SCOTUS Issues Landmark Rulings, Trump Pushes for SAVE Act, and What Makes America Great?

And welcome to LOOPcast. It is Tom, Josh, and Erika, but not that Tom. We have the special Tom today, True Blue Tom, right here with us in the studio, and we're so excited. We have a shorter show today, but we have a lot to get to. It is 4th of July week, America 250, so we're going to try and bring that out with some fun. Maybe we have a little time, a little fun snake draft at the end. I can't wait to pick y'all's brains on what makes America great.

It'll be really fun. But other than that, it is high Supreme Court season. We are actually recording this show on Tuesday morning, which means we are waiting on bated breath for the massive birthright ruling as we're recording this. We're waiting on the boys and girls sports ruling and others. So, we are going to record this going back over what we have so far in the Supreme Court. We have a couple of wins for the Trump administration, one kind of surprising loss, maybe, in terms of ballots.

And counting ballots after Election Day. We will get into all of that, and like I said, we'll have a little fun toward the end of the show. It'll be great. So, gentlemen, how are you feeling on this sweltering summer day?

And I'm in the swamp, so even hotter for me. You know, Tom's used to it. He's got a thicker skin. This Viking from the Northland is going to melt today, I think. It's just going to be crazy. Yep, well.

Tom, how are you doing? Any plans for 4th of July? Well, Washington, D.C., where hell comes to summer vacation. But it's supposed to be thunderstorms, except the largest ever... Our fireworks display is supposed to be on the mall on Saturday, so my wife and I are going back and forth. Do we try to go into the city? Do we try to watch it someplace else? Or will it be rained out anyway?

Yeah. Well, hey, that is a matter for divine providence. The Lord has been known to intervene on American celebrations before, so who knows? Maybe we will get the fireworks. But first, before we get into the show, we have sponsors. Our OG sponsor. Charity Mobile. Now more than ever, it's important to do business with companies that stand with you and your beliefs. Charity Mobile is a pro-life phone company that serves pro-life customers and supports pro-life, pro-family causes. They send 5% of your monthly plan price to your favorite charity, and they have sent millions of dollars to charities over the last 30 years.

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Alright, so let's dive right into SCOTUS season. This is like me geeking out, but these have real-time effects on the American people. We're going to make it as exciting as possible. The court finishes the term today, as I mentioned up top, on major rulings coming down, birthright citizenship, states attempting to block transgender athletes, as in men pretending to be women from girls and women's sports, and spending restrictions on political parties, which will have a big impact on the midterms. But, earlier this week, we got Trump v.

Slaughter, and so Donald Trump will get to pull out one of his lines that made him... Famous. You're fired. Let me get that New York Post cover up on the screen. I just, you know, a good New York Post cover to kick off the show. There he is. You're fired because the Supreme Court says I can.

So, the Supreme Court affirmed the executive branch's authority over about 24 multi-member agencies that Congress had passed a law. We'll get into all that in a minute. But basically, by a vote of six to three, the justices struck down the congressional federal law that bars the president from firing members of the Federal Trade Commission specifically in this case, but more broadly in those independent...

There are executive branch agencies that we talk about all the time, the bureaucracy, the fourth branch of government that's been governing and throwing wrenches in presidential agendas, except, of course, in... Oh, sorry. I'm going to back it up a little bit. This is overturning a precedent that's 91 years old, and this was a case called Humphrey's Executor v. United States. The name of this case, by the way, was Trump v. Slaughter, so everyone's saying things like, Humphrey's Executor got slaughtered, which is kind of...

Oh, we love it. The headlines, people. They're there. So, that case had upheld that Congress could create these independent federal agencies. Whose commissioners could only be fired for cause, right? So, with certain restrictions on the president's ability to fire them. But the decision on Monday overruled that precedent, concluding that FTC commissioners exercise executive power and therefore are removable by the executive branch, namely the president, who is elected by the American people to execute his agenda. And that has been very difficult.

As we could say. So, before we get into it, Josh, our reactions to this case. Obviously, Trump is excited about this. Yeah, this is a huge thing, I mean, because the liberals are saying, this overturns 90 years of precedent.

Yeah, I mean, the progressive era said we needed to, you know, have this permanent bureaucracy. Just to give you an example of a typical reaction to it, University of Michigan professor Barb McQuaid, she said, The slaughter case, overturning precedent, returns us to a spoils system, where a president can clean house every four years, just destroying our professional, independent civil service.

Are you ready, folks? I'm ready. I love it. I mean, you know, and I got to say. Under the old patronage system, you know, what we had in the 1800s, Republicans would hire Republican civil servants, and Democrats would hire Democrats.

Thankfully, we got rid of that old system, so that no matter who gets elected president, the federal workforce will always be Democrats. Always be unelected bureaucrats. 90% of the bureaucracy are people who give money or vote for Democrats, and it's like, this is the only opportunity the other half of the country, who might want a different way of things, might want these lawmakers, these bureaucrats. Who makes so many decisions that affect so many lives? It would be nice if some of them were actually, I don't know, the other half of the country, but right now, we've had a government that has been 90% liberal, and it just so happens this professional independent civil service always comes down with liberal answers, always comes down with liberal solutions.

What a shock. So, this is a healthy thing. This is the thing. The left likes to talk about democracy, right? Well, this is saying that the democratically elected president has the ability to change things based on what the people elected him to do. So, who's afraid of democracy now? Yeah.

