Indiana Primary Results: Redistrict or else, Pro-Life Caucus in Chaos, And Homeschool Beef

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. Welcome, everyone, here live in the chat. Good to see you guys. I see we have a 25th anniversary celebration. 26. That is amazing. Congratulations. That is awesome. So, yeah, go spend time there, you know, tap out, maybe listen to us later, but we have a great show planned for you guys today. As always, we are going to be hitting a lot of topics because we've got the two-hour show now.

Rest in peace, Spirit Airlines. I don't even know if we're going to cover that today, but just rest in peace. I took a lot of cheap flights with that airline. So, up top, we had primary elections, and there was a national spotlight on my home state, the Hoosier State. And in particular, on statewide elections, state senators. Reason being, there was a lot of resistance to the redistricting plan that President Trump put forward, and this was a litmus test, and I think the message has been sent, as Josh sent to Slack late last night, as he likes to closely watch obscure fires and then celebrate them.

So, we are going to get a lot of good primary talk. We also had some in Michigan and Ohio. I have some brief takeaways there. Second up, we have... The Supreme Court. So, some are saying the pro-life caucus is in chaos right now. That is what I put in the title. I think that was a direct quote, Erika Ahern, or maybe it was Tom McCluskey. I'm not sure, but essentially- I might have been quoting someone, yeah.

Mipha Pristone back in the market. A lot of people confused why this is, because there's a previous judge that put a stay, and now it is back. So, we have the technical details there, and a lot of the interesting behind-the-scenes infighting going on between pro-lifers, the Trump administration. What they promised, what they have not delivered on, and I guess where we go forward as a pro-life caucus is going to be interesting to see.

Also, we have an interesting data center conversation with Mr. Wonderful. So, Mr. Wonderful wants to build a very, very, very, very large data center project in Utah, and there was a massive protest at, again, kind of obscure. It's called MITA. It's a commission that had to give consent, and so a lot of interesting things there. I think a lot of grassroots energy want to cover what happened there. Eric has done some good episodes of The Deep on that. And then we have homeschooling beef, as I had in the title.

So, there was kind of something went viral on Twitter, but Erika actually has been active in Connecticut on the ground as a homeschooling parent herself and a homeschool advocate, so we have a little bit of information there that you can personally attest to. But, of course, we have good news, Twilight Zone. I think we saved Iran for the Twilight Zone because... We had just got full Iran for the Twilight Zone because that is what it is. Yeah, it is the Twilight Zone.

We will see what happens there. Okay, but before we get to that, we have our sponsor, Charity Mobile, because, of course, now more than ever, it's important to do business with companies that stand with you and your beliefs. Charity Mobile is a pro-life phone company that serves pro-life customers and supports pro-life, pro-family causes. They send 5% of your monthly plan price to your favorite charity, and they have sent millions of dollars to charities over the past 30 years. Not only that, there are no sacrifices when you switch to Charity Mobile.

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Thank you, Charity Mobile, for sponsoring today's episode. We really appreciate you guys, and go check them out. All right, maybe we just do a check-in before we get in. How are we feeling, gang? Intro is out of the way. How are we doing?

I'm feeling good. Tree pollen is killing me this year, so my apologies if I have to duck out and cough up a lung halfway through the show, but otherwise, we're good. We lost our homeschooling freedom this week. Get into that more later on in the show. So, that's sad, but God is good. What can I say? No complaints.

Josh, is what you're thinking about primary elections and ballot counts? I mean, I'm very happy with that news. Yes. Nothing makes me happier than to see bad Republicans be destroyed in a primary and replaced by stronger Republicans. That makes me smile. Okay, so let us talk here, because I saw a direct quote, I think, in American politics. Typically, 90% of the time, the incumbent wins, in particular, on statewide elections. So, we are not even talking about senators that are going to go to D.C.

These are people that are going to be in Indianapolis. So, why was there so much focus on these statewide elections? I saw $13.5 million in spending poured into these typically low-profile state Senate races. What is going on there?

Yeah, so what happened was, you know, New York started this off, this fight for mid-decade redistricting. They put forward a map where they smushed out a bunch of Republican districts and made it a much more Democratic map. Then Texas, you know, responded. Of course, there was a lawsuit going on in Texas anyway, so they had to deal with the lawsuit. And then other states like California and Virginia come by, and they start changing their maps.

And so, it's becoming, you know, a war on both sides, and so in Indiana, Republicans control the governor's mansion there. They also can control both of the seats in the Senate and the House and the legislature, and Indiana has become a pretty reliably strong state. Trump wins it easily. You know, it's not even contested by 10 points, and so... Republicans in Indiana were like, well, why don't we redistrict this? Instead of having six Republicans and two Democrats, why don't we just have it 8-0 and redistrict?

Because you have these districts like up in northwestern Indiana, Gary, and then also in Indianapolis, where you have carved out these districts which are The liberals are able to dominate, and so it is like, well, why don't we re-change the lines? It is a state that is like plus 12 Republican. Why don't we just make all eight seats Republican seats? They would be doing that in California and Virginia. That is what Democrats are doing. They are maximizing their efforts. Again, this is the time where you could say, if there was on the table a proposal to say, let us have rules that we can put in place for all 50 states.

You know, then fine, but if not, you get the situation where every state starts responding to each other, and you keep ratcheting it up, and there's no real proposal, you know, there's no bipartisan solution to this. Gosh, if only there was a legislative body somewhere in this land where the Democrats and Republicans could come together on a national level and solve this problem. So, since they didn't, Trump was telling Republicans in Indiana, he had the support of the governor and the lieutenant governor and the senator, Jim Banks, hey, let's make these lines.

The Democrats are killing us all over the place. Why don't we Republicans here in Indiana pick up two more seats here? And a lot of squishy rhino, which stands for Republican in name only, Republicans decided, no, no, no, we're going to be better. We're not going to fall for this tactic, and we're going to not try to maximize our advantage, in hopes that somehow Virginia and California will, you know, realize that they did something naughty, and they won't, it's like, and everyone's like, what are you talking about?

This is ridiculous. So, back in February, or whatever it was, the Indiana Republicans said no. A bunch of these squishy rhinos said, we're not going to do it, and so Donald Trump and a lot of conservative activists across the country and in Indiana said, we're going to go after these Republicans in the primaries and replace them with conservatives, and there was eight seats that were up for election this year, and of those eight seats, the lieutenant governor, who's a solid guy at Beckwith, he's like, if we could just win three, that would be great.

You know, if we could take out three of these eight people, that would send a message like, we are for business here, and we actually want results. All these squishy Republicans are like, the voters in my district don't want this. Well, the voters in my district don't want this kind of stuff.

Well, guess what? We had an election yesterday, and the voters in your district got a chance to weigh in on this. And of those eight rhinos, seven, well, I should say six, were defeated. I mean, three would have been amazing. Six were defeated. A seventh one is going to go to a hand count. I mean, it is literally three votes separated. Three votes, I saw. Yeah, it is going to be contested. And the eighth one, okay, yeah, the Rhino won. But, I mean, to win six out of eight.

Not by a lot, either. I mean, in the last 20 years, I don't think there's ever been an election where you've had more than one person defeated in a primary. It's so rare. And everyone in Washington and across the country says, oh, this is a big victory for Donald Trump. It is true. Trump deserves a victory lap on this one, because he put a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of attention to this. He did everything he could for it.

But people just don't understand. Donald Trump is not going to be president in about four years, and the Republican Party isn't going to go back to George W. Bush, Romney, McCain days, where we're like, oh, I guess we'll be the sore losers.

No, we're done with Eeyore Republicans, okay? We're done with it, okay? We're not the Washington Generals basketball team that loses to the Globetrotters every time. This is not performance. We have a country to save. So, everyone who thinks it's just Donald Trump...

They don't get it. We need to understand, this was the voters, Republican voters in Indiana said, no, we're sick and tired of this Kelvin ball, okay? And then one of our members reading a comic, Kelvin and Hobbes in the 80s and 90s, Kelvin ball, it's this fun game that the kid would play with Hobbes. What are the rules? There are no rules, and the rules change halfway through the game. My kids play that. And Republicans have... That is what Democrats do.

They play Calvin ball. Like, one day, it is like, civility matters. It is so important we have civility, and the next day, they are making fun of Charlie Kirk being shot in the neck. So, we cannot have asymmetrical warfare. The rules, if these are the new rules, if California and Virginia are going to maximize the total number of seats they want, okay, well, hey, two can play at that game, and I do not believe in unilateral disarmament. I do not believe, hey, if I put down my guns, the enemy won't shoot me.

Well, it's, okay, so if we were to make it concise to what's going on here, it feels to me that This is essentially because you said it lacks a national solution. It's going to be a race to the bottom. It's probably eventually going to wash out. Maybe it ends up in someone's favor or the other favor, but that only happens. It's not even clear. It'll definitely be in favor of the Republicans, just because of the math. But that will only happen if people treat this like a team, like if we're actually in this together on a national stage, right?

So, if Indiana bucks this and says, no, no, no, we're not going to do it, the message has been sent. You are going to play ball. We are going to act like a team, and this needs to be across the board, because would you see what happened with the Voting Rights Act, as we've covered here, has basically been gutted, so you're going to go through the South now. I think the biggest takeaway from this, well, two things. These weren't close races.

I have a couple of things, and I actually live in Tracy Powell and Jim Buck's district, the race there, and Jim Buck spent a lot of money, had been in that position for a long time, and basically lost. He got doubled up. These guys got trounced. All of them. I mean, none of them are really close. The one right on one, the other one is like holding on to a sliver lead, but the other like six got trounced. In the five to eight, and the interesting thing about our county too is...

Like, it's getting pretty blue. Like, a lot of people come from Chicago because they hate Illinois, and then they bring the politics with it. So, it's being kind of seen as a little bit of a purple district. Again, this is Republicans, too, so this isn't like a Republican versus Democrat. However, the ads that were put out were, I think also, if you think.

From my perspective, the attacks on Jim Buck, where he's been there forever, he's old, he's liberal, nothing's changed, and Tracy Powell was kind of the firebrand and coming in. All the attack ads were very like, it wasn't around redistricting itself. It was this old model of leadership has failed. We need new, real, conservative. It was essentially the attack. Redistricting is kind of a process argument and sometimes hard to make in a 30-second soundbite, so you basically try to summarize it in different ways.

Right. Here is why this is having an immediate impact, because an hour before we started the show, They've already had a vote in South Carolina. A House panel has advanced a map on redistricting, and we got the Speaker of the House in Tennessee who said, yep, we're going forward. So, this sent a message immediately to a lot of these states. If you asked me before this election, I still think Georgia might not go forward with a redistricting plan this cycle, maybe not even next cycle.

It's a very purple state. But even then, now there will be more pressure. And so, you know, the governor of Alabama, she was, you know, Governor Ivey, she was like, I don't know about this, I don't think we want to do this, and then she changed her tune because, why? It wasn't because the president called, it's because the grassroots voters are like, no, we're sick of this. You know, we're sick and tired of one side having, you know, they can do whatever they want, and then when it comes to us, we're binding ourselves by these laws and norms and mores of...

Decades gone by, you know, no, we are not having asymmetrical warfare. If this is the new rules of the game, we will make you pay for it as well. Yeah, I think Virginia was the big message, right? It's like, oh, were they actually? Do they actually mean that they're going to be doing fairness or whatever? And then, okay, 10-1. It's like, well, all right, game on, right? Like, we're going to start seeing this all across the South. And yeah, so big message sent there.

And then if you look over to Michigan, the big takeaways that I had were that a special election, so Democrat Chedrick Green won the 35th State Senate District special election. That means that Democrats now hold a narrow majority there. They hold on to their majority, right? And they would have lost it if they would have lost that race, so I think Democrats are going to now use that as, oh, we made gains in areas that were previously Trump-friendly. We're talking about, like, Saginaw.

It was a little bit of, like, West Michigan swing states, kind of. I don't know if this is the strongest. I think that Republicans could win in a good year. The real thing here, again, this is where I talk about having clear rules ahead of time.

Okay. So, what happened was, in this district, people are like, why do I care? I live in Michigan, so obviously I do care. But I just want to try to help people understand what is going on here. This district, the person that had previously been the state senator for this district, got elected to Congress. She started her term in office January 3, 2025.

Okay? This seat has stayed vacant for over 400 days because the Democratic governor of Michigan was worried... That a Republican might win the seat back, therefore, as you say, making it, instead of Democratic controlled, it might become Republican controlled, or even evenly divided, and you have to have a lieutenant governor make all these votes. So, she held out calling a special election for over a year. So, the voters in the 35th district have not had a state senator.

So, again, if this district had been in Ann Arbor or in Detroit, she would have called for a special election in 10 seconds. And look, I'm not saying only Democrats play this game. I'm not saying that at all.

