Ep. 399 - Media Continues To Mourn Beloved Terrorist
The media has entered its second week of mourning the loss of a global mass killer. Their performance becomes even more shameful by the minute. Also, Colin Kaepernick really wants America to stop oppressing him. And we're told that we have to eat bugs to save the planet, so I will do my part on the show today.
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It's weird for the remains of a global mass killer to be flown home, commercial, in a box.
But the thing is, in fairness, I know people are reacting to this, but in fairness, this is how everybody flies on United now.
It's the new policy.
Unless you pay for the living person upgrade, which is just $89.99, by the way.
Speaking of Soleimani, you know, the media is still in a state of mourning over his passing.
And ABC went so far as to send a reporter to Iran to very somberly and respectfully cover the terrorist funeral.
Martha Raddatz was on the scene there in Iran.
And I think you just need to, well, you just need to see this.
Good morning, Robyn.
I have been in the midst of anti-American protests in Iran before, but nothing like this.
A powerful combination of grief and anger with shouts of death to America echoing through the streets around us.
This morning, mourners filling the streets of Iran's capital of Tehran for the funeral of General Soleimani, killed by that U.S.
drone strike last week.
Aerial images capturing the sea of Iranians.
Packing the streets to pay tribute to a man revered by many here.
Trump made a big mistake.
He killed our hero.
Soleimani's image everywhere.
The impact of his death profound.
The crowds are massive and emotional.
There are many tears here, many signs with Soleimani's picture on them.
But the message is also very clear.
These people want revenge.
Are we human or not?
As we made our way through the streets of Tehran, people surrounding us shouting death to America.
Inside the funeral service, the emotion just as powerful.
The Supreme Leader of Iran weeping and praying over a coffin draped in the Iraqi flag.
This is the largest funeral in Iran since the death of the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989.
Hard Revenge.
Doesn't that sound like a Dolph Lundgren movie?
Sounds like a B-list action movie from the 80s.
Hard Revenge.
But you get the idea, anyway.
This is pure Iranian propaganda.
The Iranian government couldn't have scripted it any better.
I mean, maybe they did script it.
I don't know.
No mention of the fact that Soleimani was a murderous scumbag.
No mention of him attacking our embassy or killing our troops.
No mention of his oppression and torture of many thousands of people.
No, instead, we get the story of Soleimani, the beloved hero, now mourned by millions.
Which, as far as that goes, the media has been very impressed with the turnout for his funeral and for all the mourning of the millions of people in the street.
Mourning is passing.
But remember, this is Iran.
So, when you hear that millions of people are out bewailing the death of a government official, it's a bit like hearing that there's a 99.99% voter turnout in North Korea.
Or something like that.
If you don't show up for the funeral of the dead government official, You could be taking your life into your hands.
So the fact that everybody's out there, I'm not sure we should be impressed by that.
By the way, side note.
Maybe you had the same thought when you were watching that clip there.
Martha has, as you notice, the scarf, you know, the hijab on her head there.
Which is kind of interesting because, of course, in fundamentalist Muslim cultures, Women aren't allowed to show their heads.
Women really can't show any part of their body except for their hands and their faces.
And in fact, in the most extreme cases, they can't even show their faces.
And why is that?
Well, because a woman in these cultures, a woman is owned by the men in her life, her father and then her husband.
And for her to let anyone see her head, aside from her male owner, would be a great sin.
Now, feminists in this country, Complain about the patriarchy and about the alleged systematic oppression of women and so on.
But there is no patriarchy here.
There is no systematic oppression of women.
Women can do and say whatever they want in this country.
They can even, as I've gone over many times, they have more rights in this country than men do.
They can do things.
They have power and authority that men do not have.
In fact, very profound power and authority.
They can kill their children.
Without the consent of the father.
They have power over life and death.
Judge, jury, and executioner.
That's what they can do in this country.
Yet in this country, they still, feminists still complain that they're being oppressed.
And they look for the patriarchy around every corner and they try to find every opportunity they can to label something patriarchal oppression.
But then they go to Iran, a truly patriarchal country.
You want to know what the patriarchy looks like?
It looks like Iran.
That's what the patriarchy is.
You've got a country where women are really oppressed, where they can't even show their heads in public.
And Martha Raddatz goes there, and she wears the scarf on the head in order to respect the custom.
That's what I saw online.
There was this discussion on social media about the fact that she's wearing that, and the defense that I saw from people as well.
She's respecting the local customs.
So if it's an anti-woman custom, if it's an oppressive patriarchal custom, you'll respect it?
Really?
You don't do that here.
