← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
Leftist Indoctrination: from DHS, in College Debate, at Commencements...but NOT, in Monty Python
00:42:43
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- [00:01]
Ben Ferguson
Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. And this show is going to deal a lot with the insanity of the WOKE movement. A university program is now linking Christians and Republicans to Nazis. And your tax dollars are helping pay for that. Plus a very interesting debate at colleges and a scene that has now been deleted that we're supposed to all say we're sorry it was ever made. Senator, great to be with you. And I want to first talk about this university program. It's costing American taxpayer dollars. A grant through the Department of Homeland Security is now linking, quote, Christians and Republicans to Nazis.
- [00:45]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, sadly, that's exactly right. The Department of Homeland Security has a program called the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program, which gives funds to, quote, establish or enhance capabilities to prevent targeted violence and terrorism. So you might think, okay, this is going after Al Qaeda, this is going after jihadists, this is going after, you know, maybe it's going after Klansmen, maybe it's going after antifa. It's going after people who engage in acts of violence and terrorism. Well, you would be wrong. The Biden administration has awarded 80 grants through this program totaling just under $40 million. The lowest grant was for $85,000. The highest was just over 1.1 million. And one of the grantees who got $352,109 was prevents Ohio program to, quote, draw on the expertise of the University of Dayton faculty to fight domestic violence, extremism and hate movements. And the university's grant application linked to a controversial Dayton conference where an academic researcher presented a chart that is entitled the Pyramid of Far Right Radicalizations. Now, what are the organizations and movements displayed on the pyramid? One is the Republican Party, another, the Heritage foundation, another the American Conservative Union, another Fox News, another Breitbart News, another the National Rifle association, another Prager University, another the Tea Party Patriots, another the Make America Great Again movement. Another the pro police Blue Lives Matter movement. And another, the Christian Broadcasting Network.
- [02:41]
Ben Ferguson
Wow.
- [02:41]
Senator Ted Cruz
All of those right of center very mainstream organizations. What does the pyramid link them to? Hate groups like the Base, which is a neo Nazi paramilitary group, and the Daily Stormer, which is a pro Nazi publication. This the application from the University of Dayton linked to a video of the conference describing it as showing the university's work, quote, to assess regional needs and capacities for violent extremism prevention. One of the speakers at the conference, a researcher at the University of Cincinnati called Michael Loadenthal presented the Pyramid of Far Right Radicalization, said it was an accurate description of the modern far right and if you look at this particular individual, he is an extreme individual. If you look at his background, this lecturer, Loadenthal, who at the time described himself as a medical worker who provided abortion services. So he's an abortion provider. He's frequently retweeted antifa accounts and defends left wing violence on social media. That's one of the guys presenting. So who else is presenting at this organization? Well, there are other extremists, such as a fellow named Alexander Hinton. He is a professor at Rutgers University who specializes in genocide. And at the conference he compared the Trump administration to the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge, for Pol Pot, killed an estimated 1 1/2 million to 2 million people in Cambodia. The last I checked, the Trump administration didn't have death camps. And the last I checked, the left actually likes communist death camps. But another speaker, a woman named Nicole Wittersheim, Deputy Washington Director for Human Rights watch, compared Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, proposing a volunteer civilian military force to assist the National Guard in emergencies such as hurricanes to the Holocaust that the Nazis carried out in World War II. These are the radicals who are being funded by the Joe Biden Department of Homeland Security.
- [05:28]
Ben Ferguson
Now, Senator, to be clear for everyone that's listening, if, if a private group wants to do this, there's many private groups to do this all the time. That's one thing. It's completely different. When you're taking federal dollars, tax dollars that are now going to this type of hateful propaganda and advocating for things that are just clearly not true. How are they getting away with this?
- [05:56]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, okay, so their defense is, they say, actually the seminar with all these radical speakers, that seminar itself was not funded by the Department of Homeland Security. Instead, the organization that put on the seminar got funds later from DHS and pointed to the seminar as an example of the great work they do. And the Biden DHS said, oh, that sounds great to us, and was happy to spend your and my tax dollars supporting a group that apparently sees no difference between the rnc, between the Heritage foundation, between Fox News and Nazis, an organization that sees no difference between genocidal murderous communists in the Khmer Rouge and the Trump administration. That is. It's the latest example of the Biden administration being more than happy to weaponize the federal government, to use the powers of the federal government to target you, to pay people who view you. I'm willing to bet that a fair number of the listeners of this pod. And by the way, I gotta say, Ben, I'm a little disappointed that they listed the NRA and Fox News and the RNC and apparently verdict didn't make the list. I mean, heck, I actually feel if they're listing what they think is evil in the world, we got to work a little bit harder because. Because we haven't apparently reached the level of evil that, that these lunatics ascribe to places like Breitbart.
