Saving America

0:00This is Saving America with your host, Dr. David D. Schein, presenting the intersection of business and politics. Enjoy common sense commentary and interviews with some of the world's most interesting people. Now here's your host, Dr. David D. Schein. Welcome to Saving America. This is your host, Dr. David D. Schein. Venezuela in transition. Venezuela is in transition. That's what we've been hearing on the news. For about 24 or seven, for a couple of weeks now, I think we all hope that Trump's plan will work. How about moving faster? The BP of the fake government is now the president of the fake government. How is that going to be resolved? I heard the people have been blocked from celebrating the removal of Maduro. That does not sound good. Look, I know the lefties in our government like the Clown Mayor of New York City are heartbroken

1:00that one of their heroes has been arrested. I want to underscore that speaking as an attorney, I consider this an arrest of an international criminal who has done great damage to the citizens of the U.S. and his own country. No civilized nation believed that Maduro won the 2024 election in his country. Therefore, he simply was not a legitimate head of a country. The U.S. for two centuries has had the Monroe doctor and that due to the proximity of Central South America, we will protect those countries in the past that concern were territorial attacks. More recently, it's been stopping drug traffic and guerrilla wars and the growing influence of communism. We need to look no further than during the day of the night, Maduro is arrested, representatives of the CCP, which I regard as the greatest threat to world civilization, had a full delegation meeting with him. And it's crucial that we prevent a CCP take over any country in our hemisphere. Trump is honoring America's not only long-term commitment to protect our hemisphere, but to block having the CCP on America's doorstep.

2:05Venezuela and expats and refugees around the world have been celebrating and removed the Maduro. All the celebration that's paired with caution is there's a long road to successful and safe country. It was just 30 years ago. Trump class battleships, while one thing you depend on is a Trump has an ego. He has recently announced creating a new class of more powerful battleships, which he, of course, is naming after himself. He proposes to make as many as 25 of them with two to get started. Here is my take. First, I want no bill passed or something like this done that is named for anyone in government for at least the last 25 years. Second, the days of the battleships and even aircraft carriers are number. The world has too many missiles and drones for them to be trapped. Go for the wars of the future. As my article on Cold War II states, the good guys need to control under the seas, outer space, along with a golden dome system covering not just major cities in the U.S., but major cities of our key allies. So I'd

3:06rather have our limited resources dedicated to these goals like space attack systems and nuclear submarines. Third, a parallel need is a restoration of U.S. shipbuilding capacity to build more of its own containerships and tankers. Rand Paul's annual Festivist report, Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul released the latest edition of his annual Festivist report. For 2025, Rand's report detailed well over $1 trillion in wasteful spending by our bloated government. Like Trump, I don't always agree with Rand, but we're in the same page that our government is a toilet into which hard earned tax dollars are flushed. Not only tax dollars, but borrowing now paid at $38 trillion, which will burden generations to come. His details included one and a half million using influences to reduce drug use in Hispanic communities. 1.9 million on a wacky program to reduce childhood obesity among Hispanic families living in LA. Good idea, pathetic program. 40 million spent on influences to promote getting

4:10vaccinated against COVID-19 for minorities. One and a half million to promote American films, television shows, and video games abroad. Almost one million spent, I can't make this up folks, teaching ferrets to drink alcohol. Almost 15 million to train monkeys to play a price's right video game. American families are struggling and your feds are tossing money in the toilet like toilet paper. Credit Trump with the lowest level of fed employment in a decade, but that barely scratches the surface. I call for a target of reducing our bloated federal employment to pre-1932 levels right about a century ago before the ruinous new deal under FDR. Time to end these failed programs now, send most wasteful programs into the states. They can spend their money if they want to, and for the programs they continue, they will probably spend it a lot more carefully. The exploding international scene, Trump should mind his store not mess with our allies. Trump

5:11is spoken against Colombia's president. That is not playing well with this ally. Since I was in Colombia recently and spoke to many Colombians, I have learned that he cannot run again, and the election is only six months away. The people do not want narco terrorists or guerrillas attacking their communities. I think a conservative candidate can replace this lefty. American help by supporting candidates who want security for Colombia. So maybe Trump can learn from Canada. He came out hard against the Canadian leadership, and despite that failed leftist government, the Canadians felt like that another lefty to replace the current one, even though the conservative candidate was ahead before Trump shot his mouth off. Trump recently commented that Cuba looks like it's ready to fail. In my research, this failed communist operation is indeed on the ropes. What is happening that turned the key? We have cut off their oil supply. We can finally bring the commie fools to the ground. Note that 32 Cuban bodyguards were killed when Maduro was arrested.

