming overlap, that is, people living in the Idaho part
of Yellowstone. Are there any people that live in the
Ohio part of Yellowstone? According to the two thousand census,
(21:22):
they are not not one, And bears cannot legally bears
cannot legally judge you in court yet cheez. So okay,
this is fascinating. So then in theory, a jury couldn't
be formed and the Uncle Sam would essentially be like, curses, no, curses, Matt,
(21:45):
you outwitted me again, But I'll get you one day. No,
I said, no. It seems like there would have to
be some kind of work around where you're like, where
you can't do a trial by jury. Oh, that is
so crazy. Yeah, for you nuts, it sounds ridiculous. It
sounds too simple to be true, but it is. And
(22:07):
for for his part, doctor Dr Colt actually wrote to
the Department of Justice, the U S. Attorney for Wyoming,
the House and Senate uh A told him about the
loophole a year before he published this. He was hoping
that they would close this loophole before the paper went out,
so the perfect murder doesn't actually happen. It was on
(22:28):
the off chance that the article might drive people to
commit crimes in Yellowstone because you know, this would be
any crime, any taboo behavior. This could be stamp fraud.
I don't know how that would I don't know how
that would work. Well, that's the thing. I got to
move on from the stamp fraud. Dude, I'm not you know,
I don't know if I can. I'll get there. It's
one day at the time, So imagining you could set
(22:50):
up a criminal enterprise there in that fifty miles, but
you still got park rangers who are going to stop
you from doing it. If they're gonna be like you quit,
you quit that, well, yeah, and they'll they can still
arrest you on it. You'll have to go through the
whole rigamarole of getting to you know, the all the
hearings in the beginning, and then request your trial and
do all that. Not if you run fast, Okay, tame
(23:12):
a couple of bears, get him to fight on your side, dude,
forest like King pen with bears for like heavies, you
know what I mean. And then Ravens for information. And
Ravens could actually oh man, okay, that's a different episode.
But Ravens are amazing and and yeah, I know this
(23:32):
this obviously seems like a very small, nitpicky thing in
some ways. But here's what happened. He got a reply
the U. S. Attorney did right back to him. The U. S.
Attorney says, it's not my power to change the law.
And then he got another one from the House Judiciary Committee,
but it was from an intern. In the letter was
I don't know, thank you for your time, thanks for
writing to us. Otherwise he was ignored. So the number
(23:53):
one question out there for the episode today is could
you really do it? Could you really go to this
fifty mile lawless area or consequence free area, commit a
crime and then get away free? I mean, technically yes, right,
(24:14):
but probably no. Right. The loophole is still not fixed
as we record this. In a follow up article from
two thousand and eight called Tabloid Constitutionalism, How a Bill
Doesn't become a law Doctor called explores the various possible
fixes to the problem, as well as a consistent federal inaction.
When presented with the loophole that is so crazy that
(24:35):
he wrote to everybody, and everybody just shut him down. Well,
I think it's also a it's a legal loophole. It's
not as if people are consistently dying. Uh, yes, so
far as we know, right, or if there's consistent poaching.
But it did come close to being resolved during an
illegal elk hunting incident in the Montana section of the park.
(24:59):
This happened in two thousand and five. Hunter named Michael
Beldraine killed an elk and then his trial went went
up in two thousand and seven, and he used Count's
original article The Perfect Crime as part of the argument,
so it could have been resolved ultimately the defendant, though
(25:20):
he struck a plea deal, and the circumstances the plea
deal pretty weird, right, Yeah, They forbade him from bringing
up the issue anymore, like, don't talk about this and
don't use it in your defense. Let's take let's look,
let's exchange the money here, We're we're all done. So
they were like, we don't want people to know about this.
(25:41):
They were like, we're not talking about this. That's what
they did. They put their hands over their ears. La
la la la um pay for the elk can get
out of here. What does it take to fix a
loophole like this? So that's a great question, um, Because first,
at first I would say, um, obviously the court. You're not.
(26:02):
They're not exactly jumping or champing at the bit to
get this done. Um Colt feels like there are some
pretty easy solutions, and we'll get to those. But first
I do want to say, I think our our immediate
answer for everybody in the audience is just be very cautious,
be aware. If someone you don't particularly get on with
(26:26):
invite you to go camping in Yellowstone, at least ask
them where you're going in Yellows and get the coordinates. Yeah,
they make sure you have a GPS that's always in
your possession to know if you step on that land,
drop a pen, help a pen, just like missing four
one one. Also, anytime you go out in the woods,
let somebody who's back in civilization know when you're supposed
(26:47):
to be back and when you step on Idaho land
within Yellowstone. And we will answer Noel's excellent question after
a word from our sponsor, m So. Dr Colt worked
assiduously to bring this issue to the public eye, as
(27:09):
we said, and to the attention and policymakers. It seems
that officials are aware of the loophole, but they were
either in some cases to answer your question or they
were either under the impression that was effectively solved or
that they, specifically in their position, were not the person
to solve it. So one one group or one senator
(27:31):
rather wrote back and was under the impression that dual
jurisdiction existed in Yellowstone or that members of nearby areas
could fill in as as members of the jury. I
can imagine that being the viewpoint instead of seeing as
nobody has jurisdiction, both states have jurisdiction, so you just
(27:51):
kind of decide once when something happens, could the court
interpret it that way? Is this open for interpretation or
is it so cific that like this case would actually
lead to an issue like this. It's pretty explicit, which
is why the court said no. Just look, we can
agree that you shouldn't have shot an elk, but we
(28:12):
don't need to We don't need to put the rule
of law and danger in Yeah, exactly. Um. Yes, So
things did turn around a little bit after the publication
of a fictional book, a novel called Free Fire by
a fellow named CJ. Box in two thousand seven. Turns
(28:32):
out there was a senator from Wyoming who was a
fan of C. J. Box and read the book and thought,
hang on, I hang on a yeah, and uh so.
Senator Mike Enzi got involved almost entirely at first because
he was a fan of c J. Box, and he
(28:53):
asked the Department of Justice to look into the issue.
They did, and they concluded that no fix was needed.
That's what I'm saying, Like, couldn't this be open for
interpretation where you could, like, you know, like it's it's
so obvious, like you know, this is like obviously like
a mistake. I don't know, I mean I think I would,
I would be of the same opinion. Their response was
(29:15):
that trying someone in the wrong state or in the
wrong district of um is essentially a and this is
their phrase, harmless error. She's uh so, both Dr Carlton
Center and he thought this was incorrect. Uh They believe
that the error in question is a violation of someone's
sixth Amendment right to a trial in the state and
(29:35):
district where the crime occurred, so it could hardly be
judged harmless. Completely agree you're violating someone's constitutional rights. I mean,
I don't know if you really are, though, because it's
still a right to a trial by a jury. I
doesn't say, like a trial in a certain I mean,
that's in the way, I guess. Besides, in the place
(29:56):
where that's the thing is pretty explicit. Both the stuff
declaring the jurisdiction of Yellowstone and the stuff declaring how
a trial should be conducted are pretty explicit in the
in the legal ease. So maybe the best way to
do this is to look at a chronological example. So
let's say, um, Matt will pick on you. Let's say
(30:17):
you commit a crime and Yellowstone. All right, First off,
it doesn't matter what crime you committed, but you know,
since it to you, what crime did you commit? I
harvested some wild growing poppies and I tried to set
up a very small heroine. Okay, so possession with intent
(30:39):
to distribute. Yeah yeah, I mean you know, I didn't
think anyone would notice. Okay, well, all right, Unfortunately, in
this thing, so Matt, Matt harvest and attempts to harvest
poppies and attempts to create drugs from attempts to create heroine.
I am at now and so and it is unfortunately.
So let's say he doesn't get away with it, he's apprehended,
(31:00):
he's caught, They have the stuff, they know he did
it he is going to trial or and or he's
going to court. And at this point if he if
you did not invoke your right to a trial by jury,
then this loophole would not really matter. I've lawyered up,
so I think we're going to go to trial. So
(31:21):
you've lawyered up and you're going to trial. You've invoked
your six Amendment rights. So here's where the tricky part happens,
because the next step is that because all of Yellowstone
is under the federal District of Wyoming, UH, it will
be that will set the venue for the venue for
(31:43):
the crime. The venue for the hearing will be in
that court that court district. But because of visnage, because
the jury must come from the area where it occurred,
it has to come from the part of Idaho that
is inside of yellow Stone where no one lives. So
(32:06):
the next step is they can't find a jury. They
can't legally find a jury because you are not just
promised the trial by jury of your peers. They're also
they have to be from where the crime was committed.