I'm saying Republican governors would be just as tempted, and I'm sure someone could come up with chapter and verse and examples of where Republican governors slow rolled it and waited to the last second to make these replacements. I get it. The partisan advantage and the stakes have become higher, so this is why I say, listen, let's come up with a solution. Put forward a proposal and say, you know, From now on, a governor, and some states now require this, you have to require, you have to call for a special election once there's a vacancy within X amount of, within 60 days or something like that, and that election must be held within, you know, a regularly scheduled time.

So, you don't just get to slow roll this kind of stuff forever. And, of course, she made it so it was in a spring election when Republican voters are much less likely to come out and vote. Checked out, right. So, her candidate wins. So, again. We can do this. We can come up with a new plan. If we don't like the, you know, you call it the race to the bottom in terms of states redistricting. It is. We can come up with a new plan.

You know, come up with something. What I would love to have is to have, like, The five best conservative strategists and the five best Democratic strategists come together and say, these are the rules that we could have. No doing redistricting in the mid-decade can only happen after the census, and you cannot change it. Okay, fine. And you can say, let us leave counties intact or something. Come up with these certain rules that would govern both sides, all across the board.

And if not, we're going to have a race to the bottom, as you say, but guess what? We warned the Democrats not to do this. It was Governor, New York Governor Kathy Hochul who started this mid-cycle stuff this time around, and we warned her, do not do this.

There will be consequences. We will respond. And we have responded. And so, I mean, again, it's like, you know, pick your poison. You know, when you look at it, if we keep maximalizing the states, the fact of the matter is Republicans will end up better off during the redistricting fight. We saw that, you know, with the just outrageous, outstanding leadership of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who said, yeah, we should redo our map. Immediately. From like 15 minutes.

The state changed it. It is just amazing. Yeah. All right. Here we are. And then, Ohio, we get a matchup of Vivek and Amy Acton, the Democrat. Pretty much expected. No surprises there. Sherrod Brown and John Husted will be the other one. Husted was put in the seat after J.D. Vance became vice president, expected to be the most expensive and consequential Senate race in the country, potentially.

Yeah, so what's going on right now is Democrats are, across the board, super excited about all their candidates, and you look at the betting markets, and I don't have any spare money to roll around because I'm trying to fix my flooded basement, but I just, I can't believe the amount of hopium that's going on amongst Democrats. I mean, they're like, oh yeah, we've got Ohio in the bag. Like, this is a state that Donald Trump won by like 12 points. It's ruby red, and you think Sherrod Brown, who'd been in office for like 50 years, got thumped.

Two years ago, he's going to somehow rise from the dead, and he's going to win. Go for it, buddy. I mean, I just don't see it happening. Iowa, you've got Ashley Hinson. She's not perfect. She's running for the Senate seat from retiring Joni Ernst, where Democrats are, oh, yeah, we can win here. Like, this woman was a masterful communicator. She was on TV for years. She's not going to have any problems. And then Alaska, you had the fluke a few years ago where Mary Petrola won.

The lone House seat in Alaska, now she's running for the Senate, and Democrats are like, we're going to win here, too! Yeah, dude. The one that really gets me is the main race. I was going to say, who do you have? Up here in my corner, we have Graham Plattner. For those who don't know the story of Graham Plattner, he literally has a Nazi... He's being billed as the working-class oyster farmer, which is not even a thing, in Maine. That's also why, right?

Yeah, he's not an oyster farmer. It's like a little hobby, and he sometimes shells oysters. But anyway... He's been sort of, like, propped up and resurrected as this maverick, like, man of the working people who's going to come in. He has a literal Nazi tattoo on him. He has all kinds of scandal going on in the back. The Democrats are pumped about him, and they didn't even have a primary in true Kamala Harris fashion. They just anoint this guy.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He smashed the former governor of Maine. Okay, so the current governor of Maine, Janet Mills, decided she was going to run for the United States Senate seat, even though she's very old, but progressives love Janet Mills, and so she was running in this primary, and then Graham Platner got boosted by Bernie Sanders, and, you know... His national profile. You look at the polls, and he was, you know... Janet Mills took way too long to get involved.

She should have announced her campaign three months earlier. She took too long. She didn't get out on the road enough, and she thought she had it in the bag. She's the governor, right? And Graham Plattner campaigned like the Dickens to work really hard. She quit the race because she knew why I'm going to lose dramatically. This is going to be embarrassing, so it's better for me to quit, but it's not like he was not anointed. It's not like a I don't even think the analogy of Kamala Harris, frankly, was fair, but it's more fair than this one, because he was going to win this competitive race, and she only quit because she didn't want to be embarrassed by a thumping.

Yeah, I mean, he was smashing her, and he has no communication with the DNC. Like, the DNC, they're all trying to figure out what to do about him, obviously, because the Nazi tattoo and his controversial past, but, I mean, he just smashed. A former governor, current sitting governor of Maine, and so now it's like, we have a problem because Maine has been hollowed out, largely, as you know, because there's a lot of blue-collar jobs that left and whatever, and he's seen as kind of the populist candidate.

Now, who's the... Susan Collins. Susan Collins. Who is, by all accounts, a great retail politician. So now it's like, we're going to see... That is an understatement. Yes. I mean, the fact that she's been able to maintain that control in Maine... With regards to Susan Collins, our position at CatholicVote is very clear. We wish, of course, that she were pro-life, and she is not. Therefore, we can never endorse her running for office. She votes for Supreme Court justices almost always, so she voted for Sotomayor, she voted for Kagan, but she cast the decisive vote in favor of Kavanaugh, and if it weren't for that...

Kavanaugh wouldn't have made it, so I thank her for that. The fact of the matter is, she is unbelievably, just from a pure political thing, just honest, not even caring about the positions, just a pure objective analysis. She is one of the greatest candidates, just winning elections that she has no right to win. They'll be studying her for generations. The Democrats thought they had her dead to rights. Six years ago, every poll, every single poll, I mean every one of them, had her losing 6, 8, 12, 15 points.

I mean, it was just a sea of blue, and the Democrats were like, Breaking out the champagne, and she wins, and she didn't win narrowly. She won big time. It was, I mean, this woman, she's like, a cat has nine lives, but Susan Collins has got like 900. I don't understand. So, on a brief read, is that she just spends a lot of time in Maine? Like, she spends more time in Maine than the average? No one understands. I mean, again, the rule we try to tell politicians, if they'll listen, is that you should always run for office as if you're running 10 points behind.

You need to run, you need to hustle, you need to try to get out there, make your case to the voters, talk to them, tell them what you're doing, tell them why they need to vote for you. So, Chris Smith, pro-life congressman from New Jersey, he represents a very blue district. That guy, every time he's like, he keeps calling us, he's like, I need to help you. I mean, the guy's won every election since 1980. He's not going to lose, but he always runs like, I don't know, guys, I might lose.

That's so good to run like that, and she does. She knows her state so well, and in fact, when Janet Mills announced last week that she was quitting. The press were asking Susie about this. Okay, so what about your opponent, Graham Plattner? Tell me about what about his Nazi tattoo, all this stuff. You could just see how skilled she was in answering these questions. She goes, I am not going to talk about that today. Today is the governor's day. She made a difficult decision.

She has been serving the state. As a senator, I am going to continue to work with her until the end of her term. I wish her the best, but it is her day. I mean, she was just so... She's brilliant in terms of understanding what the media was trying to do. I mean, again, I wish she was a pro-life warrior. I wish she was, you know, but this woman, just from the skills of a retail politician, Susan Collins is in a category by herself.

Amazing. Okay, so then throw up a prediction. Oh, she wins. Easy. I don't. All right. I mean, that's what I'm saying. I've never heard you speak about a politician this way. I've done this show for you for three, four years now. Maybe Nancy Pelosi. Maybe Nancy Pelosi. Josh has said many. Game respects game. Nancy Pelosi. Yeah. So, Susan Collins and Nancy Pelosi. I mean, someone from that team needs to clip that up and just send it everywhere about Susan Collins. Wait, how old is she?

She's younger than Janet Mills. I don't know. She's probably 70 or so. 73, says Google. So, that's like being a teenager. Yes, she's basically very youthful. Serving Congress. I mean, think about this. Susan Collins votes for Kavanaugh in 2018, right?

And then you have Amy Coney Barrett up in 2020. I think she says no on Amy Coney Barrett because she realizes she's got to... Go before the voters, like a month later. And you are thinking to yourselves, presidential election, everyone is going to be coming out in Maine to vote for, you know, Joe Biden or whatever. And how does she survive that election? Like, you survive that one, I just don't know how she is ever going to lose until she decides to hang up her hat.

I mean, it is just amazing. It is amazing. Okay. My problem, when conservatives get mad with rhinos in the Senate, my problem is not the Susie Collins of the world. It is the guy out of Utah, like John Custis. What are you doing, brother? You are so liberal, you might as well be a Democrat. Or Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, or Tom Tillis, who thankfully is retiring out of North Carolina. You guys, come on, man. I expect better from North Carolina. I expect more better from Alaska.

In Utah, what is going on with the Mormons these days, man? They're trending, very liberal. It's bothersome. That is a rabbit hole I am not going to get. The Church of Latter-day Saints. Yes. Okay, speaking of what's going on, pro-life movement, okay? Mifpris Stone back on the market. Erika, are people upset?

Let us just start right there. What is going on? A lot of people have said, so we have been following this case that has been moving up through the courts coming out of Louisiana, challenging the FDA's abortion bill. So, you say we have the state, Louisiana, suing the Trump administration because of the FDA's ruling that is still in place that doctors can dispense mifepristone over the phone, over telehealth, over medicine. And today, we have this situation, post-Dobbs, where 60% of abortions are done through chemical abortion, these pills, mifepristone, misoprostol, and about 40% of those are being dispensed out of a telehealth.

So, there's no in-person visit. Very dangerous. We're seeing 6% to 11% of women ending up in emergency rooms. And so, the state of Louisiana files this lawsuit against the Trump administration, makes it up to the fifth. The Fifth Circuit, Court of Appeals, and the Fifth Circuit puts an emergency stay on the abortion pill companies for telehealth dispensation of the medication, so-called medication.

And what we got on May 4th, may the 4th be with you, the Supreme Court, specifically Justice Alito, because he's in charge of emergency orders from the Fifth Circuit. They pause that appeals court ruling that required the chemical abortion pills to be prescribed in person. So, he pauses that, meaning that the telehealth is open once again.

The reason why he paused it was because a pair of drug makers who make Mifepristone, they urged the Supreme Court, they put forward this request to halt that Fifth Circuit ruling, claiming that it was creating, quote, nationwide. Chaos. Citing that, you know, at the moment that that stay went into action, there were somewhere between 500 and 1,500 abortions in progress, which is a terrible thing to think about. But all of that was thrown into confusion and halted. The numbers are crazy.

So, Alito granted this administrative stay and halts it through 5 p.m. on May 11th. What this does is it gives the full Supreme Court the time to review. The case and the emergency petition from the Fifth Circuit. So, why did he do this? And people are like, how could Alito do this? He's pro-life, like Dobbs, and what's this? So, a few reasons. One, it is to prevent this regulatory chaos that can follow from when there's a sudden end to something that many people are accessing.

For very personal uses. Drug manufacturers like Danko Laboratories, they're arguing that this was confusion and upheaval, and it was a challenge to the status quo. I talked to Tom McCluskey about this, and he was saying that from his best guesses, what's on Alito's mind here especially is that to end telemedicine, quote unquote, for mifepristone would be such a culture-shocking, a culture-shifting move. That Alito understands it can't just be his signature on this. It's going to have to be the full Supreme Court, and this gives them time to get more justices on board.

So, they're going to have a full Supreme Court review of the emergency request, and hopefully we get another pause on this while the case comes up through the Supreme Court, and they can have oral arguments. We will know by the end of Monday if that happens.

Yeah, so that is where we are at with the Mifepristone and the back and forth right now. Well, and ultimately, they might decide... That they'll allow, they'll keep it paused and wait until they actually hear a full case, and it would be next term in October. They might take the case in October, they might take the case in November. We'll see. There's any number of things the court can do. Just like you say, just because Alito signed off on something doesn't mean, like, well, wait a minute now.

It's not that he's judging on the merits of the case, it's the circumstances surrounding any time you... You know, hit pause on a major law that is affecting, you know, obviously millions of people. We think obviously in ways that are detrimental, but you still, you know, you have to go through the works on this. So, we will see. I ultimately think, I mean, I am of the opinion that they are more than likely going to pause, keep the pause in effect until they hear a case on this, you know, and they have a full opportunity to hear all the different arguments on both sides.

