WTW124: It Gets So Much Worse. Our Grifters Go to Gaza.

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.

0:00:42 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 124. I'm Thomas. That over there is Lydia. How you doing? Foxholes? Oh, yeah.

0:00:47 Lydia: Hiya. I'm doing okay. I've ended up in some crazy rabbit holes, though. Some crazy foxholes, maybe, actually.

0:00:57 Thomas: They say there's no atheists in foxholes, and yet Lydia is out here doing the research as dressed as a rabbit inappropriately. She's like, I came here for the rabbit holes, and all I got were these stinkin' foxholes. Yeah, I'm excited because we're gonna be really tying the room together, you know.

0:01:00 Lydia: And yet I'm here. Yeah. Yeah, mm-hmm.

0:01:14 Thomas: We've been on this kick for a while. So long, in fact, that we will kind of remind people how we got here in a bit.

0:01:19 Lydia: I think that's a good idea.

0:01:20 Thomas: But yeah, but this is, this is like the payoff for this. I mean, there's been a lot of payoff, but we've been talking about human trafficking, child trafficking, sex trafficking, all the traffickings and the moral panic and what's real, what's not, you know, there is some stuff that's real, some, you know, a lot that isn't the related, but totally different problem of just sex abuse. But today I think you're going to be perhaps surprised to find where this leads because all of this stuff that'S nebulous and random right -wing militia groups that are doing child trafficking stuff today, Lydia is going to tie it all together for us. Linking it not only to the genocide happening that israel is inflicting not only to that but to sitting members of congress so yeah

0:02:00 Lydia: And the Trump administration as a whole, yeah.

0:02:02 Thomas: So this is this we went all the way through this random stuff and then we're there's a reason we're going to end up in the very stuff in the most important things happening in the republican party and in the world today

0:02:15 Lydia: And with the very people that would be speakers at Turning Point USA's conferences. Yeah.

0:02:17 Thomas: Yep yep I don't want to give it away but it's crazy I never imagined we were getting all the the way to Gaza with this. But that is where we're going to end up. So why don't we take our first break? After that, we're really going to reground everybody with where we've been because it's been a journey. And then we're gonna go where we go. I think you're gonna be quite surprised.

0:02:37 Lydia: Yeah. We're going to continue on this journey until we arrive back home.

0:02:40 Thomas: So if you'd like to support various foxhole, rabbit hole, different holes.

0:02:46 Lydia: All the holes. Mm hmm.

0:02:47 Thomas: If you'd like to report holes.

0:02:50 Lydia: And us being in them.

0:02:52 Thomas: Yeah, that sounds great, right? Give us money. This is not us starting our only fans you'll know uh

0:02:55 Lydia: Yeah, to go in holes. Thank you. Oh, you'll know. Yeah?

0:03:02 Thomas: patreon.com/where there's woke support these deep dives through various holes and also get the bonus stuff hey if you haven't gotten the bonus stuff there was a great bonus that you need to hear yeah oh wait I didn't get to tease it I meant to folks folks if you are not on the patreon I watched an entire bill maher sam harris interview thing on his stupid fucking dumb ass podcast thing where he sits there and is annoying the whole time. I watched the whole fucking thing. It was like two hours. And it was actually kind of worth it because it turns out Sam Harris's wife sent an email to Bill Maher just absolutely chewing him out.

0:03:34 Lydia: Too long. That hurt Bill's feelings.

0:03:42 Thomas: Yeah, and there's more there, but that's just the little teaser for it. There's a lot to that episode, but that was one of those uncensored, unedited kind of thing for a bonus for you folks at patreon.com/where there's woke. So hope you enjoyed that and get on that if you haven't. All right, we'll take a break. And then we will get to it.

0:03:51 Lydia: Mm hum.

0:04:06 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:04:06 Lydia: It's been a while since we initially launched off into this sentinel foundation.

0:04:11 Thomas: It's been a while since anyone had any idea what the fuck we were doing, I think is what you're trying to say. Yeah.

0:04:14 Lydia: Yeah, you know, I mean, yes. I think that's a perfectly reasonable characterization. You know, the way that you and I are like we often go on little side quests and tangents and things like that. But I think this episode is hopefully going to help us understand how all of these things work together. But I thought it would be helpful for everybody if you just kind of, like, reminded us how we got here.

0:04:34 Thomas: How did we get previously on Where There's Woke?

0:04:44 Lydia: Mm -hmm.

0:04:44 Thomas: I feel like the main tie -in is the right -wing grift machine and it takes us a lot of places. And I was just thinking about this, like, is it that I have ADHD and I guess maybe I've infected you with it? Could be. Or it's also a problem them

0:04:57 Lydia: Well, you infected Eli's son with it, so it's contagious, I'm pretty sure.

0:05:02 Thomas: Great reference to another show that a few people will get so how we got here was I if you I can't believe this but way back in the 80s I watched the Erica Kirk the uh I don't know what the America Fest turning points America Fest which there's still so much that I had on that when we just I don' t know if we'll get to it it's interesting but that was important I think to to me, especially because it felt like, and we said at the time, it felt like the new CPAC. It's like, honestly, higher production value than CPAC, it had really heavy hitters, and it just it felt, like, very important to understanding the conservative and, by extension, anti -woke kind of movement. And so that's why I was looking at that, and when I looked into that, I was not disappointed, it was every bit as crazy and as high budget and and everything that I expected.

0:05:13 Lydia: Turning point. Mm -hm. And Erica Kirkey.

