The Joyce Kaufman Show 8/13/26 - Havana Syndrome, horseshoe phenomenon, Elijah Schaffer compares women's sports to the Special Olympics, Cost of living in Florida

This is the Joyce Kaufman podcast, honest, straight, and unapologelic with your host, Joyce Kaufman. Oh, boy, I tell you every single day I tell myself, don't worry, there'll be a good news story somewhere. All you've got to do is find it. And then I'll spend a half an hour and get frustrated and say, okay, well, let's go back to the stories that are not that good. that where maybe I can give a spin to them that's positive and that's challenging. But I'm getting better at doing it. There's so many crazy stories that you have to. You have to get better at finding the subtle story underneath it. That sounded like almost. like, I don't know, like fake fraud. I was thinking about this Havana syndrome the other day because that's really one of these big stories right now that every time I read a different version or I listen to somebody who was struck by this unexplained neurological attack while they were serving overseas and a diplomat, I go back to this I guess it's a documentary that's on the Fox Nation called Immaculate Concussion. And wow, it's super disturbing. And apparently our government is less concerned about it than I think they should be. But that's pretty typical of how government operates. I was reading another story today, and I'm just going to throw a couple of stories out there because I don't think that any of them are worthy of my entire program, but they certainly bear mentioning. Once again, our politicians are very considerate when it comes to the rights of what they call marginalized groups, but not when it has to do with traditional groups. And in this case, I'm looking at this 37,000 square foot facility in the middle of residential neighborhoods in McKinney City, in Texas, that really they're so angry about it, the people of McKinney, that they are calling for a recall. that they say the government shouldn't get the final say on them building a mosque of that size in the city of McKinney. A five-acre tract along Virginia Parkway, which is near like two residential neighborhoods. I'm looking at an aerial map and a high school. includes a 37,000 square foot facility with a mosque, educational spaces, a gymnasium, and meeting rooms. It will be designed to accommodate 3,000 people. And it will be operated by the McKinney Islamic Association, which currently has a mosque in a shopping center that includes multiple businesses.

But they, the claim is that the congregation is growing so quickly that they need a much larger facility. So after the McKinney Planning and Zoning Commission voted seven to zero to approve the plan, they sent the proposal to the, that was the planning and zoning commission, they sent it to the city council for final approval. The council members unanimously voted to approve the mosque, and the residents went absolutely bonkers. They were very concerned. They were talking about, you know, Sharia law. It's incompatible with American traditions and values. One of the Iranian survivors that escaped Iran... spoke to the council and urged the members of the council, this is a Muslim, to reject the proposal. Do these representatives not understand that they take an oath and that oath starts with the U.S. Constitution? And unless there's a very compelling reason to allot that much space, I'm a little concerned. I always feel a little concerned. They have about, they have to collect over 5,000, close to 6,000 signatures, which is equivalent to 30% of the turnout in the last general election. And people in the town, they want a voice. And they are in particular people who survived. Sharia in foreign places, people who maybe were Lebanese or people who were, again, Iranian, and they were Christians, and they were just punished for their faith. So now they come to America, land of the free, home of the brave, and they're terrified that somehow it's going to get duplicated here in America. So I'm going to follow this story very carefully. Because I think you're going to see a lot more of this around the country. People trying to have their voices heard. They have concerns. Now look, if it's just bigotry, well, then I don't, you know, I don't condone that. But it sounds like this particular community is saying we don't have a population to support that. What is the plan? Why would you build a facility? that you could not literally have enough people to go to, to attend to. So it'll be interesting to see how that story turns out. Texas is always a flashpoint, much like Florida. People here don't just sit back and allow government to do whatever it feels like doing, and that's the right way to have this democracy. You know, A great piece by Melanie Phillips earlier in the week about what she calls the Horseshoe phenomenon in which extremists of the left and then extremists of the right are saying the same kind of unhinged conspiracy theories. They lie about Israel. They lie about the Jews. And they get away with it.

