SCOTUS To Decide Birthright Citizenship, CDC Drops Hep B Shot For Babies, And Narnia Reboot

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. The LOOPcast is brought to you by The Loop, every American Catholic's favorite morning newsletter. Good morning, everyone. Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception. I got my Mary in blue on today. Happy Mary in blue. I will get into that. Josh, I feel you always have a good story about that. It's not just a feast. It's a solemnity. A solemnity. Up top, before I get to that, I would just like to say, again, thank you.

I had many people continue to send that we were their top show on Spotify. I had a good friend come into town, said it's the only show he listens to religiously, no pun intended, and he's up there in the skies flying around. He's a pilot, so I had a good time with him. But I just wanted to just express some sincere gratitude again to all the people that listen. They really enjoy the show. I've said really nice things. Challenge me in the email inbox.

Iron sharpens iron. Always challenging. Seriously, I love this, the audience that we've curated. Love seeing everyone here live as well. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 11 a.m. Eastern Time is where we do that, but more important than any of that, it is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. It's Feast Day. It's a solemnity. It is a holy day of obligation, so go to Mass if you haven't already, and throw in some Mary in Blue, but Josh, what were you saying there? Here's the thing.

What is the thing? The U.S. bishops, back in the early 1990s, decided that holy days of obligation were no longer obligatory on Saturdays and Mondays of some feasts. All Saints Day, if it's a Saturday, dude, you don't have to go two days in a row. If it's a Monday, hey, don't worry about it. They ask so much. But on this one, it's a Monday, and you're like, oh, is this a get out of obligation day free card? No. It is our nation's patroness.

Get the buttocks to church. It's like every old Catholic grandma turned out they were right about everything. Like, just go to Mass. Just go to Mass. Just pray. What are we going to do? Pray your rosary. It's like, I think they've been exonerated on every front. The old Catholic grandmas that are spending their time praying for us in the pews.

God bless them. They were ignored at our apparel. Amen to that. Who is not ignoring this? We have a presidential message. A presidential message on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. What? Here we go. Today, I recognize every American celebrating December 8th as a holy day honoring the faith, humility, and love of Mary, mother of Jesus, and one of the greatest figures in the Bible. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Catholics celebrate what they believe to be Mary's freedom from original sin as the mother of God.

They got some Catholics working in here. Good job, guys. Yes, they do. Catholics actually know that it's about Mary. Good job. Not Jesus's conception. This is not a football play. This is not a... You know, it's not about the kids, it's not about her. Yep, there you go. She first entered recorded history as a young woman when, according to Holy Scripture, the angel Gabriel greeted her in the village of Nazareth with news of a miracle. Hail, favored one, the Lord is with you, announcing that you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.

In one of the most profound and consequential acts in history, Mary heroically accepted God's will with trust and humility. Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word. Mary's decision forever altered the course of humanity. Nine months later, God became man, and when Mary gave birth to a son, Jesus would go on to offer his life on the cross for the redemption of sins and the salvation of the world.

And it goes on. It's a meaty message. It ends with a Hail Mary, too. Ends with a Hail Mary, awesome. Not a Hail Mary pass. In her honor, and on a day so special to our Catholic citizens, we remember the sacred words that have brought aid, comfort, and support to generations of American believers in times of need. Never was it more obvious that we have Catholics working in the White House. So awesome. We don't have a Catholic president, just to be clear, because the Catholic president we just had.

Didn't ever acknowledge the Immaculate Conception, to my knowledge. Or any... I'm trying to think, did he do anything like this? Well, on Easter one year, he made it Trans Day of Visibility, so there's, I mean, he celebrated Easter, just not. Yeah, I forgot about that. And all the lefties online are like, well, we always do the Trans Day of Visibility on the 31st of March. It just so happened that it ended up on Easter this year, and I'm thinking to myself, maybe I'd never have that day to celebrate Trans Day of Visibility.

And if it does end up on Easter for the President of the United States, maybe don't proclaim it that year. You know, those are all choices, but Biden went ahead with it anyway. Yeah. Or somebody did. Choice indeed. But honestly, I'd rather him be faithful. I would rather a president, like, you know, Joe Biden will get the ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday, you know, but then he would go and support the killing of babies and the removing of genitals, you know, of young children with our taxpayer dollars.

Like, to me, issuing a proclamation, like, Look, it is good to issue a proclamation if it's true, of course, but not if it provides cover. Now, you know, so Joe Biden, that he never recognized the Immaculate Conception, eh, whatever. I just wish he would go to confession.

Oh, seriously, I'm into that. And there's still time. Who knows? Like, I guess isn't that the point? Like, I hope that he does come to a census to have a major conversion, and you never know. Thief on the cross.

Amen. Okay. This show, though, we are going to handle huge news. The Supreme Court has decided they are going to hear on, in my opinion, the marquee executive order from Donald Trump, the 14th Amendment. It's interpretation of the 14th Amendment clause based on birthright citizenship. And so, I have all the context there. It's massive. It really could change everything. The fact that it's reached the Supreme Court is huge. So, I got all the implications, all the details there. Second, we have the CDC offering a new guidance on the hepatitis B vaccine.

Really, really prevalent, especially to a lot of, maybe just because I'm starting to have kids myself with my wife, but a lot of moms have become very frustrated with the vaccine schedule. It's extensive. So, this was a big move, and a lot of people see the right direction, so I've got a little bit of detail on that. I'm going to have Erika help me cover that one. And then finally, Netflix is going to acquire, looks like is going to acquire Warner Brothers, and you might say, who cares, but this does have a lot of bearing for...

Who is creating the content and what we end up reaching in our homes? And we might even stick in a little Narnia C.S. Lewis there for this. Narnia C.S. Lewis as well. We'll call it Entertainment Corner. But we have good news. We have Twilight Zone, as always. If you want to help us out, especially if you're listening on Apple, leave us a review. Go ahead and leave us a review. It helps us a lot. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and go over and subscribe on YouTube.

We've got great extra content there, so go ahead and check that out. But first, we have this massive... decision on birthright citizenship coming up, so I'll share the headline here, and I'll get into some of the detail. Okay, so.

As I said before, the Supreme Court has decided they are going to rule on the birthright citizenship decision, whether or not it violates the Constitution. This goes back to the executive order on January 20th, 2025, first day in office. He signed Executive Order 14160, titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. It sought to end automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to parents who are undocumented immigrants or on temporary visas, such as student, work, or tourist visas, requiring at least one parent to be a U.S.

citizen or lawful permanent resident for the child to qualify. You might say this seems kind of common sense, but the status quo as of now is that neither Neither mother nor father needs to be an American citizen. If you have a baby literally on the soil, they become an American citizen. They enjoy all those rights. It's a bit unusual. I'll get into a little bit of the context, but that is the status quo, and as this has reached the Supreme Court level, judges immediately jumped in and started trying to block this, and so it has just reverted to the status quo.

So, that is still the case until the Supreme Court ends up ruling on this. Specifically, In Washington, New Hampshire, elsewhere, everyone sued over this, and so now it's getting up to Supreme Court. And so, it's going to be called Trump v. Barbara and Trump v. Washington.

It's granting certiorari. Anyone got a pronunciation? Thank you. You got it. To review the Trump administration's appeal of the lower court blocks, oral arguments are expected to be heard in the spring of 2026, final decision anticipated in late June or early July in 2026. Again, as a kind of preface, this is going to really hinge on the interpretation of the 14th Amendment Citizenship Clause, direct quote, all persons born or nationalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

Josh. So, this all started in the late 1800s. And, you know, we imported and allowed a lot of men from China to come into the port of San Francisco and work on and building the railroads. And one person, you know, was born here in the United States. And then he, you know, so he was born to Chinese, you know. The Chinese migrants who were building the railroads were not given citizenship. This child was born. He decides to go visit the home country, naturally.

