WTW115: The SitRep on Sentinel Foundation

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob? How often you just don't see them coming. Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed. Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down. The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything.

0:00:33 Clip: Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. I'm Thomas. That over there is Lydia. How you doing?

0:00:46 Lydia: Hi, I am doing pretty well. How are you?

0:00:49 Thomas: I've been really productive since we last spoke. I operationalized some future efficiencies.

0:00:52 Lydia: Nice. Yeah, you reduced some inefficiencies.

0:00:59 Thomas: Yeah. I also prepared trainings and coordinated a lot. I did a lot of coordinating.

0:01:05 Lydia: That's good. Yes.

0:01:06 Thomas: The MOU, I understood the MOU. Yeah, came to an understanding about that. It was good. Yeah.

0:01:16 Lydia: Well done.

0:01:17 Thomas: Thanks. Yeah. I'm too tired to record. I've done all this stuff. I can't even.

0:01:21 Lydia: You knocked out so much.

0:01:23 Thomas: God. Well, it's time to get an expensive drink and a cigar and golf at a golf tournament. Hello. This is, I guess, AmericaFest 5 technically, but it's part two on human trafficking slash child sex trafficking slash Sentinel Foundation slash other organizations that are taking in millions of dollars to do a nebulous thing around those things. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. I can't wait to get to this video. This is a journey. I mean, this is just this is an absolute journey. So we're going to dig into it. This Matt Murphy guy and his story and the Sentinel Foundation and maybe some facts about human trafficking, perhaps. What's real? What's not? What the stats are? Even if it is hypothetically overblown, is it still a problem that they're addressing? Saying if you've ever come across the human trafficking statistics and allegations that those are a little overblown, have I got the episode for you? I think we're going to dig into that and some related stuff.

0:01:47 Lydia: Curious right oh

0:02:27 Thomas: It's going to be fun. All right. Well, we'll take our break and we'll hope we don't get human traffic before then. I would say that I'm technically probably human trafficking you into podcasting. Like I think, like you're not free to leave, you know, like Like, yeah, you're not free to go.

0:02:36 Lydia: Good yeah everything would crumble

0:02:45 Thomas: Then again, I feel like you're trafficking me as well. What if we traffic each other? Because I can't go anywhere.

0:02:44 Lydia: Yeah okay as long as we're consenting to it I think it's okay

0:02:53 Thomas: I don't know if we are, but if we're both not and we're both doing it to each other, doesn't it cancel? Yeah. They're like, the police come and they're like. Oh, that's a tie. We're out of here. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll take a break. Please support the show patreon .com slash where there's woke because we don't get millions of dollars of donations to possibly solve a fictional problem uh we don't we get tens of dollars to try to solve an impossible problem which is misinformation in the media and such so every dollar counts so uh thanks so much to those who support and we're working on buying a helicopter copter to be able to fly in to

0:02:57 Lydia: It's a wash yeah yeah yeah go to counseling we sure do not sure does multi

0:03:37 Thomas: Coordinate better with other wokest you know build the wokest yeah patreon .com okay

0:03:41 Lydia: -agency woke network improved communication

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0:03:53 Thomas: I took notes and took time stamps but it's going to be the kind of thing where I'm like oh my god I wish want to watch the whole thing but we can't but I will I man there's some things so this is an episode of something I've never heard of called like the The Hit Report. It's so interesting, the internet now, because this is a very polished show in a lot of ways. He talks like he's got an established thing.

0:04:18 Thomas: It was called The Hit Streak. What did I say? Did I say that? Okay. No, The Hitstreak. The Hitestreak, a podcast where we talk about anything and everything. It is not a lot views. It isn't a lot subscribers, but I would almost guess this guy maybe has a radio background. I always think, is this small or is there's some other medium that it's big. Cause our YouTube is, you know, pretty tiny comparatively speaking. Like maybe the podcast that's audio is like big. It's always hard to know these days, you know? But it seems, you Know, this has 600 views, like nothing.

0:04:18 Lydia: You said the hit report oh

0:04:48 Thomas: But the guy talks like it's a major show kind of in a way. And it's professional, pretty professional, you know, as far as things go today. And so that's interesting. It'S nothing I've ever heard of. I don't think you've ever heard of that. Nick Heider. So it's kind of like hit. That's H -I -T -E -R.

0:04:47 Lydia: Wow

0:05:06 Thomas: So he's Nick Heiter with the hit streak. It's like, okay. I don't think it's Nick Hitter though. Like doesn't quite work, but okay. All right. The guy comes on, I'll skip a bunch because he comes on. He's like this is so important, super important. It'S fun because he's like this is SO important that I've got my wife on today. I was like, oh, okay, you know, double date here. We're Nick's wife. Yeah, not the other guy's wife, so we're on a little bit stayed here with the the like mirror universe us and so god I just want to play the whole thing but I can't because it's two hours so let's see where I have a time stamp here re

0:05:06 Lydia: Yeah no this is nick's wife okay oh my god

0:05:40 Clip: But like, Ree, before we go any further, obviously just chime in whenever, but you got anything for him right now? No, it's very interesting to hear how much goes into that on the back end, right? Right. Everyone just, you know, as a person that listens to social media, see social media. You believe it just it sounds simple what goes on. You know, social media is really good at magnifying. Oh, well, this it's this is how you do it. But behind the scenes, what you guys are doing, no one will ever understand unless they're actually doing it. And you're going to do a good job today at kind of filling everybody out for that. But there's just there's Just no way to know what goes On behind all of that.

