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I'm Josh Hammer and this is the JOSH HAMMER show. We are still following all the updates when it comes to this bombshell indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center. Tyler o' Neill joins us later in the program. Tyler wrote a book on this very topic, the Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He joins us to unpack this indictment and where it could go. Also, should the government be getting involved in possibly taking a 90% equity stake in a failing airline, in this case Spirit Airlines. Meanwhile, the Trump administration also declassifying certain medical marijuana. I am not so sure that is such a good idea. All of that and more later on today's show. But for now, we begin with this. How long is Donald Trump going to wait? How long is he going to wait when it comes to the extension of this quote unquote, ceasefire with the Islamic Republic of Iran? And I emphasize quote unquote because this is something of a ceasefire in name only. Think of it as a Chino or a Sino. However, you might want to pronounce that particular acronym. To be clear, Donald Trump just this morning actually ordered the U.S. navy to, quote, shoot and kill Iranian small boats that are threatening the Strait of Hormuz. He is now ordering the US Military to take kill shots at Iranian vessels, IRGC vessels that are engaged in laying mines throughout the crucial 21 mile wide waterway. This is coming on the heels of the irgc, just over the past day or so firing on three separate ships in the Strait of Hormuz and then actually seizing two separate ships as well. All sorts of chaos also when it comes to the United States blockade on the Iranian regime. So since this ceasefire started roughly contemporaneous with the United States has had a crippling blockade on all of the Iranian ports. In fact, if you look at a map, the southeastern end of the US Blockade on Iran is basically the maritime border between Oman in the far east of the Arabian Peninsula, going right across all the way to the Pakistan Iranian border there. So it is a very clean blockade of Iran and only of Iran has been a very effective blockade. So there was some fake news peddled earlier this week. That's where Chris Murphy, the absolutely idiotic Senator of Connecticut, enters the folds. There was some fake news being peddled that there were various Iranian vessels, at least two or three, that were able to successfully penetrate the US Naval blockade. That is absolutely fake news. As of this morning, there were 31 vessels by our count, that had attempted to penetrate the US military blockade on Iranian ports. And all 31 of those vessels were made to turn around and to return to port as part of this ongoing blockade as U.S. central Command, aka CENTCOM, as they tweeted out, one of these vessels, which is known as the, the Direna, the Durana quote, has been under the escort of a US Navy destroyer in the Indian Ocean after previously attempting to violate the blockade. The US Military has global reach. American forces are operating and forcing the blockade across the Middle east and beyond. So not only was what Chris Murphy peddled traitorous, like literally traitorous, actually rooting for one of America's foremost geopolitical genocidal foes against the United States, to which he has purportedly sworn an oath. Not only was it traitorous, but it was actually also just trafficking in the fakest of absolute fake news because this, this blockade has not been penetrated at all. But the point is that they're still trying to penetrate the blockade. The point is that Iran is still firing on ships in the strait. The point is they are still seizing ships in the strait. The point is even more to the point that Donald Trump is now ordering the US Military to shoot to kill various Iranian vessels. So when Donald Trump announced earlier this week, on Tuesday, that he was going to extend this ceasefire three to five days, give or take, in order to allow Iran to get their, you know what, together. At the time, this already looked like this cease fire was on the thinnest of thin ice imaginable. Now, at this point, you have a shoot to kill order, and Iran has not slowed down in the slightest. And all the while, all the while, we continue to not know who exactly United States is going to sit down at any prospective negotiating table with. So we've covered this a little bit on the show this week already. But just to remind and to reiterate, there is a genuine crisis when it comes to the situation in Iran. There is no chain of command whatsoever at this point There. The younger Khamenei, Mushaba Khamenei, per a new New York Times report, is facing serious, serious medical issues. He had severe lacerations and severe burns from the blast that took out his father, the 37 year ruling despot, Ali Khamenei. Mus. Khamenei can barely speak. That's why he's not been seen publicly in the now nearly two months since he was named the new quote unquote Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. And after Khamenei, there's been something of a fairly public power struggle actually between the so called moderates, who are not really all that moderate. They are led by the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, a man by the name of Golubov, and on the other hand by the Foreign Minister, a man by the name of Aragachi. Now they actually went on Iranian state television actually