Historic Texas Floods Kill Dozens, BBB Wrap Up, And Traditionis Custodes Not Legit?

And we're live. Welcome back to Lubecast. You got Lubecast late today. It's Tom and Erika. Josh is in the swamp, right? I believe Josh is in the swamp, but you are back. You are rested, raring to go. Tanned, hydrated, ready to rock. Yeah, I miss you guys. I had a fantastic week. It was very American, the most little Americana town in Wisconsin, so shout out to everyone over there. It was awesome. Had a great time with my family. Kids loved the lake and America, so I hope you all had a fantastic.

Independence Day. Josh is not here today, but he lives in my head. You cannot say 4th of July around him. He will flame you. It's Independence Day. Also, there's kind of a meat controversy. We weren't supposed to eat meat. Right, yeah. We had a controversy on Wednesday whether or not the Friday fast was lifted because of the 4th of July. We went through all of the abstaining from meat versus abstaining or doing other penances. We were there and back again. It was a complete journey.

Got it. It sounds like some really hard day. I ended up eating a hamburger, so there we go. Yeah, okay. I was out, so I wasn't aware of this debate, and I had some hot dogs at a good time. Actually, we had tacos, which feels somewhat un-American, but... Dude, that's American. Yeah, it's American. We take it. Yeah, we appropriate the tacos. That's like what we do. So, here's the plan for today. So, we're covering the historic floods in Texas. Yeah. Truly devastating.

My hope is to provide a comprehensive story of what happened there for those that maybe were celebrating Independence Day, weren't kind of vaguely aware of what's going on. Really historic, tragic, but some really rays of hope in there. Going to talk about the government response as well. The second, so if you weren't paying attention as well, Trump hit the little gavel. B, 22 bombers flow over. The big, beautiful bill has been signed, and I actually got the pleasure, I know that he came on last week, so if you want more comprehensive coverage, Tom McCluskey, who's actually in there talking with a lot of these senators on the Hill, gave his two cents.

I talked to him again this morning to give the program here a wrap of what it actually is, what it's going to do, give us some... perspective, which I think is going to be helpful, hopefully, for everyone here. I had to go back, like, what is this thing? It is a big, beautiful bill, of course. So, we are going to talk about that. We have a little Traditionis Custodis talk, as well as breaking news. Yeah, a little Latin mess. This past week, I know it is hot in the streets in this program, for sure, and we got good news.

We got Twilight Zone. It is going to be a great show, but before we get to that, we got to talk about our sponsor for today, Erika. Yeah. So, our sponsor today, I love these guys. We have the Cunninghams. Again, this is the Cunningham team at Inspire Advisors. Do you realize your family's investment portfolio can be a powerful weapon to help restore Christian values in today's culture? And don't we all want to do that? Do you know you can invest well and not offend God?

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Investment advisory services are provided by Inspire Advisors, LLC. Which is a registered investment advisor with the SEC, and their tagline is, Viva Cristo Rey, long live Christ the King. Hard to go wrong with that one. Hard to go wrong. Thank you to today's sponsor. Very much. So, getting into the show today, and I actually see we have some people from Central Texas in here praying for you guys. This is really crazy. So, I'm going to pull up.

Headline here, this is updated since then. I'm going to resize. There we go. Yeah, we're over 80 now for this. Yeah, these numbers have gone up. This was reported in The Loop this morning, of course, every Catholic's favorite morning newsletter. But on July 4th, several devastating flash floods struck Texas late at night, primarily impacting communities along the Guadalupe River and Kerr County, Texas. The river surged 26 feet in just 45 minutes and reached the second highest recorded level in history. Many were caught off guard.

Among the hardest hit was Camp Mystic, a Christian all-girls camp. At least 82 people are dead at this point of recording, including 27 children and dozens are still missing. The disaster unfolded while most people slept, limiting the effectiveness of the flood warnings. I also know this is kind of a popular time for people in that area of Texas to camp along that river as well, which just horrible timing and all of this. So, to give a little bit of A timeline here.

On Wednesday, the Texas Division of Emergency Management activated response resources because predicted heavy rainfall and flood threat, but no one anticipated the amount of rain that actually fell. The National Weather Service, Austin, San Antonio, said scattered to moderate to heavy showers continue to develop and expand into hill country. On Thursday, the National Weather Service warned people that floods were a possibility, and the local government was informed, though no one was sure exactly when the storm would hit. Then on Friday, 12.30 in the morning, more specific flood warnings were being issued.

At 1.30, they were said that flash flooding likely overnight with some significant impacts possible. The Caryville city manager was out for a jog along the river at 3.30 that morning, saw no rain. It was not until 4 in the morning that the National Weather Service posted a message, a very dangerous flash flooding event is ongoing, which ended, turn around, don't drown. Between the hours of 4 and 6 a.m., the river surged. And according to the DHS, the weather reporting was timely and accurate.

It was the lack of people reading this information that was the problem. That's directly from the DHS's Twitter event. I mean, if anyone's curious about what the speed looks like, it really is shocking and historic. I have some from the state troopers here. We got to look at just how high, how devastating this water got. Let me see. Here comes the water.

And, I mean, it basically just swallows up this bridge. I mean, this is when everyone was already awake, too. Hard to imagine, if you're at a camp town by the river, what you're dealing with, but this just comes right over this bridge. At three in the morning, right? It's crazy.

Yeah. I have some during the event, too. I mean, this is just, I mean, really crazy to watch. I can't imagine Texas gets these kind of floods, maybe ever. They were saying that, I guess, second highest recording rising of the river, but... Yeah, they were calling it the once-in-a-century flood, that this river hasn't seen anything like it in over 100 years, if ever.

And like you said, it just was like this terrible bringing together of all these circumstances, the time of day, that it was the Fourth of July weekend, all these kids were at the camp. Obviously, children in situations like this are so vulnerable. Yeah, I spent more time than I should have looking at footage of people standing by the river with their phones out, and here comes this massive wall of water just down at them, and they're finally running to get up to high ground.

Yeah, just terrifying to think about. Yeah. And so, we're talking about the aftermath here. Over 800 people have been rescued, including over 100 people have been airlifted out of the area. There's been a lot of really cool footage of helicopters. Helicopters now, super valuable, dropping in, picking people up. Hundreds of volunteers have shown up, and there's miles of debris at this point still to comb through.

But we have some, what I, I mean, so Pope Leo actually came out and addressed, which is cool. Talk about having an American Pope now saying, you know, praying mourning the victims in Texas. So, that is just a cool element to all of this, but there is a young man at Coast Guard. You get these stories that come out of this. Coast Guard rescue swimmer, Scott Ruskin, saved 165 lives in the Texas flash floods.

That is amazing. Take a look at this young man here. I think he was asked by one of the girls he was picking up, can I take my teddy bear? Can I take my stuffed animal? Yeah, of course. Take them along.

It was his first deployment, too. This was his first deployment as a member of the Coast Guard after training, and can you imagine that being your first call? It's just crazy. And I think whenever these terrible things happen, It's devastating, and of course, you think, you know, if God is good, why does He let these things happen? I'm not going to explain that because I don't know why, but then you get these incredible stories of just the greatness of human nobility and the heroism that was shown by so many.

I mean, there were stories coming out of the boys' camp. The girls' camp has been getting a lot of attention because so many of the girls are still missing. And so many died. The boys camp just on another part of the river, same thing happened. And this group of Eagle Scouts, so these like 17, 18-year-old, 19-year-old boys, they actually were lifting the little boys up into the rafters of the cabins to save them as the cabins were being lifted up and floated down the river by the flood.

So, the Eagle Scouts were diving down into the water, themselves going under in order to lift up the little boys into the rafter. And they saved every single... Camper's life at that camp. So, stories of that self-sacrifice there are just incredible.

