Ep. 141 - The 'Twitter/FBI Pipeline, Disenchanted, and Toxic Testosterone' Edition

The 'Twitter/FBI Pipeline, Disenchanted, and Toxic Testosterone' Edition

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
This is the FCB Podcast Network.Okay, hey y'all, welcome back to

(00:25):
another episode of Marble Halls and SilverScreens. My name is Sarah Lee.
UM. I need to apologize offthe top because you may be able to
hear some ambient noise in the background. We've got some gardening happening outside,
so there's like a leaf blower andthings like that. Um, and I
have gone everywhere, uh to tryto find a place where you can't hear

(00:47):
it, but you can hear iteverywhere. It's just say, sort of
a low hum ambient noise. SoI apologize for that in advance, but
I think I'm just gonna do acontinuous stream of talking so that even if
you can hear it, you won'thear it too badly. So today I
just would like I have a danceclass scheduled for just a little bit,

(01:08):
so I'm going to try and knockthis guy out before before I go do
that. But I definitely wanted toget this recorded because I have not really
talked about the Twitter files, andof course that's you know, I was
talking to someone last night about thisand I'm like, you know, I
wonder if people that don't use Twitterif they actually kind of are hearing about

(01:32):
this on the news and are sortof like, what's the big deal,
Like, I don't even use thatapplication, And that's a fair that's definitely
a fair take. But the reasonI think that it's a big deal is
because if you think it's just Twitterthat was sort of working with the federal
government in you know, cherry pickingwhat people can see and read, and

(01:55):
that's the only social media company thatwas doing that, you are very likely
storily mistaken. So I definitely definitelywant to talk about the Twitter files.
There's been a lot to come outin the last couple of days. The
last time I talked about it,we did a work podcast, a day
job podcast, where this was justafter the first sort of batch was released,

(02:17):
and there's been so much more.So we'll talk a little bit about
that. Then I want to justgive you my thoughts on Disenchanted. If
like me, you love charming littleyou know, sort of fair tales for
adults and things like that, youwere a big fan of the movie Enchanted
starring Amy Adams that came out gosh, I don't know, like fifteen years

(02:39):
ago or something. So this isa sequel to that called Disenchanted, So
I'll give you my thoughts on that. It's a nice There are a couple
of movies that I'm really just waitingto come out. They're in the theater,
but I don't want to go tothe theater to see them. I
haven't had time. I mean,it's not that I don't want to.
I love going to the theater.I just don't have time to do it.

(02:59):
So the banshees of Vin Sharon,I think that's how you pronounce it.
It's one that I will definitely betalking about on this show. I
can't wait to see it. Ihear it's really really good. And then
the Glass Onion or a Glass Onion. It's the second it's the sequel to
Knives Out or the second film inthat series, and I'm I love Knives

(03:21):
Out, so I can't wait tosee Glass Onion. And they'll both be
coming to streaming soon. But untilthey do, I am choosing some lighter
fare, so we'll be talking Disenchanted. And then finally, I want to
talk about something that the great sortof testosterone driven director James Cameron said recently

(03:44):
about I mean, for more orless about toxic masculinity. So so that's
on the slate of things to discusstoday. We're going to take a really
quick break here from our sponsors.When we come back, we will knock
all of these things out hopefully foryour listening. Enjoy if you can stand
the center and accent in this lightlist. But do you stick around him.
We'll be back in a few minutesand we're back. Hey, y'all.

(04:15):
Okay, so let's talk Twitter files, shall we? If you need
a quick refresher. I don't wantto go into all of what this is,
but when Elon Musk took over Twitter, he immediately instituted sort of a
program of well, the first thinghe did was he kind of got rid
of the deadweight in terms of thestaff, right, so he kept presuming,

(04:40):
he kept presumably you know, thereally good engineers, the coders,
got rid of a lot of thesupport staff, it looks like, and
then began looking at the upper echelons, the decision makers, and pretty quickly
began hiring people that were sort ofin charge. I think they're the technical
I think nicole. The name oftheir group was like, you know,

(05:02):
Public Safety and Trust or something likethat. Some some orwelly and euphemism and
all. All they were really doingwas picking and choosing what viewpoints they thought
were shareable or you know, thatthey could give reach to, and the
other ones they were shadow banning orlimiting reach, which I think is the

(05:24):
same thing, or I just outrightbanning those accounts doing things things behind the
scenes. We the strange part aboutall of this, and Elon sort of
eliminated some of those employees off thetop. Vijayagade who I want to say
was the head of that um,that part of the organization, parag Aggrawall,

