Brown University Shooting: What We Know, Trump's AI Executive Order, And Catholic Chaplains

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. Today, we look a little taller than Josh. Oh, there you go. Which is not accurate in real life, just to be clear. Not even close, actually. I'm about half the size of Josh.

So, LOOPcast, brought to you by The Loop, of course, every Catholic American's favorite morning newsletter. Go subscribe if you haven't. But Josh is in a... Secret location? It is not secret. I am in our nation's capital, but I am going to be doing some meetings today.

It should be kind of fun. I will let you guys know about it later in the week. Yeah, Josh will be getting things in order in the nation's capital, solving problems. So, yeah, we'll tell you about that later, but he sounds a little different. He is in DC. Grateful for him for joining today. We have a great show for you. Hope you guys had a great weekend. Really, really some sad news. We had a shooting at Brown. Really bizarre and tragic, so we're going to get you the details there.

We had a couple, actually, really high-profile deaths over the weekend. A really gruesome mass shooting in Sydney as well, and then Rob Reiner. Lost his life. So, we're going to cover all of those faithfully. Don't worry, we'll bring you up. We have good news. The Philip Rivers experience was just unbelievable. I can't wait to talk about that. It's like everything you love about sports and more, but we're also going to be tackling Trump signed an executive order on AI legislation at the federal level.

I remember we briefly talked about this coming. It has officially came. We now see the legislation, what it's going to look like. It's especially interesting to me. It doesn't fall on partisan lines. There's a lot of debate. States are getting involved. Even at the national level, there's a lot of debate, so I'm going to be covering that. And then also, he has signaled that he's going to reclassify marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 at the national level. No decision has been made, I'll say it, but, you know, the weed heads.

I don't know if we have many weed heads in the audience here, but we're going to talk a little bit about weed. And then we have a Catholic chaplain situation I want to make sure we briefly touch on. But, of course, Twilight Zone and good news are going to be included. It's going to be a great show. Really grateful to have all you join. I actually got to run into a few fans of the program over the weekend. I was at a wonderful wedding in Columbus.

And I was stopped a few times by some members. So, shout out to them. Just really wonderful. Of course, like the best people. Beautiful, handsome, intelligent, witty. Great conversation. They're like a little nervous to stop me because I got a camera in my hand.

Because they said Erika was the best. Exactly. Of course. But it just continues to affirm, you know, the people that listen to this program, I would love to hang out with and get a drink with, but I was on the clock, so I couldn't do that. But people had a great time at that wedding. It was a wonderful Catholic wedding, so shout out to them. And it just, yeah, nothing better than a beautiful Catholic wedding. So, shout out to you guys.

If you want to help with the show, go ahead and subscribe over on YouTube or leave us a review, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Helps us out a lot, keeps you guys in the loop, all that good stuff. But, Erika, if we could get down to what? What is going on at Brown University? What do we know at this point? Yeah, this is a really disturbing story, in part because the suspect is still at large, and the police are keeping the cards very close to their chest if they haven't lost them completely under the table somewhere.

So, on Saturday, it's going into finals, the second half of finals for the Brown students. So, this is about four o'clock Eastern, so middle of the afternoon. There was a group of about 60 students who had gathered in the Barris-Hawley Engineering and Physics building. In Providence, Rhode Island, at Brown University campus, they were reviewing for a final exam in economics, and the shooter entered. There are some interviews now with the young man who was leading that review session, who did survive the attack, and he describes being in the front of the room, seeing the shooter come in with a very large gun, is how he described it.

So, we're talking massive rifle, and just started shooting around. 422 p.m. then, the school finally issued the shelter-in-place order, an active shooter warning, which persisted all through the night. So, some students were sheltering in closets, and they described, you know, rooms at the gym, locking themselves into ballrooms in order to escape the shooter.

They were let out over the course of the night and into the next morning. We have some footage here of students sheltering in place. I would just play it on silent there for the viewers. I mean, it's just, it's so frightening.

The whole rollout of the investigation has been, to put it mildly, very confusing. The campus, the Providence Police and federal agents were conducting a manhunt. A person of interest, a man they described as in his 20s, was detained at a hotel about 20 miles outside of the city. He was taken into custody Sunday morning, and then his name was leaked to the public, Benjamin Erickson, and they had a photo of him, but it was the wrong Benjamin Erickson. Sounds like Jeffrey Epstein and Jasmine Crockett, and so it's the wrong one.

But then it turned out to not be Benjamin Erickson at all. So, there was this last late-night press conference at 11 p.m. Sunday, and they're like, we're actually releasing him. He had nothing to do with it, and the profile that we're now pursuing has nothing to do with this man. So, again, not until after his name had been dragged through the public for over 12 hours that day. Yeah.

The police are, again, to put it mildly, they seem confused. We have here, the press conferences are crazy to watch right now, so you can play this little clip of the police chief from Providence. Somebody had said, and I want to make sure we're correct in reporting this, that he may have walked out of a building, and I'm wondering, how did he get access to the building, and is there video from inside the building? I don't have the answer if there's video inside that building that depicts him.

There is video inside that building. However, I haven't seen him on video inside that building, and he did walk out of the building. So, can you explain that to me, in all of us? So, he was in the building, but we don't have video of him in the building? We haven't recognized him in the video yet. We do see some video from inside the building of a commotion. Clearly, students are running. However, we don't have, from the video that I've seen so far, we don't have the suspect depicted in the video.

Is there any reason to believe this is international terrorism, or is this just some disgruntled student? That we don't know yet. A disgruntled student that just came in to shoot up because he was set about final exam? Yeah, Brown is one of the most heavily surveyed campuses. It's actually, of the Ivy League schools, it is the most radically left in terms of student polling and ideological outlook. It's also one of the most heavily surveyed. So, of course, Twitter just went crazy over the weekend, and the lack of information coming from the official channels has fueled a lot of different conspiracy theories about what is actually going on about the profile of the shooter.

We know very little about the victims. We know two students were killed outright in the shooting. Nine others were injured, and most of them remain in the hospital in critical condition. The one student whose identity we do know, tragically, she's a 19-year-old sophomore at Brown. Her name was Ella Cook, or is Ella Cook. She is deceased, and she was the vice president of the College Republicans, which, again, If it's a random shooting, the fact that the shooter took out the vice president of College Republicans at a school where only 0.8% of the students identify as very conservative seems really strange.

So, there's all sorts of ideological concerns now circulating as well. Like, was this a targeted attack? Supposedly, her family was, and there's all kinds of these. We don't have a lot of information. The reality is we just don't know at this point. That is a fair point, but to quote Ann Coulter, the fact that we don't have a profile of the shooter suggests what the profile is probably going to be. It was just insane.

Yeah, when the shooter is a white male, they let you know that right away. Yeah. I would love to speak to, I was talking to Erika a little bit about this before, I feel like we're kind of like 0 for 3 or 0 for 4 in recent memory on... How to properly handle public information regarding high-profile, bizarre shootings? I mean, to put this in context, this is a broad daylight during finals, 4 p.m., someone walking in with a rifle and executing two students, and we don't have an image, we don't have a picture, we don't have, it's, that doesn't seem like.

That doesn't seem right at all to me. It smells like Butler PA all over again. Right. Thomas Crooks, we don't know anything about this guy, and we got to hear from Tucker Carlson's podcast six months later that he had internet activity. That was a lie. So, I don't know. Josh, maybe you have more deference to... Like, the FBI or the law enforcement or something like that? I just feel like it's been really, it almost feels intentionally mishandled as of recently, which of course leads everyone to jump to conclusions on, what's the ideological motivation, what should I be thinking, what should we be concerned?

I mean, this is really... Like, even just, I keep rethinking about that. Like, I went to college. I had billboard and key cards. If someone, you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, well, it just, it's not broad daylight, by the way. I hate to nitpick, but like at four in the afternoon in Providence, like you're already talking about twilight. It's musky. Because it's December 15th. I live here, yeah. So, I mean, you can still see, obviously. It's not like. Pitch black, like it would be at five or so.

