Mark Levin Podcast

00:00 You know, folks, Americans rely on credit cards for secure payments and seamless transactions. But consumers stand to lose it all with the Durbin Marshall credit card mandate bill. Big government mandates favor corporate megastores and allow them to choose how your credit card is processed. They might end up using untested payment networks that could jeopardize your data security and rewards. Tell Congress to guard your card, because Americans lose when politicians choose. Visit guardyourcard.com to learn more. That's guardyourcard.com, paid for by the Electronic Payments Coalition. 00:32 He's here. He's here. 00:34 Now broadcasting from the underground command post, deep in the bowels of a hidden bunker, somewhere under the brick and steel of a nondescript building, we've once again made contact with our leader, Mark Levin. 01:27 Thank you. 02:04 Hello America, Mark Levin here, our number, 877-381-3811, 877-381-3811. You know, sometime a person passes away who we don't personally know, but we feel like we do. 02:24 You know what I mean? 02:25 Like a president who we may love, or like Rush Limbaugh, or... 02:31 Lindsey Graham, something like that. But Dolly Parton's death, first of all, it seems so sudden, doesn't it? 02:42 Sort of hits me, and I think it hits most of you, in a very personal way. 02:51 And we're very, very saddened by this. 02:56 And I think we're saddened by it because She wasn't a political hack. She had her views, some of which we agree with, some of which we don't, but we knew she was a great patriot, that she loved this country, and she was quintessentially American. 03:13 She grew up dirt poor, and look what she made of herself. 03:23 Not because of government, not because of socialism, not because of anything that's preached to us by Marxists and Islamists and woke right types, but because she wanted to succeed, she had an incredible voice, she wrote beautiful songs, she was always smiling, she was very likable, if not lovable, to so many people. Do you know she was only five feet tall? 03:52 I hadn't known that. 03:57 Just a remarkable talent, and she will be remembered. I heard John Rich say she'll be remembered like Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra. I believe that to be 100% correct. 04:12 And she also was an excellent actress in some of the films that she did. 04:18 But when she was interviewed, you know, she was fun to listen to. Even if she had an opinion you might disagree with, he didn't really care because that wasn't her thing. She would answer questions, but she wasn't out there on some kind of a mission or anything like that. 04:35 And a lot of what she said, most of us did agree with. 04:41 So I first heard about this when our son Chase texted us and he said, It's very upsetting. Dolly Parton passed away. I said, what? 04:53 And so apparently she was struggling very hard the last few months. 04:57 Some people knew more about it than others. 05:00 Some people were reading tea leaves that she had some issue, but I don't think most people expected her to pass away. 05:10 At the New York Post here, Dolly Parton opened up about hard times with her health in final interview after canceling appearance. 05:19 She detailed hard times with her health days before her passing at 80. 05:26 The country music icon's final interview released Friday. This past Friday, she opened up to people about dealing with some health issues, quote unquote, which forced her to cancel an appearance at her Dollywood theme park the previous week. 05:42 However, she noted, quote, it's not like I haven't been through hard times with my health, unquote. 05:50 But she was concerned enough or pressured enough that she had, I believe it was her nephew, and it's out there and I've posted on it, put together a video basically saying goodbye to everybody. 06:08 You know. 06:10 She specifically referenced being down for several months with female issues in the early 1980s. 06:17 She added that her most recent health struggle stemmed from not paying attention while watching over her husband, Carl Thomas Dean, before his death. She was incredibly close to her husband. He passed away, I guess, about a year ago. 06:32 And I think that had an enormous impact on her health, too. 06:39 He died March 2025. What's that, 18 months ago? He was 82. 06:45 Nearly 59 years of marriage. 06:52 Not even a hint of scandal of any kind. 06:57 And I say that because, you know, when people are... 07:00 In entertainment and so forth, not all, of course, but you hear about these scandals and so forth, you never heard about anything. There were no rumors, there was no gossip, because these two were true to each other. 07:13 Parton shared the news of her longtime partner's passing last year. It was her nephew who did the same for her with absolute pride and great sadness, quote-unquote, today. 07:24 This video announcement, he said, is something Dolly asked of me years ago before I fully absorbed it as a future reality, said Brian Seaver. 07:37 He had been head of her security for more than two decades, as well as a relative. 07:42 And in his emotional tribute, Seaver revealed, Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton. 07:51 Because after a life... 07:53 of heavy rhinestones, wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest. 08:03 Nine months before her passing, the 9 to 5 hitmaker spoke to people about the legacy she wished to leave behind. 08:12 She said, I'm at that point in my life where I just want to be able to do good things that can be carried on. 08:20 She said in a November 2025 cover story, I'm proud of my legacy so far. 08:26 Hope to just continue to do things that might be of use to other people. 08:33 At the time, she, let's see, the actress who felt she was just getting started quipped, I ain't got time to get old. 08:45 I ain't got time to get old. 08:48 And she explained, I know that sounds stupid, but unless my health gives way, which right now I seem to be doing fine, I think there's a lot to be said about age. 09:00 If you allow yourself to get old, you'll be old. 09:04 Two months prior, in September, the Grammy winner had gone public with health challenges, quote unquote, and as they forced her to bow out of scheduled shows, including her Las Vegas residency. 09:21 Then in January of this year, she missed her 80th birthday celebration at the Grand Ole Opry. Well, obviously she was ill and getting more ill by the month. 09:34 And, you know, I think it was urinary tract issues and issues of that kind. 09:43 Women's issues, as she put it. 09:45 And she will be missed. 09:48 Everybody has kind of a Dolly Parton story, a favorite song, a joke she told. 09:56 And, you know, she was very, very much loved also by other country singers. So it just tells you what a wonderful person she was. 10:09 And so, may she rest in peace. 10:13 And I think she will. She's with her husband now. 10:18 You know, I'll tell you something I've never told you folks. 10:21 But it comes to mind. 10:25 And I've told family members, I don't think I've told them all. 10:29 I sit here and think about this. 10:33 But this relationship between her and her husband... 10:40 My parents were married, I think, 68 years, give or take. 10:46 My mother was bedridden in their home in Florida, small home, sort of a rambler. 10:54 She had liver cancer, a rare form of cancer. 10:58 Funny thing is she never drank, she didn't smoke. 11:03 My father had... 11:06 kidney cancer, but it was under control for several years. 11:11 But then it blew up. 11:15 It just invaded his entire body. 11:20 He broke his shoulder. He broke a rib. 11:27 And he came to the hospital, and I would be there with him. 11:34 I was gone for a couple of weeks from the radio at that time, obviously. 11:40 And I was sitting there and it was day before he basically went into a coma. 11:46 And I could see he was squinting. He couldn't see well. He wasn't talking much. 11:51 I brought him two of his favorite foods, a hot dog and a black and white cookie. 11:57 He liked the sweets and he loved his junk food. 12:01 And I do the same, unfortunately. 12:06 And he said, Mark, come over here a second. 12:09 Came over. 12:13 He said, let me have your hand. 12:17 And he kissed my hand. 12:20 And he thanked me. 12:23 Then he says to me, how will I find her? 12:29 I said, find who, Dad? 12:34 How will I find your mother in heaven but billions and billions of people up there? 12:42 I said, God will bring you together as he does all. 12:46 All families. 12:49 And when it's mom's turn, you'll see mom. You'll see your parents. You'll see your sisters. 12:56 The next day he went into a coma and he died eight days later. I'll never forget his comments. 13:03 And so I think about them now with the relationship Dolly Parton had with her husband. 13:11 And now she will join him. 13:15 I'll be right back. 13:25 With Donald Trump back in office, one of his biggest adversaries, top Democrat Dick Durbin of Chicago is leading the charge to derail President Trump's agenda at every turn. And now Durbin has a new scheme, a government takeover of your credit card. Right now, Americans have thousands of credit card options, all with equal strong security. But Senator Durbin's plan could result in less security. That means more risk for your credit, your identity, and your financial future. Durbin's bill isn't about helping consumers. It's a giveaway to corporate megastores. which could shift costs onto you while putting your rewards and fraud protections in jeopardy. 14:00 We've seen Durbin's failed policies before. His last big banking regulation backfired, leading to higher costs and fewer benefits for American families. Tell Republican senators, stop Durbin's government takeover of your credit card before it's too late. Learn more at guardyourcar.com. That's guardyourcar.com. Paid for by the Electronic Payments Coalition. 14:29 You know, the Democrats are so nuts. 14:32 They're very upset that Jerry Kushner met with Hakeem Jeffries. 14:37 And you know, my response is, who cares? 14:40 Who cares? 14:42 Nothing's going to change. They can meet all they want. 14:45 The Democrats are out for blood, America. You need to understand this going into the midterm elections. That's why it's important. 14:52 We will use this program... 14:55 to advance the cause of Americanism, and that is to defend us from the Marxist-Islamist hordes that call themselves Democrats. 15:05 Now, if you're not a Marxist-Islamist, then you shouldn't be a Democrat at this point. You got to pick one side or the other. You got to pick the side of freedom or tyranny, the side of market capitalism or communism and socialism. 15:21 You've got to make these decisions. Do you defend the Constitution or do you eviscerate it and allow for a centralized form of tyranny? 15:31 You folks, each and every one of you, you will decide this. 15:36 And if you say, Mark, well, of course we agree with you, but there are people in your inner circle who don't. 15:43 And that is important. 15:45 We are an army of individuals, an army of patriotic citizens, and it is our duty to get out there and speak. 15:52 To get out there and speak. 