0:05:57 Thomas: Yeah. Oh my God. We got to day two and day two, I noted was it seemed like grift day. It seemed like day two. And again, I thought this was pretty smart on the organizers part to sort of, you got some heavy hitters up front and not really much in terms of sales on the day one. And then day two is like a freaking, it might as well be a seminar for like a timeshare. Like it's just every single speaker was like a corporate speaker or had a product or like first they didn't do an ad for a product. The speaker would turn out to be like from that product, uh, and go into it. And it was so grifty. And that's when I landed on the Aldeans, that guy who's saying, try being black in a small town.

0:06:00 Lydia: Mm -hum. Right, right. Mm-hm. Mm hmm.

0:06:38 Thomas: They mentioned just to backtrack how we got here. They mentioned that they had just done a golf fundraiser for a thing that turned out to Be this human slash child trafficking nonprofit that when when I looked into it was like, what in the world is this? It felt like they didn't really do anything. And like my impression reading it again, I want to be very careful, not accusing anybody of anything, but my impression, reading over their materials was, boy, this sure seems like an organization that does nothing and is trying to get money.

0:07:09 Thomas: If you were an organization that was pretending to do stuff to get money, this is what you would look like, I guess. Doesn't mean they are, but that's what it would look like. Now, I took you through the investigations on that. It seems that there's definitely some stuff they're doing. And, you know, I don't have like a firm conclusion on that, but that led me to Matt Murphy, who was the guy in charge of that at the time. He didn't start that one because we know he started Light Shine, as you heard last episode more too. He started Light Shine and then moved mysteriously over to this other one and became president of Sentinel Foundation. Then that led to a lot of other stuff, talking about trafficking, talking about the stats, talking About, you going to see today more about how this is all, it's all one fucking grift universe. That's the thing about the right is like, we run into this problem. So what I started to say was, is it that I have ADHD or is it, that every single right -wing thing is related in a web of grift?

0:07:33 Lydia: Right. Mm Hm.

0:08:07 Thomas: Cause either one, what happens is we start researching something and we're like, oh, that's connected to that. It's connected to that and now I'm looking at this part of the grift machine and it's like hard to, if you're in a massive spider web, you're like how do I self -contain this into to a story for an episode. And so we've constantly faced that struggle, but now I'm just handing that grenade to you and you get to try. Yeah.

0:08:26 Lydia: And I can do hot potato with it and see if I'm successful or not. Yeah. Thanks.

0:08:29 Thomas: So that's where we got to. We talked about in the last episode, grift related to another organization that was tied in.

0:08:37 Lydia: Our rescue formerly known as Operation Underground Railroad founded by Tim Ballard, the person who Sound of Freedom was based off of and some of his efforts there and his downfall that came soon thereafter.

0:08:47 Thomas: Right. They should make a sequel that is rescuing the people he's trafficked.

0:08:53 Lydia: Yeah, there you go.

0:08:54 Thomas: What if they made a Sound of Freedom 2 and they're like, well, the villain is the guy from the first movie. Hey, that happens in movies sometimes. See you already got like a format that works

0:09:05 Lydia: So knowing that you know we've spent all of this time talking about these different organizations and characters knowing how off Sentinel Foundation felt and knowing how off Matt Murphy felt and his departure from Operation Light Shine I was really interested in learning more about who actually started Sentinel Foundation, because Matt Murphy is just taking the reins, right, and continuing to lead this organization. But it seemed off before he even joined. And so that's really like what kicked off my investigation for this episode was looking into who started Sentinel foundation. What kind of people are they? What can I learn from the things that they've done with Sentinel or with other organizations? And then what does that mean for Sentinel as a whole and the fundraising efforts that are being done under that umbrella, basically? And I just happened to type in, there are two founders, Glenn Devitt and Jameson Givoni. And I happened to typ in Jameson Giovoni first. And then I was like, like, holy shit.

0:10:15 Lydia: Because when I type in his name for Google, basically the first result is an investigation with Mother Jones. And this article is relatively new. It came out September 2025. And I'm just going to tease a little bit of this for you. The reason why Mother Jones looked into James Singavone specifically. And the activities that he participates in is because there was a whistleblower affiliated with a security firm that was contracted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

0:10:53 Lydia: Yeah. He is the owner -founder of this security company. And a whistleblower came out and said that there were contractors with no training that were being recruited in the craziest ways. We will get into it after the break, who fired shots at Palestinians while they were trying to get food from their site. Yeah.

0:11:08 Thomas: What huh oh god oh come on you can't do that israelis get to do that it's not fair if you do it too

0:11:23 Lydia: Yeah. It's honestly crazy. And we're going to get into all the details and his life to some extent, too, because there's just there's so much here. But that caught my eye and I was like, oh, boy. And I dove headfirst and I'm trying to come up so I can pull you guys down with me.

0:11:34 Thomas: The grift web wow I don't know like any of this stuff I've been excited for this

0:11:47 Lydia: Yeah. I'm going to start us off with just reading this background that Mother Jones put together on Govoni, and we'll kind of dive into some of these things here, too. But I have to read all of this to you, this particular section. I just don't know.

0:12:06 Thomas: You sound like affected by this all right

0:12:07 Lydia: I mean, feel free to stop me along the way. We can kind of talk about some of These things as we go. After his Army career ended in 2015, Gavone quickly tried to enter the lucrative world of for -profit security contracting.

0:12:18 Thomas: Oh well yeah Yeah.

0:12:19 Lydia: Yeah, surprise, surprise. In 2016, he founded the now -defunct Skill Set Corporation, which, among other services, offered to help clients surveil, quote, targets. Gavrone has said, in parentheses, he has taught surveillance for the U.S. military after leaving the Army. He also expanded beyond the security sector. In 2019, Govoni started what he said was meant to be a, quote, CBD venture focused on pain relief and anxiety named Frontier Cannabis. Two years later, after that, he registered another company that, according to trademark records, was meant to sell an energy drink called Not Today Satan. There is.

0:12:53 Thomas: Like the name. Not bad.