0:05:43 Thomas: Is the wife's name So right away I'm like once again there's no way to know it's impossible to know behind the scenes we can't know anything it's just like very convenient but uh keeps going

0:06:31 Clip: So unfortunately that's very true part of its because operational security we can't give up how we catch these guys and you know because then they'll just start doing new things which they do anyways but the other part is protecting the victim and privacy and we owe the victim in those families that you know that privacy and security and ability to return to normalcy but at the same time on that it's a very slippery slope right because so much of this is kept hush hush sure in the United States by parents by communities by school systems and institutions because no one in even in the church because no

0:07:03 Thomas: Here yeah this is interesting yeah

0:07:09 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say by churches

0:07:11 Clip: One wants to destroy the the overall you know entity you know about it and we as Americans need to realize how big of a problem that this has become and speak out and I'll definitely get to addressing that you know as we continue

0:07:27 Thomas: So I want to be careful because I think elements of this are are certainly true like and I think this is a way that this becomes really slippery so if I'm trying to evaluate because like like I've basically taken us on a bit of the tour that I did I went through a bunch of tax documents which I haven't talked about here yet but I essentially was like looking at this company I'm like what do they even do anything like I where's the thing they do you know what do you make here and then I I push play on this and it's like yeah it's really you know we can't talk about it it's just like god damn but then they talk about like well you know churches and whatever they don't talk about. I'm like, okay, yeah, no, like that's true. But that's like sex abuse, which is, you know, awful, a huge problem, huge problem. But like, I was told there's trafficking.

0:07:36 Lydia: Churches yeah

0:08:11 Thomas: Look, the reason I think this matters is that if someone started, here's what I want maybe people to keep in mind is like a bit of a comparison or context to think about. Because someone might make the argument like, oh, well, you Know, what's the harm there? They seem to be helping, you Now, they're doing something. Yeah, there's the bad things they might be helping. Imagine this, maybe this exists. This? I don't know. If someone were to start a 501c3 that was like, hey, you know how there's a billion untested rape kits and no one cares? We could maybe help with that. Do you think these conservatives would give a fuck about that? Do you Think they would give two shits about that. Do you thing that would be a part of their fundraising and their whatever? I think it's a key aspect of this, that it's trafficking. It's child trafficking and it's human trafficking, child trafficking. And like, I think that really matters. And the thing they are selling when when they're talking about it is who knows how many kids this will save. You know, they do so much about child trafficking. And then if you're going to talk about like, well, okay, sex abuse, awful, huge problem. I wouldn't donate to a sex trafficking 501 C three with military guys to stop

0:08:26 Lydia: Those are still bad things yeah no

0:09:18 Thomas: Sex abuse. First off, I'd be like, well, the fucking churches let's, let's take a look there, you know? And, and a lot of this and the reason it's so awful and pervasive is it's, yeah, it happens within families, within households, within trusted people. Oftentimes, like overwhelmingly. And I don't know what the military is going to do about that or what, or military, you know, a military, like a quasi military entity.

0:09:22 Lydia: Trusted spaces yeah yeah

0:09:41 Thomas: I don'T think they're doing much about that. It's very nebulous. Like on one hand you're like, okay, yeah, people don't talk about it, but the implication would be that there's a bunch of children getting sex trafficked and no one's talking about it.

0:09:41 Lydia: Right Yeah, I think it's playing on a couple things first of all it's this fear of trafficking which is like like this intense loss of agency that potentially could happen to children and stuff and and that that this person is being used for things. And then there's also this element of direct, you know, kind of aggressive response, being able to save somebody from something. And I think you pair those things together and it's almost like, yeah, yeah. And it's like this overwhelming, you feel like, oh, they're doing something. And it's like, it's a heroic effort. And you can tell because of how many guns they need like it's heroic yeah

0:10:17 Thomas: Yeah. The, yeah. The savior complex for sure.

0:10:36 Thomas: Yeah, I think the key I agree with that. I think the key ingredient that I'm not sure if you are either missing or haven't gotten to yet is when it's this, when it's a child sex trafficking thing, there could always be some invisible enemy that's doing it, which could be the Democrats or it could be whatever. Whatever.

0:10:57 Thomas: I'm not saying that the Sentinel Foundation is actively claiming that or anything. I don't see it in their website or anything, but I do think that's critical to the zeitgeist that's supporting this, which is like, yeah, there's this trafficking, like there's just bad guys out there just trafficking children, you know? I think it's a critical undercurrent.

0:11:16 Lydia: Do talk about it a bit when they say the network right there is there's always a network involved yeah yeah

0:11:21 Thomas: Yeah, but it took those to be like criminal networks a little bit in Uganda. Like, that's a different thing, I think.

0:11:26 Lydia: I think so too but like when you're talking about the problem of rape and sex abuse more often than not it's not networks of people figuring this out right

0:11:33 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Right, right. Overwhelmingly, it's not going to be that. Maybe there's some amount of that, like super evil people who, you know, I know there's obviously when it comes to like awful, you know, child sex crap, I think there's rings where they distribute child sex abuse material. So I, you know, gather, I don't know, but like, I think it's very important to not be misinformed about where sexual assault happens.

0:11:58 Thomas: You know, if you want it to be like a shadowy bad guy, then you can always kind of blame someone else or blame whoever you want or blame the Democrats or blame whatever. But if in reality, it's like, well, we have a major problem, like a societal problem among mostly men about consent and about boundaries and about like there's just a major problem and it's unspoken and we need to really do something about it. Oftentimes that we, you know, me too was an attempt, but that feels like it's been fucking erased.

0:12:24 Lydia: Yeah you know it's kind of like a similar thing to when the kids ask me if there are bad guys and what they're expecting are cartoon versions of bad guys where it's very very clear this is a bad guy and I think that there are a lot of people who I don't know what what they're clinging on to exactly. But if you see this as like the key thing that we need to solve, you're often probably thinking like, because there are bad guys, right? There are bad boys. There are guys. And usually it's a lot harder to tell who's a bad guy and who's okay in reality. So I think it's not as exciting to be like we took down this person who looks seemingly normal and was also doing like some really crappy stuff. It's no, no, you're not. You're not, mm

0:13:06 Thomas: Well, and you're not going to do it with military and guns. So keep an eye on all that as we, I think I'm going to play more here.

