Ep. 151 - The 'Biden Gang, Nefarious, and Writers Strike' Edition

The 'Biden Gang, Nefarious, and Writers Strike' Edition

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
This is the FCB Podcast Network.Hey y'all, welcome back to another episode

(00:27):
of the Marble Halls and Silver Screens. I feel like it's been forever since
I've recorded a podcast, so I'mglad to be back doing that. UM,
I guess I do. I kindof probably just need to go to
a once a month to format,but UM, I'll figure that one out
as we go. H my nameis Sarah Lee. I'm glad to be
back with you. UM. Ihave a couple of things I wanted to
just chat about on this beautiful Friday, UM down here in a very very

(00:52):
warm Georgia. UM. I knowthe rest of the country is struggling through
some heat challenges as well, SoI won't go so I won't wine too
hard about it, but I didhave a few things I wanted to talk
about. There's a lot going onright now. I'm kind of astounded by
what we're seeing at the highest levelsof our federal government, and mostly astounded

(01:18):
by the lack of interest from themainstream press. So I want to talk
about that. There were a coupleof IRS whistleblowers that testified in front of
the House Oversight Committee the other dayThursday, I want to say, and
I want to just discuss some ofwhat they talked about and some of the
broader implications for some other breaking newsrelated to the Biden family, So we'll

(01:44):
go through some of that. Ifinally, finally, I saw the movie
Nefarious some time ago, and Ihad been meaning to record a podcast to
talk about it a little bit,because you know, it was all over.
It's a very prominent conservative who wrotea novel. His name is Steve
Dace. He works for The Blaze. He wrote a novel that was turned

(02:05):
into this film, and they gota pretty high profile guy as far as
these things go, Sean Patrick Flanneryto play one of the key roles in
the film. So I did wantto watch it. I did watch it,
and I wanted to just kind oftalk about it. It's interesting timing,
of course, because it is rightnow July twenty first, and it
is the release date of both Barbieand the Barbie Movie and Oppenheimer, which

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you know, if you pay attentionto social media, you'll know that people
are calling that Barbenheimer because they werereleased on the same day, and crazy
people are actually going to go seethose movies in one day, even though
one of them, Oppenheimer, issomething like three plus hours long. So
it's interesting timing to talk about nefariouswhen these other two movies have just opened

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today, and there's a third thateveryone's talking about called Sound of Freedom.
So let me just say that myintention is to review all of those in
coming weeks. I have not seenany of them yet. Sound of Freedom,
I think is next on my list. That's another one that conservatives are
very excited about. I don't tendto buy into the hype. I just

(03:13):
make my own decisions. I also, as regards Barbie, do not buy
into the hype that it's, youknow, this horrible, woke, terrible
movie that's gonna make me just gooh. I want to see it.
I want to see if it's that. I want to find out. I
actually have a suspicion I'm going tolike it. So so I will review
all three of those in coming weeks, Sound of Freedom, Barbie, and

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Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer's just you know,a fascinating subject. You know, if
you know anything about Robert Oppenheimer,he's a complex and interesting man himself.
And hang on, I'm just gonnaturn my phone off here. That was
my phone you heard beeping in inthe background. I'm finding that that happens

(03:55):
to me so much that I don'teven all the need to like go back
and like edit that out. I'mjust like whatever, everybody knows what that
was. So Abenheimer is just afascinating man himself, brilliant, Oh it
ties to communism, a brilliant physicistwho then had some serious sort of regrets

(04:19):
about being the father of the atomicbomb for obvious reasons. So so I
want to see that one as well. And Chris Nolan, of course,
you know, fantastic director who's whogives us just eye candy, right.
I mean, I don't want todownplay his work. He's he's brilliant,
but his films are just visually sortof stunning. So I will get to

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those movies, I promise you.Sound of Freedom, of course, is
the child sex trafficking film based onthe true story of Tim Ballard, who
is again another remarkable man who butprobably in a different way than ab who
got involved in, you know,fighting the criminality of child sex trafficking with

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the Department of I think Homeland Security, and was so horrified by what he
saw that he kind of made ithis mission in life. So this is
a story based on this is amovie based on his story. So I
will get to all of those.I am a little bit behind in my
movie watching, so I apologize forthat, but we'll get to them.
Today's, however, we're going totalk a little bit about nefarious So that's

