The Bee Weekly: FBI Raids Trump! Weird Church Stories and Commie California
This week at The Babylon Bee, Kyle and Adam are joined by return guest host Kira Davis to discuss the news this week of Donald Trump's home, Mar-A-Lago, being raided by the FBI! Hunter Biden reportedly breathed a huge sigh of relief! They also discuss listener-submitted stories about the weirdest thing that ever happened to them at church and talk about how anyone could stay in California. Crazy! This episode is brought to you by our wonderful sponsors who you should absolutely check out: CrossPolitic wants to see you at the FightLaughFeast Conference! Try the Abide app and let it help you meditate on God's word. Get 25% off! You have fiat currency? Sucker! Get yourself some gold at Allegiance Gold! Connect with other freedom-loving Americans that share your values at PublicSq! Check out Kira Davis for school board! Was Trump flushing documents down the White House toilet? Who would spend $100,000 on Diablo Immortal? Is Joe Biden okay? After watching some of the latest clips, The Babylon Bee is worried. Also, if inflation is 0% why are they trying to pass the Inflation Reduction Act? Prepare yourself for another exhilarating segment of Sizzler Facts. Adam Yenser strikes back with a new edition of Weakly News! Bee Radio with Austin Robertson is flying out of the nest this week, but you can hear it one last time on The Bee Weekly. Catch Bee Radio on its own separate podcast feed and on The Babylon Bee Podcast channel on YouTube. Then, Kira Davis, Kyle, and Adam discuss what is wrong with California. Seriously, what's up with that place? Who would stay? Of course, we end every Bee Weekly with glorious hate mail that runs into your ear canals like warm mashed potatoes dripping from a wooden spoon. In the full-length podcast, there are much more bonus hate mails and bonus mailbag questions. Babylon Bee subscribers also weighed in with their weird church stories and we see which subscriber-submitted headlines were the best this week! To get the full podcast, become a subscriber at The Babylon Bee!
Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago was raided by the FBI and everyone is saying it was the most perfect, beautiful, amazing raid ever.
People are talking about it.
Is California Communist?
We discuss from the Gulag.
All this and more ons, the Bee Weekly.
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Hey, everyone.
Welcome to the Bee Weekly.
I'm reaching to put my coffee down.
I'm hanging out with Adam Jenser, and today we have a special treat.
Everybody's favorite podcast co-host, Kira Davis.
How you doing, Kira?
I am doing great.
Better than ever.
Amazing.
Better than ever.
That's not what you said before we turned the camera.
I know.
I'm practicing my politician speak.
Like, you're always great.
You're always excited.
I'm so excited to be here.
This is going to be really exciting to be here.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah, it's great to have you.
I always get a little jealous when you come on because the comments are always like, Kira should be running the podcast.
Why are you guys there?
Yeah.
It's adorable.
It's probably that energy you brought where you just say.
The Bee is my favorite podcast to do.
You guys know I do a lot of media every day, and The Bee is really my favorite place to dance, like where it can let live.
You say that to all the podcasts.
No, I really don't.
Some of them, she shows up and she goes, oh, I wish I wasn't here.
No, most of the time, like, I'll be like, oh, I totally forgot.
I have this meeting.
I can only give you 15 minutes.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I try when I always do that little thing at the beginning of an interview.
I'm like, so how long is this going to be?
And I try not to sound like I'm saying, you know, I don't want to be here, but that's exactly what I'm saying.
But you have to because some people will take advantage of you.
Like, I agreed to be on a show recently.
I won't say the name.
And I was like, great, no problems.
I know, I knew the host.
And it was a late night.
You know, by the time you get to like, well, Adam, you don't have a family.
I hate being up this early.
She said, well, you don't have a family.
Yes.
Yes, but you're a loser single time.
You don't crave human connection like the rest of us.
Kyle and I are raising people.
By the time I get to 8.30, I am a nine-on-one.
What is this, love?
Did you speak up?
You just want to shut down.
So it was like an 8.30 media hit.
And by 9 o'clock, I'm like, how long is this?
He was like, oh, I just have another 40 minutes.
I was like, I don't think so.
It's time to go.
I was thinking I was going to give you 10 minutes.
But if you don't set your expectations at the start, people will take advantage of you.
By the way, I forgot to tell you guys, I do have a doctor's appointment later on.
So I don't know how long this is going to go.
It's a little hard out.
No, it's just, you know, it's very important.
It's woman stuff.
You guys wouldn't get it.
And that's the other cover.
Know we won't ask any follow-up women.
You guys, I know these two know absolutely nothing about woman women, so I could say anything.
Well, if you haven't tuned in the podcast every wednesday, they have to go to the dock.
It was a rumor that went around my junior high yeah, so if you haven't tuned in the podcast the last three weeks, you don't even know who Adam is.
Yes, i've heard.
You just started watching, you don't?
Yeah, I was out on tour I.
I had uh shows in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which was awesome.
A club called the Comedy Cabana performed with a great comic named Troy Third Gill.
If any of you guys are looking for a funny comedian to look up uh, check him out.
Third Gill, Third Gill, Troy Third Gill yes uh, he was awesome.
Uh did shows in Boston and Pennsylvania and then I was hiking in Maine for four days camping in the wilderness.
Yeah, it was awesome.
And you did any comedy shows up on the mountain?
I did not do any comedy on the mountain.
No, I keep work at the office.
It's a tough crowd out there.
It's important to have that Chinese wall between exactly yeah yeah yeah, yeah and so uh, yeah.
Well Kira, thanks for coming on, we're gonna have a good time today.
We're gonna talk about California, we're gonna talk about crazy church stuff and we're gonna cover the news.
So here we go.
What's in the news this week?
Uh, here's an email we got.
It says it's from Josh H.
It says, did you guys ever notice how many Star Trek Parentheses, 1966 episodes are named from Shakespeare quotes?
Isn't that neat?
Uh, I actually did not notice that.
Did you know that?
No, that's not something I knew.
I'm working my way through the original series.
Now i'm up to about the beginning of the third season, but the next generation is the one I just re-watched completely and you've never seen the full original season.
I've seen a lot of the episodes.
I've never watched all of the original season.
Oh my gosh, so cool.
Yeah, I uh Star Trek Geek here and my that.
I was raised on it like my mom and I.
We came on uh, the CBC.
You guys know i'm Canadian came on the CBC every saturday at noon and that was the thing that my mom and I did every saturday.
We watched it, but I do know that William Shatner is a trained Shakespearean actor and Gene Roddenberry often wrote in Pantamic, really Iambic Pantamic pantameter, pantameter and so um yeah, so it's, it is Josh.
Good on you for noticing.
It's interesting, it is neat and it's purposeful.
Roddenberry was precise about everything.
Nothing was an accident.
That makes sense, because I know in next Generation, Picard is like very uh, he's a Shakespeare fan.
There's actually like plays that they do on the holodeck and stuff, and I know in some of the original series there are very sort of Shakespearean characters.
There's very.
There's some episodes that are very like theatrical flourishing, where they meet like a, someone who claims to be a Greek god, or they meet like an old, like French nobleman, or it's very uh, Shakespearean in their delivery.
Yeah well, it's astute of you to notice.
Yes, Star Trek is actually a lot deeper than people think it is, and so what you see in the next generation is a reflection of oh and uh rip uh, Nichelle Nichols passed away this time yeah wow yeah yeah, she was really one of the first like as a, as a little black girl growing up loving sci-fi, she was really the first black woman that I ever looked at and thought, oh that, like if I was pretending to be something, or sometimes me and my friends would play like Star Trek outside or something.
She was the first one.
I wanted to be her.
You know, I wanted to be Ohura, I wanted to.
Plus, I always loved how she sat like she was great on the show.
Yeah, she had her knee up and she always looked like super in charge and also super sexy at the same time just a total boss girl.
Loved her.
God bless Nichelle Nichols.
She was a real um.
She made a lot of change to the industry that we take for granted.
Now that really came in with her.
This has been Star Trek Facts.
You guys have the Lord Of The Ring podcast.
When do we get to start Like, I finally have somebody here who wants to talk Star Trek rather than Lord Of The Rings?
I'll talk Lord of the Rings too.
Yeah, Star Trek.
I like Lord of the Rings.
I'm just not as encyclopedic knowledge of it.
I was just reading the interview with Peter Jackson.
He was saying that he wished he was trying to see if he could get hypnosis to erase the memories of making the movies so he could just watch the movies.
Haven't we all been there?
Yeah, we have.
Yeah, I wish I could delete my memory.
So, speaking of stuff that we'd like to delete from our memories, the Democrats passed through the Senate 5150 with Kamala Harris being the tiebreaker, the Inflation Reduction Act.
I'm glad that this will reduce inflation.
Yeah, I'm sure this will reduce inflation.
So, it's got to go through the Democrat-controlled house and then be signed by Biden, which maybe that will have happened by the time this episode comes out.
Yeah, we are so screwed.
And it spends $430 billion on climate change goals, and they hired 87,000 new IRS agents.
It's part of reducing inflation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what you need to reduce inflation.
According to this, it's claiming that 70,000 of them are armed.
I saw that report a few places.
I haven't verified yet.
I don't know what that means.
They have arms.
That's probably what it means.
Which is important for calculator users.
That's right.
Yeah.
And also forcing people to sign away their lives to the government.