15:56 And I want to talk a little bit about. And you know I cite these books that I write. And why shouldn't I? I'm not using other people's books. I'm using my books. And if I use other people's books I'll let you know. I wrote a book called Plunder and Deceit in 2015. Exactly 11 years ago. 16:12 And in this book I laid out what is happening now. 16:17 What is happening now. 16:19 Plunder. 16:21 And deceit. 16:24 And the chapters break down. 16:26 Chapter 2 on the debt. 16:29 Chapter 3 on Social Security. Chapter 4 on Medicare and Obamacare. 16:33 Chapter 5 on education, the cost. 16:38 Chapter 6 on immigration. Chapter 7 on the environment. Chapter 8 on the so-called minimum wage. 16:45 Chapter 9 on national security. Chapter 10, the Constitution. 16:52 And the epilogue, a new civil rights movement is needed. 16:56 Well, it didn't happen, did it? 17:01 On Social Security, Chapter 3. 17:06 You know, I don't write books to write books, and I certainly don't have ghost writers and run around and slap my name on these books. 17:14 To me, that's so appallingly dishonest. 17:19 On Social Security, I said the largest single component of the federal budget and perhaps the greatest and most financially devastating burden imposed on younger people and future generations is the Social Security program. Now, when I said that, that was controversial. 17:40 This is not a recent development. Since 1993, it has outspent defense appropriations as a percentage of federal spending. Now remember, this is 15 years old. 15 years old. 17:53 Social Security's expenditures have ranged from 0.22% during World War II to 24% in 2013. God knows what it is today. 18:06 And Social Security costs are actually skyrocketing. 18:12 And that's because, ladies and gentlemen, your Congress expanded it, applied it to more and more people, and it's a disaster the way they have treated this program that should have been treated like a real pension program. They only have a few seconds left, and I want to dig into this a little bit further for you because it not only is illustrative of what they did to Social Security and what they're not doing to fix it, but what they've done to the entire federal budget. 18:42 and what they're not doing to fix it. We'll be right back. 18:50 With Donald Trump back in office, one of his biggest adversaries, top Democrat Dick Durbin of Chicago is leading the charge to derail President Trump's agenda at every turn. And now Durbin has a new scheme, a government takeover of your credit card. Right now, Americans have thousands of credit card options, all with equal strong security. But Senator Durbin's plan could result in less security. That means more risk for your credit, your identity, and your financial future. Durbin's bill isn't about helping consumers. It's a giveaway to corporate megastores. which could shift costs onto you while putting your rewards and fraud protections in jeopardy. 19:25 We've seen Durbin's failed policies before. His last big banking regulation backfired, leading to higher costs and fewer benefits for American families. Tell Republican senators, stop Durbin's government takeover of your credit card before it's too late. Learn more at guardyourcar.com. That's guardyourcar.com. Paid for by the Electronic Payments Coalition. The Mark Levin Show, where we create the talking points. Call in now. 877-381-3811. 19:57 Yes, we do. We got lots going on here. Lots. 20:02 And we'll be at right here at the studio, Mr. Producer. 20:07 That's my broken English. How's it sound? 20:11 I'm doing a quick customer satisfaction review. Two questions. One... 20:17 Is your current wireless provider giving you five-star service? 20:23 Really? Two, are you paying more than $34.99 a month for unlimited data? 20:30 Now, if you think you're paying too much for subpar service, you should really switch to pure talk. 20:36 And you shouldn't wait any longer. It is absolutely painless. 20:42 And you're going to save a lot of money. 20:44 In a recent industry survey, Pure Talk was the only wireless company, the only wireless company to get five stars in every single category, coverage, support, value, and data. 20:58 And now, for just a few more weeks, and then it's over, Pure Talk is offering unlimited data for just $15 a month for your first three months. 21:08 And after that, you get unlimited data for as low as $34.99 a month with no contract. Hello? 21:16 No contract. Just dial pound 250 and say Mark Levin and you're off to the races. 21:23 Pure talk. 21:24 Their five-star U.S. customer service team will treat you like a king and a queen. Five stars. 21:33 There's no better wireless choice out there. None. 21:36 And at just $15 a month for your first three months, now is a fantastic time to choose Pure Talk. 21:44 Dial pound 250, say Mark Levin. Again, dial pound 250, say Mark Levin. Don't be afraid. 21:54 Don't be afraid. 21:56 Give peace a chance. 21:58 All right, where was I? 22:01 Social Security. 22:05 Social Security has expanded from its original scope in 1935 to include workers, dependents, and survivors, as well as the disabled. 22:16 As a result, there are roughly 58 million people receiving benefits. Ladies and gents, it's got to be over 70 million today. 22:25 More than double the number in the 1970s. You see how quickly The demand is expanding. The number of people who are open to Social Security but have never paid in. 22:36 The amount of benefits that are expanded because, you know, Congress just passes these laws. We want to cover this. Yes, it's the right thing to do. And they just do it. 22:44 But it's an insurance program, right? It's your pension program, which is why you've been paying into it year after year after year after year. Congress does not pay into it, by the way. I don't believe they're covered by Social Security. If they are, they changed it. 23:00 As members of the ruling generation begin to retire, I write, many more will be eligible for benefits. That's exactly what's happening. 23:08 Unfortunately, that will not be nearly enough. There will not be nearly enough younger people working to pay the current rate of taxes to subsidize them. In 1940, there were 159 workers for every beneficiary. That ratio dropped precipitously. 23:29 From 16.5 in 1950 to 5.1 in 1960 to 3.7 workers in 1970 for every recipient. 23:41 And now in 2010, I should say, slightly below three for every recipient. 23:48 And projected for 2030. 23:53 Ready for this? Two workers for every beneficiary. 23:56 That's unsustainable. 23:59 And I've told you before, the laws of economics are like the laws of physics. 24:04 They are what they are. 24:06 You can't change them. 24:08 Social Security provides benefits through two major programs. Old Age and Survivors Insurance, OASI, and Disability Insurance, DI. 24:19 Note the use of the word insurance. 24:23 It is a fiction now, about which I will elaborate later. I don't know if I have time, but... The OASI program provides payments to retirees and in certain circumstances to their dependents. Disability insurance or DI provides payments to people who are disabled and presumably can't work. 24:45 OASI and DI have separate trust funds. 24:51 So-called trust funds at this point, because I look, I hate to be the messenger of bad news or the bringer of bad news here, but there are no more trust funds. And Social Security Administration, I think twice a year now, sends out a document to you, to me, to my wife, to my mother-in-law and tells us how much is in our account. There are no accounts. 25:14 But for simplicity's sake, they are usually considered together, both of those programs and so-called trust funds, when their financial viability is analyzed. 25:26 Theoretically, Social Security is financed by payroll taxes on employees and employers and, to a lesser extent, taxes on Social Security benefits and income from trust fund assets. 25:40 FICA taxes... that is payroll taxes under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, are falsely said to fund Social Security and part of Medicare. Payroll taxes, as opposed to income taxes, apply to employees, regardless of their income. They are most onerous on poorer workers and, of course, younger people who are just entering the workforce. 26:07 They are also effectively a tax on employment, as the employer must consider this fixed additional cost in his hiring decisions. 26:18 Now, the rate of taxation to supposedly fund Social Security has been increasing over time, and I go into the numbers there. 26:28 The self-employment pay, the full 12.4% themselves. 26:35 When the program started in the 1930s, however, the tax rate was only 1% of income. 12.4% now. 1%. So here you have, again, massive increases in taxes. There you go. It's 12.4 times the 1. 26:55 And the system is all but broke. 27:01 When you have politicians running things, they run it into the toilet. They run it into the ground. 27:07 They run it into the ground. 27:10 In fact, the amount of money subject to the Social Security payroll tax has grown significantly over time. 27:18 From the 1930s until 1950s, workers paid tax on the first $3,000 of their income. 27:28 The cap did not reach $10,000 until the 1970s. 27:33 Frequently, workers pay FICA taxes on the first $117,000 of their income. So many of you who don't earn a ton, Social Security covers every penny you earn. 27:50 It wasn't always that way. 27:54 We're going to get the rich and help the workers. 27:59 The age when retirement benefits are available has also increased. Initially, individuals had to live to the age of 65 to receive full benefits with a reduced benefit for early retirement available at the age of 62. Today, the full benefit is available at 66. That's 15 years ago. For individuals born in 1943 to 54, It is slated to go to 67 for individuals who were born in 1960 or later, even higher. 28:34 Early retirement benefits will still be available at 62 years of age, but at a reduced, a significantly reduced level. And I go on explaining how this works. 28:47 But here's the worst news for younger workers and future generations. 28:54 According to the Associated Press, a historic shift is occurring. 28:59 They say if you retired in 1960, you could expect to get back seven times more in benefits than you paid in Social Security tax. Remember, it's insurance. 29:09 And more if you were a low-income worker, as long as you lived to the age of 78 for men and 81 for women. 29:18 As recently as 1985, workers at every income level could retire and expect to get more in benefits than they paid in Social Security taxes, though they didn't do quite as well as their parents and grandparents. Not anymore. 29:37 As I wrote, for the first time, people who are retiring today, again, remember when this book was written, will receive less in benefits than they paid into the system in taxes. 29:49 This tells you the system is in deep trouble. 29:53 A lot of factors are involved in making these comparisons. 29:57 And of course, such as how long someone lives after retirement. 