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Year in Review: 2023 (Ep. 546)

December 28, 2023 1h 6m Full transcript available
Year in Review: 2023 (Ep. 546)
0:00 / 1h 6m
As we close out 2023, it's time to reflect on the highs and lows of the year. From personal milestones to cultural shifts, this episode dives deep into the events that shaped our lives and the world around us.
Transcript
876 segments
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0:58 This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
1:21 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:23 Let's get into it.
1:24 All right, guys, we made it.
1:26 We made it to the end of the 2023.
1:28 And this is our episode where we do our year in review.
1:31 And so if you're sad about the year ending, don't worry.
1:34 2024 might be just as bad or just as good depending upon your disposition.
1:38 But we like to kind of go through our year and kind of give you guys an idea of like,
1:41 "Okay, what's some of the stuff that you forgot?
1:43 What's some of the stuff that are highlights basically in terms of the world, in terms
1:46 of this country, in terms of myself?
1:48 So we're going to get into all that today."
1:50 But guys, before we get out of here, make sure that you leave a review and share the
1:53 show around.
1:54 Again, guys, ask all the time, "Hey, how can we help you out?"
1:57 And then they've never shared our show with anybody, they've never shared an individual
2:00 episode with anybody.
2:02 And that would be my suggestion to you today.
2:04 Don't just share the show because it can be overwhelming.
2:06 I've had people come to the show recently that are like, "Oh, crap, he's got over 500
2:10 episodes.
2:11 Where do I start?"
2:12 I've even had people say like, "Hey, can you give me just five episodes to start with?"
2:15 And it's like, "Man, okay, yeah, if you have 500 kids, pick your five favorites."
2:19 So it's very difficult to do.
2:20 But if there is a show that speaks to you, that has really helped you share that show
2:25 with dudes in your life, also right at the very end of the year.
2:28 I'm sure you've been getting hit up with emails, with the end of year, giving year and giving
2:31 that type of stuff.
2:33 We are a donation-based ministry.
2:34 I've mentioned this before.
2:35 I mentioned this on shows last week.
2:36 So the overwhelming majority of how we get funds and how we're able to pay for the things
2:41 that we need to pay for and to get this content into the ears and eyeballs of people all over
2:45 the world because we have donors.
2:47 And so if you're looking for a place to spend your end of your giving dollars, keep undaunted
2:52 life in your head and then make action with it.
2:56 Go with it.
2:57 Give us some of that money.
2:58 Give us some of that coin.
3:00 We could really, really use it as we go into 2024 and try to do the stuff that we're trying
3:04 to do.
3:05 We're looking to expand a lot of our offerings, but we can't do it without you guys.
3:08 So there is a donation link in our show notes so you guys can check that out.
3:11 And as you know, all the time, I mentioned Origin, Jocko Fuel, Primal Beef.
3:15 We support all of those brands.
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3:28 and all that, you can use our promo code undaunted with them as well.
3:31 And with Primal Beef, if you want literally the best meat to be shipped directly to your
3:35 door so you don't have to go to the store and buy some dairy cow that's been butchered
3:40 and thrown into cellophane, use our promo code Kyle there and you'll get some coin off on
3:45 that as well.
3:46 And then if the money you save there, maybe you can put that in your donation, but let's
3:49 go and go into the wrap up for the year.
3:51 Now one thing that I want to do is I want to give you my 2023 highlights.
3:54 And so here it just, as I look back through my year, as I look back through my calendar,
3:58 here are just some things that were highlights for me.
4:00 So back in January, we launched the forging table.
4:03 And so for those of you that have listened to the show for any length of time, that's
4:05 our episode that we release every Sunday.
4:08 It's me and three other guys, all laymen, non professional Christians.
4:12 And we are basically going an hour at a time, a chapter at a time through books of the Bible.
4:16 That was an idea that I had last year, I guess it would be roughly 15, 16 months ago now
4:22 so that I could personally get into the Bible more.
4:25 And you guys have really, really loved that.
4:27 But that launched in January, so that's a major highlight.
4:30 Then in February, I got to spend some time with Jordan Peterson.
4:32 And so I talked about that on an earlier episode, but he and I met up in Tulsa after his show,
4:37 got to spend some time with him, got to give him a gift.
4:40 I gave him an ESV verse by verse reference Bible with his name on it.
4:44 And so that was obviously an incredible, incredible thing.
4:47 We hope to do some more things with him in 2024.
4:49 My own me park interview, which as you've heard with my best books of the year and best
4:54 podcasts of the year, that was obviously a very, very impactful interview for me.
4:58 So that was in February.
4:59 In March of this year, I spoke at Lewisburg prison up in Pennsylvania.
5:03 And so that day that I was there about three dozen men came to faith in Christ after some
5:08 of the speeches, I guess, or speeches or sermons, whatever you want to call them.
5:12 So that was certainly a highlight.
5:14 My son, my second son that we just called squish, he turned one in March of this year.
5:18 So that was really cool.
5:20 Also in March of this year, Shelby the stoic who if you go all the way back to my foxhole
5:24 podcast, I can't remember when that was, I was years and years ago.
5:28 So one of my best friends, Shelby the stoic, he has bachelor party out in Polydero Canyon
5:32 area down there by Amarillo.
5:34 So that was really fun.
5:35 Also in March and December of this year, I got to hang out with the crew from skillet.
5:39 So John, Corey, Seth and Jen just salt to the earth, people love those guys, love every
5:43 chance I get to hang out with them.
5:45 And then in April, I had my verse, my first vocal cord surgery.
5:49 And yes, I said my first vocal cord surgery, I'll know where this is going, but collapsed
5:53 vocal cord, you know, just really thought, Hey, we finally got an idea of what's happening
5:58 and what we're going to do.
5:59 But then fast forward to May, I had to have a second surgery because the first surgery
6:02 was not successful.
6:03 So four weeks after the first surgery, I couldn't talk above like this, like this is as loud
6:08 as I could talk.
6:09 No one can understand me and it was really, really bad.
6:12 And the surgeon was not happy.
6:13 He was shocked at how bad my voice sounded.
6:17 And you know, in between the first and second surgery, you know, April, May, that time period,
6:20 you know, we're sitting there thinking that my career as a podcaster and a speaker is
6:23 over.
6:24 And we're trying to figure out like, what does that look like?
6:26 So those are highlights or low lights, whatever way that you want to look at it.
6:29 But also in April of this year, going back to April, James, our eldest son got into the
6:34 private school that we wanted him to get into.
6:36 And so we got him into the three year old program because this is a school that's very
6:39 solid after a lot of families want to get in, it's really hard for families to get all
6:43 their kids in.
6:44 And so we were kind of on the front end of that, you know, being able to get them into
6:47 a pre K program, like a pre pre K program so that he can, you know, grow in that school.
6:52 And then also a little brother squish could come behind him here in a couple of, a couple
6:56 of years.
6:57 And then also James turned three in May.
6:59 So that was a big highlight for us.
7:01 In June of this year, I started my voice coaching.
7:03 So vocal coaching.
7:04 So basically I got with a former opera singer who are a retired opera singer or whatever,
7:10 who's also speech language pathologist that's kind of got me on the pathway to where we're
7:13 at now.
7:14 And that's probably a good time for me.
7:15 The last several weeks, I know I've been clearing my throat a lot.
7:18 I've been, you know, doing that kind of stuff.
7:20 I've been coughing and I don't edit that stuff out of the show and it may be annoying to
7:23 you.
7:24 But it's like, I just want to be authentic.
7:25 Still having some vocal cord struggle, still having some tension in the vocal cord area,
7:29 but you know, working with coaches, working with doctors to make sure we can get that
7:31 figured out.
7:32 So that's healthy for the long term.
7:34 In July, I got my second stripe on my purple belt.
7:37 And so, you know, some people get the blue belt blues.
7:39 They get their blue belt never trained.
7:41 Some people get the purple belt blues.
7:42 I actually know quite a few guys that get their purple belt and then basically stop training,
7:46 which if you're a purple belt, you're a certified butt kicker.
7:49 And so, you know, if you don't want to train ever again, that kind of is what it is.
7:53 But each stripe on the belt is just like, okay, we're just still going down the path.
7:57 And again, it's just a dyed piece of fabric at the end of the day.
