Citation Needed - Jim Bakker

Episode Date: September 15, 2021

James Orsen Bakker (/ˈbeɪkər/;[1] born January 2, 1940) is an American televangelist and convicted fraudster. Between 1974 and 1987, Bakker hosted the television program The PTL Club with his then wife, Tammy Faye, and developed Heritage USA, a now-defunct Christian theme park in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

I can't believe you got Paul F. Tomkins to be on the show. It's amazing. Seriously, way to go, you look cool. Super cool. He's been totally great, can't you? Yeah, what can I say? I guess he's a huge fan of the show. Eli, this isn't the studio.

No, it's not. Lot of buckets. Where's Paul F. Tomkins? Surprise. Hi. Hi, I'm Sam and Eli. What did you do? Okay, well, since the topic of this week's show was Jim Backer. No, it's pronounced Baker.

Yes, Baker. Yeah, I'm going to do that a lot. I'm going to need people to get used to it now. Anyways, since he's the topic of this week's show, I figure what better way to prepare for it than to lock us all in a bunker for a week so we can survive off his boot. Seriously?

Goddamn it. Well, some of you don't miss so we can survive off his boot seriously. God damn it. I love this show. I love this show. Think of the authenticity guys it's going to lend to the show. I mean, sure, anybody can talk shit about Jim Baker. Baker, it's an English word. I've heard you say Baker, they make pay drinks. But who can talk shit about him having survived for a week on this?

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, I'm gonna. Oh, dude, dude, dude, dude, you poop in there? Yeah, you're supposed to. He talks about it all the time on the internet. Don't throw a shower, you guys. Horseman, all the time.

This is great. You're supposed to poop in the buckets. After you eat the food, you fucking monster. What is wrong with you? Okay, that he was not clear about on the infomercials in my defense. Okay. Yeah, but that is all we have to eat for the next week. Come on. Damn it. It's supposed to last 30 days. So yeah, it's a really good standoff. He's part of the original Largo crew, actually. I'll be able to know that. He's such a good

he's talented Paul. Tomkins isn't coming. No, no, you no, he didn't say that. He said he locked us down here with food that he covered in his boob, but he didn't say that. He's not coming. Well, now I'm also upset. What? Now you're upset? Now you're upset? I don't know.

I need some shit with Paul F. Tomkins for sure. Oh, okay. Okay, like you guys wouldn't, you wouldn't eat shit with Paul Tomkins, those are just saying right adjust me Best week ever he's a best week ever Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet, and that's how it works now.

I'm your host, No Illusions, and I'm going to be guiding you through this very difficult time, but don't worry, we're going to get through it together. You, me, your credit card, and the rest of the cast. First up, two men tormented by the fact that they're perpetually a conversion away from millionaires, he and Cecil. Okay, try to be sad about your ethics in a private jet. It's fucking impossible. It's possible. I'll tell you what, I would fuck holy water from the end of the day. And also, just tonight, two men who were eating food at a bucket before it was cool Tom and Eli. Okay, you know, everything is a single serving. If you finish it before they can take it away from you, that's a single serving.

And everyone can cook food, but only I can re-hound my protein. So yeah. All right, so before we get started tonight, I want to remind you that Eli and Tom also know how much more money they could make if they found Jesus and converted to whoo. And the only thing that really convinces them anymore is Patreon donations. So be like that. Help people with honest ish. Be sure to stick around to the end of the show and with that out of the way, tell us

Eli, what person plays think comes up phenomenon or event? We'll be talking about today. Help people honest ish be sure to stick around to the end of the show and with that out of the way tell us Eli What person place think comes up phenomenon or event will be talking about today? We're gonna be talking about Jim Don't say backer backer. No baker. Yeah, I was kind the only reason I asked you specifically was because that Wonderful pronunciation not how it's pronounced Tom. Yes, you read at least as much about Jim Baker as he's read of the Bible You read at least as much about Jim Baker as he's read of the Bible. Whatever miracle cure he's hocking this week. Are you ready to tell us his tale? Oh, so I've got buckets of great information for you guys.

