In this week’s Brief: We touch on the ICE shooting in Minnesota and the nationwide protests unfolding in Iran, stepping back from the immediate outrage to talk about why these stories escalated so quickly and how Christians should respond with clarity, compassion, and prayer. We discuss why what’s happening in Iran feels different than past uprisings, what’s at stake as the regime cracks down, the potential for President Trump to order US military involvement, and why this moment calls for intercession, especially for persecuted believers.
Plus quick hits on Bill and Hillary Clinton refusing to testify over the Epstein files, a DOJ investigation involving Fed Chair Jerome Powell, continued U.S. strikes against ISIS targets overseas, Scott Adams’ death, the new highest-grossing actor of all time, and why the Golden Globes function more like a Hollywood campaign stop than a cultural authority.
And because it wouldn’t be Culture Brief without it, we get into the College Football Playoff National Championship, the NFL playoffs, wildly wrong preseason predictions, and the Buffalo Bills selling one of the strangest pieces of stadium memorabilia imaginable.
Through it all, we’re considering what such a chaotic week reveals about our culture—and why Christians are called to consume the news differently, pray first, and anchor our hope not in power, politics, or outcomes, but in Christ.
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Topics
- (00:00): Introduction
- (01:17): Minnesota ice incident breakdown
- (11:11): National debate on immigration enforcement
- (19:36): Protests in Iran: A potential revolution
- (28:19): Trump’s response to Iranian protests
- (32:10): Prayers for Iran
- (32:27): Esther’s story and its relevance
- (33:56): NFL and stadium memorabilia
- (37:04): US military strikes on ISIS
- (40:33): Golden Globes recap
- (41:59): Clintons and Epstein subpoena
- (43:34): College football championship preview
- (45:01): NFL playoffs predictions
- (47:01): Conclusion and farewell
Resources
- Send us your thoughts, questions, and topic ideas: [email protected]
- Culture Brief Instagram
- Watch on Youtube
- Sign-up for a Denison Forum newsletter: DenisonForum.org/subscribe
Articles on this week’s top headlines:
- Was the ICE shooting in Minnesota justified?
- What we know so far about the ICE shooting in Minneapolis
- Homeland Security to send hundreds more officers to Minnesota, Noem says
- ICE.gov
- ICE officer who shot Renee Good in Minneapolis has served decades in military and law enforcement
- Renee Good’s Family Share Their ‘Unimaginable Loss’ After Her Death in Fatal ICE Shooting, Remember Her as ‘Full of Heart’
- Deadly protests in Iran: A right analysis but a wrong spirit
- Iran’s Leaders Face Their Biggest Challenge in a Generation
- White House Weighs Iran’s Nuclear-Talks Offer as Trump Leans Toward Strikes
- Iran Update, January 8, 2026
- Over 12,000 feared dead after Iran protests, as video shows bodies lined up at morgue
- ‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams dies at 68 after prostate cancer diagnosis
About Conner Jones
Conner Jones is the Director of Performance Marketing at Denison Ministries and Co-Hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. He graduated from Dallas Baptist University in 2019 with a degree in Business Management. Conner passionately follows politics, sports, pop-culture, entertainment, and current events. He enjoys fishing, movie-going, and traveling the world with his wife and son.
About Micah Tomasella
Micah Tomasella is the Director of Advancement at Denison Ministries and co-hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. A graduate of Dallas Baptist University, Micah is married to Emily, and together they are the proud parents of two daughters. With an extensive background in nonprofit work, finance, and real estate, Micah also brings experience from his years in pastoral church ministry.
About Denison Forum
Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, the Faith & Clarity podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
Conner Jones: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Conner Jones.
Micah Tomasella: I’m Micah to,
Conner Jones: and this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture, technology, and so much more. And we do it all from a Christian perspective. And Micah, man, what a week, Brooks Kka. He’s back with the PGA.
Ashley Tisdale is causing tiffs among Hollywood moms.
Micah Tomasella: There you
Conner Jones: go. Culture is so back, baby. We’re so back.
Micah Tomasella: Yes, and it is typically more fun to talk about Brooks Keka and Ashley Tisdale and the Disney Star drama, but we do have to talk about the biggest stories. So what we’re gonna talk about today is Minnesota Ice, and why this moment matters, why it’s important.
We’re also gonna talk about what’s going on in Iran, the protests and the possible US intervention. We’re recording Wednesday, January 14th. There could be a new development by the time this episode releases Thursday morning, January 15th, but we’ll do our best to keep you in the loop on that. We’ve got. A [00:01:00] couple fun questions to answer.
We’re gonna talk about Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton refusing to testify and the Epstein files and NFL playoffs and just all that stuff and so much more. So let’s jump into the brief.
Conner Jones: The brief.
Micah Tomasella: Alright, so let’s talk about what happened in Minneapolis. So this happened last week and it happened after we recorded. However, this story has stayed in the public eye, so we feel this is still a very relevant story, especially as believers how we process through this. I think if we rush to judgment on either side, I think that we might be missing the point.
And so I wanna walk us through what happened and why it matters and how we can react to it as believers. So here’s what happened in Minneapolis. On January 7th, a federal immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis ended with Renee Goode, a 37-year-old woman being shot and killed by an ice agent.
That was kind of the immediate news [00:02:00] that came out. Woman shot and killed by ice agent. Federal authorities have identified the officer involved as Jonathan Ross. Video of the encounter surfaced quickly. And then over time, over the next several days, we saw different camera angles from different vantage points over and over and over again.
You couldn’t scroll. You couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing something about this story, and it showed officers surrounding goods vehicle attempting to engage her, and then opening fire after the SUV moved forward. Federal officials have argued the shooting was an act of self-defense. Local leaders in Minnesota have strongly disagreed calling the response reckless and demanding trends.
Transparency. So this is where the story begins, but that is not where it ends. It still hasn’t ended yet. It kinda has a microscope on the way that ICE is operating and the way that law enforcement, what their protocols are for engaging in these situations. Because the debate is not about just what happened in those few seconds, it’s also about how powers exercised, how investigations are handled, and how quickly this procedure [00:03:00] sometime and just jumping to one solution or the other can kind of replace compassion.
In us. And so here’s my view upfront, whether the shooting was legally justified and whether it was morally right are related questions. Those do matter, but they’re not the same question. And so when the same federal system involved in the shooting controls, the investigation and the narrative afterwards, or at least tries to public trust becomes a part of the story too.
