‘The Kylee Cast’ feat. Brianna Lyman, Ep. 13: Murder Fantasies, Trans Identities, And Sad Swifties

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Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Kylie Cast. I'm Kylie Griswold, managing editor at The Federalist. Please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're just listening to the show, be sure to check out the full video version on my personal YouTube channel or the Federalist channel on Rumble. And then, of course, like and subscribe there too. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at radio at thefederalist.com. I would love to hear from you. Well, another week has passed, but the Democrat violence news cycle continues apace. Because week after week, Democrats just keep giving us more examples of violence, terrorism, and then this week, murderous fantasies. It feels like much longer because we've been through so much in the past month, but it's only been a little over a month since a transgender identifying gunmen attacked a Catholic school full of children, killing two kids and injuring 30 other people. Just a tragic and targeted act of violence. Then, just two weeks after that, a radical leftist assassinated Christian conservative influencer, Charlie Kirk, in front of a campus full of students and the rest of the watching world. which then kicked off weeks' worth of many so-called Normie Democrats, celebrating Charlie's death, desecrating monuments in his memory, and then members of the media and of Congress trying to justify that assassination. Then, just two weeks after that, another gunman opened fire on an ice facility, killing two detainees and injuring another. And even though Democrats pretended, we can't discern a motive here. The shooter's bullets were inscribed with anti-ice messages. And that was the natural and, dare I say, intended result of the non-stop rhetoric from Democrats and the media, but I repeat myself, demonizing ice with extreme labels like Gestapo, which is, of course, the Nazi secret police. And remember that as all of this is happening, left-wing think tanks are turning out a bogus study after bogus study showing that... No, actually, it's Republicans causing more political violence. Even as they leave out some of the worst Democrat attacks and then classify random acts of clearly non-political violence as right wing, completely dishonest. Well, then on Friday, a little over two weeks after the ice shooting, we learned about the murderous fantasies of Jay Jones, the Democrat candidate running for Attorney General of Virginia. And these texts are truly something to behold, especially for the guy running to be the chief law enforcer, the top cop of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Here to discuss this crazy story with me is my colleague, Brianna Lyman, a staff writer at The Federalist. Thanks so much for having me. It's so great to see you. Thanks so much for joining today. I think... Before we start, we should set the stage a little bit for people who maybe haven't seen the texts. They were reported by National Review on Friday. These texts happened, they were sent in 2022 right after a long-time moderate Democrat politician in Virginia, Joe Johnson, had died. He died at age 90. And then in response to his death, you had some Republicans, including Todd Gilbert, who was at the time, the House Speaker in Virginia.

they started saying some nice things both publicly and privately about the deceased Joe Johnson. And so enter Jay Jones, who had formerly served in the house, but at this point he was, he had resigned. And he starts firing off some texts, revealing his thoughts on the Republican kind response to Johnson's death. He apparently realizes that he sent these texts to Republican lawmaker Carrie Coiner instead of who he actually meant to send them to. But then instead of shutting the conversation down, he doubles down. And here is how those texts went. He starts. If those guys die before me, I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves. send them out a wash in something. And Carrie Corner goes, Jay Jones. Jay Jones says, three people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler, and Paul Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head. So in other words, he's saying if you had two bullets in the gun and you had two dictators and this Republican, I would put both of the bullets in the Republican. He says he receives both bullets every time. And Carrie Coiner pleads with him, Jay, please stop. He goes, L-O-L. Okay. So then he doubles down even more. Carrie Coiner says, you weren't simply asking questions and you know it. He says, I genuinely was. I wasn't attacking you. I was trying to understand your logic. She says, you weren't trying to understand. You were talking about hoping Jennifer Gilbert's children would die. This is Todd Gilbert's wife and his children. And he says, yes, I've told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy. But he's still not done. He says, I mean, do I think Todd and Jennifer are evil and that they are breeding little fascists? Yes. Absolutely insane things from Jay Jones here. So these texts come out. Of course, Republicans are calling for him to drop out of the race and the firestorm starts. And so Jay Jones issues some statements. Here is his first statement. I've sent text messages that I regret, like all people, he says. And I believe that violent rhetoric has no place in our politics. But then he goes, let's be clear about what is happening in the AG race right now. Jason Miaris, his opponent, is dropping smears through Trump-controlled media organizations to assault my character, yada, yada, yada, on he goes. And he talks about how Jason Miaras will continue to be accountable to Donald Trump, not the people of Virginia. This race is about whether Trump can control Virginia or Virginians control Virginia. Not exactly an apolly. he pushes the blame and basically calls it oppo research against him but also doesn't deny the texts and then this was his ultimate statement that he issued he says

