The Opperman Report'

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The basis of the celebrated Paramount Network miniseries starring Michael Shannon and Taylor Kitsch -- Waco is the critically-acclaimed, first person account of the siege by Branch Davidian survivor, David Thibodeau. Twenty-five years ago, the FBI staged a deadly raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. Texas. David Thibodeau survived to tell the story. When he first met the man who called himself David Koresh, David Thibodeau was a drummer in a local a rock band. Though he had never been religious in the slightest, Thibodeau gradually became a follower and moved to the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. He remained there until April 19, 1993, when the compound was stormed and burned to the ground after a 51-day standoff with government authorities. In this compelling account -- now with an updated epilogue that revisits remaining survivors--Thibodeau explores why so many people came to believe that Koresh was divinely inspired. We meet the men, women, and children of Mt. Carmel. We get inside the day-to-day life of the community. We also understand Thibodeau's brutally honest assessment of the United States government's actions. The result is a memoir that reads like a thriller, with each page taking us closer to the eventual inferno.https://amzn.to/42UuycP Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

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ric Kurlander: Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler’s personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. In this eye-opening history, Eric Kurlander reveals how the Third Reich’s relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, suppressed, and outlawed, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire. https://amzn.to/4qsfUDS Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

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I am Judge Michael Randazzo, but by all odds, I never should have been. My story begins in a pop-up trailer—no electricity, no running water—born to parents who dropped out of high school and carried the weight of our family’s excommunication from the Sicilian Mafia. I came into the world premature, delivered by a veterinarian, clinging to life while doctors warned I’d never catch up. Crime and tragedy run through my bloodline: moonshining, sexual abuse, attempted manslaughter. My father struck deals with the Mexican Cartel and still battles opioid addiction. Every member of my family has been both perpetrator and victim. Yet, somewhere between generational sin and the chance to start over, I clawed my way through law school. Today, I serve as one of Missouri’s youngest Presiding Circuit Judges. This memoir is my confession and my exorcism. It’s about the curse of inherited character flaws, the desperate hope to shield my children from them, and the heavy truth that even heroes—like my beloved Grandpa Nick—are deeply flawed. Each chapter opens a new door: from Grandpa Nick wrestling a grizzly bear to the darkest corners of family trauma, violence, and betrayal. What does it take to rise above a legacy of darkness? How do you reconcile love for those who did unspeakable things? My life is proof that the past shapes us—but it doesn’t have to define us. https://amzn.to/49aGLhk Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

For five decades, I believed I was a member of the Graham family, from a lower middle-class neighborhood, several miles east of Buffalo, NY. The revelation that I was not, shocked me. To make my story more intriguing, I was not adopted, Truth can be stranger than fiction. I quickly realized I was a pawn in a scheme to protect the Catholic Church from a public scandal. Kathryn Graham, who I believed to be my aunt and was not, unsympathetically told me, "It had to be this way." She went on to say, "We are all dealt a hand in life, it comes down to how we play it." The hand that I was dealt was seven card stud, with only one card turned up. Over the following 25 years, I perservered, putting together the pieces of my life I was denied. My story is compelling and poignant. A true page turner. https://amzn.to/3L0MVqo Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

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Circuit Judge Michael Randazzo is preparing to add “author” to his long list of accomplishments. His debut book, Presiding Over Shadows: From Chaos to Order in the Court, is scheduled for release on September 16, 2025.Randazzo’s journey to the bench has been marked by resilience and achievement. A first-generation college graduate, he earned degrees in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Missouri–St. Louis, completing the Pierre Laclede Honors College program before obtaining his Juris Doctorate from Saint Louis University School of Law in 2010.By 2015, Randazzo was running his own law firm and was named to The National Trial Lawyers’ Top 50 Under 40. His career as a prosecutor included more than 3,000 felony cases and 10,000 misdemeanors before he was elected Circuit Judge. In 2021, he was appointed to Missouri’s 42nd Judicial Circuit and, within a year, became one of the youngest presiding circuit judges in state history. To date, he has participated in more than 75 jury trials.Blending memoir and true crime, Randazzo’s forthcoming book delves into the challenges and contradictions of his life. “I have Italian roots that trace back to the Sicilian Mafia, including Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit and the St. Louis Mafia,” Randazzo said. “The book details some crimes and victimization of my family members. It’s about my family’s history and how it made my path to the bench almost impossible. Even more specifically, it deals with my relationship with my grandfather, who was my hero, despite him being a deeply flawed man.”TwitterFacebookUnterrified Democrat Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

For five decades, I believed I was a member of the Graham family, from a lower middle-class neighborhood, several miles east of Buffalo, NY. The revelation that I was not, shocked me. To make my story more intriguing, I was not adopted, Truth can be stranger than fiction. I quickly realized I was a pawn in a scheme to protect the Catholic Church from a public scandal. Kathryn Graham, who I believed to be my aunt and was not, unsympathetically told me, “It had to be this way.” She went on to say, “We are all dealt a hand in life, it comes down to how we play it.” The hand that I was dealt was seven card stud, with only one card turned up. Over the following 25 years, I perservered, putting together the pieces of my life I was denied. My story is compelling and poignant. A true page turner. ================ Jim Graham, born in Buffalo, NY, thought he was a member of the Graham family, living in a lower middle-class neighborhood. At age 48, he learned it was all fiction. More intriguing, he was not adopted. A cover-up of international interest is exposed as Jim’s decades long journey reveals the truth he was denied. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

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Garden State Gangland: The Rise of the Mob in New Jersey https://amzn.to/47eXkGp The Mafia in the United States might be a shadow of its former self, but in the New York/New Jersey metro area, there are still wiseguys and wannabes working scams, extorting businesses, running gambling, selling drugs, and branching out into white collar crimes. And they are continuing a tradition that’s over 100 years old. Some of the most powerful mobsters on a national level were from New Jersey, and they spread their tentacles down to Florida, across the Atlantic, and out to California. And many of the stories have never been told. Deitche weaves his narrative through significant, as well as some lesser-known, mob figures who were vital components in the underworld machine. New Jersey’s organized crime history has been one of the most colorful in the country, serving as the home of some of the most powerful, as well as below-the-radar, mobsters in the Country. And though overshadowed by the emphasis on New York City, the mob and New Jersey have, over the years, become synonymous, in both pop culture and in law enforcement. But for all the press that has been dedicated to the mob and New Jersey, for all the law enforcement activity against the mob, and for all the pop culture references, there has never truly been an examination of the rise of the mob in New Jersey from a historical perspective. Until now. In Garden State Gangland, Scott M. Deitche sets the historical record straight by providing the first overall history of the mob in New Jersey, from the early turn of the century Black Hand gangs to the present, and looks at how influential they were was, not only to goings-on the Garden State but across the New York metro region and the country as a whole. https://amzn.to/3W8zAi4 Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.