Sofa King Podcast

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we discuss one of the greatest spiritual leaders of our time, the Dalai Lama. His real name is Tenzin Gyatso, and he is the 14th Dalai Lama, supposedly the true ruler of Tibet and a beacon for Buddhism around the world. His life story is one that involves mysticism, war, conquering armies, power-hungry warlords, the CIA, and a world leader. Born in a small village, Tenzin Gyatso was an unassuming child of horse farmers. But when the 13th Dalai Lama died, the extensive mystical search for his replacement pointed to Tenzin. There are many Lamas, and several of them are supposedly reincarnations of previous iterations. In fact, two of Tenzin’s siblings are just such lesser Lamas. The search for the Dalai Lama takes years and involves the highest monks of the order. Signs such as the floating head of the previous Dalai Lama and visions near a holy lake pointed them to Tenzin. He passed the tests they gave him, and before he could become the new Dalai Lama, there was a two year struggle with a local warlord and a play to sneak him into Tibet without the Chinese government knowing. By 1939, he was finally in Lhasa, the capitol of Tibet, where he was able to rule his people. By 1950, however, the People’s Republic of China had taken over Tibet. All religious freedoms were stifled, people were killed or disappeared, and it became illegal to hang a Tibetan flag or a picture of the Dalai Lama up. In 1959, a CIA-backed coup was meant to kick the Chinese out of Tibet, but it failed. The CIA had to smuggle the Dalai Lama over the Himalayas disguised as a soldier, where they placed him and 80,000 Tibetan refugees up in India in a government in exile. To this day, the 14th Dalai Lama still lives there. The Chinese still control Tibet, but to their government, he is a dangerous man. He controls the heart and culture of a land that is critical to their country. What will happen when finally dies? Why does he think China will try to create a fake Dalai Lama that they control? How can he stop such a thing? Why did they give him a Nobel peace prize? What threats does he face when he travels abroad to talk? How might quantum physics explain reincarnation? Listen, laugh, learn. Visit Our Sources: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/reviews/story/a-simple-universal-doctor-of-the-soul-59365 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalai_Lama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Dalai_Lama https://www.dalailama.com/ https://www.tripsavvy.com/facts-about-the-14th-dalai-lama-1458309 https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2008/03/28/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-dalai-lama https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48772175 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V45yL-rqsVo https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1989/lama/biographical/ https://freetibet.org/about/dalai-lama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Tibetan_program  

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we discuss one of the all-time greats of comedy, Eddie Murphy. This New York native had a meteoric rise to fame in the early 1980s, and it led to a legendary run on Saturday Night Live and a stream of films such as the standup classics Delirious and Raw. With classics like 48 Hours, Golden Child, Coming to America, and Beverly Hills Cop under his belt, he became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, and for good reason. He started as a smart but unique child in Brooklyn. While his brother, Charlie Murphy, would be outside playing all day, Eddie would spend the time watching TV and perfecting his voices and impressions. Murphy’s parents split when he was three, and his father was murdered by his girlfriend when he was 8. In spite of it all, he was a well-adjusted, funny, confident child. In high school, he led a talent show and got huge laughs doing an impression of Al Greene, and from that moment, he knew he wanted to be a comedian. He started working comedy clubs at the tender age of 15, and honed his craft through graduation and even a brief stint in college. He lied and said he was a disciple of Richard Pryor in order to get some traction in the clubs, and it seemed to work. At only 19 years old, he got hired by Lorne Michaels on Saturday Night Live, and his second season, he exploded. His bits like Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood, Tyrone Greene, and James Brown made ratings soar. He soon signed to his first movie, 48 Hours, and then Trading Places. They proved very successful, and he signed for a $25 million dollar movie deal, and the era of Eddie was upon us. He released hit after hit, comedy classics someone is lucky to pull off once, let alone several in a row. His fame rose, and he won a Grammy for his comedy album, and even his music reached number two on the Billboard charts. Of course, there were ups and downs, like the time he got pulled over with a transvestite hooker in his car and having won three Razzie awards for the period in time when he was just phoning in bad movies. But with hits like Shrek and the newer work like Dreamgirls and They Call me Dolomite, his star has started to shine again. Let’s hope he does more standup, and does it soon!   Visit Our Sources: https://www.biography.com/actor/eddie-murphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Murphy https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/eddie-murphy-gets-the-last-laugh-wins-2020-razzie-rede-1842414110 https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/10/eddie-murphy-dreamgirls-blu-ray-oscars https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/m/mo-mz/eddie-murphy/ https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/eddie-murphy-stopped-police-transsexual-prostitute-car-040035645.html https://theglowup.theroot.com/you-want-fries-with-that-nike-fuels-the-coming-2-ameri-1841993958      

