Matt (00:01.294)
Hello and welcome to the Latter Day Lens with Sean and Matt and today our special guest Mark is with us again. Mark, it's so good to have you with us.

Marc (00:07.662)
I... thanks. Gosh.

Shawn (00:12.447)
haha

Matt (00:13.412)
We have a lot from the listener mail bag because last week I did not really read the listener mail bag all that much. In fact, not at all. So we've got some stuff. Okay. So first one, a listener writes, Matt, when was the last time you applied for a job that wasn't a church school, like an actual business? Lots of businesses feel the push to at the very least pay very expensive lip service to DEI, sustainability and other ethical issues, not just

federal government employees. Go look at a few websites for major tech companies, for example. They all try to advertise their moral superiority. Nowadays, many businesses have to convince customers they're ethically sound, whether or not they actually are is a different story.

Marc (00:47.278)
So,

Marc (00:52.789)
.

Shawn (00:57.971)
Yeah, Matt. Yeah, Matt. When you go get a real job?

Matt (01:01.626)
To answer that question, the last time I applied for a job that was not a church job or yeah, a church school would be 2004, 20 years ago. Well, no, no, actually that's not true. I've applied for university jobs that were not church schools and they made me write a DEI statement.

Shawn (01:11.669)
Yeah, like recently. Oh, I guess it wasn't that recent. What was that?

Shawn (01:25.151)
Did they really?

Matt (01:26.938)
Oh yeah, like almost every university makes you write a DEI statement. How you promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the classroom, in the workplace, stuff like that.

Shawn (01:36.136)
Marc (01:36.422)
I mean,

Matt (01:40.826)
I think the listener's point is that the private sector also has to worry about equality, not just the public sector. I think, but, I don't know. I don't know exactly what the point is, but that's the answer to the question.

Shawn (01:56.841)
Yeah, the idea is that it's lip service versus like they feel social pressure to do it as opposed to like, I think it just depends on the company, right? Some companies really care about it and some don't.

Matt (02:02.019)
Maybe.

Matt (02:06.97)
But I think my point about that, I think when we were talking about that, I was saying that like federal government employees have an obligation. Like the purpose of their job is to provide services to everybody. And that's not necessarily the purpose of every business, even if they pay lip service to equality. For example, there are many, many beer companies that don't sell their product to anyone under the age of 21 years old. So they're not trying to.

Marc (02:08.795)
.

Matt (02:36.292)
about trying to provide equal access to alcohol to everybody, just as an example. All right, so then another person writes to you, Sean. Sean, I understand where you're coming from about is my kid legally entitled to this potential government money for college? I don't know, but your kid hasn't started college yet, whereas students already in college have entered into an agreement with the government for loans and all these holds, jeopardizing people's ability to stay in college.

Marc (02:39.778)
.

Matt (03:03.854)
like Melanie's friend who's worried about rent represents the government not holding up their end of the contract. That is not right. It doesn't matter whether the government legally has to provide it in the first place. Once they agreed to it, they should.

Shawn (03:16.755)
Well, so my kid did start college and he did it without a scholarship or any kind of money. I mean, to me, it's, I'm not concerned about him just because I applied. That doesn't mean I expect it. And, you know, we entered that relationship with our, with that institutions freely. We knew totally that this is how much it costs and we agree to that cost and here's what we get in exchange. We went to apply for a bunch of stuff and the message we got back was,

Hey, we probably would have given you this much some money based on your application, but we can't do it now because the government is being messed with. So I don't feel legally, I don't feel legally obligated to it. Not at all.

Matt (03:56.25)
Mmm.

Matt (04:00.578)
No, I think they're just saying the government is not fulfilling their end of an obligation that they have.

Shawn (04:04.661)
But that's a different story, right? Yeah, if I was accepted into a college and the government promised me an amount of money, that's a different story. I agree that they should probably make good on that if they committed it to you. Otherwise, that's lying, right? You can't break contracts.

Matt (04:21.828)
That's true. The government should not do that. That's what I would consider unethical behavior. Okay. The last one, a listener writes AOC. Do you know who AOC is? Sean, if I say AOC, okay. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez was just on John Stewart's podcast, calling out fellow Democrats for insider trading. Are there examples of Republicans calling out other Republicans?

Shawn (04:26.516)
You

Shawn (04:34.741)
Of

Shawn (04:39.837)
Yeah, yeah.

Marc (04:46.888)
.

Matt (04:50.148)
There's a great nonpartisan organization called represent.us that talks about this a lot. Maybe they need a shout out. Well, there was a shout out for them.

Shawn (04:56.639)
So there are more Republicans on that committee that's fighting for, against insider trading than there are Democrats. She's the token Democrat that's on it. that dude, and then you've got years and years and years of that. Who's your favorite guy, Matt? Josh Hawley, Josh Hawley. For years and years and years, the Republican Josh Hawley has been pushing for it too, to no success, with no success. There's too much of a, huh.

Matt (05:23.866)
But do you hear Josh Hawley calling out Donald Trump right now for the things he's doing?

Shawn (05:29.031)
No, I don't, not at all, but that's a different subject. This is completely different subject. We're talking about the insider trading. No, I know that we're gonna have to tackle the current event in that matter, but.

Matt (05:37.284)
Well, no, no, but you, but wouldn't you argue that just this last week that Donald Trump was engaged in insider trading or at least allowed people to be engaged in that?

Shawn (05:45.385)
I mean, have they published any evidence? They're just speculating that people earned money, a lot of money off of that.

Matt (05:49.86)
Well, no, I Donald Trump, right, when he says that he's going to maybe not do the tariffs after all, and then the market goes up, and then he says, it's just a rumor, and then it goes back down again. And then the next day he's like, wait, I am going to remove those tariffs and then the market goes up, right? You could consider that insider trading people in the room who knew that that was going to happen or people who started that rumor.

Shawn (06:08.733)
I'm look if he look if it's the if that's what's happening. I'm super glad people like you matter finally paying attention to you because you didn't seem to care before where I was saying dude you need to care. Okay. All right. Well that's consistent then.

Marc (06:17.19)
You

Matt (06:19.554)
I still don't care. I still don't care. What are you going to say, Mark?

Marc (06:20.357)
Well, defense of things, nobody in the room knew what Trump was doing because you have several people in the cabinet saying, no, no, this is for real. Others saying, no, no, it's just for show. So I don't think that is a fair accusation even then.

Matt (06:41.05)
that anybody knew. But did Trump know what he was gonna do? Trump could have shorted the market, right?

Marc (06:45.955)
His unpredictability, says Michael Knowles, is his political strength. Because, you know, you're dealing with Obama and you're Putin, he's probably not going to do anything. You're dealing with Trump, there's that 5 % chance he may actually blow you up. So it's like, ee, all right.

