Lindsey Clancy Case Divides America, Politicians Discover Data Center Hate, And “Kiss Your Mom”

And we're live. Welcome back to LOOPcast. It's Tom, a little bit older Tom, and Josh Mercer. Erika is dropping some kids off at college. However, she does appear in this episode because the Lindsay Clancy case would not be done justice if three dudes who have never been postpartum talked about it. Lots of reactions and controversy there. That kind of stuck out as a... Like, I hate to say, but like true crime kind of people magazine type thing, and the deeper I dug into that, and then all of a sudden you start getting some takes hurled on an ax, we have a national story.

So, I figured I'd just do justice of explaining it, maybe getting into the reactions. A little bit older, Tom said he was less than satisfied with some of the takes, so we're going to get our reactions, and then Erika, of course, gave us great reactions, so I'll play that. We also have the most obvious. Result of all time now hitting politics. The NRCC sent out a memo on data centers because Ohio could be at threat. Now, there's been a lot of data center talk, but in particular, it's now reaching a level of potentially deciding statewide, nationwide elections.

So, I get a little bit in the details there. Nate Silver had a good thing. He was talking to a reporter that was on the ground in Michigan and Wisconsin, seeing how that's affecting there, just getting a little bit of detail. We also have good news, Twilight Zone, and then I'm going to be covering, too, the USS Abraham. There's some stories. Last week and over the weekend, I know we're a little bit late to it. Some of the dust has settled a little bit, but just some horrific conditions coming out about that.

The military has responded. We had soldiers trying to jump off that deployment. I think it was the longest non-docking deployment since 2021, so I'm just going to cover all that as well. Well, it's going to be a great show, and then we have some primary talk as well. We had some primaries last night in Florida. I want to get Josh's thoughts on that. So, before we get into that, of course, we've got to talk about Charity Mobile.

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Thank you, Charity Mobile. All right, before we get into the Lindsey Clancy stuff, we had the major story out of last night was the defeat of an establishment Democrat. I believe he outspent the DSA candidate, Angie Nixon. We're talking about Alex Vindman, 20 to 1. And you just keep getting the hits on how strange this upset was. Josh, do you have any insight into what's going on here?

I mean, Vindman is this guy that's made a central focus of everything he's doing to being anti-Trump as possible, you know, rallying people about the impeachment and all this other kind of stuff. And I think the voters in Florida were like, we want a candidate who represents Florida.

And Angie Nixon, you know, was the one that had the bullhorn and was screaming in the legislature there against the redistricting plan, and so I think Democrats of Florida wanted to fight her, and even though she was outspent 20 to 1, she came out victorious, and this is, I think, a very important touchpoint, because you'll remember You had a lot of victories by DSA candidates, the three congressmen, you know, the congressional races in New York, then in Denver, and then Abdul Al-Sayed, who is technically not DSA, but he is basically DSA.

He got the nomination for the Senate race in Michigan, and so then they just kept rolling up these wins, unexpected wins, and then when Francesca Hong lost her race very narrowly last week in Wisconsin, there's a lot of establishment Democrats that are like, okay, this is good.

You know, maybe we've broken the fever. No, no, no, no, no. Like, here's a candidate outspent 20 to 1. She gets the nomination. You know, it moves a somewhat competitive Senate race. I think Republicans have the clear, obvious advantage now, because I think Floridians will have even less interest in the DSA candidates. But again, the DSA is winning statewide races in Michigan, in Maine, in Florida, in purple states, in blue states, in red states. The Democratic Party has got a big problem that the DSA is where all the energy is.

No question on that. I saw Christina Pasha, I believe she worked in the DeSantis team, kind of gave an insight here from outside, which I thought was worth reading. Seeing too many hot takes from the D.C. punditocracy, who claim that Angie Nixon and Alex Vindman, that Angie Nixon defeated Alex Vindman because socialism is so popular nowadays. Well, I am sure it is in some states, but not in Florida. Vindman lost because he is a deep state establishment plant who carpetbagged to Florida a few weeks before announcing a statewide campaign here.

He has zero connection to Florida and does not understand the state. I moved here five years ago and have been to all 67 counties due to my work. I still have a lot to learn in Florida. Vindman knows less than nothing about the state. That goes for his out-of-state backers, too. What's more, Vindman insulted the same Florida Democrats he needed to win over when he repeatedly refused to debate Nixon and pretended he had this election in the bag. Basically, he told voters, I do not need to earn your votes.

That's called hubris. Nixon is a far-left lunatic, but she won because she is from Florida. She has been a fixture in Florida politics for years. She knows how to grab attention and her antics in Tennessee. And then she ends with, good thing, Ashley Moody-Florida is also from Florida. She was born here and is a fifth-generation Floridian, and she is a solid, accomplished conservative. I have no doubt she will defeat Nixon in November. I mean, the thing is, Floridians don't like carpetbaggers.

No state likes carpetbaggers. Florida might be more open to carpetbaggers than other states, but there is a congressional primary in Florida's 19th district. Where the candidate that won was Jim Schwartzel. He beat out Donald Trump's endorsed candidate, Christina Loft, which is funny, is that she had run previously for Congress out of Illinois.

She got second place. The guy who got third place was Jim Oberweis, who also ran for that same congressional race in Illinois that she ran in. Both candidates fought one against each other six years ago in Illinois, and now in Florida, they both lost. In that race also was former Congressman Chris Collins, who used to represent, was in New York, right? He was up in New York. And then you also have former North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn. They're all running in this one district.

It's so bizarre. So, I mean, again, I think maybe Floridians actually wanted to elect a Floridian there. I think Jim's from Florida, but it just was, you know, you get some of these amazing, again, it's one thing to, you know, if you're going to be a carpetbagger, you got to at least pretend like, you know, you've been there for a while. Yeah, show up to a debate. Do something. I mean, Lisa Hillary Clinton went on a listening tour, right, when she ran for Senate in New York because she changed flights at LaGuardia, and she decides to run there instead of just crazy.

Do you keep an eye on the Alaska election, too, because they do first-past-the-post? They don't do first-past-the-post. So, what they do in Alaska... They have this weird new system. Okay, so you get different states have different election systems, like California has top two. So, as many people want to run for governor or mayor or whatever.

They'll take the top two candidates, regardless of what party they're in, in California, and then they have the final election, right? That's how they do it. Alaska does that a little bit more modified. Everyone can run in the open primary, and there was like 17 candidates running for Senate, and 17 candidates running for governor or whatever. A lot, in other words. And they take the top four, regardless of the party.

So, Mary Pelotola was a former congresswoman. She only served, she won a special election, and she got ousted in the next election. She ran, and she got the most number of votes. The incumbent senator, Dan Sullivan, was a little bit behind. I think she had 49%. And there was two Dan Sullivans.

Yes, and there's another Dan Sullivan who's a teacher, an Obama supporter. He's running basically to spoil the ballot and hoodwink people into voting for him. Who knows? And so, they took the top four candidates. So, that other Dan Sullivan, the fake Dan Sullivan, is also going to be on the final general election ballot.

But if you look at the total number of votes that were cast for, I mean, it is not a good sign. The incumbent should be able to get above 50%. In Alaska's law, the ranked choice voting is so silly. I cannot stand it.

So, what is going to happen is these four candidates are going to go up against each other in November, and if somebody gets 50% plus one vote, they are the senator. But if not, then whoever got fourth place, their votes get reassigned to the other three candidates, and then if someone gets above 50%, then that person wins. And if not, then you take the third place and reassign those votes, their second choice or whatever. It gets really complicated, and it could take weeks to solve this.

Now, Mary Patola did very well, and so this is a sign that Republicans need to pay attention to Alaska. This is a state that, you know, need to hunker down and try to make sure we win, because we don't want, I mean, Dan Sullivan isn't perfect, I know.

But Mary Paltola is bad on transgender, bad on everything, so we don't want her to win this race. The total number of votes cast for Democratic candidates was like 49%, and it was like 50% for Republicans. So, overall, it's not like it's totally lost. It's definitely going to be a race, and you're going to have to run and win.

But I ultimately think Dan will probably be re-elected. Which Dan? Exactly. Well, if I said re-elected, it is the one that is in there. That is kind of a genius. Ironically enough, there is another Dan Sullivan. That is what I am saying. If you really wanted to mess with someone else's campaign, find someone with the same name, and then fund them to run just for the people on the ballot to be confused.

That was the whole plot of the Distinguished Gentleman with Eddie Murphy. Was it really? Yeah, the candidate passed away. No new ideas. Same name, so we ran. Dang, someone's already on it. Another interesting thing that came out of last night, Tom, maybe you got some two cents on this, debate moment with Darlene Grant is going viral, if you want to check it out. Senator, are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States? If so, why?

I'm sorry, could you repeat the question? Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States, and if so, why or how? I'm just going to be honest here. I'm not on national security. I'm not that informed on national security, but I do support the military. Senator, are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States?

That's tough. To me, that is just a cringe moment. One, because it shows poor staffing, because she should have been able to give at least a sentence of, like, if you don't know something on national security, say this, this, or you support what Trump's doing over there.

Anything. Especially because she's backed by a whole bunch of PACs that backed her brother. Some of them are questionable PACs, except they're basically pro-war PACs or neocon PACs. Yeah. It was kind of her brother's whole thing, actually. Right. Or military industry PACs.

There are a lot of military contracts that South Carolina fulfills, thanks to Lindsey Graham. So, to me... And I'm a Ralph Norman fan, too, so I'm a little biased, and I'm not big on this whole nepotism thing when it comes to Congress.

So, I just thought it was not a great answer. It really just highlights that she might have been a sentimental pick, but she wasn't the right pick. I mean, I'll say this. I agree with Tom, in the sense that I would prefer voters, you know, any Catholics in South Carolina listening. I mean, if I lived in South Carolina, I'd vote for Ralph Norman. Norman? How am I getting his name right? But this answer to me, you know, political insiders who look at this answer, like, you know, us, and they'll wince.

