Catholic Archdiocese Sues Trump Admin, Cornell 7 Case Erupts, and Special Guest Mark Houck

And we're live. Welcome back to LOOPcast. Today, Tom is off in the wild, and in his stead, we have guest host Mark Houck. Welcome to LOOPcast, and joining me, Erika and Josh Mercer, up in Michigan, as always. So, we're very excited to have Mark on the show, longtime friend of CatholicVote, now fellow colleague here at CatholicVote. So, we're very excited to get your take on all the headlines today. Ooh, I have something. I have something. Okay, okay. Josh has breaking surprise news.

What's up? I voted today. This is a reminder to a lot of folks. Election Day isn't just November 3rd. You have the opportunity in many states to vote early or vote by absentee. I like to get my ballot. So, yes, I voted for, and people are like, what would you vote for? Let me see. One political party is devoted to taxpayer funding of baby killing, transing kids, and flooding our country with millions of illegal immigrants. Yeah, I don't think I voted for a single Democrat again.

Shocker. There you go. We're shocked, Josh. We had no idea what would be outcome there. That is crazy. All right. So, yes, early voting is open. And Josh voted Republican. Yeah, so I think early voting is open in like 13 states. Mail-in voting is almost everywhere at this point. So, get in there, vote early, maybe vote often, depending where you live, but we will keep it honest here on the webcast. All right. So, we have a lot on the show today.

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Victory, Our Lady of the Rosary, Our Lady of Lepanto. The 455th anniversary of the victory of Don Juan and Our Lady over the Ottoman fleet, which is such a great story. We're going to talk more about that during the show, all the wonderful miracles that came out of that. But first, we have our OG sponsor. We want to give a shout out to Charity Mobile. Now more than ever, it is important to do business with companies that stand with you and your beliefs.

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They have about 30 cases on the docket. They're expected to add probably 30 or 35 more by the end of the term, but we got this interesting ruling from them just this week that touches on Immigration and the Trump administration's efforts to undo the four years of the Biden debacle. So, on Monday, the justices sent back to the Ninth Circuit a ruling that had blocked Homeland Security from canceling extensions of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, specifically for Venezuelans. The TPS, just a quick reminder, allows eligible foreign nationals from countries facing dangerous conditions to remain.

Temporarily in the United States and get work. Temporary meaning, so I think the Somalian program, I looked it up, is now in its 35th year. So, temporary is a negotiable term, and in March, so in March 2025, there were 1.3 million TPS residents in the United States, most famously, of course, the Haitian community, the Somalians, and then the Venezuelans. A million of those have had that status revoked since then, which is crazy. And this case affects about 605,000 Venezuelans. But the interesting part about the ruling here is that it wasn't the justices so much ruling on the Trump administration's...

Their decision to revoke TPS for the Venezuelan population, but that the justices were directing, basically, the Supreme Court already ruled in June that, yes, the executive branch has the constitutional authority to enforce Congress's rules, and Congress has already spoken on TPS, that this should be temporary. So, the enforcement goes... It's in the word. Yeah, and so what the Supreme Court is saying is, all you activists...

Just judges on the Ninth Circuit, you need to get yourselves in line. You have nothing to say about foreign affairs, you have nothing to say about national security, and you need to let the executive branch do its job. So, Josh, talk to us about TPS and what the conservatives, it was 6-3 on the court, are doing here.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, I can't, I mean, the idea of temporary, I mean, this is why I like to tell people there was a temporary tax on long-distance service that was used to fund the Spanish-American War in 1898, and it was finally repealed in 2006. How do you know that?

That is what I mean by temporary, temporary, sure, temporary, but actually, it is supposed to mean, actually, you know, temporary, and that when the circumstances, you know, involved in your country have changed, and it is no longer an absolute danger, then you should go back, and if it is permanently a problem in your country, then you can try to apply for citizenship, and become an immigrant, the normal process, but temporary is meant to be temporary in these people. Who have been in there 19, 20 some years.

It is like, what is going on here? And so, what the Supreme Court had decided back in the court case back in June was, in fact, yes, actually, there is nothing in the statute that allows judges the flexibility and leeway to just allow this to continue forever. And so, the Constitution is clear. So, the statute that Congress enacted is clear. So, we as a court, it's nice when a political entity recognizes a limitation on its own power. It says, we don't really have the power to do anything.

If you don't like this, Congress can change it. And then I start, it's like, actually, we really still don't like it. The Supreme Court is like, yeah, yeah, no, no, I don't, I really don't care. I really don't care that you don't like it. Temporary means temporary. Did you see what we just issued in June? You might want to go double check that. And so, they've remanded this back to the Ninth Circuit and said, in light of the decision they cast in June.

In other words, they're like, are you dense? Did you not see what we sent? So, they basically signal they're not going to have any other challenges on this. They're like, look, we've already ruled. There's no... Wiggle room. There's no authority for us to just to make up the rules as we go along. Temporary means temporary.

Thanks be to God for that. I mean, my gosh, like, activist judges are on the bench. I have experienced that in my own family life, and it is just like, it is this, their fiefdom, their own silo they are on, they feel like they can, they have no accountability, no checks and balances there. It is good for the Supreme Court that was able to reel that in a little bit, or whatever, lasso it in, because it is just continually happening.

Judges that were appointed, some by George W. Bush, that we thought were pretty conservative, they are coming to the end of their term, and they want to rule on these things because they want to keep this going. It is really a shame, and our country is suffering as a result of it. So, thanks be to God.

There was actually a judge over in Pittsburgh that ruled against the Catholic school, and I am like, who in the heck appointed this idiot? And it was Donald Trump in his first term. So, yes. No president is banning 1,000. We never expect that, of course, and I think part of the problem is that you get rogue judges precisely because, you know, the Supreme Court for so long acted like a constitutional convention, a permanent nine-member constitutional convention. They can invent things in the Constitution, like the right to an abortion and all this stuff, and thankfully, we have a Supreme Court that's reining that in, because if they didn't...

You're going to see political pressure where, hopefully, someday, members of Congress will be like, this judge over here is ridiculous and needs to be removed. That's one of the things, if you ask the Founding Fathers, somehow, if you could go back 250 years, hey, by the way, they would be shocked by many things. But one of the things they would be shocked by, not actually that the president gets impeached, that would not be that shocking to them, but they'd be like, you never, that judge did this.

Yeah, you never touched the judiciary. Like, impeach that guy. It's there for a reason, you know? But now, it would only be like if a judge committed like $180,000 bribe, then they would get rid of him. You know what I mean? And usually, the guy would actually quit before it got to impeachment. Just, they don't impeach judges. That's like, yeah.

Crazy to me. Yeah, thank God. So, what are the chances that the Ninth Circuit gets it right this time, Josh? Are they just going to ignore the Supreme Court, too? No, they're not going to ignore the court. I mean, they're kind of hoping that the court would revisit this, but then the Ninth Circuit's going to be like, okay, well, looks like we have to do it this way. I can't imagine they would. They would run into a wall 100 miles an hour.

That is good. That is good. Yeah, and when it comes to the immigration, so the Trump administration's policy here of revoking the TPS for all these populations, which some of them it has been going on for decades, this was in stark contrast for me to the story that came out this week. There was an analysis done by a federal watchdog organization. And this was like the mildest way of putting it. They exposed a major gap in visa overstay enforcement during the Biden administration, and even the word major doesn't really capture what was going on.

So, what do you say? I mean, let's say you're given a visa to be in the United States for like five months or something like that, and then you just like stay after it expires. You're here for 7, 10, 15 months, a couple years maybe even. Well, what happened during the Biden administration? We had how many? There's like 3 million of these visa overlays? Yeah, there were 3 million overstay alerts between 21 and 24, and across the categories that they were looking at in this report, how many, do you want to just take a guess?

Well, you guys already know. There were 12. Just 12. Not 1,200, not 12,000, just 12 arrests on these visa overstays, and of those, 105,000 of the leads were classified as potential national security or public safety threats, and then the investigators pursued about 500 of those, so they pursued maybe 500 out of 105,000, and there were eight arrests, and then other categories produced Just four additional arrests. So, all told, we were looking at 24 arrests by ICE under the Biden administration for these visa overstays.

You can't even, it sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit, just 24 out of 3 million. It's a reaffirmation of what Donald Trump said in June of 2024, when a bunch of senators wanted to put forward a terrible immigration compromise bill, and Donald Trump told all of his supporters in the Senate, like, No, dude, stop this bill. We don't need a new bill. We don't need a new law. We need a new president, and he's proven that every month since. Yeah, it's just wild.

Yeah, and I think that, I mean, Mark, you were under the Biden administration. There were so many Twilight Zone-style reports coming out right now from the DOJ, from the Department of Health, about just the absolute dereliction of duty and the failure to enforce our laws and our Constitution under the Biden administration, that I do think it's a good refresher on why we fought so hard in 2024. Why it's so important that Donald Trump won, and why voting in this midterm is also very, very important, because we don't want to go back to— That, right?