Yeah. The one that really stuck out to me, we have a dad here, saved his family's life by punching out a window to help his fiancee, children, and mother escape to the roof after water flooded knee-deep in their home. What a hero. And that will never...

Don't unnotice. Through tears and shock, the family of 27-year-old Julian Ryan tells us the father, brother, and fiance died a hero. In the early Friday morning hours, flood water suddenly swelled into the home he shared with his fiance and mother in Ingram, close to the Guadalupe River. And it just started pouring in. We had to fight the door to get it closed, just so that too much didn't come in. And we ran back to the room, started calling 911. Julian's Fiancee Christina Wilson says after 20 minutes, the water was up to their knees.

Julian punching open a window to try and get her, their children, and his mother to the roof. It severed his artery and his arm, almost cut it clean off. Christina says they kept calling 911, but no one came in time to save him. About 6 o'clock, my husband was dead. He had lost all of it, all his blood.

He looked at me and the kids and my mother-in-law, and he was like, sorry, I'm not going to make it. I love y'all. Christina says she found her fiancé after the water receded, but his body wasn't recovered for hours. Now, loved ones remember the man they call a hero. He was the hero out of this story. Especially when they told him my brother is dying, they should have went to him first. That's how I see it. He's just the kindest person I've ever met in my life, and I will forever love him no matter what.

Wow. That's incredible. Yeah, I don't even know. There's so much to say after that. Yeah. Zero. So, I did promise as a part of this, and just at this point, everyone's asking for government response, trying to point fingers what went wrong. So, I will say quickly as to what we know now, the Trump administration signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County, Texas, to ensure that our brave first responders immediately have the resources they need. These families are enduring an unimaginable tragedy with many lives lost, many still missing.

Trump administration continues to work closely. With state and local leaders, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was on the ground yesterday with Governor Greg Abbott, who is working hard to help the people of their great state. Our incredible U.S. Coast Guard, along with state first responders, have saved more than 850 lives. God bless the families, and God bless Texas.

That's straight from Donald Trump himself on Twitter. And yeah, there is a video also of Kristi Noem on the ground there, and the National Guard has been brought in at this point to rescue. We already have some footage of them in trucks on the ground here. Um, pulling out the rescue girls from the camp, uh, you can see on the video here, uh, pretty, pretty awesome stuff. Um, so cool to see that they were able to respond as fast as they did.

Yeah. Um, I'm seeing stuff, so, so SpaceX sent Starlink devices in, uh, people are now pointing fingers. I, I think it's going to be way too early to know. My, my cursory read on this is that... The government sent out these warnings that were supposed to go to your phone, and it was like in between three and four in the morning. People just weren't awake. It happened so fast, they weren't able to get out. I've seen people point fingers at Doge.

I think that's a little bit early to say that. Apparently, the National Weather Service is in the process of hiring people after 600 layoffs, however, in the San Antonio area. The station was overstaffed because of the weather threats.

So, people are going to, you know, at this talk of installing a warning system back in 2016, but deemed too expensive. You know, hopefully, whatever we learn from this after investigation, it seems like we're on it right away. The right things can be done if this could possibly happen again. Right. It's a go-forward. I mean, it was just like over-the-top reactions from people just looking to immediately blame Trump. And of course, with all the talking points on the big, beautiful bill, which we'll get to in a minute, all the talking points are like...

See, this is what happens when the government is underfunded, or when you cut funding to the government. David Axelrod was like, this is a canary in the coal mine, just warning Americans. And then, of course, the most disgusting reactions are, well, it's a bunch of Texans, and they voted for Trump, so they deserved it. All of that is just so classy. It's just disgusting. And what right now matters is prayers for the continued recovery and rescue efforts, which are mostly recovery now.

Of course. Those prayers are so important. It is kind of like the best and worst of the internet happening at the same time. We get to see the story of heroism here from that young man who saved his family, and then at the same time, people just get to get off, pot shot, quick reactions of like, see, it is your fault. They deserve to die. What have you been doing here? Who is this helping? What is this good for?

So, yeah, I guess whenever we have these kind of disasters, it's just like, what do you do other than pray? And then hopefully that there's a quick response from whoever's in charge. And I will say, I'm not even here to like compare it to other disasters, say under the Biden administration or whatever else. I know there's all that controversy over FEMA and how it's funded, and that they weren't giving aid to people with Trump signs. So, there's a big investigation there.

I'm in the camp, you know, we take care of everyone during disasters. And so, hopefully, that is done in this case. So, that is about all I have to say on it, Erika, if you want to get into the BBB. Sure. Let us do some BBB. Okay. So, I am acutely aware that this was discussed almost ad nauseum.

I have done so much BBB talking, but it is great because now it is done. We will keep it short. Now it is the law of the land. Yeah. So, it was signed into law while people were at the cookout, hopefully, in this hilarious video of Trump now hitting this. I need to get me one of those. I want one of those gals.

So, that was going on over the weekend, and I mean, so it's funny. I was with family. I was mostly off the grid, which was awesome, but we have some military vets on my wife's side of the family, and they're very invested in what was going on. Some people are heavy Fox News watchers, so we got it. This was at the go-kart. We got to watch him sign it. We got to get it done. And even for myself, yeah, we've been covering it, but I had a call with Tom this morning just to get...

Almost like an atomized version of what just happened. I feel like people are still kind of confused. So, I am just going to do a quick refresh, okay? I am not going to beat a dead horse because I know we talked about it ad nauseum. Go for it. Quick refresh. Like, what is this? So, if you want to go to your friends and they are like, okay, the big beautiful bill has passed. I saw the UCCB said some bad stuff about it.

What do you think? Okay. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, H.R. 119th Congress, 2025-2026, if you want to get very technical. The BBB, as I'm going to refer to it, therefore, is a budget reconciliation bill. And so, for people that are curious what that is, no, this isn't a spending bill. It's a budget reconciliation bill. Presidential administration makes decisions on expanding or contracting spending on specific issues. And for context, what are some other notable reconciliation bills? The Inflation Reduction Act under President Biden was a very notable one, and much of the Green New Deal was actually funded there.

The Green New Deal actually isn't a law of any kind. I think AOC tried to make it a law. It's never actually worked. It basically put out a guideline to where we want to work in the future. Whether or not you act on it is up to you, and it was acted on by President Biden under the Inflation Reduction Act, which very appropriately or inappropriately named. The names of these are so funny to me. It's like, who could be against... Inflation reduction.

Exactly, which of course it inflated the dollar. Healthcare and education. I mean, how can you possibly be against that? So, basically what happened during this reconciliation bill was like, okay, we're going to expand in certain areas or detract in others. We're going to assign funding here or elsewhere. And so, they assigned funding to things, say, like energy credits for buying an EV, charging stations across the country. A lot of that funding happened there, I believe, to the tune of like... $367 billion for this clean energy, quote-unquote.

And we got no charging stations out of it, because Buttigieg was... You know, ironically, what we got... What did we get? Oh, no. There goes Tom. I'm back. He's back. Phew. You scared me there. I have no backup. I have serious camera issues. I don't know what. I've tried so many different things at this point. Maybe there's some funding in the big, beautiful bill for a camera for you. I don't know what's going on. So, ironically, what we got out of it was inflation.

We didn't get the charging stations that we were promised. But for others curious, too, there was another reconciliation bill called the Healthcare and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, if you're curious what that meant. It was where much of Obamacare was funded. So, the Affordable Care Act, yes, was passed legislation, but they didn't have all the money that they needed for the different initiatives, so the Obama administration did this act, and that's where they got a lot of the funding for what's going on.

