The Buddy System for Voting

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Speaker 1: From Memphis, Tennessee, it's Common Sense Conservative Commentary from Todd Starnes.
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Speaker 2: Hello, fellow patriots. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd Starnes today. Mr. Starnes will be back behind this microphone tomorrow, having completed a glorious tour of the Golden State. To talk about the book, The Golden Age, you see Todd on C-SPAN yesterday morning on the Washington Journal. He is showing up everywhere and will be right back here where he belongs tomorrow. My privilege, however, to once again speak with you in Starnes Nation from the Liberty University studio and my home base at News Talk 1540 KXEL in the heartland right in the middle of the state of Iowa. And we are so glad that you're along on this Monday edition of the program. Lots of great guests. Always time to hear from you, though, at 901-260-5926. That's 901-260-5926. Same number as always. Coming up just after the bottom of the hour, we'll speak with Todd Sheets. Mr. Sheets had a career doing investment banking, and now he writes about policy and economics, and he has a very interesting take on that. The U.S.-China Relationship in the Wake of the Trump-Xi Meeting. Todd Sheets, he's author of a substack entitled On Wealth and Progress. That's coming up at the bottom of this hour. Later today on the program, Hans von Spakovsky of Advancing American Freedom will talk about this. Again, it's an odd case involving a federal judge. Federal judge has declared the law criminalizing non-citizen voting illegal. The law itself to be unconstitutional. Talk about turning things on its head. We'll speak with Hans von Spakosky of Advancing American Freedom on that today as well. Your calls is welcome, as always. I was looking at the list, and that's where I distracted myself. This is a good list. Former Trump pardon attorney Eagled Martin will be along. Dennis Neal, the financial journalist. An awful lot of good stuff. Got to load it up with guests in anticipation of Todd's return tomorrow. All right. 29 days until Election Day. Early voting has already begun in many states. Hard to believe. 29 days until Election Day, and a lot of folks are tired. They are tired of all the ads. Brothers and sisters, you ain't seen nothing yet. more and more money coming into these key states and these key races. There are very few races that are actually competitive. And if you're in a state like I am with one or two or three of those, it's nothing but political ads all the time. Truth long ago left the building with regard to those. However, however, we cannot simply sit back and say, I'm tired of it. Now you're listening to this program. You're someone who pays attention. You're someone who is going to vote, and you know about the issues and who you're going to cast a ballot for on November 3rd or before, if that's your habit. I make it a practice. I go to the polls every election day. Even though I'm working doing this kind of stuff and am busy, to me, election day means election day. So I go. That's just the way I am. It may be in the morning. It may be in the evening. but I show up and feel good about it. Get my little I voted sticker the whole bit. You may have a different plan. Life may require you to vote in person early. Fine. Buy mail, whatever it takes. So you're going to take care of business. Now, if you're starting to feel like I vote for these people and it just doesn't matter. Well, it does matter. Now, this is something we talked about here on this program on Friday. And I saw Todd posted a similar thread on social media over the weekend. We cannot send a message during this election. And here's what I mean by that. I mentioned it Friday, but it bears repeating. If you say, oh, look, they're not passing anything. They don't care in Washington. What difference does it make? I'm going to show them. I'm going to send a message. Maybe I'll stay home. Maybe I'll vote for an independent or a libertarian candidate. Maybe I'll skip that particular race on the ballot. Boy, I'll show them. What are you going to show them? I'm going to send a message. What's the message? The time for message sending is during a primary. You've got to rally around at the time of the general, or you're going to wind up with folks in office that you never would have voted for some of the folks on the ballot are not the best but imagine the alternative okay so that's the basic principle that i'm getting across to you you cannot send a message with a protest vote these elections are way too close and i'm talking about if they count them fairly imagine how many votes you have to have in the places where they tend to cheat So every single vote counts. I'm here in the state of Iowa where six years ago, a congressional race was decided by six votes. And they counted and recounted and there were challenges and it still came down to six votes. Because I'm in a state with paper ballots, with audits, with all manner of checking, with voter ID. And in fact, in the last two election cycles, this one and the one before, We have a Republican incumbent by the name of Paul Pate, veteran Secretary of State, cares an awful lot about election integrity. Democrats have challenged him each time out, obviously. That's how the thing works. But in this election and the one four years ago, when I point blank in interviews asked the Democrat running, do you have any concern about the accuracy of our elections? No. Do you have any concerns about ballots that are being snuck in are not counted? No. Okay, so it's a fair election. Yes. I feel fortunate to live in a state where even the opposition has to concede that the thing is done fairly. So you can take care of your vote. But again, I just told you of one example where six votes made a difference. And that person's on the ballot again for re-election. You know all manner of different races around the country where it was just a few votes here and there. So you're going to go do your part. Okay, great. How about bringing some people along with you? Now I'm stealing what I'm about to share from a friend who has written a book called The Two-Hour Entrepreneur. His name is Ken Chester. And his theory is, if you want to start a business, it seems monumental, but if you just dedicate a random two hours a week, set aside two hours a week, that you would have just frittered away doing any other thing. If you focus with a plan in just that two hours a week, by the course of a year, you've tested your business plan and you're up and running. His website is KennethJChester.com. It's an interesting concept. The Two-Hour Entrepreneur. Well, I'm going to steal his idea. Everyone in this audience can carve out a certain amount of time, either every day or every week leading up to the election, to urge other people to vote. It's a buddy system, if you will. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that you all link arms and go trotting up to City Hall and cast your ballot. If you do, please post it and tag me in it. But I'm talking about what can you do, and it's one thing at a time. How many of you folks in Starnes Nation pay very close attention to who you do business with? It's probably everybody, right? These days, you have somebody who's going to do some work at your house, and you kind of feel them out a little bit to see, Okay, are they politically aligned with me? Don't want to get crosswise here. And then you figure out who you can do business with because you all, again, you kind of feel each other out like boxers in a ring, and then pretty soon you know that you're patronizing somebody who believes in what you do. Patriot Mobile's that way, by the way. We'll talk about them later. But once you kind of get a comfort level, right, then you start talking about things that are going on in the world. And what I find is there are a lot of people out there Good, hardworking folks who don't vote because they think it doesn't matter. They don't vote because they're busy trying to run their business or work two jobs or take care of their families. And for what? reason, they just simply don't vote. They're interested. They have views very similar to yours. They just don't take the time. Now, here's where you come in. Bring these people along across the finish line. Maybe you have friends who In key states, they're all key states, but especially in key states, maybe you have relatives, same way, where they just don't want to bother to vote because what difference does it make? Folks, it makes a difference, and it especially makes a difference now. Because look at the alternative. And this is all you have to say to these folks. And this is the part about just carve out a little bit of time. I'm not saying go into your phone and send a mass text to everybody in your contact list. I'm not saying send a form email to everybody in your inbox. Sounds overwhelming. Sounds like spam. And this can be overwhelming if you don't take it in little bites. So depending on your schedule, your time, etc., how about thinking of one person today? Just one person who you want to make sure shows up to vote. And then give them encouragement. Maybe it's a call, it's a text, it's an email. Hey, I just wanted to let you know I've really been following this stuff in the news. You are going to vote, aren't you? Well, I don't have time. Can I get you the registration form? Okay. Don't take an excuse as being satisfactory. Just pick one person. One person you know who might not show up to vote. And gently suggest it's really important. Because if the other folks get in charge, that small business owner is going to be paying an awful lot more in taxes, as will we all. There's going to be a lot more government regulation on their business. Think how free you are now. Think of how much extra money you have now after the big beautiful bill went through. You want to go back? That's your selling point, folks. Find one person today. Just one. And then tomorrow, find another one. And then Wednesday, find another one. Now, if you've got the time and you've got the network of people so that you can contact two people today, do that. You get comfortable, maybe it's five people. Imagine in 29 days until election day. I'm just going to round up and say 30. We don't have that much time, but say that it's 30. 30 days and you picked five people a day. That's 150 people. Say how quickly you as one person can make a difference through your own contact of friends and neighbors. The buddy system. Don't go swimming without a buddy. Remember that? Don't go vote without a buddy. And go find these people. Somebody comes to the house to work on the kitchen sink and you know that that plumber is receptive to your view of the world. Make sure that they're in it. Make sure they're in the game. So that when others are trying to rig the game, it's still fair for the rest of us. Think of during this upcoming commercial break. Think of one person. And maybe even as you're listening to the good messages from sponsors, send them a text or an email. Or maybe you've got a niece or a nephew or a son or daughter in key states like Minnesota or North Carolina or Kansas or Iowa. Just reach out. Hey, how you doing? By the way, Election Day is November 3rd. Think about your list as we take this short break from the Liberty University studio. Back on the other side, Jeff Stein filling in for Todd. Todd is back tomorrow. This is the Todd Starn Show. Welcome back to the Liberty University studio and the Todd Starn Show. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd, who is back tomorrow. 901-260-5926 is always the number where you can join this coast-to-coast conversation. Todd Sheets will join us just after the bottom of the hour to talk about U.S.-China relations, particularly from an economic standpoint. And then just after the top of the next hour, Hans von Spakovsky and non-citizen voting. All that and more on this Monday. Well, did you make your list during the commercial break? Listened to the commercials, of course, made notes about sponsors that you should patronize, but then a list of people you should contact as part of this buddy system. Get more people out there to vote. Especially good if you've got grandchildren. How is little Johnny or little Susie going to say no to Nana?
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Speaker 3: Right?
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Speaker 2: And that does bring up an interesting point about young people who are away at college. All right? Now, when I went to college, I can barely remember it. It's been that many years ago. But I voted absentee at home. I was in the same state. But I voted absentee at home.
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Speaker 4: Why?
