Guest host Johnny J steps behind the mic and tells the gripping, unfiltered story of how Big Pharma cost him his vision, how racism shaped his youth, and how he found purpose through faith, resilience, and radio.
SPEAKER 18 :
KLZ AM and FM, AM 560, FM 100.7, KLZ AM HD Denver. This is KLZ Denver, a Crawford Broadcasting Station.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh yeah! Yeah! What's up? What's up, what's up? You tuned in to 560 KLZ. KLZ? I'm a uniter. I'm a uniter. I'm your host, Reggie Rocco. Yeah! Yeah! KLZ! Yeah! Yeah! So right about now, we want everybody, I mean everybody, stand up. Stand up. Hold your hands up high. Lock arms. This is about America, baby. Yeah. We bringing people together. I'm a Uniter.
SPEAKER 06 :
to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty.
SPEAKER 14 :
Welcome to the Reggie Rocco show. I'm part of the United team. I'd like to thank the producer Luke there and all the family here at KLZ. My voice may sound kind of familiar. I tend to call almost every week if I have time. And if I'm not calling in, I'm pretty much listening. My name is Johnny Johnson. I'm better known in my DJ life as Johnny J and do a podcast three times a week just on my own network there. But Reggie, it was kind of interesting. I was thinking about, because my wife has gone out of town. She went to another country to... Visit her family. Now, she can't go into Moscow because just crazy stuff are going on there. And so you don't want to get caught there and not able to leave, right? Especially if you have an American passport. And sometimes they look down on you if you have another passport. Or if you bring in American dollars, they say, well... Our rubles are more important than your dollars. But anyway, you know, that's the ego thing on Russia's side. And we have a little bit of ego thing here. So she left out of town. And I said, you know, since she's out of town, I might just ask Reggie to co-host for him. But he called me up yesterday and said, hey, I have some business to do. I'm going to be out of town. I'm going to be doing stuff and I can't make it for my show. Would you like to do it? So I said, sure, why not? Because unbeknownst to you guys, I've been doing radio ever since I was six, no, 17 years old. There was a program here in Denver called Career Education Center, and they had just built a radio station, and they hired two guys, Tim Schumacher and Larry Boyd, to teach the class. And so everybody was getting their position. We had this one guy, he dressed very well for a high school student. I mean, suits, tie, he would come dressed like that. And so he was going to do fashion. We had this one girl, she's blonde-haired, green-eyed, and she did the music report. And she was into, like, really, like, far out Frank Zappa and stuff like that, right? And then we had these two other girls that they were into just, you know, teenage girl stuff. And then we had this other girl that my friend, I met him. He's been my long-term friend, my friend Peter, who works on our website. Peter, he... He was from a preacher's family, so he did his thing, but he was in love with this girl named Becky. But he was so shy. He says, Johnny, how do I approach this? It was so funny because I'm thinking like, you know, it's not very much. He's there in the class. You see her every day, you know, just maneuver that stuff. Anyway, so then they say, what can you do, Johnny? So I was talking to the teacher, and he says, Johnny, you're good at interviewing. So I said, okay. Then he says, well, then your job is going to be the host of this show. And it was called Youth Think Magazine. And it was on the radio station, The Peak. It was like they're now top 40 kind of stuff now. And so they would show, they would play our program, I think, once a month at 630 in the morning. Wow. And that's the time that they put in the public affair programs and all that kind of stuff. So that was my start. Then I moved from there to a place where they babysit people that have mental disabilities. And I was a DJ there. And it was so funny. So I was in this box with the glass window and people could push the button and request songs. And some of the people, they wanted to come in and look at the records that I had. And the ones that I sort of like feared the most were the quiet ones. Not the ones that were dancing around and outside and talked a lot. But those quiet ones, you never know what they're doing. And so this girl is a little black chick. She came in and she wanted to look through the records and stuff like that. And I said, oh, man, you know, and at the time I could see a little bit. Now we talk more about that, my visual thing in a minute. And I kept on looking back, looking behind me and, you know, looking for records to put on because back then we had records and stuff like that. And and what got a lot of people up dancing was when I put on like Rolling Stones, you know. And so so I worked at a mental babysitting institution with adults that have mental challenges. Then I got my first job at KCFR Radio and my job there was to. Oh, by the way, if you want to give us a call, our number is 303-477-7000. That's 303-477-5600. So I went to KCFR and there this gentleman named John Hendelman. He says, OK, we're going to teach you how to edit as a blind person. So he thought about it and he taught me how to grab the tape. This is back when you had real, real tapes. You grab the tape here and then you you put it in the slot, cut it. Then you grab the other tape here, put in the thing, cut it. All right. And but he sent me out to do news stories. And here I'm visually impaired. You know, I'm coming. I don't know if I was using my cane at the time because I. You know, I was sort of like in denial. I had bad vision, but I didn't want anyone else to know it. So I would wear sunglasses or whatever. So I was in blind or legally blind denial. I've fallen off a lot of cliffs and a lot of stepped in a lot of like water places where the water came up to your, especially out in Washington Park, they had this little water draining thing. And because I wouldn't carry a cane because I didn't want really people to know I was blind, you know, it's like blind or visually impaired denial. So anyway, so he taught me how to do this. And so I would go out and interview people. And we had a news team in the morning and this lady would would do the news. And then I would do my my intros and outros. And then you have to type in what the intro so she can read it and she'll know like what you're going to say. And then you have to type in your outros. And and so so we did that. And. And John, back in those days, they had these big giant dictionaries because I could, my vision was so bad I had to see big print. And sometimes when I was writing up my intro and outro, Johnny would say, Johnny, you didn't spell this right. So you go back to your dictionary and retype this over and spell this right. And it was no, with my phone I could say, iPhone, spell this. But back in the day, I would carry around this big, and I think I left it at the station, because that's the only time I really used it. So I would carry around this big dictionary, so if I needed to spell a word, I would flip through the pages, find it and then i would my nose would be against the paper because my vision was so bad find it and then i would type type by uh phil mostly and type up the intros and outros and then put that piece of paper in there and then you know she would she would do her newscast and says now we have a special report from johnny uh johnny johnson Back then it was classical during the day and then they had the local news and NPR and all that kind of stuff. And then, so I did all these interviews. And, you know, at the time, I was like 20, 21. I was so naive. I didn't know that you were supposed to keep your stuff for an air check. So then KGNU said, hey, we'd like to have you up here. So I go up the boulder. And the guy at the time, his name was Steve. He says, hey, did you have any of those tapes that you used down in Denver? I said, oh, no, I just erased them. You are not supposed to do that. So it happened. So then I just went on to I worked at mostly non-commercial radio stations. I interned at a few commercial stations, but I just didn't like the vibe at some of these stations. It was KHOW, KOA. I think those are the... I interned at those stations. And I'll give you a little story about that. So the program director was this lady. And I was the intern there. And... And so I needed to use the studio to do a voiceover. And so I just, I saw her there and I opened the door. I said, you know, how long are you going to be? She said, oh, and then I left and I didn't think nothing about it. But then I asked, I told my producer, I'll be in a little bit. I just, I just asked the program director, like when she, when she would be done with her stuff. And he, and he puts his hand on his head and says, oh man, no, no, you shouldn't have did that. I'm thinking like, What did I do? I just asked her how long she's going to be. He says, no, you're supposed to ask me. Then I asked her. And I'm thinking like, what? She's right there. But I guess it was a pecking order. And if you're an intern, the pecking order is that you keep your head down, you do your job, and you ask someone else to ask the other person to do whatever. And so I eventually got let go. I didn't get hired to work at KW, KOA, or any of those kinds of things. And then I went to intern at KDKO Radio with Dr. Daddio. And it was so cool. And some of the interns there had an attitude because, you know, you want to be on the air, but there's other stuff that goes on at a radio station that makes a radio station run. And so some of these other DJs, they said, well, I want to, you know, I'm going to be the top dog at the station and DJing. And put me on overnight, or even better, put me on doing the mystery, man, which was Dr. Daddy-O's son. Put me on doing his time, you know. I could do a better job, but, you know, you're an intern, so you have to pay your dues, right? And I remember... Dr. Dario would have these blues contests and he brought in James Brown. And he was saying like, you know, and I had my, I always had my tape recorders just so I can record whatever they were teaching, whatever, so I can take it home and study, whatever. And it was after James Brown had did his show and we were back at the station and here walks in James Brown. I realize I'm like five, five, eight, five, nine. I didn't realize James Brown was that short of a guy. Right. And I said, I said, Mr. Brown, could you please do an intro for my radio show? And I turned it on. He did the intro. Boom. And I've been using that intro till the very end. And this was like 1997. But James Brown was such a nice guy and just met a lot of people. Michael Daddio was the first one to bring the Jackson 5 to Colorado. It was my sister. My little brother and I, we would go to concerts every weekend. So we saw the Isie brothers. We saw the Jacksons before they became the Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 and all that kind of stuff. We saw Rick James. uh i saw prince in i think was 1979 the tickets were only tickets were only ten dollars and because they didn't like barry fay and barry fay was the one bringing in these these events they wouldn't give him a license for liquor but i i've never been a drinker uh I hear that we're going into a commercial. Don't forget to give us a call at 303-477-5600. This is United Show. Reggie Rocco, Johnny Johnson sitting in as co-host. KLZ 560 AM, your home station.
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with KLZ Radio and I've got Al Smith from Golden Eagle Financial here in the studio with me. Al and I were just talking about how in retirement he helps his clients to stretch the time in their retirement. Al, what do you mean by that? Tell us a little bit more about how time works in retirement.
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Well, when you think about leaving the working world, you think about, well, it's still going to take money to live on once I'm retired. And that nest egg, whatever that is, that's going to permit you to do what you want to do with the time that you have sort of earned for yourself. So the nest egg is not only in dollars, but it's also in the time that you have to do the things that you believe will be fulfilling in retirement. And when I have a conversation with people, I think it's equally important to think about how they're going to be spending their time as it is to accumulate a nest egg.
SPEAKER 09 :
You've got to have some pretty good examples of things that people do in retirement. So open the door for us. What sort of things can we expect?
SPEAKER 19 :
Well, sure. I have one gentleman who is very much into aviation. He owns his own small plane. He actually works on that small plane. He's within a few years of retirement. He's retirement age. But right now, while he's working, he takes his small aircraft, flies to locations where he investigates air disasters. I also have some people who spend a lot of time with their grandkids, some of whom live nearby and some are a little farther away. I have some who are incredibly involved with their churches and go on missionary trips and so forth.
SPEAKER 09 :
How do people get in touch with you if they want to stretch that time out in their retirement?
SPEAKER 19 :
They can reach me at 303-744-1128. And if they're driving when they hear this, you can contact KLZ and they'll put them in touch with me.
SPEAKER 09 :
Of course, as always, you can find Golden Eagle Financial on klzradio.com slash advertisers and get right in touch with Al if you're driving and can't write that number down. Al, thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER 19 :
You're welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Freedom versus force, force versus freedom. Ultimately, these are the questions that we should ask when looking at policy decisions facing our communities, our state, and our country today. Kim Munson here. Join me every weekday morning, 6 to 7 a.m., as we look at important issues and how they affect you and your life. Encore broadcasts air from 10 to 11 p.m. every weeknight. Tune in to the conversation with The Kim Munson Show right here on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 14 :
Hey, we're back here at KLZ Radio with the Reggie Rocco Show. The phone number here is 303-477-5600. I send out topics to people that listen to me. We can do political stuff. I'm very familiar with that stuff. I just thought I would lighten it up today and do a variety of things. But we do have someone... A very special, I mean, it's not James Brown. You know, James Brown is long gone. But this is somebody who's here and will be around for a long time. Wait, do we have him on the line there? Oh, we have the United himself. Hey, Reggie.
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Hey, what's up? How you doing?
SPEAKER 14 :
I'm doing great.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, I want to tell you guys a couple things. I appreciate, Johnny, you coming in there. I like hearing your voice, man. You're doing a good job. You do a lot of things, man, spectacular things to be visually impaired or blind, whatever you go by. That's just incredible, man. I don't know how you do it. But you want to understand something because I won't be on the phone too long. Okay. I had a conversation with a volunteer. from somewhere here in Colorado. I think he lives up north. But he was a volunteer for Texas Slugs. Hmm. And so I guess he's heading out down there. I guess it's really, really like super bad. And the other news outlets is not really reporting like they're supposed to.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, like 27 feet of water. That is bad.
SPEAKER 08 :
And so what I'm going to do is I'm getting ready to meet with him right now. So I'm going to hang up, and I'm going to call you guys back and let you know what's going on. But I guess it's supposed to be so bad that they're getting volunteers from everywhere. So I'll keep you guys updated. But, yeah, yeah. This is Reggie Rocco. I'm your nighter show. I'll get back with you.
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All right.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right. I'm out.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah. Yeah. I have a lot of family down in that part of Texas. But I've been in that in that part. And they have like I went to visit this boat they had down there. And then they have a statue of this famous singer. And right now the name slips my mind. Yeah. Selena. Selena. Um, cause she was from corporate Christie, uh, Texas. So, um, so yeah, I, I been down in that area and, and when we were kids, we used to always go down there every summer and it was, it was like one of those hot summers where you took a shower and you're drying yourself off and you're, and you can never get like really dry, uh, because of how hot. And we would always go down in August for some crazy reason. And my mother, she bought a camper. So at first we were driving like, because my sister had a Volkswagen, so she would follow the camper. And so we did that until I got tired of going down to Texas. Let me tell you that story. Now this is back in the 1970s. And remember, I know the history of the Democrats. So there, a lot of the Democratic politicians and some of the Democratic people were very racist. And in Denver, as you know, when you go to a restaurant as a black and brown person, you don't really have to think about like, if there's nobody there that looks like you, don't go in that place. But when I was in Texas, My cousin said, especially to Vernon, because she had her voice wagon, and we just thought, you know, go, you see a Burger King, go in a Burger King, get a, you know, okay, whatever. You go to a hamburger, but down there they said, if you don't see anybody that looks like you, meaning your skin color, don't go in. And I'm thinking like, what? What are you talking about? Because I had only been in the world for like, what, 16, 14 years, whatever. And I said, I said, get out. And I mean, I've seen some kind of weird stuff going on at the school and stuff like that. Because like Reggie, I went to like, I think it was like, it was 5% like black people in the school. And I think I was one of the five people. And so it was kind of I saw that, but it just never really hit me until I went down there and they had to give you rules about when you go out. So we had this racist Democrat said, oh, it's because and they try to put their racism on Republicans. But no Republican has ever owned a slave. Now, today we have a new type of slavery called illegals. And the illegal slavery is where you get these illegals and you can pay them whatever you want to pay them. And if they don't like it, get out of here because I'm putting myself online, the business owners are saying, to hire you. so this is what i'm paying i could pay someone else 10 times 20 times more but i'm gonna give you a chance and it's it's the modern day slavery of today right and it's mostly uh back in the south it was started by the democrats because they're the oldest party then we had the uyghurs then we had the republicans who had to fight the democrats to stop this thing called slavery. And it wasn't the Republicans that wanted to continue slavery. And there were some good Democrats because they had the underground train thing. So there were some Democrats that pushed back on that because you can't say like all Democrats are racist. So there were some that were within that group. They tried to push back and they tried to help the blacks get from this place to that place during those slavery times. But it was mostly on them. And this is the way I think. So you have these white guy Democrats who We didn't get mulatto-colored skin people because they would try to tell people, well, the blacks are going to abuse our white women and so we'll castrate them and do all that kind of stuff. No, it was the white master, who was a Democrat, most likely, The wife would say, no, I'm not filling it tonight. So you're not going to get none tonight. So he says, well, I just got a wench back there that I own and I could do whatever I want. And so that's what he did. And then these colleges, black colleges, they weren't started because the white guys had such a benevolent kind of thing. These Democrat white guys had such a benevolent thing. They couldn't put their mulatto kids in the same school as their white kids. So they said, let's develop a school for the mulatto kids and we'll call it the Negro College. It's a terrible thing to waste the minds of a bunch of crap. So, oh, we have a caller. 303-477-5600. As I explained some stuff that was going on in the 70s with the racist Democrats down there. We have a caller named Alan on the line. Alan, are you there? Yes, sir. How are you doing? Oh, wait, it's not the Allen I thought. This is another Allen. It is. It is. Nope, it's the same guy. Oh, well, you must have stayed up all night.
SPEAKER 05 :
I have. I've been doing a lot of work. How's the day going, sir?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, you sound totally different. I said, this is not the Allen I know.
SPEAKER 05 :
This is the stayed up all night Allen. So you're talking about the United Negro College Fund. You're talking about some other stuff. Where are we going?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, you know, I feel like we're going directions of people that call in. And, you know, it's kind of funny. I had my notes. I sent them to myself. Didn't come in. And then I said, well, you know, I'm going to talk about – I'm just going to wing it because I have enough stories after being around so many years. And so I wanted to – So if you guys were interested in the radio stuff, you can go to our podcast. Our website is intervisionrecords.org, intervisionrecords.org, and you can find out more about my nonprofit and so forth like that. And if you want to come on our podcast and continue the conversations I was having earlier, we can do that. But I wanted to talk about Big Pharma and how they can legally – injure your child, and then they put it in law that you can't sue them. And before I start off the story, I want to first tell my story, and then I'm going to ask you this question, Alan. Are you ready?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, sir.
SPEAKER 14 :
Okay. How much would you charge someone? No, no, no. How much would you pay someone if they said to you, Alan, at midnight, I want you to walk through this dark alley and I'm going to come out with a sharp blade. I'm going to cut you. And you may bleed out. You may not. And I'm going to leave you there pretty much to die, whatever. How much would you pay someone to do that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I wouldn't pay anybody anything, but I will tell you this. The packaging and marketing around exactly what you're trying to say is this. The pharmaceutical companies often, here in America especially, will tell you what you need, and they'll tell you to ask your doctor about it. They'll tell you that certainly there might be some side effects. Some of those side effects may indeed include death. The unfortunate thing with all of these disclaimers, all these commercials that go out every single day during whatever event, is that the pharmaceutical companies get richer. And they don't have to be accountable. But that changed when Maha entered the scene. So we'll have to see what happens.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah. Now let me finish the story. But you will pay a doctor... who says he'll wear a white jacket and he'll say, I'm going to cut on you, but I'll give you something for the pain. And if you should start to bleed out, I'll get people to volunteer, people that you don't even know, I'll get them to volunteer to give you blood. And we say, well, where can I sign up? And we'll have insurance companies to say, oh, I want to let this guy practice on me. I mean, he's caught up quite a few people. And do you know, I found that there was a black guy in this day in history I was finding. There was a black guy in 18... What's that thing? 1893 that did the first open heart surgery. I said, get out of here. I knew it was a black guy that invented like the blood transfusions in the, I think the late, the early thirties. But before then they probably lost a few people because you're cutting, you're splitting this person open and you know, there's going to be some blood loss and stuff like that. And you're doing a open heart and it's like, you know, little stuff in history like that. But let me tell you this other story. So when we went to the hospital, when I was six years old, this is how my blindness all started. I was perfectly 20-20 vision and all that kind of stuff. And when I would go to school, I would think like, man, life is going to be a piece of cake, man. You know, if I saw a picture, I could draw a picture. And my favorite clown on TV was this clown, blinking clown. And I would draw him perfectly. And I was teaching myself how to write. And life was just easy with this 20-20 vision. And then one night, I was playing around with my eyes, and I went to sleep, and next thing I know, I woke up in a hospital. So then they did a spinal tap, and they gave me these pills, phenobarbital, and they said, oh, take these, and this will stop the seizure from ever happening again. But obviously, they didn't check to see what side effects might happen through the spinal tap. Twelve days later, I woke up, and my mother's getting dressed, And she said, we're going back to the hospital. I didn't know. I just went in, got my chairs and whatever. But I didn't know that the medicine had burnt me from the inside out. I was kind of like bleeding, so there was blood on the bed and stuff like that. But I didn't feel any pain. And all the curtains were closed in the house, and I was watching TV, and I didn't notice that the TV looked a little bit further away than what it usually looks. And then when we went outside, the light hit me, and she says, what's wrong, Johnny? Because she saw me walking around the house like nothing. But it was like it had caused my corner inside my... Eyelids, the mucous membrane is scraped and my eyelids were scraping against my corneal and was scraping off step by step the surface of my corneal. And so, of course, we sued. And when we went to court, they said, well, they signed the papers.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 14 :
So this is like back in the 60s when you could get away with it. You signed the papers. So we went to another hospital, and I spent five months being tortured because when your eyes are extremely dry, they have to take spoons, they have to hold you down, and they have to go inside your eyelids with a spoon to unstick your eyeballs from your... Eyelids.
SPEAKER 05 :
Sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
And so that's why I have the white coat syndrome. Now, when I go to the doctor, my blood pressure shoots up. But when I'm not there, it's like 20 over 24 over 78. But as soon as I get there and they say, wow, your blood pressure is right. They want to give me pills. And I said, no, this only happens when I see. And I said, no. Oh, we're going for another commercial. This is KLZ 560 on AM Dow. Reggie Rocco show with Johnny J sitting in for him.
SPEAKER 04 :
AM 560 KLZ, your home station.
SPEAKER 10 :
I'm Jonathan McKean. You're listening to Plugged In on KLZ AM 560.
SPEAKER 11 :
The world's changing, Clark. And the questions are getting louder.
SPEAKER 10 :
Superman returns to the big screen this weekend in the new PG-13 movie named, you guessed it, Superman. And once again, Metropolis needs its favorite superhero. But with archenemy Lex Luthor trying to smear his good name, and with Supes losing his first fight ever, is it possible that the Man of Steel is losing his luster? Superman can get silly at times, but its central character acts like Superman should. He stands for truth, justice, and most importantly, hope. Unfortunately, not everything in the film is quite so super. Most superhero movies are violent, but some scenes here are particularly wince-worthy. Language is harsher than you'd expect, too, and that forces this iteration of Superman to land with a 3 out of 5 for family friendliness. Read the full review at PluggedIn.com slash radio. I'm Jonathan McKee for Focus on the Family's PluggedIn Movie Review.
SPEAKER 04 :
We have such incredibly loyal listeners on KLZ. You faithfully patronize our advertising partners keeping us on the air. They are grateful and so are we. Thank you for listening. Thank you for calling and visiting our advertisers. Thank you for telling them you heard them on KLZ. We appreciate you.
SPEAKER 14 :
We're back here on the Reggie Rocco show. I'm in the Uniter show. This is Johnny J. sitting in for Reggie Rocco. You usually hear me as a caller calling into the show. But he offered the show to me. And like I said, my wife is out of town. And while the. The cat's away, the mouse will play. So here I am. So I was just giving the story, we're talking about Big Pharma, and I was leading up to, I'm telling about how my experience with the medical part of this stuff and how when you sign the paper, they can practically, you know, damage your baby, your child or whatever, because you signed the paper. And in the big case of a big pharma, you have no recourse. And we have Ellen on the line with us. And let me get through some of these more, some more of these little stories while I spent five months in the hospital. So they had to give me steroids to heal my skin. And of course, like every so often, they have to put this ointment in my eye. And oh, and then I had a, it was so fun. In grade school, it was a girl that I liked in grade school and I didn't know that she had eczema and she had it so bad that sometimes they had to take her to the hospital to get her skin right. And I used to like her and I used to, you know, in the first grade and stuff like that. And I would offer her my pencil and stuff like that. And so she was in the hospital. And so one day I was talking to her and I was totally blind at this point because my vision had got lost. My vision, where I could only see like white. I could see like colors and stuff like that, but it was only white colors because my cornea was so scarred up. And the nurse came in to put an ointment and uh so she was there the girl that i liked and she said this word that is just stuck in my mind she said uh and i'm thinking like what is she seeing that i don't know that she's seeing right and i guess you know with your eye it looks like one of those horror movies like those zombie movies i guess when the eyes are all white And so, man, that really just crushed me because here's a girl I really liked and it was something about me that, and then that's when I started wearing sunglasses because I realized that it's not to make me feel comfortable, it's to make you feel comfortable. right and so i learned i'm learning all these different lessons at the age of six years old and and and i didn't understand that this was devastating my parents because my parents you know my mother's sixth grade education my dad working for lorry air force he's a truck driver he got this great job because my mother helped him fill out the application to and helped him study for the test to get this government job. He was in the military, and so he went from being a janitor in Colorado Springs to driving for Laurier Air Force and making good money, and on one income was able to support the whole family. That was back in the day when one income could support the whole family. And here his youngest child at the time, they trusted the doctors and the doctors and my mother would always say, if they mess you up, they could fix you up. And I believed that for a long time until Well, we met this guy named, it was Dr. Fountain. And he said, hey, I think I can help you get some of your vision back. So what it is, is like they have to grab skin from the inside of your mouth, then implant that in your eyelids. So he said, we're going to try one of your eyes first. And so if it works, then we'll go for the other eye. dr funton i don't these names i is phenobarbital was the medication that led me down this journey and dr funton he gave me enough or this this operation it gave me 20 over over 30 um no i'm sorry it gave me 20 over 200 over 20 or 20 over 200 something like that but it was it was not that good of a vision but it was interesting um and so he did the operation and it's like i don't know if you ever been put under before I have. Yeah. Well, okay. So ladies and gentlemen, for you that have not, so you're sort of like just hanging out there and it's kind of cold. You put blankets around to make you warm. And then next thing you know, you're out. But when you're coming back, when the anesthesia is letting you back into the world, sometimes you can feel things. And you can see things, but you can't move because your body is in a paralyzed state. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to cut on you because you'd be moving around, swimming around. I don't know if you ever had a knife coming, seen a knife coming at you. even at the dentist office if you see that grill coming at you you know you get kind of nervous you're gonna you're gonna do what with me so i'm up here and and i can see him the white mask but it's all like looking like in black and white right and but i could i could see him uh and um he's finished up the operation he's he's now he's got these needles and he's sewing up my eyelids in out in and I could sort of feel it but I couldn't feel it but I couldn't say nothing about it And I've had many operations where I could feel it, but I couldn't say nothing about it because I was in this paralyzed state of surgery. So he did this operation. Fantastic guy. And then so the promise was that the next summer they would come back and do the same thing. But when you got good insurance and they can get paid for it, Well, yes, we know how to fix it. We know how to partially fix it. It'll never be perfect. But since we have you here, let's experiment. So every summer, I would go back and the doctor said, well, we're going to try this. We're going to try this. We're going to try this. And I kept asking, and my mother said, shh, there's no doctors. And I thought my mother, by this time, would know that something's going on here but because it was happening to me and somehow I had a better awareness of stuff I told my mother I said I want to know why aren't they doing what they did to my left eye to my right eye you know I just want to know you know right and so It got serious when this one guy, he said, and I got this new procedure, it's a corneal transplant. And it could give you like great vision and all that stuff. But I learned later from the doctor now that I've known for years, Dr. Damiano, that this guy was teaching himself how to do corneal transplants. So in the process of teaching yourself, and my Dr. Damiani always said, you never want to be the first 100. So the corneal transplants, they would cut out the iris, which is the part of your eye that's brown, blue, green, whatever. But the only thing you really needed to do was cut out the cornea, which is the clear part in the middle of your eye. But he was teaching himself. So he took out the whole iris, transplanted somebody else's whole iris in there. So if it rejects, you have to get rid of the whole eye. Absolutely. You know, that was part of the part that you didn't tell. And so they had these people there. And, of course, we were the only black family there. So my mother would get mad at them because they would be staring at them. She would say, what are you staring at? You know, because I guess in those days they didn't know, in Colorado, they didn't know many black people that had good insurances that could get the best for their kids. so that made my mother angry because she grew up in the south and weird stuff went on in the south which we probably won't have enough time in this show that because the story she told me about the south and these democrats and these people that hire a maid to come over to clean their house and and and the the wife leaves the house to go shopping and daddy's there and he said well i got this light this is a nice uh negros here and uh i know we hired her to clean out but maybe i can get some some something But she told us a lot of story. But anyway, that's that story. And illegals are going through that now. And the Democrats want to keep that going. But anyway, that's another story. But anyway, so this guy, he did it. And then we had to get these $20 bottle that the insurance didn't pay for, 20 bottles of poor liquid in my eyes to keep it moist, right? So my mother had to get these $20, $20, $20, $20, $20. And back in that day, the minimum wage was $2.10, but my dad was making more than that. So then, eventually, my eye blew up. I mean, if you want to see, on Star Trek, you've seen these guys with those big eyes. my eye blew up and then this water your eyes were large they were no the one eye the one eye that they were experimenting on it blew up water shot out of the eye i went to the doctor thinking i you know i was covering up because i don't want my eye just to fall out of my head because you know you know it was kind of scary to me so come back oh and then he used this word ah well we're probably gonna have to enucleate your eye. And to me, I didn't know about the word enucleate. I said, oh, okay, let's go enucleate the eye, right? I didn't know that he meant, huh?
SPEAKER 05 :
Remove. Yes. Why didn't they just say remove? Yeah. Enucleate is such a scary word.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yes. And so, you know, I'm going underneath the blade and then he takes it and then he comes back to check and then he looks in there and says, oh, fantastic. Good job. I said, I bet you did. You know, later I'm thinking. And then I got on these pain pills because I had a headache on the side of my head. I've never had a headache like this before. And I was starting to get addicted to these pain pills. And I was like 11, I think 12 years old at this time. And my dad, he'd already died a few months before or whatever. Or maybe he was still alive. That time is kind of blurry. So I was on these pain pills. And my favorite brother, I didn't know that I was becoming addicted to these pain pills. And my favorite brother warned, he says, Johnny, is something wrong with you? And then it hit me. I said, if my brother is asking me if something's wrong with me, something is wrong with me. And I said, these pills, because I'm popping them like they're candy, because I had this pain. And I said, okay, I'm going to tough it out. I'm 11, 12 years old. I'm going to tough this out, and I'm going to stop taking those pills. And I'm so glad that my brother, he noticed something was going on. And, you know, who knows, maybe people that are strung out, they twist or whatever. But because he had been out there and he was our only brother that ever went to jail and did crazy stuff out of my eight brothers because he just wanted to live the wildlife. He knew what a strung out person looked like. And he recognized that my little brother at the age of 11, 12, he's looking like some of those people I see in the streets that are strung out on drugs. And I got the best drugs from these doctors who are practicing. And so that's when I said, I'm going to step back from all doctors. And the only thing I'm interested in now is getting my eye fixed up to get a fake eye and all that kind of stuff. And then I met this other doctor that he convinced me. He says, Johnny, whatever we do, Dr. Damiani says, you will not lose your eye. And so I went on a journey with him and had 13 corneal transplants, which gave me 20 over 30 vision. And he's about the only doctor I trust. I trust him up to a point because he even gave me some medication to stop rejection that made me... see stuff that weren't there. And I once looked out the peephole in my parents' house and I saw a SWAT team pointing rifles at the house. They weren't there. And I was sitting at a bus stop and I was talking and seeing this big white bunny rabbit that wasn't there. I had to get off the stove. Hey, you're listening to the Resi Rocko Show. This is John and Jay. We'll be right back after these important messages. This is AM560 KLZ, your home station.
SPEAKER 01 :
We live on the shoulders of giants, ordinary American men and women who put themselves in harm's way so that you and I can live in freedom and sleep at night. Kim Munson with America's Veterans Stories here. It is my honor to bring their stories to you each Sunday. These interviews help you learn our history from those who lived it. These stories remind us why we stand when we hear the Star Spangled Banner. That's America's Veterans Stories Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. and 10 to 11 p.m. right here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7 FM.
SPEAKER 17 :
Your home, the safety zone, a place where you rest, invest, gather, grow, watch, and work. On KLZ, we seek to edify you at home with educational and entertaining programming. We handpick advertising partners to protect and improve your home. We serve as a second home where you can join a community of like-minded individuals. We are Crawford Media Group, and you're listening to KLZ 560, your home station.
SPEAKER 14 :
Welcome back to the Reggie Rocco Show. Johnny J sitting in hosting. And, you know, Reggie, he talks about his mom. And, you know, all of us, we have we have we should have moms, you know. And I want to dedicate this to my mom, Maddie Johnson, because she was my biggest fan. She watched all my TV shows and, you know, she gave me like advice and stuff like that. And she gave me some some very good advice. And it's really weird. Some people would say like, oh, you were cruel to Johnny because you made him do stuff. And ladies and gentlemen, if you have a disabled child, do not do everything for that child. Get him out there and let him do some stuff on his own because he already has a disability and you can cripple him or her even more if you do everything because you're not going to live forever. And even if you do live for a long time, like I have one friend, he's 52, and his mother, he's married and stuff like that, but his mother pretty much takes care of him and he's on his... lung machine that's keeping him alive, and if they cut out that machine, he would be gone.
SPEAKER 05 :
If you can foster accountability in any relationship, it's always good. And so therefore, I think what Johnny is trying to say is, if you've got parents that are overprotective, it can foster a mentality that results in sheltering the child. So, you know, just kind of be aware of that as a As a parent of a disabled child, let them explore. Let them find out for themselves how things work.
SPEAKER 14 :
Now, she did show to me some stuff that, you know, I didn't know the world was as weird as it was. And one time this guy invited me to church, and he was trying to integrate his church. And I understood what we were trying to do, but my mother said, this is a 23-year-old guy with a 17-year-old guy. Johnny, look out. But he wasn't that way. And we knew what we were trying to do. I had this white girl that was blind, and she wanted me to come to church, but I was the only black person who went. And I would have couples sitting in church, and this is in Lakewood, and they would pull their wives closer to them as if this wild African was going to jump on their wife. So this brother said, we need to integrate this church, and will you help me do this? So I understood what he was doing, and it was just kind of weird seeing that kind of reaction because I had never, raped anybody or committed any crimes, but I guess the news media at the time and the Democrat propaganda had it going on. So people had stories about me that I didn't even know that I even did based on the color of my skin. And now we're getting away from that because when Martin Luther King said, well, he wants his kids to be judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Now the Democrats, they're trying to erase that part of the history.
SPEAKER 05 :
Here's something that's interesting, Johnny. I'm glad that you brought all this up because this ties directly to the blind and low vision community. The blind and low vision community have a 70 to 90% unemployment rate in our demographic. And so it's crippling, it's crushing. It never leaves while everybody else is enjoying freedom of finances. We are stuck at the bottom on a fixed income. That means we're always broke. So, you know, I started looking into this. What is the deal? Why can we put people on the moon? Why can we send probes to Mars and all this stuff? And we can't get 3 million of our brothers and sisters in the United States employed. No real easy answer, but I did start a... A COUPLE OF THINGS THAT MIGHT BE A SOLUTION, AND THESE ARE DISTRIBUTED ACCOUNTABILITY NETWORKS. THESE WOULD BE STARTED AT THE LOCAL LEVEL. ALL THIS STUFF IS STILL CONCEPTUAL, BUT STARTED TO REALIZE, MAN, IF WE DON'T DO SOMETHING we will indeed end up on a fixed income for everybody on the planet.
SPEAKER 14 :
And with five minutes to go, you can go on our podcast. Just go to innervisionrecords.org. That's right. Innervisionrecords.org. We work with physically challenged musical artists, teaching them the business of music. We also do podcasting classes, and we do a three-day-a-week podcast from 4.30 to 5 o'clock Eastern. And you can go up there and shoot us an email. Intervision Records. And that's like the Stevie Wonder album. Intervision Records, plural, dot org. And you can find out more about this with a little less than four minutes to go. And I mentioned, like, all this stuff because it's a story that probably hasn't been told. And you can, you know, you probably can't give us a call, but you're here to be played tomorrow night at 9 o'clock on KLZ Radio and on the FM station as well. And I really want to thank Reggie Roscoe for giving me this time. And it's like, I was thinking about this, but in the cosmos... You know how in the cosmos it would bring things together? And he said, he called me the day before, and I was thinking about asking him, but I really wasn't. I was busy doing other stuff. And he called me and he said, hey, let's do this thing.
SPEAKER 05 :
Kronos time versus Kairos time. God's timing versus man's timing. Yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
And we want to pray for the people in Texas. But like I said, there's a lot of crazy stuff that goes on back in the 70s and maybe not so much today as it used to. But for the Democrats, it's the blame that it was an all-white community. And you don't know what's in the hearts of these people and whether they voted or not. And I know the children didn't vote. And for the Democrats to be so evil to say, oh, they deserved it or these – it's now – It's a format where people can just say the most stupidest things, racist things, and then they point the finger at you with three fingers pointing back at them. And it's just all... And I know the people probably listening to this show, they know that... These Democrats are liars. They're like the John Tintin. They come to steal, kill, and destroy, and they lie. And their father is the enemy. And this is not a physical thing. This is a spiritual thing. Ephesians chapter 6 says, It talks about we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. So I don't look at a color of somebody's skin because I can't see anybody's skin. I want to know you, and from talking to you, I get an insight into you, and then I get a gut feeling as well. And fortunately, I haven't been around enough people to say, man, that's pure evil. Now, I've been around a lot of hustlers because I was a club DJ once, We got two minutes to go. A lot of prostitutes, I mean, in the music business, as she would tell you, and I was a club DJ, and I met all kinds of people that I said, man, I used to watch people like you on these crime stories, but you really exist. I met ladies that were prostitutes that came from a good family, but they wanted to go on the wild side and say, well, you know. And I said, wow, my parents really sheltered us. Because we knew nothing about this. And the drug scene and all that stuff. And my one brother who went out there and wanted to get into the criminal lifestyle, he was the watch out guy. So he never really shot anybody. But he was walking with a friend and got a friend. A friend got shot right beside him. And that sort of woke him up a little bit. But he lived that lifestyle for a long time. But then he came out of it. So we had one minute to go.
SPEAKER 05 :
And it's going to be great.
SPEAKER 14 :
All right. And I want to let you guys know, innovationrecords.org is our website. I want to thank Reggie Rocco, thank all the staff here, Luke, Big Luke, holding the fart down as we were doing this show. And, hey, hope to hear from you guys again. Go to our website. And do we want to count down the show now? Okay. Three, two, one. We're out of here.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, y'all. It's that time. We out of here. But you've been listening to KLC 560 AM. I'm a united Reggie Rocko. Yeah, it's fun. We will tackle the issues. We will unite the country every week, every Friday morning from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. It's about love, y'all.
SPEAKER 12 :
Have a wonderful morning and a great day.
SPEAKER 13 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
SPEAKER 18 :
Coming up, Jay Sekulow live on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 15 :
John Rusher on the next Rush to Reason. It's Friday. Andy Pate is my co-host. And Andy has two movie reviews this week. Heads of State and Superman. And then movie rental hour will be Best Bad Guys. That's the next Rush to Reason. Weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m. Brought to you by one of our great sponsors, Cup Creek Eating and Air Conditioning. Find them at klzradio.com or download our free app, KLZ Radio.
SPEAKER 02 :
They say the best things in life are free. So, hey, why are we paying so much for our basic information and entertainment needs? The average cable TV bill has more than doubled in the last 10 years. The price of movie tickets keeps going up. So exactly what is free today anyway? Well, you're listening to it. Local radio. Support the advertisers that support this radio station. And keep listening. We won't send you a bill. There are still some things you just shouldn't have to pay for.
SPEAKER 16 :
I'm John Walsh. I'm Ed Smart. When a child is abducted, time is critical. That's why Amber Alert is so important. The public is notified when a child is abducted. It's a partnership between broadcasters, law enforcement, transportation, and you. Thanks for making Amber Alert happen.
Amid growing concerns over political scandals and their implications, this episode dives deep into the tactics and strategies shaping future elections and policies. Explore with John Rush and guest Jim Paff the intricate dance of accountability in the political arena, emphasizing the critical need to focus on substantial economic reforms. Discover how tax strategies and regulation cuts can drive business growth, supporting a robust economy despite the political turbulence.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is Rush to Reason. 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 first. You haven't made everybody equal. You've made them the same and there's a big difference.
SPEAKER 11 :
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 04 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 03 :
It's Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush, presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 16 :
And we are back, Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560, Hour 2. Jim Paff joining us now from Conservative Caucus. Jim, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you doing, John? Doing good, sir. Doing good. How is your week and how are things in D.C.?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you know, D.C. sucks. I just have to tell you that. I come in voluntarily. to try to hopefully do a little bit to save the world, but sometimes it doesn't feel like you can do a whole lot of that. Certainly though, it's even more interesting right now for MAGA Republicans as they're looking at the whole Epstein file thing in light of some of these other issues that are swirling about, which, frankly, are more important.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, and I don't want to spend a – I spent some time earlier in the week on the Epstein thing, had some customers, had some listeners, I should say. I guess they are my customers, but had some listeners that – called in that were, you know, extremely upset. And I try to be, you know, quote unquote, the voice of reason. I had some messages even coming in today along those same lines because we play the National Crawford Roundtable that we record on Wednesdays. And we had a conversation there about that. And where I'm coming into this, and I want to make sure I'm very crystal clear on this to everybody listening. Do I believe in the abuse of kids? And would I ever stand for that? And Jim, you know, my answer is going to be absolutely, positively no. Now, with all of that being said, i don't know all of the ins and outs and everything that went on i don't know who was where i don't know what happened i don't know who was with whom and i'm not one that's going to speculate jim i guess because of me sitting in this chair for as long as i have i have learned that i am not going to let my emotions get involved in certain things along those lines i will let the facts work their way out i know there's a lot of people upset because they felt like a lot of the facts would come out And I guess, Jim, I'm always one that it's like, OK, when they do, I'll address it then. But I am not going to lose an ounce of sleep over anything that hasn't made it out into the public yet. And nor am I going to be mad at anybody in the process because I'm not there and I don't know all of the inner workings. Do I feel like there's a big cover up going on? Here's what I'll say on that, Jim. Things always have their way of working out. If that, in fact, is going on, we will know. And I am not going to lose any sleep this week over it one way or the other.
SPEAKER 08 :
No, and listen, I think there are some very important things related to the whole Epstein drama. And certainly you want to know what's going on and deal with it because there are apparently people who did bad things and they may be in positions of authority. But I'll tell you what really bothers me the most and concerns me the most above that is what we've begun to see from the Radcliffe memo, which confirms with some declassified information The extent to which John Brennan and James Clapper and even Barack Obama were coordinating to take down Donald Trump's first presidency. And this is very concerning. There have been some people on Capitol Hill, Rick Crawford, who's over HIPC, the House Intelligence Committee. He he says that there was a bit of whitewashing on this memo. OK, fine. I don't want to get into that debate and go at it, Rick, because we want to find out any more than we need to find out. But what it reconfirms for those of us who knew without seeing it all is that there is a coordinated deep state, if you want to call it. of people who are doing things to undermine the will of the American people. Whenever you are undermining an elected president, you are undermining the will of the people. In some cases, that would be treasonous. In others, it would just be basically criminal in other ways. But it is immoral and and wrong for that sort of thing to happen, and that's what needs to be attacked. And I also appreciated Donald Trump staying focused on the things that he's working through, what's going on in Texas, what's happening internationally, some of the other things in the Cabinet meeting. I mean, that seems like a big put-off when he responded the way he did in the Cabinet meeting, but he also is just trying to stay focused on what really matters, and I appreciate that about him.
SPEAKER 16 :
And I want to be careful because I've had people accuse me of not thinking it matters when it comes to keeping people accountable, when it comes to young kids being abused and so on. And, Jim, you and I, and I know you well enough to know this as well, you, like me, if there's anything at all that somebody needs to be held accountable for in those regards, absolutely, I'm going to make sure that those things get done. Because, yeah, I am not for the abuse of kids or women, by the way, Jim. You know where I stand on both of those. The reality is— Those that are vulnerable, I don't stand for anybody abusing them any way, shape, or form. And I think it's insulting to me if somebody would say that I'm trying to brush off something or not bring something to light along those lines. That is not it at all. But, Jim, I also will say this. I'm not into group thinking. And I'm not going to go down a rabbit hole or go down a path just because a Tucker Carlson or anybody else along those lines is wanting to push an agenda and get more clicks and views and so on along those lines. I'm also not that individual. I'm going to look at every single thing, every single topic reasonably, and then come back at it depending upon what the outcome is accordingly, because that's what I'm supposed to do here in this chair.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, there's no doubt. And in fact, every one of us that is involved today, in what's happening in our public policy and politics in this country which by the way should be every listener at some level however small We need to take all that into account and deal with it. We need to go straight at it, get the best information we can, and then focus on what really matters, which is what happens in elections and how we hold these elected officials accountable afterwards. That's right. Because this is a government of we the people. It's not a government of the government. It's we the people. And we're the ones they are accountable to. That's right. Donald Trump all the way down.