So I think zooming out of what happened in this shooting. Renee Goode, not listening to the officer’s commands, driving her vehicle towards an officer. Being somewhat belligerent in that moment, an officer choosing to shoot her, when Minnie would say he didn’t need to do that, he could have done something else.
I think that that all matters. I think that the. Biggest thing for me, Conner, and then I want you to speak to this for a minute. That came from the story was just the reactions from the left, from the right, from believers, from non-believers. [00:04:00] The reactions to this were oftentimes, oh yes, Renee good was completely justified.
That officer is wrong. He’s this, he’s that. Or, oh yeah, she had what’s coming to her from the right. From some on the right. Those seem to be the dominating reactions and I didn’t see a lot of nuance to the discussion out there for the most part.
So that was the most interesting thing to me from all of this was just the immediate reaction, the partisan reaction from this.
What was your immediate reaction? And you know, everything that followed after that.
Conner Jones: I just think, first, I was like, this is a such a tough situation. It’s a sticky situation. The video made it clear that, man, this, in a way, it’s just a big tragedy. We’re talking about the end of a woman’s life in a scenario where it should never have escalated to that point.
And sadly it did. And then you’re also talking about this officer who had to make a split second decision that has also not just ended the life of a woman, but has radically transformed his life and his family’s life, his
Micah Tomasella: family’s life.
Conner Jones: They’re in hiding right now. Like there, there totally, there’s so much tragedy around this whole thing.[00:05:00]
And you’re right about the partisan thing, man, I, as soon as this was happening, I was on Twitter trying to just understand what was going on. See the different camera angles. I follow people on the left and the right, because I like to get just both sides. It was not even remotely anything down the middle.
It was everybody was just taking their complete partisan view. We’re all seeing the exact same video and people are just saying, oh, yep, it’s this way or it’s that way. Yeah, there’s no middle ground here and there usually is a middle ground. And I think in this scenario where we can all say this was tragic on all ends.
She, you know, you would think could have listened better or obeyed orders or not been there in the first place, not been there in the first place. The officer maybe could have taken a different action to avoid such a lethal action. Totally. You can kind of both sides this and recognize that ultimately it’s a big tragedy that should not have happened.
And it really comes down to, here’s where I’m really going with this. Micah. I I, and I think you’re about to hit on this, is. Is this all needed in the first place? Were both people in bad positions. Is the ice officer in a bad been placed in a bad position by his higher up leadership? [00:06:00] Should these ice officers be on the streets in Minneapolis, in the middle of the snow going through neighborhoods trying to apprehend immigrants?
That’s not for me to say. I’m not sure that’s for either of us to say. It’s what the government has been elected to do to why Trump’s in office. He wants people to be in the streets, gathering up immigrants and deporting them. How do you do that? You, you have to go through really tough situations like this.
I think JD Vance doubled down on that this morning. Wednesday morning in a tweet saying, what did you expect? The border shut down. So now to get rid of people, you have to send agents into the streets and into neighborhoods and into stores and maybe schools. There’s a lot of questions about this.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. It’s a good point, Conner. So let’s talk about why this became a flashpoint. Protests erupted immediately, not just in Minneapolis or Minnesota, everywhere, all over the country. So the reaction was not just about the use of force, it was about, you know, fear, history, accountability, just law enforcement.
Minnesota officials initially planned a joint investigation with the FBI, but that cooperation broke down the [00:07:00] FBI did take sole control of the case and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal apprehension said it no longer had access to evidence or interviews, which has kind of become like already an issue.
Just like with the, with the skeptical public. You know, this was a federal issue, and so the federal government is saying, we’re the only ones handling this. So people can reasonably disagree on what the video shows, but once transparency disappears, suspicion fills the gap. So in a country already conditioned to distrust institutions, the gap widens quickly when only one source is gonna try to tell you what happened when they do their own investigation.
But see, here’s the thing. We all saw the video, right? So everybody rushes to their own conclusions on this. So what ICE is and how we got here. I wanna talk about ICE for a minute. I think that we all the sudden we’re talking about ice way more than we ever have. So to understand why this moment feels so charged, you have to understand what ICE is.
Here’s the history of it. So this is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and it was created in 2003 after nine 11. On the heels of nine 11, its mission sits at the intersection of immigration enforcement, customs, and [00:08:00] national security. They kind of handle all three things. And so ICE was not designed to operate originally.
It wasn’t designed to operate like a local police department, rooted in neighborhood accountability, built on trust. Over time, it was built for federal enforcement. So that origin matters. So agencies designed for national security operate differently than agencies designed for community policing. So ICE officers are not overseen by city councils.
Their use of force policies, training, and standards and investigations largely remain inside the federal system. And then they’re just sent in. To these places across the country. So I think that that does lead to some of the issues that we found. So when ice operations end in tragedy, the public question is not only whether the action was legal, it was whether the process that follows it deserves trust, or really, like you said, Conner, if they should have been there in the first place.
And again, I’m just laying out the details of it. Yep. And you know, this is not as clear cut and. As cut and dry as I think most on both sides would like to say. And that’s kind of [00:09:00] what I’m saying is I wanna bring some nuance and I want us as believers to be comfortable in the uncomfortable of not being able to jump to an immediate conclusion so that we can just dismiss this and move on with our lives as followers of Christ.
I believe that we’re called to something higher than what our party platform tells us we should believe. There’s a lot to consider with this. So here’s, here’s the legal justification. Is not the same as moral closure. So this is an important moment to slow down, even if the shooting is ultimately ruled justified under policy, which I believe it will be, even if Jonathan Ross, the officer that shot her is not prosecuted, even if every procedural box was checked, none of that automatically means that the outcome was acceptable because Renee Goode she’s dead.
We all saw it. Yep. We all saw the video. Our system is built to determine legality, not to measure loss. Think about that. Our systems are there to determine what’s right, what’s wrong, what gets prosecuted, what doesn’t, what was done [00:10:00] right, what was done wrong. It does not measure loss. It’s not supposed to.
And there’s real danger, right? Especially in cases like this of becoming so procedural that we grow numb, this is a point I wanna call out. No charges filed can quietly turned into nothing wrong happened, and those are not the same thing. Christians should especially be careful Here. Justice includes due process, but it also includes lament, sorrow.
Processing. We should be able to hold two truths at once and we should grow more comfortable in that because many of these issues that we discuss, we want to believe there’s one reason why Trump does something, or one reason why the Democrats do this or do that now. It’s a multiplicity of reasons.
People are complicated, situations are complicated. We’ve gotta grow more comfortable with. Two or three or four or five things being true at the same time. So the officer may not face prosecution and this death still matters. This life still mattered. Her life mattered. But you know what? This officer’s life and his entire family, they matter too.
