The Scathing Atheist - 688: Welcome to the Jingle Edition

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

In this week’s episode, America celebrates its birthday with 250 year old ideas about pluralism, all the holy water and anointing oil in Vatican City can't lubricate the arid mouth of Marco Rubio, and that’s only one of the similarities Marco Rubio’s mouth shares with Ben Shapiro’s wife’s vagina.---To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheistTo buy our book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/If you see a news story you think we might be interested in, you can send it here: [e-mail] check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticratTo check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-moviesTo check out our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/Report instances of harassment or abuse connected to this show to the Creator Accountability Network here: https://creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org/---Guest Links:The links mentioned in the Farnsworth Quote:Creating Dangerously podcast:  https://www.shawnafoundation.org/general-6Florence on Tubi: https://tubitv.com/movies/100050205/florenceFlorence on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Florence-Blu-ray-Skip-Shea/dp/B0GSCFXQ5F---Headlines:Rededicate 250: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/white-house-to-host-taxpayer-funded and https://www.scrippsnews.com/life/faith-and-religion/national-mall-prayer-event-sparks-concern-about-trump-administration-eroding-the-wall-between-church-and-stateChristian megachurch founder Brian Houston shared adult content on social media again: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/christian-megachurch-founder-brianChristian nationalists try to undercut liberal education, accidentally hit religious schools: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/the-gop-wanted-to-punish-liberalRyan walters is getting divorced: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/oklahoma-schools-chief-ryan-walters-files-divorce-after-ordering-schools-teach-mandate-christian-1796793Marco Rubio meets with Pope Leo and gives him a very embarrassing gift: https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/06/politics/pope-leo-rubio-meetinghttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/marco-rubio-gift-pope-leo_n_69fdc1d2e4b0cb033e513b3c

Warning, the following podcast contains pronouns. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by MintMobil and by our phenomenal patrons. May is the best month to pledge. Learn more at M-A-Y-T-R-E-O-N.com. And now, the Skating Atheist. This is Patrick Bracken, host of the Creating Dangerously podcast and star of the new movie Florence, now available on To Be, where all quality films live, and for purchase. And based on the behavior and the ultimate fate of the priest character in our film, I can confidently say we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men and women.

It's Thursday. It's May 21st. And it's National waiter and Waitress Day. All right. May all who snap at you die slowly of blood cancer. Oh, there you go. Or knock over your roll-ups. I'm no illusions.

I'm Eli Bosnick. Ythin-Rite. And from Carl Anthony Towns, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and way across Georgia. This is the scathing atheist. Oh, this week's episode, America celebrates its birthday with 250-year-old ideas about pluralism. All the holy water and anointing oil in Vatican City

can't lubricate the arid mouth of Marco Rubio. And that's only one of the similarities, Marco Rubio's mouth shares with Ben Shapiro's wife's vagina. But first, the Diet Tribe. So Tuesday night, I'm chilling out, racing around Japan, and fours of Horizon 6 when my little girl cat decides to curl up in my lap. But my big boy cat does not approve of this. That is his lap, damn it.

So he decides to attack her while she's on my lap. Now, he's a little chicken shit, and despite being three times her size, he's too timid to actually hit her. So instead, he leaps halfway onto the chair with his claws out, and he bats at her, but he draws back just short of actually swiping her. But the thing that is just short of actually swiping her is, my fucking leg. So he tears open one big gash and one little one.

She, of course, flips the fuck out and scrambles away with her claws out, leaving three more little gashes in approximately the same place. So one second, I'm like, ah, cat in my lap and a new game on my console, maximal relaxation, and one 14th of a fucking second later, I got poofed up cats hissing from either side of me and my calf is bleeding from five places. Now, at this point, you might be thinking to yourself. I know this segment is called the diatribe Noah, but you can't just complain about whatever you're most pissed about right now.

But don't worry, this is about atheism and not just in a vague, hurting cats kind of way. Because my first thought, or sorry, my third thought after fuck the blood thinners make this worse and where the hell are the bandages was, damn, wouldn't it be nice if I could just talk to my cats and explain shit to them? We could maybe work out some kind of time sharing schedule for my lap

and reach a claw-free detain. But of course, if that thought pops into your head in 2026 America, the logical follow-up is, man, I wish I could do that shit with humans, too. Not necessarily the time-sharing schedule for my lap, but the other bit about explaining shit to them. I mean, no sooner did I have the thought of, surely, if I could explain to them that clawing my lap to ribbons doesn't serve either of their causes, they would stop doing it. Then it got canceled out by the reminder that my impoverished neighbors were all lining up behind their preferred brand of Republican earlier that day. I keep seeing these headlines about how Trump's approval rating is reaching new depths, which is great and all.

But the headlines should really be somehow 37% of these assholes still think he's doing a good job. And from any objective perspective, that's inexplicable, right? Even if you approved of the bigoted Christian nationalist bullshit he represents, which of course you don't, even if you did, though, he's doing an objectively bad job of implementing it. And there's nothing America first about blindly stumbling into an idiotic war that fucks gas prices for a generation, pisses away billions of dollars in munitions in aircrafts and strengthens our enemies. And yet 37% of the people in the latest time, Siena Bull, said that they still approve of the

way that he's handling his job as president. But of course, it's no mystery as to why I already hinted at it when I said from any objective perspective. Nobody has ever accused Trump supporters of having an objective perspective, living in a fantasy land as a prerequisite for Trump's support. Now, to be fair, there are some cynical opportunists who just threw their weight behind Trump when he became inevitable and they could still convince themselves that he would, you know, do enough good for conservative causes to outweigh the damage he did with his stupidity, or sorry, with his other stupidities that weren't already conservative causes. And those are the people who have slowly peeled away

as they realize that he's not doing enough racism to counteract the gas prices or whatever fucked up calculus they're using. But that remaining core, that 37%, those are people who haven't sniffed objective reality in at least a decade. They live in a world of anti-Christian biases from the U.S. government and stolen elections

and Ivermectin panaceas and Jewish space lasers and it barely even resembles objective reality. and without a shared reality as a starting point, speech is castrated. I mean, I guess you could dive deep into their own lore and try to point out internal inconsistencies, but since the source of their worldview is either their own asshole or somebody else's, there's always going to be a new conspiracy to bridge whatever gap you find. You know, and if this was a purely subjective reality, well, you know, we've already got ways of dealing with that shit, right?

