Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
Dec. 5, 2021
This is one of the more bizarre episodes of Bizarro World. Markets are in flux with a strengthening dollar and middlie bond yields. Volatility is elevated. The market winds are changing. Outside the markets, it's also as bizarre as ever. In Michigan, a mom joked with her son about buying ammo at school... a day before he murdered four peole there. A trial is happening that involves accusations of sexual assault of undergage girls by some of the world's most powerful men... and the trial isn't public with scant media coverage. In Wisconsin, a failure of the criminal justice system led to a madman murdering six people with his car and injuring 60 others. They're understaffed and underfunded. Yet law enforcement was able to spend over $500 million on informants who were allowed to conduct "authorized crimes" in the communities you live. Meanwhile, Mr. Joel Osteen is paying no tax on millions he rakes in every month, some of which was found hidden in the walls of his church after he reported it stolen and was reimbursed by insurance. But try sheltering in his house of God during a storm.
0:00 Market Winds Changing: Inflation, Dollar, Volatility, Stocks, Oil, Cryptos
13:25 Cryptos: Buy the Dip, Evidence of Mass Adoption
18:10 How Institions Earn Their Mistrust
18:50 The Media: CNN and The Brothers Cuomo
19:47 Education & Parenting: Michigan School Shooting
30:25 Criminal Justice: Waukesha Parade Rampage
41:20 Law Enforcement & Justice: Government Spends $500 Million on Informants Who Commit Crimes
48:20 Justice & Media: Ghislaine Maxwell Trial
53:22 Religion & Taxes: Joel Osteen's $600,000 Toilet Money
Gerardo Del Real: The seasons are changing. There is a sector rotation going on. Inflation, deflation, commodities, cryptos, bonds, a lot to get into. We're going to talk to Michigan school shooting. We're going to talk Joel Osteen and his money walls. A lot to get to. We'll talk about career informants. You can make a living as a rat everybody. I am Gerardo Del Real along with my co-host Mr. Nick Hodge. This is episode 146 of Bizarro World. Mr. Hodge, how are you sir?
Nick Hodge: Rat ass rats, man. And Osteen is one of them. We'll get to it. This is going to be a good episode. Truly a Bizarro World episode. When I was reading through some of the material about the things we're going to talk about today, it was just like, "Holy fucking shit, man." Anyway, I'm doing great. I'm back off vacation. I'm harnessing the new winds that are in the air, and yeah. How are you?
Gerardo Del Real: I'm well. I'm excited for the sector rotation. I'm excited for the volatility. I think by now anybody that knows me knows I run a little bit hyper and I'm wired to embrace the volatility. I like, if we're talking basketball terms, the fourth quarter, if we're talking boxing, I like when that first punch is thrown. So I am loving the opportunities out there. I'm excited for it. Let's talk about it. Let's get right into it.
This new COVID variant is the narrative based theme that is getting thrown around on the major networks, right? The Bloomberg, the CNBCs, the people that tend to have a large audience and following. It was interesting to me that despite a really volatile week, the major US indices, they ticked back up. I mean, at least the Dow did. We had the S&P down less than a percent. The NASDAQ was the one that guy hit the hard, is down almost 2%. But I think it's a bu-the-dip moment. I am curious to hear your take on volatility and interest rates, because I know you watch that like a hawk, Nick.
Nick Hodge: It's in flux. And so last week we were talking, I was not entirely having my eye on the market. I told you I was buying the dip. And I mentioned a few things that was buying, oil, uranium, we might have mentioned the cannabis a little bit. And so this week I had a better chance to digest. And we had a couple of more down days this week. So I was able to look more broadly at all the things. And what I see is exactly what you said, is new winds that are coming in. I'm not sure exactly, ultimately which direction those winds are going to take everything. So, I tried to break it down yesterday in the weekly letter and Family Office Advantage. And I'll probably just take that same tact here if that's okay.
I mean, the dollar is getting stronger, which it hasn't been able to do for over a year. And say what you want about that 94 level on the DXY, it's now been breached officially. I mean, you can't say that any other way. And so it's run almost all the way to 97 in fact. So, dollar's getting stronger, which initially is what tells you why commodities are weaker, right? If dollar goes up, commodities typically go down. And so you see that softness in oil, but also in some of the metals as well. And so you start looking at volatility and you see that it's not the end of the world for the VIX, right? For the S&P, for stocks. Stocks can go higher. I mean, the VIX is elevated, but it's not the highest it's been all year. It's not the highest it's been in a year. And it doesn't look like it wants to keep going higher. But sorry, it's a long answer because there's a lot going on. Volatility for specific things, especially oil, is through the roof man.
Gerardo Del Real: Yep.
Nick Hodge: Oil, which was going up very fast and which I've had people in for over a year now, in energy funds and also in drillers funds, is now looking very choppy and so volatile that it's difficult to discern which direction it's going to go next. And so what else? You asked about yields too. So here's what's very interesting to me. It's again Bizarro World, right? Because for a year, you and I are banging our heads against the wall and other people too, of course.
Gerardo Del Real: Yep.