So if our [00:11:00] response to tragedy ends with legal clearance and never reaches compassion, something has gone wrong in us, even if nothing went wrong in court. That’s what I wanna call out. So let’s talk about the national debate. This shooting reignited. This incident was reignited and it reignited a broader national conversation.
Conner, what level of force should be used during immigration enforcement? How much ice agents receive in their training compared to local police who investigates when a federal officer kills a civilian? See, how often does that happen? These debates are not like in our lifetime at least, they’re not that common.
When a federal officer is in a position and kill someone. That’s just new territory.
Conner Jones: I guess I don’t know the numbers or the stats on how often that does happen, but Yeah. I mean, it, it’s just, it’s like you’re saying there’s a debate because it’s not so cut and dry. There is not just a right and wrong on all of this.
I think one thing that I’ve seen a lot this week is the, there’s been a lot of polls going out about how people, specifically people who voted for Donald Trump [00:12:00] feel about all of this, and it’s not popular. Even among his voters, because voters like we wanted immigration to be tamped down and the border was shut down.
And yeah, we want the dangerous immigrants. Who are criminals and doing terrible things in our country, deported from this country. But
Micah Tomasella: yeah,
Conner Jones: we didn’t think it was gonna go like this, you know? Yeah. I think, but I also don’t know what people expected, so I, it it’s hard to, it’s hard to know.
Micah Tomasella: It’s a classic case of, you know, a, a lot of his policies on the surface with polling are actually pretty popular, but the way that he goes about enforcing them,
Conner Jones: yes.
Micah Tomasella: Oh, hey, we wanna reset. Like we don’t want America taken advantage of on the global stage and with trade and with all these deficits. Oh, okay. Oh, but all these tariffs I don’t know about that. It’s if it’s been broken for a long time, what do you expect? I mean, that’s an important thing to call out.
There’s very few things other than what’s going on in the global stage with like Venezuela and Greenland, like we talk about that. Is one of the most surprising things of this second term. I didn’t [00:13:00] think he would do that, but for the most part, when it comes to like immigration stuff like this, and he told us he was gonna do this, I just don’t necessarily think we were expecting it to be at this level.
And I think that’s,
Conner Jones: that’s what’s coming
Micah Tomasella: out in these polls.
Conner Jones: I think what people didn’t expect was literally seeing agents on their streets and, and their grocery stores. You know, like it’s hitting closer to home for most people than a lot of these other things do. So it’s just, it feels different.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
It’s, it’s nerve wracking in a sense, for sure. So based on what we know. Renee Goode’s decision to remain in the vehicle and attempt to drive away, and I know she turned the wheel, but how do you make that decision in a nanosecond as an officer? Did he really see that and know that that mattered, that she decided to stay in the vehicle, not listen to commands?
Drive towards or away from the officer, whatever you wanna say, accelerate in the officer’s direction that mattered. It mattered that she was there in the first place, trying to block federal officials that matters. Like we can’t just wipe that away. Acknowledging that does not mean that she deserved to die though,
Conner Jones: right?
Micah Tomasella: And it does not make the outcome [00:14:00] acceptable. But personal decisions don’t disappear simply because a result is tragic. Goodness. I mean, think about that. In our own lives, there are so many things that we can point to in our lives, and if you really think about it on the surface, we might blame God or blame somebody else.
But sometimes tragedy results from our own decisions over time or maybe a dumb decision. In a moment. We should be able to say this honestly, that people have agency, and agency carries risk, and at the same time, law enforcement carries a higher burden because officers are trained, they’re armed, and they’re empowered by the state.
Both truths can exist at the same time. Danger is drifting too far in either direction, right? Pretending individual choices don’t matter. Flattens reality, pretending those choices justify loss of life hardens our hearts, I think. And so a thoughtful response resists both, and that’s what I’m encouraging all of us to do.
But all in all, here’s where I land, and then I’m gonna jump into this spiritual application. If the goal is public trust, secrecy works against it. [00:15:00] So I don’t think it’s a great precedent that they’re not gonna let others investigate this. If you want trust in what you’re doing in this very controversial way that you’re sending ice out into the streets, I don’t think secrecy fixes the problem.
We are a very conspiracy theory fueled country. I don’t think that that’s a great idea. And so even if the officer did act within policy, the absence of independent oversight undermines confidence. This and future situations and confidence matters because legitimacy is fragile. So like the legitimacy of these operations is fragile already.
So public confidence is going to be important, and I do think them doing that undermines this process. Lemme give you a Christian perspective on power, justice, and humility. And so this is where Dr. Ryan Denison’s framing of it in the focus, and we’ll talk more about the focus, but it’s a new newsletter that Dr.
Ryan Denison has launched. He writes the daily article every Friday, but he is, he’s an incredible man and. I love the way he thinks through these things, but that’s where I kind of [00:16:00] gathered the nuance in my thought of, this is what I’m feeling, but how do I put words to it? And the focus this past Friday really helped me put words to it.
So his analysis rushes well, it refuses to rush to outrage and forces us to think clearly. Lemme give you two verses. Micah six eight. Ah, he has shown you, oh man, what’s good, what the Lord requires of you to do justly, to love, mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Proverbs 2115, when justice is done, it’s a joy to the righteous, but terror to evil doers.
Justice without kindness becomes cruelty sometimes, doesn’t it? Kindness without justice become sentimentality, or even like just brushing things aside and it doesn’t really fix the problem. Humility is what keeps power from turning dangerous. So here’s the challenge. Before we rush to defend or condemn, we should ask better questions.
Are we committed to the truth even when it complicates [00:17:00] our preferred narrative? Ask yourself that question. Are you willing to look at a situation truthfully, even if it complicates what you wanna believe or if it makes you feel uncomfortable? Are we treating everyone in this story as made in the image of God, including the victim, including the family, the officer in his family, the communities now living in fear, right?
Are we treating everyone in this story like they’re made in the image of God? The goal is not to win the argument, here it is to steward influence because when power operates without humility, and justice operates without transparency, everyone loses. And that’s bigger than just what happened in Minnesota.
Conner Jones: Yeah, that’s good. You’re right. We need to see everybody in the image of God. It’s a really good reminder and I think it’s something. I know for a fact I need to check my own heart on. Sometimes it’s just easy to, to scroll through a social media or see something on TV or whatnot. You just think, ah, those people.
