Shades of Justice: ACB, Thomas, and Alito Clap Back

And we're live. Welcome to LOOPcast. I'm joined today by the one and only Tom. Apparently, Tom Pagasic is off in the wilds of somewhere enjoying some well-deserved time off with his family, and Josh Mercer, of course, also with us. So, gentlemen, welcome. We've got... Great news out of SCOTUS. We touched on it Friday. Friday, though, we were literally watching the decisions come across as we were broadcasting live. Is it called broadcasting anymore? As we were live. So, today, we're going to dig a little more into live streaming as we were streaming.

Yeah, we were streaming, and they were coming across, and Josh pulled out a couple of really great quotes, but we're going to dig into the Supreme Court cases today. Amy Coney Barrett for the win. I'm back on the Amy Coney Barrett train, for sure. And then, Tom, survivor of the swamp, is going to walk us through what is going on with that big bill. Is it still beautiful? Is it going to happen today? Have they finished reading all 940 pages yet on the Senate floor?

We don't know, but Tom's going to tell us all the inside news, and also, of course, our good news. Do you have good news, Josh? We've got good news, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's some great news. But first.

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So, I would highly, highly recommend you reach out to the Cunninghams. Thank you so much for sponsoring today's show, and let's get into it. SCOTUS 2025 is being called the most conservative court in SCOTUS history. Elections have consequences, guys, and we are so glad Trump won in 2016. So, the first case I want to talk about today. Say that again. And also in 24, but yeah. Well, and 24. The 16 for the court, right, I get you. 1.0, 2.0. Yeah, it's all good.

All right, the first case I want to get into, and in 2020, but, oh. We're going to get blacklisted or something, except those days are over. Probably on Blue Sky. We'll be blacklisted on Blue Sky. Mahmoud V. Taylor involved Maryland parents of various faith backgrounds. We had Protestants, Catholics, Jewish, Muslim parents coming together on this case and asking the court for a temporary injunction, now a permanent injunction, allowing them to opt their kids out of instruction that utilize LGBTQ plus IA.

All of it books in the Montgomery County Public Schools. This was a crazy case because when I was in high school, We got to the age where the high school decided that I had to learn about sex, and so my mom and dad figured they didn't want... Stop it, Josh. So, my mom and dad didn't want... No, I mean, it's not about you. It's just like, I just find it so funny that, like, schools are like, we better teach kids about sex, as if the human population hasn't figured this out over thousands of years.

Like, we're having children. I think nature finds a way, people. I mean, come on. It doesn't exist until the public school system. That's right. What did we do before John Dewey? I don't know. We were just a bunch of cavemen. I'm a gym teacher. I'll explain it to me. Yay.

Exactly. That's what went on with us at my school. So, my parents opted me out. And in Maryland, in Montgomery County, they had historically allowed parents this opt-out option until very recently when they were like, well, we're going to add in all these books to the English curriculum. So, you can't opt out when it's time to read, you know, when Jeannie's two uncles got married or something to each other. And so, the parents are like, well, we'd like to opt out because we figured out this is going on, and the schools say no.

So, they fought it all the way up to the Supreme Court. The court ruled, and we very briefly covered this on Friday, 6-3 along ideological lines, that parents can, in fact, opt their children out of public school instruction. That violates their deeply held religious beliefs, and yes, the case will.

Probably be brought back under different aegis, but this was in the majority opinion. Justice Samuel Alito, who I love, he wrote, quote, The board's introduction of the LGBTQ plus inclusive storybooks, because these were for kids in like kindergarten, along with its decision to withhold opt-outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents' right to the free exercise of their religion. The parents have therefore shown they are likely to succeed in their free exercise. Claims And, in fact, they do. And he makes the point, again, that these cases were not about teaching facts to children.

These were moral lessons that it's good for two men to get married, and it's good for people to think they're in the wrong body and do things about that. This was, I don't know, this was a great win. Tom, thoughts?

I think it is a long time coming. I also think for Republicans, when they talk about, they always talk about expanding the Republican Party, and usually it is at the cost of social conservatives. They should look at what happened in this case, because you named all the religious groups that were involved in this case.

Muslims traditionally don't always vote Republican, even though they have social conservative values. The Jewish faith certainly does not. Yet, all these families came together in deep, deep blue Maryland to fight back. So, I think it is a good lesson for the Republican Party that you back away from these issues at your own peril. Yeah, Montgomery County, not really known for being a bastion of social conservatism.

My goodness, it is where all the bureaucrats live. That is right. I mean, the swamp is not just in D.C. It extends to Montgomery County, Maryland, and Arlington, Virginia. So, this is great to see. I mean, again, this is a case where, you know, things change rapidly, but like... We talked about, you know, we roll our eyes and get frustrated at John Roberts, or Kavanaugh, or Amy Coney Barrett, all three of them, and even, you know, even Gorsuch, who's caused us problems with Bostock.

All the conservative-leaning judges, all six of them, voted for this, so this is a resounding victory. But again, it's just kind of amazing to me, like, You have these three jurists on the bench who would be like, no, we should absolutely force parents to do this. They have no right to teach their children, you know. We have to have public schools, apparently, to do counter-programming for parents, because otherwise, you know, they might not teach them about what Bobby's Special wedding, or what was the name of some of these books?

Uncle Bobby's Wedding. Pride Puppies Parade. Yeah. How else are we going to learn about this unless we force children to learn this stuff? Unless we force three-year-olds to read this. It was crazy. Yeah, the coverage in the Wall Street Journal, it just stuck out to me as it's just a lesson in the leftward radicalism. And Wall Street Journal is supposed to be... The more conservative. It's thought to be conservative. It's thought to be. So, this was their coverage. This was crazy.