So, essentially, the reason why it's done via reconciliation, and you can do this at any time, by the way. So, the president can do this at any time. The reason why they're doing it now is because this is going to be very unpopular for midterm fights, whether that be senators, but then also, you're basically starting campaign season for yourself or your party in the last two years of your administration. You would rather not have to have these kind of tough fights over spending decisions that could be hung on different people in your party, and that's why it's Going on now, and typically, administrations- Get it down now before the campaigns really take off, right?

Yes, and so you also do it via reconciliation because you can avoid the filibuster, and so Republicans have a very slim majority right now, and so they don't need the 60 threshold in order to pass something. They can just do it during a simple majority, in which J.D. Vance ended up breaking the tie on this, and so you go to the Senate parliamentarian- Oh my gosh, that was a terrible pronunciation. Exactly. Make sure that you're in compliance with the Byrd Rule.

So, for a lot of people that were curious, you know, why could we not get the gender stuff in there? Why could we not get, which the USCCB was complaining about, a lot of people were frustrated about. It felt like a missed opportunity for a lot of senators. So, you go to the parliamentarian, and they say, does this directly impact the budget? And if it's a non-budgetary measure, for example, proposed ban on state AI regulations, The parliamentarian said, nope, we can't do this.

This isn't budgetary related. This has to do with something else. We're going to strip it out. It's policy, right. So, the funny thing that I learned about this, too, is like, you can, like in the case of Planned Parenthood funding, which we're going to get into here, you can do things. I mean, it is budgetary, but also in some cases, kind of not, and it just depends on how you word it. And so, like, if you really wanted to have a fight over something, I think I was talking this morning about moving the space station to Houston, for example.

Yeah. And. So, they at first were like, no, and they're like, okay, let's change the language a little bit, then we can do it, right? And they're like, yes, you can do it now. So, that's why there's the general frustration, I think, from Catholics to be like, okay, why did we not get the general language in there? Why didn't we get these other things? Apparently, the senators just did not feel like it was either going to be tough for them to run again or wasn't worth their energy fighting over it.

It feels like they kind of rolled over on certain elements, which is frustrating. However... It passed, right? Trump signs it into law, passed the House and Senate, some majorities, but made it happen. So, basically, at this point, this is what are the priorities of the Trump administration or the administration that passes, say, their bill? And for people curious, I'm just going to do very high level because things were stripped out, and so we recorded, and now we got what we ended up with, which is now signed into law, and we're going to be seeing implemented.

So, the permanent tax cut, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions. So, that was in 2017. Prevents tax increases for over 60% of taxpayers. These include lower income tax rates, doubled standard deductions, $15,750 for individuals, $31,500 for married couples in 2025, and a 20% pass-through business deduction. No tax on tips and overtime, just kind of a flashy item. Car loans interest deduction, so if you have a loan on a car, you will not have to pay taxes on that, which is great.

Senior deduction provides a $6,000 deduction for Americans 65 plus earning under $75,000 child tax credit increase, so from $2,200 per child. I'll take it. And that also is indexed for inflation, which is good, which is a win. And then the SALT deduction cap increase. The second major priority is border security and immigration enforcement. That was the big argument over, you know, it's really big. There's a lot of money going into this. Yes, this is going to theoretically increase. The deficit over time, over years, and the Trump administration's argument would be, well, based on the revenue we're going to get from these decisions, it's actually going to cancel out.

Remains to be seen. I highly doubt it. Let's put it that way. That's what every administration says. That's right. So, I'm somewhat sympathetic to say, like the Thomas Massys of the world, that we're at that clock counter of just like, what are we doing here? But you got to get stuff done. You got to move the football. So, enhanced funding, so it allocates.

$50 billion for the border wall, $45 billion for ICE detention facilities, $14 billion for deportation operations, funds to hire 10,000 new ICE agents by 2029. And again, just looking at this for me. You may come in as a presidential administration and be like, I want to do all these things, specifically on border security, but the funds are not allocated there. So, this is a completely necessary fight as an administration if you want to enact what you promised to the American people, and if the money's not there, you can't do anything.

Exactly, and we talked about this last week when we covered alligator alcatraz, which you may not have heard of, Tom, because you were off doing Americana things, but we now have alligator alcatraz. Part of that story was that, well, the Trump administration, obviously, shutting down the border was a huge delivery on the promise, but the mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens who are here, that sort of hit this impasse because we now have overwhelmed detention facilities. They need to hire more.

We need more judges to move people through the due process and all of that. In order to do that, you just need the money for it. Right. You can only build so many alligator Alcatrazes, but you actually just need the money. I'd prefer not to, personally. That's right. It was a little weird.

I mean, I'm not even saying it's irresponsible. I'm just saying it'd be great if we could just have responsible enforcement so we wouldn't need to do stuff like this. And then the next big one was national defense and infrastructure. One thing that popped out to me was the air traffic control modernization, which I think is a hot topic.

Yeah, very much. An air traffic control person, and yes, they need the help. So, all for that. The one thing that popped up that I think is worth addressing now at this point is defunding Planned Parenthood. One of the U.S. CCB criticisms was it went from 10 years down to one year, and people were wondering mechanically, like, how does that even work? Erika, you had a spot on that, right? Yeah, we had a couple questions last week in the chat about, well, we thought that there was already a ban on federal taxpayer funding of abortions.

So, what the bill does now here... It's doing a one-year ban on state Medicaid payments to any healthcare nonprofit that offers abortions and that received over $800,000 in federal funding in 2023, which is the budget that they're comparing this to. So, that restriction, because Planned Parenthood's primary industry is abortion, it jeopardizes its ability to keep going in some states. So, federal law, yes, it already prohibits the Medicaid dollars from paying for abortions, but because Planned Parenthood offers other services, including gender-bending medicine, they were able to still pull in those federal funds to the tune of hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars every year.

So, yes, the one year is not 10 years. We would prefer to have 10 years, but nevertheless, there are already reports that Planned Parenthood is going to shutter upwards of two dozen facilities around the country because of this cut. So, it's the first time in U.S. history that we have actually defunded Planned Parenthood successively. So, in terms of baby steps, yes, it is a baby step, but it's a step nonetheless.

A historic step, by the way. Yeah. I was talking to Times, like I think on record 20 years. But way before that, we've been trying to do that, and nothing was able to get done. So, even if we just left with this, and the child tax credit, the border enforcement, like a big win, obviously you have to work. Well, in making the tax cuts from 2017 permanent, that is a massive win. So, you see these accusations, especially from the Catholic left, that, oh, this bill ignores the poor, and it ignores the marginalized, and you're like, well, I mean, yeah, if you want to do this, you can do it.

If you don't include unborn children, and you don't include, like, working-class families and married couples in poor and marginalized, then maybe, but... So, yeah, and actually, on that point, Erika, we have someone in the chat who I wanted to address this as well, is talking about Medicare cuts. Yeah, we should talk about that. First off, I always laugh when I hear the word cut, and I even saw it in the USCCB. I think Timothy Broglio put something out about his frustrations and the words of cut for the working...

Class is poor, whatever. I always am a little bit skeptical when I see the word cut, because I've been around enough to know what political rhetoric looks like, because you could basically phrase anything as a cut, and people obviously do, because it's a great attack line. Cut, cut, cut. If people are curious what this Medicare requirement says, I have specific information here. So, here's a graph, just to put in perspective. So, this is SNAP, Federal Food Spending in the Billions. And if you take a look at 2019, it's right at about 60, a little over $60 billion on Snap.

Something happened between 2019 and 2022. We lived through it. We're up at $150 billion on SNAP spending, and it has not gone down significantly, a little bit. Two major things happened. One, COVID, everything. We have an entitlements problem that has been self-inflicted over COVID. One, because I think COVID was a bioweapon sent over by China, but that's neither here nor there. But basically, all the entitlements in general got expanded, and they were put on a rolling basis, so there wasn't a specific time to enroll.

