Catholic Senator Says Gov’t Grants Rights?! RFK Hearing Chaos and Handmaid’s Tale

And we're live. Welcome to LOOPcast. It is me, the thorn between the roses, or with the roses. We've got the Tom you deserve in place of Tom Pagas. Thank you. I've been put back in the center here. So, yeah, welcome to Tom McCluskey. He's going to give us all the insight. Now that the Senate is back, we have so much to talk about. We have Senator, sorry, I can't even, I can't get through this with a straight face. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia.

Has informed us all of where our rights actually come from. Spoiler alert, not from God. That Virginia part being clutch here. The Virginia part. There is so much irony happening. It is going to be a fun segment. We also have Bishop Robert Barron getting in on the action with that. We have RFK. RFK has appeared before the Senate Finance Committee, and True Colors were shining everywhere, and our good friends across the pond. The UK, thank God, we fought a revolution, so we're not over there right now because they've gone full commissar, arresting people for posts and tweets and all the online free speech stuff.

So, it's going to be a rollicking ride, but we've also got good news. We've also got Twilight Zone, including, I am told, breaking news from the Hill, from Tom McCluskey. So, stay tuned all the way to the end for Twilight Zone. But first… What a teaser, Erika. I know. That's my job. You've got to keep the gut, you've got to keep guessing. Now I have to deliver.

Yeah, it better be good. That's good. How are you feeling, Josh, on this beautiful Friday? I think I'm finally getting over my cold, so I'm feeling good, you know. Went to Mass, celebrate Mother Teresa today, so it's a good day. Great, great saint day. My fifth daughter, no, my fourth daughter, fifth child, her middle name is Agnes for Mother Teresa, and so we give her a little extra chocolate chip cookie today to remember, because that is what Mother Teresa would have done.

She would have binged on chocolate chip cookies. Really? Just kidding, just kidding. Like maybe a chocolate chip? Not actually. Like an actual, no. Yeah, an actual, maybe one chocolate chip. All right. She was well known for her indulgence. Yes. Actually, yes, but not like that.

Right. All right. It's going to be a great show, but let's get into it. The Senate is back from their August recess, and so this is like must-see TV coming out of Senate hearings. Yeah, we got to get these guys confirmed, right? Exactly. We still have a massive backlog. Thank God Brian Birch is now in Rome. He got confirmed right under the wire. But there is still, how many are we looking at? Like 90-something?

It's 150 at the desk. Oh, 150 at the desk. And including judges, it's about 200 coming up. Okay. And there's still about 300 that need to be nominated. Oh, my gosh. I mean, it's just a... The backlog is only going to get bigger if they don't start moving these forward faster. All right. Well, maybe they were trying to, because they did have a hearing with a nominee, Riley Barnes.

Who is nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. So, he's going to work under Marco Rubio. And at this hearing, he made a very moving statement, I thought, you know, echoing the words of, oh, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Thomas Jefferson, you know, just a couple of well-known Americans, emphasizing that the United States was founded on the principle that, quote, all men are created equal. Because our rights come from God, our creator, not from our laws.

Yeah, from Little Marco. Not from our laws, not from Little Marco, not from our governments. And I can't do this justice. We're just going to have to roll the tape. Senator Tin came, wanted to respond. From the Commonwealth of Virginia, and by the way, remember, this person was nominated by Hillary Clinton to be her running mate. This man was almost our vice president. What is with vice presidential nominees named Tim?

Yeah, and I'm not sure what's going on with his glasses either, but it sort of adds to the drama. It does add to the flair, doesn't it? All right, so we enroll that. The notion that rights don't come from laws and don't come from the government, but come from the creator, that's what the Iranian government believes. It's a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia law. And target Sunnis, Baha'is, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities. And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their creator.

So, the statement that... Our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling. Okay, before you go into it, Josh, I just wanted to say I did watch the entire statement because I was like, you know, I'm going to give Tim Kaine the benefit of the doubt. He did go to Harvard, after all. So, I watched the entire speech, and you know what? I actually think that this clip was the most merciful possible clip because it just kept getting worse.

He concluded, quote, To demean laws, to demean governments, as you have done, and to suggest that rights don't come from laws and government. Demean governments. Again, I think there are such things as natural rights, and I try to live in accordance with them, but I would never demean the law. We are a nation of laws, not men. Laws, not people. And if we now, suddenly, after 250 years, start to demean that or diminish that and suggest, no, it's natural rights, as defined by a leader.

The leader of Iran, or the leader of any nation, that does not create a place of safety for folks. Mercer? There's two massive things wrong with this. Obviously, the biggest thing is that he's got it completely wrong. Rights come from God. They're not given to me by my government. They can't be taken away from my government lawfully or morally. They come from God, and governments have to respect that. Now, the fact is, he's bringing this up for two reasons. Number one, like, yeah, he wants the government, the law, to be the center of the focus that dispenses rights.

Because then it can take them away, right? And we saw that with COVID. But the second thing here, which I actually stated first, is, yeah, if you believe that God actually gave you your rights, you know, if you're one of those right-wing extremists like every single founding father of our country, literally the whole point of our country's creation, that God was the one who is the author of our rights, not the government.

But he associates anyone who is with that philosophy as being a radical theocrat who wants to violently persecute religious minorities, or someone who doesn't believe in any religion. So, again, it's not just that the government is the source of the rights and can take them away if they want to, which is an inherently dangerous and very scary thought for a United States senator to have. But the second thing is just as repugnant, which is to say, if you think your rights actually do...

originate from God, that they're inalienable, they can be taken away, then you are a violent theocrat who wants to murder people. Tim Kaine can suck an egg. First, I want to point off that, you know, who else wears their glasses like this sometimes? Jeffrey Epstein.

