Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Mike.
And I'm Nate.
What are we smoking today, Nate?
We are smoking a Nub Connecticut.
Yes.
And it does have a bit of a peppery spice to the wrapper, which is quite nice at the
beginning, but we're going to light up now and we'll get rolling.
I have high expectations for this.
I thought we talked about having low expectations for everything we smoke.
We did.
Usually it's a set of profilure.
This will be to solidify whether or not Mike is becoming a Connecticut person.
Yes.
That's why I'm excited.
That is why.
So what are we going to talk about today, Nate?
All right, so there are some recent news that hit home for Mike and myself.
Just came out that the federal government charged 47 people in Minnesota with conspiracy
and other counts in what was a massive scheme that took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic
to steal $250 million from a federal program that provides meals to low income children.
And so this nonprofit is called Feeding Our Future.
And apparently there were 47 people that were taking this money and buying luxury cars and
jewelry and property and other things that kids cannot eat.
Well, they were feeding their future in a manner of speaking.
That's true.
And I suppose they're ensuring that prison guards stay employed now that they're being
charged.
So I had never really heard of Feeding Our Future.
I've never heard of that either.
But I don't really travel in the nonprofit circles except for the brief five years when
I worked for one, not this one that we're talking about.
No.
That one also has some interesting background story.
Yeah, so I used to work for the Boy Scouts of America and they recently changed some
things but I've had taken issue with a lot of their positions on a lot of things for
a long time.
So not necessarily what we're talking about this episode unless they show up on this list
because with this nonprofit getting slapped so close to home, we thought, well, what other
nonprofits are out there that are corrupt?
And I remember hearing about certain people saying, this nonprofit that's supposed to
help cancer research, maybe doesn't actually send that much money to cancer research and
so on and so forth.
So I just typed in corrupt nonprofits and clicked on the first one which brought us
to this website that looks super legit called Top 10s with a Z of course.
And it's a.net so it has to be true.
But it was updated in 2019.
So we will see.
We're just going to kind of go through here and see what their criteria is.
And if we have any insight on any of these nonprofits, we'll find out.
And if the nonprofits we want to talk about aren't actually on this list, then we'll
talk about them anyway.
At the start, we should say that neither Mike nor I are in any way related to the legal.
We're not lawyers, we're not doctors.
Anything we say here should not imply guilt.
We have not thoroughly fact checked any of this stuff.
This is an entertainment podcast.
Please don't draw any conclusions from this.
That would get Mike or myself in trouble.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
You sent me an article, was it last week, about the churches and the churches are notoriously
corrupt.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
Oh, no, I shouldn't say all of them.
That's a really wide sweep.
99% of them.
The Catholic church is notoriously corrupt.
Yeah.
And that one was specifically focused around the Catholic church because they didn't want
to have to follow the mandatory reporting for child abuse.
Yes, for reporting abuse, for reporting crimes, let's put it that way.
The Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses were also implicated in that one.
Yes.
And as we know, a lot of Protestants are actually Catholic light.
So despite the fact that they think they're Protestant, they're really kind of the same.
Yes.
In a lot of cases.
That's not true of all of them for sure, but there are some that are closer to the Catholic
church than they would lead you to believe.
Sure.
Nothing beats the corruption of a televangelist.
I don't know if any televangelist is not corrupt.
I would have no idea.
Let's dive into that really quick because Sarah and I watched The Eyes of Tammy Faye,
which is not the documentary.
There's also a documentary about her and she was the wife of?
Jim Baker.
And she actually broke away from him and she was one of the first televangelists to embrace
and actually physically embrace and touch a person with AIDS on TV.
And from what I hear is he was super corrupt, but she broke away from that and started doing
good with her personality.
And a lot of people kind of make fun of her for her look, which is ridiculous, but it's
her choice and what she wants to do.
And from everything I've read about her, she seemed to be very open and loving.
So I don't know.
Yeah, I'm sure she was not at all involved with embezzling money like Jim Baker.
Well, I mean, you can make the argument because if you're married, that's kind of the legal
thing, right?
Is like, how could you not know your spouse was doing this or whatever?
And it was a different era too.
So the women weren't typically as involved in a lot of the business dealings.
But that's not for me to decide whether she was or wasn't corrupt.
Right.
Jim Baker's still out there shilling bullets buckets on TV.
I mean, maybe she was corrupt and she's repented now and is doing good.
I don't know.
I think she's dead.
Could be.
Isn't she?
I don't know as I watched the fictionalized version of her life and not the true one,
I did a little bit of research after that.
And it seemed to me she was a pretty stand up kind of person.
But sure.
Again, that's just a Tammy Faye Baker Foundation.
Could be.
But that was just the cursory kind of service level deep dive that I did that wasn't all
that deep or a dive.
Sure.
She's probably the least corrupt of all the televangelists if you separate her from her
husband or ex-husband.
