Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 10, 2026


Ep 1286 ｜ Maduro Detained, Minnesota ICE Altercation, Can Trump Save Single-Family Homes？ ｜ Ron Simmons


Episode Stats


Length

57 minutes

Words per minute

177.00218

Word count

10,224

Sentence count

624

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Allie and I talk about our goals for the new year and what we are looking forward to doing in 2020. We also talk about the College Football National Championship game and what it means to us as college football fans.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Well, hello, everyone. It's so good to see you. And I know Allie has already wished you
00:00:14.680 a happy new year, 2026. We're in the first week of the year and things are starting out
00:00:21.400 busy as I'm sure they are in your life as well. Probably your kids have gone back to
00:00:24.740 school if you have kids in school, which is good and bad. I know that we enjoyed our
00:00:30.300 vacation time when our kids were in school, but we were always a little also excited to get back
00:00:38.320 to a routine and the kids get back engaged in what they had going on every day and have things
00:00:43.980 calm down a little bit. So hopefully that's happened at your house as well. Now I'm recording
00:00:48.040 this before the last college football semifinal game is played. But by the time you watch this,
00:00:55.780 you'll know who is going to be in the national championship. You know, for the first time in
00:01:01.300 a long time, there's no SEC teams in there. So that's kind of disappointing for some of us that
00:01:06.480 follow that part of it. For those of you that follow the teams that are in the finals, congratulations
00:01:11.740 to you. Watch the Miami Ole Miss game here last night and it was fantastic game. Didn't turn out
00:01:20.320 exactly like I wanted it, but that's the way it goes. Right. But we'll have a good season. The NFL
00:01:26.000 playoffs are starting. And so I don't know what we'd have a lot of ladies that listen to this that are 1.00
00:01:30.600 football fans. So hopefully your team is in there and guys hope we have a lot of related bros that
00:01:35.540 are listening to this podcast that we're going to be doing now. And Allie announced it. We're going to
00:01:39.600 be doing, I'm going to be doing two episodes a month throughout 2026. And I think Allie and I'll
00:01:45.440 probably still have a couple of episodes during the year where she's interviewing me or we're
00:01:49.580 talking together about stuff, but I'm going to be hosting two on my own every other Saturday is kind
00:01:55.620 of how we're doing it. And we're looking forward to doing that. It's going to be news related topics
00:02:02.420 primarily also answering some of your questions. You always have such great questions. And then on the
00:02:08.080 two Saturdays a month that I'm not hosting, there will be two episodes that will be what we would
00:02:15.380 call evergreen episodes that Allie's done in the past that have been the most popular, maybe some
00:02:21.060 interviews or things like that, that people responded to. So if you have some episodes of the past that
00:02:26.900 you would like to be played again in the future, let her know that on Instagram, just send her message
00:02:32.400 on that. And, uh, we'll look back in the archives and see what we can find. So you'll have four
00:02:37.360 episodes a week of relatable. You'll have Allie's three that she does. And then you'll have something
00:02:42.900 that comes out over the weekend, usually on a Saturday, two of those will be mine a month.
00:02:47.560 And then two will be, uh, previous episodes that have been very popular that Allie has done that
00:02:52.280 maybe you missed. I know I, sometimes I can't listen to every single one of them and then I've missed
00:02:56.380 some of them. So that'll be good to be able to do that. Uh, we're also going to, in this, we'll always
00:03:01.720 talk about political implications of things and what it means to you. What should you do? If anything
00:03:07.280 related to the stuff we're talking about today, sometimes there's not anything we need, we can
00:03:12.460 do. We just need to understand it. The worst thing that we can have is lack of knowledge. So my goal
00:03:19.300 is to try to just educate all of us and I'm learning as we go as well. I certainly don't have all the
00:03:24.900 answers. Uh, but just to educate us on educate you and myself on what's going on in the world
00:03:30.920 and how that might have an effect on you and your family. Uh, then once we go through the
00:03:36.380 new sections, we're going to do something that we call words from the wagon. And, uh, it kind of
00:03:41.140 relates to my book, life lessons from the little red wagon, which you can see behind me. And, uh, by the
00:03:46.260 way, the, this book is now available in the Allie's merchandise store. I can't say merch guys. I just
00:03:53.980 can't do that. I mean, I'm 65 years old. So merch is not a real word to me though. I'm sure it's now
00:03:59.640 in the dictionary, but where you get Allie's merchandise and relatable merchandise, you can
00:04:04.600 now buy this book. And I I'm selling it at about a 25% discount on what you could get it from, uh,
00:04:10.380 another provider. So feel free to go on there and buy that book. I think you'll enjoy that.
00:04:14.560 And again, we'll post that in the show notes or, uh, maybe end up having a graphic of it later in the
00:04:19.360 show. Uh, the words from the wagon are really going to be questions from you as well as something to
00:04:24.400 ponder, something that I would like for you to think about, you know, over the next several days
00:04:30.380 or weeks or months or what have you. And I think that'll be fun. All right, let's get started today
00:04:35.200 with the, with the hard news stuff. And that seems like the biggest thing that's been in the news this
00:04:40.300 week. And of course there's something new virtually every day in, uh, uh, the Trump world. There's always
00:04:45.400 things going on and, uh, he's not, I don't know how the guy sleeps at all. Honestly. I mean, the guy,
00:04:50.380 there's no way that he gets more than four hours of sleep because he is one busy man. Um, interesting.
00:04:56.560 I had a really close family member that was at the white house this week and, uh, just kind of,
00:05:02.740 and they interacted with president Trump with a group of other people. Uh, this person wasn't there
00:05:06.820 seeing, seeing president Trump individually with a group of people, but he said, the guy is amazingly,
00:05:14.440 uh, intelligent in how he communicates and his thought process. He certainly hasn't lost anything
00:05:23.560 mentally at all whatsoever. And, uh, that's always encouraging, especially, uh, with the experience
00:05:28.880 of the last president that we had that really sadly was declining during that period of time
00:05:34.500 and people around him were just trying to cover for him. So, uh, that was a, that was a sad case.
00:05:40.540 And it also hurt our country, which is even more sad. So let's talk a little bit about the Maduro.
00:05:45.300 Uh, and I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but hopefully I am. Nicholas Maduro was
00:05:50.840 the, uh, alleged leader, alleged leader of Venezuela. And when I say alleged, uh, United States
00:05:58.260 and several other countries never recognized the last two elections that he says he won. So we did not
00:06:04.400 recognize him in an official capacity as the president or leader of Venezuela. He, we did not
00:06:12.420 do that. And, and, uh, Anthony Blinken, who was the secretary of state, uh, during the last election,
00:06:20.060 uh, was very clear on that, that we did not recognize him. We recognize the, uh, opposition
00:06:26.740 person at the time. We'll talk about them in a minute, but there is some parallels that go in this
00:06:32.540 case to what we've done before in precedence. And a lot of you listening to this may not remember,
00:06:38.420 uh, Manuel Noriega, who was the head of Panama. And in 1989, when president Bush 41, so the first
00:06:48.880 president Bush, who is someone that I think as far as a man, I have some of the most respect for not
00:06:55.900 saying he was the best president. Certainly he wasn't the worst. He was a good president, but as a man,
00:07:01.780 I think that the person was a man of honor and probably the most qualified person to be president.