SPEAKER 16 :
That's right. So talk to us about some things that did happen. And some people, again, there's criticism when it comes to even the big, beautiful bill. And, you know, more should have been done. And I've heard Elon Musk and others. And by the way, I'm on that same boat. I'm in that same camp. I wish we could do more as well. But I also understand in Washington that you don't always get what you want. I would love to have our deficit fixed. cut. I would love to have a balanced budget. I would love to not have to raise the debt ceiling at all. I would love to start chipping away at that to where it doesn't have to be raised because we're lowering it on an annual basis. But Jim, I also know that those are all pipe dreams of mine. That's not going to happen right now.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, let me say this about the big, beautiful bill. I mean, net-net, it sucked because there weren't enough cuts, okay? Correct. That's my point. That's what every one of us are looking at and saying we're frustrated with. That's right. Internally, there were some very good things that we can be very glad of, for example. As you know, I spent many years on Capitol Hill.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
I never saw a tax cut made permanent. When they redid the Bush tax cuts in the early years when I was working on Capitol Hill, they made those not permanent. And then Donald Trump got his tax cuts in 2017, and they didn't make them permanent. Well, this bill made them permanent. So any future Congress that wants to raise taxes literally on income literally has to go and pass a bill to do that very thing. But instead of this game that Washington plays, where they sunset these provisions and they know they're going to have a big Donnie broke and everybody's going to raise a lot of money because they're screaming and yelling about this or that thing on either side of it. And then they end up doing something that isn't good for the American people, but is really good for a lot of politicians. So they have their bank accounts full. I mean, that's essentially what they do. That's actually gone now. This expensing... First year expensing for small and large businesses for equipment and investment, that is huge. Absolutely, Jim. That is going to pay dividends over the next three or four years.
SPEAKER 16 :
That's right. That's really good, too. I talked about that a couple of days ago. I mean, yeah, for business owners like myself, those things are huge. For all of you listening that maybe don't quite understand, understand how that affects things and even affects the economy overall. When businesses understand this is what I'm now locked into tax-wise, and I know what I can look at over the next several years until they come along and change the tax code, which at this point is probably going to be quite some time, Jim, knowing what you just said a moment ago and how these things are now solidified, reality is they probably won't get changed for quite some time. When you've got the ability to do accelerated depreciation, which is what we're talking about right now, And businesses can look at that, especially towards the year end, and say, wait a minute, I've got some decent income this year, and I'd like to offset that. What can I buy to offset that income? That's exactly what they start thinking about. And when they do, and they do go and buy something, yes, their tax burden is lowered. But, Jim, they just drove the economy by the purchase that they made. Having that money just sit in the bank, and no offense, and or turn that into a tax bill doesn't help the American economy out at all.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and in fact, that is one of two major things that truly make an economy grow. Tax cuts truly do that. The Laffer curve, which says you get more revenue and more activity when you reduce taxes, that absolutely does exist. And so lower tax rates is always helpful to an economy. But the thing that makes an economy go big is two things. this investment that we just talked about, which builds productivity in businesses. And a building of productivity goes not only right to the bottom line, it goes right to efficiency in the economy overall. Second thing is this, though, and Donald Trump does this, Ronald Reagan did this, is great reductions in regulation, because that also frees up business.
SPEAKER 16 :
That's right. That's right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Donald, I'm convinced that both Ronald Reagan's economic success and Donald Trump's economic success were largely due to the massive reductions in regulation that each administration undertook. And the tax cuts were helpful in both cases as well, but it was the regulatory reform that really made the difference. He's on that track again. So this expensing thing is good for five years, so you're going to have massive investment in businesses over five years because everyone's going to scramble to do the very thing they've been dreaming of that they've been planning for because they don't have to wait 30 years to make the money back on it.
SPEAKER 16 :
That's exactly right.
SPEAKER 08 :
And that's going to really help the economy in the short term.
SPEAKER 16 :
That's exactly right. No, Jim, it's huge. And I don't think people are giving enough credit in some of these particular areas. Areas as they should be in and like you said earlier and again I'm not trying to minimize anything that happened on any of the Epstein things But I think I also you don't want to make sure they mention this people are talking about how you know We need to prosecute we need to this we need to do that. Okay, I know know enough, and I'm not an attorney, Jim, but I know enough to know that to prosecute crimes, you've got to have viable evidence of when that crime actually took place, where did it take place, who were the victims, who was the perpetrator, all these different things. So there is a lot that would have to be gone through to determine where did these crimes even happen, were they on American soil, were they not on American soil, and quite frankly, folks, those of you that are saying that they were, you I hate to say this, but you don't have the foggiest idea. You weren't there. You don't have any idea to know when or where these crimes were committed. And by the way, there's crimes committed daily on a regular basis anyways, Jim. But in this particular case, you'd have to have all of your ducks in a row as a prosecutor to make sure that you can actually prove those things. Otherwise, there's a lot of tax dollars spent for nothing. Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and I don't want to encourage people, just to build on what you just said, I don't want to encourage people to not be skeptical in any manner, just kind of let it go. It's important. I just saw a podcast of my friend Peter Schweitzer on their Drill Down podcast. He also mentioned the fact that JPMorgan Chase had turned over a lot of evidence right after Epstein died that he very well may have been trafficking people. and doing money laundering in his bank accounts. And I had forgotten about that, but Peter talked about it on his podcast. In fact, I texted him afterwards. He became a really good friend of mine thanks to when I used to sit in that chair back in 2006 because I interviewed him, and we turned into fast friends afterwards. But I'm going to have him on a podcast. soon to kind of flesh that out more. So it's not like we don't want to, we would just lay it over to the side and say, just trust Trump and don't worry about it. I mean, I think there's a lot of reason to trust Trump, but there's no reason to just say, hey, government, no big deal. You said it's fine, so okay. That's how we got in this mess to begin with. I agree. Thank you. And I agree with that.
SPEAKER 16 :
Recognize what's important. My biggest thing with all of this is, and I want to try to keep people focused, and you've brought it up today as well, is, hey, let's make sure that we don't forget about anything over here, but let's also not get so distracted over here that we forget about what needs to happen over there. That's my whole point with this, Jim, is I don't want one item, an Epstein situation, to drive everything whereby we become so distracted we lose sight of the other things that are just as important, if not more important.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and and that really gets into what is important right now. The Epstein file resolution is not going to keep Democrats from taking back Congress in 2026. That's right. What we are now just about to embark upon. As we get past the August recess and into the fall season is suddenly these congressional races are going to start shaping up. We're going to figure out who's running and we're going to have to focus on what we want to do about it in Colorado. The third district is going to be a big battleground. I think we're going to hold that seat for Republican. But but there's a primary developing there right now. So that puts it more at risk. And there and I'm not against it. I'm just saying that's what's happening.
SPEAKER 16 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 08 :
But that's a big effort that we have to be aware of because you don't want to lose that seat, which it will be on the radar for Democrats. But I look further and I'm thinking a little bit about this America Party thing, which I think is a big thing. big problem i mean i love elon musk don't get me wrong i have a great respect for him i have no negatives on him but this america party is just no matter how much money he puts into it it's not going to really be able to get done what needs to be done unless he's willing to commit half a billion dollars or more you know it's just it's not going to happen you've got to get ballot placement and you have to recruit candidates this is one thing nobody's talking about that's right candidates are going to recruit. You're going to have a lot of Republicans who might otherwise be good candidates who would never take a risk to do that. That's right. And so that's one thing. But here's what's more important as we think about this whole 2026 outlook coming up. We need Donald Trump to stay focused on what works and what wins. We need Republicans to to push for rescission packages to come over. Mike Johnson, he says he's doing two more reconciliation bills. And the reconciliation bill, like we just went through, addresses the non-discretionary spending, the stuff we've got to spend because someone qualifies for the program. They need to take another stab at going even further with reductions in a rescission bill. They need to do that for two reasons. First of all, for three reasons. First of all, Democrats have a base that's never going away, but it's not enough to win in 2026. But that base rises a little because voter turnout is lower in non-presidential years. So they get a little bit of a boost.
SPEAKER 16 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 08 :
But what really needs to happen is the MAGA base and the Trump base and people who are against Democrat politics, They we need to make sure that they don't become dispirited, which could allow Democrats to win a lot of seats or even just to be have a malaise about them. We need energy in that group of people. Here's why that matters. It's not going to matter everywhere. The Democrats have a challenge. They're really screwing up badly and they're not likely to get the get the American people to love what they're talking about. They're not going to change. But if you have a depressed turnout on the Republican conservative side of this, then suddenly opportunities we have in places like Orange County, California, where we have a few seats there that could be picked up. Suddenly, that's a place where it doesn't matter what the environment is. Democrats have great advantages for turnout. And then you lose those opportunities. Now you have to make the House does. Now you have to make up for those opportunities in other states. But if you have energy, suddenly Orange County becomes active again. Other places around the country where it's kind of on the edge, you know, you need that extra energy to make sure that those Republicans can get over the top. And I think that Elon Musk will be far better served to go try to recruit good primary candidates, put a lot of money in those, and change the makeup of this GOP, which is the weak part of the Trump agenda.
SPEAKER 16 :
Taking words out of my mouth from yesterday, so we are right on the same page on that one, Jim. Conservative Caucus, how do folks find you?
SPEAKER 08 :
Go to theconservativecaucus.com, and you can find out more about us, donate, sign up for email, whatever you'd like to do, find out more about what we're doing.
SPEAKER 16 :
Awesome. Jim, as always, I appreciate you, man. Keep up the good work. Thanks, John.
SPEAKER 08 :
You betcha.
SPEAKER 16 :
Take care. Have a great night. And that was Jim Paff. And again, Golden Eagle Financial. Al Smith did an interview here of late. Listen in. We'll be back right after that.
SPEAKER 07 :
This is TJ with KLZ Radio, and I've got Al Smith from Golden Eagle Financial here in the studio with me. Al and I were just talking about how in retirement he helps his clients to stretch the time in their retirement. Al, what do you mean by that? Tell us a little bit more about how time works in retirement.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, when you think about leaving the working world, you think about, well, it's still going to take money to live on once I'm retired. And that nest egg, whatever that is, that's going to permit you to do what you want to do with the time that you have sort of earned for yourself. So the nest egg is not only in dollars, but it's also in the time that you have to do the things that you believe will be fulfilling in retirement. And when I have a conversation with people, I think it's equally important to think about how they're going to be spending their time as it is to accumulate a nest egg.
SPEAKER 07 :
You've got to have some pretty good examples of things that people do in retirement. So open the door for us. What sort of things can we expect?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, sure. I have one gentleman who is very much into aviation. He owns his own small plane. He actually works on that small plane. He's within a few years of retirement. He's retirement age. But right now, while he's working, he takes his small aircraft, flies to locations where he investigates air disasters. I also have some people who spend a lot of time with their grandkids, some of whom live nearby and some are a little farther away. I have some who are incredibly involved with their churches and go on missionary trips and so forth.
SPEAKER 07 :
How do people get in touch with you if they want to stretch that time out in their retirement?
SPEAKER 12 :
They can reach me at 303-744-1128. And if they're driving when they hear this, you can contact KLZ and they'll put them in touch with me.
SPEAKER 07 :
Of course, as always, you can find Golden Eagle Financial on klzradio.com slash advertisers and get right in touch with Al if you're driving and can't write that number down. Al, thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER 12 :
You're welcome.
SPEAKER 14 :
putting reason into your afternoon drive. This is John Rush.
SPEAKER 16 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Got to take a break here in just a couple of minutes here, so we'll do that. But before that, I did want to just kind of touch on what Jim and I were talking about in regards to all of the Epstein stuff. I talked about it the other day. I guess I need to talk about it again. I talked about it on the podcast that played right before the show today. I got a couple of people, I guess, maybe a little bit riled up because some people feel like I'm brushing off All of what happened there, folks, that is not the case at all. I'm simply saying I won't get involved in groupthink. I never have. I never will. And I'm not going to get on some bandwagon just because an Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson or anybody along those lines says to. It's not me. It's not what I do. You guys know that by now. I will let the facts work their way out. Am I calling for Pam Bondi to be fired tomorrow? No, I am not. Let's see how things shake out. I don't know what's in those records. By the way, neither do any of you. I want to make sure I'm very crystal clear on that. Neither do any of you. So do I feel like people that were involved in that need to be held accountable? Absolutely, if possible. And when I say if possible, and I've said this before, I'll say it publicly. because this is really what i feel is there a list i've never thought there was one I've never thought there was one. Everybody's waiting for some grander list that shows every single person that ever went to the island, the time, the dates, what they did, and so on. If that's what you're hoping for, I'm sorry to say, I don't feel like it exists. I don't think it ever did. I don't know why somebody in his position would ever do that and have the trust factor that he had among all of the rich and powerful people that he had going to and from the island. If they knew for one second he was keeping those sorts of records, they would have never went. Folks, this isn't that hard to figure out. And a lot of you are going to say, well, there's got to be video. There's got to be this. There's got to be that. Once again, I highly doubt it. I highly doubt it. Now, do I believe Jeffrey Epstein might have had some videos himself of some things that he was doing and or things that he may have done personally? Sure. That does not surprise me at all. Do I believe there could be those sort of things that incriminated him? Absolutely. Absolutely. Do I believe he had tapes or there's other tapes on others? I have no idea. And I think you're speculating if you get outside of the box in that way and start thinking there's all sorts of other individuals that could potentially be incriminated through some sort of a list or through some sort of video. People aren't that dumb, is my point. They can be dumb, but you don't get to be rich and powerful by being that dumb. Because anybody that would have been going there and being involved in this would have known that this stuff could ruin me if this ever got out. They are not going to allow those sorts of things to be done. That's my opinion, my opinion only. But I just think that you're thinking too wildly if you think otherwise. And by the way, I think that's where some of the groupthink comes into play, because I think a lot of things get stirred up by certain talk show hosts and others, where, by the way, the more views they get, and I say this all the time, The more clicks, the more views, the more minutes they get watched, the more money they make at the end of the day. And if they can take any particular topic and run with it and make more money with it, they absolutely will. So all I'm saying in all of what's going on in that light is remember what I just said a moment ago. Be careful who you're watching, what you're buying into, the group think that might be happening even to you because it does happen. It happens to all of us if we're not careful. So be really careful on that. Keep a watchful eye and be reasonable about the things that you're expecting and what your expectations are. And I've said it all along. If you think for one second that what was going to come out of the Epstein files was going to be the smoking gun to help us win some elections down the road, I can tell you right now, think again. That's not how I've ever looked at that. Nor would I. And that's all I'm saying in regards to all of the Epstein stuff. And it's basically what I said on the podcast that we recorded yesterday morning that you all heard play earlier today and you'll hear it again. Well, I played last night, but you'll hear it again probably through the weekend. So bottom line, do I feel like people should be held accountable? If possible, yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. But I also will say what Jim said earlier as well. We've got a lot of other fish to fry and a lot of other things that we need to get taken care of. While this is important, it's not the only thing that's important. That's my only comment along those lines. I'll leave it at that. And if you guys want to be mad at me, be mad at me. But please, please, please do not insult me. by saying that I'm brushing off the fact that some young girls might have been hurt throughout this because, by the way, you guys all know me well enough to know that's not me. That's not me at all. I don't take kindly to anybody abusing women, number one, kids, number two, male or female. So please don't insult me by saying that it's something that I would brush off. I am not brushing anything off. I'm just looking at things realistically when it's all said and done. So I'll leave it at that. Mile High Coin is coming up next. What you need to make sure that you're doing is finding out exactly what you have in your position, what it's worth. You can get a free appraisal, by the way, by going to Mile High Coin, 720-370-3400.
SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
All right, Michael Bailey Law, he is our mobile estate planner. He's mobile. He'll come to you to get your estate in order. Find him today at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 13 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Don't forget, you can text us any questions that you've got, comments as well, which a lot of you do, even after the show is over, which I appreciate greatly. 307-200-8222, 307-200-8222. A lot of you will share articles and different things with me as well, which I also appreciate, videos and so on. And no, I cannot keep up with every single thing that comes out. So you guys adding information to me helps out immensely. Gregory Wrightstone joining us now. How's it going, Mr. Wrightstone?
SPEAKER 09 :
Really, really good. Outstanding, in fact. A lot of good things coming out of Washington, D.C., and how long has it been since we've been able to say that?
SPEAKER 16 :
It's been a while. It's been a while. And, of course, and we know we'll get into this, but there is, and yet we've got the left after the floods in Texas. Instead of really trying to console those folks that lost loved ones, we've got the left coming out and talking about how some of those people deserve to die in the first place. This is all just proof that there's global warming and climate change and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER 09 :
and man alive gregory they do not miss a beat when it comes to uh you know don't let a crisis go to waste oh man i tell you what if you just uh we just sent out our newsletter today see i'm executive director at the co2 coalition and we send out an informational newsletter once a week and my object for that newsletter is when you receive it i want you to say huh That's interesting. I didn't know that. And today's newsletter was concerning that. And I looked at it. Here are some quotes from the left-wing media. National propaganda radio. Floods are getting more dangerous around the country and not just in Texas. ProPublica. The Texas flash flood is a preview of the chaos to come. Inside climate news. Climate change helped fuel heavy rains that led to the devastating Texas flood. Well, as you know, we're scientists here at the CO2 Coalition. We were nearing the final process, actually, of a Texas and climate change report. So we had a lot of information right at my fingertips, and we were able to go and use, what's the science? What do the facts tell us about this? Are flash floods increasing? Are climate disasters happening more in Texas or in the United States or around the world? And so we looked at The first thing I did, we have in our report that we're about to release, we had a chart showing data from National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration of flash floods in Texas, the count. Going back to 1996, we've got what the almost 30 years of data to look at, and we're showing a decline in flash floods. If climate change and increasing CO2, which is the boogeyman where they're fighting and saying is driving this, we should see an increase. There's been a decrease and a significant decrease in the number of flash floods in Texas. And once again, they're lying. Your listeners are being lied to on a daily basis about climate change. There's no other way to put it. is that these people are lying to you and your listeners and the American citizens. They're also lying about, again, this Texas report. The reports that were published by the government claimed increasing heat waves, that we're going to be killing people and are killing people in Texas. that it was just horrible. And so we took a look at that. And we took a look again at the NOAA data going back to 1895. So we have pretty good data going back, looking at thermometer records. We actually see that the number, the percentage of days over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Texas has been in decline for the last 130 years. And it's completely opposite of what I doubt that any one of your listeners right now could have guessed that 100-degree Fahrenheit days in Texas or anywhere in the United States were declining. We find that just finished up an Arkansas report.
SPEAKER 16 :
By the way, I appreciate you saying that because I said this the other day here in Colorado. On Monday, we had this big, quote-unquote, warning. Denver could see record heat middle of the week. It's going to be approaching 100 degrees. And as a Colorado native growing up here, the first thing I thought of, Gregory, is – Yeah, it's July right after the 4th. That's pretty common. We'll have a few hundred degree days throughout the year. There's nothing there really to be in. As far as I'm concerned, there's no news there. That's that's just what happens in the summertime in Colorado. And by the way, we didn't get up. Indeed. And the other thing to look at.
SPEAKER 09 :
what they will do is take one station, probably some urban station, maybe at the airport, maybe inside Denver, and they'll use that. See, here's the temperature. It's record high temperatures, and it may well be, but that doesn't even do with climate change. It has everything to do with what's called the urban heat island effect. In other words, asphalt, concrete, these things just absorb the sun, re-rate. How many tens of thousands of air conditioners are dumping heat into anything? And here in Colorado, I'm glad you said that, too.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, I'm glad you said that, because as a kid, I say this all the time. You know, again, growing up here, I can attest to some of these things. I'm 60, and so when I was growing up as a young kid, first of all, only the rich had air conditioning. No one else that I knew, I knew nobody that had air conditioning, Gregory. Today, almost everybody has. has air conditioning. So that has changed immensely from when I was a kid. On top of that, Colorado, when I was a kid, we were about 2.2, 2.3 million people. We're now going to be over 6 million people. So the reality is all of this front range area. And by the way, that's a majority of where the growth has happened. Yeah. We are considerably, you know, double the size of what we were when I was a kid. So could we have some, some minor changes in regards to some of the things that you are changing because of what you're taught? I mean, I, I look out to the west here and see just all the trees that we now have in our area that, by the way, when I was a kid, it was like a desert. We didn't have half the trees that we have today when I was a kid.
SPEAKER 09 :
And we see that globally. John, it's it's it's it's I call it the untold the greatest untold story of the 21st century, that of thriving of the ecosystems today. And it's leading to great benefits to the human condition. Humanity is thriving and prospering because of modest warming and more CO2. And what you're saying, when we see this, we see just opposite of what we're being told. Deserts are shrinking. Forests are expanding. Vegetation is increasing from the near polar regions to the equator. Crops are breaking records year after year after year from the coldest countries like Norway and Sweden. to the some of the hottest countries like india are all being blessed uh by the increase of co2 yep and it's it's it's an equal opportunity well for example last year there was a report that said oh poison ivy is going to get really bad because of climate change more co2 is going to cause an increase in poison ivy and i looked at it and that was probably one of the the few alarmist reports could actually be true because carbon dioxide is an equal opportunity fertilizer for plants.
SPEAKER 16 :
True.
SPEAKER 09 :
And so it doesn't know that poison ivy is bad. CO2 benefits all plants. And if it benefits poison ivy, well... It'll benefit the other as well.
SPEAKER 16 :
One and the other is equal, right? Exactly.
SPEAKER 09 :
They unwittingly admitted the benefits of CO2 by saying poison ivy is going to increase.
SPEAKER 16 :
But yet we're told all of the time, constantly, and it cracks me up, too, because we go from one extreme to the other. First, it's going to be total deserts. There's not going to be enough moisture. There's going to be famines everywhere. It's terrible. We go from that to, oh, there's more flash floods now than we've ever had before. I mean, which is it, Gregory? There's no happy medium with these folks at all.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, there's not. We do see a modest increase in precipitation. We see this nearly everywhere we look. And there are a number of indications why that is. We won't go into it, but it's hugely beneficial, particularly to agriculture. A little bit of excess rain. in the agricultural sector really doesn't, they welcome it, especially in the summer months. Of course, the problem in Texas was that we had the remnants of this tropical storm that came up across this escarpment. There's the rapid rise from the lowlands of the Gulf Coast up into the Texas Hill Country. And as you probably know, as these systems, as they rise up the hillside, as they increase in elevation, they're losing water quickly. And this system just stalled. And across this escarpment area where the tragedy occurred, It's got very... Because of the underlying bedrock, I'm a geologist. I'm a climate geology geek. You'll have to forgive me. That's all right. But the underlying bedrock, it doesn't... lends itself well to very well-developed soil, so very thin soil.
SPEAKER 16 :
It's not permeable is the point, right? It doesn't absorb. Is that what you're trying to say?
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. When you get heavy rains, very little is absorbed into the soil, and it just runs off quickly. There you go. And that's what feeds these deluges down into the canyons.
SPEAKER 16 :
You know, Gregory, it's sort of like our rocky mountains. We kind of have the same issue going on here.
SPEAKER 09 :
Exactly. Exactly. And what you see is as systems rise up, if there's anything moving, most of your systems move west to east. Right. So you're really in the rain shadow. It's on the eastern side of the mountains where you get a lot of precipitation.
SPEAKER 16 :
Our upslopes, anytime we get in an upslope situation, whether it be on the rain side or the snow side, anybody that's lived in this area for any length of time knows that's our biggest storms.
SPEAKER 09 :
Exactly. And if there were any systems moving west,
SPEAKER 16 :
east to west they're probably rare but that's when you get the big storms so they're pumping lots that's right precipitation yeah yeah well ours do occasionally what happens with us and you know this from what you do what happens with us especially in the wintertime uh spring and or you know can happen it can happen fall can happen spring doesn't typically happen middle of winter although it can is typically what happens is all of that moisture from the gulf it gets pushed up it starts a counterclockwise you know, motion, circular motion, sort of like a little mini cyclone, if you would, and it wraps up against the mountains, and it just dumps on us, and that's where we get our biggest storms from.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and it is, and that's also triggering tornadoes. That's right. Your listeners may not be aware that the United States has over 90% of all the tornadoes in the world occur in the United States.
SPEAKER 16 :
I did not.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know what?
SPEAKER 16 :
You just taught me something. I was not aware of that. I did not know that.
SPEAKER 09 :
And that's because of the unique geography. and systems, and what we have are the cold weather systems coming down from Canada, sweeping up across the Rockies, coming east across Kansas, Oklahoma, Tornado Alley, and we've got the warm, moist Gulf Air underneath, in which you have, when you have warm, hot, moist air underneath cold air from Canada above, that triggers the cyclonic triggering of the tornadoes, and that's It's unique in the world that we have this. And again, it's more than 90 percent of all the tornadoes.
SPEAKER 16 :
Now that you say that, you know, I'd never really I should have known that just by, you know, you think about news stories that happen around the world. And you're right. You don't hear of that happening anywhere else but here.
SPEAKER 09 :
Correct. When was the last time you heard of a tornado killing someone in France?
SPEAKER 16 :
You don't. You don't. I'm guessing, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm guessing that maybe other arid-type areas like Australia, can they have maybe some tornadoes, or am I thinking correctly?
SPEAKER 09 :
No, you're thinking correctly, but they don't have the geography with the high mountain ranges. Okay, okay. And so what they do, the tornadoes that do hit in Australia are associated with the cyclones. Okay. Okay, because there's cyclones in the Pacific hurricanes here. Gotcha. And so we do have tornadoes associated with those. But again, we see most definitely the data tell us that EF3, EF4, EF5, the biggest tornadoes, are in decline. They've been in decline for many decades. And there's a lot of, does it really matter why? I don't think so. We know that that's the case. And we have so many more extreme weather-related deaths, some 98% decline since 1900. And a lot of that has to do with better warning systems. There's a tornado coming, get to your basement. There's a Category 4 about ready to hit Galveston Island in two days, evacuate now. They didn't have that in 1915. So a lot of this has to do... with better infrastructure, better warning, better forecasting. But it completely flies in the face of what your listeners are being told about increasing deaths. And it's just horrible. This is scientific malfeasance. It's misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation to frighten the population into accepting otherwise onerous and economically destructive programs. And thank God... We have a new sheriff and his new deputies in town in Washington, D.C. There you go. They're rolling back these regulations that have been just – if you're listening to this show right now, look around. You're probably in your home. Look around. Look around all your electrical things that are using electric, your ceiling fan above you. regulated by the EPA and DOA. They're telling you what kind of ceiling, you're limited now, and what kind of ceiling fan to buy, and it's more expensive. So bear with me when I tell you, I am pro-choice. I'm strongly pro-choice, and by that I mean, I want the choice of, and for me and your listeners, to determine what kind of car to drive, what kind of dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, you name it, shower head. If I want to buy a dishwasher that uses a little bit more electricity but is very efficient at washing my dishes, I should have the option to buy that dishwasher. And they have said no. You can buy these that the government have approved. And thank God... Lee Zeldman at EPN, Chris Wright at DOE, also Sean Duffy at the Department of Transportation. They're all rolling back these regulations that are just infringing on your listeners' freedoms.
SPEAKER 16 :
Thank God. Amen. All right, CO2 Coalition. First of all, Gregor, how do folks find you there? What's the website?
SPEAKER 09 :
CO2Coalition.org. And my latest book, which is really catching on right now, is A Very Convenient Warming. You can find it. Just two words you use if you're going to search for it, convenient warming. And it'll take you to Amazon or my website. Strongly recommend. You'll hear a lot of it. You get the same information you heard today. Awesome.
SPEAKER 16 :
always great joy it's always a joy having you don't you know don't have you enough we typically do kind of on a monthly basis and we'll keep doing that ahead and into the future always learn something when you're on and i appreciate it very much by the way sleep well there is no climate crisis awesome appreciate you very much have a great night and that is gregory wright stone w-r-i-g-h-s-t-o-n-e if you're looking for the book again he just said look up convenient warming not warning We'll be right back. Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning. Speaking of climate and what goes on inside of your home, and you want to have a choice on what you actually do when it comes to your air conditioner. So if that's the case, you've got issues going on right now and you want to do some upgrades or you just have something not working, give Cub Creek a call today. Find them at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 14 :
Now back to Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 16 :
All right, we are back, closing out our number two. And, yeah, go back to our last guest. And, by the way, Greg's always great. Love having him on. We had his cohort on a couple of weeks ago. And I will tell you that there's very few things that he and I differ on. Maybe some things regarding age of Earth and some things along those lines. But, in general, the things he talks about in regards to – You know, the whole climate change aspect and what the left has to say about it and their agenda that they're pushing and so on. And even out of what we've seen come from Texas here recently and, you know, the huge tragedy there. People have lost lives are still looking for people today. I saw today a video of a this. I'm not joking. An F-250. that was literally on its side, buried under so much dirt and sand and junk, all you could see sticking out was a little bit of the right front tire and a little bit of the cab. That's it. So literally had buried sideways an F-250. The storm surge and, you know, what happened during that flood was just enormous. And we've got the left coming out using that as a jumping off point for climate change and talking about how, you know, those kids at the camp should have died anyways. They would have just turned into white supremacists and on and on we go. I mean, just sick and vile things that the left uses. And those of you that are on that side, I don't know how you can be. I'll just be straight up on it. I don't know how you can be. If what happened out of that doesn't show you enough that they don't care about people, including you. You're part of the party. They don't care about you either. If all of the things that you have seen happen over the last couple of years in the Democrat Party, how they took Joe Biden out of the candidacy for running for reelection and put Kamala Harris in instead, never even had a primary vote or anything along those lines, just essentially appointed her to that. I mean, you guys that are on the left. How you can continue going on with the party that you're a part of is literally beyond me. That one, I just don't understand. I shake my head and scratch my head at times and wonder how in the world. I mean, you guys must have so much loyalty to either just being anti-conservative or anti-Trump that you're willing to put up with all the nonsense your side dishes out. It just makes no sense to me. None. You have to be as loony as the party that you're involved in to stay in it. I don't know how else to say it. You're cray-cray. Literally, you're crazy. You're sticking with a party that, frankly, doesn't care about you, doesn't care about anybody else, you included, but yet you're going to stick with them. Come over to a party that cares about people. Do we have our share of faults? Absolutely. Talk about them all the time. But at least we care about people. We don't come out after a tragedy doing the things that your side just did. I can tell you that much right now. We don't take tragedies as a jumping off point to go further our agenda like you guys do. It's not what we do. We do things completely different on our side of the aisle compared to what you guys do. So I would highly encourage that if you're on that side, you really need to check what's going on in your own party. And I would highly recommend you, if nothing else, go the route of at least being in the middle and get out of your party because it's just full of a bunch of loons. So we'll be back in a moment. Don't go anywhere. Hour number three is next. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 1 :
I'm a rich guy
In this eye-opening episode of Rush to Reason, John Rush, Dr. Kelly Victory, and Steve House take the gloves off and dive into the hard truths that legacy media refuses to touch. From the media-fueled Vibrio hysteria to cloud seeding speculation and CDC cover-ups, this hour is packed with insights you won’t hear anywhere else.
Dr. Kelly dismantles the alarmist narrative surrounding ocean bacteria, warning of a deeper agenda tied to climate change fearmongering. The trio exposes Big Pharma’s desperate attempt to salvage trust—revealing a shocking 1,135% increase in autism from the Hepatitis B vaccine, buried for decades by the CDC. The conversation turns to RFK Jr.’s war against the medical-industrial complex, the corrupt entanglement of politics and pharmaceuticals, and the long list of lies that shaped the COVID response.
They also tackle the disturbing push to combine flu and mRNA vaccines, highlight the need for personal responsibility in health, and explain why being a disruptor is now an American duty. It’s one of the boldest, most fact-filled episodes yet—perfect for anyone who values truth over compliance.
SPEAKER 16 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 14 :
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.
SPEAKER 15 :
Get a job first. You haven't made everybody equal. You've made them the same, and there's a big difference.
SPEAKER 02 :
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 15 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 16 :
It's Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush, presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, Thursday edition, Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Dr. Kelly Victory with us today, as well as Steve House. Dr. Kelly, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, great. Happy Thursday. Always happy to join you guys.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you. Hope you had a great Independence Day or an Independence Week or whatever it was last week. A lot of people were off, so hopefully you guys had a great week. Steve, you as well. Welcome. Thanks.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good to be here, John. Hope you guys are doing well.
SPEAKER 03 :
Always a joy. Yep, I am rolling right along. As you guys know, things never seem to slow down. Something different and new happens every single week. So one of the things that you guys sent earlier in the week that I thought we would start in with, and I promoted this, is there was an article you sent about, and I followed a little bit of this. I read into it some. Dr. Kelly, I'm probably going to screw this up, but Vibrio infection, am I saying that correctly?
SPEAKER 07 :
Vibrio, yeah. Vibrio is a class of bacteria. It happens to be the same class that causes cholera, by the way, which most people have heard of. But Vibrio is a very common bacteria found in seawater, in ocean water. So the fact that they were raising the alarm flag that Vibrio was in the water and maybe people should stay away from the beaches, I think, once again, was a bit of fear-mongering. I'm aware, obviously, that any time people are in ocean water, it's only a problem significantly if you swallow a ton of ocean water, which most people are not looking to do, or if you have an open wound. And I wouldn't recommend that people really go swimming in a pond, a lake, or the ocean. with a big, you know, deep open wound because it can get infected with all kinds of pathogens, Vibrio being only one.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, so I guess that was my question is why, you know, where is this alarm coming from? Steve, I think you were the one that sent the article to begin with, you know, why are we sounding this alarm, I guess is my question.
SPEAKER 05 :
Quite frankly, I don't think we should be. I mean, it's a fairly common bacteria. You know, I think people are looking for these kind of public health issues are problems. I mean, the 33-year high in measles, I mean, I don't know if any of this stuff's really a problem. I mean, Kelly's probably a better judge than I am, but to me it just seems like it's relatively normal, but we've decided we're hypersensitive to anything that public health could get their hands on.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Makes sense to me. So, in other words, if people are out there reading some of these things and there's all sorts of, you know, quote-unquote hysteria surrounding it, as with anything, and I talk about this a lot on this program, be careful, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Exactly. And I think that the reality is, you know, can people get infections from water? Absolutely. But I don't see any reason why the alarm flag should have been raised at this particular point. It's one thing if we have super, super warm water, for example. And bacterial counts seem to have gone up exponentially. But I didn't get that from the I certainly read the article that Steve passed along and I was looking to see, wow, have they had a rash of people showing up in the ER with Vibrio infections or have they been sampling the water and all of a sudden found that there's a 10 X. increase in bacteria counts. But none of that was reported. It just it was a very vague sort of, oh, there's Vibrio and, you know, maybe you should stay home kind of thing. And again, I think it's they constantly want to churn the water, pardon the pun, for, you know, the next thing that people should be fearful of, because that's how they maintain control.
SPEAKER 05 :
Makes sense. And I think there's another part of this, too, and that is that once you have a global social media engine with multiple applications, everybody becomes a reporter, almost. I mean, I heard about three people getting Vibrio on the beach in Florida, so I'm going to put something out on Instagram, then it ends up on TikTok, and then before you know it, you see a story about an increase in Vibrio. But the problem is, everybody's a reporter and there's not a lot of fact-checking that goes on in that and certainly not a lot of research to see, well, how much of that is actually normal on an annual basis? I haven't even heard yet. What's the normal amount of Vibrio or Vibrio infections that you see on an annual basis? And I don't think anybody knows what that is.
SPEAKER 03 :
Great point, by the way. So, Dr. Kelly, going back to where even when we were kids, I mean, they would tell you that if you went swimming in a waterhole, be careful, there could be things swimming in there. But, you know, we all did it anyways. I mean, the reality is nobody stopped tubing down irrigation ditches or hanging out in waterholes or whatever. But I guess where I'm going with this is, has it changed since then?
SPEAKER 07 :
I certainly don't think so. And that's what I'm saying is it's always been an issue. Certainly bacterial counts, just like fungus counts or viral counts, they fluctuate based on the ambient conditions in the environment. When it's warmer, you tend to get overgrowth of certain bacteria. But again, we haven't seen any, unless they are reporting a significant increase in people actually getting infected, then as Steve said, I think it's somebody making a story out of nothing.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, and that was what I kind of was gathering out of all of that. I mean, once again, my fear with some of this, by the way, is sort of like what we've had happen this last week with the floods in Texas and the National Weather Service, and there was alerts today even for some things going on on the west side of town, which I get. The storms are building as we're Speaking on the same token, I looked west of my house and saw how black the skies were, and it's like, okay, yeah, do I really need a warning for this? I can look outside and see what's going on. This isn't really that big of a deal. I understand we're trying to keep everybody safe and make sure we put out the right warnings and so on. But if we do too much of that, when something really does happen, Dr. Kelly, will people actually listen?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, that's always the question. And one of the things that happens, unfortunately, with fear mongering is that people do start to get, first of all, crisis fatigue. They get tired of hearing it and they start tuning it out. And that is one of the greatest risks. And I talked about this from the beginning of the COVID pandemic debacle. It said, you know, God help us the next time we raise the flag. actually need people to pay heed because you know the average american with good cause by the way has a right to say i'm not listening to you you know idiots uh you got it totally wrong the last time you had us locked down closed schools wear masks this stupid made a thing of social distancing it was all a big fat lie and now we know it so i'm not going to listen and that's really a risk The other thing I might mention about this whole Vibrio thing is the storyline. Don't forget, you can't forget the underlying storyline, which is that, as I said, bacterial counts go up when the water is warmer.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
And of course, the story is that the oceans are getting warmer because of, wait for it, climate change. Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
So this is all tied to see climate change is what's causing the water to be warmer and therefore this increase in Vibrio.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Now you're getting down to the crux of what's really going on. Again, part of what we even are hearing in regards to some of the flooding and things that we've had happen in Texas and New Mexico, and the reality isn't, you know, you guys know me. I'm a native of Colorado. I have seen many a flash flood. I was around, you know, I was old enough to remember the big Thompson Canyon flood. There was a big, huge flood in Boulder when I was a kid. I mean, Dr. Kelly and Steve, these things have been happening at least in my lifetime, and I'm sure long before I came along.
SPEAKER 07 :
No question. I will say that it is strange to me, this horrific situation in Texas, and it is nothing short of horrific. Absolutely. It happened in an area that is prone and well-known to flash flooding. That area along the Guadalupe River is known for it. What's interesting is that we have seen recent flash floods happen. in places that aren't normally prone to it. New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, some very, a little bit more unusual. And I am not sure that You know, I'm not sure where I stand on this idea of the government manipulating the weather. We know they're doing cloud seeding. We know that they have, you know, silver iodide, I believe it is, that is being aerosolized. And I don't know. That is not my area of expertise. So I am not sure exactly what impact all of that manipulation may have on things like floods.
SPEAKER 03 :
Gotcha. And by the way, there were some stories even that came out about Texas, and I'm sure you guys read this as well, where there had been some cloud seeding operations going on several days in advance. Now, according to the company that did the cloud seeding, even the cloud that they went into and seeded, they didn't feel like there was any real even positive effects. And even that, you know, as you guys all know, The verdict is even out on, you know, how much can we really affect things at the end of the day? We've been doing it for an awfully long time. You know, guys, and this is one of those where I personally haven't read enough or seen enough positive data one way or the other to make a solid confirmation that, yep, that's in fact why there was big floods in Texas. Steve, you want to comment on that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, yeah, a couple. Number one, I mean, the Texas flood was obviously disastrous and horrible, but Chicago on Tuesday night had over five inches of rain in areas of the city that it wasn't just five inches of rain in a flash flood in downtown Chicago with warning. It was the rate of the rain, the amount of the rain per hour, the rain per half hour was something they'd never seen before. So, you know, is that cloud seeding? I've had a lot of people bring that to my attention. A lot of people who think it is cloud seeding and that there's some nefarious processes going on with regards to Texas and the kids and everything else. So I don't know whether we can debate that rationally or not, but I do want to go on the record and say that I am far safer in a pond or a lake today than I was when I was a kid because my older brother can no longer go in the water.
SPEAKER 03 :
There you go. Good one. I have a question that came in a moment ago that we'll answer as soon as we come back. Lots of things to discuss today, by the way, which we may not get to all of it. If not, we'll get to some of it again next week because an hour goes by really fast. Let's just say that. So, guys, hang tight. Those of you who may be tuning in for the first time, go check out Dr. Kelly. We've got a full list of things we've done in the past with her on our website, RushToReason.com. Steve House, again, is the individual that put all this together years ago now, five-plus years ago. We've been doing this on Thursdays. We will be right back, though. Up next, though, Dr. Scott Faulkner. And if you're thinking about a doctor and changing doctors and having somebody that thinks exactly the way we do, look no further than Dr. Scott, 303-663-6990.
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SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 15 :
No liberal media bias here. This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Dr. Kelly, before we go any further, a listener texted in and asked, and we get this question quite a bit, so might as well cover it again. It just shows that we have people that listen at different times to different shows. The shingles vaccine, worth doing or not? What are your thoughts?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, I can't tell any individual what he or she should do, but let's start with the basics. Anybody who has had chicken pox, is at risk to develop shingles down the road. If you've never had chickenpox and you were vaccinated for chickenpox, you don't even need to think about taking the shingles vaccine because shingles is a result of the lingering virus of chickenpox that stays dormant in your spinal cord. So start with that. So people who've had chickenpox in the past are at risk to develop shingles. Shingles is a painful rash. It can pop up. Out of the blue, it certainly can happen at times of stress or when your immune system is suppressed for any reason. We've seen a lot more outbreaks of shingles since the rollout of the mRNA COVID vaccines, by the way, because of suppression of the immune system. I personally am not a fan of the shingles vaccine. There are lots of reports of severe complications from it, including Guillain-Barre, where you develop paralysis shingles while it is painful and unsightly and nobody wants to have it. I've had it six times in my lifetime. No one has ever died of shingles. No one has ever been paralyzed from shingles. No one has ever been maimed or permanently disabled from shingles. And I can't say that about the shingles vaccine. So for me, everything comes down to a risk-benefit calculation. And there are lots of reasons why you might choose to take it. But I think you just need to be aware that everything comes with a potential risk. And most people will not ever develop shingles, even if they've had chickenpox. The vast majority of people, you know, certainly the vast majority of people in this country over the age of 55 had chickenpox because the vaccine wasn't out when we were growing up. OK, good point. And so talk to all the people, you know, over 55 and come up with a number of people, you know, who have ever had a shingles outbreak. They're not that many.
SPEAKER 03 :
True.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good point. So the idea of vaccinating everybody, OK, because they had chickenpox in the past and might develop shingles. You know, I think it's it really doesn't. The numbers don't pencil out for me.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and I think one of the things that you said, which I think is really key, is that no one has died from shingles. Is it painful? Is it miserable? Yes, it definitely is. I've known people personally that have had it. Now, I never have, and I don't know, Dr. Kelly, if that's a... you know, DNA thing or how that works. I'm getting to that age where, you know, you would think by now if I was going to have them, I would. It doesn't mean that I won't ever have them. But then you have to also ask the question, you know, are just some people more prone for certain things than others? And then I guess the other question I have for you when it comes to shingles specifically, are there things that we can do, dietarily speaking, to stave them off? Or is it just one of those things, if you're going to get it, you're going to get it, period?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I will tell you, there's certainly things you can do to enhance the functioning of your immune system. And interestingly, since COVID started and I really doubled down on supplements like zinc and quercetin and all the things that we talked about back at the height of the pandemic. I have been remarkably well. I haven't had as much as a cold, let alone an outbreak of shingles or anything else. So I got to tell you, I do think that there's some research that would indicate that, as I said, supplementing things like vitamin D and zinc is very helpful, obviously not just for your immune system overall, but decreases your risk of ever developing shingles. Now, as I said, there are people who have horrific cases of shingles, and there's a rare entity where you can get it that involves shingles. the nerve that goes to your eye and can involve the eye, and that becomes an issue that needs to be managed very quickly by an ophthalmologist. But these are very, very rare cases. And so, again, I think you need to weigh your risks if you are immunocompromised already for some other reason. Perhaps it's something that you might want to think about more seriously. But for the average person, I am not a fan of the Shingrix. It's called Shingrix, the shingles vaccine.