But then again, the American people might be a little bit more tolerant of the answer. You know, we don't know. I mean, like, people might go at it and go, well, I appreciate her honesty, at least. I mean, I'm sure, you know. That was actually funny. That was my first reaction, was.

I actually appreciate that she was honest. She didn't know. I feel like it's rare. Usually, we get kind of the politician speak of, you know, how do I tow the appropriate... AOC had a moment like this not too long ago, where she was at the Munich Security Council and totally flubbed the Taiwan answer. And it's funny. I'm going to get to this later, but... Well, I mean, let me give you another example. Go for it. I think it was the 2000 presidential, where someone asked George W.

Bush, Governor of Texas, what do you think about... You know, such and such political leader or whatever in such and such country, I think it was made up. Like, he made up the guy's name, and George just goes, oh, yeah, no, no, no, to give some sort of answer, and everyone laughed. Like, dude, you don't even know what you're talking about. That's not who the leader is or whatever. And, like, in the left, who loves to celebrate how smart they are, thought we're just mocking the heck out of them.

Like, look, George W. Bush's foreign policy ended up being a disaster, but it wasn't because he couldn't remember somebody's name. Yeah, maybe there were signs. He's got your questions. He's got your questions. Most voters kind of look at it and roll their eyes at it. I mean, whatever. When push comes to shove and a decision has to be made, we assume you have support staff to go, okay, here's the ins and outs of why we got to do this or that.

So, we'll see. I don't know. I mean, I don't want her to be elected to the seat. I think it more sticks to the nepotism. The nepotism thing sticks, and this just compounds it. Like, okay, first off, you're here because of nepotism, and second, you don't know what you're talking about, especially considering his entire thing was foreign policy. Well, again, there's ways to answer a question when you don't know it that are a little bit better than that, so she could have been better.

For sure. And then it's funny, because it seems like the Trump administration themselves has kind of given up on the Asia pivot. And maybe this is an honest thing, but the last ship left the Pacific region, like the Indo-Pacific, and we are stopping cooperation with South Korea, so it seems like maybe she's actually kind of online. I think that's a huge mistake, but that's what's happening. It just happened.

So, sorry, let's get now into the Lindsay. Is there anything else on primaries you wanted to point out, Josh? Well, I do. One last note. Again, the fact that the DSA continues to be winning races that they shouldn't be winning, like surprise upsets, what does this portend? Well, there is actually another primary that I'm going to be keeping my eyes on. That's the primary in the state of New Hampshire. Now, again, this is a bad year for Republicans. Republicans, you know.

You know, midterm elections are not normally historically good. Chris Pappas is the very popular congressman. He's running for that Senate seat in New Hampshire. Sununu, not the governor, but the former senator. Is running for that Senate seat. The Sununu name is worth a lot in New Hampshire, so that does benefit, because voters get there and say Sununu. They voted for a lot of Sununus in New Hampshire over the years, so that's good for Sununu to have that name. There's a DSA candidate running against Pappas in this primary.

If she manages to pull off a win there. Then, all of a sudden, you open up another race where that becomes that much more competitive, and I do think Sununu could be the DSA candidate. So, again, maybe it has only got a one in five chance, but then again, these DSA candidates are winning races that they should be winning, so we will see.

Do you know if the Sanders crowd and all is donating to the New Hampshire candidate? I'm, you know, that's just something I'm just diving into. I haven't had a chance to look into it too much, but, I mean, it's right there in the neighboring state, you know, Vermont and New Hampshire are right next to each other, so if she can, maybe Bernie's like, what the heck, why not? Let's go. We'll see.

And it used to be a big primary state, but... Yeah. On the Democratic side, yeah. But again, northern states tend to have these very late primaries, which Florida is one of the... The latest primaries for a southern state, but like the northern states, you know, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, just had their primaries in August.

I'm in a presidential primary state. No, I know, I know, but like this, they've always had their congressional primaries like in September or whatever. I think they should move them up, frankly. I think you need to give your overseas voters a chance to participate, but that's one we'll be watching. We'll see. Okay.

On to the Lindsey Clancy case, and again, this has just been blown up in so much controversy. I'm going to try my best to just lay the groundwork. Before the men on the podcast give their takes? Before I even give a take, I think to set the table on this, and I'll let you then go through it. This is a case we would normally think of just like a criminal case, and it shouldn't really be a national story, but because it is.

Then, unfortunately, it is something that we might need to take a look at and see what is going on here beneath the surface and stuff like that. Great. So, here we go. Lindsay Clancy was a labor and delivery nurse living with her husband, Patrick, and their three children in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Cora was five, Dawson was three, and Callum was eight months old. On January 24, 2023, while Patrick was out picking up medicine and takeout, Lindsay strangled all three children with exercise bands.

And also, like, warning for people listening, this is pretty graphic. She then injured herself and jumped from a second-story window in an apparent suicide attempt, leaving her paralyzed. Cora and Dawson died that night. Kellan was briefly resuscitated but died several days later. She was ultimately indicted on three counts of murder and three counts of strangulation. Her current murder trial began in Plymouth Superior Court on July 27, 2026.

That is the baseline of the story, but the lead up is what everyone is kind of talking about at this point. After Callum was born in May 2022, Clancy initially appeared to be doing well, but by September, as her maternity leave was ending, she developed worsening anxiety, severe insomnia, exhaustion, and depression. She began seeing a psychiatrist, and over the next several months, cycled through a large number of psychiatric medications. The timeline she deteriorates over is November. She was sleeping only about three hours a night and went to an emergency room.

She was prescribed and tried multiple drugs, including Prozac, Ambien, Remeron, Klonopin, and Seroquel, among others. By late November, she was reporting feeling disoriented, detached from her body, and cognitively impaired. By December, records indicate she reported intrusive thoughts about harming herself and her children. She contacted crisis services and a suicide hotline in December, but according to the defense evidence, was not admitted because she did not have a specific plan. She went to Massachusetts General Hospital. Suicide. Yeah, I know the censorship on the word, so I've already said it too many times.

No, it's all good. What do I know? And then on January 1st, she voluntarily admitted herself to McLean Hospital for psychiatric treatment and was discharged on January 5th. Her family is now testifying that her decline was very obvious. Her mother, says Clancy, told the family she was having thoughts of harming the children, and at one point was so frightened she asked her mother to sleep beside her because she was afraid to be alone. Her former mother-in-law testified today that Clancy was, quote, begging for help.

There's also evidence that she was searching the internet in the weeks before the killings for subjects including hallucinations, psychosis, bipolar disorder, insomnia, suicide methods, postpartum depression, and whether a psychopath could be treated. So. The prosecution is arguing that mental illness does not automatically mean legal insanity. They're arguing that Clancy deliberately created an opportunity to be alone with the children. They point to her arranging the takeout, Patrick's CVS, all of that. And then I'll just say as a baseline, actually, neither side is arguing that she didn't kill the children.

They both have already agreed that she was the one that killed the children. Both the prosecution and the defense, okay. Both the prosecution and the defense are saying, you know, this happened. We're not even arguing whether or not she did it.

Now, they're basically arguing over how much culpability she had. Like, was she insane? And that could potentially affect the charge. What kind of complicates this is that the father of the children, which interestingly, Patrick, they got divorced, and then he's now remarried at this point. He is basically saying...

He publicly asked people to forgive her, saying the real Lindsay was loving and caring. At trial, he described months of treatment attempts and testified that he never believed she would hurt the children. He and Lindsay have since divorced, as I said, and they're arguing that the doctors failed her.

So, failure is in treatment, basically. As of today, prosecution arrested on Monday, August 17th, after calling roughly 70 witnesses over weeks. The defense is now presenting the case. We are not at a verdict yet. If convicted of first-degree murder, Clancy faces life imprisonment without parole. If the jury finds her not guilty because she lacked criminal responsibility, that does not mean she walks out of court. She would instead face commitment to the state's psychiatric facility. Now, the reason this has become such national news is a few factors.

I might say the TikTok mommy influencers, therapists, women's health advocates, legal commentators, traditional media, and then people outraged on behalf of the children. Obviously, a really serious subject, but I don't think it's... When I was seeing some of the stuff, I was like, I've looked up what are the most popular podcasts for women in the country, and for better or worse, a lot of them are this kind of true crime, murder, trial type thing, and it's really blown up in a lot of those areas.

But I think the reason that we're talking about it now is because there's been... Some commentators that have put out things that can be perceived as defending the mother for what she did, because... Here, I have a summary from a therapist that's kind of describing maybe why this is big. Let's see if we can get this.

Is going to be one of the most significant trials of your lifetime. We are all experiencing something completely unprecedented. Never before have we seen so many mothers and women rally behind somebody. Who confessed to killing her three children, and it is not because we cannot hold women accountable. Many of us see ourselves in Lindsay. Many of us know that we could have been only one step away from doing some of those horrific things, because we experienced significant Mental health issues after one of our children was born.

So, there you have it. And then, as promised, I want to get Erika's take, and then Tom McCluskey, I'll give you a first opportunity for comment. All right, I am here on the request of the gentleman to give the female perspective on Lindsay Clancy, and I won't be interrupted by Tom or Josh. This is going to be great, but this is not a great topic. Obviously, this is a very disturbing case, and before I even get to Lindsay Clancy and the details, the whole...

Discourse online right now, even coming, especially coming from some conservative media, Matt Walsh, I'm looking at you, this sort of denigration or dismissiveness about the reality of postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis is not helpful to the conversation, shall we say. I myself, I've had seven kids, I suffered really terrible postpartum depression after one of the births in particular. ...that lasted nine months, and all of the trying to figure out what was going on, and was this just me? Was this circumstantial?

Was it medical? It's a real issue that people face and that women suffer. That being said, this to me... Is a disturbing case in particular because of the overwhelming support that, in particular, white liberal women are pouring out for Lindsay Clancy here, and making her out to be the victim in this case. The victims are her three children. I'm sure the guys have said this a million times, because I know you a little bit at this point.

