Joyce's No Restraint Podcast Ep. 353 - Continued controversy within the WNBA , Helping human trafficking survivors, and Democratic Socialist working along side Islamist in New York, and more

This is the Joyce Kaufman podcast, honest, straight and unapologelic, with your host, Joyce Kaufman. Welcome to this edition of the No Restraint Podcast. I'm your host, Joyce Kaufman, and I have a lot of different subjects on my mind today, and a lot of people to give credit to my friend Brigitte Gabrielle, the people who write the incredible articles at BPR like Maureen Steele, you name it. I've got some great... information available to me, and I share it with my audience. Epic Times, Savannah Pointer, had a great piece. I'm going to talk about really something you probably never think about, and that's helping human trafficking survivors. And then I have to talk about the WNBA, because I'm really upset about it, and maybe I'll just start there. even though we're going to be all over the geopolitical map and even the Florida map. The Politburo of the Women's National Basketball Association continues to be mired in controversy after an excessively hard foul by Chicago Sky player Dijana Carrington on the Indiana fever's Sophie Cunningham during a game over the last weekend. Carrington's contact drew the ire of Cunningham supporters everywhere as it was vicious and arguably intentional. As malevolent as Carrington's foul was, basketball history is rife with such fouls, including some committed by Cunningham herself. Nevertheless, the problem wasn't Carrington's foul. The problem was Carrington blaming white privilege for being held accountable for the foul. It's indicative of the black entitlement problem corroding the WNBA. After the fever's Monique Billings recovered a loose ball during the game on Saturday, she passed it to Cunningham, who was running for a breakaway layup after Carrington decided to leap in the air and slash Cunningham around the face and the neck, causing her to tumble hard to the court. Referees initially called a fragrant one foul on Carrington, but it was upgraded to a more serious flagrant two. After a review, the referee felt that Carrington performed a wind-up and follow-through on the contact while Cunningham was in a vulnerable position for an injury. Carrington appeared shocked that the foul was escalated to the more serious flagrant too, and that she was ejected. She's not the first athlete to disagree with a referee's assessment, and she definitely won't be the last. However, she is the first to be ejected from a game, and then moments later posts on social media white privilege and tags her opponent the Indiana fever in the middle of the game.

Carrington was the aggressor and committed the violent foul. It was quite obvious she was in the wrong and had violated the rules. Carrington instead blamed racism for being held accountable. This is an example of black entitlement in the WNBA. It's failure to accept responsibility for ill-advised actions and then blame white people when accountability is issued. Black entitlement is a weaponization of racial, left-wing cultural values, the kind embraced by today's socialists and communists who are winning primary elections. It's an entitlement philosophy that is predicated on one ideal. Blame white people for the bad decisions and poor choices of black people. There was no legitimate reason for Carrington to bring race into the physical exchange between her and Cunningham. It was done so because blaming white people has become socially and politically acceptable in the country's culture. This is especially true when there is an interaction between a white person and a black person. It's the ignoring of the reality of a bad action committed by a black person and the shifting of blame to a white person or white society, usually accompanied by references to previous racial injustices committed in the nation's history, but unrelated in any way to the current situation. It's a corrosive practice of entitlement that has been widely preferred and accepted in left-wing sociocultural circles. and has emanated into mainstream society. Race had nothing to do with Carrington's flagrant two-fowl classification and subsequent ejection. The only person or thing responsible for that was Dijunay Carrington. Blaming white people has become somewhat of a default response in American society. It shouldn't be. Any objective person knows Carrington was in the wrong. I would even bet that Carrington knew so too. For her to say she was ejected due to white privilege is quite preposterous. The hit was so egregious that even the game's commentators, WNBA legend Rebecca Lobo, and ABC play-by-play announcer Ryan Roco, said during the broadcast that Carrington's foul warranted a flagrant two classification. But that is just a hard hit, Lobo said, while watching a replay of Carrington's hit on Cunningham. That's definitely going to be upgraded to a flagrant too, Ryan. I think that it's going to be a flagrant too, Rococo said. There's a wind-up. There's a follow-through. There's a potential for injury. There's Sophie Cunningham in a vulnerable position in the air. Without question, Lobo said. There's no question why Sophie Cunningham got up and took exception to that hit from Dijunay Carrington, Rocco added. To her credit, even Cunningham dismissed Carrington's absurd claim and had the courage to speak out against the white privilege claim. She acknowledged that it was a hard foul, but one worthy of an ejection. She even referenced one time her own hard foul led to an ejection. The difference is that Cunningham accepted

