Erick Erickson HR 2

My fellow Americans, welcome. It is Eric Erickson here across the United States of America. Delighted to have you with me. The full number is 877937425. Should you wish to join us today? I got to talk about, well, the Somali situation and the Chris Rufo reporting because there was a lot of dismissiveness about it. If you will recall, Before we went on vacation for Thanksgiving, Chris Rufo did a big story in City Journal, part of Manhattan Institute, on how there is a concerted effort by Somalis in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to take advantage of the very generous welfare benefits issued by the state of Minnesota. And some of them have remitted money to Somalia to fund al-Shabaab, which is an al-Qaeda terrorist spinoff in Somalia. I asked at the time, Why, for example, Bari Weiss's CBS network hadn't covered this, that this is the perfect sort of story for them to cover, and then CBS News covered it and genuinely dismissed the whole thing. That's right. CBS News was very dismissive of the story. In fact, you should know that Time Magazine is now. Here's the story from Time Magazine, Chad Gusman, what to know about Trump's targeting of Somalis in Minnesota and allegations of fraud. When authorities found that an Afghanisaili was the suspect in a shooting near the White House last week, Afghanisili, President Trump... use the opportunity to push a reverse migration agenda aimed at demonizing refugees and other foreigners in America. But his rants, he repeatedly mentioned Somalis. In response to a reporter's questionnaire in the president's call with troops on Thanksgiving, Trump admitted there was nothing linking Somalis to the shooting. Still, he claimed without evidence that Somalis have claimed a lot of trouble for the United States, except there actually is ample evidence. Then there's this. CBS News had a claim on Chris Rufo's reporting on the Somali fraud, the terrorism pipeline, and essentially dismissed it. And the story has now been clarified to make it clear that the fraud schemers were funneling money to Somalia. And now the New York Times has done it. Side note here, isn't it notable that this is a massive story? You had Somalis in Minnesota gaming the welfare system preying on the prejudices of progressive whites. And this can't be stated enough.

The progressive white leaders of Minnesota were taken advantage of by the Somalis because the Somalis knew the white progressives were so loath to be called racist. They let the Somalis get away with everything. One of the things the Somalis were doing were using clinics run by other Somalis to have their kids diagnosed as autistic so they could get welfare benefits and then remitting the welfare benefits to a terrorist group in Somalia. And now the New York Times is covering the story, but it's notable that the New York Times, nor the Washington Post, nor CBS News, nor USA Today, or ABC, CBS, CNN, any of them would touch this story that was out there circulating. until someone else did it first so they couldn't say, we're not racist. We're not racist. We're just reporting what this other guy reported. They didn't want to be the ones to break the story and get the credit because they were more worried about being accused of racism. Same thing with the white progressives in Minnesota, and that's how the system was gained. And now the New York Times has decided it's safe to cover the story. The fraud scandal that rattled Minnesota was staggering in its scale and brazenness. Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program meant to keep children fed during COVID-19. At first, many in the state saw the case as a one-off abuse during a health emergency. But as new schemes targeting the state's generous safety net programs came to light, state and federal officials began to grapple with a jarring reality. Over the past five years, Law enforcement officials say fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota's Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that build state agencies for millions of dollars worth of social services that were never provided. Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in those schemes so far and that more than $1 billion in taxpayer money has been stolen in three plots they're investigating. That is more than Minnesota spins annually to run its Department of Corrections. Minnesota's fraud scandal stood out even in the context of rampant theft during the pandemic when Americans stole tens of billions through unemployment benefits, business loans, and other forms of aid, according to federal auditors. outrage has swelled among Minnesotans, and fraud has turned into a potent political issue in a competitive campaign season. Governor Tim Walz and fellow Democrats are being asked to explain how so much money was stolen on their watch, providing Republicans who hoped to take back the governor's mansion in 26 with a powerful line of attack.

