Best of The Program | Guests: Dave Rubin & Brandon Michon | 1/28/21

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Great, great podcast today.

You don't want to miss a second of it.

We start again with the great reset and what's happening in Washington, including the DHS alert for domestic terror.

We haven't had one of those

since we took out Solimani.

Now they won't say what it's for.

We talk about that.

A lot of time spent on the ins and outs of GameStop, what's really going on, and how this is really not good for people who already feel disenfranchised you don't want to miss a second of today's show all happening right here right now

you're listening to the best of the benefici program

So, geez,

where do we even start today?

American airlines, meaning the airlines of America, are now banning people flying with locked firearms

into the Baltimore, Washington area.

I know that American airlines, I flew Delta just recently, and I took my gun apart, you know, told them that it was in the luggage, it was locked, it was in a case, there were no

ammunition.

It's what the

Department of Homeland Security insists on.

So fine, I follow the rules.

Put it in, usually you just get a tag and then, you know, Department of Homeland Security

goes through it and you get a little note.

Okay, great, I got it.

That's the usual process.

That's the process I got on Delta.

When I flew back, I flew on American Airlines.

Oh,

well, this is a different process.

Now American, and this was new,

at least to me, now American has

a new thing because they just want to make sure that your gun's not lost.

Well, whose fault would that be?

I've handed it to you.

It'd be your fault.

So it has to go through all the way

through the screening process downstairs in the bowels of the airport and head on its way to the airline before you can go through security yourself.

So you sit there for, I sat there for 45 minutes waiting before I could even get in line for security.

And

why?

I personally believe.

What good does that do?

It makes it such a hassle

that you're not going to do it.

That's exactly right.

That's what's coming our way is they're just going to keep making things more expensive, more difficult, a bigger hassle.

It's choice structure.

It's Cass Sunstein and his choice structure.

You've got a choice.

You can carry it, but you're not going to want to.

Right.

You're not going to want to.

I'm going to nudge you a little bit.

It's just you don't.

Yeah, just a little bit.

Just a little bit.

Patrick,

what is the thing that

you saw today that you thought I

have got to get this point across?

Wow, well, there were several.

I love the Department of Homeland Security's new situation with the domestic terror threat that only involves people on the right, of course.

Well, no, no, they didn't say that.

No, no, they didn't say that, but that's what it is.

Problems with immigration,

problems with the election, right?

Problems with

the system,

maybe problems with the COVID

orders.

Yes.

And I, you know, this is all based on the fact that they have no specific actionable information.

None.

None.

None.

Otherwise, what would happen?

They would raise the threat level.

So they've got no actual actionable threat threat involved here, yet they just want to throw out that, hey, everybody on the right is a problem now and a potential domestic terrorist.

I think it's absolutely despicable what they're doing.

Did you hear about the guy in Florida that the Justice Department

had a Homeland Security

arrest yesterday?

A man in Florida was arrested for, quote, depriving individuals of their constitutional right to vote.

Yeah.

Now, he showed up at a polling place with an AR and a chainsaw.

So, I mean, I think the dude should be arrested.

That's not what happened.

That's not what happened?

No.

He didn't.

He just an AR?

He did nothing like either of those things.

Well, that's right.

No.

Oh, what did he?

Oh, he probably went with like the white panthers and just intimidated people.

No, he didn't do that at all.

There's a story that's similar to that.

I should tell you sometime.

Yeah.

No, that's not what happened.

What did he do?

I made some memes.

He what?

He made some memes.

You mean little picture jokes?

Like little picture jokes on the internet.

Yeah, maybe.

On the internet.

Well, that's where I see memes.

What were the memes?

I don't know all the memes.

I know that the guy, you know, wasn't exactly someone you'd maybe want to invite over for a wonderful dinner with your family.

May I say out of the 350 million Americans, there's about 349 million I'm pretty sure I probably wouldn't want to invite over to my house.

That's about right.

Maybe Maybe a little higher.

Yeah, maybe a little higher than that, but I'm just being generous.