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we look at a most disturbing Canadian cult, the Ant Hill Kids. Founded by Roch Thériault (aka Moses, aka Poppy), this group started as an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists, but soon turned to a sadistic torture house. From frozen babies and the cutting off of toes to homemade pain surgeries and lots of castration, this cult was about as bad as it gets. Thériault was born to a religiously hyper household. They were members of a group called the White Berets, a pseudo-military religion that was highly political and sold journals to make money. Thériault was bright and charismatic from a young age but finished school at 7th grade. His father was abusive, so he left home soon after and married and started a normal life. His life got flipped, turned upside down, when a surgery went bad, and the results were constant pain. He turned to alcohol to self-medicate. His wife left him for sleeping with other women and being drunk, and at his homeless lowest, Thériault found the Seventh Day Adventists. He started selling literature for them and was amazingly successful, so his pastor moved him up to start recruiting members for their church. After a short amount of time, he started to recruit for his own group instead of the church, and his cult was born. On a hike one day, he had a holy vision of a spot that God would spare when the end of the world game a few years later, in 1979. He moved his group there and had them build a new town. He said they worked like ants on a hill, hence the cult’s name. Once everything was in place, the level of pain, punishment, and depravity is hard to capture in a couple hundred words of show notes. Ant Hill Kids had toes and fingers cut off. Limbs were removed. Children were nailed to trees where other kids threw rocks at them. Babies were left to freeze to death as a mercy to avoid Thériault’s sadism. People had to break their own legs, had their teeth plucked out, were castrated, had their genitals burned, and more than one was killed by Thériault’s home surgeries. What happened to Thériault? What brought down the Ant Hill Kids? How many people died? How did Thériault avoid capture when confronted by police more than once? What did the cult do once he was arrested the first time? How about the second? Listen, laugh, learn. Visit Our Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roch_Th%C3%A9riault https://www.cvltnation.com/ant-hill-kids-break-legs-sledgehammer-go-hell/ https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/murder/roch-theriault-the-horrifying-savagery-home-surgery-of-canadas-most-violent-cult-leader https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/chilling-insight-doomsday-cult-members-13995059 https://www.darkhistories.com/roch-theriault-the-ant-hill-kids/  

