The Glenn Beck Program - September 20, 2023


Best of the Program | Guests: Rep. Brad Wenstrup & Todd Bensman | 9⧸20⧸23


Episode Stats

Length

39 minutes

Words per Minute

146.01466

Word Count

5,743

Sentence Count

454

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

10


Summary

Your basic rights are under attack. In California, a new law could override decades of Supreme Court precedents protecting parental rights. Who owns the children? Is it the parent? Or is it the government? On today's show, Glenn Beck takes on these stories and more.


Transcript

00:00:00.100 Stu, I think we did a lot of good today.
00:00:01.780 I mean, I think we, we, well, I mean, we talked about the Constitution a lot and, you know,
00:00:06.840 blah, blah, blah, but I also solved the F-35 missing jet.
00:00:11.880 That was a profound moment.
00:00:13.220 It was, it was, it was.
00:00:14.560 And was that all off the top of your head?
00:00:15.820 All off the top of my head, yeah.
00:00:18.200 You're not going to hear this anywhere else.
00:00:19.700 This is not on the internet or anything yet.
00:00:22.560 But I think when you hear the proof, I mean, who, what, what happened to it?
00:00:26.680 Who really caused it?
00:00:27.780 Oh, we know, we know.
00:00:28.940 Oh, we know.
00:00:29.480 Oh, now we know.
00:00:30.580 You will know soon.
00:00:32.860 Just listen to today's podcast.
00:00:35.260 But we also went through a lot of different things.
00:00:39.740 What's happening in California today.
00:00:41.920 We also had Representative Wenstrup on from Ohio.
00:00:48.260 He's talking about the whistleblower at the CIA that said, yeah, they, they bribed people to say that it wasn't
00:00:58.420 a lab leak for COVID.
00:01:01.080 We have an independent journalist that's now facing jail time and perhaps a lot of jail time just for being in the Capitol for filming it, not doing anything, just filming it.
00:01:13.740 And Todd Benzman talks more about the colony in Houston that is the size of the District of Columbia.
00:01:21.620 And we go over some of the states now that are much smaller than just the two million that came in across our borders in Joe Biden's first two years.
00:01:36.840 They're bigger now, much bigger in most cases than 15 states.
00:01:43.100 All of that and more on today's podcast.
00:01:46.360 Here it is.
00:01:47.140 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:02:00.480 Your basic rights are under attack.
00:02:03.740 And I can't, I can't tell you every day I look at the news and, and I urge you, if you have not subscribed to my free email newsletter, please do that.
00:02:18.500 You'll get it every morning.
00:02:20.400 It is all of the show prep that I look at.
00:02:23.500 We, it takes us, you know, 21 hours to put it all together.
00:02:27.220 Right after the show, we begin looking for the stories that we're going to talk about today.
00:02:31.760 I am getting to fewer and fewer of these stories every day, which is really frustrating because I'd say 90% of them are really important for you to be aware of and understand.
00:02:49.220 But I can't get to all of them on a three-hour show.
00:02:53.780 I urge you to please sign up for my free email newsletter at glennbeck.com.
00:02:59.720 Uh, you, you should read this every day.
00:03:03.980 Anyway, it's free.
00:03:05.720 So your rights are under attack.
00:03:08.760 And I want to start in California with an alarming new law that thinks it can override decades of Supreme Court precedents for the protection of parental rights.
00:03:21.700 Because the question is, the question is, who owns the children?
00:03:27.700 Who is responsible for the children?
00:03:32.080 Is it the parent, which has been this way for thousands of years, except in communist China and communist Soviet Union and communist countries?
00:03:46.080 That's it for, for, for, for as long as man has roamed the earth, parents are responsible for their children, but not in California.
00:03:59.220 They want to force parents to affirm their trans children or else.
00:04:04.500 It is a terrifying intrusion of government into the home and a major warning sign of even more tyranny to come.
00:04:12.860 Now, I want to show you, this is the, the ATF, uh, the American Federation of Teachers, uh, Randy Weingarten.
00:04:22.140 This is her talking about parental rights.
00:04:25.820 Cut one.
00:04:26.320 Those same words that you heard in terms of, um, wanting segregation post-Brown v. Board of Education, those same words you hear today.
00:04:38.620 It's not, you know, I was, I was kind of got smacked when I was on the, I was talking to Southern Poverty Law Center and they showed me the same words.
00:04:48.280 Huh.
00:04:48.660 Choice, um, parental rights, and attempt to divide parents versus teachers.