They go, the first, the blurb was spurred on by the perceived leftward drift of schools. Conservative parents launched a movement to amass more power in public education. I'm like, the perceived leftward drift? And you're showing me, like, men in bondage in a picture book for kindergartners? This is not a perceived leftward drift. This is like the actual thing. It's beyond a leftward drift. It's a full-on plunge into sadomasochism for school kids. It's absolutely horrific. I mean, again, the thing I'd like to tell people about Wall Street Journal is their editorial board is, you know, Republican-leaning.

It's not, I wouldn't call it conservative. They love tax cuts. They also love illegal immigration, because the economic benefits to some rich people. So, the Wall Street Journal is, but their news section is by no means conservative, or Republican-leaning even.

I mean, yeah, they're not as communist as the New York Times, but that's not saying much. Yeah. This was the case during oral arguments where Katonji Brown Jackson suggested that if the Montgomery County parents didn't like the content of the curriculum, that they could just all homeschool. And I got the feeling that that's what the Wall Street Journal reporters wanted as well. They were just, just leave us alone. Well, you know, again, we can have school choice, but you know, sorry, Justice Jackson, your entire political party is absolutely dedicated to this.

To destroying school choice at every chance it gets. You guys have demanded that people send all their kids to public schools, and the rulers of the Democratic Party all send their kids to private schools, but the lower middle class, the poor, the working poor, they don't get the chance to have school choice unless they live in states that Republicans have opened up to school choice, like Florida, Indiana, Arkansas, that kind of stuff. The Democratic Party has been dyed in the wool, wanted to make sure kids remain trapped in government schools, and I always make the argument about this.

You do not want the government running your grocery store. Why are governments running schools? You can provide food to hungry people without having the government control grocery stores. Why is it on education that we think the government has to be the provider? But then, now we have the communists running it for New York City mayor. He is like, yeah, actually, we should have government-owned grocery stores.

Yeah. Oh, Josh is frozen. Yeah. Oh, you're back. Good. Yeah. Government-run grocery stores, free buses, and free childcare for everyone. So, they will take all your children. Government-run grocery stores are so popular in the Soviet Union that people were lining up to get into them. Oh, absolutely. There was no food inside, but...

By the way, I do want to take, I just want to do like a 10-second rant here on that guy from New York City running for mayor, because like one of the things you mentioned, one of the things in his platform is that he wants to have buses that are free.

They tried this. They tried this in Albuquerque, and what ends up happening is that it just becomes a homeless shelter. People get on there, and they just stay on the buses, and they do drugs, and it's a misery, and no one wants to take it anymore, and they attack bus drivers. So, that's exactly what's going to happen in New York City. If you make it free, it's just going to be a homeless shelter for druggies, and they're just going to stay on the bus and be on there all day.

Like, it's absolutely a nightmare. So, it's one of those things where the left is like, here's a great idea. I want to win votes by promising something that costs money for free. Well, once you make it free, it goes to crap. So, just remember that, folks.

Yep, you got it. 100%. All right, let's move on to the Justice Clarence Thomas opinion. Another winner here. So, this was the pornography case. This was the Free Speech Coalition Incorporated v. Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas. And that Free Speech Coalition thing is just a euphemism for a trade group for the porn industry, so people understand. Yeah, it's not like free speech. So, this was to uphold a Texas law requiring age verification for porn sites. Justice Clarence Thomas voted in the majority, actually back in 2004.

Wait, so, I'm sorry. Bad one. So, Justice Clarence Thomas, he wrote in the majority opinion, quote, history, tradition, and precedent recognize that states have two distinct powers to address obscenity. One, they may prescribe outright speech that is obscene to the public at large, and they may prevent children from accessing speech that is obscene to children. And then he said, adults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification. I loved that take on the First Amendment there. Yeah, I mean, like, I don't understand the rationale.

That you can't have age verification. I mean, if you go into a store to purchase pornography, they're going to ask for your age verification, unless you look like you're 70. They're going to be like, if someone comes up looking like he's 16 years old, they're like, can I see some ID?

You know, the state requires age verification for the purchase of pornography in person. Why would online be any different? And the concern then, people are like, well, then people might find out. I mean, yeah, you know what? Nothing on the internet is really a secret, so maybe just don't go there. That would be an idea. And this has been so successful in the states that have done it so far, like here in my home state of Virginia, Utah.

Because what happens is the porn industry thinks they're, like, putting one over on you, and they're like, okay, well, we're just going to stop broadcasting in your state. So, they prove that they can block this information coming to certain homes, and for most of us, we're like, okay, block it. That's great.

Your terms are acceptable. I will admit, that's ultimately our goal. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, Louisiana, too. It's been really successful in just shutting down the porn industry in those states. So, yeah, more of that, please. Tom, you talk to libertarians, right?

I speak sometimes their language. Okay, I was just wondering if anyone did a pulse check on them after this really came down. They were extremely, they were very upset, and they're the ones who, for decades, have been giving cover. It's one reason why I, like, toyed with libertarian when I was younger, and didn't, there's no personal responsibility or societal responsibility, is why I turned away from it.

But they've been giving up for the porn industry for years, including the drug industry as well. They gave cover for same-sex marriage, saying government shouldn't define what marriage is unless they define it the way we want it to be defined.

I mean, the problem with libertarianism is they really don't have an answer for what to do with children. You know, like, so they believe in this sort of maximalist individualized freedom. I should be able to do drugs. I should be able to look at porn, all this other kind of stuff. And then it's like, well, okay, but in your exploration for maximum freedom to explore all these things, basically, have sin, can we make sure we protect like nine-year-olds? And it's just like, they just really don't have an answer for it.

So. Ultimately, their idea is, libertarians, again, it is an ideology, and we should try as much as we can to govern without ideology. Ideology puts one principle, in this case, individuals should be able to choose to do whatever they want, above every other principle ever. So, it is like, well, okay, I love that the United States has… You know, a strong bias in favor of individual freedom, that's why we have the Bill of Rights, but it should always be like, well, now, wait a minute, if we allow for, you know, websites to, first of all, I don't think there should be pornography, I think it should be illegal, but if there is, you should at least have restrictions to prevent minors from being able to access it.

