ICE Farm Raid Discovers Child Labor, Shocking NYT Healthcare Report, and Next American Saint?

Hi, welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. LOOPcast, of course, brought to you by The Loop, every Catholic American's favorite morning newsletter. Guys, we've got a great show for you today. This happened kind of live while we were on the Friday episode, and now we've gotten all the facts over the weekend. There's a large-scale raid over two farms in California. The Democrats would like you to believe that these were essential food farms. No, indeed, they were marijuana farms, so chefs kissed whoever in the admin.

I mean, define essential. Who's essential? So, we got all the details there. Uncovered some child labor. There's massive protests. There's fights with ICE. Trump spoke on it. Also, we have a new potential visa streamline process brought up to satisfy some of the farmers, so all that's really intertwined. I also discovered Mexico City protests for American immigrants. So, man, we have an immigration up top for you today. I have my New York Times health report bombshell that I say for today's episode, we're going to give it the right amount of time, and of course, we always have good news.

We always have Twilight Zone. We have fun on the show, so we've got a well-packed show for you today, but before we get into that, a warm welcome to everyone here live in the chat. We do this Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 11 a.m. Eastern Time. Best way to help, subscribe here on YouTube. We have deep dives. We have all kinds of extra content. Wherever I head, we put it up there, so go ahead and subscribe there, and leave us your views, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

Before we get into that, though, Erika. The reason we can do today's show. We have a sponsor today. We have the Cunningham team at Inspire Advisors. Do you realize your family's investment portfolio can be a powerful tool to help restore Christian values in today's culture? Do you know you can invest well and not offend God? Like, let's just be real. The point of life does not offend God. Start there. The Cunningham team at Inspire Advisors can build you a quality portfolio that aligns with solid Catholic.

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Viva Cristo Rey! That's their tagline. Shout out to the boys over there. Josh, you are not typically known as a fashionista or for your wardrobe, but you're getting a lot of love today in the chat. You got a Pride shirt on? I am wearing a Pride shirt, and it's got all the Pride flags with it. This is American Pride.

Obviously, we got lots of different flags on here. If you remember the controversy of the Appeal to Heaven pine tree flag. Appeal to Heaven, my favorite. This is George Washington's Commander-in-Chief flag, the Gaston flag. Very classy. This is the Sons of Liberty flag, and then the Betsy Ross OG in the middle.

So, very revolutionary. I've been reliably informed all of those are racist. It's still the octave of July 4th, so I figured it's good to go. Get this American Pride t-shirt at CatholicVote.org. Oh, that's one of ours? That is. That's one of ours. Oh, man. That was one of ours. This was my idea. CatholicVote.org. Wait, this is Josh. You're a designer. Josh, you're a designer now. Add that to the resume. I literally came up with this idea because all the Rainbow Pride stuff was so bad.

I'm like, let's just have American Pride, and then I came up with the idea for each of these flags. I love it. I mean, obviously, they made it look better. It was just, I wrote it on a napkin. I go, what about this? They said, oh, that's not bad, actually. Twitch streamer.

Fashion designer Mercer. Josh, I mean, what else don't we know about? What's not to love? A man of many talents. Okay, we got that. We got that link in there. Throw that in the description, too, at the end of the show, but it's in the chat. So, we got a lot of news to talk about today, and not just Josh's design talents, of course, but we had, it was actually literally during the show, we had an ICE raid of two California farms.

So, federal agents raided two California cannabis farms July 10th, arresting dozens of undocumented workers and uncovering Disturbing instances of child labor, including minors, as young as 14. The raids sparked mass protests, with one individual reportedly firing on law enforcement officers. It was really chaotic. I believe one man actually died, pray for the pros of his soul, who was a worker there. He fell off from a roof of a greenhouse. But the Border Patrol at this point is putting out a lot of their information of who exactly they arrested from these raids, who they ended up saving here.

We have, straight from CBP, Commissioner Ronnie Scott. These are the juveniles found at the marijuana facility, almost all unaccompanied. One is young as 14. And so, here's the picture with the ICE agents here. If you keep going, this was what I was talking about in terms of firing. There was, I think, about 500 protesters came through to confront ICE, and they had to be driven away with tear gas, but here's the image. It appears a protester fired some kind of gun at federal agents.

This happened this afternoon. It was a really chaotic scene at the time. A lot of smoke was being launched at the protesters, and again, it appears a protester fired back with that weapon. So, the FBI has issued a $50,000 award at this point seeking for information. Sorry, what were you saying, Josh? Do you think we could be a little helpful to the media and just say, hey, a protester is someone who holds up a sign and screams that they don't like something.

Someone who's throwing rocks at police officers, he's not a protester. Yeah. That person is a member of a mob. He's a thug. You throw him in jail. Yeah, Trump said as much on True Social, encouraging them, anyone attacking ICE agents, to arrest these slime balls, I believe was the exact quote. So, the Department of Homeland Security arrested 361 illegal aliens, including criminals with convictions for rape, serial burglary, hit and run, and DUIs. They've posted the status of a lot of the men at this point, and so funny, I mean, if you were kind of casually following this, depending on who you follow, right, was the story.

It was, these are... Essential food workers that are being terrorized by ICE was the rhetoric of Democrats. It quickly kind of fell apart when people found out that there were minor children there working there illegally, and it was a pot farm, which I guess is still legal in California. So, if you ask Glass House Farms' response, so they were the farm in question here. They are a licensed cannabis grower, and also cultivating tomatoes and cucumbers. So, really, this is why it's kind of confusing.

Depending on who you ask, they'll tell you which one. And it confirmed ICE visits in compliance with the search warrants. The company denied knowingly employing minors and stated it was providing legal support to detained workers. The farms had previously been targeted by ICE in June 2025, but agents were denied entry without warrants.

Very interesting. Yeah, and you say that the tone changed when we discovered there were minors there. Well, it changed maybe for a few people who actually use their reason and want to help children, but if you went and watched the CNN panel that night with Abby Phillips, and you remember, she's the one who runs the CNN panel that you see Scott Jennings on all the time. She comes out, and she goes, oh, but these were legal marijuana farms, and I feel like the right is just like, Saying, oh, marijuana farms as a term of denigration, like this isn't legit farming.

Well, in California, these were perfectly legal farms. And then she gets into, she's like, and in California, there is a law that children as young as 12 years old can work in the field. So, these children were there legally, completely, utterly missing the point that they were unaccompanied, and that California law saying that 12-year-olds can work in fields is- ...only on family farms if they are accompanied by their parents, which was not the case for these children at all. But nonetheless, the CNN panel tried its darndest to apologize for the cannabis farm and for the...