When somebody is so far gone that their own personal subjective world no longer accords with the world itself, We call that insanity of some form, and we have therapies, and we have medications and shit like that. But this is an intersubjective reality. It's a shared delusion, brought enough to reinforce it, so brought enough to take over government institutions and own news corporations and release government reports. And that makes it all the harder to penetrate. And let me be clear here. I'm not calling religion a mental illness. I know that's a popular thing for some atheists to do, but I've never found it to be helpful.

It's an insult to the mentally ill. accurate and it's not even a particularly useful analogy. Religion is not a mental illness. It's something way worse than that. It's an anchor onto which virtually any bullshit worldview can attach itself. You know, as long as you agree with three or four axioms of the faith, Jesus is the best, God created everything, gay people are icky. You can add anything you want and the Christian worldview will prop it up at least as easily

as it would prop up anything factual. Right. More so generally, of course, since reality doesn't line up. with any of those axioms. So what we end up with is a bunch of angry reactionary assholes running around the national lap with their claws out and cutting

into all kind of vital arteries over a fight about nothing that would end if we could just inject a modicum of objective reality into it. Let's just hope that when the dust settles, if the dust settles, somebody can remember where we put the fucking bandages.

They're talking about your Jesus. May interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the better and best to my good Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick, fellas. Are you ready to argue about what you're better and best at?

Eating, dibs on eating. Okay. I'm so much better than you're eating. You stop when you're not hungry anymore. How can you possibly be better at it? Not always. Oh, he's got you. And before we get into the headlines, I want to remind everybody that May is Matrion here

at Puzzle and a Thunderstorm. It's a fantastic time to donate to the show at patreon.com or increase your pledge if you're already a patron. We've got some fantastic goals this year. Like, for example, thanks to friend of the show, Seth Andrews, we've now added, make Noah go to a Christian video game developers conference. And it's frighteningly attainable. Just go to patreon.com slash scathing atheist or check out the goals at m-a-y-t-r-e-on.com.

Right. And as of this recording, we're just three new or upgrading patrons away from our goal of a D.C. live show. So if you want to see what I suggest to a group of 300 people in the city of Washington, D.C., you can make that happen. Bring your zip ties. And with the obligatory remit. You might be able to get some of a slush fund. You never know.

I know, right? And with the obligatory reminder that if you were a patron, you wouldn't have to listen to the ads, we're going to take a quick break for a word from this week's sponsor, Mint Mobile. Zip ties are just a pro tip about packing for a vacation. Yes, I'm for a trip. And you have to keep your luggage closed. That's what the pros are doing. Yeah.

Tie up a woman. What? Hmm? What did you say? You said that. Luggage. But what about your kind of sort of step kid? What about their future?

They're just my regular step kid. I don't think that's, are they? Yes. Hey, guys. What's going on? Eli's jealous that I got to go on vacation with Cecil and Sarah. No, I'm worried about his overspending. He has a kind of.

Kind of sort of child. Stop saying kind of sort of. Guys, if you want to save money, you should switch to Mint Mobile. What's Mint Mobile? Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with premium wireless plans starting at $15 a month. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. With Mint Mobile, you can bring your own phone and number, activate with ESIM in minutes, and start saving immediately. No long-term contracts, no hassle.

Have you actually tried it? I sure have. I switched to Mint Mobile when they became a sponsor. I love how we get the same great service for a fraction of the first. the price. That's why I, no illusions, personally endorse MintMobile. All right, Noah. I'm sold. Where do I sign up? If you like your money, MintMobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com slash scathing. That's mintmobile.com slash scathing. Up front payment of $45 for a three-month

$5-gabite plan required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full-price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra, see MintMobile for details. All right. Thanks. Whoa, guys, guys, I just found this article about how dangerous Canada is this time. That was the last vacation. I mean, Edinburgh, Gergerger. That was the one before with Marsha Nigla. Europe.

God. Okay. So jealous. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, the idea that America will celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4th of this year is seeming more and more aspirational by the day. The odds that will be reduced to a state of nature by Trump's handling of the economy and foreign policy before that are actually getting worthy of a wager. Yeah, here's the thing, though, you won't get paid by Calci and Polymark at that point because it sucks.

That's fair. But we're going ahead with the birthday party plans anyway. Most recently in the form of a taxpayer-funded government endorsed Christian nationalist celebration on the national mall called Rededicate 250, a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and Thanksgiving. Okay. Podcast listener, I can't promise you much, but I can promise you that that title was a compromise nobody was happy with. Yeah, the hyphenated last name of White House events right there. Exactly. Yeah, rough.

So, yeah, so we talked about this in the lead story last week as well. And I pointed out at the time that I'd have no issue with these guys gathering on the National Mal to jack off the Jesus if they played by the rules. I mean, I would take issue with the homophobic, transphobic, a historical drivel that they actually said. But I'd have no issue with their ability to gather there and say it, except that they've used government funds to promote it, government email lists to advertise it, and a government entity to organize it.

Exactly. It's like men who are the little spoon. In theory, it's fine. But practically, we here at Puzzle and a Thunderstorm would prefer that you did not vote. Eli is so clearly a self-loathing little spoon. It's crazy. It's so obvious. Truly sad.