But then you gotta remember those people are, you know, they’re made in his image too
Micah Tomasella: not simple for me either. Yeah. I mean, [00:18:00] I’m, I mean, when I’m, my grandfather, he’s been a Southern Baptist minister for. Forever. Oh yeah. And he always said like, when I’m pointing at the audience, I put my thumb back and I’m pointing at myself.
It almost kinda looks like a gun if you’re not watching the video. Like a finger gun. Whenever I’m pointing at the audience, I’m pointing at them, but then I’ve got that thumb pointing right back at me. Truth is truth. And so how do we invite God into our news consumption? Maybe one way is to say a prayer that God reframes our hearts and our minds to remember that even if they ideologically don’t fit or look like us or act like us or believe something else, all made in the image of God, all with equal value, loved just the same gifted uniquely.
I think if we say that prayer and we remind ourselves of that as we consume a controversial news story like this, I think especially as believers, I think that we start looking at things a little bit differently and hopefully with a little bit more compassion.
Conner Jones: Totally. Yeah. Like our, our faith should direct how we consume our news, how we consume any information.[00:19:00]
Yeah. Maybe it’s not news. Maybe it’s your own finances. Whatever it is, it should, it should influence everything you think about every situation. Thanks Micah for that. It was a good rundown. There’s so much happening in Minnesota. Minnesota, man. It’s been at the center of the news for
Micah Tomasella: years,
Conner Jones: month, month and a half,
Micah Tomasella: something.
Oh, it’s always
Conner Jones: something
Micah Tomasella: in
Conner Jones: Minnesota. Fraud, obviously. The, it really, the, the Black Lives Matter protest started there. 2020. George
Micah Tomasella: Floyd happened in Minnesota. Yeah,
Conner Jones: man, just Wow. A lot going on. Tim Walls stepping down because of all this. But he’s also trying to be the face of the left side of this whole thing with Renee Goode and the ice officer.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. Good luck with that, Tim. Anyway.
Conner Jones: Yeah, a lot going on there. Okay. Micah, the other big thing happening, as you mentioned at the beginning, is. Protest and I ran. So I’m just gonna kind of break down what’s going on and why these protests seem different than before. ’cause they have had protests in the past, but this has really escalated and we are on the verge.
Potentially of seeing a true revolution of the Iranian regime being toppled, essentially, and the people just demanding new governorship, new leadership, potentially a [00:20:00] democracy, depending on, you know, whoever fills in the gap with the new leader, is the US gonna get involved and try to influence what happens in there?
Try to help the protestors on the ground because. Man, it’s, it’s still going on. We’re going on week three of these widespread protests across all 31 provinces in Iran. And when I say provinces, I’m talking about some of the islands that are off of Iran. The people on these smaller islands are protesting too, like it is countrywide.
This is because their economy has completely collapsed. It’s also because they’re repressed. They don’t have very many freedoms in Iran. They are educated, which has actually probably helped protestors to realize, man, they’re. Repressed and they have a big youth population. I think 60% of their population is below the age of 35.
Micah Tomasella: Mm.
Conner Jones: So that, that is influenced, for
Micah Tomasella: revolution. Yeah.
Conner Jones: For revolution. A generation that has grown up in this repressed nation state. And without very many freedoms, without too much communication with the outside world, they’re ready for something different. And then, man, the economy collapsed.
And when I say that, I mean their currency. The reel has dropped down to where it’s now. I [00:21:00]think as of yesterday, 1.5 million reels was equal to one US dollar. So I wanna make sure I get that yeah. So it’s, it’s basically worthless. I mean, there, there’s no worth to their currency and that has sent people to the streets.
’cause they’re like, we, we can’t buy anything. You can’t get groceries, you can’t do trade, you can’t sign contracts, you can’t do anything to make an economy run. It’s completely collapsed. So yeah, the people are out in the streets, but unfortunately what we’re seeing from the limited videos that are coming out of Iran is the Iranian regime is killing them.
I mean, they, they’re opening fire on these protesters
Micah Tomasella: just like. Machine guns on crowds of people. Basically
Conner Jones: machine guns on crowds of people, children, old people. It is so tragic and we don’t even really know the full extent of it because Iran has just clamped down on shutting down the internet. We are on day like six of basically internet.
Micah Tomasella: They’re like,
Conner Jones: yeah.
Micah Tomasella: Cutting off power and just infrastructure. I mean, in, in Iran things like running water like are not necessarily super common either. I mean, you know, you have to [00:22:00] understand living there is like nothing anyone in American, you know, can, can fully understand if they haven’t been,
Conner Jones: you’re absolutely right and what’s sad is it actually used to be.
Pretty nice. In the seventies, it was a free country. The people were driving around, they were addressing how they wanted, they, they had rights, they had freedoms. And then this Islamic revolution happened that put the current regime in power because people thought that that was gonna be a better situation.
But this regime, and
Micah Tomasella: they’re doing everything that they can to remain in power.
Conner Jones: Everything that they can, since 1979, they’ve been in power and they don’t want to not be in power, but the people are, are seeking something different. The Iranian president, he’s basically a really just a pawn. He’s a powerless individual because the Ayatollah Ali Kamani is the actual leader of the country.
But this president has said, I hear you. I want to hear from protestors through your government representatives so that we can all try to resolve the problems and respond responsibly. So he’s at least trying to say, let us know, and they’re letting them know Hey, yeah, our lives are not good. We cannot prosper in any way here.
But like you said, they’re not gonna, they’re not gonna relinquish power. Easily like that. And as we [00:23:00] mentioned, the internet is shut down. Trump has requested that Elon Musk and Elon has followed up with this open up starlink in Iran to be free. There are starlink dishes in Iran already, so the people who can get those connected are somewhat.
Able to connect with the internet. It’s free now for them to get connected to that. And so that’s partly how we’re getting some videos out of the country. But there’s so much happening on the ground that we will never fully know, at least not for a long time, because people cannot communicate with the outside world.
They are just shut off. What we are seeing though, like we said, crowds are being dispersed with gunfire. People are being killed. The current number right now, the Iranian regime has said there have been 2000 people killed and that includes security forces, but. What’s actually more likely true and what some news outlets are reporting is it’s really probably closer to 15 to 20,000 people.
There’s
Micah Tomasella: been some videos that I have not clicked on.
Conner Jones: Yeah.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
Conner Jones: There’s more videos,
Micah Tomasella: just, just body bags as far as the eye can see.
Conner Jones: Yeah. And, and families having to come to try to identify their loved ones. It’s [00:24:00] terrible. And the stories of people who are able to get their stories out are like, they’re showing up to our doors.
