0:00

This is Hemant and Jessica and you're listening

0:02

to the Friendly Atheist podcast. Please go to

0:04

patreon.com slash friendly atheist

0:06

podcast to support this show. Hello,

0:09

Jess.

0:09

Hey, you don't look the

0:12

happiest. Yeah. Thank you

0:14

to everybody who reached out last week. This

0:17

week. You'll be happy to know I'm substantially worse.

0:21

A God, my friend's little sister

0:23

passed away and

0:25

her funerals yesterday and it's a friend from high school.

0:28

So I've known this it's

0:30

miserable and fucking terrible. So anyway,

0:34

and oh, don't worry immediately

0:36

before I left for the funeral of a 22 of

0:39

a 32 year old young woman. My

0:41

husband got an email that he did not get a

0:42

job that we both thought he was a shoo-in for

0:45

so things are poorly in

0:47

the gripe household right

0:50

now. So I'm sorry if I

0:52

overreact to something or if I accidentally

0:54

get drunk at a drunk.

0:56

Then it's a regular episode. Yeah,

0:59

I'm fucking miserable gang. It's bad

1:02

all over. Here's your toy. Dottie leave

1:04

us alone. Now.

1:05

I'm here to brighten up your

1:07

day. Yeah, this that's the other

1:09

thing you guys I'm this podcast.

1:12

I'm so proud of it. It's one of my favorite things love

1:14

to brag about it. It is

1:16

the worst to record. It

1:19

is so

1:19

miserable sometimes.

1:23

So yeah, no, it's fine. Let's do

1:25

it. Let's hit it. Sure. Why not? And haven't told

1:27

me all of the stars of the show today are men. So

1:29

so, you know, it's going to end. Well, boy,

1:32

let's hear him. Did you follow

1:34

anything about the speaker of the house?

1:37

Do you know who the new one is? I

1:39

do know somebody post. I genuinely

1:41

have not been following any news

1:43

period. I didn't find out about the shooting until

1:46

later than I should have just because mental

1:48

health. So no,

1:51

I do know the guy's like

1:53

a loon, right? He is a loon

1:56

and the question is how specifically gay

1:58

or anti-choice. Which

2:00

one is he? Correct. Oh, um,

2:03

like he is a loon, but that doesn't narrow it down in the

2:05

GOP Well, obviously so the question is how bad

2:07

is this guy? Why is he bad and the thing is and

2:09

how did he get the votes and how did he get the votes?

2:11

I mean, this isn't the political

2:14

podcast But needless to say the reason this

2:17

guy who if the argument was we

2:19

need someone who's not gonna turn off

2:22

every independent voter This

2:24

is not the guy you would have chosen. His name is Mike

2:26

Johnson. He's from Louisiana He's

2:30

not a Republican from Louisiana. We're

2:32

gonna go well He is as

2:34

hardcore of a Trumpy sort of Republican

2:37

as you could find conservative

2:39

religious conservative Every

2:42

Republican position you can imagine is this guy? Um,

2:44

that's why the hard right likes

2:47

the guy but the question is well aren't

2:50

there like 1020 people who

2:52

probably wouldn't want to go along with that because they live

2:54

in Biden districts and maybe they were like I

2:56

don't want Jim Jordan to be the speaker of the house cuz

2:58

that's gonna hurt me and my reelection Right.

3:01

Why didn't they vote for this guy? And basically

3:04

as far as I can tell the only

3:06

reason they all voted for him and

3:08

it was unanimous among republicans They

3:10

got bored. They were like we just need an answer and

3:13

to I mean He seems like

3:15

he's one of these guys who gets along with

3:17

everyone and doesn't go out of his way to make enemies

3:20

among Republicans Personable

3:22

to Republicans well, and then they're

3:24

like that was implied if I tell you the

3:26

name like Marjorie Taylor Greene You already have a

3:29

connotation of what that person talks

3:31

like sounds like what they thought

3:32

if they get to move the most generic name They can

3:34

imagine who you probably

3:35

who you probably haven't

3:38

seen unless you watch Fox regularly who you

3:40

probably don't see on TV They don't make fun of him because

3:42

he's a non-factor by in large in yeah,

3:44

I don't think I was really worth That's why I'm gonna

3:47

quote really quick from a New Yorker article about

3:49

this guy getting chosen and the reason

3:54

The the reporter was asking around

3:56

like why would the so-called moderates

3:59

go for? this guy more than anybody

4:01

else. And the reason

4:03

I asked a former senior GOP

4:06

aide how moderate members he's

4:09

putting that loosely, to justify

4:11

voting against Jim Jordan, but

4:13

for Mike Johnson, their politics

4:15

are nearly indistinguishable, dot, dot, dot.

4:18

The GOP aide replied, have

4:20

you ever heard of Mike Johnson? I mean,

4:23

that's the answer. No one knows the guy

4:25

yet. And so they just don't hate

4:27

him yet. They're going to. So the

4:29

thing I wanted to talk about on this show is

4:33

one, how did this guy with such extremist

4:35

right wing views escape scrutiny

4:38

as long as he did? And

4:40

what does that mean? And like, what should be done

4:42

differently? Because he's, it's

4:44

not that this guy was off the radar for people

4:47

who follow church state separation. It

4:49

sounds like he

4:50

knows how to keep his mouth shut. Maybe a little

4:52

bit better than other people and like picks

4:54

his battles if we haven't heard of him. Maybe.

4:57

Yeah. I mean, have you heard of Leonard Leo?

5:00

Leonard Leo is the guy who basically hand

5:02

picks the Supreme Court justices

5:05

that Republicans have chosen. Gotcha.

5:07

And he runs the Federalist Society. He

5:09

basically also controls who they pick

5:11

for the federal district

5:14

judges and the appellate court judges. And

5:17

for a long time, one of the reasons he was

5:19

able to get away with all this is because he had a ton of

5:21

money to pull it off and he didn't

5:24

care about the spotlight. He actually liked being

5:26

under the radar and just controlling all the puppet

5:28

strings. Right. But off the radar,

5:31

if you follow politics and judicial

5:33

stuff now, you definitely know who this guy is

5:36

because he's the architect of the right wing

5:38

federal shift. Okay.

5:40

Yeah. Mike Johnson is kind of the

5:42

same thing. He does all the right wing stuff,

5:45

but he's always stayed under the radar while other

5:47

people took credit, got

5:49

the limelight and all that. And he never really

5:52

cared. He always worked behind the scenes. And

5:54

now at the point where, oh shit, you actually

5:56

have a lot of power. You're second in line in the presidency.

6:00

Damn it. Uh-huh. Now

6:02

it's almost too late to stop him. So,

6:04

let me go over what you need to know about

6:06

this guy, because it's not like there's a

6:08

shortage of right-wing extremists in the Republican

6:10

Party, but this guy is kind of

6:13

unique in the sense. By the

6:15

way, Susan Collins, the senator from Maine, even

6:17

said, I don't know how jokingly she said this,

6:19

I don't think she was, that she would have to Google

6:22

him. Like didn't even know the guy

6:24

and he works next door.

6:25

Hey, Susan, maybe don't admit that, hon.

6:27

Maybe keep that particular

6:29

card close to your vest. So let's run

6:31

through his Christian nationalist

6:33

resume, because if you were looking to put

6:35

a Christian nationalist in charge of the

6:37

Republican Party, this is

6:39

a guy that would have been at the top of your list. Okay,

6:42

let's go through this list. He lied about

6:45

Thomas Jefferson's support for separation of

6:47

church and state. Thomas Jefferson famously had his

6:49

Jefferson Bible without the miracles, wrote

6:51

a letter basically talking about

6:53

why church-state separation was important. What

6:56

did Johnson say about it years ago? The founders

6:58

wanted to protect the church from an

7:00

encroaching state, not the other way around.

7:03

So

7:03

it's totally fine for the church to dig over

7:05

the state, just not the other way around.

7:08

We're going to get through a bunch of these. Johnson falsely

7:10

claimed that the US is the only nation founded

7:13

on a quote, religious statement

7:15

of faith.

7:16

Wow, that is

7:18

so easily disproven.

7:20

Very much so.

7:22

On both sides of that coin that the

7:24

United States was in fact not founded on that

7:26

and that other countries are very

7:29

much... Has he heard of the Vatican?

7:31

He doesn't do other countries.

7:35

Very much America first. Back

7:38

in the day when Ken Ham was building Arc Encounter,

7:41

he needed a lot of money to pull it off. And

7:43

he wanted money from the local government, and

7:45

he wanted money from the Kentucky Tourism Bureau.

7:49

Like, hey, we're going to bring in tourist dollars

7:52

to our state, so give

7:54

us a tax break for the tourism

7:57

stuff we're bringing into you.

7:59

actually not only supported that

8:02

mission to use taxpayer funds to

8:04

build arc encounter, he later defended

8:06

him when he sued the state

8:09

of Kentucky in order to have the ability

8:11

to discriminate in hiring.

8:13

I forgot about that piece of

8:15

it.

8:15

Yeah. So it's not just that he's

8:17

a young earth creationist, Mike Joffen, he

8:19

is, but also he's actively

8:22

supported not just Ken Ham, Creation

8:24

Museum, Arc Encounter, Answers

8:26

in Genesis, but their ability to

8:28

get taxpayer funding to

8:31

support their ministry.

8:32

Yeah, he's bringing a full-edge hammer to that

8:34

separation of their

8:35

team-state. He also

8:37

has said, we've talked about David Barton, the

8:39

Christian pseudo-historian, a

8:41

notorious liar, who basically his whole shtick

8:44

is, I'm going to lie about the founding fathers and say

8:46

they supported everything I happen to believe. Johnson

8:49

says David Barton has had a quote,

8:51

profound influence on me and my work

8:54

and my life and everything I do.

8:56

Oh, so I can just make things up and

8:58

they become true. Which, how

9:00

the Republican Party works. Yep. Johnson

9:03

has filed legislation forcing

9:07

witnesses who appear in front of House committees

9:09

to use the religious phrase, so

9:12

help me God in their oaths. When

9:14

Democrats took over the House, they said, yeah, you don't

9:16

have to say that. If you don't feel like it, just say the

9:18

rest of the oath. And he's like, oh, no,

9:21

that is a real problem. You need

9:23

to say it. Good country. Yeah. He

9:25

also promoted a conservative Christian

9:27

sponsored Bible course in public schools.