And now it's not just here in America. It's happening in Europe. It's happening in Britain. And it's not as bad in Britain as it is in America. But it's fascinating to watch what's happening in our country, where you have the right pretty much upending the Republican Party. It'd be harder for them to do that in Great Britain. where they have these two populist parties reform and restore, which they stand against mass immigration, and they want to defend and restore British national identity. Because one almost has to feel like you're in a fight to preserve your country. And you have Nigel Farage in Great Britain, which he all but capsized the Conservative Party. He stole a bunch of labor blue-collar voters. But that's not, doesn't seem to have legs in Britain yet. And what you have to be careful for is that when you bend over backwards to accommodate. minorities or marginalized communities, whatever they choose to label them these days, that'll get them as far as they can go. You have to be really careful that you don't piss off the majorities. That, you know, the still vast majority of Brits are European, white Anglo-Saxons. And they have a right to their country, too. It's not just bigotry. It really displays a failure to understand citizenship, to understand ethnicity, or to understand identity, like British identity or American identity. You have people here in America like the Nick Fuentes and the Groypers, who all of a sudden, you know, Tucker Carlson became a big fan of. What they are proposing is awful. They want to exclude brown and black skin people and produce a totally homogeneous white-skinned society. They think that's more like the true America. See, I disagree. I think we are a magnificent country full of shades of people and people who come from all over the world. And the first mistake is when you think that skin color represents your ethnicity. It does not. Ethnicity is a shared cultural identity of a group that's based on things like their language and their history and their ancestry. Skin color, that derives from genetics and geography. They don't necessarily overlap. Russians may be white-skinned, but they're a different ethnic group than, say, the Nordic people, the Danes, or the Irish, the Celtic people. You know, the fact that over the centuries, British people were overwhelmingly white-skinned isn't the point. British identity was never about being white. It was a cultural thing.

And that's why you're seeing people really get upset when they're not even asked if it's okay with them, if their country gets hijacked by groups that don't even want to be there. They're there because they want to turn that particular country into their homeland. You know, if you have a country like America which is diverse and a system of plural identities instead of an ethnically homogeneous people, it has to accommodate their differences. You know, the far right sometimes make way too much noise and try to identify with the faith, with Christianity. And yeah, Britain was indeed a Christian nation since the 7th century, if not even earlier than that. But it's not a theocracy, and religious faith doesn't define whether or not you belong there. A Hindu or a Sikh or a Jew or a Muslim is as British as anyone else. So to identify Britishness or Americans with Christianity, isn't only unpleasant, but it's absurd. And only 46% of Americans even identify anymore as Christians. So what do you do? Just disregard the population? It's just going to become more and more of an issue. And certainly, mass migration and immigration. have to be reckoned with because people get mad. You know, they don't want to be chased out of their neighborhoods or chased out of their country. So that's a learning curve that we better improve on, speed it up or something. Because the problem... when you have debates about this or you have conversations about it here in America, it's easy for, let's say, a Republican congressman, like the guy in Texas, Brandon Gill, you know, he goes viral when he talks about how the economic woes of Americans today are directly attributable to mass migration and to leftism. Well, that's an interesting explanation, but it's not really accurate. He was on the Will Kane show. And if you ask yourself, you know, why are wages being suppressed? Why are rents very high? Why whenever you go to the hospital or you go to a doctor's office, do you have to wait for three hours? It's easy to say, well, it's driven by mass migration. You know, why are we seeing a decline in the economic viability of America's social institutions? Why are our roads less safe? And he tried to simplify it all down to, well, it's all driven by mass migration, because it does touch every part of American life. So then, of course, the socialists use the economic woe that's created and they drum up support.