Oh, well, we went there. And Tim Kaine is Catholic, and all current law, it is displayed at the Supreme Court. There is a display in the U.S. Capitol. It comes from the Ten Commandments. If you read your Bible, it did not come from the Egyptian government or any of the governments at the time. They came from God. And Tim Kaine is saying that he can be better than God. They can do better than God. Because all of our laws go to Locke, go through Jefferson, all flow through the 10th Amendment first.

And I just love it, though, when the Democrats, they give us these evergreen statements, like, was it Dianne Feinstein who gave us the dogma lives loudly in her? So, I mean, we should start branding T-shirts and things like that with Tim Kaine's.

Face and glasses. The law does not come from God. It comes from me, Tim Kaine. Yeah. It's just insanity. And then, like, he makes it seem like, you know. That it's an affront to your government if you believe that your rights come from God. It's like, you know what? No, no, no. Hold on a second. Any government that would try to claim that it is the controller of all rights and all power, that's a government that deserves to be gotten rid of, as your boy in Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, would say, you know?

Right. Trees of liberty, baby. You know, a government that says that it is the arbiter of all rights and it's the giver and taker of all things, it sounds fascist to me, honestly. But I... I wanted to ask, because you mentioned, Josh, that how, I mean, some things are only worthy of mockery, right? And so, we mock him, and he justly deserves it. At the same time, it's a little bit chilling to hear this, right, coming from a U.S. Senator. So, my question is, Tom, you're on the Hill.

Josh, you are, like, all over the world now, like, globetrotting and listening to people. How pervasive is this, though? I mean, Tim Kaine comes out and says it, and these hearings are... And he's probably going to have it clipped as a badge of honor that he got to say this brave thing, right? But how pervasive is that conviction? How absent is God from the minds of our representatives there on the Hill? Well, I mean, were you asking Tom? I'm sorry.

No, it's… Either one. Well, he's articulating what I think a lot of members don't say. A lot of the members have egos as big as my head. Which is pretty big, if you can see on camera. So, they do believe that they are all powerful. They do believe, they're affronted whenever you tell them that they're wrong or anything along those lines.

It's so, I'm just glad he articulated that, the sense that you get from a lot of members. Unfortunately, both sides of the aisle, but too often nowadays on the Democrats. It's, you know, he did what's known as the, you know, Michael Kinsley referred to it as a gaffe. That's what happens when politicians accidentally tell you what they really think. Yeah.

Whoops! We sure are glad. We sure are glad when they do. I mean, the thing is, I think it gets back to what I said in the previous episode about where you have this This now pretty strong disparity between Democratic voters themselves, which some of them are quite radical, yes.

But if you look at the intelligentsia, the apparatus of the Democratic Party, the people who pull all the strings, even the staffers on the Hill that work for Tim Kaine or whatever, who probably wrote this for him, and he goes, yeah, sure, that sounds good. Nothing in him said, wait, I cannot do this, because the entire Democratic Party apparatus is controlled by these blue sky, psycho left-wing liberals. This is the same thing that happened. Blue sky, again, is that the same thing.

Left-wing version of Twitter is absolute bonker land. Don't go there unless you hate yourself. But the fact is... There was going to be this problem during the Biden years because you had all these staffers that are in their 20s and 30s who are to the left of Chairman Mao on just about everything, and they get into positions of power. They run the Biden administration, and now they're in the offices of Senator Kahn. They're writing these speeches. They're writing these questions, and there's no reality.

They're not touching grass. They don't know how... Joe Biden actually managed to win conservative, or let's say moderates, to get the nomination. You know, the Democratic Party writ large is like this angry blue sky. Left-wing radical, and that is what Gavin Newsom is leaning into for 2028. That is what Pritzker is going to lean into for 2028. By every right, you look at the jobs report that just came out, very disappointing for the Trump administration. Democrats should be romping, but they cannot help themselves.

They spent a whole week in a fever-pitched dream hoping that Donald Trump was dead. Now, they are screaming, rights come from government. This is what you want to take to the American people. If they fumble this, again, it's not even so much that the Republicans will win the midterms. They may not. They may lose both. They'll probably hold the Senate, but they're expected to lose. But again, the Democrats might just fumble this football. They might blow it, and I'd be happy if they do, of course, because they're- This is not the first time, though, they've denounced God.

In 2012, in the Democratic platform, because I've tried to work on both Republican and Democratic platforms since like 2000- In 2004, they took out God from the platform, if you remember that. Yeah. And they booed, remember, at the Democratic convention? Right, when they tried to put it back in. One of my best lines I ever, it was on C-SPAN, and I was speaking at a large conference, the Valley Voter Summit, and I brought up the fact that the Democrats took out God from the platform, and people in the audience, they're booed, the Democrats.

And I just quickly recovered and said, well, to be fair, it was at God's request. I like that one. It's just about all the rest of the platform denied God anyway, so why give him any credit? Oh, man. I am going to have Celine throw in the chat, or Rosie, whoever's there. I don't know who's there, because Pogo's out today celebrating his beautiful fifth anniversary with his wife. They're such kids, right?

But I'm going to have them throw Bishop Robert Barron's response in the chat. He was out there in like half an hour. We had a really good response. I'm not going to play the whole thing. It's about three and a half minutes long, but I would recommend everyone watch Bishop Robert Barron's response. Thank you, Bishop, and yeah, let's pray for Tim Kaine, oh my gosh, and defeat him soundly in the future.

Unfortunately, representative of the Democratic Party. Yeah, very representative of the Democratic Party, which, yeah, wow, like you said, God requested to be taken out of the platform. That's good, Tom. All right, before we go into RFK, who's a refugee from the Democratic Party, we're going to talk about our first sponsor today. So, did you know?

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All right. Here we go. RFK Jr. The drama continued on the Hill, and when I say this was must-see TV, I am actually not kidding. This was... Some fireworks. This was crazy. So, as you know, and as we have covered here, RFK, head of HHS, recently fired the CDC director, Susan Monarez, and this triggered the resignations of several very offended officials.

