12-3-24 Morning Rush - A Million Dollar Treasure Hunt & Missing Hawaiin Woman In Mexico? & Bachelor Clayton Drama Continues As Laura Owens Files BBB Complaint!

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 Welcome to the rush hour, your daily dose of pop culture for your rush hour ride. Buckle up and enjoy the drive with your host, stand up comedian, Dave Neal. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday to you. December 3rd, 2024. Let's get into it. I've got all your pop culture and entertainment news in one place.

On today's episode, we have a good old fashioned treasure hunt. As a millionaire hides $2 million worth of treasure across the United States. I love that story in what we can do, our community specifically to find that treasure. You know, I'm a big, uh, fan of treasure hides and we're about to have a full out race for this gold.

I'll also give the details, uh, of, uh. Why Jenna Bush was told not to say y'all while working at the Today Show. Uh, plus I'll be addressing my shoulder injury suffered while buying my wife a very large, and might I say very heavy, Christmas tree. A Fraser Fir, nonetheless. I'll tell you that full story, pray for me.

And an update on the missing Hawaiian woman, Hannah Kobayashi. Uh, very interesting, uh, turn of events as she, I guess, was Spotted, uh, crossing the border into Mexico. I'm also going to share multiple different opinions on the pardoning of Hunter Biden by president Joe Biden. Uh, so no, no matter what side of the story you're on, I got you covered all of that, and plus I've got some tea.

I've got some tea from the bachelor Clayton Eckerd trial that'll never end. I'll get that, that to you and so much more. And it's all coming up next on the rush. All right, let's start off with this treasure hunt. And I got to tell you, my tick tock algorithm is only showing me news stories from Australians.

This is from 10 news first, Australia. I don't know what it is about the Australian accent, but it is sanitizing enough to listen to here is. Uh, they're reporting of how we can gear up for the biggest treasure hunt we've ever had. Old rubies and a Michael Jordan baseball card. These are just some of the items up for grabs in the biggest treasure hunt America has ever seen.

Bitcoin billionaire John Collins Black has spent five years curating a bounty worth millions of dollars, and he's now hidden it in five treasure chests scattered across the U. S. He was inspired by the Fenn treasure, a millionaire's. personal collection of gold which was hidden in the Rocky Mountains in 2010.

That search lasted more than ten years and resulted in at least five deaths. Collins Black has filled his treasure chest with rare items including a diamond brooch that belonged to Jackie Kennedy, an Olympic gold medal, a piece of moon rock and a Greek gold wreath that dates back to the fourth century B.

C. He's written a book that contains clues about their locations, which amateur sleuths are already deciphering in online forums. It's thought, or perhaps hoped, it will take around seven years for all of the boxes to be uncovered, and Collins Black hasn't ruled out dropping more hints along the way.

Alright, here's the deal. We have, we have a, we have a treasure hunt on our hands, folks, okay? Listen, I will I will decide on how to split the money, but I think we need a subcommittee within our audience of people that want to work on reading this book and deciphering its means to find the treasure.

Because if I know anything, it is that our audience is full of truth seekers and treasure hunters. You guys single handedly. Blew the case wide open in the Clayton Eckerd v. Laura Owens, uh, paternity, uh, you know, trial or whatever the heck you want to call it. You guys are good. You guys are experts. You know how to look into things.

You're, you're an audience of detectives. What do we need to do to find this treasure? I'll, I can promise you this. I will go hunt for the treasure with you guys. If we can get some credible locations secured as to where it might be. You, there are caves, there's mountaintops, valleys. I know how to run a metal detector folks.

Let's get those dang rubies in that, um, you know, Greek, uh, gold crown or whatever. Uh, my life is, uh, has never, I've never look, okay. I, you know, you might be saying, wondering, Hey, Dave. Are you kidding right now? Or are you serious? I'm being serious. Let's find this dang treasure. And by the way, how genius of it is for this Bitcoin guy to, uh, you know, hide all the secrets in his book.

Now we've got to buy this guy's dang book. All right, fine. Whatever it takes. That treasure is ours now. Also. You know me, I like to say, why don't we tax the billionaires a fair amount? The second option is to let them just do treasure hunts all across the country for us. I'll take it. All right, let's move on to a story with less, uh, sort of happiness.

This is a yet another Salmonella outbreak, Costco recalling. 10, 000 units of Kirkland brand organic pasture raised cucumbers. Tonight, two food recalls due to possible salmonella concerns. Costco recalling more than 10, 000 packages of Kirkland brand organic pasture raised 24 count eggs. Oh, sorry. Did I say cucumbers?

