Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 392 ｜ America’s in Trouble & So Is Cinnamon Toast Crunch

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. Almost done with this week today. We are going

00:00:17.360 to talk about some good slash lighthearted news. It's been a heavy week. There are some

00:00:23.740 good things that have happened, though. Some hilarious things that have happened on the

00:00:29.740 Twitter that I'm going to talk about. So we're going to talk about one good thing, Pastor James

00:00:35.020 Coates being released from jail. How awesome that is. Praise God. And then a guy finding shrimp

00:00:41.620 tails. Yes, shrimp tails in his cereal. And I'm going to tie it all together in some way. So it's

00:00:49.300 going to be a fun episode, maybe a little breather from everything that we've been talking about

00:00:53.600 this week. I am going to give you some not as fun stuff first, because I have a lot to get off my

00:01:00.360 chest. I'm going to give you just a sober reminder, a breakdown of the state that we are in as a

00:01:07.420 country, politically and culturally. Just a quick monologue based on what we're seeing from this

00:01:13.160 presidential administration and our institutional powers that be. And then we'll get into the good

00:01:19.780 stuff. But I have some things that I just need to say. It's a recap of what we've talked about for

00:01:27.020 the past two weeks. So if you need specific examples of some of the things that I'm pointing

00:01:31.620 out, some citations, please go back and listen to the previous episodes over the past couple of weeks

00:01:36.340 covering these subjects. Plus, I will be noting a few other things that are going on that we need to

00:01:42.840 be concerned about. Most of you probably know we are in a tough place as a country. Things are

00:01:49.800 not looking good. I'm going to be honest. They're just not looking good. Right now, we've got more

00:01:55.040 migrants than we ever have had cramped into holding facilities that were never meant to hold that many 1.00

00:02:01.700 people without food, without water in some cases, and all the resources that they need to survive.

00:02:07.880 These were facilities that were built by the Obama DHS. And this is a state that has been caused

00:02:14.280 and exacerbated by Biden's reversal of Trump's policy to keep migrants in Mexico as their asylum

00:02:21.300 request is being processed. Instead, hundreds of thousands of migrants, minors and adults are being

00:02:27.960 transferred into cities across the country, especially in the state of Texas, given hotel rooms

00:02:33.120 on the taxpayer dime, some of them separated from their parents, by the way, most of them

00:02:37.820 not tested for COVID, even as there are still Americans who are not allowed to congregate and

00:02:44.180 churches who can't operate at full capacity in schools that won't open, despite their students

00:02:49.320 committing suicide due to loneliness and falling behind academically. And there are small businesses

00:02:54.140 that have been forced to close down forever due to the lockdowns. And while all of this is happening

00:03:00.360 at the border, the Biden administration won't allow the media to see what's actually going on in

00:03:05.340 these facilities to talk to the agents. If this were happening under Trump, the entire media would

00:03:11.680 be shrieking about fascism. AOC would be decrying the concentration camps at the border. And we would

00:03:17.160 be hearing that any Christian who voted for Trump should be second guessing not just their vote, but their

00:03:23.520 salvation. Meanwhile, some of the same Christians right now who voted for Biden expressly because of

00:03:31.340 this, quote, kids in cages issue have nothing to say, apparently, about the people stuffed like

00:03:36.960 sardines in these holding facilities. This week, also, Biden's nominee, Xavier Becerra, was confirmed

00:03:44.280 by the Senate as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Becerra is infamous for his

00:03:50.680 relentless attacks on pro-life clinics, pushing to force them to advertise for free or cheap abortions and

00:03:57.360 suing Catholic organizations like Little Sisters of the Poor to force them to provide birth control

00:04:02.560 services for their employees as the Attorney General of California and as a congressman for voting against

00:04:08.780 a ban on partial birth abortion. And just as a reminder, and I'm just I'm just warning you, this is

00:04:14.920 graphic. A partial birth or dilation and extraction abortion is performed by partially delivering a baby, 0.92

00:04:23.080 puncturing the back of her skull, emptying the skull of the brain and then delivering the dead baby the 0.85

00:04:29.300 rest of the way. Xavier Becerra, now the head of the HHS, failed to vote on a ban on that kind of

00:04:38.940 abortion. This nomination by the Biden administration shouldn't surprise us, though. He assured us a long

00:04:46.440 time ago that he was going to be a firm supporter of abortion. He proved that not just through his pick,

00:04:52.420 but also by fulfilling his campaign promise of doing away with the Hyde Amendment, which

00:04:56.740 he used to want support, an amendment that protects our federal tax dollars from funding the killing of

00:05:01.540 unborn babies. Now our federal tax dollars will do just that, just as he promised. And speaking of our

00:05:08.040 tax dollars, Biden also signed an executive order to ensure that military members can undergo so-called

