Behind the Bastards - Let's Take A Break With Ben Shapiro's Terrible Book
Aired: 2021-01-12
Duration: 01:23:53


=== Trust Your Girlfriends (02:49) ===

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[00:02:18]  Hello, America.
[00:02:19]  I'm Robert Evans.
[00:02:20]  This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast about terrible people.
[00:02:24]  And just the other day, I was doing, you know, normal things for a leftist anarchist Democrat, mainly, namely, masturbating to slash fiction about Barack Obama and Joseph Stalin, my two heroes, when I came across a book, a book that reminded me of all of the wonderful beauty of conservatism and all of the evils of my morally bankrupt liberal ideology.

=== Behind The Bastards (10:40) ===

[00:02:49]  And today, we're going to read another section from that book, Ben Shapiro's True Allegiance.
[00:02:55]  Katie and Cody, why don't you come onto the stage and take a bow?
[00:02:58]  Hello, hello.
[00:02:59]  Thank you.
[00:02:59]  Thank you so much.
[00:03:00]  Oh, it's too much.
[00:03:01]  It's too much.
[00:03:02]  Thank you.
[00:03:04]  You guys are going to be able to do it.
[00:03:05]  We do it for you.
[00:03:05]  We do it for you.
[00:03:06]  Guys, my heart is going to explode from joy.
[00:03:10]  Hi.
[00:03:10]  More praise, please.
[00:03:11]  More praise.
[00:03:12]  More praise.
[00:03:12]  Now, oh, guys, okay.
[00:03:14]  First question for the panel.
[00:03:17]  Who do you think is the bottom?
[00:03:19]  Obama or Stalin?
[00:03:23]  Obama.
[00:03:24]  Obama.
[00:03:25]  Obama, you think so, huh?
[00:03:26]  Yeah.
[00:03:28]  I've experienced your Stalin episode.
[00:03:30]  Yeah, this is going to be the new Stalin-Trotsky debate, and it's about whether or not Stalin or Obama's a bottom.
[00:03:36]  You haven't done any re-education.
[00:03:38]  You haven't done an Obama episode yet, so maybe there's more information for you.
[00:03:41]  Well, yeah, I've yet to learn about his habits, but I could see that.
[00:03:44]  I think Obama's, you know, maybe the Switches.
[00:03:48]  Yeah, I do think that Biden, or that not Biden, Stalin.
[00:03:51]  Sorry, they're both such similar people.
[00:03:53]  I think that Stalin is probably has the versatility to be a Switch for sure.
[00:03:56]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:57]  Yeah.
[00:03:58]  Who's to say to be a fly on the wall of that fanfic?
[00:04:01]  Ooh.
[00:04:02]  I mean, I have some good news about the way fanfiction works, Katie.
[00:04:07]  We're all flies on the wall.
[00:04:12]  I'm very excited to be back.
[00:04:15]  I was not able to attend the last few chapters.
[00:04:19]  Yeah.
[00:04:19]  I'm assuming it won't really matter.
[00:04:21]  Yeah.
[00:04:22]  Yeah.
[00:04:22]  You know, you missed Ben Shapiro.
[00:04:24]  Still has not learned how to write a single sentence.
[00:04:26]  Yeah.
[00:04:28]  Yeah.
[00:04:28]  As far as I can.
[00:04:29]  He's going to struggle even more.
[00:04:30]  Yeah.
[00:04:32]  It's getting worse.
[00:04:32]  Yeah.
[00:04:34]  To be fair, he got a little sleepy.
[00:04:36]  Yeah, maybe he was sleepy on the third day when, because it took four days to write this.
[00:04:41]  Yeah.
[00:04:42]  And on the fourth day, he got sleepy.
[00:04:44]  Yeah.
[00:04:45]  You know, we had a couple of different things in there, including President Mark Prescott, who's white Obama, getting to give his equivalent of the speech George Bush gave at ground zero.
[00:04:57]  Okay.
[00:04:57]  Which is bad when a Democrat does it, but it was good that George Bush did it.
[00:05:01]  Of course.
[00:05:02]  That's simple maths.
[00:05:04]  And yeah, and actually we're going to start again with another President Prescott chapter as we as we turn into 60% of the way through True Allegiance.
[00:05:12]  That's the only thing I really missed was that the president gave a speech.
[00:05:16]  No, I mean, the black gangster character got angry that the Al Sharpton character didn't want to kill cops as much.
[00:05:26]  So he started a secret plan to replace all of the cops with gangsters.
[00:05:32]  Sure.
[00:05:33]  Because cops aren't already gangsters.
[00:05:36]  Yeah, yeah, right.
[00:05:38]  You're changing the force with that move.
[00:05:40]  Oh, and Brett Hawthorne did a what's the term when you judge people based on their race as criminals?
[00:05:49]  Oh, yeah, he wrote.
[00:05:50]  Racial profiling.
[00:05:51]  And then it didn't help, but the point was still that it's good to do.
[00:05:55]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:05:55]  He didn't do what it was supposed to do and learned nothing.
[00:05:59]  He learned nothing.
[00:06:01]  Ben is even bad at writing propaganda.
[00:06:04]  Unbelievable.
[00:06:06]  Wrote a case against it.
[00:06:07]  Still didn't see what he was doing.
[00:06:09]  Yeah, because he kind of had the people who Brett Hawthorne was ordering to do racial profiling be like, this is bad because it's racial profiling.
[00:06:18]  And then the racial profiling doesn't work.
[00:06:19]  And it turns out they were right.
[00:06:21]  But you're not supposed to walk away from the book thinking that.
[00:06:26]  It was a good try.
[00:06:27]  We're glad he did it because we need to keep doing it.
[00:06:30]  All right.
[00:06:31]  All right.
[00:06:32]  We love your commas.
[00:06:33]  Let's do it.
[00:06:34]  Almost two-thirds of the way into the book.
[00:06:36]  Here's President Prescott's chapter, New York City.
[00:06:39]  Featuring a lot of other characters, aren't you?
[00:06:42]  Featuring God.
[00:06:43]  It can switch forward in time 30 years.
[00:06:46]  We're starting there.
[00:06:47]  We'll see where we land.
[00:06:49]  Ben knows that the key to any really readable piece of fiction is that the reader never have any sense of grounding or understanding of where he is.
[00:06:58]  Absolutely.
[00:06:58]  Much like us.
[00:06:59]  Yeah.
[00:07:01]  This is, this is, I would describe Ben Shapiro as most, like this, True Allegiance is most similar to, for example, the Dubliners.
[00:07:11]  It's just like the Dubliners.
[00:07:13]  It's just like the Dubliners.
[00:07:14]  Surely that's what he's going for.
[00:07:16]  He's really nailing this consistent inconsistency.
[00:07:20]  Yeah.
[00:07:21]  I do now thinking about Ben Shapiro trying to write James Joyce, I'm imagining Ben Shapiro writing about a character masturbating through a hole in his pocket and like getting stuck up on not being able to write cum.
[00:07:34]  He knows he has to.
[00:07:40]  All right.
[00:07:40]  Just a book full of just like C-word.
[00:07:43]  The C-word, the C-word.
[00:07:44]  Go ahead.
[00:07:46]  Okay.
[00:07:47]  So the first chapter that we're going to read today is Ellen, who remember is Ben Shapiro's wife, but actually is Brett Hawthorne's wife.
[00:07:56]  And she works for Governor Bubba Davis, who is basically George Bush.
[00:08:01]  I think that's what Ben's going for.
[00:08:03]  Yeah, he's Bushian.
[00:08:04]  He's a Bushian.
[00:08:04]  Yeah, he's Bushian and a perfectly rendered Texan.
[00:08:07]  Ben really has spent a lot of time in my home state.
[00:08:11]  I can tell because he uses the classic Texan phrase, horn swoggled, all the time.
[00:08:18]  Governor Davis's refusal to send the National Guard to New York sparked a firestorm across the nation.
[00:08:23]  He cited precedent.
[00:08:24]  Hadn't the governor of California refused a federal request to place National Guard troops on the border?
[00:08:29]  But in the aftermath of the bridge attack, he didn't get much sympathy.
[00:08:32]  Everyone knows that Texas thinks of itself as its own little country, shouted one MSNBC commentator into the camera.
[00:08:38]  Shout out to the people.
[00:08:42]  Well, that means it was a man and not a woman because of what he was doing.
[00:08:44]  So this is how Ben.
[00:08:48]  This is how Ben.
[00:08:49]  Yeah, it has to be a man because he didn't write screeching.
[00:08:51]  He's shrilly screeching into the game.
[00:08:53]  Right, right.
[00:08:53]  And it has to be a white man because he absolutely would have told us if it was a black man.
[00:09:01]  So here's Ben Shapiro, who clearly knows how people talk on NBC, describing what NBC would say.
[00:09:07]  Everyone knows that Texas thinks of itself as its own little country, but this time their hick governor has shown himself to be deeply unpatriotic.
[00:09:14]  You don't get to be a star on the flag of the United States and then go AWOL when your country needs you, which is like, first, actually a good point.
[00:09:24]  Second, remember when literal fascist won the presidency and every mainstream news outlet couldn't wait to go hang out at waffle houses and talk to Trump voters and lecture liberals about being in a bubble?
[00:09:38]  Unfortunately, they still do and still do every day, every other day.
[00:09:41]  But no, MSNBC gets on and calls him a hick governor.
[00:09:44]  Yeah, right.
[00:09:47]  I watch TV too, Ben, right?
[00:09:48]  Yeah, he's getting it right.
[00:09:51]  So yeah, heroically, Governor Davis refuses to send in the National Guard to help with a mass casualty event that's killed thousands of Americans.
[00:09:58]  And the media lambasts him for it.
[00:10:01]  The media ran with the story, a president calling for love and unity and a southern secessionist governor looking like George Wallace.
[00:10:07]  Never mind that Davis had stood with the marchers of the civil rights era.
[00:10:10]  He now stood on the side of the old South, the media proclaimed, which I love.
[00:10:13]  So to make this guy, to make this guy a good guy, Ben just like has to invent that he marched with civil rights marchers, which is like the easiest way to get around.
[00:10:23]  Like, I don't want people to think this guy clearly being a bigot is a bigot.
[00:10:28]  I'll just say that he stood with Martin Luther King.
[00:10:34]  It's very funny.
[00:10:36]  He's doing a great job.
[00:10:37]  Well-rounded.
[00:10:38]  It's a well-rounded character, you see.
[00:10:40]  Well, and it's also just an example of like how to not write a good book.
[00:10:45]  Because if you're writing a good book, you should always be scared of giving yourself an easy answer.
[00:10:50]  So like if you're trying to make this character into clearly a good, morally upright guy, your best way to, and like you just kind of offhandedly mentioned that he marched with civil rights marchers, that's the laziest way to make him into a good person.
[00:11:04]  Because again, it's this whole show, like tell-don't show thing that Ben has going on.
[00:11:09]  He's in case he's capable of showing anything.
[00:11:11]  Yeah, because the governor's actually being evil here.
[00:11:13]  So Ben just says, but in the past, he did really good things.
[00:11:16]  So what he's doing now is good because Martin Luther King, like, it's, that's what he's doing.
[00:11:21]  Show him doing a good thing.
[00:11:22]  It is.
[00:11:24]  It would be considered unbelievably lazy if it wasn't the person that we were talking about.
[00:11:29]  It's very believably lazy.
[00:11:30]  Yes, it's believably lazy.
[00:11:32]  Again, if you wanted to make this more of an interesting book, have him actually have a point and be in the right and the federal government be wrong, but also have the governor be a guy with a problematic past who is battling with that and who like faces additional opposition because of bad things he's done in the past that maybe like gives the bad guys more like room to work with or something.
[00:11:52]  Like make it an interesting fucking story.
[00:11:55]  Oh, Robert, he saved a bus full of nuns and school children.
[00:11:58]  Okay.
[00:11:58]  Yeah.
[00:11:58]  In the past.
[00:11:59]  We don't need to see that.
[00:12:00]  Oh, oh, way earlier.
[00:12:01]  Way earlier.
[00:12:02]  No, no, no, no.
[00:12:03]  But that way we don't have to waste words on it.
[00:12:05]  We can just tell you.
[00:12:06]  It's like how it's like how when they made the action movie classic diehard, they mentioned that John McClain had stood with the civil rights movement so that people would like him, rather than painting him as a deadbeat husband and then making him likable through the things that he suffered and went through and sacrifices he made throughout the movie.
[00:12:24]  You know?
[00:12:25]  I'm going to watch Die Hard tonight.
[00:12:28]  It's good.
[00:12:29]  Sounds like good storytelling.
[00:12:30]  It's a Thanksgiving movie.
[00:12:31]  It's a Christmas movie.
[00:12:32]  It's a Thanksgiving movie.
[00:12:34]  Okay, we'll talk about that.
[00:12:35]  Die Hard 2 is a movie.
[00:12:36]  Die Hard 2 is an Easter movie.
[00:12:38]  Die Hard 2 is an Easter movie.
[00:12:39]  Is it?
[00:12:40]  No, it's covered in snow the whole time.
[00:12:43]  It's another Christmas movie.
[00:12:44]  That was a Thanksgiving movie, too.
[00:12:46]  Fourth of July.
[00:12:48]  Yeah.
[00:12:48]  The President of the United States.
[00:12:52]  Okay, so Bubba Davis turns to Ellen.
[00:12:55]  Civil rights hero, Bubba Davis.
[00:12:57]  Yeah, civil rights hero.
[00:12:58]  Basically, Martin Luther King Jr.
[00:13:00]  Bubba Davis.
[00:13:01]  Thank you.
[00:13:02]  Turns to Ellen, Ben Shapiro's wife, and asks her to be like the public face of his resistance to the federal government.
[00:13:08]  And she refuses because the president of the United States, she told Davis, had brought her husband home in one piece.
[00:13:14]  He'd made mistakes, she knew.
[00:13:15]  He'd exiled her husband based on lies, separated them for years, slashed the military, undermined the mission, she thought.
[00:13:20]  But in the end, he brought Brett home, and that was all that mattered to her, which is, you know, actually a vaguely reasonable step for a character to take in this book.