But the victims in this case are her three beautiful children, who she knew she had a window of time. She drove home. This is all in her confession. She picked up the exercise bands, and she executed them in the most terrible way.

For the sort of online subculture of women to be out there saying, you were a victim, the system failed you, there are teachers with fourth graders who have been soliciting her as their pen pals for the classroom for the year and apologizing to her for what's happening, and that, to me, is so gravely disordered. And I'm like, why? Why are all these women doing that? Like, as a mother, like, I'm looking at the faces of these babies thinking, This needs justice, and this woman certainly should never have been left alone with them, so maybe that's her doctor's fault.

Maybe there was a lack of acknowledgement of the state that she was in, that she was allowed to be alone with these children. But it's not an excuse, and it certainly doesn't make her into a victim here. I was thinking about it, and I think it's because we're so disordered about children, and many of the women, just statistically speaking, who are online praising Lindsay Clancy and saying justice for Lindsay, they killed their babies. They've killed their own children, and in their mind, they were just having an abortion to get ahead, or because they're practicing autonomy on their body, and it wasn't a baby.

I understand the steel man argument there. But when we're trying to understand where this is coming from, I think that's where it's coming from. We're a society that treats children as commodities. We have surrogacy without any limits. We have abortion without any limits, especially in states like Massachusetts now. We just saw that with the Catholic governor signing that terrible law. And I think that that disorder is so fundamental that when we see a case like Lindsay Clancy's children being slaughtered in this way, We don't, we can't as a society grapple with it.

Thank you, Erika. Tom McCluskey has promised. I want to give you first opportunity here. What do you say? Well, it's a little hard to follow that, but as always, Erika gets it right, I think. However, She brought up the comparison about what it says about our society, and that is more how I have tried to look at it, because the details of the case, if you go online, you are going to hear 50 different details, and most of them are probably wrong, or people are inserting their own opinion.

Granted, that is what I am about to do here. Robbie George also had a similar take to Erika's in that. You know, if it was nine months earlier, Lindsay Grace would not have been charged for the death of the one child if she had went to an abortionist and gotten an abortion.

And there are those, and this is my take, it's not necessarily CatholicVote's take, is that the reason we are getting details about this case is because Lindsay Grace was charged and confessed to the crime. There are those among the pro-life movement who tend to think that When horrible things like this happen, there's always a reason why they did it.

And it's a reason that's usually somebody else's fault. I've seen some takes like that. Lila Rose, for one. One case that nobody's talking about. Well, Lila even referenced the death of the children, as if it wasn't her who murdered them. Yeah, here's what got everyone going. Lindsay Clancy reportedly sought help repeatedly before the deaths of her children. That should haunt us. When a mother is clearly deteriorating, our healthcare system cannot afford to simply move her from appointment to appointment. Without asking whether the treatment is actually working.

I mean, the second half of our answer is right, but... Right, and then you get the more extreme. You don't get newly diagnosed with postpartum psychosis at eight months. Multiple doctors testified she was not psychotic at prior visits. She wasn't psychotic after she launched herself out a window either. She should be hung and shown no mercy. You don't kill your kids. That's from Katie Miller.

I agree with that last sentence. There is a case from June of this year that I didn't know about. From New York, upstate New York, Mechanicville, a mother and grandmother killed four of their children, four of her children.

13-year-old, 11-year-old, two 10-year-old twins. And the reason they did this is because to prevent their father, who lived in Utah, from being able to spend any time with them. It's less sensationalistic because both the mother and grandmother killed themselves. I can't imagine. I mean, certainly, they are facing their judgment right now. A better judgment than I think any human court or person could give them, but it does, as Erika pointed out, it points to when we commodify lives like this and don't hold people responsible for taking lives unnecessarily, or innocent lives especially, we become a society that life just doesn't matter.

Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I think, you know, obviously widespread acceptance of abortion, you know, the killing of children in the womb for the last 50, 60 years. We finally got Roe v. Wade in return and got the ability to have states.

Protect unborn, but unfortunately, the culture has deteriorated from a moral standpoint. There's a lot of attacks on the dignity of the human person, from pornography to abortion, all involving the sexual revolution. And I think it's had a lot of bad effects.

You know, like you say, IVF, creating them in the lab would be another way, you know, again, it just removes the sort of dignity of it, and I do think we've lost a little bit of the sense of, you know, children as a gift because of this. Like, one of the most, again, one of the most, what was the number one New York Times bestselling book? Go to F to sleep, and it was all meant as a joke, I guess, but it's still kind of like, you know, it was written for parents as a book that you would not actually read to your kids, but it was written in that style, and it's just, they said it was so cathartic because it was like all these parents so frustrated that kids won't go to bed.

Like, dude, I've got six kids. I know what the frustrations of getting kids to bed. Yeah, there's a grain in all of this. So, this was the one that got everyone fired up, I think Erika referenced. We have a lot of people, for Matt Walsh, a lot of people aren't going to want to hear this, but much of the, quote, depression that parents and not just moms suffer after childbirth is due not so much to hormones, but to the fact that the children, especially babies, are demanding and difficult and require us to subordinate our own needs and desires for their sake.

The more selfish you are, the more of an adjustment it's going to be. That one got everyone riled up. I mean, I think if he would have actually said, yeah, postpartum depression is actually a very real concern and a very real thing, and then the second half of what he said there actually does, I do think, has a lot of truth to it. Right. Yeah, it seemed like one of those cases. And then moms and dads, as soon as the baby's born, are totally sleep-deprived, they're tired, they're cranky, they're running on low battery power.

I mean, I get it. I totally understand it. And there are times where you just want to, you want to, you start going a little crazy, you know? Yeah, because if I could add to this element of it, because it seems like these are two different threads, like there's 25,000 Lindsay Clancy fans have now raised over $835,000 after she admitted to murdering her three young children. The GoFundMe account has been flooded with positive messages from her female supporters who are convinced she's the victim.

There's that, and then if I could add to, like, Think about the surge in support for Luigi Mangione after he assassinated a guy in cold blood. I mean, cold blood in the middle of broad daylight, and of course, it was over grievances that he had with the healthcare system, but the groundswell of support that he got for literally assassinating a human being in public in America was shocking to me. The same thing with Carmelo Anthony, like when he stabbed the kid at the track meet.

Of course, big GoFundMe for that. I don't know how much of this is just people getting deranged online or how much of this is a fundamental belief, but I don't think it's dramatic that you guys brought up, Erika and Josh, all of you guys brought up, just a general desensitization.

So, desensitivity to violence and to murdering innocents. And look, I'll wrap into, like, I think a lot of our foreign policy over the last 30 years, we're desensitized because it's not at home. But I mean, how many countries have we bombed in the past 30 years? How many innocent civilians have we killed? I think that really contributes too. And so, you just add all these together, and you have a powder keg where it seems very open and shut here. A woman just murdered her three children, and yet you get a GoFundMe and a lot of people being like, All right, I kind of, you know, sympathize with the person.

Well, and I would just like to point out, you know, in Rochester, Minnesota, you had a mother who felt her child was being threatened by a Somali immigrant who was screaming and yelling, and she, you know, and the guy is like, basically, you know, he said, well, your young kid called me the N-word.

And she's like, whatever, and just wants to get out of there. And he keeps going, why don't you call me that? Like, are you afraid? And then she does, and people freak out. And it's like, the reaction that a lot of these liberal women have online to this woman who was being, you know, agitated by some dude and ultimately said a word she probably shouldn't have said, but like, the reaction to that online was like, this mother's horrible.

I mean, I guess she was protecting her kid. She said a word she shouldn't have said, but she didn't murder three children. Like, the comparisons to me are like, what is going on? Like, social media makes a lot of people react very stupidly. And again, I think I largely, like, I would say I agree with Matt Walsh like 95% of the time, but even on that comment, it's like, I feel like maybe he's just saying it in such a way that he knows he's going to get a response.

Like, you know, there's too much of that. In social media, there's too much of this, like, just saying stuff to cause a complete ruckus and get people going crazy. Like, well, I might lose fans over this, and there's a woman who said, I kind of sympathize with the mom. I'm like, what are you talking about? I mean, like, you can feel bad for a person, but you don't... If you're talking to me, but I agree with your general take, like, social media, it's incentivized to drive rage, to drive attention, to make money for the platforms.

Like, that's just pretty obviously established. But to cut through, and I think you probably agree with this, like, there is a grain of truth. Like, I think about the current system of affairs in America, where you have a baby, and because of how society has developed, you have to go back to work right away. In many cases, or you feel as though you have to, or that has just become the societal norm, and so you go right back to work after having your hormones completely changed, and the healthcare system, as we have all mentioned here, not that you should go assassinate anyone, is very poor.

It is poor, the treatment that happens to the women. If you look at how... Too much treatment to giving up prescription drugs? Yeah, exactly. Oh my gosh, that was a big tell for me, too. It was like, okay, we will just pump her with drugs, which, of course, how could this possibly end well? So, I think that there are genuine critiques that you can offer, and maybe you can't do it on social media because people accuse you of supporting a murderer or something, but I've had a couple kids now, and you have too.

People that have had kids see how hard it is on the mother right after, and as we've developed where we are, there's not a lot of support for, I'd say, the average woman in America where they have to go back to work right away, and they don't get the proper healing process that they need. In many cases, you would be staying home. Before that, we've evolved. Everyone needs to be... I don't know. What if we had a church that was less concerned about, you know, migrants, you know, coming into our country and actually taking care of people who are affected with postpartum depression, who are affected with gambling or porn and this kind of stuff?

Like, be a church that actually deals with the problems that the flock have right here. And this goes into, where is this GoFundMe money going? I'm assuming it's going to the family. So, somebody's going to profit from all of this, be it the attorneys, be it the family, if there's money left over. That should not be allowed. That money is better served going to programs, perhaps, that help new parents in situations like this, or that maybe look into postpartum depression or anything like that.

