Ep. 144 - The 'Biden Docs, The Menu, and Goodbye Hollywood Bail Funds' Edition

The 'Biden Docs, The Menu, and Goodbye Hollywood Bail Funds' 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.
It is a beautiful Monday in Atlanta, Georgia, and um, I am
getting ready to travel back to dc H later on this week, so
I wanted to knock this guy outfor you guys. Um, there are
several things happening right now. There'sso much I could talk about, but
I'm just going to talk about,you know, the biggest things that I

(00:49):
can come up with that I thinkare Frankly, I'm leaning mostly toward things
that I think are funny anymore,just because in order to stay sane working
on these sort of you know,outskirts of politics like I do in Think
tank world, you kind of justhave to find the humor in it.
You know. We certainly do apretty good job of that at the day

(01:11):
job and you know, in mypersonal life. So I'm going to kind
of share some of that stuff withyou because a lot of it really is
actually kind of funny in the giant, grand scheme of things. So so
today I'm going to talk a littlebit about what's going on with Biden and
the documents and the I can't believeI just said that. I sounded so

(01:32):
northern. The documents that he hassquirreled away at the Penn Biden Center that
are very likely classified. We don'treally know what's in them. It's a
completely different situation than what was goingon with Trump in some pretty important ways.
But you know, they were athis house in Delaware, and there's
questions about whether or not Hunter was, you know, able to access them

(01:56):
while he was working for this Chineseenergy firm, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. But mostly you know, those stories are out there.
You can follow the reporting on that. I'm getting ready to finish up a
piece on it today that I hopewill ultimately be in town Hall if they
accept it. But yeah, Ithink the thing I want to focus on
today, though, is how it'sbeing received by the public, So we'll

(02:21):
talk a little bit about that.I also want to talk about the film
The Menu, which I think Iabsolutely was blown away by, not in
a histrionic sort of way, butI really liked it. I thought it.
I think they're so little creative filmmakinglately, and so when you find
films like this, well, that'sbeing I shouldn't say that creative filmmaking is

(02:45):
being made, it's just not beingpromoted and not a lot of people know
about it. So when you geta film like this one that's extraordinarily creative,
really interesting, even if it's notvery good, this one happens to
be very good. But even ifit's not very good, it's like a
the Fresh Air. It's like,oh my god, they're not just you
know, remaking you know, Singingin the Rain or whatever, these classics

(03:06):
that like you really can't touch witha ten foot pole. I was actually
talking to my boyfriend the other dayabout the foolishness of remaking Magnum Pi.
I mean, no offense to thepeople that are making that show, but
how do you do that? Like, it's almost impossible. Magnum Pi is
indelibly linked to the characters from theoriginal show and the actors from the original

(03:28):
show Higgy Baby, you know,John Hillerman, Tom Salik is magnum TC
and Rick and all the rest.So anyway, I want to talk about
the menu, circling back around tothat, because it is very creative.
I thought it was really well done, So um and it also in as
we put Davos behind Us, thisyear's Davos behind Us, the World World

(03:53):
Economic Forums Davos. I think itkind of neatly fits into that sort of
storyline, that that sort of reality, the Davos reality. So we'll talk
a little bit about that. Andthen finally, I want to talk just
very briefly about a bail fund thatrecently shuddered back in December that was backed

(04:15):
by some pretty big names in Hollywood. So we'll talk a little bit about
that as well, especially since I'min Atlanta and we just had Antifa down
here causing some trouble. So sowe'll go into all of those things,
hopefully in a quick and short formatso that you guys can listen to it
while you're in your car driving somewhereand you won't be bothered by my crazy
Southern accent for too long. Butright now we're gonna hear from our sponsors,

(04:40):
So stick around for just a fewminutes while they tell you what they
need to tell you, and wewill be right back and we'll jump into
all these things. Okay, thanks, y'all. Okay, we're back,
heyo. All right, so let'stalk about what's going on with by and
the documents and the classified things andthe keeping them at his home, and

