The Babylon Bee Sues California and NPR Is Mad At Twitter
The Babylon Bee is suing the Attorney General in California to stop enforcement of a social media censorship law which would go against free speech in the public square while National Public Radio decided to stop tweeting after it was pointed out that they are funded by the Nation's public. Tennessee lawmakers were expelled after a protest broke out for gun control which disrupted the State House and also the kid who played Harry Potter is all grown up and wants parents to keep their opinions to themselves about irreversible transgender surgery for children. The Bee also talked to John Papola from Dad Saves America about who was a better dad: Walter White or Darth Vader? Check out Dad Saves America on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DadSavesAmerica The Babylon Bee also talks about the new Super Mario Brothers movie, Rey coming back for another Star Wars movie, and then gets around to some spicy Sizzler Comments! Also, did you know that a meme maker is facing up to ten years in prison for making memes? Crazy! In the ad-free, full-length subscriber version of the podcast, The Babylon Bee crew talks about the Apocrypha, reads subscriber headlines, and listens to a very special song made by subscribers Lil Ridgy Mane and Nicalys! Support The Babylon Bee by becoming an annual subscriber and get 20% off by using promocode 'PODCAST' : http://babylonbee.com/plans This episode is brought to you by our wonderful sponsors who you should absolutely check out: Get 10% OFF Therapy at BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/babylonbee A community of Christians sharing each other's medical bills at Samaritan Ministries: https://samaritanministries.org/thebabylonbee Get $500 of free silver with a qualifying account at Allegiance Gold: http://protectwithbee.com/
NPR is big mad at Twitter because Twitter said they took money from the government, which they do.
Tennessee lawmakers brought a bullhorn into the state house floor.
So disrupting legislators in a government building suddenly became cool again.
A music teacher was forced to resign by the high school when he wouldn't use transgender names and pronouns.
And a federal court said that's what makes America great.
Harry Potter's all grown up now and he wants trans children to be free from their parents' opinions on trans issues.
Expecto Patronum.
A meme maker was convicted of election interference and faces up to 10 years in prison.
That's what makes America great.
Also, we talked to John Papola of Dad Saves America about the importance of being a dad.
All this and more on the Babylon Bee Podcast.
Hey everybody, welcome to the Babylon Bee podcast.
Kyle's off this week.
I'm here with Jarrett and Emma.
Hello.
Yep.
How are you guys?
Thanks for having me on.
Is this the first time we've ever had this combination of it?
I think it is.
I'm kind of excited about it.
I feel like I've been on with you guys when Kyle's here, but I don't think it's been just us before.
No.
No.
Yeah, never this combination.
This will be fun.
We've got news of the week.
We have an interview with John Papola of Dad Saves America.
You know, he used to do Spike TV.
Oh, really?
Were we part of that conversation?
Was that Kyle?
That was Kyle.
Oh, I thought you meant were we part of Spike TV?
Yeah, we forgot.
You forgot whether you and I ever worked together.
Girls jumping on trampolines.
That's all I remember.
That was Comedy Central.
Okay.
All right.
That's all the same.
It's all the same for me.
Yeah.
That's back when Adam Curl and Jimmy Kimmel worked together.
Oh, that's right.
Back when nobody was politically correct.
Yeah.
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Yeah.
Become a paid subscriber.
That's what we really want.
Yeah.
Those numbers, their social media following, that's all that matters to validate people anymore.
Yeah, that's all.
That's where our self-worth is found.
Especially Adams.
No, not.
That's why my self-worth is so low.
No, mine is my own.
There's a lot of followers.
I gain one and I lose like 10.
There we go.
That's the way it goes.
I know.
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H-E-L-P.com slash Babylon B. What's in the news this week?
There's a big story involving the Babylon Bee.
The Babylon Bee is suing California's Attorney General.
Our CEO, Seth Dillon, just announced this on his Substack today.
There's a new bill.
It's Bill AB 587.
It requires big tech platforms to provide periodic reporting to the California Attorney General on several categories of speech, including misinformation, disinformation, extremism, radicalization, and hate speech.
Of course, put the air quotes around those because they always exploit their own interpretation of those things to just silence speech they don't like.
The bill would say if the platforms don't provide adequate reporting, the state will impose fines to compel compliance.
Gavin Newsom's statement on it was, California will not stand by as social media is weaponized to spread hate and disinformation that threaten our communities and foundational values as a country.
They claim it's about transparency, but really it's about transgenderism.
Oh man, I was going to say that.
But there's concern about free speech being restricted in the name of censoring misinformation hate.
Of course, it's a censorship bill, not a transparency bill.
And they'll try to do things like Twitter did to us, where if you call a man a man, they'll say that that's hate speech.
If you say something that doesn't fit the narrative.
It just keeps different entities keep trying to come at the same problem.
They keep trying to do the same thing.
But they're not trying to solve actual issues on social media.
Instagram and Facebook, I think, is the number one source that ISIS used for recruitment.
How come they didn't solve that?
But they could ban us.
Like, how could they?
They don't do it.
When you see any of their censorship, whether it's the social media tech companies themselves or the government entities pressuring them to censor stuff, it's never actual nefarious actors.
It's never left-wing misinformation.
It's only people on the right.
And it's also not just general misinformation.
Like, if I scroll through Facebook or Instagram, there's all these like alien body found at the bottom of the sea.
Yeah.
They're like healing crystals can cure this.
And it's all this just nonsense.
And they're not flagging any of that.
Yeah.
But if you, you know, if you say something that says, you know, people are their biological sex, then that gets flagged.
If you say anything that, you know, disputes the climate change narrative, that gets flagged.
If you question vaccines, that gets flagged.
It's only stuff that question the narrative they're pushing.
I think this is interesting that we're, as the Babylon B, taking a stand on this and actually suing the Attorney General.
I think that's a big deal for us.
And I don't know.
I'm interested to see how it goes and how much effect that has on this kind of thing.
Because how much does I mean, when you sue an attorney general, does that really make a big difference?
Like, do we?
I don't know.
You could sue an attorney general.
Yeah.
Well, I think you can sue anyone.
I think if it gets high, I don't know all the legal procedures, but I think if it gets high enough, it can set a precedent where you can't.
You know, if what we want and what it should be is that laws like this are declared unconstitutional, that you can't restrict speech in this way.
Right.
Oh, and if you haven't seen it, be sure to check out.
There's a clip of our CEO, Seth Dillon, testifying before Congress a few weeks ago on censorship and free speech issues.
And he had a great quote in there where he said, you know, censorship doesn't protect the truth.
It protects the narrative and it protects the narrative at the expense of the truth.
And I think that's a great summation of Seth Dylan.
What a guy.
Yeah.
So in the wake of the shooting at Covenant Schools, you guys heard about it's terrible, a protest erupted in the state house of Tennessee.
Then Republicans in Tennessee voted to expel two out of three Democrat lawmakers who led the protest inside the Tennessee Capitol advocating more gun control.
They took over the House floor with a bullhorn to protest for more gun control, egging on protesters who had entered the building.
So the speaker of the house, Cameron Sexton, said, so we were in between bills and Republican Representative Justin Jones, Representative Justin Pearson, and Representative Gloria Johnson came to the well.
We had protesters that had been vocal in the balcony.
We had given them warnings.
They were out in front of the chamber being very vocal, yelling and screaming, which we're used to at one point during session to come up out of order and try to take over the House floor, started pulling out a megaphone and shouting at members and exciting riots and violence.
You had people outside the chamber who rushed the state troopers to try to get inside the chamber.
They weren't successful.
So now we have multiple violations by those three.
In a poll, 51% majority call the expulsions an anti-democratic abuse of power, compared with 42% who viewed them as an ex-inappropriate way to discipline lawmakers.
The Nashville Metro Council voted unanimously Monday to reappoint Jones to his seat.
In Memphis, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners was scheduled to meet Wednesday to consider reappointing Pearson to his former seat as well.
I just want to know more about the bullhorn.
Well, I want to know what model it was, how loud it was.
