The Daily Zeitgeist - The WeekTrend Update 1/8: Golden Globes, Lloyd Austin, Jan. 6th, MTG, CNN Censors, Feral Cats

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

In this edition of The WeekTrend Update, Jack and Bryan, The Editor discuss… their respective weekends, the Golden Globes' winners, losers, and that terrible opening monologue, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin getting hospitalized, the 3rd anniversary of Jan. 6th (feat. MTG's failed 1/6 party), CNN admitting that they basically let the Israeli military censor their Israeli-Palestine coverage, and feral cats = invasive species?!?! 1. Golden Globes Host Jo Koy Booed During Monologue, Blames His Writers (rollingstone.com) 2. ‘He’s a cipher’: How Austin’s need for privacy just backfired - POLITICO 3. Florida venue cancels Marjorie Taylor Greene event after learning of its Jan. 6 focus (nbcnews.com) 4. CNN Runs Gaza Coverage Past Jerusalem Team Subject to IDF Censor (theintercept.com) 5. How the “No Kill” Movement Betrays Its Name | The New Yorker WATCH: Jeff Bezos Rowing Boat - Bobby Fingers            See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties

you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jess Costavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game.

Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeart on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast presented by elf beauty founding partner of iheart women's sports let's go let's go hello the internet and welcome to this special week trend week weekend, whatever you want to call it. It has so many names. Let's go! Let's go, as we call it. We'll tell you what was trending over the weekend, what's trending on this fine Monday morning.

It was, my name is Jack O'Brien, thrilled to be joined by super producer, Brian Jeffries! Jack O'Brien. It's Brian the editor. I'm here. Brian the editor. Oh, that's right. My bad, my bad, my bad. You forgot about the rebrand.

It's okay. It's okay. We all make mistakes. I fucked up. I fucked you, man. I'm sorry. All right. Let's just start the whole thing over again and again.

Again and again. Until you get it right. It's Brian the editor. There we go. This is the fifth time we've gone through it. It's been a long morning. Demanding. It's called branding. It's 1030 right now.

Yeah. Just letting you guys know. We usually record at nine. We're an hour and a half late. Because I keep bugging up the intro. Yeah. Anyways. It was just first thing about the weekend, I got to say.

I say this whenever like Christmas or Valentine's Day or St. Paddy's Day happens on the weekend. It's weird to have January 6th happen on the weekend, you know? Yeah. Like all the parties and things you like where to work in honor of the January 6th political prisoners. It's just, it's not the same dressing up as a January 6th political prisoner on the weekend. I mean, I still take a work day off just because.

Right. But I get what you mean. It's totally weird to have January 6th. What, are my kids going to get into a yelling match with me? Yeah, I don't send my kids to school anywhere near January. I don't send my kids to school in January.. I don't send my kids to school in January. What do you think, I'm an idiot? In honor of January 6th.

Yeah. I mean, my kids barely know that Biden's name isn't Brandon. They just think that's his name, you know? Like, what? They're not going to be fun to get into an argument with. No. But anyways, happy January 6th. Happy belated January 6th to you and with your spirit.

And unto you as well. And unto you. So yeah, this is a special episode. We recorded early Monday. We tell you what was trending. And we also tell you a little something about what's going on with us by

telling you our own, our very own overrated, underrateds. My overrated, got a couple here um bacon packaging like the vacuum seal kind yeah like the like little envelope vacuum seal where like oh with the flap that you slide the little yeah the little flat oh yeah and then like it feels like there should be a good resealable package by now but it's just such a mess like the second you open it once it like it it's kind of fucked you just have to cook all the bacon or at least i do i

haven't i haven't figured out the right way to deal with that thing yeah because it's it's yeah because i made i made a bolognese last week and uh i couldn't find pancetta so i'd use bacon and i made sure to find the smallest pack of bacon so that i could use everything because i'm like i don't want to deal with this yeah this greasy slippery thin little package that i'm gonna have in in the fridge slipping around but every other food has like multiple packagings that you can buy. Like, cereal has the box, but it also has the bag and the resealable bag.

Question? Yes, Beyonce? What is your ideal packaging for bacon? If not the slippery Ziploc bag. I'm not a fucking engineer here, man. All right? I'm just saying that, like, somebody should have come up with something better. I'm sorry a fucking engineer here, man. All right. I'm just saying that like somebody should have come up with something better.