earlier this week to make the case as to why these negotiations with the United States ought to continue. The fact that Iran publicly dismissed that and publicly said that the United States can't be trusted, therefore we're not going to go to Islamabad, Pakistan for these talks, that means that the so called moderates, who again really are not that moderate, that they're actually not the ones calling the shots. What that means is that the ones calling the shots are the genuine radicals, the genuine extremists, which is a very fancy way of saying the irgc. So the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are, which is the fanatical Islamist wing of this most fanatical Islamist of regimes there. They are the ones who are essentially in charge of Iran at this point. And specifically it is the chief, the man who was recently elevated to that position to be the head of the whole irgc, man by the name of Ahmad Vahidi. He has been around the block. Various Western analysts have linked him in his much younger formative years. He has been linked to the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings. Yes, that bombing, the one that killed 241 U.S. marines in Beirut, Lebanon. He has been linked to the 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, the 2008 attack on the US embassy in Yemen. Argentinian authorities say that he was involved in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in Argentina, which killed 85 people. This man has been around the block when it comes to terrorism and apparently that's the guy who was expected to be sitting on the other side of the table of the United States, to which I unfortunately have to say good freaking luck. Good freaking luck to us, to the United States in trying to get some sort of deal with a monster of this caliber. So it seems to me, it seems to me like Donald Trump is just playing a waiting game at this point. There and his patience is going to run out. In fact, his patience is already running out. That's why he has now ordered, placed this shoot to kill order just this morning. When it comes to US Military vessels there in the region, when it comes to the IRGC boats, the ones who are laying mines, things like that, how much longer will this dog and pony show go on before economic fury fades out a little bit perhaps, and epic fury recommences in earnest? Well, very hard to put a timeframe on that. If the status quo continues and Iran is still trying to break the blockade and we're still having to shoot on their vessels for engaging in maritime piracy in the strait. And if they still don't get their crap together and actually be able to get a proposal on the table, again, very hard to put a date on there. I will be surprised if all that's true if hostilities are not renewed by sometime next week. That would be my rough guess there. But again, very hard to tell. So a lot more going on the news, folks. I want to talk to you a little bit more about what's going on with the Virginia redistricting fiasco in the Old Dominion. But for now, just a brief word from our sponsor for today's show, which is Balance of Nature. You know, look, I've been a generally healthy eater my whole life. I'm not perfect, of course, I try to lay low on the carbs. Easier said than done. But I'm pretty good when it comes to eating my fruits and vegetables. I love fruits, fruits and I love at least most vegetables. But the reality is we are all extremely busy people. I know that I am busy. I know that you are probably busy as well. And it's important sometimes to try to supplement your diet with all natural ingredients and all natural supplements that can really then give a boost. That can be a force multiplier. To paraphrase our secretary of War or perhaps Pete Hegseth, when it comes to your actual diet. So Balance of Nature supplements supplements your diet. It supports a lifestyle of eating whole foods. Balance of Nature's products are lab tested. There are no binders, there are no fillers, there are no flow agents. Balance of Nature's process is where you take whole foods, you dry them using a tailored vacuum cold process. It's then powdered and packaged. I've been very pleased since I started taking these supplements recently. So, folks, go ahead to balanceofnature.com, check out their whole health system, which gives you 47 ingredients of fruits, vegetables, spices and fibers. It's balanceofnature.com, they are sponsored for today's show, Balance of Nature. So we have also covered this week this tremendous results for Team Chaos in Virginia and an unfortunate setback for Team Sanity when it comes to this extraordinarily partisan redistricting where Virginia Democrats have essentially managed, or so they think they've managed to get this ballot referendum pass that would essentially turn the 11 congressional seats in the Commonwealth of Virginia into 10 Democratic strongholds and just one vaguely right of center, vaguely Republican leaning congressional district. It is an extraordinarily gerrymander map. But as we also noted yesterday when we first reported on this, the legal challenges are not yet complete. First of all, it was actually a very close race. So 50, it was 51.5% for yes, 48.5% for no. Which it's clearly a loss. Obviously it's a loss for Team Sany. But, but, but recall that just this past November, Abigail Spamberger won by double digits in Virginia. So it's actually much closer margin there. In fact, no actually