Ep. 1089 - Louisiana Is Protecting Kids From Internet Porn. Every Other State Should Follow Suit.
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 5 minutes
Words per Minute
170.64119
Summary
We ve been told for decades that there is nothing that can be reasonably done to regulate internet porn, and yet, starting this week, the State of Louisiana is doing the impossible, and porn apologists are not happy about it. Also, Kevin McCarthy encounters what the media describes as historic opposition to his bid to become Speaker of the House, and are pro-lifers really to blame for the disappointing midterm results? I ll lay out why that s not the case.
Transcript
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, we've been told for decades that there is nothing that can be
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reasonably done to regulate internet porn or protect kids from it, and yet starting this week,
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the state of Louisiana is doing the impossible, and porn apologists are not happy about it. Also,
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Kevin McCarthy encounters what the media describes as historic opposition to his bid to be Speaker
00:00:16.860
of the House, and are pro-lifers really to blame for the disappointing midterm results? I'll lay
00:00:21.540
out why that's not the case. UFC President Dana White is caught on tape in a slap fight with his
00:00:26.040
wife, but the public reaction to the video is incoherent, and I'll explain why. In our daily
00:00:30.660
cancellation, a sports commentator provokes an avalanche of national outrage over his comments
00:00:35.340
related to the DeMar Hamlin incident, but was there anything wrong with what he said, or is this yet
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another example of mindless virtue-signaling social media outrage? We'll talk about all that and more
00:00:44.340
today on the Matt Wall Show. Now, if you're someone who has always wanted to talk about
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reading plan for free. Over the years, including recently, just a couple of weeks ago, when I have
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discussed the need for, at a minimum, some basic regulations on the internet porn industry that
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would provide at least minimal protection to children, I have been met with a number of objections,
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and all of them are incredibly lame and unconvincing. But the principal objection has always been
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that such regulations are somehow infeasible, if not impossible. Laws and regulations in every state
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require every other adult-oriented industry to verify ages, whether online or in real life. But
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for whatever reason, we could never expect porn companies to abide by these same rules. Every
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other company can, but not porn companies. Now, granted, we've never tried. There's never been
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any serious attempt at any level to even moderately regulate internet porn, but we've decided that it
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can't be done anyway. There's no sense in even trying. So let's just keep feeding generation
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after generation of children into this wood chipper, allowing their minds and souls to be corrupted
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by the most depraved forms of filth ever conceived, while we sit by helplessly on the assumption that
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even if we tried to do something, we couldn't do anything, and so we'll just do nothing. Yet now,
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into this picture steps the state of Louisiana, which, as of this week, has set out to do, and is,
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in fact, now doing the impossible. They have not only done it, but they've done it relatively
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quickly and cheaply and easily. They haven't entirely solved the problem of children accessing
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hardcore porn, and there are plenty of loopholes still to be closed. But in a span of a couple of
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days, they have made more progress than had been made collectively for the whole history of internet
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porn up until now. All it took was the willingness to do it. That is the only thing that has held us back
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from protecting our kids from these filthy smut peddlers. We have been unwilling to even try.
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But in Louisiana, they are now trying. They're putting a law in place that requires porn sites
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to verify ages, to actually verify the age of every user who tries to access a site. So here's Vice
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A new law makes porn sites liable for content deemed harmful to minors if it doesn't install
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age verification technology for anyone accessing them in Louisiana. And it's already affecting how
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people in the state access Pornhub. The law, which was signed by Louisiana's Democratic governor,
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John Bel Edwards, in June, became effective on January 1st, 2023.
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Now, make special note of the fact that a Democrat governor signed this bill. And I know it's Louisiana,
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but this is a Democrat governor signing this bill. So if your state is run by a Republican governor,
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you should be asking why he or she has not signed a similar bill, if the Democrats are doing it.
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Vice continues, the law passed as Act 440 states, quote,
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Any commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material
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harmful to minors on the internet from a website that contains a substantial portion of such material
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shall be held liable if the entity fails to perform reasonable age verification methods to verify the
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age of individuals attempting to access the material. It also states that any commercial entity
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in violation will be liable to an individual for damages resulting from a minor's access to the
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material. Motherboard confirmed through a virtual private network that Pornhub is showing people
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visiting the site from a Louisiana-based IP address, a page that requires identity verification before
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entering. The page says, Louisiana law now requires us to put in place a process for verifying the age
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of users who connect to our site from Louisiana, the page says. When Motherboard tested the verification,
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Pornhub directed us to AllPass Trust, which is a third-party identity verification site,
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which connects to LA Wallet, which is a digital driver's license for Louisianans.
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Pornhub guarantees that Pornhub doesn't collect data during this process.
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Now, the article goes on to note that some other major porn sites haven't yet put anything into
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place to comply with the new law. OnlyFans, meanwhile, can't be accessed at all right now
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from a Louisiana IP address. Perhaps they've shut down access until they can get something in place
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to verify ages. Perhaps they'll never restore access at all, which would be the best case scenario,
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really. But the fact remains that the biggest porn distributor in the world has figured out a way
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to conform itself to the sort of basic regulation that, once again, literally every other adult-oriented
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business is required to comply with. An exception has been carved out for internet porn, a totally
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baseless, indefensible exception. And in Louisiana, at least, that exception, that loophole, has been closed.
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Now, one of the most important parts of closing the loophole is the financial liability, as mentioned
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in the article. Porn sites now have a major incentive to try and keep kids off of their platforms, whereas
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up until now, they have had no incentive to keep kids off. Indeed, the incentives have gone the other
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way. Like, we have been actively incentivizing porn sites to expose kids to this stuff. Luring kids onto the
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platforms, early and often, up until now, in Louisiana anyway, guaranteed millions of new porn addicts
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every year, translating into billions and billions of dollars. That was the incentive. The only way to
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compete with this kind of profit motive is to, as Louisiana has done, make porn sites financially liable
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for the harm caused to the children exposed to their product. This, yet again, is exactly what we do
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with every other industry that sells a product that is potentially harmful to kids.
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We require them to put measures into place to ensure that kids are not accessing the product.
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If they fail to enact such measures and their recklessness results in children gaining access
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to their product or service, they are subject to fines and lawsuits. There is no reason why porn
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companies should continue to enjoy the unprecedented privilege of being able to harm whoever they want
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and profit from it without a shred of accountability. So, why shouldn't similar measures be put in
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place in every state and on the federal level, too? You know, the harm that pornography consumption
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inflicts on the developing minds of children is not a subject up for debate any longer. There is no
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debate about it. There is no question that a young child who is exposed to hardcore porn suffers very real
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emotional, emotional, and psychological trauma, which manifests itself immediately and in the long
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term in myriad ways. None of them good. This is not only proven by the research, but it is an
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inescapable conclusion reached by anyone with the slightest bit of common sense. Because we know that the
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human mind is impressionable, and the mind of a child is more impressionable still. Marketing departments
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know this. Advertising, the advertising industry knows this. So, what kind of lasting impression then
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is left on a child who's introduced, introduced to the concept of human sexuality through exposure to
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forms of sexual debauchery and depravity that human beings prior to the internet age could not have even
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conceived of? Okay, this is stuff that most people who've ever lived on earth prior to the internet
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never would have seen or even thought of, and now we have eight-year-olds who are ingesting it every
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day. What impression, what impact does that have on the child? You don't need to put on a lab coat and
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conduct a scientific study to answer that question, but as it happens, people have conducted such studies
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and the results line up with what common sense already attests to. So, back to the question.
