Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Kelly Shackelford & Brad Polumbo ｜ 2⧸28⧸19
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Summary
On today's show, Glenn and Jack discuss Michael Jackson's new documentary, R. Kelly's new album, and the Democratic push to take your guns away from you. They also discuss why the justice system is broken, and why we need a new one.
Transcript
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Holy cow, what a great show. I mean, if this is the only podcast that you can listen to today,
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well, you've got the right podcast. Yeah, this would be the best one to listen to.
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This would be the best one. This is a great, great podcast today. We start with, you know,
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a little bit on Michael Jackson because there's a new documentary. This has taken us by complete
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surprise. I know. They're saying he actually may have done some illegal things with children.
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I can see that coming. And to find out on the same day that we find out that the Democrats are coming
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for your guns. What? Well, that's incredible. Who would have thought that? We explain H.R. 8 and H.R. 1112
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to common sense gun control measures on today's broadcast. What else do we have today?
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Brad Palumbo on. He is a young, he's from Young Voices. He's a gay conservative trying to find
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his way in the world. And it's interesting as he, as he talks about, I never understand my gay friends
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who want, who say the powers, you know, of the government is so oppressive yet they want them
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to come and take all of our guns, which is crazy. You know what he said when he said that? I was
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thinking, you know, when Venezuela had their gun rights taken away? 2012. 2012. Of course,
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socialists want your guns. Of course. So much on today's podcast. Let's get right to it.
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You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
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Whatever charges get the highest amount of retweets, that means it's a crime. We've kind
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of seen it with Bill Cosby, right? Like we've seen it with, uh, uh, with, um, there was another
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one recently that the same sort of thing was, oh, it's kind of happening with R. Kelly, right? Like,
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oh, these are good examples. No, no. Well, they committed crimes and we were like, shrug the
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shoulders. Yeah. But then when we got the retweets, then we turned on the justice system.
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Maybe we wait to activate the justice system until the retweet number gets to a certain amount.
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I see what you're saying. I like that. It's the first layer of justice. Yes. Right? Like if someone,
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if someone, so in other words, a police officer comes to your house and says, Hey, there's a body
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laying there. And I just found this bloody person holding a knife over the body. They take a picture
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selfie. The police officer should be a selfie with the body and the murderer alleged. And then just
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says crime. Right. And then tweets it out. Tweets it out. If they get over like a hundred thousand
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retweets, maybe you put it on the percentage of population for local crimes. And if it gets to a
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certain amount of retweets, then we're like, all right, we walk over to the old justice machine and
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we turn on the switch. Well, okay. So I was going to say, we shouldn't probably do it on the first round
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because sometimes people get it wrong, you know, like they did in Covington. But then we all know
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that that guy, if he isn't guilty of that, he's guilty of something. Well, you see his face. He's
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got such a punchable face as we learned from every blue check mark on Twitter. Right. But I think this
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is part of it, Glenn. Part of it is you take people who it's not about whether they committed the crime
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or not. R. Kelly and Bill Cosby looks like they definitely did do really terrible things. And the
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Covington kid didn't. But there's plenty of retweets. Put them in prison. That is, that's
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the sort of justice system we need. If, look, if people are willing to take their time and invest
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it in retweeting a possible criminal action. Yeah, you don't just do that without reading or
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thinking about it. Exactly. Throw them in prison. Right. And then, at some point, Netflix will
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release a documentary about their innocence. And when that gets enough retweets, they're freed.
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I like it. I like it. I like it. It's basically automated. And our founders didn't see that.
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No, they didn't see Twitter. No. How about this? A certain amount of tweets just unlocks
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the door of the cell and they walk out. Like, we don't even have to have, we don't have to
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tell them. Like it, like it, like it, like it. That way we can get, that way we can get
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the capitalists out of the prison system. Yes. Yeah. Well, except for Jack. He'll make,
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be essentially making all decisions on our justice system. No, but Jack is a Marxist with a
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monocle. Now, I want you to think about this. Okay. There are, there are Marxists who actually
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believe it. Okay. But most of the Marxists are the Marxist with the monocle, you know,
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the monopoly guy monocle, right? Who are like, yeah, I mean, I am selling this Che shirt.
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So I am making money off of that. I am using the capitalist system, but I'm a Marxist. Well,
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I think one of the most important things about being a Marxist is to get all the capital from
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the capitalist. So you can do the just things. Exactly right. It's a Marxist in a monocle.
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There you go. And Jack is a Marxist in a monocle. There we go. All right. Here we go. I mean,
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what it, it's the first break of the show. We've already solved the legal system.
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What do you want to go next? You didn't even notice the connection to AOC. She's a Marxist
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in a monocle as well. Oh, yes. Right. You put an arm. Now you'd have to have a really big,
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weird, creepy sized monocle to cover one of her eyes. But she's a Marxist in a monocle as well.
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You'd be using 30% of us glass output to get a monocle over that eye. Corning is like, wait,
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wait, she needs a monocle. Quick, buy up the rest of the stock.
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Hey, it's Glenn. And if you like what you hear on the program, you should check out Pat Gray
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Unleashed. His podcast is available wherever you download your favorite podcast.