All right. So why Jim Baker? Okay. So I think as we live in a world now, which is daily defined by Huxterism from our politicians to social media, from lifestyle gurus to religious nuts, at every possible turn, we are confronted by powerful forces seeking to deprive us of our money, our agency, and our critical faculties. While the tools these frauds use have become vastly more powerful than ever before, many of the names and faces

that have been fleecing us have stayed remarkably consistent. If you've listened to our sister shows, you'll dealt with know the name Jim Baker as well as the non-named Jim backer. I helped that's true. Unfortunately, I used to think that he was just a rather pathetic cook selling freeze-dried buckets of Armageddon's sloped to credus rapture loons, but his story is so much more than that. Jim Baker is not that, it's not that, it's just not that. You're right, you're right. It's that more. Jim Baker is the very epitome of the bullshit artist and his scams are bigger and much more vile than you may imagine. Yeah, and I just want to say at the outset, before we begin, it's worth noting that like, it's all well and good to talk about some poor rubes who got tricked into buying snake oil when

everybody died of their teeth in 1442, but someone is ordering Jim Baker's products right now. On the internet, they have to scroll past the news results about what a fraud he is to buy his shit. It's not wrong at all. To born in 1942, Rally Baker and Furnia Lynette Irwin, James Orson Baker began life not far from here, actually in Muskegon, Michigan. I couldn't find much information about his parents or his childhood, but he went off to Bible College in Minnesota at a place called North Central University. While

sitting in an old book full of Bronze Age myths about a vengeful blood god, Jim Met and fell for the lovely and not at all cartoon clown made up Tammy Faye LaValle. A year later, 1961, that means the Valley. That does mean the Valley. Yes, thank you for the translation. A year later, in 1961, the two married and assembled a kind of like evangelist fraud Voltron. The pair dropped out of discount Bible college to go on the road as, and this is a quote from Wikipedia, I tinderant evangelists.

Well, because let's face a degree from North Central Bible University is exactly as valuable as not a degree from North Central Bible University. Yeah. Smart decision. Those early days, they had to threaten people with hell and take their money door to door. It took hours to do that. By 1966, the duo were working for Pat Robertson, a very credible man who had 73 once put out a video claiming that he could leg press 2000 pounds. Not only, yes, he did. This has nothing to do with the gym backers for it. I only include this detail because it is so wonderfully stupidly observed that everybody

needs to know this. I did to give you a sense of how much that did not happen. Because it didn't have the Florida State University leg press record the same year for its football players with 665 pounds. A regular commercial leg press machine like at a gym, you can't even put 2000 pounds on because why would you? It's not a pounds you can add to it, but somehow a geriatric pat Robertson was pumping iron with Jesus.

And he could also probably totally throw a football over those mountains. So to obvious lie, why would you say that? That's a small car. Right. He could power live a car with his 73 year old legs. I love it. Okay. But to be fair, moving the car with your legs was way more common when Pat Robertson was

growing up back in bedrock. That's how they're going. Oh, I'm sorry, Tom, but before you move on, Noah Heathen, I will literally explode. was growing up back in bedrock. That's how they're just, they're just how they're living. Yeah. Oh my god. Oh, I'm sorry, Tom, but before you move on, Noah Heathen, I will literally explode if we don't get to do a quick lightning round. No, yeah, I understand.

That makes sense. Hit it. Ah. How did that get into the studio? I installed the while you were sleeping, see so Pat Robertson go. Cold Scotland, a dark land overrun by gays. I said gay people wear needle rings to give straight people eight.

Said outer space is full of gaseous balls. Said people with too much plastic surgery got the eyes like their oriental. That's real. Also told of you were the towels in Kenya. I remember. Yeah. Okay, thank you, John. Thank you. Sorry. I know. You had to get out of your system. I get it and he's melty

He's melty. It looks like he's melty all the time. It's faces full of gashous balls. I just like hearing pets say it Anyway, Tammy and Jim started their work with jauli liar pat roverson at Pat's Christian broadcasting network CBI call him patty melts Christian Broadcasting Network. CBN. I call him Patty Meltz. It's all on a PC. Patty Meltz is great. He's got a brilliant.

While they were doing a Christian puppet show for kids called, Come on Over. Oh, okay. I did try to find some footage of this. And I only saw, please say his penis was a bad one. It was not that good. Come on, please. It may have been less creepy if it weren't seesaw.

