We Have A New President: What's Next For CatholicVote?

And we're live. Welcome to LOOPcast, brought to you by The Loop, every American Catholic's favorite morning newsletter. I am, of course, with Josh and Erika, and yeah, there was some news dropped yesterday, right? I think big ones for our organization. Josh, if you would like to share, as this was Catholic Votes kind of your baby, we have a new president. This is awesome. I'm very excited about CatholicVote's next chapter. We're still waiting on Brian's confirmation the United States Senate goes at its own time, but the Board of Directors for CatholicVote decided that we needed to get ready for our next chapter of CatholicVote's history, and the Board of Directors have named Kelsey Reinhart as the new president of CatholicVote.

Kelsey's been working here at CatholicVote for just about a year or so. So, she comes to us with a tremendous executive experience. She was in charge of, like, was it six news agencies on five continents? I mean, it was an incredible thing that, you know, just editors from Africa, from Europe, from all over the place, Europe, sending you emails at all sorts of hours. It sounds like the most horrendous thing ever.

And kudos to her. She brings a lot of experience, of course. She also, in addition to a credible executive and media experience, she entered into the Dominican Nashville, Nashville Dominicans. And in fact, someone in my own community here in the Northland entered the same year that she did. So, I just ran into her friend.

It's pretty funny, but in the last year, as she was a Dominican, she felt God calling her to enter into the culture, and God needs warriors in every field, and we have a warrior in Kelsey Reinhart. And I'm very excited. This is great news. She is amazing. She is sharp as a tack. Yeah, our president just got a lot better at basketball.

That's right. That is true. No shade on you, Brian, but... Yeah, I'm sure Brian could probably hoop a little bit, but Kelsey played at Notre Dame back in the day before she entered the convent. And, yeah, I just... I personally, I mean, I just... I just... I don't know how much I have to contribute other than personally, I really like Kelsey. I think she's a fantastic, she's been a fantastic leader so far with Zeal. Anytime you talk to her, it feels like you're the only person in the room.

She has a great job of maneuvering complex problems, topics, everything like that. I guess, bigger question, and Erika, I want you to share it too if you have personal thoughts, but what is the direction? I think a lot of people are wondering. We have a new president. Brian's going to be going off to the Vatican here hopefully shortly. I know that he's somewhat jammed up by Democrats, but where do you see as the next evolution of CatholicVote? What you can share now, of course, but I think people would appreciate it, Josh.

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, I mean, You know, CatholicVote has done a good job as advocacy organization to make sure, because part of what we do, we want to try to get as many Catholics as possible to participate in public life. One aspect of that is voting, and we want to make sure people get registered to vote, that they know who the candidates are, what they stand for, and sometimes politicians say they favor something and they're not really telling you the truth, so we're there to keep them honest about their voting records and that kind of stuff.

But then there's also the other element of it. It's like, you know what? Voting is one very important thing you do, but it's usually only every two years, and so we found it very important to be able to say, well, you can't trust The mainstream media to deliver the news in an honest way. Frankly, some of these religion reporters I've talked to, they're not really even religion reporters. They're like the business reporter that, oh, wait, something's coming up with the church.

I guess I have to write about it. So, they don't even understand the subject, that material that much, and then when they do, or even if they don't, they totally slant it. They get the wrong impression. They don't cover accurately. So, we as Catholics, like, why would we rely on the New York Times or ABC News to Tell us what's really going on in the world, you know, and so that's why we got involved by doing the loop and eventually expanding our entire news team.

So, Kelsey has been obviously incredibly helpful with that element of it, but so, for our standpoint, like, it's not just, you know, sending out voter cards and getting people to register to vote and telling all the politicians about it. That is one very important aspect of what we do, but there's, you know, we need A full-service organization that brings it to mind, like, here's what's going on in the world today on everything from soup to nuts. We are Catholic, so we care about the pro-life stuff first.

We also care about religious liberty. We care about our culture. We care about the books that are being taught in our schools and our libraries. But we also feel like we have a seat at the table on every issue. We want to talk about immigration, the environment. The economy.

You know, what are we doing on wages, taxes, all this stuff? We don't think we should shut up about it just because we're Catholic. No, we're going to talk about everything that's important, even though there are some that are issues that are more important than others. So, you know, Kelsey brings a wide breadth of knowledge, obviously, on all these issues and more, and I'm very excited about it. But I will say this. Actually, ESPN covered her announcement, not the most recent one, of her becoming president of the CatholicVote.

But when she decided to enter the National Dominicans, here is a star basketball player from Notre Dame, and now she's entering and becoming a nun. They always say nun. Yeah. She's a religious sister, but that made the news, you know, 20-some years ago when that happened. That was kind of funny.

I call them nuns. You are not supposed to call them nuns. They are active sisters, no? Nun is the term for the cloistered religious. Really? So, they stay in the convent. They do not go out typically. That is nun, and then sisters would be the third orders, who are more active in the world and have an active apostolate. So, for example, Nashville Dominicans, as well as the Ann Arbor Dominicans, they are teachers, so they will go to schools and you will teach.

So, if you have... A woman in a habit, and she is teaching your kids, that is a sister. A nun is the one that is closer. But, I mean, that is the technical term, and people will say nun anyway when they see a woman dressed in a habit.

It is not like, oh, we are going to slap you on the wrist. It is not the 50s anymore. Yeah. Thank you for the help so I do not insult the sitting president that signs off on my paycheck. Thank you for that. Josh? But I will say, too, I think we were talking about this internally as well. The attitude, building off of what you said, Josh, of Catholics deserve a voice. Actually, the world is better that Catholics have a voice in terms of politics, like organizing politia, organizing society.

I think it's important to kind of acknowledge the moment we're in right now. We have a Catholic vice president, and who knows, maybe we have a Catholic president, you know, four years from now. There's Catholics littered in this White House right now, you know, like Bishop Barron's on the Committee for Religious Freedom. We're living in a completely different time where our voices actually not just are out there, but are being heard in positions of power everywhere. And so, I see this as a tremendous opportunity for The organization, but the organization represents very normal, everyday Catholics that just love their faith, live it out, work normal jobs, but want to see someone speaking for them and getting things done on their behalf.

And so, I think for me personally, I've never forgotten the mission here, is that, you know, we represent, we are, we are a part of a very normal, faithful Catholic movement within the country that just want to feel like they're being heard and things are being done on their behalf. And that's very much, I think, Kelsey. To a T, like brings that to the table. So, I am excited for the future. Yeah, and it is important to realize, I mean, there is a lot of different Catholic charities that are out there, and they are doing very important and good work from all these Chesterton schools.

I had a chance to meet with those guys last weekend, to Apostolates, like Word on Fire, the Augustine Institute, you know, all the Catholic colleges. There are so many of these great things that are flourishing, and they are doing well.

But they are, they are operized and organized as, you know, charitable non-profits, and that's okay, that's fine. Yeah. CatholicVote is the one that's organized as a 501c4. We're a political activist organization. And so, what that means is we can finish the sentence. So, we can, you know, other organizations, you know, can talk about transgenderism and abortion, all that other stuff that's very important, those hot button issues. We're the ones that are like, we're organized.

