Do you want to fleece people out of their hard-earned life savings? To do it right, you’d have to take notes from the best: Steve Bannon. This guy “earned” millions just by telling one little white lie: we’re going to build you a wall. Then he kicked off a GoFundMe and sat back to cash in the checks. Literally, the only people better at fleecing a nation are the decorative royal family of England.

Don’t get me wrong. Queen Elizabeth has spent her life lending what influence the crown still has in an effort to make this world a better place. But here in America, when a family gets paid for doing nothing for generations, their last name had better be either Kardashian or Trump.

This brings us back to Bannon. Why are we celebrating Bannon on Right and Freedom? Well, there’s a bit of snark in there, but it’s hard to argue his track record. When’s the last time you got a wholly unqualified man elected president and then fleeced the people who helped get you there, while at the same time winning undying loyalty from people you wouldn’t let into your house?

Trump would be nothing without Bannon. And we all need to take notice of the man behind the curtain — especially when the cards are starting to fall.

This ought to be interesting…

I was raised like my co-host Don down in Texas: when you owe money, you pay it back. Here’s the thing though. In my childhood, we all looked out for each other and we all were in debt up to our eyeballs working two or three jobs to pay those debts and put food on the table. And when we helped each other out, did we ask for payment? No. Not a single time do I recall my father asking for money when my cousin and aunt moved in. And you’ve probably heard me mention on the podcast before that my father (n-th generation Texan) always carried around extra cash when he could so that he could give to people who were worse off than we were.

So I say let the loans go. The lenders aren’t going to go broke (because they’ve been rolling in interest payments for decades by now). And really, every dollar that’s tied up in loans is a dollar that’s not circulating within our wider community.

Like we’ve said time and time again on this podcast: it turns out that doing the right thing also helps build our community and make us stronger and safer. Want the details on how reducing student loan debt helps our wider community? Listen to this podcast.

It’s a hard thing to say that sometimes, just sometimes, our ideological stances work against us. The good news? We control our ideologies. I pay my debts on time, but what I no longer do is begrudge someone who can’t. Especially when working in a system that seems designed to make them fail.

Donald Trump is very upset about the “raid” at Mar-A-Lago. Well, I mean, nobody fast-roped from helicopters or blew down the door to rush in like a Liam Neeson movie. And it wasn’t actually a surprise as the FBI had asked for the documents they were seeking months before. And they did deliver a signed warrant by a federal judge before entering the premises and conducting a thorough search.

So, not a raid at all, really. More of a perfectly legal search of the home of someone who is no longer president yet somehow wanted to keep over 20 boxes of classified documents.

Why would he have twenty boxes of classified documents? What could he possibly have wanted those for after leaving the presidency?

We cover all of this and more in this new podcast episode: Episode 25 — If It Quacks Like A Traitor…

As an environmental package finally has a chance at passing in the Senate through reconciliation, temperatures exceeding 100 degrees in Texas are likely to last until September. Oregon is seeing a stretch of hot days keeping San Antonion in competition, and fires burn in California. Globally, southern France and Spain are on fire as well and scorching temperatures are killing people across England. China and India are questioning why they should contribute to reducing climate change impacts if America won’t.

Meanwhile, a new political party is starting in America. Is that a good thing? A bad thing?

As an environmental package finally has a chance at passing in the Senate through reconciliation, temperatures exceeding 100 degrees in Texas are likely to last until September. Oregon is seeing a stretch of hot days keeping San Antonion in competition, and fires burn in California. Globally, southern France and Spain are on fire as well and scorching temperatures are killing people across England. China and India are questioning why they should contribute to reducing climate change impacts if America won’t.

But American Exceptionalism, amirite?

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The constitution is a dry document for the most part. It sets the procedures and rules for governing these United States. One way to look at it is that the constitution is the law, but the spirit of the law is enshrined in this pre-amble. It says right there why our rights exist, and if the rules — or the text of the constitution — cause us to move away from the nation described above, then those rules are being interpreted incorrectly. All laws have limits, as do rights, and where those limits should be is defined in the opening paragraph of the Constitution.

Gun rights? Have limits. Free speech? Has limits. Free religion? Has limits. The truth of the matter is that there are already limits, and those limits should be enforced. This episode touches on the topic of school shootings, church influence in politics, and so much more.

Do you ever wonder why we can’t seem to get this immigration thing sorted? Well, one huge clue might have to be that the majority of one political party (yes, GOP) has been espousing White Replacement Theory. During this episode, Chuck and Christina discuss some of the ins and outs of WRT, and some of the routine mistakes we make with regard to immigration that prevent the integration of our communities and allow BS stereotypes to continue to gain traction.

In this episode, we talk about White Replacement Theory and the people that bring it to you. There are some things that we have to consider. The backslide to authoritarianism is in full swing, book burnings abound, and disinformation streams like water from the GOP.

How do we fix it?

Well, voting. But it can't just be voting. Listen to this episode to understand the extent of the damage across the United States. We need to re-focus on local and state politics and get those friends and neighbors of ours engaged. A lot of people don't know what's happening in this country, and that's by design. Let's do something about it!

A new Supreme Court justice candidate is being reviewed for the court, and some will tell you that they can't vote for her for various reasons. But if you pay attention, then you know that Ketanji Brown Jackson is more qualified by a mile than any of the recent Supreme Court justices at the time of their adding to the court.

Why the complaints then?

Simple. It's about power. More bluntly its because these politicians are grandstanding for their increasingly radicalized bases. And all of that stems from one source: uncontestable voting districts.

Don takes a week off so join us as Christina and Chuck wade through the murky waters of Supreme Court appointments.