even outpaced Donald Trump back in 2024 on the November ballot there in Virginia. So there's actually some, even on its own terms, there's actually some room for optimism if you want to try to look for those green shoes for the optimism. But from a legal perspective, we covered on yesterday's show how there are numerous constitutional challenges to this ballot referendum when it comes to the procedure in which it was actually proposed and which was actually submitted to the people for possible ratification. And we now know that there is yet another ruling declaring that Virginia cannot certify this. This actually just happened yesterday. It happened on Wednesday, the day after the referendum passed. So a judge in Tazewell County, Virginia, declared that the state of Virginia, or the commonwealth, I should say, cannot certify the results of the election. They can't do it, actually, because there are serious questions as to whether or not this entire process was legal in the first place. So Virginia Democrats advanced this proposal during the 2024 special session of the General Assembly. However, according to this judge in Tazewell county, there are strict rules as to what kind of legislation can be considered during these types of special sessions. According to Virginia's own commonwealth constitution, Democrats reportedly violated those rules. So they essentially violated Virginia constitutional procedure to get this thing passed. Furthermore, by the way, Virginia's constitution dictates that a constitutional amendment like this is supposed to be passed by two different general assemblies with a general election taking place in between. That didn't happen per this Tazewell county judge here. So long story short, folks, this thing is still a live ball. It is still very much a live ball. And ultimately the Virginia Supreme Court is going to have to rule on this there. So if you are a Democrat thinking of running for one of these newly gerrymandered, newly concocted, bright blue districts in Virginia there, hold your horses, cuz you might not get that opportunity. And frankly, you know, this is what the Democrats do, right? It is pure, pure power politics. Let the procedure go to hell. It doesn't matter. We're gonna get their votes and that's what, that's how Democrats think there. But they might be stymied still by the Virginia judicial system. We shall see. Folks. Stay with us through a quick commercial break. Tyler o' Neill joins us on the other side to discuss the Southern Poverty Law Center. You won't wanna miss this. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Welcome back. So there's so much going on in the news cycle that it is sometimes overwhelming, but you got to focus sometimes on the real hard hitting stories. And this Southern Poverty Law center indictment story is a big freaking deal. It is especially a big deal for those of us who have been following the SPLC for many years. And one of those gentlemen joins us now. So Tyler o' Neill is the senior editor for the Daily Signal. He's the author of two books, Making Hate Pay and the the Woke to Puss Making Hey Pay actually was his 2020 book about primarily, you guessed it, the Southern Poverty Law Center. So Tyler, you are something of a subject matter expert here on the topic of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Let's start with the indictment itself here. You probably were not particularly surprised when you saw this. In fact, I have to imagine that you probably felt quite vindicated now some six years, give or take, after publishing this book, didn't you?
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Yeah, 100%. I mean, I wrote a book about the corruption of the Southern Poverty Law center and then it turns out it was even worse than I knew, but not necessarily worse than I expected. I even had in the book a citation from someone on the ground who had been at a protest. And I mean, this is the sort of thing you can't make up where there was a Klansman there at this protest and apparently a black man stood next to the Klansman and pointed at him and said, he's with the Southern Poverty Law Center. And this is something that it sounds like it's Alex Jones. But now that we see this indictment from the doj, we can say, yeah, the chances are quite likely that they've been planting racists for a long time now.
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So that's actually my next question is how far back do we think this goes? So I've done some of my own poking around the Internet, which is always a very risky enterprise. To be clear, Dr. Google, not known for his medical diagnosis, not always known necessarily for his diagnoses in general. But from what I can discern based on poking around there, there have been all sorts of allegations for at least decades, as far as I can tell, about the splc, maybe even the Anti Defamation League, the adl, similar, quote, unquote civil rights organizations in that vein of doing exactly this, of essentially paying these extremist groups to prop them up to then go back the donors who try to bilk them for further cash to fight the very groups that they're propping up. So based on your research, again, you've literally written a book on this. How far back does this actually go? And I guess also the corollary question to that is why is the Trump administration, Todd Blanche, the DOJ right now? Why are they the first ones finally looking into this?