Do any of the people, all those people, and mostly women, Who sympathize, and probably, as that one announcer said, empathize with what's happening to Lindsay Grace. Do they give anything to the solutions, or are they just giving to the defense in this GoFundMe right now?

I guess, you know, with something positive we can all do is just, you know, pray for the repose of the souls of the kids. I mean, especially the youngest one, definitely innocent. But yeah, for the whole family. For Lindsay herself, I mean, I believe in the power of prayer. I think that is basically the most powerful thing we can do at this point, but I think worthwhile discussing the desensitization of violence for sure.

Okay, on to the next story here. I saw a pretty funny headline this morning. I was reading up on it over the week, but it looks like the GOP has caught up to the fact that people don't love these data centers being built in their backyards. Actually, so much so that it is more popular for someone to build a nuclear power plant in your backyard than it would be to build a data center, which is crazy. uh here is please indicate what solved the energy problem true or these data centers if we had nuclear power true you don't have to worry about the energy drain true so here's the exact question please i love nuclear please indicate whether you would support or oppose each of the following being built in your community uh one is strongly support fives unsure so if you look at the uh one strong support some support you We have strong support up at a data center is at the bottom, saying a data center to power artificial intelligence is at 27%.

A nuclear power plant is 34% strong support, so there's more support on average to build a nuclear power plant in your backyard. And some of the things above, too, like a data center to power digital services, a chip manufacturing plant, a wind farm, a solar farm, a traditional manufacturing factory. And Amazon Distribution Center is up at the top with 68% strong support.

And I mean, if I just look at this graph before we even get into anything else. I mean, one, it's obviously the marketing of a lot of these AI CEOs, maybe just to drive up hype for their IPOs or whatnot, but the big promises of, like, we're going to kill all your jobs, there's going to be no jobs gained from what we're putting in your backyard, and we're not going to do it anywhere near us. We're going to put it on you.

That's going to happen. Obviously, it didn't work out messaging-wise, and if I look at the other things mentioned, even a data center to power digital services, that's at least something people understand. And so, wind farm people understand, solar farm people understand, manufacturing factory people understand, they understand the jobs that will come from it, they understand the services. No one understands right now what the big data centers to power artificial intelligence are. I don't understand what they stand for, but I hate wind farms more than that, because wind farms are totally pointless.

But if you look at this polling, I mean... I know, I know. Which is, get rid of those pesky birds, though. True. So, anyway, we have this Axios. There is a memo sent out by the NRCC in Ohio, and it is a quick memo, but you got the rap here with Axios. The Senate GOP campaign arm, in a private memo to top AI companies, warns that toxic views on U.S. data centers are killing the party's chances of holding a vital seat in Ohio.

We have, the NRCC says, Democrats have made data centers a centerpiece of their campaign to defeat Senator John Husted, and that it's working. If he loses, and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice, and they will not go near the next one. This has become a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle. I have to say, I agree. Which is translation, donate a ton of money to our Republican candidate in Ohio so he can win this race.

Right, and you can say there's games being played there, but one thing I want to mention, Tom, before you get into it. I mean, it's not wrong. I mean, I'm just saying, like, you know, that's the gist of what they're getting at. For sure. Like, I have this graphic here. Governor Shapiro is an interesting case in Pennsylvania because he's obviously a Democrat, and then Ryan Gerduski put up this, and this is good to look at. So, basically, he ran on being super pro-AI, super pro-data center.

Like, I'm bringing them in. It's bringing all this investment. And then his Republican opponent started running on the outside of that, saying he's going to be against it, he's going to do moratorium. And so, very quickly, you get a pretty quick switch in position. I have the graphic, let me share it.

So, here it is. This is, we are watching the rebirth of our state's competitiveness and writing the next chapter in Pennsylvania's economic story. With Amazon's commitment of at least $20 billion to build new state-of-the-art data center campuses across our commonwealth, we just secured the largest private sector investment in the history of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is on the rise, and it's not slowing down. And then, as of yesterday, Governor Shapiro signs order blocking irresponsible AI data centers.

So, this isn't even like a left or right thing. It's just anyone running on some type of restriction on data centers is going to be politically successful. I mean, we've seen this kind of bear out. I hope the Republican Party is getting it, that people are upset by this. However, I was at a meeting this morning with a very well-known pollster, who's very well-known within the White House, has the president's ear.

And his counter to a lot of this and to this recent poll was, it's all Chinese-driven. That it's all China who's driving up the opposition. Driving up the opposition to AI. Which, even if it were true, it doesn't stop that it is a legitimate political problem, and it's just like with sports arenas, because a lot of these cities and city councils are inviting these AI companies in and giving them a lot of tax breaks at the cost of the areas. And what the consumers find out, as they did with a lot of the sports arenas, What happens next is there is no real payback.

There is no end goal that helps out the community. So, I really hope the Republican Party is getting it. It sounds like one of their campaigns arm is. So, didn't they send those polls out, though, to tech companies?

They didn't necessarily send it out wide. They sent it to tech companies. They're not beating the allegations, yeah. So, it's like, tell us how to defend. They're basically saying, tell us how to defend this. Right. Uh-oh. Well, they have fumbled it. I mean, if there are benefits to having these data centers created, what are they? Here is an interesting case, because I have been reading a little bit more on it, and actually, Trump, I mean, not actually. Trump is very pro-AI data centers.

He was doing an interview talking about them in Texas, and he is like, Governor Abbott is making a huge mistake here. This is the future of the American economy, and if you look at our GDP numbers, that actually bears out. We are making a humongous bet on AI. I think he said that it could be the next oil boom, basically.

And to look at a pro, and I know this is coming from CNN, but basically, they're talking about a small town, I think in North Dakota, or in places that have kind of been forgotten by manufacturing as we move to more of a service economy.

The people there are, well, they have similar concerns I'm going to get to. They're like, well, they built a new school. They built new roads. We've been forgotten largely by the economy, and these people are coming in, and I think people make good arguments about the tax breaks, which they should be paying more, but they are bringing in tax revenue and things to our community that we're actually using and rebuilding because I know I'm guilty of this too. I'm not in a ton of small towns.

If you go to a lot of small towns in America right now, They're falling apart. They're dilapidated. So, they're kind of, in some people that they interviewed, were excited to kind of be a part of the new conversation. So, it's not that there's not benefits. I think that you get down to the messaging problem. And Nate Silver did a funny interview to me. He said, why does everyone hate data centers? Which I kind of brought up on the show, like we have one coming up in Indiana.

And it's obvious to me, because I live in the Midwest, why people hate these data centers. But he asked Jasmine's son, she's a Silicon Valley reporter. And she lives in the kind of Silicon Valley bubble. And one of the things, she's like, it's crazy. I spent two weeks in Michigan, Wisconsin. It's crazy how out of touch a lot of Silicon Valley is with the rest of the country. I mean, understatement of the century. But she said the way that people look at it is...

If there's a 50% chance that this is revolutionary to the economy, but there's a 20% chance that this ends the world, or ends the country, basically, they're willing to take that risk. The average American that doesn't understand anything going on, but I have this ugly thing going up in my backyard that's kind of scary and confusing, are not willing to take that risk. And I'm like, yeah, no, big shocker coming from that. But I think people rightfully bring up the way that Silicon Valley has gone about doing this under the guise of NDAs and shell companies, and in my opinion, dishonesty with a lot of the local communities going through these boards.

That's just like a fundamental American insult. Like, It's insulting to me that you weren't honest about what you're doing here. You're trying to do it under the cloak of night, and all of a sudden, it's showing up in my community. Even if there are benefits, the way that you went about it is so dishonest and makes me not trust you, and I don't blame people for that take at all. I think that's totally reasonable. And I think that's why the recent pushback is actually a very healthy thing, precisely because they're pushing back against these kind of clandestine efforts.

Now, if data centers come and say, look what we did here in this town in North Dakota. That we're able to provide them with jobs, help them rebuild a school, that kind of stuff. If they proceed in that manner, then I think this is going to continue, and people will be open to having data centers.

But as of right now, yeah, I agree. The fact that they haven't done any good positive PR, the fact that they do things kind of cloak and dagger, is just not helpful at all. So, if this is a good thing, they haven't made the case for it. Right, and I think Amazon is evil, as I'm awaiting right now for packages from Amazon, of course. Right, yeah. The duality of men. Where I live nearby, Amazon wanted to put their second office, their second headquarters, as opposed to on the West Coast.

And so, they came in, went to like Virginia Tech, gave Virginia Tech like a Brinks truck, like $20 million, said, Build your new campus here in this area, and that helped, and also then helped pay for a new metro. Stop, and everything else. They came in, and they put their money first, instead of coming in looking for handouts first from communities. Amazon did come in and put their money first, saying, this is what we are going to do, and they made the commitments before even the first building went up for the new campus or whatever, for the new Amazon headquarters.

As I said, I hate Amazon, but that is better PR. That is the way to do it. Right. You make a good point. It is funny you are talking about PR, because there is a PR battle to be waged. One of the least convincing to me is, oh, well, China is going to beat us to it, because, Josh, as you mentioned, I think it is really positive, and I have read through some of these agreements signed by governors at this point, governors that I even kind of disagree with on a lot of points, but the things that they are requiring are actually positive developments of democracy, because people are so upset about this, and they are just trying to make They're trying to find ways to be involved in reaping the rewards, and if you're a business, of course, you're going to be arguing for the best possible return to just you, but because people are like, well, you're not building these in your backyard, Jeff Bezos or whatever billionaire, you're building it in mine, and so you need to make it abundantly clear that based on your projected earnings that we're going to be a part of, our community is going to be a part of that, especially considering a lot of these construction jobs come in, which is...

Great for the short term, but then they all leave, and there's only going to be 300 people. So, to me, the best way to go about it is you need to make it clear in the way that you go about the tax structuring of how this is going to come back to the community in terms of sales tax, property tax, income tax, whatever, that the community that you're putting in is actually going to benefit, and that you are adding to the electrical grid or the power grid in some way so that it's not going to increase my power.