(05:47):
who was or that part of thedivision I should say, so it
should say parag Aggrawall, who wasactually the head of Twitter. So he
immediately started, you know, sortof removing those people from their positions.
Some of them, I think,you know, were offered golden parachutes and
things like that. He kept someof them on, though, Yoel Roth,

(06:12):
who I have written about before inthe day job. He's just a
huge partisan. He was a bigpart of this, and he kept Yoel.
He also kept the FBI's former sortof hatchetman who was part of the
Russia collusion hoax, who was workingat Twitter as an attorney who was working
at Twitter, a guy named JimBaker, which is significant because a lot

(06:36):
of the left who still is screamingthat these now I think it's been three
different sort of Twitter dumps from MattTaiebee and Barry Weiss. Now that you
know, there's still there's a lotof information there and some of it's quite
damning, and the left and thepeople who just you know, kind of

(07:00):
have been carrying water for that forthat viewpoint, are continuing to say this
is no big deal, this isa nothing burger. So it's really not
hard to see why a lot ofpeople who who don't use the platform might
be thinking there's there's no there there. But let me tell you why there
is. So this latest one fromMatt Taibi is really damning and what it

(07:21):
basically does, we haven't even gotteninto the pandemic and COVID and all of
the other viewpoints, and the scientistsand the doctors who were kicked off of
Twitter for not subscribing to the federalgovernment's sort of prescription on how to handle
the pandemic and masking and vaccines andall of that. We haven't even gotten

(07:46):
into that. We haven't even scratchedthe surface of that. I suspect that's
going to be coming. But whatthis last dump does is it shows who
what Twitter employees like Jim Baker hadeither currently existing or pre existing ties to
the federal government and someone actually whichis a huge deal. And let me

(08:09):
tell you why. There are twosort of elements to this as I see
it. First is the sort ofconsumer fraud. I don't even know if
that's the right terminology, because Idon't know that Twitter users are considered consumers.
I think the advertisers probably are becausewe're not using well until Elon got
there, we're not paying to usethe platform. However, I wonder I

(08:33):
don't know consumer law at all,but I suspect there may be some sort
of language that would deem the usersof a platform, even if the platform
is free, as you as consumersof that platform. So the fact that
they were repeatedly telling particularly conservative usersand some you know, goodhearted liberals that

(08:56):
no, they weren't doing this,No they weren't pitched cherry picking viewpoints,
No, they would never do that. It was all about free speech,
seems to me to be at thevery best case scenario for them, consumer
fraud. Worst case scenario is thatthey were actively working with agents of the
federal government, and we do notknow how high that goes. That's what

(09:18):
the upcoming congressional hearing, which I'lltalk about in a second, will likely
be trying to determine agents within thefederal government, agents and actors related to
and within the federal government working withthem to silence political viewpoints, in this
case political Obviously, what's come outlately is you know, they did ban

(09:41):
Trump or they shadow banned him rightbefore the election. I mean, that's
a very easy you can make avery easy jump from that to election interference.
I mean they don't they might notlike that, but that's not a
hard jump to make. Okay,they're going to have to prove that did
not happen, that they were nottrying to affect the election. I believe

(10:03):
that's also going to be part ofthe congressional hearings. So this is serious
stuff. The also, the otherpart of this is that the federal government
does not get to use private companiesto silence speech. That is a constant.
That's a violation of the constitutional rightsof Americans, not just the sitting
president, not just his supporters,but Americans who were talking about this stuff.

(10:26):
The federal government cannot silence your rightto speech, and apparently it looks
like using using sort of um,uh, I don't I don't know what
the right word. Subsidiaries maybe,uh, subsidiary actors, using actors that
had connections to the federal government.Again, this congressional hearing is going to

(10:48):
have to firm up what those tieswere, if they existed at all.
Looks like they probably did. Buti'll and i'll talk about that here just
in just a second. The thefederal government cannot do that. They cannot
silence speech using a private company todo it behind back channels, behind the
scenes, and then have the companylie about it when people say, wait

(11:11):
a minute, are you doing this? So that's why it's important, and
it should be important to Facebook usersand Google people who use Google for search,
and people who use the Apple Storeand the all of these things,
because you can be guaranteed, almostguaranteed that the if Twitter was doing this,