0:13:11 Clip: On this absolutely the things that stand out to me the most is no matter how uncomfortable we are hearing it you are seeing it how about what about the child right and that is it then today what it's all about is about the trial amen it really is doing before yeah so um because of personal

0:13:26 Thomas: So he goes into his background. On I think I can skip this uh army green beret special forces he first mentions this and then I think we're gonna get a little more on it later huh

0:13:41 Clip: Loss also my sister uh you know I had uh been in uh special forces detailed to the cia I've done done mostly counterterrorism my entire career so Iraq Afghanistan serious or multiple combat tours and different tours all around the Middle East I speak Arabic and a couple dialects pretty fluently the Middle Eastern counterterror was was my world right you see trafficking over there you know especially in Syria girls are sold for packs of cigarettes you know different clans or tribes or you know ethnic ethnic backgrounds you know there's a very different culture there where people are worth different things to other cultures or tribes just based on their ethnicity or the way that they you know believe in islam right uh we were never able to interdict in that because of you know our authorities and our mission was counter terror even as much as we wanted to that was just a thing that we could not get involved in but um Um, November 5th, 2019, uh, my younger sister, Sarah went missing. She was picked up by a guy who had previously, um, you know, beaten her up really bad. And 30 minutes later, her cell phone never touched the tower again. She was missing for almost two months.

0:14:58 Clip: Uh, that was really my first wake up call when she went missing to, to how bad her life I was lucky if I was home two months in one year and that wasn't two months at once, right? Between training and deployments and everything else. I knew my sister had a bad drug problem. I knew that was falling out with my parents. I just did not understand the, how serious it had gotten and to the level that her life

0:15:27 Thomas: So first off note she had gotten kicked out of the parents house that that's uh probably not a good thing to do yeah this was like oh wow okay really shocking it was like is kind of his origin story here it's really interesting because then he links it to like trafficking. And I was like, it was just interesting. Like, is that what happened?

0:15:44 Lydia: Yeah is that what he feels like happened to his sister

0:15:48 Clip: So not to go on tangent, but my sister, like so many other Americans was affected by the And it's killing people at a rate that's, more people have died from fentanyl than Vietnam So she got into that lifestyle, and unfortunately the worse the drugs get, the worse drugs take hold of your life. But then the worse that drugs get And one of the most common tactics, right? That is utilized here in the United States to pull people into trafficking

0:16:21 Lydia: Was that in that video

0:16:22 Thomas: What? Yeah. What the fuck was that? Was that, was that you? Was that me? Hold on.

0:16:24 Lydia: No

0:16:25 Clip: And one of the most common tactics that is utilized here in the United States to pull

0:16:29 Thomas: Oh, he pushes a button or something. It's like a sound. I didn't even notice that the first time I think, cause I had on high speed. Maybe the fuck. What was that he hits a button and it's like, uh, is it a sound effect? Okay.

0:16:38 Lydia: I don't know. It was probably inappropriate no matter what it was

0:16:42 Thomas: I thought I was being haunted. Yeah. I don't know what the, okay. Glad you also heard that.

0:16:48 Clip: People into trafficking and to pull people into this underground world is drug addiction.

0:16:50 Thomas: Huh? Huh. Underground world.

0:16:53 Clip: Drug addiction destroys your life, destroys your job, your career, whatever you're doing. So most people have nothing left to sell or no other way to make money themselves. Themselves. My sister was trafficked and victimized in order to get her fix, to get the drug. And when she went missing, that's where it all is still a mystery to us. You know, these people are great at what they do. There is, you know, so much that goes into this organized drug trade and organized trafficking. And there's really nothing we know about what happened to my sister and federal state and local agencies have investigated it but on christmas eve 2019 almost two months later her body was found in a river in mississippi so she was abducted in Memphis, Tennessee and then they found her in a river Christmas Eve 2019 so um and her autopsy showed that she had been in the water for you know two to three weeks so she's missing for almost two months. So we just have no idea what she experienced or what happened to her. There's rumors of trafficking, rumors of her being carried around Mississippi and abused. We just don't know

0:18:06 Thomas: So what would you gather from that? As a listener thinking about kind of what he said in that story, what are you left with in terms of how she died? What would be the impression?

0:18:18 Lydia: When I first heard it, I guess I assumed murder that she was killed

0:18:22 Thomas: Yeah, I would think that's what you would assume. If he's saying she's disappeared herself in Pingantower and then, you know, gone for a few months and there's rumors of, you know, her being trafficked and whatever. And then she's found in a river. That's pretty much all they gave us, right?

0:18:34 Lydia: Her body's floating in the river yeah

0:18:38 Thomas: I mean, I could look back at the transcript here. They found her in a river. Autopsy showed that she'd been in the water for two, three weeks. Interesting. This is a very sensitive thing. And obviously like a brother who lost a sister in this horrible way, like I, you know, I understand, you know maybe he's got reasons for thinking the things he does, but I find it a little weird that his whole pitch is about human trafficking. And he talks about how, you know, drug trafficking, they traffic themselves because they don't have anything left to sell. But when I look at the details of what actually happened, if it weren't for him saying any, all of that stuff, there would be no reason to suspect this was anything other than what the coroner ruled it was, which is a drug overdose. I find it weird that he doesn't say that. Like, isn't it a little weird to omit? You know, he does talk about drugs, but like, and you're thinking about trafficking, it seems like he strongly suggests, he very much leaves out the fact that it was a drug overdose. And he just says she was found in a river or whatever it was. It feels a little weird to me. I was trying to track down if anybody knows anything, just quickly doing like what happened to this random person. There's not a whole lot of info, but you know, the details are pretty much what he says. She was, when she went missing, there's nothing I could find anywhere about, you know? Some of the things he said were like rumored, who knows? People say all kinds of stuff, I guess, or maybe he had some legitimate source for that, but basically she was missing. There was a random guy before she was, found, there's a random news report that says an anonymous person, and this is weird. So this is a week after she's gone missing. It says, a man is coming forward claiming he has information about what may have happened to a Collierville woman now missing for a week and a half. The man who wanted to keep his identity hidden said that the night before the 26 -year -old Sarah Vinnick disappeared, he brought her to St. Francis Hospital after she said she blacked out. The man said he wants to speak out with hopes someone else will come forward with more information. She was a sweet girl, he said. She was just all over the place, a wreck trying to figure out what she was going to do. It's been nine days since Vinnick was last seen. Surveillance footage shows her getting into a dark -colored pickup while leaving the Airbnb where she was staying

0:20:55 Thomas: November 5th. Family said she was at the home, the Airbnb thing, while she waited to move into her permanent home. They suspect foul play was involved in her disappearance. That's the family the man wreg spoke with us this news station whatever spoke with said that he was with sarah this is a weird story I don't know what to make of this he was with sarAH the day before she disappeared he says a friend of theirs asked him to drive sarAH to court that morning he says when they left he made a stop by his house when he got outside he noticed sarAH was unresponsive I was giving her cpr while going 80 miles per hour he said he says he drove her to to St. Francis Hospital, and by the time they arrived, she was awake. When she realized where we were, she started freaking out, and I told her, you're awake and you're fine. I'll drop you off at your Airbnb. I just pulled up here to make sure you were okay. He says Vinnick then jumped out of the car and took off running.