For sure. For sure. I mean, just seeing in the loop with Merrick Garland, with the school boards, and just how they abused their authority, and even the warnings that were coming within decent people within the DOJ that said, like, hey, this is a violation of First Amendment rights. And then Merrick Garland, just dereliction of duty, like, no, we're going to do this anyway, and just totally weaponized through Biden administration. It is really sad. It is incredible how much this keeps coming out, and it is further victimizing to people like me to see this, and it is like you are kind of rehashing it.

The good news is the DOJ is saying they are going to apologize to those people who were wounded by this. That is a good thing. They have yet to apologize to me. That is okay. Not bitter party of one here, or I should say party of nine. Still waiting on that apology, Donald Trump. You are no longer there, Todd Blanche, please. Children are begging for it, but at least they are doing it, and they are going to remunerate a little to those organizations and give them training so that they can, you know.

Avoid this in the future, so hopefully these school boards that are, you know, there's a lot of corruption at the local level, we know that, you know, that they can start, you know, having good people be able to voice their opinions, and parents who actually care, not to take it too far away from immigration, but, like, it's just so sad to see that still coming up and resurfacing, and it does, and what a great time. People need to be reminded before those midterms, as you said, like, this stuff is still...

We're still dealing with the fallout of all this, and we better vote accordingly because it's bound to come back. Yeah, I think that's one of the, like, detrimental things to democracy in terms of the just 24-hour news cycle, right? That already your story, Mark, from four or five years ago seems like ancient history. It's been lost in, like, so many other crises, and so we're so caught up in the information that we get as voters being just, like, turnover, and it's, like, distraction after distraction after distraction.

And so, I do think it's really important that The Loop is highlighting all of these reports coming out, looking back at what happened. And like you said, real people like you and your family are still living with the fallout of a DOJ that characterized you as domestic terrorists, that characterized pro-life activists as the worst offenders and dangers to democracy that there were. And we have to keep that front and center, especially You know, on the Feast of Lepanto, I was thinking about this, and just the amazing unity that Europe was able to show under the leadership of the Pope at that battle.

And people, we don't understand, like, how fractured Europe was. There was the Protestant Reformation going on. The Catholics were fighting each other because they were angry about, like, you know, he married his sister, and she married, you know, there was so much infighting. And the only way Lepanto happened, not only by the grace of God, Was by this unity that they realized, wait a minute, the Turks are at our door. Like, they're sailing for Rome, and we have to get together, and they did.

And I think that we have to continue to keep that front and center with stories like this coming out. No, it's an important thing because, you know, sometimes we have fights inside the family, but we have to be united when it comes to, you know, when we get to the field of battle. That's what I like to say with regards to elections.

We have the primaries to fight it out, to scrap it out, to find out if we can find a better person on our team, but then when it comes to election time, there's no question in my mind, one party wants to do horrendous things. They want taxpayers to finance the killing of babies. They want to trans our kids, and they want to flood our country with millions of illegal immigrants. They need to be stopped. Absolutely. There's no question in my mind.

That's why I got my vote in already. That's right. I got my vote in already. Let's go. You never know what's going to happen between now and then. We might be dead on election day, though that's never stopped any Democrats from voting. So, anyway, let's move on. So, this story, speaking of the removal of immigrants, and a lot of criticism has come at the Trump administration for the way in which it's done. So, obviously, like we covered the ICE tragedies in Minneapolis last winter, and people, a lot of criticism going on for the violence, and this actually is a story that I think it's worth highlighting.

Because it also highlights just how post-Christian many people on the right are, and just in law enforcement are, because we have the Archdiocese of St. Louis as actually bringing a lawsuit against immigration officials, Trump administration, and the Missouri law enforcement. So, they're taking it to federal court, and they're alleging that the priests visiting the immigration detainees and the people who are in charge of the immigration detainees, the people who are in charge of the immigration detainees, So, some descriptions of the conditions from the lawsuit itself, the Archdiocese says that their clergy have been restricted to visiting from noon to four on one day a week, which obviously limits the number of detainees a priest can speak with, and this is directly from it.

Effectuates a total ban on clergy offering. And detainees receiving the Catholic sacraments, including communion and confession, and severely limits the basic spiritual counseling that clergy may provide, and which detainees desperately seek. So, they're saying the Archdiocese is pointing out that these conditions violate religious liberty, and they're saying there's an asymmetrical treatment here of Catholic priests compared to attorneys and, like, consul officials from the...

The Trump administration, who are able to have face-to-face conversations without a screen in front of them. So, thoughts on this? Is this a just lawsuit? What are we hoping to see out of this? I'm going to jump in here. I was in criminal justice, juvenile justice, and we had plenty of back security.

Did that for four and a half years, and the priest would come to see the delinquents, the juvenile delinquents. Pre-adjudicated and adjudicated delinquent youth, and we had every ability to let them in at any time, to see the delinquent child, and we cannot prevent them, right? It is their right, their God-given right to receive the sacraments, to worship, to pray, and have that opportunity. So, I think it is a just lawsuit. It has to happen. It is so important. You cannot deny these people.

And I know they might be illegal or whatever, but they cannot be denied the sacrament, so I think it's a great lawsuit. It's an important precedent to set, and the fact that they're doing it, and they've been doing this for years, by the way. This isn't the first time this has come up. I remember Joan Andrews was in solitary confinement in Florida back in the late 90s, and she was denied communion, and she was abused in there, too, by staff. So, it's not the first time this has happened, but get it on the record, and let's get this right.

They still have rights. Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything Mark says. I mean, I just, you know, obviously, when this thing happens, you get a bunch of people who use it as a battering ram against the Trump administration or whatever, and I just feel like, you know, sometimes, you know, like, the simplest answer is probably the easiest one and truest one, which is... Security guards, all these different people, they don't want to do any more than they have to do, necessarily.

It's a tough job. They don't like it. So, accommodating a request like this is not something that they're necessarily immediately amenable to, but that being said, if the rules are in place and they're not providing for this, absolutely. I agree with the lawsuit. We should do it. I just have to say, it's good to see. When a bishop in a diocese talks about the need for us to receive sacraments, I kind of remember COVID when all of us were treated worse than this, and we had no access to the sacraments.

That does not mean that they are not right here. No, they are correct, and it is good to see that they get four hours on a Monday for this instead of just one hour for confession at 3.15 in the afternoon on a Saturday. Oh, burn. Just letting that one go.

That is an excellent point, Josh. Had not thought of that. Yeah, as we watch the supposed Russian plague begin to spread across the Siberian wilderness, we can remember COVID and perhaps steel ourselves and say never again. We will not deny the sacraments again, especially in time of plague.

I would think that would be exciting. Particularly in time of plague. Makes sense. It is our finest hour, our priest friends. Said to me, the priest, you know, this is what they're made for in these times. It's so true. That's so beautiful. Yeah, so props to the Archdiocese, and yeah, come on. Let's get those sacraments to everyone. So, J.D. Vance also, he gave an interview on affordability and immigration this week, and I know, Josh, this is one of your favorite points to make, that if you want to solve the affordability crisis, the argument is that removing illegal immigrants is going to Reduce competition for housing and goods, and lower the rents, and raise the wages for American workers.

It's funny. Win, win, win, win, win. I have not seen a lot of this on the campaign trails, or in the ads, or even at the debates that have been going on for the elections this fall, but Vance is leaning into it. I think there's a reason, though. Yeah, can you explain that? Because it seems like a winning message. It's easy to say in a 30-second ad, the gas prices are high, you know what I mean? But it's hard to make the point like, hey.

You know, deporting and self-deportations of millions of people have increased the labor market, you know, wages for everyday Americans, and it's reduced the rents and all this stuff. It takes a while to get to that in a 30-second ad. So, I understand it, but that means when you're out on a stump, you know, when you're campaigning or when you're in a debate with another candidate, yeah, you absolutely got to make this point. So, when you're in a longer interview on a TV thing like J.D.

Vance was, That is the perfect time to make this point, absolutely. It is the case. I mean, the thing is, working-class Americans were under a pinch on two different things. First of all, millions of illegal immigrants are going to increase, you know, you're increasing the demand for housing. Oftentimes, they get subsidized by the taxpayer anyway. So... You know, the cost of your rent is going up because the government is subsidizing illegals who are flooding your country illegally, and then they can work underneath the table for cash, so therefore, the cost of labor, you know, the wages are going on a downward spiral, so you're getting it twice over.

It's terrible. You know, it's like, wait a minute now. What is going on? Americans have a right to be frustrated by this, and so, yes, I think J.D. Vance is good to make this point. Yeah. In general, though, how are we feeling about the elections? We've got this New York Times Siena I mean, some of these are, this is really concerning. I don't know, Texas, we've got Ken Paxton at 45 to Tallarico's 51% in Texas. I think there was another, the Fox poll had them at 49, 50, so it was close.

They had it like we're dead heat. But we've also got Alaska, Paltola's well ahead in the polls. Ohio, Brown is ahead of Husted. Iowa, we still have Hinson up, but only by one point, and Kansas now, the Siena poll has it at a dead heat, Hamilton, Marshall, 45 each. So, I don't know. Josh, as the Oracle of Petoskey, we're less than a month to go. What boots on the ground political advocacy? Where are the potential wins? Should we be concerned by these numbers?

