The Charlie Kirk Show - THOUGHTCRIME Ep. 144 — Lesbian Bar Drama? Toys 'R' Us Returns? Elon Musk's Paramount?

Episode Date: September 26, 2026

The team come back to jump right into compelling topics like:   -Is a Boston Globe story on a loopy lesbian bar the funniest ever? -Why is Toys 'R' Us having a revival? -What should be made if Elon Musk buys Paramount? Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com!    Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You've got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a turning point USA college chapter. Go start a turning point you would say high school chapter.

Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life and I encourage you to do the same. Here I am. Lord, use me. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with noble gold investments at noble goldinvestments.com. That is noblegoldinvestments.com. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another thought crime Thursday where I am, as you can see, live on location. I'm actually in St. Louis, Missouri. And we literally, as we're recording this, just finished the beatification mass of Fulton J. Sheen. And you can in fact see the procession, I guess right over here behind me over my shoulder. And you can see folks are filing out 1,000 priests.

We're here today, 89 bishops and about another thousand sisters, nuns, religious clergy, so many people here as well as a cardinal directly from the Vatican. It's just an incredible. American moment, incredible time to be an American, obviously a huge moment for the church, but a huge moment also for America, and the idea of publicly bringing God and Christ back into the public square. And he is actually the very first American-born bishop to be declared blessed, beatified by the church, which means that's just one step, one step below sainhood. And in fact, so it requires one miracle to be blessed and just to give the lay of the land here a little bit and it's very hard to come by these.

Jack. They have a child who was born with 61 minutes, his heart stopped for 61 minutes. They couldn't find anything. They thought he was done for. They prayed for Bolton Sheen to intercede on his behalf. We started living and just an incredible thing. That boy actually walked in the procession here today, 16 years old now, he presented the relic of Blessed Fulton Sheen on the stage. I believe it's still on the stage. It is actually his jawbone is now in a reliquary on stage right here in St. Louis, Missouri. It's going to be on display as people head out afterwards. So just I mean, talk about thought crimes, right? He was the biggest thought criminal of the mall. Fulton Sheen. If anyone watches his shows, his clips, just amazing. What's up, guys?

So, Jack, that's awesome. How does, I'm curious, let's just state it out at the onset here. I think Fulton Sheen is a mountain of a man, one of the legends. It was him and Billy Graham. Earlier today, I said they were like the double-barrel shotgun of like mass Christianity, a major move of God in the United States in the 50s and 60s, and then beyond. But I'm curious, because I've always had this question. Actually, Cerno explained it to me one time, but I forgot his answer.

But I remember thinking, that was pretty good. the when we talk about praying to somebody to intercede right so as a protestant i was always taught that we have one intercessor and that is jesus christ right that's like the book of hebrews what's the what's the catholic um theology on that exactly i was going to ask the same question because i don't know either well so so the the difference is as a meeting between mediator and intercessor so a mediator is is of course christ christ is the only one who can mediate between between the laity, the human beings and heaven and God. Of course, there's no question.

Prayer of intercession is simply going to someone who we believe is already in heaven and saying, hey, can you put in a good word for me? It's the idea of asking them to a lot of people will say that, oh, Catholics believe that it's praying to that person. But no, it's not praying to them. It's asking them as a favor. Hey, can you pray for me as well? well. Okay. Yeah, I remember thinking it was like not a bad, because like, okay, I think if I'm

remembering Cerno was like basically, well, you know, we believe in life everlasting, right? So they're still alive. So can you ask somebody who's living to say a prayer for you kind of thing? I think that's how I remember. I got to look into it more because I've always, you know, I admit. We're already getting sectional disputes. Yeah. I, I, in the Rumble chat. We have Sergeant T. 178. God performed the miracle, not the dead. Archbishop. Yeah. The Holy Spirit is the intercessor. Well, that's, but again, that's, wait, wait, wait, but that's, but there's no, that is, obviously God performs the miracle. No one's ever said otherwise. There's no question. The idea is that you, you asked for the intercession of, at the time, venerable Fulton Sheen now, blessed Fulton Sheen, you know, to pray for, pray for, in this case, it was the sun. And, and really at the end of the day, the fact of the matter is that boy did live after his heart. not beating for 61 minutes

and what's just amazing as an American story that he was here today participating in this 16 years after that happened That is incredible. That is wild You gotta like zoom in on this. That's not a little wacky He has like veneers.

Is there a reason why they have his jawbone in that particular form? Because that's very Catholic, right? It is but usually they're usually they're like dead a longer time A person's bones were more dissectable Whereas we Yeah, that's

interesting question because it is kind of a it feels like an ancient thing right you would bury somebody and then they would be they did a lot of wacky stuff in the middle ages they would straight up they would just dig up their body and they would just dig up but the body was already for magical mystery bits the body was already kind of like

Blake it's not wacky this is our this is Catholic tradition it's not you know you know the lot of Catholic tradition is super wacky jack you know especially we are we are wacky maxing in Mexico we are cookie maxing look I'm not going to be I'm not going to hang out here and call this

kooky while we're literally in the thing. I think that would be very disrespectful. Yeah. Listen, here's what I would tell you. Fulton Sheen is the freaking man, so why don't we just play some of his best of? How about this?

Here we go. Sot 3. This is the air of Western civilization. Modern Western civilization has identified freedom. with freedom from constraint, and it denies goals and purposes and ends. All of our freedoms have certain goals and certain purposes and objectives.

The result is that our people of our Western world simply because they do not know why they are living, they've never decided what they're going to do with their freedom, find it boring. They would like to surrender their responsibility. They're full of anxieties and worries, and there's nothing in life that is quite as boring as a purpose existence simply because our Western civilization has not found the meaning and the purpose of life simply because it concentrates upon freedom from something. Our Western world is strong only in war and not in peace. It's strong only in war because it has the basic objective at least of defending our own existence. But it is not strong in peace because it has no unified faith.

no universal goal no universally recognized purpose in life yes that's powerful Charlie used to talk about that a lot I will say it stood out to me when he was talking that his accent felt hard to place

and I looked up where he's from it's just El Paso, Illinois random small town in central Illinois I don't feel like they talk like that anymore no they don't and it didn't sound Irish but it's Irish by descent

yeah you see you know it's like it's got kind of that's up. It felt a little mid-Atlantic, yeah. Isn't it that like, yeah, the mid-Atlantic accent? It's that like, it's like FD-FTA kind of had that accent. Yeah.

I mean, look at it was he, you know, but it is crazy because that is a new, you think of New York elites. And this guy, I'm just looking at his history. He went to, uh, they moved to Peoria, Illinois. And then he went to, uh, university in Illinois. And then he studied a seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. So very Midwestern. And midwesterers don't talk that way. It also could be the Mike.

But he was the bishop of New York. Fair. Maybe it all just bled over that way. For about 15 years. So it could have just kind of 1895. And again, like that was sort of like, and that mid-Atlantic accent always was a sort of, you know, affected way of speaking anyway. So it could just be like you say, like he just kind of picked up when he was in New York. Let's be honest.

The guy was a showman. He knew how to capture the camera. And he did a good job of that. Angelo says we need to play clip four and clip 19, so we're going to do it. Clip four. We have rights and liberties, like freedom of press, freedom of conscience, freedom of association, which do not come from the government, which do not come from the will of a majority, which do not come from a state.

These rights and liberties come to us from God. Therefore, the state cannot take them away. That is our principle. Now, they have to deny God, because that would be another source of rights than the state or the party. In order to build up this structure of theirs in which the party is supreme, they must hold that any right or liberty which the individual possesses comes to him from the party. Therefore, the party can take the rights and liberties away. But if there was a God, then there were rights, there would be rights not dependent on the party.

so they have to deny God. So good. Yeah, I mean, that feels like write in message with the founders, which is, right, we consider these truths to be unalienable, or these rights to be inalienable? Self-evident.

Exactly. What am I said? We hold this to be self-evident, and they are doubt with their creator with certain inalienable rights. Gosh, I got my brain. With certain. You got to study one of this Hillsdale courses.

