Deadly Church Shooting in MI, Bishops Rally Behind Paprocki, And Shutdown Looming?

We're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. The LOOPcast is brought to you by The Loop, every Catholic American's favorite morning newsletter. It really is. We've got a great show ahead for you guys today. I already see some St. Mucks. Michael's in the chat. Completely agree. My goodness. I don't think I've prayed to St. Michael more in my entire life than I have been recently. So, today's show, we're going to be covering that deadly shooting in Grand Blake, Michigan.

Close to heart for me. I grew up in Michigan. So, we're going to be covering that in its entirety, what we know now. So, federal troops being sent over to Portland. I'm going to get into that situation. I did a little bit of digging on Portland, and it's crazier than you could have possibly imagined. Erika, you spent some time in D.C. over the weekend. I did. You were actually on the speaker's balcony, so.

Let's just say the influence grows day by day. There's a federal shutdown potentially coming up, and Erika got all the details from, of course, Tinfoil Tom, our favorite DC insider. And then, of course, good news, Twilight Zone. We're going to keep it light. We're going to give you good information. That's what we do here at the LOOPcast. So, before we get to that, Josh, you're wearing purple today.

I believe there's a story behind that. Yeah, well, it is Michael Moss, the Feast of the Archangels, and so in the great epic battle in heaven, where Michael, down near the archangels, the second to last row of all the different choirs of angels, and Lucifer's way at the top of the seraphim, he's in like the front row, and he grabs Lucifer by the scruff of his neck, throws him out of heaven, and Lucifer, as we now call him, Satan, lands in a brush of blackberries.

And spits on him on his way down to hell. And that is why blackberries taste sour after the feast of... It is true. That is the reason. Wow. If you do not pick your blackberries before Michaelmas, they are going to taste sour, and they do... When you eat them late, they taste really sour. That is true. That is some sick lore. So, purple for... You wear purple on St. Michael's feast day in honor of the... To recognize the blackberries and what Miguel did.

Get the devil out of heaven. And, of course, two-thirds of the angels and all that stuff stayed, one-third left. Those are the evil spirits of problem among the world seeking to ruin the souls, and that is why we need to invoke our not only own guardian angels, but St. Michael the Archangel to defend us in battle. So, that is why we were, you know, this was one of the reasons why I wanted to start this Novena at the St. Michael four years ago.

We have been doing it every year here at Catholic. But I had a friend of mine at church who goes, you know something? Those prayers were so good, and I think, Erika, you had a lot of reason to deal with that, if I'm not mistaken. He goes, these prayers are so good, you should pray them every month. Yeah. I said, hey, listen, I will recommend that. So, Brian, I have heard your, this is a different Brian, not Brian Burks. Brian, I've heard your call, and I'm telling everyone on the LOOPcast, by the way, those great prayers, that Novena prayers, here's a little secret, you can do it every month.

You can do it whenever you want. You don't have to wait for the feast. Hey, and I actually had someone ask. They were like, you know, we tried to pray it with my kids because we wanted to pray the Novena as a family, and it was just a little too intense for the kids because some of the intentions are, you know, it's pretty graphic. You know, this is an intense time for kids. We actually have a family-friendly, kid-friendly version over on Refine.

So, if you want one you can do with small children, check out refinelife.co, not .com. And you can get the prayers for the kid-friendly version. All right. Nice. That's excellent. Josh got his old mic back. I don't even know. There's a couple audio engineers that listen to this show that are very frustrated. They say my mic isn't that good right now? Yeah, no, Josh is as good as it's going to be. I think it's the Eddie mic. I think I bumped it against this thing, so maybe, can you hear me better now, guys?

Come on, boys, let me know. All right, all right. Erika, Erika, okay, we got to get into the news. Erika, why is my skin glowing today? Your skin is radiant. And balmy with tallow. It is challenging to foster healthy and radiant skin that looks as good as Pogo's in a world full of synthetic chemicals and toxins. Wouldn't it be nice to find nourishing ingredients from God's own creation, sourcing their ingredients from Israel to Italy to the ancient Jechshain seabed, which is north of the Netherlands, by the way, Nazareth organics, handcrafts, facial moisturizers, sunscreens, diaper creams, and more.

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Awesome. All right, I say we get into it. Some really sad news coming out of Michigan. I'm going to pull up the footage here. It's really shocking. We have a church, Mormon Church on Fire, Grand Blanc, Michigan. I'll play some of the footage while I give you some details here. It's 1025, September 28th, 2025. Gunman drove his vehicle straight into a Church of Latter-day Saints church while... Sunday services were underway. He then unleashed gunfire with what officials say was an assault rifle, and the investigators believe he also intentionally set fire to the church building.

The gunman attack left at least four people dead and eight injured. The suspect shooter has been identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40 years old, from Burton, Michigan. Authorities say Sanford used his vehicle to ram into the church at about 1025 a.m. local time, then began shooting. Investigators believe that this fire was deliberately set by the subject. He eventually, I believe, I am not sure if he killed himself or if someone killed him. He was taken out of law enforcement. Yeah, he was taken out.

So, he is no longer alive. About the subject, he was a former Marine, having served from 2004 to 2008, including deployments to Iraq. He reportedly left the service with a rank of sergeant and was awarded honors such as Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. So, currently, the Michigan State Police, assisted local responders, and the FBI and ATF are now part of the investigation. The U.S. Attorney General's Office is treating this as an act of targeted violence.

We have Caroline Levitt. I have her press conference here. I can play this clip. FBI director, all they know right now, from what I understand based on my conversations with the FBI director, all they know right now is this was an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith, and they are trying to understand more about this, how premeditated it was, how much planning went into it, whether he left a note. All of those questions have yet to be answered, but certainly will be answered by the FBI.

That's what we know right now. You know... I don't understand, but one thing I will say is that I know that the Church of Latter-day Saints, along with a lot of Catholic churches, too, says, you know, prohibits people from concealed carry.

Like, at this point, I'd rather be at a parish where a lot of dads are packing heat in case some psycho like this comes in, you know? Sorry, that's a thing in all Catholic churches? Not all of them, but like... It's very frequently, yeah, you'll see it in Catholic churches where they'll put a sign saying, you know, don't bring any guns into the church. We're not the only ones. I mean, the Mormons are very clear about that, and a lot of other churches will have that prohibition.

And I just, you know, like, look, I mean, I'd love to be able to think that we'd be safe at a place like a house of worship or whatever, but unfortunately, as we've been tracking it at CatholicVote.org, there's been well over 500 attacks just on Catholic churches alone.

Since 2020, and we're not the only ones. There was the synagogue in Pittsburgh, now this Mormon church in Grand Blanc, Michigan. So, it's happening all over, and it's really despicable. It's wickedly evil. I mean, I just, my brain has a hard time kind of comprehending it, that you would just, a bunch of people are gathered together in peace and praying, even if you don't like their beliefs, and you're going to run your truck in and then just start opening fire on people and sitting on fire.

I mean, it's just, I don't know. It's a kind of evil that, you know, my friend pointed out from St. Matthew's Gospel, 1721. This kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting, and so I would just encourage more and more people, especially when we think about today, we have invoked St. Michael's protection against violence against churches.

I really do ask people to consider devoting more time for prayer and more time for fasting, because this is a real wickedness that we've seen unfold over the last, really it's picked up over the last five years. Not that it's never happened before, but we've seen an unparalleled spike in violence against people who are just going to church. Like, what is going on? Like, church, I mean, it's one thing. Disgusting that when you spray paint a statue, that is really just grossly offensive, but actually shooting people in churches.

