Ep. 142 - The 'Border NGOs, A Christmas Story Story, and Dad TV' Edition

The 'Border NGOs, A Christmas Story Story, and Dad TV' Edition

Episode Transcript

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

(00:26):
another episode of Marble Halls and SilverScreens. My name is Sarah Lee.
Uh, this will be my lastpodcast before the holiday, and then I
won't be back until after the holiday, so I'm gonna keep this one kind
of short for you. Um.I could go on about the Twitter files.
There's so much to talk about there. Primarily it looks like that the
FBI actually was paying Twitter to censorAmericans and you know, at the really

(00:52):
bad end, to interfere in theelection. Um that's kind of awaited,
um awaited statement. But yeah,there's a there's a pretty logical progression of
censoring the New York Post story andhow that may have affected the election.
So I feel okay saying that.So we could talk about that, but
I think we're going to save someof that and let it kind of play

(01:15):
out. You know, Elon Muskis talking about stepping down when he finds
a new CEO, which I suspectwas always his plan. I don't think
he does things lightly by by likeputting a poll out and saying should I
step down? All abide by therules. He already knows what he's going
to do. So we could talkabout all of that, but I'm not

(01:36):
going to do that today. TodayI want to talk about something that I
have written about in the past relatedto the border crisis that's happening right now
at our southern border. So I'mgoing to talk about that a little bit.
I actually think it's a pretty goodtopic as it relates to the Christmas
season two just so just bear withme. I'm going to try to make

(01:57):
that case. I'm also going totalk about the cute little movie A Christmas
Story Story, which is the sequelto our beloved Christmas Story that came out
in the eighties and if you areof my generation, that's you know,
that's one of your that's on yourlist every Christmas basically to watch again,

(02:21):
great movie. If your kids haven'tseen it, they should, it's a
great one. So um, thisis the sequel to that where Ralphie has
all grown up. So I'm goingto talk a little bit about that.
And then finally I want to talkabout an article that I saw that came
out in The Ringer, and itis about how Amazon in making entertainment options

(02:43):
like the Jack Reacher series and theJack Ryan series and the terminal list that
they have cornered what they're calling thedad TV market. So I just want
to talk a little bit about why. I think that's kind of funny that
the Ringer, like so many onthe sort of progressive left, certainly in
journalism and in entertainment, and theRingers kind of crossing both of those,

(03:07):
checking both of those boxes in thisarticle. How they don't even in a
lot of ways, even realize whatthey're saying. It's kind of funny when
they say things like that. Sostick around, we're gonna talk. So
we're gonna hear from our sponsors herejust a minute and take a quick little
break, and when we come back, we will knock all of those things

(03:28):
out pretty quickly. I hope Igot to get back to wrapping gifts and
making snacks, and David and Ihave a date tonight, so we're gonna
go here some Christmas music downtown,So I want to get this knocked out,
but hopefully I'll give you some thingsto think about. So sit back,
have a listen to our sponsors,and when we get back, we'll
we'll hear from my brain all ofthese things, to the extent my brain

(03:53):
is working at all. Okay,sit tight, all right, thanks for
sticking around. Let's talk about somethings, shall we. Okay, so
there's a really interesting new study thathas just come out. It actually the

(04:14):
work that was done to facilitate thisstudy. It's out of the Heritage Foundation,
out of specifically their Oversight Project andBoarder Security and Immigration Center. The
work that they did, which isthe technical term, well I don't know
if it's actually the technical term,but the the nickname, which is sort

(04:34):
of the nickname for the technical processI guess, is geo fencing, which
is basically where they use GPS technologyto draw a fence around sort of people's
cell phones and they are alerted whenpeople move them outside of those parameters.

(04:57):
Okay, that's the basics. Andthis work was done back in January,
I want to say. And sowhat they did basically was what they were
trying to determine where some of theimmigrants who were coming across the illegal immigrants
who were coming across the border atthe southern border, where they were going,
and who was helping them. Andwhat they discovered was something that I

(05:17):
wrote about. I mean I wroteabout it because someone else gave me a
tip. So it's not I didn'tcome up with it on my own.
This has been being discussed in severalorganizations that work on immigration issues, you
know, all of these DC thinktanks that work on these things. You
know, where I work, welook a lot at the private sector,

(05:41):
i'm sorry, the charitable sector,and how that that sector is used essentially
politically, oftentimes very inappropriately politically.So so the fact that what the Heritage
Foundation discovered was that a lot ofwhat they were seeing is that these illegal
immigrants were being helped by NGOs,non governmental organizations. And I need to