Then he comes back to the United States, and he's denied entry because he's not a U.S. citizen. He's like, whoa. Thus, the court case. And I guess my thought would be here. You know, exceptions, you know, we can make exceptions to the rule, but exceptions make bad law. And so, the court then, the same court said, well, you know, he was born in the United States, therefore, he should be. You know, a citizen of the United States. I think that was a terrible decision.

By the way, the same court that ruled Plessy versus Ferguson. Not a fan of this majority anyway. So, then we have this idea that, oh, anyone who could cross the border can give birth, and suddenly their children are born. Like, it just strikes me as unusual. It is, internationally speaking, yeah.

Like, you know, if you could have gone back in time somehow and told that court in, you know, what was it, 1878 or whatever they made the decision? By the way, do you know that eventually we're going to have a president of the United States who's going to leave the door wide open and hundreds of thousands of people are going to pour across the Rio Grande and be granted automatic citizenship to any children that they give birth to?

Like, is this what we're agreeing to? And so it's like, you know, it's one of those things where it's like, maybe, you know. The way that this Chinese person was treated was, you know... That's incorrect, and the court back then provided a good remedy that, okay, you know, it's just really not fair that you would not allow them back into the country. That doesn't mean we should permanently forever change the way we grant citizenship. Oh, you just accidentally give birth? A woman that's eight months pregnant can just, you know, from Russia or from China, can just land at the airport and then give birth somewhere?

That's actually, it's currently an industry. Yeah, in fact, the idea that everyone thinks that these are just Mexicans or people from South America doing it, people from Russia, people from China are doing this. They're realizing that there is a value. If my child, then, is an American citizen, then their ability to go to Harvard or MIT or whatever is that much more of a leg up.

There's tons of advantages to being an American citizen. It's one of the most valuable citizenships in the entire world. Exactly, and sometimes people will get benefits, even if they're in this country illegally, because they're like, well, my child is a U.S. citizen, and then they can get benefits for their child. That's what's going on. Well, to understand this conversation, I think it's important to think of the scope, because...

Okay, this is a trust tree we can get beyond this on the podcast. This is a debate that needs to be had for coherent immigration policy, and it's important to compare, you know, where in the world is this going on? Do they have the same policies, and how big is the scope? And it's funny, I saw this as almost kind of a demeaning statistic, but it's kind of insane when I thought about it. Center for Immigration Studies indicate approximately 7% of U.S.

births involve undocumented parents. That reflects an estimated 225,000 to 250,000 births. Annually. That's every year. In four years, that's a million people. Who voted for that? So, this impacts a ton of people. This isn't like some small one-off. Like, this could be the whole ballgame in a lot of ways in terms of immigration policy for Trump. The second thing is, if you take a look at...

The regions, and one thing that stuck out to me was, there's actually a lot of countries that shared the same policy. It's right of soil, as it's known in English, and many of them actually, in the last... 25, 30 years have moved away from that, so they had that as their policy, and then they came together. There was a referendum. They said, no, this is outrageous. We can't have it, particularly in Europe. I look at Ireland. It was unrestricted until 2004.

Now, they require at least one parent to be Irish citizen. And the most travel change, you know? Right. One parent to be an Irish citizen or legal resident. New Zealand, unrestricted until 2006. At least one parent must be a citizen or permanent resident. Australia, the UK, France, India, Dominican Republic. All of these places have moved away, and if you look regionally, the Americas are kind of unique to the rest of the world in having this kind of right-of-soul policy. In Europe, it is effectively abolished everywhere.

Even Portugal, in 2020, changed the rules. They tightened them. Asia, it is basically non-existent. Pakistan is the outlier. Africa, it is super rare. Oceania, some tiny islands, but the rest of the world does not have this policy. It is specifically the Americas that have this policy. Well, and the rest of the world does not have this policy. Sorry, in the rest of the world, the understanding is that a child born to parents is under the jurisdiction to which those parents are subjected, right?

You aren't just, it's not the accident of the location of where you're born, but there's actually a familial tie there. It's ironic that Europe has done away with this, because they've also just left their borders so completely open at the same time, so they also have incoherence as an issue, but it seems to me that, like you said, Tom, part of having a Closing the borders, good first step, but this would be part of reforming, just the way we look at what it means to be a U.S.

citizen, and I'm excited to hear the oral arguments when they come out. I geek out over the SCOTUS stuff. I love to hear what the justices ask, and then guess how they're going to go, but with this court, We have a majority of originalists and textualists, right, with all of the appointees from Trump and then earlier from the first Bush administration, the second Bush administration. And so, what I think we're going to see is a real examination of the original intent of the 14th Amendment, which we've covered on the show before, but talking about the 14th Amendment, this was originally put in place as...

As a response to Dred Scott, as a way for emancipated slaves to be ensured equal protection under the law, there was no intent in the original passage by the representatives of the people in Congress to institute this sort of right to the soil you're born upon for immigrants. This had everything to do with Black slaves who had been emancipated, who were being denied basic constitutional freedoms. That the rest of the U.S. citizenry enjoy. And for the court in 1898 to then blow that up, like you said, Josh, not a great majority going on there with the Plessy case either.

That was a great tidbit. But I think that this court that we have now with Roberts, probably, Clarence Thomas. So, Alito, we're going to see this. Let's go back, and what was the original intent of the 14th Amendment, which would be great precedent, too, to get maybe Obergefell under the reins, too, which is also based on an erroneous reading of the 14th Amendment. So, all kinds of issues go back to this amendment. It's huge. It really is, yes. So, I look forward to another case going through SCOTUS to start to rein in these crazy interpretations of it that we've had.

So, you know. I actually think about baseball, okay? Do you? You know, in sports. Just to give an analogy for this, for example. Because I think we look for little, you know, we are a nation of so many different cultures at this point that we have to have rules and regulations for how we govern us, you know? And sometimes there can be little quirks in the rule books.

So, for example, in football... You know, if the team's kicking the, you know, not a punt, but the kickoff, and the ball's bouncing or whatever, and if it's close to, you know, out of bounds, this one player can step out of bounds and then touch the football, and then it's considered received by someone out of bounds, and then the ball has to go all the way to the 40-yard line. It's like a really weird quirk. Sorry, football, not baseball. That one's football, and then baseball, you have the infield fly rule, which is like, okay, if there's a pop-up in the infield, the batter's automatically out.

Okay. And the idea is that the runners don't start running because then you can get up, you know, or they hold up, you know, they just, well, you can still let the ball drop, and then you can throw a bunch of guys out. So, it's like, oh, it's like these little quirks, you know, and it's like, that's what I feel like with birthright citizenship is, like, Supreme Court's like, yeah, we really, back in 18, whatever it was, we feel bad for this Chinese person that was, you know, denied entry back in the United States.

It was where he was born. He's been living here for 20 years. That just doesn't seem right. You know, so it's like this little quirk here, which, by the way, we did not have travel in the way that we did. You know, that was just, you know, they're building the railroads. It's just the beginning of, like, the ability for thousands of people to move quickly. But even now with flights, the idea that, you know, so it's like, well, by the way, we're going to bind ourselves and all future generations.

Because of this ruling, anyone who happens to give birth on this land, their child will automatically... automatically be given citizenship and the thing is when they were debating this it was a senator from my state of michigan that said this will not of course include persons born in the united states who are foreigners aliens who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited the government of the united states but will include every other class of persons so in other words you Freed black slaves, their children will be U.S.

citizens. That is what this was all about, this clause of the 14th Amendment. This idea that we suddenly have to give citizenship to 250,000 people every year who are born in the United States from parents who are here entering this country illegally? No. It does not find us like that. You're breaking down the social contract if you tell middle Americans, like, yeah, I know you're struggling to pay the bills, and inflation is a problem, and by the way, 250,000 children are going to be given citizenship every year because their parents came into this country illegally, because we had a president for the last four years in Joe Biden.