SPEAKER 03 :
Steve, moving along, another topic that I know we are going back and forth on, and this one I read through, and again, all of these things I always try to do as much research on as I can. In some cases, there's not a lot of things to back up certain things that we end up having come across either our inboxes or websites. or even things we pass amongst ourselves. There may be only one source, for example, on certain things that we'll talk about. And this is one where there is a story out where there is essentially, or potentially, I guess I should say, there was at one point a coup against RFK Jr. I think, Steve, you were the first one to send that out, and I read through all of that, and there's a lot to read in regards to it, by the way.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, yeah, I mean, think about it. I mean, the pharma companies themselves, We're obviously very upset about him getting the appointment because just think about where these guys have come. Take them back to 2024. Lots of scuttlebutt about the COVID vaccines and people trying to push them out. They're defending the COVID vaccine. They're trying to sell more of it. Had they only known that the side effects of the COVID vaccine would open up a discussion about every single vaccine on the vaccine list, putting all of their revenue from all of those vaccines at risk. I'm not so sure they would have been so hard on the team risk, but most of them saying Steve really quick, be careful what you wish for. Yeah. Yeah. Be careful what you wish for. And in the meantime, you know, the guy that you make into a culprit because in Congress during his confirmation, they made it sound like he was vaccine crazy and anti-vaxxer, you know, that he was going to kill children. You know, they keep forgetting the Amish studies and all the other things like that. But yeah, there was a, There's a coup attempt. I don't think it's over. I think they'll continue on that pathway all the way as long as he's sitting in that seat.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that one I can't disagree with you on that one, Steve. I think he is such a threat, and Dr. Kelly, you know this, such a threat to not only big pharma, but just the way big health care in general is run, Dr. Kelly. I think RFK Jr. is somebody that if they had their way, he would not be there.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, I agree. He's not just a threat to Big Pharma. He's a threat to the Congress people because they all take a lot of money from Big Pharma. Very true. Good point. Believe me, there are millions and millions and millions of dollars in the balance here. So there's no question that Bobby Kennedy Jr. was an unconventional pick for HHS. And that's precisely why I thought he was the perfect pick. Because let's face it, conventional picks have delivered us to the abysmal state of ill health where we find ourselves today, where we have 40 percent of adolescents with prediabetes and obesity. Eighty percent of Americans have at least one chronic illness. We pay more for health care than we've ever paid. It continues to skyrocket in prices. Care is getting worse and worse. We have an epidemic of autism and other autoimmune illnesses in children that we've never had before. So that's what conventional picks have given us. So I liked the idea that we brought somebody in there who was going to shake things up a bit. But, boy, he is very threatening to the status quo. Certainly to those people who have been ensconced for decades in some of our agencies, the CDC, the FDA, you name it. Those people are career big agency people. And he's questioning everything, you know, kind of the way that Elon Musk did, where you're going to have to actually justify your existence, justify the research you're doing and the money that you're getting to do it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, in the mindset shift, Dr. Kelly, and Steve, I'll throw this to you as well, but the mindset shift even across the board when it comes to how do we stay healthy? I mean, let's go all the way back to the food pyramid where it was sort of a one-size-fits-all, eat these things, you'll be healthy, which, by the way, was totally backwards. No, in fact, it didn't help anybody get healthy. If anything, it put us on track to being one of the most unhealthy countries, even though we've got more people disposable food and things that we have at our fingertips. Literally there's, you know, a prepackaged, which isn't the best as we know, but literally you can go to almost any corner, any gas station and find something neat. The reality is we don't have quote unquote food deserts. Like a lot of folks, even on the left would lead you to believe that, The food pyramid and a lot of things that came along those lines, Dr. Kelly, my point is we've been fed this sort of one-size-fits-all approach to health care and eating and so on. And what we've learned, of course, is nothing could be farther from the truth. And RFK Jr. wants to shake that up and make it so that everybody knows it needs to be tailored to you and it isn't one-size-fits-all.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. And he also is trying to get us off of the treatment train, you know, the idea that we don't really have a health care system. We have a disease care system where we are constantly looking for what's the, you know, you have high cholesterol, you have high blood pressure, you have this or that. You're looking for what's the best pill to take rather than What are the lifestyle changes that you could make? What are the you know, what are the choices you could change with regard to what you eat, how you sleep, what you exercise in order to change and manage that disease process? And he's the first person in a long time. You know, it's certainly something that I've based my career on. But we've needed somebody in Washington at the helm who can start to drive some of that narrative and drive that programming.
SPEAKER 03 :
Steve, your thoughts on all of that? came about, Steve, because the cigarette companies, who knew that their days were numbered as far as advertising, what they were going to be able to push along those lines, bought food companies that they knew they could basically do the same thing on the food end of things that they had done on the cigarette end of things. And I'm not wrong in what I just said.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, and I think the... You know, look at this in a more general sense, right? Bobby Kennedy is a disruptor. There's no doubt about it. He has very specific beliefs. He does significant amounts of research. And there are a bunch of people out there who who've never done anywhere near as much research, but they have their own beliefs about vaccines and medicines. And they are opposed to him without having an open mind to begin with. I mean, you really have to say, OK. I don't think this guy's out there with an agenda. I don't think he's making a lot of money because he's a disruptor. He really believes what he tells you. And when somebody believes that much, you should check it out. I also think, and this is not a popular opinion among my MAGA friends, but... I don't have a problem with Elon Musk trying to shake things up either. I mean, if you question what's in the big, beautiful bill and there's $100 million slush fund for White House to do certain things and the other things, I mean, look, if you can't answer the question of someone who's disruptive, then you don't either you don't understand the subject well enough or you don't believe it strongly enough to defend it. So I like Bobby because he's a disruptor, and I hope that we have him around for quite a while.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I don't mind disruptors either. I think my only complaint that I have with Elon Musk is it's very frustrating in Washington, but the reality is it is what it is. You've got to be a disruptor, but you cannot get so frustrated that you now are just throwing in the towel and you want to go start your own third party, which, Steve, you, as all people, know. that's not going to do anything at the end of the day other than screw things up for the Republican Party. You've got to figure out a way to continue to work inside of the system that we have, be a disruptor inside of that system. But I'm not a third-party fan because it never works out well in the end.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, you know, I think what Musk's goal there is, and a lot of people think he's trying to find a candidate he can make into a president. I don't think that's it at all. What he wants is he wants a few congressional seats, to try to stop there from being just simple majority rule. You know, they're going to have to be convincing in a little bit more detail about what they do. There's lots of third parties. There's not, I mean, to say third party, it's more like the 12th party when you consider Green, Libertarian, all these other parties. So I don't look at it as a third party. I look at it as just another political party. Throwing bombs out there that aren't true. You know, those are the kind of things that with disinformation, social media today, they're not healthy. I like the part that's asking specific questions, not the part that's making wild accusations.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and I'm with you guys on that one as well. And again, you guys know me. I'm all for disrupting. I'm all for throwing the right questions out. I am all for making sure that we hold people accountable on all levels. But I also know, and I think you two do as well, that the bigger the ship is, The longer it takes to turn things around, you know, the rudder is very small, and you can take a little bitty boat and turn it around on a dime. On the same token, if that's a cruise ship, you need a lot of room to turn it around. Well, we're not on a cruise ship in this country. It's about 100 cruise ships long that we're trying to turn around. And the reality is, yes, you do have to start someplace, and we have to keep people accountable in doing so. And I can— and I've said this before, I can feel Elon Musk's frustration. You guys know me. I am one where I have always been, for the most part, my own boss. If I want something done in my company, you walk in the door, you make a decision, that is done, you move on. That's the same thing that he is used to. The problem is, if I went to Washington, I'd be just as frustrated as him, because that's not how it works there. It should, but it doesn't, Steve.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and I think there's, I'm going to use Kelly as an example of a disruptor. I think there's the kind of disruptor that will tell you about mainstream stuff in a very rational way, right? I mean, you know, Kelly can be as rational and intellectually, you know, intelligent and accurate about things as she wants to be. But then when she believes something passionately, she throws it out there. If you're always disruptive by throwing stuff out there without having any sort of rational sense to you, you make little to no progress. And I think You know, we have to have a debate in this country. We're almost 250 years old. Democracies last on average like 250 years. So I think there needs to be debate. And I think Elon Musk could be useful in this debate. And I'm certainly not going to get off the Elon train just yet because I do want some useful discussion about why the deficit and the debt are so high.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and I've kind of been the same way on our program here, Steve. I'm definitely not against him. I do think that there's times he's not as politically savvy as he probably should be, and he needs to take a step back and realize that this isn't my company. And while I can walk into one of my companies and walk into pretty much any door I want and get things to turn around tomorrow and whatever I say goes, that's not how – again, as much as – is I wish you could do things quickly like that in Washington, D.C. And Steve, again, you're more of the political expert here than all three of us, by the way, because this is your expertise. In one way, I wish we could. But on the other hand, we have checks and balances and three branches of government for a reason. And no, when you have that, you're not going to turn things around that quickly. Am I right in what I just said?
SPEAKER 05 :
You are right. I mean, I will give you one other example of, you know, besides the vaccines, the shingles vaccines and all the stuff we're talking about, we have this one other article about the eleven hundred and thirty five percent that we're going to get to probably. But I'll challenge you on this, that I just recently dealt with a person who was paying a thousand dollars a month in copay for a diabetes drug. I sourced the drug for them from someplace else. The copay went to zero. Their original company called them back, said, we'll drop it to $25 in copay, keep you in your health plan, and we'll give you the first three months for free. When that kind of stuff happens, when so quickly, so easily, you know that there's something going on behind the scenes that's got to come out. And while I do like checks and balances, I don't want things to move so slowly on the corruption that we pay out the nose until we're dead.
SPEAKER 03 :
I agree. No, I agree with that 100%, Steve. Absolutely. Dr. Kelly, this just came in from a listener, and I had not heard anything about this, but RFK Jr. now is getting a little bit of criticism because he recently praised Mom's Meals, which is a company that sends prepackaged meals to people who are older or are living with illnesses like cancer or diabetes. The problem, I guess, with Mom's Meals is they're ultra-processed, and so I guess he's coming under fire because he's... People claiming he's a hypocrite now because he's basically talking out of both sides of his mouth. I personally wouldn't look at it that way, but I'm not the press.
SPEAKER 07 :
I think the people who are critical of the fact that he praised them, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. What Bobby Kennedy was praising about it was... He is really very, very sensitive to people's social plight, to people being lonely, isolated, falling under the prey of substance abuse issues. from what i heard him say he was praising the program could the food choices be better sure but compared to not delivering anything to those people if the alternative is nothing you're an elderly person with cancer and alone and you got is nothing better than something highly processed i don't think so so don't let you know the perfect be the enemy don't throw the baby out with the bath water in other words yeah i i yeah i You know, he was praising a program with regard to the outreach to people and then saying, you know, yes, this is the kind of thing that he'd like to see more of. Can we do better in terms of making it chock full of fresh fruits and vegetables and healthier foods? Absolutely. But, you know, the program itself, I think he is correct in praising.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, that makes total sense. Great segue. We'll come right back, guys. Don't go anywhere. If you've got a question, keep them coming in, by the way. 307-200-8222. Roof Savers of Colorado coming up next. We've got storms rolling through our area as we speak. And if you have any damage at all when it comes to your roof, make sure you talk to Dave first before you even call your insurance company. 303-710-6916.
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SPEAKER 03 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Debra's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560, Dr. Kelly Victory, and Steve House. Okay, let's move into, start with you, Dr. Kelly. We're RFK Jr. the other day, and this is another story that is not prevalent in mainstream media. You've got to do a little digging to find where he actually even said this, but RFK Jr. is now talking about the CDC covering up an increase in autism from hepatitis B, and it's well over, what, it's like 1135% increase. It's huge.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, and this is not a new study. This study was done in 1999. The CDC conducted a study, their own study, and they compared children who had received the hepatitis B vaccine in the first 30 days of life to children who either received it later or not at all. And what they found was that there was an eleven hundred and thirty five percent increase in autism in the children who received the hepatitis B vaccine in the first 30 days of life. Now, most children receive it on day one before they actually leave the hospital. It's given routinely. This study and those overwhelming, those just horrific findings was deep-sixed by the CDC. They have known about this for a quarter of a century, okay? But they are continuing to give it. This is the kind of corruption, fraud. It should be downright illegal, frankly. And in Kelly Victory's world, people should go to jail. People should be in prison over this kind of thing. There should be accountability. And this is hardly the only study of its sort that was fundamentally conducted and then hidden from the public and certainly did not factor into whether or not the vaccines made it onto the childhood vaccine schedule.
SPEAKER 03 :
So then the question you have to start asking is how many others of these are there like this?
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, how many other vaccines or studies?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, things that were buried by the CDC is I guess what I'm saying. It could be either.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, I think tremendous number. I mean, just start with the fact that, you know, Bobby Kennedy was absolutely correct when he confronted Anthony Fauci under oath and said, you know, that not a single vaccine that is on the childhood schedule has ever undergone a blinded, you know, placebo based study. Not one. They all were tested against another vaccine. Another vaccine is not a placebo. So all you can say then is that this vaccine is no less safe than the other vaccine. You're not proving its safety at all. So start with that. But I think there are myriad studies that have been hidden from the public. We know over and over again, every time the big study comes out, you know, we have a huge Cleveland Clinic study, for example, showing with regard to COVID that 53,000 patients in this study. And they showed irrefutably that the more shots you got for COVID, the more likely you were to get COVID. Mm hmm. OK, that was a well-run study and it's been replicated by other by other academic centers. Yet still, you have our government, the CDC out there saying, you know, get your COVID booster shot. You don't want to get COVID.
SPEAKER 03 :
There's an ad. My wife was shopping at Costco yesterday and sent me a picture of an ad talking about seniors in high school. Make sure you get your COVID vaccine before you graduate. I forgot to send that to both of you. I apologize. I meant to send that last night. I got busy and was doing some other things when I got home last night and totally forgot. But I was going to send you that. That was actually inside of Costco as she was shopping yesterday, Dr. Kelly.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. And we are hearing it still. And the reality is, fortunately, fortunately, vaccine acceptance has dropped for for covid vaccines has dropped. The interest in vaccines has dropped precipitously. Very few people are getting them despite the fact that they keep pushing them. What what takes me off is that the government keeps spending our tax dollars to buy more and more of these shots. that then end up expiring and getting sent down the drain. So now we're supposed to be, you know, the most recent fear fest. is about you know razor blade throat uh the nimbus variant of covid uh you know 1.8.1 uh which supposedly causes this horrible sore throat look there are lots of viruses that cause a sore throat there's nothing about this one that's serious covid has mutated exactly the way that we said it would at the very beginning it's become more contagious and less severe. Nobody is getting admitted to the hospital with it. People are not dying from it. They aren't ending up on ventilators. They aren't ending up in the ICU from COVID any longer. That's been years now since that happened and we just have to stop. There isn't a chance in hell that the current Boosters for COVID will prevent this particular new mutation because the boosters were based on a variant that's long gone, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Long gone. Steve, you had sent some things, I believe it was last week, where they're talking about wanting to figure out a way to combine, quote unquote, the flu shot and the mRNA COVID shot into one. And I'll be straight up honest. I didn't read through all of that. Give us an update on that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, first, a comment. I mean. So let me ask you guys a question, right? And I think everybody should be asking this question. What is the CDC's job? And I think the answer to that question is to evaluate and determine whether or not something we're going to put into our bodies is safe or not, you know, and to analyze diseases and determine how to best protect ourselves. I would tell you that based on what we've seen, that number 1135, what happened with COVID shots, they're not doing anything. that they're doing actually the opposite. They're putting us in more danger based on their behavior. I would advocate if I were Bobby Kennedy right now, I would say, look, we're going to shut it down. I mean, why would you let an organization exist? I know at some level we need some of what they do, but my God, how can you let an organization that's not only not doing what it's supposed to, it's doing exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to. The best way for you to protect the American people and HHS is stop it altogether.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Because it's continuing to do that, and the evidence of that is what you just brought up, is that Moderna is pitching, and I think they're getting approval on the idea that a COVID and a flu shot mRNA base will be combined into a single shot, and you'll start to see that shot probably this fall and winter. I don't think there's anything they can do to stop it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Which, Dr. Kelly, in my opinion, is just becoming very dubious because what they'll do is get people that would typically get a flu shot. They're now just going to combine that. They'll say, well, you know, it's kind of the best of both worlds, and somebody that wants a flu shot will just end up with it, period, no matter whether they wanted it or not, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I hear. Are they trying to kill us? Is that really what's going on here? Are they trying to kill us with all the side effects of mRNA vaccines?
SPEAKER 03 :
What other conclusion could you come to? You guys know my thoughts on that. We've been talking about that for quite some time. So, Dr. Kelly, I'll let you comment, but you already know my feelings on that.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, I agree. I think that there is so much money to be made by this mRNA technology and so much money has been invested in it already that they are not going to back down. And they keep looking for other new and better ways that they can combine these shots. I will say it again. Number one, you cannot vaccinate your way to good health. People need to spend way more time focusing on their overall health, get your weight under control, get your sleep and stress under control, clean up your diet. If you're not exercising 30 minutes a day, at least five days a week, start because there isn't a vaccine out there, good or bad. There isn't a drug out there. There isn't a pill, an injection, or anything else that is going to help you if you are not doing the basics. And that's Dr. Victory's tough love message for today. We have got to get back to taking personal responsibility.
SPEAKER 03 :
We talk about that every Wednesday during Health and Wellness. We've talked about it during this hour for a long time. Steve, I am right with you on this one and have several text messages that have come in as well, my wife included, where, yes, they are, in fact, I believe, trying to kill us. The reality, Steve and Dr. Kelly, as we talked about this all the way back during COVID, there are those out there. And I'm sorry to say, folks, you may or may not believe me on this, but there are those out there that think the Earth is far too overpopulated. People are a scourge. We really shouldn't be here in the first place. The best thing we could ever do to Mother Earth is eliminate all the people that are on it. And if any of you out there listening to me don't believe that, just go do a teeny, teeny bit of research, and you'll find, Steve, of course, that we're not wrong in what we're saying there. That is the belief of a lot of people.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I mean, Bill Gates talks about it a lot. I mean, there's a lot of, I mean, the Chinese started to reduce population years and years ago with reducing the number of babies that women could have. And, you know, there's a natural overall reduction because of the lower birth rates. But there are people in the climate change world who think man created climate change, and they're foolish. There's not a lot of evidence of that. And as a result of that, that we should have less people, and they're all for anything that makes that happen.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep, that's exactly right. No, Dr. Kelly and Steve, both of you, I mean, these are things, some of the basic things we've talked about since, Dr. Kelly, literally since you started, you know, coming on with us. I mean, just some of the things that we even did through COVID, I think, prove the fact of what we're talking about right now. Not to go back and rehash things, but if you look at the things that we actually had to do during COVID, all of the stupid things, the things that were enacted, some of the health orders, the distancing, the closing down of certain things, restaurants and businesses and schools and so on. I mean, Dr. Kelly, if people, you know, if that wasn't enough of an eye opener for people to really understand what those that are in power want to do, I don't know what else to tell them.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, I will tell you, if you gave me the task of sitting down and crafting a plan to do the most damage to people, to do the most damage to people's health, overall health and wellness, I would have pretty much drafted what the pandemic response plan was. Take something as simple as the idea of not being able to visit your loved ones in the hospital. Let me tell you, first of all, social isolation, solitary confinement, that is what we do to the worst of the worst criminals. It is one of the worst punishments you can do to somebody. It breaks their soul. And the fact that this was done to millions of people while they were sick and alone, the idea that people did not get to attend graduations and weddings and funerals and instead were isolated. That by itself should have been a red flag. The idea that we isolated children, made them stay home from school, made them miss social events and social interactions when we knew we had irrefutable data showing that children were fundamentally at zero risk from COVID. They just didn't get it. And if they did get it, they didn't get sick from it. They got a common cold. These are the sorts of things. And I am if I sound angry, it's because I'm angry. I am really, really mad about this. We allowed this to happen. And thus far, there's been really no accountability, despite the fact that we had all hoped for it. We have everything from Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx. You know, Rochelle Lewinsky, you know, we have those people acknowledging that they lied, acknowledging that they made up the whole thing about social distancing, acknowledging that they knew that masks didn't stop the spread of it, acknowledging that they knew that children weren't at risk and acknowledging that they did those things because they knew if they made people aware. uncomfortable enough miserable enough that they would comply with the vaccine mandate that is pure unadulterated evil it is fraud it is corrupt it is just i don't even know what else to say they have acknowledged it that there's been no you're right no right no response
SPEAKER 03 :
Steve, I'll give you the last word on that because literally that's some of the things we've talked about now for five years. And this is my opinion, Steve. I want to get yours before we close out. It's only because of folks like us and some of the things that we did to be the disruptor of all the things Dr. Kelly just said a moment ago, that 20%, I guess you could say, rebellious control group, which is all of us, by the way, I think it's only because of that 20%. 20% and a lot of others, by the way, that even got on board later. But really, some of us at the core that just refused to do some of the things that they mandated. Had it not been for us, Steve, who knows where we'd be today? And I'm not taking any credit for that. There was a lot of us out there, but those of us that did that were disruptors.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and I think disruptors are evolving into citizen action-oriented groups. I mean, in reality, if citizens don't start taking responsibility for changing things It's never going to happen. I mean, you know, Birx is not going to jail. Anthony Fauci is not going to jail. And apparently no one who knew Jeffrey Epstein is going to jail. Those kinds of things, while that's a different issue, it's still a symptom of the problem. I mean, James Comer and the boys in Washington can hold hearings all day long, every day. If no one ever goes to jail, then what the people have to do... is we have to police ourselves. We have to make it unacceptable that what people are saying. We have to stop taking the vaccines that we know aren't good for us. We need to let the CDC and public health know they're no longer somebody we trust. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 03 :
Great closing. Steve, Dr. Kelly, great show today. Thank you so much for all of your wisdom and all of what you've done over the past five years. I mean that sincerely. I always start with you, Dr. Kelly, but thank you so much for all that you do for us.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you for having me. I appreciate the platform, and I think we do good work every week, so thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you very much. Steve, you're the one that got this all going from the get-go. We owe you the credit, so thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, you know, it's partially because you and Dr. Kelly are not widely available, so I get to talk to you at least once a week for an hour.
SPEAKER 03 :
There we go. Steve, I appreciate you, man. All right, you too, man. Have a great night. And great people, by the way. And it is because of him that we're able to do this on a weekly basis. He started all of it. Veteran Windows and Doors up next. And Dave would love to help you with whatever your windows and door needs are. Find him today at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 03 :
All right, that's it for this first hour. As I always say, if you want to send that hour on to somebody else, just go to our website, RushToReason.com, and it's T-O, RushToReason.com. Look in our show notes section, and then when it comes to Dr. Kelly, there's an entire page dedicated to her as well. But if you want to forward on that last hour to somebody that you think should listen to it, by all means do so. It's easy to do. There's links there that you can copy, paste, and send off in a text message or an email. Other than that, we'll be back. Hour number two is next, Rush To Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 14 :
The Rich Guy.
Join us for an insightful discussion with Tina Deskovich from Moms for Liberty, as she critiques the National Education Association's focus away from education to more political matters. Additionally, we'll hear from legal expert Chris Gober about the ongoing battle against the IRS's weaponization against conservative groups, and conclude with a thoughtful commentary on the recent floods in Texas and Baylor University’s decision to return an LGBTQ research grant. Wrap up your week with a reflection on these events through a biblical worldview with David Claussen.
SPEAKER 16 :
from the heart of our nation's capital in Washington, D.C., bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and soundbites into conversations with our nation's leaders and newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview. Sitting in for Tony is today's host, Jody Heiss.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, good afternoon. Welcome to this July 11th edition of Washington Watch. I am Jody Heiss, a senior fellow here at the Family Research Council, and your Friday host. So glad to have you on board with us today. Coming up on today's edition of Washington Watch, immigration and custom enforcement continues to do its job, and that is to enforce our nation's laws. But the lawless left is not happy about that.
SPEAKER 13 :
What have they accomplished except for spreading fear and terror in our community? What have they accomplished? I'm sure there's a handful of dangerous people that they detained, but we know that that is not the case. Otherwise, they would have been parading them through the media, telling us about all the horrific crimes they committed.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, that was Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass earlier this week on NBC's Telemundo Network. Well, just maybe if she watched something other than the leftist media outlets, she would hear about the types of criminals who are actually being rounded up.
SPEAKER 19 :
We have arrested almost 600 known or suspected terrorists within the United States, 2,700 members of Trend de Aragua, a vicious gang that kills, rapes, and maims Americans for sport. That is who these politicians are protecting.
SPEAKER 08 :
That was DHS Assistant Secretary Trisha McLaughlin earlier this week, and I'll discuss this here in just a couple of moments when I'm joined by Congressman Brad Knott, who is a member of the House Homeland Security Committee. And the National Education Association recently held its annual meeting, and among the resolutions they passed was one to fight President Trump's alleged fascism, and their war cry was certainly heard loud and clear.
SPEAKER 24 :
Diversity, equity, and inclusion. Say the words! Say the words! Say them! Say them out loud!
SPEAKER 08 :
Wow. That was NEA President Becky Pringle on day one of that gathering, and we'll discuss what else came out of that four-day meeting when I'm joined a little bit later by CEO of Moms for Liberty, Tina Deskovich. And also today, we'll highlight a legal effort to prevent the IRS from blackballing conservative groups who are seeking nonprofit tax-exempt status. Attorney Chris Gober will join me for that discussion a little bit later. And speaking of the IRS... That'll be one of the topics that we'll also discuss when I'm joined by David Claussen for our Biblical Worldview segment a little later in the program. So as always, we have a lot coming your way, all of it, trying to hit the highlights of the week from a Biblical worldview perspective. And you can always keep abreast of it all with our website, TonyPerkins.com. All right, let's jump into our first topic for today. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has been working tirelessly, literally, trying to enforce our nation's immigration laws, rounding up criminals, illegal criminals, immigrants. But their work has not come without fierce and, in fact, in some sad instances, even violent resistance from the woke mob. And you can take for just an example the immigration raid at a marijuana farm in Southern California just yesterday where for four hours there were protesters and apparently one of them at least opened fire on federal agents. And thankfully, in that incident, none of the agents were injured. But unfortunately, that was far from being an isolated incident. Well, joining me now to discuss this and more is Congressman Brad Knott. He's a member of the House Homeland Security Committee and represents North Carolina's 13th congressional district. Congressman Knott, welcome back to Washington Watch. Great to have you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, Jody, it's good to be here. Thank you.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, so we've got several of these immigration enforcement raids that are seemingly being met with fierce, fierce resistance from the woke mob. And so let me start with this question. Do Democrats, in your opinion, even some like California Governor Gavin Newsom, do they bear some responsibility for stoking the fire of the violence that we're seeing right now against these federal agents?
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely, and I would push back on that. It's not just the woke mob, it's the entire Democratic Party by and large who are pushing back against the efforts of this administration to do two things. And those two things, of course, are to secure the border and then to remove illegal immigrants, starting with those who are most dangerous. And even in Congress, it is very common to hear people call our ICE agents the Gestapo or compare them to Hitler's secret police, the SS. It's really, it's unbelievable. And it's unfortunately a continuing trend that I saw before I decided to run. When I was working in the Department of Justice, when I was seeing the resistance from the Biden-Harris administration to enforce our laws, they do not want any immigration enforcement. They are committed to the open borders. And the very, very dangerous effects to our own country, those are not being considered or even recognized. And they are playing with real fire here, enraging the left, enraging the illegal immigrant community against law enforcement like they're doing, and it should stop.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, great point. In fact, I had that discussion with someone earlier in the week, and we both agreed, yeah, this is beyond just the woke mob out there. It really does seem to entail virtually, if not all, of the Democratic Party. I wonder if the SPLC now is going to come out and label the Democratic Party a terrorist organization or some sort of hate group. We'll probably not hold our breath for that to happen, but an interesting question anyways.
SPEAKER 04 :
so let me what is your reaction your response to uh governor newsom he's calling these immigration raids inhumane how do you respond to that type of terminology you know governor newsom is the quintessential finger in the wind whatever he needs to do to maintain relevance and to secure political power that's all he's doing and he knows deep down that the open border has been a catastrophe for california You know, in some estimates, almost 30% of healthcare costs in California are because of freeloading illegal immigrants. I mean, your listeners need to answer this question. In the country, there are probably 25 to 30 million illegal aliens. Where do they get their healthcare? Where do they get their healthcare? It's either in states like California on the government dole or they go to the emergency room and those costs are handed off to Americans. You know, Governor Newsom should know better. I was in California not too long ago and their state has been overrun by an illegal immigration swell that has really, really, it's almost divided the state into two separate Californias. And it's absolutely unacceptable. And so he knows better, I hope. And he is just trying to score cheap political points at the expense of his own state.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, very interesting perspective there. You know, when you look at all the violence that is intertwined in all of this, it certainly is not unique simply to California. I mean, this week we had 11 people arrested for attempted murder charges on an attempted ambush near Dallas. In fact, one officer there was shot in the neck. Are we watching, Congressman? I don't know, some sort of version of defund the police 2.0. Is it that type of thing do you think that we're witnessing with all of this?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think we have to come to grips with the fact that the Democratic Party, a greater percentage of that party is the radical left. And the radical left truly hates the structures that have enabled Western civilization to flourish. One of those is, of course, law and order. And whether it's the border, whether it is coming down on violence, on vandalism, on assaulting our police, whatever it may be, it really enrages the extreme elements of the Democratic Party. And it's a tremendous problem. But you look at the Democratic Party, look at their mayor, the candidate for mayor in New York City. He is an unapologetic, anti-Semitic communist. He has championed the phrase, globalized the Intifada. This is where the Democratic Party is now. And any type of traditional conservatism or American jurisprudence, American law enforcement, they really do get inflamed. And it's a huge problem. But let me just put this one note in there. The violence that I'm most concerned about is not the crazy college kids who live in their parents' basement. It is the violence that will come to our streets if we have open borders. Around the world, there are some of the most heinous people who are plotting to come, if they're not here already, into the United States. And they lay dormant for a while. But you import the third world. You import people who want to cut people's heads off or or shoot their rivals. That violence will show up in the American streets before too long. We've already seen the effects, whether it's with drugs or human trafficking, but it is only going to grow worse if we don't get ahead of this problem. So I commend the president absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, great point, and I hope you heard it coming into this, but we're talking about DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin actually has said that they've captured almost 600 known or suspected terrorists who have been arrested and some 2,700 members of the gang Trend de Aragua. You would think people would be happy that these type of individuals are being caught, apprehended. Tell me real quickly, you've got a couple of bills today that I want you to explain dealing with these type of things, and both of them have passed out of their respective committees. Real briefly, give us a highlight of what these bills are.
SPEAKER 04 :
The first bill, I think, is the most important piece of legislation for illegal immigration in this Congress. And it's built on my experience as a federal prosecutor, and it essentially categorizes anyone who is here illegally in a separate slate if they commit a crime. If they're convicted of a crime, they are subject to enhanced penalties. And then secondly, if they return to the country a second time illegally, they will be subjected to harsher penalties. And there are two goals here. One is to protect the American citizens from people who are here illegally that want to commit crimes. But second is to deter those from coming back a second time after deportation. I prosecuted people who returned more than a dozen times illegally because they don't fear the American legal system. We must recognize this threat, address this threat, and hope to deter it into the future. The second bill I introduced, it basically tasks a study and then an action plan on how to deal with Trend Agua. They're in about 15 different countries in the Western Hemisphere. They're very proficient at embedding themselves in society, laying dormant and then metastasizing with violence, with drug trafficking, with human trafficking. And again, the Department of Homeland Security needs to study it and then put an action plan together on how to remove this this blight once and for all. So those are my two bills that we've gotten out of committee and the House will be voting on them soon, I hope.
SPEAKER 08 :
Outstanding. Those are two excellent bills. Congressman Bradnott, we want to keep a track on that. We'd love to have you come back on and keep us posted on how those are developing and how they're moving forward. You know, and it comes at such a time, I'm sure you saw that data recently analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies found that sanctuary states released some 25,000 criminal illegals back into our population between October and February. Just unbelievable. And then you have also what seems to be the left is okay with some 300,000 missing children that have come across the border and very few of them have been found. So this is just an unprecedented time that we're living in. And I want to thank you for the incredible work that you're doing there on Capitol Hill. We've got just 20 seconds. Your final thoughts before we take off.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you for having me, and I'll just remind everybody, we have a precious country that we must steward. And if we don't take immigration seriously, if we're not carefully vetting people to come in, we're going to pay the price, and we've got to do that. Protect legal immigrants and deter illegal. And that's my final word.
SPEAKER 08 :
Congressman Brad Nutt, North Carolina, thank you so much for joining us. All right, friends, Mom for Liberty CEO will join me next. You don't want to miss what's coming up.
SPEAKER 07 :
The family is the oldest, most tested, and most reliable unit of society. It is divinely created and sustained. And yet, there are those who are always tampering with its values and structure. That's why we need organizations like the Family Research Council that can effectively defend and strengthen the family.
SPEAKER 16 :
Family Research Council began over 40 years ago, like all great movements of God, with prayer. Today, rooted in the heart of the nation's capital, FRC continues to champion faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview.
SPEAKER 07 :
FRC is one of those bright lights that helps us focus on true north. And I shudder to think, had they not been here, that it could have been worse, worse, worse.
SPEAKER 14 :
The Family Research Council is key. It's one of a handful of groups that I think will determine whether our children live in a country that enjoyed all of the freedom and all the opportunity that we enjoyed in this great land.
SPEAKER 05 :
It's just a wonderful parachurch organization that doesn't seek to take the place of the church, but it seeks to assist the family and the church as we try to move forward successfully, not in a defensive mode, but in an offensive mode as we seek to live our lives according to the Holy Scriptures.
SPEAKER 01 :
FRC is not going to be whooped. You know, we're going to fight. We're going to take a stand. And again, we don't retreat.
SPEAKER 10 :
You will never see in front of this building here in Washington, D.C., a white flag flying. We will never step back. We will never surrender. And we will never be silent.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hello, friends, this is Tony Perkins. You know what? We just finished our 21 day family Bible challenge through the book of Matthew. And if you joined us, I pray that it has already borne fruit in your life and in your home as you place the Lord and his word at the center of your home. Now, our journey through the Bible doesn't end here, though. The challenge was a part of our Stand on the Word Bible reading plan. And from here, we're going to cover the rest of the New Testament. And now that we've finished the book of Matthew, let me ask you, would you consider joining us for the rest of the journey through the Word of God? In 10 to 15 minutes a day, you'll see how the good news of Jesus transformed the lives of common people, people just like you and me, and how those same people transformed the known world through the power of the Holy Spirit. I invite you to continue the journey with me and discover the life-enriching power of the Word of God. Visit frc.org slash Bible for a reading plan. That's frc.org slash Bible to learn more.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome back to Washington Watch. Thank you so much for joining us today. I am Jody Heiss, your Friday host, and an honor to be with you. All right. Last weekend, the National Education Association held its 2025 representative assembly meeting in Portland, Oregon. And throughout the teachers union meeting, the delegates there doubled down on things like pushing to get LGBT events into more schools. how to usurp parents' rights to know about their kids' education. And that, in fact, even in spite of the fact that the Supreme Court recently spoke to that issue. But they did so much more. And of course, I guess predictably, they also, their delegates, voted to fight President Trump's alleged fascism. So what else were they up to? Well, here to share more about this is Tina Descovitz. She's the co-founder and CEO of Moms for Liberty. Tina, welcome to Washington Watch. Great to have you.
SPEAKER 25 :
Thanks, Jody, for having me on. I'm looking forward to chatting about the great National Education Association.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, let me start with this clip. I think this is a great place to start.
SPEAKER 24 :
Diversity, equity, and inclusion. Say the words. Say the words. Say them. Say them out loud. Wow.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right. So you were tracking this teachers union meeting. What struck you most about the proceedings that took place?
SPEAKER 25 :
What's most striking about the NEA conferences every summer since I've been following what they're doing is that they actually don't discuss and don't vote on anything that has to do with education. It's quite remarkable. In the United States, about a third of fourth graders can read proficiently. You heard that right. One third can read proficiently. and yet they don't address that issue at all they address things like you said in the intro about how to insert lgbtq curriculum even after the supreme court said just last week that parents can opt out we had one of our moms as a as a petitioner in a supreme court case from montgomery county maryland and parents you know the supreme court verified again that parents do have the fundamental right to raise their children and opt them out. And the NEA spends its time saying, no, parents, you don't know best. Your children do need to learn LGBTQ and gender ideology. We need to teach them that they can be a boy or a girl, neither or both.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, it really is a stunning and alarming. It's exceedingly alarming, the leadership of where the teachers union is going. And among other things, there's so much we could discuss, but they basically are calling President Trump a fascist. Were you in any way surprised by the fact that delegates okayed that particular business item?
SPEAKER 25 :
Sometimes I'm shocked that I'm still shocked, to be honest. I've been following them for five or six years now. And even in the past few years, they vote on things like abortion. They've been voting on Middle East policies for several years now. What in the world does that have to do with education and teaching kids to read and write and do math? This year, they voted on numerous things that are astonishing. using the term fascism when referring to President Trump's policies. Like you said, they voted to cut ties with anti-Semitism groups. They voted just on numerous things that have absolutely nothing to do with educating children.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and I mean, that is a great point. That's a question that they need to answer, quite frankly. You actually described the NEA as lighting the fire but playing victim. I thought that was a great word picture. Go a little bit further into depth as to what you mean by that.
SPEAKER 25 :
because the NEA and all the teachers unions, even local teachers unions, they come after Moms for Liberty and parents that are standing up for things like school choice or the right to raise their children, but most specifically school choice. They constantly say that parents that want to choose to homeschool or private school or public charter school are trying to destroy public education. And Moms for Liberty as a whole, they've been telling us since the day we launched that we are out to destroy public education. there couldn't be anything further from the truth i served on a public school board for four years and i actually believe that there is a role for public education and it should serve the public well but the union says you're trying to destroy public education meanwhile the union actually is spending all of their time on doing everything but educating children and you know i don't want to jump all the way back to 2020 but let's reflect on who is trying to keep schools closed the longest the la teachers union in 2020 and 2021 said they wouldn't open until they agreed to defund the police. Again, absolutely nothing to do with education. They were holding children hostage. What we wanna see happen is that we want Congress to revoke their charter. They are the only labor union in the country that has a federal charter, is the National Education Association. And so you probably know a lot of people right now that we're talking to on Capitol Hill that are drafting language right now to revoke this charter.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I think that's a great idea and something that certainly needs to happen. If there's anyone who's trying to destroy public education, it would be the NEA, quite frankly. As you referenced, they're the ones that's doing everything but education. So let me ask you, because you brought this up. Tina, what would your advice be to parents in our audience who are watching or listening right now who may not be able to feasibly homeschool their kids or put them in Christian private schools? What would you say to them?
SPEAKER 25 :
You have to do what's best for your child and your family. And unfortunately, sometimes you are left with a public school option only. You have to be an involved parent. You have to be proactive, not reactive. These things are in your schools all across the country. We are in 48 states, 320 counties, and I will tell you, Parents are coming to us all the time with their children that have been harmed by policies where there's boys in their daughter's bathrooms, there's boys in their daughter's sports, lessons that have been taught to them that they can change their gender. These things are happening. And so if your child is still in public school, you must be proactive. Check those backpacks. Ask to see what they're reading before they're reading it. Ask to opt out. You can go to our website, MomsForTheReady.org. We've created forms and tools for you. children out. The Supreme Court has said it is your right to opt your children out of these things. We will help you do that. You have to take a stand and be a strong parent to protect them against what's going on in public schools right now.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I just want to say thank you, Tina, to you and everyone there at Moms for Liberty, a relatively young organization, but one that has just become a powerhouse in our country for standing up for the rights of moms and kids and education. And you're so on the tip of the spear. I want to say thank you for the incredible work that each of you do there at Moms for Liberty. Tina Deskovich with Moms for Liberty. Thank you so much for joining us today on Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 25 :
Thanks, Jody, for having me on.
SPEAKER 08 :
You're very welcome. God bless. All right. Coming up, the IRS's facts and circumstances test was weaponized against conservatives during the Obama administration. Well, that test is still around and we'll talk about it right after the break.
SPEAKER 06 :
The Center for Biblical Worldview's all-day workshops delves into the formation of a worldview, what it is, how it's formed, when it's formed, what that means to them personally and their churches and communities.
SPEAKER 20 :
My hope for people when they come to these worldview workshops is that they will come away better equipped to engage the people and the ideas that they're living with and around. And our goal is to give people more confidence in the gospel and the fact that what God said to us actually is true, actually is the path to happiness and human flourishing for all of us, but also more confidence in their ability to have these conversations and help lead other people to the truth.
SPEAKER 17 :
for Bible-believing Christians to know what God's Word says on these issues and to learn how they can apply it to their lives. And we believe that the more Christians that we equip, that's how we'll change the nation.
SPEAKER 15 :
Hey, fam, listen, Pastor Sammy here at Lighthouse Church, and I cannot tell you how equipping, how empowering, how... incredibly educating this conference has been. And so I just want to encourage anybody that either has not been part of or is thinking about hosting this event, certainly to pastors, leaders, even CEOs for that matter. This conference is lights out. Stand behind it myself. I can't commend it enough. We're going to be talking about this for some time to come.
SPEAKER 22 :
The culture is kind of squeezing in on us as God's people, forcing those of us with biblical views to change those views or to suppress those views. It's forcing us to engage with issues that we've never had to engage with. And so what this teaches us is what those issues are, what the Bible says about those issues, and then how we can critically engage our culture on these things in a way that is committed to biblical principle.
SPEAKER 03 :
Visit frc.org slash worldview for more information.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome back to Washington Watch. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm your host, Jody Heiss. All right. Earlier this month, a legal case brought against the IRS finally, finally got its day in court. And it could have some major implications down the road for countless conservative organizations. So what is the issue in this case? Well, here now to share more about it is Chris Gover. He's the founding partner and CEO at Lex Politica, who represents the organization in this case. Chris, welcome to Washington Watch. Great to see you.
SPEAKER 18 :
Hey, Jody. How are you? Been too long.
SPEAKER 08 :
It has been too long. I know a lot of our viewers and listeners will not know this, but you and I have a history together ourselves. When I had to go before Fannie Willis's grand jury, you were there defending me and did an excellent job then, as you have done with so many, and you continue your outstanding work, and it's an honor to have you today. Thank you.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, well, great. It's great to see you. Great to see you here. So, you know, not in Fulton County courthouses and sham litigation.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, listen, you got that right. Underscore, underscore, underscore.
SPEAKER 18 :
But they say, you know, habits die hard. So can I bill you for this here?
SPEAKER 08 :
I'm not going to answer that one. Listen, let's begin this because this is an important case you're working on now. Let's start, kind of jog our memory, if you would, Chris, on the 2014 IRS Lois Lerner scandal. Of course, she was then the director of the IRS's exempt organizations unit. Fill us in a little bit of that.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, so this case really goes back, you gotta look all the way back to 2010 and 2011. We founded a group called Freedom Path, a 501c4 issue advocacy organization that sought its tax exempt status with the IRS back in 2011. And then after years of delay of just waiting for the IRS to do something with this application, we suddenly get a letter in the mail that says we want to know more. Please send us a list of all of your donors and all of this really irrelevant information regarding the tax exempt status. So something was fishy there. It wasn't long after that that the whole Lois Lerner scandal broke and we realized that this organization, Freedom Path, had been kind of targeted by Lois Lerner and her cronies because they had Freedom in the name. If you recall any group with Tea Party in the name, Freedom in the name, anything, I guess, you know, sounding, you know, too American for them, they would you know, target and hold. So this really dates back to that period of time. We filed a lawsuit against them in 2014 that has seen various courts and now 11 years later we actually had the most substantive hearing we've had and in this case, you know, since that time.
SPEAKER 08 :
Wow. All right, so we've got the facts and circumstances test and how it was used to weaponize the IRS against conservatives. Explain that to us.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, so the IRS uses a test. This is not even a statutory test that originated with Congress. Rather, it's kind of through interpretation and rulemaking through the IRS, and it's been in existence for decades. But the IRS uses the so-called facts and circumstances test, which is an 11-factor test of a bunch of highly subjective factors that they frankly say they can weight it differently from one communication to the next or actually even take into consideration other factors that aren't a part of the list. But this is the test that importantly determines is a group engaged in issue advocacy of the type that's in furtherance of its tax exempt status, or is it engaged in some kind of political campaign intervention that could jeopardize that tax exempt status. And so what happens in practice with this really vague and subjective test is if you have an IRS agent that's sitting there and they're looking at a particular organization and judging its communications and its expenditures, the fact of the matter is that IRS agent can come to whatever conclusion they so desire because the test is so subjective in nature. that it's basically, you can just use the test to find whatever conclusion you want to get to. And that's what allows the IRS to really engage in a lot of these abuses because they can't, they don't have to stick to an objective standard that everybody on both sides understands. They can kind of hide behind the vagueness of it. And that's where we see so many conservative organizations getting targeted unfairly by a bunch of government bureaucrats.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, so we've got about a minute and a half left here. In the midst of all that vagueness, Chris, what are you asking the courts to do? What are you hoping to come out with?