6:14This is a bad operation that needs to end. Do we have the local resources in place to run the joint and make it the Caribbean playground it was before communism? Let's focus on regime change the right way. Speaking of regime change, Iran's terrorist leaders are on the ropes. I believe the reported number of 16 killed in protests is likely very low. Iran's currency has now lost half its value, for instance. In any event, time to support the opposition, I know certain US allies have spies all over. What does the Trump administration need to do to support internal regime change there? For sure, keep enforcing sanctions and prevent them from selling their oil. Cut off the Venezuela to a ran mutual support situation. That will help just like cutting off Cuba from Venezuela. Last but not least on this topic is the mess Trump created with Denmark and Greenland. First, we don't need more dependence. Second, we already have a US military base there. Third, why not have a heavy duty cooperation agreement? We simply do not need to take over Greenland to have a

7:19strong position there. Elton hotels bounces a Minneapolis hotel. A big shout out to the Elton hotels system for bouncing a Minneapolis area, Hampton Inn, for canceling reservations for ICE agents to stay at their hotel. Some of my audience may not realize that most hotels run under a big franchising company banner. They are not a chain with one ownership. The name identification, especially their major reservation system adds a lot of value to these hotels. That would not have the same impact without the chain affiliation. When some foolish companies have taken the wrong side, rate that Elton took the right side and federal giveaways, Minnesota and Minneapolis in particular are the poster children for everything that is wrong with the federal government. Seems like every day more comes out about the fraud there. I hear numbers approaching 8 billion. Well, let's think about it that fed socas for taxes and then populate the government systems with overpaid and underwork bureaucrats who have no incentive whatsoever to mine the store.

8:21The more money flushed through their sewer system, the more security for those losers. Think about it. The scumballs in Minnesota saw the federal government as a big, stupid piggy bank. Why not take all they could get their hands on? Why not take care of their political allies? The outcome is predictable. Not sure why any rational person is shocked that the criminal saw this as a golden opportunity to grab all they could. The Biden-Harris administration's four years of sloping chaos made it all the more inviting. While there can be poor neighborhoods, there are no poor states. The concept that the feds need to be involved in daycare, medical care for the poor school lunches and a thousand other giveaways is pure bunk. Send it all back to the states time to cut, cut and cut the federal bureaucracy and I promise you that we will all do better in this country. Death at the hands of an ice agent. There's no way to spin this headline. It is bad for America. I am reminded of the old saying it's all fun in games until someone gets hurt. As I've said on prior saving America episodes, we need to respect

9:25law enforcement and that includes ice agents. Why was this woman even operating her car near these agents? Unfortunately, media coverage and the sloped stream media made messing with ice operations sound like the thing to do. It never makes any sense to mess with a law enforcement officer of any kind. Regarding the legality of the shooting as an attorney for over four decades, I am reserving judgment. Let the legal system play out. I am sure that will go on for years. There are no winners in this scenario. All rise. We're going to take a short break but don't go anywhere when we return with saving America. We're going to be hanging out with a three author panel who've written a great new book called Slacking and Hi to how not to do an Ivy League education. The future is threatened by enemies often underlenting, unexpected and unpredictable.

10:31In the midst of an uncertain and evolving world, the need for Marines to defeat these shifting threats is critical. Because the need to ensure stability for our nation has never been greater. When there are battles to win for America's future, there is one constant. Marines. Thanks for coming back. We've got our authors Adam Kissel, Madison Marine Don, and Rachel Alexander Combe, three great authors who put together a thoughtful book called Slacking and Analysis of the Current Status of the Ivy League. Our series interviews for saving America

11:33establishes that the world is full of interesting people. Once you hear from our panel, I'm sure that you will agree they each deserve a moniker of interesting person. Saving America welcomes Adam Kissel, Madison Reno Don, and Rachel Alexander Combe. Adam Kissel is visiting lecture and formal organizations at Trinity College, visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a board member of the National Association of Scholars. He also serves on the America's 250th and Advisory Council on Civic History and America's Future. It's a master's in the University of Chicago, bachelor's in English and American literature and language from Harvard. He served in the first Trump administration as the deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs with the United States Department of Education. Madison Marine Don is the policy analyst in the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Her work focuses on higher education reform regarding affordability and accountability. She also writes on K-12 education choice initiatives. Don is also

12:33visiting fellow with the Maryland Family Institute, where she writes and comments on issues related to education choice, parental rights, and local education. Previously, she served in multiple roles for U.S. Congressman Brian Babin, Texas 36, most frequently as legislative correspondent, where she manages portfolio on religious freedom and values. Her work has been featured in Fox News, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, the Daily Signal, and the Educational Freedom Institute among others. She graduated summa cum laude from Lamar University with double major in economics and finance, has certificate in humanizing education policy from the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. Rachel Alexander-Kon teaches at Louisiana State University for Franciscan missionaries of our later university and Secretary of Classical Academy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And teaches remotely for Belmont Army Colleges Online Masters in Classical Liberal Education. She earned a PhD in Masters in Political Science from Baylor University and her BA from Washington and Lee University.