Legally, so that we can not just register people to vote, not just tell them about the issues and say, hey, by the way, these guys are bad. Don't vote for them. And these guys over here, I'm not saying they're flawless or perfect, but we think you should vote for them. It's up to you to make your own call, but we're able to finish the sentence. And I think that's an important attribute that CatholicVote brings to the table. I'm not trying to say we're better than everyone else.

They're doing important work. As these charities, okay? CatholicVote has to finish the sentence, though. We have to be the ones kind of protecting the wall and saying, hey, you know, and make sure the bad guys aren't elected.

Finish the sentence. 100%. I like that. I like that. There's like tip of the spear, finish the sentence. This is great. Got a new line today. So, Erika, we haven't heard from you very much because I see that you've had your bourbon. You've gone over the decision. I sat down with Justice Thomas last night, guys. This was great. This was great. We briefly talked about this. I think everyone wanted a more detailed, in-depth breakdown of the Supreme Court decision about Tennessee and...

The, I, I, so. I think people are a little bit confused as to what the decision actually was as well. So, it has to do with transgender surgeries for minors, but did the Supreme Court here say, okay, it just can't be done anywhere? Did they say, all right, bring this back to me under a different context? Erika, you spent the time. What's going on with the test you were on? Right. So, the case that came down this week was United States v.

Scrimetti, and what it did was it upheld a state law, Tennessee Law SB1, which prohibits puberty blockers. Cross-sex hormones, genital mutilation surgery for the purpose of treating gender dysphoria in minor children. So, the rundown is, the great news is that we had a 6-3 decision.

I'll leave it to you, gentlemen, to guess who the three were. With Chief Justice Roberts, he wrote for the majority. It dealt a significant blow to the transgender juggernaut, as our friends at First Thing put it. curtailed the strategy of the left to use courts to overthrow state-level laws curtailing these practices. And so, we are protecting children here, not only in Tennessee, but essentially what this does is it also upholds the laws existing in 25 other states from the harms of these, quote, transition procedures, which are irrevocable and absolutely detrimental to children.

So, that is the good part of the decision. What people are heralding as sort of the not-so-great part is that in the majority opinion, which is the actual ruling itself, the justices did not rule yet on the more fundamental definitions of the human person, which means we will likely see this transgender issue surface in the courts again, probably very soon, given that this is the hill the left is choosing to die on. So, for example, the opinion uses preferred pronouns to refer to certain cases.

And it talks about transgender boys and transgender girls, which is language that assumes the ontology of the left, that there are people who were born in the wrong body, quote unquote, which, of course, is not true. I just wish I would have gone with neutral. Yeah, just do neutral. You could have actually crafted this to not. You know, agreed with their pronouns, but also not, like, rubbed it in their face, in their mind. I am not saying it would rub them in the face to use the correct pronouns, but, you know, you could have done a deftly neutral.

Yeah, the other, yeah, it is interesting why they did that. Not sure what Roberts was trying to do there, other than maybe, like, throw a bone to the left, but in this case. Yeah, it seems to open the court up to future challenges on this matter. So, I am just going to read a couple of quotes from the majority opinion, and again, many thanks to First Things for this analysis. The majority opinion held that the Tennessee law did not involve a sex-based classification, but instead, quote, prohibits healthcare providers from administering puberty blockers and hormones to minors for certain medical uses, regardless of a minor's sex.

Classifications that, quote, turn on age or medical use, not sex, are subject to, quote, rational basis review. In this case, the court found that the state has a, quote, legitimate, substantial, and compelling interest in protecting minors from physical and emotional harm. Policy questions, such as those raised by Tennessee's law, are best left to, quote, the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process. Again, impact massive here. And not only are we upholding the laws in 25 other states, hopefully soon in all 50 states, but also Tennessee's law, this means it provides a blueprint that has essentially been proven constitutional for other states to take action.

And hopefully now, the Republicans in Congress can do something about this on the national level as well. So, I mean, just some great poolside reading here for the ladies with the concurrences. Or fire, though. So, anyone who's worried about Justice Amy Coney Barrett, this puts a lot of those fears to rest. She and Justice Alito and Thomas, they actually went all the way and talked about- They went further. They went further in their concurrence. They said transgender status, this is what we have to say about it, they rejected claims that transgender gives you status as a protected class under law.

Like race or sex or something like that, yeah. Right, and if you remember during the oral arguments, Ketanji Brown-Jackson and Sotomayor, they were trying to equate being transgender, identifying as transgender, as the same as being black or as being a minority race. They make the distinction, they say, unlike race, transgender identification is not innate, it is not immutable, nor is it immediately apparent. And they talked about the... I mean, the whole point is, obviously, the whole transgender advocates are trying to say that sex is not immutable, so you can switch from back and forth, like it's one or the other, guys.

Exactly. Either sex is immutable or it's not. Unbelievable. Yeah, it's just crazy. And then Thomas, my friend, Justice Clarence Thomas, devout Catholic, he wrote his own separate concurrence in addition to the one that he joined with Alito and Barrett, where he cites Dobbs, and he says, quote, the regulation of a medical procedure that only one sex can undergo does not trigger heightened constitutional scrutiny. So, in medicine, it matters. If you're male or female, and the doctor should not be scrutinized for using that information when they're making medical decisions.

Hello, and neither should states when they're passing laws about these things. I just loved this, too. This is so along our lines, guys, LOOPcast. He just tore into the idea that the courts and legislatures have to defer to expert classes. Listen to this. He says, There are several problems with appealing and deferring to the authority of the expert class. First... So-called experts have no license to countermand the wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative choices. Second, there is no medical consensus on how to best treat gender dysphoria in children, which actually Chase Strangio was forced to admit under oath during the oral arguments.

Third, notwithstanding the alleged experts' view that young children can provide informed consent to irreversible sex transition treatments, and fourth, there is no medical consensus on how to best treat gender dysphoria in children. Whether such consent is possible is a question of medical ethics that states must decide for themselves, for there are particularly good reasons to question the expert class here, as recent revelations suggest that leading voices, WPATH, in this arena, have relied on questionable evidence and have allowed ideology or medical profit to influence their medical guidance.

Mic drop. I just, I could read this all day. This is great. And now, of course, the left is calling for Chase Strangio's blood, if you pull up. Did you hear the mic drop line? Oh, did I even say it? No, I thought you dropped it. I was so excited. Ready? Quote, this is a useful, thank you, Rosie. This is a useful reminder that the American people and their representatives are entitled to disagree with those who hold themselves out as experts.

Right. I mean. I guess there's no longer a clause in the Constitution that says if you're an expert, you get to force the American people to agree with you every time. That's so cool. I thought it was always in there. It was like one of those in the penumbras or something like that. It was a penumbra, right.

Because the experts surely haven't let us down in recent memory, have they? Yeah, hello! They're about to drag us into a war, and then they also lied to us about COVID for three years, four years. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm not too keen on experts these days, unfortunately. And I do actually agree. I mean, come on, you're only doing the last few years. Yeah, I like, listen, even if you look at the last four years. There's the war in Iraq, there's the stock market meltdown, there's the housing bubble, there's the dot-com burst.