So that is the loophole doctor Celts talking about makes sense,
and it looks like I'm getting off scott free. Sons well, right,
(32:31):
because like all we have. As an example is this
Elk case where they basically made a deal with the
guy to shut him up so he wouldn't invoke this
weird right, but that right pretty much to be fair,
so many cases nowadays are just settled and rather than
(32:52):
going through the lengthy process of having it a huge trial.
I mean, it just it happens so frequently now they
to surprise me. Well, A big part of being able
to afford getting sued, if you're like wealthy enough that
you get sued often or sue others, is to have
the money just to go through the process. But I
mean it's you don't automatically just like get you know, reimbursed.
(33:14):
That you have to like invest time and money into
the whole thing before you may or may not win.
And then if you don't win, you're penalized and you're
also out however much money you put into the case.
And sometimes judges will have harsher sentences if somebody does
invoke right to a trial, by you're wasting everyone's time,
right exactly. Um, And you know, public defenders are legally
(33:38):
granted to people who cannot afford their own defenders, but
those poor folks are under water. You know those Yellowstone
public defenders. Well, I don't know about that. If you're
Yellowstone public defender, please write to us. Absolutely. But um.
The Department of Justice raised another more salient point um,
as cult summarized in his paper quote, splitting Yellowstone into
(34:02):
the district courts for Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana would also
split it between the ninth and tenth circuits. Senator Enz
and others were wary of this because it would create
a new and unwelcome burden if environmentalists could use this
foothold to challenge the park services management decisions in the
liberal and quirky Ninth Circuit. You yeah, you hear about
(34:26):
the ninth circuit. Actually, wasn't the ninth circuit the one
that's the suit over the travel ban? Oh? Was it?
I think? So? Okay, yeah, liberal and quirky, And I
think opponents of this action cite the fact that a
lot of their uh, their their cases get um dismissed,
but that there there's a little more to it than that. Um.
(34:47):
But it's interesting for them to dis blatantly classify them
as the liberal and quirky Ninth Circuits, Like the Ninth
circuit is a sitcom on Central like like a clown car.
I'm looking at some of cases of interest. Here, you've
got Hawaii versus Trump. Two of those, um, state of
Hawaii versus Trump, Uber cases consolidated appeals with Uber. Let's
(35:11):
see not a lot of other really interesting ones, but
just it feels a bit strange. So other government officials
are concerned then that what they see as extreme environmentalist
or environmentally concerned organizations would use this as an opportunity
(35:33):
to advance their agendas. Okay, so now there's another problem
that just swoops in at the last minute to make
things even more complicated. However, here is the closest thing
we find to an answer to this question, Um, could
we fix this? And how how easy or tough is
it to fix? Uh? Dr Kut believes that there's nothing
(35:56):
stopping the US from just designating the tenth Circuit as
the proper venue for all of these cases. Just say
that's it. When fell swoop happens the Yellowstone Tense circuit, boom, done, dismissed.
I feel like that's a pretty good that's a good answer.
Stay tuned for this season premiere ninth Circuit at eight thirty.
What's the counter argument though, but that uh the counterargument
(36:19):
at this point is uh no, the counter arguments this
is definitely this is thanks for Yeah, yeah, exactly. So
that is where we are at right now. You want
to try it before they fix it, should we? Yeah?
I don't want to do a violent crime, no no, no, no, no,
(36:39):
just a blue law or something. I bet there are
blue laws of one. Such a sweet boy. I thought
he went from growing heroin poppies to breaking a blue law. Look,
I'm you're gonna drink a zima on the Sabbath. The
only reason why I've got the whole poppy thing is
that it's about money laundering and don't worry about it.
(37:00):
It's fine. Okay. I do have an update though that
um you you all may enjoy um. Dr Accollett has
not just researched this. He is also currently making the
rounds on another political loophole that recently came up. Can
we guess? Yeah? I got nothing all right, Uh, it's
(37:23):
the interesting one. Oh, I know what it is, alright.
You can can a dog be a mayor. A dog
can be a mayor in the US. Actually, that's I'm
so glad you brought that up. We didn't include that. Um,
there's a town called Cormorant, Minnesota. Wherefore, three three consecutive terms,
(37:44):
a dog named Duke has been elected mayor. The mayor
the dog to two times unanimously, I believe, and the
third his third run. Uh, there was one vote for
his girlfriend, who was named Lassie. The township has one thousand,
thirty nine people. Just so everybody knows if you if
you are that many people, you can be ruled by
(38:05):
a dog. That dog is running it. This dog in
this photo and looking at its just like lounging on
a big white sofa with a tiny hat that says mayor. Yep,
it's a true story. It's a true story. I let's
get to the loophole. What's the big one? All right?
Can a federal official pardon that? Was? That was the
(38:25):
one that was like? That was I was trying to
come up with gout it, and I was like, there's
definitely been a loophole in the news lately. What is
the answer. I'm gonna say, Hell no, I would say
that too well, but it's still not it's not clear.
It's never happened. It's not it's never happened, and it's
not explicitly forbidden. So the in the constitution, right, well,
(38:47):
like the in any statutes. Yeah, the legally, the president
or commander in chief has the power to pardon. But
it doesn't. It doesn't say, you know, you cannot pardon yourself,
you cannot pardon certain people for certain crimes or something
like that. It doesn't even say you can only pardon
real people. It's completely I mean, that's why every year
(39:11):
the president pardons of Turkey. Thank ye. So but I
I heard an argument on NPR is some legal um
scholar saying that inherently the act of pardoning is meant
to bestow mercy on another and that like the very
nature of it is not self reflective or whatever. And
(39:33):
there's yeah, that's a great point. There's another point there too,
where a pardon, I'll pardon is acknowledging that a crime occurred.
A pardon is in some way an acknowledgement of guilt.
I think so too. But in the same segment, the
guy was mentioning, I wish you could remember his name. Uh,
that the pardon itself implies, no, you did nothing wrong,
(39:58):
even if you did a murder or something. The pardon.
The act of being pardoned is literally absolving you to
the point where it like it never happened, So it
does not necessarily require an admission of guilt. Like you're
totally right, Ben, But this is something that was like
this is odd like that is you know, it's literally
like a godlike power from on high to wipe away
(40:19):
your sins, you know, like that's it's pretty intense to
get out of jail free card. So Dr coult Is
has been making the rounds talking about this, and one
of the things that he says is, if I were
a judge hearing the case, I wouldn't let somebody pardon themselves,
you know. Can I get him on the show? Do
(40:40):
you think let's see, let's let's reach out to it.
Wouldn't that be a cool episode? Yeah, So let's see
because we could we could certainly use his help examining
the nature of a pardon, you know. Uh, And we'd
like your help as well, not just with this episode.
Do let us know what your thoughts are. Do let
(41:00):
us know if you've been to Yellowstone, if you have
accidentally found yourself in the zone of death, which you know,
I'm sure it's a very peaceful place. You know, I'm
sure it's not a bunch of people trying to make
Moonshine stills the locale yellow Stone Zone death. I remember
that from Perks and Rack, the local cal Zone zone. Hey,
(41:23):
you guys, guess what what's that? Man? I got Brian's
contact info right here, So I'm gonna I'm gonna make
a call. I'm for real serious, definitely now we should
do that. I was just quiet. I thought you were
going to do it on air, and I wasna Brian.
I was gonna say, maybe the best way to do
it is not to prank call him now, all right? So, uh,
(41:43):
speaking of our listeners, it's time for chat corner. Our
first shout out today comes from Uh, we'll call you
christ for Christopher. Is that okay? That's fine in Canada? Uh,
says hi, guys, old dude in Canada. I like to
listen to your show. I appreciate that you introduced at
least some critical analysis to the subjects you cover. However,
(42:06):
you never really talk about the truly fatal flaw in
the reasoning behind so many of the topics. Taking a
task here a little bit and I like it. It's
all positive bias, and we talk about this for sure,
but this is this guy really does a good job
of laying this out the entertaining. Mr Pilates uses similarities
among events to imply that they are related. That is
(42:26):
not how science works. Science would try to disprove the
events are related. If that failed, then maybe you could
say you're onto something. He suggests the deaths he studies
are similar as they have quote no known cause of death. Dudes,
think about that logic for a few minutes. I don't
know if Mr Polarates books offer any real statistical analysis
(42:47):
of his claims. However, everything he said on your podcast
sounded like patterns based on positive bias and post hawk reasoning.