7:59 So eventually when I get my brown belt and hopefully when I get my black belt, like those
8:03 are just things where it's like, yeah, it's just a dyed piece of cloth.
8:06 It gives you an idea of what your coaches and your teammates think about your jujitsu.
8:10 So getting my second stripe was definitely a highlight.
8:12 In July of this year, I did kind of, I did the physical test I told you guys about because
8:16 I heard someone talk about if you can bench press your body weight, if you can squat,
8:21 back squat, one and a half times your body weight, if you can deadlift twice your body
8:25 weight and run a mile and under seven minutes that you're in like the top 1% of people or
8:29 whatever.
8:30 So I did a day about 190, 195. And so I just did, you know, a 225 bench press, you know,
8:35 for one, and I did this all in the same morning.
8:37 So, and well, I'll go in the order I did it.
8:39 So I did a four or five deadlift, no problem.
8:41 I did a 315 squat, no problem.
8:43 I did a 225 bench, no problem.
8:45 Then I ran a mile and 555. So I just did that all back to back to back one morning.
8:49 So that was just cool. Like I'm not saying like it to be braggy, but it's like, you know,
8:53 I've worked out really, really hard and done powerlifting for a long time and to be able
8:57 to run a fast mile, but also be decently strong, not like, you know, hey, I'm going to win
9:01 a strength competition strong, but that was cool just to kind of see where I'm at at the
9:05 age of 37 or at that time I was 36. But in August of this year, I took a trip out to Jacksonville
9:10 with my entire family, which I don't know that I would suggest doing that with a three
9:14 year old and a one year old, not sure that I would do that again, again, but did go out
9:18 to Jacksonville, got to spend some time with Joby actually got to meet him, Joby Martin
9:21 for the first time in person.
9:23 So went to the church of 1122 out there to the main campus, got to see him preach, got
9:27 to do a little bit of hunting, got to kill two hogs. So that was the first time I had
9:30 ever killed hogs and found them because, and it was kind of a cool story. But that was
9:35 really fun. Also in August, I went back down to Louisiana, Westman road to hang out with
9:39 the duck dynasty crew. So got to do that podcast, the unashamed podcast again. In September
9:44 of this year, I got to interview Vody Bockam. So for any of you that know that, you know,
9:47 I'm a huge Vody Bockam fan and I had tried for three or four years to get them on the
9:51 show and we finally made it happen. Also in September, we launched our cigars. So if
9:55 you're not familiar, we have launched cigars, you can go to undaunted dot life backslash
10:00 cigars. And the proceeds from that go to the rescue team, which is part of the Tim Tebow
10:04 Foundation. That's their arm that takes care of human trafficking and tries to get kids
10:10 and people out of human trafficking and care for them. So that's really, really cool. Never
10:13 thought I'd launch a cigar, but we have our very, very own cigars. Also, in October of
10:18 this year, I went back to Jacksonville and then I went to church of 1122 and then I went out
10:23 to their program called encounter. So we did that in Georgia at South Lemplantation. And
10:27 so that's where we're all out there. Whitetail hunting. But then there's a group of a couple
10:31 of dozen guys that, you know, we're doing, you know, we're fellow shipping. We're doing,
10:36 I guess, you know, we're doing Bible study and we're doing devotionals and stuff like
10:40 that in the blind and then talking about it together. But that was a really, really cool
10:43 event. And then in November of this year, my interview with Mark Wayne Mullen went mega
10:47 viral. So whenever he talked about the fact that he would bite that dude in the Senate
10:51 and how he would fight him and all that, we talked about that then. Also in November,
10:55 the biggest buck that I've ever killed, I got that, I guess the second day that I went
10:59 out. And so it was kind of an interesting thing where I was set up, you know, I'd seen
11:03 a lot of deer in this particular clearing. And so I was like set up with my rifle already
11:07 pointed down that direction. I watched this, you know, huge buck jump over the fence a
11:11 couple hundred yards out, went into the woods that I'd never seen him again. And then he
11:14 popped out. And I had probably two or three seconds to evaluate if he was a shooter and
11:18 take him out, shot him. It was a shooter, biggest buck I've ever gotten. It was great.
11:23 Also in November of this year, I took a trip to a field craft survival in Utah. And that
11:27 has really done wonders for this show. Because of that interview with Mike Glover on the
11:32 Mike force podcast, within a few days of the release of that podcast, our show went to number
11:38 two on Spotify in our category. It was in the top 150 overall on Spotify, all podcasts.
11:45 So that's a couple of million podcasts. We were in the top 150. And we also peaked at
11:49 number six on Apple podcast in the category. Our YouTube channel has like tripled in subscribers,
11:55 you know, our downloads on audio has really, really gone through the roof. And around that
11:58 same time in December, I did a return trip to the blaze to go see Chad Prather. And even
12:04 within the last, you know, couple of weeks, there's a huge Instagram account called alpha
12:08 motivation. They posted a lot of clips of the interview that I did with Mike Glover. And
12:13 those have have really done well. One of them went over to TikTok and went kind of mega
12:17 viral over there on TikTok. And so there's a lot of momentum seemingly heading into 2024.
12:22 And as a pessimist, I'm like, okay, I wonder what's going to happen. Like, am I about
12:26 to like lose an arm somehow? Or, you know, am I about to get really sick? You know, that's
12:31 just kind of how I am. I'm always trying to prepare for the worst case scenario. But
12:34 it has been a very, very incredible year. God has tremendously blessed our family. They've,
12:39 you know, he has blessed and daunted life and the things that we're doing. And the thing
12:43 is is when you're doing any type of venture, whether it's a startup or a new job or, you
12:50 know, some sort of different change with your family, you want to see fruit immediately
12:53 to be like confirmation like, Hey, this is the path that you should be going down. And
12:57 so 2023 was a great year front on a life in terms of there seems to be a proof of concept.
13:03 There seems to be a market for this because, you know, two, three years ago, whenever we
13:08 kind of burned the ships and I started doing the podcast and I don't do life full time,
13:12 it's like, okay, let's just see if the marketplace has a place for us. Because if nobody listens,
13:17 if the show doesn't grow, you know, if we don't do the things that, you know, we think
13:22 that we should be capable of doing, then that's the marketplace's way of telling us, yeah,
13:25 we don't need you. Because if you create a product, get it to market and nobody buys
13:29 it, well, that's a pretty good idea that that product wasn't needed by the market. But we've
13:33 seen a tremendous uptick. And again, that Mike Glover interviews is the biggest boom
13:37 that we've ever gotten for this particular podcast because it was a whole new audience
13:41 hearing me say the things that I've been saying for literally years at this point. Like I didn't
13:45 say anything unique on that show that was that would be unique or sound unique to guys that
13:50 have listened to me or read my stuff for a long time. And so we're very, very excited
13:54 about what 2024 has and stay store for us. And I want to kind of tease a little something
13:59 here for you. We have some things that we're looking to roll out the first quarter of 2024.
14:04 That's going to mega get undaunted life into the fight. Because we're here to equipment
14:10 to push back darkness. We fully plan to do that. And we've been doing that for a while.
14:14 But a lot of you have been like, okay, great. I've got the book list. I've read the devotionals.
14:19 I listen to the podcast, but I need more. So all I can tell you, and we'll announce more
14:24 when we have more to announce is more is coming. Okay, more is coming. Be patient. It's right
14:29 around the corner. So every year, I like to kind of look at the world of entertainment
14:33 and some of those things and kind of look at, you know, what were the biggest things that
14:36 kind of dominated the entertainment world. We'll talk about the sports world as well.
14:40 We'll go over some noteworthy deaths that happened in this year. And then we're going
14:43 to go into some actual specific news stories. So in the world of entertainment, the highest
14:47 grossing movie of the year was Barbie at 1.4 billion. Super Mario Brothers movie was right
14:53 behind that with 1.3 billion. And then Oppenheimer was just under a billion. I got to say, I went
14:58 and saw Oppenheimer. I was mega disappointed in it. You know, it was a Christopher Nolan
15:02 movie. So I was very excited about that. I really was interested in the subject matter.