Nick Hodge: About this transitory thing, right? And Jerome, and even going back to the Trump administration and certainly the Biden administration had taken out the oil and the gas and the things that people need to live their daily lives from the inflation equation, calling it transitory, calling it whatever, persistently transitory, it's not going to last, pointing to things that were going down. When lumber prices started to pull back, as evidence that inflation wasn't going to last. Meanwhile, commodity prices from many things were going through the roof, hitting 10 year highs, copper, coffee, coco, all sorts of stuff, right? The inflation was apparent. And recently, it's become so apparent that it's made every headline, and even Jerome had to come out and say lets retire the word transitory.
But what's interesting, as herd behavior often is, is that yields can't go... can't is the right word. They haven't gone higher. They stopped going higher almost back in April and May and have just been middling since. And for that time, it was the US 10 year yield, sorry I know it's a long answer, that was-
Gerardo Del Real: This is what I wanted. This is why I asked the question.
Nick Hodge: ... showing that inflation, right? When yields just completely tripled basically from 0.6 to almost 1.8. And now you got inflation in every headline that inflation is trickled down to the items that people have to buy, right? Has made its way through to the items that are on the shelves, which may persist. But that's different than the main inputs going up. I hope that distinction is clear.
Gerardo Del Real: Yes.
Nick Hodge: So, you can have high prices while the inflation is not necessarily in the market forces. I hope I'm saying that, right? And so, anyway, all that to say that it's just very interesting to me that inflation ran hot and non-transitory for over a year. The Fed and both administrations denied it. And now when it looks like it might be softening at least from a yield and a commodity price perspective, certainly in the case of oil, now everyone is on the inflation bandwagon. And so, anyway, this is where I say what happens next is above my pay grade. But it seems that stocks could be okay and it could be a breather for commodities. I'm not sure how long that lasts. But other than that, I'm not sure what else to tell you. I've been buying, well, some of the things I was writing about in the letter. I've been buying crypto related things, funds, I bought some Coinbase today. I'm starting to give you a word salad now, so I'll shut up. But I don't know if that answered your question at all.
Gerardo Del Real: It answered it beautifully. At the end of the day, if you're trading and speculating in any space, you either have to pay attention or pay people to pay attention for you. There is definitely a rotation happening, and there is still a ton of opportunity in that market. Gold could pull back another hundred bucks or it could go back up a hundred dollars. There's opportunities there. Same for copper, same for lithium, same for uranium. I am loving the pullback in the uranium space. It's 10% to 15% away from me adding a couple of more positions to both my personal portfolio and to the paid services because we're finally getting a pretty healthy pullback to levels that are almost to my liking, right? After that initial leg higher. Thoughts on the uranium side of things?
Nick Hodge: I think that uranium is coming into its own on the media and call it public perception side of things, right? So you had studies out last month showing that nuclear had to be a major part of the mix, which obviously you and I know, if we're going to hit our climate goals, you've got-
Gerardo Del Real: As Paul would say, no shit, Sherlock.
Nick Hodge: Right. Small modular reactors gaining traction, first ones being built. Fusion announcements. Sprott having more money with the physical fund to continue buying. And still catalysts ahead, right? We've heard nothing from the utilities. China's still building reactors. And so, no, I'm with you. I've been trading around positions. I think I was telling you I bought some Dennison Mines (NYSE: DNN). I'm not sure if I talked about it on the podcast the other week or not. So yeah, I mean, the pullback is wonderful as is the pullback in cryptos for sure. And yeah, now I'm looking for things to buy.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, the pullback in cryptos, and we touched on it a bit last week, is so timely, right? We're waiting on one exchange, one platform to give us the final okay on being able to get that $50,000 and putting it to work. And so this pullback could have been more timely for Mr. Chris Curl, as he comes in and launches his service here within the next week or two. I'm excited for that. You mentioned Denison. Another company that was mentioned by me last week was Patriot Battery Metals (CSE: PMET)(OTC: RGDCF). I told you that I was expecting results any day. They were actually overdue, which typically when that happens, it's usually not good, right? People don't usually hold on to results if they're not good. In this case, it was the exact opposite. The delay was due to the fact that the assay lab had to go back and re-assay just to make sure that they were getting the grades correct because of the numbers that Patriot was able to put out.
Bottom line, they drilled 0.93% lithium oxide over 146.8 meters. It starts from surface. This is from pegmatite five. There's seven that outcrop. There's probably 20 on the property. This is a legitimate discovery. I'll go ahead and put that out there early. And at current levels, yes it's run up a little bit from the recent lows in the twenties. It's now in the forties. This thing is going a lot higher. I can't think of a better time to make a lithium discovery in this part of the world, right? In Canada, in Quebec. And with Tesla moving up there soon and everything just lighting up in the lithium space, I think this is going to be an exciting play to watch and keep an eye on.
Nick Hodge: Yeah, it's a hot new one for sure. I've read over the press release. It seems legitimate definitely. And is analogous to some other projects that we've been involved with that are quality deposits that are going to be mines. And yeah, this green metals thing is going to keep going. So congrats to Patriot Battery Metals, and look forward to more drilling there, right?
Gerardo Del Real: No, and you look congrats to subscribers on your end as well, because the analog of course is Critical Elements Lithium (TSX-V: CRE)(OTC: CRECF), right? And so, that project much more advanced, permitted. This is an exciting new discovery, but it's got quite a bit of drilling in order to outline what's actually there. I think the potential for 30 to 50 million tons, I think that's a gamy. I think there's triple digit potential here with Patriot, but with Critical Elements. You took that from... Where did you help finance it?