We had that whack job in South Carolina who did it about 10 years ago. We are seeing this rise. I think it is very reasonable to say. Political leaders of all parties should condemn in the strongest terms possible and say, you know, it's almost like, is there something like an anti-religious strain going on in our country? I mean, and it goes across all types. I mean, like you said, Jewish, Mormon, Christian, Catholic, all of them.

Yeah, I think there's sort of two threads that are at play here, and one of them, of course, is the spiritual warfare. That we see and that we acknowledge today with the Feast of the Archangels, that there are periods in time when God allows, He has a permissive will for the forces of evil to gain ascendancy and to be on the rise, and this is when Catholics go to our knees in prayer and fasting. At the same time, we're also political creatures, and we've watched the last five years, the four years of the Biden administration in particular, but also...

In the Obama administration. This permissiveness, right? We saw the DOJ, the FBI ignoring, CatholicVote has been tracking these attacks since 2020, since the George Floyd riots, and then amping up since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade. And what do you see in the Cato Institute report, the ADL, the SPLC? These attacks don't count as violence. They don't count in their trackers. When it's manifest violence, and our Department of Justice had turned a blind eye to it. They wouldn't even acknowledge that it was happening.

And we sent them letters. We sent letters to the Attorney General. We communicated with their office all the time, like under the Biden administration, like, do something about it. You know, do something about what's going on to these Catholic churches. And then what their response was, yeah, we'll start spying on them. Right, right. And nothing, yeah, nothing, that permissive culture there, even if they're not directly saying like, oh, yeah, go out and attack Catholic churches, which they didn't.

Well, it sends a signal to people who are crazy and on the margins that this is permitted, this is acceptable, we're not going to follow up on this with you, so I think both of those threads are true. The left talked about Catholics taking over the Supreme Court all the way back from 2006 when Alito was up for confirmation, and then they built that pressure, and then Schumer, all that stuff, the whirlwind's coming for you, and then what happened? Somebody actually tried to kidnap.

Kavanaugh like this kind of you know but like you keep bringing this up like you know the Catholics are trying to get rid of Roe v. Wade you know and I was like oh and then then we saw this spike in attacks on churches I'm not saying that was all of it that had to have been fueled some of it change and all that kind of stuff right and just culturally too when it comes to Mormonism I know that the the great the late Russell Nelson who also died last week so the Church of Latter-day Saints he he said we shouldn't be called Mormons anymore but Well, colloquially and affectionately, I'm going to say Mormon.

Yeah, no disrespect. Yeah, no disrespect. It's really not. It's really not. But culturally, we call Catholicism the last acceptable cultural prejudice, bigotry, right? That it's still okay to, you know, in every, we make a joke in our family, if we're watching like a murder mystery, and there's a Catholic priest comes on the screen, we're like, oh, guilty. He's the one. You just know, or like a woman holding a rosary, like, yep, she's a murderer. Straight white man somewhere is going to be responsible.

Yeah, straight white man, yeah. And you think of the Mormonism. It's going to be Josh. Josh would be guilty, yeah, for sure. Oh my gosh, yeah. But Mormonism, too. I mean, you think about the, what is that, Book of Mormon, Book of Mormon musical is absolutely awful. It treats them vilely, and it's one of the most popular shows on Broadway in the last 20 years. You also have attacks on Mormon. I was watching a Netflix show on American history, American Primeval.

The Mormons are just... painted as the blackest, most, you know, dark, not black people, but like the most evil people out in the West, like killing Native Americans, killing settlers, killing, I mean, they're just painted very, there is some historical, okay. No, no, no, but I mean, I just, I think some of the, well, I mean, I'm not going to get into that. Like, the reason why Mormons had to keep moving West in the 19th century is because of There are beliefs on polygamy.

They've gotten rid of that, like 99% of the most part. The reason why they're attacked today, like you said, the Broadway musical, yeah, that's because Mormons, in general, are better practitioners of their faith than Catholics have been, and if you want to be able to make fun of somebody who's trying to be good and holy and pious and not sex-saturated, then you attack Mormons. In fact, that's kind of like a major compliment that they... That the deviants of the sexual revolution hate you the most.

It used to be the Catholics that they'd pick on for that, because we were the ones during the 60s and 70s who were trying to hold the line against the sexual revolution, and now a lot of the people in our pews have succumbed to the sexual revolution. Yeah, I mean, many Catholic churches are pretty much indiscernible from modern culture, secular culture now, which is a sad reality. I think it's like, um... Because I'm thinking about how to even approach this really quick.

I want to make sure I'm clear. I'm complimenting the Mormons. Yeah, no, I have a lot of respect for Mormons, and I went out to Utah for my honeymoon, and I was blown away going to Brigham Young University. Like, 98% of that university is Mormon. It's hard to even wrap my mind around that being possible. Like, I went to Ave Maria. It was 80% Catholic, and there was only 1,000 kids. So, you're saying me 38,000 of these kids are Mormon is just crazy.

I mean, if anything, it's a compliment. For sure. The piety and uniformity. But I think there's two really practical things going on here. One... So, as we know, Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. I mean, that's something that we profess every day on this podcast. So, we do know the ending, and again, only you have the power to give up your soul. So, I think with all these events going on, two things come to mind. Immediately, you need to have your house in order.

Like, part of being Christian is that your life could be commanded from you, and you don't know when it is. And I think I'm just speaking as a young man. To have my family and my personal house in order is the most important thing. The sad reality is we've lived through, if you look at history, how many times was a complete open season on Christians? I'm not saying it is now. It's starting to feel like it, but there was a time where there was literally government-sanctioned killing of Christians, and St.

Paul took part of it before he converted. I mean, we historically live in one of the safest, most prosperous times ever in human history. In some ways, I think that's kind of made us soft. As though, like, we're going to live forever, or that our sins don't actually mean what they do. I think people were acutely aware of how their sin affected people in their own salvation, their own lives, when they knew people that were dying. And in the West, we just don't know, and that's why we have this kind of spiritual decay.

So, that's one. Two, especially as a young man, like, you have a responsibility for your family's safety, and our Second Amendment rights exist for a reason. It's not just to protect yourself, but also your family, also your property, and then against government tyranny as well. And I think at a very personal level, Joshua, bringing it up here, I highly encourage, now's the time, if you're a young man and you're thinking about it, you should learn how to safely operate, carry, and store a firearm, because truly, that is the best, most effective way to defend yourself and your family as times get stranger and stranger.

You probably have a good gun store around the corner. Many people are really excited to teach you how to do it properly. There's these myths that guns just go off by themselves. They don't. So, I just think it was honestly a profound and sobering moment for me when I first became a gun owner and then learned how to operate one, learn how to safely use it, take it apart, clean it, store it, because it gave me a new sense of responsibility when I carry when I'm out.

It's sobering. You're almost not the same in a way, but it's good. You become mature. You realize the stakes. You realize what's possible. The reality is more things have been happening, and at the end of the day, you have personal agency, and it's up to you. So, I highly recommend, especially for young men and women, too. I even saw some women in the chat carry. Highly recommend that. You learn how to do that effectively. There's plenty of small guns that you can fit, say, in a purse or in your person.

I'm very passionate about that. I feel like it makes me feel a lot safer and more in control, and that it can also be kind of a service to my community as well, because I think about this often when I'm attending Mass, especially after Minnesota, now after this. So, I don't think there needs to be a complete despondency. It's like, one, always have the house in order, and two, there are ways that you can be prepared to step in in situations like this, and that's just the reality of living where we do now, and there's pros and cons to that.

I'm not saying to wallow in the defeat. I actually want to address in a deep, like, we're coming here with this news, and I was going through today, and I was like, oh, I got to deliver more bad news, more bad news, and I want to give a lot of credit. We had a deacon give a great homily. I was really curious where this was going to go over the weekend, and he was just talking about the business model behind stoking rage in people and the way that information is presented, especially by social media companies, and it's not.