I will say, I can only find it was sort of nestled in videos of other things. I need you to imagine a puppet show on a low budget TV channel. And then I just need you to know in the very bottom of your heart that you are underestimating how bad and creepy and weird this puppet show was. Don't care what you've been imagine. Right. But since Christian entertainment is the very lowest possible bar to slither over, this show was an inexplicable success, and Jim was given his own prime time show, the 700 Club.

The 700 Club quickly became the flagship of CBN. Yet for reasons, Jim and Tammy left CBN and joined Trinity Broadcasting Network. This too, not much of a match made in heaven, eight months later, the Bakers left TBN when a riff between Jim and station owner Paul Krauch develop. That's interesting. I had no idea Pat wasn't the original host of 700 Club. I always thought the name of it was like a hat tip to Pat's age. I didn't.

Well, no, I actually was named after the 700 financial supporters, Robertson was able to rope in during his seminal 1966 telethond to keep the network afloat And though Baker was the first permanent host the show had been on for six years by the time he joined the Jesus Christ Would have I done with my life? I know this shit Oh God We used to have magic

We used to have magic. That's fun. The Jim and Tammy moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. And in 1976, the pair realized that what the world really needed was more late night talk shows. And so they started the P.T.L. club. P.T.L., by the way, stands for Praise the Lord. So their show was the Praise the Lord club. Sounds weird.

Most people just called it the Jim and Tammy show, which is way more accurate than PTO, since it's really marked the beginning of the aggressive personal branding that would launch the Baker's Interrelative Stardom. They launched the PTO satellite network, and soon the PTO Club was airing at affiliates all across the country. Yeah, and if you're wondering how on Earth, anyone based the TV show on these monsters personalities, I'll remind you that this was a time when we as a nation thought that David Letterman was trying.

So. Oh. It's true. We wrote the blue somewhere. It's true, my moves are so high around. It gets really close to like way closer to the camera than there's any reason for him to be. That's not even a place.

That's not even a place. All the way up there. It's crazy. It's just so classic. The distance is stupid human tricks. At P.T.L. was fucking huge. Jim and Tammy and the whole P.T.L. stick became absolutely massive, so massive in fact, that they couldn't be confined just to television.

So they launched a theme park in South Carolina called Heritage USA. Heritage USA was a success on a level that should absolutely boggle your mind. But Tom, any level of success these people had boggles. Well, yeah, that's right. That's right. That's true. Yeah. Okay, I'm just's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Okay. I'm just quoting in bulk here from Wikipedia, the facilities included the 501 room heritage grand hotel, the attraction Main Street, USA. That's just a Main Street by the way. That's such a sad attraction, man. So stupid. What? An indoor shopping complex, the Heritage Village Church upper upper room, don't know what that is,

a 400 unit campground. What? The Jerusalem Amphitheater, conference facilities, King's Castle, a skating rink, prayer and counseling services, cable television production studios, Bible and evangelism school, visitor retreat housing, staff and volunteer housing, time shares, and the Heritage Island Water Park and Recreational Facilities. The only larger and more well-attended theme parks

were Disney World and Disney Land. In the corner. Shut the fuck up. Heritage USA employed 2500 people. It earned $126 million a year, and it hosted over 4.8 million visitors a year. Okay, sorry, just circling back. Did you say it has prayer and counseling services? That was what they offered. Yep. What the fuck is a prayer service? What? Like you get help with that? Is the guy in a room with advice about your wishing?

Yes. So it's so awkward when you're done. Like do you keep your wishes in your room and call them? Do you leave it outside the door? That's the day and still there now. What do you get to, right? Can we just pray for good prayers and then just service. You know, Tom, you said there's a 400 unit campground here. Could you imagine camping and being as fucking dirty as possible from

camp because camp is sucks and then having to go to church. Well, that's what I put in the water park to walk. Yeah, I just rinse you off in the piss water of those water parts. So things are going far better for Jim and Tammy than they had any right to expect and certainly better than they deserve, but it couldn't possibly last because the whole thing was built on a pyramid of scams layered in and among swindles and rackets. Viewers of PTO were donating as much as a million dollars a week, and the money and the fame was too tempting for the morally bankrupt Jim Baker. Rather routinely, the Bakers would take to the air and beg and plead, could Joel and promise in order to get viewers and believers to fork over their hard earned money to the

Baker Ministry. And these crass please eventually caught the attention of the FCC. In 1979, the FCC launched an investigation into the misuse of these funds and found that funds, which were allegedly being raised for overseas religious missionary work, were actually being used to expand their cash cow. Here at the USA, that same investigation also revealed that some of P.T.L's fund raising funds were raised not for the church, but for the bakers who decided to just keep some of that money of P.T.L's fund raising funds were raised not for the church, but for the bakers who decided to just keep some of that money for themselves.