On this episode of the world Famous Sofa King Podcast, we examine the Lonnie Zamora UFO Encounter. Zamora was a police officer from Socorro, New Mexico, and he had an experience on April 24, 1964. What he saw lead to an investigation by local police, civilians, the media, the FBI, and the US Air Force, including Project Blue Book. J. Allen Hynek, one of the leads of Blue Book describes it as the “Rosetta Stone” of UFO cases, and it is still considered one of the most investigated and valid UFO encounters to date. In April of 1964, Zamora was perusing some rowdy teens in a car when he suddenly heard a huge roar and saw a massive pillar of flame and dust a mile or so from his position. He turned to investigate what he thought was a local dynamite shed blowing up. He drove to the top of a steep hill where he could see what has happening, and to his surprise, he saw a strange oval craft on the ground in an arroyo, out of sight to anyone but those at high elevation. The craft was a while aluminum with an insignia on it, and nearby were two humanoids. He called them large children or small adults. They seemed surprised that Zamora saw them, and they headed back to their vehicle, which he thought was some strange car that had run into the gulch. There was a second roar and a second pillar of flame, and Zamora ran for cover on the other side of the hill. The craft was in the sky soon, no more roar, no more flame, just silently moving. And moving quickly! Estimate are that it was going at over 700 MPH with no clear sign of propulsion or noise. Zamora called it in, and another cop named Chavez came. He said Zamora looked freaked out but publicly claimed he never saw the craft. They went into the gully and found four imprints from landing legs and burned bushes from the flame. Within two hours, the FBI was one scene was were other cops, and shortly thereafter the USAF showed along with their Project Blue Book as well as investigators from NICAP. The speed with which big league investigators flooded the area was alarmingly fast. This case has it all. UFO? Check. Little “aliens?” Check. New Mexico? Check. Reliable witness? Check. However, some claim it was not real, anything from ball lightning to a college hoax, to a Scooby Doo like scam to boost tourism in the local town. But what did Project Blue Book’s report ultimately say? What did the pre-media witnesses confirm? Why is this considered such a rock solid case? Listen, laugh, learn.   Visit Our Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Zamora_incident https://www.socorronm.org/attractions/socorro-landing-a-ufo-story/ https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/socorro-ufo.htm http://www.nmsr.org/socorro.htm https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2010/03/p25.pdf https://peoplepill.com/people/lonnie-zamora-incident/ https://www.ufocasebook.com/Zamora.html https://supernaturalmagazine.com/articles/the-lonnie-zamora-incident https://www.history.

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we travel back in time to the 1840s and look at the Irish Potato Famine. Known as the Great Hunger, this was a period of years where a horrible blight caused the failure of the single most important crop in the nation—potatoes. But the problem was deeper than that. Part of it was a horribly corrupt system of land ownership which was overseen by the British. Another was massive exports of food forced out of Ireland by the land owners while the common people starved. It all combined to reduce the population of the Emerald Isle by around 25% due to famine, disease, and people getting the hell out of there. So, why did the potato cause so much damage to the nation? Well for one, the (mostly British) land owners forced farmers to grow a single type of potato because it made them the most money. When disease spread killing that crop, there was nothing else in place. It was the main food source of typical Irish farmer/tenants, so the starvation was real. It speaks to the dangers of a monocrop and what a disease can do to a food supply. However, this was just the tip of the spear. The trouble came from horrible laws that were enforced by Britain. They upheld tariffs that made the import of food difficult; this wasn’t done in a previous famine, and the open ports saved the nation. This time, nobody could bring in food. But the landlords also exported the crops that were actually growing. They owned the land and the food produced on it, and most of them lived in England, so the food was shipped away to make a profit. The combination of these factors led to somewhere around 1.5 million people dying of starvation or disease and hundreds of thousands fleeing the country for England, Canada, and America. Many people classify what the British did (and failed to do) as a genocide of the Irish people. Some call it an accidental genocide, but others say it was intentional and fueled by racism and religious hatred against Irish Catholics. Be it planned or accident, the laws and the blight were the perfect storm for the darkest days of Ireland.   Visit Our Sources: https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/irish-potato-famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Famine-Irish-history http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml https://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/introduction.htm https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/was-the-famine-genocide-by-the-british-28954929.html https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-26-2-the-potato-famine-and-irish-immigration-to-america.html https://learnodo-newtonic.com/irish-potato-famine-facts https://www.irishcentral.com/news/new-facts-about-great-famine-emigration-out-of-ireland-revealed-139540423-237788421

