Ep. 1369 - Old Lawyer Shoots Two Climate Activists Blocking The Road
An old man shoots environmentalists for blocking the road, a witch explains the satanic uses of abortion, and Marsha Blackburn subpoenas Jeffrey Epstein’s client list.
Ep.1369
- - -
Click here to join the member exclusive portion of my show: https://utm.io/ueSEl
- - -
DailyWire+:
Pre-order your Mayflower Cigars here: https://bit.ly/3Qwwxx2
Get your Yes or No game here: https://bit.ly/3X6tlKY
- - -
Today’s Sponsors:
PureTalk - Switch to PureTalk and get 50% off your first month! https://www.puretalkusa.com/landing/Knowles
Good Ranchers - Get $15 off your order PLUS a year of your choice of meat!
Use promo code KNOWLES at checkout. https://bit.ly/43G8p0P
Hillsdale College - Enroll for FREE today at https://www.hillsdale.edu/knowles
- - -
Socials:
Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RwKpq6
Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3BqZLXA
Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eEmwyg
Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3L273Ek
A 77-year-old man had enough of climate activists in Panama blocking the road, so he did what probably many people want to do in these situations, and shot two of them dead.
For his actions, Kenneth Darlington was not only arrested, but has gone viral.
To the implicit and explicit cheers of many conservatives who are rightly frustrated by climate activists' shenanigans, such as shutting down roadways, preventing parents from taking their children to the hospital even, and attacking priceless art.
But of course, Darlington's vigilantism is not actually justified.
You don't just get to shoot people for inconveniencing you, no matter how annoying they are.
And yet, Darlington's actions are entirely to be expected.
Authorities in Panama and around the world regularly refuse to enforce the law when leftists break it.
And when the legitimate authority refuses to do its job, things like this always happen.
Always.
Necessarily.
Because of a fact that I have observed for some years now.
Which is that there will be order.
Order can be enforced by the police, order can be enforced by the civil authority, or order can be enforced by an old man civilian with a gun who's had enough.
But society will not tolerate chaos for long.
So the question is, what kind of order will we have?
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
Welcome back to the show.
This episode is brought to you by Good Ranchers.
Claim your year of free meat, 15 bucks off, and free shipping with my code NOLS, K-N-W-L-E-S, at GoodRanchers.com.
That is GoodRanchers.com.
Promo code NOLS today.
Marcia Blackburn is going to subpoena the Epstein client list.
We'll get to that in just a moment.
Also, the father of Indy Gregory, this poor British baby that the British government is trying to kill, might be able to come on the show.
The only reason he would not be able to come on the show is if he has to be in court for a last-minute plea to stop the British government from killing his child.
So, stay tuned for that.
First, though, before we move on, speaking of killing, this guy Kenneth Darlington, he's gone viral.
That picture of him.
Holding the gun out, casing just flying right by his head.
He's just had enough.
It's gone totally viral.
It's considered one of the hardest pictures ever taken, probably.
And yet, while people feel that they're really rooting for this guy, obviously it's vigilantism.
This is not really justified.
Nobody was trying to rush their child to the hospital or anything like that.
The climate activists are extremely annoying and breaking the law, but it doesn't necessarily give you the right to shoot them.
The second observation I had about this whole fiasco is nobody really knows anything about this situation.
A lot of people see this picture, they assume it happened in America or in Europe.
It didn't.
It happened in Panama.
They assume it's exactly the same group that's protesting the Van Gogh paintings, just stop oil and throwing soup on priceless artwork.
But it's not.
This has not just been going on for a day or two days in Panama, it's been going on for weeks.
And the protest is over a new Panamanian policy for copper mining.
So the environmental activists are protesting the the large mining contract that will allow a Canada-based firm, First Quantum Minerals, to operate the largest pit copper mine ever in the region for at least 20 years.
And so all of a sudden now, the protests seem less like some weirdo purple-haired hippie chick trying to shut down traffic, And more, a legitimate act of civil disobedience and a political protest against corruption, even more than against environmental policy.