Yeah, exactly. No, but the point is, and then Charlie would always say that we have freedom, but in the Western world, we use it as freedom to be licentious, right? As opposed to we have freedom to be virtuous, right? And the founders didn't believe in licentiousness. That was not the freedom that they were ascribing.

Anyways, continue on. I'm just looking like other stuff that's just interesting about him. Apparently, his show had to get taken off the air because he had a beef with a cardinal overpaying for powdered milk that they received. This is insane. This is from Raymond Oroyo wrote a book. this was why life is worth living went off the air. In the 1950s, the government donated millions of dollars of powdered milk to the New York Archdiocese.

Cardinal Spellman, of that Archdiocese, handed that milk over to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith to distribute it to the world's poor. On at least one occasion, he asked that the director of the Society, Bishop Fulton Sheen, pay the Archdiocese for the milk. He wanted millions of dollars. Despite Cardinal Spellman's considerable powers of persuasion, Sheen refused, and then apparently Spellman said, I may take six months or ten years, but I will get even with you. Everyone will know what you are like.

And apparently he like froze Bishop Sheen out of parishes in New York City. And then he got the Pope to appoint him the Bishop of Rochester, New York to get him out of the city. And so no beef like a New York clerical beef, I guess. Also on the more upside of things, I didn't realize Martin Sheen, his, But Blake, this was also, I was going to say this is also because that, keep in mind that a lot of the other bishops didn't like the fact that he had so much influence and so much renown. And, you know, this was all kind of happening in the context of Vatican, too, which was the liberal side of the church gaining more primacy. So, of course, they were working together to take down one of the most obviously conservative. bishops that was publicly out there. So I would, I would, I think it's probably a little bit more than

just the powdered milk. Yeah, I mean, you're probably right. I mean, the church is not immune from petty squabbles or turf wars. We, we certainly are aware of that. But in general, do we, did we play 19? We have not. Okay, let's play, uh, let's play this. I feel like, Jack, this is your your favorite sheen. This is your favorite, uh, sheen here. Uh, Communists arrive and saying this world needs a revolution, but not their cheap kind which merely transferred, booty and loot, out of one man's pocket into another. We need the kind of a revolution in the United States and in the rest of the world. It will purge out of a man's park, tied in covetousness and loss and anger and envy and bloody and spelt. In other words, the true battle against communism begins within the heart of every single.

America means the recovery of our own great tradition, of our belief in cause, of an affirmation in politics and an economic life, and among our politicians, of the things that are right to prove before God. Then we need not hear communism for if God is with us, then who can be against us? It's really so good. I'm just getting the maze, just reading more of the stuff. Apparently, that was so good. When life was worth living, life is worth living.

living debut it was competing directly with the frank sinatra show on cbs and it defeated the frank sinatra show which was canceled competing in a time slot against a bishop giving people dude the guy had swag he had some swag that's what i'm saying i'm not surprised to see the veneers he was like i'm a showman so i know that um i know that uh that uh we don't do jackets but i did want to show so uh on thought crime but i did want to show so they're they're giving out these nice pins here where you can get for your jacket. So it's right there, a little lapelpin of JMJ. And this is what he would write at the top of every single one of his chalkboard talks. When he would do the chalk talks, it may have been the first guy on television ever do that.

He would always write at the top, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, JMJ. He was the original Karl Rove. Or Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck does the chalkboard, too. I remember actually one, Amfest Glenn Beck was basically Hey I need a chalkboard You know I'm just

We couldn't find one I remember that I'm just getting amazed Other stuff The fifth primetime Emmy Awards So this is only The fifth Emmy's

Ever They had a category Most Outstanding Personality personality As a host Fulton Sheen wins And he defeats In this category

Some of the names Lucille Ball Edward R. Murrow Adley Stevenson A few others Jimmy Durante Like all of these legendary people in television and also Adlai Stevenson for some reason and there an image of this of him

accepting the that would be quite the image if they have that uh i'm sure i'm sure there's an image of it somewhere but but do you guys know wait blake does it say uh the story goes that when he when he received the emmy he got up there and said well i of course i'd like to thank the uh you know the academy for choosing me here on this and and i'd also like to thank my writers matthew mark luke Luke and John. Oh, that's amazing. Did he really say that? That's awesome.

Or is that a joke? It certainly sounds incredible. I mean, he does have, it sounds true. It sounds true. It does sound true. Is this him? Yeah. Yeah.

That's wild. I'm trying to see. Is this, is this him hold? No, that's nice. I think we only have meme images of him holding it rather than, I don't know if they broadcast that all live back then. There were only like five TV stations. So, and yeah, a lot of, I was,

I've been, so I've been, yeah, I've been talking to a lot of the, funny enough, a lot of the guys here sort of about the, the records and the archives of the Fulton Sheen show. And while I think there's 280 hours of it that exist, that are known to exist in terms of the footage, but only about 80 hours of it have ever been digitized. So there's like another 200 hours of Fulton Sheen's show that, that just hasn't been released yet. And it wouldn't surprise me that that's part of it. because a lot of it, it's like ABC or CBS, have it in their archives.

There's also a radio show that, believe it or not, he started his radio show in 1926. So 100 years ago, this guy started on the radio. And he went all the way through World War II. Sorry. I know we got a delay because you're on your remote right now. But it'd be interesting to see like how he handled, you know, the Wall Street crash, you know, 29, you know, or the Great Depression.

that'd be really interesting to kind of hear it even even world war too as well yeah certainly you hear him talking about communism it'd be really interesting to hear him talk about well that that was it was interesting he was talking about we are only mighty in war because at least we have a gathering principle at least we have something that sort of like gives us a goal and a purpose and so but that is the military industrial complex that's what like all of us have been raging against the neocons for it's like we can't just be happy in peace we've got no gathering principle we got no which is why then we just keep moving on and on with forever war it's almost like it fills some empty vapid void within the hearts of our politicians because of what fulton she said go ahead jack sorry sorry brother

no so so i was going to say you mentioned about uh what russ was just saying about communism so he not only did he decry communism and uh he would he went so hard that even after the united states um publicly allied of course with the soviet union in the uh in world war two that Jay Edgar Hoover went so far as to open up an investigation on Fulton Sheen, and he had him tailed by an FBI agent. Who did? And they found that Hoover. And he said that, you know, they couldn't find anything on him that he had never done

obviously, it was against the war effort, but that he just wouldn't stop condemning communism, even regardless of us allying with them in the war. So the FBI literally investigated him. But one cool thing, though, happened is that after the war ends and the Cold War begins, that Fulton Sheen's anti-communism actually became very beneficial to the FBI. And believe it or not, he actually used to work to convert public socialist and communists in the United States, like Bella Dodd, who was the head of the teachers union. He converts her to Catholicism.

And then she starts working for the FBI as an informant against the Soviet Union and, again, like Soviet cells within the United States. So I mean, it's just this whole part of our story from the 1950s that we've been like, you know, it's just been completely denied from our history. That's, that's, that's amazing. It's incredible patriot beyond the obvious, also an incredible patriot. You know what that makes me think of, though, Jack, since this, you know, is a show that we love to remember Charlie, is that Charlie, I'll never forget, you said MLK, he was investigated

by the FBI, right? Well, so was MLK. And that's a man that they did find some things on. I mean, it's just, I'm just saying, you know, not all reverence. Oh, man. Follow the scriptures the same way. But that, you know, that's, we don't have to make it about that. But I would say that that came to mind.

Actually, actually, they did. I will say, though, I will say there was one thing that he found apparently in the report. And I guess they got the file later. They did find that he talked his way out of getting a speeding ticket or a, or a parking ticket or something. Good man. Good man. Well, that's just because he had the gift of gab.

He was a great salesman, man. Oh, man. That's why his jawbone is up there. That's why the jawbone is up there. All right. That's the jawbone. It's just very weird. That is a good point.

He had the gift of gab. They actually explicitly say that's why it's there. Oh, that is. They do. That makes sense. Here, we got to play false compassion. And I think we got to go on to lesbians. Here we go.