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Do you remember when Michael Jackson called in on the show? This is years and years ago.
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Oh, this was after Valentine's Day, wasn't it? It was Valentine's Day. And he wanted to,
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you know, we did the, like we just did on Valentine's Day where we bailed the guys out
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that, that, you know, missed it or couldn't get flowers or whatever. A couple of the year
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program. Yeah. And, uh, and Michael Jackson wanted to participate in it. Yeah. This is
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like the day after I think it was 10 or 12 years ago. He heard it initially and I think wanted to
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get in on it the next day. Yeah. So here it is. Oh, you're on the Glenn Beck program. Hi,
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Michael. Hello. Hey. Hello, Glenn. It's Michael. Michael, how are you? Well, I'm so sick of hearing
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about all of these freaks in the news. Yes, I know you are. There are so many freaks all over the
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media coverage. It's horrifying. I know. Are you in the hospital? I'm very sick. You're very sick.
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What, what happened? I know you were taken right to the hospital. I was taken right to the hospital.
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I'm here. I feel awful. At the, you're still at the hospital. I had a chance to listen to your
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show yesterday. Uh, you did? It was wonderful. Really? Can I still get in on that couple of
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the year thing? I love that. Uh, no, we're, we've pretty much closed the door on the couple of the
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year thing. Well, I'd really like an opportunity to be involved. Well, this is where we would call,
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you know, your wife and, you know, apologize. You didn't do anything for Valentine's Day?
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Well, I hung out at the Chuck E. Cheese. It was wonderful. Yes. And, and then. I threw a private
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party there. It was terrific. Right. I love children. Yeah. I would never hurt a child.
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I know. Let me in. I have the form here. You'd have to fill out the form. Oh, I filled
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out the form. You filled it out? You filled it out on the website? I'm ready to go. Okay.
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Let's see. Uh, dear Mr. Beck, I've never entered a contest like this before. However, I felt I
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had to tell you about my beautiful cancerous fan. I really can't express in words how uniquely
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wonderful. The unnamed accuser. Truly is. Honestly, at first I thought I was attracted
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to his age. I don't, I don't think this is going to work, Michael. Keep going. But as
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time went on, it turned into so much more. I guess I knew it was true love the first time
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we took the training wheels off his bike. Hello? Yes. And that trip to the secret room
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behind the giant teddy bear. Wow. That was what a perfect time that was. I guess what sets
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him apart is the distinctive way he isn't old. Unlike any other. Boy in the world of
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amusement park owning pedophile victims. I'm sorry. Unlike anybody. What was that? Any
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other boy in the world of amusement park owning pedophile victims. Anyway, I could go on forever,
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but that would take away from my time with him. And I have to get back to work at the Neverland
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Ranch. Where I molest children from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, and sometimes in the
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overnights when they're sleeping. Everyone always tries to make love so complex, and that's why
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I think we should be your Valentine's couple of the year. Because for me, it's simple. I
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just love wine, coloring books, and Corey Feldman.
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We should have seen it. We should have seen it. All the signs were there.
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There really were hints. I don't want to be a detective here, but you hear it.
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Yeah, but you don't want to make too much of those answers. No, no, no. He had a bad childhood.
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Kelly Shackelford, Esquire. I don't know what that means. Does that mean you're an attorney?
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Is that what it means? Because it just sounds cool. Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of
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First Liberty Institute, joins us. The First Liberty, in case you don't know, is the largest
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legal firm in the nation. All they do is try to protect religious freedom in America, fighting
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the good fight. You were in the Supreme Court yesterday, and First Liberty was defending
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something that was a statue that has been around forever, commemorating those who lost their lives
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in World War I. And a bunch of atheists got together and said, this is in the shape of a cross,
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and the city is mowing the lawn around it. That's not right. And wanted it removed. What
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Well, it's kind of surreal, as you say, that we're even at the Supreme Court on this. I mean,
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this is the Peace Cross in Maryland, right outside of D.C. It was put up almost 100 years ago by
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mothers who lost their sons in World War I, along with the American Legion. And we, at this point,
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you know, before the Supreme Court makes its decision, we are at a point where the Court of
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Appeals said, it's unconstitutional. After 100 years, we're going to have to tear it down. In fact,
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one of the judges on the appellate court said, why don't we just cut the arms off the cross? Won't
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that take care of any offense? And so I can't even believe we're in this battle, but I think it might
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be something that you could turn something really bad into good. We'll see. There's an approach,
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Glenn, that has been used now for many decades by the Supreme Court that has created just chaos in
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this whole area of the law, the Establishment Clause. Congress shall make no law respecting
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the establishment of religion. It's called the Lemon Test. Lemon Test. That's right. And the Lemon
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Test has no, there's no parameters, right, on the Lemon Test. We don't really know what that even
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means, do we? No, they added to it. And part of the test now is that if a person in the community
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were to walk by a memorial and they were to see that it's religious and it made it feel like an
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outsider in the community, then that's a violation of the Establishment Clause.