In recent days, President Trump has weighed in calling Minnesota a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity and saying the Somali perpetrators should be sent back to where they came from. Many Somali Americans in Minnesota say the fraud has damaged the reputation of their entire community. Around 80,000 people at a moment when their political and economic standing was on the rise. Now, there are lots of questions about these generous welfare benefits and the prey on them, but I got to use this as a jumping off point to a larger issue. I believe the United States is unique in all the world. There is an effort to make us a blood and soil nation. And by blood and soil means that if you aren't born here of Americans, you're not American. And that's never been a founding understanding of this country. And that only comes up at times when Americans have decided to bet against themselves. We occasionally grapple with this idea, and it's the loser's bet. When you hear people talk about the United States being a blood and soil nation like European nations are, that's the loser's bet of people who've given up on the American dream and decided there's not enough left of this country to go around. I believe we're still the land of plenty. And I believe there are plenty of opportunities. We may be governed by people right now on all sides of the aisle and political spectrum who don't recognize it, can't appreciate it and mismanagement, but we're still the greatest nation. And we have always been a nation where those who come to this country, who wish to be a part of this country, who wish to claim the American ideals for themselves, can become American. I live in a neighborhood that is black and Hispanic and Chinese and Korean and Indian and white. My neighbors immediately around me are mostly white. Of the street from me are two black families next to them, two Indian families. Next to them, two white families. From them, there's a Korean family. There's a Chinese immigrant family. It's a very diverse neighborhood. And the Indian family celebrate Diwali. The Chinese family celebrate Chinese New Year. Every one of us celebrates the Fourth of July. Every one of us. It doesn't matter whether it's the Korean family, the Chinese family, the Indian family, the Hispanic family. Everyone flies American flags on the Fourth of July. Everybody piles into our cul-de-sac. We shoot fireworks. The kids are black, the kids are white, the kids are Hispanic, the kids are Asian. We love this country. The United States is a country that was founded on a mission statement called the Declaration of Independence.

It has been revised by some to believe that you can only be white people because that's what our founders were. They were a bunch of white people from Europe. Therefore, white people from Europe can come to this country, but all else you can't come. It's blood and soil, after all, and the blood of the soil come from Europe. That's what they say. There are a lot of young, loud voices on Twitter. A lot of them within Republican administrations right now and members of Congress offices who believe this idea. And it is anathema to our founders who believed that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Not all white men, not all European men, not all American men, all men, and women are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable human rights. Certain unalienable rights among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. And if you believe in the founding ideals and you want to assimilate into this country, You can be American. My grandfather was a Swedish immigrant, as was his wife. My dad is a first-generation American. And my grandfather came to this country from Sweden as a boy, loved this country, learned English, and expected his kids to be raised not as Swedish Americans, but as Americans. The problem is progressives have over the last 50, 60 years, embrace the idea of the hyphenation of America. The hyphenation of America is a way to divide America. We are not Somali Americans. You're not Anglo-Americans. You're not Swedish Americans. You're not Chinese Americans. You're either Americans or you're not. For those of us like me who believe that this is a creedal nation, where our ancestors came from all over, put down roots, and said, we're Americans and we're committed to the American project. We've got to be able to recognize and acknowledge that there are those in this country who have come here who they don't want to assembly. In the Somali diaspora around the country, it's a great example where tribal loyalties are still a big deal. And the idea of assimilating into the United States is devalued. In Minnesota, a large group of Somalis have preyed upon the sympathies and biases and the neuroses of white progressives to fund terrorism in Somalia. There are other ethnic groups in this country and in communities that they have no desire to assimilate into this country. I was thinking about a friend of mine from college. His name was Gama. He's family from Nigeria. You never know he was Nigerian. He sounded like a redneck from the south. He rooted for the Green Bay Packers. He got an engineering job at a telecom company at a college. And dude was just phenomenal guy, nicest person on planet Earth. And totally and completely American. But from Nigeria. But it didn't matter. He was American. American is you and me. That's the model for American assimilation.