It's like, oh, but that might, you know, restrict my freedom. Like, I mean. You have to use age verification to buy booze, or beer, or a tattoo. I don't understand the concern here. So, again, this is one of those cases where it's just, you know.

ideology trumping kind of common sense, and the common good here is, like, let's try to do what we can. There's way too much access to pornography in this country, way too much ability for teenagers to be able to see this kind of stuff, and kids that are very young. Let's try to put up some barriers to make it a little bit less permanent, because these images will affect kids for years and years, and it's why I think our youth are having...

Higher rates of anxiety, and like girls that are on Instagram, and some of it isn't even just the pornography, it's just, you know. The attention-seeking that some people do on Instagram, and the imagery, and these beauty standards that are impossible, and in fact, they are, because they're not really real. Because they're not real. They're not real. They're filtered, yeah. Yeah, so age verification, but we should also, like, hey, no social media for people that are under the age of 16. We need to be thinking about this kind of stuff, and there's a really good speech by Ryan Gerduski, one of my favorite commentators.

He gave a speech to the Republican Party in Kansas, and he says, You know— Why have we had such a hands-off approach in general to the tech industry? The real thing is all these companies like Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, they allow their users to be on the platform for free. You do not have to pay for the service, and the reason why is because your data is extremely valuable, and they sell it to third parties.

So, why don't you make it illegal for companies, he said. Why doesn't Kansas be the first state to make it illegal for companies to sell data on teenagers, anyone under 18? That would take a lot of the air out of the oxygen. They are not going to want to try to get 14-year-olds roped into Instagram or Facebook or whatever, or TikTok, which is one of the bigger ones. Do these kind of things. Let us protect our kids. It is just a basic thing.

That is so, okay, like so many threads there. What you said at the beginning about libertarians not knowing what to do with children, that is really, really interesting, because I think it is true, whenever it is an ideology driven, the victims are always going to be the most vulnerable, right?

Well, the sexual revolution in general. Oh, right, right. Because I was watching a debate between three feminists on the sexual revolution. And I think I'm going to do a deep dive on it, because it was so fascinating. They talked for 90 minutes. It was a three-hour debate, sit down, 90 minutes before they even talked about children. And one of them was like, we should probably mention children. And they're like, oh, right, right. And you're like, you're talking about sex, like kids.

That's the product. So, that was a really interesting point that, yeah, libertarians don't know what to do with kids. It's also kind of bizarre to me that... The left, so like the three liberal justices, Democrat-appointed justices, they all, you know, went in the dissent, basically that we can't, this is an affront to free speech, right? This is, we have to have.

We can't have age verification for pornography. It's free speech. I don't understand, because on the one hand, they want so much to control children, right? Like Katonji Brown-Jackson, we're just going to control children. The head of the Chicago Teachers Union last week was like, yes, they are our children. They are not the parents' children. She literally just said that right out loud in a speech. So, they want to control children.

And just expose them to porn? I just don't understand. But free speech? The whole thing. It just gets to the point where, like, you know, I would say the far left. Which represented by those three justices, also libertarians, really just don't have a sophisticated idea of what it means to be, you know, like, how to deal with children. And I think it's because I think the left, their view of sexual liberation, really, is just A celebration of your ego and just being able to do whatever pleasures you or whatever.

It is all about fun. It is no obligation. They lean into the American sense of individual rights and choice and freedom, because we do live in a great market economy. Like, if you're George H. Bush, you're President of the United States, you don't have broccoli anymore, fine, don't have broccoli. Whatever, it's a free country, do whatever you want. And they lean into that kind of argument, but then there's no talk of, well, wait a minute, don't we have some duties, too?

Don't we have some obligations, as well? I mean, you know, this lifelong union of marriage is a thrill ride, it's exciting, it's awesome, but it's not, you know, it's also... It involves some difficult things, too. So, you know, we had this sentiment, you know, in the 70s that comes along that, oh, well, it's no longer fun, and I just, you know, I want to go my own way.

No fault divorce, right? Exactly. So, again, it's just a crazy new world we've been living in the last few decades. It's true. Tom, did you have any other thoughts on the Texas case? I mean, I agree with Josh, and just when societies stop thinking generationally, they fall.

When they just think about themselves, when they just think about how can we make the nation right now the best that it ever is, instead of how can I make whatever I leave behind better for my children, that's when countries fall. Yeah, so true. I want to just get to the injunctions case quickly here. So, this was the one that came across as we were live streaming on Friday, and Josh pulled out a crazy quote from Amy Coney Barrett. So, it was brought to the court.

It came up through the courts based on the birthright citizenship issue. So, the Trump administration putting out an executive order. Saying that a child who is born in the United States to two parents who are not citizens, who have come here, whether illegally or illegally, is not automatically a U.S. citizen, right? You have to have at least one parent who is a citizen of the United States. And, of course, this was challenged, and a district court judge put a nationwide injunction on this, and that was the actual sort of question before the court that was ruled on here.

Can a lower district court or a circuit court... That's had a case come up through its jurisdiction, its geographical jurisdiction, basically decide the law for the entire country, right? Interpret the law for everyone in the United States. And the court came down saying these nationwide injunctions have no basis in the history of our law. There's something that appeared starting in, oh, what decade do we want to guess these nationwide injunctions started appearing? Any guesses, Josh? You probably know. Tom?

The Obama decade? 2000s. So, that's when they took off, was the 2000s. So, the first one was in the 90s? First one was in the 60s. The very, very first one was the 1960s, when everything started to, you know, go super progressive. But it really took off in the 21st century. And Amy Coney Barrett, in her opinion, goes through the whole history of, starting with English common law, all the way through the Marbury v. Madison and the 1789.