Matt (07:02.424)
You like that as a foreign policy strategy. The unpredictable. You know, I used to parent that way. My, told my wife, I'm like, that's really good parenting technique. After, after a few years, I think she persuaded me that's not a good way to parent that children should have clear expectations. Was that.

Marc (07:04.824)
I do.

Shawn (07:18.047)
Ha ha ha.

Marc (07:18.252)
it be a.

Shawn (07:21.247)
So is Donald Trump applying the Matt Miles parenting technique or was Matt Miles applying the Donald Trump technique?

Matt (07:32.153)
What were you saying, Mark?

Marc (07:33.335)
I was just saying, it may not be a good parental technique, but a presidential technique.

Shawn (07:39.669)
Mark.

Matt (07:40.122)
I don't know. I'm not the type of person to question my past behavior. So I think it's a fine parenting technique.

Shawn (07:46.677)
Mark, I'm interested to see if you ever are going to be against anything that Trump does, which is fine if there's no, but I'm just interested.

Marc (07:56.723)
I don't like that he hasn't been baptized yet.

Matt (08:00.314)
He has been baptized. He's an Episcopalian.

Marc (08:04.513)
Yeah, but you might as baptize a bag of potatoes if you don't have priesthood authority, so...

Shawn (08:09.631)
Nice.

Matt (08:10.242)
All right. So here's our first topic. So lots of people are worried about corruption, insider trading. You know, Sean, in the past, you said we're going to have to talk about this. This is our chance to talk about it. So people are mad about corruption, insider trading, oligarchy. I went to the listener and told us we should do a shout out to represent.us. So I went to their website and they're mad about oligarchy. So they're super upset about that.

Shawn (08:20.789)
Okay.

Matt (08:36.174)
But a lot of the people who are worried about that support politicians who get rich while they are in office. Sean talks about all of these things like they're the exact same thing. My question is, are they all equally bad or are they all even bad at all?

Shawn (08:41.237)
They sure do. Yeah.

Marc (08:41.496)
Bernie said

Shawn (08:54.293)
I'm going to echo what I just said before in the last topic.

I'm glad that if Donald Trump is doing it or if the Republicans are doing it, finally people are getting upset because that exposes all of them, all the Republicans and all the Democrats who for years and years and years have been able to create an entire market. You guys know what the follow the congressional stock trading market is? Have you heard of it?

Matt (09:24.6)
Yeah, you told me this on the podcast a while back that you can just do what members of Congress do in their trading.

Shawn (09:30.815)
Yeah. Yeah. Like one app. What's the stock of the trader? It's just one app that has like $500 million invested in it. All they do is they follow. They follow the, yeah, the stocks that are traded in Congress. Yeah. Like it's, it's to me, why create the incentive of corruption? Why even create it? Why even have it there? Like they're going to, like politicians have incentive enough. They're going to make money. They're going to be wealthy because of the fame and the power that they get.

Matt (09:44.802)
the members of Congress.

Marc (09:59.681)
Okay.

Shawn (10:00.437)
And they should, they deserve it, right? If they made their way to the top and the people voted them in, they can write books, they can go speak, they can do all kinds of business deals that aren't sketchy, crossing the line, insider trading or corruption. So do that, let's get the insider trading stuff out. It's terrible, I hate it.

Matt (10:19.844)
What do you say, Mark?

Marc (10:20.984)
I agree with getting it out, but I also think, let me take it a step further, that the idea of, you've made it now, you're there, you should be getting rich. I disagree. think a politician should, when they're done and they've left their office,

Just be another Joe on the street. Shouldn't even think about him again.

Shawn (10:36.949)
Be the Moroni or King, be Moroni or King Benjamin.

Marc (10:42.356)
Publius

Matt (10:48.654)
Well, well, what I'm going to say is, contrary to what you're both saying. And I'm going to say, go ahead. What? Who is it, Mark? I thought you were going to say Caligula. I was getting excited for a sec.

Marc (10:55.741)
Sorry, Cincinnati's.

Matt (11:02.766)
There is nothing more American than oligarchy, which is the rule of government by a few elite rich people, insider trading or corruption. This is the foundation of the United States of America. Who was the richest person to ever be president of the United States? George Washington. Who was the richest man in Boston? Paul Revere. Who was the world famous scientist that made everybody in Europe envious of the United States?

Shawn (11:09.941)
You

Matt (11:32.046)
Benjamin Franklin. Our system of government was created by individuals who wanted to use government to enrich themselves and to, and to allow them to do things that they weren't able to do. And they created a system of government, which was ruled by the few. You make it seem like you're giving power to the masses, but in reality, you're keeping the power in a small group of people and you create all these institutions and all these layers. Also that the people can feel like they have a voice.

But really it's the government of the few. Oligarchy is America.

Marc (12:04.645)
And so let's vote for the Democratic Party because we don't want to change that at all.

Matt (12:09.55)
Well, as Sean points out, it's Democrats and Republicans, right? Well, what I'm saying is like, you're a voter out there and you say, I'm gonna make my decision based on trying to get rid of corruption, insider trading, and oligarchy in the United States, you're wasting your time because that's the system of government we have.

Marc (12:13.244)
Most of them.

Shawn (12:26.549)
Okay, so Matt, so I've heard two messages from you, our beloved political scientist. One, now I'm hearing that our government just is, it is what it is, it's an oligarchy. I've heard many times in the past you talk about, they're public servants. They're altruistic, they're serving. So which is it? Are they self-interested oligarchs or are they public servants?

Matt (12:47.108)
Can't they both be true? Can't we have a system that's designed to create an oligarchy, but some people choose to go in there for the public good?

Shawn (12:55.359)
Hang on, hang on. Explain it, explain it. I don't understand, explain it to me. How can they be both?

Matt (12:56.398)
We have... we have both!

Matt (13:01.604)
Well, okay, let's take Mitt Romney, Mark's favorite Republican of all. Mitt Romney was a multimillionaire, right? Mitt Romney decided to

Marc (13:06.075)
UGH

Shawn (13:07.423)
Love, Mary.

Yeah, before. So he made his money independently. Okay.

Matt (13:14.328)
Yeah, and then he decides to enter public service to do things that he thought would be good for his country, his fellow countrymen. He wasn't there to get himself.

Shawn (13:20.927)
That doesn't make him an oligarch.

Matt (13:25.176)
He was an oligarch because he was a multimillionaire before he ever ran for office.