0:12:56 Lydia: Yeah, he actually responded to this. He said, like many entrepreneurs, I've explored concepts that never move forward. He added about Not Today, Satan. It is a killer name, though.

0:13:05 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, fair. I was going to essentially say exactly that. So, so far it's like, well, trying to start businesses, nothing wrong with that. Has a good name. Apparently didn't get off the ground. I liked the idea of hitting the cannabis and the energy drink. Like you're trying to hit both ends of that. Like here, I want something that'll get you stressed. And then, hey, you seem stressed. Have this.

0:13:23 Lydia: Well, and then the next company after that is a hangover prevention product.

0:13:27 Thomas: Oh, there you go.

0:13:28 Lydia: And this one is successful. It's called Alcohol Armor. On its website, it's described as, quote, savage tested and, quote, Savage approved. I think savage just meaning like you're going to party hard.

0:13:38 Thomas: Okay. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's another element of this. It's all very male, toxic, masculine sales job there.

0:13:46 Lydia: Oh, exactly. I mean, this is directly from the website. Quote, if you don't go to war without your armor, then why would you party without it?

0:13:52 Thomas: What? Okay. Or you could just fucking be chill and exist and not have everything have to be a military theme. But okay.

0:14:00 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. He also started a, well, he noted as registering another company called Wook Water, W -O -O K. And this is a drink that is, quote, designed to support the unique demands of ravers, artists, and the festival -driven lifestyle.

0:14:14 Thomas: Oh, I was like, for Wookiees, what are we doing here?

0:14:17 Lydia: Yeah, it's apparently slang for people who consume a lot of drugs at festivals. Yeah. Now, Gavone is identified as the founder in the North Carolina records, but he says he only helped friends launch the company. He does not own or operate it. And I actually found going through his Facebook, I found the person who is the owner of it because this guy just left Walmart as like the VP for global talent acquisition or something like that.

0:14:44 Thomas: For Walmart talent?

0:14:45 Lydia: And, I guess, for headquarters. Quarters. His name is Rob Dougherty. I'm just going to mention this very quickly just so you can kind of get an idea of these folks and the company they keep. So they are pictured together in a number of different posts. It's usually from Rob Doughrty's partner. I don't know that they're married. I're not sure. But she posts things with Rob and then Jameson and Jameson's wife. And one of those posts I'm just going to read to you. It's her birthday post from 2024. She thanks not just Rob, but, you know, Brittany and Jameson for the best time at the lake and for the nonstop entertainment. You guys are so special to me and I love you all with my whole ass African -American heart.

0:15:28 Lydia: This lady's white. Yeah. Yeah, she's very white.

0:15:32 Thomas: No? Whole ass African -American. There's no. What?

0:15:36 Lydia: Yeah. My whole ass African - American heart. I don't know why she did that. I I don't know.

0:15:41 Thomas: Are you a hundred percent? We're not. There's a whole ass African American. There's so mistaken identity.

0:15:44 Lydia: Yes, I'm looking at pictures of her. I'm looking at her Facebook. No. I mean, I would be shocked. Yeah, I just I don'T I don' t think so. I don''t think so at all.

0:15:47 Thomas: Could she be mixed? Albino. Wow. That is very weird. Okay. Yeah.

0:16:02 Lydia: So that's weird and kind of uncomfortable. But you know, it is what it is. And so they're all best friends, though.

0:16:05 Thomas: Whole ass. African -american heart. Okay. Hmm.

0:16:11 Lydia: And Gavone doesn't, you know... Obviously, we know he started Sentinel Foundation. So his prospects haven't been solely in the for -profit industry. He also has various charities that he's done, one of which is Sentinel Foundation, and he has previously participated via the Sentinel Foundation and this other group that we're going to be talking about called UG Solutions. UG solutions is truly a paramilitary organization that deploys oftentimes times veterans to areas where additional security is requested or needed.

0:16:49 Thomas: So very much like Sentinel. Kind of. It seems like.

0:16:52 Lydia: Yeah, they kind of go hand in hand because Sentinel Foundation issued a report. One of the reports was that they partnered with UG Solutions to deliver 25 ,000 bottles of water and 25 ,00 clementines and or bananas in Gaza, and that they also were involved with a rescue mission to help evacuate Americans Americans and foreign nationals out of Gaza.

0:17:15 Lydia: They have done other rescue missions in that region previously. We'll probably get into that elsewhere. But I think it is important to know, I'm just going to bring in Matt Murphy for a second.

0:17:27 Thomas: Oh, he's on the line. Okay. Matt.

0:17:28 Lydia: Yeah. After that mission to help evacuate Americans out of Ghana, Matt Murphy made some remarks about Muslims, of course, in a January January 2024 discussion, first reported by independent journalist Jack Polson, Murphy claimed that, quote, killing and beheading and raping and treating, you know, Christian and Jewish women and men as lesser than as slaves is not just something, you know, terrorists think it's Islam.

0:17:54 Lydia: And in the same conversation, he went on to say, quote. Palestine is a little shithole that Palestine is, quote not a real state, but a territory populated by the descendants of, quote basically nomads and unwanted people from, you know, Western Asia and other Arab nations. Mm hmm. Yeah. Now, obviously, like all of those comments are pretty terrible. Right. We're talking about January 2024. Matt Murphy is saying these things while he's head of Sentinel Foundation. Right?

0:18:24 Lydia: And it was so bad that he's not with Sentinel Foundation anymore.