My favorite part, my favorite line in the dissent of three liberal justices, you can guess who were the three, but Sotomayor wrote the dissent, and she refers to, she says, today the court discards the democratic regime. I'm like, democratic regime? Actually, very accurate. I'm saying the quiet part out loud there, Sotomayor.

Yeah. Tom, you live in the swamp. You are part of this regime, or you deal with this bureaucratic regime. He's surrounded by it. He's not part of it. You're surrounded. I'm sorry. You battle it, actually. It's the reason I live in Virginia. It's the reason why Virginia is so Democrat, because it's all these bureaucrats who live in the suburbs. Independent does not appear.

Independent agency does not appear in the U.S. Constitution. So, these people need to be answerable to somebody. And the Supreme Court isn't the one giving this power to Donald Trump. It's returning what the Constitution always gave to him. Yes, there were bad things under the spoil system. But this just made it ten times worse, because you had a, what is it called, an insurgency within, every time there was a Republican Congress, you had an insurgency stopping things at the bureaucratic level and at the department level.

And it's why we couldn't get a lot of things done. It was one of the reasons we never got Title X, effecting Planned Parenthood reform, done during the George W. Bush era. And for Trump, I mean, during the first—hopefully, sometimes it doesn't seem like Donald Trump learned any lessons from the first term, but one thing I hope he did learn was do not trust the bureaucratic state. And it's quite honestly— It is better to purge it all and just rehire people, I think, than to try to reform it.

Yeah, I'm really glad you made that point about not so much a win for Trump, because one of the things that's frustrated me so much every Supreme Court season is that the way that it's framed, both in conservative and leftist media and centrist media, if such a thing exists, is that every decision that comes down, it's like, this was a win for Trump. This was a loss for Trump. And I think like Amy Coney Barrett, when she was doing her book tour, she pointed out, this is a constant frustration for the justices, that Supreme Court decisions, they are about returning the country or guiding the country and the interpretation of laws according to the Constitution.

So, really, the way that we should be assessing these cases is, is it upholding constitutional or are we returning to constitutional order? It's not like, oh, did Donald Trump. And there's an element of that. Obviously, the slaughter case, it's Trump v. Slaughter, and Trump won, literally, but at the same time, I think that this is where language and how we talk about the way our government is working really matters, because I think the average person does come away from reading a story on one of these cases, and they're like, oh, it's all partisan, and it's like conservative justice and liberal justice, and there's truth to that, but it's so important to reiterate that.

The hope is that every one of these decisions returns us to the constitutional order as envisioned by the Founders. And remember, there were previous cases where a good friend of ours, a good friend of CatholicVote, Roger Severino, sued the Obama administration after being kicked off of a board or a panel that he was put on. And the Supreme Court ruled that, yes, that is allowed. The executive branch has that power. Was that a win for Barack Obama? Sure, but overall, it was a win for democracy that apparently Democrats had to be reminded again four years later.

I'm sorry, that was Joe Biden who fired. I get that you confide so much. No, but it is funny that you brought up, Erika, that you brought up Amy Cohen and Barrett, because another Supreme Court case that came down, RNC v. Watson, which, you know, this is a question of whether or not when the federal law statute in 1947 referred to Election Day, that you could, you know, states like Mississippi, Mississippi, what the heck, Mississippi? I know, come on, Mississippi. And California have decided that, well, we're just being postmarked by, you know, Election Day, and that the ballots can be mailed in, it could take.

Days and days and days, and here's the thing. There's a lot of conservatives super upset by the ruling. I'm upset by the ruling. I think it's kind of silly that it was allowed to go through, but at the end of the day, you could see a very narrow ruling, and it's basically affirming the longstanding rule that the states control their own elections, and that can always change through a federal law. I thought the federal law had already done that, but...

The thing that gets me upset about this is that, therefore, some conservatives are like, oh, Amy Coney Barrett was a total liberal, and we should never put her on the court. It's like, guys, stop for a second. Ginsburg, if she lasts a few more months, she's replaced by someone, you know, by President Biden. So, we have like narrow... The Tonji Brown Jackson, too. That's what we would have had. We've got this narrow window of like five weeks to nominate and confirm somebody to the Supreme Court.

You know, a quick count of noses, and this was the absolute best person we could get confirmed in that short window of time. And, you know, she sometimes does things that frustrate me. I'm sort of anticipating, we'll find out in a few hours that, I don't know, I'll probably be disappointed again, let's say on birthright. But, think of this. This is the best candidate. Judicial nomination we got through in such a short window of time. She voted to get rid of Roe.

She voted to get rid of the Chevron Doctrine. She kept Donald Trump on the ballot. As my friend said, she gave him immunity, eliminated affirmative action, eliminated New York guns laws, got rid of majority-minority DEI districts. She helped Trump get rid of TPS, this temporary protective status, got rid of independent agencies.

Got rid of that ridiculous lemon test on religious stuff, so lots and lots and lots of victories, and the occasional, you know, setback or frustration thing is annoying, but, like, I still remember 10 years ago watching the court and getting kicked in the teeth on just about everything. I much prefer getting, like, 80% of things and being just disappointed that we didn't get 100. Yeah, I mean, that's... There is only one Clarence Thomas, though, so, I mean, how many of those can we find?