And the left has rejected that model and has decided that people can keep their cultural distinctives, but you really can't. Your cultural distinctives have to merge into the United States, where the taco is now as American as the hamburger, is as American as the pizza, is American as spaghetti, is as American as, I don't know, a foe. I'm not a big foe fan, but a lot of my friends love it. Chinese food. My wife has sweet and sour chicken probably every other week. There's a Japanese abachi place down the street from us. We love it. And it's all intermingled, that it's American, and it's the food cultures blend in. What's the Somali cuisine that's blended into American cuisine? I don't think there is one. And frankly, I treat that as part of the sign of the failure to assimilate a people into this country. And the fact that there are too many Somali groups of this country who are fine with that and too many progressives who are fine with that suggests that this era of deportation that we are in with Donald Trump needs to happen. Because if you're not willing to be part of the American experience and melt into our American melting pot, but demand to keep your distinctives in ways that set you apart from everyone else. That's rejecting the creed of the United States that anyone can come here and can embrace the American ideal and be American. But to embrace that American ideal, you've got to embrace the melting pot, not the salad bowl. You can't keep your distinctives. Those distinctives come to all of us. You can keep your religion. But part of being an American is to recognize that others get to keep their religions as well. And we've got to be able to recognize that. And this Somali story, it will be, progressives will yell about racism. They'll be mad at me screaming racism. But the reality is you come to this country, you've got a choice to become American or to stay separated, to maintain your diaspora, to maintain your heritage and traditions without making room for the American heritage and traditions. And if you're unwilling to make room for American heritage and traditions, it's time for you to go home. And to the extent the president of the United States has decided to deport these people, So much the better because the American experience requires from mini one, not from mini, many, many. 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.

Want to be on the show? Come on, be on the show. Call Eric now at 877973-725. Hello and welcome. It is Eric Jersner. Let me hop over to the phones and get Jay's phone call here. Welcome to the show, Jay. How are you? Jay, you there? Well, let's put Jay back on hold and see if we can figure out what's going on with Jay's phone call. I suspect he's there. We'll see. Okay, those of you want to hold, I'll get to your phone calls here when we come back. Let's... So, Jay is a insurance adjuster, so I want to chat with him about this insurance issue because all my friends in Florida after we've gotten to the end of the hurricane season are pointing out that insurance rates continue to go up so much, like what is actually going on? There's been no hurricanes. Why are rates going up? So Jay and insurance adjuster, hopefully we'll have some answers when we come back. Now, side note, I got to tell you, we also have an issue with gas prices in this country. where gas prices, well, they've come down. If you haven't noticed, despite massive travel for Thanksgiving, gas prices in the country have been coming down as the president now continues to say he wants to expand offshore drilling. As I suggested, I'm glad he took me up on it. It's causing, remember, gas prices on a futures market. And they're coming down. Now, it's not really the offshore drilling. I do have to say it's the expansion. The Saudis and others have decided to keep expanding their drilling operations as they're afraid that we might actually engage and start pumping way more oil. So they've got an incentive to keep up so that we don't engage because we have as much oil as Saudi Arabia if we choose to get it out. The Eden Pier and Thunderstorm is a handy little device that wipes out odors. I used it the other day on my back porch because we've got a backdoor window and a back door has a window that slides and the lock is broken. I didn't realize that it had slid down and opened. So when I smoked the turkeys on Thursday morning, got the smoke odor in the back porch and the Eden Pier Thunderstorm wiped them out. They eliminate all odors and everything smells fresh on my back porch again. You can get three of them. And you can save $200. You get them for less than $200. So you get three of them for less than $200. Great stocking stuff for gift, by the way. Edenpuredeals.com is the website. You put in the discount code, Eric 3, E R-I-C-K-3 at Edenpuredeals.com. and you will be able to wipe out odors. They also capture dust and pollen because they're an air purifier. They eliminate 99.9% of bacteria and viruses, and then they generate ozone that touches odor particles and wipes them out. Edenpuredeals.com is the website. The discount code is Eric 3, E-R-I-C-K-3. You get three of them for less than 200 bucks. Edenpuredeals.com.

