U.S. Military Strikes Narco Boat, National Guard To Chicago, And Father James Martin At It Again

Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Eric, and Josh. The gang is back together. We have a fantastic show for you today. Trump had a press conference and revealed, yes, he is still alive. There's been a remarkable attention to detail amongst mainstream media suddenly when it comes to the president's health because he wasn't in front of cameras for three days. But at said press conference, we have striking narco-terrorists, we have Space Force moving to Bama, and some new activity on the National Guard movement, potentially tissue.

Chicago or Baltimore, all of which we intend to cover thoroughly. We also have a photo op of Father James Martin with Pope Leo that a lot of people aren't up in arms about. So, we're going to cover that and the reactions as well, and then we do have some updates. Nothing too controversial today, in other words. Nothing too crazy. You know how it goes. Also, happy anniversary to the Treaty of Paris, according to our very educated and handsome chat. Treaty of Paris, 1783, was signed today, officially ending the American Revolutionary War.

And making official the independence of the United States. Josh, how do you feel about that? Hey, you know, my ancestor fought in that war, so I love it. You're one of those heritage Americans that we're so worried about? Josh loved it so much. He dressed up for this. Josh dressed up today. I'm an 11th century American. Amos Mercer fought for the Pennsylvania militia.

In the American Revolutionary War. So, when all that buzz was going about, every time they get talking about the English crown, and, you know, oh, something this and that, I'm like, oh, don't bore me, brother. My ancestors took up arms against these guys. They would have had my rebel scum. Killed, but we won, so there we are. There we go. Star Wars references. I like it.

And yes, Paul, I am the headmistress because our academic year has begun. We launched all five grade levels yesterday. It was very exciting. Beast. I saw someone was in 15th grade. Yes, I'll be hearing it. The kids insisted that the oldest Ahern be acknowledged, and they counted, and they're like, oh, mom, she's in 15th grade, and so we had to put that on them. And then someone was still working on their doctorate. Is that you or Todd? That would be the baby.

Oh, the baby. Oh, okay. Very precocious. Very precocious. He's still working on that doctorate. Naturally. Naturally. No surprise there. But before we get into today's episode, we have a new sponsor. The sponsors keep coming, and I'm very excited about this one. Yeah. Super excited about this one. Welcome, Ave Maria Mutual Funds. Okay, so.

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Boom. Bang. Man, we made it. It's crazy. I can't believe some of these sponsors. I'm still not used to it, but sick. Thank you, Alvin Maria. I appreciate the sponsorship and making the show possible. Someone's throwing shade on you in the chat, Nick. We're like, we'll just sponsor Erika. We're like, it's only a few more cents to sponsor the whole show.

Good point. All right, let's talk press conference. So, yes, Trump is still alive. And I separated this into a few topics today, but the first one would be this Venezuela strike. So, on September 2nd... Are we going to go a little bit more on him almost dying or whatever? What was the deal with that? We are, but that was my good news, because... Yeah, hold it. I would like to get into actual news as opposed to fake news by Blue Sky Anons.

We will cover the fake news, of course. Blue Skies. Yeah, Blue Skies. So, Venezuela strike on September 2nd. A U.S. naval airstrike hit a small vessel. In the Southern Caribbean, reportedly operated by a Trend Day Aragua gang, resulting in 11 deaths of gang members, Secretary of State Marco Rubio affirmed the strike targeted a vessel operated by a, quote, designated narco-terrorist organization.

And as of the New York Times, U.S. surveillance aircraft and other sensors have been monitoring cartel maritime traffic for weeks before the strike, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. And as I noticed, too, the strike is a pretty astonishing departure from traditional drug interdiction efforts. In the past, U.S. authorities have focused on seizing drugs and identifying suspects to build a criminal case, and according to an anonymous source, there is much more to come on this.

Trump, of course, came out in front of this. He put it out in a tweet, which I can share here. And I will remind, we did designate Trend Day in Aragua as a terrorist organization. Right, that is why this is such a big difference. Yeah.

Remarkable change in approach to that. We are not prosecuting. We are eliminating. Yeah. Earlier this morning, this is a Trump truth here. U.S. military forces conducted a kinetic strike against a positively identified Trend Day Aragua narco-terrorist in the South Com area of responsibility. TDA is a designated foreign terrorist organization operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro.

Responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere, the strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in international waters, transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States. The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No U.S. forces were harmed in the strike. Please let this serve as a notice to anyone even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. All caps beware. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

All exclamation points. With, like, 16 exclamation points. Yeah. Classic Trump. I mean, it's a start. I mean, like, you know, it's time to start realizing that some of these states, these governments, are really just, you know, narco-states. They're just run by drug cartels. The person who's in power is just, you know, completely unwilling to stand up to these.

There are ruthless international regimes that are really calling the shots. Who really thinks Mexico is a completely free country? Who really thinks Venezuela is a totally free country? You have these cartels, you have these gangs that are running the show, and what is happening is that people are being smuggled across the border, drugs are being smuggled across the border, and then in the open seas there are Venezuela as well.

You know, the patience from the West is growing thin. Yeah, my patience is gone. Yeah, pretty much gone. And this is coming from someone that's, as I've mentioned many times on the show, very careful about what we get our military involved in. But you made the point, Josh. I think back to, like, the opium trade, and we're essentially in… Like a 21st century version of the opium trade, where there's countries that are clearly not run by the figureheads, so they get to pretend, oh, you know, we're trying our best, yada, yada, yada, Mexico, whatever they want to say, when clearly they're run by the cartels.

I think it was like over 100 people running for office were murdered in Mexico while trying to obtain office. Clearly, that's not a country run by politicians or their government. Not a democracy. So, they get the benefit of saying, well, we're not doing it, really.

Right, not a democracy in the true sense. They are not ruled by the people. They are ruled by their gangs. Yeah, absolutely. And so, if gangs are inside of our country, infiltrated... ...responsible for the death of Americans, either by drugs that they bring in or by actual murders in which, like even the argument of ICE agents having to stay masked up and they want them unmasked. I mean, they're clearly afraid for their lives, for the type of people that they're deporting.

This needs to be done. It should have been done a long time ago. If you don't have a stomach to protect your own people, what are you doing? It was foreshadowing the change in U.S. foreign policy away from a lot of adventure in the Middle East and more towards keeping this hemisphere much more in manage, like the Monroe Doctrine. We didn't want European powers coming in and bringing their civil wars and their world wars from Europe, that continent, into Central and South America.

Wow. That's not the problem today. The problem today is these drug companies, these drug cartels that are, you know, dealing in human trafficking, dealing in misery, dealing in drugs. They're the ones that are controlling a lot of these governments. And so, yeah, we need to crack down on this. And you would think. You know, this would be a unifying force. I think the American people are going to be very supportive of this. The left will just hate everything Trump does, but...

Yeah, in fact, it already does with Venezuela. So, we also got, the same day as the strike, we got this federal appeals court blocking the Trump administration's deportation efforts under the Alien Enemies Act, right? So, the Trump administration wanted to use this 18th century act... To deport Venezuelans who were tied to criminal gangs, arguing that we were actually under invasion, so we're in a state of basically combat with these gangs.

But this court comes in, and they're like, this doesn't apply at all, absent war or invasion. Of course, the Trump administration's like, no, it's an invasion when we have millions of illegals coming across the border. The circuit judge, yeah, this was great. Leslie Southwick, writing for the two-judge majority, rejected the Trump administration's assertion that the Venezuelan gang, Trendel Aragua, had engaged in a predatory incursion on the U.S. soil. She was a Bush appointee, George W. appointee. Yeah, Bush wasn't betting $1,000, was he?

No, not on the judge picks, that is for sure. He needed a lot of help on that one. Also interesting that Maduro, the Venezuelan President Maduro, speaking of the Trump administration, has basically said he is a leader of Venezuela, but also in these gangs. We actually have a bounty out on his head of $50 million now. Meanwhile, he comes back after the strikes yesterday, and he's like, this is an incursion on national sovereignty, and he starts playing the sovereignty card and how I'm the ruler of an independent republic, and I'm going to call up my arms in Venezuela.