9:30

And maybe you think there is a way to teach the

9:32

Bible as literature in public schools

9:34

if it's done right. No, no, no. The curriculum

9:37

he sponsored was widely criticized for

9:39

its evangelical zeal and treating

9:41

the Bible quote as an accurate

9:44

record of history. Oh boy. He promoted

9:46

that and then in response to critics who said

9:49

this course doesn't like talk

9:51

about Christianity in a subjective sort of way

9:53

or in an objective sort of way, he

9:56

said, and they said it promoted a one-sided

9:58

conservative evangelical versus. of Christianity,

10:01

Johnson said, well the Supreme Court

10:03

did not say you have to discuss everybody's

10:06

view on the Bible. It's just his

10:08

version that matters.

10:09

What does

10:10

that, what is he referring

10:11

to? Basically saying it's totally fine

10:14

if the Bible course we're teaching in public schools

10:16

happens to promote a

10:19

specific view of the Bible that happens

10:21

to be my own. Like,

10:23

that's disturbing.

10:25

Okay cool. So this guy is

10:27

just a, oh I'm just getting started. Slimy

10:30

piece of shit. Oh yeah, I mean I could have told

10:32

you that a while ago but. No

10:33

I know but he's just really doing every,

10:36

like he's just hitting all the buttons

10:38

of like intellectual dishonesty,

10:41

focusing on shit that does not matter.

10:43

Yeah. Pretending

10:44

that whatever he feels like

10:46

in his heart is also truth.

10:48

Like it's all. Mm-hmm.

10:50

It's all that. Cool. Um,

10:53

there was a time, remember when Colin

10:55

Kaepernick was kneeling on the field at

10:57

football games when he was allowed to play football. No.

10:59

Was he really chill about that? Very. Well

11:01

he supported, well there was a Louisiana seat.

11:04

There was a Louisiana school district that passed

11:07

a policy that required

11:09

student athletes to stand during

11:11

the national anthem. After all that happened.

11:14

So fragile. And what did Mike Johnson do?

11:16

Not only did he support it. He narrated it all in the flag.

11:19

That's exactly how Jesus wanted it. Mm-hmm.

11:21

Mike Johnson supported that school district and said

11:23

the district quote was not going

11:25

to bend over and bow to the whims

11:28

of these atheist radical

11:30

secularist groups.

11:32

And this guy is third in command of our country. Uh-huh.

11:34

He

11:36

also believes public high school coaches

11:38

should be able to lead prayers with

11:41

students. That's fine. Okay here's

11:43

the story. Mm-hmm. Years and years ago,

11:45

back in the day, there was a

11:47

district in Texas where the high school

11:49

cheerleaders would show up at football games, that's

11:51

normal, and they would hold up these banners that

11:53

the football players run through and on

11:55

the rate of the field. Oh. And their banners had Bible

11:58

verses on them. And the question is... are

12:00

these just students, you

12:02

know, talking about their

12:04

religious space, which might be legal, or

12:07

is it a school-sponsored activity at this point,

12:09

because these are cheerleaders wearing their school uniforms

12:12

during a school-sanctioned football game doing

12:14

this stuff? And Johnson supported

12:17

those cheerleaders, of course he did, and

12:19

he argued that superintendents

12:21

should feel empowered to resist

12:23

the bullying tactics of atheist

12:25

groups. That's his defense

12:28

there.

12:30

If my mother in law still had

12:32

a Polish citizenship, can

12:35

I legally become a Polish citizen? Now's

12:38

not a bad time to do it, they just ousted their conservative

12:40

government. I mean,

12:43

all I know about Warsaw is what I learned from watching

12:45

Lost Highway, and that didn't paint a great

12:47

picture of it, but I think I could, I think

12:49

I could fuck with that.

12:50

You know, everyone says that about it. It's not really in black

12:53

and white, right? If Trump gets elected in 2016, I

12:55

move into Canada, and then like, I don't know, two

12:57

people moved to Canada, we never heard from them. Well, it's a

12:59

lot harder to move to Canada than you think it is, Hemant,

13:01

not for a lack of trying. Some

13:03

of us have limited financial and legal

13:05

resources, and we can't just simply conjure

13:09

a passport out of the clear

13:11

blue sky.

13:12

Hemant. Yes, fair enough.

13:14

I do make up my own passports. Mike

13:16

Johnson, there was once a

13:19

portrait of Jesus in a Louisiana courthouse,

13:22

and when Johnson was a portrait of Jesus holding a book... Not

13:25

even like a cross with a carving of

13:27

him? Like a painting? No

13:28

cross. It's a painting of Jesus,

13:31

like holding up a Bible, like he's selling... Like

13:33

the way Irish moms would have that

13:35

with a picture of JFK on their wall in the 80s? Yes.

13:38

And he defended that painting

13:40

saying that the portrait was okay because, quote, the

13:42

ideas expressed in this painting are not

13:44

specific to any one faith, and

13:47

they certainly don't establish a single

13:49

state religion, which is weird

13:51

because if this was any other religion, he

13:54

would not be saying any of

13:56

that stuff. Do

13:56

you think this dude is eyes open

13:58

or eyes closed?

13:59

in terms of

14:00

do you think he

14:02

believes what he is doing or do

14:04

you think he is

14:05

a power hungry monster? No, I mean, I mean,

14:07

both things can be true. This

14:09

is absolutely the first aid. Yeah,

14:12

he's been doing this longer than he would

14:14

have. Yeah, I've ever needed to in order

14:16

to acquire power. He's in this for the

14:18

long haul because he's a true believer, which

14:20

is why the hard right in the

14:23

Republican Party like him. Is that better

14:24

or worse do you think? Worse for us.

14:26

Yeah, you think? Yeah. I

14:29

think it's gonna make him more effective at what he's doing as opposed to

14:31

like Mitch McConnell trying to play

14:33

people to that forever. Mitch McConnell, right, playing

14:35

strategy. Yeah. This guy is

14:37

doing this stuff. He doesn't care about the politics.

14:40

He's in a safe district. Literally nothing can

14:42

hurt him.

14:43

He's kind of Trumpian of just like whatever

14:45

is in my on my head is the most

14:47

important thing that

14:48

is happening to anybody. No,

14:50

I have my principles. My principles are faith

14:52

based cruelty. And that's what we're

14:54

now the question is what's he going to do policy wise

14:56

because he has a different job than just advocating

14:59

for himself now. That's a good point. I

15:01

guess

15:02

this is sort of a part of politics.

15:04

I haven't really considered before when you go from being

15:06

a congressional representative when your responsibility

15:08

is to your district

15:09

and representing the people

15:12

at right. I mean, this is

15:14

all in theory representing the the

15:16

people from your district to when you become the speaker

15:19

of the house.

15:20

That's where your job is to keep your majority

15:22

to fundraise to pass strategic

15:25

policies that can get you more victories.

15:27

I mean, it's a different job. So

15:30

that is an open question. What's he going to do accountable

15:32

to is different. And which members of the House is

15:34

he held accountable to the very end of the matter

15:36

more than others. Yeah. OK,

15:39

I'm not done yet. Now we get to the bigger stuff. Oh,

15:41

God. Yeah. He also thinks

15:43

pastors. We talked about the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits pastors

15:46

from using their pulpit to endorse candidates. And

15:49

this applies to all nonprofit groups. You

15:51

cannot use your nonprofit

15:53

group or your church to tell people how

15:55

to vote. And the Johnson Amendment

15:57

specifically prohibits that

15:59

for a year.

15:59

Now conservative Christians have been trying

16:02

to repeal the Johnson Amendment so

16:04

that they can use church as basically a political

16:07

tool Johnson not only

16:09

thinks pastors should be allowed to endorse political

16:11

candidates from the pulpit during a 2017 forum

16:15

that he attended He called the IRS

16:17

rule a form of censorship saying

16:20

we need to unshackle the voice

16:23

of the church again Which

16:25

it's not they're not silence. You know who's never

16:27

silenced in this country Christians white men Yeah,

16:30

and then he sponsored a bill to repeal the

16:32

Johnson Amendment. So he's a hardcore

16:34

into that Let's talk about his LGBTQ. Wait

16:37

before

16:37

you do that. I'm I have to apologize

16:40

The Warsaw thing wasn't from Lost Highways from

16:42

Inland Empire a different David Lynch movie Lynch

16:45

nerds are nerds like they would yell

16:47

at me. They're gonna send us the nastiest

16:49

of the oh and it's

16:49

not in black and white Mikey says Listen,

16:53

I took a swing last time Dig

16:56

for a movie reference and I failed try

16:59

it's not my fault. I'm in grief. Heaven.

17:02

I laugh at my jokes

17:02

more Thank you. Okay, so LGBTQ

17:05

issues. Here's where it gets really bad Mike

17:07

Johnson not only supported Louisiana's

17:10

ban on same-sex marriage And

17:12

he backed an amendment prohibiting Louisiana

17:15

from recognizing gay couples who

17:17

were married in other states. Yeah, that's nice

17:19

As a state because that state's rights

17:22

is uh-huh only oh fuck

17:24

him Yeah, go ahead

17:25

as a state lawmaker He introduced

17:27

a bill permitting faith-based anti-gay

17:29

discrimination When he was an

17:31

attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund

17:34

now Alliance defending freedom a Christian

17:36

hate group He supported a law banning

17:39

marriage equality. He claimed that

17:41

same-sex unions were slippery slope

17:43

toward polygamy Pedophilia and

17:45

allowing a person to marry

17:47

his pets unquote.