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Yes. And so it's kind of the, it's what's called the offended observer gets to bring a lawsuit. And
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it's like Justice Gorsuch yesterday made clear, he said, we don't allow this in any area of the law,
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somebody to come forward and say they're offended and therefore they have a right to, you know,
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bring lawsuits under the Constitution because they're offended. And, but that's where we are with
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this. They, they're a group of people, a small group of people that don't want this memorial.
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And so they want to tear it down. And so again, bad news is what happened below. Good news is we
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have a shot here and there was a lot of discussion about this yesterday. And this was our goal to get
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rid of this bad Lemon Test that has created so much trouble in our country. And really it's created
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hostility to religion, which is not what the founders ever wanted.
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Right. So why do you think that this went so well yesterday?
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Well, I think it's clear that there, some people would say there might even be up to seven
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justices who agree that there's nothing wrong with this memorial. Again, it, the facts are so solid
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in this case. I mean, the reason the cross was, I mean, they're trying to say, well, they use the cross
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because they're supporting one religion over another and they're, they're doing all this stuff.
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The cross was used. If you look at any history, you go back at World War I, millions of young men
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died and they were, they were putting them in graves overseas so quickly. And they were just
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slapping a cross in front of everybody just to make sure they knew there was a person. And the
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pictures that came back were row after row after row of crosses as far as you can see. And there were
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poems written about this and everything else. So that was the universal symbol they picked
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to honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. And so the idea of tearing down this memorial after
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a hundred years would just be a disgrace and it would be unfathomable. And I think the court realizes
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that. So I think the only issue that is coming out of this is going to be, are they going to change
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the test? This test that's been used to kind of create these attacks on religious symbols and monuments
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and things around the country. And I, there were a number of justices, including the chief justice,
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uh, who made clear that this thing is a mess. Uh, this test, Glenn, this tells you something they
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use it when they want to knock something down, but then they ignore the test completely when they
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have to uphold something that the founders clearly thought was okay. So there was a case just a few years
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ago about, can you have prayer to open city council meetings? Well, the founders had prayer to open
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their meetings. They even paid a chaplain. And so they couldn't say that that's unconstitutional
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under the establishment clause, but if they had applied the lemon test, they'd have had to strike
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it down. So they didn't apply the test. So, uh, they talked about this yesterday and said, this is,
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I mean, we can do what we want as a Supreme court, but we're forcing all the lower courts. They have no
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idea what the law is, what things to apply. And I think they know they need to do something. And I,
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I think there's a really good shot that they're going to get rid of what has created a really a
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catastrophe in this area of the law. Kelly, if I'm not mistaken, the way the court is ruling on things,
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it, there is a change, uh, in the court. And I, is it just the addition of, of Gorsuch, uh,
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uh, that is happening? Cause there seems to be, and when it comes to religion,
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that the Supreme court is starting to, uh, define those boundaries a little bit clearer
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and actually protect. Haven't we had several cases this, uh, this session where they are
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protecting religious liberty? There's some huge signals coming out when, um, this case is one of
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them. I think we now have five justices for the first time, maybe since the 1920s, um, who actually
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believe in following the written word of the constitution. Holy cow. And that's, that's going
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to result in things changing because they're going to say, it's not about what we want. It's about what
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the framers said, what the constitution said, what it means. And I think when it comes to religious
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freedom, we have five that are really pretty solid on religious freedom. I think Kavanaugh is a guy
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who, I mean, he don't, uh, Kavanaugh as a young attorney donated his time on a case with me,
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you know, almost 20 years ago. He's been committed to religious freedom his whole life.
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He understands it. And I think the same about Roberts, who's considered a swing boat a lot of
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times. So I think we're going to start to see some clarity and some good decisions come out. And
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we're talking about the establishment clause. We have another case, the coach Kennedy case,
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the coach got fired for going to a knee after the football game to say 20 minutes, silent prayer.
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Yeah. Um, they issued a statement, the four conservative justices, uh, last month on that
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case that sent shockwaves throughout the country. And that is at the end of the decision, uh, that
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they had laid down, they, they actually said, you know, we've noticed that you brought a free speech
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claim first, not a free exercise of religion claim. And they said that might be because of this
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decision, which is called the Smith decision that has created such damage to the free exercise of
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religion. And they said, but we haven't been asked to overturn that yet. So that's not a subtle hint
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that they're ready to, to go after some of these really bad cases that have really hurt religious
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freedom for the last, you know, four or five decades. And so both on the establishment clause
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and the free exercise clause, both the religion clauses, we're really excited.