Shawn (13:28.787)
I see. So maybe we've got a definition problem. You consider an oligarch, anyone who is wealthy, who is in politics, whereas I consider an oligarch and maybe we just mark maybe you can, you can give us the true definition. But an oligarch is someone who makes his money by gaining favor with the power that he has within government. There's a big difference.

Matt (13:48.282)
Oh, I put a link to the Wikipedia page that defines oligarchy.

Shawn (13:53.811)
It's anyone who has money in politics? Well then that's every politician and you're right, they're all oligarchs.

Marc (13:53.858)
If I use.

Marc (13:59.929)
And if I had used Wikipedia in a paper for your class.

Matt (14:03.514)
That's true. would have wanted you to cite something like, but I'm trying to provide sources that everybody can access for free, but simply oligarchy is the rule by a few, right? Monarchy is ruled by one person. Democracy is a rule by the masses. Oligarchy is the rule by a small group of people.

Shawn (14:27.541)
So I know you've, go ahead Mark.

Marc (14:27.64)
We should have

Sorry, Air Starkey. Rule by the best.

Shawn (14:35.647)
You

Marc (14:36.791)
As for Joseph's

Matt (14:37.402)
So basically when I say the United States is an oligarchy, what I mean is that there is a class of people who are going to make the decisions in government and the masses really don't have access to that and they never really will get access to that.

Shawn (14:49.811)
Okay, but what does that, if that's your definition, then that has nothing to do with money, right? Like AOC.

Matt (14:56.148)
Sure it does because you have it's it's pay to play right you have to you have to have money to get into the she does now she does now right

Shawn (15:00.225)
AOC didn't have money. AOC didn't have money. Yeah, I know, but she became a part of what your definition of an oligarchy is before she had money. Before she had money. So you can't say that an oligarchy is one who has power and who has money. Mitt Romney's having money has nothing to do with it according to your definition.

Matt (15:09.667)
Yes, she did.

Matt (15:16.76)
No, I s- no I-

Matt (15:21.794)
Oligarchy is ruled by a small select few, right? House of Representatives is 435 people. So when AOC won the election to become one of those 435 people, she joined the oligarchy. But Mitt Romney, but Mitt Romney wasn't, well, Mitt Romney was a part of that without having to run for office, right? Because although he did run for office and win, but because he was part of this small group of people that we would call multimillionaires,

Shawn (15:35.657)
Okay, but then again, that has nothing to do with money.

Matt (15:50.884)
There's only so many multimillionaires in the United States. So that already put him in this like other group of elites.

Marc (15:53.112)
.

Shawn (15:58.015)
So.

Officially the government is not called an oligarchy even though you're saying practically it is you're saying it's called a Democratic Republic right and the idea behind that is is that the the few that lead are Subject to the masses that can vote them in or out, but you're saying that's not actually whatever happened

Matt (16:03.46)
Well, of course not. Yeah.

Of course.

Matt (16:18.842)
That's right. Yeah. When's the last time you see a powerful person voted out of office? It doesn't happen very often, right? 80 % of

Shawn (16:24.405)
Donald Trump was voted out of office and then practically the

Matt (16:29.562)
80 % of the senators...

Marc (16:32.021)
George H.W. Bush, your favorite president you said once in class.

Shawn (16:36.789)
Yeah!

Matt (16:36.794)
80 % of senators, 80 % of members of the house of representatives are reelected every time they're up for reelection. So sure, it happens. So yeah.

Shawn (16:44.021)
So 20%. Is that the statistic? 80 % retain their spots and there's 20 % turnover?

Matt (16:52.27)
Yeah, you can go all the way back to 1787. You can look at the reelection rates. It's pretty constant.

Shawn (16:57.333)
But I would say, again, last week, you and I in Levi talked about the Pareto principle, which is the 80-20 rule. I think that goes. So I would say that that does mean that people can.

Matt (17:04.758)
jeez.

Matt (17:08.356)
Well, for you, 20 % that get voted out are the real powerful people in American society. You can't just say everything that's 80-20 is Pareto.

Shawn (17:14.929)
No, they would be the few who the masses decide you're not representing us. So that would give some power to the people. I think that gives us little evidence that the people have some influence. It's not just an oligarchy.

Matt (17:21.306)
You

Matt (17:34.104)
I mean, the reality is Sean, if I went to elementary schools and high schools and said, let's teach people that we have an oligarchy and we have from the beginning of time, then the local school boards would say, fire that man. He hates America. So we can't be honest with people because it hurts their feelings. But the truth is.

Shawn (17:45.95)
Yes, they would.

But I'm saying that, but I'm questioning the truth of it. I'm not sure it is an actual oligarchy as opposed to a democratic republic.

Matt (17:57.262)
Who started the revolution? Would that be Paul Revere, the richest man in Boston?

Shawn (18:01.823)
Did he start the revolution based on the story that they told me on the freedom walk where he got on his horse and rang the bell? I don't think he's the purpose of starting the revolution. I think it was a much deeper reason.

Matt (18:04.269)
He sure did.

Matt (18:11.51)
He sure is. He's a huge, it was Paul reverend, like a handful of people in Boston that were mad about the way that the British laws were affecting their businesses. So yeah, you get the.

Marc (18:15.229)
.

Shawn (18:20.647)
So maybe the British laws affecting their businesses was part of the reason and not just an oligarchy.

Matt (18:25.882)
And so the handful of the richest people in Boston started a revolution. And then who created it?

Shawn (18:30.709)
I don't know, I don't know, but Matt, but the millions of people who fought the revolution weren't oligarchy, so they had some role in it, they had some belief in it.

Matt (18:39.396)
There were not millions of people that fought in the revolution, Sean. Okay. Thousands. Yes. Thousands. No, not hundreds of thousands. Yeah. The, the less than 5 % of the us population that fought.

Shawn (18:41.289)
Thousands of thousands. I don't know hundreds of thousands

Okay, thousands.

Marc (18:48.464)
And.

Shawn (18:53.013)
okay. So that's the oligarchy? Are you saying that the people who fought in the Revolutionary War were the oligarchy? Just the oligarchy? Okay.

Matt (18:54.466)
Our system's always been an oligarchy.

Marc (19:02.692)
and more than fight, it's also support. a lot of people throw out the three or five percent, that's all that fought. But all the farmers who were supplying the Army, all the logistical support, and the three people in Congress who actually did anything.

Matt (19:17.114)
So in the end, the masses do, uh-huh.

Shawn (19:18.067)
Matt, I do believe you. I do believe you because you're my political scientist, but I don't like it. And so I'm trying to fight against it a little bit, right? I read in the scriptures about the best systems of government and politicians all the time, right? King Benjamin talks about how he suffered all of his days in their service. He never got paid. It was his own labor. Moroni talks about, seek not for...

