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Thank you Jackie N Charlotte, Jay Humbard, Carolyn Baum, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.CNN is engaged in a systemtic lie to its audience and I’ve got all the evidence to show it. CNN altered its reporting about the Iran bombing and is not just refusing to acknowledge it left out key details, but is doubling down that its original reporting included the key details about the intelligence report being “low confidence.”CNN did not originally report the intelligence report was “low confidence,” but now its anchors and fact checkers insist that it did.CNN should apologize for its original reporting. Instead, it has chosen to gaslight its audience. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Even on Memorial Day, the news waits for no one. But also, I wanted to try a new set up in my home office so I figured I could use the Afternoon Briefing as an excuse to tinker. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

I said something yesterday on my radio show that has stirred the pot and earned me unmitigated hate mail from all corners of the internet. I made a flipant comment that the coordinated coverup of Joe Biden’s mental and physical decline by Democrats and members of the media was worse than the events of January 6th. After careful consideration… I stand by… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

For all the hand-wringing over a so-called constitutional crisis, the reality is this: President Trump keeps winning at the Supreme Court. Time and again, progressive judges in the lower courts have tried to block the lawful exercise of presidential power—and time and again, the Supreme Court has struck them down. Whether it’s firing federal employees, deporting violent gang members, or declining to spend appropriated funds, the Court has affirmed the constitutionality of his actions.When you step back and look at the pattern, it becomes clear we’ve had this story backwards. The real constitutional crisis isn’t the president asserting his authority—it’s the coordinated obstruction by progressive judges who are actively working to undermine a democratically elected president and the constitutional powers entrusted to him. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis joined me on radio to share that Senator Marco Rubio’s replacement will be named in the coming days. The Governor also commented on the urgency of calling a special session of the Florida legislature to expedite Trump’s deportation plans claiming, "This can't wait… People say it's premature. It's never premature to do the right thing." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

When Rush Limbaugh was guiding me through the early years of my radio career, he often warned that I should rarely have a guest on my show because talk radio is an intimate conversation between me and my audience. I have internalized this advice and, you will notice, rarely have guests on my show.The lone exception in recent months was today when Meta’s Joel Kaplan joined me. Joel is a former law clerk for Antonin Scalia and is now leading Meta’s efforts to reprioritize free speech on Facebook and Instagram. You need to hear this conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

I don’t know Susie Wiles. I once blamed her for some of Trump’s bad endorsements and only later learned I was just being used by people who didn’t like her and had an ax to grind. It was a reminder of just how self-interested some people are. A lot of people see Donald Trump not so much as an advancement of policy interests, but an advancement of their own bottom line.To Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita’s credit, they have done a very good job of marginalizing those people and keeping Trump as focused as they can. Trump, an extrovert, chats with everybody and lots of people get into his head. Managing that alone can be difficult. Wiles and LaCivita took things to the next level and not only won, but won the popular vote. Sure, Trump gets the credit. But as someone who has run campaigns, the staff work magic.One of the difficulties, worth sharing, is that LaCivita was also the target of a hit job. The publication smeared him as getting rich off Trump. Lots of others have or have tried to. As Corey Lewandowski tried to reassert himself back into the campaign, curiously, more rumors about LaCivita spread. The allegation has been that Lewandowski, who I don’t think is a good person, was trying to undermine LaCivita’s role in the campaign. That effort ended on Election Night. It was LaCivita on stage, not Lewandowski. And now, thankfully, the two people who kept the grifters at bay will be there to continue helping Trump focus and keeping his supporters from being taken advantage of. The details matter, so listen to this from today’s show. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

After nearly a month of the American press corp doggedly covering President Biden, they have dutifully retreated to their partisan posts and resumed parroting Democratic talking points now that Harris has the nomination. When Republicans began pushing the failures of Harris’s time as Border Czar, USA Today, Time Magazine, CBS, and Axios (within hours of each other) quickly buried the story and published “fact checks” claiming that was never the role given to Harris. Except it was. In fact, Axios was the same outlet in 2021 that explicitly claimed Harris was Biden’s Border Czar and only yesterday corrected the story from three years ago. The blatantly obvious coordination between members of the press and the Democratic Party is a reminder of what Republicans are up against this November. Now that Biden has stepped aside, the American press is quite literally willing to rewrite history to ensure their team wins. As Charles Cooke said in National Review, “It sure was fun having a press corp for a month.” Watch: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

I am old enough to remember the media’s obsessive hatred of George W. Bush. Countless MSNBC hosts opened their nightly shows in the early 2000s with some reference to George W. Bush being Hitler while simultaneously being Dick Cheney’s puppet for Halliburton. While Barack Obama was given a Nobel Peace Prize for simply showing up, Bush was never given an ounce of credit for his PEPFAR program that saved the lives of millions of people from HIV in more than 50 countries around the world. One of the most interesting and consistent critiques of the GOP by the media was that the Republican Party should have gone with John McCain instead of Bush. They described McCain as a “maverick” Republican who wasn’t afraid of going after the far right and knew when to compromise with the Democrats. The media’s love of McCain abruptly halted in 2008 when McCain won the Republican nomination and faced off against Barack Obama in the general election. Immediately, McCain was deemed to be an aging, racist, war-mongering radical who had Hitler-like tendencies and was unfit to be President of the United States. The unvarnished attacks went so far as to include allegations that he continued to suffer from PTSD from his time as a prisoner of war and could potentially lead the country back into war. The media immediately went to war with Mitt Romney when he secured the Republican nomination in 2012 claiming he must be a racist homophobe because of his Mormon background. In addition, the media dug up trivial stories from Romney’s time in college and went so far as to claim that Romney put a dog on top of a car. But then came Donald Trump in 2016. Multiple hosts, including my friend Bill Mahar, admitted that they had sensationalized their attacks on previous Republicans and that this time, they were serious. The racist, sexist, bigoted, and homophobic claims they made against Bush, McCain, and Romney were largely symbolic, but this time they meant it. Donald Trump was a real-life bad guy despite their identical claims over the preceding decade. The American people heard these claims as the media’s version of the boy who cried wolf. Time after time, we were falsely warned that the Republican was a dictator, and only now does the media claim they are serious. The reality is the left is fine with dictators, so long as they are good progressives who abide by the laws of critical theory. Che Guevara operated as a dictator killing thousands of innocent people but did so in an equitable way through freedom fighting. Hamas waged a ‘freedom fighting” campaign on October 7th by raping women and killing the babies of their oppressors and are therefore heroes to the left. The critical theory lens that the left views society through complicates their view that democracy is on the ballot this November. Middle-American voters who would rather watch Sportscenter than the evening news see a Democratic Party obsessed with democracy but sympathizing with dictatorial actors around the globe. Meanwhile, their grocery bills are higher, crime is on the rise, and they see a world that is immensely less stable than just four years ago. But the media wants them to know that this time they are serious. This time the Democrats are right and democracy really is on the ballot. I just don’t think that message works. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