Or you wouldn't do that here, I should say, because there really aren't any oppressive patriarchal customs here in this country.
But you certainly wouldn't.
And even many of our customs that are not patriarchal or oppressive, we're told that we don't have to worry about those customs anymore.
So as long as it's a Muslim custom, then you'll respect it.
Since when do leftists care about customs?
In this country, they couldn't give a damn about custom.
Custom, tradition.
Not only do they not care about it, but they'll say it should be torn down just for the sake of it.
You should tear down old traditions just because they are old traditions.
But Muslim customs, even anti-woman ones, even ones that treat your entire body like it's shameful, like it is the owned property of a man, well those customs we have to respect.
Respect those customs.
I mean, in this country, think about a feminist complaint, you know, that the patriarchy won't let them go topless at the beach.
That's pretty much, anytime we talk about it, and in the past when I've talked about the fact that women have all the rights that men do in this country, and even rights that we don't have, and so the fight for women's rights in this country is over.
The one example I'm always given, there's always somebody who says, well, wait a second, women aren't allowed to take their shirts off in public, but men can.
Which actually, I don't even think that's true anymore.
I think in pretty much every, pretty much anywhere you go, or most places in this country now, it's, you know, if it's a place where men can take their shirts off, technically women can too, in many places in this country.
So that's not even really true anymore.
But, I mean, just think about that.
So, in this country, that's a custom that shouldn't be respected.
But again, the fundamentalist Muslim custom of, of, of, you know, in other words, if I were to defend, if there are any laws anymore saying that women can't take their shirts off in public, but men can, if I were to defend that by saying, well, you know, that's our custom.
That's our, that's our social convention.
And maybe in Europe and some other places, it's, it's, it's a little bit more libertine, but that, that's not the way that it is in this country.
So if I were to defend it on that basis, No liberal would be convinced by that.
Because they would demand to know, okay, well, why is it a custom?
Who cares if it's a custom?
I'm not going to respect it just because it's a custom.
But no, you go to a fundamentalist Muslim country where they put women in bags, essentially.
But that one, yes, with the utmost reverence, we must respect those customs.
It's absurd.
Now, you could point out that Raddatz had to dress that way because if she didn't, she'd be stoned to death, and that's fair.
That's a fair point.
If I were her, I certainly wouldn't want to be stoned to death either.
But if you have to submit to oppression in order to go there, and you're only going there in the first place to do a puff piece about a terrorist who died, then maybe don't go.
Maybe don't go and do the puff piece.
So you are debasing yourself, submitting to patriarchal oppression, covering yourself in shame, just so that you can go there and tell us what a wonderful guy this terrorist was?
Maybe don't.
That's my thought.
Maybe don't.
Anyway, we're not done yet with the media's mourning, because the media is not done mourning.
Tom Elliott has put together a montage of the media wailing over the death of their hero, and it's... Well, again, it's just something you have to see.
Watch this.
He was a war hero, the commander of Iran's feared Quds Force.
Qasem Soleimani was no ordinary general.
The U.S.
officially classified him as a terrorist, but in Iran, he was a national hero.
He's regarded as personally incredibly brave.
The troops love him.
I was trying to think of somebody and I was thinking of de Gaulle.
A revered figure in Iran and some other places in the Middle East.
Smart, charismatic, ruthless, strategic and bold.
His power made Iranians proud.
But even many of Soleimani's enemies admitted he was a military genius.
Qasem Soleimani was an evil genius.
Soleimani was in charge of spreading Iranian influence around the world.
And he was extremely good at it.
He is the, think of the French Foreign Legion, if you will.
By killing Qasem Soleimani, the US has stripped Iran of an inspirational military leader.
The crowds are massive and emotional.
There are many tears here.
Thousands of mourners on the streets in Iran.
Symbolic caskets aloft, weeping and chanting, I am Soleimani.
The Supreme Leader of Iran weeping and praying over a coffin draped in the Iraqi flag.
Smart, charismatic, ruthless, bold, strategic, Do you think they eulogized Bin Laden that way?
Did the media?
Bin Laden was smart.
He was strategic.
He was bold.
He had a following of a lot of people who loved him.
Yet when he died, for some reason, the media didn't use those kinds of words to describe him, did they?
Well, why is that?
Because it would be completely crazy and inappropriate.
And the fact that he's smart is not the point.
Okay, that's not what he's going to be remembered for.
Bin Laden is remembered and will always be remembered as one of history's great villains, as a mass murderer.
And so, in this country, that's how we eulogize him.
Or should eulogize him.
Same for Soleimani.
But the difference is, the reason why the media is using these kinds of descriptors for Soleimani, but they didn't for Bin Laden, what's the difference?