00:04:58.600 In that point, it was white parents versus, um, other parents, but it's the same kind of words.
00:05:06.400 Yeah.
00:05:07.340 Those words, you know, they come, they come together a lot of times in all kinds of different scenarios.
00:05:14.340 So, she's talking to the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the most disreputable, uh, centers out there.
00:05:24.900 It is, it is nothing but a leftist organization that is doing the bidding of the left and trying to, uh, whitewash whatever they want, whitewash and smeared whatever they need smeared.
00:05:42.440 So, the Southern Poverty Law Center showed her parental rights akin to segregation.
00:05:51.680 Here's an LGBT activist.
00:05:54.140 Cut two.
00:05:55.380 No such thing as parental rights.
00:05:57.660 It's not recognized in law.
00:05:59.180 It's not in the charter.
00:06:00.220 It doesn't exist.
00:06:01.480 Children's rights, however, are recognized and have been for a very long time.
00:06:06.300 Parents have responsibility, which is recognized in the law, but no rights.
00:06:11.520 If your child does not want to tell you something about them, that's your problem.
00:06:18.040 Okay, here's another one.
00:06:19.140 Not the government.
00:06:20.200 Here's activist number two.
00:06:22.360 Of this idea of parents' rights.
00:06:24.780 That parents have a right to know.
00:06:26.900 They have a right to know if their child is going by a different name or using different pronouns in school.
00:06:33.360 And the thing that keeps hitting me about this is that parents don't have rights.
00:06:37.760 Not parents' rights.
00:06:39.260 Kids have rights.
00:06:40.040 Okay, stop.
00:06:40.640 So, you hear this?
00:06:42.220 Now, let me just ask you.
00:06:44.740 Do you remember when the left was so upset if you talked about anything in school that had anything to do with God?
00:06:54.520 You had to have an opt-out.
00:06:57.020 Until the final straw was just chasing everything out.
00:07:01.860 You couldn't do it.
00:07:03.560 Teacher couldn't keep a Bible on her desk, not sharing it, just something that she was reading.
00:07:10.660 Do you remember this case?
00:07:11.960 She would read it during lunchtime.
00:07:14.340 The kids were out of her classroom, and she would read it, and that was not right.
00:07:21.680 Had to stop.
00:07:22.620 Parental rights.
00:07:25.800 You didn't need to write this down before, because we weren't this insane before.
00:07:33.140 Parental rights.
00:07:34.960 Can you imagine saying to the left, you don't have a right to know what I'm teaching and what I'm doing?
00:07:43.500 If your child comes home and they say, by the way, I'm a Christian, I'm a devout Christian, I learned it at school, you, mom and dad, you're an atheist.
00:07:55.880 I've already turned you in to the school, and if you say anything to me, they can take me out of the home.
00:08:05.580 See, you have to look at it from all scenarios.
00:08:10.740 You have to look at it from every aspect.
00:08:14.200 You remember when we said the government has no place in anyone's marriage, do not redefine marriage, because then you have to redefine everything.
00:08:28.760 And everybody said, that's ridiculous.
00:08:31.660 And now we're redefining everything.
00:08:35.100 We're in the insane world.
00:08:48.000 And this is just the beginning.
00:08:51.900 This is just the beginning.
00:08:53.800 And parents have got to stand up.
00:08:56.840 Now, let me tell you two other things that are going on.
00:08:59.580 In California, you also have California now struggling.
00:09:10.620 They can't pay their unemployment insurance because they've been in the hole forever with this.
00:09:18.120 They've been taking out low interest loans from us, the United States government.
00:09:23.180 Your tax dollars have gone to pay for the unemployment insurance of the state of California because they can't balance a budget.
00:09:32.420 They can't get it done.
00:09:33.760 So they're paying us low interest on the loans.
00:09:37.400 Do you think that's ever going to be paid back?
00:09:39.800 No.
00:09:41.460 Here's what they're doing now.
00:09:43.100 California's far left government is now working with the Biden administration to bail out striking Hollywood actors on your dime.
00:09:57.680 This is happening.
00:10:00.540 California's ultra liberal leaders are on the verge of giving unemployment payments now to striking Hollywood actors and writers.
00:10:07.860 Both houses of the legislature passed a bill to that effect this week.
00:10:13.580 It only needs Governor Gavin Newsom's signature.
00:10:16.140 And do you think he's not going to sign that?
00:10:19.460 So here's what you have.
00:10:21.080 You have unions.
00:10:23.400 Who are taking all of this money from all of their union members.
