Minister of Toilet Management Mark Geary joins me for a romp into the world of non-profit arts organizations! He is the founder of The Lincoln Lodge, which is where I record my podcast and is also my place of full time employment. Do two standup comedy philistines have any right to judge Shen Yun? NOPE, but we saw the show anyways on a strange, beautiful Thursday afternoon. Parking took 17 minutes by the way. Mark has a long and storied history in the Chicago comedy scene and it is actually a huge score that he agreed to be on my podcast, so please forgive how nervous I was during the recording.

Anywhoozles, Shen Yun is a non-profit arts organization AKA it is in the same line of business as The Lincoln Lodge - so that's the expertise we're bringing to the table. Other podcasts have dutifully covered the....strange and religious background origins of Shen Yun and its parent organization the Falun Dafa. I'm honestly not sure if I did a great job explaining the Falun Gong stuff because 1) you sound crazy when you try to summarize it 2) it's out of scope for the podcast 3) i was a little drunk and 4) i made a concerted effort to not be too hard on religious people because it's a smug lefty podcast trend that I find gauche. Sorry TrueAnon people, I am just a better person than you <3

I wish I'd remembered to say this on mic, but Mark did lean over during the piece of the performance that was meant to be set in the modern day. The actors all wore khakis and blue shirts and he, brow furrowed with the gravitas of a 60 minutes interview, leaned over and went "why are they all dressed like they work at Best Buy?" and to me that made Shen Yun worth the price of admission 100%.

SOURCES:

1) The article I need to attribute the most credit to (though the content comes super late in the episode) is "How Shen Yun Tapped Religious Fervor to Make $266 Million" by New York Times reporters Nicole Hong and Michael Rothfeld linked here: https://web.archive.org/web/20250106190435/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/nyregion/shen-yun-money-falun-gong.html

2) Shen Yun's 2023 Form 990: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/208812402/202421039349300917/full

3) IRS Whistleblower website link: https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/whistleblower-office-at-a-glance#:~:text=The%20IRS%20Whistleblower%20Office%2C%20which,else%20they%20may%20be%20encountered.

4) "California Man Sentenced for Acting as an Illegal Agent of the People’s Republic of China Government and Bribery," DOJ press release linked here: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/california-man-sentenced-acting-illegal-agent-peoples-republic-china-government-and-bribery

5) "US: Chinese agents paid bribes in plot to disrupt anti-communist Falun Gong movement," CBS News May 6 2023 linked here: https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/us-chinese-agents-paid-bribes-in-plot-to-disrupt-anti-communist-falun-gong-movement/

6) "Federal lawsuit accuses Dragon Springs compound of sewage contamination of stream," Times Herald-Record, Chris McKenna, January 2022 linked here:

Weiner's Circle crusader Danaka joins me on the most Chicago-ey episode ever recorded in BBB history! Do you feel unbridled rage at the sight of another person taking YOUR parking spot? Are YOU still looking for parking in the loop at this moment? Does the show Seinfeld resonate a little too much with you? This is the perfect episode to turn on while you look for a fire hydrant to park in front of. Throughout this episode, I was double fisting a whiskey ginger ale and a hot matcha latte. That's kind of the energy we brought to the booth.

Anyways, come with us on a journey behind the worst business deal anybody has ever made. Not to be too one-sided or anything, it's just that no one with any defensible journalistic or business credentials has sided with Mayor Daley on this one. Have no idea what I'm talking about? Tap in to this all-Chicago episode of complete and utter buffoonery, replete with a book that completely changed my worldview! I'm serious!

Thanks for listening, and be sure to follow Danaka's writing on Substack! Linked here: https://danaka.substack.com/

Patreon is as always patreon.com/bustedbizbureau - I turned off payments for a buncha months in a row, but am finally on the creative horse again. Yippeee!!!