Am I back? We're back. We all just flashed and then came back. We all flashed? Well, hello, everyone. Yeah, one of the... Sort of characterizations of what Alito did that I was seeing on the left from like Axios Politico, even SCOTUS blog, was that there was some kind of contentious legal standing, that somehow Louisiana doesn't have standing in this case, there isn't harm being done to the state. And they were making an analogy between this and the previous case on Mifepristone, which the Supreme Court declined to hear, because of a lack of standing.

And that was the FDA versus Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. I believe that was last fall. They declined to hear the case at all, saying that this alliance of doctors lacked standing. They didn't have harm done directly to them by the FDA's doing away with the in-person requirement.

But the way that I'm seeing it argued by, say, Alliance Defending Freedom now, Erin Hawley, Josh Hawley's wife, who is arguing this case before the Fifth Circuit, she explained that, in fact, what the Fifth Circuit ruled is that Individual states that have passed pro-life laws and restrictions on the use of misoprostol and mifepristone in chemical abortions, they actually do have standing, and that's what Louisiana demonstrated to the Fifth Circuit, that they've had over a thousand women having to go to emergency rooms on Medicaid because of the detrimental effects of this, and that states are unable to actually debate.

and pass legislation regarding abortion regulation because other states like California and New York with their sanctuary state laws that protect doctors who mail these abortion pills into states like Louisiana are violating state sovereignty. And so Louisiana actually has a really strong case here for having legal standing to bring this lawsuit. And it could be a way to end this ridiculous... The decision by the Biden administration to do away with just basic protections, quote-unquote protections for women, with regard to Mifepristone. So, a lot of hopefulness here, but it's going to take some time.

Hopefulness, but I think this is the bigger question, and this is why we're talking about the caucus. So, today in Zeal, is Trump losing the pro-life movement over abortion pills? In particular, we had Marie Dannenfelser. Marjorie. Sorry, Marjorie. She said, if Trump's strategy of leaving abortion policy to the states, then the movement as we know it is finished. Trump is the problem. The president is the problem. That was with an interview with the Wall Street Journal. I think the issue... Looking from the outside, is that Trump and his administration, HHS, Department of Justice, made a lot of promises to make significant changes to Title 10, HHS in particular, in terms of safety reviews that they have not come through on.

Trump right now seems very preoccupied with, let's just say, non-domestic priorities, and doesn't really have incentive to actually... Touch what maybe he sees as a divisive issue. I don't think he himself is very personally pro-life. I think that's a scene. So, it seems like we kind of have a crisis of a way forward as people that sincerely are pro-life and see Mephepristone as, you know, maybe the biggest contributor to mass murder of unborn children in the country right now. So, I guess I'll leave it there.

Tom McCluskey, I know, deeply personally involved in the movement. I think you have a quote for him. I'm going to let you share it. Just with all that, where do we go from here? Yeah, it is kind of a mess right now, and Josh, you might have more to say on this, because I know you're being the head of political advocacy there, for CatholicVote, and kind of where we have come down as an organization on it, but McCluskey's exact quote, and I have to use this, Tom.

It was so funny. So, he goes, saying Trump is the problem is like the middle of the iceberg saying, I didn't sink the Titanic. I just had to give a shout-out. Any kind of Titanic reference, it's great. But I think the bottom line being that there is unmistakably, post-Dobbs and coming to a head now, this...

There's this kind of tension where many pro-life groups came together, some at the very last minute, to endorse Trump's campaign in 2024 and to really push to get him elected. There is an argument to be made that if you just look strictly at the record, that he is the most pro-life president that we've had, and whether you agree with that or not, I think there's still an argument to be made for that. But in the pro-life movement itself, it's now... How do we hold him accountable, but also, how do we hold these senators and congressmen more accountable as well?

Because it's not just a Trump problem. Marjorie was standing up there on the stage saying Trump's... It's definitely not just a Trump problem. Right, she's standing up on the stage. Let's say something. Here's the point. If Donald Trump...

You know, died, you know, this week, and we don't want that to happen, I'm saying. Or he stepped down for health reasons or something like that, and J.D. Vance became president. You know, it's not like suddenly everyone, all the Republicans in Washington are going to become that much more pro-life. I like J.D. Vance. I think he is more pro-life than Donald Trump, obviously. But there's still going to be a problem amongst Republicans, because here's the thing. I don't think the problem is that Republicans...

In Washington, that, you know, representing districts like my district, conservative districts all across the country, most of the Republicans actually in Washington are pro-life, but they're against losing, too. And they're convinced, and not for nothing, that this issue is A losing issue right now. What we need to do is to convince them that it can be a winning issue, or at least not detrimental to their livelihoods. And what do I mean by this? I mean, I think back to Florida. Now, Florida is a state that was a swing state.

George W. Bush won it by 538 votes, the closest election probably in our lifetimes, right, over Al Gore. You know, George W. Bush won it twice. Barack Obama won it twice. It was a very swing state. It has since become a red state. Florida is so red, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris both didn't even compete. They said, forget it. It is off the map. We have no chance of winning. We are going to spend our money elsewhere, and they did not have a lack of money.

Florida is that red, and yet, they put forward an amendment proposal to the Constitution of Florida to push abortion on Florida. Thank the good Lord that it requires 60% approval to pass an amendment in Florida. A majority of Floridians voted for abortion. It was like, what, 58% or something like that? Close. But because you needed 60, it failed. It only failed because you needed 60%. What does that tell you? A red state, a big red state, voted for abortion. Thankfully, it didn't pass.

So, that is what we are talking about right here. That is the problem right now. In other words, before Dobbs, before Roe v. Wade was overturned, Republicans could stand up, whether they are running for Senate, House, President, wherever, and say, I am in favor, I am pro-life. It was almost like, well, the Supreme Court does not allow states to do anything on this issue. So, it is kind of empty. Not that there were not battles.

But now, it's sort of like, it's not like a military just performing exercises. This is real life. This is real ammo. Like, people will lose their races because of this. And so, you want to turn things around. We need to start helping.

We need the same energy we saw last night in Indiana to take out these rhinos on these maps as we do Supreme Court races in Wisconsin, which our team has been working hard on those the last few cycles, and everyone else in the Republican Party was asleep at the wheel.

We've got a Supreme Court race coming up in Georgia in two weeks. Everyone listening to this program who's from Georgia, you need to get involved. You need to bring people to the polls, and you need to vote for conservatives to the Supreme Court in Georgia. That's what we need to start doing. We need to start winning elections again. And you know what? I would love to have leadership on this issue.

I would love to have the president, vice president, and senators to be leading on this issue, but if they don't, that doesn't mean we're not going to lead. The fact is, in Michigan, my governor, Gretchen Whitmer, horrible, horrible pro-abortion, but she put a lot of her power and money and time and energy behind it, and that made a difference.

So, we need that kind of leadership on the Republican side, but until then, we've got to roll up our sleeves, we need to get to work, we need to start winning elections again, so Republicans don't get terrified about this issue. We can win. We can win. Do we have infrastructure for people to get involved in Georgia? Do we have, like, a post-war campaign? We're sending out an alert to our folks in Georgia this week. Okay. Do you have a place if someone's listening and they're in Georgia?

Yeah, I mean, hey, like, you know, You know, if you're listening, we'll have updates in different news stories and stuff like that, and we'll be sending out alerts. If you're not on our email, go to CatholicVote.org, sign up for our email alerts, and we'll get you involved here. So, absolutely. So, this is the kind of stuff that is needed. You know, it has to be a team effort. You know, we have to understand this. We need all the different coalitions together.

We need all the different voters. Oh, guns are your issue. You don't care about this issue. Hey, you need to get out there and get your voters out here, and we'll get our voters out for your stuff. I mean, this is how politics works. It's not, you know, oh, I don't care, so I'm just going to stay home. No, that's how we lose.

Yeah, so I appreciate the, like, on-the-ground infrastructure, for sure. I do think that it's quite justified at this point, and I appreciate people like Josh Hawley and Chris Smith, who have just publicly come out and be like, this is horrible, we need to be against Smith-Bristone, and just calling out the lack of leadership at this point from Trump. I mean, if you look at what he's approved so far, psychedelics, marijuana, Ozempic, you know, but when it comes to abortion pills that literally murder people, Zero, because you've used it as a toxic issue, for better or for worse.

Oh, we're asking that it, at a minimum, to pull back what Biden had done on it. Right, just roll back the Biden. Which was promised, by the way. Right. So, I don't think, there was a point where you're like, okay, maybe there's even like a little bit of a, we can kind of argue about this. No, it's been an abdication of leadership from the Trump administration on what they promised. I think it's beyond justified to criticize him at this point, but you can't just criticize and then tap out.

It's like, okay, what Josh said, now you've got to get involved in the ground. Roll the sleeves, let's go. Right, so, but. Very frustrating, I'll say, from a pro-life Catholic American. It puts J.D. Vance certainly in an interesting position. Well, and again, the question is, you know, the Republicans might be looking at the midterm elections coming down the pike here in November, and they might be, you know, like, the last thing we ought to do is kick up a bunch of dust on this.

It's like, okay, I mean, I get self-preservation, I'm not an idiot, but when we get on the other side of November, you know, if you don't do anything, Then you're opening yourselves up for primary challenges in 2028, and, you know, J.D. Vance is the inevitable candidate right now, but if the Trump-Vance administration doesn't advance pro-life policies, Then there is going to be people running for office ambitious enough to say, hey, I'm going to be better on this.

All signs point to me right now, Marco Rubio will be the standard bearer. I think J.D. Vance has been cut out of most relevant things. After that press conference yesterday. Yeah, J.D. Vance has been cut out of most relevant things. He's cut out of negotiations in Islamabad. He's sent off to go deal with fraud in California. Marco Rubio is on the stage all the time. He's in his ear. He's a part of all this. It's Marco Rubio right now. I would say about five months.

You know, everyone was like, oh, it's J.D. Vance, it's inevitable, and no one else has a chance, and I said, I disagree with that. I think he's the number one, he's got the number one chance, no question, but, you know, he can lose it. And if he doesn't keep working hard, he might. So, that's what I said five months ago, and I'll say this today. Yeah, Rubio smashed it at the press conference yesterday. He's been having a great week, great month, whatever, a great stretch of time.

But no, J.D. Vance is still considered the number one favorite, because you know what? This is a snapshot in time. I'm telling you, five months from now is, you know, an eternity. Oh, I know. Just being... I know it's a long time. The Senate Vice President of the United States... Josh, we can only talk about this moment in time. Hold on a second. He's also the Finance Chair of the Republican Party, the money guy. So, that helps. That's a good point.

Advances? Yes. I feel like Rubio, he is going around and raising gobs of cash for everyone in the party. Yeah, that helps massively. Okay. Remains to be seen. I can only talk about the snapshot right now. I'm here for it. I think he's also got to beat the no charisma allegations, which I know you're a fan of them, but again, Trump-like figure, I don't know. Rubio, same deal, though.

So, it feels to me... No, I think if the Republican standard-bearer in 2028 tries to emulate and, you know, duplicate Donald Trump's style, that would be absolutely asinine. Yeah. How could you? Have the confidence, you know, to be your own man and to do it a different way. Take those insights that you've learned from him and the way he deals with the media and the way he deals with the Democrats. But you've got to be your own man in your own skin, and I thought, I mean, we saw that in display.

I mean, J.D. Vance, like, absolutely eviscerated Tim Walz in the debate. I mean, just, like, flayed him, like, just murdered him. It was crazy. That wasn't very hard, but... It was a pretty satisfying debate. Who Democrats put up, man. So, that's another interesting conversation. But, I mean, it's not just a, you know, watch him go up against, you know, when he was on, like, Meet the Press, and, you know... No one questions his intellectual prowess. Well, it's not just his intellect.

It's the ability to answer tough questions under fire. You know, like, there's a lot of Republicans over the years that get caught like a deer in headlights, but J.D. Vance is... A machine. He was just amazing. He's like a Terminator when he goes against these, you know, communist reporters and stuff. But I agree, he's still got to win it. He has to win it. He has to earn it. That's what I'm saying. And I think he knows that. Right. I look at the Georgia turning point, turnout, not spectacular.

I look at all the stuff that Trump's hung on him at this point as the vice president, especially being anti-interventionist, or perceived that way. It's going to be a tough road for Vance. I'm not saying he can't do it, but then also that Trump I can't even get in. No, this is going to be too long of a conversation. We've got to move on. Okay. But before, if you want to come hang out with us, America 250, be a part of a historic Catholic rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

It's going to be awesome. You can hang out with us there, Cardinal Burke, Kelsey Reinhart, Michael Knowles, Steve Cortez, Father Ambrose, Coach Joe Lombardi, and country performer Bradley Banning. It's going to be great. There's going to be prayer. It's going to be awesome.

There's going to be the Freedom 250 mobile museum. That'll be sick. Shroud. It's awesome. I'm so excited. Coming out of this is going to be awesome. That's all I've got to say. You can see Josh. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be awesome.