Matt (19:24.858)
you

Shawn (19:41.845)
power, but to pull it down. seek not for honor of the world, but the glory of my God and the freedom and welfare of my country. And I yearn for that kind of politician. So it hurts my heart, Matt, when you tell me Mitt Romney's just a corrupt oligarch. It's hard for me to believe it.

Matt (19:54.82)
I didn't say he was corrupt. I didn't say he was corrupt.

Marc (19:56.67)
But if it is, it's fine. I'll say it for you.

Shawn (19:59.917)
Hahaha, Mark.

Marc (20:02.503)
For now, Donald Trump doesn't take any pay for his services, President the United States.

Matt (20:09.262)
You mean he does he donates his salary to charity?

Marc (20:12.604)
Well, not to charity, but he'll pay it back into different government organizations, such as the Veterans Affairs and all that.

Matt (20:19.3)
What does he do with the crypto money that he makes when he directs the Treasury Department to buy crypto from his company?

Marc (20:25.114)
I have not investigated that yet, but I also don't care.

Matt (20:27.686)
all right. Let's move to the next topic. yeah. Yeah. Points points.

Shawn (20:29.077)
That's interesting. Yeah.

Marc (20:33.432)
the word points.

Shawn (20:38.485)
Well, go ahead, Mark. Are you going to get points through there?

Marc (20:40.889)
I'm, this is not just to dig at you, I'm giving points to Sean only because to me an oligarchy is a group of very powerful who take over and they make it theirs, whereas we are choosing an oligarchy, but that means it's a democratically representative oligarchy. So I think, you know what, one and half to Sean and half a point to Brother Miles. I think that's a fair.

Shawn (20:52.181)
you

Shawn (20:58.709)
points, points.

Matt (20:58.862)
Alright.

Matt (21:05.07)
I'll give the points to you, Mark. That was really good. The way you gave out points makes me give you points.

Marc (21:07.066)
Well, yeah.

Shawn (21:07.175)
I like that mark points to you.

Marc (21:10.18)
I wait to the end. Useful. Can't wait to the end. Finally, something meaningful.

Matt (21:12.794)
Alright, so

In late October of 2024, ProPublica published one of its most prophetic stories in history. They explained how a key Trump advisor said that the Trump administration will seek to make civil servants miserable in their jobs. Before the election, many Trump voters dismissed this as hyperbole from the left. So my question is, do you agree that ProPublica was prophetic and should we all pay more attention to their reporting?

Shawn (21:44.137)
I don't understand how they're getting credit for being prophetic if what they did was they listened to an insider say, hey, this is going to happen, then it happened. I think the insider was probably the prophet, not the actual reporter who just reported it maybe.

Matt (21:57.242)
But everybody like ridiculed ProPublica. They're like, you're far left. You're just saying that to scare voters. And they're like, no, no, we're just reporting on what's going to happen in the Trump administration.

Marc (22:07.023)
that Jesus is Christ.

Shawn (22:07.221)
But they weren't prophetic, the key Trump advisor was prophetic then.

Matt (22:11.386)
Prophecy is when you take information from a primary source and you share it with the rest of the world.

Shawn (22:14.727)
Shut up.

Matt (22:21.178)
And how do you learn that Jesus is the Christ from the Holy Ghost, the primary source? And then you can share that.

Shawn (22:21.717)
Yeah.

Marc (22:26.415)
The point is...

Shawn (22:26.613)
But also, if this Trump insider was just being transparent about his leader's intention to shrink government, rah rah, I applaud that. I have nothing wrong with shrinking. All he was doing was being honest. He was saying, look, we're going to shrink government, and they are shrinking government.

Matt (22:47.451)
No, no. He said they were going to make them miserable in their jobs. That's not the same thing as shrinking government.

Shawn (22:53.583)
That's what he meant. I think so, yeah. That's what they meant.

Matt (22:55.673)
Really?

Marc (22:58.114)
Be sure to

Means to an end.

Shawn (23:03.519)
Yeah.

Matt (23:03.67)
I see. So you guys are saying that the reason that they wanted to make federal employees civil servants miserable was because they're trying to reduce the size of the federal government.

Shawn (23:13.743)
I mean, I'm assuming they were just talking about one tactic of how they would reduce the size of the federal government, right? One of many tactics. One would be if you don't like your job, you're not going to stick around. Now that happens all the time in the private sector, all the time. Of course.

Matt (23:29.774)
What? Are you serious? They will make you miserable in your job?

Shawn (23:35.103)
Well, they're gonna, I don't know, that's a really weird way to say it, but yeah.

Marc (23:38.797)
toilets are designed to be uncomfortable after five minutes.

Matt (23:39.172)
this is me.

Matt (23:45.592)
my, this doesn't make sense to me. If you're a business and you wanna grow, you wanna have talented employees, right? You wanna have the best people come work for you? So why would you wanna develop a reputation of we make people miserable so that they'll quit?

Shawn (23:54.035)
Yeah, but in

Shawn (23:58.153)
Well, not that they would develop that reputation, but it's so hard today to let people go to fire people because of the political atmosphere. Maybe not today as much as the last administration, but it is really hard in the private sector to fire people without, I guess, huge consequences.

Matt (24:19.086)
Why can't you just say you're fired? Why can't you just say this relationship's no longer no longer working out? We're letting you go.

Shawn (24:25.129)
because government regulation, government laws have really created an atmosphere where they can sue you and win a lot of money and damages. It's not an easy situation to fire people. That's why a lot of corporations will offer their kind of, if they don't offer big severance packages, yeah, it's problematic. They're gonna get sued anyway. I can't tell you Matt, yeah.

Matt (24:49.722)
you don't have to

You don't have to do that in the federal government though, right? Why would you? That doesn't make any, if your strategy is to reduce the size of government, why wouldn't you just go pass a law that reduces the budget for some agency? Why wouldn't you go just.

Shawn (24:58.292)
sorry.

Shawn (25:03.303)
They did that as well. They did that as well.

Matt (25:06.468)
They haven't passed any laws so far.

Shawn (25:08.763)
I guess they made they passed executive orders and made and made other government entities that would chop, chop, chop.

Matt (25:12.866)
Yeah. Well, right. So executive executive orders can be challenged in the court, right? Executive orders. If you just say, Hey, we're getting rid of this agency. Like all of that stuff is going to be adjudicated. And they're going to say the president can't just unilaterally get rid of you could maybe get rid of the department of education, but all of the money that Congress has allocated for education, there has to be some agency to do all of that work. Right? So if you cut a department, you still have to create another department to do that same function.

Shawn (25:41.215)
So have you seen?

Matt (25:41.38)
So if you really want to just get rid of that money, you'd have to pass a law to say, hey, we've to get rid of that money.