Congressional Act on Judicial Power, and she goes through the whole thing and says, no, in fact, this is an exercise in imperial judiciary. Yes, here's the, and then came this. This was in the opinion, and this was kind of shocking. Before we get to that, let me just, I do want to do this little setup. I mean, Justice Jackson said, you know, again, her writing on this was, So, the majority, this is Justice Jackson writing about the majority. The majority sees a power grab, but not by a presumably lawless executive choosing to act in a manner that flouts the plain text of the Constitution.

Instead, to the majority, the power-hungry actors are, and this is how she writes it. I am not kidding you. I am going to save this, the whole sentence. Instead, to the majority, the power-hungry actors are, wait for it. Dot, dot, dot, the district courts. He writes this in the text. Wait for it. I mean, what is it? A 2005, like, teen bopper movie? Like, main girl? Like, wait for it. Like, what are you? This is like. I mean, I saw this, and I'm just like, just impeach her now.

She's a moron. Like, what are you doing here? Do you think Elena Kagan just, like, scratches her head, looks at her colleagues, and is just like, how did we end up here? You know, the fact of the matter is, she's smart. Right, she is. Kagan is, Justice Kagan is very smart. I mean, she's rotten on her opinions, but she's smart.

So, when Sotomayor was nominated, there were clerks that were panicking and telling the Obama White House, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, she is not that smart. And, I mean, I don't know if they did it for Justice Jackson, but we know it. So, Sotomayor and Jackson are just dimwits. I mean, dimwits. Like, Elena Kagan is, again, very intelligent, very evil. These other two are just, well, they are evil, but dumb.

Agreed. Also, I was looking for it, but in the Jackson dissent, she also complained about trying to address these questions of power through excessive legalese. It's too hard to go through all the legalese from all these court cases that Amy Coney Barrett was citing, and so we shouldn't even bother. So, then you get Amy Coney Barrett's majority opinion. I was actually, I was talking to a professor at Yale Law School last night about this, and he said, just to give perspective on this tone from Amy Coney Barrett in the opinion, this is pretty much unheard of, that not only would she call out the dissent in this opinion, but she would also get five other justices to sign on to this.

This is how fed up they are with KBJ. So, she writes, and I'll just read it, okay? We will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries' worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this. Justice Jackson decries an imperial executive while embracing an imperial judiciary.

And then she goes on. I love this part. No one disputes that the executive has a duty to follow the law, but the judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation. In fact, sometimes the law prohibits the judiciary from doing so. This is Constitution 101, guys. Observing the limits on judicial authority is required by a judge's oath to follow the law. Justice Jackson skips over that part. Because analyzing the governing statute involves boring, quote, legalese, she seeks to answer a, quote, far more basic question of enormous practical significance.

May a federal court in the United States of America order the executive to follow the law? In other words, for Justice Jackson, it is unnecessary to consider whether Congress has constrained the judiciary. What matters is only how the judiciary may constrain the executive.

Justice Jackson would do well to heed her own admonition, everyone from the president on down is bound by the law. That goes for judges, too. I mean, you'd have to watch NBA to see a bigger dunk than that, maybe. I mean, it's just right in her face. It was great. Oh, my gosh. Erika pointed out an excellent point was...

Other justices signed on to this. Like, John Roberts is supposed to be the compromiser, the reach-across-the-aisle guy, and he's like, you know what? Yeah, I'm not going to change a word. Well, not just that. That's half of the point, Tom. The other half of the point is, he's the guy that's always trying to talk about the court and making sure it's not getting too reactive and work-together, congenial, and he's like, yeah, you really are an idiot. You should probably shut up.

I mean... Wow. I mean, yeah. I mean, not a lot more to say there on that one, but it was a good read. It was a good read for the weekend. And just a quick note, too. Someone was asking, well, what does this mean for birthright citizenship? The court didn't settle that question, per se, so this was very much focused on the nationwide injunctions. And in fact, the same group That sued the White House, it's called CASA, White House CASA, that sued the Trump administration over this executive order has already come back with another lawsuit against the Trump administration.

So, they're going to try and fight now the birthright citizenship thing up through the courts. They're not giving up. So, we'll probably see this again. And they might win. And they might win. But I'll take nationwide injunctions, don't I? Exactly. That is a better win, I think, even. Yeah, you were saying, Tom, you were saying internally that this would have repercussions on pro-life issues, possibly trans surgeries issues. Because all the time, a state will do something like ban funding of Planned Parenthood, and a judge will come along and say, no, you cannot do that.

By the way, no other state can either. So, it's like a judge up in Oklahoma bans a Tennessee, Texas. Oregon State from doing the right thing. Not that Oregon would ever do the right thing. There's hope for everyone. For those who are calling the court partisan on this one, Justice Clarence Thomas was... Calling out nationwide injunctions in a massive way in 2018, saying we need to do something about this, and that is when Biden was president. Wait, no, Trump first. He railed on it through Biden's administration as well, so he has been consistent on this for at least the last six years.

It is not like something he has done lately on this. Right. Well, and the left has railed against nationwide injunctions. In the past as well, I seem to remember a certain case about Mifepristone, that they absolutely went bonkers over this, and how can one judge do this for the whole country? So, yeah, there isn't any consistent. They like nationwide adjunctions when they're in power, and that's about it. There are some conservative legal scholars.

Say that again, Tom? There are some conservative legal scholars in D.C. I think Ed Whalen was one, maybe a few at ADF, normally. Agree with them 100% usually, but they were saying, no, no, no, we shouldn't go after these injunctions because we use them too. Yeah. And no, my feeling is if it's wrong, it's wrong.