30:04 But I won't read any further since it may be boring a lot of people, but it shouldn't be because a lot of you have an awful lot of money tied into this program and an awful lot of need for And, you know, tied into this program. And many of you depend on it because you were told to depend on it. 30:20 And why wouldn't you? You paid into an insurance program. Well, as you can see, they've expanded it. They've had to raise taxes on it. They've had to include almost all of your income for the average income family. 30:34 And even now, six years from now, the trustees say a significant part of it will go bankrupt. So there's either going to be a significant tax increase or a significant cut in benefits, or both. What the Democrats will say is, let's stick it to the billionaires. That'll sound great, but it doesn't work. The program is so massive, and so much money is involved, truthfully, $200 trillion, that you could take every penny from every billionaire, and it wouldn't matter. 31:06 It wouldn't fix it. 31:08 But they will keep doing it, because they're fundamentally the ones who broke it. 31:13 Fundamentally, they're the ones who broke it. 31:15 Just like they're breaking Medicaid by putting illegal aliens on it, the president said no. 31:21 Just like they're breaking Medicare, they want to turn it into a government-run health care system, which means all of you paid into Medicare, it goes away. 31:30 And people who didn't pay one penny into Medicare, they get full benefits. 31:35 And illegal aliens, illegal aliens, even Newscom says he wants to cover them, they get full benefits. 31:42 They don't even have a stake in the country. 31:45 Full benefits. 31:47 And I'm not even talking about full Medicare benefits. This will be a government program that will replace Medicare, even though they say Medicare for all. All of you who've paid into Medicare, you will lose everything. Those of you who have great private sector health care systems, many of you on your own, many because of businesses, many of you because of unions, those will all be eliminated. All of them. 32:13 Just as the Canadians are running to the United States for health care, where will we run? 32:21 Where will we go? 32:24 I'll be right back. 32:26 Mark Levin. 32:34 With Donald Trump back in office, one of his biggest adversaries, top Democrat Dick Durbin of Chicago is leading the charge to derail President Trump's agenda at every turn. And now Durbin has a new scheme, a government takeover of your credit card. Right now, Americans have thousands of credit card options, all with equal strong security. But Senator Durbin's plan could result in less security. That means more risk for your credit, your identity, and your financial future. Durbin's bill isn't about helping consumers. It's a giveaway to corporate megastores. which could shift costs onto you while putting your rewards and fraud protections in jeopardy. 33:09 We've seen Durbin's failed policies before. His last big banking regulation backfired, leading to higher costs and fewer benefits for American families. Tell Republican senators, stop Durbin's government takeover of your credit card before it's too late. Learn more at GuardYourCar.com. That's GuardYourCar.com. Paid for by the Electronic Payments Coalition. 33:37 We need to keep in mind also, ladies and gentlemen, if an economy collapses or implodes, so does the civil society. 33:50 You lose law and order. 33:54 We saw, again, a lot less than that during the pandemic, didn't we? 33:59 Where certain governors and state legislatures and certain federal officials in particular sought to take advantage of it. 34:06 to steal your civil liberties. 34:08 Could you imagine if it came down to literally putting food on the table? 34:13 Because the value of the dollar has been destroyed, and people who are relying not just on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, but people who are relying on private pensions, some of you have defined benefit programs, congratulations, because they're really becoming sort of unicorns. 34:30 But many of you have IRAs and 401ks or kilos or whatever you have. If you have anything, that's your money. You've put it aside. 34:40 Can you imagine if it became worthless? 34:45 Worthless. 34:47 And you're 47 and you have a family of five and a wife and you don't have any way of taking care of them. 34:53 Or you're 78 and you're retired. 34:57 And you no longer have a job, of course, and Where do you turn? What do you do? That's why it's so important to get this right. 35:06 Ladies and gentlemen, no more government. No more new programs. 35:11 I don't care if they're coming from these fools who pretend to be conservatives who talk about intervening in the private sector to create this for this group or that for that group. That's all Marxist claptrap. 35:24 How much more do we need to do? The New Deal, the Great Society, the Square Deal, Obama, Biden, just $40 trillion tells us that's enough already. 35:36 A nearly bankrupt Social Security system tells us that these people need to manage these things like they're professionals and serious, not like political hacks. 35:45 I'm sick of hearing them. I'm sick of them talking. I'll bring certain ones on to help get them elected because I want to prevent the commies from getting in power. But I'm really not into them. I'm just not. 35:58 Some people want to rub elbows with them. I don't. 36:01 That doesn't mean I'm rude when I see them. And so you understand, I don't spend my time on Capitol Hill. 36:08 I don't spend my time on the phone with these folks. 36:13 I spend my time trying to figure out how the hell are we going to save this country? 36:19 I got a whole project going on now before this program, after this program, after I do my Life, Liberty and Levin programs. That's why I decided, you know what? I can't do the podcast, write books, do TV and do radio and do them well and get the research done and convey that information to you. 36:40 I just can't. So I do what I can do. And the platforms are huge. 36:47 And after the top of the hour, I want to talk to you about the debt generally. 36:52 Again, this was written. Let me see again. What did I say? 2015, not 14 years ago or 15, 11 years ago. My recollection. Let's see here. Yeah, 2015. But a lot changes in just a couple of years. A lot changes in a couple of months around here now. 37:09 We have to try and grow our economy. We can't grow out of this, but we need to grow it so we can start to address it. So that's why when people are attacking data centers and AI, I'm going, what are you doing? What are you doing? Excuse me. This is the new frontier. 37:26 of development and so forth. What do you sound like, liberal Democrats? The noise, my ears, the noise. 37:33 What noise? Well, they tell me there's noise. But what about the water? I want the water. What are you talking about? 37:41 We learned last night. They use as much water as an 18-hole golf course. We don't even think about that. Well, what about all the cameras out there? 37:53 Oh, come on, the cameras out there. 38:01 If you don't want to grow the economy, well, then we will collapse. It's that simple. 38:07 We'll be right back. 38:10 This segment of the podcast is exclusively sponsored by Pure Talk. Pure Talk offers great coverage and can save your family money on your wireless bill every single month. Go to puretalk.com to find the plan that's right for you. Thank you again for listening, and thank you so much for this sponsorship, Pure Talk. 38:29 He's here. He's here. 38:33 Now broadcasting from the underground command post, deep in the bowels of a hidden bunker, somewhere under the brick and steel of a nondescript building, we've once again made contact with our leader, Mark Levin. 38:51 Hello, America. 38:56 It be I or it be me. Do you know the difference, America? 39:03 Do you know when to use I or me? I notice when people don't, they'll say myself. 39:08 Frank and myself. 39:12 Is it I or me? 39:15 But we went through this a little bit about a month ago, I think. 39:19 Remember that you were with us, Ron, back then? 39:23 So it's very simple. 39:26 I use it. 39:28 as just yourself in a single sentence, or me, and you'll know if it's correct. 39:34 Like, me am playing games. No, I am playing games. So Frank and I are playing games. 39:42 Not Frank and me are playing games, because me are playing games doesn't make any sense. Does it, Ron? 39:48 No. 39:51 So that's how you do it. 39:54 You take away... 39:56 You know, I was there watching the Yankees. All of us, we were all there. 40:01 I was there, you know, watching them hit home runs, eating my 25-pound soft pretzel. 40:09 Only cost me a second mortgage on my home. We were in the nosebleed sections. 40:14 And there I was. 40:17 There I was with 20 of my favorite friends. 40:21 20 of my favorite friends and me or I. 40:29 There I am with 20 of my favorite friends. And me? 40:36 There me is or there I am? 40:40 I, right? 40:44 Keep your mic off just for the fun of it. 40:48 So be I. I hope I'm not complicating things here. 40:53 Seriously. 40:57 You know, there are little tricks to learning these things. I can't remember all of them, but it's helped me to write over the years. It really has. 41:06 The other thing about writing is you want to stay away from AI. If you're doing some research, I suppose it's okay. 41:14 But again, you want it to be your own thing. 41:18 Research by AI, I'm not opposed to it at all because you put the end notes in the back of the book or the footnotes on the pages as you go along, right? So that's okay. 41:30 But the verbiage that is used is not okay. 41:36 It's not okay. So the books aren't worth anything if you're just going to go to AI. 41:40 Now here's the problem publishers are having. 41:45 I shouldn't even say this. You can pretty much download an entire book through AI right now. 41:54 And the publishers are litigating this, trying to figure out how to deal with it, because we don't want books to become arcane. I mean, after all, we've had printed words on paper for a long time. 42:09 And even though we have the cloud and we have ways to save information digitally, in fact, people will make the case you can't get rid of it. Probably true. It's not the same thing as having a book. 42:22 It's just not. 42:25 But here's what we're finding. You know why so many... They never discuss this. I'll be the first. Do you know why so many young people are socialists, they say? And I'm not even sure that's true. But let's play along. Do you know why? 42:38 Because they don't read substantive stuff. They're on TikTok. 42:45 Or they're on some other social platform, social engine. 42:51 And so they haven't read about the Third Reich. Many of them don't even know what the hell the Third Reich is. Third Reich, what happened to the Second? You understand? Well, there was a Second, by the way. But that's for another day. 43:05 talk about the holocaust all they hear about the jews with the damn holocaust why do they keep repeating that they don't know a thing about it or the isolationists in the 1930s who helped cause the attack on pearl harbor because of our isolationism and we weren't ready i don't understand what happened uh You know, you see these guys on these cable channels. I mean, Jesse used to do this. Now his guy Jonathan does it or somebody. 