Just be yourself. Never. Never. I love being a little spoon. So the event was organized by Freedom 250, a non-profit subsidiary of the National Park Foundation. that's the fundraising arm of the National Park Service. Now, that's not to be confused with America 250, the bipartisan commission created by Congress in 2016,

that was tasked with organizing the festivities and celebration of the nation's semi-quincennial. That group was sidelined after Trump took it over, realized it still had congressional oversight, and decided to make his own version with blackjack and hookers, and no oversight. And then he gave it four times the government funding of America 250. But don't worry, it's not entirely funded by your taxed

Trump has also traded donations to Freedom 250 for presidential access. Oh, a budget outsider. Just what you want when it comes to celebrations that take place every 250 years. Okay. So it's paid for by the sovereign wealth fund of the UAE brokered probably by a guy called Spy Shake. Yeah. Or maybe it's the Binance guy who got a pardon for terrorist money laundering from Trump and then bought $2 billion of Trump owned crypto.

Or, okay, there's another option. It could be anyone else who did a giant bribe, and we would never know. We would never, because they let you donate anonymously to this fucking thing, yeah. And it's crypto. Yeah. So we'll be hearing a lot more from Freedom 250. They're the ones organizing gladiatorial combat on the White House lawn for Trump's birthday. But their first major salvo was this bullshit event this past Sunday.

And it was a day-long prayer event that featured all the people that you would come up with it, the game show host made you name as many shitty contemporary Americans as you could in 60 seconds, right? Though some of them only appeared by video. Trump was apparently too busy with presidential duties that took place on his New Jersey golf course to attend. Yeah, getting a burial plot ready for Giuliani probably. Right next to his ex-wife who died accidentally and got the property tax exemptions for that golf course accidentally because now it's a cemetery. It's probably that. Yep.

But this event did feature a number of high-ranking government theocrats, as well as religious leaders representing as many as two of America's fine religions. Three, if you count Catholics as the non-Christian heretics that they are. But yeah, with the exception of one Orthodox rabbi and two Catholic bishops, one of whom was Timothy fucking Dolan, right? So don't get excited. Every one of them was a far-right evangelical Christian nationalists. By some weird coincidence, I guess.

Strange. Hey, guys, rabbi, I can. Katzbaum says he's not coming to the next event if you don't stop taking off his yarmaca to check for horse. That's a hard line for him, okay? All right, but we're going to, though. Tell him we're not going to. Hard nose all around. Okay, that's what I said. But yeah, so it was a full day of government-funded promotion of a very narrow brand of one single religion and it included all the homophobia and transphobia and bullshit Christian revisionism

that you would expect from such an event. And the best the mainstream media can manage to say is that it blurred the line of church state separation. Blurred the fucking line. Motherfucker didn't blur it. They scrambled that shit like the unpaid cable porn that me and Heath had to settle for

in the days before the internet. Which is another great reminder of why you need highly specialized, atheist-focused, listener-funded, news resources now more than ever. Anyway, have I mentioned it? It's matrion may?

Dot com. Matrion.com. We could lose our grants, guys. And in Hildong news, it's been... Oh, that's really good, man. That's good. It's been a rough couple of years for Hillsong Mega Church. First, their

super cool pastor had tattoos and was friends with Justin Bieber. Cheated on his wife with his nanny so hard. He got an FX documentary about it. Then they had to close their Dallas location because of rapiness and embezzlement. that would make Bernie Madoff blush.

He blushes about both. He just did the one, but he just about both. Then one of their anti-fax congregants died, and the pastor called it a personal decision, which people didn't love. I enjoyed it. Okay, most people, most people. Yep, yep.

And of course, their founder, Brian Houston, was arrested for concealing the sexual abuse committed by his father back in 2021. Well, it looks like, Brian done done it again this week as he got caught using Twitter for porn again. It's an again. Right. It's an again.

Guys, it's inevitable that at some point our show will just be all recap of how shitty the person we want to talk about is. Right. The longer we go, the more of this shit we know about them. It's true. Yeah. And it's not like we're skipping good stuff in there. It's never like, fuck the kid. Saved a puppy embezzlement.

We're not skipping good things in the middle. Exactly. So first off, a big thanks to Sheila for being the first to send us this story to Scathing News at gmail.com. Sheila, as thanks for sending us atheist news to ScatlingNews at gmail.com. Heath will retweet whichever porn is your favorite genre. Oh, what? Just as soon as he gets back on that website. Okay, sure.

I checked. It does look like the last time he was on there was a Twitter fight with a pro-lifer in May of 2024. Okay. All right. So that feat is ripe. for a new post, Sheila. Let us know what you want. May of 22.

I would have taken the under. Yeah, no, that's actually just a bot that I created. Yeah, you know, I had a feeling. I had a feeling. I just have this thing that says, like, some random canned lines at pro-lifers and confuses this. It's like a magic eight ball. Nice.

And they just get into fights with it. Yeah, they've been arguing with it for years. Yeah, exactly. So, like so many Christian men who professed to be the moral backbone of their homophobic, transphobic, bigoted, sex-shamey community. Brian was perusing vintage porn on Twitter in the early hours of the morning on Thursday.

But darn it, if that interface isn't slippery. Or maybe he forgot which account he was on. So he retweeted the classic porn star era 80,90,000 to his 543,000 followers. That's the name of a very obscure Jackie Chan film. we'll get to that guy too so the pastor sending porn by accident that's rough

but responding to the wrong group text like a fucking boomer but in the form of porn that's really rough and Eli said it slightly differently it was called the classic porno star era 8092,000 so the word porno star there

I think that's the most embarrassing that's my favorite porno star right there. So you might be wondering what Brian's story is. Well, it turns out, guys, he was hacked. You don't say. Yeah. Really? Yeah. The following morning, Brian tweeted out, quote, this account was compromised overnight. Any odd posts, links, or messages shared earlier were not legitimate and have been reported and deleted, end quote. Except he didn't delete the porn. The tweet was literally sitting above the pornographic. video on his timeline

from what I can tell four more hours. Oh, God. And by the way, in case you needed an excuse, we can entirely dismiss the hack story based on the fact that it wasn't gay porn, right? Because if you had his

fucking account. Okay, that being said, leaving the porn, perfect double bluff. It's like too stupid. It's the perfect alibi. Think about it. Now, you might be wondering,

wow, how did Brian get his hacked account back so quickly? Right. After all, when public figures have their accounts hacked, it usually takes days for them to get it back. Well, luckily for us, Brian's followers were wondering the same thing. With one tweeting, you need to share your secret. I know people who have had their accounts hacked and it took them weeks to get it back.

