🌊 Making Chip Bags Full Again

Tales from a Clayton County Waffle House.

Our first stop after landing in Atlanta for last week’s reporting trip was, of course, a Waffle House. Immediately, we were struck by two things: 1) Everyone was extremely friendly and wanted to be on camera; 2) Waffle House at 10 AM is more popping than most nightclubs. Our server — an extremely charming girl named Niyah (you’ll see her in our GA vids) — said their Waffle House location shuts down at night due to excessive customer fighting. But earlier this year, the Waffle House tried to open again for late-night dining. Within hours, she said, it had devolved into WWE Smackdown and they found people in the kitchen cooking their own food. Back to the takeout window we go!

–Max and Max

KEY STORY

Robinson Sues CNN

North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson sued CNN for defamation

• Last month, CNN published an article alleging that in comments on a porn site, the staunchly pro-life Robinson called himself a “black Nazi”; said he didn’t care if a porn actress got an abortion (“I don’t care. I just wanna see the sex tape!”); and wrote, “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it back. I would certainly buy a few”

• The allegations tanked Robinson’s campaign and he now trails by double digits.. This week, he sued CNN for defamation, calling the article “recklessly false”

Dig Deeper

• The lawsuit also named a former North Carolina porn store employee who had told the press that Robinson frequented his stores over a decade-long period

• “When times of trouble come in this thing we call politics, it separates the strong folks from the weak,” Robinson said at a news conference. “The weak will turn and run, and the strong will stand and fight. And that’s what we’re doing here today”

KEY STORY

Lufthansa: Blocked Jews from Boarding

The US gov’t fined Lufthansa $4M for preventing Jewish passengers from boarding a flight

• In 2022, a large number of ultra-Orthodox Jews were flying from NY to Budapest via Frankfurt. On the way, attendants said the passengers were standing in the aisle and not masking properly. Upon landing, in Frankfurt, they blocked all visibly Jewish people from boarding their connection, with one employee saying, “It was Jewish people who were the mess”

• This week, the US levied a $4M fine – the largest ever issued by the Transportation Department for civil rights violations against an airline

Dig Deeper

• After the flight landed in Germany, the airline denied boarding to 128 passengers, most of whom were visibly Orthodox Jewish, based on alleged misbehavior on the first leg of the flight. While no specific passengers were identified as causing issues, the entire group was prevented from boarding

• A subsequent video showed a Lufthansa employee stating, “It was Jewish people who were the mess.” When a man asked, “Jewish people on the plane made a problem, so all Jews are banned from Lufthansa for today?”, the employee replied, “Just for this flight”

ROCA’S SPONSOR

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• Invest in Miso before tomorrow night’s deadline

KEY STORY

Bringing Back Chips

PepsiCo – the owner of Lay’s, Doritos, Tostitos, and Ruffles – will start adding more chips to select bags in an effort to claw back fleeing customers

• For years, customers have been faced with skimpier bags and fewer chips from popular brands. Since 2020, salty snack prices have increased 36% per ounce of snack while bag contents have decreased

• Amidst higher prices and smaller bags, potential customers have been switching to private-label brands like Walmart and Costco chips

• PepsiCo joins a long list of major food and snack producers losing customers to skimpier offerings

Dig Deeper

• Instead of just adding more chips per bag, PepsiCo will try a strategy involving marked packaging: A company spokesperson told CNN that it will start selling “bonus” bags of Tostitos and Ruffles. These bags will be the same price as the standard ones but contain 20% more chips

KEY STORY

Mbappé Scandal

French superstar Kylian Mbappé is at the center of a rape scandal in Sweden

• Mbappé – one of the world’s most famous athletes – recently signed with Real Madrid after six years with Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). This week, a Swedish newspaper reported that Swedish authorities had opened a rape investigation into Mbappé days after he visited the country

• Mbappé took to X to deny the allegation, tweeting, “FAKE NEWS !!!! ❌❌❌.” He then implied that PSG is behind the allegation as a way to get back at him over his claims that the club still owes him €55M

Dig Deeper

• Mbappé and PSG’s league say that PSG still owes him ~$60M in salary and bonuses, while PSG has defied the league and said it is not obligated to pay. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for this week and Mbappé tweeted that the allegation’s timing may be linked to that

• While Swedish authorities didn’t name Mbappé as the subject of their investigation, the paper reported that he was “suspected on reasonable grounds of rape”

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

👙 The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show returned after a six-year hiatus. The event – once considered the Super Bowl of the retail world, drawing some 10M primetime viewers – had been canceled amid the #MeToo movement

🚚 147+ people were killed in Nigeria after an oil tanker capsized and exploded as people rushed to collect gasoline from it

🧪 At a town hall event, Donald Trump proclaimed himself the “father of IVF”

🎦 Kamala Harris sat for an interview with Brett Baier on Fox News. It got combative at times

🗳️ Elon Musk announced a “series of talks” in Pennsylvania in the run-up to the election. Musk has said elections will end if Trump is not elected

COMMUNITY

🧐 Yesterday’s question: f you went to a Karaoke bar and had to bet your life savings on someone singing a certain song in the next hour, what song would you pick?

🧠 Today’s question: Do you think movies — generally speaking — have gotten worse over the last 50 years?

Reply to this email to let us know what you think!