It is a remarkable turn of events for Donald Trump.The former President led the nation and much of the Western World to realize that the Chinese spy app TikTok threatens national security. During his tenure in office, Trump tried to bar TikTok’s operations in the United States because the company is, ultimately, owned by the Chinese Communist Party. There is copious evidence China uses the app to spy.Unfortunately, Trump left office before ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese-owned parent company, was forced to divest, and Biden walked it all back. But even Biden, despite his campaign embracing TikTok, has continued to prohibit TikTok on government phones and in government facilities. Multiple states now ban TikTok on government property and on government devices.Many of you believe your phones are listening to you. You have a conversation and suddenly see an ad on social media on your device for precisely what you were talking about. Imagine all those conversations flowing back to China.You think you don’t have anything to worry about. But get a new phone, not your current phone. Set up a new TikTok account that is unconnected to any information related to you and not on your home wifi. Now, watch how the algorithm starts feeding you anti-American propaganda, transgender propaganda, pro-Hamas propaganda, and anti-Semitic propaganda — TikTok isn’t just spying on you but is indoctrinating your children against American values.Just the other day, the government arrested 25 year old Sergeant Korbein Schultz from Texas for selling classified military intelligence to China. Schultz worked in Army Intelligence. Now, imagine your kid, ten years from now, getting a job in government. China has ten years’ worth of data on what your kid was secretly watching on the internet and engaging with on TikTok. They won’t need money to blackmail your kid.TikTok is a national security threat to the United States, and Donald Trump was right to raise the red flag about it and take action. On Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 50-0 to force ByteDance to divest its control of TikTok to continue operating in the United States. When is the last time Congress agreed unanimously to anything other than naming a post office? That’s how big a deal this is.The bill does not ban TikTok. It has nothing to do with free speech. It has everything to do with China using TikTok as a surveillance tool in the United States and as an app designed to poison our children. TikTok can operate, just not with Chinese control. Contrary to the spin against the legislation, this carefully drafted bipartisan legislation has nothing to do with the First Amendment and everything to do with Chinese communist control of the app.Sadly, now Donald Trump is calling for Republicans to kill the legislation. In a Truth Social post, he claims it would only help Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Because Trump is still nursing grudges about 2020, he claims killing TikTok (which the legislation does not do) would enrich Meta.This is not only false, but in taking this stance, Trump is letting his emotional wrath trump national security. It is dangerous immaturity.And, for the record, Meta refuses to operate in China because it does not want China to have access to its servers. TikTok is controlled by China.It must also be noted that the members of Congress and conservative groups most vocally opposed to this legislation are all funded by financier Jeff Yass. Yass is a major investor in TikTok and is opposed to the legislation. He also leans Republican in his giving.Yass’s investment company, Susquehanna International Group, bet big on TikTok in 2012, buying a stake in parent company ByteDance now measured at about 15%. That translates into a personal stake for Yass of 7% in ByteDance. It is worth roughly $21 billion based on the company’s recent valuation, or much of his $28 billion net worth as gauged by Bloomberg.Whether because of a donor’s interests or his emotional grievances, Donald Trump trying to sabotage his legacy on national security is shameful and dangerous and, if a preview of what will come from a second term, is less than reassuring. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Union County, North Carolina is making headlines today because county leaders have finalized plans to ban fluoride in the drinking water. Despite every dentist in the county protesting the decision, county residents claim that since the CDC got COVID-19 wrong, they probably got fluoride wrong too. Even though fluoride has been in the drinking water since the 40s and offers well-documented protection against tooth decay, the facts don’t matter. Alex Jones said it turns the frogs gay and that carries infinitely more weight than the CDC to some people. Inevitably, they will next ban the paths of airplanes over Union County for fear of contracting chemtrails. While the Alex Jones clip is what made it famous, the anti-fluoride movement was started by rich liberals on the West Coast and slowly seeped into conspiratorial wings of the right. The conspiratorial movements like fluoride and MMR vaccines causing autism started on the left but were picked up and ultimately blamed on the right. While it’s fun to laugh at the idiocy of people who actually believe this stuff, I worry that this is the beginning of a return to the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages was a period that coincided with the fall of the Roman Empire when significant societal advancements were lost and culture moved backward. I think this may be happening again. One of the basic advancements that we take for granted is the eradication of polio thanks to the polio vaccine. This deadly disease that claimed the lives of countless children and rendered others paralyzed was practically eradicated thanks to Dr. Jonas Salk’s first vaccine used in 1955. But now, thanks to conspiratorial actors on the left and disseminated to the right, polio is on the rise again in this country and around the world. The people who have not lost their minds are fighting against the unknown. “There are no cases of smallpox so how do we know the vaccines work?” scream the conspiracists. “Kids don’t have significant tooth decay, so how can we be sure fluoride works?” they ask.I fear we are returning to a dark age because a growing number of Americans are willfully turning their backs on what works. For every doctor on the right who claims the MMR vaccine causes autism, a doctor on the left will advise you that it is medically beneficial to mutilate yourself if it means your sex and gender align. The bottom line is there are anti-truth movements on the left and the right but the progressive elite in this country are claiming their quacks are right. The progressives got so much wrong about COVID and now openly embrace the pseudoscience of transgenderism that the pseudoscience of the right is rearing its head now too. Both sides have doctors and scientists who tell each side what they want to hear, regardless of truth. Meanwhile, the government is failing at its basic responsibilities and seeding more distrust as its arrogant experts and elite use the discord to control. All of this is the product of a growing idolatry in the country, the worship of self by both sides.This doesn’t end well. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

TRANSCRIPT: I may be destroying my career here. I might be, but if Michelle Obama does become the Democratic nominee for president, you can stop listening to me. I don't think it's going to happen for a lot of reasons, including the number of Democrats who really believed Joe Biden was going to be a one term president and behind the scenes are deeply resentful of him and also resentful of Obama for paving the way for Trump. They wouldn't stand for Michelle Obama, but it is neither here nor there.You should understand there are people online, on podcasts, online prognosticators, pundits, telegram groups, and the like who are pushing the idea and seeding it into people's minds that Michelle Obama — the Democrats are going to pull a bait and switch and make her the Democratic nominee. If that's the case, I don't believe it is, you can stop listening to me.But please, please for the love of God do me a favor. If she's not the nominee come November, please remember who told you she would be the nominee and unfollow them on social media.Delete their podcasts. Stop listening to them. This gets me to the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce thing. There's a huge rumor started that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, they're not actually dating. It's that it is a PSYOP campaign, psychological operation, by the Department of Defense or others to help Joe Biden. They're dating not because they're in a relationship or in love, but it's to help Joe Biden get elected. It's all about politics. It's all about Joe Biden.If you do believe this, you are the definition of a dumb ass. I just need you to know that and I'm sorry if that offends some of you with me saying that so bluntly, but you really are if you believe this. Here's the thing. Most of the people online selling you this bill of goods, and it is a hyper online affair, they don't actually believe it. They're hoping you do. It's not a coincidence some of the loudest voices about this conspiracy theory were the people in the QAnon Pizzagate conspiracy.They didn't actually believe it, but they hoped that some people would. In fact, some people did and showed up and tried to shoot up the place because of the conspiracy theory. They don't care about the fallout. They care about themselves and their power. It's a nihilism that's happening on the right. They don't care about the ends. They don't really even care about the means. They care about the giggles and the clout. They care about you talking about what they started.They care about getting into your mind and getting you to believe something. It's all about power for them in the same way critical theory is about power for the left. Now what's going on here? It's not a coincidence many of these are young men on the right who are social media influencers and they claim to be some sort of consultant to get people on social media. What happens is they talk about this stuff and other people then begin to talk about it and link at it saying, "Look at this idiot who believes this stuff."They don't care that they're being called an idiot. What they care about is you're linking back to them. Notice I'm not doing that. You are mentioning their name. Notice I'm not doing that. You are elevating their platform so they can then go to candidates and donors and say, "Look how influential I am. Look at all the people talking about me. Look at the impact that I'm having in the arena and write me a check. Give me a job." That's what this is about for them. They don't care about the fallout of it.They don't care that someone actually went to that pizza restaurant in Washington, DC, and tried to harm people. They don't care about that. They care about being able to get the influence. Therefore, they were able to get the political consulting contract. They got the donor to fund their cause because they're a social media influencer and they run people's social media accounts and look at all the attention they can get for you. You won’t be surprised to learn how many of them are also tied to Turning Point USA.Meanwhile, there are dumb people who live sheltered lives who fall for it and get taken advantage of. There are people who decide to do something about it and take action. They don't care about any of that. They don't care about you. They're willing to lie to you. Don't believe the lies. They themselves are awful people. They're terrible people who really should be shunned online. You should stop following them and stop listening to them and stop platforming them and stop elevating them.Put it to you this way. Taylor Swift is, now that Queen Elizabeth II is dead, the most popular woman on the planet. She's popular among Republicans. She's popular among Democrats. She's popular among everyone. The NFL is the most watched thing on television, and the Kansas City Chiefs games are some of the most watched NFL games because Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are in a relationship. Kelce is the most popular tight end in the NFL. He's very good at his job.Yo

Tim Alberta has a new book out about the American church in an age of extremism. Progressive atheist Rob Reiner has a new documentary out about the dangers of Christian nationalism. Some friends participated with both Tim’s book and Reiner’s documentary.I have other friends who are antagonists towards it all. Some proudly call themselves Christian Nationalists because it gets a rise out of all the right people. They are not, definitionally, in favor of passing laws barring anyone but orthodox Christians from seeking office, etc, but because the left gets worked up over the term, they’ll embrace it.Alberta, in writing his book, experienced awfulness at his dad’s funeral, where a member of the congregation harassed Alberta about politics. My wife, in 2016, told her Bible Study that she’d been diagnosed with cancer, and a woman told her that the woman would pray for my wife but wanted to hit me for not supporting Trump.People have let their politics get the best of them, and too many people are letting their politics shape their faith.But, concurrently, a prominent pastor friend of mine who passed away earlier this year had more than one conversation with me where he and I were concerned many of our friends were letting their critics radicalize them. This is a growing problem in American Christianity — a far bigger problem than Christian Nationalism. People are being radicalized by their antagonists. People are weaving their theological concerns and practical concerns within evangelicalism around how others have treated them.This is not just happening to those who now criticize evangelicalism from within. It’s also happening to those who criticize the critics. They want to rile them up. For a time, many of the pastors I talked with were concerned about people in their churches after George Floyd, insisting that the pastors needed to speak out about social justice. Now, I am far more likely to encounter pastors who are combatting congregants convinced that the pastor has gone woke if he is not denouncing social justice every Sunday. The merry online band of TheoBros see woke everywhere unless you’re explicitly against the wokes daily, and the merry online band of deconstructed evangelicals see Christian Nationalism everywhere unless you explicitly reject the GOP.The only religion that has a concept of grace has a lot of graceless people in it on both sides, convinced myopicly that only they are in the right. And a lot of that gracelessness comes from a sense of betrayal by others.While all these people are squabbling and writing and talking on camera and banging away on keyboards, tens of thousands of pastors are going to get up this morning and preach. Then, they will spend time with family and friends before going to make hospital rounds to pray for those ailing and dying members of their congregations. Tomorrow, most of them will get up and go to work their day jobs because the pulpit is a passion calling, but working at Walmart or driving a bus pays the bills.Remember, most pastors in the United States do not have the church as their full-time calling. If your church has a full-time pastor who does not work another job, you are in the minority.When the authors write the books, the talking heads talk to Rob Reiner, and the TheoBros fight back online about the meta conversations and actual conversations of evangelical problems, worries, fears, concerns, and creeping nationalism in the congregation, tens of thousands of pastors who will never be interviewed, known nationally, or write a best seller will divide their time between visiting wounded souls and preparing a message of hope in a fallen world.The national discourse has given too much airtime to the wounds, grievances, and gripes of those who now see problems in evangelicalism because of Trump and those who see no problems at all except with those they perceive as traitors, whiners, and “BigEva.”And on both sides of that divide, otherwise well-intentioned people with good hearts who think they mean well and who are friends of mine are using their platforms, pulpits, press releases, columns, and tweets to fight a fight that is not as big or loud in the world at large as it is in their sphere and, in fighting that fight, help everyone on all sides forget the invisible local shepherd of the local flock who will struggle this week to pay a bill before standing, for free, in a pulpit on Sunday to remind people that the world and Hell itself will not prevail against God’s kingdom.Perhaps we need fewer laments, fewer Rob Reiner documentaries, fewer TheoBros puffing chests and banging on keyboards, and more reminders of the small church pastor focused on doing the right thing without a spotlight on him.The aggrieved airing their grievances are putting the spotlight on themselves, convinced they’re performing a vital service correcting an error. Increasingly, it looks like chasing idols while we forget that within evangelicalism, the Holy Spirit still works wond