SPEAKER 18 :
What we're wanting is the facts and circumstances test to be struck down as unconstitutional. We want there to be new rules in place that the IRS has to use to determine, you know, what is political campaign intervention? What is issue advocacy? In effect, we're asking the IRS to do what the United States Supreme Court has already told the Federal Election Commission to do. Because the Federal Election Commission used to have a very similar test that was the result of the McCain-Feingold bill back in 2001. That test got struck down as unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. And basically the IRS kind of continues to run their very kind of analogous test. So we want the court to do the same. We want to create, you know, new rules to be drafted to make sure that target conservative organizations can't be entirely fairly targeted in the future.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, Chris Gober, CEO of Lex Politica, I want to thank you so much again. Let me just say it for the outstanding work you've done and you continue to do. This has got to come to a stop. IRS targeting of conservative organizations. And thank you right now for leading that charge. We're certainly going to be keeping a close watch on this. Thank you for joining us on Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 18 :
All right. Thanks, Jody.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, on the other side of the break, FRC's David Claussen is going to be joining me for our weekly Biblical Worldview discussion. And boy, we've got a lot to talk about, so don't go anywhere. We'll be back on the other side of the break. Stay tuned.
SPEAKER 21 :
Family Research Council is committed to advancing faith, family, and freedom from the East Coast to the West. So FRC is going to Southern California for this year's Pray, Vote, Stand Summit, October 17th and 18th at Calvary Chapel, Chino Hills. Join us for this powerful gathering of Christians desiring cultural renewal and spiritual revival. The Pray, Vote, Stand Summit brings together Christian leaders, issue experts, and government officials for a time of prayer, inspiration, and action. Together, we will seek God's guidance for our nation and engage in meaningful discussions on the intersection of faith, government, and culture. If the spiritual foundations and the cultural walls of our nation are to be rebuilt, we all have a role to play. May we each find our place on the wall as we build for biblical truth. Register now at PrayVoteStand.org. That's PrayVoteStand.org.
SPEAKER 12 :
Jennifer, it's so exciting to be here with you today talking about our new book, Embracing God's Design. Who is actually going to benefit from reading this book in your view?
SPEAKER 23 :
There's so many different audiences that can benefit. The first one are counselors themselves, because we have some material in there where we really address the gender dysphoria diagnosis and what is wrong with it. We have information for people who are wanting to go back to embracing God's design for their life.
SPEAKER 12 :
This is really magical to have the therapist and the individual who suffered come together and write about why this is happening and why we're seeing this.
SPEAKER 23 :
And we brought all of that experience to the table. We want to see people walking in the fullness of who God has called them to be and not a false identity.
SPEAKER 07 :
Order today at embracethedesign.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
How should Christians think about the thorny issues shaping our culture? How should Christians address deceitful ideas like transgenderism, critical theory, or assisted suicide? How can Christians navigate raising children in a broken culture, the war on gender roles, or rebuilding our once great nation? Outstanding is a podcast from The Washington Stand dedicated to these critical conversations. Outstanding seeks to tear down what our corrupt culture lifts up with an aim to take every thought and every idea captive to the obedience of Christ. Whether policies or partisan politics, whether conflict in America or conflict abroad, join us and our guests as we examine the headlines through the lens of Scripture and explore how Christians can faithfully exalt Christ Thank you for joining us today on Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 08 :
I'm your Friday host, Jody Heiss. And before I get to my final guest, I've got an action item for you. And I really hope you'll pay attention to this. The Trump administration has signaled its intent to cut the some woke programs specifically from PEPFAR. Now you've heard us talk a lot about PEPFAR. Some of you may not know what that stands for. PEPFAR is the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. So we call it PEPFAR for short. But it's being changed all around. Its intent is to provide some life-changing and life-saving treatment, but it is not intended to, which it is now being used as, to promote abortion and all sorts of radical ideologies. And so the rescissions act that just went through certainly is a step in the right direction. But there's a major lobbying campaign that's underway right now to shame Republican senators into rejecting any cuts whatsoever to PEPFAR. So we need you. to contact the Senate to stop PEPFAR from funding abortion, from funding LGBT advocacy, and all these things that it was not intended to fund. So you can be a part of this. Simply text the word PEPFAR. That's P-E-P-F-A-R. PEPFAR.org. to 67742, and we'll send you a link so that your voice can be heard. Again, that's PEPFAR to 67742. All right. No shortage of items in the news this week, as we all know, and they all deserve our attention, our thoughtful attention as Christians, and to look at these items through the lens of Scripture. And we like to do that each week here on this program, ending the week with a biblical worldview segment, looking at the highlights of the week through a biblical perspective. And joining us today is David Claussen, who joins us most every Friday. Of course, he is the director here at the Center for Biblical Worldview at the Family Research Council. He's also the author of the recent book, Life After Roe, Equipping Christians in the Fight for Life Today. David, as always, welcome back to the program. Great to have you.
SPEAKER 17 :
Happy Friday. Great to be with you, Jody.
SPEAKER 08 :
happy friday to you as well all right david i i don't know where else to start we have to begin with the aftermath of the floods in texas at this point some 120 plus lives most are telling us that number is likely to exceed 200 and almost immediately when all this happened david i was i was offended i was hurt i was upset that the media almost immediately began to blame President Trump for the Texas floods and somehow politicize all of this. That's kind of become the national way, the political way to deal with these sorts of things. But on the other hand, you saw Christians responding in an entirely different way, from prayer vigils to mourning and praying and getting their feet and hands dirty trying to help out So let me just 30,000 foot view your reaction from those two perspectives on the Texas floods this week.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, Jody, as Christians, our first impulse, our first response is really the biblical category of lament. Romans 12, 15 says that we mourn with those who mourn. And when you're thinking about just the scale of this tragedy and the innocent loss of life, you know, as Christians, we lament. We lament the pain and the grief. I can't imagine, you know, Jody, I'm a new father and in the... The idea that some of these parents are getting calls that their young girls, you know, that the Christian girls camp, Camp Mystic, were washed away in the flood. That is just horrifying. It's unimaginable. And of course, as you said, the media's impulse to politicize it. You know, this is we've seen this show before whenever there's kind of a mass shooting or a natural disaster. In the case of a shooting, the discussion immediately goes to guns. In the case of a natural disaster, you hear talk about climate change. And, you know, we can have those debates, but in the immediate aftermath, I think as Christians, We lament, we grieve, we empathize. You mentioned that prayer vigil. I actually watched clips of that this morning. You know, that's what Christians do. We go to our Father in a posture of trust. We come alongside one another. We bear each other's burdens. And I think for those of us around the country, we just need to continue to pray for our brothers and sisters who are walking through something that really is unimaginable.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, David, I had personally two members of Congress, and I'll not mention their names right now, but one of them had two of his daughters who were at Camp Mystic during that time. The other had two granddaughters that were there. Fortunately, those daughters and granddaughters were saved, but one of the cousins died. of one of those members was not saved. She lost her life. And I had some believers on the ground that we have been in touch with, and some of them contacted me miraculously. They had found some of the personal items from the little cousin who lost her life, and we were able to work out with the family. And just yesterday, those items were delivered on the front door of their home. But the mourning that you described is so real and so deep, and the prayers of the body of Christ across this country, the involvement of Christians has been so encouraging, and I think you were spot on with that. I think we could spend the... rest of our time on the Texas floods. But if I can, David, let me transition a little. Let me stay in Texas. At least we'll stay in Texas. But Baylor University, they've had quite an interesting week this week. They had an LGBTQ research grant, but because of so much opposition, they have rescinded that grant and sent back the money. Tell us what's going on there at Baylor.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, for anyone who missed this story on June 30th, Baylor University put out a press release kind of celebrating a grant of $643,000. So again, this is no small grant. This is a significant grant and the grant was given to promote LGBT inclusion and belonging in the church. Now, it's interesting, Jodi, again, this June 30th press release no longer exists because, as you mentioned, after the backlash, the university has said, we won't accept the grant anymore. But let me go back to that press release. Even though it doesn't exist anymore, I have some screenshots. And here's really interesting what this, again, $643,000 was going to go towards at a historically Baptist university. Here's what the press release said, Jodi. It says, Through academic research, this grant will help us better understand the disenfranchisement and exclusion of LGBTQIA plus individuals and women within congregations to nurture institutional courage and foster change. And it goes on to talk about how many LGBTQIA plus individuals and women experience institutional betrayal within their faith communities And it says, you know, the whole point of this study that they were going to do was going to try to help congregations develop greater sensitivity and trauma-informed approaches to ministry for, again, those who identify on the whole alphabet soup of LGBTQ issues. And again, so this kind of research grant sounds like what you would expect from a far-left progressive university. You can be excused for thinking this is the kind of research you think maybe Union Theological Seminary or some other really progressive school might do. Not Baylor, though, because Baylor is still affiliated with the General Baptist Convention of Texas, which, by the way, affirms the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, which has a very strong position on human sexuality and marriage. And so again, after the backlash, Jody, they've said that they won't take the money, they'll give it back. But I guess the final thing I'd add, this isn't too surprising to me. It was exactly 10 years ago that Baylor kind of quietly eliminated from its student code of conduct a clause that had explicitly prohibited homosexual behavior. It was a really clear statement and they replaced it with a really watered down statement. And so again, I think this is a cautionary tale. I think Baylor still feels this connection to their Baptist heritage, but it's kind of trying to sit on the fence and have it both ways, so to speak. So I'm grateful that the pushback resulted in kind of Baylor getting a little pie on their face and being embarrassed by this. But when you have really watered down statements on sexuality, it's not a real sign of health for the organization.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and I had not seen the post that you just read. That was very interesting. One of the things that stuck out to me while you were reading it is how they referred to individuals and women as though women are not individuals to start with. There is something that's being said even in that kind of statement. They made it a couple of times. If I can, David, let's switch gears. Let's go to a little bit broader topic from the IRS. making the announcement this week regarding the Johnson Amendment, which, by the way, is the whole issue that drove me to Congress as a pastor to begin with. But this decision, it was made in a court filing in an ongoing lawsuit in Texas. It provides a carve out in the Johnson Amendment. Tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, Jody, I just again want to congratulate you. I know that this is an issue that you've been advocating on for years. Like you said, it got you into politics. I know you were on the program earlier this week with Tony, and I would commend our viewers and listeners to go watch the conversation the two of you had with Congressman Mark Harris, a Southern Baptist pastor from North Carolina. But for those who might be unfamiliar with the whole history here, Jody, this is a provision of the tax code that was introduced in 1954 by then Senator Lyndon Johnson. He really put it in the tax code because he was upset that two nonprofits in Texas opposed his reelection for the U.S. Senate. But again, over the decades, again, this provision basically says nonprofits, including churches, can't engage in direct politicking, endorsing candidates, things like that. But again, it's had a real chilling effect on pastors. And in my view, you know, pastors still had broad free speech protection. But think about organizations like the Family Research Council. I've been here long enough to go through a couple of election cycles. Every, you know, two years we'll have to put out information for pastors, kind of the do's and don'ts, because people are legitimately nervous about losing tax-exempt status. And so one of the things that groups like FRC Action will do in an election is try to help people navigate that, because it's a real fear that I think the left successfully kind of was able to weaponize against us. And so that's why this is such a big deal, Jody. On July 8th, like you said, the IRS filed what's called a consent decree. that essentially clarifies that churches have these free speech rights. A pastor now can endorse, if they want to, from the pulpit. And, of course, we can talk about the wisdom and propriety of that, but I think it's always been ridiculous bordering on unconstitutional to threaten churches over their free speech rights.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and religious liberty. I mean, if there is anywhere where religious liberty, the epicenter of that is a church, and the centerpiece of that, obviously, is the pulpit. As you bring that up, not surprisingly, a lot of people on the left are not excited about this announcement. People like Governor Gavin Newsom, for example. I want to play a clip for you of what he had to say when he was asked about this by a reporter. Let's play this clip, and we'll get your reaction.
SPEAKER 11 :
called gaming the system in every way. I mean, it's pretty, I think it's pretty cynical that the IRS just all of a sudden changes those rules. I don't know if it's healthy. I don't even know that it's legal, but it's unsurprising and I just find it politically convenient and cynical.
SPEAKER 08 :
Interesting to me. I've never seen Governor Newsom in a church. Maybe he's been there before. I'm not saying he hasn't. But he's making this statement with stained glass behind him and all the all. All right. So give me your reaction to this. Is it gaming the system, according to Governor Newsom?
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, no. And Jody, here's the thing. Again, this Johnson Amendment really has created kind of a culture of fear and confusion amongst conservative, theologically conservative evangelical pastors. And that is so rich from the governor. I have to add, this is someone who has weaponized Scripture. pulled it out of context to really advance his own political agenda, putting up billboards in states around the countries to support abortion rights. Again, very, very rich. But again, we need to be clear about one thing, Jody. This whole talk about pastors using the pulpit for politics, the conversation seems to only go one way for decades. Historically, black churches have invited politicians to essentially hold campaign rallies in their churches. Think about 2008 Obama campaign surrogate, or I guess I should say pastor, Jeremiah Wright, using his pulpit to talk about those issues. You have Raphael Warnock, senator from Georgia, who launched your home state, Jody, who launched his political career from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church. And so, again, the criticism about the Johnson Amendment, it only really seems to be directed towards those who are on the political right. And so I can I think the fact that the IRS has made this decision, it evens the playing field.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, so let's go into this. Only less than a couple of minutes that we have, David. What do you say to pastors who practically, what would you say to them, advise them moving forward once this is a done deal? Is this going to change their ministry in terms of shepherding their flock?
SPEAKER 17 :
I don't think so, Jody. Again, all this says is pastors have their free speech rights, they have religious freedom protections. Again, I believe that the church and the state, I believe in the doctrine of sphere sovereignty, that they have independent authority that exists directly from God. It's a delegated authority from God. The church doesn't have to get permission from the state to exist. Now, do I want my pastor on election day to go through a ballot in the pulpit telling, you know, to vote for water commissioner and everything along the ballot, that probably would be unwise in many situations. But I can imagine, Jody, in some situations where it might be prudent. I think 1930s Germany, I think it would have been appropriate for a pastor to tell his congregation from the pulpit, vote against the guy running against the Nazis. And so, again, I think this comes to it's an issue of propriety. It's an issue of wisdom. And I think what's exciting about this is now pastors in consultation with their elders and folks in their leadership, they can decide what is right and appropriate come election time.
SPEAKER 08 :
Excellent information, David Clawson. Thank you, as always, for bringing a biblical perspective to the news highlights of the week. It's always great to have you. Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
SPEAKER 17 :
Thank you. God bless.
SPEAKER 08 :
God bless you as well. All right, David Claussen, Director of the Center for Biblical Worldview here at FRC. Hope you have a fantastic weekend. We'll be back at it next week here on Washington Watch, so we'll see you then. Have a great weekend. God bless.
SPEAKER 16 :
Washington Watch with Tony Perkins is brought to you by Family Research Council and is entirely listener supported. Portions of the show discussing candidates are brought to you by Family Research Council Action. For more information on anything you heard today or to find out how you can partner with us in our ongoing efforts to promote faith, family, and freedom, visit TonyPerkins.com.
In this episode, Mike Gallagher broadcasts live from the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida, as he delves into the contentious topic surrounding ICE agents and their portrayal by left-leaning politicians and media. With thousands of conservative young activists gathered in the heart of Tampa Bay, Gallagher asks probing questions about the future of law enforcement and political narratives. Featuring sound bites from Jesse Waters and discussions about the potential loss of ICE officers, this episode offers a critical eye on current events and their long-term ramifications.
SPEAKER 10 :
He's the happy conservative warrior, Mike Gallagher, broadcasting across hundreds of radio stations nationwide and seen on your trusted conservative TV network, Salem News Channel. Now at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida, here's Mike.
SPEAKER 06 :
Indeed we are. Welcome to Tampa Bay. What's going to happen to the Democrats' tone about ICE agents if and when that dreadful day comes when an ICE officer is actually killed? That's a question I can't get out of my head. I'm going to ask a lot of people here at the Turning Point USA Action Summit. We're in the Tampa Convention Center, Meteoro, kind of the heartbeat right now of the young conservative movement in America. Thousands of young people from all over the world are converging upon Tampa Bay this weekend to take part in Charlie Kirk's massive party. This is an incredible movement. that Charlie has launched years ago out of his parents' garage in Chicago when he was a young kid. And we are honored to be a part of it all here at this Turning Point USA Student Action Summit. If you haven't been following the news, you may not be aware that yesterday, a pretty simple thing happened. Violent Mexican nationalists and open border extremists attacked and shot at federal law enforcement officers in Camarillo, California. These officers were conducting a raid on a drug farm that uses migrant child labor. Democrats turned it into a narrative that vicious, evil, Nazi ICE agents swooped in on poor migrants who were plucking strawberries from the field and tear gassed them. That's the narrative Gavin Newsom wants people to believe. That's the story, the lie that Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, wants you to accept. And that isn't what happened. Let me repeat what happened. Violent Mexican nationalists and open border extremists attacked and shot at federal officers conducting a raid on a drug farm that uses migrant child labor. This is a marijuana farm. This is a cannabis farm. With migrant child labor, illegals and ICE officers were attacked by violent, violent agitators. My question is simple. What's going to happen? What are the Democrats like Gavin Newsom going to say when an ICE officer is killed? Here was Jesse Waters last night on Fox News saying, you know what ICE has to do right now? Instead of backing down to these violent extremists, ICE has to go harder. ICE has to double down. And in fact, we need to bring in the Marines. They showed protesters being shoved by ICE agents.
SPEAKER 08 :
But isn't the aggression, the attacks on ICE? ICE has to go harder, Emily. I'm not advocating for police brutality, but you can't have a tug of war with a bicycle against Trantifa. It makes ICE look weak and it makes Trantifa look strong. The minute they start resisting and obstructing, you have to arrest these people. You have to put them... Like this, hands behind the back, headlock, knee to the back, get him down on the ground and get him the heck out of there. These little standoffs, these little skirmishes only empower Trantifa. It's like being in a ring with Tyson, right? You survive one round. All right. You survive two rounds. You start getting your confidence up. You cannot let these guys get confidence. I saw the other day video of two ICE agents going after one migrant. And the migrant did the drunk dead body, where, you know, you go limp. And it's impossible for a grown man to be pulled out, even by two grown men, when you go limp. And so he's surrounded by other guys filming him. And then one guy has to leave dragging the migrant, and he has to address the guy filming. They need backup. I don't know if it's the Marines. I don't know if it's locals, marshals, whoever they need to get. The BBB, Big Beautiful Bill, I think doubles or almost triples these agents' manpower, and this cannot come soon enough.
SPEAKER 06 :
Send in the Marines, four words that the left despises, four words that strikes terror into the heart of every Antifa creep. In America. But that's what our law enforcement community needs right now. And I'm going to ask you again a direct question. I want to ask the folks that we're going to interview. R. Willie Nelson from Salem News Channel talked to a lot of the arriving convention goers here at the Student Action Summit. We'll play that for you here in just a couple of moments. In fact, he caught up with the wild and crazy Alex Stein. And I saw the look on Willie's face as he's interviewing Alex Stein. And I'm thinking, I think Willie knows who he is. Because he is a piece of work, this Alex Stein. And he goes into his thing about the big-bootied Latinas and everything. It's hysterical. So you're not going to want to miss our Salem News Channel's Willie Nelson and his conversation with the hysterical Alex Stein. We've got that coming up in a few minutes. But we're going to talk to Dr. Ben Carson. We're going to talk to Jack Posobiec. We hope to talk to Charlie himself. With some of the guests we're going to have, I'm going to ask them what I'm about to ask you. Because I really want to know. Will Democrats like Gavin Newsom and all the rest of them who are smearing law enforcement officers from ICE, are they going to change their tune if and when an ICE officer is killed by one of these violent, awful maniacs? And let's start there here at the Turning Point Convention. 800-655-MIKE. It's a simple question. Yesterday, Gavin Newsom, and I'll play it for you, Gavin Newsom ranting and raving about these evil ICE agents plucking migrants from the fields. It's a lie. It's a diabolical lie. So I'm going to ask you to answer my question here in the Relief Factor studios on the road in Tampa. Will Democrats back down if and when that awful day finally arrives when an ICE officer is killed or a Border Patrol agent is killed? Will they change or will they double down? What do you think will happen? 800-655-MIKE, 800-655-6453. Call or text us on the MyPillow text line. I am tired of watching law enforcement get kicked to the curb like this. ICE is law enforcement. ICE is a sheriff's deputy from Spartanburg, South Carolina. ICE is a detective from Tampa, Florida. ICE is a jail warden from California. ICE is law enforcement. This isn't some mysterious, devious Gestapo, the way the Democrats are portraying this. They're cops. They're law enforcement. And if and when one or more of them get killed by these lunatics, will the Democrats change their tune? Yes or no? Simple question. I hope you join us. I want to put your voice front and center here on the Mike Gallagher Show. 800-655-MIKE. 800-655-6453. PhD weight loss has changed my life. And I've got a little secret for you. You know Big Pharma and semaglutide and the shots in the belly. You've seen the story recently about the study that shows that a lot of people that are getting this are going blind. You don't want to do this. You want a program to lose weight that's centered around science and nutrition. A proven roadmap that has helped over 8,000 clients lose weight and keep it off. Like me. I lost 53 pounds a few years ago and I've kept it off. I know what to eat and when. I know how to quiet any of the cravings I might get and finally release that unhealthy belly fat that I carried along for so long. Make the phone call that can change your life in the way it changed mine. It's called PhD Weight Loss. PhD Weight Loss, Dr. Ashley Lucas' program is brilliant. And how do I know? Well, 53 pounds later, here I am. 864-644-1900 is their number. Call and schedule your consultation. You can do this program from anywhere in America. Call 864-644-1900, 864-644-1900, or visit MyPhDWeightLoss.com.
SPEAKER 10 :
He's the happy conservative warrior. Mike Gallagher. Broadcasting across hundreds of radio stations nationwide. And seen on your trusted conservative TV network. Salem News Channel. Now at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida. Here's Mike.
SPEAKER 06 :
It's fun to go where warriors are trying to make a difference for this great country of ours. And I don't know that there's any organization... better equipped to do that than Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA. And today it's the Student Action Summit where thousands and thousands of young people from all over the country are gathering at the Tampa Convention Center. To fight the good fight. And it's just fun to sort of soak up the atmosphere. And it's a joy to run into people who I have admired for many, many years. And I've been thinking a lot about the upstate of South Carolina because it's where I first met Dr. Ben Carson in person. And I have a dear friend. He and his wife had a son, a very precocious young man, who sadly lost his life to a fentanyl overdose. As a little boy, he loved Ben Carson. And I've been thinking about that family a lot today when I realized that I could visit with the one and only Ben Carson. Of course, kind of a wunderkind. He became the youngest director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, a role that he held for nearly 30 years. Co-founded the Carson Scholars Fund with his wife, Candy, who's also with us today. He's authored a number of books. Ran for president, of course, and a whole lot of people think we would be a lot better. We would be in good shape under President Ben Carson instead of, oh, I don't know, Hillary or Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. and he served, of course, as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Trump. Dr. Carson, it's a great joy to see you here in person.
SPEAKER 04 :
It's always good to be with you.
SPEAKER 06 :
It was a number of years ago when I saw you in the hallways in Greenville, South Carolina. You were there for an event, and it's an area that I know you know and love as well as me. Let's talk about the condition of America right now, because you and I on the break before we started this segment together were talking about how crazy things have gotten, and yet things that are supposed to happen... Can you talk a little bit about that, Dr. Carson?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, think about the fact that we're a year out from potentially losing our president.
SPEAKER 06 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 04 :
And can you imagine what would have happened had that been successful? I don't like to think about it. It's incredible. or even if the election had gone in the other direction. And what I see happening right now, particularly young men, are starting to gravitate back toward common sense and toward conservatism because the two things go hand in hand. And I think a lot of people have seen the direction that their country was going in, and they recognize that it was not going to lead to a good thing.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think about your voice a lot. You're obviously sort of a soft-spoken man. You're one of those, you speak softly and you carry a very impressive stick. I am overwhelmed as a talk show host, and I'm not nearly as accomplished or as important as you, but as a big mouth talk show host, I think about the wickedness that we're seeing everywhere. This good versus evil dynamic is being played out in the streets of America as we speak.
SPEAKER 04 :
There's no question about it. When you look at things like having no borders, attacking children, who have incompletely developed brains, who are curious and very impressionable, and kind of confuse them about their gender, when you should be teaching them about our history, our wonderful history, about math and science, about things that make sense. And as a result of that, you're getting people who are less educated. And what does Marxism do? Marxism feeds on people who are not well-educated so they can be easily fooled. And you see that happening in our school systems right now. And it was Lenin who said, give me your children to teach for four years and the seed that I sow will never be uprooted. That's why they're so anxious to get in our schools early on and to inflict our children with these alien concepts.
SPEAKER 06 :
I have a love-hate relationship with New York City. As a young man growing up in Ohio, I dreamed of living and working in New York for a broadcaster. That's the holy grail. You know, you make it to New York. And I got there to WABC, and I did mornings, and I got to experience it. I love the city. I love the vibe. And yet I also hate what New York has become in many places dangerous. dirty, run down, and now they are on the precipice, Dr. Carson, of potentially electing a full-fledged Marxist, proud, self-described socialist, and I would argue communist, to be the next mayor. Does that bode terribly for the nation, or is that only a New York City problem today?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you know, I like to look at the positive side. If he gets elected, it's going to be so clear to everybody that that is the wrong direction, that there'll be a dramatic turnaround.
SPEAKER 06 :
You think there'll be a bounce back from the shock of it?
SPEAKER 04 :
I think there will be. Most people don't realize what socialism and Marxism is. And when you talk to them about it, it's very clear that they don't know anything about history.
SPEAKER 06 :
The late, great Rush Limbaugh used to say, it's hard to beat Santa Claus. Free stuff, you know. I'm going to give you free stuff. And that's a tough message to counter.
SPEAKER 04 :
And the whole class warfare thing, this is what they thrive on, and victimization. If you believe you're a victim, you are a victim. But this is America. This is a place where the can-do attitude prevails. And if you're willing to work for it, that's the key thing. I was talking to somebody from Ethiopia the other day, and I said, why is it that all the Ethiopians that I see in this country are doing so well? And she said, because we come over here and we see nothing but opportunities.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. I love that. Dr. Ben Carson is with us. Our booth here on Media Row at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa Bay. And Dr. Carson, let's face it, there's nothing but optimism in this hall. These are young people who are wide-eyed and exuberant and excited about taking our country back. They want to do good for the country. It's hard to get down and negative when you're in an atmosphere like this one.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I've been going around to a lot of the universities, and the number of students who are coming out is impressive. And they wear their mega hats, and they wear their American flags. You used not to see that. They would be hiding in the corner somewhere.
SPEAKER 06 :
You couldn't be seen. You had to stay hidden. But, Dr. Carson, I mentioned you were the youngest director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins. You're 33 years old. I've got socks older than 33, right? Charlie Kirk is a young man. And I often think about, and every time I see him, I say, is this going to your head? Because think about what he's accomplished.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 06 :
Out of his parents' garage in Chicago when he was a kid, He developed Turning Point USA. Now, I know you're a big part of Turning Point. Even the legacy media suggests that Charlie is a big part of the reason that Donald Trump got reelected.
SPEAKER 04 :
No question about it. And what is it that stands out about him? He didn't go to college. Yeah. He didn't get indoctrinated. And yet he is as well educated as anybody you can find from Oxford or Cambridge or Yale or Harvard. That's right. That's true.
SPEAKER 06 :
And he's written a book about the indoctrination of college campuses and what these professors are doing.
SPEAKER 04 :
That's exactly right. So I think there's a lot of hope when we see young people like that. And think about our founding of our country. Those were young guys. They were in their 20s and their 30s. That's right. Think about Jesus Christ. He was 33 when he got crucified and changed the world.
SPEAKER 06 :
Amen. And we think about giving up on young people because we think they're all... pro-Hamas, you know, pro-Antifa, violent young people. It's not true. It just isn't true. And this convention this week is a testament to that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I also love the fact that you notice that Donald Trump's cabinet is much younger than most cabinets have been in a long period of time. Correct. You're right. And these are people who will still be around 20 years from now. That's right. To see the impact of what they're doing.
SPEAKER 06 :
Not to mention the 2028 cycle is going to be here before we know it. And we're looking at J.D. Right. Marco Rubio. We've got a deep bench. Ron DeSantis. We've got young people. It's not exactly like us old guys are going to be running for office, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
That's exactly right. We can stay in the background and we can help.
SPEAKER 06 :
We'll just be the wise sages giving advice from the sidelines. Dr. Carson, it's great seeing you and your lovely wife again. I'm so glad you're here. And have a great week this week. You'll be speaking, I'm sure, and enjoying all that these young people have to offer.
SPEAKER 04 :
And thank you for continuing to be a great patriot. God bless you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you, sir. Thank you. Dr. Ben Carson joining us here on the Mike Gallagher Show. We've got a lot more coming up. Don't go away. Stay with us because lots of special guests, breaking news, immigration raids in Camarillo, California. And here we go. We're off to the races at the Turning Point USA Summit. Stay with us.
SPEAKER 14 :
We'll be right back.
SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 10 :
The Mike Gallagher Show.
SPEAKER 01 :
These officers are doing a tremendous job. They're great patriots. If you expose them because of statements like have been made by Democrats and others on the left, usually, mostly, I think probably exclusively, you put them in great danger, tremendous danger.
SPEAKER 10 :
In the Relief Factor studios on Salem News Channel and Salem Radio Network, here's Mike.
SPEAKER 06 :
It's really not hard to decide who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, is it? It's just not hard. And, you know, talking to Dr. Ben Carson this hour kind of renews my confidence, my optimism about the goodness of America. Being here with all these folks surrounded by thousands and thousands of people who've traveled to Tampa to take part in the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit. Just saw Andrew Colvett, who's kind of the man behind the the man, Charlie Kirk. Andrew is the driving force, the guy that makes it all happen, who, you know, kind of the – he's sort of the chief – I don't know if chief of staff is not the right term to use for Andrew, but a really impressive guy. And there's a lot of great folks here who are just optimistic about the things that can happen. And one thing that can happen, even when there's an act of nature like these horrific floods in Texas – You have sprung into action as I knew you would. A lot of people came to me and said, Mike, how can we help? You have these partners that do good for people. Well, Food for the Poor is one of those partners. And I am very, very honored to tell you that you're able to rush emergency relief kits to the victims of the Kerr County, Texas flooding by making a donation to our Food for the Poor emergency campaign. Food for the Poor.org. in coordination with a trusted partner in San Antonio, is responding to the flooding in Central Texas by delivering shipments of emergency relief supplies to support our fellow Americans. And already thousands of dollars have poured in. These kits, these emergency relief supplies, contain things that people need, tarps, women's care kits, liquid IV, diapers, children activity kits, bottled water, hygiene kits. These are the things that flood victims desperately need. Well, $50 will send a relief kit. to one of the families victimized by these floods. Please go to mikeonline.com, click on the link, and make whatever contribution you can afford. $50 one kit, $500 ten families. A whole lot of people are going to benefit from your generosity, and there's no audience as generous as the Mike Gallagher Show audience. So please step up, go to mikeonline.com. Click on the link there and make your secure online donation, or you can call 844-860-HOPE, 844-860-4673. And thank you, thank you, thank you for blessing these folks. You said, hey, how can we help? Well, guess what? You did. And by the way, can we – hey, Phil, can you see if Andrew wants to pop in with us for a couple minutes and we'll join us? He's right there. Can you get Andrew and we'll see if – we kind of need to talk to Andrew and see if he might be able to do two minutes with me. Yeah, he said he'd come by. We're going to do this on the fly, Johnny, so we're going to go to a two-shot. This is live TV because you know what? I'll share a little secret. We'll pull the curtain back a little bit. Charlie is pulled in a million different directions. If Charlie Kirk walked in right now, he'd be mobbed like the height of Beatlemania, Elvis Presley, Andrew Colvett. You're like the guy behind the wizard.
SPEAKER 09 :
I just clean up the mess that he leaves in his wake. Put out the fire. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER 06 :
And so I shared with everybody that we were going to hope to talk to Charlie, but good luck, right?
SPEAKER 09 :
We have been bending over backwards to make it work with his schedule. If people could appreciate. Just how complex his calendar is, especially at these events. But it's always complicated. It takes about a team of like five people to plan every single day intricately. And then you compound that by 100 at these events.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and I think about looking around at this Tampa Convention Center and these thousands of people and these excited kids and these booths and this infrastructure. Charlie did all this. Charlie started in his garage and his parents.
SPEAKER 09 :
Lamont, Illinois.
SPEAKER 06 :
Gosh. And so, Andrew, if you don't mind, and I'm pulling you on the fly here, so I hope you don't mind. I know how busy you are, too. But can you take a couple of minutes and explain your role with Charlie, with all things Team Kirk, with Turning Point USA? Because here at Salem, we are so proud to have this partnership with Charlie, hosting his radio show, his podcast, all the different things that Charlie does with Salem. And it's a blessing to have somebody of his stature on our team. Can you introduce Andrew Colvett to our audience?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely. And I'd be remiss, Mike, if I didn't also give you a lot of kudos and credit. I mean, when Charlie came to Salem originally... It was Phil Boyce, who I see over here, who really made the way, but it was knowing that we were joining a team with somebody of your stature. And, you know, obviously Dennis Prager, and we're praying for Dennis, and Larry Elder, and the whole team. But, I mean, you are a titan in this industry, and we have nothing but the greatest respect for you and what you've accomplished here.
SPEAKER 06 :
You're really kind. It's fun to get a text once in a while. I can tell that Charlie has the radio on once in a while driving wherever he is in Phoenix. Oh. And I'll get a text from him saying, hey, thanks for that shout-out.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, we watch you all the time. Yeah. I mean, you're part of our show prep. What's Mike talking about? So, yeah, I mean, what I – my name is Andrew. I've got sunglasses on here. My name is Andrew Colvett. Yeah, I'm the executive producer of The Charlie Kirk Show. I'm also the spokesman when Charlie's not doing it for Turning Point USA, Turning Point Action. And, yeah, I mean – My role, you know, from booking the show, making sure the business is working, making sure that the audience number is growing. I mean, I'm really in the weeds trying to make sure, you know, that we're headed in the right direction. And obviously there's a big editorial place in that role as well. And we've got a great team of producers. And, you know, we're just trying to absorb audiences. uh the news of the day makes sense of it some of it can be really complex some of it is is understanding where your base is at uh but it's yeah it's a full-time job you never sleep and uh it's a lot going on between the the radio show as well as um you know the activism part and reaching out to these young people making sure gen z is headed in the right direction and you are often called upon andrew to be sort of the the as you said the spokesman for charlie you know and charlie gives quotes all the time but
SPEAKER 06 :
a lot of times they'll go to you and they'll say, well, Andrew says on behalf of Turning Point USA, on behalf of Charlie Kirk, because Charlie, like it or not, has become a movement. This is something that I cannot overstate. People don't recognize the enormity of what Turning point USA has done in America. Legacy Media gives Charlie and the group credit for turning young people to conservatism. Legacy Media, the New York Times, gives credit to Charlie for quite likely being a big part of the reason Donald Trump got re-elected.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I mean, you mentioned New York Times, and so part of my role is kind of overseeing some of the press that Charlie does do. We say no to 98% of it. But I was involved in kind of shepherding that New York Times Magazine piece that I think the title was Charlie Kirk Youth Whisperer.
SPEAKER 06 :
Youth Whisperer, but it was a great. Well, no, it was a great piece.
SPEAKER 09 :
The author was Robert Draper, who's a phenomenal writer. I mean, he's one of the top talent in New York Times. And he's a fair journalist. I mean, say what you will about New York Times. I try in my role, I have to have, you know, I have to take each reporter as they come. So I judge them not based on the masthead or the publication. I judge them on the character of the reporter. And Robert's a good man.
SPEAKER 06 :
But you had to make a calculated decision there because that could have gone real south.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, I won't bore you with how long, how many hours we put into that piece, me specifically, and Charlie's as well. But, I mean, it was a big piece. I mean, because it's very thorough. And when you're dealing with a – an outlet like the New York Times Magazine. It's very thorough. A lot of fact-checking is involved and a lot of checking with sources. So when you open that Pandora's box, you understand that you're basically saying, New York Times, we know you're going to call like 58, 65 people. You're going to call people from Charlie's high school experience. You're going to call his parents. You're going to call his associates, former employees. You've got to sort of embrace that. But when you talk about Charlie's role in the election, Turning Point's role in the election, there was actually a really fascinating – detail from that story and i didn't know this before robert draper called tiktok to fact check it but we found out that charlie's tiktok was the third most engaged most influential tiktok in the entire country for the election and let me put this in perspective for you this is the order it went trump trump campaign charlie Kamala Harris. Wow.
SPEAKER 01 :
Ahead of Kamala.
SPEAKER 09 :
And Taylor Swift, Kardashian. So that's what an impact that Charlie did. And I found out a bunch of other things from that as far as his name ID. I mean, Charlie is more famous than basically anybody. In Congress. I mean, it's getting to that point.
SPEAKER 06 :
He's becoming ubiquitous. It feels like every young person knows him. Every young person has seen him. These one-on-one debates he gets into on college campuses.
SPEAKER 09 :
Those have been incredibly viral. This is what was interesting. In the spring of 2024, there was a campus stop. The old model is we used to try and book out, and we still do this to some extent, but we used to book The venues inside the university. Right. So you get like a hall. Right. But then you're dealing with the university control. Right. And they will screw you every which way from Sunday. Right. Meaning they will – if you have 3,000 students that have reserved tickets, they'll give you a venue that seats 500. But because of the fire marshal, they can only seat 300. So their whole game is to – upset your audience so they can't actually attend, and make you look small. So we said, you know what? What happened was we went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and we just said, hey, let's go. And this is in the spring of 2024. And I'll never forget it because here you are, California, blue state, on the coast, supposed to be a bunch of liberal students out there, and we just set up a table in the quad, and we had like 1,500 kids. The crowds during the election got up to like 5,000, 6,000. But we had 1,500 kids. I mean, it was packed. It was very spontaneous. We had no idea how many people were going to show up. It was 1,500 kids, and out of the blue, They all just start singing the national anthem on their own. It's not like we started leading the procession. They just started singing it. You could see all these kids. It was almost like they were breathing free air for the first time, loud and proud, in public, being able to show that they love America, love their country, that they have conservative values, traditional values. And it was whites. It was blacks. It was Hispanics. It was men, women. It was not this picture that MSNBC wants you to believe about what the actual grassroots looks like. And I told Charlie, we ended up putting that clip on social, and it went really viral. And I told Charlie, I said, something's happening. He's like, I can feel it, too. Something... Something is happening. Because if you think about when we started this and there was 12 kids that would show up to a tabling, it was Charlie and eight protesters and two staffers. It was like now the protesters are so outnumbered they don't even show up and they don't even try. And to see what happened from a polling standpoint, it was the biggest move of any age cohort to the right in the country. And by the way, boomers... went to the left a little bit. So, like, had the kids not showed up, we'd be looking at President Kamala Harris.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and these one-on-one debates that he does, you've got a microphone in the crowd, you've got one of these crazy blue-haired kids that's going to come up and try to argue with Charlie. It's very organic, Andrew, because people see these videos, and they're everywhere now. They're ubiquitous. And when they see them... He's winning more and more people over as they see it.
SPEAKER 09 :
Because they expose themselves.
SPEAKER 06 :
Expose themselves. And Charlie does it great. In fact, that's the last time I got a text from him. I said, have you ever noticed Charlie always seems to be eating something when he does those things? And he wrote me and said, ha, ha, ha, you're right. I'm always popping lozenges because he's got a talk show.
SPEAKER 09 :
So, I mean, if you're a fan of the Charlie Kirk show, you might remember, and I'll never forget this day. So we had Megyn Kelly booked on Charlie. We were going to do a whole hour with Megyn Kelly. Right. But he had just gotten done with a couple campus stops, and he had given a couple speeches, plus his radio show. His voice was gone.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
Gone. I mean, and when I say gone, it wasn't just like raspy. Couldn't speak at all. When he spoke as loud as he could, it was a whisper. Yeah, yeah. So I had to get on the show and sort of like, you know, we're texting back and forth, and I'm like, Megan, Charlie would like to ask you.
SPEAKER 06 :
You're the translator.
SPEAKER 09 :
It was that bad. You're the interpreter. Because he just kept losing his voice. That's funny. Because, I mean, the guy talks all the time for a living, so. Well.
SPEAKER 06 :
This is a big deal because – and honestly, it was real funny because we knew we were going to try to get him for a few minutes this morning, and it was like, no way. He's on Fox News this morning. He's over here. He's pulled over there. But what a weekend you guys have planned. I mean, this roster of speakers – I mean, you were just telling me a moment ago, Andrew, and we're visiting with Andrew Colvett, the executive producer of The Charlie Kirk Show, and you came by to see us a few minutes ago. I said, well, let's get Andrew over here and see if we can spend a couple minutes with him. Always honored. Thank you, Andrew. Tonight, big night, to this weekend. Tell us what's on tap.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I mean, I think – From a theme standpoint, this weekend is really about, hey, we made these gains with young people. How do we keep it? Right. What are our challenges? What are our opportunities? And by the way, this is what I love about Turning Point. I mean, if you're talking – and I don't know how in touch with your audience they are or not. I've seen you debate some of these anti-Israel guys on your show, and I think it's fascinating. You handle them well. But, you know, with kids under 30 – and you're going to see this – a lot here is that they're not anti-Israel. They're certainly not pro-Hamas. They are skeptical about our arrangement with Israel. Our involvement with them.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Why do we send them money? Why are we defending the military?
SPEAKER 01 :
Which is fair.
SPEAKER 09 :
Those are fair.
SPEAKER 01 :
Sure is.
SPEAKER 09 :
And we need to, as a movement, stop calling that anti-Semitism. Right. What Trump did is he birthed an American-first nationalist, conservative, populist movement. Okay? We all know this. And that is going to necessarily come with some questions when we're not just focused domestically. So we're going to embrace that debate. We're going to talk about Epstein. The kids are really upset about the Epstein files. We're going to talk about dating. We're going to talk about marriage. We're going to talk about... The economy. How do we make sure that we turn a renter economy with young people that look up to their parents and grandparents that own homes, have assets, have equities, and they feel like they're priced out, all that stuff, and they can't see that first rung to get on the ladder. So we're going to talk about all that stuff because if we do not address the economic issues, if we do not address these cognitive dissonance issues that they're seeing, sometimes even with the Trump administration, we're going to lose them because we built up a lot of trust, but it can be a fragile trust, and so we want to talk about that.
SPEAKER 06 :
How many people registered this weekend?
SPEAKER 09 :
About 7,000. You're going to have about 7,000, and most of those are going to be young people. And it's from all over the country. It's fantastic.
SPEAKER 06 :
That is so neat. Look, I'm so honored to get to visit with you for a couple of minutes, and I hope you know how much we pray for you guys. How honored we are to have you on our team. You've always been so great to the show. And, Andrew, it's real fun to watch all the success of you and Charlie and Turning Point. Thank you so much, Mike.
SPEAKER 09 :
And congratulations on all your success as well, my friend. God bless. Keep fighting the good fight. Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER 06 :
The great Andrew Colvin. Every big figure like Charlie Kirk has a guy behind the scenes a little bit making it all work. That's this guy, Andrew Colvin. Stick around. More coming up on the Mike Gallagher Show from the Turning Point Student Action Summit.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
mike gallagher we don't have a lot of guests on the mike gallagher show but the ones we have are pretty pretty big time and i've been trying to get congressman congresswoman anna polina luna for a long time and so we see her coming down the hall we grab her we kidnap her we bring you over here congresswoman and but here's the rule if charlie kirk comes by i know i'm getting bumped you're out you're
SPEAKER 07 :
I'll agree to give up my seat only for Charlie.
SPEAKER 06 :
Only for Charlie is the only one. Congresswoman, it was great to see you here.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you for having me on.
SPEAKER 06 :
My pleasure. You're serving your second term. You represent Florida's 13th congressional district, but we couldn't help talking about New York City.
SPEAKER 07 :
I know.
SPEAKER 06 :
And the state of affairs for today's Democrat Party. You're a warrior. You've always been committed to fighting for conservatism. You're fighting the good fight. You're as sad as I am about the prospect of New York
SPEAKER 07 :
burnings over with Mayor Zoran Mamdani well it's interesting because right now you saw that New York even just in the last couple of years I mean the crime has skyrocketed and then you're seeing the policies that this guy is you know advocating for police free zones all of that what I will say is that there's some great people in New York a lot of them actually end up moving to my district here in Florida it's just funny I was wearing a Yankees hat well I was wearing a Yankees hat my husband's like why aren't you wearing the Rays I was like well I wear a Rays hat too but there's a lot of New Yorkers so I make them feel at home right So the thing is, is that, you know, those policies have direct impact. But the reason why he won is because of the youth vote. And so I always tell people this is why Turning Point Student Action Summit is so important, because you have a lot of young people here and you're able to share the messaging. Because remember, the youth vote is the future, and we have to make sure that we're not forgetting them when we're talking about politics.
