6/9/17 - Obama Still Trying To Convince The World(Shannon Joy/ Erick Stackelbeck and more join Mike)

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This is the Glenn Beck Program.

It is the Glenn Beck program.

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My name is Michael Opelka, host of Pure Opelka on the Blaze Radio Network.

And

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Full disclosure on this show.

We've known each other for three decades now, but worked together in Wacky Morning Radio and now on The Blaze.

I've been around the Blaze for almost seven years.

But currently doing a radio show on the Blaze Radio Network and guest hosting here on occasion.

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Full show today.

Congressman Louis Gomert is going to be checking in in the third hour.

We're going to have a conversation about what's going on in DC and why the GOP agenda is stalled and what we can do to get it going forward.

I've got some real interesting, strange stuff that came out of Nancy Pelosi's mouth this morning.

I know what you're saying.

Tell me something new.

So we'll get to that.

Typically on Fridays, Glenn welcomes Bill O'Reilly in the second hour.

Bill will be here one week from today.

Bill will be on with Glenn in his usual spot.

So Glenn's back on Monday, but I'm here for today and thanks for being here.

Yesterday, obviously a gigantic day in terms of media.

I don't know if it was a gigantic day in terms of us actually learning anything about Jim Comey or Donald Trump or just anything new.

To me, it seemed like, I've seen this movie, haven't I?

Didn't we talk about all of this?

Yeah,

I'm checking my watch.

It's like, was I abducted by aliens and then dropped back just after I had seen this before?

Okay, there were a couple of things in there, a couple of important things.

But to help me understand what we saw yesterday and to discuss, is there obstruction of justice?

Was there possibly a leak that Jim Comey exposed?

something that he himself did, is my friend, a lawyer, an author, Dr.

Wendy Patrick.

She's a trial lawyer who's been on my radio show on the Blaze Radio Network on a weekly basis to discuss the politics.

You've seen her on the Fox channel, you've seen her on CNN, and we go way back.

But Wendy is joining us from California very early this morning to talk about yesterday in the Comey, the Comey Fafe 2017.

Wendy Patrick, welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

How are you?

Good.

Thanks, Mike, for having me.

You're laughing at Comey Faffé, right?

You've coined another one.

Thank you.

No, no, no.

I can't take credit for that.

I have a friend in the comedy world who is the guy that created that.

His name is George Wallace, and he's a hilarious guy, an intolerable liberal, but he's very funny.

And he came up with Comey Feffett 2017.

Very nice.

George Wallace, I didn't steal your material.

I gave you full credit.

Yesterday,

I sat and watched along with so many people as

we wasted four hours, at least maybe six in some cases, with pre-show and post-show.

Aside from the possibility of the leak, and I want to get into that, did we learn anything really new yesterday?

Well, that's the question, Mike.

Did it live up to its blockbuster billing?

I mean, remember, we had testimony watch parties that were in various locations that started yesterday, coffee and popcorn in the morning as everybody got ready to do it.

But then when you're right, when he went through the testimony, I would suppose the one thing that I was very surprised about is the extent to which he was forthcoming about information beyond being simply a fact witness.

Remember, that's the way he was billed.

Just the facts, ma'am.

He's just going to say what happened and what he saw.

But he actually went so far as to discuss what his opinion was regarding the reason he was fired, regarding why the president cleared the the room when the two of them had dinner together.

Boy, that sounded like a bad date, didn't it?

Called me in with a midday and asked me to come.

I figured there would be other people there, but it was just the two of us.

And even went so far as, now he didn't reach any legal conclusion, so he certainly didn't say that he thought there was obstruction of justice.

Obviously, it's not his place.

But he was more forthcoming with facts than anybody expected.

Mike, maybe I'm just comparing it to the testimony the day prior when none of the witnesses would say anything.

Right.

Yeah, well, that's true.

Yeah, we got more than we expected, but you're right.

In terms of what did we learn that was new, I would even argue the leaking wasn't

necessarily new because we already knew from the people that were speaking to the media that this was information Comey had already shared with them.

Nobody doubted that.

I think we were just a little bit stunned to hear it in such a transparent manner from the former director himself.

Well, it surprised me, Wendy, that Jim Comey had admitted to taking the documents, which we have not seen, the complete documents, shown them to a law professor at Columbia, and instructed him,

kind of like the same way he said the president told him, I hope you can see your way to doing this.

It's almost as if he said the same kind of thing to his Columbia friend, I hope you can get this to the media.

So while the liberal media's hair is on fire and they're parsing and redefining the word hope as now an order, a mandate, I think Comey said the same thing in what he said there.

But that, you bring up a real interesting point about emotions.

And by the way, we're talking to Dr.

Wendy Patrick.

She is a trial lawyer, author, and somebody, I respect her opinion on stuff like this.

When you're watching Comey yesterday, and as you watch witnesses in court cases that you have been involved in, Did you sense he was guarded, lying, telling the truth, open?

Was there any kind of read on Comey and what he was given off body language-wise?

Well, I got to tell you, Comey is either as honest as he is tall, right, six foot eight, or he is a master at body language because he appeared to be very honest.

I mean, he says he's not Captain Courageous.

He might be Captain Credibility.

And I think we're taking him at his word, everything he says.

You may not agree with it.

Not you, Mike, but the public may not agree that it was proper, the leaking and the rest of the the things that he said that he did.

But he appears to really be a masterful witness.

And I know it's not his first rodeo.

He's comfortable in this setting.

Most of us wouldn't be.

He is.

But he was so forthcoming with his faults and his shortcomings.

And that he says, oh, maybe I shouldn't have been, maybe I should have been stronger.

I got to tell you, one of the senators really made a really great point this morning.

Why would the president have believed it was proper to clear the room?

The director himself, in his opening statement he released the day prior, said he'd cleared the room when he first met the president to confront him with a salacious dossier.

So, I mean, is it possible that he set the stage, the tone, for future interactions?

And if so, at what point would the president have gotten, obviously, some notice that this wasn't the way to do it?

Because Comey himself said, look, maybe I should have been stronger, but I didn't.

The bottom line is he really did come across as credible.

He even appeared to enjoy the opportunity.

It was in his eyes.

His eyes were bright.

He was smiling sometimes when he was describing things that most of us wouldn't think are happy memories to be recounting.

But he did appear to be a credible witness.

See, this is a very interesting thing to make note of.

And

Dr.

Wendy, Patrick, is conservative.

I think that's fair to say.

So

when Wendy says Comey appeared to be a credible witness, She's not playing any partisan games.

She's giving you her professional opinion.

And that's why I respect you in this arena because you're looking at this with your lawyer hat on and no other hat.

And I think that's that's fascinating.

That and I and I sense credibility in Comey.

I don't agree with a lot of the things he did.

And I also think you're right in your analysis of him as a credible witness, because why else would he have told us that Loretta Lynch story about her saying,

let's not call it an investigation, let's call it a matter,

which I thought that was fascinating, too.

And

is there any legal implication from that revelation?

Well, it's a great question, Mike.

It's the same question as to whether or not, I mean, Loretta Lynch did something similar to what the president did.

They're a little bit different.

But Comey's in the same position.

What does he do with that information?

He knows it's wrong.

He knows it's improper.

But he sits on it.

And again, going to his credibility, he explained why he did that almost in a fashion that perhaps he himself was second guessing the propriety of the omission.

In other words, the failure to tell anybody about it.

So it all casts doubt on this issue of intent to the kind of intent you would need to prove obstruction of justice.

And that's really one of the biggest things that people are talking about, because you need to prove intent.

And the way he described the president's actions falls short of what someone might need moving forward to prove this was the president's intention.

Part of the rationale, and I know that the the president's lawyer was all over this yesterday in his rebuttal.

I didn't really think it was a rebuttal.

He could have gone much farther if he was actually going to rebut what Jim Comey said.

But, you know, the president used the same language the next day saying that Michael Flynn is a, quote, good guy.

It's the same language that you have the then director explaining he used that day.

So when you put that all together, it falls short of the type of intent you would need to sustain an obstruction of justice charge.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, you can indict a ham sandwich, as you well know, and many ham sandwiches have been indicted.

But not a sitting president.

But not a sitting president.

Removal proceedings, right?

Well,

do you think then, well, where do we go from here?

Because I'm watching the Democrats all swarming to every television camera they can, saying we now need a special investigation and outside counsel.

We have the special counsel, Mueller, looking into things right now.

But now every and I've always said that

that appointment was the open crack of the door that now through all the Democrats are going to rush and they're going to demand we need a Watergate style total outside investigation.

Is that where this is going to lead us?

Well, you know, no doubt we already are hearing that this morning, as you point out, absolutely.

And the allegations surrounding some of the things that Comey said.

But here's the other thing on his credibility.

If he's a liar, why are we believing everything he said about how and why he leaked?

So it's like that's a hard one to win.

Either he's telling the truth or he's telling the truth selectively, but if it's the latter, why would he only tell the truth in matters that harm him?

So it's really, it's a tough analysis.

It's this type of analysis and argument I make every single time I talk to a jury.

If somebody's believable, they're believable.

You know, you don't really get to pick and choose.

Comey himself said that when he was asked, why should we believe you?

over the president.

He said, well, I would hope, again, he prefaced it with the self-effacing, my mother told me not to say this, but you're going to have to look at all the surrounding circumstances.