Now that we have had the DeSantis vs Newsom debate, Republican primary voters deserve the Nikki Haley vs Ron DeSantis conversation. I am formally inviting both of them to Atlanta to have this conversation moderated by me. Without the distractions of Vivek or an obnoxious audience, let’s have a conversation between these two candidates about the issues Republican primary voters care about.Each candidate separately sat on stage with me for nearly an hour at my conference in Atlanta this August. About 1,000 members of the audience and many more online listened to each of them answer a host of questions on a variety of topics. Each candidate knows me and knows I have no interest in gotcha questions but instead, want to give them both a chance to explain their differences to the voter. The data tells us the GOP is full of Trump-leery voters and the vast majority of the ones I speak with are on the fence between Haley and DeSantis. An open formatted opportunity like this would allow each candidate to clearly and succinctly explain to these undecided voters why they have earned their vote.Governor DeSantis and Ambassador Haley, I am deadly serious about this. Are you in? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama joined me to talk about his military holds in the Senate. President Biden says the senator’s holds risk military readiness. Members of the military say the military is ready. This is an attempt by the Biden Administration to deploy progressive social policy into the military, using taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. Sadly, few Republicans are publicly standing by Senator Tuberville, but this is a fight worth having and we should all have his back. Take a listen to our conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

By request, this is my show open today. Happy Independence Day. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Tim Keller has died. He has been battling pancreatic cancer. Two years ago, for Good Friday, he spoke to me about his fight with cancer, his faith, and about culture. You can hear the conversation above.I got to know Tim as a critic of his who discovered that much of what I heard about what Keller had said or written was vastly different from what Keller had actually said or written.He reached out to me. We struck up a mild friendship from afar, occasionally talking by phone or email with notes of encouragement to each as my wife struggles with lung cancer and he with pancreatic cancer.Over the past few years, a segment of evangelicals on social media took to criticizing a man who has led more people to Christ than all of them combined. Many of them had worked hard to push people away from Christendom through their cold hostility and lack of grace, while Keller, with his smile, worked hard, even through cancer, to bring people to Christ.Keller, a prominent pastor in New York, boldly took on both critical theory, writing one of the best pieces against it, and also the liberal church’s rejection of biblical sexuality. Only a few weeks ago, Keller opened himself to incoming fire from progressive theologians for rejecting trans-ideology.But Keller put Christ first. He loved others. He believed in engaging a world hostile to Christ and learning from those not of the church. He told me frankly that because everyone is made in God’s image that we have much to learn even from those who might reject God. He loved people. He loved the Lord.Tim Keller’s books have been read by millions, and his words have pulled so many to Christ.His race is now won. He is home. The other day he told his family he wanted to see Jesus. Now, he walks with the Lord.RIP. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Riley Gaines is a 12-time All-American swimmer from the University of Kentucky who would much rather be in dental school than doing interviews with people like me on the radio. Instead, Gaines has been thrust into the national spotlight for having the courage to say that young women should not have to compete against men in sports or change in front of men in locker rooms. That is exactly what happened when the NCAA forced her to compete against transgender athlete Lia Thomas in a championship event. Just last week at a speaking engagement, Gaines was assaulted on stage and held hostage by trans radicalists at a university in San Francisco. If not for a police officer nearby, her situation could have been much worse. Take a moment and listen. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

This is a transcript of my radio monologue today in Charleston, South Carolina after the Nikki Haley event. You’ll want to hear this.If I sound a little different, it's because I'm actually in a hotel. I brought all my radio equipment over, and I am broadcasting live from the Charleston Place Hotel in downtown Charleston. My daughter and I were here for Nikki Haley's event, saw it about an hour and a half ago now, and ran back down to the hotel to get started on radio. Be patient with me if you're on the phones. It's going to be a little while before I can actually get my call screening software up and running. I had some issues with the hotel wifi in the room, but they're working on it.I want to talk about an issue that ties into all of these Republican presidential candidates running. I hope all of the Republican candidates take note of this important story. It has everything to Nikki Haley who just announced her presidential campaign here in Charleston just a little while ago. She spoke with passion about the American dream and her journey to launching a presidential campaign. The story is from Bloomberg News and is highlighted in The Show Notes. You need to see this. Let me just read you the beginning of this. The headline, just so you understand, is, "New Cars are Only for the Rich Now, as Automakers Rake in Profits.""With pandemic era chip shortages fading, manufacturers are keeping inventories low and prices high. The shift to EVs, electric vehicles, will make things worse. A shiny new car in the driveway has been an emblem of middle class prosperity for generations. But for the typical American family, it's now a distant Dream. The average monthly payment for a new car has soared to a record $777, nearly double from late 2019, according to Kelly Blue Book owner, Cox Automotive. That's almost a sixth of the median after-tax income for US households. Even used models have climbed to $544 a month on average. Keep in mind, yesterday's inflation report. Used cars are down about 11%. But that's still $544 a month on average."The sticker shock extends well beyond the United States where inflation is a thorny political issue for President Biden, as the 2024 election looms. In Europe, prices are flirting with records. Used car prices soared in Japan last year and in China. A rapid push to electric vehicles means consumers will have to pay more in some cities. At the root of the problem is automaker's new mantra, 'keep inventory lean and price tags fat.' Three years after the pandemic triggered a global shortage of semiconductor chips and crippled car manufacturing, Ford, General Motors, and their overseas rivals are notching big profits. And because electric vehicles cost about 25% more than the average car, the shift to plug-ins is about to make the affordability crisis even worse. Add soaring interest rates to the mix, and new cars are fast becoming the domain of the rich."Ladies and gentlemen, here is your Campaign 2024 issue. The Democrats have priced the middle class out of the American Dream. This should not be a partisan issue, but it is a partisan issue. Because the Democrats have so embraced climate extremists in this country, they think it is a good thing that the middle class must rely on public transportation or 10-year-old vehicles in order to get just to work, let alone carpool the kids. They think it is a good thing. They think it will force people into cities where they can more control our lives. They think it's better for the environment. They are ruining the American Dream for the middle class, not the poor. The poor have always largely been priced out of the automobile market, including the recently used automobile market. But for the middle class, they could at least get a recently used, a pre-owned vehicle, they call them.And for a lot of the middle class, particularly the upper middle class, they could get new vehicles. They can't do that anymore. You can't do that anymore. You are struggling to make ends meet because of inflation. Yes, it's the automakers who are doing it. Notice how Joe Biden blasts the big oil companies, but he doesn't blast the big auto manufacturers. Why is that? Unionization, perhaps? He doesn't go after them. The reason he doesn't go after them is because Joe Biden thinks it's a good thing.He said in the State of the Union, we'll only need oil and gas for about 10 more years. He said that. Joe Biden said that. That was one of his lines. He tried to defend it. It was rather indefensible, frankly. Joe Biden is pricing people out of the middle class, American Dream.Listen. This was what he said.The congressional reaction from the Republicans was appropriate for what he said despite the fact he tried to correct himself. But he said this consistently, for about 10 years, you all, we can't, there's not enough lithium. There was a report out the other day, there's not enough lithium.And right now, by the way, Politifact is coming after me for reporting a news article f

Live on my show today, I interviewed Congressman Dan Bishop (R-NC). He is one of the twenty conservatives refusing to vote for Kevin McCarthy for Speaker.Earlier today, Fox News reported that Bishop would quit if McCarthy won. That isn’t true. Bishop talked about how that story came about, why he is holding out, and what his end game is.To get a true sense of what is going on, take time to listen to the congressman. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit ewerickson.substack.comChris Wilson is my favorite pollster in America. He does not do public polling. He does the expensive internal polling that candidates rely on for strategy. He is the person whose polling had Glenn Youngkin winning when all the public polls showed Youngkin losing Virginia last year. I talked to Chris about polling, the differences between public and…