Venezuela. Right, but the strike happened in the Caribbean. Yeah, it was on Venezuelans, though. And for sure, we've been building up over the last few weeks our military presence in the South Caribbean precisely to stop. People coming from Venezuela up to the United States and other free countries around the Gulf of America. And so, he is like, look out. America first. Yeah, America.

America first. Yeah, I am all for this. And the second element of this, too, is funny. You mentioned like, oh, all our foreign excursions, especially in the Middle East, but just about everywhere, not our own country. The other thing that people are getting mad about is the National Guard basically eliminating crime in D.C.

I saw someone tweet, it's like, there's more National Guardsmen deployed in our own country than abroad for the first time ever, and I'm like, it's almost like I voted for the National Guard. It's almost like that was the purpose of our National Guard.

The purpose of a system is what it does. Yeah, it's almost like this is exactly what I voted for. Well, even the D.C. mayor said cooperate with the National Guard now. I was like, oh, interesting. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so the next topic that came up was sending in the guard to Chicago and Baltimore. Is he still going to do it? There's some legal challenges going on right now. Is it still going to happen? So, actually, Monday on Labor Day, the city of Chicago saw some protesters hit the streets under banners, workers over billionaires, and hands off.

The purpose of the protest was to call attention to the very low minimum wage. Many were reporting it as a reaction to Trump's decision to go and clean up Chicago. So, here you have Trump in this press conference addressing that. I will play the clip.

Well, we're going in. I didn't say when. We're going in. When you lose, look, I have an obligation. This isn't a political thing. I have an obligation. When we lose, when 20 people are killed over the last two and a half weeks, and 75 are shot with bullets. So, let me tell you a little story about a place called D.C., District of Columbia, right here where we are. It's now a safe zone.

We have no crime. It is in such great shape. You can go and actually walk with your children, your wife, your husband. You can walk right down the middle of the street. You are not going to be shot, Peter. You are safe. Everyone likes you anyway. They probably wouldn't do it.

So, yeah, he's not stopping. We're going in. And JB, JB Pritzker had something to say about that. Here he is in his... Made himself a martyr. This clip on fire. You're going to hear people, especially this past weekend.

54 shot, 7 dead. Yeah. They're going to say, the city's not safe. Would you ask your friends to ride the L after midnight, or after, you know, 9 o'clock at night even, to come down to the city from O'Hare? Look, big cities have crime. There's no doubt about it. But let's just pay attention to what President Trump is doing targeting Chicago. He's overlooking red states that have much higher crime rates.

I love this. I love this. Yeah, you keep going, JB. You know, the talk about red states and blue states, that is what Gavin Newsom said. He said, ah, crime is not that bad in California. Let us look at St. Louis, which is a city in a red state. It is like, right. It is a deep blue city in a very, very red state. It has a ton of crime. I mean, we want to have this conversation. We can have this conversation, but, you know, everyone, I mean, again, two.

We get kind of numb to the crime. So, these people are protesting on Monday, saying, we don't want Donald Trump to send National Guard troops in to Chicago like he did for D.C., and in D.C., we saw a massive change in reduction in crime. Well, what happened in Labor Day weekend as that person was getting it? There was a lot of crime. There was a total of 39 people were shot.

In 33 separate shootings in Chicago alone between Friday from 6 p.m. until just before midnight on Monday night, and in fact, you had a 28-year-old man killed just after 6 p.m. Friday. He was outside when three people approached on foot and fired shots, striking him multiple times. He later died in a local hospital. A pair of 15-year-old boys also were killed. A total of six killed in Chicago over Labor Day weekend. Now, we rightly are horrified at the shooting that happened.

At Annunciation Church, because they are totally innocent. I mean, they are inside of a sanctuary. They are inside of a church. They are praying when the killer comes up to them and murders them. Now, some of the murders in Chicago, let us say, over this past Liberty Weekend, some of them may have been gang violence, could have been related, premeditated. It didn't, you know, whereas the one in Minneapolis, where they are praying in church, feels completely absurd, completely irrational.

But are we still just too numb to big city crime? I mean, look at the governor there. J.B. Pritzker, his company made billions of dollars, billions and billions of dollars selling pharmaceuticals. The guy, I mean. He's insane, and it's like, what, his sister? He's not getting shot. Isn't Pritzker, they're the Hyatt Hotels, like Family Fortune? Yep.

And so, you know, you look at that, and it's like, oh, well, all big cities have crime. Just sort of like, hands up like that. Yeah, you know, why do we just sort of accept that? Like, does it have to be that way? This is the thing. This is why the left hates that, the leader of, was it Nicaragua? I forget his, I always forget his name. Oh, Al-Pukeli.

They hate him because he proved that crime is a choice, is a policy choice. Obviously, you can't, you're not deciding whether or not a person commits a crime. You create a framework of incentives. And if you punish people harshly, people are like, you know what? I am not going to take the risk. I am not going to commit the crime. So, crime in Nicaragua goes down to practically zero, and everyone is like, I love this guy. This guy is great, because they are so used to death and destruction and theft.

And murder, and they just are like, wow, this is the way it is. That was the biggest thing about Rudy Giuliani. All these big cities had tons more crime, Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, all through the 1980s. And Giuliani's in New York, he's just like.

I, you know, it doesn't have to be this way. Right, it doesn't have to be this way. Hello. We can serve 20 people in jail. Yeah. Well, I wanted to look into, because now people are questioning the legality, and there was just another ruling, actually, from Stephen Breyer's brother, Charles Breyer, back in the news. But did this work in LA, right? Yeah, but my first question is, did this work in DC? Like, what did this federal cooperation with Mayor Bowser work?

And so, I mean, based on what I found, the Capitol has seen an unprecedented 12-day murder-free streak. Story from Tuesday. All other crime stats have been down as well. Over the last 14 days, total crime has dropped 11% citywide, sharp reductions across the board, including robberies down 42%, assaults with a deadly weapon down 13%, carjacking down 85%, car theft down 24%, violent crime down 25%, and property crime down 10%. I have a post, and that is from the D.C. Police Union, that shares all these stats, Rosie, if you want to throw it in the chat, and we have full stats below that as well.

But even to the point where D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, we kind of alluded to this, signed an executive order requiring law enforcement to cooperate with federal troops. In addition, she announced the creation of the safe and beautiful Emergency Operations Center, which will continue to work. Of the federal troops in post-emergency, and I even saw, I think it was, like, J.B. Pritzker lost Morning Joe, who did a 180 on this, and this is kind of my thoughts as well, too, and I wonder, there's just a lot of political gamesmanship going on right now, but if the priority is actually public safety, I think this actually is not a dumb approach, so I'll play that clip, and I feel like you captured my thoughts on this.

Chicago, let's see this. As you say, we've been reading about this for years now. Every weekend, and maybe crime has gone down, but, you know, we had the mayor of Chicago on last week saying, oh, we don't need any more police officers. Police officers aren't the answer. No police officers. You know, I think he said no five times. You look what's happening this weekend. You know, I actually think that J.B. Pritzker should do something radical. I think he should pick up the phone.

Call the president and say, you know and I know, you don't have the constitutional authority to deploy the National Guard here and to police my... You can do that in D.C., you can't do that in Chicago. But let's partner up. These are the most dangerous parts of my state. We would love to figure out how to have a partnership that's constitutional, that respects the sort of balance of federalism between the federal government and the state government, and let's work together to save lives.

Because right now, just a, hey, nothing to see here moving along. No problem here. Hey, Donald Trump, we don't need you. And, you know, the mayor talking about we're going to protect people's dignity in our city. Well, protect their lives. That's protecting their dignity. You know, it would be radical for us to figure out a way to actually do what I've been saying from the very beginning on Washington, and that is seeing politicians creating partnerships that protect their people.