If a special counsel is appointed to do further investigation, that's one thing they're going to be looking at as well.

But, you know, we don't just appoint special counsels for everything.

And, you know, Mueller can't be the counsel that investigates every single matter that needs to be.

I mean, he'd never get his job done.

Ten years from now, you and I would be here talking about this.

Well, I hope we are.

Just a personal aside.

We'll be talking about something else by then, Mike.

Okay, good.

Well, I guess it's a wait and see.

And you bring up a really good point because Mueller's

his time is limited to get to an issue.

And even if he moves quickly, he still has to set everything up, offices, get everybody cleared through security.

It's probably going to be a good year before we actually hear anything out of Robert Mueller in terms of a serious report, isn't it?

Or am I delaying it?

You're right on the money.

Mike, you're right on the money because unlike the president, Mueller is not going to be live tweeting his investigative findings as we go forward.

You know, that's funny.

Trump didn't tweet yesterday during the hearing, but his son sure did.

You sure did stir up a tweet storm.

I wonder if the president had his phone.

Oh, that's a good point.

You know, you never know.

Come here, Don Junior.

Come here, Donnie.

I got something for you to say.

It didn't really seem like the president's voice on those tweets.

But yeah, so Mueller is going to necessarily be keeping everything private.

We're not going to be hearing anything.

So it's going to be left up to the court of public opinion.

Talk about the worst place

when it comes to getting to the truth.

Mueller's probably just shaking his head and rolling his eyes as he reads some of this going by.

But yeah, it's going to be a good, long time, and it should be because there's no other way to get to the bottom of some of the very important issues that have been raised.

Well, give us something to talk about.

Wendy Patrick, if you want to know more about my friend Wendy Patrick, WendyPatrickPhd.com, thank you for this time this morning.

I know it's early on the left coast, but I always appreciate your insight, my friend.

Always a pleasure.

Thanks for having me, Mike.

Take care.

When we get back, I've got a couple of stories I need to address today.

We talked about Pelosi.

She said some crazy stuff this morning.

And yesterday, I spent some time after the show.

I don't know if I can see this.

Which camera wants to see this?

Okay.

I stopped by the George Bush Center.

yesterday and saw the exhibit of the paintings that George Bush has done to honor the wounded veterans.

It is stunning.

I'll share my thoughts on that with you and more when the Glenn Beck program returns.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

Sign up for the newsletter and get all the info you need to know at Glenn Beck.com.

Mercury.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

Sign up for the newsletter and get all the info you need to know at Glenn Beck.com.

Welcome back to the Glenn Beck program.

Michael Pelka filling in for my buddy Glenn.

He'll be back on Monday.

If you're following him on Facebook, I'm laughing

because

I've known Glenn for so long.

So to read him

on Facebook and look at the pictures and hear him talking about mending fences and working the cattle and forgetting to cut the hay, I just want to give him a hard time.

And I'm sure he'll give himself a hard time on Monday.

But great pictures.

Gosh, beautiful photos of the ranch.

And not that it's not beautiful here in Dallas.

It is.

But I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Later in the program, I'm going to go after a little juxtaprogressivism.

And if you're not familiar with the term, it's sort of a technical term.

I think Doc Thompson created it to describe how the progressives will say one thing and then mean something completely different or do something completely different.

And it's just everywhere.

It's also called hypocrisy if you don't want to use a 15,000 syllable word like juxtaprogressivism.

If you want to join the conversation, the phones are open.

888727BECK, 888-727 back.

We'll talk about anything.

You can talk about the Comey hearings.

We can talk about the juxtaprogressives.

There are a couple other issues, strange stories that we have to talk about.

I I was hoping we'd get some time to talk about the Belmont Stakes, which are happening in New York tomorrow.

Third leg of the Triple Crown.

We're not having a Triple Crown.

In fact, neither of the horses that won the Derby and the Pimlico are going to be running.

So it's just kind of a long race if you're a horse racing fan.

And today's the anniversary, I think it was 1973 or 75, Secretariat won.

I have to go back and check that out.

Secretariat of Triple Crown winner.

Early this morning,

Nancy Pelosi showed up on Morning Joe.

Nancy Pelosi stopped by the MSNBC show.

She's obviously feeling really great.

And she's

after the Comey testimony.

There's a lot of emboldened progressives out there who are hitting every camera and microphone.

Schumer even showed up yesterday, which I had been asking where the hell is Chuck Schumer.

But the curious thing to me was how Morning Joe introduced Nancy Pelosi.

And you want to talk about confidence or possibly overconfident?

Check this out.

Secretly, please.

All right, we have

speaker to be Nancy Pelosi with us.

Wait a minute, what?

Joe said speaker to be Nancy Pelosi.

I think that's exactly what he said.

Secretly, please.

All right.

We have have

Speaker to be Nancy Pelosi with us.

How are you doing this morning, Madam Speaker?

How are you doing?

The country is great.

It can withstand anything.

God is always with us.

And we're learning

about God is always with us, so I think we can survive.

Well,

Nancy had some other things to say, and she even questioned the president's health.

She issued a really curious warning to the Trump family.

We'll get into it.

I'll play it for you.

We'll discuss after the break.

This is the Glenbeck Program.

Come on back.

The Glen Beck Program.

Mercury.

The Glenn Beck Program.

It is the Glenn Beck program.

My name is Mike Opelka, filling in for my friend Glenn Beck.

He'll be back Monday.

You want to join the conversation, 888727BE, which is 2325 if you don't have the letters on your phone.

Some people don't.

I'm going to check in with Chris in Tennessee.

Good morning, Chris.

Welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

Thank you.

Hey, I was just wondering, how come no one ever talks about the $10 trillion Obama spent?

Like, where's that at?

Nobody ever wants to investigate now.

Nobody in the history of the world ever spent $10 trillion.

You bring up a great point.

And if nobody's understanding what Chris is talking about, you're probably new to the planet, or at least new to this program.

The Obama administration in eight years virtually doubled the nation's debt that we now owe $20 trillion.

It was like $9.9 trillion when he got into office.

And I think as his foot went out the door, it was approximately $19.9999999 trillion.

And it crossed over $20 trillion.

So now we're well over $20 trillion in debt.

And nobody talks about that.

We printed money.

We monetized our debt.

We expanded, doubled the debt.

And Chris, that point you you bring up, it's not just the fact that he spent $10 trillion

of the money of the children and grandchildren that they're always so worried about.

You know, we always bring that up.

It's for the children that we have to send all our money to the climate people so India and China and Russia can keep polluting and catch up to us.

It's for the children.

But that money, that $10 trillion, which is so ridiculous, is going to be on the backs of the children and grandchildren in future generations.

And thank you, Democrats.

We must always remind them.

But you know, we're not totally without blame.

There are a lot of Republicans who were complicit in adding to that debt.

So this goes back to my point yesterday about term limits and about

getting rid of some of these people who are rhinos, some of these people who have allowed it to happen.

Your state.

Oh, Chris is gone.

Good.

But that's fine.

I didn't want to change topics this quickly.

So, Chris, call back if you need to.

Checking in on the Twitter, my Twitter handle, at stuntbrain, all one word, S-T-U-N-T-B-R-A-I-N.

Toby says,

you said Pimlico when you met Preakness.

Yes, the race is the Preakness.

It's at Pimlico, isn't it?

If I got that right.

So glad you're here.

We need to talk about Lord Buckethead later today, and we will get to Lord Buckethead

as well.

It's on par with one of the stranger political characters we've had in this country.

But

more on that later.

Before we went away, I played for you a clip from Morning Joe this morning, a very short clip, where Joe Scarborough was introducing Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House, unless, of course, you're Joe Scarborough.

All right.

We have

Speaker to be Nancy Pelosi with us.

How are you doing this morning, Madam Speaker?

How are you doing?

The country is great.

It can withstand anything.

God is always with us.

And we're learning that right now.

God is always with us, so I think we can survive.

So, interesting thing about Pelosi.

Listen to her speech patterns.

I know I may be a little obsessed with Nancy Pelosi and the things she says, but I'm a believer that Botox has crept into her brain and gotten into the part of the brain that controls speech.

And sometimes it makes her frumfer around.

But when she isn't ready to answer a question, she sometimes repeats the question back at the person.

And she did that just now with Scarborough.

But she feels comfortable in this environment.

She feels comfortable at MSNBC.

It's kind of like a home court advantage.

It's kind of like sitting around the house of friends because she's not going to get any tough questions.

But Pelosi said some really weird stuff this morning.

She talked about Comey.

She went into what she believes is going to be

enough of a push to get an independent investigation.

And ultimately, although she didn't say it this morning, at least not when I was listening, ultimately Pelosi and every Democrat is not going to rest until they get one of two things, maybe both things.

They want Donald Trump's tax returns.

They're still not giving up on that.

They are not going to stop pushing Trump until we see his tax returns.

We really don't know who he's in bed with.

So they want those tax returns.

They're not given up.

They'll get them now that he's in office, but just for the time that he's here.

So

the past tax returns, still not happening.

And the other thing they want is his impeachment.

They want Trump out.

And again, I just think we need to remind

these crazy

progressive people:

if you get rid of Trump, you don't get a do-over.

Not as Rosie O'Donnell wanted.

Remember, Rosie said, can't we just put John McCain in as temporary president and then we can have another election?

No, Nancy.

No, no, Rosie.

That's not how it works.

She actually wanted that.