SOURCES:

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World, was (as mentioned many times!) the main source of information throughout this episode. I bought it at Unabridged Bookstore :) Link here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634461/paved-paradise-by-henry-grabar/

2. Chicago's parking drama is covered in chapter 8 of Paved Paradise, which itself owes a lot of sourcing to Ben Joravsky and Mick Dumke's reporting in the Chicago Reader over the alderman-ey drama. "FAIL, Part One: Chicago’s Parking Meter Lease Deal" linked here: https://chicagoreader.com/news/fail-part-one-chicagos-parking-meter-lease-deal/

3. Propublica Illinois and Mother Jones collab'ed on an article about poor Chicagoans saddling the main burden of traffic ticket debt. "How Does Chicago Make $200 Million A Year On Parking Tickets? By Bankrupting Thousands of Drivers." I accidentally said this was from 2023 in the podcast, but it is actually 2018. Don't ever listen to a word I say. Linked here: https://www.motherjones.com/criminal-justice/2018/02/how-does-chicago-make-200-million-a-year-on-parking-tickets-by-bankrupting-thousands-of-drivers/

4. Uelricht v Chicago Parking Meters LLC as very thoroughly documented on Clime Case Chart, linked here: https://climatecasechart.com/case/uetricht-v-chicago-parking-meters-llc/. Most of the complaints/motions/etc live here

5. Judge Diane Pamela Wood's opinion on the matter, quoted in the pod, linked here: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca7/22-1166/22-1166-2023-04-07.html

Drama alert! Time to become a gossip channel! Two HR tech firms are beefing, diva! In a very rare Busted Business Bureau about a current topic, I invited my dear cherished lovely friend Alex to come gab about classic corporate espionage gone awry. This easy, breezy beautiful episode was sponsored by two espresso martinis and Linkedin dot com.

The meat of the episode is from this court complaint lodged by Rippling against Deel, found at this link: https://rippling2.imgix.net/Complaint.pdf

Snage Game (if it's still up...): https://www.rippling.com/en-GB/snake-game

There are references to beefs from Twitter, but I'm not linkin' that man.

Pull over to a gas station and grab the most decadent meal before listening to this freak show of an episode of Busted Business Bureau! For the first time in podcast history, the guests are able to steamroll me for more than 7 sentences overall. As the hosts of a comedy podcast about the so-called justice system, Kathryn and Kyrie are perfect to talk to me about what happens when a lot of people break Civil Rights Laws for the love of the game.

Thanks for your patience between episodes. As my Patreon subscribers are intimately familiar with, my fulltime job and life is making podcasting much harder...I will get to the next episode when I frigging get to it!

Kathryn and Kyrie are two hosts of the Beyond Bars podcast where they interview people impacted by the "justice" system, mostly people who have been to jail. Link here! https://open.spotify.com/show/5ftr0ow1XV6U7tpLVProtC

Kathryn Gongaware can be found @kathryngong

Kyrie da Comic can be found @kyriedacomic

Anyways, for sources we've got:

Math on Trial: How Numbers are Used and Abused in the Courtroom by Leila Schneps (full text here!): https://www.medicine.mcgill.ca/epidemiology/hanley/tmp/CandH-ch0102/Math%20on%20Trial.pdf

Danny Evins' obit: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/business/danny-evins-restaurant-founder-and-focus-of-controversy-dies-at-76.html

Cracker Barrel Decor Blog: https://blog.crackerbarrel.com/2021/09/24/20-surprising-facts-about-cracker-barrel/

Civil Rights Act: http://eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964 and https://www.justice.gov/crt/title-ii-civil-rights-act-public-accommodations

Rhodes V. Cracker Barrel c. 2002 (discussion about Bayes' theorem): https://casetext.com/case/rhodes-v-cracker-barrel-old-country-store-inc-2

The Rhodes V. Cracker Barrel c. 2003 with plaintiff allegations: https://casetext.com/case/rhodes-v-cracker-barrel-old-country-store-inc

The wack ass 1968 Time Magazine article: https://time.com/archive/6632149/decisions-trial-by-mathematics/

Denny's 1994 settlement featuring the secret service story: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/25/us/denny-s-restaurants-to-pay-54-million-in-race-bias-suits.html

Cracker Barrel private settlement (Rhodes V Cracker Barrel) https://www.sanfordheisler.com/case/discrimination-harassment/cracker-barrel-race-discrimination-class-action/

The wikipedia pages mentioned are a pretty simple google away for Bayes' Theorem and Alexander Acosta (sigh)

Fighting off the urge to green out guest EMMA DAY is back on the podcast for some geriatric fun! Join us as we talk about the developer behind The Villages senior living community in America's gorgeous right ventricle, Florida. Home to some of Florida's key rightwing voting bloc, The Villages has been a destination for every Republican presidential candidate in my lifetime. But don't be fooled by the gazebos that pump out Fox News or the tirelessly petty community bulletin boards, The Villages is also a land for greedy land developers to take advantage of EVERYBODY!

This story is absolutely crazy, and does in fact have a guy going to jail. Just not the guy you're hoping it is...