No, I just, it is kind of curious. Like, they presumably have a lot of cameras, and they don't have anything of the guy walking in or walking out anywhere with a gun, or, you know. Anywhere on campus. Yeah, it just feels like Keystone Cops. Like, what is going on here? And, you know, in terms of, I mean, I don't know.

Do you feel any confidence listening to that person give a press conference, that police guy? I didn't hear any confidence at all. To me, I just feel like we've seen too much of these police officers lately, especially from very liberal areas. They just get out there and they just kind of meander, and everyone's left wondering, what the hell happened? If you had to keep some of the information close to your vest, I get it.

Sorry, I cannot answer that. I expect crisp, solid, boom, boom, boom. That is what I expect my law enforcement guys to tell me exactly what they know, tell us exactly what they can tell us, and then move on. I get no confidence listening to that guy. Yeah, and same thing listening to the mayor of Providence and the president of Brown. It just… Is it intentional? I don't know. We just don't know enough at this point. Are they intentionally hiding because the profile that they do have doesn't fit their narrative of what should happen in right-wing extremism and all that?

You know, I have my prejudices and my guesses as to what's going on, but in general, like Josh said, the way that they have presented themselves the last 48 hours, it's just been a total lack of confidence and almost a disinterestedness, and really disappointing. But there's one person who has the answer, and that would be my senator, Chris Murphy. He went right on the talk shows, and he had the answer as to why this happened. You can just play that.

Do I have to? Yeah, because Josh needs to be here. Well, it leads into Australia. This is not shocking because over the last year, President Trump has been engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country. He is restoring gun rights to felons and people who have lost their ability to buy guns. He eliminated the White House Office of Gun Violence Protection, and he has stopped funding mental health grants and community anti-gun violence grants that Republicans and Democrats supported in that 2022.

Bill, so he has been engaged in a pretty deliberate campaign to try to make violence more likely in this country, and I think you're unfortunately going to see the results of that on the streets of America. That's a pretty big statement.

So, it's actually Trump's fault. I was actually kind of mad, too. Like, I don't know if anyone saw the CBS interview with Barry Weiss and Erika Kirk, and she brought on the guy who was asking the question to Charlie. To Jim Kozak. Yeah, and his dad's like a Hollywood producer, which is kind of an interesting anecdote.

And he basically was like, well, you know that Trump is so, he talks so violently, brought up all the violent rhetoric, like... So, can't you tell him to tone it down? Isn't he kind of responsible for this? It was a bizarre ambush. I don't even understand why you would even try to get this out of this. I understand the opportunities in here. To a grieving widow, that's one of them. And again, the harsh political rhetoric is kind of on both sides of the aisle, but more deliberate on the left.

You know, it's Schumer that said, Kavanaugh, you know, the whirlwind's going to come for you, and then somebody literally tries to assassinate him a few months later. No apologies from Schumer. Like, I mean, like, they tried to kill him to stop Roe v. Wade from being overturned, and like, you're just going to blow by that? Like, so, all this stuff is garbage, and then like, you know, we'll get into, hear the story in Australia.

Where the solution to what happened in this event, where this guy just starts opening up fire on a bunch of Jewish people, is to say, we need more gun control. In Australia, you need more gun control? They confiscated everyone's guns. Like, this just drives me crazy. It's like, what do you mean the answer is more guns? Like, the problem is- I have been around and touched many guns in my life. I have never in one moment thought, hmm, I could just decide to murder 20, 30 people.

Like, no. Like, just, it is true that a gun allows you the opportunity to kill more people, but like, I mean, like Rob Reiner, his own son, apparently, killed him and his mom with a knife. A knife. Terrible. You know, and the problem in London, Is all the stabbings. So, it's like, maybe we need to talk about what education really is about.

It's about moral formation. It's about making sure we tell the next generation, like, you know, thou shall not kill. And I don't, I mean, like, oh, it's established through a religion. Shut up. We need to tell people not to kill people. We need to bring people back. We need to get off of psychotropic drugs and draining your time on screens and smoke a pot all the dang time.

Well, and I think we need to be willing to talk about, and this is what the mainstream media lacks, and just to go back to the Sydney, it was at the Bondi Beach, there was a big Hanukkah celebration, mostly Jews celebrating together on the beach, and a father-son gunman team who were migrants from Pakistan, right? Like, they're radical Muslims. They're just Muslims. They're Muslims. The son was born in Australia. There you go. The son was born in Australia. So, we have an Australian and a Pakistani.

They're Muslims. They open fire. There was actually an amazing moment that was captured on film of a local Muslim store owner who saw what was happening, and you watch him, like, creep up behind one of the gunmen along some cars and taking two gunshots to his own body. He subdues him and grabs the gun, and that is how the guy was stopped. So, there were some amazing stories of heroism from a terrible, terrible day.

Really incredible. Like, it is crazy that he even got caught on. It just gives you chills. It's like how everyone would hope that they would respond, I think especially men, in a situation like that. I mean, this guy is a total hero. I like, yeah, it's really amazing.

The guy in the white shirt and the man in the black shirt. Man handles him, grabs the gun. By the way. He's afraid, and shoots at him, but he should have subdued him, should have kept him there, and like, don't move or I will shoot you, because then the guy runs off, and he unfortunately grabbed another gun. While this was going on, there was a police officer, a female police officer, she was hiding behind a car.

Yeah, and didn't do anything. It was a terrible story. People! Well, she probably didn't have a gun. Not to make it right, but... Oh, she did have a gun on her? She did. Oh, my gosh. But I think that, I mean, too, I agree with you, Josh. In terms of left-wing violence, we're seeing that... I want more toxic masculinity, do you? Right, right. I'd like some more. I don't want gun control. I would like, you know, actually immigrant control. Right. Well, that's what I was going to say, is that they have to start being...

We have to start talking more publicly about what's actually going on, because we have the shooting in Australia. We also had the shooting, not shootings only, but shooting, knife-stabbing demonstrations in... Multiple Christmas markets over the weekend in Europe, which just came to my attention before the show. So, Brussels, Belgium, their world-famous Christmas market, they had to shut that down. We had in the Netherlands and Amsterdam having to shut that down. France just announced that the fireworks for New Year's, there will not be a public gathering on the Champs-Élysées, as there has been every year for hundreds of years of celebration there, because they cannot guarantee the safety of the people.

And what the governments are refusing to acknowledge in their public statements about these events, and what Australia, what the Australian prime ministers refuse to acknowledge, is that these sorts of things are the direct result of permitting mass migration from an unassimilable worldview, meaning Islam. That for a father and son, Pakistani is Muslim, to get together and to shoot up a bunch of Jews, like, that's not, like, I don't see Methodists doing that in Milwaukee. I don't see, like, Unitarians doing that.

But the unwillingness of these governments, even now, after all of these events, to recognize this root cause means that it's just going to keep happening over and over. Milwaukee's Catholic, but... No, I mean, the thing is, I appreciate it. Details matter. I don't see the Catholics doing it either. I got into it over the weekend. My wife loves details, and finally, she's giving me all these details. I said, enough. Enough details. That's where the devil is.

Anyway, but no, the thing is, you have to ask yourself, like, If mass migration from the Middle Eastern countries, which would be mostly Islamic people, if that involves making it so that Jews cannot celebrate together in public at a park in Sydney, and if it means that Christians can't have Christian markets all throughout Germany and all these other countries, why are we talking about?

Gun control is the solution. Why don't we just say, let's have a wonderful homecoming and bring these people who apparently do not like Western society, Western civilization, and return them to Pakistan and other Middle Eastern countries. It's like, you know what? It sounds like you're not liking it so much. If what you do is kill people and don't get along, like... Why don't you go back to the places that you had previously conquered instead of conquering us? But again, there are a lot of people in our country that think it's far, far worse to be considered anti-tolerance.