(06:04):
clarify something. I've always thought ofthose nonprofits I've thought of as more domestic.
NGOs I've always thought had an internationalcapability. There is sort of some
breakdown between the two. But forour purposes here, NGOs, it's just

(06:24):
going to mean non governmental organization,So it could be domestic or international.
But again, I've always thought NGOs, when they're described as NGOs, that's
that basically meant that they were workinginternationally as well as domestically, where nonprofits
tended to just be, you know, a domestic nonprofit was described as a

(06:46):
nonprofit. So I just wanted toclarify that because I actually had a conversation
with somebody I work with where theywere like NGOs, that's you know,
that's just nonprofit, and I've alwaysheard it differently. Anyway, what they
discovered is there were several NGOs thatwere working to move the illegal immigrants coming

(07:08):
across the border, and as weknow, it has become with the title
forty two fight, it has becomejust an overwhelming influx. It's it's out
of control at the border, andit's and I wanted to talk about this
in relation to Christmas because I thinkpeople think, well, the Christmas spirit

(07:30):
would have you having a lot ofempathy for people fleeing economic circumstances. The
Heritage Foundation discovered in their work thatthis isn't really helping people coming across the
border. All it's doing is enrichingthe cartels and facilitating human smuggling and human
trafficking and and and those things playout in some very disturbing ways as we

(07:55):
know. So this has nothing todo with helping good people trying to find
a better life. We're talking abouta situation that has enriched criminals in the
form of the cartels and the humantraffickers, so I want to be clear
on that first and foremost. Sobasically, the Heritage Foundation discovered that some

(08:18):
of these NGOs Catholic Charities is abig one. There's another one out of
the UN that actually is I thinkit's technically an agency out of the UN.
I want to say the State USState Department help helps fund it.
It's called the International Organization from Migration. They are on one side of the
border, the southern side of theborder, apparently handing out traveling money and

(08:41):
credit cards and things like that,and then and telling people who to meet
at the border, and that includesthese ngeos like Catholic Charities and others.
So basically what they discovered is thatthese NGOs are processing these people, loading

(09:03):
them up on buses. And thedata point that has been most interesting is
that after they conducted their geo fencinganalysis, they discovered that four hundred and
thirty one of the four hundred andthirty five US congressional districts showed that border

(09:26):
illegal border crosses crossers were there infour hundred and thirty one of the four
hundred and thirty five US congressional districts. Now implied in this work is that
there is a an interest in havingthese people vote, and we know that

(09:48):
there have been efforts to allow noncitizens to vote in places like Maryland and
Washington, DC, So that's notthat is not a crazy thought. But
one of the p people, whenHeritage kind of did their announcement of this
work, one gentleman who was thereon the panel, said that he wasn't

(10:09):
so much interested in this element ofit. It wasn't so much that he
was worried about the Democrats essentially importingillegal immigrants so they could have voters because
their ideas are so terrible that Americanswon't easily vote for them. Because,
as he noted, and I thinkthis is right, he said, you

(10:31):
know, in ten years, Idon't. I have no believe, I
have no reason to believe that Hispanicswill vote for Democrats. The country they
think they're coming to will not bethe same country in ten years. So
he's and I tend to agree withthat. I think the Hispanic vote has
trended toward conservatives, so I agreewith that. But what he did say

(10:52):
was that what concerns him is it'sbasically this ethical question, this right and
what's right and what's wrong, andwe are. This is a humanitarian crisis
of a disturbing magnitude, right ifpeople living under bridge bridges, um,
the overwhelming border towns, it's ahumanitarian crisis for everyone involved. UM resources

(11:16):
being stretched thin, people dying inthe back of you know, tractor trailer
trucks, obviously, the enrichment ofthe cartels, the fentnel that's pouring over
the border. It's just a badsituation all the way around. There's there's
there's very little good that that's comingof it. So um so yes,
So this this is a very interestinguh report that they've released. UM and

(11:43):
the geofencing itself is really interesting howthey how they managed to work that out.
Um so Yeah. So the samedevices, the anonyma I can't say
the word, anonymous cell phones whichwere geofenced were found. They were geofinch
to several of these NGOs in theborder states, and then they were tracked

(12:07):
to four hundred and thirty one ofthe four hundred and thirty five US congressional
districts. So, very interesting report. And just as a reminder, I
wrote a little bit about this becauseit had been tipped off to me by
someone in my kind of DC thinktank world to start looking at the nonprofits
shuttling helping shuttle people into the country. And I wrote a piece for town