If you draw the target after you shoot the arrow,
you'll hit the bull's eye every time. Cheers Chris Well. Chris,
I really appreciate the idea. I've heard the painting the
target analogy or comparison before, and I think it's a
(43:10):
very powerful one and it's meaningful. We talked about that
a little bit on them in that kind of a
little postmortem at the end we recorded later. H this
was a big issue you had. Even before we did
the interview. You were talking about how it felt like
a very well researched collection of cases with only kind
(43:32):
of tangential connections and and I don't know right well
the thing is in that regard, especially UM, David Pelates
is very very clear that he is looking for he
says it, I believe in the interview that he is
looking for cases that have the following criteria right on,
(43:54):
and by his own admission, not every disappearance is going
to match this case. So I really appreciate your letter, Chris,
and I hope that everybody else um can hold that
in We should all hold this in our minds. The
idea of painting the target after after slinging the arrow,
(44:16):
come up within an hypothesis first and then test it, right,
isn't that just basic confirmation biased too, where you kind
of like expect the result and then see it everywhere
kind of yeah, Like it's like the old Louis c.
K joke where he says, you know, if you don't
like somebody, if you if you think they're a jerk,
(44:38):
and you you just already decided that, then everything they
do is just going to be further evidence to you
that they're a jerk. You'll be like, look, at this
monster chewing what is that spearmint? Gum? I knew it.
You can easily test that one out by just observing
someone in a vehicle while you're driving, somebody else that
you happen to be next to for a while. If
(44:58):
you if you are if you believe they're a jerk
for some reason or another because of maybe the car
they drive or the way they look, you're gonna see that.
But if you're just like, it's just another person driving
what's that car, Ben that that haunts you? Honda Hodyssey?
So like Bency's a guy driving a Honda Odyssey, he
immediately knows this man is a piece of human garbage.
(45:19):
Could be a lovely man, family man, but you know
exactly getting I yeah, I do have a you can
hear about that on our car show. I have a longstanding,
unfortunate and uh entirely not my fault, antagonistic relationship with
Honda Odyssey's putting aside any of my personal complications some vehicles.
(45:45):
I do think that, Chris, I think your point remains,
so we appreciate you taking the time to write in.
I gotta bring up Porsche SUVs two. I mean, come on,
what about him, I don't have a Porsche drive a Porschet.
I mean, that's just how I feel. I think so do.
It's it's absurd to me, but anyway, it's true. I
(46:07):
mean also, I'm of of the mind after after years
of various auto related adventures and misadventures, I'm in the
mind that you know. Ultimately it's it's your money. It's true.
If you want to get a car that I think
is a pos, then that's your very expensive, bad decision.
It's my right just as equally to judge the crap
(46:31):
out of you. That's true. Yes, all right. Freedom of
speeches not mean freedom from consequence. Who's next? Our next
message comes from Mr A. That's what we're calling him.
It's an alias. Let's get in thought here, he writes,
(46:53):
Mr A. Let me tell you I love your podcast,
a very video series. That being said, your episode, the
panel gland a third eye struck close to them with me.
I recently tried d m T and I know it's illegal,
but don't tell on me, Okay, we won't. My input
on your episode would be that I've experienced a very
similar vision on a higher power that people who have
done d MT say they've seen, and I'm one of
(47:15):
those that need to see to believe types and I
can without a doubt say that either d m T
is one hell of a drug or that it does
really show us something beyond our normal comprehension. One final thing.
I know you most likely won't read this on air. Oops,
you give us too much credits, So I'm adding one
(47:35):
final thing. A close friend of mine introduced me to
the Bohemian Grove and it has compelled us for years,
so much so that we're planning on investigating what goes
on there on a deeper level than what has already
been seen. We already have a plan to get us
in and hopefully we can send info to you guys,
and maybe you guys get the word out. Well, remember
(47:56):
that article and I was vice or something where somebody
worked as a cook or a waiter, like serving. It
was about milkshakes. It was something like Dick Cheney's like
to drink milkshakes or something. But forever people that don't
know about him and grow is like a weird elitist
social summer camp in northern California, right, And you know
(48:20):
it's said to be a place where big deals happened
because it's like, you know, hob nobbery with the super
super rich influencers, multi millionaires and entrepreneurs, politicians the highest order,
and they're basically just I guess, getting faded and drinking
milkshakes and urinating in public. There's the one thing that
(48:43):
is the most controversial about it is a ceremony they
have called the Cremation of Care, wherein they sacrifice or
they burn a mock effigy in front of this huge
owl statue. Did we talk about the House of Cars
this season already? Did you guys watch that spoiler? Everyone? Okay,
(49:05):
so there's a scene that is essentially Bohemian Grove where
he visits that episode, they change the symbology just enough.
But if you know what Bohemian Grove is, and you
know the owl and all the did they change the
animals like a momo set, you know the what's the
what's the saying about the spiders, weaving spiders, what tangled webs?
We believe when first we practice tugency, but it's but
(49:27):
it's something on a plaque that says weaving spiders not
here or something like oh yeah, oh the that's the
real um, that's the real quotation, but they use one
that's very very similar in the show. Okay, well, thank
you for writing to us. Mr A. Well, we sure
appreciate it, and we are we have a severe no
snitching policy, so we're not going to tell on you.
(49:50):
I think that's what Mr Avery for the d M
T or the infiltration of Bohemian But for sure, send
us anything and everything body cam please dude, send us
a drive and be and be safe. You know, the
best thing is like they can kick you off of
the property, but as long as you are not violating
a law, you should be okay, and invest in those
(50:14):
pin cameras that you can get there, the little button cameras,
you'll be good to go. And if they if they
do catch you and they begin to kick you off,
first off, bring a phone you don't mind using, and
please go live on Facebook or something. And if a
bunch of men in black robes scoop you up in
the middle of the night and take you to a
room and tie you to a chair night night, we'll
(50:37):
just remember us and um, yeah, we'll be thinking about
you and none of this constitute's actual advice. That's right
as you will. But yeah, i'd love to I'd love
to hear what happens, and safe travels and best of luck.
Our final shout out today comes from someone who says
name withheld for fairly obvious reasons, so you know this
(50:57):
will be an interest in work. I'm a big fan
of your show and I've been listening for about a year,
including a dive into your back catalog. Has been fascinated
by conspiracy theories, even if I don't buy into many
of them. At the end of the day, Mulder was
my hero as a kid, and that's part of why
I joined the government as a one eight one one,
otherwise known as a special agent. I had one thing
I wanted to pass along. Finding an unconventional answer for
(51:20):
un or under explained events is a lot of the
fun in the conspiracy thing. But as someone within the government,
I found the biggest mistake you can make is to
treat the government quote unquote as a monolith. It's more
like an ecosystem. It hardly ever acts with one mind
and one purpose. So government cover ups are not impossible,
and they do happen. But the bigger the thing a
government entity tries to cover up, the more government employees
(51:42):
you have to involve. I guess what I'm just trying
to say is it would be hard, as Held to
fake the moon landing at three pm on a Friday.
I'll drop you guys a line if I can ever
find that n ess a intern Um. That's awesome, that's
a that's a great point about the ecosystem. Yeah, I
like the comparison the ecosys, and we've you know, we've
said it before both in our live shows and on
(52:05):
the air and when we're just hanging out. You know,
we couldn't agree more uh name Withheld for fairly obvious reasons.
We we also we also believe that history has shown
us that a lot of nefarious events, especially when perpetrated
by governments, tend to be perpetrated by circles within governments
(52:28):
or factions groups. You know, Like, it's not it's not
everybody in UM, the CIA, or the FBI conspiring to
do a thing. It might just be like, two guys,
it's not a whole police department. It might just be
a couple of people whoa The salary for a full
(52:48):
time eighteen eleven special agent is nice. Wow, I don't
know if more than a past that is a generalization
and this is looking at Central Intelligence Agency. We're talking
like it's like seventy tot. I mean that's pretty nice for,
(53:12):
you know, working for the government. I don't feel like
I know this agent enough well enough to talk to
about their salary. Hey, hey, no worries, We're not gonna
talking about yourself. I just wanted to see, well, hey, Matt,
don't get his black bagged man, don't black pag us. Dude,
I've got some cool again. This ends ours. We hope
(53:34):
you enjoyed this episode. Although it is true that this
legal loophole is real, it looks as if your odds
of getting murdered or otherwise you know, affected by a
crime are are low because again, the crime rate for
this area is is probably statistically zero. However, disappearing in Yellowstone,
(53:55):
as we found out from an episode not long ago,
it happens not frequently but enough. Yeah, it does happen
every year. We can say that. So please write to
us find us. We would be back next week. In
the meantime, you can find us on Instagram, you can
find us on Twitter, you can find us on Facebook
and YouTube. You can if you don't care for all
(54:16):
that brew haha and hullabaloo right to us directly. We
are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,
(00:23):
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan. They called me Ben You are
you that makes this stuff? They don't want you to know?