00:18:10.960
You know, it's amazing, Kelly, the, the press is so focused on Donald Trump. I mean, he is the
00:18:17.920
ultimate red herring. Um, no comment on his hair. Uh, he, he really is. I mean, they, they are so
00:18:25.440
focused on him that you could go in and say, every baby gets an automatic weapon, uh, through the
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Supreme court or through Congress. And I don't think that the press would even focus on it because
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they're so focused on him. We, we feel like we're losing the battles almost every day because we see
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these, these huge leaps of power, uh, for the left that we're not seeing or hearing because nobody's
00:18:54.620
reporting on these victories in the court and what's really happening in the court. It's game changing,
00:19:01.720
isn't it? It is. I can't, I can't agree with you more. Uh, this is, I mean, I've been doing
00:19:08.280
religious freedom work my entire life and, uh, you know, been working hard and I feel like
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everything we've all been working for for the last 30 years is beginning to happen and, and not in
00:19:21.300
small ways. And I think this is, this is going to be a huge return of power to the people, um, getting
00:19:28.420
the government out of, uh, sort of being the, the religious monuments police. And, uh, you know,
00:19:35.020
uh, part of the things we're talking about just from the case yesterday, you know, think of all
00:19:38.640
the, you know, the menorahs that have been said, well, you can't put that menorah up in public around
00:19:43.300
Hanukkah or you can't do the, the nativity scene, or you can't, uh, you know, we can't have that 10
00:19:48.800
commandments or, I mean, Oh my gosh, you've got a steeple on your city seal wall, you know? And so
00:19:54.880
all that stuff is ridiculous. If you're talking to the founders and I think, I mean, this case could
00:20:01.240
end all of that and it'll affect much more, but that's just real life things that people are used
00:20:07.040
to seeing. And so I think both the establishment clause and the pre-exercise clause, there's great
00:20:12.280
hope. We'll have to wait and see what the decisions are, but I think it's going to be a really, I mean,
00:20:17.860
we're talking about decades changing sort of the hinge point of history. Like we've had decades of some
00:20:23.280
really bad law. And I think we're about to move towards some decades of some really good law and
00:20:28.740
religious freedom and the first amendment. I will tell you that, uh, David Barton told me
00:20:33.360
that he said, Glenn, if the things come out the way they're feeling, he said, by the end of this
00:20:40.140
session, he said, we may have more religious freedom than any time since the founding of the
00:20:46.860
nation. He said, they, they've been screwing it up for so long. He said, I think we're going back to
00:20:53.360
the way things were originally intended. Would you agree with that? Or is that too far?
00:20:58.100
No, I do. I mean, it's kind of, it's kind of silly, you know, most nonprofit groups like our legal
00:21:03.900
firm, uh, have a vision statement and, uh, they're kind of pie in the sky. You know, uh, if, if, if this
00:21:11.300
happens, this would be nirvana, right? And ours is to return the country to the religious freedom.
00:21:17.440
That was the vision of our founders. I never thought I would see it in my lifetime, but I think
00:21:23.560
that's now what we're going to see because we actually have justices who want to follow what
00:21:28.720
the constitution and the founders were doing. And, and that's just unique. We haven't seen that in our
00:21:34.820
lifetime. And so I think we're going to start to see decisions go back to what that founding vision
00:21:40.620
was and the religious freedom that this country was built on. And I think that's only going to be
00:21:45.080
a blessing for the country and the future, uh, of everything we do. Wow. Kelly, thank you so much.
00:21:50.340
And thank you for the hard work that you've put in for so long, uh, chief counsel, First Liberty
00:21:54.680
Institute. If you want to be involved, you want to donate. I mean, they are doing amazing work,
00:22:00.180
uh, right now. First liberty.org first liberty.org Kelly, thank you so much. God bless.
00:22:23.040
Like listening to this podcast. If you're not a subscriber, become one now on iTunes.
00:22:27.780
And while you're there, do us a favor and rate the show.
00:22:31.020
I'm going to bring on, uh, Brad Palumbo. He is the assistant editor for young voices,
00:22:35.080
online contributor for the national review. And he's written an essay for Quillette. If you haven't
00:22:40.680
gone to Quillette.com, you need to, um, there isn't a single time I've checked that website that I
00:22:46.320
haven't found something really fascinating. His essay is one of those, the political homeless life
00:22:52.440
of a gay conservative. Um, and, uh, he joins us now. Hello, Brad, how are you?
00:23:00.440
You bet. Thanks for being so honest, um, in your Quillette story. Um, can you take us through,
00:23:07.680
maybe, maybe start here. The, the guy who broke up with you because he was crying and said he just
00:23:18.660
Yeah. So I, I worked on this piece for a long time, right? Because I wanted to combine my personal
00:23:24.940
experiences with people I interviewed with broader trends that I observed in the progressive world
00:23:30.040
and in the LGBT media. And it eventually all found its way back to one place. If you identify as
00:23:36.100
conservative, but you also happen to be gay life in neither side of the aisle is particularly
00:23:40.920
comfortable for you. So for me, that meant that I have experienced honestly widespread intolerance
00:23:46.680
from other people in the LGBT community who should understand more than anyone that it's okay to be
00:23:51.660
different. Largely, they don't. So that includes a boyfriend of multiple months who broke up with me
00:23:56.680
in part because he was uncomfortable with my political views, which are by no means radical.
00:24:02.220
They're just not liberal. And that's just another example of intolerance that I've experienced
00:24:06.280
honestly too many times to count from left-wing gay people.
00:24:10.540
Now, Brad, I mean, as a guy who, you know, just was never good on the dating scene,
00:24:16.460
at all. Um, that sounds like something that somebody could have said, uh, to me, uh, and
00:24:23.980
really they didn't know anything about my politics. They were just like looking for something,
00:24:28.520
you know, it's not, it's not you, it's me kind of stuff. Are you sure it wasn't,
00:24:32.500
you know, I'm just throwing this one out here. Uh, you're just not my speed.