=== Dangerous Sweetheart Cartels (11:31) ===

[00:13:29]  That's like a human being.
[00:13:31]  Yeah.
[00:13:32]  No notes on that sentence.
[00:13:34]  You know what, Ben?
[00:13:35]  Good on you.
[00:13:36]  That was a believable single paragraph.
[00:13:39]  You did it.
[00:13:39]  Wait, was it a single paragraph or was it one of those sentence?
[00:13:42]  Yeah, okay.
[00:13:43]  Let's see here.
[00:13:44]  Yeah, he'd exiled her husband based on lies, comma, separated them for years, comma, slash the military, comma, undermined the mission, comma, she thought.
[00:13:51]  Yeah, it's not a great sentence.
[00:13:52]  The sentence structure isn't good, but the paragraph covers useful emotional tags.
[00:13:57]  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:13:58]  It was an attempt.
[00:14:00]  And just because he kept the sentence going a little longer, that's fine.
[00:14:04]  Yeah.
[00:14:05]  Okay, Bubba says when she refuses, then I need you on the border.
[00:14:08]  Somebody has to head up this outfit.
[00:14:10]  And if I go down there, they'll accuse me of outright insurrection.
[00:14:12]  You're competent.
[00:14:13]  Your husband is a well-known military figure.
[00:14:15]  And well, damn it, you're a woman.
[00:14:16]  And those sexists in the press won't label a woman an insurrectionist.
[00:14:21]  Okay.
[00:14:21]  So he gives his, I guess, press secretary control of the military forces he's placing on the border because as a woman, the press won't accuse her of leading an insurrection.
[00:14:30]  So which end of that is sexist is my question.
[00:14:33]  You are the media.
[00:14:35]  You are the media.
[00:14:36]  Which side has been landing on there?
[00:14:40]  Great question.
[00:14:42]  I think the media is sexist because they won't call her an insurrectionist when she starts leading an insurrection.
[00:14:49]  Yeah.
[00:14:49]  Fuck the media.
[00:14:50]  You know, we'll see.
[00:14:51]  Maybe, you know?
[00:14:53]  Yeah.
[00:14:54]  Okay.
[00:14:54]  So in the next paragraph, she's been there for a week.
[00:14:58]  So I guess all of this was just going back in time to catch this.
[00:15:01]  This is so, this is so.
[00:15:03]  Every time it's like, by the way, this is a year later.
[00:15:06]  Oh, my God.
[00:15:07]  This is the next century.
[00:15:08]  It's absurd.
[00:15:09]  She had to admit that the border felt different.
[00:15:11]  It felt safe for the first time ever.
[00:15:13]  Military vehicles patrolled the Texas side of the river with checkpoints set up to funnel visitors and workers through after checking identification.
[00:15:19]  Soldiers, many speaking Spanish, spoke with the locals, helping to...
[00:15:22]  Oh my God, what a sentence.
[00:15:24]  Soldiers, comma, many speaking Spanish, comma, spoke with the locals, comma, helping to direct them to the local ranches.
[00:15:31]  Ben is even just saying spoke with them to help them with.
[00:15:36]  Yeah, I mean, saying simple adjustments to get rid of all those commas.
[00:15:40]  Yeah, it's it's it's just believe in a copy editor.
[00:15:43]  And also, I don't know, if you ever spend a lot of time in places where there's tons of military vehicles and soldiers manning checkpoints, I can say from experience in multiple countries, you don't feel very safe.
[00:15:56]  That checks out.
[00:15:57]  Tons of soldiers handling basic travel needs makes me feel like I'm in a dangerous place because every place I've been like that has been dangerous.
[00:16:04]  Yeah, interesting, interesting feeling.
[00:16:06]  Yeah.
[00:16:08]  Also, spent a lot of time on the Texas border.
[00:16:10]  Indefinitely, a lot of terrible things do happen on chunks of the U.S.-Mexican border.
[00:16:15]  It's a long border.
[00:16:16]  Most of it's pretty empty.
[00:16:18]  Yeah, right.
[00:16:21]  Yeah.
[00:16:21]  She'd been there for a week and there hadn't been any dead kids in the river.
[00:16:24]  Every so often, a black helicopter would buzz the troops on the American side of the border.
[00:16:28]  Ellen thought it might be members of the same drug cartel that had killed Vivian.
[00:16:32]  She even thought that she'd seen one of the men wearing a bandana over his face.
[00:16:36]  She told the generals of the guard that she didn't want to see any fire at the helicopters unless fired upon.
[00:16:41]  Things were bad enough without starting a war.
[00:16:43]  In the last few days, the hell.
[00:16:45]  Yeah, she needed to tell the military not to shoot random helicopters out of the sky.
[00:16:50]  In the last few days, the helicopters had buzzed closer and closer, probing, prodding American response.
[00:16:55]  The Americans merely observed.
[00:16:56]  The guard had no intelligence capacities.
[00:16:59]  Every soldier I know who's worked with Guardsmen would agree with that statement, in fairness to Ben.
[00:17:03]  The feds hadn't been particularly responsive since Davis's big announcement, but Ellen had some private investigators do some digging.
[00:17:10]  What they found shocked her.
[00:17:11]  The city of Juarez, they said, was won by the Juarez Cartel, one of the most dangerous criminal enterprises on the planet.
[00:17:17]  Its leadership had been passed down through the Carrillo Fuentes brothers, who had turned.
[00:17:21]  Okay, so he starts talking about cartels, cartels, cartels.
[00:17:26]  Okay, and now he's just quoting a 2006 Guardian article about crimes of the Juarez cartels.
[00:17:33]  Excuse me.
[00:17:35]  We've got Ben Shapiro writing a daily wire article about the crime.
[00:17:38]  I was going to say, is this an article for his website?
[00:17:41]  All right.
[00:17:41]  No, he actually cites a 2006 article from the UK Guardian.
[00:17:46]  Wait a second.
[00:17:46]  Yeah.
[00:17:47]  So what fucking world are we in?
[00:17:49]  Yeah, that's a great question.
[00:17:51]  The timeline in this is not super clear because Obama was also president in the past.
[00:17:56]  Wait a se.
[00:17:57]  Okay.
[00:17:57]  I thought that they did find weapons of mass destruction.
[00:18:01]  They did.
[00:18:02]  How does this fucking Guardian article from our world still fucking exist?
[00:18:07]  Well, I mean, you know, they found the WMDs in the Middle East.
[00:18:10]  There's still cartels.
[00:18:11]  I guess Middle Eastern history is completely different in Ben's world, but everything is the same up until 2016-ish.
[00:18:19]  Okay.
[00:18:20]  Yeah.
[00:18:20]  All right.
[00:18:21]  I don't care anymore.
[00:18:22]  All right.
[00:18:23]  Yeah.
[00:18:24]  Doesn't matter.
[00:18:25]  Yeah.
[00:18:26]  The presence of American troops on the border.
[00:18:28]  So basically she goes into how like it had been so dangerous.
[00:18:31]  She cites a bunch of horrible things cartels did in Juarez and then points out that since all the soldiers were now on the border, all of the violence in Juarez had stopped.
[00:18:38]  So it was that simple.
[00:18:40]  Piece of cake, no problem.
[00:18:41]  Nothing to see here, folks.
[00:18:43]  Some people might note that the Mexican military is basically armed identically to the United States military and has not succeeded in any way, shape, or form with crushing the cartels who are similarly armed in a lot of cases.
[00:18:55]  Some people might note that.
[00:18:56]  Some people wouldn't be Ben Shapiro.
[00:18:59]  Why wouldn't I?
[00:19:00]  Why would he?
[00:19:01]  Yeah, so Ellen's job is to keep the peace on the border.
[00:19:06]  She'd have to do better, she knew.
[00:19:07]  One incident gone wrong could end Davis's dreams of a safe Texas.
[00:19:11]  So I guess everything's working great on the border because the army's there.
[00:19:16]  So that's good.
[00:19:17]  Oh, yeah.
[00:19:17]  Yeah.
[00:19:18]  So we have a little line break and then we're, I guess, in the have advanced an indeterminate amount of time in the future.
[00:19:24]  Ellen's cell phone.
[00:19:26]  It's still her.
[00:19:26]  It's still Ellen.
[00:19:27]  It is still Ellen.
[00:19:28]  So far.
[00:19:28]  That could change any second, Kate.
[00:19:30]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:19:31]  We don't know.
[00:19:31]  We don't know.
[00:19:32]  Ellen's cell phone rang.
[00:19:33]  New York number.
[00:19:34]  She picked up.
[00:19:35]  Hey, sweetheart.
[00:19:36]  Brett's rich baritone rumbled through the phone.
[00:19:40]  Give me a fucking break.
[00:19:42]  Me a fucking break.
[00:19:43]  Oh no, I I can't wait to hear Ben Shapiro write about these two love bird birds.
[00:19:48]  I'm sorry but we are.
[00:19:50]  We are 60 into the book 62.
[00:19:53]  Not need this description?
[00:19:55]  Okay, I think you do.
[00:20:02]  Hey sweetheart, says Brett's rich baritone.
[00:20:04]  Hey babe, she said miss you.
[00:20:06]  His voice sounded thick over the phone, almost we fucking know, we already know you said it.
[00:20:12]  Okay sorry okay, it's fine.
[00:20:14]  Just a few days ago they'd been so close to reuniting.
[00:20:16]  Now, with commercial air travel shut down and the crisis in New York, it could be weeks.
[00:20:20]  They both knew.
[00:20:21]  But this was something new too.
[00:20:23]  Brett never talked like this since the rescue from iron.
[00:20:26]  Brett hadn't been himself.
[00:20:27]  He never called her sweetheart, never called her sweetheart in that rich baritone.
[00:20:30]  It's never been.
[00:20:31]  She could imagine why and she could imagine his face.
[00:20:34]  She longed to reach out and touch it.
[00:20:36]  Miss you too.
[00:20:37]  How's Bill?
[00:20:38]  He's hanging in there.
[00:20:39]  Another pause, are you okay?
[00:20:41]  Bill, by the way, is their friend whose wife and young daughter were just killed.
[00:20:44]  Oh right, that's what they spare for bill.
[00:20:46]  How's Bill?
[00:20:46]  Yeah, he's fine.
[00:20:49]  In fairness to Ben, the way he wrote bill, he clearly was not broken up over the death of his wife and child.
[00:20:55]  That is true, he's doing fine, he's doing, he's doing, he's doing great, he's right back to work.
[00:21:01]  Are you okay?
[00:21:02]  Yes, that's a no.
[00:21:04]  He laughed.
[00:21:05]  So did she?
[00:21:06]  Davis made a mistake not sending the troops, you know.
[00:21:08]  I know she answered and I have a feeling something's coming here, something bad.
[00:21:12]  I'm getting the same feeling.
[00:21:14]  It's not over.
[00:21:14]  Is it a long pause?
[00:21:16]  No, I don't think it is.
[00:21:17]  Someone knocked on the door to Ellen's office.
[00:21:19]  I gotta run, babe.
[00:21:20]  She said, take a bullet for you.
[00:21:23]  I can't even say Brett Hawthorne responds, take a bullet for you, sweetheart.
[00:21:29]  She hung up every time.
[00:21:33]  That's the only.
[00:21:33]  That's what they say at the end.
[00:21:35]  That's what.
[00:21:36]  That's their, that's their cute thing that we all love.
[00:21:39]  Take a bullet for you.
[00:21:40]  And I, I love.
[00:21:41]  I've heard variations of this from a couple of different people who had family members who would end every conversation with, I love you.
[00:21:47]  You know aunts and uncles grandparents, and they were like you know.
[00:21:49]  It always seemed kind of silly to me until the day that like they died, and then I remembered the last thing that they said to me was that they loved me and like now I, I understand why they did that and that's legitimately like heartwarming and and a wonderful thing.
[00:22:02]  Uh, take a bullet.
[00:22:04]  For you, is not?
[00:22:05]  No, it's not no, it's not no.
[00:22:07]  It's so interesting to associate violence with love.
[00:22:12]  It says a lot about Ben that that's his equivalent of like.
[00:22:16]  You just want him to know how they feel.
[00:22:17]  So mention being shot every time you finish a conversation, the last, I just remember the last time I we spoke, I said i'd fucking die in the in a rain of of bullet fire.
[00:22:33]  Yeah, for you, for them, i'll get stabbed in the abdomen repeatedly.
[00:22:37]  For you babe, i'll get stabbed in the abdomen repeatedly.
[00:22:40]  For you, fuck up my insides with searing hot metal.
[00:22:44]  For you babe, for you i'll, i'll pull my hamstring.
[00:22:48]  For you baby yeah, i'll suffer hydrostatic shock as a high velocity round tears through my organs.
[00:22:55]  For you babe, love it.
[00:22:57]  You too, babe.
[00:23:00]  And again, if you wanted to do like a fun kooky couple, you could have them do increasingly deranged versions of that to end their conversations.
[00:23:11]  That show that shows like, oh, they're playful and they know.
[00:23:13]  Yeah, get sodomized by a drill bit.
[00:23:16]  For you babe, you can have fun with it.
[00:23:19]  Oh, they love each other.
[00:23:20]  Look at how much fun they have.
[00:23:21]  Yeah, it's this queer.
[00:23:22]  They're kind of dark.
[00:23:23]  They have this dark sensibility as opposed to.
[00:23:25]  Yeah, I can't even read them saying that without like gagging.
[00:23:30]  It's like the ninth time.
[00:23:31]  Yeah, it has every time there's a visceral reaction to it too.
[00:23:35]  It's hard, it's hard.
[00:23:36]  It's the only piece of Ben's writing that makes me feel anything.
[00:23:41]  Okay, so she hangs up on Combat General Brett Hawthorne, and then she gets a slip of paper from a sergeant in the guard that tells her it came from HQ.
[00:23:51]  And we'll find out what that slip of paper says.
[00:23:53]  But first, Cody, Katie.
[00:23:56]  Yeah.
[00:23:56]  You know what will take a bullet for you?
[00:23:59]  My man.
[00:24:00]  No, that's not the answer.
[00:24:02]  The products and services that support this talk.
[00:24:04]  Of course, of course.
[00:24:06]  God, we should really get sponsored by body armor.
[00:24:09]  Yeah.
[00:24:09]  See if Hesko will get on that, Robert.
[00:24:12]  Throw some bucks at us.
[00:24:13]  Wear body armor for you, babe.
[00:24:16]  I'd prefer not to get shot for you, babe.
[00:24:18]  So I wear class four plates.
[00:24:20]  Let's stay out of danger and like be happy somewhere else.
[00:24:25]  I'll attempt to stay safe as best I can for you, babe.
[00:24:29]  I hope you do the same for me, babe.
[00:24:31]  Okay.
[00:24:32]  All right.
[00:24:39]  There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
[00:24:43]  Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
[00:24:46]  If you play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
[00:24:49]  And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
[00:24:53]  We always say, trust your girlfriends.
[00:24:56]  I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends...