They would rather allow people into our country that are perfectly willing to kill us or rape our women than to be considered racist. That is by far the greater crime in their mind. It doesn't make any sense at all. Yeah, I think that's obviously a part of it. I just, it's so hard to even take all this news in one day because it covers, it's like a perfect combination of all of the biggest errors of... American foreign policy or the West in terms of their policy towards immigration, but even a son killing their parents in America.

I just think in many ways, it feels like we're reaping the poor fruit of just a total loss of will to conduct. Conduct yourself seriously as Americans. I mean, even you just brought up the thing about the police, Josh, but it just feels at some point like the men in the room, they stopped raising their own children. We have a lot of fatherless homes. They stopped standing up to obvious evils when it comes to transgender ideology or the type of SSRIs that kids are being given.

They didn't put their foot down when obvious incitements to violence were brought up before. We just tolerated it. We allowed people into the country that shouldn't have been let into the country under the auspices of radical empathy, something like that.

It just feels like for so long, we have not taken ourselves seriously as a country from the inside out in terms of foreign policy, but then also in family policy. We can't even have conversations about real moral character or the spiritual life of our own country.

Christian country, and so now we're just seeing, like, it just feels like blow after blow after blow after blow of this is just obviously the poor fruit of a lot of decisions, and I guess what gives me a little bit of hope now is that it's becoming so in your face that you have to speak openly about it now. There's no, like, I don't even know how you could, the old conversations about, like, well, we just need more gun control. I don't even think really, like, most serious people.

Are having that as like, oh yeah, this is a real solution anymore. Most serious people are now like, there's something, five alarm fire problem going on right now in my home, in my backyard. The obvious only solution is to speak openly about these problems, and then to change the way that I live my life, and what I'm doing in my own community, how I'm raising my own kids, where I'm allowing my kids to go. It just feels like it's reached a really personal level, because it would be impossible not to.

So, I don't know. That is how it feels. It invites us to go to a back-to-basics approach of things, because the fact of the matter is, we have suffered too long in the West, not just in the United States, but all through Western countries, in adopting... This position of ideology trumps experience. And the fact of the matter is, like, it's a whole lot of pride. It's like, you know, like, I get to show how much more I love and welcome the stranger, and then there's no, you know, vetting for people.

You know, there's no, like, discernment. Like, is it good for a society? Someone fleeing persecution, let them in, okay, fine, but do we let in tens of millions of people to leave the door wide open? And again, you know, like, again, to pretend like everything, you know, is ideological. So, well, should we have, I mean, should we allow women the opportunity to be police officers? Maybe. Some people are kind of not so good on it, and they're like, oh, you're sexist, you got to allow women to be cops.

I think there are specific uses, but people aren't able to have the serious conversation about what should those specific uses be, and should they be a Secret Service officer that would be in charge of throwing themselves in front of the president? Probably not. And, like, I don't even think you'd be called a sexist at that point for saying that. Most people are just like, well, we've seen what happens. Well, in our crowd, yeah, but you go out in the regular public, and they're like, how dare you be so sexist for it?

And, like, you point out stuff, like, you mentioned with Trump's Secret Service lady, she's, like, you know, cowering or whatever. And then this one here, where she's hiding behind a police car, you know, making sure she's safe. It's like... There are people that are completely, you know, because Australia doesn't have concealed carry, they've confiscated all the guns. They need you, the police officer, to do something, and you didn't do jack squat. And maybe the more root of maybe the point that I was trying to make there is that we've allowed that ideology to blend into policy that's actually discriminated against the people that should be in those roles.

So, for example, with police, we need to lower the standards, and we need to make a quota so that we have more women on purpose. And, of course, that takes away from the people that would naturally go towards those roles and should be in those roles. And that's self-inflicted. It's because ideology trumps. That's the problem. It trumps everything, you know, in today's society. It's not just like, what can we do to try to make our system more fair, you know, and to understand that everything you're talking about, you're balancing goods.

But under ideology, it's like, no, no, no, no, no. We must have 50% of police officers be women, and we must have 50% of this, and they just start from a standpoint of some sort of principle or rule, and then you never allow the lived experience to kind of inform.

Well, could there possibly be side effects of this or for that? You know, like confiscating guns in Australia. That will work that we will not have these mass shootings. You just had one. You literally just had one. So, it is not stopping it. What it has done is it has rendered everyone in that area unable to have a gun, but police will have guns. Yeah, then she will be a chicken behind the car, and you will have to rely on some guy to step up to the plate without a gun and just wrestle the guy to get a gun.

Right, right. But in Texas, someone pulls out a gun and shoots the guy dead. Yeah, I wanted to just go back to Pogo's point, too, about, you know, after a weekend like this, it can feel so out of control, and so just outside your sphere of influence, it can get very... I was very, like, upset this morning, like, going through all the headlines, like, okay, what are we even going to do for good news today? But I think that Pogo's point of hopefully this will drive a lot of us back to the personal choices that we're making right now in our lives on how are we raising our kids.

And this is exactly how you mentioned Erika Kirk and Barry Weiss kind of like, you know, sidelining her with that guy coming out and being like, will you also condemn Trump? And I think her response was... One, she held it together, which was amazing. And two, her response was very much like, I'm not going to speak to the both sides argument, like all of that. She's like, absolutely, I condemn political violence. I'm the victim of political violence. My children are the victims of political violence.

But what we have to ask ourselves is look in the mirror and see that the line between good and evil goes down the center of all of our hearts. So, are you... Ask yourself, are you parenting? Are you handing your kid the iPad so that you can go do your Pilates for two hours so you can go do X, Y, Z? Are you giving up your parental role with your own children? But she really brought it back to using events like this to ask yourself, how can I live better, and how can I raise a better future for our nation?

So, absolutely, I think that all the policy that you're mentioning, Josh. We need to push for that. I mean, someone in the comments is just correcting me a little bit. I mean, they didn't confiscate all the guns, but what they did is they made it so hard. It's like the gold standard. If you love gun control, Australia, short of gun confiscation, it's like the gold standard in terms of like ramping up total, like a ton of gun control. You can have a gun, but you have to at least provide one good reason for it, other than, and by the way, self-defense is excluded.

It's like, I don't hunt. Okay, so I don't have guns to hunt. I'll just let you know that. Yeah, to maybe round out what Erika was saying there here, and I think there's just been a lot. If anyone's followed the news, it's been pretty exhausting for the last year.

I think people get a little hyped up right after something like this happens because... Politicians and activists, they want to enact their preferred plan, whether that's more tighter gun control or less gun control or whatever. They use it, and then they really start ramping up on, like, this is what would solve, you know what I mean? This is going to be the solution. Maybe what I think about when this happens, I'm like, I think there's, I'm not saying don't engage in what you believe your given solution is, but maybe at the end of the day.

This is actually a struggle between good and evil. And it all is. And if you've ever looked into history at all, or you've read the Bible, you realize that at any given point in history, each society has their challenges, they have their people pulling the strings, they have their revolutions, they have their horrific deaths and things that everyone has to, plagues, crime, you name it, right? Like, it's always going to be there. And I guess at the end of the day, you know...

I could have been in that, anyone could have been in that library, or anyone could have been on that beach, and your life could be called from you, and you don't know when that is, and so, or you could be in that situation, and you might be called to have the moral courage to stand up to that shooter, to make that, and all you can do, really, is to live a life, live a life good enough, or attempt to To become holy enough or to be good enough because those small decisions lead into big decisions, and then when your life is called from you, you hope you can stand before God and say, I did everything that I could.

I did everything that I could, and I didn't hold back. Now, remember what we said the previous episode, like grandmothers are always proven right on just about everything? Right. And this is literally the truth because for the last several generations, it's been kind of the grandmas saying, now, don't do that. Don't do that. As society just increasingly goes, oh, what's the harm? We will do this. We will remove prayer from public schools. You cannot even put the Ten Commandments up in the classroom.