What were they wearing?
Oh, there it is.
We can see it now.
That's a good bullhorn.
I'm surprised it doesn't have a trans flag on it.
That's good.
That is a nice suit.
Yeah.
You know, the thing is, when these people are sworn into their positions, they sign, you know, there's an agreement of how you're going to conduct yourselves, and you're not allowed to disrupt proceedings like this.
I don't think it's an what did they call it?
An assault on an anti-democratic abuse of power.
Thing is, the House has the right to vote on things like this after these disruptions.
And then the Nashville Metro Council voted to reinstate them, which is also part of the procedure.
It's not anti-democratic.
It's just how the procedure is.
It's actually Democratic.
It's how the procedure works.
I saw this protest, and I kept seeing people frame it like it was about, it was protesting in fading for trans people, but it was actually just a gun control protest.
But I thought that was weird.
I was like, I saw these Republican side, right-sided people framing this protest incorrectly.
Oh, really?
To just like propel a narrative.
It was about gun control.
It was about gun control.
It wasn't about like misgendering the shooter.
It was about more gun control.
I just thought that was weird.
It's like, why are you doing this?
I don't want to mention transgender about that shooting in any way whatsoever.
I know.
It's like, why are you doing that narrative completely?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
You're framing this incorrectly to get a rise out of people.
Like, that's what we hate about the left.
It's just another example, too, of the politicization, the politicization of something that is a tragedy.
And I don't know when we can learn from this and stop doing this kind of stuff.
Like, stop politicizing this.
Just grieve with these people.
I know we got to figure something out, but stop taking stands.
Stop having soapboxes after these events and using these, you know, these terrible things to further your own thing.
I just think it sucks.
Anyway, it's just a crappy part of our society right now.
But when these guys do it, it's okay when the Buffalo guy has his bullhorn.
Yeah.
That's bad.
When he's praying for people.
When the Buffalo guy is praying for people.
One of these guys is a universalist Unitarian, which makes a lot of sense.
One of them, there's a funny clip online that went, I guess, kind of shared yesterday I saw where it showed.
It's either Justin Pearson or there's another Justin, right?
One of the two that was expelled.
I forget which one it was.
But there's clips of him in college a few years ago running for like college president.
He's given this real sort of down-to-earth, like, we want to work with Democrats and Republicans.
We want to be moderate.
And it shows him speaking on the House floor, and he's like doing like a Martin Luther King Jr. impression.
He sounds like a southern preacher.
Like it's a caricature.
Really?
Yeah.
Gosh, that's funny.
Well, it's like what Hillary Clinton did and AOC did.
AOC had something to say about this too.
She said that she accused Tennessee Republicans of, I mean, if you can believe it, fascism.
She calls it.
That's their go-to.
That's a good idea.
She could call it.
If you can believe.
I don't think they know.
I don't think that's a problem.
I don't think they know what phobia or phobic means.
We're just using it wrong.
It bothers me.
It's like you can be transphobic.
If they disagree with a trans person, they think that's phobia.
Yeah, transphobic and then arachnophobic.
It's like it can't be in the same Waterburger phobic.
Yeah.
Because I like In-N-Out better.
Like, how's that work?
Federal appeals court judge backs firing of Indiana teacher who refused to use transgender names pronouns.
This teacher was fired for not using students' preferred pronouns and was fired.
And then a federal appeals court supported the firing, said it was okay to fire him for not using proper pronouns.
To make America great again.
That's what they said.
Oh, it was like justice for the trans kid.
See, I want to know, like, how old is the kid?
What are their parents like?
And he said that it was for religious objection.
Yes.
So it wasn't just like a, oh, I don't want to use it.
It's a religious stance.
From what I understand of this story, I just, I only read a little bit about it.
He defended himself on religious grounds, saying it would violate his personal, you know, sincerely held religious beliefs to use these made-up pronouns to describe the trans kids.
But what he did is he used their last names to refer to them.
So he tried to avoid using pronouns completely.
But then they were saying that that was somehow demeaning or singled the trans kids out, that he wouldn't use pronouns.
They're literally trying to force people to speak the trans agenda.
And it's scary that these appeals courts are backing this.
I just find, you know, as much as we spend time talking about all these trans issues, I was talking with a friend about this week.
It's insane that our country has even gotten to this point where it's considered a legitimate debate that you have to call a man a woman or a woman a man.
It's just the most important thing to call me a friend because we had that conversation.
Yeah, I'm very, wow, I'm honored.
Whoa.
You guys are having a moment.
And then a friend.
Well, this is that he resigned after he was told he was going to be fired and then he sued.
He should have let them fire you.
For all these people who quit for the vaccine mandate, you have to let them fire you.
Let them fire you.
That's so maybe they're not, maybe they're backing with the school because he wasn't even fired.
He was told he would be.
I don't know the law specifically.
Is there any legal reason why they would resign instead of letting them fire them?
I don't know if there's anything.
They can't force you to resign.
You should always like.
They can highly suggest you resign.
But then they can threaten things if you don't.
And so like you won't get your pension or whatever.
I don't know what they're going to do.
But would you even get it if you resigned?
Oh, maybe that's why they do it, to retain their pension.
That's what it is.
If you're fired, you don't get your pension.
Then you don't have as much power when you sue.
No, it's true.
So keeping the pension.
This might not be an issue of, oh, they didn't back him because of religious beliefs.
This might be an issue of he didn't get fired.
And to what you were saying, well, we were talking about this before the podcast, but you were saying that even irreligious people, they have sort of, it's still a religious belief and neutrality is a religious belief.
And this shows how this transgender ideology, which is a religion, it's trumping traditional religious freedom.
They're saying you have, you know, your Christian beliefs, your traditional religious beliefs, they are superseded by what trans people believe.
Well, it doesn't have to speak their ideology.
An unproven, unprovable philosophy that is a faith.
It's a faith, you know, that's built on things that are not proven, like not profound.
Ultimately, completely exactly what you believe in your own head.
It's exactly the same thing.
Yeah.
Isn't faith things that you can't prove?
So it is a faith.
Partially.
I think that's one of the definitions.
Yeah.
We could get on Hebrews.
Yeah.
But I do think it's a very interesting knowledge of things hoped for and evidence of things unless unseen hope.
Yes.
But I do think the trans thing is, I mean, it's compelled speech.
Again, like this is compelled speech.
It's not something that we've ever had in our society where people are compelling people to say certain things.
Not even saying that you can't, that you can, that you have to not say certain things.
Because that's what freedom of speech is.
And this guy to some extent was trying to be respectful.
He was saying their names instead of pronouns.
But no, that's not good enough.
I'm trying to treat them like humans.
That's like what Jordan Peterson's argument was when he was standing up before the Canadian Congress.
He was saying, look, this is compelled speech.
It's Maoist.
Like, this is the same utterances that created all the different genocides that we've had.
It's the same thing because you're compelling people to say certain things that they don't believe.
And it's a government overlord saying this thing.
So that's where we're at in our society.
So stop saying those things.
Don't say those things.
Should just misgender the student then.
So we just got to.
You know what?
Here's the thing.
I've been at a crossroads this week as I was thinking about this stuff and just how tired I am of the fact that it's gotten to this point.
I have in the past tried to be respectful in the same way that teacher was.
Like when I was working on shows and like Caitlin Jenner would be there.
When I would talk about Caitlin Jenner, I would always say, Caitlin.
I just wouldn't use pronouns.
But and I've always attempted, even though I disagree with these people, to at least give them some modicum of respect, you know, in this regard.
But it's getting to the point where it's like, maybe we need to take a harder line and just say, no, that's a man.
Yeah.
He, he, him.
Yeah.
You just need to call it out and, you know, just draw a line and say, no, we're, we're going to stop going along with this.
I was, I was the same way.
Like, I don't want to, I'm not as confrontational as I'd want to be.
And, um, but like, yeah, I don't like, okay, fine.
I'll, I'll tell you, like, call you your pronouns or call you your last name.
But then it was like women's sports and the military.