Eggs. My bad. The eggs sold across the South with a use by date of January 5th. And cucumbers, SunFed recalling whole American cucumbers sold between October 12th and November 26th. At least 68 people sickened in 19 state. Now, let me tell you something about Costco. I like Costco for certain things, but not for perishable items.

I get anxiety when I buy things from Costco. I'm, I'm just a family. I've got a, I've got a wife and a six month old baby. The baby just began eating foods this week. Okay. So unless Costco wants to sell me tablespoons of squash, I can't, I can't eat enough. The idea of buying a 24 pack. of eggs at Costco.

Like who's got the time? What are we running a, a diner here? You know what I mean? What? Uh, uh, scramble me timbers. I don't have the only one. The only time I'm going to have a desire to cook 24 eggs for people is when I get together my treasure hunting team. When we find that gold. Okay. Let's move it on here.

We're off. Look for Costco. Pray for Kirkland. All right, let's move to some other news. Are we, by the way, Uh, not to, not to get in the way of my perfect game here, but are we pitching a perfect game on these news stories so far? If you haven't already, please give the podcast a five star review. Share it with a friend.

Let's find the treasure and let's get back to, uh, you know, I'll be honest. We, uh, we dipped into the 4. 5. Six out of five star range on Apple podcasts, uh, where we, we were at 4. 8 until a bunch of, uh, haters got involved for different reasons, uh, unbeknownst to me and decided our podcast was so terrible that we did it twice a day.

Either way, I'm here to tell you. This thing is, we're spitting hot fire. Let's get that rating up. All right. Andy Cohen agrees with the Vanderpump rules reboot decision. Of course, uh, Vanderpump, uh, they decided for season 12, they're doing a whole new cast. This is like when your dad tells you, if you don't behave, he's going to turn the car around.

The producers for Vanderpump metaphorically turned the car around after it was, uh, you know, too hard to handle all of the diva like stars of Vanderpump. Here's what Andy Cohen had to say. Big Vanderpump rules news Bravo announced or word got out that they are revamping the show and I have to say I This is first of all the absolute right thing to do.

Um, I am so impressed with how production kept the show going over the last, I'm going to say four years when slowly but surely none of them were working at Sir. The entire point of the show Morphed and changed as it went on and it wound up that James Kennedy was the only one with any kind of footprint at sir Because he was DJing there occasionally and now he's gone on and he's got a residency in Vegas And he's having great success and they're all having good success outside of sir several have Very, very organically moved on to the valley, which makes very perfect sense.

And then you have others who don't want to be in the same room, much less on the same show with each other. And that makes sense too. All right. So listen. God bless Andy Cohen. I don't know how, I mean, this guy is the mob boss of Bravo. He can, he can just the snap of a finger decide it's a whole new cast.

I don't think he's a producer. I don't really know how he works in the Bravo universe, like what his actual job is other than of course, hosting watch what happens live in the recaps. But man, is he good at exploiting a bunch of random people. If there's anybody that could take a new season of a show, Completely revamp the whole cast of the show and continue to shit out drama and scandal.

It's gonna be Andy Cohen and it's gonna be Vanderpump Rules. It's just gonna happen, no doubt about it. Alright, well, why don't I dribble you some tea with the Clayton Eckerd case. I'll have that for you next. One of my favorite content creators, dare I say a cousin metaphorically in the community that's covering Bachelor Clayton Eckert and the paternity scandal, uh, with Laura Owens is Lauren Knighty.

Lauren Knighty is a psych evaluator and she had a story yesterday on her YouTube channel, uh, discussing some of the Antics may we call them shenanigans going on between Laura Owens and the podcast studio. She recorded a podcast at, so if you want, and by the way, she does a fantastic job. Lauren does in covering this, uh, in covering this, uh, Uh, you know, new, new sort of twist in the drama regarding Laura Owens.

She made a video. It's only a 10 minutes long, real great work. I mean, no fat on the bone here. The video is called Laura Owens harasses local studio with complaints to attorney general and BBB complaints. I'm going to have so much more to say about this. So right now you need to sort of listen to what I'm not saying, because I have.

A good amount of the story, but I can't share it all. Uh, what Lauren nighty, uh, uh, revealed is that Laura Owens, uh, you know, recorded a podcast where she was going to not do a tell all, but cover this rule 26, you know, nonsense with her paternity case against Clayton Eckerd, uh, with her attorney, she recorded this podcast and then things went sideways.

Now. Why things went sideways were basically because members or people that are looking for justice for Clayton Eckerd saw the name of the podcast studio. And probably I'm assuming reached out to them and said, how could you work with somebody like X, Y, and Z? I don't know exactly what was said. That was private information, but a statement was released.