00:05:14.160 gender reassignment surgery and receive hormone treatment, again, funded by our money. Another Biden

00:05:21.960 nominee who goes by the name of Rachel Levine was confirmed as the assistant secretary of health

00:05:27.620 and human services. Levine is a man who identifies as a woman who as Pennsylvania health secretary was

00:05:34.320 responsible for the infections and the deaths of the elderly population because of a policy,

00:05:40.280 much like Governor Cuomo's, directing nursing homes and care facilities to accept recovering COVID

00:05:45.640 patients at the same time that he and his family removed their mother from her nursing home. During

00:05:52.520 his hearing, his nomination hearing, Senator Rand Paul asked Levine multiple times if he supported gender

00:06:00.220 transition, including mastectomies and castration for minors without parental consent, and he refused to

00:06:08.020 answer. He said it's complex. But don't worry, the real danger to our children right now are children's books

00:06:14.680 that have been around for 80 years that we as a society can apparently no longer tolerate.

00:06:20.840 There were also, tragically, two mass shootings in the past two weeks. The first, we were told,

00:06:26.680 had to do with pervasive white supremacy in the country because the shooter was white and six of the

00:06:31.740 eight victims were Asian, even though there was no indication whatsoever that race was a factor.

00:06:37.840 And the data clearly shows us that the primary perpetrators of violence against Asian people

00:06:43.600 in America are not white. We were told that we can no longer name where the coronavirus came from and

00:06:51.720 was covered up by Joe Biden because that also causes these kinds of crimes. I guess disregarding that

00:06:58.080 there is not a country in the entire world that's murdered and oppressed more Asians than China.

00:07:03.640 But Joe Biden doesn't care about that because he has assured us that the growth of the most brutal

00:07:08.720 and racist and dictatorial regime on the planet is a good thing and that it's actually nothing to worry

00:07:14.480 about. We were also told that the Atlanta shooting by the media had to do with his being a member at

00:07:22.380 one point of a Baptist church who's a part of a ministry who has released some podcast episodes

00:07:28.860 criticizing critical race theory. And that may have taught about sexual purity in a way that

00:07:34.800 apparently encourages murdering prostitutes. We took the time on this podcast to remember those 0.95

00:07:41.220 victims, the victims of both of the shootings in the past couple of weeks. But a lot of people were

00:07:46.340 so quick to fit all their pet issues into the list of motives that must have pushed the murderer to do

00:07:52.560 what he did that they forgot that the main reason we care about these tragedies is because

00:07:57.400 they're people who died. Victims were also forgotten during that Boulder shooting when activists

00:08:04.740 and journalists on Twitter were giddy with the excitement to announce that the shooter was an

00:08:08.920 angry white male. The only problem is he was actually a Muslim immigrant who, according to his 0.98

00:08:14.680 family, was mentally unstable and believed that Islamophobes were tapping his phone and stalking 0.95

00:08:20.160 him. And then once we found that out, it was no longer about white supremacy. It was no longer 0.96

00:08:24.280 about race at all. Even though every person he murdered was white, it apparently had absolutely 0.93

00:08:29.020 nothing to do with racism and everything to do with guns. No measures proposed actually do anything to

00:08:35.700 stop these kinds of horrific shootings since criminals don't care about the law and will always

00:08:40.340 find a way to get guns and to commit the crimes they want to commit. But every measure proposed does make

00:08:45.200 it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to purchase guns to defend themselves. Even as we've seen a surge

00:08:50.980 in violent crime over the past year, even as our borders are virtually open to anyone without any regard

00:08:56.840 to the backgrounds of the people are coming in, they're saying that in order to be safe, we need

00:09:01.340 fewer law-abiding citizens to be able to purchase guns and defend themselves how they see fit. So all

00:09:06.920 this is happening, and virtually every institution in the country is in lockstep. The major corporations,

00:09:13.060 big tech, public education, academia, the medical field, what passes it as the so-called scientific

00:09:19.480 community today, most of our federal government, even parts of our intelligence community, and the

00:09:24.660 military are all steeped in the same kind of progressivism that we're seeing from the Biden

00:09:28.820 administration. And we were told that we had to worry about fascism under Trump. Twitter just took

00:09:35.500 down videos from Project Veritas of what's going on at the border. They said it was a mistake. The

00:09:40.740 mistakes always only go one direction. Google deplatformed a social media company a few months ago

00:09:46.820 because it allowed for views that it didn't like. Amazon discontinued distribution of books that talk

00:09:52.140 about the dangers of gender reassignment in children. Military officers publicly attacked a

00:09:57.660 conservative cable news host for his opinions a couple weeks ago. But it's really conservatives,

00:10:02.900 the people with so little institutional power that we are being told by these same entities that are

