The Babylon Bee Podcast: Dennis Prager and The Great Twitter Meltdown
The Babylon Bee enjoys the glorious meltdown over Elon Musk buying Twitter and talks to Dennis Prager about Deuteronomy and Jewish Space Lasers! There might be a red tsunami coming up and Holly made an angel costume that is truly a sight to behold. There's Weak-ly News with Adam Yenser's Fill-in and Kyle and the gang chat about what's doing hot or not on the site, Sizzler Facts, and read glorious hate mail. In the subscribers-only podcast, Brandon answers the second set of Ten Questions. This episode is brought to you by our wonderful sponsors who you should absolutely check out: Allegiance Gold: https://lp.allegiancegold.com/bb/ Public Sq: https://publicsq.mobi/babylonbee My Patriot Supply: http://preparewithbee.com/
We talk to Dennis Prager and he spills the tea on Jewish space lasers.
The kosher tea.
Elon Musk bought Twitter and we talk about the best blue check meltdowns.
The Oath Keepers tried to overthrow the government and then they went to Olive Garden.
All this and more on the Bee Weekly.
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Hey everyone, welcome to the Babylon Bee Podcast.
This is the only podcast that covers the political news of the week.
The only one in a hilarious satirical fashion.
It's the best one.
It's actually not so satirical.
It's just we're just kind of dumb people making dumb comments.
It's more snark.
Yeah, true.
It's a snarky.
Oh, we have some sets here.
Like we have, I guess we read our headlines.
Yeah, yeah, true.
We did the B radio, but now that I was going to say B radio, but that's its own thing now.
Yeah, we see our videos sometimes.
Sometimes we'll play the sketches.
Hashtag true.
This is true.
This is true.
We're coming off Halloween.
Do you guys do anything fun?
Who dressed up?
Yeah, I had a flight suit that I wore.
And that was a lot of fun.
Yeah.
And I wore these cowboy boots, too.
I was dressed as a hamburger, and my wife was dressed as a hot dog, and our cats were dressed as ketchup and mustard.
Oh.
And we carved some pumpkins.
I'd like to show off my pumpkin on the podcast.
Yes, that one's really good.
It's a good idea.
I have a picture of it.
It's a great pumpkin.
Okay, great.
I mean, I walked all around the office and I asked this one question and no one could give me a straight answer.
What is a pumpkin?
What do you mean, what is a pumpkin?
What is a pumpkin?
The documentary you made was great too.
Oh.
And also, since Adam's not here, we should throw up his pumpkins because his pumpkins are great.
Oh, he does a good pumpkin every year, I think.
Yeah, he's a pumpkin master.
I've just become introduced to this, to this kind of like really detailed, intricate pumpkin thing that you guys do.
How do they do the layers?
Is it like thinner and thicker cuts?
I do it old school.
The way I did it since I was a child was I just used an X-Acto knife.
And I'm sure there's better methods out there, but that's what I've done since.
And you really just carve.
You don't actually carve holes into it like you would a jack-o'-lantern, a traditional jack-o-lantern.
I do a combination of the two.
Sometimes the hole goes all the way through.
Sometimes it's just dependent on thickness.
So you can make the thicken, you can make the pumpkin thin enough that the light shines through it.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Oh, I see.
And I at varying levels.
Don't judge me too harshly.
I did this one very quickly, as quickly as I could, because I needed to sleep.
I really hope that it's Thomas Soule and it says facts.
No, I actually think it's better than that.
I think he found it.
We already know what it is.
Oh, there.
I haven't seen it because I don't see the screen.
Do you want to say what it is?
No, it's too late for that.
It's too late.
Kyle will find out on the podcast.
The moment is past.
Well, we talked to Dennis Prager later, which was cool.
It was great to sit down with him.
He has a new book out on Deuteronomy.
So we talked to him about that.
Did you say what's up, Deuteronomy?
What?
No.
You didn't say that.
What's dude?
Because it sounds like dude.
Sounds kind of like dude.
Okay, but the rest of it isn't a pun.
Like, what is the O'Ronomy?
Like, it's just.
Okay.
Because usually at the pun, you got it.
Really, it's just a joke.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
I didn't know if there was something I was missing.
We could analyze that.
So we also look at the glorious blue check meltdown over Elon buying Twitter later.
So that'll be fun.
Let that sink in.
Fun.
That's sinking.
I wonder when he thought of that.
Like, how early in the process of buying Twitter?
I would love it if he was just on the way over.
And as he was driving, he was like, hey, driver, pull over.
Home Depot right now.
Driver.
Stop at Home Depot.
Yes.
Is that how he speaks?
Bring me a sink.
A sink.
And I need a measuring tape.
I don't know.
Whatever else.
Why don't you ask him?
What?
Why don't you ask him?
Column right now.
When did you come up with that joke?
So we want you guys to right now pull out your smartphone, open up your Instagram.
You guys don't have to do it.
Open up the Instagram app.
You're talking about us.
And follow the Babylon Bee podcast on Instagram.
Yes.
That would be awesome.
Do it.
And either your computer or your mobile device, go to YouTube and follow us there as well.
The Babylon Bee podcast on YouTube.
Can they get it on a desktop computer?
Desktop, laptop, mobile device.
So the Instagram page is not just going to have not just clips from the podcast, but also a little bit of behind the scenes of what we do here at the studio.
It's a little more informal than the official Babylon Bee Instagram page, but you'll get to see a little bit more about what's going on here.
So far, we have posted a video of Kurt Cameron whiffing at the golf course and getting mad and yeeting his golf club off the third floor of Top Golf.
What a moment.
Angrily.
There's a picture of me dressed up as Batman.
So if that's not enough to convince you, I don't know what will.
We also have a bunch of merch that you can buy, such as the shirt that Brandon is wearing, Thomas Soul saying facts, and could be on his pumpkin.
I don't know.
And conservative tears tumbler as well.
Delicious.
And delicious.
Yeah.
Tears of joy.
Tears of joy because of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
So check out shop.babylonbee.com and support us with a merch perch.
We also wanted to, once again, mention our new book, The Babylon Bee Guide to Democracy.
Midterms are coming up in just a few days.
And you need to stay informed.
They will steal the election if you don't buy this book.
Yeah, if you want to be informed, this is the book to read.
It has stick figures also.
It's really informative.
So a while back, we had an article: The Babylon Bee presents popular church-approved Halloween costumes.
And one of those was a biblically accurate angel was on the list.
Because, you know, if you like Ezekiel, like there's the crazy stuff.
It's like the rings within the rings and the wheels around the rings.
A wheel within a wheel.
So we got an email from Holly, and she says, Good morning.
This email is to show you the monstrosity that your article inspired.
I've been fascinated with the idea of angels as they're described in the sequel to A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door in Elementary School.
The book features an angel who calls himself a cherub and is covered with wings and eyes.
So when I saw your article featuring the wheels with eyes, my immediate first thought was, I really want to make that.
I made a somewhat joking comment to that effect on the article, and whoever is B nurse, Battina, maybe, said I should do it and send the pictures into the podcast.
So here you go.
This is one of my little angels.
Wow.
She really did make rings with giant goo.
Ha!
That is horrifying.
So there's two different costumes here, yes.
No, the first one is the Photoshop from the article.
I see.
And the second one is.
This is not real to me.
This is horrifying.
Yeah.
Horrifying.
That little girl has no idea what she's wearing.
Like those.
Like the way that they tried to make realistic looking eyes on the radio.
That is like some Lovecraftian.
It's so good.
And I love her expression.
She has no idea how terrifying it is.
It's terrifying.
Have you guys seen that animation that somebody put online of the actual angel?
If you guys can find that, it is literally terrifying.
I have not seen that.
It's an animation like a CGI.
This is what an angel would look like according to.
It's almost as if biblical angels are described as terrifying.
Oh, yeah.
If you saw one, you would be, they would say, do not be afraid.
I would have to say that.
So like when your husband or wife says, like, you're my angel, that should be like.
Fuck.
That's not.
Okay.
Interdimensional being.
I don't know if you're with eyes.
All right, let's talk about what's in the news this week.
Once again, the only podcast that covers the news.
What's in the news this week?
Well, it looks like we may be heading into a red tsunami this midterm election, according to polling in key races.
Red is going up and blue is not.
It's going the other way.