=== Murder At City Hall (03:56) ===

[00:25:00]  Oh my God, this is the same man.
[00:25:02]  A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
[00:25:07]  I felt like I got hit by a truck.
[00:25:09]  I thought, how could this happen to me?
[00:25:11]  The cops didn't seem to care.
[00:25:13]  So they take matters into their own hands.
[00:25:16]  I said, oh, hell no.
[00:25:17]  I vowed I will be his last target.
[00:25:20]  He's going to get what he deserves.
[00:25:24]  Listen to the girlfriends.
[00:25:26]  Trust me, babe.
[00:25:27]  On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:25:37]  What's up, everyone?
[00:25:38]  I'm Ago Modern.
[00:25:39]  My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
[00:25:46]  It's Will Farrell.
[00:25:50]  My dad gave me the best advice ever.
[00:25:53]  I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
[00:25:58]  I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
[00:26:01]  I'm working my way up through it.
[00:26:02]  I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent.
[00:26:05]  He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
[00:26:10]  Yeah.
[00:26:10]  He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
[00:26:13]  And he's like, just give it a shot.
[00:26:14]  He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
[00:26:23]  If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
[00:26:25]  It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat.
[00:26:31]  Just hang in there.
[00:26:32]  Yeah, it would not be.
[00:26:34]  Right, it wouldn't be that.
[00:26:35]  There's a lot in luck.
[00:26:37]  Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:26:45]  In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckard found himself at the center of a paternity scandal.
[00:26:52]  The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story.
[00:26:57]  This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth.
[00:27:01]  You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
[00:27:04]  I doctored the test once.
[00:27:06]  It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case.
[00:27:09]  I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for.
[00:27:13]  Sunlight's the greatest disinfectant.
[00:27:16]  They would uncover a disturbing pattern.
[00:27:18]  Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
[00:27:20]  Greg Gillespie and Michael Marancini.
[00:27:22]  My mind was blown.
[00:27:24]  I'm Stephanie Young.
[00:27:25]  This is Love Trap.
[00:27:27]  Laura, Scottsdale Police.
[00:27:29]  As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
[00:27:34]  Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news out of Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges.
[00:27:40]  This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona.
[00:27:45]  Listen to Love Trapped Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:27:55]  10-10 shots fired in the city hall building.
[00:27:58]  A silver .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.
[00:28:02]  From iHeart Podcasts and Best Case Studios, this is Rorschach.
[00:28:07]  Murder at City Hall.
[00:28:08]  How could this have happened in City Hall?
[00:28:10]  Somebody tell me that.
[00:28:11]  Jeffrey Hood did.
[00:28:12]  I love you.
[00:28:13]  July 2003.
[00:28:14]  Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.
[00:28:19]  Both men are carrying concealed weapons.
[00:28:22]  And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead.
[00:28:31]  Everybody in the chamber's docks.
[00:28:33]  A shocking public murder.
[00:28:35]  I scream, get down, get down.
[00:28:37]  Those are shots.
[00:28:37]  Those are shots.
[00:28:38]  Get down.
[00:28:39]  A charismatic politician.
[00:28:40]  You know, he just bent the rules all the time, man.
[00:28:43]  I still have a weapon.
[00:28:45]  And I could shoot you.
[00:28:48]  And an outsider with a secret.
[00:28:50]  He alleged he was a victim of flat down.
[00:28:53]  That may or may not have been political.
[00:28:54]  That may have been about sex.