Please listen to the audio above. I said that on February 23, 2022. It is so easily predictable.You have to remember that in many states, historically, the GOP dominated early voting and Democrats dominated day of voting. But the situation is now reversed, and Democrats tend to use absentee and early voting while Republicans show up on election day. As Republican skepticism of absentee balloting has increased, they have put more faith in Election Day polling.On February 23, 2022, I said the above audio clip on the radio.I stand by it.Some of you are falling for the doom scenarios that Democrats are turning out in record numbers in early voting so you might as well give up. Don’t fall into that mindset. It was obvious that would be a last-minute media narrative concocted by the Democrats and advanced by a partisan political press. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Today, Herschel Walker joined me on my radio show. We discussed the allegations against him, his mental health, and his debate tomorrow against Raphael Warnock.The campaign put no ground rules on the interview. I wanted to make sure everyone could hear our conversation so those in Georgia, in particular, can make up their mind about November. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

My friend Josh Trevino has a very perceptive piece about Putin using nukes in Ukraine. Josh thinks Putin will use them. I think Josh is probably right for the reason he states.We have, for a very long time, embraced a doctrine of reciprocal nuclear force. If Russia uses nukes, we use nukes. It worked as a very simple deterrence. Quoting Josh,They no longer hold, and here is the very dangerous thing the Biden Administration has done. You can read about it in the 25 September 2022 Financial Times, but this is the key passage:“[W]estern officials said that a nuclear strike against Ukraine would be unlikely to spark a retaliation in kind but would instead trigger conventional military responses from western states to punish Russia.”It is a passage so astonishing that I re-read it multiple times, and within the next twenty-four hours made several phone calls to confirm. Here is what was, in aggregate, communicated to me: the passage is broadly accurate. As explained, the Biden Administration really has told the Russians that, for the first time ever, Russian nuclear-weapons use in Europe will not guarantee an American nuclear response. Instead of a nuclear attack in return, the Administration has persuaded itself that “conventional military responses” will be sufficiently deterring. Supposedly — and you ought to consider this very much unconfirmed and uncorroborated — those responses will include NATO attacks on Russian launch sites, plus a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine. The latter is functionally indistinguishable from direct NATO entry into the war on the Ukrainian side, and there should be no illusion about it.So Biden has given away the game — there’ll be no nuclear deterrence to deter Russia from using nukes. Instead, we’ll enter World War III with conventional weapons. Putin has no incentive now to restrain himself.It’s all starting to sound like those bowls are being poured out from Revelation 16. We’ve got the sores; we’ve got the land turned dark on power shortages; we’ve got the plague; we’ve got the rivers drying up, including the Tigris and Euphrates — stand by for the earthquake that may be a nuclear blast.Of course, you cannot read present times into Revelation directly. But a lot of people are or are going to. A pastor friend of mine is convinced beyond all get out that the rainbow flag is this generation’s mark of the beast. He reads Rev 16:2 as a literal prophecy fulfilled. “The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly, festering sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.”I think you have to be very careful reading prophetic scripture literally. I know a lot of people are going to.Whether you do or you do not, I want you to understand something else. Worry is a sin.I said on the radio the other day that many people are developing anxiety. Our screens are anxiety producers. The constant stream of news produces anxiety. I said on the radio that you need to calm down, unplug, and focus on those things you can control.You cannot control what Vladimir Putin does. You cannot control our President. You can exercise control over a small sphere of dominion that exists slightly beyond your front stoop. Work on that. I don’t think God meant for us to care about and certainly not fret about far-off things on the far side of the world that we can’t control.God’s got this. He has the whole world in his hands. The petal of a flower does not fall off without God’s will and foreknowledge. God is on the throne.We are headed into uncharted economic, social, cultural, and geopolitical troubles. Most people alive do not have any experience on which to draw or from which to take comfort.At times like these, your faith is going to matter way more. Understand me here. A lady sent me an angry note on Instagram after hearing me on the radio. She wrote:I can't believe I just heard what I did. Your comment about reduce anxiety about the world by not doing anything. Let happen what's going to happen ...so you believe teaching our kids to not take action when things go awry is the right thing to do? I whole heartedly disagree. I am teaching my daughter to stand up for what she believes to be wrong and create change.That’s not actually what I said. I replied to her:Actually what I said was discern what you can and cannot change and don’t get mad or worry about the stuff outside your control. God’s got that stuff.God’s got it all mapped out. Learn to discern what you can change. Most of that is right around you, probably within twenty miles of you. But there is an entire globe out there with billions of people. You cannot change them or their leaders or their operations. God can. So pray. Trust God. Stop worrying.Focus on loving your neighbor. God’s got the rest of this. Sometimes it won’t feel like it, but I promise you — God’s got this, so stop worrying. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonu

I have to cut the music out because of licensing rules. I got to keep in a couple songs, but pretty much everything else is stripped out. Nonetheless, I wanted to make the podcast version of today’s show available for everyone.Have a Happy Easter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

A Virginia school system is forcing teachers to ignore biology and call students by the pronouns of their choosing. Peter Vlaming, a highly respected teacher, dissented. He was willing to compromise and just his student’s name. But Vlaming was not willing to call a girl a boy. The school system told him he could not compromise. It was all or nothing and his decision to only use nouns and not pronouns was unacceptable. The school system fired Vlaming. Thankfully, Alliance Defending Freedom stepped up to fight for Peter Vlaming. I am a long-time supporter of ADF for reasons like this. Many good conservatives and Christians could not afford a competent, great lawyer in these areas of the law without ADF. But ADF needs your help to fight these cases. Right now, a donor is matching your dollars. So every dollar you give to ADF will be doubled.Listen to this full interview with ADF and consider donating here. Thanks to ADF for their sponsorship. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

I love doing radio on Fridays because instead of keeping topics strictly tied to the news cycle, I open up the phone lines and talk about whatever. This past Friday a caller sparked a monologue I want to share with you about worship. Whether you realize it or not, every single one of us worships something. Who or what you worship says a lot about who your God is. Take a moment and listen to this. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Late yesterday, with national fanfare and push alerts from major media outlets, Stacy Abrams announced she will run again for Governor of Georgia. The man who beat her, Governor Brian Kemp, is seeking a second term. He does so with an organized effort by Donald Trump and progressive activists all to defeat him. But he also does so with Georgia outperforming most of the nation on economic growth. He does so having reopened Georgia sooner than any other state after COVID and steering the state successfully through troubled waters.After a national media celebration for Abrams’ win, I got Brian Kemp on my radio show to talk about both his campaign, his thoughts on her campaign, and his thoughts on a possible primary challenge to him. He points out if Abrams were governor, Georgia would have stayed shut down far long and its economy would suffer. He also says he has no real control over a challenger in the primary, but no challenger can really successfully challenge his record as Governor. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Rich McCormack joined the show to discuss the new COVID variant and how Washington is responding. Rich is an ER doctor and recounted his time working in a hospital when COVID first hit. Before becoming a doctor, Rich served as a Marine and is now a candidate in Georgia’s 6th district. Take a moment and listen. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

There are no notes beyond Hour 1 because it thereafter became about the Rittenhouse trial. I said I wouldn’t send out any more of these, but I lied. Sorry. I wasn’t going to, but I want to send this because it will save me from additional writings.I want to make a very basic point. I’ll put it in big letters.If you are concerned about the rise of vigilantism, stop rioting. Stop burning down buildings claiming it is not violence. Stop defunding the police. Stop ordering the police to stand down and not enforce the law against rioters. You want to stop vigilantes, allow and encourage the police to do their jobs instead of pressuring them to stand down and let rioters destroy the livelihoods of law-abiding citizens.If you think Rittenhouse is guilty, you should consume other media. You should not discredit the American system of justice because twelve impartial jurors who reviewed all the evidence arrived at a different conclusion. Above all else, you should not do this:How arrogant a man to have not sat in the jury’s box, not observed the trial as they did, not deliberated for over twenty-four hours spread over multiple days, then decided the jury turned justice to poison. That is a theologian who now uses the word of God to claim a jury he did not serve on that spent first-hand time with the evidence of which he at best got a second-hand accounting rendered poison because he made up his mind based on how other people described the case to him. Now, the show notes. Please listen to hour one if nothing else.The Elite Hate ParentsHour 1 12pm to 1pm* The fight over critical theory* They hate the parents* The framework for education* Not grounded in data* Provoking parental backlash* Voters are responding* Austin parents arrested* Rittenhouse update* The Bison helmeted jackass* 41 months in prison* Riots v. Washington* What happened to the Antifa mythology?* The justice discrepancy* Progressives are bad at this* Prompting a voter backlash* Conservatives shouldn’t be pissed off given that* Failures of the system* Should be hesitant to give government more power* Long term plays being guided by short term thinking* The Chinese tennis player* Google de-monetizes talking about it This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