17:49

Yeah, they love going to the pet well always

17:51

the past

17:54

They think about it more than anyone

17:56

else ever does I need to

17:57

pay more mind to this sort of slippery slope

18:00

rhetoric of and then people are gonna do accidents

18:03

like but nobody is or

18:05

has or wants to or will or is

18:07

being taken seriously like that and they're

18:10

just children

18:11

he also argued there was a

18:14

famous Supreme Court decision

18:17

overturning sodomy laws Lawrence

18:19

v Texas saying like yeah two gay

18:21

men want to have sex Texas used to say that's

18:23

just illegal and then the Supreme

18:25

Court like years ago 20 years ago now

18:28

said no we're overturning that law Mike

18:30

Johnson argued that was the wrong decision

18:32

he said that was a blow to quote fundamental

18:35

American values and the millennia

18:37

of moral teaching because he believes

18:39

gay sex should be criminalized

18:43

cool yep he also opposes life-saving

18:46

gender affirming care for trans kids

18:48

of course he does and

18:51

again I can say all this with quotations

18:53

with sources because he's been doing

18:56

this for a long time this isn't just for

18:58

politics you know what I mean mm-hmm when it comes

19:00

to abortion I mean none of this is a surprise

19:03

he opposes it in every form he has

19:05

sought to block access to birth control

19:08

he represented a college

19:09

that didn't want to follow Obama era guidelines

19:12

that required employers to provide contraception

19:15

to employees saying the mandate

19:17

forced Americans to quote either comply

19:20

and abandon their convictions or

19:22

resist and be punished that

19:25

college by the way which

19:27

he served as Dean for they never actually

19:29

opened their doors they mostly yeah

19:31

wait what do you mean he

19:34

was appointed Dean of this law school

19:36

and before it opened which is fine

19:39

you can be the Dean of Law for sure it opens it takes

19:41

a little while to get your paperwork in order and stuff

19:43

so they already sued the Obama

19:45

administration over like the they

19:48

weren't even open as a school and they still don't exist

19:51

yeah

19:51

he also represent I'm so sorry do you think they

19:54

meant it to exist

19:55

or I'm sure they try there was a lot of money poured

19:57

into that college I don't really know why it didn't

19:59

open.

20:00

So it wasn't like a front to make

20:02

to get standing for a lawsuit like this.

20:04

I think that's the right thing you are asking and I don't

20:07

think it was but also that's very interesting

20:09

in hindsight that that's kind of the only thing they're known

20:11

for. He also represented the state

20:13

of Louisiana in its attempt to punish

20:15

doctors who provide abortion care unless

20:18

they first jump through like onerous regulations

20:21

like okay abortion, Roe

20:23

is still legal at this point.

20:25

Doctors can provide abortions as

20:28

long as they have admittance

20:30

like hospital privileges, 30 miles

20:33

from where they're practiced, like just bullshit obstacles

20:35

they put in the way. Louisiana

20:38

is the fifth

20:39

highest maternal mortality right in

20:41

the nation.

20:41

Yep, none of this helps women. As

20:44

a member of Congress he's co-sponsored several bills

20:46

too and this is important to ban abortion

20:49

nationwide and

20:51

now he has the ability to get that back

20:53

on the agenda and Republicans would

20:55

support it. It wouldn't go anywhere but

20:57

this is where it gets weird because you know

20:59

he wants to do it. You know

21:01

he knows it won't get passed

21:03

with Biden and the Senate

21:06

and yet he's gonna

21:08

try. And yet we all just have to sit and

21:10

watch as one man goes on a campaign

21:13

to try to destroy as much about

21:16

this country that actually works.

21:17

He also this seems relevant

21:19

today. In the past he blamed

21:22

mass shooting on... huh? Oh

21:24

gay people? Close. Wait

21:25

wait

21:27

wait wait wait condoms.

21:29

Oh not bad but no. Okay wait no no don't

21:32

um... I'll give you one more. Shit.

21:35

Why do we have mass shootings? Did

21:37

we do abortion already? We did do abortion that is not the right

21:39

answer in this case.

21:40

He said... Oh lack of God? No

21:42

Jesus in school?

21:43

Closer. Okay. He said people say

21:45

how can a young person go into their schoolhouse

21:48

and open fire on their classmates? Because

21:50

we've taught a whole generation, a couple

21:52

of generations now, of Americans that

21:55

there is no right or wrong. That

21:57

it's about survival of the fittest and you evolved.

22:00

from the primordial slime. Evolution

22:03

was the answer everybody.

22:04

As soon as they got the most fundamental

22:07

understanding of evolution, they

22:10

just ran the hell with it,

22:12

huh? They really extrapolate

22:15

everything that they think we believe

22:18

by the scientific

22:20

fact that nature is fucking

22:22

brutal. I

22:25

don't know what to tell you

22:27

because we're so not,

22:30

we're not supposed to be in survival

22:32

mode anymore, my dude. Like we're supposed

22:35

to be in taking care of each other mode

22:37

because we have all of the fucking money

22:40

in the world.

22:41

Go ahead. Today when he was responding

22:43

to the mass shooting that took place in Maine, he

22:46

didn't talk about evolution because again, different

22:49

job now, but he did offer

22:51

one solution. What was it? More guns, more

22:54

guns, more guns. Close, close.

22:56

I don't know, prayer in school. Prayer, more just

22:58

prayer.

22:59

Not even in school, not even an actionable

23:01

thing. Correct. Just y'all,

23:03

y'all need to do this. So here's the thing, here's the question

23:06

I have. If you follow church state

23:08

issues, I looked back through my own archives,

23:11

I have written about Mike Johnson for

23:13

many years. Not about him,

23:15

but he's appeared in articles about

23:18

these issues. He's not an unknown

23:20

quantity to people who follow these particular

23:22

types of issues. The question that

23:24

I think is worth asking for anyone listening to this

23:27

or otherwise is how did a guy

23:29

this extreme kind

23:32

of go undetected by the larger mainstream

23:34

media and people like that? Like how

23:36

come he's not unknown quantity despite his

23:38

very generic name?

23:39

I mean, yeah, I mean, it

23:42

sounds like he lets other people

23:45

do the dicks swinging around and just kind of buckles

23:47

down and gets the job done is what I'm understanding.

23:49

Pretty much, he's served as an attorney for

23:51

conservative Christian legal groups, a bunch

23:53

of them. He's worked for all of them. Then he was

23:56

a state legislator. And if you're a state legislator

23:58

in like Louisiana, no one. knows who you

24:00

are outside of the state and probably even within.

24:03

Even as a member of Congress, he was never the most show-bodie

24:06

of guys, but he always voted a certain way.

24:09

And now he gets to single-handedly dictate the

24:11

GOP's agenda, shifting the

24:13

party even more to the right as I didn't know

24:15

they had more room there, but apparently they could be.

24:18

One thing that I think is worth

24:20

pointing out, this is why

24:23

it is important for, I mean, I'll

24:25

say us, but we're nobody's.

24:28

It's important for us and anybody else to call

24:30

out Christian nationalists at any level.

24:33

So if there is a school board member somewhere

24:35

who is obviously low profile,

24:37

no one knows who they are, but they are trying

24:40

to push religion at school board meetings

24:42

or preachers who like work in

24:45

circus tents and say crazy things

24:47

in there or religious extremists

24:49

who seem fringy and say

24:51

awful things right now, this

24:54

is why I believe it is worth writing about

24:56

them, talking about them, sharing those clips, not because

24:58

I'm trying to help them amplify

25:01

their message, but because those types

25:03

of things being a local leader of like

25:05

right wing groups, those

25:07

are the stepping stones that make it easier to run

25:09

for local politics in the future. And

25:12

that's your stepping stone to bigger politics

25:14

down the road. If we don't highlight their insane

25:16

actions early and often, it

25:19

is very easy for them to escape scrutiny.

25:21

And here's the case in point. One thing

25:23

you may have seen in the news, there was a mayor

25:26

mayoral election in Franklin, Tennessee,

25:29

that there's no reason anyone outside that place

25:31

should have paid any attention to it. The reason

25:33

it made national headlines is because one

25:35

of the candidates was her name

25:37

is Gabrielle Hanson. She is basically

25:41

surrounding herself with open neo-Nazis,

25:44

white supremacists, Jesus, very

25:47

Trumpy, obviously, obviously. And like

25:49

John Oliver did a segment on last week tonight

25:52

about a particular reporter in Tennessee

25:54

who has been covering her and like

25:57

calling out the lies and all

25:59

that stuff. And it was funny because he's saying,

26:01

God, we need more reporters like this guy who just,

26:04

I think he called him a Nashville's nosiest

26:06

bitch, the reporter to

26:09

which the guy like changes Twitter profile.

26:11

Obviously, immediately. But Twitter. But when he never thought

26:13

I'd say that. When

26:15

people started hearing like, Oh my God, this

26:17

isn't just some right wing loon. This

26:19

is like a dangerous person because

26:22

people covered it. When that election

26:24

occurred this week, she lost by

26:26

a landslide. It was a low turnout

26:29

election, which is not good in general.

26:32

But she, I think it was like 80% to 20%.

26:35

She wasn't even close. And

26:38

in a local election where only a handful of people are

26:40

voting. And that means

26:43

she doesn't get the platform of being

26:45

mayor. That makes it a lot harder for her

26:47

to try to run for something else in the future.

26:49

Because now people know her

26:51

makes it takes her out of a position where

26:53

she can do harm to other people. Yeah.

26:55

And I was looking this up. How did Mike

26:57

Johnson even enter politics? He

26:59

entered in 2015 at the

27:01

state level because he won a special

27:03

election to the Louisiana house. Guess

27:05

who ran against him that year? Nobody.

27:09

He ran unopposed in 2015.

27:12

That's very annoying. And then he just kept

27:14

winning those in regular elections,

27:16

kept his beef. The incumbents usually

27:19

win. I mean, it's possible he would

27:21

have risen through the ranks even with more scrutiny. But

27:24

I think there's no doubt that one of the reasons

27:26

he's now the leader of house Republicans is

27:28

largely due to the fact that no one paid

27:30

much attention to him until

27:33

it was too late to make it

27:35

a problem for even the so-called moderate

27:37

Republicans who might exist.

27:39

To be fair, we're playing whack-a-mole here. It's

27:41

not as if we can keep track of all

27:44

a billion asshole Republicans

27:46

who are just low-key doing

27:49

evil shit all day. We

27:51

try,

27:52

but there's a lot of them. There are

27:54

a lot of them. This week, not

27:57

even in relation to this story,

27:59

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32:33

Let's talk about one other thing. One

32:35

of the other candidates for speaker

32:38

before this guy, Mike Johnson, got

32:40

elected. His name was

32:42

Tom Emmer. He's from Minnesota. He's

32:45

the current house majority whip whose job

32:47

it is to count the votes before a big vote.

32:49

I bet he was pretty stressed last couple of weeks. You would

32:51

think they don't know how to count on that side. But

32:55

he was floated as a reasonable alternative

32:57

to all the other candidates. The funny

32:59

thing about Emmer is his candidacy from the moment

33:02

they all said like, he's our new guy, we're all

33:04

gonna vote for him. And then four hours

33:06

later, he's like, I'm dropping out,

33:08

I don't have the votes. It was hilarious. Dropped

33:10

out before they could even vote on the guy.