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the middle part of the show.The final part of the show is I
just want to talk briefly about thewriter's strike. You know, there are
a lot of very passionate opinions aboutthis, and mine is less passionate,
much more rational. But I haveto say, you know, I guess

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I get where the writers are comingfrom, but boy, I think are
they going about it the wrong way. So all of those things are on
the slate. We're going to checkin with some sponsors here very quickly,
and when we come back, wewill jump into all those things. All
right, y'all sit tight, allright, and we're back. Okay.

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So there's something else I wanted tosay before we jump into all of this.
I've been listening to Megan Kelly's podcast, very very good. She's doing
a wonderful job. I mean,you know, if you were a regular
listener of her show, when shewas on, was at NBC. I
want to say she was at Fox, and then I want to say she

(06:38):
went to NBC. I think itwas NBC, could have been CBS,
I can't remember. You know thatshe's quite she's very smart, she's very
quick on her feet. She's aninteresting and informative journalist basically, but her
podcast allows her a lot more freedom. She's not confined to, you know,
the structures behind the structure are withthe strictures of of cable news,

(07:02):
and so she gets these really interestingguests. And she had someone on,
a woman who recently who was talkingabout the trans issue and that sort of
the growth of the trans movement andhow most of what she was talking about
she was an Irish woman and she'swritten a book which the name escapes me,
but she was talking about how,you know, these are men coming

(07:25):
into women's spaces and I'm not goingto go too far into it. I
haven't studied it. I definitely agreewith that, and I agree that that
people like Dylan mulvaney, actually they'rethey're incredibly offensive caricature of womanhood. It
actually and it angers me. Butmore to the point, you know what

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the trans the rapid rise of thetrans movement, and the sort of militant
trans movement has done is it hastaken drag queens from being a sort of
fun, adult comedy entertainment thing whichwe all enjoyed. I mean I definitely
did and turned it into something garishand scary and you know, coming after

(08:09):
your kids. And so it's sortof that kind of pisces me off,
right, Like, there is nothingwrong with a little irreverence. There is
nothing wrong with pushing the boundaries alittle bit. Those are good things.
That's how things innovate and change andmake people think, right. That's artists

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and creatives have been doing things likethat for a long time. And it
moves the needle. It moves theneedle. Some would argue poorly, but
it moves the needle. It's partof the spark of life. But when
you start turning those kinds of sortof adult entertainment options into indoctrination machines,

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then it becomes scary, and itdefinitely moves the needle very negatively in the
wrong direction. So I just wantedto say that, you know, I
miss the fun of the drag show. I miss it now it's become I
get sick of hearing. You knowthat there was a drag performer who was

(09:18):
simulating masturbation in front of children recentlyin the UK, and they interviewed this
person and he was just just sooffended that anyone would think that he was
doing something wrong. And I gottatell you, I'm just so sick of
hearing the whining of course you weremasturbating in front of children, or simulating

(09:41):
masturbation in front of children, andof course that's creepy, and I'm just
it's made me dislike the fun ofdrag that used to be part of the
whole thing, right, And Ireally hope that we get back to that
because drag shows were fun. Imean, anybody that saw The Bird Cage,
Lakaja Fali. Brilliant films like VictorVictoria, What was the one with

(10:07):
the Nia Vardelos, Oh gosh,I can't remember the name of it,
but that's a great one. Uh, you know, Priscilla, Queen of
the Desert, Too Long fool Likethese are fantastic films and they they're very
human and they humanize the people wholive these lifestyles. What's happening now is

(10:30):
actually dehumanizing so I just wanted tostart with that. I haven't talked to
you guys in a while. That'sbeen on my mind, so I wanted
to say all that, let's moveinto the Biden crime family. I'm just
gonna call it out for what itis. That's what it is. I'm
certainly not the only one saying that. There were some I R. S.
Whistleblowers that essentially went in front ofThey had been documenting. They were

