Kalshi Promises to "Financialize Everything", J6 Pipe Bomber Suspect, And Female Deacons

It's a beautiful side. We're happy tonight. No. It's cold here, man. It's like 11 degrees in Indiana, and we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. Are you good on the Christmas songs this early? Because I remember. I'm in. I've been in.

Uncharacteristically. I feel a little bit, a little build-up to it. Yeah, I'd say you've got to save some of the heavy hitters as you get closer, you know what I mean? Like, right now, I'm in, like, country music covers of songs, but I'm not dipping into Dean Martin. I'm not dipping into Bing Crosby. Right, like that, you've got to save that for the week. You've got to build to it. Right, very fast. Welcome back to the Lubecast. Welcome back. It is Tom, Erika, and Josh.

We have a fun Friday show for you. The show will be as follows. I hope so. What are we doing? I can't wait to talk about this. I've been thinking about it all day. We're talking about betting. If you want to bet that Erika and I wear the same color today, you would have won, and it is now possible, thanks to technology like Kelshi and Polymarket.

And so, we're going to be covering Kelshi's quest to financialize every difference of opinion possible and the consequences that has. I don't know. I'm a little bit torn. I'm actually really looking forward to talking about it with the gang to get their two cents. So, Kelshi. Kelshi is going to be talked about today. Second story, we have the FBI has arrested a suspect in the pipe bombing case a week after the blaze dropped an investigative report saying it was someone else, and they have now retracted that story.

The FBI, we're going to do an FBI section. It's just FBI potpourri, man. So much FBI. We're going to do the FBI. And then, C, we have female deacons. So, some will say a decision is made. Some will say it was punted. I had Erika look into that one. Female deacons is going to be on the docket today. We have good news. We have Twilight Zone, of course, and I'd just like to first say a thank you to our live viewers here with us in the chat.

Always fun to do that. If you guys have questions for us, go ahead and throw them in there. It's a fun Friday. We've got a great show. Okay. Prediction markets. Prediction markets might be the best rebrand I've ever heard. It's just, it's a cool rebrand of gambling, essentially. Like, name a better rebrand.

Not what the court said, though. Well, right. I mean, we allow for this on Wall Street, right? And now with sports betting as well. Well, I think I have a problem with sports betting, because I don't really... Josh, if you have a problem with sports betting, why not just bet on who the next pope is? You can do that now. It actually happened. There are... canonical problems with that. There used to be. I guess someone told me, last time I mentioned this, someone told me that it has been rescinded, but there was a period in Italy where there is a cottage industry on the bedding of the next pope, so much that people were trying to influence cardinal electors, and that is not a good idea.

And the pope actually dropped a bull, like a canonical bull, saying, I will excommunicate anyone involved in this. Yeah, I guess that is no longer in effect, but still, it feels unseemly to me. But there is a... The difference between gambling on sports and predictive markets, like whether or not you think, you know. The corn crop this year will not be as good. Well, Josh, speaking of unseemly, and to set this up, here's the two founders of Kelshi. They are the fastest growing company outside of any AI-related company right now.

Them and Polymarket have really dominated this prediction markets space, and so there was a viral clip, and everyone is debating it right now. So, I'll just show it to you and see how you feel about it. Tariq, you've mentioned multiple times that you think prediction markets will be bigger than the stock market. What is it going to take to become a trillion-dollar asset class? It's pretty much already close to $100 billion a year asset class, right? It's pretty easy to imagine a 10x from here.

We haven't even started. It's been a year. I think a very large number of people care. Much larger than traditional markets, and I think retail as a pie has just been growing in the U.S., and I think it's going to keep growing. It's growing in the stock market, but it's growing outside of the stock market. The long-term vision is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion. And I think if you do build a general-purpose exchange that can resolve differences of opinions on anything, like, the TAM is quite massive, quite a bit bigger than the current TAM of the stock market.

I think putting aside sort of the retail trading and the institutional trading product, like, there's sort of this... This separate product, which is like, we are living in a world where we have an abundance of information, but there's a lot of noise, and we don't really understand what's real from what's not, and prediction markets are an antidote to that. They do a very, very good job at distilling information and surfacing truth to people, and you're seeing this sort of massive shift where people are using them whenever they think about questions about the future, whenever they're debating about anything, and I think that trajectory is going to keep going.

That's a new consumer habit that I don't think is going to be undone. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure he likes it because he's making a, you know, boatload of money. Billions of dollars, yeah. I actually think so. Polymarket, the other guy... It's not that it has no edifying value. I mean, there's some value to it. And there were people that critiqued that as, like, this sounds a lot like when Mark Zuckerberg said that we're all going to be living in the metaverse 24-7, or that, like, the latest meme coin is going to be, you know, the future of finance or whatever.

Like, yeah, there's some things that are, of course, exaggerated for effect and then don't come true, but I think we need to, like, almost slow down, because, Josh, I know... People aren't wearing Google Glasses, though. Actually, they're still working on those, by the way. Well, Zuckerberg's cutting the metaverse, though.

Zuckerberg's giving up on the metaverse. He already kind of has. Yeah, you're too young to remember this, but Drudge was hyping up the one thing, and it turned out to be just like that mall cop thing that you ride around on a scooter thing. Wait, wait, the segways? The biggest thing ever. Yeah, segways. Segways are awesome. He was correct on that. I mean, it was going to revolutionize everything. It was like, no, it is just for mall cops to get fatter.

Wrong. Think about all the tricks you can do on it. Okay, so let me introduce the audience here. Yeah, let me back it up. Like, what is Kelshi? What are these predictive markets they were made fun of in South Park recently? Tim Dillon often talks about it, and this idea of a casino economy. So, here is the Kelshi website.

What is the first thing you can bet on? Who will be the first to leave the Trump cabinet? I like that one. How it works is there's markets for just about everything, as the guy was saying. Like, if you want to bet on, you literally can bet on if a certain CNN anchor will say certain words or what topics he chooses to cover, and you can bet money saying, yes, he will say them, or no, he will not say them. And again, this isn't like, the reason this is somewhat effective is it's not saying, oh, there's a 38% chance.

It's just saying 38% people have. I bet on, yes, he will be the first one to say, and the other people said, no, he won't be the first one to say. And I know, Josh, you've actually played around a little bit with this in politics, right, with things like predict it?

Yeah, I mean, predict is not that much different than this. I have done it in the past where, you know. I made a few bucks on this, where you bet, okay, who is going to retain Congress, who is going to win the election this year, for president, for who is going to win this Senate seat, and I am like, well, I actually know a lot of this information, and I put 20 bucks here, 100 bucks there, nothing, not like betting the farm or whatever, and then my wife found out.

And she got upset. Two confessions right here on LOOPcast. She's like, that's all you're betting? You know all this stuff. You should be betting more. I love you, Lori. That was one of the funniest things. And then, I come to find out, Brian, our old boss, he'd take all the information I'd say, and then he would make the bets, too, on what I said.

I get like a cut, and he goes, you got a job, don't you? They call him the Oracle for a reason. You know, the thing is about this, you know, I think some of this stuff can be fun, some of this fine. I'm not like, I'm not a Puritan on this, like saying that we shouldn't do any of this kind of stuff. I just, I would be perfectly happy with. A law that would limit the amount that you could bet on this.

Simply because you do not want people losing their shirts on this. There are people who go to casinos, there are people who do online betting or sports betting, and they lose everything. I would think there should be a lot more safeguards in place to make sure people do not do this. The thing is why this is different.

This is categorically different than markets like, I think, the Chicago market, where they bet on all the futures trade. There's an Iowa. Are you talking about the Iowa market? Well, I mean, or Chicago, whatever you want to call it. I mean, where they bet on corn, where they bet on all the different agricultural crops.

So, beef, cattle, pigs, all this kind of stuff, and it is not like they are gambling the sake of that. What they are trying to do is a lot of investors who know a lot of money, and they know, oh, wait a minute now, I think given solar flares or it is going to be a colder season, they are choosing to invest their money in ways that I think the cost of beef is going to go through the roof because of this or that.

And so, there is at least a purpose to what they are doing. I do not consider that to be gambling per se. I mean, obviously, it feels like gambling, but it is not. You are getting the wisdom from lots of different people who are willing to put their own money on the line, so I think that is a lot more edifying, whereas this kind of perdition markets, to me, if the government said, we are going to tax it at a higher rate than other earnings, simply because it is more of like a windfall category, which is what the government already does, by the way.

I don't know if you know this, so if you go to a casino and you get a big jackpot, like $20,000, you are going to pay on that higher tax than your marginal income tax, and it is because it is a windfall. I would do windfall taxes on all gains like this, the prediction stuff.

Yeah, like we do on Powerball or Mega Millions or something as well. Yeah, I think something that, the debate that I'm seeing here, and that came up during the court case, so Kalshi had to go to court because it...