This sparked criticism... Including pentagram-loving gay health activists. Yeah, and I have another clip from him responding to... Criticisms. This sparked criticism of RK's leadership, the vaccine policies, and yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee summoned him to answer for his actions. The session lasted about three hours, and as we mentioned, it was heated. A number of pointed questions were posed about recent shakeups, his complete overhaul of ACIP, that panel that makes the recommendations on the vaccine schedule.

And numerous senators used their time to effectively offer their own testimony in place of his, routinely giving him barely enough time to answer. They tried something new, huh? Yeah, but man, he came back at it. He came to play. He ate and left no crumbs, as the kids say. All right, so I'm just going to read a little from his opening statements. We're going to play a couple of these clips. I'm going to let the guys just go at it because...

A lot came out of this, I think. All right, he wrote, he wrote, he said. Since my first day as Secretary of Health and Human Services, I made it clear to the American people they were about to witness a once-in-a-generation shift in health care and public health policy. I'm here for it. One that seeks to transform the sick care system that has for too long defined our country's dynamic into a true health care system that addresses the root causes of chronic disease, embraces radical transparency in government, and champions gold standard science as the foundation upon which All of our decisions are made.

I mean, this seems pretty bipartisan. Can we all agree on this? No, we can't. He did address the overhaul of ACIP. He said the over-medicalization of American children described in the Make Our Children Healthy Again assessment was channeled in part through the growth of the childhood vaccine schedule by the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, ACIP. ACIP makes recommendations to the CDC on the safety, efficacy, and clinical needs of vaccines. From 2021 through 2024, ACIP recommended that teenagers receive a total of five COVID vaccine doses in those four years.

Insane. Insane. And he went on to detail how many vaccines we now require of newborns before they leave the hospital, the mandates for kids going into schools. And he said, we are rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. He defended his decision to overhaul the panel, saying, the people at CDC who oversaw that COVID process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, they are the people who will be leaving. All right. So, I'd like to play one little clip from him.

Let him do his own thing. Go ahead. This was one more piece he said about corruption at the CDC and why he needs to make these changes go. In 2002, the CDC did an internal study of Atlanta and Fulton County, Georgia children.

And looked at children who got the MMR vaccine on time and compared those to kids who got them later. So, in other words, kids who got them before 36 months and kids who got them afterward. The data from that study showed that black boys who got the vaccine on time had a 260% greater chance of getting an autism diagnosis than children who waited.

The chief scientist on that, Dr. William Thompson, the senior vaccine safety scientist at CDC, was ordered to come into a room with four other co-authors by his boss, Frank DiStefano, who is the head of the immunization safety branch, and ordered to destroy that data, and then they published it without that fact.

So, you know that story. I know that story, and you know of hundreds of stories like that. It happens all the time. We are being lied to by these agencies, and we're going to change that right now. All right. Pretty chilling stuff, though. It certainly requires more investigation, rather than burying something like that. I mean, if it is totally off its rocker, and there is bad science in there, then investigate it further. But let us just trust our government. The same government that screwed up Iraq, the same government that caused the housing bubble, that is probably causing another housing bubble, by the way, right now.

Just trust your government, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I think those days are past. To get into the senators then, Senator Wyden, these guys are so old. Can we please put age? This whole thing was like an argument for age limits. So, Senator Wyden, he used most of his time to complain that Kennedy was politicizing the vaccine committee and accusing him of compromising children's health. He said, quote, You are enacting an agenda that I think is fundamentally cruel. And defies common sense, and then we, yeah, I'm just going to play this.

This is one of my favorite lines from RFK. I mean, Wyden is probably about the same age as RFK. It's just RFK looks better than, Wyden looks like a skeleton, you know. Ah, yeah, he doesn't look so scary.

Yeah, go for it. American Academy of Pediatrics, you think they're lying to? I think the American Academy of Pediatrics. It is gravely conflicted. Their biggest contributors are the four largest vaccine makers. They run a journal, Pediatrics, which they make a lot of money on. That is completely dependent on pharmaceutical companies, so I don't think, I wouldn't put a big...

Stake in what they say that benefits pharmaceutical and dress Senator I didn't politicize. I said I deeply size it Congress has been Over the country. Mr. Secretary Scientists and doctors are saying otherwise they're all wrong, too They're all lying according to you the scientists doctors that are supporting me all over the country There is division on opinion. I don't get letters from thousands of People who are not political saying that this set of changes is going to damage American health care, and particularly these health care agencies, for decades to come.

I don't get any letters from people saying, hey, this is going to make a big difference forever. Maybe you're listening to a selective group of people. You get me. I will tell you what, Senator. I will put my mailbag against your mailbag. I can't hear you, Tom. Yeah, you're like underwater. I'm going to have you unplug and plug back in there. Be good. Josh.

Well, I mean, again, I mean... It is true. I'm sure there really are doctors who are worried about what RFK is recommending, and they're sending in letters. I think those people who are sending those letters, there are people who are very earnest. They just think, well, this is what the science is telling us, and what RFK wasn't even disputing that there was a dispute. You know what I'm saying? He was like, yeah, there is a division of opinion on some of these things, and why can't we be honest about that?

This idea that everything is immediately settled at... At the very moment, like, never have to worry about it, and never question it. I just feel, it's like, that's sort of the opposite of the scientific method. Like, we're trying to discern, we're trying to unravel, we're trying to figure out something, and then, you know, it might be under dispute. And that's, I don't know, like, let's be honest about that. It's like, you know, we're not 100% sure on this. Like, to me, that's better than being like, those people are evil for dissenting.

Right. And I think, like, the whole Maha project, you know, there's so many facets to it. There's the question of what are we eating? So, there's the question of, you know, the petroleum in products and reforming our food systems and the food industry. There's the vaccine element of it all. There's the, you know, physical activity. There's so much to be teased. Out. And for me, like, when RFK shows up, and it's not just him, this is verifiable, that if you look at the American population now, and you compare our metrics to our population 30, 40, 50 years ago, when it comes to physical health, mental health, emotional health, we are sicker on all of those metrics.

