Ep 947 ｜ Bethany Hamilton Fights the Trans Tidal Wave ｜ Guest： Ron Simmons
Episode Stats
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Summary
What is in this disastrous border bill? My dad is here to explain it, but before we get to that conversation, I give you my take on the surfing attire company Rip Curl dropping Bethany Hamilton in favor of a man who identifies as a woman.
Transcript
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What is in this disastrous border bill? My dad is here today to explain it, but before we get to
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that conversation, I am going to give you my take on the surfing attire company Rip Curl,
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dropping Bethany Hamilton in favor of a man who identifies as a woman. Oh my goodness,
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I'm fired up about this. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to
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ranchers.com. Use code Allie to check out. That's good ranchers.com, code Allie.
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. All right,
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my dad is coming on the show. In just a few minutes, he is going to give us his take, his analysis of the
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border bill. Oh my gosh, there's so much there. But he's also going to give us a very thorough
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explanation of the convention that will happen this summer before the presidential election.
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And you guys love when I have my dad on because he's so good at explaining things in a very calm
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manner and he makes us feel like everything's going to be okay when it really feels like it's not.
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All right, before we get into what I want to talk about before he comes on, let me just remind you,
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and I'll show you if you're watching on YouTube, what I'm wearing. We've got cute, relatable merch,
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self-love won't save you. And really the implication, which we should probably like have on the back or
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something is, but Jesus will. Because remember, the self can't be both the problem and the solution.
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Just in time for Valentine's Day, go to AllieMerch.com. We've got this cute shirt,
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Comfort Colors. This is a size large, I believe. And if it's nice and roomy, you guys probably know
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how Comfort Colors fits. And then we've also got the crew neck sweatshirts and we've got bags and
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we've got stickers with the same design. So check that out, AllieMerch.com. Okay, one more thing I
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wanted to say that I did not get to say yesterday, or I just forgot to say, is I just wanted to mention
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Toby Keith's passing. And this makes me super sad. He's had stomach cancer. He had stomach cancer for
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a long time. People knew he was sick. And I think he recently performed actually, and he was very
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obviously sick, but he had done some interviews recently where he talked about his faith. According
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to CBN, he recently said in an interview with Fox News Digital, I lean on my faith and I just pray and
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I lean into it. You got to do what you got to do. And I don't know how people do it without faith.
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That's what I did. It was my rock. And so it's good to see him talk about his faith towards the
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end of his life. But I love the song Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue. My friends will tell you
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that that song reminds them of me because I love it so much. It just gets me riled up about America
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in a good way. And so I just wanted to mention that, that he has passed. And I don't know that
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much about his faith and about his journey. It sounds like he was a believer in Jesus. And so he
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is fully healed and he is having a better time than any of us could possibly imagine while we are here
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on this side of eternity. So prayers for Toby Keith's family and for his friends. He certainly
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made an impact on country music. And OK, one more thing, one more thing. I know I've got like a lot
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of things to say before we actually get into our stories, but they're all important. OK, we announced
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this yesterday on social media, so now I can say it. Candice Cameron Puree is going to be on the show
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next week and I'm so excited about it. This is a guest that you guys have been asking me to have
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on for so long and it finally worked out. She's going to be here in studio. So Tuesday, I believe
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it will be unless something changes, but that's when we plan to air the episode next Tuesday. We're
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going to be talking about all sorts of things. I'm so excited to have Candice Cameron Puree on
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Relatable on the White Relatable couch. And so make sure that you tune in for that. All right. OK,
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we're really going to going to get into today's stories.
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OK, we really are going to get into it now. OK, and this is a story that I have been wanting to
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talk about for several weeks, but it just hasn't it hasn't worked out. There's been so many things
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vying for our attention on Relatable, but I'm finally talking about this story about Rip Curl,
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who that it's an Australian brand that specializes in swimwear for surfers and Bethany Hamilton. You
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probably know the story of Bethany Hamilton. She is a very famous surfer who lost her arm in a shark
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attack several years ago. They dropped her as a, I guess, like a representative, an ambassador of
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their brand. And they picked up this, quote unquote, trans identifying male surfer. So this
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is according to Redux. In November 2023, Rip Curl dropped Bethany Hamilton, a well-known female
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surfer and bestselling author of Soul Surfer, who survived a shark attack and returned to professional
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surfing despite losing an arm in the attack. She's also a Christian, and so she talks a lot about her
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faith. Hamilton was sponsored by Rip Curl when the shark attack happened at age 13. She signed with
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a brand at age nine. So while this has been a long time, she's been with them for 24 years. But this
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past fall, they cut ties with her after a quarter of a century, despite her status as one of the most
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celebrated female surfers in Australia, reportedly because Hamilton had voiced her opposition to
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trans identifying males competing in female sport competitions. Last February, Hamilton shared two
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videos to her Instagram account questioning the October 2022 guidelines adopted by the World Surf League
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in accordance with the International Surfing Association, which granted males who claim a
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transgender status permission to compete against female athletes. So here is part of that video.
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Who is pushing for this huge change? Does this better the sport of surfing? Is this better for the
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women in surfing? If so, how? How did whoever decided these hormone rules come to the conclusion that
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12 months of testing testosterone make it a fair and legal switch? Okay, so she spoke up about this.