What are you looking at? Well, I always encourage every politician to run like they're, even if they're highly favorited to win, you should always run your race like you're 10 points behind. You should run, run, run. You get out there, make your case, never take anything for granted. You know, there was a congressman out of Connecticut. This was about 30 years ago.

And he lost re-election by, I think it was three votes, and they did a census afterwards on his staff, and he found out five people on his staff forgot to vote. If he would have just got everyone on his staff, who he's paying to work for him, to actually vote, he would have been re-elected, but he did not. Major failure. Now, I will say this.

I do believe, with regards to the polls, there are a lot of conservative voters who, they get the phone call, oh, what do you want to vote for? Click. They don't answer it, and so there might be a bias in these polls. What they've done, though, is they started to, you know, over the last several cycles, they do a different thing where they say, okay, okay, okay, don't tell me who you want to vote for just yet. Who do you think is actually going to win?

Not who you want, who you think is going to win. And that question has been very informative, because what then some people will say is, well, I might want Troy Jackson to win here in Maine, but probably Susie Collins is going to win again. And that is what you find out. So, on those questions, you look at it, and people are like, yeah, it is. Tal Rooka might, I like him, but it is probably going to be Ken Paxton. How trustworthy?

I am sorry. Go ahead, Josh. I am cutting you off. Well, I mean, in other words, you know, you get a moment of truth in sometimes from people, you know, not just what they want, but like, actually, you know, who do you think is going to win? And so, if you look at that, you know, in Iowa, Hinson wins by, you know, when they ask people who is going to win, they are like, oh, yeah, she is going to win. Texas, who is going to win?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Paxton is going to win. You know, but in Maine, it was, yeah, Susie Collins is going to win. Now, in Michigan, they said, who do you think is going to win? Actually, I think it might actually be Abdul El-Sayed, which frightens me. So, I've got to convince my voters in Michigan. It's going to come down to the last couple of hundred votes here or there. Mike Rogers came that close in 2024. It's going to come down to the wire.

So, do I take anything for granted? I think if you're frustrated with some of the policies that are going on, yes, I get that. But do you really want to hand Congress over to the Democrats? There's a wonderful thing. The biggest reason I'm thankful for Donald Trump. I mean, obviously, Mark, you're getting out of the job. I'm happy about that, and all the lawfare is ending. Okay, don't get me wrong. One of the most consequential things I think is going to happen now is the federal education tax credit, and that was done by a Republican House and Republican Senate, signed into law by President Trump.

It goes into effect starting on January 1st, and federal taxpayers are going to be able to redirect $1,700 of the taxes that they pay to a scholarship-granting organization to help. Flourish Catholic schools across the country. This is going to be something, I think, generationally, we're going to look back and like, wow, this was an amazing transformative thing that gave a real shot in the arm. Catholic education needs a shot in the arm, and now we've got these great schools that are reviving Catholic education.

That's the number one reason I'm so happy, and I cast my vote today. I voted for Mike Rogers today. I want to keep the House and the Senate in Republican hands. It's good legislation. But yeah, when you actually look, some of these polls just seem way off. Who's going to win? It's like 10 points. I don't think he's going to win, but if he wins, he's not going to win by six points. Give me a break. If he wins, it's by like half a percentage point, and that would be a disaster.

We can't have that happen. Yeah, how much do you think, Josh and Erika, your opinion on this, how much do you think these push polls and these polling? He really gets into people's psyche, and they say, hey, I can't influence this race. He's down by 20 points, or whatever, which may or may not be accurate, and that's what I'm saying. How trustworthy are these polls, and how much does it affect these outcomes when people are looking, and they're like, well, I'm not going to be able to make a difference here because he's so far behind, when in reality, he may not be that far behind.

I mean, you could probably look at circumstances in which the news on this can affect it in a negative light, but sometimes it actually has the opposite effect. I will tell you what. There was a poll that was done in Wisconsin in 2016, and it said that Hillary Clinton was going to win the state by 16 or 18 points. It was some number that was astronomically ridiculous, and Republicans in Wisconsin were so white-hot over this. Like, this is so baloney, and they came out, and they voted, and Donald Trump won Wisconsin.

So, that poll was, I mean, way off, and again, I think part of it is that when you look at the different coalitions, so why is polling so much More off now, and I think the large reason why that is, is because Donald Trump has assembled a very different coalition. So, Republicans from Reagan through Romney, okay? Romney obviously didn't win, but I'm just telling you that, you know, presidential candidates from 1980 all the way to like 2012, and some of the polls in 2012 actually were biased the opposite way, like made it look Romney closer than it was.

So, but anyway, the reason why is that the coalitions of the parties back then, Republicans were going for suburbanites, and suburban voters tend to respond to polls a lot more. So do people in inner cities. They respond to these polls. People who live in rural areas or smaller towns. They're like, I don't trust you. Click, and they don't answer. And so, it's really hard sometimes to get a, you know, you might dial 200 times, you know, the computer does. They're not using the rotary dial here.

And they're like, boop, and they try, and it takes like 200 calls before they get a live person. And so, my point is that the sample that you get. They hope it's representative, but how much do you weigh it to try to make sure you're really being representative? So, it is harder and harder to do. That's even if we take away any assumption here that they want to get a result that they want. I'm just saying, just doing a poll is hard to do now.

It's harder and harder, even though our technology has gotten better. People just don't answer phones anymore. I mean, you look at your phone, my phone, it's like... Yeah, if I don't recognize it... I had 12 spam calls yesterday.

Five of those could have been pollsters asking me what I want to vote for. You know what I'm saying? And again, the motivation could go two different ways. It could suppress turnout. You're right. Or it could motivate turnout, like, I'm going to prove those guys wrong. I'm going to get out there and vote. I say, vote as early as you can. Bank your vote. I'm the first line of defense. My vote's already in, in Michigan. I'm already voted. That's how I like it.

Awesome. So, basically, bottom line, if you had to make a Kelshi prediction on Texas, the Texas race for the Paxton Tallarico, who comes out on top after election? So, I do think Paxton is going to pull out a victory. I think it's going to be a very narrow victory. I think he is going to win. I think the Republicans are going to probably lose North Carolina, so that's a seat that's going to flip to the Democrats. Yeah, crazy. I think Democrats will hold Georgia with John Ossoff.

By the way, a guy who ran for lieutenant governor, Duncan. And he won. A Republican. He just endorsed John Ossoff. Like, what is going on? You're crazy. Like, Duncan should never be held in any office ever again. What an absolute loser.

I think Susie Collins does end up winning in Maine. She had a great debate performance. I have a few clips. Again, I think Iowa, Kansas, and these are false flags. I mean, I think Marshall, our voters are upset. His margin of victory will be much narrower, but he'll still come out on top. At the end of the day, I think Republicans will hold on to the Senate. We might lose a seat. We might lose two. But I think they hold the Senate, but we got to get out there and vote.

I have said this from, I don't know what. The last 12 months. The dawn of time. Yeah. 12 months. I think Republicans hold the Senate barely. I think Democrats, unfortunately, are looking like they're going to win the House. We can change that. There's still time, but it's hard. It's a tough role. You've got to get out there. I am praying. I hope you are right. The Oracle of Petoskey has never failed us yet, so get out there and vote. Be the self-fulfilling prophecy for Josh, or something like that.

I don't know if that was the right word. I mean, I'd love to be proven wrong, and that, like, Republicans gain seats in the House. That would be awesome. That's to be wrong that way. All right. You become known for that, getting it always wrong, Josh.

Yes, yeah. Okay. But it's Pennsylvania where I first earned that nickname. I said, Trump is going to win PA. Yeah, okay. If you have any questions, if you have comments, thoughts, concerns for LOOPcast, that you would like us to... to address, then please email us, LOOPcast at CatholicVote.org. Selene, can you throw that in the chat? We'd love to hear from you, and we will be sure next week to have a big, robust mailbag section, especially going into the last days of the midterm.

So, if you have questions, please send them to us. If you have, I want to hear this from Josh, and I wish that Tom would tell me X, Y, Z, send them over, because we love talking to real people like you. The awesome fans. All right. This next one, we are a family show, but we are going to be covering in the next segment something that you might not want the little ones to hear. So, fair warning. We are going to talk...

There's definite discretion here, folks. Definite discretion. Even some of the older kids, probably, this is a no-go. Because we are going into how crazy the fem left is. Oh, my goodness. So, the last craziness was the Lindsay Clancy. I am Lindsay Clancy, was the... Now, we have I am Jane Doe, and we are talking here about the Cornell 7 case, which is not going away and has been dominating the news cycle for the last 10 days. Now, we have the governor of New York is involved with a special counsel.