Which I find it interesting, too. I mean, the left is like, wait a minute, marijuana is legal now. How dare you denigrate it? How dare you say anything bad about it? It's legal now. It's like, oh, okay, cool. So, are you going to stop denigrating guns? Because those are legal, and unlike marijuana, that's in the Constitution. So, yeah. You don't think the Founding Fathers were puffing on that?

I don't think. I mean, maybe Tommy Jay was puffing the Jay, but not most of them. Sorry. Oh, man. No, actually, Tom Jefferson was too busy doing stuff. He was lazy eating Doritos. Give me a break. There's no Doritos around for the founding fathers. Maybe they had their equivalent.

But interesting, so you get kind of the political responses now. At this point, it feels like, so facts have been established, there's this chaotic raid. Two things going on. One, there's an update because Trump is receiving a lot of pressure from farmers on workforces being afraid, things like that. I want to get into H2A process at this point. But interestingly, from a politician level, Karen Bass, the same day, signed an executive order. To, among other things, provide cash payments to immigrants affected by ICE raids.

So, we have cash cards will be a couple hundred dollars on them, and will be distributed by immigrants' rights groups in about a week, Bass said. The money will not come from city coffers, but from philanthropic partners. Geez, can't talk today. She said. So, there's that going on. Gavin Newsom himself immediately. Kids are running from tear gas, crying on the phone because their mother was just taken from the fields. Trump calls me new scum, but. He is the real scum. Interesting, there were children here without any parents.

Tom Homan's quick to bring up all the time. We have about 300,000, I think, confirmed children. We don't know where they are currently in the country under the last administration. And I'll play this to kind of round out the politics angle of it, because I think Stephen Miller is the best. We are inconsistent in saying that he's going to fight labor trafficking and child trafficking, and this marijuana plantation. ...is a clear-cut example of labor trafficking and child trafficking, which are heinous crimes.

Additionally, I don't know of anybody except the governor of California who would argue that a marijuana plantation is an essential component of America's food supply chain. Everywhere you look in California, you see industrial child exploitation on a massive scale, an industrial scale. There are likely hundreds of thousands of children in California who are being exploited for their labor or sexually exploited as part of sex trafficking. This administration is liberating these children and helping reunify them with their parents back in their home country.

What the Biden administration did with respect to child traffic is one of the great crimes in human history. Over 500,000 children were illegally trafficked into the country under the previous administration. When we have gone and looked for these children, Martha, the addresses that the U.S. government provided, in other words, the records that the government kept under Joe Biden, are all fake. Nobody ever checked if the addresses were real. Nobody ever checked if the sponsors were real. Nobody ever checked if they were really even relatives or parents or relations or safe.

We recently recovered a young illegal alien, for example, who had been raped repeatedly by the adult male that the Biden administration handed to her. She was under constant video surveillance and was coached exactly what to say if an officer ever knocked on her door so that she would never be rescued. We have example after example. We go to homes, 13, 14, 15-year-old children who are raped on a daily basis because the Biden administration, because the Democrat Party, chose to track. ...into this country.

So, we will be unrelenting in our effort to free these kids. Dude, that's speaking truth to power. Stephen Miller nailed it. It is unconscionable that that is happening in the United States right now, and to hear Gavin Newsom go off about, oh, you're ripping children from their parents. You're like, no, you are the man. You are the guy who...

Whose policies allowed these conditions to develop, right? Like, I just... And by the way, I thought it was a clever rhetorical use of marijuana plantation, because it is slavery. Right. You know, it is slavery conditions that these people are working under, including children. And he would be, you know, Gavin Newsom would be against rescuing children working in slave labor.

I mean, it is just like, it astounds the mind. I mean, very little self-reflection from Newsom and Bass. I mean, these children are- Well, Bass, why do you say that no self-reflection from L.A. Mayor Bass, Karen Bass? You are against her giving taxpayer money to illegal aliens? I mean, you can understand why she does it. She is giving money to her voters. Yeah, I mean, there is a democratic element to all of this. Unfortunately, just washing over. So, there's labor. So, okay.

The core of all of this, right, it gets back to cooperation I talk about. Like, you're choosing politics and your voter base over cooperating to free children from slave labor in a country that's not their own. Potential sexual, no, not even potential, a lot of sexual exploitation, cartels running parts of California.

It's interesting because people are arguing how popular are these raids. They're chaotic. There's tear gas. They're hurting the food supply, potentially, because we won't have people to pick our crops. And, you know, I say it like that because that really is. So, this is why I'm actually curious your thoughts on this, Josh. So, Trump streamlines visa program for migrant workers after facing backlash from farmers. He's kind of A-B tested, as I like to say. He's thrown out, well, we're going to have some amnesty, and then he's coming back outside.

No, we're not going to have any amnesty. A lot is revolving around hospitality, farm work, because unfortunately, whether you like it or not, the countries, a lot of the farm work is done on the backs of a shadow labor force that doesn't really have rights or accountability.

That you can pay people under the table, either avoiding taxes, avoiding worker rights, or avoiding higher costs, but they're launching this new, it's not a new visa program. I think they're just streamlining what already currently exists, and it helps fast-track visas for foreign laborers. The visas we're talking about are H-2A visas. I was even looking at Mark Kirkonian, he's the executive director for Center of Immigration Studies, said that farmers kind of dug themselves in this hole by not taking advantage of these H-2A visas because it would require more money.

And here are some requirements that already exist on H-2A. So, for wages, they have to pay the adverse effect wage rate, which varies by state. It is $18.65 an hour in California in 2025. To ensure foreign workers do not undercut U.S. wages, employers must provide free housing, meeting safety standards, and cover transportation costs to and from the workers' home countries. Work conditions have to guarantee work for at least 75% of the contract period and comply with labor laws. And then recruitment.

Employers must first attempt to hire U.S. workers through job postings and coordination with state workforce agencies. If people are curious about the scope on this. Over 300,000 H-2A visas were issued over the past couple of years. This is annually, I think that number is. So, it's a popular program. It basically brings people over seasonally for a period of time to work these fields, tries to comply to not undercut the wages of Americans, but if you need the help, stay on the farm, you do it.

This is the process that he'd be streamlining. Do you think this is, say, a good program? Do you see it as a betrayal for people that want? True border security and good immigration. How do you see it? Well, first of all, you said, Mark Kerkorian said, farmers kind of shot themselves in the foot by not going through this process.