00:24:38.800
I, I really don't think so. We had some pretty intense conversations about that. Um, and it's been a
00:24:44.480
recurring theme. You know, when I first started, uh, putting myself out there on the dating scene
00:24:49.260
in college, I would have people who would match with me on, on dating apps or on websites just to
00:24:55.120
tell me to go and kill myself or off myself or that I was disgraced to the community. Right. Um,
00:25:00.440
because I, I was a little bit well-known around campus for my conservative viewpoints and those
00:25:04.860
sorts of things. So because it's being, been a reoccurring trend, I can tell you that I'm,
00:25:09.520
I'm pretty confident it was, uh, not just, not just another excuse. So tell me about, because I
00:25:15.080
think there's a lot of people that feel like they don't have a home anywhere. Um, and you know, when
00:25:20.580
it comes to, uh, gay people, you would think that it's a clear match because a conservative
00:25:28.560
should be about the constitutional principles that we have, which basically say, leave me alone.
00:25:34.780
I'm different. And I thought we were supposed to celebrate that I'm different and you're different
00:25:38.960
and we're supposed to get along. That's what the constitution says. It protects people to be who
00:25:44.940
they are so they, so they can be who they are. Um, and yet somehow the Republicans and, and it comes
00:25:54.200
from a lot of religious, uh, uh, conservatives have made gay people feel very, very unwelcome. So
00:26:01.800
well, is that changed? Is that different? How do you deal with the difference between the two
00:26:07.920
parties? Well, so first off, Glenn, I totally agree with you. I think that I'm not personally
00:26:13.840
a huge social conservative, but I do identify as a constitutional conservative for the reasons that
00:26:18.620
you just mentioned, you know, what does the first amendment do if it doesn't protect your right to
00:26:22.900
think differently, to be different, to have freedom of conscience. Um, and so that's one of the
00:26:28.300
reasons I find the left-wing movement that's moving in on all these freedoms, uh, so unappealing.
00:26:33.160
But what I'll say is that it's a combination of two things that creates this political homelessness.
00:26:38.200
In part, it is what you have identified that there's some lingering intolerance among the
00:26:42.940
conservative movement. I will say among young Republicans, I've really had extremely welcoming
00:26:49.020
and accepting experiences, but you know, the reality remains that half of Republicans don't believe
00:26:54.780
in gay marriage. And I don't think that that makes them terrible people or evil or anything,
00:26:59.200
but it does make me, um, obviously not fully comfortable with the people who I would otherwise
00:27:05.020
politically largely agree with. And the same thing is true. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Go ahead.
00:27:10.880
Yeah. The same thing is true, um, on the opposite side of the spectrum, right? Because the progressive
00:27:15.320
LGBT media ecosystem essentially acts like gay people who aren't liberals don't exist. You know,
00:27:22.220
you go to these websites, queert.com, LGBT, um, advocate and out magazine, and they have articles
00:27:30.000
praising gun control and bashing Ivanka Trump. And they call this the gay agenda, right? They're
00:27:35.160
basically acting like all gay people think with their body parts and we're not individuals. So
00:27:39.600
they're trying to erase the 20% or so of LGBT people who don't think like that. And for me,
00:27:45.240
that's a huge problem. So, uh, let me ask you this, uh, Brad, um, my stance on gay marriage has
00:27:53.540
been the same since the nineties. Um, uh, I don't care. I mean, it's, it's not my business
00:28:00.700
constitutionally. The government only got into the marriage business to make sure that, uh, whites
00:28:07.580
didn't marry blacks or blacks marry white. So we couldn't mix the races. And later it became about
00:28:15.320
undesirables, making sure that we don't create any more undesirables. The reason why government
00:28:21.640
got into marriage in the first place, they're all bad and they have no place in anybody's marriage.
00:28:27.920
But as long as if you want to get married, I don't care. If I want to get married, I, you shouldn't
00:28:34.600
care, but we shouldn't be in people's lives. The problem with conservatives, I think is there are
00:28:41.260
some that are just like, it's wrong. And God says it's wrong. And that's all there is to it. But
00:28:45.260
there's a, I think a bigger majority of conservatives that say, look, that's them, whatever you want to
00:28:53.320
do, go ahead. But they're afraid that the gay agenda just wants to shut down all religion,
00:28:59.140
that it's not really about love. Does that make sense?
00:29:03.920
Yeah, it does make sense. I think the position that you're articulating is very intellectually
00:29:08.320
honest. Um, and I think that the people who are still holdouts against gay marriage,
00:29:13.260
I hope that they can kind of come see the light, especially because I try to make the gay marriage
00:29:17.460
argument from a case for family values, right? Almost to appeal to conservatives. But I think you hit on
00:29:23.220
something that I do think is partly the own fault of the LGBT community, right? When you have an LGBT
00:29:29.760
advocate class that does target religion entirely, right? They're not just seeking freedom for to be
00:29:37.160
who you are, to have kids, to get married. They're seeking freedom to force other people, right? Like,
00:29:42.500
for example, Jack Phillips, the baker who didn't want to bake the gay cake, right? The LGBT advocate
00:29:47.280
class has really forced some conservatives to kind of dig in into their trenches, because they're not just
00:29:52.840
looking for freedom. They're looking to force their views on other people. And that's where I think
00:29:57.460
both sides get it wrong. Because a society that's truly tolerant, but you have the right to be
00:30:01.780
Christian, and me have the right to be gay, and we all just live our lives in peace.