And cases like this need to remind us that it is the Supreme Court, it is not a royal court. Because too often, we are just like, okay, the final answer is the Supreme Court. No, now the final answer with this ballot case is it goes back to Mississippi, and they pass a law that more defines what is exactly Election Day. It is this day, postmarks, whatever. So, it just means, because for too long, especially on the federal level, legislators are sloppy.

Because they don't want to dive too big, and when they're writing legislation, they don't think it through. How is this going to affect the American people? How is it going to affect John Doe back in Mississippi? How is this going to affect him directly? And legislators need to start thinking like that, and if they can't think like that, maybe that legislation isn't even needed. No, I know. It is like that, I don't know, was it Staples at one commercial where you just hit the easy button?

Yeah, red reason. People in politics just want that, and the left had done it for decades, for many, many, many decades, using the Supreme Court as the easy button. Like, oh, get rid of this, get rid of that, install abortion, put in gay marriage, all this kind of stuff.

And so, conservatives are like, well, why don't we get the court so we can hit the easy button? And, of course, the point of conservative jurisprudence is, actually, if the elected officials want to do something stupid, they can still do something stupid. We are not going to save them from stupid things unless it is truly unconstitutional, and sometimes it is not, and they are just being dumb. Yeah, like, I could see both arguments, the way that Barrett articulated it and the way that the dissent articulated it.

Obviously, I agree with Alito's argument more, and I think he was right to point out the need to look ahead, that this could, this was, he found it to be inconsistent with not only, like, statutory text and legal context. But also sort of like the common law understanding in America through the last 250 years that Election Day is the thing. Like, that's when the electorate decides. So, in the end, I think his argument was better.

And also because he was looking ahead and saying that, you know, the majority is holding, which is really like just the most, the most, the loosest interpretation of the law that Congress passed. It raises these, I think you said troubling election law questions that further degrade Americans' trust in elections, which is precisely what we're seeing in states like California, where you have these long drawn out. Ballot counting initiatives, and so people are like, well, it was stolen. The election doesn't matter.

My vote doesn't matter, which leads either to blackpilling or outright revolution, and he was right to point all that out, I think. Oh, Josh, you're muted. It's a beautiful moment, Josh. I have the floor. All right, well, Josh is figuring that out. Yeah, I think...

I can see the arguments on both sides, and really, the bottom line is, like, Congress, get your act together. We have a law that's clearly, like, not serving the American people because of all the issues I just listed, so, like, get your act together and pass a more specific law when it comes to federal elections, and then, of course, states, they have the right to direct their own state elections. But, yeah, it was a disappointing find. I can't talk anymore. Let's get the coffee going.

Josh, are you back? It's Alvin and the Chipmunks. All right. We're going to have Josh work with Celine on that, or this is going to be a very long show. Although, Tom, I'm sure you and I could find a lot to talk about.

If you can still hear me. I can. You're here. Okay. All right. Josh has left the building. The cat's away. The mice will play. We also had a kind of funny ruling that seemed to contradict the first one about the president's ability to hire and fire for the independents. The court denied Trump's bid. ...to immediately fire the Federal Reserve Governor, Lisa Cook. Of course, he wanted to get rid of her, and so the ruling was that he first has to go through due process.

Basically, the court said, you know, it's not saying he can't fire Lisa Cook, but that he didn't follow the due process requirements, the legal hurdles put in place by Congress for firing someone from the Federal Reserve. Um, do you, is this a contradiction? Do we see this as the court being, you know, self-contradictory here? Well, isn't it true in the one in the Federal Reserve case, because I believe you're nominated that, and it's specifically to overlap terms. Um, so that, yeah, so, so I could see it being a little different.

I would rather the president did have the power to do that. Because you need to have congressional approval anyway, so it's not like one branch going rogue to confirm any new one. But I could see where the difference is.

Yeah. I don't agree with it, but I could see where the difference is. Yeah, that's a little in the weeds. I mean, is my audio terrible? Yeah, you're back. Josh is back. It is terrible. We can hear you. Yeah. No, I mean, you know, the slaughter case before made perfect sense, which is for the vast majority of the agencies, the President of the United States is the executive. He should be in charge of the executive branch, and he should be able to fire people.

The precedent that they put on this one, I understand the logic, actually. Oh, no. Whether you agree with it or not. Josh, Josh, it's no good. It's no good. You turned into Darth Vader again or something. Or, like, chipmunk Darth Vader. What? Yeah, no, it's, stop. It's more C-3PO.

C-3PO. It is, actually. That's totally what that is. All right. While Josh is troubleshooting again, I would like to turn to... What do we have down here? All right, we had one more on the... No, I think we're going to move on. We're going to go over to...

Yeah, we have two more ad reads. Let's go ahead and do that while we're waiting on Josh. Okay, and then we'll get into the hill, because what the heck is going on with Congress? Speaking of Congress actually doing its job, I'm going to have Tom explain exactly why they aren't to us. So, while you prepare your notes, we also have two more awesome sponsors. One of my favorite, Nazareth Organics. From God's hand to your skin, Nazareth Organics is a Catholic family-owned skincare company that handcrafts nourishing balms and serums.

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All right. Thank you, Christendom College. And just a reminder, too, if you have any questions or feedback or things you want us to cover here on LOOPcast, please send us your questions. Our email is LOOPcast at CatholicVote.org. That's LOOPcast at CatholicVote.org. Tom Pagasic runs the emails. He funnels them on to us to answer, or he brings them up on the show. And he's out this week, so let's flood his inbox while he's gone, and he returns Monday to masses of questions.