(10:54):
charged with looking in, they werecharged within the investor, they were charged
in the investigation of to be partof the investigation into Hunter Biden. What
they discovered, and the reason thatthey blew the whistle was because they were
stopped at every turn from they wouldsee evidence of Hunters tax crimes, essentially

(11:15):
felonies. You know, they've downplayedall of this and they're going to charge
Hunter with some very minor tax offense. These guys are like, no,
no, he was engaged in hardcorefelony tax crimes. They would notice that
it was linked to Dad, andthey were discouraged by the agency from reporting

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any of that, and they justthey felt betrayed by the agency that they
had given their work too. Soone of the guys was employed for thirteen
years, so you know when hedescribed that in his testimony that he basically
he was bothered by the fact thatthe agency was not loyal to him when
he had been loyal to them,so that they were loyal to the DJ.

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Essentially, what they alleged just thatHunter was not reporting or basically taking
a tax break, I should say, for things like the tuition for his
daughter to go to Columbia, Ithink, let me make sure that that's
the right school. Improperly claimed businessdeductions such as college tuition for his children,

(12:26):
bills for stays at a posh Hollywoodhotel, payments to escorts, and
no show employees. In twenty twentyone, Ziegler, who's one of the
whistleblowers, says he drafted a memorandumrecommending prosecutors charge Hunter Briden with multiple felonies
and misdemeanors. So they blew thewhistle on this, you know, ridiculous

(12:46):
slap on the risk charge that they'regetting ready to charge Hunter with because they
say that, no, there wasmuch more going on. They also some
pretty disturbing relationships, uh that thatJoe may have been involved in some of
these things. Based on the bankrecords and things like that. So that's

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happening. Concurrent to that. Atthe same time, we have Senator Chuck
Grassley has finally released documents that wouldthat that are from an FBI informant showing
that the Biden's Hunter and Joe bothhad coerced about ten million dollars in bribes

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from a Barisma executive. So that'shappening at the same time. So what
we're looking at here, I mean, it's very very bad. What that
basically means is that, you know, Joe, using his position as vice
president at the time, I waslike, yeah, you have to keep
my kid Hunter on the board ofBarisma. This executive apparently said Hunter was

(14:01):
very stupid, but he had tokeep him on. Both of both Joe
and Hunter insisted upon it, andthey wanted to make sure everything went okay
for them. So if you wonderwhy Trump was ultimately impeached, it's because
he called the attorney there in Ukraineto find who had been fired by Joe

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Biden. Joe Biden, you know, bragged about doing that. He called
him to find out what this wasall about, and was immediately impeached.
Remember the whole perfect phone call.That's what that was. So that's why.
Also, all you're hearing from theDemocrats in these irs whistleblower hearings and

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probably hearings that are to calm relatedto this is Trump Trump Trump, Trump,
Trump Trump Trump Trump but Trump,but Trump, but Trump. They
will not deal with this corruption.They're they're framing everything in terms of but
Trump. So it is. Itis getting really really weird out there.
It's not looking good for the Bidens. We're going to see how this all

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plays out. You know, Grasslyreleasing these documents as ballsy as hell.
These whistleblowers are ballsy as hell.So this the tide seems to be shifting
a little bit. Um. Youknow, I feel weird talking about this
stuff because people do everything they canto protect themselves and this is some heavy

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duty stuff. So fortunately I'm notI'm just a little person and I'm not
the only one talking about it,so I didn't break the story. So
you guys have heard me talk aboutthis before. So so yeah, things
are heavy out there. And whatI keep going back to is where are
all the Democrat, big name Democratswho were talking about the corruption of the

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Trump family and insisting that the normswere going to come back with Biden,
and what are they saying or thinkingnow? Did they have anything to say?
Would can you apologize to the restof us for your absolute bone headed
support of this kind of stuff?Or did you know about it and you
just didn't care? So that's whatI'm left with. Well, you know,

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they keep watching. It's about toget It's about to get pretty hairy
as as the presidential election heats up. And I'm not going to get into
de Santis and Trump. I thinkthey're both running their campaigns. As we
get closer to those campaigns to theelection, maybe I'll have some things to
say. Right now, I understandthe appeal of both men to conservatives.