00:07:07.200 When you look at the history of what he had done, he had served in Congress. He had been vice president.
00:07:11.800 He had served head of the CIA. He had been in private business. Uh, so he kind of knew his way
00:07:17.720 around, but anyway, Manuel Noriega, uh, in 1989, we had an operation called operation just cause.
00:07:27.160 And we were going after him for essentially, you know, uh, cocaine trafficking and racketeering.
00:07:36.420 And the, that what we did is we went into Panama. Now remember this, this is crazy. Can you imagine
00:07:42.000 if president Trump would have done this? Went into Panama with 27,000 troops. It wasn't, you know,
00:07:48.780 in the middle of the night, we're going to go in and lift this person out 27,000 troops.
00:07:53.160 There was a 10 day standoff, uh, but we finally got him and, uh, he was indicted. He had already
00:07:59.740 been indicted in U S court. That's what happens. The courts can indict people that, you know, aren't
00:08:05.580 here that, but if they've committed crimes against the U S so they've been in, he had already been
00:08:10.600 indicted. Uh, we did, we did, we thought that he stole the elections in 1989. And, uh, so we went
00:08:19.800 down and got him and sent it. And then he had a trial. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
00:08:24.820 He served in our prisons for quite a while. And then, uh, the evidence, he had some crimes
00:08:30.320 against him in France. So he sent him to France. They did some stuff with him, eventually sending
00:08:35.140 back to Panama where he died in 2017. So president without congressional approval sends in 27,000 troops
00:08:44.860 because this guy has committed crimes against the United States, brings him out, brings him back to
00:08:50.740 the U S puts him on trial convicted. That's what happened with Noriega. Okay. And here's what
00:08:57.660 happened with Maduro. Maduro has been seen as what we now call a narco terrorist. So they're using
00:09:04.740 narcotics to terrorize the U S and U S citizens. And also has obviously been charged with, uh,
00:09:14.600 exporting out of, uh, Venezuela, cocaine and other drugs to the United States.
00:09:21.620 And we, uh, went in there in the stealth of the night with a Delta force team, which is some of our
00:09:29.300 most elite special forces and took him out. We had, uh, very, very precision. We didn't send in 27,000
00:09:37.580 troops. I don't know exactly how many people were involved, but it was a very small force, took him
00:09:42.480 out in the middle of the night. He and his wife, uh, brought him back to the U S. He had already been
00:09:47.360 indicted, put him before a judge. He's going to have a trial. He's going to be convicted. He will be
00:09:52.820 convicted of his crimes. There's no question about that. And then we'll see what happens to him after
00:09:58.020 that. Now a couple of the legal ramifications behind this, uh, or again, both of them have
00:10:05.700 been previously indicted in federal courts, Noriega in 1988 Maduro in 2020. So he's been under indictment
00:10:12.120 for the last five, almost six years with both in disputed elections. Both were not recognized as
00:10:18.500 winning their elections. Uh, now what they're going to claim and what Maduro is going to claim is head of
00:10:24.860 state immunity. And there is precedence that says, if you are the, uh, recognize elected head of state
00:10:33.000 that a foreign government can't come in and arrest you. But because we didn't recognize him, just like
00:10:39.580 we didn't recognize Noriega, we don't think that applies. And the courts agreed with us on that.
00:10:46.700 The, uh, we consider him an illegitimate ruler. Some legal scholars have said that's not the case,
00:10:54.220 but we absolutely believe that's the same thing as a Noriega precedent. Uh, a couple of other things
00:11:02.060 that, uh, we think will happen is, is that, well, a couple of things that have happened is that there
00:11:08.640 was a $25 million bounty placed on him. And who do you think placed that bounty on him? Joe Biden.
00:11:17.560 So Joe Biden had said, look, we'll pay you, we'll pay producer Tom $25 million. If you'll go down
00:11:26.360 there, take the weekend, go down there, bring Maduro back to us, you'll get a $25 million check from the
00:11:32.520 U S government. How is that? Why, why wasn't there anything said about that? And we didn't even have
00:11:38.960 to pay the, uh, we didn't even have to pay the bounty. We just sent our troops down there, which
00:11:43.180 are already paying. They brought him back here. So where was the Democrats outrage on the bounty
00:11:49.380 that Biden had put out on him? I mean, that's just, and I'm glad he put the, I'm glad he put the bounty
00:11:54.200 out. I think that was the right thing to do. Nobody took him up on it because as you can imagine,
00:11:58.640 Maduro was pretty well protected. Now you might think how in the world did they
00:12:02.360 get into his, wherever he was staying and get to him? Well, again, I don't have any
00:12:09.740 particular inside information. I do have several friends in Congress that have been in on multiple
00:12:14.740 meetings. Uh, but they had to have had some coordination with some of the military down
00:12:23.080 there that there wasn't a big firefight. They had to have had that in some form or fashion.
00:12:27.800 You know, we've had this, we haven't had an ambassador there in a long time, but the CIA
00:12:32.120 is all over the place down there. In fact, they're probably our top people down there is our CIA
00:12:37.640 operatives in the head of our CIA organization that works out of the embassy there. So they bound to
00:12:44.980 have had intelligence on the ground and they bound to have had some agreements with some of the head
00:12:50.600 military leaders that said, Hey, we're not going to get into a big fight with you. Right. And so
00:12:55.880 that, that, I don't see how it would have happened without a big, uh, you know, firefight without
00:13:01.840 doing that. So that's what I think has happened now. Interesting. You think, well, why did we even
00:13:06.780 do this? What were, you know, we've heard about Venezuela for the last, you know, few years. And we
00:13:12.580 know that ever since 2012, when Hugo Chavez came in and essentially stole that election, and then he
00:13:19.220 was a narco terrorist, you know, and we, and we got him and indicted him and then he died. Uh, we
00:13:24.860 captured him and he died and what have you. And then Maduro takes over and we've been fighting with
00:13:30.180 them the whole time and their economy has gone down. As a matter of fact, uh, my wife and I, Lisa and I
00:13:36.280 have some really, really close friends who had to fled, who fled Venezuela probably, uh, well, they
00:13:42.360 probably fled Venezuela in, you know, after Chavez came in because her, the, uh, my friend's wife's
00:13:49.540 father was an admiral in the Navy and was very much against the Chavez takeover. So he was kind of on
00:13:56.980 the Chavez hit list and that he had to get out. So he got out as well. He lives here in the U S 0.97
00:14:02.300 somewhere. But, uh, you, the stories that they told about Chavez and what, how he was oppressing
00:14:09.820 his people and what have you were just pitiful. And our friends were outspoken about it. So they
00:14:15.820 basically were on the government hit list and, you know, and Maduro and according to what they've
00:14:22.520 told us on how they've monitored since then is that Maduro is just as bad as Chavez and, you know,
00:14:28.480 very anti-American had cut deals with Hezbollah, the terrorist organization of the Midwest had cut
00:14:35.200 deals with Iran. There is a, there was a rifle manufacturing company, uh, out of Russia that
00:14:42.340 was based there. And so we were very, very concerned that these forces from Europe and Asia and the other
00:14:51.240 continents, and actually, uh, China has put in about $60 billion there to, uh, help them with their
00:14:58.460 refineries and take a lot of their oil. But we were very concerned. And you think this is something
00:15:05.340 that's new, but it's really, really not. James Monroe, who was one of the early presidents of our
00:15:11.220 country, um, had something called, and you may have heard this term, the Monroe Doctrine. Well, the Monroe
00:15:18.300 Doctrine at the time, and again, this was in the early 1800s where there was the, the British,
00:15:26.360 the United Kingdom, Britain was obviously the superpower, the superpower of the world, but
00:15:32.500 certainly the superpower of Europe. And then there was the United States in the Western Hemisphere.