He's got the courage to tell you the truth, even when it isn't popular. You're listening to the Eric Erickson Show. Hello there, welcome. It is Eric Erickson here across the pruded plain. The phone number is 8779773-745. Jay was not, I want to talk to Jay because he's an insurance adjuster, but he did leave a note. He hung up before I could get to him, but said that one of the big problems is that insurance adjusters at this point just that they don't dispute claims, they pay out, and that's just driving up the cost for everybody. But it's just, it's wild to me. We ended hurricane season, and a number of friends of mine, particularly in Florida, but I've gotten an email from somebody who lives in Hilton Head. So the same thing, Hurricane Insurance is just through the roof despite. There be no hurricanes. Now, I want to go to St. Augustine, Florida. Tom's been waiting patiently. Welcome to the show. Tom, how are you? Happy Thanksgiving. Hi, Eric. Happy Thanksgiving to you. Hey, say, I had a couple of questions regarding your segment on the boat bombing and our responsibility to the survivors. Yes. The first question I had was related to these people in the boats, they're not in uniform, so we can't consider them as soldiers related to our law regarding protection of survivors on a battlefield like infantrymen. And I don't know how that works legally. Well, okay. So there's a parallel here under the law, though, that, I mean, Al-Qaeda doesn't wear military uniforms, and we treat them as enemy combatants, and we blow them up whether or not they're wearing a uniform. There are certain distinctions under the Jiva Convention for that, but for the purposes of federal law, if you're an enemy combatant, you're an enemy combatant, it doesn't matter what you're wearing. That being said. Where do spies fall into the... You know, spies are, because they are working for a country, spies without uniforms can be executed. They're not treated as soldiers. Okay. Well, it just seemed to me that this was kind of hazy because they're not considered really, you know, uniformed soldiers. Right. Well, you know, it is a very hazy issue as well because federal law defines what these people doing as a crime. which means they should be arrested and tried, not blown up. That's the argument on the other side. And it's actually, it's a valid argument. I disagree with it, but it's very valid argument. I don't know where the courts would fall down on this. But because narco trafficking is considered a crime, the president doesn't have the power to say, well, actually, it's terrorism. Yeah, but they're not even our citizens. Correct. It didn't matter. I mean, we can arrest someone who commits a crime against Americans, and narco trafficking is considered a crime from abroad into this country under federal law. Okay. Well, and then the other question I had was regarding targets. You know, we bombed targets during wars, and one bomb doesn't end it. If we consider the boat, the target, rather than the people, wouldn't we be justified in continuing...