I'm sorry to get sorry to get so defensive. All right. Let's start the podcast. I am balling my fists up right now. But I don't like I looked into like, why is this the reason? Like, why or why? What is the reason for why this is just the standard way to package bacon and it has to do with like marketing basically like they want to

it's called a shingle pack brian as i'm sure you know uh reference to the way the slices kind of overlap with one another and are kind of like fanned out but they say that basically they like to show the red part you know how bacon like has the small red part and then like a lot of fat and even though the fat is what makes the bacon taste good it's also the thing that like looks the least appetizing before it's cooked and so people like want to not or the the marketers want to not show off the fat so that seems to be like i i found a forbes article that was like kind of pro the packaging they're like it's actually like an ingenious way to uh just show a relatively unbroken field of red protein creating the illusion that the bacon is leaner than it is um but it's the way

white people explain things that's right i think i think it should be sold like a roll of tape where you just like can you pull a strip of bacon off one at a time now all right yeah sorry sorry i got so i think it should i think bacon should come in a jar but whatever never mind just floating um yeah i don't know so that's i i feel like somebody's gonna come and be like actually it has to be stored that way i've read somebody with like some explanation of why like they don't do the resealable packaging because it would just lead people to reuse bacon too late. There's no good way to preserve bacon, I guess. Once you open the packaging,

you should be using it as quickly as possible. But I don't know. Just such a mess. It feels like it could be improved upon. Come on, capitalism. I feel like you can do better than this. Yeah, bacon jars bacon jars uh what is what's something you think is overrated um okay i'm gonna keep this as brief

as i can because once i get going on this i can go for like 45 fucking minutes um my overrated is having having like an organic human body, I guess is one way to put it. So let me explain. I love food. I love drinks. I love tasty things of all kinds. But I'd say once a year I have this meter in my head somewhere that just fills up and once it fills up i kind of have a meltdown of i'm so fucking sick of having to put things in my body to keep it going um yeah and i just i just kind of like have this existential crisis in my head of man it's so exhausting being being human being human and having to

tend to my human body yeah um like no no matter how much i love food i'd say like once a year this happens and i'm just um i'm in the midst of it right now and i'm just i i'm so uh I'm so tired of having to eat. I'm so down on not food, but just the process. Eating, drinking, shitting, the whole works. I'm just like, oh my god, can I just replace everything from the neck down with robot parts or something? Yeah, just plug in at night or like i was checking the other day i always have these mad thoughts where i'm like damn it'd be kind of crazy if you could have like some sort of like some sort of sci-fi food where it's like you only have to like where you can eat like a snake basically

where you just eat this thing and then you're good for like two weeks how doesn't that exist it feels like that should exist for for people who similarly get tired of you i guess like that's it's kind of dystopian yeah but that's true honestly there's some times where i would i would totally go for it just yeah just so i can like because you know sometimes if you're especially like if i'm busy and i'm in one of these moods i just have no interest in food. I'm just like, whatever, just give me noodles or popcorn or whatever.

Just something that I can make quickly and I don't have to think about the two major food groups. Yeah. Noodles and popcorn. Yeah. So that, that's my overrated. I just went a little nutty this weekend.

Fucking nuts, man. You're really out there, dude. Um, yeah, I feel like Silicon Valley valley is gonna come up with something for you you know they already had the soylent a direct reference to uh soylent green so

i feel like yeah they did yeah i knew people that drank that and i was like this you cool with this this doesn't alarm you i mean It's basically the same thing. You just replace all your eating with chugging this thing down in five seconds and then you don't have to think about eating at all. And stark white packaging with black letters. There's something alarming about it.