Like, we're less able to do what we were able to do physically 30, 40 years ago. that question does not seem to be in dispute. And so, for all these Democratic senators to come and just start attacking every effort that he's making, to me, it's like, okay, but where's the solution? And maybe this goes back to the whole Democratic Party thing. It's just, it's reacting with hatred to anything coming out of the Trump administration, because that's the MO. Where's the thought and the proposal?

Yeah, but couple that with the fact that he's a Kennedy, and he left. So, there's a little bit of the betrayal thing going, too, but I think, ultimately, yes, you're right. Our health condition has dramatically fallen in rough shape in the last four years. A lot of that is attributed to additives that were put into our food that aren't helpful, but I think a large part of it, probably the biggest thing, is just our diet. I mean, our diet is bad.

It's not just the additives and food. We should get rid of that stuff, too, but we spend more time on screens, on phones. We're not getting enough exercise. We're not getting outside enough. Kids, the childhood obesity is off the charts. But, I mean, RFK has been good about all of that, actually, so he's not giving credit. Tom, are you back?

Am I back? Can you hear me a little better? I can hear you much better. That's awesome. Okay. All right, what's the buzz on the Hill? Well, the one thing that establishment Washington of either party doesn't like is accountability, because there has been no accountability for decades. So, they're also mad at RFK because he's firing people, and they're people who deserve to go. The one leather-clad guy who's with a pentagram on his chest and things like that. He should have never been confirmed, and I'm wondering how many Republicans voted for his confirmation, just like a number of Republicans voted for that man, Richard Levine, to be at HHS.

So, accountability is something that's brand new to Washington, D.C., and it's one of the things I really love the Trump administration about. People are being fired who have abused the system for decades, and CDC is one of them, and that he would call out the American Pediatrics Association. I wish he would call out the American Medical Association. Most of those associations are just so bad, and that is why we now have a Catholic Medical Association, a Christian Medical Association, and we have a pediatric Christian Association.

It is because... They are so much in the pocket of big pharma and the drug companies that you can't trust them anymore. Total capture. Based on ideology and finances, that is right. This is actually kind of what Kelsey Reinhart, our president at CatholicVote, was talking about. She sent an email about these hearings that were pretty seismic, because what you are talking about here is RFK is daring to go after what is underpinning the healthcare industry. This idea that pregnancy is an illness which we need a cure for, and the cure.

In their minds, abortion. That we can medicate everything, and that healthy children need to be given the COVID shot all the time. This is crazy talk. We have these institutions. A lot of things, again, We mentioned this before. If you are anorexic, the person will say, let me help you, let me cure you, but when it comes to trans, it is part of the sexual ideology, so therefore, it gets moved into this, we need to affirm your disorder, and you know what?

It is profitable for us to do so. So, when it comes to abortion, when it comes to the trans issue, getting COVID shots for healthy children, a lot of these things, American people are like, this does not make sense. We do not really support this. And what the left realizes that they needed to do is to capture a lot of these alphabet health agencies in Washington and use taxpayer money against us, use the government mandates against us to force us to do things that we wouldn't normally want and that we'd normally be opposed to.

But over time, it becomes part of our law, and it becomes a teacher. So, this is RFK doing a massive revolution. I mean, this is the thing you have to realize. We have had Republican presidents before. We have had pro-life leaders at the Department of Health and Human Services before.

But only Nixon could go to China. Maybe only a Kennedy can really uproot this whole thing, because we are seeing a transformation. We are seeing actual horrible people, as Tom said, being fired, and he is doing a reset. He is like, this does not make sense that abortion should be considered one of the priorities of the CDC. That is insane. He is actually getting rid of people, firing people that deserve to be fired.

It's a beautiful thing. It is a brand new day at HHS. I mean, promises, yeah, promises made, promises kept, right? I remember when Trump, you know, when he endorsed Trump, and he's like, because he's going to actually change things, and sure enough, they are, and both people are mad. There's one clip I just, can I play my Elizabeth Warren clip? Will you guys, will you tolerate? All right, let's just get our Elizabeth Warren. Always have time for the Native Americans. I know, we are very diverse here at LukeCast, go for it.

I didn't know. I never promised that I was going to recommend products with which there is no indication. And I know you've taken $855,000 from pharmaceutical companies, Senator. I didn't know. I never promised. She's just like going and going. The clip didn't do it justice, but she actually like paused for a second after he said, you've taken $850,000, and she's like, eh.

It was, like, you called me out. He called me out. I love how he calls them out, and he has that list, because pharma, I'm telling you, gives a lot of money to members of Congress, and it helps them out incredibly.

But, and before we move on from RFK, though, and I don't know if you were going to get to this, because the other big news yesterday was, because I would not call RFK Jr. pro-life. I think he's on the path there, and I think his relationship with Brian and Kathleen. The vote is certainly leading in that direction, but I do believe he is to the right of President Trump when it comes to the abortion bill. Yeah, we have the clip for this.

Can we play this clip, Celine? Because, yeah, this was where I was going to finish it off. This is huge. This is amazing. If a press stone was approved in 2000, 25 years ago, the FDA has steadily stripped away safeguards related to the...

This drug no longer requiring a doctor's prescription, no follow-up visits, no adverse event reporting, and now allowing it to be sent through the mail. Earlier this year, There was a new study that analyzed 865,000 real-world insurance claims, and it found that nearly 11% of women experienced a serious adverse event within 45 days of taking Mifepristone. To put that in perspective, that is 22 times higher.

Well, these findings alone are shocking. My conversations with those in the medical profession, credible medical professionals, lead me to believe that even this study may indeed underrepresent the scale of the problem. For years, we've heard the misleading and, frankly, very harmful lie that's being sold to women that this drug is, and I quote, safe as Tylenol.

