In this episode of Rush to Reason, host Andy Pate engages in a deep and thoughtful dialogue on the Christian roots of America, debating whether the nation’s fabric is intertwined with Christian values or merely a choice of freedom. Joined by Jersey Joe, the discussion transitions seamlessly into intriguing data on the rise of religious detachment in the US, painting a compelling picture of shifting beliefs and church attendance statistics.
SPEAKER 19 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 09 :
You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes. With your host, John Rush. My advice to you is to do what your parents did. Get a job, sir.
SPEAKER 03 :
You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference.
SPEAKER 13 :
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know, you can’t explain. But you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 03 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 19 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 02 :
Filling in is Andy Pate, party of choice.
SPEAKER 07 :
And welcome to our number three here on Rush to Reason. I’m Andy Pate filling in for John Rush. And I’m joined on the line right now by Jersey Joe. Joe, how are you, sir?
SPEAKER 11 :
Andy, I’m doing just fine. How about yourself?
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m doing well. Hey, really quick, before we get into your topics, I don’t know if you heard any of the last part of last hour. We were talking about, is America a Christian nation? And I wanted to get your take on my take. So here was my take again, really quick. I believe it is a Christian nation. And the reason is because a Christian nation doesn’t mean that everybody has to be a Christian. Because Jesus and the apostles never tried to make unbelievers live like believers. Forcing everybody to be a Christian is not what makes it a Christian nation. It’s a Christian nation because you’re free to be one or not, which is the Christian way. You get to choose. What do you think?
SPEAKER 11 :
I think you’re 100% right. But interestingly enough, Andy, that leads right into one of the things I had to talk about today. It’s on my podcast for this week.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, my goodness. You see, God was he lined us up.
SPEAKER 11 :
And by the way, the topic of the article I read was called The Unchurching of America. Oh. And so here’s some stats. So first of all, you want to guess what percentage of the population today has indicated that they have zero religious affiliation. In other words, you might say, hey, I’m a Protestant or I’m a Jew, you know, I’m a Muslim or I’m a Buddhist. You want to guess what percentage of the population today say they have zero religious affiliation. They don’t identify… with any organized religion. You want to take a guess what that percentage is?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, it used to be well under 10%. I would say it’s closing in on 30.
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s exactly 30. Three out of 10 people today say they have no religious, they don’t identify with any organized religion. Now, let’s talk about what that’s happened to church attendance. From as early as they started keeping records, this was like the U.S. Census, up until 1976, Church attendance was always above 70% of the population, always. You know what church attendance is today? What?
SPEAKER 1 :
40%.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, it’s so sad too, Joe, because as I have done before on this show, I believe that there are absolutely scientific and philosophical reasons to be a Christian. I believe it is the way, truth, and life. I believe he is. I believe it’s the truth. And when I came to it, I couldn’t believe that anybody would want. Once I came out of atheism, I couldn’t believe anybody would want to be one because it’s so irrational to me.
SPEAKER 11 :
I couldn’t agree more, Randy. I mean, it’s so obvious. And then you wonder, you know, when you look at the Koran and, you know, the religion of Islam and how violent and hateful it is, and, you know, you either have to kill or subjugate those who, you know, don’t share your beliefs.
SPEAKER 07 :
But do you need violence? Joe, do you need violence to convert somebody to something that is rational? Absolutely not. Okay, so the very fact that they have to use violence and force people to do it means it’s not rational. It’s like Kim always says in the morning, freedom versus force, right? She says if something is a good idea, you don’t have to force people to do it.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, and if they won’t, then okay, that’s their loss, not yours. Move on. And they should have the freedom not to do it. And it’s not up to you to force them to accept your beliefs. That’s what this country was founded on. You know, government shall make no laws regarding the establishment of religion.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn’t sure which one you were talking about, but yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
Government shall make no laws regarding the establishment of religion.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, what I don’t understand, Joe, is how could you feel good that way? I mean, take religion out of it for just a second. You love your wife, don’t you? I think so. Most days. Most days. You have a good day now and then, right? I do. Two or three a year. Good. Okay. Joe, how would you feel if your wife was forced to be with you?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, that’d be awful. I mean, what a sad situation would that be?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and I’m not saying that I’m necessarily against cultures where they have arranged marriages. I understand, actually, those have a much higher success rate than ours does, okay? But what I mean is this. Staying together year after year after year, even if I had an arranged marriage, I wouldn’t want her to stay because she had to. I would want to show her the love. and the appreciation, and the great life to where she’d want to.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right, and have her make that decision of her own free will.
SPEAKER 07 :
Exactly. Well, that’s Christianity, okay? The Father, it’s not his will that any should perish, but that all should have eternal life. I’m quoting scripture there. Okay, but he doesn’t want to force us to. He could, but he doesn’t want to. And I look at Islam, and I’m just like, why would you want something that does that?