Right, yeah.

But the idea that he committed a crime by making memes

seems like that's there's a free speech issue there.

No, no.

Because there's a law that says you can't stop people from voting.

Those memes

told people to vote by text message,

which you can't do.

And so a lot of people believed that, apparently.

No.

Now, no, no, no.

Nobody believed it.

No, they've been investigating this for four

years.

This isn't something that happened in the last election.

This is 2016.

2016.

Why did they suddenly just, did they suddenly have a case?

Why did they...

I'm going to guess it has something to do with the new administration.

I'm just going to throw that out there as a possibility.

You know, these files were kind of sticking around and everyone was like, this is dumb.

Should we really do anything with this?

No.

Is this a warning shot?

This coupled with a TSA yesterday, or not TSA, but the DHS memos describing domestic terrorists.

And then this guy for a meme getting arrested?

What message are we supposed to take from that?

Don't do memes.

Dude, never memes.

Never meme.

I've told my son, don't you?

He sent me a meme that he made the other day.

And I'm like, don't, don't, don't.

And he dad, it's harmless.

No, it's not.

Nothing is harmless anymore.

Don't.

No memes.

Nothing.

I'm going to cut all of your fingers off because then you can't type anything.

Stop it.

That might create a minor legal issue for you if you were to do something like that.

It was a lawnmower accident, Your Honor.

I swear to you.

And they'll say, no way this kid was ever mowing your lawn.

But no memes, no tweets, nothing.

No social media.

It would be a really, really good safety tip for all kids for all people for all people all people everybody well we you know what it would be it would be a nation of pat grays and that would be a good nation that would be a good

freaking nation right we'd have no social media and lots of great cookies thank you that's a good freaking nation right there yes yes it is i can't live without it

i can't live without it without the memes and the tweets i can't i can't yes you can you can you can you can and it's really easy actually yeah really easy because you i would say my excuse is you know, I got to do it for work.

You somehow don't do it.

Don't even do it.

No.

And you still survive, which is amazing.

Right.

Yep.

I envy you.

Yep.

I just, I don't, I mean, it's, it's, it's not what people make it out to be.

Can we, can we, it's not that important.

Can we talk about another freedom of speech issue that I think is freedom of speech?

Uh, and that is the GameStop thing.

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

So that's pretty amazing.

So

GameStop is a company.

It's a brick-and-mortar gaming store.

Okay.

You got to go

video games.

Right.

And most of them are in the mall.

Okay.

Yeah.

I know.

I've gone to some of them with my son.

All right.

So.

Oh, I have a nine-year-old, so I'm there 14 times a week.

Right.

Okay.

So there is a business there, but a brick-and-mortar business?

I don't know.

Well, the market, the hedge funds, decided that there's no business there.

And so they started shorting, betting against GameStop, if you will that's what shorting means on in wall street betting against it saying that the stock is going to go lower and lower well somebody on reddit realized uh

the hedge funds have just sold 136 percent of the stock there's no way there's no way these guys can win how i mean yeah how do you sell more than all of the stock correct you can't you can't so they decided uh somebody said i'm gonna buy it i'm buying fifty thousand dollars of it.

And everybody else, and it's on Reddit.

It was an open forum.

Everybody else should buy it too.

Well, I think he decided to buy a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of it.

Oh, was it?

It started, I think, with 50.

Okay.

But he may have bought a lot more.

He was buying it.

He kept buying it.

He bought a ton of it.

It's not Chamoth, is it?

Yes.

Is that who did this?

He was not the originator of this.

He might not be the originator, but he wound up buying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of.

He's given it away to charity now, which I think is kind of a correct.

He made $500,000.

Yeah.

I can't tell you the name of the actual originator because the word F, the F-word is in the middle of the day.

All right.

So all these guys were doing, really, is what hedge fund managers do over lunch.

Right.

Okay.

Right.

In secret meetings.

That's what they do.

Yeah.

And call them idea dinners.

Right.

So you...

You ran a GameStop-up, which is costing these hedge funds,

what, billions or a billion dollars?