bombing the boat until it's destroyed and its contents destroyed. Therein lies the argument for the administration, and I personally think it's a good argument that if they were really targeting, sinking the boat and the narcotics, because they didn't want the narcotics floating out there, and the people died as part of collateral damage, then their argument is perfectly sound, whether the left likes it or not. So the question is, did Pete Hegseth order no survivors? That's the question. And we don't know the answer to that, by the way. The left assures us he did, but we don't actually know. There's been no one to confirm. that that's what happened. And according to the, now, Hexith himself could deny it, and he hasn't denied it, part of the problem. But Pentagon sources outside of Pete Hegseth and said this was about sinking the boat, not killing the people. They got killed. That wasn't the goal here. The goal was to sink the boat. And if so, that is a plausible, reliable argument for the administration. And that's not a war crime, contrary to what you're hearing. John, welcome to the show. John, how are you? Eric, hey, good with you. What's going on? Hey, so one of my favorite apologists was Dr. Nabil Qureshi, who is a former Muslim. I read his book. He was called Searching for Allah, Finding Jesus. Great guy. Yeah, just a fabulous guy. Heartbreaking story. I still listen to his thing sometimes when I need inspiration about certain situations. But one thing I learned from listening to him and checking out his work was about Islamists and the Takia, which is basically their hall pass or their permission slip to say, we are allowed to deceive the non-believers. whenever we feel like we're under duress. And their definition of being under duress, you could drive a country through it because it's an entire fluid thing. So we have no idea. whenever we have folks that are fundamentally not allowing themselves to separate church and state. And we have no idea who they are and no idea when they're going to come to that position that they say, well, I'm deciding I'm going to wake up and be radicalized today. Or I am radicalized, but I'm going to lie to these people actively because my religion says I can do so. The same thing happened whenever Thomas Jefferson's people want to speak with... I can't remember emissaries from, it was during the Barbary Pirates issue. And they went and spoke with people, they decided to meet in London. That was the place where they would meet. And whenever they asked them, they said, why are you doing this? Why are you enslaving these people? And they said, well, the Quran says that we can, so therefore we're doing so. So, you know, I hate to say this, but it's like, if anyone wants to read more about this, I'd highly recommend Bill Qureshi's work on this and researching what the Tikia actually is and how fluid the definition is to basically.

the entire Muslim community because everyone's got a different way of looking at it. Yeah, and you know, and to be clear, by the way, it is a great book. And, you know, sadly, so for those who don't know the story, he was diagnosed with cancer, we had actually committed to get together for coffee. And our agreement to get together for coffee came the day before his... diagnosis of cancer and it was it was very rapid he did not live long but he was a a great guy uh and just i mean salt of the earth person And I regret that as much as we traded notes, we never were able to get together in person. What John raises is a real issue that I think a lot of Western leaders don't take seriously because they don't take faith seriously. And if you take faith seriously, it's a problem. There are branches of Islam. We focus on the Sunni and the Shiite, broad denominational, for lack of a better word. branches of Islam, but there actually are those within Islam who treat their commitment to faith differently, and there are pacifists within Islam, there are militant Islamists. You can't paint the entire religion with a broad brush, but there are some commonalities, and among a lot of... Immigrants, potential immigrants, you do have to be a little leery of are they coming in and want to maintain such a distinctiveness of their religion that at some point they begin to impose their religion on the rest of us. We're seeing that happen in parts of Europe where you can't have a Christmas celebration in Europe without Islam showing up and disturbing it. That happened over the weekend. I want to say it was in Italy. A group of Islamists hoisting Palestinian flags showed up with smoke bombs and disrupted a Christmas celebration and a Christmas event. How those people don't get deported is beyond me. This constitution that we have is not a suicide pact, and that gets me to the situation with the Afghan murderer terrorist in Washington, D.C. I want to begin with a clip from Markwayne Mullin, the senator from Oklahoma. He was on Fox News talking about the assimilation issues with these Afghans who Joe Biden led in in 2021. What their leverage points are, is Afghanistan using them? We have, I say Afghan, we have, a Taliban is using them, have they traveled back. We even have reports where people are traveling back to Afghanistan and coming back to the United States. If they leave and they're able to enter into Afghanistan, which is a Taliban-held country at this point, and able to get back out on their own.