- [07:31]
Ben Ferguson
Well, it's because they haven't officially named you as a. Our verdict is a terrorist group. Right? I mean, that's how you hide these money, these dollars, the Biden administration doling out these tax dollars to, to quote, anti terrorism grant initiatives. And that's part of how, by the way, they disguise it. They, they say, well, who would be against giving tax dollars to anti terrorism grant initiatives to a university program that. That is doing that, and that's how you justify. And I, I think there's so many people that just assume, if you name it, something like that, right? We're going to give a lot of tax dollars to antiterrorism grant initiative. Most Americans, if you heard that, would say, well, of course I'm in favor of that. Of course I'm in favor of using our tax dollars for anti terrorism initiatives. That is not what they're doing here at this university program.
- [08:20]
Senator Ted Cruz
It is not. They are engaged in propaganda, and the propaganda is saying that anyone right of center is a terrorist. Anyone right of center is a Nazi. Anyone right of center is a Klansman. It is the vicious lie that the radical left pushes often. But. But it is not. Look, if they want to say that, that's fine, but why is the government funding this? They're funding it because they want to give fuel to the fire, attacking those they view as enemies of the regime.
- [08:51]
Ben Ferguson
I want to talk about the money because the next question people are going to ask senators. All right, well, how much money are we talking about here that's being abused in this way? And before we get into that, let me tell you about our friends over at Chalk. If you're a guy and you're ready to fight back, you are sick and tired of that feeling, that feeling of just fatigue, of feeling tired and you understand. Yeah, something's changed. I don't know what's going on, but I want to get back to feeling like myself again. That is where Chalk comes in. You're not alone, by the way. Testosterone levels have dropped off a cliff historically to an all time low. And that's exactly why Chalk is here, to help real American men take back their strength and vitality. Chalk choq.com I've been taking the male vitality stack and what it does, it can help you boost your testosterone levels up to 20% over 90 days. What does that mean? It means getting back your strength and vitality in this. The other great thing is it is made right here, manufactured right here in the US of US of A Chalk. And their natural herbal supplements are clinically proven to have game changing effects on on your energy, your focus, your mood. Go to chalk choq.com and use the promo code BEN for 35 off any chalk subscription for life that choq.com Check out the mail vitality stack chom promo code BEN for 35 off center. Let's talk quickly about the financial side of this. The Biden administration, we now know, has awarded these 80 grants through this, this group, this TV TP totaling just under $40 million. Now the lowest grant, we've been told was for 85,000. The highest was for over 1.1 million and the median was about $442,000. Now these grant recipients are quote, prohibited from engaging in viewpoint discrimination according to dhs. Well, if that is the standard, then I think it's pretty obvious that they are in violation of that, quote, standard right away. Here.
- [10:59]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, I think that's exactly right. This, this particular organization prevents Ohio program got $352,000. And given the history of this program, given that they're pointing to this radical conference as, as evidence of the kind of work they do, I have no confidence that any acts of violence will be prevented by this organization, that any terrorism will be prevented by this organization. That in fact, I have no confidence that this group will even admit who is in fact a terrorist organization. If you're identifying the Heritage Foundation. Listen, you and I have both been to Heritage. Heritage has a building a couple of blocks from Capitol Hill. It's this big building with lots of scholarly, academic folks typically sitting in cubicles with very thick glasses writing very dense white papers. And about the only act of violence you might get from a Heritage foundation scholars, you might get a paper cut from picking up their white paper. But they are not firebombing cities, they are not looting stores, they are not blowing places up. They're not doing the sorts of things actually that the radical left that ANTIFA is doing. But of course, this organization would never target Antifa because look, we've talked about this quite a lot. The distressing reality is this Biden administration, I believe is perfectly fine with political violence if it serves their partisan interest. It's why to this date Merrick Garland has not prosecuted a single individual breaking the law by protesting in front of Supreme Court Justices Homes night after night after night because he supports that lawlessness and the administration doesn't care if it's directly contrary to federal law.