Well, of course, the difference is that Bin Laden was killed under Obama.
And Soleimani was killed under Trump, and that's the difference.
That's the only difference.
Of course, we know—goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway—we know that if this was Obama who had done this, It would be entirely different.
The descriptions of strategic, bold, and genius, that would be applied to Obama and his mission to kill Soleimani.
That's the way it would go.
But because it's Trump, no, he's not the strategic, bold, genius for doing it.
It's the guy he killed that was the strategic, bold, genius.
All right.
And then there's Colin Kaepernick.
You know, Colin Kaepernick, he wants you to know, by the way, that he's still very much oppressed.
And in reaction to the killing of Soleimani, Kaepernick sent out a few tweets of his own, which, first of all, I went to his Twitter page just to find these tweets.
And can we just take a look at his Twitter page for a second?
I don't know if you've seen this, but take a look at it.
This is what this is.
I'm not making this up.
This is what his Twitter page looks like.
He's got eight pictures of himself at the top of his page.
His page is decorated with eight pictures of himself and every photo has that pensive, thoughtful, persecuted look to it.
It's amazing.
I mean, how did that conversation even go?
His social media manager or whatever, you know, said to Kaepernick, hey, we got your page set up and we've got your header with a really nice photo of you.
I think you'll like it.
Check it out.
And he says, no, it needs more me.
Okay, so we'll add another photo.
No, more.
Okay, we'll put three photos up of you.
More.
Five?
More.
More me.
Put up all the photos.
All the photos of me.
Put them all up there.
Anyway, so to his...
Very narcissistically adorned Twitter page, he posted a few tweets, and this is what he said.
He said, There is nothing new about American terrorist attacks against black and brown people for the expansion of American imperialism.
And then, he said, America has always sanctioned and besieged black and brown bodies both at home and abroad.
American militarism is the weapon wielded by American imperialism to enforce its policing and plundering of the non-white world.
So, killing Soleimani, who has tortured and murdered thousands in his life, not just white people, by the way, that is a terrorist attack against brown people, we're told?
And America is always sanctioning and besieging black and brown people, he says?
Well, let's think about this.
How has Kaepernick himself been sanctioned and besieged by America.
Let's take a look at that.
Kaepernick was paid to play a game for six years.
And during that time, he made well over $40 million.
Then he flunks out of the league because his production is declining and he's not worth the trouble anymore once he starts with the anthem antics.
It becomes a PR nightmare.
Nobody wants to bother with him.
And so he leaves the league.
He flunks out.
Ends up signing a deal with Nike worth millions and millions of dollars, and then he sues the NFL and gets paid something reportedly in the range of 60 to 80 million dollars.
And then Nike just a few weeks ago, or a few months ago, released Kaepernick's new shoe.
He's got a shoe coming out.
He's got his own shoe, even though he's a failed NFL player.
He's not an athlete anymore.
He's a professional victim, but he's got his own shoe.
So this is sanctioning and besieging.
To be a professional football player turned professional victim, Obscenely rich, famous, hailed by the media, millions of fans adore him as a hero for doing nothing at all, really.
This is sanctioning and besieging.
This is the persecution that Kaepernick has suffered.
All I can say is...
And I'm sure you're with me on this.
Please, somebody, besiege me in this way.
I would love to be besieged with $100 million.
Please, I beg someone, persecute me in the way that Colin Kaepernick has been persecuted.
I would love that kind of persecution.
There's a lot of persecution that goes on in the world that doesn't look quite so fun, but the Kaepernick persecution?
Yeah, I think I could go for that.
I could get used to that.
All right, let's take a look at this.
Speaking of frauds and charlatan, Jim Baker.
Jim Baker is a televangelist, convicted fraudster, accused rapist, allegedly raped his secretary
back in the 80s, paid her off, was kicked out of ministry, then gets convicted on multiple
counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, went to prison for that, and basically through
his whole career.
It's just been one scandal after another.
Most of the scandals are sexual or financial in nature, but he's back to being a televangelist
now, somehow.
Somehow people still go and listen to this guy, deliver sermons.
Now the good news is, I guess if we're going to give old Baker credit for one thing, he's
not a prosperity gospel preacher anymore.
He used to be a prosperity gospel charlatan back in the 80s before he went to prison.
And that's the idea that if you're really holy and you pray a lot, God will give you lots of money and make you rich.
Which means that, of course, if you're not rich, if you're poor, it means that you're not holy and you haven't prayed enough.
So that used to be his thing, but he went to prison and he says that he read his Bible in prison and he realized he was wrong.