All this kind of stuff. Do not pledge allegiance. We do not want any solidarity amongst any of our students. They are all free agents willing to be consumers for corporate America. There shall be no higher value than we are all customers in this big economy. It is like, well, wait a minute now. If we want to try to, we need to actually strengthen the bonds. Of community. And it starts in the schools. And we just can't, you know, like this, the imposition of this fog of oppressive secular humanism on this country.

It's amazing. And for the longest time, we've been a very religious people that just happen to have very irreligious rulers. And over time, that can't last long. You see a winnowing away as each generation becomes more secular and drifts further away from the faith of their fathers.

Yeah, it seems like, I appreciate you said that. It seems like we've, it seems like almost intentionally, or maybe it was just a combination of ignorant decisions, removed the framework for people to understand or grapple with suffering seriously. And it would just drive you crazy, or you would end up... You know, living in hatred or something like that, because you would have no concept of the cross, no concept of redemptive suffering and no concept that we exist in. We exist eternally.

It's beyond what's going on right now. And I know that the girl who lost her life in the Brown shooting, a devout Christian, her pastor in Alabama, spoke about her at the homily. You know, as sad as all of this is, you know, it gives me, it makes me happy to know that, like, she had that framework, and that hopefully her family had that framework. So, beyond anything else we could do, like, I don't, honestly, I've been blabbering all over my words, because I don't even know, this just disturbs me so much personally, I'm sure it disturbs all of you, is to pray for her, and to pray for the people that lost their lives, and for the repose of their souls, and for their families that, you know, peace and consolation can be brought to them, because The longer I live, I know that you can make fun of me as a younger guy.

I just start seeing the world more clearly as outside of my control, and that it is a struggle between good and evil at the end of the day, and I'm somewhat united historically to all of the different phases that we go through, but the struggle remains the same. It's against sin, it's against vice, and hopefully to live a life good enough to be able to stand in front of God. You know, be satisfied with where I am, and everyone has that individual journey, and everyone makes little decisions and little compromises that either bring you closer towards hell or bring you closer towards heaven, and only through supernatural grace can you really move the right way.

So, pray for the reposed soul, and yeah, at the end of the episode, we're going to be hitting the prayer, but that's all that I can think about doing right now. Just so sad. Okay, on to B Block now. Sorry, that was kind of a heavy opening, but we live in heavy times right now. But I wanted to give an overview on Trump's executive order on AI state regulations. It is very interesting to me. I think I saw a poll, like 80% of Americans say the government should prioritize AI safety, even if it results in slower growth.

So, this is clearly on people's minds. Trump thinks he has his solution to it. Some states disagree. But as of December 11th, he signed an executive order titled Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence. The primary goal is to promote U.S. leadership in AI by preventing a patchwork of state-level regulations that the administration views as burdensome to innovation, economic growth, and competition with China. It seeks to establish a unified, minimally burdensome national framework while curtailing states' ability to impose their AI rules.

It's especially important because I think about half of states at this point have some type of legislation that does combat AI in one way or another. I think the executive order actually singled out Colorado. They have laws against algorithmic discrimination and high-stakes decisions, for example, hiring and lending, California transparency and disclosure requirements for AI models, including risks of catastrophic harm, and then Utah and Texas also have laws, broader AI governance acts. So, everything from deepfakes, privacy bias, safety testing, energy costs, it is becoming clearly a statewide issue, as a lot of places put it in data centers, etc.

So, I have a couple of provisions from the executive order for us to think about here. It establishes an AI litigation task force that directs the attorney general to create a task force within the Department of Justice solely to challenge state AI laws in court. Challenges could argue that these laws unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce, are preempted by federal policy, or are otherwise unlawful. Identifies onerous laws the Commerce Department must evaluate and list state AI regulations deemed harmful, those requiring disclosures based on speculative risks, or potentially forcing ideological biases like DEI into models.

Funding pressure agencies like the FCC are instructed to consider withholding federal grants such as broadband funding under the BEAD program from states with conflicting AI laws, so there's going to be a little bit of financial punishment there, and then directs agencies like the FTC and FCC to explore policies that could preempt certain state rules on deceptive AI outputs or disclosures. It also tests the White House advisors, including AI czar David Sachs, You guys might recognize this name. You gotta have a czar.

You gotta have a czar. With preparing legislative recommendations for Congress to create a formal federal framework preempting conflicting state laws. It does have some carve-outs. It specifies exceptions, such as not preempting state laws related to child safety, data center infrastructure, or state government procurement of AI, so that's good news. I think everyone's kind of on the same page with those as they should be. So, that's what we have right now. We'll see as this all comes down. As I said, There are some fault lines that do not go on party lines.

Ron DeSantis has been especially outspoken. He called the order a subsidy to big tech, expressed concern that it would dilute states' rights. Steve Bannon, not a huge fan. AI needs more regulation. Calling it the most dangerous technology in the history of mankind that will lead to a jobs apocalypse. I know many people feel the same way. Bernie Sanders has chipped in similar concern, very similar to Bannon. So, Josh, I can't remember the last time we talked about it. I think you were a little bit sympathetic to a federal solution to this, as opposed to a state-by-state solution.

How are we feeling? No, I was actually along with Ron DeSantis. I mean, I get the idea of a patchwork, but... Executive orders, this isn't really going to get much of it done, but I just said, if there's a federal thing to be done on this, if it is done, it needs to allow states to provide additional protections, and it can't override that. That's my biggest concern. So, if Florida wants to do strong protections for their children because of AI, please, by all means.

We've heard all these crazy stories about AI, and now there's these AI toys. And they are like sentient beings, practically, and you cannot, you know, they will tell you horrible sexual stuff, but the thing is, like, you cannot also criticize the Chinese leader. Do you see that? The little AI toy, like, freaks out. I mean, I almost tempted to buy it just to do it for that, just to mess with it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, the Chinese leader, he looks like Winnie the Pooh.

It is not appropriate for you to make a comment like that. Oh, you want honey, too? I mean, that's no surprise. I mean, there's foreign governments. Remember, DeSantis is carving out a Trump isn't smart enough, or not smart enough, isn't MAGA enough thing. Because remember, I said he's got an opportunity, because there's going to be no delta between Trump and Vance, really, on all the issues. And Vance is still, by far, the man to be in the primaries.

Between H-1B visas, there is an opportunity for DeSantis to attack Trump on for getting weak on this, and then also on AI. It is like, why would we allow a future Democratic administration to tell states they cannot do this or that? It is politically wise. I actually also agree with it, and I am not like a total DeSantis guy. If I voted today, I would probably vote for Vance, but anyway.

Erika, how are you feeling? I'm feeling like I would rather leave it to the states, as usual. Like, let the states go. We'll have some states that are highly regulatory when it comes to AI, and just sort of let the marketplace decide which approach is best. I'm allergic to allowing heavy federal regulation. I understand the interstate commerce thing. It's in the Constitution. I'm a fan of the Constitution. But I also worry... In setting the stage for future administrations, which might be less friendly to conservatives than the conservative vision of a good America, like say Kamala Harris gets in.

Not going to happen, I understand, but somewhat along those lines, and there's already this sort of federal oversight that... That challenges states' rights to regulate their own commerce within their borders. Not a fan. So, I'm with Josh on this one.

I would rather leave more of it to the states and see what happens. But it's a brave new world. It's crazy out there. It is a brave new world, that's for sure. Because, yeah, Trump is... Wait, wait, wait. I have a little plug here for The Deep. If you are thinking about how do I handle this personally in my life, The Deep last week was my own personal lines in the sand when it comes to AI. What does that look like in my home?

What does that look like for us as Catholics? People who are serious about living a human life, where does that happen? So, you know, the states are going to give us some lines. Trump wants to give us some lines or fewer lines, but in our own lives. If you want to check that out at the deep from last week. Yeah.

