Erick Erickson HR 3 03-12-26

Hey everybody, Lady Luck here, and we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now, all summer long, I'm going to be celebrating by playing on SpinQuest.com, which is an American-owned social casino. It obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to SpinQuest.com. Get yourself a $30 coin pack for just $10.00. SpenQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit SpenQuest.com for more details. Welcome. It is Eric Erickson here. The phone number is 8779373-725. There is an ongoing situation at Temple Israel, a reformed Jewish synagogue in school in West Bloomfield, Michigan. We're keeping our eye on it. An individual reportedly drove a vehicle into the building before opening fire. Residents in the area are being asked to shelter in place. Police are on the scene. This is an ongoing situation. We also have a shooting at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. We will monitor these situations. As we move on to other topics, I'll keep an eye on them. I want to spend a moment, and this I got to acknowledge out of the gate is more of a niche subject for many of you, because as many of you identify as conservatives, you're not really in the conservative movement. But one of the major conferences of the conservative movement has always been CPAC, the conservative political action conference. And I have had criticisms of it over the year. A lot of the people that get on stage, it's pay to play to get on stage. And Matt Schlapp is the president of the American conservative union that oversees CPAC and CPAC Foundation of the like. And he's, I think, a terrible steward. of the CPAC brand and what it means for conservatives in this country. In 2024, Matt Schlapp settled a case brought by a young man who claimed that Schlapp had sexually assaulted him in Georgia during the Herschel Walker Senate race. Now, at the time, Politico reported the conclusion of the matter, noting that the accuser's name is Carlton Huffman, dropped the charges and apologized for bringing the charges, quote, the charges made in my lawsuit were the result of a complete misunderstanding, and I regret that the lawsuit caused pain to the Schlapp family, Huffman said in his statement. It was shared by a spokesman for Matt Schlapp.

Statement continued, The Schlapps have advised that the statement made about me were the result of a misunderstanding, which was regrettable, he added. Neither the Schlapps nor the American Conservative Union paid me anything to dismiss my claims against them. When he was asked about the statement, Carlton Huffman told the political order text message, we have resolved our differences and confirmed the accuracy of the statement. You got that? Carlton Huffman accused Matchlap of sexual assault. and then released a statement saying it was all of misunderstanding, I regret the lawsuit that caused pain to the Slap family, and then said that neither the slaps nor the American Conservative Union paid me anything to dismiss my claims. Well, The New York Times added some additional helpful information about the situation. This is from the New York Times. The operative Carlton Huffman, now 40, had accused Mr. Schlapp of grabbing his general area when the two men were alone in a car after a campaign event in Georgia in 2022. He sued Mr. Schlapp last year, but announced this week he had dropped the lawsuit. In a statement, he said he had not been paid by Mr. Slap or the American Conservative Union, the group Mr. Slap overseas. Instead, Mr. Huffman received the six-figure settlement through an insurance policy, according to the three people familiar with the deal who insisted on anonymity to speak about the private agreement. The people said they were motivated to disclose the details because they were upset over what they described as a victory lap from Mr. Schlapp after the lawsuit was dismissed. Mr. Huffman declined to comment, saying he was legally bound to say nothing more than that he and Mr. Schlapp had resolved their differences. You get this? Carlton Huffman filed the lawsuit against Matt Schlapp for sexual assault. He issues a statement saying it was all a misunderstanding. I regret filing the lawsuit and causing harm to the Schlapp family, and I have received nothing from ACU or from Mr. Slap. The insurance company handed him a check for $480,000 on condition that he dismissed the lawsuit and signed that statement and now says, I'm not allowed to talk about it.