15:06 We saw it on 70 millimeter IMAX. And it was like super bright and very grainy, almost like
15:13 something was wrong with the filming for a three hour movie. Like all the scenes were
15:18 like somewhere between 30 and 90 seconds long. It was so spastic from one scene to the next
15:23 scene to the next scene. And I was really disappointed. There was several gratuitous sex scenes in
15:27 the movie that I just didn't think would be there because I don't know that I've ever
15:30 seen a Christopher Nolan film with any sex in it whatsoever. It's always implied. And
15:34 so that was very disappointing. But when I got to the end of the movie, I went and saw
15:37 it with a couple of guys from my foxhole, you know, Vinny and Shelby. And we were just
15:43 kind of like, yeah, kind of sucked. And then but we're apparently in the minority because
15:47 everyone liked it. But wasn't huge fan of it. Now, the biggest album of the year is Did
15:51 you know by Lana Del Rey, Lana Del Rey, whoever that is? So congratulations to her. Good
15:56 for you. You sold a bunch of albums this year. The biggest song of the year, which this is
16:00 kind of hard to tell exactly because you know, it streams plus its purchases, plus its downloads.
16:05 It looks like the song of the year for 2023 is Flowers by Miley Cyrus, which is also the
16:11 most popular YouTube video of the year, which is the music video for this, which I have not
16:15 seen. But that's a album, I think, or that's a song that I think she wrote after she got
16:20 divorced or broke up with a boyfriend or something like that. And then it's like, I can buy myself
16:24 flowers, you know, I can do whatever. And so this is like the single chick anthem. So
16:29 it's, you know, pointing to the depravity of our culture that the single chick anthem,
16:33 like I don't need a man anthem is the biggest song and YouTube video of the year, but take
16:37 that for what it's worth. The most popular YouTuber of the year, and this is his fourth
16:41 year in a row is Mr. Beast. And then we're going to go into some other stuff. And since
16:45 I can't find accurate stats on some of the other stuff that I normally talk about, I'm
16:49 just going to give you some of my favorite things in entertainment from 2023 because it's hard
16:54 to kind of gauge everything. But here's some of my favorites from 2023. My favorite album
16:58 of 2023 is the album Take Me Back to Eden by Sleep Token. So Sleep Token is a band. I think
17:04 this is their third album. Didn't even know they existed. I heard a bunch of people talking
17:08 about it. And I heard a bunch of my favorite, you know, metal artists talk about how Sleep
17:12 Token was their new favorite band. I wore that album out this year. It's kind of like a combination
17:17 of like, you know, if a metal core band, you know, merged with Post Malone, and had like
17:23 a baby that, you know, had a random eclectic musical taste and then a musical version of
17:30 that came out. That's basically what this album is. So the first time I listened to it, I just
17:34 didn't get it. Second time I listened to it, I was like, Holy cow, this is this is incredible.
17:38 So that's a great album. My favorite song that was released in 2023 is Anthem Part Three
17:44 by Blink 182. So if you're Blink 182 fan, Mark Tom and Travis, that was always the setup.
17:50 But Tom went off and did his own thing with Angels and Airwaves. They had a different singer
17:53 for a while, but now Tom DeLong is back in Blink 182. They released a new album. And
17:58 the first track off that album is just incredible. That's Anthem Part Three. But the reason why
18:02 that's my favorite song of the year is because every day when I go pick up squish and James
18:07 from school, James will be like, Dad, I want to hear loud music. And what he means is like
18:12 metal music, right? So typically, but the first song that we listen to every day on the way
18:18 out of the parking lot is Anthem Part Three. And the boys just they freak out. They love
18:24 it. They're head banging and moving their head back and forth. And you know, it's not,
18:27 you know, the nicest song lyrically or whatever. And so I kind of turn it down in some of those
18:31 parts or whatever. But that's just kind of a cool song because every time they hear the
18:34 initial pop at the beginning of that song, they get excited. And so that's pretty awesome.
18:39 My favorite TV show of 2023 is The Chosen. So season three of The Chosen came out this
18:43 year was absolutely fantastic. And my favorite movie of 2023, I'm going to be real honest
18:47 with you. I think I only watched two movies this year that were actually from this year,
18:52 because I basically have no time to do anything anymore. It takes me two or three days to finish
18:56 a movie. So the only movies I saw were Oppenheimer and John Wick 4. And so John Wick 4 is my favorite
19:02 movie of 2023. So if you have other favorites that that you have for this, put it in the
19:07 show notes, or I guess you would have to put it in the comments or, you know, send me an
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19:40 Let's do a recap from the world of sports in 2023. So in Major League Baseball, the Texas
19:44 Rangers finally won their first ever World Series. They've been around for like half
19:49 a century. They finally won a World Series by beating the Arizona Diamondbacks in five
19:53 games. In college football, you got to go all the way way back in the way back machine
19:57 to January of this year. When Georgia beat the absolute breaks off a TCU, they beat them
20:04 65 to 7 65 to 7 to capture back to back national championships. And this show is not about
20:10 the college football playoff and the selection committee. But I feel like it's egregious
20:14 that Georgia is not in the top four. Like, I don't have a dog in the fight. I really
20:18 don't care. I just want to see good games. But you're telling me that Georgia was the
20:22 number one best team going into the weekend. They lose by three to their rival Alabama
20:28 in the championship game. And now they're the six best team in the country. How exactly
20:33 does that work? Like again, the the committee had an impossible assignment. I think they
20:38 got it right by not having Florida State in there. It didn't really matter that they
20:41 were an undefeated major conference, a championship team, because they lost their superstar. And
20:46 then they played two games and proved that basically they're not a very good team. And
20:50 so if the standard is we need the four best teams in there, Florida State can't be in
20:54 there. It makes sense for Michigan to be in there, makes sense for out for Alabama to
20:58 be in there. I guess it makes sense to have Texas in there. But honestly, you know, and
21:03 I guess Washington as well, but, you know, if it were me, I probably would have put Georgia
21:07 in there over Texas, but then there's a big debate who the heck cares. All right, let's
21:10 move on to the Stanley Cup finals in the NHL. The Las Vegas golden Knights beat the Florida
21:14 Panthers in five games. And there were a bunch of new undisputed UFC champions this year.
21:19 So Jamal Hill, he became the light heavyweight champion this year by beating Glover to share
21:25 it at UFC 283 in January. Brandon Moreno at flyweight beat Davidson Figurito. That was
21:31 their fourth fight. I think Brandon Moreno has taken two of those. I think they're split.
21:35 But he won the flyweight title at UFC 283 in January as well. Alexa Grasso had a huge
21:40 upset upset in the women's flyweight division by beating Valentina chef Cenco at UFC 285
21:45 in March. John Jones became the heavyweight champion by destroying surreal gone at UFC
21:51 285 in March. Israel, out of Sonya got his middleweight title back by beating Alex Pajeda
21:56 at UFC 287 in April. Alexandria Pantoja. He won the flyweight title by beating Brandon
22:02 Moreno at UFC 290 in July. Sean O'Malley. He won the Bantamweight title by beating
22:08 Aljamaine Sterling at UFC 292 in August. And then Sean Strickland of all people won the
22:13 middleweight title by beating just absolutely dominating Israel, out of Sonya at UFC 293
22:18 in September. In the world of boxing, I don't really fall boxing that closely, but the one
22:22 boxing match I did watch this year was Francis and Ghana beating the crap out of Tyson Fury.
22:27 So MMA fighter, Francis and Ghana, his first boxing match of his life, he goes up against
22:33 the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time in Tyson Fury. And he won the fight, but he
22:39 didn't get the decision. So Tyson Fury actually got dropped by Francis and Ghana in the second
22:44 round. And Tyson Fury, he just looked slow. I mean, he always looks out of shape, but he
22:49 looked terrible. And you could tell that when Francis with land, he's like, Oh crap, like
22:53 this is going to be hard to deal with. But you know, the boxing world, the MMA world,
22:57 when it got to the decision, you kind of had a feeling that there was no way they were
23:00 going to allow Tyson Fury to lose that because it sets up so many other fights for him if
23:04 he wins, if he stays undefeated. But Francis and Ghana looked incredible. Now the biggest
23:09 sports story of 2023, if I had to pick one story, is show Hayo Tani. Okay, for a lot of
23:15 reasons, because show Hayo Tani modern day Babe Ruth, if he spoke English, well, and if
23:20 he didn't play for an absolutely horrific team like the Los Angeles Angels, he would
23:24 be the biggest story in all of sports. But in my opinion, he wanted his second MVP award
23:29 that not in my opinion, he actually did win it. He won the second MVP award of his career.