That should be convicted of treason for what he did on the southern border. Yeah. Help me out here, too. It reminds me a little bit of, was it the ERA or the Voting Rights Act, maybe, when we had this conversation about, like, Basically, why you cannot redistrict in the South, because they wanted to give... The Voting Rights Act. Voting Rights Act, yeah. So, they wanted to give people the ability to district based on their race, as somewhat of... Like, reparations is almost a toxic term at this point, but basically, you know, disenfranchise people, give them the opportunity for representation right after they were slaves.

And so, that might have been an appropriate remedy at the time, but obviously, it is no longer necessary. It is no longer the proper... Response, and I feel similar in this way. Like, there may have been a time, as you said, this was about slavery and disenfranchised people, but of course, the last five years.

Completely shattered any type of precedent ever, and it's forcing us to have to reconcile, and I think Europe kind of went through this already, and it's probably why they don't have this policy, is they had mass migration before America really did, and then America had their mass migration explosion around 2020, in which no one voted for it. It's presented tons of challenges. We have this Supreme Court case, I think, that was misruled, and then we have a statue, you know, where she's got this, like, poem in the harbor of New York, and therefore...

We need to let everyone come in and just get citizenship to all their babies. I am sorry. It is a nice statue. I like it, but I am sorry. We are governed by our Constitution and our laws, and this was a mistake. This was never the intention of the 14th Amendment, and we should not have to automatically grant citizenship to 250,000 babies every year because their parents are here illegally. It is insane.

And another small thing going on, too, that I thought I would highlight, because I think there's been... It has been controversial. It has been debated how successful Trump has been in the mass deportation scheme, in the tactics used, in the social media stuff, the raw numbers. Everyone is debating it. One of the things that I actually like that I don't think has gotten enough play is he has really taken a look at the Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review that oversees these immigration courts.

And what was happening was many of these judges were appointed by Biden or Obama, and they essentially assigned temporary protected status upon... Thousands of people to protect them from deportation, and so that's why you get the Somali situation in Minnesota. That's why you had the Haitian situation in Ohio. They were just granted this TPS to protect them from legitimate enforcement action from immigration, and a lot of these judges actually serve at will, so they're employed by the Attorney General, essentially. So, they can be fired at will, which I think we could use a little bit more of that at the federal level, if you ask me.

So, he's fired, I think, like... A significant, like 100 now out of the 800? 98 out of 700. Yeah, which is a significant 14% of the total I see here through terminations in early retirement incentives reassignments, but trying to bring on people now who are like, okay, can we actually be honest about this situation? Like, do they actually need TPS, or was this just done to get as many people in the country as possible that shouldn't be here, and we're just blocking them from actually being deported properly?

So, I just wanted to highlight that. Like, I think it is a much... More uphill, challenging problem. Obviously, there's been much talked about than people are even really giving credit for, and so I'm seeing some really smart actions that I want to highlight as well. Here's a little thing here.

So, the debates on this online are, of course, very fascinating, because, like, the law is so obviously on our side. It's, like, crazy, like, or, you know, the people who are subject to laws thereof, like, obviously, and we see all the senators are, you know, the guy who authored the amendment is like, yeah, no, dude, not for children of aliens, obviously. Hello. And now we have this situation. It's like, so it's a debate. And so, you know, Donald Trump says it's time to get the law right, and he signs an executive order.

And actually, what we could do, you know, the Democrats could just agree with him, actually, by the way. Right? They certainly could. There's nothing preventing them from doing it. And if they say, well, actually, you can't do it by executive order. Okay, great. Why don't all you Democrats vote in the House and the Senate right now for a constitutional amendment that clarifies that? Oh, wait, you don't want to? Because you love birthright citizenship? Because you love having a quarter million babies born every year in this country illegally to parents of illegal aliens?

Huh. It's almost like you want to run the country down. Wonderful. These people. Obvious political advantages to bringing people in and giving them a ton of benefits and then having them vote your way. You can't have a, what is it, like country club? There's like an economic principle with like country clubs, it's like the reason they're successful is because membership actually means something. Yeah. And it's like, well, if you dilute them. Because they're exclusive, right. Right, it's like, well, if you dilute that, you're bringing as many people as you want.

Do not demand. They think it's illegal and horrible to have laws that require identification before you vote. Oh, it's constitutional, it's racist, I don't know. But then you try to go into the Democratic National Convention Party without an ID, and they're like, dude, your ID was your ID. I'm like, what do you mean ID? Were you racist?

Yeah, and people bring up the people that have been here for a long time, say worked here illegally for 10, 15 years, and had children. What should we do with those children? I think there's actually a way that we could solve this with justice in that, sure, maybe you can grandfather some people in or something like that, but I think the end goal for justice should be there shouldn't be a shadow workforce of people that have no legal protection, and the status quo is just to have people that aren't citizens.

That can be taken advantage of in many different ways to actually get them citizenship, and then to not have, like, I want to make policy for my grandchildren, not for my grandparents. So, we need to look forward here. Like, we need to look forward and be like, who should actually be a grand citizen? Should it be someone that can just hop across the border and have a baby? They should be citizens? No, but you can always grandfather and look behind, but the policy should be going forward, not retroactive.

Why should only one side have to be willing to... To make any compromises or make any adjustments like this. In other words, like, well, what are you going to do about this? What are you going to do about that? And I just feel like, okay, hold on a second now. If the other political party were willing to admit the sins that they had committed over the last four years in allowing millions of people to come across this border illegally, which is harmful to the body politic and corrosive to the common order, that would be good.

Then we could actually come up with some sort of law and say, okay, you know what? Now that we've got the border secure, and maybe Democrats could vote for border security, and maybe they could support the enforcement mechanisms that are going on with ICE, and then maybe we could say, well, somebody who's been here for... Seven years, and their child has U.S. citizenship because of the birthright back in, you know, seven years ago. We can agree in the law to allow the parents to say, even though they won't get citizenship, we'll give them some sort of status.

Right. We could do such compromises, but wait a minute. That means Democrats would have to come to the table and say what they did was wrong, and they'd have to actually support enforcement, enforce a border. Because right now, they have opposed every single action Donald Trump has done on border enforcement, every single one, vehemently. And that tells me, and it tells every other voter out there, if they get power in the White House again. They are going to have another four years of opening the border wide open.

They are just going to open it up. They need to come to the table. They need to come to the table and ask for something, because if people are telling me the enforcement of everything that Donald Trump is doing is not completely, perfectly flawless, yeah, well, Democrats want to improve the situation.

Come to the table. Right, and I think it comes down to a respect for the rule of law instead of just raw power, and someone in the chat is talking about it. Victor Davis Hanson had a solution. There's all kinds of legal solutions by which we can, like you said, Tom, stop the bleed, get some good policies that will last the country going forward, including ending birthright citizenship, and then once we have the rule of law back in place, which Trump is making strides towards, and hopefully this Case also makes another step towards.

Then we can go about codifying into law these fixes, and one from Victor Davis Hanson was, you have a series of requirements. So, you've been here 15 years illegally. You've had three kids while you were here. Okay, are you on public assistance? Are you working? Are you contributing to taxes? There are ways to work with the existing crisis, but not until we all come to the table and agree we have to We have to go back to rule of law, and like you said, Josh, it is incumbent right now upon Democrats to do that.