13:37Our three guests are here today because they're co-authors of the new book, Slacking Guide to Ivy League Miss Education. We welcome Adam Madison and Rachel for their first appearance on Saving America. And we're going to have a party here, folks. And I'm not sure who's going to answer what direction here, but you can all comment on each, as you know, we ask our guests three questions. And in this case, we'll take what we can get on each one. And the first question is, hold a disclosure, as a high school student, I worked my butt off to get a scholarship to U pen and the Ivy League. I was disappointed then and that was 50 years ago. What has happened to the Ivy's? I think a big part of what has happened to the Ivy's is that their long tenure in American society has made them complacent. They're resting on their laurels and their old reputations as legacy elite institutions. And that has led them as institutions become slackers to lose their sense

14:38of what a high quality education is. And that is at the origin of a lot of the rest of the problems that my colleagues might want to talk about. Yes, thanks so much, David, for having us on here. We often talk about, you know, the National Association of Scholars did a series of reports on general education requirements in the Ivy League in the 1990s. And at that point, the complaint or the critique was that students don't have to take courses on Western civilization or Shakespeare or any of the, you know, high level high quality courses you associate with an Ivy League education. What we found with this book and which we looked at all the general education requirements across the eight Ivy universities was that now it's actually hard for a student to find a course on Western civilization or Shakespeare. So things have actually gotten much worse as bad as they were in the 80s and 90s. They've actually declined further as what we've found, unfortunately. And if I could just add, I would say in our findings, Columbia is the exception with kind of a true

15:40core curriculum. However, you have Brown sits at the other extreme with virtually no record content. So and the rest of the universities, they just kind of fall somewhere in between, but none meet kind of the classical standard of general education as we've kind of briefly talked about. Another aspect of this is the takeover of many of the humanities and social sciences disciplines by what Roger Kimball, who's our publisher, called Tenured Radicals. These were folks who were the rabble browsers and rabble themselves in the 1960s and 70s. Then they got tenure and then they reproduced themselves in the next generation of graduate students. So now we have two generations worth of decline. Faculty members who think of themselves not as educating human beings and citizens and the best that has been thought and said in the world, but producing activists. And I think the courses that they offer in the core curriculum demonstrate this activist turn in American higher education. And I know, of course, and I know exactly what you're talking about,

16:41because I was actually there right at that time. And as I tell people, I was in college during sex drugs and rock and roll. And I think some of those people who were doing the real heavy pot and a few other illicit substances ended up as professors and later generations, maybe nobody else wanted them. So they found their way back into academia. So focusing a little bit more directly on your book, slacking is the first word of the title of your book. What caused you, all of you, to decide that that would be the first word for your title of your book. I think the word came first for me. And there was a college roommate of mine who was part of a slacker subculture at Harvard where I was undergraduate. And I thought the kinds of courses that this person was taking and would have taken represent pretty well what I want to get across in the chapters of the book that the whole attitude of the students who don't want to succeed

17:44through academia, through their academic work, and instead do other things in their cultural and personal life, that seems to be the kind of curriculum that is now offered as the norm across the Ivy League. So that if you want to be successful in society and you go to Harvard, you join a lot of extracurricular activities. You don't try to become a good person through your courses. So to me, if you to get the slacker curriculum, be the way that is the new norm in the Ivy League. Just to add to what Adam said, the way that we set up this book as we divided the book into eight chapters, one on each Ivy League University, the three of us divvied up the universities and combed through their university course catalogs to examine each course that could be taken for general education requirement. And we found that the majority of these courses are what we've dubbed slacker courses. They tend to fall into one of three categories. The biggest one is the bucket of ideologically motivated courses. So these are courses that

18:50the titles and the descriptions of the courses and the text and questions included in those descriptions, betray an obvious ideological agenda, whether it be assuming what justices or what injustices, assuming answers to questions about climate change or about diversity. So some examples of that would be Yale has a course called Managing Blackness in White Space. Brown has a course on how to teach American history through an LGBTQIA lens at the high school level. There are courses on settler colonialism, intersectionality, intersectional disability studies, I think is one that Cornell offers. So these courses are a bound, they do make up probably the majority of the courses we reviewed. And they assume answers to difficult questions that students should have to work through themselves. So we dubbed them slacker courses for that reason, not just because there's political bias in the course, but because it actually takes away the work

19:55of the student to think through what is justice, what is human nature, what's my place in the cosmos, these courses answer that question for the students. And so they're more ideological and indoctrinating in that sense. We also found a surprising, alarming number of courses that are focused on pop culture topics. So non-academic topics, courses on reality TV or pop music. So Yale has a course on pop safism, on lesbianism and pop culture. There are courses on thinking with bad money at Princeton, on Cardi B and Madonna. And so these are just courses that are obviously not academic in nature and not what you would expect to pay $80,000 a year to study, not what you would expect the cream of the crop of our nation to spend four years studying. So that's sort of why we concluded slacking would be a good title is we looked at all these courses and thought there's a problem here.