Is it over $1 $1 billion?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think

it is more than that.

It's going to take down a couple of these hedge funds.

I'm telling you right now, I think this is the Bubba effect.

It is.

Yeah.

This is people who said, you know, these guys who are on Reddit, they're probably in their 20s.

They probably grew up at 2008.

They saw their parents get screwed.

And then what happened?

Then what happened?

They didn't get a bailout.

Then the Wall Street guys get rich, even though they were the ones that over-leveraged everything.

Main Street gets screwed.

Then what happens?

Now they're in their 20s.

Maybe their parents survived last time, but if they have a small business, now they're getting screwed by the government again, and the government's going to bail them out.

Yeah.

I think this is just the chickens coming home to roost.

I think these guys saw a legal way to make some money and screw the hedge funds at the same time.

And what's happening?

They're silencing them.

They're going to come out.

You don't lose a billion dollars and be that connected and don't have your friends in Washington come after, which is going to make the situation worse.

Meanwhile, GameStop stock went from about 15 bucks to over 300.

I have to tell you,

I hope that they've had a way to pull some of that money off of the table because they've been struggling.

But

if they can reinvent themselves using this money, that's a blessing for them.

It's a good Texas company and good Texas people.

And they're located very close to our studios.

And they're armed, so please help us.

They're not armed.

Oh, they're not?

No.

I thought there were some of those.

They're in Texas.

They must be.

Yeah, they're extremists if they're a Texas company.

Yeah, by the way, it's up now to 385.

385.

I mean, it was $4 a share last year.

And the reason why these guys in the hedge funds can't get out is they can't, well, you have 140%.

They have to keep buying the spread.

They said it was going to go down to $2.

They have to keep buying

every single

stock, if you will.

And now they're borrowing all of this money to do it.

And I can't even imagine.

I mean, they certainly think

in the

forum, the subreddit, Wall Street Bets, they think it's going to at least 2,000.

I don't know if it's going to be a good thing.

Oh my gosh,

I have no idea.

I'm not getting involved in it.

No way.

Wow.

No.

But I mean, they can't even do anything with it now.

They're saying that places, sites like Robin Hood and several of the other trading apps,

they're not even letting you trade the stock anymore.

You can sell it, but you can't buy it.

Jeez.

Now, I think people are really pissed off, and they're saying, wait a minute.

Well, how do these lawmakers who are doing this, these lawmakers go in with insider trading and become millionaires.

And

you're not going to let Main Street do legal stuff and out in the open say, hey, I think we should all buy this.

I mean, I just think that is really wrong.

Pat, thank you so much.

Pat Gray from Pat Gray Unleashed, the podcast that you can hear on Blaze TV or wherever you get your podcast.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Dave Rubin,

Blaze TV host, The Rubin Report, wildly popular.

Author, don't burn this book.

Many people haven't.

Some have.

And welcome to the program, Dave.

How are you?

Glenn, it's good to be with you.

You know, in your promo there for me a minute ago, I realized that coming to a free state, when you leave California,

the way you talk about me, the way you look at me is as if I've escaped some sort of zombie apocalypse.

And it's actually not that far from the truth.

I pretty much escaped

the gates of hell.

I said that because the last time you were here, we went out to dinner and you were, you like walked into the city.

I couldn't believe it.

Yeah, you walked into the restaurant like,

I think, are we getting away with this?

Are the police coming?

You said

all these people are having, and I didn't even think anything of that.

Yeah, you were there before me.

You were sitting at the table already.

You were doing a little reading, looked very happy.

Yeah.

You know, had your water.

You were good.

I got in there.

I mean, I couldn't believe it.

Because that's how quickly they can change the world on you.

That's what I'm really focused on right now.

How quickly they can change the world.

In that one year ago, right now, we had, you know, there were a few people talking a little bit about, oh, there's this thing in China, this COVID thing in China, something's going on.

But basically,

10 months ago is when this all started.