Yeah, yeah. I feel like they could do for a rebrand just focused on people who want to be robots. Robot juice. Recharge. do for a rebrand just focused on people who want to be robots robot juice um recharge you know so focus it that way make it slick make it less uh dystopian um all right my underrated uh is how staged everything is um so i'm not on tiktok as much as a lot of other people um but there is there's this tweet from somebody who uh let me quote them directly so it's vinnie thomas vin underscore a

uh tweeted i really don't want to see millennials and gen z making fun of boomers anymore because the way many of you watch staged TikTok skits and respond to them like they're documentaries is frankly nuts. It's giving grandma sharing a picture of a Photoshop bird and saying, wow, nature is so beautiful. And then he says, I think this says a lot about the way men are socialized to misbehave on public transportation, particularly in the West, attributed to many of you after you see the worst actor in the world yelling on a fake airplane um so i'm not like fully i i've seen a couple of these i'm not like fully up on the tiktok culture but this is something that i've noticed just generally like we're not suspicious of things being staged the the main place that i saw it recently was um did you see

the steven a smith segment on his espn show where somebody like called in and asked him a question about cars the disney movie cars oh um okay no all right here let's let's play that clip real quick danny in wisconsin you're live with steven a what's up danny talk to me steven a smith uh when you think about the goat of sports you think about mike with sticks brady with seven rings but where do you rank a guy like lightning mcqueen with seven piston cups i would tell you he wouldn't be the goat how are you going to be the goat because you're like Lightning McQueen with seven Piston Cups. Hmm. I would tell you he wouldn't be the GOAT. How are you going to be the GOAT?

Because you're talking about the movie Cars, right? You're talking about the movie Cars, right? I mean, when you talk about Strip the King of Weathers and Lightning McQueen, they're both tied with seven Piston Cups. Strip Weathers, you forgot about him? How can you be the GOAT if you got somebody that's tied with you? You got somebody that's tied with you? Sorry, that ain't going to work. I know you tried to catch me with that. You didn't think I knew that about that. You didn't think I knew about's tied with you? Sorry, that ain't gonna work

I know you tried to catch me with that You didn't think I knew that about that You didn't think I knew about cars, did you? When you think about You're stuffed on a brother You're stuffed on a brother You've got 28 circuits You've got 28 circuits under his belt

Strip Weathers has seven piston cups I am not about to sit here and argue with a grown ass man about the movie Cars Oh, come on, now Strip Weathers has seven piston cups And then the guy like starts responding and being like oh come on I don't agree with that strip weather like and it's uh

the response like I've seen a lot of people on social media be like amazing and like the most skeptical people have been is like he must have had someone feeding him facts but it seems obvious yeah on the paper right in front of him you could see him reading yeah and the caller was clearly a plant like yeah like that that wasn't a real caller you guys that was just a guy who works for him i was like or an intern or something like that but they had like a video or

you know a picture of lightning mcqueen like ready to go right away the second the guy called so i don't like this doesn't bother me like i it makes stephen a smith i think seem funnier and more uh approachable than i think he probably actually is but fine but like i'm just wondering is this something we've decided culturally like just without saying it that like we're going to take everything at face value because it's more fun that way and we're just like i don't give a fuck like fine yeah i've definitely i've definitely noticed like little little sprinklings of this uh all over like you know on uh youtube reddit like people um there is a certain gullibility of this age that i find fascinating that that people will go in for this kind of stuff um more easily than

you would think this feels this feels like PR to make him seem more huggable than he actually is. Right. Yeah. It's good TV. It clearly worked. I'm just curious if we have all decided we're good with

just bullshit like this. It's well-executed bullshit, but it seems clearly bullshit to me. I don't know. Maybe there's some law just bullshit like this like it's what well executed bullshit but it seems clearly like bullshit to me i don't know i mean maybe there's like some law that says you can't have a fake caller call in and that's why people are assuming it wasn't but it just feels because taking taking this at face value you have to ignore so many production things like right of like he's got he's clearly got notes on this like you know the guy running like the

blue screen clearly has all his slides lined the fuck up like yeah yeah this wasn't that could be obvious yeah i mean obviously the calls are screened but like it still just feels like the whole thing is a setup which is is fine like i, it's just a weird thing that I feel like because we're used to seeing these setup fake videos and fake prank videos and stuff like that on YouTube. We've just had our tolerance for this sort of thing just kind of opened up to a point that now we're just like, yeah, you can get away with anything. Trick us, daddy.

We're not even paying attention. We don't care. Anyways. What's something, Brian, that you think is underrated? Okay. You know, speaking of the internet, I just discovered a YouTube channel called Bobby Fingers. Now, what is Bobby Fingers? It's real fucking hard to explain. and I'm going to do my best.