I mean, it goes back. Always. I think this might even be just a total side tangent. It is good for society to have. A class of people that they can trust and that are reliable, I'd say that many successful societies in history have. And maybe at one point they were in America, but talk about a total abuse of people's trust and whatever. Like, we have a genuine crisis. The fact that this reached the Supreme Court is, if nothing else, tells us we have a crisis of experts, right?

There is a crisis in the elites. Like, every society will have elites. Like, this idea that you'll never have any kind of elites is a joke. The problem is that, like Trump says about Mexico, they're not sending us their best. I mean, let's be honest, and to me, the most obvious and barf-inducing time.

Was during COVID, they're like, okay, so you don't want us to meet together. You don't want us to be in big crowds. You don't want us to, you know, we can't even go into certain sections of the grocery store. We got to be six feet apart. We got to do all these things. And then Black Lives Matter protests all over the, oh, well, you know, we have to allow for it. I'm like, oh, so you're totally full of crap. You are absolutely, you know, and so to me, like that was.

There was no ability for them to say, Oh, actually, yeah, no, you can't do that. You got to do it like this. It's like, no, it was all just a farce. Yeah, and like the same government that will, without any hint of irony on their face, will say, well, in America, you have rights, and the Constitution protects them, but we need to go bomb a place that we found out about, we need you to care about four days ago, because they violate their rights there.

And it's like, all right, I would love if we actually did have ironclad rights in this country. If anything, it's been proven we don't over the past four years. That's a continual struggle. I'm not saying that we don't, but that was all thrown out the window. So, it's just so hard. People wonder why someone like Trump got elected. If Trump got elected, he's the perfect reaction to abuse by elites for the last 20, 30 years, and they wonder- He'd be in jail right now if he hadn't been elected.

100%. He'd be in jail right now, no question. Yep. I think the decision to, it's sort of, I mean, you asked the question, like, how are we even, how do we even have a case before the Supreme Court of the United States that's like, are we, do we have to force states to allow children in those states to be chemically castrated? You know, at the advice of doctors who are saying, would you rather have a dead son or a live daughter to the parents?

Like, the fact that it made it this far. Yeah, yeah, and it's interesting. I was watching some of the reaction around, like, the New York Times, obviously, this morning. The Sarah McBride, so-called Sarah from Delaware, went on with... Oh, I saw that. Yeah, as for her line, I mean, explaining, and... She looks like a lady. Yeah, and all of them are, well, one, they're calling for Chase Strangio, who's the lawyer who represented the United States government in this case and was arguing for the chemical castration of children.

They're blaming this person because they didn't go with good enough arguments, right? They weren't prepared. And forgetting that at the time, everyone was lauding like, oh my gosh, history has been made, not because Chase Strangio made some amazing legal argument that no one had thought of before. But because Chase Strangio is a quote-unquote transgender-identifying person, and so today, they're calling for this person to never represent anything in court again. Next time, just have the shark up there. Exactly, exactly.

Don't DEI the person who's going up to argue before the Supreme Court. Right. Apparently, that worked for, you know, the three lefties. It was enough. It was enough. It's incredible reading their opinion. You haven't subjected anyone to Ketanji Brown-Jackson's opinion in which she said, well, there's no way for a doctor to go into a room and understand and know whether or not someone's a boy or a girl, right? That was in the oral argument. This is where we are. Yeah.

By the way. Unbelievable. It was amazing. The TSA happens to know who I am when I go to the airport. Yeah, exactly. A doctor shouldn't even ask, though, because a doctor is supposed to just do it like that. He's like, okay, okay, okay, why not her? There's no way to tell. Just to finish my thought there, so not only are they calling for Chase Strangio's blood, but they're also starting to say things like, you know, maybe we push this too far.

Maybe throwing in all the chips of the transgender movement on a case that was directly targeted at minor children and questions of their consent. Not the hill to die on? Maybe this was not the one to push to the Supreme Court. But then I love the line at the end of the opinion articles, every single one. It's like, because the American people aren't ready yet. They're just not ready yet. Maybe we should have slowed this one down a little bit. Right, that's the thing.

That's what they did with gay marriage. That's what they did with abortion. They kind of built it over. They took the time to try to slowly boil the frog of the American people's opinion on those issues. When I'm transgender, they wanted to use the microwave, and it blew up. Right, it was the kids. The frog blew up.

McBride actually basically admitted as much in the first part of the argumentation, saying, like, we've gone too far. And then the second part, completely disagree with. It's just like, how could you start with the right view so far? Well, my prediction is that they're not going to be able to do an about face. I mean, you know, the sensible Democratic position would be, whoa, we're going down a row. American people are not up for this at all. Let us turn the ship around, and let us get focused on issues where the Democratic Party could win voters with, but it is like between the transgender dead zone that they are going down, and also the fact that they were completely complicit and okay with an invasion of our country for the last four years through illegal immigration, I hope they continue on a destructive path because they deserve to go down in flames.

The Democratic Party deserves to become In flames, and a new second party. You know, third party become a second party. That'd be nice to see. Yeah, and that is exactly why the Republicans' Congress need to bring this to the floor immediately, because I would love to see the Democrats have to filibuster something that was like, let's just have a national pause on, you know, chemical castration. Yeah, make them argue it on the floor. Do it. Do it now. Have them filibuster.

Yep. I like it. Erika, that's a banger idea. I love it. Oh, thanks. Once in a while, I pull one out of the hat. You know what I'm saying? Banger idea on a Friday. Okay, good news now, Erika.

Oh, I love my good news. This is just a story I found on Twitter. The kids are going to be okay, guys. Oh, wait, that's the trans activist. I'm pulling up the wrong one. There we go. Okay, you see this kid on his lawnmower? Oh, yeah. Oh, I love this so much. So, Eva Dawson, who has a... I have a respectable following on Twitter. She has a story about her son, Henry. She goes, last week, he restored a hit-and-miss engine and needed me, mom, to purchase a flywheel online, and it was $205.

I told him he needed to pay me back, and he didn't want to take money out of his savings. So, he fixed up a few motors he had laying around, just for fun, and within a day, this is a 15-year-old kid, had made $180 to pay me back. I told him he still owed me $25, and so he... It's this story, this long thread of his journey through fixing up motors, getting a job. Finally, he gets this commercial-grade zero-turn mower. He gets all these jobs doing it, and all of this is in pursuit of his dream, which is this YouTube channel where he fixes up vintage artifacts and old trucks and makes them useful again.

And the mom's just reflecting on... This is what hard work and free time can do for a 15-year-old who's allowed to- Instead of being on an iPad all day. Exactly. Take away the screens, give them some motors, help them find something. And she goes, this is it. He's only 15 years old, and he has life figured out. He will not settle for a boring matrix job that I was pushing him to do. He only wants to live in his passion and do the things he loves outdoors on his motor.