I take full responsibility for my actions, and I want to issue my deepest apology to Speaker Gilbert and his family. He says he's so embarrassed and ashamed and sick to his stomach, yada, yada, yada, all the performative things. And then he says, Virginians deserve honest leaders who admit when they are wrong and own up to their mistakes. Brianna, I'm pretty sure Virginians don't deserve honest leaders who own up when they're wrong. I'm pretty sure they deserve leaders who don't wish that half of the voters... were dead. Your thoughts on this whole saga and specifically the statements as well. Yeah, Kylie, there's so much. I want to start back with the text messages you showed. Now, one message he said to Carrie Coiner, like, yes, I've told you this before. Now, new reports have come out. What he was referring to when he says, people only change when they feel pain, is he allegedly in a separate... conversation said that if we kill more police officers, they won't shoot as many people as if police officers are indiscriminately shooting against people. So this is a man who not only has these fantasies about murdering Republicans, he also views law enforcement as just this murderous, you know, entire group. As for his apologies, it is egregious that he says, like all people. I am a Republican. I'm a conservative. I should rephrase that. I have never once considered or even fantasized or thought about anyone on the political spectrum being murdered because it's abhorrent. So no, not like all people because all people don't actually do that. Only psychopaths do that. So you could have said like all psychopaths. I do that. And then I think what's most concerning is that it's not just him who's staying in the race, but it's his party that is allowing him to stay in this race. If you go back to 2019 when Governor Ralph Northam, you know, he had that decades old year. book photo surface of him in a bad Halloween costume, blackface, he was called to step down by Democrats. They were tripping over themselves demanding he was unfit to serve. Meanwhile, one of their own is actually fantasizing about murdering Republicans and their children and calling them fascists and they're either completely silent or they're like, yeah, who among us hasn't called for Republicans murdered? That speaks volumes about where the party is at. And I think it does lead credence to the claims from conservatives who say, How should we share a country and unify with a country that behind closed doors wants to murder us? Yes, that's exactly right. And you brought it up. So let's keep going on the train of Jay Jones's other disqualifying behavior. So you mentioned the police officer thing, the other conversation that he had with Kerry Coiner, which is as appalling as his text about Todd Gilbert, to be honest with you, he's basically saying the same things about police officers that he was saying about Republicans, which is just that, well, if more of them just need to die, and then we will get the policies that we prefer as Democrats. Just a crazy. crazy, psychotic way to think. And yet, like you said, something that most people don't do. This is not actually normal. The Who Among Us phraseology is disgusting and a little concerning that they actually think people feel this way. But those are not the only examples. You also have his reckless driving. I would love to hear your explanation of that. And his...