By the podcast studio. Uh, this, again, this was what, two weeks ago. And the statement said, you know, we, we, we just learned what was going on. We want nothing to do with her. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, as it turns out, a complaint was issued by Laura Owens to the podcast studio. Now we've known about this, or at least we've known that there, there was like legal threats for several weeks.

Now we just haven't seen the actual copies of those legal threats, but now we know Laura Owens. Filed some sort of complaint with the attorney's general and better business bureau. Now, what tea do I have to dribble? Well, if I saw some of the documents that were involved, I'm not saying that I have, but if I did, I would tell you to buckle up because it's.

Wild, wild stuff. And for those that have been following this case long term, you know, I don't just throw that out if, unless there's something very interesting there. Now the podcast studio in question is a small business, you know, female owned business in Scottsdale. I can tell you this next time I'm in Scottsdale.

Which will probably be sooner than later when I have a podcast, I need to record, I'll be going to this podcast studio to support them because it looks as if they've done nothing wrong. I can only imagine that in the BBB, a better business Bureau, a complaint, which essentially it's just like a Yelp. You know what I mean?

It's like, who cares? But again, I mean, who cares for the aspect where obviously if you're the podcast studio, you care, you don't want future people to not understand that you are unjustly targeted here. But, um, I, I, I believe Laura Owens is going to be making a claim about the quality of the work and why it wasn't up to par.

Uh, her attorney, uh, is the henchman that is doing her dirty work for her sending threatening letters. You know, will they call them threatening? No, I wasn't threatening at all. It's always threatening. Uh, again, another example where I'm sure. Once we find out what happened, Laura Owens will make claims.

Like there was defamatory comments made about her. She loves that D word. Let me tell you something defamatory. Well, either way, we're going to get the full story. I'm sure the podcast studio is going to want to set the record straight. Uh, we're just going to kind of wait for that time to come. So what I'm trying to say is buckle up.

Don't expect it necessarily today, but sooner rather than later, your boy's going to get down to the bottom of this. In the meantime, go check out Lauren Knighty on YouTube and go listen to her. A YouTube video is a fantastic job. I wish it was longer to be quite honest. So often YouTubers are accused of making content that's too long.

And I was like, Laura, Lauren, you leave some meat left for the rest of us. There was nothing. She, she nibbled on that rib until it was bone dry. Alright, uh, what does that even mean? What am I trying to say? Okay, let's get into a sad but more serious story. Or maybe not more serious. How are we supposed to rate which one's more serious?

But a sad story nonetheless. Missing Hawaiian woman, Hannah Kobayashi. I guess cops are now saying she crossed into the Mexican border. Let's play a clip of the press conference that police gave out. I believe this was yesterday. 30 year old Hannah Kobayashi. Who was reported missing last month. As the family is aware late yesterday, after traveling to the U S Mexico border, we reviewed video surveillance from us customs and border protection, which clearly shows Kobayashi crossing the United States border on foot into Mexico.

Wow. And you know, it's easy to cross the border. Uh, you know, legally whatnot, uh, you know, there's actually people that will drive to San Diego, park their car, walk across the border into Tijuana and take the, and take an air flight out of Tijuana because sometimes it can be a lot cheaper that I don't know.

I've never done that before, but I know, I know friends that do that. Apparently it's a lot cheaper to do it that way. Either way, that's not what happened here. So Hina Kobayashi was supposed to go from Hawaii to New York. She missed her connecting flight to LAX. And then for weeks, people said they couldn't see her.

And then there was. Video of her, you know, uh, you know, on the metro. It really got weird when her father, I guess, flew to L. A. to look for her. And then they found him dead in a parking garage near LAX. Assuming that he actually took his own life. She was alone with her luggage and appeared unarmed. At this time, Kobayashi's case has been classified as a voluntary missing person.

Well, what are they supposed to do? So, they don't think she was You know, traveling through some sort of coercion. Now, this case is bizarre. This is strange, odd case. Um, but what, I mean, what are they supposed to do? You know, they, they tracked her down. Her family wants more answers, but clearly. I mean, if she was traveling alone, wouldn't she have access to a phone?

Would you make a phone call? Uh, is there any mental health issues? So many questions, obviously, you know, this has been a huge story nationally. So you think she would have been alerted to that again? I don't know. We'll have to see. I'll give it any updates, but, um, it looks like, uh, you know, they're saying, Hey, you know, it's, it's out of our hands.