From what I see, their campaign strategy is just get back in power as soon as possible, scream as loud as we can, and we are just going to get back to power and go back to doing the other thing. How are they going to campaign on immigration, though? I am interested to see. I am genuinely interested. Are they going to campaign on... We're going to undo everything Trump's done with immigration. We're going to open the borders. Are they going to say that?

I saw a tidbit, Erika. Or are they going to primaries, but not the general? Wait, wait, I saw a tidbit, Josh. The problem becomes... Wait, wait, one second. Just on that point, I saw a legit clip. We're like, I can't believe that I'm looking at these ICE agents who are masked, and I see that their skin tone is dark under the mask. Don't you understand that you are on the reservation?

Basically, you're deporting your own people. You're going against your own interests, accusing them of being like a, what do you call it? Yeah, yeah. Like an Uncle Tom or something like that. Uncle Tom, yeah. And I'm like, what a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation, and total own-goal dunk. You don't think that there could be Americans that are different skin tone, that, I don't know, don't benefit from this system of widespread illegal immigration, where people skip the line, get benefits, and ruin— Like, you know what I mean?

Like, they actually believe— So, I think the fundamental point is key that you make that I think I sometimes forget, because I'm just assuming some goodwill here, and I'm like, I actually want good legal— ...solutions for our grandchildren, but without a true respect for the rule of law at all, then what does policy or the law mean to people that don't respect that and have never been punished by said law? So, that is why I am actually in favor of more punishment for the people that have actually abused this, say, people that employ illegal workers that are giving out CDLs.

And that needs to be part of the fix. Totally. It needs to be the hammer dropped on a lot of those people because they have taken advantage of the American system. ...at great profit for many years that have been detrimental to the American society. And anytime anyone complains about how the Republican Party is not immaculate, like our Blessed Mother is, and not perfect, and I'm like, yeah. And they're, hey, dude, there's a lot of flaws. I'm like, listen, if someone wants to introduce to me a second political party that's better than this, that can, you know, but until now...

If the Republicans don't win, it's the Democrats, and they have told us that they don't think there's a problem at the border. In fact, the only guy, the only senator in, the only person in Washington that's a Democrat, you know, Henry Quayler in the House, who Biden went after, and then Fetterman in the Senate, and they were trying to primary him. I mean, like, so the Democrats think, you know, well, there's no problem. Like, what? The John Fetterman thing is.

Non-stop entertainment. You never know what's going to be next. The whole reason why we started 20 years ago was to try to reform the country, to try to get people back on the right path. Anything we try to do to try to overturn Roe v. Wade, try to end abortion, try to end all these other scourges against the body politic, and try to make things better for the average American. All of that.

Government gets thrown out the window if you lose your sovereignty as a country, and how do you have sovereignty? And the thing is, Democrats, they're so big on this idea that we're all together, and government is just the name for things that we do together and all this stuff, and they enshrine. Religious terms for all sorts of governance. It is like, well, if you really believed it to be so sacred and cherished, right, then do not give it to every person who comes to the country illegally.

Like, this drives me insane. Our sacred democracy. Our sacred democracy. Oh, gosh. Okay, we got to move on now. Erika, we have some update on the hepatitis B front. What is going on? Yeah, so it has been a rough couple of weeks for the academic industrial government vaccine complex. We had, let's see, two weeks ago. That disclosure of the documented FDA-verified pediatric deaths that was reported to VAERS and then covered up after the COVID mRNA vaccines were administered to children, so that was a little rough.

And then it was a one-two punch. Just last week, we had this from President Trump, MAHA. He said, today, the CDC vaccine committee made a very good decision to end their hepatitis B vaccine recommendation for babies, the vast majority of whom are at no risk, all caps, of hepatitis B, a disease that is mostly transmitted sexually or through dirty needles. The American Childhood Vaccine Schedule long required 72 jabs for perfectly healthy babies, far more than any other country in the world, and he goes on, and this just makes sense.

So, what happened with the ACIP? You will remember that back earlier in the spring, RFK Jr., when he was confirmed to the head of HHS, he dismantled ACIP, which is the panel that makes the vaccine, recommends the vaccine schedules to the CDC director. And he repopulated it with people who are not employed by companies like Pfizer or Moderna or what have you. What? Yeah, right. Crazy. So they met at the end of the week.

Last week, and in a pair of what we're going to call very nuanced, the headlines are all like, they ended the vaccine schedule. That's not what happened. They approved a pair of very nuanced advisory recommendations, voting to end the recommendation that hepatitis B be given at birth. There is no change to the recommendation for infants who are born to women who have hepatitis B. So, there's no change to that. So, everyone's hair on fire can just be doused and put out, and what they really are recommending in both of these accommodations are individual-based decision-making between parents and their doctors.

Oh, gosh, this sounds like all the pro-choice people's dream come true, but it's not because we have to have vaccines. Everyone's mad. I didn't think about that. That's a good point. The science. They do. We worship the science. They also dropped the term birthing persons from the infant vaccine schedule. So, there is another small win for everyone who has a brain. This is interesting, though. The second recommendation is actually the more important of the two. The one that is getting all the headlines is dropping Hep B for healthy infants born to healthy mothers.

But the second recommendation establishes this precedent that booster dose decisions, so these are the boosters for the Hep B. So, not just that initial one that's given to the infant before 24 hours, but that booster dose decisions should also be individualized based on actual data about a child's prior immune responses.

Looking forward, this also opens the door or shifts the Overton window to evidence-based management of those with natural immunity from prior exposure to an infectious agent for all vaccines, not just the hep B. So, again, this is steps towards a more sane, evidence-based application of any vaccine recommendation by a physician instead of the, here's your schedule of 72 vaccines your child must have by the time they're three months old. So, again, Moving very slowly towards sanity, and then Trump comes out with his, like, this is the best.

It is. No, this is the best. This is exactly what I voted for. What was your experience with all of your children dealing with healthcare professionals? Well, it is interesting, because I have been in the healthcare professional vaccine industrial complex space for 20 years now, and when our first child was born, there were many, many, fewer vaccines. I think there were just three in the hospital, and we declined the eye thing, and we had to sign something saying that we would not hold anyone liable.

It was just very mellow. My last three infants, though, As we got through the Obama years and then into, like, the COVID space, it got crazy, and people are like, you have to shoot up your kids. And, yeah, fortunately, we landed with a physician, a pediatrician, who, once we were out of the hospital, is very amenable to not doing all the vaccines. Parental choice? Parental choice. The decision to make health care choices about your own children? I mean, it's like, people...

But in the hospital, it's insane. In the hospital, it is like... No one has a brain. They're all automatons, and again, these poor nurses who got into care to actually care for human beings, they're stuck on these monitors with these checklists, and if the parent declines one thing, like five alarms go off, they pull in defects, they pull in like child protection services. I wouldn't, don't laugh about it. Yes, CPS is pulled in. No, it's true. In places like Illinois, yes, you will get CPS pulled in on you.

Fortunately, where I'm at in Indiana, it's much more lax, but yeah. Why are you declining? Are you religious? No, seriously, that actually happens. I mean, this is like. I almost don't even like to make light of this. In what world could 72 vaccines as a baby possibly be the healthiest possible outcome or individualized in any way to you or your needs or your desires? It doesn't make any sense, and it was like the golden calf. No one was ever able to even compromise on things like Hep B, which everyone knows a child cannot have.

You can only get it through sexually transmitted disease and needles, or even just say, hey, don't get it now, but we recommend you get it. When you're 12, or when you're more developed, whatever. You know, whatever that is. There's been no compromise, because, of course, the racket is that all of these companies cash in on them, Moderna, et cetera. They make tons of money off it. The nurses don't actually receive education on the vaccines themselves. They're just told, this is the schedule, this is what you have to do.

