Matt Walsh (16:24)
Now, what Whoopi pretends not to understand is that no one is assuming that women are weaker. We just know that that's true. It's true in every relevant respect. This is why high school boys can defeat the best women's soccer team on the planet. It's why women don't play in the NFL, and it's why no one is watching the View anymore, or buying Dylan Mulvaney's book or listening to Michelle Obama's podcast. People are tired of being lied to in the name of a political ideology that becomes more discredited by the day. And we could also add to this list the total failure of Meghan Markle's Netflix show and her Spotify podcast that was just canceled. These are all people, all leftists who have been heavily promoted by the media in Hollywood. They get the kind of mainstream exposure that nobody on the right has ever gotten or will ever get. And yet the audience doesn't care. They can't sell books or podcasts. The public is totally disinterested. In fact, just about the only success the left has had culturally lately is with Gavin Newsom's new podcast that's actually doing fairly well. It's getting you know, it's getting it has an audience, but it's only doing well because his guests are all Republicans. If Gavin Newsom were doing a solo show or talking to other leftists, it would do about as well as IMO with Michelle Obama. In other words, the left has the same problem culturally that they have politically. They have no stars. They have no leaders in the culture or on the political scene. There's a reason nearly all of the most popular political podcasts are right wing. No matter how aggressively the left tries to force demented actors and disingenuous politicians and incoherent ideologies on the public, it's just not working. They can shove all of these people in our face, and they do, but what they're discovering is that they can't make us care. Now let's get to our five headlines Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes that we're endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American Dream starts with purpose. GCU equips you to serve others in ways that promotes human flourishing and creates a ripple effect of transformation for generations to come. By honoring your career, calling you impact your family, your friends and your community. Change the world for good by putting others before yourself to glorify God. Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree, GCU's online, on campus and hybrid learning environments are designed to help you achieve your unique academic, personal and professional goals. With over 340 academic programs as of September 2024, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams. The pursuit to serve others is yours. Let it flourish. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private Christian Affordable Visit gcu. Edu MSN reports US President Donald Trump does not want taxes on people making less than $150,000 a year, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS News in an interview emphasizing proposals such as removing taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security contributions, describing them as transformative ideas for America. Ludwig's comments on tip taxes and Social Security echo Trump's promise to eliminate tip taxes while also pushing for sweeping tax cuts for individuals and corporations. And now the idea is to get rid of taxes for people making under $150,000 a year. So that's the latest and seems to be a pretty popular proposal, at least among people on the right. And I'm going to be the party pooper on this one. I don't like this idea. Just like I'm not a fan of the no tax on tip thing, but, you know, you kind of have to track what I'm saying. You have to follow the argument, listen to the whole argument. Because I fully support letting people keep all their tips without having to pay taxes on it. I fully support no tax on people under $150,000 a year. Yeah, I would like for those people in that income bracket to not pay taxes. Totally. I think that's great. I support and would celebrate people in those groups not paying taxes as long as everyone else also doesn't have to pay taxes. Because what I really want to get away from, what I'm frankly really sick of, is using the tax code to arbitrarily choose winners and losers, which is what already happens. And this is more of that. And we're so used to it that we think, well, it's just the way it is. It doesn't have to be this way. There are other ways to handle taxes. There are other tax systems you can have in place where it doesn't work this way. But the system we've had now for a long time is that the government just decides who the winners and losers are gonna be. Already high income earners carry almost all of the tax burden, Almost all of it. So already, if you commit the great sin of achieving financial success, you will have 40% of your income confiscated by the government. And that is just obscene. And I know that whenever I talk about this, and we were debating it on X as well, so I get a lot of comments like, oh, you only complain about it because they're taking 40% of your income and that's why you don't like it. Well, first of all, yeah, I mean, that's. I don't like it when they take 40% of my income. I do find that quite frustrating. I don't like that, like 40% of your income taken by the government to then be wasted. Yeah, I don't like that. But for the record, I felt this way when I was a low income earner and a middle income earner. I felt this way when I was making $17,000 a year. I felt this way, you know, at $44,000 a year. I felt this way all the way. I feel this way now. I've been saying, when it comes to taxes, I've been saying the same thing my entire adult life. I've had the same view of it my entire adult life, regardless of where I am. And I've traveled, you know, I've Been. I've traveled up and down the income brackets. So I've got a good picture of where everybody sits and what the tax burden is. Doesn't matter where I am. I feel the same way about it. I've always opposed the progressive tax rate system that we have now. I've always opposed this idea of choosing winners and losers. Even when I was in the winner group, the winner group, as in the group that didn't have to pay any taxes, I would look at that and say, well, that's not like I like the fact I'm not paying taxes, but how is it fair that I'm not paying anything? These people over here are paying, like, everything. In what way is that fair? I don't understand how that could possibly be fair. What definition of fair are we using here? Now, my position, as you probably know, is that the income tax is theft. It should not exist. It's an abomination. We should get rid of it. But if it does exist, it should be equal, it should be flat. Everybody should pay the same percent. And that doesn't mean that everyone pays the same amount. I don't think anyone's suggesting that everyone should pay the same amount. Well, I do think everyone should pay the same amount because the same amount should be zero. I think everyone should pay zero. But if there has to be an income tax system, then it should be a flat tax, a stable equal rate of, say, 10%. And then everyone's paying the same percentage. But everyone obviously is not paying the same amount because the amount you pay is depending on the percentage of your income. But that is without question the fairest way to do an income tax, if you're going to do one, which again, you