Joe Rogan described it as the scene in the shining where the blood comes through the elevators.
As the red wave.
But I don't know if I like that analogy because then it associates the Republican Party with blood.
Well, we are the red party.
Iraq War.
Yeah.
Although that was everybody, you know.
That wasn't just the Republicans.
Thing is, we're not going to kill people.
That's true.
Like, yeah.
With that blood in the elevators.
Well, did we talk about this last week where it used to be that the Republicans were blue?
Well, I think it's.
I think it was up until the 90s or late 80s.
I think it was the color was dependent on which party was currently in office.
And then I think they realized that was confusing and they changed it.
I thought it was because the Democrats didn't want to be associated with the Communist Party.
I think it switched every, like, depending on who was still.
Like the challenger was red or something.
Exactly.
Something like that.
Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting.
It's like in a lot of video games when you join and your team's always blue with the names above.
Even though if someone else joins, they're blue on their side.
Sometimes.
In some games, it's like that.
In Halo.
Is it like that in Halo?
I don't know.
It was a long time ago.
Okay.
People are a red team.
So apparently Biden is going to deliver another fervent warning this Wednesday, that's today, about the threat Republicans pose to democracy.
So I'm sure we'll get a lot of great quotes from him where he pronounces numbers correctly and all of that.
$700 billion and a trillion three hundred billion dollars.
Hillary said that she doesn't think people understand what is at stake in an election.
Like a tidal wave of blood.
Like blood coming out of an elevator.
So, you know, it's an election.
It's the most important election of your lifetime.
But if you don't vote, we're going to die.
It is absolutely crazy.
Some of these contested seats, like in New York, in Oregon, that are typically not up for these states.
Kathy Hochul is down in the polls against Lee Zeldin.
And I think she's pulling out all the stops.
She's bringing in Kamala and Clinton, Hillary Clinton.
All the most likable persons to help her consult on how to become more likable.
I'm really interested in the Michigan race.
That seems like an interesting race.
It's a governor, the governor race.
What's your name?
Whitmer versus Dixon?
Dixon?
I don't.
I have no idea.
That's her name.
Her name's Tudor Dixon.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
And she is really, really good.
She's just super fast, quick responses, really smart lady.
I'm hoping she wins.
She looks like she's going to be a good candidate.
That would be great for all of us here in Michigan.
Yeah, that's right.
But no matter what the polls are saying, no matter how tight or how if the Republican looks like they're going to win, still get out there and vote.
Don't take it for granted.
We want the cleansing blood of Jesus to rush over us like a red wave.
Like a red wave.
There we go.
It's the blood of Jesus.
Out of an elevator.
At a haunted hotel.
No, the elevators were scarier in the book because they were constantly, there was like supposed to be ghosts riding in them.
So all the time the elevators were just dinging at random times and opening and closing.
And that was a great look.
I never read the books.
Shining is, in my opinion, Stephen King's best book.
Absolutely worth reading.
All right, I need to read it.
But you still like the Kubrick one.
I like the Kubrick one, yeah.
You do?
I like the Kubrick one.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's good.
I don't like the new one.
Stephen King did not like the Kubrick adaptation.
Really?
And directed and, or maybe just produced his own version on ABC like in the early 2000s, and it was terrible.
Right.
Well, anything that he directs and puts on television has been pretty bad.
That Stephen King's.
Well, he doesn't typically direct, but he does like, he will get more involved with either the screenplay or the production.
Yeah.
And it's typically not good.
Which was interesting, though, because he became more involved in Dr. Sleep, the Dr. Sleep.
And even though he hates the Kubrick Kubrick Shining, obviously Dr. Sleep draws a lot of inspiration from that.
There's flashbacks and like they recreate entire scenes.
But one thing that threw me off, especially, though, was like when Danny is talking to the doctor and getting him into the AA program, that office was like a replica of the hotel office.
And I was confused.
I was like, why did they do that?
I don't really understand.
Yeah, it's weird.
They took one location and put it somewhere else.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And it served no purpose.
I just didn't think it was a very interesting movie.
I don't like, I didn't like, I didn't like expanding on the shining, like the element of the shining.
I thought they just kind of took away from the I thought it took away from the mystery.
It was like, what in the world is going on in the shining?
Well, all of a sudden it was like very easily condensable that there's a pack of baddies rolling around breathing in mist.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it takes a while.
It was the Minichlorians of the Shining.
But I still, I still enjoyed it.
Yeah, I like that.
The Minichlorians of the Shining.
I like the movie.
I liked the book, but yeah, I could see that.
So breadsticks, free breadsticks.
The best ones in town.
So after the U.S. Capitol attack, this is reported by CNN.
After the U.S. Capitol attack, members of the Oath Keepers, not to be confused with Promise Keepers, met for a late night dinner at an olive garden in suburban Virginia and spent hundreds of dollars on an Italian on an Italian feast.
How many were there if they spent $400 at Olive Garden?
That's not that many.
It's not.
So they've recently upped the price of the soup and breadsticks combo to approximately $13.
So $400 divided by $13.
Yeah, how many ordered soup and breadsticks?
How do you get to $400 at Olive Garden?
Well, let's say they ordered a few bottles of their terrible wine.
Of the house red.
I mean, that's got to be 15 people, maybe 20 people at most.
You're probably right.
At most, you're talking to them.
Hundreds of dollars.
So when my wife and I were young and married and poor, we're still married, but when we were first married, when my wife and I were married and we're still poor.
Your first wife.
My first, yes, which is also my current wife.
We would do the soup and salad combo, and it was like $5.99 on weekdays or something.
And you got the unlimited soup and salad and breadsticks.
And we figured out where I could order the soup, she could order the salad, and we could swap.
And the waiters were okay with it.
And they would always, like, oh, fine, you want an extra bowl?
You know, like, and they would kind of play along with it and let us get an entire meal for $12.
I mean, we order waters.
And they got wise to us like a year later and said, and they brought the manager out, like, you can't share each other's soup and salad.
And that was the end of all.
Well, I actually went a few weeks ago, and I thought it was just the soup and breadsticks combo, but it actually included the salad.
Oh, okay.
But it's also twice the price.
Yeah, $12 or $13 now.
It's now $13 to do all that.
So they got wise to you and said, let's just combine these two packages together and double the price.
That's terrible.
It's just because of you.
Well, I used to do that at Chipotle, where I would buy one burrito bowl and two tortillas, and you just kind of overload the burrito bowl with a lot of rice.
And then you can make two full burritos.
Like as much inside of them as you would if you were to get a normal burrito.
And you buy just one burrito bowl, and then they give you the free tortillas.
That's a little, that's a little life hack.
Well, that's why I've gotten the bowl for the past 10 years or so.
Yeah.
I'm a bull man myself.
I am.
I've usually been a bullman, yeah.
But it was on a date.
Also, I don't know if it was just that particular experience, but Olive Garden breadsticks quality has gone down drastically.
Has it?
I think I agree that they feel frozen and spongy now.
It was not, I remember them being like warm and warm, soft, and delicious.
And now they're just.
Do you think maybe your taste has just gone up?
Your quality, like your taste?
I kind of feel like the breadstick quality is gone.
They've always definitely not Sizzler cheesy toast.
Obviously.
What is?
What is really?
Is it Northwoods Inn cheesy toast?
Northwoods Inn toast is better.
Clareman's Galley.
Or no, what's that boat place?
Long John Silver's?
No, that boat place.
That's close to Clareman's Inn.
Oh, okay.
I don't know about that.
No, I don't know.
I forget.
I don't know about the boat.
They have cheesy toast and it's pretty good.
I just know Northwood's Inn.
So what are your guys' opinions?
There was a discussion on Twitter this week about these family restaurants like Applebee's and Chili's and that people used to enjoy those places.
And then there was like elitists online that were like, oh, those are terrible restaurants.
And then it became popular to say these places are, oh, those are like bad.
See, I always grew up loving gourmet food.
And I've always loved it.
It's really nice food.
Very, I like fine food.
Like, are you talking about Applebee's or are you talking about nicer than Applebee's?
I'm talking about Sizzler quality person.
No, I mean, the first thing I ever cooked as a child was an asparagus souffle.
All these popular trends now with Brussels sprouts and bone marrow.
That's what I loved as a child.
I get this image of him coming out of the womb with a scaffold knife to carve pumpkins with.