They’re killing people. They’re knocking our house in, it’s awful, man, what they’re doing to stay in power. But I think that’s part of why this is gonna be different because they’re clamping down so hard that people are also fighting back even harder. They are not stopping. It’s not,
Micah Tomasella: it’s not gonna stop this.
Like when you start doing that, it’s, it’s only gonna embolden them. Yeah.
Conner Jones: At least for a certain amount of time. At some point they, they might have to give up. So that’s why some people are trying, and I’m not saying we we’re agreeing with this, but a lot of people are trying to put pressure on Donald Trump to take action, do it now, or this will end and then there’s not gonna be a revolution.
You
Micah Tomasella: could, I see both arguments, like why on earth do we gotta keep getting involved in all this stuff? We have our own problems, but then obviously they’re desperate. Just as a country, as a leadership, because of the drastic actions that they’re taking, you might have an opportunity to topple.
You know, one of America’s greatest enemies in the last 30, 40 years, been responsible for funding an [00:25:00] innumerable amount of terrorist organizations around the world.
Conner Jones: You’re exactly right. So that leads me right. That’s perfect. This leads me right into the five reasons why I think this revolution’s different than past ones, because they did.
They did protest in 20, 22, 23. They got small changes done in those protests, but this one’s just so much bigger. Here’s five reasons why I think this is gonna be different and could actually lead to something more drastic. One is like you’re suggesting Micah Iran’s just weak right now. All of their proxies have been decimated.
They had Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Syrian regime. They were all proxies for Iran in the region. Iran funded them and gave them weapons, and all of them have basically been decimated by mostly Israel and then also. The United States. And then Iran also had their nuclear facilities and top nuclear scientists killed last year.
Their nuclear facilities destroyed by the United States and the bunker buster bombs and that operation by Trump. And then, yeah, the, a lot of their military leadership’s been killed. And then these US sanctions that have been on them for three years have just crushed their economy. As we’re saying, that’s [00:26:00] part of why their currency has dwindled, but they also just aren’t getting enough oil in.
They’re not getting enough resources in because sanctions are just pressed down hard on them. Number two would be, you’re right, they’re desperate. They’ve deployed their own military into the streets. That shows a round of desperation. They don’t typically do that. Analysts have basically said this means that they are.
Threatened. They truly feel threatened. Last resort. Yeah, last resort. If they’re sending their military into the streets to kill people. And then, yeah, the protests, they’re just not stopping. These people continue to go out every single night knowing that they are risking their lives to protest, but realizing that if they do not continue protesting, they won’t have a chance to make change.
And they want to prosper. They want freedoms. They want rights. Yeah, man, there’s, there’s a lot there. And then number four is just the ayatollah himself. He’s 86 years old. He looks weak. He’s frail. He looks weak politically and physically. And he’s very disliked by much of the population in Iran. Not everybody.
There are hard line Iranians who still support this regime. And of course the Iranian government is like putting out propaganda that they’re having [00:27:00] their own rally call parades or whatnot, but it’s very small compared to the rest of the country. And then number five is just that Trump. Yeah, he’s increasing his threats.
He seems. Inclined to want to do something. It could happen today after we record this podcast, and by the time you listen to this, the US may have taken some sort of action. We don’t know. It could be a cyber attack. Psychological warfare could be airstrikes. We don’t have an aircraft carrier in the region right now, which is like the first time in two decades that we don’t.
Because it’s in the Caribbean because of that, that makes airstrikes a little harder to pull off. But we could still, we have such a big military, we could pull something off here.
Micah Tomasella: There’s just something we don’t know. Yeah, I mean, in, in, in every single one of these strikes on, you know, the nuclear facilities, or even with Madero, everybody’s trying to figure out what the next move is.
They’ve done a pretty good job in this administration. I mean, and really just like historically, like we seem to do a pretty good job of the element of surprise. So I’m, I’m not sure what to inspect, who’s to say there isn’t. An aircraft carrier somewhere. Technically I like, I’m just, I’m just saying like I know that we know where this stuff is and we’re [00:28:00] supposed to be able to track it and obviously these aircraft carriers are huge.
I’m just saying, I just think that there’s some things that we dunno.
Conner Jones: Yeah. What you can’t see from satellites that a lot of people have open source intelligence on is submarines. So they could be used
Micah Tomasella: Oh
Conner Jones: is some. Okay. That’s what you gotta really remember is how many subs are in the area, how many other aircraft are in the area anyways, there’s always possibilities.
We’ll just have to see if Trump does something. He did say on truth social, and this is after he was. He’s been briefed multiple times by the military, given options of things he could do. He said, Iranian patriots, keep protesting. Take over your institutions. Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price.
I have canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protestors stops. Help is on the way. Make Iran great again. I don’t think he’s gonna leave that empty handed. Tell the people that he’s sending help and then not do something. No, something’s gonna happen. So yeah, as of Wednesday morning, we’re on pins and needles waiting for what the next action will be.
They are currently removing some personnel from US base in the Middle East. Israel is on a heightened level of security and they’re opening up bomb shelters again. [00:29:00] So that leads us to believe that they are expecting something either Iran sending off missiles or something before the US can yeah, perform some sort of operation, or they’re prepping for retaliation.
Should the US. Perform an operation, and Iran retaliates in some way. Remember, Iran isn’t a weak state, but they still have a load of missiles and they’ve got a big military, so they can still do things here.
Micah Tomasella: And there are a lot of American and allied bases around Iran.
Conner Jones: All over the place. All over the Middle East.
Yeah. Yep. They can, they
Micah Tomasella: makes it easier to attack Iran, but it also puts more people in danger too.
Conner Jones: Which, you know, and that’s what some people in the government are saying is Trump, are you sure you wanna do this? If this fails or if they retaliate big time and we lose US troops, this could be bad.
Micah Tomasella: Yep. Something to think about.
Conner Jones: We’ll
Micah Tomasella: see what happens. It really is. It really is.
Conner Jones: So there, there’s a lot of questions about what happens next either with, if, if the government does topple in Iran, who’s gonna take over? We don’t know. Could be the crown prince who was next in line to be the king, AKA Shaw of Iran back in 1979.
His dad was the Shaw guy, ousted. He’s been here in the US and [00:30:00] exile. People think he might need to go in there, step in, go back to Iran and take over. The people in the streets are apparently shouting his name. They like him. He’s trying to reach out to them through social media, means if they can get their videos pulled up and whatnot.
He’s telling them, keep protesting, helps on the way. All of that to say, man, Micah, there’s just a lot of heavy weight with this. A lot of people, like we said, are dying in the streets. Iran feels like a far off place and it is for Americans, but it’s also a big deal to so many Americans. There’s a lot of Iranian Americans here.