43:36 And they go out and they talk to people. College-age kids. 43:39 So who's our second president? Huh? What? 43:44 What? 43:47 Franklin Roosevelt. 43:53 It is quite frightening. And then we have people coming into the country. They're certainly not assimilating. They don't know what the hell the Constitution's about. They're being told, you get a freebie. If you go to New York, you get free this and free that. I'm going to New York. 44:05 Yeah, but what about the Fourth Amendment? 44:08 Hey, hey, hey, hey, don't get in my way. 44:13 Get in my way? 44:15 Tell me about the Constitution. I don't even have to learn English, you know. 44:20 It's a mess. 44:22 The culture's being destroyed. The civil society is destroyed along with it. 44:28 And then we wonder why we don't need a Senate. 44:32 So people new to the country, yeah, okay, that's fine by me. What's the point? 44:39 Yeah, and the Supreme Court is tyrannical. We need to change that, add numbers to the court or destroy it. Yeah, I get it. It's okay. 44:46 And what's so great about voting for a president? We could have our House of Representatives do it. 44:52 All right, I don't really care. 44:53 That's fine. How about the Electoral College? Let's get rid of that. 44:57 How's the electoral college? Fine, get rid of it. Oh, and you'll get to vote directly. Yeah, let's do that. 45:06 This is all purposeful. It's all intentional. 45:10 It's all shocking, is it not? 45:13 That's why education is so important, particularly at the early stages of one's life. 45:21 And unfortunately for too many of us, we've turned it over to the government. And so who's taken over the classroom? The teachers unions, basically two of them. 45:31 The NEA and the AFT. There are no more radical unions on the face of the earth than the NEA and the AFT. Look what they do up in Chicago. 45:40 Look what they do in New York City. Look what they do in L.A. Look what they do all over the country. 45:49 Now, too many teachers are illiterate themselves. Now, don't call me if you're a teacher who's literate. I'm not talking about you, obviously. 30-35% of the teachers are Republicans, as you can imagine. 46:04 Well, they're underpaid. Well, you know what? 46:06 Until we have kids who can read and write and do arithmetic, who know something about our history, sounds to me like some people are overpaid. 46:16 When I was a school board member, just a young guy, 19, 20 years old, I said, let's have merit pay. You would have thought, merit? You would have thought I said, like, you know, F you at the school board meetings. Why don't we give the teachers who do better more money and they're, why, are you nuts? 46:37 They're not going to do that. 46:40 Oh. 46:42 It's done everywhere else. Yeah, but this is different. 46:46 Yeah, I see. It's very different. Crazy. Crazy different. 46:53 Oh, yeah. 46:56 Okay. 46:57 Let's see here. I want to get back to this. Don't worry. I didn't lose my place. 47:02 I always come back to it. 47:05 Here we are. 47:06 So chapter two of my book, Plunder and Deceit. It's 11 years old. 47:12 George Mason University economics professor. 47:18 Walter Williams turned out to become a very good friend of mine. 47:24 I miss Walter. I miss Rush. We miss all these people. Bill Buckley. 47:30 Thomas Sowell is hanging in there. Ed Meese is hanging in there. You know, we have these great thinkers, these great men who did great things. 47:38 And you got 18-year-olds that say, I don't know, what the hell is that? I don't know who that is. 47:44 No, I don't know. I don't know. 47:48 Dr. Walter Williams rightly describes the underlying pathology driving the nation to economic and financial ruin, as I wrote 11 years ago, as a moral problem. He said this is a moral problem. 48:06 We become an immoral people demanding that Congress forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another. 48:16 Deficits and runaway national debt are merely symptoms of the real problem. 48:23 And Williams went further. He said nearly 75% of today's federal spending can be described as Congress taking the earnings of one American to give to another through the thousands of handout programs such as farm subsidies, business bailouts, and welfare. 48:44 Dr. Thomas Sowell. 48:47 Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University, he notes that there was a time, he said, he wrote, when the purpose of taxes was to pay the inevitable costs of government. 49:01 To the political left, however, taxes have long been seen as a way to redistribute income and finance other social experiments based on liberal ideology. 49:14 Yeah, well, true. 49:17 consequences for the rising generation that I use that phrase and you'll hear it now, but I coined that phrase, the rising generation. That's the generation that's behind my generation, our generation, many of your cases. 49:36 The consequences for the rising generation and future generations of the statists, immoral, politically expedient, and economically ruinous behavior and policies are unambiguous as evidenced by statistic after statistic, which are mainly ignored, discounted, or excused by most of the media, academia, and of course, governing statists. Nonetheless, there is no mistaking the eventual societal turmoil these facts and figures portend. 50:13 evidence all Americans, and especially younger people, must heed. 50:20 Must heed. 50:21 The nation's fiscal operating debt was already $10.6 trillion on the day Barack Obama took office. Listen to that. 50:33 We're now at $40 trillion since Obama took office. 50:37 We're going to be at $50 trillion in three and a half, four years. 50:42 This is getting so bad. 50:48 So bad. 50:52 During the Obama administration, government spending and borrowing both skyrocketed, and that was nothing compared to the Biden regime, by the way. 51:01 I heard one Democrat say, I forget who it was, but it doesn't matter. 51:07 And it's really grown most under Donald Trump. Now, ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump has tried to slash government. 51:16 Elon Musk, Doge, did they not come under a vicious attack? 51:20 by the Democrats, by some Republicans, did they not come under vicious, vicious attack every time they were going into a department to find out if people were dead and getting paid, to find out if people were double dipping, to find out if they were needed. Donald Trump has cut the federal workforce by almost 300,000. Nobody's done that before. Nobody. But they went after him, brutalized him, brutalized Elon Musk, tried to destroy Elon Musk, and on and on and on. And now it's, look at this, the budget got bigger under Trump. 51:50 And the reason is this. Once you put these programs in place, they get bigger and bigger and bigger on their own. 52:01 On their own. 52:03 Automatically. They just get bigger and bigger. Unless you stop them, they're not stopped. 52:09 That's the point. 52:12 Unless you stop them, they're not stopped. 52:15 And they get bigger and bigger. 52:17 And when you have illegal immigrants coming into the country, or other immigrants for that matter, who are on welfare or on the medical system and so forth and so on, that gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. 52:34 As C. Eugene Sturley of the Urban Institute explained, over decades we have wound a straight-jacket policy around ourselves. 52:47 especially in retirement, health, and taxation. Budget areas where now dead or retired members of Congress inscribe permanent policies, annual decision-making, and regular review have been choked off, and future generations saddled with a tab or forced to raise the revenues to meet these past promises. Brilliantly stated, unfortunately. 53:17 It's true. 53:20 Yeah. 53:23 Trying to pass some of those these paragraphs that are dated with information that's dated, but. 53:30 Increase public debt. We'll move on. Don't worry. We'll move on. I know it's depressing. We'll put it behind us. Pretend it's not happening until it happens like a ton of bricks falling on our heads. 53:42 Increased public debt also means increased debt servicing costs, particularly when the Federal Reserve eventually discontinues its artificially low interest rate policy. This was during Obama. 53:56 And so what will the feds do? What will the feds do when it becomes obvious that this is simply out of control? 54:08 They will raise interest rates. 54:10 They will slow the economy. 54:13 they will start choking off productivity. 54:16 So you don't have a runaway train. 54:20 The problem is they have to make a choice between a runaway train, massive inflation, or massive depression. 54:34 That will be the choice. 54:36 Okay, where are we going to dinner tonight? Forget about all this stuff. I'll be right back. 54:41 Mud Blupin. 54:50 In a recent industry survey, Pure Talk, my favorite wireless company, was the only wireless company to receive five stars in every category, including coverage, support, value, and data. You deserve five-star wireless service, folks, and now Pure Talk has an invitation just for you. Switch to Pure Talk for just $15 a month. For a limited time, any plan, including their top-shelf unlimited data plans, Just $15 a month for your first three months. No contract needed. Just an insanely low offer to switch to a top-rated company. 55:23 Pure talk. You know how you get five stars for support? A dedicated U.S. customer service team. You know how you get five stars for value? You save the average family of four over $1,000 a year versus big wireless. There's a better wireless choice out there. And just $15 a month for your first three months on any plan. Now, that's a great time to choose Pure Talk. Simply go to puretalk.com slash Levin. That's puretalk.com slash L-E-V-I-N to claim this offer now. 55:54 Grab it. Again, that's puretalk.com slash Levin, puretalk.com slash L-E-V-I-N. Start saving today. 56:06 Okay, we will move on. Now, by the way, Grover Norquist, who I've always liked, I haven't talked to him literally in many years. 56:17 he posted something hat-tipped to Michael Quinn Sullivan, something P.J. O'Rourke said, and P.J. O'Rourke was unique. He was sort of a Mark Twain of our time. 56:28 He said, at the core of liberalism is the spoiled child. 56:33 Miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic, and useless. 56:41 Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats. 56:45 Now you can replace liberalism, which is really such a kind word these days, with socialism or Marxism even more accurately. 56:56 I am really troubled by the kowtowing to people who are making demands on working Americans, on you, as well as retired Americans who've already worked and contributed to this great society and this great country to accommodate their demands. 57:16 They take out student loans, but they want us to pay for them. 57:22 There are things about work, much of which they don't want to do. I can't find a job, they say. Mr. Producer, I mean, when you get out of college or high school or something, you've got to work to find a job. 57:42 But there are jobs that you can get. 57:44 They may not be the jobs you want. They may not pay what you want, but they're jobs you can get if you put your mind to it. 57:52 As you know, when I started out on radio, it was on Sundays on WABC from 12 to 2 p.m. Nobody back then wanted to do it. 58:03 And you know how much I got paid? Nothing. I wanted to learn how to do it. Nothing. 