Best of The Program ｜ Guests： Asra Nomani & David Harsanyi ｜ 10⧸27⧸21
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Summary
The tide is changing, but it s still hard to be positive when it s a steady diet of doom and gloom every day. Today we have a lot of reasons for optimism, including: 1) Why we re on the right side of history, and 2) Why the left is on the side of authoritarianism.
Transcript
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Hey, welcome to the program. We've got a lot of good news for you. We start the podcast off with
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some things that are happening that show that the tide is changing. And we focused a little bit on
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the media and something that John F. Kennedy said back in 1961. Also, we have Azra Nomani. She is
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this remarkable woman, former Wall Street Journal reporter, who is now following all of the things
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going on with school boards. She gives us an update on that. There's some real progress on that.
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David Harsani is with us. Also, Bjorn Lomborg is talking to us about climate change. Don't forget,
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Glasgow is coming up this weekend. And Joe Biden wants to give them a big hug and kiss.
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And that's the focus of your new special as well. Yes. Tonight on Blaze TV, blazetv.com slash Glenn
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is the place to go. You get 10 bucks off your subscription to Blaze TV. So that's tonight
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at nine o'clock. Right after a brand new Stood Us America. You're welcome. That was a gift. Thank you.
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You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
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So, Dee Parker wrote the case for optimism, 10 reasons why the pro-freedom right will defeat
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the anti-liberty left. He said, the leftist enemies of freedom and civil rights are such
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that it makes it impossible for them to win. And while it would be a disaster if they were
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to befall the planet, it would be still hard to be positive. It is still hard to be positive
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when it's a steady diet of doom and gloom every day. Every day brings yet another attack
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on freedom and progress from people falsely labeling themselves as liberals. Many of these
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reasons for optimism of the pro-freedom right are because they are directly contrasted with
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the negative characteristics of the anti-liberty left. Now, this is really important. Do you remember
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years ago, I talked about Martin Luther King and how he was right about a couple of things.
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One was once you have the images that people can contrast between good and evil, people will
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always pick good. Americans will. Now, that is true as long as our Judeo-Christian values are still
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alive in our heart. That's why we try so hard to keep our hearts soft. That's one of the reasons why
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I started Mercury One, to remind you how good it feels to do good. And we were just reminded this summer
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when we went and helped people in Afghanistan, which is still going on. We have to keep our hearts soft
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so we can recognize the difference between good and evil. That's one reason why I say we can't become
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them and defeat them in the way they want to defeat us. We have to go a different path.
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Martin Luther King said, if you contrast the two, they will always pick, the American people will always
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pick good. We didn't have the pictures of the German shepherds, you know, being sicked on blacks as they
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marched in Memphis. We didn't have the fire hoses. What we had was a group of people that we felt were
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Marxists. And do you remember how they fought against that? When Newsweek came out and said,
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we're all, we're all, what was it, socialists now? We pointed that out at Fox and said, really, we are?
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Because I thought you were denying that you were socialists. Now they're saying they're out in the
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open and Barack Obama went on a big smear campaign and saying that anybody who claims that he was a
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Marxist or a socialist, uh, was racist. Now they're coming out and they're embracing Marxism. As I said
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to you, they want to tell you exactly what they're doing, but they can't because the minute they do,
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you're onto them and you're saying that's not me. This is what happened in Afghanistan. When, uh,
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Joe Biden failed miserably and then claimed it to be a victory. Americans saw that and went,
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that's not us. That's not us. I don't recognize that those military leaders. I don't recognize our
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government. That's not who we are. And we could contrast that with who we've always been.
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Now, let me give you some of the reasons for optimism. According to D Parker, he says, one,
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we're on the side of freedom and anti-liberty left is on the side of authoritarianism.
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This is becoming more and more clear. Uh, for instance, Chomsky was just on, um, MSNBC a couple
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of days ago. And he said, people who refuse to accept vaccines, I think the right response for
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them is to not force them, but rather to insist that they be isolated. If people decide I am willing
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to be a danger to the community by refusing to vaccinate, um, they should say then, well,
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I also have the decency to isolate myself. I don't want the vaccine. I don't want the right
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to run around harming people. That should be convention. Enforcing is a different question.
