Erick Erickson HR 2

is 8779773-745. Should you wish to be on the program, I would be delighted to have you with me. Don't forget, text Eric, E-R-I-C-K. Get the show notes. You're going to want to get the show notes. Subscribe. You can get the podcast. You should be subscribing to your favorite podcast app to the four things to know this afternoon. When this show is over, I have started doing a very short. It is five minutes. All the stuff that happened while I've been on the show that you're going to need to know by the time you get home from work. It's in your favorite podcast app. It's called Four Things to Know. And just look for that. You'll be able to find it. Subscribe. It's like five minutes of your time on your way home. I am a critic occasionally of the president. You all all know that he's not my favorite, but I like a lot of what he does. You know, we've hung out together. I've been to his office. We've chatted on the phone a number of times. Not lately. I think he really doesn't like me anymore. which is fine. I don't particularly care whether politicians like me or not. But I do like a lot of his policies, and I do think that he doesn't appreciate that there's a lot of his policies. I do like. Tariffs, I think, are bad, and I think he's dogmatically in favor of him, and I will save my breath on trying to persuade him. They're a bad idea. He'll learn that when the election happens next year. But... I think he's got a pretty adult and solid foreign policy. In fact, I venture to suggest that Donald Trump has one of the most grown-up foreign policies, mature foreign policies, of any recent American president. It's not about human rights. It's not about spreading democracy in the world. It's about what benefits the United States. I don't always agree with him as implemented. I think it's very clear Vladimir Putin is not an honest broker, and he should just stop trying, and we should just let the Ukrainians fight. But as handling of Iran, very good. Putting European powers in their place, very good. I think JD Vance's lecture to the Europeans about their lack of appreciation for free speech is actually very good. I think there's a tendency in our country for the establishment of the left and the right to sometimes look on some of these political parties in Europe. This is the second coming to the Nazis. Not really. You overstate things. And by the way, Europeans are embracing them because they think the establishment has failed them. I think it's good on Donald Trump. I think that Donald Trump putting more pressure on Canada is good, although we've got to be careful. They're starting to flirt with the Chinese. You can't trust the regime in Canada. One of the issues with Trump right now, obviously, in the news are the boats being blown up in the Caribbean. Y'all, I disagree with a lot of friends of mine on this issue. I understand, let me be a little bit repetitive from yesterday for sake of argument so you understand this. The United States Congress.

We don't have three equal, co-equal branches of government. Congress is preeminent. It's why it's Article 1. Congress decided that narco-trafficking is a federal crime. So I understand the argument that a lot of my friends... in the conservative movement offer that because Congress has defined narco trafficking as a crime, the president cannot redefine it as an act of war. I understand that. And by the way, it's probably the winning argument in policy but not politics. It probably is. Congress has defined it as a crime, therefore it can't be redefined by the president as something else. But here's where I am. The narco-terrorists are killing American citizens, and they're doing it many times to prop up, fun, and help regimes in Central and South America, many of whom have ties to China. And I think it's naive of us to think this isn't an act of war because it is an act of war. The Chinese have been complicit in funding the chemicals to make fintill and other drugs in Central and South America. And the regimes in many of these countries have ties to the cartels. And in having these ties to the cartels, they're allowing the cartels to undermine the United States. It is an act of war in my mind. So I do not care one little bit about the president of the United States blowing up boats in the Caribbean. If they're killing the survivors, yes, that's a problem. But if they're blowing up the boats of the narco traffickers used to ship the drugs into this country, well, I'm okay with that. I think it's an act of war. I think it is perfectly fine for this president to determine that this is an act of war and we're going to treat it as such and blow the bad guys up. One of the things I don't think enough people in Washington, D.C. pay attention to is how a number of governments in the Western Hemisphere are collaborating with the axis of evil, that is, China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Did you know there are warships from Iran, Russia, and Cuba in the Southern Caribbean tied to Nicholas Maduro, or at least they have been there? They have been teaching the Venezuelans naval tactics. Yes, the Iranians, the Russians, and the Chinese working together with the Venezuelans. Frankly, I wish the president would do something about Haiti for the Chinese do. But what he's doing is he's reasserting sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere, and he's reasserting the American dominance of the Western Hemisphere. He's trying to push the Russians and the Chinese out, and I think that's good. Now, my concern is that they are doing it with this...