0:21:32 Lydia: That's not possible huh yeah

0:21:49 Thomas: Hours later, he said he was notified that she got a ride from a stranger in a pickup. He was notified? How in the world would he be notified of that unless it's just her? The day Sarah disappeared, he says she asked to stop by their mutual friend's house as her stay day at her Airbnb was coming to an end. That friend declined. I hope she's just out somewhere trying to drown her sorrows and not something worse, the man said. Then obviously the body's found a month and a half later. And a bit later than that, it's, you know, the coroner says it's a drug overdose. And then weirdly about a year later, there's a random news story in a newspaper, like the online version of this newspaper, some other stuff and kind of buried within it. I mean, not like Barry, but like we just deep within it, like not the focus of the thing. It says Randy Ellis Smith, 55 of the 1400, blah, blah. That's where he lived. Was arrested by the Shelby County gang unit. Smith was transferred to Marshall County, December 16th, where he is charged with tampering with evidence in connection with the death of Sarah Vinnick.

0:22:53 Thomas: Sarah Vynnick's body was found by a hunter below the blah, an autopsy at the Mississippi medical examiner's office determined the cause of Vinnck's death was a drug overdose. Smith is charged with placing Vinnick's body at the bridge. So I think the non -honest person was probably Randy Smith. Like, I mean, that's me just guessing. I'm not, this is just a very casual guess, but that statement really seemed like somebody who maybe was doing drugs with her and she overdosed and he put her body there and then was like coming up with a story as to why.

0:23:26 Lydia: And he kind of freaked and

0:23:28 Thomas: Yeah, like he's coming up with a history of his own. He's coming with a theory as to why he doesn't know where she is. Oh, she got out and just ran And she ran down toward that Brit, you know, I don't know. It feels like that. This is just speculation, but it kind of feels like that to be honest with you.

0:23:41 Thomas: And by the time we're doing this interview, as far as the police are concerned, the investigation is concerned, she overdosed and this guy put her body there probably because he didn't want to be busted. Like they didn't charge him with murder and the police like charging people for murder. If they had anything, it has to, of course.

0:23:56 Lydia: You're saying matt murphy has all this information at the point that he's doing this interview yeah I mean it's a sister

0:24:02 Thomas: But at the same time, there's a quote right when when she was found that says investigators say she was beaten to death based on her body. And I think that's kind of bullshit because police wouldn't say that. I think the family hired an investigator and she was missing in water for two months. She probably looked awful. I mean, it's not known for sure how long she was there. Now, he claims she was only in the water for some shorter amount of time. That's what he says.

0:24:27 Lydia: Two to three weeks I think yeah

0:24:30 Thomas: Yeah, I don't see that verified anywhere. And everything else lines up with she overdosed like that day or, you know, shortly after because her cell phone didn't do anything else. You know, again, this is a terrible situation, but like it's hard not to feel a little bit like things are being massaged. And maybe this is just his way of coping with what happened. I don't know. Could be. Who knows? But it feels like things Are really massaged to make it seem like a trafficking thing where she was missing and being taken places. Is isn't it really well that and it's far more like trafficking and the thing he's raising millions of dollars for you know like yeah let's let's go now that you know all that you know that's everything that's basically at a glance at a pretty quick look publicly available this isn't a major you know there's people go missing where there's a bunch of stuff on the internet about people trying to track them down this is a pretty minor thing like there's not a lot of online sleuthing about it there's little bit and there's few news stories there's not

0:25:00 Lydia: Well I mean that's a far more sympathetic story also yeah right aligned with the mission of his non -profit

0:25:29 Thomas: Much it she has a six years before that history of like several mugshots like she was horrible sad story she was a drug addict seems to me and it seems like she got in trouble for various things probably related to trying to you know who knows rob people to get money for drugs or something you know like it's awful it's an awful story that has happened a lot in this country because of what went on there like it is really awful there is nothing there is nothing yeah yeah but there is something at all anywhere that I can find that indicates communicates at all. Anything like human trafficking, sex trafficking. Maybe he knows stuff we don't, but I don't know. Now that you know that basically she went missing, a random guy was like, oh, I don' t know. She, you know, I dropped her off. You know, it seems like that was a fucking guy. And then a year later, someone was arrested who I think was that guy, but who knows? Someone was arrested for moving her body to there. And it was a drug overdose, according to the coroner. If they were literally going to arrest someone and charge them with moving a body, I think if they had any reason to suspect murder, especially if it was like a violent murder that would have had any sort of forensic evidence, I feel like they would have tried for that. Or at least, you know, like police want to charge people with murder if they murdered like that, if they have anything. They didn't even charge him with like one of the like negligent whatever's,

0:25:50 Lydia: Because of purdue yeah right yeah yeah

0:26:42 Thomas: You know, involving the drug overdose. They just charged him with placing her body there. So he was charged and released. I didn't try to track down if he pled guilty or whatever. I don't see any results on that, but who knows? But point is, that's all they could charge him with it sort of really looks like she overdosed with this guy probably and he didn't overdose and he got scared and moved the body somewhere I think that happens a lot to be honest with you I think there's a lot of stories of that because people are terrified of getting into trouble especially who knows if you know he was on parole or some shit and he can't be around drug like there's lots of reasons yeah

0:27:03 Lydia: I think so too well and if If he's high right now, too, like that, you don't make the best choices when you're high.

0:27:19 Thomas: Right there's lots of people do that and I mean that kind of like it kind of looks like what happened there's nothing there's something I see anywhere unless he's seen something we haven't, which is possible, I guess, as a family member that put a time that she was in the water. They hired this investigator who does a little bit of like publicity about it. And the fact that they had that like investigators say she was beaten to death, that makes me really skeptical. Like I feel like that's the investigator they talked to because I don't think police would have said that right when they picked up the body.

