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Nov. 30, 2022 - The Ben Shapiro Show
44:31
Social Leftists Get Mugged By Reality | Ep. 1620
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New Disney CEO Bob Iger proclaims return to political neutrality.
The Washington Post finally admits it's okay to talk about rising crime.
And New York City admits it's time to involuntarily commit a severely mentally ill.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
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We'll get to all the news in just one moment.
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Well, back in the 1960s, there was a group of people who were called the neoconservatives.
This is not like how we talk about neoconservatives today, meaning people who are just sort of hawkish on foreign policy and pretty vague about the terminology.
They're a group of people who had decided that they were conservative mainly because they were liberals who had been mugged by reality.
They didn't shift their social policy.
What they really realized is that their policies with regard to crime and foreign policy had been a gigantic fail.
Well, we are about to see a wave of people who are returning to reality because it turns out that the left has been mugged by reality and continues to be mugged by reality.
And we're seeing it all over the spectrum.
We are seeing it in the media.
We are seeing it in politics.
We are seeing it with regard to places like Disney.
So yesterday, Chris Ruffo, who's done just yeoman's work in exposing the political indoctrination that has now become part and parcel of the Disney brand, Rufo released tape that he had obtained of an all-hands Disney meeting reintroducing old and now new CEO Bob Iger.
Now, Iger is very much to the left, so much so that there was talk a few years ago about the possibility that Bob Iger might actually throw his hat into the ring for the Democratic presidential nomination.
There's only one problem for Bob Iger and his wild left perspectives on life, and that is that in taking over Disney again, the stock price of Disney has dumped completely.
So, Disney stock was about 183 bucks.
47 cents.
September 17th, 2021.
Today, it is at $94.69.
So it has been sliced in about half over the course of the last year and a half or so.
Not even a year.
About a year.
is really when it started to dump.
And one of the reasons for this is because Disney decided to go woke.
So part of this has to do with the dynamics of streaming and the fact that as the economy starts to slow down and people spend less money on entertainment and people go back to work that they are picking up less streaming services, sure.
But that does not explain why Disney has disproportionately been slapped directly across the chops by the American public.
The reason for that is because Disney has made clear that its priorities are not your priorities.
Now, there is no bigger old Disney fan than I. I am an enormous old Disney fan.
We owned all the tapes growing up.
We used to listen in my house.
I shared a room with three of my siblings.
And my parents, to put us to sleep, would put on like a small cassette tape of the music from Beauty and the Beast like every single night.
The goal was to fall asleep before you hit the Gaston song where he sings about killing the beast.
Right, that was the goal.
We were huge Disney fans.
And that meant that the biggest treat in the world when I was a kid was mom and dad take us out of school and they take us to Disney.
And that was like the best thing.
And then when I became an adult and I had kids of my own, we became Disney annual pass members over in California.
And then when we moved to Florida, one of the big draws was, okay, we still have Disneyland two and a half hours away, which is awesome.
It's just fantastic.
And again, I love all the old Disney product.
I love the music.
I love the movies.
This is one of the great American companies of all time, Disney.
But it became clear over the past few years that they were now attempting to inject woke politics into what they were doing, particularly with regard to LGBT issues.
And just a few months ago, Chris Rufo revealed in All Hands Disney meeting in which people were openly bragging about injecting a quote-unquote not at all secret gay agenda into Disney content.
And that followed hard on Disney injecting itself directly into politics in Florida for no apparent reason.
Florida passed a bill that was designed to prevent the sexual indoctrination of children under the age of eight.
The media immediately labeled it the quote-unquote don't say gay bill, but that of course is not what the bill says.
The bill says you're not allowed to teach sexual orientation or gender identity to children under the age of eight.
That is what the bill says.
It's designed to prevent the indoctrination of kids into left-wing sexual values while they are very, very small children.
And Disney originally had nothing to say about this.
And then the media did what they usually do.
They started calling up Disney and trying to pressure Disney because they recognize that the top executives at Disney are Democrats, and they recognize that a huge base of the Disney creatives are Democrats, and they recognize that a huge percentage of Disney employees are either gay or straight who are in favor of same-sex marriage, for example.
And are all like sexually liberal, at least in their value system.
And so they pushed Disney and Disney came.
And Disney decided that they were going to inject themselves directly into politics.
And they came out swinging against Governor Ron DeSantis and the Republican legislature condemning the bill.
And this prompted Governor DeSantis and the Republican legislature to say, well, hold up a second.
You guys have special tax districts.
You have special tax giveaways.
You don't get to inject yourself into state politics and basically try to stump against the political party in power for your own benefit.