So this is a guy who's, I think he's 80 years old now, and I believe, and he went to prison and he was in the prison in the 90s, early 90s.
So he read his Bible all the way through for the first time when he was what, like 50?
He'd been in ministry his whole life.
Finally, in his 50s, he says, you know what?
Maybe I'll pick this thing up and read it.
So, he just read it recently.
Only recently realized what's even in the Bible.
Yet, people still go to him to hear his theological opinions.
I think he got out of prison in, like, 94, 95.
Got back into ministry in 2003 or 4.
So, it's only been 8 years since this 50-plus-year-old man even read his Bible.
And he's a televangelist and people are going back to him to hear what he has to say about theology.
It's amazing.
And he delivered one of those theological opinions this week.
Let's take a listen to it.
You know what?
Trump is a test whether you're even saved.
Only saved people can love Trump.
No, you gotta be really saved.
You gotta forgive.
You gotta be able to forgive.
You forgive when you're saved.
So there you go.
If you don't love Trump, you aren't saved.
That's Baker's new grift.
You see, he just moved on from one scam to the other.
His old scam was prosperity theology.
That didn't work.
He took his own advice a little bit too much.
Ended up in federal prison.
But he gets out and eventually reinvents himself and his theology.
Starts pandering to the Trump crowd.
Starts getting more political.
Realizes there's an audience there.
And now he says that, no, wealth is not the test of whether you're saved.
Trump is the test.
So it's not an economic or financial litmus test that gets you into heaven, it's a political one.
God's gonna check your scorecard, check your voting record, decide based on that.
All I could say is, you know, obviously it's not worth our time to break this down and explain why this charlatan fraud, scamming, So on and so forth, uh, is wrong about this.
It's not worth the time, but it does just bring up again, you know, this, this guy has an audience, people that watch him on TV, people that go to, to, to, uh, to his, you know, whatever, listen to him speak.
Why?
And he's not the only one, of course.
You know, there's a lot of them out there.
Of these blatantly obvious charlatans and frauds who are manipulating and just saying whatever they have to do to gain a following and enriching themselves and using the Bible and this cloak of Christianity to do it.
And it's so obvious what they're doing, yet millions of Christians fall for it.
It is such an indictment.
It's an indictment on the lack of depth and intelligence among so many American Christians.
And I'm sorry to put it that way.
I hate that that is the fact, but it is the fact.
And maybe I shouldn't even say intelligent, because I think that lets people off the hook.
People that go and listen to Baker, to say that they're stupid, I wish that it was just a matter of stupidity, because you can't help being stupid.
But it's more than that.
You're being willfully deceived.
So actually, in fact, I'm going to amend that statement.
It's not a matter of intelligence, because I'm not going to let anybody off the hook.
I think these are people who are being willfully deceived.
Because they go and listen to this guy because they get something out of it that they like.
He's tickling their ears.
He's saying things that they want to hear.
He's giving them a version of Christianity that they like.
And that's why they go to him.
And at some level they must know, because they're not stupid, they must know that this is all BS.
And that this guy's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
They must know it.
So I hold them accountable, too.
And before it was, okay, you go to somebody like Baker because of the prosperity theology, and he says, and he promises you wealth and riches if you pray the right way, and of course that's going to be appealing to people, and so that's why they go to him.
And they're willing to overlook all this stuff.
He's convicted of fraud.
He's a convicted fraudster.
Then we're going to overlook that because he's telling us what we want to hear.
Well, you know, he decides that's not so popular anymore, so I'm not going to do that anymore.
And also, prosperity theology, the heyday of prosperity theology was in the 80s, the 70s and 80s.
In recent years, a lot of people have woken up to the scam And other people in the church are fighting back against it, so it's not so popular anymore.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Baker had his come-to-Jesus moment, literally, he had his realization right around the time when prosperity theology wasn't popular, as popular as it used to be.
So he realizes it's not so popular, he comes up with a new scam.
And this time it's more political and everything, and he's like a Republican televangelist now.
And so people who are Republican, they like to hear this.
That's great.
I mean, if you're already a Trump supporter, right?
And this guy says, oh, you're saved if you support Trump.
That's nice to hear.
Yeah, but you know it's wrong.
You know it.
You must know it.
And we got to do better than this.
We just have to.
And I don't want to hear it.
You know what?
And I know I'm going to get emails from people saying, oh, well, what about forgiveness, Matt?
Shouldn't we forgive him?
Yeah, he went to jail.
He's a convicted fraudster and liar who went to prison.
Originally was supposed to go to prison for like 40 years and got out.
I mean, he should still be in jail right now.