21:01Most of the students are not doing the difficult work you would expect them to do at Harvard or Princeton or Yale. And if I could just add quickly, I think the title is also somewhat we thought provocative by design. It's meant to spark a conversation about what education should be and why the ivies aren't delivering it. So we invite families and the boards of trustees at the university to take a closer look at what their core curriculum requirements are. Do you think the parents, you've mentioned the name of some of these courses and I'm going to get twisted this a little bit, but that the parents have actually read these lists of courses because I can tell you that even though Penn was going woke when I was there 50 years ago, it was more the attitude of the professors in the classroom. Now I'm hearing titles of these courses and the requirements and it sounds like there's been a real different twist to what's happening here. I mean, how does this impact the selection of universities if people do you think people really even know about this stuff? They just hear

22:04oh it's Harvard, it's Yale, it's Columbia, they go there because of that, they don't go there actually to do the students really pick the stuff out the parents. I don't think the parents or the students go so far into the course catalog as they need to to really know what kind of education they're going to get. I think you're right when you say people are star struck by the name of Harvard or Princeton or Penn and that's almost as far as it goes if they find extra curriculars they like or a sports team they like or some other aspect of the city they like they're not saying to themselves the next generation will say I got a good classical education K through 12. I want to extend that and develop myself as a per I don't see most students saying that right now. And what how would you construct a core curriculum? So you've studied these eight universities, the famous eight I of East. What's it? What how do you put these courses into a core curriculum or did they just flush out the core curriculum? Let me go first and say there's a hard question.

23:07What do you do to an 18 year old to make them an educated 22 year old human being in citizen who's ready for adult life in the world at an elite level because they're doing something more than the high school graduate is able to do. And what generations of people thinking about this have decided is there is a great tradition of conversation as Rachel said about the hardest questions of human being in citizen and the the divine. So we want to expose you as a student to the experience of being part of that great conversation as experienced through what are called the great books and the great ideas. And this is not what bad money is exposing you to. This is what Baeowolf is exposing you to. This is not what Beyonce is exposing you to. It's what Jane Austin is exposing you to. Yes, and Madison mentioned this earlier, but we do we did find that the Columbia remains somewhat of a model when it comes to offering a true core curriculum. So Columbia does still have courses that their undergraduates and in the arts and sciences have to take in the

24:13history of Western civilization. Now there's there's there are some new course new course options in the Columbia core that are more slacker type courses. And so we highlighted those, but at least Columbia does still require students to encounter Plato and Socrates, Aristotle, Machiavelli. And so if we made if we had to offer a model within our book, it would be to recommend these other IDs to become model themselves a little more off of Columbia. One of the main problems other than just this year, a number of ridiculous courses offered is that these schools have all adopted distributional models when it comes to general education requirements. They let students choose what they want to take to become a generally educated human being instead of doing the hard work that the university is supposed to do of telling students,

25:13this is what you need to know to become a generally educated human being. They leave that up to the student. And I experienced this a little I didn't go to an IV for undergraduate, but I went to a selective college on the East Coast and I arrived and I didn't know what what to take. And I wasn't given really any guidance. There was no core curriculum. I was just take a handful of courses scattered throughout our catalog. So I think universities outside and within the IV can go a long way by actually going back to requiring particular content, particular courses for their students. You would look like if you're a student and you look for a course that's called something like Classics of Social and Political Thought. A word like Classics is going to tell you, there's something good here for me. If you see a course called Masterpieces of World Literature, you say, okay, and that will help you decide even on the course title alone what you should be taking. Please proceed. The reports that scientists that reverse Alzheimer's symptoms and mice is exciting news. Some existing meds can delay the symptoms, but nothing so far has been able to

26:17repair the damage. The results were announced by researchers at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. The key is a cellular energy molecule called NAD Plus. If the brain fails, NAD Plus at healthy levels, Alzheimer's develops. This research team treated the disease mice with a drug called E7C3A20. Incredibly, the mice regain their normal brain functions. If this can be reproducing in humans, it could be one of most important advancements in medicine of this entire century. Let's hope for the best here, folks. How does the defendant plead? End paying to park at shopping centers. While this is based on my direct observations in Houston, Texas, I suspect that this is spreading. Look, if you are shopping in a major downtown area, you're going to have to pay to park. That is part of the urban street grid and the municipal government will be running parking meters to control the use of parking. I can handle that. However, American cities and counties that allow, well, encourage these huge shopping centers around much

27:20of near urban suburban America. These greedy developers, often mega companies, are now charging high fees for shoppers to spend their money at the store's restaurants and offices in these centers. A few centers started in Houston and it is now completely out of control. I was a regular customer for two decades at a men's clothing store chain here in Houston. Just over a year ago, I noticed that the center suddenly decided to charge to park. I told the store employees that they needed to have a free zone or a hang tag for customers while shopping in their store. They did not respond. I now no longer shop at that store or patronize any business in that large shopping area. I was trying to pick up passengers recently at a large shopping center. With little signage and no short-term parking, I stopped for a couple minutes to find my riders. I was given a $45 parking ticket for less than 10 minutes trying to find my passengers. What is my remedy? Well, if the store where my passengers spent over $570 could not get it settled, nobody in my family will

28:24ever patronize any store restaurant in that large center again. Note that these parking fees are actually higher than the city of Houston charges to park in downtown Houston. If the purpose is to prevent commuters from parking their old day and taking a bus into town, that can be accomplished with much simpler systems. Then today, my regular bank parking lot suddenly has a sign up for paid a park. I'm not arguing with this one since there are restaurants and clubs nearby. The pitch is that if you are shopping there in the daytime, it is free. But if you park at night, the stores there are not open, so you are a visitor and can be charged to park if the restaurant does not have ample parking. Note that I also boycott restaurants as much as I can that have only valet parking. It is already expensive to eat out and I hate letting anyone drive my car because they keep a lot of stuff in my car. If you want my business and provide free self parking while you can provide valet parking for those who like it. I know from talking to friends, it is not the majority of