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Speaker 2: Because... I didn't live permanently where the university was, and given how ultra-liberal Iowa City was and is, we call it the People's Republic of Johnson County for a reason, my one vote wasn't going to make much difference there, but it did make a difference back in my home area. Now, it might be a situation where your little urchin, child, grandchild, etc., Maybe they should vote where they're going to college. Maybe that will be the best way for their voice to have as much impact as possible, their vote to have as much impact as possible. But it's something to consider and make sure people are properly registered. You can do same-day registration, you know, all of that stuff. But the bottom line is this election is too important to just let somebody sit on their hands. So whatever you can do to facilitate it. Now, as I said, don't just come across as the crazy guy sending everybody a mass text. I would make it just a very personal, subtle little thing. Hey, you are going to vote, aren't you? Do you know how much your tax, you know, how'd you do on your taxes last year? Oh, I got this big refund. Well, kiss that goodbye if Democrats take over in Congress. How are you feeling about your kids or grandkids in the locker room? It's much better now. Uh-huh. You want to take a step back? See, these are the important points. You know all the answers. Because you're listening to this program, you know the answers. You know how you feel. You know what points to make to your circle of friends, neighbors, business associates, relatives. You know how to push the buttons. And my fear is not that they aren't well-versed and interested. My fear is that they're apathetic at this point, that they're tired of the whole thing, a pox on all your houses. Yeah, I get that. I get that. But why is the president going all around the country? It's to make sure the base is fired up. His base, as well as the quote-unquote traditional Republican base. Both have to be fired up. And then they need to bring a few friends who aren't as fired up. That's the only way this is going to work. That's the only way that when we reconvene on November the 4th, the day after Election Day, it's the only way we know whether the coffee is going to taste sweet or bitter. That's all there is to it. Todd Sheets about China and the U.S. after this bottom-of-the-hour break. Jeff Stein in for Todd. He's back tomorrow on the Todd Starnes Show. Welcome back to the Liberty University studio and the Todd Starnes Show. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd today. Mr. Starnes is back behind the microphone tomorrow. Let's go now to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line, and I'm pleased to welcome Todd Sheets. Mr. Sheets is a retired real estate investment banker, and now he is an author and commentator. You can read his work at his Substack site, which is toddsheets.substack.com. Or go to his website. You can see it there as well, ToddSheetsWriter.com. Mr. Sheets, Jeff Stein filling in for Todd today. Good to talk to you again, sir.
00:19:19
Speaker 5: How are you?
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Speaker 6: Jeff, I'm doing fantastic, and it's great to be with you again.
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Speaker 2: Recently, you posted at your substack an interesting piece about the China-U.S. economic relationship in the wake of the Trump-Xi summit. And there are some folks who are kind of taking jabs at it, saying, well, it didn't do anything. It wasn't important. It was nothing more than photo ops. What's your assessment of that?
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Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that the criticisms of Trump, that kind of have come from both sides of the aisle in some cases are misplaced in that they failed to understand that what he's doing is managing the Xi and China relationship in the context of a total change in the geopolitical kind of global picture. You know, and if you just think about it, since his first term, first of all, we've significantly increased tariffs on China as a result of Trump's administrations from about 3% when he first came into office in Trump 1.0 to somewhere around 25% to 30% today, which I think is part of isolating China and help rebuilding America. At the same time, we've seen a dramatic swing in Latin America away from China's influence, Russia's influence, away from left-oriented policies, and back towards pro-American, pro-capitalism-oriented policies, largely because of the efforts of Trump. And specifically, we've seen big changes happening there in Venezuela, and more recently, we're looking at things in Cuba. North of us, we've seen a big change with the recent agreement In Greenland, where we've got perpetuity, exclusive rights to put military bases there and make a buildup that will help protect the north waterways that are so critical to the future up there. We've seen it in Europe and we've seen it in the Middle East. And so I think one of the big things that Trump is doing is.
00:21:28
Speaker 6: He's dramatically resetting the chessboard, if you will, in our favor, but at the same time trying to make Xi feel like he's building a relationship and a friendship with America that helps keep that relationship in the best place it can possibly be while Trump is pushing through these other initiatives.
00:21:49
Speaker 2: Too many times, it is my opinion, that folks who try to analyze this, in other words, let's analyze the Chinese mindset. They make the presumption that their system is like ours and that their people will respond as our people would and their leaders act as our leaders would. You've got to understand the mindset of the system first, and that makes a big difference in how you deal with them, correct? My point is I don't think that people, as they analyze it, are coming at it the right way.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, I completely agree with you, Jeff. I mean, you have to keep in mind, in these kinds of communist-controlled authoritarian systems, you've basically got a small group of about ten people, which are basically, or less, I think it's about seven at this point in time, that are really the inner circle for Xi and the people that are really making the decisions to run China. And they have to repress Xi. basically 1.4 billion people and keep them from having the freedoms and the economic opportunities that a system like ours would bring to them, which would be substantially better for them all the way across the board. But they have to repress and suppress those freedoms and opportunities in order for them to stay in power. And, you know, that creates a totally different equation in terms of the way they interact with their people, the decisions that they make, and really the reasons that they oppose us around the globe. Because the more prosperous America is, and the more aware their citizens are of that prosperity, and I don't just mean economic, but socially as well, and from a freedom perspective, the more difficult it is for that small body of 7 to 10 people to keep control over the 1.4 billion who they are repressing in order for them to stay in power.
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Speaker 2: Todd Sheets is our guest. His Substack newsletter on wealth and progress. It's free of charge. Mr. Sheets, also the author of the book 2008, What Really Happened? He joins us on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line on the Todd Starn Show. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd today. I have heard people again with their pop analysis of these things saying, well, obviously China will come to the table to buy U.S. food and grains because otherwise their people will starve. They don't care. I mean, again, we're looking at it from the wrong perspective. It's got to bring some level of broader glory to, again, the handful of people running things, correct? I mean, there's not a situation where they sit back and say, well, we want to make sure the people are well fed. Not if it is contrary to their own personal goals to remain in dictatorial power.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely. And it's shocking to me how frequently.
00:24:49
Speaker 3: the.
00:24:49
Speaker 6: Mistake that you're alluding to gets made, and by some of the people that make it. I mean, we recently saw Hillary Clinton, within the last few weeks, has talked about the importance of us having a dialogue with China about artificial intelligence, super intelligence, whichever you want to call it, so that we can work together to develop this for the benefit of mankind and prevent problems from occurring and that kind of thing. And I had to just shake my head looking at that because, you know, we basically have 25 years of history at this point where after we gave them an economic olive branch to help them try and recover from the massive destitution that communism created in that country... And instead of accepting the olive branch and working with us under the kind of mutually beneficial Western standards that could have benefited both countries, basically what they chose to do was continue exploiting their own people. exploiting their relationship with us and doing everything that they could to manage that olive branch so that they could rebuild the Chinese Communist Party, they could undertake one of the greatest military buildups in history, and so that they could then stand up and oppose us everywhere around the globe. So, you know, the idea that they're somehow going to work with us in a mutually beneficial way on anything... As I wrote in the piece that you were referring to, it's naive at best and dangerously foolhardy at worst.
00:26:26
Speaker 2: The Substack piece, ToddSheets.Substack.com, Trump and Gee, it's not time to poke the panda. Mr. Sheets continues with us on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line. There's a sense, and again, you've mentioned this, but it is the kind of thing that just made me shake my head as well. Well, why are we giving Xi all of the pomp and circumstance? Why are we catering to him? Well, it has to do with the so-called charismatic leader approach. He's got to feel important so that we can then keep him at arm's length while we take care of a few other things that may be even more central to our own security, both national security and economic security, correct?
00:27:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you're right. This is so many people, you know, they get lost in, you know, what's happening on the surface, and they miss the substance of what's happening underneath that. And, you know, again, just to go back to a couple things, I mean, you know, we have taken away their control of the Panama Canal. We have virtually kicked them out of Latin America and their influence there. We have effectively frozen them out of future access areas. to northern waterways, which are very important by what we're doing in Greenland. And at some point, we are going to have to confront them. You know, at some point, they are going to make a move, maybe gradual, maybe not so gradual, on Taiwan to try and get control of the shipping lanes in the South China Sea and throughout Southeast Asia, which are absolutely critical, not just to global commerce, but also to our commerce here and the build-out of our tech industry and those kinds of things, these areas where we lead the world. But the last thing we want to do is to have to deal with them right now on those issues while we're still trying to resolve the conflict in the Middle East and while I think Trump would very much like to turn his attention to Latin America and going after the drug cartels as a second focus right now. But Giving Xi the pomp and circumstance, making him feel like a big shot, being seen internationally on a stage with Trump, all those things are freebies that we can give him if you don't draw the wrong conclusion from it. It doesn't cost us anything. We don't have to rescind anything on the Panama Canal or roll back any of the advancements we're making anywhere else. That is a freeway to try and make him feel like his standing is rising in the world.
00:29:03
Speaker 5: He has a good.
00:29:04
Speaker 6: Relationship with us in spite of some of the things that are happening beneath the surface. And so, yeah, I think I'm all for the approach that Trump is taking there.
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Speaker 2: This is probably an unfair question. It will not stop me from asking it, but you're a person who deals with data and the impact of policies on markets, etc. So I'm going to ask a political question. If that wasn't Trump standing there next to Xi Jinping, And everything else was the same in terms of the pageantry, in terms of the issues that we're facing. You wouldn't hear such criticism, would you, from all cornerstones?
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Speaker 4: Absolutely not.
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Speaker 6: I mean, the traditional media, you know, which has very much been aligned with the Democratic Party for many years, would have been bending over backwards and in order to portray this as a great moment of international diplomacy and building a relationship which is critical to the future and all those kinds of things.