Betting, not betting, but having these markets on elections and democratic elections, government stuff, that has been treated as illegal, and they thought that, well, no, we're not actually violating the law, so we're going to take this to court, state of New York, and they went up through the appeals process, and they actually got the courts to say that, no, betting on elections in this manner because it's not technically gambling is, in fact, not. It's legal. So, that was sort of the process of how they got here.

The argument, though, being that this kind of betting, I'm going to just call it betting, because that's what everyone who looks at it says it is. Right, it is. Maybe not legally, but it's betting. So, putting your money down on elections is inevitably going to impoverish democracy and harm democracy, because the same thing will happen here with elections that we've seen happening in... The NBA, sports. I mean, gambling is the death of the NBA right now. Yeah, would anyone say it's really remarkably improved, you know, the sports, integrity of sports, the experience of sports, other than, I guess, degenerate gambling?

I saw the founder, he came back in an interview against that objection, saying, no, it's actually good for democracy, because people put their money in the election, so then they actually do the work of educating themselves about the candidates. And getting to know the issues, but that's a bunch of crap. Yeah, here's why it's a bunch of crap, because there is a world of difference. In fact, I would say there's like a difference in category between educating yourself on the issues because you have a vested interest in the future of the country and wanting to make good policies that are going to serve the common good.

There's a world of difference between informing yourself as a voter for that and then informing yourself as a voter about. How the outcome is going to be so that you can make the buck, right? It's about the outcome, right? The legal point that you were bringing up before, though, is that the law did treat it differently than pure gambling, and the reason why, just to help people understand this, a roulette wheel is probably the easiest way to figure it out, right?

You spin the wheel, and the ball drops. It is either going to drop on red or black, and there is that small chance it lands on green, right? So, the idea, then, is it is a game of chance. I mean, you know, that is the truest sense of what gambling is, and so the law will treat A prediction market differently, because it is not just a game of chance. It is not a chance. You are actually trying to ascertain, based on all the information at hand, how something is going to happen.

That being said, that does not mean that the law cannot say, okay, you are right, they are different. We are both going to say no to both of these. They are both wrong. That would be perfectly fine. The reason why you would say no to, let us say, excessive sports gambling, I mean, again, I am not even saying we have to shut all of it down. I would be happy if it did. But if you did it along the lines of, like, only having bets of $100 or less, so that you don't get into the situation where You know, there's going to be incentives to try to tip the scale, and people will try to use insider knowledge because there's a case right now where somebody was working for Google and found out, you know, because one of these things in the predictions market is what's the number one most predicted, you know, search item for the year.

Well, the guy knows because he's working there, and so he makes a big bet on it and makes a lot of money. So, you do run into these problems with insider knowledge or whatever. Profited a million dollars in one day. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, so obviously, Kashi, or whatever that place is called, should... This is polymorphic, but... Nancy Pelosi's like, hold my beer, but yeah, that's about the same. Yeah, so they should have some rules, obviously, against this, and basically not give this guy his winnings, you know, obviously, because, you know, the whole system is operating in the sense that you don't have insider knowledge.

Like, there are rules that the SEC has in terms of exchange, you know, on Wall Street. That prevent you from profiteering off of insider knowledge. Like, oh, I know this company is about to go bankrupt, and then you, you know, dump your stock. Like, wait a minute now. You're selling it to people, you know, and basically frauding them. You're like, ha, sucker, this is going to be worth nothing here soon. Can I explain briefly, because people are like, why are we talking about this?

So, the reason we're talking about this is because it was very prominent in the 2024 elections. We were talking about the legal path to how it got to where it is. Kalashie just recently, in the last year, received... Like the ruling from, I believe it's the CFTC, to go about their business. Polymarket is still working on that, but Donald Trump Jr. is on their board. They're kind of an outsider crypto platform, the international player, but Kelsey currently has 60%. It more accurately predicted the presidential election than any pollster out there, period, and all the swing states.

So, now you can even bet on local elections, any election up and down. You can bet. There was actually a market available for how many acres the LA wildfires would burn, and of course, now you stop and think about that, and you're like, oh, there could be an opportunity to manipulate that statistic. That's probably not good, but the reality is- And it's also just kind of shameless. It's a tragedy. Why would you- Super shameless, right? Like, why would you profit off tragedy?

But that's, of course, where this is going, right? We talk about this stuff, people, because it's important to talk about this stuff. Yeah, no, but my thing is that this is here, right? Like, Kelsey just striked a new media partnership with CNBC. Days after its CNN deal, the big players are recognizing that this is so accurate, like the data is so valuable, that they're partnering with something like a Calashier or Polymarket. Polymarket is valued in the billions, and they haven't made a single dollar.

They don't even charge for transactions at this point. So, I think my point with this... Is, and I understand the arguments for wanting accurate data, accurate insight that's not going to be colored by other motivations, but at the end of the day, you are the product. And I guess I'm just continually frustrated with the direction of the economy in which you are treated as the product instead of the product being made really well, and then you buy it, you own the product.

So, for anyone curious, like, We're basically taking advantage of people that are so, I don't want to say dumb, but they would bet on what Taylor Swift's album, how many songs are going to be on it. They were openly bragging about, they're involving people in betting, they don't call it betting, but betting, people that have ever bet before, because they're now betting on things that they're interested in, as if that's somehow a good. And think about the direction of sports gambling as well.

Again, fine in moderation, but it's not fine when it's in everyone's pocket. And every other commercial is hammering you with free offers, this and that, and then you realize it's rigged at the top. Now, this might not be even the case here, but I guess it feels like they're using this analogy of a casino economy. And I see this as kind of a failure of American government in a lot of ways, and maybe an excess of capitalism. But if you look at the direction of innovation in the last 30 years, I think social media, I'm now thinking AI, and then this is the second hottest thing behind AI right now.

So, like, our economy is data centers and then betting on Taylor Swift albums. And tragedies. This isn't... This is not good for a long-term trajectory of the country, and the casino economy applies, too, for, like, we talked about these angry young men. Why would you go sink yourself in so much debt to learn something that you're not even going to get a job at the end of the tunnel, or it might not even exist? And it makes you, it puts you in the position to do riskier things, such as, you know, betting hundreds of dollars on things that you can manipulate or whatever, right?

Or becoming a TikTok influencer or whatever, instead of like, you don't have an established path in front of you that you know will pay off at the end. And in the way, I see that as somewhat of the responsibility of the government and the system, the economic system that it props up. And I think we're just going to be reaping horrible benefits if this is the direction of our economy, is literally financializing everything about our life. The lesson we should have learned in 2008 was that we shouldn't bail out banks that failed.

They were the ones responsible for the absolute crisis that we all experienced in 2008. Instead, we bailed them out. And then, like, we get in a situation now where... We cannot build our own ships in our country. We have to outsource that. In other words, it is a national security problem, but it is also an economic problem. We do not have legitimate jobs waiting for our youth. The shipping is, particularly because of the Jones Act, we put restrictions on it. We could change that.

We should. I think we should tomorrow. Just like trucks. It is not an inability to build the ships. It is that we tax it too high, but anyway, yes. So, here is a hypothetical really quick, Erika, because I think this, what is the point? Because you are balancing the accuracy of the predictions, which is, I guess. I love a hypothetical, because I can monetize it. Here is a hypothetical. Think through this.

Here is an example of a positive externality of liquid prediction markets. Software engineers and truck drivers today are at meaningful risk of being automated into obsolescence, but they have no way to price that risk and hedge against it. Prediction markets fix this.

I can't tell if this is a joke or not. This is where we are? That's where we are. Erika, sorry, what were you saying? I completely forget. I had a thought about prediction markets. Anyway, I just, you know, in large part, you know, agree with your main critique here, is like, it's not, you know, it's not like, for example, enjoying sports is largely been, you know, it's good, like, to be able to watch, you know, games or whatever, but, like, I also wonder, like, if...

We haven't, in the United States, gotten to the point where we have a little bit of an exaggerated devotion to sports, to the point where... And gambling has added massive fuel to the fire. Talk about devotion, right? Where you have players on sports teams, professional players, and then as well, college kids who are worried about, okay, am I going to get threats from someone who lost a lot of money at gambling because I missed a shot? You're 20 years old, and you want to win the championship for your college team, and then you're going to have some.

50-year-old crank that's sending you messages on Twitter or whatever, because... So, in general, I do think, as a society, we need to be able to take a step back here and say, what are we doing here? And I do feel like there has been a little bit too much bread and circuses lately. I mean, look, can you play video games and enjoy them? Fine. But are some people too obsessed with it? Are some people too obsessed with screen times on social media?

Is there too much marijuana? Too much sports betting. A lot of that stuff, these things are... You know, distractions from what should be the main mission of your life, you know, and so, you know, again, it is not like you cannot have a little fun doing stuff or whatever. I am not trying to, I am not the Puritan fuddy-duddy here, but like, it feels like we are a little out of whack on some of this stuff. Yeah, I will be the fuddy-duddy.