Well, at the same time, expect us to continue granting you all sorts of largesse.
That's not something that we are willing to do.
Now, you can make the argument that Governor DeSantis shouldn't have done that.
You can make the argument that Republican legislature should have left it alone, that basically corporations get to say whatever they want without any sort of consequence.
There's only one problem with that.
If that rule only applies with regard to the right, then all the corporations will be left wing.
And that is precisely what's been occurring over the course of the last 10 or 15 years.
If you had said 15 years ago, the biggest corporations in America would be reflecting the most wild left social policies, Everybody would laugh at you.
These were capitalistic corporations.
Why exactly would they betray their audience that way?
Not only that, many of these corporations were headed up by people who were business savvy and tended to be kind of conservative.
So why would they do all of that?
And the answer is that we had a wild asymmetry in terms of who was pressuring these major companies.
The left was pressuring these companies.
These companies were responding to the left and the right was not answering in any way, shape or form.
Well, now the right has responded.
And one thing that has happened is that not only have people like me and my family essentially disassociated from Disney, We are not annual pass holders at Disneyland anymore.
We used to subscribe to Disney Plus.
We do not subscribe to Disney Plus anymore.
That is not where my kids watch their entertainment because frankly I don't trust Disney with my kids.
Disney used to be a place for innocence and childhood magic and now Disney is a place where you go to see a lesbian couple in light year or you go to see a 16 year old boy hit on another boy in the new Disney movie that came out last week.
Well, unsurprisingly, there are a lot of parents who feel about this stuff the way that I feel about this stuff, the way my wife feels about this stuff, and so Disney has been taking it absolutely on the chin, which necessitated that Bob Chapek, who'd been the sort of interim director, he'd been brought in to replace Iger when Iger stepped down, he has now been ousted, and Iger is back.
So Iger did an all-hands meeting, and in this all-hands meeting, he said, it's time to quiet things down and move back to political neutrality.
Now, do I trust that Disney's actually going to do this?
Do I trust that Disney isn't going to continue to inject its politics into what it does?
I don't think they're going to stop.
I think they're going to continue to inject the politics.
I think they're going to do it in slightly more subtle fashion.
I think they're going to try to raise a few less hackles because after all, doing it very publicly and very openly is what has brought about this state of affairs for Disney financially.
But the fact that Disney is feeling the pressure is once again a sign that when the right rears its head, not even the right, when mainstream parents rear their heads and say, we are not interested in products that try to sell this garbage.
Many cast members had wished that Disney stayed out of politics.
Will Disney stay out of making political statements?
back to neutrality.
I don't think when you are telling stories and attempting to be a good citizen of the world that that's political.
Okay, so you can already hear that he is reluctantly dissociating.
So this is why I say I don't trust Disney at all, because what he's saying is it's not really political.
When we inject LGBTQ messaging into children's film, that's not political, guys.
That's just the way the world works.
And this is the left-wing echo bubble that exists in Hollywood and in the media, is that no matter how far left they push, they're just reflecting reality.
That's why you're evil.
This is why the typical imbalance in politics has been that the right has suggested that the left is wrong, and the left has suggested that the right is evil.
Because the right says, we have an opinion about a thing, and you have an opinion about a thing, and we think your opinion is wrong.
And the left has said, we reflect the facts.
We reflect the world.
And you oppose the facts and the world, and therefore you are evil and you are bigoted.
You can hear that sort of language from Bob Iger, and you can hear the deep sigh when asked if they're going to get out of politics.
Even Bob Iger understands market necessities.
He was asked about the situation in Florida and he says, yeah, we kind of regret that we put our foot in that water.
The alligator bit it off.
Bob, have you given any thoughts on how to tackle the Reedy Creek situation in Florida?
No.
I have to get up to speed on that completely.
Obviously, I followed the news.
That development occurred after I left the company.
I was sorry to see us Dragged into that battle and I have no idea exactly what its ramifications are in terms of the business itself.
What I can say is the state of Florida has been important to us for a long time and we have been very important to the state of Florida.
That is something I'm extremely mindful of and will articulate if I get the chance.
But I don't have the details at all yet about what the ramifications are of the decision that was made by the state of Florida and whether we intend to do anything about it.
Well, good for Bob Iger for at least recognizing reality, even if through a glass darkly.
You can see that he's not particularly happy about having to acknowledge that Disney shouldn't have gotten involved in Florida.
Don't believe him, by the way, when he says he's not informed on this.
Of course he's informed on this.
He's the incoming, I mean, I know about it and I'm not the CEO of Disney.
So he clearly knows about it.