0:27:47 Thomas: You know, I think that's The Investigator. And I think maybe that person's kind of full of shit because it's a weird thing to just announce that she was beat to death when you find her.

0:27:53 Lydia: Yeah, I agree. Yeah.

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0:27:59 Thomas: So now that you know all of that stuff, let's just listen into this again

0:28:02 Clip: The truth. November 5th, 2019, my younger sister, Sarah, went missing. She was picked up by a guy who had previously beaten her up really bad. And 30 minutes later, her cell phone never touched to tower again she was missing for almost two months that was really my first wake-up call when she went missing to how bad her life was I was gone all the time I was lucky if I was home two months in one year and that wasn't two months at once right between training and deployments and everything else I knew my sister had a bad drug problem I knew that was falling out with my parents I know she had been kicked out um I just did not understand the how serious it had gotten and to the level that her life went so not to go on tangent but my sister like so many other americans was affected by the heroin and fentanyl epidemic and it's killing people at a rate that's more people have died from fentanyls in vietnam in the past couple years yeah it's insane so she got you know into that into that lifestyle and unfortunately the worst the drugs get the worst drugs take hold of your life but then the worst of drugs get also the worst that people get sure right and one of the most common tactics right that is is utilized here in the united states to pull people into trafficking and to pull into this you know underground world is is drug addiction right because if drug addiction destroys your life towards your job your career you know whatever you're doing so most people have nothing left to sell right or no other way to make money themselves my sister was trafficked and victimized um in order to to get her fix to get the drug and when she went missing that's where it all is still a mystery to us you know these people are great at what they do uh there is you know so much that goes into this organized

0:29:58 Clip: Drug trade and organized trafficking and there's really nothing we know about what happened to my sister and federal state and local agencies have investigated it but on Christmas Eve 2019 almost two months later her body was found in a river in Mississippi so she was abducted in Memphis Tennessee and then they found her in a River Christmas Eve 2019 so and her autopsy showed that she had been in the water for you know two to three weeks so she was missing for almost two months so we just have no idea what what she experienced what happened to her there's rumors of trafficking rumors of her being you know carried around mississippi and and abused

0:29:59 Thomas: Interesting yeah how do you feel about all that now

0:30:44 Lydia: I mean, the only thing I will say is like he does in passing mention the number of people that have died because of these drugs or whatever. But but yeah, he definitely does not link his sister to that specifically. He seems really certain that she did not die immediately. Mm

0:31:06 Thomas: This comes across to me as someone who look maybe he's convinced himself of this maybe he has a bunch of information that is not only not public but kind of goes against a lot of what the coroner said you know it's just an overdose and the you know they said the guy was arrested for moving her body to there and And I feel like he's telling a story that doesn't outright lie, but strongly implies that she was trafficked. Because the part where he says, and I kind of tried to highlight it with a hmm.

0:31:36 Lydia: Oh, these people are good at their jobs, what they do. Yeah.

0:31:38 Thomas: Yeah, these people are really good at what they do. That's where it's still a mystery to us. You know, these People are great at what They do. There's so much that goes into this organized drug trade and organized trafficking. Organized trafficking. Doesn't that strongly imply some organized? And I, like, she got into a vehicle of a guy. He says that he's beaten her up before. I, you know, I don't know. I haven't seen that, but I don'T know that I would see that. Maybe that's something he knew or the family knew. It's entirely possible that two drug addicts in a relationship, I can imagine there's abuse there. Like, that's not like related to trafficking. You know what I mean? Like domestic abuse, domestic violence is very common, especially, I mean, if you were to take a subsection of severely drug addicted people, like I don' t know. I mean, but he's really strongly implying, it seems to me, and maybe, hey, let me know, listeners, if you think I'm being unfair, but putting in the, like, organized trafficking, they're really great at what they do. There's rumors of her being taken around Mississippi or whatever.

0:32:41 Lydia: It's like basically self -serving on behalf of the organization, right, where he has this story that can be used in this way almost.

0:32:48 Thomas: Like, yeah, and it feels really, I'm going to go ahead and say, I don't know for sure. And it could be these, like genuinely believes this stuff. And that's why I got into this. This there's also a possibility that this is a pretty cynical use of his sister's death to shape all of the facts in such a way to tell them in such a way that's like not really outright lying, but really drives into plays into a narrative about organized drug trafficking and the thing that he raises millions of dollars to fight.

0:33:16 Thomas: It just feels gross to me, you know, like that's oh, I don't know.

0:33:13 Lydia: Most yeah yeah yeah I

0:33:22 Thomas: I don'T know about that. So I was pretty intrigued by that. That. I mean, again, it's a sensitive thing. I don't want to outright, but that's certainly in the realm of possibility. Or he believes this stuff, like people might convince themselves of stuff or maybe he has reason to believe this stuff. And that's why he got into this. I mean, that's kind of how he tells the story. It just feels convenient that there's a lot he left out. There's a guy who's charged of moving her body to there. That's not something he's going to mention.

0:33:48 Lydia: Think it's fair for you to feel the way that you do because also everything that we've read about this organization is also very

0:33:58 Thomas: And yeah, and we're barely into it.

0:33:58 Lydia: Like ambiguous and yeah and and so I think it's okay to have kind of like our guards up with

0:34:05 Thomas: Yeah, so then he talks about, oh man, man, it's so hard to not just play all of that. Cause then he goes into what he was going to do. He's like, oh, I wanted to do this vigilante stuff. And then my mom kept reminding me like, you have kids and they'll be sad. And there's a part where he, you know, the other guy's like yeah, that's moms. Yeah. They're the best. And I'm like, you kicked the daughter out of the house and she died. Like it's, I mean, it'S okay. I don't know. I DON'T KNOW THE DETAILS, BUT IT'S like, oh, it's really, I'm just weirded out by this. It feels all weird, but he wants to do vigilante stuff. And, you know, he says that his mom kind of kept him from doing that. And that's when he says like, okay, so then after a while, he's kind of like goes into a dark place and then he says he's like drinking a lot. And then he's okay, maybe I can do something with my special special forces experience and all that. And it's a lot of God stuff. A lot of God stuff started

0:34:40 Lydia: This of course

0:35:03 Thomas: Praying. Someone sent him a Bible. No, no. So he's not on stage. This is just an interview. Uh, this is a guy, this guy wasn't at Amfest.