They have to go get it themselves outside the system if they want to be educated. Exactly, and this is fine. This would be fine if... We are talking about five vaccines here, and they are very transparent about data, and they are transparent about education, why you need it. That would be fine, but everyone knows that 72 is not even possible, and have we become more healthier? Have our children become more healthier? Do we have less deaths? The answer is just abundantly no.

So, this is just such an easy, I am so happy, because this is an easy win. I know every parent that has had children within the last five years. This is hot, hot topic. Everyone talks about this. It is crazy in these hospitals. And I think they're just going to win a ton of goodwill with this kind of thing. Exactly. I'm super happy about it. I have friends who are very pro-vaccine who are like, oh my gosh, RFK is causing vaccine hesitancy.

And I'm like, have you not been paying attention? What's caused vaccine hesitancy was the insane amping up of the number of jabs they were giving kids without reflection. That's the problem. That's what caused the hesitancy. RFK is the one who's actually like, guys, we need to rebuild trust with the medical field. Because, yeah. There are good vaccines. I am glad my kids don't have polio. I'm glad that vaccine happened, right? I am glad that we don't have measles, mumps, and rubella just swimming all around us, but I also understand my friends who are totally anti-vax because they came into parenthood in the 2013s, not 2013s, in the 2010s, like 2013 and on, basically, and it was so insane, and they were so beat over the head and treated themselves like infants when they were like, Why do they need that?

Oh, you're a bad parent. You want your kid to die. You want to cause a measles outbreak in Connecticut. Of course, they have hesitancy. So, to me, like watching this process, it's actually RFK is the one who's trying to rein it in and bring some kind of sanity back to medicine. Yeah, right. Flip those shame tables, people. Flip those shame tables. You know what? Make it easier for us to say, let's get back to the normal stuff, like you say, polio, MMR.

I don't want polio or smallpox. This does relate to our first conversation in a way because the Child Safety Vaccine Act under Reagan probably was done under goodwill. I guess I can't say I haven't looked into it that deeply, but it basically didn't allow people to sue the manufacturers of these vaccines because the lawsuits are piling up, and you could say, oh, they didn't have the – there was too much surface area. They couldn't develop things that would actually help people.

So, it's just keeping us from scientific breakthrough, whatever. Again, this is kind of a paraphrase, but of course, what happened right after that was vaccines exploded. Everyone was making them because there's no punishment for people that didn't get the side effects, and then of course, it just ramps up, accelerates in 2020 with the COVID vax and warp speed and everything like that, and so in the beginning, might have been out of goodwill or for a certain exception, but of course, has been abused to the place.

No one can look you in the eye and say 72 vaccines is somehow the healthiest for babies in like An advanced country like America. And so this is just a step back towards sanity, and it needed to be addressed, hopefully, and we need to address it in law. Like, I think this is a good, maybe a good exception at the time that is no longer applicable or necessary, and it's been abused. So I think it's just getting back to sanity is going to be huge for parents in America.

Again, I think that was a brilliant insight there. And the thing is, the fact is. Why does it have to be permanent? With regards to our country, we put a few fundamental planks into our Bill of Rights, and we don't ever want to give those up. Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to peacefully petition your government, freedom of the press, the right to bear arms. But this idea that birthright citizenship or, you know, Indemnity from lawsuits for vaccines, stuff like that.

That should be permanent. What? And that is the thing. What the left had done is they figured out it was really, really hard to amend the Constitution, and so why not just get a Supreme Court case to decide? And so you get these Supreme Courts that are like a permanent constitutional convention that gets to do whatever the heck they want. Like, no, this is baloney. It's baloney. Baloney, indeed. I love that expression. Erika, give me some good news. Okay, I have good news, guys.

I am about to rip into Netflix in the next segment, but first, I wanted to throw him a bone, because Todd and I actually, we finished this weekend the Death by Lightning series, which is a limited series. It's four episodes. President James Garfield and the man. I was going to say, who put you on, Erika?

I know. That was Tom Pagasic. That was me. He totally recommended it, but I'm going to jump ahead of him here. Go for it. Did you finish watching it? I haven't finished. I actually haven't finished, so I'm glad that you did it, so I can now know it's good. Yeah, yeah, it is good. There's one at the beginning of, I think, the third episode. There's this, what he, the guy who shoots him, yeah, spoiler alert, but it's history, so you should already know that.

The guy who shoots the president. Spoiler alert, he did get assassinated. Guys, you should just all know this. So, he spends some time in a free love. And there is a completely unnecessary scene in the free love colony, if you know what I'm saying. So, just skip that part. But other than that, and there's a lot of F-bombs, but other than that, this was really well done. It was really just creative, fresh retelling, I want to say, but that sort of triggers people.

It was pretty faithful to the history, because I was reading along as I was watching. And yeah, it was great to see a show that actually had... Good messaging, little bit of educational value, and was just beautifully shot and really well acted. So, for those of you history nerds out there, I'd recommend Death by Lightning. Sorry, I don't know if we prefaced this. This is the show Death by Lightning about...

About President James Garfield, and it follows him, his rise into the presidency, which was completely unexpected, and the man who shot him, and bonus, the guy who plays Chester Arthur was Ron from Park and Rec, and so, right? He's just so funny, and it's a great, yeah, just a good character. I don't know if Chester Arthur was that much of a partier in real life. Yeah, I actually did, okay, minor nitpicks, James Garfield. They made it seem like he wasn't already a known entity or like an orator force, basically.

He was well-known at the time. It wasn't like he was just this nobody that kind of showed up and gave the speech out of nowhere. He was a really well-known speaker. I think he held a position of power within Congress. So, it wasn't—I know they did it for the story, but then I looked it up. They definitely exaggerated elements of each character in order to drive it in four episodes. Yeah, you need it. It's four episodes. It's like this little slice of his life.

Who was the curly-haired dude, too, Erika? What? The guy that had the part in the middle. He was the... Oh, Conklin, the senator from New York. I was like, it's Chuck Schumer, but 140 years ago. I can't remember if it was Chester Arthur or Conklin, but they made him kind of, not effeminate, but he was short, and he was...

I looked at the history on the actual guy. He was actually a huge stud, like super jacked. Really, well, like, so he was a little bit different. I almost like the, you got to make creative choices that are respected. Yeah, but I did appreciate the take on assassination culture and how the guys didn't pull the trigger, but they created this atmosphere where then the very narcissistic, wounded, damaged assassin actually took action because he read what they were writing in papers, and he listened to the speeches they were making against Garfield.

And it was a really interesting commentary on. What we have been watching for the last two years in our own country, and I'm like, take note, Chuck, Schumer, Nancy, but they won't. Their portrayal of the Constitutional Convention makes me want to go back in time so bad. Like, I just wanted to be in the room for that. So many Americans. When they're making speeches, there's American flags everywhere. No, you're talking about the Republican Convention, I think. The Republican Convention, rather, yes.

It just looks so fun. Like, it looked like how we should do it. I feel like now, you know they do them now. Television ruined the conventions. Totally, yes. Television ruined them. I feel like that was back when we were a proper country, and now you see, like, the DNC has, like, influencers announcing their things.

This is stupid. Everyone used to be in suits. Everyone used to be debating raucously. I am sure there were fights. It looked awesome. Okay. Sorry. That was my good news. Mercer, what have you got? Our good friend, Kelsey Reinhart, had a very, very, very good news announcement over the last few days. She is, well, are we going to roll the tape? I can roll it.