We’re doing something new. For Substack subscribers, you’ll get the podcast RSS feed the full show with no commercials and also the daily outline I prep for myself to build the show around.Now, full disclosure, I never wind up going fully off the outline. Today, for example, I hit about half the stuff I wanted to talk about. But for paying subscribers, this will appear in the podcast feed that only paying subscribers get.Tomorrow’s show will be emailed only to paying subscribers and then will no longer be emailed. It will contain a special link for paying subscribers to connect to their podcast app if they want it. Then it will appear automatically in the podcast program paying subscribers choose. Today, everyone gets it. If you want to subscribe for just $7.00 a month or $70.00 a year, click the blue button.Hour 1 12pm to 1pm* The Democrats’ Doom* No reason for hope* "In the eight states expected to have the closest Senate elections...Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin...Biden’s overall job approval rating [is] 33 percent."* SCOTUS on Roe maybe* Inflation* It is no longer transitory* Jobs* Gas* The underlying fundamentals* State legislative races* Half of Americans question Biden’s mental fitness* GOP and the Senate* 1619 Project* Book is out* All about the feelings* Democrats intend to go on offense* Accuse the GOP of racism* White supremacy to oppose CRT* Fundamental disconnect with the suburbs* The world is collapsing with Biden in charge* Russia* Belarus* Ukraine* China* Iran* Biden leadership* The competence* The danger* How many will die?* The Buttigieg v Harris feud* Paternity Leave* Now ThisTITLE: The Mental Health QuestionHour 2 1pm to 2pm* TikTok Crazies* Cultural collapse* Spiritual issue* Theological issue* The voice in our heads* The darkness and the void* The collapse of Mexico* The Myth of the Emerging Democratic Majority* It is why they scream about voter suppression* The data does not bear it out* Demography is not destiny* It has shaped Dem thinking to their detriment* The culture clash* Hispanic voter shift* It is now very real* Democrats have no way to counter it* GOP still skeptical* 2022 could change everything* The Chinese Dissident to PBSTitle: The Censorious EliteHour 3 2pm to 3pm* Aspen Institute* Prince Harry* 1st Amendment curbs* But they buy lies too* Inflation* Obama officials* Rattner* Summers* What the experts get wrong* Iran* Climate* Education* COVID* Inflation* Energy This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

This is a transcript from my radio show. You can subscribe to my premium newsletter for $7/month or $70/year. It’s a great way to stay current and support the show. We need to discuss critical theory. I'm going to do it as succinctly as I can. I feel very strongly that you need to know what it is. It is important to me that you understand it. The reason it’s important that you understand critical theory is because you will be asked about it. When they say critical theory is not taught in schools, you can respond and say, "Critical theory is a framework." Here’s what you need to know. First, you should subscribe to my premium newsletter for more exclusive content like this. If you text the word "data" to 33777, Tim Keller has written my favorite takedown of critical theory and he makes it easy for you to understand. Text "data" to 33777. Now, I'm not going to read you what Tim wrote. I'm going to tell you my view of it. A lot of it is shaped by Tim Keller and other theologians. Ligon Duncan, the Chancellor of Reform Theological Seminary, was the first person in America to tell me I needed to pay attention to critical theory. He said it was coming and I needed to get sharp on it. He sent me a lot of resources and then Tim Keller came out with some great information on it. Keller and I have had a number of conversations about this.Critical theory is a postmodern concept meant to describe power and justice. So, first of all, we need to ask ourselves, what is postmodernism? Modernism is the idea that there can be an objective reality and an objective truth and that everyone can find and grab hold of that truth. It puts factual analysis ahead of emotions. Postmodernism is the opposite. Postmodernism is the belief that there is no truth. You have your truth. I have my truth. It puts emotions and feelings above thinking. That's why you hear so many people these days say "I feel" instead of "I think." That's a sign we're in postmodern times. People put their feelings ahead of their thinking. Postmodernism is very relational. People find people who speak their truth back to them and those people become fans and have an emotional connection to them.Postmodernism as well believes that reality is constructed not through observation, but through words, and words possess the power to construct reality. So if you and I go outside and we all look up at the sky and there's not a cloud in the sky and I tell you, "The sky is blue," that may be my reality, but that may not be your reality. If you are color blind, that's not your reality. Therefore, I can't tell you what objective reality is because it's not the reality you share with me. Now, this gets to the key point you have to understand about postmodernism. This is the key point. The exception becomes the rule in postmodernism. So on the transgender debate, there are people who are born intersex. They have characteristics of both male and female. They are the exception to the rule. They are in a biological anomaly.We determine their true sex based on the priority of chromosomes. You can have XYXX, XYXY, XXXY, XXXX. The first two are determinative of the predominant gender of the person. But in rare situations, there are people who can be born as intersex. Postmodernists claim you can't say, “there are only two genders” because look at all of these other people. So, therefore they believe you can choose. They take the exception and they make it the rule. "The police are oppressors in the country. They are all bad." In postmodernism, they take the exception of the bad police officer and they apply it to the whole. That's what we're seeing in society, the exception becomes the rule. That is postmodernism. In modernism, there are rules with exceptions to rules. In postmodernism, the exception becomes the rule.Now, you’ve got to understand all of that to understand that critical theory comes from postmodernism. Emotion trump facts, your lived experience trumps reality, and there is no general rule of life. Critical theory seeks to define power. Now, I'm saying critical theory, very specifically, because there are divisions of critical theory. Critical theory tries to explain power imbalances in the world through a group of intersections or characteristics people have. The one we focus on a lot in conversations is critical race theory, but you have the various intersectional dynamics of people. What is their sexual orientation? Are they cisgender? That is their gender and their biological sex align. Are they Christian or not? Are they White or someone else?Your race, your sex, your gender, your religion, your lack of a disability or a disability, all of these things combine and the person who is White, male, cisgender, heterosexual, conservative, tall with no disability, you are the most oppressive person with the intersection. You are the most oppressive person, and the person who is none of those things is the most oppressed. Under critical theory, they believe that only the o

This is a transcript from my radio show. You can subscribe to my premium newsletter for $7/month or $70/year.I'm going to delve into a very, very boring topic and I'm going to try to make it interesting, educational and titillating so you don't fall asleep. We need to talk about tax law. I took tax law when I was in law school and was very good at it. Two of my highest grades in law school were classes on income tax and estate tax. I did great in property, con law, decedent estates and trusts, income tax, estate tax, and then all of Section 9 uniform commercial code stuff. Man, I love the transactional side of law. I was good at that stuff but I hated torts and criminal law. The worst grade I got in law school was criminal law. The Democrats in Congress want a wealth tax. They want the ability to tax your wealth. Now, a lot of people have reached out to me and said, "Well, how does this fit under the 16th Amendment?" Because the 16th amendment allows an income tax, but it's a little more complicated than that because the 16th Amendment doesn't actually govern tax law in the United States. The 1st Article of the Constitution does.Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, clause one is Congress has the power to levy taxes and lay duties on exports, imports, and the like. But then there's Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution that bars a direct tax, a capitation or direct tax, unless the tax is levied in direct proportion to the number of people who live in each state. Now, you should know that that the Supreme Court has ruled that an income tax is unconstitutional, that's why the 16th Amendment had to come about. But there were times in the country there was no income tax. Now, we’ve got to go to the way back machine to 200 BC. Yes, 200 years before the birth of Christ to this place called the Republic of Rome. The Republic of Rome was governed by a Senate. The Senate knew that it could be slow to decide things. When there were crises, the Senate would appoint dictators and they would give those dictators plenary power to do everything necessary for the defense of Rome, and when the crisis ended, the powers of the dictator were surrendered back to the Senate. But the Senate knew that when there's a crisis, you've got to have one person who can take over and you've got to have that one person able to call the shots.Rome had a history of very famous dictators. One of the most famous dictators of Rome was Sulla. They got rid of the dictatorship for a while in Rome. Then in 82 BC, Sulla came to power. Sulla knew that there had to be problems because the Roman Senate was having all sorts of issues. There was corruption and the rule of law was breaking down. So Sulla, a very popular general, largely seized power and restructured the Roman Constitution. He expanded the size of the Senate. He added a bunch of supporters. He placed limits on the powers of other groups. He limited the veto. He forbade ex-tribunes from holding the higher powers. Then in 81 BC, he walked away. His dictatorial powers were given again in 49 BC to someone you might have heard of, his name is Julius Caesar. Cesar was ultimately in 44 BC named dictator in perpetuity for reforming the Constitution and given the power to just handpick people. The American Founders were fascinated by the Roman Republicans. That's why they call us a republic, not a democracy.Now, this gets me in trouble with certain nitpicky listeners of a certain breed and age, but the Greeks had the word democracy, the Romans had the word republic. They were essentially the same thing. There were differences in their variations as to how they operated. In Greece, it was very much a direct democracy. In Rome, it was a representative democracy. The Founders were more fixated with Rome and Western civilization out of Rome and they went with a representative democracy instead of a direct democracy and they went with a republic. They called it a republic instead of a democracy but they were largely the same thing.But when I make this point people will call in and yell, "We're a republic, not a democracy!!" Yes, but you're quibbling tomato, tomato. They actually are largely the same thing. They operated slightly differently. The Founders went with the republic because they were high on the Latins and Rome. One of the fixations they had with the Roman Republic was the dictator. Now, they didn't want a dictator here. In fact, George Washington could have been king and he didn't want it. So what they did is they made Article 1 and the legislative branch the most powerful. It's not a coincidence that the legislative is Article 1 because they're supposed to be the most powerful. Article 2 is the president. He's supposed to be the second most powerful. Article 3, the courts, they were supposed to be the innocuous power. But the Founders embraced the idea of the way the Roman dictator would work. The president in times of war, as Commander in Chief, would become the most powerful man ali