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What is the argument against this? What is the problem with taking even the most meager and
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basic steps to prevent internet pimps from hawking their poisonous product to seven-year-olds?
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Why isn't this happening everywhere? Why is it only just happening now in one state?
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Well, there really is no argument against it. I mean, I know that because I've asked the critics,
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those freaking out about this Louisiana law and similar efforts elsewhere, I've asked people to
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explain it to me. For years, I've been asking this question, and they can't explain it. The most they
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can do is mutter about how protecting children from porn is the parent's job, which it is, yes, but it's
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also the government's job to protect its citizens, and that includes, indeed, ought to especially include
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children. See, children should be at the front of the line when it comes to protection from the
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government. You expect it to be protected from the government. Adults expect it.
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You expect various forms of protection. Well, children should be in the front of that line.
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They should be in front of all of us when it comes to being protected.
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And parents cannot contend with a porn-saturated culture all on their own.
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They cannot be left alone to deal with this. That is not a fair thing to expect.
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Now, we're also told that this is a slippery slope.
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There was a viral tweet from someone who identifies themselves as a
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criminal defense attorney in Louisiana, anonymous, and also anti-fascist, he says.
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And he was a viral tweet, and he lives in Louisiana. He's very upset that now he has to go through one
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extra step before accessing Pornhub. So his masturbation, he has to hold off on that for
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another 30 seconds. Very upset about that. And so he's tweeted this long viral thread,
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saying this is a slippery slope into fascism, a surveillance state.
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First, the government will require identification for accessing Pornhub.
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You know, of all the weak, half-cocked, faux-libertarian arguments that porn apologists
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come up with, this is probably the dumbest of all. And that's saying a lot.
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And I'll just respond to it this way. I need everyone to pay attention to this part because
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it's very important. The government does not need the precedent of a good thing in order to do
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a bad thing. Okay? They'll just do the bad thing. So whatever you're worried about,
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well, so maybe protecting kids from porn is okay, but then that would lead to the government doing
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this other thing. Whatever that other thing is, they're already doing it. It is already doing
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whatever bad thing you're worried about. The question is simply whether, amid all the bad the
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government does, it ought to at least also do a good thing or two. Another way of putting this,
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because the government does a lot of things that aren't its lawful or rightful job,
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should we then object on the rare occasion when it actually does its lawful and rightful job?
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Protecting children from multi-billion dollar porn merchants is fully and clearly within the purview
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of the government. Why in God's name would you oppose that based on the fact that it's also doing a
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bunch of things that are not in its purview? Yeah, it shouldn't be doing that. But the stuff in its
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purview, it should be doing. I mean, talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
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Except in this case, you're just throwing the baby out and keeping the dirty bathwater. It's the worst
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of all worlds. But it's no surprise that such bad arguments would be made by those opposed to
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protecting kids from porn. They can't be blamed for their bad arguments. They are trying to defend
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the indefensible and they're doing it for reasons that they won't really say out loud.
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That's why all the arguments are so stupid and bad is because none of these people will actually
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say what their real argument is. Their real motivation is to, as we talked about a couple
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weeks ago, not only protect their own ease of access to pornography, but also I think at a deeper
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level, they want to avoid thinking about the harm that pornography inflicts on people to begin with.
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You know, this entire conversation requires us to confront what pornography is and how toxic it is.
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And that causes the adult porn user to feel bad about himself and his habits.
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And I think that's really why he'd prefer that we not talk about it or do anything about it.
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But that's also yet another reason why we must. Now let's get to our headlines.
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podcast, I don't want you to get overwhelmed by the fancy new camera angles. We're doing it. We're
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going full Hollywood on you now. We've got camera angles. I'm moving around the table and that's
00:16:04.140
mostly just so I get, it's the only bit of cardio I get in my life anymore. It's just,
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is just sliding around this little circular table. So it'll stave off obesity for another
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30 minutes anyway. So Washington Post headline here. Kevin McCarthy faces open GOP revolt as
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House fails to elect Speaker. Republican leader Kevin McCarthy faced open revolt in the House
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Chamber Tuesday, failing in three rounds of balloting to earn enough votes to capture the
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Speakership in a once in a century showdown that will now spill into a second day. The stunning
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failure of the House to elect a Speaker on its first round of voting came after McCarthy and
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his allies spent weeks working to secure the 218 votes needed for him to take the gavel.
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Republicans won back the House in November's midterms, but worth a slim four vote majority
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requiring near consensus among the conference to vote, move votes forward. By early Tuesday,
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it became clear that hard right GOP holdouts had not been swayed. The failure was the culmination
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of an internal divide that had in the past helped to bring down the Speakerships of John
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Boehner and Paul Ryan with members of the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus
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asking for a range of demands in exchange for their votes. So this is another example of a couple
00:17:11.340
things about this. Another example of the kind of story the media makes a big deal about and
00:17:18.140
political pundits make a big deal about it. You know, we hear historic showdown once in a century.
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We haven't seen this in our lifetime. But most people, I suspect, aren't even aware this is
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happening, couldn't care less who the Speaker of the House is. And in reality, it probably doesn't
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matter all that much to your life. Like it probably, whether Kevin McCarthy is the Speaker of the House
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or some other Republican, or if they put a broken toaster oven as a Speaker of the House. Of those
00:17:52.440
three options, your life would probably be exactly the same. Like if I were to give you three crystal
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balls and I didn't tell you which was which, and they give you a vision of your future in each
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scenario. Here's the crystal ball where Kevin McCarthy is the Speaker of the House. Here's another
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Republican. Here's the broken toaster oven scenario. And you were to look into it and see what your
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life is like. You wouldn't be able to tell, because it would be exactly the same is what I'm trying to
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say. Your life would play out exactly the same no matter who the Speaker of the House is. With that
00:18:25.080
being said, Kevin McCarthy, for what it's worth, doesn't deserve the Speakership. And this is not,
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we could call it a historic showdown with these so-called hard right Republicans are refusing to
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go along. Refusing to go along with it just means that they don't think that Kevin McCarthy is,
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these other House members, they don't want to vote for a leader who they rightly have judged to be
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unfit and to be a failure. Kevin McCarthy, in his role in Republican leadership, has been a failure.
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And it's not just because of the disappointing, to put it mildly, midterm results, but that's just
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the latest in a line of failures. Another way of looking at it is like, what has this guy achieved
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exactly? Nothing. He's just another Republican establishment, kind of squishy, nobody, empty suit
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kind of guy. And this idea that he deserves the Speakership, that it belongs to him, that he should
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have it. That is the most establishment-like mentality of all. That is establishment. That's
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what the establishment is. It's this idea that certain people deserve these roles in government.