Yeah, I did see one.
I did see one moderate that was kind of saying, okay, well, there's a little bit of frothing at the mouth over this because the IRS loses so many agents every year that this bill is saying over the next 10 years, we're going to hire enough to keep replenishing that and growing it a little bit, which I think is still bad.
It's not necessarily raising the total number of IRS agents at any given point.
Like right now, there will be 87,000 new ones.
I still think it's bad.
I'm sure most Americans would be fine with the IRS just slowly losing lives.
I think we'd all be okay with it.
That sounds like the best of all worlds.
Just let them die off or peel off and then one day, last person out, turn off the lights.
You know?
Well, at least we get a $6.5 billion natural gas tax, $124 billion stock tax.
This will only affect the rich, so I'm not worried about it.
Yeah.
I'm not worried at all.
And in fact, I'm just really excited for all the inflation that's going to go down.
Inflation is just going to go down.
Just this morning, the White House announced 0% inflation.
Did you see this?
I did see that.
I did see it.
She announced there was no inflation.
0%.
That's amazing.
You know, I am also a millionaire.
I'm just announcing it today.
Yeah.
I actually have a million dollars in my purse.
Oh, wow.
Now all those new tax laws are going to affect you because you're rich now.
You're going to get audited.
Dang.
Let's go to our producer, Dan.
This is his favorite story of the week.
Photos show handwritten notes that Trump apparently ripped and attempted to flush down the toilet.
Every time for about an hour or two earlier in the week on Monday, every time I looked over at Dan, his computer was a different website's article about the toilet flushing.
It was just pictures of toilets in every tab on his computer.
So Trump has denied these allegations, though.
So how did they figure this out?
A plumber was like.
I don't know who found them.
Axios had these pictures, and there was always these rumors that Trump would occasionally flush documents and notes down the toilet.
Now, I think the story is very funny, and the pictures are funny.
One of them, it has, what's the name on it?
There's the name of one of the other Republican senators.
Congress people was on it.
I forget who it was.
Yeah, Stephonic.
That's who it was.
But even these pictures, they sensationalize that like Trump's been flushing all these like top secret documents down the toilet.
All they have pictures of is like one little note that he like tore up and it's like does that really prove much?
Well, I think the most scandalous thing about this is that like that's what the toilet in the White House looks like.
Yes.
This is like I don't, I think of the white.
I don't know.
I've never been to the toilet in the White House, but I think of the toilet in the White House being a little better appointed.
Yeah.
I mean, you go, like you see pictures of these Saudi Arabian princes and they have gold toilets.
Like, couldn't we give our president like a custom?
It looks like a high-tech bulletproof toilet called The Beast.
I'm going to use The Beast.
This is where the president goes after our spiciest lunches.
It can handle any load.
And Kamala Harris's is the Beast 2 or something.
They just start numbering them up.
Now we just hope the president makes it to the toilet.
He doesn't need to.
He probably has diapers.
What does that mean?
Well, Dan, did we spend, yeah, it was mean, but that's fine.
Dan, did we spend enough time on your favorite story?
I'm going to say yes.
Is there anything you wanted to add to it, Dan, that we missed?
Yeah.
This really was his favorite story of the week.
I guess wrote it in the notes.
He said, this is Dan's favorite story.
It's reminiscent of the Trump climbing into the front seat of the limo to redirect the limo.
It's like that.
It's so, it feels desperate.
It feels like.
Did you see him joking about that in his speech?
Oh my goodness.
Oh, it was so funny.
He acts it out.
He's like, then these strong, strong Secret Service agents, I pushed them aside and ripped the wheel away from them.
He's such a stand-up comedian.
What I love about Trump and these stories that come out is not that I don't think they happen because they probably did.
Make some version of them.
Some version.
I don't think the limo thing to me, but stuff like him flushing stuff down the toilet, but it's just funny to me being Trump and it's not the end of democracy that he ripped up a noise.
Right.
They always try to treat these stories that way.
Yeah.
And like even if he tried to grab the steering wheel, I always say like, okay, that's bad, but what is, was it reckless trip?
And then what?
What are you trying to get?
What are you trying to drive it right into this capital building?
Everything they said was true.
It still doesn't prove what they're saying.
Right.
Well, Kira, what's going on in the world of Diablo?
I don't know if you've heard the story about Diablo.
I'm not known for my avid gaming skills, but I do a little bit of gaming from time to time.
A gamer has spent $100,000 on leveling up a Diablo character, and he sued the game developers when he couldn't find anyone else on his level to play with.
Oh, my God.
So this must be Diablo Immortal.
Yeah, it's Diablo Immortal.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
It must be Diablo Immortal.
Fully maxing out your character would cost $600,000.
These are games where you spend real money to upgrade your.
It's a mobile game, so you can level, you can just play the game normally.
Yeah.
But the game kind of encourages you, like, well, you could, you know, spend a few hours trying to grind in the next level.
Or, oh, I spend 50 bucks.
Okay.
I have a confession to make.
A confession time.
I was scoffing at this story, but I may have spent a few hundred dollars on Angry Birds doing this.
Oh, man.
A few hundred, you think?
Yeah, I might be in that range like over the years that I played Angry Birds because it's all you can grind to the next level or you can be like, screw it, give me a million feathers.
And then you give them your $10.
And it's so, they do craft video gaming like they craft slot machines.
Oh, yeah, they make it to be addictive.
Yes, and it is.
The only game I would have ever come close to that on is Pokemon Go, which I played for four or five years.
Yeah.
And I think I played it two or three years without paying.
And then at some point, it was like, I need more Pokeballs.
Yeah.
Give me the Pokeballs or whatever it was.
And so I probably ended up spending 50 or 60.
But you know, you buy a new game for 50 or 60 bucks anyway.
So it's like a game that gives you that many years of enjoyment.
I'm like, eh, okay.
But yeah, these games are designed to focus.
They call them whales, people that spend like hundreds of thousands of dollars on these games.
Really?
I've heard of like crypto whales.
Yeah, you can be a whale in a bank.
You can be a whale.
Yeah, you absolutely can.
You can be a whale in the stock market.
But like, okay, who has $100,000?
This is what I want to know.
Like, who has the $100,000 to drop on a video game to get to the top level?
Like, what kind of person does that?
Nerds.
There's probably nerds that make a lot of money.
Like, who knows?
Tech nerds.
Tech, tech sector, Wall Street.
I'm sure there's lots of rich people.
Maybe it's someone's dumb kid.
Trust fun kid.
Yeah.
It could be cards.
You know, well, and it doesn't say he necessarily has the $100,000, just that he's spent it.
He could now owe.
He could now owe his credit card company $100,000 from his IHOP job.
That's hilarious that he paid all that money and he got to the top and now he has no one to play with.
It's like that.
It's like that Twilight Zone episode.
I can't remember the name of it, where the guy loves to read and all he wants to do is read.
Time enough at last.
What's it called?
Time enough at last.
Time enough at last.
Or that's at least what he shouts.
And then he gets thrown into this nuclear winter where he's the only survivor.
And finally, he has all the time in the world to read.
And what happens?
His glasses break.
So that's what this poor guy, his glasses broke.
He got all the way to the top level.
And now.
Speaking of glasses breaking, this was my favorite video of the week.
Did you see the video of Biden trying to put on his jacket and he can't get his arm through the sleeve?
Well, it's true.
Should we watch it?
Let's take a look at this.
Oh, my God.
Look how uncomfortable Jill looks.
And look at the army guys just standing there at attention.
I feel like this is when you're trying to make the British guards laugh.
They're not allowed to laugh at what's happening.
It's so sad, man.
Like, she didn't want to help him.
And then he's still, even she has to physically put his arm into the sleeve.
It's embarrassing.
And then, oh, I guess it's all over.
He's got his jacket on now.
What else could go wrong?
It could be.
I did it.
Oh, there it goes.
Jill.
Jill.
Look at Jill.
It's like, oh, for God's sake, Joe.
Oh, and here's another one where he already shook the guy's hand.
Is this Chuck Schumer?
He already shakes Chuck Schumer's hand.
And then he does the chin.
I was just scratching my chin.
Oh, my God.
He looks like so offended that Chuck Schumer didn't shake his hand a second time.
He's like, yeah, no, he does that though.
Then he does it when people, I have seen him do that where he goes in for the hug again or the shake again.
And then the person who obviously just did it walks by and he's like, hey, what's going on?
Oh my gosh.
What a, that's so embarrassing.
Well, speaking of old presidents, Trump was just raided by the FBI.
This is the big story of the week, of course.
The FBI searched former President Donald Trump's residence at his Mar-a-La Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida on Monday.
So I guess they had a warrant that was looking for specific material.
Some news outlets were reporting that they are looking for evidence that he removed classified documents that he wasn't supposed to off White House.
It's unclear what the classified documents are.
They said it's just stuff that's supposed to be in the National Archives.
Yeah.
It seems, I mean, there's a lot of rumors that they're just looking for January 6th related evidence and using this as a cover for it.
But it really is crazy that they've taken it this far.
And it's wild to me that, yeah, it's a former president of a different party and the current party is raiding his home.
Very dangerous precedent.
And nobody's the leading candidate for the next election.
And they're just, yeah, it's like nobody believes that this was just some like, you know, yeah, exercise of justice that needed to happen.