00:29:59
Speaker 3: It would have been the polar opposite of what we saw.
00:30:03
Speaker 2: So with regard to superintelligence, what should the administration be doing now to maximize its potential for this country while minimizing harm and protecting that we are not at risk? from those who might do us harm, like China?
00:30:23
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think, great question. Very important point right now. And I think this is being politicized to such detrimental effect for so many Americans. And I think, fortunately, this is another thing. I don't agree with what Trump is doing on everything, but this is another area where I think they are right on the course that we need to be on. This is the future. Whether we are leading it or we're not, this is going to be the future. And if we try and restrain and control our leading technology companies in a way that countries like China, Russia, or anywhere else in.
00:31:02
Speaker 3: The world are not going to be controlling them, and we can't.
00:31:04
Speaker 6: Control what they do, then we will lose this race. And if we lose this race, we will lose the next.
00:31:11
Speaker 4: 50 years or so.
00:31:12
Speaker 6: And I think Trump, you know, he's boiled it down to a very good phrase, whoever wins, AI wins. He's right about that. I believe that this is going to unlock a new industrial revolution in America and for the world. And there will be difficulties. Some of them will be dangerous that we will have to deal with as this moves forward. But the best way for us to deal with those things is for us to remain in the lead so that our leading companies can not only be controlling the rollout in the safest and best way possible, but so that we can also be building the defensive mechanisms and tools that will help protect our systems from the potential downsides of all of this. And I would just go back. There are many false impressions that have been created of the Industrial Revolution. Economic history is something that I spend a great deal of my life and time on, and those impressions are wrong. What happened in the Industrial Revolution doesn't mean that there weren't anecdotal cases where people were exploited or taken advantage of, but by and large it was a period of time when rising worker productivity led to falling prices for things like automobiles and other consumer products, which led to extraordinary increases in demand, which led to extraordinary increases in employment and workers' wages. And it also led to things like shorter working weeks and weekends off and more leisure time and creation of the middle class. And I believe in my heart of hearts that that is where properly managed, which means first and foremost that we stay in the leading position, that is where artificial intelligence is going to lead us into the future as well.
00:33:06
Speaker 2: 2008, What Really Happened? Understanding the Great Financial Crisis. That's the recent book authored by our guest, Todd Sheets, On Wealth and Progress on Substack. Mr. Sheets, great conversation, really informative. Thanks for the time. We'll talk again soon.
00:33:22
Speaker 3: Jeff, so great to be with you, and I hope you have a great day.
00:33:25
Speaker 2: You as well. And Todd Sheets joined us on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line. Back in the Liberty University studio after this break, Jeff Stein in for Todd. He's back tomorrow, Where He Belongs, on the Todd Starnes Show. Welcome back to the Liberty University studio and this Monday edition of the Todd Starnes Show. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd one more day. He is back tomorrow after a glorious tour of California promoting the Golden Age. Get it wherever you get your good books these days. Get a second copy for a friend. If you were unlucky enough to watch the Sunday shows on the formerly mainstream media networks, You caught Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, Democrat, actually telling the truth. They're coming for your money. Now, look at the circular logic on this. It was just very simple. Senator Kelly says, we're going to lower costs for the American people. Well, who could be against that, right? We're going to lower costs for the American people. He's asked, how? And he says, well, I've got legislation. It raises taxes. Okay, stop. We're going to lower costs for the American people by raising taxes. That is the Democrat playbook, and it is such an old, tired, inaccurate mantra. let me guess, they're going to say, well, we need to tax the rich or tax the super rich. And we're going to make those rich or super rich people pay their fair share. Well, who would be against that? Everyone should pay their fair share. Except you have to start asking yourself, What they mean by rich. And what I have found is that these Democrats have the talking points in front of them memorized. They can't go off the script. I've had this happen during this election cycle when I do interviews with Democrats running. They say, well, we need to tax the rich. Make them pay their fair share. Okay, define rich. What do you mean by that? What's the dollar amount? Because when they start putting a dollar amount on the taxes that they're going to raise, all of a sudden an awful lot of us are included. Well, why would we ever support it? Because if somebody said to you, we're going to tax the rich, your initial response is to go, whew, thank goodness, because I'm not rich, sure don't feel rich. But they do mean you. They should pay their fair share. It's not fair when you are taxing people at a higher percentage based on the more you make. If it's fair, it's a flat tax. They're not talking about that. So, Senator Kelly, if you want to lower costs, leave taxes alone. That's Hour 1, Hour 2 coming up. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd one more day. He's back tomorrow on the Todd Starnes Show.
00:37:18
Speaker 1: From Memphis, Tennessee, on the banks of the mighty Mississippi, it's America's conservative blowtorch. That's us, that's right.
00:37:30
Speaker 6: Our love is American, right.
00:37:33
Speaker 1: Todd Starnes.
00:37:35
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
00:37:36
Speaker 2: Hello, fellow patriots. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd today from the Liberty University studio and my home base at News Talk 1540 KXEL in the heartland. In Waterloo, Iowa, good of you to be along as always. Todd is back tomorrow, no doubt with all manner of good tales to report from his trip to promote the Golden Age. He's been in the Golden State for the past week plus, and I know he's itching to get back behind the microphone. It'll happen tomorrow, right here from the Liberty University studio. I want to go right now to start this hour. Go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line. And we are joined by Hans von Spakovsky. Mr. von Spakovsky is Senior Legal Fellow at Advancing American Freedom. They're online at advancingamericanfreedom.com. Mr. von Spakovsky, good to talk to you again. Jeff Stein in Iowa filling in for Todd. How are you?
00:38:32
Speaker 3: Jeff, it's nice to talk to you, too. And, yeah, you definitely are. You are the heart of the country outside of the heart of darkness, as I call Washington, D.C., Well.
00:38:43
Speaker 2: You're welcome to move your base of operations here to God's country anytime, sir. I'm really struck by this legal decision that came down last week. It's a Biden appointee, a federal judge who says apparently it's OK for illegals to vote. Tell us what the situation is and how did this ruling come slithering on through?
00:39:11
Speaker 3: Well, this is a theory being tried out by, frankly, the left. There's a number of these cases going on. And the way this is coming up is that, as you know, the Justice Department is really stepped up criminal prosecution of alien uh... who register or vote it's not just illegal aliens it's any alien reopen aliens illegally they're also prohibited from registering a vote in fact it's a felony under federal law and so uh... this one particular alien down in florida was being criminally prosecuted and this biden judge said no, you can't prosecute her. This federal criminal statute is unconstitutional. And the reason he gives, he gets a little bit right, but he gets the whole thing wrong. He says, look, the Constitution says that the ability, the power to determine the qualifications of a voter, whether you're eligible to vote in federal elections is given to the state. He's right about that. But he dismisses the fact that Congress has 100% power over aliens, naturalization, and most importantly, the conditions under which they are admitted to the U.S. And he says, well, that doesn't override this other constitutional provision, Jeff. But look, he's wrong. How do I know he's wrong? Because the Supreme Court has issued a whole series of cases in which they have said federal, state, and local government have the ability to keep aliens out of the democratic self-government process. And This decision goes against that. I think it will get overturned very quickly, hopefully, in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, but it's just wrong.
00:41:17
Speaker 2: Well, you and I went to different law schools at about the same time, as I look at your bio. And as I recall, the judges at a district court level were supposed to follow the precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. They are supposed to review statues in the light favorable to them being constitutional as opposed to coming in with the presumption it must be flawed and have to be fixed. What is it other than political? What is it that has led to all of these judges sticking an elbow in the ribs of the Trump administration on all manner of things? And then we're supposed to say, oh, the judge said so. It must be the case.
00:42:04
Speaker 3: Well i think there are two things going on here i mean first of all everyone should realize that brock obama and joe biden without question nominating got confirmed at the federal bench the most left-wing radical ideologues that have ever sat on uh... the the benches of the federal judiciary but but the other thing is look yeah you know i went the law school about the same time, I don't want to say how long ago that was, but a year and a half ago, Christian Adams and I co-authored, we did a series where we took a look at the top ten law schools rated by U.S. News and World Report, mostly Ivy League, and what they're actually teaching. And those law schools have turned into social warrior training camps. And those are the kind of individuals that are coming out of those law schools and then are getting appointed to be judges throughout the federal system. And look, there's been case after case after case in the last two years where these federal judges, almost all the Biden judges, have violated federal law. Ignored federal law, twisted federal law in order to get the social policy or ideological result they want. And this is happening constantly.
00:43:38
Speaker 2: We're speaking on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line with Hans von Spakovsky of Advancing American Freedom, advancingamericanfreedom.com, the website for the organization. He joins us on the Todd Starn Show. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd today. Now, you noted that this will very likely be overturned by the 11th Circuit. Well, if you're a judge with an agenda, to some degree, what do you care, right? You have an appointment to the federal bench, and even though you may know that you're going to get overturned, you've just caused all manner of problem, especially with an election in 29 days. again, they're not keeping score of whether you're overturned or not on appeal. I mean, this is truly, and again, it's not just this incident, but this is truly taking this system that is necessary for our self-governance and just turning it on its head.
00:44:41
Speaker 3: Well, look, unfortunately, I agree with you. And these judges, many of them know they'll get overturned, and They issue these decisions anyway because the more they can delay the effect of Trump policies, even though they're legal, the greater they believe the chances are that hopefully a Democrat takes over either in the next presidential election or Democrats take over Congress and will stop these policies. I look at like give you a quick example please one of the worst judges in the country is a federal judge appointed by Biden in Massachusetts named Brian Murphy the Supreme Court just accepted a case coming out of his court this is the issue of whether illegal aliens have been removed from the country can be returned by the US to third countries right not the original country they came from One of the reasons the court, I think, finally took the case is that they had to stay his injunctions, which said the government couldn't do this, three different times. They enjoined it the first time, and he basically slightly changed his order and enjoined the government again. They stayed it a second time. He did the same thing again. I mean, that is the kind of defiance we are seeing in the federal courts.