SPEAKER 11 :
Right, it’s illogical, Andy, and Again, I think it points out that it’s the single most damning evidence of failure of the philosophy. It’s just, you know, if you have to force it, you know, if you have to force something on somebody, you haven’t converted them, you know, you failed.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I mean, this is why I don’t like, get religion out of there for a moment. Look at the public schools. You take tax dollars from people of all beliefs and you teach one side? How can they feel good about that? I mean, you know, and these same people who run these these liberals who run the schools. Right. And these purple haired teachers that you have now, they look at the church and say, oh, my gosh, it’s such a controlling environment. And I’m just like, are you kidding? The church is a place that is supported entirely by free will donations. From people who freely choose to go there and freely choose to worship together. Okay. You have a place where the money is all confiscated from people of all beliefs, whether they agree with you or not, where you get to teach your side. And if they want their kids to learn something else, they got to pay again a second time. You know, it just blows my mind. That blue haired teacher is the one who’s a control freak, not the pastor. 100% correct, Andy. 100%. Okay, I’ll give it back to you. Sorry to, you got me going there, but go ahead.
SPEAKER 11 :
All right. Let’s move on. I know Charlie’s still loading some clips, but, you know, I always do the stupidest thing I’ve heard all week. And just before Christmas, I saw this article from the Huffington Post, which has gone so far, you know, off the deep end in terms of liberal bias. They ran this story. It was advice on how to deprogram your MAGA friends and family members. And they quoted a a cult expert for his advice. And this was the cult expert. This was the advice from the cult. And again, this was supposed to be like Christmas dinners and whatnot. And this was his advice. First of all, it starts with the flawed assumption that everything you, the liberal, believes is 100% accurate and everything they believe is inaccurate. Well, of course. And that advice includes, and this is a quote, remember that a lot of people are generally ensnared By manipulative systems of belief, they didn’t choose misinformation so much as fall into it, often due to loneliness, fear, or a need for significance. That’s their first thing.
SPEAKER 07 :
So I believe in free enterprise because I was lonely?
SPEAKER 11 :
Lonely or you feel some unfulfilled need for significance. Okay, go ahead. Suggested ways to respond to your MAGA friends when they argue with you. And include, look, I’ve looked into this and it’s actually been widely debunked. Would you be open to reading a source that I trust? And I find hilarious because, as you know, I spend about a half hour every morning on that. And what they believe to be trusted sources, you’ll bust the gut laughing at the things they believe. I mean, you know, Mark Twain said it’s far easier to fool somebody than to convince them that they’ve been fooled. You know, like they believe that billionaires don’t pay any taxes.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. They believe that men can have kids. Men can have kids. Okay. I mean, they believe that if you take away, if you have more people without guns, you’ll have less gun crime.
SPEAKER 11 :
I mean, they’re nuts. They’re nuts. By the way, I saw a neat cure for gender confusion the other day. Oh, okay. If you’ve got a teenager, teenage boy who’s confused about his gender, They suggested that a good kick in the testicles will clear that up for him. Jeez. Ouch.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m a good Christian. I won’t do that.
SPEAKER 11 :
All right. Anyway, so going on to some of the suggested phrases they had in the article, and that you should tell them, I know this feels true, but it’s coming from a site known for disinformation. Can I share with you why I’m concerned? Now, the sites, and I’ve had them say that, I don’t use anything I get from Fox News. My sites are the U.S. Treasury, the IRS, the Federal Reserve Bank, Congressional Budget Office, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s it. If it is not 100% reliable, I don’t use it. But they’ll tell me, well, that’s wrong. That’s disinformation. And they’re quoting these far-left liberal websites. Right. as their, quote, credible source. By the way, are you familiar with AI hallucinations? No. AI hallucinations, you can actually Google it if anybody’s listening. Just Google AI hallucinations. It’s an acknowledged problem where AI systems will go out, they’ll scour the web, and they’ll find anything that appears to be relative to the topic without verifying its validity. One of which, by the way, included, so I was just having a discussion with somebody about you know, what is the tax rate that the richest Americans pay? Which, by the way, according to the IRS, is 26% of their gross income in income taxes, the highest percentage of any group. Because 26% of your gross is a much higher percentage of your net taxable. Well, again, well, AI says they only pay 8.2%. Now, where the 8.2% came from, two years ago, three years ago, the Biden White House came out with this white paper called the true tax rate that the wealthiest families pay. They cherry picked 400 families And they said the 400 richest families in America only pay a true tax rate of 8.2%. And then they go on and on. And then about three paragraphs down, it says, we arrived at this number by dividing the taxes they paid by their cash income plus the increase in the value of the stocks they owned but hadn’t sold yet. So they included the increase. But hadn’t sold yet? But hadn’t sold yet. Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
In other words, we took the numbers and burned them.