00:10:27.460 And part of the deal is if you have a job and the union says we got a strike, then you're going to get a portion of your pay.
00:10:39.280 The union will help you out.
00:10:42.020 But you can't get unemployment insurance because you are employed.
00:10:46.840 All you have to do is go back to work.
00:10:48.840 If you're paying people to strike from the union and also get unemployment insurance, you can strike forever.
00:10:59.640 See, the idea is which one's going to fold first?
00:11:03.720 Is it going to be the labor union or is it going to be the business?
00:11:08.680 Which one's going to?
00:11:09.580 And it hurts both sides.
00:11:12.220 And so both are incentivized to get to the table.
00:11:15.920 Would you be for bailing out the giant Hollywood moguls and the studios?
00:11:23.380 I wouldn't be for that.
00:11:25.220 No.
00:11:26.740 You can't make it work.
00:11:28.560 You can't make it work.
00:11:30.700 It's your choice.
00:11:33.820 Okay.
00:11:35.120 So why are we bailing out the union workers?
00:11:38.680 Why are we bailing out California who now cannot make its own payments on insurance for everybody else?
00:11:49.720 Unemployment insurance.
00:11:50.700 Can't do it.
00:11:52.180 They're in the hole.
00:11:53.820 Now they want to add unions to that.
00:11:56.540 And what happens when it happens in California?
00:11:59.320 You think it's not going to happen in Michigan?
00:12:00.900 You are going to be paying for the unions.
00:12:04.040 But that's what happens when you have over $2 billion going into Joe Biden's campaign from the labor unions.
00:12:14.300 He's the most labor-friendly president of all time.
00:12:18.300 By the way, so you get Gavin Newsom's signature.
00:12:26.020 That's happening.
00:12:27.020 Then what has to happen?
00:12:29.020 Well, then it's just because it's administration.
00:12:33.380 So does the president need to act?
00:12:35.600 No, it's in the secretary's purview.
00:12:37.640 So the secretary of labor has to make this decision on how to spend our tax dollars.
00:12:47.360 So the secretary of labor has to personally approve the request.
00:12:52.920 Now, who is this?
00:12:54.460 Well, she's the acting secretary for the administration because the Congress won't approve her.
00:13:01.500 So they're just going ahead with it anyway.
00:13:03.460 Just go ahead.
00:13:04.080 Take the job.
00:13:04.800 And you're just acting.
00:13:05.820 You're not actually the secretary.
00:13:08.180 Why won't Congress approve her?
00:13:10.280 Because she was the one who came from California and was in charge of the state's unemployment program.
00:13:19.040 She oversaw $32 billion in fraudulent payments during the pandemic.
00:13:25.600 Time for a promotion.
00:13:32.640 That's my red line.
00:13:33.960 My red line has always been, I am not bailing out California.
00:13:37.640 I'm not bailing it out.
00:13:38.600 I'm not bailing out any of these states.
00:13:40.640 I've always wanted to live in California.
00:13:43.560 You know why I didn't?
00:13:44.880 Because it was insane.
00:13:47.160 I knew it wouldn't work.
00:13:49.360 I didn't want to spend all of my money living, paying for taxes for things that I knew would only make society worse and knew that it would collapse at some point.
00:14:01.620 So I never got the beach of California.
00:14:07.080 And yet now I have to pay for their mistakes.
00:14:10.980 How do you feel about that, Alabama?
00:14:13.240 How do you feel about that, Michigan?
00:14:15.360 You probably like it, at least if you're a politician, because, you know, your state's going to need it.
00:14:23.220 Another reason not to live in Chicago.
00:14:25.180 It wouldn't work.
00:14:27.300 This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:14:29.020 And we really want to thank you for listening.
00:14:31.960 Let's see.
00:14:32.680 Congressman Wenstrup, how are you, sir?
00:14:35.320 I'm hanging in there.
00:14:36.440 How are you doing, Glenn?
00:14:37.300 Well, I'm good.
00:14:38.080 First of all, I just want to let people know you are a doctor.
00:14:42.580 You're also an Army Reserve officer and Iraqi war veteran.
00:14:46.660 Thank you for that.
00:14:48.900 You were on the select subcommittee of the coronavirus pandemic.
00:14:53.040 You have, you know, served as a doctor, you know, overseas.
00:14:57.700 You also were at Walter Reed for a while.
00:15:01.440 And you are the medical policy advisor for the chief of Army Reserve, correct?
00:15:06.700 Yes, actually.
00:15:08.080 I retired from the Army in December.
00:15:10.660 But since I was elected to Congress 11 years ago, I've served at Walter Reed and as a medical policy advisor, as well, obviously, as a congressman and a congressman on the Intelligence Committee.
00:15:22.160 Okay.