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And so everyone else would just step aside. But that's not the way it's supposed to work.
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And I say that about the Speaker of the House. I say that about the presidency.
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You know, you hear from some people who are Trump fans that, well, no, this is,
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it's his turn again in 2024. Everyone else should step aside. It doesn't, it's not turn.
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What do you mean? It's your turn. It's nobody's turn. If you want a role in government as an elected
00:20:10.040
official, you got to run for it and earn it, get the votes. And if you want to be Speaker of the
00:20:15.740
House, you have to get the votes from your members. And he doesn't have them right now.
00:20:20.320
And he shouldn't. Because again, he's a failure. He's a nobody. And really the onus is on him.
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So all the people that are worried about, well, this is a historic meltdown and it's making the
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Republicans look stupid or whatever. You hear this a lot. It's a big clown show. Again,
00:20:36.840
most people aren't paying attention. So most people don't care. And as far as Republicans
00:20:41.720
making themselves look stupid, they don't need any help with that. Republicans make themselves
00:20:45.480
look stupid every day. But not because of this. This is one example of Republicans,
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some Republicans at least, actually standing on principle and standing up against their own so-called
00:20:57.060
leadership and having a backbone, having a spine. This is an example of them making Republicans? No,
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this is like the one time when they don't look stupid. But even if that's true, then whose fault is
00:21:11.480
it? Then the onus is on Kevin McCarthy to step down, step aside. You don't have the votes.
00:21:17.200
If you're worried about how this all looks and that it's some sort of historic quagmire,
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then why aren't you putting the pressure on Kevin McCarthy to step aside and clear the way for
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someone else? He's failed in his role of leadership. He doesn't have the confidence
00:21:35.000
of many of the members. And so he should step aside.
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I see the onus on him. That's where it should be.
00:21:47.320
All right. Fox News headline. DeSantis calls Florida land of sanity and slams Biden policies
00:21:53.240
in his inaugural address. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Tuesday praised the Sunshine State
00:21:58.420
as the land of liberty and land of sanity while slamming the floundering federal establishment in
00:22:03.340
Washington, D.C., the Biden administration, and laying out his policies for the months and years
00:22:07.240
ahead as he was sworn in for a second term. DeSantis, who's considered a likely GOP 2024
00:22:12.200
presidential contender, delivered his inaugural address on the steps of the state's Capitol in
00:22:16.820
Tallahassee on Tuesday after a decisive 19-point re-election victory. Now, it was a great speech
00:22:22.860
and all, and I think it's a very good speech, at least, worth watching. But this was the best part.
00:22:30.640
Here's just a 20-second clip. And this may not seem very remarkable to you, what he says here,
00:22:36.100
but this, to me, was my favorite part of his speech. Listen to this.
00:22:40.800
Florida must always be a great place to raise a family. We will enact more family-friendly policies
00:22:49.360
to make it easier to raise children, and we will defend our children against those who seek to rob
00:22:56.260
them of their innocence. There you go. Very simple. Like I said, doesn't appear to be anything
00:23:02.600
revolutionary there. And there isn't. But this should be the Republican Party's platform going
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into 2024. And this is, if you want to know what my political ideology is at this point, that's it,
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what you just heard there. That's the whole thing. Protect families, protect children.
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There you go. That's it. That's the fundamental political platform. And that's what every
00:23:30.280
Republican ought to be talking about. And if the term conservatism means anything,
00:23:36.560
it ought to be conserving that. I mean, most fundamentally, as I always talk about,
00:23:41.000
it's conserving basic truth. And it's also conserving and protecting the family and the safety
00:23:49.600
and innocence of children. That should be the marching orders.
00:23:57.760
And not only is that the right, you know, the right platform and the right mission
00:24:03.420
and what needs to be done, but it's also a winning political message.
00:24:11.460
Forget about what you've heard from squishy establishment Republicans for years and years,
00:24:14.920
who still to this day, you know, they will go down with the ship claiming that all anybody cares
00:24:22.600
about is their wallet and the financial bottom line. And so just talk about tax cuts and all of
00:24:28.580
that. That's all anything anybody cares about. That's not true. People care about money.
00:24:33.840
They care about their financial well-being. Of course they do. We all do.
00:24:37.000
But they care about those things primarily because of how that affects the safety and stability of
00:24:47.240
their families and their children. Because even more basic than the financial concern is that
00:24:54.140
concern about your family, about your kids. This is what people, this is why I always say you got to
00:24:59.620
think about what do people wake up in the morning thinking about? Okay, they don't wake up in the
00:25:05.720
morning thinking about tax cuts. Nobody does. If you're a parent, you wake up in the morning and
00:25:11.260
you're thinking about your kids, you're thinking about your family, you're thinking about your
00:25:14.040
spouse. Like that's, that's, those are the first thoughts in your mind. And politically, if you're
00:25:21.420
speaking to that, if you're speaking to, forget about the kitchen table issues. I'm talking about
00:25:25.900
before you even get to the kitchen table. Okay, before you sit down at the kitchen table for breakfast,
00:25:29.720
what are the things that you're thinking about? And it's that. And politically, if you're
00:25:35.460
speaking to those issues, then that's, that is going to be a winner every time for almost everybody.
00:25:42.440
All right. Here's something else. This is, if I can pull it up here.
00:25:49.220
This is a story from last week that I wanted to touch on. The Hill headline says,
00:25:53.300
Trump says abortion issue responsible for GOP underperforming expectations in the midterms.
00:25:58.600
This is the article from last week. Former President Trump blamed the abortion issue,
00:26:02.160
quote unquote, for Republicans underperforming expectations on 2022 midterm elections.
00:26:06.860
Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Sunday that many in the GOP handled the issue poorly,
00:26:11.480
especially those who firmly insisted on no exceptions to bans on the procedure,
00:26:15.180
including on instances of rape and incest. Well, rather than reading the article,
00:26:19.140
I'll just read you what he, what he posted on Truth Social. He says,
00:26:22.940
it wasn't my fault that the Republicans didn't live up to expectations in the midterms.
00:26:26.080
I was 233 to 20. It was the, it was the abortion issue poorly handled by many Republicans,
00:26:33.160
especially those that firmly insisted on no exceptions, even in the cases of rape,
00:26:37.320
incest, or life of the mother that lost large numbers of voters. Also, the people that pushed
00:26:41.600
so hard for decades against abortion got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court and just plain
00:26:45.620
disappeared, not to be seen again. Plus Mitch stupid money. Stupid money? I'm not even sure
00:26:52.480
what that means. Mitch, Mitch stupid, and then the dollar sign, apostrophe S. Anyway,
00:26:57.880
so that's what he said. Now, there are a few problems here.