58:09 For 14 months. 58:12 And now... 58:14 We're number two in the country. That's how it works. I'll be right back. 58:20 In a recent industry survey, Pure Talk, my favorite wireless company, was the only wireless company to receive five stars in every category, including coverage, support, value, and data. You deserve five-star wireless service, folks. And now Pure Talk has an invitation just for you. Switch to Pure Talk for just $15 a month. For a limited time, any plan, including their top-shelf unlimited data plans, just $15 a month for your first three months. No contract needed, just an insanely low offer to switch to a top-rated company. 58:53 Pure Talk. You know how you get five stars for support? A dedicated U.S. customer service team. You know how you get five stars for value? You save the average family of four over $1,000 a year versus big wireless. There's a better wireless choice out there. And just $15 a month for your first three months on any plan. Now that's a great time to choose Pure Talk. Simply go to puretalk.com slash Levin. That's puretalk.com slash L-E-V-I-N to claim this offer now. 59:24 Grab it. Again, that's puretalk.com slash Levin, puretalk.com slash L-E-V-I-N. Start saving today. 59:33 The one-man antidote for liberal media bias, Mark Levin. Call him now at 877-381-3811. I am here. 59:46 Which means you folks and I are here. 59:52 Not you folks and me are here. You folks and I are here. We'll get this. Trust me. 59:58 Once you get the little clue down, then you'll be able to do it forevermore. 60:03 Then you'll be able to be cocky. You know, like at Thanksgiving. Hey, everybody. 60:08 When do you use IME? Just pass the damn white meat. I don't want to hear from you. 60:14 Probably be one of the answers you get 60:19 I shouldn't say this. 60:23 First of all, I love Thanksgiving. I think it's my favorite of all. 60:27 And I think it's my favorite. I've always loved it. 60:31 But my mother-in-law and her house, family's there. Not all of the family. They can't all be there. But nonetheless, the food is so exquisite. I mean, I'm salivating right here. 60:44 We're not even close to Thanksgiving. Hell, it's August. 60:48 Doesn't matter. 60:50 Doesn't matter. 60:53 And, you know, we have more chefs. It's unbelievable. People want to be chefs. They're on the kitchen. They're working away. We need more of this. We need more of that. I go upstairs. 61:05 I'm not a cook. I'm not a chef. I'm an eater. 61:09 I'm an eater. 61:10 I'm the end user. Can I put it that way, Mr. Producer? 61:15 So they love to do it. So why should I interrupt? But my wife gets upset with me sometimes because you're upstairs. Everybody's here. 61:24 Even the dogs are down here. You're upstairs by yourself. I can't help it. 61:28 I can't help it. 61:31 So I go down. I hang around a lot. Then I go back upstairs. 61:35 You're antisocial. 61:38 I don't think I'm antisocial. Well, actually I am. No, she's right. I kind of am. 61:45 But it doesn't interest me. 61:47 We're going to use the, you know, we're going to bake one of the turkeys. The other one's going to be in the oil thing. And this is how you do it. I don't care how we do it. 61:56 I really don't. 61:58 As long as there's enough white meat, breast meat for me, I'm perfectly happy. 62:02 And then the stuffing is unbelievable. 62:05 Now there's stuff before I met my wife and went to their Thanksgiving. Then I never ate. 62:12 I forget what that, like a mint... 62:15 Jell-O or something? 62:17 Or raspberries? I love them. 62:19 Now, let me tell you something. I'm lactose intolerant. Anybody who's listened to this program knows. 62:26 Well, there's some kind of cream or something in there. 62:31 So I take the lactose pills. I don't take them for anything. 62:37 Because I want to eat that. 62:40 Believe it or not. 62:41 All right, Mr. Producer, don't get mad at me. 62:45 So after it's all just hungry, after it's all done, you know, there's leftovers the next day. Then sometimes there's leftovers the third day. 62:54 First of all, I'd love to have a turkey sandwich and put mayo on it. That's not weird, is it, Ron? I don't think so. 63:01 What about ketchup? 63:06 Of course not. Nobody does that but me. 63:13 Look, here's the truth. 63:15 I'll eat anything almost if it has ketchup on it. Any excuse for ketchup. I'm sorry. That's it. Oddly enough, I don't like them on eggs. Okay? Okay. Shoot me. I don't like ketchup on eggs. But I like it on everything else. 63:29 Just like the president. Now, I don't do it because of the president. 63:34 I'm going to be 69 years old. 63:36 I do it because I like it. 63:39 That's all. Now, why was ketchup invented? Anybody know? Does anybody know... 63:45 Why Heinz invented, do you think he sat around and said, let me invent ketchup? That's not what happened. 63:54 At the turn of the last century, plus a decade, a decade and a half, people were eating rancid meat. They didn't have any way of freezing the beef. 64:08 So they used a lot of salt, but that really didn't work very well. 64:13 Nothing they ate was fresh. I love to hear it. 64:16 May I have fresh vegetables? 64:21 Is that, are those noodles homemade? 64:28 My wife's going to kill me. 64:29 Anyway, you understand? 64:31 So, and today, by the way, it's like, everybody thinks it's just there. Again, the store, it's there. What's the problem? Somebody has to do all that stuff. 64:43 Anyway, so Heinz was trying to come up with some kind of sauce to cover the taste of the rancid beef. 64:52 And by the way, people were literally dying from this stuff. 64:57 Because one of the ways they would treat the beef is with sawdust. They didn't know any better. 65:03 Some of them used a form of turpentine. I know it's grilled, but this is what they did. This is why when I hear processed food, what are you nuts? Processed food saved an entire generation or two. 65:17 Processing the food, freezing it, drying it, heating it back up was genius. And you had these dense cities. 65:28 You had these tenements. 65:32 where people were dying of stomach cancer, throat cancer. People were just sick all the time, eating all this stuff. They didn't have access to fresh food. They didn't have ways to transport it and to keep it fresh. You know, they didn't have refrigeration and freezer trucks and trains and so. That had to be invented too, by the way. 65:53 Just think of the genius. 65:55 But did it make noise? What do you mean? 65:58 I mean, when they would use the trains to bring it to the cities and the smokestacks and the noise, you know, were they like data centers? 66:06 Okay. 66:07 Anyway, so they came up with processed foods. Not today. We don't eat processed foods. We hate processed food. Processed food. 66:18 It was a book written, those of you who've listened to this show years ago, there was a book written by two professors who said, processed foods are good depending on which processed foods we're talking about. In other words, there's not an ideological, there shouldn't be, there appears to be, but there shouldn't be objection to processed food unless it's bad processed food that's bad for you. Otherwise, processed food is okay. 66:43 Like corn. 66:46 Corn's not going to make you sick if it's processed, but otherwise a lot of people won't have access to it. 66:54 And things of that nature. Green beans, processed. I like them fresh. Well, good for you, but some people can't get them fresh. But they can't afford them fresh. 67:04 So they're processed. That's okay. 67:08 Feeds a lot of people. A lot of people who would otherwise starve to death. 67:13 No, but the process, I don't like the process. The process. Process and process. 67:20 Okay, anyway. 67:23 Heinz. 67:25 He mortgages his home. 67:29 And he fails. 67:31 And he goes bankrupt. 67:36 So in today's mindset, what would he do, Mr. Producer? Somebody bail me out. 67:41 Bail me out. 67:43 I tried, I failed. Capitalism sucks. Capitalism sucks. I've tried. Come on, I need the woke right to intervene. I'm in the working class. I'm not working. I can't eat it. I can't get... That's not what he did. That's not what any of these guys did. 68:01 He went back to the drawing board. 68:08 He went back to the drawing board. 68:11 And he had some brilliant ideas. He had learned from his first mistake. 68:17 Ketchup, up until really just a little bit ago, came in a glass container, didn't it, Ron? 68:25 With a label slapped on the front. 68:29 He said, I want the people to see what's in the jar. 68:35 I want them to see it. I don't want to hide it. 68:39 Because he used tomato and a little bit of garlic and a little bit of this, a little bit of that. 68:46 And it tasted great. 68:51 And he put it in. 68:54 He put it in a bottle that was used for decades. You can't use glass. Pollution. 69:01 Plastic. 69:03 It goes in cycles, does it? No plastic. No plastic. No plastic bag. No paper bag. How about a paper bag? Would you like it? Yes, I would. The trees. No plastic. No paper. Bring your own. Now, even though it's loaded with bacteria, you know, bring your own. The bacteria. Don't worry about it. So anyway. 69:24 He reinvented it. 69:27 Different ingredients. 69:30 Different bottle. 69:32 Different label. 69:34 The label talked about some of the ingredients in the bottle. 69:38 Tomato paste, this, that, and the other. He was way ahead of his time, as most entrepreneurs are way ahead of everybody's time. 69:49 That's how he started. 69:51 That's how we use ketchup now. Not catsup, ketchup. 69:56 Ketchup. 69:57 Which brings me back, I love ketchup. 70:01 I need ketchup on my french fries. 70:04 Oh, I've started doing stuff. Yeah, I don't even want to tell you. No, it's not gross, but I start doing stuff with ketchup and a particular... A processed food, Mr. Producer. Now, I don't use a lot of it. Every now and then, I'll just kind of touch it with the ketchup. Look, if I'm having a hamburger, the ketchup's on the hamburger. Uh-oh, ready for this one? If I'm having a hot dog, I like the mustard and the ketchup on the hot dog. That's right. I'm not Joey Chestnut. I eat it the way I want to. But if I have... 70:32 The ketchup, and it's in the plate, and it's stripped off the... 70:36 I might stick a potato chip in there, Mr. Producer. 70:40 Have you ever done that? 70:42 Pretty tasty, right? 70:44 I think so, too. 70:48 All right, we'll be right back. 70:58 In a recent industry survey, Pure Talk, my favorite wireless company, was the only wireless company to receive five stars in every category, including coverage, support, value, and data. You deserve five-star wireless service, folks, and now Pure Talk has an invitation just for you. Switch to Pure Talk for just $15 a month. For a limited time, any plan, including their top-shelf unlimited data plans, just $15 a month for your first three months. No contract needed, just an insanely low offer to switch to a top-rated company. 