00:30:05.360
And we all we all get along. We I mean, you know, we all get along. One other thing, Brad, is how is it
00:30:11.100
and I say this really was socialists, but also, you know, gay people as well. A group of people,
00:30:19.640
socialists in Hollywood, that had to were blacklisted, were tried, when someone went to prison,
00:30:28.180
had to live in the closet, either because of their sexuality or because of their political beliefs.
00:30:34.260
Is it just vengeance? Or why can they not see they're doing this? They're becoming the monster
00:30:43.220
that they fought against. I'm not sure, honestly, the causes of this kind of veil of intolerance that's
00:30:50.800
sweeping the progressive movement and kind of the LGBT far left crowd. I'm not sure exactly what the
00:30:56.400
cause is. I will say that we have a tendency across our society when there was historic kind of
00:31:02.460
oppression or anything to try to swing back to the not to the middle, but too far to the other side.
00:31:07.120
And I think that the LGBT advocacy class has no has not been an exception to that rule.
00:31:12.860
They've absolutely done that because we have to acknowledge the fact that for a long time, LGBT people
00:31:17.780
have really faced some terrible conditions in American history. And I think largely that's not true today.
00:31:23.700
And that's great. But that is probably why I think a lot of these people have swung far to the other extreme.
00:31:29.920
And that's understandable, but it's still fundamentally misguided.
00:31:32.860
And Brad, it seems like the lesson learned a lot of times from these longer struggles with groups that
00:31:37.620
have had tough times in America is to pick a group that they think is helping them, whether it's
00:31:45.340
whatever group in the government, Democrats, Republicans, that they think is helping them and
00:31:49.780
then kind of stick to that side for a long period of time afterwards. But it seems to me the decision
00:31:55.160
should be made in a way of thinking about collectivism versus individualism.
00:32:01.260
And if you're a minority group or a group that's had troubles with the government in the past, the last thing
00:32:07.340
to me you would want is the government to have more power in a centralized place where whenever X, Y, or Z group
00:32:15.780
decide, you know, the country decides that they're the enemy next time, they're again going to be vulnerable.
00:32:20.300
If we empower people who are individualists, who believe in small government and limited
00:32:25.080
government to be able to do these things and run the country without making these decisions
00:32:29.800
as to what groups they don't like, isn't that just better for everybody?
00:32:34.360
Yeah, I could not agree with you more there because one thing that drives me crazy is the
00:32:39.320
same LGBT progressive advocates who will tell you the government is viciously oppressive are
00:32:44.060
the same ones who want to take everyone's guns away.
00:32:46.060
To the point that it makes perfect sense to me, right? If you really think that the government
00:32:51.360
has a history of being oppressive to certain groups, and I do, then you should want that
00:32:55.700
government to be as small as possible because clearly it's shown that it can't handle widespread
00:32:59.740
power. So I would love to see more LGBT people applying the lens of their experiences really
00:33:07.340
to the question of today of how much can we really let the government start running people's
00:33:11.480
lives? Because individualism really is the ethos of my personal philosophy. And honestly,
00:33:19.980
So how can people like us or just, you know, regular people who are just listening, who are
00:33:26.520
not members of the gay community? How can we help bridge a gap? What what can we do?
00:33:33.860
Well, so it starts with a couple things. It can be hard at times to reach the other side when
00:33:39.100
they feel trapped into this us versus them mentality, which is in part driven by kind
00:33:43.960
of the identitarian dogma of intersectionality on the left. But it's also, I think, driven
00:33:50.020
by when you have high profile conservatives, who will say or high profile conservative media
00:33:57.060
who will sometimes say or make comments or take positions about LGBT issues that are just
00:34:02.180
either inflammatory and unfair or needlessly controversial. For example, I mean, if you're
00:34:09.400
going to have traditional views about gender, I can respect that position. But if you go out of your
00:34:14.540
way to whenever you're debating it with somebody, tell them that they're mentally deranged, right,
00:34:18.920
with a transgender person, you're being needlessly antagonistic, and you're turning other people
00:34:23.880
off from, I think, just your entire political movement with that. So I think you can have the
00:34:28.240
views you're going to have. But it's about taking an approach where you can try to meet people in
00:34:31.960
the middle and try to make arguments that will appeal to them and won't lock activate their us
00:34:37.400
versus them mentality. I tell you, Brad, I don't know if you've ever read this. My dad made me read
00:34:42.180
it when I was in high school. And I just I read it begrudgingly. And I picked it up recently. And it
00:34:47.920
has it has all of the answers we need. It really does, even though it was written in in, you know,
00:34:53.680
the Great Depression. It's how to win friends and influence people. And basically, it just said what
00:34:58.900
it says what you just said, just said, why, why, why, why not listen to other people, see what they're
00:35:06.120
feeling, see what they need, see how you can help and just help them help them. And, you know, and be
00:35:15.460
comfortable with that. And then all of a sudden, you'll notice, wait a minute, my life has changed
00:35:21.220
somehow or another, because you're just being cool with everybody and really listening to them.