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She also said in the video, she was very careful to say that, you know, she loves everyone, she supports
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everyone, but she can't be on board with men competing against women. And of course, of course, this shouldn't
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even be a debate. Kudos to her for saying something about it, though, for using her platform, using her
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clout to speak up on behalf of women. The only reason that she is a prominent surfer is because
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she was able to compete against women. Because even if you go through estrogen therapy, even if you
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change your name, you grow out your hair, you start wearing a skirt and lipstick, you're still a man.
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You will always be a man. The fact that you went through male puberty means that you will have a
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physical advantage when it comes to athletics. Of course, you will always be bigger and stronger in
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general than most women. You will have a bigger heart, you have greater lung capacity, you have more
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upper body strength, you have greater muscle mass. All of these things really matter when it comes to
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sports. And in particular, when it comes to surfing, like I don't think that I need to explain
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everything that's at play here. When we're talking about who is going to probably be superior
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when it comes to the sport of surfing. Okay, so she spoke out about that. A lot of people applauded
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her for it. But of course, she got a lot of criticism as well. And apparently, Rip Curl,
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this company that she had been with for decades, decided that you know what, this is just too far
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for us standing up for women's rights in sports, saying that men are men and women are women. We don't
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think that we can partner with someone who believes such crazy, radical, bigoted things. So we are
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going to cut ties with her. And then we are going to pick up a representative and ambassador, who is
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a man who identifies as a woman who goes by the name Sasha Lowerson. And here is he.
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New celebrity endorsement that they've got. Sasha Lowerson, who is a transgender woman surfer,
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in other words, a bloke. That was my, um, my journey of surgery for breast. Okay, so this is
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Jane Lowerson, this man who goes by this name and Rip Curl Women, the Instagram account posted a picture
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of him, uh, introducing him to their audience. And so I'm a little confused actually about his name
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because it says Jane Lowerson, but they also call him Sasha. Meet Sasha, a West Australian water woman
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who loves the freedom found in surfing, disconnecting from the mainstream, and the feeling of dancing on
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constantly changing waves. Okay, super weird. This person, you look at this picture, there's no question.
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There's no question about what this person is. No one is confused. No one looks at this picture and
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says, wow, that's a really muscular woman. You look at this picture, you see the jaw, you see the
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shoulders, you see the biceps, you see the chest, you see the head shape, you see the lips, everything
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screams man. Everything screams man. Now this person was a surfer. This man was a surfer before his
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transition. He was a pretty competitive surfer then. And if you see pictures of him, he was actually
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pretty handsome. Like you see him and you're like, okay, he's a handsome guy, kind of looks a little
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bit like a beach bum. And now he is, and I know people are gonna say, this is so mean to say. It's not
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mean to say. Now he is one of the ugliest women that I've ever seen. And obviously he's not really a
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woman. And I know people say, why do you have to say that? So mean to talk about someone's looks like
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that. It is never mean to say that a man makes an ugly woman. That's a compliment. That is a
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compliment. No man in his right mind wants to hear, you know what? You would make a gorgeous
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woman. You would be so pretty and delicate if you decided to grow your hair. No man in his right
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mind wants to hear that. Only a man who has, whose brain has been so destroyed by pornography
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and sexual fetishes and perversion and other kinds of depravity and confusion would ever make this switch
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from being a genuinely handsome guy to an atrocious looking woman. Okay? There's something
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going on here besides just innocent confusion and innocent dysphoria. Now I do think that there is
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dysphoria here. I do. Because you read the Reddit posts and the testimonials of some of these guys who
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so-called transition and they, the, you can tell what they see in the mirror is so far from reality.
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It's insane. Like they'll post their transformation pictures. Oh, a year on HRT, a year on estrogen.
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I've changed so much. I look so pretty and feminine today because they're wearing lip gloss. Everyone else
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sees that and they're like, oh, that is a man in pigtails. But they see themselves as a girl.
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However, just because I think dysphoria is there, I don't think that dysphoria is the root cause.
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That's a symptom of what is going on underneath, which again, I think is very often fueled by
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addiction to pornography, specifically sissy porn, as Genevieve Gluck has argued on this podcast before.
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There are lots of reasons, but I think dysphoria is actually a symptom, not the cause of someone like
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this transitioning to, transitioning so-called to a woman. Now, if you look at this person,
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as again, reported by Redux, if you look at this person's social media, you can see that this is a
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fetish for him. You can see the kind of sexualized pictures that he is posting of himself, which I,
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like I told Bree, I was like, I could have gone my whole life without seeing these pictures. And they
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were placed in this document. It's very disturbing. We will definitely not show them or link to the
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article that included them. But this person sees womanhood as objectification. And that's what a
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lot of these men are getting off on, the idea of being objectified and sexualized. They like that.