...of leadership, and how, as you enter into this new season of motherhood, is that influencing the way you think? Oh. Kelsey is a mom. Kelsey is a mom. Absolutely. I always say, and I said this to 10,000 young women at SEEK when I spoke there at their conference last year, I said, marriage takes an anchor in your heart and drops it into the soil, and it roots you in a stability and a permanency that you need to flourish. And what happens when that anchor drops?

You start to care about things. In a way that you've never cared about before. Why? And motherhood does this as well. You hold the future of the world in your arms as a mother. Why do you care about education policy? Why do you care about crime? Why do you care about your community? Why do you care about the status of schools around you? Because you have a vested interest in that, and it begins in marriage, and this is why I think so much of the crisis that we're facing politically is because you have a vested interest in that, and it begins in marriage, and this is why I think so much of the We haven't been able to resolve some of the vocational crises that people are in.

But it begins in this solidity and in this union, and so I'm really excited. I'm delighted. I feel a little bit like Elizabeth, being 42 and a first-time mother. I think, what a blessing. We're so excited, and it was something that I didn't expect because of my age, but we're delighted. Every child is a blessing and a gift, and I'm sure that that same conviction Regarding the political world, the political sphere gets turned on in new ways every time you take a step further in your vocation and you are deep in your walk with Christ, and so I am sure that that will happen here in this role as well.

Wow, isn't that the coolest thing? That is the coolest thing. Congratulations to Kelsey and to Matt, and it is a boy they found out. I am sure he will be 10 feet tall. If anyone knows, Kelsey is like 6'2". Her husband was a Big Ten tight end, so they are going to have the future Olympian incoming. I was thinking maybe he could go to Wyoming Catholic College and be a cowboy and go back to his mother's roots. That would be so cool, too.

So excited for them. Congratulations again. The best of news. It is. Okay, I'm going to be a little indulgent today. My good news is actually what I wanted to talk about today. First off, of course, Kelsey Moore important, James Garfield awesome. Have you guys heard of K-Cars? Josh, you'll like this. Actually, I'm not sure you'll like this, but I think you'll like this.

K-cars are popular in Japan. I love this, John. And I have a friend who loves K-cars and was mad for the longest. He's happy now, but he's mad because they're essentially outlawed in America because of how much regulation we have. And he thinks these are like the coolest things ever. He'd get one as soon as he can. And so, Trump comes out and says he wants to build and sell K-cars. It's spelled K-E-I, cars in America. But of course, you're getting people who are already skeptical.

Don't hold your breath. But K cars are, if you see a diagram here, this is a standard, I guess it's probably like an F-150 or Chevy, and then this is a K car. So, they're really small, they look like trucks, and they have a little flatbed on them, and in particular, my friend loves this Toyota Hilux. You can turn it into a RV, and they're diesel. So, this is what the Hilux would look like with something on the pallet in the back, but they're basically built like Spartan interior, so super minimalistic, because you can get them for like 12K, brand new.

So, 12K to 16K brand new. I don't think they even have an audio system. They're just as simple as you can possibly get. They're total utility, and Trump has just said he's going to start cutting the regulations or rolling back the regulations that make these illegal, and he wants to encourage manufacturers in America to start manufacturing them here because they are a cost-friendly alternative to, say, having to buy an F-150, which would run you, what is it now, 80K, 60K, 80K?

Cars, of course, have gotten... Way too complicated, intentionally so, I believe, and it's a great example of— The regulation, like, we think that we live in a free market. I think we like to think we live in a free market, but the over-regulation, as Josh has talked about, in terms of things as simple as car seats or the auto turn-off feature, like the auto turn-off feature actually specifically made it so that these cars can be made in America. I think they're trying to do this with electric cars.

And also the fuel efficiency standards. Fuel efficiency standards are a big one. And then we started really supplementing EVs, especially under the Biden administration, unsuccessfully. Slate came out with a car that's going to be similar to this, that they're promised is going to be 15K, but it's electric. Many people wanted something like Slate that is bare bones, simple, modular, you can mess with it, but they wanted it to be reliable. They wanted it to be gasoline-powered or diesel-powered or something that's actually reasonable.

And we've intentionally kept a lot of this innovation off the market. We've basically created it. There's a market for this stuff that we have kept black. And made it illegal to drive on our roads that would be really useful and helpful to the consumer, such as these K cars. I would actually get a K car as a second driver. Maybe you don't actually get it as, you know, what you drive your big family in or whatever. And Josh, this is small cars.

You have your 12-passenger van, and then you have your K car. Exactly. Well, again, remember, I brought this up on the podcast before that our federal government made it illegal to have the station wagon because, you know, the idea of us. A longer sedan that you could fit in a third row and have more children in there, they made it illegal, and so what ended up, you know, they put all these Well, then what did it do? It made moms and dads who want to have children and have enough room for car seats to just move into getting SUVs, which are not more fuel-efficient, but SUVs are considered trucks, so they are able to do that.

I ranted on this before, how it made the station wagon illegal. Well, finally, Trump got rid of these regulations now, and the station wagon will no longer be illegal. The other factor of it was that SUVs and trucks had to be big enough that they would be considered trucks. It also made the smaller light-duty trucks illegal.

This is just driving me crazy. So, environmental wackos, thank you so much, because for them, apparently, just affirming the environment and saying, oh, we're going to do this stuff, and to heck with the consequences. All you've done is made people, instead of buying a station wagon, buying a big SUV. That was dumb. Yeah. Don't do that. And to balance it, I think that cars actually have gotten a lot better. I think people look back kind of... With rosy glasses, right? Like, we're not burning as much oil as they did before, right?

Like, the engines are better. And those are good things. Like, the paint doesn't rust as bad. Like, those are good things. So, I think you can balance it. Like, there's been improvements. They're uglier in a lot of ways, I would say, which is unfortunate, but there are genuine improvements, but as I think we talked about on the show many times, you regulate to the point where it's too far, and the remedies have just outstripped the solutions, and so this, to me, is like, yes, like, this is great on the domestic front.

I would love to buy one of these little cars. Preventing younger people from getting more affordable cars, because we've got to say, every car has to have an iPad, and has to have the... Yes, literally. You're not exaggerating. That is the status quo. That's literally the status quo. You have to get it with all the regulations. And so, this would take it back, and a lot of people... I encourage you, go look up the Toyota Hilux. I was doing some YouTubing on it.

It's awesome. Many third world countries, like this is the backbone of third world countries, because they're modular, they're cheap. Uh, they're bare bones and they run on gas. And so it's used everywhere and it's just been restricted from reaching the American market. I would love to see these in cities. Like, do you know how hard it is to park or to go around like, uh, with big cars in the city? It doesn't make any sense. Uh, it works everywhere. I'm just, I think this is a huge win.

And again, I feel like this is a recurring theme. Donald Trump is not perfect, but he's the only Republican who's ever done a darn thing on this kind of stuff. Like, George W. Bush never would do stuff like this. Yeah, this is awesome. Okay, another good news. I was actually in downtown Indianapolis for the Big Ten championship game, IU 1. It was a really exciting game, and for all the Ohio State, that's what I'm saying. All the Ohio State haters, this is your moment.

But Fernando Mendoza, their quarterback, is adorable. He looks like he's, like, 15. He's going to be a top draft pick next year, and here's his... here's his post-game interviews just i just i'm addicted to these post-game interviews and big moments i want to give all the glory to god of misfits who found the right home Just awesome.

I just want to get to know what you got. Total water roots, right? Oh, man. With the voice crack, too. It's just, this kid is the best. This kid is the best. He's so cute. That's going to show up on an SNL skit pretty soon. Yeah. That's awesome. It was an awesome game. Big, big, big shout out to IU, to the home state.