00:27:04.020
The first is that before we even get to the substance, this is just whiny. You know, like,
00:27:11.220
I think one rule in politics and also to be an adult in life is like, never start a sentence with,
00:27:17.680
it wasn't my fault that, never start a sentence that way. Even if you're trying to deny fault
00:27:25.200
in a situation, don't start a sentence. It sounds whiny. It just sounds weak and whiny. That's how it
00:27:31.020
sounds. And it again makes you think like, is this, is this what the Trump campaign is? He
00:27:38.000
announced his candidacy, what, two months ago now? And then, and then disappeared. Like,
00:27:43.880
where is he? And he announced his candidacy. And rather than launching right into rallies and
00:27:50.040
exciting things and making announcements and, you know, stirring things up, he just like retreats
00:27:54.540
to Mar-a-Lago and is issuing these, these, what do they call them? Truths on truth social,
00:28:00.840
deflecting blame, looking backwards, all this kind of stuff. It looks weak and whiny and irrelevant.
00:28:05.660
That's the first problem. The second is putting blame at the feet of pro-lifers, which by the way,
00:28:11.660
is what the Republican establishment, speaking of them, it's what they've always done. Okay. This,
00:28:17.040
what you hear here, what you hear in this case is a slightly more direct version of what the
00:28:25.880
Republican establishment has been saying for decades. Anytime there's a major political defeat,
00:28:30.500
they always, and I know this as a pro-lifer myself and someone who's been in the movement for years,
00:28:36.060
standing in the group that, that, that always has the fingers pointing at it from the conservative
00:28:41.460
Republican establishment. It's all their fault because they care too much about protecting
00:28:46.780
babies from being murdered. It doesn't make any sense. It's not true. Especially from the guy who
00:28:57.180
in the past has bragged about the Dobbs decision. This, the, the Dobbs decision is legitimately a legacy
00:29:05.320
of the Trump administration. Okay. If we didn't have Trump, if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016,
00:29:11.260
then obviously she would not have appointed, uh, three justices who would then go on to overturn Roe
00:29:16.780
v. Wade. So this is not only part of his legacy, but it is the most important part. And, and also
00:29:24.880
perhaps the only lasting bit of legacy that there is. Everything else that Trump did was, was,
00:29:30.920
was undone by Joe Biden in about five seconds. This is the one lasting thing. And it's one of the most
00:29:39.100
important moments in American history is the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
00:29:45.860
Even with the States that still have, uh, you know, still kill babies, even with them, it's still,
00:29:53.900
you know, tens of thousands, at least of lives saved every year because of this, at least.
00:29:58.060
So that's something that Trump should be championing. And he has in the past until now
00:30:07.140
he's turning around and pointing the fingers at pro-lifers and, and, and it is pro-lifers by the
00:30:13.080
way. It's not just, it's not just singling out certain Republican politicians saying Republicans
00:30:19.660
generally, voters who are too firm in insisting on no exceptions for, uh, rape and incest and life
00:30:28.940
of the mother and all the rest of it. You know why we don't agree with those exceptions?
00:30:37.700
Because the exceptions are morally incoherent. It doesn't make any sense. Okay.
00:30:43.460
There is only one reason to oppose any abortion at all. Okay. There's only one reason. I don't care
00:30:52.280
the circumstances that lead, that led up to the baby being conceived, uh, what, what stage of
00:30:57.840
pregnancy we're talking about, the manner of the abortion, putting all of that, whatever,
00:31:01.780
that doesn't matter. Whatever kind of abortion we're talking about, there's only one reason to
00:31:06.860
oppose it. And that one single reason is that the child is a human child and that intentionally
00:31:16.220
killing a human child is murdered. It is the murder of a child. That is the one single reason to oppose
00:31:22.120
abortion. And it's a really good reason. You know, when you have a good reason, when you have a good
00:31:27.360
argument, you don't need any other arguments. When you've got a Trump card argument, that's all you
00:31:32.480
need. And that's our one single Trump card argument. This is a human child. Scientifically,
00:31:39.940
you are intentionally killing it. And that by definition is murder. Intentionally killing
00:31:44.280
human life is the benefit of you. This is the murder of a child that we are opposed to murdering
00:31:47.460
children. The only reason to be opposed to abortion. But if you oppose abortion for that reason,
00:31:54.160
it doesn't make any sense to carve out exceptions. How can you possibly say, well, I oppose murdering
00:32:02.100
children. Except for, what? Except for, there are some things where there can be no except for. There
00:32:11.700
could be no but. And this is one of them. If abortion is murdering a child, then there can never be a
00:32:22.600
situation where it is okay to do. Because there is never a situation where it is okay to murder a child.
00:32:27.920
But if abortion is not the murder of a child, then there's never any reason to oppose it.
00:32:36.660
Then you're not murdering a child. You're just dispensing of inanimate, meaningless matter. And
00:32:42.700
why shouldn't you do that? Those are the two options. Okay, that's not me being extreme or hard
00:32:51.000
line or anything. I mean, you could call it that if you want. I don't care.
00:32:53.600
It's really just about being morally and intellectually consistent.
00:33:00.640
And if your argument on this topic is not morally and intellectually consistent, then it just falls
00:33:05.040
apart. Okay, this is not about a purity test or something like that. Standing on a pedestal and
00:33:12.800
say, I'm more principled than the rest of you. That's not what this is. It's just your argument
00:33:18.180
falls apart if it's incoherent, which the exception thing is incoherent. So just that's that form of
00:33:25.300
being pro-life doesn't work. It doesn't achieve anything. It doesn't win the argument because it
00:33:29.800
can't. Now, the so-called moderate pro-lifers, they benefit from the fact that pro-abortion people
00:33:37.040
are very bad at arguing their case. But if they were any good at it, then they could easily, you know,
00:33:42.220
like how would an argument, how would a, imagine how a conversation with a competent pro-abortion
00:33:46.120
person would go? Argument between a competent pro-abortion person, if they exist, and a so-called
00:33:51.480
moderate pro-lifer who believes in exceptions. So the moderate pro-lifer says, well, abortion is the
00:33:57.060
murder of a baby. We shouldn't be allowed to do it. Competent pro-abortion person says, well, what
00:34:02.060
about rape and incest? Life of the mother. Oh yeah, well, no, except for those. That's okay.
00:34:08.240
So in those cases, it's okay to murder a child? So those children can be murdered, you're saying?
00:34:13.360
Well, I mean, yes. The moment they get you to admit that you're actually saying it can be okay
00:34:22.680
sometimes to murder a child, you lost. All right. Joy Reid this week has joined in the pro-lifer pile
00:34:32.220
on. I want you to listen to this 90 second clip because there's a lot to be learned about leftist
00:34:37.080
misinformation strategies here. Listen to this. As we brace for a Republican-controlled house at
00:34:43.020
a post-Roe America, it may be a good time to take a closer look at just what the so-called
00:34:48.500
pro-life party has been doing or attempting to do legislatively since winning their tiny majority
00:34:54.380
in November. Over the past month, Congress has voted on numerous pieces of legislation.