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Well, so first off, the whole explanation, when the SPLC was caught red handed on this, they said, oh, we need to have these informants. These informants are saving lives because they cited the firebombing of their offices in the 1980s and suggested, oh, the sort of violence that you saw in the civil rights movement is still with us today. I don't know about you, but it hasn't been the 1980s, as far as I'm concerned, for 40 years. So let's move on from the fact that maybe they did face, and I mean, we do know they did face violent threats back then. But the indictment, the charges here are 2014 to 2023. That's not exactly a hotbed era of violence that the SPLC needs to be tipped off to. Also, the SPLC can't point to a single life that has been saved theoretically by this program. So, you know, that doesn't pass the sniff test. As for how long they've been doing this, there have been suspicions that in the 1990s you had those, I can't remember the exact name now, but the white supremacist compound, the SPLC seems to have been connected to and have sources within the Timothy McVeigh, like the sort of, the sort of very bad 1990s sort of white nationalist violence. And so that raises questions, I don't think, and to be clear, I don't think there are no racists in America. I do think, though, it is quite telling that the SPLC finds the supply so slight that they have to increase it to meet the artificial demand that their donors are looking for.
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Right. And I'm happy that you pointed out because that actually is a very important caveat to this conversation. No one knows that there has been a rise in antisemitism, for instance, like myself, not to play victim card, but I have quite publicly been in the crosshairs of a lot of this stuff recently. So I don't want to make a light of that. But also this is utterly egregious practices and it's kind of one of those things, Tyler, that two things very much can be true at once. So again folks, Tyler o' Neill is senior editor of the Daily Signal. Follow him on xyler2. O', Neill. He's the author of two books. His 2020 book Making Hey Pay is about this very topic, the corruption and perhaps even the fraud at the Southern Poverty. So Tyler, I want to ask you about the SPLC's defense. So they've essentially come out in response to this indictment from the grand jury in the mill district of Alabama and the Todd Blanch led doj. And they basically said we were paying informants because we need to know what's going on there and in order to buttress our operations when it comes to trying to find out who the bad guys are so we can do a better job of actually fighting the bad guys and exposing them and deplatforming, demonetizing, prosecuting, whatever exactly they have in mind. There's. So they're essentially saying that yes, we were making payments there, but this is all part of an informant process. I imagine that doesn't really pass though the laugh test in your eyes, does it?
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Well, if you actually look at the indictment, what it specifically states, the SPLC wasn't paying these people to tip them off for violent threats. According to the indictment, the SPLC not just paid one of the organizers in Charlottesville, but also directed the social media posts, directed him to make racist postings on the Internet and facilitated him bringing more people to Charlottesville. So that that white nationalist riot really was larger than it should have been otherwise. So no, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The other thing is a lot of these people who are getting the money also were featured as extremists on the SPLC website, which maybe if you have an informant and you are actually looking to protect people's lives from a violent group, you want to keep that Person under wraps. You want to make it, you know, you don't want to draw any sort of attention to that person. Instead, what we see is someone on SPLC payroll being trumpeted by SPLC as a violent threat. That is a red flag.
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I mentioned the ADL earlier in our conversation, the Anti Defamation League. Do you think that there is a similar practice going on at the ADL or some other similar sort of left wing, quote unquote, civil rights organization, the naacp? To be clear, I am just wildly, openly speculating. I have no receipts there or nothing like that. But again, you wrote a book on this. You're more of the expert than I am. Is the reason to believe that the SPLC is not alone in engaging in these sort of. Sort of practices?
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There's definitely big reason to believe that one of them is just the way in which the left wing ecosystem has responded to this indictment, falling over themselves to defend the splc. And of course, Kristen Clark, who used to head the DOJ's Civil Rights Division under Biden and had many ties with the splc, actually asked Margaret Wong to advise her on civil rights matters. She is now working at the NAACP, at the Legal Defense Fund. So, you know, there's the rot here, continues to grow. One of the other aspects of this, and I'm glad you mentioned the adl, I don't trust them as far as I can throw them, but I have to say there has been positive movement there. They've taken down their extremist list and, you know, they're one of the worst ones in defaming transgender, you know, those who stand for Truth against the Transgender insanity. ADL was alongside splc, but they've been moving in a positive direction, whereas SPLC has doubled down and doubled down and doubled down. So I do want to draw a clear contrast between the splc, which I think is the worst of the worst, and the adl, which at least in some cases. I mean, you talk about the Red Green alliance, the SPLC marches in lockstep with CARE and wants to delegitimize, deplatform, and really destroy some very good groups like the Clarion Project that are calling out antisemitism. And they call these groups anti Muslim hate groups, when in reality these people are on the front lines protecting particularly Jews, but also others from the sort of hate that we see, unfortunately, from the Islamist side of Muslims in America.