And it's like, when they talk about the trans swimmer, like the first thought that comes in my mind is like, I'm a woman who has to change in the locker room.
And when it comes to swimming, you have to become completely naked in the locker room compared to like playing soccer or another sport.
It's like that is so uncomfortable.
And then there's nothing that can be done because we didn't ever take a hard stance on it.
It's like you got too far.
It's like you asked for too much and now you have to, it's like, it's going to backfire completely instead of just allowing you to be perceived the way that you want it to be.
It reminds me of.
See, I always try to get completely naked in the locker room, regardless of the sport.
Even if I'm putting on bowling shoes, dude, I know guys get completely naked.
I know guys that do this.
Like I used to, we used to go to the gym and it was always the old guys.
It was like the old guys would just walk around there.
Dude, and they love taking the longest route from the showers to their lostly naked.
People I know.
People that I was working with.
Like that kind of stuff.
And it's like, I've seen you in the office.
Now I've seen you in your birthday suit.
There's a girl at basic training who just like would be like I'll change immediately, like shower, change immediately.
Then I'm going to brush my teeth and do my hair.
But it was literally the last thing for her to put her clothes on.
And then it would be like a break.
Like we have a five-minute break.
Why are your clothes off?
Why are you naked right now?
Just be ashamed of our naked bodies the way God intended.
The way God intended.
And she's not fit.
Not these old guys.
It's like an unfit lady.
Old naked body.
Like the one woman who's 35 at basic training who's like old naked.
Would you just call a 35-year-old an old naked body?
In the army world, a basic body.
Got a real Dodd Lemon over here.
She's past her pride.
That's the old, like, that's old in basic training.
Oh, that's compared to like the 17-year-old, the 18.
Oh, okay.
Let's not talk about that.
Yeah, but I money, the Dalai Lama.
Sorry.
Let's talk about NPR.
Okay.
So this is the story was from last week, but NPR said they're going to suspend their use of Twitter because Elon Musk's Twitter designated the organization's account a U.S. state-affiliated media.
Twitter has since changed the label to government-funded media.
Is that a little better?
Government-funded media.
Is that more accurate?
I mean, I wonder if NPR is like, well, that's true.
Yeah.
We are.
But that's true.
Undermined its credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorial independent.
Well, are you?
Are you independent?
Well, they're trying to say that they're that like they're trying to say, like every other news organization, that they're somehow objective, but they're not.
So there's almost no objective reporting out there.
Yeah, I agree.
I think sometimes I would say local news stations, like local news affiliates, those are some of the most reliable for just unbiased factual reporting.
Because if you look at as much as the left wants to complain about Fox News being biased to the right, all of their networks are as biased or more biased to the left.
There's not really a good 24-hour news channel currently in the United States that's just objective reporting.
I know the best, the closest I've gotten is World and Everything in It.
It's from a Christian perspective, but that's just a 30-minute podcast every day.
There are a few podcasts where they'll have like one on the right and one on the left kind of talking about the stories, and some of those are interesting.
I think international is sometimes safer, like an international perspective of what's happening in the world.
Except for Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera, really, really accurate.
They do have some accurate reports, actually.
Anyway.
All right, next story.
So Super Mario Brothers dominated the box office this weekend.
Very exciting.
We're very happy for Chris Pratt.
He seems like he's doing well.
Breaking records held by Frozen 2, which thank God for that.
A tale in two parts.
So first of all, John Leguizamo, if you guys don't know who he is, he's an Hispanic actor.
He's been in a lot of stuff over the years.
He was just in the menu.
And wasn't he in the original horror?
He was also in the original live-action Mario.
Bizarre one.
So he thinks that Latin characters or Latin people should be playing Italians is what he's boycotting.
He said they messed up.
They messed up inclusion.
So not enough Latin actors playing Italians.
So white actors, no.
Latin actors, yes.
Also, Super Mario Brothers swelling to $368 million worldwide so far.
An all-time record debut for animated movie Beating Frozen 2.
That's amazing.
The weirdest thing about his Mario Brothers movie is not that they changed Mario from an Italian to a Latino person.
It was because they changed the Goombas into these lizard creatures and Bowser into a businessman.
It was a strange, strange movie.
But you know, let's think about Mario Brothers for a second, though, and just how strange it really is.
I mean, like, you've got a guy jumping and hitting a brick with his head, things coming out of the brick when he hits it with his head.
There's growth.
Yeah, but what racism is that?
There's a lot of mushrooms that he's consuming.
So, you know, you're fighting these little turtle creatures.
It's a strange world.
I wanted to go see it.
I went to go see it, and then they had all that was left was like the front row.
I was surprised.
I was like, I had to buy tickets in advance for this because of how it was.
Did you actually see it?
No, because I didn't want to look like it.
You didn't look that way.
I don't want to go that way.
It's doing really well, yeah.
I want to see it.
I would like to see it.
I didn't originally plan to see it, and I've heard really great things about it.
I think I'll definitely see it.
Yeah.
Support our good friend.
Hey, so how do you say Mario?
Mario?
Mario.
You say Mario?
Mario?
Mario.
You say Mario.
I say Mario.
Mario.
But see, I don't even think, to me, a lot of those little inflections of pronunciations, when you draw attention to it and point it out, I notice it a little bit.
I almost don't notice it at all, whether it's I'm saying it or you saying it.
And I say Mario more often, but there are times, I think, when I say Mario, and in my head, it's just interchangeable.
Mario.
I don't even care about it a whole lot.
I have to not think about it.
I feel like I'm saying it wrong.
That's crazy.
Well, here's the thing.
Kyle saw this movie last weekend and he liked it.
This is what Kyle Mann said.
He's one of the big Twitter Twitter people that we follow.
The Mario movie.
That's it.
This is what Kyle said.
This is his input since he's not here today.
The Mario movie's plot was as thin as a Mario video game, but Mario jumps on bad guys and punches stuff.
So it's great.
10 out of 10.
Second movie I've seen in a row without woke garbage is Hollywood.
Is Hollywood okay?
It's Hollywood okay.
He avoided punctuation because I guess that's what the influencers do on Twitter.
Oh, that's what they're doing these days.
Also, Hebrew.
It's cool to use.
Even when you're an editor-in-chief, he edits it out.
Another Star Wars film.
Oh.
Is that what this is?
Daisy Ridley is back for another Star Wars film.
It was made at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London, where she took the stage with Lucas Film president Kathleen Kennedy.
The film will be set 15 years after the events of episode 4, 9.
The Rise of Skywalker.
Rise on the new Jedi Order, and we'll kick off a new trilogy, 10, 11.
They really know.
What's that?
Oh, no.
This is the first I'm hearing of it.
Me too.
That sounds horrible.
That sounds awful.
And starring Daisy Ridley, it's going to be so woke.
I don't know if I've seen the full first movie.
You mean four?
All the way through.
Episode.
A New Hope.
I don't know.
Whatever is the first one that you're supposed to watch.
I don't know if I've seen that.
Episode one or the first movie to come out.
I don't know.
There's a huge difference.
There's one where he's like.
Have you seen any of them?
With his like some family member.
His aunt and uncle.
A Harry Potter origin story.
That's a new came later.
Yeah.
I don't think I've seen that one all day.
Harry Potter was after Star Wars.
Yeah, but it's the same story over and over again.
You know, like Spider-Man, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones.
Spider-Man, especially.
They've rebooted it like five times and told the same story with a different actor.
I've seen all those movies.
Have you seen any of the Star Wars movies all the way through?
I saw the new one that everyone hates with the girl and the funny robot.
That's episode nine.
That's this one that they're saying they're going to make.
No, no, episode.
That would be episode eight, The Last Jedi.
I wasn't called that when I went to see it.
Oh, okay.
I don't think it was called episode eight.
It was just called something.
We all know.
I mean, the insiders know what episode, and we know that it's Roman numerals.
We just know.
This is disappointing.
I never really had much hope that this would happen, but for a while, there were rumors that they would get rid of Kathleen Kennedy and then just retcon the sequels and make them good.