00:34:59.680
And while several passed with bipartisan support, there was a considerable amount of Republican
00:35:04.100
opposition to members that all had one thing in common. That is, they affect either pregnant people,
00:35:10.380
mothers, or young children. And these weren't complicated or thorny issues. In fact, they all
00:35:16.040
seem like pretty basic bare minimum stuff. For example, in the House, 90 Republicans voted against
00:35:22.940
the Pregnant Women in Custody Act, which would guarantee minimum levels of health care and nutrition
00:35:28.660
for women who are pregnant and incarcerated and their newborns, while also preventing those who
00:35:34.160
are eight months pregnant from being placed in solitary confinement. Among the politicians who voted
00:35:39.240
against the bill were Matt Gaetz and soon-to-be ex-Congressman Madison Cawthorne. 44 Republicans voted
00:35:45.880
against a bill that aims to provide maternity services for pregnant and postpartum veterans. Yes,
00:35:51.560
you heard that right. The party that supposedly loves the military doesn't want to help those serving our
00:35:55.880
country while pregnant. Make it make sense. 17 Republicans voted against the Early Hearing
00:36:01.160
Detection and Intervention Act, a bill that would help early diagnosis and treatment for deaf and
00:36:07.280
hard-of-hearing newborns. Because apparently, they only care about the health of babies who are in utero.
00:36:12.600
Once you're out, you're on your own, kid. Now, I continue to be just amazed that anyone watches that show
00:36:19.560
on purpose. Even if you agree with what she's saying, how can you, it's just grating to listen to.
00:36:26.040
Now, the claim that she makes there at the end that this is one of the ultimate
00:36:29.860
political cliches that conservatives only care about life in the womb. Talk about being incoherent.
00:36:38.280
That doesn't, like, that just goes to show that what leftists have in their head, they have their
00:36:44.960
head, this cartoonish idea of conservatives, and they really believe it. They see their opposition
00:36:53.220
as a cartoon, which makes them vulnerable, makes them easier to beat. Because you can't defeat an
00:37:01.860
enemy if you don't understand them. You got to understand them first.
00:37:04.160
But leftists don't understand conservatives, and they don't want to try to understand conservatives
00:37:09.680
because trying to understand conservatives means taking us seriously for at least a moment or two
00:37:13.980
so you can try to understand where we're coming from, and then you can formulate strategies and
00:37:18.540
arguments against us. But they won't do that. So they have this cartoonish idea of, like,
00:37:25.300
psychopaths who care deeply about children in the womb, but the moment they're born,
00:37:30.300
they don't? Just psychologically, that doesn't make any sense. The whole argument for caring about
00:37:42.380
life in the womb is by drawing a comparison to life outside of the womb and making the observation
00:37:49.800
that there is no substantive distinction between life in the womb and life outside of the womb.
00:37:54.880
So our whole argument hinges on the fact that life outside of the womb has meaning and value.
00:38:02.140
If we didn't believe that, then there'd be no reason to think that life inside the womb has
00:38:07.020
meaning and value. And the morbid irony here is, of course, on the left, they're the ones who actually
00:38:13.360
don't think that life outside of the womb has any value. They don't think that life inside the womb has
00:38:16.660
value, and they also don't think about life outside. These two things go hand in hand because it's the
00:38:20.480
same life we're talking about. And so if a baby five seconds before emerging from the birth canal
00:38:26.500
has no value according to you, it is guaranteed you're also not going to see much value in it
00:38:32.840
a second after it emerges from the birth canal because nothing has changed.
00:38:36.800
It has switched locations in space. That's it. Whereas if you really believe that that baby has value
00:38:45.640
a second before emerging from the birth canal, of course you'll still think that when the child
00:38:49.220
emerges. Because again, nothing has changed. So on the left, they're the ones, the nihilists,
00:38:56.340
who don't believe that life has any intrinsic value. But just to show you how you can't trust
00:39:01.820
anything these people say, let's take one of the claims that she made. She said that all these
00:39:06.860
Republicans voted against the Pregnant Women in Custody Act, which she says was supposed to guarantee
00:39:13.920
proper treatment of pregnant women in custody. So why would Republicans vote against that?
00:39:20.520
Well, there was one Republican, Representative Scott Fitzgerald, who's quoted in a media article
00:39:24.420
explaining the issue with this law. And he says, we all believe that pregnant incarcerated women should
00:39:32.960
be well cared for while they're in federal custody. However, I would like to note the concern the bill
00:39:37.060
would require the Bureau of Prisons to provide abortifacients to pregnant inmates. However,
00:39:42.400
the word contraception is not defined in the bill, and the Internal Bureau of Prisons policy does not
00:39:46.500
define contraception. Because of the word contraception is not defined, this ambiguity
00:39:50.600
leaves the reasonable interpretation of the term contraception and could include abortifacients or other
00:39:55.500
substances that induce abortion. Okay, so this bill wasn't simply about protecting pregnant women
00:40:03.180
in custody, which by the way, women, what are those? Okay, this is like one of the only times
00:40:08.340
they'll acknowledge that women even exist. But this was not about protecting pregnant women in custody.
00:40:12.100
What the bill says, here's the language of the bill.
00:40:15.640
Access to complete appropriate health services for the life cycle of women. The director of the
00:40:20.080
Bureau of Prisons shall ensure that each woman of reproductive age is in custody at a Bureau of
00:40:24.100
Prisons facility, A, has access to contraception and testing for pregnancy and sexually transmitted
00:40:29.560
diseases upon request of any such woman, and B, is administered a pregnancy test on the date on
00:40:34.460
which the woman enters a facility, which the woman may decline. Okay, so this isn't exclusively for
00:40:41.800
pregnant women. It's actually also for non-pregnant women, any woman of reproductive age, as it says,
00:40:48.120
guaranteeing birth control. Well, all you do is think about that for a second. Why would you need
00:40:54.180
birth control in prison? But what's the need for that? Now, of course, I say that, but as they
00:41:02.020
introduce males into women's prisons, the possibility and the actuality of women getting pregnant while in
00:41:09.940
the lockup, that is happening more and more. But under normal circumstances, you wouldn't think
00:41:19.320
there'd be much need for birth control in a prison, in a women's prison, which just leads all the more
00:41:26.600
to the suspicion that when you say contraception, you're also including abortifacients. And that
00:41:31.720
was not properly defined in the bill. There was nothing put in there that stipulates, no,
00:41:37.140
we're not going to be requiring taxpayers to give abortifacients to pregnant inmates and all the
00:41:40.660
rest of it. And because of that, there were some Republicans who rightly voted against it.
00:41:44.860
Of course, we don't hear that from Joy Reid. All right. One other quick thing. Yahoo Sports.
00:41:53.140
UFC president Dana White admits to slapping his wife on New Year's Eve. Now, this is a story that's
00:41:57.960
gotten a lot of attention. Dana White slaps his wife, beat his wife, as some on social media have put it.
00:42:04.400
Lots of outrage about this. Lots of claims that White is a domestic abuser. Lots of condemnation,
00:42:09.700
et cetera. Before we talk about it, let's check the video. Here it is.