Thanks to Ryan Grim for reporting on development and updates to this crazy tale - you can follow him and Jeremy Scahill's recently-launched Drop Site News for important and interesting journalism!

Also, this was recorded on 11/27 before the UnitedHealth CEO assassination. All talks of assassination are purely coincidental...or should we say manifesting?

Follow Emma's comedy show @thelesbianlodge (which I also produce) or @alldayemmaday on IG

Patreon.com/bustedbizbureau

SOURCES:

1. Ryan Grim's original article in The Intercept about the Oren Miller Saga "The Villages Vendetta: How a Grassroots Revolt in the Iconic Retirement Community Ended With a 72-Year-Old Political Prisoner" https://theintercept.com/2023/02/05/ron-desantis-florida-villages-oren-miller/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

2. Ryan Grim's Drop-Site-Exclusive Update Post https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/a-revolt-in-the-villages-takes-a/comments?utm_source=substack&publication_id=2510348&post_id=147556878&utm_medium=email&isFreemail=false&comments=true&utm_campaign=email-half-magic-comments&action=post-comment

3. Andrew Blechman's 2007 book Leisureville : adventures in America's retirement utopias

4. Amanda Brian's article in the Southern Cultures journal ("The Faux History of The Villages") (Note, the link is to the illegal website I use lol); https://sci-hub.se/10.1353/scu.2014.0037

5. Random interesting article about the real estate fraud 1968 ban: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2768&context=caselrev

6. The Bloomberg nerds' article "Billionaire Morse’s Florida Dirt Bonds Not Tax-Exempt" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-05/florida-billionaire-s-development-bonds-not-tax-exempt-irs-says?embedded-checkout=true

7. Random Letters to the Editor in The Village News: https://www.villages-news.com/2024/11/20/ed-mcginty-offers-harsh-assessment-of-donald-trump/

https://www.villages-news.com/2024/11/14/be-careful-what-you-wish-for-with-hooters/

https...

Adam Conover - unmedicated and toes out - joins me on my epic return to podcasting in this episode about the Ford Motor Company!

This chaotic traipse through Ford's history takes us all over the globe (and by that, I mean to the Amazon Rainforest over and over again!) From bumbling sex pest managers misunderstanding tropical climates to THEE OG risk assessment calculation that probably inspired Fight Club...this episode's got everything! In an effort to be less of a huge effing bummer since the military contracting season, this one is a little bit more breezy.

A journalist called Walter Lippman, a man born in 1889, wrote of Henry Ford: "Mr. Ford is neither a crank nor a freak…[but] merely the logical exponent of American prejudices about wealth and success." I did not read that quote in context - I took it from Grandin's book. I didn't say it in the episode, but wanted to spotlight it here because I think it nails what Ford is all about. And I just felt really connected to this guy's words despite the fact he was born over 100 years before me. ANYWAYS.

For those of you wondering - I mentioned in the episode I was 2 days away from vocal surgery at time of recording. Now on the other side of it, I have to build my voice back up before I'm allowed to podcast again. Should be in the next few weeks though, as I have stuff planned and written!

Thank you to my Patreon subscribers - who largely move in silence and don't comment or like most of what I post on the platform lmfao. They're my besties, for realllll. If you'd like to join the league of oft-disappointed folks who give me 3 dollars a month, you can do so at Patreon.com/bustedbizbureau.

Adam's standup special is available on Dropout here: https://www.dropout.tv/adam-conover-unmedicated

OK THANKS BYEEE

SOURCES:

Watch the first Taurus XL launch fail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puEEyi-DHrY

Wanna watch another one?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BFAxZflkW0&ab_channel=issmania11

NASA Investigative Summary: Taurus XL T8 and T9 Mission Failures: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/oco_glory_public_summary_update_-_for_the_web_-_04302019.pdf?emrc=2fce7a

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City, Greg Grandin 2009: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/fordlandia-the-rise-and-fall-of-henry-fords-forgotten-jungle-city_greg-grandin/273197/?srsltid=AfmBOoq09JCr4ag6REQoXvIMUNoJcRceUvQgF0iqfD-KlP6jdceRu9Se#edition=5254322&idiq=3929545

Read the "infamous" Ford Pinto Memo here: https://www.autosafety.org/wp-content/uploads/import/phpq3mJ7F_FordMemo.pdf

Pinto Madness, Mark Dowie, Mother Jones 1977: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1977/09/pinto-madness/

Ford’s Electric Pickup Is Built From Metal That’s Damaging the Amazon, Sheridan Prasso and Jessica Brice, Bloomberg 2023: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-ford-f150-electric-car-rainforest-damage/?embedded-checkout=true

...