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And so they actually see, they have a humiliation fetish. And so they see women as that, as their
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ability to be humiliated and objectified. I don't know if that's the case with this guy, but certainly
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looks to be the case if you look at his social media. So this is who Rip Curl decided to take on
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as their ambassador and as their representative. As you can imagine, the internet had a lot to say
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about this. So Sasha, as he calls himself, won first place. This is according to Libs of TikTok
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and two of Australia's women's state championships. Sasha is a man who has, this is what Libs of TikTok
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says. I haven't even read this until right now. We just agree, which is not surprising. Who has a
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fetish for dressing up as a woman. And now he's cheating and taking women's places. And she posts
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some of the very gross pictures that he has posted of himself. Clearly, again, just sexualizing
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himself. It's really, really disturbing. And you can see in the picture of himself where he is taking
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first place. He's got a trophy and he's standing next to other women. How much bigger he is than these
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other women? And again, just looks so masculine because he is, well, a man. Riley Gaines weighed
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in. We've had her on the podcast. She is, of course, the collegiate swimmer. She was the collegiate
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swimmer who was forced to compete against a man, Leah Thomas, Will Thomas. And Riley Gaines said,
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you mean to tell me Rip Curl dropped Bethany Hamilton for opposing men surfing in the women's league
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then picked up male surfer who surfs in the women's league as a women's ambassador? Crazy. Yes,
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that is exactly what happens. And we will make sure to put up some of these pictures. And so you can just
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get an idea in your mind of what exactly is going on here and the clown world in which we are forced
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to live. Like we are being forced to suppress our understanding of reality, to suppress our
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appreciation of beauty and to deny the humor, the humor in a man putting on a dress. That has been a
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comedic trope forever. And now we can't laugh and we can't even just sit here with a straight face.
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We all have to smile and clap like seals and say, yes, Sasha, you are a beautiful, dainty surfer and you
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deserve to be right up there with all of those women. You're gorgeous girl. When we like, we all know,
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we all see, I don't care how ardent of a trans activist you are. I know, you know, I know, you
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know, we all see it. We all see it. Okay. And I just refuse to participate in the lie. I refuse to.
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And that's the thing about this whole push for pronoun politeness and to have these nuanced
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conversations about respecting someone's identity and the hope that you maybe can build a relationship
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with them and you can evangelize to them. You do not have to lie in order to build relational equity
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with someone. And if you do, then that's not a relationship worth pursuing. You will never,
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God will never ask you to lie or to deceive or to sin about anything, but particularly in this case,
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about the imago Dei in someone, um, because male, female, and us being made in the image of God,
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we all see that in one verse in Genesis 1 27, they go together. Like you will never be asked to deny
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that for the sake of evangelism. Like, don't you think that God's truth is powerful enough? Of course
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it is. Of course it is. People are not going to be won over by our sin. They will be won over by the
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Holy spirit and the righteousness that Christ has given us. They are not going to be won over by us
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denying the truth and calling a man. She, that is what I call toxic empathy or weaponized empathy.
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It works on Christian women so well that the fact that a lot of you, which I get it, I get it. A lot
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of you probably cringed when I said that this person makes an ugly woman shows that all of us have been
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affected a little bit by this weaponized empathy that we've been told that we have to be so soft
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and so quiet and so unassuming and so just, uh, assenting to this nonsense. So as to protect our
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witness and seem loving, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Love rejoices with the truth. As first
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Corinthians 13 tells us, it is not going to rejoice in wrongdoing. In fact, it never rejoices in
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wrongdoing. We have to speak the truth in love to this sort of thing, because this is the effect
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that it's having. The effect that it's having, and I would say this is one of the most innocuous effects
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that it's having is robbing women of opportunities in athletics. Again, I would say that's just the tip
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of the iceberg. Then when you see men entering women's domestic abuse shelters, men being housed
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in women's prisons, uh, when you see children being transitioned, their genitals cut off in the name
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of gender affirmation, you see parents losing custody of their kids because they won't call their son
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Jack Sally because all of a sudden he learned on Reddit or Tumblr when he was 13 years old that
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he's really the opposite sex. Like assenting to this nonsense by using pronoun politeness,
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by buying into this deception, you are contributing to all of that evil and wickedness. It is Satan telling
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you that in order to love someone, you have to use the wrong pronouns. It is Satan telling you
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that in order to love someone, you have to look at this person and say, yeah, that's a pretty lady.
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That is Satan telling you that. That is Satan trying to harm your witness. That is Satan
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tempting you to sin. Can you have compassion for this person? Understanding that as Ephesians 2 tells us,
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we were all once dead in our sin apart from Christ. Yes, of course, because we all were. All of us
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were enemies of God at one point. And it is only by grace through faith have any of us been reconciled
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to God, made alive in Christ. And so I don't have to look at this person and say, wow, they're way too
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far off. They're worse than I ever was. It's different sin, certainly. But look, all of us were
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once dead in sin. There aren't different levels of dead. You're just dead. And Ephesians 2 tells us
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that without Christ, you were dead in your sin. You're headed for hell. So can we have compassion for
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this person because of that? Because they are still made in the image of God, no matter how
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depraved or deceived they are? Yes, absolutely. But that does not mean I have to acquiesce in any way.
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I do not have to comply with this madness. What did Sultan Heidsen say? He said, let the lie triumph,
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but do not allow it to triumph through me. Now, I personally think that this gender madness will not
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triumph. I really do. If you want a white pill for the day, like I really don't think that
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this is going to keep going forever. Now, I think it's going to hurt really badly. I think that
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there's going to be, unfortunately, many bodies, many children placed on the altar of gender ideology
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before the altars are overthrown, destroyed. But I do think it's coming. I do. It's just too far.
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It's too far. This is the thing that I see push people in the other direction. Because we look at a
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picture of someone like this named Sasha, and we're all supposed to say, wow, that's a beautiful
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woman. I don't care how radical you are. I don't care what kind of communist you are. There is no one
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on planet Earth that would look at that person and say that is a woman. And I refuse to pretend.
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I refuse to play along even a little bit. Even a little bit. I will not give in a centimeter on that.