That's all I've got to say. Okay, Erika, your good news. All right, this was such a great story coming out. So, we've got a California seminarian who just happens to be the co-founder of Elf Cosmetics, and I know, Josh, you are a longtime connoisseur of discount cosmetics, probably not even close, but Elf basically took over Target and Walmart as the high-quality, affordable option. The man is a millionaire 20 times over, but... He starts feeling empty, and he even said, I love this story that he did an interview with Angelus News.

He said, God called me the priesthood at age 10. I just accepted really late. I love it. He said he drove up to St. Patrick's University Seminary. This was in Menlo Park, California, and he's telling the story of his first visit to the vocations director. He drove his luxury car, and he was wearing his most expensive black suit, so the vocations director opens the office door, looks at him, and says, I have got a lot of work to do on you, and apparently, it worked out because he is slated for ordination.

Again, beautiful story, St. Augustine-type story, highly recommend. If you need a pick-me-up this week, just go ahead and check out the story of... Scott Vincent Borba is his name, and now a man for God. He once gave a $7,000 facial to Milo Kunis, the actress. I was going to say, if we look at this picture here, to this picture, I mean, he's probably got the best skin of any priest I've ever seen, but I mean, I'm a little bit scared. Can I say it?

A little bit scared of this picture. This is 2011, so a lot has changed since then. A lot has changed in 15 years. Beast, dude. Good for you. Yep. He left it all behind when he was 40 years old, entered seminary at 42, and will be ordained this year at 50. That's awesome. Very cool. Good news. God is good. God is good. Hey, one more. Can I sneak one more in? Sure.

Congratulations to our favorite Supreme Court justice, although it's a close call with Samuel Alito today. Clarence Thomas becomes the longest-sitting Supreme Court justice. Yes, he is now the second-longest. Sorry, second-longest. Second-longest-serving Supreme Court justice at 34 years, 195 days. Josh, I really flubbed this one. Who is the longest-serving Supreme Court justice? Why would that be justice? Isn't it Douglas?

The guy who, what is his name? He wrote articles for that one porno mag in the late 70s. Yes, Justice William O. Douglas. William O. Douglas, and yes, he did. He was a man of, let us just hope Clarence Thomas surpasses him. He made it to 36 years, and how many days? Yeah, 36 years, 209 days. So, Clarence has a little ways to go, but as of today, he is the second longest sitting. I always think back to that Joe Biden hearing.

The Joe Biden hearing. It's forever burned in my head. It's like, you know, and I know what you actually believe, and then it cuts to him in the documentary. He's like, I have no idea. He has no idea what he's talking about.

Here is the thing. All these conservatives, about a month or so ago, were calling on Alito and Thomas to resign and retire to replace him with other ones. Like, no, no, no, no, no. These two are so indispensable. Like, why don't we have John Roberts resign? Why don't we have that dimwit... Wait, hold up. ...Jackson resign? Yeah, why are we... Wait, maybe she could pursue a theater career. Yeah. Anyway, for my good news, I wanted to share that, according to Thomas Myrus, the editor-in-chief of the Catholic Culture, the new Archbishop of New York, Archbishop Ronald Hicks, urged all the priests in his archdiocese to preach against...

The evils of euthanasia. They had this big controversy, this big fight in New York, and unfortunately, the so-called Catholic governor, Kathy Hochul, signed it into law, and so now New York is going to have the so-called freedom to kill grandma and grandpa. Horrible, horrible. So, I love it that the archbishop is calling on the priests. It is not an order, but he is asking them. Preach against this evil of euthanasia. People don't remember, people, listen, all three of us are parents, and we love the commandment where we can tell our kids, honor your mother and father, you know, so do the dishes, you know, it's a commandment.

But if you think about it, What that really amounts to is something greater than just do your chores, to honor your mother and father. So, in the ancient world, you know, at the point where you no longer were of any particular use or utility, you know, a man who would be too old to do anything anymore, you know, they would just, as their nomads going across the desert to this area to that area, they would just leave you behind.

They would let you... Die, because you had no more utility. That the Jewish people knew better because God had told them. You honor them with the dignity that they deserve. They held you in their arms when you were defenseless and weak and needed help, and now you need to return the favor. That is what honoring your mother and father really is about, is understanding that each and every one of us is made in the image of God, and just to be like, oh, gosh, you know.

Let's get her out of her pain and divvy up the, you know, inheritance. It's risable. It's absolutely contemptible, and to try to cover it up with these euphemisms, oh, it's mercy killing and baloney. It's not. Well, people make the joke. We can provide palliative care. We can provide care to people so that they don't experience pain, but this idea that we just, you know, and then we see what happens in Canada.

People make the joke that, you know, when you have a toddler. They repeat stories. They're completely dependent upon you. You have to change them, and then you reach a certain age where you start to realize that your parents start to repeat stories, are more reliant upon you, can't do things by yourself, and it's intentionally designed that way. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine that.

Yeah, really. Oh, my gosh. Well, I always think of Pope John Paul II, like the final address when he was at the end and still gave himself publicly to the people, showed that suffering publicly is so powerful to me. Some of you want to hide, you know, or that is the euthanasia argument. It is like, oh, you could die with dignity somehow. Go out on your own terms.

No, actually, John Paul did die with dignity. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The most dignity. No question. Okay, my good news, we got some charts from the Financial Times. Restoring my faith a little bit. All ages have cut back on scrolling. Average number of hours spent on social media per day, we're looking across 16, 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44. All ages have cut back on scrolling. Josh is still scrolling. You're one of the people keeping it up higher than it is.

All ages, though. So, that's in every bracket, especially pronounced in the 16 to 24, which I thought was pretty interesting. Still, I mean, I'm seeing it as being three hours a day is insane, and then it looks like 2.75 now, but a significant drop. I was looking through the source article here. It's from a sub stack. It's time to build, and it has a bunch of charts in here, but yeah, peak social media. Meta's daily active users declined for the first time, well, not ever, but the first time since 2021, which makes this the second time ever, a pretty significant drop here.

Which is great. Still, again, pretty high, but it's good to see a drop here. All ages cut back on scrolling, as I said. Peak social media in ever but the United States. Average numbers of hours spent on social media per day. I suspect this trend to continue. I can only speak anecdotally for myself. I mean, even here, trying to... Oh, my gosh. Work your way around the news in a way that's just not propaganda somewhere, trying to sift through. You've got to fight through the beefs.

You've got to fight through whatever, and it takes time, and it just totally drains on you. But I'm imagining... As recreational, like even how even more funny that is, like my job has just made me completely drop off everything I do not need to be on. Right. When we're not working, we are off. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I'm off, like I'm off off. I got to be on, you know, I got to go search through stuff on X or whatever else, whatever social platform, but.

I think that this is a really good sign. It's a sign that I feel universally shared throughout people in my age bracket as social media becomes less social. Like, now it's just super optimized, super algorithm-driven, and of course, what drives that is, you know, celebrity beefs, commentator beefs, negativity.

Yeah, of course, which is profit. I think people, hopefully, are starting to realize that they're being taken advantage of a little bit. Not a little bit, a lot of bit. And I have another interesting, it will come up again in my Twilight Zone, but it is an interesting way to think about it all, but I think really positive in tracks with my personal experience and a lot of my anecdotal stories of talking to other people, and I think is hopefully a nature's healing moment, and I would love to see a lot of these social media companies bleed users.

So, that is coming from, look, I know we are on YouTube, I know we are elsewhere, listen, you can critique the system while you are within it, but my gosh, I think it would be better for humanity. So, let us go C-block now. Actually, I was just seeing a bunch of clips from this, and I was like, what is going on? How could there be this much energy protest? A reporter did a good rap on this, so I will start with it, but it is over the latest data center project in Utah, a real grassroots issue that is probably going to come wherever you are in the country, especially if you are rural.

A lot of these places are being targeted for these kind of projects. So, I will just play the video. It is a good rap, and then we can get into commentary. A very emotionally charged meeting as Vauxhall County Commissioners moved to approve the Stratos project. That started with protests outside before the meeting, and then standing room only inside the huge exhibit hall.

And after multiple interruptions, they decided to move into a smaller room and then broadcast it out to Zoom, which, of course, upset a lot of people. Commissioners say because land in Boxhilder County is not zoned at all, that they really didn't have any way to stop this, and that by approving it now, they were able to get some concessions that were made by the developer. We certainly wish that we would have been brought to the table sooner, but the situation is where it's at.

And the situation in order for us to protect our county where we were at needed to happen the way it did today. And that would be guaranteeing at least 2,000 jobs, having those energy tax revenues, about $30 million a year once it gets going. But, of course, with all of that set aside, a lot of people don't want it, because there will be some emissions, there will be water used. Even though the folks at O'Leary Digital say that they will work hard to minimize those impacts.

Some of that is just going to take some time for the residents of Box Elder to see that we are a good partner, and we intend to follow through on every... Part of the agreement that we've agreed to. They've talked about an energy production method from gas that uses zero water and has about 5% of the emissions of other gas plants around the country. And they also got that closed-loop system that does have to be refilled from time to time, but they say it will use a very small amount of water.

I just felt like we couldn't stay silent about this. This is just too big of a deal. It's a really, really bad deal. We don't get anything for it. As a side note, the folks at Utah's Military Installation Development Authority, or MITA, say this all started when they were approached by the Undersecretary of the Air Force, saying that there was a need, especially after an executive order calling for these hyperscale data centers signed by President Trump. So, there you have it.

Very interesting. I can give a little bit of color. I dug into this a little bit more. If you recognize the last name, O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful, if you have ever seen Shark Tank, he is the one. And he had a response that also made people mad, too. But essentially, there's a three-member Box Elder County Commission, and it's known, the county in Mida. So, there's three people. It was up to them. They felt like it was out of their hands. Tons of people showed up.

And the big, the crux of this is that this data center campus would have to be supported by 7.5 to 9 gigawatts of power generating capacity, likely from natural gas, which Some of the advocates are saying, oh, no, we'd use all kinds of alternative sources. It's going to be good. No, the vast majority of this is going to be natural gas, so that's a lot of energy it's going to require. That's twice Utah's current average electricity use. Twice. Twice the entire state's average electricity use, so it's not an insignificant amount.

In terms of the tax incentive piece, I think this is also why some people are frustrated, and I've seen this in a lot of different places. Erika, you did a great video on this. I highly recommend, Selina, if you want to throw it in there. There's a standard 6% energy use tax on developments. They're reducing it to 0.5% to try to attract this product, and a project-specific taxation structure would direct a large portion of the collected tax revenue back to the developer.

So, the Tribune reported 80% of certain tax revenue collected at the set rate would actually go back to O'Leary Digital, with the remaining 20% split between the state and MITA. So, even with... The incentives, the Tribune is reporting that the county would get roughly $30 million per year in the initial phase, and more than $100 million annually at full capacity, which is a lot of money for a lot of these rural communities, but not nearly, say, what they would be getting if it was the standard tax rate, and it wouldn't be going back to the company.

So, that... From what I gather, it sounds like they were using that kind of stuff as leverage to get other concessions, I'm guessing, so... Yeah, right. I mean, there's a debate going on, and of course, to the locals there. Which, Kevin O'Leary essentially argued that it wasn't locals, that protesters were bussed in, which is debated. There's a lot of people that actually, right, I saw, so I have a specific website, actually, where people had to put their address in to file protest in the area, and they were all Utah addresses that were in here.

So, there's 2,800 signatures with addresses, so, debated. Yeah, but they could have been Lake City or something like that. Sure, but still, I mean, this is affecting the entire state. Yeah, and again, it could be the kind of situation where even a majority of the people in that county do not want it. The thing about it is that you can get kind of stuck. I was at a local meeting just a couple of weeks ago. It was not about a data center, but there is a dispute here locally, and what had come up in the meeting was that, like, look.

The law doesn't say, we'll decide whether or not we grant someone a permit use for this. If you meet the applications for it, you shall be issued it. So, even though the people on the board were not so happy about this situation, they were required by the law to go ahead and do it, and people were angry, and they're yelling at these people. It's like, I mean, this is the law that we have. And so, that is what it sounds like with a lack of zoning.

There is a lot less leverage for this county to be able to maybe get more out of this, or slow its roll, or come up with it. That is why you need to have rules in place ahead of time, so you can be ready for something like this. Now, I would just say, in large part, I have, I mean, AIs...

Fascinating. It is kind of scary and exciting altogether. The biggest reason I have been largely a little bit more supportive of it than against it is precisely because, a very secondary reason, is that the left used to be diametrically opposed to cheap energy, and I think cheap energy is good for our country. Duh! Why would that not be? This is one of those things that is so obvious. $6 gas, we are feeling it right now. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, we want more affordable energy.