Shawn (25:46.419)
Yeah, it makes sense. But have you seen evidence of people being made miserable in their government jobs so that they'll leave? Have you seen that or no?

Matt (25:55.666)
There are a lot of stories, the ProPublica for example has lots of stories of people who are trying to, you know that whole thing where they say send us an email every week that details things that you're doing or

Shawn (25:59.913)
Like what kind of thing?

Shawn (26:09.043)
Well, that's not, that's not, that's a, yeah, come on. Come on.

Matt (26:12.984)
I don't know. Or I haven't been paying real close attention to these stories. a lot of them have are contractually required to work remotely, right? But then the Trump administration says, we need you to come back to work. And then when they come back to work, no, listen, I'm, you have to learn that when they come back to work, there's not a workspace for them to work in because they've gotten rid of that contract. Right? So there are employees that are like,

Marc (26:13.359)
Shawn (26:26.129)
my, sorry.

Matt (26:37.988)
For example, they sign a contract that says for the next year, we want you to work from home two days a week and work here three days a week. And then the Trump administration says, wait, everybody come back. And so then when they show up, there's nothing for them to do. There's no space for them to work because they've been getting rid of leases and things like that.

Shawn (26:54.707)
I don't know if that says make someone miserable.

Marc (26:56.285)
I'm trying to find the problem

Matt (26:59.52)
okay. Well, you don't think you would be miserable if you went to work and there was nothing to do all day, but like sit around outside the door. Some of them, their badges don't even work to get them into the buildings.

Marc (27:10.152)
I'd be miserable if I had the federal government and didn't do anything to actually contribute to society.

Shawn (27:10.197)
I mean, that's.

Shawn (27:15.753)
mean, that's how I feel. No, honestly, man, that's kind of like, there are, it's so, there's like, I've got, so I've got a friend who works as a, I don't even know what the title is, he basically interviews people who are in the federal government in certain branches of the federal government. In this case, it's the, it's the UPS system. And these are people who are disgruntled or unhappy or have been fired. And they have this right to, well, I want to challenge, you know, or, or lodge a complaint. So my friend just interviews,

both sides, the boss, the manager, as well as the complaint. And man, it is just a joke. 90 % of these are just a joke. they didn't, my boss didn't, my boss didn't get me a private fridge that I could put in my cubicle on wheels so that I could eat my snacks as I walk.

Matt (28:04.314)
But Sean, you're talking about people that were fired and are disgruntled. I'm talking about what the employees do with their time, right? For example, it's tax season right now. There are IRS workers, they usually hire seasonal employees, they get more IRS workers so they can process the tax returns as they come in and people can get their refunds and they can identify fraud and they can identify crimes. They've cut all of that staff. So not only are they not able to do their job right now,

Shawn (28:28.041)
I'm just saying I have a...

Matt (28:32.91)
They have fewer people to help them do that job right now.

Shawn (28:35.653)
Well, we're both kind of talking in general terms that have no specific really examples. If it is like you're saying, then yeah, yeah, don't treat people like that. If it is like I'm saying, then yeah, it's okay to reduce government to get rid of all the waste where people are not really being productive anyway. Let's get them out of that situation.

Matt (28:55.108)
Well, why not do that? Why not pass a law to do that? Why just fire all probationary employees? That doesn't solve the problem, right? Why not identify the people who need to be let go and let those people go?

Shawn (29:03.061)
I think when the American society views government as an employer, then I think that's inevitable. The purpose of government is not, an employer. Isn't government before the Trump administration the second largest employer in the country or the first largest? That's not a function of government. You're going to have to deal with this anyway. You're going to have to reduce.

Marc (29:30.278)
.

Matt (29:31.546)
I really like federal government employees. I think they do a good job keeping our country working the way it's supposed to work.

Marc (29:33.785)
Okay.

Shawn (29:36.915)
I think they do too. I learned the hard way that that's true, but you can do it with a fraction of who you don't need so many to do some basic functions. I don't think I don't think you need to grow it. think you need to reduce it.

Matt (29:50.958)
But you didn't answer my question if we should all pay more attention to ProPublica's reporting because they're prophetic.

Shawn (29:54.741)
I would say no, because they are not prophetic. No. I like that you're giving praise to the insider Trump guy and calling him a prophet though. That's interesting.

Matt (30:01.042)
man.

Matt (30:10.03)
I stumbled on ProPublica like seven years ago. was like, wow, there's actually an organization out there that actually tries to report the news. This is so refreshing. But okay, maybe they're not prophetic.

Shawn (30:18.869)
And in fact, I'm ignorant. I'm ignorant about ProPublica. Is it really, I know it's a nonprofit, a group of journalists that are, do they do a good job?

Matt (30:29.274)
They do such great reporting, not necessarily on national issues, but they'll pick issues in various regions and they'll just attack an issue and there's so much good stuff from ProPublica. I think all of our listeners should download the ProPublica app and pay more attention to the news that comes from there. Because it turns out if it's not prophetic, at least they're right most of the time. It's like good reporting and I appreciate that.

Shawn (30:41.886)
Okay.

Shawn (30:54.997)
That's a good plug then. Okay, good. I'll try them out.

Matt (30:56.908)
Okay, all right. So then I'm gonna give you the points for that, Sean. Yeah, yeah. Okay, next topic. Yeah, Mark.

Marc (30:59.107)
My view is I will take points for myself because I don't care about ProPublica that much and you were being too soft on the government employees, Sean. They should all be fired except for the bare minimum to protect my life, my liberty, my property. The rest of them are a

Shawn (31:00.917)
for trying them out. Mark, say the last word so I can give you points.

Shawn (31:27.791)
Interesting.

Marc (31:28.909)
trucks and thieves and villains and

Matt (31:30.52)
What about what about building roads? Mark, should they build roads?

Marc (31:33.877)
If only there was a smaller, I don't know, government. Like, I don't know, we could have like 50 smaller governments that could handle that.

Matt (31:41.88)
you want state governments to build roads? What if the state doesn't have money to build those roads? What about if it's a federal highway system? okay.

Marc (31:43.433)
Hey, here we are!

Shawn (31:44.917)
Hahaha

Marc (31:48.225)
then what's wrong? How is this not have enough money to pay for a rope?

Matt (31:55.924)
All right. I can't give you points for that Mark. I'm sorry. All right. The Supreme court ruled that the Trump administration had to help a man who had been wrongly deported to a dangerous El Salvador prison. They had to help him return to the United States despite, sorry, to the United States. Despite the Supreme court ordering his return, a U S government lawyer could not tell a judge where

Marc (31:58.26)
Matt (32:20.506)
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was, the judge found it deeply concerning that the government didn't know the location of someone they were supposed to bring back to the United States. The question is, what should the Trump administration do?