The roadblocks, by the way, have not just inconvenience drivers.
They've caused up to $80 million in daily losses to businesses today.
They've shut schools down for more than a week.
So, whether you, deep down, support this guy who shot the activists, or whether you think, no, this is really bad, maybe I'm even on the activist side.
To me, the most important observation here is...
How quickly we see a picture on the internet and we just jump to a conclusion without knowing anything.
In this case, anything about the interaction between these two groups, but also anything about Panama, anything about this government policy.
We don't know any of it at all.
It reminds me of a great Tucker Carlson text that came up during that Dominion lawsuit against Fox News, which is Tucker said, I'm so tuned into the internet that I see some video of a right-winger beating up a left-winger or vice versa, and I just feel I feel, I salivate, you know, I just feel so excited by it.
And that's a bad feeling to have.
I shouldn't do that.
It's almost like a type of pornography.
It's not sexual, but it doesn't rile up your lust, but it riles up your anger, it riles up your wrath, it riles up your pride, it riles up whatever.
We don't know anything about it.
An image is worth a thousand words, and then we fill in those thousand words with whatever preconceived notion we already had floating around our heads.
It has nothing to do with the situation in Panama.
Speaking of law and order, seven Nashville police officers have just been placed on leave over the shooter manifesto leaks.
You know, there was the shooting, the trans-identifying gal who slaughtered those poor little kids at the Christian school at Covenant School in Nashville.
Then, we didn't hear the manifesto for weeks and weeks, months and months.
Even though in all of these shootings, whenever it's a white guy, if the white guy especially is a little right-wing, the manifesto leaks immediately.
Here we didn't get anything.
And then Crowder, Steven Crowder and his team were able to get a leak of the manifesto.
We saw, wait, I don't even see a ton of pro-trans stuff in here.
It's largely anti-white rhetoric.
Very left-wing rhetoric, but specifically anti-white.
Even though the shooter was white.
We only saw three pages of the leak.
There's obviously more to the manifesto.
So what does the Nashville Police Department do?
Do they go and they say, okay, we're going to release the rest of the manifesto.
Do they go and shed any light on this horrific shooting in Nashville?
No, they place seven cops on leave, which tells me this whole manifesto is likely much, much worse.
The moment that the manifesto leaked, You saw left-wing journalists say, these were taken out of context, and this is a selective leak.
Even the authorities.
This is a selective leak to paint a political picture.
Oh, you don't like a selective leak?
Then release the whole thing.
Well, no, we don't.
Oh, why?
If it's a selective leak that paints a dishonest, deceptive picture of the shooter, then release the whole thing, and then we'll have the full picture.
Well, no, we don't want to do that.
Why?
The full manifesto almost certainly is even worse for the political left.
That's why they want to cover this up.
Now, speaking of demoniacs...
There's a really troubling video that just came out.
It's troubling because it sheds light on evil things that go on in our world that we want to deny.
But I kind of like the video in that it sheds light on evil things that go on in our world that a lot of people want to deny.
This is of a witch describing how she performs satanic rituals through her abortions.
How to practice abortion as a magical ritual.
Part one.
My qualifications for teaching this, I am a witch who has had abortions and has used them as rituals.
I've been through this twice.
And it's birthing magic and death magic simultaneously.
If you are a womb body who has made the decision to have an abortion, Keep in mind that there is death and there is life.
There has been a conception.
There is life that has been conceived.
For me, I look at the abortions I've had as workings.
So just like you would go through a spell and do things in a very specific order, you would lay things out in a very specific order, because how we do our rituals and our workings and our spell castings, the order that we do them in is the order they play out in, in the physical.
When the magic really kicks in and our spirits that we have called on say it's time for that working to work.
So if we look at an abortion and conception ritualistically, there's a life that has been conceived.
So this witch is willing to admit something that most mainstream liberals will not admit.
Most pro-abortion, regular old liberals will not admit.
Namely, that abortion obviously ends a life.
It wouldn't be abortion otherwise.
