A lot of our recent episodes have been kind of dark. We don’t want to alarm you, but…here are a few things that Trump and/or the GOP have said that you want to probably want to ignore if you’re feeling out of your depths:

• Muslims are to be ejected from the country, including students.

• Anyone who speaks against his highness will be expelled from this country.

• Pretty women can stay, but they can’t cross state lines if pregnant.

Christian nationalism is a problem in this nation. No, I didn’t say Christianity. I said specifically Christian nationalism. There are those who would impose their interpretation of Christian religious doctrine upon the rest of us, and the alarming thing is that we have one of these ideologues now 2nd in line to the presidency. Nothing seems to sway them from their self-destructive path, and they seem intent on bringing the rest of the country with them into Gilead.

When you see them, vote against them. A true leader must be willing to and able to put the society above their personal held beliefs.

Veterans day has come and gone, and Tuberville is still a problem. His ideological stance in blocking appointments has become a readiness issue for the USMC. We’ve talked about how the commandant of the Marines had a heart attack in a prior episode, trying to do the job of two general-level officers. What does Tuberville have to say about it? No comment, but prior, he’s said, to paraphrase, “why don’t they just delegate.”

Sounds a lot like “let them eat cake.” Tuberville has no sense of honor, and worse, no loyalty. He places his extreme ideological values above the nation he claims to serve.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A buddhist, a priest, and a rabbi walk into the United States Congress in 1789. They are unceremoniously escorted out as the first twelve amendments to the Constitution of the United States are adopted, the first of which very clearly states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Notice the part in bold. That’s the part we’re talking about during this podcast episode. You know who directly opposes that clause in the constitution? Anyone who says that they need to bring the United States government under the Bible. Like the person who said this:

“the founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around.” - Mike Johnson, as quoted in the New York Times

As you can see with the two phrases here, they are in direct opposition to each other. “No law respecting an establishment of religion” means exactly that. Think deeply. What does “an encroaching church” look like in national politics? It looks like bending the will of the people to the dictates of a specific church. And with Mike Johnson’s Southern Baptist views, what does that church look like? Well, it sure isn’t the Church of Satan.

Think about this when you elect your representative. Anyone who puts religion first is out to gut our collective rights. Period.

"Problem is the human heart, not guns" - Mike Johnson (courtesy of AXIOS)

That’s your new Republican Speaker of the House, and what he thinks about gun control Asked about additional legislation, he pulled out the old tried-and-true Republican rebuttle: now is not the time. When is the time?

We started this podcast project in response to the shootings at Black Live Matter rallies a few years ago. As a group, collectively we three former Marines would much rather complain about issues that require long-term focus and concentration. We’d prefer not to talk about issues for which there exist commonsense solutions that over 70% of Amerians agree with, yet are still being blocked by petty wannabe tyrants.

What else can you call people who openly subvert the will of the people? In Oregon, we’re only finally clearing a legislative battle of almost two years just to try to get folks to register their firearms and create more rigorous background checks. Guess who is holding that law up? You got it. You’re same folks who, somehow, think that doing nothing about an issue is the same thing as doing something about it (yes, that’s exactly as stupid as it sounds).

Do you remember, in the Transformers franchise, when the main villian Megatron died? Well, the many times that Megatron died? I bring this up because right now, the Republican leaders in the House of Representatives share a lot in common with the Decepticons, from their inability to actually function as a team, to their ineptitude when they actually do try to work together. My point here is a simple one though. Every time Megatron died, either he came back to life as himself or as his extremely similar counterpart, Galvatron who was…let’s face it…Megatron with a slightly updated look.

Cue in Kevin McCarthy, the inept leader beholden to MAGA extremists who tried to govern, but couldn’t without Democratic support…

Okay, so that’s not the most elegant headline, but I think we all know who we’re talking about. And the man just can’t seem to keep his mouth shut, can he? 4 different trials, multiple gag orders, and the man keeps on going. But…really? $5,000 gag order to someone whose net worth is in the multiple millions?

Jim Jordan failed once again to get the votes he needs to pick up the speakership. No doubt you’ve heard that by now, as it’s been all over the news cycle. Who’s up next? It’s anybody’s guess. Like the opening salvo’s to the Wars of the Roses—great entertainment if it didn’t have repercussions throughout the entire modern world.

While we laugh (because otherwise we cry) about the situation, beware of two things: 1) they’re no doubt trying to pin this whole debacle on the Democrats, and 2) there’s a very good reason why the difficulties are pestering them, and the Democrats have little to do with it.

Listen and learn with Don, Christina, and Chuck as we work to untangle the web. Three former-Marines, talking politics. That’s it.

Did a ring-tone activate sleepers in the United States? Did Donald Trump win the election? Jewish space lasers? Will the government start brainwashing citizens under the guise of ‘deprogramming’?

Slow down.

Take a breath.

It’s okay.

None of the above, absolutely none of it, are true. These are rumors floated around to see if they work, and they don’t. But these are undeniably claims that people in our country actually believe? Why? Kind of…we asked for it.