Nick Hodge: It was 29 cents. Yeah.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. What is that?
Nick Hodge: It pulled back a little bit, but it was up around $2 not too long ago. And it pulled back to around 160. They just closed the big financing. So, $30 million, which is a decent amount of money. And that just closed, so I suspect it gets back to its old ways of moving higher, especially as it gets closer to final permitting and just moving the project forward to what's next, construction decision. So anyway, yeah.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. Free podcast. Absolutely.
Nick Hodge: 29 cents to two bucks.
Gerardo Del Real: Y'all are going to get your money's worth on this one. So just for some context to everyone to give you an idea on the potential here with Patriot and critical elements. Critical elements has a market cap, Nick, of what? Roughly C$300 million plus, a little bit over, Canadian?
Nick Hodge: It's precisely C$300 million.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, there you go. Patriot is at C$14.6 million right now. Not saying it's Critical Elements yet, but I'm saying it has that type of potential. So yeah, one that I'm really excited about. I'm biased. I help finance it at 16-cents. I plan on writing another check as soon as the company lets me. I'm buying some in the open market. So if that doesn't scream biased to you, I don't know what does. But I'm biased about everything I talk about or I would not be talking about it.
Nick Hodge: That's right. Eating our own cooking, right?
Gerardo Del Real: Got to do it. Let's talk cryptos. We touched on it a little bit. We talked about crystal service that's going to launch. You mentioned that you were dabbling. Are you still hodling?
Nick Hodge: I'm still hodling, Gerardo, and I'm learning more. And I'm talking to more and more people who are interested. I think it's really becoming a much bigger and broader phenomenon. Where do I want to start? So, the Bitcoin futures fund is now up in trading now. Has been trading for just over a week or so, I guess. The ticker is (NYSE: BITO). I think that's going to do a lot to bring money into the Bitcoin space, into the crypto space, having an approved futures ETF that is now getting its feet underneath it. Have been buying that one. There's companies that are trading better now. And you see more and more interviews with people like Michael Saylor and Raoul Paul. And I hear more and more people talking about those interviews, and the halvings, and what's expected for crypto heading into 2022.
What else? Lots of people tweeting and writing about these Volcano Bonds in El Salvador, which you can buy, they yield 6.5%. And that gets very interesting because it really speaks to some of the uses, right? One of the things you hear as far as a detractor from cryptos is, "Okay, but what do they do? How do you use them?" And in this case, you have a country that doesn't have its own currency that's able to issue bonds to raise money, right? Using crypto. And they're using Bitcoin and geothermal energy to mine it. So, they're going to raise a billion dollars and half the money's going to go to build a crypto city. So you can see how on the one hand it's getting more mass adopted, how the use cases are very real. And then on the other hand, why the establishment is so scared of it, right?
Think about the World Bank and the IMF and the roles that they play and why this is so scary for them. And I guess if I may, a couple of weeks ago, there was a thing with Elon Musk where he was saying he would give them so many billion dollars if they could... that was the UN I guess. But nonetheless, this story is useful. And he was saying, if you can prove that this money goes entirely to fighting world hunger in a transparent fashion, which of course no bureaucratic institution like the IMF, World Bank, or the UN can do, right? But which can be done with transactions on the blockchain not only transparently but without the need for those entrenched institutions in general, right?
And so, it's getting very real, I would say. I'm giving you another long answer. But more and more people I come across are interested... are opening crypto accounts. And I think it's getting more widely accepted on Wall Street as well, which portends larger money coming into the sector, right? And so, I don't know. I'm not sure if that was a real answer or not, but I'm very excited to finally get this service launched. I personally was buying some crypto related assets last week and again over the weekend. And I guess that's about it. 2022 I think is going to be a good year for cryptos. And they're firmly on the scene as a new asset class, I would say.
Gerardo Del Real: Agreed. Elon flexes a little different than the average billionaire. And I guess you can do it when you're worth as much as he is. But for those that aren't familiar with what Nick was referencing, the UN name-dropped Elon Musk and said that with Elon's fortune, just $6 billion of his $300 billion fortune could solve world hunger. And so Elon, of course, because his Twitter game is on point, responded back and he said, "Well, if you can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6 billion will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and give it to you." Man, I don't need $6 billion, I don't need $300 billion, I'm comfortable with what I have now. But I do wish I could flex on the UN just one time like that, like, "Go ahead. I'll be your huckleberry, show me."
And of course they weren't able to show him. And so I just think it's a good use of the platform. And I think it speaks to the lack of trust, the eroding trust that our institutions are earning. They're earning this lack of trust. They're earning the doubts, whether it's our justice system, which we're going to get into here in a bit with the Michigan school shooting, the incident a couple of weeks ago in Wisconsin, where some asshole ran over and killed, I forget exactly how many people and injured over 60. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about Mr. Osteen's mega church, maniac Osteen. And then we're going to talk Andrew Cuomo and Chris Cuomo. And actually let's get into that right now, right?
We now know that Andrew Cuomo is being investigated on sexual harassment charges by the Justice Department. And we know that his brother who's an anchor at CNN while reporting on the story was privately coaching and advising his brother. Now, sure, if it's a family member, go ahead and do it. But again, disclose the conflict of interest, right? Don't report on a story and pretend to do so as a journalist that's not supposed to be biased and then bury and sweep under the rug nasty shit that your brother's accused of doing. And if he is guilty, I hope they put his ass where he belongs. But yeah, not a good look for CNN, not a good look for the Cuomo family, not a good look for many of our institutions that are supposed to lead the way.