- [12:42]
Ben Ferguson
Now that we know how this money is being spent, Senator, is there any way that the House could look into this spending and hold Department of Homeland Security accountable for really abusing these funds?
- [12:52]
Senator Ted Cruz
Absolutely. And I hope the House holds hearings on this. The Senate should as well, but Senate Democrats don't care. So that they're not going to hold hearings on this because they're perfectly fine with with the money being spent in this way. But the House ought to have hearings on this, and I very much hope they do.
- [13:11]
Ben Ferguson
I want to move on to another issue that actually is connected to this woke agenda even more. You are now calling out debate coaches who actually have ban students from saying the words illegal immigrants. One coach told students that if they use the term illegal, quote, unquote, to describe an immigrant, then he will give you, quote, a stern lecture and doc points from your team. Debate is something, by the way, that I did in high school. Loved it. You did it in high school, I'm sure. I'm guessing, but I feel very confident you did and you obviously did debate, I'm sure, in college and then mock trial and things like that. The idea that you can't have a real debate and these coats are saying we're going to force you into certain words and terminology. You want to talk about a freedom of speech problem? In my opinion, this is it.
- [14:06]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, I will say, Ben, that's actually a wager. You would have lost.
- [14:10]
Ben Ferguson
I lost. Wow.
- [14:12]
Senator Ted Cruz
I wanted. You would have lost that. I wanted to do debate in high school, but I went to a little bitty school in Houston, Second Baptist High School, which you're well familiar with it. And at the time, my graduating class was 43 and the school was too small. It didn't have a debate team. So I was. If there's anything geekier than a high school debater, it's a high school debater wannabe, which is what I was. And so, you know, I mean, I didn't get to hang around, you know, cool varsity tennis players like Ben Ferguson. But when I went to college, I managed to achieve my aspirations and I became a college debater. And I spent almost every weekend all four years at Princeton doing college debate and loved it and learned an enormous amount from it. And there's an article that came out just a week ago, and it's an article in The Free Press by an individual named James Fishback. And it's entitled at High School Debates, Debate is no Longer Allowed. And it talks about an amazing thing going on where there are now debate judges that are debating in, that are judging college debate in nsda, which is one of the college debate tournaments, not the one I competed on, but it's another one that's heavily on the West Coast. And he goes through the profiles from a number of judges and what they describe. So one judge is someone named Lila Lavender, who was national debate champion in 2019. And according to the bio of Lila Lavender, it says, quote, before anything else, including being a debate judge, I am a Marxist, Leninist, Maoist. I cannot check the revolutionary proletarian science at the door when I'm judging, I will no longer evaluate and thus never vote for rightist, capitalist, imperialist positions, arguments. Examples of arguments of this nature are as fascism, good capitalism, good, imperialist war, good neoliberalism, good defenses of the US or otherwise, bourgeois nationalism, Zionism or normalizing Israel, colonialism, good. US white, fascist policing, good, etc. That is astonishing. By the way, there's another judge whose bio says a judge named Shubham Gupta. And his judge, his bio reads, quote, if you are discussing immigrants in a round and describe the person as, quote, illegal, I will immediately stop the round, give you the loss with low speaks, low speaker points, give you a stern lecture, and then talk to your coach. I will not have you making the debate space unsafe. Well, Mr. Gupta, let me tell you something. The word illegal alien is in federal law. It is United States law. And the fact that you are a little Marxist doesn't change reality. Another judge, Judge Christy Sharma, writes a list of, quote, things that will cause you to automatically lose. Number three is referring to immigrants as illegal. So I want you to think of this Lavender person who describes themselves as a Marxist, Leninist, Maoist. Now, it is apparently the standard, at least with these judges in college debate, that unless you argue for communism, you will lose. That's not debate. That is indoctrination. That is repeating Pravda. And I gotta say, look, I'm someone who, as a debater, I learned an enormous amount. And by the way, I had to debate lots of positions I didn't agree with. In many ways, you learn more debating a proposition you disagree with than you learn debating something you agree strongly with. I'll tell you one of my favorite stories. So my debate partner in college was a guy named David Panton. And he was my college roommate, my law school roommate, other than Heidi he's my closest friend on planet Earth. You've met David?