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No, and very fair point about the adl, by the way. I'm not gonna elaborate right now, but I actually got a very interesting phone call Last September, shortly after Charlie Kirk was tragically assassinated and this source told me that he had heard from Jonathan Greenblatt that they were looking to bring on a conservative on staff to essentially try to dissuade them from doing self inflicting terrible things there. I haven't really been in touch with that contact since then there, but I do have anecdotal reason to believe they are at least aware of the bias problem. TAO, Just about 30 seconds left here, so real quick, if you may. I wanted to ask you about what you predict in this actual prosecution. What do you think is actually gonna happen in this case?
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I think the DOJ has a very strong case. I mean the wire fraud is a complicated matter and I'm not an attorney and I'm not familiar with the ins and outs. But if that second half of the indictment is true, if they have in black and white that the SPLC lied on bank forms in propping up these shell companies to fund the kkk, then that's a very hard thing to defend against. I think at the very least you're going to get something of a conviction on that. If nothing else.
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I hope you're right. That is for sure. So folks, one final time. Tyler o' Neill is the senior editor for Daily Signal. Follow him on x yiler2. O', Neill, he's the author of two books. His 2020 book, Making Hate Pay is all about the Southern Property Law Center. Tyler, you're a gentleman and a scholar. We really appreciate you stopping by today. Thank you so much.
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Thanks again for having me. Josh.
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This is very much a. Two things can be true at once when it comes to the drama unfolding with the Southern Poverty Law Center. As I said on yesterday's show, first of all, it cannot happen to a nicer group of people. I truly, truly, truly hate the Southern Poverty Law Center. Like many on the right, I have been personally attacked in vehement, unhinged fashion by them for years. They essentially take anyone whose politics are vaguely to the right of Elizabeth Warren's and they will paint you as a racist, xenophobic, white supremacist, anti democratic figure. Blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah. So it really could not happen to a nice group people. That is the very first thing to say. The second thing to say is that this appears to be really bad. This appears to be really, really, really bad. They are funding the very people, the very people that they are purporting to fight. You are not able to square that circle. The informant excuse only goes so Far to take just the one example that has dominated a lot of the headlines this week. The so called Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The infamous tiki torch incel Brigade. Back in 2017, they shelled out $270,000 for just that one incident. That's actually a good chunk of money. I mean, how many other people they were being paid, you know, these little basement dwelling incels, how many of them were being paid to go there to Charlottesville to hoist up their stupid tiki torches and say all these dumb anti American, anti semitic, racist things? I imagine not a whole lot of them are being paid actually. So it's frankly quite damning on its own terms, this indictment. Now there is a caveat which Tyler and I just discussed, that this whole story should not, should not inoculate those of us on the right from the situation. That we definitely do have this subversive fifth column, anti American, anti Western civilization element operating on the right. An element that is oftentimes anti Semitic or racist. We talk about it quite a bit on the show. I'm not going to belabor the point now. All I want to say for now though is that two things can be true at once. This is a mature audience. I think that you are able to process multiple things at the same time. SPLC looks very, very bad. Also, there's this problem on the right. They exist and they are not mutually exclusive. But the SPLC thing is just, again, it's just a truly, truly, truly delectable story. Keshe Patel was talking about this on Fox News. Actually, here is the FBI director Keshe Patel talking about the SPLC indictment.
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Money doesn't lie. The charity that supposedly fought the Klan funded the Klan. The charity that supposedly fought neo Nazi Nazis funded neo Nazis. The Southern Poverty Law center ran a methodical, calculated scheme to defraud their donor base of $3 million and lied to them and used an illicit banking structure system to create shell companies to hide their money and who it was being sent to specifically for the reason to sow discord and hate into our society. This is the ultimate definition of hypocrisy. And if you look at the indictment produced by the Department of Justice and the FBI, you will see that these banking institutions tie directly the funding mechanisms in which the Southern Poverty Law center used to fund at least eight hate groups they supposedly wanted to take out, but they were paying the very villains of our society they supposedly wanted to protect us from. That's the ultimate hocus.
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My colleague Mike Davis is also on Fox News talking about the same issue. Here was Mike last night on Lauren Graham show.