100%. Yeah, so that's not going to work. I actually agree with him. That's not going to work. Sorry. Josh is out on this? But wouldn't it be nice if it did? Go for it. Go for it, Josh. He's asking one of the leading potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates to put forward a policy proposal that would cooperate with Donald Trump. Ain't not going to happen. I mean, Gretchen Whitmer is kind of...

She's angling that way. She's about the only one who's actually trying to do that. She's signaling to Trump. I mean, she did the whole hell up the binder, you know, in the White House. That's a lot of embarrassing, but she's now, like, not actively running against Trump and said she'll cooperate with him on some things because she realizes you got Gavin Newsom, who's got a ton of money and a lot of energy right now in the 2028 field on the Democratic side.

J.B. Pritzker, he is, I mean, I'm overweight. That guy is a massive fat slob. I mean, he's got like 100 pounds on you. Hey, dude. And here's the deal. He's got more money than anybody. I mean, billions he can spend on his own campaign, so he will be a formidable candidate in 2028. There is no way. So, those two white guys are going to compete against each other. Who's going to be the biggest fighter? So, there's no chance that they're going to say, okay, I'll work with Trump and say, well, see, we did it my way.

We kept the people safe in Chicago, but we did it constitutional. I mean, what? Like, you're telling me that the Democratic primary voter is going to be cool with that? Like, I'm sorry, not a chance. What happened in the immediate aftermath of this past presidential election? We all talked about what we thought was going to happen, and what are the Democrats going to do? Are they going to moderate? No way, not a chance. They're not going to do it. They felt like they missed it by this much, and it was just a fluke, and they got to defeat this guy.

Well, he's not up for election anymore. And they'll get back to normalcy. See, they consider the last four years under Biden normal. Right? That was to them normal. Nauseating. They have the boring guy on top, and then all below is run by blue sky psychopaths. Right, but Josh, you're talking about political gamesmanship leading up to 2020. You're talking about political gamesmanship leading up to 2028. You can't work with Trump. But can't you say that this, I mean, to me, this whole thing is another smart 80-20 issue on Trump's behalf.

Trump can come in and say, hey, I want to make your city safer for you, your citizens. And then you get to watch J.B. Pritzker and Brandon Johnson say, no, no, no, no, thank you, I'm not going to work with you. That's a point in the direction of the current administration, and therefore, say, J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio in 2028. So, why give them that point?

Republican presidential candidates in the past would say, why bother? It involves a whole lot of risk. You know, something could go bad. And it is not like a bunch of, you know, in these inner cities, you are talking about a lot of minority voters, mostly blacks, and like blacks are never going to vote for a Republican anyway, so what is the point? I will just stick with the suburbs and the white people who use their turn signal and pay taxes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And Trump is like, no, screw this. It is stupid, right? And by the way, what happens? You actually do win some black votes. Donald Trump has done better than any Republican since Nixon on winning black voters. Right. And Hispanic voters have moved so far his direction. So, it is making a difference, and here's the thing that you don't understand. It's not just that you win Black voters, and they do, because they're like, thank you for caring about my city, thinking about caring about crime.

So, he won some voters. It's not going to make a difference because the Republican candidate is still not going to win the state of Illinois in the 2028 election, but voters all across the country see this kind of stuff, number one, and they appreciate it. And the fact is- When you are talking about somebody who has voted Democrat their entire life, you may not convince them to vote Republican the first time, but you might just get them to stay home and say, you know what?

I do not know if I can vote for you, but I am not going to vote for these guys. I am going to let them fail. To get someone who always votes Democrat to vote Republican is winning two votes. It is one less vote column in theirs and one more in yours. Even if they stay home, they are like, I cannot support Brandon Johnson as mayor of Chicago and Pritzker as governor of Illinois. They are being idiots. I think, again, it is good policy.

It saves lives. That is the biggest thing. I like it, but it is also good politics. 100%. Actually, it is funny. Yeah, we're talking about, not specifically, This policy about whether or not we should send in national troops into Chicago, but the bulwark editors, these are the guys, the bulwark magazine, these are the people that are never Trumpers. They're the ones who pined for the days of 2005 when Bush and Cheney were bombing foreign countries left and right, and they were talking about not so much this situation with Chicago, which, again, they're being insane.

They were talking, actually, about all the wish-casting. All the Democrats on Blue Sky were hoping that, actually, we haven't seen Trump, because Trump has been this omnipresent force every minute, every day, and then for, like, three days in a row, he's like, no one's heard from him, no one's seen him. Oh, my gosh, maybe he's dead, and they start wishing that he's dead. They're like, I hope he's just gone. Wish-casting, good word. On this podcast with these other two, you know, never-Trumper types, and she's like, Just imploring the Democrats, like, you need to convince America, she says, that these Republicans are the insane party.

Your one job, Democrats, just be the normal party, which the other Never Trumper said, we are so weak. I'll let you figure out what that is at home, but you can't do it. You have one job, and you can't do it. Yeah, I spent the whole weekend wishing for the president's death. Awesome.

He just probably had a head cold like me, you know. Yeah, I don't know. It's so funny. People are like, oh, pictures of him. He looks terrible. I was like, well, he's on camera all the time, and he's 80.

So, and a remarkable attention to detail. Just truly remarkable. Like, they've lost. All moral authority to talk about house cares. Yeah, one of the viral tweets on the Trump is dead hashtag over the weekend was, President Trump has a spot on his hand. The Queen of England had a spot on her hand, and then she died. I mean, if you ever really just, you know. I mean, go over to Blue Sky sometime if you really hate yourself and just start reading some of these lefties.

I mean, they have bananas. And that is one of the things that Ezra Klein is one of the least psycho lefties, and he really did. He spotlighted the problem that the Democrats were going to have right from the beginning of the Biden administration because he said, The new Biden administration was going to be staffed by tens of thousands of people who are like your typical blue sky screamers, psycho lefties, who are filling the Biden administration, but they have no concept, no idea how Joe Biden actually managed to win the Democratic primary, because the average Left-wing Twitter or blue-sky user is totally psycho, and they're not the average, like, Black Democrat from South Carolina that voted for Joe Biden because, oh, well, you know, he was Barack Obama's running mate, so I'll vote for him.

Right. And you get, and you ended up with the, you know, the Biden administration's policies over four years was an absolute, total difference from, like, the voters who voted him into power in the primaries. So, I mean, You had that disconnect, and again, blue sky. I mean, that's a big problem. The majority of online activists from the Democratic Party are total psychos. Yeah, and just for the listeners, you don't know what blue sky is, so blue sky is like the Twitter.

It's probably better you don't, but yeah. Yeah, so like when Elon Musk took over Twitter and everyone freaked out, the leftists were like, we got to start our own little platform, so that's blue sky. So, that's like refugees from Elon Musk, which tells you. Pretty much all you need to know about what goes on at Blue Sky. Just imagine 10,000 hall monitors screaming at each other and policing their content. Yeah, and hall monitoring each other. It is hysterical. Really, if you do need a good laugh, it is a little depressing, but yeah.

JD Vance was posted on at Blue Sky, and he was booted out 30 minutes later, and then they let him back in. That was pretty funny, actually. That was a great troll. I got to round out this section. Space Force HQ.

Is moving to Alabama, okay? Yes. Huntsville. Bama. Rocket City, as it is now known. So, this announcement was made at this press conference. The unit is responsible for defending U.S. satellites and conducting military operations in space. We'll relocate to the Redstone Arsenal Base. This is also the home of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the Army Space and Missile Defense Command, a.k.a. making a lot of sense. So, I was even looking at this. I was like, wasn't, I remember this was kind of announced, and it was.

This is after years of political jockeying between the two states, Colorado, where it is currently at. Which was supposed to be a temporary home, but didn't end up being in now Alabama, Huntsville, where it will be. So, there's a lot of reasons for why it was for Huntsville. It was actually the Air Force's choice back in 2021.

