We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

-Elie Wiessel

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin(Wagner Group Leader) and Valery Gerasimov (leader of Russian Armed Forces) walk into a Moscow…

Okay, okay. Maybe it’s funny, maybe it’s not. But we think it’s absolutely hilarious to watch the dirty laundry of Russia aired all over the global news networks. And it gives us hope that Ukraine’s counter-offensive will end with much greater success. Infighting is one of the best ways to defeat an enemy—as we all know when we watch the Republican party groveling at the feet of a foreign dictator.

This week, with heat index, it was over a hundred and seventeen degrees in San Antonio, Texas. The Atlantic ocean is up over 4 degrees in the last year. All signs point to these changes being man-made, and yet, governments have comprehensively failed to do enough to contain the problem. Cue individual action. In Montana, a group of 18-22 year-olds have just finished their courtroom appearance in order to force Montana to regulate their emissions. The kids argument? Montana is killing our future by not requiring environmental impact studies for their fossil fuel projects. Montana’s argument? In a nutshell, it’s too hard.

We have in the USA this obsession with the charismatic extroverts who have often times questionable qualifications for for leading a country (i.e. Donald Trump). We keep electing these people repeatedly, act appalled that they don’t actually do what they say (ahem, where’s the infrastructure plan DJT said he would deliver?). Now, across-the-board among Republicans, these people blindly love Donald Trump. They claim he’s a Christian (if he is, he’s certainly never acted like one). They claim he’s a man who knows how to get stuff done (I guess if you count tax cuts for the wealthy, then ok). It’s gotten so bad in some red states and areas that preachers openly say that if you are a Democrat, you’ve got a demon inside and they're kicking Democrats out of churches.

This episode is about cults. More specifically, it’s about one cult: the cult of MAGA. Tune in and understand that the radicalization situation is worse than you think.

This week, the House Republicans decided to pass a law Rules issued by the executive branch concerning more than $100 million must get reviewed by the legislative branch. Though unlikely to pass the Senate, this performative legislation is problematic in multiple ways. For one thing, it’s a clear overreach of constitutional authority for the law-making branch to interfere with the executive branch’s operations. If Congress want money to be used in a certain way, then it should say so in the bills as passed. But there’s a second, more nefarious, possibility.

Almost every episode of Right and Freedom, we start out by talking about climate change. You know our views: as humans, we are creating climate change together and we should be solving it together.

On the west coast, unprecedented heat waves are killing people. On the south coast, hurricanes are getting more powerful due to the intake of hot water. On the east coast, this week smoke from the Canadian wildfires made New York look like something out of an apocalyptic movie.

And yet we have representatives in Congress right now who just tried to force the white house to undo the renewable energy parts of the infrastructure bill. Why?

It seems lately that there has been a push to get parents more involved in their classroom activities. More involved parents lead to more successful students, so in that regard, good. However, should parents have the last say in what their children learn about?

That’s an emphatic no.

Texas literally translates to “friend.” And it used to be friendly, before the Republicans got hold of it and spent their time demonizing others to hold to the power they couldn’t keep if they didn’t gerrymander the hell out of the state. It can live up to its name if the people there (many are relatives and friends of Right and Freedom hosts) got off the bench. Because while you weren’t paying attention, here’s what’s been going on…

We don't really think anyone is going to take the nomination from Donald Trump, which is a sad thing to say about the Republican Party who back him. Even with DeSantis in the wings, who has old-guard Republicans blowing smoke in his ear, not even MAGA will back him. To be clear, it’s not because he’s too extreme, but because Trump told them not to. DeSantis is kind of losing on all fronts right now anyway. So who’s the next proposed divider-in-chief, courtesy of the Republican Party? The next person to rise on the right will have to come through Donald Trump and a MAGA crowning ceremony.

Tangentially related, we need a lot more infrastructure or laws that help protect us as a society. What MAGA has done is highlight the fact that decorum used to be enough to run this country. Once we we the people that actually majority of people get power back we need to do some serious seriously thinking about how things are going, and put whatever laws in place we need to in order to keep people like Trump on a short leash.

And that’s sad.

70% of our inflation is Corporate greed right now. That’s a swag number, but it’s not us saying so—it’s economists. The u.s. economy is at a point where corporate greed is a leading factor driving the pain we’re seeing, but some would like you to believe that it’s in the hands of politicians.

It’s a misdirect. There are people right now that can't get a minimum-wage job or at just one, anyway. They have to have multiple. And here we are, talking about not paying what the constitution (by amendment) says we must. And I quote from the Economist magazine:

Section 4 of the 14th Amendment says the “validity” of America's “public debt…shall not be questioned”. The clause was born of a concern that members of Congress from southern states might refuse to repay Civil War debts incurred in fighting the Confederacy.

How does that relate to inflation and minimum wage? Well, according to the Wall Street Journal, merely the standoff could start a global recession, and we all know how it goes. It ain’t gonna be the folks at the top who bear the brunt of it. Older people and poorer people, some working two or three jobs to make ends meet, are going to suffer when the global economy goes belly-up. We're already a country where people can't take vacations, and even on their vacation time they still work. Here’s the kicker: the debt ceiling was raised three times under the previous president without any caveats. We’re just a bunch of former Marines, but we kind of think we should fix the debt ceiling first, and once it’s cleared, then we start negotiating new spending.

Because doing it this way not only appears to be unconstitutional, but it’s going to literally get people killed.

Does your household work the same as the national budget? We try to make comparisons for simplicity’s purpose, but no, that’s a different beast. Unless you have the authority to print your own money, there’s little overlap there. But the little that does overlap? That’s hammered on in the media and by any political power.