Sure. The only way this could be more insulting is that they powered the water slides at Heritage USA with the tears that neglect admission. Hold them up there and squeeze the tears out of them. I feel like there's a business for there. You could charge something that audience would have been like, I can still go down the side with an erection, right? Hopefully orphans. Great. But crazily, however, this would not be the end of Jim Baker.

The FCC voted four to three not to pursue the investigation. Jim Baker then sold the only TV station that he owned, and since he now no longer owned a TV station, the FCC no longer had any power to regulate the Bakers. The Justice Department took over the investigation, but they too declined to press charges. The media attention from the investigation and scandal actually only added to Jim's coffers. The Bakers took to the air to do what they do best. They leveraged the investigation as a government witch hunt, and once again, they picked the pockets in the faithful.

Okay, it's really hard to have sympathy for the people that donated to the Bakers. Jim and Tammy look like Undead Cabbage Patch. So what the fuck is going on in your life? When you get asked for money by Undead Cabbage Patch Kids, you say no, this is just basic stuff. Okay, first, fuck whoever put the picture of these people in the know, sorry about that. And if you told me one or both of these people

were eventual, it was dummy, I would 100% believe it. Yeah, I don't know why Hollywood sprung for Andrew Garfield. They could have gotten the corpse of Rick Moranis. Oh, it's so true. Rick Moranis isn't daddy. Like he's just Canadian. That's what they could have killed, Rick Moranis. That's money.

In 1985, the IRS investigated the Baker Ministry and found that $1.3 million of funds raised by the Bakers for Church stuff was instead stolen and used by Jim and Tammy for personal shit. The IRS saw through the thin veneer of God talking and declared the whole thing a scam and they recommended that the church be stripped of its tax exempt status. Again, however, nothing happened. This isn't surprising though, since the Reagan administration was openly reluctant to prosecute and shut down popular television evangelists and upset his religious base. Once again, the

bakers were off the hook, but their winning streak wouldn't last forever. Right. That would be the story of all the other churches. It takes a lot. Noah. In 1987, the scandal that would bring down the bakers broke and stop me if this sounds at all familiar. Jim Baker, through an emissary, paid $279,000 to buy the silence of Jessica Han and protect his reputation. Huh. Sounds familiar. Sounds like someone, yeah, sounds like Jim overpaid.

And that's some fucking 1987. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Trump got the art of the deal on that one. All right. Here, I really do want to make sure that I'm very clear. Jim Baker, along with PTO co-host John Wesley Fletcher, drugged and raped Jessica Hahn, a woman who worked for P.T.L. There's a lot

of bullshit floating around on this and it's frequently phrased inaccurately as a sex scandal, but these guys raped this woman and then tried to cover up their crime with money. This crime was uncovered by Charles Shepard, a reporter for the Charlotte Observer who discovered the payoff to Hahn when he discovered that Baker kept two sets of books for the ministering. Everything when tits up bonkers for the Bakers once the Han rape was uncovered. Allegations of sexual abuse of another man was uncovered and rival televangelists took to the Larry King show to air more dirt on the sexual misdeeds of Jim Baker.

Baker resigned from P.T.L. but not before hand-picking his successor in Jerry Falwell. Baker chose Falwell because he believed that Falwell was loyal and because he feared rival evangelist Jimmy Swaggerd. Swaggerd had initiated internal investigations into Baker's sexual imperpriities and Baker was afraid Swaggerd was trying to steal his church scam out from underneath him. Now none of the lunch table drama bullshit would matter. As more and more allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced, fall well was under intense pressure to repudiate Jim Baker, and he eventually barged Jim Baker from returning to PTO.

The scandal caused a crisis of fundraising faith in the flock, so fall well took to TV, and he promised if viewers would just send him the $20 million they needed to keep their weird Jesus amusement park going and he would take a ride down the biggest water slide of the park wearing his favorite suit. What? Yep. What? Okay. The line in the sand for a big, I'm going to their audience is fascinating here. So they're just like, yeah, slide water park. That sounds fun, but hold on. Would it be like normal? And it's like suit. Yep. Well, it fucking worked.