00:10:09.660 really the ones to worry about. Congress, with the full support of Joe Biden, is pushing legislation

00:10:15.580 that would trample the conscience rights of doctors and the religious liberty of individuals and

00:10:20.080 organizations through the Equality Act. They're pushing a bill to render freelancing nearly impossible

00:10:24.880 and wrecking the economy consequently through the PRO Act. They're trying desperately to transform the

00:10:30.440 voting process so that IDs are no longer required and ballot harvesting is acceptable so that it's

00:10:36.860 impossible for Democrats to ever lose again. They just proposed legislation called the Violence Against

00:10:42.800 Women Act, which sounds really good, but actually says in the act that it seeks to protect people of 0.99

00:10:48.440 all genders and, for example, allows men who identify as women into women's prisons, thereby 0.78

00:10:54.880 not protecting women at all. Anything remotely positive that's come out of this party recently

00:11:01.740 or this administration from a conservative or a moderate or a neutral perspective, something like

00:11:07.680 vaccines or stimulus checks, were already well underway while Trump was president. So we can't even

00:11:12.920 give them credit for that. Everything that we as conservatives said would happen if Biden became

00:11:18.880 president and Democrats took over both the House and the Senate will continue to happen. If they manage to get

00:11:24.880 rid of the filibuster, they find a way to pack the Supreme Court, it's game over. And it's not good. I'm not

00:11:31.040 going to lie. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I haven't even gotten into the huge cultural changes that we're seeing

00:11:36.320 ravaged schools and colleges and churches. These changes are happening really quickly. And I just wonder

00:11:41.940 how far we'll go down this road before the well-intentioned people who helped pave this path

00:11:51.980 realize that they've made a mistake. We're looking at a revolution that looks a lot like the ones that

00:11:58.260 we've seen before in China, in Russia, in Venezuela. Go back and read how well those turned out.

00:12:03.500 Not well. Not for those who oppose the revolution nor for the revolutionaries themselves, by the way.

00:12:10.340 We got to be real about what's going on here. You got to wake up. We're in trouble. Your freedoms and

00:12:15.600 your safety truly are on the line. We can't stick our heads in the sand and pretend to be neutral

00:12:19.780 anymore. Now, I'm not going to leave you there because is all hope lost? No, I don't think so. All hope

00:12:26.760 is never lost. And maybe you can just call me a foolish optimist, but truly, I don't think that all hope

00:12:32.500 is lost. Now, primarily for the Christian, because of God's sovereignty, we know that hope isn't lost.

00:12:37.460 We know that nothing happens outside of his will. Not even a sparrow falls from the sky apart from

00:12:42.540 the Father's will, the Bible says. So nothing that happens here, nothing that's happening right now

00:12:48.360 can either. That doesn't mean that nothing happens outside of his moral will. Of course, people sin and

00:12:53.540 he hates sin, but nothing happens outside of his sovereign will. The Bible is very clear about that.

00:12:58.240 He's not wondering what's going to happen. He's not worried about what's to come. Jesus promises

00:13:03.680 that we will have trouble. Second Timothy 3.12 tells us that all followers of Christ will be

00:13:09.000 persecuted. Countries go through cycles of really bad and really good. The world goes through these

00:13:14.560 cycles too. The church goes through these cycles. We don't know what's going to happen, but God absolutely

00:13:21.480 does. And while we have no guarantee of things getting better here, we do have a guarantee of enjoying

00:13:26.780 God's perfect joy, his perfect justice and peace for all eternity. And therefore, we get to count it

00:13:32.720 all joy whenever we face trials of many kinds. We trust God that he will one day take care of evil

00:13:39.060 and establish his goodness forevermore that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church.

00:13:44.380 But also, I do think in the here and the now, we have an opportunity to push back to, as I've said

00:13:49.600 before, raise what I call a respectful ruckus. Don't like the curriculum that's being taught at your

00:13:55.920 kid's school. Get like-minded parents and articulate your why and say something about it. Don't agree

00:14:02.280 with your company policy. Say something. I know that's easier said than done, but I've gotten

00:14:07.000 testimonies from you guys that have done it. It makes a difference. Don't like what your

00:14:11.460 administration at your school or your professor is pushing? Speak up about it. Do you see your

00:14:16.940 friends sharing misinformation? Tell them respectfully, kindly why they're wrong, and then point them

00:14:22.860 toward what's true. Be on the offense in every sphere you occupy. Don't just be prepared to say

00:14:28.680 what you don't believe or don't stand for. Be unashamed about what you do stand for. You are not

00:14:36.200 radical. Let me just remind you of this. You are not radical for believing in God, for placing value

00:14:43.400 on life in the womb, for believing that men and women are men and women, respectively, for defending

