Michael Knowles (10:20)
What? Why? Why did we do that at the nat. Why did we do that in the National Cathedral? Thomas Jefferson's probably rolling over in his grave at that. Now, I don't even really mean offense to our Muslim friends, our Muslim listeners out here. In many ways one can have a much more fruitful conversation about profound things with a Muslim than with some modern Western lib secular atheist. But the chanting of the Muslim call to prayer does not belong in a cathedral of any sort. Usually when you hear the Muslim call to prayer in cathedrals, it's cathedrals that Muslims have conquered and stolen from Christians. Like the Hagia Sophia for instance. Why? Now I know why. The answer is because the people who run this pseudo church, people like this silly woman pretending to be a priest, they have a shallow faith, if they have faith at all. And because there is a kind of indifferentism that's set in to our public life where we believe America, we believe in a way that is self contradictory, that America is just an idea. But on the other hand, ideas don't matter. America's just an idea. It's not a people, it's not a history, it's not a geography, it's just an idea. But also, people of any creed can be fully American. Hold on, what do you mean creed? A creed is a belief, a creed is an idea. How can America be an idea? But America can be any idea. Then that means that America can be any damn thing at all. And then America's nothing. We have. By abolishing all of these limits, we've destroyed even the creedal notion of America. And that wasn't just it. I really don't mean to pick on the Muslims here. I think that the real issue is the weakness of America's professing Christian types of creeds which have eliminated themselves. And it wasn't just the Muslims. There was also some weird Buddhist things. 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In recent months I've been very happy about that fact. With an A rating from the Better Business Bureau, countless five star reviews and thousands of happy customers, you can trust Birch Gold as well. Tex Knowles to 989898 today there was a dude who got up there at the National Prayer Service. He was a white guy, but he. I think his real name is Matt Regan, but he goes by Reverend Bup he B u p space H e e bup he and one of his prayers that he said at the service was may all kama not c o m m a k a m m a be resolved and the mind flower of wisdom bloom in Nibbana's eternal spring. What on earth does that mean? I'm not praying for that. I don't want Nibbana's Eternal Spring. I don't know what kama is. Why are these words even being uttered in the National Cathedral? Cathedrals are Christian houses of worship. They're supposed to be. But now, unfortunately, it's just radical leftists like that silly bishopress woman wearing Christianity as a skin suit but without any of the actual substance of Christianity. So then they invite in all of these people with views that are totally contradictory to Christianity to come in and then what are we really? What is the prayer? Right? It's very difficult. When some of these eccentricities were going on, I was just praying the rosary in the cathedral. I thought, well, we'll get at least one Christian prayer in here, won't we? We need limits. Okay? And President Trump has responded. President Trump came out last night. He Said the so called bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a radical left hardline Trump hater. True. She brought her church into the world of politics in a very ungracious way. True. She was nasty in tone and not compelling or smart. Seems to be right. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental instit a giant crime wave that is taking place in the usa. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She's not very good at her job. She and her church owe the public an apology. I agree. I totally agree with that. There were some moments that were nice. The singer was very good. Macchio. He sang Ave Maria. That was beautiful. That was kind of the Catholic aspect of the ceremony. It was beautiful. There were some lovely traditional hymns that were sung. But. But a lot of it was too silly. A lot of it was bordered on wicked. A lot of it entered into the realm of wicked. Like when they talk about castrating the kids. It was a symbol of the broader political problem that Trump has to deal with, which is we need to preserve what is still good and strong about America. That cathedral's a beautiful building. Some of the aspects of the ceremony were nice. We need to preserve what is still good and relatively solid about America. But we need to reestablish limits or we're gonna look like a total clown show, which is what that ceremony looked like yesterday. Now Trump is getting to work beyond the ceremonial stuff. He is getting down to brass tacks. One of the most significant changes that President Trump has wrought in the last 24 hours that very few people are talking about. President Trump rescinded an executive order from the 1960s. This is an executive order from Lyndon Johnson. EO11246. What did EO11246 do? It established affirmative action for federal contractors. Trump's executive order rescinding that executive order will ban all federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, which is exactly what affirmative action does. It discriminates on the basis of. Of race. This could be the benefit of Trump and the Republicans being in the wilderness for four years. Had Trump just remained president after 2020, I don't know that you would get an executive order like this. This is so in the weeds. This is going back now 60 years to pull another executive order to move the ball way down the field. Affirmative action is the beginning of dei. All of these awful, woke Policies that people hate. Where does this come from? I think this comes from our political side and Trump in particular, being in the wilderness, having a little bit of time, especially as the left is constantly trying to persecute us, and Trump in particular, having a little bit of time to refocus, say, okay, what is it that we believe? Wow, things are even worse than we thought they were. Wow. What would you do if you didn't? If you have a moment's reprieve so you're not dealing with the constant business of politics, what would you do if maybe you could get back into power? Trump had four years to think about that. This is why we say our ways are not God's ways. God's ways are not our ways. Okay. We were so disappointed. I was crestfallen in 2020 when the election went to the Democrats, let's put it that way. I was