These lies, sadly, have real-world consequences. Just last year... Two women died as a result of taking chemical abortion pills because they were able to access them without appropriate medical oversight. And by the way, that is all allowed by the FDA. All right. Great question by Senator Daines from Montana. Great for RFK. And how did RFK respond?

Do you have that clip? I don't. I thought I had that lined up. He responded that he agreed it needed to be looked deeper into, that it was misused, the process going forward, which is actually part of a suit that's been going on since the year 2000.

So, Pogo's not here, but before Pogo was even born then. So, to hear that from, because we heard from Marty McCurry, who heads up the FDA, but to hear that from the head of HHS, and a lot of talking to people around RFK Jr., a lot of the reasons is because he understands the...

Not only does it kill the baby, it has such a devastating effect on a woman's reproductive system, on her whole body. Politics got in front of protecting women, and the Democrats, starting with Hillary Clinton back in 1999, totally disregarded women. It was more important for their ideological means to go forward than to save women or babies. Yeah, the same year that the CDC put out its top 10 accomplishments of the 20th century, I think it was 1999, one of the top 10 being...

Reproductive care, meaning abortion, and RFK pointed that out as well at a hearing earlier last week. Talk about a sea change, utterly refreshing from Javier Becerra, the former HHS secretary, who you suggested anything like maybe we should look into, or at least report adverse effects on this, and it would be like, you hate women.

Handmaid's Tale. So, yeah, again, this is what I voted for. What other drug would they do that with? If there are any adverse aspects to it, we don't want to hear about it. Well, honestly, it would be for trans, too. I mean, again, any time where there's ideology or profit motive, but especially ideology, the left has shown a willingness to...

We move past and ignore the harm that it does to patients if it satisfies ideological concerns. Yeah. All right. I did want one more thing on the Maha sort of movement, the vaccine sort of backlash sweeping the country. We had this really interesting statement from the Florida Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, this week. Ladapo? And someone in the chat mentioned their infant was, you know, in the hospital. I hope they're okay now. And they were offered like the full vaccine schedule while they're being treated for this urgent situation.

And that's your red pill moment. Let's listen to what this guy has to say, and then I want to get your responses. But what I'm most excited about. Is an announcement that we're going to make, that we're making now, which is that the Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law. All of them. All of them. All of them. Every last one of them.

Yeah, I mean. All right, you can cut it off. You know, this is exactly the kind of thing I was worried about. Like, when Joe Biden was trying to, you know, use policies by the Department of Labor to essentially force everyone who works.

For a job in the entire country to take the, you know, to mandate that they take the COVID, it is not even really a vaccine, it is just medical therapy, right? My concern was that you are going to get a political pushback, and people are going to be like, are going to naturally rebel against that, and they are going to be against all vaccines. I mean...

That's my concern. Then people are going to be like, you lied to me about this. Why should I trust you about anything else? Then we could have a problem where whooping cough becomes a problem again, or polio becomes a problem again. I don't want that situation. That's why I resisted four years ago, whatever it was.

Foolish attempts to force a new medical therapy onto people. Allow people, if they are willing to take it, go for it. My father-in-law, he was like, he is pushing 80. He is like, yeah, I will go ahead and take the COVID shot. You know what? Go for it. But my kids, why would my kids? It does not make any sense. That is the concern, that now you are going to see this pushback, and people are like, well, let us just not.

I have any vaccine mandates, and I think we should encourage people to get, obviously, vaccines for some things. I do not want to see whooping cough come back. I do not want to see measles and rubella and all that. I mean, even smallpox, I am kind of against smallpox, definitely. Not a great disease.

Yeah, Tom? Forest smallpox? No, anti-smallpox. I agree, and this is what happens when the Democrats go to extremes. Unfortunately, sometimes the answers are extreme, and you just got to start from square one. Yeah, I would say, like, my sympathies are certainly on the side of the Floridian Surgeon General, and I understand coming from him. He went on in the speech to talk about how these mandates were a form of slavery, violating personal autonomy, bodily autonomy, which is, of course, the language of the left.

And, of course, my sympathy, I understand where he's coming from. Yeah, I probably agree with 88% of what he says, I'm sure. Exactly, but... That's what's going to happen. That's what's going to happen. All right, let's bring it up a little bit. Let's have some good news. Tom.

Living in Washington, D.C., I don't always take advantage of the thing before me. Ah, he's underwater. Underwater again. Any better? There you go. Better. I don't always take advantage of... There's opportunities given to me in Washington, D.C., and I don't get offered trips to Poland like Josh does, but I love history, and this past week on Wednesday, there's a group of fighters in World War I called the Harlem Hellfighters, and they were given this name by the Germans they were fighting.

Now, this group, they were African Americans, mostly from New York City. And at the time, General Pershing was building the army, and Blacks were not allowed to serve with Whites. And also, American troops were not allowed to serve under the command of foreign services. But Pershing finally was just like, okay, we do not know what to do with all these Black troops. I am going to give them to the French to command.

They fought on the front lines. They weren't even given American guns. They had the pale blue French helmets, except they fought on the front lines longer than any other unit. I believe in history, definitely in the world of war, they were on the front lines about 290 days.

France won numerous awards from the French for the valor and their bravery, but it took decades here in the United States because of things like Jim Crow laws and everything else, except even though they were treated so badly by the United States, they loved America. Even when they were using French guns, they were fighting for America. And yesterday, or on Wednesday... So, the U.S. Congress gave the highest medal they could to the whole battalion, to their ancestors. That is Mrs. Willett, and I had the pleasure of talking to her for a little bit.

She is the granddaughter of one of the people who fought in World War II, and the repercussions they have also had here in the United States, or World War I, I am sorry. One is the executive order. I think it was like in 1949 under Truman that eventually allowed the Black troops to serve alongside. This was certainly built from that, but also the culture in France, because, you know, you wonder, like, why does France love jazz so much? It's because the Harlem Hellfighters had their own band as well.