Accolades and criticisms from our beloved viewers. All right. I can't actually read out loud to you the title of B Block because it involves some profanity, but what the heck is going on with Congress this summertime? We have a housing bill that passed, and then leadership met with Trump last week. Apparently, according to Axios, there was yelling, perhaps throwing of things in the room, and then Trump says, I'm not signing the housing bill until you pass the SAVE Act.

Tom, please decipher for us. Why are we yelling, and why aren't we signing housing bills, and will we get the SAVE Act? Well, one, the housing bill. CatholicVote is for affordable housing. This bill is not about affordable housing. Ironically, the same week that the housing bill passed, three socialists got elected in New York.

So, it's kind of almost hypocritical when Republicans were pointing out, ah, ha, ha, look at those socialists who got elected when they just voted for a bill that gave more government control over housing. And if it has any effect on the housing market at all, it's going to make prices go up. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is from Wiley Post. He was a Democratic humorist in the 1920s, and he used to say, when Congress is in session, the nation kind of feels like when a baby has a hammer.

So, it's... A dysfunctional Congress is not a bad thing, necessarily, but what happened here was the president, who pushed for this housing bill, and now all of a sudden discovered it's socialist. But the president went to a lunch up on the hill. It is a weekly lunch that the Senate Steering holds, and at the request of Rick Scott, who is currently the chairman of Senate Steering, and the hope was that he would push the SAVE Act. What happened instead, he concentrated on the War Powers Act, and the fight started immediately.

I had eyes and ears in the room. I was not in the room, though. I wish I was, because apparently it was wonderful lunchtime theater. And when you're at the age of most of the senators, you're too old to stay up for dinnertime theater. So, that's why it's lunchtime theater. Oh, man.

It was all about the War Powers Resolution vote beforehand. And Trump laid into Cassidy, except quite honestly, that ended congenially. In the fact that Cassie said, like, I've been asking for a briefing, and within 10 minutes, Donald Trump arranged for that briefing to happen.

Now, with the SAVE Act, what you're hearing from the institutional establishment Republicans is we don't have the votes for it. They do not have the votes for FISA, but what do they keep on doing? The Intelligent Agency Reauthorization. They keep on going back to the well. That is what getting legislation passed is. Because they want that passed. Right. That is exactly it. Um, with the SAVE Act, they don't want to keep on going that well, even though everybody's demanding it. And also, a lot of people elected, in my opinion, a lot of people elected for Donald Trump, not because he fought for them, but he is willing to fight for them, and he shows he fights for them.

Other than a handful, like Chip Roy or Chris Smith on life issues and things like that, I can't think of too many who go to the mattresses, as you might say, on the issues. Okay, so Josh, you made a comment because they want to pass FISA, right? That's why they go to the mat for that, and they go to the well. Okay, so just talk to me like I'm your average homeschool mom, I'm on the playground, and I'm like... What is wrong?

80% of us want the SAVE Act to pass. There is no brainer that we should have to prove that we're U.S. citizens to vote. Why don't they want the SAVE Act? Well, part of it is like, you know, Tom Tillis is an outgoing Republican senator, and he just wants to thumb his nose at Trump, and so he feels no need to go for it.

Other people like McConnell, I think he's just really old school and likes Kentucky to run their own elections, not to have anything on that way. I disagree with him. And then you have people like Lisa Murkowski. She's a super liberal senator. She's not going to be in favor of anything like this, because she's at heart a Democrat.

So, I mean, we're short of 50, but I agree with Tom. You press the issue. You keep pushing it forward, you know, and, like, I don't know. I mean, like, it would be nice to see, you know, more votes on it, more commitment to it. And the thing is, I guess, like, if most Republican senators, like, who cares on this? Like, well, your base obviously super cares.

The will of the voters. They have a lot of concern about this, and there has been frustration that there has not been as much deportations as we expected because tons just come in, and there is a bit of a trickle going out.

This is one thing where we just want, like, okay, and part of it is the silliness, like what we said with California. That, you know, they just receive ballots for days and days and days and weeks and weeks, and we don't know who, you know, there's like four or five outstanding House seats, and we don't even know who controls Congress, and that undermines people's views. They just, they think to themselves, well, We had a bunch of Somali immigrants in Minneapolis fleece the taxpayers for millions of dollars with these so-called fake daycare centers, the leering centers.

And you see all this other corruption going on in other states, too. You know, like California, the high-speed rail, billions and billions of dollars, and it's like one quarter, one mile track, and that's it. And you just think to yourself, if these people are willing to completely steal from us in broad daylight, Are we really thinking that they would not try to do any hijinks when it comes to elections?

Everyone points out the obvious. This new, ugly, nasty, Obama Presidential Library in Chicago looks like a trash can. You want to go in there and say, oh, sorry, I have to have ID. Oh, really? So, ID is important after all, huh? It is the only thing that they don't want it for is elections because they want to be able to steal. And if you think we're crazy for that, just pass it. What's the concern? It seems like such a minor thing.

Like, oh, you need an ID. Duh. Yeah. Voter ID is just part of the SAVE Act, and that's where negotiations come in, because Chuck Schumer said, oh, yeah, I support voter ID. And instead of actually just pressing on that, or sitting down behind closed doors with the Democrats and saying, okay, you support voter ID, hold him accountable for that, for his public statement, which turned out to be a public lie, except instead, the Republicans just kind of rolled right over it.