so upset. But if the last 24 hours are any indication, the non consecutive second Trump term might well be much, much better. The signs are all pointing that it will be much, much better than a consecutive second Trump turn on this point of dei. Trump has also issued a memo closing all government DEI offices, effective practically immediately. Every single federal government agency was just ordered to begin closing all of their DEI offices 5pm deadline today. Here's the exact words of the memo. No later than 5pm Eastern on Wednesday, January 22. What are the agencies required to do? Send an agency wide notice to employees informing them of the closure, asking employees if they know of any efforts to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language. A template agency wide notice is attached so saying you're gonna close the offices. And if you even think about trying to establish a new office, you know, the Office of Equity, Inclusion and Diversity. It's not dei, it's EID or something like that. If you try to mask these programs in some other way, we're gonna get you. We're gonna shut that down too. We're gonna have these people rat on you and we are gonna root you out of the government. After a b send a notification to all employees of DEIA offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave, effective immediately. As the agency takes steps to close end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs. So we're not even gonna let these DEI people continue to float around the government. You're out. We'll keep paying you for now. Don't worry. We don't want a legal fight about your paychecks or whatever, but you're out. Go home. This is like When Charles II showed up and he dissolved the Parliament, that's like Trump, but he's not doing it to Congress. Trump is showing up to the bureaucracy. And like Charles ii, he gets up there and he just bangs on the floor and he says, gentlemen, go home. You are not needed here. DEI offices, all out. This is really precise stuff. President Trump in the first term was sometimes criticized for being a little loose with his language, a little ambiguous. You know, he had the right idea, but he wasn't turning the levers of power in the most efficient ways because of an advantage of Trump, which is that he was a Washington outsider, but he didn't know how the city worked. This is not Washington outsider machinations. This is Washington outsider instinct coupled with Washington insider tactics. Day one, day one. This is good stuff. And then we get to the pardons. Like our friends, the January 6ers. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to Lumen. Me. Knowles. Are you ready to jumpstart your health in 2025? I've discovered an incredible tool that gives real time insight into my metabolism through something as simple as my breath. That's called Lumen. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. All you need to do is breathe into it first thing in the morning and you will know exactly what's happening with your metabolism from whether you're burning fats or carbs. Based on your measurements, Lumen creates a personalized nutrition plan just for you. You can also breathe into it before and after workouts and meals so you know exactly what's going on in your body in real time. And Lumen will give you tips to keep you on top of your health game for all those 2025 New Year resolutions. Your metabolism is your body's engine, powers everything you do. 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It appears that he's just pardoning all of them, including people who got really crazy sentences. I mean, all of the January Sixers who went to jail got some kind of crazy sentence. People who, you know, went to jail for months or years even, because they took selfies in the Capitol Rotunda, they weren't particularly violent. You know, they moved Nancy Pelosi's lectern or whatever, getting all this time in prison. But you think of someone like Enrique Tarrio. Enrique Tarrio was the head of the Proud Boys. We were told the Proud Boys was a white supremacist, neo Nazi organization. And you have a black Hispanic guy, Enrique Tarrio, who's the head of it. It's kind of unusual. He was serving a 22 year prison sentence. For what? For conspiracy to conspire, to collude, to do bad stuff. It was totally insane. Trump has pardoned him, commuted sentences of all these people, 1500 people. The Federal Bureau of Prison said 211 people had been released from federal facilities following Trump's order. This is more sweeping than some people predicted, and it serves a political purpose. There are gonna be some even on the right who say, well, it shouldn't have been all of them. He should have left some of them either in prison or should have at least left this mark on their criminal records. What this tells you is that Trump wants the statement to be that the January 6 prosecutions were not just individually unjust, but systematically unjust. That's what this is about. Trump, here with these pardons, is making a statement about January 6, the worst day in the history of the Sarani Republic, about the January 6th prosecutions. Had he pardoned or commuted the sentences of some people, but left a significant number of people in prison or with this mark on their records, he would be saying the January 6 prosecutions went too far. But that's not what he's saying. He's saying the whole January 6 thing was a political operation. It was a setup, it was a hoax, it was a political op. The whole thing was rotten to its core. The January 6th select committee committed crimes, and Joe Biden, don't forget. This also probably is a response to Joe Biden's preemptive pardoning of the January 6 committee, which committed crimes, which hid evidence, which hid information that was exculpatory to people on the right. So this is A little bit of a tit for tat, too. If any libs are out there, you know, hard libs who are really miffed about this pardon, you have no one to thank but Joe Biden. Okay, but even beyond, even without the Biden pardon, Trump is saying the whole January 6 thing was a political operation, and so we're gonna wipe that whole thing away. None of that should have happened. Trump requested security forces to the Capitol. Pelosi said no. Then we saw this footage years later that actually the Capitol Police let some of these people in. These insurrectionists gave them. It appeared to be a guided tour around the Capitol. Hold on. This is not what we were told it was. The whole thing just looked like an op, and now it's over. Speaking of pardons, President Trump is also pardoning