Fun team. First, they, I don't think they've won a Big Ten championship since 1967, so it's pretty unprecedented, and it was. Great to see the city on fire last night. People were having a good time, so. And then, finally, Coach doesn't want to go somewhere else. He's like, no, I want my school here, IU, to be a championship school. That is so cool. He's just inked an eight-year. He's getting paid. He got an eight-year contract, and yeah, he earned every dollar of that.

My final is because I got the Freddy Fetterheads, Fenderheads, I think. Fetter, Fender, I can't remember. They came out in force. They loved the music rack. And we've reached the level of, so as I said, you kind of got to start with Christmas music. You can't go to classics right away. You got to go, you got to kind of ramp up. So, we're in another week. We've unlocked another tier of Christmas music. Happy Christmas Sunday. My Christmas Wrecks, Alabama Christmas, and Alabama Christmas Volume 2.

Unbelievable. I would like to live in these albums. It's got the soft kind of hum a little bit from that nice, classic sound. Of note, Tennessee Christmas, Christmas in Dixie, Christmas in your arms. I do love that song. I was once young, too, and when it comes to Christmas, notable. It just puts you in the best mood.

Alabama Christmas, Alabama Christmas Volume 2. Fantastic. It's a fun band. I've seen them at concerts. Oh, no way. That's awesome. I'd love to see Alabama in their prime. I think I was 18 or whatever. I'd imagine Josh is an 18-year-old at a concert, man. That's fun to think about. I saw Garth Brooks, Alabama, Charlie Daniels.

Sawyer Brown, I like them. They were something else. They used to be the guys that made it on Star Search, and they had a good career. That's awesome. What do you think Josh's Spotify age is? 100. We had someone on staff. Shout out to Tanner. Tanner is 93 years old, I think. Yeah, he beat me. I think I was like 63 or something. His number one favorite artist of the year was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, so that really bumped his age up there.

Mine was, again, for the 10th year in a row, wailing. Yeah, I was going to say. Oh, love them. Oh, my gosh. That's awesome. You've created. Alabama Christmas. Alabama Christmas. Alabama Christmas Volume 2. Good news. You will not be disappointed. It will put you in the best mood. It's the best. All right, I'm going to add it right now. Add it up. Well, maybe after this show. And then stay tuned for Week 3. We'll see where we go from there.

C-block, Narnia. All right, I'm going to claim this as my Twilight Zone, because I do feel that Aslan has entered the Twilight Zone. So, due out in theaters, IMAX only, next Thanksgiving is Greta Gerwig's adaptation of The Magician's Nephew. And all you Narnia fans will know that is, C.S. Lewis is like the origin story, as they like to say in the biz, of Narnia. It's really a creation tale from C.S. Lewis's point of view. But anyway, they held a big event.

To plug the film with IMAX, and we learned that Greta Gerwig's Magician's Nephew will feature a contemporary rock-influenced sound with artists like Pink Floyd and The Doors, cited as examples of the tone that fans can expect. The producer, Amy Pascal, who is a piece of work, she made a similar remark last year when she described the project as it was getting off the ground. She said it was going to be... All about rock and roll. She said, this is a real blockbuster movie that's being made for IMAX and Netflix.

Told you they would come up. And you know, I guess I do have to talk a little bit about why I'm so excited about it. This is not your mother's or your grandmother's Narnia. And my little soul just tripped. I hate that phrase. I don't like that. That just tells me that, I don't know, Aslan's going to be a kitty. My grandma would hate it. I'm going to hate it, hon. Yeah, exactly. Yes, grandma's exonerated again. Once again, once again. So, yeah, you can all react to that.

Nobody's seen it, so I want to be fair. It might be okay. Barbie, after all, did end up being a great movie about Ken doll, so maybe Greta will pull this out. But I'm not holding my breath, because her Little Women was bleh.

And other projects. Greta Gerwig, famous for making a movie in which Barbie should have been the protagonist, but then just everyone loved Ken so much, even though he was supposed to be the bad guy. Like, he took out toxic masculinity, won out in that film.

Ryan Gosling's awesome. Maybe that'll happen here. Maybe he'll try to make the witch cool, and then it'll be Aslan ends up being cool, even though he's supposed to be the bad guy. I don't know. I hope so. I don't know. But again, it's just like, it taps into this frustration with Hollywood and the whole industry of filmmaking.

That they take stories that are beloved, they take worlds that are created with, this happened with Wicked as well, they take worlds that were these creations of love by these great artists like Frank Baum, I mean, C.S. Lewis in this case, Louisa May Alcott in the case of Little Women, Jane Austen, with all the Jane Austen remakes and hash makes and backstories and spinoffs, and they just corrupt something that was really good and beautiful. And remake it in our image, which ironically, one of the messages of The Magician's Nephew is how Aslan creates the world of Narnia, and in comes Jadis, who turns into the White Witch later on, in comes the Great Witch Jadis, and makes it all about herself, and she wants to corrupt Narnia into her own image, so she takes the time.

Like, turn some of them into her henchmen, and then she ends up on Earth for a short while because the protagonist Diggory lets her in, and she wants to retake Earth and make it in her own image there, which is precisely what they're doing with all these beautiful old stories that we have. So, don't do that, guys. Don't do it. Do we want to get into the merger, or is that just too much at this point? It might be a little too much, but Josh did share this, and I'm laughing about it.

Josh, would you like to? Speaking of Tolkien, I just thought I'd share this. Someone tweeted this out. Tolkien, it is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the enemy, for good or for ill. C.S. Lewis, I wrote this book from the perspective of a demon and dedicated to C.S. Lewis.

That's so good. We had a little frenemy vibe going on, Tolkien and Lewis did. That's so good. Tolkien was very snippy about Narnia sometimes, and Lewis, in turn, was snippy about, I don't know, Catholicism. Competitive drive. Erika, did you like the OG adaptation of... Narnia and movie. So, the OG OG, the BBC, with like the giant people, the giant beavers, people walking around in like beaver costumes, which you probably never saw a photo of. I'm 27. OG to me was whatever came out when I was.

Okay. Yeah, that one was. I think like 2010 or something. I mean, they are. It's got to be the 21st century. Okay. I was prehistoric in my. Ha, ha, ha. Erika and Josh were born sometime in the 1000s.

Okay. Yeah, we watched it on stage at the Globe Theater in London, right, Josh? I like the 2010s that came out. Yeah, let me look that up. We watched it as a family over Thanksgiving, actually, Land, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I didn't like Prince Caspian. I thought they got a little too, like, loosey-goosey with Caspian and Susan in the romance thing. But for the most part, they did a good job. I was here for it. So, one adaptation of a great work that I do love and I am excited about is The Lord of the Rings.

They are in the midst of their 25th anniversary, and Peter Jackson, I love his adaptation. It's not the book. I do love the books more, obviously, but now, this winter, you're going to be able to go. For one weekend in January, it's March for Life weekend, actually, so I don't know if I'll make it, but you can go watch the extended edition, Lord of the Rings, for the 25th anniversary. They didn't try and remake it. They didn't try and do a spinoff.

They're just going to re-release the original extended editions in the theaters to celebrate the 25th anniversary, which I think is a great idea, because they were that good. Okay, so the Chronicles of Narnia came out in 2005, and it was directed by the same guy who directed Shrek and Shrek 2, so no surprise, it was a classic. It was a classic.

That's crazy. It was a solid. My takeaway from that was... The girl that just, Edmund, Ed, like that high-pitched Edmund, I take away. The second is Turkish Delights look like the most delicious thing I've ever seen in the movie, but I don't think they're actually that great. I think that was kind of a psyop. Like, I looked them up after, and I'm like, that actually, they're not as good as they made them look. No, I remember as a child being like, Turkish Delights, and then I went to some party, and there was Turkish Delight, and I ate one, and I was like, oh, this is awful.