29:25patrons. To conclude, I encourage my audience to refuse to patronize parking centers that require paid a park. Let these stores know why you are doing it. In the meantime, I encourage businesses are running to make sure that your new leases stipulate that the landlord will not impose paid a park rules that would impact your clients or customers. Please raise your right hand. We need to take a break, but more craziness from the politics and business world when we get back. Brushwood, meet again at work. Once you meet with a TurboTax expert, we'll do your taxes for you. You're free to do. Not taxes. Show your eyes things that are not taxes. Show your brain things that are not taxes. Taste not taxes. See if no taxes make you laugh or cry.

30:27What does not taxes smell like? How deep is it? How warm is it? Try on not taxes in pink. Play not taxes so loud that neighbors can hear. Come to TurboTax and don't do your taxes. Meet with an expert who will do them for you. So you can do not taxes. Into a TurboTax. Welcome back to Saving America. This is your host, Dr. David D. Shocking. As we grow up, a common reference for success or thought is the letter grade. Whether we are in grammar school or college, we all want an A grade and certainly regard an F as a big failure. Here at Saving America, we scan the news for reports of celebrities, politicians, or others who just end up in the public eye. So the A grades are awarded to people and organizations for great service to their communities. And the F grades, of course, are

31:30unfortunately more common are awarded to those who need to do a lot better. In a case that's received a lot of attention here in Texas, the state place to concentrate or wire fence along part of the border with Mexico in the evil past area to deter illegal crossings. The United States Border Patrol agents, on the other hand, cut the wire multiple times, claiming it was necessary to fulfill their duty of patrolling the border to prevent illegal entry. Texas sued for an injunction arguing that the border patrol was needlessly cutting the wire. The district court found that the border patrol was not hampered by the wire and had breached it numerous times without apparent purpose, other than to allow migrants easier entrance. However, the court denied the injunction citing the United States sovereign immunity versus Texas claims. A motion panel of U.S. Court of Appeals with the Fifth Circuit disagreed and granted a temporary injunction pending appeal, sought relief in the Supreme Court which vacated the injunction.

32:34The case was remanded to the district court to investigate the events. Next, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that Texas is entitled to a preliminary injunction. The court held that the United States waves sovereign immunity relative to Texas State claims under the Administrative Procedures Act. The court also rejected the United States argument that the injunction was barred by intergovernmental immunity and the Immigration and Nationality Act. The court found that Texas satisfied the injunction factors from the case of winter versus natural resources defense counsel. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court judgment granted Texas's request for that preliminary injunction with modifications based on the district court's supplemental fact findings. The reference winter case provides a test for whether preliminary injunction is appropriate. It is based on whether the court believes that the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits among other factors. So the temporary injunction in this case is a

33:37good sign for Texas moving forward. Objection, Your Honor. This is an interesting case regarding a particular twist on the access of the press under the First Amendment. There was a policy in Caldwell County, Texas, which categorically excludes the press in the public from observing criminal pre-trial proceedings. No one is magistrations. The case is Texas Tribune versus Caldwell County. The plaintiff's two nonprofit news organizations and an advocacy organization argued that this policy violates the First Amendment right of access to judicial proceedings. The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas initially renewed the case. The district court found that the plaintiffs had standing to challenge the policy and demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their First Amendment claim. The court issued a preliminary injunction in joining the county from enforcing its policy of closing magistrations to the press in public except in extraordinary circumstances and as constitutionally permitted. The United States

34:42Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reviewed the case. In that situation, Caldwell County argued that the district court erred in finding that the plaintiffs had standing and in determining that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claim. However, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's ruling agreeing that the plaintiffs had standing and that there is a presumptive First Amendment right of access to magistrations. The court applied the experience and logic test finding that both historical practice and the positive role of public access in the functioning of bail hearings supported the plaintiffs claim. The court concluded that the district did not err in its determinations and upheld the preliminary injunction. While this case was brought by publications, I believe the ruling is clear that it would apply to individual members of the public as well. May I remind you you're still under oath. Our series interviews for saving America establishes that the world is full of interesting people. Once you hear from our next guest,

35:44I'm sure that you will agree that he deserves the moniker of interesting person. Saving America welcomes Tyler O'Neill. It's our pleasure. You're the managing editor at the Daily Signal. He's also an author, conservative commentators written for numerous publications, including Newsweek, The Washington Times, The Christian Post, National Review, The Washington Free Beacon, and The Hillsdale Collegiate. A graduate of Hillsdale College also studied journalism at the Leadership Institute and the National Journalism Center. He enjoys Indian food, board games, and talking ceaselessly about politics, religion, and culture. He's the author of two books, Making Hate Pay, The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and his new book Walk to Push, The Dark Money Cabal, Manipulating the Federal Government. We welcome Tyler O'Neill for his first appearance on Saving America. Thanks, Dr. Sean. Glad to have you. So as you know, we asked our guests three questions. Why did you realize you were conservative at heart,