How did you get it restored so quickly? Huh? To which Brian replied, I didn't say I was hacked. Someone temporarily had. had access to my Twitter account on my phone. That's a real quote, by the way. I'm doing a voice, but that's the exact way.

My ringtone is also, it's raining men now, and I don't know how to change it back. Also, what's a ringtone? I come back by T-guy. One last thing about this story. As I teased at the top, this is actually not the first time that Brian's Twitter porn habit has gotten him into hot water. In classic old guy fashion back in 2024, Brian confused the search bar for the text box and tweeted ladies and girls.

It's so weird. I'm sorry, the inclusion of and girls makes it real disturbing to me. They're just ladies, man. Yes, definitely. It feels like he learned about, you know, Boolean operators for the World Wide Web earlier that day. And he added ladies and at the beginning. So yeah, best of luck to Brian and the Hill Song team.

But hey, Ryan, if it's any comfort about this little snafu, you have excellent taste in porn, my man. Especially the 80s part of the porno stars. Thank you. And in, how come there ain't no department of conservative arts news tonight? There are a few targets Trumpism enjoys attacking more than education. It works on so many fronts for them. The natural enemy of Trumpism is, of course,

knowing things. And that's the biggest threat to his Christian base, too, right? So attacking education appeals to all of those folks. It also appeals to his base who largely resent all them thinky fuckers who are always telling them that fucking they can't plead never surrender in a court of law. But it looks like their latest attack might just blow up in their faces since it stands to hit religious schools harder than secular ones. And they can't think of a way to write in an exemption for fake knowledge without admitting God isn't real. What do you mean the arts are real and God is not? Fuck.

This is fucked up my whole thing. My whole, okay, okay, they're both fake. Fuck, still ruins my thing. Damn it. Damn it. So the new rule is kind of a perfect encapsulation of the idiocy behind the whole project 2024 playbook, right? The problem in their mind is that too many people have outstanding student

loans that they can't pay, right? but their solution isn't to better subsidize higher education or regulate the punitive terms and exorbitant rates of those loans or anything like that. Instead, they want to stop lending college educations to people who aren't going to use them to make enough money to pay those exorbitant rates. So the new rule implements an earnings test and it says that you can't get the student loan if your expected degree wouldn't earn you more money than a person without that degree. In other words, what's the point of even knowing shit if he can't sell it? Okay, but how are they doing that math? Like, there's a bunch of famous actors making way more money than your average accountant. I don't think those averages are going to go how they hope they're going to go.

But all those actors got valuable BFAs at places like NYU. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Well, right. So on the surface, Trumpians love this idea, right? Because it hits all the sissy English and humanities majors without fucking up doctors, lawyers and high-powered CEOs. else. But of course, the least valuable of all the degrees are divinity degrees, right? Because, I mean, look, preachers can make a fuck ton of money, right? But they don't need degrees to do it. Joel Osteen has a fucking, he was a communications major that dropped out of college with no degree. In fact, no career fails this rule more consistently than ministry. 53% of people with bachelor's degree fail according to this rule, as do 89% of the ones that have master's degrees. The only master's program. In fact, with a higher failure rate by this rule is alternative and complementary medicine,

which fails in a rate of 98%. So now religious schools are freaking the fuck out. Okay. How about we measure savings in your 401k or souls? Yes. Thank you. You have to measure appreciation of the timeshares in heaven. Right. It's marked to market accountant like the great company Enron did. So that's a win-win. Just like Enron. And look, I love the idea of no longer subsidizing degrees in bullshit, right? That is one hell of a silver lining. But the

real benefit in the story is that Christians actually probably have enough clout to get this rule scrapped or changed in a way that like we would just be dumber as a country doesn't. It's already being described as an existential threat to religious

higher education. And what's funny though is if you think about it, the lemon test would actually have invalidated this law. Shame that, but at least they get rid all that filthy bathwater, right? Yeah, yeah. And in Ryanney news, I'll admit, podcast listener, I miss Ryan Walters for the brief time that former Oklahoma State Department of Education Superintendent was in power.

It seemed that not a week went by without him declaring an insanely the illegal new policy or sitting on a pudding cup on national television. Remember when he got caught watching porn in his office on his smart TV and blamed Antifa? Couldn't turn it off. I do. Remember when he tried to buy Trump Bibles for every classroom in the state regardless of subject? God, that was funny. Do you remember when he wanted it explicitly taught in Oklahoma State curriculum that marriage was an irrevocable bond

between one man and one woman. Well, apparently Ryan does it because he announced this week that he's getting divorced after 15 years of marriage. Good for her. Hey, hey, almost ex-wife. Bring it in. Just be cool. Don't turn your head right now.

Don't turn your head. Just slowly walk out and remember all the passwords. Maybe you get an email next week from whomever. You can't solicit. Yeah, no, you send us. Don't send us.

Nobody said us. Nobody said us. Send them. Me. Just remember. Look, in his divorce filing, Ryan Walters cited, quote, a state of complete

and irreconcilable incompatibility, end quote, as grounds for the divorce, saying it had, quote, destroyed the aims of the marriage of the parties and rendered its continuation impossible, end quote. It's weird, but my lawyer said

I can enter my personality as evidence? Exhibit A phone holster that represents it. However, in a joint statement released to the Oklahoma and the couple said,

quote, after thoughtful conversations, we've arrived at this decision and will remain devoted parents of our four wonderful kids. Oh, you're not stopping that. Cool.