Yeah.
And then a spatula to cook souffles with.
Yeah.
I love wagu.
I love a pate.
I love a good foie gras.
But I also love junky food.
And I don't see what the problem with Applebee's is.
Really?
And chilies.
Chilies, the chilies, chicken tenders that they have there, the chicken crispers, those are fantastic.
You get the honey chipotle ones.
Oh, those are so good.
You ever get the blossom when that was a thing?
That's fantastic.
And the Applebee's artichoke dip is good.
I think there's something.
I think the value that those places bring is a consistency where you can go, like, I'm in a city and I don't know what the good food is.
And I'm like, I can take my family there and everybody knows what they like.
And there's something nice about that.
Well, it's kind of like America's cafeteria.
Yeah.
Applebee's, chilies, that's the same restaurant.
I will say I do all GI Fridays, same restaurant.
I don't think chilies and Applebee's are related.
I think they're the same.
I know, but I always, I grouped them together.
I think they're basically the same.
Well, okay, but I will say that I do regret going to Applebee's every time I go there.
Like, I don't think the food is good.
But that kind of restaurant, like Chili's, blah, blah, blah.
I like that.
I like that.
I used to look forward to it.
When I was in high school, it would be like the thing.
Dude, we would do Sizzler like once every two years or so.
And that was like the big treat.
Denny's, every week.
I would go to Denny's every single week, every Wednesday.
And I still love Denny's to this day.
Denny's great little bar.
In college, I really developed my Denny's taste because it was the only thing open.
It was the place you end up at after a long day.
Pro tip: this has not been on the menu in quite some time, but still at the same time.
Stop moving the notes.
We will not be continuing.
At any Denny's you can go to, you can order hash browns or an omelette, and you say covered and smothered.
And what they will do is they will blanket your hash browns or eggs in country gravy, sauteed onions, and cheddar cheese.
And it is fantastic.
Increasing the calorie intake by at least 2,000.
Worth it.
Absolutely worth it.
Well, that's not been on the menu for like 15 years or so, and yet every waiter still knows exactly what that means.
You know, I was a busboy at Chili's.
And it was ever since I was a busboy there.
Whenever I go to Chili's, I can smell the kitchen.
You know, there's like this weird mildew smell that kind of like wafts through the place if you ever like go in there.
So go back there.
It's close to the bathrooms.
You can kind of smell the towels if you ever go back there.
And I go, so I don't really like to frequent Chili's, but I'll go to Apple.
I was going to say this has been Jared's endorsement of Chili's.
Well, speaking of bangers and mash, here is our banger of the week.
Banger of the week.
The 10 most controversial things you can finally say on Twitter.
Yay.
Number one, two plus two equals four.
It's a spicy hot take, and it's now legal to say.
Cool.
You can also say Rings of Power isn't that good.
You know, it was banned under Parag.
It's allowed under Elon.
Nice.
You can also say kids who exhibit behavior not typical of their gender probably shouldn't immediately cut off parts of their body.
Wow.
That's controversial.
Controversial.
Candy corn tastes like earwax.
Your booze mean nothing.
We've seen what makes you cheer.
Black Panther was a mid-tier Marvel movie.
It really feels good actually to say it out loud.
Do that off your chest.
Yeah, thank you.
You can finally say that the Babylon B writers are unbelievably charming and handsome.
No, really.
It's okay to say this now.
Try it.
You should start.
Type it in the comments.
Start down below.
Let's see it.
More looking at the count.
Here's another tweet that you can now post now that Elon owns Twitter.
The 75 million great American patriots who voted for me will have a giant voice long into the future.
So this is actually the tweet that got Trump banned from Twitter.
That's the one.
But now it's fair game.
It is weird to me that that is the tweet that got like, can't handle it.
This is the one.
This is the bridge.
We're done.
We're done with that.
All right.
You can also say, okay, groomer.
Okay.
A handy response to people defending child drag shows as a blessing of liberty.
Oh, who would say that?
And also a great way to reply when the pet smart employees asks if you want to upgrade to the deluxe wash and trim for your doggo.
Do you want upgrade?
Okay, okay, groomer.
There are four lights.
This will no longer get euphoric.
Ah, four lights.
And finally, you can now say on Twitter, all of us are hopeless sinners in need of a savior, and only by the redeeming blood of Christ can we be saved.
A red wave, if you will.
A red wave of path from the elevator.
All right.
That's a, you want to move on?
Yeah.
Which brings us to our bomb of the week.
Bomb of the week.
Unclear why candy manufacturers are still making flavors other than green apple.
When I read this, I was like, is that satirical?
Green apple is objectively the worst flavor.
It's objectively the best flavor.
It's objectively the worst flavor.
I don't know who wrote this headline, but I'm telling you, it's Jolly Ranchers, which is an objectively terrible candy.
I know, I sort of hate Jolly Ranchers.
They're so gross.
And they also cut the roof of your mouth.
And the worst flavor of all Jolly Ranchers, green apple.
Green apple.
Absolutely not.
Any grape or orange flavor.
Bomb of the week.
Wait.
I might agree with Kyle.
The grape really is worse.
I don't like any grape.
Anytime I get like a blow pop, if it's like green apple, I'm like, yes.
If it's grape, nah, I don't want it.
I think the world disagrees.
I mean, I kind of hate both of those flavors.
I only go for the red ones.
I do like grape flavor.
Someone is typing that watermelon is the best, and that person is objectively wrong.
No, no, no.
It's the first time.
The person says we're all fired.
So drawberry.
I don't think anybody here has the authority to fire all of us, unless Seth is on the Google Doc.
It says it is Seth.
So maybe it's Seth.
All right, it is time for Sizzler Facts.
20 weeks ago, we debuted a new feature to the podcast called Sizzler Facts, and it was met with overwhelming praise.
Yeah.
And we have, okay, so literally the best thing we've ever done.
I think so to this day.
As a company.
Today's Sizzler Fact.
We have a new editor, Jordan Harris, and we'd like to welcome him to the team.
Welcome, Jordan.
The Sizzler Fact is that Jordan last went to Sizzler when he was 10 years old in Oceanside, California, where he ordered a ribeye steak and mashed potatoes with gravy and coleslaw.
He has no real recollection of the choices that were offered, but at the end of the day, he gave Sizzler eight out of 10 stars.
This has been Sizzler Facts.
I think the salmon color and Fermica tables are the thing that I must remember about my Sizzler experience.
Do you guys remember that?
That was like kind of their thing.
Yeah, pink, like, you know, now it's been another Sizzler factor.
Sizzler Commons, except the original tables, which were carved out of a single redwood tree.
A single redwood tree.
I guess you don't.
You didn't remember that.
You don't remember that rightly.
It took like something like 10 years.
I looked it up and actually, yeah, those tables were already in production.
They had already been carved.
Sizzler didn't order those tables and it took him 10 years.
They had purchased tables that took him 10 years to craft out of it.
It had already been, okay.
Oh, interesting.
I thought it was like sort of like a weird aqua green color for Micah table.
Redwood tree.
All right.
The original.
We're not talking about like, because, yeah, obviously when they went to like mass, when they went to scale, they switched to the Fermica.
It might have been even a grayish.
Avocado.
It was like the what all church color.
I can see like the 90s.
I can see it in my Sizzler started like blowing up and they had to, they couldn't cut down redwood trees for every Sizzler.
There's a lot of oak.
Like I said, a lot of oak.
There was probably some oak.
Would you like to speak more about the different grains of wood?
Yeah, it was probably a white oak.
I remember identifying wood.
African Mahogany.
By Jarrett LeMaster.
It is now time for Sizzler Commons.
Sizzler Commons.
Here's a Facebook message I received from Adam Peter.
And he says, hey, Kyle, you seem a decent fellow.
And I've been following the work you do at the Beef for some time.
I've also been trying to figure out the best way to get the Sizzler fact to you.
I thought I would try this.
It worked.
Weird Al Yankovich recorded the song Albuquerque in 1999.
It is Weird Al Yankovich's longest song at 11 minutes and 23 seconds.
In the song, Weird Al Yankovich sings about the subject of the song who fulfills his lifelong dream of working at a Sizzler and becomes employee of the month after putting out a grease fire with his face.
It's a gem of a song and a real Easter egg of a Sizzler fact.