I remembered what I was going to say. I think the other interview I watched with the two founders of Kelshi, and then you, also elements of this with the Polymarket founder, too, when you listen to interviews. So, these two kids, they went to MIT. They had everything super, super smart, high test scores, passing everything, brilliant. And the guy is like, yeah, so we're at MIT, and we're watching all the other kids. They're working so hard. They're working to build products and come up with the new thing that's going to improve this and that.

And we looked at each other, and we were like, why would we spend all of our effort building products so we can just bet on if the other guy is going to be successful or not? He literally said that. He's like, We decided to make our fortune by sitting back and monetizing everyone else's hard work, life experiences, tragedies, wins, like the drama of it all, and we're just going to cash. And I just found that to be so spiritually vacuous and sad, because it's like, If that's the point in life, it's just to get rich.

I mean, she's now the first under-30 self-made female billionaire in history, or some big thing like that. She beat out Taylor Swift. Big deal. Whoopee. But she literally did it because she looked at other people working hard to improve society and was like, why would I work that hard? If you think about what social media did, too, it just commoditized everyone's time. Yeah. And it's spiritually vaucous. It's like, maybe what so sticks out to me about Kalshi is they don't even pretend anymore that somehow what they're doing is bettering society, right?

They're like, oh, it's going to make democracy better because they'll inform themselves. No, they're like, no, we're going to make a lot of money. They want to make money. Their win was like, well, we had people that were gambling in their toilet hiding from their wife. A team of three people made $60 million betting on Kelshi, and that's a win for them.

I don't know. Can we put a finger on what is just spiritually dead about our economy? OnlyFans is a great example of this. Somehow can convince people to make money on online prostitution that you should be proud of that. What the founders of OnlyFans were proud of was that they got people money, and it's just like, okay, maybe you're missing the entire point here. De-stigmatize something that should be shameful, right? That was the other thing, and she gets up and she's like, I founded OnlyFans, and now...

If you are a porn star, we are going to destigmatize that, because it is just about making the money. So, again, with pornography, with gambling, with marijuana, we are seeing just a lot of time, energy, money channeled into things that You know, some of them are immoral. Obviously, pornography and marijuana can be so often abused, but it is not inherently immoral like pornography, but like these are in sports gambling. I mean, like, it is just, again.

Some of this stuff, in moderation, wouldn't be that big of a deal. Like, oh, bet 50 bucks that the Cowboys will win or lose or whatever. But, you know, the problem is, when you just keep going down this train, and it becomes, you know, an addiction, you know, and it becomes an escape. Don't escape reality. You know, face it, you know, and there's edifying things about life. I think we're too often wanting to get zoned out on screens.

You know, fantasy sports, whatever, all this kind of stuff. I think we just, you know what? That game of this is you get a situation like. Amsterdam, where you have legalized prostitution, and it's talked about like it's a good thing. Well, and just the dopamine hits on the screens. It's just like, are you really even living, is kind of my point. I mean, if you're just stupefied by screens, and then you've got your OnlyFans, your gambling, and your marijuana, it's like.

What kind of life is this? I mean, I just feel like you were made for more. God created you not to be just a passive screen watcher, porn watcher, dope smoker. You were meant for more. Yeah, I think that's the end point of all of this, is of course you were made for more. Everyone understands that. Anyone that looks at this beyond a little bit of surface value just feels kind of disgusting, and I would resist this intensely, if you're a young man especially, but you're a young man.

Just in general, like, of course, you can do vice and moderation, but a wholesale embrace of this kind of thing, I would just spit it out. This is not what you're, this is nothing, this is not a, this is not going to result in your end. Good. It's not going to make you more virtuous. It's not going to give you things that last in satisfaction. It's hilarious that you would think getting a little bit of money would somehow make you satisfied or happy, and every movie trope ever has basically pointed that out.

Yeah, I can see why people get desperate and do this kind of thing, but I think it's actually much more heroic to resist it. No, Tom, I agree. I mean, that's why when you asked me, have I ever done this, I threw $100 a year or $20 a year on a prediction thing, but then after a while, I'm like, you know what? I'm not worried about getting addicted, but I'd rather not promote this industry. It may not be a problem for me, but I might be promoting something that could end up harmful for someone else.

I'd rather not. Amen. And I actually see, I'm very encouraged hearing people talk about resisting sports betting and marijuana now. I feel like there was a kind of a libertarian streak for a while. It was very live and let live. But then, of course, people were like, yeah, we'll legalize both. And then you kind of see now every billboard on the highway is a weed one. You've got a weed store in your backyard. It's gross. It smells bad. The people that smoke it are not motivated, not seemly, seeming like going the wrong direction.

And same thing with degenerate gamblers. I think people look at it now and are just like, I guess it's fine if some people want to do it. Then, of course, you hear someone's like, you really lost a couple thousand dollars on whether or not someone gets five rebounds?

This is a problem. I wouldn't even go down that road. I feel like there's also a Gen Z push towards sobriety as well, even just completely leaving alcohol, and I actually really admire that. Pride January coming up. Yeah, I'm not saying you have to, but I think that, of course, moving towards the area of virtue as opposed to the area of vice is always to be commended. Yes, we should always be revisiting these things and see if it makes sense. I mean, alcohol happens to be one that can be a little bit, ooh, I got to be careful on.

I made a conscious choice on that a couple of years ago. Now, I have a beer every other week or something. I am not big on it. Yeah. Anyway, keep the faith. Let us go on to FBI. What do we got going on there, Erika? I have no faith in the FBI. Let us be real. We had a couple of stories this week, guys, and I am just going to warn you. This is, yeah, Epstein thing, I am not even going to go there.

We did have more photos from the Epstein, and we are just not, we are not, we are ignoring the Epstein thing. I am not going to pull a Candace Owens or anything on you. So, but we did have this story coming out yesterday. From the great state of Virginia, the new governor, Ms. Spanberger, Ms. Spanberger, has nominated Stanley Meter.

You probably don't know who that is, but you're about to. Oh, yes. She has nominated Stanley Meter as her pick for the Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security. He was formerly the head of the Richmond office of the FBI.

Josh, can you tell the listeners what went down in the Richmond office of the FBI when he was in charge of it? Why, is that the same Richmond FBI office that put out a memo that portrayed faithful Catholics as extremists? Yes, it is. Is that the same Richmond FBI memo? Well, you know that they do use militant language in St. Michael prayer.

Very careful of those swords. Maybe they believe what they're talking about. I don't know. Well, of course, we're having a little fun with this, but the fact is that the Richmond office of the FBI put together that memo that was targeting traditional Catholics, and this was not some sort of isolated mistake. This document was circulated to more than 1,000 FBI agents nationwide. It was absolutely despicable for our federal law enforcement officials to suggest that traditional forms of, you know, Traditional Catholics were somehow unseemly, militant, or dangerous to our society.

The fact of the matter is that this guy was in charge of the Richmond FBI office that circulated this memo is absolutely despicable. Thankfully, because President Trump was elected, and we got new leadership at the FBI, this deadbeat left. He left the FBI this summer because he knew he was going to get fired. For governor-elect...

Abigail Spanberger to nominate this man in charge of the FBI office in Richmond that put together this shameful memo. This tells me that she is perfectly okay supporting anti-Catholic bigotry. Every Catholic across the country should be upset by what the governor-elect of Virginia is doing by nominating this man. In fact, I think all people of good faith should be appalled that you would nominate somebody for this position. Of all the people in the Commonwealth of Virginia, you're picking the guy who targeted traditional Catholics?

Yeah, and just as a refresher, it wasn't just like targeting them in their parishes, but this was Catholic schools. We know that there were infiltrations of diocesan offices. I mean, this was a massive, massive operation. They used priests as sources.

Right. They were cultivating sources in parishes, including clergy, including employees of parishes. This was massive, and not only that, but the primary source that they used to justify these memos was the Southern Poverty Law Center, right? Which has said the Turning Point USA is a hate group. The Family Research Council is a hate group. Yeah, or boy, Tom McCluskey, radical. Yeah, Tom McCluskey. That's right. I mean, just for listeners who don't realize what's happening, that our good friend Tom McCluskey, who works on Capitol Hill for CatholicVote, he was working at the Family Research Council the day a guy came in shooting up the place and shot the guard there at the Family Research Council.

The Southern Poverty Law Center put FRC on the hate map because they believed in marriage, traditional marriage. They put them on the hate map, and some psychopath was inspired by that and shot up the place. Again, left-wing violence, the media never really liked to talk about it as much, or like when the Bernie bro shot up a bunch of congressmen, you know? I mean, like, Charlie Kirk assassinated. It happens a whole lot more on the left.

4-D chess, this made traditional Catholicism way more cool. It sure did. It sure did. 4-D chess, I think it was... I mean, you have to understand, traditional Catholicism was already pretty... That's true, but I think you put it on the map. I think it backfired. I think 4-D chess kind of made it sick. You know, the Trinity has ways of foiling the best plans of bureaucrats everywhere.