Yes.
But you know, like Jimmy Carter is probably the least corrupt of all the presidents.
Possibly.
In recent time anyway, we'll say.
Because he still goes and helps with I think Habitat for Humanity and builds homes and
things.
Sure.
That doesn't mean he wasn't part of a corrupt office.
Right.
That doesn't mean he wasn't corrupt.
He just wasn't as corrupt as the other guys.
Yeah.
Maybe it wasn't a way of life for him like it is for so many of these other politicians.
But this is a top 10 countdown of the nonprofits that are corrupt.
And it's got a little bit of information about like fans.
No, not fans.
Sorry.
Fines.
I just I saw this nonprofit and I guess I was thinking of OnlyFans or something.
So number 10, unless you can guess Mike, on this top10s.net top 10 nonprofit organization.
I have no idea.
Okay.
The American Association of State Troopers.
Interesting.
And I don't know what criteria they're kind of judging this by.
Maybe we'll find out as we go along, but you can certainly go and Google this or DuckDuckGoIt,
which is what I did, or BraveIt, however you like to keep yourself safe online.
But this one says the mission statement, it was formed to provide benefits for troopers
as well as their families.
From 2004 to 2011, they raised $45 million and spent less than $4 million on member benefits.
Also it says that they've been fined five times by regulators and paid out $300,000
in fines.
So that's a good profit margin.
Yeah.
I mean, taking in $45 million and only having to pay out four, that's pretty good.
Oh, four plus the $300,000.
Well yeah, but with the remaining 41, I mean, $300,000 is a drop in the bucket, right?
Right.
That's not bad.
Yeah.
And they're a nonprofit, they don't have to pay taxes.
And this is number 10, so it's only going to get better from here.
I mean worse, depending on how you're looking at it.
All right.
It's inspiration.
Yeah.
So you too can start a nonprofit and fleece everyone.
We're not telling you to do that.
We're just saying it apparently is not that hard to do.
Number nine, Cancer Fund of America.
So this is America going to be the theme?
Nope.
It's going to be blah, blah, blah of America every time.
No, I think it's just these two and then we're going to get into some other stuff.
So the Cancer Fund claims to be on the front lines of the fight against cancer.
However, the Cancer Fund of America does not spend a dime to fund research or pay for cancer
treatment of victims and their families that are struggling to survive.
So instead what they do is they collect donated goods, including shampoo, DVDs, and air fresheners,
which they ship to dying patients who have lost everything in attempt to pay for the
treatment because we're in some kind of corporate driven medical hellscape here.
So over, according to the IRS records, according to this website is the caveat, over the last
decade the fundraisers have collected over $98 million in donations while patients have
gotten less than $1 million in direct cash aid.
That's very clever.
And I guess there's some documents that show that the founder and at least a dozen other
family members earn a total of a million dollars a year in salary from the organization.
Oh, that's pretty good salary.
I mean, it's not outrageous or anything.
And it's all to help the dying kids.
Yes.
The broke dying people.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, I can understand trying to fleece the state troopers because like,
fuck those guys, but dying kids.
Sarah was driving through a detour today and it was an unannounced detour.
Yeah.
There was a cop hiding in one of the bushes trying to catch people speeding through the
unannounced detour.
That's the dumbest.
I mean, like don't treat us like criminals.
Right?
Right.
Yeah.
There's not a single unsolved crime in your jurisdiction.
You don't have anything better to do.
And I'm not, I'm not seriously saying like, fuck all the state troopers.
It's just whenever you look in the rear view mirror, you're never happy to see them.
No.
Usually it's a bad day.
They do good work and they do good things, so I'm not trying to, you know, I mean, I
understand like they're not dying like kids with cancer.
So the kids with cancer one so far is like worse for me, but I guess that's why the kids
with cancer one was number nine.
All right.
Number eight.
I think there's going to be a recurring theme, but not what you thought it was.
Okay.
The Children's Wish Foundation International.
I've heard of them.
Now let's be very clear, this is not the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
This is one that is, there's several charities that try and mimic the name.
You know, like when they put out, when like Pixar announces a movie coming out, like their
latest one was like Lucky.
It wasn't Pixar.
It was John Lasseter who broke away from Pixar, but that's not important.
Like when a big, big studio name animated movie is coming out, like Lucky about a black
cat.
It wasn't really about the black cat, but that's what's on the poster.
And you get all these like ripoff CGI animated movies for kids and it's called like unlucky
black cat or something.
You know, they all try and like ride that hype train, hoping that somebody is going
to mistake their movie for the one that's actually paying for the advertisements.
Sure.
Like Lord of the G-string.
Yes.
Or Lamageddon.
And then 20 years later, Lamageddon came out to try and ride the publicity.
Yeah.
I think that Lamageddon is probably a lot more legitimate.
Yes.
Harry Twatter.
I've never actually seen Harry Twatter.