If anything, you could actually make it better for everyone because you put up these investments to supply your own power. To supply your own water supply. So, I am not like totally doomer anti on it. I think there are ways to go about it. It just swung so hard in the beginning because of the secrecy and the bad deals, and honestly, bullying of a lot of these local community. It is like the Washington generals, basically. You are going to bring the top lawyers from Amazon and go bully some small community board and make them sign NDAs.

It is just an unfair fight. So, I am glad people are getting involved because I think it will end in a better agreement. Well, and Shapiro, we absolutely detest him on life issues. He's got a vendetta against the Catholic Church and the Little Sisters of the Poor. I really dislike Josh Shapiro as governor of Pennsylvania, but he's also probably going to win in the landslide. The guy knows how to win, and getting on this issue, you notice he didn't shut down.

It's not a moratorium. It's that he's basically putting in place a way to make sure that local communities aren't bullied, and there's not predatory behavior, and so that makes him, it's a very popular stance for him to do, and I'm sure other politicians will follow in this kind of manner. Right. He said, blocking irresponsible AI data centers, which, smart wording, was the exact wording, so you're right. And undefinable.

Exactly. It's like a perfect political statement. Right. My parents thought I was irresponsible for most of my teenage life, and I didn't see it. Hey, actually, okay, because you guys have been tracking this, I'm sure. So, there's the constant conversation about the darling new, you know, Democrat moderate that's going to emerge, and it feels like the people in conversation are Andy Beshar from Kentucky, Josh Shapiro, for sure, in the conversation, and then John Ossoff has been getting a lot of play.

Okay, so I'm curious what you think about this. I don't have the clip on hand, but I can describe it. He did a rally, and he went low. He mentioned Natalie Harp, who... Everyone is kind of parsing out the details of her relationship with Trump. It is intense, probably the fairest way to put it. It is intense. There are accusations of her being some type of a mistress. She has a lot of access to the president in kind of weird ways, like reportedly weird ways.

I am not going to say anything more because I honestly do not know, but the fact that he would attack in that way suggests that he is kind of using the Trump playbook, where he is going to go low, he is going to go dirty, and of course, Trump shot back, like, oh, you are talking about gay Pee Wee Herman or something like that. From the Oval Office, which is total Trump. So, he's choosing that strategy. It feels like Shapiro and Bashar are kind of going like, I'm going to take the high road.

I guess, yeah. How do you see this play out, Josh? I mean, we saw Trump do it pretty well. Well, Andy Beshear is the governor of Kentucky, and the legislature there is super Republican, and they can override his veto a lot. And so, Andy Beshear doesn't have to, he can say he can come off as a moderate simply because...

You know, the governance there, it is not completely far-left radical. It is fundamentally a red state that just happens to have a blue governor. The interesting thing about Shapiro is Shapiro should be, you know, in the contention for 2028 for running for president of the United States on the Democratic side. I mean, like, a very popular two-term governor in the most important state, you know, Pennsylvania is the most important state. For running for president in 16, in 2020, in 2024, and it will be in 2028.

It's the swing state. So, a super popular two-term governor who's going to probably win. I mean, he's not officially two-term yet, but he will, chances are, will win re-election handily. But the Democratic Party is not going to nominate him because he's Jewish. Well, John Ossoff is also Jewish. He served in the IDF.

Yes, I know that. That is even more. It is not just that he is Jewish. He served in IDF. But John Ossoff, you see all the people who are celebrating him are so low-key his faith. They are not even mentioning it. They are not talking about it.

Well, there's a lot of Jewish, I just push back on that, because there's a lot of Jewish candidates that have separated themselves from Israel and hold a different view. I'm not saying they can't do it. And they've won their primary election, so I don't know if that's going to be it. Well, we'll see. I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, I think the Democratic Party has gone so far that even if your parents were Jewish, you're going to have a hard time.

I think it's that divided. One of the problems with Ossoff, though, is that if he gets elected here, I still feel it's the special election seat, if I remember correctly, so that he has to run again in 28. But even if he doesn't, let's say he gets elected.

And if there's a Republican governor, like if he's on the ticket, then all of a sudden you give up one more Senate seat. So, as you're running for president, people are like, if I nominate you and you win, that's great, but then we also lose a Senate seat because then the governor will be able to appoint someone. I don't think Keisha Bonds is going to win the governor's race. I think Rick Jackson is the governor, and that does complicate his 2028 campaign.

Yeah. Ambitions. All right. Let's go. Good news now. We have Tom M. You're up first. And now I'm trying to remember what, even though I just sent it. I'm seeing a vacuum. Well, you can do mine first while you try to figure it out. Well, I got Tom's up, and there's a vacuum. Oh, no, literally a vacuum.

Oh, yeah. Oh, there's Tom again with a vacuum, with a vacuum. Wait, is this to you? Okay, you got me. Okay, yeah. All right, what are we looking at here, Tom? Look, I mean, we talk all about the age, that there should be an age limit for members of Congress. And I love Chuck Grassley. Anybody who has ever met him, I think, loves him. Perhaps he should think about retiring. But one thing, he used to have a... A vacuum cleaner called Beth.

That was a Hoover vacuum cleaner from like the 1950s, and he would always, he'd have little clips. He is great on social media. For a guy who's like 120, he would have little clips of him repairing Beth and things along those lines, except Beth died for good earlier this year, and somebody offered him up like a 1960s Hoover vacuum.

Wait, can you describe that again briefly? He had a vacuum from the 50s? From the 1950s. It's been lasting 60 years. He loves his Beth. That's what he named her. You should not be able to have vacuums from that old and still be in Congress. That's my new rule. If you have a vacuum from the 50s, sorry, Chuck. Love you, man. Oh, he won't always repair it. It's the American spirit. Come on.

That's crazy. I love the guy, but he's 90. Two years old, you should not be doing this. Yeah, it's time, buddy. I mean, there are 100 counties in the state of Iowa. He visits every single one for real action. Come on, man. 99. That's awesome. Oh, 99. 99, sorry. Come on.

I keep on expecting that one county to break off. It's one and a half. It's one and a half. I don't know. There's this map. It's all so perfectly nice and neat, and then there's the one county that's like double the size. It just, if it would be cut in half, it would be a perfect 100 counties.

This is the stuff Josh has locked in on me. I know, I know. It's so awesome. I love it, Josh. Chuck Grassley should retire. However, we will be a poor nation when he does, at the same time. I'll say at the same time. Okay. Because he was also brilliant when he was chair of the judiciary and in his prime just like 10 years ago or something.

But it really should be time for him to move on. Is this like a Michael Jordan, Washington Wizard situation? Do you think he's going to run for re-election in 28? Yo, I think he will. Oh, my gosh. Unless it's a Michael Jordan baseball.

Yeah, true. Yeah, maybe more White Sox. Because I'm going to run for the U.S. House now. Oh, my gosh, man. It's time, man. These guys just got to let it go. Go hang out with your grandkids. He seems like he would have grandkids. Great grandkids. See, there you go. Exactly. He seems like he would have grandkids.

Okay, Josh, what do you got? Well, I just thought this, you know, sometimes the mainstream media can actually do a story that's not horrible. So, for incoming freshmen at Bishop Kelly High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it's hard to imagine a more mortifying tradition on first day drop-off. All the seniors gather around and surround the cars, and they don't let the freshman kids out of the car until they do this one specific thing. They have to give their mothers a goodbye kiss.

Roll the tape. Here at Bishop Kelly High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is hard to imagine a more mortifying first day. All the seniors surrounding your car and not letting you out until you do one thing. We hold the car, we hold the car door. Yeah. Preventing it from opening. It is like initiation, like we all did it. Could you think of anything more embarrassing to initiate kids into high school? That is why it is perfect. What the freshmen are asked to do is just give their mom a goodbye kiss.

I am pro this kind of thing. It can also be a dad or guardian. Oh, kiss the dad. That's bold. Someone needs to be publicly flagged with a pat on the cheek. Oh, the horror. This is awesome. How embarrassing was that?

She's, like, in tears. Dude, I am probably absolutely mortified. Oh, that's so funny. I just know my parents, God bless them, they would have made a whole scene out of it, gotten out of the car or something. Yeah, right. And, like, maybe played, like, Kiss by Prince, like, pulling up, you know, like, really rubbed it in. That's awesome. Good tradition. Shout out, Tulsa. Tulsa time, absolute banger. I mean, I guess the tradition was they used to do a little bit more of a hazing, and then...

They said, why don't we do something more creative? Dude, I like that. We need to bring back wholesome hazing. Like, we need to reclaim the word hazing. I think there's ways to do it wholesome that don't involve binge drinking and, like, terrorist-style torment, you know? Exactly. This is it. You don't need waterboarding. This is what we need. Exactly. No waterboarding. Kiss your mom. What exactly did they do to you at Alve Maria, Tom?

This is a safe place. Hey, listen, I can't reveal. Actually, funny, we had households, so it wasn't like fraternities. They're very spiritual-based, and everyone lived in the dorm, so there's no off-campings. Housing at the time. And so, the main activities of the households were like putting on some really wholesome event and then praying in the chapel like they would do liturgy of the hours together, which is awesome. So, maybe the hazing was like you got to pray a little extra or something.

I was not in a household. But yeah, shout out to Ave Maria. They took a very wholesome approach to that. Okay. Do mine. Fire me up. Oh, yeah. Selene. Selene was at Franciscan. She can confirm she was not. Was it households at Franciscan, or do they have true fraternities? Okay, yeah, households, yeah.

My wife was there, too. I did not go. Ah, okay. Gotcha. Probably not the same time as Selene. Wait, Tom, are you in a fraternity? I was not. Okay. Josh, they didn't have at Hillsdale, right? They do have fraternities at Hillsdale. To this day, I have sororities, yeah. And the fraternity I was thinking about joining got booted off campus, so I'm like, okay, well. That sounds right. It's the only one that's probably ready of joining. Dude, someone brought up in the chat, this is true, there's a big scandal coming out of Penn State because a fraternity got like DEA busted.