SPEAKER 11 :
But go ahead. Yeah, so they admitted that, no, we divided the tax dollars they paid by their actual income plus the increase in the value of the stock they own, but they hadn’t sold yet. Well, there’s no such thing. You know, there’s no definition of income that includes the increase in the value of an asset you own, whether it be your house or stocks. you know, or a painting.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, especially stocks. You can’t say that you haven’t sold yet because you have no idea what they’re going to be worth tomorrow. What they’re going to be worth. I mean, that’s ridiculous.
SPEAKER 11 :
But this AI system said, you know, according to the White House, their tax rate, they pay an average tax rate of 8.2%. That’s called an AI hallucination. And it’s, if you just Google AI hallucinations, you’ll find dozens of studies and articles describing how prevalent and erroneous things you get from AI are.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, the one thing, you know, we will put out a lot of times that the top 1%, right, the top 1% of earners pay, I don’t know, 40, 30, 40% of the wealth.
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s 40.2. 40.2, okay. Just the number I guessed at.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. So they pay 40% of the taxes.
SPEAKER 11 :
Which, by the way, is more than the amount of taxes paid by the bottom 90% combined. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
But here’s what the leftist is going to say. Well, that’s because they’re making 40% of the wealth. No, they aren’t. 22%. 22%. So they’re making 22%. So they’re paying nearly twice their fair share of the taxes. They’re paying nearly twice their fair share of the taxes. You want to know why they’re doing it? So the bottom 50% don’t pay a dime. How is that okay?
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s the bottom 47%. But close enough, Andy.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I round it up. No, you round it up.
SPEAKER 11 :
But you know what I mean. By the way, the bottom 47% either pay nothing or less than nothing. Do you know that the family of four making $67,700, which is the median income, pays less than zero in income taxes under the Trump tax plan? When Trump increased, doubled the standard deduction and doubled the child care tax credit, that family of four went from paying… almost two thousand dollars a year in income taxes to now getting a net refund of $300.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Can I be a big meanie? Sure. Okay. This is why I don’t like the Trump tax plan. Okay. And overall, I love the Trump tax plan. Don’t get me wrong. It’s going to create an economic boom. It’s great. But what I don’t like is that he has actually increased the disparity between the payers and the non-payers. And I don’t like that. Look, we were already redistributing way, way, way, way too much wealth. Okay. And that’s not good long-term. I believe more people have to have more skin in the game. I believe everybody should pay something except for the people who are really poor. Right. Cause I don’t want them to die, but I mean, for crying out loud, this is ridiculous. You’ve got people who are soaking in tons and food stamps and, and welfare and, and, you know, Medicaid and all these kinds of things. Okay. And they’re paying nothing or next to nothing in taxes.
SPEAKER 11 :
Or less than nothing.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Meanwhile, the rich don’t use any of those things. We just talk about what they’re paying, right? Well, they’re making 22% of the income, but they’re paying 40% of the taxes. Oh, it doesn’t end there, man. They’re also not getting any of those things.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, if they have kids, they’re not sending them to public, typically not sending them to public schools.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, they’re not putting them in public schools. They’re putting them in private schools. So they are paying huge, huge property taxes on their mansions, right, that are helping fund your schools. And guess what? Their kids aren’t even in those schools. Right. Okay, and guess what? They’re not taking food stamps. So not only are they paying 40%, they’re not using a ton of the money.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right, and they’re also paying more in sales taxes. Well, first of all, property taxes. You know, if your house is worth $400,000 and their house is worth $4 million, they’re paying 10 times the property taxes, but they’re not getting 10 times. Their street doesn’t get plowed 10 times more frequently.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, it doesn’t. Basically, you’re robbing them, okay? So when Trump made it an even greater disparity, I understand why he did it, and I know it works, and I know it’s going to get him more votes, but you know what? I don’t like it.
SPEAKER 11 :
I don’t like it. I think he went too far with it. I could say, hey, the guy that was paying $2,300 a year, if you want to knock it down to $1,800 or $1,700, great. But to go from $2,300 to minus $300, that was just way overboard.
SPEAKER 07 :
I think it was way overboard, too. Hey, tell you what, let’s take a break. We’ll be right back with Jersey Joe. Or no, no we won’t. We’ve got to keep going. Sorry about that. We’ve got a little computer issue here. Continue on, sir. Did you ever see the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Loved it.