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It should be understood and we should try to get it to be understood. If it really reaches a point
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where there are, they are severely endangering people. Then of course you have to do something
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about it. So what is he, what is he saying? He's saying that there should be camps or there should
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be, they should self-isolate in their home, but he really means isolate because the next question
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was, well, how do they purchase food? This isn't how do they go out and work or anything else?
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How do they purchase food? Chomsky's response is telling, well, quote, actually that's their problem.
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End quote. So who is on the side of freedom and people and who is on the side of authoritarianism?
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It is becoming clear that the left is authoritarianism and not because we say it
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because their actions are now showing it. Second, uh, point of optimism. We have timeless advantages.
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The anti-liberty left only has short-term tactics and tricks. Well, let me give you one. Did you see
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that, um, that the, um, military came out yesterday and said, what is it? There are 496 Americans
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still trapped in Afghanistan. Well, first of all, there are more than 496, but that is double the amount
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that they said over the summer. They said there were about 200. Okay. So double the amount over double
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the amount. And then it later, they said there was less than a hundred. Now they're saying there's
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almost 500. The truth is that it is much larger than 500 could be in the thousands. One, two, three
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thousand could be 5,000. Nobody really knows. But when we said that we were called conspiracy theorists,
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we were called all kinds of names, unreliable. It is becoming apparent that their short-term tactics
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and their tricks don't work. Another example of this is, well, it's just transitory. Don't worry about inflation.
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It's just transitory. Well, it's not transitory. Is it? Have you checked what you're paying for meat?
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Have you checked what you're paying for gas? Have you noticed how expensive almost everything is?
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Did you know that this Thanksgiving, the meal that you put down, the traditional Thanksgiving meal here
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in America will cost you more than it ever has in the history of our country. That's saying something.
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It's not transitory. It is something that we should be working to solve. All of their short-term tactics
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and tricks, they all fail. But we have the truth on our side. We have mathematics on our side. We have
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evidence on our side. Three, while we can be honest, the anti-liberty left has to lie to survive.
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Sanjay Gupta was a great example of this with the horse dewormer stuff. That is a Nobel Prize winning
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medicine. Yet everybody had to claim that it was horse dewormer. Why? To stop people from getting
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some sort of treatment and to focus everyone on the vaccine. We all know the truth.
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The vaccine is effective. If you want to get it, you can get it. We also know that there are other
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things that will help ease the pain if you have COVID. Horse dewormer is not one of them.
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However, the Nobel Prize winning human version of that may help. But they have to discredit
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everything. January 6th. January 6th is another case. Why is it that they won't release all of the
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video? Well, there is a really fascinating report that is out now from Revolver that looks like that maybe
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the FBI was involved in setting this up. We'll give you that story coming up. But they always have to lie
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to survive. We can be honest. We believe in civil liberties is number four. They don't.
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Let me again give you this. This is the scariest thing I've heard from a government official, perhaps
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of all time. And it came out of out of Rochelle Walensky's mouth. She's the CDC director. Last
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Sunday, she said there is a plan to get unvaccinated essential workers, education and counseling so they
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will feel comfortable getting vaccinated. I got news for you. I'm not getting vaccinated.
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I have antibodies. I and I am not going to go through some government education. And I certainly
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will not sit down with a government sponsored therapist for counseling.
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So wait a minute, which one of us believes in civil liberties? Which one of us really is fighting for
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freedom of speech? Which one of us is fighting for the freedom of the press? Did you see?
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Yesterday, two new people were appointed to the FCC, hardline lefties. That is going to affect my job,
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my voice, your ability to hear me on radio. Mark my words. They have to shut people down.
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That's not somebody who believes in the Bill of Rights. The fifth reason to be optimistic.
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We love America. And the average person loves America. They do. We have problems and we're honest
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about those problems. But the anti-liberty left hates America. Look at Colin Kaepernick.
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We believe in individual rights is number six. The anti-liberty left believes in collective rights,
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vaccines, the mandates, the passports. By the way, the FDA has approved one of the vaccines for kids.
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So I guarantee you the collective right of your kid and you to be the parent of your kid and decide
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what goes into his body and what doesn't go into their body. You're going to lose that right if you're
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not standing up. By the way, Terry McAuliffe, he doesn't mind. You as a parent don't have a right
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to raise or teach your kids or question what your kids are learning in school.