36:48and were there any outside influences that pointed you in that direction? It's hard to count. So I mean, I was raised, I like to say I was born in the People's Republic of Boulder, but revolted into orthodoxy and early youth and grew up in Golden. So I was not very far from the course factory and knew about the course families, generous support for conservative causes for so long. But my dad, you know, my grandma is a, you know, died in the wall, FDR Democrat. My dad had always been a very rock-ripped conservative responding to her. So I grew up with an interesting political background between the two of them, and I've always identified as conservative. I've always felt the call to keep the good things in America and to help it grow I really hate the way that the left has hijacked the term progressive because I think progress is a good thing. But you know, it's not whenever you want the federal government and the bureaucracy

37:54to take over, you know, and in my new, newest book, I define woke and one of the aspects of woke is the preference for technocratic government. And the so-called progressive movement is all about a preference for technocrats over the people's elected representatives. And you see that never stronger than in the whole COVID pandemic when they came out and they said, we lied to you, but we lied to you for good reason because we were, we were just doing white lies to protect you. And then it's like one thing after another, it was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie where the origin of COVID was. It was a lie where their masks helped or not. It was a lie, you know, that you should take the vaccine. One thing after another after another. And, you know, I think that more than anything else has woken up so many Americans to the threat of this bureaucracy that has been unaccountable, unelected, you know, divorced from the people. And I'm a guy who likes institutions. You know, I'm a natural conservative. I want to trust the experts. But when the experts are pushing

38:57things like gender ideology and, you know, critical race theory and climate alarmism, I'm like, no, these people are not real experts. And you have to go back to the real sources of information. You have to question the basic first principles. And you have to go to the source of truth as much as you can. And, you know, I'm a conservative. I've always seen the source of our values being, you know, Judeo-Christian heritage, which I studied a lot at Hillsdale, rooted firmly in the Bible and in Christian tradition and in, you know, so much of the wisdom of the past. And I have a great respect for, you know, I think most of us take modern life for granted. We tend to think, oh, if we were just to throw out the free market, if we were going to, you know, follow Bernie Sanders, we'd still have our iPhones and our, you know, refrigerators and our, you know, our microwaves are, these small things that we live with and, you know, they were, they were made often in the 50s.

40:03But, you know, our lives are so infinitely better than they were 100 years ago or 200 years ago. And we just take it utterly for granted that the free market was the thing that enabled us to get there. If we, you know, if we kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, that's going to make things harder for our children, for their children and for America going forward. And Tyler and Neil, that is a great metaphor killing the goose that laid the golden egg because a free enterprise is a flawed system, but boy, it is the best system in the history of the world. And it's so unfortunate that so many of our college students and just people on the street really don't understand that. We're going to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere because we're going to continue talking with Tyler O'Neill, managing editor of the Daily Signal. Uncle Sam, you just turned 18, right? It's time to register at sss.gov. Excuse me? We'll only take some minutes and it makes

41:06you eligible for student aid and millions of federal jobs. Plus, well, it's every man's responsibility. What do you say? Okay, I'll do it. Here's my quilt. I'll just use my phone. sss.gov, right? Yeah. Be the man. Register with the Selective Service System today at sss.gov. Welcome back to Saving America. I'm sitting here with my guest, Tyler O'Neill, author, woke to pus, and a book about the Southern Poverty Law Center. He's also managing editor of the Daily Signal Action. And we want to ask you that ties it nicely with our second question with the Southern Poverty Law Center. Now, that sounds like a harmless legal aid group down somewhere in the deep south, helping, you know, poor people, you know, people who are oppressed, get fair legal treatment. What's the real story behind it that you disclose in your book? Yeah, thank you. So, my book is Making Hate Pay, The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

42:06And I explain how this organization went from that noble mission of representing poor people in the south legally. And they want a lot of really important cases in their early years. They actually, they got to, they got black men who had been falsely convicted of rape off of death row. And they also, strangely enough, represented a reverse racism case where there were two white guys in a predominantly black, you know, situation where they were working. And they got singled out for bad treatment and the SPLC represented them and got them justice. And so, you know, the SPLC began with this noble mission. But then Morse D is the co-founder who was, you know, brilliant, well, is a brilliant fundraiser. He's still with us. But he found he had a personal beef with the Ku Klux Klan, I mean, which of us don't. But in his case, it was his uncle who was a member of the clan. And he realized that if he went after the clan, this was in the 1980s,

43:12the clan was mostly a paper tiger. So he could go after the clan, get a multi-million dollar judgment. His attorney said this was like shooting fish in a barrel. And then he could go to his donors, especially Northern Liberals, and say, hey, we're fighting those evil bigots in the south, send us money. And there's this really revealing story, I tell in the book, about a poor black mother who loses her son in a lynching. And the SPLC represents her and gets this big judgment from a group called the United Clans of America. That clan group, thankfully, you know, it has to close. It's over. It has about 50 grand to its name because it barely exists, right? This is the 1980s. We're not talking 1950s or 1920s. We're talking toward the end of the time. And the SPLC was pretty much putting the final nail in the coffin of these really evil organizations. But, you know, you see the SPLC's corruption even then because they get this multi-million dollar