What do you think happened? Fellas, if you were accused of sexually assaulting another man, would you, A, fight all the way in court to defend your integrity and name, or have your insurance company pay the man $480,000 and have him go away? What would you do? What would you do? Is it worth it to you to just pay them a bunch of money to make it go away or to get rid of the cloud over your head, fight it all the way to the end and let a jury decide? What would you do? A year later, Yasser Ali reported this. Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which hosts the CPAC Convention, allegedly engaged in lewd conduct and allegedly sexually harassed a man in a restaurant and bar in Virginia on Saturday night, six witnesses, and the man who alleges he was assaulted told me. That's from Yasser Ali last year. Now... I bring this up because I think it's extremely relevant that Matt Schlapp, who paid a man $480,000 to dismiss a sexual assault case against Matt Schlapp and enter a statement saying it was all misunderstanding, has chosen to invite Steve Bannon to speak at CPAC, which is going to be held this year in Texas instead of Washington, D.C. Now, I asked Google Jim and I to tell me how many times Steve Bannon's name came up in the Epstein files. I'm going to read from you now what Google Gemini reported to me. Quote, based on the February 26. Release of the Epstein Library by the Justice Department, a search for Steve Bannon's name yields 1,855 results. The documents reveal a deep, chummy relationship between 2018 and 2019 when Steve Bannon advising the financier on reputation rehabilitation and exchanging thousands of texts. Now, there's more from News Nation, quote, The files showed a relationship between former White House strategist Steve Bannon and Epstein over the course of a year and a half after Steve Bannon left the Trump administration and up until Epstein's arrest in 2019. A search of Steve Bannon's name in the Justice Department's Epstein Library yields 1,855 results. In one text exchange, Steve Bannon planned to meet Epstein just before he was arrested. Epstein abruptly canceled the meeting, the documents suggest. Steve Bannon also texted Epstein in 2019 about efforts to take down then-Po Francis document showed, quote, the Clintons, she, Francis, European Union, come on, brother, the text read.

Steve Bannon commented on the release. of the Epstein files on his podcast last month saying, quote, I'm sure that's going to be highly controversial and we'll see how it plays out. Now there's this from Politico, quote, the two texted frequently about everything from the TV show Chernobyl and a guessing game over who pinned the 2018 anonymous New York Times op-ed to their efforts to influence international geopolitics, including shaping Europe's governing coalitions, ramping up pressure on China and forging business ties in the Middle East. Steve Bannon at one point took credit for convincing Donald Trump in 2018 to impose massive tariffs on China, gabbed with Epstein about his We Build the Wall endeavor that would later end in a federal indictment and presidential pardon and gossiped about the latest developments in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation in which Steve Bannon was a subject. Their conversations sometimes veered into locker room humor in multiple instances at the urging of Epstein, who made sexual jokes, including one about female genitalia riffing on something Steve Bannon said. They also made fun of Trump, with Epstein joking that Trump should be called a regrifter, not a regifter, and Steve Bannon in other instances using the moniker stable genius to refer to the president and quipping Trump was out of gas in reference to an Axios report about his schedule. The two dined together frequently, and Epstein offered Steve Bannon the use of a Paris apartment, Palm Beach House, and other accommodations, as well as his plane on multiple occasions. When Epstein helped coordinate other travel for Steve Bannon, the two joked that Epstein was working as Steve Bannon's assistant and the, quote, most highly paid travel agent in history. In one instance, Epstein added, quote, massages, not included. Steve Bannon, meanwhile, provided media training to Epstein as the two worked on a documentary, advice that extended so far as to counsel him how long to keep his beard. Steve Bannon also coached Epstein as he navigated increasing media scrutiny in the winter of 2019. You'll forgive me, but for people who think there's a cabal of deeply deviant, wealthy predators engaged in sordid behavior, maybe the conspiracy theories out there need to take a look at CPAC this year. If you got Steve Bannon on stage, he's presided over by Matt Schlapp. I know, you know, what's funny is Jack Posobiac is probably going to be there. He of Pizza Gate fame, spreading the conspiracy theories about comet ping pong being a central location for deviant behavior in a global sex trafficking ring. Well, CPAC's kind of like comet ping pong now for politics. Matt Bill Gates, I hear, is going to be there as well. What the hell is happening? The conservative movement is being overtaken by anti-Semites, grifters, people who are coddling pedophiles and sex traffickers, people who are accused of assaulting other men and pay them $480,000 to go away. What is happening to the conservative movement right now? It's not the conservative movement. It's the grifter movement.