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Number seven is economic liberty has always worked and societal slavery of socialism has never worked.
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You know, they said the model is China. Have you seen what's happening in China lately?
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Number eight, we're productive in society. Those who believe in the Bill of Rights, the Constitution
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and the Declaration of Independence, we generally are productive in society. Anti-liberty leftists are
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parasites. Good example of this is unrealized gains. What are unrealized gains in the stock market?
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That means if you're a teacher, your teacher's union has your pension and your pension is in the stock
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market. And every time the stock market goes up, you're now going to have to pay for those
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unrealized gains. In other words, even if you don't pull that money out, you're going to pay
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to the government the privilege of that money making money. Elon Musk just came out and said,
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this is insanity, insanity. And it is, you know, this goes back to their lies and their tricks.
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They say they've already paid for everything. No, they haven't. Or they wouldn't be looking for
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unrealized gains. Or if they say, no, we're not into redistributive wealth. We're not into socialism
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and killing the system. Then they wouldn't be doing this because this will hurt the stock market.
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People will pull their money out of the stock market. Why? Because you can't afford to pay
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the unrealized gains without pulling the money out of the stock market.
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You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
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Azra Nomani is with us. And hopefully, I think you have some good news for us, Azra.
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Yeah, good. Good. I'm ready to hear some good news. What is happening on the school board front?
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Well, what's fantastic is that we have this mama bear revolution just, you know, coming up in school
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districts around the country. And we have made the school board association back down from their
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threat against our parents. Of course, they did. They issued a apology to their own members Friday
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night, one of those Friday night missives that they hope will get ignored. But they don't realize
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we're all home because our kids are home, right? We're paying attention to everything.
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You know, I don't think they got the memo or they forgot that little point about
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Glenn, like you're an investigator, you're a researcher, but you don't even have anything on a mom,
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right? Oh, no. Uh-uh. You really don't. You really don't.
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And once, so, you know, we've got these mama bears and I think we all grew up reading a little
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Nancy Drew because we know how you got to follow the money. You have to find out the truth. We don't
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accept white lies, right? We don't accept this kind of nonsense. And so what we were able to do last
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week was, you know, earlier we established really clearly that the attorney general had a conflict of
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interest with his son-in-law running a company that profits off of school board decisions,
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a company called Panorama Education. And then with this great work that our mom-in-chief at Parents
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Defending Education did, she sent Freedom of Information Act requests to every single member
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of the National School Board Association's Board of Directors. And they are all school board officials.
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So they're, as you know, their emails are open to public scrutiny. Correct. And so in those emails,
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we got evidence that the School Board Association interim director, Chip Slavin, acknowledged that
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he'd been in talks with the White House for, quote, several weeks before he issued the letter asking for
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intervention from the Justice Department. And voila, you've got this, you know, this completely
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cooked up campaign then against parents. So there's something new as well. There is a new member to the
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National Assessment Governing Board. Are you aware of this? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So she was the co-signer
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on this letter calling for help from the White House. And Ms. Garcia is her name. And she is the
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president of the National School Board Association. And so conveniently, she was named by the Education
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Secretary, as we know, a political appointee in the Biden administration, to this much coveted role,
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you know, that now has oversight over school assessments and does a report card every year.
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And again, bringing it back to the money, the industry that has emerged over the last several
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years, particularly of this thing called education technology, hinges its work on assessments.
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And they cook the books many times, like it's very, very, you know, dubious, some of their evidence
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base, it's really not evidence based. But it's, it's very important that we, we look at understand that
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these government appointments help private industry and, and in some cases, not for profits that are
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actually working for profit. Got another headline for you, Glenn, because I know you love breaking
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news. Yeah. Chip Slavin, the, I did this up late last night investigating this, but Chip Slavin, the
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interim president for, for the National School Board Association, he is actually, has been an advisor
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to an education technology company. And the, that company has, its founder is the chair of the
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commission that the, that Garcia was appointed to. You've got to be kidding me. Yeah, I mean, this is
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just so incestuous. Yeah, I knew you would understand you, you, I can see your mind working,
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connecting the dots and understanding exactly what I just told you. So yeah, it's incestuous. And
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it's everything, it's just traditional, like gumshoe reporting that we have to do on this. And we have
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to remember always, that school system that has your child walking through its doors is part of an
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industry. Like we have to always put now incorporated, you know, behind every, like it's Fairfax County
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Public Schools Incorporated. It really is. It's, it's really disgusting that they hide behind these
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are public schools and we hate corporations. Because as we saw with Common Core, a lot of the goals
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that are being set now by these corporations in the guise of helping students is just to make
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better workers for those corporations. Yeah, better workers and then also build a market, right?