44:18judgment against the clan. Clan group doesn't have a million dollars. They don't even have like more than 50 grand. So the 50 grand, that goes to Bula Mae Donald. Meanwhile, the SPLC goes to their donors and says, we got a million dollar judgment against the clan. Look at us. You need to give us money. And they get millions of dollars from their donors. Bula Mae Donald never sees any of that. But what happens to the money that she got in the case? She takes it and pays it to none other than the Southern Poverty Law Center, which she gave her a home alone for her home. So this is the example of the SPLC is raking in all this cash. And the poor woman they're supposed to be supporting, they're representing, goes out in the cold. But the real scandal about the SPLC right now is their hate map. They have this hate map where they put mainstream conservative and Christian groups on this map with chapters of the clan suggesting that a similar sort of hate drives conservatives

45:18who want religious freedom and white supremacists. And they often say, you know, in their reports, they say, this is this map is showing the infrastructure of white supremacists. It's a direct quote from them. Most of these groups have nothing to do with white supremacy. I mean, you also have black supremacist groups on the map. Anyway, so there's a joke for you. But they often are putting people on this map because they disagree with their conservative positions. And it's usually a proxy. So like you have the anti-LGBTQ anti-LGBTQ groups, which are religious freedom organizations. And by the way, they included gays against groomers, which is an LGB organization as an anti-LGBTQ plus hate group. So that's how seriously we should be taking them. But this, you know, and this ties into my next book because the SPLC has tremendous amounts of money that they get by scaring their donors into pointing up cash. They're also really useful for the left to demonize conservative opponents of

46:21their agenda. And in the last White House, we saw SPLC advising the Department of Education, the Department of Justice. We saw the FBI citing the SPLC on the hate map, in particular, when they went after radical traditional Catholics. We saw an SPLC attorney nominated to a top federal judgeship, Biden on other than President Biden. Of course, President Biden had to nominate her twice because her nomination got delayed in the Senate. So this organization has a tremendous amount of clout on the left, and absolutely none of it is deserved. And I had not seen a single book that laid out the case explaining why nobody should trust this organization. So I decided, well, darn it, I want to write that book. And, you know, come hell or high water, I was going to and I ended up doing it. And I think it's a really important message that we have to keep saying. And by the way, there are two live lawsuits. I don't want to go forever on this.

47:25No, no, no, we don't because I won't save time for your new book. But as you know, I said before, began recording that I heard a speech from either President or their chief legal counsel about a decade ago. And I was I was ready to toss the fellow out myself, although I'm not a very physical person. Don't generally don't beat up people. But I thought he was such a clown. And great minds think alike. What can I say? So let's move on and talk about that new book. It's a great title. The new book is called Wokapus. I hope I'm pronouncing that the way you intended. So tell us about the new book and why people should read it. Yeah, it's woke to us like woke octopus. So I don't know if you remember back I think it might have been around 10 years ago. They started going after the Koch brothers and they had books called the Kochapus. And so this is a playoff of that where I'm showing, you know, and it's it's the the octopus arms over the capital building

48:26because they're infiltrating the federal government. And you know, it's there are three aspects of it. There's the big the left's dark money network as I call them. People like George Soros, now Alex Soros is running open society foundations. The Arabella advisors network. These people who are sending money to far left activist groups. And then the far left activist groups are then infiltrating and advising the federal government. And this went crazy under Biden. So we saw President Biden nominating many people in high level, you know, cabinet positions who had either been at unions who had been at far left organizations. And of course, none nobody represents this better than John Podesta, who was, you know, Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, founder of the Center for American Progress, which is a humongous left-wing activist group that said, I think it was about 70 people into the Biden administration. And John

49:30Podesta was put in charge of determining where all the money went in the inflation reduction act. So you don't remember? Yeah, yeah, it's like and he he was on the board of one of these salindra style green boondoggle companies that fell apart. So yeah, I tracked the influence and and that's why, you know, the book on the southern poverty law center led very naturally into this one because I saw the weaponization of government against conservatives and there was a heavy hand of the SPLC in that in the Biden administration. One other thing I want to mention because I think it's really interesting. We all remember the when Biden declared transgender day of visibility on none other than Easter Sunday. And one of the reasons why I think he did that was because of the impact of the human rights campaign group I call the LGBTQ mafia because what they do is they go to corporations, they go to influential people and they say, look, if you don't tow the line,

50:34we're going to sick our activists on you and we're going to give you a bad score on our corporate equality index. And then what that ends up doing is it tells all the investors who follow the ESG model that they should never put money into these companies. They should blacklist them. So the the human rights campaign had tremendous impact in corporate America. Thankfully, that's largely eroding now, especially with President Trump and his executive orders. A lot of companies have pulled out of the human rights campaign index, which is a really positive step for our country. You know, it's it's getting business back into the business of business as opposed to the business of pushing left wing ideology. And I don't want these groups to be constantly focused on pushing conservative ideology. I want them to be focused on making the best goods for the American people at the lowest price so that we can all benefit as a society. And groups like