responsibility for her actions and agreed that she should have been ejected. She didn't blame fanciful myths such as racism or privilege due to a particular skin color. I think the league is taking care of that, Cunningham said, when asked about Carrington's absurd attempt to stoke racial tensions. This has nothing to do with race. Last year, I did the same thing, and I got kicked out, and I deserved to be kicked out. There's no reason even to play that card. Cunningham is right. There wasn't any reason to play that card. However, Carrington played it because she knew she could. She played it because she knows the WNBA's Politburo is sympathetic and embraces social justice warrior fallacies, inaccuracies, revisions, and cultural myths. Carrington knows she can physically violate Cunningham, blame racism and white people, and not suffer any legitimate accountability for doing so because the WNBA is rife with black entitlement. Hopefully, one day, the WNBA will prioritize judging players by the content of their character, not by the content on social media aligned with left-wing political ideologies that is dishonest and unjust. Hopefully, the WNBA will take steps to eliminate this black entitlement and judge people solely based on their actions instead of the color of their skin. And hopefully, more than anything, the WNBA will... champion individual responsibility instead of anti-white racism and its toxic collective grievance culture. By the way, I don't tolerate when white players contend that there's favoritism towards black players either. The game is the game and should be played legally, consistently, and hard. If the WNBA hopes to ever make as much money as NBA players, which isn't going to happen. But if that's what their hope is, they better get ready to be fouled hard and to be ejected from games and not whine and complain like a bunch of sissies and definitely not blame the color of their skin. In the streets of New York on college campuses and in Democratic primaries, a familiar pattern is replaying itself. Democratic Socialists of America activists chant alongside Islamist-aligned groups.

Candidates blend wealth redistribution and public ownership with fervent anti-Israel rhetoric and Muslim identity politics. Zohran Mamdani, New York City's first Muslim mayor and a democratic socialist embodies the fusion. His allies are winning races. American Communist Party voices declare that 1917 must be united with 1979, linking the Bolshevik revolution to Iran's Islamic one. There is no coincidence. It continues a long history of cooperation between socialism and Islamism against their shared enemy, capitalism, and the liberal order that sustains it. Both ideologies prioritize the collective over the individual. The umah, or the proletariat, and view private enterprise, profit and market freedom with suspicion. Islam forbids Riba, interest, and mandates zakat as obligatory redistribution. Socialism demands state control of production to end exploitation. Both offer totalizing blueprints, one under divine law, the other under enforced equity. Both frame history as a struggle against a corrupt, materialist West and reject liberal democracy for revolutionary change. Shared anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism bind them, turning Israel into a proxy for Western capitalism. History proves these affinities produce alliances aimed at destroying capitalist systems. After World War II, the fusion reappeared. Muammar Gaddafi's Libya produced the Green Book, a third universal theory, rejecting pure capitalism and atheistic communism for an Islamic, legitimized socialist state that seized resources and society. The most dramatic collaboration came in Iran in 1978 through 79. Marxist guerrillas, communist parties, and leftists joined Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamists to overthrow the Shah's pro-Western modernizing oil-fueled capitalist regime. They shared slogans against imperialism, inequality, and American influence. The Shah called it the Red and Black Alliance. Once the monarchy fell, the Islamist consolidated power, purged the leftists through imprisonment and execution, and built a theocratic state that still nationalizes key sectors, directs the economy under clerical oversight, and defines itself against capital. capitalism and the West. Temporary anti-Western fronts repeatedly see socialists and Islamists dismantle existing orders, only for one side, often the Islamists, to dominate afterward. These were not abstract exercises. They produced nationalizations and seizures of private enterprise, market suppression, and social engineering.