(11:33):
and we already kind of know Facebookwas, this is something that the
federal government has been working on,okay, and it's happening elsewhere. So
before I stop talking about the Twitterfiles. I'm very like interested in this
because, first of all, Ithink what Elon Musk has done, and
I have no illusions about Elon Muskas a sort of hero. I do

(11:56):
believe him when he says he caresabout free speech. I don't think he's
being cynical about that. But Idon't think that he probably would always vote
for the same things that I wouldvote for. I think he's probably definitely
more to the left than I ampersonally. Not that I'm the standard here,
I'm just saying that me personally,but I do think we're going to
owe him a great debt of gratitude, and I hope that people on the

(12:20):
right and conservatives certainly in government,will remember that as they deal with him,
that he has this is a fundamentalright that he has done a great
deal to protect. Barry Weiss andMatt Taibea as well, both of whom
are not necessarily conservatives. They mighthave some conservative views, but I don't

(12:43):
think they vote that way. Sothis is an interesting moment for conservatives who
sometimes look and just see enemies everywhere. Some of the people who Glenn Greenwald
is another great example of this.Some of the people who are pulling these
civil liberties out of the trash heapof progressivism. Are liberals? Right?

(13:03):
So it's a it's an interesting time. We live in interesting times. Okay.
So, so the one thing Iwanted to just talk about quickly before
I move on from this is thisthread that someone had done about all of
the former intelligence agents that were workingat Twitter, and I am blown away
by it. And this guy,this is not a huge account, but

(13:26):
he has a thread of ones.Let's see how many are there that he
lists, and I'm sure this isnot comprehensive. He lists fifteen of them,
Okay, I think fifteen, maybefourteen, fourteen of them, and

(13:48):
he lists their LinkedIn accounts so thatyou can see that he's not just like
throwing names out there without confirming whothey are and where they work. These
are former FBI agents, not ofyou know, oh I was an intern.
Oh I was an analyst for acouple of years, low level analysts.
I mean, these are guys likeDoug Hunt, current Twitter Senior director,
x FBI agent special agent for twentyyears, Mark Jarazuski, current Twitter

(14:16):
Director Corporate Security Risk x FBI twentyyears. Let's see, there's a and
it goes on and on twenty threeyears, twenty one years, ten years,
twenty three years, twenty two years. Then there's a guy con I
want to say. His name isCarlton, Jeff Carlton, current Twitter senior

(14:37):
manager x FBI and CIA intelligence analystsfor three years. I know that.
I saw another tweet. You'll haveto confirm this one where some guy had
been with the Department of on LandSecurity. So the point is that Twitter
had hired a lot of spooks,okay not and it looks like most of

(14:58):
them. We don't know about CIA. We know a couple, like at
least one former CIA. But theseare the federal police force. They are
the ones who domestically deal with,you know, policing federal crimes. CIA

(15:18):
is overseas stuff, right, sowhat the hell? My question is,
what the hell is Twitter building?There's no way this was a coincidence,
right they were. This was apipeline from the FBI to Twitter. Just
the minute I saw this, Iwas like, this reminds me so much.
I've mentioned this movie so many timeson this podcast because it is brilliant

(15:39):
and I think everyone should see it. But it is called The Lives of
others. Make sure I've got thattitle correct. Yes, it's a twenty
two thousand and six film called TheLives of Others and it's about it's about
the Cold War and the Iron Curtainin East Germany and it's about the Stasi.

(16:03):
And it's nineteen eighty three East Berlinand there the Stas is basically bugging
people's homes and policing people's you know, conversations, making sure they're not speaking
ill of the regime. That's whatthis reminded me of. I'm like,
were they I mean, I hateto sound historianic, I guess, but

(16:26):
were they? Sort of? Twitter'snot just about shutting down speech and protecting
the party. They're also monitoring whatpeople are saying. Okay, people go
out there and say crazy stuff,and this is a way to monitor.
It's a way to listen to conversationsand make no mistake it is. So
my question remains, and I'm goingto leave it here, but what the

(16:49):
hell was Vijayagatte and paragagerall? Whatthe hell are they building? What were
they? There's no way this wasaccidental. I want to know what they
plan to build. Elon has beeninvited to attend the congressional hearings on Biden
and Hunter Biden's laptop. They're gonnasounds like they're gonna wrap the Twitter stuff

(17:14):
into this. I don't know ifhe's not. I don't think he's being
compelled to testify. They're saying they'llroll out the red carpet, which means
that you know, they're asking himto come if he would like. If
he doesn't, my guess is basedon what they've already released, they will
try to figure out a way tocompel him. My guess is he probably
will go and do it without beingcompelled. I think he wants this information