We predict you are going to enjoy this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast when we talk all things Nostradamus. Born as Michel de Nostradame in France in 1503, this man was said to have predicted the future with eerie accuracy. Haters gonna hate and skeptics gonna skept, but some of his creepy quatrains do seem like they came true. Nostradamus grew up in a fairly wealthy family and had the benefits of a great education and a keen intellect. He was accepted to college at age 14, and after a few years, he was traveling Europe and battling the Bubonic Plague. He made quite a name for himself as a physician with a much higher cure rating than most other doctors. His radical remedy? Vitamin C, clean air, draining the puss, and keeping people and place clean. Of course it worked. But these novel approaches got him noticed, and he soon had a royal sponsor, a wife, and two kids. Then, he soon had a dead wife and two dead kids, because, you know, the plague… After he made a comment about a religious statue, the church sent the Inquisition his way, so Nostradamus wisely decided to travel the world and skip town for a bit. While traveling, he had a “psychic awakening” and apparently studied astrology and the occult. When he finally came back home, he was more interested in writing about the future than we was curing people. Again, he gained celebrity, but this time for his predictions. He famously foretold the death of King Henry II of France and even told the queen Catherine de Medici exactly how he would die. Turns out, he was right to an astounding degree. He wrote several volumes of predictions, which he called Centuries because there were 100 predictions in each volume. Every prediction was written as a poetic quatrain, and some were in more than one language. Nostradamus told his son that he wrote them to be intentionally vague, so that he couldn’t be persecuted for witchcraft. Modern day skeptics think he wrote them intentionally vague, so people would always be able to say he was right, and his own fame would continue to grow while he was alive. Was he a mystic? A madman? A charlatan? All of the above? From JFK to 911 and from Hitler to the Antichrist, many of his predictions seemed to come true. We've talked about other so-called prophets, from Edgar Cayce to Baba Vanga, but Nostradamus was the grandfather of them all. Be your own judge and listen, laugh, learn.   Visit Our Sources: https://www.biography.com/scholar/nostradamus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus https://www.gaia.com/article/8-need-know-nostradamus-prophecies https://www.sacred-texts.com/nos/index.htm https://curiosmos.com/nostradamus-2020-predictions-what-did-the-french-seer-foresee-for-the-year-2020/ https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/extrasensory-perceptions/nostradamus.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Saw_Tomorrow  

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we take a look at one of the largest corporations in the world: DuPont. The chemicals it has invented in the past two centuries have changed the world, but it is a family and company that are rich with crime and scandal. In recent years, the films Foxcatcher and Dark Waters famously showed the underbelly of the DuPonts. From murder to pollution to government cover-ups, DuPont is where it’s at! It all started with a wealthy family moved to America in 1800 to avoid the French Revolution. One of them (with the easiest name to pronounce, like, ever) Éleuthère Irénée du Pont realized no gunpowder companies in American could compare to Europe, so he started a gunpowder mill near Wilmington, Delaware called the Eleutherian Mills. This became the DuPont company, and within a short time, it was the main manufacturer of gunpowder and explosives for America and then the world. The company spread to developing chemicals in the 1900s. Pierre S. du Pont even invested in the struggling auto start up called GM. He became president of the company, which led to one of many antitrust break ups of the DuPont empire. In WWII, they were vital to the war effort, and in peace time, they ushered in the golden age of chemistry. Nylon, Lycra, Mylar, Teflon, Kevlar, and many other inventions were thanks to their factories. However, as they developed these chemicals, the ignored safety regulations, refused to give findings to the government, and covered up lethality to the communities and the workers in their plants. Most famous was the cover up of the world-wide toxin known as C8, a key ingredient in Teflon. Oh, and don’t forget about the time one of the DuPont kids started a strange wrestling cult and murdered a guy. This family and this company is a long black list of scandals and corruption…just the kind of thing we love in SK! Visit Our Sources: https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/john-du-pont https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Pont_family https://theintercept.com/2015/08/11/dupont-chemistry-deception/ https://theintercept.com/2018/07/07/dupont-carneys-point-chambers-works-chemours/ https://www.forbes.com/profile/du-pont/#444f1e9a253b https://www.investopedia.com/articles/company-insights/091016/top-5-companies-owned-dupont-dd.asp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuPont_(1802%E2%80%932017) https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/john-du-pont https://uspirg.org/blogs/blog/usp/five-things-you-should-know-about-dupont-chemical-company https://www.delawareonline.com/story/life/2014/05/11/facts-alfred-dupont/8921791/