Sot one. False compassion. which is gradually growing in this country, is a pity that is shown not to the mugged, but to the mugger. Not to the family of the murdered, but to the murderer. There are the social slaverers

who insist on compassion being shown to the muggers, to the dope fiends, to the throat slashers, to the beatniks, to the prostitutes, to the homosexuals, to the punks, so that today the decent man is practically off the reservation. This is the false compassion. Reject all compassion for beatniks. Destroy the beatniks.

Bring back the words. Social slobberers. Social slobberer is great. That's fantastic. What a character. There's a really good, in the extended version of that, he starts going off and he says it came from literature and in fact it came from the books of it he starts writing off some uh the names of authors and he goes and john signback that's lob

you know i mean what's interesting i i i when is the last time anybody in the mainstream said anything about the homosexual lifestyle like that i mean that's talk about thought crime That was, I mean, Wow. Okay. I want to talk to you about an issue so many Americans face, and that's health insurance. There's an organization I really, really appreciate, called Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a faith-based alternative to health insurance.

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All right. Let's go. All right. Now, let's speak it. Well, anyway, we're going to decry this we are going to decry the lifestyle because we need to talk about the lesbian bar in Western Massachusetts. I insisted upon. on this because it is the funniest article. If our audience ever written. I hope there are people in the audience that are completely unawares of this because it is

absolute gold. It is. So this is an article by the Boston Globe in their Globe magazine section. I'm actually not as familiar with it. So please. You're not getting this cold. This dropped a couple days ago as of this recording. I've seen the headline. Out of nowhere by Annalisa Quinn and it's an article about it's so great

because it basically has a very anodyne headline. It's like a Western Massachusetts lesbian bar required KN95 masks. When it changed the rules, all hell broke loose. Very dry. Very dry. It's like, Last Ditch Bar in Greenfield wanted to build community. They got a firestorm instead.

And then if you go past that dry headline, you start reading the content of it and you get it. You really, all of you should find this article, find an archive version of it so you can read the full thing. Or you know what? Subscribe to the Boston Globe for at least a month to read it. They deserve it. Because every paragraph of this article is stupendous. I'm just going to read the start of it, but we should get through all of the contents of it.

Seriously. The August 31st Instagram post from Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue, a lesbian bar in Greenfield, was upbeat teasing a new DJ lineup and a volunteer meetup. But part way down, the rainbow-hued post labeled updates, was a sentence that would splinter the queer community of this small Pioneer Valley City and beyond.

It is with, love, we inform our immunocompromised, disabled divas that we will be opening Saturday nights as mask optional, wrote last ditch. Previously, patrons were required to wear a well-fitted K-N95 mask or better at all times. You get that vouchy approved. The new policy was not received with love. Just say, you're being complicit in a mass disabling event and get over it. wrote one commenter.

People like you. Kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience. Posted another. I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from Abelus, wrote a third. Oh, and it goes from there. Listen, the thread grew to 442 comments. I'm supportive, but many furious.

the people running the bar were accused of being ablest, eugenicist even, for relaxing their signature policy in the face of what commenters consider an ongoing pandemic, parentheses. Greenfield hasn't reported any COVID cases in more than two months. It's so perfect. Like, it's so great. They are literally, they are literally COVID deadenders. They're still requiring masks. They're still having people lose their minds because they were in an ongoing pandemic that everyone else moved on from. five years ago. Well, it's it's kind of like that story of the Japanese guy in World War II that like was on that island. And then like 20 years later, he still thought we were fighting it. I've been there. I've been there to Guam.

Yes. What was that in Guam? No, there are there are a bunch all over. I think the last one was in the Philippines and he went 30 years or something. 30 years. Yeah. These people are going to be like buried in the masks. The one in the one in Guam, they had to, um, they had to like dig up. his commanding officer because he didn't believe that the war had ended he because he said japan would never surrender and so he said he said this is a way a trick of the western devils and he actually started shooting at people we tried to come in and get like get him out of there yeah and they had to go find his commanding officer from japan and then bring him back to order him to come out and lay down his sword yeah this one it just it's so great the bar posts an apology you can read that one so they they posted an apology we are

so sorry for our passive and dismissive tone of our change in norms and schedule impacting the most intersectional of us the most intersectional wrote on instagram they instead of diffusing the situation the apology seemed to make things worse the bar had aired it posted an instagram card without providing alt text for the visually impaired without providing alt text fresh round of accusations of ableism without providing all text for the visually impaired this is basically this is not an accessible this is basically a genocide so let me explain in broader terms like how this story plays out right so these three friends uh faz if you can yeah get them up uh oh we have a rumble around let's start there zoosos pedals maybe they wanted to keep the masks because

they weren't pretty enough to show their faces and flirt successfully well yeah be the judge. Okay. One of the better parts about this article is you cannot tell how many of the lesbians are lesbian and how many of the women are women because the answer may be zero. Or are they all. Yeah, it could be all. Or are they all they are. Are they all carnies? And here's the funny part is one of these three gals or whatever they are who started this bar together ended up leaving the venture to go to clown school.

Yeah, just what's missing from my life? and they see you like a little clown go by. Yes. So here's what's, here's the broad strokes of what happened. So the bar apologizes. Instead of quelling the rebellion, it makes it worse.

And it gets really out of hand. The, I think it's the gal on the left there of your screen. The one that actually looks like a woman. Oh, wow. Let's, that's be in generous.

I mean, of all of them that one on the left is definitely the... She's the only one without facial hair. Yeah. This is one of those moments where you want the bow friend. language he's like dear god it's worse than we thought right here just looking at the picture anyway so uh anyway so they try and make it uh apologize it makes it worse they all gather for a like a zoom call and an in-person call some of the people wouldn't come in person some of them

only would join by zoom uh because they were that upset and at this point two of the people had left i believe the gal on the left that does appear to be a female um was the last one remaining she was living in her truck, working four jobs, $50,000 in debt, and she was just trying to hold on to this place and pay the rent in order to keep the bar alive for the communal aspect of it all. And then, Blake, they bring in a mediator who's a white therapist. Yeah, white therapist. Oh, man, let's get into the mediator. All right.

So two designated meteors were there to facilitate conversations, da, da, da, da. And then they take the, da, da, da. The Zoom attendees speculated that the mediator's license status made her a mandated reporter. An agent of the state akin to police. One person going by Moss asked the mediator if they could have them hospitalized against their will, adding that the mediator's presence was, quote, wildly unsafe. Yeah, but then they basically say that it's all racist. So somehow it becomes a racist party here.

and that the therapist, because it's a white therapist, isn't able to speak. A lot of people are calling for an acknowledgement of harm. And I'm hearing a white therapist centering the feelings of a majority white and white adjacent staff, writes noir, who is black? It's someone going by their drag name too.

Their name is something noir, and it's not their real name. It's their performer name. You chose to use your time to spill tears and center your feelings, Noir posted in the chat. This is incredibly racist and deflecting behavior. Eventually, after three and a half hours of discussion, the meeting wrapped up. Noir had more to say, but when someone suggested he come to the next community meeting,

he refused. There's a lot of emotional and physical labor that goes into this. So for you, as a white person that asks for me to stay for another meeting, for free, he said, is incredibly disingenuous and racist. I'm not doing that. yeah i mean this is i don't know but here a couple things the reporter did such a good job just telling it straight

when your subjects are so insane when they are so bananas so bizarre so off the reservation just tell it straight yeah just tell it straight this is right insanity just bleeds through straight tell it straight tell it straight tell it straight um but these people are existing in a subculture that is so insular And it's so foreign to most of us that it's like going to the zoo reading this article.

It's really getting at what should the business model be if you're a fading newspaper like the Boston Globe, which hasn't kept up with the New York Times, LA, you know, the ones that have really become national papers. Honestly, this apparently they got over a thousand new subscribers just out of this article. I think it's quite a bit higher now. It went massively viral. By far their most read article in ages. Liberal newspapers and liberal areas. you've got to provide freak show content of your local libs because this sort of thing is happening all the time.