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But reality is too important. The image of God, God's creation is too important. Gender is too
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important. The protection of our girls and women and children is too important. And the protection
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of men too. This harms men too. By the way, we should definitely ban pornography. That's the thing
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that I'm going to end on there. All right. I just want to talk about that because I've been wanting to
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talk about that for a while. Oh, let me just say what Bethany Hamilton said. She said male-bodied
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athletes should not be competing in female sports, period. Yes and amen, Bethany Hamilton. Now she's
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not here yet, but one day she will be to the point to where she just says male or just says men.
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I understand. We've all been through that. When you're realizing the craziness of this,
00:22:21.560
you say things like biological male, biological female. You'll say things like gender, you know,
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they suffer from gender dysphoria or you'll give a lot of caveats and nuance. You'll try to kind of
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police your own language because you are scared to say just men. You don't even have to say male-bodied.
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There's no other type of, there's no other type of man. They're all male-bodied and all people who are
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male-bodied are men. All people who are men are male-bodied. They're one in the same. But I'm not
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nagging. I'm just saying all of us have been there. So if you have a gripe about how she worded that,
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it takes time. And I'm proud of her for speaking out. I'm thankful that she spoke out, that she's
00:23:06.640
using her platform to speak up on behalf of reality. So good job. And I would love for her to
00:23:13.260
join the show one day. So hopefully we can make that happen. All right. Just wanted to cover that
00:23:18.120
before we get into it with my dad about the border bill and some other things.
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Dad, welcome back to the program. It's good to be here. Okay. So lots of things to talk about. But
00:23:38.720
first, I want to get your take on this border bill that a lot of conservatives are saying is
00:23:44.960
atrocious. Do you agree? Well, yes. But let me lead into it. I've got some really kind of
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interesting information that I looked at last night on polling that NBC, which not your conservative
00:23:57.920
Stallworth did some polling. And I imagine some of their people were very nervous over this. The
00:24:03.920
latest polling, and this is a very fair poll. What they've done is they've gotten a Republican
00:24:09.240
pollster and a Democrat pollster to come up with the questions as well as the sampling. So it's a
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pretty fair, these are registered voters. Okay. Not just, not likely voters or not just citizens,
00:24:20.160
but registered voters, which generally people would vote. Overall, Trump has his largest lead in a
00:24:26.140
while, 47 to 42 over Biden. So that's the outside the margin of error. Okay. Which is interesting.
00:24:32.780
Uh, but the interesting thing about it is they also asked the question, if Trump is convicted on any of
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these multitude of cases, it goes from 43 Trump and 45 Biden. So it, and it makes a huge difference for
00:24:48.580
the 18 to 34 year olds for some reason. And for the Latinos, a little bit of difference though,
00:24:54.120
in independence, which is actually should be encouraging to Trump because that's generally who
00:24:58.780
will decide the election. Right. A lot of these others, they're not going to change whether they
00:25:03.240
vote for Biden or Trump, the Trump people, if he gets convicted of something, unless it's something
00:25:07.480
people have never heard about, they're, they're going to stick with him. But a couple of other
00:25:12.060
things were interesting too. And that is Biden's approval rating is at an all time low for any
00:25:17.740
president. Wow. At this close to the reelection. Really?
00:25:21.720
37%. Yes. Trump was at 46%. Well, and I'm just thinking though, at this point before the election
00:25:29.040
in 2020, like we were in COVID land. So it was still at 46% according to this poll because the
00:25:36.760
guy did talk about that when I did the read of the article, talk about it. The other thing is on the
00:25:41.000
economy. This is, this is interesting. The economy, Trump is 55, Biden's 33. Okay. On the border,
00:25:47.900
which we're going to get into 57, 22. Now the interesting thing is Allie, those actually are
00:25:54.400
in conflict with the overall deal. It should, if, if those are true numbers, which they are,
00:26:00.260
but when it gets down to pulling the lever for Trump, there are obviously some people that believe
00:26:05.580
he'd do a better job on the economy and the border that still can't do it. And that is, should be
00:26:10.740
concerning to former president Trump. So we'll see what happens on that. But I thought it was pretty
00:26:15.400
interesting polling, but on the border bill itself. Yeah. I, I, uh, you know, I think the
00:26:21.700
criticism that Senator Langford is getting is a little bit misplaced. It's as I've talked to you
00:26:27.380
and I've talked about before, uh, making public policy in a political environment is very, very
00:26:33.520
messy. And especially when you're in the minority, you can't force things through now you can be against
00:26:39.780
things and you can say no and all that type of stuff. And I've met Senator Langford before. I know
00:26:45.080
him to be a man of honor and a, at a man that, uh, agrees with us on, I would imagine most of the
00:26:52.720
issues. Now he's definitely been one of the most outspoken pro-life advocates. And also the, one of
00:27:00.040
the reasons they pick him to do this is because he's not up for reelection this time. Nobody up for
00:27:06.000
reelection this time would ever be a part of this. There's no, there's no question about it. The other
00:27:11.300
thing I would tell people too, Allie, is that, uh, they're, the Republicans do not want to give
00:27:18.720
president Biden a gift right before an election. And if it appeared that we had some type of border
00:27:25.060
solution, no matter what it was, then they wouldn't like that. But the reason the Democrats are doing
00:27:31.820
it, the reason Schumer's even involved in this at all is because he saw those polling numbers, 57,
00:27:37.360
22, and they're trying to bail this man out. And so what they can say then, if Republicans say,
00:27:44.060
I'm not going to support this, which we'll get into, they are saying it that, you know,
00:27:47.860
this is dead on arrival in the house. Um, then Chuck Schumer and the Democrats can say, look,
00:27:53.300
we tried, we tried to secure the border and Republicans wouldn't even, wouldn't even give
00:27:58.700
us the opportunity to do it. Well, let's talk a little bit about the details of that. You know,
00:28:02.560
one of the funny things they say is that, um, it, it will shut, they will close the border
00:28:08.460
if more than 5,000 a day come in. Yeah. Which Senator Langford's point is, is that, look,
00:28:15.440
that means the border is going to be shut immediately because it's already happening.