But if you impeach Trump, you get President Pence.

Do you guys really want that?

Do you Uber liberals really want that?

I don't think think so.

So be careful what you wish for, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Chuck Schumer, and all the rest.

But Pelosi was talking about the president this morning with MSNBC, and she got into a really strange area.

Listen to this.

Besides telling the president not to tweet, if he came to you and said, I've got this problem with Russia, all these investigations, I really do want to get back to the people's business.

What could he do?

What would you advise him to do?

What I have advised him to do: go to sleep.

Interesting.

Nancy Pelosi said,

I have advised him to do this.

Go to sleep.

That was a question from Mark Halperin, regular member of the Morning Joe crew.

Halperin asked, and he pressed on this, the question continued.

Yeah, get some sleep.

Yes.

Bring yourself to a place where there's synapses or worst.

You said that to him.

I agree with you completely.

You said that to him?

Well, when he called me the night of the Syria invasion, not to go into the conversation, was late at night.

First of all, we didn't invade Syria.

We sent 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles, 59 of which hit their targets.

We didn't invade Syria.

Careful of the Botox, it's starting to freeze upstairs.

But she talks about this late-night conversation.

So, first of all, interesting to see that despite all the partisan politics and despite all the accusations that Donald Trump doesn't know what he's doing and doesn't know how politics works.

Remember, Paul Ryan said that yesterday.

He's still learning the job.

He's still new here.

Trump knew enough to call the minority leader in the House of Representatives as he was launching those missiles.

So we know he made that personal call to her late at night.

It continues.

The Syria invasion, not to go into the conversation, was late at night, like at midnight, well after it was all finished.

He was going on and on.

I said,

it was like midnight.

And I said, why don't you go to sleep?

I think that

I think.

I don't think she told the president to go to sleep.

If you notice Nancy Pelosi's speech patterns, when she's really confident, she speaks like this.

She's very forceful.

She's very strident.

She's confident in her phrasing.

And when she's stretching the truth, she's like this.

I told the president, you know, it was late at night.

He was talking to me.

He has to get some sleep.

And so she throws it away.

Listen to that little piece of that again, because she indicates, I think she's trying to back up her story here, but I don't think that happened.

He was going on and on.

I said, well, it was like midnight.

And I said, why don't you go to sleep?

I think that

I think there's something not

more sleep might be a solution for him.

But the thing is,

people, just expand on that.

Pelosi tried to get into something there and she stopped herself.

She said, I think there's something,

and then she stops and says, more sleep might be beneficial to him.

Well, we all know know more sleep might be beneficial to him.

And Scarborough went on to talk about how the fact that the president bounces around the White House late at night.

Yeah, well, his family's not there.

Not yet, anyway.

We'll get into that coming up.

That topic of the president bouncing around the White House and Nancy Pelosi claiming she would tell him to get more sleep did not escape Mike Barnacle,

aptly named guy.

Mike Barnacle, who asked a question about

Pelosi's assessment of the president's health.

Last time I checked, was Nancy Pelosi a doctor?

No.

Did Nancy Pelosi hang out with the president all the time?

Does she witness him?

Is she out on the golf course with him?

No.

And yet she gave this really strange answer.

Moments ago, are you concerned about the president's health?

I think his family should be concerned about his health.

What is that?

First of all, there's a pregnant pause there.

Barnacle asks the question, and listen to the pregnant pause, and then let's dive into this answer.

Moments ago, are you concerned about the president's health?

I think his family should be concerned about his health.

But the fact is, is that this is hopefully not repairable.

He is the president of the United States.

Wait a minute.

Freudian slip, anybody?

They're talking about the testimony of Jim Comey.

They're talking about the things that Trump said.

And Pelosi said, I hope this is not repairable.

We're talking about the President of the United States.

She meant to say, I'm hoping this is not irreparable.

She actually, they stopped her and they're like, wait a minute, what did you just say?

Even the Morning Joe crew went, hold on a second, Nancy.

You mean you hope it is repairable?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Irreparable.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, maybe I was right.

I just didn't want them to have that happen.

Maybe I was right.

Exactly.

You know what?

So, hopefully, it's not repairable, and perhaps there is an impeachment.

No, just no, no, no, no, no.

Everything is.

Look, I was on ethics for seven years.

You only are allowed to be six, but they put.

Hold on a second.

What did Nancy Pelosi just say?

You want to talk about irony of ironies?

She said, Look, I was on ethics, meaning the ethics committee, for seven years.

You're only supposed to be on for six years, but I stayed another year.

So, anybody noticed the irony that the ethics committee, which has a six-year limit to it, that Nancy violated that limit and she went to a seventh year?

Juxtaprogressivism.

Do as I say, not as I do.

Thank you, Nancy Pelosi.

Michael Pelka, stepping aside on the Glenn Beck program.

When we come back, there's more.

There's more craziness.

There's more strangeness in the world.

And there's some fun stuff, too.

If you want to join the conversation, triple-8-727-BEC.

888-727-2325.

We'll be right back.

Glenn Beck Program.

Triple 8-727-BAC.

Mercury.

This is the Glenn Beck Program.

Michael Pelka for my friend Glenn Beck.

Glenn will be back in a week, and so will Bill O'Reilly if you're used to Bill being here at the second hour of the show on Fridays.

He took the two weeks off too, but he'll be back with Glenn.

I also mentioned before the break that Melania Trump's set to move to DC and a lot of websites are making it a big deal.

Melania is moving to D.C.,

bringing Baron with her.

This was always the plan, you Dolts.

This was always the deal.

Baron was going to finish the the school year so they wouldn't disrupt the child's life.

What a great idea.

What a blessing these parents had the money to be able to do that.

And I'm sure he missed his dad being around.

But just can we not make everything into a federal case?

Anyway.

Let's check in on the phones.

A few of you checking in.

First of all, let's go to John on line four in Indiana.

John, welcome to the Glenn Peck program.

You wanted to talk about Trump pardoning Flynn?

Yeah, what do you think would happen?

I'm tired of listening to all this rhetoric, and it's been drug out for almost a year.

You figure just be done with it.

Pardon him.

What are the Democrats going to do?

You're right, and

it would freak him out.

It's a good point.

I guess you weren't here yesterday.

We actually played a clip from a noted legal scholar, Alan Dershowitz, a liberal, who said the president has the right to do that.

If he told Comey that evening at the dinner, I'm pardoning pardoning Flynn, so you just, you end all this, it's within the president's powers to do so.

He could easily do it, but you know, there might be some political blowback.

We'll see if it happens.

Thanks a lot, John.

Alan in Maine, how are you, sir?

Welcome to the show.

Hey, thank you so much.

Excuse me if I stumble and stutter because this audience is the best audience in the world.

I really truly believe that.

I mean, I think we're all witnessing when Abraham Lincoln quoted Jesus in saying that a house divided against itself will not stand.

And I think we're all getting a get a taste of that right now.

I mean, it it's just awful.

We're all falling in one of his webs right now, I think.

Especially the media.

I mean, we're all just following the

Ncombe Bowl.

I mean, it just went on forever.

The Rushathon.

I mean, there's so many bad things that are going uncovered right now.

And it's just terrible.

And I just think these North Korean leaders, these bad guys in the world are just laughing at it because the true journalists right now, the true journalists need to come up.

They need need to rise up from the bottom and start doing their job because some of us are so busy working, we ain't got time.

We go home, we follow the news, and that's all we have to hang on to.

Alan, you're right.

And you bring up a really good point about the journalists.

But unless and until the journalists stop following the big money items, then they're going to keep reporting these things that draw the ratings.

And this is all about hype.

And you figured it out.

There are stories we need to cover.

We'll get into some of those stories because there are stories out there not getting the attention.

I'm also going to point out some more juxtapressivism around the corner.

We'll talk Common Core and Louis Gohmert joins us at the top of the third hour.

And I think we're going to get to Ricardo in Tennessee.

He's got a thought I didn't get to.

That's next on the Glenn Beck program.

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This is the Glenn Beck Program.

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It's Friday where anything goes.

I have a few things I need to get to.

We're going to talk Common Core at the bottom of this hour with a friend of mine who knows a lot more about it than I do.

And she is helping lead the charge to try and stop Common Core, and it's a bigger battle than we know.

We're also going to speak with Congressman Louie Gomert from the 1st District in the state of Texas.

He's going to join us at the top of the next hour, and we have a myriad topics to get to.

I'm going to continue with the Comey thing, but I think we have to go on again with the discussion of Nancy Pelosi.

Ricardo's in Tennessee.

You were listening last hour, Ricardo, when I played some of the craziness coming out of Pelosi's mouth.

Welcome to the show, sir.

Buenos Diaz, Mike.

Check out the daily.

Buenos Diaz.

Johnson City, Tennessee.

Oh, wow.

Isn't that some sort of triangle, some three-city group there?

You got it, man.

You are in the know.

It's tri-cities.

It's Kingsport.

Johnson City, and of course, Bristol, where we got the great racetrack.

It's a great area to live, no doubt about it.

Well, you know, I can't agree with you more.

And it's about the food for me.

The racing is one thing.

The people are the other.

But when you get to that part of Tennessee, there is some serious barbecue going on.

So I'm

I will stop.

Even though I might not be supposed to be stopping, I will stop.

And you always stop and you ask a local, look, I'm starving like a garbage man on a hot day.

