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SHOCKING! The Sinister Group Behind Your Grocery Items | Candace Ep 186
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Well, the Diddy trial is prosecuting the wrong case, and there's something fishy going on with Red Lobster's bankruptcy. Also, some of you might be wondering who the hell I am. So, today we're going to take you all the way back to the first story I ever covered on TikTok where I exposed that there's poison in the baby food. We'll also respond to some of your comments. Welcome back to Candace. Our first story today is about food. A specific kind of food that most of you probably eat, but you probably never realize that this food has a serious dark side. And I'm speaking obviously about shrimp. Endless shrimp to be exact. Last May, Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy. And at the time, I had mistakenly assumed that it was because of mismanagement in some sort of private equity buyout like all the other cool kids these days. But it turns out that that's old news. Private equity had already been there and done that way back in 2014 when Red Lobster had been bought out by Golden Gate Capital. And what did they immediately do? Well, if you watched our show yesterday, you would know that they sold off all of Red Lobster's real estate in a lease back scheme. Much like Toys R Us and all sorts of other brands before then, they actually used this lease back scheme to finance their initial purchase of Red Lobster, like a leverage buyout that we already talked about. But color me surprised when I looked up who owns Golden Gate Capital. It was founded by former professionals from private equity firm Bane Capital and its affiliate Bane and Company led by former Bane Capital partner David Dominic. So you remember how last time we talked about how Bane Capital was the private equity arm and Bane and Company was the consulting arm and they would never work together, right? But not only that, when you look up the real estate company that they partnered with in the deal, later that same year, 2014, they got busted for a little $23 million accounting error. This is coming from a couple different sources online as well as Wikipedia to summarize it all for us. The company was formerly known as American Realy Capital Properties, Inc. and it changed its name after an accounting scandal. His name was derived from the Latin word veritas, meaning truth. In October 2014, the company admitted to $23 million accounting error and fired chief financial officer Brian Block. Lawsuits alleged that insiders received over $900 million in fees from the company. In December 2014, Shorch resigned as chairman. Remember 2014, right around the time that they had just bought back all these properties from Red Lobster. That's when they were doing this whole accounting error. In July 2015, the company changed his name to Verit. Verate. Verite. In September 2019, certain defendants agreed to pay $1.025 billion. So, that's a little bit of a whoopsies. But anyways, we're getting distracted. Back to Endless Shrimp. Endless shrimp led to an 11 million operating loss in Q4 of 2023. There was also the fact that when parties arrived at Red Lobster looking to pig out on a barge full of endless shrimp, they simply wouldn't leave. Burke's experience serving a man who put away 16 servings over the course of 2 hours was actually mild compared with some of the other stories I've heard. Josie, 19, who also asked to be anonymous, super anonymous, worked at a now shuttered Kansas City Red Lobster, where she watched a solo diner take down 30 orders of fried shrimp within 4 hours. According to the nutritional information on Red Lobster's website, that's something like 14,000 calories, bulking season. But if you read enough headlines and you you quickly start to realize there is a shrimp spiracy of foot and that's because Red Lobster was bought in its entirety by a company named Thai Union. Thai Union owned Red Lobster and is actually under investigation for its role in this whole debacle. That's because Thai Union not only owns 100% of Red Lobster, but was also historically a large-scale supplier to the chain. Just before this promotion, they eliminated all other shrimp suppliers. Thai Union is one of the world's largest shrimp suppliers, as well as all sorts of other seafood like canned tuna. And I can only presume that their goal with Red Lobster was never to run a successful restaurant company, but instead to perform the world's first shrimpbased bustout scheme. Because remember, the Red Lobster company had already been looted by private equity before Taiun bought it. So unless Taiun is dumb, when they bought it, they already knew that Red Lobster was in big trouble. And when they owned it, what did they do? They cut off all the other shrimp suppliers and turned themselves into the sole provider of shrimp and then offered this crazy deal where Red Lobster tanked on buying endless shrimp from Thai Union. And when you dig into Thai Union's most recent financial statements, they own 62 different seafood companies around the world. Many of them specifically shrimp farms, packing, and distribution companies. But when you add up all the companies they own more than 25% of, that number jumps up to 76. Thai Union Group is the world's largest seafood company and ranked number one in the food production industry on Dow Jones sustainability index which might be true as long as slavery isn't one of their metrics because this report was produced by sustainability incubator just last year about the rampant human rights abuses in the shrimp industry. Thai Union is mentioned numerous times, often referencing their subsidiary, Chicken of the Sea, which is one of the US's largest retail seafood suppliers. The report points out that at the prices paid per kilogram in these sourced countries, it's literally impossible that slave labor and exploitation aren't involved in the supply chain. Based on their analysis, average monthly earnings for shrimp peelers are the lowest in India. Yeah, I'm not sure what happens to Ecuador uh between where the shrimp are cheap and where the wages are recorded. Like maybe they're not even paying wages in Ecuador. I don't know. But suffice to say, it's probably not too good of an industry to be dealing with shrimp in Ecuador. This isn't just some hairbrain theory that Sustainability Incubator cooked up. You might not have noticed the massive scandal that rocked the shrimp industry a decade ago, but we're going to dive all into it today. But before we detail the modern shrimp slave trade, I want to read to you a bit from the book, The Secret Life of Groceries. Because you see, shrimp were notoriously hard to farm or domesticate. When put in farming conditions, their sexual development gets stunted by stress, and females just don't develop ovaries for reasons we don't entirely understand. And the book goes into this in pretty interesting detail. And then stuff gets really wild. The single great breakthrough came in a fittingly bizarre and brutal manner. Then as now, those trying to make aquaculture work raised their shrimp in overcrowded tubs. And as their shrimp swam around and around in circles in these tubs, their outside eye would rub against the side of the tank. And slowly, after God knows how many circles and god knows what type of crowded environment, the outermost eyeball of the outermost shrimp