Look it up on YouTube.
You won't be disappointed.
Now, I had listened to Albuquerque many times, and I forgot that the restaurant that he mentions was his whole dream was to become the employee of the month at was Sizzler.
And so I went back and listened to it and I enjoyed my experience.
I don't even remember that song, and I feel like 99 was like near the peak of my weird L appreciation.
We listened to about three-quarters of the song in the office that day when we got that.
Yeah, we didn't have time to finish it, but we were-I mean, it was funny.
I just wanted to 11 or 12-minute really long ones that goes on and on and has the accordion and all that.
And it's a guy that goes to Albuquerque or something.
Very funny.
But definitely check it out on YouTube, everybody.
We probably can't play it here, or we will get copyright.
Weirdo stricken, we will.
Now it is time for weekly news with the one and only Adam Jenser.
This is fill-in.
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.
Last Friday, a homeless San Francisco man broke into Nancy Pelosi's house and fractured her husband's skull with a hammer.
Now, we're a conservative platform, but in all seriousness, we wish Paul Pelosi a speedy recovery and hope that from now on, his attacker will be pooping in a jail sale instead of pooping on the sidewalk.
According to a news study, social media and internet pornography is negatively impacting people's attention spans, and they are now way, way after game three of the World Series.
Houston Astro star Justin Verlander met and took pictures with a Phillies fan he spotted giving him the middle finger.
Because if there's one thing Astros are good at, it's spotting their opponents' hand signals.
A family in Australia hired a taxidermist to turn the body of their dead golden retriever into a throw rug.
They're now trying to teach their new dog not to on their old dog.
According to a recent testimony, after the January 6th riot, members of the Oath Keepers militia went out for an expensive late-night dinner at a Virginia Olive Garden, which explains where their new hostess stand looks an awful lot like Pelosi's podium.
The city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was voted the number one best place in America to retire, and the number one best place in America to be Amish.
There are already 64,000 senior citizens living in Lancaster, and they're all in the buffet line at the Shady Maple.
The Supreme Court began hearing a college admissions case this week that could overturn the use of affirmative action.
During oral arguments, Katanji Brown Jackson seemed to support affirmative action and cited Katanji Brown Jackson as a reason to uphold it.
A survey found that due to the rising costs of inflation, more families are planning to have pizza for Thanksgiving this year.
In other words, your dad's gonna burn down the garage deep frying a pizza.
That's it for weekly news.
I'm Chandler filling in for Adam Jenser.
To check out his dates, check out his website and to see me, check out the YouTube channel of the Babylon Bee.
Now it is time for segment number one: Twitter Blue Checks React to Elon Musk buying it.
I'm so excited.
Can I read you this?
Have you seen these?
I haven't seen them, but I've heard them.
I haven't looked through the notes yet.
So we'll see.
I'm really jazzed about it.
Can I start?
Yep.
Okay.
Taylor Lorenz said.
What an upright citizen.
It's like the gates of hell opened on this site tonight.
The Independent said, R.I.P. Twitter, 2006 to 2022, dead at the hands of Elon Musk.
And just mind you, this is all in response to a guy who bought the company and said, I would like more free speech on this free speech platform.
I wish this meant the death of Twitter personally.
It would be better.
From David Levitt, Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter could result in World War III and the destruction of our planet if he isn't careful.
Follow me on Instagram just in case.
Or here's one from Mike.
Sounds like an overreaction.
A slight overreaction.
Here's one for Mike Masnick.
People do not realize how much Vijaya.
Who is that?
Is that the one of the top exec guys?
Yeah, I was one of the executives.
They didn't realize how much Vijaya did for free speech.
Twitter is less of a free speech platform without her.
She's the one that went on Joe Rogan and tried to defend all the censorship that they were doing.
Okay, so Elon Musk tweeted out the bird is freed.
That's it.
And Molly Jong Fast replies to it here.
Molly Jong Fast replied, This bird feels like it's heading into a glass door or a very large window.
I mean, one of the two.
One of the two.
Does the distinction matter?
I don't know.
Like, is that a joke?
Glass door or a very large window?
Maybe just the cadence of the joke, like you wanted to keep it.
A glass door or a very large window.
Depending on a small window, depending on how you look at it.
I mean, yeah.
I do like that visual, though.
If Musk is like, Twitter, you are free, and it goes.
That's funny.
From Keith Olberman, another upstanding individual.
Hi, I'm Elon Ma, and I just took $44 billion and urinated it and then lit it on fire so I could be the one to reassure a terrified anonymous right-wing not-job troll who fulfills the latest Trump cult paranoia by self-identifying as a cat that I will get to the bottom of.
What does this mean?
I think he's talking about because Cat Turd 2 got banned or got no idea.
Okay, so this was in a response to something.
This was because he replied to Cat Turd, who said that he's been shadow boosted.
Twitter's wonderful format of putting the reply before the context.
Oh, I see.
Musk replied to him and said, I'll be digging into this more today.
Oh, here's one from Howard Dean.
Is this the governor of something?
I don't know.
Hi, Twitterverse.
Elon Musk fired folks at Twitter, so I'm firing Elon as I said I would.
Hope to see you all on another platform.
I'll stay on this one today for your suggestions.
Thank you for all you've contributed.
I still wear Brooks shoes made in the USA.
Thanks to you.
What?
I have no idea what you're doing.
Hey, I'm leaving this platform.
And what do you guys think about that?
All right.
Ben Shapiro said, when the history of the 21st century is written, it will be amazing that an inflection point will be a bunch of purple-haired interns pressuring a major social media service into banning a Christian satire site for saying men aren't women.
Okay, gang.
I didn't understand.
Okay, you said it was too slow.
Yeah, that didn't sound like that.
I was trying to go at all.
Faster.
Faster.
I was trying to.
And remember, if it doesn't say micro machines, it's not the real thing.
Check out Policy Genius.
So here's one where I think it works really well that this person was replying to Elon Musk saying the bird is freed.
But I'd like to read it in order.
So it says, roses are red.
Musk's all about greed.
This website is effed.
The bird is freed.
Which is funny because they're using his as the final punchline of their Roses are red joke, but it almost like, I don't know, it kind of really undermines the point.
It does because he finishes like he's interrupting them and going, the bird is freaks.
The bird is freaked.
Stop trying to be a censoring person.
All right, here's one from Paula Chertock.
I don't know who any of these people are, by the way.
Blue check with a Ukraine flag and a statue of liberty.
So she is replying to an Associated Press headline that says, social media platforms brace for midterm elections mayhem as misinformation abounds.
Well, social media users are bracing for midterm mayhem and misdisinformation, not the actual platforms.
At least not Twitter, as Elon Musk just fired the safety chief along with top execs.
And the bad guys couldn't be more thrilled.
New Twitter anyone?
Thriller?
Yielder?
So they're asking people to found a new Twitter.
I do like that these people are really rushing to the aid of these super rich executives who have like $50 million golden parachutes when they get fired.
I know.
It's so sad for them.
Oh, I'm so excited.
So these are just all separate ones?
Or am I Tristan Snell?
Okay, Tristan Snell said, stay.
Hold your ground like a Ukrainian.
Oh, my.
Well, that might take the cake.
That might take the cake.
Please do stay, though.
I hope they stay.
From Stephen King.
Yeah.
$20 a month to keep my blue check?
F that, they should pay me.
If that gets instituted, I'm gone like Enron.
That guy is such a clever book writer, and then he gets on Twitter.
And $20 a month for Stephen King is like literally like a penny.
All right.
That would be nothing.
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez might have heard of her.
She said LMAO at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that free speech is actually an $8 a month subscription plan.
Okay.
Okay.
Man, she just does not disappoint.
Never.
All right.
So Billy Baldwin said, letting a reckless ideologue take full control of what is essentially a public utility less than two weeks before election day is insane.
So it's almost as like Twitter could affect the results of an election.
Almost.
So now it's a public utility and not a private company that can do whatever.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Interesting.
From Wired, a Musk-owned Twitter could be disastrous for women and marginalized communities already facing abuse and targeted harass on the platform.
Okay.
I like Elon's face on this one.
It looks like he's just laughing at that.
He's laughing at their own head comment.
Washington Post says, Twitter was already scrambling for the midterms.
Now comes Musk.