00:15:38.500 And by that time, it was pretty clear that we were going to be the strongest nation in the Western
00:15:44.740 Hemisphere. And so, excuse me, essentially the Monroe Doctrine says, look, Great Britain,
00:15:51.840 you take care of everything in Europe and we will not mess with you over there. All right.
00:15:57.680 But in the Western Hemisphere, we're going to take care of everything and you don't mess with us
00:16:03.700 over here. And that includes the Latin American countries, the Central American countries, because
00:16:07.480 there's a lot of concern that Spain might want to come back in and establish themselves in Latin
00:16:13.180 America and things like that. So that was the Monroe Doctrine. Well, now that's being called the
00:16:18.740 Donroe Doctrine, which only President Trump, I'm not sure he even said it, somebody probably else
00:16:23.880 made it up, but only would this happen under President Trump. And, and what the Donroe Doctrine
00:16:30.080 essentially is, is that look, if you're threatening America, especially in the Western Hemisphere,
00:16:37.080 where you, you know, the Iran could have put ballistic missiles in Venezuela and got to the United
00:16:42.780 States pretty easily. So we're going to pay attention to things that are very close to us. And if we
00:16:48.660 think there's something, some country or some person that is a threat to America or is harming
00:16:54.620 America, then we're going to do something about it. And I, for one, applaud that. And I would hope
00:17:01.740 that you would applaud that as well. We need to do that. Now, nobody wants to see, uh, the men and
00:17:07.180 women in uniform, uh, lose their lives no matter what they're doing. Unfortunately, that is a part of 1.00
00:17:15.220 being in the military. That's the risk that you, that is taken by people. And, you know, in this
00:17:21.140 particular instance, we didn't lose any lives or anything like that on our side of it, but that is
00:17:25.500 people that sign up for the military sign up knowing that that could be one of the risks that they have.
00:17:32.480 So the Donro doctrine is in place and we were just in Venezuela alone. We're very concerned about what
00:17:41.440 other countries like Russia, as I said, and China and, uh, Hezbollah, the terrorist organization has
00:17:48.900 been involved in that. This hasn't happened just yesterday. The drug enforcement association launched
00:17:54.440 project Cassandra to investigate Hezbollah's growth into a crime signature syndicate tracking cocaine,
00:18:01.880 being trafficked from Latin America, including Venezuela to Europe, the Middle East, and the U S
00:18:07.880 through, uh, and also through weapons smuggling and money laundering and believed to have profited a
00:18:15.460 billion dollars annually. Now our good friend, president Obama administration, uh, they, and, and,
00:18:24.800 and with Biden and them, they didn't want that to continue because they had cut the deal with Iran.
00:18:29.860 So they shut down that organization and, you know, therefore it continued to operate.
00:18:36.860 And then of course, Russia is an ally of there. We talked about China. Now there's been a little
00:18:41.440 talk about, um, this oil, you know, we're just doing it for the oil. All right. Now Venezuela does
00:18:47.540 have huge oil reserves. I was reading about it the other day. I mean, it is some of the largest in
00:18:53.320 the world. Now their oil is interesting. It's, it's, it's real, what they call black tar oil,
00:18:58.380 real heavy. Not every refinery around the world can actually even process that oil. We have some
00:19:04.880 experience that in the U S because Canada's oil is very heavy as well. And we've been processing
00:19:09.960 Canadian crude for a long time, uh, especially down along the Gulf coast that comes in through
00:19:15.080 ships or what have you should be coming through a pipeline. But again, we've had issues with that,
00:19:19.760 with the previous Democrat administrations before Chavez came in to the world, we had agreements
00:19:29.100 with Venezuela, our private companies like Chevron and maybe Exxon and some of the others. I don't
00:19:34.560 know all the names where we invested almost $20 billion to build, uh, refineries there to do
00:19:42.460 exploration there. And we would share the profits with the country of Venezuela. And they got a
00:19:49.120 royalty on that, so to speak. That's how we shared the profits. Well, when Chavez came in, he basically
00:19:53.440 took all that over. He took all that over. We didn't get anything out of it. You know, our, our,
00:19:58.560 our companies didn't, and therefore the, our United States didn't get anything out of it.
00:20:02.880 And so all we've done is saying, okay, look, no, we're going to repatriate that. Meaning we're
00:20:08.940 going to, we're going to take that back because that's what these companies had invested to do.