And think how drastically different the world is

in 10 months, the entire world, everything from our entire economic system to the way we literally leave our house or don't leave our house, the way we communicate with each other, the way that big tech, which was already remarkably powerful, the way that it's become more powerful because it's becoming basically the only way we can communicate with each other.

That rapid thing that has happened to us in less than a year, I'm completely fascinated by it because it's like, man, if you think, you know, a lot of people were like, oh, 2020 is over.

We're resetting now.

It's not the great reset, although that's coming too.

But a lot of people are like, oh, 2021, it'll settle in now.

No, we got Biden, everything will be back to normal.

And it's like, man.

So I want to ask you about two things.

I want to ask you about what your liberal friends are saying about Biden now in California.

But first, let's before we leave COVID,

Gavin Newsom, all of a sudden, hey, found Jesus.

And he was like, we've all been healed.

And

is opened outdoor dining.

Yeah.

And next week, maybe some additional openings.

What was the religion he found?

It's an abject load of BS.

This guy is the worst.

When you think about what the worst sort of elitist politician who wants to live one way and have their minions live another way, it is, he is the poster boy.

You know what I mean?

You know the whole French laundry story.

I mean, 22 people went out to dinner, not social distancing, no masks, $15,000 in alcohol.

I know you don't drink, Glenn.

Holy cow, that's a lot of alcohol.

And I listen, you know, I like wine, but that's $15,000 for 22 people.

Okay, so that's about 750 bucks in alcohol per person, not even the meal.

Okay.

Wow.

Look, look, it's just obvious what this guy has done, which is that this thing was political.

These lockdowns were political.

They wanted to take out Trump.

If the lockdowns made any sense, then the numbers in Florida and Texas would be exponentially higher than in places like New York and California.

And the simple truth is not only are they not, in many cases, they're actually less.

It's just that simple.

Like if you told me lockdowns work, all right, well, let's look at it.

We got a lockdown place.

We got an open place.

It's as simple as that.

And I've been to, I'm here in Texas and I've been to Florida.

And guess what?

A lot of happy people.

You can see people smiling and going out and business as usual.

Well, it's not business as usual.

To us,

what's happening in Texas is draconian.

Yeah.

I mean, we don't like what's happening in the future.

Right, so not Texas.

Of course, not business as usual in that sense.

I'm at the hotel now and I still have to wear a mask and that sort of thing.

But relative.

Relative to you and where you're living.

So

is this because the election is over or is this because the recall Gavin movement is actually

probably going to happen?

I think it's both.

It's one is they got the result they wanted.

So the people that are all about unity now and everything else is like, well, we got what we want, so it's time to heal and unify, which, of course, we know if they didn't get what they want, you think they'd be talking about unity and healing.

And if we suddenly were like, okay, unity and healing, they'd be saying, wait a minute, the white supremacists are in charge of everything.

So that's one level of it.

I think the other level is that he's really worried.

I mean, I think from what I understand, they have about 1.3 of the 1.5 million signatures.

They want 1.8.

They want 1.8 because they know there'll be all sorts of games played.

And as I was telling you during the break, you know, you have to sign its hand signatures, so you can't do it online.

So they also keep you locked in your house.

So it's harder to even find a place where you can go and sign the thing.

It's amazing they've got that this far in the middle of the shutdown.

I mean, it's incredible that they're this close with all of the rules to

everybody could vote, they just send ballots out, that's fine.

But to recall one of these Crete news.

Right, you can't do that.

It's strange they don't do the recalls by

nothing ballot.

I do think he will get recalled.

And what I would pray for is that somebody sane, maybe a Rick Rinnell who

is from SoCal and was in the Trump administration and was our ambassador to Germany and he's a great guy.

He's a really great guy.

And a fighter because you're going to need, it's not just that you need someone to come in and be a little saner than Newsom.

The machine, when people talk about the swamp and the D.C.

machine and all that, the California machine is like, I mean, this is a one-party state of the extreme.

extreme level.

So it's not just you recall him and then suddenly things get better.

So what do your liberal friends, I mean, because they've got kids too, they've got to be seeing the deterioration of their kids over a year.