in these tubs would eventually get rubbed right off, erased by friction. And from this misery, an industry was born. It turns out that for as of yet biologically unexplained reasons, a female shrimp who loses a single eyeball gets fasttracked through puberty. Her ocular loss unleashing a cascade of hormones that begets ovaries in as little as 3 days. This was not predictable, nor does it fit with some grand anatomical theory of shrimp endocrinology. But it is very real and some supremely attentive farmer noticed it and began snipping eyeballs off by hand in an attempt to replicate it. Soon the process went mainstream. It was studied and verified in the lab. And although nobody could quite explain itock ablation, the quirky stride of science skipped merrily forward, pushing shrimp aquaculture into a new age. So as this practice was invented in the 70s, Thailand was one of the world's leading shrimping industries because of the waters around Thailand. But now there was surging demand and so they needed laborers to fill it. Fortunately for the Thai shrimping industry, Burma is right next door. You might know it as Myanmar or Burma depending on what time period your history book was written. There are no shortage of refugees trying to escape to Thailand from Burma. Myanmar for a better life. There has been civil wars and coups and bloodshed in Burma since before most of us were born. And this book, The Secret Life of Groceries, tells the story of a specific person who became a fisherman, not by choice, who came from Myanmar to Thailand looking for a better life and wound up as a slave to the shrimping industry. Bit of reference on where he's coming from. There's no simple frame of reference for rural Myanmar at this time. It's feudal and corrupt. Trapped in time without electricity, running water, or paved roads, yet bedcked with assault rifles. Tunllin doesn't grow up with a floor, but does remember his father's N16, leaning against the walls of their hut. Transportation to the front is largely on oxdrawn carts. The country at this time is in perpetual civil war between the government and the communists, between small mercenary armies funded by industrialists and rival tribes, between ethnicities and religions in the different sub regions, all of whom ally with each other and disband and realign to create chaos. He leaves his home village without telling anyone, bringing three t-shirts, three pairs of pants, one blanket, and the shoes he is wearing. He doesn't have a proper bag, so he uses a plastic one. He crosses the border at the town of Miati, and it's easy. He does it all by himself without a broker or a snake head, just a matter of hitching a ride and dashing across a river a few meters down from the official checkpoint. When I visit Milwaukei 18 years later, I see several people doing the exact same thing. From there, he walks up the steep bank and emerges on the Thai side of the border into a town called Mes. He's all alone. The reality of being in Thailand, of the language being different, of knowing absolutely no one hits home. And as that reality hits, a broker waves to him. Tonlin says it seemed like he was waiting for him. The broker is about 40 years old, his eyes smart and handsome, dressed in a blue long-sleeve shirt that is clean. So Tunllin approaches and the broker asks him in Burmese, "Where would you like to go?" and Tunland says simply Thailand. Not totally realizing he's already in Thailand. The broker says that doesn't matter and puts his arms around him. The two of them walk back to a two-story brick house in May. They walk side by side like they are on a date. The whole time they talk in Burmese about Thailand. Tunin is very excited. The broker is laying out a future telling about the different cities in Thailand, the resorts in the south, the skyscrapers in Bangkok, the factories in Samu Sakon, and of course, he's telling him all about the jobs. The first thing he's told when sitting on the floor in this hut, he is very lucky. One of the migrants near him explains that Tunllin has come at a very good time. It has been hard at the house. Some people have been waiting on the floor for over a week. But Tunllin learns he should be very excited because the next day they are set to leave. Truer's word. The next morning, the broker arrives. He tells them they are going to Chiang Mai, a city in the north. But he tells the group that the police are looking for migrants. They are making his job very difficult and dangerous. He explains that the military is pulling vehicles to the side and checking papers. So to get to Chiang Mai without being arrested, they will have to go it by foot. It is a 210 mi trek through a jungle over several mountains during the heart of the rainy season. Tunllin does not know this because the broker does not say this. The broker does not take any questions or explain anything beyond how they are to leave town without attracting attention. Tun is just excited to start. It rains continuously the first day of the walk and quickly the group begins to break down. Many were sick and starving before leaving. Every night they sleep outside, huddled in groups under trees or in small caves and overhangs in the mountain areas. The only food comes at two checkpoints per day where the guide has arranged for meals to be stashed. Each of these meals is identical. Tinned mackerel and tomato sauce. It is not one man per can. Tun says they split cans three, four, or five people per can. Tun estimates that a group of 100 people left the house. By the end of this trip, he knows for a fact that he saw six people die of hunger or disease. Once they get onto a truck, they sit in rows, so tightly packed it is hard to breathe. Then the door is closed. It is dark. No one speaks. Tunin is not on one of the benches, but sitting on the floor with his knees tucked to his chest. He closes his eyes and tries not to think, estimating from a map, driving with no traffic, their trip lasts 12 hours. He tells me there are no rest stops and that people cannot control themselves and they urinate and defecate in the truck. When they arrive, the back of the truck is open and they are told to get out. One by one, they unfold. People are crying. A woman near Tunllin has died. She was suffocated or crushed. Tunlin does not know which only that he sat so close to her the entire trip and that he had not thought about her. Once he gets put onto a boat, which he did not ask to be on, he cannot eat because he is seasick and throws everything up and he is not allowed to sleep. This continues for 3 days. It is at this point the captain puts out the big canisters of instant coffee for the crew to eat. Yes, to eat, not to drink. On the fourth day, doing work he does not understand among men who speak languages like Camar and Lao, he can only partially communicate with. Nauseated, starving, exhausted, Tunlin says he becomes physically unable to continue working, and so he stops and goes to the crawl space to take a nap. This is his first beating. The captain finds him asleep. He then wakes Tunllin up with a weapon. My translator insists on calling a yo-yo. It is a steel ball on an elastic cord, and he swings it at Tunlin, catching him across the face, then repeatedly on the shoulders. Tunllin shows me his scars. He says he has beaten many times over the years, but he will always remember this first one. Tunllin says he is not beaten again after this. The