It did not help that the president added, I mean, two things I support to the bill. So, one was on voting, the other was on trans and sports. Both things I support, but the purpose here was to protect elections, and adding the trans stuff, we lost normal supporters of it, like Susan Collins. And also, there's a group... American Accountability Foundation, and a lot of those Republicans you name, get hundreds of thousands of dollars to get re-elected. The Lisa Murkowskis, the Mitch McConnells, to get re-elected by some of these groups.

And you hope, and a lot of times, that members of Congress, regardless of the political party, are voting on integrity, but money also talks for some of them as well. Amen. All right. Let us move into some good news. Let us perk it up a little bit here, out of the swamp, out of Congress. I am going to take the first slot, and I am going from the swamp to Texas. Texas, of course, passed a new reading list that is going to take effect in 2030.

This is actually a 2023 state law, but it has now been approved by the Texas State Board of Education, and this is a required reading list, K through 12th grade. And it includes nearly 200 classic literary works, ranging from classics like Don Quixote, the Aesop's Fables, for the little ones, probably Don Quixote is like 11th or 12th grade, selections from the Bible, including the story of David and Goliath, Jonah and the Whale, which would be really good reading for some of our friends in the swamp, Psalm 23, Christ's Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments.

And this reading list will be required in all Texas public schools, and it's intended to ensure that every grade level includes designated literary works. This is great. This is absolutely fantastic, and we are getting pushback on the far left, the middle left, the center, and a few from the right as well, but I think that this is a really good thing. We had one conservative homeschool leader, Susan Weisbauer, who has done amazing work with the well-trained mind, one of the original classical education.

gurus of homeschooling mothers. But she came out and she said that she didn't approve of the Bible being taught in public schools. One, because of the translation. It's a Protestant, a very specific Protestant translation. And second, because we don't know who's going to be teaching these stories and are the teachers equipped? Do they have PhDs and scripture scholarship, etc.? And she said, as a parent, I'd never want my child to encounter the stories of Noah's Ark or the humanity through an.

unqualified overwhelmed elementary school instructor i would rather handle that myself thank you very much to which i say we are going from in an ideal world we would have teachers who are already familiar with scripture why we're teaching the bible how we're teaching it like you can't read any other great work of the western canon without understanding some basic bible stories you But in the world we have, we are going from classrooms where the rainbow jihad has been the religion of choice with its own liturgical calendar, its own ministers, and its own saints being taught to these kids, to let's dial it back and actually get back to the roots of the American tradition of Western civilization.

So, I'm going to take it, Susan Wise Bauer. I am going to go for Bible in the classroom, even if the teacher has no idea why we are reading Jonah and the Whale. Let's just expose the kids to that. And then, let's take back the culture. You've got to start somewhere. Okay, so, I've got to agree with Seamus Coghlan on this one. He said, Libs, if Jesus were around, you would call him woke. The Bible is actually liberal.

Texas is like, okay, let's let children read it. No, no, they'll turn out to be fascist. Yeah, a little cognitive dissonance going on. Always fun to point out. I mean, as someone else made the point, if you're teaching Handmaid's Tale in English lit in high school, you are practicing religion, so. Yes, it is 100% the religion of the sexual revolution. It's somebody's church, not my church. All right, Mercer, good news.

Okay, so I'm from Michigan. That is good news. Yes, the automobile industry tries to innovate and do all these things. So, Ford Motor Company decided that they were going to let go hundreds of engineers. My friend is a former Ford engineer, many years back. He wasn't affected by this, but he was probably laughing today as he sees the news.

Why did they let him go months ago? Because they got AI to handle all these problems and tackle these issues in the production process. Well, lo and behold, Ford realized, Ruh-roh. They needed to hire these engineers back, so they brought 200 to 300 of these engineers back into the company because they realized, yeah, they left before they could impart all their knowledge, and AI didn't know the answers. They couldn't figure it out.

I hope they give them a little bit of back pay. Say sorry for that. Oops. I mean, I just hope it does. I hope the lesson here is that, you know, human ingenuity is better. I mean, AI... I mean, unless it becomes like the movies and it goes, you know, it develops its own conscious, you know, there's tons from Terminator.

iRobot. Yeah, exactly. Tons of genetics. But until it becomes self-aware and has its own consciousness, which I don't think necessarily it will, AI is just really fast pattern recognition, and that can be helpful in some tools. But in terms of. The true creative process in which we are, you know, made in the image of the creator.

Nothing beats human ingenuity. That's true. So true. Tom? Mark one for the good guys. Wasn't Chucky AI? I've never really seen those. I wasn't allowed to watch that. I still am not. Good job, Mary. So, on Mines, there's a recent poll out from The Economist, a YouGov poll, that shows only 51% of Americans think gay marriage should be legal.

Um, whereas Gallup in was reporting 71% as recent as 2021. Wow. And I think a lot of this and this is just some sometimes how we get our victories is when the leftover reaches. And I really think on the trans stuff, which are continuing to overreach. I mean, daughters of the revolution just voted to allow men in the daughters of the revolution.

Well, they'd already had to let him in, but the conservatives are trying to reverse that, and they failed at reversing it. So, I think they're going to come at it again, but we'll see. So, I mean, it's, I guess, Klinger, one day, from MASH, can... I mean, the thing is, to be a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, you have to, you know, of course, have to be a woman with ancestry all the way back to... Revolutionary time. Erika, I mean, I've never applied, but I could.