00:14:51.240 the right to protect yourself and your family, for knowing that capitalism is better than socialism,

00:14:57.140 for choosing God's definition of justice in place of the phony, secular, social justice,

00:15:02.340 performative activism that we see today. You're not a bigot for digging beyond the headlines when a

00:15:07.200 tragedy happens to ensure what's being reported aligns with what is actually true. You're not racist

00:15:12.780 because you believe in simply treating everyone equally. And you don't need to do better or do

00:15:18.960 the work if you're already doing what Jesus tells you to do, pursuing holiness, loving God with all

00:15:25.040 your heart, mind, soul, and strength in loving your neighbor as yourself, according to God's definition

00:15:30.460 of love, not the world's definition. When you see someone being bullied for their views, stand up for

00:15:36.020 them, even if you're scared to. Have absolutely no tolerance for the people who dox and harass and abuse

00:15:42.140 and slander those whose political and religious views they don't like. Stand up to those people

00:15:48.060 and refuse to back down and refuse, most of all, to tolerate lies. Don't believe them. Don't accept

00:15:54.540 them. Don't tell them. Not if they come from your pastor. Not if they come from me. Not if they come

00:15:59.340 from your friends, your parents, your favorite influencer, author, podcaster, the person you think

00:16:04.000 can do no wrong. Weigh everything that you hear, including everything that's said on this podcast,

00:16:08.920 against what is true. And where you find discrepancies, go to that person and talk to them

00:16:14.020 about it. Let us be dogged in our pursuit of the truth in all things, from biblical moral truth to

00:16:21.460 scientific truth to economic truth to political truth. Let us do everything we can to stay tethered

00:16:26.880 to reality and to encourage other people to do so as well. I don't know if America will actually go

00:16:32.900 over the cliff that it's sprinting towards right now. I pray that it doesn't. Of course, for the sake of

00:16:38.200 our kids, future generations as well. And I think it's our obligation, though, to pull us back as

00:16:46.280 much as we can. I don't believe in giving up. I care too much about this country. Every time I think

00:16:51.740 about moving somewhere, I can't think about anywhere I would even want to move. And I just, I'm not ready

00:16:57.080 to jump ship. I care about this country, all the people in it, even those that I adamantly disagree

00:17:02.300 with. I care too much to just turn my back on this. That doesn't mean that I believe in creating

00:17:08.240 heaven on earth or that I think America is the promised land or God's kingdom. I don't. It just

00:17:14.620 means that I want us to seek the welfare of the nation in which God has placed us with the time

00:17:19.860 that he's given us, with the resources and the freedoms that we still have. That means loving him,

00:17:25.860 loving other people, wetting ourselves overtly and relentlessly to the truth. Easier said than done,

00:17:32.260 I know, but totally possible. And I think that history tells us can be culture changing.

00:17:39.040 Speaking of changing the culture, speaking of our voices actually mattering and doing something,

00:17:45.260 I want to talk about an example of this. I want to talk about James Coates, the pastor that was

00:17:51.240 jailed in Alberta, Canada for refusing to abide by their edicts to keep their congregation at 15%

00:18:03.600 capacity. He wanted to be able to preach the gospel in person to as many people as wanted to hear it.

00:18:10.620 And he was put in jail for that. We had his wife, Erin Coates, on this podcast. We've talked about this

00:18:15.660 story a few times, and we didn't know how things were going to go if he was going to be released from

00:18:19.140 jail. At the same time, in the same city, in the same area, in Edmonton, there were at least two

00:18:24.980 child sex predators who were released from jail without any conditions while the pastor was kept

00:18:31.020 in jail. But he has been recently released from jail, and it's really good news. And I want to talk

00:18:36.000 about that and rejoice over that and talk about how speaking up about these things actually can

00:18:42.000 make a difference. Okay, so according to the Canadian Broadcasting Company, after 35 days in

00:18:52.900 custody, controversial Edmonton pastor is released from jail. The article says an Alberta judge has

00:18:58.600 ruled that jailed Edmonton area pastor James Coates can be released immediately from custody, but must

00:19:04.700 pay a $1,500 fine. He must pay the fine within 12 days, according to a ruling by Judge Jeffrey

00:19:10.380 Champion. On Monday, Coates had been in jail for 35 days since February 16th for not following the

00:19:15.680 condition of his original bail release that he not hold church services because he was violating public

00:19:21.260 health measures, measures designed to combat the spread of COVID-19. So he originally was arrested

00:19:26.520 because, like I said, he wouldn't follow that 15% capacity rule that they had in place for churches,

00:19:34.060 but didn't have in place, by the way, for other kinds of businesses, because he believes

00:19:40.280 that people should have the choice to come to church in person or not. They would take whatever

00:19:44.500 precautions they felt like were wise to take and people could not come. They had a virtual stream that

00:19:51.000 people could watch if they wanted to, but for everyone who wanted to show up to worship in person and hear

00:19:56.400 the gospel, he wanted to be able to do that. He didn't want to put any inhibitions or any obstacles in the

00:20:03.360 way of people hearing the gospel and coming to church in person. And for that, he was placed in

00:20:09.420 jail. And as we talked about, there were a lot of Christians who were clamoring to try to say,

00:20:15.420 oh, this is terrible. I think it was Andy Stanley who actually said that he was embarrassed by Christians

00:20:20.180 doing things like this. And we have just completely railed against that line of thinking on this podcast.