Shawn (32:33.609)
mean, hard to answer without knowing all the details. I didn't get a chance to actually read the story in depth, but I mean, if truly they, what did they break a law by?

Matt (32:44.322)
Yes, you can't deport someone who hasn't broken the law, hasn't done anything wrong. They deported the wrong guy.

Shawn (32:48.917)
They've been doing that quite a bit, all right?

Matt (32:53.484)
Yeah, well, so now this is the US Supreme Court has weighed in and said, you can't, you need to bring that man back. they do.

Shawn (33:00.607)
But what's story of that pro-Palestinian kid, that student who they exported, and some judge totally different? But did that kid, was he a criminal? Did he break the law? Why is that allowed and not this one?

Matt (33:06.08)
That's a different story, Shon. That's a different story. Yeah, totally different story.

Matt (33:14.582)
No, he didn't break in it. That one isn't allowed. hasn't. That one hasn't gone all the way to the Supreme Court yet. Go ahead, Mark.

Marc (33:21.002)
thought this morning that Supreme Court did say they could go ahead and kick them out.

Shawn (33:21.14)
a judge just-

Matt (33:26.638)
This is the guy who protested from Columbia University. So in that case, Sean, he was a student on a student visa at Columbia University and he was protesting and the state, it says in the law that if anyone here on a visa is doing things that could make it hard for the US to conduct foreign policy, they could be deported. So that was their reasoning in deporting that guy. This other person,

was deported mistakenly. He shouldn't have been deported and he was sent to an El Salvador prison and the US Supreme Court said bring him home to his family.

Shawn (34:01.557)
That's awful, man. Yeah, the Trump administration should be held accountable in a major, major way. That's a human being, man. If it's as you say, and this is an innocent man who just got, ugh, that's horrible, and they should be held accountable.

Matt (34:16.036)
Would this be something Mark, where maybe you would disagree with the Trump administration and say, you know what, maybe he shouldn't be in an El Salvador prison.

Marc (34:22.754)
Well, let me just put a different angle of it. I think that this is the one that we're able to talk about and point to and say, look at the mistake. You've got the left saying,

See, I knew it would happen, but the fact is, out of all the deportations in this rushed deport, one, one was a mistake.

Matt (34:44.09)
But isn't one too many in this case? Shouldn't we say be careful and have none?

Marc (34:49.256)
Well, I would say that if men were angels, we wouldn't even need government.

Matt (34:54.23)
Okay. But can we expect the government who, are, what are the things the government is supposed to do again, Mark?

Marc (35:00.297)
life, liberty, and property.

Matt (35:02.464)
Okay, so what happens if the government fails to protect your liberty or one of your fellow citizens liberty?

Marc (35:08.062)
Then we moved to Utah and established a theocracy.

Matt (35:13.402)
Is that better than just saying, you know what? Trump made a mistake. They should bring him back right away.

Marc (35:19.342)
I don't think Trump personally made a mistake and said, that guy right there, pick him out, he's one of them.

Matt (35:25.988)
But he is the one delaying the, you know, like Trump likes to say things unilaterally, right? On truth social. I haven't heard Trump say anything like, find out where this man is and bring him home as soon as you can.

Marc (35:36.816)
Well, I mean, he didn't tell me to eat breakfast this morning.

Matt (35:40.186)
Right. Right. But you like this idea of like Trump being a really strong leader or saying things that people are like, I don't know, maybe he's a little edgy or whatever. Like, it wouldn't it be a strong stance and support of Liberty to say, I can't believe somebody in my administration made a mistake like this. You're fired. We fire all kinds of people and that he's firing all kinds of people in his administration. Why not take a strong stand against whoever was responsible for depriving this person of their Liberty?

Marc (36:08.634)
can agree with you after the one caveat of what led to this fellow being deported. Was he always a What happened? Is he just on some kind of a pseudo-vis- What's all the details of the guy?

Shawn (36:14.239)
Yeah, what is it?

Matt (36:21.658)
His problem is his name is Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He doesn't sound white enough. He sounds like he belongs in El Salvador.

Marc (36:25.558)
kill right there.

Marc (36:31.292)
It had in the legal documentation of when the ICE agents arrested him said your name's not white enough. So we're taking you out

Shawn (36:37.887)
Yeah, Matt, you're going you're you've crossed the line here. I was on your side until you said something like that.

Matt (36:38.17)
You

Matt (36:43.694)
Well you guys tell me! I'm the one that's saying he should never have been deported. I'll give you whole list of people who shouldn't be deported. You tell me why he was deported.

Marc (36:47.035)
What praise in the United States?

Matt (36:53.273)
He what?

Marc (36:54.084)
What is he born and raised in the United States? Does he have a family? And is he a citizen?

Matt (36:56.526)
He was not. He was not.

Shawn (36:58.771)
Okay, now.

Matt (37:00.302)
He's married to a citizen and he's here. He has permanent legal status.

Marc (37:01.604)
But it is.

Shawn (37:05.567)
Yeah, I think they were wrong. I think they're absolutely wrong. And Matt, I don't know that we can dive into their hearts or whoever made the decision to decide if they were evil and racist like you just did, or if we can just say it might've been an error. I don't know, we don't know. But regardless, it was wrong. Regardless, if it was an administrative error and it was wrong, the government should put all of its force to find the man and bring it back to his family.

Matt (37:16.398)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (37:22.106)
We can't say.

Marc (37:31.107)
Agreed.

Matt (37:32.968)
okay. We all agree about this one. That's super happy. Wait, how do we not? How do we not?

Marc (37:35.514)
Almost. He's not white enough.

Shawn (37:38.868)
Hahaha

Matt (37:43.672)
you guys- i had to think of some reason why he was deported i don't know the reason why

Shawn (37:46.665)
Yeah. Yeah.

Marc (37:47.354)
Once you have just diminished, gone, you have none.

Matt (37:52.078)
I forgot the council David gave us a little while back that I can't ever say racism because if I do then it makes people mad.

Marc (37:59.194)
They race stuff that's I'll probably

Shawn (38:01.705)
Look, Matt, I'm with you. If it absolutely was racism that caused this, then that makes it even worse. And absolutely someone should be held accountable. That would be great to find that out. And if there really is someone in government who is making racist decisions that affect our rights like that, that needs to be absolutely squashed. I would love to find that out.

Matt (38:02.009)
You

Matt (38:08.814)
Yeah.

Marc (38:21.177)
Amen.

Matt (38:24.054)
Okay. All right. We're going to move to the big question. This one has got like kind of part theology, part legal stuff. I'm really curious to hear what you guys say about this.