captain merely has to point at this yo-yo for Tunlin to increase the speed of his work until after waiting six months, he makes the mistake of asking for the salary he was promised because that's how they got him onto the boat, saying that he was going to have a job. For this, he is beaten even harder than before. He learns now the captain owns him, that he bought him when he acquired his debt. His friend Tulle simply can't handle it. He is only a teenager and is weak, which means he is beaten more frequently. As the captain whips him, Tulle slowly loses his mind. After a particularly bad beating, Tulle gets very sick. He can't walk and he is allowed to rest. But Tunllin knows things are wrong. Whenever he asks Tulle questions, the boy will only laugh or cry. Soon after, Tulle refuses to work. It is now that he is beaten until he is unconscious and kicked into the sea. Months at sea pass into years. Tunin adjusts. He never enjoys life on the boat, but he learns it. He becomes good at it. He comes to do every job, sorting the fish, carrying them to the freezer on trays, patching, folding, pressing the net, and looking for rips, and more. This is Tunllin's second year on the boat out of what will eventually be 14 years at sea. At this point, he's a slave in the only meaningful sense of the word. He cannot leave. He is not paid. He was brought here a prisoner. He was sold in a cash exchange. He works under the threat of violence and he has seen those who fought back against that violence killed. His best friend on the boat, the only person he knew before boarding, was slowly driven mad and eventually he was killed too. Although they don't get a lot of sleep, this is where they sleep. Tun shares a crawl space with Tulac and the rest of the crew before Tulle dies. Some closer to indentured servants, some free men who signed off on their own valition, some who enforce the captain's orders, many in more than one role, depending on the precise time you look, all sleeping together in a space less than a meter high. To get to the bed, they crawl on their hands and knees for about 12 ft into the darkness through an opening that can fit at most one person at a time. This is where Tulin sleeps when not working his 20our days. When I visit a similar sleeping hole on the Thai docks, the opening comes up just above my knee and it is warm, exhaling the dark yeasty manure smell of the unwashed human body. Tunin and all the rest of these workers are working in the fishing industry, pulling up all sorts of fish. But the waters of Thailand were getting overfished. And as they got overfished, more and more of that Thai fishing industry was actually based on the trash fish, the small fish, the guts, the things that actually can't sell as fish, but instead become fish meal. And they never actually go back to port. They stay out at sea for years at a time. And they get other boats to come and resupply them and take their catch into port for them. And this describes how fishers like Tunlin never see these small unsailable fish make it to port. They are passed to a sister boat at a rendevous at sea. Traded along with food, cigarettes, taibot, and fuel. This is called trans shshipment at sea. It saves fuel for the larger refrigerated fishing vessels and it allows some boats to stay out almost indefinitely, resupplied by others. They turn into floating prisons for trafficked workers. So once all this trash fish makes it into port after being out in the sun on a boat all day, then it gets rolled into the docks where it gets dumped out onto the ground into the sun all day to rot. But within a day, a man with a rake and wearing dark rubber boots will push this pile of fish and fish pieces towards a growling mouth in the cement docks. It looks like a hole in the ground with two grinders in it for teeth. And it takes the rotting fish and pulverizes them further. The scent near the hole is deafening. If you really want to know what you're feeding your pets when it says fish on the label, this is what it is. It is the smell of thousands of tiny rotting fish piled ankle high in the 90°ree Tai sun on a space that has held ankle-high levels of tiny rotting fish for years. It is a hot smell, not just from the climate and the decomposition, but because there are furnaces just beyond. You can see them glowing behind the man with the rake. The pulverized fish will pass on a conveyor belt toward those furnaces, getting cooked into a paste, then baked into meal. This will then be sold to yet another broker, bought by a feed mill, and blended with inputs from dozens of other facilities. All to create the protein base in pet food, food for fish farms, and the feed for hungry little shrimp. But that is just the industry responsible for making shrimp food, as well as cat and dog food. The rest of the shrimp supply chain is brutal, too. For example, here's another story from the shrimp industry. Every morning at 2 a.m., they heard a kick on the door and a threat. Get up or get beaten. For the next 16 hours, number 31 and his wife stood in the factory with their aching hands in ice water. They ripped the guts, heads, and tails, and shells off of shrimp bound for overseas markets, including grocery stores and all you can eat buffets across in the US. After being sold to the gig peeling factory, the couple were at the mercy of their Thai bosses, trapped with nearly 100 other Burmese migrants. Children worked alongside them, including a girl so tiny she had to stand on a stool to reach the peeling table. Some had been there for months, even years, getting little or no pay. At all times, someone was watching. Benjamin Lore points out that this issue is multiaceted and ultimately it stems from the modern world's globalized insatiable demand for more for cheaper. It's a trend that permeates every aspect of our modern brand of consumerism. And there's no easy fix because when Thailand was exposed, new standards were imposed and the Thai shrimping industry collapsed only to move to countries like India and Vietnam. And now Thailand is at it again. News misses this crucial distinction that the slavery never ended. It just moved into a new shadow somewhere else where American and Western consumers could shield their eyes from it and pretend that it wasn't happening. Thailand is now proposing repealing the legal standards that had previously cracked down on shrimp slavery and force business abroad. The Thai government has been insistent that trade would not be affected by new guidelines, stressing that the EU, with whom it currently is negotiating a free trade agreement, makes up only around 6% of seafood exports. These practices go wherever the shrimp industry goes and lately that's been India because right now India is our largest supplier. It's no coincidence that Sustainability Incubator found wages to be the lowest on average in India and the price is the cheapest. Who knows what's happening in Ecuador. The market will find the cheapest supply wherever it can be produced and that will always be a race to the bottom and the bottom will always be slavery. India became America's leading shrimp supplier accounting for about 40% of the shrimp consumed in the US in part because media reports including the AP investigation that exposed modern-day slavery in Thailand and their seafood industry. AP's 2015 reporting led to the freedom of some 2,000 enslaved fishermen and prompted calls for bans of Thai