23:33 And that was even after missing the last month of the season because he blew out his elbow
23:37 again. He hits free agency and he's hitting free agency where he know everyone knows he's
23:42 not going to be able to pitch next year. You know, that's best case scenario with having
23:46 to get a second Tommy John surgery. But then he turned around and signed the biggest sports
23:50 contract in the history of North American sports 10 years, $700 million from the Dodgers
23:57 with 680 million of that deferred. And so every year for 10 years, show Hayo Tani is
24:03 going to get paid $2 million a year to be maybe the greatest player of all time. I mean, he
24:10 doesn't have the stats to back it up right now, but he's a top five hitter and a top five
24:16 to 10 pitcher probably top five in both. Like we just don't really see anything like that.
24:21 But they're deferring the money where he's going to get paid, you know, 68 million year
24:26 like after his contract is over. It's kind of a new contract. There have always been
24:30 deferred contracts, but nothing of this size. The Dodgers have really allowed themselves
24:34 to sign other players. It's just an incredible thing. Biggest sports story of 2023. Now,
24:38 the dumbest sports story of 2023 is going to make me sound like a little bit of a hater,
24:42 which that's fine. But it's when Lionel Messi signed with MLS, he signed with a team in
24:48 the MLS, enter Miami. And so here's the thing. I like soccer. I used to be a much bigger soccer
24:54 fan when I was playing collegiate soccer, but I've kind of fallen away. I don't really follow
24:58 it very much anymore. Even though I'm not a huge fan of Lionel Messi, I think it's absolutely
25:02 appropriate to call him the goat. He's won every individual award that you can win multiple
25:06 times. He finally led Argentina to a World Cup. But people were treating the signing of
25:15 him to enter Milan as being historic. I constantly saw people putting these things out there
25:22 talking about how historic it was. And I guess the question I have is what is this to work
25:28 about a formerly elite player? Because he's he's towards the latter end of his career.
25:31 He's not the best, you know, footballer on the planet anymore. He's still really, really
25:35 good. But he's not elite. What is this to work about a formerly elite player signing
25:39 with the retirement league? I mean, because if you know anything about professional soccer,
25:44 the MLS is probably not even the top five of different leagues. So I mean, obviously there's
25:49 Champions League, which includes, you know, La Liga and includes the English Premier League
25:55 and all these other different leagues. The MLS doesn't even rank. And so he's a big star
26:01 internationally. And then he does what a lot of those guys have done. They just go over
26:04 to MLS, right? Like David Beckham did. And you know, a couple of other guys, I just don't
26:08 see it as a historic thing. But it was like they were trying to force this down my throat.
26:12 That Lionel Messi signing with Inter Miami was that was this huge enormous deal. Like
26:17 we are going to be telling our grandkids someday about that one time when Lionel Messi scored
26:22 a goal in a league that nobody watches. So I just didn't really get it. I thought it was
26:27 a dumb sports story of 2023. All right, let's do some noteworthy deaths in 2023. So retired
26:33 Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female Supreme Court Justice died
26:37 at 93. Pastor Tim Keller died at 72. Actor Matthew Perry died at 54. Singer Tina Turner
26:44 died at 83. Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger died at 100 motorsports icon
26:51 Ken Block died at 55. The daughter of Elvis Lisa Marie Presley died at 54. Composer Bert
26:56 Bakarack died at 94. Hall of Fame broadcaster and former St. Louis Cardinal Tim Carver died
27:01 at 81. TV show host Jerry Springer died at 79 actually met Jerry Springer when I used to
27:06 work for Major League Baseball. Dude could not have been a nicer guy. He was so nice and
27:10 quick Jerry Springer story because you know he has this extreme show all these crazy people.
27:14 But we had this wall that had it was kind of like an artistic way of expressing it but
27:20 it had all the World Series matchups and playoff matchups and champions from you know the beginning
27:26 of the World Series all the way to that season which would have been 2000 and well the previous
27:31 season would have been 2011. So I'm giving Jerry Springer a tour around the studio and
27:35 then he sees this wall and then he sees oh it's a bracket showing you know who competed
27:41 in the World Series and who won every year and he proceeds to turn his back to the wall
27:46 and from memory he gave the World Series matchups and winners from like 1950 to like 1975 and
27:54 then he just stopped and goes well you get the point. So enormous baseball fan very very
27:59 nice guy obviously I disagree with him on just about everything more morally and politically
28:04 but he passed away this year. Original poker greatest of all time Doyle Brunson I think
28:08 he won the first two World Series of poker he died at 89 NFL Hall of Famer and some considered
28:14 to be the greatest running back of all time. Jim Brown died at 87 I think Barry Sanders
28:18 is the greatest but Jim Brown is certainly up there. The Unibomber who is a serial killer
28:22 Ted Kuzinski he died at 81. Pulled surprise winning novelist Cormac McCarthy who wrote
28:27 The Road which I told you is now my new favorite novel of all time died at 89. Singer Tony Bennett
28:33 died at 96. Singer Shenando Connor died at 56. TV show legend Bob Barker died at 99. Singer
28:40 Jimmy Buffett died at 76. NFL Hall of Famer and linebacker Dick Buckets died at 80. MLB
28:46 Knuckleballer Tim Wakefield died at 57. I got to meet him as well also a fantastic guy
28:50 and then legendary and infamous basketball coach Bobby Knight died at 83.
28:55 This episode is brought to you by Red Finn. You're listening to a podcast which means you're
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29:23 All right now let's get into some news stories for this year. Some of the best highlights
29:27 in the you know if you're going to do a year interview you need to go over some news stories.
29:31 But here's some news stories that you perhaps forgotten. That actually happened in 2023 because
29:36 everything happens. The news story or the news cycle rather moves so fast. Let's go into
29:40 some of those on January 2nd of this year. Bill's safety to Mar Hamlin actually flatlined
29:45 on the field during a game and he had to be resuscitated during Monday night football.
29:49 I talked about how crazy that was because I don't really support the NFL anymore. All
29:53 the black lives matter stuff they did and basically them telling me I was racist for being a white
29:57 man. I'm not a huge fan of that. But for whatever reason I had a free night all week everyone
30:02 had been talking about the matchup between the bills and the bangles and how it was going
30:05 to be this big thing and all playoff implications and all that. And so I sit down to watch it
30:09 and really early in the first quarter tomorrow Hamlin takes a hit and he basically dies right
30:14 there on the field and you can see from the players like the impact that it had like oh
30:18 my gosh should we just witness our first death on the field during an NFL game. And so that
30:22 happened earlier this year. Obviously he made a full recovery. I think he's back on the field
30:26 now if I remember correctly. So that happened on January 2nd on January the 7th Kevin McCarthy
30:31 was elected speaker of the house, which that didn't last for very long because of a couple
30:35 of turds Republicans that have no plan. They they got him ousted and then they put someone
30:40 else in there who's basically doing everything that Kevin McCarthy would do on February the
30:44 3rd there was that trained derailment in East Palestine or East Palestine, Ohio. So that
30:48 was absolutely insane. And then the day a day later the United States shoots down the Chinese
30:53 spy balloon only after it crossed the entire United States and went over military bases
31:00 and went around in and around where we have a lot of our nukes. And so the Biden administration
31:05 you know they're they're really taking care of business. They were they were really scared
31:08 about shooting this thing down over Montana blessed it, you know, fall on a moose. But
31:12 yeah, let's just let a Chinese spy balloon work its way all the way across the country
31:15 and then shoot it down once it's over the Atlantic Ocean sounds like a great plan on
31:19 February 12th, Chris Stapleton delivered the greatest performance of the national anthem
31:25 of all time. So he did that before Superball 57. You can miss me with that Whitney Houston
31:29 stuff. You know why? Because that was pre recorded. She didn't sing that live. Chris Stapleton
31:34 just went out there with his sunglasses and his guitar and freaking smashed it greatest
31:38 national anthem ever. On March 30th of this year, Donald Trump became the first former
31:42 president to be indicted for a crime. This was the first of four indictments. This one
31:46 was in Manhattan more on that here in a second. On April the 24th, Tucker Carlson was fired
31:51 from Fox News, which you want to talk about a mega back fire. So Fox News couldn't control
31:55 the guy they fire them. Their ratings take, you know, absolute tanking. And now Tucker
32:00 Carlson has launched his his own network. So good for Tucker Carlson on the fifth of this
32:05 year, you may have not have known this, but this was major breaking news at the time.