00:15:22.900 So now, tell the story to the American people, in case they don't know, about what is going on with the CIA and this bribe to the so-called experts.
00:15:36.980 Yeah, so, I mean, a little background.
00:15:40.020 As a physician, ever since the pandemic started, I'm looking into what's going on physiologically, how do we treat patients.
00:15:47.320 But in that process of doing research, discovered that we were actually engaging with China in a lab in Wuhan to create gain-of-function viruses.
00:15:58.600 That being said, with Intel Committee, I've been involved with this for the past three years, at least.
00:16:06.500 And what has happened now is we have somebody coming forward as a whistleblower seeking full whistleblower protections.
00:16:13.360 And that means, at this time, he wants to be anonymous.
00:16:17.480 He came to both the Intelligence Committee and to the Select Subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic, with which I chair.
00:16:24.620 And he's made many allegations.
00:16:26.960 Obviously, you summed up a lot of them.
00:16:28.540 But there was the CIA, in trying to figure out whether this came from a lab or from nature, put together a COVID discovery team, if you will, seven people, as you talked about.
00:16:40.600 So, six of the people, they came to the conclusion with some level of confidence that this came from a lab.
00:16:46.640 And the senior person, according to these charges, said it came from nature.
00:16:52.280 Okay, well, you're entitled to your opinion.
00:16:54.300 But what they ended up doing at the end of the day, releasing to the public and to the intelligence community, all they said was the CIA was unable to determine.
00:17:03.680 Well, it sounds like they had a pretty high number of people that were able to determine as best as they know it.
00:17:09.160 It is our responsibility on this committee to follow up on everything to do with the pandemic.
00:17:17.360 We take it very seriously.
00:17:18.960 The reaction from the CIA has been very serious.
00:17:22.240 So, we're now seeking documents, communications.
00:17:25.620 And we also have asked to speak with Andrew Macritus, who the whistleblower says was the chief operating officer and had a lot to do with constructing this.
00:17:37.900 I hope that the director of CIA will be cooperative with us.
00:17:42.460 But, you know, you hit the big question.
00:17:45.380 Why?
00:17:46.380 I mean, why would they want to do that?
00:17:49.120 I mean, this goes back to where Fauci prompted, I'm using their words, prompted a group of scientists to write what's known as proximal origins.
00:17:58.840 Where in their internal documents, they're saying, oh, yeah, they're doing this type of research in China.
00:18:04.340 Oh, yeah, they have this capability.
00:18:06.240 Oh, yeah, this really is something.
00:18:09.680 And then they come out and say it came from nature and tries to make that definitive.
00:18:14.460 Why are we not having a scientific debate?
00:18:16.840 What is the reason for attempting to steer everything in one direction?
00:18:21.400 And here's one of my concerns, Glenn, and I think you'll appreciate this.
00:18:24.320 If this is true and we have, for political reasons or whatever, changing the notion of changing intelligence, what does that say to our international partners who rely on us for intelligence, who we work with together on intelligence, if our own intelligence department is changing things from what people actually did and said to fit a narrative that they want?
00:18:54.140 Well, not concern I have.
00:18:55.780 Not just that.
00:18:57.820 You know, you would imagine that in some cases you would say, hey, let's not release that to anybody.
00:19:04.160 But this is changing things for the intelligence, the oversight.
00:19:11.120 You guys are you guys are engaged in oversight and they didn't tell you this.
00:19:16.840 A whistleblower had to come and tell you this.
00:19:20.400 Right.
00:19:20.980 And I would and I would contend that if we didn't have Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives, it wouldn't have come forward at all.
00:19:27.940 So this person had an opportunity to go to somebody that would seemingly would listen as a whistleblower.
00:19:36.300 And we are.
00:19:37.160 And so we're pursuing this.
00:19:38.800 We send our letters out.
00:19:40.280 That's the first phase of requesting information, documents, you know, and we don't get them.
00:19:45.080 Then we dig a little bit deeper and we ask a little harder and sometimes in the form of a subpoena.
00:19:49.940 Uh, so they do we know if they actually paid these other experts, these six people out of seven?
00:20:02.220 Yeah.
00:20:02.920 So in the allegations, I would say that the conjecture is that it may have come in the form of a performance bonus, not just out and out.