shouldn't. I mean, if someone making $150,000 a year doesn't have to pay any tax, why should someone making $225,000 a year have to pay tax? How is that fair? You know, these are people basically the same income bracket, you know, living next door to each other, probably in the same neighborhood. So if you're the 225 guy, you're living next to $150,000 a year salary. You got to pay taxes, but he doesn't. How in the hell is that fair? And what makes $150,000 so special? Why is that the cutoff? Why not 165? Why not 200? Why not 75,000? Why not 50? Like why, why are we putting it there? And what if the guy at 225 is the sole breadwinner for a family of four, while a guy making $145,000 a year is single and has no dependents, why should the single guy with $145,000 a year income get to pay no tax while the family has to pay a tax? I mean, that makes no sense. The only justification I ever hear for this kind of thing or the progressive tax rate and anything like that is while it's a fair share, everyone has to pay your fair share. No, what I'm asking is how is that the fair share? Okay, in our current system, you pay 40%. If you make over, I think 600,000. You know, whatever the topic of Brexit is, you pay about 40%. Why should anyone have 40% of their income confiscated? I don't care how much they make. How is that? And then the answer is, well, it's a fair share. Says who? Who said that? That's the fair. What do you mean by fair? Who decides that? Who is this flawless arbiter of fairness who gets to decide that? And there never is any answer. It's always, well, it's a fair share. What do you mean by fair? That's fair. That's it. By fair I mean fair. I mean really, if you're going to choose winners and losers, which I don't think we should be, but if you're going to select some special group that gets a get out of jail, get out of a tax free card, you know, it should be families. If anything, it should be Americans with X number of kids, whatever it is, say two or three, they don't have to pay any taxes, that at least makes sense because then you're incentivizing Americans to have kids and you're making it easier for parents to feed and clothe their children. So if you're going to, if we're gonna just look at a certain group and say, yeah, they don't have to pay any taxes, they're gonna get off scot free and everybody else is gonna have to pay the tax, is gonna have to carry the tax burden. But not these people. If you're going to do that. If there's any group that it makes sense to kind of single out for that great privilege, families, that's the group that would make sense. But I'm not in favor of that either, actually, because I think it should just be equal for everybody. If you're going to have it, everyone pays the same percent. And not only is that fair or it's, there is no fair way to do an income tax. It's an inherently unfair abomination of a practice. But it's the fairest version of this unfair thing. But not only does it make it fair, it also, it also greatly reduces the complication and makes the whole tax system much simpler. Like it makes it so that you can, you actually know how much tax you're going to owe. It's, there's, there's no complicated formula. You don't have to pay anyone to figure out your taxes for you. It's no mystery at the end of the year, how much do I owe? How much am I getting back? None of that stuff. It's, you know, exactly. If you can do, if you can do basic math, you don't even need it. You wouldn't even need a calculator. Okay. Taxes should be, if you're going to have them, income tax, it should be so simple that you don't even need a calculator to do it, much less an accountant. That would be the case with a flat tax of 10%. All right, let's move to this Daily Wire has this report. Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order on Tuesday barring the thousands of correctional officers she fired from ever working for the New York government again, including even for counties as covered by the daily wire. About 15,000 officers began striking and protesting on February 17, arguing that prisons across the state have become totally unsafe for inmates and workers. Workers. Following the implementation of the Democrat backed halt Act, Hochul used aggressive tactics against them, including terminating health coverage for some 5300 officers and their dependents and eventually firing 2000 officers and sergeants on Monday. And now she signed executive order saying not only are you fired, but you can never work in the prison system or in any government job anywhere in the state at any level ever again. So this is obviously vindictive evil. Kathy Hochul is seeking vengeance on the people who dared to defy her. She's trying to permanently prevent them from getting jobs in their field or in any government field. There's no reason to do that other than just a desire to harm the people who tried to defy you. That's the only reason to do it. And this all stems from these prison guards simply not wanting to be assaulted at their jobs. They're trying to minimize the amount of times that they are attacked and bludgeoned and sexually assaulted and sprayed with urine and feces. Like, that's about the most reasonable demand an employee could ever make. It's the most reasonable demand. It's the lowest bar. Right. That you can set and that's all they're asking for. But the problem is that Democrat policies in the state have made the job much more dangerous for prison guards. They've created this problem. So giving them what they want, which is a basic level of safety and dignity, would mean rolling back some Democrat policies and actually prioritizing the needs of prison officers over prisoners. And Hochul just can't do that. She won't do it. So instead, she's playing a very vicious form of hardball. And here's what gets me about this. Aside from the fact that the prison guards, the corrections officers, are obviously right. Pokel is wrong. Also, the governor here is showing a willingness to play hardball in a way that she never has and never would in any other context. Do you think she'd ever do this to teachers who were striking? No. Or what about, again, the inmates? Where is this energy when it comes to the violent criminals who are wreaking havoc in your cities? Imagine if Hochul was willing to be as tough and heartless and ruthless with them as she is with the people who, who we rely on to protect us from these criminals. But, no, she reserves all of that, this kind of ruthless, merciless approach, she reserves only for the people that are actually serving the public and protecting us. I want to respond to this briefly. You may remember, I'm sure you remember the. Because it just happened, the incident with Congressman McBride at the hearing this week when he was correctly gendered by Republican Congressman Self. And lots of people on the left were mad about that. But Tommy Lahren, Fox News commentator, was also a bit peeved. And I want to respond to this, because here she is talking. I think this is Danica Patrick she's talking to. But they're talking about this, this incident. And here's what they have to say. Listen, there is a representative who is transgender. Sarah McBride was purposely referred to as Mr. And it's getting a lot of traction. I feel like it's mean spirited to do it just to be mean. Now, that doesn't mean that I want transgender people in women's sports or women's spaces, because that has an actual physical, tangible impact.