But again, reality is a two by four and it clocked Mickey Mouse across the head.
Bob Iger didn't stop there.
He was asked specifically about the so-called don't say gay bill.
And once again, he sort of punted.
All right, another virtual question.
What is your stance on the don't-say-gay situation?
Well, first of all, our LGBTQ employees are very important to us and we care deeply about them.
That is a given.
We also, when you tell stories, it's a delicate balance.
You're talking to an audience, but it's also important to listen to an audience.
It's important to have respect for the people that you're serving, that you're trying to reach, and not have disdain for it.
not have disdain for them.
Wow, it seems as though the message is actually getting in.
Now, again, it's a message that Bob Iger and Disney don't want to receive, but they're beginning to receive it.
And the left is gonna continue to receive these messages as they run directly off the rails over and over and over socially, people are going to deliver that message over and over and over if there are interest groups, if there are parents, if there are citizens who are willing to stand up and just say, no, we're not going to consume the product that you're using in order to inject politics We're just not going to do that.
If you do that, corporations will listen.
Now, again, Hollywood is still Hollywood.
HBO apparently is now going to premiere a documentary next month, according to The Hill, that chronicles the congressional career of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Who's gonna film it?
Her daughter, Alexandra.
This would make, I believe, the second major documentary that has premiered on a major network filmed by the daughter of a politician.
And Hillary had gutsy, and it was Chelsea who was essentially the producer on that particular film.
And it was all about how Hillary was the most gutsy person as filmed by her daughter.
I can't remember the last time there was a Republican politician who was given the privilege of a documentary by his child or her child premiering on a major network.
So now we have two.
So Alexandra Pelosi is now going to put out a documentary titled Pelosi in the House.
It will debut on December 13th on HBO and HBO Max and WarnerMedia, the parent company of HBO, announced on Monday.
Alexandra Pelosi is an award-winning documentarian.
She produced and directed the film.
HBO said the younger Pelosi offers a candid behind-the-scenes chronicle of the life of her mother and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi through her career milestones leading up to the inauguration of President Joseph Biden in January 2021.
Of course, there's going to be a lot of footage, I'm sure, about January 6th, but...
Just goes to show you, Hollywood is still going to Hollywood, which means that if you would like Hollywood to stop this, continue to push.
Continue to pressure, because pressure does work.
By the way, one way that you can actually pressure Disney is by creating viable, competitive alternatives.
This is why we encourage people to go to Daily Wire Plus and subscribe, so we can make Children's content that you can trust.
You don't have to worry about whether Baba Iger has gotten the message or not.
You can just trust that you can put your kids in front of the TV for 15 minutes and get some good, clean family content without having to worry about the quote-unquote not at all secret gay agenda pushed by the Mouse House.
Okay, meanwhile, speaking of being clocked by reality, I guess now that the election's over, the media are starting to be able to tell the truth about the fact that there is a pretty serious crime problem in the country.
Remember, we were told by the New York Times that Republicans were pouncing on the crime problem.
There was no crime problem.
Most of the crime was happening in rural areas or something.
It wasn't really happening in America's big cities.
That was all just a lie put out by Republicans for electoral purposes.
Well, now the election is over, and it seems that the media are finally able to say the truth.
And so you have a piece over at the Washington Post titled, These Are Nine Stories from America's Homicide Crisis.
Wait.
What?
There's a homicide crisis?
You don't say.
You don't say.
Almost as though reality has begun to seep in.
Now that it's safe, they can say the true part.
Quote, During the last three years, homicides nationwide have reached their highest levels in decades.
The deadly spike coincided with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
The rate of killings rose nearly 30% in 2020 and remained high through the following year, according to a Washington Post database created to track the toll.
Even now, as the bloodshed has slowed, the homicide rate outpaces pre-pandemic levels.
This gun violence tends to grab headlines when it occurs in horrific public spasms.
At Walmart in Virginia, a nightclub in Colorado, an elementary school in rural Texas.
But the focus on mass shootings obscures the totality of the American ailment.
People killed on city streets and inside their homes.
Deaths that seldom attract national attention and cases that rarely involve high-profile prosecutions.
In many, an arrest has yet to be made.
Oh, we're allowed to talk about the mass killing of people in America's major cities that disproportionately targets minorities now, are we?
Weird!
Why were you covering that up for so long?
It used to be that if you covered up the killing of people of minority status, this made you a racist.
So what does it make the Washington Post that they've been covering this stuff up or downplaying it for months and months and months until just after the election and now they're talking about it?
it. Quote, gun crime disproportionately impacts people of color, especially black men.