Things like infrastructure capacity, community support, and cost effectiveness. Cost is a big thing. Denver is growing very fast, and it's getting very expensive, and land is a lot cheaper in Alabama. So, it had $426 million in savings compared to Colorado. But, in 2023, President Biden reversed this decision, making the Space Command's temporary HQ in Colorado its permanent home. It was investigated by government watchdogs, which found that the Air Force preferred Huntsville and believed it to be a more cost-effective location, but Space Com leadership worried about losing civilian personnel during the move and undermining military preparedness.

That was, like, the official line that they said. Or whatever. I mean, really. So, here's the big picture. It's estimated the move will bring about as many... 1,800 jobs to Huntsville, an influx of dollars from Uncle Sam to local contractors, while Colorado's economy stands to lose $1 billion per year.

That's according to their local chamber of commerce, and interesting, Trump did throw in a dig at the end that Colorado's reliance on mail-in voting played a big factor in his decision. So, both states were pretty upset about this for a while, fighting over this crown jewel. I wanted to look in the last time a government agency was actually moved, and this is just the headquarters. I guess it's not the full agency, but the last time a major government agency was moved was actually the Bureau of Land Management.

This is back in 2020. It was moved from Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado, and the move is controversial. Why? Because 90% of the staff opted to leave the agency or work remotely out of the nearly 600 employees relocated in the new office. Because they wanted to stay in D.C. They didn't actually want to be in the interior of the country. Exactly. The agency is responsible for land management.

Yeah. Where is the land? Colorado. Hello. Yeah, I love this too. I was like remembering back when we were covering the NEAP scores and the educational outcomes. I think that moving to Alabama also put Space Force and the Air Force in the heartland of the renewal of the American education system. Because if you remember, when we looked at the results of those standardized testing across the country and adjusted for things like demographics, actually, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, states that people who are from D.C.

and Colorado love to look down on as like those dumb rednecks. Oh, yes, they do. Those students, the kids living in those states, are actually doing better in terms of literacy and mathematical ability. So, if we're looking at the long haul, the future of the Space Force is probably coming out of Alabama, not Colorado.

Well, it's hysterical that people give Alabama a hard time as if they're somehow dumb hicks when the majority of our aerospace comes out of Alabama. Does anyone know anything about what goes on in Alabama? No, they don't. It's kind of new and trendy for California and Illinois to make fun of red states. They're like, well, they are net takers instead of net givers. I feel like this isn't a winning national argument. If you have national aspirations to just make fun of significant portions of the country, I mean, I guess they're probably never going to win them.

Well, it didn't work out for them in 2024, so you can just keep pressing that button. There's also just the aspect where Donald Trump has in his mind, look, the Democrats reward their friends and punish their enemies. If that's the game that they're going to play, why are we neglecting to do this? So, his idea is Alabama is a great state full of patriotic people, and they vote the right way. If we're going to create this new agency, why don't we have it in Alabama?

And it's not for nothing. I mean, like you said, they have the space camp there in Huntsville and other stuff, so it's not like he threw a dart on the board. Right. So, there is actually a good reason for it, and there is benefit to the taxpayer, as we said, because it is cheaper. But yeah, I mean, it's like, hmm. He picked that state instead of Vermont.

Oh, yes, he did. Yeah, it's interesting, too. It actually is closer to the original political system that we inhabited, say the spoils system. Josh, are you familiar with that? Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. Where basically the political party in charge would get to appoint literally everyone in the government, and so there was a reform on that civil service reform eventually, where they had more of an established federal workforce, which has since ballooned into what we now affectionately call the deep state. So, there's issues with the previous system, but to your point, I think there's a weird… You're at least responsive.

Yeah, but there's a weird recency bias towards, oh, everything has to be quote-unquote neutral. And there needs to be these federal servants that are there forever, because they somehow know better than the American people, and like what you said.

Right, exactly, but actually, the only thing that we can control now as American citizens, really, is the presidency, and somewhat of our elected representatives now, and I voted for him because I supported him, and therefore, his decisions as... So, for my ability to make change through my vote in the country is actually bolstered by what you're describing and is actually closer to the original system we had, the spoil system, which, again, not perfect, but there was a point to it. The point is that you need to change.

We do need a, yeah, we need a hybrid system where, you know, like, civil employees are not just, like, you know, fired for no reason at all, but we do need to have accountability in these agencies through the executive.

You mentioned the MEEP scores, by the way. Someone put up a billboard in Minnesota. I thought it was pretty funny. So, Minnesotans pride themselves on being very smart, and there is always this Minnesota nice, and they decided to kind of, like, you know, this is an encouragement to have school choice in Minnesota. It is like, Minnesota nice, Mississippi smarter.

A little billboard warfare. Let's teach kids to read. I mean, this Minnesota billboard warfare, I find that pretty funny. That is awesome. Well, before we get into the good news, Erika, you had... All right. Yep, we have our friends. Did you know, home title lock, here we go. Did you know that American homeowners have over $32 trillion in equity? That's a lot. And criminals are targeting it with a growing scam the FBI calls house stealing. It is what it says it is.

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Mic drop. There you go. Excellent, excellent, excellent. Everyone is just silenced by the amazing app. Everyone should check that out. On to good news now, Erika, you're up. Good news is coming. Well, I mean, mine was that Trump's not dead, because to me, that's really good news, since I'd prefer that he... I can... And other good news were the incredible... I can alley-oop you to Michael Burbage on...

Uh, that was supposed to be B block, but I'll hit that too if you don't want to, but you're up. Okay, yeah, no, that's fine, because I actually, like, one of my favorite things is when the left media, the leftist media, puts out headlines reacting to stories that just make my heart sing a little. So, could you please pull up the Politico headline from the Trump is not dead story, because this just makes me so happy.

Headline, Politico, Trump denies he's dead. How many writers came up with this headline? Guys, not one, not two. They had three of their senior White House writers working on this story. Trump denies he's dead. Mark Twain would love this. He's just going to say that. What would Mark Twain say, Josh? Mark Twain, what did he say? Rumors of my death have been exaggerated? Yes, they're highly exaggerated.

So, he would love this headline. I love that. That was a little smile on my day yesterday. And then, of course, they get into it. All right, Josh. Okay, thank you for that, Erika. That was a great headline.

A little pick-me-up. Okay, Josh, you're up. Well, some good news. Finally, you know, guys, you know, back to school, all this stuff, there's always help for moms. Finally, someone's come up with a help desk for men. Josh, your taste in funny videos for good news are so boomer-coded, and I love it.

What do we got? Thanks for calling to help us for men. This is Mark. How can I assist you? Yeah, this is Dave. My wife, Crystal, asked me to pick up something on the way home from work. I already forgot. And I can't ask her because she says I never listen. All right, I'm going to say some common items. See if any of these ring a bell. Milk, bread, eggs, sugar.

Starbucks latte. No, that's not it either. Do you have kids, Dave? Shh. Oh, she's going to be pissed. She told me twice. I got to go. I got to go. Wait, do you happen to know what park? Woodbury Park. That is the closest field near you. Oh, I love this service. Thank you so much. My pleasure.

Are you saying this is useful for you, Josh? I'm not saying it's not. Maybe this is the next CatholicVote product. What do you think, Josh? Oh, Josh giving advice on a hotline? I love it, the Josh hotline. I mean, that's a no-brainer. Legally, tough. Solid bangers. You know what I mean? Yeah, that might have to be like an off-the-books. You'd have to have a lot of disclaimers, but it could be really funny. Could be fun. And helpful. Okay, mine is, I think, I can't remember if this is in the loop or not.

We shared it around internally, and first off, you know, I'm from Michigan. I got a lot of love from the UP. So, just a cool highlight. This was actually done by Publication Bridge, Michigan, by Lauren Herberg. She wrote an article. So, not like Catholic per se, but it's, there's a UP bakery, the UP, the Upper Peninsula. Thank you. It's run by monks, and it offers pastries and prayers is the headline. And I want to scroll through. The pictures are really cool, but the story on this is that in the 1980s, two men from Detroit moved to the Keweenaw Peninsula.