Okay.
So we're not talking necessarily about porn movies.
We're just talking about like when you go, like if you ever heard the grocery store,
you see the red box and you see something that looks like the new Pixar movie coming
out, but it very clearly isn't.
But the name and like the poster is just close enough that the kids won't notice because
most of them won't read.
Yes.
It looks similar visually and the parents aren't really paying attention.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
And also Harry Twatter, that sounds disgusting.
Where is that?
Where can I find that?
I know that it exists, but I've never seen it.
Okay.
I have seen Lord of the G-string though.
It was on SkinnyMax back in the day.
All right.
Do you recommend that or no?
It's kind of hilarious.
I mean, it is funny.
Yeah.
So I guess my point was these movies come out before the actual release of the big studio
name one, whereas a lot of the pornos come out after because they're a parody of that
movie.
Right.
Yeah.
These are just, they're trying to make a movie that sounds similar plot and title wise.
So I guess that's what this Children's Wish Foundation International is doing.
Oh, okay.
But the mission of the organization is to bring magic, joy, and hope to seriously ill
children and their families around the world.
But they've gotten apparently in some legal troubles in Connecticut, Georgia, Maine, and
Pennsylvania.
They spend only about 10% of their funds to help fulfill the wishes of dying children.
They've paid out $61.2 million to its solicitors.
And I'm not sure if that's like solicitors like a lawyer or if that's people that have
won judgments against them.
And the founder takes home an annual salary of more than $250,000 a year.
That's not that crazy for it, depending on the size of the organization.
I mean, not for the salary, but only paying out 10% of your funds.
That's yeah, that's pretty bad.
That's pretty bad.
They're embezzling it directly in funds.
Yeah, at least they're trying to launder it, right?
Right.
Like make the effort.
Don't just give your family members a million dollar annual salaries.
Yeah.
It's like Hunter Biden's Maserati, right?
That's how you embezzle it properly.
Yes.
So number seven is Breast Cancer Relief Foundation.
We can assume what they want to do.
Initially the founder had already been accused of diverting too high a percentage of funds
to a for-profit solicitor at a previous nonprofit, but he decided to start this one anyway.
According to the IRS, it's been one of the nation's most wasteful charities.
They've raised more than $64 million and the founder has allowed private companies to keep
upwards of 70% of donations.
And the victims of breast cancer that are associated with this receive just over 2%
of the total funds raised.
2% is charitable, right?
Well, it's probably more than I give to charity, let's put it that way.
It's more than the Catholic Church gives away.
Yeah, but is that counting what they give to the altar boys or no?
Well, that's litigation, you know?
Every inch counts, right?
Oh.
All right.
So moving on.
Firefighters Charitable Foundation.
They've raised $64 million over a span of nine years and they claim to provide financial
assistance to people who have been affected by a fire or disaster.
So less than 10 cents of every dollar goes to victims.
So it doesn't go to firefighters, it goes to people who the firefighters helped by putting
the other fire out?
Yeah, but then also like, you know, soaking their home and possessions and things, which
would have burnt anyway, but they pay its for-profit solicitors.
So it must be the, I guess the for-profit solicitors, those must be like the companies
that they work with to try and help the people.
But 90% of the funds go to those and they've paid more than $53 million to solicitors.
So I guess these last couple all kind of sound the same with like percentages that they keep,
I guess.
Are any of them getting in trouble or is that perfectly legal?
Well, like I said, some of them, it looked like some of them had legal issues in the
past, but I don't know.
I don't know if any of these are, they must still be going because the last one about
the firefighters charitable said, if you get a call from somebody from that nonprofit,
just hang up the phone.
Sure.
I mean, I don't even answer the phone anymore.
So but it is election season.
And so Sarah got a call at 930 at night and there's this number and it called her like
multiple times and it was a Minnesota number.
And so she hands me her phone and says, can you answer this?
So I answered and this guy was on the line and he was like, Hey, hey, hey, can I, I'm
with so-and-so research or whatever.
And so I interrupted him like, my man, what are you doing?
And he's like, what?
I'm like, what in the actual fuck are you doing?
It's 930 at night.
Why are you calling?
And he goes, well, I'm from the, I'm like, no, man, no, it's 930.
Fuck off.
And, and that was it, you know, and, and, cause Sarah doesn't talk to people like that
on the phone.
Um, but that's like every day at work for me.
Right.
Of course I'm on mute at work usually, but, uh, you know, it's like, what are you, why
are you calling at 930 at night?
Like that's not, that's not okay.
That's intense.
Yeah.
I always screen my calls.
I don't answer anything if I don't know them.
Yeah.
So let's do number five and then we'll do a status check on the cigar.
Sounds good to me.
Cause I don't know.
I mean, I know I'm not quite halfway, but these things are so short.
Um, it's probably good to get a status check in before we get to where it may, uh, do the
flavor change.