So, when they weren't fighting on the front lines, they were playing for French troops, and some of them stayed behind. Oh, that's so cool. And from jazz, then we have blues, and eventually even rock and roll, but that is one reason why the French love jazz so much, is because of the influence of the Harlem Hellfighters. Oh, that's great. It was just an honor to be at that ceremony. And is that Cory Booker I saw there next to Speaker Johnson? No, it is not.

Oh, no. But I will tell you, Hakeem Jeffries, he's the... Oh, yeah, okay. He gave the best speech. Chuck Schumer spoke, and all of them gave respectful speeches, didn't use it to make political points. And Mike Johnson, of course, gave a good speech, but Hakeem Jeffries gave probably the best speech that day, really getting into it, giving some of the details. I did a paper on these guys when I was in college, so it's just really great to be there and to see that bipartisanship isn't completely dead, at least when it comes to honoring our heroes.

That is. I love it. I got to learn more about these guys. That's awesome. Yeah, I need to find a good one. Thank you, Tom. The Tom we deserve. That is the Tom we deserve. That's great. I also want to point out that the Tom we deserve is wearing a polo shirt with a badge on it, and I asked him what it was, and it turns out it's an antique, right? An antique. My goodness.

It is from the 2004 Republican Convention. I have been to every convention since 1992, except for 2016, or 2020, of course, but worked on the platform since 2004. That is very historic. This was the first one I got to work on.

I was at the one in Philadelphia. That would have been, what, 2000? I think it was 2000. Wait, yeah, 2000, 2000. That's when I met the executive from McDonald's. Did I ever tell you about this? Oh, that's right. He had the, you know, M on his, yellow M on his lapel. I'm like, you work at McDonald's? He's like, yeah, you ever heard of us? They needed the whole Big Mac jingle. I'm like, oh my God, okay, yeah, of course you work at McDonald's.

I'm sorry. Mostly, when I see people work at McDonald's, they ask if I want fries with that, but that's when I pitched him on. You've got to do breakfast, and he ignored my suggestion, and for 15 years, they could have had so many profits coming out of the ears. I mean, I'm the oracle for a reason, people. You are. You are. They should have listened. They obviously did not know. And they should have known by then to listen to Catholics, because the flail fish from Cincinnati.

Because originally, Ray Kroc wanted to give like a tomato sandwich. No, it was a hula burger. It was a piece of pineapple. Yeah, that's right. Pineapple. How is a pineapple like a burger? That's crazy. Yeah, so this Catholic owner in Cincinnati, he sold all these fish sandwiches, and Ray calls him up and goes, how many did you sell?

And he told the answer. And he goes, well, how many do you sell, Ray? And he goes, never mind. He was like, things up. He was like, three. Like, no one bought it. That's awesome. All right. So listen to Catholics more. Yeah, listen to Catholics more. That's right. Including Catholics like Mary Margaret Olihan, who has a scoop. This is a developing story. So I didn't actually put this, like, in a main, one of our main segments today. But she's breaking a story that.

Individuals within the Department of Justice are reviewing ways to ensure that mentally ill individuals suffering from gender dysphoria are unable to obtain firearms while they are unstable and unwell. Now, this seems like... It's perfectly common sense to me that there would be discussions about having some restrictions, especially given the fact that we've had multiple recent mass shootings. Not one, not two, but multiples from people suffering from this mental illness, where he thinks he's a woman, or she thinks she's a man.

Isn't it like the last seven shootings were by... Someone who is trans, or one of the seven was someone who was... LGBTQIA plus minus. Well, because they were non-binary, which is someone joked many trans or beta trans. Yeah, I actually have a special episode of The Deep coming out tomorrow, kind of responding to this and trying to lay out some facts for you all, so make sure you check your weekend loop in the morning.

We have, we lay out, it's a bonus episode of The Deep. Yeah, I was going to say. No ads. It's Saturday. You, me, I know, right on Weekend Loop, so you watch for that. We also have a special Sunday Loop edition coming out. This is also good news. For the canonizations of, this is like Gen Z canonized, we've got Blessed Carlo Acutis will be Saint Carlo Acutis, and of course, Pier Giorgio Versati, one of my all-time favorites. They will be canonized together on Sunday, and to celebrate, the Loop will have a special edition.

So, very busy weekend here. In your inbox, which is great for me because it is going to be rainy here this weekend, so I do a little more reading. They asked Rasadi, you are so wealthy, why are you riding third class on the train? He said, because they do not have fifth class. I love that. He was a cool kid, a really cool kid. Tom, I want to ask your opinion on this. Do you think that this is just the Trump administration kind of trolling Democrats to try to get them?

To say, you know, like, oh, wait a minute, you can't take away their guns, you know, just because of their condition or whatever like that, and basically get them talking as if they're the NRA on this issue? I think so. You know who the first troll on this was? Our mutual friend, Terry Schilling. Oh, Terry. He's the first one who put that out, and I'm on some conservative chat groups, and all of a sudden, they're like, has Terry gone insane? What?

What? Gun control? What? Except the start of the conversation that the American Psychiatric Association no longer has is that these people are- Genitals have mental troubles and mental problems, and those need to be addressed, not with drugs and estrogen and hormones and things like that. It needs to be addressed by a professional. Yeah, I mean, if you have your genitals removed, maybe you should not have your hands on a gun. Just an idea.

Agreed. Or if you are a woman taking massive amounts of testosterone to turn you into a quote-unquote man, maybe you should not be given weapons that violent tendencies would turn into assault. To me, this is a no-brainer. And the reality is that, and I think I made this point last week, the reality is that according to Minnesota's gun laws, had the American Psychological Association not reclassified gender dysphoria as now this identity thing, Instead of a mental disorder. That gunman should have at least had a red flag that he was being treated for a mental disorder, but because they can't call gender dysphoria or trans delusions that I'm in the wrong body a mental illness, he just gets a, he can buy guns legally in Minnesota.