32:08 COVID-19 was deemed by the World Health Organization, which, you know, obviously it doesn't get
32:13 any financial incentive by making things up, you know, they finally deemed that COVID-19
32:20 was no longer a global health emergency. That's right. May 5th of 2023, the World Health
32:29 Organization finally lets you know that COVID-19 is not that dangerous. It's not a global
32:35 health emergency. Even though I know people personally that still wear masks everywhere
32:40 they go. Yes. That still get groceries from Walmart and put it in separate rooms to wait
32:46 for COVID-19 to die. Even though we found out almost immediately that COVID-19 does not
32:51 live on services. Thank you, CDC. Thank you, World Health Organization for breaking people's
32:56 brains. And then the day after that, we're supposed to care about this somehow. But on
33:00 May 6th, Prince Charles became became King Charles. So good for him. Whatever. All right,
33:06 June 18th, the Titan submersible imploded near the Titanic. Man, I remember that week
33:10 I was traveling and there was like this timeline of like, okay, they're running out of oxygen
33:15 and we got to find and we got to do all that. And then, you know, became pretty clear when
33:19 they started to find wreckage and different things down there that it had actually imploded.
33:24 So sad story for the people on board and their families. Then on August 8th, another
33:28 sad story, the Maui wildfires. And that's one of those things where there were so many
33:32 people that died. There was such utter and complete destruction of Maui and unbelievably
33:40 bad performances by the local Democrats and the things that they did, the people that
33:46 were supposed to like take care of these individuals, prepare them for these types of situations.
33:51 There was failure on basically all levels. And then we just never heard about it again.
33:58 I mean, again, at the time that it was happening, I'm like, give it a week, maybe two, and people
34:03 aren't going to be talking about anymore. Now the people of Maui are certainly talking
34:06 about it. There are people that still have not been able to get the remains of their
34:10 children, right? Because their children were left at home and they died. And you know,
34:15 it's just a horrible awful situation. But that happened in August. On October the 25th,
34:19 a gunman killed 19 people in a shooting spree in Maine. So you guys are obviously familiar
34:23 with that. And then here recently, just, you know, not that long ago, December the 18th,
34:28 Pope Francis says that priests can bless the sin of same sex relationships. So I want to
34:35 take a quick aside on this one because I, you know, I would have done it and covered
34:38 in the quick hitters, but Pope Francis releases this document from the Vatican. And if you
34:43 listen to the entirety of the mainstream media, not even the mainstream, let's just let's
34:49 broaden it out. All liberal media, major media, and all conservative major media, and all,
34:56 you know, purportedly moderate major media reported this the exact same. They all said
35:02 that Pope Francis and the Vatican has opened the door for priests to blessed to bless same
35:08 sex couples. So those were the headlines. And then when you read the stories, it went
35:13 into detail about how that's actually what happened, that it was an actual change. But
35:18 when you talk to Catholics and Catholic bloggers, they're like, no, no, no, no, no, nothing
35:23 has changed. Y'all don't understand Catholicism. Y'all don't understand the Vatican. Y'all
35:28 apparently don't understand English and can't read. That's not what happened. Pope Francis
35:33 and the Vatican released a statement saying that nothing has changed, which I don't know
35:40 about you guys. I don't feel the need to make a declarative announcement that nothing has
35:46 changed because if nothing has changed, no one needs to be notified. Like at all. And
35:53 here's the thing about the story. I've had a lot of Catholics reach out. They're not happy
35:56 with how I've appointed. I'm basically pointing to this story and saying, yeah, Pope Francis
36:01 is a terrible person. Like he's he's a terrible pope. The pope is not even a a biblical thing.
36:07 Like that's not even a biblical office. This idea that the pope has some sort of magic
36:11 power over Christians is absolutely farcical. But when you point at the story and you look
36:16 at the story, you have to ask yourself, what other stories has the entirety of the of the
36:21 media apparatus, conservative, moderate, and liberal all been on the same page? What is
36:28 the motivation exactly? Because there are conservative outlets that are pro Catholicism
36:33 pro Christianity that are reporting the see exact same way. Why would they do that if it
36:37 wasn't accurate? So you have to ask yourself that. Also, you have to ask yourself, what
36:42 is the Vatican going to do? If a priest were to, I don't know, bless the same sex union.
36:49 Because one day after there was a priest, I forget his name, I posted it on our Instagram,
36:55 there was a priest that did a blessing for a same sex sex couple. There are these two
36:59 guys, they're holding hands, this priest is giving them a blessing. So if this pope or
37:06 sorry, if this priest rather in this story went rogue and went outside of the doctrine,
37:12 the accepted doctrine and orthopraxie of the Vatican and the Catholic church, as you know,
37:17 deemed necessary by the pope, don't you think that they would have repudiated this priest?
37:23 Don't you think that this priest would have received some sort of condemnation? Maybe
37:28 even punishment, maybe even be what is it called? Like defrocked or you know, had his
37:32 priesthood taken away or something like that. But wouldn't you know it? I'm sitting here
37:37 a while after that story. We haven't heard a peep from the Vatican. There's been no
37:43 condemnation of this particular priest. So again, I ask you, if you're one of those
37:47 Catholics are like, Hey, nothing changed. Everyone's blowing up the story. You know, everyone's
37:51 misunderstanding the pope, you know, we're bad. We're, we're sitting, we're doing all
37:54 these horrible things. We're being divisive. There were causing schism and all that. Are
37:58 we the ones doing that? Because Pope Francis is basically like Andy Stanley. Okay. Now Andy
38:04 Stanley is a master with words and Pope Francis seems to just, you know, pop off at the mouth,
38:09 but there's not a multitude of options here. Andy Stanley and the pope could communicate
38:14 very clearly about what the Bible says, which means what God says about homosexuality. And
38:19 it's not that those people can't be prayed for. It's not that those people can individually
38:23 be blessed, but obviously you can't bless them in the process of sinning, which is the
38:28 reason why I don't go to, uh, if, if same sex couples invite us to go to their wedding,
38:34 we would never go. Now we would invite them over for dinner and love on them and share
38:38 the gospel with them and hope that they accept the gospel and repent of their sins, but we're
38:43 not going to go to a ceremony celebrating their sin. Just like I wouldn't go to a ceremony
38:48 celebrating someone's alcoholism or addiction to methamphetamine's or watching porn or adultering
38:55 on their wife. Like I wouldn't go to a ceremony celebrating that because of course, but in
39:00 this particular setup, Catholics have just w you know, woven themselves into these pretzels
39:05 and they have to realize there's only a couple of options. Either the pope and the Vatican
39:11 collectively are the worst group on the planet when it comes to communicating clearly using
39:15 the English language or they're okay with this. They're purposely sowing confusion seeds
39:22 of confusion in people so that they will act out in this way. And as I've told you before
39:27 and I'm going to stay on this and as I predicted literally a week before the story came out,
39:31 the Vatican will eventually announce that they are fully blessing same sex unions. They will
39:37 eventually come out maybe not during Francis's tenure and say that they approve of same sex
39:42 marriage and eventually there will be a female pope and eventually there will be an LGBTQ
39:47 plus affirming pope. So it'll either be a gay pope or a trans pope or a less pope or
39:50 a bipope or something like that, it's going to happen because that's the trajectory that
39:55 this is going on in Pope Francis is just like speeding that process up. So I know I took
39:59 a little bit of a diatribe on that but I thought it was necessary. So now I'm going to give
40:03 out a couple of awards here for I guess you could call them awards because we're in award
40:07 season on our show, but it's just kind of like highlighted shows that are above kind of just
40:11 normal list. So the most concerning news story of 2023 is Republicans trying to moderate
40:18 on the abortion issue. So I've talked about this before, but Republicans and conservatives
40:23 got the biggest win ever in 2022 and in the summer of that year when the Supreme Court
40:29 in the United States overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Okay. And
40:35 then we're all excited. You know, this is great. And then immediately within about a
40:40 day, people are like, we really should be excited. You know, this is dunking on people and we
40:45 shouldn't really be excited about the fact that, you know, perhaps more babies are going
40:49 to be saved from being sucked into a trash can through a vacuum tube. We shouldn't be
40:53 excited about that. We need to understand the plight of blah, but that's basically what
40:57 we started to get. But then there were all these state elections and different laws in
41:01 different states like Kansas and Ohio and these places that you thought would be bastions
41:05 of pro-lifeism. And that's not what happened. Like they didn't go the pro life way went
41:10 the pro choice way otherwise known as the pro-abortion way. The pro-abortion lobby, which
41:14 is the Democratic Party and Planned Parenthood and all the different people that helped them.