His calling for a police lieutenant to be fired. Brianna, can you explain some of these other disqualifying behaviors from Jay Jones? Yeah, so for Jay Jones, a police officer who donated to Kyle Britton House's legal fund, I believe it was a $25 donation. That was enough for Jay Jones five years ago now to say that he should be removed from his position as a police officer because that was disqualifying. So again, donating to the legal defense of someone who acted in self-defense was disqualifying. Calling to murder Republicans is actually not disqualifying because we all think about it, right? Apparently to Jay Jones. As for his reckless driving, I believe he was going like 40 miles over the speed limit. And what's more ridiculous is that not only was he going completely over the speed limit, which as someone who's supposed to kind of be the standard that everyone else should follow, not a good standard to set, he was supposed to do special community service. He did it for his own pack, according to Restoration News, which is not allowed. So he didn't even complete the time served. Then Liz McDonald from Fox Business, she reported that he has never actually tried a case. So here we have a candidate who has never tried a case, fantasizes about murder Republicans. does not know how to follow the law. It doesn't just speed. He speeds to speeds that could kill someone on the spot. He thought that someone should be fired for donating to the legal fund for Kyle Rittenhouse, but that he shouldn't step down for calling for people to be murdered. And last but not least, this is a man who is being bolstered by the Democratic Party and is now trying to make this a Donald Trump is picking on me story. That's where the Democratic Party is. Right, right. So the Donald Trump is picking on me story. That is how the media are covering it. And so what we've seen is either media making it a story about Republicans pounce, which Brianna is something that you specifically wrote about. I want to hear about your story on that. And or they're just doing a complete blackout. They're pretending that it didn't happen or referring to the text just by quoting Jay Jones instead of actually. Like, for instance, political ran a piece. And they called the text abhorrent, the abhorrent texts in the headline, but they put abhorrent in quotes because in his apology, Jay Jones referred to the text as abhorrent. But it's like the texts are objectively abhorrent. Like you don't need to quote Jay Jones to say this. The way that they are phrasing things and what they're choosing to cover and not cover is just exactly what we would expect from the media. But the AP story, Brianna, can you tell us about what you wrote about that? This weekend. Someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. Yeah, so the Associated Press, I'm reading it here. Steve Peoples and Olivia Diaz, they want people to know that the real story isn't that Jay Jones is calling from Republicans be murdered. It's that Republicans notice the story. So they write, Republicans are seizing.

on recently unearthed violent rhetoric from Jay Jones to tarnish the Democratic Party nationally less than a month before Election Day. So you see there, their primary concern is how is this egregious story going to impact Election Day? Now, because the Associated Press are just propagandists for the Democratic Party, they know that this could actually impact Democrats' chances in Virginia, which as of last week were pretty damn good. But any sane voter who hears these text messages, I think we'll have a hard time not only voting for Jay Jones, for voting for Abigail Spanberger who was defending and standing by Jay Jones. So what the Associated Pretz wants you to know is that it's pretty bad that Donald Trump is escalating his campaign to cast his political opponents as violent extremist. You see, Donald Trump is casting them as violent extremists as if Jay Jones himself did not make himself a violent extremist. So the narrative that the media constantly takes in these scenarios is deflect, blame it on Trump. And that is why they have to be referred to as the propaganda press. Right, right. And the AP was not the only one. Let's see here. Well, two days ago, I looked on the New York Times. I forgot to check this morning. But as of two days ago, if you searched for Jay Jones on the New York Times, there were zero search results from the past month. This is a story that broke on Friday. They had Friday and all weekend and Monday to cover this story. And there was nothing from the New York Times. From the Washington Post, they referred in their headline to this. giant scandal as, quote, 22 texts depicting political violence. Brianna, something depicting political violence could literally be anything. We are talking about a candidate running for public office who is publicly fantasizing about murdering his opponents, but the Washington Post refers to it as just depicting political violence. This is so classic to make it the least salacious, least clickable headline, give you the least amount of information they could possibly give. So you have to click in to find out what happens. happen and or not even find out what happened like if you're the New York Times and not even covering it. And I think another thing that's really important to remember here is this would be disqualifying for any lawmaker. Like this would be disqualifying if Jay Jones were once again running just to be another member of the Virginia House of Delicate. delegates that's now what happened what's happening here he is running to be the top law enforcer of a state this is a guy like you said who is driving reckless speeds could have killed people who's fantasizing about killing people and who's all manner of other things that could be disqualifying like wishing death on police officers so he can get his policy views enacted um and he is he's running to be the top cop of a state it just it makes this story so much worse and it's something that's being lost in the sauce of the media blackout and the media obfuscating that's happening like the AP did.