This is a transcript from my radio show. You can listen to the podcast clip above. Debbie Dingell is a Congresswoman from Michigan. She was on television this morning talking about the infrastructure bill.Debbie Dingell:Jake, I'm going to approach this differently than you are. The fact of the matter is, the speaker is working very hard. And there is nobody I know ... I'm a seasoned soul around the Capitol. I was married to a master legislator. There is nobody better at legislating. She is trying to get a path to get there. And Democrats are united, that failure is not an option.Debbie Dingell:She's working very hard with the White House, the president, the Senate, and members of the caucus, who are united. 96% of us are like, it's very simple. We've got to have both of these bills. The president's vision, when he ran, was the build Back Better plan. And she is trying to get a path that all of us together can agree on and vote on. And we'll see when that happens.Democrats are working hard to get a bill passed. To a degree, Pelosi has a difficult job. The progressives really think they're in charge and have forgotten that there is a system they have to work through. Jonah Goldberg wrote a brilliant book years ago you should read, called Liberal Fascism. It documents how actually fascism isn't a conservative ideology. It was actually a very progressive ideology. In the 1920s, American progressives embraced fascism and Mussolini. I mean, it was Margaret Sanger who flirted with Hitler. One of the things about fascism that has always been intriguing to progressives is that you snap your finger and you get something done. You make the trains run on time.I was on a train with Tom Friedman one time. It was the Acela Express from New York to Washington. I'll never forget, we're coming into Washington and the porter tries to take his stuff from him. He just blows up at the porter and actually says something along the lines of, this would never happen in China, or some such. There are people on the left who love authoritarianism. They just didn't like Donald Trump. They're perfectly fine with authoritarianism as long as they're in charge of it.The progressives to a degree, are those people. They try to make everything about race and white supremacy because they want to delegitimize the system. Here is Ayanna Pressley talking about abortion yesterday in the House of Representatives.Ayanna Pressley:These misguided bans will not actually prevent all abortions. They simply put safe and necessary abortion care out of reach for our most vulnerable. Specifically, our lowest-income sisters, our queer, trans, and non-binary siblings. Black Latinx, AAPI immigrants, disabled, and indigenous folks. And none of this is happenstance. It is precise. Like the roots of the anti-abortion movement, these bans are rooted in patriarchy and white supremacy.Patriarchy and white supremacy. See, anything they don't like is patriarchy and white supremacy. Anything is. I mean, they play the race card because they want to delegitimize so that they can advance. Progressives are impatient. Back to Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism. One of the points he makes is that the left has no sense of history because they don't believe they have to worry about history. They can always advance.There's an impatience with progressivism because they are intent on progress, progress in their direction. But what's it getting them? Nothing right now. They didn't get anything they wanted. They've had nothing. So they're amplifying their delegitimization of the system, the Senate, the filibuster, the states, the Constitution, whatever they can, to try to get something and it's not working for them.Now, they're going to get something. The problem here is that a lot of progressives are zealots for their cause. So they'll get something, but it won't be what they want completely. They won't like it, but they'll have to accept it. They'll have to learn to compromise. I'm sympathetic here in this degree. In 2004, some friends of mine got me to help them start redstate.com and put me in charge of it. Red State was kind of on the vanguard of conservative activism of the day. We were the Tea party before there was a Tea party.And we would fight the Bush administration on, well, the Harriet Miers nomination, on immigration, on the budget, on spending, on No Child Left Behind. We fought Republicans. We wanted our way or the highway. We wanted government shutdowns. I still like government shutdowns. We were willing to hold the debt ceiling hostage. We were willing to shoot the hostages and we never really got our way. In fact, on occasion, we would pick candidates to run, and they would lose in primaries. Mitch McConnell and others would destroy them. Or, in the case of Indiana, we beat Dick Lugar with Richard Murdoch and then Murdoch floundered in the general election.To some degree, that caused Donald Trump, the establishment fighting back. They would never give conservat

A research paper out the other day showed people who are vaccinated are more prone to anxiety during this phase of COVID. It is weird, but it seems to be real. We see it all the time with people freaking out over their unvaccinated neighbors, etc.But anxiety is running deeper than that. A lot of people are anxious right now for a lot of reasons. A person who struggled with anxiety for a while and worked to overcome it is Erik Reed. Erik is a pastor in Tennessee. He and his wife had a son who was born with cysts in his kidneys. At two years old, the doctors recommended surgery to remove the bad kidney, but the surgeons accidentally removed both kidneys. Erik began to grapple with bouts of anxiety and panic attacks. He spent a lot of time struggling and found peace by learning to trust God.He’s written a book called Uncommon Trust. It is a book for people who are struggling with anxiety. I spoke to him about his experience and his book. You can order his book here.On a personal note, his book has been profoundly beneficial for me to read. It is about 100 pages. It is not a long read. But it is a deep read. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Lila Rose joined the program for an update on the recent advertising ban her organization, Live Action, received from Google. Did Planned Parenthood get the same treatment? Of course not. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Yesterday, I spoke with Brigadier General Larry Dudney (Ret.). He was in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, watching the television news of planes hitting the World Trade Center. He went to answer the phone and a friend on the other side of the Pentagon told him it had to be a terrorist attack. About that time, the walls caved in around him. This is my conversation with him. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Robyn Walensky was the Associated Press reporter at the bottom of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, as Americans thought a small plane had flown into one of the towers. She was there as the second plane hit and the world changed.I sat down this morning and talked to her about that experience and want everyone to have access to our conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Joshua Youssef, President of Help The Persecuted, joined me on radio to share what his team is doing in Afghanistan. You can help Joshua and his team here. They have 200 families they are trying to get out of Afghanistan. Even though the US government has given up, Help the Persecuted has not. But they need your help.This is the transcript from the interview.Erick:Joining me by phone, an organization I talk about a lot has help the persecuted around the world. They help particularly persecuted Christians escape persecution. They've been active in Afghanistan, and joining me is the head of Help the Persecuted, my friend, Josh Youssef. Josh, how are you?Josh Youssef:I'm tired, Erick, but I'm glad to be on with you.Erick:Yeah, well, I bet you're tired. You've had a busy couple of weeks. And if you would just tell people about what you've gone through these last couple of weeks.Josh Youssef:We got word that the Taliban had taken over Kabul last week and the week previous, and our field team began mobilizing and trying to get out of Kabul airport and just were unsuccessful. We tried all sorts of ways to get them out. It's about 150 staff with families, could not get them out Kabul airport. And they ended up heading a different direction. And in that time from heading to Kabul airport to this other location, some of them decided, you know what? We're going to stay back and we're going to stay back and help more people escape. So we're moving some of the team out of the country, those that are more vulnerable or what we call higher value targets, HPTs. And then we're keeping a core group of people in country to help others get out either by ground or by air.Erick:Gosh, so I mean, how many people do you have behind?Josh Youssef:Right? Currently, still 150 staff with families. You're probably looking at about 300 when you add in all their family members. We'll keep a skeleton crew back. Right now, we've identified about 500 in what we call MBBs, Muslim background believers. So converts from Islam, 500 families that want to get out. Our core team will remain on ground to do what we think is about another week left of air movement, not from Kabul, from a different location. And then another part of our project is a longer term project where we think that number will grow to about a thousand convert families that we're looking at more long-term solutions to keep them in country. And over time, onesies and twosies, as we say, getting them out of the country.Erick:And I know you do this, not just in Afghanistan. How does Help the Persecuted help those in country avoid capture, torture, death? How do you protect them?Josh Youssef:Right now, we're looking at funds in through a system, a fund distribution there, and then we're also topping up their cell phones ... top up their cards in order for them to be able to keep communicating. And then also working on, like I said, the next probably seven days, we think we've got some air movement where we can actually get some of these people out. The ones that stay, we're using a specific banking system to be able to get funds to them, those that stay behind.Erick:I know you can't reveal everything that you guys do, but what goes into building a network of people willing to help inside a country like Afghanistan or Iraq for that matter?Josh Youssef:In this case, my number two, and he's really my partner in this ministry, he had spent a lot of time in Afghanistan. He was one of the first ones in with the troops after 9/11. And he had a partnership with an organization that had all these staff. These staff are now part of our team on the ground, and those are the ones I'm referring to. They were doing great work. For the last 20 years, they worked women empowerment and schools, preschools, all sorts of agricultural projects. They were working with the U.S. government, USAID and others to partner to do this.Josh Youssef:And this is the thing, Erick. I mean, these people work for government agencies and they were just left, and that makes them a target. They are what we call HVTs, high value targets, because of what they were doing to help Americans and national Afghan forces, which is in a sense, a lot of it was in counter to what the Taliban wanted to be seen. And so, they're at great risk.Erick:Yeah. And I mean, obviously prayer is something that all of us should be doing in situations like this, but with them being at risk, I mean, what real-world things do you guys try to do on the ground with them and for them?Josh Youssef:Yeah. So in most cases, we look at emergency relief kits that are in ... that's what we do primarily in the middle east. And again, in this case, it's going to be safe housing, topping up their cell phone cards, and then getting funds to them to sustain them. That's the longterm goal that we have in this project.Erick:Now, okay. Let's talk real world. Once you get someone out of the country, what happens? Where do they go? What do you do?Josh Youssef:It's reall