Where can I get some serious barbecue?

And they will tell you, they will send you there.

So I'm glad you're here.

And now I'm salivating thinking about barbecue.

What's on your mind this this morning?

Well, you know,

two things real quick.

I understand my people in Westport, Connecticut tell me that Comey's mom is actually a Trump supporter and has kicked him out of the basement, so it just keeps getting worse for him.

If that were only true, if that were only true.

No doubt, no doubt.

But, you know, on a serious note, you know what, one of the things I took out of this testimony was that Congress knew about this for at least a month or two months if Trump wasn't under investigation.

That blew me away.

You know, that tells me Schumer, Waters, Pelosi, McCain, they all need to resign for lying to the American public and pushing this forward.

And, you know, speaking of lying to the American public, I was watching House of Cards on

Netflix, and CNN actually does

the news reporting on that TV show.

And I noticed that their TV show reporting is actually more accurate than their actual live broadcast.

So that was pretty interesting.

Hey, thanks for letting me in.

Mike, you're doing a great job.

Adios.

Thank you, Ricardo.

Appreciate it.

Tony in Colorado brings up a really interesting point.

Hello, Tony.

Welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

Hey, Mike, thanks for your time this morning.

Joe and Mika on the news show could have had a couple more questions.

I'd be curious to know, you know, like look at her taxes and also her family's net value or overall worth.

Also, I know she's one of the biggest flyers in Congress because the flights from the East Coast to the West Coast over the last 10 years, if we could get records of that, because I think they take private jets, especially when she was Speaker of the House like they were talking about, and just, you know, the expense to, you know, Joe Schmuck, me, the working guy, all those bills, all those expenses, you know, all the drinks on the plane and the food, we seem to get stuck with the tab.

And so if she wants to see Trump's taxes, you know, maybe we should take a look at hers.

Well, I would love to do that.

I think if you want to point that finger and then realize there's three pointing back at you, you should live by the same rules you want the president to live by.

You bring up a really interesting point, Tony, talking about Nancy Pelosi's net worth.

There are stories over the years about Pelosi guiding sweetheart real estate deals to members of her family, be it her husband or children.

And I've never seen those fully vetted.

So that might be something I hope one of the investigative reporters out there will latch onto.

All of these people in Congress who end up getting rich because of it,

do you remember the story that members of Congress used to be able to legally act on insider information?

If they knew that a company was going to go public or there was going to be a product that came out, you and I couldn't trade on that information.

Martha Stewart went to jail for that information.

But Congress was able to actually do it without any of the same penalties that we would face.

And when we found out about that, we went, hold on, time out.

No, you guys have to follow the same laws.

Well,

they did write a law that changed that.

And then after, I think it was about two years, there was a secret quiet vote that happened as everybody was leaving town on a Friday to overturn it.

And apparently they can do it again.

So until Congress lives by the same rules, the same laws, the same regulations that they want us to live by, I don't think they have any room to tell us what to do, which is, again, part of my term limits, smaller government, get the money out of politics.

But thank you, Tony.

I appreciate you being there.

And please help Colorado get back to being a red state.

I'm tired of it being a purple state.

It's a little irritating.

And speaking of irritating, Barack Obama.

Can we get into this?

I think I have time to dive into this.

Barack Obama was famous during his years in the White House for being a champion

of the middle class and the little guy

and saying that those big, evil, rich people, the people that are part of the Wall Street cabal, the people that make those millions of dollars, they've made too much money.

Well, Barack Obama seems to be talking out of both sides of his mouth.

He was in Canada two days ago, three days ago, speaking at the Chamber of Commerce gathering.

They had 6,000 people in the audience and they had the former president come out and they hired him to speak, reportedly,

reportedly earning $400,000 to address this crowd.

Now, it's a lot of money.

Certainly a lot of money.

I think all of us would like to say, I'm going to take a job that pays me $400,000 a year.

As a matter of fact, the president's last job paid $400,000 a year.

Plus, he got all that security.

Most of his travel was paid for.

Apparently, you pay for your food, though, when you live in the White House, which is really weird.

So Obama was given, reportedly, a $400,000 fee to address the Chamber of Commerce in Montreal, Canada.

What do you get for $400,000?

Well, in the case of Barack Obama, you get two scoops of juxtaprogressivism.

You get two scoops of bashing Donald Trump.

You get an additional scoop of slamming America.

Now, I started thinking about this.

I'm getting a little tired of this guy,

first of all, trying to overshadow the President of the United States.

He's been tracking them since Donald Trump went on his world tour.

When Trump went to Saudi Arabia, which again, by the way, Nancy Pelosi still has a problem with that.

She's looking into it.

She's looking into it.

She wants to know why he went there first.

But the president goes to Saudi Arabia, then he goes to Rome.

Who else happens to be in Italy at the same time, the exact same day?

Barack and Michelle Obama wandering around Italy, getting the paparazzi to follow him around.

Gee, you think you're trying to still act like you're the president?

And then Donald Trump travels to Brussels, where he's going to meet with Angela Merkel.

And he's going to address the NATO gathering.

It was a commissioning and a ceremony honoring NATO and the alliance.

And yes, Article 5,

attack one, you attack all of us.

So Trump is getting ready to stand next to Angela Merkel in Brussels.

Three hours earlier, Obama is with Merkel at the Brandenburg gates with 80,000 people in front of him.

So Obama managed to find a way to get on the same schedule as the president was with the same world leaders

and then three hours later Trump is there.

You really aren't doing this on purpose, sir?

And then the president finds himself with Prince Harry for a photo op as Donald Trump is meeting with the G7 people.

You just can't let it go, can you?

And in each appearance, Obama seems to mention some

little sort of slam that's going to attack Trump and also contradict what we're doing here.

So it's no surprise that when he goes to France and is paid a reported $400,000, that he would again take some shots not only at Donald Trump, but at America.

This was one clip.

from the president's speech in France.

I'm shaking my head that he's getting away with all this.

So, the challenges of our time, whether it's economic inequality, climate change, terrorism, mass migration,

these are real challenges.

The world is more prosperous than ever before, but alongside that prosperity, we've also seen a rise in inequality.

and wage stagnation across many advanced economies, leaving too many workers and communities fearful of diminishing prospects, not just for themselves, but more importantly, for their children.

So the guy who's making $400,000 to give a speech

in Canada is talking about income inequality.

The guy who was probably flown on a private jet, because I'm pretty sure that when you reach the level of ex-president, just the way Bill Clinton and the way the former Secretary of State, damn near President Hillary Clinton, are giving speeches, they usually get not only their fee, but they also get their transportation and accommodations paid for, which usually means a private jet and the presidential suite in whatever city they're in, or the best room in town.

So Obama gets up there, and in pretty much the opening two minutes, he says, There's a problem in the world with income inequality.

I'm making $400,000 to be here, but we got a problem with income inequality.

And it's been going on for a while.

It's been drifting this way.

Never mind the fact that I was the leader of the free world, the most powerful guy in the world for the last eight years.

Never mind that.

He continued.

Now, part of the reason that there's been so much uncertainty is we went through an enormous crisis just as I was coming into office.

But consider what we've done over the past decade.

Canada, the United States, and like-minded nations.

We wrestled the global economy from the brink of a depression and put the world back on the path path to recovery.

So he showed up and the world was a mess.

And thanks to the all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing Barack Obama, we fixed it and we put the world back on a path to global recovery.

Maddening, right?

Yeah, but there's more.

We helped stop Ebola in West Africa, saving countless lives.

We rallied the world around new sustainable development goals, including our goal to end extreme poverty.

In Paris, we came together around the most ambitious agreement in history to fight climate change.

An agreement that even with the temporary absence of American leadership will still give our children a fighting chance.

There it is.

There it is.

He put in a slap to the Trump administration while also playing the children card.

Even in the temporary absence, of leadership from America, we will still get the job done.

There's more from this juxta progressive president, the guy who was paid $400,000 for this speech, reportedly.

And wait till you hear how much it works out to per minute, because it's pretty damn ridiculous.

I'll share that with you next when the Glenn Beck program returns.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

Mercury.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

It is the Glenn Beck program.

Michael Pelka sitting in today.

Glenn will be back tomorrow after this show on the Blaze Radio Network.

I will be continuing the six-hour Opelkathon, the pure Opelkathon, with my own radio show.

So you're welcome to join as well if you're having a good time.

Before we went away, we were talking about

the juxtaprogressivism of Barack Hussein Obama.

And as I went to break,

my phone here just pings, and I get a message from home.

It's very disturbing.

We live in the state of Delaware.

It's a very blue state, but family reasons have us there taking care of moms and dads in their later years.

But I just got this in.

News flash, really depressing.

It might be enough to cause a move.

The state legislature in Delaware has just

pushed through Barack Obama Day,

where they want August 4th, the president's birthday, to be Barack Obama Day.

It got through the Senate and now it heads to the state House.

Do we get a day off?

Would that be a day off, Delaware?

If that happens, we have to have a serious discussion about relocating.

Dear God, Barack Obama Day.

The state's only $500 million in the red, and they got opioid addiction problems.

They have gun death problems.

So you know what?

I guess it is kind of a Barack Obama state now.

It's kind of like Chicago's become.

Gunshots, murders, and opioid addiction.

Perfect.

Why don't we just call the state Obama?

Maddening.