And she says further that the abortion is not merely a physical action, because we're not merely physical beings, it's a spiritual action.
And this witch, who does witch stuff, who worships and communes with demons, at least in her own mind, she thinks she's doing that.
She says, obviously, the power of life and death is used in a ritual.
And people are going to listen to this and they're going to say, man, these young people, they're really into some weird stuff.
This new age, weird, hippy-dippy, this is crazy.
But it's not new.
This isn't new at all.
This has been going on for all of human history.
The thing that is new is denying that this exists.
For all of human history, everywhere on earth, women like that have called themselves witches and killed their babies and believed that they were communing with demons and believed that blood sacrifices had a spiritual consequence to them, particularly vis-a-vis the worshiping and communing with demons.
And now we, in modern secular liberal society, we say, oh, that's all totally crazy.
And yet, the people who are the most liberal in our liberal society, the people who are the most modern, liberated, feminist, all the isms that we exalt in our modern liberal society.
They agree with the old view.
They agree that there are such things as witches, there are such things as demons, that the physical world has a connection to the metaphysical world, there is such a thing as sacrifice, including blood sacrifice, including human sacrifice.
For goodness sakes, this rapper Young Thug, who I guess is on trial for murder, his accomplice When his accomplice was arrested, his accomplice was arrested performing a satanic ritual with a goat.
Sacrificing a goat.
And there's now a big legal fight over whether or not that evidence can be admitted to the court because the defense is arguing that that would prejudice the jury.
Yeah, I think satanic rituals might prejudice the jury.
This woman, though.
Is shedding light on something that we all seem to have forgotten?
And so my question, I remember one time I was interviewing a Fox News host on radio when he was promoting a book and the book was about witch trials.
You know, he said, there's a political witch hunt going on today.
And his pitch for the book was, well, the first thing about witch hunts that we need to remember is there's no such thing as witches.
And I said, oh no, of course there are witches.
At least I said that in my head.
I let him get his book pitch out.
But that's what I said to myself.
I said, no, of course there... Which is more likely?
Which is more likely?
That everyone for all of human history until about, I don't know, 50 or 100 years ago, specifically in the West, that everyone for all of human history, people who believed in witches and devils and demons, And, more importantly, who believed in God and angels and grace, everyone for all of human history everywhere on earth, other than us recently, they were totally wrong and we just happened to be right.
Or vice versa.
Who do you think is more deluded?
This witchy lady talking about how she sacrificed her children to the devil?
Or the purple-haired feminist atheist marching in the street saying, my body, my choice, a pregnancy is not alive, I'm not, this is just a healthcare procedure, and a human is just a clump of cells.
Who do you think?
It's more likely to be correct.
We've got to talk about these things.
When you want to talk, you've got to check out Pure Talk.
Right now, go to puretalk.com slash Knowles.
Today is Veterans Day.
Our friends over at Pure Talk have been working toward alleviating $10 million in veteran debt.
Thanks to your support, they are over 90% to that goal today.
Think about this.
The U.S.
military is made up of 100% volunteers.
These are men and women who willingly sacrifice everything they have for this country.
When they are done serving, they return home to a tight job market and outrageous living expenses.
That is why I am so happy that a private company like PeerTalk has jumped in to help.
When you switch to PeerTalk's lightning-fast 5G network, they will donate a portion of every new order to this noble cause.
You can make a real difference just by choosing superior cell phone service.
PeerTalk's plans start at just $20 a month, offering unlimited talk, text, more data, and a mobile hotspot.
Just go to puretalk.com slash NOLS, K-N-W-L-A-S, to make the switch.
Let's rally together.
Let's show our unwavering support for our veterans.
Visit puretalk.com slash NOLS, K-N-W-L-A-S, switch to Pure Talk today.
It's the right move.
It is the American way.
puretalk.com slash NOLS.
If you want to hear more on witchcraft, which very much does still exist, you can check out my very long-form interview with the former witch, which is now available on YouTube under Michael and the Former Witch.