00:20:14.480 But, hey, do this and here's some here's some money if you if you're following that.
00:20:19.240 But it's the same net effect.
00:20:20.460 Right.
00:20:21.200 Right.
00:20:21.620 And do we have any idea how much this is taxpayer dollars, right?
00:20:26.340 Oh, correct.
00:20:27.280 And no, we don't know how much.
00:20:28.960 And again, that's part of the investigation.
00:20:31.760 We're obligated to do it.
00:20:33.640 I mean, we don't we don't really have a choice.
00:20:35.580 This is what we should be doing.
00:20:37.600 You know, keep in mind that I have to remind members of Congress is to Congress created these agencies.
00:20:45.060 And we fund those agencies and we have oversight over these agencies.
00:20:49.800 So not only do I have to remind members of Congress, we certainly have to remind the agencies that this needs to be a working partnership.
00:20:57.520 And you don't get to not tell us things, especially on the Intelligence Committee.
00:21:02.720 The Intelligence Committee, for example, is set up so that there would be oversight over the intelligence community.
00:21:09.360 And, you know, this is a select committee.
00:21:12.060 So the people on this committee, which, by the way, is functioning well now and is no longer an impeachment committee.
00:21:18.680 But the Intelligence Committee, people are selected from both sides of the aisle.
00:21:23.700 We also represent the other members of Congress because we're in a place where other members don't get to go.
00:21:29.780 So it's an important role that we have.
00:21:32.520 And the cooperation needs to be there.
00:21:35.020 And sometimes the community, the intelligence community, thinks they don't have to tell us things.
00:21:40.960 And it's in statute that they do.
00:21:42.880 So we will continue to pursue and find the truth.
00:21:45.580 And we have to suggest or legislate things into law that allow us to hold people accountable within agencies when they do things.
00:21:55.960 And I use the example like this, Glenn.
00:21:57.720 You know, in the military, which I served 25 years, we have the UCMJ, Uniform Code of Military Justice.
00:22:03.900 Unethical is unlawful in the military.
00:22:05.900 In our agencies, unfortunately, and this is across the board, but in our agencies, if you violate some of your tenants or what you say are the rules of engagement within your agency, nothing really happens to you.
00:22:22.520 Oh, you might get fired and then go work at CNN.
00:22:25.160 But, you know, this is a problem that we have.
00:22:29.100 And so we are trying on so many fronts to put punitive measures in place when violations are occurring, such as with the FISA court, et cetera.
00:22:42.480 You know, the IG said 17 times things were violated.
00:22:45.460 Well, what actually happens?
00:22:47.160 Where's the punitive measures?
00:22:48.620 We're trying to implement those.
00:22:50.740 So do you I mean, is there a way out from the I mean, your Justice Department looks horribly soiled.
00:22:58.860 Your NSA, your CIA, your DNI, all of these things look like they've been a part of some really bad things, including the State Department.
00:23:12.960 Now the IRS is involved.
00:23:15.280 How are you possibly going to beat this?
00:23:18.780 I mean, it's like whack-a-mole.
00:23:20.000 Yeah.
00:23:22.320 So, you know, on my particular subcommittee, what I keep saying and have said since the beginning is honesty and truth is non-negotiable and we're going to be looking for it and we're going to make sure that it is there.
00:23:34.280 But if it's not there, we're going to point it out and hold people accountable.
00:23:38.160 We have to.
00:23:38.880 But you can't excuse me for interrupting, but you can't really hold people responsible if you say that they're in contempt of Congress.
00:23:47.960 Attorney General Garland is the one who has to prosecute.
00:23:51.220 And he just came out and said, I'm not the prosecutor for Congress.
00:23:55.760 Well, yes, you are.
00:23:57.460 But he gets to decide who he prosecutes.
00:24:00.340 Yeah, and obviously what you're seeing, I know I heard Jim Jordan's voice before I came on.
00:24:06.940 Yeah.
00:24:07.280 And obviously you're seeing all kinds of things where this is just wrong.
00:24:10.820 And I don't know how we get it out to the American public because most people don't know.
00:24:15.260 You know, obviously I have the opportunity right now to get to your listeners and that's important.
00:24:22.780 But there are things that are going on today that should be above the fold front page headlines each and every day.
00:24:29.620 And the mainstream media isn't covering.
00:24:31.560 So our challenge is definitely greater and elections matter.
00:24:36.060 And I hope people understand that.