00:46:12
Speaker 2: I also learned, and I went to school most days, I also learned that a federal or any judge's jurisdiction is limited. In other words, if some of these judges issue these sweeping injunctions, that's not exactly legal to begin with because then you are literally holding the country hostage based upon the whims of an individual federal court judge in an ultra-liberal district. So how is this even being given credence?
00:46:48
Speaker 3: Well, you know, what happened was, as you know, the idea of national injunctions came up a while ago, and the Supreme Court issued a decision saying these are not favored, these are not something that judges should be issuing, with one exception. And the one exception is if a class of plaintiffs is certified under the federal rule that applies. Now, you and I both know the standards for that are really strict, right? You have to meet very high standards before you can classify an entire group of people as a class, and therefore you can enjoin what's happening with them across the country.
00:47:35
Speaker 1: Well....
00:47:37
Speaker 3: As soon as the Supreme Court issued that decision about you're not supposed to do national injunctions unless you certify a class, these same judges started immediately, willy-nilly, certifying classes to get around it. And, in fact, Justice Alito, in that decision, pointed out that the Supreme Court had left that big hole in their decision. And that's how they've been getting around it.
00:48:07
Speaker 2: It is discouraging, to say the least, when you see the system that, and again, I go back to a kid in elementary school, you know, the system presupposes that justice is blind, and these folks may have different interpretations, but it's not political, and oh, how far we have fallen from that. Hans von Spakovsky of Advancing American Freedom, thank you kindly for the excellent analysis and conversation as always. Look forward to talking to you again sooner than later.
00:48:41
Speaker 3: Sure, thanks for having me.
00:48:43
Speaker 2: And Mr. Von Spakovsky joined us on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line. What's your reaction to this? Love to hear it in the next segment, 901-260-5926. A different conversation about a different court case in Colorado and who's liable for climate change? Maybe taxpayers. We'll hear about it after the bottom of the hour. 901-260-5926. Continue the Coast to Coast conversation with me from the Liberty University studio after this short break. Jeff Stein in for Todd. He's back tomorrow on the Todd Starnes Show. welcome back to the Liberty University studio in the Todd Starnes show Jeff Stein filling in for Todd travel day for Mr. Starnes he'll be back behind this microphone tomorrow he's back Barack Hussein Obama, the former president who has kept a rather low profile, is going to be on the campaign trail later this month. Here's the story from Politico. And by the way, the folks at Politico, I would suggest, can barely hide their glee and happiness at reporting this news. Former President Barack Obama will campaign in Detroit with Michigan Democrats later this month. giving the party a high-profile boost ahead of the start of the state's early voting period. Obama is set to join Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson, and other candidates on October 24th, the state party announced today. El-Sayed says, It is my honor to welcome the former president. Get out. That's how he closed the tweet, or X, or whatever the post is. Get ready. That's what I'm afraid of. That if these people are elected, we're going to have to get ready for our entire way of life to be changed. So here's Barry Obama saying, Apparently not satisfied to be on the bench, he's going to show up in Michigan to try to pull these candidates across the finish line. It is not surprising news in one respect, but you're known by the company you keep, right? So you're going to have Obama on the stage with El-Sayed. put that on the screen on the left-hand side, and then put up the picture on the right-hand side of El-Sayed buddying up to Hassan Piker, who, of course, now he says, well, he's just some person who posts videos. No, he's a guy you invited to get through the primary. So does that mean Barack Hussein Obama agrees with Hassan Piker? I mean, it seems like that's a logical... Connection to make, sort of like the degrees of separation. If, in fact, El-Sayed and Piker are tight, Piker sure seems to still think so. And now, Barry Obama shows up in Detroit for El-Sayed. I think it's a logical conclusion to make. The somewhat fawning piece by Politico goes on. Since leaving the White House, Obama has remained one of the party's most popular figures both nationally and among the party grassroots. Okay, prove that. Prove that, please. He has campaigned in past cycles, but he has made few public stops on the trail this year. Why is that? Why has he made few public stops on the trail? I'm sure his schedule is very busy. No, it isn't. He's one of the party's most popular figures, and yet he doesn't come out to talk to voters and use any of that popularity to help them across the finish line. He's going to do a Washington-area fundraiser this week, Wednesday, with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. That's what they call themselves. It's his first with the Senate campaign arm of the party this cycle. So it's like he's waking up four weeks before the election and says, oh, I better get involved in this thing. Kind of a no-lose situation. He picks his spots, shows up only when he wants to show up. And then if it doesn't work out, he can say, well, you know, I wasn't involved. I just came in at the end to try to help him out. It's, again, it's the smoothness, if you will, of Obama. And I don't say that in a complimentary way. He also was on the campaign trail in Texas not that long ago. And he was in a campaign ad shooting hoops with the Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, a Paralympian by the name of Josh Turek. And so there they are just shooting hoops. Just a couple of guys. I'm not really sure what that has to do, you know, if Barry Obama can still drain the J from three-point range. I don't know what that has to do with whether I should vote for somebody that he says I should vote for. But, you know, it got him into a gym and shooting the hoops. And, you know, that's good. Good to have exercise like that. It is my honor and privilege to announce that President Obama is joining us on the trail, Abdul El-Sayed wrote on social media. Closing with the phrase, get ready. Okay, Michigan, you better get ready. Because if Mike Rogers is not your next United States Senator, there are all manner of problems for Michiganders. It's quite a state with, again, like many states, the metro areas are one color. In Michigan's case, the UP and other rural areas are a different color. Y'all got to show up, like we said in hour number one. Call or text a friend or a buddy. Remind them. They got to pay attention. They got to get out and vote. We're going to talk about a U.S. Supreme Court argument that has ramifications for how much you pay for energy. That's after this short break. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd. He's back tomorrow on the Todd Starn Show. Welcome back to the Liberty University studio in this Monday edition of the Todd Starnes Show. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd. Travel day for Mr. Starnes. He's back behind the microphone from home base in Memphis tomorrow. 901-260-5926. That's the number to use to join our coast-to-coast conversation. Gary, if you can still hold on the line, I'll take your call and others in the next segment. But right now I want to go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line. and welcome journalist and author Kevin Mooney. Mr. Mooney is the author of a book released earlier this year entitled Climate Porn, How and Why Anti-Population Zealots Fabricate Science While Targeting American Capitalism, Freedom, and Independence. Kevin Mooney, Jeff Stein, filling in for Todd Starnes today. Good to talk to you again, sir.
00:56:39
Speaker 6: How are you?
00:56:39
Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
00:56:41
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
00:56:43
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk to you today because the U.S. Supreme Court, back in session, first Monday in October and all of that, and there is a case that's pending called Suncor Energy v. Boulder County. It comes from the Colorado Supreme Court. Give us a sense of what this case is and what it might mean based upon the arguments that have been laid out in front of the courts.
00:57:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, ultimately, it's about our constitutional order. Under our federal system, all states are treated equally. But what climate activists are trying to do here in this particular case, I think it's quite scary. They're trying to put one state, or if that matter, one municipality, one city in position to superimpose their policy preferences on the rest of the country. So essentially, because climate activists couldn't get what they wanted legislatively through Congress, they're now trying to work through the court system. And in filing this lawsuit against the Suncor Energy Company in Colorado and also ExxonMobil's defendant in the suit, too. They're trying to make the argument that fossil fuel companies through global warming are harming people across state lines, and therefore one state should be able to superimpose their policy preferences on the rest of us. I mean, there are several problems with that. Number one, their arguments are scientifically invalid, because all the updated scientific research points out correctly that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but it's actually essential for human life on Earth. So, by the way, the science behind their argument is pure bunk. Uh, but beyond that, uh, they've seized on this strategy where, you know, say a governor Gavin Newsom could, uh, basically tell people in West Virginia, uh, Vermont or Texas what to do in terms of their energy policy. And that's really what's at stake here. It's ultimately a case about federalism and the structure of our constitution.
00:58:23
Speaker 2: And again, it's the balance of power. As you accurately noted, we have a certain amount of states rights that are involved. Again, this is a Republic, a representative democracy. And, uh, For any one jurisdiction, we talked about it in the last hour or the last half hour, I guess, for any one judge, for example, to be able to have this national authority was never contemplated by the founders. And in this case, the Colorado Supreme Court, were you surprised, given that it's Colorado, that the ruling came down? It did when it did months ago.
00:58:59
Speaker 4: But somewhat, although, again, you know, anyone in a position of authority is going to want to aggrandize themselves. And maybe it's not so unusual for the Colorado Supreme Court to do that. They would only make themselves more important. But they've opened up this argument. And I hope the court takes on the structural constitutional arguments. The other part of this case is federal preemption. The defendants are arguing, I think correctly, that there's federal preemption involved, that the Clean Air Act is actually what covers some of these climate and nuisance claims and that the states really don't have the authority in this area under our federal system. And that's a fair argument, but I think the more compelling argument, like I say, is sort of this extraterritorial state overreach where you're trying to, like, does your authority have its state boundaries? Or, you know, for example, if you're someone in Texas filling up your gas tank, you'll say to yourself, gee, I voted for a state legislator. that supports affordable energy, but my gas prices are so high. And that could be because all of a sudden California or Washington State or Oregon are in position to impose their policy preferences on the rest of us to say that we're going to use these nuisance laws to translate across state lines and use the courts as a backdoor, really, to put our policy preferences on top of the rest of us. So there's a lot hanging in the balance with this case. There's huge ramifications.