You guys traveled pretty extensively, right. We've talked about that
past episodes. Not so much currently, but in the past
for sure. I'm what they called a man of the world. Yes, yes,
(00:44):
it's a man of the States, which is different from
being a globalist. We have other episodes on that. Have
you all ever been to Yellowstone? Never? I would really
like to go. In a previous episode, we explored something
called the Yellows Stone. Is it supervolcano? Up? Yeah? Yeah.
You can listen to that episode for full details, folks.
(01:07):
But the gist of it is that there's this gigantic
disaster catastrophe waiting to occur. It's not if it's when
right right, And the problem is when we talk about
time and geological terms, you know, thousands of years are
well within a margin of error, so we don't know. Luckily, um,
(01:27):
if you are listening now, hopefully that means it has
not exploded yet. Well, as we record this, that's the
best thing we can say. It has not exploded yet.
But we have a another adventure that takes place in
the inner part of the United States. Like most countries,
the United States strives to function under the rule of law,
(01:49):
and that means that the most basic level, there's a
code of taboo behavior stuff you're not supposed to do, crimes,
and the public and the government in theory agree that
these behaviors should be prevented, or if we can't prevent them,
they should be punished. And you know, each crime has
a number of possible legal consequences. It could be anything
from like a small citation, like a like a parking ticket,
(02:12):
you know, like Nolan, I go to a Primus concert
and we get a parking ticket and we say, well
that was twenty five extra bucks, but still it was
worth it. We saw Primus, it was just yeah, you
you paid a little extra fee, you're good to go.
Or you know, you could go to a prison for
the rest of your life, right depending on the crime, yes,
(02:33):
or in some cases, you could be executed in this
country at least that's that's how it is on paper. Unfortunately,
and again like in most countries, the real life application
of these codes doesn't always measure up to the noble
intentions of the written legal system, which is tremendously complex. Here,
criminals can get away with all sorts of crimes for
all sorts of reasons. One of the biggest ones is
(02:56):
if some tiny little thing occur is during the investigation
that doesn't follow protocol or isn't a legal operation, you
can invalidate the entire thing, sure, like a certain witnesses
testimony becomes inadmissible or tampering of evidence in a way
that even unintentionally just destroys it. Right because they have
(03:19):
to obey rules. The criminal also might just never be apprehended,
or uh, the criminal might have a huge influence, a rich,
wealthy family with a lot of political pull um, financial
influence that could result in a desirable outcome for that individual,
(03:39):
or a like a much reduced sentence, a lesser charge um.
And then it happens more often than we'd like to think. Right,
And then this is really strange one which I didn't
know much about, this idea of jury nullification, and I
guess it makes sense. We put a lot of power
in uh installing jury members, and they are basically the
ones they get, you know, advised by the judge and
(04:02):
they listened to the arguments of the different size, but
ultimately it is up to them to decide the fate
of this person on trial. And there is this pretty
rare occurrence, uh where they kind of banned together and
decide they don't like a particular law or the way
it's been enacted, and they decide to, I guess, rebel
(04:22):
against that law. Right, yeah, they're ruling what so. So
for example, if um, someone I'm not saying are super
producer Tristan, But if someone was convicted of possessing a drug,
for example, possessing marijuana, and Tristan invoked his right to
a trial by jury, then a jury of his peers, whoosh, whoosh,
(04:45):
a jury his peers would be selected. And these people
do have the right as jury members to practice jury
nullification and say, look, we don't care whether or not
he had it. We think the law govern or making
possession marijuana illegal is itself unsound, so we're going to
(05:06):
like nullify this case. What an odd you know, collection
of circumstances you'd have to have for that to actually work.
You would have to have a relatively randomly selected jury
kind of band together. I guess maybe the foreman or
whatever could get everyone over to their side. And like,
is that how you would pitch it? It seems like
if if there was an understanding that this was a
(05:28):
discussion being had, would raise some eyebrows, right, Like, yeah, well,
that's like you said, it is a rare occurrence because
there are so many things I have to come together,
and the courts appear to really really dislike it is
discussed a lot of the courts. Right, You're recalling a
specific video, right, I'm recalling a specific video. But also
(05:51):
I've seen in other places encouraged to not discuss during
nullification around a courthouse. I mean also, honestly, I would
love to be on a jury, and I think that's
the reason why I never make it through. It feels
like an audition and never make it through. And then really,
(06:12):
if you if you are if you are called to
do your civic duty and you just flat out do
not have time or do you know, not think inclination
or do not want to participate in a trial, which
can drag on for a long time. I'll just tell
them that you are aware of and a huge proponent
of jury nullification and you want to tell everyone about it.
(06:34):
There's actually a couple of interesting cases in the sixth
Circuits basically said that there is quote no such thing
as valid jury nullification, and then in the United States
versus Thomas, the Second Circuit Court ruled that if there
is evidence of this kind of behavior, a juror can
in fact be removed, and that has since kind of
(06:55):
been held up in twe seventeen ninth Circuit cases as well. Uh,
it's it's almost like it's almost like vigilante justice in
a weird way. Yeah, it's it's it's a bureaucratic form
of vigilanty justice kind of. Yeah. That's uh, I mean, okay,
so that is a real thing, um that has occurred
in the past, and it is incredibly rare. It's it's
(07:17):
like in a different, unrelated show, I did a piece
on the so called insanity defense, which is also again
I I don't know about how common it is for
it to be presented as an argument, but it is
extremely uncommon for it to be accepted as an argument.
So experts continue to debate about how often this sort
(07:39):
of stuff actually occurs, how often this jury nullification occur,
how often do criminals just get away get paid, or corruption,
um or technicalities. We we know this occurs, but we
debate about how often it occurs, and the public increasingly
believes that in some cases the system is broken. If
you're lucky enough to live in a country that grants
(08:01):
you Internet access, you can go ahead and check out
something called affluenza A F F l U E n
z A. Honestly, we could do an entire episode on
this vocabulary word that we all started to learn a
couple of years ago. It's yeah, it's a portmanteau of
a combination of two separate words affluence, wealth and influenza
(08:23):
the flu And while we're here, we can go ahead
and describe a couple of examples for you. I guess
we should probably start with Ethan Couch, who was the
person most people learned about affluent through. Yeah. He um,
he killed four people while he was driving a vehicle
(08:45):
while intoxicated and using other drugs. This was in Texas,
and Uh, it didn't go the way you'd think it
would when something like that happens, one of those uh
taboos is broken. Right. So for people were killed in
the collision, total of nine people were injured, two of
them were passengers in couches vehicle, and one of them
(09:07):
was completely paralyzed. So he got four counts of intoxication
manslaughter for recklessly driving under the influence. In two thousand thirteen,
the judge sentenced him not to jail, but to ten
years of probation and ordered him to go to therapy
at a long term impatient facility. And this was after
his attorneys had argued that he had affluenza and he
(09:29):
had rehabilitation instead of prison. The idea is that he's
been so rich for so long, he's never encountered a
lot of the problems and the the issues facing the
common man. So he just doesn't understand what happened, and
there's no need to punish him for this. Right, if
it's it's painting, that painting that so socioeconomic condition as
(09:53):
an affliction, right. The first or primary works on this
defined affluenza as a painful, contained, is socially transmitted condition
of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged
pursuit of more. Wow, So that is an episode that
will probably have I have one more example, but it's
much darker. Oh the DuPont thing, Okay, you're talking about
(10:19):
Richard Robert H. Richards the fourth, Yes a DuPont air.
In two thousand nine, he was tried and convicted for
brutally sexually abusing his children, uh, one of whom was
an infant, and this is not the first time he
(10:42):
did this to one of his children. He was convicted
of rape and he was spared in two thousand nine
by this court in Delaware because according to the judge,
he would not farewell behind bars. So he's ordered eight
years probation and to get treatment register as a sex offender.