He glows in situations like this. And I just- I love that story. Shout out to the boy. Shout out to the boy, Henry. Henry Builds is the YouTube channel. Yeah, Henry Builds. Maybe we could throw that in there because it's actually, I'm not big on motors. I don't understand. Yeah, there it goes. Everyone should check this out, though. Henry Builds, a model for all high school boys in terms of, I don't know anything about his character, but there we go. Awesome.

Josh? Hey, look, I mean, this is a good story with just that pang of, you know, nostalgia, the ache to go home. So, the Vatican media published this photograph of Pope Leo in a field, and it's like you can just feel him yearning for...

For the Midwest. He looks like Maximus Decimus Meridius from The Gladiator. I'm just saying it right now. This picture goes so hard. Just feeling the wheat. I'm sorry to our audio listeners, but just imagine, you know, like in The Gladiator, where he's walking through the fields, and he's touching the grains and wishing to be back home with his wife and son.

This, of course, Pope Leo, a little bit different, but aches, again, I think, to go back to the Midwest, to go through the fields and make his way to Culver's. I understand, brother. I love this picture. Isn't there something about him moving back into a summer house?

Yeah, this is yet another tradition that Pope Leo has decided to bring back, and Francis had a tradition of ending traditions. So, Leo's got a tradition of restoring traditions. There's the Castle Gandalfo, where the popes will vacation during the summer, because in, you know, like in August in Rome, it's like a swelter, you know, and so he's made the point, yeah, no, I'm planning to go there in the summer, a little bit cooler, and yeah, I mean. Well, and to take a rest, to have no audiences, and- Yeah, talk about the easiest tradition to bring back of all time.

Like, if I had- Well, it's one of those things where I just- I just, I hate the showmanship of other potentially previous, let's say, papacies without getting into it. Maybe it wasn't papacies, maybe it was just one. But it's like, I'm not going to go to this resort area. I'm a man of the people. It's like, the family gave this to the church that the Pope can do this.

Just use it. Honor the gift. You can still give to the poor. We all give to the poor. Just stop it. Just enjoy it. The guy works his tail off. He doesn't have a free moment for most of the year. Give him a little time to relax and to collect his thoughts. It will be good for him. I mean, for me, I would love to have a Holy Father. I would rather have a Holy Father who has a month off to go contemplate, reconnect with God.

You know, do some deep reading and deep thinking, deep contemplation before he pontificates, right? Like, that seems like a healthy thing to do for the church. Yeah, I'm all for it. There's some wisdom here, people. There's some wisdom in the traditions we have.

I'm going to need a summer house tradition ASAP. I need to get on that. Okay, mine, I have another very fun one. So, I love Corpus Christi, and the local news covered Cincinnati's St. Mary's. So, they dye these wood chip designs for the Corpus Christi procession, and this place is, I mean, it looks unbelievable. I think it's just going to be music, but.

They're like, art takes over a street outside of Cincinnati Church, but of course, you know, this is a tradition that goes back much, much further. Some places will do them with rose petals. At our church, we'll have floral, but it goes all the way around. The full street is believable, ornate, dyed. I love it. This reminds me of, they do it in Italy, too, around Christmas time, some of the churches, and the thing I spiritually like to reflect upon it, it's amazing because they make this gorgeous artwork, and it's hours and hours and hours of time to be walked on, right?

It is for the procession of our Lord to walk on it, and it's so fleeting and transient, and you're like, well, why would you waste, quote unquote, all this? Time and the money and the resources for something that you're just going to walk through and blow away, and it's for Christ. It's for Jesus, you know? Well, and it's also that you're, you know, like, I don't know, I grew up in the 80s and 90s Catholicism, which was just bland, and they never did anything special at my parish.

Nothing like this. It was just get in and get out in 55 minutes. You know what I mean? And by doing things like this, a Corpus Christi procession, where you're going outside of the church and trying to get onlookers to see what's going on, and then you take all this time to prepare.

The street, and have all these things colored. You bring in artists, you bring in people who have other talents, and other people are like, whoa, we're making a really big deal about this. Why are you making a big deal about this? I'm glad you asked. We're making a big deal about this because we're celebrating Corpus Christi. Oh, what is this? Oh, well, we actually believe it's not just bread. We actually believe it is the body and blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ himself.

Yeah. Really? Yes. Why don't you come join us? There's these opportunities. Use them. All right, everyone. Josh just scripted it for you. He made it as easy as possible, so get out there and do that in your parish. And it builds the community of the parish. It gives people that pride in their parish, and it draws in new members of the community. I love our traditions that are out there. And there's someone in the chat who says, that's my church. So, hey, shout out.

By the way, Cincinnati is a very Catholic town. People don't know that. It's very Catholic. Cincinnati is awesome. Great churches there. I can tell the approximate age of our live chatters here because people, I'd say, under 35 have an AI picture and a name that's not their name. So, Cave Bear with an AI football playing bear, I'm going to guess, is on the younger side. Is Cave Bear the same as Fluffy Bear? We have Fluffy Bear, too, sometimes. K-Fair, is that you?

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I actually know who that is. He's an industry plant, but yeah, love Corpus Christi, love St. Mary's, and yeah, I'll be shooting a wedding at one of my favorite churches over the weekend, Sweetest Heart of Mary in Detroit. I think there are, we do have some Sweetest Heart people that listen to the show, I've emailed in. I mean, it truly is like, you want to talk about entering into the eye of beauty? This is like one of the most unbelievable churches I've ever seen in the Polish tradition.

You got pink hues, high ceilings, places just absolutely breathtaking. So, excited for that, and maybe eat some pierogies. Could be a good weekend. Okay, so on to the next section here. I think we're just going to jump right into Culture Block. Erika, you've had this prepared.

Headline, Trumpers make the babies and conservatives are happy. That's my headline. All right, I'm going to explain. Trumpers make babies, conservatives are happy. Well, let's start with the happiness. So, Nate Silver. Oh, we're going to start with fertility. Okay, we like fertility, too. This is an astonishing graphic. Institute for Family Studies dropped this analysis this week. Earlier in the week, the Trump bump, the Republican fertility advantage in 2024. And so, they analyzed Basically, bottom line, there is a clear relationship between the share of people in a county who voted for President Trump in 2024 and the county-level total fertility rates, according to the CDC.

So, what we see in the graphic, for those of you who are on the podcast, is these are fertility rates, the y-axis. So, these are still low. This is not like, oh, we've turned it around or anything by any stretch of the imagination, but we've got fertility rates.

So, 1.0 to 2.25, and then we have the percent of the Republican vote in the county, and all the blue dots are low, and all the red dots are high. Like, there is almost no crossover here at all. So, bottom line is, Republican counties... The future belongs to the fertile?

Yes. The future belongs to the fertile. Now, tricky though... Even the fertile in the United States are still not at replacement rate. So, we're still looking at 2.1 children per household. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah?

So, amongst the Republican cohorts you're talking about, the fertility rate is 2.1? Well, they're below, no, if you look at the numbers, there's a smattering that's above 2.0. Most of the red are still below replacement level. Okay. Most, the majority of the county. Below the 2.1. Yes. Gotcha. That being said, for communities, for counties that are above replacement rate, which is 2.1, although really you want to have like 2.6, but 2.1, all but one of them are red. So.