00:42:20.400
Okay. So there it is. So his wife slaps him. He slaps her back. And all the headlines saying Dana White
00:42:29.720
slapped his wife, could just as well say Dana White's wife slaps Dana White. But we know why
00:42:34.900
they don't. Here's what I'll say about this. You know, the position most people, especially on the
00:42:43.660
left, have on this condemning Dana White. And this, maybe this is a theme we're talking about today,
00:42:49.800
people who have incoherent positions. Well, the position of most of these people,
00:42:53.620
again, particularly on the left, it's an incoherent position. Because if you truly believe
00:43:01.360
that men and women are entirely equal, there is no difference between the two. In fact,
00:43:06.820
the categories don't even exist according to you. They don't even say, these words don't even mean
00:43:12.200
anything if that's what you believe, which every person on the left just about pretends to believe,
00:43:16.640
then there just is no basis for condemning for any serious condemnation of Dana White. Because then
00:43:27.060
you have one individual who was slapped by another individual and that individual slapped back. So
00:43:33.100
yeah, you could blame them and say, be the bigger man, be more mature or whatever. But to go beyond
00:43:40.940
that, it just doesn't make any sense. So if you're consistent in that belief, then you should look
00:43:46.920
at that video and react to it the exact same way that you would react to a different video of a man,
00:43:54.120
let's say a smaller man, walks up to Dana White, slaps him in the face, and then Dana White slaps that
00:43:59.600
man back. If you believe that men and women are entirely equal, then you should react to the one of
00:44:05.440
him and his wife the same way you'd react to that. And how would you react? How would anyone react to a
00:44:09.500
video of a smaller man walking up to Dana White, slapping him in the face, getting slapped back?
00:44:13.920
Almost every single person, now there might be a few people who say, you know, be more mature.
00:44:18.480
But almost every person would respond by saying, well, don't go up and slap Dana White. I mean,
00:44:23.640
you got slapped back because you slapped him. If he's a bigger guy, you shouldn't be doing that.
00:44:28.220
F-A-F-O, right? F around and find out. That's what everybody would be, that's what every single
00:44:32.180
person would be saying. And we all know that. So to heap any sort of extra condemnation on Dana White,
00:44:40.320
that the only way to do that, the only way to condemn him beyond how you would condemn him
00:44:47.380
if he slapped another man who slapped him first, which is you wouldn't condemn him hardly at all
00:44:51.180
in that case, the only way to do it is on the grounds of chivalry. It's on the grounds of like
00:44:55.580
a recognition that men and women are not equal. And that there are codes of chivalry and conduct
00:45:03.420
that men should abide by. That men should, men should treat women differently from how they treat
00:45:11.220
men. And women should treat men differently from how they treat other women. That is the only basis
00:45:17.820
upon which you can coherently condemn Dana White here. But most of the people doing the condemnation,
00:45:26.380
they don't accept that basis. And so it's all, it's all incoherent. Which by the way, you know,
00:45:31.300
and I'm a believer in chivalry. But does chivalry lead to the conclusion that it's never acceptable
00:45:40.600
under any circumstance for a man to strike women? Well, of course not. I mean, there could certainly be
00:45:45.720
and have been conceivable scenarios where self-defense is necessary. Like you're not, you're not called
00:45:51.180
upon as a man to just be beaten silly and to not defend yourself at all because the person doing it
00:45:57.100
is a woman. That's absurd. But general, it's kind of a general principle. If you don't subscribe to the
00:46:04.800
leftist notion that the sexes are equal, then you see that they're unequal and you think, well, men should
00:46:10.660
respond in situations differently to women and then they respond to men. All right.
00:46:17.680
Who makes a Twitter mob fly off the handle with rage? Who's to blame? It's a sweet baby gang.
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without notice. Visit lightstream.com slash Walsh for more information. Michael Michez says,
00:47:35.820
there was once a frog in a beaker full of water. The beaker was over a Bunsen burner and the water
00:47:40.860
in the beaker was slowly getting hotter. At some point, the frog began to realize that he was in
00:47:44.440
danger and in a panic began to try to get out of the water. Fortunately, someone convinced the frog
00:47:48.820
that he was only having a moral panic and he was able to die in peace. Perfect. You have, Michael,
00:47:55.280
I will say you have in a YouTube comment, you have succinctly summarized our cultural condition
00:48:01.300
there. That's pretty much it. That's the whole story. That's the whole story of a modern Western
00:48:06.740
culture. A body in progress says, Matt managed to say senior member of research at Media Matters
00:48:12.580
without laughing out loud at the idea that Media Matters does research and has a senior member of
00:48:16.640
that department. That takes major acting skills. It's not acting at all. I mean, it's research.
00:48:25.040
I mean, it's very tough research too, because they have to watch me every day.
00:48:27.660
And I know it's not a difficult, not an easy thing to do. So as always, I thank them for their
00:48:35.040
service. Janet says, my heart swells with pride for you, dad. Dad. Well, Sweet Daddy Walsh is the,
00:48:44.840
of course, the proper name. And if your heart is swelling, you probably shouldn't have gotten that
00:48:49.580
booster shot. Raptor Man 101 says, the 2 million subscriber special should be Matt confronting people
00:48:55.260
who haven't returned their shopping carts. You know, well, we've already, we've run past 2 million
00:49:02.060
subscribers without even noting it, I guess. This is like once, well, I guess this is this thing.
00:49:05.960
Once you get the first, you get to the first million, it's a big deal. And then, and then after
00:49:11.580
that, it's like, nobody cares anymore. I think you have to get to 100. The next one that anyone will
00:49:14.900
care about is if I get to 100 million subscribers. Similar to what I, and I will abide by that because
00:49:21.400
this is what I say all the time about, about birthdays. You know, we celebrate birthdays when
00:49:27.080
you're a child and in YouTube terms, sort of like your childhood and adolescence is before you get to
00:49:32.600
the millions of subscribers. And then you get there, you're an adult now, YouTuber. And, and we don't
00:49:38.400
really recognize birthdays until it's something really significant. As far as confronting people
00:49:43.520
who haven't returned their shopping carts, I would love to do that. But that is already,
00:49:47.400
that service is already being provided by, by cart narcs. And they're out there every day
00:49:53.640
hunting down people who aren't returning the shopping carts. And I think they're doing a
00:49:59.420
fantastic job. I wouldn't want to steal, I wouldn't want to steal the idea from them.