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we examine a strange cult that had everything from sexual abuse and Fight Club style challenges to Men in Black who live in vans and CIA involvement. They were The Finders. This group was led by a man named Marion Pettie, who started the group when he bought two pieces of property and allowed anyone to live there as long as they could teach him “something about power, money, or sex.” The start of the group, and even their beliefs, are hard to research. This is in part due to the fact that they dissolved after Pettie died in 2004. It may also be in part due to the fact that the FBI was forced to redact all of its information by the CIA and only recently declassified the documents. The only reason we know about them is from a disturbing incident on February 4, 1987. Two well-dressed men in black suits were arrested with six young children in Tallahassee, Fla. They kids were malnourished, filthy, in a state of sub-lingual shock, covered in bug bites, and non-responsive. The men and the kids had all been living in a van (down by the river?). This led to the police communicating with the DC Police who had been looking for The Finders for some time and didn’t know they were as far away as Florida. From here, major new outlets picked up the story, and it got even more strange. Marion Pettie, the “Game Leader” of the cult had branches all over the world and even used computer modems to communicate with each other (something that most people in the world didn’t have). Police found bags full of photos of naked children, kids killing goats, children’s genitals, and very high tech computer systems. They also found instructions on how to buy kids in Hong Kong and how to brainwash children. Everyone from the national reporters, local police, United States Department of Treasury, U.S. Customs Service, and the FBI were trying to find out more and take them down. But then, out of nowhere, everyone was forced to halt their investigations by the CIA. One report claimed the CIA was using The Finders as a misinformation troupe and were therefore protected, even the child sex. Was that part true? Hard to say until more documents get revealed to us, but this is a wild one.   Visit Our Sources: https://vault.fbi.gov/the-finders https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7x53vg/the-finders-cult-from-the-80s-was-patient-zero-for-epstein-and-pizzagate-conspiracies https://www.swordandscale.com/the-finders/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/27lqws/the_finders_deep_child_abuse_groupcult/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/02/07/officials-describe-cult-rituals-in-child-abuse-case/11f05df1-48e0-41f7-b46d-249c0bd2bc39/ https://steemit.com/pizzagate/@rebelskum/finding-the-finders-and-how-the-cia-helped-industrialize-child-trafficking https://apnews.com/2eab7f35f730aca807f97a8a08896b32 https://www.nytimes.

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we travel back in time to look at the worst maritime disaster of all time, the sinking of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff. It was a ship with an interesting history that was being used by the Nazis to evacuate Germans from the oncoming Red Army in Operation Barbosa. However, it was packed ridiculously tight and ignored all safety and even military protocols, the result of which was over 9000 souls lost due to torpedoes from a Russian submarine. The Wilhelm Gustloff was originally built as a luxury cruise ship by the Nazi Party to help give members of their labor union morale boost. It sailed over 50 voyages before the war got bad, and once the Spanish Civil War started, she was used to transport German troops. It served as a hospital ship at times, a troop transport, and even a floating voter platform off the coast of England for German citizens. But, when the Red Army was sweeping West, they were known for atrocities toward any Germans they found. Thus, over a million people had evacuated into Prussia and nearby regions, desperate to escape the army. In the Gulf of Danzig on January 30, 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff was packed to the gills. The ship was designed for 2000 passengers, but after the drained the water from the pools and threw out most of the furniture, there were over 10,000 people on board. That wasn’t bad enough. The trip was cursed by endless factors that should have made anyone turn the ship around. What happened to two of the torpedo boats that should have been escorting Wilhelm Gustloff? What mechanical failure did the only remaining escort boat have? What was up with the mysterious radio transmission that made the Gustloff reveal its position to the enemy? What came of the drunken Russian captain Aleksandr Marinesko who sank the Wilhelm Gustloff, and why did he get a dishonorable discharge? Listen, laugh, learn. Visit our Sources: https://www.dw.com/en/75-years-on-little-known-about-the-wilhelm-gustloff-sinking/a-18226012 https://time.com/4198914/wilhelm-gustloff-salt-to-the-sea/ https://www.historyhit.com/the-sinking-of-the-gustloff/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/deadliest-disaster-sea-happened-75-years-ago-yet-its-barely-known-why-180974077/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff https://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-history/sinking-of-mv-wilhelm-gustloff-the-deadliest-maritime-disaster/ https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2018/12/11/sinking-the-wilhelm-gustloff/ https://militaryhistorynow.com/2014/04/16/the-gustloff-incident-historys-deadliest-and-forgotten-ship-sinking/ https://unbelievable-facts.com/2016/02/wilhelm-gustloff.html