For the ones who are going to survive in the future, there is one county that went Harris. Is there just like a bunch of Amish and like a Seattle enclave we don't know about? Yeah. Well, and not only was it for Trump, but this pattern of the future belongs to the fertile and the future is Republican, it goes all the way back to the 2012 election. The difference is not as stark.

But the trend has been going on at least since 2012, which is how- But the start is getting bigger, in other words, because the variance was only like 8% back then. Now, it is 26 or so. So, it is continuing to grow. And then, if you start thinking about, imagine if we actually did deport so many of these illegal immigrants, and California does not have extra electoral votes just because they have all these illegals, which is what they do. They have extra representation at Congress because they have illegal immigrants.

Because it is based off the census, right? Right, because the census will count every person, whether they're here illegal or not. Right. And so, you start thinking about, like, we could really have a significant change in this country. It felt like for the last 30 years, we've been trying to fight all these political battles with more than just our arm behind our back. I mean, like two arms behind our back. I mean, it's just, I feel like, I don't know, the future looks bright.

And the Nate Silver thing you were talking about, Erika. Yeah, and this was another interesting one that came up. Nate Silver, formerly of FiveThirtyEight, or is he still FiveThirtyEight? No, he's not anymore. FiveThirtyEight is actually defunct, I think. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's funny because his handle is still NateSilver538, so it gets a little confusing, but this was funny, too. So, the title is, The Liberal-Conservative Happiness Gap Persists Across All Demographics. And so, overall... We have liberal happiness, you know, 53% saying...

You know, they're fairly happy. I'm sorry, that they're happy, and then conservatives, 68%. The highest happiness belongs to, at 73, the silent generation. Actually, 1964 or earlier, and all red, and Nate Silver goes, okay, not even sure where to begin with this one, but here's the thing. Trying to understand why conservatives are so much happier than liberals. And he goes, one thing I think we can say is that the correlation is not spurious. Age and religiosity matter a lot. Religious people are happier.

Younger people are sadder, which is so sad. But the liberal-conservative gap outweighs almost all other characteristics except age. And he's just like, why is this happening? I can't explain it. And I don't know. Josh, do you have any guesses? Well, I mean, remember the stats that we had a few weeks back about how so many Democrats have mental illness?

You know, they've talked to their doctors and said, you know, the doctor said, have you thought of, there is a possibility that maybe, you know, you have a mental illness. I hate to, I'm not saying that to dunk. I mean, like, you know, especially, it was even more so for women, women aged like. 20 to 45, it was just like way off the charts, and it's just like, because, you know, you are miserable, you know, and misery enjoys company, so you want to make everyone else around you miserable, too, and it's just like.

Well, you need Jesus, you know? Well, okay, so I had a couple of thoughts. Well, one, I think I agree generally with the pathologization. What would you call that? Basically, like infinite. And it's kind of like what reminds me of people that go to therapy, but then they just continue, like it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, basically. It's like, I am a person that goes to therapy, and therefore, if I keep going to therapy, I'm going to keep getting problems because you keep digging for them.

I'm curious, too, about the older generations, how this A survey was conducted because I think many older generations, they were just raised to not talk about their problems, so I think they might think that their life is better or that they're happier, even if it's the same level, because happiness is notoriously hard to gauge, but just because older people basically have a different lens of the world as younger people. One thing that I did notice is like, okay, if you're 85, 90 years old, You're just happier, because you're forgetting the things that are bad, and you're only remembering the good things.

I'm sorry. Oh, true. I mean, unless, unfortunately, you didn't have a good life, but yeah, no, for sure. I think that's an element. But I did see Gen Z, so it's 1997 or later, the happiest, so 56% of conservatives said...

They're happy, I think. And then Gen X, the saddest of Gen X is 53. That's only a three in liberal. So, liberal, Gen X, the saddest of them, 53, and then Gen Z, 56. That's like a pretty... I just see this, and I'm like, yes, I see the difference between conservative and liberal, and I think all those reasons are very obvious to me. But I see like an impending bomb coming up here with Gen Z just being... Very dissatisfied and sad, and I think there's many reasons for that.

I mean, I think there's cultural reasons, but I also think there's a lot of political reasons that are kind of sitting below the surface in that there's been this insane wealth transfer, and the future of young people, even young people that are optimistic and want to live a good life, it's becoming harder and harder to live, say, a family life and to get married and to afford a home, like all basic tenets of the American dream that I think... Kept people very happy and satisfied before.

And I don't know, I think AI just makes all of this worse, unfortunately. Like, we didn't talk about it today, but Amazon CEO came out and he's like, yep, we're going to be slashing because AI is allowing us to. So, a lot of those people are losing jobs. I think going to college is very much less so a guarantee of getting a good job or even being like a white-collar job. Maybe we'll shift back to blue-collar, and maybe that actually makes people happier.

I don't know if, like, we actually make things with our hands again, and there's blue-collar jobs available. So, I don't know, my read on this was less like, because it's obvious to me why conservative people are going to be happier, but I think the young-old distinction is much... I don't know, nerve-wracking maybe, or like sticks out to me more? I guess I'm not sure. That's just my personal read. I mean, it is concerning when the rising generation is the saddest generation of all, and you're pointing to some political and economic causes or exacerbations.

I think there's also, of course, the spiritual component, right, that the older generations, the boomers, the silent generation, I guess, is the one that they have here. That that generation was the generation engaged in sort of like tearing down a lot of the social institutions and traditions that That generate happiness, right? Like, you know, life, getting married young, working hard, all of these things, they engage in tearing it down, but they still get to enjoy the benefits and live off the fumes, right, if you will, of those institutions, of those traditions of Judeo-Christian morality, right?

They get to enjoy that still, and then it's their grandkids and their great-grandkids where it's all torn down. Like, there isn't that. I mean, we're seeing in conservative communities this, and even in some liberal communities as well. I had a piece in here that was in the Free Press for Father's Day by a young man who, or actually, sorry, a young dad. To me, he's young. He's actually like 40-something, but he's talking about stop striving and have a baby, basically. I should have just had babies first.

It's a really interesting piece from a secular point of view about that. But the young people having to sort of like rebuild from scratch these communities, so going out and trying to homestead, trying to find a group of like-minded parents in cities and suburbs, and it is starting to be rebuilt, but that Gen Z generation, they just got handed a mess, a wasteland, not only politically and economically, but spiritually.

Morally, too. And that's why I really am not surprised by the, at least we've stopped the bleeding, but I think there's been a, I think I can say, based with statistics, that there's a resurgence of religiosity in Gen Z males. For sure.

Unquestioned. Now, you know, how widespread is it? I'm not sure. And I don't think it's disconnected from the fact that there's so much instability, either in the personal lives, or the economic lives, or, you know, war, like we've been dealing with all this war as of recent.