01:00:14
Speaker 2: Kevin Mooney, journalist and author, is our guest. His website is kevinmooney.info. And again, the book, released earlier this year, Climate Porn, the good folks at Bombardier Books. Put that out for our information and enjoyment last February. Mr. Mooney joins us on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line. That really is, to me, one of the interesting things about the case. They could either decide it very narrowly, based on just the four corners of the Colorado dispute, but because... There are these broader implications at work. The court has an opportunity, appropriate opportunity, totally within their purview to say, we're deciding it this way for the Colorado case. But by the way, this is not the vehicle by which you are going to drive into court in the future. We're putting a halt to this right now. What do you think the chances that they will, again, based on the oral arguments, right, which I believe were held today, what do you think the chances that they may go with the broader, more wide-ranging decision as opposed to limited just to the merits of this case?
01:01:34
Speaker 4: It's somewhat less likely that they would go in the direction I prefer they go in on this broader question because Justice Alito recused himself. because he owns a lot of shares in ExxonMobil. That's come up on board probably with the ethically right thing to do, which means that you really can't have any defections from what I'll call the constitutional side. So that could be the temptation to issue a more narrow ruling if you want to keep Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh on board with the majority. That's just me speculating a little bit. But like I say, because you're down one judge, there could be the temptation to have a much more narrow ruling, which I don't think is incorrect. I think if you look at the Clean Air Act, unless Congress specifically says so, the Clean Air Act is what would govern a question like this and not state court law. So, you know, the case could be settled in favor of the defendant that way, but it's a decision that's already pregnant with more litigation. That's the problem with it.
01:02:30
Speaker 2: And given Chief Justice Roberts' propensity to try to work a broader majority with a less impactful, if that's even a word, ruling, I mean, that's what he has done in the past, is try to steer toward something that's not such a far, wide-ranging ruling. When you only have the eight, as you say, you can't have any defections just on the core to begin with. Then you get the Roberts behind-the-scenes influence, I would suggest, that makes it less likely.
01:03:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, that certainly is a logical way of looking at it. That's kind of the way I'm looking at it right now. However, if you listen to oral arguments this morning, of course, you can't take everything out of oral arguments. Let's just, for arguments, I'd just say it's giving us some indicators. If you listen to the questions that Amy Coney Barrett asked this morning, she did indicate to the... to the defendant's attorney, is that she agreed with the concerns about extra-state influence or extra-territorial influence. So that was a valid argument from her point of view. So she seemed on board with that. Kavanaugh made the point that there's two concurrent arguments here, the one about preemption and the one about... these structural constitutional questions, and he asked, why, counsel, are you suddenly leading now with these structural constitutional questions when your briefs seem to emphasize mostly the preemption question? As if Kavanaugh sort of signaled that if you stick with us on the preemption question, the Clean Air Act, you can probably win handily, whereas if you try to throw the touchdown pass, well, then it gets a little more dicey. That's just one way of looking at it. And like I say, you can't take everything out of oral arguments. You can see where there's sort of like a lot of posturing and jockeying and horse trading going on here, which argument is going to carry the day. I will say one thing that gives me some hope for that structural argument is that the climate activists have overreached so much. You know, you think about it, there would be no limit at all to climate litigation and where it cascades and where it goes. And if you want to make the global warming argument, well, that's international, not national. Every energy company will be open for liability all across the whole company, or all across the whole globe, rather, based on what I think is a very wrong theory about global warming. But with that in the box for a minute, I don't think this is really about the climate or the environment as such. It's really about climate activists and trial lawyers trying to create new revenue streams. That's what it's about at the bottom.
01:04:52
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Liberty University studio and the Todd Starn Show. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd. Todd is back tomorrow. Apparently the climate activist didn't like the question I was asking Kevin Mooney, and so they cut our connection, but it has been restored. And Kevin Mooney, the author of the book Climate Porn, was kind enough to hold on through the break so that I could ask him the question that apparently got me disconnected, Kevin. Why Climate Porn? Why that for the name for the book?
01:05:22
Speaker 4: Well, that comes back to one of the chapters that explored what was happening in our educational system during the COVID-19 shutdown. A lot of parents for the first time really saw what was being taught in their schools. And, of course, a lot of it got into questions of conventional pornography. If you look in the textbooks, what was being coerced on these students, it was really terrible. My argument is the same thing was happening with how they were teaching science. what's happened with climate science, the activists are trying to teach kids that you have the ending written and you coerce your way to the preferred outcome. That is not the scientific method. The scientific method is to take a hypothesis, test it, and see if it holds up under scrutiny. The process matters. So in my view, what is happening with so-called climate science is really an exercise in pornography that's every bit as damaging to young students as the conventional version. It's a distortion of the scientific method, and certainly in the public schools especially, we should get back to teaching hardcore science and not politicize it and not push this political agenda upon our students.
01:06:24
Speaker 2: And again, the folks who have, shall we say, an addiction to certain types of information, I mean, it's the same thing here. I mean, they get so fired up and excited and devoted to it, and again, it has the detrimental effect. effect to our young people as well. So the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Suncor versus Boulder today. As you wait for the ruling, go online, Amazon, or wherever you get your good books, and pick up a copy of Climate Porn by our guest, Kevin Mooney.
01:06:53
Speaker 4: Mr.
01:06:53
Speaker 2: Mooney, thanks so much for the excellent insight, and we'll be watching as this case moves through the court.
01:07:00
Speaker 4: Thank you, sir. Thanks so much for having me.
01:07:02
Speaker 2: It was a privilege, and Kevin Mooney joined us on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line, 901-260-5926. Is Gary still on the line? Because I'd love to talk to him if so. Oh, he dropped. Well, Gary, call back. I understand why you had to drop. Give us a call back, because I think your point you were making, as you told the screener, is absolutely accurate about the Chinese. All right, 901-260-5926 as we continue on this Monday. What I'm struck by in constructing or deconstructing oral arguments before the Supreme Court, and that's what Kevin Mooney, our guest, was talking about here. You get a little bit of a sense from justices about what is important to them and what they need to have clarified. Now, here's how the game is played. And I've argued cases before the state Supreme Court of my state as an attorney. But what you do is you lay forth your argument. And when you have the ability to have an oral argument. You submit it in writing with briefs, okay? And you make your argument in writing. And if they grant you oral argument, it's the chance for you as the litigant, as the attorney, to either respond to concerns, clarify points, make different points that might come across better verbally than in the written word. So you kind of watch these justices to see what questions they're asking, because it either means they're with you, but they need you to underline it to try to put some over the edge, or it means it's not clear and they need you to go a little deeper into what the argument means. If you have a somewhat shallow argument, they may push a little bit to see, okay, how far do you go with that? You know, what's the tipping point? What's the logical extension of it? And as our guest, Kevin Mooney, the journalist and author mentioned during today's oral arguments, you had Justice Kavanaugh sort of saying, go more with the federal preemption issue. That one I can get behind. Now, the trick on this is you only have eight because Justice Alito recused himself. So you could get four to four, obviously. That's what leads some to think this could be one of these decisions that may be five to three, where there's not a lot of precedential value. What does that mean? There's not a lot of stuff you can use in other cases it might be limited to the facts of just this case and you might have five people who agree in the result in other words who wins but they might come about it from different reasons so in other words they all vote the same way it's sort of like if there are two roads to get from your home to your destination somebody might take this road somebody might take this other road you wind up in the same place but you got there through different methods Well, if that happens in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, what happens is you've got the ruling, which is really important to the people involved in that particular case, but there may not be enough of a broad precedent is the word I keep using, but a broad statement that can be agreed upon and then used in other litigation by others. And that's what we were talking about here. You've got two things going on. One is who wins or loses. on that particular issue, but the broader issue of can a state or a municipality preempt federal law that supposedly preempted state action? Can they trump, no pun intended, federal law, which then could adversely affect all of us? So if Colorado prevails on having energy companies pay for so-called climate change damage, that could not only have a domino effect across the country, but if these companies have to pay damages, where do you think they're going to come up with that money? It's going to mean higher energy prices. So they are targeting the reliable fuel industry because of their passion for the unreliable Solar, wind, etc. By the way, solar and wind. It was kind of quaint at first, putting up a couple of wind turbines here and there. Now you have innocently named wind farms. Nothing innocent about it. Because one of the problems is to create the turbine. These are these big, you know, two and three story tall things with these huge blades. First of all, to construct it takes an awful lot of energy. And what do they use? They use the old reliable fossil fuels for constructing it. And then after its useful life is completed and they have to replace the pieces, they don't know how to recycle the pieces. They're not easily recyclable. The best you can do is take this fiberglass, which is what most of them are made of, and shred it and then use it for some other product. But you're seeing stories around the country, and I understand it's especially bad in the Southwest, in essence, wind turbine graveyards, just blades stacked up there because there's nothing to do with them. So in an effort to have this wonderful green, clean energy, you're using more resources to produce the mechanism of getting the energy. They are not recyclable, so now you have created a new problem. They are also not as reliable as what the fossil fuels have proven to be. And it's not just a matter of saying, well, you can't have solar if there's no sun out. If it's a cloudy day, you don't have power. That's a part of it, but it's much broader than that. So the whole aspect of how this was going to be the future, flawed from the start. Like the whole climate change argument, frankly, to begin with. Climate's always changed. Ask your favorite dinosaur, if you could. Hour two in the books, one more to go. Jeff Stein in for Todd. He's back tomorrow, thank goodness, on the Todd Starnes Show.
01:14:17
Speaker 1: From Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's favorite gun-toting, Bible-clinging, deplorable American.
01:14:23
Speaker 2: That's us, that's right.
01:14:27
Speaker 4: Our love is American, right.