0:35:05 Lydia: Oh on stage oh I oh okay oh you're right this is the podcast right right right

0:35:11 Thomas: If that's not clear, this guys just the president allegedly of this organization that the Aldeans raised a million dollars for in one golf tournament, essentially. So then he talks about like, well, why don't I pick it up here. I tried to skip as much as I could, but I

0:35:23 Clip: We just don't know the truth praying and I started to um you know read the bible again this girl on instagram mailed me a bible probably one of the coolest things ever happened to me she just goes I feel like you need this she just mailed me a bible I never even met this person

0:35:37 Lydia: Why do they keep doing that

0:35:38 Thomas: Think he's playing it like God works in mysterious ways. I don't know.

0:35:41 Clip: Uh I was kind of scared to send her at my address because you know I was like is she gonna try to

0:35:43 Thomas: But the last one was a bad thing.

0:35:45 Clip: Traffic me or something I don't know I'm just joking joke about on this but you know it was

0:35:47 Lydia: Why is he bringing up trafficking now

0:35:49 Thomas: Yep. That also, I didn't want to talk during that because I found that to be so fucking dumb.

0:35:54 Clip: Like you know you don't just give your address roll on instagram meld me a Bible probably one

0:35:54 Thomas: Like, okay, let me, let's get a clean one of that.

0:35:59 Clip: Of the coolest things ever happened to me she just goes I feel like you need This she just meld Me a Bible I never met this Person uh I Was kind of Scared to send her at my address. Cause you know, I was like, is she going to try to traffic me or something? I don't know. I didn't joke about on this, but you know it was like you know you don't just give

0:36:14 Thomas: I mean, yeah, it's a joke, but like what? It doesn't

0:36:18 Lydia: Why why that particular thing as opposed to anything else that is way more likely if someone gets your address

0:36:25 Thomas: Make any sense other than in the hyper world building he's trying to do around trafficking. Like he's tring to like,

0:36:26 Lydia: No it doesn't get people afraid of it and get people to donate yep

0:36:34 Thomas: Yeah, it's like constantly front of mind. That's the last thing anyone would think of. Like this person on Instagram is going to traffic you because they get whatever.

0:36:41 Clip: Your address out online. And I did and she sent me a Bible. And it was just like you don't just

0:36:43 Lydia: And you're a green beret former green berets

0:36:44 Thomas: Yeah. You can't just be like trafficked in that way. You know, like you can't like you're a Green Beret guy. Someone is not going to just come traffic you at your house like that's like how often does that happen?

0:36:49 Lydia: Special forces and someone's gonna like yeah no I feel like he will never be a victim of being trafficked like that's never gonna happen to somebody like

0:37:01 Thomas: No, not going to happen. No.

0:37:05 Clip: Give your address online and I did. And she sent a Bible and but it's those little things right that brought me back on a path. And once I started to realize you know that I needed God in my life, I started looking at human trafficking child exploitation and that is when I decided to start a charity to fight it because I saw there were other charities that did it like you know

0:37:22 Thomas: What? Why is that?

0:37:27 Lydia: That wait he started a

0:37:28 Clip: Operation Underground Railroad is one that I looked at and you know saw there was multiple

0:37:29 Thomas: Yeah, he did. It's a different one.

0:37:29 Lydia: Charity oh okay cool

0:37:32 Clip: Others and I was like you knows what I'm going to do something about this and that's how Operation Light Shine got its start and the darkest time of my life um yeah because you know like my whole goal was like okay I couldn't save my sister right but then I was like you know what I got to save one more I just want to save one more kid from this you know so I I applied for the 501c3 and I had no idea what I was doing I googled it like probably most people start charities takes about a year most people anyways you can get it done quicker but it takes a while yeah it took a while so we put that in and I started building up what light shine is um and at first we were going to do some vigilante stuff you know because I still had that vengeance mindset right you know I was I wanted to save kids but I wanted I wanted get some bad dudes that's what I'm wired to do right get bad guys and we were going to do some vigilant stuff and a buddy in homeland security uh who's a starving uh guitarist at night but a homeland security agent during the day right there's a lot of those uh you know people here in nashville uh awesome dude he's like matt I

0:38:18 Thomas: Listen to this.

0:38:39 Clip: I love you, man. You know, he heard what I was going to try to do with light shine. He's like, man, you're probably going to get in trouble, right? If you do this, I'm like, it's like all right. Well, so he's like Matt, just talk to somebody, talk to my, so turns out the top child exploitation agent in the world, Jim Cole, um, decided he wanted to do his last two years at the Homeland security office here in Nashville before he retired. So now I've got the guy, the best guy in the world at fighting child exploitation in my backyard right that's cool yeah right it just kind of got things so so he and he agreed to have a meeting with me right and I

0:38:33 Lydia: Starving guitar

0:38:35 Thomas: Yeah,

0:38:44 Lydia: Yeah weird

0:39:12 Thomas: God things.