You can enroll anytime you want, and there's a pause in disenrollment. So, there was no one trying, basically, to purge people that shouldn't have been on, or even, like, they talk about dead people, or people that now maybe meet the requirements. People could just stay on and take care of these entitlements.

So, also, we had an influx of illegal immigration. So, now we have people that are illegal immigrants taking advantage of these benefits as well. So, that's just snap, but if you take a look at percentage of enrollment, change in enrollment since 2020, I mean, what are we talking about here? Here we go. 2020 to 2025, because nothing's been done, not only are not people going to enroll, we're talking about massive increases. So, what is in this bill? I think I'm of the opinion, many people have the opinion, we have an entitlements problem in the country, and we needed to find a way to offset the money, the revenue coming from the tax cuts.

And so, over the past four years, as we said, $8 million were added to this enrollment, while disenrollments were in pause. So, the work requirements now are, one, You must be a legal citizen. Which, color me shocked, but I imagine there's an incentive to come to this country to take advantage of incentives if you're not a citizen. It's been happening. Two, you have to be an able-bodied adult between 18 to 65. You must prove work or volunteering for 80 hours a month or actively seeking a job, and then once qualified, you need to prove qualification every six months.

Right. Seems pretty gentle. Super gentle, because this is people that are able-bodied, that are just not seeking jobs. We're not talking about people that are disabled. We're not talking about people that are pregnant, for whatever reason. We're not even talking... This is also a provision for people whose kids are up to 14 years old. Right. If your children are under 14, the cuts don't apply to you at all. No.

Yeah, and again, that term, cut, it's like, no, we're just trying to return it to not even pre-pandemic level spending, but just get it back under control. And I think that a lot of the... The reaction to it is this thought, and it comes from a good, I want to think it comes from a really good place, especially from fellow Catholics who are like, oh my gosh, poor people are going to get all disrupted and all of this. But again, these programs, Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, this is not, there isn't like a bottomless well of resources for these.

And they just, with Social Security, they just upped the timeline for when it's going to run out of money. I mean, that's. They are like, oh, oops, we miscalculated. It is actually going to be in eight years instead of 24 years. These programs are in desperate need of reform, and yes, reform will disrupt. Some people will have to go find help with paperwork, and the church needs to be there to help them with these disruptions to their lives, but we are also thinking about the next generation and the generation after that, and you cannot keep doing this.

...over bloated welfare entitlement system into eternity. So someone's going to have to, you know, make the hard decision and say... Let's help you through this time of turmoil if it's messing up your expectation of what you're getting from the government. Yeah. I also want to be specific. Someone asked a question here. This is Medicaid. So, Medicaid is for people that you give them health insurance because they can't work. This isn't Medicare. And I believe there's also a tightening of Medicare requirements as well, because there's a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse there.

Yeah, I'm assuming it's Medicaid. This is kind of the funny thing. Let's just zoom out for a That basically brags about what they can buy with EBT or SNAP, and it's just a complete joke and abuse of the system. Anyone that's ever been around an inner city before, it's really terrible, but there is a culture there of you do not need a job because you can live off the government in government-assisted housing. You don't need a job because you get SNAP and EBT.

You get your healthcare taken care of. You're calling ambulances like it's like the emergency room down the road. You don't pay for any of it. And like, I will also say, none of this is true charity, by the way. By taking my money and then giving it to people like this, true charity, this actually takes away the opportunity for true charity of me being able to use money to actually help people that need help. Like, we've created this bloated entitlement state that's a huge problem, and it's not productive to me for the USCCB to use language straight from, like, the Democratic Party, and then also noticeably not criticize, say, the Inflation Reduction Act.

Like, one of the things that I saw was like, okay, We're harming the environment somehow by taking away EV credits that artificially don't even really increase the demand for EV. Well, and they benefit the wealthy. That kind of government subsidy of the EV industry, the whole green energy deal was benefiting the wealthy, and nothing was said. They were just like, oh, we're going to save the planet mass for creation. Yay. And to act like solar and battery are somehow better for the environment than what we currently have is also kind of funny, because what do we do with all these batteries?

How many birds are we killing? Well, where do we get the lithium for our batteries? Oh, right, from Zaire. That's really great for the poor. So, you know what's funny? I'm all for it, and I guess Trump's all big on unleashing American energy. I'm great. I'm not a huge fan of artificially creating demand for solutions that we're not even really sure are solutions, and also using my tax money to do that is kind of ridiculous. And then also, I think on the Medicaid Part is, I think everyone should be in agreement that able-bodied people should not live off the government, and the best way for people to obtain healthcare is to get a job.

I have my own issues with the healthcare system currently, but the best way to get healthcare is through an employer, is through employment, and so it actually would be great for the economy, too, say the GDP, all that, to get able-bodied people in this country working, and everyone also knows during, it's good for them, and everyone knows during COVID, Like, I had friends work for this.

We have a hotline, basically, for people getting, I think it was like health benefit or something, or they're calling in to get the stimulus checks or something. And it was unbelievable how many people, how much fraud was in the PPP loans. Like, we just, no one ever sat down and was like, all right, we're shutting off everything we did there. It's no longer necessary. I think in some places, it's still considered emergency. I think the Trump administration was like, okay, it's no longer an emergency.

It's crazy. So that is what this is. I think it's counterproductive and frustrating for The USCCB to come out with Democrat language on this, like, can we at least address the specifics? I know they have their frustrations about illegal immigration. I understand that. But also, at the same time, there's been language of, well, a country has the God-given right to enforce the laws on their border based on their sovereignty. So, it's kind of like, okay, can we work together here? Well, how do you do that?

Right. You know, like, I would love to start working together. Yeah, I'm sure it's frustrating for... Catholic charities who got all of their funding, basically, or majority of it, from taking care of illegal immigration. It's a policy change. It's like, okay, you're no longer necessary. This is not a moral good, basically, to exist beyond what you're being used for as an arm of statecraft. So, I would say my biggest frustration, and I think Elon, I think I had it on my Twitter.

Elon was so frustrated. New party, the American party. New party alert, the American party, which I guess, hey, if you want. Like, you know, if you want to do that, go for it. All good time. But yeah, I think I've learned a lot, even about the specific rules of how this kind of thing is done. You know who endorsed the American Party, Tom, this morning? We had Mark Cuban came out and endorsed the American Party, and, and? Former Vice President Mike Pence.

So, I mean, that kind of- Oh, I'm out if Pence is involved. I'm out if Pence is involved. Yeah. No, but I just wanted to, like, one more point about this. Like, when churchmen, you know, make- When the church leaders, especially the bishops, start to make statements about specific policies from the government, and without taking into account the nuances and the issues that they're trying to fix, and sort of assuming, or just not even addressing it. I don't know if they assumed goodwill on the part of Trump or his supporters, or if they assumed goodwill on the part of Scott Besson or J.D.

Vance. But... When that's at least not acknowledged, or the issues that are... I mean, Medicaid, if you just go look at it, Rachel Bovard brought this up last week. Medicaid pays more money to able-bodied people of working age than it does to pregnant women and people with disabilities combined. That alone should be... The bishops should be like, we need to fix this now. Right, but there's no acknowledgement of that, and I think that just ends up, you know... Throwing discredit upon them, and I don't want our bishops to be discredited in the public square.

I want them to have strong voices. I want them to be respected, but these kinds of statements that don't take that into account, they hurt that ability of the bishops to speak on things like the Planned Parenthood issue and all that. So, I would just hope this is sort of a lesson in, you know, maybe we should listen to voices from all sorts of Yeah, all sides of the aisle. All sides? Two sides. Both sides of the aisle. There we go.