If we could couple that with what you had said before, and answering and giving them opportunities to be able to climb forward, then they've got the religious, you know, as a backstop. And then build off of that and show them that, hey, we're going to make sure that we're going to have an economy where you can flourish and where you can do family formation. I think that's the big topic of the day, and that's why they're going to be talking about the big, beautiful bill in the Senate side, and they're already trying to weaken the child tax credit, so we're going to try to fight for that, make sure it stays expanded all the way to $2,500, not just $2,200.

So, we need to make sure we have those opportunities, trade deals where younger folks have the opportunity to make a living, and we can reshore some of our industry, and all those kind of things. I do feel like, again, wages have gone up, as we said last time, a pretty big spike. So, if anything, I do believe that Donald Trump And J.D. Vance are hearing these voices, and they want to make sure that Gen Z has that opportunity, just like so many other generations have had before at family formation, and an opportunity of a well-meaning job and the ability to build and buy a home.

We got to do it. Yeah, absolutely. I think. You were mentioning this before of stopping a striver, basically. My life has forever changed since having children, and even the... It is interesting how it impacts somewhat of your career ambitions. Not saying you're not ambitious anymore, but it just seems so...

Like, it wasn't what it was before, basically. It's like, this is all basically in service to my children. If it puts food on the table and provides a good life for my children, great. But anything beyond that of like, who cares? Like, what awards you get or what your title is? It's like, it just all of a sudden doesn't matter in the same way that it did before. I'm just speaking for myself personally. It shouldn't, right? And so, unsurprisingly, you know, people with kids, married religious family are the happiest people because all your happy people are the happiest people.

Happiness is at home. You go to it every day. You don't lack meaning. You don't lack purpose. I think from that article you were talking about, it was like, yeah, I wake up in the morning to wake up in the middle of the night to change poop. That's your best argument against having kids. That's going to ruin your life. Right.

Yeah, especially Father's Day. I had a fantastic Father's Day. Man, it just puts everything in perspective so quickly. And I think, importantly, why policy matters to prioritize family formation. Like, even the example of marriage. We have these debates over what is the definition of marriage, why does it matter, and of course, we've been led down the slippery slope into insanity, of course, as we talked on the top of the show. But it actually does matter in your policy and what kind of tax credits you give, whether or not you prioritize.

You know, fertile, life-giving unions in the country because it's a net benefit for not just your local community, but for the country itself in terms of tax revenue, in terms of, like, very hard, political, concrete, economic things. So, I just think the sector where we should find out those unmitigated disaster for all that. Yeah, we should find out those things that lead to long-term happiness and human flourishing. Gee, what a crazy idea. Gee, that's like the point of human politics.

The common good, human flourishing, right? And flourishing doesn't mean, like, you have a bucket list to travel, like, all over the world, necessarily, with, like, you know, no, what's, how do they put it? No inconvenient encumbrances that are, like, children. Well, and it's not just that, too, for sure. It's not just materials. That's what I'm trying to say. We've had well over a century of just ideological debates, ideology, ideology. It's like, okay, I mean, rather than fall for this recent fad or this recent ism, why don't we just truly study human societies and see which ones actually lead to long-term happiness?

Careful, you're suggesting classical education, Josh. What a concept. Love classical. Okay, got one story to get to before we get to the Twilight Zone here today. So, interesting news coming from New York. So, a Catholic convert burns pride flag at New York Catholic Church as outrage grows over blasphemous mass.

Now, what was this mass? Pretty crazy. This was in All Saints Catholic Church, Syracuse, New York. Where the pride flag was ripped down by some brave soul, as it says in this Twitter. Nice. Yeah, I don't even know how you count all the sacrileges we have behind me here for the audio listeners. I watched it.

First off, any church with this kind of roll-down projector screen, I'm out. But there's a pride flag over a cross on it. I believe the pastor referred to the Holy Spirit as a she. Change the gospel. Yeah, kind of freestyled. Yeah, we don't even know if it was a valid mass.

The biggest thing we should change here is go outside the church to the sign and change it to All Saints Anglican Church, because what are you doing, guys? And so, the Pastor Father Daily, so for Pride Weekend, let's have a nice hand of applause, especially for LGBT folks, invited Kevin Noble Ward, a woman who claims she is male and is affiliated with the Episcopal Church, to give a reflection from the pulpit in place of a homily.

Nuts. I don't know how this was allowed to happen. I don't know if there's been... So, I just want to be clear here. I don't think you should go to a private business and take their rainbow flag and set it on fire, because that would be inappropriate if it were a private business. Now, it happens to be a Catholic church. I love it.

Yeah, I would just prefer that it doesn't happen. Yeah, of course. I'm not saying I would have been able to stop from ripping it down and setting ablaze myself. Yeah, it's sort of the same as like the Pachamama thing, right? How the Pachamama statue ends up on the lake. Throw in a drink, baby. They threw it in the Tiber River. I thought it was Pachamama. Am I wrong on that? Yeah, Pachamama? I don't know. Pachamama? Sounds like Alpaca. It was a wooden idol from South America that was on an altar in Rome.

This seems to me like a similar gesture. So, yeah, I mean, people are like, well, you know, it was illegal, and you shouldn't steal. But, yeah, when you're talking about sacrilege. It's God's house. I mean, Jesus himself would have ripped it down and ripped it. He turned over the tables. That's what I'm saying. I wouldn't go into some library or bookstore that was doing that and rip it down. I think that would not be just, but I feel like, eh, it's God's church.

I'm pretty sure Jesus isn't going to throw me in a Gehenna for this. Yeah, I'll rip it down and return it to the earth. All Saints Catholic Church continues to promote LGBT-themed events, including pride community gatherings, LGBT seminars, and newly launched transgender support group set to hold its first meeting June 18th. I'm actually not sure who the bishop is here, but... This is the Diocese of Syracuse, so I'm sure you have a quick look on that. It's an opportunity for somebody to step up and do something.

I'm going to just hold my breath. Don't hold it too long, Josh. Pass out. Maybe this gets to a broader point that I have. It's funny. People are having these arguments online about lay people doing evangelization. ...and having a much broader reach in terms of media than actual clergymen and bishops. And it was funny, people were arguing about it, but just about everyone agreed. The bishops have largely just ceded their rightful authority to instruct and guide the faithful. I cannot... Well, I mean, look, I don't want to...

You don't want to hear from the bishop on this? I would love to hear from the bishop on this, I hope, but there has been the decision by some bishops in very large metropolitan areas to basically allow a parish to kind of go rogue on this.

And that's just in the same way that some bishops allow traditionalists to kind of go rogue with some satellite parish out in the rural areas, and they think that that is their kind of way of dealing with the problems, and I don't like that approach because, first of all, traditionalists are not a problem, and number two, The internet is here. It is not like the 80s, where you could go to a suburban Catholic church, which is kind of boring and bland or whatever, and then not really realize that the church in downtown is a total rainbow fest.

You know what I am saying? Because there is a lot of sight out of mind. But it is not like you do not know about this stuff. So, now there is the problem that the bishop is like, okay, gosh, we have allowed this to kind of… Fester for a long time. Do we just all suddenly one day come down hard on him, like throw the book at him? Yes.