The cry for blood cannot be sated with more violence. It only grows.

There can be no winner here. Resist the urge to pick up the flag and rally around one group or the other. This sadness is one of the many rewards for our collective carelessness in the treatment of millions of lives. We have all helped to plant the seeds of hopelessness and despair, and we have watered them with endless inaction and platitudes. Finally, we reap our harvest of sorrows.

Resist the shock, resist the outrage, resist the jingoistic cries of solidarity. What we must do now is steady ourselves, and stand with the innocents. The choices we make now are of the utmost importance. We as the people of the United States have one simple job to do: resist the reductionist outrage. We cannot allow this single event to harden us to the suffering of humans, wherever those humans happen to live. We must keep the conflict in our minds as messy and complicated as it truly is, however much it hurts to do so, and slowly, carefully we as a nation must help to pick up the pieces.

My heart for the people Israel. My heart for the people of Palestine. My heart for the innocents.

What is artificial intelligence? How will it impact the common person? We don’t know. But we will find out. Then there’s the question of when we do, what will that mean? And…will it be too late?

It’s the last question that we’re all interested in. Nobody knows what the reality will be, but we’ve all seen terminator. How long until Skynet? We’re hoping it doesn’t happen, but the long-standing mantra of Site Reliability Engineers everywhere is “hope is not a strategy.” Learn more about AI and potential implications in this episode of Right and Freedom.

The “shell game” is a standby in movies featuring someone deceitful. And why shouldn’t it be? The game features the dealer, who places a ball (ostensibly) beneath a cup and then shuffles the cups around. One generally has a 0.33 chance of finding the ball under the cup—with a fair dealer. But all too often, the dealer isn’t fair and manages to palm the ball before shuffling begins. This means the player has a 0.00 chance of finding the ball under any cup.

But at Right and Freedom, we deal in politics, not games of chance. So why mention cups? Well, if you look at it a different way, a crooked dealer’s only job is to convince the player that the ball exists under the cups that they are shuffling around. Just like…wait for it…the evidence required to impeach Joe Biden. In this context, McCarthy is the dealer, and you, the American people, are the patsies…I mean players. And right now, McCarthy and the Republicans are doing what the crooked dealer does: try to convince you that evidence is there when, in fact, it’s not.

The idea that religion or belief in religion makes someone a good person is nonsense. There, we said it. It’s like boozers or potheads. Whether someone drinks too much or smokes too much weed isn’t what makes them a good or bad person. What makes a good or bad person is how people treat each other. That’s it. Nobody, religious or otherwise, has a monopoly on goodness. It’s just not a thing that’s true. How we treat each other, and how we take care of others as well as ourselves, is the measure of the goodness in humanity, and right now, a lot of folks are ticking boxes in the ‘not good’ category.

A lot of folks now are rightly irritated at the fact that the rich in this country seem to just keep getting richer, and the rest of us…barely getting by. But they earned that money, right? Sure, pal. While driving on our roads, and polluting our air, and destroying our climate. And what do they pay for that? If their money is tied up in investments, not a red cent. Investments are only taxed when money goes in or comes out. The vast majority of billionaire wealth is tied up in investments, and very little of it is actually taxable.

In the hundreds in Texas, in the nineties in Oregon, and in the nineties on the East Coast. The hosts of Right and Freedom are hot and bothered—and not in a good way. In this pod-isode, we discuss the overwhelming mountain of evidence that there is about climate change. But wait…there’s more! It wouldn’t be a Right and Freedom Podcast without some mention of the deplorables and those who follow MTG (and not Magic the Gathering, unfortunately). It turns out one of our very good friends has been brainwashed apparently and now is…get this…quoting MTG as an expert. On what? Listen and find out, but be assured, she’s not an expert. But “she’s an elected politician so she knows things we can’t.”

The American experiment ends with a hostile takeover, and because of this, every Congress for the last few decades has approved the NDAA. So what’s changed? The myopic and so-called Freedom Caucus has decided that we don’t need the NDAA as much as we need to make sure that there’s no freeloading on the government’s dime.

You may not know that I am an author. I write under the name Andrew Sweet (mostly my real name) and I have published multiple science fiction novels. I’m coming to you this time as a person, speaking one human to another, about what happened to a friend of mine. We often talk about gun violence during our podcast. This is one area where something like 80% (rounded) of Americans agree in common-sense gun legislation, but the Republican Party, to name names, consistently prevent gun legislation from being considered. They claim the 2nd Amendment, but we know better, don’t we?

Shoot migrants in the legs, or build an alligator moat. Remember when the truth of what Trump was saying in the oval office came out? In the book The Room Where It Happened, John Bolton shocked the world with his reveal that Trump actually was considering using the federal government to shoot migrants in the legs (as stated). We reeled from the idea of the alligator moat, that one human being would consider doing that to another. Donald Trump’s got nothing on Greg Abbott.