00:50:02.680
But also I think they're already performing that service. Let's see. Andrew says, Matt,
00:50:10.100
do you actually have to watch a WNBA game or can you hang out at the concession stands and walk around
00:50:14.960
the arena when you're at the WNBA game? Do WNBA games even have concession stands? I don't mean
00:50:20.140
that as a joke. Do they actually sell? Is there someone there who tries to actually sell like
00:50:27.560
merchandise and food? Is it just some kid with a lemonade stand selling lemonade for a, in a plastic
00:50:35.580
cup for 25 cents? Well, whatever it is. No, I think it's, it, this is clear. You know, I gotta,
00:50:41.400
I have to sit and actually watch the game. And as I've been saying all along, I, I, nobody's ever
00:50:48.140
watched an entire WNBA game before. So we don't, in fairness, we're all sort of assuming that it will
00:50:56.380
be horribly boring and tedious. We're assuming that. And I think it's a pretty safe assumption,
00:51:03.240
but no one's tested the theory. No one's actually tested the theory. Not one single person. This is a
00:51:06.800
scientific fact. Not one single person in the world has ever actually watched an entire WNBA game.
00:51:12.180
And, and I, and so I am going to be that first person and we'll find out. Maybe I'll enjoy it.
00:51:17.080
Maybe I'll get into it. Maybe I'll be their first fan. That would be a twist ending that nobody would
00:51:23.460
see coming. And finally, Tampa Tampa six says my response to Matt's assault on ranch is simple.
00:51:29.920
We agree on a lot, roughly 99%, but I will hold my ground. If you want me to stop covering my
00:51:35.440
pineapple pizza in ranch, then come and take it. Well, I don't want to touch that stuff. So I won't
00:51:40.760
do that, but I actually, I'm not one of these people that has a problem with pineapple pizza.
00:51:44.960
Okay. I will, you have my blessing. You want to put pineapple on your pizza. That's fine. I don't,
00:51:48.660
I don't see pizza as this sacred thing. You can, you can try different toppings. I am,
00:51:53.880
have a very surprisingly open mind when it comes to pizza. Uh, but ranch doesn't belong on anything.
00:51:59.720
It is, uh, if there is anything, well, I'll put it this way. If there's any food item
00:52:06.380
that would be improved by ranch, then that is a food item that is not fit for human consumption
00:52:12.640
to begin with. So that's the way that I would slice it. So to speak in 2022, we launched Jeremy's
00:52:19.380
razors as a joke at first, but it was an important joke. Now just nine months and 15 premium products
00:52:24.900
later, we've amassed the largest social media following of any brand in the category and taken
00:52:28.940
over $10 million away from so-called men's grooming companies that despise masculinity.
00:52:34.200
But that was just the beginning. This year, we've got even more great products and woke scorching
00:52:38.640
endeavors in store. So skip the resolutions and join the revolution. That was good. I like that
00:52:44.540
together. We'll up, we'll upend the wokeonomy and finally give conservatives a return on their
00:52:48.840
values. Are you ready to really make a change this year? We'll pick up Jeremy's razors, hair, skin,
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beard, and body care products today by going to dailywire.com slash Walsh. That's daily wire.
00:52:58.940
Dot com slash Walsh. Now let's get to our daily cancellation.
00:53:06.580
After Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field, everyone on social media and in the
00:53:11.660
news media and especially in sports media agreed and said out loud over and over and over again
00:53:16.260
that football is just a game and that when stacked up against matters of life and death,
00:53:20.640
it is completely unimportant. Now this is of course true and incredibly obvious. So obvious in fact,
00:53:26.940
that it doesn't really need to be said, much less does it need to be said 100 million times in a row
00:53:31.980
repeated over and over again like some sort of incantation. But one thing we know about tragedies
00:53:37.120
in the modern world is that they serve as occasions for people to issue totally unnecessary statements
00:53:41.320
just like that. Not because they need to be said, but because the person making the statement
00:53:45.720
needs everyone else to see him making it. Otherwise known as virtue signaling. And when it comes to
00:53:52.200
pointless unproductive games, games that especially should not be a top priority in the light of tragic
00:53:57.020
occurrences like the Damar Hamlin incident, this game, the game of virtue signaling is even more
00:54:02.880
pointless and less productive than football. That's especially the case for the particular brand
00:54:07.900
of virtue signaling that comes in the form of performative outrage. This obviously is the
00:54:13.260
internet's favorite kind of virtue signaling and favorite game. And ironically, many of the people who
00:54:17.980
tripped over themselves to clarify and declare that games aren't important now that Damar Hamlin is in
00:54:22.780
the hospital were in that very moment at the same time playing the most frivolous self-serving
00:54:28.480
grotesque game of all, which is performative virtue signaling outrage. Now we know how the game is played.
00:54:35.640
As soon as the terrible event occurs, the hordes of frivolous simpering idiots immediately begin
00:54:40.900
prowling the internet in search of any opinions connected to the event that they, the frivolous simpering
00:54:46.480
idiots, can label as somehow inappropriate or out of bounds. Then every single person in this group will
00:54:53.500
individually denounce the bad opinion. So the bad thing happens, and all these people go on the internet
00:55:00.000
and say, let's find someone saying something bad about this. And once they find it, every person individually
00:55:06.220
has to take turns saying, I disagree with this. Even after it's been denounced 50 million times, still, idiots
00:55:14.040
number 50 million and one and 50 million and two and so on must make sure to register their disapproval as
00:55:19.620
well. I also think this is bad, they say. Not because there's any need for this allegedly bad opinion to be
00:55:26.640
condemned even more after it's already been condemned by half the planet, but only because once again, they
00:55:33.000
want everyone else to see them condemning it. This is how the game is played. And after the Damar Hamlin injury,
00:55:39.480
a number of candidates were selected as targets for this dog pile of dummies. Principal among them
00:55:45.080
was sports pundit Skip Bayless. Now, to be totally clear, I have no affinity for Skip Bayless. I don't
00:55:52.520
enjoy his work. I don't watch his show. I don't care about his opinions. But that doesn't mean that I'm
00:55:57.640
going to pretend that even his most benign statements are unthinkably monstrous and heinous. Yeah, that's
00:56:04.180
what's happened. That's exactly what happened on Monday night in response to one in a series of tweets
00:56:08.740
that Bayless posted about the Hamlin situation. This one tweet, the one that provoked the ire of
00:56:13.980
millions, earned over 100,000, okay, 100,000 outraged comments in a day and over 100 million
00:56:23.880
views on Twitter. We know that now because Elon changes. You can see how many views a tweet gets.
00:56:29.920
This one got over 100 million. That's a third of the country. He was trending number one on the entire
00:56:37.000
site. This one tweet about Hamlin was allegedly so offensive, so out of bounds, so scandals, such an
00:56:43.740
unseemly abomination that it received this level of attention. There were many outraged media headlines
00:56:49.760
published about it. People called for Bayless to be fired from his Fox Sports show. Many professional
00:56:54.600
athletes joined in the cancellation chorus saying he should be fired. The tweet, which I'll read in a
00:57:00.760
moment, was called sick and gross and disgusting and disgraceful. It was so bad that Skip's co-host on
00:57:08.060
his Fox show, Shannon Sharp, refused to come to work and host the show with him on Tuesday because he was
00:57:14.120
so upset by this tweet. It was so bad that Skip not only apologized for the tweet and a follow-up tweet,
00:57:20.360
but even began his show, which he was hosting by himself yesterday, by apologizing for even hosting a
00:57:26.280
show to begin with. Watch. Janet, allow me to say up front that I apologize for what we're going to
00:57:38.140
set out to do here today if it offends anyone, because we're going to try to do the show pretty much as
00:57:45.980
we usually do the show. But I'll admit up front, I'm still shook up by what happened last night to Damar
00:57:57.920
Hamlin. In fact, I'm still wrecked. In fact, I'm not sure I'm capable of doing this show today. But after barely
00:58:09.580
sleeping on it, I decided to give it a try. Maybe I'll fail. Maybe we will fail. But we're going to try.