00:21:16.980
Yes. Building a market. So this is the rest of the story that I don't, I definitely want to make sure
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that you, we get time to talk about. So, so for the last four months, I've filed 200 plus FOIAs with the
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public school systems in America. And we created something that we've called the consultant report card.
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And the last time I was on, I promised your listeners that I'm going to give them a top 10 list of
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companies to look for in their school district. Okay.
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So we've got it. Go to defendinged.org and look for the consultant report card. And one of the first
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blogs that we've got, their blog post is the list of the top 10.
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But, but then beyond that, we've identified 200 plus companies and consultants that have raised
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over $20 million in contracts that we've documented. And, and, you know, Glenn, this is just tip of the
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ice. Oh yeah. And of course, and the number one company is Panorama Education. And so, yeah. And so
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right now we just dropped a piece in Real Clear Education that I want everyone to look at. Like,
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go to my Twitter thread and I'll, I'll, I'll tag you on it also. But everyone needs to know,
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like this company Panorama Education as an example, they are using something called social and emotional
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learning to data mine your kids and psychologically profile them. And we have an example in our column
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today that I co-wrote with my colleague, Erica Sansey, where you can see to nine students in Portland
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public schools in one particular school, that one boy said that he was gay. Like, do I need to know
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that information? No. Does a company in Boston need to know that information? No. And guess what?
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They also are surveying the parents. So I know now, and you know now, all you got to do is Google
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Portland public schools and Panorama screener survey results, and you will know how many parents
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self-identify as questioning, as non-binary, as transgender, and then heterosexual since,
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you know, they count too. And this is all being done by the school district?
00:23:36.880
Yes. So what is happening is the school district, this big enterprise is outsourcing to these
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contractors like Panorama Education, this work. And what we found in Fairfax County, Virginia,
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is that they are able to bypass all these privacy laws that are put in place to protect our young
00:23:59.540
people by, you will not believe this, they put into the contract that Panorama Education,
00:24:06.880
officials are deemed school officials. And that's how they get access to the information.
00:24:15.320
Let me go back to the school board association, the national school board association. We have
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Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Ohio now dropping out and saying, we don't want anything to do with the
00:24:27.860
national school board association because of the letter. Now with the news, not only of the letter,
00:24:35.120
but the collusion with the white house, uh, and, uh, and the money that is being made,
00:24:44.880
um, and the, I think it was a letter to protect that money, uh, to the attorney general,
00:24:52.540
why aren't more, uh, state school board associations pulling out of the national school
00:25:01.880
board association? Yes. So they, so these are the ones that have pulled out, as you said,
00:25:07.180
but our number now is at 21 states out of 50, right. That have distanced themselves and reprimanded
00:25:16.660
the national school board association for their letter. So this is like, why wouldn't,
00:25:20.740
why wouldn't they, why wouldn't they pull out though? Why would they, why are they just saying,
00:25:25.500
Hey, this is about, what do they get from the national school board association?
00:25:29.580
Yeah. You know, Glenn, it's the same machine, right? That Washington trade groups, um, pull on
00:25:35.760
the state, uh, organizations or, um, or as you know, like we do this in industry, we do it in public,
00:25:44.600
uh, public office. Like this is our public roles. Like this is why the teachers union has such power,
00:25:50.780
right? As a national, like they claim to represent the state. And this, these are, I pulled the 990 on the
00:25:58.900
national school board association. It's a multimillion dollar, uh, nonprofit, quote unquote,
00:26:04.780
nonprofit. Right. Um, and they, you know, they get, they, this, they just tell these, uh, these, uh,
00:26:12.200
local folks, as you know, Oh, we're going to represent you in Washington. We're going to lobby
00:26:16.200
for you. We're going to get, um, you know, you know what they do? Like they get their, their,
00:26:20.620
the language and the appropriation language. They get money funneled to the states with whatever,
00:26:25.120
you know, shenanigans they're trying to pull in DC. They claim that they can do it better.