Yeah, praise God. Yeah, speaking of foiling plans of bureaucrats. Oh, my goodness. So, then we have another story. We have a suspect. Does everyone remember January 6th? Everyone raises their hand. Yes, I do remember January 6th. Okay, you might not remember the evening before January 6th, on January 5th, 2021, someone planted two fully functional pipe bombs outside both the Republican National Committee headquarters. And the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., those devices were discovered, J6, by a passerby and a Capitol Police officer.

This triggered evacuations, diverting law enforcement resources during the J6 riots, quote-unquote. Until this week's arrest, the identity of that bomber had remained an enduring mystery during the J6 investigations. So, here's what we get. Which is odd, because they were really able to track down just about everyone and their moms. Just about everyone and put them in solitary confinement. Like, they were finding grannies who lived in Iowa who were present at the Capitol that day. So, it was a little strange that no progress was made on finding a bomber who planted bombs both outside the RNC and the DNC.

A little bit weird. So, we got an arrest yesterday. The suspect who is now in custody is one Brian J. Cole Jr. from Woodbridge, Virginia. Virginia, you're not doing that well this week. Facing charges for transporting an explosive across state lines, attempted destruction of property, the FBI Director Kash Patel and AG Pam Bondi credited new leadership for restarting a stalled investigation, and they noted that no new investigation was carried out. Evidence had to be collected in order to make this arrest.

They simply went back, took out all the files that had been gathered by the FBI under Director Christopher Wray in the Biden administration, re-looked at all the information, and were able to pinpoint the suspect as Brian J. Cole Jr.

They were pretty tight-lipped about motives or anything, but an online profile, just quick searches reveal the suspect appears to have been an avid online gamer. He was a leftist. His grandmother described him as maybe being slightly autistic, and he's from a family of convicted criminals, multiple felonies, and it's not great. It's not a great... Wait, the kid is? Yep, Brian Cole Jr. So, his dad has multiple convictions. Because he doesn't. He's like an autistic 30-year-old. He's like the quiet one. He's like severely autistic.

Well, not severely. They say like autistic-ish. The grandmother was, you know, trying to play down his... responsibility for his actions. And anyway, interviewing the grandmother is always a little strange. But the FBI has not disclosed full information about him at this point. But it was weird, Tom. And here's why this was really weird. Because on November 8th, so just under a month ago.

The Blaze had published this bombshell investigative report claiming that it had found a forensic match that linked actually a former Capitol Police officer to the pipe bomb suspect, citing unnamed intelligence sources, always a little suspect there, but also doing a gait analysis of the video images that we do have of the suspect with a 94% to 98% match. This piece framed it as a major breakthrough in a four-year federal... Manhunt, where they weren't actually doing any hunting. The report said that the suspect appears to have been female, and I think like five foot seven, based on the gait and the analysis of the videos, which is totally different from what we see when we see Brian J.

Cole Jr. Yes. The Blaze had emphasized that we were at a 95% certainty that this was the profile of the suspect, and they, of course, completely retracted the article yesterday, pulled down the PDF, pulled down all of their evidence that they'd gathered when the arrest was made.

Do you know where the former Capitol police officer works currently? I do because you told me, but I'm going to let Josh do up the rest. Josh, do you know? Any guesses? She works security at the CIA. Oh, man. You cannot make this up. But apparently, she was with her dog, according to video services, you know, video whatever. At the time, she was home with her puppy.

Could not have been. Yeah, let me just say, okay, can we also say, so this, you know, no criminal history, autistic 30-year-old guy. First, he was sophisticated enough to build and plant bombs at both the RNC and the DNC that had timers on them, and yet wasn't sophisticated enough to not drive his own car and carry his own cell phone. So, that, first off, doesn't pass any small tests. Second, he was sophisticated enough to not drive his own cell phone. Christopher Wray just, again, lied to the American people by saying they didn't have the cell phone footage.

So, either he's lying about that and said they didn't have, something got corrupted with the cell phone data, which they're now saying they hang this guy Brian Cole with saying that it was his cell phone, and he brought his own cell phone to be planting this bomb?

None of this makes sense. Hey, people do some things. Okay, sure, I guess. But none of it makes sense. How would they know where to go if you don't have a phone to tell you where to go? Exactly. None of it makes sense. The FBI, unfortunately, has not been batting very great with telling the truth or coming to our promises.

And Dan Bongino himself. For years, it was like, this was an inside job. Maybe this is a podcaster problem. Maybe podcasters just should not become the head of the FBI, because they were all like, it's an inside job, it's an inside job, it's an inside job. And, of course, he was railing on Epstein, too. He's like, Epstein, blackmail connected, and then he gets in. He's like, oh, he didn't kill himself, and he gets in. He's like, I've seen the evidence. He definitely killed himself, and he looked like a deer in headlights.

I guess the problem is, we all voted for the FBI to become a museum of the deep state, as Kash Patel himself said, and no one's gotten fired, and the head of the Richmond department is now working with... Well, he might have got fired if he hadn't resigned in the summer, though. Sure, but like... It'd be nice to have other people fired, though. I do not know the solution to this. Like, no one trusts the FBI. They have way too much power.

They lie pretty casually to the... Like, the problem at the beginning is not even good anymore, and like, why do we know nothing about Thomas Crooks? And Tucker Carlson's got to be the guy to break something on that, like, five months later. That doesn't make any sense. I agree with that. I don't know. I think that we have a huge FBI intelligence community problem. Huge FBI problem. Yeah, we're just... The media is asking the questions. And then also, I'm like, I don't know if anyone's been following the Pentagon press stuff.

Basically, the Pentagon put out an insane set of rules that people had to follow in order to be pressed at the Pentagon, and then accused the press at the Pentagon of not being willing to play ball with the rules that were super reasonable. In short, they weren't. And so then, all of these news outlets, including Fox News, said, no, we're not going to do it. All of them left. All of them left. Literally all of them left. The New York Times is suing the Pentagon right now.

Yes, they're currently suing the Pentagon, and of course, wouldn't it be good for some accountability? Because the Pentagon is currently striking boats in the Caribbean. Whether you think they're good or bad or whatever, it would be great to have some transparency as Americans. And we're going to go to war with Venezuela, I guess. And they kicked out all the press, and then the people that they let in are like Laura Loomer, and social media influencers that were totally happy with signing this because it gives them more access and more...

Right, there's different paths, potentially. So, yeah, exactly. So, like, this doesn't... Not all of them, but... Not all of them, but it doesn't, this doesn't bode well at all for transparency. I don't want stenographers. Totally. Like, isn't that the point of independent press? Like, you get some of these people like, I'm more MAGA than you. I love Trump. It's like, well, you know what? Actually, you know, when it comes to reporting on stuff, I want hard questions asked of the administration.

Of anyone. If I voted for it. I mean, I'm sorry. Yeah. We voted for transparency, and we actually wanted it. Like, I don't, I wasn't kidding. Like, I would actually like transparency. So, I don't know. At this point, I'm like, what would even solve it? It's so crazy. The history of the FBI is insane, if anyone actually wants to go into that. CIA, crazy. Yeah, I don't know who's going to solve that problem, unfortunately. So, that is where we are at.

Okay, on to good news. Bring me up, please. Okay, I love this because it tracks precisely with our A Block today. So, could the fog of the weed be lifting here in New England? Possibly. Massachusetts voters are one step closer to being able to kick the legalized marijuana out of the Bay State. So, Massachusetts anti-marijuana activists have submitted more than 74,000 signatures. That is enough to force a referendum next year. On whether to repeal legalized recreational cannabis in the state. Massachusetts was one of the first states, and I believe the first New England state, to legalize marijuana, and I am so excited that they are finally moving towards getting rid of it, if certified.

Hey, bet on it on Kelshi. I know. It's probably on there. What's Kelshi say about that? You missed the point. What's Kelsey talking about? So, first, the petition is going to have to go to the legislature. That's a big, if lawmakers refuse to act, then they have to gather another 12,000 signatures to trigger the statewide vote. So, it's very highly unlikely that the legislature in Massachusetts, which is as deep blue and corrupt as Connecticut's, will actually be able to do that.

So, it's going to have to go to the legislature. Pass this through. But I bet, if I was a betting woman, I would say the people of Massachusetts, they can find 12,000 more signatures. Yeah, that would be a problem.

Right. It would make Massachusetts the first U.S. state to actually roll back legal weed after legalization, and I'm here for it. Like, we just got to get rid of it. It stinks up there, guys. It totally tracks with all this. I think it's important for people to know, because, Josh, you're covering Libertarian.

No, we shouldn't legalize everything. Of course, there's economic trade-offs to every decision you make, and some are not worth the trade, and part of why we have the government that we have is that they should act in the interest of the citizens. If it's not in the interest of the citizens, it's not for the common good, then we shouldn't do it. So, this might be a great opportunity for, I mean, I really have a hard time, like, the other thing that's annoying to me about this, too, the people that were smoking weed before weed was legal, You know, they didn't even care.