realignment where they've decided that we've got to stop leading the free world and we'll just divide it up between the Russians, the Chinese, and us. I think that's a terrible idea. I do think there is some prevailing thinking, particularly in the JD Vance Camp. They can't admit it. They would never admit it. In fact, I think they would vigorously deny it that they believe the United States is a nation in decline. But I think behind the scenes, they privately believe it, and they're trying to manage what they believe is some sort of imperial decline of the United States. And to do that, they want to gain... primacy of the Western Hemisphere. While I disagree with them on that decline is a choice and they're choosing to decline and the other administrations before them have to a degree as well. I don't think it's inevitable. I think we should lead the free world. I have to say what the president is doing with the drug cartels I'm totally fine with. There's a story out in the Wall Street Journal. Let me read you the beginning of this story. This is again a grown-up foreign policy. Dozens of Mexico's most dangerous prisoners, cuffed hand and foot, boarded army jets under heavy guard this year, a rogue's gallery of cartel leaders responsible for smuggling tons of heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamine to insatiable American buyers. The men were rousted from prisons. where money and corruption provided them with weapons, cocaine, booze, women, and phones to run their lucrative underworld empires from behind bars, coordinating drug shipments as well as ordering killings and kidnappings, American and Mexican officials said. The prisoners had no idea of their destination. Welcome to America, said Derek Maltz, interim head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, when he greeted the first batch of prisoners as they disembarked nine months ago. A second group arrived in August, a total of 55 men who face charges that could keep them locked in maximum security prisons for the rest of their lives. The prisoners represent the top echelons of Mexico's biggest criminal organizations, the Cianola, Halesco, New Generation, and Zeta cartels. They include Rafael Caro Quintero, who was charged with killing DEA agent Enrique Camarena in 1985 and has dodged extradition to the U.S. for decades. All are in custody without bail. U.S. officials expect many of the prisoners will share firsthand knowledge about the operations of Mexico's underworld, from smuggling secrets and money laundering operations to the names of officials in government, the military law enforcement and finance who are paid to serve the drug trafficking industry. Cartel leaders in U.S. custody have for years had the opportunity to cooperate with authorities, sometimes in exchange for reduced sentences and more comfortable prison conditions. Former Senegal cartel leader, Joaquin El Chapo, Guzman, who has kept mum, spends 23 hours a day in a windowless U.S. prison cell serving a life sentence. One of his sons, Joaquin, Guzman Lopez, turned himself into U.S. authorities last year and dragged along another wanted man, his godfather, Ismail El Mayo Zimbada, the 70-something co-founder of the Senaiola cartel, Zimbada, whose lawyer...

said he was illegally brought to the U.S. as pleaded guilty to drug charges. He faces a life sentence at a January 13th court hearing. The younger Guzman pleaded guilty in court Monday to drug trafficking and money laundering charges. He's cooperating with U.S. authorities. Transferring 55 drug leaders to U.S. custody was a high-stakes undercover mission that drew 2,000 Mexican special forces. Officials feared that if word got out, kingpins would attempt escapes, set off riots, or file legal appeals. Authorities also believed cartels might try to assassinate their own leaders. rather than risk them spilling secrets to U.S. law enforcement. When the expulsion operation began, some prisoners thought they were headed to freedom, figuring their government bribes had paid off, the Mexican official said. Instead, they were shoved into armored personnel carriers, escorted to a military plane that flew them to the Altaplano maximum security prison 50 miles west of Mexico. U.S. officials received word of the planned arrivals the night before the first operation. They made frantic calls to federal officials across the country. Many of the drug kingpins who agents have spent years investigating would be landing the next morning. The first prisoners boarded a half dozen Mexican military planes on February 27th headed to Chicago, Phoenix, San Antonio, New York, and Dulles International Airport in Virginia. Rival drug lords who had ordered the killing of thousands of each other's men set side by side on the flight. Y'all, this happened not because of Joe Biden, but because of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is making Mexico safer. Here's something you don't probably know. Mexico is essentially a collapsing state. Many of the political officials there are in the pockets of the drug cartels who fight each other. The current president of Mexico has ties to the cartels. There are deep suspicions that she herself has been compromised by the cartels. We're cleaning up Mexico. Why? To clean up the United States, we have to clean up Mexico. And we're cleaning up Mexico by ending the ability of the narco-traffickers and the narco-terrorists to be able to conduct their operations from cushy jail cells in Mexico where they're given drugs, women, and phones to be able to engage in their operations. Donald Trump deserves credit for this. You will notice today and tomorrow, as yesterday and the day before, the American Press Corps wants to fixate on whether it was a war crime to blow up a boat in the Caribbean. They will not show you the broader, larger picture because they are afraid rightly that you'll support it. They will not tell you about why Donald Trump said set with the Somalis any more than they will tell you about his broader approach to secure the Western Hemisphere. Because here's the other thing. Remember what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris said when they were in the White House. They had to do what to solve immigration? Get to the root causes. What were the root causes? gangland, warfare, drug trafficking, and crime. In El Salvador, B'Kelly decided to crack down, and he actually arrested his country into success. We have progressives in this country. We've got the mayor of Chicago saying we cannot incarcerate our way out of this mess. El Salvador proved him wrong. And what did the Biden administration do? They treated him like a pariah. You want to solve the root causes? You got to arrest the gangbangers and the cartels. You've got to make life difficult for him. Donald Trump is doing that with Mexico. The cartel leaders can't be. contained in Mexico because of corruption and bribery. They can be here. Donald Trump has taken them off the grid. He's blowing up their boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. He's bringing them to Supermax prisons in the United States. This is good for all of us. This is good for the Western Hemisphere. This is good for the people of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico. He's making those countries safer. He's minimizing the crime and the cartel corruption in those countries. He's making it safe for immigrants to want to go home again. Many of them want to go home. They're just scared because it's not safe there. Donald Trump is making the Western Hemisphere safe. And so you're not hearing about it. Kudos to the Wall Street Journal for doing this detailed reporting.