Back to Barack Obama.

in Montreal, where he gave a speech reportedly earning him $400,000 for 30 minutes.

Do the math.

It's about $7,700 a minute.

Did you make $700, $7,000 last week, last month?

If you made it for the month, that'd be about taking home about $100,000 a year.

The president made that for every minute he talked.

And we know he got his expenses.

But

this was

another bit of weird statements that came out of Obama's mouth, of course, slamming not only the President and America, but shaming us, basically, internationally.

But there are obvious differences.

In America,

we see more of the corrosive influence of money in our politics.

Wait,

what?

We see more of the corrosive influence of money in our politics.

We just finished an election

where

your side, sir, spent about 50 million times more than the other side.

And we know there's a lot of money in politics, and that is a thing that we need to address, a huge thing we need to address.

But I'll let him continue.

The entrenched partisanship, the low voting rates, in part because of a patchwork of laws that makes it harder to vote, these are all flaws in our democracy that have to be addressed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we eliminated the poll taxes and the Jim Crow laws, and we've eliminated intelligence tests.

Voting is pretty damn easy.

As a matter of fact, California wants illegals to vote.

So it's not the problem.

And early voting

makes it so that you can vote whether or not you're working that day up to, I think it's two months ahead of time in some states.

So it's not tough to vote in America, sir.

You're wrong, so stop spreading lies around the world.

The president also continued, and boy, oh boy, this one got to me.

If our citizens' expectations are not met and they believe they have no control over the decisions that are made by distant bureaucrats or dysfunctional government, then they will try anything.

Gee, they will try anything.

What could you be talking about if citizens are disenfranchised and aren't happy?

They will try anything.

What are you talking about, sir?

And they'll turn

to populist or nationalists or even authoritarian movements.

Oh,

I see what you're doing.

To populists and nationalists or even authoritarian movements.

Unbelievable that this guy would go to another country, insult America, insult the President of the United States, and get paid $400,000 to do so.

It's disgusting.

I got to take a break.

When we come back, let's get a little education on education.

What's happening with Common Core?

I've got an expert who will help us next on the Glenn Beck program.

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I'm trying to keep an eye on all the news that's popping on the Blaze, but it's going so fast I can't get it all to you right away because we have other issues to talk about.

About four years ago, I became aware of what Common Core was, the Common Core curriculum, and how

in the height of the financial crisis, the federal government swooped in with this idea to take over the education system on a local level, to come in and tell all of those counties and cities that were having budget crunches, especially in their education budget because of the huge financial crisis we were in, that we have money for you,

but

we want you to do something for us.

And we want to introduce this wonderful thing called Common Core.

and the Common Core standards that they're only going to help the children.

They're only going to make it better for everybody.

And anytime somebody comes to you and gives you money and then says you have to implement these programs and it's just going to make everything better, I'm suspicious because anytime something's going to make my life better, I usually have to pay for it.

I usually have to purchase it.

And I have to make, it's incumbent upon me to make an educated purchase.

As a consumer, I like to know, well, what else could I have purchased?

And is there something with a better value?

Not the case with Common Core.

It was rammed down the throats of all the states that were in financial trouble.

So that would just be 50 out of 50.

And when we woke up and went, hang on a second, this Common Core thing is not good.

It's changing the way our kids are taught.

It's changing the way our kids are tested, which is kind of like constantly.

It's taking control of the education process out of the hands of the teachers.

And we started fighting back.

But Common Core, like Obamacare, has deep tentacles that have gotten inside of our educational system.

And it's not just easy to go in and go, all right, no more Common Core.

And despite the fact that Donald Trump made that a campaign promise that he was going to get rid of Common Core,

I don't know how realistic that is.

In order to understand it and to try and also realize that there's more going on in the world than the Jim Comey testimony.

We've brought in a friend of mine who is also a radio person in upstate New York, but she's a warrior on Common Core.

Her name is Shannon Joy, and she's joining us this morning on the Glenn Beck program.

Hello, my friend.

How are you?

Well, hello, Michael Palka.

How are you?

Thank you so much for having me.

You're welcome.

Happy to have you here.

I think I got the setup on Common Core right, didn't I?

You absolutely did, and then I'm going to take it one step further for you and for your audience.

Okay.

What was once a voluntary, seemingly quote-unquote voluntary grant program, the Race to the Top program put in place by the Obama administration,

you know, that was the initial mechanism that brought Common Core into every school district in the United States of America.

But it was the Republicans led by Lamar Alexander in a Republican-led Senate and House of Representatives that passed the ESSA Act.

It was the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015.

That legislation, which was pitched to the American people and conservatives as a solution to Common Core, was indeed the exact opposite.

It codified into law that voluntary grant program that was put in place by Obama.

So not only do we still have

Common Core in nearly every single school district in the United States of America today,

it is even more deeply entrenched.

In addition, Mike, what your audience might not know is that through my research and through all of the research we've done over the years, I have not been able to find a single charter school in the United States of America, not a single one, that isn't fully and totally aligned with the Common Core.

The way that you know if your school, your charter or your private or your public, is aligned with the Common Core is simply by the testing.

So for parents out there, if you want to know if your school is aligned, what you have to do is figure out if they're taking the federally aligned Common Core test.

You'll see the branding all over the test, and you'll see the Common Core insignia, the trademark logo all over as well.

If your school is administering those exams, those tests, they are aligned with the Common Core, and I have yet to find a single charter.

So Republicans now are putting forth a false solution.

They're coming out, you know, Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos, some of our favorite conservative Republicans.

I don't know if they quite understand the nuance of this, but they're pitching to conservatives the idea of school choice vouchers and charters as a solution when that is not the case.

In every piece of legislation in every state, including Texas, which voted it down just recently because of this, every voucher program, every choice program requires that the user of that voucher or that choice education institution must be aligned with the federal standards.

Those standards are common core.

So not only is it in our public schools, it's in our charters, and the Republicans are fixing to get it everywhere else.

Shannon,

you bring up a real scary reality that this thing has, as I said, it has more tentacles and deep roots.

But I want to ask you how we fight it, but I also...

I also want to ask

what parents can do when they realize that their kids in a Common Core program, even if they put them in a charter school?

And what does a parent say to an administrator, a school superintendent, who says to them, Hey, what's wrong with having standards?

These are standards that apply to all the kids around the country.

What's your big problem with Common Core?

Because I think we need to arm parents with information.

If they're willing to go into battle against Common Core,

we need to give them the ammunition.

So, what are the one or two things you as a parent can say when you're up there questioning these folks on Common Core?

Well, first of all, the issue is in standards, and that's one of the red herrings that the education planners on the right and the left will use to distract people because no one wants their kid to be a snowflake, right?

Every parent wants kids.

to have high standards.

Every parent wants a school to have high standards.

That's obvious.

The question isn't the standards, it's the curriculum.

And what the standards do because of the testing and the evaluation is drive the curriculum.

So what you have in a sense, you know, the next generation science standards are essentially global warming and climate change sustainability curriculum.

You have politics injected into the schools through the curriculums that they must put in place in order for the kids to achieve on the tests that are supposed to judge the standards.

So that's a red herring.

It's a false choice.

It has nothing to do with standards.

It has everything to do with the curriculum.

For example, the social studies curriculums, many of them that are Common Core aligned, are teaching children to be global citizens

and are shaping their attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs, right?

So they're indoctrinating children into collectivism, globalism, socialism, and they're doing it in the guise of standards and a curriculum.

So that's number one.

What parents can do, every parent that is listening to my voice today, if you are in a charter, a private, a public, today you can make the commitment to refuse to allow your child to take the Common Core exams.

The assessments and the tests, any of those exams, that is the carrot and the stick.

That is how the federal government and the state government gets your school district and your teachers to implement those.

false standards.

If parents across this nation refuse to allow their children to be guinea pigs to be tested incessantly by the federal government and education bureaucrats, Common Core will be gone tomorrow.

That's as easy as it is.

You have to take away the testing.

Then you have some work that we need to do on our federal officials, senators.

I'm telling you, Mike Opelco, we don't have a single friend in the Senate, not one friend.

In the Senate or in the House of Representatives that understands the nuance and the tentacles of Common Core.

They are putting forth what they think are solutions, which is the school choice and the voucher.

Those are false solutions.

What was once a great idea has now been hijacked by progressives, and it it is only going to further entrench the federal government, not only into public schools, but also to charters.

Here's the other dirty little secret.

There's a reason that the unions, Randy Weingarten and Betsy DeVos, are so buddy-buddy, so chummy.

All over the United States of America, they're going on speaking tours and listening tours.

That is because I believe eventually as they move to close down public schools and turn them into charter schools, what you're going to see happen is those charters are going to begin to unionize.

It's going to happen very fast.

And we're going to have the exact same problem that we have with the public schools, except one difference.

Charter schools do not have a board of education, a democratically elected local board of education.

They have a board of supervisors that appoints a parent as a liaison.

So what is you're going to have are charter schools all over the country that are directly tethered to the federal government.

They are not controlled locally in any way, shape, or form.

And we will have even less of a voice than we do now with our current public education system.

That's how important

this is, this charter and choice battle.

This is why in Texas, that bill was killed just a couple months ago, Mike.

It was not by liberals.

It was not by Democrats in Texas.

It was by homeschooled moms and dads and grandparents who saw the false choice, the false charter, the false voucher plan for what it truly was.