00:20:14.600 And they are, you know, some of those are American companies or they have American offices here. So
00:20:18.940 we're going to protect that. Now, these tankers that we have now, um, I don't want to say confiscated,
00:20:27.000 but now that we have retaken, uh, that are full of these, like, I think some of them had like 50
00:20:33.280 million barrels of oil or something like that. So a lot of oil on these tankers that, and these
00:20:38.240 tankers have already been sanctioned because we believe they were, cause they were using that oil,
00:20:44.280 you know, they were selling it, uh, to countries that we had had a no sell to. And so we have taken
00:20:52.240 over those tankers. That wasn't a Russian ship. It was basically a ship with, with
00:20:56.840 no, uh, official status as far as flying under a country flag. Although I think one of them was
00:21:02.000 in from, from, uh, Ghana. Uh, but they just put the Russian flag on it Christmas Eve. And you can
00:21:08.700 tell the Russians, they've put up a little bit of fight, but basically they said, look, we know you've
00:21:13.180 taken over the ship, but just treat our people nicely, would you? And, uh, so that's coming back
00:21:17.620 now. We're not even, we're actually, even though we're taking those ships back of what we believe
00:21:22.940 was, uh, ill gotten gain oil. We're actually buying that from, uh, Venezuela. And I hope
00:21:29.000 we're buying it at a discount and no one, president Trump, we're buying that at a discount, but we're
00:21:32.720 actually buying that. So the country will get, uh, some benefit out of that. Venezuela will get some
00:21:38.180 benefit out of that, but we weren't just confiscated. Those were, those were ships that had already been
00:21:43.020 sanctioned in, in the U S courts and international courts. Um, so that's where we are. And let's talk
00:21:50.760 about a little bit of the legality. There's, you know, the left has just been screaming about
00:21:55.740 and we'll go over, we've got some really kind of funny video on some of this stuff. That's just
00:21:59.740 amazing. It's only funny because it's so crazy. Uh, but here's the legality in 1989, the department
00:22:06.460 of justice had sent out a memo that, uh, the 1890, okay. That's why you have precedents in the re Ray
00:22:16.860 Nagel case suggests that the president has the inherent authority to use troops for protecting 0.72
00:22:23.120 federal functions, including arrest. And because at the time Noriega now Maduro had been indicted,
00:22:31.900 we had the right to arrest them. And the fed and the president has the ability, the inherent ability
00:22:41.280 to use our troops to protect our arresting officers. I don't know exactly what happened
00:22:47.960 in there, but chances are it wasn't a soldier, but it was someone else who actually put Maduro
00:22:55.700 under arrest. Again, I wasn't there, but it kind of following this line. That makes sense that the
00:23:02.520 soldiers were protecting the arresting officers. And that's how they, that's what, that's one of the
00:23:08.660 justifications we use to be able to go down and arrest Maduro. Also, some people are saying,
00:23:15.800 well, you, you know, we've extradited, we've, we've, uh, we've abducted him illegally, but let's
00:23:22.200 just say that that's the case. Supreme court cases already indicate that even unlawful extra
00:23:29.440 territorial, which means foreign countries, abductions do not bar the U S courts from prosecuting
00:23:35.560 defendants. So because he'd been indicted here in the U S, even if us going to get him was illegal,
00:23:42.120 that doesn't do away with our ability to convict him, which is kind of interesting.
00:23:48.220 Um, and then, uh, the last thing that I thought was interesting because only because of who was
00:23:54.580 involved in it is that in 2015, when president Obama was our president and John Kerry, which I'd even
00:24:03.860 forgotten about him, uh, was our secretary of state, uh, was our secretary of state that in the case of
00:24:09.080 Zivotosky versus Kerry, the Supreme court affirmed the president's exclusive authority to recognize
00:24:17.760 foreign governments. So if president Trump did not recognize Maduro, just like president Biden didn't
00:24:26.180 recognize Maduro as the legitimate president, then he's not legitimate. I mean, that's kind of the,
00:24:33.300 that's kind of the way it is. So, uh, very interesting on how this is all going to play out.
00:24:38.740 There's going to be a lot of back and forth and what have you. And, uh, but I, my opinion is as far
00:24:44.560 as this is concerned, I just think it's something we should observe. There's nothing you and I can do
00:24:49.380 about it individually. We should observe it and see what happens. I'm more interested in not so much
00:24:56.500 what happens to Maduro. Cause I'm pretty confident what happened there is what's going to really happen
00:25:00.780 in Venezuela. The president just came out today and said, there's no more military actions or anything
00:25:05.840 planned on that, but I don't trust the vice president at all. I don't trust all the military
00:25:11.640 leaders because here's something. And I think Allie actually mentioned this, uh, the other day. I heard
00:25:17.760 one of her podcasts is that there's no vacuum when it comes to power. Remember that there's, there's
00:25:26.620 never a time. Well, somebody is out of power. So nobody's in power. It doesn't work like that.
00:25:31.220 The vacuum of power is always filled. The question is, is it filled with the right people or not? And
00:25:36.280 that's what we're going to, I think that's going to be the most interesting thing to monitor. Now
00:25:40.180 let's put up on the screen what the, what we would think to be the legitimate, uh, president of
00:25:48.600 Venezuela said, I think his name is Edmondo Gonzalez. So you can see here, I'll let you read it,
00:25:55.100 but you can see here that he is essentially saying that Venezuela there, these are decisive
00:26:01.760 hours. Know that we are ready for the great operation of reconstruction of our nation.
00:26:07.760 That's who we believe, um, is the legitimate president as well. And then there's also an
00:26:13.940 opposition leader. If we'd put that back up, uh, who named Maria Machado. And she says, 0.53
00:26:20.980 Venezuela's the hour of freedom has arrived. I hope so. Now I do. I did also hear a story where,
00:26:29.680 uh, the current government that remains there, the vice president, the, I think her last name
00:26:36.200 is Rodriguez, where she is seeking out the people that helped the U S with this, uh, takedown of Maduro.
00:26:43.440 So I believe that is probably muting some of the protest and conversations going on in Venezuela.
00:26:50.660 If you're just a regular Venezuelan citizen, you're probably just trying to stay under the radar 0.99
00:26:55.280 and hoping it all gets worked out to where you return to one of the great democracies, uh, of our
00:27:02.020 time. Now let's take a look though, at what some of our Democrat friends are saying about the, uh,
00:27:11.440 arrest and how ridiculous, how ridiculous they are. What I wanted is, you know, the great thing about
00:27:17.020 the internet is everything's there forever. The bad thing about the internet is everything's there
00:27:21.120 forever. And sometimes it comes back to bite you. Let's see what Chuck Schumer is saying then and now.
00:27:29.660 And the president brags about his Venezuela policy. Give us a break. He hasn't brought an end to the
00:27:37.000 Maduro regime. The Maduro regime is more powerful today and more entrenched today than it was when
00:27:42.860 the president began. That's what he said back when president Trump was there the first time. In other
00:27:49.140 words, you hadn't done anything, do something. Well, let's see what he said. Our good friend,
00:27:53.380 Chuckie Schumer says now. You don't treat lawlessness with other lawlessness. And that's what's happened
00:27:59.700 here. The American people this morning, George, are scratching their heads in wonderment and in fear.
00:28:06.160 No, Chuckie, they're scratching their heads on why you're such a hypocritical liar.
00:28:12.680 Sorry. Now, if you want to come sit on this couch and let's have a discussion about it,
00:28:16.360 we can do it. That's fine. We, in fact, I will pay for your flight to come down here. Now I'm not
00:28:21.680 going to make you pay first class because you're a man of the people. So we'll, but we'll pay for you
00:28:25.480 a nice coat seat to come down here and we can talk about it. So just let me, have your people,
00:28:28.920 you know, give us a, give us a reach out to us and we'll see what we can do. Now,
00:28:32.680 also the Senator from Chicago, from Illinois, who is actually, I think, retiring this time,
00:28:38.400 Senator Durbin. Uh, we've got him on what he said before and now, and he said the people of
00:28:45.940 Venezuela, this was in 2019, those are better than this. We can't allow the president short
00:28:51.460 attention. This is talking about Trump from stopping us from delivering our promise to help
00:28:55.120 the Venezuelan people rebuild their country. Well, the only way you're going to help them rebuild
00:28:58.900 their countries. If you get the other guy out. All right. Let's see what he says now.