Sure.
Uh, so number five is the children's cancer fund of America.
So there's another one for your bucket where it ends with of America and one for my bucket
where it's children's cancer or cancer, because apparently the, uh, there's a sucker born
every minute and the best suckers have cancer or something.
It seems like it's a cancer and like patriotism playing off of people's patriotism.
Yeah.
You know, people love the police.
People love firefighters.
So this one here, it's a run by an associate children's cancer fund is run by an associate
of cancer fund of America.
So apparently there's a, you know, one that's doesn't specialize in children, but this is
the children's one that we're talking about.
And so Rose Perkins, I guess, is the founder of the children's cancer fund was married
twice to James Reynolds and he was the person responsible apparently for transforming the
cancer fund of America and made large payments to executives and family members instead of
helping, um, this one.
So this, this one, the children's cancer fund shows that it's raised nearly $38 million
and let professional fundraisers keep about 78% of what they've raised.
Cancer victims have only received around 300,000 per year and Perkins pays herself more than
200,000 while her organization pays out less than a nickel for every dollar earned.
So it sounds, it sounds like a lot of these are letting the professional fundraisers keep
a lot of the money that they fundraise and then they pay themselves out a lot.
And then whatever's left over, they give sometimes to the people they're supposed to help.
Yeah.
There's, there seems to be a lot of embezzling going on.
Yeah.
I'd have to, you know, like honestly, I'd have to look into how nonprofits, uh, kind of function
and keep that designation, that tax exempt designation.
But it does seem like if you wanted to actually help the people that you're claiming to want
to help, you would maybe not let professional fundraisers keep all the money and instead
give them money to the people that you want to help.
Right. That's just me.
All right.
So it's like a good plan, especially if that fundraiser or that professional fundraiser
is your wife or something.
Yeah.
Uh, so cigar status check, uh, cause it'd be nice to have something a little more positive
to talk about this episode.
I am about halfway.
I think I'm about halfway now.
Uh, it's kind of tough to gauge, but, um, self-reporting.
So far it's been, it's been tasty.
It's tasty.
It's been very, uh, even.
Yes.
Very even.
It's stronger than you, than I was expecting.
That's what I was going to say.
It's not as light as the wrapper would indicate.
Um, it's good.
It's really good.
I like this one.
Yes.
I haven't gotten any hints of sourness.
I know some of the other nubs we've smoked, uh, when you get closer to the end, sometimes
they get almost like mouth puckeringly sour, but, uh, nothing yet.
I mean, we're still a little ways from the end here.
So I'm not to the wrapper yet even, but no, I am not.
I am three quarters of an inch from the wrapper.
Yeah.
I'm about an inch, a little less than an inch from the wrapper.
So, uh, yeah, I'm liking this one so far.
I don't know.
I was trying to think back as we've, we've got this one and we've got two other nubs
left to smoke.
Yes.
And so far, I think the cane F has been my favorite.
Yeah.
And that was a dark one.
That one was really good.
Yeah.
We have a Maduro and a double Maduro.
I know.
Yes.
I saw that when I was digging through my, uh, my humidor.
Um, did I talk about this last episode?
All three of my humidor's finally have cigars in them now.
I don't know if we talked about on the episode.
I know you mentioned it to me.
Okay.
Yeah.
So that's a good feeling.
And all three of my humidor's are finally sitting around, um, like a really steady humidity.
Oh, good.
Um, I had, uh, I didn't, so I hadn't put any sticks in the one that I got from my mom's,
uh, my mom's second husband who passed, um, because it was reading low and low and I,
I cleaned it all out and I re kind of like conditioned it and tried to get it going.
And it just, it was sitting, sitting low, like 50% humidity.
And it finally, like I've been tossing some Bavetta bags in there and it finally like
popped back to where it needs to be.
So that's why, that's why I started putting sticks in it again.
Excellent.
So.
I know that it's not on the list, but, uh, the two that pop up in my mind were, uh, black
lives matter where the people running it were buying mansions for themselves.
Okay.
Instead of putting it towards whatever they were saying they were going to put the money
towards.
Yeah.
Well, we don't know.
We've got four to go or five to go, don't we?
Yeah, we do.
And the other one was the NRA.
Well, the NRAs won't, won't be there.
I don't think it either will black lives matter because of the age.
Uh, the NRA is still in litigation right now.
Okay.
Well, they're not really, I mean, I guess they're done.
They're a nonprofit.
They're like an advocacy group and these are more like, I feel like these are more like
those nonprofits that want to give money to, you know, uh, less well-off people.
Sure.
They're charitable foundations.
Yes, charitable foundations.
Um, so, but I don't know.
Yes.
The only thing they do is give me, uh, give me less than an ounce of wine on Sunday.
Yes.
Which actually like, if you're not Catholic, you can't take communion.
They don't really know.