This is the transcript from my radio interview with Latham Saddler. You can get more exclusive content by subscribing below for $7/month or $70/year.Erick:Now look, I've got to caveat this one coming out of the gate here because I've got a guest on with me. He's also a candidate for office, and I know how this works. I put a candidate for office on and every other candidate running for that office is like my turn, my turn, my turn. No, the hell it's not. It's my show, and I have someone on not to talk about politics and campaigns, but to talk about his background.He was active duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. He worked as a Director of Intelligence programs on the National Security Council in the Trump administration. He joined the Seals after 9-11, and I want to talk to him about that experience in Afghanistan. His name is Latham Saddler, a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Georgia. Welcome to the program.Latham Saddler:Erick, Thank you so much. It's an honor to be on the show here today.Erick:Now I will violate my opening here and ask you one thing because the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a hit job out on you today that in 2004, in the Presidential campaign, you ventured into a Democratic Presidential primary in North Carolina. If I recall right, that was the year Rush Limbaugh was telling conservatives they should go in and try to keep Howard Dean alive.Latham Saddler:Yeah, that's right. I woke up this morning and saw that and considered that a badge of honor that my opponents are scraping the bottom of the barrel of the object to try and take me down with the fact that as a teenager, I once thought I was a Democrat and then quickly learned about the world. And that was due to a lack of real-world experiences.And then in 2004, I could not stand John Kerry. So it was an honor to vote against him twice. As you know, we didn't have a Presidential primary since George W. Bush was running for re-election, so voted in the rest of the Republican primaries, but I took an opportunity to aim at John Kerry twice. And I sure as heck am not ashamed of that.Erick:Good for you. Man, that guy... Now let's talk about your experience. First of all, how did you get into the military?Latham Saddler:So look, I was up at the University of Georgia having the time of my life and 9-11 happened. It changed all of our lives forever, certainly changed mine, Erick. I didn't have plans to join the military, and a switch went off on that day for me. And I ended up on a long journey to becoming a Navy Seal and ended up living in the region of central Asia for a full academic year while I was learning the Persian language of Farsi and Dari.I lived in Tajikistan, and gosh, this week has been a heartbreaker for me because it's close to home. I backpacked through Afghanistan back in 2009 when I was over there and then later deployed there as a Navy Seal with my brothers and sisters in the teams. And I'm fluent in the language, and so this week has been pretty jarring for all of us, and it certainly has for me as well.Erick:Before we get into Afghanistan let me ask you, just given your background there and the people you keep into contact with, the mental health issue of those who fought, lost colleagues there, seen what President Biden is doing, and the chaos after the long-fought war. I don't know if you were listening earlier. I played the audio of a British member of Parliament who said it wasn't a never-ending war. It was a never-ending peace if we had maintained it. It was a war to get to that peace, and we've squandered the peace. And really just your thoughts on the strain, the taxing strain on mental health that's got to be for the soldiers.Latham Saddler:Yeah, I'm very concerned about that, Erick. I mean, obviously a lot of folks that experienced combat over there struggle with mental issues, and I think for anybody, whether you do or not, to see how everything was thrown away after 20 years, it's heartbreaking. I mean, it really is.And look, I'll tell you, Erick, I fall in the category of, I don't believe in perpetual foreign wars without an end state. I think that there are a lot of lessons learned that need to come from this, but the way this was done, I mean, there were multiple options. I mean, whether it was a limited footprint within the country, a footprint without to give us the same capability to prevent another 9-11. And it's how this was done that is just such a heartbreaker. And the fact that it's going to put a forever stain on our entire country due to just a complete lack of leadership at the top and poor execution on the ground. It's just, it's very troublesome.Erick:Now tell me, John King was on the other day, Major General, and also now Georgia Insurance Commissioner, talked about the number of people who have reached out to him via WhatsApp from Afghanistan, just trying to get their kids out of the situation, not themselves. I assume you've got similar contacts over there. Are you talking to anyone, or what are

There’s a lot of misleading headlines out there today about Apple’s latest initiative to prevent child pornography. Here’s what you need to know. Catch my full show here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

I sat down with Sean Clifford to discuss his company’s brand new approach to keeping kids safe online. His company has developed software that not only blocks access to pornography but also to otherwise innocuous websites that have explicit content. In addition, Canopy has the ability to block sending and receiving explicit messages through various messaging platforms. Learn more about Canopy company here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

I sat down with the 70th Secretary of State of the United States, Mike Pompeo. I asked him about China and the virus, but I also asked him about UFOs and whether he thinks China or other nations have leaped ahead of us technologically. He was, naturally, very diplomatic in his UFO answers.Secretary Pompeo also now has a new group, CAVPAC, which is engaging in political races around the country down to the city council level. That makes his new group very intriguing.We talked about all those things and the possibilities of Chinese propaganda stirring up the pot in this country. He actually thinks that is not conspiracist to think. You can listen to the whole conversation at the link above. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Social media companies are snooping on you. There’s a conspiracy theory that they’re listening to you. They aren’t. That has been thoroughly debunked. But some people still believe the conspiracy theory because the advertising is so precise.The reality is that social media companies and advertisers do not need to listen in on your conversations. They have access to way more information and better information to more precisely target you. Instead of the usual news and politics, I wanted to serve up this segment of my show from today to explain to you how the internet is watching you and building up a psychographic profile of you to know just when you might need toilet paper or toothpaste. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Dr. Victoria Coates is a long time friend and a former Trump national security official. She helped both with energy deals and various deals in the Middle East. She has advised multiple presidential candidates before working for President Trump. She also helped former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld write his memoirs. She’s one of the coolest people you’ll meet with one of the most interesting career paths.She joined me to talk about the situation in the Middle East and also to talk a bit about China.Please remember that normally these are only for paid subscribers. This one, however, we want to make sure everyone gets to listen to. Be sure to subscribe for more conversations like this one. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

This is the transcript of a radio monologue from my morning show. You can listen live weekdays from nine to noon here or catch the podcast here.I referenced this story in the New York Times when I talked to Lila Rose from Live Action this morning on my radio program. “The front door of the Hidalgo County Republican Party’s office is covered with photographs of high-profile politicians in the party: Gov. Greg Abbott, Senator John Cornyn and former President Donald J. Trump. Nearly all of them are white men.Step inside, and you’ll see a bulletin board with pictures of local Republican leaders: Adrienne Pena-Garza, Hilda Garza DeShazo, Mayra Flores. Nearly all of them are Hispanic women.Hispanic Republicans, especially women, have become something of political rock stars in South Texas after voters in the Rio Grande Valley shocked leaders in both parties in November by swinging sharply toward the G.O.P. Here in McAllen, one of the region’s largest cities, Mr. Trump received nearly double the number of votes he did four years earlier; in the Rio Grande Valley over all, President Biden won by just 15 percentage points, a steep slide from Hillary Clinton’s 39-point margin in 2016.That conservative surge — and the liberal decline — has buoyed the Republican Party’s hopes about its ability to draw Hispanic voters into what has long been an overwhelmingly white political coalition and to challenge Democrats in heavily Latino regions across the country. Now party officials, including Mr. Abbott, the governor, have flocked to the Rio Grande Valley in a kind of pilgrimage, eager to meet the people who helped Republicans rapidly gain ground in a longtime Democratic stronghold.One of those people, Ms. Pena-Garza, the chair of the Hidalgo County Republican Party, grew up the daughter of a Democratic state legislator. As was common for most Hispanic families in the area, she said, voting for Democrats was a given. But after her father switched parties in 2010, Ms. Pena-Garza soon followed, arguing that Democrats had veered too far to the left, particularly on issues like abortion and gun control.One of the lingering questions of the 2020 election is just what drove this region — and other heavily Hispanic areas of the country — toward Republicans. The shift appeared to be particularly acute among women who call themselves conservative, according to a post-mortem analysis by Equis Labs, a Democratic-aligned research firm that studies Latino voters.”Culture MattersCulture is shaping voters. We hear the mainstream media and establishment types on the left and the right claim Republicans are too busy fighting over Dr. Seuss to pick a fight on the budget. This is partially true. Republicans don't have the will to pick a fight on the budget because they lost all of their credibility on fiscal responsibility, and frankly, there is a growing movement within the Republican Party to be less small government-oriented and less fiscally restrained. This movement within the Republican Party aims to be socially conservative and fiscally liberal. Frankly, that's the sweet spot in American politics. People in the beltway don't seem to understand.A third party in this country could arise tomorrow and become the dominant party in America if it was socially conservative and fiscally liberal. This won’t happen because the Republican Party is already morphing into this. It's shifting away from fiscally conservatism and towards a proactive form of government that remains socially conservative. This makes no sense to those in the media.A story was done recently that made this point with non-Cuban Hispanic voters in Florida. Cuban voters in Florida tend to always vote Republican, but non-Cuban Hispanic voters were presumed to cause the state to shift to the Democrats. This never happened. In fact, they've caused the state to shift to the Republicans. Why? Hispanic moms want their kids to be safe and find good, middle-class jobs. They perceive the Democrats are hostile to all of those things.There's something bigger the data suggests and I think the New York Times is unable to recognize it. The cultural issues of the GOP (pro-life, pro-police, and anti-Black Lives Matters among others) are persuading Hispanic voters to move to the GOP. This phrase in the New York Times is fascinating: "Republicans have portrayed national Democrats as hostile toward the police," The reality is Republicans don't have to portray the Democrats as that because the Democrats portray themselves as that. The Republicans don't have to suggest that Democrats want to defund the police when Democrats will tell you they want to defund the police.For years we’ve just accepted that the nation is socially moving to the left. It turns out that's not the case. In Hollywood and other major cities, this may be happening but not everywhere else. Hispanic voters are one of the fastest-growing demographics and continue to be one of the most conservative groups in the country. This can be