So Bobby Fingers is an Irish comedian slash musician slash sculptor model maker. And he's found a way to marry all of those things into the YouTube format. those things into um the youtube format and um the first video i watched of his was a him making a diorama of mel gibson getting arrested in malibu wow he makes these things and he's really really really talented uh first of all like yeah very beautifully created uh look at this he uses all this technology and clay and it's just he's really good at making dioramas like on a professional like movie level but he's got the sense of humor of uh you know lemmy from lemmy show uh but but ir Irish instead of Scottish and It's just surreal. It's a surreal channel his latest video is him making a rowboat Full-size rowboat in the shape of Jeff Bezos his head

It's real weird a rowboat that the boat itself is in the shape of Jeff Bezos this head Yeah, look look at this and i find it difficult not to be inspired by this because if jeff bezos can venture into the great unknown in a ship shaped like a massive dick then so can i and And yeah, yeah. Wait, I want to see it. Does it, is it seafaring? Like, is it water worthy? Wow.

And then he sings it. Every video ends with a song. Yes. Every song, every video ends with a song. And then he like takes this thing he just made and he, Every video ends with a song. Yes, every video ends with a song. And then he takes this thing he just made, and he'll go bury it. And then he'll tell you that he hid the GPS coordinates somewhere in the video, and that you can go find it. Wow.

It's just this crazy piece of performance art. And it's surreal and fascinating you get to watch someone work on their craft but it's more than the sum of its parts i guess is why i like it because it's not just all those things i mentioned it really does come out to be you're like you come out of it like what the fuck did i just watch but yeah in a in a really good way he also has a diorama of the famous story of steven seagal getting choked out and shitting himself um just highly recommend it check out bobby fingers i'll link it in the uh the show notes show notes um amazing kind of looks like

robert pattinson playing like it in the light up yeah like Pattinson playing in the lighthouse. Yeah, like uglied up for the lighthouse. Very cool. Great underrated, man. That was, by the way, one that you came up with on the fly when we started. You did not have an underrated. Well done.

Let's take a quick break. Should we? Should we take a quick break? Come back and talk about some news stories from over the weekend including the golden globes monologue meow and that is a tease to another story we'll be talking about about cat we will be right back i'm jess casaveto executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church.

And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling, first-hand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these

types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes.

Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it?

Like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts, or great player needs a foil. I ain't really hear them. Why is that? Just come here and play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black.

I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better.

This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. podcast the black effect podcast network is sponsored by diet coke and we're back we're back and so the golden globes aired sunday and the big winners were christopher nolan's oppenheimer and succession and the big loser was everyone who had to sit through that monologue am i right

um did you watch it i'm assuming you didn't watch the golden globes um or you would be howling with laughter no i didn't watch the golden globes because i'm a regular person and i only watch trade shows in my industry. But I support their right to exist, I suppose. But I don't know what the fuck's going on with the Golden Globes. But yeah, I heard tell that it was bad. And I don't know why they still televise it. So he got up there. He was barely given any time to prepare, apparently.

And was announced as the host of the show a few weeks ago. I don't even know who this guy is. He's just a stand-up comedian. Joe Coy is a stand-up comedian. They settled on having him host a couple weeks ago, and the jokes were going over so well that in the middle of the monologue he just like threw the through the whole thing under the he said some i wrote some other people wrote like after nobody

laughed at his joke and then he said yo i got the gig 10 days ago you want a perfect monologue shut up you're kidding me right i wrote some of these and they're the ones you're laughing at so there like you it's like having an argument inside his head in front of everybody oh boy it was tough maybe hire someone a little more secure in their position right i mean it's a brutal like the reaction videos are pretty amazing i suggest like going for just like a kind of highlight reel of reaction videos to the jokes because you said he's not a comedian he is he's a stand-up comedian who's like but he can't handle bombing like bombing's part of the job i don't know i think it's hard to bomb in that like large of a large scale, like high stakes of a situation, you know,

like everybody is watching is probably the highest profile thing he's ever done in his career. I guess when you look at it that way, cause I can't not see it as, this is just a trade show with like my friends and like colleagues. So like, what's the big deal? Like we're just fucking around.