Like, this wasn't even on their mind. They were like, we really got legal this, so we can go everywhere. Like, they were kind of proud of it being a little niche thing. They were my friends in high school. Exactly, and then they grow up, and they're like, whatever, and they grow it in their backyard, so it's not as powerful, and now it's like you got the worst Frankenstein combination on every corner that's giving people, like, schizophrenia, and everyone hates it. It smells bad.

You got it in public places. It's like, people don't smoke on planes anymore for a reason. And, like, yeah, of course there's going to be trade-offs. You've got to make decisions. So, I think it's beyond due for weed.

Let's go to Massachusetts. Okay, Josh, what do we got for good news? Well, the good news is the Supreme Court said that the congressional redistricting that Texas has done can be allowed to stay. What happened is the people's representatives in Texas decided to redraw the lines, and a federal court had put a stop on it.

Now, what the Supreme Court has said is, no, no, no, we're going to go ahead and let Texas continue with these lines, and, you know, the whole point is, like, well, wait a minute, they're just doing it for partisanship. They're just doing it to make an advantage, and the Supreme Court's like, yeah, I mean, we know that. Like, we're not idiots here. We know, yeah. Like, we get it. Just, he said, you know, Texas adopted the first new map, then California responded with its own map for the stated purpose of covering what Texas had done.

Like, the Supreme Court said, this is what This is what people do when you elect them to office. They draw borders, and they sometimes do it for their own partisan advantage. Now, you might be wondering, well, how could the left respond to this? Ah, don't worry. They'll be really ridiculous with it. They will make up any excuse they want, like, oh, we're not really redistricting. What we're doing is we're doing, you know, all these justifications. And you ask Republicans, yeah, we're doing it to get an advantage.

At least I love Republicans who are more honest about it. But on CNN, Isabella Brown, she's a really good conservative, she's on there talking about this, like, yeah, the people in Texas, they elected their people, Republicans in the legislature, where the Republican governor decided to draw the lines to make it more favorable to Republicans. Right. Pretty obvious. It's what they're doing in California. It's what they're doing in Virginia. And the one guy just attacked her for it, said, you're disenfranchising blacks.

It's like, listen, buddy. It's 2025. It wouldn't matter if they're black, blue, yellow, neon red. The thing with Republicans in Texas would be doing it no matter what, just because 90% of black voters vote Democrat. It's like, it does not matter. But see, they want to use that card. They want to call you racist, bigot, homophobe all the time. And by the way, we've only warned them over the last 25, 35 years. That if you keep using that card and accuse everyone of racism, you know, like...

It's like a Jedi mind trick that doesn't work anymore. Yeah, and then people will stop ignoring it. I remember... You know, one of the funniest memes I ever saw was like, you know, people in the future, you know, in the future, like people in the 50s, in the future, we'll have flying cars, and instead you show this picture of a news broadcast, our PBJ sandwich is racist. Yeah.

That's what we got. We've come so far. It's just like scrolling through the Atlantic. Oh, my gosh. I'm telling you. But it is good news. It is good news that we have a Supreme Court that says. Oh, what? Texas is going to be partisan, just like California, whatever? They're free to do so, and the Supreme Court has been very clear on this. They're not like, oh, we've got to support the Republicans. They're like, dude, if Virginia wants to do this, that's fine, too.

If California wants to do it, that's fine, too. And if the people all across America say, this is becoming really stupid. We should change the way we elect representatives, and we should try to reduce this unfair advantage of gerrymandering for different states. There is a remedy. You can change the way we elect our representatives. It is not that hard, people. Just do it. Make the change.

Okay. My good news, there is a lot of people that tune in to listen to Josh. It is Spotify rap season. Oh, Spotify Wrapped. We got a creator version of the Spotify Wrapped version. I had some people send me... What are you talking about? Spotify Wrapped?

You don't wait every year for this? Come on, Unc. Kelsey just hit on me calling Josh Unc during the show. Spotify Wrapped is a... It's funny because people freak out. It's like, oh my gosh, it's so accurate. It's literally your data. So, like, Spotify collects, you know, who you listen to, and they give you kind of a recap of, like, what your top artists are and whatever. So, we get a version of that as this podcast. For people that listen to the podcast.

So, I'd just like to give a sincere thank you to all of the people that listen on Spotify, and all over, actually, but I'm always amazed to see, like, so many people tune in. Yeah, total audience up from last year, awesome. Total new audience up, a lot of new people have joined. Total followers up on Spotify.

That's a lot of minutes of listening, 4.4 million. Whoa. A lot of hours of listening, a lot of days of listening, 441 weeks of listening. So, I think I saw, yeah, we were like, I think we're like top 1%, which, what's funny is, I think with the percentage things is most people will just do like two episodes of a podcast and then quit, so I'm not sure how much that means, but I would like to sincerely thank the Spotify audience. I also found out that my personal listening age, which they calculate, is 67, so I don't know what.

That's the Dean Martin Christmas stuff. It must be. Yeah. Well, I saved it. I saved it for Christmas. Josh, yours would probably be like 90. So, you're saying... The stuff that you listen to is 67. Help me understand that. Yeah, so it's a general age calculation based on the music that you listen to and when it was popular. So, if you really like music from a certain period of time, it'll be like, oh, your approximate listening age is whatever. And the funniest thing is, so my son loves the movie Cars.

And if anyone's familiar, the soundtrack is a masterpiece, and one of the songs on it is Shaboom. I forget the name of it, but it's, you know, like when they're driving on the road, it's like, Shaboom, Shaboom, da-na-na-na-na-na-na, and I'm, you know, what was that, from the 50s? So, that song has been played so many times on my wife's phone that it thinks that my wife's listening age is 80 years old. So, I think she was like 82 because Shaboom got played.

It was her top song over and over and over and over again. I don't listen to Spotify. I listen to Pandora. I don't know if they have the same thing, but... Yeah, I don't know. I think people are trying to copy them or something.

I can tell you, all my, you know, the songs would probably be the average song to listen to is probably 1975, right, the age. So, and I was only, I was born two years after that. So, you tell me. I was listening to, this past year, I really, they give you like a type of what you listen to, too, and I was like the good vibes. Like, I just like to like music that, like music that either puts me in a great mood or is horrifically sad.

Like, I want something that's like going to depress me or is going to bring me up. It's like drinking coffee, and I did a lot of like, I think like Creedence Clearwater Revival, so I think that's why it was like, oh, kind of 70s. I was listening to a lot of 70s. I found this guy. If I can, yeah, you listen to Fortunate Son, I can see that. Yeah, exactly, but there's this guy, I'll put people on, a song called Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.

I forget the artist, but it is like such a vibe. It's from the 80s, sorry, from the 70s, and he was kind of a one-hit wonder, maybe. Someone is going to be a huge fan in this audience and call me out. It's by Freddie Fender. You're welcome.

That became my, like, number one song. I love that song. Okay, on to female deacons. Yeah, so this was interesting from the church. This is mostly from the pillar. Just going to shout out to the guys at the pillar. Thank you for covering this so thoroughly. I'm going to try and boil it down. The Vatican released this week. Long-awaited findings from Pope Francis' 2020 study commission on the question of female deacons. You will remember Pope Francis had two commissions. One was 2016-18.

They said, ah, we aren't ready to have female deacons yet, and then in 2020, he's like, let's study it again, and so this is from that study that started in 2020. Can I pause you briefly? Yes. Really apologize for this. Have you seen Arrested Development when they were the magician club? And it's like, there's dozens of us. Have you seen that? No. Someone find that. This is the exact same picture, but for women. I am sure this is going to be very exciting.

Yeah, here we have the hopeful women. I'll find it. All right, so this was published December 4th. There's been two years now of historical, theological, and doctrinal analysis, again, and shows that the commission was divided. But is leaning strongly against the possibility of sacramental ordination for women to the diaconate.

So, they voted in, yeah, they basically, they voted seven to one in favor of this central idea that the current state of the question, this is again, this is so synodal, the total body of historical and theological evidence excludes the possibility right now of admitting women to the diaconate understood as part of holy order. So, let me just put that into English for everyone. Once again, a papal commission studying female deacons has said, no, I mean, not now, because nobody wants to actually shut it down and be like, guys, let it go.

There aren't female deacons, and I'm totally going to get emails about this. Yes, I see you. Members were also asked whether Christ... Wait, we have people that are pro-female deacons? Oh, we do. Yes. In our audience, though? We do. We do. I have received multiple emails from people saying, but what about ministry? So, I thought it was interesting, though. The commission did give a little more information on the different positions that they considered. They received thousands and thousands of reports, affidavits, letters about this issue, most of them from the first world, they said.

Pro-female deacons, but they boiled it down for us that we had sort of two opposing positions that they heard from. One position argues that since the diaconate is ordained to ministry, not priesthood, the church could theologically open it up to women. The issue of female priests has been settled. It was definitively settled by John Paul II. There will be no female ordinations, as Francis in his famous interview said, no. Yeah, see that? I see edits of that. People still make edits of that.