There’s just this massive, massive population of, I can’t remember that. I think it’s 90 million or so live in Iran. Something like that. Actually, maybe it’s even more than that. It’s a big country. Big country. It’s a huge country.
Micah Tomasella: Country, yeah. It’s a huge country.
Conner Jones: These people don’t have freedoms.
Christians in Iran are persecuted like nowhere else, man.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah,
Conner Jones: underground churches are huge. There is a big Christian movement in Iran, which is amazing, and. Our brothers and sisters there, man, they are facing persecution every day and they have to have underground churches to be able to even just open up a Bible or pray or anything like that.
Yeah, it’s incredible faith that the people in Iran have are Christians [00:31:00] that we know that are there, but the whole thing, I think we need to stop. Pray. I would say if you’re listening to this right now, I, I would encourage you to pause and just stop and say a prayer and I’ll give you a couple things we can pray for if you wanna wait for that.
But it’s what we talk about often, Michael, when there’s big, heavy things happening, like I think our first reaction should be to, let’s take it to the Lord, let’s intercede on behalf of our good brother and sisters in Christ somewhere else, but also just a whole situation. Yeah, this is just a massive deal and it, it could be a situation where the people in Iran are free.
They are freed of all these terrible things that are going on in their country. It could mean change in world order. It could mean change in power dynamics in the Middle East, and relationships with Russia and China, North Korea, Cuba, even Venezuela, the whole thing. There’s so many geopolitical reasons why this is a massive deal.
It could also be huge opportunity for religious freedom. For Christians in the country and for the gospel to be heard among these millions upon millions. Amen of people in Iran. Amen. Right now, it’s really hard to spread the gospel in Iran. It is [00:32:00] spreading because that’s what the Holy Spirit does, and the people of immense faith are spreading it there.
But man, there’s such an opportunity for the gospel to be heard if this would be more open of a country. So let’s pray. For a newfound freedom in peace in Iran. Let’s pray for the end of the deaths in the protest. Let’s pray for the evil to die off in Iran. Let’s pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who do have to meet in underground churches to avoid persecution.
Let’s pray for the Holy Spirit to do a wondrous work among the Persian people. Michael, we’ve seen God work in Persian many times before, but it’s specifically in the Bible in the book of Esther. Esther is in Persia. She gets married to the King of Persia. King Xerxes. King. Xerxes is convinced by Haman. He should kill off the entire Jewish population that is in Persia.
And this is obviously not a good thing. This is God’s people. This is terrifying. Esther, as the wife of the king finds out about this and she courageously approaches the king and asks him not to do it, please do not kill off my Jewish people. He agrees. But one thing I wanna point out. Is that before that in Esther four 16, before [00:33:00] she goes to the king, chapter four, verse 16 of the book of Esther, she goes to the Jewish people and she says, hold a fast on my behalf and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.
I and my young woman will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish. I read that because she was courageous in her fate. Beautiful story,
Micah Tomasella: but
Conner Jones: she’s, yeah. She’s also calling on the Jewish people to intercede on her behalf. Fast and pray.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
Conner Jones: And they do.
And then,
Micah Tomasella: yeah,
Conner Jones: God takes care of the whole situation and saves his people. And I think we can do a similar thing here. Let’s intercede on behalf of our fellow Christians in Iran, but also just the entire country and honestly everywhere in the world that is just hurting and, and dire need, you know? Nigeria. And Venezuela and Cuba. Even here in America. You just talked about an American problem.
There’s so many things we can intercede on behalf of, may we, I shoot on behalf of all these Christians.
Micah Tomasella: Love it, man. Thank you.
Conner Jones: Those are some heavy stories. Let’s, let’s, let’s hit a question real fast from [00:34:00]the, as you already mentioned, Dr.
Ryan Denison over here. He sent us a headline and he wanted us to discuss this headline because it’s kind of crazy. The headline, read the Buffalo Bills. Offer fans unique collectors items. With the old stadium, they’re offering the stadium’s, old urinal troughs. So for some background, the Buffalo Bills built a new stadium across the street from their current one.
They played their last game in their stadium, so a lot of fans are trying to buy up different memorabilia from that stadium before they, I, I guess they’re gonna demolish it. This has happened with many stadiums before the urinal. Troughs, though. That’s what they’re gonna try to sell off to people.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
Conner Jones: Micah, that’s crazy. But it did have Ryan asking us though we may not want a urinal trough, what is one like thing we would want, or I guess a weird item we would want, should they tear down for us at T Stadium or the Dallas Cowboys play or any other stadium that matters to us? What’s a weird item that you’d be willing to like purchase?
Micah Tomasella: If they win a Super Bowl, I’ll purchase the most obscure thing. If they can find a way to win a Super Bowl and it has something to do with at and [00:35:00] t Stadium, Jerry World there in Arlington, I purchase a urinal, trough, whatever, just like a piece of a piece of that history. If they don’t win a Super Bowl there, you could not pay me.
Enough to take I guess you could pay me enough, but for the sake of argument, I would not want to purchase literally anything from that stadium if it produced nothing but mediocrity. I want nothing to do with it.
Conner Jones: Yeah. I’m right there with you. I, I, I feel like if we get a Super Bowl, I’m gonna want a corner or like a little slice of that big Jerry World screen above the Sure.
You
know,
Micah Tomasella: that’s
Conner Jones: a good
Micah Tomasella: idea. Yeah.
Conner Jones: The jumbotron that’s up there, like the biggest one ever. Yeah. That’s a
Micah Tomasella: good idea.
Conner Jones: Yeah. This is just, it’s an interesting thought. It’s kinda weird. I haven’t seen a urinal trough in a stadium in a long time. That’s how, you know it’s an old stadium.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
Conner Jones: That’s always fun when you walk into the men’s restroom and see one of those, you’re like, oh, we’re in one of these kind of places.
Speaking of Dr. Ryan Denison, though, we highly recommend his newsletter, the Focus, it just launched last week. It’s going out every Tuesday. As Micah mentioned, he wrote about the ice shooting that Micah talked about. He wrote about that last week, and then he also wrote this week about Iran. He does. Full in [00:36:00] depth, deep dives.
He also offers three to five like kind of headlines he offers, you know, why they matter, what this means for us, how we can pray about it, all of that. So go find that. Go to dentist informed.org/newsletters. We’ll also link it in our show notes. You can find that down below this video or below your
Micah Tomasella: podcast.