41:17 They spent tens of millions of dollars during these local elections to lie to the populace
41:23 and tell them things about the abortion proceedings in their state that are not true. So like if
41:28 a woman had a tubal pregnancy, meaning that she has an ectopic pregnancy, it's a risk
41:33 to her life. The baby is essentially already dead. It's in pieces in the fallopian tube.
41:37 They're telling you in these states that, Oh, those women, they're not going to be able
41:40 to get treatment for that. Because of those dirty rotten pro lifers, those Christians,
41:45 those conservatives, they spent all this money lying to the populace. The populace took a
41:49 hook line and sinker and they voted against these different things that would have really
41:53 put extreme limitations on abortion in a lot of these different states.
41:57 And so as I've talked about before, Republicans took the exact wrong opinion on these signs
42:02 and said, you know what we need to do? We should really moderate on the abortion issue.
42:06 We should find a third way. And as I've told you about this on all these incendiary topics,
42:11 there is no third way approach on something like abortion. Because these are either living
42:17 human beings worthy of our protection, or they're meaningless clumps of cells that there is
42:23 no moral violation if you kill them, right? Well, they wouldn't even say that they're
42:28 alive. But you know, if you basically suck them out of the woman and dispose of them,
42:33 that there's no issue. Those are the two options. There is no middle ground. Because if someone's
42:38 like, yeah, I'm not really okay with like, you know, a third trimester abortion, but yeah,
42:42 first trimester, it makes a whole lot of sense. Why? Why? What is different about the baby
42:49 or about the fetus, whatever you want to call it at 10 weeks gestation and 38 weeks gestation.
42:56 Only their level of development. Because that same argument can be made for a six month
43:01 old outside the womb. For a 16 year old for a 70 year old, it's just their stage of development.
43:07 This all comes down to stage of development and geographical location. It just so happens
43:11 to be developing inside of the woman. And you think that it's okay to kill that. And so
43:18 for Republicans to try to moderate on this issue, they're moderating so that they can
43:21 try to win elections. But at some point, someone's going to have to stand up and be the moral
43:25 police and say, no, we're not going to moderate on this because people are dying. Literally
43:33 the most innocent of innocent are being murdered and slaughtered at alarming rates. So that's
43:40 the most concerning story of the 2023 for me. Now, the most insane news story of 2023 is
43:46 conservatives finally taking a clear W in the culture wars and then softening on it.
43:54 So I'm talking about is the Bud Light boycott. So earlier this year, Bud Light sends custom
43:58 cans to Dylan Mulvaney, which is a guy who has made a boatload of money pretending to
44:03 be a woman, you know, it's first year as a woman and all these different things. And
44:06 so they send them these custom cans and then, you know, Kid Rock, you know, finds out and
44:10 Tucker Carlson finds out all these people find out. And then there is a boycott of Bud Light
44:14 and what conservatives did by not drinking Bud Light, which I've never had it, if that's
44:17 your drink of choice, good for you. But what they did is they said, you know what, no more.
44:23 We're not going to buy this. We can buy medello, which I think became the number one selling
44:27 beer brand of the year. You know, we can buy bushlight, we can buy Miller Light, we can
44:30 buy something, some other terrible light beer, we can do that. But then now we're seeing
44:35 like this month, we're seeing people even like Kid Rock softening on it being like, okay,
44:40 you know, they've had enough. But the thing is is what Bud Light and what Ann Heiser Bush
44:45 communicated to you is that they hate you and your values. So by supporting Dylan Mulvaney
44:52 and this idea that a man can become a woman just if they think it's so. And if they get
44:57 some cheekbone lifting implants and if they, you know, start growing their hair out and
45:01 painting their nails, they're communicating something to you. And so I talk about this
45:06 all the time and I'll certainly talk about this more in the ways to avoid being a crappy
45:09 man in 2024 episode. But it's like, when are y'all going to draw a line and have some
45:13 standards? You just give your money to these organizations that hate you. Target is trying
45:19 to, you know, they're selling satanic and LGBTQ stuff directly in their stores. But you really
45:24 like their selection and how convenient their grocery system is or whatever. And so you
45:30 just keep shopping at Target. You know, Netflix has, you know, cocoa melon and things like
45:35 that showing two gay dads watching their baby son address up as a girl and dance around
45:41 for their enjoyment. Then they have the cuties video or a movie where it shows these little
45:46 girls dancing for the pedophilic fetishes of other men. And you're like, yeah, but I
45:51 really like Netflix. I like binge watching shows. So you keep giving them your money.
45:56 Disney has men wearing, wearing dresses and with full beards, you know, walking around
46:01 like their Disney princesses. And there's all these different signs that Disney is like
46:06 infusing LGBTQ indoctrination into their kids content. And you keep going to Disneyland
46:10 and Disney World. And you have a Disney plus subscription. So I don't understand conservatives.
46:16 They love to hooten, holler and scream and say, you know what, we're not going to take
46:20 it and we're going to do whatever until it becomes inconvenient or until you can't find
46:26 something that's more entertaining or more aligning with your values. You don't even
46:29 look that hard and you just kind of blindly keep going through it. It's an insane news
46:33 story for me. So again, I was never a consumer of Bud Light. So there's no boycott for me
46:37 because it's just a continuation of my lifetime boycott of terrible drinks like light beer.
46:42 But I that's just a very, very insane story for me that conservatives are basically taking
46:46 a W and turning it into an L. All right, now we're going to go to the most ignored news
46:51 story of 2023. And that is well, actually, I'll go back to last year. So for 2022, I said
46:56 my most ignored news story was 5 million plus illegal border crossings since Joe Biden
47:04 took office. Now we are at an estimated 8 million people that have crossed illegally into the
47:12 United States. And that includes droves of people that would love nothing more than to
47:16 kill a bunch of Americans. Okay. So 8 million, I think the breakdown is 6 million people
47:21 that did not come to ports of entry. And then 2 million illegals that did come to ports
47:25 of entry. But I literally looked this up today. I'm like, okay, 8 million people, we're going
47:29 to have to put that in perspective. Okay. So I'm going to what I did is I looked up the
47:36 actually let me look. So pause in here. I sent the link to myself, I think, because I looked
47:40 at the population stats. All right, here we go. Here are the population stats of states
47:45 in the United States. Okay. Here are the number of states that do not have as much of a population
47:52 as the number of illegal migrants that we know have ended up in the country since Joe
47:57 Biden took over as president. So in three years, this number of people have illegally
48:02 come into the country and they're still here. Okay. So that is more people than the populations
48:08 of Washington State, Arizona, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Indiana, Missouri, Maryland, Wisconsin,
48:17 Colorado, Minnesota, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Connecticut,
48:24 Utah, Nevada, Iowa, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Idaho, Nebraska,
48:31 West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota,
48:37 North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming. And for good measure, Puerto Rico and District of Columbia.
48:43 Just think about that. Eight million people are here in this country illegally.
48:49 Many of them are terrorists. A lot of them are criminals. Some of them are people that
48:55 obviously just want to be here to have a chance at a better life. But these are people that have
48:59 cut the line, come here illegally in the Joe Biden administration's all here for it.
49:04 Now I'm saying that's the most ignored news story, which you might think, well, Kyle,
49:06 I hear about this all the time. It's most ignored because we are not doing anything about it.