Sympathetic viewers shit money at the beleaguered P.T.L. club. And they raised the money and Jerry Falell took a trip down a water slide in his favorite suit. Okay, I'm trying to think of a thing I would not do on a water slide for 20 minutes. I can't think of, I mean, you paid to get kicked in the stomach at the end of a water slide so hard that you shut yourself and vomited at the same time. So yeah, thank you for that reminder that is. Sorry, I have to mention that every five episodes, it's in my contract.

It's in your contract with who? Myself. Okay. Actually, Mark was fun, except for that. It was really fun. I got a lot of pee on myself. That was not light compared. The gym baker was out of the church and all would soon be well with the evangelist's community, except that it wouldn't because the bankruptcy judge called bullshit on the

whole thing and fall well was forced to resign as well. The PTO ministry and heritage USA was all going down in flames and fall well called out Jim Baker as quote, a liar and embezzler, a sexual deviant and the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2000 years of church history. I feel like scabs should be mad about that quote. And that I have to say is a pretty hefty insult when you consider the breath and depth of the many scabs and cancers on the face of Christianity that they have still managed to generate. Well, to be fair, foe well son was barely out of law school at this point.

He hadn't really gotten his legs under him. So, all right. Well, we got a scab going here. We're going to pause while the bleeding stopped, but we'll back to pick at it after a little apropos of nothing. I just don't think so many people are invested in the opening pop culture reference, that if we skip it in an intro, we have to introduce it then into the apropos of something. That's where I disagree with you. Game of Thrones.

What? Nothing. And here come our first guest now. Welcome to the NEPH. Oh, what's, uh, what's the NEPH? It's the Noah and Eli prayer hour, y'all. Our first televent, gelical spin-off show. You're just in time for the burn your money, Hawa. I don't know, guys. I mean, Noah's definitely our leatheriest white guy, but Eli is not a lady.

But when I use an Eli, we wrap this tummy and duct tape and put lipstick on it. Hey, you want to hear me? Well, that actually looks just like her. Guys, guys, televangelists are literally the worst kind of con person there is. They offer nothing. They pray on the old infeable, they take comfort and tradition and big questions about the universe and turn it into a way to pick somebody's pocket. Yeah.

Okay, so how much did you guys raise anyway? $11 million. So the NEPH you said. Asshole, I do. Hoop-wee! Try to be mad on the jet. Try. And we're back who can say for how long, but we're still doing honesty and skepticism for right now.

Anyway, yeah, right. So we left off Baker wasn't going to expose fraud, rapist and bezzler and liar. Love it if the story was over at that point, but we all know it isn't so Tom, where does Jim go from here? All right, so Baker's been kicked out of his church and P.T.L. was imploding. The investigative reporting from the Charlotte observer revealed even more misdeeds. The Baker bullshit factory was selling guaranteed four-day yearly lifetime vacations at their heritage USA theme park. These memberships, they

were not cheap, but they sold like crazy. Tens of thousands of them, in fact, were sold. That's true. This is a problem when you have a 500 room hotel. Yep. That's the man. It doesn't work. You can't make that math math. Baker then went on to sell exclusive partnerships in the hotel venture between all the hotel venture. Between all the scams, Baker raised more than twice what was needed for the actual project. So Jim Baker just put 3.4 million of the leftover dollars in his pocket and walked away whistling.

Actually, similar business model for crowd health, right? Yeah. He's this is a get a there's no way that company exists anymore. Yeah, it's fair. A finally after all the scams and frauds, a grand jury was convened. The pro blasted 16 months after which Baker was indicted in 1988 on eight counts of male fraud, 15 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy. The next year a jury found Baker guilty on all 24 counts and a federal judge sentenced Jim Baker to 45 years in prison and levied a $500,000 fine.

Just as seemed like it was served when Baker was remanded into federal custody. Yeah, I don't know. Having an excuse not to fuck Tammy Fei anymore feels more like brother to me. Oh, she's crazy. I'm going to get attracted. 45 years is great.