33:12

He just couldn't even hypothetically

33:15

get vote. Oh my God.

33:16

He looked around the room, he's like, I'm your new guy.

33:18

Oh, what, what? No, no, you don't. Okay,

33:20

all right, I'm out. It's like the person who stands

33:22

up at the wrong time in the song. Yeah,

33:25

exactly. Oh my God. Some of that anger

33:27

came from allies of Donald Trump because

33:30

one, Trump called Emmer a quote, globalist

33:33

Rhino.

33:34

Republican in name

33:35

only. Yeah, I read it. We say that sometimes and don't

33:37

explain it. And he did that because

33:40

Emmer voted to certify the 2020 election. What

33:44

a monster. That's not allowed.

33:46

He did support voter suppression in other ways,

33:48

but he did vote to certify the election. Some

33:51

of it though. Yeah,

33:54

right, you're gonna make it. Some

33:56

of the frustration though, came from ultra conservative

33:58

Republicans who didn't.

33:59

like the fact that in 2022,

34:02

remember after the Dobbs decision came down

34:04

banning overturning Roe

34:07

basically allowing states to ban abortion, one

34:09

of the concerns is that the same logic

34:12

used by the Supreme Court could overturn

34:14

marriage equality and turn that back to the states.

34:17

And at the time, because that was now a concern,

34:20

there was a bill

34:22

to protect marriage equality saying

34:24

no, no, no, even if the Supreme Court

34:26

says the states cannot go back to just

34:29

banning marriage, gay marriage, same sex marriage,

34:32

or if you get married in one state

34:34

that's legalized it, you can't ignore

34:36

it in another state. So there was a federal

34:38

bill to protect marriage equality. Emmer voted

34:41

in support of that bill. Is

34:43

he pro gay marriage?

34:45

No. In 2007, as a

34:48

state representative, he actually sponsored

34:50

a bill proposing a constitutional

34:52

amendment in Minnesota to only

34:54

recognize straight marriages. Oh, sure.

34:57

Sounds like nothing else is going on in Minnesota.

34:59

No,

34:59

no, no, no, no.

35:02

In 2010, he got an endorsement from the anti gay

35:04

national organization from marriage. But

35:06

I think last year he voted in support

35:09

of that federal bill, because I

35:11

don't know, maybe he didn't think it was a hill worth dying on.

35:13

Maybe he's like, this is harmless. Maybe

35:15

his, maybe his mind changed. I

35:18

doubt

35:18

it. I am wondering why he voted for

35:20

that. But in any case, what's his district like? Is

35:22

he trying to appease moderates?

35:24

That's a, that's a good question. But it didn't

35:26

matter because someone, Rick

35:28

Allen, another GOP member confronted

35:31

Emmer in their closed conference during those

35:33

four hours between when he was a candidate and when

35:36

he dropped out. He said, the

35:38

Minnesota Republican doesn't need to get right

35:40

with me. You need to get right

35:43

with Jesus. Oh Jesus.

35:45

And according to the Daily Beast, according

35:47

to the source, the room gasped

35:51

when he said you need to get right with Jesus. Gasped

35:54

in. I was, I was,

35:56

I, that sounds like a thing a lot of people say

35:58

all the time. My thoughts.

35:59

And I'm like why do they gas you

36:02

guys throw Jesus around all the time? Are you surprised someone

36:04

actually did it behind closed doors? Yeah thought this

36:06

is just for show. I don't know

36:08

We really believe oh, yeah, exactly Marjorie

36:11

Taylor Greene echoed all those comments

36:13

Basically saying emmer fails to reflect the

36:15

quote values and the views of Republican

36:18

voters in the country Specifically

36:20

citing his vote on the marriage equality bill.

36:22

I mean it wasn't the only reason he's not speaker

36:25

But

36:25

it was definitely one of them. That's

36:27

really do you think we would been

36:29

better off with him?

36:30

Compared to the guy now

36:32

Mike Johnson I mean sure

36:34

but Kevin McCarthy is better than

36:36

the guy right now. So no one's better

36:39

So assuming that I have shut

36:41

out Politics for a little bit

36:43

and assuming not everybody hears from the

36:46

United and everybody listening here is from the United States

36:48

Can you give me like a 30-second summary of how

36:50

we got

36:51

to this point? Matt gates used

36:53

his veto power to say I don't like

36:55

Kevin McCarthy

36:57

You're out

36:58

and then they happen Yeah, and

37:01

then they took a vote and they were like think

37:02

he was gonna be the successor

37:04

or he did it now I know he didn't care about why do

37:06

we eating him? Because he let

37:09

the government stay open

37:11

Through

37:12

what Kevin McCarthy's like I don't want the government

37:15

to shut down We're just gonna will allow

37:17

the government to be able to budget a five days

37:19

the budget shit Yeah And he's like well let

37:21

the government stay open for 45 days and we'll come

37:23

back to it and gates is like how dare

37:26

you? Not cause harm to everybody.

37:28

So I want to take a vote I'm

37:31

allowed to do that because you said only

37:33

one person can challenge you at any time and

37:35

they took a vote and there were like eight Republicans

37:38

who were like

37:40

And so he was out but the problem

37:43

that I don't think gates expected I don't know

37:45

if he thought he was gonna be successful is that

37:47

when they introduced like the next guy in

37:49

line to take over the Job that

37:51

guy had made enemies so they didn't want him

37:53

and then the next person Like made

37:56

enemies they didn't want him then

37:58

emmer steps in and they're like You're not even

38:00

getting into a vote. So Gates

38:02

threw a pissy fit

38:03

over

38:04

the budget.

38:05

Over the government staying open. Over the

38:07

government staying open. And

38:11

then threw his entire party into chaos

38:13

and turmoil. And they looked like

38:16

absolute idiots.

38:16

I mean, I hope they did.

38:18

What do you think people are saying to Matt Gaetz behind

38:20

closed doors right now? Well, now that Mike

38:22

Johnson is the speaker. They're like, this

38:24

is fine.

38:24

Matt Gaetz is like, I got everything

38:26

I wanted. I got a hard right Trump guy

38:29

who denies the election.

38:31

Yeah, but I have to think the repercussions

38:33

of, the political repercussions

38:36

internally have to be in vain for somebody

38:38

like Gates of like, you gotta toe the party

38:41

line bud.

38:42

He is the party. Matt

38:45

Gaetz is the Republican party. He did toe the party

38:47

line by getting someone who represents

38:49

the Trump wing of the party in charge

38:50

of the party. But, you

38:53

know, this wasn't a foreground conclusion that this guy ended up

38:55

as speaker. So like,

38:57

he just wanted Kevin McCarthy out.

39:02

And he got what he wanted. I guess

39:04

I don't understand what the fuck these people

39:06

want.

39:07

Well, that's the weird thing. They don't have any policies.

39:09

They're trying to pass here. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's like,

39:12

what is your goal? Their goal is to

39:14

make the government as small as possible,

39:15

spread Christianity.

39:16

And, you

39:19

know, if you don't agree with them, you can die

39:21

and that's fine with them. Oh, yeah.

39:24

Which is just like all this is weird in part because

39:26

when it comes to gay marriage, marriage

39:28

equality and stuff that the Republicans

39:31

basically sank Tom Emmers campaign

39:33

about because he didn't get right with Jesus. 55% of

39:37

Republicans support marriage equality.

39:40

That's according to like a 2021 Gallup poll. So

39:43

you're even that

39:45

Tom Emmers closer to where the voters are.

39:47

They just don't care because those voters don't care.

39:49

Well, and they're chasing the lowest

39:51

common denominator, like they're they're

39:53

seeing how

39:54

low they can go. There's a former Republican

39:56

House member, Denver Riggleman, I

39:58

believe from Colorado, but he chimed in to

40:00

all this after Emmer was

40:02

sank. And he said, I know what that's

40:04

like. God forbid you value freedom of

40:06

individual choice and marriage equality. I

40:09

was called the antichrist for officiating

40:11

a same sex wedding. By

40:14

the way, Tom Emmer, practicing Catholic,

40:17

Catholic church, very publicly opposed

40:19

to marriage equality and LGBTQ rights. And

40:21

I don't think Emmer disagreed with any of those positions.

40:23

Yeah, but Joe Biden is also Catholic. So

40:25

all Catholics are liberals now.

40:27

Congratulations, all of the men who went

40:30

to my dad's golf course. You're all

40:32

Democrats.

40:32

Yeah, right. I figured

40:35

this is a good time to give you a little bit of good

40:37

news. So yeah,

40:39

you should put on a headphone. You'll want to listen to this.

40:43

There was one kind of nice thing

40:45

to hear. I

40:45

see the name Frost and I hope I'm going

40:47

to get to listen to a little poetry.

40:49

Yes, I have poetry

40:51

from Robert Frost just for you. That

40:53

is how this podcast

40:54

diverge in yellow wood. And

40:57

sorry, I could I know this whole poem.

40:58

I'm waiting on me off. Nope, I'm

41:01

gonna let you Oh, you think I don't fucking know this poem

41:03

by heart. I'm gonna let you give you enough

41:05

rope to take care of yourself diverge

41:07

in a yellow wooden. Sorry, I could not travel

41:09

both. But be one traveler long I stood and stare

41:11

down one as far as as far as I could to

41:13

where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the

41:15

other is just unfair and having perhaps

41:17

the better lay because it was grassy and wanted where

41:20

but as for that the passing there

41:22

was

41:23

really about the same. I'm good

41:25

now to roads divergent. I think I miss a verse

41:27

but he was divergent. No, wouldn't I I took the

41:30

one last traveled by and that has made all the difference.

41:32

Would you be listening to the poem? He didn't pick the one last traveled

41:34

by God. Fuck you.

41:36

My fucking literature major finally is

41:39

useful.

41:39

Nicely done. Oh God. Was that worth

41:41

college? I

41:42

learned that in high school

41:43

because we sang a bunch of Robert Frost poetry.

41:46

That sounds horrible. Oh dear God.