00:58:19.660
So he says he's wrecked, incapable of doing the show. He couldn't sleep
00:58:24.180
because of this. Really? It's a terrible, very sad thing. But
00:58:30.240
is that? Well, this is all performance, we see. That's all this is. That's all any of this is.
00:58:36.960
It's performance. The outrage against Skip Bayless, Bayless's response to it. It's all
00:58:42.740
performance. And as for the tweet that set this all off, here it is. Okay, get ready for it.
00:58:49.540
He tweeted on Monday night, shortly after the injury first occurred. He said,
00:58:53.240
no doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game. But how? This late in the season,
00:58:57.600
a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular season outcome, which suddenly seems so irrelevant.
00:59:02.640
That's it. 159 million views, 100,000 outraged comments, calls for termination because of that.
00:59:12.380
What exactly is the problem? He asks a rhetorical question about how the NFL will handle rescheduling
00:59:18.580
the game, while in the same breath acknowledging that the game is insignificant compared to the
00:59:24.280
tragedy. What precisely is so horrifying about that? The faux outrage mob will respond that Bayless
00:59:31.080
shouldn't have been thinking at all about the logistics of rescheduling the game at a time
00:59:35.020
like that, even if he acknowledged out loud that it's not important. But that's nonsense.
00:59:40.380
Every single person watching the game at home was wondering about how they'd handle postponing and
00:59:47.620
rescheduling, and especially a week before the regular season is supposed to end.
00:59:51.300
Every person watching the game had that same thought. It's a normal thing to think about.
00:59:56.360
Not because this consideration is more important than Damar Hamlin's life, but simply because it's
01:00:01.760
one thought of many that happens across a human being's brain. People are capable of holding more
01:00:06.820
than one thought in their head at the same time. Now, I will confess to you right now that as I was
01:00:11.720
sitting with my wife in our living room, and we saw this, and we had the same question. We very
01:00:18.060
briefly acknowledged that canceling the game at this point in the season presents an interesting
01:00:21.620
challenge, and we wondered how they would handle it. If you had been sitting in the living room with us,
01:00:26.480
and you overheard this very brief exchange, you would not have shrieked out in horror and cried,
01:00:32.620
you monsters, how dare you? That's a disgraceful thing to briefly consider at a time like this.
01:00:39.340
You would not have done that, because that would be insane. That would be an insane reaction
01:00:44.940
to such a benign nothing of a comment. And that's because that's the sort of histrionic display that
01:00:53.680
people reserve solely for social media and nowhere else in life. There are a great many statements a
01:01:01.220
person can make that would be considered perfectly normal in any other context of life, and yet be
01:01:06.960
greeted with screeches of outrage on social media, where mob rule and performative anger combine to
01:01:12.660
create an environment where you simply are not allowed to say normal things. The whole thing is
01:01:19.360
obscene. The phony outrage mob is obscene. Skip Bayless, well, he's obscene too, for plenty of other
01:01:24.980
reasons. But in this particular case, the obscene thing is the tiresome internet charade, the pageant
01:01:31.000
of fake anger, wherein a person cries, how dare you think the same thing that I was also thinking?
01:01:38.560
And then, by the way, I was thinking, and I maybe would have tweeted myself until I saw
01:01:42.540
that you tweeted it and how people reacted to you, so I won't tweet it. Instead, I'll pretend to be
01:01:46.380
outraged by that thing myself. This is the state of things on the internet at all times, every day,
01:01:53.060
no matter what is happening in the world. But the outrage theater really kicks into high gear,
01:01:56.640
and people put in their most melodramatic Oscar bait-type performances when there is some kind of
01:02:02.580
tragic event, right? As soon as the tragedy occurs, the mob begins laying traps in the form of these
01:02:08.520
arbitrary rules. And depending on the tragedy, there are things you are allowed to say and things
01:02:14.040
you're not allowed to say. You're not going to know what the rules are until you've run afoul of
01:02:18.720
them. That's the game. Part of the fun for the outrage mob is that they change the rules for every
01:02:23.180
tragedy. They move the landmines around, and then they sit back, barely disguising their gleeful
01:02:28.040
anticipation as they wait for people to step on them. Now, of course, another aspect of the game here
01:02:34.840
is that not every tragic event in the world registers on social media. People die every day.
01:02:41.760
Terrible things happen every day. People die in the course of doing their jobs every day, and most of
01:02:48.760
these atrocities and tragedies are ignored entirely. You're allowed to carry on with your life, say
01:02:52.720
whatever you want, without even acknowledging it. In fact, there's a lot of death that happens every
01:02:57.940
single day that you're allowed to make light of on Twitter. I mean, there are literally videos
01:03:02.180
posted on Twitter of people dying, like videos of death posted on Twitter that people will post and
01:03:08.240
joke about. Here's a video of someone actively dying in front of you. Isn't this funny? Well, that's okay.
01:03:17.140
Every once in a while, though, one tragic event is selected as the main topic of conversation on
01:03:21.840
social media, and all of the rules of conversation change in light of it. Everything you're allowed to
01:03:27.300
say, even if it's not about the subject, now changes. Though, again, you're not going to know
01:03:32.780
the rules until you violate them. And then in a day or two, maybe two days, you know, maybe three days,
01:03:38.040
it will be randomly decided that enough time has been spent on the tragedy, and everybody just moves
01:03:42.860
on. And most of the people who are so emotionally affected by this event will never say another word
01:03:48.640
about it ever again for as long as they live, and they will carry on as if it never happened.
01:03:53.860
That's all part of the game. And the real terrible consequence is that it turns the people who play
01:04:01.220
this game into sociopaths, incapable of experiencing authentic human emotion.
01:04:09.100
You know, those who grow so accustomed to performing emotion, performing it, performing emotion,
01:04:15.140
they eventually forget how to actually feel emotion. So ironically, as they appear increasingly
01:04:21.280
over-sensitive, they're actually becoming the opposite. They aren't sensitive. They're sociopaths,
01:04:27.360
feigning outrage, feigning sadness, because they cannot feel it.
01:04:34.160
They can't feel anything else either. And that is why they, the faux outrage mob coming after Skip
01:04:41.100
Bayless, though not Skip Bayless himself, are today canceled. Though Skip Bayless will, I'm sure,
01:04:46.040
get his turn in due time. And that'll do it for this portion of the show as we move over to the
01:04:50.980
members' block. Hope to see you there. If not, talk to you tomorrow. Godspeed.