Clyde Lewis opens the phones on H.R. 6566, the Mass Fatality Planning and Religious Considerations Act, and every caller names a different secret.
At a glance
Guest: None (call-in and monologue episode)
Topics: H.R. 6566 mass fatality planning · FEMA · White Horse Prophecy · government secrecy · preparedness · biblical prophecy
Also discussed: Hank Paulson · Mitt Romney · Joseph Smith · Bruce R. McConkie · Dr. Nick Begich · Georgia Guidestones · Albert Pike
Before Clyde Lewis says a word of his own, the show plays an old piece of testimony. A questioner at a congressional hearing asks whether the witness was once assigned to work on plans for the continuity of government after a major disaster. The witness asks the chairman not to touch upon it. Then a voice cut from news audio: "Where can you put mass graves? We need to know spaces of mass graves. Can you handle bodies from surrounding counties?" Only then does Lewis introduce himself. "I'm Clyde Lewis, and this is Ground Zero. It's a new bill. H.R. 6566. The Mass Fatality Planning and Religious Considerations Act."
A Bill Released on Dumping Day
The bill is real, and Lewis reads its purpose on air: amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 so the administrator of FEMA must provide guidance and coordination for mass fatality planning. He focuses on the religious clause. Jewish and Muslim traditions call for burial within 48 hours of death, and he asks what happens to those customs when mortuaries overflow. He wrote up the story that night under the title "Secrets in the Dysfunctional Zeitgeist."
He also dwells on the timing. The text went public on a Friday, which he calls "dumping day where nobody pays attention to Friday's news." His reading goes far past the text. He calls such measures "Holocaust provisions," though the bill's own language is about planning and coordination; the holocaust framing is his inference, and he owns it as one. His sharper argument is about hypocrisy. "They tell us on one hand that we should have hope and move forward," he says, "and then they propose bills about mass fatalities and religious consideration for those mass fatalities." He calls it "an ideologically bankrupt bill" and the system behind it a "pathocracy."
The Phones Become a Confessional
The question of the night is simple: "What do you think the big secret is?" The answers are not.
Fred claims Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson threatened Congress with martial law in October 2008, and names the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission as the real chain of command. He describes a drill with troops parachuting into the NSA data facility in Bluffdale, Utah. Pam from Orlando cites a documentary called "The Project" and claims Muslim Brotherhood advisers work inside the White House. Lewis asks her to name them. She cannot. Chuck points to the Georgia Guidestones and their 500 million population figure, and predicts a civil uprising.
One caller, 64 years old and a retired lieutenant colonel, says his family came out of communist Cuba. "I don't need anybody to say thank you for your service," he says. "It was a debt of honor." Jeff from Illinois brings up The Hunger Games: a scenario built to make people turn on each other, where the only real choice left is keeping your humanity. Lewis picks up the thought. "Armageddon starts spiritually before it ever becomes anything material."
One Firefighter Files a Dissent
Brent does not buy the premise. "I'm a wildland firefighter, and they give us fire shelters when we go out on the fire line," he says. "And it doesn't mean that we're going to be burned over." He calls the bill ordinary precaution and says he is not alarmed by it. Lewis answers with a newsletter from Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue, read on air: "Zombie attack? How will you know? You can call 911 for help with fire and life safety emergencies." The item explains that the 911 center can call residents about hazards, zombies included. Lewis treats it as proof the apocalypse framing already lives inside official preparedness.
Cheryl steers the show to county disaster plans drafted after Hurricane Katrina, and Lewis describes triage lists he claims deprioritize the elderly and disabled. He goes further, alleging Katrina hit the poorest section of New Orleans by design; that is his claim, and the record does not support it. He also cites the Army's spraying of cadmium sulfide over poor St. Louis neighborhoods, a real program declassified decades later. Cheryl answers with her own family. "Agent Orange was no accident because my father died from it. My mother died from it."
The Prepared and the Ignorant
Josh from Portland gets people prepared for a living, and sorts his customers into two kinds: "They're either ignorant by choice, or they're getting prepared." He claims government buying of long-term food is straining his suppliers, and mocks the news cycle that reported a bacon shortage, denied it, then warned of $6 milk.