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look into the True Crime vault, back to a series of murders in New Orleans at the turn of the century. The killer? The infamous Axeman of New Orleans. This figure is still unidentified to this day. He killed six people with an axe and razor and injured six others. He may have continued killing outside of New Orleans with his axy ways, but we’ll never know for sure. What we will know is this story is as New Orleans as it gets, involving immigrants, jazz music, and an alleged devil walking the streets and taunting police offers. The backdrop is New Orleans of 1918. The city is famous for its fusion of African-American and Creole influences in the deep south. However, another culture that dominated the Crescent City was Italian immigrants. Over 20,000 had moved there, mostly from Sicily. They started as share croppers making hardly any money, but many of them saved and started selling produce at corner stores or markets. By 1918, almost half the grocers in the city were Italian, and many people didn’t like this. The traditional racist Southern White thought they were no better than blacks and called them dirty “dagoes.” And these dagoes fought back. They brought with them not only a tireless work ethic, but also the Sicilian Mob and the ideas of Black Hand Crime. So, in 1918, a series of violent crimes hit Italian grocery owners. The attacks were brutal, even killing a two year old. Various arrests were made, but none ever stuck, and the crimes kept happening. So who was this Axeman? Was he a member of the Mafia, following up on extortion rackets? Was it a demon from hell, as an infamous letter sent to the police and media suggested? Was it jealous competitors who wanted to shut down other grocers? Was it a serial killer with a particular fetish and MO? How did these murders get all of New Orleans to listen to jazz music on the same night? What happened in Los Angeles that may have let a widow of one of the Axeman’s victims may ultimately shoot and kill the actual murderer? Listen, laugh, learn.   Visit Our Sources: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/axeman-new-orleans-preyed-italian-immigrants-180968037/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/axeman-new-orleans-preyed-italian-immigrants-180968037/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/axeman-new-orleans-preyed-italian-immigrants-180968037/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/axeman-new-orleans-preyed-italian-immigrants-180968037/ http://www.the13thfloor.tv/2016/05/24/does-this-1919-photograph-reveal-an-infamous-new-orleans-serial-killer/ http://www.openculture.com/2018/10/story-axeman-new-orleans-serial-killer-loved-jazz.html https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/article/the-axeman-of-new-orleans https://medium.com/@hlemonroe/unsolved-the-axeman-murderer-of-new-orleans-2580c0fa59b https://en.wikipedia.

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we take a look at a modern day conspiracy theory that turns out to be true—the AIDS drug trials conducted on foster children. These were a series of as many as 48 different trials spread through seven different states in the US. They were very dangerous Phase I and Phase II drug trials that were performed on children with AIDS or HIV. The really nasty part is that many of the kids didn’t have any legal advocate, and when they wanted to stop the drug trials, they weren’t allowed. Some were even force fed with feeding tubes surgically inserted into their stomachs. This story came out in 2005 thanks to reporting done by Jamie Doran of the BBC (see show notes below for the Guinea Pigs documentary link) and John Solomon from the Associate Press. While the trials were done on children in multiple locations, the worst of it was in New York City. Thanks to then Mayor Giuliani, a group called the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) was created. This monster of an organization was gifted with the power to take children away from parents for simply refusing medical treatment. And they did. In the 1990s, they started to take away infected children from biological and legal parents simply for not giving them dangerous, sometimes untested drugs. Not giving them the drugs made them “abusive” parents, so the kids were taken from them and placed in foster homes such as the Catholic church owned Incarnation Children’s Center. From the Catholic group home to prestigious research hospitals to academic institutions and the giant pharma companies, everyone was complicit. They denied children their legal rights, took them from their parents, and filled their bodies with Black Label, dangerous drugs. How many kids were involved? What percent were foster kids? What legal protections do parents have against getting their kids taken away? What happened to the kind-hearted nurse who tried to help? Listen, laugh, learn. Visit Our Sources: Guinea Pigs BBC Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2ScDCIDYJI http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7736157/ns/health-aids/t/government-tested-aids-drugs-foster-kids/#.Xkhg6yhKg2w http://www.natap.org/2005/newsUpdates/062005_02.htm https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4669470 https://ahrp.org/2004-a-national-scandal-aids-drug-experiments-on-children-in-foster-care/ https://ahrp.org/aids-drug-vaccine-experiments-on-foster-children/