Like Donald Trump accidentally took the Declaration of Independence with him and we have to go get it back.
That's basically their story.
We're two years out.
Yeah, forgive me again for the Trump presidency.
Like we have, we haven't, he hasn't been in the White House in two years.
We are so far beyond where we were.
at this time in 2020, you know, or when Trump was still president, that the whole thing feels surreal.
It just feels, and it's scary because now we've officially weaponized the FBI.
If I was an incoming Republican president in the next election, I'd be making sure that I weaponized they can retaliate.
It's going to start this pattern of, you know, investigating criminally your opponent.
It's escalation.
Yeah.
It's not a good look.
And it's so scary because, you know, you're not supposed to be able to weaponize, for instance, the Department of Justice or the FBI.
And now that it is, it's like, well, who oversees that?
If you're already using the FBI to carry out these political hits and the Justice Department is involved, there's no oversight for anybody.
But it's always been this way.
I actually tweeted this out this week.
I said, you know, black people have been complaining about the FBI for 60, 75 years.
In the black community, even when you go back to the civil rights movements, even like pre-civil rights movement days, I'm not sure when the FBI was formed officially, but they were monitoring Martin Luther King.
They were putting cameras and recording them.
They were making plants.
The way that people, the January 6th people are saying, hey, the FBI planted people here to instigate chaos.
That's what black activists were saying in the civil rights movement.
They were saying the FBI is planting people.
And they've said it the whole time, but it's always been dismissed by the talking heads as like paranoia or just sort of racial grievances.
And it's like, no, this has always, we've always been saying this, but now that it's affecting like the larger now that they've gone after an orange person.
Yeah, now they went after an orange community.
When they came from the orange community, there was no one left to speak for me.
So it's like this has always been happening.
And it's just like people got wise to the police maybe not always being on your side through COVID, right?
Black people have been complaining about that forever.
I listen to the black people.
Yes, Kyle listens to the black people.
Kira can vouch for me.
I always listen to the black.
I have a black friend named Kirin.
I have a card that you get and everything.
I hand it out.
I need to get one.
I need to get one.
So maybe we're not that close.
Maybe we're going to get a lot of people.
Yeah, you didn't get your cards.
You get to show it.
So one of the main aspects of criticism over this has just been that the type of crime that was committed doesn't seem to have warranted a raid.
Yeah.
They might not just say like, hey, return those documents.
And I heard that they were going back and forth with Trump's representatives about these documents that are missing.
And they, the last communication that I read, they had was like, they told them, well, hold on to those documents for the time being.
And there's no follow-up until we're going to break into your home.
And no one's seen this warrant.
And you're safe.
Yeah.
No one's seen the warrant yet, which I guess Trump has, right?
Or he has the warrant that they've actually served him.
They don't have the application for the warrant, but they have the.
Does he have the warrant?
Last I heard his lawyer said they have not seen the warrant.
Oh, okay.
And maybe he flushed it down the toilet.
Also, like just the whole, there's another theory.
I'm not sure if I believe this or not, but there's another theory that's like, well, this is an attempt.
It's like another January 6th attempt just to rile up the extreme fringe base of the Trump wing and get them to maybe inspire backlash and buy.
Poking him with a stick.
Do something.
Do the insurrection.
I don't know how much truth to lend to that, but it's an angle.
So Andrew Yang criticized it on those grounds.
Megan McCain criticized it and said, this better be legit or you're making him a martyr and just handing him 2024 on a silver platter.
And Andrew Cuomo commented on it too.
Remember that guy?
Oh, yeah.
He was the next president of the United States.
He was America's governor, whatever.
Yeah, there's a lot of Cuomosexuals out there.
Yes.
What did he say?
DOJ must immediately explain the reason for its raid, and it must be more than a search for inconsequential archives or it will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation legitimacy of January 6th investigation.
That's interesting.
So there are even people on the other side that are saying you don't have something.
Because they all have something and they all know that they're all vulnerable.
That's the subtext is, don't do this to my house.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
FBI raids on former politics.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Except Hillary Clinton.
She was all for it.
She tweeted out her but her emails.
Hillary Clinton.
The worst person.
The only crime she ever committed was stealing our hearts.
Oh, she tweeted out her buttons.
She tweeted out her butts hat that you can purchase.
Okay.
I mean, this point has been made, you know, to death now, but it is true.
You look at the way the FBI treats Trump, and you look at what went on with Hillary and what she got away with.
You look at Hunter Biden, what he got away with.
There's nobody tried in these real evidence of real crimes, and they're still just raiding and jailing as many presidents as possible, but do it evenly.
Yeah.
Yes, exactly.
I mean, we can go there if you want, but like this whole game.
I mean, the Clintons sent a staffer in to the National Archives and he stuffed papers down his pants and took them out.
Incriminating Clinton documents.
So that whole thing is, it's ridiculous.
Are they handing him 2024 on a platter or are they trying to rile up the base?
I have no idea.
I think it may have been a misstep unless they find something incredible.
Well, good job, FBI.
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Or visit allegiancegold.com slash B-E-E.
Banger of the week.
Hunter Biden breathes a sigh of relief as FBI raid passes by his house on the way to Mar-a-Long.
Great little Photoshop.
It was weird.
It's weird that he's wearing clothes, though.
Yeah, he's literally naked.
Yeah, he's naked in there.
It reminds me a little bit of the neighbor from Bewitch, just like looking out his window.
Like, what's going on outside?
Well, isn't there a picture?
It is like reminiscent of that Joe Biden picture where he's just staring at the women.
Oh, yeah, the Biden's staring at the White House.
Very confused.
The Bidens are quite the family.
It's like you have dynasties, and you're like, okay, I hate them, but I get it.
Like, I get how the Clintons got so powerful.
You know, they're on top of it.
They run everything with an iron fist.
They get the Kennedys.
They were charming.
It's a machine.
You get why it's a thing.
I get that.
Even the Trumps, in a way, they have the power of celebrity behind them, but the Biden family is just like mess from Adam.
Yes.
I don't know.
I like them.
We also had a bomb of the week.
Bomb of the week.
Man taken up into heaven after stopping gas pump exactly on the 0-0.
Nice.
It's a good one.
I like it.
I like that.
Yeah.
Whoever came up with that was really funny.
I have an inkling who it was.
And now it's time for the best segment of every week, Sizzler Facts.
25 weeks ago, we debuted a new feature to the podcast called Sizzler Facts.
Kira, have you been here for a Sizzler Fact?
I was here for one of the first Sizzler Facts.
And yeah, we had a lovely picture of a Sizzler.
I think Adam was in that picture.
Oh, was he in the picture?
Oh, I think I was in the picture.
I think Kyle was in the picture walking by the Sizzler.
Yeah.
Kira, would you like to read our Sizzler Fact today?
Yeah.
It's the only reason I come to the B anymore.
Harsh.
The earliest way back machine snapshot of Sizzler.com from 1998 is actually a pornographic website.
Luckily, no images have been preserved.
By 2001, the site had gone under.
The earliest versions of the actual Sizzler website appear to have been built in Flash, so they are no longer accessible.
Sadly, at some point in 2007, the Flash introduction was removed, and this is the glorious site you can see.
There is a quick poll on the front page asking what your favorite comfort food is, but it is sadly no longer functional.
So take a look at this historic document.
Yes.
Well, one of the original Sizzler.
In the mid-2000s, they were into this frames thing where everything had like that thin white line.
Everything was in boxes like that.
Yeah.
I like it.
It's like a newsletter.
It's organized look.
It's a news.
It's based on like newsletter templates.
Yeah.
And I tried to click on that virtual test kitchen, which I thought sounded interesting, but it was just a link to join their newsletter.
And what are the options for favorite?
Did you join the Sizzler newsletter?
No, because it didn't work anymore.
Favorite comfort food candidates are steak and baked potato, fried shrimp or chicken, cheeseburger and fries, or D, any form of chocolate.
I think I'd say steak and baked potato out of that list.
Yeah.
I'd go steak and baked potatoes, my favorite.
Cheeseburger is a solid.
I'm with Adam.
Yeah.
Wait, I said the same thing, though.
Right.
I'm with Kyle, too.
I'm with Adam, and I guess that means I'm with Kyle.
Adam's been on my podcast, though, and you haven't been on it.
That's right.
But I got to get Adam on there a third time before I get you on there.
We got to keep breaking each other's podcast guest record.
So steak and baked potato for you also?
I think so, yeah.
With a little sour cream.
This has been Sizzler Facts.
Now it is time for B Radio from Austin Robertson.
Now, you may not hear B Radio on the B Weekly anymore going forward because this will be moving to its own podcast feed.
So check that out on BabylonB.com and you can subscribe and all your favorite podcast platforms.
You'll be able to find B-Radio, and a few times a week, you'll get Austin's lovely voice, like honey, pouring into your ears.
Factually inaccurate.
Morally correct.
This is Babylon B-Radio.
Our top story.
High-level Chinese asset and sex trafficker Hunter Biden breathed a sigh of relief this week as an FBI raid team passed by his West Palm Beach vacation home to raid Donald Trump's residence in Mar-a-Lago.
Phew.
Thought they had me for a minute there.
Biden sighed, according to sources, before going back to smoking crack with a hooker on a pile of cash freshly delivered by Chinese agents.