- [18:42]
Nicole Wittersheim
Yeah.
- [18:42]
Senator Ted Cruz
Great. In fact, we played tennis and pickleball together. He's a great guy. David and I, we were debate partners. And we got tired about, in debate, people whining and complaining about whatever case it was you ran. And they would complain, oh, it's unfair. The case is a truism. It's tautology. And they'd spend the entire debate round whining that it was unfair to debate whatever it was that you were proposing. And so we came up with a way to avoid that. And what we would do at just about every single case, where we were the affirmative, where we were presenting a case, is we'd give the opposing team the option of which side to take. So I'd stand up and present the initial speech in the debate round. And I'd say, all right, let's take one of the issues that is apparently no longer allowed. Capitalism is the most effective economic system ever to exist on planet Earth. And I turn to the other side and say, yes or no. Which side do you take? And if they pick, all the whining disappeared from the round. Because once they pick, they couldn't complain. Gosh, it's unfair. The side I picked because you morons picked that side. And if they refused to pick, I'd typically flip a coin, take one side. But even that eliminated the whining. I mention that because there was one round in particular. So senior year, towards the end of senior year, David and I competed at what was called a hybrid tournament. Now, hybrid tournament was you teamed up with a debater from another school, and the rules were that if you made a final tournament, if you made a final round in a tournament, you qualified for the Nationals tournament. And so David and I had both qualified for NATS at that point, and we decided we'd go to hybrid. We'd go to the hybrid tournament and team up with other folks. And so I teamed up with a guy from University of Maryland, Baltimore county, named Slash Kendig. Slash was a fantastic debater. He had long hair and a beard. He had a leather jacket with, I think, 37 razor blades on it. One he said, for every woman that had broken up with him and cut his heart, Slashing.
- [20:57]
Ben Ferguson
That sounds like the guy you don't want to go up against in debate, right? Like that. Yeah, that's the guy you don't want to go up and debate against.
- [21:03]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, look, he was like a, you know, biker outlaw. Was. Was. Was the sort of image he portrayed. And I was a pretty buttoned up, you know, Princeton guy. And so we debated together, and we called ourselves Armageddon A because it was sort of such a bizarre combination. We were friends and got along very well, but he. He was very far left, and I was very conservative. And we ended up in the fifth round, which was the final closed round of the tournament, hitting my. My normal debate partner, David Panton, who's Jamaican. He's from Jamaica. He's not American. He's Jamaican. And I decided to run a case. The United States is or is not the greatest country in the history of the universe. And I turned to David, who's leading the opposition. And by the way, Slash, who was my partner, thought the case was a falseism. He thought there was no way on earth you could make the argument that America is the greatest country in the history of the world. I thought it was a truism. I thought it was indisputably true. I get up a minute into the speech, I turn to David and say, which side would you take? And David, grinning ear to ear, says, we will take. That it is. And he made me argue that America is not the greatest country in the history of the world. Now, you gotta understand, David is Jamaican. He's not American.
- [22:20]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
- [22:21]
Senator Ted Cruz
But he knew that. I believed that case with every molecule in my body. And I'm proud to tell you, David whipped my ass.
- [22:32]
Ben Ferguson
That's awesome.
- [22:32]
Senator Ted Cruz
I couldn't effectively make the case that America's not the greatest country in the history of the world. And so Slash and I lost the round. Badly. But I mention that to say, in apparently today's college debate, what David and I did would no longer be allowed because the. These radical Marxist, Leninist, Maoist judges who apparently don't care about debate, they don't actually believe debate matters. That judge would sit there and go, oh, you said America is not the greatest country. You win, it doesn't matter. You could sit there and whistle. You can just read the phone book. Doesn't matter what you do, you win. Because I'm a Marxist and I agree with your position. That is so destructive to the very essence of debate. And it's destroying what is an incredible teaching experience for college kids. I gotta admit, this story has me horrified.
