Culture Brief Episode 1: DC & Canada, Meta’s announcement, 2025 predictions, and the Gulf of America?

Join hosts Conner Jones and Micah Tomasella in the inaugural episode of Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast, as they navigate through the latest news, politics, sports, entertainment, pop culture, and technology—all from a Christian perspective. This episode features an introduction to Denison Forum, discussions on U.S. and global political updates, including President Biden’s final days and Justin Trudeau’s resignation. They also cover the latest shifts in social media moderation by Meta, predictions for 2025, and a look ahead at upcoming sports events. Lastly, they remind listeners about the power of prayer and encourage responses through their mailbag segment.

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Topics

• (01:08): What is Denison Forum?
• (03:17): Meet Micah 
• (04:43): Meet Conner
• (05:55): Diving into Politics: Inauguration and Congress
• (08:40): Trump’s Bold Moves and Announcements
• (13:42): Prayers and Reflections
• (16:08): Justin Trudeau’s Resignation
• (21:29): Meta’s Major Overhaul
• (24:55): Cultural Tipping Point and Free Speech
• (27:33): Prayers for Natural Disasters
• (28:15): Fun Predictions for the New Year
• (31:04): Masters and Movie Predictions
• (35:30): Wildcard Predictions for 2025
• (37:34): Mailbag and Listener Engagement
• (38:21): Upcoming Events and Football Schedule

Resources

• Mailbag: [email protected]
• DenisonForum.org/subscribe
• Gulf of America
• Panama & Greenland
• Trump warns ‘all hell will break out’ if Gaza hostages aren’t released before his inauguration | CNN Politics
• Trump says he will revoke Biden offshore drilling ban immediately | Reuters
• Donald Trump wins US presidency
• Trudeau says he’s not the right choice to lead party in next election, promises to resign as PM | CBC News
• (USD) Dollar Falls Most in Two Months on Report Trump to Limit Tariffs – Bloomberg
• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Says He Is Resigning: Live Updates – The New York Times
• More Speech and Fewer Mistakes | Meta
• Elon Musk Is Positioning X Behind the New Trump Presidency
• Meta to End Fact-Checking on Facebook, Instagram Ahead of Trump Term: Live Updates – The New York Times
• Prediction: The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bubble Will Burst in 2025. Here’s Why. | The Motley Fool.

About Micah Tomasella

Micah Tomasella is the Advancement Officer 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 Conner Jones

Conner 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 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 Denison Forum Podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited. 

[00:00:00] Conner Jones: Welcome to Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast. I’m Connor Jones, and I just want to say thank you for joining us on this very first episode. We’re just so honored that you’ve taken time to listen to the two of us process through the constant stream of news, politics, sports, entertainment, pop culture, and even technology.

And we’re going to do all of that from a Christian perspective. So thank you for joining us on this, you know, 

[00:00:24] Micah Tomasella: journey. Woo hoo. We’re here, Connor. Hi, I’m Micah Tomasella and I’m just so grateful to be here and I’m grateful for everybody listening today and who will be listening every single week as we release episodes.

Hopefully, you’ll come away from this episode and all future episodes with some encouragements, some laughs, some biblical insights that’ll make you feel more equipped for that water cooler talk at work, right? When everybody’s talking about things and you want to know what’s going on in the world, or maybe even more equipped for conversation at the family dinner table.

Each Thursday, we’ll dive into the top stories, dominating news and culture. We’ll have some fun along the way and engage with our listeners and send you off each week with things to look out for in the week ahead. 

[00:01:07] Conner Jones: Yeah, that’s great. Micah, I think to start us off, I think it’d be really good to introduce the audience to what is Even is Denison Forum.

What does it mean when we say we’re a Denison Forum podcast? Could you give us a little rundown on what that is? Yeah, so Denison Forum, 

[00:01:20] Micah Tomasella: Our tagline is News Discerned Differently. In 2009, two awesome and godly and wise guys, and I mean that not just because they’re my bosses, Jim Denison and Jeff Byrd started Denison Forum.

It’s had a couple of different names when it first started, but in 2009, Jim and Jeff stepped out in faith and started the digital content ministry. And you think about in 2009, right? Some people weren’t even using email in 2009, right? But they decided to step away from a very large church, a very large ministry to start this digital content ministry that seeks to equip and encourage people around the world.

And so Denison Forum, as I said, started in 09. When it first started, Right? There was something like 7, 000 email subscribers. I mean, they had a small amount because Jim had been pumping out these daily articles every single day, but they stepped out in faith and they started this ministry to the point to where we ended the past year with 93 million content experiences.

There’s not one country that isn’t consuming the content. that we create. So Denison Forum is our news discerned differently. We have Denison Ministries, which is our umbrella brand, and then Denison Forum is one of our brands. First Fifteen is one of our brands, Christian Parenting and Foundations. First Fifteen is a ministry that helps people spend the first 15 minutes of their day with Jesus, devotions, podcasts, those types of things.

And then you’ve got Christian Parenting, which is equipping parents to raise their kids in this crazy world that we’re living in. And then you’ve got Foundations, which is a lot of our Bible study content. But heading into 2025, we just passed our 15 years of ministry. And it’s incredible that we get to do this and that we get to reach people, not only here in the U.

S., but around the world. 

[00:03:03] Conner Jones: Yeah, that’s great. And yeah, if you’re interested in the daily article, which goes out every weekday morning from Dr. Denison or his son, Ryan Denison, go to denisonforum. org backslash subscribe. We’ll also put that link in the show notes for you to easily find. Thank you for running that down for us, Micah.

Micah, why don’t you also tell us a little bit about yourself? How much do you want to know, Connor? I know you too well. So 

[00:03:26] Micah Tomasella: just a little bit. Okay. Hey guys, again, my name is Micah. I am married. I have two beautiful daughters. I’m a graduate of Dallas Baptist university. I served at Denison ministries as our advancement officer.

And I also get to co host this awesome podcast that we’re starting. But my focus with my job is to Minister to and be in relationship with those who help make our ministry happen. Our ministry is completely donor supported, right? So we don’t have ads that pop up. We don’t have all of these different things that a lot of digital content, news resources, ministries, we don’t have a lot of those things.

And we do that through the faithful people who give, give extra, who have a recognition that they’ve been blessed with so much. And so they want their dollars to go to something more eternal, something beyond themselves. So I get to focus on raising money for the organization and the strategy that goes into that.

But I also get to have a hand in content like what this is and I love it. I also have experience in real estate. I’ve worked for other nonprofits. I have. seven years of full time church ministry experience. I’ve also worked in finance. And so it’s just been incredible all of the ways that God has prepared me to be in this position now.

And I’m very thankful to do it. And I’m very thankful to get to work with one of my best friends, Connor. So that’s a little bit about me. 

[00:04:43] Conner Jones: Yeah, just ditto man, it’s so fun to work with you. Mike and I have known each other for probably going on 10 years Yeah, we did go to Dallas Baptist University together.

And from there, we’ve just always stayed very very close Our families are very close. Like he said, he’s got two daughters and I’ve got an amazing wife and And our new baby boy who just came in this past year. So we are so grateful for that. And then I’ve also just got several years of experience here at Denison Ministries doing fundraising and now doing more marketing stuff and also some content production, such as this podcast and articles and all of that.

Before that, though, I did work in government contracting. So I’ve got some interesting experience there. Got to work with the military and government and all of that. So that was a very interesting time in my life, but that led me to this spot and I just absolutely love being a part of this team doing this ministry alongside so many other great people and very excited for this new venture that we’re doing though.

Culture Brief is going to be so fun. We’re excited to dive into new stories every week. You should find us every Thursday morning and follow us on whatever your podcast platform is so you make sure you don’t miss a new episode. That being said, Micah. Should we dive in? Let’s jump 

[00:05:48] Micah Tomasella: into the brief and let’s jump into the top stories dominating the news.

Go ahead, Connor. 

[00:05:55] Conner Jones: Yeah, so I think we just need to go ahead and hit the politics side of things. I mean, it is just kind of right at the forefront of everybody’s minds as we go into Inauguration Day in a couple of weeks. Actually, not even a couple of weeks. I think we’re pretty close. 13 days. So we’re less than two weeks away from 20th yeah, 12 days.

So 11 days we are, we are approaching that very fast. So what’s happening now before we get to the inauguration, let’s hit on that. The 119th Congress was just sworn in on January 3rd. So we’ve now got 53 Republicans in the Senate, 47 Democrats. And then over in the house, this is where things get interesting.

There’s a very, very slim majority for the Republicans. So while the Republicans do have a majority, they’re currently sitting in basically a two seat. Advantage and that’s because trump has picked some of those congress people to go be a part of his administration They will leave congress and go do those appointments.

And so that leaves republicans with that two seat majority That means it’s going to be tough It’s not like they have some sweeping majority that they can get bills passed. So something to keep in mind is Mike johnson, and he just did something pretty Honestly, I would say impressive. He got reelected a speaker of the house of representatives on January 3rd as well in the first vote.

And I think that’s interesting because when you think about two, two years ago, Mike McCarthy, it took not Mike McCarthy, Kevin McCarthy. It took 15. I hope we don’t edit 

[00:07:16] Micah Tomasella: that. 

[00:07:17] Conner Jones: Yeah no, I mean, we’ll see what happens with mike mccarthy too. Anyways, kevin mccarthy took 15 votes in four days To get elected the speaker of the house and then we all know about his demise just a few months later 

[00:07:27] Micah Tomasella: So the margin of error right the margin of error connor because like hakeem jeffries of new york the leading democrat in the house He got all 215 votes from the Democratic Party, right?

So if there had been just a few more holdouts or anybody who would have just switched over because they didn’t want Mike Johnson before you know it, you’re electing a Democratic leader for the house when the Republicans have a majority. And yeah, it wouldn’t have been a good look. If he wasn’t able to pull that off, it is impressive, but it wouldn’t have been a good look.

[00:07:57] Conner Jones: It wouldn’t have been a good look for Johnson. It probably would have put a hindrance on the forthcoming Trump administration and just trying to figure out who’s going to lead that charge within the house and who’s going to try and get these bills passed and start making deals and all that. So they needed to just nail that down and they did.

And so now a bunch of stuff is happening. They’re already voting on bills. They’re working towards in the Senate certification of not certification, but confirmation of Trump’s appointees. But as far as certification goes, the house did certify the election. And so now Donald Trump president elect is certified to become president on January 20th.

So that has been taken care of. There was no issues there on January the 6th of this year. We also have Trump doing his thing where he goes. On camera at a press conference at mar a lago at his home and he yesterday we’re recording on wednesday So you may be listening on thursday? But yesterday tuesday morning trump had a press conference where he just started making announcements And so we’ve got some interesting ones that came through Tell me more you may have heard that and I didn’t even know people had the power to do this But we’re apparently changing the name of the gulf of mexico to the gulf of america, which she said has a nice ring to it Huh?

It honestly, I don’t disagree with that, but I just, I didn’t know the president just had powers to, I guess I’ve never known who names things on maps, but all I know is I’ve got a couple of globes around here in this room that I’m even sitting in where I record this and I’m going to have to, I guess, grab the shirt and get some new globes, 

[00:09:28] Micah Tomasella: man.

You have to get some new globes. 

[00:09:30] Conner Jones: Yeah, 

[00:09:31] Micah Tomasella: I have a globe guy. 

[00:09:33] Conner Jones: It might be a time to make an investment in a globe company because every teacher is going to have to get a new globe. Okay, let’s talk after the show about 

[00:09:40] Micah Tomasella: that. That sounds pretty good. 

[00:09:42] Conner Jones: Anyways, I just thought that was interesting. On top of that, Trump also did not deny the fact that he could potentially use economic or military coercion to take control of Greenland, the island next to Canada, and Canada.

The Panama canal, which has been a big point of contention in many circles. And Trump has alluded to the fact that he really wants to have those within America’s reign. So it’s just something to watch. And even Donald Trump Jr. was in Greenland yesterday. So it’s not something that he’s just joking around about.

It seems like something that he’s taking pretty serious. And Somehow wants to get a deal done with either denmark or buy it or whatever it is And I guess the the importance of greenland because it’s kind of just an island with a very very small population But it’s got a lot of minerals. It has security implications if you can put a military base on it It is much closer to russia and europe and all of that.

So 

[00:10:32] Micah Tomasella: well, it’s a danish territory, right so Basically, you know, I guess the way that trump kind of explained it with The Gulf of Mexico with the Panama Canal with Greenland, it’s like, if America is doing the majority of the work or pumping the majority of the money going into those things, that’s why he’s saying that time will tell if any of these three things happen, but it is really interesting.

But Connor, I found myself when I saw that when I saw the highlights of Trump’s news conference, I was like, okay, This is happening again, right? Like it almost, it almost kind of hits you of, wow. Like it, cause some of the things that are said, it just, it just kind of shocks you, you know, and you know, depending on how you feel, some of them make sense.

Some of them might not, you know, not, but man, it sure is fun. It sure is fun. 

[00:11:21] Conner Jones: Yeah. There’s something new every day. That’s all I can say. That’s true, man. Whether you disagree or agree with what’s being said, we do know that it’s going to be an interesting next four years with this new administration, definitely going to be different.

Not different because we’ve seen it before. That being said, we are entering the final days of the Biden presidency. I would say, don’t expect him to go out silently in these next 13 days. He’s definitely going to do some more pardons, prospective pardons. He’s looking to, and he actually already did ban oil drilling off of America’s East and West coast, including in the Gulf of Mexico.

America, Mexico, whatever it is. And so we will see how much Trump can repeal that. Trump has said, he’s going to repeal that order by Biden on oil drilling. And then we really might expect to see some sort of hostage deal in Gaza. This has been the crux of the Biden administration for the last year, trying to get a deal done.

And I think he really wants to get that done before he’s out of office. It makes sense. He, It would look good for his resume and legacy, but more importantly, it would bring the hostages home. But what does that mean? we will see. And the Trump has been threatening Hamas saying, yeah, you’re, you’re done if the hostages aren’t released by the time I’m inaugurated.

Yeah, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be 

[00:12:33] Micah Tomasella: surprised at all if we see some sort of a deal literally on like January 19th, right? Because you have two forces at play. You have Biden trying to submit his legacy and, you know, take care of something that has, you know, been on the forefront of his administration for a year and a half now.

And then you also have Trump coming out weekly. Saying, when I get inaugurated, if these hostages are not released, every threat in the book, right? Hopefully both of those things, honestly, those, those just threats and it doesn’t lead to any like escalation, actually do get those hostages. released in that situation can be resolved.

[00:13:09] Conner Jones: Yeah. And we, and just to say, we do continue to just pray for those hostages. There are still American hostages held in Gaza. There’s tons of Israeli hostages. We praying for our friends in Israel. Mike and I both have friends in Israel, having been there. And so we just, We’re also praying for the Palestinians who are just everyone in that region, 

[00:13:28] Micah Tomasella: everyone, everyone in that region caught in it, you know, and, and stuck in the middle, a few rich people at the top deciding all of these different things that happen.

And so many innocent people get caught in the crossfire. So we are definitely in prayer for them for sure. 

[00:13:42] Conner Jones: And then, you know, all that to say we’re in the middle of intense days and I think we’re going to stay in a mood within our nation and within the globe of tenseness. So I just want to, you know, offer something of encouragement and hope here.

I went back and read the daily article that. that Dr. Jim Denison wrote the day after the election, and he offered some great just perspective and prayer points that we could, we could take away from this just time. So when, when we think about praying for just politics and all that, it can be kind of tricky.

It’s like, how do you pray for that? How do you pray for this person that you may not like, that you really like, but you despise those people? What? Give it all to God. And let’s hit some of these points. We are called to pray as stated in Jeremiah 29, seven, which says. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf.

For in its welfare, you will find your welfare. So here’s some prayer suggestions. Pray for president Biden as he ends his presidency, and then pray for president Trump when he steps in to seek God’s wisdom and to lead with biblical priorities in a servant’s heart. Pray for God to use him, use Congress, use the Senate to unify our nation and to protect Donald Trump, to protect.

Our leaders in this administration from evil and to empower them for good and pray for America’s Christians and Christian leaders to be a people of prayer, humility, and grace. And let’s ask that we’d be empowered to speak the truth. to our fallen culture in love. And that’s what we seek to do here at Denison Forum.

We want to empower and speak truth and be humble and offer encouragement so that we can step into our world every day and be different, be set apart. 

[00:15:23] Micah Tomasella: Absolutely. I think oftentimes we’re left with feeling like, feeling so overwhelmed and what can I do about it? Prayer is so powerful. The prayers of a righteous person are effective as scripture tells us.

We’re two or more gathered. There he is amongst us as well as what scripture tells us. We’re so often grasping at straws and trying to figure out what can I do? So many things are overwhelming. So many things here, so many things abroad. We’re inundated with news, most of the time bad news, because that’s what sells.

Let’s not forget the power of prayer and how God leads us. Through our submission in prayer to him to what we can actually do and how we can love a hurting world around us

Let’s jump into the next story Connor. So we just talked about kind of everything in the political landscape Let’s talk about this Justin Trudeau resignation in Canada Man, this is a really interesting story. So let’s give a little bit of background on it. So Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau announced he will step down after his liberal party selects a successor, bringing his nine year term to an end.

So he was elected in 2015. They do have a different political system up there. We’re not going to get into the details of all of that, right. But you know, he was elected and then now he’s stepping down. So while his resignation marks the conclusion of a significant era in Canadian politics, right. He was a very.

Popular leader in Canada for many years, it comes as a not much of a surprise to those within Canada specifically, but you know, even those outside of Canada, Trudeau’s popularity has plummeted with his approval rating sinking to as low as 22 percent this past month as Canada faced mounting challenges, especially economically over the past year, Canadians grappled with soaring inflation.

Just like we have here, but their inflation was over 8 percent as well. And, you know, it didn’t really drop much after that. So efforts to stimulate the economy through immigration fuel, the housing affordability crisis. And then unemployment stayed high. And so just. I think the feeling in the country just wasn’t great, which is what we’ve kind of seen, you know, incumbents around the world and free elections have kind of been getting booted.

And so this just follows along with that same track. But the tipping point came last month when the finance minister there, Freeland, she resigned and she criticized Trudeau on the way out for excessive spending and urging fiscal restraint and then, you know, Trump being elected. Really put pressure on Trudeau as well Connor.

You know, Trump called Trudeau the governor of the great state of Canada and kind of joked to annex Canada as the 51st state and that’s just 

[00:17:54] Conner Jones: Joking about it. He posted a picture on his social media of Canada being a part of America. So people are like, is this really a joke or are we being serious? I don’t 

[00:18:03] Micah Tomasella: know yeah, that that added to the political pressure that he was feeling.

So a few weeks ago, he went down to Mar a Lago to meet with Trump just to kind of show a sign of strength. But really, Trump is threatening tariffs around the world. But, you know, you want to talk about tariffs in Canada, tariffs in Mexico having to do specifically with kind of the immigration issue and what’s pouring across both borders.

And so I think confidence, I think that was just kind of the nail in the coffin that The confidence from the public, the support in Canada just continued to dwindle. And then you’ve got Pierre Poullev, who’s capitalized on economic frustrations and voter fatigue with Trudeau presenting himself as the no nonsense alternative.

He’s more of the conservative alternative. And Trudeau’s just lost a lot of momentum, but he’s a very popular leader in Canada, probably more popular than anybody that I can remember. And so this, this has become a global story. 

[00:18:55] Conner Jones: Yeah, it’s gonna be interesting to watch. It’s got me thinking, Micah, do you, do you know any of the lyrics to the Canadian national anthem besides the first two words?

[00:19:04] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. God, God, God rest. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. God save the queen. Oh, man. Did we ever say that? No, it’s even alive anymore. It’s gotta be God save the king if it’s even If you I don’t I don’t know. If you watch hockey and then if you watch an NBA game where anybody’s playing the Toronto Raptors They sing it.

Okay. And then in hockey, I mean half the teams in the NHL are in Canada, but it is, 

[00:19:35] Conner Jones: Oh man, no, I do know it. I don’t look, I’ve been to some of those hockey games and basketball games and I’ve heard it quite a few times and all I can ever remember is, Oh, Canada. But anyways, just thought that would be interesting to see if you knew any of that.

If you, if you think of it later, you can, you can slack me and let me know. Okay. Let’s move into our next story. And I’m curious. Mike as we hit this, is this story the most tangible example we’ve seen so far of the quote unquote, like vibe shift that has happened in the U S since the election? 

[00:20:06] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, man, I think so.

I think so. I mean, there’s just been a lot of things that have changed since Trump got elected, right? It was, I mean, it was just all of this talk of this kind of red wave or conservative movement, but it was just that it was all talk. Right? Because you had 2008 to 2016 of Obama and then you had Trump for four years and then Trump got booted and then and then you had Biden.

And I mean, your guess was as good as mine on how this is all going to turn out. But with the type of victory that Trump had of securing the popular vote and, you know, getting all of the swing states, the quote unquote swing states and securing a larger part of the Electoral College than people expected, there really is a mandate here from the country, right, that they want to see some changes.

And so what’s happened is you’ve seen things like the diversity, equity and inclusion stuff. You know, you have some very large companies peeling those back. Some government regulations that people are expecting to be peeled back. I mean, there’s a lot of companies that are moving production out of China.

I mean, there’s just a lot of changes that are happening and Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet. Right? I mean, it’s 

[00:21:07] Conner Jones: interesting to watch the private sector. The government will make changes once this new administration and new Congress is really working and, you know, the, the doge group that is headed by Swami will see government do its thing.

But it’s interesting to watch private companies also make this shift, but let’s hit specifically on this one big announcement from this week. 

[00:21:29] Micah Tomasella: Yeah. So meta. Mark Zuckerberg made a pretty big announcement, kind of posted a video out of nowhere. Five minutes. We’ll link it in the show notes. You guys should check it out.

It’s really interesting to hear his talking points. So Meta ends the fact checking program and adopts a user moderated content model, meaning Meta announced a major overhaul of its content moderation system, ending its fact checking program and shifting to a user driven model, allowing individuals to flag their content.

and annotate any posts that seem misleading. So they’re taking a page out of Elon Musk and X’s, you know, his leadership and how they’re doing it as opposed to this like small group of fact checkers. It’s going to be led by, you know, anybody can kind of comment and flag something. 

[00:22:17] Conner Jones: Yeah. It’s going to be similar to the X’s community notes.

If you’re on X, you see those. And sometimes the community notes are actually. Just hilarious. Yeah. When people correct just bad information, that’s what they’re trying to do. 

[00:22:28] Micah Tomasella: Yeah. And so Zuckerberg is, is, you know, basically describing this as a shift towards free expression. He kind of explained the election results as a shift towards that type of more free expression.

So he describes the move as a trade off between catching less information and reducing censorship, saying we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but reduce unnecessary removals. So Joel Kaplan is met his new global. Policy chief, and he called it a shift. He called this shift a correction to mission creep and overly restrictive moderation rules.

So this rollout begins in the U. S. Specifically to start in the coming months. And then you have political implications of this. The announcement aligns with Donald Trump’s return to presidency. Meta executives informed Trump officials ahead of the change, and Kaplan went on all kinds of different news shows to criticize the old systems, alleged bias and conservative praised The new direction, while those in the left kind of struggled with it and had issues with it, just because we are in uncharted territory.

And then finally, there’s, there is a restructuring and a musk inspiration. And that’s like, we just kind of touched on meta is relocating a lot of their team and a lot of their fact checking team. And those who are going to be moderating and reviewing these things are moving them from California to Texas.

And really Zuckerberg described it as so that people wouldn’t be questioning as much. Where this information is coming from and questioning as much the bias of the people that are actually checking this information, right? And so by adopting a less centralized moderation system, meta aims to navigate political polarization and accusations of bias while balancing free speech with the risks of misinformation, it’s a trade off.

It’s a balance. Your myth. It 

[00:24:10] Conner Jones: is a balance. I think it’s interesting. I do know that some people were not happy. Others were praising the situation. Others were noting that, Hey, maybe Mark Zuckerberg is just a smart businessman and it’s just playing the politics of the moment. And we’ll change in four years of, you know, a new administration.

That’s, that’s probably what it is, man. Yeah, we’ll just have to see what happens. Maybe he really has turned his the tide and he’s got a new board that’s coming in Including dana white of the ufc. Yeah, extremely vocal about free speech and definitely he’s right He is really good friends with trump.

So I I imagine there’s influences there and yeah, joel Kaplan, like you said was in the w bush white house. And so he’s got his conservative views as well. Yeah, I did want to Some of the exact Quotes from the video from Zuckerberg. He said the recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again, prioritizing free speech.

Yeah, he’s saying exactly what kind of what we’ve been hitting on. Yeah, the, the country feels like it’s changing and the elections made it clear. And I think that’s not just in the U S it’s like you said earlier, it’s kind of across the world as populism has taken over. elections by storm. And then he also noted that the U.

S. does have the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world. And he kind of takes jabs at Europe and Latin America and China for censorship and making it difficult to do anything innovative there, as he says. So just thought that was very interesting. I did want to note, you know, bringing this back to a spiritual perspective, Micah, God has made all humans equal and we’re very blessed to live in America where we do have the right to free speech.

Now, that doesn’t mean every private company is going to respect that, right? Or they’re maybe going to have their own rules, and that’s up to them. It’s a private company, right? We can’t just lift up big Silicon Valley people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg as these big champions of free speech because it could change in a tide, you know?

But, and we can’t always trust these large tech companies to protect our free speech. But we do know that God has given us a freedom in so many different ways including in salvation but also in the way we’re able to live our lives and speak freely and we obviously do that with the intention of sharing the gospel of Exemplifying his character Christ’s character through our words through our actions But we are very blessed to have that free speech and you know We pray for and we need to remember that there are so many other Christians our brothers and sisters in Christ who are in places that they cannot speak freely.

They don’t even have to worry about what it would be like on Twitter or Meta. They can’t even speak freely in general, and they’re not able to worship freely. And so we are so blessed to be able to enter a church building. And if you’re in one of those places and you’re listening to this, we are praying for you and we care about you.

And please do write us if you’re able. We’ll give you an email address here in a minute to contact us. Just send us your story, but we would love to hear that anyways. We just, as those who are in free countries and can speak and worship freely, we need to remember there are many who are not, and we cannot take that for granted.

[00:27:01] Micah Tomasella: It’s a great point Connor, but Cryptra commands us to speak the truth and love and we are privileged to be able to do that. So no matter what’s going on with Meta or with X or with any of these companies, these people that are on the forefront, I’m responsible for my life and you’re responsible for yours and everybody who’s listening, we’re responsible for that.

So we have to speak the truth and love in our families, in our workplaces, in our life, and seek God, seek the Holy Spirit to equip us and give us the words as we endeavor in those things. But I just think it’s important to think about that. And that is a great call out and a great reminder. Lastly, Let’s just be in prayer for those affected by the wildfires in the L.

A. area and the surrounding areas of California. They’re running rampant right now. People are having to flee in Santa Monica and all those different places around L. A. And then, you know, even these incoming winter storms that are hittering, you know, that are hitting the north and in the Midwest right now, you know, that are gonna be hitting the south here soon as well.

Just Praying for everybody who are affected by these natural disasters. 

[00:27:58] Conner Jones: Yep, for sure. Yeah, it’s so hard to see some of the images coming out of California and I’m sure we will see more images of blizzards and storms and all of that throughout the rest of the country. So it’s going to be a tough week in the natural disaster realm.

We are proud of that. Yeah. Michael, I want to take us into a little bit of a fun segment here real fast. Let’s see if we can make some predictions for this new year. So we are recording here beginning of January, and we are just going to see what we can get right. And maybe we’ll go back to the year and see if either of us correct on some of these things.

Let’s, let’s start off with something coming up very soon. And we’ll talk a little bit more about this here in just a minute. But 

[00:28:37] Micah Tomasella: hang on, Connor, hang on, hang on before you start. Yeah. Let’s go back to this Canada thing for a second. Okay. Okay. As you were speaking, I looked up the lyrics, and I’m just going to admit something to the whole white world here, okay?

I, I read it quickly, I, I’m not sure if God is mentioned in their national anthem called, Oh Canada. It says, We stand on guard for thee. Okay? I’m over here thinking, as an American, Maybe it’s just because of their accents or maybe because I wasn’t listening I thought the entire time it was we stand on god for thee But the lyrics say we stand on guard for thee and so i’m gonna go ahead and admit my embarrassment there That I I didn’t recognize that they are neighbors to the north and we have people who follow us in canada I am sorry for my ignorance.

I will change I promise 

[00:29:22] Conner Jones: and you know If you ever get asked to sing the national anthem at a hockey game where you do have to sing that Just make sure you brush up on the lyrics first 

[00:29:29] Micah Tomasella: I am asked that frequently, by the way. I’m just too busy. Yep. Okay. Sorry. 

[00:29:36] Conner Jones: Why don’t you let’s let’s start off with who we think will win the Super Bowl.

Who do you think who you got? 

[00:29:41] Micah Tomasella: I got the Buffalo Bills, man. I this is a combination of just loving a good story, loving a good underdog story. And then just wanting that for the good people of Buffalo, the bills, mafia, all the games that they attend and blizzard. Blizzard like settings. I mean, they are just very tough up there, which is love it for Josh Allen.

Love it for that city. And for that area, they’ve never won a Super Bowl before. They’ve been to several. They lost several in a row in the 90s. A couple they lost to the Dallas Cowboys. And I’m thankful for that. Yeah, man, but i’d love to see this good story pan out and i’d love to see the bills win. Yeah, I got the 

[00:30:19] Conner Jones: lions 

[00:30:20] Micah Tomasella: I 

[00:30:20] Conner Jones: also think a bit of an underdog story Although I wouldn’t say they’re underdogs right now because they are just on fire So yeah, I can see them going and i’m a big dan campbell fan, you know Watching hard knocks a few years ago and his whole thing was yes Have some grit on the on the field and yeah You can tell he’s a leader of men and his team has rallied around him I think they look really solid right now.

So our picks have never 

[00:30:40] Micah Tomasella: won the Super Bowl before. So obviously you and I are both rooting for something that hasn’t happened quite yet. 

[00:30:45] Conner Jones: I don’t even think the Lions have 

[00:30:47] Micah Tomasella: been to a Super Bowl. No. 

[00:30:48] Conner Jones: Am I right? They’ve never 

[00:30:49] Micah Tomasella: been to a Super Bowl. That’s right. They’ve never been. 

[00:30:53] Conner Jones: Created, I think and the Super Bowl 

[00:30:54] Micah Tomasella: era.

They have 

[00:30:55] Conner Jones: not, yeah. Yeah. But they did win a championship back in like the fifties or something. But nonetheless, they haven’t been a Super Bowl. Bills have had their shot, but they have not actually won. Okay. Who do you think is gonna win the Masters? Masters? This is golf. If you don’t know the, the, the biggest tournament Golf?

[00:31:10] Micah Tomasella: Yes. It happens in Augusta, Georgia. It’s one of the four majors, right, Connor, on the PGA tour. And it is, or maybe five majors, but it is the four. It is the, yeah, four. It is the most prestigious tournament. In the world. Yeah. And you, you would know why would you know? Yes. So my wife and I got to go to the Masters on the final two days, Saturday and Sunday last year in April of 24.

Absolutely changed my life. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and we got to see Scotty Scheffler win it all and continuously give glory to God. He’s from the Dallas area. Mm-hmm . Definitely my favorite golfer, so I am predicting that he wins it again. He’s still playing very well. He’s very injured right now.

He’s kind of injured right now where he’s not playing this weekend. But I think he’ll win his second in a row. 

[00:31:58] Conner Jones: What 

[00:31:58] Micah Tomasella: about you? Yeah, 

[00:31:59] Conner Jones: I can see it happening. I just feel like it’s time for Rory McIlroy to finally get his master’s degree. He looked pretty solid last year and I’m honestly pulling for it, but I can see Scotty doing it.

There’s several guys on the tour who are just solid. I’d love to see Rory get it, yeah. But I think Rory needs it. Okay, let’s go to movies. What do you think will be the biggest movie of the year, box office wise? What’s going to make the most money? Okay, 

[00:32:21] Micah Tomasella: I, I can’t really decide. So mission impossible, the final reckoning, Tom Cruise’s series.

This is the eighth and final installment of the mission impossible series. I think that they’re going to have enough time to hype this movie up. Tom Cruise, man, he is just doing everything you see all these videos coming out. He does his own stunts jumping off ramps into canyons on motorcycles. I mean, this dude is wild.

I think that there’s a chance that that movie gets a lot of really good reviews, like in the first week or two, and people just continue to see it. I don’t think it would be like a slow burn, but it could, you know, be the biggest movie of the year or Superman. You get one movie. Okay. But listen, it might be Superman because James Gunn was really, when he was at Marvel, he was a big part of reviving Marvel’s image.

You know what I mean? And they became very successful. Now he’s at DC and this Superman movie is his baby. I think this could end up being very good and could catch fire as well. Sorry. I just couldn’t pick one. 

[00:33:19] Conner Jones: No. You just tell me one. What is your final prediction? Which of those two will be bigger?

Okay, yeah, I, I think so too, but we’ll see. I mean, I’ll be seeing both those movies. Yeah, same. Okay, my prediction is Avatar, the, the third installment of the, you know, Blue People Avatar series. This one’s called Avatar Fire and Ash, so don’t know if that includes Sounds interesting. Here’s the deal, I don’t enjoy those movies all that much.

I have seen them both. And I don’t think anybody comes away from those like, Holy cow, that was the best movie ever for some reason, the whole world that goes to see these movies. And so it’ll probably honestly do like the last two installments and make 2 2025? I don’t know, because I think it comes out in December.

So that’ll probably lean into 24 or 26. We’ll see. Okay. Who’s going to have the biggest song this year? Like the most streams, most listens biggest, like everybody’s playing it everywhere they go. Yeah. I’m going to say Post Malone 

[00:34:13] Micah Tomasella: just because he can tap into a few different genres, you know, R& B, pop, and specifically recently he’s gotten into country, released a whole country album.

He really, he’s kind of set himself up to create a song in whatever genre he wants. His star power is super high right now. I think there’s a good chance he’s the one who comes out with the banger of the year. 

[00:34:33] Conner Jones: Yeah, he could. And big Dallas guy. Besties with Jerry. I’ve got down Bruno Mars and here’s the deal.

I don’t love Bruno Mars, but I do think we are due for a full new album. And anytime he releases an album, he just blows up. Like it takes over. Justin Bieber 

[00:34:49] Micah Tomasella: released an album, man. It’s been years. If he did that, my, I mean, it’s been like three years since he’s released one. 

[00:34:55] Conner Jones: Here’s my, here’s my just out of nowhere theory.

I also think you could see a, reconstruction of One Direction. And I say this because last year, at the end of last year, sadly, Liam Payne, one of the members of One Direction, passed away, fell off a balcony in Argentina and died. And I, I think we could see like the four others come back together and like put together a song.

I just feel like that could go really, really well. Big. That is it. Out of nowhere, just back of my mind, had that thought. So if that prediction comes true, that’s going to be wild. I think the other ones, I think the other ones we said have a, a higher chance. Okay. Okay. What is your absolute like wild card prediction for the year?

[00:35:35] Micah Tomasella: So in 24, 23, 24, we’ve just been hearing AI, AI, AI, AI, right? Artificial intelligence, things to be excited about, things to be scared of. Denison Forum, Jim Denison specifically, has written so much on this topic, and you’re going to see us at Denison Forum produce even more content on this in 25. Stay tuned for that.

I do think the AI investment bubble specifically takes a massive hit. So the reason why is that the AI bubble will burst in 25. It has historically high unsustainable valuation premiums, meaning people are paying at such a high, historically high premium for what the stocks are actually worth right now.

So these valuation premiums are continuing to stay high, but we’ve yet to see them get quite there yet. So I think that we’re going to have a. An investment in that specific world in the stock market. I think that we’re going to kind of see that bubble pop a little bit when it comes to AI. So that’s, that’s my prediction.

So you’re predicting like a. 

[00:36:32] Conner Jones: com burst, but we’ll just see. 

[00:36:34] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, no, it’s just, it’s just not going to be as hot. It’s just not going to be as hot in 25, I think. 

[00:36:38] Conner Jones: Yeah, it may not be. It might start to come back down to earth. Okay. Honestly, we kind of talked about my wildcard prediction a little bit already, but I actually genuinely think there’s a chance the U S could annex Greenland as a state, but I, I don’t think they would just do Greenland.

I think everybody would want an even amount of states. It’d be hard to just add a 51st. So I do think there’s a chance Puerto Rico could become a state this year as well. Currently a U. S. territory. And maybe that’s what ends up happening is Greenland becomes a U. S. territory like Guam, Puerto Rico. But I, I envision, you know, there’s a possibility where Puerto Rico could become a state and honestly, I’m here for it.

But stand on the list, 

[00:37:15] Micah Tomasella: man. This is your prediction. This is going to happen, right? 

[00:37:18] Conner Jones: Look, if you told me so many of the things that happened in 2024 happened with, you know, anything with the election and debate performances and dropouts of candidates and all that, I don’t think anybody would have ever known some of the other things just in the business world.

We’d never would have been able to predict that stuff. So we’ll just see.

[00:37:34] Micah Tomasella: Connor, let’s move on here and jump into mailbag. So Guys, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions or your thoughts or anything to culturebrief at denisonforum. org. We’ll be checking that email. Would love for you to send your thoughts, your suggestions, any questions that you’d want us to have, you know, talk about or cover.

Let us know what your predictions are for 2025. We may just mention your thoughts on next week’s episode. And of course, we’ll give a shout out in the last episode of the year. If you nailed a prediction correctly. So that email culture brief, no spaces, no caps at denisonforum. org. That is the way to get in touch with us and to throw in any questions or thoughts.

And so specifically, we’d love to hear from you this week about your predictions for 2025. 

[00:38:15] Conner Jones: Yeah, we’d love to hear from you guys. Please email us. We want to, we want to involve you all the listeners in this show. Okay. Michael, let’s hit on a few things to watch out for this week and then we will wrap this thing up.

So as you go about your week take note of these and you will be ready to go with whatever You know is on tv or whatever. Yep is releasing or anything happening in the news So today specifically if you’re listening to this on thursday morning, there is a funeral in Washington, D. C. for former President Jimmy Carter, who, as everybody knows, passed away at age 100 at the end of December.

So his big public memorial service will be taking place. I expect to see lots of power players from D. C. at that memorial service, probably all the living former presidents. It is expected that Obama will be there, that Trump will be there. I, I would expect to see Bill Clinton. So that will be a big deal.

And then after that, A w yeah, how did I forget w after that service? We will then see them take jimmy carter’s body back down to georgia Where there will be a private service at the little church where he taught sunday school for decades, which is planes, georgia Yeah, his his life is crazy. Honestly go look at Dr.

Denison’s reflection on his life. If you have a chance, Dr. Denison mentions a meeting that he had with him personally, and just reflects on that a hundred year long life. We will link that in the show notes for denisonformed. org. Okay. Next, Micah, TikTok. Interesting scenario. We’ll see by next week, we may have some answers here, but the Supreme Court will be hearing the arguments for banning and for not banning TikTok.

January the 10th, so yeah, that’s a big deal. The law that bans TikTok is set to go in effect on January 19th, the last day of the Biden administration. I do believe that was intentional timing, but of course, this has made its way up to the Supreme court because of free speech, as well as just the reasons for banning it, including TikTok.

The influence of China and addiction for young people who are addicted to their screens into this app. Specifically, we will see what happens there. Will the Supreme court overturn the law, banning it based off free speech grounds, or will they just put a delay on it so that TikTok has some more time to figure stuff out or will TikTok sell itself, which is a possibility as well.

If they sell to a U S owner, then that may keep the app alive, but there’s going to be a big deal, but let’s come back next. We can talk about that one. 

[00:40:27] Micah Tomasella: Do you have Tik Tok on your phone? I 

[00:40:30] Conner Jones: used to. It was so addicting that I deleted it. It was just time consuming. And honestly, I don’t, I don’t think it’s a bad app per se.

Sure. And now I don’t know about all the Chinese influence and data invasion and all that. So that, you know, but when I had it a few, I got it during the pandemic when everybody else was downloading it and was just bored. And yeah, I, I made a, I made, I even made a few embarrassing TikTok videos myself.

So I’m not going to tell you my profile name because I don’t need anybody going deep into that. Maybe we can get 

[00:40:56] Micah Tomasella: Connor to send those out to everybody so everybody can see those. I have not. ever gotten tiktok, which is great. Like, you know, I never started. However, it’s not like I don’t waste time. So I don’t, you know, have any kind of superiority complex because of that.

But let’s see how that plays out. That’s gonna affect a lot of people. All right, so let’s talk about what’s coming up with the college football and NFL playoff football coming up. So all these times I’m about to mention are central. I’ll give you a quick rundown of all of the glorious football that we get to watch starting on Thursday, January 9th, all the way through Monday.

Okay. So Thursday we have Notre Dame at Penn state. This is the semifinal. So the winner of these two games I’m about to mention, go to the championship that will be happening on Monday the 20th. So you’ve got on Thursday, you got Notre Dame at Penn state. Then on Friday, you’ve got Ohio state at the university of Texas.

And then on Saturday, you’ve got the chargers at the Texans. We’re into the NFL now at three 30. And then you’ve got the Steelers at the Ravens at seven. This is the first round of the NFL playoffs. And then on Sunday. You have a slate of games that can keep you busy all day long. You’ve got the Broncos at the Bills at noon.

You’ve got Packers at Eagles at three 30, and then you’ve got the commanders at the bucks, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 7. PM. And then on Monday. The one that’s going to cap all of this. You’ve got Vikings at Rams, which I think is going to be a great game as well. This is going to be fun for all you football fans out there.

[00:42:17] Conner Jones: Oh my gosh, dude. Five glorious straight days of playoff football. I don’t think that’s ever happened because we’ve never had such an experience with this, like winter storm coming 

[00:42:23] Micah Tomasella: up. Like what else are we going to do, man? You know what I mean? You get to watch football. Here’s what you need 

[00:42:27] Conner Jones: to do on Sunday.

Go to church, come home, grab a hot lunch, maybe a hot cup of coffee, and just sit and watch football all afternoon. What if I want a cold 

[00:42:37] Micah Tomasella: lunch? Why does it have to be hot? 

[00:42:38] Conner Jones: Because it’s going to be cold outside. So I just thought everybody would want a hot lunch. Maybe I’m crazy. I would prefer a bowl of soup anyways.

Yeah. It’s going to be fun. And notice the Dallas Cowboys are not on that scheduled slate. So that just looks tough luck anyways. And just to clarify, Mike and I are massive Dallas Cowboys fans, 

[00:42:56] Micah Tomasella: huge Cowboys fans. You’ll hear more about that as we, as, as, as we keep going. Guys, thanks for joining us on this week’s episode of Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast.

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