Victim data collected from each city profile to your show, black people made up more than 80% of the total homicide victims in 2020 and 2021. And while data show gun deaths have surged around the country, a number of cities lead the way. Oh, you don't say. Wait, I thought that it was I was told that it was, you know, a bunch of white people in Vermont who were shooting each other.
Or that the real crisis, in terms of violence in America, was probably happening in these mass shootings.
Now you're telling me that the vast crisis in homicide is actually people killing each other in major cities and they are disproportionately of minority victimhood?
No.
No!
Why, it's almost as though you held this story until just after the election, Washington Post.
The Post visited nine of these places, which have seen some of the nation's highest recent murder rates.
They are spread mostly across the South and Midwest.
Some have been long in the spotlight for their homicide numbers.
Others have not.
In each place, monuments have sprung up to commemorate those lost, some informal and fleeting, others lasting, some public, some private.
So now they're allowed to report on the homicide crisis across the United States that disproportionately targets black men, particularly.
The cities, by the way, that they label are Cleveland, St.
Louis, Columbus, New Orleans, Memphis, Birmingham, Alabama, Baton Rouge, Jackson, and Baltimore.
I believe every single one of those cities has a Democrat mayor, so far, as I'm aware.
So I'm glad that we can now talk about this openly.
Speaking of talking about things openly, New York City is now going to involuntarily remove mentally ill people from the streets.
But I was told that it was just a housing crisis.
I was told that what was happening, at least during the election, was that housing prices were out of control.
What we really needed was more rent control.
What we really needed was more publicly available subsidized housing.
Now you're telling me That reality has clocked you in the face in New York City?
You're telling me that a spate of homeless, mentally ill people pushing people in front of subway trains has caused you to rethink what you might want to do with the mentally ill who are living on your streets, living in their own feces and vomit?
My God!
Why, it's almost as though reality continues to exist no matter how much you preach that it's bad.
According to the New York Times, acting to address a crisis we see all around us toward the end of a year that has seen a string of high-profile crimes involving homeless people, Mayor Eric Adams announced a major push on Tuesday to remove people with severe untreated mental illness from the city's streets and subways.
Who's been calling for this for literally years?
I mean, who could it be?
I don't know.
I don't know.
It's a great mystery.
Mr. Adams, who has made clearing homeless encampments a priority since taking office in January, said the effort would require involuntarily hospitalizing people who are a danger to themselves, even if they pose no risk of harm to others, arguing the city had a moral obligation to help them.
My goodness, the intolerance, the pure bigotry, I'm sure will disproportionately harm people of color.
Isn't that the way we're supposed to play this game?
Because if a conservative says this, then it's cruel and bigoted.
But if Erica Adams says this, this means she's open-minded and public safety oriented.
Adams said, quote, the common misunderstanding persists.
We cannot provide involuntary assistance unless the person is violent.
Going forward, we will make every effort to assist those who are suffering from mental illness.
Again, it should be worth noting here that the typical Democratic line here has been that living on the street as a mentally ill homeless person is actually a right.
That it's a good thing.
The ADL has sued cities to prevent people from actually involuntarily committing people who desperately need help.
If you've ever dealt with somebody who's severely mentally ill, and I certainly have, if you've ever dealt with people like this, they need help.
These are not people capable of taking care of themselves.
And yet we have so fallen into the trap of subjective individualism that we believe that if a person is severely mentally ill, they get to adjudicate not only their own status, but the status of how the rest of the world ought to treat them.
Well, that runs up directly against people with samurai swords on the subway system.
The mayor's announcement comes at a heated moment in the national debate about rising crime and the role of police, especially in dealing with people who are already in fragile mental health.
Republicans, as well as tough-on-crime Democrats like Adams, have argued the growing disorder calls for more aggressive measures.
Left-leaning advocates and officials who dominate New York politics say that deploying the police as auxiliary social workers may do more harm than good.
By the way, this is now becoming a typical Democratic policy.
In California, Governor Newsom recently signed a law that could force some homeless people with disorders like schizophrenia into treatment.
Why, almost as though, again, reality is beginning to set in.
We'll get to more on this in just one second.
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Now, it is amazing that all the same people who have failed with regard to homelessness and crime insist that we continue to vote for them.
Lori Lightfoot, who has been a complete failure in every respect in the city of Chicago, she says that the only solution for Chicago's massive crime wave is that she needs to return to office.
Now that crime spree, as you mentioned, went on for five hours.
The suspects are described as late teenagers, African-American, wearing surgical masks.
This, while Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot filed her paperwork for re-election.