00:26:30.560
I have to tell you, I, uh, if you are a parent, you should go to your local school board and demand
00:26:38.720
that they send the message to the state school board. You don't want anything to do with the
00:26:44.680
national school board association. This is obviously corrupt. You now have two people, uh, that you can
00:26:51.620
point to directly, uh, that are part of this incestuous, uh, I don't even a cabal, uh, that is his
00:27:01.520
silencing parents and, uh, mining our children. You've got to get away from the national school
00:27:10.320
board association. And no matter if they, you really think that they're doing things, they must be taught
00:27:16.100
a lesson. And that lesson will only be taught when they lose everything. They have to lose everything.
00:27:24.760
Nikki, um, our president put it really well yesterday when we were just chatting and she said,
00:27:28.900
you know, they need a house cleaning and that house cleaning is only going to happen when the states
00:27:34.720
revolt basically. And they say that we will not participate in this war that you have launched
00:27:41.440
against the very people in our communities that we were elected to represent. I only have about a
00:27:46.880
minute left. FDA advisors recommend Pfizer's vaccine now for children ages five to 11. You know,
00:27:54.520
now that is coming to as a mandate to our kids, this is not going to help calm parents.
00:28:03.740
Yeah. You know, Glenn, I have a 19 year old and I just thank the heavens that I don't have to
00:28:10.520
take that decision that the, the, the, the parents of these young kids are having to navigate right
00:28:16.340
now. Um, we have really failed our society and on this public health message, we turning it into
00:28:24.260
edicts and directives and, you know, much, much, um, much like the, this, you know, top down on
00:28:32.100
school boards, you know, and trying to silence us as parents. Um, and so just what we encourage is
00:28:39.620
please everyone, whatever position you have advocate, you know, just you are the voices of
00:28:45.940
your children and whatever conclusion you come to from that place of reason and love that you have
00:28:52.260
as a parent, please like overcome any fears that you have and look at, watch the videos of school
00:28:59.560
board meetings. You know, yesterday we spent the night all watching Loudoun County and it, and I,
00:29:05.640
I don't want to drop that bomb in the last seconds of our conversation, but, but it's all indicative
00:29:10.800
that like, it just takes one parent, you know, in every situation, one parent, courage is contagious.
00:29:17.740
Thank you so much, uh, Ezra. I appreciate it. We'll talk to you again.
00:29:21.280
David Harsani, senior writer of a national review, author of Euro trash. Why America must reject the
00:29:43.060
failed ideas of a dying continent. Uh, you can find David's work at national review.com and his new
00:29:49.840
book, wherever books are sold. Hello, David, how are you? I'm well, thank you for having me.
00:29:55.160
You bet. It's always good to talk to you. Um, so, uh, tell me about the, uh, the Euro trash,
00:30:01.820
because as I'm, as I'm looking at Europe, I have seen Europeans say, oh my gosh, America has gone
00:30:09.220
crazy. Uh, and we're becoming so much like Europe. We are passing Europe in some ways. Are we not?
00:30:18.160
Uh, I think that's fair to say in some ways. I mean, when you look at this $3.5 trillion bill,
00:30:24.660
it's a welfare state cradle of the grave sort of European style expansion of the state,
00:30:29.900
but it's even worse because in Europe, at least they pay for that stuff. And, you know, in Denmark,
00:30:35.520
in Denmark, a person making, making 60 K will pay like 65% of his salary in taxes. But can you imagine
00:30:41.560
an American doing that? And Bernie doesn't want us to, he just wants to either print more money or,
00:30:45.740
or, or, David, David, David, I've heard from the president. No joke. It's the truth, man.
00:30:53.080
It's all paid for. It's not going to cost a dime. $0, $0, $3. It's the same guy who told us that
00:31:00.780
spending more money will help with him bring down inflation. So I don't know if, I don't know if
00:31:05.800
he has his economics or anything else, frankly. Uh, so, um, why doesn't the socialist system that
00:31:16.880
works in Sweden work here? Uh, well, I mean, first of all, scale, you're talking about, I think
00:31:25.220
Sweden has 9 million people and it's the largest Nordic nation. You can't scale that kind of system.