Cheap energy makes everything else more affordable. You know, but we have politicians in this country who are appealing to suburbanites who are like, oh, I feel guilty about all the smoke from my cars. So, then we try to get rid of coal. We try to promote green technology. We put up these big windmills and these big solar panels. It's dramatically inefficient. It's like, why? Because we want clean energy. You do, do you? Well, what about nuclear energy? It is cheap and abundant.

Wonderful energy, and it is clean. What is the problem here? So, oh, we do not want it. We do not want nuclear. Oh, you do not want cheap energy after all. Okay. You do not want green energy. Okay. So, I mean, in particular, in this specific instance, this is 100% natural gas.

Mm-hmm. So, this isn't. So, you're talking about a tertiary, like all of this is going to make people invest and develop nuclear, because they have to. There's no other way to power. We're seeing a lot more demand for energy because of these data centers, and it's forcing us as a country to be a little bit more realistic about, like, what is it that we want to do? Because, you know, as Rick Santorum said a few years ago, it's like all these dreams of solar.

All these dreams of wind. It is like 3% of the power grid. Like, wake up and smell the coffee. You guys are not being realistic about what is going on here. And so, we can start to, as we start talking about these data centers, we can start to say, okay, look, there is now a growing demand, larger than just the increase of population, for energy. Let us have a conversation about what our needs are as a country for energy. And I think what we need to do is get rid of this crap the last 10 years, like aspirational, oh, solar, let's just use the sun and the wind, and it's not going to get the job done.

You cannot power this economy, 330 million people with wind and solar. Right. Nuclear can get the job done. If you do not want coal, if you do not want gas, if you do not want natural gas, if you want clean, abundant, cheap fuel, it is nuclear, people, and it would not matter then. Then it would just be a discussion about, well, maybe these data centers are using too much water. Then you could talk about that. Noise pollution and all that. Okay, so then let me press you, because I am not anti-nuclear, and Erika, maybe you have a good question on this, too.

My issue would be, as Americans, That you've lived somewhere for a long time, and you actually are an environmentalist in the true sense of the word, as in, you're not performative, it's not virtue signaling, but you like to have a clean country, right? Like, you don't want to be polluting your backyard, you want to be doing things that are going to be damaging in the long term, to say, like, the Salt Lake Basin, whatever. So, to me, the... The way in which a lot of these data centers have been built have been through backdoor agreements with small local governments that have not been transparent to the public, and what they're being told is, hey, no, we need to do this because China's going to do it, and they're going to beat it to us, we're going to have bad AI.

But then the promise is, oh, there will be a couple jobs brought to the area, and we're going to get a sweet tax deal so we don't really have to pay too much, and your energy bill is going to go up. And this is going to replace your jobs one day, right? Like, the whole, the concept behind AI, the promises being told, I don't understand any of that. I think it's a really poor bargain, and I completely understand why someone in Utah would be like, hey, I'm kind of having a tough time as it is.

This is all that we're getting out of this? Like, this is a massive, this is like... How many acres? It is like 70 acres in my backyard now. It is going to be this. It is going to be an eyesore. It is going to be ugly. It is going to take up energy, and it is going to steal my jobs. So, is there a solution to this? Sure, I am all for innovation. We have to. We always have these ballot initiatives.

I want to hear it. Just Erika, if you want to go. Two seconds. We should have voters put forward a proposal that any corporation would automatically pay at least twice the amount of electricity as the voters do. Put that on the ballot. Yeah, I love that. No, we absolutely need voters to start demanding policy like that. The other consideration is that, and I'm not a tree hugger, I'm very anti the whole green energy agenda from the Biden administration, but I also, the fact is that these data centers are transforming the landscape.

In such a way that I think we need to demand a faster and better development of Better ways to power the AI revolution other than these massive buildings and blocks. A lot of them are being built in very populous areas. We have Data Center Alley is in Northern Virginia, and uncovering this research was shocking in the ways that these data centers, like you said, Tom, just sprung up in the middle of neighborhoods without any consideration or even research into the long-term effects of things like the industrial noise.

the ambient noise that they give off, like you said, the water construction. The one in Utah is obviously an issue because you're in a desert that's in a drought right now next to a big salt lake that is already way below its usual water lines. So all of these considerations, to me, demand at least a pause, if not like some kind of... Like you said, Josh, we need a national conversation on this, and local city councils need to be thinking ahead of the game, because again, also like you said, I'm totally with you, they were caught with their pants down in terms of zoning laws and what the local government had the power to even do to protect its citizens in the end.

So, I'm totally with you on that. To me, too, thinking about The future, I think towns and state governments, federal government, I don't know at what level this needs to happen, but it needs to happen like yesterday. We need to think about what's the 10-year, 20-year, 30-year plan for these massive buildings. Because if you think about the way that the computer developed, like we have whole computers. So, now we have little tiny computers in our pockets, right? Well, surely at some point, AI, we're going to figure out how to power AI.

With much smaller, or maybe centers up on Mars, or on the moon, or something like that, that are not here. Elon says that's the solution. I know, Elon's all about the Mars Center. I don't know about the travel time there, but I think it would behoove us to also build into these agreements that we make with these huge construction projects. What are you going to do in 20 years when the AI company doesn't need this? Are you going to deconstruct it?

Are you going to be responsible for the dumpsters that it's going to take to take that down, replace it with something else? So, we need to be thinking about this aggressively and proactively at all the levels of government, because once you build that center in Utah, it's not going away. It's there forever, and there's no plan to take it down. What about when AI replaces you, Erika? Oh, I forgot about that. Has it already? You wouldn't know, right? I mean...

Yeah, simulation theory. I have already seen instances where entire city councils have been replaced because they voted in favor of a data center, totally against the will of their people, and then just got wiped out. Like, this is unacceptable. Like, I think of the redistricting, it's like the two, there's animating, grassroots issue. I do think AI data centers is probably the biggest for a lot of these small communities, even big communities, too. I mean, you're looking at Virginia, like Data Alley, whatever they're calling it, Data Alley.

Data center alley. There's not much. So, what would have gotten me to a school board meeting or to a city council meeting before was truly the trans stuff, the gay stuff. Easy, right? This is being done to children, disgusting, pornographic. That is enough to get me there. I think this is the next thing. This is what is enough to get people actually at these meetings. People are waiting, lines at the door, give their two cents. And like we're saying, make a better case, right?

Make a better case or make the case in which it benefits the community and that the rewards. The quote-unquote rewards from AI, which remains to be seen, are shared with the local community and the infrastructure that actually it's built upon, because they're bearing the sacrifices of that. And then I think we have a way forward, but let's just say I'm not encouraged by the NDAs and the backdoor deals and all of that so far for many of these companies, and this is just the latest to kind of blow up and reach national acclaim.

I've seen at least 10 at this point where they said they wouldn't say what would be built here. But it destroyed a park, and all of a sudden, an AI center came to fruition, and now New Jersey City Council, whatever town, is completely wiped out. I'm like, that's just going to continue to happen. Yeah, one of the craziest stats that I uncovered when I was writing the script for the deep episode on this was that they did a poll. Ninety-three percent of Americans support more data center construction to drive the AI revolution.

That's 93, right? But only 35 percent of Americans said they would agree. ...to have it built in their city. Right, it never was. It's kind of like the Iran War, right? What was the Iran War stat? Michael Knowles did a poll. It was, you know, a very scientific poll, right, on Twitter. Yeah, right, exactly. How many of you think that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon? And it was like 95% of all respondents. They should never have a nuclear weapon.

How many of you think the United States should militarily prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? Five percent. No, thumbs down. Because, of course, it's a dumb hypothetical. It's like, yeah, I'd love for North Korea not to have nuclear weapons. I'd love for China not to have nuclear weapons. Like, what are we talking about? We love reality.

You know, Erika, that's like saying, do you like Congress? And everyone's like, no, Congress is horrible. What about your congressman? I love my congressman. I don't. I don't love my congressman. Yeah, I know you don't. It's crazy. Rosa DeLauro, purple hair. I know, but obviously a lot of Americans do, and they don't realize that.

The problem is more than everyone else. It's looking in the mirror. The problem is here. All right, Erika, take me through. Actually, so I found this beef. All right, and let's just, we'll use this as the Twitter beef. Gotta love it. Okay, so here is the start of this, and it leads into a more substantial political issue that Erika is now engaged in, but we have.

It was like a TikTok. This is, okay, I'm going to really try my best because there's multiple layers to this. TikTok, help me out. Raise your hand below if you homeschool and forgot to get to science or social studies the last two months. Raise your hand. Now, this actually is case in point. We might just need to destroy Instagram. Like, no, why would a mom ever, I don't understand the impulse to post this. There's no debate about that. This is stupid, but it was posted, okay?

Someone else goes on top of that. The fact that Americans can just not send their kids to school and call it homeschooling is crazy to me. And then someone said, do homeschool kids just, like, not have to take tests or exams or get grades? How does the government know if the child is actually getting an education or not just, like, being neglected? Again, I'm trying my best here.

Okay, next one. So, this one I actually take a little bit more seriously because this guy is kind of a well-known commentator, Hickman, on Twitter. He said, look, pro-homeschooling people are piling on this guy, but he's not wrong at all. I know of families who are straight-up failing to teach. There are children beyond a second-grade education, like 16-year-olds, who don't know what the capital of the U.S. is, have never heard of Toronto, and cannot perform a basic algebra problem. While it is true that there are many excellent homeschooling families whose instruction far exceeds that of any public school, the fact is that the American system of school your kids however you want does also yield a lot of severely stunted kids who get stuck playing catch-up for the rest of their lives.

My wife is homeschooled. We might homeschool. I'm not averse to the practice per se. But it's a fact that there are a whole world of multi-generational homeschoolers who are not and will not rise above a second or third grade education level by their own volition.

Should the state intervene in these cases? I don't know. The answer to the question is not as easy as many make it out to be. The idea of barely getting through Mary Had a Little Lamb at the age of 16 should be appalling, and it is happening in some American homeschooler families. That's a rural perspective. This guy is in Appalachia somewhere, I think. And then, of course, you get the activist perspective. Right. If homeschooling is actually super high quality, you get the activist perspective.

Right. If homeschooling is actually super high quality, Then homeschooling families should not object to being evaluated, tested, and checked in on to make sure their kids are actually learning, okay? If you're not doing anything wrong, why do you care if the government forces you to submit to oversight and governance? This is ridiculous. Go off. Here's why it's ridiculous.

The homeschool dad here, who's like, well, I don't know. I'm a good homeschool dad. I get it. How is the government going to determine if these children are getting an education? The government schools cannot even provide a basic education to the children who parents willingly submit to their care. Much less do they have time to go into homeschooling families and be like, gosh, I wonder if you're getting a civics education. Like, did they not read the NEAP results, the standardized testing results for the last, oh, 25 years?

The slow disintegration of literacy among publicly educated students in this country should make everyone from Randy Weingarten to Kamala Harris to whoever thinks that we need to, like, Police every child in this country and make them think, huh, maybe we're not very good at policing, as it were, because the kids can't do math, they can't read, our civic scores are in the trash, and they're like, well, gosh, I understand if they want to police homeschoolers, because, man, some homeschoolers don't get an education.

It's ridiculous. It makes me so mad. Have you checked in on the reading scores of Baltimore schools lately? Yeah, Chicago Public Schools. So, we got a response here. Jill is 100% correct. We should absolutely evaluate tests and check in on homeschool kids. If they are not performing at least as well as the worst kid in a public school, then they should face the same consequences as a public school with similar performance. So, to take, for example, 23 schools in Baltimore have zero children scoring proficient in math.

Because of that, those schools have faced the consequences of getting extra funding. Thus, if homeschoolers found to have performance that bad or worse, they should also be given. Extra funding, I guess. Key problem, but that gets into the more political problem here. There's a homeschooling bill that was passed in Connecticut, essentially requiring the state to be checking in on them at all times. And maybe I'll ask more of a principal question before we get into that. Isn't it an American parent's right to decide how to educate their children?

If they want to educate their children, which way they want to educate their children, that is not actually the right, the divine right of the state to decide that. So, do you have a principled argument you'd like to give there on behalf of what parents have the rights to do with their own children? Well, I think what you're articulating there, and what the Connecticut fight that sadly went the wrong way, although not a surprise here, I think that what this is bringing to light is this fundamentally and diametrically opposed visions of the role of the state in any individual's life.

On the one hand, we have what you just articulated, which is that children... Are members first of a family and then of a local community? Well, first, they're children of God. Second, they're members of a human family, and that the state exists only for the flourishing of the child as a member of that family versus this other worldview.

Where every individual who exists on the soil of the state has a direct relationship, first and foremost, with the government, and that the children belong to the government. You belong to the government. Your wife belongs to the government. This is the whole life of Julia, right, that was the Obama campaigns. Julia can go through her whole life never needing anyone in her family, never needing anyone in her neighborhood, never needing anyone in her church community, because The state will provide everything Julia needs, and that is what we saw playing out on the Connecticut Senate floor just a couple of days ago to effect.