0:18:24 Thomas: Oh my God. Okay, so here's the thing. Unbelievable that Lydia made this discovery. I didn't actually come across this because everything that I saw, including his LinkedIn, says he's still president there. And all the interviews I saw he was talking, and they're pretty recent, relatively recent, he was talking about being president but then it looks like he kind of just maybe stopped doing stuff and so I didn't have any reason to suspect that he had be gone from that but holy shit so Matt Murphy now I guess we can't really say exactly the manner in which but he has exited the organization that he started he then has now been forced to exit and that one sound the language I think we can assume is a little more punitive or intentional right

0:19:10 Lydia: Yeah yeah. So the Sentinel Foundation CEO Andrew Drew Gunther came out and said that Matt Murphy has not been affiliated with a nonprofit since December and that statements made by him do not represent the views of the foundation.

0:19:23 Thomas: Oof pretty rough when a paramilitary right -wing organization has to be like um that guy don't agree with that yikes. You know how I was suspicious of matt murphy from the moment I saw him in that first interview I think uh I think that was warranted I think I might have been

0:19:42 Lydia: But if you guys want to get more Matt Murphy, if you're interested, he just launched a podcast about, I don't know, 10 days ago. It's called the F&G Podcast, and it says The podcast for those searching for the truth in our fake and gay world.

0:19:44 Thomas: Warranted would love to oh

0:20:01 Lydia: Yeah. No, I'm not kidding.

0:20:00 Thomas: My god are you kidding me fake and gay world well we can also listen to uh I didn't watch this interview interview until now because it had like zero fucking views but I decided to check it out now because it's the most recent one I can kind of find on youtube the other thing is the fucking I won't go on a rant but like search is so broken especially youtube that it's it's really hard to be sure that we found all the stuff you know but here's how he's described on this april 16th 2025 so about a year old 11 months old interview

0:20:41 Clip: So you served 18 and a half years. You medically retired from the Special Forces, Special Forces Group. You were a part of CIA, a ground branch and operator with them. Them. You founded Operation Light Shine while you were still in still in which is which is combating child trafficking.

0:20:56 Thomas: I guess while you're still in the cia

0:20:59 Clip: Yes. You're the president of the Sentinel Foundation, which also was battling human trafficking. You have three

0:21:03 Thomas: You were the the president.

0:21:05 Clip: Girls 1612 and two, and you follow Jesus. I do. Wow, man.

0:21:05 Thomas: Wait for it. Wait for it, folks.

0:21:10 Clip: Took me a long time to get there. But yeah, it takes us all

0:21:11 Thomas: Took me a long time to get there. Yeah, I had to do enough bad shit to need all roads lead to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the reason that you can no longer blame me for the horrible things that I've said and done basically.

0:21:19 Lydia: And also allow you to feel like good about giving me money because I'm also a Jesus follower.

0:21:30 Thomas: Unreal. He does not look great in this interview. I do want to say this guy seems like a kind of a piece of work, but I do have plenty of sympathy for the substance abuse issues that someone might have after serving in combat and losing his sister. So I don't at all want to, I'm not making fun of that, but he doesn't, he doesn'T look great.

0:21:51 Thomas: And, uh, I feel like he's gone through, he's got through a lot of stuff and I feel like he'S made some bad choices that have kind of caught up with him. So yeah.

0:21:58 Lydia: Yeah yeah. Crazy though right? I mean this is all just because I clicked on you know this Mother Jones thing for Jameson Gavone which we're gonna get back to but like wow that was a that was mind -blown moment for me.

0:22:08 Thomas: Yeah. Unreal.

0:22:14 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:22:14 Lydia: So Jameson and Gavoni started this UG Solutions thing.

0:22:17 Thomas: Can you remind me, how did we get on that quote? Cause that wasn't about Sentinel, was it? Or okay.

0:22:21 Lydia: It came out because it was right after the mission of them donating water and clementines and or bananas in Gaza and rescuing people from Gaza. Then Matt Murphy went out and started talking crap about Muslims.

0:22:28 Thomas: Which organization was he in in while he was doing that rescue mission thing oh why did the mother jones article talk about that I don't remember

0:22:40 Lydia: Sentinel. I think it's because Gavani co -founded Sentinel Foundation. So it's showing Sentinel Foundation participating in his is current that they partnered with his new project, UG Solutions, to deliver food for one of these distribution sites that they oversaw. Because Govoni's still on the board. You know, he's still affiliated with Sentinel Foundation. So it's his one project worked with his other project. And the president at the time of his project said all of these things. Now that person's gone. And Govani had to come out and also say that he does not condone discriminatory comments in any form. Yeah.

0:23:20 Lydia: OK, so going back to Gavoni and UG Solutions, are you familiar with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation?

0:23:19 Thomas: That right okay okay uh I don'T think so

0:23:30 Lydia: So basically what happened was distribution of food and aid used to be handled via like the U .N. and USAID. Israel blocked all of that from happening as the war was happening. They wouldn't allow goods to come into Gaza. And they effectively that kind kind of created the beginning of these desperate, desperate situations where Palestinians were going hungry and malnourished and didn't have access to anything. There was obviously outcry about this. The way they addressed it was they said, oh, well, we have this organization that we started creating before. It's called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. We started working on it in 2023, and it was created by Israeli officials, military officers, and business people with close ties to the Israeli government. Our State Department funds $30 million for GHF. They insist they are independent, but it's a lot of Israel backing there. Israel provides $200 million reportedly. I'm going to say reportedly because Netanyahu specifically says that they do not fund GHF and GHF won't disclose their donors. But there is evidence showing that Israel funds $200 million for this supposed independent organization.

0:24:42 Thomas: What okay I guess I'm not understanding why would they not want to say What do they do why would THEY want to fund it but in In secret.