49:11 Because yes, there have been stories about blue state Democrats, governors of those states
49:17 freaking out that, you know, the governor of Florida and the governor of Texas is like shipping
49:22 these people directly to them in New York and California and Chicago and those different places.
49:27 Yeah, we've seen those stories. Yeah, we've seen the videos and the pictures,
49:30 the people at Eagle Pass and things like that and just literally walking across with our border
49:35 patrol agents just standing there. We've seen those stories, but what's being done about it?
49:40 Nothing. Alejandro Mayorkas, who is in charge of doing that, is basically like, yeah, the
49:47 border is secure, which makes me think they don't understand what that word means because secure
49:51 means secure, which means that people can't just literally walk across it with their backpack
49:54 and toe, right? And again, we're not going to get into a big long debate about, you know,
49:59 how we're to take care of that. But the reason why the Biden administration is not doing anything
50:03 about it is obvious. Is it not? It's super obvious because what they want to do is they want to let
50:08 millions and millions and millions of people into this country over years and years and potentially
50:13 decades because they know that eventually Republicans, we need Republicans will cave
50:19 and give all of them blanket amnesty. And if you give all those people blanket amnesty,
50:23 you're also going to give them the right to vote. And if you're the administration that let them
50:28 in the country and let them stay here and didn't get rid of them, who do you think they're going to
50:31 vote for in elections? That's exactly what's happening here. So it's not like replacement theory and
50:37 all these different things and all this like, Oh, it's white supremacy. No, it's just math.
50:40 Because you have to make sure that in the long term, the electorate is going to do what you
50:45 want them to do. And so you're going to keep incentivizing them. They're going to say not only
50:50 are we going to let you come into this country just by walking across the border, not only are we
50:54 going to not going to demand that you assimilate into our culture and even learn our language.
50:59 But we're also going to support you. We're going to give you all this money. We're going to give
51:03 you all these, these goodies. We're going to give you cell phones. We're going to give you free
51:07 education. We're going to give you free health care. And if the Democratic Party does that for you,
51:11 who do you think you're going to vote for? It's obvious. And I would be shocked that that also
51:17 was on the most ignored news story of 2024. Because certainly it's not going to stop next year.
51:22 Now we need to talk about the most talked about new story of 2023. And so it's a bunch of stories
51:27 in one and that's Trump being indicted four times. So he's been indicted in New York, DC, Florida,
51:32 and Georgia. And that's really going to dominate the news cycle for 2024, which we'll talk about
51:36 here in a second. So I'll save some of my commentary for then. So that's the most talked about new
51:40 story of 2023. Now, the biggest news story of 2023 is, is the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel,
51:47 on 10 seven. Obviously, there's not even a close second. Again, I did an entire episode on that,
51:51 where I broke down some of the things that have happened. And again, part of the reason why I went
51:55 into such detail on the depraved things that happened on the murders and the rapes and the
51:59 tortures and different things is because I knew within about two weeks, there were going to be
52:03 people saying, why is Israel being so mean to Hamas? You know, Hamas, they're the victims,
52:07 they live in an open air prison. What were they supposed to do? All these types of things that
52:10 are basically like tut tutting and saying, yeah, you know, who could blame them? Who could blame
52:15 them for holding little girls down and raping them so violently that they break their pelvises?
52:20 I mean, you know, because Israel's mean. So things like that are okay, right? But that's the
52:26 biggest news story of 2023. And I have some more commentary on that as I talk about 2024. So we'll
52:31 skip that. But on a little bit of a lighter note, we need to talk about the biggest news person of
52:35 2023. And that's Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift was everywhere this year. You couldn't escape her.
52:44 So I think she was a time magazine person of the year and people go, you know, she'd go to somebody
52:47 else. But Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift this year had like some of the best selling albums. I think
52:53 she like rerecorded some of her old albums or something because she couldn't get the rights to
52:57 the music back or something like that. She launched the era's tour, which I think is the highest grossing
53:02 tour of all time for for anybody. She didn't I think she released a movie this year that did
53:07 really, really well. The NFL couldn't even be kept out of the whole Taylor Swift thing because she
53:13 started dating Travis Kelsey, the tied in for the Kansas City Chiefs. And so that was all over the
53:18 place so much. So that like I saw yesterday as I was scrolling through Fox News on Instagram,
53:22 they said, Taylor Swift looks to say a curse word after Travis Kelsey is pushed in the end zone.
53:27 It's like Fox News. Is this news? Is this breaking news that I need to see that's going to help me
53:34 be a more informed citizen? So it didn't matter where you went. It didn't matter if you were hiding
53:39 in the political world or in the entertainment world or in the sports world, Taylor Swift dominated
53:43 this year. So hey, Swiftie's good for you guys. But now before we get out of here today, I want
53:48 to talk about the likely big news stories that we can expect in 2024. I guess you can look at these
53:53 as predictions. And so obviously all of 2024 is going to be about the general election for president.
53:59 So many will say on both sides really that democracy in the future of the country is at stake. And this
54:04 will be potentially the last election that we ever have. And none of that's true. So as the Trump
54:09 people say that and as the Biden people say that, just ignore it. But it's going to be Trump, Trump,
54:13 Trump, everything Trump. That's basically what we're looking at because Donald Trump will win
54:17 the Republican nomination. Rhonda Sanchez, unfortunately, he's not going to overtake him.
54:21 Nikki Haley kind of mild on her. She's not going to overtake it. It's going to be Trump.
54:26 He has a historic lead. That's not going anywhere. I will also tell you and predict that Trump will
54:31 certainly be found guilty and sentenced to prison time on at least one of the foreign
54:36 Diamonds that he has coming, right? Most of them are basically vacuous, but the
54:41 top top secret documents thing in Florida, that's the one where you actually you could see he clearly
54:48 did wrong. But basically what Donald Trump being found guilty and given a prison sentence is going
54:53 to do is it's going to throw the United States into an unprecedented constitutional and security
54:58 crisis. Because you can't just let the president go into general population inside a president,
55:04 or sorry, the former president, you can't let him go into a general population of a prison.
55:08 That'll never happen. The secret service just can't let that happen. But let's just
55:13 suspend belief here and say that he wins the election. He can't rule the country from prison.
55:18 So there is going to be some major constitutional crises coming. But you know, as same as last year,
55:23 we're going to be seeing this continued cognitive decline of co-president Biden. I say co-president
55:27 because he's basically not really the president. He's essentially the figurehead at this point.
55:31 But I'll say this and I'm sticking by this particular prediction. Joe Biden, if alive,
55:36 will be the Democratic nominee for president. And if he goes against Donald Trump, which is,
55:40 you know, is 99.9999% possible and likely at this point, he's going to win reelection, guys.
55:46 He's just going to win it. And everyone keeps talking to me right now. But Kyle, look at the
55:50 polls. Joe Biden's terrible in the polls and Trump's up in all the polls. And every time something
55:54 bad happens for Trump, his poll numbers go up and he's polling well in all the swing states.
55:58 Yes. And it's a year before the election. Don't you think the mainstream media knows that?
56:02 Part of the reason why I think the mainstream media is pushing all these narratives that are
56:07 helping Trump right now is because they desperately want him to be the nominee. Because they know
56:12 that if DeSantis is the Republican nominee, that he beats Joe Biden running away. If Nicki Hailey
56:17 is the nominee, even a turd like Vivek Ramaswami, who's just, I don't know, I just don't believe
56:22 anything that guy says those people beat Joe Biden because Joe Biden is a dead person.
56:26 But Joe Biden is probably the second least popular president of all time, only behind Donald Trump.
56:32 And you may like him, but again, you get one vote. Your vote only counts for one. And so these
56:38 morons are just like, I've been told reliably by CNN that Donald Trump's a racist and that if he
56:43 becomes elected, he's going to become a dictator. So check, they're going to go for Joe Biden.
56:48 But the thing about this is, I hope I'm wrong. I hope a Republican wins the presidential,
56:54 presidential race. I hope it's not Donald Trump, but it's for all intense purposes. He will be the
56:59 representative. The horrible thing that we are going to see next November is that we are going
57:03 to see riots either way, no matter who wins the election, which is awful. Because we expect
57:09 leftists to do it. Because I remember being in Austin, Texas during the general election in 2020.