=== Shots Fired In Chamber (14:48) ===

[00:28:56]  Listen to Rorschach.
[00:28:58]  Murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:29:09]  We're back.
[00:29:11]  Thank God.
[00:29:12]  So she's just gotten a letter from HQ.
[00:29:14]  Ellen goes to the, I don't know, some command headquarters.
[00:29:17]  Oh boy, we're talking about journalists again.
[00:29:19]  By the time she arrived at the mobile home, which is, I guess, the mobile headquarters for the guard, a small crowd of journalists had formed outside.
[00:29:24]  As she stepped out of her car, the cameras clacked away.
[00:29:27]  The focus of the nation was certainly on New York, she thought, but that didn't make the regional journalists any less hungry to get their footage on the national broadcast.
[00:29:34]  It's an awkward sentence.
[00:29:36]  Sure is.
[00:29:38]  She saw the box as she stepped inside the empty room, sitting on a makeshift desk, a table somebody had culled from the local rec center.
[00:29:45]  That's an awkward way of telling you there's a box in the room that's important.
[00:29:48]  Wait, yeah, read that again, please.
[00:29:50]  She saw, so this is her, like, she saw the box as she stepped inside the empty room, comma, sitting on a makeshift desk, comma, a table somebody had culled from the local rec center.
[00:29:58]  That box was carved.
[00:30:00]  Yeah.
[00:30:00]  Bad sentence.
[00:30:01]  Bad.
[00:30:02]  She walked into a trailer.
[00:30:03]  There was a makeshift desk, and on top of the desk was a box waterlogged and made of cardboard or something like that.
[00:30:09]  Oh, that was horrendous.
[00:30:11]  I want us to do like a search of how many commas are used in this book when we're done.
[00:30:16]  Billions.
[00:30:18]  That will break my machine.
[00:30:20]  I only have four cores to compute that with.
[00:30:23]  I don't have enough RAM in this machine.
[00:30:27]  So yeah, the box is cardboard, wet at the bottom.
[00:30:29]  A wet plastic bag sat beside it.
[00:30:31]  The box had been carved open at the top.
[00:30:33]  She crept up on it.
[00:30:34]  Why did she creep up on it?
[00:30:35]  Why?
[00:30:35]  Well, you're in her box.
[00:30:38]  Another real champion of a sentence.
[00:30:40]  She crept up on it, comma.
[00:30:42]  The pressure in her chest screaming at her to not look inside.
[00:30:45]  Uh-huh.
[00:30:46]  Screaming, huh?
[00:30:48]  Ah, there's a head.
[00:30:49]  There's a head in the box.
[00:30:50]  We're having our seven moment here, and it's the head of some National Guard motherfucker who...
[00:30:54]  Oh, I guess a National Guard guy had been imprisoned in Mexico for months.
[00:30:59]  She's just letting us know about this here because she finally got her head.
[00:31:04]  If you're...
[00:31:05]  I'm sorry.
[00:31:06]  Maybe drop that earlier?
[00:31:07]  I don't know.
[00:31:08]  Like, no, he wrote this book in one sitting.
[00:31:10]  He wrote it all the way through and he's like, I did it.
[00:31:12]  And he got sleepy.
[00:31:14]  At this point, if you want to do this scene, you pick any moment in any of the pages before this, and you mention this fucking once.
[00:31:23]  Yeah, you have the governor have an angry phone call with the president about how this man is in danger and he's been kidnapped.
[00:31:29]  And the president says, we're going to take care of it.
[00:31:31]  He's going to be fine.
[00:31:32]  Like, they don't want to kill him.
[00:31:33]  And you show the president as like an unreasonable and detached from reality.
[00:31:38]  And the governor is caring about this guy.
[00:31:40]  You establish that, like, this is a major issue.
[00:31:42]  And then, when his head shows up in a box, it means more than nothing at all.
[00:31:47]  More than nothing at all.
[00:31:48]  Yeah.
[00:31:48]  More than nothing at all.
[00:31:49]  Even just a little bit, a little bit.
[00:31:50]  Yeah.
[00:31:51]  It should be the bare minimum.
[00:31:52]  Just a bare minimum.
[00:31:54]  Just like go back and add a sentence.
[00:31:56]  It's not.
[00:31:58]  Yeah.
[00:31:59]  I mean, it's good.
[00:32:02]  Yeah.
[00:32:03]  Now the holes on his head that used to hold eyes stared through Ellen.
[00:32:07]  Written on his forehead in blue ink was one word.
[00:32:10]  Terrorista.
[00:32:11]  She held back the urge to vomit.
[00:32:14]  What a why hold that back?
[00:32:16]  Sentence man.
[00:32:17]  Yeah.
[00:32:17]  The sentence man has arrived.
[00:32:21]  She turned away thinking, it was a genius move, she concluded.
[00:32:24]  So offensive that there would have to be some response from the Texas government.
[00:32:27]  A crime directed not at the national government, but at an individual claimed by the Mexican government to be a criminal.
[00:32:33]  Wow, that was one sentence.
[00:32:36]  It played directly to Davis's soft spot, abandonment.
[00:32:39]  He'd wanted to retaliate.
[00:32:40]  He'd wanted to push across the border into Juarez, and Prescott would want no part of it.
[00:32:45]  Not while he was trying to woo the president of Mexico to endorse his job creation plan, and not while he had the whole entire world unifying around him.
[00:32:52]  Yeah, it might be bad to invade Mexico in a time like that.
[00:32:56]  Oh my God, I just got what Ben's doing.
[00:32:59]  What's he doing?
[00:33:00]  So this book, we have another 9-11.
[00:33:03]  And after the actual 9-11, George Bush immediately invaded Afghanistan and started agitating to invade Iraq.
[00:33:09]  And playing the part of Iraq and Afghanistan in this book is Mexico.
[00:33:15]  Oh, yeah.
[00:33:16]  I see it.
[00:33:17]  Bush was right to invade a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attack.
[00:33:22]  And Bubba Davis is right to invade Mexico, which also had nothing to do with the terrorist attack.
[00:33:26]  Yeah.
[00:33:27]  Excellent.
[00:33:28]  Excellent.
[00:33:29]  I love it.
[00:33:30]  Good stuff.
[00:33:31]  Yeah.
[00:33:32]  So Bubba calls Ellen and he's like, this is America, not Afghanistan.
[00:33:35]  This shit can't happen along my border.
[00:33:37]  It's America's border, Bubba.
[00:33:39]  But America won't do shit to protect it.
[00:33:40]  They failed.
[00:33:41]  Now it's my turn.
[00:33:42]  She took a deep breath.
[00:33:43]  Governor, she said, you do this, and you could be looking at open conflict with Prescott this time.
[00:33:47]  No more play acting.
[00:33:48]  No more excuses.
[00:33:49]  You think he's going to send his boys down here to shoot at our boys over us killing some drug dealers?
[00:33:54]  I don't know, but neither do you.
[00:33:55]  Everybody on earth has called the president's bluff, said Davis.
[00:33:58]  Everybody.
[00:33:58]  He's caped every time.
[00:33:59]  What would make this time different?
[00:34:01]  You, she answered, he hates you.
[00:34:03]  That won't make his cojones any bigger, girl.
[00:34:05]  He laughed.
[00:34:06]  Ooh, girl.
[00:34:07]  Look, this is just a little bit of a trendy.
[00:34:08]  This has been funny for a girl.
[00:34:13]  I'm looking forward to seeing some dead criminals for a change, and the line goes dead.
[00:34:18]  And then Ellen quotes Caesar, you know, and says, Alia Yakta Esta, which, well, I think it should be S, but I'm not an expert on Latin, which means like it's what Caesar said when he crossed the Rubicon because Ben Shapiro only knows about classical history and only the parts of classical history that are dramatic and stuff.
[00:34:36]  Yeah.
[00:34:37]  The hero moments.
[00:34:38]  The hero moments.
[00:34:39]  Where the hero of history, Julius Caesar, destroys a democracy, actually.
[00:34:47]  So yeah, I get why Ben is on board.
[00:34:51]  Okay.
[00:34:52]  So next we have a Soledad chapter.
[00:34:54]  So that's, yeah, Soledad, if you'll remember, is the only woman of color in the story and also a terrorist, but a good terrorist that Ben likes.
[00:35:05]  Okay.
[00:35:06]  Yeah.
[00:35:07]  Yeah.
[00:35:07]  So she's hanging out with a bunch of her militia guys, one of whom, the black man who is there to tell her that everything that she's doing is good and make Ben not seem racist because look, there's a black man in the book.
[00:35:20]  Ezekiel is hanging out with her and a bunch of guns.
[00:35:25]  And one of Soledad's men is like, we need to talk.
[00:35:27]  Soledad nodded.
[00:35:28]  The men filed out of the living room into the outdoors.
[00:35:30]  Ezekiel nodded at her.
[00:35:32]  You need anything, holler.
[00:35:33]  I'll be outside, he said.
[00:35:35]  Aiden, who's the other guy, collapsed into a broken down sofa, breathing hard.
[00:35:38]  And then he leaned forward, staring at Soledad.
[00:35:41]  We need to go to Detroit, he said.
[00:35:42]  And in fairness, every time I've gone to Detroit, it did start with an emotional conversation.
[00:35:47]  Nobody.
[00:35:48]  Yeah.
[00:35:50]  So, yeah, she laughs at this because they're supposed to be staying off grid and hiding.
[00:35:55]  But Aiden's like, Ricky needs my help.
[00:35:58]  Ricky is the cop who shot the dead-eyed black boy.
[00:36:01]  And I guess he's a friend of Soledad's, one of her militiamen.
[00:36:05]  Yeah, so Aiden informs us that those pieces of shit, which I think are Black Lives Matter activists, just took over the detention center.
[00:36:15]  And so, yeah, he's worried.
[00:36:16]  Okay, so Aiden's worried that the cop who killed the dead-eyed black boy is going to get murdered by the BLM activists who took over the detention center where he's being held.
[00:36:24]  Okay.
[00:36:25]  All right.
[00:36:25]  Okay.
[00:36:26]  Okay.
[00:36:26]  That's good.
[00:36:27]  That's at least relatively succinct.
[00:36:29]  Okay.
[00:36:29]  Pretty racist, but succinct.
[00:36:31]  Oh, yeah.
[00:36:31]  I mean, it's clear.
[00:36:33]  I'm not confused.
[00:36:34]  No.
[00:36:35]  It's just bad.
[00:36:36]  Yeah.
[00:36:36]  They sat listening to the commercials for Carpet Cleaner in Gold, which is accurate for Fox News.
[00:36:42]  So I guess that's fair.
[00:36:43]  Then the news came back on.
[00:36:44]  A newscaster speaking in somber tones, his voice cut by static interference.
[00:36:48]  The protesters, shh, gathered outside the detention center, shh, chanting that they want their own trial.
[00:36:55]  So it doesn't look like we're missing any words there.
[00:36:57]  There's just shh in the middle of there because Ben doesn't even know how to write in static.
[00:37:01]  Like the sentence is complete.
[00:37:02]  It just has shh in the middle.
[00:37:05]  Yeah.
[00:37:06]  Yeah, there's static in the middle of it, but the sentence that we get is the protesters gathered outside the detention center chanting that they want their own trial.
[00:37:13]  That's pretty, I don't know, we're not missing much there.
[00:37:16]  Weird choice.
[00:37:17]  Anyway, Aiden switches the radio off.
[00:37:20]  He calls it an old-fashioned lynch mob because they're black people.
[00:37:25]  And it's all scary.
[00:37:26]  White people are the victims of racism.
[00:37:28]  Yeah.
[00:37:29]  They're not going home without a head on a pike.
[00:37:32]  Okay.
[00:37:33]  Cool.
[00:37:33]  And apparently, Soledad's like, why do you care about this guy?
[00:37:36]  And he's like, we're friends.
[00:37:38]  He saved my life once.
[00:37:40]  So now you want to return the favor?
[00:37:41]  He nodded.
[00:37:42]  But this isn't just about you anymore, she said.
[00:37:44]  I've got 40 guys out there who abandoned everything they had to come out here and try to be left alone.
[00:37:48]  You want me to put them in the middle of a shitstorm?
[00:37:50]  The storm is coming to you.
[00:37:52]  They're distracted.
[00:37:53]  They'll leave us alone.
[00:37:54]  For how long?
[00:37:55]  Aiden grimaced.
[00:37:55]  I'll bet Ricky thought they'd leave him alone, that he was doing the right thing when he shot that black boy.
[00:38:00]  Oh my God.
[00:38:02]  The dead-eyed black boy.
[00:38:03]  Thank you.
[00:38:04]  Thank you.
[00:38:04]  Yeah.
[00:38:05]  Good lord.
[00:38:07]  Aiden then thanks Soledad for giving her something he'd been missing, a reason to fight.
[00:38:13]  So that's good.
[00:38:14]  This is so brutal.
[00:38:16]  Yeah, it's just a bad book.
[00:38:20]  It's bad.
[00:38:20]  It's just bad.
[00:38:22]  Yeah, it's just a bad book.
[00:38:23]  Okay, so she thinks, she goes through a little long, dark tea time of the soul for a paragraph or so, and then she decides to head out at nightfall to Detroit.
[00:38:30]  And then they're in Detroit.
[00:38:32]  They arrived in the evening, a chain of cars and motorcycles taking refuge in the abandoned Michigan Central Station, the old rail depot for the city.
[00:38:40]  Aiden guides them through because I guess he knows Detroit.
[00:38:44]  Everything is decayed and crumbling.
[00:38:48]  And yeah, they hole up in an abandoned building and make it their HQ.
[00:38:53]  There's homeless drunks still around the place.
[00:38:57]  Because yeah, that's all of Detroit.
[00:39:01]  Yeah, that's good.
[00:39:02]  So, yeah.
[00:39:04]  Oh, we get a little rant about Ben Shapiro.
[00:39:06]  For years, the city had tried to rehabilitate the building.
[00:39:08]  It had been bought, rebought, bought again.
[00:39:10]  They'd considered bonds, taxpayer subsidies, anything to get the building restored.
[00:39:14]  Nobody had bothered.
[00:39:15]  Detroit was a disaster area.
[00:39:16]  Investing money in the city would be a massive waste.
[00:39:19]  Aiden had grown up in Detroit, he'd said.
[00:39:21]  He knew the city well.
[00:39:21]  His grandfather worked for General Motors, had a union job that was supposed to keep him employed all his life.
[00:39:26]  Then foreign cars began flooding the American market, and the auto union contracts meant that American car companies couldn't compete.
[00:39:32]  Jobs started fleeing.
[00:39:33]  As they did, the government of the city decided to raise taxes dramatically and the people who still held jobs and the companies that still decided to stay in town.
[00:39:40]  They left too.
[00:39:41]  Mayor after mayor took off his promising to bring business back, then pandered by crushing businesses that remained.
[00:39:46]  The tax base disappeared.
[00:39:48]  So that's how Ben Shapiro thinks Detroit wound up where it wound up.
[00:39:52]  Cool.
[00:39:53]  Yeah.
[00:39:53]  That's kind of, it says it's like a segment from his podcast.
[00:39:58]  Yeah.
[00:39:58]  He also notes that white families moved out to the suburbs.
[00:40:01]  Black families couldn't afford to follow.
[00:40:02]  The city's self-segregated.
[00:40:05]  Oh, they did it.
[00:40:07]  Okay.
[00:40:08]  It's as simple as that.
[00:40:10]  They self-did it.
[00:40:11]  They decided to.
[00:40:12]  Oh, okay.
[00:40:13]  There's nothing.
[00:40:13]  A masterful understanding.
[00:40:15]  It's interesting what's happening.
[00:40:17]  Yeah.
[00:40:17]  It's interesting what's happening here because he starts off by saying that like Detroit is hopeless and like it can't be fixed.
[00:40:24]  And then the only plight that's worth focusing on are like this white kid whose dad lost his job and who, yeah, like that's that's fun.
[00:40:33]  And yeah, this continues because Aiden and Ricky meet in Detroit and they think they're the only two white kids in town.
[00:40:39]  And so they become best friends.
[00:40:41]  Their parents went to church together.
[00:40:43]  They fought back bullies together.
[00:40:44]  Ricky was the straight era.
[00:40:46]  Aiden the budding juvenile delinquent, eager and ready to do anything to make friends.
[00:40:50]  Yeah.
[00:40:51]  So two white boys against the bad black kids of Detroit.
[00:40:55]  That's Aiden and Ricky, the cop who shoots that little boy to death.
[00:40:59]  So that's good.
[00:41:01]  That's a good book.
[00:41:02]  Good.
[00:41:03]  Yeah, good was the word I was going to use too.
[00:41:05]  I was like, what's the right word for this?
[00:41:07]  Ben would know.
[00:41:09]  Good.
[00:41:09]  Yeah.
[00:41:10]  Okay.
[00:41:11]  So yeah, they become friends, but then Aiden is a juvenile delinquent and they grow apart.
[00:41:15]  One day, Aiden's mother saw Ricky in church, asked him if he'd seen Aiden.
[00:41:19]  Ricky lied to cover for him.
[00:41:20]  Aiden, he'd said, was probably at the library.
[00:41:22]  Then, hands gripped into fists, still wearing his Sunday suit, he went looking for Aiden.
[00:41:26]  He found him in a rundown tract house, surrounded by a couple of dropouts, high on weed and drunk off his ass.
[00:41:32]  Aiden, Ricky said, your mom's looking for you.
[00:41:35]  She missed you at church.
[00:41:36]  One of the losers laughed.
[00:41:37]  Yeah, mama's boy.
[00:41:38]  Your mama's looking for you.
[00:41:40]  Shut up, Aiden slurred to him.
[00:41:42]  Yeah, well, tell her I'm out here.
[00:41:44]  I'm not going to do that.
[00:41:44]  I'd said I'd come and get you.
[00:41:46]  Aiden laughed, a high-pitched whine that eventually tapered off into a snort.
[00:41:50]  Well, you tried, Boy Scout.
[00:41:51]  Now get back home to your mama.
[00:41:52]  Ricky grabbed him by the scruff of his t-shirt.
[00:41:54]  Get your ass home, Aiden.
[00:41:56]  Or what?
[00:41:56]  Aiden sneered.
[00:41:57]  Or this.
[00:41:58]  Ricky punched him in the face.
[00:41:59]  Aiden went down like a load of brick.
[00:42:00]  Wow, so it's interesting because we're getting Aiden's backstory here, but it's not being posed as him having a conversation with Soledad and telling her what happened.
[00:42:10]  We're just reading this as if it's another, like, we've just 20 years in the past is another scene without any sort of break.
[00:42:17]  It's not like he's not remembering.
[00:42:19]  Like, we're not starting this chapter on Aiden and him like having, remembering.
[00:42:24]  Ben's just written.
[00:42:25]  He's not describing it.
[00:42:26]  He's not telling the story.
[00:42:28]  It's just a series of paragraphs that describes the scene that happened years ago.
[00:42:31]  I mean, he's such a dog shit writer.
[00:42:34]  I think, I seriously do not think anybody edited this book.
[00:42:37]  No, they did.
[00:42:38]  The author would have been like, this is not how you write a book, Ben.
[00:42:42]  Did he self-publish it?
[00:42:44]  No.
[00:42:44]  No, the publishing company is.
[00:42:47]  It's not great.
[00:42:48]  It's called.
[00:42:49]  No edit reads is the name of the book.
[00:42:51]  I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, I'll kind of pay you if you publish this for me.
[00:42:57]  Yeah.
[00:42:59]  I've wanted to look into the publishing company for a long time because it is very clear that like.
[00:43:03]  Yeah.
[00:43:05]  This is first draft shit.
[00:43:07]  Can we have a moment for how good Katie's joke was?
[00:43:10]  Thank you, Selfie.
[00:43:11]  Thank you.
[00:43:12]  It was wonderful.
[00:43:13]  So real quick.
[00:43:15]  I'm sorry.
[00:43:16]  Sorry.
[00:43:17]  This is such a terrible scene.
[00:43:18]  It's horrible.
[00:43:19]  And what's funny also is that what happens here isn't even all that dramatic because like Ricky punches him and then Aiden never gets high again and he becomes a Fed He's with the ATF, right?
[00:43:33]  Yeah.
[00:43:34]  This is a low-grade misrepresentation of something that was kind of similar that barely didn't maybe kind of happen to Ben or somebody he knew.