0:24:59 Lydia: I don't totally know why Israel is so insistent to not be linked to GHF. I guess the only thing I could think of is that there are a lot of criticisms about GHF, and Israel ultimately wants to be able to control that region. And so if they are controlling the humanitarian aid to that region, I think they're probably trying to distance themselves from that because it would increase the criticism because there used to be scores of distribution sites for food and water and all of that stuff for Palestinians. And when Israel put in the blockade, they closed all of those distribution sites. And then they said, OK, we're going to open up distribution sites again via the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and staffed by a bunch of different organizations. But there's only going to be four for all of the Palestinians that are there for total distribution sites.

0:25:25 Thomas: Oh, okay. So they don't want... Hmm. Okay. Wow. Four? Huh. Yeah.

0:25:58 Lydia: I mean, anyone who who worked in aid and humanitarian efforts through the U .N. or any sort of like disaster efforts within any country has explicitly said this is a recipe for disaster. Faster. And obviously, a lot of bad things happened at a lot of these distribution sites so bad that, again, we have a whistleblower. There have been people killed at these distribution sites.

0:26:24 Lydia: The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that 1 ,760 Palestinians were killed while seeking food. 994 of them were killed in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites.

0:26:38 Thomas: Wow. Because, I mean, look, we are as anti -Israel as it comes around here. They're doing a genocide. I would have just thought this is a Israeli army problem where they just freaking gunned down innocent people looking for food. The tie -in is that you're saying they were specifically doing it at these sites possibly that are linked to this organization okay sure

0:26:59 Lydia: And a A bunch of different groups have explicitly said that IDF is responsible for those Palestinians who've been killed at the distribution sites. And then the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, who was operating those sites and the IDF, they are denying responsibility. They're saying they've only ever shot warning shots. We'll see. We have a video of American contractors saying that they're also firing warning shots, and we'll listen to that in a little bit.

0:27:25 Thomas: I mean the warning shots are going into humans but they're warning shots

0:27:29 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, exactly. They're warning the rest of the humans. Simmons.

0:27:31 Thomas: Yeah it's fucking so horrible

0:27:33 Lydia: Doctors Without Borders came out and described the conditions around the way that things were being distributed as, quote, slaughter masquerading as aid and, quote orchestrated killing. Yeah, it's really bad. People have likened it to Hunger Games.

0:27:43 Thomas: God this is so horrible Jesus Christ, yeah we are not as a world upset enough about this it's so horrible

0:27:57 Lydia: Yeah. Despite how bad these criticisms were, GHF continued to operate until the ceasefire in October 2025. And that's when their operations were suspended. They say that they've succeeded in their mission of showing there's a better way to deliver aid to Gazans, better than the way that was working where, I don't know. It's just, you know, lip service at that point.

0:28:12 Thomas: What better than what But better than the way where you don't kill them.

0:28:21 Lydia: Yeah. Not great.

0:28:23 Thomas: Yeah. I guess I still wouldn't be 100 % clear on like how much of that would be that organization's fault versus Israel. Or maybe I'm not getting it.

0:28:33 Lydia: How much of it is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's fault?

0:28:35 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:36 Lydia: Well, again, remember that Israel is the Gaza Human humanitarian foundation.

0:28:40 Thomas: Oh, okay. So, yeah, gotcha.

0:28:41 Lydia: They deny it, but they funded it $200 million. So Gaza Humanitarian Foundation exists because our U .S. State Department gave them $30 million. Dollars. We've given them funding and then Israel has given them funding and it was created by Israelis and folks with close ties to the Israel government. It's kind of a sham honestly I think is how it appears to be. But GHF again it's sort of this overarching mission but they're not the ones staffing these sites.

0:29:09 Lydia: To do that they contracted with a couple different groups. One is called Safe Reach Solutions. That's an American company. Most of these are American companies. And Safe Reach Solutions is led by former CIA. And then Safe Reach Solutions subcontracted with UG Solutions, Jameson Gavoni's group, to provide security at distribution sites. And they were paying personnel about $1 ,000 a day to work in Gaza. There was a job posting Mother Jones found that said the company was looking to hire, among other people, former members of U .S. special forces, snipers, and those, quote, skilled in unconventional warfare tactics.

0:29:47 Thomas: What? What?

0:29:48 Lydia: We're talking about food distribution.

0:29:50 Thomas: Well, when you're talking about a people that have been just decimated by horrific genocide on the part of Israel, I suppose it is true that if you're trying to give out aid and food, there's going to be a lot of desperate, starving people who might just want to attack you and take it all. Like I do that, I think is fair enough. I think the solution would be, well, shouldn't we just get a fucking shitload of food so that everybody can eat like that? Well, solution is don't genocide people. But like apart from that, if Israel overall and above, the problem is Israel here because they also gatekeep and don't let enough aid in there to keep them in this state. Right. So I guess what I'm saying is like on paper, this could sound like a good effort if it's like, OK, these are people who are trying to give out aid, I guess, limited by Israel. Probably they're also going to need security because, you know, you've got hungry, desperate people. You're going to needs security to protect the aid, to give it out in an orderly fashion.

0:30:49 Thomas: That all I can understand, at least. Is that not what we're doing here or is that do I have it right so far?

0:30:56 Lydia: No, no. You have it right. I think the issues are, well, for example, UG Solutions, when they were awarded the contract via Safe Reach Solutions and then through the, you know, American government and stuff, they had to recruit, recruit, hire, transport all across the United States, over 100 personnel to Gaza within 96 hours. So they're moving at speeds that are irresponsible. Here's an example of the recruitment that happened here. This, I believe, is the whistleblower. He was working at a Lowe's home improvement store when a representative for the company reached out to him in May. Quote, even the hiring process to work in Lowe's lawn and garden made the hiring process at UG Solutions look like amateur work.

0:31:43 Lydia: I'm pretty sure that Chuck E. Cheese has more of an in -depth hiring process than UG Solutions. Now, a spokesperson from UG solutions, this is in a separate BBC article. I'm going to say this, you know, I'm covering all my bases here.