41:49

Okay. So it was

41:51

bad. I'm gonna change the timestamp to

41:53

start now. At

41:56

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42:26

So there was a hearing

42:29

in the midst of all this chaos for the house. There

42:31

was a hearing on global religious persecution,

42:34

which fine, that does exist. It was

42:37

in front of the subcommittee on national security,

42:39

the border, and foreign affairs.

42:41

I'm still thinking about Robert Frost. Who are we talking about?

42:43

Yeah, we're not there yet. So

42:45

during these hearings, you have people from both

42:47

parties asking questions to the witnesses

42:50

and trying to basically just make a case

42:52

for like, this is a problem that exists. Maybe these

42:54

experts can help fill in what we ought

42:56

to do about it. And really, it's a chance

42:59

for all the members of Congress to deliver

43:01

monologues. Yeah, the grandstand. Yeah.

43:03

So Robert Garcia. Yeah,

43:07

there's a lot of Democrats who were great. They

43:09

one guy, Robert Garcia, used his time to highlight

43:12

how domestic anti-gebigatry

43:14

often gets transported to other countries, which

43:17

is very true. Jamie Raskin,

43:20

he noted the problem with blasphemy laws. Another

43:23

Democrat, Jared Moskowitz, called out the

43:25

Republican silence when their leaders

43:28

cozy up to neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers,

43:30

and white supremacists. Wow. But

43:32

the one I want to play for you is

43:35

Maxwell Frost, who is the youngest

43:37

member of Congress. I think he's 12 years old.

43:39

He's from Florida. He's awesome.

43:41

Oh, is he like a young black kid? Yeah,

43:43

he's fantastic. Yeah, I've seen him floating around. He's

43:45

great. Yeah, he's great. And

43:47

Maxwell Frost. Maxwell

43:49

Frost? What a fucking dope

43:51

name.

43:51

The Pixar hero name.

43:54

Sure fucking is. Yeah, so when he spoke,

43:56

he pointed out that faith-based

43:58

persecution often means whitey. angelicals

44:00

using their faith to justify oppression against

44:03

outside groups. I'm not gonna play like all

44:05

five minutes of his speech, but I want to play one

44:07

part of this for you, because he talked about Christian

44:10

nationalism. Worth a listen,

44:12

here you go. And this threat to democracy

44:14

has made its way to Congress. My colleague, Representative

44:17

Marjorie Taylor-Grena, said, quote, Christian

44:19

nationalism is actually a good thing. It

44:22

is an identity that Republicans need

44:24

to embrace. And I am being attacked

44:26

by the godless left because I said

44:28

I'm a proud Christian nationalist, end

44:31

quote. My colleague, Representative Lohan Bober

44:34

said, quote, the church is supposed to direct

44:36

the government. The government is

44:38

not supposed to direct the church. I'm

44:40

tired of the separation of church

44:42

and state junk, end quote, junk being

44:45

the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The

44:47

Bible itself in Second Corinthians actually warns

44:50

us against this. Paul warned against this. He

44:52

warned us against people who would preach

44:54

of a Christ that differs from the true

44:56

Christ that we learn about in the Bible. That's

44:59

exactly what Christian nationalism is

45:01

doing. I condemn religious extremism everywhere

45:04

globally and domestically. We have to recognize

45:06

the threat it poses to our most sacred

45:08

freedoms and root it out everywhere. And I think

45:11

it's incumbent, especially upon us as

45:13

Christians, and me as a Christian, to

45:16

be at the forefront of the fight to

45:18

ensure that white nationalism and Christian nationalism

45:20

doesn't see the light of day. You and I yield back.

45:23

Yeah, that was that is outstanding.

45:26

He also said elsewhere in his in

45:28

his minutes that he got to talk, as

45:31

a man of faith, I know that Christianity

45:33

is not Christian nationalism. I

45:35

oppose my faith being used to whitewash

45:38

a racist, violent and dangerous

45:41

ideology. Good for

45:42

him. Yeah, I mean, that's what you

45:44

do, right? Like if you have to

45:46

call out your own people. Absolutely.

45:49

I yell at men a lot because like they need

45:51

to get their men in line like women aren't going

45:53

to do

45:53

it anymore. Yes. Do

45:56

you remember last summer there was a Michigan

45:58

state Senator Mallory McMullen. and she

46:01

went viral after she gave a speech. One

46:03

of her Republican colleagues in the Michigan legislature

46:06

basically called her a groomer because

46:09

she supported LGBTQ kids. And

46:11

she delivered a speech. It

46:13

was amazing. It's fantastic. Worth a watch.

46:16

But basically she said, the

46:19

straight white Christian married

46:21

suburban mom is here to

46:23

protect kids from being marginalized

46:26

and targeted because they are not straight,

46:28

white or Christian. And it

46:30

was great. And that's the thing. Like when Christians

46:33

themselves have the courage to call out

46:35

Christian nationalism, that makes a huge

46:37

difference. And yeah,

46:40

by the way, also big kudos to

46:42

Amanda Tyler of the Baptist Joint Committee

46:44

for Religious Liberty. She was one of the four witnesses

46:47

who was there for that hearing. And during

46:50

Max Frost's comments, he directed

46:52

a bunch of questions toward her, like, what

46:54

do you think about this? What do you say about this? And

46:56

she said very bluntly, Christian nationalism

46:59

often overlaps with and provides cover

47:02

for white supremacy and racial

47:04

subjugation. She said that Christian

47:06

nationalism is used by white supremacists

47:08

to try to justify their violence. And

47:11

you mentioned this while we were listening to the clip. I

47:13

did appreciate and notice the subtle shade

47:16

from Frost when he cited 2 Corinthians.

47:19

So good. Because Trump didn't know how to do

47:21

that. So

47:21

good. Oh boy.

47:23

Yeah. I mean, we need

47:26

as many Christians as possible to distance

47:28

themselves from and denounce other

47:30

Jesus followers who use religion as

47:33

a weapon against people they don't disagree with,

47:35

they don't agree with or understand.

47:36

I yell at all the white people. That

47:39

is. I'm the queen of the

47:39

white people. Your people, not my people.

47:42

Yeah. Little nervous about

47:44

claiming that, but okay. God,

47:46

I'm gonna get firebombed, aren't I?

47:48

Yeah, that's how this works. I

47:51

thought this was a bigger story, but then

47:53

all this other shit happened in the house. And

47:55

then it turned out no one cared about

47:57

this one at all. But I still want to bring it up. During

47:59

a rally. in New Hampshire this week,

48:02

Donald Trump was speaking at this

48:04

rally in New Hampshire and he said if he was reelected,

48:06

he would block immigrants who

48:09

quote, don't like our religion

48:12

from coming into the US. Yeah,

48:15

I'll read you what he said. I will

48:17

implement strong ideological screening

48:19

of all immigrants. This is Trump. This

48:21

is Trump. If you hate America, if you

48:24

want to abolish Israel, if you don't like

48:26

our religion, which a lot of them don't,

48:28

if you sympathize with jihadists,

48:31

then we don't want you in our country and you're not

48:33

getting in. We don't want you. Get

48:35

out of here. You're fired.

48:37

He did not say you're fired. Unquote.

48:42

Listen, he has very little else.

48:44

Quick sidebar. This past

48:46

episode of the state and esoteric political history,

48:48

they talked about the first time Trump

48:51

flirted with running for president. Yeah.

48:54

And it was 1988

48:54

and he said

48:55

at that time, nobody

48:58

has ever accomplished as much as I

49:00

have at my age and he

49:05

was 41. Yes. No one, no one has

49:07

ever inherited hundreds of millions of dollars

49:10

from their parents before

49:12

the age of 41. Like you can say

49:14

that shit when you're like 22, but once he turns 30,

49:16

you just get

49:18

it. Yeah, I'm pretty sure every CEO

49:21

and then, oh my God, fucking Jody

49:24

Evergan, the host just starts

49:26

reading like Newton was only 23 when

49:28

he

49:28

just got regret. I thought

49:30

the whole point of Hamilton is like, they're all 12 years

49:32

old when they find the, when they found the country

49:35

when you found like all

49:37

those guys were in their teens or early

49:40

20s or a bunch of them were, but now

49:42

people are like, um, you're 19. You don't know what gender you

49:44

are. Yeah. I hate everything.

49:47

So this raises the question and I know I'm sidestepping

49:49

a lot of Trump stuff that he said there in a country

49:51

of 330 million people founded

49:54

on the principle of religious freedom. Which religion

49:59

is our religion.

50:01

Lowercase C Christians. Like

50:04

I but it's not it's not and I know

50:07

it's not because I know it's not heaven

50:09

but like white evangelicals

50:10

in the MAGA crowd do not believe progressive

50:13

Christians less fundamentalist Christians pro-choice

50:15

Christians LGBTQ accepting

50:18

Christians Christians who challenge

50:20

them none of them are true Christians so

50:22

it's really it's whatever form of Christianity is

50:25

practiced by MAGA extremists who make

50:27

up Trump's base it's definitely

50:29

not Islam it's definitely not

50:31

other religions because Trump doesn't know any other religion

50:33

correct and so that's the

50:35

thing like it's easy to this is why I

50:37

thought it was a big deal like Trump just made this really

50:40

weird remark that says a lot about where

50:42

the Republican Party is at and

50:45

it was ignored because there were rather bigger

50:47

stories and partly because he says crazy

50:49

shit all the time but

50:50

like going on with the

50:53

Republicans he's saying

50:55

certain immigrants shouldn't be allowed to become

50:57

legal citizens based solely

51:00

on their religious label that is

51:02

what he was getting at yeah I know

51:04

I'm not shocked by him saying it

51:07

I'm shocked by how little attention

51:11

was paid to it and this is again going back to the

51:13

Mike Johnson problem he just said something

51:15

insane that is unconstitutional

51:18

and the fact that so little attention

51:21

got paid to it because it was low on the totem pole this week

51:23

right like that's why that stuff

51:26

tends to get a pass because one if you

51:28

say crazy shit all the time no one's gonna care

51:30

I would push back against

51:32

that because I think

51:35

maybe the reason didn't get much traction is like it's

51:37

nothing new like Trump

51:40

right he has been no but that's why he gets away

51:42

with it

51:44

but he doesn't get away with it because he did lose

51:46

an election he

51:48

yes so he did he's still winning

51:51

the Republican Party right now I'm

51:52

talking about though you said he gets away with it he

51:54

did not get away with it he failed he failed his

51:57

thing this is the kind of even

51:57

if he lost that the rest of the

51:59

party with him. No Republican.