(05:05):
whether or not he had the FBIrating his compound the way the way Trump
did you know the answer all ofthose things. We already know what the
answer is, right, It's definitelybeen a different situation with Biden than it
was with Trump. I'm not evengoing to equivocate and do what most people

(05:26):
are doing, which is well,if Trump, you know, and Biden
both did it, then they shouldboth be handled accordingly. The truth is
Trump had the declassification power that Bidennever had, which is also well known
that people have been talking about thisnow for a week, so if you
haven't heard that already, you needto catch up. What's interesting to me
about it, though, is that, first of all, I've never really

(05:49):
felt like what happened at Biden's homein Delaware and then at the Penn Biden
Center, which I'm going to talkabout just a little bit, because that's
really more in my wheelhouse. Iwould, by no means call myself an
expert on this, but I've donesome research on think tanks and some of
the things that they've been doing relatedto our politics. So I'm gonna talk

(06:12):
a little bit about that in justa second. But they raided Trump's home.
They straight upbraided it. They wentin their guns ablaze and basically,
you know, sort of metaphorically andand tried to turn Trump in the public
mind into you know, a guywith the nuclear codes playing with this information
at his dinner table, and youknow, evil, laugh, doctor evil,

(06:35):
all the things. Biden, onthe other hand, this feels very
much like a retrieval of documents.It has not been the same coverage.
Basically, the legacy media has beenalready been running interference and saying, well,
he worked with the archives, andhe worked with the FBI and the

(06:57):
people going he's just been much more. He's just been easier to walk with
about these things. The truth iswhat I what I shouldn't say the truth
is because this is unconfirmed. Thisis actually my opinion, So let me
back off. The truth is.That's an expression that I use a lot,
so I should really kind of backoff using that unless it actually is

(07:18):
the confirmed truth. But but whatit appears to me, excuse me,
an email of mine just came in, so let me shut that down.
So we don't hear those sounds anymore. What it looks like to me is
that Jim Comber, who is justnow who's in the House and is taking
over the Oversight Committee, has beenvery vocal even prior to the Republicans winning

(07:42):
the House about conducting investigations into theHunter Biden laptop story. That Twitter before
Elon Musk Twitter Tessad that Twitter,that Twitter before Elon Musk bought it had
unceremoniously and without any concern for whatthis would do to the election, banished

(08:05):
it so that people couldn't read aboutit. So Calmer has been saying since
basically October of last year, maybeeven earlier, that he wants to start
investigating this laptop and all of thelittle fingers that it's related to, including
tech and how Twitter handled it,including now these Biden documents, these classified

(08:30):
documents. He's recently come out andsaid, yeah, I want to know
what the Penn Biden Center was doingwith these things in the office, which,
by the way, the Penn BidenCenter. And if you haven't read
this yet either, please do catchup. It's taken a lot of money
from China the doc He wants toknow who's been visiting the Biden home in
Delaware where these documents were stored.He's on it, and I believe it's

(08:54):
Comber that has said this is notreally going to be an investigation into Hunter
Biden. He certainly was does seemto have been using his family name to
conduct business dealings with foreign nations,which that's influenced pedaling. That's not legal.
Can't do that. Not only isit unethical, it's illegal, but

(09:16):
it's also very it's a very verybig national security scandal and threat. So
he has said, Comer has saidthat this is really an investigation into Joe
Biden himself and what he's been doingand the money he's been making, and
what his relationship to some of theseinterests in foreign nations look like. So

(09:43):
that's where we're at. And Ithink the reason they've gone to the Biden
compounds and this think tank to getthese documents compound and think tank to get
these documents is because they're having toretrieve them. Hate to call it a
cover up, but they I wantto make sure or that they've got those
things in hand. Okay, ofcourse they didn't do that with Trump.