And as she did that, Lightfoot made the statement that Chicago is the safest big city in the United States.
Reach voters all across the city to remind them not only what we've done over the last three and a half years, but what our vision is for the next four, and why the only rational choice is to return me to office.
She is a horrible mayor.
But again, one of the threats of politics is that maybe there will be consequences.
If Chicago provides no consequences, then I guess you guys will just keep sliding into the abyss right here.
It is just amazing to me that now New York, LA, they're beginning to realize, hey, wait a second, maybe we shouldn't leave these very, very ill schizophrenic people on the streets to live in their own filth.
Maybe that's actually an act of cruelty.
Maybe we should do something about the open needles on the street.
Welcome to reality, gang.
It's fun to see you here.
I hope that you enjoy this day.
Meanwhile, the New York Times has an article today that is absolutely astonishing.
Again, this is what happens when you don't accept reality.
You end up pushing pieces like this one.
The New York Times has a piece, New York Times Magazine.
It is titled, She Wasn't Ready for Children.
A Judge Wouldn't Let Her Have an Abortion.
The big problem with pro-choice pieces like this one, again, over at the New York Times Magazine, is that they end up being pro-life.
Every single one of them.
Every story is about some young woman who gets pregnant by accident.
And when I say by accident, I mean that she has unprotected sex in some way and then she gets pregnant.
And then we're supposed to feel super, super bad for her that she can't kill the unborn child.
And then at the end, because she couldn't kill the unborn child, the child lives.
And then you are faced with the ugly prospect, if you're the New York Times Magazine, of making the case that retroactively, these very beautiful live babies should have been murdered in the womb.
It's very, very awkward.
It's a perfect example of the genre.
When you refuse to recognize reality, it tends to clock you in the face.
And this is exactly what's happening over in this New York Times piece.
It really is an astonishing piece.
Quote, on a hot Texas morning in 2020, Giselle, who goes by G, slipped her arms into a borrowed blazer, flipped up the nose ring in her septum so it couldn't be seen, and walked into the Coriole County Courthouse.
It was the first time she'd ever been to court.
She was 17, 11 weeks pregnant, already beginning to show.
She was going to ask a judge for authorization to seek an abortion.
Her lawyer had explained that she needed to prove she was mature enough to make this decision.
She squeezed her lips around her braces, reminding herself not to smile.
She didn't want the judge to see her as a child.
Because she was a minor, her access to an abortion was governed by the state's parental involvement law.
She could have either notified her mother or father and gotten consent, or she could have filed a petition in her home county, asking for what's known as a judicial bypass hearing.
She had chosen to petition.
In the carpeted courtroom, G explained she didn't know her father, who was investigated by Child Protective Services after being accused of molesting her when she was a toddler.
Though the case was inconclusive and he denies abusing her, he eventually gave up his parental rights.
She didn't trust her mom, who she viewed as unreliable and volatile.
They had bounced among houses and boyfriends for stretches of G's life.
A year before, G packed up her things and left.
When she discovered she was pregnant, she traveled to an abortion clinic in Austin, about 60 miles south of where she lived.
A clinic referred to to Jane's Due Process, an organization that helps minors navigate judicial bypass.
Ten days later, its staff found Gee, a trained attorney.
It took Gee a week to schedule a ride to meet with the lawyer, who asked about her grades, extracurricular activities, babysitting experience, and which birth control method she would use in the future.
Then, before her court date was scheduled, a district court judge assigned to the case recused himself.
Although he didn't say why, many judges choose not to take a case in which they might have to approve an abortion.
The clerk needed to book a visiting judge.
So the judge had a hearing with her to determine whether she could adjudicate for herself whether to get an abortion or not because she is a minor.
She talked to the judge about this.
She said, I don't feel like I can grow something in my body for nine months and then physically hand it away, which is, by the way, an amazingly immoral statement.
So you'd rather kill it?
So those are the two choices.
I don't feel like I can grow something in my body for nine months and then physically have... Okay, no one is telling you you must, but the solution to your inability to parent your child is not to kill the child, is sort of a general rule.
When her lawyer asked her what she expected after the abortion, she regurgitated warnings from a Woman's Right to Know, a Texas Health and Human Services pamphlet, her lawyer told her to study in preparation for the hearing.
She said that she would have cons, killing something growing inside of me, guilt, constant guilt from others, pros, continue life without being pushed back, freedom, By the way, here's one thing that she said in the middle of this hearing.
She suggested that an abortion would be, quote, in the best interest of the fetuses.
In the best interest of the fetuses.
Plural.
She was pregnant with twins.
She wanted to kill both of them.