52:02

I'm not disagreeing with that. No, you are disagreeing.

52:04

I'm just trying to point out that

52:06

this is nothing new. And so if your question

52:08

is, I don't know why people aren't covering this more.

52:10

Yeah. We know everything about Trump. We need

52:13

to know he's done. He's out of ways to surprise

52:15

us. Knock on

52:16

wood. Then

52:18

the coverage should be why aren't Republicans

52:20

who claim to value the constitution?

52:22

Then why aren't they held accountable for what their

52:24

leader says? Because nobody's holding them accountable.

52:27

Nobody's holding them

52:29

accountable. And they should because if the leader of

52:31

the Republican party is saying basically

52:34

brown immigrants are not allowed to get in, that

52:36

should be a big deal for the entire party. Not

52:38

just Trump's crazy shit. And it's not

52:41

the Republican

52:41

party is a white nationalist party.

52:43

Like

52:44

I know I'm not disagreeing. I'm saying to the

52:46

reporters who didn't give this much coverage.

52:48

That's their problem. They should. This should be

52:51

a bigger story because

52:53

this is what the Republican party now believe.

52:55

I don't even believe that's the first time

52:57

he said something like that. Something

52:59

you can't come in unless you're there. So

53:01

he's just

53:02

plain like, listen, every time

53:05

somebody releases a greatest hit, they don't all go to

53:07

the top of the chart again because we know it. We

53:09

know that song. We've heard it before. And you can't

53:11

surprise us anymore

53:13

again, unless you died soon.

53:15

The Pew Research Center,

53:17

by the way, we've talked about this last year. The Pew Research

53:20

Center came out with a survey where they asked

53:22

people questions like, do

53:24

you think the U.S. should be a

53:26

Christian nation? But they did not define

53:29

it for the people. They just said, do you think it should

53:31

be? 45%

53:32

of all

53:33

Americans said yes. 60%

53:36

said they believed we

53:38

were founded as one. And

53:40

among Republicans, I have the

53:42

number here somewhere. I bet they're much more accurate

53:44

because they really care about history. It was much higher.

53:46

But like, here's the thing. Republicans

53:49

have been silent if not accepting of all this.

53:51

Maybe that's because 99% of them, 99% of Republicans in Congress are Christian.

53:57

Maybe it's because they have no backbone for condemning Trump.

53:59

Maybe it's both.

55:39

last

56:00

weekend, which is one of those Trumpy

56:03

Christian events. And after praising

56:05

Lord and Savior Donald Trump, he said,

56:07

we don't care about those indictments. We don't care

56:09

about those arrests.

56:11

He made an announcement

56:12

that was kind of scary. He said

56:14

the Burns Christian Military

56:17

Academy is gonna open next year

56:19

in order to save our children

56:21

from the evil public schools. Jesus

56:24

Christ! He's

56:25

opening his own military

56:28

academy. Can

56:29

you have a personal

56:32

military

56:33

academy? That feels like it has to be ordained

56:35

by somebody.

56:36

He also said it's gonna use

56:38

the Abeka curriculum, which is a famous homeschooling

56:41

Christian. South Carolina. There

56:43

we go. He's using the Abeka curriculum.

56:46

I know what's happening next. He's

56:49

using a homeschooling Christian curriculum that

56:51

is known for its misinformation

56:54

and not exposing kids to the existence of

56:56

LGBTQ people and ignoring the role

56:58

of black people throughout our history. That's

57:01

what he plans to teach them. It's

57:03

not a military academy. It's just a form of

57:06

Christian nationalist indoctrination. I just read

57:08

the article. Holy shit. There was an article

57:11

about what? The Christian Post about this guy's

57:13

military academy.

57:14

I can't wait to read, to tell you about

57:16

it. Please, please tell me what is in

57:18

front of me.

57:19

First of all, did you know Mark Burns lied

57:22

about his military service? Let me tell

57:23

you about his military service. Okay,

57:26

I'll put my phone down. You just tell me. I'll just listen.

57:29

I'll just be a good audience. So this guy

57:31

famously said he spent

57:33

six years in the Army Reserve

57:36

and then a few years ago, CNN did an interview

57:38

with him because he was like a Trump spokesperson

57:41

and they're like, you said you you

57:43

were in the Army? He's like, oh yeah, I was

57:45

totally in the Army. And they're like, and he just, we

57:47

asked the Army and they're like, who is this guy? He was

57:49

in the Army Reserve or I'm sorry, he was

57:51

not in the Army Reserves or whatever.

57:54

So he lied about that.

57:57

He lied about going to college

57:59

where he...

57:59

He went to college. He said he graduated from this place.

58:02

He didn't.

58:03

Was it a good place at least that he lied about? I

58:05

think this was just like Liberty University

58:07

and he couldn't even hack

58:08

that. I mean he just he lied

58:10

about practically everything in

58:12

his bio. And when he was finally

58:15

called out about it, his

58:17

church's website said he had a Bachelor of Science

58:19

degree. He served six years in the Army Reserve.

58:22

He wasn't in the Army Reserve. He was in the South Carolina

58:25

National Guard and he was discharged in 2008.

58:27

Do you

58:27

have a bachelor's at all? He said he went

58:30

to North Greenville University and

58:32

that's where he got his bachelor's degree. But the school

58:34

said to CNN, this is in 2016

58:36

when he was one of like a black Republican

58:39

defending Trump. Oh

58:40

yeah, he's black. He said, I didn't know. He

58:43

said,

58:43

he said, I graduated with

58:46

a bachelor's degree. The school said he went for

58:48

one semester.

58:50

And then- Why is it the fact that

58:52

he claimed he has a Bachelor of Science, the

58:54

funny part to

58:55

me? Very specific. And CNN said,

58:57

so you're lying about all this stuff. We took this from

58:59

your biography on your church's website

59:02

and he said the page was obviously

59:04

manipulated or hacked or someone

59:06

added that stuff in. And

59:08

then CNN's like, hey Wix, the company

59:11

that ran the website or had the template

59:13

for the website. Oh my God, who updated this? They're

59:16

like, yeah, did this stuff happen? They're like, there's

59:18

no evidence of a hack. And

59:20

then you got to look this up on- It's a lies

59:22

online. Go on YouTube, look up Mark Burns

59:24

CNN interview. Is it funny? It's

59:27

so funny because they spend a couple of minutes saying

59:29

this is this guy that Trump is trotting out everywhere

59:31

to promote him. So we had

59:34

some questions for this guy

59:36

and he's so excited to be in front of the

59:38

camera. And he's so excited like, yeah, what

59:40

questions do you have for me? I'm the important guy here.

59:43

They're like, so you are in the army? He's like,

59:45

yeah, six years in the army reserve. That's

59:47

interesting because we, we spoke to the army

59:50

and they don't know who you are. But

59:52

he did serve in the national guard.

59:54

Which is fine. Then say you served in the state- South

59:56

Carolina National Guard. Say you served in the state

59:58

national guard. That's very different. Yeah.

1:00:02

And such an easily provable lie.

1:00:04

There's

1:00:04

so many people who have lied about military service.

1:00:06

I know, but isn't it like the easiest

1:00:08

thing in the universe to figure out

1:00:11

somebody hasn't actually been in the military?

1:00:13

Like

1:00:13

you are counting on the reporters to

1:00:15

actually fact check any of this,

1:00:18

which they don't do usually. And then the

1:00:20

reporter said, brought up all the

1:00:22

stuff. Mark Burns like, that's not fair at all. I thought

1:00:24

we were doing a profile and all of a sudden

1:00:26

you're here trying to destroy my character.

1:00:29

Gotcha. Journalist. Yeah. I sat

1:00:31

down and you asked me some questions and

1:00:33

you

1:00:33

got me from the CNN article. At

1:00:35

one point Burns told the reporter,

1:00:38

he believed the interview was off the record

1:00:40

to which the reporter said, I didn't

1:00:42

agree to that.

1:00:44

And then Burns walks away in

1:00:46

the middle of the interview, but

1:00:49

dignity and tact,

1:00:50

despite all of that,

1:00:53

not only is this guy still going

1:00:55

at it, he ran for Congress in 2022.

1:00:58

Despite all, it's like George Santos coming back in

1:01:00

a few years to run for Senate or something like that.

1:01:02

He still did it. He lost in the primary, but

1:01:05

it didn't matter. And

1:01:06

now he's going to open a military academy.

1:01:09

Okay.

1:01:09

I just need to, have

1:01:12

you gotten, are you gonna talk about uniforms?

1:01:14

Oh, their uniforms look wild.

1:01:16

Okay. But here's the thing. I think he

1:01:18

wants the,

1:01:19

okay. We plan to have our students wear a military

1:01:21

inspired uniform akin to those worn by cadets

1:01:23

at West Point and VMI, the Virginia

1:01:26

military Institute. We also encourage

1:01:28

parents, grandparents, and mentors to participate

1:01:31

by wearing the uniform, fostering

1:01:33

a sense of community and support. He

1:01:35

wants parents and grandparents to wear a school

1:01:38

uniform. Everyone

1:01:38

has to wear the uniform.

1:01:39

Like, where do you think he meet? Like when

1:01:41

they visit the, here's what

1:01:43

I'm worried. Here's what I'm worried is going to happen.

1:01:45

Like around their house. He's going to spend the next

1:01:47

year raising money for this. Cause he's got

1:01:49

the logo and shit. And then

1:01:52

there's, there's no reason to believe it's

1:01:54

actually going to open. That's

1:01:56

where I think this is going. I

1:01:58

don't know. He can prove me wrong. You

1:02:00

can and then he'll blame liberals for it launched

1:02:02

and like not

1:02:03

launching. We'll show some money laundering scheme

1:02:06

I'm not saying that I am saying if it happens.

1:02:08

I'm not gonna be surprised

1:02:09

sue me you're laundering money You

1:02:12

can't

1:02:14

Get people to sue us when this is a cold

1:02:17

Me me this is Jessica Jessica

1:02:20

not Hemant just sue Jessica.