0:31:40 Thomas: Oh my god wow oh my god

0:31:55 Lydia: They said that they had an extensive recruiting and training process, detailed application process, screening by experts, reference checks, background checks, weapons proficiency.

0:31:55 Thomas: Yeah

0:32:04 Lydia: But hearing that and knowing that when they were awarded the contract and they had to have people on the ground within 96 hours, that's not possible.

0:32:03 Thomas: Okay

0:32:13 Lydia: There's no way. There's no way. According to people who worked for UG Solutions, some of their colleagues and stuff hadn't used weapons before. And everybody was issued a pistol, stun grenades, tear gas, and an automatic rifle.

0:32:13 Thomas: Yeah

0:32:29 Lydia: Nobody was tested to make sure they could handle guns safely. But they are all decked out with all these weapons like it's a video game or something within 96 hours of receiving a phone call saying, yeah, we're going to send you over to Gaza.

0:32:29 Thomas: Wow

0:32:46 Lydia: Like, how in the world are you receiving training? I mean, how long is that flight to get to Gaza? You know, if you're being hired from out in Nevada or something like that, and now UG Solutions is needing to get you to Gaza within 96 years, you're going be on a plane for a portion of that. It's not like you're doing weapons training on the plane. Like, when does all of this stuff happen? Not only that, I'm just going to throw in this little thing about James Singavone here, too. One month before he started sending all of these contractors to Gaza to staff the distribution sites, he was taken into custody for felony eluding arrest and misdemeanor hit and run. He had to post $50 ,000 in bail, basically ended up going nowhere. He confirmed the existence of the case, but he said via email that it was reviewed by a grand jury and dismissed. That speaks for itself. A grand jury did decline to indict him in the case. But I saw his mugshot, like as part of this, he was arrested in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I saw this mugshot and the charges. And again, literally one month later, he's signing a bunch of people off to go handle distribution sites.

0:32:39 Thomas: Huh yikes wow huh

0:33:56 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:33:56 Lydia: OK, so why don't we hear from the whistleblower? I'm telling you some things that happened in this space, but I wasn't there, obviously. So I'm going to go ahead and send you a link so we can hear from him what his experience was, what he witnessed, and we can go from there.

0:34:13 Thomas: And this is a Mother Jones wow so this is good reporting by Mother Jones Wow

0:34:18 Clip: A little while to figure it out. On the 29th of May at site number four, ug contractors open fire on a crowd of Palestinians leaving the site. And there was catcalling and celebrating it. They were cheering. The bullets were being fired by a UG Solutions contractor in the the southern tower of site number four, a fully automatic machine gun. And the second shooter was a UG Solutions contractor firing with his individual rifle on fully automatic what they'd characterized as warning shots. But these shots were being fired at the feet, over the heads and into the cloud of the departing Palestinians.

0:35:26 Thomas: Just for the well the everybody listening there didn't really show much in the video

0:35:31 Lydia: Yeah, based on where he was, you couldn't really see exactly what was happening. UG Solutions says that he was a disgruntled former worker and he's trying to get back at them kind of thing, that nothing like that ever happened. They did, I guess,

0:35:32 Thomas: Couldn't really see which is good yeah

0:35:47 Lydia: Recognize, I saw elsewhere in some of my research, they did recognize the person who was encouraging the shots was disciplined. So I guess there's recognition that that was a celebration that was inappropriate and needed to be handled. I think you hit one. They deny that that meant they hit a Palestinian. We don't really know, but things were just a mess.

0:36:14 Thomas: Awful and evil yeah Yeah.

0:36:14 Lydia: Yeah. Initially, I think they tried to say that IDF, that the shots were actually IDF and not UG Solutions employees, but IDF wasn't anywhere near that particular site based on how they are stationed. I mean, again, it's the IDF, but they say that they are not stationed near food distribution sites because that would that's inappropriate.

0:36:30 Thomas: Well, yeah, either way. Sure. But I guess I'm thinking, where could there possibly be accountability for this?

0:36:41 Lydia: Mm hmm.

0:36:41 Thomas: Like who's in charge here? These are Americans doing it, but they're working in a company that's being contracted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, right? For one, there's not going to be consequences because nobody gives a shit and our country is horrible. I mean, nobody in power in our country gives a s**t. But even if we wanted to hold them accountable. I don't even know what that process would be given the like legal relationship happening here.

0:36:52 Lydia: Mm hmm, yeah, yeah. I think it is complicated. I think It's one of those things where you make it publicly known, you get it in the record books kind of thing. And then I guess it's like with right, right, yeah

0:37:17 Thomas: Well, I'm just pointing out like the problematic nature of this entire project is all I'm saying. Like fundamentally, this is a bad way to do things because how could you have any accountability?

0:37:27 Lydia: I think that's that's totally fair. I think that there are just problems throughout all of this. Like you said, the entire structure of how it is is problematic. The entire recruitment process appears to be problematic. The lack of training, allegedly, is obviously problematic. The way that things were being handled at the site is problematic." BBC reported that at least 10 members of the Infidels, it's a motorcycle club, that held an anti -Muslim pig roast, quote, in defiance of the Islamic holiday of Ramadan, worked for UG Solutions in Gaza, and seven of them were in senior positions.

0:38:04 Lydia: They lifted up a banner that said, Make Gaza Great Again. They posted that photo to Facebook. They have the Crusader -related tattoos, which we went into in detail on OA with Pete Hegseth.

0:38:03 Thomas: Which are totally cool and chill.

0:38:15 Lydia: Like these, yeah, totally cool. And just because you like Jesus, it's not good. I think no one is being honest about this, obviously, about the kinds of people that are affiliated here. And you have a whistleblower come out to say, quote, Palestinians are getting hurt, that munitions are being used in, quote unauthorized ways. He said he saw a contractor throw a stun grenade that detonated and a woman was hit in the head. She was wheeled away by a donkey cart.