I think it's good to be aware, and it's good to be civically aware, of course, but there's a point of diminishing returns where you're just constantly pulling the lottery and seeing what comes into your for-you feed, and you're letting, in some ways, I think if you wallow in it, you let your domestic, like if you think about your body and your family as the domestic church, like at the smallest.

The smallest cell of that, and if you're just letting things come in that damage that, you're just kind of like rolling the dice to see what's going to come in, and it's like, oh, this is another bombing, oh, this is another shooting, whatever. Like, that type of wear on your soul I don't think is super positive, so I think my final suggestion to handling news like this is taking it, understanding, and not wallowing in it, and putting up really, use technology as a tool, and not allow it to become a symbiosis kind of part of yourself, because I mean, the emotional rollercoaster that comes with that is not super healthy for anyone, so that would be...

Amen. Yeah, I don't know. I'm personally disturbed by it, but it's like, you got to keep it pushing, honestly. Like, if my wife's coming to me about this stuff, she's not even super news savvy, or she kind of leaves it to me. She listens to the podcast. Thank you. But, yeah, I don't know. It's getting out further than just, like, dudes who really want to be a part of the news, I guess. I think that comes with...

Positives and negatives, but you have to handle it properly. Yeah, that's a good deal. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of bad news, but we're trying to help Catholics discern what's going on in the news and to make light of it and to see what we can do. Obviously, prayer fasts, be vigilant, find ways to protect your family.

But I just want to also say, you know, to... You know, we certainly join all the Mormons in prayer. I mean, we mourn with them, because an attack on any house of prayer is an attack on all of us, and that is the last thing we want. We don't want to ever see this ever happen again. And if I could just stop everyone right now, take a moment, just pray for the repose of the soul of people who have lost their lives, and for those who are injured in this attack.

It is completely horrific. Yeah, if we could do one positive, because it is hard to feel powerless in these moments, but just offer a prayer for the reposed soul of the four that lost their lives in Grand Blanc, Michigan, and their families.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Amen. All right, Erika, before we get into the next section. All right. Speaking of crazy things amping up in the United States, did you know that American homeowners have over $32 trillion in equity, and criminals are targeting it with a growing scam the FBI calls house stealing? Scammers can transfer your title out of your name using a one-page document they file at the county.

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Excellent. Okay. Other major news. We have federal troops on their way to Portland. I believe they actually arrived in this protest last night. So, getting through the readout here. Portland, Oregon. Portland, Oregon. Yes, as opposed to where? Where's the other Portland? Portland, Maine. I thought Maine is a big city.

It is. They could probably use some federal troops. I mean, actually, the reason they decided to name the city Portland, Oregon, Portland, Oregon, there are two guys that flipped the coin. It was going to be either Portland or the other. If the coin had gone the other way, it would have been. It is called Boston, Oregon.

Oh, that's kind of cool. That we would add to Lawson's. All right, but it's Portland. Portland it is. September 27, 2025, President Donald Trump announced via True Social his directive to employ U.S. troops to Portland, Oregon, to protect federal immigration and customs enforcement facilities from what he described as, quote, under siege situation by Antifa and other domestic terrorists. He authorized the use of full force if necessary, escalating concerns over domestic military involvement. This marks the fourth such deployment to a major U.S.

city in 2025. This follows Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and as of recent, Memphis. And, I mean, I think it's time, guys. I was going through the timeline here. I really cannot believe. So, how bad is it in Portland? So, I went to, I was really trying to.

I was trying to be fair to all sides here, because I just personally, when I hear Oregon, I think it's gone really downhill. I think of Antifa. I think of the riots. I think of BLM. I think of a kind of drugged-up downtown. I know that they authorized... And it's both Portland and Seattle that are like this. Both of them are kind of crazy. Northwest, man. So, I was really trying my best to understand it and be partial to all sides here, but I went to the Oregonian, which is, I don't think, a conservative outlet.

No, no. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Exactly. So, we have how ICE protests have unfolded in Portland from June till now. I didn't even know they were going on since June. Yes, they have. Here's some interesting dates I have for you guys. This is a town that perpetually protests, bro. There's always a protest.

It's what they do on Friday nights. Dude, I'm from the Midwest, bro. In Indiana, this is not a common thing. Is this just an internet fantasy going on? What's actually going on? I've not been to Portland. I have no plans to visit.

We have, due to Oregon's sanctuary law, so this is just table stakes, no state or local enforcement agencies are allowed to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, okay? So, that's just the baseline. June 8th to June 13th, Portland police clear a barricade of protesters that had set up in front of the ICE building. So, you would think... Awesome. Okay, that's good. This is a good start. Okay. The next day, Police Chief Bob Day says officers will no longer help clear barricades and, quote, will not be engaging with any kind of perceived or actual support of vans or transports or anything of that nature.

So, immediately apologizes. Bob, come on. Who got to Bob? Immediately apologizes. The City Council, I'm guessing. And then, later, June 24th, Portland Police Chief tells members of the Portland City Council that his agency is looking for ways to scale back its policing of ICE. Protests. The same night, a Portland police team observing a protest says in a debrief, if it were not ICE, we would assist directly. I'm going to repeat that. The same night, a Portland police team observing a protest said in a debrief, if it were not ICE, we could assist directly, according to a police activity vlog.

Again, not a conservative outlet. It's basically putting them on blast for not helping. I wasn't aware that the police could choose when or for whom to enforce the law. I thought they just were supposed to enforce the law. Only in Portland. Okay. July 4th, a large protest outside of an ICE facility leads to four more arrests on federal charges, bringing the number of federal authorities have arrested to 22. So, 22 people have been arrested already. Portland police monitor the protest from an airplane, and bike officers remind protesters that they can't set off fireworks and don't make any arrests as federal officers and protesters clash.

Now, I was like, what? Bike officers? Yeah, bike officers are going around telling people, what's up? I'm going to be a good old thumbs down on bike officers. I'm afraid to be on a horse. Well, I wonder if the bike officers, what did they do about this? So, here's footage, and I think it might be explicit, unfortunately. Here are protesters outside of an ICE facility rolling out a guillotine.

And I don't know if this is going to get copyrighted, but the song is We Got the Guillotine, You Better Run, with a bunch of masked people outside, guillotined right outside the ICE agency right here. Oh my gosh.

And I'm not even sure if they get dispersed. They lit something on fire. I mean, this is just an average night in Portland, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, turns out a guillotine, it's... That's pretty, that's really bad. I'm sorry. I mean, it's almost like the left does this all the time. Yeah. I mean, I know that ICE is doing a lot of bonuses right now to get more people to join ICE, but like, and I'm 48, so I'm just too young to do this anymore, but if they were looking for people to be, you know, part of ICE just to be able to Let's say, deal with this crowd.

Boy, that is an enterprise. They keep running ads on NFL football games. I think I was listening on Chicago Affiliate, and they'd be like, Chicago, you swore an oath. If you're a Chicago police officer, you can actually do that oath if you join us. It's awesome.

I'm a fan of enforcing the law. Oh, I'm lost. Bye, Tom. See you later. ICE took me out. No, I'm actually a fan of law and order and enforcing the law, so my bias, I'm going to be up front here, is law and order and ICE. Well, and it's crazy how Gavin Newsom is trying to push through this. Is it a bill in California or an order in California to force ICE agents to take their masks off? And you're like, okay, this is precisely why.

That guillotine being rolled out in front of the ICE facility. And the Antifa mob saying, look out, we've got the guillotine. That is exactly why ICE agents have to keep their faces covered. I mean, they have been doxxed. Their addresses have been published on websites calling for people to go to their houses and intimidate them, if not worse.