I just love what they're describing this green field is both physically and spiritually, sometimes referred to as lesbianville USA. In the Pioneer Valley, quote, every bar is a lesbian bar. Nevertheless, last ditch, which opened last year as a bar for, quote, dykes, transsexuals, gender freaks, workers, and their friends is struggling. Yeah. So that's the whole point is that basically it was doing really well. Business is good. Then they do this whole mask optional thing, you know, six years after COVID started. And it, everybody leaves it. They bail on it. It becomes this huge controversy within this community. I genuinely can't imagine. I mean, this feels like blue sky on steroids. It's the same spirit as blue sky. In real life. I just love this. Like one wondered if they could have a Lady Gaga themed night to like revive. the bar's fortunes and mixie one of the people here demers gaga is canceled she says gaga is zionist well and this and this reporter goes on to talk to this noir person and these these quotes are stuff

that we've been hearing for the last year and a half i'm not going to give grace spreading rhetoric that can and will get people hurt he's referring to the fact that the bar account had liked a few comments supporting the relaxed rule. Yeah, I'm telling you, this is like, when we talk about peak woke, we're going to look back at this and be like, there's these little outposts in Guam and the Philippines are these people still fighting the world war. It's still 2020 in terms of how woke they are and how they approach COVID, insane mask frenzy. This is why people freak out when they see the inner workings of like a DSA meeting and

they're like, point of personal privilege. They're always like this. And they're like, here's my privilege card. Every live organization at a campus is like. this is the culmination this is the obvious conclusion of these people in their insanity left unabated left unaddressed

one of the things that is really interesting about this to me by the way that's underappreciated and it's kind of a big picture thing it gets at how lesbians are very different from gay men have you ever noticed that and like yeah okay they're men and women of course but

most of the time anyway but on top of but on top of that like they have radically different cultural practices in a way that I think Don't lesbians and gay guys not really mix too much? They don't and even think about this as an example.

I don't think, I don't think, I would say as an example that's interesting. Gay men actually hang out with women all the time. You know, male hairdresser, they go into female spaces. Lesbian women don't mix with men. Everyone's got, you know, gay male hairdresser. There's not lesbian barbers. They hang out with other

women. Other lesbian women. Hold on. Hold on. on. All right, you want to have some real thought crimes? Let's have some real thought crimes. Yeah. So, Blake, so, all right. So, Blake, for example, you mentioned a certain type of gay man, but there are two types of gay men. So, yes, there's a lot of

misogynist to lesbians. There's no question. We all get that. We all know. We're very familiar with it. Unfortunately, we can't seem to me away for it. But there's two types of gay men. All right. There's, there's, there's the type that you mentioned, but then there's also the gay men who hate

women. There's also the misandrous gay men who are like, I can't stand them. I don't want anything to do with them. And that makes him go off in the other direction. Those are two different teams. Those are definitely too. I feel like I don't encounter the misan, the misogynist gay men. Like they exist, but they seem very rare. I'm thinking in general, like you think that gay men are very artsy as it were, musical. Every woman wants a gay best friend or something. If you It feels like. I mean, not... That's fair.

Not all women. But like that is a stereotype. Another thing I think about, that's interesting. It's definitely a stereotype for a reason. And even stuff beyond, even stuff beyond just lifestyle stuff, think about the fact that this bar, this lesbian bar is very obviously also a political project. Oh, we're going to ban police from this bar. We're going to... Talk about Lady Gaga.

And like they welcome, yeah, they care about Zionism and Palestine. They allow homeless people to go in there. Like, in comparison, like, does any gay bar have a political... ideology. They'll have the gay flag and they would allow cops in because they want their strippers to be dressed like cops or whatever. They just feel much more good time. Good time boys. Yeah, exactly. I mean,

a gay bar is much more likely to cause a new pandemic than to be never-ending, bitter end against the last one. A gay bar is also a key word there. It is. Lesbians are very resentful. They're kind of ideology. Like, they're

gays are gay. We're we're not gay. That's right. I mean, is that is that why we started calling gay men gay because they're sort of I think it kind of did start from that like as a euphemism sort of thing musical is a British euphemism for gay and

whereas in comparison there's an actual lesbian line that's like we're not gay we're angry really yeah that was like a lesbian protest thing and all of that and they're called yeah it's interesting I'm looking at a homosexual men are called gay because the word

transitioned over centuries from meaning joyful to describing a lifestyle outside of conventional social norms. I'm looking at there's an amazing chart by our friend Steve Saylor where he has why lesbians aren't gay and he has a big chart that's contrasting them. So for example, cultural tastes, gay men, arts, women, lesbian women, crafts. Gay men, they like classical, they like actually like classical art. They like the ancient Greeks. They like the ancient Romans.

They actually love the, you know, classical music. opera and all of that, whereas lesbian women, they resent dead white men. They want to overthrow the canon. I feel like lesbians listen to like folk music. Yeah. No, well, it says gay men, music. Lesbian women, lyrics. Gay men, unpolitical and hedonistic.

Lesbian women, political, and very activist. Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, this boils that down. Another interesting one, this is really interesting. Gay men don't claim to speak for all men, whereas lesbian women routinely will like speak what women want. It's the long house.

For all women. Lesbian form. Yes. It is. Because women, even if they're gay, think that they have, they think that they're like norm enforcers.

This one, this one is funny. Gay men frequently persecuted, lesbian women, frequently ignored. So for example, in Nazi Germany, they actually did persecute gay men

that you could get sent to a camp for that. Lesbianism was legal in Nazi Germany. Not even, didn't even care. Interesting. So get this. By the 17th and 18th centuries, gay developed a secondary risque connotation implying sexual immorality, uninhibited behavior, or promiscuity,

such as gay houses, which referred to brothels. Oh. All right. And then by the early to mid-20th century, the word was used underground within queer subcultures as a discreet way to identify one another without using clinical terms. And then during the 60s and the 70s, a reclamation of the word ensued. activists actively championing the word as a positive self-chosen alternative to the medicalized and stigmatized label of homosexual.

And then in the 90s, we started using it as a derogatory term towards our friends. And then there was elementary school. We start calling our buddies gay. I'm just thinking about the kids are going to do all right. I just think of more comparisons. Like the fact that, you know, gays, they all go to the big city. They want to be, you know, a lot of gay guys. And then these women went to their lesbianville in rural Massachusetts to set up their lesbian bar in a town of 10,000 people.

Has anybody been to Pioneer Valley this part of Massachusetts? I can't say I have. Yeah, Jack's our resident east coast. Say again, like, we're asking, but when was your last visit to this part of Massachusetts? Because you're from the East Coast. Have you ever been to Western Mass where this Pioneer Valley? You're aware that Massachusetts is not next to Philadelphia, right? I mean, it seems pretty close by to me.

It's all close. Yeah. It is all close. Have you seen Arizona on a map? It's a very large state. It's probably as large as where you are from. Yeah, go ahead, Jack. So you've never been there.

Okay, fine. Jack, what is your general perception of- No, no, no, no. I mean, why are you guys trying to go? I just wonder what it's well. Group trip. What am I interesting sense on that is that people have to remember that when you talk about, like, domestic abuse, for example, domestic violence.

And the perpetration of domestic violence, I think we've sent this on the program before, is that you will actually find higher instant of domestic violence if you count women, because obviously men are more forceful when they're violent, but women actually commit domestic violence more. And men just don't usually, like, respond to it or care, as de minimis in many cases. But the highest instance of domestic violence in any, couple, whether it's gay, straight,

heterosexual, etc. Or homosexual is within lesbians. It's the highest rate of domestic violence. I was looking this up. I'm looking it up. I'm looking at that checking you. Although I wonder how often it's actual domestic

violence and how often, I mean, you see how political they are. They're like, your emotional tone was highly abusive and unacceptable. You yelled at me. But like reading this article, you can completely see why they think they're so victimized all I'm Jack's right. Data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that lesbian women report the highest lifetime rates of, but they don't call it domestic violence.