1:02:23

There you go. Hemant is to dungeon. What's

1:02:25

going

1:02:25

on? There you go. I Have

1:02:27

one another good news story for you Kind

1:02:30

of good news Oklahoma's

1:02:33

attorney general Gintner Drummond,

1:02:36

which is very Oklahoma The Attorney

1:02:38

General of Oklahoma insert

1:02:40

stereotypes here Just filed

1:02:42

a lawsuit to stop the state

1:02:45

from using taxpayer money Just

1:02:48

to prop up the nation's first ever

1:02:50

religious charter school

1:02:52

Then needs propping up you say yeah again

1:02:55

I thought God provides

1:02:55

the religious right the

1:02:58

Ryan Walters the Christian nationalists

1:03:00

like superintendent of public education said Yeah,

1:03:03

we should absolutely open up a Catholic charter

1:03:05

school paid for by taxpayer funds

1:03:08

and the board that approved that

1:03:10

sort of thing They voted three to

1:03:12

two. Yeah to make it happen Church

1:03:15

state separation groups a couple months ago. They

1:03:17

filed a lawsuit to put a stop to that We'll see

1:03:19

how that goes But what's amazing

1:03:21

is that this week?

1:03:22

It's not just them anymore the Attorney

1:03:25

General

1:03:25

of Oklahoma is like yeah, all those church

1:03:27

state separation groups are right I'm

1:03:30

filing a lawsuit to put a stop to

1:03:32

it as well. Like I said surprising

1:03:36

Oklahoma's attorney general is saying

1:03:38

yeah We

1:03:40

brought him up when we talked about the school

1:03:43

itself to give you a little bit of background

1:03:45

here This lawsuit from

1:03:47

the Oklahoma Attorney General it was filed

1:03:49

directly with the state Supreme Court. It

1:03:51

says the state constitution prohibits

1:03:54

sectarian control of public schools It

1:03:57

also says that using taxpayer dollars to fund

1:03:59

a Catholic

1:03:59

education violates the establishment

1:04:01

clause in the US Constitution, he

1:04:04

wrote, make no mistake if the Catholic Church

1:04:06

were permitted to have a public virtual

1:04:08

charter school,

1:04:09

a reckoning will follow

1:04:10

in which this state will

1:04:13

be faced with the unprecedented quandary

1:04:16

of processing requests to directly

1:04:18

fund all petitioning sectarian

1:04:20

groups, which is a fancy way of saying if

1:04:22

we say yes to the Catholic group, the Satanists

1:04:24

are gonna come in, Muslims are gonna come in, and

1:04:26

we're gonna have to say yes to them. Yep. Like, not

1:04:29

exactly the best phrasing, like, oh god, I can't have

1:04:31

that. No, but it's also

1:04:32

the point, like, I feel like you

1:04:34

and I try to make all the time of, like,

1:04:36

you guys think that you're, like, sneaking

1:04:38

your way around these rules, but what you're doing is opening

1:04:40

a Pandora's.

1:04:41

Yes, he actually said this, which I thought, not

1:04:43

the way I would have phrased it, but okay. Today, Oklahomans

1:04:46

are being compelled to fund

1:04:48

Catholicism because of the

1:04:50

legal precedent created by the board's

1:04:53

actions by approving the school. Tomorrow,

1:04:56

we may be forced to fund radical

1:04:58

Muslim teachings, like Sharia law.

1:05:01

Oklahomans are

1:05:03

going to break a little. We've already gotten

1:05:05

your point. He's not the hero of this story. Yeah, I

1:05:07

just heard somebody under the bus, but. He's not

1:05:09

a hero, but he is right

1:05:11

to file this lawsuit. Yeah. Ryan,

1:05:14

Ryan Walters echo, he

1:05:16

responded to the lawsuit by saying,

1:05:19

and this doesn't make any sense, but this is what he said,

1:05:21

atheism should not be the state sponsored

1:05:23

religion.

1:05:24

I know. This is what we've been

1:05:25

saying. Uh huh.

1:05:27

Again, some background here.

1:05:29

Back in June, the Oklahoma

1:05:32

Statewide Virtual Charter School Board,

1:05:34

they voted unanimously in

1:05:36

June to say no to the Catholic

1:05:39

school. It's called St. Isidore of Seville

1:05:41

Virtual Catholic Charter School. They all voted

1:05:43

no. And then the same board,

1:05:46

like months later, voted three

1:05:48

to two to move forward with

1:05:50

the application. That's after Kevin

1:05:52

Stitt, the governor, installed a new member

1:05:54

of the board to take over one of the other people.

1:05:58

And that's why it was approved.

1:05:59

And again, why would a taxpayer

1:06:02

funded Catholic school be

1:06:04

a problem? Well, unlike

1:06:06

public schools, the Catholic school does not

1:06:09

require teachers to be certified. They

1:06:11

do not have to accept openly LGBTQ

1:06:13

teachers. They would explicitly promote

1:06:15

Catholic doctrine during school hours.

1:06:18

There's the possibility that a student who gets pregnant

1:06:21

could be expelled, that a trans student

1:06:23

who exists could be expelled,

1:06:26

that sex education is omitted from the curriculum.

1:06:29

And this type of school may not have the resources

1:06:32

to take on special needs students. And

1:06:35

that is something the school actually said, that

1:06:37

is something we still, we will need to develop.

1:06:40

Which yeah, get on that maybe and stuff.

1:06:42

Well, I mean, you know,

1:06:43

special education, who gives a fuck about those people,

1:06:46

right? Those are, cause Jesus was like, take

1:06:48

care of the least among us the worst, right?

1:06:51

Something like that. And I wanted

1:06:53

them to

1:06:54

not have in the heromans,

1:06:56

I would have done it myself. So just

1:06:58

let them wallow.

1:07:00

Something like that. The amazing thing, the

1:07:03

last year when this was still on

1:07:05

the table, people knew this Catholic school was trying

1:07:07

to do this. The attorney general

1:07:10

before 2022, his name

1:07:12

is John O'Connor. He actually wrote

1:07:15

a non binding like white paper,

1:07:17

basically saying, listen, if we approve

1:07:19

the charter school, everything will be fine.

1:07:22

He gave them the green light to move forward

1:07:24

with it. Everything will be fine.

1:07:26

Totally fine. You

1:07:29

and me will worry about it. I hate that guy. This

1:07:31

guy, attorney general Drummond, the new guy,

1:07:34

he beat that guy in the Republican primary

1:07:36

in 2022. He ended up winning

1:07:38

the race because of Oklahoma. And

1:07:40

then in February of this year, he formally

1:07:43

withdrew his predecessor's opinion.

1:07:46

Wait. Yeah. The old

1:07:48

attorney, yeah. The old attorney general said, this

1:07:50

is fine. It's legal. Now the new attorney

1:07:52

general said, Hey, I saw what the old guy

1:07:55

wrote. And actually, I care

1:07:56

about the law. I'm just going to go ahead and give

1:07:58

this little. He said

1:07:58

the opinion.

1:07:59

as issued by my predecessor, misuses

1:08:02

the concept of religious liberty by employing

1:08:05

it as a means to justify state-funded

1:08:08

religion. I doubt most Oklahomans

1:08:10

would want their tax dollars to fund

1:08:12

a religious school whose tenets are diametrically

1:08:15

opposed to their own faith. And so

1:08:17

he was right about it then too. But again, Ryan

1:08:19

Walters, the superintendent of public education,

1:08:21

was like, who cares what the attorney general says?

1:08:24

Yeah, I'm a guy with no authority,

1:08:26

and I say it's fine. Sure. And because

1:08:28

he's one of these always in the public eye

1:08:31

Christian nationalist types. And

1:08:33

he has the confidence of a mediocre white man. Yes, he

1:08:35

does. And they voted in favor

1:08:37

of approving it. And now

1:08:40

they're now facing two separate lawsuits. I

1:08:42

don't know if it'll work, but man,

1:08:44

I'm glad they're suing. I hope it works.

1:08:47

The school is scheduled to open next fall, 2024.

1:08:49

It is expected over the first five

1:08:52

years to cost taxpayers in Oklahoma

1:08:54

more than $26 million.

1:08:56

And I believe I looked

1:08:58

this up last time we talked, I think Oklahoma is like

1:09:01

47th on the education

1:09:04

rankings in the US.

1:09:05

Give or take a couple there. Yeah.

1:09:07

Well, I mean, they would have a hard time figuring it

1:09:09

out. I don't blame them.

1:09:11

That is, you know,

1:09:12

it's

1:09:13

too fucking bad, because that means a bunch

1:09:15

of money that should be going to public

1:09:17

schools, yeah,

1:09:18

fun schools and make sure that, you

1:09:21

know, there's no lead in the fucking walls. Thank

1:09:23

God they're spending that all on in Catholic

1:09:26

school. Jesus, why

1:09:28

are we done yet? Almost one more

1:09:30

story for you. This one's quick. One of the

1:09:32

other hearings that took place this week

1:09:35

took place in the committee on education and

1:09:37

the workforce. And there

1:09:39

was a subcommittee there. And again, back to

1:09:41

what is a committee? It's all the members of Congress

1:09:43

get to grandstand if they're on the committee. And

1:09:46

one of the people who spoke is Burgess

1:09:48

Owens, who is a 72 year old black

1:09:50

Republican from Utah.

1:09:52

A rare breed. Hold on. I just need

1:09:54

to break that. First of all, his name is Burgess Owens,

1:09:57

which we just fucking ran.

1:09:59

Now, if we've learned nothing else today,

1:10:02

it's that there are like 300 members of Congress

1:10:05

no one's ever heard of. Who's

1:10:06

Burgess Meredith? Is that the guy from Rocky? Sure.

1:10:09

I think he's the coach from Rocky. Okay, so his name is Burgess

1:10:12

what? Owens. Owens, okay, I'm into that.

1:10:14

And he is a black Republican from Utah?

1:10:16

That is correct. I was not aware that they had

1:10:18

black people

1:10:19

in Utah. No one had that on the bingo card, but there

1:10:21

you go.

1:10:21

Oh my God, next you're going to tell him there's a black representative

1:10:24

from Maine.

1:10:24

Yeah, right. And one

1:10:26

of the things they were talking about

1:10:29

censoring books and like whether

1:10:31

books are actually censored and all that.

1:10:33

And I want to read you what he said.