00:24:38.080 And, you know, I grew up watching Superman where they began each show fighting for truth, justice in the American way.
00:24:44.380 Right.
00:24:44.800 And that's where we have to go.
00:24:46.980 And America has to decide if that's what they want or not, because it's been deviated from tremendously.
00:24:53.400 And let me make this suggestion, too, for our agencies.
00:24:56.300 You know, in the military, you either move up or you're out.
00:25:00.360 And you're required to be agnostic politically.
00:25:04.180 And that's what we need in our agencies.
00:25:06.400 You either move up or you're out.
00:25:08.320 And when you get to the top, there's a mandatory retirement.
00:25:11.820 You don't get to sit there with mounds of authority and covert authority, if you will.
00:25:18.000 And we've got to make changes like that within our system.
00:25:22.560 We started our country with just three agencies, state, treasury, and more.
00:25:27.900 And look what we have now.
00:25:29.060 I know.
00:25:29.360 They have rule of law.
00:25:30.380 They put out regulations.
00:25:33.040 We try to pass laws to stop them.
00:25:35.380 It's completely backwards.
00:25:36.760 So, America needs to understand to elect people that are willing to make that change and get us back to the government that our founders set up.
00:25:45.220 Representative Brad Wenstrup, thank you very much for what you're doing.
00:25:49.540 Please keep us informed if there's any other news that starts to break here about the CIA apparently bribing members of the team, the experts on COVID.
00:26:04.620 Good. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
00:26:06.500 Yeah, thanks for your concern.
00:26:08.140 You bet.
00:26:09.300 Let me talk to you about CarShield.
00:26:11.000 In the age of smart technology, I mean, why would they do that, Stu?
00:26:15.940 All you can do is shake your head.
00:26:17.380 Yeah.
00:26:18.340 It's incredible.
00:26:20.140 And they're doing it just because they're protecting other people and themselves and other people in high-ranking positions.
00:26:27.940 It's grotesque what we've become.
00:26:30.360 We are so close to Mexico or Venezuela.
00:26:33.800 We're going there.
00:26:36.700 It's where we're going.
00:26:37.420 If Americans don't stand up and stop this and tell them, you know, we're not voting for you unless you change these things.
00:26:48.480 The best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:26:50.680 Todd Benzman.
00:26:52.020 Benzman is joining us now.
00:26:53.780 He's from the Center for Immigration Studies.
00:26:55.860 He's a senior fellow.
00:26:57.020 He has been talking about this colony in Houston that is getting all kinds of really special breaks if you want to, you know, buy a house there.
00:27:07.980 And you don't have any documentation at all.
00:27:12.700 Todd, welcome.
00:27:14.400 Great to be here.
00:27:14.960 Tell me what is happening here.
00:27:18.360 Well, this particular community sprung up.
00:27:22.120 It really started about 10 years ago.
00:27:24.680 Small.
00:27:26.060 A developer figured out a way.
00:27:28.660 There's no law against selling to illegal immigrants.
00:27:31.860 If you're financing it yourself, you don't even need to ask for their credit rating or a history of income or any of the normal things to buy land.
00:27:43.460 And long about 2017, it exploded.
00:27:46.460 I mean, just, you know, thousands and thousands of people, Spanish speakers, mostly from Mexico, Central America, Cuba, really mostly Spanish speaking.
00:27:58.100 That's where the marketing is.
00:27:59.980 And now there are probably on the order of 75,000 people that live in that area of about 60 square miles.
00:28:09.880 And the majority of them, if you talk to people who live there and the immigrants themselves, as I have, knocking doors throughout that community, most of them are here illegally.
00:28:24.240 And that's why they're attracted to this area.
00:28:26.740 The other reason why they're attracted to this area is because they regard it as a safe zone, a no-go zone where ice will not tread.
00:28:35.880 Local police don't like to go in there.
00:28:37.600 They've been shot at firefighters don't go in there, very thinly patrolled.
00:28:43.220 And all four cartels or at least four of the cartels are active there.
00:28:48.380 This is insane, just insane.
00:28:53.580 So you have cartels, crime, safe houses, no-go zone.
00:28:58.880 You don't really know who's getting in.
00:29:01.580 Who's banking this?
00:29:04.260 Well, it's privately financed.
00:29:06.460 And as far as, you know, like the Daily Wire just had a piece recently where they explored the question of legality and determined that, you know, what the developer is doing is legal.
00:29:18.100 They're selling land to – it's not up to them to determine whether you're illegally present.