57:14 And they were boarding up all the businesses in downtown Austin. And they weren't boarding it up
57:20 because of what they thought Trump supporters were going to do if Trump lost. But obviously,
57:25 because of what Biden supporters were going to do if Biden lost. But now as we've seen,
57:31 Trumpers are going to freak out as well. Again, think what you want about January 6, but it actually
57:35 happened. There were morons there that day that actually thought that they were going to overturn
57:39 the election. Again, I don't think Trump is responsible for a planned invasion of the capital
57:45 that day. I think there's no evidence to support that whatsoever. But there were people there that
57:49 day that thought they were doing his bidding, certainly. But the reason why I think we're going to see
57:54 riots no matter what is because if you think that this election is legitimately stolen, the 2024
58:00 election, which both sides have proven that they can be easily swayed to believe that because
58:05 Democrats believe that in 2016, Russian collusion, Republicans believe that in 2020, because of,
58:11 you know, things that they can't even prove in court. But if people feel like the result of the
58:16 2024 election is fraudulent, they will feel justified, justified in a violent overthrow of the election
58:23 results. So the the burning, the looting, the violence, I think it's going to come from either side,
58:29 regardless of what happens, because we again, I hate seeing things that seem hyperbolic and,
58:35 you know, tangential only to what we're seeing now in current society. But this is going to be
58:40 the ugliest presidential election of all time. It's not even going to be, it's not even going to,
58:45 we won't even recognize it when comparing it to 2016 or 2020, because of what the Biden
58:51 administration and what the DOJ is doing to Trump, what these attorneys general are doing to Trump,
58:57 all of these, these things like the state of Colorado saying that they're not going to allow
59:00 Trump on the ballot, which is not going to be upheld. But you know, all these things that are
59:03 happening, it's only going to make Trumpers mad. And if Trump does somehow win the electoral college,
59:10 I mean, it's, it's going to make George Floyd summer look like a, I don't know, look like a picnic,
59:14 I guess. So that's something we can look forward to for 2024. But also some other things that I
59:19 think are going to be potentially on the horizon for next year. There is going to be a continued
59:23 well planned invasion of the United States by illegal migrants, illegal immigrants. That's
59:27 going to happen. And that's what I said last year as well, the same as my 2022 prediction,
59:32 because this is a well planned invasion. This is exactly what's happening. If you are a terrorist,
59:36 and we've seen this because we've caught hundreds of them at this point, if you're a known terrorist,
59:40 Ryan, the world are you going to try to get into United States via, you know, LAX,
59:45 or the Atlanta airport or something like, why would you do that? Just go to Central America,
59:50 and make your way through to the United States through the southern border, because it completely
59:53 porous. Also, I hope I'm wrong about this, but I do think that we will see a major terrorist attack
59:59 on American soil. Because again, there are people here whose express purpose is to kill Americans.
1:00:05 And these will be Muslim fundamentalist terrorists, obviously. But these are people where there
1:00:11 are already sleeper cells in America that haven't done anything yet. But they're gathering resources
1:00:16 and people so that they can kill Americans. That's certainly something that could happen.
1:00:20 I certainly hope it doesn't, but I wouldn't be surprised. Also, Ukraine will continue to get
1:00:24 boatloads of money from American taxpayers to fight Russia. But the war will remain
1:00:29 on one by either side for the entire year. This war is basically a stalemate. We basically have
1:00:35 all this money being thrown into trench warfare and the battle lines are not moving at all.
1:00:39 And there's no indication that that will change next year. Also, I think that we as a country are
1:00:44 going to move closer to war with Iran. Because obviously, we see the Houthis and Yemen that are
1:00:48 causing all these problems with the shipping lanes. They are financed by Iran. We have a mosque,
1:00:53 which is financed by Iran. We have Hezbollah to the north of Israel. That's financed by Iran.
1:00:58 And so there are a lot of people that would say that we're at war with Iran now.
1:01:02 But we're, we're pussy footing with them because like these Houthis and Yemen,
1:01:06 these pirates on like inflatable boats with like drones that they bought off of Amazon or whatever
1:01:10 the equivalent is in the Middle East, you're telling me the United States Navy and Air Force
1:01:14 and Marines and army can't take those people out. I mean, you don't even need many of those branches.
1:01:21 You basically just need one of them to kill every single one of those pirates and we're not doing
1:01:25 it because we don't have the stones to. So we're moving closer to war with Iran because we don't
1:01:28 want to seem, you know, like we're enticing them to be, you know, negative towards us or whatever.
1:01:35 Also, I think that we will see Israel eradicate Hamas. So I know there's a lot of pressure on
1:01:40 Israel right now to not give in and or sorry, to give in rather to capitulate to do a ceasefire,
1:01:48 to stop being so mean to those Hamas terrorists that like, you know, chopped off the heads and
1:01:52 burned alive 1200 of their people. But I think that Israel is just going to keep going. And I pray
1:01:57 that they do. I pray that again, as I told you, we should pray for every single Hamas terrorist
1:02:02 to repent and turn to Christ. And if they don't, we should pray that they should all be killed
1:02:05 quickly, not just captured, but killed quickly by the Israel Defense Forces. I think that should
1:02:11 absolutely happen. But I hope and I really do think that Israel is just in Bibi Netanyahu,
1:02:15 who are just going to continue to push until they completely dismantle Hamas. Now, the problem is,
1:02:20 is they can't demand dismantle the fundamentalist bend of Islam that goes towards jihad. Because
1:02:26 that is so deeply ingrained in Muslims that it can't be eradicated, no matter how many of them you
1:02:31 kill, honestly. Now we need to go to the next one here. Our next prediction is I think that the
1:02:35 federal reserve is going to continue to increase interest rates by, and they're going to do that
1:02:40 in order to try to stabilize the economy long enough for Joe Biden to win reelection.
1:02:44 Because obviously, if the economy is in the tank, people typically blame the party that's in power,
1:02:50 whether that's indicative of whose fault it is or not, that's something that they're basically
1:02:54 going to try and do. But I think that there are some people that have really, really dire
1:02:59 predictions about the economy. There are people that think that our economy could suffer complete
1:03:02 and total collapse, complete total collapse. I certainly hope that that doesn't happen. But I
1:03:07 think at a minimum, the federal reserve is going to try to prop up Joe Biden. And then going back
1:03:11 to Taylor Swift a little bit. I know this is going to be got reaching for some of you to hear,
1:03:15 and I hate to be the one to be the bearer of bad news. But I think in 2024, we are going to see
1:03:21 Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey break up. I know I'm getting choked up even thinking about it,
1:03:27 because when I think about the classic couples of the entirety of human existence,
1:03:34 right, Tristan and a sold and Romeo and Juliet, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, I just can't imagine
1:03:41 how this doesn't end up in matrimony and a bunch of perfect children. But sorry to say,
1:03:45 for all you Kansas City Chiefs fans and all these Swifties, relationships are not going to last.
1:03:50 But guys, the last thing I'll say to you before we sign off for the year and basically, you know,
1:03:54 welcome you into 2024 is regardless of what happens between now and then, regardless of what
1:04:00 stories happen in 2024, God is still in charge. He's still in control, fellas. So I'm the guy that
1:04:06 likes pointing towards the negative stuff. I'm here to equip men to push back darkness. You can't do
1:04:10 that unless you embrace and watch the darkness, right? If you can't see the darkness, you don't
1:04:14 know what you're pushing back against. But even with all that in mind, God's in charge, his will
1:04:18 will be done and guys every knee certainly will bow. All right, before I let you go, we are going to
1:04:23 do a quick resilience boost add on dog to life permissions equipping men to push back darkness
1:04:27 with content that for just spiritual mental and physical resilience. So we've got our donation
1:04:30 link there for you guys again, and if you're given, keep us in mind. And then also links to
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1:04:38 Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Wherever you're listening to this,
1:04:42 please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five star review. If you want to come speak alive
1:04:46 at your event or on your podcast, you shoot me an email to info@undonton.life. That's i-n-f-o
1:04:51 at undonton.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for
1:04:56 everything else including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go
1:04:59 to www.undonton.life and also we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their
1:05:05 music for our content. The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled
1:05:10 debut album on Face Down Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:05:16 Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual mental and physical resilience,
1:05:22 keep seeking the lion of Judah.
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