Is anybody talking about like these labor unions

for schools?

What the hell are you doing?

They don't want to go back to school.

Right.

And now Biden's telling them not to go back to school.

I mean, it's actually crazy.

Again, it was 10 months ago, almost a year ago, two weeks to flatten the curve.

Yesterday, Biden's telling us about a hundred-day federal mask mandate.

But this is what I mean.

Things are changing so quickly that we're forgetting what last week was like.

The internet has done something something to our brains, and Twitter and the endless news feed and the whole thing that we talk about all the time is doing something so that things happen so fast that, you know, when George Orwell wrote about the, you know, things getting put into the memory hole, Trump will be memory hold.

Oh, yeah.

All of the, all of the things that have happened over the years that don't fit the narrative will be memory holed.

We forget.

So suddenly you're like, oh, well, why not?

100 more days of masks and 100 more days of this.

And okay.

And then guess what?

In 100 days, they'll say, oh, you know, we just, now the UK strain actually morphed with the Brazilian strain right and I'm sorry but you're gonna have to live underground for three years and people will go okay I mean I had it I was I don't think so you know the the people in where is it we're not going underground that would be nice oh yeah no they're revolting yeah they're revolting Sweden the Swedes I know I mean they don't do that no and if the Swedes are starting to stand up against their government

you've got something going on in the world something big going on you know I was in Sweden a couple years ago and I was on a tour with Jordan Peterson.

And one of the things in, have you been to Sweden?

Yeah, I love it.

Yeah.

I mean, one of the things that's remarkable about Sweden is, especially here in the Stockholm area, it's so clean.

Everyone looks perfect.

They all look like they walked out of magazine.

Everyone looks like they just bought their clothes that morning.

So these are people, to your point, that are kind of satisfied with life.

So the idea that you've got the people of Sweden now, and we're seeing this through a couple of the Nordic countries, I think it's happening in Denmark too.

That you have these people now revolting.

How far can you push people?

And we're being pushed in every way.

I heard you guys talking about the GameStop thing.

Everyone, so the average person that's now getting in the game is now being told they can't get in the game.

And you're locked in your house.

And big tech might take you out.

The great reset yesterday, we were talking about

how

they say that you're going to have skin in the game because it's stakeholder capitalism.

Okay.

And when you dig into it and you're like, okay, they say you're going to be a part of it.

You're going to get the benefits of it.

And finally, you'll get the benefits.

How do you get the benefits?

I'm not at the table.

I'm not even in Davos.

You won't even really show me everything that's going on.

And you're certainly not asking me for my opinion.

Well, they say, because your representative government

is in place of you.

Glenn, you know,

when somebody tells you how good of a friend they are all the time,

that pretty much means they're not a good friend.

That's pretty much what these people are doing.

When they're always, we're looking out for you.

I know.

You're not going to own anything, but you'll be taken care of.

We're going to give you universal basic income.

We're going to make your life better.

No, it's so fundamentally the opposite of what anyone liberty-minded should think, which is just that just give me a chance to live and get out of my way.

That's all I ask for.

That is all I ask for.

I think that's what most of your listeners want in life is just the opportunity.

It's the American dream.

Give me a chance to play in the game.

And now the system is saying no.

We back in

FDR's day, they perverted the American dream and they made it a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.

That's not the American dream.

The American dream was just leave me alone so I can make my own way.

This was the only place in the world you could do it.

And now we are worse than some countries over in Europe.

It is harder to do things here in America.

We've lost a lot of our liberty.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

All right,

I want to play this audio from a parent in Virginia who has been going to his school board over and over and over again, calmly saying, stop it.

We have to have a plan to open the schools.

Here's what happened this week, and it just went viral.

risk from this virus.

The garbage workers who pick up my freaking trash risk their lives every day

more than anyone in this school system.

Figure it out or get off the podium because you know what?

There are people like me and a lot of other people out there who will gladly take your seat and figure it out.

It's not a high bar.

Raise the freaking bar.