=== Riots And Ben Riot (05:10) ===

[00:43:45]  I think it's just something Ben assumes happens to pay attention to.
[00:43:49]  It's like this, like, oh, like, this is this is what the tell there is that within the book, because it's not Aiden telling the story.
[00:44:00]  It's the author telling this story, referring to that person as one of the losers.
[00:44:07]  That's all you need to know.
[00:44:08]  Yeah.
[00:44:09]  Yeah.
[00:44:09]  It's very insightful.
[00:44:10]  And it's interesting because this is clearly what Ben thinks drug addiction is, as opposed to he's actually, what he's actually described is a kid smoking weed and drinking in a house, which is not an evidence of a serious problem.
[00:44:25]  Most people in this country have something like that happen when they're teens.
[00:44:30]  Yeah.
[00:44:30]  And it's generally fine.
[00:44:32]  Like if you want to have this be like, have him get into heroin or some shit.
[00:44:36]  Have fucking Ricky like find him ODing and turn him over and stop him from choking on his own puke.
[00:44:42]  At least make it a life or death situation.
[00:44:44]  If this guy's going to say he saved my life.
[00:44:47]  No, he got high on weed.
[00:44:48]  He got high on weed that one time and then got punched.
[00:44:51]  One of the losers punched him.
[00:44:53]  No, no, no.
[00:44:54]  That was Ricky.
[00:44:55]  His friend punched him.
[00:44:56]  Because that's how heroes solve all their problems with violence.
[00:45:01]  That's what makes them heroes.
[00:45:02]  But Cody.
[00:45:03]  Unless I'm sorry.
[00:45:04]  Beta.
[00:45:05]  I'm sorry.
[00:45:07]  Cucked my pen once again.
[00:45:10]  Yeah, okay.
[00:45:10]  So that's why Aiden, the guy that we barely know, wants to save Ricky, the guy who shot that dead-eyed black child.
[00:45:17]  I wonder if Ben thinks it's disgusting and uncivil to punch Nazis.
[00:45:22]  I bet he does.
[00:45:23]  But not your pot smoking friends.
[00:45:26]  Not if it helps them become feds.
[00:45:33]  Yeah, so, okay.
[00:45:34]  They go through like a plan.
[00:45:36]  They talk about like how the fucking detention center is laid out.
[00:45:39]  And yeah.
[00:45:39]  Okay, so here's Aiden again.
[00:45:41]  So here's the plan.
[00:45:41]  We have to wait until the right time.
[00:45:43]  We're not interested in taking on the police.
[00:45:44]  They're armed and they're scared.
[00:45:45]  And armed and scared cops are just as likely to shoot us as anybody else.
[00:45:49]  Ben's on the verge of killing your portrait.
[00:45:51]  I mean, he's just dancing right around it, isn't he?
[00:45:55]  That is why people are angry, Ben.
[00:45:57]  Get there.
[00:45:58]  Just get there, man.
[00:46:00]  Instead, we need chaos for the cover.
[00:46:02]  Every riot is led by a few key characters.
[00:46:04]  Ben, the riot knower.
[00:46:05]  Everybody there may look like they're ready for war, but most are there to show their friends that they're brave.
[00:46:09]  The authorities know that.
[00:46:10]  So their chief task is to arrest the rabble-rousers and let the rest sort of fade away.
[00:46:14]  If that happens, we'll never get Officer O'Sullivan out of there.
[00:46:16]  I guarantee you that whoever's leading this thing is smart and capable.
[00:46:19]  This is not amateur hour.
[00:46:20]  Oh, so it's, we're getting into Ben's like the all if it's like riots and protests are like nefariously organized because people couldn't spontaneously, you know, form up in large numbers and confront and outmaneuver the police without having like a leadership cast.
[00:46:36]  That's right.
[00:46:37]  That's right.
[00:46:37]  Yeah.
[00:46:38]  That's right.
[00:46:38]  It's funny because an article dropped last week where like revealing like, so the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI were spying on Portland protesters during the protests and riots this summer and were like desperately trying to figure out who the leaders were.
[00:46:53]  And the exact like, the exact like wording in the report was something along the lines of all we wound up with was a list of who was canceling who on Twitter.
[00:47:03]  That is amazing.
[00:47:06]  It's very funny.
[00:47:07]  That is intensely beautiful.
[00:47:09]  Yeah, it's the best thing that's ever happened.
[00:47:12]  I have never been so happy reading a story.
[00:47:15]  Yeah.
[00:47:16]  Yeah, it fucking ruled.
[00:47:19]  Yeah, Ben knows riots.
[00:47:21]  Absolutely.
[00:47:22]  Knows him a riot.
[00:47:23]  Ben Riot Shapiro.
[00:47:26]  Okay, so one of the men in the back pipes up, why don't we just grab him off the street when he's released?
[00:47:30]  And Ezekiel, who's again the only black guy in this group, guffaws.
[00:47:34]  Have you seen us?
[00:47:35]  We stick out like a KKK rally in Harlem.
[00:47:38]  No chance they don't find us and at least neutralize us.
[00:47:41]  No, here's what we're going to do.
[00:47:42]  Oh, wait.
[00:47:43]  And then he doesn't tell us what he's going to do.
[00:47:45]  Instead, Aiden, the next paragraph is: so after Ezekiel says, here's what we're going to do, Aiden takes out a garbage bag and pulls uniforms from it.
[00:47:52]  Then he tosses to Soledad and three of the other men who step forward to put them on.
[00:47:56]  Now, for the rest of you guys, I've got something really special.
[00:47:59]  Doesn't even tell them anything, just throws out uniforms and men start putting them on.
[00:48:02]  Ben is a real bad writer.
[00:48:05]  I mean, everything, everything that he has a character say is like a cliche.
[00:48:13]  I'm not sure of the right word, but it's like an overused phrase, like a sentence structure that's like so obvious and overused.
[00:48:22]  Right, because it's not like, yeah, it's not clichés necessarily.
[00:48:25]  You're right.
[00:48:27]  We'll stand out like a KKK member in Harlem.
[00:48:30]  Well, and it's also, of course, it had to be the black guy who said that because he would think of Harlem.
[00:48:35]  Like, right?
[00:48:36]  Like, and it's, it's also that he says, here's the plan, and then nobody explains the plan.
[00:48:41]  And instead, another character takes out a garbage bag full of uniforms and everybody understands it.
[00:48:47]  And the chapter ends with Aiden opening a duffel bag with t-shirts in it.
[00:48:51]  And we don't know what's on the t-shirts, but everybody's jaw drops and Soledad chuckles.

=== Cliché Dialogue Critique (03:14) ===

[00:48:55]  Well, you've got to die sometime.
[00:48:57]  So I'm guessing my guess is that something racist is on them to draw attention and create a giant fight or something so that they can sneak in and free Ricky.
[00:49:06]  That'd be my guess.
[00:49:07]  Kind of like, kind of like the start of the third diehard movie, actually.
[00:49:11]  Yeah.
[00:49:11]  That's an Arbor Day movie.
[00:49:14]  Okay.
[00:49:15]  You're like, you're quicker than me, Cody.
[00:49:18]  Our next chapter is a Levon chapter.
[00:49:21]  I think we have to take a break.
[00:49:23]  Oh, yeah.
[00:49:24]  Yeah, I guess we should.
[00:49:25]  You just took the words out of my mouth.
[00:49:27]  I'm sorry.
[00:49:28]  I'm sorry.
[00:49:29]  I apologize.
[00:49:30]  No, welcome.
[00:49:31]  I'm appreciative.
[00:49:34]  I'm appreciative too.
[00:49:35]  And you know who's most appreciative?
[00:49:37]  No.
[00:49:37]  Your butt.
[00:49:38]  Yes, that's wrong.
[00:49:40]  The products and services that support this pod cast.
[00:49:46]  Katie's so funny.
[00:49:48]  I'm so happy.
[00:49:56]  There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
[00:50:00]  Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
[00:50:04]  You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
[00:50:06]  And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
[00:50:10]  We always say that, trust your girlfriends.
[00:50:14]  I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends.
[00:50:18]  Oh my God, this is the same man.
[00:50:20]  A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
[00:50:24]  I felt like I got hit by a truck.
[00:50:26]  I thought, how could this happen to me?
[00:50:28]  The cops didn't seem to care.
[00:50:30]  So they take matters into their own hands.
[00:50:33]  I said, oh, hell no.
[00:50:35]  I vowed I will be his last target.
[00:50:37]  He's going to get what he deserves.
[00:50:42]  Listen to the girlfriends.
[00:50:43]  Trust me, babe.
[00:50:44]  On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:50:54]  What's up, everyone?
[00:50:55]  I'm Ego Modern.
[00:50:56]  My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
[00:51:04]  It's Will Farrell.
[00:51:07]  My dad gave me the best advice ever.
[00:51:10]  I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
[00:51:15]  I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
[00:51:18]  I'm working my way up through it.
[00:51:19]  I know it's a place they come.
[00:51:20]  Look for up-and-coming talent.
[00:51:22]  He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
[00:51:27]  Yeah.
[00:51:27]  He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
[00:51:30]  And he's like, just give it a shot.
[00:51:32]  He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
[00:51:40]  If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
[00:51:42]  It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
[00:51:50]  Yeah, it would not be right, it wouldn't be that.
[00:51:53]  There's a lot of luck.
[00:51:54]  Listen to Thanksgiving on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:52:03]  In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckard found himself at the center of a paternity scandal.