G said, it's 2.
The judge wanted to know if she had received counseling at the abortion clinic.
Did they give you, for instance, any statistics about how many women regret or don't regret at 5, 10, 12, 20 years from now?
They had not.
The judge said, I'm basically standing instead of your parents by making this decision.
In doing so, I want to make sure I would treat this as if you were my daughter.
G tried to control the muscles in her face.
She didn't want to reveal her frustration that this gray haired man with deep set eyes was imagining himself as her father, whom she had feared since she was a child.
The judge explained he wanted to take the long view, focusing on her health.
The judge said he didn't want her to rule.
He didn't want to rule immediately.
First, he wanted G to visit a crisis pregnancy center and have an ultrasound.
He recommended two Christian organizations that counsel women to keep their pregnancies.
G replied she had tried to go to one in town, but it was closed because of COVID.
So she went to another.
The next morning, G caught a ride 50 miles south to a crisis pregnancy center where a woman displayed her ultrasound on a large screen and turned up the volume of the fetal heartbeats, which sounded like galloping hooves.
The woman read off the supposed risks of abortion and printed photos titled Baby A and Baby B. G left the center frightened and angry and immediately called her lawyer to file an affidavit.
I'm walking into the situation, thankful for all the information and care I have received.
The document read, I'm asking the court to sign an order allowing me to have an abortion.
The judge refused her capacity to have an abortion.
So, she had to have the babies.
And as it turns out, G is kind of a mess of a human being, which is not particularly surprising given her childhood, given her history, and given her activities up to this point.
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After Hodge's ruling, she did not know where to turn.
She had told her friends she was set on becoming the opposite of her mother who had become pregnant with her unintentionally at 19.
She grew up depending on government assistance for food and didn't believe it would be fair to bring children into the world without financial security.
Well, one choice there would have been not to get pregnant with the children in the first place.
But, beyond that, perhaps the idea here would be not to kill the child.
I keep coming back to this because by the end of the story, by the end of the story, this young woman has had the baby, She's having a difficult time holding down a job.
She doesn't seem like a particularly responsible person by any stretch of the imagination.
She seems to have a difficult life, but you know what the babies have?
They are alive.
Not only are they alive, actually, this girl at least made the correct moral decision, which is to allow another couple to take care of the kids.
In fact, there is a couple who are friends of the family.
The parents of a friend who offered to watch the babies at their home on the weekends.
And eventually, they came to her and they said, we'd like to watch the babies full time.
And there is a picture in the New York Times piece of the two beautiful children.
And so again, the New York Times refusing to acknowledge the obvious, which is that it is bad to kill children, ends the piece by sort of suggesting that it would have been better if the babies were not alive.
Despite G's fear that the Borregos wanted to take the twins from her, she couldn't deny she felt relief.
I'm not ready to give the girls up, G told the Borregos.
She usually speaks with a flat affect, but Rachel noticed her eyes tearing.
She wanted to move out for a trial.
She packed her bags and she left.
She was torn between her desire to say the truth, that she was angry at herself and the government that made her have children, and the expectation she would love being a mother, and the similarly strong desire to deflect so she wouldn't be seen as a bad mom.
Self-destructive, dependent on the state, doomed to failure.
These are the stereotypes that have come to characterize teenage mothers since the moral panic of the 1970s.
By the way, that is not a moral panic.
I'm sorry, it is not a moral panic that single motherhood is horrible for children.
It is.
You know what's even worse for kids?
Not being alive.
And that is the bottom line of this story.
Here is how this story concludes.
Her six-month trial with the Borregos ended in August, but she still wasn't prepared to make a decision.
Instead, she extended the trial, signing a new power of attorney.
The Borregos have moved to a larger house 30 minutes away.
Every few weeks, she visits her children, though it's painful to see them.
When she walks through the door, the girls no longer run up to hug her.
Their distance stings, but she knows that it stems from her absence.
She keeps missing more firsts, she told me.
Their first steps, their first sentences.
The first time one of them texted, asked, what's up?
Well, I mean, I can tell you which one is worse.
Dead kids.
The kids not existing.
She could give up her parental rights as her father did, or she could raise her children without the stability or the warmth they deserve as her mother did. In her own experience, both left her feeling abandoned and unloved. She didn't know which one was worse.
Well, I mean, I can tell you which one is worse. Dead kids.
The kids not existing.
So once again, the premise of the New York Times piece, pieces like this, this is the big problem with the pro-choice movement, is that in the end, you have to make the affirmative case that it is better for the world for children not to be alive. And once the kids are born, that becomes an extraordinarily difficult case to make.