Josh is pro-Turkish Delights. What, you like it? No! This book you're talking about was written by a Brit? Yeah, that's true. I mean, a Brit. I mean, they're gastronomical artists. Are we going to take their food for, you know, come on. I do remember being enraged at, Edmund betrayed, right? It did a good job in that, that I hated Edmund. I cannot believe you betrayed your boys for, perfectly cast, the witch. She's a scary looking woman. Oh, yeah, she was really good.

Yeah, she was great. Yeah. I think it's so hilarious. They're going to ruin this. But I can't trust them for saying that Turkish delight is good food. I tell my kids, have you never heard this quote before? In heaven, the cooks are French, the police are British, the lovers are Italian, and everything is organized by the Germans. Right? I love that. I have not heard that before. In hell, the cooks are British, the police are German.

The lovers are Swiss. Oh, gosh. Josh. Everything is organized by the... I love this. That is a good one. I might back pocket that one. Come on. Okay, good Twilight Zone, Eric. Josh, what do you got? Why don't I do a Twilight Zone? It's a celebrity. I just want to hit this one again, you know, to celebrate our blessed mother. I love her. So, every year on this celebrity of the Immaculate Conception, firefighters in Italy take a massive wreath and put it at the top of the Statue of Mary, which is 88 feet above the square in Rome.

Exactly. It is a lovely tradition, and I love it that it is firefighters. Of course, you need to get the fire truck and get the guy to go way up at the top and put it on there. Of course, the firefighters were the ones in Paris who rescued the true cross from the fire. I love it that our church has got something that we can celebrate, like the common man, so the firefighters. I had the chance just this May to walk by this statue.

I mean, it's just amazing to look up, and it's a beautiful statue, and it's just so far off the ground. It's so cool. So, fun story about the statue. The first time I ever went to Rome, it was my study abroad when I was in college, and I arrived in Rome on December 8th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and I had to get a taxi from the airport to where I was staying, which is right down the road from this, and as the taxi went by, I looked between some streets.

And I saw the firemen up there with the wreath, putting the wreath on Mary. So, that was my first arrival in Rome. I'm like, oh my gosh, they're putting it, and the taxi keeps driving, but I actually got to be there. That's awesome. That's pretty epic. Yeah, my daughter's in Rome right now, but I think she's got finals this time. Oh, yeah. It's probably prayers for all the college kids out there.

Oh, man, we're praying for you guys. It's a tough time. Okay. It was like last year for Pogo, so. Yeah, right. He feels it. It's pretty recent. I'm 27, man. Yeah, come on now. I don't know about these old Narnia reboots or whatever, but anyway, speaking of new age stuff that I want a little to do with. So, mine's Netflix related, too. They got a new show just in time for the holidays called Queen of Coal. Description, a trans woman dreams of working the coal mines, but in a town steeped in superstition and patriarchy.

Carlita must fight to earn her underground. What? What? Coming to you live just in time for Christmas. Why did you just put that in my head? Well, if you want to get around with the family and you're tired of white Christmas, you're tired of It's a wonderful life. You want something fresh and new for the holidays.

You can look at that. It's almost like they're giving, like, Zeal a free promo. And we don't even have to really try that hard. It's just like, whatever Netflix is going to cook up. That being said, Erika kind of, we're running a little bit long time, but basically, Netflix is in talks right now to acquire Warner Brothers.

That is significant for a lot of ways because Netflix is producing stuff like that, but it's really hard to imagine back in the day when you got a DVD from Netflix in the mail that they would be acquiring, I mean, one of the most historic, successful, storied.

Yeah, exactly. I hope to have a similar arc. But, yeah, they're going to acquire Warner Bros. I think part of Warner Bros., not their live TV offerings, but their movie catalog, their production studio, and I think Trump is kind of signaling, like, he's going to, oh, it's got to go through the deals or whatever.

But they now would have the largest audience share, the biggest titles, and they now have a production studio. I know Netflix was producing some of their own original content, but they're looking to produce here. There's two things going on in my head. One, of course, there's a million subscriptions.

Pay to get everything now, which I don't think is great for the consumer. And so, now we're getting back closer to like a cable model. Prehistoric. You know what I'm saying? It's like we got this new thing called cable in which you can pay and then you can watch whatever you want.

But then also, like this does seem kind of... I'm not going back to that. I hated it. Yeah. This seems kind of... A little trusty, like a little monopoly, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's why Trump's signaling he's going to step in here, and actually, when we were going, starting the show today, Paramount just dropped that they're making a bid for a hostile takeover, because they want Warner Brothers, and so they just dropped it. Ah, interesting.

That's playing out right now. We'll see what happens. Well, Jared Kushner's on Paramount, so. Oh, the Kush? That's got an implication. Jared Kushner. What a life Jared Kushner is living. He's negotiating. Peace in the Middle East and coming back to trying to save one of those streaming deals on the side. Crazy.

Yeah, I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer. Everyone's kind of mad about it, and then there's other people that are kind of happy about it at the same time for the cable element, but, I mean, you've got to hand it to Netflix.

Yeah. Carlos, yes, forget Netflix, get Zeal. That's a good point. There you go. That's correct. Yeah. Or? Or, if you want to learn about a trans person dealing with the patriarchy to go back in the miles, that's just proof that we all yearn for the minds. It's why kids play Minecraft.

It's why, you know, people want to use their hands. We yearn for the minds. The children yearn for the minds. It doesn't matter your sexual orientation. So, some nice Christmas viewing from Netflix. That's a good takeaway. All right.

Yeah. Awesome. Good show, guys. Go get Zeal. Z-E-A-L-E. Um, Zeal? That's Zeal. Go check out the website. It's awesome. Left the E after for Jana. My mom is angry. I did have some people like, why didn't you just do Zeal? Z-E-A-L. She gets really mad when you spell things improperly, like when businesses do that on purpose. Guys, it is for copyright reasons. Come on. Don't blame us. Blame the fact that copyright law is so stringent, and you can't get domains and stuff like that.

We are trying to do something good here, okay? Zeal. Z-E-A-L-E. The extra E is for a little something extra. That is right. I love that. I love that. Actually, I love that. We are a marketing team on the fly. E is because you get something extra. Take that, mom.

Awesome. So, yeah, if you want to support us, championsclubcatholicvote.org slash champions. Go check out Zeal, of course. Next big project, leave a review, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Go subscribe on YouTube, and we'll end today with the daily prayer. Go to Mass, if you haven't gone to Mass already and you're listening today.

And before we do the prayer, real quick, just for those people, I know that we're getting towards the end of the year, and you're thinking about how you can, you know, make donations. You know, you can actually make a donation from your 401k, a lot of times, directly to the charity of your choice. So, consider donating to the CatholicVote Education Fund, which provides underwriting for a lot of the stuff that you see, both in the loop and on the loop cast, and sometimes they ask for that little information.

So, the EIN number, I'll give it to you. Why not? 278-7890, based right there in Carmel, Indiana, the CatholicVote Education Fund. So, help out, you know, make it, you can make that donation right from your, you know, big fat mutual fund. Help out the cause. Awesome. True believers support the cause. Ending the prayer today. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

Father, the image of the Virgin is found in your church. Mary had a faith that your Spirit prepared and a love that never knew sin, for you kept her sinless from the first moment of her conception. Trace in our actions the lines of her love, in our hearts her readiness of faith. Prepare, once again, a world for your son who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen. Great show, guys. Really happy to be with you. We've got more good stuff coming this week. We'll be back, Ready to Rock, on Wednesday with another show. See you live. See you then. Peace.