They call it intimate partner violence, IPV, which is not apparently an STD. It is not a venereal disease. Nope, nope. IPV is just intimate partner violence. Gosh, I just love this story. That is fun. Every detail in this story, like you just go to any random. and paragraph and read it and it's just so funny wow you know what has the lowest

record rate gay men yeah i mean i guess it's just like lack of testosterone i i i kind of get what would they be what would they be doing i just feel like their attachment is yeah because two men are like they're in a fight and they're like all right fine i'm just gonna leave well they probably fight they just walk away yeah like i don't know i feel like i i i go through a lot in life and i i'm gonna get in big trouble if i what go for it jack say it stock ride man no because because guys know how to guys go because you can tell all right fine i'm just going to put it this way because you can tell a guy to calm down and he will right just try that with a woman it's like that m&m song by the way i was trying to i was trying to uh

show the team here some of the younger kids like a little teupac yeah i was going to say you were trying to show him two pong no but the reason it came up the reason it came up is that because there's this video of teupac speaking of gay where he's there the internet is accusing teupac of being like a gay actor. I sent you that video. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it's like before he was famous and he got out of his like pizza job to go do this interview because he's like, I'm an actor and he kept doing like the limp wrist thing.

It's very interesting. Anyway, so I was like to the team, do you guys ever heard of Tupac? Anyway, Eminem, this will be my last rap reference of the week. When I was in high school, I had bad musical taste. But anyway, so Eminem was, he has that one line where he goes, what's a little fight tomorrow will be bros again? And I've always thought about that going like, That is very dude.

Slim, Shady is a bad musical taste? Come on now. Well, I just think rap in general is degenerate. When it first opened, Last Ditch did fairly well. Customers fondly remember a raucous opening at night with a clothed simulation of a lesbian sex act masks in place on the dance floor. No condoms, just masks. Masks everywhere. Wait, wait, wait, Andrew, Andrew, wait, can I ask you a question about, it's a little bit of a tangent, but this thing has been going.

and kind of viral lately where people are saying that like, and I think I saw you tweet something about it, that rap is like not in the top 40 anymore after we defunded USAID. Is that true? It's totally true. I mean, I'm not saying causation. What is going on with that? It's a fun. It's a fun correlation. That is funny. It could be correlation. But yeah, it was John Doyle. He was like, you know, what's your favorite reason we're going to win in the midterbs? And I was like, because we defunded USAID and there's no, no, and now there's no more. rap songs in the Billboard Top 40,

which is true. It's been like a total desert for a number of months. I looked it up before I tweeted it. Well, a lot of it is too, the artists who are like known for rap have like started going into other genres. Well, like Kendrick Lamar was there

and then he got booted, but he was like at 41. He was actually good music. Yeah, but he's popular. So, but there's really just like rap's falling off. It's not a good art form. I mean, How many? It was never a good art farm. Where else are you going to go with rap?

It is what it is. Into the garbage. I'm better. I think rap is starting to fill more of a messaging bubble again. Like with Tom McDonald and like people who are actually trying. Yeah. That's like a whole different genre. But white rap is infinitely better than black rap.

Says the white guy. But yeah. Yes. I do think it's like generally more thoughtful. Yes. But that's kind of, I think that's the point. I think you're starting to see the. It's starting to become more lyrical and actually like people are trying to actually use it to promote messaging rather than just mumbled garbage like nonsense.

Yeah, like gangster rap was all about I'm going to shoot music. The Billy Corgan. Did you guys see the Billy Corgan thing that he said about about rap music? Like how it got started. Uh-uh. No. So Billy was telling he was he has this podcast the magnificent others. It's really good.

I'm a huge, especially Pumpkin's guy in general, I've always been a fanability. And so he was saying that, but actually he was on another podcast where he was being interviewed. And they asked him about this. And I don't know exactly how it came up, but he said that he remembered it. It was like there was this one day in the late 90s where he's like, he's like, we just showed up to MTV. And suddenly everything was different. Suddenly all the standard, even like basic stuff, like the standards of things that you were allowed to show in. videos. Like when he would do a music video, they would say, hey, you can't show guns or like, hey,

you can't show alcohol or like something like that. And they would just allow it all of a sudden for rap. And he was like, it was a complete changeover, you know, overnight where rock had been this huge thing for like the early part of the 90s. And then at some point, it's like they came in and suddenly boom, it's like, oh, rap is just going to be the one that gets pushed now. So to your point, here's a guy who was at the highest levels of the music industry who was also kind of saying that he felt like there was a sort of artificial push to give rap this standing that it had. I'm not saying there are any fans, but he was pointing out that it was very clearly pushed really hard by Hollywood, by the entertainment leaders, and that he felt like rock was just kind of pushed away. I've heard this a lot, but I think it can be overblown because one. thing that really hurt us actually is

once they started getting sound scan or whatever to track what was selling it kind of made the top it changed the top 40 very aggressively when that started to happen because what was a top 40 hit was much more before they actually could scan it it was like vibes based it was like they're like

oh yeah we're totally hearing all about this thing and that could be 100% game oh we're pushing this new artist they have a new thing so the churn and the top 40 was much more rapid that's wow and then what if the truth is the opposite. As soon as... The opposite is true.

The CIA was pushing all those bands and then as soon as it went to something more like data... As soon as it was, they could track it actually, like with real numbers, we're deciding the top 40. One, hit started to stick around a lot longer because it turned out a number one hit had a longer lifespan than people thought. And then the other thing is we did see a big explosion in rap and hip hop because I think they kind of tamped down. Britney Spears.

They tamped down on, for lack of a better word, ghetto stuff, ghetto music. And then it turned out they couldn't hide that. a lot of people liked that. And then I wouldn't be surprised. Maybe we got the Corrigan thing of, they overcorrected of, oh, this stuff is actually really popular. Let's all embrace this new thing.

Rock is out. Rap is in. It just exposed that we all have crap music taste. All of you are sinners. All of you are sinners who listen to that. So critics in pop culture historians, Jack, point out that MTV's focus at the time actually pivoted heavily toward teen pop acts

like Britney Spears and the back. Street Boys or new metal and pop punk rather than a direct overnight swap to rap. So I saw that. But yeah, he kind of suggests maybe the CIA was involved. So what's interesting about this USAID thing, and Blake and I have kind of joked about it a couple times is that the other theory is that that's why all of these right wingers are getting elected in South America because we defunded USAID, which actually does probably sound at least somewhat plausible, you know, on some level, because you imagine. all these government cutouts and these NGOs and these grants that are actually sort of like,

you know, black budget, you know, CIA cutouts? I think that could be like an actual thing. I can't prove it, but it is a weird correlation. Well, speaking of adults who like toys, we should go to our next topic. Is that in reference to the opening night at last age? Yeah. Oh. Don't worry.

They wore masks. Okay. Well, you guys want to talk about toys. I just went to Mass, okay? I literally just went to mass. All I'm going to say, all I'm going to say is Jack is the one who wanted the topic about toys. Man, it's true. He knew.

Okay. Segways. Kids toys. He loves toys. Who adults love? No, you love adult toys. Toys are us about adult toys now. Jack, Jack, let me tie these two together for you.

So the kids that grew up, not on rock music and Bill Corgan. They grew up on Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and Pop Punk, and Rap. These kids have grown up and they love Toys R.S. Coincidence? Causation or correlation, Jay? Well, so it's a really amazing thing because, you know, the next topic that we're going to get into is that, so Toys R Us is, like, coming back. And actually, I can actually explain what's really going on with this. it's similar to what you said, but not exactly,

because you're missing a big piece of it, is the return of Toys R Us, but the focus of Toys R Us now is going to be on adults, not kids. Yeah, where's the scary music? Come on. Dun, done, done, done. The scream. Family Matt, they could play the Indian music.

Yeah. There you go. Or that. That's what I wanted. I had the honor of a lifetime to call Charter, Charlie a friend. And what I remember most wasn't just what people saw on stage. It was what was behind the scenes. That was an unwavering commitment to his faith, his love for his family, and his genuine desire to encourage others to live with courage and conviction. Charlie believed that following Christ

wasn't something you compartmentalized. He didn't put it in a box. He lived it out loud. It shaped how he lived, how he served, how he treated people every single day. Charlie Kirk, American Martyr, that heart. This documentary isn't just simply about remembering Charlie. It's an invitation for each of us to ask what kind of legacy we're building and whether we're willing to stand firm in our own faith when it's tested. I hope that you'll watch it with your family and have those conversations together. Go to angel.com slash Kirk. That's angel.com slash Kirk. Become an angel guild member. Watch Charlie Kirk, American Martyr, and help bring more stories of faith, courage, and conviction to audiences around the world. All right, we got to get back, though. We got to take ourselves back in time to a kindler, gentler era where we still had a country. We had self-respect. Kids were kids. Adults who are adults.