71:31 Pure Talk. You know how you get five stars for support? A dedicated U.S. customer service team. You know how you get five stars for value? You save the average family of four over $1,000 a year versus big wireless. There's a better wireless choice out there. And just $15 a month for your first three months on any plan. Now that's a great time to choose Pure Talk. Simply go to puretalk.com slash Levin. That's puretalk.com slash L-E-V-I-N to claim this offer now. 72:02 Grab it. Again, that's puretalk.com slash Levin. Puretalk.com slash L-E-V-I-N. Start saving today. 72:14 People online are so nuts. And by the way, they don't care if they're nuts. They act like they... Nobody's going to know I wrote this. 72:22 It's just crazy. 72:24 And I can't tell you what somebody wrote because they use a very foul word. It begins with F, Mr. Producer. 72:32 It's not flag either. 72:34 J.D. Vance, in 2021, just a few years ago, he was a full-grown adult, talking about power, something we know a little bit about here. Cut one, go. Well, I think... 72:49 Part of the answer is that the next time that we get power, whether it's in the Senate or the House or the presidency, we're talking President DeSantis in 2024 or President Trump round two in 2024. I think the thing that we have to take away from the last 10 years is that we really need to be really ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power. 73:14 Now, some of you might be cheering that and you're wrong. 73:19 We need to use positive power as the Constitution provides to advance the cause of constitutionalism, individual liberty, the market system, the civil society, the American culture, and our faith, whether you're Jewish or Christian or whatever you are. 73:49 That doesn't mean you're ruthless. 73:53 That means you're applying power properly, positive power. 73:57 If you're ruthless with power, you can run away with that. 74:03 That could become a problem. 74:06 So this talk about ruthless power and Huey Long and these other things, this stuff needs to be sorted out. 74:15 Personally, I think the vice president is a very nice guy. 74:18 Except for the fact that he won't denounce Tucker Carlson. And Tucker Carlson is one of the biggest bigots on the face of the earth. 74:25 Holocaust denier. Rewrites the Third Reich history. Other than that, he's a great guy. Other than being a POS, he's a great guy. 74:35 And the VP is going to have to figure out how to deal with this. Because so far, in my humble opinion, the position is I'm loyal to my friends. That ain't good enough. He shouldn't be a friend. In my humble opinion. Just me. 74:45 One person. Just me. 74:48 But this should be no surprise. This has been my view for some time when it applies to a traitor, Tucker Katarlson. 74:59 But power should not be exercised ruthlessly. It should be exercised properly. 75:07 Properly. Constitutionally. 75:11 In your own life, you don't want to exercise power ruthlessly against your spouse or your children. 75:20 You see, this actually is exactly what Montesquieu was talking about. 75:25 He's not alone, but he was at the pinnacle. 75:30 Power checking power. 75:34 Because individuals, and now I'm not talking about the vice president, I'm talking about individuals generally. 75:41 Individualies, now that is individuals, Pretty much power goes to their head once they have power. 75:54 The question is, can they contain it? 75:57 And can they apply it the way they should apply it? 76:00 For the benefit of themselves, their family, but the greater society, that sort of thing. 76:06 And what do I mean by greater society? Socialism! Well, obviously not. The greater society, as explained in the Declaration... 76:15 and is undergirded in the Constitution. We have an understanding of what we mean by the greater society. I hear people use this phrase, common good, the common good. What does that mean? 76:26 It means whatever I say it means. No, it doesn't. 76:29 Well, it's helping the working class. First of all, I can't stand these categories. 76:35 If I meet somebody, and I'm sure I will tonight, who's a waiter or a Just on the street or whatever. 76:44 Is he in the working class? 76:48 Who is this guy? What class is he in? 76:51 Is that how you folks operate? No, I don't think so. 76:55 That doesn't make any sense. You say, you know, Frank's a nice guy. I don't know if he's working class. I don't know. I don't know what's going on with Frank. I don't know if he's an oppressor or oppressed. Is he in the bourgeoisie or the proletariat? Normal people don't think this way. 77:12 And before Marx, normal people didn't act this way. 77:17 They stick us in these categories. And then they say, we've got to work for the category. Working people, we've got to help working. No, we've got to create an environment where the individual can thrive if they choose to thrive. 77:31 All right, more when we return. The Power Hour is next, hour three. I'll be right back. 77:42 He's here. 77:44 Now, broadcasting from the underground command post, deep in the bowels of a hidden bunker, somewhere under the brick and steel of a nondescript building, we've once again made contact with our leader, Mark Levin. 78:02 Hello, America. Mark Levin here. Our number, 877-381-3811. 877-381-3811. 78:12 El Saeed on Fox with Jesse Waters last night. 78:16 I confess I didn't watch it because I was doing my radio show. 78:20 Makes it tough. 78:23 Ah, but here I am. 78:26 Nobody's trying to push Sharia law on anyone else. Mr. Producer, I have played clip after clip after clip after clip of imams saying they are, of activists saying they are, of Muslim Brotherhood type saying they are, of their professors and scholars saying they are. So... 78:43 He says, no, no, don't believe what you hear. And this is what we're getting a lot from these Islamists who want to get elected now. 78:51 No, no, no, no, Islamophobe. What's wrong with you? 78:56 What are you? What are you a Jew? I mean, what are you lying? 79:01 But anyway, here he is. Cut for go. 79:05 You said getting rid of Sharia law was white supremacy. Let's roll the tape. Go. I don't have to tell you that the same exact forces that drove native peoples from their land two centuries ago, destroyed Black Wall Street a century ago, bombed a building decades ago, and tried to ban Sharia law not a decade ago. 79:30 Hold on, hold on. I've been mispronouncing it. Law. I didn't know that's how you pronounce it. Law. Interesting. 79:39 I love the way they talk. Forced the native peoples off their land. You know, it's like 80% of the people in this country today come from ancestors who weren't even here. 79:52 You know, what are you talking about, bro? You don't even make any sense. 79:57 So worried about that, Izzy. Well, where do we start? 80:01 Let's go back to the place they hate the most. May I? Let's call it Israel. Israel. 80:08 The native peoples there are Jews. 80:14 But what about the Palestinians? 80:17 There were no Palestinians. The truth be told, okay, here we go. There's no such thing as Palestinians. 80:24 Just because Arafat came up with the name and the KGB was whispering in his ear, it sounds like Palestine. 80:32 Exactly. These are Bedouin Arabs, the vast majority of whom lived in Jordan, and still do. 80:39 And still do. Now it's, oh, the occupiers. The occupiers, your faith didn't even exist for thousands of years while the Jews were living in that place. For that matter, the Christians were living there. 80:59 Now it's ours. It's all ours. Syria's ours. Jordan's ours. 81:04 Egypt's ours. These were all Christian, by the way. 81:09 Before the Christian faith, there were others. But in the area that's now Israel, it was Jewish. The Jews. 81:17 Now they were chased out of there by a variety of empires, but they outlasted the empires and they were back. 81:26 No, no, no, no. But when they were gone, we snuck in and we... No, you didn't. 81:32 No, you didn't. 81:34 Look on a map. Look on a map. 81:37 Massive areas of lands controlled by Arab Muslims. 81:42 Arab Muslims didn't even exist... ...when Judaism... ...when Judaism was first established. 81:53 It didn't even exist when Christianity was next. 81:57 I've explained this. 82:00 It's not even that old of a religion... 82:04 And some people even question if it's a religion, because if you listen to the original Khomeini, it sounded more like an ideological movement. 82:15 Right? With its own laws, and that's Sharia law. But this fraud, this phony, this fool, he can't lie to us. 82:23 I've got a whole archives of so-called prominent imams and scholars telling us that they seek to impose Sharia law on us, and that's the least of it. 82:36 Go ahead, please. ...are alive and well today. 82:40 So getting rid of Sharia law's white supremacy, can you explain that one? 82:47 Sure. Do you know what canon law is, Jesse? I assume you're Christian, right? Yeah, tell me. 82:53 All right, so canon law is the name for Christian law. I don't begrudge you your right to practice... 82:57 Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. There's a big difference... 83:02 People know all about it. 83:04 I've written about it. Scholars have written about it. What's the difference? Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about it. Jefferson and Adams noted it, and they're not the only ones. 83:16 It's one thing for Christians to have a so-called canon law, Christian law, and Catholicism also has such a thing, and even the Torah has such a thing. Here's the difference. 83:33 Islamists believe that Sharia law should be imposed on the entirety of the world. 83:40 Whether you're Muslim or a non-Muslim. 83:43 Christians do not believe that they should forcibly impose their canons on the rest of the world. 83:50 Jews do not believe they should impose the 613 laws that are in the Torah on the whole world. 83:58 Jews do not believe that the only way to pray to God is if you're Jewish. Christians do not believe that the only way to pray to God is if you're Christian. Islamists believe the only way that you can pray to God who is Allah is if you're Muslim. 84:15 They're totally different. Totally different. 84:19 Sharia law is a governing law. 84:22 The Christian canons, the Catholic canons, they're not really governing laws. 84:28 They're moral laws telling you what's right and wrong under what circumstances, what to consider and so forth and so on. That's not what Sharia law does. Sharia law permits you to marry a certain number of women, a certain age of women, very young, has all kinds of requirements and so forth and so on for your daily day-to-day life. 84:51 It truly is a unique and problematic mixture of government and religion. 84:59 Of ideology and faith. 85:04 None of the other Abrahamic religions, the other two, have such a thing. Not Christianity and not Judaism. So let's stop playing games, Al-Sayed. 85:15 And you hear this discussion about circumcision. 85:20 Jesse, are you circumcised? 85:22 Well. 85:25 So he compares that to circumcision. 85:28 genital mutilation of children. 85:34 Now, can you imagine that? So in other words, removing the entire male organ to circumcision. 85:48 And same with a woman. 85:50 I don't even know what circumcision for a woman would be like, but nonetheless, he was talking about males. 