One of our senators, I don't know if you can play this from one of our Republican senators, who was articulating exactly what the divide is here. This was fire. Fire. Is this the Corey one or the one below?

The fire one. The family is not a department of the government. Parents are not subjects. They are citizens, and they do not need the permission of this state government or anyone in this room to educate their own children. Thank you.

And that is exactly what the Democrats could, they couldn't even address the argument. They didn't even bother. They kept referring to this as, our children need this oversight. Our children need protection. And yeah, this one here is where he addresses that. I just want to know where our kids are and who's educating them. Through you, Madam President. Thank you very much, Madam President. I just want to suggest one more time that the gentleman keeps referring to this. ...as our children. The government, they're not the government's children.

These are the children of the parents, many of whom are with us today. And frankly, I find it objectionable, with no disrespect to my colleague, that they keep being referred to as our children. Yeah, and this was a classic... I would disagree with what he just said, though.

I would do it with disrespect for my colleagues. Yeah, my respect for the other side of the floor. And this was a classic case of... A Democrat progressive vision of the state never letting a good crisis go to waste, because, of course, we had several cases in Connecticut over the last couple of years where a child had been withdrawn from the school system and was subsequently either found dead or had to be rescued from the home. The argument then being, well, It's the fall of homeschooling that these children...

I went through every single one of these cases. In every single one of these cases, these children had multiple points of contact with reporters, with mandatory reporters from the state, either with DCF or in the public school system before they were withdrawn. This was a case of the existing infrastructure of the state to protect children failing to do so.

Which then gave an opening for parents, or in some cases, step-parents, to abuse these children. Had nothing to do with the fact that homeschooling was somehow unregulated, and therefore, unregulated homeschooling gives rise to abuse. No, the abuse exists, and the abusers take advantage of anything in the system, any loopholes in the system. But they took this as an opportunity. The most outrageous thing in this bill.

To me, is that going forward, starting in 2027, a parent who wants to withdraw their child or homeschool for the first time their child, they will be required to submit to Child Protective Services, here we call it DCF, and be vetted by DCF, and then granted permission by DCF to withdraw their child or to start homeschooling. To raise their own children? To raise their child. Jeez.

Absolutely. I mean, this is enough to start another revolution. Are you kidding me? Could you imagine if someone said this to George Washington? Like, yup, someone from, well, the state in which he'd be like, oh, so someone not Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia? Oh, no, no, no. British royalty is going to come over to your house, and it's going to tell you whether or not you can raise an educated Jackie Custis. They're going to search your house. Right. And give you permission.

As to whether or not you can, literally whether or not you can educate your child. It is not even like how you educate, it is just whether or not you can. It is like, no, no, no, we are going to do it. And there is no meaningful increase in scores. It is just, it is so outrageous. But Josh has advice. I would like advice from Josh. I have some advice for you. Okay. Thank you. I need it. I do. Tommy, I want you to cue this up.

I think this is what you need to be, take a little inspiration from. From Ron Swanson. Oh, gosh. I don't even know if I... Can I play this? Yes, there's no... Sorry, one second. It's an ad first. It's a WNBA ad. I don't know why I'm getting that. A lot of Connecticut politics runs like Parks and Rec. I just, I mean, probably a lot of politics. Oh, yeah. Which is why it was such a successful show. Okay, now I see where Josh is going with this one.

Asking for, you know, all this stuff to see whether or not you're up to speed and can teach your own children. I think you need to step back and let them have a little taste. Not to worry. I have a permit. This just says I can do what I want. It is kind of awesome that Ron Swanson was a character made to make fun of. Like, libertarians and conservatives, and then he became everyone's favorite character instantly? As it always is, you know?

Yep. You had all the family, and the dad was like the cranky conservative, and people resonated with him. And then you had Michael J. Fox playing Alex P. Keaton, you know, family ties. He became everyone loved, and he was a conservative. And then you had 30 Rock, where, I mean, I don't care for the actor, Alec Baldwin, but his character played this conservative. And it... And it just, you can't help it. The writer's like, he gets great lines because he's ending and spoofing the excesses of liberalism, and same with Parks and Rec.

It provides great humor. So, even if they don't try to make these characters absolutely wonderful, lovable, and relatable, they sometimes do. I can't help it. The Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness. Go back to that every once in a while. There is two acceptable haircuts. I needed that, Josh. Thank you. Two acceptable haircuts, high and tight or a buzz cut. Where are the clippers in your home, son?

All right. Erika, we have a report from Institute of Family Studies that I found pretty compelling and had you go through. High-tech, low-play, the life of American children. Speaking of, if they are not taken by the government and told that you have to put them in a government school, what is going on in the home? Right. This is actually one of the reasons we homeschool, because this is the opposite of how we want to raise our kids. So, the title of the report, High Tech Low Play, captures it.

I also, we dropped a deep episode precisely on this, more in terms of smartphones. So, if you want more in-depth coverage of how on-screen American children are. Please go to that. We'll drop it in the chat. But yeah, American kids are spending a lot of time online. We know this. We see it in restaurants. We decry it. And parents who describe their parenting style as low-tech, who encourage free-range play, even they are allowing three-year-old children and younger, on average, three and a half hours a day.

Sorry, three and a half hours per week of on- Guilty as charged, although they don't hold the device. They have to watch Bluey on the big screen. But three-year-old children of parents who encourage tech are averaging six hours per week. We're talking three-year-olds here. We're giving them devices very young. This is even after we have now, from 2010 onwards, we have 16 years of research on the effects of giving devices to kids at younger age, but we're giving them, nonetheless, we are giving them those devices younger and younger.

So, among kids age 11, 60% have a smartphone of their own. And 50% of three-year-olds use their own tablet, iPad, or Kindle. Many without restrictions. By the time you get up into high school, so 16, 17-year-olds, you're talking in the 90% have their own smartphone devices that they use.

But, contrast this sort of free-for-all, here's the internet in your pocket, anything you want to access, you can access. Contrast that with... The sort of helicopter parenting that has just intensified since the 1990s. So, we have American kids are generally not free to move around unsupervised physically. Online, yeah. Physically, no. By 17 years old, about 60% of American kids, 17-year-olds, are still not allowed to leave their own neighborhood unsupervised.

I am like, how did your kids work a job? That is why they do not just walk down the street to go to the park, but you will let them go to any X-rated website, or not like you are allowing them or wanting them. Yeah, but it is out there. You are giving them the capability to do that. Yeah, it is just incredible. And, yeah, this was crazy as well. So, despite the documented developmental benefits of play, independence, and mobility, we find most American parents actually believe children today are under-supervised.

So, the overwhelming social consensus is that we're still not doing enough, in spite of this fact. 62% of all parents in the sample said 8- to 12-year-old children should receive more supervision than they currently do. And we find, this was crazy to me, the researchers found no meaningful differences on this issue between religious parents and secular parents, or between conservative and liberal parents. This is the overwhelming social consensus. And to me, it's this sort of collective action blindness that we have worked ourselves into.

What would this be in millennial and Gen X parents right now? That we've worked ourselves into this, like, we know what's good for our kids. We know what's bad for them, and we're actually doing the opposite. To me, that's kind of scary, because we have the data on Gen Z. We know what happens. We know what happened to you, Tom. You guys are kind of messed up, most anxious generation, but we're amping it up. We're amping up the behaviors we know are bad for our kids.

Erika, funny, I saw an anecdote on this, too, like on the supervision note, and I think someone asked their grandpa, like, hey, did your parents come to your baseball games, like back in the day when he was in Little League? And he's like, it was, first off, no, and then if someone's parent came to a game, they would stay for, like, an inning. And it was enough for his coach to switch the lineup so that the kid whose parent was there would be at bat when that parent was there.

Like, that's how big of a deal it was. Yeah. And, I mean, I do think that's pretty instructive of... And it's interesting you say it's not like a political, like a partisan, or even religious issue. It's just so culturally ubiquitous that we have an over-supervision of all kids all the time, and I guess my issue with it, and I know Tim Carney touches on this a lot with Family Unfriendly, is There were, like, murderers in the 70s that would, like, pick up kids.

Like, it was a loose society in a lot of ways, which has had its negatives. But also, if, okay, wait, stop. If we do have this ubiquitous society where everyone's supervised all the time, it is really hard to cut against the grain to be like, there is no Little League that exists in which the parents wouldn't be there. Or, like, you basically have to create alternate structures in which you all kind of agree, like, hey, we're going to have them in this space, and...

We're all going to tap out, basically. Like, this is okay. This is safe. But it's not like, it's not available to you if you just walk down the street and want to sign up for something. Yeah. Everything's oversupervised. Everything's too legal, too litigious.

Yeah. It's really hard to go against the grain on that. There's a lot of things that are going on. I mean, so, like, you know, I grew up Generation X, and, man, my generation, for the most part, was like. Do whatever you want. You get home from school, and moms had entered the workforce in the 70s and 80s, so we would come home to empty houses, but we still lived, I would say, largely in a high-trust society, right? And so, it is like, whatever.

We trust our kids, go to the park, go to whatever. I would go to the drugstore to buy candy bars and baseball cards or whatever. I would go miles. Like, who cares? Like, it was no big deal. But it is true, actually, that there was a price for that. There were more kidnappings. There were more harm to children back then. And so, there was actually a rational kind of, well, let's change this. I think we've gone too far.

Helicopter parenting. I mean, what you say is funny. I mean, nothing against my mom and dad, but I could count on my hand the number of times they went to one of my baseball or football games. I mean, it just doesn't happen. I didn't cry. I was like, what? What are you doing here? Like, oh, that's cool, whatever. So, I feel like, you know, we move from this high-trust society, then we have moms leaving the workforce, and then, yeah, we're having to make these adjustments, and sometimes the pendulum is swinging.

You know, too hard the other way, and so people will call the cops because they see a kid at a park alone. Like, oh, he's nine years old, he's alone. Yeah, like, what's the problem? Another thing to consider, and my dad actually coached, like, middle school basketball for almost 30 years, so we kind of saw the change in this. I think jobs being remote now make a huge difference. Like, there was a time when everyone had to be in a physical office, regardless of whether you were doing white-collar work or blue-collar work or whatever.

So, he had games. That we're at, you know, 4 o'clock, maybe, 3.30, 4 o'clock. There's just no way a parent could get from their job over there at time. Maybe they catch the end of it or something like that. And then, also, I think as the more digital jobs, you can just kind of be nomadic. Like, you can, there's no requirement to be anywhere, really, so you can kind of stretch it, or you can check your phone. Like, phones, too. Like, if you're away from your office phone, you're out of pocket.

Like, no one can reach you, so you literally had to be next to it. It's not people bringing their phones. There's issues with that, but then also, you said interesting in this report, Erika, there's a difference between people that have advanced degrees and people that don't in terms of the people that have advanced degrees actually do set limits and are more engaged, and maybe a thought on that that I would think about is I don't know if it's even an education thing per se.

I think that would typically correspond with people that make a lot more money and would be able to be home and be more engaged with their children. They have more time for parenting, as opposed to people that aren't as wealthy. I think it's not all of that, but if you had to work more, say you're working two jobs or you're working odd schedules or whatever, and you didn't have childcare available, so you're like, well, I guess I got to throw them in front of a screen or I got to entertain them, sedate them somehow.

I think it would be a problem, although people would have had that problem before. It's just, as you've gotten the digital transformation, that is just seen as kind of a safe thing. Like, okay, well, I'll hand my kid an iPad and have him next to me or whatever. I've got to work. Right. No, there have been studies that find that correlation as well. So, there's a correlation that you mentioned between higher levels of education and this commitment to screen time limits, although it's still too much screen time, even among those populations, I would say.

But there is, and there's another correlation between people who have a higher income. And then lower screen loads. And there's so many factors. We have to really dig into this data, understand that, because there are things like, well, if you make more money, your kids can be in more activities where they're engaged by people who are really paying attention to them. You might have more energy, right? If you're worried about money and you're not working all the time, your job's more flexible because you're white-collar, then you're going to be able to supervise your kids.

More, so maybe you have more energy to put toward that, and maybe higher education, you have more motivation, like more internal drive than someone who didn't go on in school. There's all kinds of explanations that I think we dig into, but I think the most important point that we've made so far.

For many of us, there are a few rare personalities who can cut against the grain, who are just contrarian, like Josh. If everyone in Josh's town was doing all the wrong things and putting out flamingos on their lawns and trashing the neighborhood, Josh's lawn would be pristine out of Statue of the Blessed Mother. He would go against the grain, right? That's just Josh. Uh-oh. Someone check that. Someone check that. How's the lawn? Most of us are sheep. Most of us are herd animals, and yeah, in order to make changes to the structure of our kids' childhood, and to say no to screens, and say yes to high trust, outdoor play, less supervision, we need to build these communities that will do that together, because it's going to take some collective action.