And it turns into a political issue. Look at all the young fools flocking to the Democratic Socialists of America. I mean, look at a lot of those people who are moving to the DSA. What they're doing is they're recognizing that something's wrong in the country right now. Wages are not keeping up with inflation. Rents are way too high. If you're coming out of college with massive student loan debt and you're having a hard time getting a job, You're probably looking for someone to blame it. And socialism is trying to sell a bill of goods that'll fix these problems when in reality, you know, for the most part, it's that kind of ideology that creates all these problems in the first place. So, you know, ask yourself, whenever you flood a country with millions of people, primarily illegally, but also large-scale legal immigration in certain areas, what does that do? It suppresses wages, it drives up the rents and the cost of housing, so you're getting hit on both fronts. And then your jobs are being taken, so it's harder to find work. It's very easy. to blame, you know, so many of these aspects of migration and immigration. And yet, we all know that legal immigration and the growing of a diverse society can be a great thing. But it has to be managed. And they don't want to manage it. I mean, look at the House Budget Committee. Medicaid spending on illegal aliens that was going on during Joe Biden's tenure cost the American taxpayers over $16 billion with a bead dollars. That's been confirmed. How do you think that makes Americans feel that are struggling? And that's on top of the executive action that provided $9 billion in Obamacare to illegal immigrants. People get frustrated. It's very easy for them then to be angered and to say stupid things. I think to some extent Brandon Gill got caught up in that trap. Anyway, don't forget to download that 850 WFTL app app on your laptop or on your cell phone or wherever. You can listen to the podcast and get breaking news and all that good stuff or visit our website 850WFDL.com. Let me take a quick break. Please stay right where you are. So I was watching a political debate that went completely off the rails. I think it was probably took place earlier in the week, but I was watching it early this morning. And it was, what's his name? Pierce Morgan. And I think his show is called Pierce Morgan uncensored or something. I shouldn't be making fun of that since I do no restraint. I know what he means. So you want to do stories that other people are afraid to cover. But anyway, so he has on this panel, and they're talking about the WNBA, which is I've been talking about it all week. It's a big story. It's a mess, you know. But this guy on the show, Elijah Schaeford.

actually said on the show that I don't care about women's sports and neither do most Americans because of the same reason we don't get super excited about the Special Olympics. They're very similar. If women can't compete, then maybe they weren't designed to compete. That's maybe not what their purpose is, is to be athletic and be competitive and be on the market. What? anything like today's modern day feminist, but there's still enough feminist in me to say, what are you talking about? There are some very competitive athletes in many different sports. Just because there aren't so many dunks in the WNBA as there are in the NBA, the game has looked at differently, but it's highly competitive and they've gotten some really talented women playing the game now. And comparing it to the Special Olympics, first and foremost, Special Olympics is not something that you demean or use as a measuring stick. Special Olympics is a beautiful opportunity for maybe populations that aren't highly competitive in athletics to play against each other. It's the same thing I say about transgender athletes. If there are so many transgendered athletes that we need to confront that issue, there should be a transgendered league. It's okay with me. But this guy, you should have seen the people on this panel. They were squirman, even like Tyrus, was squirming. Because many of us have good friends and family members and kids in college who are competing athletically. But that's a college who are competing athletically. But that's a real challenge that he put up there. And then I got quiet. After I, you know, was incensed by his comment, I thought about the fact that if I have a choice this afternoon to watch an NBA game or a WNBA game, I'm going to watch the NBA game. That's just my truth. I do like to watch WNBA, but it's generally because there's nothing else to watch. No, it's because there's nothing I want to watch as much. So, you know, it's not generating lots of income. I mean, these women are not making the kind of money the NBA makes. I watch those softball games, women's softball. It's interesting to watch, but like after about 30 minutes, I'm done. And Caitlin Clark, as good as she is, she would probably get beat by the top 10 teenage boy travel team's player. Her team is the only exciting thing about the WNBA. And that's not a bad thing. It's growing. And if more Caitlin Clarks show up, they'll get more eyes.