Capitalism was the explicit target as the engine of Western power, individualism, and inequality. America is seeing the domestic version of this red-green alliance. Post-October 7th campus encampments fused socialist groups with Islamist networks. DSA-backed candidates celebrate from the river to the sea while demanding public ownership of housing and energy and industry, rent freezes, and taxes on the rich. Zohran Mamdani Circle includes figures tied to anti-American symbolism and Islamist organizations. The rhetoric attacks not only billionaires, but the constitutional order, free speech, and the confidence of a society built on markets and individual rights and Judeo-Christian inheritance. We should be concerned. History shows these alliances disrupt effectively, even when they later fracture. Capitalism is the foundation of American prosperity, of our mobility and innovation. Expansive state control and identity-based redistribution and assaults on Western civilization risk the stagnation and authoritarianism seen abroad. Jewish communities already face the anti-Semitism that accompanies this coalition. Free inquiry and equal citizenship erode when one side demands religious submission and the other equity doctrines that reject merit. The Iranian leftists who helped topple the Shah learned too late their partners would not share power. American socialists may face the same lesson or succeed in hollowing out the institutions that protect everyone. America's genius has been absorbing diverse peoples into ordered liberty and competitive markets. This red-green convergence rejects that framework for permanent revolution. When socialism and Islamism make common cause against capitalism, the result is not justice, but its control, decline, and division. Recognizing the pattern is the first step. to resisting it. And I did want to touch upon this generational impact, helping human trafficking survivors with housing, that Ked and Michelle Frank have been on a 20-year mission to provide a safe place for survivors to go after they escape their traffickers. For instance, two sisters walked into a Kentucky church looking for a way out of the life they were trapped in. They had danced at a strip club the night before. One was eight months pregnant. The church could only offer them a motel room and a few meals. That's when Ked and Michelle Frank stepped in to help. Sitting on a park bench in Kentucky, talking to the two desperate sisters, really began something Ked has reported. It broke his heart and began a new mission.

Meanwhile, a friend had started a ministry visiting clubs and reaching out to the women who worked there. There were a hundred people in our church that were either cooking food or delivering food or praying for the women that would go into the clubs and minister, Ked said. The night after the encounter, Michelle went into a club with the ministry armed with lasagna. Something extraordinary happened. The bouncer opens the door into this club, and it's as though everything froze, Michelle said. And in that moment, there was this haze around the atmosphere of this club, and all I could see in the darkness of it, all were words on women's foreheads like broken, lonely. Hell. I saw all those words on women's foreheads as I was holding this lasagna, and my heart broke. Twenty-some years later, the memory still brings her to tears, Michelle says. It was what she needed to spark the same drive to help that Ked was feeling. The encounters began a 20-year mission to provide a safe place for survivors to go after they escape their traffickers. Together, Ked and Michelle have helped hundreds of women through their programs. Before dedicating their time to combating the effects of sex trafficking, Ked and Michelle served in full-time ministry. The pair had been married for 26 years and have two daughters and a son. There are some 6.3 million people, mostly women and girls, involved in sex trafficking around the world at any given time. After realizing that many women who escape trafficking have nowhere to go once they left, the Franks got to work. They opened their first home for trafficking victims on a friend's farm outside of Lexington, Kentucky. When his friend showed him the land with its old farmhouse, Ked said, there was this pulling on my heart. Ask him if he'd be willing to use that land to bring women who needed a place to go to get away, to be safe. Ked took the leap. I feel really awkward asking you this, he said to his friend, but do you think God would want to use that land to bring women who need a place to go and escape? His friend then related that he had awakened to a message at 4 a.m. in the morning. The Lord literally told me that's not your land that you just bought, but I'm going to do a ministry on that land. Transforming that run-down farmhouse into a safe place led to a nationwide anti-trafficking ministry called Refuge for Women, which now provides emergency housing and long-term care at locations across the United States. Today, Ked and Michelle run Safe Places for Women, their 12th home. Safe Places for Women is a...