SPEAKER 11 :
I like the original with Leonard Nimoy. And was Donald Sutherland in that one, too? Yep. All right. Well, I think Bill Maher’s been taken over by a body snatcher. I’ve got two clips here of Bill Maher talking like a conservative. The first is he talks about what has happened to countries that have adopted or switched from capitalism to socialism. And the first thing he talks about, you can’t see it. He’s got a visual of a map of the Korean Peninsula. And you see the south korea which is lit up like a christmas tree in the north korea which is dark because they’ve got very little electricity no lights so that’s the first thing he talks about but here’s bill maher talking about one second one one second one second guess what we’re having some problems talk about something else we’ll come back to that okay not a problem uh let’s talk about um well let’s see sorry about that sorry to throw you off your game man does he have any of the clips loaded or none of the clips
SPEAKER 07 :
No, the clips are loaded. They’re having a problem every night. There’s some kind of a crash going on. People are running around. There’s fires burning. Uh, you know, people are jumping out of the windows at the 12th floor. It’s terrible.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right. Well, we, a minute ago we talked about AI hallucinations, which are prevalent. Something else been happening recently. There’s been a slew of AI generated fake racist videos. Oh, okay. And you’re familiar with the term confirmation bias, right? Yes. Which is where you see something, and it feeds a preconceived notion that you have, and you’re eager and willing to believe it and don’t even think about fact-checking it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, the Bible said you have itching ears that want to hear that.
SPEAKER 11 :
You want to hear that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, in the past couple of weeks, there have been several viral videos showing black women talking about how they are – eagerly and knowingly abusing their SNAP benefits during the government shutdown. And while some of them may, these videos where they’re showing laughing and telling other people, here’s how you do it, they’ve been documented as AI-generated fakes.
SPEAKER 07 :
I haven’t even seen these. So you have some black women hanging out saying how they’re abusing the system?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, actually, they’re talking right into a camera. And who, if they were doing this, would be stupid enough to sit down in the close-up camera face, saying, here’s what I’m doing, and here’s how I’m doing it, and here’s why you should do it. And it’s been documented. I don’t know how they see if a video is AI-generated. But they’re fake. But they’re fake. And conservatives are saying, see, see? And they’re sharing and reposting. Some of these things have been reposted 300,000 times.
SPEAKER 07 :
John and I have talked about this so much. There are so many, oh gosh, conspiracy theories that are total garbage. Or you’ll take something that’s got a kernel of truth to start with and then use confirmation bias to put out tons of posts that totally exaggerate it.
SPEAKER 11 :
So folks, and I have no doubt that there are some people out there of all colors who that are knowingly abusing the system and telling their friends how to abuse it. But these videos where they’re laughing about it and giving folks think twice before you repost it because it’s probably not real. And you’re going to not only embarrass yourself, you’re going to make other conservatives look bad when you get called out for posting nonsense.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, well, you know, let me give a quick example. Then we got to go to break here because we finally can. We found a way to do it, but we’re going to have some problems. Sorry about that. But really quick here. Remember when everybody was saying, what was that, two weeks ago, that Rob Reiner, a week or two ago, that he had said that he wished the shooter had not missed with Trump. And that he wished that Trump had gotten killed. Okay? This was being put out by conservatives all over Facebook as fact. It was total fiction. It never happened. He never said it. Okay. It was a total scam. And yet I had people throwing it in my face in debates. And I’m like, look, guys, I think Rob Reiner said a ton of horrible things. Okay. I can give you some. But he didn’t say that. All right. And it was just like, this is the very kind of thing. I believe it’s confirmation bias. The reason they believe that without testing is because they wanted to. Sound fair? Yep. Okay, I think we can go to break now. So let me just mention Kevin Flesch. Here we go, Flesch Law. Kevin Flesch, that’s F-L-E-S-C-H. He’s the lawyer your opponent doesn’t want to face. Call Flesch Law at 303-806-8886.
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SPEAKER 20 :
Stay up to date with Rush to Reason after the show on Twitter at Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 07 :
And welcome back to Rush to Reason. Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560, Andy Pate filling in for John Rush, along with Jersey Joe. We are having all sorts of technical issues. We’re going to get through it. In the next room, we have Charlie running on a wheel like a hamster. It’s really great. He is powering the station. Joe, we’re having fun. What do you think?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, when you get rookies, they’re not like that. What can you expect? I know. Well, it is. You’ve got interns running the board.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s Charlie’s first day, and we really believe in him. We think he’s going to come along pretty well. Okay. Sorry. All right. This happens, folks. I am sorry.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay. I can try to play some clips from here. I’ve got two from Bill Maher. And, again, I think he’s been taken over by the pod people. So I’m going to play this. You’ll have to listen to it over my phone. The first one, he opens with a graphic of the Korean Peninsula showing the how South Korea is lit up, and then North Korea. But then he goes on to talk about other countries and what has happened when they’ve chosen to either embrace capitalism or socialism. And here we go.
SPEAKER 12 :
Play. Here’s capitalist South Korea at night from space. Here’s socialist North Korea. In 1990, Venezuela was wealthier than Poland. But then Poland, finally free of Soviet-style economics, went all in on capitalism. And now their economy is as big as Japan. Meanwhile, Venezuela traded capitalism for Hugo Chavez’s socialism for the 21st century. It turned one of Latin America’s richest countries into one of its poorest. If you think New York can somehow reinvent this wheel, you’re in for a rude awokening. Iran can’t make your wishes come true. You’re thinking of Zoltar. Bill Maher.