And meanwhile, Gavin's like... Law enforcement has to show their faces, but you don't see him having any orders requiring Antifa protesters to take off their masks. Oh, it must be like rules for thee, but not for me again. What do you think the Oregon governor is doing amidst guillotines being rolled out in front of federal buildings? Let me guess, condemning ICE. No, wrong, dude. Here she is. Governor Kotick.

President Trump's inconceivable insistence that we need federal troops in Portland does not address the real concerns in our communities. We do not need or want federal troops in Oregon, stoking fear, creating conflict. Frankly, escalating a situation that is under control. What? Any federal takeover with military troops in our state is a threat to communities across Oregon.

It violates our right to govern ourselves. It interferes with local law enforcement's ability to fulfill their mission. And, frankly, it drains taxpayer resources that could be better spent elsewhere. And, again, I communicated that to the president directly. Oregon is our home. It is not a military target. Okay. You know, Josh, I have a service that I can provide here. I was trying to go into, well, are they governing? I'm just going to get in front of this. This is the ultimate win-win for Trump.

He's going after one of the worst run cities in the country. I have all the stats in front of me. Not great. And if he does it and it gets bad, it's like, see, I told you so. You needed federal.

Forces. If he does it, and then nothing happens, he gets to claim, I just made. Exactly right. It's like, it's the ultimate win-win. This might be the favorite, my favorite initiative of the Trump administration so far. It's just like, you go into the worst places in the country, and it's a win-win.

Why is Portland in decline? I was looking up a little bit of this. The city spent $724 million on homeless services, but homelessness rose 20% year over year. The Multnomah County's 2025 point-in-time count showed a 12% increase in visible encampments, with residents reporting assaults near campus. This is a 2025 beating, two blocks from City Hall. Um, the, there's been a drug crisis because of Oregon's Measure 110, which has been slightly rolled back, that's how bad it was, but it decriminalized small amounts of hard drugs like fentanyl and meth, aiming for treatment over jail.

Instead, it fueled open-air markets downtown. Overdose deaths hitting 700-plus in 2024, up 50% from pre-2020 levels. Uh, there's an economic doom loop, I think they're calling it. The metro area lost 10,000 jobs in 2024. This is amid national growth. Uh, the population dropped for the third straight year. Downtown office... I also saw that the mayor is approving an initiative to build a bridge between buildings downtown so that they wouldn't have to walk on the streets because the streets are so bad.

Not usually a good thing. I love it. It's all under control. Yeah. Nicholas Kristof, the esteemed columnist for the New York Times, said, President Trump has dispatched federal troops to what he calls war-ravaged Portland. Portland has its problems, but it's not the hell Trump claims. It remains a food and wine heaven. He continues, hell does not serve.

I can't do it. Come on, Josh, finish the sentence. Hell does not serve Pinot Noir this good. Oh, no. That is so classic Nero on the golden violin. I mean, my friend Mark Hemingway, by the way, you should all follow Mark Hemingway on Twitter. He's like one of my favorites, and he's just hitting it out of the ballpark. He said, if you asked the finest satirist of our age to parody boomer liberalism, you could not have done better than, hell does not serve, Benoit Noir.

Did you see the picture posted by the senator? Like, Trump says this is a war zone. Does this look like a war zone? And it was a picture of a park somewhere in Portland. Like a little playground somewhere tucked away in a pool. It's a patch of turf. Yeah, right. And then someone sent a picture like, this is a picture from Fallujah that I took, and it was like a nice sunset in Fallujah.

Oh, man. Oh, you're laughing. You're crying. I mean, I tell you that, you know, if you ask me, what does the governor of Oregon look like? I mean, wow, talk about blowing a spirit tap. That's exactly what Tom said this morning. I did. I had to say it. I'm sorry. That's such a lowbrow take, but it's true. I mean, such a lowbrow take, but I could have drawn you a picture before you told me, before she came out.

This is so embarrassing. Sorry, I know we have to be constructive on the show. We can't just make fun of... This is so embarrassing. What is... You are trying to score political points over addressing serious problems, including people killing themselves with drugs, people being assaulted in the streets, and juvenile antifa networks doxing people trying to do their job, when you know that someone just shot into an ICE facility in Texas, and that people are openly encouraging. It's like, if you were to create evil in a lab, and just sign off on politics to have the average person suffer, it's complete derelict of duty.

I don't even understand what this is. But I just want to commend President Trump. Because five years ago, during the summer of love, in which George Floyd died and people decided to burn down the town I was born in, that was kind of cool.

So, we had riots all over the country, right? And Donald Trump, you know, this was him when he was more Machiavellian. He's like, he's probably thinking, so I'll let these cities burn, because then everyone will see the Democrats, this is the way they do business, and they'll realize that it's better to be with me. I'm glad he decided to jettison all that. Yeah. No, you don't just let cities burn. You don't just let crime fester. You don't just allow encampments in cities like Portland.

You have to reestablish. You have to be there for the people in that city of Portland or Memphis. You need to be there for them, and it's hilarious as the media would go around to these people in Memphis. They'd interview all these citizens on the street. Yeah, men on the street. Men and black women are like, yeah, no, this is great. We think this is great. And they're like, the media's like, wait, what? They're doing it in Portland now, too, because the police intentionally don't enforce.

The noise ordinance, because they're blasting speakers at the ICE facility all night long, and the residents are getting mad. They're like, we can't sleep, because you guys are acting like angry teenagers, blasting music. It's like, this is just, everything's wrong about it. That's why liberalism in the United States, I mean, in the 1940s, 1920s, 1960s, whatever, it might have looked different, but right now, liberalism in this country is absolutely full of bullies. That is what they do. They shout you down, they call you words, they call you names, and they try to invoke this moral high ground, and really, they are just bullies, and it is good to see that they be put in their place.

They are not the little guy. No, I completely agree. Bring on the troops. All right, on to good news now. Erika, you're up. I had a great trip to D.C. I got to see what Portland could become if the National Guard is able to do its job.

Lots of National Guard troops. It was the first time I've ever been to Union Station, and it didn't stink terribly outside. Encampments are gone. No one was burning flags by the Columbus statue. It was great. My eight-year-old in particular. The guards in particular took great joy in running up to National Guard troops and saluting very badly and saying, thank you for your service. And the guards are like, oh, you're welcome. So, it was really fun. I figured they get enough stuff thrown at them.

They should have someone make them smile. I have to give a shout out to- You weren't in a head maiden outfit at all? Okay. Oh, yeah. I had a couple of run-ins with LOOPcast fans, which was super cool, and my kids will never let me forget it. And of course, we were at the Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage. I have some- If you want to throw that up, there was no sound on the screen. Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage at the National Shrine of Immaculate Conception at CUA's campus was amazing.

The Basilica, which seat thousands, was completely packed, overflowing. It felt like the Mark of My Life Mass. I would highly recommend. They're going to do it next year on September 26th. It is worth a pilgrimage to D.C. to go to this event, and there was a Hillbilly Thomas concert that night. Awesome.

So, there were Catholics there, and you run into a few people who are like, oh, are you on LOOPcast? And that's really cool, so shout out to everyone that I met there. I'm terrible with names, I'm sorry, but there is one name that I remember that stuck out, because it wasn't at this event.

On our first day of the trip, we went to Mount Vernon, and the volunteer, the man checking us in, his name is Pete. Shout out to Pete. He finishes giving my kids their adventure maps, and he leans over. This is our first stop on the whole trip. Are you Erika? I'm like, who's asking?