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Yeah, the Southern Poverty Law center told
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its donors that it was fighting the
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Klan when in fact the SPLC was funding the Klan. That is clear fraud. They got charged with wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy. This. If these allegations are true, the SPLC is not going to survive.
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Here's the point that I want to make to you. This is part of a broader trend. So Tyler o' Neill and I were talking about this a little bit when it comes to the notion that there could be other left of center, quote, unquote, civil rights groups that have been doing the same thing. And again, I don't have any receipts, but I think they probably have been for what it's worth, or at least in some cases there. But there is a broader trail of tears here, or at least trail of idiocy and fraud and bamboozling and gaslighting and deceitful. I'm thinking of incidents like Jussie Smollett. Have we forgotten about that? So it was January 2019, and Jussie Smollett was in one of the most Democrat far left districts imaginable. He was in river north in Chicago. Trust me, I know it well. I lived not far from there for a couple of years. This is as blue Barack Obama country in Chicago as it gets. So Jussie Smollett did this whole victim hoax where he said that someone stole his Subway sandwich and said this is MAGA country. And he had this whole. This whole concocted story. The whole thing was a lie. The whole thing was a lie. Ultimately, Jussie Smollett was investigated by a special prosecutor. He was actually indicted by a Cook County, Illinois grand jury on six counts pertaining to making false police reports. He ended up being convicted on five felony counts there, and he ended up being sentenced to 150 days in county jail and he paid over $120,000 in restitution. That was a classic, classic race hoax. And that was in 2019. So that was actually even before the death of our martyr, St. George Floyd, and the commencement of the summer of love of 2020. Around that same time, though, in 2020, when the nation was reaching its fever pitch, it was right on that same time there, there was a very similar story that came to the forefront there. And this was the infamous NASCAR Noose hoax. So Bubba Wallace is a black NASCAR driver, pretty rare thing. And he definitely deserves credit for being in a traditionally very white environment there. Again, we're not DEI fans here, but we can give Credit where credit's due, I suppose, but credit is not due for the story that Bubba Wallace concocted there. So Bubba Wallace saw a rope in the garage at Talladega Superspeedway. So Bubba Wallace is from Mobile, Alabama. This is the Deep South. Talladega is the quintessential Deep South NASCAR track. It is in Talladega, Alabama, one of the most famous tracks in all of nascar, probably the second most famous after Daytona here in Florida. And Bo Wallace says that he sees this noose hanging from the garage and people are saying, oh my God, the black driver. They're trying to noose the guy. This is Alabama, for God's sake. There. Long story short, they investigate. And this is not a noose. It is just a rope that kind of superficially looks like a noose, but it's just a pull rope that had been there for months and months and months. The FBI did a WHO investigation there and they said that. They said that this was not what Bubba Walls said it was. In that particular case, actually, I'm less upset of Bubba Wallace. Jussie Small just made the whole thing up. Bubba Wallace probably. I mean, I mean, I'm not sure if he made up there. I'm not sure if he was trying to do the victim thing. He might have actually thought it was real news. But regardless, the sensationalist media reporting on this made it seem like this was Jussie Small 2.0. So I give that context in light of this SPLC indictment just to show you that there was a whole. There's a whole ecosystem, folks. There's a whole ecosystem. When it comes to the NGOs, when it comes to the not for profit left wing litigation, the law firms, when it comes to the activists, when it comes to the YouTubers, when it comes to the influencers, when it comes to the would be racial martyrs or the actual, the actual Black Lives Matter style martyrs, as we all know that they're trying to adopt the Hamas playbook, and many of them are trying to actually be martyrs here on the home front. That's what we actually saw with the ICE standoff in Minnesota. Renee Goode, These people are adopting that very playbook there. So this whole martyrdom complex there, a lot of it is trying to exaggerate, embellish, or sensationalize the threat of racism in America. I'm not saying that racism does not exist. I'm obviously, obviously not saying that. Again, I'm obviously also not saying that various other forms of bigotry do not exist. I don't Play the victim card. But I will just reiterate that I have been a pretty public victim of a lot of anti Semitic conspiracies just over the past year or so, especially in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination. So I am not downplaying this in the slightest. Rather, what I am saying is that there was a whole profit based motive here for a whole ecosystem to stir up these sentiments, to gin up these emotions and then to go to the donors and try to profit off of it. That's what happened. That