Speaking of mistreating children, big news out of The Simpsons.
Did you know that The Simpsons is still on the air?
The Simpsons, the cartoon that started in 1989 I believe, has been on for 34 seasons and there have been many cultural memes that have come out of The Simpsons.
One of which is Homer Simpson strangling his son Bart, but apparently No longer.
Whoa, that's quite a grip.
See, Marge?
Strangling the boy has paid off.
Just kidding.
I don't do that anymore.
Times have changed.
So it's a little joke about this meme from The Simpsons, but it's actually The Simpsons telling you something real about the show and about how the political correctness has affected the show.
Homer doesn't strangle Bart anymore.
Used to be whenever Bart would do something bad, Homer would go strangle him and Bart would say, ah, ah, ah, ah.
But now they don't do that.
We no longer joke about strangling our kids in society.
Now, back 30 years ago, when the Simpsons had, or 20 years ago, or 15 years ago, when Homer would strangle Bart, it's not that it was culturally accepted to strangle your children.
It was a joke.
It was a joke about how sometimes your kids get on your nerves and you just want to wring their little necks, you know, but you're not, you don't actually want to do it.
You love your kids.
We're not allowed to even joke about that anymore.
However, now we are allowed to castrate our children.
Now we are allowed to kill our children through abortion.
30 years ago, in polite company, one would not really defend abortion.
Thirty years ago, when The Simpsons was starting out, making jokes about strangling their kids, even if you supported abortion, you would probably say, look, abortion is obviously an evil thing.
Nobody wants abortions.
We all want fewer abortions.
Because of the difficulty and complexity of this issue, abortion ought to be safe, legal, and rare.
That was the Democrat position.
It should be rare because of how awful it is.
But, you know, we should tolerate it.
That was the whole debate.
Now, however, we're at a stage where people will say, we need to shout our abortions.
Oh, abortions are so wonderful.
We need to enshrine in the Ohio State Constitution a right to kill babies up until the moment of birth.
Oh, a baby's not even a baby.
No, it's just a clump of cells.
It's a product of pregnancy.
It's not.
No, it's good.
It's an affirmative good.
Shout your abortion.
I think there might be a relationship here.
As society gets more finicky, as society gets a little more precious about the things we're allowed to joke about, we seem to become more barrack in the things that we're allowed to do.
Maybe that's why we can't joke about it anymore.
It's too real.
The fact that we With the affirmation of our society, all the way up to and including the President of the United States, now celebrate castrating our children, mutilating our children, reducing our children's life expectancy, killing our children, even.
Now that we actually do that, maybe it's that the jokes are too real.
Maybe we don't cut out the jokes because we've become a kinder, gentler society.
Maybe we cut out the jokes for precisely the opposite reason.
Now, speaking of minors, My senator here in the state of Tennessee, the great Marsha Blackburn, has just announced something that I think a lot of, not just conservatives, normal people have been waiting for, for years.
And that is, she's going to try to get the Epstein client list.
Since we're in the business of issuing subpoenas now, here are a few more that I've filed.
a subpoena to Jeffrey Epstein's estate to provide the flight logs for his private plane.
Given the numerous allegations of human trafficking and sexual abuse surrounding Mr. Epstein, I think it is very important that we identify everybody that was on that plane and how many trips they took on that plane and the destinations to which they arrived.
Of course.
That's great.
Love that Marsh is doing this.
One of the great senators in Washington, D.C.
Why has this taken so long?
Can you believe this?
I remember the Jeffrey Epstein story from 2015.
2014, maybe.
I've been hearing about Jeffrey Epstein.
He was still a free man at that point.
Then finally they arrest him.
Then whoopsie-daisy, the jail camera went out and a mustachioed Hillary Clinton showed up and rang his little neck.
Speaking of ringing one's little neck.
And then we just never heard anything.
The Department of Justice has spent the last couple of years trying to spy on Catholic churches.