00:29:05.860 Now he, yes, Nicholas Maduro basically was a bad guy and two thirds of them voted to put somebody
00:29:13.400 else in there. But I disagree with Trump on the use of military forces. Well, did you think
00:29:18.440 Senator Durbin that we were just going to ask him nicely to leave and he was going to leave?
00:29:22.760 What were you thinking? Do you care more about the Venezuelan people
00:29:26.300 and about the people in the U S that are being harmed and killed by the narcotics that they're
00:29:32.040 trafficking? Or do you care more about Maduro who you've said is not a legitimate leader? You can't have
00:29:39.560 it both ways. Can't have it both ways. So good riddance in your retirement. All right. Next we have
00:29:46.820 the always popular is just the same guy that was a margarita drinker with the guy that went down to,
00:29:54.080 Nicaragua or San Salvador with the guy that went to prison down there and had the margarita with
00:30:00.540 him. Oh yeah. This is our good friend, Chris Van Holen, not to be configured, confused with the great
00:30:06.980 guitarist Van Halen, by the way. This is why Secretary Blinken did, in my view, the right thing,
00:30:14.920 recognizing the real winner here, Gonzalez. And this is why the United States is now going to
00:30:22.240 use its levers and influence to push for a negotiation to have a transition to the truly
00:30:30.520 elected leader, Gonzalez. Now, obviously, we know Maduro and his cronies do not want to go quietly
00:30:40.040 into the night, but the United States needs to work with our partners, allies in the region
00:30:44.740 to ratchet up the pressure on behalf of the Venezuelan people.
00:30:49.620 Wow. He said clearly Gonzalez was the winner. And I'll just tell you folks, here's the deal.
00:30:56.540 When negotiations break down, you either walk away and whatever, you know, you just give up,
00:31:04.120 or you take the action that you believe is the right thing to do. And that's really what happened
00:31:09.960 here. Negotiations didn't go anywhere. Maduro wasn't going to give it up. You could negotiate
00:31:13.700 him out of that power. Now let's see what our Senator from Maryland said recently.
00:31:22.820 He says that his cronies can try to dress this up, but it's an illegal act of war to replace Maduro
00:31:28.860 and grab Venezuela's oil for this billionaire buddies. What a ridiculous statement. This
00:31:34.340 guy's ridiculous. Move on. All right. Uh, and then we have the Senator from Virginia who was
00:31:44.880 Hillary Clinton's running make. Let's see what he has to say here. This is in, uh, in September,
00:31:52.060 2024. The, this is deeply concerning development for Venezuela and for the entire region since,
00:32:01.180 and this was the election. It was a quote unquote, the election impacts us here at home and to
00:32:06.160 Venezuela to have the right to decide their own future. And they chose Gonzalez. So he's saying
00:32:12.040 it wasn't legitimate, right? Now let's see what, uh, what did Mr. Kane say today?
00:32:17.420 President Trump unauthorized military attack on Venezuela to arrest Maduro. However terrible he
00:32:25.220 is, is sickening return to a day when the United States asserted the right to dominate the internal
00:32:33.400 political affairs of nations in the Western hemisphere, which actually is, we're not internal,
00:32:40.360 but it is part of the Monroe doctrine that we're going to pay attention to that. But he said that the
00:32:44.780 person wasn't a legitimate leader. So it, and Supreme court said, clearly we're the ones that
00:32:52.940 can decide that the president's the ones that can decide that. So people are crazy. That's the way it
00:32:58.520 is. Not going to change. But again, on this situation with Maduro, follow the case. That's okay.
00:33:04.680 He's going to get, he's going to get convicted in my opinion, but let's pay more attention to what's
00:33:09.280 going to really happen into Venezuela. That's really what's important. We want a stable democracy to come
00:33:13.960 by that. It's going to be messy between now and the time that happens, but hopefully sometime over
00:33:19.020 the next few years that they're well on the road to having free and fair elections. That, that would
00:33:25.000 be a great, great victory. All right. Uh, the next thing we're going to talk about today is we're going
00:33:30.080 to talk about what happened in Minnesota and it's very tragic and very sad. Uh, none of us like to see
00:33:37.280 one of, uh, our fellow citizens pass away and, uh, the lady passed away. They had, I think,
00:33:43.240 I think someone said that she had two or three children and what have you. So it's no, it's no
00:33:48.300 good. And what was going on, you know, what's been going on in Minnesota, the ice agents have been up
00:33:52.760 there, which is our immigrations and customs enforcement. They've been up there trying to
00:33:57.660 eradicate the illegal aliens that are in the Minneapolis area. And there are thousands and thousands 0.97
00:34:03.180 of them. And this is the ice rate is not related to what we've heard about their fraud case, uh, for
00:34:12.460 the Somali, uh, community that, uh, did the, the, uh, Medicare and fraud during, or in the, uh, 0.97
00:34:19.320 childcare payments during COVID. And since then, these are not related, although some of that community
00:34:26.040 might be here illegally. So there could be some crossover, but this is, this is a separate issue.
00:34:30.660 This is just finding primarily criminal illegal aliens that are living in this country illegally
00:34:37.560 in mainly in our big cities and eradicating them from the area. And, you know, there are groups out
00:34:45.440 there that protest this, there are groups out there that try to stop it. You know, they're, they had the
00:34:50.380 deal in, in, uh, in this area where the local Hampton Inn at the time, not a Hampton Inn anymore,
00:34:58.800 did not allow, uh, ice agents to stay at their hotel. If you can, if you can even believe that.
00:35:07.620 And, uh, that's been, you know, that's been taken care of, but this particular incident,
00:35:11.980 um, a lady and an ice agent got into an argument. She was in her car and it ended up with her
00:35:21.280 attempting to what it looked to me like, and will look like to you to run over one of our agents.
00:35:28.640 And then, uh, he shot into the car and she passed away. So let's look at a couple of videos.
00:35:34.840 The first video is the one that Democrats are putting out. And the second video shows a little
00:35:41.880 bit more fuller picture of what happened. So let's look at the videos.
00:35:44.560 And there's no sound to this, but this is the one, this is the first video and you can see the
00:35:53.080 ice agent getting out of the, out of his car, going over to talk about her, talk to her. Now
00:35:57.600 she's obviously trying to block something going on and he's trying to tell her, don't do that.
00:36:01.860 And then she pulls off and it looks like in that video he shot from behind. Right now let's look at
00:36:10.800 the other video.