Yeah, it is a great meme. So, they are saying, but since the diaconate being a deacon is about ministry and things that you do rather than what you are, then women could be at that level of holy. Josh, okay. So, Josh might belong to this other camp then, based on his facial expressions. The other emphasizes the unity of holy orders. And the spousal symbolism linking deacon, priest, and bishop, meaning that even the first rung of the sacrament cannot be separated from its male Christological sign.

So, the cardinal who released the report, Petrochi, he noted that the second position warns about doctrinal confusion as well. So, if women were even admitted to the first degree of orders, many would just assume that priestly ordination must also be on the table. It would naturally follow. Which he said, most of the letters and statements they got in support of female deacons also said this would be a way to open up a female priesthood, which is never going to happen, and ergo, another blow in the movement toward female deacons.

I just wanted to put this one resource in front of everyone, for those of you who might be on parish councils, and this is a sticking point. Right. Father Dwight Longenecker, we're going to throw it in the chat here. Father Dwight Longenecker. He had a great series a couple of years ago on this question, and he walks through the historical evidence that people are usually like, well, there were deaconesses in the early church, and he talks about the different documents we actually still have.

And what you'll see is, or what you'll hear from people like Fr. James Martin, National Catholic Register is... Is he a female deacon guy? Well, he likes to hold his cards close to his chest. Fr. James Martin. But every time something like this comes out, he always puts that little qualifier, yet, at the end of his statements. There will be no female deacons, yet. Or, no female deacons are possible right now, because the implication being of all these stodgy churchmen who are sexist.

And once... If they're all dead and gone, then we can have female deacons, which is, again, does not look like it's going to happen, but they have, once again, punted everything down the line. Pope Leo will have to make a statement now and decide if he's going to reopen the commission or not, but that's where we're at. So, I actually, everything about this reminds me of how the Republican Party Dealt with the issue of gays about 20 years ago, and there is a critique here that some people made, including people I do not care for, Ken Melman, who is former with the RNC, and he ended up leaving the Republican Party, and he said that George W.

Bush was just, you know, using the issue of gays as a way to, you know, like marriage between a man and a woman to get votes, and he was able to win Ohio and then win re-election, and then he didn't really believe in it. He didn't really care. In his heart of hearts, he kind of sympathized with gays, but he was using this issue to win evangelical voters to get them re-elected, right? And so, Ken Melman and some of these others were saying, like, I mean, it is one thing if you truly, in your heart of hearts, like an evangelical or a Catholic, really think marriage should be between a man and a woman, and you believe that the law should be like that, we could disagree, let us say, but just to do it cynically, like, oh, I am going to do it to get elected, and in fact, my heart of hearts actually believe kind of the opposite, is actually very cruel.

It is actually very cruel to gaze. It is like, I actually want what you want, but I am not going to give it to you because I have got to get elected. So, this is how I feel with this issue of... The women deacons, it's like, I feel like, it sounds almost crazy that I'm almost sympathetic towards the feminists who are calling for this. They're asking for something, and the church out of charity should say, actually, no, and not lead them on and say, well, we'll do a commission.

No, don't do a commission. If you know the answers, no, it's not actually a good thing to do. You know, and in fact, you just say, like, listen. Pope John Paul II had studied this, and the answer is no. I mean, we're not trying to be cruel. It's actually cruel to lead people on with these commissions.

Another conclusion the commission came to, a conclusion being a vote, because they're, of course, voting on this, but by a vote of nine to one, they also said that the church should broaden women's access to non-ordained ministries and formal roles of service in the community. And to me, I'm like, why don't we just lean into that instead of being like... We're going to talk about women's proper roles in the community and the ways that they do serve the church and how we can expand that.

Why do you need to vote on that, though? But why do you have to vote on that? Exactly. Like, we have the Blessed Mother. We have the documents of the church. We have Miliaris Dignitatum that we haven't even really dug into because we've been so hung up on the female deacon thing. Like, somehow, okay, if we could just get up on the altar during Mass, if we could just put on an alb, and we could, like... It still drives me crazy because it's all a proxy fight for the real fight.

The real fight is... Should we embrace the sexual revolution, and should we also embrace the sexual revolution's version of what feminism is? Yes. Which feminism, with Betty Friedan and the feminist then, was to say, I'm not really a person unless I can emulate men in the workforce. I'm not against women in the workforce, but this idea that we have to redefine the feminine gift to be, well, we should be office drones, just like men. We should be men. Of all the things you would dream of.

That would be the one you would dream of? I don't. And it doesn't, I don't think it takes away from people, because the hard, delicate balance of this is that. For example, if you were in a marriage, and marriage is a sacrament, it should be, we know what it can be, we know the church teaches that it can be, but if you're in an abusive marriage, then you wouldn't want to tell someone that's in an abusive marriage, like, oh, no, no, no, it's actually supposed to be different, it's supposed to be better, and not acknowledge, say, the pain that someone feels.

And I imagine that a lot of these women that are caught up in, like, you know, the deacon stuff, like, they have legitimate pains or legitimate gripes, like, they felt neglected or whatever, and, like, it wouldn't be... property just dunk them like oh they're stupid like they're not you know they've been sold a bill of lies and they don't that it's you wouldn't throw away the institution of marriage because we have some bad marriages well actually i think you're bringing up a really good point tom i think this is actually the main part of the catholic church's identity problem over the last few generations.

I mean, it is not just Vatican II per se. I mean, there were still problems even in the 50s, but the Catholic experience over the last few generations has been that doctrinally, we do not make errors. Right? So, we don't embrace, you know, oh, abortions are fine, or, you know, homosexuality is now okay, or contraception is okay. So, on paper, we still remain doctrinally true, but we don't really.

Really believe it? Right. So that we'll have presidents of the United States who will espouse transgender, pro-abortion, and say they're Catholic, and we're like, well, whatever. I mean, right, you know, and then all the people will come up to a confession, be like, oh, I did this, you know, send a contraception. Wow, is it really that big of a deal? Like, what?

We're in this really awkward position for the last several generations where, on paper, we're doctrinally true, but in the everyday practice, the only people who are staying true to it are voluntarily doing it because they actually believe what the Church is teaching. It's an awkward, awkward moment. It is, yeah. And when you look at the Catholic and the Pew statistics, we divorce at the same rates as all of our counterparts. We contracept at the same rates for the most, I think it's like a 2% difference.

I mean, it's not even, it's negligible. We believe the same things about gay marriage as our counterparts. I mean, there is a little bit of a differential, because some of those surveys will do it of all people who claim to be Catholic.

There's a calcium for this. Well, hold on. I'm just saying, like, the actual people who go to Mass on Sundays is a little bit different, is what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. It's still a problem. I'm still a problem. It's still not great. That was an argument for Kelsey, though, is because if you go and you do polls, and you only poll people selectively, you can skew it for what you want the message to be to the broader— And it's not just that, Tom.

When it comes to religion, America—OK, so if you ask people, like in Germany, how often do you go to church? The answer that they provide will be the actual experience that you'll see if you go outside the churches. But Americans, we lie.

Oh, yeah, I go. Dude, I go. I go every Sunday. And so, like, the responses that we give just are not true. That's another thing about it. It's like in polls, people lie on polls. So, they're lying exit polls. A lot of people. Not everyone. Not everyone. I'm not choosing the audience listening to this thing. But again, you put a little cool with hard cash down. It's like, how many people are using contraception? Now you're playing with live ammo, right? It's so crazy, man.

So crazy. Anyway, I did find it, and I almost feel bad about how accurate it is to the picture that they provided. It was the, we demand to be taken seriously picture from Arrested Development, if anyone really wants to go see it. Let me see, let me see. Whoa, you're not going to put it up for the audience? Yeah, have you guys seen this one? Oh, okay.

I mean, come on. Come on. Immediately came to mind. And again, I feel bad for these women. That's just hilarious. Why would they use the same outfits? Why wouldn't they do pantsuits? That's what I'm saying. And if this is a Catholic church, I'm actually kind of frustrated because you're right in front of the tabernacle, but I don't know if it is or not. Anyway, that's what I thought of. That's how my mind works. It's a Friday. I got to get a little loose.

Okay, Twilight Zone. Josh? Oh, let us talk about polls then, actually. Let us do it. This is a little post-Thanksgiving poll here. All right, I am going to ask you guys here. They asked this question, and they posed this question to people who are very liberal, to moderates, and to people who are very conservative, okay? They said, they asked this question prior to the arrival of the European settlers.

Native American and indigenous tribes lived in peace and harmony. Do you somewhat agree? Do you agree with that statement, or do you strongly agree? Now, if you come, you know, and then there's people who disagreed, of course, right? So, of the percentage of liberals who are people who are very liberal, what percentage of people who are very liberal thought that that statement, they agreed with it somewhat?