They want to be like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. They want to wear the skin of the conservative movement while they engage in sordid degrading acts. I mean, they wear the skin suit of the conservative movement. Masquerade as conservatives claim to be the conservative movement. And you know, they use the phrase con ink pejoratively against movement conservatives who haven't abandoned their principles while they are actually the incorporated conservative movement designed to cash in on the clout and reputation of the movement. To put Steve Bannon on a stage after all of the documentation about Jeffrey Epstein or Matt Bill Gates on stage, who's a ruthless, relentless anti-Semite on his poorly watched OAN show where he displays his Botox for the world to see. I mean, this is not a conservative movement conference. This is a freak show, and it will be used by the media to vilify the president and his actual supporters as a bunch of racist anti-Semites human traffickers. The media will gladly glum on to CPAC and say the dregs of the conservative movement, the dregs of society who show up and get on stage and say outlandish things for attention that they are the conservative movement. They will define the movement for the press and for the independent voters who will be making up their mind in November to put Steve Bannon on stage after everything we know about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein is appalling. The Yad and Matt Bill Gates, even Roger Stone is outraged and calling on Donald Trump to boycott CPAC because of Steve Bannon on stage. Good for Roger Stone, of all people. What terrible stewardship. of a very old organization, the American Conservative Union, to just work to ruin the reputation of the conservative movement, to put the grifters and the hustlers, the con artists, the charlatans, the frauds and the anti-Semites on a stage, and to have a lot of people go to it thinking they're going to get more than they actually are. It's depressing to see. And it's just, I mean, you have the problems at the Heritage Foundation with the anti-Semites. and the populace and abandoning long-held positions. In post-modernity, people abandoned principle for power. And it happened on the left. It's happening on the right. People want access to power. And they believe that if they wield the power, that everything will be okay for their side. What's so funny, is that Peter Thiel, who's been influential on advancing JD Vance's career and the like, and those around Peter Thiel, they all name all their stuff after things from the Lord of the Rings. They're all big Lord of the Rings fans. The Lord of the Rings is a story about a Hobbit entrusted with a ring of power, and it's got to be thrown in a volcano because all the humans get corrupted by the power. And yet we have all these people who claim to be in the conservative movement, who love the Lord of the Rings, who cannot see that they too have been corrupted by the ring of power. And instead of throwing the damn ring away, they've decided, you know what, we'll put it on our finger, and we're going to be the governors of hell. And all they want to do is they would rather actually...

be parliamentarians ruling in hell than actually worship God Almighty in heaven where they have to be subordinate to something other than themselves. It's disgusting to see the level of corruption in what had been the conservative movement. And what is notable is so many of the loudest voices currently within the conservative movement are spending all their time chastising those of us who haven't been corrupted by the power. that somehow we're the bad guys. No, you people are profiting and grifting off a bunch of people tied to a notorious human trafficker, among others. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. And by the way, if you pay $480,000 to a man to make his sexual assault lawsuit go away, there is going to be a cloud of suspicion on you that the rest of us should acknowledge, and maybe you shouldn't be inviting people like Steve Bannon to come on stage. on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Rumble. Search E.W. Erickson. You may not agree with him, but he tells you the truth. It's the Ericson. This is a tweet from Chad Leavengood. He's the politics editor and columnist for the Detroit News, quote, text message to members of the Temple Israel Synagogue. Lockdown is still in place. Active shooter has been taken down. Lockdown will be in place until they know that the shooter was working alone. All kids and all staff accounted for, all fine. Truck rammed into the front door and opened fire. That is from Chad Leavengood, who is the politics editor and columnist for the Detroit News about Temple Israel Synagogue. Again, locked down in place, active shooter taken out. All kids and all staff accounted for all fine. Truck rammed in the front door and open fire. Well, thank God if all the kids and staff are accounted for and fine. What an awful scenario. Antisemitism continues to be on the rise in this country, and it's just wild to me to see. so many people on the right embracing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiment because they know it gets them clicks, it gets them buzz, it gets them traffic. I oftentimes, when I talk about these people, don't name them, and there's a contingent of the audience. It's like, you need to name names. I don't want to name names because I don't want to give them more attention. You need to know they're out there. You'll be able to recognize them and see them for yourself without me having to name names for you. It's just, it is appalling to me to see so many people in this country turning towards anti-Semitism like that. It's just really just demented, demented stuff, shameful stuff.

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Greetings, welcome. It's Eric Erickson here. Don't forget to text Eric E R-I-C-K to 33777. Also, for those who down in the Jacksonville area, I'll be broadcasting with you guys tomorrow and Monday for the Players Championship. I'll be out there on Saturday hanging out with listeners at the players and playing some golf. with a buddy of mine going to the fudge shop in Fernadina. I'm really, really looking forward to being with you guys down there in Jacksonville for this. I've been to the Masters. I've never been to any other golf tournament, so this one's going to be interesting. It'll be all this weekend at TPC Sawgrass. The phone number here, 87797973-4425. I want to put in perspective for you guys. What's actually going on in Iran and compare it to other things? Because you're flying blind here. So much of the American media is so hostile to it. In fact, I saw that 95% of jokes about the Iran operation have been against Donald Trump and the Americans and in favor of the Iranians. Think about that. 95% of jokes on late night television. are negative towards the United States and positive towards Iran, which tells you everything you need to know about late night. Now, I'm stealing this just so you know, is from Air Power News, which makes the point, and I was able to verify the accuracy. They put all the links up so you could see it for yourself. But I want to put this in perspective for you, so you understand where we are. The state of play in Iran right now, this is very important for you to understand the state of play. For perspective. Desert Storm's air campaign spanned 43 days and delivered approximately 43,000 strikes. Operation deliberate force required 22 days to achieve its primary objectives. The high-intensity phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom generated over 15,000 strikes in roughly 30 days. NATO's Libya intervention stretched beyond seven months. Both the United States and Israel have each struck 3,000 targets respectively. That's nearly a thousand targets each day or one every two minutes on average. The coalition air and naval forces assembled during the Gulf War flew more than 42,000 sorties over a 40-day period, averaging about the same thousand strikes per day. We're on day 12. of a projected four to five week operation based on President Trump's initial statement. And the absurdity in the press and among Democrats has already reached a fever pitch. And the narrative seems to change by the hour. It's Vietnam all over again, we're told. It's an endless war. There's no strategy, no exit plan. There's no objective. The United States is out of missiles and Iran has an endless supply. The United States has lost half its thad batteries. It didn't even have that many to begin with inside the theater. Tel Aviv has been destroyed about a dozen times today alone, according to people on the internet. Calm down.