I mean, she's voluntary, voluntarily missing and left the country. Uh, all right. So here's an odd story here. This was. Uh, uh, this was how Jenna Bush Hager said, uh, that she was treated when she joined the today show. Apparently she wasn't allowed to say y'all have a listen to this. If you don't fit, they want you to wear something a certain way, cut your hair a certain way, speak a certain way, which I know when you came to the network too, it's like, Oh yeah, but you have to change.

Yeah. Hey y'all isn't for the whole country. And I was like, Well, but it's who I am. It's so weird. And this happens in life too. Like if you have friends and all of a sudden you're acting not who you are and you're like, wait, something in your gut feels wrong. I'm not being myself. I'm trying to fit here.

I'm trying to speak their language. All right, look, Hey, this is just a reminder to everyone out there to be who you're meant to be again. This is why I love the movie Nutcrackers on Hulu. They didn't pay me to say this. I watched it for a second time. I cried a second time. Seems to be a movie where Ben Stiller is forced to address the serious side of his adult life.

And in one way or another, uh, resort back to his inner child and so much of corporate culture. Tries to take us away from what makes us unique. You're not there to be unique. You're not there. You're not getting paid to be you. You're getting there to service someone else's needs and someone else's vision.

I say, be unique, be dare I say weird, be strange, uh, you know, be different. And be rewarded for that. Maybe as we head into 2025, we can think, What can I do to be myself and march to the beat of my own drum and not the drum that someone else has told me to march to? Does that make sense? Okay, anyway, I don't know.

Maybe this is good motivation, maybe not. All I'm saying is, I grew up kind of trying to blend in and I'm not saying I have some itch to be super unique. Just be me. I just want to be me. My whole adult life, just trying to figure out who the hell I am. Not who someone else wanted. I had an aunt once, I remember.

I was being goofy. I'm not, I'm not kidding. I was like 10 years old. I remember this. I think it was on Christmas morning and I had an aunt and she was like, and I have a cousin named Casey, a good, good cousin. Nice, nice, nice man named Casey's my cousin. And I had an aunt who said, Dave, you're acting like Casey right now.

And they were judging me and, you know, Casey was always goofy. And I w I was always like envious of his ability to be goofy and be kind of playful. And I was kind of like a stick, like a stiff stoic, you know, kid, it was kind of quiet. And I know you might not believe that it was kind of quiet. And I just remember how sad.

That someone was telling me I was being goofy and that was a problem and I was being more like someone else. Maybe I was trying to be more like me, you know? And anyway, that's just a side story here, but hey, do whatever it is, look yourself in the mirror and find that inner kid and try to return to that form.

You might, you might be a little happier if you do. That's my thought. Uh, okay, well, I just went on a rant I didn't know I was gonna go on, but we got a lot of content coming up, so let's just take a quick break. We'll be back with more right after this. All right. Yes, I am dealing with a light shoulder injury.

My wife wanted a tall Christmas tree. And after living the last 10 years in a studio apartment, you know, 550 square feet, and then later on a tiny 700 square foot, two bedroom apartment, we now have tall ceilings in our living room, 12 feet high ceilings. And apparently. The price difference when you want an eight foot tree compared to a 10 and a half foot tree is quite drastic.

That 10 and a half foot tree doubles in price. I mean, they're, they are very exclusive and hard to find. And I said, honey, uh, rest assured, I'm going to get you that Fraser for, uh, the needles last long, they're super fragrant and it's standing at attention. It is a perfect 360. And believe it or not, we found it at a Home Depot.

I was told Home Depot had very, uh, competitive prices. And sure enough, it was about half the price as other places. Well, we got it home, no squirrels in the nest. But I gotta tell you, it started snowing in Nashville. It was beautiful. My son saw snow for the first time. He thought dad was so silly. Like, why, why is dad carrying a tree into the, into the house?

I don't know, son, because we have this tradition where we buy trees, cut them down and You know, and I understand, I'm not a big fan of, of cutting trees down, but there is a business, they do replant them. You know what I mean? And then we'll burn them and it'll smell nice, whatever, who knows? Like what, like what's more green, uh, cutting down a tree every year or buying one of those fake plastic ones.

I honestly have no idea. I'm sure one of you, you know, environmentalists will let me know. And I'm sure I'm on the wrong side of this history, but either way, it was extra heavy. You know, you think those eight footers there, I could sling those over my shoulder. No big deal. Your boy's not getting any younger to be a hit, you know, handling 10 and a half foot trees.

The trunk of it is, dare I say girthy. It was, I mean, but I wasn't going to let my wife watch me. Drag a tree into the house. No, I paraded that tree. I carried it above my head. I have a video of it. I'll be releasing. I, I, I brought that tree in like a man walks his wife into their house after consummating their marriage.