faith-based transitional living program for survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation and is headquartered in Littleton, Colorado. The organization provides long-term housing, case management, and addiction recovery. KED serves as its president and founder, while Michelle is the organization's co-founder and ministry leader. While many anti-trafficking organizations offer a broad range of services, the Franks have focused on housing. Housing has really been at the heart of what we've been doing. The opportunity to walk alongside of women who are beginning a brand new story and looking forward and having hope, maybe for the first time in a long, long time, that's always what's gotten us really excited. According to Michelle, the vastness of human trafficking means the resources to meet the needs of those trafficked need to be just as expansive. She noted the work of Rescue America. The organization's 24-7 hotline connects women. in need with organizations like safe places for women. Women can call that hotline and then Rescue America then calls organizations like Michelle and Keds. She called the relationship between the two organizations huge as survivors who reach out to the hotline. find safe places. It was at their first home that someone took a photo of a resident, Devon, holding her three-year-old daughter, Gwenna, next to a sign that said, Welcome Home, Devin. The Franks found that photo and planned to speak about Devin at a recent gala where they were presenting their work. But Devin reached out to them just before the event, telling them that she had someone who wanted to speak to them. 16-year-old Gwenna then told the Franks about her passion for music, how she's using that passion to lead worship, and about the college courses she's taking. Ked and Michelle now have a new photo to put next to the one welcoming. Devin and Gwen a home. They discovered that Devin, married, now works with trafficking survivors. Ked said that is one of hundreds of stories he could tell. Stories of people who have found the hand up they needed to change their lives. I'll never forget that day that she said, I need help. Not only is Devin's life much different, but helping her had a generational impact, he said. Wenna now is on a completely different path than she would have been on had that situation not occurred.

and he has seen whether Renner could turn conservative priorities into actual legislation. Now with Floridians preparing to choose Ron DeSantis' successor, the governor says Renner would do really good at the job. Voters should at least take notice. Modern politics has become extraordinarily good at producing personalities. It isn't always as good. at producing governors, and there is a difference. Governors have to build coalitions, understand budgets, negotiate with legislatures, manage enormous bureaucracies, and most importantly, translate promises into policy. Renner enters this race having already operated at the highest levels of Florida government. He's a former prosecutor, a Navy veteran who served during Operation Desert Storm and later returned to active duty in Afghanistan, a former Florida House Speaker, and a candidate who can point to an actual legislative record rather than merely tell voters what he hopes to accomplish someday. That distinction deserves more attention than it has received because Florida isn't hiring a television commentator. It is hiring a chief executive. Renner has also been doing something healthy for Republican politics, asking his opponents to debate. He publicly challenged the gubernatorial field to appear before Florida voters and make their cases, criticizing Byron Donalds's for declining to participate. Good. Every candidate asking Floridians for the keys to the governor's mansion should be willing to stand on a stage and answer questions. No teleprompter, no hiding behind somebody else's endorsement. Tell us what you believe. Tell us what you'll do. Defend your record and explain why you deserve the job. That isn't an unreasonable demand. It's democracy. Ron DeSantis has made it clear that he's not endorsing a candidate in this primary. We should take him at his word, but we should also take seriously what he did say. Because there is a considerable distance between refusing to endorse someone and voluntarily telling Florida voters that you believe that person would be a really good governor. Ron DeSantis chose his words. He knows the stakes, and he knows Paul Renner. Perhaps that is why this moment is more interesting than a conventional endorsement would have been. Ron DeSantis isn't telling us how to vote. He's telling us what he thinks of a man whose governing ability he witnessed firsthand. Twelve days before the primary, he said that. That's one heck of a tip of the hat.

People like me and you, Florida voters, would be wise to pay attention. Thank you for listening to this edition of the No Restraint Podcast. It is my hope that you will share it with someone and that you will become a regular listener. It's available on all of the podcast platforms, so it is not difficult to find the No Restraint Podcasts with your host, Joyce Kaufman. Also, a new one will be coming along shortly. But in the meantime, as I always like to remind you, my prayer for America is that God would bless us, that God would bless Israel and that God would bless you. Hang in there. We got a country to save, and it's going to take all of us working together. God bless. This has been the Joyce Kaufman podcast. Available everywhere you get your podcasts.