(12:31):
Hall back in October, and Iwant to share my personal take on it
is that the Biden administration doesn't haveto say what their immigration policy is.
They don't have to own a veryunpopular policy. Instead, they're just helping
fund these with taxpayer money, thesenonprofit organizations and NGOs who are then carrying

(12:52):
out the policy. The policy iswhat it is in practice without the Biden
administrations fingerprints on it, right,So it's very ugly politics. But I
did want to highlight from the piecethat I wrote, Joshua Philip of Epoch
Times had the best question. Ifound a report that he did on September

(13:13):
twenty ninth where he's looking at humantrafficking at the border, and his quote
is just so good, and it'sjust it's a bunch of questions, and
I think there are questions that weneed to be asking, quote, how
can charity groups cover such high costs? If law enforcement is passing immigrants to
charities? Is it through a legalagreement? Who pays for it? Is

(13:33):
this a local issue or is thissomething bigger? End quote. I think
those are all questions we need tobe asking, and we certainly certainly need
to be asking those questions. Ithink Heritage the reason they release their report
now is they're hoping when the newthe House gets seated, the conservative majority
House is seated, that there willbe some desire to have congressional hearings about

(13:58):
this. So all good questions fora potential congressional hearing on this. Hopefully
Title forty two can stay in place. UM. There's basically essentially been John
Roberts of you know Scotus uh umfame I guess um has the Chief Justice

(14:22):
John Roberts has sort of stayed thelifting of Title forty two. So UM
that means that through some sort ofadministrative um procedural uh process, um,
they can they can keep it.Uh, they can keep Title forty two
in place. UM. And thatwill UM, that will allow there to

(14:48):
still be some uh law enforcements optionsat the border. Um. And but
but the problem, of course isthat that's related to COVID um mandates so
or COVID restrictions. So that hasto end because we're done with COVID.
So this is all sort of awaiting game, and it also comes at

(15:11):
the same time the Omnibus bill comes. This is politics, and people get
very frustrated, and they should getfrustrated, but all of these things happening
at the same time and right beforeChristmas. This is the political game,
and it happens, you know,every year or so. It's not fun
to watch. It's a very dirtyprocess. It never makes you comfortable,

(15:33):
and it's hard to explain it topeople. Like the omnibus bill. You
know, this funding of Ukraine tofight Russia. Obviously this is about China.
I think they've even McConnell and othershave even said as much, but
they don't talk about it a lot, and so a lot of people don't
know that that's really what's going on. And and unfortunately, the only way

(15:56):
they can get this funding to happenis through this ridicul killis relationship with Selinski,
because that's what the administration wants tohave happened. And because we did
not win the Senate, the rightthe Conservatives did not win the Senate,
we have to include an an ominousbill, omnimous bill, a bunch of
really stupid pork that the Democrats wantin order for them to pass the bill.

(16:22):
So this is politics, and thisis partly why on some level I
agree with people who are sort ofangry at McConnell, who I give a
lot of latitude too. But youknow this, it just takes me back
to the low quality candidates thing,like, at some point we just need
butts in the seat, right,and we've got to you can train them

(16:44):
on the job. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong about that, maybe
that's naive, but I just itgets very tiresome having to pass a bunch
of really stupid stuff or else theDemocrats won't get on board, and we
can't we can't do some defense fundingthat are sort of round about defense funding

(17:07):
that's ostensibly to protect us from thethreat of you know, a rising China.
Anyway, those are my thoughts onthat. Let's move on to a
Christmas story story. I won't Iwon't say a lot about this. It's
cute. Watch it. If youliked the first one, watch this one.
It's pretty fun seeing Peter Billingsley allgrown up. I mean, it's

(17:29):
still Ralphie and he's still the sameand he still does his funny little laugh
and he's now the narrator. So, um, it's pretty cute and you
can tell it's a labor of love. Pretty Much everybody that was in the
first one, if they're still alive, is in this one. And you
know, Flick, Randy Scott,all of those guys, they're all in
there. It's cute. I mean, the sledding scene was hilarious. So

(17:56):
the the snowball shootout had me actuallylaughing out loud. So yeah, it's
a good one. I mean theoriginal was great. Um, it's a
it's a classic Christmas movie now,um, the whole old shoot your eye
out thing, um, and thisone plays off of all of those same
things, but it also kind ofexplores things in a new and adult way