0:38:44 Lydia: And just like these awful, awful things that you're seeing, these are civilians trying to get meager amounts of food so they don't starve to to death and this is the environment that they are being forced to do it in and nobody cares

0:39:01 Thomas: Nobody cares. And I I don't know who in that situation, what worries me so much is hypothetically, if this is funded by Israel, ultimately, what would be stopping Israel from encouraging these people to do horrible stuff because there's no consequences. That's just really, really troublesome. Jeez.

0:39:20 Lydia: If you want to go to 437 in that same video

0:39:25 Thomas: I mean, I don't want to, but

0:39:27 Clip: One evening, it was the 6th of June, the humanitarian assistance lead for SRS was trying to figure out how we get food to these workers.

0:39:38 Thomas: That says safe reach solutions, GHF's subcontracted logistics firm.

0:39:44 Lydia: Yep, yep, so UG Solutions subcontracted underneath safe reach solutions which was affiliated with ghf so so ug solutions yeah Yeah. It's like that funnel effect.

0:39:51 Thomas: Oh, you're saying that, that it goes, sorry, You're saying it goes: Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, then Safe Reach Solutions, and they contracted with UG solutions okay I'm not sure it matters but that's interesting okay

0:39:58 Lydia: Safe reach solutions. Yep. Yes. Yeah.

0:40:13 Clip: Workers. Nothing was open. Nobody could figure out how to get food there. So we had the idea of calling Domino's Pizza in Beersheba and having them make 27 pizzas and deliver them through Volt, which is the Israeli door dash, to the main operation center in Karim Shalom.

0:40:24 Thomas: What that shows a picture of a Domino's in like a Domino's but it's only one Domino's box in like what looks like maybe a humvee or something some sort of military

0:40:44 Clip: We then took those 27 pizzas in an armored convoy and drove them to Secure Distribution Site 1 and gave those pizzas to the Palestinian local workers.

0:40:55 Thomas: Vehicle couldn't you just do that but for

0:41:03 Clip: Safe Reach Solutions was able to bring Domino's pizza in when the entire population of Gaza is starving and there are aid trucks UN aid trucks that are unable to enter Gaza and not allowed to distribute aid while people are starving but SRS was able to bring in Domino's Pizza to one of their sites correct and it's abhorrent it's if it weren't so tragic, it would be comedy. It's not comedy because it is absolutely tragic.

0:41:27 Thomas: Everybody wow jesus christ ghf confirmed the pizza delivery SRS did not respond to a request for comment man I haven't heard anything about this you know it's like god there's just so much horrible stuff going on all at once you know whistleblowers are always brave but I mean now man now is a really really tough time to be a whistleblower because nobody fucking cares and I don't know how safe it is you know know with some of these things wow

0:42:15 Lydia: There is not a lot of mainstream reporting on this. I've like ended up on some random like military journalism sites and like a random military message board just because it's like so specific to that sort of industry, I guess. But But from one of those things, they are talking about how much the Trump administration likes private security firms kind of handling situations like this, even though there's plenty of evidence showing that it's not smart, that in times past it has resulted in people getting killed, like the contractors themselves getting killed. Because it is putting on this like militarized version of what is supposed to be humanitarian and it just escalates tension. So it's risky for everybody involved, right? But UG Solutions, they did their distribution site and everything and they wanted to continue to manage a checkpoint in Gaza after the ceasefire. So they wouldn't be affiliated with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation anymore. They would just continue their work there. And as that was being looked at on this article. They were talking about the close ties with the Sentinel Foundation, they said, which can only be described as a military NGO, that they claim to be an outfit of special forces veterans hunting down child traffickers and saving the needy, that it partners with a mix of Christian charities and gun stores, that a lot of charity groups ended up being created when the U .S. withdrew from Afghanistan and when Russia invaded Ukraine. It became kind of this like window of opportunity for a lot of vets, honestly, too, like to kind of use particular expertise that they might have in different ways. It says, quote, UG Solutions would be unremarkable if it didn't land a contract at the heart of the world's most closely watched ceasefire. While there are arguments for using a paramilitary organization to implement this arrangement, it is unclear why a seemingly unknown company with no apparent experience in managing checkpoints was awarded this highly sensitive, dangerous job. But it matches a pattern that emerged during the first Trump administration. Between 2017 and 2020, small, hard -to -trace, U .S.-linked contractors cropped up in several hotspots with varying degrees of official approval. Now, in the same article where we're kind of talking about UG Solutions being small -scale and somehow getting involved in all of this, I noticed this link to, it says, the PMSC industry. And now this is private, military, and security company, that industry industry specifically. And I hadn't clicked on it before as I was reading through the article. But when I did, I was like, oh, my gosh, there's always great stuff in the links. You guys just always like click through those things, assuming it's not a virus. But this was not a virus. This was a

0:45:05 Lydia: Report detailing how problematic it is to be using companies like this and that the Trump administration.

0:45:12 Thomas: Well that's the whole thing we've been doing here they did a report about it

0:45:17 Lydia: It's incredible. It's 47 pages. I'll link it in the show notes so so people can check it out themselves. It's through a group called Transparency International, and it's titled Hidden Costs, U .S. Private Military and Security Companies and the Risks of Corruption and Conflict. And it is very, very well done. There are elements of this that I hadn't really considered. And one of the things that they bring to light as I was perusing through this was when you employ these private military companies basically to come in and do this work you're able to shield the cost of war right because you don't have to line item things with that you just have contracted with this company it's their you know line items and a lot of times you know they're not non -profits so they're nicht detailing that stuff for anybody it

0:45:49 Thomas: Everybody hmm well yeah but interesting but we're still going to be part of our like for us it's like the dod budget right I

0:46:08 Lydia: Would be under contracts you wouldn't see specifically what is being done there

0:46:09 Thomas: Mean yeah but it's in the dod budget though it's just that we can't we can'T see the details yeah

0:46:12 Lydia: Yeah I guess you could and you could FOIA the contract specifically you could probably FOIA invoices and things of that nature.