That was my new hope.
That would be, yeah, good one.
I like it.
I like it.
Thank you.
That's a reference.
It's a Star Wars reference.
Hey, speaking of Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe, who portrayed Harry Potter in the Blockbuster series of movies, which I have not seen.
Oh, no.
Never seen a Harry Potter or read a Harry Potter.
I'm re-watching that.
Had a roundtable discussion with one non-binary and six transgender children in which he said adults should trust kids to tell us who they are.
And grown-ups who worry about youngsters changing gender are condescending.
So this event was Radcliffe guest hosting for the first episode of Sharing Space, a new web series produced by the LGBTQ suicide prevention charity, the Trevor Project, which features roundtable style discussions with LGBTQ youth moderated by curious, open-minded adults and allies.
They look old for you.
They look old and that one guy has like a or a girl has has that pillow that's like a rainbow pillow.
Oh yeah.
I just think when you're gay, they're each holding a pillow in their life.
It seems like you have to like have you have to have all the paraphernalia if you're going to be gay.
You got to have all the stuff.
You got to have the little stickers.
You got to have the backpacks.
You got to have the pillows.
That was one of my favorite headlines this week.
I saw Joel just, I think it was Joel Berry pitched it.
It was, what was it?
Progressive missionaries introduce gay stuff to uncontacted Amazon Tribes.
Well, that's it.
That really made me love it.
What do they call it?
They call it sexual evangelism or sexual colonialism.
That's what they're doing.
Yep.
You know, there's so much at fault with this thinking.
But, you know, one of the things is we have to trust kids to tell us who they are.
There's so many kids that go through gender dysphoria and outgrow it.
There's so many kids who have fantasies and wild imaginations.
It was never a premise.
You should be loving to your child and you should accept them and care for them and help them work through this stuff.
And if they make it to adulthood and this is still who they say they are, they're an adult and they can make their own choices.
But the idea that you're just supposed to, as soon as a kid, you know, says, oh, I'm this, oh, we got to start transitioning you.
We got to start treating you this way.
I was a tomboy.
Surprise, surprise.
And it's like, I was a tomboy and the only thing that I cared about was like the boys' toys at McDonald's.
Yeah.
So like these kids that just want the cooler toys and the happy meals are being transitioned.
It's like, I don't think most of them are serious.
I wanted to play like professional soccer and play sports and never play dress up and never wear stockings.
But like if I grew up right now with a woke narcissistic mother who has munchausens, I would be like my body and like would you do it?
By proxy.
It's munchausen by proxy.
That's very interesting.
You know, it's interesting because this entire philosophy is a reverse from what culture's always done, which is we tell you who you are.
You come into our community.
We tell you what you are.
This is who you are.
You're an Irish Catholic.
You know, you're going to grow up this way.
You know, you're in this Christian family.
This is what it means to be a Lamaster.
You know what I mean?
Like that's how you, that's like you educate your kids.
You know, they don't know who they are.
They don't know who they are.
Yeah.
And then it's like, you got to give them the history.
You got to give them the relationships.
You got to give them all that stuff.
Like otherwise they're just going to make crap up.
My friend in high school, he said that when he was younger and they said you could grow up to be whatever you wanted, he wanted to be a giraffe.
And he like thought that way until he was like 10 or 12.
Like he's like, I'm going to grow up and I'm going to be a giraffe.
I was pretty sure I was Indiana Jones for a long time.
What I was going to say, yeah, when I was a kid, you would have these fantasies where you would have like mutant powers or be a superhero one day or something.
And they just came in and you would think like maybe you're the first person that was going to have powers.
Like when I was a real little kid, you'd fantasize about that stuff.
Like you're like, maybe it'll move if I keep doing this.
It's just imagination.
I did that stuff.
I would like, I would put my hand like there was this flower and I'd be like pushing on the flower and be like, I'm going to do it.
And then the wind would come and you'd be like, I did it.
Yeah.
Or like you pretend to move the ocean waves.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like you're going to give me mom on walkers.
I'm an idiot.
I still, when I go to the grocery store and they have the automatic doors, you do the little Jedi thing.
Yeah.
I'm 40.
I'll do that.
I'm at 40 and I still do that.
I flip and do that.
I do that too, man.
And the funny thing is about like the idea of moving stuff with your mind.
I remember when I was a kid, I would try to do that.
I'd try to move something with my mind.
And if it didn't work, instead of thinking I don't have these powers, I think I'll try something lighter.
Maybe a pencil.
Maybe I have to start smalling it.
You know, it's not that I don't have powers.
It's that I'm starting too big.
I had a friend that was really into kung fu.
And he said, and this is totally a lie now that I know, but he said that one of the guys he knew could start a car by putting his hand on the hood because he had that much chi or whatever.
It was like a lot of chi.
And so I was like, I tried that for, I mean, I was probably in fourth grade when he said, I tried that for like three years.
I could be like, you know, like concentrate, concentrate.
Maybe I need to focus on a different part of the hood.
Yeah.
You know, whatever it was.
And so we all have these stories, I guess.
That's funny.
It's embarrassing.
I wonder what that tells us about ourselves.
Oh, the far-right influencer, Douglas McKay, McKay, McKee, Mackie, Mackie, Douglas Mackie, is how you say it, who is known on Twitter as Ricky Vaughan, was convicted on all charges that his meme campaign in 2016 was a voter suppression scheme.
In 2016, he had 58,000 followers.
It's the same number of people that died in Gettysburg and Vietnam.
Americans anyway.
He described himself as an American nationalist and would often retweet Donald Trump.
This is one of the memes that he shared for which he was convicted for election interference.
Here it is.
It's a picture of an Hillary supporter, African-American lady.
And it says, avoid the line, vote from home, text Hillary to 59925.
Vote for Hillary and be part of history.
Which I can see why they have a problem with this particular meme because it is misleading.
Well, they also put at the bottom here, they made it look like it's paid for.
I object to that a little bit, only because I have seen for years on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter memes that say, remember to vote this Tuesday, except for Republicans, you vote Wednesday.
Or like, remember, I've seen lots and lots and lots of memes that are along these lines.
And I get if you're, you know, if you're an uninformed person, maybe you could be fooled by this.
I know they said there were people who actually texted this number.
I think there were 4,900 unique telephone numbers that texted Hillary.
But, you know, it's dangerous, I think, to rule that this is voter suppression or that these memes are taken seriously in this way because it does go towards censoring legitimate jokes and satire and stuff like that.
Like I said, I've seen so many memes.
I've seen so many memes.
If you text that number, what happens?
Nothing.
I don't think anything happens.
Oh, like, that's boring.
It could have signed you up for one of those spam textings about Trump.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Here's another one.
Vote for her, vote from home, post-Hillary using presidential election.
So really, it did mess up about 5,000 votes, right?
So he faces up to 10,000 years.
10 years.
10,000 years.
Or 10 years.
10,000 years.
You're spreading disinformation on social media right now.
Ten good memes.
10 years also.
Like, I wish it was good.
Like, they're not good.
I wish they were better.
They're not funny.
They're not funny.
Not funny at all.
I don't know if they pass like.
It also kind of reminds me of their outrage over the, you know, at the beginning of the whole Russian collusion hoax, they were worried about all these fake Russian accounts on Facebook.
But then when you actually looked at the amount of people that were reached and influenced by those, it was almost nothing.
Nobody was really influenced by that campaign at all.
Yeah.
It didn't make any sense.
Like, who would Russia want to have won?
It would be Hillary.
Well, right.
Right.
Like, why in the world would they want that?
The narrative on the left was that Trump was somehow in bed with Russia.
And so that's the reason why they're pushing that.
No, he's in bed with Stormy Daniels.
God, only that one time.
Oh, snap.
Well, to the Russian, that whole narrative, the left wanted to make it seem like Russia was pushing for Trump because they loved Trump.
But when you actually looked at the documents on the Russians' motivations behind those troll farms, they and countries like China, they just want to sow discord here.