=== Clayton Eckard Scandal (17:17) ===

[00:52:09]  The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story.
[00:52:14]  This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth.
[00:52:18]  You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
[00:52:21]  I doctored the test once.
[00:52:23]  It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case.
[00:52:26]  I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for.
[00:52:30]  Sunlight's the greatest disinfectant.
[00:52:33]  They would uncover a disturbing pattern.
[00:52:35]  Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
[00:52:37]  Greg Gillespie and Michael Marancini.
[00:52:39]  My mind was blown.
[00:52:41]  I'm Stephanie Young.
[00:52:43]  This is Love Trap.
[00:52:45]  Laura, Scottsdale Police.
[00:52:47]  As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
[00:52:51]  Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news out of Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges.
[00:52:58]  This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona.
[00:53:02]  Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:53:12]  10-10 shots fired.
[00:53:14]  City Hall building.
[00:53:15]  A silver .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.
[00:53:19]  From iHeart Podcasts and Best Case Studios.
[00:53:23]  This is Rorschach.
[00:53:24]  Murder at City Hall.
[00:53:26]  How could this have happened in City Hall?
[00:53:27]  Somebody tell me that.
[00:53:28]  Jeffrey, who did it?
[00:53:30]  July 2003.
[00:53:32]  Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.
[00:53:36]  Both men are carrying concealed weapons.
[00:53:39]  And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead.
[00:53:48]  Everybody in the chamber's ducks.
[00:53:51]  A shocking public murder.
[00:53:52]  I scream, get down, get down.
[00:53:54]  Those are shots.
[00:53:55]  Those are shots.
[00:53:56]  Get down.
[00:53:56]  A charismatic politician.
[00:53:58]  You know, he just bent the rules all the time, man.
[00:54:00]  I still have a weapon.
[00:54:02]  And I could shoot you.
[00:54:05]  And an outsider with a secret.
[00:54:07]  He alleged he was a victim of the flat down.
[00:54:10]  That may or may not have been political.
[00:54:12]  That may have been about sex.
[00:54:14]  Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app.
[00:54:18]  Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:54:27]  All right, we're back, and it's time for some motherfucking Levon.
[00:54:32]  Oh, yeah, baby.
[00:54:34]  Who is again the black crack dealing Osama bin Laden of the story, basically?
[00:54:39]  Although there's also another Osama bin Laden who's basically Osama bin Laden, but named Muhammad.
[00:54:44]  There's a lot of bin Ladens and a lot of Obamas.
[00:54:46]  Yeah, too many Obamas or bin Ladens.
[00:54:49]  Yeah, no, absolutely not.
[00:54:53]  Oh, okay.
[00:54:54]  So when we open, he's sleeping with.
[00:54:56]  Oh, wait, no.
[00:54:57]  Okay, sorry.
[00:54:58]  I'll just start this.
[00:54:59]  For two days, Levon stood in the cold.
[00:55:01]  He had his men bring him food and clothing.
[00:55:02]  He slept on the sidewalk.
[00:55:04]  Next to him slept the mother of Kendrick Malone, the little kid that Ricky killed.
[00:55:07]  With them slept hundreds of others.
[00:55:09]  Every day, local businesses shipped out supplies for the group, eager to be seen as caring for the plight of the righteous protesters.
[00:55:15]  And still, they didn't release Ricky O'Sullivan.
[00:55:17]  Perhaps they thought that the crowd would dissipate.
[00:55:19]  Perhaps they were waiting for federal intervention, intervention that wouldn't come.
[00:55:23]  The president had already declared that this was a local matter, and the resources of the state had already been redirected to the disaster area in New York City.
[00:55:29]  There would be no cavalry.
[00:55:31]  And so they waited.
[00:55:31]  Each day, members of the media crowded around Levon to hear his words.
[00:55:34]  But each day, the number of the media dwindled.
[00:55:37]  The attention span of the nation ran shorter and shorter these days.
[00:55:40]  Well, yeah, there's just been a giant terrorist attack, and the governor of Texas is invading Mexico.
[00:55:45]  So I guess people occupying a detention center might not be the top story in the nation at the time.
[00:55:51]  Yeah, fair enough.
[00:55:53]  So Levon decides the media is gone out.
[00:55:55]  Who knows?
[00:55:55]  Yeah.
[00:55:56]  What newspapers they have access to in there?
[00:55:59]  Yeah.
[00:56:00]  So Levon decides the time has come for action because the media is not paying attention anymore.
[00:56:04]  But action required provocation.
[00:56:06]  So far, the authorities had been smart.
[00:56:07]  They had holed up, put nobody on the street, waited for the ire to burn itself out.
[00:56:11]  You know, like we saw the cops do this year.
[00:56:14]  Oh, yeah, sure.
[00:56:16]  They hadn't made any statements other than to praise the peacefulness of the protesters and suggest their sympathies for the protesters' cause.
[00:56:23]  Okay, so, yeah.
[00:56:25]  Ben knows how the cops work.
[00:56:26]  That's how they would handle an occupation of a detention center.
[00:56:30]  Jesus.
[00:56:31]  Okay, so Big Jim is offering to negotiate the negotiate the stalemate.
[00:56:37]  He said that Levon could become a player by accepting the verdict, demanding change from the feds, and being granted an informal say in the appointment of officials up to and including police officers.
[00:56:46]  He said that Levon should just let O'Sullivan go, show that he was the bigger man.
[00:56:49]  Already, Big Jim had gone on national television, urging the president to send more federal officials to talk about the future.
[00:56:55]  The nation's eyes had been riveted on Detroit, but with the Big Jim's impremature of legitimacy, the Detroit federal solution was gradually drawing the steam out of the kettle.
[00:57:04]  La la la okay, just just boring shit.
[00:57:07]  And then they arrived.
[00:57:08]  Like a blessing from the skies, they came.
[00:57:10]  There weren't many of them, but they were enough.
[00:57:12]  White men riding motorcycles, planting themselves in the midst of the newly minted tent city, and they wore t-shirts.
[00:57:17]  Fight the thugs.
[00:57:18]  Okay, so he's got right-wing vigilantes showing up to a BLM protest.
[00:57:22]  Ben did predict that.
[00:57:23]  He's ailing it.
[00:57:24]  Yeah, he's getting a lot of money.
[00:57:25]  That got the media's attention.
[00:57:27]  But oddly enough, few of the men wanted to talk to the media.
[00:57:29]  That part's not accurate.
[00:57:31]  One in particular bowed his head anytime the cameras came near.
[00:57:34]  Levon denounced them for the cameras.
[00:57:36]  Who are these white supremacists coming into a city white racism is ruined and accusing us of racism for standing up for our human rights?
[00:57:42]  But secretly thanked God for bringing them.
[00:57:44]  It kept the fight alive, at least for another day.
[00:57:47]  Okay, so we come to Big Jim Crawford.
[00:57:50]  Oh, we switched viewpoint characters.
[00:57:51]  So we've got Big Jim, and he's pinning an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal and hanging out in his house and stuff.
[00:57:59]  The next step in Detroit, Big Jim knew, would be to give Levon an option for withdrawal with some grace.
[00:58:03]  He'd already pressed Levon, and he knew Levon was waiting, hoping for something big to happen, but that seemed unlikely with the nation's attention riveted elsewhere.
[00:58:11]  Big Jim climbs out of the shower.
[00:58:13]  God, this is.
[00:58:14]  Yes, this is just a random interlude with Big Jim.
[00:58:16]  Yeah, what's going on here?
[00:58:18]  Wait a second.
[00:58:19]  Suddenly, he felt out of breath.
[00:58:21]  He plunged forward, grabbing the sink with both hands, but he could feel the strength in those hands weakening.
[00:58:25]  He tried to push his fingertips into the marble.
[00:58:26]  They wouldn't give.
[00:58:27]  For some reason, a desperate need to hold himself up rushed over him.
[00:58:30]  And as he felt his bulk dragging towards the cool floor, away from the fog mirror, he had the odd thought that the floor was red.
[00:58:36]  Then he realized it was red and slippery with his blood.
[00:58:38]  He lost his grip.
[00:58:39]  His face hit the oozing puddle hard.
[00:58:41]  He never saw the man who fired the second round into his head.
[00:58:44]  Oh, so he gets shot to death.
[00:58:46]  Shit!
[00:58:47]  I'm guessing that was Levon.
[00:58:50]  Yeah, that seems right.
[00:58:52]  So yeah, now we're back to Levon after killing Big Jim.
[00:58:56]  And he's looking at the t-shirt gang.
[00:58:58]  So I guess that's the shirts that said they said fight the thugs.
[00:59:03]  Because Ben wasn't even courageous enough to make the shirts really racist as like a direct provocation.
[00:59:08]  Again, like the diehard thing.
[00:59:11]  Okay.
[00:59:12]  Yeah, fight the thugs.
[00:59:13]  It's delicate.
[00:59:14]  It's delicate.
[00:59:14]  You got to fight the thugs.
[00:59:15]  Yeah.
[00:59:15]  It's delicate.
[00:59:17]  The delicate dance of Spirit.
[00:59:19]  So we wind up with a big belly.
[00:59:21]  Oh, Jesus Christ.
[00:59:22]  Okay.
[00:59:25]  There were eight of them all told.
[00:59:27]  Four had their hogs planted in the corners of the street, ready to move off at the first sign of trouble.
[00:59:31]  Three of the other four planted themselves near the front of the crowd, near the steps to the detention center.
[00:59:35]  The lone remaining man, a white-bearded, big-bellied bear in his mid-60s, stood near the center of the crowd.
[00:59:42]  Yeah, I think so.
[00:59:43]  Like a furry.
[00:59:45]  A group of young protesters screamed obscenities at him.
[00:59:48]  He stood his ground placidly.
[00:59:49]  A buzz built at the back of the crowd.
[00:59:50]  More white men, all wearing the same shirts, pulled up on motorcycles, saying nothing.
[00:59:54]  The crowd of protesters moved on them, expecting a confrontation.
[00:59:57]  That's when Levon's phone rang, and he gets the news that Big Jim is dead, and he screams out, they killed Big Jim to the cameras.
[01:00:05]  Yeah, they killed Big Jim.
[01:00:06]  Tear it all down.
[01:00:08]  Tear down this corrupt system.
[01:00:10]  And I guess everybody starts to go fucking nuts.
[01:00:14]  It's riot time.
[01:00:14]  Yeah.
[01:00:15]  Yeah, it's riot time.
[01:00:16]  Let's do it.
[01:00:16]  And Riot Shapiro.
[01:00:18]  Yeah, yep, yep.
[01:00:19]  A teenager with a tire iron grabs the white dude's beard and pulls him to the ground from his beard and then beats him with a tire iron in the belly.
[01:00:31]  And a bunch of other guys try to break into the detention center screaming, give us O'Sullivan.
[01:00:37]  Give us the child murderer.
[01:00:39]  Sounds like Ben cut off the beginning of that video.
[01:00:42]  Yeah, sounds like he did.
[01:00:44]  Sounds like this is the Annie Mill version that we're reading.
[01:00:46]  Yeah.
[01:00:47]  Yeah, no, no, but the right-wing guys were just standing there placidly, like they always do.
[01:00:51]  Yeah, placid.
[01:00:53]  The placid bear of a man.