I don't know either way that tree it's going to, it's going to tell a story. We have yet to dress the tree. We're letting it settle in. I'm going to read it poetry. It's going to watch nutcrackers with me. I mean, we're going to give this tree a good life for the next three and a half weeks. All right, well, let's go to a different story here.

Let's go to the Joe Biden. Uh, pardoning Hunter Biden. It's receiving a lot of backlash. Here's what some members of the view had to say regarding this decision. I take issue with lying about it. I wanted to ask him here when he came on the view, but the thought was, he said so many times he wasn't going to pardon him.

That to me is lying to the public. I felt bad for Corrine Jean Pierre that she. Repeatedly had to say that he wasn't going to pardon him. Just this is why people don't trust Washington. That's why they don't trust politicians. And I know a lot of us like Joe Biden, but I find it disappointing and bad for our institutions.

All right. And look, and then the other point of view was that, Hey, what are you going to do? Like You know, the people that are going into office are saying they're going to come after journalists and weaponize the government. I mean, look, you know, it, you could say it goes both ways. Here's representative Crockett perfectly responding to pearl clutching from the GOP and pundits after Hunter, Hunter Biden's pardon.

This is again, representative Jasmine Crockett, I believe a Democrat. I'm not sure what state she's from. Have a listen. Well, I won't pretend to speak for the entire caucus, but I will say way to go, Joe. Um, let me be the first one to congratulate the president for deciding to do this because at the end of the day, we know that we have a 34 count convicted felon that is about to walk into the White House.

So for anyone that wants to clutch their pearls now because he decided that he was going to pardon his I would say take a look in the mirror, um, because we also know that when it comes to this cabinet, this cabinet has more people accused of sexual assault than any incoming cabinet probably ever in the history of America.

I do. I do have to say, as far as cabinets go, when they say they want to drain the swamp, this cabinet is full of billionaires. Uh, but Hey, I mean like, what are you going to do? This is the world we live in. You can look at either side and, and be like, Oh, well, this side did this. And, and I'm, and by the way, I'm not saying both sides are equal.

I'm just saying, what arguments do we have at this point? Should he, or should he not have pardoned his son? Here is an actual measured response by Dan Abrams on ABC news. President's words. They're called it a miscarriage of justice that Hunter was selectively. and unfairly prosecuted from a legal perspective.

Is that a good argument? He has an argument. He certainly has an argument with regard to the gun charge, right? There has never been another federal charge of someone charged under this set of facts, meaning the gun wasn't used in more than one crime. Uh, the person had no criminal record. The gun wasn't used in a crime.

I mean, that's the definition of selective prosecution. Correct. You can definitely argue with regard to the gun charge now. And by the way, Dan Abrams is their legal analyst, a lawyer, he's saying, look, yeah, they were selectively prosecuting Hunter Biden on this gun charge. No one gets prosecuted for this.

They initially were going to do a plea deal and then the public had an outcry and then they ended up charging him. The issue is that the gun charge got tacked on in connection with the plea agreement that initially happened and fell through. The tax cases is a little tougher. Uh, yes, it's true that in a lot of cases, when someone doesn't pay their taxes, they're allowed to pay them back.

And at worst, they just get a fine. It's also true that in certain cases people get prosecuted for not paying their taxes. So, it's a little squishier, uh, with regard to the tax charge as to whether this was clearly selective prosecution. How about the idea that this was a blanket pardon, protecting his son for anything that might have happened since 2014?

Well look, that is certainly as sweeping as you can make it. Uh, and there is an argument that he could have done something much more limited. Meaning called, called granium clemency. That would have meant the conviction stand. But with regard to a sentence He doesn't get any jail time. There is no sentence.

That's what clemency could have done. Alright, so look, I mean, I think I'm being pretty fair here to share this. It's like, look, could, could, you know, could the pardon have been, uh, you know, cleaned up in a way that it wasn't, you know, of the optics that he's giving his son a get out of jail free card? It's like, sorry, that's what a pardon is.

Now, will Trump then use this as a way to say, I'm going to pardon everyone who participated in January 6th, a violent insurrection? Maybe! I don't know we'll have to see how it goes. We'll be here to cover it. All right I know that was a lot to swallow here. Uh, but anyhow, um, we've got a lot of stuff to get into today We'll see you guys on the patreon around 10 a.

m Patreon. com slash dave neal and then i'll be back this afternoon as I always am if I can you know, uh, You know fix my shoulder injury. I need my body to be as strong as possible to prepare for this big treasure hunt We're about to go on. All right. We'll see you this afternoon as always. I'm dave neal This is Rush Hour is a twice daily pop culture and entertainment news podcast hosted by stand up comedian Dave Neal.

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