I think we're entering a point in our history where progress and advancements are going to have to be more privately led than in the past, right? We can't keep looking to the bastions of media and law enforcement to solve all problems for us. It's going to have to be a collective of the citizenry, getting together, and being more active and more involved. And I think the recent shooting here in Michigan, I think speaks to that a bit. I mean, you want to talk about an absolute failure, I mean, negligent failure by everybody...
What happened in Michigan should not have happened. And so, for those of you that aren't familiar, there was a school shooting less than a week ago, where a 15 year old kid killed four students at Oxford Hich School in Michigan. Now, the parents have been charged with involuntary manslaughter. The reason being, the parents bought a gun on Black Friday. They made it available to this 15 year old. A teacher saw this 15 year old, the day before, looking at and searching for ammunition on his phone, right? A day before the shooting. The teacher, concerned, contacted the parent and the parent texted to the son, "Laugh out loud, I'm not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught." This is Monday. So timeline Monday. Tuesday, the very next day, a teacher finds a note on this kid's desk. Andd the teacher does the right thing, takes a photo.
And it was a drawing of a gun pointing at the words, "The thoughts won't stop, help me." And then there was also a drawing of a bullet with words above it that said, "Blood everywhere." He also wrote, "My life is uselesss. The world is dead." So obviously, if you're a parent with half of fucking brain, you get involved, right? You try to figure out what's going on. And if you know what's going on, you try to make sure that, one, everyone else around this kid is safe, but also that this kid is safe. Clearly, he's asking for help. He literally said help me.
Nick Hodge: Yeah.
Gerardo Del Real: Right? He didn't accidentally leave that on his desk for no one to find it. He put it on top of his desk and left it there. So the school has a meeting with the kid and the parents. The school tells him, "You need to get counseling within 48 hours." The school did the right thing in that sense. They said, "There's urgency here, we need you to get him counseling within 48 hours. He has to speak with someone." The parents don't talk to their son about the gun. They don't check his backpack. He returns to class and starts lighting everyone up. There's a video on the internet of this kid outside the door pretending to be a sheriff. And these 15 year old kids inside the classroom are all doing what you're supposed to do, what these shooter drills teach, which is crouch and get low to the ground and away from a window. And one of the kids says, "Well, we don't know if you're a sheriff or not." And the kid, pretending to be the sheriff, he says something along the lines of, "Come on, just open the door bro."
And everybody in this video, you hear all the kids, "He said bro." Cops don't talk that way, right? So they were smart enough to know, "Oh shit, this kid that's out there shooting everything up is probably going to shoot his way through this door." And they were smart enough and brave enough to jump through a window and just haul ass. And all of this is on video, and I'm watching this, Nick. I have a 13 year old, I have an 18 year old. It broke my heart to see that these kids have to deal with this shit along with everything else, right? So after all this happens, the parents don't get him to counseling, don't follow up. The kid is arrested. He's charged with terrorism, he's charged with four counts of murder, and now the parents are being charged with involuntary manslaughter.
This is one of the few times where I actually agree with the prosecutor charging two parties that weren't directly involved, but were because of their negligence, right? And again, the school did everything right except not check the backpack and the locker, which is beyond me. It's beyond me why they wouldn't say, "We have to do a regular search." I remember my high school years. I don't know how often I got my locker searched. I didn't run around with the most teacher security friendly crowd back in the days, but I got my locker searched all the time for random reasons, right? So for a kid to write "blood everywhere", and "help", and "the thoughts won't stop", and everything else that this kid was screaming out for help, and for nobody to react, for the parents to not react, that is negligence. And four people died because of that negligence. And yeah, they should have their day in court. And now here we go, breaking news, the parents are on the run.
Nick Hodge: That's right.
Gerardo Del Real: I mean, what the fuck. You can't make this up. We told y'all, this would be a crazy episode of Bizarro World. This is the real world. I wish I was making this stuff up.
Nick Hodge: That's what I was saying at the beginning of this podcast, when I said the stuff we're going to talk about just is completely out of a Bizarro World. Yeah. I mean, what are these parents thinking to, I mean, all sorts of stuff, the mother to humorously talk about searching for ammunition when you're at school and you're supposed to be learning, right? And saying that that's okay. All the way to providing him with the weapon, and not making sure that weapon was secure after learning that he was drawing the pictures that he was drawing, right? And so you said that all very well. So there's not a lot that I can add there other than they are, yes, on the run and must feel some sense of guilt, right? So we'll see how it turns out. But you could take this a lot of different directions.
I mean, I'm not one to go and rant about the youth, but this generation is clearly a bit nihilistic. If you look at the surveys, as far as teenagers and their sentiments towards the world and their lives. Gerardo, what did this guy write? He wrote that the world is dead. And so I think that's what he wrote, right? Is that what he wrote?
Gerardo Del Real: He did. The world is dead to me.
Nick Hodge: The world is dead. They don't all feel that way of course. I would never paint with a broad brush.
Gerardo Del Real: Sure.