I'm just telling you, I'm just trying to apprise you. I'm just telling you the truth. Yes, they should. Of course. What do you mean? This is the Catholic Church. What do you mean, what do you mean? I agree with you. I'm just trying to help you understand their calculation here. Let's just say I'm disappointed with the, I don't know, what do they call it, like company men or something?

This is, to me, what bishops are supposed to be for. They're supposed to be guiding their flocks. Okay, so here's one thing. Catholics who are very faithful to the teachings of the church think that Catholics, bishops, ought to be... In charge of quality control. Yes. For the church. And so, to the extent, like, if I just wanted to open up a restaurant and call it McDonald's, I'd have that shut down in an instant. Right. If I decided to become a McDonald's franchise owner, and I'm like, I'm just going to change the color from yellow and red to, like, blue and green, again.

I get the knock from McDonald's. Like, no, no, no. McDonald's has a way it does things, okay? Like, okay, fine, fine, but I want to also start selling, you know, flowers. Like, no, dude, no, no. This is who we are. Quality control. You don't go rogue. You have to ask us permission for any little item or differentiation you want to do. Oh, okay, okay, I got you. With the Catholic Church, people... Oh, my God. Catholics in this country have been so used to big companies exerting quality control over the products that we're just not used to the situation where bishops are kind of like, well, do your own thing.

Yeah, St. Joan of Arc, someone in the chat. Yeah, in Minneapolis, all too familiar with that. No bueno. In what world is do your own thing? Josh, I know you're saying this, but in what other world? Oh, yeah, contraception, do your own thing.

Right, so again, we have quality control. Like, if you go to a grocery store and buy a Heinz ketchup, you know what it's going to taste like. You know it's going to be good. It's like, what is this? There's rats, you know, insects coming out of this bottle. You know what it's going to be. It's very predictable, and the Catholic Church has not provided anywhere near that same kind of experience when it comes to ketchup. Right, which is one of the causes for why people travel.

...to different parishes for distances. I used to pass 12 parishes, but they closed them all down, so now I only pass three parishes on my way to get to the church that I attend. But part of it is that you walk into any New England Catholic church, and you don't know what you're going to get. You could get anything from what you see here at the New York parish to it looks like a TLM.

You don't know, and so, you know, we get messages from... Yeah, I got to look at the hymnal. Oh, okay. Right. Well, yeah, pretty much. There's tells. Look at both the songs. Go on the Google review. There are tells. You can see in the comments. But sometimes you're surprised. Like, I've walked into a barn of a church that's, like, in the round, and then the liturgy ends up being... That doesn't surprise me. As reverend... Because they place those, like, new reverend priests in the country, and then they completely transform.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But I'm saying, like... If the church is wedded to the geographic parish, then it seems to me that some kind of standard for the liturgy has got to be brought to bear, because otherwise people are, of course I'm going to go to a parish that will, the liturgy will teach my children through action and community prayer that this is the body and blood of Jesus Christ, that God is truly present here, that our church is beautiful and has a patrimony and is.

And is Christ's presence here on earth? Like, of course I'm going to drive to that if I have children. So, the only way to get this geographic parish thing back would be for that to be something of a priority, right? And there are dioceses that are doing that. Liturgy reform is one of the bishop's primary goals, but it takes time, too. It takes so long. I'm not a canon lawyer.

I think rightfully, clearly, this rightfully upsets people. You can't just freestyle liturgy. Who is at fault? To me, this is the bishop. The priest, obviously, but the priest is going to clearly do his thing. Who is supposed to be here to say, no, you are not supposed to be doing this. You need to change it. To me, that is the bishop. I mean, the book stops there, but at the same time, you have to have a little mercy on the fact that since the...

Since the liturgy, the changes to the liturgy back in the 60s, we have now raised multiple generations of Catholics who were told, who from their childhood have been like, yeah, it is whatever your local community wants to do. Yeah, it is freestyle. It is whatever church lady isn't that special, thinks is right for you and your community, because it is just a table. It is just a meal that we share. And so, bishops are, they also need people who will go along.

And who will help them in this effort? There is a lot of work to do. Erika is absolutely right, and it is not to be underestimated. I had a lady come into the Catholic bookstore my wife runs, and she is wanting to buy a Bible. She is like, this is such a weird experience for me. She is in her 70s. She is like, we were taught not to read the Bible growing up.

What are you talking about? What are you talking about? The Catholic experience in the United States has been one of widespread variances here on, you know, what people experience, what they've been told, what they, you know, and how they've been influenced by media voices, and, you know, yeah. So, I mean, I'm not expecting every Catholic church to be the exact same like a bottle of ketchup, but we do need to have, and actually, I'd rather it be done sort of like, At a bishops' conference level, so that way, like, okay, you know, because they're meeting, I guess, this week or next week or something like that.

It's usually June, yeah. But, like, don't, how about, like, as a starter, this is what Amy Welburn said, as a starter, maybe we should just, like, not persecute and say you can't do certain things. This is what the bishops of Charlotte and Detroit have recently done. They've said you can't do things that are allowed in the germ. The general instruction of the Roman Missal. It is like, why don't we just kind of like agree on at least this point? Like, we are not going to suppress that which the germ allows.

Exactly. That would be a great starting point. And maybe if we are doing things like... Like, giving the homily to an Episcopalian who's a man who thinks she's a woman. Maybe that should just, like, be a no. Is that technically in the germ, to just let... No. No, no. Okay, great, we have a standard. The germ says deacon or, right, a canon law, deacon or the priest. Yeah, but then someone's got to come in and enforce the germ, and to me, that's bishop.

That is the bishop. Yeah, so the bishop comes in and says, germ, if you're not, if you don't have germ. Right. And again, the problem, I would say, that a lot of conservatives or traditionalists would point out here.

It seems that enforcement has been lopsided, so that you get Bishop Strickland removed, and you get the TLM suppressed, and you get Father Altman removed from faculties and stuff like that, but then some crazy whack job thing, like you just pointed out in Syracuse, and you're like, is anything going to happen? But the enforcement always seems to be just one-sided. So, all these debates that we have, like the debate over the traditional Latin mass, like… Again, it is a debate in and of itself that is true, but they are also a proxy for a larger debate, and it is a question of reverence, whereas conservatives and traditionalists are saying, it would be nice to have more reverence in our liturgy, and any time you bring that up, you are treated like you are trying to sell drugs at a middle school.

That is kind of frustrating. Unless you're inviting Kevin to come give your freestyling. It's unbelievable. I can't believe that's a real place. It's a real Catholic church. Yikes. Okay. Prairie View, Syracuse. Josh, your 12 zone. Here's a palate cleanser. I found this. Megan Gallagher shared this on social media. This is pretty funny. Here's a Texan talking about his electric bill, and he's reading it like it's almost a novel. We got to hear the voice in this one. Shines not with hope, it come on a Monday.

The envelope bore no mercy, no smile, only that cruel whirling sun of TXU. A logo that shines not with hope, but with consequence. As if to say, you danced, now pay. I broke the seal back like I was peeling back the bandage on a wound I done give myself, and there it was.