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

💳 Instagram Business Cards: Instagram announced the rollout of “profile cards,” which are essentially business cards that link an Instagram account to a profile with a picture, bio, and more

🤖 Tesla Robot: The director of the 2004 Will Smith sci-fi hit “I, Robot” accused Elon Musk of ripping off his robot design for Tesla’s just-announced humanoid robot, Tesla Bot

🍔 At BK…The Police Got It: A sheriff in Cobb County, Georgia called officers to a Burger King after the store messed up his order

🎃 The MJ of Gourds: A Minnesota teacher won the annual World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in California for the second year in a row. Yet he failed to beat the record he set last year for the world’s heaviest pumpkin

🍽️ Not Your Typical Diner Patron: A Massachusetts diner issued an apology after it let a pair of World War II reenactors dressed as Nazi SS soldiers dine in the restaurant

ROCA WRAP

General Butt Naked

In 2007, Joshua Milton Blahyi stood in front of a panel of nine people, including lawyers, human rights activists, and journalists. The panel asked, "How many victims were there?"

Blahyi paused, then replied, "I don't know the entire… the entire… the entire number… but if I… if I… were to calculate it… everything I have done… it would be… it shouldn't be fewer than 20,000."

Blahyi was soon back in his church, delivering a sermon.

***

Blahyi was born in 1970 in a village in Liberia, one of Africa’s poorest countries.

At the age of 11, his father gave him to a group of tribal elders, who made him a traditional priest. Blahyi was recruited by Liberia’s then-president Samuel Doe, who had just taken power in a coup. Doe wanted Blahyi to perform black magic at the presidential palace to help him win an upcoming election.

Doe won the election but his nation was bound for one of the most brutal wars in history.

In 1989, rebel leader Charles Taylor rebelled against Doe, sparking a civil war that split the country along ethnic lines. Blahyi joined a militia representing his Krahn tribe and went to war around the Liberian capital, Monrovia. The Liberian civil war was horrifically violent by any standard: Kids were recruited to kill kids and mutilation, rapes, and massacres became commonplace. President Doe was killed by a rebel leader who sliced off his ears and let him bleed to death.

Yet even in this orgy of violence, Blahyi was in a league of his own.

Blahyi took charge of a group of soldiers known as the Naked Base Commandos who fought naked, besides their weapons and ammo strapped to their bodies. Believers in black magic, Blahyi and his troops thought that being naked would protect them from bullets. Blahyi became known as General Butt Naked and one of the world’s most prolific killers.

The Naked Base Commandos rampaged through the villages of opposing tribes, killing and raping at will, sacrificing their victims for magic powers, all the while dismembering and eating them.

In post-war testimony, Blahyi would later say, “I recruited children who were nine or 10 years old… [and] I planted violence into them. I explained to them that killing people was a game.”

He added, “When I shot and wounded an enemy, I would rip open his back and eat his live heart.”

Blahyi’s crimes are arguably more numerous and egregious than those of any other living person. 250,000 of Liberia’s 2.5M people died during the war; Blahyi claims responsibility for nearly 10% of them.

In 1996, Liberia’s civil war entered its seventh year. Amid that, a group of pastors made it their mission to convert the commanders. One of the pastors sought to make General Butt Naked repent. The priest went to the general’s barracks, knocked on his door, and walked in.

"All I wanted to tell you is that Jesus loves you, and that he has a better plan for your life," the pastor later recalled saying. Blahyi proceeded to shoot his bodyguard in the leg for letting the pastor inside. But Blahyi let the pastor live and he became a frequent visitor to Blahyi’s quarters.

On repeated visits, the pastor prayed for Blahyi, who eventually disclosed that he believed he was possessed by a demon. The pastor insisted that by embracing Jesus, Blahyi could be healed and forgiven for his sins.

The pastor would later tell a journalist with Germany’s Der Spiegel that Blahyi became focused on the Bible verse John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life … Whoever believes in him is not condemned."

Soon after, Blahyi was preparing for battle when he had a vision: "I met Christ [and] I saw an image of a man – this guy was bright, very bright [so] that I could not look at him twice," he later told a BBC correspondent. And with that, he gave up war and took up religion.

Blahyi has since become a pastor with a devoted following near the Liberian capital. After Liberia’s war ended in 2005, Blahyi was brought in front of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee. He fully disclosed his crimes. When asked why, he said, "For my faith. I was told that I should tell the truth, and the truth will set me free."

Blahyi has spent the years since tracking down those affected by his crimes and begging for forgiveness. He leads a church and tries to support victims of the war and former child soldiers, including with food, clothing, and conversation.

Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee did not have the power to prosecute anyone. Blhayi therefore remains a free man, judged not by the courts but by those around him.

So the question is: Has Blahyi actually changed or is he the same cold-blooded killer, seeking to avoid a guilty verdict by his society?

ROCA VIDEO
We Asked 100 Wisconsinites Who They’re Voting For

We visited Wisconsin to understand the issues that matter before the 2024 election. While in Wisconsin, we visited five different areas: Northwest (Eau Claire), Fox Valley+Green Bay, Door County, Madison, and Milwaukee. We discovered some interesting things. At the end of the video, we give our prediction on who will win Wisconsin.

Make sure to subscribe to the channel!

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

The best part about the Karaoke question was how many of you sent in songs that weren’t the actual names: “West Virginia” instead of “Take Me Home, Country Roads”; “Man After Midnight” instead of “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”; “Summer Loving” instead of “Summer Nights”; and the list goes on!

Disappointed that nobody picked “Mama, just killed a man” by Queen!

–Max and Max