00:29:24.040 And they're selling land to people owner-financed.
00:29:28.860 All you have to do is be willing to pay 9%, 10%, 12% interest on that loan, which they're all willing to do because they can't get a regular bank loan.
00:29:38.400 And then they put up whatever kind of ramshackle house or, you know, sometimes they're nice brick homes.
00:29:45.260 But the whole area is sort of without ordinance or code enforcement, which I think is also one of the things that is appealing about it.
00:29:55.000 You just buy the land and then you figure out how you're going to live on it.
00:29:58.960 Like, some people have tents, I'm told.
00:30:02.220 Yeah, there are tents.
00:30:03.580 There are, you know, single-wide trailers.
00:30:05.760 There are just, you know, structures built out of leftover construction material.
00:30:10.440 Like, you know, you name it.
00:30:11.540 And then there are some really nice brick, stately brick homes here and there, too.
00:30:15.940 Not everybody who lives there is an illegal immigrant.
00:30:21.680 When I was knocking doors through the area, I did run across some U.S.-born citizens who just said, you know, we like having a little bit of land and it's cheap out here.
00:30:32.180 So we don't mind living out here.
00:30:34.360 But many, even they, would tell me that most everybody around them is an illegal immigrant.
00:30:40.800 And I did meet some illegal immigrants who bought that land.
00:30:43.600 And they told me that the appeal of it was that, first of all, you know, it's ultimately cheaper to even pay those high interest rates than to rent an apartment somewhere as an illegal because there's usurious rents get charged on illegals if you, you know, try to rent in a regular apartment complex.
00:31:05.600 But this way, ultimately, the monthly is lower.
00:31:09.360 And but if they miss a few payments, the landowner can take it back and resell it.
00:31:16.320 And they often do.
00:31:17.240 It's got one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation.
00:31:20.440 This community, it's called Colonia Ridge or Colony Ridge.
00:31:25.320 So near Plum Grove, Texas and Cleveland, Texas.
00:31:30.360 So so this actually works out to be a very good deal.
00:31:34.080 I mean, it sounds like Potterville from, you know, it's a wonderful life so he can repossess or they can repossess the land.
00:31:45.780 So you got the land for a while.
00:31:48.400 You paid high interest rates, but you've defaulted and just get out and he can sell it again over and over and over and over again.
00:31:55.980 Yeah, very, very high foreclosure rates in that that area, one of the highest in the nation.
00:32:01.540 I believe it's a top 10 or 15 in the nation for that.
00:32:06.240 But, you know, the real issue to me there is that there's a homeland security problem because it's very thinly patrolled.
00:32:15.100 They have four or five bilingual officers that are attached to the Liberty County, Texas Sheriff's Department for, you know, 100,000 people.
00:32:26.880 And, you know, they do shift work.
00:32:29.700 So there might be two on duty at any one time for a really big and surly sometimes community.
00:32:36.760 Everybody's got guns on a Saturday night.
00:32:40.100 It sounds like the Battle of Fallujah out there.
00:32:42.540 Everybody's firing their weapons.
00:32:43.800 Of course, illegal immigrants are not allowed to own weapons.
00:32:47.340 But there are cartels there, according to Sheriff Greg Capers, who lives in next door San Jacinto County and has declared a state of emergency from the migrant crisis.
00:33:00.900 Murder rates are way up.
00:33:03.020 And he says there are four different Sinaloa, Gulf, Zetas and New Jalisco are all present.
00:33:11.360 They're running safe houses, marijuana grows, gambling operations, prostitution, safe houses for the migrants that are coming over.
00:33:21.700 And he said that he told me that on the record that, you know, he calls ICE all the time.
00:33:27.300 Hey, can you just come out and help?
00:33:28.640 This is an ICE issue.
00:33:29.660 And they just say, no, we're not we don't do that.
00:33:34.000 So you already have seventy seven thousand in this colony.
00:33:38.040 It is the size of in in in land.
00:33:42.920 It's the size of Washington, D.C.
00:33:45.700 And how many people are coming to this place, you know, every year?
00:33:53.840 Well, you know, I talked to the school superintendent.
00:33:56.780 My book, my book that I published is called Overrun.
00:34:00.100 The last chapter is dedicated to Liberty County, Texas, as emblematic of interior impacts and consequences from this mass migration crisis.
00:34:13.620 The local school district was thirty four hundred a decade ago, K through 12.
00:34:20.620 It's thirteen thousand now.
00:34:22.480 Oh, my gosh.