00:20:26.840 Again, you can go back and listen to the couple episodes that we've already done on this situation,

00:20:31.960 but he and his family stood for the gospel. They stood for his responsibility as a shepherd of their

00:20:39.360 church. And I understand there are some very well-meaning Christians that you've reached out to me.

00:20:46.180 You disagreed with how he handled this situation. So I want to be fair too. Not everyone who disagreed

00:20:51.580 with James Coates was the kind of, I think, very malicious, eye-rolling person who said that they

00:20:58.900 were embarrassed by him taking a stand and who tried to minimize this as a form of persecution.

00:21:06.620 Some people just really disagreed with how he went about it and thought maybe there were different

00:21:10.380 ways to do it, whatever. There were people who did that in respectful ways and still continue to pray

00:21:15.160 for him and his family. And I want to make sure that there are two different categories that we are

00:21:20.400 talking about. I'm not just saying there were people who supported James Coates and were very

00:21:23.680 nice, and there were people who didn't support James Coates and were very mean. There are a lot

00:21:27.080 of people who fell along different places on the spectrum when it comes to this. Ultimately, I think

00:21:32.320 the right response for us is to say, yes, this pastor was treated unfairly when we see that those two sex 0.99

00:21:37.780 offenders were released and he was kept in jail. And all he wanted to do was to be able to operate at

00:21:43.060 full capacity if the church wanted to come. And that's his responsibility as the shepherd of his church.

00:21:48.600 And he just continued to preach the gospel. He was put in jail for that. I think we as Christians

00:21:51.980 should be able to rightly say that's injustice. And we should, at the very least, be praying for

00:21:57.540 him and his family. So that's where we landed on this podcast. And we talked to his wife, and we just

00:22:02.260 didn't know at that point how it was going to go. They tried to appeal his case. It didn't work. And so

00:22:07.520 we thought that he was at least going to be in jail until May. But there were a lot of people talking

00:22:11.940 about it. I think she did an interview, for example, with Tucker Carlson after she was on this

00:22:19.720 podcast. And she had been, Erin Coates had been talking about this a lot. But I certainly think

00:22:25.540 that you guys listening to this podcast, raising awareness about it, praying about it, I really

00:22:31.180 believe it made a big difference. And that these officials actually did feel pressure because of

00:22:36.680 their hypocrisy and because of these draconian restrictions to actually release him. Who knows

00:22:43.560 what the final push was? Surely his lawyers that were advocating for him were doing a lot of work

00:22:49.520 and doing a really good job. But I really think that the outcry that came from the United States

00:22:55.360 also probably made a difference. Now, here are some more details about this. He is still charged under

00:23:03.000 Alberta's Public Health Act for holding services that allegedly broke a restriction on the size of

00:23:09.520 gatherings. A trial is scheduled to begin May 3rd. So he still has to go to trial at the beginning of

00:23:14.040 May. He's just not in jail. He's reunited with his family right now. His lawyer, James Kitchen,

00:23:18.420 told Coates' bail hearing earlier this month that Coates can't follow a bail condition that forbids him

00:23:24.160 from holding services because that would violate his conscience by disobeying God. That's what they

00:23:28.800 tried to say, that, hey, you can get out of jail whenever you want to. You can't hold church 0.96

00:23:32.600 services. And he was like, no, not going to do that. That kind of defeats the whole purpose of

00:23:37.140 this whole thing. And so Kitchen says, this is a matter of deep-seated personal conscience and

00:23:41.440 religious beliefs for Pastor Coates. He is unable to disobey the God he believes in. He is compelled

00:23:45.860 to obey, as are his congregants. The church has continued to hold services despite Coates being 1.00

00:23:52.300 in custody. The Edmonton Journal tells it like this, Grace Life Pastor James Coates handed $1,500 fine

00:23:58.740 is released from Remand Center. Pastor James Coates of Grace Life Church appeared virtually

00:24:04.860 in Stony Plain Provincial Court from the Remand Center, dressed in an orange and black jumpsuit to

00:24:10.200 submit his plea Monday morning. His defense team proposed a joint submission with the crown of