Well, they don't know.
I'm saying if you want some free wine Sunday and you don't mind sitting through one of
the most boring and lengthiest services in the history of services, um, stop in at your
local Catholic church.
It's kind of like a workout though.
Yeah.
Up, down, up, down.
All right.
So, uh, number four is project Kier out of, uh, Brandon 10, Florida.
Okay.
They claim this is one of the most eyebrow raising organizations on their list.
So apparently it's office is a storage unit.
And, uh, the small office is filled with nothing but plastic bins and unused furniture.
It sounds like this, this person maybe went and interviewed to work at this nonprofit
or something.
Uh, but they, they've raised nearly $65 million, uh, since 1998 to lobby Congress and educate
the public about alternative treatments for major diseases like diabetes, cancer, and
Alzheimer's.
So I don't know what they mean by alternative treatments.
It seems like it's probably one of those not televangelists, but the people that are on
right after them that say, if you stick this crystal in your butt and meditate, you won't
have diabetes, cancer, or Alzheimer's.
Sure.
Yeah.
The holistic medicine.
So it says it's supposed to be educational and its efforts are basically just websites
that quote other websites.
So it doesn't have any original content.
Uh, he's paid, uh, the founder or president is paid over $200,000 a year and 90% of all
donations go to fundraising fees and expenses.
So I don't know what the expenses are because it's not office furniture.
Cell rooms and air travel and, and what black sofas and cameras.
Possibly.
His jet and their jet and cleaning fees.
Cleaning fees.
Yes.
Oh my.
All right.
Uh, this next one has one heck of a name.
Number three on the list.
Woman to woman breast cancer foundation.
Okay.
That's a heck of a name.
It is, uh, cause it almost makes it seem like the women will give other women breast cancer.
Yeah.
I was thinking that.
Um, I don't think they ran that name by anybody before they decided that, um, it was, it was,
uh, they said it might've started as a genuine attempt to help promote breast cancer awareness,
but it turned into a money making operation when, uh, I guess Jacqueline gray and her
family agreed to pay 90% of its funds to a telemarketing business.
After struggling for years to raise money, they met with a consultant who introduced
them to a telemarketing firm and, uh, they gave some them some seed money.
Uh, women to women raised 14.5 million over a three year span and they only paid out $20,000,
uh, to provide for mammograms and other services.
Um, and the family have taken salaries and they own cars purchased by the organization.
Now the 90% going to the telemarketing is concerning, but this one has actually paid
out only 20,000.
Okay.
So some of these other ones paid out like what 200 or 300,000, but I don't know how
expensive a mammogram is.
Uh, aren't they free?
Well, I mean, somebody pays for them somewhere, but not, you shouldn't have to pay for them
out of pocket.
I mean, it's almost like the flu shot, you know, you go to target, they give you the
flu shot for free and you get a $5 coupon to use in the store.
Right.
So you actually get paid to get the flu shot if you do it the right way.
Other places, like you have to pay maybe like $5 for a flu shot, but he would think like
mammograms would be one of those, if you have any kind of insurance at all, it's, it's covered.
Right.
Which there's a lot of people that don't have insurance.
That is true.
And you would hope that this would be the kind of organization that would be helping
pay for that kind of stuff.
Right.
There's a theme here where a lot of these, uh, they're just covers for these ad agencies.
Yeah.
It seems like that'd be, uh, that'd be interesting to do like a deep dive and find out the names
of these like telemarketing and a for-profit fundraising groups.
Right.
I bet you the ad agencies change their name quite often.
Yeah.
You should be able to see who incorporated it though, or who, um, you know, might start
seeing some common names.
Maybe it's, uh, you know, Richard Jones and then it's Robert Jones and then it's Bill
Jones, you know, like they've all got the same last name, but it's him and his brothers
or whoever.
Um, all right.
So I'm looking here at number two and number one.
And the one I was hoping that they'd talk about isn't on here, but we might have, we'll
have to do a little, a little more digging, but both of them, both number, number two
and number one hit what we talked about.
So they're checking all the boxes.
Exciting.
Number two, national veterans service fund.
Very nice.
Yes.
Uh, so their idea is that war does not end on the battlefield.
And apparently it doesn't end with them either.
Their mission is to educate and inform the public about the needs for veterans and their
families.
And they also claim to help provide assistance, relief and referrals to appropriate agencies.
Um, they have more than 80% of their funds going to solicitors, which I guess are the
for-profit fundraising groups.
Okay.
So like that would be, that would be something I'd be into if I could go and be a for-profit
fundraiser and I get to keep 80% of what I, what I bring in.
That'd be great gig.
Right.
Um, a lot of professional salespeople don't make, don't make 80% of the business they
bring into a, to a company.
And they use, uh, veterans as a ploy to fill an agenda that has little to do.
So they don't have a whole lot of information on like what the family pays themselves or
the, you know, the owners or founders.