Arresting pro-life parents of six and seven for peacefully demonstrating outside of abortion clinics and exposing the horrors of abortion, have called parents akin to domestic terrorists for wanting to have some say over their kid's curriculum, not have their kids be taught weird grooming or porno stuff in elementary school classrooms.
DOJ has been really focused on that.
Where's the Epstein client list?
How is it that Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's intelligence connected business partner.
Went on trial, was obviously arrested.
And yet, do we have one name confirmed?
We know some of the people who were on the plane, but do we confirm?
Do we have it?
No.
Frankly, I want the Epstein client list moved to the top of the list.
To me, that's more important than Hunter Biden.
It's more important than impeaching Joe Biden.
I want to know who in our public life is so compromised.
One thing you don't need to compromise on is your education if you check out Hillsdale.
Right now, go to hillsdale.edu slash knowles.
Are you a few years or decades out of school and wondering, what did I learn?
What was the point?
You might even be thinking, I don't have the time to learn something new.
If that's you, you're not alone.
It's not too late.
Hillsdale College is offering more than 40 free online courses.
Learn about the works of C.S.
Lewis, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic, or the History of the Ancient Christian Church with Hillsdale College's online courses.
If you are not sure where to start, check out C.S.
Lewis on Christianity.
In this seven-lecture course, you will examine some of Lewis's classic works, including Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Abolition of Man.
You'll also see what Lewis had to say about scripture, prayer, suffering, joy, heaven, and hell.
The course is self-paced so that you can start whenever and wherever.
Enroll now in C.S.
Lewis on Christianity to discover Lewis's core lessons on Christianity and how to apply faith to your life.
Go to hillsdale.edu slash Knowles, K-N-A-W-L-E-S, to enroll.
My favorite comment yesterday is from thechickenlord9617, who says, can't wait for Michael's favorite comment to be one of the many saying, Knowles is wrong.
Vivek crushed it completely.
Well, hold on.
I think I pointed that out.
I think I said immediately Vivek gave the most brilliant performance of the debate.
He had a little bit of a low point when he took a hit on Nikki Haley for her daughter using TikTok, because Nikki was then able to turn that around and say, stop attacking my daughter.
Then she made some comment about her high heels being ammunition or something like that.
And then the Vivek supporters could come back and say, well, hold on, Nikki Haley's daughter is not, she's not 10 years old.
She's 25 years old.
She's an adult.
She's, but still that was a little, but the reason that anyone is even talking about Vivek is because, and the reason he has occasionally a misstep, but he has a lot of home runs too, is because he's the only one taking any risks.
In the whole race, Vivek is the only person taking any risks at all.
But I think that's also the reason that I would probably score DeSantis as having won.
I don't think it's, I also said I don't think anything is going to move the polls really at all, not in any significant way.
But I think DeSantis gave the kind of performance that Joe Biden gave during the debates in 2020, which is not the most brilliant Not the most exciting, but just totally serviceable, very competent, mainstream answers, succinct to the point.
So, the only difference there is, in 2020, the Democrat debates mattered.
They were consequential for who got the nomination.
In this case, the Republican frontrunner, who's leading by, what, 44 points?
Between 44 and 56 points, taking into account everyone on that stage, he wasn't there.
So, you know, the undercard is competing, it would seem, for something else.
We now have to get to my guest.
I'm very pleased to hear that the father of Indy Gregory, this poor child who is facing death because the British government is Attempting to kill the child, even contrary to what the government of Italy and what the Vatican are offering, which is citizenship and treatment at the hospital of Bambino Gesù, we have him on the line.
He's not in court right now.
This should be an international scandal, but because we've heard this story now every six months, at least every year, specifically out of the United Kingdom,
We've become callous to it and the story is that a baby faces medical problems and the parents of the baby want to treat the baby and want to help the baby and want to keep the baby alive and the psychopaths running the UK government and health system and more broadly who run the health systems in the West want to kill the child because they now view death as treatment.
Mr. Gregory, thank you for coming on the show.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
So sorry about everything you're going through.
It's horrific.
The health problems of your child are obviously horrific in themselves.