To date, he has not gotten treatment. He's just hanging
(11:06):
out in Delaware. Thankfully, he was at least prohibited from
having any kind of contact with children under sixteen, including
his own kids, because Delaware also like a sex offender
haven as well as being a tax haven. I don't know,
I have no I've always been really curiatekiding Delaware people.
But Jesus, it is the case kind of cases make
(11:28):
me so mad that with that case of that swimmer
from UH Stanford that got off, you know, for a girl,
and it was just like, you know, this is the thing.
I can't believe that people can actually, uh say that
because you're wealthy and you had all the opera, the
best opportunities, that you're less equipped to make the right decision.
(11:49):
Isn't that the argument? I kid, I don't understand. It's
kind of like saying, well, I'm such a narcissist, I
should be able to park in the handicap spot. You
know that you think that is a product of society,
right is you're dealing with because you truly believe it.
So this is I mean that I think you guys
are right. I think we should do an episode entirely
(12:11):
on this, and maybe we'll see if we can get
one of the authors of these works to let me
speak with us, so right in, let us know if
you think that's a good idea. We we show this
to illustrate that despite the noble intentions of the legal system,
and despite centuries of diligent effort to clarify and codify
it um, in real life application, terrible things happen, and equally,
(12:36):
if not more importantly, various groups in the US are
disproportionately persecuted rather than protected by this system. Again, and tragically,
this is common in many countries. While it's technically illegal
to discriminate against someone in this regard using their ethnicity, income, religion,
facial hair, clothing, or whatever to single them out for
(12:57):
more extreme punishment or profiling, even the most cursory of examinations,
even the laziest Google search, can show that this happens
every single day in every state, to one degree or another.
But despite all of these serious problems, the US is
full of determined people literally putting their lives on the
line to preserve the rule of law. So as of
(13:20):
the most recent UM solid day that we have is this,
there were one million, seventy six thousand, fifty four full
time UM law enforcement officers working in the US, or
three point four three per every one thousand people. That
includes both sworn and non sworn officers. I've always uh
(13:41):
kind of been a little mystified the distinction. Yeah, it's
funny you mentioned this because the data set included that
distinction when we were checking out checking out the info,
and so we went off air to learn about about
the distinction. And it's pretty interesting. So people who are
(14:02):
sworn professionals carry a firearm, can arrest you, and have
a badge. And so the people who are non sworn
UM don't have at least one of those three powers
or items. So they might be like criminal analysts, crime
scene text crime lab guys like Dexter would be a
(14:25):
non sworn office. That's awesome, that's good to know, UM,
But these folks only operate in certain areas. All of
the law enforcement that we just talked about, they've got
a place where they can be. There are lines drawn
in the sand where I am allowed to function as
a law enforcement office. Jurisdictions, yes, yeah, jurisdictions, and they
(14:46):
can be pretty complex. They can also transcend geography because
there are certain types of cases that one law enforcement
branch would handle rather than another. Or yeah, you might
have federal officers that it fits within the United States territory,
you can be there. Or you might have the Texas Rangers,
which are their own crazy thing, or the Royal Canadian
(15:08):
Mounted Police doesn't really well, I think it could do.
They ride mooses. Moose. Moose is its own plural, right,
I think it's moose. Yeah, they don't know that, I
mean it. That'd be cool if they did well. I
also just very glimpse. This is tangential, but I thought
I thought we would find it interesting. I read about
(15:28):
little known police agencies. Because there's so many, it can
be confusing to someone who's not from the US, and
don't feel too bad, it's confusing to most of us
who live here as well. Um, the Smithsonian has its
own police force. The Supreme Court has its own police force. Uh,
there are a couple of police forces. They're just like
one guy. The Vatican does. The Vatican has. The Vatican
(15:50):
is the only nation that can actually lock its door
at night and they have, Yeah, they have a police force,
they have ambulance team, they have they have all the
things the city would need to function. But they're all,
you know, like Vatican flavor dude. On NBR this morning,
there was a discussion about a county near Savannah, Georgia,
where there's a city council dissolved the I think the
(16:15):
the city's police department of really small department of like
five to seven people, and then we're coming into content
they're making a new contract with the county police rather
than the city police. And it was this big kerfuffle
where the city council literally just said, we're not gonna
have police force anymore. We're just gonna get the county
to do it. And it's interesting how those jurisdictional things
become real fights. And that's all might sound a little snoozeworthy,
(16:38):
but it really is leading up to the topic at hand.
And we're gonna leave you with a question. What happens
when you don't have a jury? What happens when law
enforcement is powerless or there is no law enforcement in
a certain area? Is there a place like that? Is
there any place in the US where it's possible to
legally get away with murder? We'll tell you right after
(17:00):
a word from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy.
Enter the zone of death, the zone of what what?
What are you doing? It's the highway to the zone
(17:20):
of death. I don't want to go there. We couldn't
get the rights. The highway to the dangers. You have
your warning. There we go. So this there's a huge
controversy playing out in the US right now, and it's
it's been playing for a number of years, but it
came to our attention again, um nol you brought it
up off air, and we we're beflummixed. I don't know.
(17:47):
We couldn't believe. I couldn't believe that it was true. Well,
I couldn't believe that we hadn't done an episode on
it before. So this controversy starts years ago in turn
of the millennium nine or so. Uh, Princess Song is
getting more airtime than it ever has before. Perfect Yeah,
(18:07):
And the controversy starts when a fellowe named Dr Brian Coult,
a professor at the Michigan State University of Law, writes
a research paper called the Perfect Crime. In his research,
he discovered a strange loophole in US law, specifically concerning Yellowstone.
It all hinges on two things. Venue that's where a
(18:27):
trial occurs, and visnage or visionage if you're being fancied,
the place from which jurors are drawn. So first things, First, geography.
Yellowstone is comprised of land from three states. The majority
of Yellowstone is in Wyoming, but parts of it are
in Idaho and Montana, as well as a total area
(18:48):
of about three thousand, four hundred and sixty eight point
four square miles, which I did not convert to metric,
but I should have you monster, I know that's just
the beginning. Will I be able to get away with
this r'me of not converting to metric? I see how
your sick mind works. But because Wyoming holds the majority
of the property that comprises Yellowstone for federal purposes, it's
(19:10):
also the law of Yellowstone, so it has jurisdiction over
the entire area of the park. Okay, I get it.
So Wyoming's holding sway even though it's in other states.
That's where we are, right, because when states would join
the Union, they would see uh jurisdiction or control over
running park territory directly to the US, to the fetes.
(19:35):
So imagine, let's say you and a friend went hiking
and Yellowstone and while they are specifically in the fifty
or so miles of the park that are on Idaho land,
you decided to murder somebody who knows who knows why
things happen, Things escalate it. It doesn't matter why you
killed them. I mean, I'm sure it matters to you.
And let's say that instead of covering your tracks, you
(19:55):
and your friends told the police what you had done.
And let's say the police believe you and they find
the body and the murder weapon if there is one,
the whole nine, the whole bank um the like most simple,
straight to the point law and order episode. Ever, during
legal proceedings, you invoked the sixth Amendment and you demand
a trial by jury. The jury is composed of people
(20:17):
from the state where the murder was committed, Idaho, and
from the federal district where it was committed, which would
be the District of Wyoming. WHOA, and this is where
it gets um well well tricky, all right, because invoking
your right to a jury automatically means a jury composed
of people from that state where the murder was committed.
(20:39):
So like if if um, like nol Mett, if you
guys get together and go camping, you kill somebody, and
you're in Idaho, then the jury has to come from Idaho. Uh,
and it has to come from the federal district where
it was committed. Normally this would not be a problem,
but the District of Wyoming, sin says, per view overall
(21:01):
of Yellowstone, even the parts of Montana or Idaho complicates things.
You have a right to a jury composed entirely people
living only in both the Idaho and the District of
Wyoming overlap, that is, people living in the Idaho part
of Yellowstone. Are there any people that live in the
Ohio part of Yellowstone? According to the two thousand census,
(21:22):
they are not not one, And bears cannot legally bears
cannot legally judge you in court yet cheez. So okay,
this is fascinating. So then in theory, a jury couldn't
be formed and the Uncle Sam would essentially be like, curses, no, curses, Matt,
(21:45):
you outwitted me again, But I'll get you one day. No,
I said, no. It seems like there would have to
be some kind of work around where you're like, where
you can't do a trial by jury. Oh, that is
so crazy. Yeah, for you nuts, it sounds ridiculous. It
sounds too simple to be true, but it is. And
(22:07):
for for his part, doctor Dr Colt actually wrote to
the Department of Justice, the U S. Attorney for Wyoming,
the House and Senate uh A told him about the
loophole a year before he published this. He was hoping
that they would close this loophole before the paper went out,
so the perfect murder doesn't actually happen. It was on
(22:28):
the off chance that the article might drive people to
commit crimes in Yellowstone because you know, this would be
any crime, any taboo behavior. This could be stamp fraud.