(17:37):
out there. But these are thequestions that I hope they ask him what
were the plans? What were theytrying to do, because to me,
this isn't about what's been done.It's about what they were hoping to do,
not just from a oh my god, but so that people know that

(18:00):
this is what the progressive left has. This is their idea of how they
want to want, how they wantthings to work. So I hope they
get they can get to this.I know it's speculative, but I'll bet
you there's some kind of documentation showinga five year plan. Where were they

(18:21):
headed with this? Okay, that'swhat I want to know, So I'm
going to leave it there. Ifyou do not use Twitter and you wonder
what all the you know, whatall the uproar is about, trust me
when I tell you that you arealso being listened to, also probably being
censored, depending on who and whatyou're trying to talk about and what you're

(18:45):
trying to look at. I mean, within reason. I'm not talking about
things that are illegal here. Butyeah, so this is all very very
interesting, and this is a thingI think a seismic shift. Social media
has been on a certain trajectory fora while, and I think this is
a stop in that trajectory, andthen we're going to see where it goes

(19:07):
next. Okay, so let's talkvery briefly about Disenchanted. So if you
saw Enchanted with the charming Amy Adamsback fifteen years ago, you probably liked
it. If you're a lady.It's it's a modern take on like a
fairy tale. She ends up goingto New York through this magic portal,

(19:30):
but she's from a disneyland of enchantment, right, and so it's basically,
you know, it's a metaphor forsort of growing up, right where if
you're if you're lucky enough as ayoung girl, and you're protected and sheltered,
and you have people that love youaround you and they're you know,
giving you a good, solid life, you can be a little bit I

(19:56):
know I was. You can bea little bit sheltered when you finally start
getting out there and realizing how toughlife can be and how people aren't always
nice and they don't always look outfor you, and you don't always have
an older brother. You can crytoo and be like that boy it was
being mean to me right, likelife is hard, all right. So
that's kind of what Enchanted was,and it was charming and Amy Adams was

(20:18):
just adorable in it. So Disenchantedis after the fairy tale marriage, after
she met At the end of Enchanted, she meets her prince and they marry
and they have a baby, andso this is they've settled into marry life.
The whole premise is what happens afterHappily ever after. So again,

(20:41):
this is a cute I loved thismovie. I thought Disenchanted was great.
Of course, the you know,some of the entertainment presses like, it's
not as good as the first one, But I could care less what they
think. They're crazy, you know, they just swear to god. People
have made just such a career,the people that make a career off of
just plaining about stuff, you know, the critics. I guess this is

(21:03):
nothing new, of course, butthat's just has got to be a miserable
existence. This was a cute movie. I liked it. It's about navigating.
You know, is your husband stillthe dragon slayer or does he want
to? You know, he's notvery good at slaying the dragons anymore.
He's tired. Are you not reachingthe now teenage stepdaughter? And you're the

(21:27):
stepmother? And they do a wholebig thing on the wicked stepmother, which
is great. You know, areyou watching your own kids or do you
have you hired three fairy nannies?Like? It's cute. I like it.
It's very sweet. It's also amusical. I love musicals, one
of those people, so it's youknow, it sort of hearkens back to

(21:48):
the old Hollywood, like Singing inthe Rain or American in Paris and stuff
like that, which I love thosemovies, Thank you, mom. So
yeah, this is a cute one. It's on Disney if you have a
subscription, you can see it.It's adorable. Just watch it, Watch
it with your daughter, watch itwith your husband, like it's a cutie.
It's a really cute film. Italso has one of my favorite actresses.

(22:14):
And it's always so hard being ayou know, a conservative politically and
working in politics to have favorite sortof you know, actors and actresses who
you know are absolutely anti everything youlike, believe in, or they think
they are, they probably aren't.Like that's the weird thing, right when

(22:36):
you actually sit down and talk topeople who disagree everythings that you actually find
out they have more in common thanthan anyone realizes. So anyway, my
Rudolf is in this one, andshe's so good in it. I mean,
she's just great. I think SusanSarandon was the bad one in the
first one. My Rudolf is theis the bad one in this one.
And there's a great little twist atthe end that I think all women will

(22:57):
be like, oh yeah, likeI've been there. So sweet movie.
Patrick Dempsey of course, is thehusband. Just adorable as usual. Again,
if you're an eighties baby, can'tbuy me love baby. That movie
was so good. Still is goodanyway. Disenchanted is charming, see it,
it's it's cute. Um, yeah, it's good. Okay. Finally,