Five million dollars. That’s how much money E. Jean Carroll was awarded by a jury in her civil suit. They stopped just short of calling what Donald J. Trump did to her rape, only on a technicality: she wasn’t watching what he used to penetrate her. That’s right, that’s your former president right there, grabbing women by the…well, you know. But maybe he changed, right? It’s been over twenty years. Perhaps he really has “found god” and decided to treat people with courtesy, respect, and…yeah, right.

So the murder rate is spiking across the country. This isn’t disputable, and has been reported across most major news sources. And it’s not specific to big cities (sorry to kill that talking point for you). The fact is, everywhere the rate is up. Partially it’s because of the pandemic, experts think. But there are other reasons. One is the gun ownership rate is spiking as well (nothing like it was before the assault weapon’s ban).

What’s more troubling?

The unsolved murder rate is spiking as well. What does that mean? Well, it means that police (who largely have the majority of local budgets) are not solving crimes. Whether this intentional or not (I have my ideas on this), this is impacting us nationally. Believe it or not, police departments are not held to the Protect and Serve standard.

In yet another case of unfounded American exceptionalism, it turns out that our “solved murder rate”, hovering somewhere around 50%, is eclipsed by the same metric in Germany (90+%).

You know what’s wrong in the United States and why crime rates have gone up? If you listen to a certain person in a certain political party, then the answer you get is simple: need more public executions. But this is from the same person who says that the southern border has been “abolished.” What does it mean to abolish a border?

We don’t know.

What we do know is that every week almost someone slated for the death penalty is found to be innocent, even as others are killed by the state. Further, what’s up with Texas? The ten commandments in the classrooms isn’t enough to fix the murder problem in the state? Banning all those books (more than Florida, it’s just not covered as much because of course Texas is banning books) didn’t help fix the problem?

But where goes Trump (damn, I said it), there goes the Republican party. Remember in 2019 when the Republicans were leading getting rid of the death penalty? Yes, that was real. And that’s from the Wall Street Journal—hardly a bastion of liberal ideas. Where’s the Republican party now?

I can’t recognize them anymore.

So what’s the negotiation in the debt ceiling that the republicans want? They want to undo student loan forgiveness, stop advances on climate change, and then it’s “drill, baby, drill.” It’s their own special gift to the energy industry (remember? the same energy industry that lied to the American people about climate change). The Republicans are lying about what energy independence looks like, and the impact of the work that they do.

So if you’re thinking about Earth Day, this is the exact oppposite of Earth Day. The Republican strategy is to bring the world to the brink of economic ruin in order to bring the world to the brink of climate change destruction. Are they saying this? No, not at all. It’s all upside for them anyway. If they manage to tank the world economy while Biden is in charge, then we Americans with our short memories will forget and then elect the very perpetrators of the problem.

That’s only the start of this episode. Then we discuss everyone’s favorite topic: reparations. And what’s that for?

The House Republicans want to use the debt limit, yet again, as a renegotiation tactic to get some things done. What are they interested in getting done? Well, here’s a little list (as covered in the Roll Call periodical). Republicans are pushing to make food stamp work requirements harder to get (great way to stick it to the…wait, poor people who can’t afford to eat?). And in other “news” Fox News has started reporting on gun control in a different way. Now they’re actually challenging lawmakers who suggest that gun violence is unavoidable and is a problem specific to larger cities.

This last series of unprompted shootings must have had an impact, maybe? Or perhaps it was the multi-million dollar settlement and the queue of lawsuits Fox still has ahead? I know which one I’m going with.

So if even Fox News can get it right sometimes, where are the Republicans focusing their energy? Is it common-sense gun reform? No, of course not. They’re going after perpetrators of victimless “crimes” like loving someone they’re “not supposed to.” And the cost of their misdirection?

Don said it exactly right. The misdirection and lies are perpetuating useless legislation (my words) “at the expense of our young people’s lives.” (Don’s words).

Something’s rotten in Tennessee.

Is it the ultra-conservative deeply-entrenched highly-gerrymandered state legislators? Well, yeah, actually. As it turns out, just after a Nashville shooting (yes, another mass shooting), three legislators protested along with many constituents. Then, the Republican supermajority has kicked two of them out of Congress, which means they’ll have to re-run for their seats.

So what’s going on? Well, the shooting happened in Nashville, which has always been a democratic island in the state. The supermajority have been targeting Nashville’s liberal leadership by redistricting, and Nashville has been sending people to the legislature for quite a long time who have been…inconvenient…for a culture of guns, guns, guns. What happens next? Probably the representatives will be reinstated (at this time, one of them has been), but they’re still up for special election. And they’ve been removed from committee.

If this looks like a power play, it is. The protest may have been loud (there were megaphones), but it was peaceful, and yet Republicans are comparing it to the January 6th Insurrection.

Equivocation.

Again.

Is anyone surprised this is from the Republicans?

Not when you’re a Supreme Court Justice. Want to go palling around with Republican Mega-donors? Be our guests. Want to be involved in an insurrection yet also weigh in on the legality of it? Go for it. When you’re a Supreme Court Justice, there is no ethics clause. And better than anything, the only way people can get rid of you? The same exact rules in play for the President. The House of Representatives must impeach, and then the Senate would have to expel.

In case you’re not aware, Justice Clarence Thomas is the one who basically said that nobody told him he couldn’t, so he went for it. Multiple excursions with his G.O.P. mega-donor “friend.” It’s correct to be concerned about it.

What can we do about it? Vote. The only way to fix that problem is to shore the House of Representatives up with someone other than the G.O.P. extremists (you know who they are) led by a weak Kevin McCarthy, who can’t lead people out of a paper bag. Get rid of those people, and we can have some semblance of honor.