So they did fund pro-Trump fake sites.
They also had pro-BLM sites.
They also had pro-Bernie sites.
It was just to get us fighting and arguing over stupid things and sow dissension here and make people question legitimacy.
And to that effect, it worked.
Yeah, they did a good job.
Did they get that plan from China?
That doesn't feel like something Russia would come up with.
What's his name?
Andrew?
There's this guy.
Low-hanging fruit.
There's a guy.
His name escapes me right now, but there's a guy who's like Putin's advisor and right-hand guy.
Yeah, his name escapes me right now, but yeah, he's something that's not.
It seems to me like it's pretty, that would be pretty, that would be par for the course if you were an enemy of the United States.
It'd be pretty easy to do.
Yeah.
Just something like some intern or whatever probably came up with the idea.
Some millennial.
Actually, it would be some gen wire.
And now, in the absence of our retired segment, Sizzler Facts, it's time for Sizzler comments.
Sizzler comment.
Is this the last Sizzler comments, or are we just going to continue?
We ended Sizzler Facts.
Sizzler Comments is still a thing.
I don't think there's any more facts about Sizzler.
I actually exhausted all the truth of Sizzler we've presented here.
We have.
This is from Caleb.
I just wanted to say I'm absolutely never listening to the podcast again.
I've been a faithful listener for a little over a year now and enjoyed so many of your segments, especially Sizzler Facts.
I cannot believe it's gone.
As someone existing in the Sizzler dead zone, I enjoyed my weekly moment of imagining what the cheesy bread and choices would truly be like.
Now what do I have?
Gold ads?
I'm questioning my belief in God.
How dare you abandon Sizzler?
How dare you abandon us?
Jesus didn't die for you to pull this crap off.
Caleb starts off funny, gets a little blasphemous at parts.
Yeah.
It got dark.
Become a subscriber.
You know, he's not a subscriber if he's seen those ads.
And you would understand what the Sizzler dead zone is if you're keeping up with Sizzler Facts.
So yeah, I think we're going to have a lot of people disappointed that Sizzler Facts are gone.
I've got a solution for you, Caleb.
You need to subscribe.
You can use promo code PODCAST to save 20% off an annual subscriber membership to the Babylon B. That's it.
Subscribe to the channel.
You won't have those gold ads in your channel.
He's never going to hear this because he's not listening again.
Oh, that's true.
He's an unsubscribed.
I'll read this one because this was, I think, a comment about the thing I said in the Sizzler thing.
If it can make me forget that I'm bald, then I'm definitely going to find out whether there are Sizzler steakhouses near me and take my wife there to celebrate.
That's good.
If you didn't watch the video, that's what my comment was.
It even makes me forget I'm bald.
This one says, no more Sizzler Facts.
How can God turn this to good?
Here's one from Cointelegraph.
I like this name, Consuivative.
That's really good.
It's a really good read.
This one's from Consuivative.
You had me at Travis Noises.
The remaining 57 hours and 14 minutes of the Sizzler jingle were simply beating a dead cow muscle, but then cooked perfection.
I love Travis's.
If you haven't heard Travis's part of the song, you have to go back and just listen for Travis.
Yeah.
It's as is common.
It's completely atonal.
That's what's great.
Lindsay Wright said, I can't believe Sizzler Facts is canceled just like that.
R.A.P. My favorite pointless part of the podcast.
There's a lot of P's.
The best part was when you kept saying it was the third week or 12th week when you were months and months into it.
Smiley face.
And the worst part, Colin, no more Sizzler comments for this to be read in the podcast.
Well, you know, it's like she was wrong.
Like, you were wrong.
Strike Engineer said, I was listening to it in the gym, and I laughed a couple times.
I just pretended that I was taking a deep breath while on the treadmill.
Travis is an expert on getting hit by a bus, so I will take his assessment of Sizzlers as gospel truth.
Yeah.
This has been Sizzler Comments, and now it is time for weekly news with Adam Jenser.
Hey guys, Kyle here.
We want you not to be limited by restrictive networks when it comes to choosing the health care providers and treatments that are right for you.
There is another way.
Samaritan Ministries connects hundreds of thousands of Christians across the nation who help pay one another's medical bills, all without the use of insurance.
Consider this.
A medical emergency arises.
You don't have to check and see what hospital is in your network or be concerned about the emergency room doctor being in network two.
Oh no.
You go to the hospital you choose and don't give a second thought as to what's in network and what's not.
Because with Samaritan Ministries, you're in control of your health care.
After receiving care, you send your medical bills to Samaritan Ministries, and they notify fellow members to pray for you and send money directly to you to help you pay those bills.
And when another member has a medical need, you'll do the same for them.
That's what biblical healthcare sharing looks like.
Check it out today at samaritanministries.org slash thebabylon bee.
This week in a bizarre and shocking video, Buddhism's highest leader, the Dalai Lama, came out as Catholic.
There he is trying to spit in a boy's mouth just like a real llama.
A submersible robot, a submersible robot off the coast of Japan captured video of the deepest fish species ever recorded.
Japanese scientists named the fish after the trench where it was found, calling it the Mariana Roll.
President Biden and his family traveled to Ireland this week where he visited distant Irish relatives, while Hunter no doubt ran off with a stripper to produce more distant Irish relatives.
It was revealed that Diddy still has to pay Sting $5,000 a day for sampling his song Every Breath You Take 26 years ago.
Yet another example of the police abusing a black man.
But this finally explains why Sting hasn't had to write any good music for the past 26 years.
Leon Levine, the founder of the discount store Family Dollar, died this week at the age of 85.
His service will be followed by light refreshments, including Eats Potato Chips, Shasta Twist, and Fruity Frosted O's.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured the clearest photos ever taken of Uranus.
And because I pronounced it that way in the setup, it's no longer possible to make a punchline.
A Republican North Carolina representative has introduced a bill that would ban participation trophies, which is all Republicans have been winning in key races lately.
Whole Foods is closing their flagship store in San Francisco, which has only been open for a year due to crime.
Crimes committed at the store include vandalism, theft, and charging $6 for asparagus water.
The latest episode of Disney's Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, featured cameos by Jack Black and Lizzo.
Lizzo was even invited to the cantina to play Figurin Dan's Crystal Cluehorn.
See, I was able to make a Lizzo joke that didn't focus on her weight.
She's also getting her own Star Wars spin-off, The Book of Blobo Fat.
That's it for weekly news.
To see more, check out my YouTube channel and come see me live.
I'll be doing a benefit show for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society at Domain Tarion Winery in my hometown of McCungee, Pennsylvania, April 29th.
Dang, that was great, Adam.
Dang.
It was all right.
No, I thought it was really good.
Thank you.
I mean, it was exceptional.
Also, we talked to John Poppola about the importance of dads and the place for dads in storytelling.
Check it out.
Well, thanks for coming on, John.
It is a pleasure to be here.
I'm a big fan of you guys.
Oh, awesome.
So do you like dads?
As a generic category, yes.
When once we narrow into individuals, I have to put an asterisk.
Wait, why do you, why?
Because there's not good ones.
There's bad ones.
We all know them.
We won't say who.
Oh.
No, I want you to say who.
Are you thinking of a Pacific person right now?
Yeah.
No, no, no.
No.
Frankly, the way things are going, anyone who's showing up and trying, I'd say good for you.
As long as you're not beating your kids, you're doing better than a lot.
Is that basically the advice you give to dads?
Don't beat your kids and you're probably set.
It's, you know what?
In a way, that's not a bad place to start, right?
It's like, don't beat your kids and otherwise back off is probably better than what the average parent in the Northeast is doing, which is beating them with the desire to get into Harvard.
There we go.
that kind of beating you think that yeah that's a that's a far more deadly beating Like, you know, wounds heal, but a Harvard education lasts forever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That'll screw you right up.
I mean, do you think that is a common problem, the kind of overbearing dad who's like Jared who shouts at his kids at baseball games?
Stay on the banks.
How many times do I have to tell you?
Joga!
Get your elbow up!