My girls can join. It's America, meet your oppressors. That's right. My family didn't come over until the 1850s. Well, then. I'm a Mayflower, babe, myself. I'm a little bit later, 1690s. Ooh, 1690s are hot. That's good. But it's just a good trend that when... That the American people, hopefully, are waking up to this, and we're probably going to see them later today, Josh and I, except I think a lot of credit goes to our friend Terry Schilling at American Principles Project, because they saw this as an issue, men and women's sports, and invested a lot in it, and convinced politicians that this was an issue, and eventually convinced Donald Trump.

And the rest is, as we're saying, history that we're watching. Yep. There's always hope. Definitely kudos to Terry. Isolate an issue, focus on it, you know, propel it into the mainstream. I will not, hopefully he doesn't watch this, because I would never say that to his face, but...

All right, this is all good news. Okay, so for the last little segment of the show, we're going to do a little fun 4th of July snake draft, and the way that this works is we have six rounds in honor of the Sixth Amendment of the United States, which promises us an impartial jury, judge, and executioner. I don't think those are the exact words, but it sounded good coming out of my mouth, so I said it. So, Celine's going to judge us.

Shout out to Celine, the producer, but we are going to assemble... We owe everything that is looking good about us to Celine, and Josh's sound probably, too. So, thank you, Celine. But we are going to assemble our teams of what makes America great, and I gave you guys serious latitude here. We are going to pick presidents, we can do cars, we can do sports, military campaigns, speeches, landforms, whatever you have. And by the end, we will each have a lineup of the six things that make America great.

Each round is going to start with a different first pick, and the first round is going to start with Josh. Josh, what makes America great? Well, then, I can pick a president. I can say George Washington. He's going for it.

You know, the indispensable American. The man slighted by the British. If he had been given a command in the Royal Army, you know, we could have stayed within the British, been a British America for a long time, but they slighted him, and it was just a foolish decision, and he realized, like, no, the time has come for, you know, you're never going to treat us like regular citizens. We need to forge ahead with our own liberty.

And he was a man who put it all on the line, considerable wealth, and he fought the brave fight. There is no country without George Washington. All right, I get second pick, and so I'm going to take it. I'm taking the United States Constitution, because, wow, what an amazing, amazing document. We're watching John Adams right now, the HBO miniseries, and just got through the part where they're arguing over that. Yeah, just reading the history of how these 13 disparate states came together and produced this incredible document that has.

served us so well when we have acknowledged it through the 250 years, and yes. So, I'm going to go with the U.S. Constitution. George, you're great, but if you hadn't had a constitution to protect, I mean, would have just ended with you, George. All right, Tom, first pick. What makes America great? So, if you guys are bringing out the big guns, then I have to as well. Yeah.

On my list, I have the Declaration of Independence. Yes. Because you would not have had the Constitution without the Declaration of Independence. It is the first successful formal Declaration of Independence. It inspired other countries to also declare independence. We were the first ones to tell England, you know, go suck a pickled egg. So, it is, and as you said, it was...

Thirteen different colonies. It is almost kind of like the European Union. It is what the European Union tried to think of themselves as being, but the cultures were just too diverse, except there were different cultures in all those thirteen different colonies. Yeah. And not everybody was on board about declaring independence. Some of them wanted to still try to work it out with England. Mr. Dickinson? Yes.

So, for me, the Declaration of Independence. I think it is truly American. Whenever my dad... Coming from a big family, we didn't go on many trips. When we came to Washington, D.C., and when he came to visit me later, when I was living here, we always stopped at the National Archives, and he would bring my little brother and sister, because he said, like, our last stop is always, we see the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and no matter how long we waited in line, we did that.

Oh, that's actually inspirational. I need to do that with my kids. All right, round two. I get to go first. Ladies first. Round two, I am going to go with the Louisiana Purchase, because that was absolute brilliance. The westward expansion begins. We add, not even knowing what's out there. Thomas Jefferson is just like, yeah, 1803, let's just add, let's just triple the size of the country. And that alone, it gave us.

Every time I travel around the country, I'm just awestruck at the resources, the rivers, the mountains, the plains, the farmland, and I think that that choice by third president was just, it makes us who we are today. Sea to shining sea, I'm going with the Louisiana Purchase for my number two slot. Well, technically, not to the other sea, but yeah. Well, yeah, it got us there eventually. Mississippi, PC. It was almost Mississippi, PC.

The shining shores of St. Louis. All right, Tom, you get second pick this round. All right, well, it is hard to, Americans fleecing the French, it is hard to really top that. But I am going to go with the imperial system.

There's only one country that ever went to the moon, and that is a country that does not believe in the metric system. Um, the godless communists tried to make us go to the metric back in the 70s under Jimmy Carter and all, and we said, no, forget that. We're staying with our inches and feet and yards and everything else. It doesn't really make sense if you think about it, but it's American, because we don't make sense when you think about it.

So, for me, it's the imperial system. I love this. That is awesome. Cue the greatest Saturday Night Live sketch of all time. Well, I mean, for mine, I was just going to say the pioneer spirit. I mean, it is the same kind of spirit that, you know, went across the plains, you know, forged a continent from the wilderness that got us, you know, the Wright brothers, a couple of cyclists from Dayton to fly a plane successfully, to having, you know, three guys.