Well, Shannon, I'm glad you brought up Texas because Texas was the first thing that caught my eye with their C-scope program, which only changed its name.

And now we're seeing Common Core is really just changing its name but it's also it's also slidden sliding into or has slid into the charter school system and completely infected that system.

I could dive into this and tear this apart all day long and I'm not a guy with kids.

I'm just a guy who cares about the country.

What Shannon has pointed out here is that Common Core is not just about the testing, it's about what they're testing the kids for in knowledge.

And

they have preloaded this agenda, this global citizen agenda, this global climate change agenda, this everybody's got to be fair agenda.

It's the snowflake agenda that's been preloaded into the system that they will test them to see if they know this.

Shannon, I've got just about a minute left.

In that minute, you used to have a site that you told me about where people can go to find out the testing in their area and where parents can find out how to opt out for their kids on these kinds of tests.

Where do they go?

Sure, Mike.

So, parents can go.

One of my favorite resources, I'm going to give your audience a couple resources.

One of the best is truth at AmericanEducation.com.

Okay.

That gives you all the up-to-date information on Common Core.

Also, Jane Robbins of American Principal American Principles Project, she is a fantastic voice on this.

Neil McCluskey from the Cato Institute is wonderful.

And Duke Pesta.

So if you Google any one of those, follow them on Twitter, follow them on Facebook.

You can get up to date on what is happening with Common Core.

But for every parent in America, you can refuse to take these Common Core exams.

We just finished them up this year, but let me tell you, next year, you're going to have to take them again.

They're probably going to change the name of

the Common Core.

Look out for next generation standards or something like that.

They're going to completely rebrand the Common Core to try to hide what they're doing.

That's going to happen next year.

But I can assure you all, the curriculum, the standards, the evaluations, the testing, it's all exactly the same.

Thank you, my friend.

Her name is Shannon Joy.

You can follow her on Twitter at Shannon JoyRadio.

She knows this stuff inside out, and it's vital information.

Have a great rest of your day.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks, Mike.

I got to step aside.

This just makes me furious.

Why would you can't abdicate your children's education?

And trust me, homeschoolers, homeschool parents, they're coming for you this year.

That's the next target to get you out of business and bring those kids back into the fold.

We'll be right back.

You're listening to the Glenn Beck Program.

Mercury.

This is the Glenn Beck Program.

Welcome back to the Glenn Beck program.

Michael Pelka in for Glenn Beck.

And we talked earlier about the fact that Bill O'Reilly is usually here on Fridays in the second hour.

And he will be here next Friday with Glenn.

But I also just got a buzz in my ear that said Bill will be joining Glenn on Tuesday as well.

So you get a bonus O'Reilly

next week, hour three on Tuesday.

So you get a little O'Reilly on Tuesday and then more O'Reilly on Friday.

So good for you.

The word Schadenfreude, one of my favorite words in the whole wide world, It is the word that the Germans gave us that means the joy we feel at the misfortune of others.

And yesterday, as Jim Comey was testifying, CNN was required to

basically issue a correction and an apology.

CNN had gone to press with a piece from Gloria Borger saying that

Comey was expected to refute Donald Trump.

In other words, the claims that Trump had made that Comey had actually told him he wasn't under investigation three times.

And so Gloria Borger went with this and it was live on CNN.com.

And as we all know from Comey's own remarks, that wasn't true.

CNN had to issue a correction, an apology, and a healthy dose of Schadenfreude to people like me.

I love that.

When we get back, Louie Gomert, the congressman from the first district in the great state of Texas, will join us on the Glenn Beck program.

Come on, back.

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I will make a stand,

I will raise my voice, I will hold your hand.

Cause we have won, I will be my drum,

I have made my choice, we will overcome,

cause we are one.

The fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

It is the Glenn Beck program.

Glenn returns Monday from his vacation.

And you really do need to follow him on Facebook and see what he's been up to.

You know, he's branding cattle and chopping down trees.

And no, he's not.

But he is enjoying his time away and hiking.

I'm sure he's doing some of that.

I don't want him to get mad at me.

But all the talk about bailing hay and I, come on, Clenn.

I better stop digging or I'm going to get in deep trouble.

Joining me this morning,

one of the guys who I just I love hearing from him because he's common sense, extraordinaire, and it's it's government without the glitz and it's government without the hype and the hyperbole.

It's the guy who represents the first district in the state of Texas, Louis Gomert.

Hello, Congressman.

How are you, sir?

It's so good to be with you.

Thank you.

Doing all right, as far as I know.

But

we were supposed to be in session today.

That was the plan until Tuesday.

And it causes me a little bit of concern because

we have not passed any kind of repeal, not even partial repeal of Obamacare.

We have not done the tax reform that we've promised.

And I keep hearing people from the Senate say,

one day it may be, well, we're not sure we're going to get to it this summer, or it may be

toward the end of the year.

Well, I know what toward the end of the year means.

It means we're not going to get it done this year.

And I told the president last Sunday that it's starting to feel here like my first term in office in 2005

when we came in with so much excitement.

We were going to reform the government.

We were going to

have a total overhaul of taxes.

We were going to shore up Social Security so it would be there for future generations.

And what happened?

Well,

Speaker and the majority leader and the in 2006, that is, they weren't that thrilled.

But for 2005, we were told, well, we'll try to get to it by May.

Okay, didn't get to it by May, maybe by into August.

Then, well, you know, we got the fall.

Well, the fall is tough to get things done because there are a lot of weeks we're not here.

Have Thanksgiving, and you're into Christmas, and we didn't get any of it done.

And then in January of 06,

we have our annual planning meeting.

We were told, oh, now it's an even-numbered year.

That means congressional elections.

That means we can't do any of the big things that we promised we would do.

So, well, it looks like we'll wait till January of 07.

Well, I was a freshman.

I got up and I said, if you really think there's any chance we could lose the majority this year, then it has to be when we do the big stuff we promised.

Let's do the tax reform.

Let's shore up Social Security.

Let's reform the government.

But that was a minority position within the majority.

And we fooled around and we didn't get anything done.

It was tragic.

And I'm telling you, it kind of feels like that right now.

And I think you agree, this is our chance.

We have got to get the big stuff we promised done this year.

So I'm concerned when we cancel Friday's events today.

It also means that all anybody wants to talk about today is Comey.

And our leadership had to know that the day after the most over-hyped event since Y2K,

that we needed to help change the message back to our agenda, not the media's agenda.

But instead, we took a hike today, and we're not in session.

Well, Congressman, you bring up a really important point, and it's a strategic point that I think is lost on a lot of people.

We heard this morning Nancy Pelosi was introduced on MSNBC as the future Speaker of the House.

So they said that to her.

That's how they brought her in.

So they're looking at 2018 as a wave election.

They're looking at changing the landscape.

And obviously, there's still a lot of time and anything could happen.

But what you're saying, I wish leadership would

hold on to and say, yes, do what you can do now.

Because if you do get swept out, you'll have done nothing.

And at least you'll have made some changes.

Exactly.

How come they don't see this?

I don't know, but it's pretty clear to some of us that, you know, I believe God gave us another chance.

His mercy and grace, he's given us another chance.

But that's it.

It's a chance.

We have to use the gifts with which we've been blessed, and we're not really using them.

So I appreciate your voice being raised and Glenn's voice being raised in trying to push Congress into doing the things we promised.

It's not that foreign of a concept.

Doing what we promised, I mean, it shouldn't be a foreign concept.

Well, you talked with the president on Sunday, and

I don't know if it was face-to-face or if you had some phone call with him.

Well, he called me.

Okay.

I was on Fox News, and then he called me an hour later.

I was driving from Dallas back to Tyler.

And it said unknown, and I don't like to answer unknown calls, but last time it was unknown, it was the president.

So

I went ahead and answered, and it was the this is the White House operator.

Will you hold for the president?

Well, okay, yeah, I'll hold for the president.

Okay, sure.

And he came right on.

So, well, now in those conversations, the president has said we're moving ahead on tax reform.

We're going to get the health care done.

But you're saying there really isn't any movement.

What can we as citizens do?

Is there, I'm short of calling and hollering at people, is there anything?

That's a good thing to do, though.

Okay.

Yeah, I guess so.

But

the president really does want to get this stuff done.

He really wants to meet our agenda.

He is not

all into the weeds about how exactly it's got to be worded, but he's counting on us keeping our word because he's a business guy.

He's not used to

coming into a group where everybody has made these big promises and

the people in charge have made the promises, but they're not all that enthused about keeping their promises.

Aaron Powell, I'm sure the president, as a businessman, is a little shocked at how few days Congress actually spends doing the thing that we hired them to do.

And instead of holding some of these hearings, which, yes, they're important, but a few of them are starting to feel meaningless, Congressman.

Well, and some of the hearings are meaningless.

We need to treat some of these important subjects

like some of the bigger hearings of the 70s, where

some of them,

you know, the way the hearings are broken down when we're doing investigations, each House member gets five minutes.

One Republican, one Democrat.

You cannot do an effective questioning, cross-examination in five minutes.

I've questioned questioned thousands of people in my role as a litigator and as a judge.

You can't have an effective questioning when you break up the questioning between different people every five minutes.

So if you recall the Watergate hearings,

the members

got to ask questions,

but they also had the house counsel that would do a lot of the questioning.

And it wasn't limited to five minutes and then flip back to the other side.

You've got to be able to set up your questions in order to drill down and really push to get the truth out.

Well, I wish those rules could be changed.

I have one more suggestion I would offer humbly to those of you in Washington.

All of these hearings need to be held standing up because the bloviating would stop the first three minutes.

Yeah, and no more.

Thank you for your extended service.

You know, there's a lot of butt-kissing going on before we ever get to a question.

So I'm just saying.

Yeah, that's right.

We only have five minutes, and often two minutes of that is spent thanking them for their long service and for their faithfulness and whatnot.

And I try to skip all that because sometimes it's not true.

They haven't been faithful in their service, but that's me.

Great thing.

But listen, let me

say,

don't misunderstand.

We are in session enough days in the year to get everything done that we promised to get done.

We are in session enough.

And like I said of the Texas legislature, you know, when we're in session, no man nor his property is safe.

Every day we pass new laws that we're in session.

Every day.

Now they may not pass the Senate, but in the House, we're passing new new things every day.

And some of them do encroach on Americans' rights and liberties.

You can't keep passing new bills every day and not have some of them encroach on people's liberties.

So, I'm not in I'd be in favor in fewer days in session if

we made those very productive days.

So, 20-hour day for me here in D.C.

is not uncommon,

But

when you look at how long we're in session and what we actually get done in our hearings, I mean, every hearing usually is in conflict with another hearing.

So most people have conflicting hearings at every hearing they're in.

That needs to be worked out like it is in most state legislatures, where you can be at your hearing and not have to run back and forth.

So there's a lot of things we could do more effectively here, but we don't seem to be that interested in reform of our own body.

I'll tell you another good thing that should be done.

There are so many overlapping, duplicating forms of public assistance.

And the way the Democrats have structured Congress, they have all these different programs in completely different budgets, different subcommittees.

And so if you try to take out one of the completely duplicative

programs,

then you get accused of being a hater, hating seniors, hating women, hating children, hating puppies, whatever it is.

When a good example is with federal programs charged with getting people to and from

appointments.

Dan Webster, great brother in Christ, just a good man.

He was the Speaker of the House in Florida years ago.

Transportation is one of his pets.

So he decided he was going to find out how many federal programs we have that are charged with getting people to and from different events.

And he told me recently, I'm pretty sure I found them all.

It's possible there's one or two more, but there's 82 that I've found.

Most of them have white 20-seat vans.

Most of them sit vacant, dormant, much of the time.

And when they do take somebody, it's usually an average of three passengers.

Well, if you try to take out one of those 82 federal programs, again, you get beat up.

You're a hater.

You hate women, seniors, kids, whatever it is.

If we had all of the different forms of public assistance under one subcommittee, then as Republicans, as conservatives, we can say, no, we don't hate any of those.

In fact, by combining these 82 programs, we can cut out the massive amount of waste.

We can provide even more services to more people,

but we do it.

by getting rid of duplication.

But if everybody can see we don't need 82 programs, we win that fight.

But when we fight on one at a time in different subcommittee battles, we don't win.

We're looked at as being haters.

Louis Gilbert,

I want to know why aren't you the Speaker of the House?

Why is it this common sense

leading the House?

I will pray for that every day, sir.

I know you probably don't want to.

I'll tell you.

But I would love to know.

When I announced that I was running for Speaker in January of 2015, I knew that that act would make so many angry who had promised their constituents, oh, yeah, I'd vote for anybody but Boehner.

I hear you, but there's no use throwing my vote away.

If nobody announces, I'm going to go ahead and vote for Boehner because otherwise I'd throw my vote.

But I'm telling you, if somebody announces, I'm going to vote for them.

The goal was to get to 29 votes.

That meant it would throw it to a second ballot and even a third, fourth, and up to nine, like it did in 1922, until we got the rest of the conference to agree on a compromise candidate.

I think I'd make a great speaker, but I knew going in that just by announcing, I would engender so much anger and hatred from some of our Republican members, they'd never elect me to anything.

So that's where I am now.

It almost worked.

We got 24.

But because we got as close as we did, the die was cast.

Boehner was not going to serve out two years.

So I was offering

myself as a sacrificial lamb.

And you know what happens to sacrificial lambs.

I do.

I do all too well.

Thank you for jumping in on a last-minute notice here.

I appreciate you so much.

It's great to talk to you.

Thank you for understanding with such clarity.

Well, it's only from the common sense,

straight talk approach, Congressman.

Thank you, sir.

That's where we need to be.

Thank you so much for your time.

Have a great weekend.

Michael Pelka, stepping aside.

We'll be back with more of the Glenn Beck Program.

The Glenn Glen Beck

Program.

The fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

We are one.

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888-727 Beck.

Welcome back to the Glenn Beck Program.

Michael Pelka here.

Steve in Indiana.

Wanted to chime in.

Steve, welcome to the program.

Thank you, Mr.

Stunt Brain.

I just wanted to put out there that, well, by the way, love you when you fill in for Glenn.

I miss hearing you.

Thank you.

Since Obamacare was passed, I I believe the Democrats have been swept out of office and

lost

nearly 1,000 seats.

And I'm afraid if we don't follow through with the repeal as promised, the Republicans are headed for a sound defeat in the upcoming elections.

I'm just worried about that.

Well, Steve, you bring up a really good point.

And the fact is, when you think about those thousand seats, they encompass House, Senate, in terms of the national positions.

There are governorships, there are state positions, there are all kinds of seats that were lost to Democrats.

And that was from the pendulum swinging so far left under the Pelosi and Harry Reed control with Obama in the White House.

And there is great concern.

So I hope the lawmakers will pay attention that there is an undercurrent right now that's not happy, that's not pleased, because they

elected the Republicans to lead the nation based on the promises that were made.

And if they don't fulfill those promises, we know what happens.

We know how this election thing works out.

So I appreciate you for chiming in and reminding all of us that we need to remind our congressmen and our senators and our local reps: you got to do what you promise or you'll pay the price.

Thank you, sir.

Have a great weekend.

Thank you.

Have a great weekend.

Yesterday,

after this show and after my other radio show, I visited the George Bush Center on the SMU campus in Dallas.

And I have to tell you, I had a religious experience of one kind.

And I witnessed the paintings that former President Bush has executed that honor the wounded warriors.

He has 90-plus paintings in this museum that's attached to the Bush Center.

Now, the Bush Center itself is a remarkable record of what the president did during his time in office.

And you can actually go and sit in the George Bush Oval Office and get your picture taken.

Yes, I did it.

But I spent more time checking out this exhibit of the wounded warriors.

It's powerful,

it'll make you cry.

But I think you need to check it out.

Visit thebushcenter.org, see it for yourself.

If you're local, go there.

We'll be right back.

You're listening to the Glenn Beck Program.

Mercury.

The Glenn Beck Program.

Welcome back to the Glenn Beck Program.

Michael Pelka sitting in for Glenn.

We'll wrap up here and continue our discussion today on the Blaze Radio Network as well.

on my program, Puro Pelka.

But you're welcome to join the conversation for the next half hour, 888 727 back 888 727BECK.

I hope I did not shortchange the George Bush Center.

I was talking a little bit and I wanted to make mention of

George Bush's own words here when he talks about these paintings.

And he writes in the book, I painted these men and women as a way to honor their service to the country and to show my respect for their sacrifice and courage.

And I hope to draw attention to the challenges some face when they come home and transition into civilian life and

the need for our country to better address them.

You have to see this exhibit.

You can see it online or you can actually go there.

One of the docents came up to me yesterday and said,

Can I ask, are you from out of town?

Yes.

Are you in town to work?

I said, yes.

She said, do you know how many people we get in your demo, mostly men, who come here to have a moment in this exhibit?

I said, well,

these are guys we understand fought for us to be able to be free and do what we do.

And then I looked around and the exhibit was populated mostly with men, probably in the 40 to 60 age range, just by themselves, doing the same thing I was doing.

So check it out at Buschcenter.org.

I'm happy one of my former Blaze colleagues is joining me on the phone right now, especially with the fact that we haven't covered the topics that he covers enough because we've all been busy with Comey Faify 2017.

Eric Stackelbeck is joining us.

You know Eric maybe from the early days of the Blaze and the Blaze TV, back when it was GB TV.

Eric was around, but now he's over at TBN and the director of Christians United for Israel's Watchmen project.

Eric, welcome back to the program.

We miss you here.

Mike, great to be with you.

Always great to catch up with you guys again.

Well, you know,

it's your old home.

So it's one of those places that if you have to go there, we have to let you in.

Those are the rules.

And I don't have to pay.

It's for free.

That's good.

That's true.

You should follow Eric on Twitter because he's posting things that the mainstream news seems to forget about and avoid.

And, you know, for people that don't know about the Watchmen program that's on Friday nights, new episodes on Friday nights at 10.30,

what's the elevator pitch to explain it to us?

Yeah, you know, the Watchman is based four times a year, Mike.

We're in Israel.

We're on the ground.

The elevator pitch really is the on-the-ground perspective from the Middle East, from the heart of it all that you're not getting here in the mainstream media.

We're showing you the truth of what's going on in the Middle East.

We're based in Jerusalem for a good chunk of the year and also in D.C.

And we're bringing not only the hot stories about the security threats, Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Iran, that affect not only Israel, but America, affect everyone in our country.

Not only that, a lot of the encouraging, uplifting stories that are happening right now in the Holy Land that people aren't hearing about.