00:24:14.820 $100 fine for breaching a court undertaking to follow health regulations. The judge did not accept that

00:24:22.960 submission. He instead imposed a $1,500 fine against Coates and credited him that amount for

00:24:27.980 the time that he served. Your decision could have been of danger to the health and safety of those

00:24:33.040 in your community. So he goes along and says that, but he's still released from jail. And so

00:24:41.940 we get to praise God for this. We get to rejoice over this. We get to see what I think is the result,

00:24:49.040 of God answering prayer and working powerfully, but also of people speaking up and raising that

00:24:56.380 respectful ruckus about the things that matter. Coates is not going to be under any court order

00:25:03.260 conditions after he was released from custody. And so that is great news. And this was in liberal

00:25:08.820 Canada. Canada is a lot more liberal right now than the United States. And so even though we as

00:25:13.980 conservatives, as Christians don't really have any institutional power backing us, our voices still

00:25:20.420 for now have an impact. They can still influence things. And so the best way that we can make sure

00:25:28.160 that we are shut down is if we start to self-censor and we start not to share controversial opinions and

00:25:34.300 we start not to speak the truth and to speak out about the things that matter because we fear

00:25:38.360 the social consequences of being bullied on social media or of being canceled. We can't fear cancellation

00:25:44.560 and then convince ourselves that we will actually stand ready when true persecution comes our way.

00:25:49.500 So let us be bold now on behalf of other people and on behalf of the things that matter. Now,

00:25:57.080 speaking of speaking up and making a difference, we got to talk about cinnamon toast crunch and shrimp

00:26:05.340 tales. This is not a typical story that we talk about on this podcast because it's not serious. I

00:26:10.400 mean, it's kind of serious, but it doesn't have to do with any political or social issues. I was just

00:26:15.120 cracking up at how this whole saga has gone down. And so I've got to tell you about it. I just thought

00:26:21.580 that this would be a fun way to end the week. And so that's what that's what we're going to do. We're

00:26:26.540 going to talk about shrimp cinnamon toast crunch gate. Now, before I get into that, I do want to tell

00:26:33.180 you guys about my last sponsor, and that is Bambi. So if you are running a small business right now,

00:26:39.460 you are trying to make ends meet. Maybe you're trying to get through this past year, which has

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00:28:11.020 All right. I just got to tell you this. I don't know if you guys have been following. A lot of

00:28:19.660 you aren't on Twitter, which God bless you. I don't blame you at all. It's a place where

00:28:24.700 the silliest, most self-important people in the world gather to lose brain cells. And I unfortunately 0.98

00:28:33.020 allow myself to be a part of that. But I really have tried to kind of like detach myself from it

00:28:40.500 and not be on Twitter as much because it really is just mind numbing. It can be so toxic. But

00:28:44.240 sometimes there are these viral things that go on on Twitter that make it at least kind of worth it.

00:28:50.260 And one of them is cinnamon toast crunch shrimp tails gate. If that sounds disgusting, that's

00:28:56.900 because it is. So if you're eating a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch right now, I would recommend

00:29:00.920 not doing that because you're probably going to lose your appetite. Let me tell you, let me tell you

00:29:06.920 this. This is hilarious. Jensen Karp, a comedian and writer in Los Angeles. He's a he's married to

00:29:13.340 Danielle Fischel Karp, who so just like, by the way, someone pointed this out, like his name is

00:29:18.600 Jensen Karp. Her name is Fischel Karp. And we're talking about shrimp tails. Just keep that in mind.

00:29:24.660 She played Topanga on Boy Meets World. And so just to give you some context for what that is,

00:29:29.620 he posted a picture on Twitter. And if you're watching on YouTube, which I recommend you doing,

00:29:34.300 because it adds to this whole story, he found what looks like shrimp tails in his cinnamon toast

00:29:42.160 crunch. He tweeted this at CTC squares, which is cinnamon toast crunch squares. Why are there

00:29:48.840 shrimp tails in my cereal in parentheses? This is not a bit. And if you see the picture, like you can,

00:29:56.940 you can pause it and look at this picture. I mean, this is not cinnamon toast crunch. These look

00:30:03.000 like crustacean tails. Then he tweets, guys, I, oh, let me see. So, okay. Cinnamon toast crunch

00:30:10.320 replied to him and said, we're sorry to see what you found. We would like to report this to our

00:30:15.560 quality team and replace the box. Can you please send us a DM to collect more details? Thanks.

00:30:20.560 Poor cinnamon toast crunch has no idea what is heading for them. Jensen Karp replies, guys,

00:30:26.780 I am not sure I'm ready for another box. Cinnamon toast crunch replies, we understand your concern.