01:14:31
Speaker 1: Todd Starnes.
01:14:32
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
01:14:33
Speaker 2: Hello, fellow patriots. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd one more day.
01:14:38
Speaker 4: Mr.
01:14:38
Speaker 2: Starnes is back tomorrow with all manner of stories from the great trip to the Golden State to talk about the book The Golden Age. Todd is back tomorrow. My privilege to be with you today from the Liberty University studio at my home base in the heartland, News Talk 1540 KXEL, the 50,000-watt blowtorch in the state of Iowa. Love to hear from you in the next segment, 901-260-5926, as always, the number to use for a Coast to Coast conversation. As I said, we'll take your calls in the next segment because I want to go now to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line. The eagle has landed. We are joined now by Eagle Ed Martin, most recently pardon attorney in the Trump administration, formerly with Phyllis Schlafly's Eagles. Ed Martin, thanks so much for the time. How are you, sir?
01:15:30
Speaker 6: I'm doing great. Always good to be with you, Jeff. I'm glad to hear your voice and happy to talk with your great, well, Todd's great listeners.
01:15:38
Speaker 2: Well, and again, you're speaking to folks across the heartland. Your legal career and activism was based in Missouri, right here in the heartland as well. I've heard a number of reports as to why you opted to leave the pardon attorney role. So I'll let you tell us what you're doing now and why you made the switch.
01:15:59
Speaker 6: Well, you know, what I'm doing now is maybe most exciting. I left and became a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, which is the think tank that Russ Vogt started. He's now the head of OMB, the budget director for President Trump. Russ Vogt is amazing, probably the most valuable cabinet member. He's just an amazing guy. So it's a very cool think tank, really on the front lines of what I call MAGA conservatism, really getting after things. So I'm really proud to be doing that. I am doing some law. I'm practicing law. I'm also doing some media. But why I left, I served over 18 months for President Trump. It was a sprint. It was really important work. We did a ton of stuff. But part of the reason I left was because Only four weeks from tomorrow, we have an election. And I left about a month ago to go out and make sure people knew how much we accomplished, how much we've worked at it, and how important it is to get out and vote in the fall, in November, in the midterms. There's always more to do. And Phyllis Schlafly, she would say, you never give up. You never stop because there's always the next thing. There's always the most, you know, on the most important issues like life and I'm not protecting the Constitution and even military superiority. You never stop working, but you do have to sort of count your blessings. And this president has allowed so many good people and so many good things to happen. It's just so important to keep talking about it. So that's what I've been doing a lot of. And it's really fun and powerful to work for the government, but it's also tiring. And so I felt like it was the right time to leave.
01:17:36
Speaker 2: And no one would contest that this president keeps a schedule that would make anyone blush. I mean, holy cow. And you're a pretty good worker yourself, I'd have to say, based upon your background. But I saw a report that you were to some degree positioning yourself that in the event there were shenanigans in some of these states around the time of the election, you could be dispatched or you could connect with people to make sure that the votes are fairly counted. Is that perhaps part of what might come?
01:18:12
Speaker 6: Well, the timing, certainly, when I was leaving the president, I had already been working in the position I was in with some of my colleagues in election integrity. It's always something I cared about. And the president said, you've got to keep working on that. And that's exactly right. I mean, the RMC has a really capable guy named John Sweeney. He's a former congressman. He's the head of the sort of election integrity unit, which is a lot of getting staffed up to have people on the ground. But, you know, even as we speak, there's a meeting going on in the Oval Office. I can kind of break a little news with some key folks on election integrity. I'm not in the meeting, but I helped prep the meeting about how do we go forward when we know we have some problems with the voting machines. And so, yes, diligence, you know, you mentioned my background. I was the chairman of the Board of Elections in St. Louis 20 years ago. And when you learn how elections work, you know, diligence in elections is never ending. And there are two aspects to it. One is you've got to run a good system. And that's a hard thing to do on elections. It's like running the Super Bowl, but you only get to do it twice a year. You don't get to play any other games. It's really tough. And so that's one thing. The system is hard to do. The second thing, though, is you have to be talking about it in a way that gives people confidence. And that means identifying what the problems are, fixing them, saying how they're going to be fixed. And I was pointing, Jeff, to a post on X I made yesterday. There's a letter that came out a little bit more than a month ago now that says the voting machines have parts that are from China and other foreign countries, and therefore they're not secure. And this is Secretary Mueller of the DHS. And he basically said any state that needs to fix that, because it's a real problem, he's got a billion dollars on the table, and he'll come in and fix it. You can change your systems. You can vote by paper ballot, hand.
01:19:58
Speaker 3: Marked, or whatever.
01:19:59
Speaker 6: And so that's the kind of stuff that we've got to get more people to be aware of. And that's breaking today, even as we speak.
01:20:05
Speaker 2: I saw you posted on the Twitter X machine this morning, and I found that to be fascinating because in states like like where I am, I'm in Iowa. We run fair elections and even the Democrats have to admit that that's the case, probably to their chagrin. But we don't understand. We have voter ID. We have paper ballots. We have audits. We understand all of this dust up in some of these states. But holy cow, election machines with parts made in China? What could possibly go wrong, Ed?
01:20:34
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. When you say anything that loud, Jeff, you kind of shake your head. You can't believe it. But, I mean, again, you know, I just was doing a segment talking about this. Politics is what's possible. You know, we have to figure out what's possible, meaning it makes you crazy if you shake your head and say, how can we have any elections at work? On the other hand, what we know is where, like, Iowa has done a pretty good job. Missouri has done a better job. Some states are better at it. I think Florida has done a really good job. the risk by getting rid of some of the worst factors like mail-in ballots and ballot harvesting.
01:21:08
Speaker 3: But it's diligence.
01:21:09
Speaker 6: It's diligence in the face of what can only be described as malfeasance, people trying to steal the system. But I agree with you. I can't believe it. Look, when I was running the elections, they would say things like, elections can't be hacked. And the answer, of course, can't be because you don't plug them into the wall. But if you plug them into the wall, they can be hacked. If you're in the system, they can be hacked. So you've got to really figure out how to protect things. And again, all this talk, I was really interested, Jeff, to see a report in Politico, I think it was. I don't really trust Politico, but I did trust the direction of this, saying that more Democrats not voting mail-in because they're worried that mail-in is not secure. Well, they ought to be worried about that, and that's progress. And we all ought to be saying it's not secure enough. And therefore, why don't we vote on election day?
01:22:00
Speaker 2: Well, it's my pattern. I don't care what. I'm going to vote and get my little I voted sticker, and I'm going to watch the ballot go into the machine. He's Ed Martin, and he joins us on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line. Todd Starneshow, Jeff Stein filling in for Todd. Todd is back tomorrow. Now, one of the things that with regard to elections that I found interesting is that You know, this is a what have you done for me lately society, unfortunately, in 2026. And you mentioned at the start of our conversation that you thought it was important to remind people of what this president has done with an awful lot of headwind. Thank you much. What are some of the things that when you go out and talk to people and remind them of some of these accomplishments that they kind of look and go, oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot about that.
01:22:50
Speaker 6: Well, you know, one of the things that's coming up now, and I point to it, is the USAID, the so-called Doge effect of USAID, when hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars was no longer funneled to these foreign organizations that we had no control over and no real accounting of. That's what Doge did. And people sometimes look back and they say Doge was chaotic and Doge was this.
01:23:12
Speaker 4: And Doge was that.
01:23:13
Speaker 6: All around the world, they're having elections now. They had one in Brazil a couple days ago where the elections look like they're more fair. They look like they're more the will of the people. And I have to say, it's largely in my mind because there's not hundreds of millions of dollars being sloshed around in Latin America and South America and in other parts of the world from our tax dollars when we couldn't see it. That's a kind of known play in the playbook of the left. So that's an example of things, by the way, that goes.
01:23:40
Speaker 3: Look, I was U.S.
01:23:40
Speaker 6: Attorney at the time, the first 60 days. Actually, I was there 120 days. But the first 60 days, I tell people we fired more prosecutors who were blatantly unfair to the citizens. We dismissed cases. President Trump pardoned all the J6ers, all of the pro-lifers. He pardoned cops that were burdened by these things. He just turned the government upside down. Virginia, in many ways, is now a blue state. Because President Trump got the workforce, government workforce, down to the lowest it's ever been by percentage. And he did that in 60 days or maybe 90. So all this kind of progress, building up the military, getting rid of the DEI stuff, shouldn't be.
01:24:23
Speaker 3: Lost on people.
01:24:24
Speaker 6: You know, really have to remember. Remember, the Education Department, for decades and decades, Republicans said, we'll get rid of the Education Department. Linda McMahon is actually getting rid of it completely. In other words, Trump did it. So there's example after example. Another one, by the way, my wife brings up all the time because she thinks it's so important, is the reinvigoration of NASA so that we are not trailing the Chinese on getting into space where there's going to be real serious issues and value. So It's like one after another. Do I wish the economy– the economy, by the way, is really strong. Do I wish that inflation was further down? Yeah. But you can't spend as much money as Biden did, trillions and trillions, and get it down in just a year or two. Do I wish gas prices were lower? They're coming down, right? So there's things that could be better. But in general, directionally, I think people are very satisfied that immigration– I mean– There was polling out this weekend that said that Hispanic Americans support President Trump's positions on immigration by a majority, I think it was, because you've got to play by the rules, right? So sealing the border and playing by the rules, it's surprising to admit it, Jeff, but that's big progress. And we had to do that because the previous administration was so far off.
01:25:40
Speaker 2: I've only got about 60 seconds. I work in radio. It is not my business to tell people to watch TV. other than to say you can watch the Todd Starnes Show on Newsmax 2 weekday afternoons, 5 Eastern, 4 Central. But you are now the early bird. Eagle Ed Martin. Tell us about the new thing that rolled out today that we can see replays on Rumble on, if nothing else.