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at a dark (and often unknown) chapter from American history, the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. This was brought to the public’s attention in the excellent HBO Watchmen series, and many people (hosts included) thought it was just a fiction from this world of super heroes. However, it was very real and very tragic. The whole thing unfolded in perhaps the most unique and prosperous neighborhood for African Americans in the all of the US, a portion of Tulsa known as Greenwood. This area was called the Black Wall Street. It was a place where wealth black investors from Chicago and New York moved. It had movie theaters, jewelry stores, high end restaurants, everything that many black communities didn’t have. The problem was, Tulsa also had white supremacy groups such as the KKK and the Knights of Liberty. They ran lynch mobs and saw vigilante “justice” even on white criminals who they would storm out of police detention and kill. On Memorial Day weekend, a black shoe shiner named Dick Rowland had an encounter with elevator operator named Sarah Page in the elevator of the Drexler Building. She screamed. He ran out. The next day he was arrested for no particular reason. By that afternoon, a mob of 1000 people stormed the sheriff’s department, even though they concluded no crime was committed. Some black residents banded together with weapons (many were vets from WWI), and thing escalated quickly. Shots were fired, and ten whites and two black were dead in minutes. The white mob armed itself and stormed Greenwood. They burned down 35 city blocks in one night. They destroyed the businesses, torched 1200 houses, left 8000 black residents homeless, and murdered as many as 300 innocent victims. The immediate response afterward was a systematic cover up. No journalist could write about it. Tulsa police and military records went missing, and all the culpability of city leaders who stoked the flames were disappeared. There have since been memorials and calls for reparation, but even Dr. Manhattan can’t save the day this time.   Visit Our Sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/hbo-2019/the-massacre-of-black-wall-street/3217/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/tulsa-race-massacre https://www.tulsahistory.org/exhibit/1921-tulsa-race-massacre/ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/21/arts/television/watchmen-tulsa-race-riot.html https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=TU013 https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2018/10/11/we-lived-like-we-were-wall-street/ https://www.npr.org/2019/12/17/789015343/new-research-identifies-possible-mass-graves-from1921-tulsa-race-massacre https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/possible-mass-grave-1921-tulsa-race-massacre-found-researchers-n1102781

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we discuss the queen of pop and the princess of country western, Taylor Swift! Brad celebrates her entire collection, Dave just discovered and digs her, and Brent…knows who she is. Regardless of where you fall on the T-Swift spectrum, she’s an incredibly gifted song writer with ten Grammys and endless awards. She was the wealthiest celebrity under 30. She’s had a crazy life of stardom and feuds, and her story is a testament to what hard work and talent can get you (to the tune of $400 million). She was born to an upper middle class family of stock brokers in Pennsylvania back in 1989. She spent her childhood living on a Christmas tree farm of all things, and at age nine, she discovered a love for music. By age 14, her parents moved to Tennessee, so she could be close to the country music scene in Nashville. This was not a mistake. In short order, she was discovered singing a small gig and signed. From there, she released her single “Tim McGraw” and has been experiencing an exponential growth of success ever since. As she matured, she started to reinvent herself from country to pop, and her fame and accomplishments only grew with the change. There was of course the infamous beef with Kanye West, which we talk about in some detail. She even had a beef with Katy Perry once. But love her or hate her, she stands up for what she believes in. She speaks out for women’s rights and LGBTQ issues, even at the detriment of record sales. She dipped her toe in politics to try and register more voters, and she gives back through philanthropic causes. She’s the focus of the documentary Miss Americana and one of the biggest stars on the planet. So give this one a listen, give this one a laugh, and go ahead and learn while you’re at it!   Visit Our Sources https://www.biography.com/musician/taylor-swift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift https://www.singers.com/bio/6625 https://www.forbes.com/profile/taylor-swift/#1441f0f618e2 https://summary.org/taylor-swift-net-worth/ https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/taylor-swift-facts-trivia-2264582 https://heavy.com/money/2019/08/taylor-swift-net-worth/