(10:05):
They were just like Trump had actuallybeen working with the Archives and had been
negotiating returning these things. That doesn'tget talked about a lot, but that
was happening these documents. However,I'm not sure the word is that Biden
has had these since he was vicepresident, so he's had them for years.

(10:26):
Okay, So this is a veryinteresting development in this story. What
I think it means and what Iwant to talk about just a little bit
more before we move on to themenu, is I think it means that
this investigation is going to be very, very ugly. I don't think we're
We're about to learn some pretty badthings about what's been happening within you for

(10:48):
the last forty years of the Bidenfamilies, you know, interest in politics
and the political landscape, and Idon't think it's going to be good.
If you've been following the laptop storystory, you already know that the laptop
has some information and some images thatare not only politically disturbing, but just

(11:09):
disturbing in general. These things arelikely to come out. I would expect
the House GOP to be as delicateas they can, but I also don't
think they're going to They're going tosave anyone's delicate sensibilities I think they want
people to know. So I'm notgoing to go into it here on this
show, but it's it's pretty uglywhat's on that laptop. Hunter was a

(11:35):
troubled guy, I'll just put itthat way, and I do want to
talk just briefly about how these thingsare being received by the broader public.
I mean, I had this exchangeon Twitter today that was so strange and
weird to me and also really funny. Honestly, this guy, I don't
name his name. You can goon my Twitter feed and look this up
if you want. He was talkingabout, you know, you know,

(11:58):
having an a our fifteen isn't yourgod given right, it's your you know,
goddamned entertainment. Pardon my language,and so I jokingly was like,
are you God or do you justthink you are? And he then wrote
back, well, I've read theNew Testament, which is why I couldn't
support Trump, which I'm like,what does Trump have to do with this?

(12:18):
Which then led of course his followers. He got a lot of likes
on that, even though you know, he had every time they're confronted with
something they name, they're like Trump, It's so funny to me, So
you know, they're his followers startedhaving not too bad. I mean,
I just ignore it. I don'tcare. I mean, I said what

(12:39):
I had to say, and Ireally don't I'm not trying to get into
a flame war, So if peoplestart lobbing bombs at me, I tend
to just let them lob their bombsand carry on about my day. I've
got work to do, so Idon't pay too much attention. But one
of the things that sort of poppedout was, you know, people this
this notion that oh, well,I read the Bible, so I can't

(13:00):
support Trump. And one gentleman inresponse to all of this, I said,
you know, it's just so funnythat that's that Trump is their answer.
He was like, but Hunter Biden'slaptop. And it's so hard for
me to make it work in myhead that these people who started this conversation

(13:20):
with I read the Bible don't seea problem with what's on Hunter Biden's laptop.
It is the most absurd. It'slike talking to people who are insane.
That's partly why I can't really havethe conversation with them, certainly not
on Twitter. It's like arguing withcrazy people. I'm like you have your

(13:45):
logic is not it's just not there. It's like nonexistent. So it is
so strange how these things like,I think they're not going to be able
to ignore the Biden stuff much longer. I think these certainly because Twitter has
now stopped censoring this information. I'meven seeing very well known partisan media members

(14:11):
acknowledging first of all, they're coveringthe story at all about the classified documents,
which is crazy. Back when,you know, prior to the election,
they just would have removed those mentionsfrom Twitter and you never would have
heard about it. People you knowunder in the trenches would have been talking
about it, but they would havebeen called racist and crazy and election deniers

(14:31):
and all the things, okay,whatever bad thing they were using to you
know, tard and feather these peoplewith back then, so a couple of
years ago. So the fact thatthey're having to discuss it at all is
fascinating and it's a change. AndI saw a very very well known partisan
media guy, you know, acknowledgingWill Biden's not really helping himself with this

(14:54):
document stuff, and I'm like,see that's right there, as a sea
change, they're having to acknowledge thatthis is bad, and I think that
at some point we're going to seethat they cannot ignore it any longer.
So I guess right now they're justdigging their heels in for as long as
they possibly can, because it's aboutto change. That's my personal opinion.