Let's just get back to the conversation. Right. My feeling on that is if it's a tool that's allowed. I don't like it, but we're going to use it while we can, but then I'd like the court to get rid of it, which they did, so that's good. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, we have Tom on the program for one reason and one reason only, his beautiful visage. Just kidding, we're actually going to have you on to break down the big, is it still beautiful, bill.

That, just to update everyone, it did pass the Senate. No. It advanced. Thank you. It advanced in the Senate, and they have completed reading all 940 pages of it out loud on the Senate floor, as Chuck Schumer requested, because he really is interested in knowing exactly what's in the bill before he votes on it. Totally respect that.

So, today, I believe we are now in hours and hours of debate on the Senate floor before a vote that is expected. There's a flurry of amendments we're expecting to be debated today. Tom, can you just give us the breakdown? What state is the big bill in as we speak now?

Well, first, if we could do like a little one-on-one, because what is reconciliation? Reconciliation is a special legislative process designed to expedite the passage of legislation. Yes, I am reading this to simplify it, related to the federal budget, and it allows for fast-track consideration, meaning instead of needing 60 votes, as you normally would in the Senate, you only need 51.

Now, it has to only specifically focus on revenue, and that is where the Byrd Rule comes in. And you have a parliamentarian, and it is named after Robert Byrd, who passed away, except the state of West Virginia will soon be named after him, it seems, because most of the stuff in the state is.

But they need to focus only on fiscal issues. So, that means if you are writing the bill, you have to be smart about it, you have to be tricky about it, except it also means something like the Hyde Amendment, which affects policy that bans federal funding of abortions. You cannot just straight out put the Hyde Amendment in there. Okay. Now, the Byrd Rule only applies to the Senate. And once the parliamentarian says that something is affected by the Byrd rule, that it's under a point of order, that means the Democrats can come along and say, okay, point of order, and you need 60 votes to keep it in.

Okay, so give us a few examples of what the parliamentarian did last week. And I've met the parliamentarian before. She is a Democrat. She was nominated by Democrats. She's always seemed fair to me. She took out billions of dollars worth of savings. A lot of it was put back in. She took out something like, say, on AI. That was put back in because the Republicans cared about, Ted Cruz cared about this AI provision. He rewrote it to her specifications.

More to what is important to us, education, school choice, education tax credits, she took that out. Alternate language was given to the Republicans. I do not believe that that was offered, that the alternate language was offered, because you are in a room, it is the parliamentarian, it is the Democrats and the Republicans, and the Democrats will say, bird that, and the parliamentarian will look at it, and it is up to the Republicans to say, like, no, this is why it fits, or what if we did this, or this.

This is why it is not just policy, but it affects the budget. Right. Now, on Planned Parenthood defunding, Planned Parenthood defunding for one year passed the birdbath in 2017, except this time around because things have changed budgetarily, and if I'm getting too nerdy or whatever, you can just mute me. The Congressional Budget Office, which...

It tries to cost out bills that are about to be voted on, rule that if you defund Planned Parenthood one year, it is a savings, but if you defund it for multiple years, it is going to cost money, because live babies cost more than dead babies, basically. That is not CBO's words, but it is certainly the truth of what they were saying.

But this time around, they looked at it and found that actually there were savings over multiple years. So, we felt confident that we could do multiple years, because if you defund Planned Parenthood for one year, look, that is great. They are a horrible organization, but that means right before the elections next year, the Republicans have two choices, to allow the funding to continue again, or to have a vote right before an election on defunding Planned Parenthood. And one, if it is at 60 votes, will lose that.

Now, are you trying to, I mean, what is the status? I mean, just to help people in the audience here, the parliamentarian can say that does not work. It seems like you are more just trying to shove policy in that would normally take 60 votes, and you are not just doing something that would affect the budgetary numbers, which would only require the 51 votes. So, for example, the school choice thing got knocked off, and as you said, they could try to rewrite the language and offer it as an amendment.

We will see if. One of the senators tries to do that today. I am not so sure. But, like, is there an attempt to, like, maybe do an amendment on defunding stuff? There is going to be an attempt on the defunding stuff. That is still in flux right now because it is not completely sure.

Where the parliamentarian rule that this time around, it could one year be under point of order. So, we'll be waiting for that amendment. Amendment voting started about nine. It's probably going to end sometime tomorrow or early tomorrow morning.

Because on the other thing we were concerned about, on the... We banned gender surgeries, and the first time around, the parliamentarian said, that doesn't work because you're going after protected class. I know people who are in the room arguing.

So, the Republicans really offered up no defense. In CatholicVote, and same ones on the life issue, on the life issue, we're working closely with SBA list and other, and AUL and other pro-life groups. On the gender stuff, we're working closely with American Principles Project, of course, they've been leaders on this, Family Research Council, always seeking counsel of great organizations like Lions for Free Freedom.

But the Republicans offered no alternatives on the gender. So, what's going to happen with the gender defunding is the Democrats will call point of order, and you'll get a scorecard vote. So, we'll be able to say like, oh, that Democrat is for child or for taxpayer paying for gender surgery. But we really are, I would call this no longer the big, beautiful bill, but the big missed opportunity bill. It's still going to have a lot of good stuff in it. But it is not going to be as generational changing as, say, Trump's doge, or a lot of other things that Trump is doing.

The Republicans, mostly the Senate Republicans, are dropping the ball. We had the chance to create a Hyde-like situation on gender surgeries, where it would be banned for federal taxpayers to pay for these. Body-altering surgeries, body-destroying surgeries, and I really think it might drop the ball just to get a scorecard vote. Well, I think, ultimately, it sounds like Senate Democrats, especially in their leadership, have hawks when it comes to Senate policy. They understand the rules of the game. They understand how the parliamentarian is going to look at different things, and they are ready to go, and they are ready to fight for their issues.