And yeah, he paid off a woman that he allegedly raped and so on.
But we should forgive.
We forgive.
I don't want to hear that, OK?
This forgiveness thing has become such a cop-out.
It's become this sort of... such a broad concept.
It's supposed to be a get-out-of-jail-free card for people, and it's not.
First of all, what does it mean?
If you're not directly affected by something bad that somebody did, you realize that you forgiving them means nothing.
What do you mean you forgive them?
So, a guy commits fraud.
And, you know, scams people out of money.
And you are not one of the people who got scammed out of money, and you forgive him?
What do you mean, you?
It's not up to you to forgive.
It's like if a guy's a serial rapist, and you say, oh, I forgive him.
I forgive him.
You weren't a victim.
If you're not a victim, and you're not a family victim, what do you mean?
What does it mean for you to forgive him?
What does that even mean?
It's not up to you to forgive.
And it costs you nothing to forgive.
Yeah, it's really easy to do that.
Yes, I could sit here.
In fact, right now, I'm gonna sit here, I'm gonna wave my hand, and I'm gonna forgive everyone who's ever done anything bad that didn't affect me.
I forgive all of you.
Yeah, every single one of you.
Yeah, I forgive you.
I mean, there's a guy in Chicago right now stealing somebody else's car.
I forgive that guy.
I forgive him.
Go in peace.
You have my blessing.
What does that mean?
It doesn't mean anything.
Forgiveness is something that you do, that you offer to someone who has wronged you personally.
It's the same thing with a turn-the-other-cheek.
Oh, we're supposed to turn the other cheek.
Yeah, turn-the-other-cheek is when you are personally offended, or insulted, or attacked, and you respond that way to your own.
But if someone else is attacked, And you don't respond to it.
And you just sit back and let it happen.
You can't say, oh, I was turning the other cheek.
It's not your cheek!
It's really easy for you to turn it when you're not the one getting slapped.
So it's a similar thing with forgiveness.
Which doesn't mean that... I'm not saying that we should hold... that we should sit Hold grudges or that we should not allow people to change their ways and so on.
That's not my point.
I'm just saying forgiveness is easy and cheap when you are not the one affected by it.
Second point about forgiveness.
Just because you forgive someone doesn't mean that you trust them again.
Doesn't mean that you go to them as an authority, especially a moral authority, ever again.
It doesn't mean that you forget what they did.
It doesn't mean you allow yourself to get scammed by this person.
That's not what it means.
So, Jim Baker, convicted fraudster, yeah, go ahead and forgive him, whatever the hell that means, if you were not a victim of one of his many crimes.
So, go ahead and forgive him.
That doesn't mean that you should go and listen to him as a moral or theological authority.
And in fact, if he was actually serious, if he was actually repentant and penitent, he wouldn't be putting himself up as a moral and theological authority.
He would have gotten out of prison and went off into obscurity and moved into the mountains or something and lived in penance for the rest of his life.
Because he would have realized that he is not capable of being in that position.
That he had betrayed people's trust in such a way, in such an egregious way, that it would be wrong for him to put himself in that position again.
That's what he would do if he was really penitent.
But no, he hops right back on the saddle.
Starts making money again off of distorting the gospel.
And you think that's penitent?
No.
Not at all.
I mean, it's just like if, I mean, here's a time of real forgiveness.
You know, if a spouse cheats on you, and then you find a way to forgive them, okay, well now that's a real heroic feat.
I mean, that's meaningful.
If you can actually forgive your spouse for cheating on you.
Forgive someone else's spouse for cheating on them.
That doesn't mean anything for you to do that.
Good job.
Nicely done.
Good for you.
But, so forgive your own spouse.
Yeah, very, very, it takes a lot.
But that doesn't mean that you automatically trust them again.
Okay?
And it doesn't mean, you know, and there are going to be things like, probably, if they've cheated on you and you're trying to rebuild the marriage, there are going to be things like, okay, now you can't have the same sort of privacy online that you had before.
I'm going to be suspicious if you're locking your phone down, if I, you know, if I'm trying to go on, if you're making sure that you're logged out of Facebook or something before I go and use the computer, I mean, things like that, I'm going to be suspicious.
Not because I haven't forgiven you, but because I'm not stupid.
And I know that this is something that you've done in the past and that you apparently are prone to.
All right, let's move on.
I have a bunch of emails to answer, but first... Okay, well, my wife went to an organic grocery store.
Actually, it was called the Organic Mommy Market, I think she said, or Mom's Organic Market, or something like that.
Something along those... One of those places where you go there and you buy a jar of almond butter for $43.
One of those things.
And she comes home with...
With these.