is exactly what appears to have happened here when it comes to the Southern Poverty Law Center. That is some variation of what happened when it came to the Bubba Wallace incident. And it's certainly what happened when it came to the Jussie Smold incident. Frankly, that guy did not serve enough time in jail. He should have been in jail, frankly, for a lot longer than that. Because this kind of thing simply cannot go without accountability and without punishment. Again, individual racists exist, but America is not a racist country. Quote, unquote. Systemic racism died in this country with the passage of the Civil Rights act of 1964 and the Voting Rights act of 1965. The vestiges of what once upon a time was racism, whether it was slavery or Jim Crow, that's been gone now for roughly six decades. It's not a thing anymore. And these organizations that are still profiting off of that, the SPLC and so forth there, increasingly they must do so in what appears to be fraudulent fashion. So in other news, the federal government is considering taking up to a 90% stake in Spirit Airlines. So if you have never flown Spirit Airlines in your entire life, consider yourselves lucky. Spirit Airlines is not exactly a luxury experience. I have personally flown it probably five or fewer times in my entire life. Nonetheless, I live here in South Florida and they are based in South Florida. So there have been a handful of times that I have taken it. And let me tell you, it is certainly an experience. Spirit Airlines has been struggling when it comes to their profit and loss to their accounting, to their balance sheets. They've been struggling for a while now and the recent crunch when it comes to fuel prices has really exacerbated their pinch. It's actually really not just Spirit Airlines. American Airlines apparently just announced that they are severely lowering their projected forecast for investors for profit and income in the year 2026. Again, a lot of this being attributed to the cost in fuel as a result of the war with Iran. So, long story short, long story short, spirit Airlines and JetBlue actually attempted to merge. That was a merger that, that happened over the past couple years. And it was blocked. It was actually blocked by the Trump administration just last year. And now Spirit Airlines finds themselves on the precipice of corporate extinction. And the Trump administration has been, has been discussing internally a possible $500 million rescue plan that would leave the feds with a roughly 90% stake in this company. And there's all sorts of debate happening as to whether or not this is a good idea or not. Is this socialism? Your mileage may vary. I don't think it's socialism. It is definitely some form of state capitalism. Just kind of a post Deng Xiaoping, Chinese style approach to capitalism. It's not outright socialism. It's probably not desirable. It's definitely not ideal. Look for me, first principles economics 101 perspective. One of my favorite quotes, and I'm paraphrasing here, but it's pretty close to what he said. There was a great, great economist by the name of Alan Meltzer. He was a scholar of the Federal Reserve, primarily affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And what Alan Meltzer once said is that capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. It doesn't work in religion. You have to be able to sin, and then you have to be able to atone for your sins. You have to be able to repent and to be ultimately redeemed. So too, in capitalism, if the state is always there to bail you out, then that is obviously a moral hazard. And companies, frankly, will never learn any of the right lessons. They will never actually strive to improve their product. They will never try to increase productivity, efficiency, cost margins, profit margins, anything. Frankly, nothing. So you have to be able to fail. This was the big argument against tarp, against the bailouts at the end of the Bush administration, was you have to allow failure in order for capitalism to proceed. There was a stronger argument, frankly, for TARP than there was for this particular bailout of Spirit Airlines. It's not like the airline industry will go down in flames if Spirit Airlines fails. In hindsight, it probably would have been a good idea to allow that JetBlue Spirit Airlines merger to go through. That would have, in theory potentially at least, forestalled a lot of this, of this current debate. You definitely can be a little overzealous when it comes to antitrust enforcement. You can also be underzealous. Antitrust is very much a fine line that requires not just principle, but frankly, prudence. But in hindsight, that seems like a mistake. That merger should have been allowed to go through. At this point though, Spirit Airlines should be allowed to fail. Now, to be clear, the best reason, the best reason to not allow Spirit Airlines to fail to be a little bit facetious and tongue in cheek, as a friend put it to me yesterday, was that he never wants to be on a flight with Spirit Airlines customers again. If you've ever flown Spirit and you've ever seen what a Spirit Airlines line and the customer desk, what the whole situation looks like, there's if you've been there, you get it. If not again, consider yourselves lucky. But Spirit Airlines is not a national security issue. There's all sorts of other industries and companies that implicate national security concerns. Semiconductors come immediately to mine their computer chips, things