Jonathan Haidt's very big on this in his book, The Anxious Generation, his sub stack after Babel. So, yeah. That is why I think this is an important political lesson, too, that you just brought up. Most people are sheep, to make it kind of a fun one-liner.

Yeah, I don't mean that in a denigrating way. No, no, no. You are correct. You don't want to make policy for outliers. You don't make policy for the most inspired, the most driven, or whatever, because they are going to be fine regardless. You make policy towards the mean, towards the average person. The common good. The common good. And so, that's an important thing to keep in mind whenever you're thinking about policy, is the argument for, even like in conversations I hear all the time about economics, the current state of the economy, young people, whatever, like, a lot of the people would just be like, well, they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and like, well, there are going to be the top 10% that are able to do that, that can fight across the grain, but if the full system that is directing the water of the mean, where are they ending up?

And if, you know, 60% of them can't get gainfully employed at this time, it's like, okay, well, we need to really think about ways to incentivize and to reorganize so that we can have the average American have a successful, you know, play in the economy, basically, inherit some equity, something, not to seize the means. I'm not a communist. That's the thing. But I think some of the temptations, I think, of people that are very pro-capital, which, you know, I think capitalism is great.

I'm not an anti-capitalist. So, think too much of the outliers. Think too much of the Elon Musk. Think too much. Everyone should be like that. Not everyone can be like that, and I think in terms of phone policy, certainly, this is a case of the, what is the average? Because, especially if you have kids, you guys know this. It's like, you get beat down. Maybe you both have to work a job. You're tired at the end of the day. You just often revert to the easiest possible thing, and if the easiest possible thing has no guardrails, in the case of social media, and I'm kind of swimming here.

We're like, oh, these predators, right? There's predators before that picked up kids. There's kidnapping, there's abuse from the lax parenting. Okay, well, those people just moved on Roblox, by the way. It's not as if kids are not getting abused right now. They are. There's predators online targeting your children in children's games, because that is where the kids are now. So, that's a problem that's always going to happen, but I don't think we're necessarily safer from abuse, certainly not sexual abuse, but abuse in general.

Okay, they're just digital now. You're right there physically. There's all kinds of problems with that, too. Yeah, I have it in my Twilight Zone. I have another piece on this, so I'll move on, but really interesting study. I recommend everyone go check it out. It's a good look in the mirror, too, because, listen, I'm not immune. Yeah, definitely like a self-examination of conscience happening as I was reading that, so I'm like, oh. Yeah. Okay, Twilight Zone, Josh.

Well, first, I just want to start with, you know, on this date in 1527, 147 Swiss guards died defending Pope Clement VII, and so then every year on this day, we have the new recruits for the Pontifical Swiss Guards sworn in. And they make their allegiance to the Pope. And so, we have 28 new recruits today that have pledged their allegiance to protect the Pope. I love tradition. I love that. It is kind of neat. So, that happened today. But just in terms of You know, the Pope, and I'm not trying to single out Leo in any way on this, but the church has a desire, a natural desire, to be seen as open and willing to answer the questions that the world has.

And that's a good inclination. You don't want a church that's holed up and afraid to talk and afraid to defend itself. And so, Pope Leo will do interviews, and the problem I have with that, and I commend, actually, Raymond Arroyo for bringing up this, you know, his point was the Pope should refrain from weekly press scrums. It allows the media to set the tone and lead the witness.

So, that is, and I think that is so correct, because then they get to, they are setting the agenda, they are setting the table, they are the ones, what do you think about this? What about what Pope said? Now, what about Rubio coming? They are asking all the questions to drive the news as they see what is interesting. There is a better way for the Pope and the church to show its openness.

You know, Pope John Paul II had remarkable candor when it came to discussing the theology of the body. The Church was not afraid to tackle the difficult questions of human sexuality in the wake of the dawn of the sexual revolution. So, I think it is much better to use the teaching office of the Pope through your weekly audiences.

Through, you know, apostolic exhortations, through encyclicals. The rumor is there's an encyclical coming up later this month. That's the appropriate way to do that. But when you open up yourself to a press conference, then the viewer can't help but think, okay, here's another person who's going to get up, and they're going to give their spin. I just think the dignity of the Holy Office of the Papacy should be on a different level.

Yes, I certainly want a Pope that is well-read and understands the appropriate things that are being talked about in the media. I want him to understand what's going on and be able to respond to it, but not to just get up there and allow any one reporter to ask questions and veer the conversation that way. No, be the shepherd that we need. And again, I don't say this to attack. I mean, it's actually, again, I would say- What are you referring to?

The Pope has done several of these press... Do you have a line in particular you felt like... There is nothing in particular here that is a problem. Do you know what I am saying? I understand your fundamental point, but I would say that Pope Leo has navigated this phenomenally better than Pope Francis. Any Pope in recent memory for me. Okay, so here is the thing. I am relieved that we have Pope Leo, and I think when he gets in front of the press and talks, it is 10,000 times better than what Pope Francis had done.

Nevertheless, I still think it is better to allow the Pope, through his teaching office, when he visits a new country and he makes an address to the people of Cameroon, that is where you talk about the issues of the day.

Be the leader rather than the respondent. If you are a governor, if you are a president, you are a politician, whatever, get up in front of the camera and take the tough questions from the media. That is fine. I just feel like... The dignity of the office of the papacy is so much more elevated. What are you answering questions like this from? Allowing people to ask, well, what about you and Trump and all that? We don't need it.

There's a better way. Okay, so, question for you then. I think Trump tweeted out, or truthed out, that the only reason he was the Pope was because he's American. He then tweeted out an AI picture of Jesus and said he, like, Pope Leo's an idiot, basically. How would you recommend, would you even recommend he responds to that? Do you have a different way than how he's addressed it so far, or do you prefer to respond to that? Do you think it's worthy of a response?

What would you say? Yeah, I mean, I think it would have been very easy for, you know, a papal spokesman, someone speaking on behalf of the Pope, to get out there and say, you know, this is, you know, and say something, the Pope's like, I responded, this is childish, kind of silly stuff, you know, and that would have been better.

Yeah, so you would have had a spokesperson? Don't dignify it, right? Because it was, yeah, I mean, that was... I mean, I do think Pope Leo handled that question largely very well, with considerable grace and dignity, and I think Pope... We touched on this one a half of weeks ago. Right, right, right. Because I see the quote, the mission of the church is to proclaim the gospel. I'm trying to say, outside of that particular moment, which I think actually, like I said, he handled it well, I just feel like...

Why, you know, getting questions that are just, some of them get to be really oddball. It's like, you know what? I can see what you're saying, because one of the huge frustrations for me with the press, one, is that the only press conferences we see, maybe there are others, maybe there aren't, are largely Western European and American journalists asking questions. And he has responded, and one of the things he did really well throughout all this drama of the Trump versus the President versus the Pope narrative that they were crafting, was he's like, guys, There are so many other issues that I'm thinking about right now.

He's like, there's war, there's justice, there's peace, there's people being martyred. And he's bringing all these things up. I was following his Africa addresses to different groups and his homilies in Africa, and he didn't even touch on 30 of the issues that the American media thinks are the central issues. And nevertheless, in spite of him saying this to them again and again at these press conferences, pressers.

They always come back with, well, what about the president? What about the last thing Trump tweeted? And he's like, again, you know, and like you said, why do they do that? The media wants more headlines. They want to sell more clicks and get more people paying attention to it. That is of their own material self-interest, and it does not actually gel well with what the Office of the Papacy and what that's trying. And again, this is not an attack in any way, even closely, on Leo.

I think Leo's doing a great job. I'm just saying, like, the media has their own economic incentives to try to have a food fight. They love it. It sells clicks. It sells ads. I think that was really clarifying, because the problem is the media, not Publio. Yeah, absolutely. That's what we should be mad about. Yeah, like the media's job in an ideal world, the media's job would be to clarify and represent what is most important to the Pope so that we could then receive the information and be educated.

But what it has actually become is these pressers tell us more about the media's own obsession with itself than I learn about Pope Leo. He's like a secondary character coming out of these. Pressers, and then these clips, and everything. The media is the primary character and driver of them. So, yeah, I think in Josh's assessment that maybe it's time for the Pope himself not to play that game, because, like I said, he's no longer even the subject of the reporting. Just the war games.

Yeah, although it's funny. I like it. He's emerged. So, the media, of course, outrageous, and then it feeds into the doom scrolling that we all do, based on this. Three and a half hours a day. Exactly, right? And what rises to the top of that? People want to see the beef. People want to see the narratives. People want to see whatever. And there's some real bad culprits, by the way, in terms of people doing that to Pope Leo, trying to turn him into a...

I don't even want to name names. There's one in particular that really makes me mad. You do not even give them their time. However, I feel like... He, he's done a great job in the moment, understanding that this is coming and seeing how he's responded, because I think there's a lot of people, he's emerged in terms of public perception. His reputation is, is super positive compared to the rest of elected leaders or major world figures. I think he's like well beyond.

I don't think that's an accident. Like, I think if he would have gotten in the mudslinging and he would have gotten back down, he would have kind of been what I think some people really hoped he would be. He'd be super hardcore on their side or super hardcore on the other side. It's kind of remained to be this, like, I know Josh liked that. I think that's good advice, and it's advice compounding upon him already navigating it with a lot of tact already.

I'm really impressed. He has not fallen into the pitfalls that I think, it was almost like Francis sought that out, Pope Francis sought that out, which is, like, really odd. He liked to make a mess. He said it. And it seems like this is the difference, so I'm curious. There's an encyclical coming, by the way.

I'm so excited. Which we haven't even touched, because I just want to read it before, because everyone's got all their thoughts on what it'll be on. I'm sure it'll be AI in some form, but I hope it's concise, I hope it's helpful, and it can be used as a guide going forward, because clearly there's a lot of fighting on the AI front. All right, I volunteered to sacrifice my own, so I can do a quick Iran update. We are calling it, all over the internet, we are calling it Schrodinger Straight.

Yes, Michael Knowles takes credit for it, but I've seen it coming out of Eli Lake and a bunch of other guys, too. Why is it Schrodinger's Strait? Because like Schrodinger's cat, which can be either alive or dead at any given moment, the Strait can be either open or closed at any given moment. The Strait can also be in the grip of a massive war or in the middle of a mostly peaceful ceasefire at any given moment. So, here's what happened over the weekend.

President Donald Trump sent a letter to Congress May 1st on Friday, which was the 60th day of Operation Epic Fury, on the dot, officially informing them that the hostilities, which began February 28th, have terminated. We also had Tuesday, so yesterday, Pete Hegseth got up and told reporters that the ceasefire that came into effect on April 7th is still in full force, although there have been 10 attacks. ...from Iranians on U.S. targets. They haven't met the threshold. Right, they have not yet met the threshold.

To end the ceasefire. And then yesterday, we also got Marco Rubio at the press conference, which was very entertaining, that Operation Epic Fury is concluded, and we achieved the objective of that operation. All efforts in Iran going forward that you're watching now are entirely defensive and humanitarian operations aimed at reopening the strait.

Why do they choose 60 days? That's odd. Well, because, and I'm sure Josh can tell us more about this, but we have this thing called the War Powers Act. Oh, I almost forgot about that, and all of these attacks done by presidents and starting wars. Okay, wait, tell me about that. Yeah, totally legal, because we have the War Powers Act, which says that the president does not need to, what is it, Josh, exactly, does not need to seek congressional approval.

For military action, if there is a compelling interest... In the nuclear age, especially with Gulf of Tonkin, Resolution of Vietnam, the idea was that the President of the United States could engage in military action without a formal declaration of war or approval from Congress, but then after 60 days would have to go to Congress and say, okay, yeah, so I need approval for this. And so, Donald Trump's way to get out of this is to say what? We concluded the operation.

It's over. It's over. We're done. It's over. We're done. It's all done. Crazy. We're just doing humanitarian work now. Humanitarian is insane. I can't even. This is a twilight zone. It really is. Yeah, we've got. So, just on the other hand, we have. Wait, can I pause you? It's almost like the founders of the Constitution wrote the Constitution intentionally so that we wouldn't have. Presidents acting rogue without the consent of the people for prolonged periods of time that got the country into more conflicts.

Was there some wisdom in that? It's like there was a check and a balance that was there, and then we got the War Cars Act. Nothing is stopping our United States Congress, our representatives, and our senators from exerting their constitutional authority as the Article I power that they are, and to step in and do something on this. Nothing is stopping them with themselves, their own way. Because they're all making money off of it, so, yep. I mean, I don't necessarily, you don't even have to, you wouldn't need to assign profit motive.