I don't know if you can see that there.
These are, this is a bag of crickets.
Barbecue crickets.
And she dares me to eat them on my show, to do a taste test of the crickets on my show.
And this is pretty evil on her part, I have to say, because she knows, she damn well knows that I have the maturity of a 12-year-old.
And so when you say to me, I dare you to do this, I double-dog dare you, she knows that I have to do it, I can't not do it.
Even though I'm a 33-year-old man, allegedly, if I'm dared to do something, I feel like I have to do it.
My six-year-old son can and has coaxed me into doing things that were not necessarily smart just by daring me to do them.
So that's where I'm at.
And so she says that, and that means I have to do it.
But as it happens, She didn't even really need to dare me to do this because bugs are all the rage these days.
It's very environmentally friendly.
Everyone's talking about how you're supposed to eat bugs.
And as you guys know, I care deeply about environmentalism.
It's an issue that's near and dear to my heart.
It's probably my number one issue in life, as you know.
I talk about it all the time.
And so this is something that, you know, I feel morally obliged to do.
I just hope that these are free-range crickets.
Because I only eat insects that are free-range, open source, grass-fed, Buddhist.
By the way, this is just to give a shout out to the company.
This is the company called Bug Bistro.
Barbecue crickets.
These are barbecue flavor crickets from Entomo Farms, it looks like.
And there is a There is a warning, very helpful warning on the back of this.
It says, uh, allergy warning contains insects.
So if you were wondering if the bag of insects contains insects, it does.
The bag of insects doesn't contain Skittles.
It turns out it does contain insects.
So, um, all right, well, let's, let's give these a try.
First of all, they do it.
You know what?
The bag of crickets.
It smells like a bag of crickets.
It pretty much smells exactly like you would expect.
If I were to blindfold you and put this in front of your nose, you would say, hmm, smells like a bag of crickets.
And you would be exactly right.
So let's, um, let's stop stalling and give these a shot.
This could be life changing.
I mean, if I discover that I love these things, I can just go outside anytime, grab some crickets and have a nice snack.
So, um, they do look like crickets too.
Got the eyes still there.
You know, they haven't, they haven't really tried to pretty these things up at all.
Hmm.
Yeah.
You know, so the taste, it's got a little bit of a, a little bit of a nutty, Almond taste to it.
Definitely a very distinct almond flavor there.
It tastes a little bit like there's a little bit of almond, there's a little bit of mud, and there's a whole lot of cricket.
It tastes a little bit like if you were to walk outside In the mud.
Then come back inside, take your shoe off, smother the bottom of the shoe in barbecue sauce, and lick it.
That's sort of the taste.
Not terrible.
Not good.
I'll tell you the worst thing about it.
The taste is, you know, the taste is not so bad.
On a pure taste scale, I would say it's about a level above Taco Bell.
Which isn't hard to do.
But what makes the experience somewhat horrifying is the anatomical aspect of it, where you can really feel and taste all the different parts of the cricket exploding in your mouth.
And that part I don't really enjoy as much, to be honest.
I wonder what happens if I just... So I just tried the head there.
You know what?
The head's not so bad.
I think I'm more of a head guy.
I think I like the head.
Because the rest of the body, that's where you get all the legs and everything, and the wings.
Plus, when you eat the head, you absorb the brain, the tiny little brain of the insect.
And so, I believe, scientifically, you absorb the insect's IQ.
And so, after about three or four of them, you'll be as smart as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Which is nice.
So, that's insects.
I think I still prefer to eat cows instead.
As somewhat tolerable as these are, I think I would just prefer to stick with beef.
But that's just me.
And I am wondering how much these cost, because this was at an organic market.
And I don't even want to ask my wife, but I'm afraid that when I ask her,
she's going to tell me they were $27 for a bag of bugs.
Yeah.
you The aftertaste, not so great either.
Very crickety aftertaste.
All right.
Let's move on.
This is from, let's see, we'll go to emails, mattwalshow at gmail.com, mattwalshow at gmail.com.
Now I have the cricket part stuck in my teeth and in my throat.
Not pleasant.
Not very pleasant.
This is from Jana says, Hey Matt, just a heads up.
Never attend a mass in Argentina.
My mother is from there, so I have first-hand experience.
If you, however, decide to ignore my advice, you'll be expected to not just shake people's hands, but to also hug them.
Argentinian men kiss each other in the cheek.
Most Argentinians are of Italian descent, so there's that.
And Pope Francis knows that, of course, but this pope is a commie, so he's fine with Castro and Maduro grabbing his hands, but lashes out when someone else does it.
You know, Jana, I kind of appreciate that, and I got a few emails.