SPEAKER 11 :
Zoltar, by the way, is the carnival guy, carnival fortune teller.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, by the way, here’s the thing that he didn’t even mention there. Poland’s natural resources don’t in any way, shape or form even begin to compare to Venezuela’s. And yet Venezuela is burning to the ground.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s amazing. I mean, they don’t just have oil and gas. They got minerals. They got trees. They got everything. I mean, they have it all. Venezuela should be the richest place on earth.
SPEAKER 11 :
They should. And the fact that Poland has been able to pull equal with Japan is stunning.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, it’s incredible.
SPEAKER 11 :
Incredible.
SPEAKER 07 :
And by the way, another thing Poland has done is completely stop all Islamic immigration into their country. Right. And it’s not a racist thing. They’re saying, look, the culture simply does not create. It doesn’t produce. It’s detrimental.
SPEAKER 11 :
Not compatible. Right. Now here’s another Bill Maher, and he’s got a guest, and they’re talking about, and this is stunning, where he’s agreeing with Republicans and Trump that the federal government should stop funding NPR and PBS. And his guest has a very telling story about his nine-year-old daughter listening to NPR in the car. So here’s Bill Maher. on whether or not the government should continue to fund public broadcasting. Hang on, it would help if I turn the audio on.
SPEAKER 12 :
Should the government continue to send taxpayer dollars to public broadcasters? Well, a little background here. I mean, they’ve been after them for, the Republicans have wanted to get rid of PBS for as long as I can remember. This crowd will probably do it. I mean, I also read my namesake, Catherine Marr, was head of NPR. And, you know, she said, we’re completely unbiased. Give me a break, ladies. They’re crazy far left. So, I mean, I think we’re past, my view, we’re past the age, really, where the government, first of all, why do we need to subsidize? Why can’t we have outlets like this? And we’re so polarized. These… outlets became popular at a time when Republicans and Democrats didn’t hate each other and weren’t at each other’s throats and didn’t think each other was an existential threat in that world you can’t have places like this I think anymore they have to be private yeah
SPEAKER 14 :
I think Uri Berliner, ex-NPR employer, his piece this week, where he said that they should just let go of the funding. I love NPR. I listen to NPR almost every day, have since 1975, when my parents used to play it in our Chevrolet Caprice when I was like nine years old. I love it for its point of view, but since 2020, it has no longer been… General, I remember in 2021, my then nine-year-old asked me, and of course she has no sense of context, but I don’t pump her full of things like this. She said from the back seat, a very different car, she said, Daddy, why is it that NPR is always playing the same thing? And I said, what do you mean the same thing? And I swear she said, now she doesn’t have a vocabulary, but she said, it’s always about how somebody can’t do something. And what she was getting at was that.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, we can’t get an abortion. We can’t get food stamps. We can’t do this. It’s always about how they’re being deprived and white privileged. And that’s the same song over and over and over.
SPEAKER 07 :
The message of NPR is very simple. Government, take care of us. Take care of me. Nurture me. Help me. Feed me. Take care of me. I’m dependent on you. And by the way, that makes perfect sense. Not only with NPR, but all government agencies. I mean, the worst one is the education system, public education. It’s a socialist system by its very nature. Obviously, what’s it going to preach?
SPEAKER 11 :
Socialism. Socialism. Yeah. However, you want to know how much money they make? You ever go in a toy store? I don’t know if you have any nieces and nephews buy toys for. Yes. You ever go buy a Big Bird doll or a Cookie Monster doll? You go in the toy store, they’re making tens of millions of dollars in royalties off all of the characters they license to toy companies. Yeah. and it’s not on the air anymore, the Car Talk show, they were making just millions and millions of dollars off their licensing fees, endorsed by Car Talk, and they would give. But they don’t need public funding, and I’m glad we’re not doing it. When Bill Maher turns on you, you know you’ve lost the battle.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and he’s been doing it a lot more. I mean, Maher and Fetterman seem to be the only wise people on the left anymore. And they are wise. I mean, they call a spade a spade. Yeah, they disagree with me and you on some things, definitely. But they have had, you know, and I was telling, really quick here, I was telling Luke at break in the last hour, I said, Luke, you know, you know why I left the, you know why I’m a Republican? It’s not just control because I did leave the Democrat Party because I didn’t like how they wanted to control everybody’s life. I said, but you know what the biggest reason is? They’re weird. I mean, they believe in every crazy, kooky thing. They believe boys can have kids. They believe that socialism, which fails everywhere in the world, will work somehow. I mean, everything that is totally unnatural, wrong, and can’t possibly work, they embrace.
SPEAKER 11 :
It has been proven not to work over and over and over. But let’s give it one more try.
SPEAKER 07 :
Go ahead.