So, to me, this is a. No-brainer, but I can't wait to see a Democrat come out in favor of gun ownership. I just have to share this absolutely hilarious comment by a man named Wade Stotts. I don't even know who he is. Oh, he's great. Yeah, he's a Brit. He said, he goes, time travels to the Constitutional Convention. Hey, guys, we let in a billion foreigners and gave guns to crossdressers just like you all wanted. Is executed. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, Wade.

You're not a Brit. My bad. That's Winston. I got you. Oh, man. Boom. Josh, what's your good news? Give us more. Well, hey, this is the feast of Mother Teresa, and I want to, just as a little point of order, 15 years ago, a bunch of atheists tried to get rid of a bunch of atheists, and they tried to get rid of a bunch of atheists. This idea that Postal Service is going to put her on a stamp, and the atheist said, you can't do that.

First of all, she's not an American, and she's religious, and we're like, well, I mean, the Postal Service has done stamps to St. Francis of Assisi. I mean, he's not a... I mean, he was around before there was the United States. Who cares? It's just a stamp. Get over it, people. We're honoring someone who's awesome.

And CatholicVote, got a petition, 250,000 people signed off. And by the way, the Postal Service is like, hmm, I bet these are people who are going to want to buy stamps. So, they stayed true, unleashed the stamp 15 years ago. Ambassador Birch was at the ceremony at the Basilica.

In D.C., where they unveiled the stamp. That was all kind of fun. So, that is a little thing. We love you, Mother Teresa, but I wanted to really actually spotlight, you know, so often the left talks about, you need to speak truth to power. This is a moment where Small is mighty. Mother Teresa is like, what was she, four feet tall? I mean, she's this short, little, poor Albanian woman. She's invited to the National Prayer Breakfast. The President of the United States and the First Lady are there.

That is Bill and Hillary Clinton, and this is what she says. We are talking of love of the child, which is where love and peace must begin. There, in our own family. But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion.

Because Jesus said, if you receive a little child, you receive me. So, every abortion is the denial of receiving Jesus, is the neglect of receiving Jesus. Stained. Awkward face. Awkward. Just keep going. That's it. What a great saint for our time. You know, you look at all the problems that we have in the world today, and you're like, why isn't God responding? Why isn't God sending us saints? He is. He has, and he is continuing to send us saints.

Mother Teresa, like John Paul II, like little Carlo Cutis, all these wonderful people from different walks of life that are doing and transforming and bringing the light and love of Christ to the world. Love her. Thank you, Mother Teresa. Pray for us.

Amen. Great feast day. Hey, we're actually running out of time. We're going to slide into the Twilight Zone. I'm going to punt the UK, because you know what? It's still going to be on fire on Monday, so we're going to punt our UK. Nothing's going to really change over the weekend, guys. So, I'm going to wait. And actually, Tom Pagasic, he was giving me notes, like, here's what we need to say. Here's what we need to say about it. So, I'm just going to let him say it on Monday.

So, UK, we're punting Josh, Twilight Zone. We went from Mother Teresa to Jasmine Crockett? Is that what I'm seeing? Very different lady, yeah. Jasmine Crockett, you know, she's originally from St. Louis, Missouri, and in the interview, this is a little clip of when she was first deciding to run for Congress, and then this is a clip that she did last, within this last week, where she's ripping on, you know, Christians. Before and after, a little makeover.

First of all, it's good to see you in the new year. You know, no one could have told me that when I went down to Austin, now it looks like a little bit over a year ago, that I would be running for Congress. Maybe because these people, they are crazy, because they always talk about how Christian they is.

Some on their side are getting divorced because they're getting caught up sleeping with their co-workers, staffers, interns, all the things. Yeah, you ain't got to believe me. Just go Google. You'll find some of it. I'm telling you, and the wives is being messy and petty. They're putting it in. Oh, my gosh. She sounds like Hillary Clinton.

That is true. Actually, Hillary Clinton would talk like Southern when she was in Arkansas. And then she would talk like a typical left-wing, upper-middle-class woman when she was campaigning in New York, and then when she would go to South Carolina, where the big black vote in their primary, she would put on a big drawl.

Is that called code-switching? Yeah, I mean, that's like the thing for Donald Trump. He's like, yeah, I mean. What does he do? He still wears the coat. He maybe puts on a ball cap, but it's not like he, you know, like, to me, he's not trying to pretend like he's someone he's not, you know? It's not like he's putting on a cowboy hat. Oh, ye shucks. I mean, he doesn't do it. I mean, he's just the way he is. Yeah, it's like she divested herself of both her education and her bra, apparently, because the outfit was just, I mean, what is, like, going on?

You can go there and sit back. I mean, Jasmine Crockett, I mean, again, this is one of those things where it's just like, why is it that in order to represent her constituents in her district, that she feels that this is a successful and the right path? You know, again.

I don't want to just blame it on the voters. You know, leaders have their own, you know, they have their own responsibility to play, but, like, absolutely going for the lowest common denominator, it's abysmal, you know, and it's sad. It just drags it all down. Oh, my gosh. Well, speaking of, well, this isn't even a speaker. That's a terrible segue, so I'm just going to put mine up there. We have had the tweet of the year. It happened this week. For those of you who are not on Twitter, I came here to share with you the greatest Tweet on X of the entire year.