But boy, this is like, when I was watching this, it felt like I was watching the old Jerry Springer show. How insulting can you be and get away with it? That was the question I was left asking myself. Anyway, let me take a quick break, because when we come back, I got to talk about this. what's been released now, some new memorandums and new documents thanks to this White House Government Transparency Task Force, which shows that spy agencies and the FBI were creating lists of very prominent organizations. And in this case, you know, I'm always quick to say, oh, they go after conservatives. No, no, no. This story goes in a very different direction. But I'm going to cover it. So stay right where you are. I'll be right back. Before I even get into that subject, I got to tell you, because I've been hearing a lot of this from a lot of you. That as you talk to people from around the country, You know, if you, you know, sit in a truck stop with long-haul drivers or you're in a diner with a bunch of farmers, like you see them do that on the morning shows. Not just Fox, but MSNBC, all of them. They like to go out to the country diner and hear what the people have to say, right? And you listen to people. They want to talk. about their bills. They want to talk about their grocery bills and how much their utilities are costing them and how they are worried. I mean, I just had a conversation with my producer. You know, some generations don't know if they can ever own a home. So no matter where you go in the country, you pretty much hear the same thing. People aren't asking government to do something or to make them rich. But they are asking government to stop making life so expensive. And for a long time, we in Florida, we were the exception, right? For decades, we were the place where freedom and opportunity, lower taxes, no state income tax, less regulation. And people here believe that if you worked hard, you could build a better life than the one that you left up north or out west or wherever. But people didn't move to Florida just because of sunshine. They moved here because Florida made sense. But something has changed radically. Teachers cannot live in the communities where they teach. You know, sheriff's deputies and firefighters have to commute farther because housing costs have climbed beyond their reach. Young families are definitely delaying buying their first home and in many instances not buying a first home. Retirees who plan their entire future around, I don't know, spending their final years in Florida. Now they're...

asking out loud, can I stay or do I have to leave? Can I afford it? And that should concern all of us. Not because Florida has failed, it's actually the opposite. Florida became so successful that it now faces the challenge of managing that success without pricing out the very people who made it possible. Yeah. That's why I believe the next governor of Florida has to focus on more than just preserving our freedoms. The next governor has to preserve that Florida dream. And that's, in my opinion, I've said it before. Say it again, that's Paul Renner, this former speaker. If you've watched Florida politics as long as I have, You know that the campaigns often become competitions over who could make the biggest promises. And, you know, he doesn't do that. Paul Renner doesn't do that. Whether he's talking about education or parental rights or public safety or fiscal policy, he's always... been consistently talking about creating stable institutions that led families and businesses thrive over the long term, rather than just chasing these short-term political victories. And that matters because Florida's affordability crisis won't be solved by a single bill or one speech. Property insurance is a burden for homeowners across the state. Housing costs keep going up faster than the wages. Infrastructure has to keep pace with all this population growth. Every unnecessary regulation, every delayed permit, every frivolous lawsuit and the inefficient bureaucracy becomes another hidden cost that gets paid for by the working families. And government... rarely sends us a bill for its mistakes. Instead, we pay for them one utility bill at a time, one mortgage payment at a time, one grocery receipt at a time, one insurance premium payment at a time. And conservatives, you know, we talk about how this is one of the freest states in America. But now what? If ordinary Floridians can't afford to live in the state that we work so hard to build, if freedom and affordability are not competing priorities, they have to depend upon one another. A young family can't enjoy freedom if they can't own a home because it's permanently priced out of their reach. A retiree cannot enjoy lower taxes if the insurance premiums are consuming their retirement income. You know, a small business owner can't grow if government inefficiency raises the cost of doing business every single year.

And that's really why the political conversation that should be going on and is not going on is who would make a great steward for this free state of Florida. You know, we need a state where teachers can afford to live and electricians can buy a home and law enforcement officers. can flourish and their small business owners can survive and and the families who have built the state with their own hands can live here that's how you measure success we're measuring it by the wrong standard Florida should never become a place where prosperity is obvious on an economic chart But working families and retirees are quietly, you know, packing the moving truck and getting out of here because they can't afford to stay. Look, the Florida dream is more than palm trees and warm weathers. It always was about opportunity. I came here for opportunity. You know, homeownership was a very foreign concept to a city girl in New York City Girl. And here I could get a three-bedroom, two-bath home with a pool. You know, that was the dream, and that dream is not alive anymore. But in order to get that dream back up and running, you've got to have leaders who understand that they have to do more than just protect the freedom. They have to make sure that freedom is affordable for the people who earned it. You know, a state succeeds not when everyone wants to move there, but when the people who built it never have to move away. And we don't hear that discussion, except from Renner, really. This is a sad state of affairs. You know, I was listening to this Kansas nominee, the Democratic nominee for the governor, race in Kansas. Talk about, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Dorothy or Toto. They were having a debate, the Democrat candidates, and they were basically trying to outwoke each other, right? And Cindy Holcher. decides to say this is a state senator. She's the nominee, the gubernatorial nominee. And back in March of 2023, she was involved in a debate on whether or not you should have drag performers in front of elementary school kids and minors. And she said, actually she wrote on X and what you write on the internet never really goes away. So she wrote, I have no idea if Jesus was trans, gay, straight, etc. Now, that is not something that you want to say. You don't want to mock Jesus to defend drag shows for kids. I mean, how out of touch?