$696.27. Now, I recall a time not too long ago when a man could just sleep with just a fan on. Box fan in the window, sheets damp with his own resolve. But then came August. August, that devil in cargo shorts. She comes with air so thick you can taste the mosquitoes before they bite you. And I... A weak and weary creature, I touched the thermostat, dropped her down to 71, the sin of comfort. I knew what I was doing. Each degree a betrayal, each hour a soft lie told in Freon, but I pressed on.

A man cannot sweat through three showers a day and still hold his head high at the HEB. Is this your cousin? I need this guy. Keep going. Now I'm shackled, betrayed, and bound by wattage and poor choices, and yet, I will do it again, for I have known the chill, and I will not go back.

That was beautiful. Whoever he is, I need to find him so he can write my next script. That was... He's got a future in audio voices. Yeah, if Stephen Herriot was an overweight Texan, that would be him. We have found his... I mean, if we moved him down to Texas and he started eating brisket every day, he'd get there real quick. That was amazing. That was beautiful.

All right, Erika, you're up. I don't know if I can follow this, and mine's just kind of boring after that. This is great. Well, so, this is the palate cleanser. I got rid of all the dark ones because it's Friday, you know. J.D. Vance, we're big fans of J.D. Vance. He had a brief 12-minute career on Blue Ski, which for those of you who don't know what Blue Ski is- Blue Sky? Blue Sky. Blue Sky. Oh, I watched too much Bluey, guys.

Sorry about that. We watched a lot of Blue Ski. We watched a lot of Blue Ski. We watched a lot of Blue Ski. We watched a lot These little moments of humility that make me think, oh, thank you. Erika is human.

Blue sky, like bluey. No, it is blue sky. So, blue sky, which is the Twitter alternative or the X alternative for people who hate Elon Musk to go. So, JD Vance, he posts this. He goes, just set up my page on blue sky. Hope to see you guys there. This was his first post. Hello, blue sky. I have been told this app has become the place to go. For common sense political discussion and analysis. So, I'm thrilled to be here to engage with all of you.

And then he posts the decision from Scermetti, this big fat paragraph about, and it's specifically the one that I just read from Justice Thomas about why appealing to the expert class is not part of the American jurisprudence. And then he responds to that. He goes, to that end, I found Justice Thomas's concurrence on medical care for transgender youth quite illuminating. He argues that many of our so-called experts have used bad arguments and substandard science to push experimental therapies on our youth.

I might add that many of those scientists are receiving substantial resources from Big Pharma to push these medicines on kids. What do you think? Any guesses how many minutes his blue sky? I think it was like immediately, right? It was 12. It lasted 12 minutes, and he was cut from the platform because there is nothing leftists love more than open, free, evidence-based discussion from all points of views.

That was quick. Although, they put him back on. They put him back on. Yeah, they banned him quickly, and then I think someone was like, isn't this kind of bad for... The growth of Blue Sky to just immediately ban the Vice President of the United States. Like, yeah, thought it over probably, so that, yeah, they must have brought him back.

Yeah, he's back on. Yep. Little trolling. They do a little trolling. I'm sure we have plenty of Blue Sky-ers in the chat here, so that's good news for everyone. All right, I have more good news. We, you know, us Christians, we now claim the highest IQ holder in the world.

Younghoon Kim, he professes Jesus Christ is God. He is the way, the truth, and the life. I think he said it's, what is his IQ? Like 290 something? 276. Acknowledged by the Giga Society, which I've never heard of the Giga Society, but that'd be sick to be a part of. I formed it.

I'd let him be number one if he would say that. There you go. Good job. And he turned the quantum physics as a framework for supporting his belief in God in the afterlife. He did show this video on his ex-con, which was interesting. He was talking about our consciousness is not just brain activity, but something deeper. Science says that when the brain stops, then our consciousness disappears, while quantum physics says... That information never disappears, never, it only changes forms.

He likened it to the cloud, like cloud computing, cloud storage, which I thought was very interesting. It is just a great reminder that there are people operating on such a higher level, higher plane of existence intellectually than I am, and it is always nice when one comes around and is like... Christianity is pretty sick. So, that is a big win for the Christian community. We got our boy, Younghoon. I would love to hear more of his thoughts. Very interesting cat. And, yeah, I think we could use some of his brain power for the upcoming, like, Neuralink and AI conversations.

And I am deep in it right now. I am going full steam on the, are there demons in your chat, GPT? And, guys, it is getting… Did you see that MIT study? Yeah, it is getting a little dark. It is not good.

The brief summary of the AI study, which we might cover more in depth, was a guy from MIT. What are they calling it? Intellectual debt or something like that? It is an interesting term that they coined. Basically, there is a sacrifice, a mental capability sacrifice if you use generative AI for stuff. They pulled them, like, do you remember a single sentence from an essay that you just wrote? And I think like 83% of them couldn't. Which is kind of nuts. And they did a test where they had people who used AI to write essays for a period of time.

And so they wrote an essay before, then they used AI, and then they stopped using AI to write again. And their performance, cognitive performance was like shockingly worse. So, where I'm at now, and we'll see what Erika's analysis is, I think it is useful. It has useful applications with guardrails, of course, if you're using it for research or whatever, but if it comes to actual, like, creative intellectual functions, it's like the same reason that, like, smart people play chess. Like, you use it to work on your brain as a muscle.

Yeah, it's like a workout. Yeah, so you just, it's like if you put on an Iron Man suit. And started lifting weights. It was like, well, your body inside is probably not going to be doing too great. Right.

So, yeah, lots of interesting thoughts on AI. I thought that Amazon, I almost appreciated the honesty from the CEO. It was just like, yep, we're cutting jobs. I was like, well, at least you're being honest with us. Not going to be a backhand cut, so scary times. But anyway, fun Friday show.

We got some love in the chat for... A fun Friday show. We kept it upbeat. We kept it light. We had a heavy week. We had some good foreign policy debates earlier this week. So, I saw a joke on Twitter. It was like, I can't right now, babe. I'm monitoring the situation, and it was just from a scrolling Twitter.

Coco's like, I feel seen. No, babe. I'm monitoring the situation right now. Cannot change diaper. Must monitor the situation. No, I'm monitoring the situation. I'm in the control room. Yeah, that doesn't fly here. Yeah, that one didn't really work.

Yeah, congrats to Kelsey. Excited for the future of CatholicVote. If you want to support us, join the Champions Club, CatholicVote.org slash champions is the best way you can do that. I promise. We do have a full YouTube video. It is very fun for the Chicago trip. I know I put that on Instagram, but we wanted to make sure we got the thumbnail title right, so we're dialing it up. It was a very fun video. I was happy to go. I think I'm definitely going to be taking more trips coming up here recently, and I love doing the man in the street, getting out there stuff, so more of that to come.

If you want to see more, subscribe over at the YouTube. That's where we do the show live. That's where all extra content comes out, and yeah. Great week, guys. Pray for us. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Pray for us, and we'll catch you guys on the next one, Ready to Rock Monday. Peace.