I don't know how that would I don't know how
that would work. Well, that's the thing. I got to
move on from the stamp fraud. Dude, I'm not you know,
I don't know if I can. I'll get there. It's
one day at the time, So imagining you could set
(22:50):
up a criminal enterprise there in that fifty miles, but
you still got park rangers who are going to stop
you from doing it. If they're gonna be like you quit,
you quit that, well, yeah, and they'll they can still
arrest you on it. You'll have to go through the
whole rigamarole of getting to you know, the all the
hearings in the beginning, and then request your trial and
do all that. Not if you run fast, Okay, tame
(23:12):
a couple of bears, get him to fight on your side, dude,
forest like King pen with bears for like heavies, you
know what I mean. And then Ravens for information. And
Ravens could actually oh man, okay, that's a different episode.
But Ravens are amazing and and yeah, I know this
(23:32):
this obviously seems like a very small, nitpicky thing in
some ways. But here's what happened. He got a reply
the U. S. Attorney did right back to him. The U. S.
Attorney says, it's not my power to change the law.
And then he got another one from the House Judiciary Committee,
but it was from an intern. In the letter was
I don't know, thank you for your time, thanks for
writing to us. Otherwise he was ignored. So the number
(23:53):
one question out there for the episode today is could
you really do it? Could you really go to this
fifty mile lawless area or consequence free area, commit a
crime and then get away free? I mean, technically yes, right,
(24:14):
but probably no. Right. The loophole is still not fixed
as we record this. In a follow up article from
two thousand and eight called Tabloid Constitutionalism, How a Bill
Doesn't become a law Doctor called explores the various possible
fixes to the problem, as well as a consistent federal inaction.
When presented with the loophole that is so crazy that
(24:35):
he wrote to everybody, and everybody just shut him down. Well,
I think it's also a it's a legal loophole. It's
not as if people are consistently dying. Uh, yes, so
far as we know, right, or if there's consistent poaching.
But it did come close to being resolved during an
illegal elk hunting incident in the Montana section of the park.
(24:59):
This happened in two thousand and five. Hunter named Michael
Beldraine killed an elk and then his trial went went
up in two thousand and seven, and he used Count's
original article The Perfect Crime as part of the argument,
so it could have been resolved ultimately the defendant, though
(25:20):
he struck a plea deal, and the circumstances the plea
deal pretty weird, right, Yeah, They forbade him from bringing
up the issue anymore, like, don't talk about this and
don't use it in your defense. Let's take let's look,
let's exchange the money here, We're we're all done. So
they were like, we don't want people to know about this.
(25:41):
They were like, we're not talking about this. That's what
they did. They put their hands over their ears. La
la la la um pay for the elk can get
out of here. What does it take to fix a
loophole like this? So that's a great question, um, Because first,
at first I would say, um, obviously the court. You're not.
(26:02):
They're not exactly jumping or champing at the bit to
get this done. Um Colt feels like there are some
pretty easy solutions, and we'll get to those. But first
I do want to say, I think our our immediate
answer for everybody in the audience is just be very cautious,
be aware. If someone you don't particularly get on with
(26:26):
invite you to go camping in Yellowstone, at least ask
them where you're going in Yellows and get the coordinates. Yeah,
they make sure you have a GPS that's always in
your possession to know if you step on that land,
drop a pen, help a pen, just like missing four
one one. Also, anytime you go out in the woods,
let somebody who's back in civilization know when you're supposed
(26:47):
to be back and when you step on Idaho land
within Yellowstone. And we will answer Noel's excellent question after
a word from our sponsor, m So. Dr Colt worked
assiduously to bring this issue to the public eye, as
(27:09):
we said, and to the attention and policymakers. It seems
that officials are aware of the loophole, but they were
either in some cases to answer your question or they
were either under the impression that was effectively solved or
that they, specifically in their position, were not the person
to solve it. So one one group or one senator
(27:31):
rather wrote back and was under the impression that dual
jurisdiction existed in Yellowstone or that members of nearby areas
could fill in as as members of the jury. I
can imagine that being the viewpoint instead of seeing as
nobody has jurisdiction, both states have jurisdiction, so you just
(27:51):
kind of decide once when something happens, could the court
interpret it that way? Is this open for interpretation or
is it so cific that like this case would actually
lead to an issue like this. It's pretty explicit, which
is why the court said no. Just look, we can
agree that you shouldn't have shot an elk, but we
(28:12):
don't need to We don't need to put the rule
of law and danger in Yeah, exactly. Um. Yes, So
things did turn around a little bit after the publication
of a fictional book, a novel called Free Fire by
a fellow named CJ. Box in two thousand seven. Turns
(28:32):
out there was a senator from Wyoming who was a
fan of C. J. Box and read the book and thought,
hang on, I hang on a yeah, and uh so.
Senator Mike Enzi got involved almost entirely at first because
he was a fan of c J. Box, and he
(28:53):
asked the Department of Justice to look into the issue.
They did, and they concluded that no fix was needed.
That's what I'm saying, Like, couldn't this be open for
interpretation where you could, like, you know, like it's it's
so obvious, like you know, this is like obviously like
a mistake. I don't know, I mean I think I would,
I would be of the same opinion. Their response was
(29:15):
that trying someone in the wrong state or in the
wrong district of um is essentially a and this is
their phrase, harmless error. She's uh so, both Dr Carlton
Center and he thought this was incorrect. Uh They believe
that the error in question is a violation of someone's
sixth Amendment right to a trial in the state and
(29:35):
district where the crime occurred, so it could hardly be
judged harmless. Completely agree you're violating someone's constitutional rights. I mean,
I don't know if you really are, though, because it's
still a right to a trial by a jury. I
doesn't say, like a trial in a certain I mean,
that's in the way, I guess. Besides, in the place
(29:56):
where that's the thing is pretty explicit. Both the stuff
declaring the jurisdiction of Yellowstone and the stuff declaring how
a trial should be conducted are pretty explicit in the
in the legal ease. So maybe the best way to
do this is to look at a chronological example. So
let's say, um, Matt will pick on you. Let's say
(30:17):
you commit a crime and Yellowstone. All right, First off,
it doesn't matter what crime you committed, but you know,
since it to you, what crime did you commit? I
harvested some wild growing poppies and I tried to set
up a very small heroine. Okay, so possession with intent
(30:39):
to distribute. Yeah yeah, I mean you know, I didn't
think anyone would notice. Okay, well, all right, Unfortunately, in
this thing, so Matt, Matt harvest and attempts to harvest
poppies and attempts to create drugs from attempts to create heroine.
I am at now and so and it is unfortunately.
So let's say he doesn't get away with it, he's apprehended,
(31:00):
he's caught, They have the stuff, they know he did
it he is going to trial or and or he's
going to court. And at this point if he if
you did not invoke your right to a trial by jury,
then this loophole would not really matter. I've lawyered up,
so I think we're going to go to trial. So
(31:21):
you've lawyered up and you're going to trial. You've invoked
your six Amendment rights. So here's where the tricky part happens,
because the next step is that because all of Yellowstone
is under the federal District of Wyoming, UH, it will
be that will set the venue for the venue for
(31:43):
the crime. The venue for the hearing will be in
that court that court district. But because of visnage, because
the jury must come from the area where it occurred,
it has to come from the part of Idaho that
is inside of yellow Stone where no one lives. So
(32:06):
the next step is they can't find a jury. They
can't legally find a jury because you are not just
promised the trial by jury of your peers. They're also
they have to be from where the crime was committed.
So that is the loophole doctor Celts talking about makes sense,
and it looks like I'm getting off scott free. Sons well, right,
(32:31):
because like all we have. As an example is this
Elk case where they basically made a deal with the
guy to shut him up so he wouldn't invoke this
weird right, but that right pretty much to be fair,
so many cases nowadays are just settled and rather than
(32:52):
going through the lengthy process of having it a huge trial.