Now, we shift into basically wait and see mode. How are all these things implemented? Is it successful? I was even trying to look up with the Inflation Reduction Act, which wasn't that long ago. There's still a lot out there that kind of remains to be seen, or does this work? Does this not work? And then every administration basically changes so much of their priorities in the span of, like, that was 2022. It's now 2025, so it's only been three years. And so, it's kind of, I mean, I guess that's designed how to work.

But it's kind of hard to do anything, really, unless you have... That's why Josh always talks about it, I feel like. You need to be in power for eight years, 12 years probably, if you really want to make substantial change to the country, and so that is why I think these fights are important to start now and then to continue going forward, and then also for you to own your wins and be able to communicate that properly, and that is why I am frustrated at least with Congress because it is like, okay, first off, you should be fighting harder because this is a huge opportunity for you, but then to go out immediately and be like, this is good, this is good, this is good, this is something Trump understands that I feel like a lot of congressmen are really struggling with, especially on the right.

Own your wits. If you think this is a great bill, great. Don't just walk away from it, because someone else is going to fill that vacuum. And that's why you get people now like, cuts to Medicare, cuts to Medicare. It's like, you really need to explain, because you know how sensitive people are about this. Hey, we'd like that aid to go to pregnant people and to disabled people instead of... It's like, get out ahead of it, because you know this is going to be the talking point, and there are really good arguments for what they did to Medicaid, so.

Yeah. You don't have to agree with them, but you should at least. Entertain them. Yeah. All right. Time to get into some good news. Erika, what you got? Let's do it. Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited. As the mother of many voracious children, for most of my parenting career, which is now over 20 years, can you believe it?

Eggs were a staple of our diet, and all that changed after COVID and under the Bidenflation and their decision to, what was it? They slaughtered 180 million chickens, and the egg prices- Bird flu or something? I can't remember. It was crazy. Until the peak egg price, March 2025, for a dozen eggs, $8.17. My box of 60 eggs that I buy every week at Walmart went from $9, because it's super cheap, to $30. It was cheaper to eat hamburgers. It was ridiculous.

But this week, we report. Waffle House is like the bellwether of all things good in America. Waffle House has said, excellent news, get it, as of June 2nd. The egg surcharge is officially off the menu. There was a 50-cent surcharge per egg because of this crisis at Waffle House. Now, we are back to no egg surcharge, no tariff on eggs or whatever, and in fact, the price of a dozen eggs is down to $2.54. I love it. Are you a Waffle House gal, Erika?

No, I've actually never eaten at a Waffle House, but I just really liked their pun. It's excellent because you can get a dinner and a show in case there's a fight going on in there. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's never boring at the Waffle House. Do we have strong loyalties to a breakfast? Yeah, just in general. We got any Waffle House heads in here and or strong diner loyalties? I would love to hear it. I did see the top comment is awesome.

Now, add pancakes back to the menu, please. Respectfully, no. Respectfully, no. I love the Waffle House account, actually. They're pretty funny. No, I'm a local diner girl. I avoid Waffle Houses and IHOPs. IHOP is whack. IHOP, I think, so many of them used to be better. Denny was some of the most disgusting bathrooms I've ever been in. I'll never step foot in one again. Honestly, out of all of them, I think I'm kind of partial to Waffle House. I'm not even from the South.

I'm from Indiana. It's adorable. So, yeah, IHOP, I feel like they kind of chintz you. They don't give you the same. Like, amount of food, they, like, promise more. Waffle House delivers. They're like, we will give you a ton of it. It's probably not high quality, but you will get a lot of food. You'll be full. Thank you, Waffle House. You'll be full. So.

Thank you, Trump. Shout out. Shout out, Waffle House. Shout out, Trump. This one is a personal hobby horse, as we, there's a couple, I don't know if anyone on this show is aware of my personal hobby horses, probably pretty clear. I am, yes. Everyone knows Josh's. So, pride crosswalks, okay? I'm going to get into this again. So, cities have turned their roads into an LGBTQ statement. The Trump administration is doing something about it. Shout out Tyler O'Neill for this. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter.

Tuesday to 50 state governors urging them to remove distractions from roads, including divisive and distracting political messaging like rainbow crosswalks. Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork, Duffy said in a statement. Today, I am calling on governors in every state to ensure roadways, intersections, and crosswalks are kept free of distractions.

Far too many Americans die each year due to traffic fatalities to take our eye off the ball. And then they stand ready to help communities across the country make the road safer and easier to navigate. I love that that's the reason he's using it.

Yeah. Whatever it takes. They're the dumbest things ever. There's no win. If I walk on it, I'm homophobic. If I don't walk on it, I'm homophobic. If I walk on it too hard, I'm homophobic. There's no possible win. You can't win, Tom. You just can't win. It is an unwinnable situation to be anywhere near a Pride crosswalk. The fact that it's even funded by any local government to take the time, you're probably way overpaying some muralist to throw this ugly thing down.

And then, if you drive over it a little too fast, it's a hate crime. I'm not kidding. That happened to someone in Florida. They just arrested four high schoolers. Like, yeah, it's crazy. I'm like, you know, way to stick it to the power, but it is time. It is time to remove these atrocities. Didn't they remove the BLM Plaza in D.C.? Yes, they did. They took it off the big road. It was like a big BLM.

They painted it down the middle of the road, plus the crosswalks and the flags. Took it all down. They're like, this is just a road now. It's just a road. You drive on it. You could walk across it with your pedestrians. That's all we need. Roads cannot be racist, and roads cannot have a sexuality. Right. And I voted to get back to roads being for traveling. Let's just be roads, right, for everybody. Shout out Sean Duffy, Catholic. Awesome.

Okay, that's what I got for my good news. I'm happy to get rid of those. Hopefully, that starts happening soon. That was good news. You were in the Thunderdome. Let me pull it up. I was gone. I was aware this was happening. Let's just say we have the latest episode of The Deep, as it is known. Shout out to...

Erika, for doing this, let me pull it up real quick. Shout out to Taylor Fragon for sponsoring The Deep and this opportunity. So, Erika got into, let's play this. Oh, that's a great face. Thanks for the freeze frame. That looks really, I'm like rolling my eyeballs back in my head. All right. I love seeing Simon's intro, so I'm going to run it. Going on Jubilee and surrounded. The first time that you actually know for certain who you're talking to, as well, the cameras are rolling and they walk into the circle.

I thought we were going to get some sort of, like, Jordan Peterson finally comes out as a Christian moment. I want to get to the core of what you're arguing here. The core of what I'm arguing is... What would make it reasonable to not believe in God? I don't think that's an unreasonable conclusion to get to. You're making this massive divorce between the psychological and the real. I don't think that I have to say that. For somebody to find peace, the entire endeavor must be true.

I think that that's entirely wrong. It has been very damaging. But it doesn't work for everybody. Are these stories serving us, or are we serving these stories? Does the truth of it matter? That was the question. So, Erika, what did you do? What's on our YouTube channel for all of you? Oh, gosh, yeah. So, this is a long form. It was a debate slash conversation with Cade, and so those of you who saw, Cade is a YouTuber. His handle is XTradGay, and he reached out after I did my reaction video to the Jordan Peterson Surrounded, which I give him credit for.

Like, that took some guts. Right, yeah, no, it was really cool. And he's like, hey, I saw your, like, review of the Jordan Peterson, and I'd love to come on your show and just, like, debate you or talk to you. And, yeah, so we set it up. We're going to have this conversation. And, yeah, I have not done anything like this for public consumption. I've had a lot of these conversations, like, privately, of course. Over bourbon? Yeah, several. And this was...