Josh, do you know where the Keweenaw Peninsula is? I do know where it is, yes. It's about as far north as you can go. I mean, it's a good six, seven hours from me. Yes, and Josh is up there, so it is remote.

There's a lot of trees in the UP and a lot of snow, so if you guys like those things, that's actually, I believe, inspiration for them to go up there and to support themselves. The monks started selling fruit preserves and baked goods at a shop they called The Jam Pot, and The Jam Pot still exists today, and it's run by two monks.

Today, people come from all over the world to visit The Jam Pot, which is voted number five on the bridge. Bridges Michigan Dreaming Ultimate Summer Bucket List, and I loved the pictures, and the story of the monks is so cool. Let me see if I can grab. Yeah, here's a picture of one at work here. So, this guy, Father Ambrose, he came up to the Keweenaw Peninsula decades ago when he was a teenager with plans to study accounting at Michigan Technological University as my father's alma mater.

The summer before his freshman year, he started working at the Jam Pot and decided to skip college and join the monastery instead. Father Nicholas and Father Basil drew him in. Those were the two founders. They were very holy men dedicated to the life. They were very hardworking, very genuine, and very sincere.

These days, the monastery has three monks. Father Ambrose wakes up at about 4 a.m. and prepares the chapel for morning service. Morning prayer lasts about two hours. The monks eat breakfast, and then in the summer, they start their days at the jam pot around 9 a.m. They get help in the shop from four secular staffers. Jam maker Matthew Cazal is one of them. He said, when he got the job, he expected the monks to look and act like the ones he'd seen on TV.

He thought they might have taken a vow of silence and the bald head with one ring of hair around. The tonsure. He said, instead, he found just a bunch of great normal people he can laugh and joke around with. And Father Ambrose said that ideally they'd have about four more employees and five additional monks. We're severely understaffed right now. It's just a hard, hard time to find workers and actually men who want to dedicate themselves to the monastic life. Many people are coming here because they want cookies or want a muffin, but there's many, many people who come and they're passing on prayer requests, Father Sergius said.

He recalled a man with cancer who came in with his wife and asked for the monks to pray for him. The couple returned later to tell the monks that he was cancer-free and thank them for praying for him. There's a larger mission to even the bakery, Father Sergio said. I'm not just here to support us, but it's also a way we can be praying for people and interacting with people as they travel this beautiful part of Michigan. I saw it as a really cool story.

This is almost like an ad for this order, but the thing is, we're very generous here at the LOOPcast by talking about this wonderful... You know, a group of monks, all we ask is if your heart is so transformed that you want to join this monastery, and you answer God's call.

Just send some of those scary jams to the loophole, okay? That's all we're asking. Shout out, it's called the Poor Rock Abbey, and they were actually drawn to, and first off, the food looks insane. Look at this. I mean, this could be the rest of your life. Take my money. Yeah, take my son. Seriously. They got stuff you can get online. It looks so cool.

Beautiful over here. And they were drawn to that part of Michigan because they said it was like a desert, a very cold desert. With a lot of the snow, and it's very, I mean, super remote. If anyone's ever been to the UP, you know. But when I find stories like this, I love to highlight them because I think we just did a spiritual retreat, and it was so refreshing to me, and it just gave me so much respect to the young men starting to become priests there, but then also people that take the next step, and they live a monastic life of prayer, which I think, especially after what happened in Minnesota, we're going to do a longer video addressing the entire situation.

But Bishop Michael Burbage had a great response to what happened, and even as I was sitting in Mass on Sunday, and I was looking at our beautiful stained glass at our church downtown, like, It just struck me. I was there with my family, and, you know, bullets could have came through there, and it just, I couldn't help but see the Minnesota event as, like, my family, like, my people, like, people that are attending Mass, people that have their kids there, and yes, like, it could happen to me, and, you know, anything could really happen.

I guess that's kind of the point. Like, prayer, I want to read exactly what... We had a bonus here at my parish in the last two weeks. Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, great quote. As we continue to witness killings and violence in our country, we ask, what can we do to eradicate such evil? Regrettably, I have seen some elected officials and media personalities dismiss the power of prayer. We alone cannot bring peace to the world. Only with the Lord is peace possible.

Christians do not consider prayer as a substitute for action. Rather, we recognize that prayer is the foundation for all good and holy work. Prayer is also a means by which we grow in relationship with God and even plead with Him. To reform our broken and wounded hearts, thus we must never tire of praying fervently for the precious gift of peace that our world, nation, and communities need in abundance.

And I think you specifically addressed the situation. At the heart of every social issue is the human person. We have become afraid as a society to speak about the crisis of persons who manifest delusions far removed from reality and are dealing with temptations and inner torments. We must acknowledge and respond to the crisis of mental health in our country. Those who violently take the lives of innocent children surely have severe mental or emotional health challenges. So often, such persons demonstrate behaviors that are alarming and routinely go unaddressed.

Out of love for them and others, we must speak the truth, name the issue, and provide the mental and emotional support needed prior to their acting out in ways that harm themselves or others. As faithful citizens, we can promote peace through acts of charity and compassion, accompanying those who struggle and suffer, and encourage growth and virtue in our communities. Above all, we can and must pray with daily fervency, calling out to the Lord, striving to remain close to Him, and asking Him to grant us all the peace only He can give.

So, shout out to the monks at Port Rock Abbey and other religious listening to this, and I just know that... My response to the event, I think, and just being in Mass the next day after, was just being really grateful for prayer, the sacraments, the community. Yeah, I love you tying that into the monks there, because the beauty of the Catholic faith, for me, and thinking a lot about this with the prayers and thoughts and comments and all the, you know, the headline and the politicians saying, oh, don't tell me about your prayers, and let's take action.

The beauty of the Catholic faith. And the bishop says this so much better, that prayer has to be the foundation of all action, and for those of us who are laity in the world, we're really busy. We have multiple kids. We work these jobs. We're like super busy. It is hard to pray without ceasing, but because we're part of the body of Christ, we have this powerhouse of prayer. These men and women who every day, every hour of their lives has been dedicated to the The spiritual battle and the spiritual warfare going on, and the value of prayer.

And it's their existence and their vocation that is the drive and the soul of what we do out in the world. And I'm just, at moments like this with the shooting, and you know, we've been working on the script. That video is coming out on Saturday with the Weekend Loop, so make sure you're subscribed to the Weekend Loop to see sort of the CatholicVote take on this.

But what a privilege to be able to face such evil with conviction and joy, and knowing we have the help of God in prayer. So, yeah, thank you for talking about that. Actually, sometimes it's easier to see the power of prayer in its absence, because, you know, you have those monks that are dedicating their lives to prayer. And look, the Second Vatican Council, I'm not trying to get into that right now, but one of the immediate aftermaths of that was that Tens of thousands of religious thought, well, what is the point anymore?

They get rid of the habits. They kind of give up their vocations. A lot of them just left. They go social justice warrior. Or they devoted themselves to social movements or political movements, and a lot of that interior life, a lot of that devotion and prayer was gone. And so, the sheer number of people that had devoted their lives.

You know, to worshiping God and dedicating themselves to prayer and to pray for the world, that shrank in dramatic fashion. And what have we seen in the last 50 years? Explosion, you know, in evil. Yeah, the most obvious of that, I think, was the nuns. Like, everyone had a nun teach them, my grandparents' generation, and now there are no nuns teaching, for the most part. Virtually, yeah. Virtually, yeah. I mean, not in the way that it was before. So, anyway, I want to grab this before we get into the Twilight Zone.

So, this kind of made the rounds, and I feel like it does every time. On Monday, Fr. James Martin met with Pope Leo, 14th, in a private audience. Fr. Martin was in Rome, leading a pilgrimage with his LGBTQ+. Thank you for watching. Ministry, outreach. There's no record of what was said in the meeting, but Father made a very positive statement on his ex-account. He also met with a nun, who I think was known for heretical beliefs, too. I'm not sure her name.