Shawn (38:31.391)
Holy. this is a weird one, Matt. This is like an obscure one-off incident forcing us to talk about a topic. So, okay, it's interesting.

Matt (38:38.37)
Yeah. Yeah. I know. Okay. So in Australia, there was an IVF clinic that mistakenly implanted the wrong embryo. A woman gave birth to a child genetically belonging to another couple. The discovery made when the clinic found an extra embryo leaves everyone involved in a deeply challenging situation. This unprecedented event forces us to consider in such circumstances,

Who are the true parents of the child? Is parenthood defined by genetics or by the experience of carrying and giving birth? Because in the...

Shawn (39:16.719)
Or can you not throw in a third category there, right? You've adopted children. My wife comes from adoption.

Matt (39:23.0)
Yeah, sure. Sure. You can, you can adopt. Yeah. So setting aside adoption, right? But I used to watch, in the, in the daytime when I'd go down for lunch at the bank, all the tellers were downstairs watching one of two shows, but one of them was the Mari Povich show. And it was always, I've had sex with two women, with two men, which of them is the daddy. And some woman comes on the show and says, so and so is my baby's daddy. And then they fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. And then he pulls out the DNA test results and he's like, you.

Shawn (39:37.194)
What?

Marc (39:37.424)
Okay.

Matt (39:50.954)
are the baby's father. You are not the baby's father, right? So legally in the United States, if the baby is genetically your baby, you're the father of that baby. Doesn't matter.

Shawn (40:01.085)
that you always talk about your first work situation at that bank and how awful it was. Well, maybe it's evidence now revealed that it's because of the specific people in the specific bank you're working at. That is ridiculous. They're sitting down the lobby watching that. Yeah, work, maybe work. Maybe don't watch anything. Okay.

Matt (40:12.94)
No, no, no. What else are you... What are you supposed to watch at the lunch hour? It's lunchtime. Yeah. We're just going to sit there and like chit chat with each other about bank talk. No, you got to watch... We also watched a show called Blind Date. It was a lot of fun too.

Shawn (40:27.775)
How dare you guys? That's awful. That's awful. Okay, go ahead. Okay.

Matt (40:30.842)
I think it's great. Okay, so setting aside the mother, well, no, this is the one question I do want to ask. Okay, so let's say you're a mother and a father and this happens. Is that child that's born, is it your child, are you sealed to that child? Is that child born in the covenant? Because adoption, you have to go back and get sealed later on to have them be your children. So if you're not the biological father,

and your mom and your wife's not the biological mother, but she gives birth to the baby. Is it still your baby born in the covenant? This is a theology question.

Shawn (41:01.065)
Wait, this is. Wait, that's. That's the you didn't put that in the question. I didn't know you're going to take it in that direction.

Matt (41:07.3)
Well, there's the legal question. The legal question is should parenthood really be determined by the genetic father? Is that really how we should decide parenthood?

Shawn (41:10.794)
Right.

Shawn (41:16.597)
I feel like we have to pick one of those categories to discuss. it the ceiling category? No, it's your question. No, it's your question. Is it the legal side or the ceiling side?

Marc (41:18.837)
I guess my sister does, but that's a different topic.

Matt (41:21.006)
You choose one, Sean, we'll talk. You choose.

Matt (41:26.702)
We can do both. We can do both. Can we do both, Mark?

Matt (41:32.698)
So which do you say?

Shawn (41:33.301)
All right, legally, Matt, start with legally then. All right, the reason I bring up the third category of adoption is because your question is, is parenthood defined by genetics or by the experience of caring and giving birth? Well, you have to bring in there or who raises you, right? Because in a situation of adoption, what you have is a kind of a complicated situation where people freely are choosing an arrangement. And so I feel like that's the solution here. You have to come together with all those parties involved, then you have to freely come to an arrangement.

That's the only way to decide this. And if they can't come to an arrangement, then it gets really, really messy if you have to take it to law because there's no probably no precedence. And there's definitely no like defined universal absolute law that would solve this. So I think the answer is you have to have some serious like people sitting at the table and coming to negotiate to decide what is the right thing here. Like that's a tough, tough thing. Like, like it's like, like,

Matt (42:30.424)
In the United States, in the United States, you can adopt an embryo. So you could go to an IVF clinic and then there's some fertilized embryo that hasn't been used and they'll give them for adoption. can pay them money and have somebody else's embryo implanted in the woman and then she could give birth to a, but you would have a legal adoption process of that embryo.

Shawn (42:49.385)
Yeah. And that's where people are freely choosing an exchange to decide who is the, who is the parent of this child, right?

Matt (42:57.892)
But are, but are you going to let man's law, man's negotiation decide eternal? family Sean, isn't family too important to leave it up to like, yeah, I want to know like theologically what makes a child yours? Is it the biology or is it the ceiling power? Cause we

Shawn (43:04.511)
So now you're talking about stealing.

Shawn (43:17.333)
I feel like you're loading, I feel like this is a loaded question somehow. I don't quite know how, but I feel like you.

Matt (43:22.616)
I really don't know the answer. That's why we're talking about it. What do you say, Mark?

Marc (43:26.902)
The sealing power. That is my view of the entire thing. There's a quote from Brigham Young that is on my phone and so I can't go to it because then I would just have to leave the meeting here and read it to myself quietly. he, I'm butchering it, but he says basically that I would rather have a beggar from the streets of the city who's a member of the church come to my door than one of my relations if they don't accept the gospel.

Shawn (43:53.877)
You

Marc (43:53.923)
I'm going really hard on it, way too hard, but I'm bringing that in to throw the idea that the law of sealing and the laws of therefore of God trump all the others. And yes, I mean trump because it's a lot of laws and well, anyway, that's my view of it. So with this particular family, they should just all repent, accept the gospel, and then let the Lord dictate his will to them. I think...

Matt (43:54.681)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (44:18.421)
you

Marc (44:19.439)
that our scientists have been so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think that they should.

Matt (44:25.518)
Hey, you sound like Malcolm in Jurassic Park.

Marc (44:28.847)
He is so much more compelling in the book too, let me tell you.

Matt (44:31.834)
I agree with you, Mark. I think if this happened to me, I would go get sealed to the baby just to be safe. And if somebody said, no, no, the baby's born in the covenant, I would say, does it hurt for me to just make sure? And I would just go get sealed.

Shawn (44:32.915)
You

Marc (44:44.941)
And handbook that they say V-tron babies are born in the Covenant, but...

Shawn (44:45.156)
my goodness, whoa.

wait, who raises the baby in that situation, Matt?