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I think some of the stuff that'sabout to come out is going to be
really, really, really bad.And I'm not sure that Biden is actually
going to be able to run again, even if they want him to write,
I just don't think it's going tobe good for him. So things
are going to get weird in thenext couple of years. You know,
if you're a policy and politics junkielike I am, you're kind of like,

(15:37):
all right, you know, gergidWines everybody. But yeah, it
is kind of funny to me thatI read the Bible people, you know,
and I couldn't vote for Trump canthen basically act like the hunter Biden
stuff is not some of the mostlascivious, kind of borderline just derange stuff

(16:02):
that you've ever seen. Anyway,I'll leave it there. Like I said,
it's it's gonna get interesting, soand it's gonna be probably kind of
ugly. I wouldn't let your kidsnecessarily watch the house hearings because I don't
think they're going to hold back,and I don't think they should. Okay,
leaving that there, let's talk alittle bit about Let's talk a little

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bit about the film The Menu.So I've seen people, certainly conservatives,
actually seem to not like this film. I thought it was absolutely brilliant.
I saw it as an allegory.I saw Rafe Finds character basically as God.
You kind of get a lot ofreligious imagery, and not in a
bad way. You know, thewhole issue of bread and the common people

(16:48):
and the prostitute. And I mean, what does this sound like to you?
Back in the day he was justa builder of common common hamburgers,
and then now he's having to makejudgments about his customers as he calls them
very I thought this was a brilliantfilm. You know, Ray Finds as

(17:10):
always is just a pleasure to watch. Honestly, he could be in the
worst movie, but he is alwaysgoing to be interesting to watch. Anya
Taylor Joy is just shaping up tobe one of the more interesting young actresses.
Nicholas Holt does a great job ofjust being the sleaziest guy. Every
woman will look at the Nicholas Holtcharacter and be like, I know that

(17:32):
guy, right, I went ona date with that guy. One's like,
you know, he's just a totalsleeze. This is a really interesting
movie. I had a friend Iwas trying to convince to see this and
she's like, it's so creepy looking. I'm like, it's creepy, but
it's not. I think it's oneof those movies you have to watch.
I'm Catholic, and I saw alot of Catholicism in it, quite frankly,

(17:56):
but then the other thing that sortof made me laugh. I mean
just in terms of okay, letme back off that for just a second.
Walk that back just a second andsay, atmospherically, like, the
atmosphere of the film is fairly it'snot dark. It's dim, and it
should be, but it's also there. It's a black it's a very dark
comedy, I'll put it that way. It's if you take it the right

(18:17):
way, you'll think it's really funny, which, as I've told you guys
at the top of the show,that's pretty much how I'm living my life
these days. It's this sort ofdark comedy going on around me just to
stay sane. Right, This filmis like that, and it's very much
on the nose about its religious iconography, while at the same time being pretty

(18:41):
subtle about it, which sounds likea it's sort of a paradox, right.
It sounds logically sort of inconsistent thatit could be in your face with
it and yet also very subtle.But that's also the point of the film,
because he's kind of talking about thedifference between the adoption of the surface

(19:03):
stuff versus the real And I thinkanybody that studies religion knows what I'm talking
about there, or is really takestheir religion seriously as opposed to being what
we call the twice of year twicea year Catholic where you go on Easter
and Christmas and that's it, oryou know, you go to church to
be seen rather than to commune andpray and you know, get straight with

(19:30):
God. So there's a lot ofthat. But if you take this film,
maybe I'm wrong, Maybe it's notsupposed to be an allegory. I
didn't say see very many other peopletalking about that. They certainly looked at
it as like an eat the richfilm, which I think it's much much
deeper than that, way deeper thanthat they eat the rich stuff. It's
definitely the surface of it. AndI think the kids are like yeah,

(19:53):
yeah, yeah. But I thinkalso the kids right now are so lost
on sarcasm that they don't understand thatthey're half the time they're the joke.
They don't They think they're a lotsmarter than they are, and they don't
realize that almost have like a lotof the time the things that they're like,
yeah, this is about you know, the wealthy and they're and how

(20:15):
they're screwing things up, that whatthey don't realize is that they are that
group that's being included in that groupbecause so many of these young kids come
from privilege, so um, andthey don't realize that they're the joke and
that, you know, all ofthis Antifa stuff that's happening. They're rebelling,
I get that, but they're rebellingin the most privileged and entitled way.