The social media firm's ongoing shake-up raises doubts about its ability to rein in election lies.
Or to like they literally suppress true information.
Kurt, there's Kurt Eichenwald.
Eichenwald.
Kurt Eichenwald said, if I had Elon Musk's money, I seriously would spend my life trying to solve the world's problems and help people.
I'd be a little more Bruce Wayne and a lot less, well, Elon Musk.
So I think Kurt Eichenwald might be richer than the average citizen.
And does he think he spends his money on the table?
Curious if he actually does back that up or if it's just empty virtue signaling on Twitter.
Additionally, you know, if you think you could do better, Kurt, Musk has that open invitation, put together a proposal on how he should spend his money and if it actually makes economic sense, Musk says that.
Maybe he'll do it.
Yeah.
From Jimmy Kamal.
It has been interesting over the years to Watch you blossom from the electric car guy into a fully formed piece of feces.
Man, why does he say feces?
Why does he keep on weighing in?
I don't understand Jimmy Kimmel's.
And he didn't say fully formed.
Yeah, I don't get it.
Okay, here's Gina Carano, who shares Elon Musk's The Bird is Freed tweet with R2D2 GIF that it says beeps provocatively.
And probably sways from side to side.
And that was a result.
Presumably, R2D2 is saying beep, boop, beep, bop.
Bop.
Beep, bop, boop.
No, I think it was beep bop, boop, boop, bop.
I think it's beep.
Or you might be right.
I don't know.
You should check it out.
I will fact check while you do it.
Boop, bop, or beep, bop, boop.
I'm the Washington Post.
I'm saying beep bop boop.
Okay.
The Washington Post.
If you do only one thing, lock down ad settings.
Twitter is free because it makes its money on advertising and access to data about its hundreds of millions of users.
There are a few quick settings you can change to limit some of this activity.
So now they're like worried about you not having it for free.
You giving your information.
Boop, bop, beep.
So we were both wrong.
Yeah.
I knew it was like a weird order that's wrong.
Because people say it wrong every time.
Yeah.
It's unconventional.
So it's not beep bop boop.
It's boop bop beep.
Yeah.
Okay.
From Helene Olin.
When people like me worried about the power of billionaires in our society, stuff like Elon Musk and Twitter was exactly what I had in mind.
This man has some much money, some much money.
He bought Twitter just because, dot dot dot, 44 billion is just a whim to him.
Think about that.
I don't know what to think about.
That was a mess.
Oh, and she works for Jeff Bezos' Washington Post.
Jennifer Rubin, always the one with a reasonable take, says, let me put it this way.
I will leave Twitter rather than pay Musk a single dime for anything.
Do it.
Do it.
Right.
Do that.
Do it.
Brooklyn Dad Defiant with a peace sign said, replying to Elon Musk, geez, dude.
You went from selling EVs to rocket chips to bottles of cologne and now subscriptions for verified checks.
You're like the guy coming into the barber shop selling DVDs, dress shirts, and orange slices.
WTF, bro.
Okay.
I hate that.
I don't get the analogy, but okay.
Yeah.
The USA singers saying, Elon Musk just spent $44 billion to buy Twitter, which is only worth $12 billion.
And now he wants eight bucks a month from us because he's a terrible businessman who is not good at math.
Why do I get all the ones with the profanities?
He can go.
Flowerbed.
Bleep that whole thing.
With the Falcon 9 rubber.
Bleep that whole thing.
All right, here's David Wiseman, F. Elon Musk.
I'm not going anywhere or changing what I have to say.
I don't care that he's the new owner of Twitter.
That should be everyone's response.
Anyway, if you disagree, Bob Seska.
Bob Seska.
Hello.
Obviously, Elon Musk spent $44 billion, so he could openly post disinformation on Twitter without being banned.
That's some entitled maniacal supervillain-ish right there.
If you're seeking further justification for taxing the F out of billionaires, you're not paying attention.
I complained about having all the profanities in mind and then you guys got them.
That's good.
Yeah, that's good.
Some people are saying there have been some changes they've been noticing, like there are fact checks on Democrat tweets.
It appears I did see there was like a fact check, a context check on the White House tweet this morning.
And Hillary.
That was interesting.
He fact-checked Tilly.
Well, that wasn't an official fact check.
That was just him replying to Hillary Clinton, which is one way to do it.
Well, by the way, he's saying some crazy stuff.
It can be interesting to see what's going to happen here.
I don't know.
We'll see.
We'll see what happens.
We shall see.
Those were some great frothing at the mouse, mouth, not the mouse, at the mouth responses from people on Twitter.
People.
All right, now we are going to talk to Dennis Prager on Deuteronomy, and we're going to try once again to give an altar call and see what happens.
It's Prague time.
And now for another interview on the Fee Weekly.
Well, Dennis, thanks for coming on.
Just to get things started, Jewish space lasers.
Do you have access to one?
What do we have?
Jewish space lasers?
Yo, in fact, I've cornered the market.
Okay.
Well, that's good to know.
So, well, okay, so you got your new book out, Deuteronomy.
This is a commentary on Deuteronomy.
I know you've been going through it.
You got Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus out already?
Are you going out of it?
That is to your great credit that you even knew to say Leviticus.
I got to tell you, my theory on Leviticus and Deuteronomy is that if you went to any college, I don't care if it's Harvard or some local school, and you said to them, you know, I'm betting on Leviticus for the Kentucky Derby, they would say, oh, really?
What are the odds?
They would think Leviticus was a horse.
Well, so the fact that you even said Leviticus, as it is, so I'm doing a commentary on each of the first five books.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, and Deuteronomy.
But I didn't do it in order.
Gotcha.
Okay.
So Deuteronomy is the fifth of the five books, but it's my third volume.
They each take years to do.
This is an while I'm doing it.
I say to myself, you know, you could have been doing three books in the time you're doing one.
You could have made a lot more money.
Deuteronomy is not generally a major seller in the world.
That is the advantage, though.
Whenever I promote my book, I go, look, folks, one thing we can all acknowledge: no one writes a commentary on Deuteronomy to get rich.
A data point that's relevant for New Testament Christians is that Deuteronomy is the most quoted book by Jesus in the New Testament.
And I think it's a mountaintop book.
You know, there's Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah.
Deuteronomy is a heavy hitter, especially within the Pentateuch.
This is where we can transition into getting deep about the book because we, I mean, we know we can talk about politics and culture war stuff, but we'd love to really dive in.
So on the topic of Deuteronomy, you identify it in one of the first chapters as Moses' last will and testament for Israel and for that matter, for the world.
Can you expound on what Deuteronomy has to say to an average lay reader, Jewish, Christian, and then the world?
You have 30 seconds.
Well done.
Well done.
By the way, I had said what you said about Jesus and Deuteronomy to be perfectly accurate.
He quotes Psalms the most and Deuteronomy second.
Deuteronomy, he quotes the most of the Pentateuch, of the Torah, the first five books.
So I just want your viewers to or listeners.
Fact checked by Dennis Pregnant.
By the way, I was corrected on that because I said what you had said.
By the way, as interesting, I learned tragically after I wrote the commentary, I learned that a professor at American University did a very rigorous analysis of what books the founding fathers quoted the most.
Of all the books in the world, including secular books, Deuteronomy was the number one book quoted by the founding fathers.
So you have Jesus and the founding fathers.
That's a pretty big recommendation.
The book, the problem with Deuteronomy is that as rich as it is, it's hard for the average reader to understand a fair number of its laws.
There are 240 laws in it, which is an enormous thing.
It's Moses' summary.
But thank God, I know biblical Hebrew very well, and it has enabled me to write these commentaries and to make sense of them.
So I'll give you one of, and you'll just tell me when to shut up.
And I'm very serious.
I could, because obviously I could do this for hours.
But I'll give you an example of a very powerful law in Deuteronomy that is transformative for our society.
You're not allowed to favor anyone in judgment, not a poor man and not a rich man.
So it's obvious you can't favor the rich, but it's specifically you can't favor the poor either.
This is the Bible's argument against social justice.
I've always explained to people, why does the left use the term social justice?
Why don't they use the term justice?
Because social justice has nothing to do with justice.
That's why.
And they know it.
That's the reason they add an adjective.
It's like, what's the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy?
People's democracy has nothing to do with democracy.
Social justice has nothing to do with justice.