Lewis reads the Drudge Report on air: "Regular gas, $569, $579. Special, $579, $589. Super, $589 to $599. Almost $6 a gallon." Drudge calls it an October surprise. Lewis answers from memory. "When I lived in Argentina, a loaf of bread went 50 cents to $5 overnight." Casey, out of work since February 2009, gets the night's only practical advice: set aside ten percent for preparedness, and think like the dealer in a casino rather than the gambler.
Prophecy Fills the Gap
George from Miami identifies himself as a former LDS bishop. Lewis asks if he believes the White Horse Prophecy, the tradition attributed to Joseph Smith that the Constitution will hang by a thread before Mormon elders save it. "Personally, yes, I do," George says. He predicts Mitt Romney will become president and "will be speaking, I really believe, through the gift and power of the Holy Spirit." "Have you prayed about it, George?" Lewis asks. "Yeah, I have." "And what does God tell you, George?" "I haven't received an answer yet." Romney went on to lose the 2012 election, and the LDS Church has long declined to endorse the prophecy.
Mark, a carpenter, lays out what he calls "the triangle of Ezekiel, Daniel, and John the Revelator." Lewis answers that prophecy could be a blueprint elites follow rather than a fate anyone must. Martha from Portland says the dead talk through her, and that under hypnosis she channeled a Frenchman and spoke French, a language she does not know. Lewis asks, gently, whether she has looked into schizophrenia. She says the entities predict a "blood war," sister against sister, neighbor against neighbor. Jerry from Knoxville recites the Albert Pike letter and its three world wars, ending in the revelation of Lucifer, which Lewis translates as illumination. Jerry finds 666 in the carbon of human blood: six protons, six neutrons, six electrons.
The last theory of the night belongs to Burton from Portland. "You can actually see it with the naked eye right now," he says. "It's the 10th planet." Planet X. Lewis thanks him, and the show ends the way it began, with the question unanswered. Asked all night what the big secret is, the callers gave a different answer every time. Lewis's own answer came in an aside to the firefighter: the apocalypse is already here as a shared thoughtform, a tulpa, an egregore, "inescapable until we start changing the way we look at it." The bill says nothing about any of it. It asks who handles the bodies. Everything else, the audience supplies.
Questions this episode answers
What is the Mass Fatality Planning and Religious Considerations Act (H.R. 6566)?
H.R. 6566 was a real bill in the U.S. House that would amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require FEMA to provide guidance and coordination for mass fatality planning.
Lewis reads the bill's purpose on air and focuses on its religious clause, noting that Jewish and Muslim traditions call for burial within 48 hours of death. He asks how those customs survive a disaster in which mortuaries are overwhelmed and counties must plan grave space for bodies from surrounding areas.
Lewis argues the bill signals government preparation for mass casualties and calls such measures "Holocaust provisions." That framing is his interpretation; the bill's text concerns planning and coordination, and he also describes the federal DMORT teams of medical examiners, pathologists, and funeral directors that already handle mass fatality response.
Why does Clyde Lewis call the bill "ideologically bankrupt"?
Lewis argues that planning for mass casualties contradicts the administration's "hope" and "forward" messaging, so he brands it "an ideologically bankrupt bill."
He tells Chuck, "They tell us on one hand that we should have hope and move forward, and then they propose bills about mass fatalities and religious consideration for those mass fatalities." He calls the result "an ideological dichotomy" and "a confusion."
The phrase widens into his verdict on the political system itself, which he calls a "pathocracy" and a "short attention span democracy" that offers voters only the worst of two evils.
What is the "big secret" Lewis asks callers to name?
The episode's open question, "What is the big secret they're keeping from us?", drew a different answer from nearly every caller, and Lewis never settled on one.
Fred named elite networks and claimed Hank Paulson threatened Congress with martial law in 2008. Pam blamed Muslim Brotherhood infiltration. Chuck cited the Georgia Guidestones. Tom predicted a staged nuclear strike. George pointed to Mormon prophecy. Burton said the secret is Planet X, visible "with the naked eye right now."
Lewis's own answer was that the apocalypse already exists as a shared thoughtform, a "tulpa" or "egregore" that is "inescapable until we start changing the way we look at it."