It'd be great to get the... I know there's the AI 2027 people. I think he was like a final member of OpenAI, and they obviously have lots of concerns about what they created, what they let out of the jar. So, they're acting as a bit of a watchdog now. It unfortunately feels to me like the, oh, we got to race against China, almost always pressures people into making bad decisions, like rash decisions to use the big boogeyman, we got to do this now, and just give rights to...

I am personally really concerned about the big bailout I think we are going to give a lot of these AI companies. They are already asking for preemptive guarantees because many of them are going to go bunk. I just think that is obvious writing on the wall here. It is for progress. It is for the future. But, of course, I think back to the Luddites, what happened to the Luddites after they were... Factored into oblivion, most of them ended up on poverty wages, and their children got diseases or started working, or they emigrated out of England.

So, yeah, I think everyone's feeling it. 80% want some type of safety. It's coming way too fast for a lot of people. And if it isn't implemented in a way that's going to be pro-human, pro-worker, I'm kind of out on it. Let's put it that way. So I think it's probably easier for them to lobby at the federal level, a lot of these big companies at the federal level, than to have to go state to state to state to state to state.

And so I'm just kind of ignorant on a lot of it. I would much rather have them to have to go state by state by state by state by state. Absolutely. Slow it down. Which would just slow it down by proxy.

Uh, yeah. And then marijuana. Okay, we need to talk about marijuana briefly. All right, now, of course, we're going to get the people like, well, it's just like alcohol. I'll address that in a little bit. The Trump administration, we got good info from Tim Foil Tom, that the Trump administration is preparing the issue in executive order regarding the reclassification of marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 under the Controlled Substances Act. This would be a major shift in U.S. cannabis policy.

Right now, it's all at the state level. So, state by state by state, I think almost half of states now have legalized marijuana in some form. And so, to reschedule it at the federal level would take it from Schedule 1. Which means high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use, same category as heroin.

Schedule three, moderate to low potential for dependence, similar to ketamine, anabolic steroids, or Tylenol with codeine. Tylenol with codeine, interesting. Ketamine has not been great, if anyone knows about K-holes. So, key impacts, recognizes acceptable medical use federally for the first time, so this would be a big change, eases restrictions on research and medical access.

Provide significant tax relief for state legal cannabis businesses by ending the IRS Section 280E penalties. Currently prevent deducting normal business expenses, leading to high effective tax rates. Follow the money. Could improve banking access and reduce federal enforcement against state programs, which, like, all states just rolled over on, by the way. Like, it's everywhere. I was at a hotel two nights ago, or it was, like, last night, and someone's smoking a fat blunt. In Ohio, like right in, so like the door, you open to the hotel, fat blunt right there.

It was so, it smells so bad. People have no shame anymore. I would have been a little embarrassed to smoke a cigarette that close to the door, let alone a huge marijuana blunt right in my face, just blowing the smoke right in my car. It was crazy. Shame is so cafe, Tom. But cannabis stocks are through the roof right now, 50% for some companies and ETFs. So yeah, I mean, come on. Money is through. I don't know how to do this.

I'm not a lawyer. People are going to say, well, we did prohibition for alcohol. Marijuana hasn't made any state better. Who is this for? Is this for the marijuana companies that are basically snapping up billboards and making our community smell disgusting so they can make money off that? It makes people literally go crazy with psychosis. It messes with your hormones, increases risk of heart attacks.

Horrible for pregnant women. I've even seen some studies recently. It's not actually that good medically. There's debates on that. So, I've never met someone that was a heavy weed smoker that I've been like, they're really killing it in life. They're super motivated. They're getting after it, and then it makes every downtown smell terrible. So, I'm like, can I just, as a citizen, I don't know what this makes me on my political ideology. I don't want it. I don't think it's good for anyone.

I don't think people should do it. I've maybe changed a little bit of that. I think it was a little bit more free love on that one. If anything, we should allow the states to continue to change their mind on this, because we're seeing certain rollbacks, like Massachusetts and others, that are saying, maybe this wasn't the best idea, and they're pulling back a little bit, away from the edge on this. I know that my state of Michigan did it because Democrats wanted to make sure people got out and voted in 2018, and it worked.

Has anyone looked around and be like, we need more drugs? Thanks, Trump administration. That's really been great for the country. So, we are, CatholicVote, just by the way, totally opposed to this potential idea that they're floating of rescheduling this, and so we're going to, we're sending out the alarms. We're going to activate our voters here at the CatholicVote base, and we're going to tell them to contact the White House. Tell them, no, we don't want this rescheduled. Catholic voters do not want this, and this is not good.

It's not good policy for the country. 100%. Okay, but how would you answer if someone was like, well, why not just ban alcohol? It's way worse. More people drink. It makes people more violent. It's worse for society. What would you say back to that? I don't care. That's basically it. I just don't get this idea that a drug that bakes your brain is worse than moderate alcohol use. Now, people who get drunk all the time or drive drunk, those are problems.

But, like, you know, the casual consumption of two or three drinks doesn't make you, you know, doesn't fry your brain, doesn't make you a bakehead. I mean, like, I don't see how this idea that they're, I've never been convinced by those arguments. And by the way, I'm not like a total.

You know, I used to drink a lot more than I do now. Like, now, I maybe have a drink every other week or so. It is not really a big thing. I am busy with my family and my kids and doing this other stuff, you know, but like, I have never found. The arguments between alcohol, comparing them to marijuana, to be at all convincing. And especially, by the way, we're not talking about this kind of lame, dope stuff in the 70s.

Yeah, I was going to bring that up. This stuff is being manufactured as much more potent and laced with other stuff. It's not the same ballgame. So, no, there's, you know, and by the way. I can walk down a downtown street, and it is very rare for someone to be drinking on it, but I am much more common to get secondhand marijuana smoke if I am going up and down a downtown street, so why do I care? I mean, it is just bad news.

Yeah, 100%. I was just going to say, the analogy with alcohol might have worked back in the 1990s when I was in high school, but at this point, it is just a totally different ballgame. When it comes to what's in the cannabis at this point. I was just poking around for some stats as well, and the rise in states that we have longitudinal studies, because some people are like, oh my gosh, this will be amazing for science, because now we can finally study it when it's going to be a class three.

We already have all the longitudinal studies that we need to know that this is a really bad thing. In states that legalize it- Are two eyeballs to look around? Can you sniff? You can't hide just walking in Union Station. I mean, I was in D.C. this weekend to pick up my daughter, and it stank. It just smells bad when you're outside. But the number of- I was reading a study on the rise in accidental pediatric either deaths- of children or addictions in children, because when you legalize this stuff and you have gummies lying around the house or you have your joint lying around the house, in the states that legalize it, the number of children who encounter it has gone up so exponentially, and it has become a real issue in states like Colorado, Massachusetts, here in Connecticut.

So, the danger to children, yes, alcohol, your kids can get into your alcohol bin, but apparently, when it comes to the gummies, it's a much... Bigger issue and the danger to kids. So, yeah, and like you said, Josh, the states themselves seem to be walking it back. The fact that Massachusetts might have, they have a pretty good shot at a referendum at this. They just need another 10,000 signatures to put this on the ballot next year. But the states that have tried it, the people don't like it.

They don't like having this. I want to do a longer video on this. Eric and I talked about this. Yeah, let's do a deep episode on marijuana. I've noticed. A shift, and I'm curious if anyone else knows this too, like if I was back in even high school or something, like high school or like middle school, I feel like there was kind of the, with vices in general, with gambling, with marijuana, it was kind of, you would have been made fun of, even with stuff like eating healthy.

Um, you'd been like, oh, you're, you're weird, or, you know, you're eating healthy, you know, you should be having junk food, it's no big deal. Like, the kind of, like, rationalization, like, ah, you're kind of square, whatever. I don't know what has happened, but if I talk to people, there's, like, a specific strain of secular, um, Like, on the offense, against gambling, against marijuana, in favor of eating healthier, maha, porn, big time. Porn was the one that actually kind of got me into this conversation because I remember at times, like, I went to a public middle school, and people would, like, make fun of you.