SPEAKER 11 :
You go ahead and try it. I’m kidding. Let’s go ahead and try it. And by the way, and here you got Mondale, just as a more recent, Kansas City had free buses, and they finally gave up because they said their free buses became rolling homeless shelters. Yes. It was too hot, too cold, raining. Well, Joe, think about it for a moment.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’ve got people who need shelter. And they have a heated vehicle or air conditioning or air conditioning and the summer, and they have a heated or air conditioned vehicle moving around drive. And you are allowed to be in it for free all day long. Yeah. What the hell? Pardon me.
SPEAKER 11 :
Do you think it’s going to happen? Right. And Kansas city had government run grocery stores. They closed them down after pumping tens of millions of dollars They couldn’t make a go of it in their government-run grocery store. But Mamdani, no, we’re going to do free buses. We’re going to do government-run grocery stores, city-run grocery stores.
SPEAKER 07 :
My only concern with Mamdani is will his failure come in time to affect the 26 elections? I don’t know if it will.
SPEAKER 11 :
He won’t fail quick enough.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, he won’t because the governor won’t let him. She knows. Look, and this is the funny thing. The governor, who is a wacko leftist, knows that their ideas will fail massively, right? She knows none of his ideas will work. She knows, and she endorsed him, but she knows none of his ideas will succeed. And so she’s going to hold those things off and slow roll them as much as possible so they don’t affect 26. Is that the most dishonest political party ever?
SPEAKER 11 :
It is. It is. By the way, she’s already come out. By the way, the New York City buses are not operated by New York City. They’re part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which is a New York State agency. Yeah. And she’s already come out. That’s why I say no. We can’t afford to. The MTA can’t afford to. The subways, buses and the trains in and out of New York City are all part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which is a New York State agency, not a city agency. So she’s already said no. He has no power to do that, and we at the state level can’t afford to do that.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s a neat trick, isn’t it? He gets off the hook because the adult comes in and says, oh, no, you can’t give out all this candy.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
When he knew he couldn’t anyway. He couldn’t afford it.
SPEAKER 11 :
And I can’t wait to see how he’s going to fund free daycare for every kid in New York City.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and forget about funding it for a moment because that’s impossible. They can’t. It’ll be an utter disaster. But think about what free daycare will become.
SPEAKER 11 :
indoctrination camps.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes. All it is is school earlier. So, you know, we only get your kids for 12, 13 years. We need more time to indoctrinate them. That’s just not enough time.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, I think it was unreal. Somebody who was in the Jesuit order said, you know, give me a child till age of six and I will have shaped him for life. Have you ever heard that quote? Yeah. I forget who said it. I know he was a member of the Jesuit. And For those who are not familiar, the Jesuit is a Catholic order, you know, and the Jesuits are… A particular branch of the Catholic Church.
SPEAKER 07 :
I don’t actually agree with it, if I may. Okay. Because I think you need more time because I’ve known so many. And keep in mind, I was raised an atheist by the time of six, you know, although my family wasn’t as hardcore. They became more so later on. But I see I have seen so many kids who were raised hardcore as Christians by parents who kept them out of school, homeschooled them, did the whole thing. The kids went nuts. Because this society, the second you get outside the four walls of your home, this society bathes you in everything anti-Jesus. At every level, entertainment, media, sports media, big tech, everything. Everywhere that information comes at you, it is going to tell you that everything you were taught was wrong. And so I don’t believe you can just teach someone until they’re six and then have them for life. Not anymore, anyway.
SPEAKER 11 :
I think that was a different age. Go ahead. It could have been. All right, let’s move on. You ever heard of a guy named Nick Shirley? Yeah. YouTuber. He’s a young guy. Was he 23, 24 years old? He’s in his 20s. He’s a YouTube blogger. And he’s been doing a lot of investigative work on the fraud that’s going on up in Minnesota, perpetrated primarily by – last time I checked, I think it was 87 of the 92 named defendants are from Somalia. And they say right now the most conservative estimate is that they’ve pulled off $9 billion worth of various frauds, either SNAP, daycare, housing fraud. And my question is, here’s Nick Shirley, and I think one of his videos has like 30 million views, and he’s been walking around Minnesota saying, look at this, we have one building that supposedly, we have one small office building supposedly houses 14 health care providers. And, you know, they’re little tiny offices and with, you know, just the receptionist, a bunch of mailboxes in the front. And he goes outside this one building. It’s a block, cinder block building, no windows, one door. The sign above the door says Quality Learing Center. It’s supposed to be learning, but whoever prepared the sign left the N out of learning. So the sign above the door, big expensive sign, must have cost a couple hundred bucks. It doesn’t say Quality Learning Center. It says Quality Learing Center. They got paid $1.9 million for child care services. And here he is. It’s the middle of the week, 11 o’clock in the morning, no cars. And here’s what he found when he walks up to the door of this office building. Here we go.