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I have my own personal preference,which I won't go into. But yeah,
it's um, it's gonna be interesting. Okay, let's talk about Nefarius.
So all conservatives, all these conservativeswere like, Nefarius is so good.
Nefarius is so good. You gotto see it. I expected not
to like it. Usually when thatkind of buzz it gets started, people

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are over hyping it, they're oversellingit. But strangely I did like it.
I thought it was well done.I'm also a Catholic, so the
story in the movie is very mucham a spiritual story. There's that great
scripture quote about, you know,the this present darkness, we fight against

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the principalities. Um, I can'tquote it off the top of my head,
but it's basically that you're fighting.When you're fighting evil, you're on
a different You're in a different realm. There's another realm where good and evil
battles, and we are just sortof our battles on the earthly realm are

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sort of mirrors or or facsimiles ofthat larger good versus evil battle. And
that's kind of what this film mademe think of, which I think is
a good thing because that's always agood reminder if you are a person of
faith, it's a very good reminderthat that's that's true. I mean,

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if you are not a person offaith, you might not think that's true,
but if you are, you knowit is. So it was a
good reminder in that regard. SeanPatrick Flannery is a good actor. You
know, there were a lot ofpeople saying he kind of overdid it a
little bit, he had the facialtick and all that. Maybe that's true.
I don't know. I don't knowif I was influenced by seeing some

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of those comments before the film,but I do know that he he was
heartbreaking for the few times where hewould he's basically portraying a man who is
possessed by a demon, and whenhe would revert, when the demon would
let him see the man who,you know, clinical psychologists would say,

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oh, this person just has youknow, multiple personalities, because he would
seamlessly sort of move from one tothe other. But when he would show
the man who was possessed the actualpersonality, it was heartwrenching. And I
think anybody a person of faith whohas battled with some darkness in their life,

(19:18):
and its darkness is darkness. Itcan be born of something very small
or something very great. Um,it's the same battle. Anybody that knows
that battle, who's lived it andfelt those tugs on you to like give
into the despair. It's not evenabout doing bad things. It's about giving

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into the despair to the the distancefrom God to to saying that's not real,
that has nothing to do with mylife. That that's and that is
giving into despair. There is nofaith, there is no hope, There
is no light, and that's that'swhat that darkness pulls you to do.

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Anyone who's battled that at all andrecognizes that they have and found themselves making
the choice to come back to thelight will recognize that man and it is
heartwrenching. So Nefarius did a verygood job of that that. It did
a very nice job of reminding peopleof faith, particularly Christians, that that

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is a battle that if you,if you don't stop yourself from going into
the darkness, you can end upin a very very bad place and you
are perpetuating evil on the earth.That was the other message of the film
is that you're you're not supposed toperpetuate it. You're supposed to turn from
it and not let it get youso that you don't carry it to anyone

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else, right, you don't payit forward, which is the perverse side,
flip side of that coin. SoI actually enjoyed Nefarius. I think
people of faith should probably see it. I've seen better of films, for
sure, I've seen better performances,but I think it was worthwhile. I
think that if you are a personof faith, it was one of those

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movies. There are books like thattoo, where it's not the greatest novel
you've ever read. Frank Peretti writesa lot of these where it's not the
greatest story in the world, butit's there. They're allegories of those those
truths about good and evil, andthey're good reminders and you need those reminders.
We should we should be filling ourbrains with those reminders because so much

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of what we're getting today is sonegative and increasing the division, that it's
good to be reminded that you canthere is a light, and the light
shines in the darkness, and thedarkness cannot overcome it. All right,
So moving on from that, veryvery briefly, I just want to talk
about this writer's strike. Okay,yeah, I get it. AI is

(21:56):
making everybody crazy. I'm looking atit for work. Um I'm worried about
it from the bias perspective. Ifit can be manipulated, I think most
people agree that it can be.There's a lot of discussion by a lot
of the left leaning groups that theywant to harness it early, get in
front of it, build the systemsthat uh that create a that that generate

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AI. UM and that does concernme. UM. So I'm looking at
it in a work capacity. Uh, you know. And so it's happening
in Hollywood, it's happening in thenews industry. There were reports that Google
was trying to pitch some kind ofyou know ai UM system to write news