- [23:30]
Ben Ferguson
It's an indoctrination aspect of this as well. Right? You can play and do this as long as you say, and we indoctrinate you to believe a certain point. When I was in high school, I had a debate, and I remember this, and it was like a very weird moment for Me and the debate coach was amazing. And he said, all right, one of you is going to take the side that is right to ban the burning of the American flag and the other is going to, you know, obviously take the opposite. And I had to argue both sides, once in one round and the other on the other round. And it was, it taught me so much though about learning what the other side says, what the other side believes, why they believe it, and, and it gave me an incredible amount of training for doing what I do today. When you go on TV and when you're talking about tough issues and we're, you know, debating grand ideas. But I cannot imagine having a debate coach that says, hey, you can say whatever you want to say as long as it's what I believe. You should indoctrinate to believe. And then you can only argue that.
- [24:33]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, I have to admit, like I read about the knucklehead coach who said, if you say the word illegal alien, I'll end the round, score you as losing and give you a very low point and then lecture you. I got to admit, if that coach said that to me at 18, I would have taken his head off. I mean, we would have had a screen he wanted to debate, we would have had a debate right there because I would have said some four letter words that would have been memorable.
- [24:58]
Ben Ferguson
No doubt about it. I want to move to something else that deals with this type of insanity as well. There is that time of year, it's graduation time. You got people graduating from school, from law school, from pretty much everything. And there is something shocking that happened at the City University of New York. I want to get into that in a moment, but first I want to tell you about our friends over at Patriot Mobile. If you are just sick and tired of giving your money to companies that cannot stand your values, we're talking about things like Target and Bud Light. Well, there is a way you can start putting your money with companies now. Companies that believe what you believe in and fight for what you believe in. Right now, that is, with 99 of us, a cell phone we have now. For years, big mobile companies have been dumping millions and millions and millions of dollars into leftist causes. And we had to take it because there was not another option. It didn't exist. Well, now it does. Patriot Mobile is America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. Not only do they offer dependable nationwide coverage on all three major networks, so you get the best possible service in your area without the woke propaganda that's been pushed by leftists working hard to Destroy this country. When you switch Patriot Mobile you're not only putting your money where the mouth is, but every time you pay your bill you're actually supporting free speech and religious freedom, the sanctity of life, the second amendment and our military, our veterans or first responders, they are giving back. Yeah, Patriot Mobile takes a portion of your bill at no extra cost to you. Every month they give them back to these causes. They have 100 US based customer service team so you know you're working with a company that cares about American jobs as well. Go to patriot mobile.com verdict. That's patriotmobile.com verdict or call them. You'll get free activation. Switching is easy. You even can keep your same cell phone number you have now or you can get a new one if you want to keep your same cell phone or get a new one if you want to. Patriot Mobile 878-PATRIOT. That's 878-PATRIOT 878-PATRIOT or patriotmobile.com verdict. Make sure you use the promo code verdict center. This one you sent and I want you to explain people to everybody. The City University of New York, they had a speaker that not only was anti Semitic but was enthusiastically celebrating anti Semitism in New York. This was a speaker that should have been stopped in my opinion, should never have been able to do this in the first place. But here we are watching at a law school and, and, and, and again paid forward tax dollars. This type of anti Semitism being sanctioned by quote, higher education.
- [27:47]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, this woman was the class day speaker at the graduation of the law school of City University of New York. And she is from Yemen and grew up in the Bronx and she is a hard leftist and the speech she gave was virulently anti Israel, was slandering Israel with lies. She was reveling in anti Semitism in a way that there really is no other bigotry that would be as welcome at a college graduation as anti Semitism. She also by the way enthusiastically cheerleads open borders and releasing violent criminals from jail. And she refers to police officers as the quote, fascist nypd. And so give a listen to the class day speaker at the City University of New York at their graduation.
- [28:45]
Nicole Wittersheim
In this moment of celebrating who we are, I want to celebrate CUNY law as one of the few, if not the only law school to make a public statement defending the right of its students to organize and speak out against Israeli settler clothes colonialism. That this, that this is the law school that passed and endorsed BDS on a student and faculty level, recognizing that absent a Critical imperialism, settler colonialism lens. Our work and this school's mission statement is void of value. That as Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young, attacking even funerals and graveyards, as it encourages lynch mobs to target Palestinian homes and businesses, as it imprisons its children, as it continues its project of settler colonialism, expelling Palestinians from their homes, carrying the ongoing nakba that our silence is no longer acceptable. We are. We are the student body and faculty that fought back when investor focused administration attempted to cross the BDS picket line, saying loud and clear that Palestine can no longer be the exception to our pursuit of justice, that our morality will not be purchased by investors. We are the class. We are the class that fought for incarcerated clients and zealously filed for their clemency applications with nearly zero institutional support. We are the class that fought for clients to get asylum, that went to court to reunite families torn apart by ACS and the family surveillance. We are the class that organized against using lexis, a legal research company contracted with ice. And we did all of this in spite of the racism, in spite of the selective activism, the self serving interest of CUNY Central, an institution that continues to fail us, that continues to train and cooperate with the fascist nypd, the military that continues to train IDF soldiers to carry out that same violence globally. A larger institution committed to its donors, not to its students.