Can we just put this up here? I'm going to have to describe this for the audio. So, we have here a picture in Union Station, and there are four National Guardsmen. One of them is waving to the camera, and then to the right, we have two, looking like they're about my age, so middle-aged white women wearing Handmaid's Tale outfits. One of them has a bonnet. One of them is actually showing her hair, which is absolutely shocking. But Jennifer Bendery, who has gone viral with this tweet, had this caption, and she said, She says, a D.C.

resident shared this photo she took at Union Station yesterday. Looks like a scene from The Handmaid's Tale. But no, just another day of Trump's militarization of D.C. right now. Hashtag under his eye. Now, Jennifer Benry, according to her own Twitter page, she says she reports on Congress, the White House, and political campaigns for the Huffington Post. So, this is not like a... Democratic staffer, you know, a journalist. Yeah, and I just want to point out that if the women weren't dressed like they were from The Handmaid's Tale, it wouldn't look like The Handmaid's Tale.

That's why it looks like The Handmaid's Tale. That's why it looks like The Handmaid's Tale, because they are dressed up in costumes, and this has obviously just sort of taken Twitter by storm. We also had a couple of T-Rexes show up at Union Station. I don't know if you can pull that one up for me. But yeah, we have we have the same photo and photoshopped in two T-Rex, two T-Rexes. Looks like a scene out of Jurassic Park. But no, just another day in Trump's America.

Yeah, but making America Jurassic again. The Handmaid's Tale, it's all Gilead. It's like, can we just read another book? Erika, do you know what the real thing about this is? Okay, go back to the Handmaid's. The original photo, do you know the real bombshell from this?

No, tell me. Jennifer's in the photo! That's her. That's her with the bonnet? Yes. Oh, my gosh. So, like, she's pretending, I just got sent this photo. I mean, dude, the guy tweets and goes, dude, it looks exactly like you. You're posting this for your own article.

I mean, maybe it is a total coincidence. Maybe it is just a total doppelganger, but I do not know. It kind of looks like you, Jennifer. Yeah, it is great. So, there we have it, living in our delusions. Tom, you live in D.C. most of the day.

Does it look like Gilead to you? I do not know if I am dressed like that. Under his eye, man. All right, we promised you breaking news. What is your twilight zone, Mr. McCluskey? Oh, no, he's swatting your audio again.

Wiggle your ear. How about now? That's good. Okay, don't move. Okay. No, but you can talk. Just don't move. Okay. I just was waiting for your permission. Wow. So, anyway, this also has to do with the squad, if you know up on Capitol Hill. Oh, I love news with the squad.

What happened in Minnesota, of course, a tragedy. So, Congress usually responds to a tragedy, and in this, somebody introduced a resolution, which is fine. The person who's introducing the resolutions, and which the Republicans are going to allow for a vote on, is Ilyan Omar.

Who has described America as being like the Taliban, has condemned Christians. I think she's even, is she the one who like says she's not even part of this country? Right, she's Somalian first. And I do not understand why Republicans would give cover to such an individual. She's been censured and tried to be censured by Congress numerous times, including bipartisanly.

They would try to give cover to such a reprehensible human being, especially when you have the majority whip. Tom Emmer is also from Minnesota. Why isn't he introducing the bill? And I do believe that Tom Emmer has said something to Speaker Johnson, like, you should not be voting on this bill. Mainly because I've read the bill. It's not like the bill is offensive or whatever, except I do think it's offensive to the sponsor.

Yeah. It would be like Tim Kaine introducing the one in the Senate, I think. I mean, I guess it gets, again, this deference to institutions that Republicans will lean on, because it is from her district, which this school is, so I guess we should let her do it. But again, it is one of those things where, I mean, she is an absolute anarchist. She is tearing down everything in our country.

I agree with you. I just don't think she believes anything that's in her, in the resolution, to be honest. Yeah. Alright, make integrity great again. Let's end it on that. Alright, as I said, we have some specials coming this weekend, so tomorrow we have a special episode of The Deep about what happened in Minnesota. We also have the celebration coming to your inbox on Sunday about the canonization, and we will be back here on Monday, Pogo, me, Josh, all together, to tell you why people are being arrested in the UK for saying that Men should not be in women's bathrooms.

Very exciting stuff. Thank you to our sponsor, Home Title Lock, and everyone should go check out that deal before it expires, and so make sure that you're supporting them. Anything else we need to promote, Josh? Champions Club, thank you to our champions. Check out the deep from yesterday. And check out the deep from yesterday. I totally forgot about that because my brain's dead. You could have a very, just a completely deep. Saturday tomorrow, just listening to those episodes. Very, very, okay, okay, Celine's going to play it.

All right, this is a great intro. Tonight, the information superhighway, and one of its main thoroughfares, an online network called Internet. And what about this Internet thing? Do you know anything about that? Sure. What the hell is that exactly? The variety on the Internet is one of its most incredible aspects, and there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of neat things you can do on it. The Internet gave us a whole world of exciting news. Possibilities. So, I guess this is a story of how it changed our lives.

Maybe it will yours, too. Oh, my God. Is it just me or is the Internet getting worse? Fifteen years ago. Yep, that's a great intro. Simon, you nailed it. It's not just you. It's not just you. You're not crazy, so watch that and find out why. But as always, we're going to close in prayer, ask the Lord, especially to bless the missionaries of charity in our country and around the world on this feast of their founder, and bring many more young women and men, too.

There's a male chapter of the order as well, so bring many more vocations to them and their great work. so let's end in prayer in the name of the father son and holy spirit amen hail bright star of ocean god's own mother blessed ever sinless virgin gate of heavenly rest taking that sweet ave which from gabriel came peace confirmed within us changing ava's name break the captives fetters light on blindness poor all our ills expelling every bliss implore show thyself a mother may the word divine you Born for us, thy infant, hear our prayers through thine.

Virgin all-excelling, mildest of the mild, freed from guilt, preserve us, pure and undefiled. Keep our life, all spotless, make our way secure, till we find in Jesus joy forevermore. Through the highest heaven to the Almighty Three, Father, Son, and Spirit, one same glory be. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Mother Teresa, pray for us, and we will see you on the next LOOPcast. Have a great weekend.