(23:21):
let's talk about James Cameron. Um, let me pull up this story
because it just was so just sodumb. Um. Hang on just one
second. I just want to pullit up so that I don't misspeak.
So Cameron, as you may remember, you know, he's he directed Avatar

(23:48):
or whatever. Um. He wasalso you know, Terminator. Um.
I think he did uh Titanic,um, you know whatever. He did
a lot. He's done a lotof movies that certainly the Terminator movies with
the first Terminator still is an incrediblefilm, and they are infused with male

(24:11):
like men love them. There's gunsand robots and wah and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Right. So here, recently,James Cameron, you know, king of
these movies, or you know,at least what he was in the eighties,
recently came out and said that testosteroneis a toxin men must terminate from

(24:37):
their system. A toxin. Jesus, y'all. As someone put it on
Twitter, I mean, this issomething that makes part of what makes you
mail, as someone put it onTwitter, like, yeah, it's no
wonder. Hollywood is what it iswhen you see what the culture actually does
to the men who work in it. And I think that's a really I
don't even know if I could improveon that. That's a really good way

(24:59):
of putting it. This is ridiculous. This is just I don't even I
don't know who he's trying to pleasewith nonsense like that, but it's it's
pitiful and it's pathetic, and Ifeel sorry for him, frankly, because,
as I said, some of hismore you know, manly films from
the eighties are great movies. Ithink they're better than the Titanic movie,

(25:22):
you know what I mean. AndJimmy Fayla, the comedian who has a
Fox show. I listened to himduring the day during the week quite frequently,
and he's very funny. I thinkhe had been a cab driver.
He'll tell you that on his show. He had been a cab driver,
so for a long time. Sohe really has sort of an everyman kind
of approach to his show. AndI like it and he's very funny.

(25:42):
But he said something I think hewas on Gutfeld and there was a clip
of it. He said something about, you know, if there wasn't any
testoster I'm butchering it. But he'sbasically like if he you know, without
the testostera and the terminator would havebeen called the tolerator, which I just
thought was so funny. And youknow, he's right like above and beyond

(26:07):
all of this, whether or notthis guy is okay with testosterone, and
well, whoever he might be talkingto, maybe he's trying to impress a
woman. I don't know. Testosteroneis not only is it biologically necessary for
you know, boys to develop intomen, it's part of how it's part
of survival. I mean, themen were the hunters, and part of

(26:30):
that is you know, driven bythe need the needs that they have that
are connected to the testosterone coursing throughtheir bodies all the time. So this
is just a ridiculous. I mean, it is you want to talk about,
you know, first world problems,this is it. I mean,

(26:51):
this is a really stupid thing tosay, and I don't have much more
to say about it. It's it'sit's sad, but I don't really care.
I think Cameron's probably passed his primeand that maybe why he said this.
Maybe he's feeling old and he's like, you know, I don't have
the testosterone I once have, soit's bad. I kind of get that

(27:15):
vibe from him that that's kind ofhow he rolls. He might be a
little bit petty that way. Sobut what a stupid thing to say publicly.
Just what an especially in this dayand age. So yeah, that's
just a loser thing to say.Dang it, Cameron, I'm never gonna
be able to watch one of yourmovies again without hearing that stupid thing in

(27:36):
my head. All right, guys, I'm gonna let you go there.
Please have a great weekend. It'sthe Christmas season. It's one of my
favorite times of year, and Ihope it is for you too. And
if it's not and you're struggling,you know, I just remember this,
two shall pass. I know that'strite, but it's true. It's absolutely
true. You just got to hangonto it. And there, you know,

(27:57):
if you're if you're finding yourself alittle sad at this time, a
little alone, there are places youcan go. I like to go to
church. Not everybody does, butthat usually cheers me up. Um,
and the best way to feel betterabout things is to go help. So
if there are places where you cango and I said this at Thanksgiving as

(28:18):
well, and hand out you know, um gifts to underprivileged kids and things
like that, get on that.Trust me, it changes your perspective.
It's really really, really good.It's not just good for them, it's
good for you. It's just ait's just an objective good all the way
around. So take care of yourselves, take care of each other, be

(28:40):
strong, be safe, be loving, be kind, and we'll talk again
in a few weeks. This hasbeen a presentation of the f EB podcast
Network, where real talk lifts.Visit us online at FCB podcasts dot com.