SPEAKER 18 :
massive fraud is taking place within the government and the Somali population. Here, this building alone, Quality Learning Center, is a daycare, yet they spelled learning wrong, and they said leering. This daycare alone in 2025 has received $1.9 million from the government. The strange thing about these childcare centers is there’s no one here right now. It’s midday on a weekday. If you were to try to go inside… It’s completely closed and the windows are all blacked out. No one’s working midday. Children should be in here. And this place is licensed for 99 children. And this is the outside. There’s no windows, no nothing. And like I said, they literally spelt the word wrong on their sign. This is open and blatant fraud taking place here inside of Minnesota. The government is complicit with this. And this is just one of the hundreds. of child daycare centers here inside of Minneapolis being ran by the Somali population. It’s sad that it’s happening here in Minnesota, and it stinks that it’s happening, and it’s being labeled on the Somali population. However, that’s just the facts of what’s happening here inside of Minnesota. $1.9 million for this daycare center that can’t even spell learning rights.
SPEAKER 11 :
So my question, if it’s so easy for this young guy to find this, and this is just one example. He’s got dozens and dozens. If it was so easy for him to find, how come the state officials never noticed this?
SPEAKER 07 :
They did. You see, and I spoke of a post yesterday, and I forget who put it out, that basically said this. Do you honestly believe that these people who couldn’t even speak our language came from this country? which is incredibly uneducated, right? And poverty stricken. And they came here and overnight became such incredible geniuses that they mastered our systems and were able to scam us with no help. And that there were no Democrat politicians helping them do this. Does anybody honestly think they were doing this on their own?
SPEAKER 11 :
I don’t. Not for a minute.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, not for a minute. I mean, it’s ludicrous. And by the way, though, the reason there were no kids there at the school is because they were on a field trip for the whole year.
SPEAKER 11 :
Oh, so that’s what the one.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, that’s my theory. OK, I’m just it’s my theory. Look, I just don’t I don’t understand. Here’s what I want to ask you before we go to break. This is not just people of that community doing it. It is all Democrats. Okay, this is entirely Democrats. Democrats have stolen several billions of dollars from their fellow citizens in Minnesota. Democrats looked the other way when whistleblowers came to them. Democrats swept this under the rug. Democrat judges are trying to let people off. Easy for doing this kind of stuff. This is all Democrats robbing Minnesotans. Here’s my question, Joe. Are they going to pay the price this November? Or is Minnesota going to, are these idiots who, and I’m going to call them idiots, are these idiots who voted these people into office going to do it again next November because, oh, gee, they don’t like Trump and his mean tweets? Because I don’t want to hear it. You know, you can like, look, I didn’t like what Trump said about Rob Reiner. Trump did not rob you of $9 billion. Trump does not scam anybody. Trump has crime going down in every way. Trump is about to unleash an economic boom nationwide in 26. Trump is doing incredible things for you. Are you going to tell me that you hate him so much that you’re going to reward the party that just robbed you blind to the tune of $9 billion, Minnesota? Are they actually going to reward them again this November, or are we finally going to change a couple house seats in Minnesota and maybe the governorship? Joe, what do you think?
SPEAKER 11 :
I think, well, a couple, but unfortunately, I think like some house seats like Minneapolis.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, not the deep blues. No, I’m talking about the swing ones, the swing districts.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yes, I think you’re right. I think there’ll be a pickup in Minnesota. I think there’ll be a pickup of a couple of seats in Minnesota because I can’t believe the hardworking farmer’s You know, the people that operate the feed stores, the tractor supply house, you know, the people that run the local restaurants.
SPEAKER 07 :
What about all the suburban women who are swing voters who voted, who have been voting Democrat because they hate Trump? Are they still going to do it after this?
SPEAKER 11 :
No, I don’t think so. And particularly, and I’m glad this guy Nick Shirley is getting, you know, 30 million views is a lot of views, Andy.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, he’s getting rich. Good for him.
SPEAKER 11 :
He’s getting rich. But I’m hoping that, you know, the stuff he’s posting is going viral. And I hope enough people in Minnesota, you know, hopefully people in Minnesota, somebody sees it and they share it with their neighbors and maybe put it up on their Facebook page. So I’m hoping that enough of this gets spread around in Minnesota that the people outside of downtown Minneapolis know. Say, you know, as much as I hate Trump, this has to stop.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I hope so, because let me tell you something, Joe. I’m angry. I’m angry. I’m angry at the voters here in Colorado for what we’ve put in office. It’s terrible. But what they have done in Minnesota when they knew they knew they didn’t know it was this bad. OK, now they know how bad it is, but they knew it was bad. And by the way, they knew that the Democrats burned down Minneapolis the second anytime they didn’t get a court trial they liked. A verdict they liked. They know these are bad people and they still support them. I’m mad. Can’t take it anymore. Okay, let’s take one more break. Ridgeline, auto brokers, most dealerships, they want max profit for the big score. That’s what they want. Because they think you’re only going to buy one car there. But Ridgeline hopes to sell you several cars. So they want you thrilled with your deal. For more value and less hard sell, find Ridgeline at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 05 :
It’s time to leave your safe space. This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 07 :
And welcome back to Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Andy Pate filling in for John Rush along with Jersey Joe. Hey folks, really quick here. I just want to remind you that tomorrow is our end of year show. It is the New Year’s Day show and I am going to be doing my best best and worst lists for movies for all of 2025. I can’t wait. I’m all psyched. And I am going to warn you of all the movies you don’t want to rent going into 26. And I’m going to tell you all the ones you do. Joe, you got five minutes. Go. All right.