You know what?
It's hard to say.
I think it's, I definitely, I definitely understand being on the sidelines screaming up to a point, but it mostly is like it's, it's mostly childish.
So it's really hard to, it is, it is bizarre, right?
We go to, we go to children's games and scream and yell like big babies because our eighth grader isn't getting enough playtime on the soccer field.
And the fact that that doesn't trigger deep self-reflection about where you are in your life is an oddity of American culture.
Yeah.
My kids don't have any time on the soccer field because they're straight.
Straight heterosexual.
Yeah, yeah.
My son plays basketball.
And that's good.
I think he'd rather.
But he did do soccer.
He did soccer briefly.
And I beat Adam.
So that's how we ended up here.
The one situation where beating is okay.
It's just very good.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
No Eurasp, none of this European football stuff.
No, exactly.
No, no, no.
No, but is that the core?
I mean, is that the core thing that you're challenging or is it like absentee dads?
I mean, I guess I got the impression that, you know, dads who just aren't showing up is much more of a problem, but maybe that's just my cultural bubble.
I don't know.
You know, I think there's like a couple different things going on, right?
I mean, so I was a creative director at Spike TV for seven years, a network which today would, if you could burn a network at the stake, it would certainly be that judgment would certainly be laid down on Spike TV in 2023.
Yeah, it's masculinity 24 hours.
It was personified.
24 hours a day.
Yeah.
It was kind of obnoxious, though, right?
Yeah.
It was like over the, it was like, yeah, man, here we are with Spike TV.
Next Thursday night at Spike, it's half a pint brawlers followed by a thousand ways to die.
And that's UFC season 12.
And then girls on triple E. Mud WrestleE.
Yeah.
Yeah, all of that.
All of that.
I was party to all of that.
It's all my fault.
But now you're making up, now you're fixing all the mistakes.
That wounded my soul.
Yeah, I'm on a kind of apology tour for the first half of my career in television.
So I've decided as a penance to the gods of healthy masculinity.
I have to, I'm celebrating being a dad and how dads can play a healthy role in our kids' lives.
Seriously, though, there is this kind of funny thing, right?
Where you don't have a lot of places to turn as a guy for an actual healthy hero figure.
Like, what does it mean to be a man that's not Andrew Tate?
I just had a, I just, I just got done with an interview for the show when we were talking about this that, you know, the vision that Andrew Tate and people like him, sort of hustle porn advocates, put forward to young men is a kind of like arrested teenage future self.
Like when you're a little kid and you see Blippy on YouTube, a grown man acting kind of like an imbecile, but is super fun for a seven-year-old.
As a seven-year-old, you're thinking, man, that guy's living his best life ever.
And as an adult, look, it's an excavator.
Oh, come on, kids.
Love it.
Love it.
And as an adult, love it.
Excavator.
Love it.
Love it.
Drace, love it.
Beatles, love it.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And, but, but as an adult, you look at Blippy and think that that poor donkey must be dead inside for making this his career in which he's perpetual.
And you can kind of see like the hollowing out of his soul and his eyes as he rides yet another dump truck and pretends it's the path to salvation.
So, you know, we kind of understand that, oh, yeah, that's, that's what little kids hope their future will be.
But then they'll grow up and realize being Blippy is not all it's cracked up to be.
But then once you get to being like a teenage boy, it sort of stops.
And we, and we don't have a culture that puts forward much better than what teenage boys want for their lives, which is sexual escapades out, you know, forever and driving Ferraris and living in mansions.
And it's like, for those of us that manage to get past 20 years old and even, I don't know, marry a woman that's like not a psychopath and have kids of our own, we sort of grow up.
And that's really kind of what we're trying to do with Dad Sages America is talk to that guy, the guy, the guy that wants to say, I do actually want to be an adult someday.
And I think being a dad is the best adult role you can take on.
It's the best.
There's nothing, I think, more meaningful or more exciting or more fun.
And I want to be somebody who's putting that out there into the world in a positive way.
Well, you want people to grow up, but you've got, it looks like the Ghostbusters car.
That looks like Voltron or a Gundam.
No, that's not Voltron.
Oh, no, it's Voltron.
Oh, is it?
Okay, there we go.
I thought it was Optimus Prime.
Okay, yeah.
So Voltron.
It's the real Voltron, not that fake one that they would trick us into believing was.
Oh, I remember that one.
I remember that.
Yeah, the GoBots.
It was like a separate show.
It was a separate show.
It wasn't even Voltron, but they would pass it off as Voltron episodes.
And it was like, well, these are not even the same characters.
It's a bunch of crap.
That's what it was.
No, that's, yeah, the perpetual adolescence thing, though, is definitely a cultural sort of archetype.
And when we were kids, I don't know how old you are.
When we were kids, MTV like went overtime trying to find these perpetual adolescents to be our like heroes, you know, the jackass guys and the MOOCs.
They call them MOOCs and midriffs, you know, like they were looking for these types, like women, you know, like particular types that they could model after.
And so they created an entire generation of idiots, you know.
I mean, as an Italian American that spent every summer since birth on the Jersey Shore, I have been deeply wounded by the successes of MTV.
And my identity has really been damaged.
So I'm still recovering from that as well.
I think we all.
I'm not nearly as tan as I should be.
I, you know, got a situation right here.
I got the situation.
I got.
Yeah.
The situation is not.
I mean, that is, that is, that is sort of what our culture at its, that's like the aspirational culture in too much of what our, our kids kind of get exposed to.
I will say this.
I do think it's like, so I have a son now that's 17.
And I actually think like Gen Z humor is freaking awesome.
So I actually think there maybe is a tide turning where they've recognized so much of, you know, what is like immediately coming, you know, can't come before them is sort of BS.
And they're like twisting it and burning it down.
And in funny ways, Tim Heidecker went to my high school.
So like he's bled his DNA into those of us.
You know, I'm 45, by the way.
So I'm very much a Gen Xer.
All right.
Solid.
I'm a little more hopeful for Gen Z than I think many of my fellow Gen Xers are.
Well, there was millennials are lost.
This is a really interesting thing.
So I'm kind of, I'm a millennial.
I'm a really old millennial, but we, yeah, I was watching Empire Records this weekend.
Oh, my.
You remember this movie?
Was that Liv Tyler?
Liv Tyler?
Yes.
Yep.
Yes.
And Rene Zellwiger.
Renee Zellwiger.
Yeah.
And it was just meaningless.
Like we were watching it and I was like, terrible movie.
My wife loves it.
It's my wife's favorite movie.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm going to totally.
No, you're right.
It's bad.
I'm going to crap on it right now.
It's pointless.
It's pointless.
And there's all this angst, and there's nowhere to put it.
And I was like watching it thinking this is that entire generation.
This was Generation X.
And then generation, the millennials and the next generation have turned all that angst into like equally ridiculous activism that is going nowhere too.
And so they're angsty too, but they're just activists.
So I don't know.
I'm frustrated by these people.
I saw this Wall Street.
There was this Wall Street Journal article that sort of buried the lead.
It was about how like child care is too expensive or something like that.
But down the article, it showed this graph of the percentage of people who left their jobs during 2020 once, you know, with as COVID sort of really took hold.
And I'm proud to say Gen Xers were the lowest percentage of the group.
And the fact that millennials who are younger definition by definition and therefore even less susceptible to COVID had like a substantially higher rate of like leaving their jobs out of concern.
I think says all you need to know about the millennials.
I mean, Gen Z was even higher, but I'm going to give them a pass.
They were probably just getting fired from working at restaurants.
They didn't have any real jobs is what you're saying.
No, no, no.
They're 20 years old.
They graduated with genuine studies and they're working at Starbucks.
So of course they didn't have anywhere to go in 2020.
But millennials, yeah, millennials, Millennials, I guess you guys are the lucky ones.
You escaped the millennial virus, perhaps.
Seems like it.
Nope.
So we would like you to fully infected.
We would like you to please score these fictional dads.
You can give him an A, B, C, D, or F because we skip E for some reason.