The Pope did, yeah. So, I'll read his message. Dear friends, this is from Father James Martin. I was honored and grateful to meet with the Holy Father of Pontifex this morning in an audience at the Apostolic Palace and moved to hear the same message I heard from Pope Francis on LGBTQ Catholics, which is one of openness and welcome. I found Pope Leo to be sincere, or sorry, serene, joyful, and encouraging. For me, it was a deeply consoling meeting. Please pray for the Holy Father.

A lot of people upset about this. A lot of people saying Pope Leo is just a continuation of Pope Francis. Anyway, I just wanted to get our takes on that while I saw this go around and what's going on. I mean, I don't know what is there a take of. I mean, the Pope meets with lots of people every week. And the thing is, the Pope doesn't necessarily comment on every meeting he ever has.

The advantage is you can take advantage of that. In other words, you can say, well, I met with the Pope, and we talked about this and that, and the Pope was very nice and courteous to me, and therefore, he must obviously agree with me. Not necessarily. He is just maybe this nice guy. I mean, the Pope will meet with Fidel Castro, for crying out loud. I mean, the Pope meets with everyone. That is just who he does. He is the listener.

He wants to get it from everyone. He wants to hear what everyone has to say. And he wants to have all perspectives, because there's more than one. So, this idea that, oh, obviously, he endorses his agenda. There's no evidence to point to that. Right, and the fact that Father James Martin is couching, this is all self-reported by him, and of course, he's going to couch this as, he told me to continue what I was doing, and you're like, Okay, but of course, the implication being that everything Father James Martin says coming out of outreach, again, we know what Father James Martin is about because he said it himself, and you can go watch my analysis of his interview with Ross Douthat from earlier this year, where Ross actually got him to say, yeah, we want to change church teaching on this.

Pope Leo has already been very clear that marriage is between one man and one woman, that we are created male. And female. So, you know, until we hear otherwise, I'm going to stick with that. I thought it was also interesting that this week, the Pope announced that he's awarding Catholic speaker, researcher, amazing intellectual Mary Rice Hassan with the Cross Pro Ecclesia Award, which is one of the highest papal honors for the lady in the church. And for those of you who don't know who Mary Rice Hassan is, you are missing out.

She's amazing. She is a force to be reckoned with. Traditional church teaching, primarily on sexual ethics, but really on anything. She's written so widely. She's been an amazing advocate for She works at Ethics and Public Policy Center, Person and Identity Project. She's been at Franciscan University. She's been a visiting fellow there. And for her to receive this award, it's not an award I would have expected the Francis Pontificate to give to her. So, to me, this is a countersign to the self-reporting of Father James Martin.

I'm going to withhold. Yeah, like, after Francis, I'm not naming any children after any living figures in the church. Even Cardinal Burke, I'm going to wait until he's at least beatified before I go naming babies after anyone who's alive. Anyone. But I'm not freaking out about Pope Leo because of this one post by Father James Martin yet. I think it's a little premature, and I think...

I want to say the reaction of some people, in some sense, makes sense because he's been so openly heretical for so long and seemingly promoted by previous pontificate, and I think that's really frustrating to people that are dealing with the fallout of the sexual revolution and the impacts that it's had, maybe on family members or just on the family in general and society.

So, I want to say I don't want to completely dismiss people that are still sensitive about it. I think it makes a lot of sense. But I think everything you said is true, and Father James Martin has a long and storied history of self-promotion. I mean, that's all he does. It's like, say things from his own vantage that you can't completely discount. But fortunately, CatholicVote, we did an outreach expose on his quote ministry, which I think we're going to throw in the chat here.

It's fantastic. And then Erika's treatment in the deep is fantastic as well. So, I would say, yeah, to Josh's point, he meets with a lot of people, and then people know what the photo op would be. He's like, I actually prefer a Pope meeting with just about everyone. Especially one that has been super encouraging so far in many different aspects, and seems to be very genuine, thoughtful about his approaches. So, I think I also saw something. He kept the same calendar as Pope Francis, so he still honored the appointments that were made before his death.

Sure, and I think the frustration that some of the traditionalists and the conservatives have is that Pope Francis, I believe, allowed and started some fires, and Leo is not immediately coming with a massive... A fire hose is letting some of these fires just kind of peter out on their own. Because maybe he wants to address something else first. Maybe he's spending his time in researching and focusing on another treatment of Rerum Novarum, because he took the name Leo precisely as a tribute to Rerum Novarum, the previous Pope Leo XIII, because of all the massive artificial intelligence and all these other things that are migration of people.

You know, world economy, you know, it is causing a lot of upheaval and plans to give more upheaval in the years to come, and so maybe that he wants to focus on that first, and, you know, when that first encyclical comes out, maybe that is why he is waiting on addressing sort of the James Martin stuff until after he gets that part done. I do not know. I am just speculating. He may be a continuation of it. He may not be, but some of the stuff, some of the response online.

It almost reminds me of the early years of Francis, where it was like, ah, I want to be the first one to show that I didn't trust this guy. Like, look, look. We should probably not jump the gun on all these things. Yes, be vigilant. Yes, point out the record. I think Christine Nile had a great little post about all the ways in which Father James was off his rocker on church teachings. I think we should make sure to mention that, but that doesn't mean Pope Leo is endorsing it.

Yeah. Yep. Okay. Twilight Zone now. Josh? All right, so again, this whole thing about Trump, like, apparently dying because, you know, he was not in the limelight for like three or four days. Let's, and I talked about before on the MEEP scores with Mississippi, you know, you know, this whole nudging. Minnesota nice. Minnesotans love to brag about how nice they are. Here is Minnesota Governor Tim Walton. No, Josh. You get up in the morning and you doom scroll through things and...

Although I will say this, the last few days you woke up thinking there might be news. Just saying. Just saying. There will be news sometime. Just so you know, there will be news. He's talking about, like, the hope that you find the news that Trump has died. He was literally saying that. Like, that's what he's getting at. Like, you're a dream scrolling through all this boring stuff. You're just hoping, oh, maybe today will be the day. It'll happen someday. You know what?

This is a reminder for y'all, just so you understand. It will happen, obviously. I mean, it is a reality. At some point in the next 20 years, I'm sure, probably sooner, Donald Trump will finally die, and the left will celebrate. Oh, yeah. Like, an absolute party. If it happens when he's in office, they will go bananas. So, just bait that into the cake. Be ready for it. I just thought that was particularly noxious because, of course, I'm born in Minnesota. People in Minnesota like to brag about Minnesota nice, how nice they are.

That guy almost was our vice president, and he was totally openly begging that Trump would be dead. Yeah, I love it. There's a lot of people that would privately do that, though. They would privately be celebrating, but more tactful. There's something so weird about Tim Walz. He is the most off-putting. Nothing that he does really lands the way they think he wants to. His mannerisms are bizarre. His wife is really strange. He's been to China 30 times. There's something about him that obviously does not make sense, and I don't know why.

It's just like someone's got blackmail on them or something. Exactly. Why do they keep pressing him forward? I don't know who's... Who's pressing him forward? Who would think that he's possibly a good idea for this? Nothing about him makes any sense. Yeah, I feel like in 100 years, when 100 years when historians, like good historians, are writing the story of the 2024 campaign, it's just going to be like a page turner, and no one will believe it happened. It's just going to be like, I can't believe this.

Like, anyway, it's going to be crazy. Yeah, and the fact that, I mean, so Tim Walz here, governor of a state where there was a shooting, he was campaigning on the opposite side of his political enemy, who was... He had two assassination attempts at him, and now he's like, gosh, I wish he was dead. You're like, okay, keep turning up the heat. I mean. Keep calling for him to die, because the crazy people who listen to you are like. The party of civility wishing for someone's death.

Oh, yeah. No, I love this. I love someone this weekend made a comment to me about how, as they watched Joe Biden and Kamala Harris leave the White House, they were like, well, there goes civility. I'm like, did you see Tim Walz? Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. Something does not make sense about him, and I don't know what... And it never will, really. No, and it never will. We're well past that. Erika, you're 12th zone. Yeah, I'm actually going to grab Josh's as a sort of teaser for Friday here. We have this picture coming out of Belgium this week as well. Guys, we're going to dig into this on Friday, live show, me, Tom McCluskey, and Josh Mercer, because Poe goes off like celebrating a wedding anniversary or something.