Right. Right. Cause he was trade shows are always cringe. So it's like, what's the big deal. But to him fucking around right right because to me trade shows are always cringe so it's like what's the big deal but to him i could see yeah i guess this is like there's a lot of big names in the room you don't want to embarrass yourself yeah and like i just feel like it's a thankless task um generally the yeah there's that chris rock one where he joked about how jude law is in everything and like was like with why which is like true but for a while there jude law was in like every movie that came out and then like sean penn got up there and was like i'll tell you why jude law is one of

the finest actors that we've had like just like real mad well shawpen doesn't understand humor yeah yeah he he just and it's not like a very uh conducive environment for like a roasting you know but like that's what people the audience expects one thing like the television watching audience the audience in the room is like don't fucking talk about it's so funny because it's set up exactly like a roast kind of yeah exactly the layout is very roast like yeah the thing with the golden globes that's supposed to set them apart is it's open bar so everybody's drinking and like having fun but it was just that was not the vibe at all but like i said the reaction from the crowd of famous actors, they were just not giving him anything.

They were using all of their acting and physical, facial control to just hang this motherfucker out to dry. To sit politely. Yeah. That is brutal shit it almost like makes me wonder if we should just send out one stand-up comedian every year to sacrifice their career to humble them and we can just see the most gifted actors be wordlessly cruel to someone because that's kind of the exercise of okay who's your first pick?

To sacrifice? No, don't answer that. Don't answer that. Due to the nature of the show. Due to the nature of the show, you can't be doing that. Yeah, we need Rogan's support, so I can't say him. But yeah, there are people responding like they just got a terminal diagnosis

to some of his jokes. Like just putting their head in their hands and shit. It became a thing. As it was going on, it was like, alright, how cruelly can we react to each of these attempted jokes? I guess there's a fucked up feedback loop

in the room. It would be totally different. We've all seen people bomb but um yeah yeah this is it's gotta hit different when you see like i don't know fucking leonardo dicaprio like wincing yeah like truly people were like wincing and just like averting their gaze and uh but like in a very studied uh well-crafted way like they're they're good at giving somebody absolutely nothing because they're fucking actors so they're great so yeah

it's it was entertaining i will say i didn't watch it live um but i went back and watched the monologue and uh just christopher nolan yelling please pass the mic um all right uh there's a weird story from over the weekend that the secretary of defense uh lloyd austin reportedly went for an elective medical procedure at the end of december uh had to be admitted to the icu on new year's day after experiencing severe pain um and the white White House wasn't informed until days later for some reason. And so basically no one knew that we were without a Secretary of Defense for a number of days. I'm not good with official titles,

so I'd forgotten what Secretary of Defense is, the job held by donald rumsfeld so it's like the the rumsfeld job so like kind of a big deal um or at least it has been in past administrations and this year the uh secretary of defense became an unknown unknown yeah there you go he made himself a known unknown um like i guess he like put one of his subordinates in charge like on acting secretary of defense duty but like they were on vacation in puerto rico and didn't know he was like going into the hospital and like they're they're saying the reason for this is because he's a very private person but it's also just confusing because according to like one former

dod chief of staff there is a system in place to keep track of high-ranking officials at all times and even the deputy secretary of defense who assumed some of his duties after he was admitted to the hospital wasn't told why that was happening so it sounds like i don't know but partially it just sounds like toxic masculinity like just like oh my god i'm sorry i'm so tough that i didn't even think to report i was going in for a fucking medical procedure i didn't even think about it okay this just reminds me of like the sopranos where it's just like yeah it's like it's his inability to to be vulnerable or say what's right what he's going through

and so he just disappears for like three fucking days yeah but really he was just i don't know in bed crying or something right he's a therapist yeah just like your dad calling you like three days after he gets out of the hospital be like hey i was in the hospital but everything's cool oh my god literally my dad yeah like i think a lot of people have had experiences with that it was like it was so not a big deal because i'm so tough that my own death and infirmity doesn't even faze me bro it's like not a thing um i'm also wondering i think everybody's kind of wondering this is there any chance his medical procedure was just like like he's going to come back with the most beautiful calves in the world and everyone will just have to pretend like his routine medical procedure wasn't getting

calf implants yeah let me look at uh let me look at a picture of this guy and let's inappropriately postulate on what procedure he had done. I'm thinking, just looking, okay, so he looks like a black conservative. When I say that, I'm speaking of his hairline, if anybody's confused. You can always tell a black conservative by their hairline. So I'm guessing hair transplant. He's going to come back with cornrows. I'm calling cornrows.