I pray to God I never have to go through anything like that.
It's the greatest fear any parent has.
And then on top of that, your government Will not permit you to treat your child or keep your child alive.
And on top of that, the UK government will not allow the government of Italy, which gave your child citizenship, will not allow the Pope, will not allow the Vicar of Christ on Earth to help treat your child.
They simply want to kill your baby.
Tell us what's happening.
We're just absolutely disgusted.
I'm embarrassed to be British at the minute.
We've got another country offering to pay for the treatment and they're blocking it from going to Italy.
They're blocking it for coming home to get an extubation.
It's just so cruel and inhumane.
I just don't understand.
Where does the case stand now?
I know I really appreciate your making time.
I know you've got a lot of other things on your mind.
I know that there was a chance you were going to be in court this morning or this afternoon by your time.
So where does it all stand?
There's a court hearing going off now.
It's online virtual.
I've just had to pop out to get my daughter from school and then go back to the hospital and then join again.
But yeah, the appeal is, this appeal is to do with where Indy, they're trying to block Indy from coming home.
They're trying to say you can only go to a hospice or the hospital to have a treatment withdrawn.
So they've blocked us from going to Italy, and now they're trying to block us from taking it home.
It's just cruel.
Is there any hope at this point that you will be able to bring your baby to Italy for treatment at the Bambino Gesù Hospital?
Or is that completely off the table?
I know the Italians are doing as much as they can in the background.
We're just hoping that something will come of it at any point.
It's for the UK government and the Italian government to come to some sort of agreement.
That's what we're hoping for.
Now, short of that, you'd like to take your daughter home, of course.
You don't want to ship your daughter off to a hospice to just be officially neglected by the UK medical system.
So, what is their argument?
Why won't they allow you to take your own daughter home if things are going to go south, as I suppose they will for all of us eventually, but if this is really her time, why won't they let her Have her final moments in her home with her family who love her rather than in some clinical UK institution.
It was in the original court order that we could choose for her to come home.
I think when the fans heard about Italy, I think they got scared and are trying to block us from taking her home because they're probably scared that we're going to jump on a plane or something and go over there.
That's what it feels like.
Of course.
I actually, I should have realized that.
Because I couldn't figure out, I said it just seems so needlessly cruel to say you can't even take your own daughter home if she is going to die.
But right, because they don't want you to flee, to flee to go get medical treatment from Italy and the Pope, from the Vatican.
Though now your daughter is officially an Italian citizen.
Do I have that right?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, exactly.
As a parent in the UK, when you go to the courts, you've got no rights.
You've set up to fail.
Everybody's against you.
My daughter's not brain dead.
She's moving.
She's breathing.
She's alert.
There's children in America with the same disease.
She's nine.
I've been talking to the parents of them.
It's all down to money.
It's all down to cost and resources in the UK.
So that's what this is.
It's not that, you know, your daughter would just die immediately or anything like that.
It's not what they're saying, which is that, oh, she's in this horrific kind of pain and it's whatever euthanasia quote-unquote arguments that they make.
It's rather that this is, it's a socialist healthcare system.
They've got a finite amount of money and they just don't want to spend the money to keep your daughter alive.
They don't think she's worth the cost because she's potentially got a shorter life.
But nobody knows when they're going to pass away.
So they're not God.
They shouldn't play this.
They shouldn't play God.
I first covered the story on the show yesterday and the thing that makes me It's not, the thing that makes me angriest is what they're doing to your daughter.
The thing that makes me second angriest is that I see what they're thinking.
I see what the judge is thinking.
I see what the UK government is thinking.
I see their logic.
The problem is their premises are wrong.
And the premises are wrong for exactly the reason you just said.
Because they're saying, well look, she's going to die eventually.
Yeah, you're going to die eventually too.
I'm going to die eventually too.
You don't know when you're going to die.
Maybe you'll die in 50 years.
Maybe you'll go get hit by a bus tomorrow.
Does that mean that we're going to stop feeding you today?