Nick Hodge: But if you look at the surveys, some of the sentiments among the younger part of the millennial generation and the older, whatever we're calling them, Zs, are that their individual lives are okay, but that, well, the broader world is dead, or listless, or lacks direction, or basically what I said, nihilism. And so I don't want to talk about that forever. I'm not saying that that's the cause of this thing, but I do want to say that that is being noted in surveys of kids this kid's age. What else did I want to say?
It's also very interesting to me the parents buying the weapons for the children, right? And I don't want to talk about Kyle Rittenhouse a lot, but that was the same thing in that instance, right? The mother had bought the weapon for the son. And then I think about my own experience, which is what I should talk about more, because I'm none of these people, is I was given a shotgun, bought a shotgun when I was 12 years old. But that shotgun was kept in a locked safe in the gun cabinet in the basement. And I wasn't allowed to access it unless I was with my father. And it was certainly only to be used for target practice and hunting, right? And I had to go through all the classes, et cetera, before I was allowed to use it.
And it was none of this, for me, you're allowed to have a pistol, you're allowed to have AR. None of that would fly, right? It was a single shot hunting shotgun, right? And so I just wonder what that culture is, where both these parents had posted on social media about the purchase of the gun on their own social media accounts. What is it with buying your 15 year old son a gun and bragging about it, that's cool? I get America's gun culture. I like guns, I have guns, I shoot things both alive and inanimate, I mean, but I don't brag about that. Certainly not the gun and the killing aspect of it, right?
So anyway, those are just thoughts. I guess we call this our therapy sessions. Those are the things I think about when I try to figure out what these people are thinking or what this subculture is that parents want to buy their kids these weapons seemingly before they're either A, ready-
Gerardo Del Real: Mature enough. Yeah.
Nick Hodge: Right. To handle them, or B when they're in a state that they clearly are not mentally prepared to handle it. And the last thing I would say is, and again a gun owner here, second amendment supporter, but when you look at cigarettes or you look at booze, it's like try to get your mommy to go buy you a pack of cigarettes, right? And so that is a little logic gap for me.
Gerardo Del Real: Well said. And again, just for the context, I'm not throwing this kid any bail here. Put that little fucker under the prison. He killed four kids, he terrorized countless others, shot several others.
Nick Hodge: Sure.
Gerardo Del Real: But clearly the kid needed some help, and clearly the parents are negligent. If my 15 year old wrote, "My life is useless, and the world is dead," and I knew that I had put a weapon in his hands that he had access to, there is no way in hell that he's keeping that weapon and that we're not getting that kid some help.
Nick Hodge: Right.
Gerardo Del Real: And not responding immediately. So, that brings me to the case. And this is going to tie in beautifully with my you can be a fucking rat for a living thing that I'm going to segue into in a bit. But this brings me into the Milwaukee District attorney's office, where there was what the media said was a parade tragedy. It was a tragedy. It wasn't an accident. This asshole Darrell Brooks killed six people, wounded more than 60 others when he ran his SUV through the Waukesha Christmas Parade on November the 21st. This guy was allowed to be released on bail for $1,000 from a domestic violence case. He had two dozen felony cases. Actually, let me take that back. Let me start over. The prosecutor that was reviewing this case was reviewing two dozen felony cases. She reviewed Brooks's case. His bail was $500. The prosecutor doubled it to $1,000.
The mistake that the assistant district attorney made was not knowing that this defendant was already a sex offender, already had a domestic violence case where he tried running his girlfriend over a couple of weeks before while she was walking through a gas station parking lot. The mother of his kid.
So, if I'm an assistant district attorney and I know that this guy just weeks ago tried running the mother of his child over in a parking lot. I know that he's already a convicted sex offender in Nevada. I know that he's already been charged with bail jumping because he was out on bail for another incident from July of 2020, right? He was accused of firing a handgun during an argument and was charged with two counts of second degree recklessly endangering safety while using a weapon and one count of possession of a firearm. All those things didn't put a red flag or an alert that maybe this person shouldn't be granted bail until we figure out what's going on, get all the information? And so, they said that the mistake happened due to her not having access to a critical risk assessment for Brooks, because it hadn't yet been uploaded to the office's case management system.
So again, six people died, more than 60 others were wounded because someone didn't have the urgency to upload this guy's criminal history to the case management system, and nobody thought to double-check. It's irresponsible. It led to people dying. The DA said it is overwhelmed with cases. It said that they have so many cases that they just simply aren't able to give every case an honest assessment when it comes to the purpose of bail, because they're so overwhelmed. And they blamed everything from budget cuts to losing a couple of assistant district attorneys. Look, bottom line is, get the job done. Again, put this asshole underneath the prison as well.
And it didn't escape me, and Joe Rogan talked about this last week. I saw a clip where he talked about how this guy that killed these people was being framed on television as someone that lost control of the vehicle. I saw the video. There was no losing control of the vehicle. This fucking asshole plowed into and intended to kill people. He also had a lot of anti-white post on Facebook and social media where he was railing against the Rittenhouse verdict and how unfair things were. And again, look, I'm not for any kind of racism, right? No kind of bigotry, no kind of anything. It's equal all the way around. So, I don't care if you're racist towards black people or white people or any kind of people. You're a dick.