Good to know. Great. Do you think they considered they were like, and we are willing to give up the kids and the last? slid papers across the table a bunch

landed on still parents. Stair parents, yeah. Great. Cool. Our children are at the heart of everything and we love them more than words can say. We're grateful for the family we've built and committed to raising our kids together with the same

love and care they've always known. We kindly ask for privacy for them as we settle into this next chapter. Oh, you want privacy? End quote. Do you on account of your kids? It's so nice that nobody's denying that to you in the name of an ancient book of fables that way more clearly prohibits divorce than gay stuff. Fuck you and fuck your privacy, you pieces of shit.

Oh yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. And look, remember those passwords. Yeah, don't fuck you necessarily. Yeah, no, no, fuck him. Fuck him. One of you. And look, I wouldn't usually celebrate the heartbreak of a random douche on our show. I mean, I would, but Noah and Heath would stop me. Nope. No. Sometimes. Sometimes. They it would stop me. But we're celebrating this because time and time again, Christian theocrats prove that they have no intention of living by the standards that they strive to legally impose on other people. So, you know, just in case you were in danger of ever taking their opinions seriously. Which, to be fair, it was never a worry when it came to Ryan Walters.

But like their other opinions, other people. Good to know. Yeah. And finally tonight, in Marco the Beast News. Nice. Well done. Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, Vice Roy of Venezuela, National Archivist, Waterboy,

not a very good one, GOP executive producer and ghostwriter and silent partner and White House Best Boy, Marco Rubio, met with Pope Leo earlier this month to normalize relations with the Vatican after Trump

declared himself red cross Christ Jesus, the Lord and Savior of humanity. It went very badly at the Vatican for Marco. And even if Marco had been able to smooth everything over with his very thirsty silver tongue, the meeting would have still been a giant embarrassment, starting with the moment that Marco Rubio gave the Pope a comically small crystal football, clearly from a gift shop. Oh, podcast listener. Heath has included a picture of this moment in our notes.

And moving forward, this photo of the Pope's facial expression should be American sign language for, did you just give the top of a high school football trophy to the fucking Pope? Well, to be fair, Trump officials can't be trusted with full-sized football trophies anymore. That's true. That's true. It goes hard.

It's gone badly. Yes. That was smart to stay small, I guess. So the meeting lasted about 45 minutes, which is longer than you might expect. But I'm guessing Rubio was able to book a series of five-minute blocks using, you know, nine of his various job titles to get each of those. For example, here's the brief conversation that happened when they exchanged gifts. Pope Leo gave Rubio a pen made of olive wood. And he said, olive being, of course, the plant of peace.

That was right after Rubio gave Leo this tiny little glass football. Rubio said, quote, this is exact words. I know you're a baseball guy, but as the seal of the State Department. What to get someone who has everything. I thought, oh, crystal, end. Exact quote. Exactly quote. And while Marco was stumbling through this presentation of the very obvious,

last minute airport gift. The Pope said, oh, okay. It's the best. Hey, guys, hey guys, the Pope is going to break up with Marco Rubio right after this brunch. Like on the Uber ride home. Yeah, sure looked that way. Okay, look, I don't know if they bought it at the airport and slapped the State Department seal on it. Or if he was just rummaging through the back room of the State Department gift shop on his way out of the door grubble and why?

Is there no baseball stuff? I honestly, and I honestly, I don't know which of those two things would be more pathetic. Both really rough. I think it's the second one,

but terrible. Regardless, yes. Go back to the plane and get one of the footballs. He's got a box. He's got a box. Go back to the plane. What if I swance it into a baseball shape?

Oh, wow. It's a fucking hurt my hand. It's a nice wooden box and there's probably a thing in it. Go back to the plane and get the cardboard box that is under the chair.

Can we get the, seal on a baseball really quick. Take off the tag for my son. Go to Kinkos now. Call Kinko's ahead. Fuck. So all that being said, I want to give some praise to Marco Rubio. Well, okay, not really. It's relative praise. He did much better than Jan's Dance Vance. There were zero Vatican fatalities during Marco's visit. Oh, there you go. Including Pope Leo, who managed to get through this ordeal with without dying of Vanchhausen by proximity. Okay, end of praise. Pope Leo hated Marco Rubio so much.

It's palpable. Visibly. It was an amazing display, though, of God-inspired Midwest Nice from the Pope. Like, I almost became Catholic. It was truly impressive. But the hate for Marco Rubio was very thinly veiled for anyone who's paying attention. And following the meeting, the statement from... the Vatican did that same Midwest nice, but I really just fucking hate you thing.

It was pretty great. The Holy See just said, approximate quote, they discussed topics like not doing wars for no reason and not having a white supremacy squad rounding up immigrants. Those were the topics. End of statement. It was almost that. We did not let him sign the guest book or use the pen we gave him. We told him we didn't have it.

But then he asked and we said, no. Honestly, I like to think that the Pope opened up by just saying, yeah, you're one of the ones that fully grasps how bad what you're doing is. And then he just stared at him for 45 minutes and shushed him every time he tried to talk. That's in my mind. Well, he just reached into Barian's bag. He just does this for gift. Right on Marco's dry-ass lip.

Hey, that's, do you want a water? Fuck. Oil? It's squeaky. Do you like this? It's squeaking. That's crazy. For magic trick.

Have you seen The Wizard of Oz? You're like a tin man. So, sheki. Okay. So bottom line, the Trump administration is losing at morality to the Catholic Church. Yeah. And not even a non-lethal summit between our top diplomat and the Pope was able to make it better.

That morality gap remains. And Marco Rubio embarrassed himself a bunch. And just a reminder, Rubio was already the guy who's been wearing giant clown shoes all year that are way too big for him, gifted by Donald Trump from Flauchime at the mall. And Rubio's been wearing those in order to placate the president and signal the at least medium-sized penis that every cabinet official needs to help the U.S. government run smoothly. that guy, Marco Rubio, was able to ramp the embarrassment upward. Yeah. Somehow. It's almost impressive.