- [31:41]
Ben Ferguson
I mean, this is a big day on campus. You can hear the law students cheering this. What worries me is the fact these are going to be the lawyers of tomorrow.
- [31:52]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, and the vicious racism, the anti Semitism that she's spewing, what she's saying about Israel are blatant lies that they indiscriminately rain bullets down on people who are worshipping and imprisoned children and they kill the young and old alike. That's just a wild lie. And in fact, they target terrorists. They target people who are murdering innocent civilians. The people who indiscriminately murder civilians are the Palestinian terrorists, the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists that this speaker is celebrating. By the way, she made reference to Nakba. Nakba is the phrase that is used for, quote, the Palestinian catastrophe, which is another phrase for the founding of the modern state of Israel. She is decrying the fact that Israel exists because, you know, there are Muslim nations throughout the Middle East. But she is offended that how dare there be one nation on earth a Jewish state, one nation that exists, that is the state of Israel. This speech is so radical, it is so filled with hate. It's advocating bds, which is boycott, divestiture and sanctions, which is anti Semitic, and targeting the state Israel. If you were a Jewish student listening to this, listening to this cheering, listening to these lies, how would you feel graduating from, from, from this university? And by the way, this university is paid for with, with taxpayer funds from New York. She also attacks anyone who works with ICE because apparently the United States cannot enforce our immigration laws at all. And she calls the NYPD fascist. Mind you, this is the City University of New York. Presumably some of these graduates of the law school are going to go work in the criminal justice system in New York. And these cheering Marxists believe that being a police officer means you're a fascist. I gotta say, you want an indictment of how lost so many of our schools are. Their willingness to revel in lies, antisemitism and radicalism, that really shows you where they're coming from.
- [34:09]
Ben Ferguson
And again, this comes back to a funding issue. You mentioned this in your tweet. Paid with tax dollars. This is a law school. Paid with, with tax dollars. Democrats have no problem spending our money this way. When are conservatives going to be able to wake up and pull and realize that these purse strings and our tax hours are being used to, to indoctrinate this type of. Of bigotry and anti Semitism enthusiastically with.
- [34:35]
Senator Ted Cruz
An audience cheering well, and listen, that's one of the reasons why Lee Zeldin, the former congressman from New York who ran for governor in New York and came close but didn't win. And Lee is a good friend. Lee, someone who I backed and campaigned for when he first ran for Congress. Lee tweeted this portion of the speech out and what he said was raging antisemitism has fully consumed the City University of New York. Until the administration is overhauled and all Jewish students and faculty are welcome. Again, taxpayer funding must be immediately halted. And when you have a place that becomes a vicious cesspool of racism and indoctrination that's no longer carrying out an educational mission that is instead performing the very same mission of indoctrination, which. Look, there's a link between all three of these stories in this podcast today. Whether it is DHS funding indoctrination, saying if you're Republican, if you listen to Fox News, you're connected to the Nazis. Whether it's debate judges saying if you dare defend America or capitalism, you must lose, or whether it is the vicious lies coming at the City University of New York Law School graduation, all three are examples of how the hard left weaponizes money to indoctrinate, to intimidate and to silence and attack their opponents.