A new appearance by our favorite Letitia James will be involved in this. So, for those of you who are blessedly... innocent of this case, but who are blessedly unaware of what has been going on. This was the Chi Phi fraternity up at Cornell in Syracuse, New York, and two years ago, there was, as there is often, sadly, at fraternities, a big bat party, and there was a young girl who was 20 years old at the time. She went to the party, she got a little buzzed, and she and Two other young men went to an upstairs bedroom.

They were like, hey, let's do these crazy things. There was ketamine involved, and by the end of the night, the menage a trois had become like menage a set or wheat or something. I don't know what they got to. Well, it's called Cornell 7 for a reason. Yeah, it was very, very dark and very ugly, and the more details that come out on this, it's just even worse and very depraved. But what happened... In the last week, is that the Jane Doe has come forward again, and now she's alleging that the men actually pressured her to consume the drugs and alcohol, and then actually sexually assaulted her over several hours, that there was no consent, she was incapacitated, and therefore incapable of consenting.

And so, she's also alleging that the fraternity was using their Snapchat group to... Tell people that she was up there, et cetera. Now, and so the governor, of course, is now involved, and there's going to be a criminal investigation into what happened.

This going back, though, as her text messages and the campus, the boys' text messages and her testimony when it initially happened, because she did report the incident to the Cornell police a few weeks after it happened, and what they concluded from her accounts at the time was that there was, in fact, nothing illegal that happened, right? It was the boys received everything, couple works. One was asked to be suspended from classes. A couple of them had to write essays, which, of course, the feminists are mocking all up and down.

And critically, that she described voluntarily going into the frat house and voluntarily consuming alcohol and ketamine and consenting to a threesome. Yeah. And so, I mean… And she also described when she told some of the boys no about certain things they wanted to do, that they actually respected that and left the room. And so, all of these accounts suggested that, at least from the boys' point of view, they were following the consent standard, which is the standard in New York. And so, this is the standard.

I'm just going to finish off here. So, like I said, the university had a private Title IX disciplinary investigation, as they all do. The Duke lacrosse team scandal years ago, and oh, this was the other piece. Jane Doe, initially, she seemed fine with it. We even have text messages from her. One of the boys texted her the next day and asked, are you okay? It got a little weird, and she's like, yeah, none of that was illegal, and everyone needs to grow up because sexuality and sex is changing, and stuff like this is going to be more common.

I'm really open-minded. Love you, King. That was her. text to the boy who was worried about her wow um and then also she she tried three weeks later to go to the that same frat house's halloween party and she was really upset when they wouldn't let her in because they were like we're not doing this girl again i didn't know that wow this is the details are just you Really strange. So, I think, you know, we need to pray for her.

We need to pray for the young men involved, obviously, and if you send your daughter to an Ivy League school, just know that this goes on, and maybe now there's claims that one in three women at Cornell are sexually assaulted, but the reaction to this has far outpaced any of the evidence or facts that I've just described to you. So, we get this. Crazy. I think AOC, who is campaigning for president? I just want to real quick, I mean, that you said this happens.

I mean, this happens at lots of colleges and universities all across the country, state universities, that kind of stuff, and you'd think Ivy League, well, well, or Ivy, we're serious about education. Higher standards. It does happen there. I mean, it doesn't happen at good Catholic colleges, presumably, mostly, obviously, that, you know, we like the Newman Guide schools, but yeah, I mean, at other places, it's kind of crazy. Right. Because the sexual revolution came for everywhere, and the consent standard is the standard since hashtag me too, right?

And let us get into that in just a minute, but I do want to play a little bit of the reaction from the feminist side, and I am Jane Doe, although why you would want to be like, I am a girl who, you know, did all this weird stuff. Anyway, so let us do the AOC clip, because this is the rewriting of history that we have come to know, love, and expect from. The AOC. Seven men drugged and gang raped a 20-year-old woman.

They lured her in to a fraternity house. They drugged her with ketamine. They then posted to a group chat that she was incapacitated, and seven men took turns gang raping her for seven hours. Seven. I mean. Yeah. So, again, what she's saying, if that is what happened. Then, absolutely, all these guys need to be in prison for the rest of their lives, but none of the evidence suggests that that's what happened. She's literally making this up. They definitely deserve to go to prison for the rest of their lives.

Right. Yeah, I mean, and again, by the way, AOC is all involved in this case because it's upstate New York. Well, she's a feminist anyway, so she's going to jump on this issue, but she's right now making moves to try to run for the United States Senate. That's the rumor. So, she's getting involved in this case, using it as an opportunity. She was wearing her. Buffalo Bills sweatshirt, you know, like she's in New York City, and she's cheering for the upstate team, and then she goes to visit a Catholic parish, you know, to talk in front of, you know, the statues and all this stuff, and she's got the, talking about trans stuff, so for her, it was a wonderful opportunity to promote her political cause, less about, like, obvious concern, because if she did, and looked at the facts of the case, it looked like a case where a lot of people were abusing drugs.

And there are cells. It wasn't just one versus another. I think that's what's really going on here, is that there are times where men and women both decide to debase themselves, and then sometimes afterwards, they realize, oh gosh, I made a mistake. Well, yes, you did make a mistake, but that doesn't necessarily mean that somebody raped you, per se. I mean, I'm open to whatever the investigation shows. Let me weigh in on this. Yeah, go for it. So, look. Alcohol, we have always said, heightens the passions, numbs the conscience, right?

So, this is what we see at colleges, you know, with these frat parties. One out of three women, statistically, nationally, are abused sexually, so that number is accurate when it is on the campus. But the bigger problem here is, first of all, this all comes from Kinsey and Sanger, and all this, you know, the children are sexual from birth. And all this crap that's in the Ivy Leagues, that's still there, that set up our modern-day penal code for the sexual assaults, all based on Kinsey's erroneous and, like, pedophilia-type experimentation.

That all aside, the bigger issue is these young men who are mistreating not only themselves, but mistreating these women, and this particular woman, okay? I don't care if she consented or not. Like, where's the men that say, step up and say, you can't do this. Amen, brother. Where's the person that's going to be like, no, at that frat party, that knows something's wrong is happening, that this young lady, whether she thinks it's good for her or not, is really irrelevant. It is not good for her, and someone needed to step in and be the white knight that's going to say, no, not on my watch, and the fact that these young men allowed this to happen.

The fact that this young lady is duped by all this in her text messaging, thinks it's somewhat okay, or that she's liberated in this way, I don't really care about that. That's more an indictment on the culture. The fact that she allows herself and doesn't love herself and doesn't understand her dignity is the bigger issue. And the fact that these men were not able to protect, provide, and step in and protect this lady, this young lady, from getting wounded this way.

Is really what's the biggest tragedy of it all, and whether they get time or not, how much... Look, these young men have been formed this way. You don't end up in college, and all of a sudden, like, okay, now I'm going to do this bad behavior. This is the porn that they were exposed to in high school, and all this stuff that plants these ideas in your head. Where do you get this idea to gang rape, menage a trois? Where does this come from?

It doesn't come from... Your Sunday school, your Catholic school, or your public school, it comes from the smut that they see online, and the crap that they're taking in, in their brains, and this becomes their narrative, and those people that look at that stuff, they want to find that stuff. They want to do that stuff. You go to a strip club, you're looking for sex. You're not going there just to have a beer. You're looking for sex, and this is what we know about sexual predators.

This is what we know about people. Who are engaged in this? And it's a bigger problem, obviously, way larger than we have time to get into, but I just want to make those points that, like, you know, where were the men that were going to stop it? Yeah, if it was substantial, it was wrong.

Yeah, amen. I love what everything Mark said. The Pope just said in France last week about euthanasia. He was like, just because something is legal doesn't mean that it is right, and that applies here as well. Yeah, there was a great op-ed in the Washington Post, of all places, by a secular feminist, Megan McArdle, and she's just calling out this consent culture, and she's like, we've asked young people to respect boundaries.

But their whole life, we've been telling them there are no boundaries. It's just, you know, no right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free. That's the frozen anthem, right? And when you do that, it is shocking but not surprising when we get the culture of campus assault that the women are now totally screaming about. And it's just... I want to get your take on it, Mark, too, and we have plenty of time. I want to dig into this, because I think it's super important.

What is it, why are women, too, and you can mansplain it to me, why are the young women identifying and not calling this young women and each other to higher standards as well? To me, it's a no-brainer. Like, if you're at a frat party, you don't go upstairs. In fact, just don't even go to a frat party. Just don't do drugs. But instead, the women are like, all the women are victims. If they end up looking back on something disgusting they did and feeling shame and feeling guilt, then ergo, it was non-consensual.

Why can't women seem to hold each other accountable either? You talk about the men. Fair enough. Fair enough. Look, there's a number of answers to that question, and I'll focus on a couple, but loneliness is a big part of the young person's journey, and girls who have been rejected and girls who have been promiscuous at a younger age will fall more easily into more promiscuity.

And so, whether they were abused at home, sexually assaulted, again, one out of three women, This becomes like their identity in some respects, if I can say that word loosely, and that's a broad stroke, but like, okay, this is all I'm worth. Like, I was mistreated by maybe my first boyfriend, maybe a family member, and then you take on this self-worth that is just really low, and you don't expect more from men than what you got, right? So, going into that frat party, I bet she did expect, to a degree, bad behavior, maybe not to receive the abuse that she received, but anybody that's been exposed and traumatized in that way as a young person typically moves along that spectrum, which will now be, okay, I become promiscuous because this is all I'm good for.