Let's play SOT 11. I don't want to grow up. Find a toys for a record. They got a million toys and toys. You're I can play with. I'm just because they got the best for so much less you really flip your lid. Right. Fikes to friends to big

I don't want Did he say so gay for toys? No Oh, okay I must I think the word at that point was not That had been reclaimed by the Yeah, no

At that point But you know it's funny About this whole topic Is that line in the song that I forgot Like I don't want to grow up Because if I did Then I couldn't be a Toys R Us kid Except you can now Jack

You could be a Toys R Us adult Much much like It's worst cousin This is bad. It's so bad. So bad. But I can't explain this. I can explain this. So, so it's, it's bad. It's sad. It's awful. But I'll tell you why it's happening. And the answer, of course, as usual, is communism. And so what I really mean is going on is that, unfortunately, it comes down to this idea that we live in a K-shaped economy. And there are some. Some people who are doing really, really well and some people who are really not. And for a lot of the country that are living in the, you know, below the median median income line, you're, you've been living in a recession or a silent recession since 2008, since the financial crisis.

And this has caused what specifically a lack of homeownership. And Charlie, of course, our dear friend talked about this so many times, the lack of home ownership and the, which creates a lack of what, family formation. So then if you have all these people who aren't starting families, who aren't starting kids, who aren't having kids, then they're realizing internally that, hey, I'm missing all these milestones that I'm supposed to be having in my life. And, you know, maybe they see others who do have those things. They think, I want to almost regress to a time where life felt more simple, where life felt, as Andrew said, kinder and gentler, like when I was a Toys R Us kid. and so they throw themselves into

Pokemon cards and Toys R Us and all these other things as a collector the Funko Pops, etc. You mentioned Disney adults. That's another one. Star Wars adults. Obviously, Star Wars is fake and gay. And that's where this is coming from, actually. It's because you have millennials and elder millennials,

a number of Gen X as well, not as many, but you see some Gen X do this, that have just completely like been checked out of these life milestones. And so they do have disposable income in some cases. And that's what they're spending it on rather than kids and houses. I think it definitely is people doing that stuff as an alternative to kids. But I don't know if it's a downwardly mobile thing.

I think that actually might invert it, which is we've had a decline of family. It stinks. Yeah, it stinks. We've had a decline of the family enough that now it's just utterly dominant how much spending power, like especially leisure spending, consumer spending. That's so heavily linked to people who don't have kids and essentials to spend on. They have a ton of disposable income and they're going to blow it on stuff. And especially due to the same value decay that's causing them to not marry and have kids in the first place,

they have almost these very childlike interests and desires. They have never outgrown. I love action figures. It's a matured issue. And also, we have better manufacturing. these days as an example. And so it's even easier to target these people. So let's say, let's say you're a kid who liked Star Wars. You're now, maybe you're an adult, you're a computer programmer, you're 40 years old, you make a good amount of money, maybe a six figure income,

maybe even high six figures, a ton of money to blow. They don't even just get you, oh, I want to buy those kid toys. They could go, here's an amazing set of all the Star Wars toys. And you can get all the collectible versions of it. They're probably more like adult theme, too. And they're probably, yeah, they're more adult. Well, they're higher. quality than a kid would probably demand. You'll get the better painting, maybe they'll have more joints. And again, you can get a whole big set of them.

That's the thing that stands out to me. You can really soak people for lots of products. Go ahead, Russ. It's a maturity issue. When you grow up, you're supposed to graduate. Like, when you grow up riding a bike. So you start with

training wheels. Then you graduate to a bike. Then you get to a certain age and you graduate to a dirt bike. And then you graduate and you get to another certain age and you get a motorcycle. It's about finding toys that is a representative of your age group, your class, right? I've found myself, like, even when I was in college, like you'd go through Walmart, right? You're like, hey, I'm just going to check out what these kids, what kids have for toys nowadays, right? And you'd be like, you'd see the Legos. And as a Lego kid, as somebody who grew up with,

our neighbor gave us this huge bucket of Legos, right? I would walk through and go, man, it's sick to be a kid now. Yeah. Like, you can have Legos that are Marvel and like as a Marvel nerd. I'm like, yeah, I totally. You're a Marvel nerd? I'd be down for a Spider-Man legend. Yeah, I get it.

But, but like now, now we have, like, to his point, we're not creating families. So now we have all this disposable income. And so now it's like, hey, you know what? I'm going to buy that Lego set that I'm, that I couldn't buy back when I was kid. And now, but then now, that's also now adding to the effect of why toys are now getting more expensive, more expensive, more expensive. Well, it's so perfect. Like, the Lego thing is a perfect example where there's Legos, there's so much more obviously not meant to be played with

by five-year-olds who just mash whatever together. Instead, it's much more, oh, it's going to be it's a puzzle. It's more, it's more based on franchises. Oh, that thing you like. And then it's a puzzle you put together and you display it. You never take it apart. You never mess around with this. Here's the directions. Here's the directions. I should take. Yeah. I used to take them apart and make my own stuff. And that was the best fun. My brother and I got a massive like 16 gallon bucket full of Legos from our, from our neighbor that went to college. My brother and I, like every weekend, we'd end up dumping it on the floor, spend an entire day building bases and houses.

Yeah. And then take rocks and chuck out of and destroy it all and then put it all back in the bucket and then do that again the next weekend. So Blake hit on a hit on the key here, though, is that you have dinks, disposable income, even not dinks, but you don't have enough money to buy a home or start a family, but you have more money because you have kids, so you have money to blow still. So it's actually like sort of this, you get stuck in this in between zones. So instead of spending money on useful things or on your kids' toys, you're spending money on your own toys, and you still don't have enough to really like retire or build wealth. I don't even, I don't even know that it's that. I think a lot of these, I think it's just a straight value decision. They think it's actually more fun to buy all of these things and having kids sounds like a drag.

There's a lot of having kids stinks propaganda out there. Like they, it's not that they can't afford kids or they'll say it's because I can't afford kids, but it's an excuse in the sense that even if they made a million dollars, it's a cop out. They would need a comical amount of money. I will tell you that Mexicans prove that you can have kids without any money. A lot of people. You will never have enough money. It's never a convenient time.

You always, you just have to go for it. When people, a lot of people when they say we can't afford kids, their definition is I would not believe I can afford kids until I could have a child with absolutely zero sacrifice of any other kind to my entire lifestyle. Yeah. That's just, that's the values that they hold. And that's a common one and getting more common. It's really bad. And it's more glaring now because so much more of the world is built to cater to these people. So in the past, family friendly was the way to, it was the norm.

in so many things. So now there's way more things that are actually family unfriendly. Oh, you shouldn't go. Yeah, only adults are allowed at this thing. This thing is way better if you're an adult. So then as a result, oh, it feels like I'm giving up more stuff if I were to have kids. That's also where like something like the like Pokemon cards have blown up. Yeah.

It's become huge. That's one where it's like on one end, I'm like, guys, like this is a part. like the Pokemon revolution or whatever you want to call it is a part of this. But I will also give the caveat that the dads who were Pokemon fans and have kids and have gotten their kids into Pokemon so that they're now doing it with their kid, that's where I think, and that's the, right, that's the point of toys. It's for parents to play with their kid or the kid to play the other themselves. And we should work Jack in here because I know he was really passionate about this topic.