They would talk about their favorite, you know, whatever, and, oh, you're not doing this. And now there's this, like, it's totally not religious, by the way. I think that there's overlap, of course, but there's just secular people who are, like, it is actually lame now. That you are gambling so much, or you are smoking weed, or you are watching pornography, and I don't know what happened there, and I actually feel like it's now a bit on the inverse.

My working hypothesis is that as we've institutionalized vice... It kind of means that rebelling, like being different, is actually rejecting the institution, which now every other ad is for sports betting, marijuana signs everywhere, like that has kind of become the hegemon, and it's actually kind of now the countercultural, like, you're actually cool if you reject the very obvious, very accessible thing, and I think by proxy, it's making people a lot more sober and clear and impressive. I think we're actually reaping some benefits, strangely.

Not always, because there's people that, you know, the problem with the gambling stuff is that it's basically designed for you to lose, and people that are highly, exactly, shocked, but actually literally is, and the people that are most susceptible to it now have a casino in their pocket and have lost. I mean, put their family in a terrible position, whatever. That is still bad, of course, but I think maybe a small win or something is that the attitude, the wind has totally shifted on this in a way that I think is for the best in your heart of hearts.

I am excited about it. The percentage of the population that gets on that wind expands rapidly. I think it will. You know, it is not necessarily an obvious Christian message that... All these influences in society are trying to keep you, you know, sedated and scrolling and watching, you know, porn and doing sports gambling and smoking weed and this kind of stuff.

I mean, Christian conservatives are like, yeah, yeah, we've been saying this forever. And now that we get these secular-based guys who are like, yeah, this is a horrible thing that these corporations are doing, it's a welcome addition, and that's wonderful. So, coalitions, let's go. Dude, this is a cool personal story. I wonder if anyone's experienced this, too. The same thing happened with technology. When the first iPod Touch came out, it'd be like, oh, everyone had the games on their phones. It was kind of cool.

It all felt very cutting-edge, and I just got a drink with a friend. And he, from out of town, and he flipped his phone around. He's like, hey, check it out. And he had, like, a dumb phone. Like, he had, like, the screen just had, like, four options on it. He's like, dude, it's the best. Like, I'm off all social media. I just did this. Like, you're now bragging about your lack of technological access that would have literally been unthinkable. And I'm like, everyone who's, like, I do the same thing now.

And I'm talking, like, almost evangelizing people. Like, dude, it'll change your life. You're not anxious. You don't miss it. You don't... I'm almost a little bit stressed that my phone's not bricked. Like, I talk about brick all the time, and I think it's exactly right. It's like people realize that it's no longer, like, kind of fun and new and cutting edge. It's like, oh, there's actually people trying to sedate and control me, steal my time, steal my attention away from things that would actually make my happy, and try to, like...

Like your kids. Exactly. Like, manipulate you to make you angry about this or make you angry about that so that you'll spend more time, that you'll act in the way you want to act, and it's like it's a real act of, like, freedom and... And personal autonomy, to just be like, I'm taking active steps to reject that, whether that's weed, gambling, porn, technological addiction. It's actually really sick. I'm bullish on the future of young men in this country.

So, anyway, that leads into good news. Erika, what do you got? All right. This is like a sports good news. So, on Friday, the Congressional Gold Medal Act was signed into law, and it was honoring... The miracle on ice. The 1980, so 45 years later, the 1980 U.S. Olympic men's hockey team, yes, the one from the movie, Miracle on Ice, with the Congressional Gold Medal for lifting the nation-inspiring generations and helping shape the future of hockey in the U.S. I just love the photo.

They got the guys from the original team at the White House behind Trump. They are all wearing these white cowboy hats. Now, you can see some photos from that original game. Went down in history, we beat the Russians against all the odds, and it is still one of the greatest movies, greatest family movies that you can watch with your kids. And it's the greatest sports moment of all time. Greatest story. I was going to say, like, the movie's awesome, but the moment itself is.

What was the call in the broadcast, Josh? Do you believe in miracles? Josh, yes! Unbelievable. Someone so iconic. Yeah, so a long time coming, but what a great moment in the White House. Mike Ruzzioni. People from Minnesota and people from New England can actually get together and do things. Isn't that cool, Erika? Yeah, it's nice to reach out. Look at that, Josh.

All right, Josh, what do you got? So, Scott Besant decided to go ahead and nix several DEI-inspired coins that the Biden administration had planned for the 250th anniversary, and now we have more coins that are going to be celebrating the founding fathers, the pilgrims, Thomas Jefferson. So, big difference here. If you can see, they are going to do women's suffrage. They are going to have the iconic women's suffrage, and they are going to have the iconic women's suffrage. So, let us get Woman, young girl in Arkansas, the whole desegregation, which kind of reminds people of sort of our darker history, you know, I think it was a good call to shift attention to having figures like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington.

We have aspiring liberty. It is just, it is awesome. Yeah, much better vibe for 250-ish. Important point, they hate it on r slash coins on Reddit, so that is how you know it is going to be. If anything is hated on Reddit, that means it is probably the best thing ever.

Just go to Reddit and find out what they hate, and then that is probably a good idea. Opposite. Yeah, so mine, I got, so cute. Two very cute sports moments. So, Indiana, big time. So, the IU students at the Newman Center stopped their Christmas party to watch Mendoza win the Heisman.

Fernando Mendoza, he goes to the church at IU. Where was the, did they have the name? It is Father Patrick Hyde, who is the man. He is the man. OP. Totally the man. Here is a video of them celebrating.

That's the quarterback getting the... Yes, highest reward for the best player in college football, and here's Father Patrick. This is one of my favorite tweets in recent memory. I was actually in Indianapolis for this game. I wasn't in the stadium, but here's Father Patrick celebrating the big win. He said, as I distributed Holy Communion at Sunday evening mass at the IU Newman Center, it hit me. The joy we experienced winning the Big Ten title is but a sample. A simulacrum of the joy, everlasting and unshakable joy, Jesus offers us in the Eucharist, in the church, and as his disciple.

Come on. Yeah. A little taste of heaven. Come on now. Shout out for Nanda Mendoza. Just seems like the nicest guy. Shout out IU. But the other one, of course, Phillip Rivers. Whoa. Got off the couch. I would love to know what he was doing last Sunday, because in a week, he was with his 10 kids at home. He was probably at mass somewhere, and he got the call. He was coaching high school football, right? Coaching high school football, and he got the call and said, hey, we need you to play the feared Seattle Seahawks defense.

Let's see what happens. And he did it, and I was closely watching this game because, I mean. Coming off the couch, hadn't played in four years, he's 44 years old, playing for the Colts, and here's a quote from him, be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you, and he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Yes, because I couldn't imagine facing the Seahawks defense after coming off the couch, but there were some great moments in press conference. They unfortunately lost, they almost won, and he threw a touchdown, which was awesome, but it was so awesome. He had a press conference, and I loved his answer.

Hopefully, you know, certainly I think of my sons and those ballplayers, you know, that I'm in charge of at the school. That they'll say, like, crap, coach wasn't scared. You know what I mean? It's like, shoot, sometimes you, there is doubt, and it's real, and you, again, you can, the guaranteed safe bet is to go home, or to not go for it, and the other one is, shoot, let's see what happens. You know, and so, yeah, I hope that, in that sense, that it can be a positive to some young boys, you know, or young people.

It doesn't have to be boys, but... Grandpa of the year. Grandpa of the year, no question. Here is another one. You know, maybe it will, I don't know, inspire or teach, you know, not to run or be scared of what may or may not happen, you know.

Hopefully, you know, certainly I think of my sons and those ballplayers, you know, that I am in charge of at the school, that they will say, like, crap, coach wasn't scared. So cool. Yeah. Noom Chepi, and then all his high school players got together at a restaurant, and they were all cheering him on when he threw that touchdown.

It's like, could you imagine your coach? So, was it just that one game? It's like the rookie. Is he heading back now? I think that Riley Leonard, the backup, was injured, and he might come back, something like that. But he might actually play again. Yeah, you don't know. He might play again next week. And he threw a touchdown, and they were...