00:36:14.560 So here we go. Oh, and can we, let's run that again, please pay real close attention. Cause he's
00:36:22.520 in front and you see, he hits, she hits him one more time. 1.00
00:36:29.460 There we go. And then she crashes. So watch it really close. So she hits him and you know,
00:36:36.220 the Supreme court's been clear or federal courts have been clear that a car can be considered a
00:36:42.440 deadly weapon. Now, interesting thing about this gentleman, he had been hit in the past doing
00:36:48.480 his job as an ice agent and it had been dragged. And I think had 33 stitches. Uh, let's listen to
00:36:55.900 DHS secretary, Christie known what she had to say about this alone is facing a 1300% increase in
00:37:02.940 assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats against all of them. In fact,
00:37:08.960 the very same officer who was attacked today had previously been dragged by an anti-ice
00:37:14.080 rider who had rammed him with a car and drug him back in June. He sustained injuries at that time
00:37:20.420 as well. Wow. I mean, these guys have, and gals have very, very tough jobs. And when they have 1.00
00:37:27.940 their own citizens that they're trying to protect going against them, that's a difficult, I can't imagine
00:37:34.700 the trauma that goes through them on a daily day, day to day basis, but thank goodness for them. And
00:37:42.140 no one likes to see someone get killed, but I'm not going to condemn them. I mean, they're doing
00:37:47.120 their job. They have to make decisions pretty quickly. He had no idea where they're not. She was
00:37:53.160 trying to, you know, kill him or what, but the evidence shows that she definitely, the car was towards
00:38:02.280 him and then veered away. So let's see what happened. Now, again, we're in Minnesota. I don't know how
00:38:08.680 many of you thought about Minnesota that much in the past. I've, I have been through Minnesota a few
00:38:13.700 times, been there, played golf there. I think once it's beautiful state, especially in the summertime.
00:38:18.060 And for those of you that like winter sports, I'm sure that's beautiful there then, but man,
00:38:22.540 Minnesota has been in the news the last, last year and a half or two. And some of it's been because of
00:38:27.180 this Yahoo, that's their governor, Tim Waltz is we remember a liar about his military service.
00:38:32.820 Remember that. Remember the fumbling that he did on the campaign trail and what have you,
00:38:37.860 but listen to what he does. Now, it sounds a little bit insurrectionist to me in this statement.
00:38:44.760 My primary responsibility as governor is the protection of the people of Minnesota.
00:38:48.900 And you can be assured whether it's the state patrol or whether it's the national guard,
00:38:54.300 their deployment is there to protect Minnesotans from whatever it is. If it's an act of nature,
00:38:59.640 if it's a global pandemic, or in this case, if it is a rogue federal agent, I don't, I don't know
00:39:08.240 at this time. So he, he almost started trying to back up a little bit, but he essentially said,
00:39:14.260 I can put the national guard in there to go against federal agents. That is, well, I'll tell you,
00:39:24.300 a federal law. It's, it's very clear federal law, Trump state law. And I don't mean that Trump to
00:39:30.760 use that way. It supersedes state law, I should say. We don't always like that. I don't always
00:39:35.600 like that as well, because I think it takes away some state sovereignty, but in the case of
00:39:40.160 international borders and illegal immigration, that's obviously a federal issue, not a state issue.
00:39:46.460 And so, ah, you're pretty close to the line there, Timmy, be careful, be careful. And of course we
00:39:55.960 know he's not running again because this whole Somali fraud thing was on his watch. And, you know, 0.96
00:40:01.640 I think in that particular, it's kind of a side note in that particular situation, I think they
00:40:06.340 probably knew what was going on. Didn't want, didn't really want to address it or know how to address it.
00:40:11.040 Because they didn't, the last thing they wanted to do was to be called a racist. And that's toxic
00:40:16.240 empathy. That's exactly what Allie's latest book talks about. That we're so afraid of, you know,
00:40:23.840 being seen incorrectly, or we're so afraid that, that we, our heart just goes out to them so much
00:40:30.160 that even when someone's doing wrong, then we're afraid to say something or do something about it,
00:40:36.020 which is pitiful. We're not going to show anything on it, but the mayor, believe it or not,
00:40:42.120 the mayor of Minneapolis is even crazier than Tim Waltz. Because he goes on a profanity-laced
00:40:51.260 tirade about getting ICE out of Minneapolis. This guy, he's a, he is a nutcase. He is a total nutcase.
00:40:59.360 So Jacob Frey, or Frey, F-R-E-Y, I'm not sure how you pronounce that, is the, Frey, is the person.
00:41:07.760 Those of you that are in Minnesota that listen to Allie's podcast, I hope that if you're in the
00:41:12.660 Minneapolis area, that you will be active on the ground in your local political races.
00:41:18.360 It's not right for you to complain about it and not do anything about it. I don't want to put you
00:41:24.260 in physical harm's way, but I do want you to band together. And again, you don't have to have people
00:41:31.980 that agree with you on everything. Find people that had, that you have some similarities with
00:41:37.720 in your beliefs and your values and begin getting small groups of those together. Cause small groups,
00:41:44.600 those end up being large groups. Just ask, look at what Charlie Kirk did over his career.
00:41:49.660 And you can change what's going on there in that city. Cause if you change what's going on in that
00:41:56.020 city, the rest of the state's going to go along with it. Cause they're already pretty conservative,
00:41:59.960 right? But again, uh, we want to, as Allie says, we're say, you know, we want to raise a respectful
00:42:06.080 ruckus. And, uh, I say also do the next uncomfortable thing. And sometimes that's getting out of our own
00:42:15.200 little cocoon in our lives and getting out there and for the betterment of society. So I hope that
00:42:22.100 you'll, uh, you'll do that. Now the Democrat leaders have echoed calls for federal agents to
00:42:27.720 leave the state. And I don't know if we have any of those we can put up, but they've made several
00:42:31.900 different statements and what have you about, and they've claimed that Ms. Good was a legal observer,
00:42:37.960 that she was a legal observer, which means that she had a legal right to like block the road and 1.00
00:42:45.540 be there and what have you. They were, they were trespassing on a federal law enforcement activity.
00:42:52.600 In fact, uh, uh, one of the producers for Glenn Beck, uh, which is Ricky Ratliff. We have her
00:42:58.720 statement up here. She tells us rightly that the ACLU, which is the far left organization and NLG,
00:43:06.860 another one of those organizations emphasized that the goal is to document incidents, arrest
00:43:11.640 and official misconduct during protests and not engage in arguments or interfere with law
00:43:16.780 enforcement. Now, what do you think that lady was doing before everything happened? She was, she was, 0.99
00:43:21.340 she drove up to that guy, rolled down the window, arguing with that person. And, and she was not,
00:43:27.940 they're supposed to also be, uh, typically wearing clothing such as vests, buttons, or hats to
00:43:33.100 acknowledge themselves as a legal observers and stand at a distance from protest enough to document
00:43:40.100 what's happening. Not the case. So once again, our Democrat friends, they just spout off about stuff
00:43:45.560 of which they know nothing about. So we'll see what happens on that one. Uh, it's a sad story,
00:43:53.060 but we need to stand behind our law enforcement. Obviously we have a law enforcement that's gotten out
00:43:57.200 of hand, you know, they need to be taken care of, uh, according to the law as well. Now let's move
00:44:02.840 on. One other, uh, quick item before I get into kind of your questions or whatever is the housing
00:44:10.200 affordability. And we can talk, we'll talk more about this whole issue in the future, but I wanted
00:44:15.020 to bring up the fact that Trump has brought out along with some members of Congress that should we
00:44:20.220 really have these big corporations like BlackRock, which is a huge investment company buying thousands
00:44:25.420 and thousands of homes that allows them to more, have more control over the market. They essentially
00:44:30.580 corner the market in some areas. Uh, and there's a lot of people that believe we shouldn't do that.