01:26:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
01:26:03
Speaker 2: That's right.
01:26:04
Speaker 6: It's at 5 a.m. each post time, so crack a dawn out where you are, Jeff. But I do a show, and the show is called The Early Bird. It's an echo of two things. One, The Early Bird gets the worm, the great phrase your grandpa said to you. But also, in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, into 2000s, there was something called The Early Bird.
01:26:23
Speaker 3: It was an email.
01:26:23
Speaker 6: It was a fax. Before that, it was a document. in the Department of War, Defense at the time, where they sent out talking points on what was key, what was important. So every morning, I'm going to try to drive the agenda for the day. And it's on RAV, Real America's Voice, which is a rocket ship going up, up, up. And so if people, as you point out, you can watch if you can get up early enough. If not, go on social media, and we will have all these segments. I have a segment called Name and Shame. where I talk about the people that are really, really bad actors in this country, and that they should not only be held accountable, but they should be known and shamed. So lots of different things, great interviews, and I hope people will check it out.
01:27:02
Speaker 2: Instagram and X, at Eagle Ed Martin. Mr. Martin, it is always a privilege. Love the energy, love the accomplishment. We'll talk again sooner than later, sir.
01:27:11
Speaker 4: Thanks, Jeff.
01:27:12
Speaker 6: God bless you.
01:27:14
Speaker 2: God bless you. Ed Martin. and formerly pardoned attorney for the Trump administration. And he joined us on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line. Your calls in the next segment at 901-260-5926. More from the Liberty University studio after this break. Jeff Stein in for Todd. Todd is back tomorrow on the Todd Starnes Show. Welcome back to the Liberty University studio and the Todd Starn Show. Todd is back tomorrow. I'm Jeff Stein filling in. 901-260-5926 is the number to call to join the Coast to Coast conversation. Now, I don't know how anybody from L.A.J., Georgia has time to call into the show with the Apple Festival coming up, but Joe has made time as he listens on the Great Starns affiliate WDUN. Joe, how are you? Good to talk to you, sir.
01:28:09
Speaker 8: Jeff, you're doing a great job. I always have time for the great Todd Starnes show, and I just wanted to call in and say that I'm endorsing Ted Cruz for president in 28. I know Ted well. I helped him last time he ran, and I think he's a great taxpayer champion and will be a great, a wonderful president of the United States. And I wanted to take this opportunity to invite Todd. He's very popular in the L.A.
01:28:32
Speaker 7: Area.
01:28:33
Speaker 8: I'd like for him to come to Pooh's Barbecue. famous barbecue and speak sometime and love to have you come too, Jeff. Todd, the Famous Barbecue does a great job. The barbecue's great, and we've had a lot of top political leaders there for years and years, and we'd love to have you and Todd come sometime to Pooh's Famous Barbecue.
01:28:55
Speaker 2: Well, the only thing I'm good for is carrying his plate to the table. I mean, he's the star here. Now, he's a certified, licensed official barbecue judge, too. That's got to be a good invitation for him.
01:29:09
Speaker 8: We'd love to have him come to Boots Barbecue and judge the great barbecue. We've had Pat Buchanan and many other governors and senators come to the barbecue, and they've loved it for years. And I think Todd would love it, too. We would love to have him come to speak. at the Famous Foods Barbecue.
01:29:27
Speaker 2: There should be a bell that goes off every time you say the name of the place. 55th Annual Georgia Apple Festival this time of year down there. How many of those have you been to?
01:29:36
Speaker 8: Next weekend, and of course we'll, boy, I tell you, L.A.J., I bet we get a couple hundred thousand people in here for that event. In fact, it's not until this weekend, but already traffic in downtown L.A.J. is just about bumper to bumper. It is a very popular event, and And, Jeff, you ought to come sometime.
01:29:56
Speaker 2: Now, you mentioned Senator Cruz, and there's been a lot of talk about if he would be running or not, and public statements he's made, public statements Vice President Vance has made. He won the 2016 Iowa caucuses, folks may not recall. What is it that has you come out so early for Senator Cruz?
01:30:14
Speaker 8: Well, I campaigned with him last time, and of course you know he came in second to Trump, and I traveled around with him, and the guy's brilliant. He just wrote a great book, a best-selling book about Justice Thomas. I think Cruz is the smartest. I've been around a lot of intelligent people, but I believe Cruz is the most brilliant person I've ever been around, and I think he would be a great taxpayer, champion his president, so I'm fired up and energized, and I'm going to work extremely hard to help elect Ted Cruz president of the United States in 2028, Jeff.
01:30:48
Speaker 2: Now, let me ask you finally, what if President Trump puts his endorsement on another candidate?
01:30:54
Speaker 8: Well, you know, I respect, I love President Trump. I voted for him. I think he's a great president. But, you know, if I have endorsed Ted, I'll stick with Ted because I can't imagine anybody after, Trump was a great president, I think Ted would be. So, you know, I'll stick with Ted Cruz. If Ted runs, Joe McCutcheon will strongly support him, and we're going to get him down here to Pooh's Barbecue and all the people in North Georgia get to know him better. But anyway, I'm fired up, and I thank Cruz for president and Todd Starnes for coming to Pooh's Barbecue.
01:31:29
Speaker 3: How about that, Jeff?
01:31:31
Speaker 2: Well, that's a tandem right there, Joe. It is always a privilege when you call the program. I enjoy speaking with you, and you're always so kind with your comments. Thank you, sir, and enjoy the festival the next two weekends.
01:31:42
Speaker 3: Bye-bye.
01:31:43
Speaker 2: All right, Joe calling in from Ella J. Georgia on the Todd Starnes Show from the Liberty University studio. I mean, you mentioned a barbecue place. Now, I mean, I'm no Todd Starnes barbecue level, okay? But I like me some barbecue. You know, when we throw radio station listener appreciation picnics, I mean, it's pulled pork all around. I'm just saying. I'll throw that out there. 901-260-5926. If you'd like to weigh in on anything that we've been talking about today, the great financial journalist Dennis Neal will join us after we take a bottom of the hour break. He'll join us on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line.
01:32:22
Speaker 1: 901-260-5926.
01:32:26
Speaker 2: Get on the phone now and queue up when we take your calls later this hour. Jeff Stein in for Todd. Todd is back tomorrow on the Todd Starn Show. Welcome back to the Liberty University studio on this final half hour of a Monday edition of the Todd Starn Show. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd. Todd is back tomorrow. Looking forward to hearing all of the stories of his more than a week in California. As I like to say in the Golden State, to promote the book, The Golden Age. Todd is back tomorrow. Joining us now on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line, a return guest. He is the noted financial journalist and author, Dennis Neal. Mr. Neal, Jeff Stein in for Todd. How are you, sir?
01:33:17
Speaker 4: I'm fantastic. It's been a happy Monday to you.
01:33:21
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's a brighter Monday when I get to talk with Dennis Neal, who is the author of Oregoners, How One State Chased Away Businesses and People. All manner of jobs reports last week. People are looking at inflation numbers, etc., Distill all of this down. What's important from this flurry of government reports at the beginning of a month, and what's being overblown?
01:33:45
Speaker 4: Well, I think that we are in the middle of an economic miracle in the U.S. I think the economy is incredibly strong and resilient right now. The stats are starting to show, and even if the media tries to bury it, now the most recent jobs report in the Fed, deciding whether to raise interest rates, jobs are the most important thing that it watches, okay? And if the Fed raises interest rates too high, that will hurt stocks. That will hurt businesses that want to grow. That will raise mortgage rates for us to buy homes and dull that activity. So you hope that the Fed won't raise rates. Well, up comes a really punk jobs number. And then it turns out, though, the number's better than you think because Part of that number was after a decline of 20,000 jobs in government at the state and local level. They were down 400,000 jobs to levels not seen since the 1960s. And that's going to augur well when government spends less. But meanwhile, we've got GDP going on right now, Jeff. In real terms, after deducting inflation, double the usual long-term growth rate. And we've got median income in the U.S. up to an all-time record high of $ 87, 000. Half of the country earns less. Half the country earns more. In Europe, median income is around $ 25, 000. So the economy is going strong. Consumers, it says on the front page of the Journal today, consumers are suspending their displeasure over high prices, inflation, which has come down a lot from Biden, but prices themselves haven't come down because people can afford to pay them. The bottom 25% of earners in this country right now is seeing their way up the fastest of any of those quadrants among all earners. And so things are far better than the media would have us believe. Why is it, Jack, that the stock market is bumping up against all-time highs? The S & P 500 is up 32% in the past 16 months. Why is it that the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index is at all-time low? In that gap is the misinformation and lack of coverage of what's going on, thanks to mainstream media, which hates Trump so much he broke them.
01:36:12
Speaker 2: Well, that'll go down in history as one of his greatest accomplishments is breaking them, I suppose. But unfortunately, they still hold sway to a large degree today. If you're somebody, and again, I'm not going to get much sympathy for this next statement from people in California, but when I'm driving down the highway in Iowa and I see that gasoline, just regular old unleaded gas, is $ 4. 50 a gallon and diesel is at $ 6. 50. Now the unleaded just dropped down to around $ 4, but that's still way higher than I'm used to. You've got to look past that, don't you, if you're a voter? I mean, there's a broader mission going on here, even economically, right?