00:31:30.540
It would mean having a massive bureaucracy. But the other question is why would I want it anyway?
00:31:35.580
It's not as if they do anything better than we do. Certainly they're not better at assimilating
00:31:39.520
new people. They're not better at healthcare. They're not better at any of the things, um,
00:31:44.960
that, that we can quantify. And they're certainly not better at things we can't like risk taking
00:31:50.420
and entrepreneurship. So I don't know why we'd want it a and B. I don't think that we could do it
00:31:56.120
even if we want it to. So David, are we, uh, I mean, we are now talking about, um, what is it?
00:32:04.560
Unrealized gains in the stock market for people like Elon Musk, who is like him or not, he is
00:32:12.840
changing the way things are happening in the world. Um, and he sees over the horizon, he sees a
00:32:20.740
different, uh, a different future. And now we're talking about giving him, uh, an extra tax on
00:32:27.220
unrealized capital gains that that's, that's insane. That's a perfect example of, of a European mindset
00:32:35.360
where when you, when you think about innovation and technology, the top 30 technological company,
00:32:42.480
tech companies in the world, one is European Spotify and the rest are not. Most of them are American.
00:32:48.640
Why do Europeans come here to start their companies? Tons of our biggest companies are,
00:32:53.540
are started by immigrants or children of immigrants here. It's because of things like this, taxing
00:32:58.900
people's unrealized profits would, um, undermine the risk-taking venture and undermines investment.
00:33:06.900
And it's exactly the sorts of things they do in Europe. I mean, every country is a little
00:33:10.080
different, but that's, that's the mindset over there and we're bringing it over here.
00:33:13.200
But they're not, but they don't tax unrealized gains, do they? I mean, I, I've never heard of
00:33:18.560
that before. How does that system even work? You go, your stock goes up, they, you pay income tax on
00:33:25.760
it. Then your stock goes down. Do they give that money back? What, I mean, how does that work?
00:33:30.660
No, because these are, these are parlors. These are tricks to try to tax rich people where it is in
00:33:34.880
Europe. They just do it. We're honest about it. Right. Um, so yeah.
00:33:39.340
Until they start driving people out. So have you ever, have you ever seen a president or really,
00:33:45.920
really anyone do what Biden did when he went over to Europe and tried to get the Europeans
00:33:51.940
to agree on a baseline corporate tax? So no one would be stealing corporations from,
00:34:00.800
from each other. You'd trap them in the countries.
00:34:03.760
Never, never. And I just don't even understand. I mean, you know, a lot of people talk about one
00:34:09.720
world government and sometimes it's down a little bit nutty, but I have to say when you have the
00:34:14.080
United States trying to create a worldwide tax system, um, to, to, to stop competition, which is
00:34:21.540
what that does. I just can't think of any American president that's done that. That would have been
00:34:27.100
something that would lose you the election immediately. I mean, I just think, I just can't,
00:34:32.760
there's nothing I can even compare it to. I think one of the worst things that we have seen,
00:34:37.080
um, and, and Afghanistan didn't help us on any front. I mean, we have now lost the,
00:34:44.620
the moral center of the United States. I mean, and a lot of people had been convinced that,
00:34:52.020
you know, America wasn't moral and, and in many ways we haven't been for quite some time.
00:34:57.320
Uh, but we at least would go into Afghanistan and we would, uh, help our allies. We would help
00:35:05.960
women and children, et cetera, et cetera. Um, we don't have that moral high ground anymore for our
00:35:12.260
military where I don't think we're trusted anymore. And the other thing that is horrible is people used
00:35:18.880
to view this country as a land of opportunity. Now they view us as a, a racist state.
00:35:28.960
Yeah, they do, but still people stream to our borders to come in because it's just not true.
00:35:34.400
And, you know, by any, again, quantifiable measure, and I go into this pretty deeply in the book, we are
00:35:39.940
far less racist and more tolerant than any place in my neighborhood. For instance,
00:35:44.540
I live among people who would be killing themselves in many other situations and live
00:35:48.620
peacefully here to send their kids to the same schools, et cetera. Um, but it is true that people
00:35:53.540
think of us that way, um, wrongly. Show me, I believe that show me how they're more,
00:35:59.540
we're more tolerant than Europe because that's not what you hear ever.