I mean, I like Mark on a lot of issues, but I mean, he's, of course, wrong. It was common sense for farmers over the last 20 years to just totally ignore this, because there's been no enforcement of illegal immigration for the last 20 plus years. So, the rational thing to do would be like, why would I go through the process of this, filling out all this paperwork, where I can just allow illegals to come onto my property? That's a horrible incentive structure, but that's one that we had.

So, now that we actually have immigration enforcement, Now, it is like, okay, do you fill out all this paperwork? Do you go through this arduous process? Well, that would still be cheaper than hiring Americans who are born in this country, I suppose, so they will go ahead and do this.

What Trump is saying is that farmers are asking for this. Of course, they are asking for this. Of course, they are asking for an opportunity to bring in guest workers for cheaper than having to pay native-born American workers. Of course, they are doing that. The difference here is the hospitality is asking for it too, and we sort of ignored that, whereas the Secretary of Agriculture is Brooks Rollins, and she's super pro-amnesty and pro-cheap labor, and so she's driving this policy in the administration.

She's been a very big supporter of Trump and helped out Trump's campaign a lot, and so I think she's starting to call in some of these chips, and I think that's unfortunate. Now, overall, I'm not a fan of this, but... Again, it may end up going through. I oppose it, but the fact of the matter is...

Stephen Miller and all these others on the administration need to make sure if this guest worker program happens again for agricultural workers like it's had all the way back to Eisenhower age. I mean, this is not a new thing. But if it happens, you've got to make sure, yeah, it's not in an amnesty. It's not a jumping the line for citizenship. And overall, I just don't like it. I mean, I prefer them to have a guest worker thing than to be completely illegal, obviously.

But anyway, it's still undercuts. You know, jobs, it still undercuts the labors. You know, like, it's actually, by the way, so much easier for my teenagers to get jobs this summer than it was in previous summers, because actually, there's just not tons of immigrants. It's like, oh, they're actually looking for, you know, kids to work. That's a good thing. It's good for kids to actually work in the summertime and do some of this stuff. So, I just don't like that we're just, oh, well, it's cheaper.

Americans aren't willing to do it. That's such a lie. Yeah, I guess I'm not as against it. I don't feel, it doesn't seem the same as amnesty, which would just be like, oh, well, if you're here and you've been working on farms, just give you a path to citizenship. That definitely would be not great. I think that given a bad situation where we have over the last 20, 30 years created an economy that...

Is, you know, just sort of like embedded with, it's like a fungus has just grown through that we're dependent upon the illegal immigration structure. Being able to beef up a legal program like this that does not ultimately offer a pathway to citizenship, but does start to put some kind of parameters on how workers have to be treated, how you have to offer the jobs to Americans first, although how you're going to enforce that and oversee that, who knows. It seems like...

It is one way to address a really rotten situation that a lot of people find themselves in, and I agree, Josh. I don't think that Mark going out there and saying, well, the farmers should have known eight months ago because they knew what Trump was going to do.

Yeah, maybe. I don't know, but it seems to me that having some kind of way to start to legalize and oversee these workers in a more controlled manner, if we can oversee it, if we even have the resources to do an expanded H-2A visa program, yeah, I'm not as against it. So, if I could posit a few things, I think it actually goes much further back than 20, 30 years. To me, this goes back to Bretton Woods. By keeping, we basically tried to design a global economy post-World War II that surrounded around America, taking advantage of cheap labor abroad, and we did that Bretton Woods through the currency, but then it got kicked into overdrive during Reagan with a lot of these people, and then in 2000 with NAFTA, and now suddenly we find ourselves in a situation where, and I'm going to talk about it, healthcare is the number one employer in 38 states in the country, and that changed.

From that being a much smaller percentage, just 20 years prior. So, we actually, the problem in my mind is this almost is about. 80 years in the making, and H-2A, the problem with it before was there was no enforcement. So, even though they were supposed to do, I'm supposed to go look for American workers, I'm supposed to make sure that I pay for the transportation, whatever. It doesn't happen. Quantify that, right. To me, it's just, if people are not natural born citizens, it's so much harder to ensure that they're receiving these rights.

Again, I'm not against per se. A pathway to citizenship, but especially, it just feels too soon. Like, we just were invaded for four years, legitimately. We're going to go over Autopen stuff. Who knows who is in charge? I guess the only consideration, and I don't have enough knowledge about it to know it, is that if you... It's one thing to transition the hospitality industry, like hotels and all the other stuff, and get white people to come in, and blacks and Hispanics that are American-born, to get them to clean hotels.

You know what I mean? That's one thing. But to have hundreds of thousands of people who've never done agriculture to jump into agriculture might be tough. So, maybe that's the argument there, that it's a bit of a transition period. Maybe. I don't know.

Nothing works like the incentives, though, like, you know, currency, so. Whoa. I got a huge spider in my mic right now. I'm not sure what that, where I have to take care of that. Maybe it's an AI companion device.

Oh, guys, this is live on air. Oh, my gosh, we have spiders live. I think I got it. Good job, Pico. All right. That being said, you know who to call when you see spiders. That spider was at least made in the USA.

Exactly. But funny, I think, so part of it was... What's interesting about this story to me is we have these Mexico City protests that I actually was kind of unaware of until today, but I guess they've been going on since July 6th, I think. We got the headline, Gringo Go Home, Why Mexico is Turning Against U.S. Immigrants. Anti-gentrification protests targeting Americans in particular have erupted in the capital city, where many locals have been priced out of trendy neighborhoods.

So, I have straight from the article, remote workers began flocking to Mexico City during the pandemic when Mexico imposed few restrictions. And Americans, often known as gringos, I didn't know that was synonymous. I think that's just white people, right? I'm not a Spanish guy. In particular, realized they could have a high quality of life for a fraction of what it would cost in New York or Los Angeles.

I have some footage from the protests. They are pretty intense. We have a lot of broken buildings. I believe they ran a lot of Americans, specifically, out of a Starbucks there. White people go home, I think. Quote, gentrification is just one more step toward Towards colonization, dispossession, and exploitation of our resources. So, interestingly, this is going on on both sides. I wonder how organic it is on both sides, but unrest in Mexico as well.

Crazy. On the rest of Mexico, that is so surprising. What? Not Mexico. Don't worry. It is like the Switzerland of North America. Claudia Schoenbaum, the Mexican president, criticized the protests as xenophobic, but also said something needs to be done about gentrification.

Oh, gosh. Close the border. Close the border. Let's take care of immigration here. I don't know what else to say. Maybe both countries just need to take a beat, you know, like a 10-year pause. Yeah, a decade-long pause. Close the border. We can see if we can get along better after that. It's like a timeout, right? Like with my kids. Like, one of you go to the room, one of you go to the basement, which is a very nice basement. I don't lock my kids with spiders like we do, Tom.