We're not even two weeks into the fight. Air campaigns of this scale historically require tens of thousands of strikes and a sustained pressure campaign over weeks to produce a desired outcome of degrading missile stocks and launchers in drone stocks and ending the nuclear program. We're in this for a while. We're in this, folks, for more weeks, and it's actually going very well. And you wouldn't know that online. You would not know how successful we are. Cintcom has updated that there are over 6,000 targets now in Iran as of an hour ago that had been struck. That includes over 90 military vessel, 60 ships, and 30 mine layers. It's an average of 500 targets struck per day in addition to 500 sites that have been struck, military sites that have been struck. It's about 1,000 a day, 500 on actual weapons, targets, ships, and the like. 500 on geographic locations. And yet... You're not hearing this from the American media. John Fetterman was on with Caitlin Susan Collins, who tried to cut him off when he pointed out how negative CNN's coverages. Listen to this exchange. We did cover the protest in Iran extensively here at CNN. Obviously, they said a lot about how internally people felt about the regime. But just to be clear, you do believe it's unites. And I didn't refine you. I understand. I just wanted to make that clear to our viewers that we did cover that. But just to be clear, you do believe if the United States was responsible that the Pentagon should acknowledge that they accidentally hit a girl school. I've said that. I said it seems that they've already acknowledging all those things. I think largely that letter, it was rendered moot at this point after what that's already come out. Now the Pentagon has agreed that they were behind that. And I don't know what your network just talked about, but what I'm saying that, that, you know, whether like it's the New York Times, they're making it more and more. trying to convince America that this has been a disaster or things are out of control, and that's just categorically not true on that. I just think it deserves coverage, obviously, given the number of children who were killed as a result of it, it obviously matters what happened there. We'll see what the Pentagon investigation says. Now, that was Caitlin Susan Collins trying to be defensive, but let me play you, Clarissa Ward, which I found this commentary from her. To be extremely notable, listen to this exchange on CNN. But I think he would be the first to admit that you are very challenged, even when you are lucky enough to actually be on the ground in Iran, to really talk to people because they are so frightened.

And so what we are missing right now so clearly is the humanity of this. We're not seeing the mothers of those 168 children who were killed almost certainly by a U.S. Tomahawk. We're not seeing the people hiding in their bathrooms clutching their children as the ceiling comes down. We're not seeing people who were cheering when... the Ayatollah when the supreme leader was killed, but who have now been told that if there are more reports coming from that apartment block, that anyone's cheering or booing, that they will be raided and the fear that they live with, the trauma that they went through in January, more than 7,000 people massacred for taking to the streets and demanding freedom and a better future. We are not getting that texture. that layer of complexity and humanity, which, frankly, as a war correspondent, to be trying to cover this, it feels like you are looking through a keyhole. And it's incredibly frustrating and humbling, but it is what it is. And we continue to try to do the best that we can. You got that. They can't give you what's happening on the ground in Iran. What's remarkable is I can give you a sense of it because some of the Iranians have gotten hold of Starlink and they're uploading video. And in so doing... They are exposing how the Iranians are cheering as the bombs are falling. Have you ever known of a country that when it's getting blown up, its citizens are cheering on their own destruction? Have you ever noticed this? It's remarkable. And now I want to play this. I don't have the video for you. I've got the audio for you for those of you watching on video here. This is Juliet K.M., who is a relentlessly negative, hateful commentator on CNN, who hates the right in Donald Trump. I want you to listen to this about this shooting that has taken place at this synagogue in school in Detroit Listen. I think it's absolutely that he said specifically in the last two weeks. He has been in contact with federal authorities as well as the Jewish community about the heightened threat level. It is something that... All of us have been warning about that, you know, this may be a regional war, but it's going to have global consequences. And one of them is going to be incitement, radicalization, in particular, as Islamic terrorist groups are utilizing the war like ISIS to go online and to lure people to violence.