85:56 They think they're clever. They think they have all these one-liners ready and so forth. They dodge and weave when they want to. Otherwise, when they're there with fellow Islamists, they're right in your face. Yeah, that's right! Sharia law, baby! Sharia law! 86:11 And then when you're with, you know, on Fox... What do you mean? We're not forcing it on... What's the problem here? I don't understand. 86:21 Look throughout Europe. You don't understand? You know what, ladies and gentlemen? This isn't a theoretical matter. 86:27 It is reality, and it's happening in front of your face, right in front of your eyes. Just look around you. Look at your, look at it, because it's right there, isn't it? 86:40 Isn't it? Answer is yes. We'll be right back. 86:42 Mark Levin. 86:57 All right, ladies and gentlemen, you know, education is not a topic for the moment. It is a topic generation to generation. 87:06 How we educate our young people determines what kind of society we're going to have. 87:12 And I fear that some people are well educated, but others are not. 87:17 They're well indoctrinated. 87:19 And so the consequences are all around us, right? You get a lot of young people support socialism, although I don't think as many young people as some people think. 87:27 But look at the polls. That's my point. 87:30 You know, everybody doesn't go to college. Some people do and some people don't. But in any event, I want to introduce you to Jeannie Allen, who I haven't talked to in years, but I've known for a very long time. 87:42 and her wonderful husband who passed away, John, who was a good friend of mine. She's got this fantastic new book, and I really love the title, The Education Avengers. Jeannie, how are you, and what do you mean by this? 87:56 I'm great, Mark. Thank you so much. How are you? I'm good. 87:59 Thank you. 88:01 What do I mean by the Education Avengers? The Education Avengers is a tome about stories of people, but not just people who saw something standing between children and opportunity and refused to accept it. 88:15 But it really poses a more provocative question that if you think about the parlance of Marvel's Avengers story, They are seeking to take on and defend a planet and a world that's constantly under attack by any number of evil influences. And what you just said in opening the segment, Mark, was absolutely right. It is an issue for generations. It's an issue for civilization. And when you have great people, ordinary people turn to extraordinary heroes to save kids, And then you look at how they're doing it, you realize we can do this. 88:52 It's hopeful, but we have to do it because our kids are not flourishing. And that's what builds great communities. 89:00 Mr. Producer, let's make sure we put her book, Link to Amazon, on all my social sites, please. It's very important. And I want to encourage you folks, this is a very important book, The Education Avengers, How and Why a New Class of Heroes is Fighting America's Biggest Battle. And it is a huge battle. And before I get into some of these people, Jeannie Allen, It's a battle against the teachers unions. They are incredibly well funded by the taxpayers. They are lopsided, hard left ideologues. 89:31 And that's part of the problem, isn't it? They're not teaching. They're indoctrinating. And they seem to have control. Their hands are on the throat of the public school system. 89:42 You're right, Mark. And I've expanded the definition a little bit as well. And I call it the Hydra, right? You cut off one head, three more grow back from mythology. 89:56 It's the unions, it's apathy, it's institutions that suggest that our children somehow are in command and control of their minds and their bodies as early as seven years old. 90:09 It's the bureaucracies that stand in the way of great education entrepreneurs like many of the ones I write about and I've met all my career. I've been so blessed to know them. It's a huge group of people who don't realize it. You know, I talk about how in health care, you know, we're also charitable, right? It's cancer, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis. We raise money. We march for it. We ride bikes for it. We think it's urgent. But when it comes to education, we don't have that same sense of urgency. 90:40 And yet it happens to everybody or it doesn't happen to everybody. And it has a much more profound effect. And maybe even you could argue great education also helps you understand not just health, but everything else. 90:55 And we pay so much for this. You know, it's our tax dollars. We got people you pay right up to the time you sell your home and you're not in your home anymore. Even renters pay indirectly. I mean, this enormous amount of money. I just got the tax bill from Martin County in Florida. Now, there's no income tax in Florida, but these counties are nuts and they keep raising and raising. We're not raising, you know, they play around with the millage, but so much of it goes towards the public education system where merit doesn't exist and accountability doesn't exist. 91:29 So let's jump into this a little bit. You have a number of people here that you highlight and who participate in this. How did you... Well, first of all, explain to people, you've been involved in this for decades, so you know who these people are and who you wanted to contribute to this book. 91:45 Yeah, again, I've met so many, I'm just amazed, and I've been doing it for almost four decades, hard to believe, you know, working in and around politics, policy, culture, and across all the aisles, by the way, great educators and great entrepreneurs have, Do the right thing for the right reasons. 92:06 And they tend to be able to actually have really robust arguments no matter what they think. 92:11 But I was just struck mostly in more recent years as we helped develop a cadre of education leaders. 92:20 with a prize we started several years ago, thanks to Janine and Jeff Yoss, called the Yoss Prize. And people came out of the woodwork to apply for it, and we met folks that we just didn't even know. They're not run-of-the-mill people. They're not folks that are going to necessarily show up on your coffee table book, and I wanted them to. 92:39 And there are people who come from all different backgrounds, and they just decided that kids were worth the fight. They didn't start to pick a fight. 92:49 But they were moms and they were education people and they were just regular folks. 92:56 And they did what most institutions were not able to do at scale. And they saw it happening to their kids and other kids. They created places for kids to thrive. And so when I started talking to them, interviewing them, I also found out it wasn't just what they created schools for kids with special needs, schools for kids in foster care, schools for typical kids. But maybe they don't want to sit in a typical school behind a desk and be bored out of their minds. Maybe they need to be outside. Maybe they need personalized learning. 93:28 But all of them tended to have a story that actually compelled them to do what they do. And then that story really became why they're Avengers. Again, if you think of Captain America and you think of the Marvel comics, they all came from somewhere and developed this artifact that they used to do battle and defend and promote the good and the beautiful. 93:50 Our people did the same thing. 93:52 Well, let's get into some examples and then we'll take a little break and then we'll get into some more examples after. Give us some examples in the book. You have a number of them. And by the way, if you want to get this book, go to Amazon dot com. Any major bookstore should have it. It's called the Education Avengers. And look, if your parents out there are grandparents, you're going to want to read this book. You don't have to be. But I would if I were you. But if your parents or grandparents, for sure, you ought to grab a copy of this book. Again, Amazon.com. It's called The Education Avengers or any major bookstore. 94:24 Go ahead. Give us an example. 94:26 Yeah. So I'm going to start with a sentimental favorite. And I call her the wonder seeker. It's a woman named Trisha Vase who was out of Northern California. And I'm starting with her, Mark, because sadly, she passed away suddenly Friday night. 94:43 And I got this message and I was like, I can't believe that just happened. A young woman who was ready to rock and roll and bring her to New York and fed her in all the ways I'm fedding our Avengers over the next several weeks. 94:58 She didn't start. She didn't set out to start a school. She actually set out to save her children. And in the process, I mean, every time she brought her child to a school and she had a couple of her own and a couple of foster kids they eventually adopted, they were so unhappy. And the more she engaged and asked questions, the more they shut her down. 95:18 And, you know, she they would tell her things like we don't do it this way. And so she would pick up the code, California education code and read it and say, I don't see anything that says she can't do it this way. 95:30 And, you know, I talked to her about why she did what she you know, why why she was that way. And it turns out she grew up. Interestingly enough, you'll appreciate this. Her father was Jerry Jordan, was a member of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors. that are in the Federal Reserve. By the way, I didn't know that. I didn't know anything about her background, her politics. 95:50 Hold your thought. Hold your thought. We're going to take a break. This poor lady you're talking about has passed away on Friday, and that's too bad. But we want to talk a little bit more about her and some of the others in this fantastic book, The Education Avengers. 96:04 We will pin it up on our... 96:07 social sites, but you can go directly to Amazon.com, grab your copy. Very, very important. Again, particularly if you're parents or grandparents. We'll be right back. 96:19 Mark Levin, a proud fanatic for the Constitution. Call him now at 877-381-3811. 96:29 The book is The Education Avengers. Very, very critical book. Very important on the state of education now, yesterday, and especially in the future. 96:39 by our friend Jeannie Allen. So go ahead. You were talking about this young lady. 96:44 She was organizing a school really to save her kids. She just passed away suddenly Friday, which is horrendous. I'm sorry to hear that. As you read the book, you get to know her. Anyway, go right ahead. 96:56 Yeah, no, you get to know my wonder seeker. 96:58 Her magnifying glasses are artifact, and I'll just cut to the chase. 97:03 And Mark, she she ended up learning more about education code than most people who actually work in in education and started a personalized school up in the north coast of California, where every child who walks in gets an education tailored to them. 97:22 And students who used to come to school dragging are joyful. They're flourishing. 