0:39:14 Clip: Didn't realize how at this time how guys like me were kind of like a dime a dozen uh so yeah you know like they want to go save kids I didn't realized that there was a lot of military guys trying to do it but he agreed with me for some reason I guess he looked in my background my resume I don't know what so I walk in the homeland security office and you got fbi agents there and in this boardroom table just full of agents right I'm like oh man at first I'm thinking they like what I'm gonna do right you know so so I sit down jim's sitting right across from me room full of these agents matt's tell us what you're gonna try to do to you know fight trafficking like all right they want to hear it so I laid it out and when I was done uh jim looked at me and he goes matt matt that's illegal that's vigilante uh if we don't arrest you somebody else will and a couple of things I said he's like somebody already does that and they do that better than you can because they've worked out agreements with the government this did not go the way that I expected so I remember at the time I just kind of looked up you know did it again said a little prayer hey god me again you know I don't know what to do and so at that time I had just looked back down and uh look gentlemen I said you tell me you know tell me what I can do to honor my sister with what I just told you how can how what can I do so he looked at me he goes matt if you took everything you just told me and instead of you getting you and the boys to do it and kicking somebody's door you do all that to support law enforcement and a task force we can do it so long story short because I don't want to wait too much time on this we start talking about how to build this task force with federal state and local law enforcement where jurisdictions aren't an issue where there's, you know, all the red tape and all the issues that even affected my sister's investigation can go away because you're bringing federal, state and local law enforcement together in a task force concept and you're feeding them intel and resources and everything they don't have. Because here's what most people don't realize. Law enforcement in the United States, right? Understaffed, underfunded, undertrained, under-resourced, and they're struggling right yeah how many of us can utilize technology we're in a perfect storm right now so

0:41:21 Thomas: Yeah I mean I guess it's also like put a lot of money into policing and maybe it's just not spent right but yeah so that's sort of the origin story of starting his other nonprofit because you'll note Operation Light Shine is not Sentinel Foundation yeah

0:41:39 Lydia: Not sentinel foundation yeah yeah so his origin story is I wanted to commit crimes against people cool

0:41:47 Thomas: Yeah pretty much we'll get into later how he goes from light shine to the current one but so he talks about how like oh you know we can help them with technology you know we can like all this stuff that he and I guess his company or charity thing can do to help officers that aren't good at stuff which might be true or he's saying like you know that this charity is going to do everything the government can't do it's It's going to support law enforcement. And then I think, oh, there's a little thing I want to play here.

0:42:20 Clip: Creating this task force was part of the problem and then doing everything that the government can't and won't do inside the charity to support law enforcement gotcha so no one in that room thought I could pull this off I didn't at that time but you know hold my beer moment right that's right you know um so long story short I ended up uh meeting up with tim tebow and he agreed to give me the the first 500 000 we needed to launch this task force here in nashville tennessee wow forever grateful for tim and his foundation for that he's he's salt of the earth he's great people

0:42:56 Thomas: I did not. I think when you play it at 100 speed, that doesn't really like, that's so funny. I had no idea that was happening. So he gets $500 ,000 from Tim Tebow. Side note, I wonder, I mean, maybe he's a good businessman. He probably is. But like his NFL career sucked. Like I don't know. Where did he get all his money? I don' t know. I guess he, if he was smart with it, maybe you got a good, decent NFL paycheck. Check. And then, yeah, he probably, oh, he did do. Yeah, he did do, I mean, he was an amazing college athlete. So maybe he got a bunch of like sponsorship, you know, endorsement things being

0:43:00 Lydia: It's so horrible partnerships yeah well and like we said with With America Fest, there's a lot of money in, like, Christian stuff. Yeah. So, there

0:43:32 Thomas: A Christian white dude. Yeah. Yeah. I, he, cause like just having $500 ,000 to be like, yeah, here you go. Like that's, wow. I didn't know he had, I mean, I would have assumed he's quite wealthy, but five, five, that's a lot like having that much, like kind of liquid unless it was like a long -term agreement, maybe I guess, but But I don't know. That's crazy. I didn't know he was that wealthy.

0:43:40 Lydia: You go. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

0:43:53 Clip: And I got the money and I'm a cliff notes this because there's a lot to happen but people from

0:43:54 Thomas: I think some of this is interesting. Here, Cliff notes it for us.

0:43:59 Clip: All over the world within the first few months started flying into nashval tennessee to see what we had done right how and because this is like how did you do this right you know you had a working model yeah we had a working module and now a charity is partnered with law enforcement on operational support capacity with resources and giving us all the things we don't have

0:44:14 Thomas: Didn't he say that the other guy said they were already doing that?

0:44:16 Clip: Next thing you know I'm in meetings with 16 governors right next thing you know I'm getting approved to move this charity in all these states and then we moved into Florida and we got two active task forces down there and then they just launched the task force in Virginia Governor Youngkin donated his paycheck to get the task force started there

0:44:19 Thomas: 16 governors. So that was interesting. I was like, what? And it turns out, I think Youngkin, I guess, donates his paycheck every quarter. Because, you know, I think he doesn't need it.

0:44:38 Lydia: Oh, to different things. Yeah. Mm.

0:44:42 Thomas: And yeah, it does like a kind of a donate each quarter thing. And so, yeah, sure enough. Second quarter, 2023. 2023, I'm not sure when, I've actually not entirely sure when this guy left Light Shine, but July 2nd, 2023, Youngkin donates second quarter salary to anti -human trafficking efforts in Virginia. Oh, here's a tweet about it. Donating my salary to Operation Light Shine, which will work with Virginia law enforcement to combat human trafficking in the Commonwealth. That's crazy. Like, I think that goes to show like how one way or the other, there's a lot of energy and interest around quote unquote human trafficking, child trafficking. I'm not entirely sure like what's, but like he's got Tim Tebow. He's got 16 governors and he's Got Glenn Youngkin is don't, you know, like, I guess the Glenn Youngkin thing, he did fast forward quite a bit because he started light shine in 2020 is the first year that there's a form.

0:45:36 Lydia: Mm -hum.

0:45:36 Thomas: And then that's 2023. So I guess we can assume, you Know, a couple, couple good years sort of thing. 2021 it looks like might have been could be the tim tebow year because they have like an income of 659 000 so maybe I was just speculating but isn't that crazy like how fast that goes to that to do what to like work with law enforcement to whatever like it just it's weird like it's a nebulous thing

0:45:59 Lydia: It's just, like a thing that sounds scary, that seems scary, that is scary, and, yeah, people want to be against the scary thing.

0:46:08 Thomas: And then he's gonna talk about how he got to the other organization I

0:46:11 Clip: Yeah. And so that was a movement. But what I realized in all that, right, I'm a doer, right? If I say I'm gonna do something, I get it done. I don't care what I got to do. And but what I stopped doing and being that founder and CEO of Lightshine was doing right now. I'm just fundraising. Now I'm just going to meetings all the time now I'm just you know this talking head and I like that I don't mind doing that a little bit right because it's necessary but I was in no way shape form or fashion able to operationally be involved in rescuing kids and that was my passion that was my heart right you know so it started a lot of conversation um and internally and I decided about a month ago and this what I mean I've made it public a month ego decided a long time for that that, you know, that being the head of Operation Lightshine now that I built it and it worked You need somebody 20, 30 years in geo experience, somebody that wants to be sitting in that seat, someone who's not going to be, you knows, devices of I am and address the issues that And then somebody who is happy not being operationally involved.