This is all I have to offer, and it becomes this mentality that is not true. It's a total lie, but there's a lot of women that I saw, and I even saw when I was in college. Move into college, and they got that reputation, and so that might be like a label that they kind of. identify with, to a degree, because it gets them some attention. Even though the attention is the worst kind of attention possible, they're still getting attention. I remember talking to a porn actress in a documentary who said, they noticed me, and yet she was being gang raped on film, but they noticed me.

They saw potential in me, and she was kicked out of her house at 18, and God bless her soul, Shelly Lubin, she has passed away, but she acknowledged all that, that this became... You know, she was starving for someone, an affirmation, and that really comes from the father and the family life and all that, where the dad says, you are my beloved daughter, you are my beloved son, but daughter, you are my princess, you are worth waiting for. And she confirms her and builds up her femininity, and mom continues to build that.

If they don't have that, and they go off and they got all the intellectual capability and their academia is great, but they don't have that solid piece of who I am, I'm a child of God. Then, it is easy to fall into that culture that just treats them like an object, and for some women, I believe they buy into it for a short while because it gives them that, even though it is awful attention, it gives them some of that, but ultimately, they are left empty at the end of it.

Yeah, I think we're seeing a lot of that in the rage that is around the Lindsay Clancy trial, and it's a lot around this. There is a comment that I want to get both of your takes on, so I can't read. Uxball97 says, no.

The white knight expectation in a scenario of consensual fornication and sexual immorality is delusional and divorced from reality. Is it a hopeless cause? What's going on? No, I don't think so. I mean, like, you know, like, if you're at this fraternity, like, I mean, you know, obviously, it's one thing to say someone making out in the corner or whatever. It's another thing to have a room where there's, like, seven guys all having sexual activity with one woman. Like, I mean, you don't, I'm not saying that they have to be necessarily all like.

Like, saints, okay, that'd be great, but I'm just asking them not to be completely, like, absolutely debauched, like, you know what I mean? At some point, it's like, wait a minute now, this is too far, like, there's got to be some standards here. So, I'm not necessarily saying that they all have to be, you know, like I say, complete, total saints, but just like, there's got to be some line here, like, we're not going to do stuff like this, that's not cool.

Well, it just takes one person. One person with courage is a majority, Alexander Hamilton. It just takes one person. Yes, are the white knights in the room? They're there, but they're afraid. They're afraid, and they just need to have that courage to move in it. Now, the white knight is probably not going to put himself in that frat party. Those types of guys aren't usually there, but it just takes one, and whether, yeah, I agree with whoever said that. Like, yeah, that expectation is not realistic at this time, but it doesn't mean we can't uphold it and still say that it has to happen.

I remember in high school, Watching the brawl after school, and the two boys fighting at all-boys school, and the president of the school came out and said, what's the matter with all you? You're watching this? Why didn't one of you break it up? Like, what's the matter? Exactly. It becomes a brawl, gang mentality, a groupthink mentality that just kicks in because no one wants to be unpopular, and no one wants to take a stand because no one wants to be lonely.

No one wants to be ostracized and kicked out of the community. And you know what? It's that mentality. Again, where does the self-esteem come from? Because it's your self-esteem that moves you into those places that says, and it's why I defended my son down in Philadelphia. It's like, no, man, you're not going to abuse my son. I don't care what happens to me. I'm going to step in here, and ultimately, that's what happened, right? And I got booked to the fullest extent under the law, right?

That's because I did the right thing. Well, people see that, and they're like, well, I don't want to step in. Good Samaritan laws? Forget that. No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to inconvenience myself, and unfortunately, that's more the noise that they're hearing than this, you know, do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. Yeah, yeah. I think, too, a lot of boys now have grown up in this culture. There's an additional sort of roadblock to being the man in the room, for lack of a better term, that they've been told over and over again, like, boys and girls are just the same.

Girls are just as good as boys. There is no meaningful difference between them. Do not hold doors for women. Do not give up your seat for women. Do not do this. And that's at a very, you know, non-threatening level of societal. You know, intercourse between the sexes, but when you extend that to a situation like this, pun intended, Josh, when you extend that to a situation like this, it's like, okay, well, you know, I wouldn't intervene if one of the guys was doing something dumb, so I'm not going to intervene when the girl's doing something, putting herself in a situation like this either.

But again, like you said, the one person can make a difference, and even if a guy had stepped in and been like, you know. Girl, you don't want to do this to yourself. It seems like, I know you think you want this right now, but it seems like you're under, like, let's get you home, let's get you out of here. Maybe she would have been like, how dare you, you chauvinist pig? I am fine. Maybe. But there at least would be the seed in her mind that someone cared.

And maybe in reflecting back upon it, as she was dealing with the shame and the exposure over the next two weeks all over campus for this, she would have remembered someone cared enough, right? And it would have made a difference. How about just call 9-1-1? How about just call the police? Or just call the police if you don't want to do it yourself. Like, just do that. Could that have been done? For seven hours, if apparently it was seven hours? My gosh.

Unbelievable. I'm with you. It's crazy. Let's get some good news in here. Let's get some good news in here. We're moving on. Thank you for all of the input on that and persevering. We have great news. We're going to talk about Our Lady of Lepanto here, and before, Mark, I just let you go on your good news for that, I wanted to tell everyone The Catholic Thing had a wonderful article on Lepanto this morning, so Celine's going to throw that in the chat for you if you need a little...

Timeline cleanse later on today. Go ahead and read that article. But Mark, what were you going to tell us about? Yeah, Lepanto is not something I think a lot of Catholics know a lot about. I mean, they've heard of it. I mean, if you're in Catholic circles like us, you probably did a little research on it, but 455 years ago, as we talked about prior to the program, we had this unbelievable naval battle that has never happened since then. It's the last great naval battle.

And we're talking 200... Plus warships from the Ottoman Empire, which is the greatest naval empire maybe that ever existed, and then just a little over 200. They had like 270, and the Holy League had to like 10. So, they're totally outgunned, outmanned, and yet these 400 ships converge in this Lepanto outside of Rome, Sicily area, wherever it is. They win Lepanto, they're going to Rome. And Solomon, Solomon, whatever his name was, he said, I want to put my turban on the Pope, and I want to park my horses right at the Vatican, and that turban, I want to pop it right on his head.

So, they were going and going to take over Christendom in Rome, and so this was like a major front that if we don't win... A lot changes, right? So, anyhow, incredible numbers, just to see. The Pope, and there was no communication. The Pope had this sense from St. Pope Pius V, had this sense from Our Lady. To call all Christendom to pray, to pray knowing that the battle was going to take place. I think, what, four or five days to get the telegram to Rome, but anyhow, to pray, and he called on all Christendom to pray.

Now, let us be honest. The Holy League was not united initially. He put out a request for all the states, the countries to come together, and they were like, no, no, no, we are not interested. So, little John of God of Austria, the bastard child of the king, It says, I'll do this, right? And he becomes this amazing hero and unites the Holy League for that battle. But there were a lot of cowards that didn't show up for that battle. And so, just in that, if you just look at the sheer numbers, we captured like 170, the Holy League, I'd say.

We captured 170 of the 200-plus ships, whereas the Ottoman Empire, the Turks, I only got about 13 sunk of the Holy League, and just think of that. It's like Our Lady's hand. So, this was Our Lady of Victory here. This is what this feast day today, October 7th, was called, Our Lady of Victory, that Christendom prayed into existence through the rosary, through the weapon, right? This weapon that all Christendom was praying enabled that victory to happen.

A lot of Christians were freed as a result of that, so it is just a day of liberation, but just a powerful thing. If you ever see pictures of Lepanto, it is just incredible to see the amount of volume when it came to naval warships, the galleys, and again, nothing like this ever happened afterwards. It is like they moved on to a different type of strategy, but in that regard, it is good, right?

You know, that we didn't have to fight in this way anymore, but just think of the courage, and I think in the flag of John of Austria, like he had the pope, and he had his own flag and coat of arms, and the king, and they were united, and it was just a small band, the cells. We're talking about, you know, defending a woman's honor and dignity, but these, I'm going to defend the church, and our lady, who's just there with her mantle, protecting her children.

But her rosary was given to, again, we know, for the Albigensian heresy, to defeat evil, and the Pope knew this, and so to pray the rosary is to confront, combat, and deal the devil a blow that he cannot suffer, as we know from the exorcists that do, you know. Possessions and exorcisms that the devil and the demons fear Our Lady the most. At the name of Our Lady and invoking Her Lady, they cringe and they run. And so, to pray that rosary over that day for the time, for that miraculous victory, every Catholic family should have a celebration of this today.