He's, unfortunately, Jack is at a mass and he's, you know, the feed is delayed. So Jack, jump in here. But, you know, another thing occurs to me is when we were kids, remember like golden girls and stuff? They actually let their hair be in a bob. It was like they, they let themselves look old. But as the years have gone by, like older people want to stay young. Yeah. And I think that same, that same spirit is affecting like us into our adulthood where we want to sort of not.

grow up and not, you know, just assume the mantle of adulthood. I don't know. That, that strikes me as something that might be playing into this. Jack Pesobico, your thought. Man, no, that's such a good topic to ping off of this well. And, and, I mean, I couldn't agree more. It's, it's like, it's like we can't allow ourselves to be older anymore. It's like we, we don't want to grow up. Nobody wants to grow up. Nobody wants to, because it's also taking off the responsibility. The thing that I do want to bring it back to, though, and I, and I'm going to keep bringing it back to is the economy and is the fact that, look, I mean, guys, like, we know the midterms are going to be what they are in a couple of weeks here. And we know what the headwinds are.

And so much of this is economically driven. And I think so much of what's happening in culture is also downstream of the economy. And it's downstream of these tough economic times that we find ourselves in. In the same way, by the way, that so much of the loss of, you know, morality and God in the public square in the 1960s was because there was so much of an abundance, right, of the economy where people were sort of like, like they had it too well. They didn't feel any of those pressures at all. And so suddenly it was like, hey, go do whatever you want, go have sex with whoever you want, go have smoke whatever you want, you know. And it's it just became this huge you that basically this like the free love movement of the 1960s, huge cultural revolution. And this what, you know, coming back to Fulton Sheen, that's what he was warning about. And the idea then that you would have these adolescents who, what do they call perpetual adolescents, right, where, you know, you have kids having kids and then never actually, you know,

this is where you get to the problems of, you know, you hear these like parents doing free range kids, or I let my kids parent themselves and I don't tell them to not, you know, pick up after themselves. And I let them do what they want. And I'm not going to send them to school and all this. And it's, this is what happens when you have a society without standards. And yes, that means standards for ourselves individually as well as when we get older and all the rest of it. Yeah, are there things that I love enjoying with my kids that I enjoy when I was a kid?

A hundred percent. There's no question about it. We're actually watching animaniacs right now. It's like my kids love it. They love watching animaniacs. We like watching Scooby-Doo. You know, we just find stuff that we liked from when we're, younger, that's great. My son is, I'll give him a shout out here. He's working on doing the entire

Yakos Nations of the World song for his upcoming school talent show at grade three. He currently has the entire song memorized. There's just a couple like country pronunciations we're working on. And so it's just a great thing. And it goes to show you how good some of those things used to be. But the problem is, is that when you get older, you should want to have those things. You should want to get married. You should want to have kids. You should want to own a home and all of this. And the problem, I think, though, is that these people deep down actually do want those things as well.

And either one, they're having trouble getting them or, number two, they're getting distracted by so many other glittering things out there. Kind of reminds me of that one story we covered where the 40-year-old women were. throwing themselves these like lavish weddings but for themselves yeah yeah yeah it's like they they deep down want them but they want them on their terms yeah and if they can't have them then you know like it's you know you get what i'm saying it's almost like uh they're trying to reclaim something or without the responsibility i don't know there's something there but it's basically kind of what we're getting around this prolonged adolescence this arrested development And it also doesn't help that and economy.

And a broken system when it comes to the family unit right now. Yeah. Because we've got more single moms. We've got more, you know, broken families. And so that's not helping either. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.

Should we hit Paramount deal? If you want, we can do it real quick. Real quick. We're getting tied on time here. Yeah, of course we are. Of course we are. But we can hit it because Paramount, of course, is buying everything at WB. And it's a gigantic deal.

But it's gotten so big. that they are apparently trying to recruit Elon Musk as a potential co-investor in the spyout, which is amazing. Which would be amazing on a few ways. He wouldn't have full control over it. But remember, this is going to give them control of her, among other things, CNN.

Jake Tapper. And they've done a lot of articles hostile to Elon Musk. Yeah, that would be really fascinating. They would definitely have some, there would be, listen, you know what's crazy is that people are already threatening to leave. Oh, no. Yeah, I know. What's the gal that goes with Scott Galloway?

I don't know. I don't watch CNN. No, no, no. My license plate, I have to stick by a principal here. Hold on. What is your license plate? My license plate is CNN sucks. Did you not know that? No, I've never seen you drive a car. Oh, that's true. I walk across. Yes. Kerasisher. For those you do not know, my license plate is literally CNN sucks. It's amazing. Yeah, he has CNN sucks. It's great. I got it in Virginia and I got it in Arizona. Thank you, Oliver Darcy. Yep. Yours. It actually, I act, believe it or not, I had that license plate before the CNN docs. But then it just became even better. It was, it was well chosen. Maybe that's why he did it. Yeah, Kara Swisher is already saying she's going to quit from CNN. I think she's a contributor. But anyway, she's going to quit if

this merger goes through. Wait, Blake. Yeah. Or no, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, actually, correction, this is more of a Russ thing. Russ. I just realized if, if Elon gets control of Paramount, that means he gets control of WB. And if he gets control of WB, that means, fire James gun. We can fire James gun again. Fire James gun. Why do we fire him? Yeah. He's he's. He is destroying the DC brand. All right. Caboos.

Currently, he is no, no, no, bad. Currently he has been destroying, um, green lantern. Good to the point that it's never like green lantern. Oh, I like the green lantern. Oh, I like the green lantern. All of it. All of it. All of it. No, it's all of it. Supergirl, Green Lantern, Batman, all of it. All of it. But currently he is destroying Green Lantern. Here's my problem. I don't know the DC catalog. No, even Looney Tunes. The last Looney Tunes movie was awful.

The Looney Tunes movie was so bad. Well, also the... Looney Tunes had a movie? Yeah, they also did a Space Jam. Even the Space Jam 2 movie with LeBron sucks. The Space Jam was awful. All right. No.

So for folks who don't know that when, oh, go ahead. I was going to call in Caboos, because I know he's got a thought here. Caboos, is this the real reason that Elon needs to come in? Do we have any indication that Elon doesn't like James Gunn? Personally, I don't think Elon needs to step in. I think either way, just Warner Brothers, Paramount, the deal needs to happen. You got a lot of people's jobs on the line, which Mark Ruffalo is trying to get a bunch of people to lose their jobs for the sake of pandering to the left. True.

I think in terms of James Gunn, he's going to lose his job either way. The dude's not making money for that. He's hemorrhaging money right now. But will he be catapulted into a volcano perhaps? No, but we could try to work something. What I will say, Elon must getting a big personal stake in WB would excite me in that I think it's an opportunity for us. I feel like so much reason we don't get good. is we kind of just need a billionaire who cares enough about like movies.

He's just going to grok it all though. Yeah, he might. That's the problem. These guys will be like, let's make an AI movie. It'll make an AI Odyssey he said he was going to make. But like, I just kind of wish you think a movie's expensive to make. But when you're at these, he's worth a trillion dollars. They're like not that expensive to make.

He could trivially allocate a $500 million a year to make one or like make five. really awesome, cool historical movies, dramatic ones, like new adaptations of properties that everyone has said, we get it. And you give them $100 million such that you'll release it. And if it makes money, that's great. But it at least keeps it so it will not be a total bomb. He just needs to bankroll Mel Gibson at this point is what he needs to do. So you know what's interesting to me about this deal though. Okay, Jack. Go ahead. Go ahead, Jack. Can I know. I just want to tell, no, by the way, the reason I'm saying this again is because of folks don't know the backstory that James Gunn after he had been the

creator of not creator but like the guy who did the movie of Guardians of the Galaxy I was doing a bunch of other stuff for Disney on the Marvel side that in 2018 he was fired by Disney number one because of going after

Trump supporters but then number two me and Mike Cernovich dug up all of James Gunn's old tweets where he was making horrific jokes quote unquote jokes quote unquote jokes about pedophilia, about child rape, about things that would happen on his sets.

And so it was actually, yeah, it was like me and Sernovich just dug up like his old blog and like all these tweets. And that's why he got fired in the first. In fact, I just looked it up in Grock and it says, yeah, it says right here, the post were on earth and amplified by conservative commentators and outlets such as Mike, Mike Sernovich and Jack Posobic aftergone a vocal, A vocal critic of then President Trump engaged in political arguments with them on Twitter. That's fun. So this, that's, that's one interesting aspect of this.