Like, it was... There was a massive raid, and there were kids that were selling cocaine out of a fraternity house, and now it's becoming big-time meme-ified because these kids are like little broccoli heads. They're like 18, 19. They're like Pablo Escobar at Penn State. It's crazy. Well, they're making the new recruits do this stuff. Yes, they're making the pledges. They're choosing to do it. Yeah. I mean, it generally is a little like El Chapo-esque. It's crazy. But you weren't doing that at Hillsdale, were you?

I know. Pablo Pledgeskabar, yeah, nice, all this stuff is crazy. I don't think so. Josh, Josh was just, you know, reading, studying, acing tests. I don't know about that. At that point in your life, wasn't it Karl Marx you were reading, though?

Hey. That was Libertarian, dude. Yeah, Libertarian. He's more embarrassing, I can probably admit. Yeah, and Rand. He was pushing the, Atlas was pushing the globe up, you know, or whatever. So, okay, mine, Pope Leo knows ball, no surprise. I am not talking baseball because they have the white socks, but we have Pope Leo reaffirms pride of place of Gregorian chant in Roman liturgy. This was awesome. He devoted an entire, let me see, his audience Wednesday, August 19th.

To the sixth chapter of the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, continuing catechesis on it, music is a part of the liturgical action and not merely a decoration of the celebration. Treasure of inestimable value, it is an integral part of the solemn liturgy. Singing is proper to one who loves.

Where did he have, he had another banger line in here. Basically, that it should not, like, move from popular taste to popular taste, which describes the entire music catalog of the 60s. It just sounds like what he's saying here on Secret Music sounds like he's really, really good, and it kind of brings to mind that Pope Leo's pontificate, at least so far, looks like he's the gardener. That Cardinal Ratzinger was getting at, like the pruning of the church, like just quietly taking care of the bad stuff, directing us towards what's good, not being bombastic, not like taking on the heretics head-on, just kind of like trying to do what it takes to take the air out of the heretics and just present positive things in a new light like this.

Yeah. And is that Brian sitting next to him? Oh, no. I'm sorry. No, but yeah, Josh, you make a great point, and I think what I love about it, too, is none of this is off-the-cuff, kind of what I think. All of what he's referencing is just church teaching, and it's just kind of a reminder of like, hey, we have it. We have it. You don't need to iterate. You don't need to come up with new stuff. This is just what the church teaches, and he's just doing it all.

In an age of scrolling, this kind of stuff can really resonate. Totally. Totally. All right, C Block here. Okay, I'm setting this up with the Asia Pivot is dead, as I mentioned. You get this really bizarre truth over the weekend. So, we have, based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong-un of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has long ago agreed to participate in joint military exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid by ...by the United States of America, in parentheses, as usual, explanation point, but send a signal that it is totally inappropriate and hostile to a country, as long as Donald J.

Trump has been president, has been unthreatening and respectful. Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to substantially reduce the joint military exercises, while somewhat unrelated, in parentheses, question mark? I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, no thanks. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump.

Interesting, because don't they want to denuclearize North Korea? Personally, that is right above there, but anyway, he gives his explanation to reporters. It was kind of a raucous session. Korea has been protected by us for many, many years. And during my first term, they agreed to pay close to $3 billion a year for protection, because we don't, you know, they essentially weren't that. And I asked them to do that. At my request, I said, they weren't happy about it, but they agreed.

I asked for $10 billion, and they were very unhappy. But we agreed for a short term that it would be $3 billion, and next year it would go up, and the next year it would go up, so they start paying for their protection.

When the election was rigged and I ended up watching for four years and then coming back, I watched Biden rescind that $3 billion for whatever reason. When I called recently the president of South Korea, who I like, I think he's very nice, actually. When I called him, I said, would you like to give us a little hand? We don't need help with Iran, but if you'd like, give us a hand with Iran. He said, no, thanks. And I said, we have 39,000 soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong-un, your next-door neighbor.

And you're not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran? That's strange. No, no, we'd rather not get involved. I say, well, why are we involved in helping you? So, and I want to help them, but, you know, when you ask somebody, would you like to give us a hand, and they say, no thanks, and then we're guarding them from a country and paying... ourselves billions of us costing us billions and billions of dollars to protect not only them but other countries look at nato so there you have it um you know i think this was kind of alarming to me and many other people we just pulled our last aircraft carrier out of the pacific as well because the administration started off with the vision that we were going to pivot to china um time you mentioned that comes up often as an excuse for You know, disinformation in America or whatever, but Bridge Colby came into the administration with that sole intent.

We're going to shift focus to China. They're the real problem. And so, this just goes directly against this focus on China as the new enemy by moving the aircraft carrier out, by pulling out of South Korea, which is a top 10 trading partner and fought with us in Vietnam, all to focus more on Iran.

It was alarming to me. I don't know if this stuck out to you guys at all, but not moving the needle. Well, as Darlene Graham might say, you know, I don't know much about foreign policy. If I can be truthful here. Well, I think Trump is trying to show he is not bluffing. He really does want more financial contributions from South Korea towards the cost. We are paying $5 billion a year or whatever to secure that country from not being invaded by North Korea.

I think, you know, this would be a way of trying to show he's not kidding around, I guess. Yeah, and I think that's a very optimistic take, and I agree with you. North Korea is evil. I don't care how well he gets along with the dictator who's overseeing it. It's an evil regime. Very evil.

Remember what they did to Otto Wormbeer, or whatever his name was? Right. And I think... It provides perverse incentives, too. North Korea has a nuclear bomb. That is why he did this. Why would Iran not be rushing like all hell to get a nuclear bomb at this point, and or any other people in the Middle East that are concerned with our flip-flopping foreign policy? Saudi Arabia?

Taiwan is also very important, I think, for us over there. If China is the problem, I think abandoning South Korea and Taiwan right now are probably not the moves to do. But hopefully, this is one of the president's 3D chess moves where, because, I mean, he did get more input or more countries donating to NATO. He did get more donating to UN. Certainly not enough. They need to donate a lot more. But other countries, if they care about their interests and want U.S.

help, they need to start caring about U.S. interests as well. Sure. I mean, I think that certainly applies to Israel in this case. Yes. So, it is interesting that we are moving this around. It is a ton of money from us. Benefit them, and they are not listening to us on the Gaza peace plan.

That is right. We are ending this war. So, if we are concerned about handouts. I'd say apply it even-handedly. It sure doesn't seem that way. One thing that's really concerned me personally, I mean, I know some people in the Navy, we had reports of multiple USS Abraham Lincoln sailors trying to go overboard amid extended deployment. This is according to their families.

So, the USS Abraham Lincoln has 5,000 sailors. They have been at sea for more than 250 straight days, and this is also not during peacetime. This is during wartime. So, no shore leaves. We get reports of broken toilets, shortages, exhausted, exhaustion, collapsing morale, most troubling. Multiple sailors have reportedly attempted to go overboard, as I mentioned. One sailor was recovered alive on August 3rd. Pentagon says reports of these conditions are being exaggerated, but after nine months at sea, another carrier is on its way to finally relieve them.

I believe it's the George Washington. Let's take a look at some of these images. Tough to look at. Food, same deal. Yeah. Really, I mean, I feel like this was just the beginning of it because it hasn't gotten back yet, and reporters haven't really gotten to people. The one thing I thought was interesting was families have met at this point with Hong Kao, and I'll share that article here. These are the families in San Diego were pressing.

Sorry, let me get this. The acting secretary of the Navy, and some of the quotations you see are just spouse tearfully told official she received a message the same day from her husband saying he hopes he doesn't have to wake up tomorrow. My son is currently on that ship and listening to him say he and his shipmates constantly think about jumping off the ship. Just for relief, it's hard to listen to. We're all tucked in at night in our beds. Meanwhile, our loved ones are out there fighting with no understanding as to what they're defending.

Sailors aboard the Lincoln separately described an incident in which a crew member was prevented from jumping the ship. We already had an instance where watch standards had to stop someone from jumping. The ship's crew was informed about the incident, which occurred a few months ago during a ship-wide announcement.

I mean, distressing stuff. I saw it set a record for consecutive days underway without a normal port call. That was previously set in December 12, 2025. Yeah, it is a long time to be at sea. The morale is certainly collapsing. There was a picture sent to Trita Parsi with images written in dust on the wing that really exploded on social media over the weekend.

Some things, sailor faction, I cannot repeat it, but I love Israel. I am a good guy. Peace deal number 64 incoming. All this for Holy Land. I treat a Parsi as a good reputation. I mean, he's basically staking on it by saying that this image was sent to him from the field, but certainly seems to be the sentiment at home, so certainly concerned about morale at this point.

Well, we need to have a Navy that is, you know, commensurate with us being a global superpower, so if, you know, some of these things turn out to be true, then, you know, Secretary Hagstaff and, you know, the acting Secretary of the Navy need to get on it and make some changes. I mean, our sailors deserve the best.

Yeah, I agree with that. And even though the current conditions are from this administration, I would trust this administration better than, say, the Joe Biden administration or any Democratic administration, which has treated our military more like lab animals for their liberal policies than actually is.

The first line in our nation's defense. Yeah, I think that's certainly a fair point to make. I mean, I've talked to a lot of people that were just like, yeah, we were happy that he came in and cleaned out a lot of the woke stuff, the DEI, and they deserve credit for that. But I think at this point, if we were defending our homeland, like if this was Hawaii, I think people would be okay working through these kind of conditions because they felt it served a greater purpose.

The problem still continues to be with this war. No one understands it. We're six months in, or at least it's not getting down to our soldiers and the American public. The case wasn't strong. I saw Mike Johnson this morning was like, the economy is doing great. I'll just play the clip. I mean, I think this about sums it up. I'll play this real quick. Not coming through? No?