Right there at the end, they hit a last-second field goal, but then the other team came back and did a field goal. But, yeah, it was just adorable, so I was super happy about that. Shout-out, Phillip Rivers. Beautiful family.

Yeah. Sweet. All right. Church Corner. One thing, Josh, if you've got to take off, you've got to take off. Well, let me just get into my twilight real quick. Sure. I just want to let you know, and then I've got to get going, but everyone's, you know.

My friend Steve Cortez here at CatholicVote put together this poll, and it showed that Catholics were not happy with inflation, and I understand why. I go to the grocery store, too. I just want to let people know about the fact is that we are at a 73-year low on the amount of cattle supply that we have in the United States, and people blame drought, feed inflation.

Avian flu, all this other stuff, but the fact is, this is actually an engineered crisis. Started under the Obama administration, finalized under Biden. A bunch of regulations resulted in a systemic reallocation of agricultural land towards non-consumptive conservation uses under the banner of climate resilience. I saw this story.

From beefnews.org, between 2021 and 2025, they report the Biden administration implemented a suite of interlocking environmental economic policies that resulted in cattle herd contractions, notably the America Beautiful 30 by 30 initiative, federal plan for equitable long-term recovery, resilience, the Bureau of Land Management's public lands rule, and all these other efforts. What it has done is that the national herd has fallen to its lowest level since 1951. With beef prices at the retail counter exceeding $8.50 a pound for choice cuts, this is a problem, and I do think Donald Trump is trying to do his best to turn these things around, but it is not like chickens where he is able to move on chickens faster, but for cattle, it is three years between birth and when you can actually harvest the meat and stuff like that, so you cannot do as quick as a turnaround on it.

Is that why he's messing around in Argentina, like with the beef? I think that's, you know, I mean, first of all, we have a good relationship with Argentina, with Malay, and by the way, the right winger won in Chile, which was kind of cool, too. Yeah. So, we might see some opportunities to increase our beef stock, but the reason why that sticker price, I mean, it's like, it's amazing. Like, you look at other meats, and it's like, why is ground beef more expensive than pork?

You know, it's like crazy. Yeah. There is a reason. It was engineered that way, and it was by the Bidens, and with that, I do have to get out of here. I love a good government-induced famine. All right, Josh, go save the country.

Peace. All right, the one we wanted to hit before, Erika, if you are Twilight Zone, so another thing we definitely want to bring up here is this is a problem. Tim Fulton put it our way. There is a defunding of catechists for soldiers.

And so, the U.S. Army has canceled a wide range of religious support contracts for chapel services, including coordinators of religious education, Catholic pastoral life coordinators, and musicians, as directed by a March Army Installation Management Command memo. Archbishop Timothy Broglio, head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, criticized the move in a pastoral letter, saying it overburdens Catholic chaplains, harms Catholic chapel communities, and disproportionately impacts the free exercise for religion for Catholic soldiers and families, because there are relatively few Catholic chaplains.

And the Catholic faith requires ongoing education and sacramental preparation. He also warned that the cuts have left chapel offices dark and services reduced. He's urged legal and legislative... Legislative action in response to the Army says it will re-examine the canceled contracts and emphasizes its ongoing commitment to religious support for all service members. I think they need to re-examine it a little bit harder.

A little faster. Yeah, this is shocking. So, our military, of course, between 20 and 25 percent are Catholic in our military, which reflects the broader American population, and yet only 6 percent of the chaplains. In the military services, our Catholic priests, our Catholic catechists, so there is already this sort of discrepancy and systemic neglect of our Catholic servicemen and women, and I think the hopeful thing about this story, if this had come to light, you know, five years ago under the Biden administration, almost no hope of any action being taken, right?

You think of the staff at the time. Wait, but he is Catholic. I heard Biden was Catholic, yet to be confirmed. Interesting. He's a devout Catholic. He likes the whole rosary. Yeah, he was at the Eagles game, though.

Yeah, that's the first time I've seen him in a while. I was like, I'm glad he's at least getting to enjoy some football in his retirement. That's right. But the good news is, with Pete Hegseth at the helm and the Trump administration, the people who are in place now, it seems like something could actually change here, and that we could see a full restaffing and even an amping up. But, you know, I've known a couple of priests who have, one from the Dominicans, shout out Father Joachim, who actually left their...

assignments in order to go become military chaplains and shout out father kevin peak there there is such a need for catholic priests in our military so if you know anyone who's even thinking about leaning in that direction i thought this story did a really good job of bringing that to the forefront as well and like i said under the current administration there's actually hope that something might be done about this and absolutely there should be because if you Anyone deserves the full panoply of sacramental services and preparation.

It's our servicemen and women. Word. All right. Twilight Zone, Erika. Oh, my gosh. I'm going to need a deep breath for this one. We had several surrogacy and IVF scandals come out over the weekend. I'm just going to limit myself to one. This is a Wall Street Journal investigation into a court case that actually happened in 2023, but it was never reported in the wider media.

So, the Wall Street Journal investigation found a growing trend of ultra-wealthy Chinese elites. Using the largely unregulated U.S. surrogacy market to have dozens of children born in the United States, and this goes back to our birthright citizenship argument that this was an easy way for them to guarantee American citizenship for their quote-unquote families. I mean, we thought Genghis Khan was bad. This is like Genghis Khan meets the 21st century technology. So, this particular case that... The Wall Street Journal uncovered. Zhu Bo and the education CEO of China, Wang Yu, turned to California, of course, surrogacy clinics.

Which are almost entirely unregulated. This, of course, is the home of that Chinese couple that bought the big house and had like 16 American-born children in there. Shipping genetic material to create IVF embryos, so they were the fathers, they shipped their genetic material over to America to have these IVF embryos created in petri dishes, implanted in American surrogates, and born on Californian soil. The costs are estimated to have reached $200,000. ...per child and granted the newborns automatic U.S. citizenship under the 14th Amendment because China bans the practice at home.

What practice? Surrogacy. Oh, they banned surrogacy? Yeah. One thing in which the Chinese government and I... Good job. Thumbs up, China. Thumbs up on that one. Yeah, so Zubo, the man at the center of the scandal, said he hoped to have 20 or so U.S.-born children through surrogacy, boys, all boys, because they're superior to girls, who could one day take over his business. Also sounds very Chinese, unfortunately. Yes, very Chinese-coded. Take over his business, and because they were American citizens, his business would now be...

American and Chinese. Several were being raised by nannies already in Irvine, California, as they awaited paperwork to travel to China. Zhu calls himself China's first father, and is known in China as a vocal critic of feminism. On social media, his company said he actually has more than 100 children now born through surrogacy in the U.S., and this judge in California, to his or her credit, they actually have never before denied parental rights to parents who commission children through surrogacy, but in this case, denied zoo parental rights over the multiple unborn children waiting to be born.

...in their compound in Irvine, citing his absence as a parent. And the whole thing, it's like... This is the sort of case where conservatives bring their concerns. They're like, this could happen. This is like a fever dream. And the response, it is. The response we get is that would never happen. That's not happening. It doesn't happen. And then the Wall Street Journal is like, actually, it did happen. Wait, so, Erika, do you have any predictions on how long it will be until it actually happened and it's good that it happened?

I'm going to give it, well, probably Wall Street Journal dropped it. The New York Times will pick up on it in about three months. And after the New York Times picks up on it, then we will start to get all of the talking heads on the Morning Sunday News show saying, oh, this is actually a good thing. This is actually a good thing. This is actually the blessing of liberty.

Yeah, that's how this goes. So, this almost feels like it was made up. This almost feels like it is a made-up story to convince people to get rid of the 14th Amendment, at least when it comes to birthright citizenship. I mean, if this is not the silver bullet that ends birthright citizenship, we are just... So broken, and we can't respond to real-life crises like this at all. We need to end the anchor babies, because we have a Chinese billionaire with 100 American-born children who aren't even his children.