Matt (44:52.898)
I would raise the baby. I wouldn't get sealed to an embryo that wasn't like if somebody else was raising the child, I wouldn't want to get sealed.

Shawn (44:56.757)
So hang on. So who are you in this? You gave an interesting answer, but I don't know who you are in this scenario.

Matt (45:05.036)
If I'm the husband of the woman who gave birth to a child that's not genetically our own, I would want to get sealed to that our child that she gave birth to, to make sure that we were sealed as a family because I wouldn't want to just trust that a child that's not biologically mine, is it going to automatically be sealed to me just by the virtue of the fact that I was married to that child's mother when she gave birth to the child.

Shawn (45:15.176)
Okay.

Shawn (45:30.217)
So do you feel like in that scenario, our heavenly father kind of in a way could say, look, if both options are good parents who are going to raise the child in the gospel and be sealed to them, go ahead and choose. Like you made a choice, right? You're in that situation and you could have gone either way. You could have said, okay, well, genetically, the baby should be sealed to this person over here. So I'm gonna sacrifice and let that happen. But in your choice, you made is, I don't wanna risk that.

If this baby is supposed to be with us and it happened through providence, that's God's will, then I want it sealed to me. Does Heavenly Father let those parties make a decision in that? Because we know that the power of a covenant is freely entered into. Now that child may not have a choice in the matter, but in most covenants we enter into, we are freely choosing to enter into those covenants. It's not like God forces us to enter covenants.

Matt (46:01.838)
Yeah.

Matt (46:22.468)
Yeah.

Marc (46:22.833)
So.

Matt (46:26.03)
Yeah, so three of my kids are adopted and so I've been sealed to three of my different kids and I just there's just a power that comes there. There's your relationship changes after you're sealed to somebody and so I would just want that. I just know that there's power that comes through that sealing ordinance. So even I'm just saying even if the bishop said to me you don't need to get sealed to this baby because it was born in the Covenant, I'd say just to be safe. I want to do it and I'll see like it doesn't do any harm to get sealed right? I could just.

Get sealed and then see.

Shawn (46:55.989)
So what if, but what if in the scenario the biological mother says, no, I don't want you to do that. I want to raise the baby.

Matt (47:06.36)
Well, then you'd have to have a legal fight, right? You'd have to have a legal fight about that.

Shawn (47:10.037)
But in that case, you would fight to be like, look, I'm involved here. I want to do, in your mind, the right thing is I want to have this baby and be still to this baby. feel like that's the right thing. That's what you're saying.

Matt (47:21.156)
Well, it's hard to know exactly, right? But I think into the situation, if they didn't want, if the biological parents didn't want the baby, then I would have no problem. If the biological parents did want the baby, I don't know what I would do. I would do whatever my wife told me to do. If I'm being quite honest, because in the end, if we're not on the same page with whatever child we have, it's too hard to raise kids to like, to ever have this like, well, I didn't want them in the first place.

Shawn (47:35.669)
You

Shawn (47:44.287)
See that's.

See, that's why I think agency plays a role in this whole situation. Like I don't think that God is going to say, I think he's gonna say, look, you're on this earth, you need to get to a table and you need to make some decisions. And like Mark said, all those people's intentions are to receive confirmation from God of his will, I think sometimes God does say, look, I do trust you guys in your decisions. This is a complicated situation. Put together the...

what you want and absolutely bring it to me for confirmation. I think God gives us agency and this is a situation where that gift of agency probably could be applied. There could be many, there could be multiple right answers out of this is what I'm saying.

Matt (48:27.569)
okay. All right. Well, Sean, we're gonna let that be the last word. That was great. I was moving. I'm not... go ahead, Mark.

Marc (48:30.897)
Wait,

There's one more last word of all the news that's come out in the last few weeks that I feel we're just not even hinting at, let alone discussing. know I didn't tell it you in the email before, but this is the big one. On June 27th, Bruce Springsteen is releasing tracks to seven entire albums from 1983 to now of unreleased material that he's just been sitting on that during the pandemic he finished the albums up and polished them.

Matt (48:47.875)
Okay.

Marc (49:05.008)
seven whole albums in one day.

Shawn (49:05.075)
Mark. Mark, you can tell me what genre or style of music he is, then I'll consider trying to listen to that.

Marc (49:15.486)
The answer is primarily rock and roll, but he has been known to throw in a little bit of funk on occasion. Even a dash of R &B, too often, but a little country, the old timey stuff, not the, dog loves my tractor, but the, like I just killed a man and now I'm hiding in a gas station kind of stuff.

Shawn (49:32.487)
I think he is so ambiguously confused about his genre that I don't know how to listen to him. I know that may be blasphemous to you. Mark just got angry. Mark, I watched your face get angry and I'm sorry.

Marc (49:39.977)
That album had a time.

Marc (49:45.96)
There's a jelly donut when we're done. Just pick one album and go. I recommend Nebraska. Nebraska, if you listen to Nebraska. All right. There's a good man. Brother Mike. Thanks. Repent.

Shawn (49:51.477)
I've tried. I've tried.

I have not listened to Nebraska. Okay, I will return and report. I'll listen to Nebraska. I don't think I'm gonna like it. Don't think so, because it's... Okay.

Matt (50:04.738)
Mark loves, loves, loves Bruce Springsteen. Like the way that I love Taylor Swift, that's how Mark feels about Bruce Springsteen. The way that Sean feels about Fugazi or some other weird band that nobody's ever heard of. That's the way Mark feels about Bruce Springsteen and I feel about Taylor Swift.

Shawn (50:07.893)
you

Shawn (50:11.859)
Knock it off. Matt's just trying to trigger me.

Shawn (50:20.725)
You

Marc (50:25.448)
Would I go gay for Bruce Springsteen? It's...we could discuss. Not a decisive answer.

Matt (50:30.874)
So June 22nd, there's a new Bruce Springsteen album. And Mark, is he still touring?

Marc (50:35.784)
Yeah, and it's seven albums.

Matt (50:40.006)
my goodness. my goodness.

Shawn (50:40.885)
That seems like, Mark, that seems like a desperate money grab. Okay, well, we'll see. Okay.

Marc (50:44.966)
Not at all.

Matt (50:48.886)
Even though I'm not a fan of Bruce Springsteen, I deeply admire his productivity to create the amount of music he makes where it's not, he's not like formulaic in the stuff he does. Like it's not like all of his songs are the same. Like I deeply admire people like Bruce Springsteen who can be so productive over a course of so many years. Yeah. Okay. Well, let that be the last word. Hey listener, thanks for joining us.

Shawn (50:56.949)
Ha

Marc (51:11.014)
God Bless.

Matt (51:17.24)
We hope you'll join us again next week. Have a great day.