00:34:23.740 And I'm guessing these people are not paying local taxes, are they?
00:34:27.960 Well, actually, they in this particular case, because they're owning property, the school district does it, but it's not enough.
00:34:36.760 And they're constantly asking for because, you know, one property might have three or four families on it, you know.
00:34:44.520 And so I talked to the school superintendent about a week ago and he said over the summer we had they had a twelve hundred student increase from the from the spring to the fall.
00:34:57.960 And he says, we're getting about one hundred and fifty a week still.
00:35:02.580 They're just pouring in.
00:35:04.000 We're absolutely in.
00:35:05.420 You know, the colony is absolutely expanding.
00:35:08.040 I flew over in a helicopter with a couple of congressmen a few weeks ago.
00:35:13.060 And I mean, to the horizon is clear cutting going on, clearing land and laying down roads and plats for hundreds and hundreds of new lots.
00:35:25.860 Clearly, the property developer is very bullish on the future.
00:35:30.140 And I'm guessing it's because he's looking at what's going on at our southern border and seeing dollar signs.
00:35:35.400 So, Todd, what I mean, what effect, because this is not just in Houston, Texas, this is everywhere, everywhere in America.
00:35:46.620 What is the effect of of letting so many people in?
00:35:54.440 How long does this last before we collapse?
00:35:56.900 I mean, all you have to do is look at New York City, Chicago, Denver.
00:36:04.160 I just had a call from somebody out in Massachusetts, Washington, D.C.
00:36:10.120 Cities across the nation are absolutely staggering under the unfunded burden of this mass migration crisis.
00:36:19.440 Because the immigrants are just pouring in to cities by the tens of thousands a month and they've got nothing.
00:36:27.320 So they're saying, take care of me.
00:36:29.160 And the cities and states are, you know, don't they don't have the budget.
00:36:33.380 They didn't budget.
00:36:34.040 Nobody budgeted for a thing like this.
00:36:36.560 And they're going to go into schools.
00:36:38.580 And I mean, most of them have children.
00:36:40.300 I mean, you look at your local school districts first and start asking, why are they asking me for a bond election to spike my tax rate again for schools?
00:36:50.900 But also, you know, nobody is insured.
00:36:53.680 So they're, you know, the health care systems, wherever you are, whatever state you are, are going to be in the red.
00:37:01.940 I guarantee you, go check.
00:37:03.440 Check the health of your local health care hospital networks and systems and see if they're not in the red right now.
00:37:09.380 They are all across America.
00:37:12.620 And it's going to go on like that.
00:37:14.360 And the crime, I mean, we, yeah, how many, yeah, okay.
00:37:18.740 Well, I mean, I could go on and on about that.
00:37:20.760 I mean, horrendous, horrendous, horrific atrocities that are the kind of crimes that are going on.
00:37:29.200 I mean, Liberty County used to be a place where it was like Otis got thrown in jail on Saturday night.
00:37:35.820 You know, there might be a meth knucklehead here and there, you know.
00:37:39.380 But now you have crimes like, you know, the guy next door walks over with his AR and slaughters a family of Hondurans, all five of them, including the kids.
00:37:49.280 Oh, my gosh.
00:37:49.960 Or you have one guy chained two women up in his trailer and sexually abused them until he killed them both and, you know, dumped their bodies.
00:38:05.300 Well, one of them escaped, tried to escape in a car and didn't make it.
00:38:08.920 And he shot her in the car and burned her up in it.
00:38:11.820 That kind of stuff is going on over there.
00:38:15.540 A couple weeks ago, they just caught the cops about 20 miles from Colony Ridge vehicle with 26 kilos of, like, high-purity cocaine in it.
00:38:27.320 There is heavy drug trafficking going on.
00:38:31.600 There's lots of murder, lots of criminality.
00:38:35.740 And I think that's really what you have to watch for.
00:38:38.420 I mean, at the very least, our cities and states need to police this and make sure that they've got pressure on those law enforcement,
00:38:47.140 real law enforcement pressure on these communities to protect them and the rest of us from what's going on.
00:38:56.680 I guess the bigger, the big issue is whether this business model might be replicated by demand across the country.
00:39:04.240 Oh, it will be.
00:39:05.380 Todd, thank you for everything that you do.
00:39:07.280 Todd Bensman, he is on the border.
00:39:09.240 This is his life.
00:39:11.720 He's the author of a new book called Overrun.
00:39:14.200 The last chapter, as he said, is all about this.
00:39:18.560 And this is coming.