Yeah, so we've set the table for the U.S. economy to take off like a rocket, and then we got into this conflict with Iran. Like, well, you decided to do that. The one thing, another warning sign, I know, Josh, you like to take a look at oil prices, but then also the economy. The 30-year Treasury yield tops 5.33%. It's a 19-year high. The last time it was this high was 2007.

So, inflation fears are coming back, concern over U.S. debt and deficits. I saw that we ran the federal spending exceeded revenue by $432.3 billion last month. That is the highest monthly deficit since 2021. Right. And real practical effects of that are going to be mortgages are going to stay expensive, cars and business borrowing is going to be more expensive, and then stocks are going to face pressure. As you said, six months of Iran war. I wish we had, I mean, you know, the Iran war is certainly going to play a part of that.

There's no question about that at all. But the biggest thing is, is we shut down our entire economy. Well, not the entire economy, but a major portion of our economy was shut down. And we papered over it with debt, and that means we're going to inflate our currency for a while, and it's going to take 10, 15 years to kind of work that self out, no matter what. I mean, it's just, I'm sorry. It's just not good for your economy to do something like that.

We're all paying the cost of that. The idea that you don't pay the bill on that, like, yeah, no, we all are. Yeah. I mean, we're paying it now by being in Iran. I mean, we ran a $432 billion. Even if we weren't doing it in Iran, we'd still have these concerns is what I'm saying, but I agree. Sure, but this, of course, adds to all of that. I mean, even inflation outpaced wage gains pretty much since we started the war in Iran.

I mean, Trump was hoping that Warsh would come in as the new Fed chairman, like, hey, would you kind of lower rates? Like, well, rates are not going to get lowered. And if anything, the market now expects the rates to go up fairly soon, because you've got to hedge against inflation. And I think we need to get back. I mean, I don't even like the Federal Reserve. I wish we didn't have it. But if we're going to have a Federal Reserve, its priority should be not employment and inflation.

It should be trying to keep a sound currency. That's your number one thing. It should go back to being that's the one thing, a strong dollar. The rest of the stuff, no, not dual purpose. One purpose. Tom M., that would help.

I agree. I mean, there's... I worry about these elections. I think we'll know a lot more about how the American people are feeling after these elections than we are right now. Yeah. Yeah, what Joshua was talking about, like the voters will punish. I'm like... Again, I'm just testing my bubble of when I come into, I think the voters are going to big-time punish Republicans here in 2026. I don't know about big-time. I mean, you look at what the Iowa Senate candidate, the Democrat, they're running.

He's talking about, I'll work with anyone to close the border. I'll work with Trump to close the border. I mean, so obviously, it's a state that Trump won by 12 points, so the Democratic candidate has to run as a more in the center.

You know, and I think it's obviously sort of a joke, but it doesn't speak to me like a blue wave, you know, like we had in 06. Like, the candidate, I don't know, we'll see. I mean, I've said all year, I suspect that the Democrats would take the House. I still think that's true. But, you know, do you hear what Chuck Schumer said about Michigan, the Senate race there? Like, he's like, oh, well, there's multiple paths to get to a majority without Michigan.

Why are you talking like that, Chuck? Maybe because you think your party is going to lose the Senate race in Michigan, that the voters in Michigan are going to vote for a Republican Senate candidate for the first time since 1994, because the Democrats nominated an absolute radical in Abdullah Syed. We'll see. We'll see. I'm not convinced on that.

What did you say? Spencer, yes. Yeah, Spencer Abraham won in 1994. Didn't get re-elected. Good trivia there. But yeah, we talked about this, Josh, too, when this all broke out. It's like, if this war was even close to Venezuela, like this just lasted a couple weeks, and then we're out, it's going to be a blip.

And now we're six months in. We've got soldiers jumping off the Abraham. We're running low on munitions. Inflation's high. We're close to election season. My gut is telling me, I don't see any way this doesn't get punished. Not to say Democrats deserve it, but Republicans let us down here. This derailed everything we were supposed to be doing. And ladies and gentlemen, if you want to book Tom Begazic for your next birthday party or event to deliver this great news, good news.

No, I'm like, I'm not going to talk about that. I wish that we were out of there, man. It's so beyond logic. So beyond logic. Okay, so let us run Twilight Zone now. Josh, you are up first. Actually, that was Tom, I think you had. Why doesn't Tom go first? Yeah, Tom, I think I put yours down here if you want to pick from yours. The Jake Tapper. Let us run Taps. And it is a long clip, so I do not know if we need to run the clip.

Oh, sorry. This is my Twilight Zone. Go ahead. Okay, long clip. Do you want to read it? It is more, I can summarize it. I have listened to Luke Kast, even when I am not on it. I know you guys have exposed the hypocrisy of the media, especially Jake Tapper, a few times. But here, he is being interviewed.

And he's finally admitting what millions of Americans already saw with their own eyes, that Joe Biden was not really running the country. One thing that stood out to me, though, was because he's here like the Politburo was running the country. And the interviewer was just like, Politburo, that's an interesting term to use. And he goes, that's what they call themselves.

What is the origin of the Politburo? Wait a second. It is from the beginnings of the Soviet Union. Yeah, that is not. It only lasted a couple of weeks, and members of the Politburo included Lenin, killed millions of people, Trotsky, who was an evil man, and of course Stalin, who killed tens of millions of people. Except the tweet, though, of this about, because what the reporter didn't say is, why has there been no accountability?

And that's one thing that, for 2028, I think it will be very important for the base to see some accountability, if the candidate is J.D. Vance. It can't be just like another four years. We need accountability for all the things that happened before. Tom, give me an optimist take. Tom, give me an optimist take, because I watched Donald Trump after the Fauci hearings, which was so egregious. There's tons of energy and momentum. Say that he can't prosecute Fauci's pardon with the auto pen, so he's just going to drop it.

So, the pardon, be it from the Autopen or from the Politburo, does not cover state laws in Fauci. I think it's Louisiana and Florida are both going after Fauci. Right. So, that's accountability. Where the accountability comes from doesn't matter. It's that there is accountability. Well, that it comes from a government source.

That there is accountability does matter. And there are still things that the federal government can do because Fauci is not the only person who was a bad actor during those years. Planned Parenthood right now, Planned Parenthood, there was legislation passed that specifically said Planned Parenthood cannot get these PPP funds, the COVID funds. Planned Parenthood went and got those COVID funds. And there's been no repercussions. Small business administration is finally starting to go after them, though. So, there is some hope out there that there will be some accountability, but I don't think right now there's not nearly enough.

Well, the one thing on accountability I do like, though, is when federal authorities arrested Heidi Beirich, or whatever her name is, the former director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. So, that happened. I noticed it. Like, the Senate confirms Todd Blanchett as Attorney General. Once that gets confirmed and done, like, boom, the next day, authorities raid her. And not just like, again, that is what I was so impressed with. It was not like, Oh, we're going to sue you for this or that.

She's actually arrested. Like, okay, thank you for some accountability, because the SPLC was involved in doing this, basically paying people to be super racist so they could combat them. Like, this is the most bizarre. Did you say she lived with one of the guys?

Well, and here in Michigan, we have Jocelyn Benson running for governor, and she was on the board of the Southern Poverty Law Center. So, like, this kind of stuff, like, this is so crazy. There's so little racism in this country that they had to go out and pay people to be racist so they could campaign against it. Unfortunately, it reminds me of the FBI. Spectacular case in Michigan where they had the Governor Whitmer kidnapping plot, and they totally entrapped these poor dudes.

They were just like, we're going to rile you up to go. They were never going to do it. Oh, so crazy. Yeah, it's just, he's entrapment stuff. And then you just wonder, so you look at the federal deficit. That's why I'm like, fortunately, someone's on this beat, because I know J.D. Vance has been on it, and probably a smart strategic political move with all the disaster going on, I think, with this administration. It's like, it blows, it just.

I think it would blow your mind if you just saw a full scope of all of the fraud, legal and illegal, and I use that intentionally, because I was even just reading up on how California and New York go about healthcare. So, they do a version of Medicare that I think has blown up from 20,000 people in the 90s to, I believe, it's like 600,000 people. It might even be more. I think I bookmarked it. It's technically legal, right? It's technically, oh, you qualify.

But it's just fully paying for people's... Here we go. All right. Just consider the New York State Medicaid-funded program for paying people to stay home with aging relatives. Okay, let me repeat that. Medicaid-funded program for paying people to stay home with aging relatives. Back in 2014, only 20,000 people were paid by the program. When eligibility rules changed in 2015 during the outgoing Obama administration, the number jumped to 250,000 people.

Today, the figure is more than 620,000 people. This taxpayer-funded program now makes up of 12% of New York City's private sector jobs. 12%. Private sector jobs, this is the government paying them. So, more of this, we can... Get rid of the better. Save our dang country. Okay. All right. My twilight zone is this person who has the name of Julia Curley, who was with the Biden administration. She, he, really, he, because it's transgender, was in the National Security Administration, and Trump, White House, let this person go.

And what did this person tell The Atlantic? No one has affirmed my gender identity quite like Mike Pence. On my last day, I gave him a letter. I wrote, I'm a transgender CIA officer, a wife and mother. I serve the vice president. Anything is possible in America.

I told him many people at the CIA hadn't believed that a trans officer like me could serve someone like him. And Mike Pence's response is, well, I'm glad I passed the test. So, Mike Pence was supposedly the super social conservative guy, and he's just going to try to completely deny reality? Like, I'm sorry, like, if someone is a dude dressing up like a woman, I'm not going to... I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm not going to go along with their fantasy. I'm sorry.

So, I don't know. I mean, I just want to say, of all the upgrades we've ever had, you know, going from Mike Pence to J.D. Vance as Vice President, major upgrade. And if somebody thinks they're Napoleon, should they be given a security position? No. I mean, you can prove they're not Napoleon, because there's probably deeper psychological problems there. So, here is somebody who thinks they're a woman, and I'm assuming Mike Pence wouldn't have dinner alone with her, and she's in this sensitive position.