0:46:19 Thomas: I mean I know yeah in the Iraq war, there was just, I mean, they had duffel bags of cash. They were, there was so much money to throw at it. They would just, anything and everything, there was so many people, so much fraud. This is not a new thing for sure. This, this feels a little bit different in a way. I just want to clarify, like, it's not like you're hiding the cost in that it'll still be there, but in a different line item and without detail.

0:46:38 Lydia: And without detail. Exactly. And so then the average American taxpayer, they don't know this stuff is going on. And despite all of the things that went badly with Iraq, with us using private military organizations, things like Blackwater, Eric Prince's Blackwater. Where civilians were killed just by U .S. military contractors. None of those lessons seem to have mattered to the Trump administration. As I said, Trump admin 1 .0 seemed to lean heavily on this. And we are still seeing it to this day that Trump admin 2 .0, they are leaning heavily on this and that sitting members of Congress are getting involved.

0:47:15 Thomas: Yeah. I don't know what lesson you would expect them to learn from this all went great for everybody involved that wasn't like, yeah, a Muslim. Yeah, exactly. It's like, there just wasn't really accountability in any real way for what we did in Iraq.

0:47:19 Lydia: Yeah, I guess people made money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:47:30 Thomas: I mean, it's people don't even, Americans don't Even have any idea. I Mean, yes, broadly, people know, like, yes. Lots of people died, but the atrocities that were committed and it's just going to happen, you know, again, probably not to that degree, I hope. But what lesson do you learn when no one's teaching a lesson? I guess is my point. Like, there's no consequences.

0:47:48 Lydia: And as I said there's a lot of money in it too, right? Right. So in this report, they cite, according to the U .S. Congressional Budget Office, and this is prior to what's -his -face Russ Vogt being in charge of that, the United States, quote, obligated between $3 billion and $4 billion to private security contractors to acquire security services in Iraq for a four -year period. And that's just, that dollar amount is just for private security firms. That's how much money they spent on that.

0:48:15 Lydia: It's remarkable. They also can't even identify exactly how much money they spent. They know that they employed the services of X number of private security companies, which employed X number of employees. But exactly what we spent the money on? Who knows?

0:48:15 Thomas: But we got to be really really concerned about Minnesota fraud, everybody,

0:48:34 Lydia: Yeah, exactly. That's such a great point, too. Like when we're talking about the pennies that are happening again fraud is bad yeah

0:48:43 Thomas: Which by the way, yes, it's fraud bad and they're stealing, but that money was trying to help people. And it did a lot of the money. Most of it overwhelmingly is helping people that we have to police like crazy. And we got to run people up in front of Congress. If someone stole, well, I mean, they stole a lot, but even if someone stole a little, I means it's such a big deal here. It's like, oh, well we just, there's a, um, there's big room that we dump the cash into. No one knows where it goes. We think they're using I don't know, kill some people. Who knows? How much is it? Way the fuck more than anything you were just talking about, like massively more than any amount that was fraud in Minnesota.

0:48:48 Lydia: Was used appropriately yeah there's also like international considerations for this too because this area is not well regulated not well understood has expanded far beyond any sort of reasonable scale it just happens so quickly so fast there are foreign countries that contract with u .s private military and security companies I'm bringing up eric prince again. But he reportedly played a role in helping United Arab Emirates send other companies to Libya and Somalia to get involved in issues that were happening there. And it just kind of becomes this thing where it feels like it's spiraling out of control from a money angle, from a potential for corruption, for people getting killed or hurt, either civilians in these other countries, or even just the contractors themselves that are being sent over to potentially, you know, issues with how secrets are happening within our government, potentially getting shared with other countries. Like it's just it feels like it's a ticking time bomb in so many ways that has already gone off before. And we just like started it again. I don't know. But there's obviously so much here. It's an entire report. Really, really great. As I said, I'll link it in the show notes.

0:50:32 Thomas: Yeah, well, it's good that somebody's doing that report that was pretty much what our podcast was turning into. I'm glad someone else is looking at it, but it's so much harder for the good folks to like get our message out versus how easy it is for them to constantly flood the zone with shit. That one line by Bannon basically describes an entire decade plus of how they've ruined our country and parts of the world now increasingly.

0:50:59 Thomas: And it's just so it's so much. So try to echo the good voices out there and try to share the important stuff. It's just so thankless. You know, a lot of what I've looked at, I keep constantly being reminded, boy, we need local newspapers. You know? I know we all know this, but it's like it's another reminder when I'm looking at some of these stories where I'm like, man, we We need more local reporting because if they don't do it, no one does it. You know, there's so much. So, all right, folks, we are going to be doing one final episode on this because there's a lot of like, where are they now that we kind of want to do. And there's some, there's some other fraud stuff we want to talk about, but final episode, at least in this iteration related to this trafficking, these weird mercenary groups and nonprofits and all that on the next, where there's woke, which we're going to put out pretty much right away, the, where Are They Now? And the tying up the loose ends of this whole thing. And then we'll be back on to our normal stuff if we have that. I don't know if we had that.

0:51:52 Thomas: Do we have a normal stuff? We'll be right back on whatever it is we say we do here.

0:51:52 Lydia: To go in holes.

0:52:20 Thomas: Great reference to another show that a few people will get.

0:52:23 Lydia: My whole ass African-American heart.