is this woman, that she doesn't understand why most people in Kansas found that comment pretty offensive. That's certainly not your parents, Democrat Party. This is way too radical. She was pushing back against a Republican-backed measure that wanted to expand penalties for people who promote obscenity to minors. But she mocked. the Christianity's savior to defend drag shows for kids. That's coming back to haunt her big time. She was slammed on X. Even other Democrats were challenging her. She's saying, come on guys. Do we have to go completely nuts to win a primary? We have to say something as ridiculous as, I don't know if Jesus was trans. Somewhere, Jesus is thinking, I gave you the sermon on the Mount and this is what you're debating? In Kansas, of all places. And the race is a toss-up. How about that? According to Nate Silver's prediction, the Kansas governor's race is a toss-up. I'm really expected to believe that people in Kansas share her concern that Jesus may not be a straight guy. I don't know. It wasn't a straight man. How do we get into those kinds of debates? I'll never know. So, you know, instead, I'm beginning to think. And that's a really scary place for us as a country right now. When I'm trying to figure out if this is a big tent that the Democrats have built or a big insane asylum. I mean, you hear that kind of stuff. And don't forget coming up after me is Guy Benson and Will Kane, followed by Joe Pags and Lars Larson. The Overnight Guys, until 6 a.m. when Jennifer Ross and Stephen Deiner will be back with the South Florida Morning Show. followed by Brian Kilmeade at 9, Eric Erickson at noon, and I get to come back at 3 p.m. But I still have a segment left, and I am going to get to this story about the FBI spy agencies and all this stuff. So I know I promised it last time, but I will fulfill that promise in the next segment. So stay right where you are. Oh, boy. So the FBI and these US spy agencies got a whole bunch of really bad derogatory evidence about Joe Biden from 14 different informants. But then they put on it like a secret operation and went way out of their way to tamp down the Ukrainian

Though the spreadsheets and documents found so far do not identify how many Americans ultimately were given such briefings. In some ways, the Round River operation is a mirror opposite of the Russia collusion probe, the crossfire hurricane, in which the FBI pursued all those unsubstantiated allegations spread by Democrats that Trump and his allies conspired with Vladimir Putin to hijack the 2016 election. In Round River, the FBI analysts were trying to dismiss real evidence. that the Bureau had in its possession, including Hunter Biden's own laptop, which points to corruption by the Bidens. Come on. Documents that were released by the White House earlier this month, they exposed an investigation in 2017, codenamed Oxford comma, alleging that the newly elected President Trump was acting as a Russian asset when he fired James Comey. Even though the Bureau's own evidence overwhelmingly showed at the time, there was no collusion with the Kremlin. So the effort to portray the Biden scandal as Russian disinformation that came even as confidential human services that were working for the FBI and other agencies were reporting that they had real concerns about the Bidens. It's so ugly. It's so deep. And I don't even know if I want it all uncovered and displayed because it makes me sick. And it should make everybody, no matter what party you affiliate with. You shouldn't want your government to be doing these things, spying on elected leaders and deciding which information they're going to share. So I thank you for your time this time. Until next time, I've got a plan, and that plan is to be back here tomorrow at 3 p.m., if it be his will, and he delays his coming. What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. So God bless you. God bless Israel, and God bless the USA. See you tomorrow. This has been the Joyce Kaufman podcast, available everywhere you get your podcasts.