The deep cut, McCluskey. I love it. I love it. Oh, my word. I mean, I liked Mike Pence when he was in the House. When he became governor, he started to lose me. Well, the rule of his freedom, he totally came to Eli Lilly on that.

There was a recent op-ed, and I mean, I don't want to go off, except I will. There was a recent op-ed praising how Mike Pence saved the first Trump administration. Everything good coming out of it was coming from Mike Pence. I was working the first Trump administration, and there were a lot of good social conservative stuff coming out. It wasn't coming from the vice president's office. It was coming from HHS and people like Roger Severino. It was coming from the domestic policy office and people like...

Andrew Bremberg, all people I'm probably burning right now, and also OMB, people like Russ Vo. But Mike Pence is going to run for president, and he's going to say that Donald Trump... No way. No, he's not. There's no way he does, Josh. You think he's going to run for president?

Because he's got a lot of money behind him saying that he should. Oh, my gosh. If he were smart, he would not run, and he would allow somebody. Save a couple mil? I think there's going to be a candidate running for president in 2028 who's going to run as, you know, using the pro-life issue as a way to attack Vance and saying that Trump, you know, betrayed the pro-life movement, and there's going to be a lot of pro-lifers who are going to be sympathetic to that argument.

Because, I mean, we disagree with Trump on IVF and stuff like that, okay? So, there's something to be said for that. However, if Mike Pence is the guy, he's just, there's so many people in the Republican Party, activists, groundswell voters, who hate him because of the, you know, they thought the election in 2020 was stolen, and I gotta admit, you know, it's funny enough.

My kids roll their eyes at this. Occasionally, I will watch election coverage of 2024 and 2016, just to watch, you know, the reactions and stuff like that, and then I watched our LOOPcast the day after the election, and I remember the comments that we made there about Reddit. liberals on Reddit were like, did we, in response to Trump coming from behind and winning the 2024 election, like, did we actually, maybe we really did steal in 2020. And that just cracked me up again.

My wife's just like, you make yourself laugh at your own jokes three years later. Yeah, that's me. I guess I'm a problem. But, so I don't think, obviously, the one thing I agree with Vice President Mike Pence at the time, I did not think.

He, you know, he should have somehow held up the election or something like that. No, I don't, I don't, I mean, I think there was, I think the election was probably stolen, but I don't think that you don't litigate that, you know, when you're counting the ballots. That should be litigated beforehand.

And to wrap it all up, if Mike Pence had the courage, he would have just said, look, dude, you're a man. Yes, yes. That's what they always say. Yes. Perfect. It looks like a lady. Okay, mine is, I've discovered, well, two. The second one, Josh, you've indicated on. First one, there's new ways of spending taxpayer money that I wasn't aware of. Josh, maybe you're smarter than me. What's going on here?

No audio. Where'd the audio go? All right, here is Karen Bass. When you donate to our campaign, the city can match your donation six to one. If you donate $5, the city turns it into $35. Our campaign is powered by you, and then there's an ActBlue link for Karen Bass.

Well, I don't know the particulars of the election laws of Los Angeles, but I do know, like, for example, there's some states. Where I grew up in Minnesota, where you could donate $50 to the political party of your choice, and then the government would then reduce your state income taxes by $50. It was a credit.

So, sometimes governments will do that as a way to encourage more participation in democracy against the rich owning everything and doing everything. Still grotesque? Well, if it's six to one, or whatever that is, that's absolutely disgusting. The thing in Minnesota, I'm not necessarily a fan of, but if it's like, get 50 bucks, and you get 50 bucks off your taxes, I don't like it, but whatever.

But there are bills to privatize, to not privatize, I'm sorry, to federalize elections and campaigns, so that you would get money from the federal government to run your campaign. Gee, that wouldn't be biased towards the people who control their salaries and write the laws. I think there's a lot to be critical of money in politics. I don't think having the city match your money to give more money to a politician is the answer. That's crazy. Open arguments, I'm like, new ways to spend taxpayer money.

The one that Josh is going to be exonerated on was, I'm not sure if you guys were following, but like, why are these polls so far off? I don't know if you remember this thread, like, I'll see you off by 20.

And so, you get the poll that was showing, in this case, Karen Bass leading ramen by double digits was bogus, and you get this tweet put out by a polling, supposedly a polling place. It says, median strategies polling discontinued. Media strategies has concluded its polling project and will not publish additional polls. All previous published polling releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data. Median Strategies was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.

Thank you for your understanding. Unbelievable. So, someone created a fake poll as a social experiment that's been involved in the last couple of elections. Karen Bass actually retweeted a poll from this place and has now since deleted it, and they now are just like, nope, it was all a weird social experiment. It's all fake.

Yeah, I mean, again, you know, some of the more respectable polling aggregators will... Not include polls in their polling averages or not publicize polls because they are like, we do not know the methodology of this, we do not know what this poll is, and more and more news outlets need to continue to do the same. Don't just report on a poll. Candidates for office will have an incentive to share with their audience any poll that makes them look good, so their incentive structure is not the same.

Media outlets, if they want to consider anything respectable, have to be honest with the polls that they do, and only share polls that have solid methodology, and open up their books and show what they did. Like, here is what we call the crosstabs. Here is all the information. We asked all these things. We compiled all the data. Here is our margin of error. Here are the questions we asked. Open the book and let them see, and the good pollsters will do that, and sometimes they will say, you know, here is a poll.

It feels like it is an outlier. We do not get it, but we are going to just publish it anyway, because, you know, maybe we are on to something we do not know, or maybe it is a dud. So, I like it when they are more honest and open and transparent.

The only good poll I have seen in the last 50 years is Pope John Paul II. Wow. Wow. Wow. I like a lot of Polish people, not just him. So, here's a... You were just over there. New strategy to add to your guys' bag if you want. Anytime someone calls you out on doing something, just say, I was running a social experiment.

Yeah, there you go. Or you blame the Chinese. Right, exactly. Well, China is going to beat us to it. Like, if you want to buy a new car or something. I got to go ask the AI for other excuses. Hold on. Yeah, right. Exactly.

Fire up the data centers. Fire up the data centers. Yeah, exactly. No, so basically, if I am wrong, I was running a social experiment. Gotcha. Joke is on you. Although, I guess, technically, then, they were effective in proving that there is no scrutiny from media organizations or cynical politicians.

Well, politicians won't have any scruples. If a poll comes out saying the politicians are doing phenomenal, they're going to publish it. And if everyone says, oh, that was fake, then they'll take it down. But, you know, maybe. Yeah, hilarious. She said, doing the work, showing up, gaining momentum. Let's do this, LA. Bass posted on her ex from her campaign account, citing median strategies as the source. So, yeah, correct.

They will just do whatever they, yeah. But then they got a headline in the California Post. So, is this all just the joke on these news organizations that actually took this as truth and didn't do the research here? Yeah, California Post, by the way, is owned by the New York Post, the same company. And so, they tend to be center-right. So, I wonder what's, you know.

Hello. Well, I mean, anybody who's currently at Median Strategies and Median Strategies itself should be on the never-hire list for both parties, though, for both sides. I agree with that. Although, I wonder if... Polls, enough are questionable. To go around to play with it like that goes at the integrity of... Well, and again, I would just like to remind our audience, too, like, with regards to polling, like... I am never going to miss an election. I'm not going to let any poll, like Washington Post had Donald Trump down 19 points in Wisconsin.

He won the state. I'm not going to allow any polls to convince me what to do. Polling, you know, it's not getting better, necessarily, and I think white liberals are the ones that answer the phones. Conservatives don't answer the phones as much, so the data isn't as good. It doesn't mean I'm like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, going to pretend, you know, oh, just because I don't like what a poll says. Even when a poll says something good, I'm like, Fox News had a poll that said the Republican Mike Rogers was leading in Michigan by like five points.

And I'm like, yeah, but Fox News, their polling division, I think, is terrible. So, I don't buy it. And by the way, Patrick Ruffini had a great point. He studied a bunch of polling from the last like four cycles, and he found out that the disparity In the polls, in this time of the year, August, overstated the Democratic support by like 4%. Well, if that's the case, you know, to what the final results would be on Election Day, that means then, well, maybe Republicans aren't doing so bad if they're only down, you know, maybe, in other words, Ken Paxton will probably still win the Texas race.

It's not a tie race. If all these races are off by four points. That'll be interesting. We'll see. So, conspiracy theory, Josh, you are actually behind media and strategies to get people to trust polls less and to believe your strategy more. Listen, I...

I have been, under the advice of an attorney, I have been told not to answer this question on the ground. No, I am kidding. I have nothing to do with it. Plead the fifth. Plead the fifth. It is new. That is the hottest thing to do on the street. Shout out, Fauci.

Okay, cool. Good episode, guys. We have a great episode of The Deep coming for you tomorrow. Let us get your fix of Erika outside of pre-recorded segments. Maybe we need to do that in the future so that we do not interrupt her. It is just Erika recording a four-minute video. Put like 50 in a bank.

Yeah, exactly. We need an AI Erika, too, right? No, no, no AI Erika. It's a joke. It's a joke. It's a joke. You got to be careful, man. People are doing that stuff now. But yeah, great show, and then we will end today's show in prayer.

In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen. Blessed be God. Blessed be his holy name. Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God, and true man. Blessed be the name of Jesus. Blessed be his most sacred heart. Blessed be his most precious blood. Blessed be Jesus in the most holy sacrament of the altar.

Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the paraclete. Blessed be the great mother of God, Mary most holy. Blessed be her holy and immaculate conception. Blessed be her glorious assumption. Blessed be the name of Mary, virgin and mother. Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.

Blessed be God and his angels and his saints. Amen. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Men. St. Thomas Morris, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Pray for us. Great show, gang. Tom, thanks for stopping by, and we will catch you guys in the next one. Peace.