Go up into space, and two of them land on the moon. Yes, Tom, I hate to break that to you. It happened. So, I think the pioneer spirit... Tom Pagasik. Pagasik. He's not here. You know, the pioneer spirit that runs through Americans is second to none.

Yeah. The whole world... We remain adventurers. Yep. Amen. Okay, it is your turn to go first, Tom McCluskey. Okay, okay. I am going to go with the American flag, because I do not think any other country that you visit, you will, because you can go, I live in a very liberal area of the United States, but every other house has an American flag displayed, and not just because July 4th is coming up. Over 150 million flags are made every year. Some of them are for some of our friends to burn.

Fine. To me, the American flag is a symbol of hope, not only here in this country, but abroad. I mean, the flag raising at Iwo Jima, one of the most famous scenes in history, and it is not even taking place in our country, but it is a flag going up. The moon again. Tom Bogazic, again, might disagree, except how many flags are flying?

Some of the colors might have run, but the country doesn't. But it's the American flag that's flying on the moon. Not the Chinese flag, not the Soviet flag, it's the American flag. Love it. Mercer? Well, I mean, I do think having, you know...

An economic system that we do, like, you know, we got the 13 colonies. We didn't, you know, we set them aside from having their own currencies, having a common currency, you know, eventually a common market. created the greatest wealth engine in world history, has provided considerable bounty, and so the free enterprise system that the United States, you know, really did perfect in many ways. It needs more perfecting, but it has brought billions, really, billions of people literally out of poverty. I mean, I think of Norman Borlaug, the Farmer from Iowa who came up with the creative engineering that create, you know, the Green Revolution that provided that lifted literally billions of people out of destitute poverty in India and China.

So, yes, three cheers for American capitalism, despite its flaws. It is an immense. A force for good. Amen. Yeah, I'm going to take, for my third pick, kind of along the lines of Josh, I'm going to go with philanthropy, and every year, Charitable Aid Foundation puts out a worldwide index of charitable giving aid to strangers, both domestically and abroad, for all countries, and once again, 2026, the United States is far and away the most giving country, and I think that this speaks to not only the pioneer spirit, The fact that our market system, our economy, allows for that kind of spirit of generosity to express itself.

I know we've had our issues with USAID, but in terms of private, charitable giving, not all causes are equal, but that impulse in America is such a unique part of who we are, and a lot of it goes back to our Christian roots.

I would say all of it goes back to our Christian roots. Just fun fact, the least charitable countries for the 12th year running, bottom of the pile, China, second to the bottom, Russia. I think that it's a testimony to our constitutional order, our free market system, and the Christian impulse of the American people. So, philanthropy is my pick three. All right, we've got to pick up the pace, guys. Round four, back to Josh. You are in the driver's seat once again.

I mean, you know. The United States military, I mean, you know, and there is something specific about this, I think it needs to be appreciated, because other countries, you know, they look at it, and you will never find more dedicated.

Men and women that are in our military, they don't think twice before running the hill, whereas other countries, it's like, well, I don't know. For Americans, Europeans would say this, they look in awe. For Americans, it's just like, go, go, go, and there's no turning back. It's like, we need to succeed. We believe in a mission higher than ourselves, and that is second to none. I mean, I have never served, but...

And without conscription, too. Many countries have conscription. Well, not recently, yes. Not recently. We have done it, but yeah, for sure. Okay, my pick, I'm going to go with the Star-Spangled Banner. I love our national anthem, and I'm not a teary kind of girl, but when there's a good rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner, it brings so much joy to my heart. I love the story behind it. I love a good... Country-fied rendition of our national anthem, O Say Can You See, the land of the free, home of the brave, some blue devils flying over.

I love our national anthem. True Blue Tom, fourth pick. All right, well, Josh took one of mine because it's a great one, so I'm not shocked at all. I actually had a clip I was going to run from the movie Stripes, not for children, but describing the U.S. military, or just even the U.S., just saying, We're Americans with a capital A, huh? You know what that means, do you? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world.

We are the wretched refuse. We're underdogs. We're mutts. Here's proof. His nose is cold. It's up there with the Independence Day speech from Bill Paxton. Right up there. I think on love in America. So, I will go, though, from one culture to a different culture.

What happens next is jazz, blues, and country. American music. I took mine! Which led to rock and roll, which we did first, except it was Americans who I think... I mean, you have the Gospels, but who learned how to take music to tell a story, and a lot of times, it's a story of America when you're really listening to it. I'm more of a blues and country guy than I am jazz, but all of them are truly, truly American.

That's awesome. I love it. I love it. Okay, I'm taking round five. I get to go first. This is a hard pick. My culture was going to be music, so I've got to switch gears here, but I'm going to go with the interstate system. Our interstates are...

It's incredible. Like, wherever you land on your plane, when you drive out of that airport, you know how to navigate in the United States. We are so mobile as a result of all that work that went into. And I know people are like, oh, we should have trains like Europe and blah, blah, blah. But like, when it comes to the American spirit, if you get in your car, and you can just drive Route 66, baby, and all that up and down 95, which is much less enjoyable than Route 66, because It's very congested, but the fact that we can get in a car and get where we want to go, just so singular in all the world and incredible.

We definitely beat out the Roman roads. American interstate system, baby. Get in my pickup truck, which I don't own yet. Mercer, your turn. That was Tom's. Wait, I'm sorry. Yes. Interstate? Tom. My bad. I was on a different round. Tom. Well, it is kind of fitting, because mine, even though I know you have the Constitution, mine is the First Amendment, because the First Amendment is just so unique. It is so good.