Again, the picture tells the whole story in this particular story.
When you see two beautiful small children, toddlers, and you say, well, maybe mommy should have aborted you and her life would be marginally better because this does not seem like a young woman who makes wonderful decisions as general rule.
That is not a strong case for why children do not deserve to live.
And meanwhile, speaking, by the way, of the New York Times' complete unwillingness to look reality in the face, there's an entire article in the New York Times today titled, When High Fashion and QAnon Collide, trying to defend the Balenciaga campaigns that include children posing with teddy bears in bondage gear, and another photo campaign that includes actual child pornography decisions from the Supreme Court.
It's all about QAnon and Republicans pouncing and all of that.
And then the New York Times bubble is so thick and it's so bad, but eventually it does end up being penetrated and it ends up collapsing in on itself.
And that will happen with all of these issues, because again, the left, they're not used to making cases for their own feelings, for their own politics.
And when they're confronted with reality, their case tends to collapse.
Okay, meanwhile, speaking of people who are collapsing, Republicans in the Senate, 12 of them voted in favor of the same-sex marriage bill.
Despite the fact that it does not include sufficient protections for religious freedom and the idea that it is supposed to enshrine into federal law same-sex marriage as the law of the land.
Now, it's already in federal law because of the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell, but this is a senatorial designation that same-sex marriage is the law of the land, approved by 12 Republicans, including the oh-so-very moral Mitt Romney.
As well as Lisa Murkowski, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Todd Young of Indiana, Richard Burns-Hontellis of North Carolina, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Cynthia Loomis.
There were a couple of people who did not vote.
On this, that would be Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, both of whom are retiring.
In a second, we'll get into what exactly this bill means and why Republicans are so damn spineless.
If, as I say, reality eventually sets in, and one of the realities of life is that traditional marriage is a fundamental building block of any Any sort of durable society?
If that is a reality and if it is going to set in, why are Republicans going along with denial of reality?
We'll get to that in just one moment.
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Okay, so Republican cowardice is one reason why the left keeps winning at the social battles, despite the fact that the population is not all in on everything that the social left wishes.
Now, the polls show that there is widespread public support for same-sex marriage.
What there is not widespread support for is the idea that you as a religious person ought to be forced in your life to accept same-sex marriage in the way that you do business, in the way that you send your kids to school, and the idea that society has a duty to force individuals to acknowledge things they don't believe to be moral.
That is not something the vast majority of Americans are willing to go along with.
And that is the biggest problem with the so-called Respect for Marriage Act.
It essentially says that only bigots and fools, based on their silly religion, would object to the idea that a man, woman, and child is the basic fundamental building block of society.
And then further, it says, well, here are a few religious exemptions that we'll put out there.
We'll sort of suggest that in your own church, we're not going to take away your tax-exempt status.
But it doesn't actually enshrine those protections strongly at all for religious people outside of their church.
So let's say that you're a religious person, and let's say that you run a cake shop in Colorado, and let's say you get sued every two seconds.
There are no protections in this bill.
What did Republicans win in this bill precisely?
What did Republicans get in this bill precisely?
The answer is they got pretty much nothing.
They went along with it anyway because there are a lot of weak-kneed Republicans who are unwilling to have a headline that says that they oppose same-sex marriage.
Well, if that's the case, if you don't have an affirmative case for why you are either in favor of same-sex marriage or why you believe that the protections of religious people here are sufficient, then I'm not sure why you're voting for the thing or why you should be in the Senate, as I've said before.
There was a solution available here, by the way, that would have pleased even some members of the social left, you would think, if they were honest about what they're saying.
What the left is saying today is, we're not going to get in your business.
This has always been the lie.
Every step of the way here has been, this doesn't affect you.
We just want you to leave us alone in our bedrooms.
And everyone, okay, sounds fair.
And they're like, well, all we want really is civil unions.
We just want to be able to like put people in our will or have a living will or have people visit us in the hospital.
And we're like, oh, okay.
And then it was like, well, what we really want is marriage.
We want it to be like the exact same word.
And people start to say, wait, hold up a second.
It's not the same thing.
Nope.
That's all we want.
How does our marriage affect you?
And people are like, okay, well, now we want to teach it to your kids in school.
Like, kids need to know this.
I mean, obviously, if marriage is marriage and love is love, then kids who are five can't be brought up in a cis-normative, heteronormative society.
We have to teach your small children this in order to protect your small children from you and from your religious-based allies.
And people are like, wait, hold up a second.
Now what are you talking about?
Oh yeah, and also, by the way, we have to force your business to engage in activities that it finds to be, that you find to be immoral.