I'm going to combine. Somewhat agree or strongly agree. That combination of agreement. Very liberal. What percentage of very liberal people agreed with that statement prior to the arrival of European settlers, Native American and indigenous tribes lived in peace and harmony? I'm going over 80. Over 80%. Tom, what do you got? Well, I didn't count yet, but 95.

Okay, so thankfully, it is not that scary, but it was 71% of people who are very liberal agree with that statement. Now, if you ask people who are more moderate political affiliation, what percentage of moderates somewhat Or agreed, or strongly agreed with that statement, that prior to the arrival of European settlers, Native American and Indigenous tribes lived in peace and harmony. We're talking about the moderates now. Right, well, it's okay if the mega-lefties... Very liberals were 71%. Okay, so we're... So, what would the moderates be?

55. 60. 59.2%. Oh, yes! I love winning. Okay, but these are liberals. These are very liberal. Of people who are in the category of very conservative, what percentage of very conservative people agreed prior to the arrival of European settlers, Native American and Indigenous tribes lived in peace and harmony? What percentage of very conservative people agree with that statement? 30.

I'm going to go lower, 25. 47. No! Oh, wow. Interesting. Oh, my gosh. Interesting. We had a lot of work to do. I just think that's such a dumb, first off, that's just a dumb, crazy question. I guess everyone wants to answer the wolves and just assume that it was Eden before white people got here, but allow me to disabuse people of this narrative. We, of course, celebrated Thanksgiving recently, and we think about the pilgrims and how the Indians and the white people sat down and had a wonderful...

Thanksgiving meal, but we don't talk about the Thanksgiving meal of 1619 that was in Virginia. Why? Because we forgot about it for hundreds of years. Why? Because all the white people were slaughtered by the Powhatan tribe. Like, we didn't know about this meal because they got killed.

So, I mean, are all Indians bad? No. Are all white people good? No. Are there sins on both sides? Yeah. What a crazy idea. Well, isn't that just discovering history? I mean, that's why I'm like, it's such a dumb, simplistic question, because Basically, any society ever... So, it's the power of propaganda to just basically try to get you to hate yourself, because any casual reader of history would be like, wow, history is long, bloody, violent, and there's been warring factions since the beginning of time.

Our own country, we fought multiple wars, basically, as soon as we won the Revolutionary War, like a very bloody war against our own father, basically, in England. So, it's odd to think, but in the same way, I actually do...

I feel for the Native Americans in a lot of ways, and call me a lib or whatever, but I'm from Michigan, and most of Michigan has Native American names, and many of the Native American tribes, even by the settlers, were considered really powerful, really impressive, in touch with nature, had strong communities, regardless of what you think about their beliefs or whatever. So, I maybe don't fall as much into, like, oh, let's crap on the Native Americans, and I know you're not doing that, too.

But maybe that is where I am at, and the part of the equation is like, I think there is actually a lot to learn and understand about the Native American tribes. Well, understanding that they were savage and brutal, just like many other tribes do, you know? Yeah, I mean, again, I just don't, in general, like a comic book view of history, and perhaps in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, Americans had a comic book view of history with regards to the Indians.

I kind of respect the fact that they were strong and fired warriors, but let's also not have a comic book version of history for the 21st century, where we pretend Indians were all peaceful and white people were super evil. Like the Apache tribe. What does the word Apache mean? Oh, warrior.

Yeah, they were good. Give me a break. Strong. Hey, did you watch the Ken Burns? Are you going to watch the Ken Burns documentary? Oh, man. I watched the trailer for it. He was good at baseball in the Civil War. I don't know. He's gotten really nuts over the last... I'd say just watch it. I'd say get a chance. Yeah, I'm going to watch it. Which one? Did he do the Revolutionary War? He did the Revolutionary War.

I think the unfortunate thing now is like, because it is really long, is that people are already kind of jumping on before they even watch it to be like, oh, well, Ken Burns' lib is going to be terrible. Like, yeah, he does kind of like wax a little bit about like the slavery stuff or whatever, but I actually do think it was interesting, especially if you were not super familiar with.

Like, even if you haven't read on the Revolutionary War in a long time, the founding of America, it's been a while, I think there's actually a lot that, like, really casual learners can understand in terms of the stakes, in terms of the situation. Oh, my gosh, I have a lot of people who studied the Revolutionary War. I mean, I think that's wonderful. I mean, like, you just think about the battle, you know, of Brooklyn, where we had all our, General Washington had all of our troops in Brooklyn, and the British had us dead to rights, and Washington's like, we got to get out of here, we're going to get slaughtered.

And, thankfully, at the beginning of the morning, they're like, we're going to cross the river, get out of here, get our way to New Jersey, and if it weren't for a bunch of clouds descending that masked our movements and got out in the British wake-up line, where did the Americans go?

That could have just killed the baby in the crib of the revolutionary cause. There are so many times like that where the fates just seem to align so perfectly for the American cause that George Washington, this idea like, oh, it's just a clockmaker god, all the founders. No way. Uh-uh. George Washington understood providence. He spoke about it a lot. There are so many times where I think we could have been dead to rights, and he was a magnificent man. No George Washington, no United States of America, wonderful man.

Well, the American story is a true miracle. Really, in so many ways. I think God had something in mind for this country. I think that is a really healthy and humble way to view the country you live in now, but just the country in general. It is a revolution in every sense. Like the idea that... You could be a citizen. You didn't have to live under a king. You could be an active participant, landowner, part of the system. Sure, but just like the God part of it, too.

The libs only will say, oh, they think of the Islamic way, like, I've got God on my side, and everything we do is justified. No, a true sense of providence should be humility, because it should be like, you never know what actually God's plans are, so you should always be open to what God's doing. You know, like, Abraham Lincoln talked about this during the Civil War. He goes, you know, because both people in the North and the South claimed God was on their side, you know, and he was like a little, you know, I was a little bit more humble.

I hope that God on my side, but I need Kentucky. Speaking of Josh, are you familiar with the Southern strategy? Here's a test of your body of knowledge for presidents. Well, you're talking about Richard Nixon, the Southern Strategy, right? I am, yeah. Because you were talking about the RNC guy and his approach to the gays. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just meant when you're talking about the RNC guy and his approach to gays, I was like, I immediately thought of the Southern Strategy and Nixon.

Well, see, now, I mean, again, the Southern Strategy was that Nixon realized that, you know, there's a lot of people in the South who are very traditional and conservative-minded, but they voted for generations for Democrats because FDR was a political genius, even though I despise his policies. And, you know, the Republicans were the ones that freed the slaves.

And so, the South turned against the Republican Party because of that, but by the 1960s, Nixon's like, you know what? These people, they believe in family, church, and local community. Why can't they vote for Republicans, you know? And so, he began the Southern strategy of trying to win them over, and the idea was like, let's try to baptize them into becoming conservatives and to get rid of the racism, which you can't necessarily do overnight. You know, it takes a while, but I would say the Southern strategy has worked because now we have the South is Republican and conservative and a whole lot less racist than they were six years ago.

That's a win for the country. Nixon Defender, again. We should just do a special episode on Nixon for Josh. Erika, what do you got? Hey, I am just going to go with, we had a great event last night, CatholicVote. Our president and CEO, Kelsey Reinhart, did an amazing interview for about an hour on YouTube. You can go check that out on the CatholicVote channel. I think you can just go on there now, and the recording is there. We are going to have clips from it.

There were some great moments, and I just saw on the CatholicVote Twitter account the announcement. It's here. Zeal. We can talk about it now? Apparently, because someone just posted it on our account. So, I'm very excited about this. We're going to put the tweet in the chat. Make sure you follow it. So, if you're a champion and you're listening, first of all, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We could not do this without our champions, our monthly givers. And secondly, if you're a champion, you can now go.

Oh, he's got a Zeal hat on. Hey! Oh, she doesn't mind. The word for the word Zeal, it looked like you had F. Yeah, I am pretty pumped. This is going to be an app. It was me. A mustache.

The Twilight Zone part of this is that as I was getting really excited, I'm like, oh my gosh, I wonder what the comments are going to be like. What's going to happen? So, I scroll down, and I have missing ecto coolers commented, and he goes, is Zeal really owned and made by Catholics? I can't attest. Yes, it is. Correct. It's Tom. No, no, no, Tom, this is for you. Oh, wait, what? This is an Israeli IDF account. How are we going to accept you're speaking the truth, and you admitted to lying about being Catholic just the other day?

Tom, you are officially a Zionist. Oh, yeah, right, right, right. Obviously. I fooled you the entire time. Go check my ex-account. It's actually located in Tel Aviv. Unbelievable. So, hey, check it out. Can we do a quick scroll? Can we do a quick scroll? I'm pumped about this. So, of course, it looks super crispy, and we were just talking about... So, let's get started. And right now, this is champions only, so Tom's showing you... The way that this is... Yeah, I need to bring it out.