00:28:19.400
But why that 5,000 number? Why not just say we're going to shut it down?
00:28:23.500
Well, that's, that would be the argument is that you would shut it down at least for a period of time,
00:28:28.220
totally legal and illegal so that you can kind of, what is the new system going to be? Get the
00:28:34.560
new courts in order, all that type of stuff. So I don't, and when they say shut down,
00:28:40.580
that doesn't mean that it's shut down. It just means that if people slip through and they don't
00:28:46.620
catch them, then, you know, there's nothing that's going to happen to them. It's really shutting down
00:28:50.580
the legal part of it after 5,000 a day. However, interestingly enough too, they also say that
00:28:57.620
they're going to make asylum a little bit quicker to process, right? They're, they're,
00:29:02.340
they're giving you 90 days. Your asylum is going to be processed. Either you'll be let in or either
00:29:07.140
you'll be sent back home. However, the bad part about that is, is somebody that comes through
00:29:12.700
illegally. Okay. Has the same asylum rights as somebody that comes through legally. And my opinion
00:29:19.820
would be no, no illegal people get asylum rights. If you want to come and ask for asylum,
00:29:25.820
just come through it legally. That's open means come through Brownsville, come through someplace in
00:29:30.260
Arizona or California. You can do that and claim asylum. Why come through illegally? We should not
00:29:35.900
allow, it should be zero for illegally. The other thing that it talks about is there's, there's $650
00:29:42.820
million to add onto the border wall, which is kind of interesting. Probably something the Republicans put
00:29:48.440
in there. However, the money doesn't have to be spent on that. And you know, money, once it's allocated,
00:29:53.960
it ends up being controlled by the executive branch, unless it's specific. And this bill does
00:30:00.200
not specifically say you must spend it on the border wall. They could spend it on more drones or
00:30:05.700
whatever. Now there is some good things in it. Okay. They're, they're going to increase the number of
00:30:11.160
border patrol agents, $20 billion. The whole bill is going to be, I do like the rapid asylum,
00:30:17.520
you know, getting those processed quicker. If we can get those processed quicker,
00:30:20.620
because there is some legitimate. Yeah. And that doesn't mean they'll all be approved.
00:30:24.260
It just means processed more. Yeah. And which, which it should be. And it will be,
00:30:28.800
I don't know what I think about this. It'll be easier for families to claim asylum. Okay. Then it
00:30:34.480
will be for single men. Yeah. Which probably should be, because I think they know, I think that's
00:30:39.560
probably right. You can see both sides. Yeah. I can see both sides of that, but I don't like chain
00:30:43.660
migration. Right. Yeah. Right. In fact, I don't even like the word migration. It's illegal.
00:30:50.540
Immigration. Illegal immigration, illegal immigrants. Okay. It just is. That's just the
00:30:55.920
way it is. So I think the other thing that's in there that most people haven't talked about
00:30:59.420
is there's something called, um, it's DACA, but they're here legally. Okay. So if, if I came over
00:31:09.720
and I was a Mexican citizen, but I had a legal right to be here for a work visa and I brought
00:31:15.440
my children with me. Okay. Or they were, maybe they were even born here. All right. Now, when I
00:31:21.180
brought my children with me legally, okay, that's the way it would work when they're 21, they become
00:31:26.640
automatically illegal. Right. Because the parent was never an actual citizen. Right. And so they're
00:31:35.300
trying to figure out how to take care of that in the bill as well for those, what they call
00:31:39.860
legal dreamers or something like documented dreamers. That's what they call them. Okay. So
00:31:43.860
and one thing about the, the families, um, that I've seen some Republican senators and congressmen
00:31:51.440
say is that giving priority to families, minors that could incentivize, which this has been said
00:32:00.520
a lot about border policy that could incentivize child trafficking. Because if you get to skip to
00:32:06.320
the front of the line or you get priority because you're with a child, well, then you just find a
00:32:12.640
child and you show up there and you say, Oh no, I'm not just a man by myself. Look at all these
00:32:17.100
children. They're not going to do a DNA test right there to be able to verify if those children are
00:32:22.300
really with their parents or not. I think that that does incentivize probably child trafficking and
00:32:27.840
parents are going to be paid. And we already see this problem with human smugglers. That's
00:32:32.120
part of what's going on here is the coyotes are getting paid to smuggle people over the border.