Come back with an Eddie Munster hairline. Just like... Shane Battier like one inch of forehead. Comes back with a two head. Like just the narrowest forehead because his hairline is just aggressive

now it's like on his face oh man or it could be calf implants I like the idea that he's just like hey I mean I can't I typed in Lloyd Austin calves but I didn't I didn't find any good pictures yeah alright let's take a break

we'll come back with a few more news stories uh we'll be right back yeah i'm jess casaveto executive producer of the hit netflix documentary series dancing for the devil the 7m TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers,

church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente.

And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do,

like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep.

Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game.

Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them boys. I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically Black.

I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network,

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. And we're back. We are back. And so a couple of things I kept hearing on the anniversary of January 6th. Like I said, congratulations, brother. You got away with being there on January 6th.

I kept hearing that from my comrades. But the January 6th. So in the media, not from the people I was partying with on January 6th so in the media not from the people i was partying with on january 6th uh in the media the january 6th investigation was being described as the largest law enforcement operation in the history of u.s law enforcement which like that's how is that possible excuse me i guess like i don't know i feel like we should have spent more time on the jfk assassination if that's true that the largest one is january 6th like they all like filmed themselves how

i don't know i mean yeah i guess when you look at the numbers here like at least two two thousand people from each state participated in January 6th, according to these notes. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the other like thing that they kept mentioning was like,

it was at least 2,000 people from each state, which there weren't a hundred thousand people there like storming the Capitol. So our definition of like who was involved is pretty wide, right? That's like anybody who shared a like dank meme suggesting that mike pence should be hanged like it is considered somebody who participated i'm not sure it's yeah um i mean it seems like it's quieted down the

the insurrectionist community uh except for donald trump but maybe maybe everyone's just like kicking back and being like yeah we'll we'll be fine he's gonna be president again so that's that's why it's been kind of quiet but i'm sure this has had its intended effect and a lot of people are shutting the fuck up about overthrowing the u.s government at this point well i mean i mean you remember what it was like they were it was like a dog catching a car they had no clue what to do once they got in there it was so embarrassing uh like i don't know they stole that lectern and like waved at the camera like literally i remember watching that footage of people like once people got inside they were like

holy shit yeah like whoa look at all this like they had no clue how to overthrow a government and then there were like two people who were like fancy themselves as like operators big operators they had they had you know they had the real the psychopaths like in the crowd but it's like most of that crowd was like not i don't think they were actually there yeah to properly overthrow a government they were just like oh man look at all this yeah they're not gonna have to it turns out they're just gonna re-elect donald trump yeah i feel like that i feel like the there were a handful of people in there who have self-described nicknames like Spider, who are there to do damage. Yeah.

But yeah, it's wild. The extent of the investigation was somewhat surprising to me. was scheduled to host a book signing that also specifically proclaimed that it would be held on the occasion of the third anniversary of January 6th, with tickets ranging from $45 to $1,000. But the event venue canceled the booking, claiming that it was pitched to them merely as a small book signing event, not a birthday party for an attempted insurrection. And so she had to like scramble last second there's a picture of her like signing books at an event where but she was the only one pictured and there's just like thousands of books next to her um without anybody in the picture with her

which suggests to me that maybe i feel like they would have added some people to the picture if anyone literally anyone had showed up to the event or if anyone knew photoshop right yeah not not their strong suit no it's also like appears to be at a daycare i don't know like like in the background there's like a barbie dream house and just like a bunch of toys It also appears to be at a daycare. I don't know. In the background, there's a Barbie dream house and just a bunch of toys. It's very, very strange. Wait, but Barbie's all woke now. Yeah, what the heck?

What the hell? All right, there is a report from The Intercept that CNN runs everything past the Jerusalem Bureau, and that's something that like cnn allows like says is is the truth but this is like extreme even for u.s mainstream media because basically the jerusalem bureau has close ties to idf censors and so like like one member of CNN staff who spoke to the intercept said that the internal review policy has had a demonstrable impact on coverage of the Gaza war.