The looks on the faces of everybody is the best part, though. The background people are just like, ha ha ha. It's a glass. Minish. Oh. Okay. Oh, how does the seal? What is you carve off of the bottom?

Huh, Bobby? That's nice. conduit, there's a seal. Base. Smize. You've got a smize. And with the knowledge that you can't get worse from there without crawling into a claw

machine, we're going to wrap up the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Jumangi. And when we come back, Eli will get that goddamn jingle stuck in your head. And then halfway through, my character is going to lose the ability to speak entirely.

Amazing. That's going to be so good. Right? Hey, guys. What's you doing? Noah, haven't you heard? It's Matrion. Well, of course I know it's Matrion. That's our yearly fundraiser where people can sign up to support our shows at M-A-Y-T-R-E-O-N dot com and get access to our Pajama Party live stream. Yeah, and we just hit our goal to have Morgan lead an episode of D&D. My character's name is going to be Noe Ewerson. No matter what he gets asked to do, he always says no. That doesn't sound great for comedy, guys.

What are you talking about? He even has an amazing catchphrase. No, I won't do that. Well, guys, it's not just Morgan DMing for D&D Minus. Folks can also donate for Heath's secular tacular over on Gam, a DC live show, and much more. All over on matrion.com. Ooh, for the live show, too. In the words of my D&D Minus character, no, I hate this and I think it's stupid. Matriott.

No. It's weird when religions do scam. because religions are scams. It's like when a pet has a pet. It gets very confusing very quickly, but we're here to help unravel that for you. One scam to the second power at a time, so tell us, Eli.

What the fuck is? Cars for kids. Podcast listener, we don't often elect me to lead the final segment of our program. The lost hours of spell checking, barely make up for the work I saved my colleagues, and like all brilliant geniuses at the core of a media empire,

I may at any moment just start making stuff up. But this week, we have a story that sounds so much like an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that if we didn't let our cast Jew report on it, you might confuse it for something Candice Owens wakes up from a nightmare screaming.

Because this week, my friends, we're going to talk about cars for kids. Brigitte McCrown. Exactly. Oh, if only I can remember their phone number. Before we jump in, I want to give a shout out to Hemet Meta, who brought this latest news about Cars for Kids to our attention with his coverage over at the Friendly Atheist blog. I recently learned that Hemet was that guy who sold his soul on eBay. And if I had known a soul

as pure as his was up for grabs, I totally would have bid. Check him out at thefriendly atheist.com. You just learn that? Dude, your obsession with Hemet really needs to move above the ankles one of these days. No, it does not. So, Eli enjoys a calf. He's a caffman. I'll, I'll get a little calf in there, a little calf in there. So, Cars for Kids was founded in Lakewood, New Jersey in 1994

by Rabbi Chaim Mince and is currently run by his son and my OG namesake, Eliahu Mintz. Thanks, Mom and Dad. Life turned out awesome. Is that on your birth certificate? It is. It is on my birth certificate.

Eliahoo. Spelled that way, too, spelled the way the guy doesn't. Hey. Aren't you glad that I'm doing this precinct? Imagine Heath's saying Chaya Mintz just now. You turn it off, right? You'd click right away.

Not comfortable. We'd have more listeners. Real fast. Holy shit, we're the number one podcast. We're competing with Candace Owens. Oh. And look, if you're a human on earth who watch TV connected to cable

or listen to a radio connected to the airwames, you have heard of Cars for Kids. Wait, K-A-R-S-R-S-Cars. for kids. That's right. Cars for Kids is drilled into your brain. When time and old age have taken everything else from you, Cars for Kids will remain because of its jingles. Seriously, much like Candace Owens, I wake up screaming the phone number about once a week since 1994. Yeah. Uh-huh. That's real. Listeners, Eli wanted to include a clip and I convinced him that we were going to get sued over it. That's not true, but for you, I jumped in front of that. You're already, it's already, it's already

in your head. The minute I said Cars for Kids Yeah, it was. It is in there and it'll be there for the rest of the month. It's also a Turkey Safety Hotline if you do look up the number. Now, listening to that commercial, one might assume that Cars for Kids is a

charity that accepts donations of cars in order to benefit children. Kids, yeah. And they definitely accept donations of cars. According to Asbury Park Press, Cars for Kids accounts for about 13% of all the card donations nationwide annually,

accepting over 40,000 cars a year. And they do, occasionally, do charity stuff. According to their Wikipedia, quote, the organization has hosted giveaways of Coats for the Needy, including in Newark, Newark, New Jersey, where they held a coat giveaway with then-Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and in Brooklyn, New York, where they worked with Congressman Adolphus Towns to give away Winter jackets to underprivileged children, including at the Marseet Avenue houses. Prior to the start of the 2012 school year, Cars for Kids partnered with local government officials to give away backpacks to over 3,000 children in the Queens Housing Projects and to children in the Bronx. And in 2014, Cars for Kids released an app for Android, Cars for Kids Safety, which aims to

prevent accidental deaths of children left in hot cars by providing reminders to their parents. The app syncs with the car's Bluetooth technology to set off an automatic alert when the phone's Bluetooth disconnects from the car. Cool, cool, cool. I actually just invented an app too. It's called crack a window. It cracks a window and then immediately calls child protective services to take your kids away because you're a goddamn monster who tried to crack a window and leave your kids in a hot car. Now, give me like 1.3 million free cars over the next 30 years. Yeah, I know how that actually happens, so I'm not touching that.

But yeah, I just, I did the math here. I could get 3,000 cheap backpacks for about the blue book value of my 2019 Nissan Ultima and have enough money left over to buy a 2014 Nissan Ultima. So it's a lot unaccounted for there. Yeah. So as Noah just pointed out, 40,000 cars a year is a lot of money. In 2018, Carts for Ks reported a revenue of 65. $1.6 million, which feels like it would result in way more coats.