I don't know why that is.
Darth Vader.
I'm going to give him a B.
He recovers in the end.
Yeah, he does have a redemption, redemption arc.
Yeah, he never really beat his kid either.
Although he did.
He chopped off his hand that one time.
Chopping off the hand was kind of a little bit.
He did remove.
He did remove a limb, but he did not beat one time.
And he threw debris.
It was a fair fight.
It was a fair fight.
He threw debris at him with the force.
I mean, he was trying to reveal who he was.
I'm your father.
I'm your father.
He didn't accept it.
Chopped off your hand.
Tough love.
Tough love.
Luke learned the lesson.
Norman Osborne of Oscorp fame, the Green Goblin, if you aren't familiar with Spider-Man.
Oh, yeah.
Well, he did go nuts.
I'll have to give him an F. He's pretty poor.
He's pretty bad.
And I think, you know, it depends.
Is it Norman Osborne as portrayed in the most recent Spider-Man by William Defoe?
I would say Defoe is probably the definitive one for our generation.
All right.
Then I'll say D because Defoe's pretty great.
Yeah, Willem for Defoe.
Willem is pretty good.
I agree.
How about Homer Simpson?
I'm going to give Homer a B.
I mean, he's good-hearted.
He's not a great role model, but you could do worse.
If I'm grading on a curve, I'd give him an A.
So you can like strangle your kid every week and get a B.
I remember that scene.
Well, I mean, if you know, if you had Bart as your son, you might, you can understand.
Yeah, okay.
All right.
I have one that's kind of like Bart.
Anyway, so how about...
I'm not saying you should beat your kids.
I'm just saying that pain is a really valuable tool for learning lessons.
Thank you, Darth Vader.
Okay, next.
Al Bundy.
Oh, Al Bundy's pretty.
I'll give Al.
I'll give Al an F. Al's a terrible dad.
Okay.
Al's off the rails.
What about Bandit from the Bluey show?
Okay.
So I have not seen that.
And so I'm going to give, but every time people have brought Bluey up, it has been because they say it's the show that gives the best dad life lessons I've ever seen.
So I'm going to give Bandit an A with an asterisk as in I'm importing my opinion from other people.
Well, I'll give him an A also because he plays like pretend games with his kids and he just has so much energy.
Like when my kids are like, oh, let's do, you know, my six-year-old's like, let's play pretend.
It's like, oh, I'm so tired.
Let's pretend the dad is a whale, a beached whale on the couch.
I could pretend that, you know, but he, but in, but Bandit will like pretend to be a bus driver and ride him all around the house for the whole episode.
And I'm just, it gives us a bad name, honestly.
You guys be Aragorn.
I'll be the orcs.
Well, if the orcs were asleep.
If the orcs were asleep.
I often end up.
I'll be the orcs fortress.
I often end up.
You have to climb over.
Yeah, exactly.
I end up being a boat in the middle of an ocean.
So they just kind of climb on me.
Yeah, I know.
I'm getting down with that.
That's a good one, too.
It's a free massage, too.
My six-year-old often wants to play poker, though.
Oh, I'll do that.
I mean, as long as I don't have to move too much.
He loves cards.
Okay.
Yeah.
I stick to the things I can drink whiskey with my kids while playing games.
So I think you're on to something with the poker.
Yeah, let's start him early.
All right, let's do a couple more here.
It's got a couple more.
Walter White, Mr. White.
Well, I'm going to have to say Walter gets an F because of the finale.
Yeah.
You know, he was doing it for his family right up until the moment where he finally admitted he was doing it all for himself.
What about Ego played by Kurt Russell in Guardians of the Galaxy 2?
You're making the case for our lack of great father role models in film and television.
You know, let's see.
Created, created his son, sought to destroy all life in the universe, but rule it with his son.
Yeah.
I'll give him a C. You know, he wanted to.
It's kind of like a Democrat.
He tried.
He tried.
Okay, so let's see.
Mufasa.
Oh, Mufasa is an A. He's like archetypal great dad wisdom guy.
He's the best.
That's why we don't get those in Disney movies anymore.
Yeah, he dies before he could either screw his son up too much or see his son become his daughter.
So he gets an A. Let's see his son become his daughter.
Well, thanks.
So the definitive soccer.
The definitive fictional dad rankings from Dad Saves America.
That's awesome.
So what kind of things are you guys doing at Dad Saves America to, you know, save America?
Well, I mean, the first thing is we're actually putting out the idea that dads play an important role and I think a heroic role in the lives of our families and our communities.
And so we try to do that with the guests we bring on to the show.
It's, you know, it's first and foremost, sort of a long-form talk show podcast.
We are producing short films that celebrate fatherhood.
We've got a new one with the Oscar winner for the movie Coda, Troy Kotzer, about his relationship with his dad.
That's cool.
I was in a play with him.
Yeah.
I was in a play with him.
Yeah.
We were in a show together, Big River.
Anyway, he's years ago.
He's a wonderful guy.
He's a great guy.
Yeah, he plays.
He played tricks on me.
He kept playing tricks on me.
Yeah, that sounds right.
Yeah.
He's a great guy.
That sounds great.
Very cool.
Sorry.
We just did.
Yeah, we just did a panel together at South by Southwest here in Austin.
So, you know, I think we're trying to get this idea, you know, into the culture as much as we can that, you know, there is a healthy masculinity and a great place to start is being a dad and that there's nothing wrong with being a man.
And especially when you can embrace the things that we really do great.
And then trying to push back against this really, frankly, evil culture of victimhood that our kids are getting hit with from every angle.
I've pulled my kid out of four different schools.
And he goes to a school now where there actually aren't teachers and the only adults on campus are not allowed to answer questions.
So I think school plays a huge part of raising our kids for better or worse.
That's another big thing we try to talk about is be really mindful about where you send your kids to school because they might come home with values that are antithetical to what you want them to have and what's going to set them up to succeed.
So that's the kind of stuff we try to tackle.
And then we try to have as much fun as possible while we tackle heavy subjects.
That's great.
That is really cool.
Sounds like that's something we all need.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I need it.
I don't know.
I'm a good dad.
I don't know about you.
I feel like a worse dad this year than I've ever been.
I was always very, very present.
This year, it's been very difficult to get to like baseball games and stuff like that.
Are you blaming your job at the Battle MD?
No.
You know, it is funny.
It is, it is hard.
It's harder because it's hard because of this thing.
It's like we have to really consciously decide to do stuff that we didn't used to have to think about.
Like we, I mean, one, one great example is like it used, there used to be this crazy thing called boredom, where like you'd go somewhere as a kid and be bored for several hours.
And it turns out that was kind of healthy.
And so now we as dads actually have to force that on our kids.
Otherwise, they're not going to have it ever.
And I think that ends up being true for ourselves as well.
So it's like that, that's, that's stuff that I think we're not, you know, there's a whole new world out there that we've got to try to navigate with our kids.
That's great.
How many kids do you have?
I only have one.
I say that with a certain amount of shame.
I bound my head in shame.
I when we were, when I was working at Spike and my son was born, we, I had four hours of daily commuting between New Jersey and New York.
And that was a hard time to try to add more onto, add more logs onto the fire.
And our son was pretty nuts.
So I'd get home way too late.
My wife would be completely fried and neither of us were like, let's have another.
You had one of those.
We moved to Austin and escaped that, but we also sort of like, you know, came out of the window.
We probably would have had two or three were it not for our cursed bridge and tunnel life.
Anytime you hear somebody advocating for public transit, know they have no clue what they're talking about.
It sucks.
It sucks.
Well, I don't think having more kids makes you more of a dad.
So I think that's.
Yeah, we just had to make sure you had one.
Yeah, we're not, we're not, I'm not four times the dad you are because I have four children.
Because if you were like this rando that's like, oh, I don't got any kids, but I'm giving advice.
Yeah.
That's usually a weirdo.
That is a weirdo.
That's usually a guy who's starting to trying to start a cult or something.
But you got a kid, so you're good.
I do.