(20:37):
It's so dumb. Why don't yourebel by getting a freaking job,
stop taking your parents money, andlike provide something to society beside your rage.
Like that's a great rebellion. Butthey don't see they don't get that
right. So, and like Isaid, I'm down here in Atlanta.
We just had some ANTIFA stuff boilup. Proud of my city. They

(21:00):
took care of it pretty quickly.I mean people were like, yeah,
welcome to Atlanta. It's not Portland, right. So, Um, Anyway,
I think there's movie is brilliant.I'm gonna watch it again again.
It's very it's sort of the atmosphereof the film. It's super fancy restaurant,
you know, it's it's these Theydo this really interesting thing where they

(21:22):
show you almost like the recipe cardfor each of the dishes. It's an
it is a it's a title cardfor the recipe. The funniest one is,
you know, Nicholas Holt's character,I can't remember the name, but
it's like, I don't know,I'll give him a name here, like
Tyler or whatever. Tyler's bullshit.It's this terrible dish. Tyler, by
the way, ends up committing suicideby hanging himself again, do you recognize

(21:45):
that character? And some other storythere's just, uh, there's a lot
here that I think is super deepand I've really enjoyed it. But one
final thought on the menu as Ithought about it, and I was thinking
about it today because Dagas just happened, right and Davos, Like again,
it's becoming comical. It's so overthe top. It's like they can't you

(22:06):
can't even parody them right like this, Just go on Twitter and look for
the musical act that played at Davos. It is the most hilarious thing I've
ever seen. Like I actually spitmy coffee out the first time I saw
that. It was so funny tome. So this is they're just becoming
again a joke of themselves. Nowwhat kind of damage can they do?

(22:30):
I'm not sure. I hope thatwe all laugh at it soon enough that
we stopped them in their tracks fromdoing the kind of damage that they're trying
to do. This sort of youknow, unelected bureaucratic will make all the
decisions government. Also we don't youknow, atheism and God doesn't exist and
you know God is dead all thatcrap, and then this awful music.

(22:52):
So anyway, but as I watchedthe menu, and I'll give you,
I'll challenge you when you watch thissmoothie the menu, please do watch it.
It could be called Davos and itwouldn't have to change a thing.
It's that kind of film. Souh yeah, right up to and including,

(23:12):
and I'll leave you with this,hopefully, hopefully to entice you right
up to and including toward the end, when the people there at the fancy
restaurant are thanking Ray Finds for aboutfor basically sacrificing them in a fire,
they're thanking him for it. They'rethey're they're happy to go. So yeah,

(23:37):
definitely see the menu. I thinkit's a really really really fine film.
Excellent, you know, the dialogue'sgood, the writing's great, Like
I said, Annie Taylor, Joy'sjust fascinating young actress. And Ray Finds.
I mean, he's been great forever. He'll continue to be great probably
as long as we have him.So check out the menu. Okay,

(23:57):
final, final, final story.Let me see how much time I have
in my Yeah, I've got aboutfive minutes, but I won't take that
long, I hope, I don'tthink so. Back some time ago,
I wrote a piece about bail fundsand just sort of how they were letting
people out of jail who were thengoing on to murder people. Right I

(24:18):
did it for the day job.I also wrote it for one of my
freelance pieces, and that was happeninga lot. And what we knew was
that people like Kamala Harris or VicePresident, and some pretty well known celebrities,
we're backing these things on Twitter andcalling for people to give money to
them and all of this stuff.So back in December, right just after