[01:00:55]  The placid bear of a man who, if this were reality, would have had like bear mace canisters in both hands.
[01:01:02]  I do think Ben is a writer that uses the thesaurus search on Google.
[01:01:08]  It's just like, what's a word for calm?
[01:01:11]  Placid.
[01:01:12]  That sounds good.
[01:01:14]  I'm a writer.
[01:01:15]  Behind Levon, the street exploded into a camera.
[01:01:18]  I am a comma, a writer.
[01:01:21]  A writer.
[01:01:22]  M dash, a man who writes things.
[01:01:25]  Writing is what I do, period.
[01:01:28]  He wrote.
[01:01:29]  He wrote writingly.
[01:01:31]  Behind Levon, the street exploded into chaos.
[01:01:33]  Protesters and rioters merging into one throng.
[01:01:36]  That's a weird way to say that.
[01:01:37]  The bearded white bear had disappeared into the center of the crowd.
[01:01:41]  His body trampled, kicked, stomped, spit on.
[01:01:43]  Hundreds of people gathered in a circle to watch to participate.
[01:01:47]  At the outskirts of the riot, motorcycles rev their engine, fending off rocks and bottles.
[01:01:52]  One pulls out a handgun and fires it into the air, scattering the crowd near him, but drawing a fuselot of debris from all quarters.
[01:01:59]  Yada, yada, yada.
[01:02:00]  Levon gets handed a crowbar and he starts beating the windows of the detention center and he breaks in, but the room's empty and he has a bunch of his men come in and they're all trying to find O'Sullivan.
[01:02:11]  Oh, and now we have another viewpoint switch.
[01:02:14]  The detention officer unlocked the cell holding Ricky O'Sullivan and it creaked back on its hinges.
[01:02:18]  O'Sullivan backed up quickly into the corner, his bulk filling it.
[01:02:22]  You leave me alone, he said to the masked woman in a police uniform.
[01:02:24]  She wore a bandana over her face and her gun was pointed at the head of the detention officer.
[01:02:28]  Follow me, Soledad said.
[01:02:30]  Okay, so they're just in the it's Soledad's gotten in there.
[01:02:33]  We don't need to hear they just it just happened.
[01:02:35]  Yeah, it just happened to Soledad and the guys there.
[01:02:38]  Yeah.
[01:02:38]  She also threatens to murder Ricky if he doesn't come with her, which is odd for a rescue.
[01:02:45]  Yeah, and then she tells him that the crowd wants to hurt him after threatening to kill him.
[01:02:50]  Okay.
[01:02:51]  Oh, wait, no, she's saying that the crowd will kill you if you don't come with me.
[01:02:54]  Okay, I guess that makes more question.
[01:02:56]  Ben just wrote it badly.
[01:02:58]  Oh, shocking.
[01:03:00]  Yeah.
[01:03:00]  Yeah.
[01:03:02]  So she and Ricky take off.
[01:03:07]  And they get out just ahead of the rioters.
[01:03:08]  So we have a viewpoint switch to Soledad and Ricky in the middle of Levon's chapter.
[01:03:13]  Oh, and then we're back to Aiden.
[01:03:14]  So we have another viewpoint switch to Aiden and Levon.
[01:03:17]  Is it in the present or the past?
[01:03:18]  Is this a memory of Aiden?
[01:03:20]  In the present.
[01:03:20]  I don't think we're hearing about his past.
[01:03:22]  All right.
[01:03:22]  Yeah, Aiden's waiting for them in a garage with a SWAT van.
[01:03:25]  We don't seem to know how he got the SWAT van.
[01:03:28]  Don't need to.
[01:03:29]  He's got it.
[01:03:30]  Yeah.
[01:03:30]  Soledad pounded on the barrier to the van's driver's compartment.
[01:03:33]  Go, she screamed.
[01:03:34]  Go.
[01:03:34]  Let's get the hell out of here.
[01:03:36]  Not without Ezekiel, Aiden replied.
[01:03:38]  What?
[01:03:38]  He's not here.
[01:03:39]  He'll be here any moment.
[01:03:40]  Now, two of Levon's men had reached the van.
[01:03:42]  One began slamming on Aiden's window while the other tried to pry open the back of the van.
[01:03:46]  Hold on, Aiden shouted, throwing the van into reverse.
[01:03:48]  The man at the back of the van screeched as his head banged against the iron of the door.
[01:03:52]  Soledad felt sick to her stomach at the bump as the wheels hit him.
[01:03:55]  But Aiden kept backing up until there were just a few inches of room between the rear doors and the elevator next to the stairwell.
[01:04:00]  Ezekiel's coming, Aiden said, any second.
[01:04:04]  Now the man at the driver's table.
[01:04:05]  Okay, so the guy pounding on the window cracks it.
[01:04:08]  Aiden pulls out a 22-caliber handgun, rolls down the window slightly, and fired.
[01:04:13]  The bullet hit the man in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground.
[01:04:16]  Which that's like the smallest possible handgun, generally.
[01:04:21]  Like that.22 is like the smallest of the bullets.
[01:04:24]  Yeah, which is not to say that it can't kill people, but it's interesting that this bullet knocks a man to the ground.
[01:04:30]  Yeah.
[01:04:32]  A presumably a large thug.
[01:04:34]  Another bear of a man.
[01:04:35]  We have to.
[01:04:37]  We have to assume.
[01:04:38]  We have to assume.
[01:04:39]  Okay.
[01:04:39]  So the elevator doors open after this, and Ezekiel's there, sitting on the floor, his mouth open, breaking hard.
[01:04:45]  Blood ran down the side of his police uniform.
[01:04:47]  Soledad leapt out of the back doors, grabbed him by the arm.
[01:04:49]  Stay with me, Ezekiel.
[01:04:50]  We're almost out, almost free.
[01:04:51]  He grunted, threw another arm over her shoulder.
[01:04:53]  O'Sullivan grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him into the van.
[01:04:59]  So, yeah, they confront, he has to gun the engine and drive through people with handguns who are threatening him.
[01:05:07]  Shots are fired, but they don't hit anybody.
[01:05:10]  Yada Okay, let's get through this boring action.
[01:05:16]  It is boring.
[01:05:17]  Yeah, it's really boring action.
[01:05:20]  Okay.
[01:05:20]  Not a great sign.
[01:05:22]  Yeah, they get out.
[01:05:23]  They escape.
[01:05:23]  Great.
[01:05:25]  And now we're back to Levon.
[01:05:27]  Oh, we do finally get back to Levon.
[01:05:30]  So he hears about O'Sullivan's escape.
[01:05:33]  The street fights have died down that we were being told.
[01:05:36]  The police had fled the detention center.
[01:05:38]  There's bodies in the street bleeding.
[01:05:41]  It looked like a war zone.
[01:05:42]  He turned to face the reporter, the camera directly in his face.
[01:05:45]  She'd asked him a question before he found out O'Sullivan was gone.
[01:05:47]  He'd completely forgotten it.
[01:05:49]  What did you ask? He murmured.
[01:05:50]  What comes next? She asked.
[01:05:51]  The mayor is vowing to keep order.
[01:05:53]  Levon looked out over his burning city, his burning city.
[01:05:56]  We don't need the mayor to keep order.
[01:05:58]  He's just as corrupt as the rest.
[01:05:59]  We're in a war now.
[01:06:00]  You saw them out there on their motorcycles with their racist t-shirts.
[01:06:03]  White supremacists killed Reverend Jim Crawford tonight.
[01:06:05]  No pretty words are going to bring him back.
[01:06:07]  So here's what America needs to know: Detroit is now in our hands.
[01:06:10]  We will have justice.
[01:06:11]  And it starts with the mayor, but that's not where it ends.
[01:06:13]  We want to work with the police officers who will serve justice.
[01:06:15]  If they weren't, we'll have our own forces of justice.
[01:06:17]  Brothers will not burn down brothers' businesses.
[01:06:19]  There will be no looting, no violence.
[01:06:21]  That's not what Big Jim would have wanted.
[01:06:23]  We're going to build something new in this city, something better on these ashes.
[01:06:26]  Wherever Ricky O'Sullivan is, we'll bring him back to justice too.
[01:06:29]  This is the beginning of a new era.
[01:06:30]  The blood you see here tonight, that will be repaid in freedom.
[01:06:33]  So tonight, I call for the people of my city to join me.
[01:06:36]  It's time to rise up and claim our freedom.
[01:06:38]  In the distance, the sun began to rise.
[01:06:40]  So I guess we went through a whole night already.
[01:06:43]  Sun began to rise.
[01:06:45]  Yeah.
[01:06:45]  Okay.
[01:06:46]  We're in the end of part three.
[01:06:48]  The end of the end of part two.
[01:06:51]  Now we're in part three, the end of the beginning.
[01:06:53]  Oh, God.
[01:06:54]  Is that the name of that section?
[01:06:56]  Yeah, Christ was.
[01:06:58]  Yeah.
[01:06:58]  I think this is a Brett Hawthorne chapter.
[01:07:01]  Okay.
[01:07:01]  Okay.
[01:07:02]  We'll go a little further.
[01:07:04]  We got to talk to Brett.
[01:07:06]  Okay.
[01:07:06]  The end of the beginning.
[01:07:07]  Yeah.
[01:07:08]  So it starts with Brett getting a phone call from his friend Hassan, who's again his Muslim friend who he went to school with, who worked for the FBI to inform on other Muslims, but then stopped working with the FBI when White Obama decided that Muslim terrorists were fine.
[01:07:23]  Well, Obama.
[01:07:24]  Just to catch everybody else.
[01:07:25]  Yeah, Obama.
[01:07:27]  Okay.
[01:07:28]  So, yeah, Hassan calls him and is worried and tells him to get over quickly.
[01:07:35]  Clearly, something bad has happened.
[01:07:37]  So, Brett picks up his service weapon and slit it in the small of his back because all professional gun users know that holsters are not worth using for a gun.
[01:07:48]  You got to put him in a cool place, Robert.
[01:07:50]  You got to put it in the middle.
[01:07:50]  Slide it in the back of your pants.
[01:07:52]  Yeah.
[01:07:55]  Closing the door to the hotel room, he glanced down the hall stealthily.
[01:08:01]  What?
[01:08:02]  Oh, fuck you.
[01:08:03]  Fuck you, Robert.
[01:08:05]  You glance stealthily all the time, Cody.
[01:08:07]  Oh, I'm mad at you now.
[01:08:09]  I don't know why.
[01:08:10]  Nobody who wasn't drunk or having an affair would be coming down the hall at 2 a.m., he figured.
[01:08:14]  But better to be paranoid than Blythe.
[01:08:16]  Sure enough, a buzz cut man in a black suit waited at the elevator.
[01:08:20]  Federal, thought Brett.
[01:08:21]  There was only one reason for him to be waiting.
[01:08:23]  The president wanted to see General Brett Hawthorne.
[01:08:26]  And there was only one reason the president would want to see General Brett Hawthorne to stop his investigation.
[01:08:33]  I like the federal.
[01:08:37]  Yeah.
[01:08:38]  So I guess they had both met at some point previously that I don't think we saw.
[01:08:43]  Yeah, and Brett doesn't want to have another meeting with the president.
[01:08:48]  Yeah.
[01:08:48]  Of course not.
[01:08:49]  Of course not.
[01:08:50]  That means he's trying to stop his investigation.
[01:08:53]  The last thing Mark Prescott wanted, Brett figured, was bad publicity right after a terror attack.
[01:08:59]  Islamophobia in the top ranks.
[01:09:01]  That's how the headlines in the nation would read.
[01:09:03]  And Prescott read the nation.
[01:09:05]  The man in the black suit locked eyes with Brett, began walking towards him.
[01:09:08]  After years of writing the bureaucratic bull, Brett had one key rule.
[01:09:12]  Better to ask forgiveness than to seek permission, which is why he was relieved to see a door at the stairs on the other end of the hallway.
[01:09:18]  And fortunately, he was on the second floor.
[01:09:20]  So he turns back and he takes the stairs half the flight at a time, his knees throbbing.