SPEAKER 06 :
It feels like an event like this here in Tampa Bay is the antidote to a bunch of young kids waving pro-Hamas flags, doesn't it?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, it's not even just that. It's a lot of young kids that are attending now these riots holding Mexican flags. What I will tell you is that they're treating Hispanic Americans the way that they treated black Americans under BLM, except they've just inserted a Mexican flag and a new tagline on immigration. But it's really still being funded by individuals like Neville Singham, who is a billionaire communist tied to the CCP. So you follow the money trail. The CCP is the ones that are trying to divide us.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's exactly right. And there's a lot of division right now. When I see law enforcement get shot upon... like they were yesterday in Camarillo, California. You had this ICE raid. It's like Congresswoman. It feels like good is portrayed as evil. Evil is portrayed as good.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and they don't want to talk about the ICE raid. There was actually now I'm hearing women or migrant women and children. Why are children working on a weed farm? Are we going to have that discussion? Congress has the ability to increase the penalties on these corporations and businesses that are engaging in hiring slave labor. They're not the only ones. You know, the weed farm is not the only one. Purdue and Tyson Chicken Farm actually were busted and under investigation, I think, by the Department of Labor for doing the same thing. And it's just, it's egregious. You know, any parent, I don't care if you're a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, that's pretty common sense. You don't want kids working on a farm.
SPEAKER 06 :
I'm asking our listeners today, do you feel, at an event like this, do you feel confident and optimistic? Do you feel negative? How do you feel?
SPEAKER 07 :
I feel optimistic. I talk to a big group of young conservatives and, you know, they look to people, especially people like myself, because I am younger, about how to get involved in politics, what they want to do in the future. You know, what did I do? I started out at Turning Point. How did I make my way into Congress? And what I will say is that, you know, hard work and effort only in the United States of America can someone with my background make it to the halls of Congress. So. It's an honor and privilege.
SPEAKER 06 :
And it's a story that a lot of us follow. That's why I wanted to meet you in person, because you were inspirational for a lot of people. Thank you. Because a lot of people said, if she can do it, anybody can. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Do you hear that? Yep, I do. And also, too, though, I don't let, you know, my position get to my head. I still door knock every election cycle. I door knocked, and between last election cycle and this election cycle, me and my team of about five people and volunteers door knocked 60,000 doors and made 110,000 phone calls. So I'm not going anywhere unless I want to.
SPEAKER 06 :
As a former New Yorker, now Floridian, and I'm so glad to be in this free and fair state.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, we're happy to have your vote.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, you got it. I'll vote multiple times if I could.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, don't do that. We don't want fraud elections.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, we don't. But Congresswoman, if the country ran the way Florida did. the way your district did?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, we're making America Florida. You're seeing that out of the White House.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, but it is true, though. And you've got to give a lot of credit to Governor DeSantis for that, correct?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, he's been doing great, especially on election reform. We actually had people that went to jail for engaging in voter fraud. And the 2020 election for sure, somewhere in between then. So, you know, it's not perfect, but it's literally the ideal form of elections in the country.
SPEAKER 06 :
Let me close on a controversial note. I've got to ask you this because you're a warrior and you've got sharp elbows. And there's supposedly this big rift right now within MAGA. Are we upset about Epstein? Are we not upset about Epstein? President Trump seems to want to move on. What's the Anna Polina Luna take on the Epstein file?
SPEAKER 07 :
I would say that the best way to restore trust is through transparency and that there's information that can be released that doesn't implicate children or victims. And that, you know, they should. They should do that. And I have exhausted all my tools as an investigator to try to do that. So it's ultimately up to the DOJ. It's not up to the FBI. It's up to the DOJ. So I'm going to be asking for them to release information, not pertaining to those above subjects, because I think the American people need to decide for themselves.
SPEAKER 06 :
A lot of criticism being directed toward your fellow Floridian, Pam Bondi. I mean, is that fair? Is it warranted?
SPEAKER 07 :
I think that people want... And, you know, obviously, you know, don't bully the woman. But, you know, I think it's okay to make your voices heard.
SPEAKER 06 :
Sunlight's the best disinfectant. 100%. It's a joy to meet you in person. I know how busy you are, and we've had to grab you, and you were on the phone. Thank you. And Charlie didn't interrupt us, so you're all set. Well, he's not here yet. If he gets here, thank you, Congresswoman. Thank you. Great seeing you. Thanks for your time. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna joining us here on the Mike Gallagher Show. Very busy day. Lots going on. Lots of breaking news. Let's get your calls. I want to talk to you and find out if you believe... that the glass is half full? Is the glass half empty? Are you disappointed in the Epstein story? Is that something that bothers you? Lindsay's in Pennsylvania, or Lindley is in Pennsylvania. Hey, Lindley, welcome to Tampa. You're on the Mike Gallagher Show. Hello.
SPEAKER 12 :
Good morning, Mike. Hi, Lindley. I'm a Vietnam veteran from Pennsylvania. God bless you. I was listening to your show. I think this thing was a shooting of Trump and Butler. Yes, sir. It was a crazy mixed-up kid, and they ought to just... live with that, and move on. And as far as that scene goes, I think that anybody that was involved in politics with him, that was involved with him, ought to be jailed.
SPEAKER 06 :
Gotcha. Thanks, Lindley. Good to hear from you. 800-655-MIKE. Let's see. Is it Norm in New York, I guess? Hey, Norm. Norm, how are you? Hey, how you doing? Good. Good, Mike. Thank you.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thank you for everything you do.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 11 :
What do you think? I've got to tell you, the Epstein thing, it doesn't matter to me if you find out who's involved in it. You're never going to convict these people. It's the same old, same old.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right, but that must frustrate you. It sounds like you wish it wasn't so.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, I wish it wasn't so, but I mean, it's like beating a dead horse. For instance, Congress people. How do these Congress people become millionaires? We never do anything about it. Nobody votes him out. And nobody cares that these people are... We're in debt and are now multimillionaires.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know, I know.
SPEAKER 11 :
I support Trump 100%. Let him do what he has to do, and let's move on.
SPEAKER 06 :
And, you know, I'm glad you said that, Norm, because ultimately people are upset about the Epstein thing. I follow Trump's lead on a lot of this stuff, and if it's not a priority in terms of wallowing in it, look, we've got bigger fish to fry. There's a lot of people who make the argument There's a lot more important things to worry about than the Epstein files. On the other hand, I love what Congresswoman Anna Polina Luna said. Transparency is everything. We need to know the truth about all this stuff, and that's what people expect, and they don't want to be let down. You never let us down, and every single day that I get to tell you about an opportunity to help Congress, people who have been struck by something like flooding in Central Texas, that's a good day. And our partnership with Food for the Poor is here. Emergency relief kits are being shipped to flood-ravaged Texas thanks to your generosity. These are kits containing hygiene kits, tarps, women's care kits, liquid IV diapers, children's activity kits, and other essentials needed to ease the crisis. Look, once again, you can stand up. and make a difference in these people's lives. The crisis is real. The need is urgent. And only you can make it happen by stepping up to help Texas through our friends at Food for the Poor. What a joy it is for us to again give you the opportunity. $50. will send an emergency relief kit to a deserving family in Central Texas as these poor people have been wracked, devastated by these horrible floods. A lot of you came to us and said, hey, what can we do to help? Well, here it is. Go to MikeOnline.com. Click on the link there. You'll see the donation page. $50 will rush an emergency relief kit to one of these Kerr County, Florida, Texas families. And Texas is reeling. The nation is mourning over the loss of all these babies. And, again, instinctively, Americans want to do good. You can do good, and you can make a difference. Please, please go to MikeOnline.com. Click on that banner and make a donation. You can call 844-860-HOPE. 844-860-4673. And thanks to Food for the Poor for doing what they do best, stepping up and helping those in need. You can help too. MikeOnline.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
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Join us as we unpack the latest developments in the ongoing legal battle over the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Our team discusses the intricacies of the case and the significant role of judiciary in this controversial issue. Discover how the ACLJ is actively involved in defending these pivotal cases and why it matters more than ever in today's political climate. Stay informed on how such legal decisions shape the balance between legislative power and judicial activism.
SPEAKER 07 :
in a brand new interview supreme court justice jackson fears for our democracy keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is seculo we want to hear from you share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110 And now your host, Logan Sekula.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome to Sekula. We got a packed show for you. Jordan Sekula, Will Haines joining me in studio right now. Phone lines are also open for you at 1-800-684-3110 as we celebrate the ACLJ 35 years of Justice Drive, where all donations are matched. So I encourage you, while you're waiting on a hole maybe to talk to us, you can also make a donation. That's at ACLJ.org. We want to lead off with sort of the breaking news coming out this morning. And this is a Justice Jackson, Kataji Jackson. Well, she's been doing some interviews. She's been making some statements. She doesn't really like... Remember just like what? A week ago? Two weeks ago? She had a pretty epic... dissent that went viral if you will because it was very very dramatic but now we're finding out that's not just in these moments that she wants to be dramatic it is she feels like her calling to be dramatic as a Supreme Court justice let's hear from her directly this is at the Forbes Indianapolis Bar Association event top-notch event I'm sure let's hear what keeps you up at night
SPEAKER 02 :
I would say the state of our democracy. I would say that I am really very interested in getting people to focus and to invest and to pay attention to what is happening in our country and in our government.
SPEAKER 08 :
We call that in the wrestling business a cheap pop, which you go out there and you're like, you know, if you were in Nashville, you'd be like, Oh, man, who here are Titans fans? I feel like it's very similar going out there and just being like, what keeps you up at night? The state of our democracy. Everyone cheers. Of course, this is not the usual rhetoric we've heard from Supreme Court justices. This came from an interview where they even asked her stuff like, what music do you listen to? What's it like behind closed doors? And even her statements of what it's like behind closed doors. She thought it would be letting your hair down. chilling out with the justices, and he finds out that it's not really like that, at least with this group of justices. We know historically there has been some good friendships that have come out of the justices, but this lineup of justices clearly are not hanging out on the weekends.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I mean, you've got a different age group in. You've got some with kids. You've got some that are just at different points in life. But it doesn't mean that they're individually, there aren't the relationships there, but that when they're in the room to make serious decisions that impact Americans' lives, that impact our economy, impact our health care. The entire country. Impact the power of the president, the power of Congress, the power of the judiciary, that we're going to take those fairly seriously while we're making those decisions. That's not the time to necessarily be casual, but I think when it goes to is that she is unabashedly, and she went on in these statements and interviews, based off of that dissent that she issued, that she is going to not only let you know how she thinks about the law, which is the job of a judge, in this case a justice, and that's really the only job. Their job is not to tell you whether a law is good or bad. It's whether it's legal, basically, and whether it follows the Constitution. And is the law being carried out correctly? That's the executive side of the law. So is the executive branch carrying out the law of Congress correctly? So, I mean, these are, again, it's the balls and strikes situation. scenario. It's not which pitcher to put in, which pitch to throw, when to swing, when to steal the base. That's not the job. And it's not their job to say that you had a good strategy going into the game or you had a bad strategy going into the game. Their job is just bottom line. And this is what makes me the most nervous is that if the left starts embracing this on a new scale, it's about judicial activism on steroids.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right. That's right, Jordan. And we're going to get into some more of these statements in the next segment because it didn't just stop there with the state of democracy. She even talks about what her favorite part of the job is and things of that nature that just seem outside of the norms of what you would hear from a Supreme Court justice. So stay tuned, folks. We'll get to that when we get back from this break.
SPEAKER 08 :
That's right. I encourage you right now, as we are heading to break, to one, if you have a question or comment related to this or any of the topics we brought up this week, give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Of course, we're broadcasting live 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. So if you're on that, hopefully you're joining us live. If not, later on, we'll be live on Monday. But hopefully you're watching us live. And I encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ by also going to ACLJ.org during our 35 Years of Justice Drive. Be a part of it today. Scan that QR code. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you. I'm also going to encourage you to hit that thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube right now. Let's get this into some more people's algorithms. Will, why don't you restate what's happening here?
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right. So we know that Justice Jackson had some interesting comments in some of her dissents recently. And there was a back and forth even between the opinion debate. and the dissent between Justice Barrett and Justice Jackson. But this is what stuck out to us just a little bit, almost two weeks ago, about the universal injunctions issue, where she said, perhaps the degradation of our rule of law regime would happen anyway, but this court's complicity in the creation of a culture of disdain for lower courts, their rulings, and the law as they interpret it, will surely hasten the downfall of our governing institutions, enabling our collective demise. But she didn't stop there. Just putting it in writing, she's been, now that they're out of session, the Supreme Court term is over, she's been going and doing interviews, speaking at some local bar associations, some things of that nature, which is not abnormal. When they're in a recess, they may go and have some interviews. A lot of times they have a book that they're promoting during that time. So it's not completely abnormal, but it's the content of these interviews and the statements that she's making are raising eyebrows and and creating headlines about the junior justice on the court and what we have seen is one what we played in the first segment where she said the state of our democracy keeps her up at night but also we're getting an insight of how she views her job and As a Supreme Court justice. I think we should play this from Justice Jackson. This is just from about four days ago. It's bite three about what she sees the purpose of these dissents that are so apocalyptic. Let's go and roll that for everyone.
SPEAKER 02 :
What I feel that I've been privileged to do is use the writings that I do, the work that I do, to explain my views about the way our government does and should work, the way the court does and should work. I think the nice part about being on the court is that you have the opportunity, whether you're in the majority or in the dissent, to express your opinions.
SPEAKER 06 :
So, Jordan, I know that there's probably not like a primer on what you need to know before you become a Supreme Court justice. The justices will bring you on and kind of show you the ropes. And you have you definitely have clerks that help you with that as well. But. The fact that she thinks it's the privilege to explain her views about the way the government does or should not work, that is actually not really the job of this. These aren't op-eds that she's writing when she writes a dissent that are going to the Washington Post. These are a part of the record of the court.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, I mean, this is, again, it is the job of elected politicians. who are, again, who represent a constituency of voters in their district or at the state level, to go and take those issues, ultimately the President of the United States, then to set up a government to execute those laws, like we keep saying. It is not the job of the judicial branch to tell the government how it should run. And so where I think that it'd be okay is if she went to that statement and jumped right to the part about courts. There's certainly a lot of cases that get to the Supreme Court about whether or not the courts made the right decision and whether or not even a court may have violated your constitutional rights by issuing this kind of jury instruction or by how long the case took or issues like that. Fine, that's when to weigh in on the court system. Stay in the lane of the separation of powers because the reason why... This keeping her up at night is the state of our democracy. So long as we have a court system that is a check and that the check works without any kind of enforcement measure other than a court decision. So it doesn't take police force. It doesn't take a military. Then we have a system of law that we respect. And I think actually the bigger concern there is not what's happening when a case makes its way all the way to the US Supreme Court. I don't think anyone disputes that. like the decision or not. It's these lower court decisions that are making people lose faith in the judiciary because it's like, how many times does the Supreme Court need to say you can't issue nationwide injunctions? And then a judge came back and says, I'm just going to certify a class before the class is even put forward.
SPEAKER 08 :
That's the comments that are coming in. It seems like every day we're talking about either judges or justices and whether they're activists or not.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, that should actually be what keeps you up at night is where the court system's going to strip away the power of the people that you've actually elected. So you went, you cast your vote. And then these judges and justices last month, through many different presidencies and different elected officials. But again, they're just supposed to be a part. And they're supposed to be the place of last resort. You go to the court because, again, the legal other avenues to get a wrong-righted weren't available. And this is supposed to be the most difficult avenue. If they start just becoming legislators, we've talked about legislating from the bench. If they become legislators... then, again, the confirmation process needs to be totally looked at once more because this is, again, it's the most dangerous fact is to go down and say, I don't care about the law. I care about the outcome of this case.
SPEAKER 06 :
And Jordan, they're actually, it's not just... the conservative members of the court that are calling out Justice Jackson's opinion writing and not sticking to looking at the law. There was a stay granted after the term was over by the court. And this was about the reduction of the size of the federal workforce that had been blocked by a lower court judge. And the court granted a stay on that issue, so sided with the administration. And Justice Jackson felt the need to dissent from the grant of stay. But because of her dissent, which was about reckless executive power by the president, Justice Sotomayor wrote a concurrence, just about a paragraph, agreeing with the court granting the stay and here's what she wrote had to call out one of her colleagues on the same ideological spectrum as her and says i agree with justice jackson that the president cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates here however the relevant executive order directs the agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force quote consistent with applicable law end quote So she's having to even point out, like, did you look at the material and what was at hand here? Because the EO isn't saying willy-nilly, just start firing, get rid of everyone. It's saying, in accordance with law, you have to do this. And so she even says, I joined the court stay because it leaves the district court free to consider those questions in the first instance and whether or not they're going to go through the proper process.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. And that's, again, that's... She's not saying whether she agrees or not that the Trump administration should be doing this. It's because that's not her job to say under the law and the way we apply the laws, should this be stopped from the beginning or should the case begin and then ultimately let this go through the judicial process? She's not coming to a conclusion on the major issue. These are supposed to be issues, again, they're not on the merits. This is not substantive. This is all procedural, and yet procedure has become the weapon of the left in the judiciary. They're not using the actual court case anymore. They don't think that they need those. They're using procedure to try and prevent those who you've elected, actually elected by the American people, from being able to do their jobs.
SPEAKER 08 :
want to take a quick call on this i'm gonna go to michael in florida uh and then mike in utah you'll be up next but i just want to make sure we get it clear michael in florida who's watching on youtube uh you're on the air michael you got a great comment gentlemen it's my understanding that lady justice has on a blindfold and i'm getting really tired of these
SPEAKER 05 :
Justices, whether they be federal, state, district, whatever, trying to micromanage our executive office. So to me, this is a classic example of why DEI exists.
SPEAKER 09 :
elections are so destructive well I think can I just jump in there because I do think the biggest issue here is that what we've seen at the lower courts is this idea this is new in the past lower courts were very hesitant to take side on the procedural issue of telling an executive before a case had even gone about before they even heard any actual argument before the evidence had been presented in the trial court That you can't do something. I mean, it happened, but it happened like a dozen times in entire presidency. And then President Trump comes along and it's the majority of times in history, more times than if you add up all of the others, since this would be a modern law, President Trump has had this happen to him more than any other presidents all combined. So this is not something we've long been dealing with. This is, Logan, what I said, is like the new threat to our democracy is actually coming out of the judiciary and her judicial philosophy.
SPEAKER 08 :
You never knew this much about the justices or the judges in general. They had an era of mystique. You didn't know exactly where they were going to land. You didn't know how they were going to vote. That was part of it. You could get 9-0 decisions. You still can, by the way. You could get 9-0 decisions because you knew they weren't necessarily always judging it based on their personal political beliefs. Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I remember what a terrible outrage there was when one justice, Justice Alito, after President Obama mischaracterized an opinion by them, just quietly to himself said, that's not true, under his breath. And that was scandal all over D.C. I thought he said, you lied. No, that was Congressman Wilson.
SPEAKER 08 :
That was different. Felt like the same. I kind of combined those in my head. Hey, we get back. I want to hear from you as well. We're also going to talk about the ACLJ as we are fighting back for this current defunding of Planned Parenthood that we are for the defunding. But now it is under attack by, of course, Planned Parenthood saying we deserve this money. We're going to talk about that and how we are taking action here during the ACLJ's 35 years of justice drive. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Secula. We are going to take more calls and comments during the show, so give us a call right now. We've got a few lines open, 1-800-684-3110. At first, I want to thank you all for becoming ACLJ supporters, ACLJ champions, and even those who don't financially give, and you should during these specific double-year donation times, which right now is one of them because it's the ACLJ 35 years of Justice Drive. But even if you don't, there's great ways you can engage with the ACLJ for absolutely free. And I want to encourage you, ACLJ.org has just an immense amount of resources, whether that's from our legal team, whether that is from our media team. can legitimately spend all day uh ingesting the content that we are putting out this incredible team puts out each and every day it's really amazing and it's not behind a paywall and it's not behind a paywall because we want to make sure everyone can see it but we can't do that again without your financial support if you are the brand new we know about half the people that watch on youtube each and every day are brand new maybe you're like logan i'm not ready to give i don't know enough about this organization just yet that's okay great way to help hit that subscribe button ring that bell that's a really really great way over 506 000 on youtube alone have subscribed hundreds of thousands on rumble millions on facebook and of course we have tons of people throughout the world who listen and watch in different different ways now the aclj work is not just about reporting the media if you're brand new here you may not know this the aclj gets work done in court as well we are a law firm and will this is an update on what was going on just in the last 24 hours
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right. So the ACLJ today is filing with the district court in Massachusetts regarding the defunding of Planned Parenthood. You'll remember that defunding Planned Parenthood was a part of the big, beautiful bill. Planned Parenthood immediately sued and they chose a very unique forum where they thought they would have the best shot. And they went to Massachusetts. And they were able to get a temporary restraining order ahead of a preliminary injunction hearing, which will happen in just about actually from today, one week. It was moved up because Planned Parenthood tried to move the goalpost even further back. But the judge actually moved the hearing up to the 18th and the briefing schedule remains in place. So we are filing our amicus brief today with our motion for leave to file. And so that is one good work that we're doing here. But Jordan, this just happened in the docket as our attorneys are always watching what's happening in this case. I just got this update from this morning. that the Trump administration has now filed a motion to dissolve the temporary restraining order ahead of the preliminary injunction hearing. And here is kind of their rationale. They filed an eight page memorandum in support of their motion because the motion itself is like one sentence. And then you have the motion, which is essentially the memo is the brief that in support of it effectively. And this is what they say. And I want to get your take on this. In joining an act of Congress signed by the president of the United States, is among the most serious and consequential exercises of the judicial power. It must be exercised with caution and restraint as the separation of powers counsels against one branch of government, effectively seizing for itself the powers of the other two branches. Yet here, without even awaiting a response from the government, the court exercised that power through an extraordinary, highly unusual temporary restraining order preventing the enforcement of a duly enacted legislation approved by Congress and signed by the president barely a week ago. The court should dissolve that order immediately before the preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for July 18th.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I think, again, you look at this case, as we said, ultimately, this is a winner for the Trump administration and for Congress. And we have to I want to remind people that we want to keep reminding our members of Congress that which is why it's so important to fight this out in the lower courts, because you've got these judicial activists. They pick where they're going to file. They do their court shopping. They find, okay, let's go to Massachusetts. Let's file here. And they'll say that this is this unconstitutional action because it's punishing Planned Parenthood to decide not to fund abortion providers with Medicaid funds for one year, as the federal government decided to do. I want to make sure this defunding occurs yearly. and is a long-term win for us. To do that, we have to make sure, one, that we are ready to defend it in court. So Congress does its job. The president signs it into law. Let's make sure we do our job. That's what we're doing at the ACLJ. We want to make sure we do our job, defend this in court. We always want to make sure it is vigorously defended as well, because how many decades... have we wanted to defund Planned Parenthood through these congressional acts, which was the only way to get at the big chunk of money, the $450 to $550 million a year. The only way to take that away from Planned Parenthood is through these kind of defunding actions. And so they're, of course, going to fight back until the very end, until the money's taken away. And remember, they're going to come back next year and fight it again.
SPEAKER 08 :
So we have to double down. It's been a campaign promise, I feel like, from everyone running as a Republican.
SPEAKER 09 :
Since as long as I've worked in politics.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, for our entire life.
SPEAKER 09 :
It was an easy campaign process because you knew it wasn't going to get to your desk.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and even Planned Parenthood didn't seem all that concerned about it because they thought this wasn't going to happen. But of course you have President Trump who is going to buck the system all the time.
SPEAKER 09 :
And you have Republicans who are willing to take it down to the 50th vote and have Vice President Vance come in and cast the 51st vote. I will tell you, if you tell, if we don't, thank members of congress for taking these votes this is what i'm concerned about it's not that they're not i i'm questioning whether they're pro-life or not deep down it's we make this legislation it makes this kind of legislation concessions are made that much more difficult right and so because you're you're losing republican votes actually And so we want to make sure they have the backbone in the future, right? So if we get enough people elected, we want to make sure this actually gets done. This will only get done if we then, one, acknowledge their contribution to the issue and to the fight by stripping this funding, and then to make sure we go into court and defend the stripping of the funding so that the executive and Congress together... aren't stopped by a random unelected judge in Massachusetts.
SPEAKER 08 :
I want to take this call because I think it's a good one to head into the second half hour because you know what? I feel the same. A lot of people do. Mike in Utah, you're on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thanks. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 08 :
I can hear you. You're on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Appreciate all you guys do. Listen to you every day. Thank you, brother. I'm very anxious for the birthright citizenship decision to be adjudicated by the court. I'm disappointed that it's going to take until October at the earliest before it can happen, which causes me to sit there and go, why does the Supreme Court get three months off when most average Americans get, you know, four, three, four months? maybe five weeks of vacation.
SPEAKER 08 :
There's always recess going on. It feels like in Washington DC.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes. I mean, I would say this, the court's not shut down. Yeah. So they are still cases that, right. It's just, it's just about, this is about oral arguments, scheduling arguments, scheduling decisions. Uh, yes, this is the time that they actually go through and figure out too. What are we doing the next year? Because again, they get so many case requests. There's only nine of them and they, they sit as a group of nine. Um, and so to go through that, according to justice Jackson, not that kindly. Well, too formal. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER 06 :
Too formal when you're deciding.
SPEAKER 09 :
They wear robes in court.
SPEAKER 06 :
I mean, it's a formal process here.
SPEAKER 09 :
What did you expect? It's probably, in the United States, the most formal process we have regularly is the U.S. Supreme Court. I'm trying to think of anything. Of course, other countries have more formal processes.
SPEAKER 08 :
People do have concerns with sort of the recesses that happen on all the other branches of government as well, that it feels like there are these massive delays because everyone wants to get back home. And when they were taken—
SPEAKER 09 :
when they were taking a when they were taking a horse you know drawn carriage okay fine well there has to be time for elected officials to be with the people that elected them yeah and so uh and for the courts they've got they're just this is when they're doing their background work i think that we get confused with time off versus time off from oral arguments there's a difference there well hopefully mike that answer your question uh
SPEAKER 08 :
We do have another half hour coming up. I want you to join us. If you're not watching right now, you should watch us online at aclj.org, Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, however you get your podcasts. We're there live. And then, of course, you can catch us on archived later on on all those platforms. Great, great content at aclj.org. And we are celebrating that 35 years of justice right now. So while we have the shortest break right here, scan the QR code. We only got a minute, and then we're going to be right back, and we're going to take more of your phone calls. But in that time, I want you to support the work of the ACLJ. You heard what we're doing today. filing in that federal court to defend plan or just to fund Planned Parenthood. We'll be right back.
SPEAKER 07 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome to Sekulow. The big question, do we need to get the politics out of the judiciary? And of course, a lot of people are saying that's nearly impossible. Of course, you have judges of their own political opinions, but the Supreme Court didn't always used to be that way. You would have a lot of decisions being made. And of course, in the lower courts as well, decisions being made on what the Constitution says and how they interpret it, not necessarily where their political beliefs lie. I want to hear from you, though. What do you think? Do you like the fact that these judges and justices are taking more of an active political stance? Or do you want them to stay quiet and mysterious? 1-800-684-3110. People like quiet and mysterious, Will. The ladies. Oh. That's why I'm here. 1-800-684-3110. That was not what I was expecting from you today. I know, you know, it's Friday. I want to try to make some people laugh. Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. I just want to know, did anybody see the clown imagery? Oh, everyone did. It was one of our biggest fundraising days ever when we brought up our friend Rob, a.k.a. Boba Hogan, the clown.
SPEAKER 09 :
I don't have a lot of fears, but a random clown that pops up, you know, walking down the street at a city center.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, there it is, the surprise clown. Yeah, yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
You don't want to be surprised with a clown. No, and they always do surprise you. And I will tell you, you know, I was in Europe for some of these street clowns. Yeah, well, a street clown is different. A street clown is kind of like, you know, it's... Are you about to be robbed or do they just want to take the photo for the money?
SPEAKER 08 :
You don't really know. Yeah, it's like when you get a picture with a smoking Elmo in Times Square. You never know where you got to make sure you're being careful. They come out of nowhere. So people are asking about the justice as well and the judges because Justice Jackson has been doing a slew of interviews but pretty much saying, you know what? I've got a voice. I'm going to speak. And no, some people may agree with that's how it should be. But of course, that isn't necessarily... against the law. It's just not precedent to how the Supreme Court has run historically. Like I said, we didn't know that much about Supreme Court justices. There'd be like leaked images of Scalia and Ginsburg riding an elephant in India that would come out and you'd be like, oh, that's crazy because you just never really heard from them. But now it's becoming a little more popular. Also, Supreme Court cases, the oral arguments are being done live streamed. That is something that wasn't the case pre-COVID. There's a lot of changes. The time limit has changed. So much has changed in terms of the normal precedent of the Supreme Court for our lifetime.
SPEAKER 06 :
that's right and what we're seeing now though is that justice jackson who's the newest member of the court uh is using her summer vacation these three months off as as it was brought to our attention before the october term she's been doing a lot of interviews doing a lot of speaking at local bar associations that's that's not abnormal that that does happen and has happened but it's the way that she's talking about the political arena That is really raising some eyebrows because it is different than what we've heard from justices in the past. And I think we should play bite six because this boils kind of down to the entire problem of what we are seeing with what she views her role through her writing of dissents. And even the language that's used in some of these dissents, during the one about injunctions, how to dot, dot, dot, wait for it, dot, dot, dot, almost as if it's like a thread on X instead of a dissent.
SPEAKER 08 :
An injunction, conjunction, junction.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. That's schoolhouse rock. But if you want to listen to this, let's go to bite six from Justice Jackson.
SPEAKER 02 :
I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to...
SPEAKER 06 :
tell people in my opinions how i feel about the issues so jordan she's literally you know not burying the lead here she's telling everyone that she has an opportunity to tell people her opinions and they get asked questions about that it wouldn't be appropriate for me to answer yeah they say it's not my job but you have an opinion about that it's just about the law
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and then suddenly, you know, you become, again, I do think you're right to some extent. The way we look at the court has changed what we kind of expect, and I think for the most part, the justices actually fall in line with the more traditional approach to it, even with the new, but I think some of the, you know, these newer justices... I mean, they have to deal with a lot more security risk. And so I think that makes them think, too, maybe I am this bigger figure publicly that I'm supposed to be speaking out, so I'm going to go do these much more kind of
SPEAKER 08 :
partisan events. I don't really love the partisanship. I do like sort of peek behind the curtain. I think it's interesting. I think that's fine.
SPEAKER 09 :
I think what's not fine is saying I'm going to tell you how I feel about the issues. You should have run for office.
SPEAKER 08 :
Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. Support the work of the ACLJ during this 35 years of Justice Drive. We'll be right back. We do want to hear from you. We got still three, four lines open. 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. We're also reflecting back on has been over the weekend will be one year since President Trump's assassination attempt. The first assassination attempt, of course, that happened in Butler, Pennsylvania. And where we're at a year later, you know, obviously you have a new president, you have President Trump in office. The world has certainly changed a lot more, but it does seem universally like we've kind of forgotten that this moment in time happened as President Trump was struck by a bullet. We don't know still a whole lot about the shooter. We still don't know a ton of information. And we know that some of the FBI had been, or the Secret Service had put on leave. President Trump said they were having a bad day. Very gracious in the way he, unlike President Trump, maybe one of the few moments, very gracious in the fact that these kind of things could happen. And I know probably every time he went on a stage, he thought about that this could be One of those moments that we all even see that when we watch on TV, you kind of are sort of a gut feeling of where security is. But looking back at a year since this happened, so much has changed, Will.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right. And one of the things that hasn't changed, unfortunately, for the country is the rhetoric that's used against conservatives.
SPEAKER 08 :
It was like two weeks of quiet.
SPEAKER 06 :
And then you're seeing things that are taking place across the country. You're seeing ambushes now against ICE agents, people that are federal law enforcement carrying out their job. And you're seeing people go and try to assassinate them, target them because of the rhetoric that's coming out of the left. And we don't put – we are a very pro-free speech organization. Of course. But what we're seeing, the rhetoric out of the left is actually endangering lives and has been endangering lives for more than a year, much more than that. But we thought that that could have been a turning point. And instead, they've doubled and tripled down on the rhetoric.
SPEAKER 08 :
There was a lot of discussion. Well, didn't. Did he get shot? Did he not get shot? Was it being overdramatic? Jordan, you were at the RNC just a couple weeks later, a couple days later. Right. That's the same week I was in Boston before we launched our Choice Begins Here campaign because that was when all of that was happening. You were there. You experienced what it was like to not, you weren't in Butler, Pennsylvania, but there just a couple days after and definitely changed the vibe. And of course, very shortly after that, I think it was the day after the RNC, Joe Biden decided to be dropping out and put in Kamala Harris, or within a few days.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, so it was, again, we knew the convention was going to be high energy. It's Donald Trump. What you didn't know going into it, of course, you're going to have a live on television assassination table. The president is shot. There's blood on the face. There's someone killed. And I think that also, that part of it, when people kind of talk about this as some conspiracy, let's not forget that there was a firefighter killed, you know, and a father and a husband gone. So these were very much, this was a very real situation with rifles being shot at the president of the United States and a crowd of people there as part of a campaign event, as part of kind of what we do as Americans. And so, yes, I mean, going into it, there were some very somber moments. because you had the family there of the firefighter. You had the acknowledgement of the firefighter's family. So it was, I think, the tone, and if you remember from President Trump's speech, it started off not darker, but just a more serious tone, because he knew what the country had also just gone through. And I think also when he got up in the fight, fight, fight, uh you can't you can't manufacture these these moments in history and if people want to go back and look at when's the moment that that campaign was over um honestly it was that and it wasn't uh again it wasn't because he was shot it was because people saw you know this idea of are they too old to be president all the him hopping up with blood on his face no knowing not knowing if the situation was over by the way yeah to Make sure the American people knew that he wasn't gone, even though he was a candidate for office and not the actual president for just that moment. Because I think even he said when you hit the ground, he saw the blood. He didn't know exactly. You don't know how serious it is yet. Your body is still running on adrenaline.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, you're definitely in shock. Well, you got some. I was agreeing with you. I was saying yes. You were saying yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
I mean, that is what that imagery. Horrible moment. And then remember, a couple of weeks later, Which they haven't focused on as much in these reports. There's a guy with an AK-47 in the bushes.
SPEAKER 08 :
But also it was, like I said, the media changed narratives because they were able to say, okay, when was the time that President Biden was going to step down? Of course, we're going to do it before, or we're going to wait until we need something to shift the media attention, and that's what happened. As soon as you shifted to Kamala Harris, Quickly, it became right back to the usual. He's a Nazi. He's all the different rhetoric all came right back as soon as you had a different person saying it because it was that Hail Mary attempt because they were seeing at that point that the writing was on the wall.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. If that election had been held between, first of all, it was a pretty blowout anyways, but let's say it was still Joe Biden on the ticket. I don't even know if we would have had to have been up more than 20 minutes. I mean, I don't know. How long did it actually take that? It was not very long. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
I mean, it was over pretty quick. It was definitely one of the quicker results. 11 o'clock at night. We would sleep pretty quickly.
SPEAKER 09 :
I don't think it got to the next day, at least here on Central Time.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I mean, it was very early in the evening where it was. Yeah, and it was over, you know, very, very quickly.
SPEAKER 09 :
So again, but the rhetoric hasn't gone down at all. No, it's increased to a level that actually is worse today than it was a year ago in Butler.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and I think there has been maybe some turning points that have happened, but for the most part, no.
SPEAKER 09 :
It's definitely where people said, okay, maybe we need to re-look at this. They say we need to back off and they don't. They can only do it for about, it's like what happened with October 7th with Israel. For a few days, everyone's saying that what happened to Israel and the Israelis and the hostages are horrible, condemning Hamas finally. And then after a few weeks, you forget even that Israel was responding to that horrendous event.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yep. and we're even seeing that rhetoric as how terrible that this is the end of the country even from justices of the supreme court with the injunctions ruling where justice jackson said that this will lead to our collective demise that is language that is apocalyptic and is is what we're seeing is that the left is not able to even break out of this activist protest mode That regardless, that's their default when it comes to the language these days. And no matter what happens in the world, they are going to default to that language. And that's elected officials, sitting judges. They are now apocalyptic. And that just goes back to the root of they've never been able to get over the fact. that president trump has been able to win has been able to secure victories against them and that's that's a problem and that's something that needs to be addressed the way that this discourse takes place uh has real world consequences and when you are are sitting there writing trying to memorialize in in this court that this is the end of our country this one decision That's on injunctions that clearly there's still other routes that that is the hyperbolic language that we're seeing out of the left. And that is concerning as we go forward.
SPEAKER 08 :
That's right. And phone lines are open for you. We want to hear from you in this next segment. We're going to try to take as many calls as we can at 1-800-684-3110. The ACLJ, though, is involved in a lot of these issues. You know, whether that has been working. Jordan, of course, you guys, you and dad worked with President Trump in the last time or during the first impeachment trial. Whether that is what you feel like could be small potatoes comparatively. But they're really not. Whether that is a Bible club case. Whether that is someone that just wants to pray who is a public school teacher. Whatever it may be, the ACLJ is always there. And I want to encourage you not just to donate. Of course, it's during one of our big drives right now. But also if you need help, we're always looking for new ways we can help out. So you go to ACLJ.org slash help. You fill out a very simple form. That form was going to take you and connect you directly to our legal team. And of course, if you need something else, I'll direct you to someone else on our team. go to aclj.org slash help if you need it or you find out there's someone in your community that needs it and maybe they don't know about the organization that we're there at absolutely no cost of course it's at no cost because uh jordan we are able to do this by supporters and champions that come alongside us and say you know what uh because a lot of these cases aren't with the president of the united states there are people who never could afford the legal fees never could afford to actually do something about their injustices that are happening that's what
SPEAKER 09 :
awesome about the ACLJ right is that the same attorneys that a president united states would choose to use when they are in one of the most vulnerable situations so whether that's the entire special counsel coming after you investigating you and uh hiring uh partisan attorneys that want to put you uh you want to have you impeach want to have you removed from office want to put you behind bars as we've seen uh that the president has been up against or impeachment Which, again, is something where you could say, well, we went in there with enough Republican votes, but you, again, can never predict these. That those same attorneys are being able, because of your support to the ACLJ, are able to help the little guy. And you know what? When it comes to constitutional law, setting major precedents for our country, it's oftentimes the little guy, those cases, that actually because of groups like the ACLJ, because you support us, because you donate to the ACLJ, that we're able to be there. And actually that's what shifts the real history. That's what changes precedent. It's not always what happens to this president or that president. It's what happens to our rights.
SPEAKER 08 :
as americans and that's the that's being able to help the little guy fight back when they would not have the resource to do so otherwise absolutely look we got two lines open right now we want to hear from you because we're going to take a lot of your calls and comments so jack bill franklin bob stay on hold we'll do our best to get to as many of your comments as possible and as jordan said you can support the work of the aclj right now and it's a perfect time to do it because we are in the middle now of our 35 years of justice drive all your donations are doubled today Scan the QR code. That doesn't mean you're going to be charged double. It means someone out there is ready to have their donation pledge unlocked at any cost. If you want to give $50, that becomes $100. If you want to give $1,000, it becomes $2,000, and so on and so on. We'll be right back with your calls, your comments, and so much more on Sekulow.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. Final segment of the broadcast today on this Friday. Jordan Sekulow joining me in studio. Jordan, let's go to the phones. Let's hear from people who've been waiting on the line.
SPEAKER 09 :
1-800-684-3110 if you want to get a call in.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right. Let's go to Bill from Texas who is an ACLJ champion. So as per Logan's rules, he goes to the front of the list. Bill, you're on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, the Supreme Court justices are required to make their decisions based on the Constitution only. And I'm not interested in what their personal opinion is on any of these matters. And when they start putting those into the mix, it seems to me that they – don't know what their own job is.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I mean, I think this is the concern, right, Bill, is that we see these confirmation hearings. And even when it's contentious, it's usually contentious on how you see the outcome, how you see a case, how you see the actual law, not what's your policy on tax reform. or social security or the size of the bureaucracy or whether or not um the executive uh branch uh should be making decisions to cut back on the democracy uh the bureaucracy or not it's all supposed to be focused in on law now we've seen the politics of personal destruction come into uh the nomination process too many times i mean too uh way too often uh but When it comes to these issues, you're right. Their political views, again, they can have them personally. They are Americans. They have the right to vote and to do it that way. But they've decided to become part of one of the three branches of government. And this branch's kind of defining moment is that, of course, you're going to have a judicial philosophy and you're going to have ways that you look. So we can look at conservative justices, liberal justices. But even when we use those terms there, It's not politically that we're speaking. It's judicial philosophy. It's whether or not you have a more of approach of we're going to radically take whatever, wherever we want to go on an outcome and we're going to figure out how the law gets us there or are we going to let the law direct us to the outcome?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and Jordan, one of the issues that we've talked about for a very long time is that the activist judges and the more conservative judges, as we've seen, what the dispute typically was, was their view of the Constitution. textualist people that live by the text and interpret the text as written of the constitution is more of a conservative judicial philosophy and those that believe that the constitution is a living document that can be interpreted to mean different things in a new era that's kind of what we've been dealing with for the most part what justice jackson appears to be is something completely outside of those two judicial philosophies because it seems like her view is that the opinion of a justice on policy can be inferred or given through a ruling without even the need of the text of the constitution. So it seems like it's this new development when it comes to the way that the court has, it needs to be looking at things is that there is a member of the court that believes the opinion of that individual on policy is
SPEAKER 09 :
could be outside of what even the law or the constitution says not even just interpreting it in modern context double standard here if you had one of the uh let's say the three trump uh nominees who are now supreme court justices start coming out during uh their break for moral argument and speak public speaking and making political statements and saying if this is this is i think this is a good uh decision is a bad decision policy-wise the left would be outraged. The left would be outraged. But when it's their own justice, and this is always a trap you don't want to fall into, because it needs to be the same standard for all, which is that we would not want our Supreme Court justices necessarily hanging out at political rallies either or giving us their political viewpoint. That's just not what they've signed up for. I care about their judicial philosophy. which I can learn from what they did either as academic or in their legal practice, their confirmation hearings, in their lower court history. I mean, you gleam that from that. You gleam that from the meetings that they have behind closed doors, the meetings that they have publicly through their process to be confirmed. I don't need their views on the issues of whether or not they think the government is structured correctly. Their job is to look at whether procedure was followed and the law. It's supposed to be, for the most part, 99% of the time, fairly dull. And now it's every decision by this administration is becoming politically supercharged. And that's not right. I mean, the majority of the American people elected this president, elected a Congress to back that president up so that they could get these kind of laws to their desk. And the fact that then you're told by a court, by one judge in Massachusetts saying this, that you can't go forward with reforming the government. And you wonder why people get disillusioned by politics.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right. Jordan, let's go take a few more calls before the end of the show here. Let's go to Jack calling from Pennsylvania on line one. Jack, you're on Seculo. Okay, thanks for all the work you folks do.
SPEAKER 01 :
I tend to put Justice Jackson, AOC, and people like Jasmine Crockett all in the same intellectual category, pretty close to the bottom. Is there any way that these people, now I'm talking now about Justice Jackson, can be either impeached or in some way legislatively, since the legislation confirmed her, is there any way that they could remove her for failure to adhere to her job description?
SPEAKER 09 :
It would have to be impeachment. So it has to meet high crimes and misdemeanors. I mean, so when you look at that standard and what you need in the Senate, and so two-thirds majority, I mean, first of all, I don't think in this scenario saying what's right and wrong is not necessarily what's criminal. And I think it's, do we want this to become the norm, or do we say, no, like her fellow justices, including those on the left, are saying, which is, we are not to be this level of political actor. Of course, you can never take politics out of everything, and there always are going to be those discussions. But what the court oftentimes does is let those discussions happen without involving itself. I mean, you know, the few times that Justice Roberts spoke it out, he's just been leery because of the violence against judges that we have seen from lower court judges all the way up to Supreme Court justice because of the rhetoric around them. What he's not saying is that they should be joining protest lines and telling you, you And so because I have this – listen, it's not – it's one of the more difficult jobs if you're politically engaged, like many of them would be if they reached that level inside the core system, to be able to – Put that disconnect in. You know, I don't have to do that at ACLJ because my job as the advocate is to go in and advocate for the position. But if I was to become a judge and that's the route you want to take, you've got to be able to divorce the politics and the law.
SPEAKER 06 :
And that's why the confirmation hearings get so contentious are when someone in their legal career as an attorney, not as a judge, has writings, has things that were in law reviews that were more opinion based, not as a judge. That's why they attack that stuff is because that's not where it's supposed to be. Franklin, we're not going to be able to get to you, Franklin, from California. But you did have a question saying you think that the Trump administration should increase the number of Supreme Court justices to 15. We actually fought against that tactic previously.