Yeah, and you can only determine or assume that the reason the media is either having a blackout or misrepresenting this is because they implicitly endorse violence against Republicans. This is part of the assassination prep campaign that Democrats have launched against Republicans for years now. And the left-wing media has tried to tell us for the past month that it's actually not really a left-wing problem. It's a right-wing problem. I know you alluded to that introduction. And so what the media is doing right now is they're trying to, one, shake that narrative off of their part. their preferred party, which is the Democrats. But two, they're also sending the signal that it's not so bad if you fantasize about killing Republicans. When you do that, you implicitly send the signal that any other talk like that is actually okay. It's not that bad. And if talk like that is okay, eventually actions like that become okay. That is called assassination. Prump. You are justifying actions through language and the media is complicit in this. Yes, absolutely. And it's not just the media. It is the entire Democrat party. Brianna, you wrote a bit about the response from Democrats, from Abigail Spanberger, from other Virginia groups. Can you give us just a sense of what has the response from Democrats been to this abject scandal? Yeah, a group of Virginia committee, Democratic committees basically said, you know, let he who has not sin cast the first stone, and trying to insinuate, as Jay Jones did in his own statement, who hasn't fantasized about murdering their political opponents, which is actually extremely telling? Because they think that the average person does fantasize about murdering their political opponents when the reality is, Most people don't because we are not a country that's run by lawlessness for a country of law and order. If you don't like someone, you vote them out. You don't shoot them or murder them like Jay Jones apparently wants to do. But the fact that Democrats think that that's normal shows that they think it's normal and acceptable to fantasize about that and to believe those things. Yes. Abigail Spanberger, I think, issued a statement or commented on the record to someone that she had talked to Jay Jones in private, I think, and basically told him, like, we will not tolerate this type of behavior, whatever. Well, unless you're calling for him to drop out of the race, you are implicitly tolerating that behavior. In fact, you're endorsing that behavior. But I think Democrats have boxed himself into a bit of a corner here. And you as one of our elections correspondence from this past election can speak to this, the danger of of election day turning into election season. Because one thing that we're seeing here is Virginia voters, early voting in Virginia started on September 19th, I believe. And so Virginia voters have been voting for weeks at this point. Many people have cast their ballot before the scandal even came to light. I was looking this week and it looks like when the texts were reported. about 300,000 Virginians had already cast their ballot. And so I think it's safe to assume that north of 100,000 of them would be Democrats and probably many more than that because, I mean, if tradition holds that more Democrats will vote ahead of time than Republicans, who knows, but that's a pretty safe assumption. And then that's not even counting to people who voted by mail whose ballots came in after the third or whatever day this story broke. And so you're talking about hundreds of thousands of people who

voted without being informed about Jay Jones's murderous fantasy texts. I mean, this is a huge deal. And Democrats have totally boxed himself into a corner because this is, this is election season. I mean, this is what happens. And so now, how can Abigail Spanberger call on Jay Jones to drop out? Because then what happens? All of those people who voted for him are disenfranchised. Like, what do you make of all this? Yeah, that's an excellent point because that is something that we see these past few election cycles with early voting. I do think that the benefit of this story coming on now is even though there may be a few hundred thousand people that cast to vote for Jay Jones and maybe they would not have cast, Republicans are very difficult to turn out and off your election cycles. They are low propensity voters. I think this story is big enough and damaging enough to get Republicans who may have been considering sitting this election out to turn out. And now they have about a month to do so with this knowledge. So on the one hand, this will actually encourage voters to make sure that they don't elect someone who wants them dead. But to your point, look, I think this is one of the reasons why early voting, if we're going to have it at all, it needs to be maybe. three or four days before an election. That's a small enough window. I still don't think so. I still think elections should be held on one day. It's election day and on election week or month or year. I think these voters may learn a very valuable lesson if they voted for Jay Jones and are now appalled. And that is try to make plans to get to the polls on election day because you never know what horrible news will come out about the candidate you're supporting. Right, right. And you actually, as a voter, it's beneficial for you to kind of hold on to your leverage that you have over candidates before election day. You shouldn't vote early because then what incentive do they have to appeal to you as a voter or to do the right thing or to, you know, it's like you are, you are showing your hands, you're giving the game away before. you're making them less accountable to you by voting early. And so, yeah, it's really interesting. I do not expect any Democrats to call on him to drop out, but it will be wild if the top cop in Virginia turns out to be a murderous fantasizing man who went as, you know. 46 miles per hour over the speed limit and is just by all accounts, a complete lawless psycho. We'll see if the story changes the tide or not. Brianna Lyman, staff writer at the Federalist, thank you so much for joining me today. It was great to see you. Thanks so much for having me.