We talked about the sign of the peace in Catholic Mass last week, and I heard from other people from other countries saying, oh, you know, in our country, it's even worse than that.
There's hugging and kissing.
I kind of appreciate that.
Now, don't get me wrong, it's horrific.
If I ended up in a church where they did that, I'd just become a Jehovah's Witness on the spot.
But what I'm saying is, if you're gonna take a break in the action randomly to let people exchange signs of peace, whatever that means, you may as well go full tilt.
I mean, you might as well really go for it.
Because the awkward, formal, American thing, with the handshake, where you're just, peace be with you, yes, and with you, yes, yes, peace be with you, peace be with you, peace, peace, peace, where you're just barely grabbing the person's hand, it sort of defeats the purpose.
So at least with the Argentinians, they really, I mean, when they give the sign of peace, they really give it.
And so that I, as horrible as it is, I can appreciate that.
This is from Nicholas, says, hi, Matt, greetings from the land of spiders, and unfortunately right now, fire.
I wanted your thoughts on the, I've got crickets on the desk here.
I wanted your thoughts, and I've still got crickets stuck in my throat right now, as I'm, this is, Can't they at least tear the legs off these things before they put them in the bag?
Greetings from the land of spiders and unfortunately, right now, fire.
I wanted your thoughts on the theological considerations of these fires.
Last year, a famous Australian sports star said that the fires were God's punishment for same-sex marriage and abortion.
Both are legal in Australia.
But we also have the rare distinction alongside Ireland of approving same-sex marriage in a popular vote, which happened in 2017.
Do you think he's right?
Okay, so the question is, the fires in Australia, are they a punishment for God from same-sex marriage?
First of all, Nicholas, I'm sorry for what you guys are going through down there in Australia.
It really is unbelievable, the extent of these fires.
Is it divine punishment?
No, absolutely not.
I think that's ridiculous.
Really big fires like this happen in Australia because it's hot and dry.
And that's why it happens.
If God was going to torch countries that allow same-sex marriage, you mentioned Ireland.
Why isn't Ireland on fire?
Well, you could say Ireland is wet and cold, so they don't really get forest fires like other countries, like Australia does.
But if this is divine action, then the physical conditions don't matter.
Do you think God needs it to be the right physical condition in order to start a fire?
This is God we're talking about.
God could set Ireland on fire if he wanted to, and yet he doesn't.
And in fact, I think if you were to see, if Ireland were to be on fire to the extent of Australia, that would be quite a statement.
I mean, you'd almost be forced to come up with some supernatural explanation for it.
But it just so happens, I guess, that the places that God decides to punish with a fire are also the places where fires always happen anyway.
And the place where even fires of this magnitude have happened in the past, even before same-sex marriage.
So that's the problem with saying that a natural disaster is some kind of punishment from God.
Because they happen all across the world, natural disasters do, at random places, affecting everyone randomly, and they've always happened everywhere natural disasters have.
There's no observable connection between a country acting immorally and natural disasters.
So we really don't observe that.
We don't observe that as a country descends into immorality, natural disasters become more common.
That is not what we observe.
I think what Christians try to do with this is very similar to what leftists do by blaming it on global warming.
Again, you can't blame it on global warming because Australia has always had bushfires, and they've had really bad ones in the past also.
Maybe it's been a while since they've had one like this, but it has happened.
There was a bushfire in 1920-something, 1926, I think, that killed 30-plus people.
1926 I think that killed 30 plus people there was a bushfire in the 1930s that killed 70 plus people
But way back in the 20s and 30s very few people were driving
You didn't have nearly the same number of factories and the industrialization that we have now, to the same extent, the same degree.
And yet these things happened back then.
So you really, again, you don't observe this steady increase in bushfires to go along with so-called global warming.
And it's the same thing with people that try to make it a divine punishment.
And I think this is probably the most prescient point here, actually, is that, and I should have mentioned this before, the fires in Australia right now, many of them have been deliberately set by people.
Last I read, 200 people have been arrested in Australia for setting fires.
So, you can't blame it on climate change.
It wasn't climate change that made them set the fire on purpose.
It wasn't God who made them do it.
They did it on their own.
And so that's how I would respond to that.
By the way, since we're on the subject, and yes, as we've talked about, the fires are really bad.
It's a terrible situation.
But the media is doing quite a lot of sensationalizing because they want to draw this connection between this and global warming.
So I want you to look at this.
This is pretty incredible.
Here's a map.
This is a map that ABC posted yesterday.
And this supposedly shows the scale of the fires in Australia.
That red stuff around the edges, according to ABC, that's all fire.