Whatever, guys. Yeah. We're going to dig into Europe. This is just a preview. We have this image from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I believe this is in Brussels, Belgium, and here's the eternal flame, and we have a migrant in the background with bags of trash and his shopping bags, and we have a skillet over the eternal flame cooking what appears to be maybe eggs and shrimp.

This is sort of the ultimate sacrilege that you can do. I mean, this is a tomb to an unidentified Belgian soldier who perished in World War I. He's buried under this, and he symbolizes all the unidentified fallen Belgian soldiers, of whom there were many in World War I, because they all died in the trenches and were buried in the mud. And now we have the wave of illegal migration. Not only so much that, okay, here's a guy who has not assimilated into European culture and has no But also that the local governing authorities, the people who are supposed to care for our commonwealth and the heritage of this nation, they didn't care enough to keep it from getting to this point.

Yeah, so, I mean, there's a bunch of things here. And I have conversations with people on just mass migration in general or immigration. I just think this is not a good... Set up for the country or the immigrant? Because how could this immigrant, especially if he doesn't speak the language, doesn't understand the culture, doesn't understand the history, know any different? I mean, he probably doesn't know. Or maybe he does, or he has some sense of that, but he's not properly integrated.

There's no path for him to be immigrated. It's just, when you do this, there's a massive influx of people. You're setting him up to fail, and you're setting the country up to fail, and then what does it say about the country that you don't even have... The guts, basically, to defend your tomb, or maybe you feel like you shouldn't have to, but because of what's happening with migration, I guess you have to now, because there's people that don't understand or have the proper reverence.

I mean, just such a mess all around for everyone. Mass migration does not make sense for anyone, the country or the immigrant. I mean, just imagine, like, a thousand years from now. Archaeologists uncover this whole place, and they realize all these graves that are marked, and they all have pretty much, they can figure out, oh, they all pretty much died around the same time, and they were all like 18, 19, 20 years old. They were like, wow.

These must have been a lot of soldiers that were all buried, and they could see the names of so many of them in the fields there, in the graveyard. Wow, this must have been, maybe this was that great war, the great First World War. Maybe, or is it the second one? No, I think it was the first. And they're like, who was buried in this?

This big edifice with this, looked like it was a torch, and just a grand surrounding. Was it like the king, or was it the president, the prime minister? And they're looking, and they're trying to identify the language, and it's like, oh, here, they decode the language. They figure out, okay, now, we think we understand this language. Here is buried someone whose name was known only to God.

Oh, wow. They've given this guy, who they don't know the name of, and they're embarrassed that they don't know the name of, but they're so proud of his service, that he sacrificed his life to save the country, that they're giving him a high place of honor like you would like a pharaoh or a king. And this guy puts his damn frying pan on the torch to cook his meal.

I mean, this is what I'm saying. Like, there's a book that came out about 40 years ago, Jean Raspail called it The Camp of the Saints. This book was so controversial. Guess what? It's coming back into print, and his quote was so perfect for this moment. He said, your universe has no meaning to them. They will not try to understand.

They will be tired. They will be cold. They will make a fire with your beautiful oak door. A warning. A warning when you import millions of people into your country that don't share your culture, don't share your law, don't share your traditions, don't share your faith.

You wake up to a new country. And so, people in the wake of like the, you know, the school shooting in Minnesota, they're like, oh my gosh, why do we have guns? This is terrible. This is horrible. It is horrible, but you look at Britain, where my ancestors left in 1692. Yeah, they don't have any guns anymore, and they get arrested for sharing memes on Twitter. So, pardon me if I actually love my country, love my traditions, love my freedoms.

And I'm going to fight for him. You're darn right I am. And I do respect that person as a child of God, but yeah, I'd have some words. I'd have some words with him. Flip some tables. I know so many people who have lost their lives or were marred or maimed fighting our wars, a lot of the wars that were pretty stupid, some of them good and justified. And to me, this is just this image.

It speaks volumes about the disconnect between the elite in our countries, in the Western countries, who hate us. Yeah, it is not a good situation for anyone. And then people are mad at Eric Schmidt. Oh, gosh, yeah. That was going to be my other one. We're going over a little bit here, but yeah, Eric Schmidt gave a banger of an address at NatCon just yesterday, talking about how America is a homeland, and the Puritans came here, and they established a homeland with their blood, sweat, and tears, and the immigrants came here.

There we go. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Why not? Continental Army soldiers dying of frostbite at Valley Forge. The pilgrims struggling to survive in the hard winter soil of Plymouth. The pioneers striking out from Missouri for the wild and dangerous frontier, the outnumbered Kentucky settlers repelling wave after wave of Indian war band attacks from beyond the stockade walls, all of them would be astonished to hear that they were only fighting for a proposition.

They believed they were fighting for a nation, a homeland for themselves and their descendants. They fought. They bled. They struggled. They died for us. They built this country for us. America, in all its glory, is their gift to us, handed down across the generations. It belongs to us. It's our birthright. It's our heritage, our destiny. If America is everything and everyone, then it is nothing and no one at all. I'll tell you this.

If Vance doesn't pick Rubio as his run-of-mate, he might just go with Senator Schmidt. When they tear down our statues and monuments, mock our history, and insult our traditions, they're attacking our future as well as our past. Amen, brother. By changing the stories we tell about ourselves, they believe they can build a new America with the new myths of new people.

But America doesn't belong to them. It belongs to us. It's our home. It's a heritage entrusted to us by our ancestors. It's a way of life that is ours, and only ours. If we disappear, then America, too, will cease to exist.

Sorry, some people thought this was racist? Yeah, you look at the comments on Twitter on this one, and they're like, oh my gosh. Someone who I literally don't even want to name, Joel Berry, is, hi Eric, can you define we or us is?

Go kill some more Catholics in Gaza. Seriously, this guy is insane on Twitter. But I don't understand why this is racist. Is it racist to say that white Protestants founded the country that we now inhabit? Apparently, yeah. It is totally racist. Why do people have to be embarrassed about that?

Well, we have this like Dances with Wolves version of history where every American Indian loved the earth and loved everyone. It was just an innocent victim. And that there were no tribes like the Iroquois that were totally savage. I mean, again, there is like a pendulum here. It is like you had this... History in America, like maybe in the 1850s were, we did nothing wrong ever. We were wonderful. That is not the answer, but the answer we have gotten in the last 50 years is America is evil in everything it ever did, and everyone else was right, and we were totally wrong.

That is also dumb. Maybe to get more academic about it, and Erika, you could round this out. If we believe that America, the country, was one of the first in the world, and actually the longest continuous running on the same system, close to the same system, was the first to tie the good of the inhabitants, the citizens, to the common good, and not it was just a class of elites or rulers and then everyone else, and that system that we've inherited has blossomed into the America that we have today based on those principles that are now universal and we all share.

I don't see why that, maybe if you look at it that way, that wouldn't be a problem, but it's just not looked at in that way, or it's not understood to be that? Yeah, I mean, two things there. I would say that there have been other systems of government, non-democratic, that were based on the common good and a friendship between ruler and ruled, namely some iterations of the feudal system in medieval Europe and Christendom, right? That's what Aquinas is describing. What happened there?

And then in the United States, I think when you read what Eric is saying, he is clearly addressing the issue of immigration, of breaking down borders, of, you know, turning the government into a system of reparations for this imagined, you know, these evils, the unatoned evils of America. And you're like, have you never heard of the Civil War? Unatoned? Oh, we've atoned, right? We atoned. That's the checks of Gettysburg, baby. Yeah, and I think Eric Schmidt would be the last person to say, oh, only people who have a DAR, like Daughters of the American Revolution, or they had ancestors on the boat, the Mayflower, only those are Americans.