Yeah, right. I see you on Catholic boat. He loves you, Mercer. Loves you, Pogo. He says I'm the civilizing influence. So, shout out, Pete, a volunteer at Mount Vernon. Yeah, but Erika, you've got to tell about the correction that was offered to Mercer from another fan. Oh, and then, no offense to Pete, but I met another LOOPcast fan. Shout out Sister Mary Angela of the Nashville Dominicans, who I ran into at the convent that's adjacent to campus, and she said that she loves Josh.

Josh never compromises on the truth, but you've got to clean up your language a little bit. From a nun, dude. If it's from a nun, you've got to do it. Sister Mary Angela, one of the holiest women I've ever met. But, we have Nashville Dominicans listening in, so. All right, sister, I love you.

All right, sick. Josh, good news. So, I mean, I'm passionately in favor of school choice, and, you know, the Wall Street Journal did this big story. About Arizona, the epicenter of school choice, because they passed it a few years ago, and in fact, the horrible pro-abortion so-called Catholic governor is trying to get rid of it, but she can't just yet.

And they say public schools battle an existential crisis. Educators are trying to fight back against what's happening. Fallen enrollments, because parents, given the choice, are picking better private schools, and they're like, well, what do we do? What do we do? And so, they mimic the advice that the restaurant industry did when they were faced with a big crisis, focus on customer service, actually try to appeal to parents. I love it. That is the point. What a concept.

That is what we want. That is good. Also, did you see, I think that whoever was responding, yeah, go for it. Real quick, just one little added coda. This is right for the article itself. School leaders emphasize that the best marketing tool isn't advertising, but... Quality schools. Advocates for school choice say that competition pushes public schools to up their game, which some Arizona educators acknowledged. Whoa.

What have we been saying forever? This should have been your Twilight Zone. That's amazing. It's such good news, though. It is. I saw that the superintendent that was responsible for the Mississippi Miracle, which, by the way, Mississippi is big time overperforming everyone on how to read based on teaching. Yeah, it used to be 50. Yeah, I mean, that is Mississippi Miracle. I don't think it's talked about enough. I mean, it is. It's not just that Mississippi went from the worst reading state in the country.

They didn't just go back to average, which would have been. Everyone thought that was good. Right, they went to the top. They were like the fourth best in the country. You know, all these hillbillies and hicks out in Mississippi, and I know that not to be true. You know how they did it, Tom?

They taught them how to read properly and help people back. They abandoned everything that the United States Department of Education recommended. They scrapped it and threw it out, and they started over. Let us actually grade schools and how well they are actually teaching their kids.

Yeah, Erika, you know about this more specifically, but what was cool about it was the superintendent from Mississippi was actually brought out to Maryland to help teach them on how to do the same thing. So, I actually see positives all around here, right? Because I actually do have a couple of public school teachers. That email, and every time we talk about this, they're like, you guys hate on public schools, and it sounds terrible. We want them to be better. I would love great education all around, and actually, that's my take to die on is, just because you're homeschooled doesn't mean you should be not showing up at your school board meeting for your local area, because everyone should be entitled to get education.

And it doesn't happen if you go Benedict Option, and you leave, and then you let the vacuum go crazy, and then the good teachers that are in the public school that are trying their best have no support. It's just bad all around. Like, we need to address this system collectively. And it's not like we're giving a free pass on private education, but the thing is, usually when private schools underperform and they fail, they just close down, and no one goes there anymore, whereas you have, what is it, 59 public schools in the city of Chicago where they had not a single student who could read.

What's that level? And then Chromebooks end up in Afghanistan somehow. Oh, right. That's one of my favorite stories is they're like, oh, we'll give them Chromebooks. That'll solve that occasion. And then they found them in Ukraine. You're like, how is this even possible? Anyway, total side tangent. I'll do a quick good news, because I really want to get into your findings there, Erika. Oh, yeah. Mine was just, you know, come on, Tim Allen, the best, you know? Look at Tim Allen here.

I just saw a really nice story, and I know a lot of people felt similarly about Erika Kirk, the forgiving. Tim Allen shared on social media, I've struggled for over 60 years to forgive the man who killed my dad. I will say these words now as I type, I forgive the man who killed my father. Because of Erika Kirk's testimony, which I thought was really nice.

The Charlie Kirk effect. Charlie Kirk effect, I think, continues in ways unseen, and really, again, the Lord works in mysterious ways. What a horrific event. If this causes more events like this, and reckonings... I will say that that event truly has had... I had a conversation with someone who, like, you know, not very religious, starting to ask me questions, and this is someone I'm like, I'm good friends with, and I was like, I just, you know, kind of encourage when I can, but we'll see what happens.

Like, yeah, I'm like really thinking about going to church. Like, this is something I want for my kids one day, I want for my family, and like, whoa, that's crazy. Crazy. So, happy to see that. Happy to see more of that. Okay, C-block. Erika, I really want to know what's going on here. So, I know you're in D.C., and I keep hearing about the shutdown looming, and there's all these kind of like... chess moves going on. So, if you could just set the stage for me, the government might shut down, and what's the chess game going on?

Okay, and this is actually really interesting. I know that budgets can sometimes feel boring, but this story actually kind of got me going here. So, there is a possible potential advertised meeting this afternoon at the White House with the four biggies from Congress. We've got Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries from the Democrats, and we've got Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator John Thune. From the Republican side supposedly coming together with Donald Trump because... Congress is about to drive us over the cliff again.

The world's going to end, and on Wednesday, there will be a government shutdown, unless they can do something. It is unlikely, however, they will be able to get anything done, because unlike back in March, when this same drama happened, and we passed the continuing resolution to keep spending levels even, this time, Chuck Schumer seems to have veered to the left and listened to the progressives of his party. They have refused... To agree to the stopgap measure offered by Republicans to extend, again, federal funding into November.

So, the Republicans have offered what they call a clean continuing resolution. It just extends funding at the levels that were actually established under President Biden, according to my research, for seven more weeks so that there can be more negotiations. But again, that is a fair point. In exchange for votes to keep the government open this time, Democrats are demanding a renewal of Obamacare subsidies, more money for Medicaid, and a reversal of spending cuts.

From the big, beautiful bill. In total, an additional $1.5 trillion in permanent spending to keep the government open this time. That's a calculation by National Review. New York Times says it's $1 trillion, but what's half a trillion dollars here or there, guys? All right. Without the Democrats backing, Tom was like, well, don't we have the majority? Why can't we just stop them? No, they only have a narrow majority in the Senate. We'll not be able to muster the 60 votes. They need to push through the continuing resolution.

Yeah, just to help people understand that, like, we had that big, you know, one big beautiful bill, which was a reconciliation bill, which basically said, we want to amend an existing budget, and you only need a majority vote for that. But to pass the actual budget itself.

If there is a filibuster, which there would be, you need 60 votes in the Senate, so a simple majority isn't going to get the job done. Correct. And so, what we're seeing here is an imminent government shutdown. There's more details there, but to get to the impact of this, which is where it gets interesting, earlier this week, we got this memo that was given to Politico from Russ Vought's Office of Management and Budget. Did I get that right, or is it Budget Management?

Office of Management and Budget. Russ Vought. The OMB, Russ Vought, and he's basically upping the stakes. So, the Office of Management and Budget. Ramping up preparations. If Congress does not pass a continuing resolution in time, said the memo, many federal programs could face immediate disruption. But this time, instead of just giving them a paid vacation, a furlough, which is what usually happens, he's asking for plans from these different offices for permanent reduction in force notices. Layoffs, baby! Oh, booyah! Thousands. Plus, we cannot allow this.

To derail the Trump administration's priorities, one of which is DOGE, if you would remember DOGE from back in the day. Haven't heard a lot about it lately. So, this would apply to all employees who are tied to budget lines that are not permanently in place. So, there's a lot of flexibility here.