What did the former LDS bishop claim about Mitt Romney and the White Horse Prophecy?
George from Miami, identifying himself as a former LDS bishop, said he personally believes the White Horse Prophecy and that Romney would speak "through the gift and power of the Holy Spirit."
Asked directly if Romney would fulfill the prophecy and become president, George answered, "Personally, yes, I do." He traced the prophecy to Joseph Smith in the 1800s and acknowledged the church has argued over it for years, citing Bruce R. McConkie as a defender.
George admitted to "a nagging feeling" that something is about to happen, but told Lewis that prayer had brought no answer yet. Romney went on to lose the 2012 election to Barack Obama, and the LDS Church has never accepted the prophecy as doctrine.
Did any caller defend the bill as routine preparedness?
Yes. Brent, a wildland firefighter, compared the bill to the fire shelters his crew carries on the fire line: preparation for something nobody expects to happen.
"And it doesn't mean that we're going to be burned over," he said, adding that he was not alarmed by the bill and saw the religious considerations as sensible, given that the dead have burial customs families want honored.
Lewis countered by reading a Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue newsletter on air, an item headlined "Zombie attack? How will you know?" explaining that the 911 center can call residents about hazards. He treated the item as evidence that apocalyptic framing already sits inside official preparedness messaging.
What did Tom claim the government is planning?
Tom claimed a tactical nuclear strike on 20 to 40 U.S. cities would be staged to kill about a hundred million people and justify martial law. There is no evidence for this; it is one caller's theory, aired without challenge.
He linked the alleged plan to the body bags and "coffin liners" he said the government has stockpiled, and to Rex 84, the real 1980s contingency exercise that conspiracy literature has long cited as a blueprint for mass detention.
Tom said the sequence ends with FEMA taking over, elections suspended, and a one-world government with a digital currency and re-education camps for gun owners. Lewis let the claim stand and moved to the next caller.
What did Josh from Portland say about preparedness supplies?
Josh, who said he gets people prepared for a living, claimed government purchases of long-term food are straining suppliers and mocked media coverage that whipsawed between shortage and denial.
He divided the public into two camps: "They're either ignorant by choice, or they're getting prepared." He said his suppliers cannot keep up with demand and cited "predictive programming" from Hollywood apocalypse films.
He pointed to the news cycle that reported a coming bacon shortage, retracted it, and then warned of $6 milk and a world food crisis. "The mass media can't decide which side they're on," he said.
Frequently asked questions
What is the White Horse Prophecy?
The White Horse Prophecy is an LDS tradition attributed to church founder Joseph Smith, predicting the U.S. Constitution will one day "hang by a thread" and be rescued by elders of the Mormon church. The LDS Church has stated it is not accepted as doctrine. Caller George, a former bishop, said he believes Mitt Romney would fulfill it.
What is "Dumping Day"?
"Dumping Day" is Clyde Lewis's term for the practice of releasing controversial government information on Fridays, when weekend news attention drops. He claims the H.R. 6566 bill text went public on a Friday to minimize scrutiny, telling listeners "nobody pays attention to Friday's news."
What is DMORT?
DMORT, the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, is the federal program that assists local authorities when a mass fatality incident overwhelms their capability. Lewis described its Disaster Portable Morgue Units and its teams of medical examiners, pathologists, funeral directors, and mental health specialists as the existing infrastructure a bill like H.R. 6566 would coordinate.
Why do burial customs matter in mass fatality planning?
Jewish and Muslim traditions call for prompt burial, within roughly 48 hours of death, and other faiths have their own requirements for handling the dead. A disaster producing mass casualties can make those timelines impossible to honor. Lewis argued on air that this is why the bill pairs fatality planning with "religious considerations," and asked who decides which customs get set aside when the bodies outnumber the graves.
Who's on this episode
Callers: Fred, Pam from Orlando, Chuck, James, Jay from Oregon, Jeff from Illinois, Brent, Cheryl, Tom, Chris from Michigan, Casey from Portland, Brett from New York, George from Miami, Dan, Mark High, Sherry, Tom from Florida, Elena from California, Josh from Portland, Tony from Portland, Catherine from Portland, Martha from Portland, Jerry from Knoxville, Tennessee, Burton from Portland, Ron.