00:35:29.060
Brad, thank you so much for your article. And thanks for being on the program.
00:35:33.880
And thanks for having me. You bet. Hope we can talk again. Thank you so much.
00:35:41.720
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:35:51.220
I want to take you back in time to a story that you know. But I'm going to put all the pieces
00:35:59.380
together. Let me take you back to September 25th, 2017. A man checked into a room on the
00:36:06.300
32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. He had made several trips. He had timed it out. He
00:36:14.040
made sure nobody had noticed that he was taking 10 range bags full of guns and ammunition up into that
00:36:20.720
room. He did it over six days. And on the sixth day, he opened fire on people that were at the Route 91
00:36:31.900
Harvest Music Festival. He killed 85 people. He wounded 851 others, the deadliest mass shooting committed
00:36:42.960
by one person in U.S. history. Then he turned the gun on himself.
00:36:53.540
When police investigated his room, they found 23 rifles and one handgun.
00:36:59.520
They found 14 .223 caliber AR-15 type rifles, eight .308 caliber AR-10, one .308 caliber bolt action,
00:37:12.040
one .38 caliber revolver. And on the kitchen counter next to his hotel room, there were four credit cards.
00:37:20.680
That's really what this story is about. Not the guns, but the credit cards. To understand what is coming now, you have to
00:37:34.140
understand Andrew Ross Sorkin and what he saw when he saw the credit cards. Listen.
00:37:42.400
After Parkland, the shooting in Parkland and trying to look at the role that banks and credit cards play in
00:37:49.360
these things, I really decided to take a deep dive into this. The article is called Devastating
00:37:55.300
Arsenals Bought with Plastic and Nary a Red Flag. It is a New York Times investigation that looks at
00:38:00.780
mass shootings, every single major mass shooting in America since Virginia Tech in 2007. And it really
00:38:06.320
reveals how credit cards have become such a crucial part of the planning of these massacres in a way that
00:38:11.540
I have to say I did not even appreciate myself. The article is written by Andrew Ross Sorkin, works for
00:38:21.620
the New York Times. Now something tells me he's never fired a gun in his life. But when he wrote the
00:38:27.620
article, how banks unwittingly finance mass shootings in the New York Times, it's time to pay attention.
00:38:36.180
He starts by pointing out that there have been 13 shootings that have killed 10 or more people in
00:38:42.200
the last decade. And in at least eight of them, the killers financed their attacks using credit cards,
00:38:47.540
Virginia Tech, Binghamton in 2009, Fort Hood, Aurora, San Bernardino, Orlando, Sutherland Springs,
00:38:55.220
and Vegas. And he pointed out that over the course of eight months before the Pulse nightclub
00:39:00.660
shooting in Orlando, the shooter opened six new credit card accounts just 12 days before the
00:39:06.880
shooting. He spent $26,532 on a Sig Sauer MCX .223 caliber rifle and a Glock 17 9mm semi-automatic
00:39:18.380
pistol and several large magazines. He also bought thousands of rounds of ammunition. And then he
00:39:25.000
went out and bought a $7,500 ring for his wife that he bought on a jewelry store card.
00:39:29.240
Should the bank have allowed him to do that? Because before that month, he spent about $1,000,
00:39:39.700
$1,500 a month. The difference was so dramatic that two days before the shooting, the killer frantically
00:39:48.980
searched Google for credit card unusual spending and credit card reports all three bureaus. He searched FBI
00:39:56.960
and why banks stop your purchases. So should Google have alerted anyone? The killer in Aurora,
00:40:06.460
Colorado, the movie theater, spent $11,000 on guns and ammunition all on a credit card.
00:40:12.220
The issue now has revealed a split between the banks and credit card companies. On one side,
00:40:20.740
there are companies that support monitoring as a form of public safety. Following the shooting in
00:40:25.980
Parkland, Florida, Citigroup adopted a new code of conduct for gun dealers and manufacturers that the
00:40:33.080
bank does business with. It requires retailers to impose age limit restrictions on gun sales.
00:40:39.680
That is against the Constitution. There is no law. But Citigroup has said, well, you know what?
00:40:47.400
This is what we want to do as a company. And have they received any pushback from the general
00:40:54.140
population? Check your credit cards. Do you have a city card? Do you do business with Citibank?
00:40:59.800
Do you think the left would be doing business with Citibank if this was reversed? If Citibank said,
00:41:05.960
we're not going to do any transactions or any financial services with any doctors that will not
00:41:12.580
support abortion. Do you think the left would have Citibank's attention yet?
00:41:21.760
CEO Michael Corbat said the policy, quote, is intended to preserve the rights of responsible gun
00:41:27.520
owners like myself while relying on best sales practices to keep firearms out of the wrong hands.
00:41:33.620
The new policy does not restrict Citigroup customers from using the company's cards
00:41:38.740
from gun purchases. Bank of America took similar approach. They stopped giving loans to gun manufacturers.
