Shane Gillis, Mark Normand, Ari Shaffir: Protect Our Parks 16

The episode opens with the group noting how long it has been since the last Protect Our Parks recording. One participant guesses "almost a year" and another settles the count at episode 16, a number met with a joke about how much drinking that represents. Running bits from earlier episodes, such as playing "Freebird" and Metallica, come back immediately as callbacks.

Later in the conversation the participants describe how often fans ask about the series. One says that anywhere in Latin America, people who recognized them asked when the next episode would come. Others report the same question in Australia and New Zealand, and one describes telling a fan the recording date, April 30th, and asking them to keep it quiet. The group frames the show's return as welcome against what one calls a "Goofy-ass fake fucking world out there."

The first extended topic is a widely shared lawsuit in which a male employee accused his female boss of sexually explicit remarks and coercion. Early on, someone says Jamie has reported the story is "fake" and that the lawsuit may be "retaliatory." Much of the exchange is crude riffing on the lurid wording attributed to the boss in the filing, including her alleged use of the word "cannons" and a slur about the man's wife, which the group treats as implausible, overwritten language.

The substantive argument is about asymmetry. One participant argues that if a man had been accused of saying such things, "the guy would be fired, he would be shamed. But no one's mad at that lady." Another adds that even before the story was called a hoax, the reaction to the boss was mild. The group asks what should happen to someone who invents such a story, and the answer offered is "Jail."

The details stay uncertain throughout. When the topic returns, someone asks whether the man was fired, and Jamie hedges: "I'm not saying that the lawsuit is fake," only that people are calling it baseless. As Jamie remembers it, JPMorgan investigated, did not find the claims credible, and the woman still works there. The others repeat the double-standard point: a man in her position would have been put on leave during the investigation.

The conversation widens to what one participant calls "a string of middle, middle age horrors." The examples mentioned include a reporter allegedly involved with a football coach, a claim that Kristi Noem (transcribed as "Christy Noem") had an affair, and the journalist who wrote about RFK and had what was described as "a deeply emotional relationship with him." The group says those texts came out a couple of years ago and reads some aloud, mocking their florid style. One remark is that once a man writes a woman a poem, "it's over."

The group is unsure whether the texts are authentic. One participant asks, "How do we know this is true?" and another replies, "For what I remember, it was verified," naming Olivia Nuzzi. Someone else says the screenshots "could be from anybody," and after one particularly purple line another says, "I'm not buying this. That sounds like literature." They also return to the double-standard theme, arguing that for a woman this kind of scandal is "like a free shot" and that she was not discredited as a journalist.

The talk about RFK includes his past heroin addiction and his voice. One participant says he did not always stutter, and another goes further: "It's not a stutter It's a vaccine injury," attributing it to "the flu vaccine" and pointing to videos from the 90s in which he "had a great voice." The group offers no evidence for this claim beyond those recalled videos.

Reading the texts leads to a joke about food: one participant complains about not being able to have "fruit loops with the good colors," another describes Canadian Fruit Loops as "bland and dim and dull," and they say that is what will now be sold in the US. Someone wonders if there is a way to make them brighter "Without giving you ass cancer," which accepts the premise that the dyes carry a cancer risk without discussing evidence.

That joke turns into an anecdote. A participant describes someone they know, "since the early 30s," with "stage three ass cancer," and adds that the person "also took four shots," meaning vaccines. When asked whether that causes cancer, the reply is hedged: "You can give you cancer. Allegedly." The discussion offers no further support, and it quickly dissolves into jokes about how the shot was administered.

The longest current-events segment covers what the group calls the third assassination attempt on Trump, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. They note it happened at the same hotel where Reagan was shot, and someone says the event's host was "Oz the mentalist." A friend of the group, Metzger, is quoted as calling it a "fake assassination attempt," which the others treat as part of his habit of blaming everything on Israel and the Rothschilds.

The details about the shooter come up piecemeal. He is described as mixed race, "a smart guy, a valedictorian," "scientisty," and possibly a teacher; later someone says "He was teacher of the year." The group also discusses whether the shooter wounded a Secret Service agent. At first it is unclear, and friendly fire is floated, partly as a joke about the female agent the group associates with an earlier July lapse. Later someone reads that the agent "did not shoot himself," and another says, "I don't think there's any question of what happened here."

The participants also look at the footage, separating the "real video, which is blurry," from an AI-enhanced version. They blame the blurriness on the hotel's old cameras. They remark on how fast the man is running in the clip and question his plan, asking how he thought he would get past Secret Service and the crowd to reach Trump. One offers a motive, that such people think "everyone's going to love me," and another suggests "It might be schizophrenia, too." They say he survived and is in jail.

Someone reads out a viral post about an X account that, in 2023, tweeted only the shooter's name, Cole Allen. According to that post, the profile belonged to "Henry Martinez, a NASA scientist who's missing," its background image came from a website called Time Machine and supposedly shows the 2024 assassination photo with "a hole in the head instead of the ear," and its profile picture is "a green toad in a tuxedo." The post concludes that "either it's the most elaborate sci-op in history, or someone from the future is leaving clues."

The group is skeptical of the image claim. One says, "That's just a bunch of colors, and you could decide it's the same," and compares it to a Magic Eye picture. Jamie agrees the picture part "does not make a lot of sense" but calls the tweet itself "strange enough." Another caveat follows: "there is a bunch of random Twitter accounts that have tweeted random names just one time," which makes the coincidence less remarkable. The frog is linked to "keck" pranksters, and one person jokes that it could be pre-planted for a mind-controlled assassin.

Asked whether Martinez really was a NASA scientist, Jamie says what people found was a brief internship, possibly at JPL, and adds, "I don't know that anybody knows more than that." The group links this to the earlier Pennsylvania shooter having appeared in a BlackRock commercial, and one participant who did commercials says they never got a BlackRock audition.