00:36:05.860
Well, let's talk about immigration then, you know, legal immigration, not, not illegal immigration,
00:36:10.700
but think about assimilation in Europe. There are places in outside of Paris, outside of Berlin and
00:36:17.220
elsewhere where there are basically ghettos, generational ghettos of high unemployment.
00:36:21.660
I don't mean, you know, 10%, I mean, 35, 40%, um, that where people don't speak the language of the
00:36:28.500
country, where they don't accept the customs and the ideals of the country. Uh, you know, people say
00:36:33.600
diversity is our strength here. That's just a trope. I mean, what our strength here is that we have a
00:36:37.480
diverse types of people who accept the same foundational ideas about living together or
00:36:42.020
they used to, um, in Europe, you don't have any of that. These countries can't assimilate any group
00:36:47.860
in a healthy way. And we do it all the time when, when we do it, right. Um, why is that? Why is that?
00:36:56.060
I think we were built for it, frankly. I mean, some of this is just structural problems. You have
00:37:00.800
Hungary. Hungary has an ethnicity. It has a culture. It goes back a long time. There are,
00:37:05.060
they have grudges that go back a thousand years. It's not as easy for them to accept other people.
00:37:10.640
It is for us, but you know, I'll give you one quick, uh, poll number in France, 27% of people
00:37:16.920
say they wouldn't want to live next to someone who wasn't like them, race, religion, whatever in
00:37:21.420
America. That number is 1%. Now, maybe some people are lying, but at least they know that that's the
00:37:27.320
right thing to say. That's the credo. That's the way we live here. And Europe just isn't that way.
00:37:32.880
And people go to like the tourist spots and they think that's Europe. That's not Europe.
00:37:37.840
Talk to David Arsani of National Review. Uh, David, one of the things I think is fascinating
00:37:42.760
and it's totally against the narrative that we hear from the media is we need to be more enlightened
00:37:48.900
like, uh, like Europe is. And one of the big issues they talk about is abortion. Like we,
00:37:54.800
why don't we have women's rights like they do in Europe? Why don't we have abortion that anyone
00:37:59.000
can get at any time? That's what Europe is like. They're ahead of us and they understand real
00:38:03.800
women's rights. Is that actually accurate? No, you're one of the better things they do better
00:38:09.500
than us actually is have stricter abortion laws, but you know, it's complicated because I don't think
00:38:15.420
there really is a pro-life movement in Europe. So they've sort of settled on a more moderate stance
00:38:19.620
organically. There are very few religious people in Europe and that's a big problem. Um,
00:38:24.700
so there isn't that movement, but they are, there are a few things they do better. They have less
00:38:29.680
homicides, um, you know, in, in urban areas and things like that because of our gun culture,
00:38:34.920
which obviously I approve of in some ways, the murder part, but the ownership part, um,
00:38:40.720
and abortion and social policy. Um, but some of their social policies, I mean, they do not
00:38:46.760
value life in the same way we do. They do not try to save.
00:38:50.040
So why, so why do they, why are there laws more restrictive than, uh, than ours? Is it just from
00:38:59.980
experience, the genocide that has happened in Europe over and over again? I wouldn't say their,
00:39:08.160
their laws are stricter than ours in many places, not in some places, but let's say New York, but
00:39:13.660
they're not, you know, they're still very liberal. They would be considered liberal by any stretch for us,
00:39:18.180
I think. So I just think it's because there's, they, they moderate, I think the pro-life movement
00:39:23.820
drives the progressive left to more extreme and extreme places, just as pushback. Now, you know,
00:39:30.440
it used to be a, what was it? Safe and legal, um, and a rare safe and legal. And now it's, you know,
00:39:36.020
celebrated. So I think that that's just because of our political culture in some ways, I hope.
00:39:40.480
Is Europe, uh, as divided as we are. I mean, I, I see things like, I think it was in, uh, gosh,
00:39:51.400
where was it? Is Switzerland? I can't remember. Um, but just this weekend, they had massive protests
00:39:58.460
out on the streets about vaccines and everything else. Um, and you're seeing these protests,
00:40:04.160
are they as divided as we are? And we're just not seeing it. I'm actually surprised by those,
00:40:11.080
those protests in some sense, because in general, I think Europeans are quite docile and pliant people.