And all but I kind of need the fine to be bigger. Yeah, right. Yeah, for the 3.4 million. Hey, pay that four times over and asking cash. How did it land on that fine? Yeah. No idea. Now, unfortunately, Baker's crimes struck a chord with the Sensing Judge who said, quote,

those of us who do have a religion are sick of being saps for money-grubbing preachers and priests. This statement would be leveraged at appeal by Baker's legal team. And while the conviction was upheld, the Sensing was reduced from 45 years down to eight, citing the judges' injection of his own religious beliefs into the original sentencing. Jim would serve almost five years of his eight-year sentence before being let out on parole, but we still owe six million dollars to the IRS on release.

Judge mentions his own religion and they give him a fucking lighter sentence because that fine to fucking atheist next time. Right, right. Right, right. Between this and masterpiece, cake shop, the law has a lot more precedent for, I don't care for your tone that I'm comfortable with.

Wait a minute. Right. So in 2003, Baker returned to what he knew, religious, televangelist grifting, divorced now from Tammy and remarried to Lori Baker, Jim unveiled the Jim Baker show broadcasting out of Branson, Missouri. Crazily, despite being a convicted fraud and a rapist, the Jim Baker show has been carried

on CtN Daystar, Fulk TV, Grace Network, GEB America, Hope TV, Impact Network, WGN, WHG TCT Network, the Word word network uplift TV and Z living networks. Now, most grace network was just in Canada. Yeah, I think I did. I don't think it was grace now. Grace network USA. Now, most of those are little bullshit networks. And the majority of his viewership comes still from people slowly rotting in their arm

chairs and getting his bullshit beamed them by satellite, but he still has viewers. Like out loud, Baker has condemned prosperity gospel theology, but in reality, his new grip is just a mix of prosperity gospel and apocalypticism, which is a long word that means scaring people into buying MREs and hand crank radios for 10 times the actual cost. Yeah, MRE, by the way, stands for meals ready to eat. And as at least three of us on this podcast can attest to, no, the fuck they're not. I like the pizza. I like the pizza. You're from New York. I got to be honest, I kind of like the food.

The pizza. We need a few of the things. We didn't watch it. He continued to eat the MRE after the live stream was over. He did. I mean, Jesus, especially, I was clean plate club. Also, importantly, can you shit into a normal MRE when you're done? Can you make a cable out of your shit bucket? You have a cable with's true, it's that I don't know what I was. I'm obviously wrong.

You're gonna have to let the gas escape period. You're just going to pop that lid right up. You got to conserve energy. You're on our reason now. You can't just go willy-nilly emptying style. I don't know what I was thinking. That's the thing I'm asking myself right now. What were you thinking?

So if you've got a perforated tabletop in your apocalypse bunker, this is the perfect thing. Now, if you're going to leverage the apocalypse, you have to have a direct line to the in your apocalypse bunker. This is the perfect thing. No, no. No. Now, if you're gonna leverage the apocalypse, you have to have a direct line to the genocidal musings of the big man in the clouds. So, of course, now Baker is a prophet, and not just a preacher. Of course, he has also been wrong.

Every time he's predicted or prophesied anything, because he's a fucking liar and a cheat. Huh. He predicted that Trump would win the 2020 presidential election. He predicted a civil war between Christians and just some other people. I guess that the opponents were not clear. Yeah, after January 6th, I'm going to allow that one time. Okay. That's democracy. Yeah. Okay. He says that he knew about 9-11 in 1999, but he didn't mention it to anyone until after 9-11-201. He slipped his mind. He stated that he can't continue him. You don't want to spoil him.

Obviously. He stated that in a dream, quote, God came to him wearing a camouflage hunting vest, an AR-15 rifle strapped to his his back and that God supported Trump's plan to arm teachers. So, I love that. Jesus. And a tap out. Sure. There's a hundred hundred others. And nearly all of these Doomsday predictions come right before during and around his pitches to sell big five gallon buckets of dried food you can rehydrate into dire real like consistency to survive Armageddon without missing a single helping of your fucking biscuits and gravy. Okay, look apocalypse rappers never make any sense no matter what, but it especially doesn't make sense if you're expecting the Christian apocalypse. You are going to get. Yeah, right. What's up to happen? Who are you collecting the buckets for?