So you got the CNN aspect. You got, I guess, D.C. But what's also interesting is that they're trying to move Paramount out of Los Angeles. It's also true. Which, which basically is like the death knell for, it's the beginning of the end, the beginning of the end. because they're moving a bunch of these projects are already moving from L.A. to like Atlanta or Nashville. It's crazy.

I mean, this could be the great exodus, the beginning of the great exodus of the studio system out of L.A. Do you think that because Paramount is moving out of L.A., it makes it more tantalizing to Musk to try to work out something? I would say so. Yeah, like American Idol is moving its production out of Los Angeles after 25 years relocating to Atlanta, Georgia. The Masked Singer moved its production from Los Angeles to New Jersey earlier this year. Paramount.

David Ellison's Paramount recently floated plans to move operations out of California, emitted antitrust battle with Bonta, which is the Attorney General of California. So Bonta is trying to get in there and block this deal, but it's backfiring on a big deal. So wait, you used to work in Hollywood show business, what have you? What does it substantively mean if a studio is just going to move all the way across the country? Because like the studio doesn't move with it or does it. Would all these people move? Would we get? Yeah, I mean, there's corporate offices, certainly.

I mean, it's interesting to see what would happen if it was like, you know, you've got accounting. You've got all that like boring stuff that every corporation has, right? But really the question is the decision makers, right? the guys that are green lighting deals, would that move out of LA? Because then you still have, there's a whole ecosystem that's there, right? You've got the agents and they can just go down the road to meet with people, the actor. You can have meetings with actors, with directors. That's why it's all in LA is because while you're developing projects,

you're just constantly meeting with all these different players to see what can happen. But you got Zoom now. You got, everybody's got airplanes, you know, if you really need to meet face-to-face. So I don't know that there's It's the question is production physical production Deal making is one thing Physical production has moved out of LA a long time ago Yeah I was gonna say Atlanta is turning into a giant hub for that

Yeah it so but you still had the studios right So they're still filming things like American Idol the voice Survivor all these things have big production facilities where you go to the lot And I've been to them you know where you go into the lot And they have a big the studio is just basically a big old open you know looks like an airplane carrier. It's huge. And then you film it there. And then you've got the union guys and you got all this.

But the problem is that the prices have shot up over the years extremely high. And then you've got competition in places like Atlanta that are building massive studios venues, right? So you have the space. It's probably cheaper. And then they give you these tax credits. So I don't really know what the benefit is of having physical production in L.A. anymore.

The reason that physical production was in Los Angeles to begin with was that it had this is actually a true story. When Hollywood was starting out, they had the ability to shoot in mountains, desert, tropical looking scenery, beaches. You had all the different,

like, looks and fields. Now you can do all of that with a green screen. Yeah, you can do exactly. But that's... And the other reason

that it started in L.A. is because of the weather, actually, because so much of it was outside, they had to be able to have predictable weather and predictable rain patterns. So that was a big thing

just for production, like just keeping cameras dry and film dry and things like that. But all of this stuff has gradually become less important. So I don't really know what the point of it is. You know what my favorite reason, though, that it went to California besides all that is that Edison, Thomas Edison's motion picture, he had the patent on the motion picture camera. And they were huge jerks about enforcing the patent on it. And they thought, this is, when you had to get places by train, they, there's like, it was hard for his agents to enforce his patent way out in California.

So they moved because he was in New Jersey, of course, Menlo Park. And they just moved all the way across the country where it was difficult for the patent guys to get them. But then what happened was then you got into the studio system where an actor and a director and screenwriters would all sign deals with the studios. Right. So you have that. And they still kind of have that.

It's called a first look deal where if you come up with a project, you have to first look. And what the studios do is they essentially give you a retainer. So you're funding people, development and all this stuff. on an ongoing basis, and they get the first right to buy your ideas, your IP. But back in those days, if you were an actor that signed with Warner Brothers or Paramount, then you had to basically, you could only act in Paramount's pictures. You could only act in Warner Brothers pictures.

So again, you had to be present in Los Angeles because all of it was filming all the time in L.A., and you just had to be there. That's why Hollywood became such a magnet and such a center of gravity for the whole industry. So part of this, too, American Idol has just announced that it's leaving L.A. American Idol still exists? Yes. Yes.

Yes. So it was the mass singer. The mass singer. I just read this. Yeah. Apparently the TV production activity in L.A. region was down 27% in the second quarter compared to the last period. It's not just that. It's commercials.

All this stuff. Because you remember the first thing that sucked all the business out of L.A. was Vancouver. Oh. Connect Canada. Yeah. And that was like a quick plane flight up the coast, right? So Atlanta's a little farther. New York had some production, of course.

But that was the first thing. And then Atlanta came on board. I remember a big, yeah, before Atlanta, I remember like every movie in the early 2000s. They would use Toronto as this discount New York. So you have all these action scenes in New York and people would be like, that is clearly Toronto. Well, they would use, originally they were using downtown L.A. as the discount. Blake, Blake. Dark Knight used Detroit.

Like all three blocks. I think they used Chicago. Oh, okay. Chicago. I thought Dark Night, I thought Turk they had some of Pittsburgh too, actually. No, Blake, I was going to say this last season of the one show, even though the guy is a massive Liptard that the one show that that we will still watch is Reacher and so this last season was set in Philadelphia and I was telling I was telling Russ about it that it's it's set in Philly but it's

very obviously Toronto and so they split between like oh now we're in New York or excuse me now we're in Washington now we're in Baltimore now we're back in Philly all throughout the season but it's very obviously the same city over and over and they make some like really ridiculous mistakes like they refer to the train station in philadelphia as as pen station even though the philly train station is 30th street station pen station is new york but it's like very clearly just toronto they just kind of like change the logo that's on the police car or whatever it's hilarious yeah well that's been happening for years but i've always kept production expenses i've always wondered because of texas's large like private land like it's a lot of private land why

Do you think that Texas hasn't turned into kind of a production? Well, they tried. I mean, there was a bunch of states that offered tax incentives. New Mexico has them. What's that? Too many H1Bs. Well, the other thing about Texas is it just doesn't have a lot of like land variability. Actually, you've got like forest, flat forest.

You've got flat desert. What made California so good is literally you get that radical change in climate. You can drive two hours and you go from. the coast to Yosemite. Yeah. Well, and you could have snow, you could have desert, you could have mountains, you could have Joshua tree, you know, it just has everything in California.

But the point is none of that really matters. But there was a bunch of states that did tax incentives. Like New Mexico had a tax incentive. I think Texas had a tax incentive. But there was a bunch of like random ones too. It just, what happened with Atlanta is it just, they built like

even the the guys that will, so for where we filmed our Super Bowl, our halftime show. Jack and I were there. Was that those big huge facilities out there? That's where Superman was done. Chick-fil-A guys built a big studio system out there. So all of a sudden there was infrastructure

and then once you kind of gather all those people and you have a you have a tipping point almost where there's enough industry draw there, people just like move there. And then you've got skilled, you know, artisans and craftsmen and filmmakers. What's interesting, though, about that is that Georgia is now blue, so that's

at least quasi blue. Wah, wah. Thanks, that's what happens when you bring a bunch of lives. This happens a lot. Happens a lot. Texas might do that. They'll just do it. Oh, oh, probably.

I don't think it's going to be tech that turns Texas blue. It's going, or Indians. People always want to blame the Indians. Guys, there's a very obvious reason Texas has become a blue state. It is because it is now a plurality Mexican state. That's what I just said. I said, I said Mexican. Well, that's a fun place to,

why do we have Prince Caspian? Is that Warner? brothers? Chronicles and Arnia? Anyways. All right. That wraps us up. That's Netflix. Yeah, that was B-Role. Totally wrong. Yeah, totally wrong, guys. Jack, why don't you take us home? And, you know,

one last word to the blessed sheen. Yeah, guys, check them out. You know, Fulton Sheen has great stuff out there. You can go and find his reels all over the place, super viral, and dig deeper. Dig deeper to find out what he was all about and use this

as a way to further your relationship with the Lord, use it to way to further your relationships in reality and further your relationships with one another and your relationship, of course, with God. And as always, go out there and commit more thought crime. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.