00:40:16.740
I say that in the way that I think that their risk takers came here or left or go elsewhere. I,
00:40:23.580
so I'll give you a quick example in Finland, like 91% of people are like doing, and it doesn't matter.
00:40:31.140
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what was that stat? What was that stat you broke up?
00:40:34.440
91% of Finnish people are, you know, have a, have a, have a positive view of their government.
00:40:43.380
So you can't have that here because we are diverse and we live in different sorts of places and we do
00:40:48.200
different sorts of things and we have different cultural backgrounds, but in Scandinavia, people are,
00:40:52.920
are more, more client. They're, they like their government. They don't debate in the way that we do,
00:40:57.100
and they don't have sorts of, uh, um, lines of, you know, ideological lines that they draw.
00:41:05.660
They also don't have the diversity we have. We are the most diverse country in the world.
00:41:13.720
In human history. And the scale in which we do it is immense. And I think the European union was formed
00:41:18.880
and based on the idea of federalism in the United States, but of course they've lost that just
00:41:23.440
centralized top down control. Now that's what, that's what progressives want here. Right. But
00:41:28.800
it won't work. It can't work when you have a truly diverse nation.
00:41:33.040
David, there's this thing that Bernie Sanders and the left has done forever, which is like,
00:41:36.520
Oh, why don't we just have the healthcare of Sweden or Denmark or Finland, um, and apply it that way.
00:41:41.960
And I think a little bit of that actually creeped into the right when it came to the COVID stuff,
00:41:46.060
which was basically, they just said, well, why don't we just do all the things that Sweden is doing?
00:41:49.900
Um, I mean, is there anything we can learn from these countries that seemingly have some things
00:41:56.580
that they do correctly that we could bring here?
00:42:00.000
Yeah, I think we could have learned from Sweden that we shouldn't shut down our economy
00:42:03.540
because of the pandemic. That would have been a smart thing. And again, um, I wrote, started writing
00:42:09.720
this book before COVID. The COVID thing actually scared, scared me quite a bit in the way that we had
00:42:14.780
politicians and bureaucracies, especially bureaucracies, just unilaterally running the
00:42:21.160
country. The bureaucracies run the country. And in Europe, bureaucracies are huge and multi-layered
00:42:26.520
in ways that we can't even imagine. And, uh, you know, listen, the bureau, Donald Trump was elected.
00:42:31.600
The bureaucracy decided they didn't want him to be president and, you know, and they undermine them
00:42:35.420
every, every step of the way. The CDC decides it's going to run the country, um, during COVID.
00:42:40.360
These are scary things because it's not a democratic process, but it's not certainly not a liberal
00:42:47.360
David, you said that you mentioned that Europeans are compliant. What are, were you surprised
00:42:52.880
at the COVID reaction of the people in the United States and how much of this people kind of just
00:42:59.160
Yeah, I think it was scary. It was, it was really scary that, uh, that a governor in Virginia
00:43:03.580
could shut down the churches and people would be like, okay, I mean, I just don't even, I don't
00:43:10.480
And how are we, how are you feeling today? Are you more optimistic than you were a year
00:43:16.560
Yeah, I feel better. Um, there was that story. I was just a microcosm of this was that Ruth
00:43:20.940
Marcus, the Washington post was in an elevator in Texas. And she told this guy, you know,
00:43:25.660
I think you should be wearing a mask, you know? And the guy said, I don't really care what
00:43:29.080
you think. I think that's like the American credo, right?
00:43:31.760
I don't really care what you think. And that's how we should function. I mean, it sounds selfish,
00:43:36.700
but it's not, it's not another thing, you know, Europeans think we're selfish, but we
00:43:40.620
give around, and you know, that's of course, seven times as much per capita as European.
00:43:44.760
Yeah. David Harsani. Thank you so much. Senior writer, national review. His new book is called
00:43:49.340
Euro trash. Why America has to must reject the failed ideas of a dying continent. That in
00:43:56.120
of itself is a sad and frightening that Europe is dying, but it is, it's true.