Ross Ulbricht. Who is Ross Ulbricht. He is the founder of the Silk Road, which was this dark, hidden Internet black market for drugs and reportedly contract killings and all sorts of really dark stuff paid for, usually with cryptocurrency, really, with bitcoin. This guy got caught, and he was serving a life sentence, a life sentence without the possibility of parole since 2015. This is going on 10 years now. He was convicted on charges that included distributing narcotics and conspiring to commit computer hacking. So this was really what got him. It was the illegal drug sales. And those drug sales contributed to the death of at least six people. So he was serving this life sentence without the possibility of parole. I don't really care ideologically to pardon this guy. I actually think it's good to be tough on these guys. I don't think there's some right. I'm not an anarchist. I'm not a libertarian. I don't think there's some right to black markets to sell drugs or anything else. I have no problem in principle with this guy spending his entire life in prison. I mean, that's not a popular view anymore. But I'm a conservative. I'm not a radical libertarian or anarchist or anything like that. I have no problem in principle with this guy spending his life in prison as long as the law is applied fairly and as long as the other drug dealers and the other criminals are receiving harsh sentences, too. The problem is today, on the one hand, we're being told by our political order, we need to let the drug dealers out of prison. How strange is that? At the same time that the political elite tell us we need to let all the drug dealers out of prison. Joe Biden, commuting the sentences of all these pro Drug people, the left trying to liberalize drug laws, legalize drugs. On the other hand. Then this guy who basically just was a drug dealer with bitcoin, that guy's gonna serve a life sentence without possibility of parole. What? That doesn't. That seems totally discordant. It seems like they were going after him maybe for more ideological hobby horses. So Trump pardons him. He says, I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht. I think he actually spelled it Ulbrite, but it's Ulbricht. To let her know that in honor of her and the libertarian movement which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son Ross. The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences plus 40 years. Ridiculous. Yeah. Okay, so what do we take away from this? He says it right there in honor of the libertarian movement. I'm not a libertarian, so it doesn't really do that much for me, but I do like part of the subtext of this. I was there, I was at the bitcoin conference when people were. And the bitcoin conference was largely made up of libertarians. People were really campaigning to free Ross Ulbricht. And they said, trump will support you, but this is a big issue for us. You gotta free Ross Ulbricht. And he said, yes, I will. And so what's he doing here? He's just keeping his promise. He's saying, hey, allies, you had my back, I'm gonna have your back. Even with the January Sixers, these people who went out there, they demonstrated for Trump. Some got a little carried away. Some were federal agents who hated Trump, probably. But they go out there, they support this guy, and Trump is saying, hey, I got you. You're being unfairly targeted because you've aligned yourself with my side of things. You've gone out on a limb. Don't worry, I got you. Hey, even the way he's speaking here, I really like this. Cuz he's not saying, I am a libertarian and I really care about libertarianism. He goes, yeah, look, to help out the libertarian movement, which supported me because I said that I would do this, I'm gonna do this thing, I'm gonna keep my promises. Watch me. Well, while Washington D.C. was just full, everything going on, constant churning of events, so much to do in the early days of being president, and Trump just says, I'm keeping this promise. I'm Keeping that promise. I'm moving, I mean, just working non stop. And speaking of crypto, Trump is now a crypto billionaire. I meant to get to this story yesterday, but there's just too much going on. There's the Trump meme coin. The Trump meme coin was launched a day or two before Trump was inaugurated. It now accounts for 89% of Trump's net worth. Trump's crypto portfolio is now reported. Who knows, it changes by the hour, but it is, as of recently, worth up to $58 billion on paper, which makes Donald Trump one of the 25 richest people in the world in principle, on paper. Now, the Trump coin is not a true coin in itself. It's a token that's issued on the Solana blockchain. There's also Melania coin. But now Trump is a crypto billionaire. The vast majority of his wealth on paper is in crypto. And so people are saying, I don't like this, this is weird. I don't know. Does this raise emoluments, questions? Why is he doing this? Does crypto have any value? Do these meme coins have any value? The meme coins themselves say that these are not really investment instruments. So don't gamble all your money away on them. So what is this? Is it just Trump trying to enrich himself? Look, Trump is good at making money. He's been a rich guy all his life. But even when he was bankrupt, he was still sort of a rich guy because he had this comeback. He had that art of the comeback, both in business and in politics. But I don't think this is just about enriching himself personally, because Trump is not only personally pro crypto, he is politically pro crypto. I was at that bitcoin conference when Trump embraced crypto. This is a signal to me, the launching of the Trump meme coin is a signal to me Trump is going to fulfill his promises to the bitcoin community, not just on freeing Ross Ulbricht from the Silk Road, that maybe he's going to get the federal government to invest a little bit in crypto, that maybe he's going to turn the government to be supportive of, of crypto and bitcoin and he's gonna make some money. In the meantime, he's showing that this is a real avenue for storing wealth, for transacting. He's basically saying this is a real thing. I don't know. I've always been kind of skeptical of crypto, but that's the signal here. It's not just a personal one. It's a political one. Now speaking of investments on slightly more tangible assets, Lindsey Graham is coming out CBS Face THE Nation to discuss the massive border investment that the Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress plan to make for border security. Do you have a top line number yet on how much this is all going to cost?