00:32:37.620
Parents getting paid to send their children across the border to be able to help, you know,
00:32:42.560
these men cross the border. And so this is, I think that that's a big problem. That's incentivizing,
00:32:47.860
I think even more trafficking. I think it absolutely could be. The other thing they do,
00:32:51.740
you know, is they don't verify that you're an actual family member immediately when you get across
00:32:56.140
there. They don't verify that. Now, one thing they could do is they could make people come with
00:33:00.900
documentation that could be easily checked against their home country. Right. I mean,
00:33:05.460
all of that stuff is available these days, even what we might call third world countries. A lot of
00:33:10.520
that information is available through their online systems and what have you, but they don't, you know,
00:33:16.100
they, they don't do that. The other thing they're not going to do in the bill is they're not going to
00:33:19.920
deport any current illegals under this bill, which is a, which is a showstopper for me. So I think
00:33:26.560
what'll happen, Allie, I don't think it'll ever get to the house. Now I do wish the house would pass
00:33:29.940
their own bill. They need to pass their own bill too, right? Come up with something, pass it,
00:33:34.640
and then see if you can work out the differences. But I don't even think this bill is going to get
00:33:38.680
out of the Senate. It'll be a big test for Mitch O'Connell as the minority leader. Can he get 10 votes
00:33:45.460
to stop cloture, you know, which stops the debate? I'm not sure he'd get 10 votes to be able to do
00:33:50.880
that. It'll be very interesting to see. He'll have to do some pretty big arm twisting for that. And if
00:33:56.120
it is 10 votes, it'll be, the 10 will make up people who are not on the ballot this time or who
00:34:01.100
have decided they're going to retire. Some people are frustrated by the allocation of funds because
00:34:18.380
it also sends $20 billion. So $20 billion in U.S. border funds, $14 billion in assistance for Israel,
00:34:24.940
$60 billion for Ukraine, $4.83 billion to Indo-Pacific nations, $9.2 billion in humanitarian
00:34:32.520
aid for civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, Ukraine. So people are saying, okay, so you're sending more
00:34:38.460
money to Ukraine and to secure Ukraine's borders than you're willing to add or allocate for our
00:34:44.260
own borders. And I think that's a legitimate criticism. Well, it's different, okay? It's different
00:34:51.600
in that Ukraine is in the middle of a war. And whether or not you agree with the war or not,
00:34:57.300
they're in the middle of a war, okay? And I know some people would say our southern border is a war
00:35:02.460
as well. We're being invaded. We're being invaded by people, but not by tanks and not by missiles and
00:35:07.880
stuff like that. So there is a difference there. You can argue whether or not we should help Ukraine,
00:35:13.460
all right? And I get that. I'm, you know, I am probably much more of a isolationist than I used
00:35:20.140
to be, but I do understand why we want to protect democracy where it is out there because it's a
00:35:26.500
slippery, you know, it's a slippery slope. If Ukraine is a democracy, which is very much up for
00:35:31.700
debate. In theory, okay. In theory, they are, right? They're probably closer than Russia is.
00:35:36.580
Would we agree with that? Okay. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. I have no, I honestly,
00:35:40.860
I'm not sure. But the number one thing that wasn't included in this bill, in my opinion,
00:35:45.440
that would have the most effect, and President Trump didn't do this either, is naming the Mexican
00:35:51.340
cartels as terrorist organizations. And any of the gangs or cartels that exist in the other
00:35:57.480
Central American countries, you name them terrorist organization, that gives us the right to put our
00:36:01.860
military in there to protect our citizens. And why wouldn't we do that? I have no idea because
00:36:06.960
there's, I don't know, there's some deals going on. And why do you think that, I mean, I think we all
00:36:12.680
kind of have our theories, but why would the Biden administration pick this fight with Texas,
00:36:20.020
go to the Texas border and cut razor wire, not just say, hey, treat everyone nicely, but actually
00:36:26.280
undermine Governor Abbott's efforts to try to protect the border. I think razor wire is a very
00:36:33.000
nice way to say, please don't come in. But you've got people saying, oh, that's so mean. And the Biden
00:36:38.020
administration coming in, cutting the razor wire. You know, the funny thing is too about that is that
00:36:42.820
it actually works because until they put the razor wire up in Eagle Pass, there were several thousand
00:36:47.880
a day coming across. And then since it's been up, there's like been three. Yeah. So, and the other
00:36:53.780
thing is though, the feds can go in there and cut it down, but we can also put it right back up. It
00:36:59.540
can be a tit for tat for a while. Yeah. What do you think is going to happen there? Because basically
00:37:03.900
Governor Abbott defied the Supreme Court, which the Supreme Court said, okay, while we're figuring
00:37:09.900
this out, yes, the Biden administration has the authority to cut this razor wire. Although they
00:37:14.480
haven't done it by the way. Yeah. And Governor Abbott said, well, no, and nothing happened. I know.
00:37:18.960
I know. Is that interesting? I mean, who knows? Maybe the border patroller
00:37:23.680
is refusing to do it. I don't know, but I do think it's very, you know, I do think it's very
00:37:28.040
interesting and what have you. So, uh, I don't think the border bill is going to make it. I mean,
00:37:32.360
I give people credit for trying to make something happen. We do need a system that allows people to
00:37:37.480
work here legally in a better way. We do need to have a real asylum system. Okay. A lot of our
00:37:44.300
ancestors, not mine and yours, but other people's ancestors came over here under that real scenario.
00:37:49.960
Now, one thing I do like in the bill that we should do a standalone bill on is protecting the people
00:37:55.640
from Afghanistan that helped us. You know, there's a provision in the bill that makes it easier for
00:38:00.160
them to be here legally. And, you know, Biden and them didn't do any of that when they first did the
00:38:04.960
pullout, but then it is a provision in this bill to help the people from the Afghans, you know,
00:38:09.980
the interpreters and all those people to be here legally, which I would be in favor of.