Justice is if the poor man is wrong, he is found to be wrong.
And there's no affirmative action.
That's social justice.
Justice is no affirmative action.
What is just is just.
So that's a law there.
There's a law that's really difficult for people.
A man shall not wear women's clothing.
And I can't think of a more pertinent law to our time.
Who would have thought 3,200 years ago that 3,200 years from then, that would be a dominant issue in some society?
Now, we've done a couple of comedy sketches here at the B where we've had someone dressed up in drag.
Is that against Deuteronomy, if it's for comedy, if it's for a laugh?
Well, I don't have an answer because you can't have a legal system that says, but if it's a joke, no problem.
You know, it's like they don't, these laws don't come with asterisks.
Like, you know, you should stop at a red light.
But if the guy next to you has a heart attack and nobody is coming from the other direction, go through the red light.
You can't make a system of law that does that.
Otherwise, it's not a system of law.
What we should do is common sense.
We should do a Babylon B Talmud where we're building out interpretations of the law.
We need asterisks.
Yes, just that's it.
Call it the asterisk Talmud.
Now, what you just did is cool and so helpful.
And it's one of the things that I loved about the book.
I couldn't put it down, burned through it in about three days.
Did you read the whole book?
Yes, sir.
Wow.
So I'm very touched, and I want people to know.
I just want to say to you, first of all, thank you.
It means the world to me.
But I want you to know my motto: I work hard so that the reader doesn't.
Accessibility is the main word that comes to mind.
It's a democratizing of what can be intimidating subject matter.
And when I heard commentary, I settled in.
I got coffee.
But then, as I started working through it, it's not a commentary in the sense that I expected where it would be only useful as a reference material.
It was a series of bite-sized essays that expounded on the heart of each law and then, you know, trickled down into actual applications.
I was impressed by the section on do not boil a goat in its mother's milk.
Oh, wow.
There were a handful of laws where, on the face of it, they're head scratchers, and then you got to the heart of it and then zoomed back out into application.
I mean, for such a, I guess this is where I'll turn it into a question finally.
For such a dense book, such dense subject matter, I mean, it's Iron Age, Stone Age law code.
What is it that Deuteronomy should people be intimidated by Deuteronomy?
Yeah, it is intimidating.
That's the reason I wrote this.
And if it weren't intimidating, it would have been unnecessary to devote a lifetime to explaining it.
But once it's explained, as you point out, and it gave me a big kick here, even something as obscure as Do Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother's Milk, it has an incredibly important lesson.
See, people will isolate a law here and there from the Bible and say, Is that relevant?
And my point is, what is relevant is why the law was made.
The intent of the law is eternally relevant.
Maybe a hundred years from now or a thousand years from now, red light and green light will be different.
But there is a reason for a red light and a reason for a green light.
And that's how it would be explained a thousand years from now.
One has to mean stop and one has to mean go.
And the case of the boiling a kid in its mother's milk, the mixing of life and death, milk is life, and the boiling is death.
I mean, that's one of the major ideas of the Pentateuch, of the Torah, the five books of Moses, that life and death are not to be commingled.
You are to affirm life.
There is life after death, but the Bible is preoccupied, especially the Pentateuch, with this life.
Making this life good and holy is the intent.
Beautiful.
I wanted you to rate our biblical exegesis.
There's a person who wrote an article at the Babylon B. He's in the building with me.
He may even be in the room with me.
His headline was this: and I'll have you rate our exegesis: Man stands in awe of God's wisdom upon reading in Leviticus that you are to stay away from women on their periods for seven days.
You know, coming on with you guys is a risk.
That's all I'll say.
He rates it two thumbs up.
I got a two thumbs up.
Oh, ten fingers up.
Ten fingers up.
I like the verse.
It really is a verse-by-verse approach, but still bite-sized essays.
There was an essay that was kind of in between the verses, but about topics related to the verses that struck me.
It was a good society is unattainable without wisdom.
And that essay calls out the uncomfortable truth that even well-intentioned and high-knowledge people can participate in evil if they are moral fools.
They're high-knowledge, well-intentioned, but morally fools.
I wanted to ask about that because that speaks to our society.
What's the difference between wisdom and knowledge in the Torah?
And then what's the danger of a society that's full of people high in knowledge, low in wisdom?
Well, you really, you really did read it.
And that is one of the most important possible points: that good intentions are useless, truly useless.
Very few people have bad intentions.
The greatest mass murdering machine in history, communism, was built on good intentions.
People who gave Stalin nuclear secrets had good intentions.
They had no wisdom.
They were gigantic fools.
Our universities are an ode to the fact that there is no relationship between, no necessary relationship between knowledge and wisdom.
Google has a lot of knowledge.
The internet has incredible knowledge, but it doesn't have wisdom.
You don't ask Wikipedia for how do you raise a child.
That takes wisdom.
It takes very little knowledge.
And when I was at Columbia, it hit me, and I wrote this essay many years ago.
It's on the internet, How I Found God of Columbia, when I realized I was being taught nonsense by very, very knowledgeable people.
And it puzzled me.
How could bright, knowledgeable people teach me nonsense?
Like, for example, men and women were basically the same.
That's nonsense.
And I knew it was nonsense when I was in graduate school.
And then the only time I ever had an epiphany, and that's really what it was, a verse that I had learned in Jewish school.
I went to rigorous Jewish school until I was 19, half the day in Hebrew, half the day in English.
And a verse from the Bible in Hebrew came to my brain.
I hadn't said it since second grade.
And it was, wisdom begins with fear of God.
And then I realized, and it was one of the great revelations of my life, there's no wisdom at Columbia because there's no God at Columbia.
There is not a single, forgive me, this is so important.
I just want to say it.
There is no wise secular institution.
There are individual people who are, but there is no wise secular institution.
And that is the crisis of the university and the rest of our schools.
They are radically secular and radically stupid.
And go ahead.
Well, Sam, I just wanted to tell you that typically we don't prepare for the interviews.
We don't do that here.
We don't do that here.
So I'll just ask you about the cover.
What made you choose this cover?
You're the first person to ask me about the cover.
Well, the cover, so here's the book.
So the cover is Moses presumably being visited.
I don't know even know if it's the painter had it in mind.
This is a very old painting, but it follows the series of my books.
By the way, they're gorgeously printed.
I commend my.
Do you know that in my contract, I actually say I have to approve the paper?
It's in my contract.
You don't have the fake Gideon's, you know, motel table side.
Paper fish wrapping paper.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
I don't have that.
Well, yeah.
I mean, the book, beautifully, beautifully wrought.
Back on the content of it, another.
The gold lettering is etched with a Jewish space laser.
How did you know that?
You can tell.
Because it goes from right to left.
Yeah.
So I did over prepare.
I'll admit it.
Another thing I wanted to ask about was, I mean, the anecdotal side of the book was one of my favorite things about it.
Sprinkling in of stories for human interest.
The story about how you made a conscious choice to have faith earlier in your life, but then how faith is always rational.
I wanted to ask about your youth.
Would you say you were a menace when you were growing up?
Yeah.
Dennis the menace.
Not only was I, but I actually loved when people said Dennis the Menace.
Not only did I not regard it as insulting, I reveled in it.
Did you shoot Mr. Wilson next door with like a slingshot or a space laser?
No, but I am embarrassed to say, and I really am.
I'm not joking.
I'm embarrassed to say in seventh grade, I grew up in Brooklyn where it snowed during the winter.
And on occasion, I threw snowballs at the bus driver when he opened the plus door.
I've never said this publicly.
But so I was Dennis the Menace.
So that's funny.
About your faith beginning in early life.
I mean, one other thing I liked about the book is that you take it on faith that it's divinely inspired, which puts the onus on you to grapple with morally difficult sections.
The buzzword that the left throws at the Torah is genocide.
And you handle that question with aplom because you basically take it as your responsibility to have faith, but then make it rational.
Can you speak any more to rationality and faith, where they intersect, how they relate?
Well, for me, it's not even an intersection.
My route to God is completely through reason.
I'm not saying it's the only good route.
Everyone has his or her own.
That is mine.
God gave us reason.
He wants us to use it.
As God says to the Israelites, this is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the world.
Live it properly.
I think God wants us to be rational.
Don't follow your heart is one of the most repeated laws in the Bible.
And what does that mean?