So, for the media to shy away from this case and not go as critical as it had the Kyle Rittenhouse case, for example, to me, again, speaks to the dwindling credibility that the institutions have. And then I'll say this and then I'll shut up and let you opine, Nick. So you're going to love me fucking telling you that six people are dead and 60 people are injured because the district attorney's office doesn't have enough money to hire appropriately and give people a proper review? While at the same time, I read that federal agencies paid $548 million to informants working for the FBI, the DEA, and the ATF in recent years? I'll let you speak, because I'm going to rant about that one. And if you got kids around on this one, this is probably the time where the kids shouldn't listen, because there's going to be some cursing on this one.
Nick Hodge: I mean, there's so much to say, right?
Gerardo Del Real: My god.
Nick Hodge: So, I'll try to work in reverse. I was reading an article this week about a Middle Eastern gentleman who refused to be an FBI informant when he was approached by the FBI to become one, and how they ruined his life essentially for the next several years, his family and his friends' lives by putting him on all sorts of different lists. No fly zones, messing with his social media. But anyway, I'll let you get there. So what the fuck is going on in Wisconsin? First of all, I mean, way too many headlines coming out of Wisconsin in the past couple of years for everything to-
Gerardo Del Real: The past couple weeks.
Nick Hodge: ... be okay there, right? Stuff going on. And so speaks more broadly, frankly, to the societal changes going on. You mentioned it there at the end about this guy's post on social media and that he was deliberately trying to hit people. And that's what people said that were eyewitnesses, right? This man was swerving to intentionally cause more carnage, and suffering, and death, right?
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah.
Nick Hodge: And so, the media did what the media did, right? You framed that very well. Called it an accident. Said the car veered into the thing instead of it was steered into the parade by a man who was controlling the vehicle, right? The car didn't drive itself in there by itself, right? And so it also speaks to I think, and sorry, I'm just trying to get out all the things that I wanted to say, the politicization of everything in this country and, yeah, well, how politicized everything is, that you've got your left wing groups trying to downplay it because this guy is a gentleman of color... to the right wing groups pointing that out saying, "See, this is why we've got to whatever, be armed at protests or parades, or why Kyle Rittenhouse was okay to do what he did."
And it becomes this immediate back and forth so much so that you had to have two senators come out jointly, a Republican and a Democrat, and say, "Hey, six people just died and 60 were injured, let's not politicize this thing." And then of course, there's the very real failure of the justice system and prosecutors that led to this guy being able to do what he did anyway. So, I mean, those are my thoughts about it. You've again said it well, but I guess what I would end with is that, it's increasingly hostile out there and you've said this a few times, right? You stay safe, right? Be safe. You've got armed groups at protests that can spill over at any time. I was reading a study this week about basically protests, and protests that people were armed at and weren't armed at.
And clearly there's the potential for death at protests where people are armed. And that's becoming increasingly common in America, which is, if you didn't already know that, now being studied academically. And so these armed protests, even where there's just a militia there to "keep the peace", are spilling over into one or more deaths more and more frequently. And so there's that danger. There's that random danger, right? Of the parade thing that we just discussed or the school shooting, which is also another random danger. Though, in each case there were clues or signs as there often are. And then I guess I would talk about the school, right? In Michigan, again, where we just had the school shooting and why it's broader than this kid. A couple of weeks ago, someone cut off a deer's head and dropped it through the atrium of the school, right? That's a weird act.
Gerardo Del Real: Do you think-
Nick Hodge: I won't go so far as to say it's psychopathic or sociopathic, but to put a decapitated deer's head through the atrium of your high school, completely unrelated to this shooting, just speaks to the... I don't know, what I was saying earlier about the current culture and climate of the country, and how people feel about it. That when a shooting happens at a school and people put a spotlight on it, all this crazy shit comes out. It's like, "Wait, there was dead deer heads in your school and that's not relating to the shooting? What the fuck is going on over there?" Right? And that's just one school, right? I'd imagine that if you put a spotlight on other schools around the country, you might find similar things happening.
And so, anyway, just try to tie it all together out there and say that, yeah, stay safe, stay sane. I mean, this also comes at a time of lockdowns and a global pandemic. And you've got, Jesus Christ, what's going on in Australia and Germany. And so, in that sense, you've got a very real villain. Something that the citizenry can unite against and that has always been the wolf at the door, right? Even back to Outsider Club days and what people worry about as far as the government taking control, you're seeing that in a very real way. And meanwhile, the populace is too divided about many of the things that we just talked about to organize and say, "Hey, wait a minute, what's going on in the broader scheme of things here?" And so, anyway, I don't know. Crazy times, Bizarro World, right?
Gerardo Del Real: Meanwhile, you can become a millionaire if you want to be a rat for the rest of your life. And Amtrak and parcel delivery worker group was making a million bucks or more being informants, Nick. Remember how when the whole Proud Boy thing was jumping off and the Black Lives Matter protest were jumping off? And I said, there's no way that all these people are committing all these crimes on Instagram, not getting indicted, and just being able to go city to city and be escorted by the police without them being rats. And sure enough, we found out that the leader at the time was an informant the whole time. So when I read this shit, that informants are authorized to commit crimes with the permission of their handlers, I mean, I knew it was happening. I've seen it happen, but for it to be verified, there were... Nick, formally, there were 22,800 crime authorizations in a four year period. Why am I paying federal tax dollars for these assholes to green light crimes that I got to worry about. The FBI paid $294 million to informants between 2011 and 2015.
Nick Hodge: It's insane.