And I was having this debate with my wife last night about, which is more important, freedom of speech or freedom of religion, and I think for the American people, without freedom of speech... You cannot have freedom of religion. And most of the people who came over to this country, it was because there was no freedom of religion. They wanted to be able to practice that religion. And we are the only ones who put in an absolute unfreedom of speech within our U.S.

Constitution, where other countries, look what's happening in England, look what's happening in most of Europe. Let alone Russia or China, where you're not allowed to speak out against the government. You're not allowed to speak out against, in England, you can't speak out against Islam or anything like that.

That is one thing that just makes America unique and makes us extremely special. What happens next is that even in Canada, they don't have the freedom of speech we have. We're in Canada, where the government can edit your homilies in your mass. Here in the United States, it's not all holds barred, but certainly the closest to it than any other nation on this planet.

Love it. Josh? First Amendment, of course, giving us the freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to practice a religion. Freedom of press. And the reason why we have all that is actually the Second Amendment. Actually, I am going to say guns do make America great, because the fact is, you go to England, you go to Canada, and there's a reason why they don't have their rights as much as we do. And yes, we're going to let everyone say whatever they want to.

Oh my gosh, that's going to be crazy. Well, let's make sure they're packing. I think it's indispensable. It's one of the reasons why, by the way. The Soviet Union just knew it could never invade the United States. I mean, like, the only way this country is going down is from corruption from within, because if you try to attack us, you know what, through a land invasion, I mean, like... Red Dawn, baby. Just about every country in the world. The original. The original Red Dawn.

All right. We are in the final round, so gentlemen, make your last picks, and Tom, you get to kick us off. This might have been touched on with American capitalism, but just American innovation, and that inventors come to this country because they know.

That their inventions aren't going to be taken by the government. It's not going to be put away in some warehouse like Raiders of the Lost Ark or something like that. Think of everything, how we communicate, the telephone, the internet. Thank you, Al Gore. Flight, as Josh mentioned. Going to the moon. Just dreaming beyond what's possible today is all, it is American innovation.

Awesome. Josh? I do think the fact that we have incredible freedoms here, and that unlike Europe or the state and the church were combined that, for the most part, churches were able to flourish in liberty. And what has happened in Western Europe is that all the religions are down to margins. And there are problems in this country, but we remain a very religious people. And I think that is one of the great things that makes us great, obviously, that religion continues to flourish.

Absolutely. A godsend. Yep. All right, I don't have a person yet on my team, and I'm going to go with someone, I'm going to violate my own principle, someone who's not dead yet, and I'm going to actually put Clarence Thomas in, Justice Clarence Thomas, and for several reasons, I think St. Clarence Thomas to be in making, but to me, his life story just encapsulates everything that is incredible about America and Americans. A boy born to utter poverty, broken home.

And reads his way out, works his way out, undergoes, you know, religious conversion. Just an amazing person who is dedicated to all things that make our country great. Everything we've listed here, and most of all, his devotion to the Constitution and originalism. So thank you to Justice Clarence Thomas for just being great. All right, Celine, we are about to announce The winner, just to review our teams, Josh has George Washington, the pioneer spirit, capitalism, the U.S. military, the Second Amendment, and religion flourishes in America.

Very solid picks. I have the U.S. Constitution. Louisiana Purchase, Philanthropy, The Star-Spangled Banner, Interstate System, and Clarence Thomas, and Tom with The Declaration of Independence, The Imperial System, The American Flag, The Clips from Stripes, American Music, and Freedom of Speech and American Innovation, and Celine, who is the winner? Oh, you're already picking.

She's picking. I'm partial judge, practicing the Sixth Amendment. I'm not above bribery, Selene. Tom wins. But the top item, she goes with the U.S. Constitution. She liked my argument. But Tom wins. Here's to True Blue Tom. Patriot, if I had a crown, I would put it on your head, and you would cast it aside as George Washington of yours. Yes. No more kings. All right. Guys, it's been great. We're out of time, and I think we've done enough Twilight Zone talking about what's going on in Congress this week.

So, we're going to call it a week. I hope you all have a fantastic... Fourth of July. Weekend. Celebrate Independence Day. Thank you. Independence Day. We have a special episode of the Deep Most Patriotic Movies, and I don't have to compete with anyone, so I just got to pick for myself. So, check that out tomorrow for Thursday. Stripes better be up there. I did not know about Stripes, but now I'm going to go watch it. It's the first half. Watch, and then you can turn it off.

Excellent. Excellent. All right. Stay cool out there. It's going to be a hot one, and Josh, I hope you make it safely home to Northern Michigan to celebrate with your family. Let's end with a prayer for our country in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God, our Father, giver of life, we entrust the United States of America to your loving care. You are the rock on which this nation was founded. You alone are the true source of our cherished rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Reclaim this land for your glory and dwell among your people. Send your spirit to touch the hearts of our nation's leaders. Open their minds to the great worth of human life and the responsibilities that accompany human freedom. Remind your people that true happiness is rooted in seeking and doing your will.

Through the intercession of Mary Immaculate, patroness of our land, grant us the courage to reject the culture of death. Lead us into a new millennium of life. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. St. Thomas More, Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Fidelis, pray for us, and we will see you on the next show.