Okay, so the Jay Jones story is wild, but that is not even the only story of Democrat-associated violence that we got this week. Property taxes just come to an end? The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast with Chris Lisa Murkowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. Truly owning your own home shouldn't be a piggy bank for government to extract revenue. Property taxes will forever make you not an owner. Just nothing more than a surf on the Lord's Manor. Whether it's happening in D.C. or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdog on Wall Street podcast with Chris Lisa Murkowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast.

potentially life in prison, and instead be sentenced to only eight years in prison. So how did this happen? Well, first, Judge Boardman gutted the terrorism enhancement, not because Boardman disagreed that this was terrorism. She agreed that it was domestic terrorism, but because she didn't see a reason to believe that Roski would recidivate based on the opinion of experts. Oh, okay. But that's not the only reason that Boardman gave Roski a light sentence. The other one that played a major factor was Roski's sudden transgender identity. So when Roski traveled from California to Virginia to commit this crime, he was Nicholas Roski. Born a male, he was a male. His chromosome said he's a male. He gets arrested and then somewhere along the way, he decides that actually, my name is Sophie. And so the Biden appointed federal district judge factors in the trans identity. She admits it into her sentencing because she's concerned about Trump's executive order that requires male prisoners to be housed with male prisoners and female prisoners to be housed with female. prisoners. These are, this is actually a very important thing. It's really important that female prisoners are not housed with male prisoners and vice versa. Terrible things can happen there. But Judge Bordman is concerned that a male prisoner is going to be housed with other male prisoners. And so therefore, she gives this attempted, plotted terrorist eight years instead of 30 or life in prison. Absolutely insane. But of course, the media, ever the dutiful foot soldiers, parrot the trans propaganda. And honestly, reading all of the corporate media coverage, you would not even know that Roski is a man. CNN. AP. New York Times, they all refer to Roski as she. And many of them even omit the fact that the original name is Nicholas Roski. They all just refer to Sophie Roski, who previously had a male name, but she was sentenced to eight years in prison. MSNBC did not even bother with the euphemism of trans woman. They literally, in their headline, just said woman. As if this is just an indisputable fact that Sophie Roski is indeed a woman, as much a woman as I am or anyone else who has XX chromosomes. This whole case communicates two very dangerous things. The first of which is that identifying as transgender will get you off the hook in legal matters. Just like identity politics have contributed to some sort of trans contagion in this country. Because in the Marxist framework where you view everything as oppressed or oppressors, identifying as trans or identifying as some other rainbow identity gets you more victim points than just being a person with heterosexuality who is cis, i.e. you are a man who says you are a man or you are a woman who says you are a woman.