Could not recommend it more highly. If you like our podcast even just a little bit, even if you don’t like our podcast, first of all, why are you listening? Second of all, go subscribe. Either way, no matter what camp you fall into, we cannot recommend the focus from Dr. Ryan Denison enough.
Conner Jones: Oh, and his first one was on Nick Fuentes, which I thought was really good.
Guy we haven’t talked about here, but very
Micah Tomasella: interesting.
Conner Jones: Good stuff. And if all goes according to plan, we’re gonna actually have Ryan on this podcast very soon. So stay tuned. Stay tuned. That Ryan’s awesome. He’ll be fun to talk to. And if you guys have any thoughts, if you have some weird memorabilia you take from the stadium, let us know at Culture [email protected].
That’s our email address. You follow us at Culture Brief Podcast on Instagram, DM us.
Micah Tomasella: Okay, great. Thanks Conner. Alright, we’re gonna jump into check in and tune in and we’re gonna fly by this Conner. Let’s see if we can do it in five [00:37:00] minutes. You ready?
Conner Jones: Yeah.
Micah Tomasella: Okay. Alright. So the US military conducted more large scale strikes against multiple ISIS targets in Syria this week.
In retaliation for an attack last month that killed two American soldiers and a US civilian interpreter. So three Americans were killed on December 13th. The first retaliatory strike occurred on December 19th. Carried out by the US and Jordan and. Been followed by continuous additional raids targeting isis.
So yes, there’s other things going on. The US is striking other targets as well, so stay in the loop on that. There is a lot of instability in the Middle East. Seems like there always has been. Seems like unless there’s an act of God, there always will be. Okay, another one. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation.
This is bad. If those two stories weren’t there, we would’ve been diving into this one. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over his testimony regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion building renovation centered on whether he misinterpreted the project’s scope.
[00:38:00] Cost. So Powell called this probe a pretext to undermine the Fed independence. Trump has been pri, you know, trying to put his own guy in there, but then there’s arguments of, Hey, the Fed needs to stay independent ’cause that’s better for the country, for inflation, things like that. Powell called it, you know, like I said, a pretext, but Senator Tom Tillis, who’s a Republican, but he does clash with Trump a lot, stated he will oppose any Fed nominee until the matter’s resolved.
And Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, Scott Besant, Trumper, two peas in a pod. He came out immediately and said he didn’t like this. He told Trump the investigation made a mess that could destabilize the financial markets that needs to get figured out. Powell was on his way out anyway, so I don’t really understand.
Trump is saying he had nothing to do with it. People have a hard time believing that because of, you know, he has gone after the people that he doesn’t like so far in this second term. So we’ve gotta see how that works out. Hopefully that can be figured out quickly.
Conner Jones: I hope so, man. It’s just a mess. I don’t understand that one.
Yeah. At all. Some other things that have happened, Scott Adams, who created the Dilbert comic books, you may have seen that he [00:39:00] passed away. He had prostate cancer. His body gave away. He said his mind was still sharp. And in his last moments, he wrote a letter to everybody. ’cause he was a, he was a pretty influential person in the conservative media world.
Obviously created the Dilbert comics, but he turned into this outspoken person. He said some controversial things to in his life. But nonetheless, at the end of the day and at the end of his life, he wrote that he had accepted Christ. That’s
awesome.
Conner Jones: There’s a little bit more to that. He talked about the influence of Christians.
He said, I struggle with belief, but I, I’m saying Christ is my Lord and Savior. So hopefully, you know, he fully believed that and fully accepted that into his heart. And guys, there’s never a moment too late to accept Christ into your heart. If that is something we’ll see him
Micah Tomasella: in paradise. If he truly surrendered his life to Christ, if he, if you believe in your heart and confess with your tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord and was raised from the dead, then you will be saved.
That thief on the cross next to Jesus. Set a sentence. Not even. And Jesus said, I’ll see you in paradise. It’s a beautiful thing that Jesus offers, but it means you gotta lay your life down. You gotta be willing to lay your life down and pick up your cross. I believe that we’ll see him in heaven. And that’s a [00:40:00]beautiful thing.
Conner Jones: That is, yep. So RIP to Scott Adams. Zoe Saldana is the new highest grossing actor of all time. We talked about this last year ’cause it was Scarlett Johansson took the lead. She’s now the highest. She’s number one with $15.47 billion. Brought in on the movie she’s in, of course she’s in the Avengers movies.
She’s in the Avatar movies, the Star Trek movies. Oh, she’s just, dude, she’s always playing an alien. It’s kind of crazy. She’s
Micah Tomasella: playing an alien and, and wow. Yeah. Unbelievable. Okay, good for her.
Conner Jones: Good for her. Just letting y’all know, she’s up up there above Scarlet and Samuel Jackson and Chris Pratt. Crazy stuff.
Micah Tomasella: Wow.
Conner Jones: The Golden Globes also happened this weekend. You may be thinking you guys didn’t mention the Golden Globes in your tune in section last week. You’re correct. That’s because I don’t think the Golden Globes matter. They are basically, they’re basically the award show. They’re not the Emmys and they’re not the Oscars.
They try to be both, but really they’re just kind of a pretext for celebrities come in and give speeches to try to then win Oscars or Emmys. It’s basically a campaign
Micah Tomasella: stop. It’s basically, it’s basically a platform for really rich [00:41:00] elite people to lecture us on our politics.
Conner Jones: There’s a little bit of that.
A lot of them did say now, some of them wore badges about the whole ice thing that said be good and in honor of Renee Goode. A lot of them actually wore that to the Golden Globes the other night to try to make a statement. They did that with Palestine last year Anyways, yeah, whole thing. I will just mention a few of the wins.
The pit won best drama on the TV side. The studio won best comedy. Those are not shocking. Those were probably the best shows of the year on the film side. K-Pop Demon Hunters took home animated feature. We have not talked about that movie here, but there’s a lot of people that have watched it. I mean, that was probably the biggest movie of the year, last year, technically.
In terms of viewership. And then we have Marty Supreme, Timothy Chalamet took home. Actor and one battle after another. Took home the best comedy or musical with hamnet winning best drama. All of that to say these are pretext, basically for the Oscars, which will be, I think in March. And so that’s kinda the whole point of this.
Thing is just bring everybody together. Let’s start talking about the Oscars.
Micah Tomasella: Cool. Alright. Thanks, Conner. Now let’s jump in to tune in. Okay. So here’s what to look out for. Former [00:42:00] president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have refused to comply with a House Oversight committee subpoena to testify about their connections to Jeffrey Epstein.
You know, we’re talking about Trump popping up a lot of this Bill Clinton pops up in a lot of Epstein files. Yeah, he does a does man. He’s in a lot of ’em. Okay. So they are refusing to comply with the subpoena. And they are calling them legally invalid and politically motivated. Republicans are now moving to hold them in contempt of Congress.
It’s a pretty rare escalation that could lead to legal fights, though neither Clinton has been accused of any crime directly related to Epstein, they’re refusing to come testify from what’s being found in the Epstein files. And so we will keep you in the loop on that.
Conner Jones: I think there’s a possibility of up to one year in prison if you don’t come.
If you are found in contempt of con it, it’s crazy. Yeah, they
Micah Tomasella: should show up. I mean, probably not show in their case, but Yeah. I mean it seems like they’re gearing up for a legal fight. I mean, to a certain extent, whether, yeah. I’m not gonna say if Bill Clinton did something wrong or not, but what I [00:43:00] will say is, you know, they’re at the end of their lives, they’re probably, you know, just, they’re like, this is not the last thing we wanna be remembered for.
You know, especially in terms of Bill Clinton and, oh,
Conner Jones: I got bad news for them.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah, that
Conner Jones: seems to be the only
Micah Tomasella: thing know
Conner Jones: that anybody talks about
Micah Tomasella: anymore for sure, especially with Bill Clinton’s track record. But at the same time, it doesn’t necessarily look good when you refuse to just come testify if you’re not being accused of something and then you refuse to come testify.
That doesn’t. Look good. Either that does, that normally doesn’t make you look innocent, right?
Conner Jones: Definitely not. But they’re an interesting couple. If you’ve ever seen a house of cards, that whole show is based pretty much on them. And how crazy that is. The CFP National College Football Playoff, let me clarify.
National Championship is this Monday night. I’m excited. Should be a fun game. We got Indiana Hoosiers versus the Miami Hurricanes. This is gonna be at 7:30 PM Eastern. So six 30 central on ESPN mica. First time Indiana’s ever been in a national championship. Miami’s been there before. It’s been a hot minute.
It’s been several decades since they’ve been there. It’s actually playing in Miami’s home stadium just happened to be scheduled that way, and they happen to make it this year at Hard [00:44:00] Rock Stadium where the Miami Dolphins also play. This is where the University of Miami plays football. It’s gonna be a good game.
You have a prediction. Who do you think’s gonna win?
Micah Tomasella: I think Indiana’s gonna win. I, I think on paper they’re, they’re playing like the better team. They’re undefeated. Miami has a great defense, but there hasn’t been anybody that Indiana can’t really throttle. It’s been an unbelievable season. I just think this is an incredible sports story, one of the best we’ve seen in a long, long time.
And if we have time in, in the coming weeks, especially after they win. Kind of wanna do a deep dive a little bit on just Kurt Sign Netti and the Indiana Hoosiers program. Just absolutely turning around in two years. Just a program steeped. Not only in mediocrity, but just being bad. Like the losing us college football program.
Conner Jones: Yeah. Failure
Micah Tomasella: and, and for this to be turned around like this is just an incredible, incredible story. I just think there’s just something magical about this run and the Indiana wins.
Conner Jones: And their quarterback is gonna be the number one pick in the NFL draft. Fernando Mendo, Fernando Men, Mendoza. High
Micah Tomasella: strong believer too.
God
Conner Jones: bless him. Strong believer, great guy. Also just quirky and I love him, especially on TV and the interviews. He’s fun. Anyways, I agree. I think it’s gonna be Indiana Hoosiers. I think they’re gonna win, but who [00:45:00] knows? We’ll see. Watch on Monday night. NFL playoffs are also going on. I hope a lot of you guys were able to watch some of the incredible games this past weekend.
They were insane, for the most part. Had so much fun watching those. Just wanna do a little accountability corner here for a second because Mike and I did offer Super Bowl predictions on week one of the NFL season. But we both said who we thought would just be in the Super Bowl and win the Super Bowl.
Of course, that was a long time ago and a whole season’s happened since then. But Micah, who did you pick to go to the Super Bowl and win?
Micah Tomasella: I picked chiefs versus commanders. Neither team made the playoffs.
Conner Jones: And yeah, just brutal.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah, brutal.
Conner Jones: I picked, I picked the San Francisco 49 ERs versus the Baltimore Ravens.
I remember you looking at me when I said the 49 ERs, and like what? Why would you choose them? Sir, they’re
Micah Tomasella: the only team in the playoffs.
Conner Jones: They’re still going strong. They’re still here, and they’ve got a substation across the street that’s causing them injuries, but they’re still here and going. So maybe the 49 ERs will win the whole thing.
New Super Bowl prediction though, Micah, we’ll give you a second chance here. Who do you think is gonna win now?
Micah Tomasella: I think it’s gonna be the Seahawks versus the Patriots, and I think, I think the Patriots win it all. [00:46:00] I think Drake may. I think Drake may pulls it out and that’s something magical happens in New England again.
Conner Jones: Gosh, after they dominate our entire childhood, they’re back. Yeah. My prediction is it’s gonna be the Bears versus the bills. I think the Bears have some magic going on, but I think the bills are gonna win. They’re gonna take their urinal troughs and just parade them through the streets and they’re gonna win the thing, and they’ll
Micah Tomasella: too,
Conner Jones: those
Micah Tomasella: bills fans are crazy.
There ain’t nothing else going on in Buffalo. They’re crazy. God bless them, man.
Conner Jones: They’re insane. Okay, so we got a few games coming up this weekend. We got the next round, basically the divisional round of the playoffs start on Saturday at 4:30 PM Eastern. The Bills versus the Broncos should be a fun one.
That’s in Denver. Then the 49 ERs and Seahawks take on each other in Seattle. Saturday night at 8:00 PM Eastern. Texans versus the Patriots Sunday afternoon at 3:00 PM Eastern, and then the Rams versus the Bears. Closing us out on the weekend on Sunday Night football at 6:30 PM Eastern. This is gonna be a fantastic weekend of football.
All the NFL playoffs capped out by the National Championship in College football on Monday night. I’m pumped. I hope you all [00:47:00] are too, guys. Yep. Have a great weekend. Thank you for joining us on Culture Brief and we’ll of course, stay tuned with everything happening in Iran and whatever happens there, go follow Denison form.
For consistent updates on daily stuff. And thank you guys for joining us. Just on this week of Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast. All articles and videos mentioned will be linked in the show notes. Go find those. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe, rate or review the show and share it with a friend, and we’ll see you next Thursday.
Bye.
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