This is a good foreign policy and national security victory in the Western Hemisphere done by Donald Trump that you will not hear about from very many people because they don't want you to know just how successful he is in some of these areas. Those who love him? Listen to find out what he's going to say next. Those who disagree with him also listen to see what he's going to say next. It's the Eric Erickson Show. Giving you the truth, not the talking points. It's the Eric Erickson show. Howdy, it's Eric Erickson here. Phone number 877-973-745, should you wish to be on the program. Y'all, I got a laugh about this. I know you guys are smart. You listen to me. The president on social media went on a tirade about Joe Biden and the auto pin, saying he hereby invalidates everything done by Joe Biden with the auto pin. And there are people on social media who hope you are gullible and stupid who are like, he just got rid of all of Joe Biden's pardons. With the banging on the keyboard, he got rid of Joe Biden's pardons. Hunter Biden is no longer pardoned. I mean, there are people literally saying this on social media. It's not true, of course. This is the equivalent of when Joe Biden tweeted out that he recognized the Equal Rights Amendment as part of the Constitution, and you had all these progressive groups, including the American Bar Association, come out and say, oh, my gosh, we now have a new amendment to the Constitution. No, you don't, you idiots, and nor can the President of the United States invalidate every action. That was taken with the auto pin because it's presumed to have been done with the consent of the president and is therefore legal. So no, you can't. Don't fall for it. Don't be gullible. Vision computers doesn't want you to be gullible. You see some of these signs about these great deals. You can get on computers and you get the computer. Not only are they crap, but they don't have great customer service. With Vision computers, you get great customer service, and you get one heck of a computer. I know we got one in my house. My son the other day was able to troubleshoot and get help from Vision and save me from having to be tech support. Thank goodness. They get a special number, 15 seconds or less. They answer the phone and they get you taken care of. His was how to connect my printer by Wi-Fi that's in my office downstairs to his gaming PCF. They took care of him. It was great. All you have to do is call them at 404 computer. Go to visioncomcom. They can be your managed IT service as well. So for your existing computer, you get the special phone number. You call them whenever you have a question.

And they take care of you. They answer your questions. They get you working. They can even remote in. If there's an issue with your computer, you can't figure out. 404 Computervisioncom. They could save your company money and keep you up online. 404CompVisioncomputers.com. Give them a call. Greetings. It's Eric Erickson. 877973-745 is the number if you wish to call in to the program. When I used to fill in for Rush back in the day, there were a number of topics that I was advised not by Rush or his team, but by upper management of the syndicator that on radio and syndicated radio, there are topics you should not discuss. In fact, I found out only this year that one of the topics was faith issues, which you listen to my program. Apparently, Rush himself, I was told by Boast Nurdly directly, intervened and informed the syndicator that if I wanted to talk about faith and religion issues, I, of all the guest hosts, was the one allowed to do it. One of the issues that came up, which was surprising to me, though, was life issues and abortion, that it's deeply divisive even among conservatives. There are people who consider themselves on the right, but don't really care about the issue, are sympathetic to abortion, what have you, and so you shouldn't talk about it. Guns were the other one, by the way. Unless there is a gun situation, don't talk about guns. It was kind of surprising. That wasn't, again, wasn't rushing his team. That was the upper echelons of the syndication folks who advised that those were issues that would turn off parts of the audience. And so you didn't want to touch those. I, of course, talk about whatever I want to talk about. and oftentimes get in trouble for treading too far in certain areas. You'll be amazed at the number of people who email me. I wish you would just shut up about face of, guess what? It's Christmas. But I actually want to talk about the life issue, and I want to talk about it in a particular area. Around the country, there are... organizations called Crisis Pregnancy Centers that are oftentimes funded by religious institutions and they do not perform abortions. In fact, if you're a pregnant woman and you go to one of these, you are very likely to be discouraged from getting an abortion. They will give you your ultrasound and... In so doing, they will show you the baby, let you hear the heartbeat, explain to you that this is a life of a human being that you would be exterminating. And in the process, they work with you. They teach you as a mom how to be a mom. They build a support network around you.