Stephen Miller went on the Ingram show to talk about this strategy a little bit more, but we are definitely looking at… I think I just want to help… Go for it. …a little bit on this. So, I remember when we had the shutdown back in 2013, where Republicans wanted to shut down the government because they wanted to fight Obamacare. Yeah. Okay, but the problem with it was… You know, Democrats controlled everything, and so what could Republicans do? And Ted Cruz was like, ah, but we're going to shut it down.

Eventually, the government's going to get funded. So, this idea that, well, you can't pass it. If you hold the House, then you can shut everything down. You can't. So, ultimately, it just didn't work, and you didn't have enough cards. You weren't playing them well enough, and what ended up happening is, shocker, President Obama's signature legislation, Obamacare, Was not stopped through a government shutdown. Duh. And so, the government continued getting funding. But see, when the government was shut down, when Obama did that shutdown, when that shutdown happened, Obama put the screws on it, and he made it painful.

And so, they actually spent money to ward off the national monument so that, you know, veterans couldn't go see the World War II, you know. Yeah. It's outdoors. You don't need anyone there. Why would you thwart them from going there? But again, he wanted to maximize the pain. And blame Republicans. And blame Republicans for everything. Well, guess what? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. And now you're just going to give Russ Vogt permission to be like, oh, I guess we don't have any funding.

We're going to have to lay off tons of workers. Democrats. Are just really upset at what Trump is doing on immigration, and they think, if we could just shut the government down, then we shut down funding for ICE. And they think that they can do the same thing, and they are just as powerless to be able to do it. You do not have the votes. And so, I think this is going to end very badly for him, and if Schumer is smart, He, you know, the first round, what will happen is the first round of layoffs will come off, and then Schumer will rush to Washington to get a budget passed to prevent OMB and Russ Vogt from doing a lot more of this stuff.

So, you think it will get shut down? I mean, there's what? What do we have? 40 hours? I mean... Yeah, down to 40 hours. But the Senate has to pass... I mean, the House passed the bill already, so the Senate just has to pass it. Okay, so I know you're saying this is dumb, and I think it's dumb, too. But who is advising Democrats on this? Is it good for donations? There's no leader. I like Ted Cruz a lot, okay? But I remember thinking in 2013 when he was like, let's shut down the government over Obamacare, Mike.

It's not going to work. And everyone's like, we just got to be brave. And it's like, no, you're being dumb. Stop it. I love you, but no, shut up. Dumb. That's what AOC is doing on her side. She's like, we got to shut it down. And Schumer's like, oh my gosh, you're such an idiot. Shut up. But he can't, because he's worried about her primarying him for the Senate race. She's polling ahead of him right now for the primary. I checked it this morning.

She's ahead of him. So, he's in a box, you know, he's between a rock and a hard place. And other Democrats, you know, that is the whole thing. Gavin Newsom says, we got to fight. And so... And that is the tone of the party.

The way Gavin Newsom is fighting is by doing a bunch of lawsuits, which may or may not succeed, and he can blame Trump judges if they fail. Actually, many haven't. But this shutdown fight is like a lose-lose for Democrats. So, maybe this is instructive for just, like, understanding politics more broadly. Like, there isn't a...

If you're doing game theory, like, this isn't, for Schumer and the Democrats as a whole, like, a positive move. Like, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't effectively win. I have no idea why they're doing this. But there's more.

It might make sense for individual members of the Democratic Party because they have the luxury of kind of shouting radical from the sidelines in a way that benefits their poll numbers. You are getting it, my friend. You are getting it. AOC is like, she has nothing to lose, right? Because if somehow, miraculously, the government gets shut down for a long time and everyone, she can become the hero. And yeah, we stopped ICE because, you know, Trump. So, is this also helpful for understanding on both sides of the political aisle as well?

Because I know a lot of people get frustrated with Mike Johnson and John Thune because they're speakers and they don't get to say, I know a lot of people really like, who's the guy from Kentucky? Thomas Massey. Like, he basically has the luxury of getting to play that ball, which helps his popularity, but might not exactly get things done in Congress. Like, this probably happens on both sides, I imagine. Right, and Rand Paul is like that, too, as the senator from Kentucky.

But, like, that's what I'm saying. Like, you know, we had a lot of bad rhino leaders in the Republican Party for a long time. You know, we had Paul Ryan. Kevin McCarthy, a lot of these guys. Mike Johnson is one of the better speakers we've had in a while, just in terms of where he sits on the political spectrum. He's pretty darn conservative. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, we have, like in the Senate, we have 53 Republicans, but two of them are pro-abortion lefties, and they vote for us every once in a while.

So, we don't have a big majority, and I hate to say it, but it's like, we need to win the country over. Yeah, I think that's, but maybe that's what I'm getting at, which you might not think is as interesting as I do, because you just, it's all internal for you. But this is more like the gears of power. People might not understand the gears of power. Another good example of this might be, like, whenever they put up a bill, and they load it with, say, three, four other things.

And the first thing is really bad, and you can't vote for it, so people vote against it. But then they're like, oh, you voted against funding for cancer for children. That's the headline. And that eventually trickles down to people, and you're like, oh my gosh, this person is the worst person ever. Well, that's why, in fact, what they've started to do over the last 15 years is that they don't have a bill where they just basically don't allow you to do amendments.

They don't want you to vote on individual provisions, precisely because they're worried about someone plucking up one little vote you made. And running an entire ad campaign and getting you kicked out of office for it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so, you know, what that does, though, is we have, I mean, this country that we have now, it's frustrating, that all that Congress does now is basically pass a budget.

And all lawmaking comes from presidential executive orders. It's not just Trump, it's been that way for the last three cycles, last three presidents. So, So, lawmaking is done by executive order. It is fought in the courts, and that is just a crappy system, but it is because politicians all realized, all the guys we elected to the House and to the Senate realized, well, I am going to have to make some unpopular votes, so let us just allow the filibuster to make it impossible to have any new laws, basically.

I mean, the Lake and Riley Act was sort of a miracle. Laws just do not get passed anymore. It is all just budgets, and then budgets themselves, it is easy to say, well, those insiders worked in the room, the fat cats, the cigar smoke room, and they put this budget together, and I hate it, but I have no other choice.

Well, you do have a choice. You could just say, I want to offer amendments, but you do not want to, because you realize you might get bad TV ads against you. So, again, we have the system we have for a reason, until we demand more accountability from our lawmakers.

Yeah, because it seems, it's frustrating to me, it seems like it's just become kind of a social media competition with senators and in Congress. It's like, well, I got to get my clips during my committee years where nothing comes out of for my donors. And no one's listening. And then I'm going to offer myself, I'm going to offer no surface area for attack because I'm not going to vote for anything. I'm just going to, like you said, do budget passes. And it's like weird.

I feel like almost everyone kind of understands that at this point, that most Congress people are pretty useless. You know what I mean? They're all kind of helping each other out, basically, by not allowing attack on any of them so they can kind of stay in their club and cash their paycheck and get insider trading information for their stocks, but then pass a law. There's no pushback on Trump at all. There's no pushback on Biden at all. I think Trump actually really smartly understood this with the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court is where the money is, and if you look at all that has been handed down, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3, it is like everything I wanted to do, handed down 6-3. It is like whether or not you think that is the ideal system or how it should be, it is like kind of beside the point. This is where we are right now. You need to act, and what is effective, no one gets that better than Trump. And we got a little over a year before we had the midterms, and that means, you know, the razor thin majority in the House.

What happens if Democrats take the House? Immediately, they roll into impeachment. Maybe they shut down the government again, because they want to cut off funding for ICE. You know, there's going to be protracted battles there. The idea of getting anything that we did in the last reconciliation bill, like extending the Trump tax cuts, expanding child tax credit, that stuff is not happening anymore. That's all frozen. And if Democrats, you know, pick up several Senate seats, look, I said this, with 53 Republicans in the Senate, but there's two of them who are pro-board.