0:46:43 Thomas: Think why do you say not as divisive as I am that's interesting oh wait here's here

0:47:21 Clip: Know, I turned it back over the board and the Tebow Foundation was like, hey guys, find name me you know I built it never take that away from me it works I hope this expands and it is great but I I got to get back in the fight right and um you know so that and that's how this sentinel conversation started and all the cool things that are that are happening with sentinel right now and I could not be more excited uh with where my life is going this organization's going

0:47:49 Thomas: Yeah so So that's literally, this was July 25th, 2023. When did I say the Youngkin thing? Wasn't like right then. So it's like, yeah, it's a right before that, I guess.

0:47:57 Lydia: It was quarter to 2023 wasn't it

0:48:02 Thomas: And it's, like, oh, okay. June 2023. So, like that just happened.

0:48:07 Lydia: Okay and he said he was divisive I don't know I don'T KNOW

0:48:09 Thomas: Yeah, why is he defying? Like, with this kind of stuff, again, pure speculation. But it feels weird to start an organization that does a thing and then leave it and just go to another organization that Does the Exact Same Thing.

0:48:22 Lydia: Yeah yeah IT DOES SEEM STRANGE THAT

0:48:22 Thomas: Doesn't that seem like there could be something going on? I don't know. Like, who knows? Even if it was just like an argument or something. It just seems, I mean, get back in the fight. He's the president of this one. He's not in the fighting.

0:48:34 Lydia: SEEMS TO BE DOING LIKE PERFECTLY FINE YEAH

0:48:37 Thomas: The same amount of being in the fights from what we can see. But who knows, maybe behind the scenes it's not.

0:48:47 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:48:47 Thomas: All right, well, there's so much to talk about. We're going to cut it off here. Next episode, it's a lot of fun because we're going to start to dig into their worldview more. More, more so on this guy's worldview on the human trafficking and the kids and the sex trafficking and the phones. And they're like, he's going to start presenting what's going on in the world.

0:49:08 Thomas: And I have done a bunch of research on actual numbers. We'll see if we get to that next episode, but one way or the other, the agenda is we're going to get into what this guy says is happening and eventually get into the actual reality is and onward. I mean, there's so much here. There's other companies. There's other people that have actually been busted for fraud, but it's not related to this. I want to be very careful legally. It doesn't directly say anything about this guy or his thing or even his other thing.

0:49:37 Lydia: -HUH OR THIS PARTICULAR NON -PROFIT YEAH Yeah.

0:49:39 Thomas: Yeah, but there's other instances that it's interesting to talk about. So, so much here. Can't wait for you to hear some of the nonsense in the next episode. Thanks so much for listening, Wokies. Stay safe out there. Don't get trafficked. That's bound to happen.

0:49:52 Lydia: Well, no, seriously, the more I think about this,

0:49:54 Thomas: The more scared you are of being trafficked...

0:49:54 Lydia: I just I just rewatched Ralph Breaks the Internet with the kids. And so I'm like, oh, these people think that slaughter race the game like that's actual like what the world looks like is slaughter race with like great white sharks coming out of sewers to eat people. And like, it's just nonsense. Anyway, that's my that's My Take on it. So, yeah. Yeah.

0:50:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It's I mean, it's not it's not super far from what they think. They just think it's like a Bill Clinton shark and a leftist, you know, it'll all be left, even though it's mathematically speaking, way safer. It doesn't mean totally safe, but if you were to play the odds, like just playing the betting odds of like, hmm, who should I? You're forced to trust your kid around a random stranger. What are you going to pick? You You know, there's that Frank Turek guy who covered slightly in the, actually, I think it's in this, but I don't know that we'll bother getting to it. But he had this old apologetic where he was like, hey, what would you feel safer? It's just getting dark and you come across a group of men. Would you rather they had just come out of a prayer meeting, Christian prayer meeting? Or I think it changes over time, but either atheists or like Muslims, maybe.

0:50:59 Thomas: And it's like, Hey man, not even being ironic or a wokest, I'd rather they not just have come out of a prayer meeting because especially now, I mean, he's been doing that for 25 years. Yeah. A bear, a bear meeting. I want bears coming out of the bear meeting, that's what I want. They will be so helpful. They were having a bear government, you know, like if they're, if they are arranging government and having meetings, you know, they're going to be helpful. It depends on what the bear is wearing. If I'm being honest, if it's a bear, that's totally naked. That's a wild card. You don't know.

0:51:05 Lydia: Yeah. The bear. The bear is the answer. Yeah. Yeah. Or

0:51:27 Thomas: It could be a bear that like is actually just a bear.

0:51:29 Lydia: It could be, like, Winnie the Pooh, like just a shirt. Yeah. Yeah.

0:51:31 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. The clothes really make the bear. I've always said that. I've always said that. Lydia can back me up on this. Little vest, you're in. Hat, you're golden. You know?

0:51:40 Lydia: Oh, yeah. The little Paddington hat. So cute.

0:51:42 Thomas: Yeah, you're golden. All right. But point is, like, I don't know, man. I don'T think it's that much safer to, like... If you were to pick, you would want someone to have come out of, like a progressive government meeting. You KNOW, like here's our communist, you know, meetup. Like, that would be much safer than a meeting of Christians. Let me just say it doesn't mean doesn't be totally safe. Don't get me wrong. There's plenty of predators, people who take advantage of the left. We've seen that, obviously. But statistically, every single time you see a headline of someone having done something horrible, either with kids or just like adultery and cheating and weird stuff, it's a Republican senator or, you know, of a state. It's like a Republican state senator, like almost every time.

0:52:22 Lydia: Yep. More often than not. Yep.

0:52:27 Thomas: All right well stay safe from state senators out there see everyone on the next episode the clothes really make the bear I've always said that