Way more coats. Yeah. And those backpacks, they better be fucking Jan sports. Like the good ones with the leather bottom. Yeah, and the plastic sleeve at the back, absolutely. And that's because Cars for Kids is secretly a Jewish charity whose money goes to keeping the most Jewish Jews more Jewish. Specifically, the money from Cars for Kids

goes to a charity called Ura. Not to be confused with the thing that Marines grunt at each other. I like to think it's the same thing, but you know, which coincidentally, Ura was also founded in Lakewood, New Jersey, by Rabbi Chayamins. And it's also coincidentally run by his son, Eliehahu,

and Ura has a very different purpose than Cars for Kids. Ura has 49 different programs, all of which target Jewish outreach, from their summer camp, the zone, to their kids slash teen club, the chill zone. Our listeners who grew up around Christian teen culture will recognize that these are religious indoctrination programs dressed up to make religion seem cool. Hell, even that catchy jingle is actually by a Jewish group called Country Yossi and the Steeple Hopper. Okay. Phenomenal.

Other hits include the Cholent song and peel one more potato for the Coogle. For the Coogel, yeah. Yeah, okay. The Cars for Kids jingle, it's the biggest one-hit wonder of the 90s. Like, by far, macarena, it's close, but this is the biggest one.

But if you're willing to go deep into the catalog of that band, you know, I just mentioned, Big Bad Moish actually slaps pretty hard. I listen to it. All right. Once again, aren't you glad? you didn't have to hear he'd say country yosi and the steeplehoppers, right? I felt uncomfortable saying moish just now.

Right? Moish didn't feel good. No. By the way, in case you didn't already feel like you were stuck in a World War II cartoon, the mascot for Ura, the charity, is a talking $5 bill named Five-ish. Here is the unedited Instagram video of Five-ish complaining about how many things are made in China. I have a friend who goes to China for business all the time, and he told me they are actually

teaching Yiddish now in the Chinese Khadar. This other guy I know, he's starting a new clothing line, and what he really does is he shops on Ali and then upcharges about 800, 900%, which is understandable, considering all the labor-intensive work of, you know, sewing those labels onto each garment. So my neighbor label, he's opening a business called Labels for Label. Anyways, point is, everybody, support the Chinese because that is where Unzoraparnosa is all going down.

Okay, well, now I'm confused about what side we're on. That one made sense. A scam, scam with bigoted bigotry? Where the fuck is my top? Somebody spin my top. It's really. It's good. That's just one of the posts, by the way, of five-inch.

It's not like apropos of something. It's just fibrich smoking a cigarette being like the Chinese. But that's not all. Ura also runs Torah study programs for kids, Shabbat programs, a preschool, after-school care, and more. But none of those activities I just mentioned are free. I mean, yes, they have scholarships, but for the most part, those are business.

which once again brings up the question, where is the charity money going? Oh, were you waiting for like applause for your question that you're dangling there? Where's the money going, Eli? Thank you. Yeah. I hate to tokenize you, Eli, but you kind of have to answer that question here. Okay, it's fair. It's fair. It's all. Well, it turns out that the actual charity that Ura does is even more religious and even less kid-centric than they let on.

Ura's free programs include matchmaking programs for young adults and gap year trips to Israel for 17 and 18 year olds and their families, which is definitely not what people are picturing. Okay, well, to be fair, when Lucinda and I donated a car to him in 2007, we were just picturing not having to park that piece of shit in Manhattan anymore.

That was pretty much all we had in mind. And you got it. And you were singing the jingle that day. No, we were. Okay. Is it K-A-R? Exactly. Think about this. How else do you donate a car?

Try and think of it right now. What are you going to do? Fucking Google it. No. I'm singing the jingle again. Yeah, exactly. It's anything. And look, if the worst thing Cars for Kids was doing

was tricking goys into paying for our matchmaking services and trips to Israel, I would heartily support that. You guys are really, really stupid. And you keep getting tricked into trying to murder us. Oh, okay. Okay. Fair enough. Historically accurate.

Weird tone. though just now describing the history of anti-Semitic murder like a shlamele and schlamazel scenario between the boys and the Jewish people. I'm saying you holocausted so you owe us a little off the top. No, that's fair. That's fair. But it is actually worse than that because when we look at the actual books of cars for kids, even Jewish kids are getting fucked and not in the way their matchmaker was hoping.

applause for this cliffhanger. Oh my God. Bravo, sir. Bravo. Wow. Okay, so how are the Jewish kids getting fucked, do you like? Thank you, Heath. A little snappier, but I do love to support. So in 2024, charity watch included Cars for Kids in its list of worst charities in America, saying that the charity's 2023 financial statements showed that it only spent 41% of its expenditure. on charitable programs. Christ. And that it spent $48 per $100 raised on advertising. According to Asbury Park Press, in 2024,

Cars for Kids spent more money, $41.5 million on advertising, than it spent for its main charity. Ura, which received $35.3 million. It also spent some $5.3 million on salaries, which does not include the eight high-level administrators who take home more than $100,000 each. It's like they're one of the major political parties

in our political system in America. Yeah. For the record, the Better Business Bureau recommends at least 65% of a charity activities be directed towards charitable program services. Okay. It was bullshit. Jan's port knockoffs with pleather bottoms.

I fucking knew it. Sure was. By the way, if 65% sounds insanely low to you, that's because it is. Right? Like, I know that small charities tend to have to have, like, lower percentages there. But, like, Doctors Without Borders is around 85%. The Red Cross is over 90%.

The bar is so fucking low at 65% and they somehow managed to head butt it. Okay, let's just be real for a second here. You know that at some point someone was like, it's supposed to be around 65%. And they were like, 65%. Like, we can all hear exactly how the words. I heard it in a regular voice.

Me too, man. Same conversation. Liars. By the way, when they were asked about their abysmal donation rate, Cars for Kids Representative once explained that the numbers only looked bad because they lost $10 million in a real estate deal. What? Controlled by a second cousin of the charity's president.

That was your excuse? Come on. Sorry, did you say you were hanging out with your dad's cousin? And he was like, I need some, well, my kid needs $10 million for a real estate deal. And you were like, do I control it? And your dad's cousin said no. Right. And then you were like, here's $10 million.