Every single Israel Palestine related line for reporting must seek approval from the Jerusalem bureau or when the bureau is not staffed from a select few handpicked by the bureau and senior management from which lines are most often edited with a very specific nuance that favors israeli narratives yeah i mean you can you can see it there's clearly to me there's clearly a mandate yeah for western western you know american media that like yeah there is a there's a line that you have to you have to stay within to report on this yeah they also cnn also hired a former idf soldier to contribute writing and reporting to cnn's war coverage um her name has appeared on dozens of stories citing the idf spokesperson and relaying

information about the idf's operations in gaza and she served in the IDF spokesperson unit before getting the job with CNN but yeah but just in terms of like the specific content of how this works the CNN staff member said that basically like war crime and genocide are taboo words like those will get edited out and then Israeli bombings in Gaza will be reported as blasts attributed to nobody until the Israeli military weighs in to either accept or deny responsibility. Quotes and information provided by Israeli army and government officials tend to be approved quickly, while those from Palestinians tend to be heavily scrutinized and slowly processed. so it's just a system that only favors one version of things which is matches up with exactly what i feel like a lot of people feel like they've been seeing from outlets like cnn yeah my partner was just talking to me yesterday about like you know all the the people that she like follows on facebook who have been booted off of Facebook, of all things,

for merely supporting Palestine. Yeah. And yeah, it's just, yeah, it's wild to see what is clearly a mandate happening of, you can't actually report on this. You have to tell our truth, and that's it. Yeah. And then just a weird trend I noticed over the break that, uh,

multiple like mainstream media outlets were reporting on how cats kill so many animals that we, like I had talked about this a long time ago or like we, we had, uh, we had written an article back at crack like years ago about how there was a scientific consensus that when you look you can tell whether an outdoor cat lives in a neighborhood by the health of the local bird population like they're just like walking

stalking mass extinction events there's just crazy efficient killers and when you let them roam free they will kill everything in their path and so i don't i just started seeing this pop up again first the new york times ran an article that was basically a summary of all the different types of living creatures that cats feast on uh which is like 2 000 including like close to a thousand different types of birds uh but like also insects lizards sea turtles uh apparently like the babies yeah um but yeah it basically seems like the scientific consensus is coming around to like cats are outdoor cats are like invasive predators so I don't know that seemed to be kind of in line with what we've

seen and like talked about before but there's this article in the New Yorker that's like very by Jonathan Franz and the guy who wrote the corrections and it dropped on Christmas day and it's just like very he's a birder he's like one of the people

who like you know is really into like looking at birds and it's just like very, he's a birder. He's like one of the people who like, you know, is real into like what looking at birds. And it's just full of like disgusting imagery of like feral cats that like makes you like start to think of like feral cats as like vermin. And, um, I don't, I'm,

I think like everything in the article is reported, you know, I don't, I don't think he's like making anything up, but it's just very strongly like anti outdoor cat population. Yeah. You can feel the, like we need to start killing these things. Am I right folks?

Um, which I don't know, maybe, maybe that is the correct policy, but it's, uh, it's pretty wild. It's like two major stories that kind of had the same kind of implication popping up around a time when there's like so many cat lovers in the

country i think the cats that are talking about are generally like feral cats but um, it's wild times, bad times to be an outdoor cat out there, folks. Well, as someone with toxoplasmosis, I love cats to an irrational degree. And leave the cats alone. Do you have outdoor cats? I used to let my cats outside. And then we had this whole coyote problem So they don't go outside. They kept eating coyotes your cat. Yeah, like when I let them when I let them out Oh, yeah, just voracious just yeah reveling in murder Constantly. Yeah, they are killing machines

constantly um yeah they are killing machines uh in it to a supernatural degree so not doubting this that they kill billions of birds every year yeah billions with a b according to this article um leave the cats alone okay or it's ugly right yeah i feel like this is like going to hit a like i'm not taking a side one way or another but i feel like this is going to hit a... I'm not taking a side one way or another, but I feel like this is going to be very controversial just everywhere in America because there are so many cat people and then it seems like there's a healthy push coming from people who think cat populations need to be culled.

Anyways, cat people, beware of Jonathan Branson. He's coming for your cats. Author of the Corrections. That is going to do it for us on this Monday, January 8th. We are back tomorrow with

a whole ass episode of the show. A trending episode. Whole ass. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourself episode of the show. Whole ass. Whole ass. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourself. Get the vaccine. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to you all tomorrow.

Bye. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me for I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me for I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports.

Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts

or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty. Founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.