But, uh, again, it's hitting the veterans a lot of things that the average American
is probably passionate about helping kids and helping veterans or, you know, service
people, not like service people in the restaurants, but you know, nobody gets on fire.
Our generation does, but like the older generations typically don't.
No, no, they were heroes.
And then, uh, you know, a lot of them asked for increased pay and now they're villains
again.
Yup.
So they were essential.
They were essential employees not that long ago.
Yes.
How dare they want to get paid?
How dare they cut off my Manhattan's.
I don't know if I've ever had a Manhattan.
I don't know if I have either.
I'm sure I've had one somewhere, but, uh, when we were in New York, we were going to
try and drink Manhattan's in Manhattan, but it never came to be mostly because the drinking,
we talked about the drinking in the bars over there in the city is just kind of weird.
Why is that?
Oh, we talked about it on one of our episodes, but, uh, they don't have a whole lot of beer
on tap.
Not that you need beer to make a Manhattan, but you know, it was hot.
And so we just wanted like a beer.
And then we just didn't really feel that they, you know, if you don't have a bar with taps,
I don't really know if I trust you to make a mixed drink, you know?
Sure.
Oh, beer has calories and that's not good.
I like them.
I like calories and beer.
So the number one most corrupt on here is the kids wish network.
And so this is the second one that sounds a lot like the make a wish foundation.
Yes, yes it is.
So this nonprofit raises millions of dollars every year in donations in the name of dying
children and their, and their families.
Uh, but they spend about three cents on the dollar helping kids.
Well, it's higher than some of the others.
Yeah.
Uh, so they funnel money to the charities, operators and the for-profit companies that
it uses to get all these donations.
And so it says, what makes it so tragic is the vast amount of funds at its disposal in
the past decade alone.
They've uh, channeled nearly $110 million into its corporate solicitors that were raised
to help sick children.
And it's not, that figure is not including the 4.8 million that has gone to pay the charity's
founder and his own consulting firms.
So it sounds like this one set it up and then set up some consulting firms so that he could
pay himself out of the nonprofit and probably write that work off on his other corporate
taxes because he's, you know, giving them a huge discount for his tax purposes or something.
Sure.
Like I said, I don't know how it works.
I'm not a CPA.
I'm not a lawyer.
But the one I was thinking about was the, uh, let's see if I can find it here.
If I can remember the name.
The Bishop in North Dakota lives right on the edge of downtown Fargo.
And I used to live in that area.
So I walked past that house all the time.
And at that time that guy had a G wagon as a vehicle.
Isn't that incredible that a man of God needs a $300,000 SUV to roll around Fargo?
Yeah.
That was great.
In a mansion also, by the way.
Why not?
Yeah.
How else could that guy be a Bishop unless he had a mansion?
And a G wagon.
Because the G stands for God, right?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Well, that's where God would drive.
Yeah.
That's what Jesus drove in the New Testament if you read it carefully enough.
Yeah.
He came to town in a G wagon pulling two donkeys.
Yes.
And three wise men, rich men.
I don't know.
Uh, so the one I was thinking of was Susan G. Komen, the breast cancer awareness, but
apparently is not necessarily corrupt.
I'm reading an opinion column from the Appalachianonline.com.
And so they're saying that there's nothing incredibly wrong.
But it doesn't, they say it's not the best place if you want to help breast cancer to
donate money.
They basically, I guess Susan G. Komen basically spends a large sum of money each year filing
legal trademark oppositions against other breast cancer charities.
So when you donate to them, you're basically helping their legal team file trademark infringements
against other breast cancer charities.
Oh, that's cool.
So and they only devote about 20.9% of its donations to breast cancer, which I mean,
just double a lot of the ones that we just read about.
Oh, it's 10 times more than some of them.
Yeah.
So it's not totally corrupt.
That's true.
And then I guess it says they'll put lives of women at risk purely to make political
statements.
So it sounds like either one of the two major political parties here, but I guess they pulled,
they pulled all their grants for breast cancer screenings to Planned Parenthood.
So there goes a bunch of mammograms, I guess, that people can't get to.
Interesting.
And I guess their organization wants to make people aware of breast cancer and not so much
help breast cancer.
So okay.
Interesting.
So basically it says it's not an outright scam, but they end up spending a lot of their
money on the legal, you know, they're not just sending cease and desist letters.
They're actually taking these other charities to court for trademark infringement.
Interesting.
Which I don't know.
I mean, I don't know.
So anyway, that's a whole list of them.
I don't know what I would do.
I guess, you know, if you're thinking about contributing or if you are contributing to
a nonprofit, a quick, all of their records should be public knowledge if you dig enough.
So do your research and make sure that they're not using it.
Information is publicly available, you know.
I just looked it up.
The Shriners give 80% to the hospital system.
Okay.
St. Jude's gives 90% to the hospital system.