It means don't follow feelings.
Follow what is right, not what feels good.
And the conflict between the heart and the mind is the central conflict of the Torah and of the Bible generally.
So that has been my route.
And that's why I call it the rational Bible.
People who are more mystically oriented may enjoy the book, but it doesn't speak to them as directly as those who have rational problems with God or the Bible specifically.
I try to answer every single problem.
I'll tell you an interesting anecdote.
I think it's actually in there because I do talk about my own life on occasion, as you know.
So I've had five public dialogues with Professor Alan Dershowitz, who was a secular professor of law at Harvard.
And the first one was like 20 years ago in Manhattan.
And in the middle of the dialogue, I looked at the audience because it was about religion and reason and all of this stuff.
And I said, I figured out the primary difference between Professor Dershowitz, for whom I have great respect, by the way, and myself.
I said, when Alan Dershowitz thinks the Torah is wrong, he says the Torah is wrong and he is right.
When I think the Torah is wrong, I say I am wrong and the Torah is right.
And then he looked at the audience and said, for the first time tonight, I agree with Dennis.
That's incredible.
It's divinely inspired.
So it's your need to fall in line under it.
I like the authors and the scholars that you cite.
I mean, your book is replete with just appeals to not just Maimonides, Rashi, and the Talmud, but also Christian commentators on the Torah.
I noticed a name kept popping out at me because I go to Grace Community Church, which is affiliated with the Master's Seminary where Alan Grissant, where Dr. Michael Grissanti works out of, and you cite his commentary on Deuteronomy more frequently than almost anything else other than the rabbis.
What I wanted to ask you, what we wanted to ask you is this.
You've obviously rubbed shoulders with Christian scholarship and Christians throughout your radio and now digital careers and your writing careers.
What Christian in your life has given you the most convincing altar call?
The most convincing what?
Altar call.
Who has tried to make you walk the sawdust trail?
Big revival.
So I don't have one answer.
You are entirely right in noting how many Christian scholars I quote.
And I will tell you why.
I've always gambled telling the truth, even though some people will not enjoy what I have to say.
And I hope that's not true, but I will tell you why.
I want scholarship and faith.
So secular scholars of the Bible, I read, but they don't give me much strengthening of my faith.
There are religious commentators who don't appeal to me because they're just faith and they don't use scholarship or reason.
The people most likely in our time to combine scholarship and faith are Christian scholars.
So I love them.
Wow.
All right.
Maybe they're onto something.
Yes, maybe they're onto something.
Well, they are.
Look.
Okay.
Obviously, if I believed in Christ as a Christian does, I would be a Christian.
Obviously, if you believed the way I do, you'd be a Jew.
I happen not to find this to be a problematic issue in the least because I truly believe that Christians like you are doing God's work.
It's not a compliment.
It's a statement of faith on my part.
And even though obviously you have theological issues with me, most Christians know how valuable I am to Christians.
Look, there are 5,000 reviews of my rational Bible on Amazon.
That's a lot.
And the number of people who said, this guy Prager brought me back to church is a very large number, and I'm very proud of that.
I mean, to say that we're grateful for the work that you do for truth and for the conservative movement would be an understatement.
One thing early in the book that caught my ear, and this isn't one of our written questions, but I'm glad we're opening up and probing.
I noticed that you had basically said that not just the Torah, but the whole Tanakh, the whole Jewish Bible, really doesn't make as much a distinction between believers and unbelievers as between the good and the evil.
I think us as born-again New Testament Christians would say the difference is just believers, unbelievers.
Has your sin been taken care of by Christ?
Or are you not a believer?
In which case you're still under judgment.
Can you speak any more to that sect, that comment in your book about how most of the Tanakh, the Torah, is about the good versus the evil?
Well, this is the fundamental theological difference between the two religions.
The question to me, though, since I don't judge people and I don't believe God does by their theology, but by their behavior, is you, Christians like you, first of all, Christians like you founded the greatest country that ever existed, the United States of America.
Jews didn't found it.
Catholics didn't found it.
Muslims didn't found it.
Atheists didn't found it.
Protestant Christians founded it.
That's just a fact.
It's not even a compliment.
It's just a fact.
So my gratitude to you is enormous.
But even putting aside all emotion, since I judge people as I believe God wants me to by their behavior, the Christianity that you follow has produced an enormous number of good people and a wonderful country,
which is under siege and is becoming a worse country, which is because Christianity is descending in its popularity and its following.
This is a catastrophe for Jews, for atheists, for Muslims, for Christians.
So, yes, I do believe God judges people by their behavior and of issue.
That is correct.
But in the final analysis, if you as a Christian accept James, that it is, what is it?
Faith without works is dead.
That's right.
Faith without works is dead.
Then we meet at James, and that's a pretty big deal.
We should look into throwing it out of the canon.
Would you be able to look into that?
By the way, Luther, you'll find this.
Do you know that Luther wanted to get rid of James?
Yep.
He has some nice things to say about the Jews, too.
That's right.
Yes, exactly.
I'm in good company.
All right.
Well, we want to respect your time.
We only got a few minutes left.
We're going to have to.
Now, listen, you guys are so special to me.
I want to invite myself on again.
Please, please come back.
Well, we have a few rapid-fire questions to finish off with, if you're okay with that.
The first one is you're being sent to AOC's gulags and you're given a VHS player and a television.
What tape do you bring with you?
I would probably bring, well, if it was an if I, and I could bring nothing else.
Yeah, just a movie.
It's just like one VHS tape.
Well, I, I, I, oh, wait.
So again, does it have to be a movie?
Does it have to be a book?
Does it could be anything?
No, it has to be a movie.
Or it could be home video.
Oh, a movie.
Oh, okay.
A VHS tape.
So if I were to see one movie over and over and over, it would probably be, ironically, Groundhog Day.
That's funny.
I've got a question.
What's the dumbest thing you did as a teenager?
Threw snowballs at bus drivers.
He already got there.
Good answer.
Quick question.
Number three, what is your karaoke song of choice?
And can you sing it for us right now?
That's not fair.
It's not fair to your listeners.
I have a wonderful speaking voice and God did not grant me.
It's ironic because I do conduct orchestras.
I am a musician.
But not singing.
I'm a serious musician, but nobody's ever asked me to sing anything.
Okay.
Next time we'll have him sing Bohemian Rhapsody, easiest karaoke song I've ever heard of.
Yeah, that's right.
Or Boss.
Skullberg variations.
Beautiful.
Okay, our next question.
You can ask God any one question.
What do you ask him?
Why did you invent the mosquito?
All right, our last question.
We tried this last time.
You said no.
We're going to try again.
Will you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior right now?
So what?
If I said yes, would you think I was bluffing?
I mean, you know, chalk another one up to the bee.
A yes is a yes, man.
A yes is a yes.
We'll take it.
I accept you as doing God's work as Christians on behalf of my favorite book, the Torah.
I can't give you a higher theological compliment.
All right.
Well, thanks for coming on, Dennis.
We really appreciate it.
Everybody go check out the book, Dennis Berger, Deuteronomy God Blessings and Curses from the Rational Bible.
Thank you.
Treasure in Heaven is great, but it's not going to buy you a tank of gas.
So let's take a moment to briefly review the current state of our economy and the global effect the war between Russia and Ukraine has had.
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That was wonderful Pragan time.
Now it is time for a segment that we forgot to put in the notes, stuff that's good.
But now, this week's edition of Stuff That's Good.
For my stuff that's good, I wanted to mention the new Striper album.
It's called The Final Battle.
The Final Stripe.
Well, is that still around here?
I mean, close to.
I probably shouldn't have said that.
I just kind of said that.
Oh, we're in Southern California.
We're in Southern California.
Are they still in Southern California?
Some of them are kind of close.
I think Oz Fox lives in Vegas, maybe.
What's the address?
Michael Sweet.
Michael Sweet has always lived in Boston, I'm pretty sure.
Okay.
So they're kind of split up a little bit.
Was it Striper that had one of the guys lived in somewhere in Glendora?
Or was that the other guy?
Let's just not talk about where I don't know where he live at.
No, it's Hacksaw Porpoises.
They released a new album, and it is good.
It is my favorite Striper album in years, and they just have some great tracks.
So if you want to check it out, it's called The Final Battle.