And even when we go to sports, we pray Our Lady of Victory, pray for us. It is a good thing to do that. So, that is my good news of the day. That is great news, and that was the most noble masculinity explanation of Lepanto in the Rosary that I think I've heard in several years. So, that was awesome. We talked about toxic masculinity, and now that was the opposite. That was awesome. The authentic channeling of male strength, Lepanto. Yeah, today's the day that all Catholic homeschooling mothers just rejoice, because we can throw out all the lesson plans, just do the math, and then the boys are going to pour over pictures of Lepanto, and G.K.

Chesterton's... The poem of Lepanto, and the maps of Lepanto, and just really glory in our Lord's intervention through Our Lady there. Victory. Oh, yes. Such a great day. All right, Josh, give us some good news. This is great. Well, so, October is when the Supreme Court starts its term, and so we're going to get into, we talked a little bit about that already, but Benedictine College actually had a wonderful guest come by. They have this beautiful library that's devoted to the American project.

And they had a special guest. Let us roll the tape. I think it is kind of fun to see this here. Every day when I visit this library, and I've visited it every day since it's been built, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for all of the benefactors who contributed to this magnificent building. Only through your vision and generosity does this extraordinary gift to our students stand before us today.

We're deeply honored to welcome Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. My hope is that this library will help the students of Benedictine College defend the American project today. I hope that it will bring them together to discuss new ideas, forge friendships, and, importantly, learn to disagree respectfully. Citizenship to me... It's more than a piece of paper. It is a privilege, it is a responsibility, and it is a promise.

Moritz Library and Daniello Hall was built to make visible two convictions at the heart of Benedictine College. That we must prepare our students through the highest standards of academic excellence, and form our students to love and serve their country.

Amy Coney Barrett. This is a special Philadelphia episode of the LOOPcast, because we've got Mark here from Philadelphia, and then Benedictine College having a beautiful library, and then based off of Independence Hall and all that kind of stuff, so just kind of neat. That's very cool. Hey, shout out to Benedictine. I will take free merch anytime you want to send it my way. Love those ravens. All right.

This is all very good news. So, let us move into C-Block. This is great. So, one of our very favorite Supreme Court justices, one of the greatest of all time, I believe, Samuel Alito, has been making the rounds. He has published a book. My good news, oh, Selene wants to know what my good news is. I also had Lepanto. So, we are going to go on. But we are continuing to Philadelphia because Samuel Alito is a Phillies fan.

This is true. He's a massive baseball fan, I guess. Yes. Yeah, so he uses that a lot, but he's making the rounds to promote his new book, and he's given a couple of really interesting interviews that have made headlines. So, Josh, do you want to walk us through what he's been saying?

Yeah, I mean, he talked about, like, a lot of the pressure that the court has dealt with. I mean, you know, it's understandable that you have to make very controversial decisions, and some people will be frustrated with you. But what he talks about, you know, I think here is, you know, not just that people, you know, are very polarized aged. But also that, like, the threats of violence, like, this is like a darker turn that has occurred because of this. And, of course, there was the attempt on the life of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Someone tried to kill him, and they tracked down the guy. So, I mean, you know, he explains also, he talked about retirement and that kind of stuff. So, I think we should just roll this clip. I find it fascinating here.

Now 76, Alito considered retirement earlier this year and decided against it. Something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term, but I thought that I could still make a valuable contribution. Which is why I became a justice and a judge in the first place. Legal positions Alito took years ago on abortion, affirmative action, voting rights, and religious liberty are now the law. But the decision that will define him most is Dobbs, which overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the issue of abortion back to the states.

Months before it was released, a copy of Alito's draft opinion was leaked, an unprecedented breach. It was quite a shock, but within a relatively... In the short period of time, the thought occurred to me, and I think to the others in the majority, that this would endanger us, and it made us targets for assassination. One of your colleagues was a target of an assassination attempt. Yes, he was, and according to the statement that the individual in question made to the police, as I remember, He said his goal was to kill at least one justice in the majority, and preferably three, and his goal was to change the decision in the case, and that was quite predictable.

Whoever leaked it, it was, yes, it was predictable, and whoever leaked it knew or had good reason to know that that would be the consequence. So, you can just tell. I mean, he's so frustrated that the person leaked it, and I bet he even knows.

He said in the interview he was fairly certain, but there wasn't enough evidence right now, which is crazy to think that he goes to work every day being fairly certain that he knows who did that and put all their lives on the line. Well, it may not be someone who is currently with the court anymore. It may not be another justice. It may have been a clerk for one of the other justices, that kind of thing. But, yeah, I mean, like, you know, again, The left adopted an all, you know, win by all means necessary, like throw out all conventions, all standards, all rules, you know, all that matters is to step on the throat of the other person and win, and it's, you know, that kind of mentality, you know, it demolished everything in its path, and abortion was the main, the biggest reason.

I mean, Scalia, when he was on the court, would talk about it, like there would be principles that everyone agreed to it, but then all of a sudden abortion would come along, like, They would just destroy any policy, any principle, any rule to support abortion, because it was the uber-ollies. No matter what, we had to have legal abortion. And so, you know, it has tainted our politics. It has corrupted our souls. It has done just lasting damage to our country. Yeah.

Yeah, it always gives me a pit in my stomach when we talk about Thomas or Alito retiring, especially staring down the barrel of the midterms and looking at 2028. I don't know. What are your thoughts? Some people were saying, oh, Alito should have retired six months ago so that we could have gotten his replacement and a younger guy maybe before we lost the Senate or something like that. What are your thoughts on that? Well, tongue-in-cheek, I'd like to say I really like John Roberts to retire so we can replace him with someone better.

And hey, you know, like Justice Kagan, aren't you getting up there in age? And Sonia Sotomayor, aren't you worried about your health? I mean, you know. Of course, they are all very political actors. They are not going to retire. I mean, that is the thing. Alito has been on the court for 21 years. This will be his 21st year, and obviously, Thomas has been even longer. He has been on since 1991, but although those two men are actually only separated by 18 months in age, so they are both getting to the point where retirement naturally is something to think about.

I know that You know, Clarence Thomas, future saint, will eventually retire, but he wants to wait until he's the longest-serving justice of all time, because he wants to stick it to Joe Biden's face and everyone else who tried to get to him. So, you can say, I was on the court longer than anybody else, and so that means, you know, it'll come. I think maybe, you know, 2028 or something like that, or whenever that time comes. But I think Alito... I do think, actually, I remember talking with court insiders last year, and, you know, is he going to retire?

Is Alito going to retire? And I thought, only about a one in four chance that he was going to retire this last summer. But, that being said. This is why we need the Senate in Republican hands, because if Talofrico, Talofrico, whatever you want to call him, if he wins, right, and the Democrats win North Carolina, and Troy Jackson wins in Maine, you know, then you start, wait a minute now, could we actually lose the Senate? Of course, it could happen. We don't want that to happen.

But if it happens, then Alito's like, well, great, now I've got to stick around until, you know, until 2029 or something like that. That is something we don't want to happen. I would like to maintain, you know… I'd actually like to gain seats in the Senate, so that we wouldn't have to rely on Collins and Murkowski and even, you know, Curtis from Utah. I can't stand that guy either. And we could have a solid majority, you know, in the Senate, where we could, like, put someone on that bench that will be worthy of a replacement for Alito.

But, yeah, you never know what can happen. You know, as far as I'm concerned, the Democratic Party is so maniacally in favor of abortion and trans and kids and having an open border. With millions of people coming to the country, therefore, I am voting red until I am dead, because they are crazy on this stuff, you know, and so we need to hold the Senate, because we know that if Democrats hold the Senate, there is no way they are going to allow any replacement on that court.

Mark, did you want to jump in? Yeah, just to say, like, just to build off of everything we have been talking about from the beginning, with the Supreme Court, and just what they know, what they don't know, and the Biden administration, what they know, what they don't know, and now the weaponization, and now here we are. It's like, okay, the Alito leak, the leak came out in May of 2022.

I was served a target letter on April 27th by the DOJ. About a week or two before that leak. They just know what is coming, right? And so, you can see the plotting and the planning and just how the awareness of all this, that that staffer or clerk who did that was totally in cahoots, and it is so sad to see the activist judges and how the system has been corrupted. I believe John Adams said, I give the republic 300 years, and here we are at America 250.

Anyhow, if you can keep it, right, as Dr. Franklin said. So, it's like, you know, we're on the verge of crumbling here because of rotting from the inside and the system that was set up that if we kept our principles, if we kept our Christian values, that we could maintain this republic. But with those people that we're electing and who have no, you know, idea of God or is so foreign or antithetical to. To God, you know, this is what we're voting on, and it's so important that we keep that in mind, that, you know, even though this happened three years ago with the Biden administration, I keep saying, I said this with Josh and Kelsey in Michigan, like, your vote, it could bring us back to that point, you know?

So, this is a critical time for our electorate to, you know, and the body of this American Freedom Project. To really come together and remember what those principles were that we fought, and people gave their lives for. So, I just think we're so far removed from that in the young people, in the Gen Zs, in the Gen Alphas. Like, they just, they're so removed from that reality. Oh, that's not going to happen. The COVID was a total test run on that generation.