SPEAKER 09 :
Court tactic is dangerous because it does end up, it might temporarily give you what you want. And ultimately, again, going to the U.S. Supreme Court takes a long time. So even ultimately then, it takes a lot, it takes some time. It turns that will turn on you either because the next Congress comes and says we want to pack. We're going to add four more because we want the majority now. So that's not how we want our legal system working. And it's honestly tragic that we have to even think that way because of how the system is going.
SPEAKER 06 :
And Jordan, just a reminder to everyone that we are filing our major amicus brief in federal court today. We are fighting to defund Planned Parenthood. That's probably headed to the Supreme Court. Support the ACLJ. Stand with us. Your donations are doubled. ACLJ.org.
In this engaging episode, Bill Gunderson delves into the myriad of factors influencing today's economy, from the impact of tariffs and geopolitical tensions to the technological surge driven by AI developments. He highlights the pivotal roles companies like NVIDIA and Microsoft play in shaping the future, and offers a unique perspective on stock analysis. With his wealth of experience, Gunderson breaks down complex issues like global trade policies and energy demands, offering listeners practical insights into making informed investment decisions.
SPEAKER 02 :
He's been seen on CNBC, the Fox News Channel, and the Fox Business Channel. His articles can be found on MarketWatch, Seeking Alpha, TheStreet.com, and many other places. He's the author of the weekly Best Stocks Now newsletter and the inventor of the Best Stocks Now app. He's president of Gundersen Capital Management. Here is professional money manager Bill Gundersen.
SPEAKER 03 :
And welcome to today's Best Stock Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management. I'm flying solo here today and I'm broadcasting from a remote location somewhere in South Carolina here this day. I don't do this very often. I'm going to have to broadcast from my cell phone because we don't quite have the internet strength here that I need for my Radio modem. We've got a down day going on so far, but I will say this. It looks a lot better underneath the surface of the market than it does on the surface. On the surface, it's just a few white caps here and there. The Dow is down 249, down a half a percent, but I can't really complain about the week we've had or the month we've had in the market. I wouldn't worry too much. The S&P is down 27 points. which works out to about 40 basis points to the downside. The NASDAQ is down just 21 basis points. As NVIDIA powers to a new all-time high today, crashes through that $4 trillion barrier once again, and continues to be our largest position by far at the firm. We also have the small caps. They're down 85 basis points today. The story of the day is Bitcoin. Can you believe Bitcoin? Its old high was $110,000, and right now it is trading at $117,000. That's right. You heard it right here on the Best Stocks Now show. Bitcoin powers to an all-time high. So welcome to today's Best Docs Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management, a nationwide fee-based only money management firm that likes to be a little bit different than the rest out there. The big Wall Street firms that are in love with the Johnson & Johnson's and the Procter & Gamble's and the AT&T's of the world. many of which time has passed by. You know, we're not out there on the frontier in risky stocks. We're just in the stocks that are growing today, and their better days are not behind them. Hopefully their better days are still ahead of them, and hopefully they're in the prime of their life right now. That's the methodology we employ, hence the name The Best Stocks Now. We had new highs in the S&P 500 yesterday. It hit 6,280. We had a new all-time high in the NASDAQ yesterday, 20,630. Hey, CNBC, I thought the market was supposed to tank this year on the misguided tariff concerns. The market's hitting a new high, if you haven't looked recently. And I'm the guy that back on April the 8th of this year, March the 8th of this year, said, you know what? I'd be all in right now. I think this whole tariff thing is going to work. And I based that on an interview I heard with Scott Besant explaining the whole reason behind it all and what they wanted to achieve from it all. And I said, you know, it's going to work. Well, guess what? It's working. The story today, obviously, Bitcoin. Man, can you believe it? $117,000 per coin. The old high was $110,625, and we are just blowing through that. We obviously have an administration that is pro-Bitcoin. That helps. You've even got people that are advisors. Hi, big up there on the pecking order. advisors to Trump that are also big Bitcoin players. So where Bitcoin ends, nobody knows, but up she goes, and it hits new all-time highs today, along with the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 yesterday. There was a solid bond sale. There's no shortage of demand for U.S. bonds. Interest rates right now on the 10-year are sitting at about 4.40%. As you know, Trump called for 300 basis point cut. Well, you know what? It can't hurt to ask. I always ask for a free lobster, you know, on the side with my dinner. It can't hurt to ask. I don't think he's going to get it. He'd be happy probably with a quarter of a point. But the other big news today is 35% on Carney up in Canada. I don't think Trump likes Carney a whole lot. And I don't think Carney likes him either. But look, Canada is pretty dependent upon trade with the U.S. If you think about it, they may have ties with Europe and they may have ties with China, etc. China is not a consuming nation. They're not going to be buying a lot of Canadian goods. And Europe, on the other hand, while they're a big part of Canada's trade relationship, the U.S. is by far the number one trade partner for them. And I'm sure that 35 percent is not palatable for them. Something has to give. It all kind of began with a little bit of that, a little bit of that, Carney's policies. And as I've said before, Trump is the first president ever to use tariffs as far as not only trade relations, but how they run their countries. I mean, look what he's done to Brazil here this week, to Lula. He doesn't like the way they're treating former president Bolsonaro, who is much more of a capitalist than the new guy, who is much more of a socialist than the old guy. And they're out to get Bolsonaro, and Trump slapped a 50% tariff on them unless they treat Bolsonaro a little bit better. So we're seeing a weapon that we've never really seen before been used in the way it is. I suppose it beats ballistic missiles. I suppose it beats sanctions. I suppose it beats embargoes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, or standoffs in the Bay of Pigs and the like. But it seems to be working, and we'll see. Brazil's got to come around. NVIDIA's crashing through $4 trillion again today. Let's just check in on it. Last time I looked, it was up 1.5%. I wrote an article two years ago, three years ago, one year ago, six months ago, and continue to call NVIDIA the best stock in the market today. No, it's not AT&T. It's NVIDIA. And the proof is in the pudding. The company is breaking through $4 trillion to become the biggest stock of all time publicly traded. We've never had a $4 trillion stock before. But there it is. NVIDIA right now sitting at $4.05 trillion. Draw that out on your scratch pad. How many zeros is that? Don't forget to add the decimal points. That would be two more zeros. NVIDIA is hitting $166.18 today. And in a down market, I was pretty happy when I looked at our overall mix. And we were down just a little bit, and we might even be positive by now with this move in NVIDIA today. And what's driving NVIDIA? Two letters. Two letters. AI. and four letters that pretty much started this whole thing, NVDA. And the other one, I would say the number two AI stock in the world is Microsoft, who began this whole thing with ChatGPT. And Microsoft, I would expect, will in time become the second $4 trillion company. It's now sitting at $3.72 trillion. If this were a horse race, NVIDIA is pulling away right now from Microsoft. It blew by Apple quite some time ago, the company that hasn't had a good idea for quite some time, in my opinion. And then it blew by Microsoft. And now NVIDIA has opened up about a three-length lead on Microsoft. They're at $3.72 trillion. NVIDIA is at $4.05 trillion. We own both stocks in our portfolio. Somehow Microsoft, unlike other big tech, I'm talking Intel, IBM, et cetera, somehow Microsoft has figured out a way to stay current. They're much more than just Windows, and they're also a big player in what is probably the biggest growth sector driving the market right now. which happens to be AI. Whether you trust AI or you don't trust AI, whether you use chat GPT, whether you don't use chat GPT, it is a big driver of growth in our economy right now. It's not tobacco. It's not food. It's not medicine. It's not drugs anymore. It's not the building sector. It's not commodities. No, it's two letters. It's AI, and that's driving a lot of growth. Some have even estimated that it's as much as 1% of our GDP right now in the U.S. economy. Okay, we'll be back. There's a lot of rare earth news. There's some nuclear news. There's some tariff news. And it all affects you. And you need to know about it. We'll be right back. And welcome back here to the second quarter of today's Best Docs Now show. Well, the 35% tariff on Canada is a big setback for their new Prime Minister Mark Carney. He was trying to reach a trade agreement with Washington. And now, instead of a 25% levy, it's up to 35% levy. And Trump says, Instead of working with the United States, Canada retaliated with its own tariffs. And he also said he criticized the fentanyl flow from Canada and its tariff and non-tariff trade barriers that hurt U.S. dairy farmers and others. Trump went on to say, if Canada works with me to stop the flow of fentanyl, we will perhaps consider an adjustment to Well, like I say, 35% is a pretty stiff levy there. Canada is replying, saying that we're doing what we can. We're committed to working with the United States to save lives and protect communities in both of our countries from the scourge of fentanyl. And we'll just have to see where it goes from here. But that's kind of a surprise that he went to 35% on Canada. All these countries, all these trade partners are getting their letters this week. Europe hasn't gotten its letter. I would imagine today more than likely the checks in the mail or the letters in the mail, and they're going to find out what their tariff is. Vietnam was reportedly caught off guard by Trump's 20% tariff decision, which is much lower than Canada, but Vietnam was down to 10%, and that made all the companies that sell the Abercrombie & Fitches, the Philips, Van Heusen, etc., that have a lot of clothing made over there, and other manufacturing that goes on in Vietnam, It was at 10%, but he did go up to 20%. Now, down in Brazil, which is the other hot spot right now, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Thursday he will impose retaliatory tariffs. Okay, go ahead. I'm warning you. On the United States, if President Donald Trump follows through on his promise, he hasn't done it yet. But he has threatened Brazil with a 50% tariff. And, of course, Brazil is the bee in bricks. Trump not a fan of bricks. Lula said he will trigger Brazil's reprocity law approved by Congress earlier this year if negotiations with the U.S. fail, he said. Uh, so anyways, uh, we'll see. I, I think Lula is going to have to make some big changes in order to get that tariff down. And as I said, Europe is waiting for their letter, uh, from Trump, uh, to see where their tariff is that Trump is going to make a major statement on Russia on Monday. Well, there's an update on, uh, on Armageddon. Are we dealing with Gog and Magog here in Russia, in Putin? It seems very clear, very clear, that he does not want to stop with the territory that he's gained in his conquest of Ukraine. It appears that he wants the whole thing. And, you know, Trump really doesn't know what to do, I would say. I mean, he says he's getting a lot of you-know-what from Putin. So Trump's going to have to do something, and it looks like maybe some very, very stiff sanctions will be coming on Putin, and we'll see what Putin does to retaliate. But that's not a good situation. You know, Putin has really gone to kind of the dark side here. Not that he was ever on the sunny side of the street, but he's really gone to the dark side and is a pretty scary guy. And I'm sure Europe definitely on edge, raising their budgets to 5% to stock those weapons as a group there in NATO. And then you've got China, which for now, you know, the tariffs seem to be in place. But they continue to squawk and whine and holler. Marco Rubio is going to hold his first in-person talks with his Chinese counterpart at a Malaysia summit today amid trade tension. So that hasn't happened yet. But today, Marco Rubio will meet with his counterpart. It's their first face-to-face talks. But here's the big kicker. It could potentially be laying the groundwork for a future presidential summit. Will Trump go to China? Will she come to America? We'll just have to see. But, you know, I have to bring all of this stuff up because it affects the market greatly. It affects your shopping at Walmart. It affects your portfolio. It affects your safety. in this nation. These are all very, very big occurrences happening in the world right now. OPEC sees no end in sight for the age of oil. Well, I don't either. When I look at the cars on the road and the trucks and the ships coming into our ports, etc., etc., etc., the airport, all of the planes, all of the contrails in the sky over Charleston, There's not going to be peak demand yet. We haven't hit that in oil. And OPEC says that they don't think that has happened, even though some have said, oh, it's all over for oil. We've hit peak oil. No, I don't think so. OPEC is doubling down on its view that global oil demand will keep rising through 2050. Having said that, it's hard to invest in oil, however. It's news-driven. You saw recently when the whole Iran thing took place, oil shot up to $75 per barrel, and then it shot right back down to the low 60s, and right now it's in that $66 area. It's been difficult to invest in, but I would say some of the smaller companies smaller oil producers, oil and gas producers in the U.S. I watch them on a daily basis. They're showing some signs of life. But as far as a growth industry, 15%, 20% earnings growth per year, there's very few stocks in the oil sector that have that kind of growth. But those are the ones that you've got to focus on. Big Oil has perked up a little bit. Chevron and BP and Exxon, they pay some hefty dividends. But I don't know. I mean, I look at the returns of those stocks over the last 10 years, and it hasn't been very good. And by the way, somebody asked me, Bill, you know that you have your app. And, of course, on the app, if you go to it on the homepage, the very first selection on the menu says, is my instructions and my commentary on how I use my app on a daily basis to narrow down the market. But, you know, I begin with track record. The track record of a stock is what they have delivered to investors over the last 10 years, five years, three years, one year. That puts it in perspective for me. If you're going to make your initial analysis of a stock you're looking at, look at the track record of returns that they have delivered to shareholders. We'll be right back. This is Bill Gunderson. Thank you for tuning in to today's Best Stocks Now, Best Inverse Funds Now show. I put several hours of research in during the wee hours of the morning each day to bring you the very best cutting-edge stories that I can. To get two free weeks of my newsletter, go to GundersonCapital.com. To talk to us about our fee-based only money management services... Call us at 855-611-BEST. Now, back to the second half of the show. We'll be right back. Dan, welcome back here to the second half of today's Best Stocks Now show. Well, you know, there are definitely some themes in the market this year that we just keep hammering on. You know, the whole theme with the tariffs, obviously, is probably the biggest theme in the market this year. But I would also remind you that the market hit... new all-time highs yesterday. The NASDAQ hit a new all-time high. The S&P 500 hit a new all-time high. The Dow is about 600, 700 points away from its all-time high. And, of course, you've got Bitcoin today hitting 17,000. So, you know, and we've had some very good jobs reports recently, not only in job creation. We've also had those initial jobless claims stay under 300,000. Of course, they did that all through the Biden administration, too, to be fair. We continue to have a robust jobs market. I see it as a supply demand issue. I think there's a lot of demand for good workers. And there's not a lot of supply of good workers out there, it seems. I've got all of them working for me, I guess. But it's tough. You know, it's a tough environment to get good workers right now working for you. The demand is definitely there. There's no excuse. If someone's out of work, there seems to be plenty of work out there. Another big theme. Big, big, big thing here in 2025, obviously AI. But the power underneath AI that it needs. The U.S. is expected to okay the Tennessee Valley Authority small nuclear reactor in 2026. Okay? So they've accepted an application for construction permits. from the Tennessee Valley Authority to build a small modular nuclear reactor, the first U.S. utility to seek federal approval for such a project. Now remember that acronym or those three letters, that abbreviation, SMR, Small Modular Nuclear Reactor. We've talked about this many, many times. They can be built much faster. Now, I would just say in previous administrations, this would have been tied up in courts for years and never gotten off the ground. I mean, look at the West Virginia liquid natural gas pipeline. That was tied up for years. Look at the one in Michigan that goes through Michigan, that pipeline. This is nuclear now. This is a step up from a liquid natural gas pipeline. But they've accepted the application. They expect to approve the application by the end of 2026. Okay, so that's still over a year away. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with the 2026 approval, and you've got the Tennessee Valley authorities plan to build a 300-megawatt reactor developed by who? GE Vernova at its Clinch River site in Tennessee. So that is the first. There are currently no small reactors. modular reactors operational in the U S and only three are operating worldwide. I believe two of them are in China. The nuclear regulatory commit commission has approved only two SMR reactor designs, both of which were submitted by nuclear developer, new scale and new scale symbol. I've talked about new scale many times. The symbol is F M R. They're doing a lot of work on the smaller reactor, the design. You also have Oklo, which is a competitor there. And you have others. I see ASP Isotopes is in the news today, ASPI. They're buying out another small company. They're trying to develop a fuel that would be much more efficient and much more quicker to make. enriched uranium than the current methodology. So there's a lot of different plays in this nuclear area, but that's big news. Okay, that's the first small nuclear reactor, an application for by the Tennessee Valley Authority to build a small modular nuclear reactor in And on the receiving end of that is GE Vernova, which was spun off by CEO Larry Culp, who's done a great job at turning GE around. The mess that the Immelt made, he has done a fantastic job at turning that thing around. Another issue here, another theme, and we saw it come to before yesterday, is Rare Earth. I saw a coal mine being approved in Wyoming. When's the last time a coal mine? Maybe the canary in the coal mine. I don't know. But when's the last time a coal mine has been approved in Wyoming or anywhere? But they also think that there's rare earth down there up in Wyoming. And we had the big news yesterday on a stock that we own in our emerging growth portfolio, MP Materials, which is Mountain Paths. Right on the border of Nevada and California. I've been there many, many times. I've eaten at that Barstow station. That is the busiest McDonald's you're ever going to find. They have a line like they do at the TSA, you know, where first you go left, then you go right. Like the mouse trying to find the cheese. I feel like an idiot in those TSA lines. There's nobody ahead of me, and I've got to walk 100 yards in a mouse kind of line to like a stupid idiot. But, hey, that's the times we live in, I guess. NP Materials is up another 5.5% today. It was up 53% yesterday. But I want to bring your attention to a couple of others. There's a big player in Australia, Linus Rare Earths, which is L-Y-N-A-S. I need to add it to my app. It's a pink sheet stock. It doesn't have an American depository receipt. In other words, it doesn't have a three-letter symbol. It doesn't trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Instead, it trades on the pink sheets. L-Y-S-D-Y. L-Y-S-D-Y is the largest rare earth producer outside of China... And it soared as much as 20% to its highest level since mid-August 2022. And it's on track for its best trading day since April of 2020 after MP Materials yesterday made a deal with the U.S. government. The Pentagon invested $50 million into MP materials, and that stock was up 53%. There's one other one, Iluka Resources, which is I-L-K-A-F, and I will add that to the app. And I would just say to all app users out there, The first thing to look at when you enter in the symbol is look at the one year, the three year, the five year and the 10 year returns of the stock. That's where I begin. And then I work from there. That is the track. That's the batting average. That's the back of the baseball card. You turn the baseball card over, and you see the last 10 years. At least you used to. I don't know what baseball cards show anymore. They probably got so many statistics, you can't find the batting average anymore. How do they do against right-handers? How do they do with men on base? How do they do with this and that? How do they do with windy conditions? There's so many stats now, it's mind-boggling. The bottom line is, The guy's batting 312. He's driven in 79 RBIs. He's hit 27 home runs. I wish the Padres had a guy like that, but we don't. We have Manny Machado. He's okay, but he's no Shohei Otani. Anyways, on a stock, I've been a baseball fan and a stats guy all my life. I just am enamored with stats. But I don't get out into the weeds with the stats. Keep it simple. And that's why Bill Gunderson eliminates stocks right off the bat. Verizon, sorry. Terrible returns. Johnson & Johnson, sorry. Someday the guy from Johnson & Johnson is going to call me up, the CEO, and Maybe I should be an activist investor and try to stir things up there. They have done terrible. Disney, terrible returns. Look at those returns. That's a good start on any stock before you go any further with it. We'll be right back. And welcome back here to the final segment of today's Best Docs Now show. Let me give you an example of a baseball card I just pulled from my stack. It's not a baseball card. It's a publicly traded company by the name of ConAgra. I've got nothing against ConAgra. They're a publicly traded company. You can buy shares on the New York Stock Exchange. ConAgra is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It's 60% owned by institutions. The website looks real fine and dandy here. I'm looking at the cover page of their website. They are the most energized and inclusive food company in the world. Well, okay, that sounds all good and dandy. And you're probably familiar with their brands. Okay, let's just look at a few of them. This sounds like my shopping cart at Walmart here as I look at ConAgra's brands. Oh, there's Slim Jim. I love those little beef sticks. Healthy Choice. I don't put too much of that in my cart. Duncan Hines. David Sunflower Seeds. I've Chewed on a few of those at the Padre games. Hunt's tomato sauce, I'm sure. Marie Callender's, Ready Whip. You ever put Ready Whip on your pumpkin pie? How about Vlasic pickles? How about bird's eye vegetables? How about Orville Redenbacher's popcorn? He used to live down in Coronado. Duke Slim Jim's, Banquet Frozen, Pam Spray. I use a little bit of that. Hebrew National. Oh, yeah, I've partaken of a lot of those things. Now let's turn the baseball card over, okay? That looks pretty good on the surface. But how have you done for your shareholders over the years? And, you know, the original idea behind the Best Stocks Now app was track record. I wanted to see track record. After all, when you buy a mutual fund or, you know, or an ETF, You want to know the one year, the three year, the five year, ten year. People want to know that from me. Track record of how you've done over the years. Because you can't really hide. I don't care how inclusive you are or how good the Orville Redenbacher thing of popcorn is on a Friday night movie night or whatever. Here's the performance of the stock. Okay. Let's say I would have invested in it 10 years ago and just kept it there. I've lost two and a half percent per year. Well, that's not good. The S and P's done 21% per year. Keep in mind that this stock is 60% owned by institutions. That's mutual funds, big institutions, Morgan Stanley's of the world, uh, Merrill Lynch's of the world institutions. I'm not an institution. I'm just a registered investment advisor that manages money for folks. You would have lost. Okay, over the last five years, it's gone backwards by 7.7% per year. Who's the CEO of this? How long has he had his job? Maybe it's just a bad industry. Maybe it's a bad sector. Maybe there's not a big profit margin in Birdseye Peas and Slim Jim Beef Sticks. Could be. Over the last three years, you've lost 14% per year. Now, I can guarantee you this stock sits in many portfolios out there in America, people that are with the big institutions. If they own 60% of the stock, it's spread out amongst their investors all over the country, all over the world. Over the last 12 months, ConAgra, C-A-G, is down 29%. I hope that illustrates my point about looking at track record first, okay? Just look at the track record. The app spells it out. Well, you say, what about the dividend? Yeah, okay, the dividend is, let's see. Oh, you're going to get a 7% dividend on ConAgra. That includes the dividend yield, okay? Those returns include the dividend yield. So I'm sure some dividend hog out there is saying, how can you pass up ConAgra at a 7.5% dividend yield easily? The stock has lost 2.5% per year. If you just average that out, compound annual growth, over the last 10 years, and the chart is hitting new lows, okay? That's as opposed to many charts that are hitting new highs. The market hit a new high. ConAgra can't really blame the stock market. It can't really blame tariffs. It's all it can do is look at itself in the mirror and say, we performed terribly for our investors over the last 1, 3, 5, and 10 years. Okay, a couple other stories, and then I got to go. I've got a newsletter to write this weekend. And all of these stocks I talked about this past week, I'm going to do a few more here before we run out of time, are in the newsletter. My 12-month price target on the S&P 500 will be in the newsletter. Once again, I've been a bull since 2009 because earnings have been going up since 2009. There's been some times along the way where I've been cautious, no question about it, But earnings have been going up. You see the chart I print in the newsletter every single week. It's a bar chart. That's the second place you look after you look at a company's track record is the market and the earnings picture for the market because that's the macro picture. And you'll see that we're going to have record earnings this year and record earnings next year. Now, you might not realize it. Maybe you're sipping on your morning coffee. Does it come from Brazil? Well, companies that buy a lot of Brazilian coffee, there's now a 50% tariff threat against them. Dutch Brothers gets 50% of their coffee from Brazil. I don't know where Starbucks is, but I'm sure there's quite a bit of that. But you've got to realize that the news on tariffs goes right down to the coffee in your mug today. Drone stocks fly higher as Hegseth reportedly orders production ramp. And, of course, we own AeroVironment, AVAV. A couple other players there, Red Cat on fire today, RCAT, and Kratos, K-T-O-S. One last one. Three days ago, the number one stock in my app was Flutter. Flutter is a sports gambling stock. They're in a deal to buy Boyd Gaming's 5% stake in FanDuel.com. That looks like a win-win situation to me. We continue to hold water. Okay, to set up an appointment with us, make the switch away from the Wall Street institutions that own soggy stocks like ConAgra and others like it. Just look at the track record of the stocks that you own in your portfolio. Please, be yourself a favor. You get four weeks to the app for free at GundersenCapital.com. You can look up all your stocks. Look them up. Give them a grade. How have they done? To set up an appointment with us, 855-611-BEST. 855-611-BEST. Have a great day, everybody.
SPEAKER 01 :
This show is not a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. Bill Gunderson or clients of Gunderson Capital Management may have long or short positions in stocks mentioned during the show. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Gunderson Capital Management is a fee-based registered investment advisory firm. All accounts are held at Charles Schwab. Schwab is a member of SIBC and FINRA.
Join Kim and her guest Patty McKernan for a riveting discussion about the surprising changes in cast vote records in Arapahoe County. They dissect these anomalies and their potential impact on local and national elections, questioning what these shifts mean for the future. Discover the ongoing battle to ensure transparency and the accountability of governmental institutions. This episode also touches upon the importance of supporting military veterans and ensuring that American values remain intact amidst legislative changes.
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It's the Kim Munson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
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An early childhood taxing district? What on earth is that?
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The latest in politics and world affairs.
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I don't think that we should be passing legislation that is so complicated that people kind of throw up their hands and say, I can't understand that.
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Today's Current Opinions and Ideas.
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And it's not fair just because you're a big business that you get a break on this and the little guy doesn't.
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Is it freedom or is it force? Let's have a conversation.
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indeed let's have a conversation and welcome to the kim munson show thank you so much for joining us you each are treasured you're valued you have purpose today strive for excellence take care of your heart your soul your mind and your body my friends we were made for this moment in history and thank you to the team that's producer joe luke rachel zach echo charlie mike theresa amanda and all the people here at crawford broadcasting happy friday producer joe happy friday kim And boy, the weeks go by pretty quickly. We're headed towards shorter and shorter days. That's hard to believe. But each day, roll up your sleeves. We've got work to do to reclaim this state that we love and our country as well. And so that's why we engage in this battle of ideas. We search for truth and clarity. By looking at these issues through this lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom, if something's a good idea, you should not have to force people to do it. And it's never compassionate to take other people's stuff, whether or not it's their rights, property, freedom, livelihood, opportunity, childhoods, or lives via force. And force obviously can be a weapon. But it can be sneakier. It can be policy and unpredictable and excessive taxation, fear of coercion, government-induced inflation. This agenda that is being pushed out by the World Economic Forum and the globalist elites, and they're using all kinds of things like land use codes and zoning regulations. Ginny had texted me yesterday and said that, and this really goes to these elites, that they think globally. but they're acting locally. And so what has happened is, and we're seeing this really play out in Lakewood with them doing this whole zoning rewrite. And you really should check out Karen Gorday's piece that she published. It was published at the Lakewood Informer, and it's called Zoned Out, How Lakewood is Selling Out Its Neighborhood. She's an entrepreneur and owner of Radiant Painting and Lighting, which is also a sponsor of the show. But how this all worked out was that the globalist elites, they took over our universities, and then they put in place in these public administration, the schools of public administration where these young people are taught to be city planners or city administrators, They have been taught that the globalist agenda to put people in denser and denser housing and these 15-minute cities, basically they're trying to couch it that it's something that would be so convenient. that you would have everything within 15 minutes of what you needed it. But, hey, if people want to live in an apartment and a 15-minute seat, people should have the freedom to do so. But they have used public policy and tax incentives and special treatment programs to build these apartment buildings that we see up and down these transit corridors and then peeling money out of the gas tax money that we have paid to put in transit. And so that is a way that they're trying to control our lives. And so it's important that we understand that. But again, what happened was our universities, our colleges were taken over by those that want to indoctrinate students. Our kids and kids coming out of these public administration as planners, as city managers, they are pushing that agenda because that's what they've been taught. And so it's important to understand that. And they've been doing this through public policy. So with that, remember, if something's a good idea, you shouldn't need to use force to implement it. And you shouldn't need to use tax incentives to implement it. If it's a good idea, it should be able to stand on its own two feet from an economic standpoint. So with that, our word of the day is despotism or despot. And it is spelled D-E-S-P-O-T-I-S-M. And it could, as despotism, could be ruled by or as if by a despot. That's so frustrating when they use that as a definition. So, of course, we had to look at despot as well. which is a ruler with absolute power, a person who wields power oppressively, a tyrant, or it could be a Byzantine emperor or prince, and it could be tyranny. And it's a government or political system in which the ruler exercises absolute power. And we are living under a lot of despotism with this Colorado State Legislature and this governor. And so they are going to be meeting for a special session. And myself and my fellow CUT board members will be watching that and taking positions on whatever it is that they're going to be introducing. And we would really appreciate if you would join and support CUT. It is the Colorado Union of Taxpayers organization. all-volunteer group that's been watching legislation and issues since 1976. And when you see these people, my fellow board members, out there at events, be sure and tell them thank you because they spend an enormous amount of time to stand up for the taxpayer of Colorado, the taxpayers of Colorado. And who are the taxpayers of Colorado? It is all of us. If you buy anything in Colorado, you pay sales tax. So all of us are taxpayers. But my fellow board members are Steve Dorman, Greg Golianski, Russ Haas, Bill Hamill, Rob Knuth, John Nelson, Wendy Warner, Marty Nielsen, Ramey Johnson, Mary Jansen, Dave Evans, and Corey Onizorg, Paula Beard, and Ray Beard. So be sure and say thank you to them. And I want to say thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show because it is of our amazing sponsors. And all of your support is why our independent voice is out there on the air. And our hope is in the spirit of the Apostle Paul, and I've been reading the book of Acts, and he would go into different cities and be in the public square or the synagogues, and he would be reasoning and persuading people. And that is what we are working to do here at the show as well. So the word of the day is despotism or a despot. It should be pretty darn easy to use that word of the day. On Fridays, I, for our quote of the day, highlight a quote from the Medal of Honor quote book that's been published by the Center for American Values. And one of the things that they do is they honor our Medal of Honor recipients. In particular, they have portraits of over 160 Medal of Honor recipients and their quotes. And it really is a very, there's just a lot of reverence as you go in and you start to understand what these men did. And Drew Dix, one of the co-founders and Medal of Honor recipient, said that when they have students come in, you know, kids may be horsing around as they get off the bus, but once they come into the center, almost all the time their behavior changes. And I think that that is such great work that they're doing. So support the center. That website is AmericanValueCenter.org. And our quote of the day is from James P. Fleming, United States Air Force Medal of Honor recipient, was born in 1943. And this is Actions on November 26, 1968. And this is the citation. It says, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, Captain Fleming, then first lieutenant, distinguished himself as the aircraft commander of a UH-1F transport helicopter. Captain Fleming went to the aid of a six-man special forces long-range reconnaissance patrol that was in danger of being overrun by a large, heavily armed hostile force. Despite the knowledge that one helicopter had been downed by intense hostile fire, Captain Fleming descended and balanced his helicopter on a riverbank with the tail boom hanging over open water. Wow. The patrol could not penetrate to the landing site and he was forced to withdraw. Dangerously low on fuel, Captain Fleming repeated his original landing maneuver. Disregarding his own safety, he remained in this exposed position. Hostile fire crashed through his windscreen as the patrol boarded his helicopter. Captain Fleming made a successful takeoff through a barrage of hostile fire and recovered safely at a Ford base. Captain Fleming's profound concern for his fellow men, at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Air Force and reflect great credit upon himself and the armed forces of his country. And this is his quote. He said this. He said, American service members are truly superb. They answer the call to duty for freedom, justice, and the American way. And again, American service members are truly superb. They answer the call to duty for freedom, justice, and the American way. Every day we must keep our military and our veterans in our prayers. And that is why I so support the Center for American Values. And please support them as well. That is AmericanValueCenter.org. And then also the USMC Memorial Foundation. Paula Sarles, who's the president of the foundation and her team, are working diligently to raise the money for the remodel of the Marine Memorial and at the same time supporting it and having events there. It's a very important place for military and veterans, and it's important for us to support it so that we show our appreciation for those veterans that have given their lives or been willing to give their lives for our freedom. So again, that website is usmcmemorialfoundation.org, usmcmemorialfoundation.org. We have been going through from the White House website the 50 wins in the one big beautiful bill. Today we'll let you know about 20 through 24. One, two, three, four. Okay, number one. Excuse me. Number 20. It incentivizes Made in America. You know what? I did this one yesterday. So it's 21 through 25. Here we go. It creates a new Trump savings accounts for newborns, allowing children across America to experience the miracle of compounded growth. I find that interesting. Love supporting families. Not sure that government should be doing that, but supporting families, that's number 21. Number 22, it expands access to child care for hardworking American families. Number 23, it provides a historic increase in funding for the U.S. Coast Guard. This will help block illegal drugs and migrants from entering our country, protect our sovereignty in the Arctic, and promote our national security. Seems like that's a great idea. Number 24, it supports building new factories to grow domestic business operations. So the bill renews 100% immediate expensing and interest deductions, increases the small business deduction, and establishes 100% immediate expensing for equipment and machinery. And then number 25, it helps American farmers, producers, and ranchers compete and sell products in foreign markets. It says the bill makes sure American farmers aren't crowded out by foreign imports in liquid fuel production markets. So that is number 21 through 25 in the 50 wins in the big, beautiful bill. And a couple of other sponsors that I did want to mention, Hooters Restaurants. The Lone Tree location will be closing on Sunday, so drop by and say hello to everyone. I was in on Wednesday to pick up the wings for the girls. And they will continue with their locations in Loveland, Westminster and on Parker Road and continue to sponsor our show because we really have this this bond as they are entrepreneurs. And we saw how PBIs, politicians, bureaucrats and interested parties were trying to wield power. power to control our businesses. And that's really how I got to know them when I was on city council. And that whole story is at my website. So you can check that out there. And then the Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance team will be celebrating 50 years in business. And that is because they strive for excellence as they take care of their clients. And they can create personalized insurance plans to cover all your needs from protection for your cars to your home, condo, boat, motorcycle, business, and renter's coverage. Contact the Roger Mangan team now at 303-795-8855 for a complimentary appointment. Like a good neighbor, the Roger Mangan team is there.
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Car thefts, hail storms, and uninsured motorists are presenting unique insurance challenges for everyday hardworking Coloradans. The Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance Team knows that when you need to make an insurance claim, financial strength matters. State Farm consistently receives high marks for the company's financial condition and ability to pay claims. For that peace of mind, to know that you are working with a financially strong company, contact the Roger Mangan team now at 303-795-8855 for a complimentary appointment to assess your insurance coverage. That's 303-795-8855. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
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Award-winning realtor Karen Levine with Remax Alliance understands the importance of home ownership. Karen Levine works diligently at the local, county, state, and national levels to protect your private property rights. With over 30 years experience as a Colorado realtor, Karen Levine will help you navigate the complicated metro real estate market, whether you are buying your home, selling your home, considering a new build, or exploring investment properties. Kim Monson highly recommends Karen Levine call Karen Levine at 303-877-7516 that's 303-877-7516 for answers to all your real estate needs
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There's so much noise coming at us. Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of it all. How can you sift through the clamor for your attention and get to the truth? The Kim Munson Show is here to help. Kim searches for truth and clarity by examining issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. Tune in to the Kim Munson Show each weekday, 6 to 8 a.m. with encores 1 to 2 p.m. and 10 to 11 p.m. on KLZ 560. The KLZ website, the KLZ app, and Alexa. Play KLZ. Shows can also be found at kimmunson.com, Spotify, and iTunes.
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Focused and wise marketing is essential for your success, especially during tough economic times. If you love The Kim Munson Show, strive for excellence and understand the importance of engaging in the battle of ideas that is raging in America. Then talk with Kim about partnership, sponsorship opportunities. Email Kim at KimMunson.com. Kim focuses on creating relationships with individuals and businesses that are tops in their fields. So they are the trusted experts listeners turn to when looking for products or services. Kim personally endorses each of her sponsors. Again, reach out to Kim at KimMunson.com.
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It is Friday. Welcome back to the Kim Munson Show. Check out our website. That is KimMunsonMON.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter while you are there. Let's get to it. On the line with me is a good friend of mine, Patty McKernan. She lives in Arapahoe County, and she is the chair of Congressional District 6. Patty McKernan, welcome.
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Good morning, Kim.
SPEAKER 04 :
Bright and early on Friday. That it is. And Patty, you had brought this to my attention. You live in Arapahoe County and Arapahoe County, the clerk's office, they changed the cast vote records on an election. Explain this. We've talked about it before on the show, but if this is new to people, explain what this means exactly.
SPEAKER 05 :
So cast vote records are the statistics that you get to see if you go out to a government election site. So if you go out to the state, the secretary of state, there are election statistics out there. If you wanted to see how many people in Arapahoe County voted for Trump and how many voted for Biden, you would be able to go out and look at the statistics. Well, the statistics are posted based on what they call cast vote records. cast vote records are taking all of the little tick marks when you fill out a ballot and digitizing them and putting them in a in a database so basically think about a big excel spreadsheet so in arapahoe county in the 2020 election we had a very important we had a couple of very important ballot initiatives um we didn't not only had the trump and the vibes biden race which Remember, that's when we started flooding the voter registrations with automatic registration, and all of a sudden we had ballots galore. But all of those huge numbers of votes kind of disappeared in the 2024 election, didn't they? The 81 million for Joe Biden went down to 60-something for both Trump and Kamala Harris. So anyway... I digress. But in 2020, we had two really key races. We had the Gallagher Amendment repeal, and that is the Gallagher Amendment had to do with the percentage of taxes coming from commercial versus residential. And certain lawmakers thought that was upside down, so they wanted to have the residents' property taxes be increased. So they put out on the ballot to repeal Gallagher. Well, it was complicated. It was hard to understand. And so it was a pretty close race. They got, I think, 57 percent. They needed 55 to repeal it. And in Arapahoe County, it was discovered that through a couple of different things. One was a Nevada lawsuit in investigating other votes around the country, and the other one was supposedly an assistant Yale professor that was investigating people that vote split ticket. So I vote for Joe Biden, but I vote for Heidi Ganahl, that kind of a thing. So it came to everyone's attention that in Arapahoe County, the Biden voters and the Trump voters voted to repeal Gallagher exactly the same patterns. So we were all lined up, every one of us that voted for Trump and doesn't like to increase our taxes, we voted to increase our taxes. That's what the graph said. That's what was discovered. And when it was pointed out to Joan Lopez, lo and behold, in 2025, they went back in and said, oh, it was a redacting error. And they manipulated columns. There were 15.5, I think, million columns. Data points changed in the cast vote records. So then they presented it, I'll call it re-presented it, on the Arapahoe Votes website. And now it looks normal.
SPEAKER 04 :
So how do you do that? Yeah, and Patty, but they didn't tell anybody they did that, did they?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, they didn't tell anybody they did that. And, of course, people that were watching elections discovered it. And so we started bringing information. Some of us in the Arapahoe County that look at elections started going to the commissioners meetings and saying to the commissioners, you certified this vote on these cast vote records. And so did the canvas board. And now your county clerk, Joan Lopez, has changed these cast vote records and represented them on the website. Well, now that we put them to the task and told the commissioners, you were responsible for certifying this and now you've certified something that was false. And this is not good and we're going to push it because if Gallagher was repealed because of mistakes in Arapahoe County and Jeffco and El Paso and other places where these things are happening, then we're paying property taxes that we shouldn't pay and we want a refund. So we started going down to the commissioners meetings and lo and behold, Arapahoe decides to put a statement, Clerking Recorder's Office statement regarding the 2020 election CVR. And they basically are saying that they compared original unredacted with redacted, which makes no sense. I mean, that's the argument here. But they're saying that we are harassing them, that the Claims being shared are not just inaccurate. They're part of a broader coordinated effort to spread false claims aimed at undermining confidence in our elections. And that sharing this disinformation erodes trust in free and fair elections through deception and manufactured outrage. And they're saying that we're trying to destabilize democracy. Well, we kind of are because democracy is top down. It's like majority rules, not representative government. But I don't mean that that we're trying to destabilize and saying that tongue in cheek. So there's a little battle growing in Arapahoe County. And so we decided to bring experts into Colorado that could talk about what they found on the cast vote records. And so Tuesday night, the 15th of July, there's the Colorado Election Integrity Summit. And, Kim, I don't know if we've been able to get that on your event stage or not, but that's where we should put it so people can find it. Because right now it's a sign-up genius and it's being shared through social media and emails and word of mouth. And it's not something you can just post, you know, for a website.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, let's talk about, we'll probably put that in the show summary is what we'll do on that, Patty, and that's where people should be able to find that. Now, a couple of other things, and I wanted to just clarify because these vote totals that you mentioned regarding the 2020 election and the 2024 election, again, it's one of those things that just doesn't seem like it matches up. And so the vote totals, For Biden in 2020, he received the most votes ever in a presidential race, about 81 million. And I'm trying to find Trump's in 2020. And I don't have that right there. But hold on. But in 2024. Harris received 75 million. So where did those 6 million go, right? That's the big question. And Trump received 77 million, which is the second highest vote total for anybody for president ever. So I think it's important for people to connect that dot and say, hmm, where did those 6 million people go that voted for Biden but did not vote for Harris? I find that, I'll just say curious.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. Yeah. So actually it was Kamala Harris got 67 million votes in 2024. So we went from 81 million votes for Joe Biden to to Kamala getting 67 million. And I guess I think maybe Trump, do you have the Trump number?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, he got 77. We'll just leave that out there. We may want to source that because I'm getting some different things. But the key thing is, is where did those extra votes for Joe Biden go? Because I don't think that it was that they became Trump lovers. And so where did those votes go?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it's been a question that I've had for a very long time. I've been investigating, I think I said on the last time I was there, the FD-19 race with Lynn Gerber against Rachel Zenzinger. And they say that it's just because of the explosive growth, but there was not really explosive growth in population in Arvada and Westminster at that time. So I'm just going to go back to your word of the day. despotism and that is you know that jenna griswold as the sos is ruling elections with an iron fist and anytime anybody questions anything uh she and her minions jump up and down and start trying to prosecute people and persecute people like tina peters and now they're trying to uh intimidate us into you know just saying nothing to see here nothing to see here but what if there is something to see here and our property taxes went up because
SPEAKER 04 :
they cook the books with the votes well and see this and how this is connected is property the founders knew that being able to own your property was it was foundational to the american idea so when you have these higher and higher taxes and on my voters guide i was a strong no on repealing the gallagher amendment and there were people on both sides of the aisle that were getting paid to be out there to try to encourage us to vote to get rid of gallagher i think it's important to make that that distinction so then what happens is these exploding property taxes within two years uh people are are uh getting really struggling to pay those property taxes it's an assault upon property and so final thing again the event uh that uh and and you should tell us who the guests are going to be for this election summit that's going to be on tuesday
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, so we'll have our keynote speakers Dr Douglas frank and he's a world renowned physicist and has been speaking on his nickname is Johnny apple seed of an election integrity. And he's been in Mike Lindell's documentaries. And so he's our keynote speaker. And then we will have online. This will be live streamed, too. So we'll be able to present the platform later today. Mark Cook, who has done a deep dive in these topics. Cassoulet Records, and he's the one that came up with the 15 million changes in data points. And then Ed Solomon, and he's the one that actually kind of discovered this whole thing while he was an election expert witness in Nevada. And so we'll have... All three of those speakers, and again, it'll be in person and live, so everyone should be able to join.
SPEAKER 04 :
Great, and you'll be on on Monday with more details, so that will be on Tuesday evening in Arapahoe County. There is an event with Dr. Frank on Monday the 14th in Mesa County. Patty McKernan, thank you for all the great work that you do, and also thank you for being the chair of Congressional District 6. Greatly appreciate it. Thanks, Kim.
SPEAKER 05 :
Have a great day.
SPEAKER 04 :
And all these things are so important. And our Bill of Rights, which are the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, are so important. The Second Amendment is in there basically to protect all of the other amendments.
SPEAKER 20 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
Thank God it's.
SPEAKER 04 :
It is Friday. Welcome back to the Kim Munson Show. And check out our website. That's Kim Munson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. And Trump has been in office not quite six months. And my, oh my, things are changing. And, of course, our military is so important. They were getting at least appeared very soft because of the CRT-DEI woke ideology that was being pushed by the O'Biden-Harris administrations. But now that things are changing. And so so pleased to have on the line with me, retired Army Major General Joe Arbuckle. General Arbuckle, welcome.