Like me. I got spiders in my life here. Okay, getting into the next section here. So, yes, I was excited to talk about this. Kind of quietly came out July 3rd, and to me, some of the things admitted in this article in classic New York Times fashion didn't mean the things that they said it meant, but a lot to talk about regardless. So, how healthcare remade the U.S. economy. I have some pretty stunning graphs in here. I think no more stunning than...

This one. If you take a look at top employer in each state, 1990, and top employer in each state, 2024, for the audios, we're looking at... A lot of blue, a lot of manufacturing, a lot of retail, blue and yellow in 1990, and then pretty much the entire country covered in healthcare in 2024.

If you want to go up here, they have, as a share between 1929 and 2024, the change, healthcare very small, up to now a very significant part of the economy, ate up a bunch of what was previously groceries. This is what Americans actually spend on now, so the cost of healthcare has just dramatically risen. According to this, and groceries have gone down, largely, I think, because of this, what we're talking about, collaboration between countries, because now our food comes from Mexico.

Can you just tell us what year does that rapid expansion start? Rapid expansion? Do you have an answer for me? I mean, it seems pretty gradual. Scroll down. Oh, yeah. This is, I'd say, probably 80, 80, 90. Okay.

So, the reasons now, from the New York Times, which is interesting to me. So, the U.S. labor market has been undergoing a structural transformation. Jobs in manufacturing have receded slowly but steadily. The healthcare industry has more than replaced them. Healthcare-related jobs have been growing through recession after recession, going from 9% of the total workforce in 2000 to 13% today. The government expects that trend to continue as the nation ages and requires more care.

As much as politicians may focus on factory jobs, long idealized as the kind of work that would support a comfortable life for people without advanced degrees, healthcare is now playing that role for more people. And there are reasons. There's four of them. One, pay has risen. Unlike in the broader economy, average pay increases have moved particularly quickly for middle-skilled roles such as nurses and physician assistants, while salaries for doctors have increased only moderately in percentage terms.

Two, more access to care. The uninsured rate has fallen. To 8% in 2023 from 14% in 2000, three people with access to healthcare have been using more of it, and four Americans consumed more healthcare because they're getting richer and spending less on other things. Globalization made toasters and tomatoes much less expensive, but knee surgeries and nursing homes are still powered by people who largely can't be offshored or automated.

Unfortunately, my takeaway from this is if we stop poisoning our citizenry and they don't get sick and pay a lot for healthcare, that the economy might collapse, which is not ideal. Do you have any thoughts on why this is?

Well, I certainly think if Americans were eating healthier, and if we were less obese, and it starts right here with me too, I'm overweight, but then it would be better for our country, and we'd spend less on healthcare. But I think that, you know, again, I think that the largest thing is not that. The largest thing is my father was born in 1946, literally the first year of the baby boom.

And now, he is 79 years old, or will be this year. And so, that is the big driver. You have this massive demographic bubble of people that were born in 46, 47, 48, 49, you know, all through the 50s, and they are now in their 70s. And we know that that means they are going to be spending a lot more on healthcare.

So, it is not really, to me, a surprise. Healthcare costs are going to be even higher 15 years from now, because they are going to be in their 90s, the older boomers, and then… The younger boomers are going to be in their 70s and 80s, so it's, I mean, again, it's just going to go up and up and up. I just, it's the case. I mean, I live in a small area, very rural area, but it's where people, retirees go, and it sounds crazy, in the north, because that's the way we are in Michigan.

We do things opposite, right? We vacation up north, we retire up north, but hospitals are building like crazy around here because they know that As people get into their 70s, yeah, knee replacements, this kind of stuff, and they have money, so they just go ahead and get a new, I mean, why would you not want a new knee if your knee went bad? So, a lot of this is being driven by demographics, in my mind. Now, I also think, with regards to healthcare, like colleges, People don't actually spend the money themselves, usually.

It's usually third-party costs. It is easier for people to understand it when I talk about college, because obviously, I have a lot of kids going. One in college, another one starting the following year, so it is coming up. It is just hard for an 18-year-old to say, wait a minute, I am going to make a decision on where to go to school, where I am going to spend $120,000 if I am going to a private four-year college or something like that.

It is not like they are writing the check. It is not like they have to work. You know, 15 hours a day, and then work for it. They're getting a loan for that, and then they have to repay it years from now, and it just doesn't occur to them. And so, 18-year-olds are not necessarily the best at making these massive decisions. That's why we're enlisting parents more to have a little skin in the game. They have no frontal lobes yet. Right.

And so, with regards to healthcare, though, it's like, I can't figure out what's going on with my hip or something or this or that. Just order the test. Because it is not like you are making a decision like, okay, let me get out my checkbook and think about whether or not I, you know, you are just like, go, go, because it is like your insurance is paying for it. Well, yeah, but you are paying for it, too. I mean, like, so, in these industries where there are third-party costs, where you are not making the direct payment, like, I am deciding how much cereal I want to buy.

I am deciding how many eggs I want to buy. But with healthcare… People aren't making price-conscious decisions, and they're like, oh, that would be terrible to make a price-conscious decision. Well, it would be nice if we were informed a little bit better about what the costs were.

I think, too, it's not only the patients who are just like, oh, sure, we'll just do the test, we'll do the test, we'll do the test, but it's also doctors are incentivized to just keep ordering the test and ordering the test and ordering the test. And I know I've talked about this, but just my experience, the last 20 years of having babies, from 20 years ago, the level of like, here's all the tests you have to have on the newborn, in the hospital, and all the vaccines that have to be in the first six months.

Oh, now we need a well-child visit every six weeks for the first three months, and then you need a well-child visit every three months for the next two years? That's where I'm at now, saying, no, we don't have any concerns. No, we don't have any concerns. Well, he's behind on his vaccines. I'm like, no, we're not concerned about that. And the incentive structure, it's crazy. The incentive structure for doctors and medical facilities, given the way that the insurance works and the government subsidies, like you said, Josh, huge.

Huge factor in the rise of college tuition, also huge driver in medical costs. The incentive structure for doctors is to not think as doctors anymore and not think as holistic healthcare providers, but to just offload all of that to like, let us order the test, let us send you to the specialist, let us blah, blah, blah, and they are incentivized to do that. I think you're right. That's a big driver. So, I actually saw this through the lens of...

Well, first, I compare it to other countries, because people are always like, well, Canada, well, Japan, well, all these other places. Well, don't get me started on Canadian health care. Yeah, Canada, not a deal. Cheaper, though. Much cheaper. So, there's two things. One, I think there was a real government decision made here. We kind of had the worst of both worlds, it feels like, because we subsidize. We do have a subsidized health care system. We pay for Medicare. We pay for Medicaid.

So, we are taking part of our taxes, and it's going towards that. The second is, we made a lot of government decisions. A.k.a. NAFTA, that changed the priority of what lucrative career is going to be. Yes, I agree there's some incentive in that we're having an aging population, and it's better, but I don't think there's as much emphasis in creating productive Americans. I think that it was seen as kind of a safe route to go medical, whether that's become a nurse, which they can't get enough of now, whether that's to work in administration, because now we have Obamacare working between insurances, has now become kind of this lucrative middleman career, 20% of U.S.

healthcare. Costs goes to administration. If you were to compare that with Canada, that's about like a 1-2% comparison. So, we get this big bloated system where no one knows what they're actually paying for when you walk into the door, and then people, the number one cause of debt right now is medical debt. Most Americans have some form of medical debt. I know that I do, personally. But we spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare, as compared to other developed nations, 9-12%.

And our U.S. spending is driven by higher prices for services, pharmaceuticals, and administration costs, not utilization. Clearly, because if you look at our outcomes, we have not great life expectancy, preventable mortality is bad, infant and maternal mortality is bad, chronic disease is through the roof. We have a very disabled country right now that we're kind of partially subsidizing through Medicare and Medicaid. Just an unfortunate reality. We are becoming a sick and old population. And so, as a lot of our priorities shifting there, we don't have as much priority on, say, manufacturing, say, on retail, and part of it is because we can't, because the government made intentional decisions to obliterate American retail jobs and manufacturing at home.

How could you compete with slave labor in Vietnam? How could you compete with slave labor in Mexico? We're talking about this. This is all connected. So, where do you go as an American that wants to make kind of a safe salary? And I don't think it's a... I don't think it's a mistake. I don't think it's an accident that they want to create more white-collar jobs and harm blue-collar jobs, because I think these elite types think white-collar jobs are more easy to manipulate.

I mean, look, remember in the 80s when business was thought of as super-Republican or whatever, and now they're all left-wing. So, academia, business, entertainment, media, white-collar areas, there's an ability to kind of manipulate those areas. So, I think it's a fair point. Use pressurization, use incentives, use, you know, and force these institutions to become more leftists over time, whereas blue-collar jobs, it's just like, you know, you say that kind of stuff, and people look at you like, what are you talking about?

Yeah. And so, I think there's an element of that there, too. I think most of this is policy, personally. Yeah. There's that, like... There's that TikToker, the guy who, like, makes signs and sells signs, and he, his whole gig is, sorry, I'm getting way off the reservation here. Go for it. His whole gig is he plays these crazy, like, drag queen videos, or, like, Rainbow Mafia kind of stuff, or Antifa protest videos, and then he watches it for, like, two seconds, and then he gets, then he, like, holds up his sign, and he's like, if you want your business to thrive, buy a sign for me.

And then he shows his, like, blue-collar job welding signs together and putting in the light. And you're like, yeah, because he just makes something you need, and you buy it from him in reality, and if it works, you're going to go back to it. I mean, it's just blue-collar jobs. You live more in reality. You are touching grass and metal and all the plumbing pipes every day. See, I'm a white-collar. I don't know what to call it. To add on that, your opportunity to provide for yourself is much less easily manipulated.

Right. Bummers, people are going to need this. Whereas, like, if your doctor changes. Look how easy Trump manipulated academia, by the way. As soon as he came into office, like, hey, Harvard, no more money for you. Right? Like, you can't do that to.

Was it University of Pennsylvania that had taken a knee, too? Exactly. Columbia took a knee, yeah. And they did, and partially because if you change health codes... Harvard's still fighting back bravely, though. Yeah, right. Very brave. Stunning and brave out of them.

Anyway, lots more to say there, but we got to get on some new topics. So, Erika, good news. Oh, my gosh. This is a great story, guys. So, I saw we had some people from Louisiana in the chat today. There is the possibility that we are looking at a new American... A Cajun girl from the great state of Louisiana. So, this is the story of Servant of God Charlene Richard, who was a young Catholic girl down there. She died at the age of 12.

She might have just turned 13, but she died of leukemia. That is not why she is going to be a saint, obviously, but she, as the suffering young child, decided she was going to offer all of her pain and suffering. Just like Teresa of Lisieux, for others, and she starts praying for people, and miracles start happening, and this story came out over the weekend. This local news station just broke down her life story, and some of the miracles that have been attributed to her.

There's over 2,000 pages of these accounts that have been submitted to the Vatican now, so for those of you who don't know about Servant of God, God, Charlene Richard, make sure you are. Subscribe to The Loop, because we covered it this morning. It was a great way to start my morning, open up The Loop, read about this possible new American saint, and who doesn't love a child saint? What an incredible story. I was thinking about the priest who met her in the hospital when she was diagnosed.

And he had to, you know, talk to her and her parents about the diagnosis. She's probably got days to live, and he tells her about St. Therese, and the story of St. Therese just captured her heart, and that priest there, what an amazing position he was in. This could have been the start of a whole new sainthood here in America, just because that priest mentioned St. Therese to her. Imagine a saint that sounds like Senator John Kennedy.

Oh, that's a really good way of putting it, except Senator John Kennedy as a 12-year-old girl. Man, a new accent for a St. Drops. Yeah, that's awesome. Very cool. Very cool story. Shout out, Louisiana. Shout out to our Cajuns.

Josh, do you have any good news today? I mean, it's a bad news, good news. I just want to... My good friend, Jeff Randolph from Ann Arbor, I worked with him 20 plus years ago, and it's bad news in the sense of how crushing it is. He and his wife are burying their 18-year-old son. It is Dave here, Randolph, who died from drowning in Lake Michigan. Again, the worries that, you know, Fourth of July weekend, a lot of people out there swimming, and it is very dangerous or whatever, but why do I say good news?

I mean, the thing is, this young man, even though he is only 18, He radiated Christ in so many people, and so many people come out to express their love for Xavier. You know, just again, his father, who I knew, like I said, Jeff, he was talking to the press, and he just goes, I'm paraphrasing, but he knew Jesus Christ, and to be in a credible way, and to be in a credible way, and to be in a credible way, and to be in a credible A sad moment, you know, like that, and to be reflecting on your own son's love of Christ.

There's good news, even in the shadow of this valley of tears like that. So, just do me a favor, if you would, LOOPcast listeners, just pray for the Randolph family of Ann Arbor. I mean, that's a tough thing to deal with. But again, to be that beacon of light and to know that your son would have made so many people happy and infectious for Christ is Pretty cool. Yeah. Amazing. Okay, Josh, I have one that I think you'll especially enjoy, but we're getting called out in the chat.

Kennedy is not Cajun, and the person who called me out has EUX at the end of their name, so they must be. That's like my universal sign here. You don't mess with people with that ending? Well, I don't think the senator, you're saying that the senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy, is not Cajun? Yes. I didn't say that he was. He's not Catholic, so it's unlikely that he was Cajun. Yeah, I may have slipped that. Well, okay, Josh, mine involves soccer, or football, as the word you call it.

Oh, Josh's favorite. So, they, Chelsea, okay, I'll do my best. Yeah, exactly. So, no, you'll like this. So, I'll do my best to explain this. I don't even fully understand it. Apparently, there was a Chelsea PSG game for the Club World Cup trophy, and I played a little bit of soccer in high school, but I can't say I know a ton. Anyway, big celebration, and they all get the trophy, and they all kind of like do a little run-up, and then they throw the trophy up.

Trump was in attendance, and I think they must have thought that he was going to get off the stage for Chelsea, the winners, to hold up the trophy. And I mean, just, you can watch. He's looking at him here like, you're going to be here?

Like this way, Mr. President. He's like, no, I'm going to stay here. So, for the audio listeners, it's just... He didn't leave. Trump was on stage with... Who is Chelsea? I don't know her. Chelsea is a football team from England. Oh, my gosh. Didn't you watch Bend It Like Beckham?

I mean. I mean, hysterical, though, that they just, I mean, what an alpha move. He's like, it's in New Jersey, it's in America, so we're going to be, I'm going to be here. I'm just going to stay right here. That's awesome. So, that's the first one, and then the second one, over the weekend, we had the anniversary of the Butler shooting, and never forget that. I mean, I'll never forget where I was when I heard that news. And U.S. Senator John Fetterman, the factory reset continues to pay off.

One year ago in Butler, PA, it was a stark reminder of the awfulness of political violence that plagued our country and still does. I'm incredibly thankful the president wasn't assassinated, and I cannot imagine the collective national trauma. We must condemn political violence in any form and turn down the temperature. We are all Americans. One year after Butler remembering the shooting that shook the nation.

John Fetterman. And he also took the time to remember Corey Comptor. Oh, gosh. Comptor. Volunteer firefighter from Buffalo Township who died shielding his family from the gunfire, his daughters, Allison and Kaylee, and the entire Comptor. Oh, my gosh. Comptor. Entire family. Family. I just thought that was classy. Look, I know that it's my dad. Like a lot of the Democrats in media, some of the headlines are really, they did not age well. Let's put it from that event. But I thought really classy, and remembering the firefighter who lost his life, so pray for the repose of the soul, and man, I, for one, we were a couple inches away from gay race communism, potentially running the country right now.

So, many problems as we have now, look, there's legitimate issues, but I'm grateful that he was not assassinated this day. Amen. Okay. So. Oh, yeah. Okay, one more thing before we get to the triad zone, just because I actually literally just wanted Josh's thoughts on this. We did the whole Epstein thing, right?

We did it. It was big news at turning point or whatever happened over the week. I'm not even really sure. Those things always seem a little weird to me, but. Basically, now Democrats are using it. So, there's a controversy over the weekend that Kash Patel and Dan Bongino were going to resign if Pam Bondi didn't get fired. Trump stood behind Pam Bondi and was like, stop talking about it. I'm not going to fire Pam Bondi. She's not stepping down. The interesting part of all this to me, though, was that now Democrats have started to pick this up.

I think John Ossoff had a clip. From a stump speech, and here's the clip. I'll play it for you, Josh. President Trump promised to end the wars. He promised to release the Epstein files. Did anyone really think? The sexual predator president who used to party with Jeffrey Epstein was going to release the Epstein files? Will this have any political impact weaponized by Democrats? That is my question to you, Josh.

I don't know. It remains to be seen. I mean, Trump was going on a more transparency in government, so that was one of his things that he talked about. Again, it is just a question of what would such a list look like if it exists, and so if it just becomes like this thing that 10% on each side bark about all the time, but I still feel like the larger issue at bay here is going to be like...

What does this country look like when we get closer to an election cycle? So, will it have an impact? Yeah, I mean, it will have some impact, just like everything has some impact, but I am just not so sure it is going to be as devastating either way. I could be proven wrong. It is not just a question of what you want, too. Like, the idea that scandals are going to be this big thing that is going to destroy people.

Look, the Benghazi scandal didn't impact the Democrats, and so I just don't know how much of a controversy this could cause. I don't think Pam Bondi's out. I don't think Donald Trump wants to have any more nominations go through the Senate than possible, given the rate, the slow rate that they're going through right now. So, look, if the economy is kicking butt in 26, This is not going to hurt. So, you're saying it could play a role, though, if, say, economies I mean, it could.

Anything could play a role. I mean, you know, again. Remains to be seen. I just don't even know if there is a list. That's the thing. Yeah, but Josh, again, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a really... So, okay, here's a great example of this. Last time, I did not like that Pam Bondi was over-promising. I agree, I agree, but Trump put out on True Social, basically, like, let Pam Bondi do her job. She's great, and basically to tell people to forget about it.

He got, and I'll explain this to people who don't understand, he got ratioed on a platform that he created. And pretty much only people that worship him use in true social. Ratio being, he got more replies than likes on a post on a platform that he created himself that basically only is most- So, amongst the biggest MAGA supporters, the whole Epstein thing is vastly important and very passionate. Yeah. I just don't know if the median voter who's going to determine whether or not, which party they should vote for in power is going to, I mean, not that they don't care.

I just don't know if it is going to be decisive. That is all I am saying. Do you think the wars are more Iran, Israel? I think the American people are largely happy with what happened with Iran, that we did not get massively involved. We went in there, bam, bam, bam, blow it up, and left. I didn't say I supported that action, but the vast majority of American people are more than happy. Yeah, I am asking for a hard political analysis.

I am not saying, you know. Yeah, I mean, again. If wages keep going up like they did for the first six months of this term, I think the American people are going to be happy. Again, I feel like the 26 midterms could be one of the last. There has only been two times in the last 30 years that the party out of the White House The party in the White House has actually won seats in the midterm. Usually, you don't. Usually, you lose seats.

The 98 impeachment, the Democrats won because Republicans overplayed their hand on that scandal. And then right after the election, the midterm after 9-11, Republicans won. And so, those are the exceptions that sort of prove the rule. Usually, you are going to lose seats. And raise your thin on both the House and Senate. So, you would think Republicans are going to lose. The House and Senate. But I actually feel like, look, Mark Cuban was just on a podcast, Pod Save America or whatever.

He was just talking about this, that everything about the Democratic Party right now is just Trump sucks. Yeah. Now, Mark Cuban is a lefty, right? He even floated the possibility of running for president himself. But his whole point is that, like, sky is blue, Trump sucks, that's all Democrats ever say. And if they don't develop some other talking points, then it's just not going to work. I mean, like, look, John Ossoff saying, oh, he didn't do what he promised, and, you know, the Epstein list, da-da-da, the audience ate it up.

But, like, if he... And that was a smoking brother speech, so... Is it going to connect with voters that, you know, that you need to win elections, you know, those in the middle? I just don't know. Yeah. It's got to be more than just Trump sucks. Yeah, which...

I guess remains to be seen if we got more than that. Trump sucks, and you should attack ICE agents. Yeah, they need a couple more talking points. Yeah, a few more. Let's do it. Now, gang, Josh, what do you got?

All right, so if you remember, again, this is where it's not, they're not even protesters, they're thugs. These left-wing thugs ruined by slashing and defacing a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork. In this case, it was at Cambridge's Trinity College. It was a 1914 portrait of Lord Balfour.

Well, there we go. I don't know if it was climate change or Palestine. It was always one of these things. Lord Balfour. It was the message. He was the author of the Balfour Declaration, which was the first document that gave Jews the right to Israel.

Okay, so. A little context, good. Context. Yeah, so, again. If this is not your dude, it's one thing to go inside, buy tickets, you know, to the museum or whatever in this case, and hold up a bunch of signs and scream at people as they come in, which would be petulant and annoying, but you're definitely seeing a piece of art, you know? And so, again, what I said when this kind of stuff was first going down, we need...

More corporal punishment. We actually need these so-called protesters to be caned. Actual physical pain, because it's almost like it's proud. I spent a night in jail. Yeah, but it's a win. You know, like, you get a little bit of fine or whatever, and then you move on. Well, in this case, the British police completely dropped the charges, so there's, like, no consequences or accountability at all. Oh, my gosh. Way to go, guys. Yeah. You know, so you're only going to get more of this.

This is the problem. Like, you're going to get more of this. And again, you know, the purpose of a system is what it does. So. If you actually believed in your country, if you're a Brit, and you actually believed the British system was good and worthy of being upheld, then you would uphold it, and you would stop against attacks like this. But if you don't believe in your own country, if you don't believe in your own heritage, then when these barbarians come along and do destructive things, and you don't even slap them on the wrist, you're like, oh, whatever.

You're encouraging the further destruction of your… Country and your heritage, and we see it in our country, too, when people take over highways and that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's so sad. Like, this just breaks my heart so much. I love England. I love the history. You know, I love the UK, but talk about a nation just reaping the civilizational despair and suicidal impulse of the last 110 years since what World War II started. And yeah, just to see the To see the stories coming out of the UK in terms of prosecuting their own people for exercising free speech that is written into their laws, and to see the stories coming out of politicians saying things like, do not respond to domestic abuse calls when you're talking about the Islamic population, because that's just them doing their Sharia law thing.

When you see those stories, and I'm not kidding you, that actually came out this morning as a story from the UK, then... Like, okay, did you just give up the ghost? Are we just done now? Is that what's happening over there? I mean, I'm not a big fan. I mean, the British Empire, which once the sun didn't set on it, and now it's been conquered within.

Yeah. It's like you convince your country to hate yourself, and then you can pretty much do whatever you want to them. And look, I've seen it attempted to be done to Americans. I don't know if it's the rebellious spirit that keeps us. That's why we need to have American pride, people. Yeah, but I just, I don't know. I'm not, I can't say. I've been to England, lived there for any period of time, but just every news story you see is like, you must just hate yourself, or at least the people in power do.

I'm sure it exists in England, but even back to the Shakespeare thing, Shakespeare's white supremacist, you had to take his birthplace and change it. They'd change it to something else. Just really basic cultural things that you're like, you can be proud of this guy. It's okay. It's okay. He made some contributions to the world.

Okay, Erika, what you got? Well, guess what? The auto-pen saga continues. The New York Times put out a very long, very, very long, I read the whole thing, report by two of its journalists on the last 36 to 72 hours of the Biden administration and what was going on with the pardons, and it is still pretty opaque.

But we have a little more insight into what was going on, and yeah, it's as bad as you thought it was. So, this is a brief excerpt. At the January 19th meeting, so this is like the day before the inauguration, which took place in the yellow oval room of the White House residence, Mr. Biden kept his aides until nearly 10 p.m. to talk through the pardons, according to people familiar with the matter.

But it was really interesting because he spoke directly to two of his aides, Mr. Siskel and Mr. Jeffrey Zients, who I will bring up in just a second. He spoke to them. They come out of the meeting with Mr. Biden directly, and then they draft their memory of the conversation they just had with him and send it to the aides, who then write all these pardons and start putting them through the auto pen.

And so, right, this was three minutes after they exit the room, Mr. Zients hits reply all and writes, I approve, not Mr. Biden, I approve the use of the auto pen for the execution of all the following pardons.

Whose pardon was included in here? This would be one Anthony Fauci. Anthony Fauci's pardon happened during this, like, last, in the last 24 hours of the Biden administration thing, which brings me back to Jeffrey Zients. Now, Jeffrey, the guy who pardoned Fauci, who sent the email saying we're going to pardon Fauci, who was he? Well, during COVID, he was the main social media censorship coordinator.

Using the power of the White House to threaten the big tech companies if they didn't censor U.S. citizens who questioned Fauci's COVID policies that the Biden administration was enforcing on the American people. Oh, my. We're all in bed together, aren't we? And, yeah, so the story just goes on. It is just a wild take. Later on in the story, one of these people. Yeah, this is what Pam Bonney should be doing. You want to score an easy win? Go after Fauci.

He didn't get a real pardon. All these guys. Yeah, and the investigation concludes Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons, rather than ask Biden to keep signing revised versions because he was. Tired. It was 10 p.m. His bedtime was 8. His staff waited and then ran the final version through the auto pen, which they saw as, quote, routine procedure. This was just what we always did. It was unbelievable. And it's so obvious that they asked him after the fact, like, you know, months ago.

By the way, we ran these through. Are you okay with that? Because if you're not okay with it, then you're saying that you didn't do this. Yeah. Bologna. Hey, Josh, I signed my own paycheck. I figured out my own total a couple months ago. I hope you're fine with that. Signed off for you. But guys, I have great news. There was one pardon that actually was signed in Biden's own hand, and it looks totally different. It was Hunter, right? It was Hunter.

Hunter's pardon. And Hunter's lawyer. That's what a good dad does. Hunter's lawyer was signed by the auto pen, too. I believe so. I did not pull that up, but... Yeah, the whole Alex Thompson report is insane. It's like, and even the language that they use now is so funny, because before it was, right, what, sharp is attack, and then it kind of slowly got down to, well, he's a well-meaning old man that can't defend himself. He can't do 25 signatures at 10 p.m.

Exactly, and then they're also like, well, there's a spectrum of, there's a spectrum of age decline, cognitive decline, I think. Oh, my God. Yeah, and this coming after, what is it, four days after Biden's personal doctor, what's his name, O'Connor, pled the fifth at his Judiciary Hearing Committee, yeah, meeting. Yeah, he just pled the fifth. Everything's great, guys. And you're like, why would you plead the fifth, since that's reserved for, like, criminal involvement and stuff.

Yeah. All right, well, mine is, I briefly popped on Twitter over the weekend, and... Listen, I'm not a huge celebrate people getting fired guy, because I know what that means, but I mean, I couldn't help it. Over the weekend, the State Department finally was able to lay people off, and I think it was Supreme Court got rid of the stay, and so now they can start. But the media coverage of these layoffs and the people themselves. In the layoffs, just, I couldn't help but, like, you watch this.

This is from Reuters. We got people hugging and crying. We got claps, greeted as heroes on their way out. What are we doing pulling back the people who know how to deal with these tensions in the world? And to those that have been riffed, to those that have been fired today, I just want to say, I'm sorry.

And you have deserved better than this. I think every single person... Diplomacy matters. Feds matter. Feds matter. Holy cow. Feds matter. Well... Okay, so that's not it, too. So we have... It looks like crayon or marker State Department employees who have not yet received layoff notices today created posters for their less fortunate colleagues. Thank you for your service. Your work left an impact. You will be missed. Color-coded for them. Guys. We got standing O's on their way out. Truly, I mean, this is beyond parody.

These people, these people were supposed to be fired months ago, and they're being sustained with Our tax money, doing clearly meaningless jobs. If you got time to write crayon notes and do tearful goodbyes and all this, where was this kind of media treatment for when the Keystone pipeline got shut down and all these oil workers? Where was this media treatment when people refused to get the COVID vaccine and got fired from federal jobs?

Remember what happened with the Keystone guys? The media told them, oh, they can just go into coding. Oh, right. Maybe the State Department employees, maybe we should tell them, hey, have you considered learning how to code? If you're reacting to your firing like a 12-year-old, this is like a middle school, like, have a great summer, we're going to miss you.

These people are in charge of our relationships with other nations. And they can't even handle losing a job, in which most normal Americans that have to fight for their earnings in the private sector happen to them all the time.

It just makes me so angry. I think what this segment was missing is a little Sarah McLachlan. I could sing it for you guys. I do a great Sarah McLachlan impression. And, might I add, not enough people have been fired from the federal government. Yeah. We have, I just saw that the same people that were responsible for the Richmond memo didn't get fired. The same people that were responsible for the Secret Service response in Butler didn't get fired. They just got a slap on the wrist.

Yeah. I would love to see people in the Department of Justice, this current Department of Justice, get fired for the Epstein rollout. I mean... People going after Mark Hock. Could be fired. These people never get fired. They just stay on the payroll. They collect the check. That is why Arlington, Virginia is going to have one of the richest zip codes forever. I think it still might, even after these firings.

For what? It's just, it's so crazy to me. Crazy. I wonder if they've considered the trades. Like, they have to work with your hands. There's a lot of great trade schools now. We should do something productive for your soul and the broader economy. You just need, like, a little brochure. I see you've been fired from the State Department. Here's how you can learn how to code, you know?

Did I ever imagine I'd seen... AI is taking all the coding jobs. Do not go into coding. Don't do it. There's a portion of the population now that have Feds Matter signs. Like, did I ever think that people would be like, what the Feds? Who could possibly think of federal employees that collect huge paychecks, the greatest insurance in the world, and do next to nothing, and get crazy vacation time? Who's going to think of that? I mean, I got to say, Gavin Newsom saying, like, you know, coming on the side of...

You know, immigrant minors with no accompanying adults, you know, like that, liberating those kids is bad. I mean, but now we got this feds matter, and who will think of the poor federal employees that got laid off? I mean, like, this is your Democratic Party? I don't know. It just doesn't seem like an electoral goal to me. No, we need more people fired. We need to keep exploiting minors without any children, without any parents, without any adult supervision, and we need to make sure that...

Cushy federal jobs are available for all, you know, gender study majors from Columbia. Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. All right, gang. We do live. Well, before we get to the prayer here, if you want to hop on the show, subscribe here on YouTube. You can check out Erika's latest ponderings on AI. That video is still unbelievable and gaining steam rapidly, and I'll never, one of my favorite like pastimes here is just to go into the comment section on AI-related videos, because you get like the two most extremes, like one, mark of the beast, take cover.

The other one is like, you're so stupid, it's like driving a car, and you get everything in between, and it's just the greatest war zone. You know you're doing something right when you're getting it from all the extreme points of view. Yeah, seriously.

Yeah, check it out. Are there demons in the Jackie P.G.? Yeah, so go check that one out. You can support us, join the Champions Club, catholicvotor.org slash champions, where you can do that. Leave a review. That helps out a lot. Email me, lupcast.CatholicVote.org, if you've got things you want to talk about, if you've got questions for us, if you want to hear about Josh's thoughts on just about anything, I'm happy to put it in front of him. So, lupcast.CatholicVote.org. But we end now with a prayer.

And so, we have today's daily prayer. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lo, sons are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior, are the sons of one's youth. Happy is the man who has a quiver full of them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies at the gate. Amen.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. But I thought Michelle Obama told me that reproducing was the least thing my reproductive system... Don't, don't, don't. You can't... What about Michelle? No Michelle Obama talk directly after prayer, okay? Oh. We just got to let it... My bad. Let the words of the Lord simmer out. That is actually one of my favorite lines, because I do have a son in my youth, and it fires me up, arrows in the hand of a warrior. I'm ready to shoot him out.

Sweet. Good episode, guys. We'll be ready to rock on Wednesday with another good one. Have a great Monday, and we'll see you then. Peace.