Senator John Thune has been doing some things right. It seems like we could have his office, the majority leader, buttressed by some men and women who really know the rules really well and can fight for it, not just fight for the tax cuts, which would be the easiest thing in the bill to defend budget-wise anyway, but to fight for these social conservative issues.

Again, Republicans in general that are in office, social issues are so Like, not even secondary, they're tertiary. They're like, wait, what? Oh, yeah, that's right, we got to do that. And as we just discovered from the Mahmood case in Maryland, like, you want to try to win voters over. This is a way you show it, that you care. Like, we want to make sure the government isn't teaching your children stuff that you find disgusting. We want a government that, you know, doesn't consider you the enemy.

When it comes to these social issues, we would really like to have, on our side, some of those guys who are hawks that can fight on these issues, not just on green tax credits, not just on the Green New Deal, and not just on immigration stuff. I will follow the gains there, but on the social conservative issues, too. We need the people that understand how the parliamentary system, you know, the parliamentarian thinks, and get that language ready to go so we can have those wins.

And there are people in this town, and there was one person who was working on one of the committees who would have been able to, on the gender stuff, argue this very well. Her last day was Sunday night. The Republicans did nothing to keep her around, and they knew she was leaving. And I don't fault her for leaving. It was just timing, except they did nothing to train her. There are other people in this town that sometimes what you do is you bring in older staff that have done this before.

But when you talk about champions, and I don't know if you were thinking of this with the IRA credits, if you had heard Senator Tom Tillis from North Carolina. It said he's not going to run for re-election again, and I could not be happier, because somehow Southern senators, you would expect our Southern senators would be our red meat senators, our Jesse Helmses of the past. Most southern senators stink. There are very few that I think are great, and I want them to leave so that we could get some of the farm team up there, because on the congressional level, they're usually great, and on the state legislative level, they're usually great, but they get to the Senate, and they just turn into Justice Jacksons.

Ugh. We don't need more of that. Brutal. Yeah. That was to Tom Tillis announcing he won't run again. Came on the heels of a big Trump tweet that was like, Tom Tillis has betrayed all the MAGA values. We need to find someone to primary him. ASAP, thank you for your attention to this matter. And then three hours later, Tom Tillis was like, I will not be seeking re-election. So, yeah. Good riddance. Ultimately, I think when it comes to this bill, I do think it will eventually pass.

Like I said, I agree with Tom. There are so many missed opportunities here. There is some good things in this bill. So, yeah, I mean, it is better that it passes than it does not pass, but you are kicking the can down the road on spending. You are not getting the wins on the...

Gender surgery stuff, and if you only defund it for one year, just massive missed opportunities here. Yep, big old miscible, so let's... Extension of the tax cuts alone is a good reason, and why CatholicVote is supporting this piece of legislation, but there are just so much more they could have done. It does make me think I'd like to win a few more Senate seats and House seats next year, so that would... I'd like to win more elections. Let's do it.

Let's do that. CatholicVote.org. Because a razor-thin majority is no way to rule. Cannot do. Wouldn't it be nice to have 61 in the Senate? Maybe even 62. All right, but let's get into some good news. We need a little pick-me-up here, I think, after that deflating segment. So, Josh, what you got? Well, three cheers for Father Ian Vane of England. He refused Holy Communion to a member of the Parliament after he voted for assisted suicide, and this member of Parliament His name is Chris Coughlin.

Just was so aghast that he goes, my Catholic priest publicly announced at every Mass he was denying me Holy Communion following the assisted dying vote. Children who are friends of my children were there. This followed a direct threat in writing to do this four days before the vote. I mean, this just cracks me up. He goes, This was utterly disrespectful to my family and my constituents, including the congregation and the democratic process. He says, my private religion will continue to have zero direct relevance to my work as an MP.

Wait, wait, what? That's the problem, buddy. That's the problem. You think the Catholic faith is completely, totally private and should have no direct relevance to your everyday life? You're in the wrong religion, buddy. And frankly, you don't have to be a Catholic to say we shouldn't kill grandmas and grandpas when they get too costly and old. You know, assisted suicide is a vicious evil, and you don't even have to believe in Christianity to recognize that this is a horrible thing.

So, kudos to this priest. This is good news. I love it. It's like the priest says, yeah, you can come to Mass if you want to, but don't pretend that we are one. Don't pretend we have communion here. When you're going up and voting for things like abortion, and then in this case, assisted suicide, letting people kill their moms and dads and grandpas because they're too expensive or they're too much of a bother. Kudos, priest. Go, Father. More priests like that.

Yeah, Father V on X, who is a great follow on X, Father V posted the parish website and was like, I suggest everyone give five pounds or dollars to this parish ASAP. So, here is hoping, but yeah. All right, Tom, good news.

Um, I bored you already with the reconciliation bill. However, one good thing, if nothing else, one good thing coming out of this bill is a possible romance. What? I don't know if you could put the... All right, Simon, post it. What's where we got?

If you look where that circle is, and the pages are usually of high school age, so they're like 16, 17, 18 years old, they are not allowed to have phones on the Senate floor. So, what happens when you take the phones away from two teenagers? They actually start talking with each other. Whoa, fancy that. I know, and for most of the night, you have this cute couple just being... I hate to use the word, adorable, on the Senate floor, while this boring bill is being read.

So, if we know who those two pages are, and I believe they're even Democratic pages, if they want to get a hold of CatholicVote, I will pay for their first day. Anywhere in D.C. that they want to go.

We are pro-marriage and family building here at Catholic Votes. In the Democratic pages, maybe hold off on the endorsement. The other piece of good news. I'll just ask them to break up with whatever member of Congress they're currently dating. Oh, man. Okay, so not without strings. Not without strings is the state. Got it. Okay.