- [36:07]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, and this goes straight into our last little tidbit here. If you are a fan of Monty Python. It's something that I loved watching in high school. We used to have watch parties at my friend's house. Absolutely hysterical. We now have a scene that's been banned. We got to go back and apparently just ban everything. Now that we don't like that happened in the past. I want to play that scene for everybody so you can hear what they've decided is just too much and it's gotta go. But before to get to that, let me tell you about Augusta Precious Metals. If you have been saving for your retirement and you are sick and tired of the stress of seeing what's happening in the market marketplace, you're seeing what's happening with bank failures. You're seeing what's happening with interest rates more than doubling and you realize that there is no time to make up big losses. Then you need to check out Augusta Precious Metals and see what they can actually do for you. If you have saved a hundred thousand dollars plus for retirement, Augusta is actually going to sit down with you and talk to you about your retirement, your IRA, your 401k. And if you learn about a gold IRA then how it can help protect you. They also, when you open account, you can get free gold. Yes, a pure gold coin for free. Reach out to Augusta Precious Metals a day. It's the company that I use and I trust and get started with gold. Don't let the bank failures get you down. Get the free gold and get some peace of mind so you can protect your hard earned dollars. Call them. You'll also get to do a web conference one on one with their expert and you'll get the free guide on gold just by calling them 877-the-4-GOLD- IRA. 877-the-Number-4-GOLD-RA to learn how to protect your retirement and get your free gold coin. That's Augusta precious metals.com 877-number-4 Gold Ira Center. You and I both love and and and I want you to explain if people have never seen Monty Python and what it is, explain it for people before we play this.
- [38:14]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, this is from the terrific movie Life of Brian. And to give a little bit of background, Life of Brian is a very funny comedy and they're in the process now of putting together a theatrical presentation of Life of Brian. So basically taking off the movie screen and doing it on stage and this is we're closing the podcast with a bit of good news, which is that as they were putting it on stage, there was enormous pressure to cut one scene from the movie from the stage protection, and that was the scene where they refer to the obvious fact that men can't have babies. And so John Cleese, who's one of the founders of Monty Python and is an extremely funny man, John Cleese, pointed out that the actors, as they were going through the stage presentation, that the actors pressed hard to cut the scene. And several of the actors, he said, were Tony winners. And they said, no, no, no, you can't say this, you can't say this. And John Cleese, to his credit, said, I, of course, have no intention of doing so. Look, John Cleese and I come from very different places in the political spectrum. He is left of center. I am not. But to his credit, he believes in, number one, reality and number two, comedy. And it shows real courage that he says, no, we're not going to cut the scene. And basically, all of you people insisting that I do. I'm paraphrasing here. Can piss off. And let's listen to the scene that virtually every actor in the stage presentation said we must cut, because these words are too terrifying to hear in the modern world.
- [40:03]
John Cleese
Why are you always on about women, Stan? I want to be one.
- [40:09]
Senator Ted Cruz
What?
- [40:10]
John Cleese
I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me Loretta.
- [40:17]
Senator Ted Cruz
What?
- [40:18]
John Cleese
It's my right as a man.
- [40:20]
Stan
But why would you want to be Loretta, Stan?
- [40:25]
John Cleese
I want to have babies. You want to have babies. It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them. But you can't have babies. Don't you oppress me. I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb. Where's the fetus gonna gestate?
- [40:41]
Ben Ferguson
You're gonna keep it in a box.
- [40:46]
Stan
Here, I've got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans, but that he can have the right to have babies.
- [40:57]
John Cleese
Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother sister.
- [41:03]
Ben Ferguson
I. I mean, Senator. You hear that? And it's just so frustrating because it's a great bit and yet people are like, oh, I'm offended by it. It's also completely in reality and also mocking. I think what they saw were going to be coming down the pipe is that people actually would want to believe this type of crap. And yet here we are, they're saying, oh, I won't do it. I won't touch it. And look, I'm glad that there's a victory on this one. Thank goodness.
- [41:29]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, shout out to John Cleese for having the courage to defend his art and defend his comedy. If we have the hard left treating comedy like they treat college debate, saying, you may only say what our doctrine insists, comedy will cease to be funny. And look, I enjoy comedy that makes fun of both sides of the aisle. I'm perfectly capable of laughing at Republicans. I think there's a lot to mock on every place in the political aisle. But if it gets just sanitized and drained of all life, then comedy will lose what makes it special. And John Cleese at least is holding the line. Bravo.
- [42:11]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, no doubt about it. Also want to remind all of you, we do our show Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So make sure you hit the subscribe, the auto download or if you're on Apple, the follow button wherever you're listening this podcast. So you get this podcast each and every day that we publish. The other thing is when there's big breaking news, we will do special pods as well. You don't want to miss those, so hit that follow button or the like subscribe button so you get the show each and every day. Write us a five star review as well to help us reach more people and we will see you back here in a couple of days.