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we look North of the Border at “The Roswell of Canada” known as the Incident at Falcon Lake. This took place back in 1967. Most people claim it is the most documented encounter in Canada’s UFO history. It is the story of a Polish prospector who stumbled on two craft, gets burned, and has strange health problems the rest of his life. So where does this story begin? A remote lake in Manitoba. Stefan Michalak was a mechanic from Poland who did prospecting as a hobby. He found himself at Falcon Lake since the area is rich with minerals. He staked a claim there the previous year and was out looking for the goods. While there, he heard a bunch of geese (a gaggle?) honk and freak out and fly off. He went to investigate and was surprised at what he saw. There were two craft on the ground, glowing. He described them as cigarette shaped (but drew them as saucers, oddly enough). Michalak approached the craft, assuming they were American test craft, and he called to see if the pilots needed help. What he got for his trouble was a UFO door that shut in his face and a hot blast of air through a metal grate that burned his shirt off and left a grid of scars on his abdomen. Next, Michalak took a bus home to his family and was sick and stunk of ozone and chemicals. He lost weight, and doctors thought he was suffering from radiation sickness, but specialists at the Mayo Clinic said they didn’t know what was wrong with him. Months later, the US government and the RCMP found the site and did investigations. Ultimately, they found burned marks in the ground, high levels of radiation, and later on, melted metal fragments in the rocks. Michalak’s family suffered social disgrace from the incident, but his story stayed remarkably stable. The critics posed questions later about an encounter with the police as he left the site, but this is an interesting case because it came before UFO fever had gripped the world. Visit Our Sources https://alienufoblog.com/falcon-lake-incident-of-1967-ufo-sighting/ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/falcon-lake-incident-book-anniversary-1.4121639 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_Canada#1967,_Falcon_Lake,_Manitoba_incident https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Falcon_Lake_UFO https://www.clermontsun.com/2018/10/26/falcon-lakes-mysterious%E2%80%88ufo-event/ https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/610260/ufo-sighting-documents-donated-to-university-of-manitoba https://www.livescience.com/canadian-ufo-collection-falcon-lake-incident.html https://www.thedailybeast.com/hunting-flying-saucers-in-the-great-white-north https://www.appalachianghostwalks.com/USUFOCenter/ufologist/booth/falconlake1.html  

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the life of an exceptional man of war, General George S. Patton. Patton was born to a privileged family. He knew politicians and seemingly indestructible Civil War generals as a child. His family was a military family, and he was destined to be the same. After academic struggles, he entered West Point. Here, he flunked out in math but excelled in tactics and military drills. Once he graduated, he wiggled his way to the Mexican border where he worked for General Pershing and fought the Mexican outlaw, Pancho Villa. He made a name for himself here and earned promotions before his time in WWI. In the war, he saw a new type of combat, ones using battle tanks. He quickly became the nation’s (if not the world’s) expert at tank warfare and mechanized combat. After legendary exploits in WWI France, he found himself in World War II, where he was indispensable. He helped capture North Africa, Sicily, and most of Germany on his push for blood and guts. Then, there was the time he slapped two soldiers and almost got fired. Oh, and the time he killed a soldier with a shovel, but nobody seemed to care. Did I mention he was an Olympic athlete, redesigned the sabre used by the US Army, and believed in reincarnation? Love him or hate him, George Patton was a quintessential war soldier.   Visit Our Sources: https://www.biography.com/military-figure/george-patton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/george-smith-patton https://www.loc.gov/collections/george-s-patton-diaries/about-this-collection/ https://www.americanheritage.com/ikes-son-remembers-george-s-patton-jr https://vault.fbi.gov/george-s.-patton https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-price-of-being-a-patton-wrestling-with-the-legacy-of-americas-most-famous-general https://www.military.com/army/lt-gen-george-s-patton-jr.html https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-george-patton