It just, for a lot of us who, like, watch all this and C-SPAN. Um, it was just really heartening to see, and also in a town where men are no longer men and don't ask women out to just have them talking with each other. Yeah, ask the girl out. This is a great deal. Apparently it was at 2.22 a.m. It's brutal. Yeah, I was going to say the other piece of good news to come out of the 960-page reading, dramatic reading of the bill, was that the Senate...

I was forced to listen to the Trump administration's definition of male and female, which is pretty graphic and biological and absolute, but I just, I wish they had turned the camera. Lentifically accurate? Yep, highly accurate. So, you know. I wish they forced every senator on the floor while the bill was being read. Yeah, why have the clerk read it? Shouldn't they have each senator read it? You shouldn't make the senators read it.

They should have. But they were probably all back at their hotel rooms or whatever. Okay, well, we are sliding into the twilight zone here. Did you have good news, Erika? Oh, I did. Well, I did have good news. Oh, sorry. I'm interrupting the host. It's a little long. My good news is... Okay, well, I'll just do it. Why not? If you're good. You're good, Tom. You don't have to run off to the Senate floor and save the day or anything.

Oh, no, no, no. My work as Cupid is done. Okay, well, this was just a... This is just a really great story, really uplifting, from Katie Prejean-McGrady, who's a Catholic influencer journalist. She's awesome. But she was traveling this weekend, and she just shared this story. And I think it's a great example for all of us on how simple evangelization can be, and it could be this easy. So, she wrote, in the hotel breakfast area this morning, my husband and I struck up a conversation with a gentleman wearing A women's softball t-shirt, not a women's, but Eastern University women's softball team t-shirt.

Tommy, the guy's name, went to Eastern, so they chatted a bit, and the guy got up to leave. He walked past our table and started to tell us more. He was raised Catholic. He's driven buses for years, and he was at the hotel because he'd brought this group from Pennsylvania to a Steubenville conference and had been at the hotel since Friday, waiting to drive them back. He was really chatty, she said. The kind of chatty where you realize he probably hasn't talked to anybody in person for a couple of days.

He asked about the conference and told us what he'd heard of the kids sharing on the bus ride, what they were looking forward to. These Steubenville conferences are, I mean, this is like praiseandworship.com, so very on fire group of kids.

And he said, you know, if I'd had something like this as a kid, who knows where my faith would be? And he hadn't been to Mass in years. So, out of the blue, I, Katie... Invites him to come to the closing mass for the Steubenville Conference. This is going to be an intense mass, guys. And she says, I honestly didn't think he'd come over to campus for mass with 2,000 teens in the field house, but it's the invitation that counts. So, she gets to campus.

She gets to the mass. She does a talk before mass or something. She gets off stage. And while she's offstage and they're getting ready, the program director walked up to her and asked, hey, there's a guy here who says you invited him to mass, and she turns around, and it's the big, burly bus driver, and he had put on a three-piece suit and a fedora. He had a cane with a silver eagle head on the top of it, and he goes, that's the lady who invited me to mass, and he proceeded to sit with them dressed to the nines at the closing mass of the Steubenville Youth Conference.

And he just was, he had tears in his eyes at the closing, the recessional hymn. He gave them hugs. He said, thank you. This has saved me. Thank you. Thank you. And so, I just, I wanted to share this story because all she did was, in passing, ask the guy if he wanted to come to Mass.

I'm guessing, watching Katie, she probably does this with almost everyone. She's like, want to come to Mass? Want to come to Mass? You could come to Mass. That's just sort of her thing. And probably 90% of the time, they don't come. But this guy came, and he's like, this saved me.

And his life has been transformed, all because she just asked him to come to the closing, the bus driver, right? So, for everyone listening in the chat, if we could all just do that. Like, strike up a conversation in the elevator, in the hotel lobby, and invite them to the mass.

Maybe nine out of ten won't do it, but the one that does, it's totally worth it. So, that's my good news. All right. Wasn't that good? That was awesome news. I love that it's worth the extra five. It was worth the extra five minutes? All right.

That was worth it, for sure. Okay. So, there we go. All right. We're back in the Twilight Zone. I'm doing my thing. Josh. Okay, so the Never Trump folks over at the Dispatch announced a new hire. Wait, there are still Never Trump folks? Oh, yes.

Oh, yes. And in this case, it's Jessica Riedel. They did a cartoon of this person, you know, like sometimes they do. So, if you scroll down, like, oh, okay, Jessica, that's interesting. Well, Jessica's a man who, but let's hold on to that for a second. Jessica's a woman, yep. Let's hold on to that a second. David French writes, now, David French is the guy who's, he is like the... The ultimate never-Trumper type, right? He is the guy who eventually left National Review because he was even too radioactive for them and his never-Trumpness, so he goes to the dispatch.

He goes to the New York Times. He does all this stuff. David French says, this is great news for the dispatch. Nobody is better on fiscal policy than Jessica. Jessica and I recently had a great conversation about the grim realities of the federal budget on the Opinions podcast. Link in the next tweet. Okay.

Well, we should let you know that David French himself, back in 2018, you know, talking about the transgender debate, he said, this is what he wrote for National Review, David French. In the transgender debate, conservatives can't compromise the truth, all right? He says, it is a declaration of fact. I won't call Chelsea Manning she for the very simple reason, he's a man. If a person legally changes his name, I'll use his legal name, but I will not use my words to endorse a falsehood.

I simply won't. I mean, David French, it doesn't take long for him to completely change his mind. So, here's what's going on here. Now, you get all these liberal pundits online saying, Why are you making snide comments on this? They should really consider that you're causing hurt to this total stranger for no reason. Jessica is an important budget wonk, and that's what really matters. I have to give it up to my friend, John Heston. He says, I usually agree, you know, in general with this person, and we should not try to be rude or whatever, but there's nothing charitable or nice about affirming a grown man's delusion.