00:41:53.120
Overwhelmingly, however, good news is banks and credit card companies have refused to take part
00:41:57.680
part in any kind of monitoring. So you have Bank of America and Citigroup. Do you do business with
00:42:04.540
either of those? Remember, the left, if they were told, no, no, no, it's not the whole doctor thing. No,
00:42:11.300
it's just if they say that a minor can have an abortion, I mean, after they're 18 or 21, that's fine.
00:42:22.200
But if they if those people are saying they can have an abortion without their parents permission
00:42:27.660
under 18, why we're not going to do any financing for that organization. Do you think the left would
00:42:34.000
put up with that? Now, even if the banks and the credit card companies agreed to start monitoring
00:42:41.220
purchases, gun sales are tough to track because they many times appear on statements as, you know,
00:42:47.540
sporting goods or retail shop purchases, you know, places like retailer like Walmart, et cetera, et cetera.
00:42:53.580
Sometimes discount stores, it'll just be marked variety. So who knows what that is. And then there
00:43:00.000
are stores like Dick's Sporting Goods that imposed restrictions on their gun sales. How'd that work out
00:43:05.320
for them? Now, Joseph Moreno, he's a former federal counterterrorism prosecutor, staff member of the
00:43:13.820
FBI's 9-11 Review Commission. He says this is easy to fix. He said they have all the infrastructure
00:43:20.160
in place. They can deal with suspicious activity. It would just be tweaking it a bit to consider
00:43:26.840
firearm related information. And information is the key word information. Why does Google have anything
00:43:35.980
in your house with a microphone for information? You think you're getting information? No, they're getting
00:43:43.400
much more information about you. Facebook. It's all about information. We are living in surveillance
00:43:52.300
capitalism times. Information is the key word. Now, there's lots of things that already happen. For
00:44:01.440
instance, a bank has to report anytime a single person makes a transaction over $10,000. I'm going to put
00:44:07.640
$10,000 cash into my account. I'm going to take $10,000 out. Whether the transaction is legal or not,
00:44:13.900
they have to report it. And banks must report the transactions over $5,000 if somebody just has a
00:44:20.280
feeling that's suspicious. There are also laws that restrict gun purchases. Under the Gun Control Act
00:44:27.060
of 1968, firearms dealers must report if someone buys two or more handguns in a span of five business
00:44:35.640
days. There's also a lot of official blowback from the idea that the banks could monitor
00:44:40.220
our purchases, effectively compiling a list of all the gun owners. Last year, John Kennedy,
00:44:49.120
not that John Kennedy, a Republican senator from Louisiana, introduced the No Red and No Blue
00:44:56.420
Banks Act. The bill would prohibit the federal government from giving contracts to banks
00:45:02.220
that would discriminate against lawful businesses based solely on social policy considerations.
00:45:11.360
Even the ACLU has come out against monitoring by credit card companies, saying that those efforts,
00:45:17.940
they are afraid to prevent mass shootings could infringe on individual rights. Do you think?
00:45:24.740
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the ACLU, the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project,
00:45:36.360
the implication of expecting the government to detect and prevent every mass shooting is
00:45:43.140
believing the government should play an enormously intrusive role in American life, end quote.
00:45:48.680
Which brings us back to Andrew Ross Sorkin's New York Times article. Sorkin doesn't seem convinced by
00:45:57.060
any of this stuff. He would prefer if the government stepped in and forced credit card companies to
00:46:03.660
start monitoring their customers, or at least the credit card companies that, you know, made that
00:46:11.180
choice of their own volition. Listen to this and interview with him on PBS.
00:46:16.660
So right now, legally, you decide you're going to send $10,000 anywhere. That gets reported to the
00:46:22.800
government instantly. Instantly. Already does. So we could instantly have reported this person just
00:46:28.400
stockpiled $40,000 worth of weapons and grenades. Absolutely.
00:46:31.800
Hmm. Now, he then starts to take it in a strange direction. Listen.
00:46:40.100
By the way, the credit card industry has, on its own volition, decided that there are certain things
00:46:44.540
they don't want to finance. So if you want to buy Bitcoin, you can't. Marijuana, in many states, is legal.
00:46:50.660
You can't. MasterCard, interestingly, recently went to a website that had some hate speech on it
00:46:57.500
and said, we're no longer going to allow you to use credit card transactions using MasterCard
00:47:02.100
because of this hate speech. So there are companies that are taking positions, if you will,
00:47:07.920
on some of these things. And the question is how that can work in relation to guns.
00:47:11.940
Now, so he's, I guess he's all for the hate speech. By the way, that hate speech was not hate speech.
00:47:18.220
That hate speech came from a friend of mine and a friend of this program.
00:47:22.120
That hate speech was speaking out about the Muslim Brotherhood and not in hateful ways.
00:47:28.480
A guy who used to brief Bill Clinton and George W. Bush on what Islamicists really want.
00:47:40.300
Now he's called a hater. And so now they're not going to do any transactions for him.
00:47:47.180
Sorkin's article quotes a number of experts who more or less repeat a version of the same thing.
00:47:56.020
Card, credit card companies should bear responsibility for mass shootings.