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stories for like some of the bigname news outlets. So fine, Um.
I don't think the writer's strike isjust about AI though. I think
and and and it's not. It'salso not just about the fact that the
studios pay actors crazy fees and thewriters don't get paid them as much.
UM. That's been going on fora long time. That's the system there,

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that's the that's the market there.Is it weird and lopsided, yes,
but you know, you got tochange the market. Like these guys
have all just accepted that this isthe way it is. And so nobody
tries to topend that market by switchingthings up. And I think that they
could. You had people like andnobody wants to talk about Mel Gibson in

(23:23):
this way, but you know,because everybody's mad at him or whatever because
he's not, you know, boughtinto the party line out there in Hollywood.
But you know, Sylvester Stallone dida little bit of it with Rocky
as well. I mean, theseare guys who write and direct and produce
their own stuff. You can dothat, you have to get the funding.

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Yes, you also have to benaturally talented. And some of what
I see happening with the writers strikeis that some of these people are not
actually that talented. They're just wantingto be paid for their services more than
they're getting paid. But beyond allof that, and that's natural for any
market, like we all have hadto deal with fluctuations in our markets,

(24:07):
right, I certainly have. Inwhat I do I mean there, Let
me sput this way. There weresome hard times, especially living in DC,
an extraordinarily expensive city, for fifteenyears. Yes, I definitely went.
There were times when I looked atmy bank account and I was happy
that I could go buy you aloaf of bread and some like peanut butter.

(24:32):
I'll just say that. You know, I borrowed gas money more than
once, So yes, I getit. But there's something else going on
with the writer's strike, and ithas to do with collectivism. And they
can look just north to the beercompany anchor Steam, which had been around
since the late eighteen hundreds. Whodecided to partner with Antifa of all people,

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pretty sure they were vowed Antifa todo some collective bargaining and some union
behavior and some you know, striking. They have just gone out of business
after you know, over a hundredyears unions light collectivism. Are they openly
communists, No, but they flirtwith it. And it's never If you're

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relying on socialist and communist adjacent systemsto help you with a market problem,
you are always going to lose.And that's all I really want to say
about it, Like I can't putit anymore succinctly. I also think that

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the American public is pretty disappointed inthe work product out of Hollywood writers.
There's a lot of really good stuffon streaming, and that's part of what's
happened too. I mean, that'sa big part of it is that,
you know, a lot of thestreaming stuff has become sort of where the
market shifted, and so these peoplearen't adapting, I think as well,

(26:10):
to that shift. So maybe theyyou know, you got to start figuring
out how to adapt. It's everygonna be everybody going to be successful at
that. Probably not, but youknow what if it were me I would
figure out how to try to bethere is good, you know, writing
being having an original idea is somethingthat no one can take from you if

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you if you share it with theright people. So they're not being screwed
over, they're being manipulated and andsort of bottlenecked into one portion of their
industry. There's a whole, bigopen world for them that they can go
to. So what they're trying todo instead of doing you know, shifting

(26:57):
and going to other areas, isthat might pay them better. They're trying
to just stop production. They're havingwhat you know essentially is a temper tantrum,
and they're trying to work with theunions to do that. And I
just don't think it's going to workout for them, primarily because people aren't
really buying their product like they usedto, so they have problems and I

(27:22):
don't know how it's going to playout. But I don't have a ton
of sympathy for them. Maybe thatmakes me a horrible person. I don't
know. Those are just the realitiesthat I see. And that's it from
my share today. Sorry to beso abrupt. I just realize what time
it is. I will be backsome time, hopefully later, you know,

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a couple of weeks from now,with a review of one of these
several films that nobody will be talkingabout by the time I get around to
reviewing it, which seems to bethe way. But yeah, I'll be
back and we'll talk about some morethings, and maybe the Biden stuff will
have shifted a bit when you cantalk a little bit more about that.
Um But as always, take careof yourselves, take care of each other,

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be strong, because because watch loosefrom the psychiatric ord's face is up
on the bulletin board with the reward, he'll stab you with this. This
has been a presentation of the FCPpodcast Network, where Real Talk lifts.

(28:32):
Visit us online at FCP podcasts dotcom.