In order to understand why members of Congress support war in general. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, because we still have some kind of war going on. It is true that this is obviously, clearly more unpopular than previous military engagements and actions, precisely because if it were, then the president would go to the Congress and say, okay, yeah, it is getting close to 60 days, so let us get forward with it, and they would have moved forward with the vote, and a majority of Congress would have voted for it.

It is actually. Precisely because this is less popular than previous military engagements where he's just decided to, instead of doing that, like, oh, no, no, it's over. Yeah, what? 60 days, yeah, we're done. Good thing we got that done quickly, yeah. Yeah, so what we did was we rebranded it as Project Freedom, and over the weekend, Trump promised that we would be escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz to keep it open. The problem was, the ships didn't want to be escorted by U.S.

forces through the Strait of Hormuz. They rejected the red, white, and blue dome that Pete Hegseth was talking about, which was some maps that were handed to them. Do you know what the dome was? It was a map where the mines were. It was a map where the mines were. Could you imagine, briefly, being, say, I don't know, like a ship captain from India, who just gets a paycheck to take stuff from one part of the world to another part of the world, and they're like, hey.

We really need you to go through the strait that is filled with mines and Iran is shooting missiles at. But, we will give you a map. So, here is how they responded. The Wall Street Journal got a hold of online chats among Greek, German, and Nordic ship owners regarding the U.S. effort, which Trump called, as I said, Project Freedom.

On these chats, the foreign vessels were parodying it as Project Taco. Shorthand for Trump always chickens out, and Project Pause. Trump did, in fact, say yesterday that he was going to pause Project Freedom after a request from Pakistan and other countries to give space for negotiations.

The ship owners had said they would not attempt any transits until there was a full-on peace deal. Don't blame them. Because the initiative lacked clarity and sufficient security guarantees for them to risk their sailors' lives and their cargo. So... Then Trump tweeted out again last night that if Iran didn't come with a deal, there would be worse bombing than ever, but apparently it will be a new operation because that Operation Epic Fury is done, so he can reset the clock. It's crazy.

I can't explain it. I will not try and predict for you. I'm not even going to give you my analysis. I mean, what's there to analyze? It's a disaster. Did you see that the latest, I think as of this morning, put on the table by the Iranians, the framework, it's literally the JCPOA.

It's pretty close. There are a few differences, but yes. I mean, in substance, it's like we... We unfreeze all of their assets. We unfreeze all the billion dollars. We pay them. It is so crazy. It's like all of this... Yeah, I hate to even laugh about it, because it's just such a disaster, and it's completely preventable, and it's just destroyed the mega-collision for no reason. Oh, and they're still two weeks away from a nuclear weapon. Yes! Oh my gosh, I saw that reporting, and I'm like, what are we doing?

Iran is two weeks away from a nuclear weapon. And gas is $6 a gallon. Awesome. Oh, did you see the, speaking of Twilight Zone, they had the... It was like the kids' exercise deals, like the military fitness, and they just had these— Oh, the Presidential Fitness Awards. Presidential Fitness, yes. I'm pumped about that. Bryce DeChambeau is doing push-ups and putting on the White House lawn, and they had all these kids. I mean, literally, this is like a Key & Peele sketch.

Trump's at the desk. You have, like, what looks to be maybe an 8- to 10-year-old, like, kind of surrounding him, like, oh, yeah, presidential fitness is so important. He's like, and by the way, we just have to do a little detour. We just—because Iran wanted to blow you up. Iran wanted to blow you up, and we just, that's why. They can't have a nuclear weapon. They're so dangerous. And I'm like, you're telling an eight-year-old that they're going to blow you up?

Like, you come in, you're just like, I thought I was going to do some push-ups, maybe stretch on the box or whatever. And it's like, oh my gosh, man. That's kind of crazy. It's kind of crazy. Can't even make it up.

Well, I hope it all works out. Can I just share with you one quote that I got from my history? Josh is going to love this. Sure. So, the Presidential Fitness Award goes back. It went back. I mean, who was it? Barack Obama ended it, I believe, because we didn't want to, like, competition is bad for kids or something.

So, I think it was Michael Knowles. Kids like me. Yeah, that's right. No. So, Michael Knowles went back, and he dug up this speech from 1962. President John F. Kennedy, celebrating things like the Presidential Fitness Award on the 50th anniversary of the Children's Bureau, he stated, quote, There is nothing, I think, more unfortunate than to have soft, chubby, fat-looking children who go to watch their school play basketball every Saturday and never participate in sports themselves.

Trump is, like, harsh. I just love that. There's nothing more unfortunate than having soft, chubby, fat-looking children. No, the best part is you watch the movie Willy Wonka. Oh, Veruca Salt. Body shaming is going on. And you see the kid that they call fat today, and it is like, dude, that kid would not be considered fat at all by today's standards. I am a big guy, so I am not trying to throw a line. All right. I got one to round us out.

I have literally never thought about it this way, but food for thought after our conversation on screen time. And look, I saw this guy, and I thought he was about to toss out one of the worst opinions of all time, but... Oh, wow. Yeah. Here we go. I'm 30 years old. Not one of my friends has children. Zero. No one. No one's having kids. Do you know how hard you need to abuse a mammal to make them not have children?

Like, for real. Let's step back a moment. Never thought of it that way. Yeah, look, GDP goes up. People have enough food, you know, and whatever. No one's having kids, and this is across the world. This is across both the West, the East, you know, everywhere it's happening. So... There's a thing that happens, especially with younger, like even younger than me, like the kids are like 18 today. There's a huge problem where they don't dance.

No one dances. They go to clubs, and they don't dance. Why is this? Because you get recorded. If you're an 18-year-old kid, you go to a club, you get recorded. If you approach a girl, and you mess it up, you get recorded. Everything is panopticon now. So, if you had to ask me why, my answer is technology. My answer is social media. My answer is AI. My answer is algorithms. Do you know what dating algorithms do? Do you know how they optimize?

They don't optimize you to meet your love of your life. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And now there's a thing that basically we have sold out all of our dating norms, all of our, you know, our interpersonal norms, to tech companies without our consent to optimize their ad algorithm. Right. I think there's a deep thing where we as a society have not dealt with the fact that we have to steward technology responsibly. We have treated technology as a wild west. Absolutely. Just everyone can do whatever they want, you know.

Oh, just sell all of our younger generation's dating lives to corporations for profit. Right. There was, and who pays the cost for this? Who has liability? So, I think the real problem is, is that we are, as a society, as a government, the generations that came before me, and also my generation, I don't want to exclude myself from this, but also the generations that came before me, just let technology rip. The promise was, if you let technology rip, if you let internet rip, there will be democracy, and freedom, and happiness, and economic growth, and where is that?

And I think my generation is noticing that broken promise. Nailed it. Just give him some hair clippers, and he'll be the most marketable young man. Yeah, high and tight or buzz cut. Maybe that's the more fundamental. So, you can get into the rational, the strategic, the environmental debates over the AI data centers, but I think there is something a little bit under the surface here, is what he's calling the broken promise. Because I can even myself remember a time before social media, or maybe the advent of some of the early ones, Instagram, Snapchat, whatever else.

Ubiquitous. Yeah, before it became ubiquitous. And I know you guys remember certainly a time well before that was even the case. I think at first, it kind of started out like it felt kind of fun, like the Wild West. It's like, oh, there's all these fun features. It's kind of crazy things, and I think now, just people feel a general fatigue, and it was really pinpointed with AI because it was like, AI is going to be so revolutionary, and what are the promises?

You get disturbing AI videos that don't contribute anything to anyone, and it just makes you feel kind of numb, and then the other would be, oh, yeah, it's going to take your job. So, here we are. Pair that with all of the surveillance.

I want to jump in on one point that he made, though, about the dating app. Yeah, the purpose of the dating app is not actually to help you find a spouse. It's to get you to keep being a customer of the service. That is a great, it's like one of the things, as soon as he said it, it's like, oh, yeah, no, duh, that's obvious.

And that's the whole thing, is that the profit motive. I am not. As you said earlier, we're absolutely not Marxists, but it is true that we live in a culture now where profit has been detached from any kind of common good, and I'm not against, again, I am not against companies making money and trying to do things, but when you start to realize that there are sometimes perverse incentives inside of businesses, and that is what government truly ought to be for, where we can discuss some of these things.

Like, look, Instagram, you are a terrible influence on 12-year-old girls. We need to stop that. Okay, also, like what you say, dating app, I mean, I don't know what the solution to that necessarily is, other than just to let customers know, but it's an important point, and it comes from, you know, like this idea that like Phil Knight could go over to Asia and find people that can make shoes for 25 cents and flood our market with cheap goods, and it was like, well, it's capitalism, you can do whatever you want.

It's like, no, we have to understand, like, we want a market. That's prosperous and free for the most part, okay? We have to have it moored to basic cultural norms and basic principles. So, I think it's, I don't know, I look at that guy, I look like Bob Seeker with super long hair, but you're on the money. I did not know what to expect, but yeah, no, nailed it. Love it. You're spinning. I love that you brought it up, John. Thank you.

Thank you. So, NAFTA and allowing China in, I point to for sure, because, yes, so we got the promises of cheaper goods. Yes, there's a certain benefit to that. But how did this destabilize the entire middle of the country? How did this harm wages for good Americans that no longer have jobs and were told, learn to code? And now the next promise is, well, no one's going to code anymore. AI is taking that too. And so, I guess I'm nervous that I see this kind of blue-collar desolation in America, and then AI is promising to bring about the white-collar desolation of America.

A lot of those kind of good middle-class jobs that still exist, those could be gone. And then the value prop is, well, we're just going to build data centers. That's going to prop up the U.S. economy. It largely is right now. It's data centers and gambling. And I don't know, at this point, How do we get back there? If the profit incentives are there to make this the makeup of the U.S. economy, and it's not actually well-paying, good jobs for the average American so they can raise a family and lead a successful society, it doesn't feel like a future that I guess I feel really excited about.

Maybe that's the... You were joking about me blackpilling or whatever, but I guess I'm just seeing a lot of this writing on the wall, where a lot went wrong to me in the 70s, economically. I don't see a lot being done.

It's like, people are just defeatist with AI now. It's like, well, it's just going to happen. China's going to get it, so we might as well beat them to it. But then it's like, well, can we think about how this integrates? What if all of our truckers lose their job overnight? What does that do to America? So, this is the thing. We can do... Wait.

We are not helpless. We can respond, and, you know, we can pass laws and say, no, we are going to do something differently here, frankly, you know? And sometimes, you know, like, we are not going to try to be completely head in the sand, ignorant about the changes in technology that go forward, but we are going to put some guardrails in. I think that would be a good idea. Yeah. And I do have confidence in human innovation to come through massive revolutions like we have done before and discover new ways of running, discover new jobs, new modes of income for people, etc.

But I think the problem is the way we're going about it right now, I think we're going to break a lot more eggs than we need to if we can put some more thought into it, etc. Yeah, it'll be fascinating to see. I'm not like all AI doomerism. Like, it's the end of the world. Antichrist is here quite yet, but I'm willing to be convinced. I think it could go either way. You've done your best. I'm waiting for my encyclical from the Pope to tell me how to think about this.

You've done your best in the deep. To try to find the Antichrist, then. Yeah, I've been digging into Peter Thiel's Antichrist lectures that were all guys. Oh, my gosh. I need a couple months on that script. I was going to do it for Twilight Zone a little while back, but Palantir released a manifesto, and it was like 22 points. All insane. Very little concrete language in there, except for we should have a national draft.

Yeah, okay. No manifestos. Can we just not have manifestos? Hey, listen, if you want to know my real beef with J.D. Vance, listen. Talks well, happy, hope he's had a great conversion, the book's going to be awesome. These are the people that funded his rise to power. Now, it is. Peter Thiel literally plucked him out, made him the Senator of Ohio.

That is all I am going to say. Peter Thiel is not the Antichrist, so you can take comfort in that. He is not, but, well, stay tuned. I did read a book about him, Interesting Cat. Let us put it that way.

Interesting Cat. All right, that is all I got today. Pray. Let us pray. We need to pray. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. A sacred heart of Jesus, king of heaven and earth, I place today my nation, the United States of America, into your heart, pierced for the love of us.

On the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I acknowledge that true liberty is your gift, and that our lasting homeland is the eternal kingdom of God. Under the mantle of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, and through the intercession of her Immaculate Heart, bless my homeland anew, purify her from sin, and guide her leaders in truth, justice, and peace, so that she may safeguard all human life, respect the integrity of marriage and the family, and honor the practice of religion.

Reign in my home and in my nation. Draw every heart into communion with you, that your truth, love, justice, mercy, and peace may triumph in America and throughout the world. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Good show, gang. We'll catch you again. Got the deep coming for you tomorrow, and we'll see you next week. Peace.