00:44:36.440 I'm not sure legally what we can do about that. Uh, maybe there's some, uh, local ordinances or laws
00:44:45.200 or whatever that could be passed that says no single person or corporation can own more than 10 homes
00:44:51.280 or something like that. Right. I don't know what we can do, but I do think it's something
00:44:55.280 interesting. Now I also believe that, uh, Senator Howley, who I agree with a lot of stuff, few things
00:45:01.180 I don't is where he, I don't know if we have this to throw up there or not, but to be able to take
00:45:07.740 money out of your 401k to buy a house or down payment for it. And we should be able, you know,
00:45:15.920 you, you should be able to use your 401k to help buy a home and it shouldn't cost you a penalty.
00:45:20.340 Right now, if you take money out of your 401k plan and you're not 59 and a half yet, there's,
00:45:26.440 you have to pay tax on it and then you have to pay an additional 10% penalty. So it's very
00:45:31.040 onerous to do that. He's saying, don't charge a penalty. Don't charge taxes. If it's going towards
00:45:36.080 your house, I think that's a pretty good idea. Now I don't think someone should take all of their
00:45:40.720 retirement savings and put it in their house either. All right. If we're talking about making
00:45:44.960 it for a down payment or something like that, probably okay with that, especially with the ability.
00:45:49.500 I'd like to actually see it even done in a loan where the ability where they could pay it back
00:45:52.900 over time if they chose to, which I think would be a kind of a cool thing to do. So we'll follow
00:45:56.840 up on that. Uh, there is a lot of concern about housing prices. I understand that. I will remind
00:46:02.500 you again, and I know you don't like to hear it and I apologize up front. It's not meant to offend
00:46:06.660 anybody, but long-term mortgage rates at 6% are not abnormal. That is normal. The abnormality came
00:46:15.440 of mortgage rates a few years ago at 2% and 3%, which allowed people to buy a lot more home
00:46:22.040 than they could normally afford. The 5% to 6% number is probably what we're going to settle
00:46:28.600 into long-term. So we need to make sure that our housing prices reflect the, uh, the cost
00:46:37.460 of money. And therefore I do think we can, we'll have some reduction in the valuation of real estate
00:46:46.640 in a lot of places. Now in the hot places around the country where there's more people moving,
00:46:51.660 there's more demand than there is supply. It's just simple economics. The prices of homes aren't
00:46:57.000 going to go down in a lot of other places. Uh, I do believe you'll see, you'll see the market adjust
00:47:02.520 back to that so that people, even with a 6% mortgage can afford to have a reasonably nice home.
00:47:08.580 All right. Let's see here now. Uh, let's go straight to the questions and answer session.
00:47:15.580 And I call this words from the wagon again, or for reference to my book, life lessons from the
00:47:21.500 little red wagon, which is a great thing to start the year reading. I think you really enjoy it. It's
00:47:25.180 got some great stories in there, uh, that are funny and sad. Some of them, but funny and just life,
00:47:30.880 right. It's kind of like probably a little bit like your life. All right. We've got some questions
00:47:34.740 here. Tom always loved doing these questions. These are fun to do. First question. What authority
00:47:39.880 does ICE have over citizens versus non-citizens? Well, they have the right to detain someone that
00:47:46.120 they suspect are a non-citizen or non-citizen, even though they might be a citizen. Once that's
00:47:53.100 verified, they have, you know, obviously they'll let them go. Now they do also have the right if a
00:47:59.440 citizen is interfering with a legal, uh, federal law enforcement act, they have the right to arrest
00:48:07.280 them as well. Now they might end up being prosecuted locally or, uh, by the state, but they
00:48:15.060 have the right to arrest them and remove them if necessary. There's perfectly legal to be able
00:48:20.580 to do that. Second question. How do Christian parents endure kids who have walked away from
00:48:25.260 Christ? I think it's a very interesting word endure. And I think part of that is the answer
00:48:31.720 is that you love your kids unconditionally. Now that doesn't mean there's not consequences
00:48:39.380 to actions, right? And they're walking away from Christ. Doesn't mean that you don't love
00:48:47.400 them. And it doesn't mean that you don't interact from them. It might mean that the interactions
00:48:53.520 that you have with them change, meaning that if they're living a lifestyle that is way outside
00:49:00.040 of what you believe is the right lifestyle to live, that might mean instead of them coming 0.97
00:49:05.440 and staying at your house for three days during the holidays, that y'all meet somewhere for
00:49:08.960 dinner. Or if your dad and your son plays golf, go, go play golf. But it doesn't mean that they're
00:49:14.780 necessarily under your roof for those times engaging in things that you just don't agree
00:49:19.520 with. But obviously you just have to, you can't not keep showing them love and affection
00:49:25.820 because trying to push them away or put them, you know, give them the silent treatment, it's
00:49:33.400 not going to bring them closer to Christ, right? We have to treat our kids a little bit like
00:49:40.600 the prodigal son parable. And that when they're away, they've chosen to be away. And our love
00:49:48.420 hasn't changed for them. Now we may not chase them, but when the Holy Spirit opens up their
00:49:55.220 heart again and we have to pray that he will, then we have to be ready to accept them without
00:50:01.900 any, I told you so's or anything like that. And that can be hard to do. I do understand
00:50:07.560 that. But I just, I think you look for little moments that they can see your genuine love for
00:50:14.780 them. It's your love for them that's going to bring them back from their ways along with the
00:50:20.760 Holy Spirit, as opposed to you continuing to tell them how wrong they are and what have you. But
00:50:25.840 you also don't have to put yourself in the position to be engaged in that also. Number three, how should
00:50:34.120 we handle family members who won't talk to us due to politics? I would say, and we have that in our
00:50:39.820 own family, not in our immediate family, but in our extended family, we, we have that. I think that
00:50:46.340 if you, when you have the opportunity to be around them at all, that, you know, you don't talk politics.