There's nothing conservative about it either. Shame on the dispatch. The fact is, this guy, you know, in his 40s or whatever, decides that he's now suddenly a girl, goes through all this transition, and his wife and daughters are like, what the heck? You know, he left his family to indulge in this delusion. So, yeah, I mean, I guess he's not Brian Riedel anymore, he's Jessica, but the fact is, he's... Way off his rocker. I just think that, you know, just remember, though, David French is totally ashamed of you for holding your nose and voting for Trump, but he's not ashamed of a man who abandoned his wife and his kids to fulfill this disgusting fetish.

And I'm sorry, if somebody doesn't understand basic biology, I'm not going to trust him on my taxes. Amen to that. Yes, good point. All right, Tom, what you got? I'm trying to remember. If we could put the tweet up, I believe it's from the Wyoming caucus. Yeah, Wyoming.

Mine's not. Don't worry. No more trans with Erika. All right. We don't have to play the video. We don't have to play the video. It's way too long. But in just that some people never learn, in Wyoming, you would think, oh, it's a red state, but no, the Wyoming Department of Health, for the longest time, or until recently, still were defining those of us who could get pregnant, which is only one of us currently on this podcast, as pregnant people. Josh and I just might look pregnant.

We aren't actually pregnant. I'm sorry, just me, just me, not me. What are you saying? Except, finally, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, and there's Freedom Caucus in like 13 different states. If there's one in your state, do whatever you can to support them, because they really are at the forefront on all these social issues. But the Wyoming Freedom Caucus got the woke wording changed. However, despite even RFKs now saying that pregnant women do not need the COVID shot, quite honestly, I don't think anybody needs the COVID shot, but that's my personal opinion.

But the Wyoming Department of Health is still saying that pregnant people need the COVID shot, despite that there's been no studies that this is safe for them. There's actually studies that suggest the opposite. So, here we are five years after COVID, and still we have to deal with this. The word has not gotten to Wyoming yet. Guys, come on. Come on. Times are changing. Get with the times. Oh, man. All right, Wyoming Freedom, thank you for bringing that to our attention.

All right, I have something completely different, and now for something completely different. So, I'm not a fan of driverless cars for a lot of reasons. They make me nervous. I like to be in control. I love driving. I prefer to drive when it's me or Todd in the car, or my children. I'd like to be in the driver's seat. But this was a new argument against driverless cars. I wanted to get... Your reaction to it. So, Simon, can we roll the tape here?

Driverless cars in an urban setting don't work because they work too well, right? So, what we went is we went to Phoenix, where they had Waymo, and I had my producer get in the Waymo, and I ran alongside the Waymo, and I would cut the Waymo off.

And the Waymo, of course, because it's got like 58 sensors, would stop instantly, right? And I would run circles around the Waymo, and the Waymo would sit there patiently waiting for me to get out of the way. And I realized, if every car on the road is a driverless car, then there is no penalty whatsoever to pedestrians misbehaving. If you're a kid, why don't 11-year-old boys play soccer on 42nd Street in Manhattan? Because they're going to get hit by a car and killed.

But if every car is a Waymo, you will totally, they're all going to stop and they're going to wait there for hours until you finish their game. The Waymo is, so the whole point of deterrence. The reason deterrence with human drivers work is that the driver will make a mistake and kill you inadvertently.

Waymo will not make a mistake. People are always saying the problem with driverless cars is they'll make mistakes. No, no, no, no. They don't make mistakes, and that's the problem. All right. Malcolm Gabel, that's a smart point. I liked that point.

Because I've been complaining forever, oh, they're going to kill us all because they're so dumb and they don't know how to work, but the problem might be that they're too smart. Yeah. Imagine you're in a big city and there's a protest, and the protesters aren't letting you go. The driver of this car isn't going to have the courage to drive over some idiot that's in your way. As in Florida. Right.

She just wants to put a plow in front of all cars instead of driverless cars. That's right, a human plow. Have you ever done a driverless car, McCluskey? They must have them in D.C. It seems like a D.C. type of thing to do. I have not, and I think it's probably a generational thing of why not.

I could maybe see the draw of them, but it is just a matter of, I mean, I get white-knuckled when somebody else is driving other than me. Even my wife, who is an excellent driver, so I think if nobody is sitting in the front seat, I better be passed out in the back. Yeah.

All right. Well, that's our take on driverless cars. That's the show for the day. Thank you for joining us, Tom, the one and only. And yeah, we'll see you all on Wednesday. No show on Friday, because we will be celebrating Independence Day on the 4th of July, which is Friday. It's not the 4th of July is the name of the holiday. We're celebrating Independence Day from Great Britain. So, we'll try and do a little Americana fun for you on Wednesday. Maybe get some trivia going for Josh.

It is always good to try and see. What does he not know? Is there anything? I will ask his wife. Yes, there are things. But again, thank you to our sponsor. Check out the Cunninghams. Their link will be in the show notes. I cannot recommend them highly enough. And yeah, thank you to our champions. Anyone in the chat, if you are a champion, you help us keep the lights on here, keep the show going, keep it free. And if you are interested in becoming a champion, go check out CatholicVote.org and follow the The journey to being a champion.

It's well worth it. We are going to end with a prayer. Someone sent this in from one of our sponsors, one of our patron saints, Thomas Moore. And so, we'll end with a prayer to Thomas Moore. This is a prayer asking for heaven. So, here we go. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Almighty Jesus Christ, who would, for our example, observe the law that you came to change, and, being maker of the whole earth, would have yet no dwelling house therein, give us your grace, so to keep your holy law, and so to reckon ourselves for no dwellers, but for pilgrims upon earth, that we may long and make haste, walking with faith in the way of virtuous works, to come to that glorious country wherein you have bought us inheritance forever with your own precious blood.

Amen. St. Thomas More, pray for us. St. Fidelis, pray for us. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us, and we will see you on Wednesday. Thank you so much. Thank you.