Glad to know the FBI is still working for my dad.
The FBI arrived at Mar-a-Lago shortly after, but things got awkward when the FBI raid team ran into the FBI evidence planting team due to a scheduling mistake.
Former President Trump addressed a crowd of thousands gathered outside his resort, thanking the FBI for officially kicking off his re-election campaign.
I would like to thank the FBI.
Remember them, the FBI?
How about those beauties, huh?
They came into my home to make your favorite president look like a criminal.
Unbelievable.
Such losers.
Such losers.
But everyone still loves me, so it's okay.
They didn't even find anything.
I'm going to be the president again.
Sources close to Trump say his first act as president will be to hire his own appointed FBI director, Christopher Wray, and replace him with a used dust mop from the Capitol Janitor's Closet before raising the Hoover Building and banishing all FBI agents to Gitmo.
I'm going to fire everyone, literally everyone in government.
Federal Reserve, gone.
EPA, gone.
CIA, gone.
Department of Education, ATF, HHS, gone, gone, gone.
The news media responded to Trump's statement by calling him a, quote, threat to democracy worse than Hitler, while tearing their clothes and heaping dust upon the crowns of their heads.
At airtime, Trump's approval had gone up over 30%, only to plunge again after he made another nasty comment about Mika Brzezinski's facelift.
We've received an update from Mar-a-Lago where Trump was last seen fleeing on a golf cart, shouting, you'll never take me alive, coppers, at federal agents.
Witnesses claim he led authorities on a daring chase that reached speeds of up to 30 miles per hour, weaving between golfers at the country club.
Trump reportedly did doughnuts on the eighth hole, maneuvering so expertly that federal agents crashed into each other.
He then headed for the property's gates, launching off a ramp hidden by shrubbery and corkscrewed over a moat of alligators.
The FBI warns that Trump is still at large and extremely dangerous.
As DC resources begin to buckle under the strain of thousands of migrants being sent to the nation's capital from Texas, the Biden administration has taken steps to solve the problem by hiring them all as IRS agents.
Those migrants are hard workers, folks.
Let's make them tax collectors.
Give these people a gun and an IRS badge and put them to work, taking money from people.
Poor kids can audit just as good as white kids.
No joke.
Experts say Americans have been clamoring for more IRS agents for decades and are looking forward to having their finances examined and confiscated more than ever before.
If this doesn't work, I'll just take everyone's money by printing it and devaluing the dollar.
That worked pretty well, too.
Biden then shook hands with a space of empty air to his right that he mistook for the IRS commissioner.
At airtime, the migrants had already audited the entire country and handpicked the fall harvest with time to spare.
Cultural critic James Lindsay has been suspended from Twitter for persistently criticizing teachers who sexualize small children.
Though Twitter announced a permanent ban, Lindsay was able to sneak back on the platform by simply declaring himself an actual teacher who sexualizes small children.
Who do you do, fellow elementary sex educators? said Lindsay via his new Twitter persona, Jamison Lintergarten.
Gosh, I sure do love teaching children about my sexuality and helping them find their true pronouns.
The new bio from Mr. Lintergarten has already earned accolades from the pedophile community, with many applauding his remarkable courage.
Initial comments included affirming tweets from profiles with diverse handles like at Groom the Kids, at Twerk4Teacher, and at Don't Tell Your Mom.
Twitter is in the process of awarding Lintergarten a blue check and giving him 300,000 bot followers to help boost his reach.
At airtime, the Biden administration announced Mr. Lintergarten will receive the National Teacher of the Year Award to be presented by Rachel Levine.
That ain't no woman.
It's a man, man.
As the U.S. State Department continues to negotiate with the Kremlin for release of Britney Griner, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he will not let go of the WNBA star for anything less than a first edition foil Charizard Pokemon card.
I must save this card.
Then my Pokemon collection will finally be complete.
This card is very hard to find in Russia.
I don't want any terrorist prisoners or Russian arms dealers.
I only want the card.
The card I have dreamed of for ages.
Oh, yeah, it must be Jim Mint's condition, too.
No blemishes.
I'm not messing around with you Americans.
State Department officials have taken the offer to President Biden.
Not a chance, man.
It took me forever to get that card.
I'll go give you a second edition blast toys and throw in a few terrorists and my son Hunter.
Take it or leave it.
Biden finally agreed to release every Russian prisoner in U.S. custody and send $52 billion in exchange for nothing.
After once again finding herself with 14 million messages asking for prayer, the Blessed Virgin Mary decided to finally just set her voicemail to forward directly to Jesus.
People, I'm exhausted.
I can't listen to your messages anymore.
Besides, every message is virtually the same.
42 words repeated over and over again.
I get it.
You want me to pray for you?
You realize you can pray directly to my son, right?
Mama needs a break.
Mary stated that she began to consider forwarding her voicemail after seeing her most recent screen time update.
Last week, I literally spent 99.9 of my time here in heaven on the phone, listening to prayer requests.
And I only got further behind.
It's just not healthy to be on my phone that much.
I think the blue light's really starting to affect me.
Though her voicemail forwarding has caused much consternation down on earth, the Blessed Mother has promised not to give it up entirely.
I really hope putting my messages on automatic forwarding for a bit will help everyone calm down about me as we all worship Christ together.
At airtime, Protestants and Catholics decided the plan was silly and planned to fight about Mary even harder.
Now you're up to date on the only news that matters.
Find more fake news you can trust at BabylonB.com.
Until next time, this is Austin Robertson, the voice of the Babylon Bee.
So long.
Thanks, Austin.
That was great.
What's our next segment?
Oh, it looks like next we have weekly news with Adam Jenser.
Americans are discovering that if we want to change the nation, we have to change the way the marketplace works.
And that change starts with you, with your local communities, and with your wallet.
Be deliberate with your dollars and reject woke corporations.
Imagine a world in which every single dollar you spend would go towards companies that share your values for life, liberty, and patriotism.
Now with the Public Square app, you can.
Public SQ, or Public Square, is an app and website that connects freedom-loving Americans to the community and companies that share their values.
Engage in a nationwide platform with the largest directory of patriotic businesses and consumers, all while accessing exclusive savings at businesses that see the world the way you do.
The marketplace is free to join for consumers and business owners alike.
To get started and shop your values, download the Public Square app from the App Store or Google Play, or click on the link in the video description.
It's time for the weekly news with Adam Jenser.
After isolating for a second week with another bout of COVID, Joe Biden tested negative on Saturday.
His doctor said he's fully recovered and should live a long, healthy few more months.
Sounds like he'll be back on his feet and falling down in no time.
After hearing that Biden was feeling better, Nancy Pelosi gently woke him up to let him know she started a war with China while he was out sick.
While speaking during her trip to Asia, Nancy Pelosi said that she's always felt a special connection to China because she was told as a little girl that if you dig a hole at the beach, it would reach China.
Pelosi added that she feels a special connection to the Chinese people because her husband is also a terrible driver.
The Biden administration celebrated a higher-than-expected job report last month with over 500,000 new jobs added.
And in more good news for America's future, Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian aren't going to reproduce.
Pete and Kim announced that they've ended their nine-month-long relationship, which means Kim Kardashian will return to her quiet life of modest chastity, patiently waiting for her Boaz.
As water levels continue to drop in Nevada's Lake Mead, a fourth set of human remains has been found.
Las Vegas is already planning to capitalize on the discoveries with the Luxor Hotel's new Body's the Exhibition Best of Lake Mead.
Teapox, the only known drug that treats monkeypox, has become extremely hard to find due to FDA restrictions.
Luckily, if there's one thing gays know how to do at a party, it's obtain illegal drugs.
As ice melts in Greenland, billionaires, including Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, are funding a massive treasure hunt for rare minerals that could power millions of electric vehicles.
They say the hardest part will be getting African children to Greenland to mine the minerals.
This past weekend, Pacifica Beach, California hosted the annual Surf Dog World Dog Surfing Championships, or as sharks call it, the annual hot dog eating contest.
Pacifica Beach is in the Bay Area, and the dogs said it was beautiful except for all the people poop on the sidewalk.
By a margin of 59% to 41%, voters in the usually conservative state of Kansas rejected a bill that would have banned abortion.
Of course, Kansas has a long history of celebrating and protecting murderers.
Author David McCullough, who wrote several best-selling books about American history, died at the age of 89.
And coincidentally, there may not be much American history left.
While on the road with the band Train, singer Jules Torbus caught fire and burned.
Jules said she's glad no one was hurt, but is still devastated that she has to perform with Train tonight.
Johnny Depp has signed a new seven-figure deal with Dior to continue promoting their Sauvage fragrance.
Sauvage, if you slept in poop all night, cover the smell with sauvage.
That's it for weekly news.
Come see me live at the Comedy Catch in Tennessee, August 25th to 27th, and at McCurdy's Comedy Theater in Sarasota, Florida, September 1st to 4th.
Ah, that was great, Adam.
Thank you.
Very funny.
What did you think of?
I laughed till I cried.
Well, that's what we try to do.
I do a lot of crying when I come to the bee.
We're very mean to you.
Yeah, that's what you see on camera.
It's a toxic workplace.
This is the second one I've worked for.
Oh, yeah, okay.
I remembered what the first one was.
So church is a crazy place sometimes.
Church can get crazy.