It's champions only right now, but would you look at that? You can get the news there, I think, without it. Yeah, you can get all your Loop News. All the Loop News is there. We got original shows, and whoa, look at that. Hey, who's that handsome fellow? Look at that mug. That's you. We got Tom Across America coming to you live. I will be traveling the country. So, I think I've kind of spoken about this a little bit. I've done an episode with a plumber, so I did a ride-along with a plumber.

That was really cool, and then I did a farming episode here locally in Indiana. We have both of those in edit right now, and then we're working on... So, leading up to America's 250th anniversary, I need to get out of the studio, all right? As some of you have seen, you know, I go a little crazy in here. I want to go out. I want to meet people. The two I did so far was At inauguration, and then I was in Chicago for the Pope Leo Mass, and I want to go highlight stories of Americans around the country, different regions, actually partake in the work.

Like with the plumbing episode, I wasn't a very... A very claustrophobic crawl space, and there were rats down there, dead ones, but we did fix that pipe, so that is going to be awesome, and so we got great episodes coming to you, so I am excited. That is my main contribution to the Zeal programming, outside of the LOOPcast, outside of helping out with the Deep, which is going to be on there as well, but that will be available on the platform and on YouTube as well, so we have big ambitions.

With Zeal. This has all been going on behind the scenes. We weren't able to talk about it for a long time. But I was even like scrolling through myself. I guess I can kind of just be a part. I knew some of these were going on, but some of these shows are just like.

They're going to be awesome. Yeah, we're talking shows, movies, news, everything. It's that scene of the day. It's going to be cool. It goes public. It goes public January 1st. We're looking to build something cool. Huge plan. For some Catholic pioneers to help us in the construction of this beautiful thing that we got going, and I think, as Kelsey said last night, it's about trying to make something that is beautiful, that is good, that is true. And, you know, a lot of us like the loop because it summarizes the information so we can find out what's going on in the world, and that is very important still, and we're going to continue with that.

But this is the next iteration. This is to try to help people see the world with imagination and see it how we Catholics see it. So, you know, and it's not just here's the hymnals and all that kind of stuff. I'm not against that, but it's great stories that touch the human heart. You know, I am really excited by some of the programming, especially something that is called Forgotten USA, some stories that you do not see in the main headline news, and we had somebody doing amazing film work.

They went down to western North Carolina that had suffered that massive... Hurricane. Who would have thought the hurricane would ever push all the way up into the mountains of western North Carolina? And just the footage, I was able to see some of the stuff. It blows you away, the kind of people that we were able to talk to, some really, really great stories, and then there is the home team, which talks about sports in a way I think is really fun and edifying and exciting.

So, there are so many great things coming up. I got to take some credit for that. Me and Brian came up with that in a Shark Tank session, and it ended up way better than I could have possibly imagined. I have seen the trailers, and I have seen where they have gone. It is awesome. There is also a prayer component, too. Which I'm really excited about. Today's readings, prayer wall, there's going to be like a connective element, because, so, what I really loved about, I mean, there's so much I love about this, but the beginning, when Kelsey came on, President of Catholic Votes, she just did a live stream last night.

The first thing she did was she got us all together, and we had a spiritual retreat. She would spend a lot of time in the convent, and it was funny. Going from Brian to Kelsey was like, oh my gosh, a nun is now the president of Catholic Church. Nothing was more obvious to me. We talked about Mother Angelica a lot last night, and I was like, yep. Mother Angelica, we had sessions on faith, hope, and love. A foot and a half taller.

Yeah, a little taller than Mother, yeah. And so anyway, the foundation of all of this is prayer, and if nothing else, if we connect. Catholic Americans around the country to pray for really meaningful causes and for our own country, that'll be a win just in itself. I mean, so I'm excited about that, and then also, my wife and I played this last night. You have to sign me, but it is, let's just say it's suspiciously similar to Wordle, if we got any Wordle heads on there.

I do, and maybe I was the guy who recommended we put puzzles on there. Yes, you are, sir. We got puzzles, we're taking on the New York Times, we're taking on anyone, we're taking on everyone and anyone. I think it's beyond time. I think, like, there's so much demand for a... Authentically Catholic media organization that is willing to grapple with, like, this show is not going to change in character. Like, the whole point is... And it's funny, if you look at it, you can see analytics on YouTube of who listens to us.

It's a lot of people that listen to Father Mike, a lot of people that listen to very Catholic things, and then they pop over to us, because they're like, hey, they are like me. They go to Mass on Sunday, they actually do believe in Catholicism, and they're willing to engage with Nick Fuentes or whatever, you know, like the issues of the day. And all the other stuff. Yeah, exactly, like in everything. So, it's beyond time. I'm so excited for it. I can't wait until it's unveiled to everyone, and I'm so excited for it.

Me too. Yeah, my individual, not individual, because Simon is with me, my editor, and we just had the best time with the farmer and the plumber. It gave me so much hope. The one thing I took away from it. And I felt this way, and I'll use my good news for this, because mine was going to be an AI robot being tricked into killing someone.

So, I'm going to go by our good news. So, scrolling this, the Zeal.co app, and the content that's on there is so clean. It is just awesome. But then, even in my two episodes that I did of farming and plumbing, what struck me was...

Both of the men that I talked to, the farmer and the plumber, had overcome many odds to be able to just really... Create something meaningful and get after it. Like, for the farmer, his dream was to farm. He really came over a lot of obstacles. Like, it is not easy to do that now, and he still made it happen. He didn't just fall into that. Right. He didn't fall into it. He actually was discouraged from it, and he did it, and he is doing it now.

And he felt connected to God in the land, and like, that was awesome. The plumber was like, I knew that I would just waste time in college. I wanted to actually work on my hands and build something awesome, and like, just riding around in his truck. Like, his business had expanded from just himself to like, he had two trucks rolling around with us. Like, this is the American dream.

And it's still possible. Like, we talk about all the challenges all the time, but I like the idea that we can go be for it instead of just, I think it's important to critique things on the show, but also to highlight people that are, like, just getting after it that are not, they're not asking for it. Like, even the guys that I talk to, I call them, like, why are you talking to me? I'm like, well, actually, like, people need to hear from you more than people that make a living talking on a microphone.

No offense, I'm talking about myself here, but there's, like, these are the real stories that we need to get in front of people because They're uplifting, and they're encouraging, and they're inspirational to all the people that need that kind of inspiration now. So, anyway, super excited. It's only possible because of champions. So, again, we just want to thank the champions for this. This is our ability to try to change the culture and help other people see the world as we see it.

So, thank you again. All of our champions for all the work you do to support us. It would be completely impossible without that, yeah. Like, the whole idea behind all of this is, like, it's grassroots. It's real. It's, like, Catholics want this. It's made by people who are like you for people that would enjoy it, and it's just, yeah, it's going to be a part of it. I love Loop 2.0. Loop 2.0. Zeal.

Someone wants a show with tinfoil Tom. We should give him a call. Yes! All right, McCluskey. Tom McCluskey, you want a show? I will give it. We're handing out shows right now. Tom would be a great ASMR politics show. A politics show of just me and McCluskey, you know, the bald and the beautiful. You decide who's winning which.

The good, the bad, and the ugly, if I join. I want Tom McCluskey with his dog sitting in the background, although unlike Hassan Piker, he doesn't like elections. Yeah, no shocking. No shocking. We are a pro-dog organization. Yeah, for sure. No shocking. Awesome. Well, good show, guys. Fun Friday. I have, well, I got to take my hat off because we got to pray.

Yeah. Good man. Good job. Your mother raised you right, Tom. That would have sank the entire program if I prayed with the Zeal hat on. It would have been me. But. Yeah, there's confessions, you know. Amen to that. So, yeah, if you want to help us out, like, first thing to do, zeal.co. Go check it out. Campbell, it's awesome that it's here. Go check it out. Let us know what you think. We're so excited to unveil that. Everything we're doing now is in service of Zeal.co, so go check that out for us, especially if you're an avid consumer of the Loop or the LOOPcast.

That is going to be the... The nucleus. And it is because of our champions. So, if you want to support us, CatholicVote.org slash champions is where you can do that. Leave us a review. Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you to all the people that sent me their Spotify raps. The LOOPcast is their favorite show. It is always, you just forget sometimes. I am like, I can't believe how many people listen to the show. It is kind of crazy. So, thank you.

We are always thankful. Super thankful. So, yeah, we are going to end in prayer today. And so, and then I'll send you off to a good weekend. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Heavenly Father, your Son, Jesus, is your greatest gift to us, a great sign of your love. Guide us as we strive to walk in that love together as a family this Advent, as we prepare our hearts for Christmas. Bring us closer to each other and to your Son. Give us the grace and strength we need every day.

Help us to always trust in you. Come, Lord Jesus. Lead all people closer to you. Come and dispel the darkness of our world with the light of your love. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady Guadalupe, pray for us. Pray for us. Great show, gang. Happy St. Nicholas Day tomorrow. Happy St. Nicholas tomorrow. We'll catch you on the flip on Monday. See you then. Peace.