And I, and he's, he's at the tail end of my ability to influence him, you know, as a soon-to-be 18-year-old.
So I've at least gone through one cycle of the full damage process.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, awesome.
Well, we're big supporters of what you guys do over there, and that's really great.
So we want all our fans to go check out Dad Saves America on YouTube.
Is there anywhere else that they can check out what you guys do or any other big projects?
I mean, the show is also available on all the podcast platforms in audio form.
We're going to start rolling out on some of the other video channels like Rumble and stuff this year.
And then if you want to have a little extra fun, I'm probably best known for making these Keynes versus Hayek rap videos.
So if you want to check out our other channel, Emergent Order, you'll see a bunch of our other stuff that we've done in the past with some more to come.
So we try to.
Economic rap battle.
That's.
Oh, if you haven't seen it.
If you want to get a little bit on your, it's going to be on your playlist.
Trust me.
So be sure to check it out.
All right.
Awesome.
That is so cool.
All right.
Well, thanks a lot for coming on, John.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
It was a pleasure coming on and being on the show.
Hey, that was great.
You can catch more of John on the Dad Saves America channel on YouTube.
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It's time to consume.
So what books, games, or shows are you guys consuming lately?
Anything you've been into?
I watched a new show.
I think it's called Night Call.
Night Agent.
Night Agent.
I was going to say that today, too.
What did you think?
What did you think?
I liked it.
But it's like, it's only, I think, two seasons, and I don't know if they're going to, it seemed like they ended it.
I don't know how they would continue on the next.
So I don't know if they're going to continue it.
It's that same thing that you run into issues with kind of like the FBI is chasing me.
I'm a good guy that the good guys are after.
That kind of storyline sort of does run its course.
And it's difficult to find that to convincingly make the character on the outside of the inside again.
Like that's kind of the problem I always see with those shows.
But I really like that show too.
So if you guys ever watch it, it's actually, it feels more like a 24 to me.
It's not woke.
It doesn't feel woke at all.
The main character guy is really good.
I thought he was pretty good.
Yeah, I thought he was great.
And I've never seen him before.
Yeah, me neither.
Yeah.
I also was watching Harry Potter with my husband because he's never seen them.
And it's really funny because he doesn't know anybody and he doesn't get anything.
And he's like, he keeps getting all the characters wrong.
So he'll be like, when does Gandalf come back?
And I'm like, that's the wrong show.
I'll be like, do people like this?
Like, are people fans of Harry Potter?
And I'm like, there's worlds, like there's amusement parks for Harry Potter.
It may be the most popular thing ever.
And then he's like, oh, this is lame.
Or like, he's like, they're magic.
Why does Harry Potter have glasses?
Why can't they just fix his eyes?
Good question.
Good question.
It's very entertaining.
But now I'm like, oh, what is Danny Garth?
You can go optometrist Lasic and just fix.
And then every time they're like, oh, Hogwarts is super safe.
And it's like, no, it's not.
Harry Potter gets beat up every single movie.
That's right.
He's like, why are they putting a 14-year-old kid to go kill this like mass murderer?
But yeah.
He's the only one that can.
He doesn't get any of it.
It's very entertaining.
That is very funny.
And he noticed like not only are there outside forces that are attacking Hogwarts, you know, violent outside forces, there are bullies in the school too.
There's a lot of bullying in Harry Potter.
Anyway, what are you consuming?
I don't think I've started any new shows lately.
I've been reading, I started reading William Shatner's latest memoir.
He talks about working on Star Trek and then he also talks about his trip to space that he took last year.
So I'm interested to hear about that because he had some like profound insights from seeing the earth from above.
So I just started that.
And then my philosophy reading, I'm in the midst of Aristotle right now.
So you started with The Republic.
Yes.
Got through.
I've read almost, there might be two short dialogues of Plato that I haven't read, but I read all of them.
Between reading it and listening to audiobooks, I got through almost everything Plato's written.
I just started The Republic.
Inspired by you.
Yeah.
But I just started The Republic and it's fascinating.
Yeah.
And so I'm in Aristotle now, who's extremely fascinating and interesting.
I'm reading metaphysics and listening to physics on audiobook.
For fun?
Yeah, because I find this stuff interesting, but to your to your tone, parts of it are extremely interesting and parts of it are not fun.
So there's part of.
I don't get all of it.
Has it clicked where you're like, oh, I get what you're doing?
Get a lot of it.
When he's laying the sort of foundations of logic and how we think and grasp knowledge, he lays out like the principle of non-contradiction, like the idea that a thing cannot be said to both be and not be in the same way at the same time.
Those kinds of things I get.
And in the copy or the translation of metaphysics that I'm reading, I think it's the Penguin Classics version.
There's really good translator intros to each chapter.
So you kind of get an overview of what idea he's talking about before you read his words.
Physics, there's chapters that are really interesting, and there's chapters where he's discussing, for instance, how does place exist?
Like, how does a thing exist in a place?
And there's sentences that are like, like Sable says, would be like, does place exist in a place when nothing is in that place?
And in what place does place exist if there's nothing there to place it?
Are you reading Aristotle just so you can tell people you're reading Aristotle?
No, because I didn't make this segment today.
I wouldn't be telling you this unless Jared didn't ask, hey, Adam, what are you reading lately?
Consume.
You're waiting for it.
You're actually consuming this.
I am consuming it.
I mean, you're actually, you're taking it, you're marinating on it.
I am looking forward to.
Now, Plato's, some of his ideas are complex, but it's interesting to get through.
Aristotle's very interesting, but it's dense and it's difficult to understand.
I am looking forward to getting into, like, next, I have Marcus Aurelius, St. Augustine.
Got to read Boehner.
Boethius, yeah.
So those three are a little more less abstract and deal with, you know, really.
Well, I like the philosophical trope that you have a conversation between two people.
That makes a lot of sense.
It's a lot easier to kind of read.
And I think they did that on purpose, those guys, you know.
But yeah, I'm looking forward to going down that journey as well.
I've read a lot of philosophy over the years, but never went back and read.
Actually, strangely enough, I never went back and read Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.
So I'm excited about that.
Strange, yeah.
The Aaron, yeah.
Oh, I've got the Anid, Ovid.
I've got Ovid coming.
Oh, yeah.
Very excited about that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's what we've all been consuming.
You used to be good.
Adam Ford.
Adam Ford.
I really miss Adam Ford.
So this was, our article was man drinking Bud Light listening to country music, clearly gay.
And someone named Redacted responded to this saying, Thank you, B, for blossoming those purple voters into sky blue voters with your hate rhetoric, false election whining, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and white fear.
You are all making it happen.
We couldn't win all these elections without you, babe, paint in the fingernails emoji.
Thank you, MAGA.
There's a lot of anger in that Twitter project.
From that, from insulting country music and Bud Light.
And probably calling someone gay, I imagine.
He didn't like clearly.
I'm guessing from this, he's gay, but I don't know.
He's probably gay.
He's painting his fingernails and he's mad, so he's probably gay.
Yeah, he's probably gay.
Yeah, look at the deep.
It's interesting that that's his take on it, though, because I feel like that's the take people like Elon Musk and others have had on why people are moving to the right, because the left becomes so hateful and alienating that people who are moderate decide, oh, they also must not be on the left anymore.
He probably doesn't consume a whole lot of Babylon B, I'm guessing.
Yeah, this he just saw this one post.
And then it says, Kyle Outro, Kyle's not here, so I guess we're just going to sit here quietly.
But I guess I'll say it.
Thanks for watching.
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Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
God only makes one kind of head perfect, the others he covers with hair.
Here's something I'm curious to hear your thoughts on: the Apocrypha.
I think that same story, He raised him from the dead as well.
So He murdered the kid and then He raised him from the dead.
So that's that's iffy.
Well, she was just such a bad actor, and somehow Jack Black kind of got sucked into her bad acting.
He got sucked into her gravity.
This has been another edition of the Babylon Bee Podcast from the dedicated team of certified fake news journalists you can trust here at the Babylon Bee.