Gerardo Del Real: This is insane. One Amtrak employee was paid $962,000 in a five year period to be a confidential informant. This is what the investigator called it, because this is the only reason these numbers came out. There's an investigation about how money is allocated and why these rats are allowed to commit these crimes, right? The IG called it a substantial waste of government funds because the information provided could have been obtained by the DEA at no cost through a joint task force with the Amtrak Police. So again, while cities and counties are struggling to even keep up with the caseload to the point where we can't vet defendants and see if they merit bail, low bail or no bail... the FBI, the DEA, and all these groups are out here handing out millions of dollars for information that they don't need to pay for. It's crazy to me.
It said the average DEA informant makes approximately $26,000, right? And so, again, I'll put the link up. It's a Forbes article, it's well written. I can't believe that in this country, we are green lighting informants and allowing them to commit crimes. And you know what? Likely holding counterparties responsible when they react, right? We've talked about what happens. If you're aggressive towards me, you're probably going to get an aggressive response. I'm at a pretty disproportionate disadvantage here if you're an FBI agent and I happen to hit you back or worse. I can't believe this is legal.
Nick Hodge: I can't believe it's legal. I can't believe that there are crime authorizations. Like you say, so you are giving money to the government. You are going to work. They're taking money out of your paycheck when it's delivered, and somewhere along the way, that money is going to foster crimes against the communities in which you live.
Gerardo Del Real: It's insane. The FBI spent $42 million in a year on confidential human sources, it said. And let me be absolutely clear, when I say rats and I say informants, there is nothing wrong with cooperating with law enforcement when you are a law abiding citizen going about your business if a crime has been committed against you. I'm talking about the assholes that are living a life of crime, then get caught, then decide that they don't want to be accountable for the crimes they committed, and then get authorized and paid apparently to go commit more crimes with the blessings of the federal government. That's what I mean when I say rats and informants.
I'm not talking about the average Joe citizen that sees someone getting beat up and calls 911, that's what you're supposed to do, right? I'm not talking about someone that sees a crime being committed and reacts and gets cops involved. No problems with that. I encourage that. Nobody likes crime, right? We don't want that. But I sure in the hell don't want my federal dollars going to these informants and these people to commit crimes. I mean, I understand the value of human intel, but isn't that what the FBI and the DEA is supposed to be for? I'm perplexe.
Nick Hodge: Yeah, to solve crimes, right? And no, it sounds like that entire system has become corrupt. I mean, that's some Training Day stuff, right? And so, yeah, I mean, how do you put it into that, right? And yeah, why is it even legal? And when you talk about debt and taxes and needing to raise taxes... I often talk about the companies that don't pay any taxes, and we'll talk about churches in a second. But then you've got the wasteful spending, of which you can start with defense. But stuff like this, man, that is just not only easy solutions fiscally but obviously socially, right? That you don't want to be paying criminals to stay out there to commit crimes.
And so just further evidence, further support that the justice and policing system has become a caricature of itself. I mean, there was a report out this week that a CIA staff was sexually molesting children, right? And so, yeah, Bizarro World, this entire podcast was bizarre. And it's not over yet. I mean, the list of things that is happening and is being revealed, right? Some of which you already knew, but it continues to come out with new information in this age of the democratization of information. And so I think you're going to continue to learn more and more. We haven't even talked about the trial that's going on or the preacher yet.
Gerardo Del Real: The pimp and the preacher.
Nick Hodge: And it all ties together, right? It's all interrelated.
Gerardo Del Real: You want to start with the preacher or you want to start with the trial?
Nick Hodge: Let's do the trial. That way we can laugh at Joel before we get out of here.
Gerardo Del Real: All right. So Epstein's co pimp, Maxwell, right? What's her name? Ghislaine. I always mess her name up. What's her name, Nick?
Nick Hodge: Ghislaine Maxwell.
Gerardo Del Real: Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's co-pimp. Her trial now is underway. And curiously, she hasn't wound up dead, and curiously nobody else yet has been arrested. I'll let you provide the context on what you gathered, because I haven't kept up with this as much as I probably should have, only because it's early in the trial and that I haven't seen anything that made me really want to dig into it further. It seems like so far it's a lot of what we thought, but not throwing anybody else under the bus, which is what I'm hoping happens in this case, because this is one of those times, Ms. Maxwell, where telling is appropriate, right?
Nick Hodge: Yeah. So she's charged with helping Epstein groom underage girls that were ultimately sexual assaulted. And that's what she is on trial for. It's curious to me that the trial is private first of all, right? Why can't we see this like we see other trials? It's the first red flag. And so, it should be public information. But moving on, it started on Monday. And they've been bringing witnesses, girls, victims, alleged victims, however you want to frame that, people who worked at the house, et cetera. I think there's been some interesting revelations. I mean, we got some of Epstein's flight logs. There was a dump of people that were on the plane, including British royalty and former US presidents flying more frequently than we might have otherwise thought.
And then you got testimony from, excuse me, the girls, one so far, who is testifying anonymously said that Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell started grooming her from a very young age. That they came to a summer camp she was at, started asking her questions. "Coincidentally", the girl lived in Palm Beach where they happened to live as well. Started inviting her and her mom to the house. The mom came over once. And this is corroborated by later witnesses, which I'll get to in a second. And then basically said that increasingly Ms. Maxwell gained her trust alongside Mr. Epstein. Took her on shopping trips, perhaps gave the family some money or helped them out in monetary ways, paying bills, et cetera. And then ultimately started talking to her about sex and sexual things. And this is while she's 14, right? Bringing naked women around her. Introducing her to nude women at a pool party. Asking her things about sex.