You know what I mean? They're totally all in with that. Tell me to wear a mask, I'll wear it, right? But the people like us, we ain't going back there ever again. We'll fight to the death to make sure that doesn't happen again. I'm scared with this younger generation. They're enamored by this rhetoric that's out there. Maybe. I don't know. Some of those Gen Zs are more base than me, though, so I don't know.

I'm not giving up on Gen Z, but yeah, there have been some disturbing polls about, what is it, 83% of Gen Zers are favorable towards socialism, and another poll, the DSA, Sharia law, some really interesting things there, and you wonder how much of it is just ignorance of history, which is what our government education system has been designed to create. A dumber, less aware, more ignorant people when it comes to civics and American history for the last 30, well, certainly since I was in school.

And so, it's a very vulnerable moment, and people will speak dismissively of like, oh, you always say that every election is the most important election in our lifetime and everything. I don't. It's actually okay to say that, I think, Josh, because every moment in history can be an unexpected inflection point, right? Ergo, Lepanto, right? So, yes, it is important that we be attentive at every moment, at every election, and certainly some elections have more historical input, but you also never know when that moment's going to be.

So, yeah, we're called to be vigilant. No, it's true. I hasten to use the most important election. I just say, you're right, though. Your fundamental point is true, that you never know what, you know, like God asks us. To be faithful. He doesn't ask us to be successful. That's what Mother Teresa said. He asks us to be faithful, and you never know how history can turn on a dime. The prayers, the sacrifices, the fasting. How is it that, like, for example, God called home.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September of 2024, in such a way that we could replace her with Amy Coney Barrett. She could easily last just a few more months, and then Joe Biden is able to pick her. 2020, not 2024. So, you never know. You have to believe, as a Catholic, that who is in control? Him. God.

And I'm not God, so I'm going to be faithful as I can. I may not be successful in everything, but I'm going to be as faithful as I can, and pray, fast, hope, work. Amen. Before we leave the SCOTUS block here and the Supreme Courts and all the good things, I'm really excited. This case is not yet before the Supreme Court, but I know CatholicVote is hoping very much that the Supreme Court will take it up this term. So, we filed an amicus brief in Wollard v.

Thurmond, which is a case out of California. Josh, can you just walk us through that case a little bit and why CatholicVote's involved and what the implications could be if the Supreme Court does take it up. Yeah, so what California decided to do was to subsidize families who wanted to do homeschooling, and their way of doing it is like, we'll provide aid to you, and you can get in and use that money to buy the homeschooling curriculum that you want.

California likes it because it boosts the number of students that are getting public aid. It basically gets to count them as students because they're losing so many students, right? But the catch Ah, na, na, na, na. What's my pinch of incense, Josh? Yep. You can't use that money for any curriculum that involves any religious instruction, because California has one of these things called a Blaine Amendment. Blaine was a guy, James Blaine from Maine. In the 1900s, he actually, you know, was the Speaker of the House, ran for President, very successful politician.

We came within like a voter, one or two votes in the Senate of passing an amendment to our U.S. Constitution, you know, that would have prohibited any money from going to any religious schools at all, okay? That would have been nationwide.

Couldn't get it done. So, basically, every state that tried to get applied to become a new state, he's like, okay, well, you better have that amendment in your state constitution. So, a lot of these states have these amendments. My state of Michigan has it. California has it. Montana, you name it. They've got these Blaine amendments, and the Supreme Court's been very good on religious freedom lately. So, there's a court case back in Maine.

That said, there's a little remote area in Maine where there wasn't even enough taxpayers and students to be able to make a school anymore, right? And so, what they basically said is, here's the money. Go whatever school you want to, but you can't go to a religious school because we have this Blaine Amendment. And the Supreme Court said, now, hold on a second. It's okay if you say the only school that you'll support as a state will be a state school.

That's fine if you say that. But if you say, here's the money, go whatever school you want to, but you can't do a religious school, that's where the problem is. You can't do that. That's anti... Religious discrimination. So, if you want to keep them all in your government schools, it's one thing, but if you give the money to the parents and say, go wherever you want to, but you just can't do religious school. Except this one. That doesn't work, and so what we're saying in this case is like, take up this case, because California is doing the same dumb thing they're doing in Maine, but then you have the opportunity, because they're saying, hey, our constitution says we have to do this, because we have this Blaine Amendment.

Get rid of the Blaine Amendment, because there have been times where the Supreme Court has said that there was obvious animus. You know, sometimes it was against Blacks, sometimes it was against Jews, whatever. In this case, against Catholics. This was animus against Catholics that was motivating Protestants to put in these Blaine Amendments across the country, because they were concerned. There's too many Catholics coming from Germany and all these other countries, and they're like, well, wait a minute, they're going to want money for their schools.

You know, these Italians, whatever. So, we're calling on the U.S. Supreme Court not only to fix this problem, make sure that, hey, if you want to California, you can say, we're not going to do any aid to homeschooling families. That's your right.

But if you do offer it to families, you can't then tell them they can't have a religious instruction in their programming. So, you know, it's not, and again, we're not talking about 100% religious instruction, like these kids are going to a seminar. We're talking about, like, there's math, there's history, and there might be religion mentioned in these subjects, because we think religion should inform, you know, everything. So, but what we're saying the court now should do is put a It is time to bury the Blaine Amendments in the dustbin of history.

It is an evil, religiously anti-Catholic thing. You talk to Protestants, and they don't have a problem with the Blaine Amendments. The only people who really like it are people who hate Catholicism. Except for some fundamentalists, they're mostly just liberals who don't like religion at all. So, it's kind of funny that the Blaine Amendments now, it's not a bunch of Protestants like 150 years ago. Now, it's secular humanists who want, you know, we want every child to go to a school where they learn about the sexual revolution.

And Harvey Milk, and the Rainbow, and all that other stuff? No. Well, all the better to have the federal tax credit, right, for education now. Absolutely. All right. If your state has not yet opted in, hello, Connecticut, please call your governor ASAP, because I would love to be able to benefit from that. All right, moving into the twilight zone. Josh, what you got? Okay, so some Democrats have said that they lost in 2024 because they were way too woke. You know, they're way too woke on race, DEI.

Transing of kids. There's a woman running for Congress out of Toledo. She's a congresswoman, and she's like trying to backpedal. Like, oh, no, no, I don't want the trans stuff. I'm against this. I don't believe her. Mercycaptor, I don't believe you. Sorry.

But, at least, you know, they're recognizing that the Americans are like, you guys have gone way too crazy. Like, Democrats are embracing really radical positions that only like 10, 15% of the people believe in. Right? So, Democrats are talking amongst themselves, like, we're too focused on the social issues, like DEI and trans. We've got to talk about affordability. That's what's going to win voters back. Let's talk about affordability. Let's talk about jobs. Let's talk about gas prices. But over at Vox, Jessica Valenti is like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Oh, Jessica. Abortion isn't just a social issue. Here's what she has to say. We've had a bunch of Democrats on the show, and they all basically argue that the party in 2024 was too focused on kind of social, cultural issues, and they had to reposition themselves to economic issues. I'm sure you know where this question is going. In the affordability framework that they're kind of presenting, it does seem as if abortion is outside of that prism. Like, help me, tell me why that's wrong.

Like, it would seem as if you're arguing this is a kitchen table issue. This is just as much of... A tangible issue as others. Why is that? I mean, it is an affordability issue, right? Like, you'd be hard-pressed to find something more important to your financial life than whether or not to have a child, than whether or not that you're going to be forced into pregnancy, or not even just forced into pregnancy, but forced into massive medical debt, because your pregnancy goes wrong, and you can't get an abortion, and then you're in real medical trouble, and you go septic, or you lose an organ, right?

There's a million ways that that works, but I also— Oh, my goodness. I mean, so, like, again— Republicans, or Democrats could be in control, and the economy could be flourishing, they'd still be for abortion. The economy, the Democrats could be in control, the economy's floundering, they'd still be in favor of abortion. This is a central tenet of everything they believe in. It would not matter if gas was $40 a gallon, and, you know, they'd be like, abortion, abortion, abortion, abortion, abortion, abortion, abortion, because it is absolutely critical to everything that they're doing.

Yeah. Jessica Valenti, I actually subscribe to her newsletter, and it is called Abortion Every Day. So, every day, I get to see what she thinks is the front line of the abortion fight, and whenever she is losing her head over a politician, I'm like...

Over the mark, over the target, but it is so sad. I'm reminded of Blessed Fulton Sheen, that quote of his that resurfaced right before his beatification, that he was speaking to a group of women in 1973, right after Roe v. Wade, and he said, in 10 or 15 years, you are going to have masses of women with emotional and mental health issues because of this terrible thing that they have done, right? And I think that... We're seeing just the madness that abortion is a kitchen table issue, and it has everything to do with affordability, right?

It's so warped, and it's couched in that language of compassion, too. That's so seductive to so many Christians. Misplaced compassion. Yeah, yeah. I love how you keep your friends close, but your enemies closer, and you subscribe to our newsletter. I think that's really good.