We need to make you do these things, you know, for the good of society and all.
So now the left is saying, we're not going to do all those things, right?
We're not going to force you to engage in these businesses.
Well, if that were true, you know what would have happened last night?
Well, what would have happened is that some of the Republicans would have voted in favor of Senator Mike Lee's amendment.
So Mike Lee had an amendment to this bill.
All the Republicans had to do was say, we will still vote for the bill.
Three of them.
All they had to say was, we will still vote for the bill.
You just have to add Mike Lee's amendment.
So what did Mike Lee's amendment do?
It enshrined protections for individual conscience in the bill.
Individual conscience throughout your life.
Meaning, that if you run a business, you're a religious person, you're a baker, you're a photographer, you're a lawyer, you are allowed, under Mike Lee's amendment, to still live your religion in public life.
Which is, by the way, what it means to be a religious person.
This idea that religious people stop being religious when they leave their front door, or when they don't go to church or synagogue, is absurd.
Religion pervades your life.
You're a religious person, it is your core identity, it is your relationship with God, if you're a religious human being.
And so Mike Lee was making that clear in the amendment, and couldn't get three Republicans to threaten to sign off the bill.
Which demonstrates that Republicans are cowards, the people who voted for this.
Here's Mike Lee trying to push his amendment.
In the spirit of compromise, I've publicly stated, and I reiterate here again today, that I will support the legislation if my amendment is adopted.
My amendment simply prohibits the federal government from discriminating against schools, businesses, and organizations based on their religious beliefs about same-sex marriage.
That's all it does.
My amendment prevents the Internal Revenue Service, among other things, from revoking the tax-exempt status of these charities and organizations simply because they act according to their beliefs about the divine purpose of marriage.
Mike Lee continues along these lines talking about his amendment.
And again, this is a very easy win for Republicans.
All they would have to do is go along with Lee's amendment.
There's another amendment by Marco Rubio that was also fairly good, not quite as good as Lee's, but that would've been good too.
They didn't vote.
These Republicans, you want to talk about cowardly Republicans?
Cowardly Republicans who will not even stand up for an amendment that actually enshrines religious freedom in the face of left-wing social predations.
These are Republicans who are cowards.
Here's Mike Lee again, explaining his amendment.
Why wouldn't anyone want to deny the federal government the authority to retaliate against individuals, non-profits and other entities based on their sincerely held religious beliefs?
Think about that for a minute.
Why wouldn't they want to deny that very power from a government that may wield it in a way that is categorically abusive?
Okay, he of course is exactly right.
So why Republicans didn't go along with it?
The answer, once again, it can only be put in terms of they want to be seen as moderate.
They are cowards.
More than 7 out of 10 Republican senators did vote against the bill, underscoring how the party has continued to cater to religious conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage long after large majorities of the American public have come to support it, according to the New York Times.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was among the opponents, despite hopes from Democrats and Republicans that he might vote yes on final passage.
But again, this isn't about that.
The truth is that you could be in favor of same-sex marriage and still not like same-sex marriage being enshrined into law as equivalent to heterosexual marriage, specifically because of all of the side effects and downstream effects and intended effects of a bill like this one.
The fact that many of the Republicans went along with this Man, this party needs an overhaul.
It needs an overhaul in a very, very serious way.
Speaking of which, by the way, the Republican Party, I said it yesterday, I will repeat it again today, the Republican Party, the Republican National Committee needs new leadership.
I do not understand the logic that Ronna McDaniel should maintain leadership of the RNC.
She was appointed head of the RNC in January of 2017.
2017. She's proceeded to lose the elections of 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
That is not the kind of record that suggests that you should remain in charge of the party.
In other words, if Republicans keep running directly into the teeth of losing strategy, then I don't know what they are good for.
They're not standing for principle, and they're also not winning.
So which, like, what are the things that you guys stand for precisely?
If you're going to make the case that you have to lose because it's better to stand on principle and lose than lose your principle and win, okay, then what's your principle?
But if you're going to not stand on principle and you are going to lose, then I don't understand what you are for.
What exactly is it that you would say that you do around here?
The RNC is, in fact, announcing an advisory council to assess what happened in the last election cycle.
But suffice it to say that because it's being headed up by the current leadership of the RNC, I have a feeling that they might ignore some of the more important aspects of just why things went south for them in the last election cycle.
Alrighty, guys, the rest of the show is continuing right now.
You're not going to want to miss it.
We'll be getting into the White House targeting Elon Musk while basically patting Apple on the head, despite Apple actually coordinating with the Chinese government.
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