They take care of a lot of the medical bills for you, for your pregnancy, your ultrasounds, your blood work, your vitamins, diapers, car seats, things like that. They build an entire loving support network around you. And it's a tell in my mind that progressives hate that these organizations exist. It really is about murdering babies for the left. In New Jersey, one of these clinics is before the Supreme Court. New Jersey demanded the names and addresses of the donors. of this pregnancy center. The New Jersey's argument, the left's argument, is that these crisis pregnancy centers are defrauding people because women show up to kill their kids and are discouraged from killing their kids. Now, they don't put it in those terms, but that's actually their argument, and I'm not making that up. They won't put it in those such abrasive terms, but that's what's happening. They're saying these clinics are defrauding women because these women think they're going in for health care, and they're denied health care. What health care are they denied? They're given ultrasounds. They're given you can take blood. They have nurses. They help them. They do fetal tests. They do maternal health tests. They just don't kill the kid. And the left is now gone from choice to health care. And murdering another human being is health care to them. And they're accusing these groups of defrauding women. by not allowing them when they come in to have an abortion on premises, not killing their kids, not referring them to abortion clinics. The Supreme Court, even Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, have actually, to a degree, Elena Kagan more so than Sotomayor, protected these groups over time. Here in Georgia, there was a left-wing event a couple of years ago, and one of the things that these leftists did, it was about a thousand of them, they went to one of these Christian pregnancy centers, and they stood outside and protested and harassed the women going inside. Exactly where they accused Christians of doing an abortion clinics, they did one of these, and the reason they protested is because you can't murder a child in one of these clinics. There's one not far from me. It's only a few blocks. I've been inside it. I've met with the management. If a woman comes in, she's given free health care of. They monitor the baby. They partner with doctors and nurses in the community, so if the mother can't afford it, she doesn't pay a penny. They build a community around her. They teach her how to change diapers, how to do a feeding schedule, how to put her child on a sleep schedule, so she's not exhausted. They give her free diapers. They give her a high chair. They'll give her a car seat. No, nothing out of pocket for her. It's all given. It's all gifts. The health care, the vitamins, the medicines, the ultrasounds, everything. She doesn't pay a penny. And they support life. And these organizations are routinely harassed by the left.

I've commented one time going to a Jewish community center in Atlanta, the security, the guards, the Bill Gates, the locked doors. The only thing I can compare it to are these Christian pregnancy centers. And I don't mean that some of you get defensive. You're comparing to what happens to you? Y'all, these Christian pregnancy centers many times have to have armed guards and locked doors because the protesters who come in and attack them, harass them. They have bomb threats. People come in and vandalize the place and flee. There have been numbers of them set on fire in the country. The things that happen to synagogues happen to these Christian pregnancy centers. And I'm not trying to make light of one. You need to understand those of your defense about the one. Be defensive about the other because it's happening to them. In New Jersey, the state of New Jersey is prosecuting. A Christian pregnancy center, crisis pregnancy center, claiming they're defrauding women because the women go in and they might think they can get an abortion there and they can't. Think about that. They can go in, they can get free medicines, free ultrasounds, free screenings, free diapers, free car seats, free high chairs, free food, whatever they need. They just can't get an abortion. And as a result, New Jersey wants to shut them down. which tells you this is all about killing kids. It's not about the women. It's about the kids they want to kill. So this clinic was harassed in New Jersey and went before the United States Supreme Court yesterday and said they want our donors. That's a violation of the law. They can't get our donors because the mere act of them trying to get our donors could actually discourage people from donating to us fearing they themselves will be persecuted by the state. It turns out... before Clarence Thomas in open court, the United States Supreme Court yesterday, the lawyer for the state of New Jersey had to admit there's actually been no complaints against this clinic from the public. Listen to this exchange. I'm going to play you the full thing. I don't want you to think I'm taking any of this out of context. It's two minutes, 30 seconds. You need to hear all this. This is Clarence Thomas and the Deputy Attorney General. for New Jersey. Did you have complaints that formed the basis of your concern about the fundraising activities here? We certainly had complaints about crisis pregnancy centers. No about this crisis pregnancy center. So I think we've been clear from the outset that we haven't had complaints about this specific. So you had no basis to think that they were deceiving any of their contributors? I don't think that's correct, Your Honor. I think we had carefully canvassed all of the public information that is provided on the website of first choice in making a determination. that we wanted to initiate an investigation. But you had no factual basis. I don't think that's true, Your Honor. I think, for example, you could take a look at a comparison between the donation page for First Choice that we have carved out from the very beginning. But you had no complainants.