This is a transcript of my opening monologue on the State of the Union address last night. You can listen live weekdays from nine to noon here or catch the podcast here.If you're a Republican, you’ve got to be scratching your head over last night. All of us on the right are wondering what exactly is Joe Biden going to do? Is he really going to fundamentally transform America while bankrupting American society? You have to look at that and just be scratching your head. If you're a Republican and you watched that night, God bless you. A friend texted me halfway through it and said he finally had to get up and leave because there were sharp objects in the room and he was afraid of self-harm. However, if you're a Republican, you should be encouraged by what you heard last night.What you heard last night from Joe Biden is a desperate grab for control. What you heard from Joe Biden last night is a pretty big power play to expand the federal government as quickly as possible by taking control and fundamentally transforming the United States. This was a bold play from Biden. The reason you should be encouraged is the question that all of this raises. Why are Democrats rushing? Why are they moving as quickly as they possibly can to do what they're doing? The reason is they've seen the redistricting numbers. They know where this is headed and they’ve got to do it as quickly as they possibly can because time is running out.2022They know the Republicans are going to make massive headway in 2022. That's why you should be encouraged. Joe Biden and the Democrats would not be rushing as quickly as they are into what they're doing, but for the fact that they know without a doubt that Republicans are going to take back the House next year and possibly the Senate. This is why Democrats are rushing. There are a couple of problems for Democrats that will make rushing more difficult. The first is the filibuster which is not going away. Joe Manchin is signaling again that he is not going to allow the Democrats to get by with the breaking of the filibuster. He's also signaling that he's not going to allow reconciliation for everything they want. Joe Biden now wants about $6 trillion including the COVID relief package that already passed. He is working on the infrastructure plan and will continue to push for some of his brand new LBJ stuff. But there's a level of hubris in what he's doing, and in so doing, he's going to hit a wall.I think Joe Biden recognizes to a degree that this is inevitable. He can't get Joe Manchin for some things and he can't get Kyrsten Sinema for others. Senator Menendez from New Jersey won’t budge on two major capital gains tax increases. Biden's got to pay for his plan somehow and now he can't. He can't pay for his plan because of the way the Democrats want to operate so he can't get deficit spending to reconciliation. That's something you've got to understand. The Democrats believe they have a path to an additional reconciliation package. Instead of two this year, they may be able to get three. In so doing, they think they'll have 50 plus one vote to get it done. To do that, they've got to make compromises internally to the Democratic Party where the divides of the party itself will obstruct the Democrat's ability to advance their agenda. For example, House Progressives want deficit spending and are fine raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires. They think part of Biden's plan will be deeply destructive to small businesses so they would prefer deficit spending to mitigate the damage. Axios has this story of this morning. Senate Democrats resist Biden's $1.8 trillion pay for plan.President Biden is asking Congress to pay for the entirety of his $1.8 trillion American Families Plan. Yet some democratic senators want him to finance it with deficit spending. The Human Infrastructure Proposal, which Biden will formally unveil Wednesday night during his joint session of Congress. This was written right before he spoke is already dead on arrival among Republicans. So the Democratic reaction is key. The American Family Plan would cover support activities such as paid leave, free community college, universal preschool in part by raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. If the White House ultimately tries to force the bill through the budget reconciliation process, it will need every Senate Democrat to come on board. And right now, it's not sure they will."I'm not a big pay-for guy," said Brian Schatz of Hawaii. "I think some investments are worth deficit financing. Nobody asks how we're going to pay for the US military. Nobody really asked how we're going to finance the tax cuts for the wealthy. It's only when it comes to progressive priorities that everybody freaks out and tries to find pay fors." Chris Murphy of Connecticut concurred. "I think there's plenty of money in this country to pay for smart investments, but at the same time, if it's a good investment, I don't know that it needs to be fully

Theologian Tim Keller, in his new book Hope in Times of Fear, points out that when English translations of the Bible talk about hope, the word doesn’t do justice to the Greek word being used, elpida. A better choice would be “profound certainty.” Christians have profound certainty in the resurrection — the only event in human history that profoundly changes a person when they accept it as a true, historic event.Today, we focus on the cross. But many, many people died on crosses in the Roman Empire. We don’t focus on those crosses and crucifixions. We focus on this one cross today not because of what happened this day around 1,988 years ago, but because of what happened the third day after Christ died.The modern world has no appetite for the supernatural. The events of Good Friday and Easter, however, are frequently listed by secular histories as the most important in human history.Today, almost two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, the second person of the trinity died a gruesome death. The sky went black. The temple curtain tore. And the world would never be the same.I spent some time with Tim Keller to talk about his new book and the meaning and historicity of the resurrection. We also touched on the current social justice movement in America and how it lacks the hope of the Civil Rights movement. It lacks the language of grace and reconciliation.Keller is battling pancreatic cancer. He understands his mortality. We talked about that mortality as it relates to the resurrection. One note here for you all. This is Good Friday. I normally write at length and I do a special Good Friday program. This is the first time I’ve set aside time for an interview like this. I appreciate your prayers as I will now step behind the microphone this morning to focus on the events of the day talking about them through the perspective of Easter.You can get the music I played on my Good Friday Show by clicking here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

This is a bizarre story that I want everyone to hear.The kid-toucher protecting Lincoln Project has managed to use a leftwing mob to oust Georgia State Senator John Albers (R-Roswell, GA). Albers’ crime? Bipartisanship.John Albers authored Georgia Senate Bill 62, which has been one of only two measures in the Georgia General Assembly to get bipartisan support for election integrity reform. The legislation requires watermarks on absentee ballots to prevent absentee ballots from being copied.Democrats and Republicans both supported the measure.Albers went on to be one of only four Republicans to vote against a comprehensive election reform package the Georgia Senate Republican conference pushed that was far more expansive.To reiterate — Albers sided with Democrats and voted against the more expansive GOP package while also drafting a bipartisan measure to ensure absentee ballots cannot be fraudulently copied. That did not stop the Lincoln Project from mischaracterizing Albers and harassing his employer, the national law firm Fisher Phillips, which represents corporations in union disputes.The woke Fortune 500 companies that use Fisher Phillips were also targeted. Albers was given no choice but resign from the law firm.Albers did everything right. He voted against his GOP brethren’s legislation. He authored bipartisan legislation. He lost his job anyway because theLincoln Project and Woke-O Haram lied about him and his law firm threw him under the bus.I talked to Senator Albers on my radio show about what happened. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Ryan Anderson worked at the Heritage Foundation and just recently became the new president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a think tank that brings Christian orthodoxy into the public square to help shape conservative and national policy.Anderson is also a noted scholar and three years ago wrote a book called When Harry Became Sally. The book addresses, as its subtitle says, “the transgender moment” in the country. Though transgender advocates assailed the book, scholars greeted it for what it is — a reasonable, thoughtful, and scholarly critique of the trans movement.For three years, Amazon.com sold the book. A few weeks ago, Amazon stopped selling it. But Amazon did more than stop sales. They prohibited even third parties from selling it via Amazon’s platform.In three years, Ryan had not updated the book. Its words did not change. But suddenly Amazon says the book violates Amazon policies. Which polices? We are left to guess.The censorious left is at it again. Amazon sells 80% of books in America now. When it decides not to sell a book that thoughtfully and respectfully critiques the trans movement, it is not just picking a side, but it is engaged in a form of market restriction having worked to achieve near monopoly status. Its actions are contributing to a new line of thinking on the right — one that will lead to active intervention by the government into the affairs of private sector companies as those companies work with the left to shut out voices from the right.This is a dangerous game and one that overwhelming benefits the terrorists of Woke-O Haram at the expense of reasonable people who disagree.You can order Ryan’s book here directly from his publisher. Above, you can listen to my conversation with Ryan about what Amazon says and also about this strange moment in the West where suddenly boys and girls are deciding, contrary to nature and biology, that they can pick their gender. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe