The Chaser Report - The Right to Bear Crypto

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

Charles is furious after having an online purchase sniped from him by crypto investors. Meanwhile Aleksa has a rant about a legitimate war-crime that went completely unreported, and the team read all your sweet reviews. Plus another classic Fiction or Furphy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of The Chaser Report, brought to you by cricket. So we're here, another sunny day at cricket stadium in London. And we're all here to play. Everyone gets the ashes. Oh, there goes the ball. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore.

FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report for Friday the 19th of November, Dom Knight, Charles Firth and Gabby Bolt.

Welcome back. Wooo, whoo. I am so depressed, guys. Oh, woo, woo. Why today? Well, because I've always wanted to buy the U.S. Constitution. Haven't we all? Yeah.

And I was, and there's one. You and Nicholas Cage. There's one coming up for sale. There's only 13 copies in the world. And there's one coming up for sale at Sotheby's just next month. Right. And I was getting ready. It's only going to be like $20 million.

Yeah. Money together. What were you going to do with it, Charles? Oh, I don't know. Pop it in a frame. Well, I'll probably use it to line the, I've got this bearded dragon. Oh, for flood. Yeah, just sort of.

put it down on the page. Yeah, I'll love it. Because my theory is... Wipe his ass on it? You use it as target practice. Second Amendment. Yes. If you hit the Constitution, you're defending your constitutional rights. I love it.

Yeah, that's better than my idea. No, I prefer... No, I like the idea of the lizard just shitting on it. Anyway, point is, I think I'm going to be our bid because these cryptocurrency people have turned it into a token, right, called... What? than a few. Called people coin. Oh God. Another one. And it's going to be a group buy. So all these people have raised millions of dollars to try and buy the constitution as a sort of Bitcoin

token blockchain. Even though it is a fungible token, like it is literally a physical object. It's a thing. With history that exists. It's going to be bought by anonymous wankers on the internet. Yes. Oh my God. And not us. Yeah. Can you imagine how bad this is going to get if Crypto idiots can just amass billions in a day for stupid purposes. Well, do you see Staples Center in L.A.? It's like the big stadium there. Yeah. What's it called?

It's Staple Stadium, is it? Staple Center. No, it's where the Lakers play. It's being renamed Crypto.com. No, it's not. It is. It's been renamed that $700 million $20-year deal. Do you reckon?

I don't think crypto's going to be around for 20 years. Do you think that eventually, like the law is going to have to catch up to cryptocurrency. I feel like that's the problem here. There's nothing. Yeah, you can't tax. But the bigger problem is that it can't. There's actually no way for the law to regulate it. I mean, the tax office can try and tax you on your earnings from it. But it's completely anonymous. There is no way to know. This is the whole thing. The founder of Bitcoin supposedly calls Satoshi Nakamoto. He has more Bitcoin than everyone else. No one knows if he's even alive. Because there's this giant wallet full of billions and billions of dollars.

I am Satoshi Nakamoto, by the way. That's how this business has been saying is floating the entire time. I'm hiding it through abject poverty. What a movie this will make one day, though. And there are all these theories about who it is, but no one even knows. And tax officials can't catch this person. And he's one of the richest people on the planet. Yeah, but also isn't the real problem with crypto that it consumes now 3% of the world's energy?

If not more. Just to keep it going. And so it's like, We're literally bringing in something that's going to destroy the planet just when we don't need it. And also I'm fucking sick of rich people saving their money. You're fucking rich. Go and buy shit. Well, I want to do.

I want to buy the Constitution. If you're not going to spend it. They won't let me. If you're not going to spend it on, you know, wealth equality, go, don't just leave it in an account for people to question who your identity is. Go and spend it on shit. If you want proof that rich people are fucked, right? Elon Musk, who's probably the biggest crypto investor in the world other than Satoshi, whoever it is.

Tweeted the other day, if anyone has an idea to end world hunger for $6 billion, I'll do it. I'll just sell some Tesla stock and I'll just do it. And all these people immediately who are experts said, okay, Elon, you can actually pretty much end people dying of hunger for $6 billion and he hasn't responded. That's the kind of person who's into crypto. He cares far more about fucking Dogecoin, which is a bad joke that's gone way out of control than he does about ending world hunger. He could do it tomorrow.

He's worth $250 billion or something. Are you serious? Yeah. So he asked the actual question then got given a pretty much straight up go-ahead green light and he chose not to? I really hope he does it to prove me wrong. Elon, I challenge you.

Either that or I'm fine with bringing back assassins. Like the Wilkes Booths of the world, feel free. Go nuts. No, but I think assassinating billionaires is wrong. I think, you know, there's a lot of people who are starving who are hungry. I think we should eat the billionaires. That would actually make a dent.

Oh, literally eat the rich. That would make a dent in world hunger. Yeah, it would. Well, that's what Marie Antoinette meant. Although I've heard, I don't like Musk at all. The taste of Musk sticks. I love Musk sticks. Yum, yum.

Coming up on the show, we're talking to Alexa about drone strikes, I think. He always comes on here with a joyful subject, doesn't he? So if the intro wasn't dark enough, welcome to that. And let's not forget, Charles spins more either slightly or totally, totally disguised bullshit. As opposed to the regular bullshit. In a segment we call fictional fervi. Plus our reviews, that's going to be really dark

as we read the reviews of the podcast. So stay with us on this hell ride right after back in the newsroom. Victorian police have announced they are stunned by calls by members of the public for both them and the media to start calling Melbourne's protesters terrorists. This comes after the protesters

very calmly threatened to murder Dan Andrews setting up execution devices in front of his office. The Chinese government reports that famous tennis star Peng Chui has said nothing of interest in the past month. A close friend of the tennis star, wearing a black suit and a CCP pin, has said there's no news to report, other than the fact that she will be taking part in a silent retreat for the next few years.

A local wife can't wait for the end of her. Movember when her husband will finally shave his hideous patchy lip. While the mask mandates have spared the rest of the community from staring at his facial butt fluff, she is still counting down until the start of December when she can make love with the lights on again. That's the latest headlines from The Chaser Report. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno. This episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by just everyone's favourite game

cricket. Yeah, and we're here at the Gabba, a stadium of which I only know the name of, because my name sort of sounds like that name. And oh boy, are they throwing that, they're throwing that ball, which I believe to be a part of the game. What a game. Generally, we like to talk about trivial, silly things on the podcast, but then Alexa comes in to bring the mood down with something awful that's happening in the world. What is it this week? Yay! No, this is, this is kind of trivial and silly. It's, it's, it's my, it's my daily hobby. Every day I go and I log on to airwors.org. Have you guys been on there before? Can't say I've dabbled in airwors. I mean, as someone who previously did it stuns at like an arms dealer conference. Yeah, it makes

so. This seems consistent with your interests. Yeah, it's pretty fun. You know, every morning, it's a bunch of independent monitors that just go around looking at where bombs drop. And every day you open it up and it tells you what's exploded recently. Fucking hell. I mean, it's like sunrise, but with more deaths. Exactly, exactly. But, I mean, the sad thing is, it's only accessible to people who go to airwows.com because a lot of the time it's underreported. Like, you don't really hear about the explosions as much as you may be sure.

Well, I mean, thank goodness this podcast is doing some real journalism and bringing this to the world. So the general way it goes, there'd be like, let's say a US coalition air strike in Syria. Local sources would say six civilians died. Russian sources would say 16 civilians died and US sources would say none died. Yeah, of course. And we generally don't, you know, don't really hear about it. And I always found this really baffling because, like,

you've got these multi-million dollar, like one-ton explosive devices just, like, launched from the sky, landing on a bunch of people, and no one really knows what happened or whether it happened or, yeah, I don't know. It's just... Details. Yeah, but the New York Times has come to the rescue. They released an investigation this week, shed some light on how a thing like an air strike can be covered up.

So, for this, I've got to set the scene. We're going to take a trip to the magical, mysterious, spooky. Middle East. Lockland ad background music here. Don't make it racist, though. You can't just put the Aladdin soundtrack, okay, we'll know. Where genies fly on magic carpets. And Robin Williams is still alive.

And bombs disappear into thin air. So in 2019, we all smashed ISIS. It was a lovely time. Everyone worked together. Yeah, it was a great time for everyone. For everyone. Yeah, terrorism was defeated forever that day. Beautiful, beautiful.

So ISIS was cornered in a small Syrian town called Bagu's. and a drone was circling overhead. I see a crowd of women and children, huddled along a river, and then this American attack jet comes in, drops 500-pound bomb on them. People, like, crawling out of the rubble, and then, like, another two bombs come and, like, clean those people up.

And this is all being watched at this Central Command in Qatar, where the US kind of coordinates this stuff. And everyone was shocked. No one knew what the hell happened. There's, like, this encrypted chat where they're messing each other. One person's like, who dropped that? What the fuck?

The other one's like, did someone just drop a bomb on 50 women and children? What, like a typo? So they're talking about it like it's a farce in a crowded room and people have died. Like, yeah, what was that? I mean, it just sounds like a Facebook group chat. Yeah, it's super bizarre. Oh, my God. But it was kind of hidden up until now.

I guess this is how they hide it. So what happened is this airstrike was ordered by a group called Task Force 9, and they're like a secret special operations unit. Yeah, they sound it. It sounds quite chilling. So they're so secretive that they don't really have to alert their own command of their actions. They can just do whatever they want. No one knows when an attack's coming.

Not at all unsettling. But there are checks and balances, right? So there are like lawyers and civilian observers that are in Central Command and it's their job to, you know, make sure we're not doing war crimes. But it's one of those jobs, I guess, like an empathy consultant where they're there for PR reasons, but no one wants you to actually do your job. And like everyone's kind of stepping in to make sure you don't do it. But the way Task Force 9 gets around it, as long as they claim that they're in danger, they can do anything autonomously and not have to alert. So if they claim, they're not actually are in danger,

but if they claim their lives are at risk, they can basically nuke things. Yes. Yes. So they can say that. And while the people back at the base in Qatar are looking at this drone footage and they don't see anything, these guys can be like, they have guns. And then they can order it an airstrike and no one can do anything. That is fucked.

That's fucked. Okay, insurance, right? If I want to claim insurance, I have to prove that I was robbed or that my shit was damaged or whatever. I have to prove that I was in the riot. And they still won't give you back half your shit half the time. These guys just have to claim they were in danger and they can nuke a country.

I mean, the good thing is that they're self-monitoring. When you've got people who are responsible for monitoring their own compliance or something, that never ends badly. That's the thing. So they came in, Task Force Nine comes in after the attack and says, it's all good. Case closed. But it's a bit like putting Eddie a bead in charge of ICAC.

It's a bit like putting Charles in front of this company. Actually, that is very true. You've got to fix that. So the next day, some like civilian human rights organizations come in and see piles of dead women and children. They're like, what the hell is this? Then four days later, satellite images show that the whole area had been bulldozed and the bodies were covered and disappeared. And this is essentially where the story would have ended. It's just like mysterious thing happened.

No one knows what happened. But a couple of people in the US military, very nice people. decided they were willing to lose their jobs to bring this to light. But even then they have to jump through so many hoops. So, like, Colonel Corsack is his name. He alerts this internal investigative body. They refuse to investigate. They essentially say, we only investigate things with potential for high media attention, concern with outcry from local community or government or concern that sensitive images may get out. So it's not about doing the right thing. It's about damage management. Yeah, exactly. Kind of like bulldozing a gravesite is damage management.

Exactly. That's as far as they'll go. And then he kept escalating, went to the Inspector General, and they sent a team to investigate, but the superiors refused to sign off, and the lawyers who took on the case were forced to resign. It was just this whole shit show of just like everyone up top trying to squash it. This reminds me of the movie A Few Good Men, only if Jack Nicholson's character had won.

It reminds me of the movie A Few Good Men, but you just take out the good. Just a couple of dudes. Just a few questionable men. And in the U.S. military. Yeah. But, I mean, did they even win? Like, they lost their jobs and got nowhere. And then they finally decided to risk, you know, major repercussions and go to the New York Times.

And then this lovely report was made. The weirdest bit I found at the end. So they, New York Times makes this report and they present it to the military. And it's the first time the military admit it's like, oh, yeah, we did this. And it's like the biggest. Oh. One of the biggest. Our bad.

Yeah. But it's our bad, but it was justified, is what they say. What? So they're like 80 people died. But we killed 16 fighters, four civilians, and 60 miscellaneous people. Miscellaneous, what, like, non-descript? Well, here's how they explain it. The 60 people were women and children, but women and children could also be ISIS soldiers.

Oh, my God. But what confuses me is then who were the four civilians? If women and children can be ISIS soldiers and there were 16 fighters, who were these four obvious civilians? Americans. Americans. Yeah, they're probably just deliberate, like Amazon. on delivery people or something. Jesus.

I mean, I really think, human life is so precious. And when I go out, I just want to be remembered as a miscellaneous. That's a bit of a rough note to end on, isn't it? Yeah, but isn't this story?

Yeah, it's a bit of just like a... Yeah, the story's a bit ick. This is one of those ones where, rather than tying it all in a knot with a joke like we like to do, we just go, well, that's fucked. Depressing. Yeah.

Thank you, Alex, for your investigative misery once again. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. Fizz is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply.

Details at fizz.ca. This episode of The Chaser Report, brought to you by cricket. Well, on the field, if it isn't the world-famous thrower, um, Johnny Ponting. Oh, that man knows how to fill out a wide, brimmed hat. Mm-hmm. It's time for another installment of the game we call

Fiction or Furphy. Charles Firth will tell a story in our panel of Zanda and Alexa will have to work out. Is it fiction completely made up or a furphy, which is fundamentally true but just a bit exaggerated? Ready to go, Zander and Alexa? Yes. Oh, I'm a bit worried about the structure of the game.

I feel like if I judge Charles too much and say that he's lying, I'm compromising my own position at this company. company. Yeah, the hard part is we kind of always assume that Charles's stories are at least 20% furfy anyway. So like what... That's why he's the perfect person to play it. What's the measure? Is it totally fiction or just a bit fiction? There's a few that I've completely made up. The stories will be either completely made up or largely true, a bit of bit exaggerated. So it'll be one of those two things. All right, Charles, crack one, tell one. And Alex, so this does not compromise your employment at all.

It's all the other things I did. Yeah, yeah. It's all the other stuff. Okay, so this one was when I was back in the US being the correspondent for Ward and everything. And we wanted to get

Hillary Clinton. And we'd heard that this was really early on in the primaries. And we'd heard that she was in New Hampshire and that she was going to turn up at some cafe um just in the local town like literally a cafe that it was tiny cafe it was like could have maybe 10 people could fit into the cafe um so me and my camera guy arrive early right and we immediately

get it chatting inside the cafe with the only other people who'd arrived early which was this um fridge factory owner right and you know you sort of go wait a minute why is a fridge fridge factory owner supporting the democrats so i thought the democrats was sort of like for the workers or whatever but no but he was boasting about how bigger donor he was to the democrats and everything and that's how he'd got this position inside the cafe right and so chatting along and then so then about half an hour before hillary's due to arrive the secret service sort of sweeps through and i just stay there right like i just stay there chatting to this magnate and i swear they just obviously thought that we were together right so and because he was there with his family and stuff like that and I was just

being all charming and everything out there and um and so then you know Hillary eventually arrives um and literally the first she walks in there's his huge crush of bodies everywhere and I sort of get shoved from behind and and just am in front of Hillary Clinton and I you know offer her a cigar and say you know can I please be your intern um I I hear you've had some trouble in the past with interns, but, you know, like, you know, I've got this cigar for you. But, you know, that I think you'll find me very alluring. And she just froze, like her whole face froze. And then she just smiled and was so classy.

She just walked away without any comment or any even reaction beyond the sort of glass smile. And then, and so we were, we were pumped. We got our scene So we were just standing around afterwards going, yeah, you know, we've done it and everything like that And then the Secret Service guy comes up to me and says Look, we don't care You weren't a security risk

But the state troopers are really pissed off with you And if you don't get out of the state right now They will come and bash you up Or at least, you know, you'll get in jail You'll lose your footage And so we immediately they said just get in your car now and head for the border right and so we got in the car we headed for the border got out of new hampshire luckily it's a fairly small state and um and so

that's how we've got actually the secret service uh to thank for the fact that we ended up having footage for that prank okay well alex uh what do you think is it fiction or furphy there was one thing that really stuck out to me um that would make this false and It's because of something you didn't mention with Hillary Clinton. Now, I know from a very, very good source that never lies, Alex Jones, that she actually smells like sulfur, and you didn't mention that at all. And I feel like that would be kind of the most striking thing when you first see her. So I'm thinking you didn't actually meet Hillary Clinton.

Zanda. There are a lot of bits in that story that are for potentially furthy, but partially the fact that I haven't heard Charles tell me this story before. Like, I think Charles would at least have mentioned once if he'd met Hillary Clinton even briefly. briefly, especially over a beer. So I'm going for furthy on this one, maybe some bits of truth, but definitely largely fiction. All right. So Alexa says fiction.

Zanda seems to be hedging his bets, Zanda. You're saying furphy? It's got to be largely true if it's a furphy. So he must have met Hillary, I think we can say. You are correct, Zander. I did meet Hillary Clinton, and I did the stunt, and it was the greatest moment of my life. Alex has got to watch more of the war on everything. I think.

Yeah, no, your history, Alexa. And which part did you make up, Charles? The part of not smelling like sulphur. Actually, I mean, it was just, it was largely true. It was just, that is actually how it sort of transpired. Like, it's not true that I was thrust in front of her. It was more that I sort of, I was sort of on tiptoes at the back of the thing and just decided, fuck, if I don't do this now, I'll never do it.

and just sort of charged into the middle. And unfortunately, our cameraman was about three feet high. So we actually ended up having to source, you know, footage from the networks who were there. Because poor little Brad, who was our camera guy, he's very short. So he managed to get the shot of people's knees in that interaction. All right, there you go.

Xander wins that round. This has been fiction or furfee. Verfi, unbelievable. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month.

Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. This episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by everyone's favorite game. It's cricket. And I've got to say, this particular game is not living up to my expectations. The first game of cricket I ever saw, they pulled out this really nifty piece of sandpaper, and I haven't seen it since. It's still a good day, though.

It's Friday afternoon, and that means it's my favourite segment of the week where we read the reviews, and in recent weeks we've asked you to be genuinely unkind with five stars, and you've obliged on both fronts, haven't they, Gabby? Yeah, I mean, they're getting a bit, I think they might be getting a bit abstract now. This one says, the title is my favorite, 10 out of 10, 5 out of 5, A plus, five stars. But then it just says, is Big Bird a cuck? Pretty sure I haven't seen such attention-seeking headlines since I stood on the corner of Martin Place wearing nipple tassels, holding a cardboard sign offering head in exchange for lines.

I want to know about that story. I do like autobiography. And I think that was an episode title, and we did establish that, yes, Big Bird was a cuck. Eternally Grateful, says Oliver H.P. Twist, I have insomnia. and I can always count on your podcasts but we're back to sleep. No, thanks. As a Queensland without daylight saving

that now happens an hour earlier and now the second edition means I get an afternoon nap too. Thanks. Good for you, Oliver. Five stars. This is Can the Gas. It says pub testing politicians. The pub test should be a series of multiple choice questions

on the cost of living. The politicians have to pass before they're even entitled to a beer. That's a good idea. I actually kind of want that rule for me getting a beer. Everyone getting a beer. I would love to answer questions about the cost of living just to get a free beer.