Yeah, it was so weird to me how much drama there is at church compared with any other social setting or company.
Like you go to churches and it's just so intensely personal.
It's got its own little political mechanism, gossiping.
Yeah.
So where are we all coming from?
You're a Lutheran.
I'm a Lutheran, yep.
I was raised ELCA now, Missouri Synod.
Yeah, so you became a real Christian at some point.
I grew up in the kind of mainline Baptisty moved more a little Southern Baptisty and bounced around a little that kind of non-denominational Baptisty type thing.
And are you a Christian?
Yes, I am a Christian.
No, I am not yet.
Yes, I was raised by atheists.
I had a conversion experience and I've never belonged to a denomination.
I guess I'm one of those dirty evangelicals.
Okay.
So like mainline, like center of the road.
Sure.
I don't know.
Can women be pastors?
No.
Okay.
I think we had this conversation.
We had this conversation.
It was actually, I had a number.
You sold a number of subscriptions by putting that on the pay side.
I had a lot of fans who were like, they asked you this question if you believed in women pastors.
And I thought, this is the test if I follow Kira or not.
So I bought a subscription so I could see if you gave the right answer.
Oh, I see.
No, I don't believe women should be pastors.
Don't say it till the pay, till behind the page.
All right, but we asked our subscribers and our YouTube commenters for their craziest church stories.
And I thought we could throw in some of ours as well.
Okay.
Now it's time for weird church stories.
So we'll go ahead and read.
This is from It's My Fault.
He says, the kids were putting on a program and one of the kids threw up.
The instinct of the teacher sitting beside him, who was an ex-football player, was to catch the throw up in his hands.
It was hilarious.
It just sounds gross.
Let me just react.
Throw-up is so gross to me.
It's hard for me to find it funny because I'm just repulsed by it.
Can I just say this while I have the platform to say it?
Absolutely.
No.
Hollywood.
We do not need to see people throwing up on camera.
I will.
It's not necessary.
I get it.
If I hear the sound and they are retching and they're getting for the toilet, I get it.
I do not need to see stuff coming out of the person's mouth.
I have never seen it in a show and been like, this show is better for having that.
The only thing I think that was ever funny was in Team America World Police, where the puppet throws up for five minutes.
Or Stand By Me.
Oh, I don't think I know the Stand By Me one.
Barfarama?
You're so young.
I've seen it, but it's been a while.
I feel like I'm, well, I don't.
I, you're.
I'm way older than you.
Barfarama, help me out, everybody.
Come on.
Just look it up by me.
It's been a long time.
I don't remember.
I think it's more, I feel like it's a movie I should have seen.
I just have it.
I think it's worth seeing, and I think you would like it.
No, I agree 99.9% of the time.
No reason to show Barf in a movie.
Okay, maybe if it's a gimmick, because it was disgusting, but it's for comedic effect.
It looks so fake.
It looks so fake in Pitch Perfect because she barfs the orange slurpy.
That's how Barfarama in Stand By Me is.
So it's like a gimmick.
But you're right.
The idea of like, this person's not feeling well or she's pregnant or she's like the sounds.
I'm okay with the sounds.
I feel the same way about like sex in movies too.
Like I get what happens.
No, I'm okay with that.
Yeah.
No, I'm just kidding.
Just show like kiss and then wake up together in the morning.
No, Adam.
Adam's like.
I'm okay with the sex.
I understand reasons to be against it, but I can't say anyways.
Sorry about that sidebar.
Now, back to church stories.
So it's from Brendan Newton.
I visited a church that had a guitar soloist that came out during worship and he played for like seven minutes.
I think we've all been there.
We visited a church one time and they were playing a Jeremy Camp song, which I don't think was really that much of a worship song.
It was just kind of a Christian-y song.
Yeah.
And it was like all old guys.
It was clear that they wanted to be in a rock band when they were younger and could never make it, you know?
And after the verse or the bridge or whatever, one of them goes, let's all listen to this solo.
And then the old guy comes up and starts and we walked out.
We left.
We were just like, okay, we're done.
Well, you all don't even, you guys have not had a treat unless you've been to a black church.
And then you have seen, like, you know, the oldest auntie in the church be like, God has told me he's got a word for you.
And then go up and just improvise a spiritual song for 45 minutes.
Like, that's a regular witnessing open mic.
Oh, yes.
The witness open mic is a real thing.
Well, if my black friend invited me to church, sometimes she goes to a church with white folks now.
So we don't have any of that fun stuff.
We are.
Now I go to a mega church in Southern California.
So we are like, we don't have room for the Holy Spirit.
We are in at 11.
We are out by 12:30.
The worship band has 20 minutes.
You don't have time to riff.
You don't have time.
Yeah.
But it is a rock show.
We have lights and everything.
Do you want to read the next one here from Adam?
Adam says that he's on the AV team.
And on the Sunday after 9-11, the board decided it was time to die spectacularly with a loud sound akin to automatic weapons fire.
It was great.
Oh my gosh.
That's fantastic.
That's terrifying.
This is from Crystal Hill.
Tried a new church, and the whole message was on Acts 29.
My husband and I were searching for Acts 29.
Acts only goes to 28.
The whole message was about what comes after Acts, but there was no verses.
Then the pastor threw chocolate golden nuggets out, like the Hershey's ones.
They were golden bricks of truth.
We didn't go back.
Now, I was tracking because I've heard the Acts 29 thing before.
Like, they'll say, we, the church, are Acts 29.
Oh, okay.
I've heard that like used.
Oh, they lost me with the chocolate golden nuggets of nuggets.
Oh, Lord.
That sounds like, that sounds like a black church to me.
Here's one from Kelly.
There was a guy sitting in the front pew, and he pulled out a 12-inch subway sandwich and started eating it during our sacrament meeting.
My family was sitting right behind, dying, laughing.
And then when he ate the whole thing, he bent over, reached underneath the pew, and pulled out a two-liter jug of brave flavored soda pop.
He drank the whole thing.
It was the best meeting ever.
Wow.
That's fantastic.
Wow.
Do you guys say pop or soda?
I say soda.
I cringed a little saying the word pop, even reading it because I don't like that word.
Yeah, when you go to the Midwest, it's pop.
In Canada, it's pop, but I always thought soda sounded very American.
Soda is always what I call it.
I waffle between soda and coke.
Sometimes I'll say coke to mean a generic, like, give me a coke.
Yeah, coke.
I prefer East Coast thing.
I prefer even Coke to pop.
No pop or soda pop here.
Soda, I think, is the best one, but we'll let that one go.
Yeah.
Kira, it's your turn to read Hughes.
A man with Down syndrome stole a potted plant from me, and I didn't have the guts to stand up for myself.
I don't think Hugh knew what we were doing.
Wait, I think you misunderstood the assignment.
It happened so fast.
Okay, Hugh, this is for you.
He doesn't even say that it happened in church.
Hugh says, let me read it again because I was laughing.
A man with Down syndrome stole a potted plant from me and I didn't have the guts to stand up for myself.
He got busted by the Down syndrome.
And you know what?
That guy probably church stories.
That guy probably takes so much from people knowing that they're not going to stand up.
If you had Down syndrome, you know, you could just do whatever you wanted.
Steal as many potted places.
That's a boss move right there, actually.
Based Down syndrome guy.
All right, here's one from David Russell.
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban walked in and sat three pews in front of us.
Oh, that's cool.
That's an interesting story.
So, this brings my Denzel Washington store.
I think I've told this before.
No, I have not.
You have a Denzel Washington story.
I could have sworn I've told you.
Kyle, no, you didn't tell me I would remember the date.
We visited a black church in South Central LA and it was for a college assignment.
Go visit a black church.
Oh, thank you.
Because it was all white people on the college.
So you had to go.
That was really the assignment.
No, it was go visit a church that's outside your normal like denomination.
The subtext is go visit a black church.
I read between the lines.
Or one of those Korean churches with the white vans.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So anyway, we go and it's a massive church.
And they did the whole, they did the, I've never seen this done before, but they did the offering time and they said, they passed it around the plate and then they said, stand up if you gave money.
And so everybody who gave money stood up.
Oh boy.
Yeah.
And they said, remain standing if you gave more than.
And so they, so it was like an elimination game.
Oh, that's a black church.
So they start getting up to percentage of income.
And they're like, if you gave 5% of your income, if you gave 10%, I think they got up to like 25% of your income.
And we're like looking around and like three pews in front of us is Denzel Washington and he's still standing.
And we're like, okay, well, I guess we know why they have this big building.
Oh.
So my, my, so then they did meet and greet time, and my brother and my wife both got up and walked all the way down to him and like scooted in the pew and shook his head.
Oh, wow, good for them.
I wouldn't have the and my wife said he has soft hands.
So it's like it says in the Bible, when you give to charity, stay standing until everyone knows you gave the most.
First of all, kudos to your wife and brother for doing that.
Second of all, that's exactly what I always imagined Denzel Washington's hands feel like.
They said very soft.
They said they were very soft.
Yeah, just soft.
Now, the sermon was like not, it was fine.
You know, he was talking about it was if you want to walk on water, you got to get out of the boat.
So it was like, it was kind of inspirational and just taken from the Bible.
It wasn't like he was doing an expositional thing, but it was cool that he was, I've like seen this in the movies, but you know, my black friends have never invited me to church.
So I didn't know that this was a thing.