(18:18):
too. And uh, you knowthe main character is a writer. And
so, um it's good. Iliked it. Uh it's a good,
family friendly, um sweet holiday movie. And just like the original, the
adults will get something out of it, the kids will get something out of
it. It's it's a good time. It's certainly beating up the bullies and

(18:41):
that kind of stuff. All thatstuff still in there, just updated.
Um. And what's funny is thatthe this movie takes place in the seventies,
so it's not even happening now.Um, but it's updated for you
know, basically again for my generation. So um, yeah, it was
great see it? Okay? Allright? Final thing. You know this

(19:07):
this ring or article about Amazon corneringthe dad market right with season three of
Jack Ryan, and it talks aboutMaverick and all this stuff. But what
it never talks about it's it hasone line in it that kind of gets
there when it says, let mesee if I can find it. I
saw it when I read it earlier. I was like, oh, there

(19:30):
it is, Okay, here wego. Okay. These series are at
their best when they emulate the economyand pace of a really gripping and knowingly
trashy airport novel. Unsurprisingly, theauthors behind Jack Ryan and Jack Reacher,
the late Tom Clancy and Lee Child, respectively, are regarded as airport novel

(19:55):
royalty. It's these very qualities thatmake the Amazon Jack's an acquired taste,
especially when you consider that the mindsbehind the source material tend to lean conservative.
Okay, so he gives the kindof conservative bent of some of these
some of these offerings kind of aweek like Okay, fine, I'll acknowledge

(20:18):
it, and not in a veryfriendly way like you might find yourself liking
it in spite of that fact.But here's which of course is so very
typical right now. But here's what'sinteresting to me about that. The whole
first part of this guy's article inThe Ringer and all link its in my
column is that nobody was interested inthe MCU universe anymore because it's formulaic,

(20:42):
and that Maverick was, you know, sort of this old school thrilling film
masculine and you know, the Dadmovie, just like Jack Reacher and Jack
Ryan and you know, all ofthis, and so he kind of nods
at the conservatism, but he neversays, maybe it's that conservatism that makes

(21:06):
it popular. Maybe it's not somuch that you know, these things are
good in spite of the fact thatthey're conservative. It's that people are starving
for this right now. They havebeen overwhelmed with sexual identity and you know,

(21:29):
feelings and emotions and making sure nobody'syou know, hurt or you know,
just identity, politics and liberalism andjust oh oh, it's just everywhere
we look. That what makes thesekinds of shows really really interesting and for

(21:51):
sure. They are dad shows.But what what that means is that they're
masculine and they're about getting something done, and they're about efficiency, and they're
about not really you know, makingfeelings and emotion the primary motivators and the
primary drivers. Right, They're biggerstories, bigger issues, nuclear war,

(22:15):
bad people that have to be stopped, you know, in the case of
Maverick, you know, neutralizing someunknown foreign threat, like bigger issues than
I was hurt that you miss usedmy pronouns, all right, So it's
fascinating to me that I think we'reshifting that way a little bit. This

(22:38):
guy kind of acknowledges that, butthey really don't know how to talk about
that shift. So we're going tohave to do it for them. And
we're gonna have to say it's becausethey're more conservative stories. They appeal to
things that conservatives sort of think ourprimary things that make life sort of function

(23:04):
or that makes you functional in life, I should say, so, Yeah,
I just thought that was really interestingand I wanted to point that out.
I'm gonna leave it there. I'mgonna go ahead and get off the
phone, Like I said, Igot our phone off the mike. I
got a lot to do today,so I gotta go wrap some presents,
finish up some things. But youguys, listen to me. I want

(23:26):
you to have a wonderful, wonderfulholiday season. Happy Hanukah, if you
celebrate Mary Christmas, if you celebratehowever you might celebrate. Get into that
sort of winter solstice spirit. Right, it's the end of the year,
and and that's what the whole NewYear thing is about, is supposed to
be about, right, reflecting onthe past year, welcoming the new one,

(23:49):
finding a way to to make itbetter, to grow a little more,
to learn from the last one,um, and to move forward.
We're always moving forward to embrace thechange. UM. So do that.
I hope for all of you thatyou have a wonderful holiday season and you

(24:11):
find some peace in the new year. Take care of yourselves, take care
of each other, be kind,be strong, and we'll talk again in
a few weeks. Watch from thepsychiatric ward. He's faces up on the

(24:33):
bulletin board with the reboard. He'llstab you with the sword. Don't be
fooled. This has been a presentationof the FCB podcast network, where Real
Talk lifts. Visit us online atFCB podcasts dot com