Do you ever have a years-long hyperfixation with a company no one's heard about?

Blender Bluid and Amy Do continue our millions-years-long season about private military contractors. This time, I'm telling them about the worst of the worst: Betsy DeVos' brother Erik Prince's rich kid lodge! Blackwater! Clean off your guns and meet me at the lodge - we're in for a real effing doozy.

Fair warning, this episode does brush over some truly horrific stuff. As mentioned mid-episode, my podcast isn't really the appropriate place to regale those stories in full detail, so only some of the key informational facts are mentioned out of respect for those who suffered cruel, pointless deaths during this war. Jeremy Scahill's book is a fantastic read to get the full picture on the politics, events, and horrors of Iraq, linked below.

Jeremy, if you're listening, I'm so sorry sweetie please look away - this is a comedy podcast by a clown. But THIS clown loved your book!

Follow @blenderbluid and @helloamydo. Thanks to the WONDERFUL Casey Synesael for fully editing this episode! Audio engineer and tastemaker, methinks.

SOURCES:

1. Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army - Jeremy Scahill, March 2007 (I read the revised 2008 version tho)
2. Firearms training centers on schools under assault - Jon Frank, The Virginian-Pilot, Oct 1999
3. Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy - Adam Ciralsky, Vanity Fair, January 2010
4. Erik Prince: An American Commando in Exile - Robert Young Pelton, Dangerous Magazine (originally published in Men’s Journal), November 2010
5. Blackwater founder takes aim at his critics in memoir - Bill Sizemore, The Virginian-Pilot, Nov 2013 (the “Field of Dreams” quote is in this)
6. Falluja lawsuit: Blackwater families settle case - BBC News, 2012
7. The Dark Truth about Blackwater - Peter Singer, Brookings Institution, October 2007
8. I scraped the Nisour Square legal timeline just from the Nisour Square Massacre wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre

Other recommended reading from the pod is Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Thanks for listening. Plz feel free to leave a review, and some extra stuff is on Patreon.com/bustedbizbureau

Been awhile, besties! Hello again! This is an episode that was ostensibly about Bechtel Corp (the construction company, not the lesbian cartoonist), but it got away from me and became an exploration into the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. An organized, peaceful method of resistance focused on boycotting business - what could go wrong? A LOT!

Join myself and Amy Do+Blender Bluid to continue in the military-contracting deep dive season (remember that?) and let's get some ice cream on the way! Anybody want to stop at Ben&Jerry'sIsreal? Perhaps a SodaStream to tide you over?

NOTE: The episode starts after bitching that took precisely 5 minutes. Ep begins at 5:00

Follow @blenderbluid and @helloamydo - both of whom have released new music on Spotify!!!! We out here!

Thanks to Casey Synesael for your genius audio engineering!!! SAVIOR!

SOURCES (sorry there are 23):

-Illinois bars state pensions from owning Unilever over Israel, Ross Kerber, Reuters 2021

Ben&Jerry's 2015 statement found at this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210109062433/https://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/2015/ben-and-jerrys-business-in-israel

Ben&Jerry's 2021 statement found at this link: https://www.benjerry.com/about-us/media-center/opt-statement

40 ILCS 5/ Illinois Pension Code thingy quoted found here: https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?ActID=638&ChapterID=9&SeqStart=100000&SeqEnd=6300000

Illinois General Assembly, this Israel amendment to our investment codes passed 49-0 in the Senate and 102-0 in the House: https://www.illinois.gov/news/press-release.13202.html#:~:text=The%20legislation%2C%20which%20was%20modeled,held%20indirectly%20inside%20larger%20portfolios.

University of Texas email quoted found here: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/26/ut-wont-reimburse-for-airbnb-lodging-after-texas-decision-on-companys-israeli-settlement-stance/5610142007/

-AIRBNB statement from 2017: https://news.airbnb.com/listings-in-disputed-regions/

-Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's statement found here: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/executive-management/OAG%20advisory%20on%20SB%2013%20and%2019%2010.18.23.pdf

-Texas City Tells People No Hurricane Harvey Aid Unless They Promise Not to Boycott Israel, ACLU Press release re: case Koontz v. Watson — Challenge to Kansas Law Targeting Boycotts of Israel found here: https://www.aclu.org/p...