Because white folks don't want to be in church for five hours on a Sunday.
But at the end, they he like start the sermon, just morphs into a song.
Yeah.
He's like, because the thing is that you have to have faith.
And the organ goes, sounds fun.
You got to have faith.
You got to have.
And then everybody jumps up, you know, and it's like there was no training.
I'm feeling it right now.
White people get so excited.
I love it.
I can't even, I could probably be a rich woman if I had a dime for every time a white person was like, I just wish my church could be more like your guys' church.
Like, you know, more like you.
I get it.
I get it.
And I hate boring church too.
But the flip side of that is that there's a lot of spiritual rot in the black church.
No church has nailed keeping it exciting, keep it to an hour.
I don't think it's possible.
Keep it exciting.
It's six and one, half a dozen to the other.
You get the show, and that's interesting, but then you're looking at a lot of people who aren't really being served.
What's the spiritual rot that you're talking about?
Well, like, it's a lot of show.
So that story of the people standing up in the pews, that's actually very common.
I know a lot of people who leave, a lot of black people have left their church just because they were like, there was one church I know, I had a pastor who left his former church because they had thousand row seats in the front pew, thousand dollar seats in the front pew.
So if you were at the thousand dollar level, they put your family in the front pew.
And now there's this conversation.
Pay to play.
Yeah, it really is.
So we also have, I mean, look at what's happening to black families.
I mean, 73% of our kids are born into single family households.
The nuclear family is, you know, we're black nuclear families are on the rise, but we're still dismally behind every other racial group.
I mean, we have a lot of spiritual rot in our community.
And the black church is also a powerful political presence.
So it's been politicized a lot.
So that's why you hear a lot of black pastors getting very political.
There's power in the social gospel and kind of a prosperity gospel maybe mixed up.
That was like Kamala Harris wanting to run ads in black churches.
I thought they did do some like addresses in there.
Yeah, my father-in-law is a pastor and had a church in Gary, Indiana for 40 years.
And he was the only pastor in town who wouldn't allow the politicians to come and campaign during service.
Or if they did, he was like, well, then both of you have to come.
Like, I'm not taking sides.
He never told us how to vote.
He always encouraged us at election time to follow what we know to be true about the gospel and the Bible, what it says about life, what it says about liberty.
But he never ever took to the mic to give a political message of any kind.
The closest he got is defending life.
Like he's obviously pro-life, but that's a spiritual position.
So yeah, there's that flip side to it.
So I always feel like, but you know what, Adam, you should go to a black church at least once and have that.
I think I did go to one in LA one time when I was first moved out here.
But yeah, I should, I should go again and check it out.
This was a fun experience to have.
So you're going to invite him and not me, just like you do on your podcast.
Just like you do on your podcast.
We should do like a video segment, like Adam goes to a black church.
And if any of our, if any of our viewers or listeners want to invite you, not a bad idea.
I'd come and, yeah.
Dude, you could do a man on the street the other day.
That'd be great.
That'd be awesome.
That'd be awesome.
Yeah.
Who are we at for the church story?
I think it's you.
This one is from Deanne.
I went into labor before the service, but we decided to go anyway because this was our fourth kid and we'd be closer to the hospital anyway.
Ended up having to leave halfway through and baby was born a little while later.
Yeah, we got to go to church.
Yeah, but we should go to church for that's very fourth kid.
Yeah, that's very fourth kid.
It's like, well, I don't know.
I don't have a family.
Adam is single and alone.
He doesn't know anything about families.
All right, this one's for you, Kira.
This is from Zach.
Our pastor, Zach says that our pastor was preaching about victory after a long, hard fight, but actually accidentally said long, hard fart.
Church dismiss.
Did they really dismiss?
All right, we're done.
I would be done.
I would be done.
Even at my age, I can't not laugh at a fart mistake.
All right, here's one from we just heard from Zach.
Here's one from Mac.
He says, Got into a fight, got a bloody nose, and broke the other guy's tooth out.
Was about 12 or 13 at this point.
One of the pastors found the blood in the hallway and freaked out.
I never told anyone that it was my blood.
LOL.
Wow.
Mac hardcore.
That's a great story.
Here's one from Aubrey.
I know I've already added one.
Oh, I guess she's.
But there is a bone in our church basement.
It looks exactly like a juvenile human femur, and it's been there for years.
There's also an action figure next to it.
We don't know where it came from, but it's now the go-to spot to show newcomers.
Hey, do you want to see our femur and action figure?
Is this like going to turn into one of those churches where it's like actually a cult?
Yeah, it's like there's a bone in the basement.
So my funny church story, this happened several years ago.
Well, I was at church.
It was one of those days, and I will preface this by saying everyone was fine.
Nobody was like seriously sick or anything.
But it was one of those days when the air conditioner wasn't working in summer.
And there were these two 80-year-old women.
They were sisters.
And they were in the pew in front of me and my family and my brothers.
In the middle of the service, one of them like passed out, like lost consciousness.
Everybody was freaking out.
They're like, oh, we have to call the ambulance.
We've got to get help for her.
And her sister was like going outside to wait for the ambulance.
And I was like, you know, it's an 80-year-old lady.
Her sister's in trouble.
I'll walk out.
And I walked outside and I was waiting with her for the ambulance to come.
The ambulance pulls up in front of the church and they get out with the gurney and they start to go inside.
And this 80-year-old woman, while her sisters inside passed out, bangs on the hood of the ambulance and yells to them.
She goes, Hey, hey, you can't park here.
This is an emergency lane.
Oh, boy.
Retrieving a person.
She goes, You can't park here.
It's an emergency.
She just is like probably on automatic.
Yes, exactly.
She's like, her auto Karen was on.
Yeah.
And I just.
That is exactly what I would have expected an 80-year-old Lutheran woman.
Yeah, exactly.
Like a typical, like, I don't know, man, but the church lady response.
Yeah.
We used to have a member of our church when I went to my father-in-law's church back in Gary.
And it was a small congregation.
And so we did have like very open pulpit.
You know, if you got a word from the Lord, you had a song.
And there's one wonderful young lady who loved to sing, but really was just the worst singer ever.
And when I say worst, I mean like no pitch, no, like she never really knew all the words.
She was totally flat and loud.
And she would always be like, Amazing and praise.
That's how she would sing.
I'm really trying to sound amazing.
And so every time we would see her like tiptoe into the aisle, we'd be like, oh no, oh no.
Cause like usually it would be towards the end of service where we're like desperate to get out of there.
My father-in-law, he will preach for an hour, you know.
And if you get fidgety, he'll be like, oh, you don't, you don't have enough energy to sit for the Lord.
I bet you if you were in the club, I bet you if you were in the club, you'd sit there for two hours.
And anyway, we'd see her.
And one day she got up there and it was just one of the things like, oh no, please.
And she was like, God gave me this song.
She starts singing the song and her 14-year-old brothers sit in front of us and he just bursts out laughing as she's singing.
And then we couldn't control it because once he started laughing, then all the laughter we were holding in, we started laughing.
So me and my husband started laughing hysterical.
So it's three of us laughing hysterically in this tiny church while she's singing the worst song ever.
And she looked at us and I remember thinking, I don't, I'm laughing at her.
This is wrong.
So I turned it into like praise.
You know, I was like, oh, God, Jesus.
Yeah.
It was, I'll never forget her brother just falling to pieces because she was so terrible.
And I was like, I can control myself every week, but sitting behind him, it was too much for me.
I couldn't do it.
Anyway.
That's great.
Well, next time you laugh at me, I expect you to turn it into praise.
Okay.
Jesus.
Well, I guess I've already thrown a few of my stories in, but growing up, it was a mega church type environment.
So they were always doing weird, like object lessons and weird, like, you know, like the pastor bringing a chainsaw and fire it off to like make some point about killing sin or something.
I don't know.
One of them was the pastor was famous for like playing Braveheart clips.
Like it was always a joke of how is he gonna fit Braveheart into this?
You know, and it was like, sure enough, next Sunday, there's another Braveheart clip.
Wow.
But, you know, that was fun.
So there was one time I remember the pastor did a sermon on like parenthood and he's talking about being a good father.
And he was like, doing a very serious point.
And he's like, and I'm reminded of that old song, The Cats in the Cradle.
And he like presses play, or he has the, and the whole, the whole church just sits there silently while they play the cats in the cradle, whole song.
I'm so on the stereo or whatever.
I'll just sitting there.
Okay.
It's like, oh, this is just a way for me to force my congregation to listen to my team.
I like this song.
So we're going to play it.
Yeah, we're going to play it and find some meaning in it.
Wow.
But yeah, lots of good times growing up in church.
We got more weird church stories coming up in the subscriber portion from our Babylon B subscribers.
So do that.
And then you can hear what Kira thinks about women pastors too.
Yeah.
And you can hear.
I have some weird when I first got it, became a Christian.
You got more?
I was.
Oh, okay.
All right.
More weird church stories.
But right now, we're going to talk for a few minutes about California.
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California.
How bad is it?
So, you know, there's a California is terrible.
So we, you know, we get this discussion point all the time about like, why are you guys still in California?
People ask that all the time.
All the time.
Are you still there?
How long are you staying there?
Are you trying to get out now?
Every time I'm at an event, you know, where are you from?
California.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Sorry.
You know, why are you there?