So, if you lose one seat, suddenly, you do not have a pro-life majority anymore, and so any person that goes up for any sub-cabinet post, any, oh, some judge for the Third Circuit or whatever, all those things, any conservative with a decent track record, good luck getting through the Senate, even if it is a Republican Senate, if you have got such a thin majority, and hey, I love Clarence Thomas, I love Sam Milito, those guys are getting old. What happens if we have a Supreme Court vacancy?

So, these things matter. We are going to be- You know, you got it. I mean, it is not too early to be thinking about the midterms, brother. Yeah, 100%. It is nice to understand the game. One quick thing before we get into the Twilight Zone here. I know people are requesting in the chat an update on the bishops, and I did put it in the title, so I do owe it to people.

So, we have, I am just going to give a quick summary of the situation. We have done a couple of episodes on it now. So, Cardinal Cupich is planning on honoring Senator Dick Durbin, who is publicly Catholic, but supports abortion up to the second of birth, actually after birth, and has done so in his votes. It's funny, we just had a conversation about that. And then he is being honored specifically for his contributions to immigration or something like that. And so, I believe actually now we know that Bishop Pebracchi from Springfield, Illinois, in which Dick Durbin currently lives, resides.

...has said that he had a private conversation with Cardinal Cupic to say, hey, this is going to cause scandal. This is wrong. Like, don't do it. Just rescind it. Just don't go through it. It's very classy of Probracchi to do that. Very classy. That was immediately what I thought, too. And then Cardinal Cupic said, nope, I'm not going to do it. I'm doubling down. We're going to do the honor.

So, now we have nine bishops in total that have spoken out. I think the last time we recorded it was two. So, the list I have, Bishop Thomas Probracchi, Cordelion. James Conley from Lincoln, Nebraska, James Wall from Gallup in Arizona, New Mexico, David Rickon from Green Bay, Wisconsin, Carl Allen Kem from Wichita, Kansas, James E. Johnson, Kansas City, St. Joseph, Missouri, Archbishop Nalman, Kansas City, Kansas, and then Bishop Strickland, formerly of Diocese of Tyler, but still a bishop. So, nine of them now have, and people are asking, I think I got a few emails about how they can get involved.

We actually have a quorum set up on our website. If you could throw that in the chat, Selene, you can actually send a message straight to Cardinal Subich's office to urge him personally to refrain from presenting this award to Senator Durbin, so please do that if you have the time. We almost have 20,000, which is our goal for today. We'd like to go beyond that, so you could be the 20,000th message sent to the Cardinal. That is so awesome. And then, Josh, you will be there to speak at this protest, correct?

That is correct. They asked me, and I was more than happy to. I'll do my part to speak out about this. It's absolutely injustice. Love to see the railing around this. Yeah, it's pretty cut and dry and pretty unbelievable. So, we're doing our part here. Please send a message, and hopefully we see more bishops step up. So, okay. Josh, you're up first. Okay, so some people who are older like me will remember the funny little comedy in the late 80s, Three Men and a Baby, in which these three guys were having to take care of this kid, and it was all perfectly funny moments like where...

The really rich guy played by Tom Selleck, it was his turn to change the baby's diaper, and he just turns to the guy and goes, I'll give you $1,000 if you change your diaper. And every mom just was like, oh my gosh, I wish I could get paid $1,000 if you change your poopy diaper. Josh, I don't like where this is going, though. This is no longer just a comedy. Yes, unfortunately, what's going on in Montreal is absolutely not funny at all.

Oh, no. A throuple of three gay men. I have adopted a three-year-old. You want me to roll in? You can roll the tape if you want. ...have been waiting to become parents together, something that officially happened yesterday. She's perfect, of course. Like any... She's curious, she's energetic, she loves to play, she loves to jump, she loves to dance. They adopted their three-year-old through Quebec's Youth Protection Services, but first had to be approved as foster parents, something that required a lot of work and openness, they say, to their relationship.

We had a lot of... ...things to go through in order to be able to have that accreditation, and it's through that process that they learn that we are a little different because we're three, but we're not different from any other family. Some other Canadian provinces, including Ontario and British... You can cut it off there.

So, again, this is where I would just like to point out that, as my good friend Mark Hemingway said, we all owe... Rick Santorum, an apology. Man in the sweater vest was the prophet that everyone was ignoring. And, you know, 20 years ago, as we had this large debate in our country over marriage. Now, this, of course, is to our neighbor to the north, Canada, but don't be surprised. Come on, people. Like, this kind of stuff is, unless we push back against it and say, no, actually, it's not just about the wishes of adults, and it's not just simply what we want, that children have.

A natural right to a mother and a father, and then, of course, if one of their parents dies for some reason, that's tragic. Like, obviously, if they get murdered, like Charlie Kirk, that's horrible, but it doesn't change the fact that we should try to, as best as we can, make sure every child grows up in a home of a loving mother and father, and not three gay men. But, Josh, you're missing this. The Office of Youth Protection actually vetted these three.

The irony is... Jaw-dropping. Truly. I remember, and I wasn't even that old. You're a little girl. Remember when people made these exact arguments that this would happen years ago with gay marriage? Yeah, and they're mocked off. And they were told, that's a right-wing fever dream. I can't believe you would even think something that crazy would happen. They shamed his name. I don't even want to, don't Google this, but a bunch of activists, gay activists, were so angry at Rick Santorum that they invented a word that was...

They made his last name a word, a vile, nasty word, so when you Googled his name, it would come up there, and you would see that, vile smear. And Google had every ability, right, and opportunity to say, no, no, no, no, we are not going to allow that. But, of course, Google allowed for it. Yeah.

That poor little kid. Yeah, so, I mean, this is, I mean, again, I would say, praying and fasting for, you know, the evils of the day, there's an absolute inability to say, no, wait a minute, no, no, no. Three dudes, gay dudes, no, you don't get to adopt a baby. No, this is not, no, absolutely not. And to go back to Erika's deep episode, a perfect example of why you never bend on the truth. Never. I mean, you do not let anyone shame you.

Out of your obviously logical where we are moment, and now, because we don't have the luxury now of just being like, well, like, look at the hypocrisy. We told you this was going to happen. It's like, no, there needs to be some muscularity behind this. Like, this can never happen in America. That's abuse. That child is going to be deprived of what she's owed naturally.

We all know, like, everyone, everyone, it's crazy. Everyone knows this, and they just get walked over under the guise of liberalism because they have to accept everything. And it's like, at first, you accept this little thing, this little thing, this little thing, and now, all of a sudden, it's like, well, the second leading cause of death in Canada is euthanasia. Doesn't take long.

Erika, you're up first. All right. This was fun. I was off the news all weekend. I think of Iowa as a pretty red, pretty conservative state. Oh, my word. This one's crazy. This one's crazy. This is all time. When it comes to Iowa, I feel like I can do a safe brain dump. I'm like, they've got it together. They've got the corn. They're all set. We can focus on Vermont. Des Moines is a little crazy inside Iowa. Yes.

In, we have a little blue, oh, my light just went off. Whoa, blue light, a little blue dot in the middle of Big Red, Iowa. This, oh my goodness, on Friday, 9-26, Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts was arrested.

By federal immigration officials. It turns out Roberts has been living in the United States unlawfully under a final removal order issued in 2024. Who was president then? Oh, according to federal agents, Roberts was fleeing a traffic stop and later found with a loaded handgun, cash, and a knife.

He is now on, get this, paid administrative leave, so if you live in Des Moines, you're still paying his salary. As he waits trial. At the time of his arrest, the school board had no idea. They had no idea his immigration status, because they had hired a firm to do it, and of course, you know, the firm, so the firm is saying they don't know either. They took all of their information off their website, by the way, yesterday. Oh, the baby's screaming.