And of course, when COVID hit, Baker saw nothing but opportunity there too, not opportunity to help people, opportunity to enrich himself on the fear of others very quickly and really at the height of the initial fear and uncertainty when people were their most vulnerable, Jim Baker began touting on this stupid fucking show, a miracle cure for COVID and just about anything that might alien you. Colloidal Silver. Colloidal Silver is basically silver mixed in a solution often sailing. The FDA has long said that colloidal silver has no medical uses, but since this is America, it's still allowed to be marketed and sold as a dietary supplement.

It's fucking absolute nonsense. It does nothing, can turn your skin blue, and Jim Baker was selling it as a magic anti-COVID potion. Once again, government regulators, as time the FTC and the FDA had his step in and stop him from taking advantage of people's fear to line his personal fucking pockets. Yes. In a very harshly worded letter, they explained you can only imply it. That's true.

You can't say it. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But so now he, I shit you not, sells people a plant from which they can make their own cure for COVID. Oh my God. Because apparently

saying that is legal. It's one more degree a Kevin Bacon. I also happen to see these now selling prosperity blankets. Yeah. America like a thousand dollars. It's like a thousand dollar blank. And like you put your cuddle, fuck or whatever. And then you put your total fucker or whatever and then you put it on your bill. Mike, you pay your bills with the $1,000 product. It'll sell you unreal. Now, Jim Baker did have a stroke and unfortunately it didn't kill him. And the son of a bitch is still broadcasting his bullshit. He's still leveraging fear of the unknown. He's still abusing the misplaced trust people put in religious leaders to fatten his personal

bank accounts. It's not even a real stroke. He doesn't sound funny like my dad, like, not like that. It's bullshit. It's a bullshit stroke. If you're going to have aphasia, if you're going to have a stroke, have aphasia. Go all the way, damn it. A Jim Baker is undoubtedly a horrible human being, but he is by no means alone. At some point, Baker will die and his personal grift will end and that will be a day worth

celebrating. But if we're not careful and we don't get our shit together, there'll be an endless parade of Jim Baker's hiding behind tailored suits and fluorescent white teeth, guiding our hands right into our pants to help us pick our own pockets. All right, well, rather than just naming them, I guess. guiding our hands right into our pants to help us pick our own pockets. All right. Well, rather than just naming them, I guess when we went to this part where you summarize, what you've learned in one sentence, what would that be, Tom? I should have been a religious grifter too.

And I should have been your height man. Oh, we would crush it. Crush it. All right. Are you ready for the quiz? Let's do it. All right, Tom, which of the following is the best Varietal from Jim Baker's

Reesdried wine store It is hit a Shirazan bag The Tangi of Ace Tangi has powdered the ring and San Giovanni is one or see Ben Shapino. Shapino. Ben, you know what?

I like the Ben Shapino, but it's a little dry. Yeah. We got it. We got it. We got it. We got it. And the show. Cecil, and it just so good.

Yeah, I know like we're we're gonna fail here, but we gotta go. That's my answer, I guess. Oh, that was correct. That was good. I thought so. All right, Tom, what would be the funniest way for Jim Baker to die? Cecil, I checked with my lawyer. This is totally legal.

Hey, give him poison whose antidote is colloidal silver. A, a lady faced crown wearing horse locust injury. See, kick the death of the bottom of a water slide by Heath and a suit. I love it. I love it. I'll stop you right there. It's see. It is, it is six. I want

to see him shit and puke himself to make sure. Yeah, I feel terrible having to go after both of these, but I got to go. So what's the name of Jim Baker's apocalypse shit bucket movie? Okay. A sewage of tomorrow. Be in the flash Gordon. See turd box. D invasion of the potty snatchers or 28 cheeks later. Oh, right. All right. Turd box, great concept, poor execution.

Invasion of the potty snatchers. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was Sue edge. Oh, I thought I had it. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it was Sue Edge. Oh, I thought I had an end. But you tricked me. I'm not sure I'm gonna pick. I'll make it a surprise for next week.

We'll make it a surprise. Oh, all right. All right, over. Cecil Eli Heath and Tom, I'm no one thinking you're for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then, somebody will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can hear more from Tom

and Cecil and Cydon ofsonance more of heath and me on Skating and the skydolphin movies the skeptic rad and dnd minus and more of Eli on Cecil sports loudly explaining the rules of cosmic encounter through the mail Go in you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com So that's citation pod or leave us a five star review everywhere you can and if you'd like to get in touch with us Check out past episodes connect with social media or check the show notes, be sure to check out CitationPod.com.