It'd be much cheaper than breathalising everyone, wouldn't it? Yeah, it'd be great. Although I should note that actually has nothing to do with the podcast. It's just a thought. I mean, I suppose it vaguely relates to the segment we did today. You gave them this power. The next one's really nice. Oh, yeah.

I don't love the current PM, but I do love Chaser. My preferred Prime Minister is Sammy Shar. That's our preferred Prime Minister as well. And we've asked him, and we've asked him and we've asked him, and then he signed the NDO and we can't ask him anymore. I mean, it is clear that people's favourite thing about the podcast is Sammy, but I don't feel insecure about that. I feel glad that we can get him for a day a week.

Preferred PM, that's Candy Apples. My dog for PM, at least, he's toilet train. And that's five stars. I mean, Charles had a computer company in his teens called CF 4PM. Did anyone think of me as a, preferred PM? As a competent leader of a country. I'm going to say to you the same thing I've said to Sammy. You should be an upper house MLC in New South Wales.

You know, but you know what I'm going to run on. I do. Yeah. Tell everyone. Which is, I should probably declare my candidacy right here, which is... Are you actually running? In the next state election, I'm going to run on the single platform of being the anti-Mark Latham. So I will just vote.

I'll find out what Mark Latham's going to vote, and I'll just vote the opposite. And I will neutralise Mark Latham in the upper house. It'll be cancel culture. Yes. It'll be like the ultimate expression. But it's perfect because it's the laziest... Like, it's really useful thing to do for society. But also, I don't have to do any thinking.

I just go, well, Mark, what are you going to do? And bold of you do think the rest of the politicians go in thinking they'll have to do any thinking. And I think you'd bring back the Chaser newspaper as your official publication funded by your publication budget. That wouldn't be unethical, would it? No, exactly. Like, well, because I'd have a paid staffer and they could just... Shotty knot. Like, I could just hire an intern to produce comedy.

Yeah, for the price of a paid staffer, you could get 10 of the Chaser intern. Exactly. Bushfax says, fake love, five stars. I hate all of your cleverly acted bonamy, your clearly forced affection for each other, rehearsed reactions to food expiry dates. You are all as sour as five-month-old yogh, five stars. That was a good segment.

A fridge or no fridge fan? Have we seen Alexer since? Could he ate that yogurt? Oh, no. Afterwards, he got a company-funded stomach pump, but he's feeling totally fine now. What's the company funded there? No, that's not okay. They said Medicare or are you under a business?

And they said business. And so, Alex, yeah, he took the chance. That's going to put up our work as we've said to the interns before when the option comes up you have to choose death it's in your contract Fair enough Nickname AST-F-O-D says

Airbnb you crappy fridge food The only thing worse than the fizzy fridge yogurt It's a seemingly endless ads for Airbnb Perhaps you can make them interesting again By sending Charles and an intern on a tour of beachside Airbnb properties and rate the quality of the rental based solely on the fridge and its contents

Thank you Airbnb for sponsoring us by the way I would like to say that the idea of sending an intern with Charles to a random area is going to end in a true crime podcast. That's, it's not, somebody's going to murder someone. But who? I elect Xander and you.

No, no, no. They've all been five stars today. Thank you, like being cruel but also kind in terms of the number of stars, that's what we really care about. Well, it's transactional, isn't it? You give us five stars and you can say whatever you want. And we'll read it out.

Yeah. I'd love to know the demographics of these people. Can you write in your A, and gender. And your credit card details and your pin number. And your postcode and pin number. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

For just our own personal use. That's the end of the show. It's at this point that we say... Our gear is sponsored by road microphones and we're a part of the ACAST, create a network. And remember to leave us a five-star review, leaving all your demographic information. I feel redundant and I'm fine with that.

You've got about 10 years before both of you were redundant, don't you? Yeah, good point. Have a good weekend. Santa's going to end up running the fucking company, isn't you? Oh, God. Oh, God.