It was an interesting experience, for sure, remembering how frustrating it can be to debate someone who is a complete relativist. I mean, it came down to, he said things like, well, as long as you found peace in Catholicism, and you found so much joy in peace. I'm like, well, I mean, I have, but it's not exactly easy or comfortable. But we spent a lot of time trying to find something we would agree on.

And then we would find it, and 10 sentences later, he'd just be like, oh, it's all relative anyway, though. So, it was a difficult conversation to progress anywhere. So, this was your first debate experience. Yeah. What do you think went well, and what do you think you could have done better?

Yeah, I'll start with the latter. So, I think what could have gone better is to have more structure to it. We kind of planned on having these four claims, like the surrounded videos from Jubilee, these four claims that we each kind of gave a response to. After we got through the first claim, which was, does God exist and does it matter, which he wouldn't answer, I kind of morphed it. I was like, okay, maybe we're just going to have more of a conversation here and then tack on gay marriage at the end, the last segment's all about.

Why he thinks gay marriage is fine and I don't. I think we got deeper into the morass of his relativism because of that editorial choice that I made after the first claim. So, I think more structure would have been better, just in terms of a better product. I think what went well, though, was that he was super respectful. He's really well-read. Being an ex-Catholic, if you can be such a thing ever, was... No, that isn't possible.

What should we apologize for? It was fun to talk to him, because I would reference G.K. Chesterton, and he'd be like, oh yeah, that's Chesterton. So, that was great. It was good to have someone who was pretty well read, and we were able to get to the point of, why are you not Catholic anymore? And he just said it. For me, the best argument against God and the church is the problem of evil, and something like what just happened in Texas, right?

These little girls just drowned, probably terrified, screaming, why would a good God let that happen? Ergo, no God. I think that's probably the best argument against Catholicism. It's actually an argument for it, but I won't get into that here. But he just said right out, well, I found the burden of practicing the faith was greater than the certainty I felt in the church. And to me, that was, at least he has that self-awareness that I just didn't want to do it, right?

And I don't think he would put it like that, but being able to have him articulate that finally, that's true of so many people, I think, who leave the faith. The burden's too great. What is it like when Jesus...

Like many turned away, I'm forgetting the exact. The young man who goes away sad. Yeah, Jesus says, and that's what I felt like with Kate. He's a young man who's still searching. He's sad, and one of the most beautiful things to come out of it for me personally was just this conviction of We need to pray for them, because his story is not over yet, right? Yeah.

And he is definitely still seeking, so I hope people watch it. I want to hear feedback. I really genuinely do. It was the first time we have done this. Should we do more? Were we one and done? Please watch the video. Let me know what you think. You can email Tom at LOOPcast at CatholicVote.org, and please give me your honest feedback. Please do. That is actually important to us because my whole impetus for doing this was he reached out, I saw it, and I knew he was on the Jubilee debate, he saw Erika's reaction video, and some people were like, oh, should we, you know, is this what is best for him?

I actually appreciate the internal debates that happened because at the end of the day, we just want what is best for everyone's souls. Right. We're like, oh, should we do it? Should we not do it? Is it just going to be for cloud attention, whatever? And I will say, huge credit to Cade. He was super respectful for the whole thing, and he did not come in hot or felt like he was entitled to anything. It's just like, yeah, I'd be happy to have a conversation about what's going on.

And then I was just thinking to myself, who better than Erika Ahern? Super smart. We talk about this all the time. And if we're just kind of sitting in the three of us, yeah, we learn a lot from the three of each other, I would hope. But if we don't go out and talk to people that want to talk and get that message out, and the best part about it is, like, yeah, it's nerve-wracking. You do it. There's things that you could have done better or could have done worse, and now it's out there, and then people get to decide, like, okay, we're here, and then people can take out of it.

Who knows who we impact by a conversation like this? So, yeah, I think I got to go watch it, but... Yeah, you do. I want your feedback, too, Pogo. You can't. I would love to do more debates of some kind. I have a little bit of a... Debate background, personally, I'd have to dust it off, but I did a little bit in high school, which I love. And I think the idea is get to the truth, right? Absolutely. Go check it out.

It is on the YouTube channel. Have a look. If you just look up Luke. Drop that in the chat. We dropped it in the chat. We will have a description. Okay. Traditionis Custodis. Hot topic. Oh, my gosh. This kind of broke out. I just saw the headline. I did not really dig into it. So, Erika, what is going on? Yeah, this was massive breaking news out of Rome. It was on July 1st.

Diane Montagna, who is a phenomenal journalist, she has covered Rome. I think she started under Benedict XVI's papacy. She was covering and doing translation work. She actually obtained what she called, quote, the Vatican's overall assessment of the consultation of bishops that was said to have prompted Pope Francis to revoke Summorum Pontificum, which was Benedict XVI's apostolic letter that liberalized the traditional Latin Mass and the sacraments. So, this was the actual reply. They did a 2020 survey.

On Benedict XVI's freeing up of the Latin Mass, it was compiled by the Ecclesia Dei Commission back in 2020, bishops from all over the world submitted responses, and it was analyzed into this report that Diane got a hold of. It included regional data and an overall assessment synthesizing key findings from the world's bishops for Pope Francis as he was preparing to write this document. The structure aimed to provide an accurate global picture. Of the traditional liturgy's implementation and its fruits or damage in diocese.

And actually, Pope Francis, he referenced this report in the letter which accompanied Traditiones Custodes. He wrote that, quote, the responses to the questionnaire from the bishops reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me and persuades me of the need to intervene. Pope Francis went on, quote, regrettably, the pastoral objective of my predecessors, read Pope Francis, ...who had intended to do everything possible to ensure that all those who truly possessed the desire for unity would find it...

Possible to remain in this unity or rediscovered anew has been seriously disregarded. So, that is how the bishop's opinions were presented to the world. But here is what Diane uncovered. The overall assessment, and I have like seven key points.

The central conclusions of the CDF's summary report contrasted sharply with the rationale behind Tradiciones Custodes. The findings revealed widespread Episcopal support. For Pope Benedict's measures, the findings highlighted positive spiritual fruits of the traditional Latin mass and cautioned against revoking it. It showed that the reported division in the church stemmed from bishops who resisted Pope Benedict XVI, then from liturgical abuse among the faithful. So, the bishops who viewed the older liturgy as disruptive Tended to be those who resisted Benedict's measures. Those who actually implemented it, this is what they said.

The majority of bishops who implemented Samorum Pontificum, Benedict, expressed satisfaction with it, and they warned that repealing it would cause pastoral harm, spark renewed liturgical conflict, and damage the Church's credibility, especially among faithful who were drawn to the tradition and younger Catholics.

The bishop's report confirmed that younger people were attracted to the older form of It was bringing back young people to the faith. The report also highlighted the growth of vocations in communities since Samorum Pontificum. The report recommended studying both forms of the Roman Rite as part of seminary formation for priests, and it recommended let the people be free to choose. So, let the faithful decide what forms of liturgy they would want.

So, that Vatican narrative that we got about widespread liturgical dysfunction appears to have been based on selective interpretation, not on the fuller reality reported by the bishops. You can imagine, Pogo, while you were on vacation, the firestorm that this sparked. In the online world, among Catholics, the left, the right, everyone's hair was on fire. The liturgy was, wasn't it? Our hair was on fire. It was. The Vatican did respond at a press conference that was actually...

Supposed to just be the announcement of this mass for the care of creation that we just got, a reporter asked Matteo Bruni, the director of the press office for the Holy See, directly about Diane's report, and he said, quote, I am not confirming the authenticity of the texts that have been published, but if they were real, It was presumably part of one of the documents on which the decision to publish Tradiciones Custodes was based, and it is a contribution to a very partial and incomplete reconstruction of the decision-making process.