00:38:13.960
And just a reminder, because I do think that some people believe that everyone showing up at the
00:38:18.660
border is a refugee or is an asylum seeker, but a lot of these people are not just from Mexico.
00:38:24.780
They're not just from South America. They're from China. They're from the Middle East. And if you are
00:38:28.780
truly seeking asylum, you should go to the next closest country where you can reasonably and safely
00:38:35.800
stay. It doesn't require you to go through Mexico and come through our border.
00:38:40.700
Actually says it's the first country that you can get into that, you know, you can settle in. That's
00:38:46.620
where your asylum should be. And you're not a refugee just because you are looking for a better life.
00:38:52.800
No. We could understand that. Definitely. That does not justify someone being able to walk in and say,
00:39:01.260
Just because you want a better job or something. That's not that.
00:39:04.020
Yeah. That's not the reason. That's 100% for sure.
00:39:07.020
Okay. So something that's very discouraging that you said is that the Republicans, of course,
00:39:12.060
they're not really going to want to really fix this problem right before an election. So Biden
00:39:16.560
can't take credit for it. Is it ever going to get solved? This has been a problem for a very long
00:39:21.480
time. They would fix it if it was totally on their terms, but they're not going to give in on anything.
00:39:26.860
Okay. Now, if they could get Biden, I think if they could get Biden to agree to, you know,
00:39:31.120
build the wall, totally shut everything down, maybe you could get some of that because they could
00:39:35.140
actually claim victory. But I do think it's been a, uh, political football for multiple, uh,
00:39:41.580
administrations. And, uh, I think president Trump did as much as anybody, but I also think
00:39:46.560
he could have done more. Remember we had the house and the Senate for a little while when he
00:39:49.720
was president and we should have made a harder push to get law change, not just executive orders
00:39:57.800
Yeah. I've seen some of the things that he has said and he said, you know, all of these illegal
00:40:02.100
immigrants coming in, they better not get comfortable because they're going to leave
00:40:06.320
when I'm president. And I'm like, yes. And amen. I want to see it though. I want to see it.
00:40:10.380
I know. I know. I want you to, you know, I want you to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Now,
00:40:14.520
president Trump right now for sure doesn't want anything done for sure. Yeah. Because yeah, he,
00:40:20.540
he steals his thunder and it, yeah, it only hurts him in his reelection or in his election.
00:40:25.880
Gosh, I think that people are so passionate about it. And the, even if there were some,
00:40:32.740
there was some mitigation at the border, like there's still the problem of all of the millions
00:40:37.440
of those who are here. So he can continue to run on that. I mean, all he has to do is show that
00:40:42.720
picture. I don't know if you saw this of the illegal immigrant in New York after he and his
00:40:46.720
buddies beat up a cop and he's flipping off the camera because he's just been let off. Yeah.
00:40:52.560
All Republicans should be running that picture. These are the so-called refugees that we are
00:41:00.280
told have to come here. You just run that picture with Joe Biden's picture beside it. That's all you
00:41:04.440
do. And it's accurate. So I do think it's a good political move that Abbott and others have been
00:41:09.960
doing to send the immigrants to these blue states. Abbott's been the superstar in all of this. There's
00:41:15.980
no question about it. And he probably hasn't been given the credit. No, yeah. And you got,
00:41:20.100
now you got 20 something other governors joining. Do you notice that? Like we're going to, like
00:41:23.980
DeSantis said, I will send you razor wire, which I thought was pretty, I thought was pretty good,
00:41:28.780
but it'll be, you know, it'll be interesting and we'll see how it goes. You know, we're coming up
00:41:33.360
on the primary super Tuesdays coming up. There's a crazy Nevada primary this week where the,
00:41:38.800
there's actually a primary today and then Republicans go to primary and then they go to caucus on Thursday,
00:41:44.780
which is, I don't even know what it means, but it's going to be very interesting. And of course,
00:41:49.020
we have the conventions coming up in the summer. Okay. Tell us about the conventions.
00:41:54.320
Do you really want to know? I really want to know. Okay. So I want everybody to get a pencil and paper.
00:42:00.140
Okay. Although I know they want, if you're driving, don't do that. But I do have some
00:42:03.680
information on the conventions. First of all, there's a Republican convention and a Democrat
00:42:07.280
convention. The Republican convention is going to be held in Milwaukee in mid-July.
00:42:11.100
Okay. And really just- Why Milwaukee? Any reason?
00:42:16.520
Battleground state. Battleground state. And then oddly enough, not very far down the road,
00:42:21.420
a month later, the Democrats are going to be held in Chicago. And so it'll be interesting, but
00:42:26.720
these conventions are somewhat archaic in how our president's elected, because you know,
00:42:34.540
you and I don't vote for a president directly. We don't even do that in the primary. We vote for
00:42:41.240
what amounts to be a delegate to go to the convention and pledge their vote. All right.
00:42:47.200
So what happens in the Republican convention, there's 2,469 delegates. All right. And there's
00:42:55.720
2,365 of those are what they call a bound, meaning they are obligated. There's 104 at large
00:43:04.520
delegates that aren't as, you know, required to vote for the way the people. And so you have to
00:43:09.740
have 1,235 delegates. When you've had 1,235 delegates that have stood up on that floor and said,
00:43:16.820
you know, the great state of Texas does 38 votes for Allie Stuckey, then you've got 38 delegate votes.