And then ultimately this is her testimony, the girl's, culminated with Mr. Epstein, taking her into a pool house, putting her on his lap, masturbating, and then acting like nothing happened after that. And then from there progressed into direct sexual assault, right? Including by multiple individuals. And then you had help at the house testify, a gentleman who's now in his seventies, that said, "Yes, this girl was there. I remember her. She looked very young. We had strict instructions about what we could do at the house. I was even directed to go pick her up from her house once." And so, it's all starting to tie together. Now, to your point, no big bombshells about big names. But the testimony so far seems to point to her guilt, which is good to see, right? What else did I want to say? Oh, you had some professional psychiatrist testifying about how you would groom an underage girl to sexually abuse her. And it was textbook to the testimony of what the girl was saying Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Epstein did.
And so I guess that's about it. We're in day four. We've heard from a girl who is still anonymous. She's an actress now. We've heard from the help. We've heard from some professionals. And her guilt is emerging, I would say, but it's just interesting to see how a person of this nature, I'm talking about Epstein, and all the people he was surrounded with, right? Which is back to what you were saying, right? We want to look for more of that, because it doesn't end with this one 14 year old girl and the lady who was helping Mr. Epstein, right? It goes to all the photos that everyone's seen, right? And who he was traveling with, and who was traveling to those houses, and at those parties, and on those planes, and at that island. And so, one to keep following for sure. And we'll see how it continues to go.
Gerardo Del Real: Meanwhile, Joel Osteen, mega American pastor out of Houston, Texas is back in the news again. A plumber was doing some work and he dug into the wall and he found over $600,000 in the wall. What gets me about this story is the plumber actually went and told somebody. There were 500 envelopes, right? And he said there was a loose toilet in the wall. He removed the tile. Went to go remove the toilet. Moved away some insulation, and 500 envelopes fell out of the wall. So this is at the Lakewood Church in Houston. It is a massive church. We know Mr. Osteen does not pay taxes.
Nick Hodge: It's a massive something.
Gerardo Del Real: That's a massive something. I don't know. I got so many thoughts on this, and no thoughts that really matter, I guess. So, I don't want to just say things for the sake of saying things. But Mr. Osteen is messy, man. Every time there's a story about him, it's not good.
Nick Hodge: Dude, what a conniving-
Gerardo Del Real: He said, "Where did all that cash come from?" The fuck out of here.
Nick Hodge: ... siphoning, yeah, taxing-evading, taking-advantage-of-people-down-on-their-luck, rotten guy he is, right? So this was late breaking before we recorded. So unless I was duped by social media dupery, which sometimes happens, it seems that the same amount of money went missing a couple of years ago and he had the insurance reimburse him for it. It went missing from a Sunday collection "mysteriously". That was one weekend's collection from the megachurch, over half a million bucks, right? And it went I guess missing, and the insurance reimbursed him for it, just like I said. And so, awful curious, if this is true, let me caveat it because it's again late breaking, that a couple of years ago you had $600,000 go missing, the insurance reimbursed you for it, and then the $600,000 turns up in your possession all along, it seems like you might be committing some type of fraud there. I'm no legal expert, Gerardo. And that's on top of all the people you're taking that money from, that you're promising things to, be it salvation or whatever it is, I won't get into that here. And then the taxes you're not paying on that money. And then the people you're not letting into your fucking church when there's a hurricane, because they might find your money in your toilet you cock sucker.
Gerardo Del Real: That's where I was going. And that's what I was going to say. I don't know this gentleman personally, I don't know who he has inspired or helped. But I do know this, I do know when hurricanes have hit the city, and this happened several times, right? That there was a hesitancy to even allow people to shelter in place. And so, you nailed it. The fact that he is unwilling to open his doors on his place, where he pays no taxes, where he takes in half a million to a million dollars a week from the people, in their time of need, and then somehow there's $600,000 in cash and checks in a wall somewhere. I don't know the guy, but every time there's a story about the guy, it's messy. And I'm being kind with that. I'll leave it there.
Nick Hodge: That was a Bizarro episode, huh? I mean, so he's not paying taxes on that money that we're paying taxes on so that the informants can continue to commit crimes.
Gerardo Del Real: Commit crimes.
Nick Hodge: And so that your justice system can't prevent crimes that seemingly should be prevented that resulted in the death of children and many other people's loved ones. And yeah, that's why it's a Bizarro World.
Gerardo Del Real: What an episode? Here's some late breaking news. Cardi B is becoming Playboy's (NASDAQ: PLBY) first creative director in residence. Congratulations to Cardi. She said, "I already have so many ideas." I bet you do Cardi. I'm looking forward to that brain of yours.
Nick Hodge: I'm going to get me some WAP NFTs.
Gerardo Del Real: That's how she wrote, everybody. It's been a crazy one. I know it's getting a little bit long in the tooth here. I am Gerardo Del Real along with my co-host, Mr. Nick Hodge. This was a crazy ass therapy session. Otherwise, known as Bizarro World number 146. Nick, send us off.
Nick Hodge: See ya.
Gerardo Del Real: Some wet ass...