Sorry about that. Roberts entered the U.S. on a student visa in 1999. And failed to comply with multiple court orders. So, who is on this Des Moines school board? It gets better. Oh, yes, it does. Her name is Jackie Norris, and if you haven't heard of her before, you've heard of her now. She's the chair of the Des Moines School Board, and she is also a leading Democratic candidate for the United States Senate at those midterms Josh was talking about. Oh, yes.

She was involved in the hiring and is now defending their handling of the situation. She previously served as chief of staff. To drumroll Michelle Obama, and she stated they were unaware of any wrongdoing on Roberts' parts. If we could just play, this was her press conference that she held. What we do know is that Dr. Roberts has been an integral part of our school community since he joined over two years ago.

During his time with our district, he has shown up in ways big and small, and has advocated for students and staff, and begun introducing concepts that will help us reimagine for future generations, reimagine education for future generations of Des Moines students. Here is what we also know. Dr. Roberts joined us in July 2023, and has held educational leadership positions in districts across the U.S. For 20 years, the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners issued Dr. Roberts a license to serve as superintendent in the state of Iowa in July 2023.

There is new information that has been made public that we did not know, and we have not been able to verify as to whether that information is accurate. I mean, she lives in a twilight zone of her own making, but if you notice, they hired him in July of 2023. He would have received his final removal order a year later after he looks so... He's acting as the superintendent, serving the students, and reimagining education for American children.

And then he receives this notice a year ago. This whole thing was absolutely... Crazy. It reminded me of the Oregon governor saying, oh, we've got everything under control. Oregon's fine, Portland, it's great, guillotines, burning flags, don't worry, we don't need federal agents. Could you imagine, sorry, just briefly, if I snuck into Japan, and I don't know, name a country. Illegally, right? Illegally snuck into Japan.

And then, I became the head of a Japanese school district. Like Kyoto superintendent. I became the most powerful person in a school district in Japan after sneaking in and lying about it. And then, after I was arrested because I lied about it, snuck in, and was the most powerful person there, I had Japanese people getting up and being like, He was the best.

We're still paying him. He deserves it. He was the best. He was revolutionizing Japanese education for people here. How do you even, where do we go from here? Earlier in the speech, Norris had said, we just need to all slow down, turn down the temperature, and have more empathy for Roberts. And in fact, you can go online and see waves of white protesters defending Roberts and demanding free Ian Roberts signs everywhere. He's like the new murder. Dude, we got to do something about the toxic empathy of these.

Upper, middle, middle class, educated, white women, the biggest threat to our country today. We've got to shut it down until we find out what happened. Until we find out what's going on. Yeah, good point, Marcus. You couldn't even sneak into Hawaii during COVID without proof of vaccination.

Oh, yeah, Marcus. Marcus is making a phenomenal point. It's not that the government is incapable of finding... Credentials on people. Like, that's what's crazy about this. They're willfully not doing it. There's entire parts of the country not complying with federal authorities. After four years of the most draconian 1984 style, systematic destroying of livelihoods and freedom, chopping the Constitution and throwing in a wood chipper.

Because it's like they are capable of this. Yeah, it's a matter of will. It is totally a choice. It's totally a matter of will. This is a choice. Decline is a choice. Two-tier justice is a choice. They have the ability to do this, as Trump has shown, right? I mean, we closed the border because he had the will to do it.

He's apparently registered to vote in Maryland. Yeah, I couldn't verify that. That's another developing part. Crazy. That is, I saw that and I'm glad you brought it up because I forgot about it briefly. That is one of the craziest stories I've ever seen. Yep.

Okay, I will end mine with the voice of reason on the Democrats. John Fetterman. Wait, what? Oh. I love this. John Fetterman, my favorite Democrat, unchecked extreme rhetoric like labels as Hitler or fascist will foment more extreme outcomes. Political violence is always wrong, no exceptions. We must all turn the temperature down. And then he cited study left-wing terrorism climbs to a 30-year high. Especially impressive considering he had the ADL and the other one. He could have cited something saying it was the right-wing problem and that these fascists over here are doing that.

Fetterman continues to be the car heart-dripped-out voice of reason occasionally on the Democrats. I know he's not with us on everything, but I would like to contrast with what's coming from Gavin Newsom's office. This is from Gavin Newsom's press office. Ding-dongs in the White House. If you don't want us to call you a fascist, then stop doing fascist things.

Ugh. All caps, all caps all day long, because he's just a guy who shut down his state and made it a prison. Oh my gosh. I think they're onto something. Yep, that's Twilight Zone. Shout out to John Fennerman, man. Always got the car hard on. I also probably disagree with that. I think he should wear a suit like a grown-up, but appreciate him turning the temperature down a little bit. I'd like to know how you shot it. Well, he does when he presides over the Senate, which I appreciate.

Oh, that's good. Okay. They require him to. We're not going to let your car hard up there, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Eric. I still can't get over this superintendent thing, man. I couldn't either. Dude, that is wild. That was like the first headline I saw when I logged back on last night. I'm like, wait, what? And for all the people, you know how people get all mad about E-Verify? Like, remember in Florida when DeSantis was like, yeah, we're just going to verify that people are citizens before they get jobs here, and everyone freaked out.

They're like, this is the craziest thing ever. It's like, apparently we need E-Verify for superintendents across the country. Like, you think, oh, it's just for construction jobs and, like, shady under-the-table stuff. It's like, we're the most powerful person in the school district. He's not applying for a substitute teacher. Right, this is the most powerful person. He's applying for a higher public school district for the city of Des Moines, the largest city in Iowa.

That is so crazy. That is so crazy. How? Oh, my gosh. How? I don't even, there's so many levels to. Yeah. I mean, if you're a teacher, I'm sorry, if you're a parent that had a kid in public schools in Des Moines, I would be livid.

And actually, just as the Machiavellian in me is like, I hope that lady who was the president of the school actually is the nominee for the Senate race in Iowa. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is going to be, oh my gosh, she has no political future, right? How could you possibly? Never say never.

I have a feeling we'll see her around. Got the Obamas behind her. That is so crazy. Laugh or you cry. Glad you're along the ride with me, because seriously, I would sound like the craziest. Like, my hair would be on fire every day. If I had to do the show by myself, oh my goodness.

I would, yeah. I'd be, I'd probably be off air. I tried doing a show like this, and I lost all my hair. So, you guys need me. You need, and in fact, of the six people, of the six people who came up to me at the Basilica, I think four of them said, oh, I love the LOOPcast. You're just the voice of reason. What?

Erika, you're like the Mike Johnson of this podcast. You have to do the dirty work. I get to be the guy from Kentucky. I get to be Massey. I just get to shout. I get to be extreme. I get to be the far left. Last week, you called me the Marco Rubio, and that was the greatest compliment. Well, yeah. I mean, that's true. You do like four jobs.

Probably picking up a few more. Yeah, we've got to wrap this thing up. We've got to get out of here. We've got to give each other praise. We need to pray to St. Michael. Yeah, Josh hates that. St. Michael's Day. So, yeah, St. Michael's Day, of course, we've got St. Michael and Archangel prayer. But if you want to help us out, join the Champions Club, CatholicVote.org slash champions. Best way to support us, check out our sponsors. Check out that home title lock interview coming right after this.

It's fantastic. Please support us and our sponsors. Leave us reviews, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. That's where you can do that. And then, yeah, of course, pray for us and pray for the country. I'll start. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God.

Cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world, seeking the ruins of souls. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Pray for us. See you guys on the flip. Have a great day. See you Wednesday. Peace.