97:29 Parents drive miles to get their kids there. And say blob, the Hydra has done everything they could to shut her down. And she has survived and thrived. And so that's just one of the stories that encourages you that just a normal, ordinary person could take on the take on the big establishment and win. 97:49 Tell us more, more. 97:52 Well, I've got Captain Character, a gentleman named Eugene Slocum. I love Captain Character. He's down in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He's a grandson of sharecroppers, and he built one of the first charter schools in the area down there, charters of public schools that are open by choice. 98:10 And he just said, you know, I'm not going to let people treat my largely African-American kids like they are victims. I'm going to build something around them so they always stay challenged. So they're always building character because the way he learned was the more you learn to do something, the better you are. And that's how you overcome adversity is you get better at stuff. So Captain Character, I have the legacy warrior out of absolutely beautiful South Dakota who takes kids that were underserved on reservations and turns their lives around. 98:45 And there's about 15 others of them, and they're just enormously incredible people. I'll tell you one other, if you want. Yeah. The social capitalist, a pastor in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His artifact is a lantern because he really holds a torch up to let people actually see what's happening in the traditional education. And this is a guy who got to be 18 years. 99:11 Pushed through school, Mark. Never learned to read until someone finally stopped him in college and said, maybe we should do something about this. 99:19 The book is extremely motivating because you're right. You're taking people who are considered, quote unquote, average. We're up against the educational bureaucracy. 99:30 who want to defend their kids, who want to defend other kids. 99:34 And they really are up against the system. You know, they always talk about the system. Well, the biggest and most dug in system is the education system. 99:43 It's the best funded by taxpayers and so forth. And it's the least open to parents having any say in anything. 99:50 And so these people are an example of what you can do if you really put your mind and heart and some of your time to it. And I want to strongly encourage you to get this book, The Education Avengers by Jeanne Allen. I've known her for, I guess, three decades or more, really, more actually. And you can get it on Amazon.com. I've linked to it on all our social sites, any major bookstore. 100:15 It's not your typical book on education. First of all, it's not boring. Secondly, it's not just data laden. It's real human beings, real examples, stories being told at every corner of this country. It is invigorating. It's an invigorating book. And I want to congratulate you on a job incredibly well done, Jeannie Allen. God bless you, my friend. 100:36 Thank you so much, Mark. I'm so grateful to you for all you do. 100:39 And likewise, thank you. 100:42 Jeannie Allen is a person I knew during the regular ministry. I guess it's 40 years. 100:49 And this young lady, unfortunately, she lost her husband some time ago, who I was friends with. 100:56 But she has been fighting this battle. 100:59 She could have easily been one of the chapters in the book. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. She's involved in the school choice movement. 101:09 in the charter school movement, in all these movements. 101:13 She is somebody who doesn't promote herself, doesn't draw attention to herself, isn't a big media personality. 101:24 But all of you who have kids and grandkids, she's in there and she is fighting for you. 101:30 And I think the least we can do is read all this incredible information. And again, it's invigorating. 101:37 that she has collected here in her book, The Education Avengers, How and Why a New Class of Heroes is Fighting America's Biggest Battle. And it is. And you see it today. You see it today. 101:51 We have a bunch of kids who are in their late teens, early 20s, mid-20s, even early 30s, young adults, who bought off on socialism, on Marxism, communism, who trash our country, who don't have access to the information. 102:10 Well, that's not true, but they access information in the wrong place. 102:15 Our education system was intended to do what? 102:19 Well, obviously, to create children who are competent in all the important fields, reading, writing, arithmetic, and so forth, but also who support the country. 102:33 who support the country. 102:37 It's not happening. 102:39 It's not happening. I want you to check out this book. You're going to thank me for this. The Education Avengers. It's really, really a cool book by Jeanne Allen. I want you to go out there and get it, please. You can get it at Amazon.com, any major bookstore. You're supposed to have it. If they don't, you might want to ask about it. Barnes & Noble has done a fantastic job now with a lot of books. I hope it's there. If it's not, you might bring it up. But it's the Education Avengers... 103:08 You're going to find these folks. 103:11 They're not billionaires. They're not millionaires. Many of them aren't even in the middle class or the lower middle class. But they don't like what they see. And they do something more than complaining about it. That's why I want you to check this out. It's invigorating. 103:27 It's invigorating. 103:32 You've got these Democrats like a conga line of morons. They go on these TV shows, these Sunday shows. 103:39 Donald Trump's going to do this. Donald Trump's going to do that. Donald Trump's going to do what? 103:45 He goes to court. He wins more than he loses. 103:48 And when he loses, he follows the court decision. 103:53 It's ridiculous. 103:55 It's ridiculous. 103:58 Hakeem Jeffries, just to show you what a low life he really is. 104:03 You know, President Trump is very forgiving. He has his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who's very, very smart, has him go talk to Hakeem Jeffries. 104:11 You know, if it were me, and luckily it's not, I'd say, screw that guy. I'm not talking to him. You know, I understand it. I'm not the president. 104:20 But still, and I'll tell you why. I want you to listen to this. Hakeem Jeffries with Wolf Blitzer. 104:29 Cut, what is it? Cut 11. Go. 104:31 If you become the leader or the Democrats become the majority in the House, are you open to pursuing impeachment of President Trump? 104:39 You see, this guy is urging him to pursue impeachment. Are you open to pursuing impeachment? 104:48 I mean, they never said that or asked that of Republicans when they're talking about Biden. It would always be, you better not pursue impeachment. It's a totally different mindset and attitude. 104:59 When they have a Democrat on versus when they have a Republican, it is constant attack mode. If they have Republican guests or administration guests, attack, attack, attack. And they get a schmo like this Hakeem Jeffries. It's not attack, attack, attack him. No, it's you're going to impeach Trump. Come on, come on, come on, come on. You're going to impeach Trump. 105:21 Go ahead, please. 105:23 We've made clear we haven't ruled anything in and we haven't ruled anything out. 105:28 Is that Cicero? Where do you get that quote from, Mr. Producer? 105:35 Or did he get it from a fortune cookie? 105:38 Go ahead. I've indicated Jamie Raskin and House Judiciary Committee. 105:44 Jamie Raskin. Now there's a commie. 105:46 There's a commie won't come on the show. I love these guys. I've had about seven or eight of these podcast debate me debate because they want me to use you my audience to draw attention to them. Every one of them is a sleazeball. I won't do it. 106:02 You must be scared folks. I could wipe the floor with all of them put together. 106:08 I've been held back. 106:12 I mean, in some cases, I really wanted to do it. 106:16 But then as I think about later, they were right to hold me back. 106:22 But when it comes to people like a Hakeem Jeffries or Bernard Sanders or an Ayach or any of them, there's no reason not to debate them. They're not questioning, you know, weird stuff you said death yeah yeah you said ground forces yeah you know it's okay let's go at this from a political and ideological battle it's okay but they won't come on by the way one of these suckers These podcasters act like a tough guy. 107:03 Mr. Producer contacted his people behind the scenes quietly and invited them on the radio show. They wouldn't come. 107:12 Don't guess. You may not guess who it is. 107:15 Anyway, go ahead. 107:17 I'm a proud member of the House Judiciary Committee for 10 years, as well as Robert Garcia and Democrats on the Oversight Committee. 107:24 So they're going to impeach Trump because these are two bomb throwers. 107:27 Raskin is behind and leading every one of the prior impeachments against the president. Also. He's the one who led from the House the effort to twist the 14th Amendment to prevent the president of the United States from being on the ballot. Remember all that stuff? Raskin was one of those who was leading the charge. Raskin was also on the floor of the House when they were counting the Electoral College who objected. Each time Donald Trump won the Electoral College, he objected to the counting of them. So he's a real punk. 107:57 His father was a real punk. 108:01 His father. His father was a real commie. 108:04 Now, they don't sue me over these things because I can prove it. It's just I care. I said care is tied to Hamas, a terrorist organization. I've been saying that for 25 years. They used to threaten talk show hosts. 108:15 Okay, go for it. 108:18 But I will represent myself. You know what they say? No, not that. 108:23 Don't piss off, Mark. He's a hell of a lawyer. That's what they say, Mr. Producer. I'll be right back. 108:28 Mark Levin. 108:41 You know, there's a guy that's been waiting longer than anybody here. Let me see. 108:46 Yes. If we can go quickly, Robert, Raleigh, North Carolina, the great Sirius XM satellite. Go. 108:54 Mark, great old music, by the way. So it wasn't a hard wait. 109:00 I just want to thank you for being the primary edifying political scholarship force of my life. I would watch and listen to Buckley. 109:12 You know, back in the 70s, I'm about your age with my father, but it wasn't until I started listening to you that I really grew up. 109:19 I want to say something. You've said it before. I don't want to overstate it. But here it is. 109:24 I'm sick and tired of these so-called mainstream Democrats. And parenthetically, I can't name three moderate Democrats. 109:33 No, I agree. 109:33 In current power, acting as if this DSA phenomenon is some sort of a random, unpredictable event. that they couldn't ward off. 109:45 All right, Mr. Call Screener, take Robert's phone number. I didn't give him enough time here, and we'll call him tomorrow. He's a good caller. 109:52 And I want to salute all you folks out there. Thank you for being with us. 109:57 You know, you got to, as we used to say in the second grade, you got to bring your thinking cap. 110:02 God, am I dating myself? 110:04 See you tomorrow. God bless.