shrimp, which had been dominating the market. But unfortunately, that just moved it to India. Stories from India sound like this. She said she works in brutal conditions, peeling, cutting, and grading shrimp in a factory for less than $4 a day, which is $2 less than minimum wage. The working conditions are tough, she said, wiping away tears with the corner of her red sorry, standing for long hours in the cold while peeling and cutting shrimp takes a toll on my body. This woman is a 51-year-old widow, by the way. Baby, her last name, and other workers said they pay recruiters about 25 cents a day out of their salaries just to set foot inside the processing shed. Transportation and company buses is also deducted from some workers salaries along with the cost of lunch from company cantens. Many workers have no contracts and no recourse if they are hurt on the job. Another peeler said she suffers back pain all the time from the arduous work for which she's paid about $3 a day. Some have nail fungus caused by small cracks that allow germs to cause infections. Other women have fingers or even their entire hands darkening with frostbite. Ma said that sometimes she has to amputate. AP journalists observed dozens of women working in unsanitary and dangerous conditions. The shrimp pulled from outdoor ponds in barrels were swished around by hand in grimy water. Once rinsed, they were dumped onto ice covered tables where women stood peeling them one shrimp at a time. Many handled shrimp with bare hands. Some women had bandages on injured fingers. Some women's long hair dangled into the shrimp. And you kind of expect that kind of conditions maybe in, you know, third world countries processing your food like India or Thailand. But the point of this is that Nikanti, the company that they were apparently peeling shrimp for, they present a very different image. In the bottom section here, a marketing video produced by Nikanti, which is projecting $150 million in revenues this year, shows shrimp peelers in a spotless room with shiny tables, and workers wearing gloves, head coverings, face masks, rubber boots, and waterproof aprons. By the way, Nikanti is a subsidiary of guess who? Thai Union Group. They of course denied the allegations, said the company had nothing to do with the peeling shed that AP had visited, and said that their branded truck was there only because it was being leased to another company. He provided a document that said that Nikanti was paid $3,600 for the four-month lease of a truck with a license plate number the AP observed. Sure, that document is a-ok. Okay, but you have to imagine what's going on out there when that's the image they're presenting and the actual conditions in these countries are like the stories that you're hearing. And I just wanted to give you a little image, a little visual of where all the shrimp in the world is coming from right now. But just to be clear, the shrimp industry works the way that the shrimp industry works. And if you want to sell shrimp for the prices that these countries are selling shrimp for, you have to compete with countries that are using slave labor. So your bottomless shrimp is another man's or child slave laborers bottomless despair. This year in 2025, New Orleans hosted the Super Bowl. And someone had the bright idea of going there and doing a little testy testy on the shrimp that they were selling in New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities. Turns out everyone lies. The testing was done by CD Consulting, made possible by a new testing technology that could turn results around in less than an hour instead of sending to labs and taking days. And what did those test results show? Well, the cities with the highest shrimp fraud rate were Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg, Florida at 96%. According to CD Consulting, only two of the 44 restaurants sampled were serving authentic shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico. A study found in Baton Rouge, researchers sampled menu items at 24 restaurants and found nearly 30%, more than one in four, were misrepresented. family-owned shrimp business operating out of the port of Tampa are struggling to survive. While local restaurants bamboozle customers into thinking locally caught shrimp are being served, family-owned and American businesses are the ones bearing the brunt of our desire for the most, the best, and also somehow the cheapest. America and the Western world has this obsession with optics and ethics. We want to feel good about the products we're buying. We want to be absolved of our sins. But ignorance is not bliss. And many, not all, but many of these marks that are here to tell us that we're making ethical choices are essentially madeup stickers and rackets. Inspections are often halfbaked, audits, ineffective, loopholes are pretty much endless. This is another thing that lore covers extensively and with great nuance in his book. It's a pretty rough story when you really get into it. And these types of stories are all over the place. You can't pay attention to everything and you can't be ethical with every decision. You'll get decision paralysis. You'll never buy anything. You'll never eat anything. But it is important to think about where your stuff is coming from, who's responsible for it, and what are the costs of low costs down the line. We've got trade wars, inflation, global chaos, and a skyrocketing national debt. It's no wonder that gold keeps hitting record highs. With everything going on in the world, thousands of people are diversifying their savings with gold and silver. And they're turning to my gold partner, which is Gold Co. Right now, Gold Co is offering you a free 2025 gold and silver kit. Plus, you can get unlimited silver if you qualify. Find out how you can help diversify your savings tax and penalty-free. Visit candislikesgold.com or call 855222 gold. I'm sure you know that P. Diddy is on trial and it's ongoing. Details are coming out slowly. A lot of people are following along with the live court updates. There's no video coming out of the courtrooms. Unfortunately, we're not going to get an Amber Herd talking about doing things on the bed or anything like that, but we are getting some funny court sketches and a lot of really, really awful stories from Cassie Ventura that really we're not going to talk about. I don't want to talk about them. you don't want to hear about them. If you really care about all the horrible things that Cassie alleges that Diddy did to her while they were dating and not dating and whatever else, you can read all about it on the internet. You can look up her original lawsuit because that is not the story. And I don't mean to say that Cassy's accusations are not important because they very much are. What I mean to say is that so far everything that's being discussed in the courtroom is super not the story that we were all here to see. The actual story that I want to talk about that I assume that most of you want to talk about is the kind of story where Suge Knight famously accused Diddy of being a longtime FBI informant. In April of this year, Whitney Webb released an excellent report about Diddy's early life, outlining how he attended a boy school that was marred in numerous sex scandals and how his father was very likely a rat, an informant that was eventually caught and killed. All of this was even before Diddy even got into the music industry, where his early mentors were linked to the mob and all sorts of other scandals. The real story is Lil Rod's lawsuit, which we've all seen and talked about before. Lucian Grange, the CEO of Universal Music Group, was originally named in that lawsuit, and so was Universal Music Group and Mottown, as well as many other people, but their names all mysteriously vanished. But the lawsuit directly alleges that Graange was at the parties and presumably partially or entirely funding them at times. The lawsuit included what appeared to be screenshots from videos of famous people and told of coercion based on performing sexual acts on camera. It included many specific allegations about drugs, guns, prostitutes, even minors. But the biggest bombshell in the lawsuit, as far as I'm concerned, and the thing that no mainstream outlet wants to touch is the allegations of hidden cameras. Quote, "While living and traveling with Mr. Combmes, Mr. Jones discovered that Mr. Combmes has hidden cameras in every room of his homes. Mr. Jones believes that Mr. Combmes has recordings of defendants Lucy and Charles Graange, Ethiopia Habermarium, as well as other celebrities, music label executives, politicians, and athletes. Upon information and belief, these individuals were recorded without their knowledge and consent. And as is the case with the homosexual sex tape of Stevie Jay that Mr. Combmes provided to Mr. Jones, Mr. Combmes possesses compromising footage of every person that has attended his freakoff parties and his house parties. I don't think that all of those videos are the ones being shown in court. Just my suspicions. Upon information and belief, due to this treasure trove of evidence he has in his possession, Mr. Combmes believes that he is above the law and is untouchable. Upon information and belief, Mr. Combmes employs Joseé Cruz as his IT director. This writer has spoken to several former employees of Mr. Combmes who confirmed that Joseé Cruz is the gatekeeper to all of Mr. Comb's recordings. And I want to point out here this document was prepared by a lawyer and that lawyer has a legal duty to believe that all the statements in this document are true at least to a certain like he he cannot just lie openly. He cannot say that he spoke to all these other employees of Mr. Combmes if he never did. That would be a disbarable offense. And so this lawsuit has to at least have merit in the lawyer's eyes. And maybe it wouldn't all prove out in court, but it's not just made up out of nowhere, right? And there are very specific claims and there are screenshots that seem to show screenshots of video evidence. There's all sorts of stuff in there. Okay, pair all that with the fact that Diddy's head of security was Fahhem Muhammad. Quote, "In 2008, Fahhem graduated from Sacramento State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration with a concentration in real estate and marketing." Michael Jackson died just one year after Fahhem apparently graduated from college. Fahhem was Michael Jackson's head of security and apparently second on the scene when Michael died. Then Fahheim winds up as Diddy's head of security. Kind of weird. By the way, before we get off of Fahheim Muhammad, remember his specialty in real estate from college? Well, he owns a real estate company, and he apparently has land right on the Mexico border. Check this out. 40 acres of land in San Diego County. That's what one dad gave his son for his 13th birthday. He posted about it on social media, and their story went viral. Rapper Shawn Combmes even posted about it. Fahheim Muhammad bought 198 acres out here in Boulevard to get away. It's real quiet. The wall is right there. This is not like Chicago. It's not like LA. He lives in Los Angeles and runs a real estate business that buys and rebuilds properties in the south side of Chicago. He says to create a better living situation for the black community there. Fahhem says his mom taught he and his siblings how important it is to own your own property and to help their community. So when his son Fahhem recently turned 13, he gave him 40 acres. I thought it would be a great opportunity to to teach him a life lesson about the value of land. And they're teaching other kids from LA these lessons, too. So all them regular rocks you picked, they bring inner city kids out here to hike, ride ATVs, and build campfires. And even though they're right beside the border wall, they've had no problems out here. These city kids enjoy their own private open space. They've had no problems out here. Remember that's from back during Biden's term when there was all kinds of problems at the border. If you owned land on the border where no one was there, I have a feeling there were people jumping over a fence, dropping babies over a fence, and running through your land. That's a whole other dig though. But just suffice it to say that I have questions about why exactly did you choose to buy all that land right on the border wall, Fahhem, while you're simultaneously the head of security of this sort of trafficking operation that's having these freakoffs where there's allegations that there were party favors and stuff like that. Yeah. I can't help but feel like they they're trying the wrong case in court. But ultimately, this stuff isn't new. If you're in the music industry, people have been whispering about Diddy ever since Biggie and Tupac were murdered, making way for Diddy's rise to superstardom alongside Biggie Smalls's ex sidekick, Jay-Z. And I just want to remind us all too of some of the more recent allegations that people have made against Diddy. But as far as Meek Mills, Puff Daddy, whoever, none of these, all you fake hard you hold, hold on. All you fake hard you. You know what I'm saying? I don't give cuz you can't shoot nobody anyway. And the reason why you got talk is cuz you did a deal. You fed. You know what I'm saying? That's why you got to come at me cuz part of the deal for you to be a do all that and get out of jail is that you promise that you going to go pull my coat card. So y'all [ __ ] shut the [ __ ] up about me. Um PS today while we were sourcing this clip, we accidentally noticed that the original Drink Champs video on their like on their YouTube channel no longer has that little section about Diddy being a fed. It appears to have been edited to cut that clip out. And we went back through it and rewatched it and tried to confirm and check out what is now on the drink champ's website as of I think a year ago. But as far as Meek Mills, Puff Daddy, whoever, none of these, all you fake hard, [ __ ] you. No, hold on. Hold on. All you fake hard, [ __ ] you. You know what I'm saying? So y'all [ __ ] shut the [ __ ] up about me. You see where it cut to a different clip and then it came back to Kanye and you never got to kind of weird. And as best as we could tell that happened somewhere like a year ago is when that video was uploaded. And my presumption would be that that has something to do with Diddy applying pressure in approach to his court appearance. But we don't know. We're just we're just noticing things. Just noticing. But anyways, none of that is being mentioned in court right now. It almost reminds me of a certain other sex trafficker who didn't kill himself. So, just don't forget the real story because the real story is part of a much bigger picture. And I'm sure we'll be talking about that picture in stories coming up. I want to take a second to tell you about pure talk. What if I told you that you could cut your cell phone bill in half and support a US company who shares your values? Values like supporting our veterans and creating American jobs. What if I told you that you don't have to sacrifice coverage because you'll be on America's most dependable 5G network? I'm talking about the only wireless company that Candace endorses, Pure Talk, a wireless company that is veteranled and invest in a US customer service team so that you have the best support possible. If you're with Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile, join the hundreds of thousands who have successfully cut their cell phone bill in half. That's right, the average family saves over $1,000 a year when they switch to Pure Talk. Switch in as little as 10 minutes when you go to puretalk.com/owens with plans starting at just 25 bucks a month. What are you waiting for? Go to puretalk.com/owens and make the switch to pure talk wireless by Americans for Americans. I realized that a lot of you guys might have no idea who the heck I am. And I also realized that based upon talking about the shrimp industry, there's a whole lot of other stuff that I kind of came up on, stories that I used to cover all the time that we should probably revisit. Teach you a little bit about where I come from and teach you a little bit about what's in your baby food as well as all the other products in your grocery store aisles. So, here's one of the first Tik Tok videos I ever made that summed up the whole first dig I did into grocery store aisles and into what's who really owns everything and what are they putting in everything. After we discovered that Target has entire shelves of shampoo that are all owned by the same mega corporations, I decided to go look at a bunch of other products that we put on our bodies and into our various holes. Cuz we all get the scent that this is just the illusion of choice. But it's different when you actually see it like this. Like the whole shelf of deodorant at Raid that has like three options that are not mega corporations, but several that are specifically branded to look like they're natural and legit. like Schmidz or Tomms of Maine. By the way, the women's deodorant was the exact same story. One option hiding down there in the bottom. I went to the skincare aisles of several stores. They purposely brand it to look like it's medical and like doctor formulated. They advertise all over the place that it's trusted by experts, you know, formulated by doctors that work for Proctor and Gamble and trusted by experts that work at Unilever. Even at high-end beauty stores like Ulta, I only found two types of shampoo that were female or founder or family-owned. Rest are owned by mega corporations and billionaire private equity, who I'm sure care a lot about your hair care and your health. They would never include carcinogens and toxic chemicals in their products. Obviously, all the class action lawsuits you can find on Google are just fear. But in some aisles, there are founder and family-owned brands made by real people that actually care about you hiding amongst all of these other mega corporations designed to blend in. And so what I did is I started making spreadsheets and giving them out for free on my website with all the different types of, you know, health and with all the different types of skin care, personal care products, shampoos, with lists of the different brands that we all consume on a daily basis and whatever mega corporations or businesses own those brands. Because I'm not trying to say that all of these brands are necessarily horrible for you. I'm just trying to say that when you buy these brands, your money is going to these mega corporations. And mega corporations pretty much all play by the same corporate playbook. Target's top shareholders are Vanguard, State Street, and Black Rockck along with a bunch of like investment banks and private equity funds. In about four hours of work, their CEO makes as much as the average Target worker makes in an entire year, which only totals up to like $17.5 million in 2023. I mean, poor guy got a pay cut. How is he going to afford the mortgage on his extra condo in the Caribbean? He might even have to sell one of the yachts. To be clear, that was a joke. I don't know if Brian owns any yachts. Not trying to spread misinformation, Tik Tok, just pure facts. I'm sure Brian is a great guy. And a lot of people misunderstand my message as being like capitalism is evil and capitalism is the devil. And that's not really what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to say is that capitalism is what we make it with our capital. And when we all support giant monopoly mega corporations, we help to prop up this version of capitalism that is actually much more like corporate oligarchy. And we inherently have the power to change it or at least to push on it. If we stop spending our money on this and start giving more of our money to companies like this, we can very much change the world. Which I know sounds corny, but it's true. The reason why mega corporations do this is so that they can maximize the chances of the most of our money being spent on their products. But we all have the power to go into this aisle and to find that one little spot where the real companies owned by real people are hiding and to spend our money on those products because that money does not go to multi-million dollar CEO bonuses. It goes to employees at real companies that actually take care of their people. It goes to voting for products that are not filled with chemical. Chemicals that cause hair loss that then let those same companies turn around and sell you products to prevent hair loss. I'm not making that up. The aisle at Target has both those products both owned by the same companies, both on the same shelf, right next to each other. I can't imagine why. So, I know times are tight for a lot of people. I know the economy is horrible and it's probably going to get worse. But personal care products are a great place to start changing your spending habits because it's not like food that you have to consume every day and you have to spend tons and tons and tons of extra money to buy better brands. You just have to buy, you know, a better brand once a month, you know, once a every couple weeks. This is a multibillion dollar industry. It's massive. And if we all start voting in it with our dollars, we stand to change everything. 2023 was pretty depressing and I guarantee you 2024 is going to be just as or more depressing. But my 2024 is going to be all about things that we can do to change to make the world a better place. And we all know the world is run by money. So start using yours to promote businesses that make the world better, not worse. What a throwback. That is where your boy comes from. And that's what I really got started on when I made my first Tik Tok video is how does this world work and who owns all the stuff that we use? And over time, as I looked at more and more products and more and more industries and just started learning about where all this money goes, I started to notice the patterns and notice how it works and notice solutions. One of my favorite places to start this dig that wasn't quite mentioned in that one is Hidden Valley Ranch. Who do you think owns Hidden Valley Ranch? And I want to invite you to search that on the internet because all of you can do this research, too. And it's not hard. You can do it in the grocery store on your phone. You can do it right now on your computer. But when you look up who owns Hidden Valley Ranch, you'll get a screen something like this, and you'll find out that it's owned by Clorox, the bleach company. But that's not the top of the chain. You look up who owns Clorox and you'll find out that it is a public company. Like the kind of company you can buy stock in, right? And the word you need to look up in order to figure out who owns a public company is you need to look up Clorox Institutional Ownership. And when you do that, you get to screens like this. Or you can go to a website that'll actually give you the full list. And it's not hard to find. And when you go to a website like Yahoo Finance and you find the full list, you're gonna notice something pretty quick. The top shareholders of basically every company in America are Vanguard, Black Rockck, and State Street. But Black Rockck actually owns State Street. So, it's just Vanguard and Black Rockck. And then below that is always all the banks, fund managers, private equity, etc. And all of them are nothing like any of us. And the more you do this and look around, the more you'll realize that these same financial institutions are at the top of basically every public corporation in America, right? Even ones that you think were natural and family or founder owned, like Dave's Killer Bread, nope. Got bought out a long time ago by Flowers Foods. And when you look at Flowers Foods, Vanguard and BlackRock are the top shareholders. You keep doing this over and over for different industries and pretty soon you notice that all kinds of different companies, food and beverage, banks, big tech, every single one of these little squares inside of these bigger squares are big companies that you will recognize the names of and you can probably zoom in on some of them. And the red highlights are Vanguard, Black Rockck, State Street, and all the other names on those lists are their buddies. Notice there's even funeral and hospice care. They have water and utilities. They've got just about every aspect of our lives locked down in a big way. The entire market is kind of just one big conglomerated game where they all play their parts and they all have their different corporations, but they all are owned by the same financial institutions and all of them have a fiduciary duty to make their shareholders money. That's a legal thing. They are required by law at all of those public corporations to maximize shareholder value. And everything you're looking at on those lists are their top shareholders. So, they are legally required to do what's best for all of those financial institutions, not for you. Once you take this into the grocery store and actually look at the products on the shelves, stuff gets pretty bleak pretty quick because what I started doing is just coloring it in. Anything that's owned by a mega corporation. Oopsies. There's not a lot of options left. Notice the baby food aisle over there. That's not a single non-corporate option of baby food in that store. That's a WCO. We're going to come back to baby food. But it doesn't stop there. You can do detergent. Actually, the first one I ever did was tampons and feminine products. The cereal aisle, big money maker in grocery stores. And you could just go on forever. It never ends. And I did this for a whole year. Trust me. But I said I wanted to come back to baby food because this is not just about who owns it, but it's about when their fiduciary duty is to financial institutions like the banks, their job is just to make the cheapest product that will profit the most, that will sell to the masses in whatever way they can. And when you're talking about something like baby food, there are serious ramifications for doing so. This report is an official report published by the US House of Representatives where they ordered a study into what is in our baby foods. And they found that baby food was wildly tainted with arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury. And I want you to notice the brands that are at the bottom of the screen where the logo of the House of Representatives is. That's Gerber, Happy Baby, Plum, all these different brands that you might think. I thought that Plum was organic. Yeah, it's owned by a mega corporation. And when they tested what was in these baby foods, it was appalling. The test results of baby foods and their ingredients eclipse those levels, meaning the levels that are accepted as safe, including results up to 91 times the arsenic level, up to 177 times the lead level, up to 69 times the cadmium level, and up to five times the mercury level that is supposed to be allowable in our baby food, which should be zero. But even so, that's pretty dark. And if you didn't know that, if you didn't know who is making your baby food and how little they care about your baby's health, you would probably feed that to your baby. And a lot of you probably have. And I want to stress that you should not feel guilty about that. A lot of people can't afford other things. And most of your babies will be okay. But it is scary to know about and it's important to look for solutions. And unfortunately, those solutions are not readily available or easy. Right? You could make your own baby food at home by cooking all your food, but a lot of parents have to work all day, right? That's the whole point of having this convenient baby food. And we didn't even mention the formula, which is super messed up. But one solution that I kept finding over and over again in every aisle everywhere that I went is that when you find brands that are owned by families, owned by their founders, owned by real people, more often than not, those brands have more of a commitment to humans, to you, the customer. Because if they don't, they're going to get gobbled up. They're going to get crushed by the big competition. They need to do something outstanding. And usually they're real people, too, that have kids that are in this business for a reason. And so I started to notice that the family and founder owned brands for many obvious reasons are on balance a far better option. And it's not hard to buy family-owned. Often they're the same price. Sometimes they cost a little more, but really the hard part is just finding them because shelf space is for sale in the grocery store. And if you want to know about that, buy this book. Not sponsored. It's just amazing. Shelf space is purposely for sale so that they can monopolize the entire aisle and make it very hard to find all the little brands that compete with this giant corporate scheme. But if you know what brands you're looking for, you can just go find them and buy those and suddenly you can boycott the entire evil financial cabal all at once. So what I started doing years ago when I first well two years ago really look I'm real old. I'm like an oldtimer guys. I've been in this for forever. But all of 2023 and part of 2024, I made these spreadsheets and I put them online on my website for free. And even though I have closed down that old store because I sucked at running a clothing store, I still have those spreadsheets available on that website. The website is cancel company.com/resources and we'll have a link below. Um, and the spreadsheets are up still to this day. It's Google Docs, so you know, practice safe docs. Um, but I should warn you that they're going to be coming down soon because not because we hate the project or anything like that, but because we have something way cooler in the works. And I don't want to say too much yet, but let's just say that all along people have been asking me if you could use your phone in order to scan products and find out who owns them and all this stuff that was on those sheets and more, that would be a gamecher. And at a certain point, I received an email from two people out there that were like, "Yo, we took your spreadsheets and we made them into an app and we want to show you." And they're awesome and they're total wizards and there is an app coming. I can't say too much just now, but it's definitely on the way and it's going to be sick. And we're going to put a link down below in the description of where you can go follow along in order to get the updates when that's ready because it's and by by the way, it's not going to be like some crazy profit scheme. We're not going to like make a bunch of money off you. We're going to make a dope product that I'm going to use every day because we want you to be able to is I mean, it's not about boycotting this or that or shutting down this company or that company. We're not here to tell you what's ethically right or what's healthy for you. We're just here to give you the information so that if you personally don't want to buy from Nestle for reasons, you can figure out what's owned by them because they own hundreds of brands. If you don't want to buy from Bud Light or from any old company, it's up to you. This will help you do it right. For me, it'll be to help find family and found your own businesses. For you, it can be whatever you want. And now I want to tell you about American financing. Debt doesn't just show up one day. It builds little by little. credit cards, car loans, medical bills, and suddenly you're juggling payments, feeling stuck. But here's the good news. You're not stuck. You just need a reset. At American Financing, they help homeowners like you every day. They use your home's equity and roll that high interest debt into one simple, affordable payment. They're saving homeowners an average of $800 a month. No judgment, no pressure, just real solutions that put you back in control. Imagine breathing again, sleeping again, knowing your future is yours to shape. It starts with one call and it only takes 10 minutes to get started. And there are no upfront fees, so it costs nothing to find out how much you can save. And if you start today, you may be able to delay your next two mortgage payments. American Financing salarybased consultants are ready to listen and ready to help. Take back your peace of mind with American Financing. Call American Financing today. 8007951210. That's 8007951210 or visit americanfinancing.net/owens. We've been loving the comments that you guys have been sending in. It's been so humbling to receive so much support and so much good belly laughter from all the things that you guys have been saying. So, to close out today, we're going to check in with some of your comments at Chrismaz 75 said, "I am so impressed with Candace's choice, not only because Ian is fully capable of doing a good job, but because he has different political ideas than Candace does, and these two are teaching people how to disagree respectfully and still work together." Yes, that is what we need more of in this world and I couldn't agree more. Candace, I love and respect her in every way. Even though we disagree on things that does not matter. You can be friends with people regardless. At Kenny Seer 2719 said, we got Ian Carol filling in for Candace before GTA 6. Let that sink in. Classic at wearing light being said, Ian being so respectful of Candace's show to the point he was afraid to say hell. I genuinely didn't know and I didn't want to make a mistake and I kind of like I used to teach a lot and so I kind of like getting back to my roots where you you know you're just making family-friendly content. It's a good feeling at NCD48 all this and more on Candace then I was kind of hoping for a baby Ian Carol montage don't hold your breath but maybe we'll do something like that at the end of the at the end of the time I'm here. I don't know. At faith-based living 939 says, "As a mother of four, thank you, Ian, for exposing these types of mafias, I mean businesses." Yeah, if you haven't seen the episode that we did about Urban Air yet, both of the last episodes this week were about this crazy breaking story at Urban Air. And don't worry, we will be doing a whole bunch more about that whole debacle next week. We're just taking our time to get the story straight, to compile all the documents that we have, and to really put together a great story because we don't we want to do the best we can for Tiffany, for all the other children and families that have been affected by this, and hopefully to make a change. So, at Cheryl Lynn 101 says, "My husband strapped the harness for our 9-year-old and tested the clip system at a couple of these places. He was more aware of the risk than me. We've even gone to indoor rock climbing loces, too, where he insisted on checking everything. He didn't care about offending people or pissing someone off, just measured insistence. Hearing this story makes me love him even more. Thanks, Ian. You did great. That is a good man. More healthy masculinity where you're taking care of your family, making sure your kids are safe. Do not outsource your children's safety to an underpaid 16-year-old at a private equityowned trampoline park. That is never a good idea. At Alle de Laquva said, "My daughter worked at Urban Air. She was 16. She complained she received no training and had to harness the children. She quit because she said management was irresponsible. The place was a mess. Parents need to be aware of this place and that we are seeing at these places. Thank you for bringing awareness to this. Yes, I'm glad your daughter got out and is safe and no horrible scandals happened right on her watch at Gematic. Leon said, "Tiffany is almost single-handedly raising awareness of how private equity is destroying small family-owned businesses. You are so right. Tiffany is an absolute rock star, a legend. And her story has been she's been working so hard to get her story out. And it's just an honor to be able to help tell that story and to help spread awareness of not only what she went through, but what all these other families went through in secret arbitration that they were not able to speak about until now. And I just I cannot but hope the best for all of these people that have been so harmed by it. Um it's a real tragedy. So, on a positive note, it's been really humbling to see your response to me. Thanks for all the wonderful comments. It's really fun to read through them and giggle, share them with the crew, um, and just generally, uh, have a good time with you guys and with everyone here at the Candace Show. Um, this is just the first week getting my bearings, getting our stories straight. Um, next week we got a whole bunch of bangers coming at you, too. But for now, that's all for this week. Be sure to like this video, share it with all your friends, subscribe to Candace's channel. Mine is linked below. Go off and have a great weekend. Stay healthy, be happy, and we'll see you next week.
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