00:50:50.880 All right. And you don't try to, listen, people believe what they want to believe. And so you don't
00:50:55.460 want to try to, you know, push them over the edge. You, and if they want to keep talking about that,
00:51:02.160 you just going to have to say, look, you know, we're obviously not going to agree on this. Let's talk
00:51:05.440 about something we can agree on, right? Let's talk about, you know, you know, why the Cowboys
00:51:09.460 haven't been in the playoffs or won a Superbowl in 30 something years. We can agree how stupid that
00:51:13.900 is. Right. Or why are my, my team, the Razorbacks, why will they probably never be a top team in the
00:51:20.520 SEC? Right. I don't know why, but we can talk about that. We don't, we don't need to always talk
00:51:25.580 about politics. Right. I get that. And so try to look for things that you can talk about and you might
00:51:30.700 want to have an agreement. You might want to just say, Hey, can we just agree not to talk about
00:51:34.460 politics? Let's just, cause the relationship is important. So you don't want to lose that
00:51:39.800 relationship. All right. Number four, will the GOP be able to keep up momentum through the midterms?
00:51:45.660 Well, that's a really good question. We'll see. I'm going to, I'm actually, uh, while the episode
00:51:52.300 comes out tomorrow, I'll be out of town and I'll be meeting with some of my friends that are
00:51:57.120 congressional people. Uh, they're having a powwow somewhere and I'm happened to be in the same area.
00:52:01.960 I'm not going to be in the middle of their powwow, but I'm going to be seeing a couple of them.
00:52:05.680 I sure hope so. Uh, it's tight. I mean, it's, it's, it's tight. And, uh, if we get our act
00:52:12.700 together and we focus on those races that are kind of toss up races and put all of our efforts
00:52:20.460 into them, I think we can keep the house, but it's going to be a, it's going to be a pretty slim
00:52:24.900 margin. If we can avoid so much intra party squabbling, the purity test of our politics
00:52:35.600 drives me crazy. Why we can't say if you are 80% with me, then you're a friend of mine as opposed
00:52:44.660 to, I'm going to push you and make you a hundred percent. Right. And that Democrats have the same
00:52:50.740 thing, but man, oh man, that drives me crazy. So I think we can, but we'll see. We'll, we'll just
00:52:56.320 have to see the lot can happen between now and, uh, November. Now on the political side, I'll tell
00:53:03.480 you, Texas, uh, the primaries are coming up in less than 60 days. March 2nd is the primary in Texas.
00:53:12.980 So if you have candidates, if you're a Republican, or even if you're a Democrat, where you vote just in
00:53:18.620 your primary, this is where you can really find the candidate you like, which candidate do you
00:53:24.040 like? And my advice to the Republicans, I don't give this advice to Democrats. I think you should
00:53:28.300 do the opposite, but to Republicans pick the candidate that has the best chance to win in
00:53:36.100 November. It doesn't do you any good to pick a candidate that you might personally like the most
00:53:41.860 for whatever reason that has absolutely no chance in November. Because when November comes, it's a
00:53:49.020 binary choice. You're going to pick good, in my opinion, conservative Republican or evil. Okay.
00:53:56.120 Not as good on the Democrat side. So make sure that you're, uh, picking a person in your primary that
00:54:02.800 has the best chance to win in November. Federal taxes are up this year. Why? I'm not sure where you get
00:54:09.420 that. Uh, the, the tax rates that were supposed to go up actually are staying the same as they were
00:54:18.720 under the original, uh, Trump tax cut from his first session. So I, the, the only reason that
00:54:25.160 taxes may be up is because revenues are up. In other words, people are making more money in real
00:54:32.000 wages are up. Uh, we're also, uh, sales is up. And so sales taxes are up and whatever, but, but that's
00:54:38.000 a state tax. So federal tax would be income tax, uh, tariffs, things like that. But tax rates have
00:54:44.020 not gone up in, uh, in, in 2026. So I'm not sure if you've got some more information, you can email
00:54:50.660 me about that. Ron at ronsimmons.com. As a Minnesota resident, what I do about fraud, you got to get
00:54:56.380 involved in your local government. You really have to get involved in your local government. You have to
00:55:00.320 make your state representatives and your elected state officials answer the question. You go to the
00:55:05.640 Capitol, sit in on some of those hearings, sign up to be a witness. You can testify. You can go to your
00:55:11.200 representative, make them answer the question. And if they, if they're a Republican representative
00:55:15.660 that may not be involved in this particular scandal, have them go, make sure they're asking
00:55:20.340 the right questions and what have you. Make sure that, uh, the tough questions are asked, but you have
00:55:24.860 to get involved locally to be able to do that. And then finally, how does it feel to have the coolest
00:55:29.620 daughter in the world? Well, she's pretty special to us and obviously we're biased, but I bet your 0.82
00:55:34.880 daughters are cool too. Uh, you know, everybody's got a different form form that they, um, are able
00:55:40.940 to show their talents and what have you. We're especially proud of Allie, but we're also proud
00:55:44.980 of our two boys and, uh, in different ways. And, uh, they're doing some things that are very unique,
00:55:50.520 unique also. Uh, and then we got those, you know, granddaughters and grandsons. We, oh man,
00:55:56.780 we love them. There's no, there's no question that God's greatest gift to us outside of his son
00:56:02.460 is our grandkids. And there are total payment for not killing our own kids when they were acting up
00:56:07.360 so bad. But very last thing I'm gonna leave you with is, uh, at the end of every year, I learned
00:56:14.560 this from a friend of mine, a fellow, he's an author, uh, John Maxwell, who's sold over 30 million
00:56:20.380 books. So he's quite a bit more accomplished author than I am, but he's a good friend of mine.
00:56:24.660 And he actually wrote the forward in my book. Um, he told me this a few years ago, said, Ron,
00:56:30.600 between Christmas and new years, he does a lot of thinking about the past and then looking for the
00:56:34.740 future, which I think we all do. And he says, I always come up one with one word. That's going
00:56:39.200 to be my word for the following year. And I thought, well, that's really kind of neat. And so I've been
00:56:44.480 doing that for a few years now. And this year my word is peace. And what I mean by that is I want to
00:56:52.560 have peace. I want to have an inner peace, not let the, the everyday things of the world, maybe
00:57:00.200 get me stressed or get me too excited one way or the other, just that I want to make sure that I'm
00:57:06.240 relying on the peace that passes all understanding, which God promises us. And he's given us just a
00:57:12.500 matter of not, we accept it. Now, sometimes we have to give up our understanding in order to have the
00:57:17.360 peace, which is a quote that, uh, golfer Aaron badly said a few years ago that I heard, but think
00:57:24.120 about this. What's, what's your one word for the year? And, uh, tell us what that is in the comments.
00:57:30.300 That'd be kind of fun to do. Again, if you have questions that you want me to answer personally
00:57:34.600 or privately, and I've got a few in my inbox, folks, if you're listening to this, that I have
00:57:38.400 an answer that I'll get to you on just email me, Ron at ronsimmons.com. And I will see you
00:57:44.200 in a couple of weeks. Thanks for listening.