terrorism unit that worked directly with U.S. intelligence and military units in Afghanistan, including active combat against Taliban forces at that time. And so there were thousands of those individuals who served in those roles that were evacuated when the Taliban started to rise to power after the U.S. left. And it appears that was the basis for his immigration into the United States. Now, of course, several layers of vetting and took place after he got here. temporarily allowed to come here at first. But his background with the CIA and the intelligence community does seem to be the basis for his travel to the U.S. So what was that vetting process actually like? Because obviously there were a lot of Afghans that were coming over as part of that Operation Allies welcome. Yeah, by all accounts, it should have been very extensive. We know that in that initial process, he would have been vetted by the U.S. government, including the CIA. And then once he was granted temporary asylum, as he applied for permanent status, he would have gone through a variety of different layers of vetting. include identity and background checks, biometric vetting, in-person interviews, assessment of an individual risk and eligibility under U.S. law. Now, we know he overstayed his welcome and was not supposed to stay, and yet one of those who slipped through the cracks. There are now reports out that he might have been radicalized here. We don't know. This gets to Markwayne Mullin's point that some of these guys were allowed to go back to Afghanistan and then return here after meeting with the Taliban. I don't know that that guy was in the situation. But what's so wild to me is that for much of the press, their initial reaction to these soldiers being shot in Washington was that, well, of course they were going to be shot. Trump put them in danger. How is putting National Guard soldiers on the streets, putting them in danger? The other one I thought was very well to say, they're not trained for this. Really, National Guard not trained to take incoming fire. that the American press corps rushed out to blame Donald Trump and not just blame him, but their initial presumptions, you can hear it in their words. Their initial presumptions were to presume that the shooter was a progressive. It tells you everything you need to know about where we are right now in this country, where violence on National Guard soldiers was presumed to be progressive violence to try to stop the fascist Donald Trump regime. And then they were like, wait a second, it turns out to be a terrorist. Not one of us, the media says, basically. You got to hear this clip. This is from NBC's Tom Costello. Today's deadly incident follows a series of attacks against federal law enforcement. In July, 10 suspects in tactical gear attacked an ice facility wounding a local police officer in Alvaredo, Texas. Days later, a suspect opened fire on Border Patrol agents in McAllen, Texas. The suspect killed. And in September, a sniper on a roof in Dallas opened fire on a van at an ice facility. The suspect had inscribed anti-ice on his ammunition. Two undocumented...

immigrants killed. We were told that people would be gunned down in the streets of Donald Trump's authoritarian regime, and the only people being gunned down in the streets of Donald Trump's regime are federal agents there to keep us safe. Progressives. have turned violent against the federal government, and the fact that the media, upon learning these National Guard soldiers were shot, immediately concluded it was a progressive targeting them. when it turned out to be an Afghan national, tells you everything you need to know about everyone's understanding of where progressives are. And that the media then reacted after presuming it was a progressive to blame Donald Trump for putting soldiers in harm's way for the audacity of asking them to keep Washington, D.C. safe. Tells you just how in the tank for that progressive ideology the American Press Corps is. When the truth seems hazy, Eric will clear the way. It's the Eric Erickson Show. Hello there. Welcome. It is Eric Erickson here. 8779373425. Should you wish to be on the program? Here's a wild one for you. So, if you study the English common law, The common law was essentially the set of laws over time as developed by judges and then brought over to the United States by the colonists embraced here English common law. But one thing that we also got from England was the English Bill of Rights following the glorious revolution and also the Magna Carta from the... distrust and enrage of the barons at King John and derived all the way back to the Magna Carta and then through the English Bill of Rights was a guarantee to a trial by jury of peers. The British government under the current very progressive Labor Party has announced an end to trial by jury, except for things like murder and rape. It is the end of Great Britain to end the British sense of self to turn against the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights. And it's just wild to watch a country in real time self-destructing, just wild for the British to give up trial by jury. We don't have to worry about that here because we have a Constitution and it's in writing and there's an amendment process. And Americans for Prosperity is one of those groups that is a stalwart defender of common sense conservatism around the country, including things like trial by jury, is civil justice reform, criminal justice reform, the president's tax cuts, regulatory reform in this country that is based on common sense and conservative values.

You can sign up and become a part of this movement with AFP Volunteer.com, the website, afpvolunteer.com. Sign up with Americans for Prosperity and become a fighter for common sense conservative reform in your neck of the woods. They've got chapters in every state, and they would love to have you involved with them at afp volunteer.com. Sign up with Americans for Prosperity today. Get involved in advancing common sense conservative reforms across the nation.