Yeah, there's all sorts of stuff.
I'm surprised the Shriners are so low, to be honest with you.
Yeah.
I figured they'd be higher.
Well, they got to pay for the really tiny gas for their tiny cars they use in parades.
There is that.
And I don't want to know what it costs for them to have liability insurance on those
things.
You know, so there's some of that too.
Right.
So I guess I didn't know coming into this because we just kind of like went through
it on air with you, the listener.
But I wasn't sure.
I was expecting, I guess, like I understand for a nonprofit, you have to pay the people
that are working for you.
And then there's probably, you know, like other things like, you know, if you need office
space or, you know, mailings and things.
And so I guess like in my head, I was like, I don't know, like 50% is probably like the
bare minimum that you would give away.
Right.
But I think now having looked at this and knowing what like the Shriners and St. Jude's
does like 50% is probably low enough to be like raise an eyebrow.
Like I want you to be giving away more than half of what you're bringing in.
Otherwise you're not really like living your values or your mission statement.
Right.
I can't believe that.
I mean, I am not a big fan of charity in general.
I think it's ridiculous.
We pay so much money in taxes.
We shouldn't have issues that charities pay for as far as I'm concerned, especially veterans
this and hospitals.
We pay so much in taxes.
It's insane.
You're not opposed to helping people that need help.
You're opposed to people making charities like their full time, not just full time job,
making it their full time like way of life and how to fund their mansions and yachts
and vacations.
Right.
But I agree.
Like we pay so much in taxes that we should have a lot of these things already in place.
And then if there's any gaps from that, that's where some of these charities could be helping
to fill in the gaps or maybe the federal charity program is too stringent on a certain, I don't
know, certain whatever.
I mean, it all depends what it is, but maybe there's something that needs additional stuff
beyond what the government can provide and that's where some of these other ones could
step up and fill in the gaps, but it shouldn't, they shouldn't be, you know, billion dollar
business entities.
Right.
If they're not giving that much money away.
It's asinine in the extreme, especially because you can write that off on your taxes.
Yeah.
You know, like, no, no, no, no.
Pay your taxes and then we won't have to have a charity that gives shoes to needy children.
Right.
Like the government should be doing that.
Yeah.
Because as much as people like to attack government agencies, there's not as much corruption in
a government agency as there is in a nonprofit organization.
Apparently not.
I mean, until you get up to the highest levels of government, but.
Well, I mean, those people are paid for, they're elected officials that are paid for by the
corporations.
So not a lot you can do about that.
Like your average mid-level bureaucrat is not embezzling.
You mean the corporate peoples?
Yeah.
The corporate people, the important people, the real voters, the real constituents.
So yeah, I guess, I guess this is kind of a little bit of a depressing, depressing episode.
It was.
This cigar has not changed.
I have about an inch and a half left.
Yeah.
This one is, stayed really consistent.
Yeah.
It's good.
Not bad.
Yeah.
Not better at all.
Not, not too shabby.
So now that we're hopefully done with that depressing thing, the sack of this thing is
really depressing.
All right.
So the student debt relief thing is not going to happen.
Not in the way.
Oh, it won't happen at all.
I'm certain of that.
But as of right now, they're talking about only government loans or government backed
loans are going to have the $10,000 forgiveness thing going on.
And we knew this backpedal was going to happen.
Everybody in their right mind can see that coming.
Joe Biden is not going to make a abrupt change at 80 years old.
It's just not happening.
So I do find it humorous that people really, like I was optimistic, but I wasn't particularly
hopeful.
But I do find it humorous that people really believed that the Democrats were going to
do something for them.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like they can't even pass a law that would legalize contraception federally.
How are they going to do something as radical as pay off student debt?
You know?
Yeah.
And I feel there's more people that are angry about student debt potentially being forgiven
than there are people angry about contraceptives.
Which is weird.
Yeah.
There aren't that many people out there that want contraceptives banned.
I'm guessing.
I know the numbers are like 2% according to the polls, which who knows how accurate those
polls are that I've looked at.
Yeah.
But it's got to be a really low number.
Yeah, I would think.
And nobody has any issues with us giving all this money and weapons and stuff to Ukraine.
Well, not nobody.
I have an issue with it, but certainly none of our elected officials.
Yeah.
I mean, I have an issue with it as well, which is why I brought it up.
But it's interesting that that's the stuff that happens.
You know, that's just happening.
Our government just decides to do that.
And there wasn't really any discourse public or like the media never reported on it really.
They just said, hey, we've good news, everyone.
We've voted to give another however many million or billion to Ukraine.
And then everybody feels good about themselves, has themselves on the back and goes back and
does their life.
But you talk about helping a vast segment of the population get out from these predatory
loans that they call student loans and compounding everything.
And you're paying back double or triple, sometimes more than what you took out.
And then people get all bent out of shape.