like that. That's simply not true when it comes to Spirit Airlines there. So I'm not a huge fan of this particular policy. We will see if it happens. It's very much something of an, of an ongoing debate and but my 2 cents would be that it would be more trouble, frankly than it is worth. But again, there's a very valuable lesson here when it comes to antitrust in hindsight, which is that the JetBlue Spirit merger should have been allowed to go through in retrospect. So in other Trump administration related news today, so just this morning actually they follow through on months of rumors and months of speculation and they have now formally reclassified certain types of marijuana, specifically a state licensed so called medical marijuana. They have re licensed this as a Schedule 3 narcotic, not a Schedule 1 narcotic for purposes of the relevant regulatory statute, which is a Nixon era statute called the csa, the Controlled Substances Act. So marijuana for the past five and a half decades, since the statute went into law has been classified as a Schedule 1 narcotic, which is the most extreme form they have now reclassified and indeed they have declassified these medical marijuana facilities at a state level as being something quite a bit less draconian. Specifically, what it does is it gives these state licensed so called medical marijuana operators and distributors, it gives them a major tax break, essentially pays their bottom line and it eases all sorts of other barriers when it comes to research and product development and things like that. Why are they doing this, you might ask? I don't really know other than it seems like that there are very powerful lobbying forces at play here. We actually experienced this here in Florida. So there were major, major, major ballot initiatives here in Florida in 2024. There was a major abortion constitutional amendment and there was a major marijuana constitutional amendment. Team Sandy actually ended up prevailing on both, albeit we actually got less than a majority in both. But in Florida, you actually have to get a 60% threshold, a super majority, in order to enshrine a constitutional amendment into the Constitution when it's done via ballot initiative. So we got lucky due to the procedural quirk of the 60% super majority threshold, but we had a straight up should marijuana be legalized, not just medicinal, but recreational here on the ballot? And the spending from Trulieve and major corporate marijuana, big marijuana interests was astounding. Marijuana lobbyists are deep heeled, they've got money and they are very, very, very well connected. I have no doubt that Trulieve and all those various other companies there have been involved here at the very highest points of the Trump administration, lobbying, lobbying and lobbying and trying to get various types of marijuana reclassified. Unfortunately, the people that end up losing here are the American people themselves, because the studies on this about the efficacy of so called medicinal marijuana and whether or not marijuana is ever a genuine medicinal use and whether it is ever the sole exclusive option, whether there are truly no other options that you can go to here when it comes to trying to alleviate your pain, it's dubious. It's highly dubious. This is basically a corporate slush of a policy and I am frankly none too happy about it there. So this is a somewhat rare swing and a miss from the Trump administration. We call it like we see it here. We're not just naked cheerleaders for the administration. We will call it like we see it. This one definitely is a miss. Finally, just a quick update for you from the Senate. We're actually gonna bring on Rachel Bovard on the show tomorrow. Rachel is the sage of the Senate, as I call her, and she will give us all sorts of updates when it comes to reconciliation 2.0, when it comes to the Safe America act and perhaps other matters as well. So just one quick update for you was that this morning the US Senate took the initial steps in a new effort to reopen the Department of Homeland Security. So they actually voted to adopt a budget plan that would fund ICE as well as cbp, Customs and Border Protection in its fullness, as well as Border Patrol itself. This is over the objections of Chuck Schumer and his Democrat led caucus. And I think the number one thing to bear in mind here is that you probably forgot that there was still a shutdown. Frankly, I do this for a living and actually I forgot, to be honest, that there was still a shutdown. It's really easy to forget this thing's been going on for 65, 70 days at this point there. It's totally out of the news. Listen, I've actually flown a few times during it, and I've gotten lucky. TSA has been pretty smooth, but the government has said that they're actually going to run out of money to pay TSA very soon. They've said that. Okay. Markway Mullen, the new secretary of dhs, has said that. Democrats. What are you guys doing? We're at war. We are at war with Iran. And now we're dealing with the longest partial agency shutdown in the history of the government. It's insane. And frankly, if I forgot about it, then I imagine that most people forgot about it there. But you shouldn't forget about it because it's actually really important and it says all you need to know about the state's Democratic Party. And that is definitely not in a good way. Folks, have a great rest of your evening. Josh Hammer signing off for now. We'll be right back. As always,