That's so fucking close to your excuse being, well, now if these, if they, if 804 had come up as to pick three today, these numbers would look a lot better, a lot better. Side note, I know that this next thing I'm about to tell you isn't, illegal, but I can't get over this detail I found. So you might remember the tragic story of Brandon and Connor Moore, the two and four-year-old sons of Staten Island native who were swept out of their mother's arms when the car got caught in Hurricane Sandy and the kids drowned. Well, Cars for Kids accepted the donation of that car from the Moore family and then auctioned it off for a charity Coke drive as a special event, which I can't imagine didn't

have the weirdest vibes ever. All right. Welcome to the big charity event. Here we have, this is a big deal. This is no ordinary car, folks. This is a piece of New York history. This is weird. This is weird.

It's so weird. But of course, these are Jewish religious charities, conning people out of money, not Christian ones, which means there have been all too rare legal consequences. In 2009, cars for kids, kids had to pay $65,000 in fines in both Oregon and Pennsylvania for misleading people about where their money was going.

In 2017, former Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson filed a 300-page report with the IRS explaining why they should revoke the group's tax exemption. She pointed out that Minnesotans donated $3 million in cars to cars for kids from 2012 to 2014, but only $11,600 went back to helping kids in Minnesota. Come on. The charity literally helped three kids in the state. It's a long-ass report to just describe that. The other 299 pages just a detailed explanation about like the protocols of the elders

of Zion. They should lose their tax-exempt status just based on how annoying that fucking jingle is. That'd do it. That'd do it. And last, but certainly not least, just this week. week, a California judge banned all Cars for Kids ads from being broadcast in the state. Gassia Alparion of the Orange County Superior Court explained, quote, Cars for Kids operates no functional programs in California.

Their local activity is limited to small grants consisting of approximately 1,000 backpacks bearing the corporate logo distributed to any child regardless of financial need, end quote. Okay, so swag. Mm-hmm. Right? Their charity is a fucking swag table. Yes. And I guarantee you less than the stuff we've given away at conventions for the last couple of years.

So many of those corporate logos had to be like scratched off or sure be down. That kids just want a fucking backpack. Just want to come on. She concludes, quote, the court finds the message that the charity helps needy children is not inherently vague. In the context of a charitable appeal, needy implies some. socioeconomic disadvantage. Using funds for gap your trips to Israel for 17, 18-year-olds, or a $16.5 million real

estate acquisition contradicts the needy child persona cultivated by the ad. The name, Cars for Kids, the 8 to 10-year-old actors in the advertisement, and the repetitive jingle all serve to reinforce that the donations are used exclusively for the benefits of children. To get a backpack, the kids had to sign up four other kids. kids in their downline, it says, for like a shared mortgage of $16.5 million. Are we saying needy?

I don't think they should be allowed to say needy. I thought she did sneak in a mention of the jingle, though, right? Like, she's there's at least a little bit of a nod to Ann that fucking jingle. That should be the whole lawsuit. That's it. Just jangle. Clack. And look, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that a lot of the criticism of Jewish charities,

including URA, are motivated by anti-Semitism. Nobody's coming for Christian summer camps and pseudo-charities and the fraud perpetrated there is certainly worse. I heard in a report that the Biden administration was doing that exclusive. They were. That's true. That's true. But the solution to anti-Semitism is not to join in on the con.

And especially not to join in on the con when your mascot is a talking $5 bill. Yeah. Yeah. And as Angelo sadly puts down his pencils, we're going to wrap things up and make way for the outro. Eli, thanks to time. Lechayam! Too Monty. Before we fade out tonight, I wanted to let you know that if you need more of me in your life,

you can check me out on an upcoming episode of The Thinking Atheist, debuting on Tuesday, in which Seth and I have a wide-ranging discussion about why religion continues to suck after all these years. Anyway, that's all the blast movie we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,000, 22 minutes with more. If can't wait that long, be able to look out for a brand new episode of our sister the skeptocrat debuting at 7am Eastern on Monday and an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend and Goddolful movies debuting at 7 on Eastern on Tuesday

and an even newer episode of our half-surchaseau Citation Needed debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, the show wouldn't show if I neglected to thank Heath Henry for being so smooth and Eli Bossey for being so rough. I want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusion, so we'll be back next week with a lot of pent-up misogyny. I want to thank Patrick for providing this week's

farm's quote, check the show notes for links to both his podcast and his movie. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people, callous in the knuckles of Friscoo, Scottoes Maximus, John Plant, Dr. Iris Addick, Joshua, Robert, Gina, Data Angel, Chris, Timothy, and Mike, whose knowledge is deeper than the celestial ascendancy, which I guess doesn't sound very deep if you haven't read the dungeon crawler-carl books, what with the word celestial and ascendancy in it, but trust me, that's on level 12. That's really fucking deep.

Together, these 14 ferocious freethinkers forewint to forestall further fuckery by the faithful this week by heating the matrion call and giving us money. Not everybody wants us to hit all our awesome matrion goals this year. But if you do and can help, please make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended every version of every episode. Or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the

donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingaithet.com. And if you'd like to help, but you're waiting to pledge until June so you don't feel like a conformist, you can also help attend right now by leading a five-star review, telling a friend about the show and following us on social media. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote a music that was used in this episode,

which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments or after it to find all the contact info on the contact page at scanning aadus.com. Are you trying to say phenomenal? I'm not. I'm not. Okay, I was like, is that why he's having problems? Is this a roof thing that we haven't had to address? I keep treating this like a comma.

What I've been doing is using it like an F sound, like the pH, just straight through. Yeah, yeah. Nice, nice. Brodips. This content is scanned credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm to their hotline at 61724945 or on their website at Creator Accountability Network.org. This podcast is a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC and was created without the use of generative AI. Its contents may not be used for AI training. Copyright

2026. All rights reserved.