51:34the human rights campaign are one of the main ones pushing capitalism in this socialist, you know, this very anti market agenda. But anyway, under Biden's, you know, the human rights campaign released this document saying, this is exactly what we want the federal government to do. And Biden essentially said, you want me to jump? How high? And he implemented at least 75% of what the human rights campaign asked for. So I have what I call the Biden equality index, where the president scored far too high. And we should all be using that as an albatross around the democratic party. Well, I think given that they're polling between 17 and 21% right now last I saw, you know, keep talking about Trump's poll numbers. But the interesting thing is a lot of me, you mentioned something about language. And I just wanted to mention a couple of things. Progressivism was a positive concept as America turned the corner literally in 1900 with McKinley assassinated,

52:38of course, Teddy Roosevelt came in. And that was the birth of progressivism. And it was this launch that allowed America to win two world wars and land on the moon first. This current movement, I call them the regressives. I don't I think they're just totally misnumored. And the other term, I'm favorite about switching around is you, the daily signal, other publication heritage society, publications of Hillsdale columns in premise has five million subscribers. And I think that this term mainstream media has been way, way overused. My personal term in social media is slop stream media. And I am still surprised given that that the largely more conservative media stations have surged in this marketplace over the last few years. You know, newsmax went public and they they've done very well going public. I mean, you know, incredible numbers. I think that

53:44this the term mainstream media is definitely way off. And what made me think of it is this term about human rights. And I represent human rights. I am so strongly in favorite human rights. And I don't see anything in the conservative playbook that is contrary to real rights of humans. And it's it's just it's just sad because it's like, how can you tell her, Neil, how can you, Dr. Dave Sean, be against human rights? And it's like, well, let's take a look at who's calling what human rights. So I love your approach there. And Tyler, you know, we try and keep this short so that our audience will actually listen to it and then go check out your books. So we appreciate your being here today. Now, how can our audience get more information about you? You're writing and your books. Thank you. Yeah. You can follow me and the daily signal on most social media platforms. We have no truck with TikTok. We have no truck with the Communist Chinese Communist Party.

54:44But you can find me on acts, the platform formerly known as Twitter at Tyler to the number two O'Neill. You can find the daily signal there. You can find us on truth social, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, we're all over the map. You can find the woke to post and making hate pay on Amazon. The woke to post just and now I just released the audiobook version of the woke to us. So I actually got to record that myself, which is, which was a great experience. But yeah, if you just Google woke to post, if you don't want to do it through Amazon, you don't have to, but Amazon is, it's also sold pretty much wherever fine books are sold. I Google it occasionally, myself woke to post. And I find there are even like French and German bookstores that are selling it. So if you if you just put that word in there, woke to post, woke to post, it'll be sure to come up.

55:46The defense restaurant. The so-called big beautiful bill is passed by the house. The Senate needed the help of VP Vance to make it 5150. In the house, it was 218214 with only two GOP voting against it. I am more in the camp with Elon Musk that this is a disgusting abomination. The problem is that it's 940 page mess had to pass to keep and affect tax cuts from the Trump's first administration. I support that keeping the tax cuts. Much in the bill is still poor. While the dem shout that Medicaid is being cut, and that will hurt millions, that is far from the truth. There are two few cuts in spending while giving out bribes for future voters like candy. This no tax on tips over time and Social Security payments. Why would we do this at a time of daunting federal deficit is beyond me. So the idiots known as the Dems cast not a single vote for the bill. That includes Federman from Pennsylvania. This gives the GOP tremendous talking points

56:49for them over the Dems in the 2026 election. The ultimate outcome of course remains to be seen. Silence in the court. Outupdate the terrorist tragedy on New Year's Day in New Orleans. An terrible event on a traditional night to party. A terrorist drove through the crowd on Bourbon Street in the early hours of New Year's Day. Incredibly, this was done by army vet Sansa Din Jabar. There were 14 people killed and many more suffered injuries. He was later killed in a shootout with police. Now we learn there was a direct ISIS tie to the attack and a person has been identified in Iraq. The suspect has not been identified. He is accused of helping Jabar plan the attack. This person will be tried there under that country's anti-terrorism law. Of course, we're not sure what type of justice would happen in a country like Iraq that is definitely at odds with USU points. The FBI is still investigating leads while Louisiana plans a memorial for this horrible event. This session is adjourned. Thanks for joining me for

57:51saving America. If you have questions or comments, please find me on various social media sites. I'm Dr. David Dishine and I will see you next week. Thanks for joining us today for saving America with your host, Dr. David Dishine. Saving America is brought to you by Claremont Management Group. For every Saturday at 11 a.m. Eastern time on the Brushwood Media Network. For more information, go to Claremont Management Group.com or call us at 713-880-4700. We'll see you next time on Saving America with Dr. David Dishine.