I mean, it just it happens so frequently now they
to surprise me. Well, A big part of being able
to afford getting sued, if you're like wealthy enough that
you get sued often or sue others, is to have
the money just to go through the process. But I
mean it's you don't automatically just like get you know, reimbursed.
(33:14):
That you have to like invest time and money into
the whole thing before you may or may not win.
And then if you don't win, you're penalized and you're
also out however much money you put into the case.
And sometimes judges will have harsher sentences if somebody does
invoke right to a trial, by you're wasting everyone's time,
right exactly. Um, And you know, public defenders are legally
(33:38):
granted to people who cannot afford their own defenders, but
those poor folks are under water. You know those Yellowstone
public defenders. Well, I don't know about that. If you're
Yellowstone public defender, please write to us. Absolutely. But um.
The Department of Justice raised another more salient point um,
as cult summarized in his paper quote, splitting Yellowstone into
(34:02):
the district courts for Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana would also
split it between the ninth and tenth circuits. Senator Enz
and others were wary of this because it would create
a new and unwelcome burden if environmentalists could use this
foothold to challenge the park services management decisions in the
liberal and quirky Ninth Circuit. You yeah, you hear about
(34:26):
the ninth circuit. Actually, wasn't the ninth circuit the one
that's the suit over the travel ban? Oh? Was it?
I think? So? Okay, yeah, liberal and quirky, And I
think opponents of this action cite the fact that a
lot of their uh, their their cases get um dismissed,
but that there there's a little more to it than that. Um.
(34:47):
But it's interesting for them to dis blatantly classify them
as the liberal and quirky Ninth Circuits, Like the Ninth
circuit is a sitcom on Central like like a clown car.
I'm looking at some of cases of interest. Here, you've
got Hawaii versus Trump. Two of those, um, state of
Hawaii versus Trump, Uber cases consolidated appeals with Uber. Let's
(35:11):
see not a lot of other really interesting ones, but
just it feels a bit strange. So other government officials
are concerned then that what they see as extreme environmentalist
or environmentally concerned organizations would use this as an opportunity
(35:33):
to advance their agendas. Okay, so now there's another problem
that just swoops in at the last minute to make
things even more complicated. However, here is the closest thing
we find to an answer to this question, Um, could
we fix this? And how how easy or tough is
it to fix? Uh? Dr Kut believes that there's nothing
(35:56):
stopping the US from just designating the tenth Circuit as
the proper venue for all of these cases. Just say
that's it. When fell swoop happens the Yellowstone Tense circuit, boom, done, dismissed.
I feel like that's a pretty good that's a good answer.
Stay tuned for this season premiere ninth Circuit at eight thirty.
What's the counter argument though, but that uh the counterargument
(36:19):
at this point is uh no, the counter arguments this
is definitely this is thanks for Yeah, yeah, exactly. So
that is where we are at right now. You want
to try it before they fix it, should we? Yeah?
I don't want to do a violent crime, no no, no, no, no,
(36:39):
just a blue law or something. I bet there are
blue laws of one. Such a sweet boy. I thought
he went from growing heroin poppies to breaking a blue law. Look,
I'm you're gonna drink a zima on the Sabbath. The
only reason why I've got the whole poppy thing is
that it's about money laundering and don't worry about it.
(37:00):
It's fine. Okay. I do have an update though that
um you you all may enjoy um. Dr Accollett has
not just researched this. He is also currently making the
rounds on another political loophole that recently came up. Can
we guess? Yeah? I got nothing all right, Uh, it's
(37:23):
the interesting one. Oh, I know what it is, alright.
You can can a dog be a mayor. A dog
can be a mayor in the US. Actually, that's I'm
so glad you brought that up. We didn't include that. Um,
there's a town called Cormorant, Minnesota. Wherefore, three three consecutive terms,
(37:44):
a dog named Duke has been elected mayor. The mayor
the dog to two times unanimously, I believe, and the
third his third run. Uh, there was one vote for
his girlfriend, who was named Lassie. The township has one thousand,
thirty nine people. Just so everybody knows if you if
you are that many people, you can be ruled by
(38:05):
a dog. That dog is running it. This dog in
this photo and looking at its just like lounging on
a big white sofa with a tiny hat that says mayor. Yep,
it's a true story. It's a true story. I let's
get to the loophole. What's the big one? All right?
Can a federal official pardon that? Was? That was the
(38:25):
one that was like? That was I was trying to
come up with gout it, and I was like, there's
definitely been a loophole in the news lately. What is
the answer. I'm gonna say, Hell no, I would say
that too well, but it's still not it's not clear.
It's never happened. It's not it's never happened, and it's
not explicitly forbidden. So the in the constitution, right, well,
(38:47):
like the in any statutes. Yeah, the legally, the president
or commander in chief has the power to pardon. But
it doesn't. It doesn't say, you know, you cannot pardon yourself,
you cannot pardon certain people for certain crimes or something
like that. It doesn't even say you can only pardon
real people. It's completely I mean, that's why every year
(39:11):
the president pardons of Turkey. Thank ye. So but I
I heard an argument on NPR is some legal um
scholar saying that inherently the act of pardoning is meant
to bestow mercy on another and that like the very
nature of it is not self reflective or whatever. And
(39:33):
there's yeah, that's a great point. There's another point there too,
where a pardon, I'll pardon is acknowledging that a crime occurred.
A pardon is in some way an acknowledgement of guilt.
I think so too. But in the same segment, the
guy was mentioning, I wish you could remember his name. Uh,
that the pardon itself implies, no, you did nothing wrong,
(39:58):
even if you did a murder or something. The pardon.
The act of being pardoned is literally absolving you to
the point where it like it never happened, So it
does not necessarily require an admission of guilt. Like you're
totally right, Ben, But this is something that was like
this is odd like that is you know, it's literally
like a godlike power from on high to wipe away
(40:19):
your sins, you know, like that's it's pretty intense to
get out of jail free card. So Dr coult Is
has been making the rounds talking about this, and one
of the things that he says is, if I were
a judge hearing the case, I wouldn't let somebody pardon themselves,
you know. Can I get him on the show? Do
(40:40):
you think let's see, let's let's reach out to it.
Wouldn't that be a cool episode? Yeah, So let's see
because we could we could certainly use his help examining
the nature of a pardon, you know. Uh, And we'd
like your help as well, not just with this episode.
Do let us know what your thoughts are. Do let
(41:00):
us know if you've been to Yellowstone, if you have
accidentally found yourself in the zone of death, which you know,
I'm sure it's a very peaceful place. You know, I'm
sure it's not a bunch of people trying to make
Moonshine stills the locale yellow Stone Zone death. I remember
that from Perks and Rack, the local cal Zone zone. Hey,
(41:23):
you guys, guess what what's that? Man? I got Brian's
contact info right here, So I'm gonna I'm gonna make
a call. I'm for real serious, definitely now we should
do that. I was just quiet. I thought you were
going to do it on air, and I wasna Brian.
I was gonna say, maybe the best way to do
it is not to prank call him now, all right? So, uh,
(41:43):
speaking of our listeners, it's time for chat corner. Our
first shout out today comes from Uh, we'll call you
christ for Christopher. Is that okay? That's fine in Canada? Uh,
says hi, guys, old dude in Canada. I like to
listen to your show. I appreciate that you introduced at
least some critical analysis to the subjects you cover. However,
(42:06):
you never really talk about the truly fatal flaw in
the reasoning behind so many of the topics. Taking a
task here a little bit and I like it. It's
all positive bias, and we talk about this for sure,
but this is this guy really does a good job
of laying this out the entertaining. Mr Pilates uses similarities
among events to imply that they are related. That is
(42:26):
not how science works. Science would try to disprove the
events are related. If that failed, then maybe you could
say you're onto something. He suggests the deaths he studies
are similar as they have quote no known cause of death. Dudes,
think about that logic for a few minutes. I don't
know if Mr Polarates books offer any real statistical analysis
(42:47):
of his claims. However, everything he said on your podcast
sounded like patterns based on positive bias and post hawk reasoning.