SPEAKER 11 :
I’m going to play a clip. This is a great, this is scientific, but I’m going to tie this at the end of this clip. I’m going to tie this back to the absurdity of some U S environmental regulations. This starts out a Bush pilot up in Alaska had flown over these lakes. And he noticed that the lakes were always bubbling. And he finally sent an email into the state, how come these lakes are bubbling? What are the bubbles? So they got some scientists to go up, and this is what the scientists found. And then I’m going to tell you how this pertains to the absurdity of some of our U.S. environmental regulations. Here we go.
SPEAKER 15 :
If you fly low enough, even from the air, you can see the bubbling.
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s just mysterious. It looks like a jacuzzi.
SPEAKER 15 :
And so you get up to it and you can hear this… Like the water is boiling around you.
SPEAKER 10 :
On their first visit, the team wanted to investigate what’s causing the bubbles.
SPEAKER 15 :
We took gas samples and then those were sent to the lab for analysis and they found that it is a super high amount of methane.
SPEAKER 10 :
Methane leaks, known as seeps, have been found elsewhere in the Arctic. But they are usually much smaller. The team’s measurements reveal that Easy Lake is belching out over 10 tons of methane every day.
SPEAKER 11 :
10 tons of methane gas every day, 365 days of the year.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, and how does that compare to the gases that they’re trying to keep us from putting out with cars and stuff?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, that’s my point. First of all, methane, for those that don’t know, is natural gas. That’s what you burn in your stove. Right. And that’s what your water heater uses if you have a gas water heater. And by the way, when you burn methane, you get CO2. Now, methane… is 28 times more potent than CO2 in terms of its heat trapping, in terms of being a greenhouse gas. So that’s why it used to be if you had an – so when you drill for oil, there’s always some methane commingled with the oil. It’s in the same spot in the ground. Have you ever driven by an oil well or an oil refinery and seen a tower with some flame coming off the top of a tower? Yeah. It’s called flare gas. So that’s kind of the waste methane – there’s not enough of it to go through, you know, capturing and compressing and cleaning. So they flare it off. And when you flare it off, you convert the very potent methane into far less potent CO2, which is, so by the way, so your car doesn’t exhaust methane, it exhausts CO2, which is, again, methane is 28 times more potent. So my point is, and by the way, and the Biden administration says, nope, you can’t flare methane anymore. You got to capture it and you got to spend tens of millions of dollars, to capture this waste methane and clean it up and compress it and bottle it. And, of course, that raises the price of natural gas. It raises the price of oil because it’s a cost associated with drilling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Are they going to force them to only have hybrid lakes?
SPEAKER 11 :
But that’s my point. So, you know, my father used to have an expression in terms of when you’re trying to control something, the amount of environmental potential, even if you believe that CO2 is – the amount of potential climate change you can attribute to CO2 as a result of burning methane in flares is the equivalent of a fart in a gale of wind compared to this lake that is belching, not CO2, it’s belching pure 10 tons per day of pure methane, which is 28 times as potent as the CO2 that you get when you burn off flare gas. Incredible. So, and by the way, You ever see these videos on YouTube where people punch holes in the ice and then take a road flare?
SPEAKER 07 :
You got 30 seconds. Go.
SPEAKER 11 :
Anyway, every lake in America that has vegetation on the bottom has that vegetation rot. It converts to methane. Right. That’s why you go on YouTube and you’ll see people punching a hole in the ice and then lighting the gas that’s coming up out of the hole. Every lake in America produces methane.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and yet we freak out about people’s cars. It just blows my mind. Jersey Joe, thank you so much. Are you going to have a happy New Year, sir?
SPEAKER 11 :
I’m going to have a fantastic New Year. How about you, Andy?
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m going to do the same. Thank you so much, sir. Okay, thanks, Jersey Joe, for joining us once again. It was wonderful. Folks, that’s it for today. Our number one replay is next, and I’m going to be back tomorrow with Ashley for my best and worst movies and actors for 2025. It’s going to be fun. Until then, drive safe, God bless, and thanks for joining us at Rush to Reason, KLZ 560.