Now, as he was walking out, one of the school board members, and I want to quote this, one of the school board members said, please wipe this down, the podium, wipe it down ahead of time.

We don't want anything to infect us.

Oh my gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

These people are out of control.

We have that dad on the phone now.

His name is Brandon Amishan.

He is originally from New York.

They just moved out of New York to come down to Virginia and he finds himself in this situation.

Brandon, welcome to the program.

Thanks for having me.

I actually grew up in Loudoun County and spent a lot of my professional career in New York before coming back because of COVID.

So I am

a local here in heart.

So Brandon, I noticed that you were calm, and then you got to the

garbage people that are picking up your trash, and

you just exploded.

Did something happen that you saw like they weren't listening to you or not watching you, or

did you just, was this just all pent up because of the number of times you've said this to them?

Yeah, I think it's a few things, right?

I don't really think this is a political party issue, right?

I don't really care if you're red, blue, green, or orange.

It's about the children.

And I have to give a shout out to my wife and mother and the many others who've actually been involved with getting schools open longer than I have.

I think, as you said early on,

we've went numerous times and tried many different tactics, jingles, rhymes,

pleading to open schools.

But after, and you didn't see it in my video, but my five-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son spoke before us.

And

I just had had enough.

And

what I decided was I'd tried a more stern tactic, which which is obviously resonating, but I just wanted them to pay attention because I didn't feel like they were paying attention.

I mean, I saw the video.

I don't know if they were looking at you, but I've seen this kind of video over and over again.

These people sit behind the dais and

they just are disconnected from it.

You speak and they're like, your time is up, and then you have to leave.

And

there seems to be, and I know this isn't true, but it seems to be that there's really no compassion

and no science involved in this.

Did you feel that way?

Do you feel that way?

Well, yeah.

I mean, I think what got me fired up was my son, my eight-year-old son, you know, who's never really spoken publicly.

You know, he spoke on the virtual stuff before, but this first time in person.

He, you know, he was, you know, he was shaking a little bit.

He was upset after he left because he said, I felt like I was being judged.

And

it's hard because these are our educators and our mentors and the people who are supposed to be examples for our kids.

And I've been numerous times and not once have I heard the school board say thank you to these children who are, look, there's adults who can't even stand up in front of people with confidence.

And just say, hey, thank you for your time, sir, or thank you, ma'am.

And let them know that you don't have to agree with them, but let them know that you're doing something that

it is intimidating and scary.

And after months of doing this, I just, you know, kind of just triggered something.

It's interesting because the, I don't know if you remember the Norman Rockwell paintings of the four freedoms, but one is a guy standing up and it's the freedom of speech.

And are you familiar with this painting by Norman Rockwell?

Yes, yes, I believe so.

He's standing up to a school board, and in his pocket, it has the school board agenda in his pocket.

So it's clearly him standing up and saying, look, we need some changes in our school.

There's nothing more American.

And yet,

I don't know what's happening here.

Because as we were talking before you came on, the science is really clear.

There aren't any scientists that are saying keep the kids home.

There's no science that shows that the kids or anybody is in real danger at school.

And the science also is is on the side by keeping our kids out of school, we're doing significant damage to our kids.

Why are they not doing anything?

Look,

first and foremost, I think the vast majority of teachers

want to be back in school.

I mean, they're in just as tough a situation.

My daughter's kindergarten teacher, they're not supposed to be college online professors.

So I think they're frustrated as well.

I think the CDC came out with guidelines recently

that have shown, and this is the people who are the professionals within

disease control saying that there are mitigating factors that you can do.

And the spread of this virus, albeit it's a horrible thing, I don't discount that, the spread of this virus can be mitigated through

certain steps.

And I think it's like a 12, or maybe it's more than that, 12 steps that have shown to be effective.

And I just think all throughout the country, there are parents, and I say this because I've been given a little bit of a voice as as a conduit, if you want to call it, but I'm just a dad who cares about my kids.

And there's fathers and mothers and caretakers all throughout the U.S.

and world who care about that.