that you agree with your literal biological sex. Doing that doesn't get you any victim points. But now we're also seeing that not only can you get cultural brownie points by claiming a trans or just LGBT broadly identity, but you can actually count on getting a lighter sentence if you have a rainbow identity. This just incentivizes more trans mania, more biological and reality denial, and frankly, more mental illness. But the second thing that this case communicates is that if you are a radical leftist with a conservative target, Democrats will cover for you. This is nothing short of assassination prep. You know, we saw the same thing with Jimmy Kimmel and commentators on MSNBC and elsewhere when they blamed Trump supporters for Charlie Kirk's assassination. The message is clear. If you kill conservatives, Democrat captured institutions will completely cover for you from... Democrat politicians to the media and in this case, even to judges. They might pay lip service. They might have to give you a sentence of some sort, a slap on the wrist. But at the end of the day, you can count on the media to obfuscate and you can count on judges to give you light sentences. And you can count on Democrats to cover for you and to use rhetoric that lets you off the hook time after time after time. This is assassination prep. It's extremely dangerous. And it sends the message that political violence will be taught. tolerated and winked at. Michael Forgo-so has a really great piece at the Federalist this week on the Roski case, and he writes, quote, Roski's sentence isn't just about Roski. Among other things, criminal sentences serve both to deter future criminals and to communicate society's values. We heard this regularly from the judges in the District of Columbia as they threw the book at January 6th rioters. For example, Judge Royce Lamberth justified his actions while sentencing a man to a prison term just shy of Roskies for using a megaphone to urge others into the Capitol. Quote, this cannot become normal. We as a society, as a community, and as a country cannot normalize the events of January 6th, end quote. It seems, though, that we can normalize the events outside Brett Kavanaugh's house. Roski's sentence doesn't deter, and it communicates that what matters isn't political terrorism, but the transgender journey of self-discovery. It's hard to explain just how corrosive this is to our body politic. Democrats today like to throw around the term fascism to describe conservatives and Donald Trump in particular, but judges doling out soft justice to terrorists they agree with is far closer to what led to fascism's rise in Germany than anything. Trump is doing. Fragoso is absolutely right here. And here's the real kicker. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has appealed this decision rightfully, so now it goes to the Fourth Circuit, but the Fourth Circuit is a left-wing court. And if it does not reverse Judge Bordman's decision, which, who knows, but it may not,

The next step would be appealing to the Supreme Court, which is so crazy because the Supreme Court was the target of the attack. Are three conservative justices supposed to recuse because the defendant in the case wanted to assassinate them? Are they supposed to determine the punishment for the man? Yes, man, who attempted to carry out an assassination plot against them. This, of course, creates all sorts of problems. And so Fragoso goes on to make the case that Congress needs to impeach boardmen for essentially condoning terrorism. But this especially as important as it comes to the Supreme Court. He writes, quote, the House will spare the court from having to essentially sit in judgment of its own case if it moves to impeach boardmen. It will send a message to other judges that political violence is not to be excused. Indeed, this should be a bipartisan message because reasonable Democrats shouldn't want Trump judges excusing, say, proud boys, any more than we want Biden judges excusing trans-identifying terrorists. Impeachment proceedings would helpfully put Democrats to that question. Even if impeachment or removal doesn't succeed, it probably wouldn't, it would set a good precedent that judges who excuse political violence have to answer for it to the people's representatives. And this part is key. Judge Boardman may not be interested in deterring the next Roski, but the House has the power to deter the next boardman. End quote. And it absolutely should. If Congress is looking for ways to deter left-wing political violence, and especially after the past few weeks, it should be, then impeaching boardmen is a great place to start. This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities, and most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you, know the road, and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA, now back to your news podcast.