00:43:23.220
Well, you got to get to 1,235. Texas is 162 of those, sir. They're one of the biggest states that
00:43:29.220
have those. But what it means is, is so when we vote for the primary and we vote for, let's say,
00:43:34.900
Donald Trump wins the primary in Texas, then when we have our state Republican convention at the end
00:43:40.640
of May, people will say, well, I want to be a delegate to the national convention. They actually
00:43:45.480
run again. Okay. Like Allie, you could run or I could run. And we'd go to the convention in San Antonio.
00:43:51.920
And then that group only in my congressional district, right? Because each congressional
00:43:58.880
district gets three national delegates. So in congressional district that I live in 26,
00:44:05.720
we get three. So I could run for a national delegate spot. All right. And let's say I win that.
00:44:12.600
Well, if, if, uh, my district has voted for Trump, then I am bound to pledge my delegate to Trump.
00:44:21.140
I can't change my mind. Okay. It would be, uh, uh, they would just replace me and put another
00:44:26.360
person in there. And that's the way it is all over the state. Now, if Trump didn't get a majority,
00:44:31.900
let's say he got a plurality, but not a majority say he got 40%. Well, then it becomes proportioned,
00:44:38.300
meaning that he might get two votes out of my congressional district. And, you know,
00:44:43.100
Nikki Haley got one or something like that. All right. And so then we go to the state,
00:44:47.860
the state lets all theirs and you go to the national convention and the national convention.
00:44:53.580
Once the 1235 are met, it's over. All right. However, however, let's say nobody gets for
00:45:01.720
whatever reason, something happens and people are really concerned about president Trump. Okay.
00:45:05.840
Okay. Well then he doesn't get a majority on the first run. Okay. Well, you're still bound for the
00:45:14.400
second run. Okay. They'll go through it again, the whole thing. And a lot of times people will
00:45:18.880
change. There'll be a little bit of change for, cause some States don't bind you as much as Texas
00:45:22.840
does. So maybe in the second, Nikki picks up a little bit more. Right. And then by the third run,
00:45:28.420
if they haven't, if somebody hadn't got a majority, all of the, uh, delegates are unbound and that was
00:45:34.840
when it becomes a free fall, which will not happen by the way, in the Republican conventions. And
00:45:38.980
that's not going to happen now in the Democrat convention works a lot, the same way. Now they
00:45:43.900
have a lot more delegates, but it's still kind of works in a similar fashion in that the delegates
00:45:48.780
are bound through the first, you know, the first ballot, you know, they had these super delegates.
00:45:53.480
If you, in your first election, you really got engaged in when, when, uh, Hillary Clinton and,
00:45:57.860
and Bernie Sanders and the big Bernie Sanders thing was, is that, look, I had a lot more delegates
00:46:03.580
than you allocated me. And that's because they gave these super delegates, extra voting power.
00:46:09.060
Now Democrats, super delegates, which are 750 of them, mostly governors, members of Congress,
00:46:15.300
you know, people like that, they can't vote in the first round. So they're kind of, that's how,
00:46:20.180
that's how Hillary won actually. So they're out of that. So let's say there's not a majority.
00:46:24.960
Okay. And then the super delegates can vote in the second round. But what is the most interesting
00:46:31.220
part about a contested convention in the, on the Democrat side, this time, let's say that Biden
00:46:37.260
appears to be continuing to lose, you know, his, uh, mental stature. Right. And so there's a big
00:46:45.280
uproar. Well, there, they could force him to release his delegates. There could, they can do
00:46:53.120
it now, whether he would ever do it or not, but they could. And that's how somebody like a Michelle
00:46:57.320
Obama or somebody like that could come in as a candidate on the house floor. They could do that.
00:47:03.560
I mean, on the convention floor, they could do that. She wouldn't have had to go through primaries
00:47:07.500
or anything like that. And there's, you know, there's theorists that believe that that could
00:47:12.560
happen. And, uh, something like that could happen, you know, with president Trump, who knows if
00:47:18.100
there's something big that goes on behind the scenes that just says, Hey, you know, you're can't,
00:47:23.160
you know, you're, you can't represent us. And it changed a lot of people's mind. Now,
00:47:26.320
I don't think either one of those are likely because both of these gentlemen are bound and
00:47:31.200
determined to, you know, to go at it again, but the conventions will be interesting to watch this
00:47:36.820
time. And I would encourage people to watch them. It's a good, uh, I wouldn't watch them all day,
00:47:40.900
but it's, it's a good, it's a good part of our process. Okay. Yeah. I didn't know very much
00:47:46.120
about that. That's interesting. I bet a lot of people don't even know that that goes on.
00:47:49.220
Yeah, probably not, but it'd be interesting. But I do remember that about Hillary and Bernie
00:47:53.380
and how he felt robbed. And he was actually, I mean, he was, I mean, they had rigged that thing
00:47:58.900
for Hillary, no question about it. And they did the same thing really for Biden in 2020. And you're,
00:48:04.600
and you know what, you know what Bernie got out of it. He got the chairmanship of the Senate
00:48:08.100
finance committee, which controls all the money that goes out that, you know, the Senate approves.
00:48:12.780
Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. Well, dad, thank you so much for that breakdown. That was
00:48:17.640
very educational for me and I'm sure my audience too. Okay. Remind everyone where they can get your
00:48:23.140
book. Oh yes. My book, a life lessons from the little red wagon. You can get it on Amazon or
00:48:27.400
Barnes and Noble or ronsimmons.com. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you so much.