If you draw the target after you shoot the arrow,
you'll hit the bull's eye every time. Cheers Chris Well. Chris,
I really appreciate the idea. I've heard the painting the
target analogy or comparison before, and I think it's a
(43:10):
very powerful one and it's meaningful. We talked about that
a little bit on them in that kind of a
little postmortem at the end we recorded later. H this
was a big issue you had. Even before we did
the interview. You were talking about how it felt like
a very well researched collection of cases with only kind
(43:32):
of tangential connections and and I don't know right well
the thing is in that regard, especially UM, David Pelates
is very very clear that he is looking for he
says it, I believe in the interview that he is
looking for cases that have the following criteria right on,
(43:54):
and by his own admission, not every disappearance is going
to match this case. So I really appreciate your letter, Chris,
and I hope that everybody else um can hold that
in We should all hold this in our minds. The
idea of painting the target after after slinging the arrow,
(44:16):
come up within an hypothesis first and then test it, right,
isn't that just basic confirmation biased too, where you kind
of like expect the result and then see it everywhere
kind of yeah, Like it's like the old Louis c.
K joke where he says, you know, if you don't
like somebody, if you if you think they're a jerk,
(44:38):
and you you just already decided that, then everything they
do is just going to be further evidence to you
that they're a jerk. You'll be like, look, at this
monster chewing what is that spearmint? Gum? I knew it.
You can easily test that one out by just observing
someone in a vehicle while you're driving, somebody else that
you happen to be next to for a while. If
(44:58):
you if you are if you believe they're a jerk
for some reason or another because of maybe the car
they drive or the way they look, you're gonna see that.
But if you're just like, it's just another person driving
what's that car, Ben that that haunts you? Honda Hodyssey?
So like Bency's a guy driving a Honda Odyssey, he
immediately knows this man is a piece of human garbage.
(45:19):
Could be a lovely man, family man, but you know
exactly getting I yeah, I do have a you can
hear about that on our car show. I have a longstanding,
unfortunate and uh entirely not my fault, antagonistic relationship with
Honda Odyssey's putting aside any of my personal complications some vehicles.
(45:45):
I do think that, Chris, I think your point remains,
so we appreciate you taking the time to write in.
I gotta bring up Porsche SUVs two. I mean, come on,
what about him, I don't have a Porsche drive a Porschet.
I mean, that's just how I feel. I think so do.
It's it's absurd to me, but anyway, it's true. I
(46:07):
mean also, I'm of of the mind after after years
of various auto related adventures and misadventures, I'm in the
mind that you know. Ultimately it's it's your money. It's true.
If you want to get a car that I think
is a pos, then that's your very expensive, bad decision.
It's my right just as equally to judge the crap
(46:31):
out of you. That's true. Yes, all right. Freedom of
speeches not mean freedom from consequence. Who's next? Our next
message comes from Mr A. That's what we're calling him.
It's an alias. Let's get in thought here, he writes,
(46:53):
Mr A. Let me tell you I love your podcast,
a very video series. That being said, your episode, the
panel gland a third eye struck close to them with me.
I recently tried d m T and I know it's illegal,
but don't tell on me, Okay, we won't. My input
on your episode would be that I've experienced a very
similar vision on a higher power that people who have
done d MT say they've seen, and I'm one of
(47:15):
those that need to see to believe types and I
can without a doubt say that either d m T
is one hell of a drug or that it does
really show us something beyond our normal comprehension. One final thing.
I know you most likely won't read this on air. Oops,
you give us too much credits, So I'm adding one
(47:35):
final thing. A close friend of mine introduced me to
the Bohemian Grove and it has compelled us for years,
so much so that we're planning on investigating what goes
on there on a deeper level than what has already
been seen. We already have a plan to get us
in and hopefully we can send info to you guys,
and maybe you guys get the word out. Well, remember
(47:56):
that article and I was vice or something where somebody
worked as a cook or a waiter, like serving. It
was about milkshakes. It was something like Dick Cheney's like
to drink milkshakes or something. But forever people that don't
know about him and grow is like a weird elitist
social summer camp in northern California, right, And you know
(48:20):
it's said to be a place where big deals happened
because it's like, you know, hob nobbery with the super
super rich influencers, multi millionaires and entrepreneurs, politicians the highest order,
and they're basically just I guess, getting faded and drinking
milkshakes and urinating in public. There's the one thing that
(48:43):
is the most controversial about it is a ceremony they
have called the Cremation of Care, wherein they sacrifice or
they burn a mock effigy in front of this huge
owl statue. Did we talk about the House of Cars
this season already? Did you guys watch that spoiler? Everyone? Okay,
(49:05):
so there's a scene that is essentially Bohemian Grove where
he visits that episode, they change the symbology just enough.
But if you know what Bohemian Grove is, and you
know the owl and all the did they change the
animals like a momo set, you know the what's the
what's the saying about the spiders, weaving spiders, what tangled webs?
We believe when first we practice tugency, but it's but
(49:27):
it's something on a plaque that says weaving spiders not
here or something like oh yeah, oh the that's the
real um, that's the real quotation, but they use one
that's very very similar in the show. Okay, well, thank
you for writing to us. Mr A. Well, we sure
appreciate it, and we are we have a severe no
snitching policy, so we're not going to tell on you.
(49:50):
I think that's what Mr Avery for the d M
T or the infiltration of Bohemian But for sure, send
us anything and everything body cam please dude, send us
a drive and be and be safe. You know, the
best thing is like they can kick you off of
the property, but as long as you are not violating
a law, you should be okay, and invest in those
(50:14):
pin cameras that you can get there, the little button cameras,
you'll be good to go. And if they if they
do catch you and they begin to kick you off,
first off, bring a phone you don't mind using, and
please go live on Facebook or something. And if a
bunch of men in black robes scoop you up in
the middle of the night and take you to a
room and tie you to a chair night night, we'll
(50:37):
just remember us and um, yeah, we'll be thinking about
you and none of this constitute's actual advice. That's right
as you will. But yeah, i'd love to I'd love
to hear what happens, and safe travels and best of luck.
Our final shout out today comes from someone who says
name withheld for fairly obvious reasons, so you know this
(50:57):
will be an interest in work. I'm a big fan
of your show and I've been listening for about a year,
including a dive into your back catalog. Has been fascinated
by conspiracy theories, even if I don't buy into many
of them. At the end of the day, Mulder was
my hero as a kid, and that's part of why
I joined the government as a one eight one one,
otherwise known as a special agent. I had one thing
I wanted to pass along. Finding an unconventional answer for
(51:20):
un or under explained events is a lot of the
fun in the conspiracy thing. But as someone within the government,
I found the biggest mistake you can make is to
treat the government quote unquote as a monolith. It's more
like an ecosystem. It hardly ever acts with one mind
and one purpose. So government cover ups are not impossible,
and they do happen. But the bigger the thing a
government entity tries to cover up, the more government employees
(51:42):
you have to involve. I guess what I'm just trying
to say is it would be hard, as Held to
fake the moon landing at three pm on a Friday.
I'll drop you guys a line if I can ever
find that n ess a intern Um. That's awesome, that's
a that's a great point about the ecosystem. Yeah, I
like the comparison the ecosys, and we've you know, we've
said it before both in our live shows and on
(52:05):
the air and when we're just hanging out. You know,
we couldn't agree more uh name Withheld for fairly obvious reasons.
We we also we also believe that history has shown
us that a lot of nefarious events, especially when perpetrated
by governments, tend to be perpetrated by circles within governments
(52:28):
or factions groups. You know, Like, it's not it's not
everybody in UM, the CIA, or the FBI conspiring to
do a thing. It might just be like, two guys,
it's not a whole police department. It might just be
a couple of people whoa The salary for a full
(52:48):
time eighteen eleven special agent is nice. Wow, I don't
know if more than a past that is a generalization
and this is looking at Central Intelligence Agency. We're talking
like it's like seventy tot. I mean that's pretty nice for,
(53:12):
you know, working for the government. I don't feel like
I know this agent enough well enough to talk to
about their salary. Hey, hey, no worries, We're not gonna
talking about yourself. I just wanted to see, well, hey, Matt,
don't get his black bagged man, don't black pag us. Dude,
I've got some cool again. This ends ours. We hope
(53:34):
you enjoyed this episode. Although it is true that this
legal loophole is real, it looks as if your odds
of getting murdered or otherwise you know, affected by a
crime are are low because again, the crime rate for
this area is is probably statistically zero. However, disappearing in Yellowstone,
(53:55):
as we found out from an episode not long ago,
it happens not frequently but enough. Yeah, it does happen
every year. We can say that. So please write to
us find us. We would be back next week. In
the meantime, you can find us on Instagram, you can
find us on Twitter, you can find us on Facebook
and YouTube. You can if you don't care for all
(54:16):
that brew haha and hullabaloo right to us directly. We
are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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