Oh, I love the argument that, oh, those 18, 19 year olds were adults and they knew what
they were doing.
It's their fault, but in the same breath, those same people are like, oh yeah, you know,
you have to be 21 to smoke a cigarette and you have to be 21 to drink a beer.
Yeah.
And you have to be 27 and married to have sex.
Yes.
And we can't make the military recruiting age 21 because they never get anybody.
Yeah.
You got that real short window between 18 and 21 when you're just too stupid.
Yeah, in a lot of ways.
Yeah.
I mean, that's kind of what they're saying.
I know my dad always said that if they had to recruit 30 year olds, the military would
cease to exist.
Yeah.
You have to have 18 year olds and not 25 year olds.
You have to.
Yep.
So it's very interesting.
And I know that the pressure is still on now to get these kids to go to college and spend
lots of money.
Oh yeah.
And it was that way 15 years ago.
It was that way for sure.
Yeah, and for a long time you didn't even really need a GED to get a job.
But now, and then for a long time it was a high school diploma.
And then more recently it was if you don't have a bachelor's degree and a lot of places
don't even care what your degree is in.
It could be in holistic medicine and it doesn't matter as long as you have the four year degree.
They don't care what it is.
They don't care what you majored in.
So if that doesn't scream, you know, crazy scam to anybody else.
It's not like a four year degree gets you that great of a job.
No really.
You know, but it opens up a lot of jobs.
I mean, it does.
I mean, it, it does only because the only because the companies have that requirement.
Yes.
But the entry level jobs are not paying enough to pay your debts.
Well no.
And even the non-entry level jobs in a lot of times aren't, you know, right.
You see all these things online where there's this one and it said you need to have, you
know, five years experience in this programming language.
And the guy was applying for this job and they were like, well, you don't have five
years experience.
He goes, that's because I, I invented this coding language three years ago.
Like nobody can have five years experience in it.
It's only three years old.
You know, so I mean, and that's like just, that's just the corporate corporate like hiring
requirements like, you know, have you seen those memes where it's like the kids, like
the six year olds are on a field trip at like a factory plant and they're all wearing the
hard hats and the caption is something like when that job application says you need, you
know, 10 years experience for an entry level position.
Yep.
That's great.
I think it's, it's a shame.
I I've been looking at a lot of job applications and it's like even 60 grand a year, it's not
enough to pay your student loan debt off in the month.
Like if you're 20 years old or 25 years old, let's say, then you have $70,000 at the loans
for your four year degree.
Yep.
You're not going to make enough to pay your debt ever.
No, man.
You were going to die with debt.
Certainly you're going to die with debt.
And it doesn't seem like a good deal to me.
You know, no, they have a $600 bill every month for the rest of your fucking life.
Yeah.
And a lot of times it's not 600 is 600 for the first however many years.
And then it like graduates up.
Sure.
So, I mean, it all depends on what kind of loan and what terms you got, but a lot of
them start small and ramp up.
So they could be, who knows, any number really.
Sure.
So any gain you get is taken away.
Yeah.
And there's really no recourse to change the terms or to, you know, modify it much beyond
what you signed up for when you were, get this, 18 and everybody was promising that
you'd have a six figure job after five years, you know, in your fields.
So right on certain fields while we talked about it incessantly school teachers are never
going to pay their loans off.
Yeah.
It'll just never happen.
Or God forbid you leave your field to do something else.
Yep.
You know, which the health insurance system is another scam to keep you where you're at
too.
Yep.
Because you can't really be without health insurance for very long.
That's for sure.
That is true.
Yes.
Even if you're young, you can't.
I'm now old enough to where I pretty much wouldn't take a job without health insurance.
Yeah.
Period.
Of course I've had health insurance for my employers for a long time now.
So yeah, who knows what that's like.
Well I just put mine out because it was starting to get a little sour.
And I didn't feel like smoking it anymore since I've had that experience with some of
the other nubs.
I let mine rest a little and it's fine.
It's not great anymore.
Yeah.
You know, I've been letting mine rest because I've been doing a lot of the reading off the
internet there.
And it just, towards the end, it just started getting kind of that sour, a little bit of
that sour hint again.
Since now I have an inch and a quarter maybe and it's sour.
I'm putting mine down.
Yeah.
And I did let it sit and repuffed it up and it was, yeah.
It was all right.
Yeah.
But the first half, first three quarters maybe was pretty good.
First three quarters, that seems to be the trend so far.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's good.
This one's pretty good.
It started out a lot stronger and it kind of mellowed out over time.
It did.
It wasn't incredible by any means.
That F-Cane or whatever, the Cane F was much better.
That one was a lot better.
The Cameroon was better, I thought.
Yeah, I like the Cameroon.
So.
Yeah.
So I guess check your nonprofits if you're donating to any charities.
And join us next episode for the Nub Maduro.
Bye bye.
Thanks for listening.