00:30:32.840 We promise you that our team will look into this and get to the bottom of it. But in the meantime,

00:30:36.160 we want to do everything we can to make this right. We'll need further details to research.

00:30:41.500 He then posts this picture of like a shrimp man and says, okay, I have sent you a DM fair warning.

00:30:47.880 I look different since eating your cereal today. And you really have to watch this to get the full

00:30:52.920 effect. Then cinnamon toast crunch replies to him and says, after further investigation with our

00:30:58.620 team that closely examined the image, it appears to be an accumulation of the cinnamon sugar that

00:31:03.700 sometimes can occur when ingredients aren't thoroughly blended. We assure you there's no

00:31:08.220 possibility of cross-contamination with shrimp. He replies, okay, well, after further investigation

00:31:16.300 with my eyes, these are cinnamon coated shrimp tails, you weirdos. I wasn't all that mad until now you

00:31:25.560 tried to gaslight me? And he posts another picture of the shrimp tails in his hand. Oh my gosh. It's

00:31:33.720 not. So they tried to say, dude, you're crazy. There's no possibility of this. They're not shrimp 0.99

00:31:40.000 tails. And then he posts a picture of their DMs where they're going back and forth. And he says,

00:31:45.740 I think we've all dated someone like cinnamon toast crunch because cinnamon toast crunch reached out

00:31:50.300 to him and said, thank you, Jensen. We would like to also send you some general mills vouchers for

00:31:54.360 this unpleasant experience. If that's okay with you, we'll send them right away. He said, no,

00:31:59.220 you just told me it wasn't shrimp tails. And then he tweets the rest of their conversation. He says,

00:32:04.860 there's still time to save this guys. They are shrimp tails. Cinnamon toast crunch says, thanks. As

00:32:10.280 mentioned previously, we definitely want to make this right for you. Our quality team would like to get it

00:32:14.680 sent into us so we can take a closer look. We'll be sending a prepaid address envelope

00:32:19.840 so you can send the pieces to us. Can you please confirm that the address you entered in the email?

00:32:25.120 So I guess the emailed back and forth is where we should send it. We have also created a report

00:32:30.360 for your reference. Thank you. He says, yes, but I'm also going to keep one of the two because your

00:32:36.240 last response publicly was super weird. And since you'll be receiving a shrimp tail, I'll keep one

00:32:41.260 so you don't continue to try to make it to try to say it's sugar and make me look insane question

00:32:46.840 mark. And then he tweets, this goes on for a while guys. And I just feel, I feel obligated to tell you

00:32:53.480 all the details. Um, he tweets, I was convinced to go back through the bag since when I first noticed

00:32:59.340 the shrimp tails, I freaked out and closed the box. Here's all my findings, which now also includes

00:33:05.060 a weird little string. So if you see on the picture, there seems to be like a, there's a string.

00:33:10.820 This is in his cinnamon toast crunch. Okay. And these little like shrimp tail looking things. I don't

00:33:18.000 even know. And then he posts after that. Also, many of the squares have black marks and some are dyed

00:33:23.820 red question mark. And yes, I ate a bowl before noticing all of this. So if you see the little

00:33:30.920 picture, it looks like they're just like little black things that are like toasted into the 0.65

00:33:36.880 cinnamon toast crunch that he is posting a picture of from this bag. And someone, he were, someone

00:33:42.600 responded to him and said, Hey, I study crustaceans at the natural history museum in LA. Those do look

00:33:48.380 a bit, uh, like a shrimp's Telson and Europods tail. I would totally love to look at your specimen under a

00:33:54.560 microscope. We might even be able to extract DNA to confirm its species or if it's in D cinnamon sugar.

00:33:59.520 And he said, let's get real Nancy drew about this. And then someone responded to his picture of the

00:34:06.400 cinnamon toast crunch with the black things on it. Mouse or rat droppings. They said, guaranteed.

00:34:10.500 They made a home in a bag of flour or other raw ingredient in all of the shrimp string and everything

00:34:17.460 else is there scavenged items. And he responded, I just screamed inside my house. Then he posted

00:34:24.960 another picture and he said, update my wife Topanga, uh, has a stronger stomach than me and checked the 0.99

00:34:31.900 other bag in the family pack. So this is a family pack. And so there, I think there are two bags of

00:34:36.940 cinnamon toast crunch in the, in the boxer. Like they come with two boxes. He says, this one seems

00:34:42.820 taped up. Like you can see the picture at the bottom, like it had been open and it was taped up

00:34:46.860 with masking tape and also appears to include, I don't even want to say it dental floss. And then he

00:34:52.940 says, I called poison control. And by the way, these tweets all have like thousands and thousands

00:34:57.420 of likes and some of them thousands of retweets. So I called poison control. Good news is if it is

00:35:02.860 rat poo, I won't feel the flu like effects of an infection for a few days. That's good. And then you

00:35:08.880 really have to see the picture for this part to look funny. People started making, uh, like

00:35:13.180 photoshopping boxes of cinnamon toast crunch with like shrimp tails coming out of it and like rat

00:35:20.460 droppings on it. And then like changing the text on the box saying real droppings or real shrimp

00:35:25.820 tails. Very funny. Okay. He goes on and he keeps talking about the back and forth between him and

00:35:31.280 cinnamon toast crunch in his DMS. Um, so they say that, look, okay, we're going to pick up the shrimp

00:35:38.660 tail, but FedEx needs you to be at your house for three hours during the day. So we can pick this

00:35:43.980 up. We can take it to our lab and we can check out, uh, what's going on. And he responds, I won't

00:35:50.300 be giving you the stuff, especially as last I heard from you as an envelope. Again, your tweet calling it

00:35:55.220 sugar was super weird. And I just love how like into this he is. And the fact that you haven't said

00:36:00.420 anything to the contrary, doesn't allow me to trust you with it at all. You're being super sketchy and

00:36:04.880 on when this was a very easy PR response to make people feel assured you care about your products.

00:36:10.740 And then he says, please email me, blah, blah, blah. And then he puts a picture of him going with

00:36:16.720 his cinnamon toast crunch box to a lab. The cinnamon toast crunch box is, um, is like, uh, in his,

00:36:24.720 it's seat belted and it's strapped into the front seat of his car. They're going to a lab.

00:36:30.000 And then he posts emails from this. I mean, this is just a PR nightmare for cinnamon toast crunch.

00:36:36.080 Who the heck is communicating with him? So he is communicating with general mills, uh,

00:36:43.580 the company who makes cinnamon toast crunch over email. They say, thank you for getting back to us.

00:36:49.980 If you are unwilling to send the items and cereal packaging to us, please provide these items to

00:36:54.520 your local law enforcement. This may be product tampering and we need the opportunity to investigate

00:36:59.460 the packaging. And then this part, I'm just, I think I can hold it together. I read this

00:37:06.700 last night and literally burst out laughing. So he responds to that email saying, okay,

00:37:13.600 the police you want to involve for your investigation can call me at the number I

00:37:17.440 initially sent you or by contacting me at this email. I'm not walking into a random police station

00:37:21.900 yelling. Here's the shrimp tails that general mills. Here's the shrimp tails that general mills wants. 1.00

00:37:29.160 Like it's a smoking, like it's a smoking gun from a murder. I also didn't get back to you. You got

00:37:35.780 back to me. This is the first email I've received from you. We've only spoken over Twitter direct

00:37:40.520 message. I did email you initially through the submission form, which you are replying to for

00:37:45.120 the first time here. You guys are an insane mess of a company. So it's starting to finish out here.

00:37:51.040 Jensen says, I am happy to report a carcinologist, a crustacean researcher that works at NHMLA is going

00:37:59.540 to morphologically identify the shrimp using microscopy. And he will work with a team of

00:38:06.180 researchers to use DNA to try and identify the putative shrimp down to species. This is happening.

00:38:13.400 They are, they also are paying for this to be done, which is helpful when a corporation is telling

00:38:18.040 the internet, I actually found wads of sugar. So basically my shrimp got a scholarship.

00:38:24.660 Oh, so that's all we know right now. The last he posted, I just checked. He said he's no real

00:38:31.620 update. This was yesterday. I'm not posting about this all day. Again, waiting for the envelope I

00:38:37.180 agreed on from general mills to send them back pieces of some of a shrimp tail. We'll leave home

00:38:43.700 for DNA testing at noon and they grow up so fast. And so I, of course, will keep you updated

00:38:50.720 on this story. But this just goes to show that speaking up about things can really make a

00:38:58.900 difference. I mean, this was the wrong guy to have this kind of stuff happen to, because this is blown

00:39:05.900 up into like a huge story. Like people are actually legitimately talking about this. I kind of feel bad

00:39:10.980 for cinnamon toast crunch, but I also don't because this could have happened to people who don't have

00:39:15.580 this kind of platform. And this is like disgusting. This is disgusting. This makes me not want to eat

00:39:19.620 cereal ever again. Again, if you're listening to this, you have to go watch this on YouTube so you

00:39:24.820 can get the full effect of all these tweets. So the point of today is all, it all ties together. It's

00:39:29.860 to speak up about the things that matter because you never know the difference that it could make.

00:39:33.660 All right. I'll be back here on Monday.

00:39:40.980 I'll be back here on Monday.

00:39:41.980 Bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 25, 2021

Ep 392 ｜ America’s in Trouble & So Is Cinnamon Toast Crunch

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