We had no complaints, but the state governments, federal government, initiate investigations all the time in the absence of complaints where they have a reason to suspect that there could be potential issues of legal compliance. And look, it could be the case based on our investigation when we look at documents, when we look at information, that ultimately will determine that first choice isn't liable for any violations. Well, that just seemed a burdensome way to find out whether someone... has a confusing website. But you said earlier that you did not agree with their characterization of why they were being put to this. And it would seem that the obvious way to refute that was to say we had 100 complaints. But you say you have no complaints. But rather, you looked at the website and their materials and you think it could have been misleading. So why is your characterization any better than theirs? So, Your Honor, I'd point you to the Turner Declaration, which is at pages 400 to 401 of the joint appendix, which lays out the predicate for the state's investigation of first choice. And we had concerns in four buckets. We had concerns about potentially misleading donors. We had concerns about the unlicensed practice of medicine. We had concerns about patient privacy practices, and we had concerns about potentially misleading or untrue medical statements. more than ample basis to initiate this investigation. But you had no complaints. We had no complaints, but I think that, Your Honor, that goes at most to the merits. That doesn't go to the standing enough. Goes to the merits. Goes to the merits of the case. He admits there, goes to the merits of the case. Do you understand what you're hearing? Not a single person in the entire nation. complained about this Christian pregnancy center in the state of New Jersey, but they had concerns that the pregnancy center could be misleading donors. Why? Because the website talked about pregnant women in crisis, which New Jersey interpreted as you should offer abortions. You should offer to kill the child on premises. And they had concerns that there were no deaths happening on premises, so they chose to investigate, and they wanted the names and addresses of the donors. Why? Because they had no complaints, and so what they were claiming is they wanted to go reach out to the donors and say, hey. Did you know no babies were being killed? Didn't you give money so that babies might be killed? Oh, oh, you were funding the deception. Well, maybe we'll prosecute you as well. It's a death cult on the left. Not enough kids were being murdered on the premises, and so they decided they needed to take action. This is where the left is.

This is what's going on. I want you to see this. And I want you to hear that exchange. Not a single person anywhere in the United States of America or the planet Earth itself complained about this clinic. And yet the state of New Jersey had concerns because it was advertised as a pregnancy center and didn't perform abortions. And so they decided we need the names of who is funding you to keep you in existence. That's a death cult. That's the American political left right now. Abortion is their holy sacrament. It is with religious zeal that they prosecute the Christians. Religious zeal, they prosecute the Christians for not killing kids. What do the women get in these places? Free health care. Medicines, vitamins, screenings for their children, car seats, high chairs, diapers, food, not a penny paid by them, but from donors. And yet New Jersey wants to shut this place down because it doesn't kill the kid. That's where the American left is.

Abortion is a religious sacrament to the left. And if you have the appearance of being a church of the left, you must in fact be a church of the left. They set up these pregnancy centers where they induce women to kill children, and along come pregnancy centers that don't well, that's blasphemy. That's apostasy. And they're using the power of the state to shut these places down, except they ran into the wit and wisdom of Clarence Thomas who exposed them in only about 45 seconds that they did not have a single complaint from anyone on planet Earth. They just chose to go after this place because they had concerns. By the time Clarence Thomas was done with them, even Elena Kagan on the left of the court. was expressing her astonishment that actually they did this and no one had complained. Thank God for Clarence Thomas. When the truth seems hazy, Eric will clear the way. It's the Eric Erickson Show.

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