That is not what he is saying. The genius of America is because it is founded on these principles, it is able to welcome and assimilate into the homeland and into the American vision. People from all over the world. But that doesn't mean that it's just a free-for-all, and you come in here, you don't have to assimilate, you can just turn America into whatever your vision of the Commonwealth is. Like, look at, you know, mini-Somalia. Yeah, you marry your brother, make millions of dollars, and all the wealth for payments to your whole community.

Yeah, why not? That's not the American homeland. So, yeah, people are welcome to come here who are not yet Americans and to become part of America, but they have to acknowledge. That America already is, we already are here, we have been here for 200 and over 250 years. Almost 250 years. Right? And if you are to come here, you are coming to join in that great endeavor, right? It doesn't matter what color you are. I mean, I'm sure Eric Schmidt would be like, Friedrich Douglass, great American, because he made America more of what she was meant to be.

She became more herself because of Friedrich Douglass. She became more herself because of Harriet Tubman, right? America is one of the first countries to basically get beyond ethnocentrism through its own principles in the Declaration of Independence. Well, I mean, sure. I mean, you know, the policy of the United States was still very much pro-Western civilization, Western European countries. So, I mean, let's not pretend like they were, oh, well, oh, we love everyone equally. No, no. No, I'm saying eventually we progressed to that through using the principles laid out by the founders.

Almost too much, because then we just assume that... Anyone who says, I love America and will pledge allegiance to the flag, then they are just as American as everyone else, and you start to realize, you know what? If they come from a culture where they do not have understanding of rule of law, respect for privacy, freedom of speech, all this other kind of stuff, then you start running into some problems where they just act out in public, and they make a ton of noise, and they do not have… These sort of common sense things that we think are just natural, but they are not natural.

They had to develop over the course of many centuries of customs and mores, stuff that you do not necessarily see on a civics exam or an entrance test for immigrants. What the hell are with these people? Why are they going crazy? It is not skin color. It is not that. It is your culture.

And we need to get back to more of that. I mean, that is what, you know, progressing, you know, to try to treat everyone as if they have that same aspiration to be an American, that is a good aspiration, but we have got to be a little bit more realistic about, you know, the potential for them to actually assimilate, you know, as easy for someone from Somalia to assimilate as it is from South Korea.

It's probably going to be tougher for someone from Somalia. Probably. Probably. Well, actually, we have the stats on that. Quick correction, Emily, in the chat. America did not abolish slavery first. Josh? UK did, right? Well, I mean, I guess, what is she getting at? Like, we abolished it, you know.

I don't know. I mean, I don't know. First in the West? Is that what you mean, Emily? We're definitely not the first country in the West. William Wilberforce. Yeah, no, no. Amazing Grace. Great movie. But I'm wondering if she meant something else by that. Like, you know, we first abolished slavery, then we, you know. Then we did other things. Maybe that was what. All right. Sorry to jump on you, Emily. All right. My little history radar went up. I'll come in.

I'll come in quick with this one. So, we got Malcolm Gladwell. Doing quite a 180 on his trans-athlete stance, which I thought was interesting. I'll play that. We did a replay of that exact panel at the Sloan Conference this coming March. It runs in exactly the opposite direction, and it would be, I suspect, near unanimity in the room that trans-athletes have no place in the female category.

I don't think this is any question. I just think it was a strange, I mean, I felt, I mean, I was, the reason, I'm ashamed of my performance of that panel, because I share your position 100%, and I was count. The idea of saying anything on this issue, I was, you know, I believe in retrospect, in a dishonest way, I was, I was objective in a dishonest way.

Objective in a dishonest way. Now, I like some of— Well, I mean— I guess I wish you would be more honest. Like, I follow the herd mentality. Like, look, there's no crime in that. Like, conservatives do this, too, on certain things, where we just follow the herd. Yeah, that's a point I would like to make, because Michael Schallenberger, who's done a great job on this issue, I think made the best point on it. Like him or not, Malcolm Gladwell is one of the most influential and financially successful journalists in the last 30 years.

For him to say he was too scared to say men don't belong in girls' sports. Shows both how totalitarian the MSM is, mainstream media, and how chicken-ass the MSM journalists are. I pretty much agree with this, because if you go back to 2019, the infamous Megan E. Murphy tweet getting banned for saying men aren't women, literally got her perma-banned and ostracized from just about everywhere, and she's a, what is she, a radical feminist? It's not like she was some kind of...

You know, like, not with me on many different things, but this is one thing she wasn't giving up on. It will never cease to be amazing how a small group of highly aggressive and pathological people bullied all of high liberal society into denying basic reality, and such bullying was required to get away with their complete horror show of medical atrocities worse than any Cronenberg film against children and the mentally ill. And then he talks about the WPath files. He's a beast on this.

So, talk about someone who knows. It does, and I will also like to say, yes. Oh, there goes Josh. Bye, Josh. I'm not even against people now coming out and changing their mind on this, even if they were wrong before, because I think Josh says it all the time. You've got to offer people an off-ramp, and even if you didn't at the time have the courage or whatever to come out about it, come over to the side of reality, because as Michael Schellenberger has done in depth, there's real physical, material, spiritual harms.

To people that you went along with, say either the women that lost out on opportunities, but also people who got chopped up as a part of this insane movement, and then literally we just saw in Minnesota, clearly a part of that narrative there.

I thought it was interesting that even, you know, the great Malcolm Gladwell, or a lot of people, the most successful, the most influential, felt bullied, as if they somehow didn't have a voice, or it would be too much of a sacrifice, to be honest, about the obvious. I mean, nothing has been more of an obvious reality than watching a grown man, say, spike a volleyball at a girl's face, is just like, what are we doing here? And leave her permanently, like, injured in the brain.

Right. Right. So, hey, the pool's warm. Hop over. If someone's still on that, I don't know what to tell you. I think he's right. I think the public opinion has completely shifted on that because people are just, the issue's gone way too far. So, happy to see him over on the side of reason, revisionist history.

So, Josh is out, but Daily Prayer will end with, but if you want to support the show, go check out our sponsors, Ave Maria Mutual Funds and Home Title Lock. You can join the Champions Club. Best way to support us, catholicboat.org slash champions. That is where you can do that. I will be out Friday. I have a date with my lovely wife. We have been married for six years. Congratulations. Pray for us. You are going to enjoy that time off, celebrate the anniversary.

But Josh and Erika, and if tinfoil Tom gets out of a meeting he does not want to be in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, Tinfoil Tom. This will be way more fun. Way more fun than meeting on the hill. Yeah, exactly. Way more fun. If not, it's just me and Josh talking about the demise of Europe, the UK, and we'll get some good news in there, too. Yeah, always good news in there. Make sure you check out The Deep tomorrow. We are talking dead internet theory.

It's going to be a banger. Which was a really exciting topic for Simon and Tom as our resident Gen Zs, and I was not on board with that. I was pushing for it for a long time. But I was like, you know, for the love of Tom, I'm going to do this. I did, and now I am totally enthralled. I said, you guys have no idea what is here. I really had to push hard to get this approved. I was like, no, you do not understand.

This is what is going on. So, that is a great tease. It is going to be a great video. Go subscribe on YouTube, and yeah, we post those on Thursdays at 4 p.m., and please ask you guys to support it. Go check it out. Erika does great work. Simon does great work. Simon the goat. So, we will end with our daily prayer. So, we have a prayer to Christ on the cross by St. Gregory the Great. I believe Rosie said it is his feast day today.

So, we are going to end with that. Thank you for tuning in. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. I beseech you, Lord Jesus Christ, that your passion may be a strength for me, by which I may be fortified, protected, and defended. May your wounds be food and drink for me, by which I may be fed, inebriated, and delighted. May the sprinkling of your blood be an absolution for my sins. May your death be eternal. Glory for me.

In these, may refreshment, health, zeal, joy, delight. And desire of my body and soul be mine, now and forever. Amen. Amen. St. Thomas Morris, Savior of Delos, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Thanks for joining, guys. See you guys. Ready to rock. Peace.