All right, it's time for a little Kylie's culture cut because A, it's been a hot minute. And B, I actually have been listening to and watching and reading some things lately. So I'm here to tell you all about what's good, what's bad, and what's ugly. Let's start with The Most Wholesome, which is the fact that I finished for the first time reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. I don't know why it took me so long to read this book. Reading it on audiobook was fantastic because it's only about a six-hour listen. I listened to it on a little bit faster speed, and so I got done with it fairly quickly. It was a great alternative to listening to podcasts or music when I've been driving. And it gave me so much to chew on, truly an excellent... book, I would recommend it to so many people, whether you are not a believer or are Christian curious, but not actually a Christian, you should definitely read it. It tackled many of the objections to Christianity that I've heard over the years, and it tackled them in such a logical and reasonable way that I think is very persuasive and also just really good brain food. So I would recommend it if you're not even a Christian, you should read mere Christianity. If you are a Christian and you've never read it, you should definitely read it because there's lots of good stuff in there, and it helps give you language. verbiage to refer to basic Christian concepts, but just new ways to think about them and new ways to explain them. So I'd recommend it if you've never read it. And I would also recommend it if you've read it before. Definitely something that I will listen to again and again and or next time I may just read it in a hard copy. because I think, you know, you pick up different things, whether you're listening to something or reading it. And so I would recommend it to truly anyone, excellent book as C.S. Lewis is. I have a C.S. Lewis book on my shelf right behind me. He's a fantastic author and everyone should read C.S. Lewis, of course. So that's what I've been reading. What have I been watching? I mentioned this last week, but I'll expound upon it a bit. I finished watching The Paper, which is the Office Spinoff Show. It is on Peacock. You can watch it there. The lead actor is from Harry Potter, but in this show he plays a very different role. I had exceptionally low expectations for the paper. I thought that it would try so hard to ride the coattails of the office and that it would just be super woke. I just had that sense. And that it would just completely flop, that it would maybe have a couple of funny moments. But the trailer didn't look that funny. The previews I saw didn't look that funny. And I just, I did not think it would be good. But. I was pleasantly surprised. There was an episode or two that was a little bit slow. There were a couple of hints at things that were a little bit woke, such as an all gender restroom, you know, all gender, things like that. But none of that was dwelled on. And it was just fun. It made me laugh out loud many times. There were a few office references because spoiler, Oscar is in. the paper and so especially through oscar they make references to the office and some of those felt shoehorned in they felt a little clunky a little bit forced um but they were few and far between and they were a little bit endearing and i just thoroughly enjoyed the show i am really excited for the next season to come out um typically you know first seasons of shows are a little rough anyway as they try to establish the characters and get their feet under them and so my expectations are actually kind of high for season two

Really, really enjoyed it. So if you haven't watched the paper yet, it's definitely something worth watching, even if you don't end up enjoying it as much as I did. I think it's 10 episodes long, and they're all a half hour apiece. So go watch the paper. But what I really must talk about today is what I have been listening to. And that is the new Taylor Swift album. And I have thoughts. If you've listened to my podcast before or read any of my writing from years ago, you may or may not know that I am. on the record as being a Swifty. I have loved Taylor Swift since my days of adolescence. I had her CDs. I had the karaoke version of her CDs so that I could put just the backtracks in my karaoke machine and then I could be the vocals. I truly loved Taylor Swift. My first dance at my wedding was to a Taylor Swift song. You can ask Molly Hemingway because she roasted me a lot for it. We played a lot of Taylor Swift at our wedding. I truly enjoyed earlier eras of Taylor Swift. And many of Taylor Swift's albums felt like they hit at the right point in my life where what I was going through or the things I was thinking about or dreaming about were similar to the things that Taylor Swift was singing about. But this has all started to decline an album or two ago. And with this most recent album, I must say, my feelings on Taylor Swift have officially crashed and burned. I don't know if Taylor Swift will be able to win me back. And I'm just generally pretty salty about the album. I kind of hate it. I have been listening to it for the past couple of days to try to see if my opinion changes. And there are some songs on it that I find catchy. But the second I tune into the lyrics, she loses me again because the lyrics are so bad. Now, this should go without saying because I have long. been a Swifty. But I am not one of those boomery cantankerous Gen Xers who lives to hate Taylor Swift and who thinks that music peaked in the 80s and that it can never recover and that, you know, the best artists are all in the past and they can never be rivaled because their coming of age was the only good music that has ever existed. Of course, I don't believe that. I think because everyone, when they come of age, there's music that is popular or that is good when they are in their adolescence. And that becomes defining music for them. And they think it's better than the music from when the next generation comes of age. That's just how it goes. But I just can't get behind this Taylor Swift album for a number of reasons. The first one is its lyrical trendiness. Just listening to the lyrics, it feels very... trendy like a flash in the pan like most of the lyrics are just they have no shelf life they are not timeless at all let me just give you a few examples that stood out to me um she says we looked fire this isn't savage pledge allegiance to your vibes glad he ghosted me spring break that was effing lit you get the idea very trendy very ephemeral