I wouldn't feel right being a pro-abortion activist if I was not reading Jessica Valente regularly, but I have to say a St. Michael prayer every time I open up that newsletter. Because it's dark out there, guys. Well, you have to understand, like, she is a highly motivated voter who is focused on making sure abortion is legal, subsidized, and celebrated. Right. The fact of the matter is, she's not going to lose her focus if gas prices are too high. Or go low.

If there's another issue that frustrates her, she knows that she needs to vote Democrat in order to make sure the abortion machine is up and running. Every day, every day, every day. And so, the fact of the matter is, are you going to get cold feet? Are you going to say, oh, I don't know if I want to vote. I'm frustrated about Iran or something like that. It's like, yeah, I'm frustrated about Iran. Does that mean I'm going to let people that she wants to have political power and to control this House and the Senate?

Yeah, no way. No way. No way. All right, my Twilight Zone. Yeah, I think we're going to skip Susan Collins here, but she did have a fun debate. She did a good job, I thought, and always impressed with a woman that old who can really hold her own. But moving on to, I found this article in the New York Post this week, and the headline, we're all interested in higher education here. We have uber children, many, many children. Your wives are super paras.

I am a super para. Having produced much of the next generation of America. But here we go. U.S. colleges slash tuition by tens of thousands as families. How could this be? How could this be? They do that all the time, right? Oh, wait, no. Wait, what? This article goes through some astonishing numbers. I'm just going to share a few before I get to the punchline here. Emory and Henry University. Emory is where I did my graduate work, so this was interesting to me.

They cut undergraduate tuition from... Almost $40,000 to under $20,000 starting this fall, which is crazy. Over 50% cut. University of Tulsa is going to cut undergraduate tuition and fees from $54,000 to $25,000 next fall. Coe College, $58,000 to $31,000. Carroll College, $44,000. And the list goes on and on.

Even UC Irvine, so a public school, they cut their fees from $30,000. They cut from 99 to 30,000. Crazy. So, these are astonishing numbers, what the article never actually gets to. Is that the driving force here was that the Trump administration cut student loans, so the highest a student can take out per semester was slashed to just $5,000 per semester on the FAFSA loan.

This opened the eyes of parents because they had to actually look at the sticker price now, and what they saw horrified them so much that it's forcing the colleges to now participate in bringing down the cost of higher education. In many cases, still too high. The article does go on to speak about how, in addition to these cuts to the sticker price, you've also seen at some of these schools over 50% increases in... Scholars in stipends and tapping into the endowment to finance the student education, to all of these things I say.

This is wonderful. Good. Get the government out of education, and this is one of the fruits of that. Indeed, I'm here. I just think it's kind of funny. What is going on with driving the cost? Do you think the why would have been an absolutely critical... I know, especially at the New York Post. ...headline-mentioning aspect?

Yep, so... I heard it once at the Ivy Leagues. Like, if Dartmouth raises their tuition... Then Yale raises their tuition, and it's for no other reason because we're just as good as Yale, or we're just as good as Dartmouth, right? It's like they don't have any rhyme or reason for raising their tuition. Well, the only rhyme or reason is just, well, yeah, we can't be seen as being cheaper. Dartmouth can't be cheaper than Yale because we have to be equally inaccessible to the working man.

Yeah. My second Twilight Zone that I'm going to do, this was... I mean, the headline alone, this is so bizarre. Unprecedented. Aborted baby wins first ever wrongful death lawsuit against abortionist. I had to read that three times, and I was like, surely this is just AI generated, but no. So, for the first time in U.S. history, an aborted baby has won a wrongful death lawsuit settlement against the abortionist who killed him or her. So, this third trimester child, so a viable infant, was killed in utero.

The estate of this child has collected $200,000 in the state of, this was the other twilight zone, New Mexico, which is a crazy abortion destination in the southwest. They actually legalized it before Roe. Yeah, this is like the culture of death writ large in New Mexico.

But the lawsuit described the child as a 26-week-old viable fetus and a person who is entitled to equal protection under the law of New Mexico and the United States, and they won. Now, this is brand new to me. I have not had time to dig into what are the ramifications, like what could this set up, but the fact that in a United States court...

We got this settlement on the basis of the baby's personhood. It seems to me a radical shift in something down there. So, I am going to follow this case more closely. I want to talk to a couple of lawyers on the Hill, get Tom McCluskey's input on this, but this was a wild headline coming out of that. Can you imagine a court acknowledging that the baby is a person?

Go figure. Interesting times. I mean, it maybe is a person. That's what's the truth. Okay, let's finish off the day with Mark. What was your twilight zone? Yeah, I went more with the weird on this one. Not so much the crazy, although... It's October. Things are weird. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I was... I don't know. I went to... Fat Bear Week, and I was like, that's kind of interesting, but I was like, this one was really interesting. I liked it because I'm an educator, and I taught in the same high school that, I don't know if you guys knew this, that Benjamin Netanyahu went to school.

Whoa. Yeah, and Reggie Jackson. Reggie Jackson, I taught in that high school. Very Asian and Jewish population. Of course, Reggie was not neither of those, but... But Netanyahu went there. Nonetheless, so I'm an educator by trade. So, I saw this, that Candy Sidney Browning, a 36-year-old second grade teacher in Georgia, came up with a brilliant idea that I think is just, some people might think like this is just crazy or weird, but She created something called the gas station, and there are no pumps in this situation.

There's no convenience store, no windshield squeegees. Despite what might reasonably expect here, there is no requirement for anyone to purchase. Fuel, okay, or petrol. It is designated corner of an Atlanta elementary school classroom where students can go when they need to pass gas. Oh my gosh. Its creator, Candy Sydney Browning. Calls it the gas station. The specific spot where students go is the gusty winds area. There are air freshener sprays nearby, and according to Sydney Browning, it works. And if I could use YouTube as cool as you guys do, I'd show you this.

But I have a very weak stomach, she says. I cannot take it. So, I was like, okay, I'm going to create this little area over here, and you just get up, you go over there, you do your business, you come back, and that's just it. And the arrangement has recently attracted... Considerable attention online, TikTok and the like, explaining how it works. The video prompted thousands of reactions, ranging from disbelief to enthusiastic declarations that every classroom should have one of these. Oh my goodness.

One commentator wrote, this is genius in normalizing body functions without disturbing the classroom. Amazing. Another asked the question that seems to trouble many adults, and the rest of the class stays focused while somebody is farting in the corner. There was also a predictable amount of parental and teacher horror. I'd be so embarrassed with the whole class knowing I'm getting up to go fart, one person wrote. And for Sydney, the teacher, she points out, it's not really about flatulence. It's about not wasting instructional time.

When she began teaching in her current school, she says she noticed that students were frequently leaving the classroom to use the restroom. And because she wanted to maximize the amount of time students spent learning. She began having the class use the restroom before lessons, but there was another problem. Children were passing that gas, and unlike adults who have spent decades perfecting the art of pretending that nobody noticed, young children can be remarkably direct about it. They were like, he did it, she did it, and they'll point fingers, and they'll try to move away from each other.

Her response was essentially, yes, people fart, people behave accordingly, it's normal, but you have to excuse yourself. So, she created a place called the Gist. Gusty winds area. So, that was my weird... I have known a few second graders in my life, many of them in my own house. I have a hard time believing that it is less distracting when they're sitting in class doing phonics, and they see a kid get up, and they know exactly what the kid's going to do.

I have a really, really hard time believing that everyone's like, oh, cool now, right? I'm not surprised that social media loved this discussion. Yeah, I mean, that's just, okay. All right, this is the most male-coded episode we've had.

I mean, I ended up with, like, gas pains because I was fighting it so much as a kid because I didn't want to embarrass myself. I could have benefited from this. Having not a program mark has been a blast. Oh, my goodness.

Josh, stop. No, don't do it. Don't do it. I don't even know how to, like, end after that. You should probably go elsewhere, huh? Yeah, maybe we should pray. So, as always, if you are not subscribed to the LOOPcast, please go ahead and subscribe. Hit the notification bell so you don't miss a single episode. Tomorrow, we have The Deep is coming out, 4 p.m. Eastern. What's this one on? Oh, right. So, we have the girl bosses. We have the trad wives.

Can we get a real woman for a change? I'm going to talk about that, one of my favorite topics. So, make sure that you watch The Deep this week, and we're going to finish with the ultimate woman, Our Lady of Victory. Prayer to Our Lady. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.

Our Lady of Victory, we have unshaken confidence in your influence with your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Humbly, we ask your intercession for all of us associated under your title, Our Lady of Victory. We beg your powerful intercession also for our own personal needs.

In your maternal kindness, please ask Jesus to forgive all our sins and failings, and to secure his blessings for us and for all the works of charity dedicated to your name. We implore you to obtain for us the grace of sharing Christ's victory and yours forever in the life that knows no ending. May we join you there to praise forever the Father, his Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, one God for all the ages to come. Amen. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

St. Thomas More, pray for us. St. Fidelis, pray for us. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. And we will see you right back here next week on LOOPcast. Have a great rest of your week.