And I think parents are speaking out and they just want to

see solutions.

And if anything, they just want to see a plan and they want to see that plan attempted to be executed and not the goalpost moved.

So

you said, you know, there's a line of people out there.

A, why were they not in the committee room?

And, and was it a line of parents that had the same kind of viewpoint that you did?

And has there been any movement?

Well, yeah, well, because of the guidelines, they only have the podium.

And, you know, it's

30 feet away.

It's a massive room.

I think in a normal environment, that room's filled with chairs and people can go in and speak.

They have you waiting out in the hall, you know, socially distanced.

And I'm out there with my two-year-old, my five-year-old, my eight-year-old, and my wife.

And there's other families with kids that,

you know, it's not getting attention as much.

But there was a father with a special needs son who spoke a minute or two before us, and he signed up for both of them, and he wasn't given the time to speak for his son, who is a non-audible, you know, special needs student.

Well, you know, look, if you're not willing to listen to your constituents, that was my point, right?

Like, I personally am not running for office.

This is just a father who cares.

And there's other people who are out there who care as well.

But if you're running for office, do something.

And if you don't want to do something, there are people who will step up and do it.

Leadership is hard.

It's not easy.

It's not fun sometimes.

But leadership is what built this great nation.

And I think that, you know, if you don't want to, if you're not up for the task, then let someone else do it because people always forget there is someone who will step up.

Let me play that other father that you were just talking about.

Here's the audio.

Impossible for him and impossible for over 11,000 more kids who are special education with special needs in LCPS.

But instead, you decide to sweep his problems under the rug and focus on giving raises, new mascots, renaming athletic fields, and a whole lot of PowerPoints

across equity.

I'm the next speaker as well.

Sir,

you can only sign up for one spot, and I'm sorry.

Is your name Yupen?

Yes.

So we'll count that, and we appreciate you bringing your child.

So you're saying he cannot speak for himself, so I can't speak for him on his behalf.

You.

Sir, you're the one who said he cannot speak on his behalf.

Exactly.

So I spoke for his behalf till now, and I'm now speaking for myself.

If I could.

Sir, I can only allow one speaker one minute, so I'm sorry, you'll have to.

Well, I just have to say then, if you guys don't really vote for him, you're letting him down and a lot of other people.

Brandon,

one minute.

How do you even make a point in one minute?

It's hard.

I mean, he was a couple people before me, right?

And so I could hear him.

And they buzz you.

Like, there's a buzzer.

It's a loud thing, you know, they really want to make you know, make it known that you're out.

But I look, I lived in New York for the last 10 years up until six months ago, and you know, it's a fast-talking city.

I can talk pretty quick, but trying to get your point articulate, you know, articulating your point in 60 seconds is hard.

I even stumbled, you know, you have a mask on, kids standing around, like it's not easy.

And

it's, we as a society need to have some compassion.

And if we can't show as educators, and again, educators, mentors, and

school boards who are supposed to be the examples of that, if we can't have compassion,

then who are we?

And again, I just care about the children, right?

This is about,

it isn't about me.

This is about the children and getting them back.

And you mentioned earlier, the mental health side of this is so much worse.

than anyone sees.

My

that was a handicapped father, right?

I don't even know what he's going through.

My five-year-old daughter barely wants to sit in front of a screen.

Adults don't want to sit in front of screens for that long.

My eight-year-old's defeated, right?

They just want to make friends.

They're kids.

There's valuable, you know, seniors who didn't have graduations, third graders who didn't have kickball or field day.

Like, there are valuable life experiences that we are missing.

And there's just people who are not saying, here's a plan and let's execute it.

And if you don't want to go, don't go.

But for those who do, let them and let the teachers who want to go back go back as well.

Amen.

Amen.

Brandon, thank you very much.

Brandon Mishon from Virginia, the parent that stood up at his school board and I think spoke for a lot of us who are parents.

And I hope there are more of you standing up.

And I hope you've inspired people to stand in their own community.

Thank you, Brandon.

Thank you so much.