Yeah.
How did you make it out?
You know, that's all I got.
There's this perplex.
So we wanted to talk a little bit about this, you know, population fleeing from California.
And then just to address the, is it a misconception?
Is California really that bad?
What are the pros and cons?
So I like that.
Yeah.
Let's let's talk about it.
So we got some stats here.
California's population has shrunk for the second year in a row.
Non-surprising.
There's California is claiming that the decline is due to lower birth rates, higher deaths from the pandemic, and fewer people moving in.
Okay.
But apparently two.
People are leaving in droves.
280,000 more people left California than came here in 2021.
And I also, we all know, I'm sure, like personally, I know people across the political spectrum, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, entire businesses, they're all fleeing this state.
We all personally know people.
Everybody knows somebody who's left in the last two years, not even like five years or and not even people who were planning to do that.
It escalated during the pandemic.
Absolutely.
Everybody started fleeing out.
100%.
Yeah.
So some of the problems that have been cited, power shortages, water shortages, constant drought, fires, high taxes.
Make it sound so bad.
Yeah, bad highway repairs, our awesome bullet train that goes nowhere.
Yeah, these are all true.
Public schools performing terribly, crime.
Homelessness is another one.
Homelessness is a big deal.
Homelessness people talk about a lot.
Homelessness.
And that's one that, again, living in LA now for 12 years, you would always see some homeless people around.
But during the pandemic and when they made these laws where you couldn't stop people from camping on the sidewalks, every bridge in every neighborhood, there were tent cities under all of them.
You would have people with mental health issues wandering in Starbucks.
You'd hear them wandering up and down the streets at night.
You'd find drug needles everywhere.
It really escalated.
There were homeless tent cities with no sanitation, with no enforcement of them.
It hasn't de-escalated yet.
And it's amazing.
I don't think you can, unless you've seen it with your own eyes, you really can't understand how utterly pervasive the homeless problem is, especially when you go into LA or San Francisco.
Or I was in San Diego recently for after not having been there for a while.
And it was like, holy crap.
Sacramento, too.
I've been to.
Yeah.
It's in all the major cities.
I live in a tiny little like suburb tucked away in South Orange County.
You got to work to get back there.
It's full of roundabouts and it's like your typical, like all the houses look the same kind of place.
And then the last, and I know this is going to sound stupid, but this is an example of how far-reaching this problem is getting.
When we moved here, my husband and I moved from the most crime-ridden city in America, which at the time was Gary, Indiana, to the safest city in America.
And you didn't see like anything.
And in the last week, I have seen three homeless people just wandering through.
And you don't just wander through our suburbs.
There's nowhere to go.
If you're in the back, you're going to someone's.
Usually, if you're up in the foothills or you're a little higher, like they don't want to climb that hill.
Right.
It's, it's, it, so that's just crazy to see.
And I live in a neighborhood where kids walk to school.
Anyways, obviously the homeless problem is a huge issue.
And everywhere you go, yeah, it just smells.
Like, think about the sanitation issue.
Yeah.
Where are these people going to the bathroom?
They're just going in the streets.
Yeah.
And the crime is crazy.
I would not frequently, when I moved to LA or I lived in New York before this, you heard about crime statistics, but it wasn't something that I saw happening regularly.
Right.
Now at the Starbucks and the Ralphs in the shopping center down the street from my apartment over the last two years, I have at least three times seen homeless people in the Starbucks walk in, shoplift something.
The employees yell for security.
They chase them down the street.
The windows there are often broken in.
When I was a couple of Christmases ago, I was buying like a little tree for my apartment at the Ralphs.
And as I was walking out, it was like a cartoon character burglar, like with a sack of stuff dressed in black, almost runs into me, comes running out of the door with a security guard chasing me across the parking lot.
And it was like a looney tombs burglar with a sack of stuff.
And I've never seen that.
Was it a bindle?
It was not a bindle.
There was no stick.
That is so that it's so crazy.
Well, you know, Starbucks has clothes.
Yeah, they're closing locations because of the crime rates.
It's too much.
Yeah.
So then I guess is the.
We have lots of reasons to not live in California.
No, it is as bad as they say.
Well, there's a lot of question closed.
Home prices are.
Should we get to the reverse of, well, is it really that bad and why are we still here?
Yeah, I'll say with the homeless thing, I do most, you mostly see that downtown areas.
Yes.
Like that's not something that in most suburbs, you're not going to see that.
I know you said you see you've seen some of the things.
We're starting to see it, though.
And that's what concerns me.
You can even go because I live in South Orange County.
And so the B offices are inland, but the beach towns.
What's the address?
Porpoises.
Turnip.
Okay.
I wasn't going to out you guys like that, but I always try to say the address because they try to keep it secret.
They'll bleep all that.
Okay.
You weren't here.
I did that on an interview show for you.
In your honor.
In your honor, yeah.
I love that.
We had Kurt Schlechter on.
Oh, okay.
Oh, Schlechter.
Sorry, continue.
That's okay.
Sorry.
I love Kurt.
He's one of my best friends.
I forget what I was saying.
You were talking about how much you love.
So, the beach towns are suburban towns and they're being overrun now.
Yeah, well, beaches have, I think, have always been a little more hobo-y.
Yeah, hobo-y.
Well, the hobos were fine when it was just the hobos.
What's the difference between hobo and hobo?
I always say hobo to mean homeless person.
A hobo to me, a hobo is like a bindle.
A hobo has a bindle.
That's how you can tell.
They're that person.
See how he's got the bindle?
Don't call him hobos.
He's a hobo.
I swear, I was on the next door app the other day, and this guy wrote a little post about how his son is a hobo and he just rides the rails.
He just likes the free life.
And I understand.
Hobo is more by choice.
Like just like transient choice.
I think it's a lifestyle.
I think hobo is like the guy.
It used to be the homeless guy.
He's might be a little cuckoo, but he's friendly.
You give him a sandwich.
You throw him 10 bucks.
You stop and chat with him.
It's your friendly homeless guy.
You know, that you that guy used to, everybody in LA had a homeless guy.
Now they're crazy.
They assigned one to each resident.
You have your guy.
Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to my home.
Don't see him in there.
That's my hobo.
Where's my hobo?
Well, I mean, all that ended when they got rid of the Department of Hobos.
So talked to Reagan about that one.
You know what I mean?
All right.
Anyways.
Well, so say so many words.
So we talked about a lot.
We talked a lot about what sucks.
Is it a misconception?
You know, I've always said throughout all this, because I do get that question a lot, especially from other conservatives: why are you still in California or looking to leave?
I would eventually like to move somewhere else, like, you know, the center of the country.
I don't know that I'll stay in LA my whole life.
But California, I always say it is a beautiful state.
There's so much to do here.
There's so much natural beauty.
It's a shame that it's run so poorly.
You have there's beautiful national parks, you have the beach, you have skiing, you have hiking.
And the people, I always say, there's sort of a stereotype about what LA people are as far as being, you know, superficial or rich or airheaded.
There's some of that, but there's also a lot of people who move here from elsewhere.
There's a lot of cool people here.
Like I have great friends in California.
I do still enjoy living here.
It's just a shame that it's run so poorly at the state and city level.
And what's always shocking to me and what does sort of push me towards wanting to move away is that the left has such a grip on this place that it never gets better.
These people go out and they see the homelessness and they go and vote for Newsom again.
Yeah.
They see the lockdowns and all this craziness and they go and you know vote for a Democrat mayor again.
They just continue voting.
It's so culturally Democratic they can't bring themselves to vote out of it.
Yeah, there is that aspect to it.
Where are you from originally at?
I'm not Pennsylvania.
Okay, yes.
Pennsylvania originally.
And then I lived in Brooklyn for three years and I've been out here like 12 or 13.
And you're born and raised.
And I'm, yeah, I'm from all over, but almost 15 years now here in California.
I definitely call myself a Californian now.
But it's the same thing.
Like I thank you.
Thank you.
From the native California.
You might just score a guest invite to my podcast.
And your black church.
We'll say.
But just don't push it.
Don't push your luck though.
But I, of all, I've lived in a lot of states.
I think I've lived in 12 states over my lifetime.
And this is the most beautiful state I've ever lived in.
California is really three states in one.
You know, it's Southern California.
It's central, which is farmland.
It's northern, which is like the Bay Area and national parks.
Everything that Adam said, I agree with.
I can remember when we first moved here and my husband and I saw a kid skateboarding down the street to school.
And we were like, oh my gosh, people do that.
Like we, we grew up watching that in movies, right?
Because California culture was really pushed as American culture in the 80s and 90s.
And so that's was our idea of like the American dream was the California life.
And when we moved here, I hated it.
Like I was like, I can't stand this.
The sticker shock was too much for me.
And we were really struggling really, really badly when we first moved.
And I remember telling my husband, like, just take me back to the hood.
I know I can make life work in the hood because I understand it.
But I don't understand life here.
I don't understand life in the Orange County suburbs.
I don't understand how to get ahead.
I don't understand it.
But my husband, for him, growing up in the hood, this is his American dream.
California is his American dream.
And he'll do anything to almost anything.
He will sacrifice our family, but to hang on to it.
And so for me, when people say, Why are you still there?
Well, I don't get to make all my own decisions.
I'm not a singleton like Adam.
If you had no family and no one at all, then you could do whatever you want.