Now, let me show you another map.
This is a map of Australia's population density.
And you see where all the population centers are in Australia.
And you see how they're around the coastlines there.
What do you notice?
According to this, according to ABC anyway, almost everybody in Australia is on fire right now.
So, everyone is dead, according to ABC.
You see, all the places where there's population, all of that is on fire.
Which, of course, is not the case.
I think the actual death toll is 25 or 30 at this point, which is horrible.
It's obviously a terrible thing, but that's what makes it so atrocious when the media sensationalizes, because not only is it unethical and immoral and you're lying, but it's not necessary.
The actual situation is really, really bad.
So you don't have to make it up.
You can just report what's actually happening.
It's the same thing with mass shootings and school shootings.
You see the media trying to pump up the numbers by saying, oh, there are 200 mass shootings a year, or whatever crazy number they come up with.
No, it's not anywhere close to that.
But they do happen, and they're really terrible, and so you don't need to do this.
Putting aside how unethical and immoral it is, it's so unnecessary.
You could stick to the facts, and the facts themselves are horrific enough on their own.
They don't need your embellishment.
This is from Andrew, says, Great show, love your commentary.
I enjoy and have for the most part always enjoyed comedians like Gervais, Chappelle, and Rogan.
However, I find that as much as we like to lift them up right now as we side with them against the outrage culture, the Catholic predator jokes and atheistic attacks always strike me the wrong way.
Is this an inability to take a joke on my part or would you want these jokes to be gone from the repertoire for better enjoyment?
Yeah, this is an interesting point.
I saw somebody online yesterday Say, hey, conservatives, Ricky Gervais isn't on our side.
He's not a conservative.
And that's true, he's not.
Ricky Gervais is pro-abortion, socially liberal, extremely atheist.
His stand-up act, I've watched a couple of his stand-up acts, and I think he's very funny.
I think he's really talented, not just as a comedian, I think he's more talented even as a, you know, in creating shows and as a script writer for TV shows.
But anyway, atheism is a big part of what he does.
And his stand-up act consists of, at least the ones I saw, it's like 80% jokes about religious people.
But that's actually why I appreciate him because he's not pandering.
He really is an equal opportunity offender.
Joe Rogan also is atheist and is very outspoken about that.
But I appreciate that because number one, you're being honest about how you feel and what you think.
And I think we need that in this country.
Even if I disagree.
I mean at this point, I'm at a point right now where I'm so tired of the pandering that happens on both sides.
I'm so tired of the same old thing from everybody, everyone just the same talking points,
it's just how redundant and repetitive everything is and how safe everybody is.
You know, you find your tribe or your side and you stick to those talking points,
you don't want to upset them, you always want...
So I'm at the point where I can appreciate anyone who is actually honest about how they feel
and thinks for themselves and isn't worried about cultivating a tribe or sticking to a tribe's
talking points.
But it just says, look, this is how I feel.
This is what I think.
Some of it is going to be consistent with what this camp says.
Some of it's going to be with this camp.
I don't care.
This is just what I think.
So I appreciate that.
And I also appreciate that, you know, somebody like Ricky Gervais, he is liberal, yet he's up there calling out his own people.
And I respect that as well.
So, you know, it doesn't... Yeah, I mean, if... If I'm gonna sit and watch a comedian, would I prefer if they don't spend 25 of the 45-minute set making fun of Christians?
Yeah, I mean, I'd prefer it, personally, but... I guess my point is, the fact that somebody like that, with that viewpoint, Got up at the Golden Globes and did what he did.
I think that's more powerful.
The fact that he's a socially liberal atheist, and even he's up there saying this to these people, that makes it more powerful.
It's more powerful than if some conservative Christian had done it.
Not that a conservative Christian would ever be invited to host the Golden Globes in the first place, but that's the point.
We need people in that world To, you know, speak out against some of this stuff.
All right, we'll leave it there.
Thanks everybody for watching.
Thanks for listening.
Go get your Bug Bistro crickets today and enjoy them.
And I'll talk to you tomorrow.
Godspeed.
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The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton, Executive Producer Jeremy Boring, Senior Producer Jonathan Hay, Supervising Producer Mathis Glover, Supervising Producer Robert Sterling, Technical Producer Austin Stevens, Editor Donovan Fowler, Audio Mixer Robin Fenderson.
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Hey everyone, it's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
You know, Harvey Weinstein is on trial, but it's not just him.
It's the entire mainstream news and entertainment media and the kind of feminism it promotes that's also on trial.
And you can see that mainstream media continuing to shame itself by mourning the death of terrorist leader Qasem Soleimani.