Here's a stanza from her new song, Eldist Daughter. Everybody's so punk on the internet. Everyone's unbothered till they're not. Every joke's just trolling in memes. Sad as it seems, apathy is hot. Everybody's cutthroat in the comments. Every single hot take is cold as ice. Ugh. This is just, it's really sad. It feels like her songwriting is Benjamin Netanyahu Buttoning. Like she used to be better at writing music before. And that was paired with the fact that she was a precocious teen. So even her like elementary lyricism made sense because she was elementary. Well, now, Taylor, you're 35. It's not cute to write like a teenager anymore. So you have this elementary lyricism paired on the opposite end of the spectrum with this hyper-sexualization. And that's another. vibe that you get from her album. It starts with her very sexualized album cover shoot. I'm sure you've seen the pictures and or the... music videos but this sexualization just weaves throughout the entire album taylor's been trending a bit this way for a little while which in some ways makes sense because she's actually an adult now but it felt really forced back in 2017 she wrote the song dress and the point of the dress the whole point of the song was that she'd only bought this dress so you could take it off and it felt kind of out of place like she was trying to to sexualize herself, but it just kind of, it was a little bit jarring. And now you get that same feeling, except it is through the entire new album. I'm not going to read many of these lines. You can go find them for yourself. Um, but one of her song titles is literally would. I'll let you fill in the blank with that. Um, she writes in another song, quote, his love was the key that opened my thighs. Um, you. And then in her song Father Figure, which had the potential to be an interesting song, she includes the lyric, quote, I can make deals with the devil because my bigger. I'm sorry, what? It's like she's trying to be clever, but it's just coming off as really forced and really icky. I think maybe one of the reasons I'm really cranky about Father Figure is the fact that, as I have said on a previous podcast, John Bellion, who is one of my favorite singer-songwriter's producers, came out with an album called Father Figure earlier this year. And not only, unlike Taylor Swift, not only did he not rip off the George Michael song, but that song and that album are all about maturity and responsibility and faith and fatherhood. And you fill in the blank with all of these wonderful... adult pursuits. And then you have Taylor Swift over here who's merging this weird Gen Z trendiness with a forced feeling hypersexuality together in one album. And it just comes off as so icky and forced. And it's especially odd because you have Taylor Swift in the middle who has all of these

millennial fans. Taylor Swift is a millennial, and you've had all of these people who were following her at the same age as Taylor Swift. Well, then she gets to be 35. A lot of the millennials have jumped ship because, again, her lyricism has sort of Benjamin Netanyahu Buttoned, and some of her albums recently have been a little bit lackluster. And so she's trying desperately to appeal to Gen Z, or so it seems, with the lyrics that I read before. But at the same time, she is so hyper-sexualized that it's just this weird marriage of vibes that do not work together. Anyway, you're free to disagree. Everybody has a different opinion on Taylor, but this is mine. And I just have to say, as a former Taylor Swift fan, as a former Swifty, Could we please just get some quality over quantity? There is a reason why most artists do not release six albums in six years. So speaking for... burned out Taylor Swift fans who are just sick of the instant gratification. Taylor just give us quality, not quantity. People get so excited when they hear that there's a new Taylor Swift album coming out. And I've gotten to the point where I just kind of groan because I don't want a quick new Taylor Swift album every year. I want a lull because I think in this case absence would make the heart grow fonder. I want a lull where Taylor can really work on. new themes and new lyrics and new rhyme schemes and key signatures and all of the rest and come to us with something that is totally fresh, that is totally new, and that has a long shelf life and isn't this weird marriage of Gen Z slang and hypersexualization? Go back to the drawing board, come up with something that is good and lasting and better and original and get back to us in another five or so years. Okay, that would be, that would be my ideal. All right. I'm sounding more and more like a curmudgeon gen Xer by the minute. So that's going to do it for me today. Thank you all so much for tuning into this week's episode of the Kylie cast. Remember to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And I will be right back here next week with more. Until then, just remember the truth words, but it won't tell you.

This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. Nobody does it better than Regent's Seven Seas cruises. Enjoy all-inclusive unrivaled luxury with unlimited shore excursions, indulgent cuisine, personalized service and more aboard spacious all-sweet ships. Visit rssc.com to experience the unrivaled.