Is that this specific case? We don't know. But when you ask me, what did I take away from that? I took away the fantastic news, and let's hope it holds that no one but the the assailant was shot. That is beyond, you know, everyone is incredibly grateful and the private security there is likely responsible for that. That is great, but notice the implication that Donald Trump is responsible for this. We've seen a number of synagogues in the country attacked in the last two years by Islamic radicals, and suddenly Donald Trump is to blame for it because of this in the situation of the Middle East. They're rushing to make this all about Donald Trump. There are reports further expanded about the shooting at Old Dominion. University. Some people are beginning to name who they say is the suspect. I am told by a friend of mine who is in state government there that it does appear to be an Islamic radical who opened fire at Old Dominion University. I will wait for additional sources to verify the identity of the person, but a friend of mine who is in state government there who is involved in dealing with the situation is telling me it does appear to be a an Islamic radical, and I think we need to just continue to watch the situation develop as we see these things, but you do need to be mindful, frankly. that the odd situation that we're seeing in the United States is the American Press Corps is playing down the situation in Iran. They are essentially defaming our soldiers and our effort in the name of owning Donald Trump. That's how broken these people are. It's also fairly notable to me that in the Washington Post polling of supporter opposition to the effort, 52% oppose it. Until you take Donald Trump's name out of it and then a plurality support it. Isn't that funny? That's why they're playing up so much Donald Trump in this. They're making it about him as opposed to about Iran. By the way, the Guardian, which is not exactly a conservative publication, is now pushing a piece out that it appears that the new Ayatollah is both in a coma and missing a leg. In a coma? and missing a leg. The Guardian says he may actually possibly be dead and that his image is just being used so that the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps can take over and maintain a semblance of power. No one in this White House, no one in the State Department, no one in the Pentagon, no one in the Mossad, No one in the Israeli Knesset, no one in the prime minister's office, no one in the Israeli military thought that the Iranian regime would collapse overnight if you blew up the Ayatollah and his senior leaders. No one believed that. I know they didn't believe it because if you read any report whatsoever on the Iranian regime, you know it was structured to survive that because they feared the Jews might do that to them.

for the police to show up, then defend yourself. This Jewish synagogue had defended itself. Why can't we allow public schools in the United States to have people who are willing to defend the students there? I know a number of Jewish men who go to their children's schools as volunteer security agents. They are trained on gun safety and tactics. They're trained on marksmanship, and they provide a... private volunteer army to protect their children. I don't know these were volunteers at the school, but it was the private security at this school that was willing to get into harm's way, as opposed to we have seen repeatedly in Texas and elsewhere the paid actual government employees run away from the sound of gunfire. or hide, unlike those brilliant police officers in New York City who jumped the fence and charged the two Islamic terrorists the other day. They went towards the danger, not away from it. And we've seen too many publicly funded, taxpayer-funded security officers at public schools run the opposite direction. Why can't we allow the people who wish to be armed, to be armed to protect our children if the schools and the parents trust them? And why can't we be armed to protect ourselves? Democrats say they want us to be able to do so, but they want us to be able to do it with just one bullet and a gun. And no more. Can't have an extended magazine, can't do any of this stuff. School shootings are terrible things. But if we had actual people, particularly volunteer parents, involved to protect the students, we might actually be better at protecting students. This is the world we live in. We might as well adapt to it. and you might adapt to your computer needs with vision computers, even as AI is changing things. Vision computers can even tell you how to integrate AI into your business. Your employees can be trained on becoming more efficient with AI, not to be replaced, but they'll be able to get more stuff done. Vision computers can teach you how to do that. They can maintain your computers. They can make your employees productive at their jobs, not at keeping their computers going. All you have to do is call them at 404 compute or go to visioncom. 404 compute or visioncomcom.com. You let vision computers take care of you. Vision computers can keep you going, keep you online. They can build you new computers. They can upgrade your computers. 404 compute or Vision Computers.com. It doesn't matter if you're in Anchorage, Alaska, or Miami, Florida, Vision Computers will work with you. They work with businesses and individuals across the country. For your home, for your kid, for your parent, you can get their world-class IT support. You talk to real human beings, not AI chatpots. Call them at 404.

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