SPEAKER 14 :
Hey, well, good morning, Kim. It's a real pleasure and honor for me to be with you again. Thanks again for all that great patriotic work that you do.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, thank you. We stand on the shoulders of giants, General Arbuckle, and it is our duty to do everything that we can to protect this great American idea and pass it on to the next generation, which is what our founders did. So you certainly are doing that with STARS, which is an organization monitoring the CRT-DEI woke ideology in the military. You are the vice chairman of STARS. and doing great work. So first of all, Trump and the military, things have changed significantly in the last six months, correct?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yes, indeed. President Trump didn't waste any time in that regard. The first day he was in the office, the 20th of January, he issued an executive order that said, we're going to end the radical and wasteful DEI programs throughout the entire federal government. And in that He made a really bold statement. He's absolutely correct. He said that DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, is unlawful and immoral. And he required that all the DEI offices throughout the federal government, including our military, be shut down immediately. And so he's followed on with that with about four other executive orders. And our Secretary of Defense, who's doing a great job, in my opinion, Pete Hegseth, has issued six or seven memos, which are in effect, orders the entire Department of Defense to execute the president's guidance. And so we've gotten off to a great story here with President Trump. As I said, he didn't waste any time. And that's been followed through. There is a problem there, though, Kim, and that is twofold. One is institutional inertia. And by that, I mean it's tough to change a culture that has developed to support this DEI and critical race theory over the past, oh, gosh, 20 or 22 years, starting with Obama. You just can't turn the switch in some cases and change that overnight. That's one issue. And the other is Pete Hagseth is being hampered because I've heard about 200 of his key people that require Senate confirmation are not yet in a job. On top of that, the program that President Trump put out to allow federal workers to retire early has been used, and that's the intent, to reduce the size of the federal workforce. But it leaves holes. That's the problem. It leaves holes in key positions within the Department of Defense that need to be filled. And so that takes time. So the bottom line is we're definitely headed in the right direction. There's some resistance there. We need some people in place to really follow through with the orders. And I can talk about that more in a bit. But so far, definitely going in the proper direction.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, in this woke ideology, I saw a headline yesterday that an admiral that Trump had slated to, I think, promote him and that he would be in charge of the Seventh Fleet. Trump has pulled that back now as he has come to realize that they had a drag presentation on one of our, I think, aircraft carriers. That does not seem to me like that is something that should be happening on an aircraft carrier.
SPEAKER 14 :
Exactly right. It should not, or any place in any military installation, for that matter. I recall that happening many, many months ago. There were some stories about that. But I'm glad that the Trump administration and Department of Defense is going back and looking at actions that were taken, such as with that admiral, and holding them accountable. Accountability is exactly what we need right now across the board. And tied to that, recently, the three top lawyers in the services, they're called TJAGs, the Judge Advocate Generals and all the services, were replaced for the same kinds of reasons that they were seen to be supporting DEI. So that is going on. There's been some Other flag-level officers, and by that I mean generals and admirals that have been asked to retire and replaced because of their past actions. That's exactly, again, the signal we need to send. We need leaders in positions, particularly at the top, that are going to support our warfighting agenda and not social agendas.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, and I don't mean to blindside you on this issue, but the attack of taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities, as I was reading the accounts of this, I'm thinking this is remarkable that you have these B-2 bombers leave from the middle of America, fly halfway across the earth, and carry out this attack with refueling and the fighter jets coming in. I found that whole thing remarkable, General Arbuckle.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, exactly. Well, no blind side on that one. That's the epitome of our professionalism, Operation Midnight Hammer that you're talking about there. That is the best that we have in our military, and that's what we're striving to put across our entire military. Yeah, you're right. The coordination, the planning that goes into that, and then the execution of the mission was flawless. And it's not just the bombers, as you mentioned. There are multiple, multiple fighter aircraft involved in that. Submarines, you probably know, launching cruise missiles in advance of the bombs that were hitting the ground. Regarding timing, that's just right on the money there. And on top of that, I was really pleased during the press conference to listen to our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Raisin King, Talk about the 44 Army soldiers that were left on the major air base to guard it. Everybody else was evacuated. They were left there to face the incoming missiles to land on the air base. And they fired their Patriot missiles before those enemy missiles ever hit. And the senior person, the senior Army guy on the ground was a captain. Then there was a lieutenant, a bunch of senior NCOs and troops that did that. I mean, that's absolutely great. It's really what our military is about. It's the warrior ethos. It's teamwork at its highest level where everybody's part of the team. They all have a common mission and purpose. And, by the way, we call this one team, one fight. That's a battle model in our military. And everybody is focused on that mission. There's nothing about self, and nobody's worried about identity groups based on skin color or gender or whatever else. It's all about the team, and they have to have total trust and confidence in each other. And while I'm on that topic, that's exactly what DEI attacked in our military. It attacked that teamwork, that mentality that it doesn't matter what your skin color is or gender or anything else. It's all about getting the job done. And so we're going back to that. That page has been turned. We're going back to our roots, which is equal opportunity for all, no matter who you are in the military. And meritocracy. In other words, the best person is picked to do whatever job is at hand. So we had the best pilots, I'm sure, in those B-2s. We had the best people on the ground that I just mentioned in our air defense network there. We had the best people in our submarines. And a simple example I like to give, if I'm in a foxhole and there's an enemy out there in front of me, we're in a firefight, and I have a machine gunner next to me, I don't care what that machine gunner's color is or gender. All I want is the best machine gunner that Army can produce at that moment. So that's what we're all about. Long story, long answer to what you've raised there.
SPEAKER 04 :
OK. And clarify, I was not familiar with the story about this air base. So tell me a little bit more about that. Where was that located? And those people that those individuals that stayed there knew that they could be in significant danger, but they stayed there and did the job. Right. So where was this at exactly?
SPEAKER 14 :
Right. I believe I was in Qatar. There's a really large air base there. And they knew that they were going to receive some Iranian missile attacks there. The troops that were left there are air defenders in the military. They have missiles, in this case Patriot batteries, and they're designed to knock down incoming enemy aircraft or missiles. And so that is their job in the Army. That's their mission. And I'm sure they were proud to do it, and they did it extremely well.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it certainly just as I was reading this, it was just really unbelievable. And as you know, with my America's Veterans stories, I had the great honor to I've interviewed many, many different veterans and members of our military. And so I was just in awe of this mission as I started to read about it and understand that more. But this DEI, as you mentioned, is really gone after this one team, one fight. It's tried to put people into groups and confuse them. And instead of giving people promotions because of... meritocracy and trying to be the very best. It put people in groups and then would give them promotions because of the group. That's not only happened in the military, but that's happened in our society as well. And I love the fact that we're getting back to that American idea of being the very best that you can be and doing the job the very best that you can, General Arbuckle.
SPEAKER 14 :
Absolutely. That's been historically in our military are the ground roots of what we're all about, and that is treating people fairly and equally, rewarding them, promoting them for their performance and their future potential in other jobs, and not caring about anybody's identity characteristics. In other words, we've been colorblind. When we look at each other, we don't care about the color. Everybody's green, so to speak. Everybody has the same color of blood. It's kind of been what we've talked about, and it is absolutely true. That model has been tried and tested over the generations in peace and war. And along comes DEI, and it attacks that. It says, no, you've got to be color conscious. When you look at somebody else, you have to think about their gender, their sexual orientation, and their color. And that's why it is so toxic to our military. And that's what we're plucking out now. We're eradicating that mentality, that cultural.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. And before we go to break, at stars.us, there is going to be a, it looks like a virtual town hall, DEI exposed by Stanley Ridgely, professor and former military intel officer. And that is his book. And that will be next Wednesday, the 16th at DEI. 10 a.m. Mountain Time, and people can register at stars.us. That looks like that'll be quite interesting.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yes, thanks for mentioning that, Kim. I encourage everybody to sign up. It's free. All you have to do is just submit a little information and you'll get tied into it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. And when we come back, we're going to talk about communism and Marxism, which DEI is based on that because Marxism wants to put people in groups and then pit those groups against each other. And General Arbuckle said something over Twitter. Quite interesting that we're going to unpack for you. And these discussions happen because of our sponsors. For everything mortgages, reach out to Lorne Levy.
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SPEAKER 04 :
And welcome back to the Kim Munson Show. Let's get right to it. I'm talking with retired Army Major General Joe Arbuckle. He is the vice chairman of STARS. That's S-T-A-R-R-S dot U-S. There is all kinds of information there. They have a very informative website. that is scheduled for Wednesday, this coming Wednesday at 10 a.m. Mountain Time, regarding DEI exposed. General Arbuckle, Marxism is based on putting people in groups. Instead of recognizing the groups inherent value of each individual they it puts people in groups and then pits those groups against each other and communism of course marxism and they're all connected and uh you since the text over regarding the 45 communist goals read into the congressional record back in 1963 so what should people know about that
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, thanks for mentioning that, Kim. First, I highly recommend that people get on the web and just do their own search. Just look for the 45 communist goals that were read in the congressional records, and it will pop up just like you said. A congressman named Herlong read those into the record back then. And we're doing a briefing, a presentation within STARS, and we're talking about our national creed being attacked And it's being attacked, of course, by social reengineering in these communist goals. And we prepared a slide for that briefing where it summarizes some of the 45. Let me just read through some of these very quickly to give the listeners a flavor for what the goals were back then. And then think about, have they accomplished these goals today? And I'm afraid the answer is yes. They want to capture political parties. They want to get control of schools and teacher unions. Communist goals are to infiltrate the press and gain control of the media. They want to eliminate prayer and religious expression in schools, discredit our Constitution, belittle the American culture and discourage teaching of American history, infiltrate and gain control of unions and big business, promote the United Nations and one world government, use student riots to form in public protest, infiltrate churches, discredit the Bible, discredit the family, try to get control of kids, take them away from their parents, I support violence and insurrection as legitimate and break down the standards of morality. That's just a summary that we're using in our STARS briefing. But the rest are equally striking, I believe. And unfortunately, as I said a minute ago, I'm afraid the communists have accomplished these goals to a large degree in many places.
SPEAKER 04 :
So what do we do about it?
SPEAKER 14 :
We kick back, we stand up, we talk against it. Just like one of your segments earlier, talking about defending the Second Amendment, that's absolutely necessary. We have to get engaged in our political processes, obviously. We have to take control of our schools back, away from the unions. Citizens have to go to school board meetings and speak out against things that are wrong. A lot of the legislation here in Colorado is geared at taking control of kids. The CRT, correction, the LBGTQ movement there, obviously, has got to be pushed back against in terms of parents not having any say about what their kids are taught in schools in that regard. Churches and so forth, churches, they have to stand up and talk about this sort of thing. That needs to be done basically at the grassroots level again, in addition at the legislative level.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and that's why we do the show, General Arbuckle, is because I realize we are in a battle, but it is a battle of ideas. And this has been attributed to Stalin. I'm not sure he said it, but he certainly could have said it. And that is ideas are more powerful than guns. We wouldn't let our enemies have guns, so why would we let them have ideas? And that's the battle that we're in at this particular time, General Arbuckle.
SPEAKER 14 :
Absolutely right. Another side we're doing this start-up briefing and presentation I mentioned is based upon the oath that we in the military and officers in particular take to support and defend our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. During my entire 32 years in the Army, I never thought about a domestic enemy, frankly. We're all focused on foreign enemies because the domestic side had not popped up yet. And it is represented by C-R-T-D-E-I. What this slide does is breaks out foreign and domestic enemies. On the foreign side, it goes back to a guy named Sun Tzu who lived 500 B.C. And he published a great book called The Art of War. And the message in that is sort of related to what you just said. The art of war is to subdue the enemy without firing a shot. Ideas, in other words. And there's two Chinese communist colonels who published a book in 1999 called Unrestricted Warfare, and they laid out their battle plan to defeat the United States without firing a shot. And I highly recommend that book. It's entitled Unrestricted Warfare. And the idea is there's no limits to war. You basically infiltrate a society like ours, take over our colleges, our universities, They're after our farmland, as you know, intellectual property thefts and all that. So we're basically, in my opinion, losing that war because they've been at it all this time. We're just now waking up to what the heck they're doing. On the domestic front, it's a cultural war we've been talking about. We started really the counter-revolution, counter-cultural revolution in the 60s, and it's targeting our institutions and now our military, as you know, we've been talking about that. It's critical race theory that has evolved into DBI. That's the domestic threat we face today. And it's just as deadly as any enemy firing a weapon at us. You want some evidence? Students and faculty riots, flying Hamas flags, burning U.S. flags, riots with Antifa, BLM, and so forth. Anti-Semitism is being rampant now in our colleges and universities. And now we have, of all things, a Muslim communist running for mayor of our largest city, New York City, Mandani. And it looks like he could very well win that. We have a communist Muslim president. going to be the mayor, perhaps, of New York City. That's evidence of the domestic war we're in and evidence that we're not winning.
SPEAKER 04 :
Give us some optimism. We have about a minute left, General Arbuckle, because you are a real American hero. And you obviously are not giving up because check out STARS. That's S-T-A-R-R-S dot U-S. You can see that you are engaged in this battle of ideas. Your final thought.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, please do check out the website. Yeah, positive, yes. The good news is we're recognizing the enemy. The first step in understanding and winning a war is understanding the enemy. We're doing that. We've done that. And we are kicking back. We're pushing back against it. Everything that President Trump has done in the last six months has been pushing back against this cultural revolution that we've been in since the 1960s. What he's done in six months is unprecedented. It's all positive. He's putting America first. He's pushing it back against the ideas that I just kind of laid out here, the communist goals and so forth. And we're doing that in the Department of Defense. So the bottom line is we're definitely headed in the right direction, as I said early on. We've got the momentum behind us. All we have to do is stay engaged and keep pushing.
SPEAKER 04 :
General Arbuckle, thank you so much. And again, check out STARS. That's S-T-A-R-R-S dot U-S. We will talk again very soon. And thank you.
SPEAKER 14 :
Thank you, Kim. My pleasure. Have a great day.
SPEAKER 04 :
And our quote for the end of the show is from Thomas Edison, who said this, Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith. Go forward. So today, be grateful. Read great books. Think good thoughts. Listen to beautiful music. Communicate and listen well. Live honestly and authentically. Strive for high ideals. And like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. My friends, you are not alone. God bless you. God bless America. Stay tuned for hour number two.
SPEAKER 09 :
Like a new moon rising fierce Through the rain enlightening Wandering out into this great heart And I don't want no one to cry But tell them if I don't say
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Today's current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 04 :
And it's not fair just because you're a big business that you get a break on this and the little guy doesn't.
SPEAKER 13 :
Is it freedom or is it force? Let's have a conversation.
SPEAKER 04 :
Indeed, let's have a conversation. And welcome to the Kim Munson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is Kim Munson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. You can email me at Kim at KimMunson.com as well. Thank you to all of you who support us. We're an independent voice. We search for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through this lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something's a good idea, you should not have to force people to do it. On the show, we focus on the issues. We'll talk about the people pushing those issues, but we work diligently to stay out of the personality fighting that can happen with politics and human nature. And so we really try to be disciplined on that as much as possible. I wanted to say thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show. And Mint Financial Strategies, we talk about freedom, liberty all the time. Maggie Thatcher had said, you can't have political freedom unless you have economic freedom. And that's why the work that Mint Financial Strategies is doing for your economic freedom is so important. And in order to be free, you need to start with the right guide, and the Mint Financial Strategies team is there to help. As an independent firm with over 25 years of experience and the credentials of an accredited investment fiduciary, they offer advice that's focused on you, not some sales quota. Their strategy-first approach is all about helping you live life on your terms with clarity, confidence, and control. Call Mint Financial Strategies today at 303-285-3080. They are your path to independent financial confidence and freedom. And I also wanted to say thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show as well. The word of the day is despotism or despot. And a despot could be a ruler with absolute power, a person who yields power oppressively, a tyrant, or it could be a Byzantine emperor or prince. It doesn't have to just be a person. I would say that the Colorado State Legislature and this governor are despots. And the other word, despot is spelled D-E-S-P-O-T, and despotism is D-E-S-P-O-T-I-S-M. And it could be rule with absolute power, authority, tyranny, or a government or political system in which the ruler exercises absolute power. And my, oh my, we see a lot of that coming out of this legislature and this governor here in Colorado. And that is why we really need to be pushing back towards, we need to reclaim this Colorado legacy. that we love and these discussions happen because of all of you and your support and our sponsors and i so appreciate susan harris and her family for their goal sponsorship of the show and i say thank you to them grateful for them every day let's see here Let's get to our quote of the day. This is from the Medal of Honor quote book from the Center for American Values. And I highly recommend that you check it out. The center is located in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk. And check out their website, AmericanValueCenter.org. Be sure and support them. And I'd highly recommend that you get down and visit the center as well. The quote is from James P. Fleming, United States Air Force Medal of Honor recipient. Born 1943, actions November 26, 1968. I read his citation in hour number one, and that will rebroadcast in the one to two hour, but he said this. He said, And that is James P. Fleming. The other thing, I did this in the first hour, but if you missed that, going through the 50 wins of the one big beautiful bill, and this is from whitehouse.gov, 21, it creates a new Trump savings account for newborns. Number two, it expands access to childcare for hardworking American families. Number 23, it provides a historic increase in funding for the U.S. Coast Guard. 24, it supports building new factories to grow domestic business operations. Number 25, it helps American farmers, producers, and ranchers compete and sell products in foreign markets. Another headline that I wanted to mention, and this is very related to the conversation that General Arbuckle and I had in our number one regarding Marxism. And this is from The Daily Caller. And the whole climate change narrative is really Marxist in its agenda. And that is why the film, the documentary that is the product and vision of Walt Johnson is so important. You can watch it for free at aclimateconversation.com. I have the great honor of moderating the documentary. And Walt really was, I think, he was ahead of his time. He was so concerned about this. He's a geophysicist. And he was concerned about this narrative. And he said, we need to have a discussion about this. And so I think we did that three years ago. It's been shown on Newsmax quite often. Our guest today, our featured guest, Steve Gorham, was one of our guests for our podcast series. But the Teachers Union, this is from Daily Caller, Teachers Union's climate justice goals are meeting fiscal reality as students fail. It's talking about the Chicago Teachers Union. The kids can't read and write. So if you dumb everybody down, they don't have the tools to thrive and prosper. And that is what's happening not only in Chicago. We're seeing it in a lot of different school districts. But it says climate justice provisions in the Chicago Teacher Union's new contract are colliding with financial reality as the city's low-performing public school system faces a projected $734 million budget shortfall. So stay tuned. Our kids can't read and write. We've put all this money into these things that really make no sense. And we've got to get all that turned around. Please have on the line with me great sponsors of the show. And that's Alicia Garcia and Teddy Collins with the Second Syndicate. And Teddy is also co-owner of Spartan Defense, which is a gun store. In Colorado Springs, Alicia does training. Teddy, welcome to the show. Before we jump into your essay that we published this last weekend, tell us a little bit more about Spartan Defense.
SPEAKER 08 :
So Spartan Defense is a family-owned and operated retail store in Colorado Springs. We specialize in more rare, higher-end products. merchandise and firearms, things that you don't normally find at other firearm stores in the state. In fact, we have some state exclusives. But we also have something for everybody, you know, whether it be just the average Ruger or the high-end Staccato or Atlas or Lago Alien, we have it all.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. And Alicia, you provide training and you also are associated with Spartan Defense, yes? Yes. Indeed.
SPEAKER 06 :
So I have a training company by the name of Concealed Carry Classes of Denver, out of southern Denver. But I also do a lot with Spartan Defense just to make sure that we are keeping people educated and armed. and supporting the best gun shop in Colorado.
SPEAKER 04 :
So with that, though, Alicia, you realize that our Second Amendment is certainly under attack here in Colorado. And so you and Teddy have come together to create the Second Syndicate. So tell us about that. Correct.
SPEAKER 06 :
Correct. So we were seeing, notably in the past couple years, just a continuous assault on the Second Amendment. And you know, there's such an entire community of people that are involved in the Second Amendment industry that aren't represented, such as firearms educators like myself, people that make optics, people that manufacture ammunition or holsters, all these people that aren't necessarily federal firearms licensees, but are representative of all the wonderful things that we do as a community. And we said, you know what, what about them? Where's their voice? Where's their presence? And You know, we have a couple groups in Colorado that we're friendly with that are also 2A organizations. But we said, you know what? We need to step our game up, and we need to start more of a grassroots organization and unite everybody. So Teddy, his wife, Rocia, and I formed the second syndicate, and here we are.
SPEAKER 04 :
And this is so important. And you, Alicia and Teddy, are also writing monthly essays for us. And Teddy, we just published your essay this last week. And it took a couple of days for us to get a line around with Facebook to get the promotion going. But we're starting to get some real eyes on that at this particular point in time. You have about 1.1 million. 1,000 likes, which that means that there's been a lot more people that have had their eyes on that. And Alicia, I think yours from last month had at this point about 7,200 likes. I love the fact that we're getting eyes on these issues, Teddy.
SPEAKER 08 :
Absolutely. Definitely important to bring up. Definitely important to keep an eye on it. You know, at the end of the day, that big, beautiful bill was Definitely did something that needed to be done for the 2A community. I don't think it went far enough, unfortunately, and that's kind of what we addressed in the article, so check the article out.
SPEAKER 04 :
And yes, the title is The Big Beautiful Bill. Win worth celebrating, but still not good enough. So, Teddy, explain to us. We've had discussions about suppressors in Colorado, and firearm suppressors basically dissipates the sound a bit. It doesn't make them silent, but it makes it so that the sound is suppressed. And... You were looking for remedies because it was something that kind of fell through the cracks with the Big Beautiful Bill is it would make suppressors basically illegal to purchase or own in Colorado. So that did get fixed?
SPEAKER 08 :
Kind of, sort of. In the bill it did because what happened in the bill was the Hearing Protection Act and the Short Act actually were taken out of the bill due to the House, I'm sorry, do the Senate's parliamentarian. We didn't want it to be taken out. We just wanted it to be modified in wording. But unfortunately, the parliamentarian struck it because of the bird rule. So what they did instead is they just took the fiscal or changed the fiscal amount for NFA tax stamps. So it used to be $200 in order to purchase a suppressor or a short barrel rifle or short barrel shotgun. They reduced that fee to $0. You still have to apply for the stamp. You still have to get fingerprinted, things of that nature. So not the win we were hoping for, which would have eliminated suppressors and short barrels from the NFA altogether. But, you know, it's a step in the right direction for sure.
SPEAKER 04 :
So I imagine, Alicia, that you and Teddy, Rocia, and all those that are standing up for the Second Amendment are just rolling your sleeves up and thinking of the next thing to do, yes?
SPEAKER 06 :
Indeed, and one of the things that I want people to understand is, you know, how do you eat an elephant, right? One bite at a time. And although this wasn't the slam dunk that we were hoping for, it's progress. And this is probably, in the past, 10, 15 years, this is the biggest attack against these unconstitutional laws that we've had for the Second Amendment in quite some time. So this is a pretty significant win for us. And there's larger organizations that we are very friendly with and we are in discussions with quite often, such as Firearms Policy Coalition, the Second Amendment Foundation, the NRA, that have come together to unite to sue against these regulations in the NFA. So now we have some standing in that we can push back a bit and start getting some relief. And that all comes with getting the people involved as well. We're only as strong as the support that we have. So if people are out there and they're listening and they are sick and tired of these constant infringements and the foots on the neck of liberty, support the second syndicate. We are out here working with these organizations. We're doing what we can. We are talking to people. We are working together to get ourselves to D.C. so we can have more in-depth conversations with our congressmen and women. So if you if you want to see the second syndicate be more successful, please consider donating to us. You can head to our bonfire store at bonfire dot com forward slash store forward slash the second syndicate. But to Indy and buy some merch, you can go and subscribe to our YouTube channel that we have at the second syndicate. We actually just had Lily Tang Williams come and take a visit and do a show with us again. If you guys aren't familiar with her, she's quite an interesting story. She shatters every narrative the left tries to push because she is a Chinese immigrant who escaped communist China under Mao, came to America, embraced her Second Amendment right, and is now running for Congress. And she's in New Hampshire, isn't she, Alicia? Yes, she is. She is quite the spitfire.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, she is. Hey, Teddy and Alicia, sorry about that. We will talk again next week. But what is that website, Teddy Collins?
SPEAKER 07 :
That's the2ndsyndicate.com. That's the2ndsyndicate.com.
SPEAKER 04 :
And be sure and check out Teddy's essay at the Kim Munson Show. And we've got that published there. Have a great week. We'll talk next week.
SPEAKER 08 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you so much, Kim. Thank you so much. And again, these sponsors that I get to work with are amazing. Another one of them is the Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance Team. And they want you to feel safe and well-served and understand your insurance coverage. And their office will respond to your caller text 24 hours a day. So for that 24-hour peace of mind, call Roger Mangan at 303-795-8855. Like a good neighbor, Roger Mangan's team is there.
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SPEAKER 04 :
It is Friday. Welcome back to the Kim Munson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That's Kim Munson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. You can email me at Kim at Kim Munson dot com as well. And pleased to have our next guest, Steve Gorham, on the line. We actually did a podcast with him for our climate, the documentary, A Climate Conversation, that whole podcast series. You can find that at A Climate Conversation dot com. And really an informative, long interview on that. So we really appreciate it. But Steve Gorman is the executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and the author of four books on energy, climate change and sustainable development with over 100,000 copies in print. His latest book is Green Breakdown, The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. Steve Gorman, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER 16 :
Hi, Kim. Great to join you again.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I want to get to a couple of these articles that you've written. But first and foremost, these floods in Texas are devastating. It's heartbreaking. There are those that want to blame it on climate change, some on seed clouding. What's your response to all that, Steve Gorham?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, really tragic. More than 100 people killed and more than 100 missing, I believe, are the current counts are. Just very, very sad. Yeah, and we do have a bunch of people blaming climate change or the current administration as well. ABC News said, quote, extreme weather events like Texas rain are more likely to occur due to climate change. Scientists warn. You know, this is sort of a special part of the country, though. It's the Texas Hill Country. And they call this actually Flash Flood Alley, this particular location north of San Antonio. I had fun paddling it a number of years back when my kids were young. It's a beautiful area. But Texas also gets tremendous weather changes, a lot of rain. I was going down to visit my uncle over a couple years and helping him with the retirement home. And I was down there on two different weekends when we got eight inches of rain on two different weekends. They just get an awful lot of rain. And Matter of fact, a study at the University of Texas in San Antonio has counted the number of deaths to flooding. That was prior to this event. But over a 60-year period, there were more than 1,000 people that died in floods in Texas, and that was the leading state in the nation. The next highest total was Louisiana with about 700. So really a sad situation. And a lot have blamed the administration as well. But they did put out flood warnings a couple different times prior to the event, and just to say, you know, I guess this thing hit at 1 or 1.30 at night, and I think the girls in that camp were in bed when the water started coming in windows. I mean, there really was very, very little warning. My wife has suggested that what they need are those horns, you know, audio horns like we have in the Midwest for tornadoes, and maybe they should put those in all around those areas, and then give people at least a little warning, but really sad.
SPEAKER 04 :
It is. And one other thing, cloud seeding. One of our guests this week said that they've been seeding clouds in Texas. Do you have an opinion on that, Steve? Is that something to be concerned about?
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, cloud seeding is usually used. I think they put a sodium compound into the atmosphere to try and increase rainfall and Particularly if you have a drought in an area, but if you don't have any clouds, it doesn't do any good anyway. But I don't know that they were doing this down in Texas. They get an awful lot of rain down there. But cloud seeding has been sort of sometimes a little bit of help, but often not really much. I don't think it's really very effective where it's been tried. But I don't think this was through the cloud seeding. This was just Texas weather coming in off the Gulf and the West, and they get all these huge storms periodically.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. So next thing, the Big Beautiful Bill. There is a lot in it. And one of the things is these whole electric vehicle mandates. What's your thoughts about the Big Beautiful Bill and EVs?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, the Big Beautiful Bill was passed very close, signed by the president last week. Much of the discussion has been about the making the Trump tax cuts from his first term permanent and then also about Medicaid. But there are some really big changes in there for renewable energy. Now we've been subsidizing wind since 1992 and subsidizing solar just about as long with production tax credits, with investment tax credits, with loans and with outright grants. And These were running about $10 or $15 billion a year during the Obama administration. They went down during Trump's first term. But then when the Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022, the numbers ballooned to $100 billion a year in subsidies, went up by a factor of five. And if not changed, they'd be running a trillion dollars over 10 years. But now with the Big Beautiful Bill Act, these have all been scaled back. For example, they have cut the tax credits. You won't be able to get them unless you start construction within 12 months, and you must finish construction by 2027. These are very tight time limits, and they also have definitions of what construction means. And then also they're not allowing credits to be resold. Often wind and solar companies would get these credits and they would sell them for money to other firms that could use them. But that has been halted as well. So really a really a big, big change. And wind and solar is going to summer predicting a 50 percent decline in the amount being installed. By the way, the proponents of wind and solar always claim that this is the cheapest electricity. But then on the other hand, they say, well, but you can't cut any of the subsidies. You know, that would be terrible if that happens. So just a shock to the industry. You also mentioned electric vehicles. Another big change is that the $7,500 electric vehicle federal tax credit is going to disappear by the end of September. And also you could resell EVs and get a $4,000 credit in some cases. That's going to disappear as well. So pretty big impact there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and so this is moving the vehicle market to a free market where people, and we have Lauren Fix with the Car Coach reports on regularly, where people can buy the vehicle that they want instead of these carrots and kind of force to try to get people into these EVs. Yeah. And so this is a really big deal. And has this contributed to the rift between, I guess, what's your thoughts about the rift between Trump and Elon Musk? Is this money going away? Is this part of it? Do you think that there's been a rift between the two?
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, it's hard to tell on that. You've raised a number of things. So, yeah, we've had a number of states with EV mandates. saying that sales of vehicles must be 80% EVs or 100% EVs by a certain date. I think Colorado is one of those states as well. So there's a couple things happening. First, the Big Beautiful Bill Act has cut these subsidies, which is going to hurt the markets, the demand. But another thing that's occurring is that Mr. Trump signed resolutions against the waivers. Now, the pollution control is supposed to be done by the federal government. The 1970 Clean Air Act said that was the responsibility of the federal government. But at that time, they also provided waivers to states who had the prior pollution control laws like California. And for the last 35, 40 years, California has been getting waivers allowing it to set its own pollution control. And, for example, California has a zero emission law law for cars sold from 2035 onward. And 11 other states have adopted similar programs. Colorado is one of those, trying to force people to buy electric vehicles or hydrogen, which isn't doing much, instead of gasoline and diesel cars. But both the Senate and the House have acted against those waivers. They passed resolutions. And Mr. Trump has now signed a these resolutions that eliminates California's waiver for EVs. And so this is going to be a big deal. The auto manufacturers are kind of mixed. Some of them want the EVs and some don't. But you mentioned Elon Musk. One of the things Tesla has been getting for many years now are huge credits. The state of California, for example, if you sell cars in California, they require a certain amount of EVs. And if you don't, you have to get credits for the cars that you sell. And so people like Ford and GM are buying credits from Tesla. And it's been over a billion dollars a year to Tesla for Elon Musk and his company. But that is now changing. And the state of California, by the way, is suing the federal government over this rollback of the waivers. But really a big, big impact. So Tesla is getting hit not only by the credits disappearing from car sales, but also the money that they're earning over a billion a year by selling waivers to other vehicle firms. So again, huge changes.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow. It is huge changes, but it's necessary changes because if something's a good idea, you shouldn't have to force, coerce people to do that, Steve Gorham, and you know that for sure. So we're going to continue the discussion with Steve Gorham, and we have these important discussions because of our sponsors. And for everything residential real estate, reach out to award-winning realtor Karen Levine.
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SPEAKER 17 :
There's so much noise coming at us. Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of it all. How can you sift through the clamor for your attention and get to the truth? The Kim Munson Show is here to help. Kim searches for truth and clarity by examining issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. Tune in to the Kim Munson Show each weekday, 6 to 8 a.m. with encores 1 to 2 p.m. and 10 to 11 p.m. on KimMunson. KLZ 560 AM, KLZ 100.7 FM. The KLZ website, the KLZ app, and Alexa. Play KLZ. Shows can also be found at KimMunson.com, Spotify, and iTunes.
SPEAKER 18 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
And welcome back. Yes, it is Friday. Welcome back to the Kim Munson Show. Our guest, let's get right to it, is Steve Gorham. He's the executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of four books on energy, climate change, and sustainable development with over 100,000 copies in print. His latest book is Green Breakdown, The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. Before we get into this, Steve Gorham, I want to just give you a shout out. You were one of our guests on our podcast series at A Climate Conversation, which people can watch at aclimateconversation.com. But in working with you there and then working with you as a guest on the show, Joe and I were just talking about it during break. You are... You are such a delightful guest. You are so organized and so thoughtful. And in fact, when Zach was putting together the podcast on all that, he said, what a great guest. I just want to give you a shout out because I think you're doing something very special. I don't want to embarrass you, but I just wanted to say that. Thank you.
SPEAKER 16 :
Thanks so much. It's such a joy to join you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, let's get to this piece that you published at Real Clear Energy at the end of June. It's hot weather, but not man-made. Well, it is summer. It has been hot here, but it's not because of human beings, huh?
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, yeah, we had been, especially the east, the Midwest, the east and the south, Last month we had a very big heat wave. There were about 160 million people that had areas where temperatures were approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit. And we had a lot of people saying that, such as CNN and NPR, saying that this was due to man-made climate change, that it was due to burning, using power plants with coal and natural gas and burning oil, those sorts of things. And, you know, and we've heard that a lot before. This is the first heat wave for the summer. But if you look at the data, and I go, I like to go to a website at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They have a website called State Extremes, and they list the state high temperature and the low temperatures and rainfall and other sorts of things, all of the records going back for about 100 years. And you look at this and you go, okay, well, let's look at the state high temperature records. And the first thing you find is that 36 of the 50 state record highs were set 50 years or more ago, 1975 or earlier. There have been only six records set after the year 2000. And actually, Colorado was one of those states in 2019 on July 20th. you had your maximum temperature recorded, 115 Fahrenheit at John Martin Dam. But most of the states are much, much older. For example, we have Illinois was 1954, it was 117 Fahrenheit. I've never seen anything like that in my history. But And then if you look at when most of the records were set, 23 of the 50 state high-temperature records, almost half were set in the decades of the 1930s. And so you kind of go, okay, we know it's been hot, but there have been warmer times in the past, and that's really what the data shows.
SPEAKER 04 :
As you're talking about that, I'm looking at this, and where can people find the article, Steve Gorham?
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, let me see.
SPEAKER 04 :
Where did I... I think it was Real Clear Energy. Real Clear Energy, yeah. Okay. And as I'm looking at this, for example, my home state of Kansas, the highest temperature ever recorded was in 1936. And you mentioned so many of these states. This was a long time ago. A lot of this was before air conditioning, and air conditioning really changed people's lives, yes?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yes, it did. Actually, they attribute a lot of the growth in population of the South to the invention of the air conditioner, and it's kind of obvious why. But you mentioned Kansas. There were two days in July of 1936 when it made 121 degrees Fahrenheit in Kansas, so those records still stand.
SPEAKER 04 :
Boy, that would be very uncomfortable. And that, of course, that was at a time where there was a significant drought there as well. So looking at the data on this, this is really important, Steve.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah. Yeah, it is. And let me give you another thing here. So the press is always talking about this. The United Nations has said that we're in the era of global boiling. They've been quoted that way. And every time we get a heat wave, and I had one in Europe a couple weeks ago, people are all crowing about how your neighbor's SUV is causing all of this. But again, if you look back in history, you'll find that that's really nonsense. Thermometers started being used about 1880, 140 years ago. And over that period, temperatures have risen about 1.2 degrees Celsius or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. We've had a gentle warming in 140 years. But before 1880, scientists were able to use a thing called proxies, which are chemical changes in the environment that follow temperature. And if you use those, and those are things like tree rings and ice cores and oxygen isotope ratios, those sorts of things, you find that we've had many times in the last 10,000 years since the last ice age, many multi-century long periods when it's been warmer than today. And an example is the Rhone Glacier in Switzerland. The Rhone Glacier is in central Switzerland. It's a wall-to-wall glacier, mountainside to mountainside. The Rhone River flows out of it into France and down into the Mediterranean. And that glacier has been pulling back for about 100 years. It's shrinking a little bit. But every time it recedes, they find things under it like horse bridles and wagon wheels. And they find 4,000-year-old wood that was buried by the ice. And scientists have pointed out that for most of the last 10,000 years, this valley where there's a glacier today has been ice-free, indicating that it was naturally warmer many times in past centuries. And we see this is just one piece of evidence. I could go on for an hour and quote many of these. And so the idea that we're in abnormally warm temperatures just is flat-out wrong, but it is just repeated endlessly by the press and others.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and the reason is, Steve Gorham, is because then with that narrative of climate change out there, then it's really about control. And I remember you mentioned that, let's see, something in the 1992 was when they started to subsidize wind and solar. It was back in the 90s also. And this was the first thing that got my attention was the mandating on... are taking away choices on light bulbs. And I inherently knew in my gut that something wasn't right when government came in and started to regulate light bulbs.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yep. Change your light bulbs and you can save the climate. Yeah, well, we have a bunch of those now. We have seven states as well where cities and counties, and even in the case of New York, the whole state, have banned gas appliances and new construction systems. By the way, Colorado has a couple of those counties, I believe, where you have to use an electric appliance in a new construction. And so that's another example where, as you talk about control, the people that endorse climatism, the ideology, the fear of man-made warming, want to control your vehicles and your appliances and power plants and a lot of other things. By the way, there are also 24 states now that you don't hear about, but those states have passed laws saying, saying, Mr. County Manager or Mr. City Mayor, you can't pass a law banning energy use in your city. So we do have a pretty big pushback against that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and I think it's because people are talking about it. And when did you get interested in this whole climate change narrative and started writing these books?
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, I was an out-of-work business executive back in 2008. Okay. and realized to find something at the same level. I was the general manager, head of a factory in engineering and things, and I'd have to move out of the state near Chicago and didn't want to do that. So I said, well, you can write books, you can study, and I got into the climate thing. I read all of Al Gore's books and decided he was probably wrong. And since then, I've written four books on climate and energy and public policy, and I also am a professional speaker. I speak to... to engineering and energy and metals and transportation and utilities and all sorts of different folks about energy and about climate and public policy. And it's been a lot of fun, but it has gotten very political, so there's the downside to that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, whenever you have this fight about control, it's always going to get political. That's just the way it is. We're going to continue the discussion with Steve Gorham. And be sure and check out aclimateconversation.com. You can watch the documentary for free. We have a great podcast series, and Steve is featured in one of those podcasts. And what is your website before we go to break as well, Steve Gorham?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, Steve Gorham, G-O-R-E-H-A-M.com. They can get all of my books. One of them, by the way, is The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism, which is a great book for kids in high school or college who are getting a very one-sided point of view on climate from their courses. It'll give them some balance. It's got... Three polar bears and a Mazda convertible on the cover.
SPEAKER 04 :
It's a great image. So we will continue the discussion with Steve Gorham, and we have these discussions because of our sponsors. If you've been injured, reach out to John Bozen and Bozen Law.
SPEAKER 19 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Indeed, it is Friday. Be sure and check out our website. That's Kim Munson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Also, check out the website for the USMC Memorial Foundation. The official memorial is right here in Golden. And it's a very special place. It was dedicated in 1977. And Paula Sarles, who is the president of the foundation. and her team are working on raising the funds to do a remodel, and so support them. It is important that we honor and remember those that have given their lives or have been willing to give their lives for our freedom, and that website is usmcmemorialfoundation.org, usmcmemorialfoundation.org. On the line with me is Steve Gorham, and Steve is the executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and has written four books on energy, climate change, and sustainable development with over 100,000 copies in print. His latest book is Green Breakdown, the Coming Renewable Energy Strategy. which that segues into this recent piece that was published at Master Resource, and that is state net zero electricity dreams are collapsing. And here in Colorado, it seems like this legislature and this governor are wanting to double down on this whole net zero debacle. But yet net zero, I guess, first of all, explain what net zero is, Steve Gorham.
SPEAKER 16 :
So net zero is the idea that we ought to get to net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 is the typical date. And that means to shift away from coal, oil, and natural gas and to wind, solar, and biofuels. And that has become a worldwide goal, but it's beyond a reach out. It's an impossibility. It's not going to occur. And that's a lot about what my book, Green Breakdown, is about. But you're right, Colorado is one of those states. We now have about, let's see, we have 23 states that have enacted laws or executive orders to try and get to net zero by 2050, and Colorado is one of those now. But these net zero electricity dreams are collapsing, and there are three big factors. One, of course, are the Trump policies. and the renewable subsidy rollbacks, as we've just talked about with the big beautiful bill. We also have states and towns and cities in some states that are now pushing back on renewables. And then the third factor is the artificial intelligence revolution.
SPEAKER 04 :
And my understanding is AI, artificial intelligence, will have an insatiable appetite for electricity. And there's no way – and they cannot have something that is intermittent. And the sun doesn't shine 24 hours a day, and the wind doesn't always blow. And so I find it interesting that there are those that have been on this narrative of conserve energy, making it more difficult for citizens to cool their homes in the summer, just trying to control all that, make things more expensive. They seem to be fine with this whole appetite of AI for all of this electricity. Address that.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, the whole AI revolution surprised everybody. All the grid operators, if you read their quotes from a few years, from a couple years ago when Chad GPT came out, they all said, wow, how did we not see this demand ramp coming? We had flat electrical power for two decades in the United States, and during that period they closed about 200 coal plants, and we put in a lot of gas plants and a bunch of wind and solar. But all of a sudden when Chad GPT came out and now NVIDIA has become the biggest, most valuable company in the world, we had all these data centers being upgraded. There's a website called the USA Data Centers, which I like to use, and they keep a count of data centers. Back at the start of 2024, there were about 2,700 data centers in the United States. And data centers are the things that typically run the internet and provide cloud storage. But now they're being upgraded to do high-speed computing for the artificial intelligence revolution. And so we went from 2,700 up to 3,800 data centers in just a year, like a 25% increase. According to their count, there's 57 of these in Colorado as well, these data centers. But what we have is we have all the big guys, Microsoft and Meta and Google and Oracle and Amazon, putting in these data centers all over the country to run artificial intelligence routines try and make machines think like humans. And this is just a massive increase in electricity. Virginia says they have to double their electricity consumption within a decade. They don't know how to do it. Texas says they're going to have to increase it by more than two and a half times by 2031. Just huge, huge effects. And as you say, these AI routines run 24 hours a day. They run all night. They run weeks on end. They need a lot of power, and that power has to be consistent. Wind and solar really can't handle it. So what we're doing is, around the country, they are extending and restarting power plants. Nuclear plants are being restarted in Pennsylvania and in Michigan. We have coal plants that are extending past the dates they were going to close in Tennessee and Utah and West Virginia and Indiana and a lot of other places. But the big winner is going to be the natural gas plants. There are now over 200 of those in planning or under construction in the United States. And so all of this is really clobbering the net zero revolution. You know, you can't get to net zero in wind and solar if you're going to be building all these gas plants and keeping the coal plants around.
SPEAKER 04 :
Why are not the climate change activists really out there being vocal about this?
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, they are trying to be, I think. But it's a problem when the power goes off. You know, we had a – and the number of blackouts, by the way, is rising in the United States. The U.S. Department of Energy keeps that data. And about 10 years ago, the average outage, average cumulative outage for an electricity user was about three hours a year. You might have three outages one hour at a time. But that has now risen to five, six or seven hours a year. It's more than doubled. And a lot of that is because intermittent power. We also had that famous blackout in February 2021 in Texas when the power for four and a half million people went off for 72 hours. And it was just terrible. A lot of people had the power out and they couldn't maintain their lives. We had over more than 200 people killed. from that blackout, and that's more than any hurricane in history except one. So these are not, you know, these are not minor things when the power goes out.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, so looking in your crystal ball, and we only have a couple of minutes left, how is this going to work with this AI taking all this energy? But we as everyday people, we certainly love the comforts of having energy that we can be warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, one thing is power prices are going to go up, and they have been rising in the United States recently. Particularly in the green states, the U.S. average has gone up about 3% per year, which isn't bad. It's about like inflation. But California, for example, is up 116% in the last 15 years. That's green California. Colorado, by the way, last year was at $0.15 per kilowatt hour. That's a little bit lower than the national average, which is good. But the latest thing is BYOP, build your own power. These companies are putting in their own gas power plants, and they're not relying on the grid because they just can't get them in time. And gas turbines are sold out now for the next four or five years to try and build a power plant. But it's going to raise prices. We've got big demand. And I think people are going to stop trying to build wind and solar. That's just that's just the small, small share of things.
SPEAKER 04 :
Goodness. OK. And Steve, I think we're going to need to get you back on the show to say what what can we the citizens do about this? Because we only have about a minute left. What's your final thought you'd like to leave with listeners?
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, I'd like them to go look for my book, Green Breakdown, The Coming Renewable Energy Failure, and they can get all four of my books at my website, stevegorham.com. And my last three books, in addition to the science and economics, they're colored paperbacks, and they have all these great sidebars that are real headlines about climate and energy, but they're crazy. There's one here about the New York Times essay that says you should mate with short people to save the planet. But that's just one of 150.
SPEAKER 04 :
That was probably written by a short person, right?
SPEAKER 16 :
So they're fun reads, but they'll give people a balanced idea, and then they can go be active in the discussion.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, and again, that website, Steve? Steve Gorham, G-O-R-E-H-A-M dot com. Okay, Steve, and we'll get you booked for next month. Thank you so much. Thank you, Kim. And our quote for the end of the show is from Thomas Edison. He says, Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always Americans. America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. So be brave as your fathers before you have faith and go forward. So today, be grateful. Read great books. Think good thoughts. Listen to beautiful music. Communicate and listen well. Live honestly and authentically. Strive for high ideals. And like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. My friends, you are not alone. God bless you, and God bless America.