Kind of genius. Bad? Bad. Let me put it out for the record. Totally bad. Bad. Do not do this. Totally bad. Genius loophole, though. Genius loophole. I mean, he saw it, and he went for it, big time. Not just one, too. He's like, a hundred. A hundred? I am the Genghis Khan of my time. All the children will have my... Yeah, and so I know in this show, we've talked about the marijuana. I'm totally on the state regulation. The AI stuff.

I want the states to be... Go a whole hog. But when it comes to surrogacy, we need a national ban ASAP. This is totally federal stuff. It should be ended. We do not need patchwork surrogacy laws state by state. We need a national ban now. And it's crazy. We have no regulation. It's absolutely insane.

We can't. We got to be one of the... Because Italy banned it. Italy banned it. They were one of the first in Europe. Europe also has very, very hands-off, but the conversation in Europe, if you're talking to influencers, public intellectuals, they have become much more cautious about surrogacy, and there's much more advanced conversations about regulating it over there than here. If you want more on the surrogacy crisis, check out my interview with Katie Faust I did a few weeks ago. She is at the forefront of this battle.

And the struggle here in the United States is that we are so nice, and like the nice people in the Midwest, you tell them these stories, and they're like, that is so evil and disgusting. You are making that up. They don't believe you. And I'm like, we have the receipts. It's happening, guys. No, I think at this point, people in the Midwest are like, I'll believe anything, man. Life has gotten so crazy. Life has gotten so crazy. Yeah, exactly. Depending on where you are.

Yeah, this one's a no-brainer. I think we just got this. From your lips to God's ears. Yeah. Fourteenth Amendment, Birthright Citizenship, done, surrogacy, banned. Surrogacy out. I'm out. That's what I'm voting for in 2028, people. No surrogacy, please. No surrogacy. So bad.

All right. Oh, is this for me? This one's for you. I felt like someone was channeling a little bit Erika here. I'll just play the clip. I thought it was very interesting to think about. Here we go. You know, you don't always live in an era where there's an important one, you know, in your town that you can join. In general, that's not what people do with life, and what I think has happened is, well, frankly, I'm going to connect it to the sexual revolution.

The sexual revolution creates the opportunity to get one of the most Profound rewards, in fact, the most profound reward that the universe has ever produced, as far as we know, without having to invest very much work at all, right? So, by making sex common, it totally altered the way people viewed the number of years they had to live, right? They could afford to put off child rearing.

Right? It could be distant in the future, which left all of these young people with all of this energy who might well not have been involved in movements if they were struggling to, you know, raise a family. But because the family part has been put off so long, right, it is considered abnormal to marry early. It is considered normal not to.

What people do is they take the energy, the seriousness of purpose that would ordinarily be directed into managing a marriage and the role of being a parent, and they put it into something. And Heather has pointed out that this is especially powerful. With young women who seem to take on causes, you know, and they defend them like a mother defending her child. Yes. That's a very powerful force, and the point is, if the idea is, well, climate change is a threat, and your role here on Earth is to make sure that that threat is addressed, and you put the mama bear energy into your climate change work, well, you know.

That's pretty frightening, especially if climate change isn't the threat that it's been made out to be, right? You have a large number of mama bears doing this ferocious work, and there's a question about what it even is, whether that's even in the top ten list of concerns we ought to have. So, anyway, the connection I wanted to draw is that the— The projection that you're telling me Elon has made about high income for everybody is a little bit like another version of that, right?

It's like, okay, well, sex became relatively easy to access as a result of reliable birth control plus abortion, and then now wealth, the ability, purchasing power, is going to become trivial. As a result of AI. I don't know if that's likely, but let's say that Elon is right about that. Well, okay, then what exactly is supposed to structure your orientation to the universe? What is supposed to give you purpose if it's not producing kids and protecting them from the horrors of the world and making them strong so that they can go out into it and accomplish important things of their own?

And it's not creating wealth so that you will be rewarded and that your spouse will smile on you, whatever it is. Then what is human purpose? I think this is a terrifying prospect that everything might be taken care of for us and leave human beings listless.

So good. We're going to end up like the fat people in WALL-E. It's WALL-E. Yep, that's what will happen. Slurping. I love Brett Weinstein. I mean, he's an evolutionary biologist, and his wife, Heather Hying, who he referenced here, I actually got to interview her about a year and a half ago about these kinds of questions. And they're not believers themselves, but they're... Kind of of the large Trump tent that he, you know, they were first, eyes were opened under COVID and sort of the extreme DEI.

They were both persecuted terribly at their university out in Oregon. Was he an intellectual dark web guy? Um, their podcast is called Dark Horse. That might be what you're thinking. I think... He might have been. I can't remember. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's a fair assessment. Um, but yeah, this is great. He's actually had, yeah, I, in general, what I've seen from him, even like his, um... He had pretty good takes on the Fuentes situation, like the young men situation, like that were not hysterical and not, you know, whether I disagree or agree with it or whatever, I thought that they were pretty reasonable.

Like, he had a pretty good reflection on a lot of it. And so, as soon as I saw this, I was like, oh, Erika, sexual evolution, she'll appreciate that. She'll love it. I did. I did appreciate it. And, yeah, maybe that gets back to the regulation with AI. Everyone's feeling it.

Because, I don't know, can anyone mount a serious defense that, like, the abortion pill and... Not the abortion pill, but birth control, mass birth control, abortion has not radically altered, not just how we live our lives, but even how we relate to the opposite sex in many cases.

I would argue in many ways not for the better of the human person, and even if you go back and read Ram Navarum and a relationship to work, to private property, to purpose, What at least is being promised, as he's saying, we'll see what comes through on it, it would disorder the human person in our relationship with work and human flourishing, no question, in a way that could be super negative for the vast majority of people, and at the end of the day, the soul, which would be the most important, as the sexual revolution has, I think it's just totally marred the souls of.

You go back to the book of Genesis, and you look at what are two of the sort of primal characteristics of what it means to be human. So, we're made in the image and likeness of God, and obviously, a big part of that is God's own creative power that it's to make.

It's to build and to create things. And people always point to the verse after the fall, where by the sweat of your brow, you will eat, you know, the thorns and will choke up your food and all. But John Paul II made the point that work, in the sense of the creative work, is part of who we are. And the other piece, of course, being be fruitful and multiply. So, our sexual complementarity to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.

With what I think Brett's pointing out in a secular evolutionary biological way here is also a very theological Catholic Christian understanding of what it means to be a human person, and when you take those away the way that the pill did with the sexual revolution, and Elon sort of, oh, you won't have to work anymore, vision, and you will be rich.

The human drive, who we are, the shape, the form of what it means to be human, that's not going to go away. And so, what you see is this sort of perverse playing out of that motherly instinct when there's no more children. He talks about climate change, but, you know, list the cause. When you have a vast swath of young women with no children, that energy is going to go somewhere else, and it will, because there's no child there, it will be misdirected.

To our detriment. So, on that happy note, I would actually urge, watching the whole interview, he's a really, really fascinating mind, genius-level thinker. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Heather Heiling, too. Yeah, he's on Rogan. Yeah, he's been on a few times. She has, too. Yeah. We're a good conversation. Right, definitely an interesting lesson. Okay, so we're going to end with prayer today. Great show, guys.

Let's pray. Yeah, let's pray, seriously. But yeah, we got shows this week, Wednesday, Friday, got The Deep coming on Thursday. Go check out last week's edition if you want more loopcasts. That was a good one. But we're going to pray. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

O almighty ever-living God, who by the cooperation of the Holy Ghost didst prepare the body and soul of Mary, glorious Virgin and Mother, to become the worthy habitation of thy Son, grant that we may be delivered from the present evils and from everlasting death by her pious intercession, in which Whose commemoration we rejoice through the same Christ our Lord. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Have a great Monday, guys. We'll catch you later for the Wednesday episode. See you then. Peace.