(24:41):
Christmas, so a month ago,this organization, the Las Vegas chapter of
the Bail Project, which is oneof the bigger ones, had to shudder
because and this Las Vegas chapter wasbacked by Danny Glover, John Legend,

(25:03):
Virgin Atlantics, Richard Branson like somebig names. They had to shutter their
office because they paid three thousand dollarsto get this guy out, Gaston Anderson,
rash Rashaan Gaston Anderson, who thenwent on to go to a Las
Vegas restaurant and shot a guy eleventimes and nearly killed him. But the

(25:23):
man did not die, and heis now suing the Bail Project. But
here's the part I want you guysto know. First of all, these
sort of you know, crowdfunded bailProject things are not good, okay,
primarily because they are using some verygood intentions by people who wanted some bail

(25:45):
reform for people that had not committeddangerous crimes. And they are doing what
the left always does, which isthey stretch these good intentions out and try
to apply them to other things andchaos. They do it all the time.
They do it all the time.It's so frustrating. The thing that

(26:07):
people have, you know, can'tfigure out myself, include is if they
do this stuff intentionally because the chaosis what they want, or if they're
just not so bright and they doit. It probably doesn't in the long
term matter. But what the answerto that question is. But because the
reality is the same, you know, they're letting people out of jail who

(26:29):
don't need to be back on thestreet. And this has been happening a
lot. But what's interesting about thisparticular story, and I'm going to read
this. I'm going to read thisbecause these couple of paragraphs to you.
This is from Deadline, and thisjust struck me. So the Bail Project
closed it's Vegas branch earlier this month, but it had nothing to do with

(26:51):
the litigation. This guy's suing them. A spokesperson for the organization set in
a statement to Deadline. As anadvocacy organization that is also a service provider,
the Bail Project seeks to maximize thenumber of people we can help annually
with our limited resources. We monitorthe volume of people served by our local
sites and periodically reassess the allocation ofstaff and bail capital across the country Accordingly.

(27:14):
As part of this ongoing recalibration,we closed our site in Vegas earlier
this month. Okay, I'm justgoing to say it. That's bullshit.
It's ridiculous. They don't shut thingsdown because they do audits. That's not
how government, nor you know,organizations that function, you know, based

(27:34):
like governments as bureaucracies function. Youknow, there's that old saying once a
government program is implemented, it's nearlyimpossible to get rid of it, and
that's true, and these are sortof sort of mini bureaucracies, right,
So yeah, this is nuts,This is not This is not why they

(27:56):
shuddered it. They shuddered it becausethe publicity was really bad. The very
big, very famous backers didn't wantto be associated with it anymore. And
yeah they had to because there's alawsuit. So the other thing about this
that so they're just straight up Ijust think they're straight up lying right there.
The other thing about this that Ithink is interesting is that have you

(28:18):
heard anything about this anywhere? Ifyou've seen it anywhere? Has it been
covered anywhere? I never even sawit like on Twitter. So it's so
interesting to me how sort of propagandaworks. It not only amplifies certain things,
it also shutters other things, whichwe know we've seen very recently with

(28:38):
the Twitter files. So anyway,yep, I just wanted you guys to
be aware of that the fact thatthis is being shuttered is a good thing.
I hate that a man had toget shot eleven times for that to
be the case, but you know, this is often what happens with really
bad ideas, Something really terrible andtragic happens for they you know, address

(29:03):
the problem. On that note,you guys, I've got a lot to
do this week, so I'm gonnaclose it out there as always, be
kind, be good to each other, be kind to yourselves, UM,
be tough, be strong. It'sa crazy world out there. Um and
we'll we'll be in touch and we'lltalk against you the Psycho. This has

(29:42):
been a presentation of the FCB podcastnetwork where real talk lifts. Visit us
online at FCB podcasts dot com.