01:36:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, would I be willing to pay a dollar more a gallon for gasoline for a year so that we can rid ourselves of the most anti-American, most murderous government regime in modern world history, the Iranians? I'm much more than willing to pay that. Meanwhile, the oil in the Hormuz Strait is back up to... pre-Iran attack levels or damn near it. So that's reason to be happy. You've got the European community, billions of barrels of diesel. They want to blame Trump, but the fact is prices were actually higher during Biden. And this is after 20 or 30 years of our closing refineries, cleaning emissions and restraining the industry. You know, we haven't built a new refinery since 1977 when we were using and processing and producing 8 million barrels a day. We now produce 14 million barrels a day, and yet we've got the same number of other refineries, hence the choke point and the supply constraints that then lead to higher prices. But they will go back down now. And once we finally kill that snake that we've got our boot on the head of, inflation will go down. The economy will roar. It already is growing great guns. I think that capitalism is optimism and hope in the decision. And right now there's way too much glum, bleak outlook. People are almost stuck in that rut.
01:38:31
Speaker 2: Well, they just repeat what they hear, I suppose. But if you're any sort of a business, you have to have faith. You have to be willing to take a leap into the unknown. You have to have a good partnership with God. so that they don't get in your way. The climate for that, I would suggest, Dennis Neal, is better now than it was three years ago.
01:38:55
Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely, because Trump is so pro-business. There's a fire effect that happens, because it's not only that they take more risk, they're bold, they grow, also that they know there's a guy in government who himself wants them to And he's championing wealth creation instead of apologizing for it. And it's really good because even the biggest businessmen, the biggest egos of the dozens or hundreds of CEOs and senior execs I've met over the years, they're incredibly thin-skinned, and they are urgent for approval and applause. And so they have a guy who loves them and is a true businessman. That helps as well. So there's reason for optimism. And don't forget, the stock market being up, at least half the country benefits from that, hugely so. And now these new Trump accounts, it's opening up stock market benefits and going up and compounding to millions of newcomers who never might have had this chance. So there's reason for hope out there.
01:40:06
Speaker 2: Dennis Neal is our guest. He is the host of the What's Bugging Me podcast. Ricochet delivers it. You get it wherever you get your podcasts these days. Dennis Neal. He's also the author, most recently, of Oregoners, How One State Chased Away Businesses and People. Prior to that, his most recent book was The Leadership Genius of Elon Musk.
01:40:27
Speaker 6: Mr.
01:40:28
Speaker 2: Neal joins us for a minute or two more on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line. So the Fed is going to meet the last week of the month, and I understand they have their own calendar, etc. I don't know. I'm not real thrilled with the prospect of a Fed meeting a few days before a general election. Maybe I'm just a little too worried about how people react to things, but I know how these meetings have been covered as if it's literally waiting for the white smoke to come out of the chimney.
01:40:56
Speaker 4: All in the bond market is that the Fed will hold rates... where they are now at this next meeting, and then raise them in December after the election and before, you know, the start of the new year. And I think instead, though, that the punk job number that came in just the other day, and then other data that show certain other measures of inflation are down to 1.9%, you know, certain things like that. And you kind of think that the Fed will do it when they just raise rates another quarter point. Because why is it that the Fed assumes that if the economy is growing strongly, that that instantly means there's inflation? If productivity is up thanks to AI advances and other technology advances, then you can grow without this inflation in prices.
01:41:47
Speaker 2: I want to ask, and this is a tough question, because for many years you reported on this stuff in print and on the TV box. It seems that nowadays the business and financial reporting has kind of devolved into scoreboard so much and we're missing the context. Am I accurate in that assessment? And if so, that's not a positive thing for building long-term wealth to be watching the ups and downs as if it's some kind of a betting game.
01:42:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really has become a betting game, ever more so with places like PolyMarkets and CalSheet adding to this. And I think that because so much of the media and so much.
01:42:46
Speaker 2: Oh, and technology is failing us. The signal is cutting out, so that's where we'll leave it with the great Dennis Neal. Mr. Neal is the one who brings you the What's Bugging Me podcast on Ricochet. And again, his most recent book is Oregoners, How One State Chased Away Businesses and People. You get it wherever you get your good books, including at Amazon.com. And we thank Dennis Neal for joining us on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line. Guests on the Todd Starnes Show appear via that Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line. And it's evidence that every day we make decisions that affect our future, in particular, how we're spending our money, who we're connecting with, etc. I talked about this at the outset of the program, about how this is the time that you need to connect with people, the buddy system for voting, make sure the folks who are on the sidelines come on board. Well, when you're looking for people to do business with, you kind of like to make sure that they feel the same way you do about important topics like right to life, Second Amendment, capitalism generally. And so I make sure that I'm spending my money with people who believe the way I do. Why should I work hard for my money and give it to somebody who then uses it for contrary purposes? Well, let's talk about Patriot Mobile. They're not just a wireless provider. They're an activist organization. funded by selling top-tier cell phone service. Now, they were on the front lines defending our freedoms long before it was fashionable, and they deliver prioritized premium service on all three major U.S.
01:44:28
Speaker 3: Networks.
01:44:28
Speaker 2: See, this is the thing. Yes, they believe the way we believe, but the service is fantastic. It's not like you're having to sacrifice a thing. You get the same or even better coverage, backed by 100% U.S.-based customer support. Unlimited data plans, mobile hotspots, international roaming, all of those are options. And I remember a few years ago, I did a switch to Patriot Mobile Live on the air. It's that easy to do, just a few clicks of the website. When you switch, you'll help grow this movement, fueling the Christian conservative cause and the values of faith, family, and freedom. So switching is easier than ever. You can activate in minutes. So if you want to keep your number, done. You want to change your number, you can do that. Keep your current phone, fine. Upgrade to a new one, fine. The folks at Patriot Mobile, and again, you'll talk to a real human if you call in. And again, 100% U.S.
01:45:24
Speaker 1: Based.
01:45:25
Speaker 2: They'll help you through the process and they'll select what's best for you. So take that stand today. Go to patriotmobile.com slash todd. Or call 972-PATRIOT. Whatever you do, use promo code TODD for a free month of service. Love the word free. PatriotMobile.com slash TODD. 972-PATRIOT. Use promo code TODD for that free month of service. I'll say it one more time. PatriotMobile.com slash TODD. Call 972-PATRIOT. Make the switch today to our great friends at PatriotMobile.com. who are the fine folks providing the Patriot Mobile newsmaker line. Time at the end of the hour for your calls. If you'd like to sneak in, 901-260-5926. Your call's on the other side from the Liberty University studio. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd on this Monday. Thanks for joining us. Todd's back tomorrow on the Todd Starnes Show. Final few minutes of a Monday Todd Starnes show from the Liberty University studio. Jeff Stein filling in for Todd today. Todd will be back tomorrow, and we look forward to hearing his stories from the past week plus in California. Let's go now to 901-260-5926. Doug is calling in from Georgia. Doug, Jeff Stein in for Todd. Thanks for calling in. What's on your mind?
01:46:52
Speaker 7: Well, I thought the last caller was wonderful in that he really recognized the power of capitalism. and everything Trump has done to capture that and make it work for us. And I just wanted to share, you know, everybody says, well, what is socialism? What is socialism? Well, I heard the most concise, two-word definition of it the other day, and it just resonated with me. And socialism is forced obedience.
01:47:18
Speaker 5: Think of that.
01:47:18
Speaker 7: Now, it actually hails off as forced obedience in order to survive, which is kind of dark. But when you think about it, That's all it is. That's all mainstream media is doing. All the leftists, they are yelling at us. We don't like what you're saying. Now, let me just finish this. I made this remark at a public appearance where I was playing guitar. And one of the patrons of the place went to the management and complained about me, the musician, for how unprofessional to say that. Well, listen, that person basically... was forcing me to obey. They could have left, but no, they had to go to management and complain. So if anybody's got any thoughts about socialism, ask yourself, do you want to be a prisoner? Do you want to be forced to obey? So it really got me. I just, I can't take it. And I love Trump and you're doing a wonderful job.
01:48:19
Speaker 2: Take care well you're very kind doug and thank you for calling in from georgia you know the thing that's important about that story and i hope you get many more gigs with the guitar based upon this but uh these are the people who claim to want free speech right These are the people who claim to be so tolerant. You're supposed to let everybody just be themselves. You don't like the gender you were assigned at birth by God Almighty? You can change it. You can have whatever you want to do because we're free and tolerant. Unless you disagree with our narrative, that is. And then you need to be silenced and controlled. Doug brings up such a great point with the story that happened to him. They're not satisfied by simply letting you have your speech that they demand for themselves. They want to stop you. They want to silence you. And again, the group that claims to be the most tolerant is the most intolerant on all of these things. And the hypocrisy, it's nothing new. And maybe that's a good way to close for the day. The hypocrisy of the left is nothing new, but it is something we just can't say that we're just used to. Okay, I've got to go real quick. Kelly calling in from Oklahoma on KGYN. I've got a minute. Go, Kelly.
01:50:02
Speaker 5: I hate to, but I have to call BS on our President Trump.
01:50:08
Speaker 2: Okay, how?
01:50:09
Speaker 5: Well, he's constantly saying, and boastfully, darn it, I wish he would do that, but he does, that there is no tax on tips or Social Security or overtime. Well, there is tax on Social Security. Income tax. And if you make over a certain amount, which is a rather small amount, then your Social Security becomes taxable.
01:50:37
Speaker 4: Yeah.
01:50:38
Speaker 2: And I'm only going to cut you off and thank you for making the call. I'm glad we got you in. And this is something I've complained about and I think Kelly would agree. If you have tips, you still have to report them to the federal government. You get a credit back on your taxes, but you still have to report it. And it's the same with the Social Security. It's not for everybody. The net is you have no tax, but you still have to declare it. That's not as simple as as he might make it seem. Todd is back tomorrow. Thank you, Helen. Thank you, Dylan. Thanks, Todd, for letting me be here. And thanks to all of you on the Todd Starnes Show.