SPEAKER 09 :
through the rain and lightning wandering out into this great unknown I don't want no one to cry but tell them if I don't say
SPEAKER 15 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
Who’s your favorite movie villain—and why do we secretly love the worst of the worst? In this hilarious “Movie Rental Hour” episode of Rush to Reason, John Rush, Andy Peth, and Richard go on a villainous rampage through cinematic history. From Darth Vader to Dr. Evil, the Joker to Jaws, the gang debates who truly deserves the title of Most Iconic Baddie. They throw in picks like Bane, Scar, and even the shark from Jaws, proving that bad guys (and man-eating fish) really do make the movie.
But don’t worry, it’s not all movie madness—Al Smith from Golden Eagle Financial drops by to talk about stretching your time in retirement, and John’s crew throws a few well-deserved shoutouts to KLZ advertisers who help you prepare for real-life villains like hailstorms, rising premiums, and duct-taped AC repairs.
If you love movies, mischief, and good laughs, this episode delivers it all—with a villainous grin.
SPEAKER 20 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 26 :
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.
SPEAKER 20 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 26 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did.
SPEAKER 07 :
Get a job first. You haven't made everybody equal. You've made them the same, and there's a big difference.
SPEAKER 30 :
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 23 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 10 :
It's Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush, presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 17 :
All right, we are back. Hour number two, Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. We're going to head into movie rental hour now. Best bad guys, and we'll take a break here in a moment, get started. But any criteria here at all, Andy?
SPEAKER 19 :
No, the only criteria is it's got to be a guy. Okay. And they've got to be bad in some way in the movie. I've got to be honest, John. Don't you think bad guys make the movie almost as much as good guys?
SPEAKER 17 :
In a lot of cases, yes.
SPEAKER 19 :
I mean, look at it this way. Let's say you don't have a good villain at all. You've got a boring villain. Even if you have a good guy, it's pretty hard to make the movie good. It just doesn't roll unless you've got a really bad guy to go against. I love good bad guys. They make the movie.
SPEAKER 17 :
I agree with that. Yeah. Can't argue that whatsoever. Okay, so we'll get going here. We'll take a break. We'll come back, get plenty of time for our first segment. If you've got some – which, by the way, I'll throw this out there. I don't have a ton of these on my list. I mean, I guess I do because a lot of guys repeat themselves and are bad guys again and again.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 17 :
So I guess we have that. But I don't have a – an extra amount on my list like I normally do. So if you want to add some to our list, by all means, 307-200-8222 is our text line, 307-200-8222. Or you can call us at 303-477-5600. Either way works. My son Richard should join us here in a moment. Paul Leuenberger is up next. He is my insurance agent. Would love to help you with whatever your insurance needs are as well. He is now a broker, meaning he can shop whatever is best for you and help you save money, by the way, at the same time. 303-662-0789.
SPEAKER 13 :
Looking for top-notch home, auto, classic car, and business insurance? Look no further than Paul Leuenberger. Paul is now an insurance broker with access to industry leaders like Hartford, Travelers, Safeco, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, Allstate, AIG, Chubb, Pure, Berkeley, Grundy, and Hagerty. Paul has you covered. Paul is also proud to continue his work with American National for all non-property insurance needs as well. Paul Leuenberger now serves Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas with more states on the way. Paul's mission is simple, to connect you with the right coverage at the best value. Are you ready to protect what matters most? Call Paul Leuenberger today at 303-662-0789. That's 303-662-0789. All right, and if you need legal representation, civil or criminal, we've got that covered for you. Give Flesh Law a call today, 303-806-8886.
SPEAKER 05 :
Here's why you need personal injury attorney Kevin Flesch on your side. He understands the way the jury thinks. In the context of a personal injury case, you've been hurt by someone else's negligence. The idea is that you're going to try to recover so that you can get back to where you were just prior to that incident occurring. What that really means from a jurist's perspective is that you're going to be asking them to award you money. So when we talk about fairness, we're talking about six people that you don't know. Those six people view the evidence and make a unanimous decision that will decide what the fair value is. When you're the one who's hurt, you have a good idea of what you think it's worth. The question is, can you persuade those other individuals whom you don't know and were witnesses to believe that's what the case is worth? Kevin Flesch understands the way the jury thinks. Call now for a free consultation. 303-806-8886
SPEAKER 31 :
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SPEAKER 17 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Myself, Andy Pate, and my son Richard. I think Richard is with us now. Are you there, Richard? That I am. Okay, so best bad guys in movies. Andy, take it away.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, well, we've got to go to the most evil one of all, and let's start.
SPEAKER 16 :
You had your chance, okay? I already had someone created in my image. He's evil, he wants to take over the world, and he fits easily into most overhead storage bid. It's no hassle.
SPEAKER 07 :
But, um... All I'm saying... They're gonna get a... I... I'm just... Knock, knock.
SPEAKER 16 :
Who's there? Look, let me tell you a little story about a man named... Even before you start. That was a preemptive shh. Just know I have a whole bag of shh with your name on it. Stop.
SPEAKER 17 :
It's hilarious. Never mind. Dr. Evil. Oh.
SPEAKER 19 :
What a great character. Oh, man. Mike Myers has created some great characters, but that has got to be the best one with all due respect to the star of that movie. I'm sorry, but Dr. Evil was the best character. He made it. He's hilarious.
SPEAKER 1 :
Oh, yes.
SPEAKER 19 :
What do you think, Richard?
SPEAKER 20 :
I was going to say, the characters he plays in, you probably could just say Mike Myers, and that would work for you.
SPEAKER 19 :
I know. I know. Fat Bastard's even good as a bad guy. Oh, Fat Bastard was great. Get in my belly. Get in my belly. Little man. Get in my belly. Oh, that's hilarious. Yes. Okay, Richard, there's no way you can top that, but go ahead and waste your time anyway.
SPEAKER 20 :
Oh, Andy, I am going to top it, and I'm going to take one that both of you are dying to take because he's so roany.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh! Oh, I don't have that one. I don't have it. No, that one's good, though.
SPEAKER 20 :
Oh, Kim Jong-un in... I mean, it's on my list, but I didn't get to it.
SPEAKER 19 :
Team America.
SPEAKER 20 :
That's right. Kim Jong-un and Team America. There you go. I can't believe you don't have it ready, Andy. You know what? It's been like two weeks since we played a clip.
SPEAKER 19 :
I know. At least two weeks. I'm a bad radio host. How can I not have I'm So Ronery?
SPEAKER 17 :
That's hilarious. I'm So Ronery.
SPEAKER 19 :
That's hilarious.
SPEAKER 17 :
Good one. Good one.
SPEAKER 19 :
Good one. I like it. Go ahead, John.
SPEAKER 17 :
Top of my list, just because he was in a recent movie where he actually, in F1, where he didn't play a bad guy, but Javier Bardem, where he's in No Country for Old Men, also in Skyfall, just makes a tremendous... I mean, he made a really good guy in F1, but... Well, you know, I was thinking No Country.
SPEAKER 19 :
I wasn't thinking Skyfall.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, he's a bad guy there, too. Oh, he's... So good. Really good bad guy. What a great actor. He is awesome. There isn't much he can't do. No, and he's just got that bad guy look to him, even, where it's just this stoic, I'm a bad guy, but I don't have to run around and beat you up to prove I'm a bad guy. I just look like a bad guy. I just am. I am one.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah, okay. Well, okay, but as long as we're going to go there, then let's go to, I think, the best performance possibly ever by a bad guy, certainly in the top five. Heath Ledger as the Joker, and here he is being interrogated by Batman. And this is about a minute, but it's worth it. Here we go.
SPEAKER 1 :
Kill me.
SPEAKER 23 :
I don't want to kill you. What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no. No. No, you. You complete me. You're garbage who kills for money. Don't talk like one of them. You're not. Even if you'd like to be. To them, you're just a freak. Like me. They need you right now. When they don't, they'll cast you out. Like a leper. See, their morals, their code... Oh, man. He was good. Oh!
SPEAKER 19 :
Heath Ledger, why, why, why did he have to die?
SPEAKER 17 :
I don't know.
SPEAKER 19 :
I mean, what a loss. What an incredible performance. Richard, has anybody ever topped it for a villain?
SPEAKER 20 :
No, I don't know if anyone will, to be honest with you, Andy. It's one of those things that it may live on forever. Very rarely does that happen.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, so good, so good. Okay, you're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
All right, I'm going to keep it in the Batman light, or I guess kind of universe, whatever you want to say it. Okay. And I'm going to go with Bane.
SPEAKER 28 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 20 :
And obviously Bane, not, you know, Batman, Robin, you know, whatever it is, Arnold, you know, that one. But I'm going to go with Tom Hardy as Bane because he was phenomenal.
SPEAKER 19 :
I like Tom Hardy so much. I mean, even if a movie – even if I don't love the movie – I like Tom Hardy, if he's in it. He's good.
SPEAKER 20 :
He is really good.
SPEAKER 19 :
He is good. And, of course, he was in Mad Max Fury Road, which, you know. Which is even better, Andy. Yeah, that's even better.
SPEAKER 17 :
I'm just saying. But he was a good guy in that movie.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah, same thing.
SPEAKER 17 :
Was there any good guys in that movie?
SPEAKER 19 :
Well, no. Not totally. But there you go.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay, John, you're up. Let's see here. Because this one came in on the text line as well, I might as well throw it in. Loki in Thor.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, he's a good bad guy.
SPEAKER 19 :
I've played his too many times lately.
SPEAKER 17 :
He's good. He's good.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, actually, he was the best bad guy, I believe, in the entire Marvel Universe.
SPEAKER 17 :
I would agree with that.
SPEAKER 19 :
I mean, just the most entertaining.
SPEAKER 17 :
I would agree with that.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, I got one that might be better, but we'll go to that in a moment. John, go ahead.
SPEAKER 22 :
Hey, guys. How are you today?
SPEAKER 17 :
We're good. How are you?
SPEAKER 22 :
So I'm going to steal one, but I got a question. One of the best villains was Lex Luthor, but who played the best Lex Luthor?
SPEAKER 19 :
You know, my honest opinion is the latest one, Nicholas Holt.
SPEAKER 22 :
I haven't seen it yet, so I can't. But I always thought of a movie that wasn't great. was Kevin Spacey in Superman Returns did a phenomenal job, I thought.
SPEAKER 19 :
He did. The movie is not his fault. Let's put it that way.
SPEAKER 22 :
No. But he played the character perfectly.
SPEAKER 19 :
Agreed.
SPEAKER 22 :
The other character, I can't remember the character's name, but Claude Rains played him in the Hitchcock movie Notorious. And what he did to Ingrid Bergman was so evil. that he's got to be up there at the top, bad guys. I don't know if you guys remember that in all black and white.
SPEAKER 19 :
I do not. But I know Claude Rains was great.
SPEAKER 22 :
In everything he did, but he played a really great bad guy. And then I got one other one, and this goes old school, but it's one of my favorite movies. So I got to say Long Hair and the Cowboys played by Bruce Dern.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, yes. And Bruce Dern played a few good villains.
SPEAKER 22 :
Oh, yeah, but, you know, you can't shoot John Wayne in the back and not be a villain.
SPEAKER 17 :
No. He was good.
SPEAKER 22 :
Guys, have a great weekend.
SPEAKER 17 :
You too, John. Appreciate you very much. All right, Andy, your turn.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, I think we've got to get to the best villain of all time. Certainly the best known. Here he is, Mr. Darth Vader.
SPEAKER 14 :
Darth Vader, the fleet has moved out of flight speed and we're preparing to...
SPEAKER 29 :
You have failed me for the last time, Admiral. Captain Piet. Yes, my lord. Make ready to land our troops beyond their energy field and deploy the fleet so that nothing gets off the system. You are in command now, Admiral Piet. Thank you, Lord Vader. You may dispense with the presentries.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, and they just have several... I'm telling you what. You could take almost all villains ever played... and overlay the voice of James Earl Jones, and it would be better. Obviously not the Joker, but you know what I mean. James Earl Jones, what a voice. What a deep, menacing voice. Incredible. What do you think, Richard?
SPEAKER 20 :
Well, you did steal mine, Andy, but it wouldn't be you without stealing.
SPEAKER 19 :
I know. Well, your wife has been texting me your next one.
SPEAKER 20 :
She should be. But yes, phenomenal, Andy. You are correct. Oh, yeah. You're up. All right, let's see here. Hannibal Lecter.
SPEAKER 19 :
So good. Here we go, really quick. Okay, Clarice.
SPEAKER 06 :
A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
SPEAKER 17 :
So disgusting.
SPEAKER 19 :
And yet, don't we all feel that way about census takers?
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 19 :
I just thought that was.
SPEAKER 17 :
Just unreal. That was awesome. That is like also one of the like, you know, epic movies of all time.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, what a performance.
SPEAKER 17 :
Was it not?
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was so different and just such a great performance. I couldn't get enough of it.
SPEAKER 17 :
So there you go. I agree.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay. Am I up?
SPEAKER 17 :
No. I think I am.
SPEAKER 19 :
You are. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 17 :
Let's do Russell Crowe. I don't know if you guys have seen this movie, but it's called Unhinged. It's Russell Crowe, which is normally a good guy. But in this movie, he's a bad guy, and he's like this divorcee, and there's some road rage, and I won't go any more into the movie because it'll give the movie away, but he is the worst bad guy in this movie ever. Okay. It's actually very suspenseful. There's hardly any parts of it that are not. You would love it because the movie just rolls along all the time.
SPEAKER 19 :
All right.
SPEAKER 17 :
It's really good, actually.
SPEAKER 19 :
I do get impatient. What is this?
SPEAKER 17 :
It's called Unhinged.
SPEAKER 19 :
I like Russell Crowe.
SPEAKER 17 :
It's actually really good. Again, it's the story of a gal and her kid trying to get away from Russell Crowe out of a road rage accident or incident where he's now trying to kill them.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay. It's good. Very cool. Okay, well, let's get to a very iconic villain. Here we go.
SPEAKER 09 :
Since you're new here, I'm gonna cut you a break today So why don't you make like a tree And get out of here.
SPEAKER 19 :
Biff from Back to the Future. I'm telling you what. What a great character. And there again, once again, John, obviously it's a great movie, great characters. You've got Marty. You've got Doc. It's going to be a winner no matter what. But then you add that kind of a villain who's in your face, over the top, the entire way, and well acted. It just made it for me. Did you ever see Back to the Future, Richard? Andy, come on now. Come on now.
SPEAKER 20 :
Well, I know you're only, what, 12? How old are you? Yes, you are correct. Yes, 12, Andy.
SPEAKER 19 :
You have a lot of kids for a 12-year-old, just so you know.
SPEAKER 20 :
A little bit of a problem there, Andy. But yes, back to the future. Great. Well, and I guess Biff, he is a villain. He is.
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, yeah. Because he's always in Marty's face. Always.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah, he's the villain. He's the bad guy.
SPEAKER 20 :
True. Fair enough.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, he was funny. I loved him. Anyway, you're up, Richard. Go.
SPEAKER 20 :
All right, one that you all hate, Dad, but that's okay. Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter.
SPEAKER 17 :
Don't know that one.
SPEAKER 19 :
Excellent.
SPEAKER 17 :
Lord who?
SPEAKER 19 :
Voldemort. Lord Voldemort. V-O-L-D-E-M-O-R-T. Voldemort.
SPEAKER 20 :
Very good. Thou art he who shall not be named.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes. So we name him Voldemort. And what is this one out of again? Harry Potter? Harry Potter.
SPEAKER 19 :
I can't believe you. You know, John. What? Talk to your wife. She has a heart. Talk to your wife and ask her about Harry Potter.
SPEAKER 17 :
She's never seen him either.
SPEAKER 19 :
Really?
SPEAKER 17 :
No.
SPEAKER 19 :
You can share this.
SPEAKER 17 :
Share Harry Potter. Oh, it's good. Okay, you guys just gave me an idea a moment ago of one that wasn't on my list. I'm adding some of these. Shooter McGavin in Happy Gilmore.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, he was wonderful.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right?
SPEAKER 19 :
He was great. Shooter McGavin was so funny and so vicious and mean and awful. I loved him. I couldn't get enough of Shooter.
SPEAKER 17 :
He's awesome.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, we've got to get to this one just because I know I've done it many times, but I love the clip anyway, and we've got to do it. Here we go.
SPEAKER 25 :
Not so fast, Lone Star.
SPEAKER 27 :
Helmet. So. At last, we meet for the first time for the last time.
SPEAKER 25 :
Before you die, there is something you should know about us, Lone Star. What? I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate. What's that make us? Absolutely nothing. Which is what you are about to become. Prepare to die.
SPEAKER 19 :
One thing.
SPEAKER 25 :
Lightsabers. You have the ring. And I see your Schwartz is as big as mine.
SPEAKER 17 :
All righty then.
SPEAKER 19 :
I'm sorry, it never gets old.
SPEAKER 17 :
No, it doesn't.
SPEAKER 19 :
It doesn't. Okay, Richard, you're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
All righty. And this is for my wife, who just mentioned this one. Cruella de Vil, Andy.
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, that's a female. It has to be a man.
SPEAKER 19 :
Although an argument could be made. No, no, we said men. Bad guys. But an argument could be made. She's a man.
SPEAKER 20 :
You say that Cruella is not identifying as a male. Yeah, I mean, you know.
SPEAKER 19 :
There is that. It's a new age. So we can't be too harsh. Okay. And, you know, your wife is a psychologist. She understands identifying. that people might do that.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, true, true.
SPEAKER 20 :
You are correct, Andy.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, John, you're on.
SPEAKER 17 :
Hey, going back in time. And you two may not have this on your list. Probably don't. Yul Brynner as Pharaoh in Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, excellent.
SPEAKER 17 :
Excellent. Right? And boy, was he good. Great bad guy.
SPEAKER 19 :
You know, the funny thing is, the guy who played Moses, of course, was wonderful. Yul Brynner was more memorable.
SPEAKER 17 :
I agree. Charlton Heston, yeah, he's memorable. A little bit.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, yeah, totally.
SPEAKER 17 :
But still, Yul Brynner was great. But Brynner was incredible. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, let's do an easy one. Here we go.
SPEAKER 20 :
here's johnny jack nicholson the shining yeah that one counts oh so good okay richard you're up all right dad you'll know this one because it was my one of my favorite books growing up or my favorite movies i should say but it's the jungle book andy sheer khan yeah it's on my list he was he was terrific i forget the name of the actor but what a great voice Let me see here if I can find it. George Sanders.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yep. Fantastic. George Sanders. Okay. I have one because this is odd because he doesn't normally play a bad guy, and so I tried my best to even find some that are a little bit out of the norm, and that is Tom Cruise in Collateral.
SPEAKER 1 :
Oh.
SPEAKER 17 :
He's a bad guy in Collateral, but the whole movie is about him.
SPEAKER 19 :
You know, what are actors who almost never play a bad guy but have? There's Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, What Lies Beneath, Denzel, Training Day. Okay. Richard, would Denzel be a bad guy in Training Day? I think so.
SPEAKER 20 :
Yeah, he is, but he's the bad guy... He's one of those bad guys that you love, and then obviously at the end you don't love, right? They do a good job at turning it, but yes, I would say he is.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah, and these guys are so good, it almost seems wrong for them to play a bad guy. We'll just go with that for mine. Okay, go ahead, Richard. You're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
All right. You may, well, let's see here. This is on this list. I don't know if I agree with it. but it says Al Pacino as Michael Corleone. Oh, yeah. He's on my list.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 20 :
Yeah, he's on my list. But is he a villain in that?
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, he's in the mafia. Of course he's a bad guy.
SPEAKER 20 :
Well, the mafia is the good guy. Well, I don't know about the good guy.
SPEAKER 17 :
No, that's good.
SPEAKER 20 :
It makes you want to be a mafia member, doesn't it?
SPEAKER 19 :
No, that's a good one. I totally want to be a Mafia member because of that movie.
SPEAKER 20 :
I'm just saying. You do.
SPEAKER 17 :
That one counts.
SPEAKER 20 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay, I'm going to go Richards. Go down his path. Only I'm going to do one more movie of Al Pacino, Scarface.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh. Oh, say hello.
SPEAKER 17 :
My little friend.
SPEAKER 19 :
My little friend.
SPEAKER 17 :
He's a bad guy.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right?
SPEAKER 19 :
And he's also a great actor.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 19 :
Awesome. Do we have time for one?
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, yeah. Keep going. Yeah, we're good. We'll do it in the round.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay. We got to do one of my favorite bad guys of all time, and that is Jack from Speed. Here we go.
SPEAKER 27 :
Come on. Just take your gun. Stay right there. Stay right there. I'll do it. I'll let go. I'll let go. Oh, yeah. You still don't get it, do you, Jack? Huh? The beauty of it. A bomb is made to explode. That's its meaning, its purpose. Your life is empty because you spend it trying to stop the bomb from becoming. And for who? For what? Do you know what a bomb is, Jack, that doesn't explode? It is a cheap gold watch, buddy. You're crazy. You're crazy. Oh, no. Poor people are crazy, Jack. I'm eccentric.
SPEAKER 17 :
Poor people are crazy. I'm eccentric.
SPEAKER 19 :
That's Dennis Hopper as Howard Payne in Speed, and I'm telling you what, he also is in my top five of all time for villains. I agree. He was incredible. Okay, Richard, you're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
I will give you that, Andy. All right. On my list here, Andy, is... Denzel Washington as Frank Lucas from American Gangster.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, yeah. Okay, he played too.
SPEAKER 20 :
Yes, he's a bad guy, but he's phenomenal as the bad guy, good guy.
SPEAKER 17 :
He is. I'll give you that one. No, that's a good one, because he's a bad guy. He is. He's a drug kingpin and taking over the city and all that. Yeah, no, you're right. Good movie, by the way.
SPEAKER 19 :
He's so great, though.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay, I have one that you guys probably wouldn't think of as well, and you just reminded me when you said Jack Nicholson a moment ago. A Few Good Men.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 17 :
Because he's the bad guy. He is.
SPEAKER 19 :
Well, Jack Nicholson, though, can play a lot of bad guys.
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, he can. And he does. He can.
SPEAKER 19 :
And a good guy. Look at his face. He just looks like a bad guy. He looks like a villain. He probably freaked out his teacher when he was eight.
SPEAKER 17 :
He looks angry when he's happy. I know. It's so great. All right. Let's take a break. We'll come back. Golden Eagle Financial interview coming up. Stay tuned. We'll be back right after that.
SPEAKER 12 :
This is TJ with KLZ Radio, and I've got Al Smith from Golden Eagle Financial here in the studio with me. Al and I were just talking about how in retirement he helps his clients to stretch the time in their retirement. Al, what do you mean by that? Tell us a little bit more about how time works in retirement.
SPEAKER 33 :
Well, when you think about leaving the working world, you think about, well, it's still going to take money to live on once I'm retired. And that nest egg, whatever that is, that's going to permit you to do what you want to do with the time that you have sort of earned for yourself. So the nest egg is not only in dollars, but it's also in the time that you have to do the things that you believe will be fulfilling in retirement. And when I have a conversation with people, I think it's equally important to think about how they're going to be spending their time as it is to accumulate a nest egg.
SPEAKER 12 :
You've got to have some pretty good examples of things that people do in retirement. So open the door for us. What sort of things can we expect?
SPEAKER 33 :
Well, sure. I have one gentleman who is very much into aviation. He owns his own small plane. He actually works on that small plane. He's within a few years of retirement. He's retirement age. But right now, while he's working, he takes his small aircraft, flies to locations where he investigates air disasters. I also have some people who spend a lot of time with their grandkids, some of whom live nearby and some are a little farther away. I have some who are incredibly involved with their churches and go on missionary trips and so forth.
SPEAKER 12 :
How do people get in touch with you if they want to stretch that time out in their retirement?
SPEAKER 33 :
They can reach me at 303-744-1128. And if they're driving when they hear this, you can contact KLZ and they'll put them in touch with me.
SPEAKER 12 :
Of course, as always, you can find Golden Eagle Financial on klzradio.com slash advertisers and get right in touch with Al if you're driving and can't write that number down. Al, thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER 33 :
You're welcome.
SPEAKER 12 :
Live and local, back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 17 :
All right, we are back. Best bad guys in movies. Go ahead, Andy.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, I'm going to go with John's favorite actor, John Travolta. And this is from, have you ever seen Broken Arrow? I don't think I ever have. Dumb movie. Action movie. Lots and lots of action. But he is the bad guy. Christian Slater is the good guy. But their acting, those two opposed to each other, made it a fun movie. I've actually seen it like five times. I enjoy it. Here he is in Broken Arrow, John Travolta.
SPEAKER 11 :
I just realized something. I never actually killed anyone before. I mean, I dropped bombs on Baghdad, but never face-to-face. I don't know what the big deal is. I really don't.
SPEAKER 19 :
He was good. And a lot of personality. They had great personality. So Broken Arrow, it is worth watching. It's a lot of fun. Richard, you're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
Very good, Andy. I have not seen all of it. I've seen bits and pieces of it, but good movie. Yeah. By the way, good villain there. Okay, I've got one that he normally doesn't play a villain. Sometimes he does, and he's good. And this one, you may not even think of him as a villain, but technically he is since you people are making me do that, which is going to be Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, that works.
SPEAKER 20 :
That's true.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah, he's the villain.
SPEAKER 20 :
Again, I don't think he's super villainy. He's not maybe the villain in the truest sense, but he technically is the bad guy that's doing things wrong.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay. No, he gets caught at the end, goes to prison, all that. Yeah, no. Tom Hanks catches him, basically. Yep. Okay. It's got it coming. Yeah. Probably pick the movie, but I'm going to go, because there's others that he's in, because he's always a good bad guy, but I'm going to say Gene Hackman in Quick and the Dead.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, okay. Yeah. He plays a lot of good bad guys. You ever see him in Crimson Tide? He was a bad guy in that.
SPEAKER 17 :
Another good one. Yeah.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, here's somebody you wouldn't think of as... Oh, hang on.
SPEAKER 17 :
We've got to take Joe. Really quick. Oh, I didn't see you. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 18 :
Joe, go ahead. Did you guys do Heath Ledger as the Joker in Batman yet?
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, yes.
SPEAKER 18 :
Okay. How about Liam Neeson as Ra's al Ghul? Oh, yeah. From Batman Begins. From Batman Begins. And one of my favorites, Silverado. You actually had two bad guys. You had Brian Dennehy as Cobb. Oh, yeah. The Crooked Sheriff. And then, of course, they had, what's his name? Goldblum. Jeff Goldblum as the sleazy gambler. He was a bad guy, too. Stabbed the sister of Danny Glover in the movie. What a great cast. What a great cast that movie had. One more bad guy, going back to Batman. Cillian Murphy, who played the Scarecrow. Oh, yes. What a great actor.
SPEAKER 19 :
I love Cillian Murphy. I can't get enough of him.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 17 :
Anyway, that's my contribution for today, guys. Good one, Joe. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right, Andy, it's all yours.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, you're not going to agree with this, but trust me, in my view, he was the bad guy, and that is Robert De Niro in Meet the Parents. Here we go.
SPEAKER 24 :
Wagging your little tails, happy to see you. You need that assurance, do you? You prefer an emotionally shallow animal?
SPEAKER 28 :
I...
SPEAKER 24 :
You see, Greg, when you yell at a dog, his tail will go between his legs and cover his chin until his ears will go down. A dog is very easy to break. But cats make you work for their affection. They don't sell out the way dogs do.
SPEAKER 19 :
Huh. Come on, he tortured him the whole movie.
SPEAKER 17 :
Come on, he's the villain. What's the one part where he talks about if anything with nipples can be milked or something?
SPEAKER 20 :
Yes, yes. I have nipples, Greg.
SPEAKER 17 :
Can you milk me? It's too much. I agree with you. No, he's a bad guy. He torments him the whole movie. Yeah. All of the movies.
SPEAKER 19 :
In fact, he was almost as horrifying as watching Silence of the Lambs for me. It's hilarious. It was just awful. Okay, Richard, you're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
I believe the anniversary was just recently, and he's probably the best villain in movie, maybe in cinematic history, Andy, which is the shark in Jaws.
SPEAKER 19 :
I agree. It's on my list. The shark in Jaws. And was he a guy? He was totally a guy. You can tell.
SPEAKER 20 :
He was a guy, because women sharks aren't that mean, Andy. I just know these things.
SPEAKER 17 :
Charlie says it was a guy, so...
SPEAKER 19 :
No, no, no. Charlie Katz. I could say some things I'm not going to. So we'll just leave it right there.
SPEAKER 17 :
I don't want to get in trouble. Yeah, save yourself. Okay, I have another bad guy that plays a lot of bad guys. Plays some funny good guys as well, but Joe Pesci.
SPEAKER 28 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 17 :
Either Casino, Goodfellas. You can keep going down the list if you want. Yeah. Because Joe Pesci plays a good bad guy.
SPEAKER 19 :
Well, the fun thing about Pesci is good or bad, he plays annoying.
SPEAKER 17 :
And he's funny and annoying at the same time. Exactly.
SPEAKER 19 :
So he can be a good bad guy.
SPEAKER 17 :
Isn't that Goodfellas, though, where he kills the guy at the bar with the pen? I think. Isn't it Goodfellas, Richard?
SPEAKER 19 :
It's been so long.
SPEAKER 17 :
You know, the other guy's at the bar, and he says something about something, and Pesci didn't like it, and so he grabs the pen off the counter. He says, can I see your pen? He just stabs the guy in the neck with his pen and kills him right there at the bar. That's a Pesci thing to do. Awful.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay. I'm going to go to one that you probably have not thought of, but it's Christian Slater in Heathers. Here we go. Oh.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. So maybe I am killing everyone in the school. Because nobody loves me. Let's face it, alright? The only place different social types can genuinely get along with each other is in heaven. Try the red one, alright? Seriously, people are going to look at the ashes of Westerberg and say, now there is a school that self-destructed not because society didn't care, but because the school was society.
SPEAKER 19 :
Because the school was society. He was killing everybody. He was really good. Have you seen Heathers? It's been a while. Creepy.
SPEAKER 17 :
It's been a while.
SPEAKER 19 :
But it's funny as well. Okay, Richard, you're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
All right. Let's see here. Andy. Okay. I don't think we did this. We didn't do Arnold in the Terminator, did we?
SPEAKER 19 :
We did not. Good one. Very good one.
SPEAKER 20 :
I can't even believe. I can't believe it.
SPEAKER 19 :
It was so great when he was the good guy in T2. I just love how they switched it. Okay, John, go ahead.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay, I'm going to go along the same lines of Terminator, only I'm going to do T-1000, which is, what's the guy's name that plays T-1000?
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, I forget, but Robert Patrick, I think?
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, Robert Patrick.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, yeah, I like him so much.
SPEAKER 17 :
Awesome bad guy.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, he's fantastic. Okay, now here is a villain who, in my opinion, in a way, is actually giving a good message here in his monologue here at the end. But this movie, it's a cartoon, The Incredibles, and this is Syndrome. This cartoon had a great message about not everybody being mediocre, not giving everybody participation trophies. Excellence is a good thing. Here we go.
SPEAKER 15 :
I'll be a bigger hero than you ever were.
SPEAKER 14 :
You mean you killed off real heroes so that you could pretend to be one?
SPEAKER 15 :
Oh, I'm real. Real enough to defeat you. And I did it without your precious gifts, your oh-so-special powers. I'll give them heroics. I'll give them the most spectacular heroics anyone's ever seen. And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can be superheroes. Everyone can be super. And when everyone's super, no one will be.
SPEAKER 19 :
Isn't that a great message? I just love these people who want to level out society all the time, right? Take from the rich, give to the poor, take from the producers, give to the non-producers, whatever, whatever. And this movie came directly against that. And I just loved it. And all these schools that want to level out kids and give everybody a participation trophy, no. Greatness is good. Richard, you're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
You are correct, Andy. All right, I'm going to go the animated realm for my kids, for my littlest and teeniest in the Toy Story world. I'm going to go with the first Toy Story here and go with Sid, the mean kid, Andy.
SPEAKER 19 :
He was a bad kid.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay, I'll give you that. I like it. Toy Story, Sid. Okay. I'm going to go with bad guys. We just talked about him a couple of weeks ago. I think Andy and I did, but I don't know if we talked about it on air or not, but 310 to Yuma, Russell Crowe.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, yes!
SPEAKER 17 :
Great bad guy in that movie.
SPEAKER 19 :
Can I throw another Russell Crowe villain in real quick? Yeah. Virtuosity. Oh. Oh, he was so good.
SPEAKER 17 :
He is such a good villain. I love that guy. No, you're right. Okay, go ahead. Timothy Cheyenne, go ahead.
SPEAKER 21 :
Hey, guys. Nice to hear you chatting it up as usual. Hey, I just wanted to know, do you guys happen to recall the 1968 spaghetti western called Once Upon a Time in the West? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the villain was Henry Fonda, and he did a – I mean, he was great. He was killing children. I mean, well, that's not great, but you know what I mean.
SPEAKER 19 :
It wasn't a movie. Thank you for clarifying that, Timothy. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER 22 :
Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, guys, yeah.
SPEAKER 19 :
Talk about a great actor who never played bad. By the way, talk about a great actor who never played bad guys. Right, Timothy? Yeah, good one.
SPEAKER 21 :
Yeah, exactly. Guys, it's great hearing from you.
SPEAKER 17 :
Thanks. Appreciate you, Timothy. Have a good one. Appreciate you very much. Go ahead, Andy.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, I'm going to go with Hades from Hercules. Here we go.
SPEAKER 03 :
Kiss, we schmooze, we carry on, we go home happy. What do you say? Come on. Nah, I mean, it's a possibility. It happens. It's war, but what can I tell you? Anyway, what do you want with these people, huh? Isn't Meg, isn't she more important than David? Stop it! Isn't she? What do you say we shake him up? I really don't have time to bat this around. I'm kind of on a schedule. I've got plans for August. Okay, I need an answer. Now. Guys, Olympus would be that way.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, and anyway, that's all James Woods. A good Republican, a good MAGA Republican, and also played a great villain. He made that movie. Now, that's a movie where the villain just made the movie. Did you see that one, Richard?
SPEAKER 20 :
I did. I will give you that. You are correct, Andy.
SPEAKER 19 :
He was so good.
SPEAKER 20 :
You're up. He was almost better than the whole.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, he was wonderful.
SPEAKER 20 :
Hercules, you remember him more than you remember most. All right, let's see here. Oh, Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yes, as Commodus. It's on my list.
SPEAKER 20 :
He was so good. Oh, so good. So good.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yep. Okay, I have one that I know you guys won't get because he doesn't normally play a bad guy. Steve Buscemi in Fargo.
SPEAKER 19 :
He wasn't the baddest guy, but yeah, he's a bad guy. Okay. How about here we go. We're going back to Star Trek 2.
SPEAKER 17 :
They put the one guy in the wood chipper, so he's a pretty bad guy.
SPEAKER 19 :
But didn't he get put in?
SPEAKER 17 :
No.
SPEAKER 19 :
What happened to him? To Steve Buscemi in that movie? At the end, he doesn't get... I thought his partner killed him or something. It's been so long.
SPEAKER 17 :
The Big Oof, I haven't watched it for a while.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay. Well, Ricardo Montalbán as Khan in Star Trek II, Wrath of Khan. Here we go. Good one.
SPEAKER 1 :
No.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, you can't get away. From hell's heart, I stab at thee.
SPEAKER 23 :
For hate's sake, I spit my last breath.
SPEAKER 19 :
And he blows it up from there. What a great performance, by the way.
SPEAKER 17 :
Really quick. Buscemi, towards the end, dies from his partner with the axe.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, it's the axe.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes, the axe. Not the wood chipper, but the axe. Gross movie.
SPEAKER 19 :
Buscemi is so good.
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, he is.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes, absolutely. Okay, who's next? Richard?
SPEAKER 20 :
I am. All right, Andy, I can't believe you're into this one yet. But he is maybe one of the better villains of all time just because his character was perfect, which is Agent Smith from Matrix.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, yes. I wanted to get a clip of him. I just didn't have time to get them all. I loved Agent Smith. He was fantastic.
SPEAKER 17 :
He was phenomenal. What's the one line he says? Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson. That's a good one. Good one. We missed you. Okay, here's one. And it's Hans in Inglourious Bastards.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, Hans, you threw me off. Did you do that on purpose?
SPEAKER 17 :
No.
SPEAKER 19 :
He was incredible. Hans Landa.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, well, then we've got to go with the big one. Another one of my top five. Hans from Die Hard.
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, yes. Absolutely. Hans Gruber.
SPEAKER 19 :
Go ahead, Richard.
SPEAKER 20 :
Emperor Palpatine. Yes. From Star Wars.
SPEAKER 19 :
Very good, very good.
SPEAKER 17 :
Go ahead, John. Okay, I'm going to go back in time to Good, Bad, Ugly, Angel Eyes.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, yes. He was great. He was so good.
SPEAKER 17 :
The bad.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, we got to go with Rob Lowe. Here we go from Tommy Boy.
SPEAKER 1 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
She's sleeping. What you do is you put your shoulder into her and you push. Cows.
SPEAKER 15 :
And they fall over.
SPEAKER 28 :
Oh, John.
SPEAKER 15 :
And this doesn't strike you as kind of dumb?
SPEAKER 17 :
We're family. We're going to be doing lots of dumb stuff together. Wait till Christmas. That was good. I mean, that was a great movie. Yeah. One of the best of all time.
SPEAKER 19 :
And Rob Lowe is just such a good-natured guy in real life. It was just kind of fun watching him play such an evil guy. Okay, Richard, you're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
Loki from The Avengers, Andy. I think your dad said it earlier. Okay, well, then I'll go with one. Dad, you're going to argue that it's not like a man, but I'm going to say a man and Andy is going to get in trouble, so we'll just leave it at that. But Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs, specifically.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, no, they're dudes.
SPEAKER 17 :
They're totally dudes. Those are dudes.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 17 :
Big dudes.
SPEAKER 19 :
I think so.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 19 :
I'm with you.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER 19 :
Go ahead, John.
SPEAKER 17 :
Michael Douglas, Wall Street, the first one.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, yeah. Hey, good one. I didn't think of that. Okay, I'm going to go with Kevin Spacey as John Doe in Seven. Oh. Talk about evil. Go ahead, Richard.
SPEAKER 20 :
Let's see here, Andy. Oh, no, we did that one. Oh, Star Wars, Kylo Ren. Yes.
SPEAKER 19 :
He was good. He was good. Adam, help me out.
SPEAKER 20 :
Adam Driver.
SPEAKER 17 :
Driver. Oh, there we go. Thank you. He says yes. We like him. We all like Adam Driver. Okay, go ahead, Jim. Since you said Kevin Spacey a moment ago, Richard, I think, will agree with me on this one.
SPEAKER 1 :
21.
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, yeah. He's a professor that turns out to be the bad guy.
SPEAKER 19 :
I like him so much. Okay, how about this one? Hedley Lamar from Blazing Saddles.
SPEAKER 20 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 19 :
He was great. Harvey Korman. Okay, Richard, you're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
Gordon Deco, Wall Street.
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, yes. Yeah, well, I did that one a minute ago. Greed is good. That's okay.
SPEAKER 19 :
Greed is good.
SPEAKER 17 :
You did? Okay. Okay, I've got two from listeners. I'm going to squeeze these in really quick. Gene Hackman, The Firm, and Wrath of Khan, Ricardo Montalban.
SPEAKER 19 :
Well, since we're doing Gene Hackman, I've got to throw in Unforgiven and Quick and the Dead.
SPEAKER 17 :
Did you already do Quick? I did Quick and the Dead.
SPEAKER 19 :
So I'm throwing in Unforgiven.
SPEAKER 17 :
That one counts.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, Richard, you're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
Did we do Christian Bale in American Psycho?
SPEAKER 17 :
No.
SPEAKER 19 :
And Richard throws out another actor who is almost never evil but did a great job at it. Fantastic job. I know. He's so good. Okay, John, you're up.
SPEAKER 17 :
If I could spell psycho, it would help.
SPEAKER 19 :
P-S. Yeah, I got it.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay, gotcha. Let's see here. Thanos. Josh Brolin.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah, he's good. Very good. Okay, how about this one? Ernie McCracken played by Bill Murray in Kingpin. Oh, yeah. That one counts. Absolutely. Richard, you're up. I love the hair.
SPEAKER 20 :
All right. I'm going to go with the good old Sylvester Sloan here, but I'm going to go with Apollo Creed in Rocky.
SPEAKER 1 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 19 :
And then he became a good guy.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah. I like it. That's right. That one counts. Go ahead, John. Okay, this one maybe, I still think he's a bad guy because they're doing bad things and they do some bad stuff in the movie, although he's like the main star and you're always rooting for him. That would be Tom Hardy in Lawless. Yeah, that's kind of a hard one to... Because he's a bad guy, but he's the guy you're rooting for, but yet he's still a bad guy. Good bad guy. Right? Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER 19 :
How about Quentin Hapsburg, Naked Gun 2 1⁄2? Here we go.
SPEAKER 14 :
I don't recall seeing your name on the guest list. Nothing to be embarrassed about. I sometimes go by my maiden name. Nice party, Hapsburg. I see a lot of familiar facelifts. Do you gamble, Lieutenant? Every time I order out.
SPEAKER 17 :
That's a fact, too. Every time I order out.
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, Richard, you're up.
SPEAKER 20 :
Let's see here. Oh, Andy. Scar from Lion King.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes. Good one. Good one. Go ahead, John. Yeah, that counts. How about, and I can't think of his name, but in The Patriot with Mel Gibson. Oh, yeah. Who's the bad English dude that's always after him?
SPEAKER 19 :
I forget, but yeah, good one.
SPEAKER 17 :
You can picture his face and all that. We'll just call him bad English dude. The bad English dude, right?
SPEAKER 19 :
Okay, I'm going to go with one. Bill from Kill Bill.
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, yeah, good one.
SPEAKER 19 :
Really good. Was that Carradine who played him?
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes, it was. Actually, yes.
SPEAKER 20 :
Okay, Richard, you're up. John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction Indie. Oh, yes.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay, if you're going to go John Travolta, I'm going to go John Travolta only in Face Off.
SPEAKER 19 :
Ooh. But the problem is, who's the villain? I don't know. Because they switch back and forth. Okay, here's one. Kevin Kline as Otto in A Fish Called Wanda. Okay. Richard, have you ever seen A Fish Called Wanda?
SPEAKER 17 :
I have not, no. All right, you've got to go quick. Trust me. We've got two more. You're up, Richard.
SPEAKER 20 :
Okay, my last one will be from Emma. It's from Frozen. Who is Emma? Okay, she got nervous. Prince Hans from Frozen.
SPEAKER 17 :
Prince Hans. Okay, and I'm going to close off with, because he is a bad guy, Will Smith in Focus. Well done. Okay, we'll leave it at that. Richard, have a great weekend. We'll talk to you on Monday. Roof Savers of Colorado coming up next. Dave Hart. And ask about how to extend the life of your roof today with his RoofMax product, 303-710-6916.
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SPEAKER 17 :
We don't yell at you. We inform you. Now, back to Rush to Reason. All right, my list is basically exhausted, but Andy still has a ton left. So, Andy, take it away.
SPEAKER 19 :
All right, here we go. How about Magneto from X-Men? Michael Myers from Halloween? Norman Bates from Psycho? Good one. I'm going to go with both Gollum and Sauron from Lord of the Rings. Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Steve Martin as the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors. He was great.
SPEAKER 17 :
No one didn't see that.
SPEAKER 19 :
Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn in Spider-Man. Prince Humperdinck in Princess Bride. The Dukes in Trading Places. Jack Burns, played by Robert De Niro in Meet the Parents. I already said that. Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice. Oh, good one. Here's a good one. Ethan Hawke as the Grabber in Black Phone. Pennywise in It. Predator, just the Predator. Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. Chucky, Child's Play. Victor, Underworld. How about President Snow in The Hunger Games? Shan Yu in Mulan, who was terrific, by the way. Dracula in Van Helsing. Ghostface in Scream.
SPEAKER 17 :
Awesome. Good rest of your list. I'll finish up Dennis Hopper, too. More Easy Rider and Blue Velvet, because he's one of our top bad guys of all time.
SPEAKER 19 :
Oh, yes.
SPEAKER 17 :
All right, that's it for today, guys. Have a great rest of your evening. Have a great weekend as well. Don't forget, first thing in the morning, Fix It Radio, followed up by Drive Radio. Have a fabulous weekend. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 1 :
I'm a rich guy