The standout track.
it's funny that you sing that because my first introduction to striper was on the 500 frenzy live album They play the final countdown as their first song while Rhys Roper screams to hell with the devil from the Striper song.
It's all come full circle.
Now the Five Iron Guys would be like, Welcome the Devil.
Yeah.
You should have looked up their tweets on the Iron Music.
We worship the devil.
If you're going to look up one track, look up Transgressor.
It's a really great track.
It reminds me of like Judas Priest, very fast-paced metal.
It's my favorite Striper album in a long time.
And I liked their recent stuff.
So I'm a big fan.
They're touring right now too.
So check out maybe they're coming to your area.
That's great.
I did not get paid for this.
A Striper.
Striper.
You should have those guys on the podcast.
We tried.
They were busy.
Oh.
So continuing the theme of music, My Stuff That's Good is also a musicheang.
It's also an 80s hair metal band.
I actually, I think he only releases music on YouTube.
Like, that's his main thing.
He doesn't do album.
Well, it's on Apple Music and stuff.
But his name is Bill Worts.
Okay.
Bill Warts?
Bill Wartz.
W-U-R-R-T-Z.
Okay.
And he has a really interesting style.
It's almost his own genre.
Rock.
He takes a lot of inspiration from Jazz Fusion, but it's very synth-heavy.
And it's almost sounds like kids' music.
And by the way, not all of his stuff is 100% family friendly.
There are some swear words in some of the songs.
I just don't listen to those.
But one song in particular called At the Airport Terminal is probably my favorite song of his.
And what I find very unique about it is when you first turn it on, it sounds like a kid's song, like a children's song.
But as the song progresses, he introduces alternate chord patterns, syncopations, and just and these like crazy little counter melodies.
And it starts off sounding like a kid song.
And by the end, it sounds like this really complicated music theory heavy jazz fusion track.
And it's very, very unique style and weird, weird, weird music videos.
Does he wear yellow and black stripes?
He does like the lo-fi thing.
Okay.
And no stripes.
Sad.
No yellow and black stripes.
Other pants and all that.
Okay.
No stripes.
Check that out.
Bill Worts.
Bill Wertz.
Bill Wurtz.
What is yours?
So I have two that start with the letter A. Alcoholics.
Anonymous.
No.
If you're struggling.
I've been going to AA.
No.
That is my stuff.
I found my higher power.
No, we're not joking.
That's actually really good for people.
But anyway, so Albert Moeller podcast is my first one.
He is, if you haven't had a chance to check him out, he's the briefing, right?
The briefing.
It's like a 23-minute, 22-minute podcast every day.
Have you guys listened to that very much?
No.
No, we are the only podcast that covers.
That covers the news.
That's true.
But Albert Moeller, he goes into history.
He goes into what's happening in the legal field.
He goes, not the news.
Supreme Court, just like Supreme Court rulings and medical and medicine and stuff like that.
He's a robot dude when he like, I don't know.
It's amazing.
And he like writes it.
He types out the whole thing and there's a whole transcript of it.
It's incredible.
This morning, the Supreme Court is going to hear the, you know, almost doesn't take a breath.
Like it's so for like a half an hour.
Yeah, pretty crazy.
I mean, and each sentence means something.
It's not, he doesn't have any filler sentences.
It's like we do.
Yeah, exactly.
Does he have any facts about chain buffet restaurants in his?
I haven't heard any yet, but I'm sure he's got an opinion about them.
So Albert Moeller podcast.
If you guys check that out, if you want to be informed and not be terrified.
It is called The Briefing.
The Briefing.
And then, so Albert Moeller, and then we should have him on that podcast, too.
I would love to have him on that.
Do it.
Yeah, so let's make that happen.
Secondly, my musical contribution will be Andrew Bird.
Do you guys know who Andrew Bird is?
The name sounds kind of familiar.
So, Andrew Bird, he used to play the violin for a band called the Squirrel Nut Zippers.
That does not sound familiar.
So, the Squirrel Nut Zippers wrote a song called Hell back in the 90s, and it was kind of like this neo-it was like a neo-big band jazz kind of feel that came about.
There was like a whole swing kind of movement.
Did it have Cinco pants?
They did not.
Okay, but I do remember that swing dancing was really cool, like back in there, like turn of the century.
Like, anyway, so he was part of that, and then he went off on his own.
He leads, so his all of his music is usually done with a looper, and he does he does it with a violin, and he sings with the violin.
So, he kind of like he'll sing and do violin at the same time.
It's a very kind of alternative, like acoustic-y, alternative kind of style.
Okay, I love it.
His lyrics are incredibly interesting.
He uses I was thinking of Larry Bird, Larry Bird was and Big Bird, like those are the two that's confused with me.
He's a basketball player, he was a yeah, right.
I get Larry Bird and Big Bird mixed up.
I don't care, can't you?
So, I haven't heard of Andrew Bird, Andrew Bird, though, is great, though.
Okay, so if you ever get a chance to check him out, his lyrics are just insane.
They're super weird.
It's like a mad scientist started to write that.
That's another thing.
Sorry, I'm going back to mine.
Yeah, uh, Bill Wurtz, his lyrics, like, they're just word vomit.
Like, it doesn't make any sense.
Like, there are a lot of like lyrical cliches.
Like, I don't think, I don't know what his thought process is behind writing it.
I think he just makes lyrics that sound like lyrics, but don't actually do anything.
Right.
So, it's just really funny, yeah.
Andrew Bird, Legionnaires with two by fours.
Like, he just goes off on stuff.
It's weird.
He's like, I was getting ready to be a threat.
I was getting best.
Just my accidental suicide.
Yeah, it's really weird.
It's just Striper has a lot of songs.
The lyrics are basically just Bible verses.
That's better.
It's better.
Is there anything about a red wave of Jesus is black pouring over us?
Out of an elevator.
We do have something like that.
I'll have to look it up.
All right.
So check out those things.
Those are our stuff that's good this week.
Completely unpaid advertising.
Now it is time for hate mail.
I really miss Adam Ford.
Our first hate mail is a tweet from Ace Spukelius, who says, The Babylon Bee is literally the bottom of the barrel for comedy because its purpose isn't really to make anyone laugh, but to make people go, Yes, you got them.
Owned.
It shows how boring the onion would be if it was nothing but Trump jokes.
Wait, the onion does things other than Trump jokes.
I was not aware.
From Noah Ingledew, The Babylon Bee is like the onion if it was written by your degenerate boomer uncle who still says the N-word at family holidays and who is no longer allowed near his grandchildren.
I think the question is: is it the left or the right that's more prone to sexualizing children?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good question.
It's so weird that they go right to that question.
Objectively, it's comfortable down here at the bottom of the barrel, by the way.
Dark PJ says, I trust Babylon B just slightly more than I trust your failed restaurant to not give me explosive diarrhea.
Who's he replying?
Is that a Sizzler?
Is that a Sizzler comment?
He's replying to Lauren Bobert.
And Elon Musk.
So what's the failed restaurant?
Maybe Lauren Bobert.
I think he's replying to a Lauren Bobert tweet.
Did she have a failed restaurant?
Could someone quickly Google, does Lauren Bobert have a failed restaurant?
With Elon Musk.
I would like to know.
I'm not going to move on from this segment until we solve this mystery.
Gun-themed restaurant called Shooter's Grill.
It was a Second Amendment-themed restaurant.
Did not renew its lease.
And also, it didn't fail, though, did it?
Or just to close.
Thanks for watching.
Stay tuned if you're a subscriber.
Are going to do bonus hate mail.
Subscriber submitted headlines and it has.
Have all of us answered the second set of 10 questions I have?
Have you answered the set of all?
Right, Brandon will be answering the second set.
I wasn't prepared either.
Brandon will be answering the second set of 10 questions.
Here we go.
Thanks for watching guys and listening the only podcast that covers the news coming up next for Babylon, BE subscribers.
You can go back in time and convert any three people to Christianity.
Who are you gonna save?
Let's just say Stephen King okay, that's cool, because he's so insufferable.
Let's say uh, we want him to be insufferable for Christ.
Neil Degros Tyson, because he's also insufferable.
I like that.
You're just picking people so they'll be less annoying.
Basically, Amy Schumer.
This has been another edition of the BEE Weekly from the dedicated team of Certified fake news journalists you can trust here at the Babylon B,