Much of the group's anger is about security. One participant asks how the shooter got into the hotel with a gun when the president, Marco Rubio and others were known to be attending, and why rooms and bags were not searched. The sharpest line is: "why is there better security at the improv on black comic night."

Another participant offers a limited concession: screening every person is understandable as hard at a venue with "like 20,000 people," such as a UFC event. But this event "is so small" that, in their view, failing to check for guns on a day the president was there is hard to excuse.

The mention of Reagan leads to John Hinckley, transcribed as "Hinkley." The group says he has been released and now plays music, and they look up a 2023 song titled "I will be your man," which one participant hears as "a threat." They note that he was inspired by Jodie Foster, transcribed as "Jody Frost" and "Jody Foster," and one jokes, "That's what MK Ultra does to him man."

The group then turns to government files. They expect MK Ultra files to be released "this week I think," ask what happened to the promised UFO files, and suggest that the Kennedy files hold material "we couldn't see." Someone reads that Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (transcribed as "Annapoleon Aluna Lances") will hold House hearings on MK Ultra next month. When one participant does not know the term, another explains it as "the mind control experiments that the CIA did in the 1960s."

The best-documented claim in this stretch is about Operation Midnight Climax. One participant describes CIA-run brothels where prostitutes gave customers acid while agents watched "through a two-way mirror and then film them," and says: "That's absolutely proven. That's all from a Freedom of Information Act request and from some documents that they found." The group also names "Jolly West" as a central figure, says he saw Jack Ruby, who then "went crazy," and says he was connected to Manson. These connections are stated without sources.

After jokes about the brothel experiments, someone asks: "How many marriages would completely dissolve? if prostitution was totally legal." The group riffs on Uber-style ratings for sex workers. One participant argues that women already do the work while it is illegal, so "if you took down the barriers, they would keep doing it."

Jamie looks up New York, and the result is read aloud: "Prostitution is illegal in New York City, but enforcement and politics around sex work are in flux," with debates over decriminalization and protections for sex workers and trafficking survivors. One participant sees a contradiction in calling people victims while also decriminalizing the work. Another responds with the argument for legalization: where it is legal, workers do not need a pimp and can work in public. The group also mocks shifting language, saying "It's sex work until one of them is fucking your husband, and then it's a hooker."

One participant argues, "if you can give someone a massage," a sexual service should be allowed too, and the group sympathizes with Robert Kraft, saying "They set him up." Next come anecdotes about how to identify massage parlors that offer sex, said to be common in New York and treated as normal in Philadelphia. One participant also claims that in Thailand, where prostitution "pretty much is" legal, women are more willing to have sex on a first date because of the competition. This is presented as personal observation.

The Thailand thread ends with Muay Thai. The group says ladyboys often trained as fighters when younger. One participant tells of a famous fighter who transitioned and kept fighting men, but "started getting fucked up" after losing male hormones, having dominated before. Another describes street confrontations in which ladyboys gang up and use their training on an attacker.

The JPMorgan story leads into the case of pitcher Trevor Bauer, described as a Cy Young winner (transcribed as "Sigh-Young" and "Sy Young") and "the highest award for a pitcher." According to the group, the woman who accused him had told friends she would "go get money out of that guy," and "We got the text message to prove it." They say she posed for photos with black eyes created with makeup and that the abuse story "was all made up." These details are given from memory, with no source cited.

The facts about his career are fuzzy in the conversation. Participants are unsure whether his team was the Dodgers or the Brewers, and one guesses Brewers "Because it was last name? Bauer." They say he moved to Japan, offered to pitch for MLB for free, and now plays in the minors on Long Island; both the Long Island Ducks and "the miners" are mentioned. Jamie gives his age as 35. The suspension date is muddled between 2020 and a garbled "201," but the group agrees he lost the years from 30 to 35, "That's prime." They also mention that he recently pitched a no-hitter and is throwing 102 in Japan.

The group's main objection is how lopsided the consequences were. They say the accuser violated a settlement and had to pay him "300 grand," against an estimated $300 million he lost. That gap leads to the principle they all endorse:

Whatever you accuse someone of, if it's fake, you should get that punishment.

Others agree but add, "That's never the case, though." The group also criticizes the team for not apologizing or restoring his contract once the accusation fell apart, and suggests he sue. One participant notes that the accuser was suing him and harming his reputation in public, as opposed to a criminal case.

The segment ends on a lighter idea: people who survive a cancellation come out funnier. One participant says Bauer must have "a wicked sense of humor" after what he went through, and another generalizes: "You survive a cancellation. You come out on the other end just a little bit more. Funny." Kanye is offered as proof, said to have recovered from being canceled to hold "the biggest concerts in human history."

The excerpt ends mid-thought on Bill Cosby. Someone notes he is blind and cannot read notes or a teleprompter, then suggests he never relied on them anyway, since he is "a story guy." One participant says a Cosby album "really paints a picture" and begins to compare it with Kinison (transcribed as "Kinnison") as the excerpt cuts off.

Two sponsor reads interrupt this stretch of the episode: one for Square's hospitality payment and management system and one for the Land Rover Defender 110, which cites a towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms and a wading depth (transcribed as "weighting depth") of 900 millimeters.

The segment opens by comparing a slow comedic delivery to music. One remark likens it to "listening to, you know, John Denver versus Metallica," and the group agrees both have their place. The talk then moves to footage of a Metallica concert in Moscow that the group had been watching. It gets the strongest praise in the passage: "That is the greatest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life." The group jokes about watching it again on a loop and about closing the show with "a live free bird from 77."

Imagine how pump these people are. Communism is dead for a little bit. And then Metallica's on stage.