So we're having a lot of fun.

Well, I like the fact that there's uplifting information mixed in with the scary stuff because we need a a little bit of that.

But speaking of scary stuff, Eric, I'm following you today, and I'm happy you are available because I said, I got to talk to Eric about this.

You tweeted less than an hour ago arrest of two Hezbollah operatives on U.S.

soil.

On U.S.

soil.

What's going on?

Mike, big deal here.

You know, a lot of people, as you mentioned, the lead-in, everyone's focused on James Comey, obviously.

But this is a huge deal to my mind because I believe that Hezbollah is really the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world.

And they're not just a terror group.

This is a terrorist paramilitary, well-trained, well-funded by Iran.

And look, two Hezbollah operatives, as you said, right here on U.S.

soil.

One based in Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest Arab population in the United States, Dearborn, just outside of Detroit, and another man arrested in the Bronx, New York.

And Mike, what they wanted to do, they were allegedly scouting out terror targets right here on U.S.

soil.

The one Hezbollah operative was scouting out JFK International Airport in New York.

Another had paid a trip to Panama, was looking at the Panama Canal, and looking at U.S.

and Israeli targets there.

So look, this is, this to me, this is a step up in what Hezbollah is doing.

We know they're embroiled in the Syrian civil war.

Hezbollah has a major presence there.

We know they're perched on Israel's northern border with some 150,000.

Imagine that.

Rockets and missiles aimed at every inch of Israel.

But yes, this shows that Hezbollah also has a presence right here on American soil.

And Mike, one quick note.

People need to remember that Hezbollah has more American blood on its hands than any other terrorist organization other than al-Qaeda.

Besides Al-Qaeda, it's Hezbollah that's killed more Americans than any other terror group.

Look no further than the 1983 Marine barracks bombings in Beirut.

243 U.S.

Marines killed.

Absolutely.

Eric Stacklebach is joining us.

Geez, I got a chill when you said the Bronx man associated with Hezbollah picked up scouting JFK, and I looked at it and I thought, you know, somebody's going to say you're just a bunch of anti-Muslim conspiracy nuts.

Well, the story's in the New York Times, people, the New York freaking Times.

It's not conspiracy.

This is the real deal.

We have been fortunate, fortunate not to have the kind of attacks that the European community has had over the last couple of weeks.

Although, you know, you can look at Orlando, you can look at San Bernardino, you can look at Ohio, you can look at all of the...

all of the small attacks and say, oh, we're lucky it hasn't spread any further.

But if someone's looking at the Panama Canal and someone's looking at JFK, guess what they're doing, people?

They're looking at transportation.

They're looking at shutting down significant commercial transportation, which is what the Panama Canal would do if it were attacked.

And JFK, can you imagine a bigger trophy than attack an airport with the initials JFK?

I'm a little nervous, Eric.

I'm a little nervous today.

I know.

I'm ruining your weekend.

No, in all seriousness, though, Mike, people need to remember here that Hezbollah is what makes them so dangerous is that they are funded, supported, armed, and trained by Iran.

Thank you.

They have a state actor.

They have a state, a powerful country behind them.

That's a big deal.

Hezbollah was created by Iran to this day, funded, armed, as I said.

And look, this shows you the true face of the Iranian regime.

Right now, under the Obama administration, you probably would have not heard much about these arrests.

And they would have kind of poo-pooed it and tried to ignore it.

But we hope, we're hoping that it's a new day now with a new administration that's taking a tougher line against Iran.

And I think the big picture here, Mike, is that, yes, ISIS, serious threat, absolutely.

They're here.

The barbarians are here, make no mistake about it, in Western Europe and in the U.S.

to a lesser degree, but they're here.

Well,

I have to say a quick moment of thank God that the men and women of our intelligence divisions, all the different intelligence groups and our first responders are tracking these people.

And unlike we saw in London, where they knew about them but did nothing, we're at least watching and apprehending and hopefully continued to prevent.

Eric,

before I let you out of here, you and I talked about this earlier in another place.

What's your take on whether or not we will get the embassy, the American embassy in Israel, moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem?

Mike, great question.

I think it will eventually be moved, hopefully sooner rather than later.

I and many others were disappointed when the embassy was not moved last month.

I think right now that President Trump is giving a shot at, number one, he's seeing if peace is possible between Israel and the Palestinians.

Number two, I think that King Abdullah from Jordan, the visit he paid to the White House in February, had a big effect.

What President Trump wants to do right now is kind of put together an Arab NATO, I guess you could call it, with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Gulf states, Egypt, aligned alongside Israel against Iran and ISIS.

Will that work?

Hopefully, that works.

In terms of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, I think the president's going to be in for a rude awakening because the Palestinians have shown no desire at all for peace or to even recognize Israel's right to exist.

So he signed a six-month waiver to not move the embassy yet, but that was a campaign promise he made, and he made time and time again.

So I'm sure that the pro-Israel community here in the States and the Israeli government will really be holding him to that.

I think he will eventually move it.

Well, the Christians, the evangelicals, as well as I would hope American Jews would support this.

And then we'll see what happens.

Tonight, 10.30 on TBN, Eric has The Watchman.

And you have to watch The Watchman.

Thank you, my friend.

Hope to see you in person soon.

I'd love to, Mike.

Thanks again.

Great catching up with you.

Take care.

Take care.

He's one of the good ones.

Eric Stacklebeck.

Follow him on Twitter.

It's a good, and it's Friday, so we should be sharing follows.

And you know what else we should do?

We'll take a break.

We'll come back.

We'll say bye-bye to the Glenn Beck program.

We'll be right back.

This call.

The Glenn Beck Program.

Mercury.

The Glenn Beck Program.

Welcome back to the Glenn Beck Program.

Michael Pelker wrapping up my two days here here hosting for my buddy Glenn Beck.

Thank you for being a part of this.

Thank you to those of you who chimed in on Twitter, those of you who called in.

I appreciate you.

Special thanks to Louie Gomert.

We asked Louie this morning to join us and he did.

And to Eric Stackelbeck, and to Dr.

Wendy Patrick, and to our friend Shannon Joy, all

great contributors to the show today.

Those of you watching on the Blaze TV may have noticed there's a bullhorn next to me.

And those of you listening on radio can hear it this way.

Somebody wrote in and said, is that the bullhorn George Bush used at Ground Zero?

No,

but that bullhorn is at the exhibit at the Bush Center.

So when you go there, you'll see that among the other stuff.

A couple of bits and pieces that I wanted to share with you before we get out of here.

This one's on Glenn Beck.

It's a cross-posting from our friends at Faithwire and our former Blaze faith editor, Billy Halliwell.

It's a story about the high school football coach who was fired when he prayed at the 50-yard line.

Do you remember the story?

It's a former high school coach.

Like I said, he was fired.

He's Joe Kennedy, former coach at Bremerton School District in Bremerton, Washington.

He's suing the district.

closely watched religious case because this is about religious liberty.

He claims his First Amendment rights were violated when he was punished because after the game, he prayed at the 50-yard line.

Lost his job.

He didn't tell everybody else to come out and pray.

He prayed.

But this one will be in court on Monday.

So stay tuned, stay vigilant.

You have to be...

You have to be keeping an eye on these cases.

This one, I think the coach absolutely has a great shot to win this one.

The other ones, the ones about the cakes and stuff, you know, it's really hard because communities have squishy regulations when it comes to whether or not you're going to make a cake and that's a religious statement.

But a man walking across a football field after the game, kneeling down, saying a few prayers of thanks, I'm sorry, that's a personal expression and you can't stop that.

The free speech zone in this country starts at the Atlantic Ocean and it ends somewhere in the Pacific with those little islands that we call Hawaii.

So no, you shouldn't be doing this.

And President Trump, who spoke at the Faith and Freedom Conference and talked about protecting religious liberty as long as he's in office, I hope he's keeping an eye on this one too.

And speaking of religious liberty, there's another story.

This one's on the blaze.

The last one's on Glennbeck.com and you should check that one out.

Glennbeck.com has the story of the coach.

A Maine high school has issued what they're calling, and I'm using air quotes radio, sports hijabs to Muslim athletes.

And when I first read this headline, I was like, wait a minute, that's giving preferential treatment to one religion over the other.

And so often we find schools that would not allow a prayer group to happen, and yet then they would have Muslim prayer rugs or whatever they had.

And I thought that's a contradiction.

As I read the story about Deering High School and giving the female Muslim athletes the option to wear a sports hijab, I was calmed down when I learned that it was actually two of the athletes from the school, two women athletes who said, you know what, we're going to take it on ourselves to raise the money to buy the hijabs for the women.

Now that's a private choice by a private individual, in this case two young ladies, who said we would like more women to participate in sports, so we're going to help them.

They can wear the hijab on their heads and it will fulfill their religious requirements, and then they'll still be allowed to be active in sports.

So, good for you, two female athletes, taking it upon yourselves to privately fund these hijabs for the other young ladies.

I applaud you for this.

It isn't the school using taxpayer money, it's private citizens.

Two very interesting slices of the religious pie.

Again, I want to thank you for letting me host your radio program, Glenn, your TV program.

I'll be on the Blaze Radio Network immediately following this show.

And you can join me.

Noon Eastern to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Thanks again.

We'll be back

whenever Glenn takes a break.

I'll try and weasel my way in.

Testudo, my friends.

Testudo.

Testudo.