=== Fighting Islamophobia (10:37) ===

[01:09:27]  Behind him, he hears the door slam open and the man's voice.
[01:09:30]  He's running.
[01:09:30]  We'll grab him in the lobby.
[01:09:32]  Brett had no such intention.
[01:09:34]  So we don't know why these guys are chasing him, really.
[01:09:37]  I can take him.
[01:09:39]  Yeah, Brett knows how to run.
[01:09:40]  He's great at running.
[01:09:41]  And he gets onto the street without the feds catching him.
[01:09:45]  Yeah, so he makes his way to where Hassan lives, which is a neighborhood nobody wants to walk at at night.
[01:09:52]  Yeah.
[01:09:54]  Yeah.
[01:09:55]  Well, he's black.
[01:09:55]  Of course he lives in a bad neighborhood.
[01:09:57]  Of course.
[01:09:57]  Jesus.
[01:09:58]  Come on.
[01:09:59]  That's not.
[01:10:00]  Yeah.
[01:10:00]  Come on.
[01:10:01]  He lives in an old building refurbished with cheap appliances and cheaper flooring.
[01:10:06]  So that's great.
[01:10:08]  They self-segregated, Robert.
[01:10:12]  That's Ben's favorite kind of segregation.
[01:10:15]  Oh, God.
[01:10:18]  Okay, so Hassan gives him a thumb drive and shows it to Brett.
[01:10:23]  And I assume it opened quickly.
[01:10:25]  Hassan slid out a thumb drive, loaded onto his laptop, set the machine on the coffee table before Brett.
[01:10:30]  Do you know this man?
[01:10:31]  And then a video file popped up.
[01:10:33]  It showed a young, slim Muslim man wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.
[01:10:37]  Yada yada.
[01:10:38]  Do you recognize him?
[01:10:39]  Brett does.
[01:10:40]  It's Mohammed.
[01:10:42]  And he asks Hassan how he found it.
[01:10:46]  Oh, okay.
[01:10:47]  I guess Hassan has backdoor access to most of the security cameras in New York mosques.
[01:10:52]  What?
[01:10:52]  What?
[01:10:53]  Yeah, that's how we got this picture.
[01:10:54]  Here's a development.
[01:10:55]  Yeah, no, it took him years.
[01:10:56]  That's all he says.
[01:10:58]  But he's got it.
[01:10:58]  He has all the security camera footage.
[01:11:03]  So the footage is four days old.
[01:11:06]  It's too.
[01:11:07]  Oh, God.
[01:11:08]  It was taken four days ago.
[01:11:10]  Hassan anticipated Brett's disappointment.
[01:11:12]  I know, too long, but finding a man named Mohammed in a mosque in New York is like finding a Jew named Goldstein in a synagogue here.
[01:11:19]  What?
[01:11:19]  Yeah.
[01:11:20]  Yeah.
[01:11:20]  There it is.
[01:11:21]  She did it.
[01:11:23]  Hell yeah.
[01:11:24]  So the guy that Muhammad's talking to is under FBI surveillance.
[01:11:28]  We talk about this new terrorist who's been introduced for a little while, and I don't care.
[01:11:36]  Yeah.
[01:11:37]  Apparently, this other terrorist has given opening prayers at the New York Stock Exchange.
[01:11:41]  So that's great.
[01:11:44]  Because prominent Muslims are all tied to terrorism.
[01:11:48]  I forgot about that.
[01:11:50]  Yeah.
[01:11:50]  Sorry, I forgot.
[01:11:52]  So Brett travels to the house of this Imam who's been hanging out with the terrorist.
[01:11:56]  The Imam actually lived on a rural compound off the road.
[01:11:59]  In the dark, Brett missed the turnoff twice.
[01:12:01]  The gravel clanked off the underside of the cheap Toyota Hassan had borrowed from a friend.
[01:12:05]  The woods showed black against the early glimmers of rising sun.
[01:12:09]  Blah, blah, blah.
[01:12:09]  So it's daytime.
[01:12:12]  There's prayers going on.
[01:12:14]  He shows up at the Imam's house and is told that the office doesn't open until 9 a.m.
[01:12:20]  He says, tell him the teacher sent me.
[01:12:22]  The mention of a Shami's nickname, who I guess is the terrorist mastermind that we heard about earlier.
[01:12:28]  Okay.
[01:12:28]  So obviously they don't respond to a random white dude who's clearly military walking up and saying that he was sent by a terrorist.
[01:12:36]  They say racial with that name.
[01:12:38]  Yeah.
[01:12:40]  But the Imam's like, that's all right.
[01:12:41]  I know this man.
[01:12:42]  And he shows up and he invites Brett in.
[01:12:47]  Anjem Omari, Hassan had told Brett before Brett left for Jersey, was no one to be trifled with.
[01:12:51]  He'd been rumored to have deep connections to various Middle East-based charities with their own connections to major terror groups.
[01:12:57]  He fronted for a variety of Islamic human rights organizations dedicated to fighting Islamophobia.
[01:13:02]  And it was in that guise that he'd become a go-to face for Prescott.
[01:13:05]  Oh, okay.
[01:13:06]  So this guy is fighting Islamophobia.
[01:13:08]  And obviously all organizations that are fighting Islamophobia are fronts for terrorists.
[01:13:13]  Yep.
[01:13:13]  Yes.
[01:13:14]  That's what Ben writes here.
[01:13:15]  That's the only reason.
[01:13:17]  It's a logical conclusion.
[01:13:18]  Yeah.
[01:13:19]  For Ben to make.
[01:13:21]  Okay.
[01:13:23]  That is wild.
[01:13:24]  Oh, and this is also.
[01:13:26]  This is fun.
[01:13:27]  The very next sentence states that the Prescott tenure had seen several small lone wolf attacks.
[01:13:31]  Each time Prescott had cited Omari as evidence that the moderate Muslim community was alive and well in the United States.
[01:13:37]  It's fun to note that 71% of the way in the book is the first time we learned that the U.S. has been beset by lone wolf Islamic terrorist attacks during this president's administration.
[01:13:47]  Yeah, this is all news.
[01:13:48]  This is part three.
[01:13:50]  Yeah, part three.
[01:13:51]  We are more than two-thirds of the way through the book.
[01:13:54]  We're almost three-quarters of the way through the book.
[01:13:57]  It'd be good to know this context.
[01:14:01]  Yeah, so this guy's a well-established media personality.
[01:14:04]  He's a moderate Muslim, but he also criticizes Israel, which should be another hint that he's secretly a terrorist.
[01:14:10]  Yep, we got it.
[01:14:12]  Yeah.
[01:14:14]  So, so, said the Imam, what can I do for you, General Hawthorne?
[01:14:17]  I'm so glad you made it back to us in one piece.
[01:14:19]  Allah must have protected you from harm.
[01:14:21]  Indeed, he must have, said Brett.
[01:14:22]  I come here seeking your advice and help.
[01:14:24]  And yet you mentioned the teacher.
[01:14:26]  Why would you think I know such a monster?
[01:14:28]  No reason, Brett said carefully, but I am looking for a man, and I think that, given your prominence, he might approach you.
[01:14:33]  I'm approached by many Muslims.
[01:14:34]  I am blessed by Allah and having a wide following and a grand platform.
[01:14:38]  How would I know the man you seek?
[01:14:39]  His name is Muhammad, Brett explained.
[01:14:43]  What is this conversation?
[01:14:45]  Just am astounded by this man writing everybody else's religions and racial experiences, etc., etc.
[01:14:53]  Yeah, it's great.
[01:14:55]  So the Imam says he doesn't know this 17-year-old named Muhammad.
[01:15:02]  Okay.
[01:15:03]  And Brett doesn't believe him.
[01:15:05]  Are you implying that I'm lying to you?
[01:15:06]  No, said Brett.
[01:15:07]  I'm flat out telling you that you're lying.
[01:15:09]  I know you know such a man.
[01:15:10]  So either you can continue spouting this line of bullshit and I can have you detained in question or you can tell me the truth.
[01:15:15]  Omari laughed out loud.
[01:15:16]  No, I don't think you have that sort of poll, General.
[01:15:18]  You may be a hot shot with a particular segment of the population, but as you say, I am somewhat well connected.
[01:15:24]  Gentlemen, please come in.
[01:15:25]  The door behind Brett opened.
[01:15:27]  In came the federal agent from the hotel, his face impassive.
[01:15:30]  Another black suit-clad fed stood next to him.
[01:15:32]  Brett pushed himself to his feet.
[01:15:34]  Imam, I believe we'll be talking again.
[01:15:36]  Omari stood as well, looked Brett in the eye.
[01:15:39]  No, I don't believe we will.
[01:15:42]  There we go.
[01:15:45]  Yeah, okay.
[01:15:46]  So the feds, the feds, and this guy who's an anti-Islamophobia Muslim terrorist are all in bed together because the president likes this terrorist because he's a moderate Muslim.
[01:16:00]  And I, yeah, there you go.
[01:16:02]  It's good.
[01:16:03]  Ben Shapiro.
[01:16:04]  Shin Bapiro.
[01:16:05]  All right.
[01:16:06]  Well, I think that's going to do us for this week's episode.
[01:16:10]  Yeah, I'm a little maxed out on this book.
[01:16:12]  Yeah.
[01:16:12]  Yeah.
[01:16:12]  72% of the way in.
[01:16:14]  Our next chapter is another Prescott chapter.
[01:16:16]  10%.
[01:16:18]  Yeah, we got 10% more through it.
[01:16:20]  It's dense.
[01:16:20]  It's a dense one.
[01:16:21]  You know, you got to...
[01:16:23]  What's all those commas?
[01:16:24]  Exactly.
[01:16:26]  They take up a lot of space.
[01:16:27]  I am excited because, yeah, this next chapter starts with Brett Hawthorne and the president having a conversation.
[01:16:35]  Oh, boy.
[01:16:35]  I think this is going to be a good one.
[01:16:38]  Yeah, I think this is going to be a real good one.
[01:16:41]  How many of you think we have left?
[01:16:42]  One, two?
[01:16:44]  Jesus.
[01:16:45]  Probably.
[01:16:46]  At least two, probably three or four, right?
[01:16:48]  Okay, we've got...
[01:16:49]  One sec.
[01:16:50]  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight more chapters, including, well, we have actually, I guess, six more named chapters and then the end of the beginning, an epilogue.
[01:17:04]  Ooh, and we have an about the author.
[01:17:05]  You know what?
[01:17:06]  I might sneak ahead to that right now.
[01:17:09]  Robert.
[01:17:10]  Spoilers.
[01:17:11]  Robert.
[01:17:12]  What?
[01:17:14]  Yeah.
[01:17:14]  Oh, there's about the author.
[01:17:16]  I want to know.
[01:17:17]  Oh, boy, howdy.
[01:17:18]  So it starts with, like, you know, he's an editor-at-large at Breitbart News, the editor of Daily Wire.
[01:17:23]  It lists some of the political books he wrote.
[01:17:26]  Shapiro was also a nationally syndicated columnist since age 17, a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, and the host of The Morning Answer on KRLA 870 in Los Angeles and KTIE 590 in Orange County.
[01:17:39]  Rush Limbaugh says Shapiro isn't just content to have people be dazzled by his brilliance.
[01:17:44]  He actually goes out and confronts and tries to persuade, mobilize, motivate people.
[01:17:48]  Glenn Beck calls Shapiro a warrior for conservatism against those who use fear and intimidation to stifle honest debate.
[01:17:54]  I've never known him to back down from a fight.
[01:17:56]  Sarah Palin says, especially when he's wrong.
[01:18:00]  Sarah Palin.
[01:18:02]  He got a palin.
[01:18:04]  Yeah, she says that Americans should consider Ben's advice about how we must stand up and push back twice as hard against this bullying.
[01:18:11]  Sean Hannity says to join Ben Shapiro and fight back against liberal bullying.
[01:18:15]  Michelle Malkin says Shapiro is infused with the indomitable spirit of his friend and mentor, Andrew Breitbart.
[01:18:21]  Even the liberal Washington Post in the aftermath of Shapiro's devastating destruction of Piers Morgan on national television.
[01:18:28]  Devastated them.
[01:18:30]  Devastating destruction.
[01:18:31]  Imagine writing this.
[01:18:32]  Oh my God.
[01:18:33]  This is a sentence Ben absolutely wrote.
[01:18:36]  Even the liberal Washington Post in the aftermath of Shapiro's devastating destruction of Piers Morgan on national television conceded that Shapiro is a foe of extraordinary polemical ability.
[01:18:48]  Yeah, it's got his stinky little fingers all over it.
[01:18:51]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:18:52]  Amazing.
[01:18:53]  Well, this was a fun way to do it.
[01:18:54]  Quite a rogue's gallery of endorsements he's got there.
[01:18:58]  He brutally destroyed Piers Morgan.
[01:19:02]  The liberal Washington Post.
[01:19:04]  I will say this.
[01:19:05]  If he had literally destroyed Piers Morgan, I would be more positive towards Ben Shapiro.
[01:19:10]  Yeah, absolutely.
[01:19:11]  Like if he found his phylactery.
[01:19:14]  Yeah.
[01:19:14]  He's referring to a debate he had with Piers Morgan about guns.
[01:19:20]  And that conversation is the entire basis throughout his other book, 10 or 11, I forget, ways to beat the left.
[01:19:31]  It's like his destruction of the left book.
[01:19:34]  How did you be the leftist?
[01:19:37]  His example of a leftist through the entire book is Piers Morgan.
[01:19:41]  Yeah.
[01:19:41]  Awesome.
[01:19:42]  Famed leftist.
[01:19:43]  Yeah, he knows he understands politics.
[01:19:46]  Well, yeah, I mean, Piers Morgan is definitely like, I would say the most prominent Maoist in the country right now.
[01:19:52]  You know, very famous left-wing voice, Piers Morgan.
[01:19:57]  Piers Morgan.
[01:19:58]  Piers Morgan.
[01:19:59]  Good friend of the current president and leftist Piers Morgan.

=== Piers Morgan Leftist (03:48) ===

[01:20:04]  Well, I feel like the only thing to say is, hey, Beb.
[01:20:08]  Want to plug your pluggables, Beb?
[01:20:11]  Yeah.
[01:20:11]  Yeah.
[01:20:12]  Because I'd take a bullet for you.
[01:20:16]  Yeah, this is Robert's job.
[01:20:17]  It's not our show.
[01:20:18]  It's his show.
[01:20:19]  No, I want your pluggables.
[01:20:20]  Your plugs, but you have follow us.
[01:20:23]  Check out.
[01:20:24]  Katie, you go.
[01:20:25]  You go.
[01:20:26]  No, you.
[01:20:27]  No, no.
[01:20:28]  We've got a show called Some More News on YouTube.
[01:20:30]  Check us out on patreon.com slash some more news.
[01:20:34]  Our podcast is called Even More News.
[01:20:36]  We also co-host another podcast called Worst Year Ever.
[01:20:39]  And I'm Dr. Mr. Cody on Twitter.
[01:20:41]  Katie is Katie Stoll.
[01:20:42]  Yeah.
[01:20:43]  Twitter.
[01:20:44]  Good job.
[01:20:48]  Ben Shapiro.
[01:20:50]  Shapiro.
[01:20:51]  Yeah, you can find me nowhere at all.
[01:20:54]  I've never heard of the internet.
[01:20:56]  I'm actually alone in a forest shrieking this.
[01:20:59]  I'm just channeling Ben Shapiro's words.
[01:21:02]  And I don't know who I'm talking to right now.
[01:21:06]  But you're definitely calling them Bib.
[01:21:08]  Yeah.
[01:21:09]  Oh, yeah.
[01:21:09]  I mean, I'd take a bullet for him.
[01:21:11]  God, I can't even say that without like starting to retch a little bit.
[01:21:16]  I'd get eaten by ants for you, babe.
[01:21:19]  Yeah.
[01:21:20]  I'd lay down in front of a combine for you, babe, and get churned up into moach, babe.
[01:21:26]  Do you love me?
[01:21:27]  Yeah, sure, why not?
[01:21:28]  See ya.
[01:21:32]  That's the episode.
[01:21:33]  That's the show.
[01:21:34]  That's the episode.
[01:21:38]  When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
[01:21:46]  I vowed I will be his last target.
[01:21:49]  He is not going to get away with this.
[01:21:51]  He's going to get what he deserves.
[01:21:53]  We always say that.
[01:21:54]  Trust your girlfriends.
[01:21:57]  Listen to the girlfriends.
[01:21:59]  Trust me, babe.
[01:22:00]  On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:22:10]  I'm Laurie Siegel, and this is Mostly Human, a tech podcast through a human lens.
[01:22:14]  This week, an interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
[01:22:18]  I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to the products we put out in the world.
[01:22:25]  An in-depth conversation with a man who's shaping our future.
[01:22:28]  My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI.
[01:22:31]  Listen to Mostly Human on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
[01:22:40]  Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast, Playing Along, is back with more of my favorite musicians.
[01:22:45]  Check out my newest episode with Josh Grobin.
[01:22:48]  You related to the Phantom at that point.
[01:22:51]  Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
[01:22:53]  That's so funny.
[01:22:55]  Share each day with me each night, each morning.
[01:23:02]  Listen to Nora Jones is playing along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:23:10]  What's up, everyone?
[01:23:11]  I'm Ego Mode.
[01:23:12]  My next guest, it's Will Farrell.
[01:23:16]  My dad gave me the best advice ever.
[01:23:20]  He goes, just give it a shot.
[01:23:21]  But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
[01:23:28]  If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
[01:23:30]  It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
[01:23:38]  Yeah, it would not be.
[01:23:39]  Right, it wouldn't be that.
[01:23:40]  There's a lot in life.
[01:23:42]  Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:23:49]  This is an iHeart podcast.
[01:23:52]  Guaranteed human.