1:10:35

Some say we

1:10:36

are here today to talk about so-called book banning

1:10:38

in K to 12 school libraries. That's

1:10:40

not what Burgess wants to talk about. When one

1:10:42

of our nation's most consequential

1:10:45

books holds up the Bible,

1:10:47

banning was done by the Supreme Court

1:10:50

in 1963 when officially

1:10:53

mandated Bible reading, this

1:10:56

book was banned from all

1:10:58

of us. Matter,

1:11:01

yeah, I'm going to finish his thought here. Matter of fact,

1:11:03

there's, there's, he doesn't speak in great

1:11:05

English, but matter of fact, there are some that

1:11:07

are listening today probably think

1:11:10

this, him holding up the book is totally

1:11:12

unconstitutional that I can even hold it up

1:11:14

due to the banning of this book generations

1:11:17

of Americans today have no

1:11:19

knowledge of the tenets upon which this

1:11:21

country has been founded.

1:11:23

They take a test before you get into Congress.

1:11:25

They banned the knowledge of

1:11:27

basic truths of happiness, like

1:11:30

the Judeo-Christian concepts of the golden rule,

1:11:32

which says we should treat others the way we want to be treated

1:11:34

or banned the knowledge of the 10 commandments

1:11:36

among rule

1:11:37

was hanging out in my second grade class

1:11:38

from the Bible. Apparently,

1:11:41

I mean, no, I'm

1:11:41

not kidding. It genuinely, there was a sign that

1:11:44

said that like, I don't know what he's

1:11:46

fucking talking about.

1:11:47

It's not a Jesus original. I promise

1:11:49

you. He also said they banned the knowledge

1:11:51

of the 10 commandments among these thou

1:11:54

shalt not steal, thou shalt not knowledge,

1:11:56

knowledge of the 10 commandments.

1:11:58

They banned knowledge of the 10 commandments.

1:11:59

Ten Commandments by

1:12:01

banning the Bible didn't happen.

1:12:03

No one knows the Ten Commandments among these

1:12:06

thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not kill

1:12:08

thou shalt not commit adultery thou shalt

1:12:10

honor thy father and mother and

1:12:13

I'll stop there. Yes, you're raising your hand

1:12:16

Why

1:12:18

if he thinks that all of these people

1:12:21

are Christians and want to read the Bible

1:12:23

at school and study the Bible at school

1:12:26

Shouldn't they be doing

1:12:28

that at like aren't they learning all their Christian

1:12:31

lessons from their good Christian families? Like why

1:12:33

does he

1:12:33

need reinforcements in the school?

1:12:36

I just don't with the Bible that they could

1:12:38

read in school if they want to

1:12:41

no one's stopping them It's not actually

1:12:43

banned.

1:12:44

Have you ever encountered somebody who was just

1:12:46

sitting reading the Bible?

1:12:47

I mean no people if they're reading anything

1:12:49

for fun. It's a good book. No, no good book

1:12:52

Oh

1:12:52

because I obviously asked you that question so I got my

1:12:54

own story about somebody reading

1:12:55

the Bible you saw someone reading I

1:12:57

was in high school. I was at snowball the

1:13:02

Boy and

1:13:05

this gal was on her top bunk and read and I was like what you read

1:13:07

and she's like the Bible and I was Like alright

1:13:09

and his moon walked out of there.

1:13:10

How you do it? Yep, you

1:13:13

stay the hell away from that Person

1:13:14

like didn't realize people did

1:13:16

that. Okay. Oh Did it

1:13:18

have pictures in the Bible? She didn't show me I

1:13:21

was a very Bible.

1:13:23

I want to be very clear. She was

1:13:25

Offy I

1:13:27

think that you asked a question she answered

1:13:28

fucking right. She didn't show it off She didn't try to talk

1:13:30

to me. I think and I think it was like an old-school Bible I

1:13:33

know whatever like she knew what she's doing.

1:13:35

I know she knew what she was about You know when you're 16 and

1:13:38

you read the Bible for fun.

1:13:38

Oh, yeah, needless to say Someone

1:13:44

like that need drugs I'm chud

1:13:46

chud chud. Yeah, needless to

1:13:49

say the 1963 Supreme Court decision that Owens

1:13:51

was Referencing did not

1:13:53

ban the Bible it ended mandatory Sponsored

1:13:57

Bible readings school sponsored

1:14:00

That's it. And didn't he say, he said mandatory,

1:14:02

didn't he? Well, no, he said, it stopped

1:14:04

the mandatory Bible readings, which is true. Which

1:14:07

is true. But it didn't ban the Bible.

1:14:09

Kids can still do it. But that's what he did. He

1:14:11

said the words. They did mandatory

1:14:14

reading. It's like he understands what they did,

1:14:16

and yet he chooses... Eyes open, eyes closed. With

1:14:19

this guy, I don't know enough about this guy, but I would imagine

1:14:21

he's in this. He's in this for the long

1:14:24

haul. You

1:14:24

think his eyes open? Yeah. Things

1:14:27

like that. Those really genuinely...

1:14:30

Understand that these people really do believe

1:14:33

the lies that have been fed to them from

1:14:35

the David Barton types of people.

1:14:37

Yeah, that's true. And when I was namedrop,

1:14:40

when I was interviewing Nicki Hammer, Nicole

1:14:43

Hammer from Bistaypod,

1:14:45

I was having a similar meltdown. She

1:14:48

was like, you cannot try

1:14:51

to find the logic line. You cannot follow

1:14:54

the thread. People are

1:14:56

able to hold these incredibly dissident

1:14:58

thoughts in their head that don't ever

1:15:01

see each other. Two ships in a night, these thoughts. Because

1:15:03

there's only four of them in their dumb head.

1:15:05

To their credit, American Atheists

1:15:07

responded on Twitter, Hi, Representative

1:15:10

Owens. You may know us from such Supreme

1:15:12

Court cases as the one you're

1:15:14

mischaracterizing. The

1:15:16

Bible has never been banned from public schools.

1:15:19

Do you really want teachers leading mandatory

1:15:21

Bible readings in class? Which version

1:15:23

of the Bible are you mandating? Which class, Stern?

1:15:26

Does Representative Owens want a big

1:15:28

government mandate about which version of the Bible

1:15:30

government employees should be reading to indoctrinate

1:15:33

children? Should Mormon kids be forced to

1:15:35

hear teachers endorsing the NIV Bible,

1:15:37

or what? We look forward to your clarification.

1:15:40

What's NIV?

1:15:40

New International Version. It's

1:15:44

the Heathens Bible. The fundamentalists

1:15:46

don't like it at all.

1:15:47

Oh, interesting. This is what I

1:15:50

said a couple weeks ago, that I think the way to fix

1:15:52

this whole white nationalist thing

1:15:54

is to be like, Yeah, you're right. We do

1:15:56

need to have an official religion. Now,

1:16:00

why don't I grab about 200 of y'all

1:16:02

and throw you in a room and you guys just come out with

1:16:05

you figure out which religion

1:16:07

it is. And please,

1:16:08

oh my god, please be specific because everything

1:16:10

is

1:16:10

right. If only. But like

1:16:12

true or false? Like it's such a

1:16:15

it's such a thing that if you follow it to its logical

1:16:17

conclusion, just falls apart in your hands.

1:16:19

They never get that far in the voices

1:16:22

in their head when they're talking about this. It's truly

1:16:24

like... You know what? I hate those Christian apologetics

1:16:27

books. I hate it when atheists do it too. But there are

1:16:29

books where they're like, let us discuss

1:16:31

what a conversation about these religious

1:16:34

differences would look like in practice. Here's

1:16:36

little Bobby saying, yes, the Bible

1:16:38

was banned in school. And then the atheist

1:16:40

stock character says something that no

1:16:42

atheists would ever. Yeah, they say something

1:16:45

no atheist would ever actually say. And already

1:16:47

half of sentence in you're like, I don't believe

1:16:49

any of this. And then it goes on for

1:16:51

pages because accordingly, the

1:16:53

debate that goes on in your head

1:16:56

works exactly the way you think. You

1:16:58

plan. You. I hate those books.

1:17:01

I've seen so many.

1:17:01

You know, what that reminds me of is

1:17:04

the podcast. How did this get made? They

1:17:06

do bad movies. And at the end, they always

1:17:08

read five star reviews about the movie. And

1:17:11

I would say 80 percent of the time,

1:17:13

whoever is writing the review is

1:17:15

having an argument with an invisible person

1:17:18

like, yeah, I'm so tired of people

1:17:20

saying that this, that and the other. No,

1:17:23

this isn't this thing. But it's a good

1:17:26

move. Like they're clearly having an

1:17:28

argument that they've been having in their head with

1:17:30

somebody for like five days. And they're like,

1:17:32

oh, these people are won't leave me alone. Yeah,

1:17:35

it's just this this

1:17:36

anger about

1:17:39

having

1:17:39

a rep. Anger just going everywhere.

1:17:41

I'm just having I have an opinion and that makes

1:17:43

me

1:17:43

angry for a reason. Yeah, I've created 100 straw

1:17:46

men. Yeah,

1:17:48

I hate them so much. Why did I create

1:17:50

them with my own dumb brain?

1:17:52

I think that's good for now. You've been

1:17:54

through a lot. Yeah, I really have. Fuck

1:17:57

me. This is a terrible month. My

1:17:59

birthday month.

1:17:59

Happy

1:18:01

no, it wasn't it's

1:18:03

I've been to two fucking funerals this month.

1:18:05

It's

1:18:06

Fun. I found a dead goat gang like

1:18:08

shit has been bad

1:18:11

It's bad out there do something nice for

1:18:13

how about this

1:18:14

do something nice for somebody just like

1:18:16

Halloween give out King sized candy Yes,

1:18:18

I this is fucked

1:18:20

my spooky season, you know I love spooky

1:18:23

season and I have not all I have

1:18:25

been do we'll talk about this in the bonus episode

1:18:26

spooky season Yeah, well,

1:18:29

whatever All

1:18:31

right, you can find us Go

1:18:33

to patreon.com Friendly

1:18:36

atheist podcast you can find me on

1:18:38

my couch. You can find Jessica on

1:18:40

her couch with my weighted depression

1:18:42

blanket There you go. All right If

1:18:46

you listen to the bonus episode I'll tell you

1:18:48

the most embarrassing thing that happened to me

1:18:50

over the weekend, which is truly embarrassing

1:18:53

I Everyone I've told about this

1:18:55

has laughed at my face. Oh

1:18:57

and I deserve it. This is really all

1:19:00

right. We'll talk to you soon. Bye