If I don't, if I don't make a family work in a few years, I think I'm going to become a hobo.
Buy a bindle, jump on a boxcar and ride the rails.
Can you be ours?
Can you be our hobo?
If you give me a sandwich and $5, I'm yours.
Yeah, great.
I'll give you our address.
You would do great in our town, actually.
You could do like little comedy things on the corner.
Oh, yeah.
You can perform in cinematic.
I can put on clown makeup.
I could be one of those little hobo clowns, like a figurine, like a painting.
See, Adam.
Floppy shoes and a torn jacket.
And sometimes I'd be sad and sometimes I'd be happy.
Get to work on the Photoshop.
Oh, goodness.
Look, here's the thing about California.
There are good people here.
There are a lot of good people here.
And there are a lot of people, the people that are around you that want normal things for their kids and a good life for their kids.
Those people live here too.
And there's all kinds of reasons why they can't leave.
We can't all just get up and go.
Some of us are committed to being here because we have job obligations or family obligations.
Some of us are here because we believe in change and we believe we can make change.
I know that it seems impossible that we are culturally Democrat, but remember at one time this whole state was red and it was never going to go blue.
Sure.
So I do believe in the cycles of human history.
And maybe I'm an eternal optimist, but I do believe there's hope for that.
And that's good.
And one of the best ways we can change things is to support people like Kira.
That's right.
They're running for school boards.
Exactly, Adam.
Yes.
I'm running for Kira.
And I mean, like, it sounds quite that it's absolutely people like you.
There are grassroots efforts.
There are communities that are starting to shift politically.
And we need to get people into office that will change the way things are run on every level.
My wife has never been politically active, never cared, you know.
And just through the pandemic and seeing Newsome and seeing the school things are happening in the schools, she started to work with Faith and Freedom Coalition and do other stuff to try to win some seats back, you know, at the state legislature level.
And I think that's awesome.
You know, it's just that people are waking up and going, hey, we got to, we got to fix things.
Yeah.
So I think there's negatives in California.
I mean, I just, I grew up here and I, and I, I firmly believe in like your local community and defending that, you know.
And so I don't like the idea that like, well, the state government is going liberal.
Let's all run away.
Yeah.
It's like, you can't take that from me.
My family's here.
Like, this is where I live.
You know, we've got In N Out, you know, which is way better than Whataburger.
We've got Zenku chicken, which is my favorite.
We've got Sizzler.
What's that?
It's like Mediterranean Middle Eastern chicken wraps.
There's like one in Pasadena.
I'm like garlic chicken.
Oh, it's so good.
My family never had this.
No, it's really good.
Really good local.
Am I really a Californian then?
Well, I have it.
No, you're a Californian, but you need to experience that.
Okay, it's the next level for sure.
Okay.
Yeah, so we've got all kinds of great things.
You get your own hobo.
We got the 405.
Yeah, 405 is awesome.
Yeah, sections of it.
The Pacific Coast Highway is amazing.
Oh my gosh.
That is an amazing drive.
This state is truly, truly I have ever lived in.
And it is worth fighting for.
I do see the liberal versus conservative thing more as the cities versus the rural areas.
Because if you, if you're in, Orange County is totally different from LA.
Yep.
Riverside County is totally different from there.
It's just, it totally depends on where you are.
And you don't understand how giant and diverse the state is.
We're not all LA.
Yes.
We're not allowed to do it.
And it's not just Orange County.
It's anytime you get like 10 miles outside the city as a native interaction.
Or if you go inland, if you take the five through the center, all you see are recall Newsome and pro-Trump Bill.
Yeah, VAGA.
Yeah.
You are in Trump's territory, five miles north of LA.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So, well, we got to stop talking now because we have a shoot coming up and the smog is affecting my throat.
here's some hate mail don't ever send me this garbage newsletter again Oh, I sent that one.
I saw it.
I was like, it's enough that I'm on the podcast.
Why do they have me on the newsletter list?
Which begs the question: why did they subscribe to the newsletter?
All right.
Here's another comment that's very smashed and hard to read.
Can we make that a little larger?
It's like a it's like stretched.
Yeah.
You, sir, are a liar, and liar is spelled L-I-E-R.
That does not help.
Always.
That does not help.
All of our you, sir, are a liar.
You want to try it?
Can you get this one?
Yeah, I can do it.
Yeah, you, sir, are a liar, spelled L-I-E-R.
You're the wrong version of your a Jesus freak.
The first murder was done without a gun.
If you actually believe people that we need context because this is on our gun video.
Oh, okay.
I guess.
This is from the gun video.
Where we do bad facts about guns.
I see.
Oh.
The first murder, I assume, are they referring to Cain and Abel there?
Yes.
Was done without a gun.
If you actually believe and tell people that prior to the invention of the gun, there were less murders, you are a L-I-E-L.
And bordering on ignorant, if not already very on the side of stupid.
You and whoever believes this trash, murder was occurring everywhere without the use of the gun.
Everyone from emperors to the lowliest of peasants, even God ordered the murder of not capitalized, not just men, but women and children.
You people make it so hard not to get ugly or want to say ugly things, but with the level of ignorance you show and spew from your mouth, it's almost like you beg for it.
Just stop.
So someone who thought we were a barn burner, they wrote there.
Wow.
I am so fascinated by people who take time to write stuff like that.
I am fascinated as well.
Yeah.
Trevisus' game corner.
So one of the instances of a MMO RPG that I was playing, and that's a massive multiplayer online RPG, was in Star Wars Galaxies.
That was actually my first MMO RPG.
And the thing I liked about it was that you could build a house in Tatooine or build a house in that other planet.
What was the name of that planet?
It wasn't Endor.
No, I mean, Endor was in it.
I just can't remember.
Anyway, you could build a house and you could have roommates.
And you could, there are different classes.
And I was a ranger because I was cool.
And no one could be a Jedi, really.
But one of the main things was that you can go to a cantina to rest, and there will be players that are just dancers.
The thing that frustrates me about RPGs was the random battle system where you could just be walking along and then all of a sudden, spoo, you're in a battle and you don't see the enemy or anything.
And I think the most frustrating thing about it was that there was no real narrative indication.
I mean, sometimes you'd be like, oh, I'm traveling through a forest, and obviously random things pop out.
But other times, especially more modern Final Fantasy RPGs, you'd be walking down like a building hallway and it's like, random battle.
Two soldiers in the hallway spotted you.
And that's dumb.
It's stupid.
And the thing about turn-based battles, of course, is that that's how the British fight.
You know, they line up, they aim their muskets, and then they shoot at you, and then they wait.
They literally sit there and wait for the American rebels that just demolish them.
It was stupid.
So that's why I hated Japanese RPGs.
But I eventually grew to like them because I became more enthralled with the idea of a narrative in video games.
And, you know, sitting down with a good JRPG like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy IX really felt like you're sitting down with a novel.
It's just that the characters have tails or, you know, weird headgear.
But I really enjoyed it.
But the thing I don't like is magic systems.
So you get a magic system in an RPG, and it's always more complicated than it needs to be.
Dragon Quest did it well.
You got your fireball.
You got your lightning, whatever.
Very simple.
You select it, you shoot, or whatever, you have your mana, end of it.
But then Final Fantasy games would constantly be like, okay, here's a Magicka system.
Here's all these different combinations you can do.
Or only this character can do.
And this, it gets too confusing.
And that's also the problem with Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition.
It plays more like a video game in a sense.
So the grid becomes essential and it's less theater of the mind.
So you end up really having to almost study your character sheet.
5th edition is better at that.
But I digress.
So originally Japanese RPGs were inspired by tabletop games.
That's why they're turn-based.
But that doesn't explain the random battle system because a DM isn't necessarily random.
He just hates you.
You know, and there's usually a narrative.
There's a reason the skeleton jumped out of a closet.
But there's not a reason for a skeleton to randomly appear inside a chest in your closet.
I don't know.
That's just the things that happen in Japanese RPGs.
They just feel too random.
So if you ever have a friend that has like a board game problem where he's like, ah, the dice are rigged, he won't like a Japanese RPG or the Japanese people.
But my favorite RPG is probably, well, it's probably Final Fantasy IX.
But that was also my first real RPG.
It wasn't like, what do you call it?
I already mentioned it.
The one you talked about, Chrono Trigger.
That one was really good, obviously.
It's one of my favorites.
It's probably number two, but Final Fantasy IX was the first one that really won me over.
Even though it has all the problems I'm talking about, it has a weird magic system where you have to change weapons to get a new magical power, but then you're sometimes going for a weaker weapon to get a cool magical power.
And then I think you're leveling up.
It's stupid.
It's dumb.
But, you know, it was a cool game.
And like I said, it has a main character with a tail.
That had a more chibi art style, which I eventually found out because I read a magazine and they described what a chibi art style is.
I said, that's dumb, but it was better than the, oh, it got dark.
Well, it was better than the what's it called? The more realistic art style from Final Fantasy VII.
I don't like that because that's dumb, too.
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I'm following you because you've chosen to discredit Joel O'Steen.
Wait, is it Osteen?
Like, they spelled it the Irish way.
Joel.
The name's Joel Osteen.
Oh, apostrophe, Steve.
You gotta live your best life now.
I need a Photoshop of Joel O'Steen as an Irish.
God wants you to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
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