He said the consultation that has been mentioned was supported by other documentation and other reserve reports that Diane did not have access to, I suppose, and subsequent internal consultations. So, he totally dissembled it. I am not saying it exists, but if it did ... Did she say how she got it? You may have said that. She did not. No, she said she obtained it. Interesting. So, probably there was a leak of some kind, someone who is very unhappy.

Very interesting. But yeah, this was ... It just ... It makes me really, really sad. I do not doubt Diane's integrity at all. Yeah, me neither. The Vatican is saying, oh, there is other reports that we had. You are like, right, but this reports that the majority of bishops who implemented it ... We're all like, this should continue. This is good. This is bearing fruit.

And just you think of all of the hurt and the pain, the marginalization of people who worship in the TLM, right? Yeah. To get a report like this, just... Another corkscrew in the gut is what it feels like, honestly. So much for synodality. Weren't we supposed to listen to all the bishops? Okay, I have a couple resources for people hoping to understand. So, shout out Massive Ages, if anyone's ever seen Massive Ages. So, one of the guys actually goes to my parish.

I think two of them actually might, who are a part of Massive Ages put it together. So, it's a great resource if people are curious because I'm seeing people a little bit of confusion already. Shout out Jason. I think he threw it in there. He's a co-worker here. But yeah, if you're curious how it came about, what it is, it's just a fantastic resource if you have the time you want to devote. I don't understand why people are antagonizing it, but it also doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

I feel like it's this secret, uninviting thing. Go check that out. I would love to see some clarity from the new pope, who has an affinity for Latin and lace, to smells and bells, if you will, to weigh in on the situation. I wouldn't doubt that he's aware of it.

Oh, I'm sure he's aware of this. This is, yeah. Yeah. So, I think he's glad he has a little bit of a respite at Castel Gandolfo right now. He can pray and bring this to the Lord, and we should just pray for the Pope, because this is the kind of the politicking that just, you know, seeps into the life of the church, and... There is a clericalism? Clericalism, and this is... You just have to pray for our bishops, including the Pope, of course, because they're facing...

All kinds of intrigue, and of course, there's like, well, maybe Pope Francis was given a different report. Maybe he didn't even see that, you know, trying to apologize. You just don't know. The ghost of Josh always comes out, but I cannot help but think here, just to wrap all this. I feel like the traditional Latin mass, or the extraordinary form, or what is it? It's not actually called it. Extraordinary form. That works. Okay. So, because the real trans will get on me for that, but basically, as it is commonly known, traditional Latin mass might not be correct.

Like, we have a big problem. In my mind, with liturgical... Uh, what's the right word for it? It'd be like, you know, if you have food, and you have some food that has, like, worms in it, and then people eat it, get sick, and then their food is super high quality. I forget that. It's quality control. We have a quality control problem, obviously, with liturgy in the Catholic Church. I mean, didn't we just have that pride mass in New York City, where they said the Holy Spirit was a she?

Like, I don't know what the true solution is. I don't think the solution... What happens next is to come in super hard on one specific group of people because maybe you don't like them or you don't understand them or whatever because it is the mass that we inherited. But I think across the board, I don't know if this comes to the Pope, I don't know if this comes to the bishops or something, it'd be great to get some clarity and have more quality control in terms of masses across the country.

And right now, it's super lax. I don't even know how this works in authority structure. But I think the real problem isn't do we ban or do we unban the traditional Latin mass. The real problem is, how do we get a consistent, reverent, uniform liturgy, allowing for some areas of different regions, say like a mass in Africa is going to be a little bit different than a mass in America, but I think one of the things that Catholics love about their faith is that it is universal, that there are elements that are the same, and it is actually proper worship to God.

I think people just sincerely want that, so there just needs to be reform in that regard. I think that would solve almost all of these problems. Yes, 100%. If I had a magic wand and could just wave it, that is what my magic wand would be doing.

So, okay. Twilight Zone, Erika. Oh, man. Here I am again. All right. So, the National Education Association had its annual conference, and this is... The whole thing was a twilight zone. The whole thing was, we had people telling us that our children don't belong to us, that they belong to teachers' unions and everything, and we get the teacher of the year. So, I don't know if we want to just, like, hear. Let's just hear what she has to say about the nobility of the teaching profession.

Awesome. Once I started paying attention, once I realized how deeply political our profession had always been. I knew I could no longer stay on the sidelines. So, I got involved, I found my people, and my people helped me find my voice.

Yes. I started paying attention. So, this is Ms. Crossan, who received the Teacher of the Year Award. Congrats. And during this speech, we're like, okay, well, what's the philosophy? Who are your people? So, she said, She reminded delegates, speaking of now we're in this terrible Trump era, and we're going to have loss of funding and all that. She reminded delegates that we don't have to ask, what do we do now? Because public school educators have passed this test before. She said, I love this, we recite, we repeat, we embody the undeniable, inalienable truth.

What's good for educators is what's good for students. So, you might ask, what is good for educators? Here we go. Union solidarity is good for students. Dignity in contracts, meaning plenty of time off, really high pay, and amazing pensions.

Okay, we could pay them more. I get it. Dignity and contracts. Respect for expertise. Parents just need to respect the expert in the classroom, and regard for an educator's humanity. Safe schools and equity in classrooms are also good for educators, she added, equity meaning.

All the colors of the rainbow, as well as investments in teacher retention and recruitments. When educators have what is good and necessary to do their jobs, America's children become the real benefactors, she said. A little trickle-down economics there, although I don't think she's a Reaganite. As public education in America is under attack. Cross and said that now more than ever, we are tasked, we being the teachers, with building a better future. And I just want to think, like, isn't this the problem?

I'm going to push a little bit on this. Yeah. Can you just push a little bit on this? I need to pause. I'm going to push back a little bit on this, actually. So, I actually agree with her in two regards. Go for it. The first regard is noticing that her job is political. I think people, the modern understanding of the word political is not the proper understanding of the word political in that. Right. um proper understanding classic maybe like greek understanding of like politia uh is the ordering of society and i think very i i could argue make a very convincing case that How you educate your future citizens is political.

Right. Now, I disagree with the vision, the probably secular vision, for what the politia should be in the case of... I think we've seen some really crazy examples of gender-affirming care, mutilating surgeries, abortion, all of those things that are political in nature. It just says everything is political in nature. Everything is political. How you educate people on the economy. How you educate people in history, that's a political decision. So, I actually agree with her on that. Do I agree with her vision for the politia?

No, because I think the way that they're being trained and everything. The second is... So, unions, maybe I disagree with her on this, on what she's saying, that what's good for teachers is what's good for students. Teachers' unions, this is always misunderstood, they don't exist to negotiate on behalf of students. No, exactly. They only exist on behalf of teachers, and I'm almost, it's not that I disagree with that in principle. I think it is good for someone to represent teachers to make sure that they get paid well, to make sure they have good benefits, because they do have hard jobs.

I think that they've gotten crazy out-of-control powerful, and the biggest problem to me is there's no one negotiating on behalf of the students. I guess, technically, that should be the parents, but there's not an organization as well-funded, powerful, and mobilized as, say, the NEA or other teachers' unions. It's always hilarious to me to see. She does it to herself, Randy Wheatgarden, who's just, she's at a No Kings protest for some reason. Like, isn't your job to represent teachers, yet somehow this is kind of caught in here?

I'm sure she's going to say her tie-in is, like, cuts to the Department of Education or whatever. But I think these kind of events are hilarious, and, like, Total back-slapping, self-serving, like, you know, we're so great. What's so great for us is going to be great for our students. And at the end of the day, the unions don't exist for the benefit of the students. They exist for the benefit of the teachers. I wish that distinction was made clearer, and I think it's intentionally blurred by teachers' unions to continue to negotiate for better benefits.

If you look at results, it's certainly not been better for student outcomes. I'll tell you that. No, and I was going to bring up, coming out of COVID, this was really rich. The unions were negotiating to keep the schools closed, to keep teachers out of the class, to keep kids on Zoom, and we are still, there's a whole, you know, generation of kids who it's going to take a lifetime for them to recover from that, from this negotiating on behalf of the teachers.

And I think a lot of teachers were frustrated with it as well. And so, the idea that union solidarity, but not with this union. Not with the union that's represented here. This union has got to go. Because I do agree that our teachers should have, they need good mental health, they need good emotional, they need excellent training, they need support, right? And they need freedom. The other thing that we get in this sort of like approach to education is that teachers are so, so constricted by regulations from the state, by regulations from the Department of Education, that they're exhausted.

What is more exhausting than to have someone be like, oh, you know, mom, you're cooking dinner? Well, here's 36 recipes you have to cram into a Monday night dinner. Like, mom's not going to want to cook dinner anymore. Any kind of over-regulation like that. And yet, that is what the NEA advocates for constantly. It is not good for teachers. Unions are not good for teachers. Everyone's frustrated with... All of the things that are around actually teaching, and that's the funny thing about cutting the Department of Education.

The Department of Education brings all the strings and only contribute, what, 5%, 10% of the funding? Like, very small percent. That all comes from the states, in which the states have all kinds of administrative bloat that they probably add on, too. So, why are we adding this on top of what's already bloated, what's already frustrated? And, yeah, I just think it's funny. I'm having lots of conversations now as I'm 27 and have kids. Like, people are now starting to think about, oh, what do we do for school?

Right. And I do think there's a ton of power at the local school board level. That's why it is so important to get out to these elections that might seem small and don't get great turnout. Much of the decisions are made there. I don't think we should roll over and just give up control to people that clearly disagree with my vision of the good and how we should order society, because really, at the end of the day, everyone's well-being and everyone's education matters.

That being said, do I think you need to sacrifice your child on the altar of whatever's going on in the country, or do I think you need to sacrifice your child on the altar of whatever's going on in the country, or do I think you need to sacrifice your child? Popular secularly? No, I very much would not. No, and I would very much say, even if you yourself are homeschooling your kids or you have them in a private school in order to give them the best that you're able to, don't step out of the public arena in terms of your local school board.

Run for school board. Make sure you vote in the election and support the candidates who are going to do that, because like you said, I appreciate your point. Everything we do is going to be done by you. Thank you. Political. And if we want to build a better civilization for our children who were homeschooling, we definitely have an interest in what's going on at our local public schools, because those are the kids they're going to be working with when they're our age, you know?

Yeah. So, 100%. Get involved. Get involved is the answer. Get in the arena. Man in the arena. Yeah, shout out to TR. Shout out, Teddy. Where I'm at, he's just done with the civil service. I'm still working through this book. I got good progress over vacation. Isn't it like three 800-page volumes? It's probably been about a year. Oh, yeah. It's like an 800-page book. He just became the police commissioner in New York City, so he just ended his time with civil service reform.

Anyway, okay, so My Twilight Zone. Where do I even go? The Biden administration, just the gift that keeps on giving, the auto-pen administration. So, we have a memo that was leaked about someone from his team, someone in his circle, made a memo to pitch Biden on doing the debate, the infamous debate that happened a little over a year ago that ended up basically sinking his candidacy, and he moved the debate up to, or agreed to an earlier debate for reasons that are still kind of confusing to people.

Opaque? Yeah, opaque is a good way. Because it went so badly? Yeah. Because it's horrible, but it happened way earlier than it usually does, and so a lot of people are questioning why this happened. It turns out there's a memo here, and I have my own conspiratorial thoughts on it, but directly from the memo, your timing recommendation, your all-caps team continues to recommend you all-caps.

Commit to two debates this cycle, with the option to re-evaluate after the first debate, and man, did they re-evaluate. The first debate would take place in the spring, and the second debate would take place in September, following Labor Day. By holding the first debate in the spring, you will be able to reach the widest audience possible, before we are deep in summer months with... Did Donald Trump write this? There's like all caps everywhere. What's going on? That is that. I like that angle.

I like that thought process, Erika. Tinfoil hat on. Yeah, tinfoil hat on. Before we are deep in summer months with conventions, Olympics, and family vacations taking precedence, in addition, the earlier you are able to debate the better so that the American people can see you standing next to Trump and showing the strength of your leadership compared to Trump's weakness and chaos, while there is no perfect time, well, I would argue there's better times than others, to schedule this debate, we have identified an ideal spring window in your late June.

In late June, which will allow for extensive preparation to be built into your schedule. This is from his team. This is from the Orbit. Axios was reporting on this this morning that this got leaked somehow. Here's my thought on this. I don't even know if this is that deep.

Someone in his team clearly wanted him to drop out. There's no reason to move it up to where it was before. I think... Now, we're getting from these stupid books that keep getting posted after the fact they all lied to us, and they're like, oh, no, we got a sick book telling you all about the fact that he was walking around the lawns, no idea where he was. People must have known about this, and we're like, all right, we need something really public to show everyone and to force the hand of whoever's got to make the call to enact a very democratic process where we just launch a candidate that no one wanted or voted for.

With no primary, right? So, I think this was... Save democracy. And I also wonder, why is this coming out now? I think that we just continue to get the Biden humiliation train. I don't know if this is to exercise the demons or whatever going forward into 2028.

Or 2026, for that matter. This is bad, and I think it was done on purpose to make him look bad, so that they could force the hand. I don't think that's the official take here. It's just that they really were confident or something, but yeah, come on, guys. Yeah, that tracks. Oh, my goodness.

Come on, guys. Come on, now. I do love the all-caps, you, your, though. You, your. I don't know if it's because he just couldn't read some of those all-caps. What's that? You laugh or you cry, right? I don't really know what to say about. The entire administration that came before this one. Yeah. Okay, so great show, guys. What are we doing for prayer now? I have been out for a week. Yeah, no, we are praying more. Thanks to our listeners. Thank you guys for holding us accountable to that.

So, let us see what we have got. Yeah, we have had some wonderful write-ins. We have prayers for the nation. Do we have anything recent? All right, we got one today, prayer for our nation. No way. Have we already done that one? We have done prayer for the nation, but you know what? We could do it again. We could do it again, and I specifically want to keep in mind Texas, Hill County, Texas, for those who lost their lives or reposed their souls, for people that are still being looked for, they can find them.

So, I will pray a prayer for our nation here, and yeah, here we go. Prayer for our nation, in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, our Father, giver of life, we entrust the United States of America to your love and care. You are the rock on which this nation was founded. You alone are the true source of our cherished rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Reclaim this land for your glory and dwell among your people.

Send your spirit to touch the hearts of our nation's leaders. Open the minds to the great worth of human life and the responsibility that accompany human freedom. Remind your people that true happiness is rooted in seeking and doing your will. Through the intercession of Mary, Immaculate, Patroness of our land, grant us the courage to reject the culture of death. Lead us into the new millennium of life. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Amen. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.

Thank you, guys. Pray for Texas. If you want to help out the show, join the Champions Club. It's the best way to support us. Gather your vote. Dot org slash champions. Thank you to Inspire Advisors for sponsoring today. Leave us reviews.

Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Check out The Deep. YouTube. LOOPcast YouTube. Go subscribe over there. It's awesome. You got to head over there for that. And it was a great show. Hopefully, you know, LOOPcast Lite, fun today. Maybe we get the heavy hitter Josh back on Wednesday. I know, I know. He's going to tell us about the tariffs expiring. Pretty pumped. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're going to get great info from Josh. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, looking forward to that show. See you guys then. Have a great Monday. See you next time. Peace.