Does that mean that we're going to stop giving you basic medical care?
It's just so... It's just a culture of death that is so shocking that when it happened the first couple of times, it was an international scandal.
Now the biggest scandal is that it's not an international scandal.
That not nearly enough people are talking about this egregious injustice that your government, a supposedly civilized government, is doing to you and your family and your daughter.
I know.
It's disgraceful.
It's like everyone in the UK is just not aware of what's happening around them.
You've got another country, Italy, who are doing everything they can.
Indy wasn't even Italian, she's got Italian citizenship now, but that country's doing everything they can to help.
So why can't my country help?
Why can't they come to some sort of agreements?
Why can't my country help?
Why can't my country help my own daughter?
Can you imagine?
That phrase is such an indictment of what has happened to the medical system and the whole political order in these countries.
I know that you're extremely busy, Mr. Gregory, so I'm going to let you go.
And I know that sometimes we say, if there's a real important international cause, we say, well, how can we help?
Where can we donate?
I know that what we're talking about here is a matter of hours or days, the kind of urgency.
So, of course, I encourage everyone to pray for you and your family, for your daughter, that there is a happy conclusion, you know, even as unlikely as that seems right now.
A priest friend of mine, a British priest friend of mine, pointed out once that prayer is not the last resort, prayer is the first resort.
So, we will all absolutely be praying for you.
If there's any other way that we can help, you know, please do.
Please do let us know.
All right.
Thank you.
Cheers.
Thank you, Mr. Gregory.
There's a report out now that the leaders of Hamas are living in Qatar.
We all know that.
They're not living in Gaza.
They're not living in the West Bank.
They're living in Qatar, which is a very wealthy Arabian country.
And their combined worth seems to be $11 billion, which is a lot of money, even in Qatar.
Qatar is an expensive country, but $11 billion goes pretty far away there as well.
Which reminds me that there are really bad incentives in this war in the Middle East.
The leaders of Hamas have no incentive to compromise and protect innocent people in Gaza.
I am not one of those on the right, and there are many of them, but I'm not one of those calling for just completely glassing Gaza or completely running roughshod over the Palestinian territories.
I don't think that would be good.
I don't think that's justified.
According to just war theory.
But likewise, I don't really see how you give the people of Gaza a nation-state.
How do you do that?
They're run by Hamas and Hamas doesn't want a nation-state.
That's going to end the grift.
Hamas is making, the leaders of Hamas, just the handful of leaders of Hamas, three of them, are worth 11 billion dollars and they're living in luxury in Qatar.
They don't want to go back to Gaza.
They don't want to go anywhere near there.
And the moment that the fight is over, they lose their money.
You even see this a little bit, I'll bring it to the home front, with pro-life activism.
When the Roe v. Wade license to abortion was overruled in Dobbs, I jumped for joy.
I didn't think it would happen in my lifetime.
I was so excited.
A lot of pro-lifers were very, very excited.
But I think there were a lot of Republican politicians who were not excited.
I bet there were even Republican politicians who called themselves pro-life Who were upset at the Dobbs decision, because back when Roe v. Wade was the law of the land, the Republican politicians could say, we're totally pro-life, but there's nothing we can do.
But we're, listen, we gotta work to get Roe v. Wade overruled, so you gotta give us a lot of money.
That's right, just donate now another $10 million and we'll probably overrule Roe v. Wade.
And then it never happened for 49 years.
They got to raise a lot of money.
They got to seem like they had real moral high ground.
They didn't have to do any actual work.
And then the Dobbs decision comes down.
All of a sudden, they're not getting all that money anymore.
All of a sudden, the pro-life gravy train gets cut off for some of those Republican politicians.
And then, worse for them, now they actually have to take a stand.
Now they actually have to vote on pro-life legislation in some cases.
Now they actually have to articulate a defense of life.
Now they, ooh, yikes, that could really, that might even hurt their donations further with some of the moderates and the, really, they're just squishes and liberals.
Ooh, yikes!
Real perverse incentives.
I think, by the way, that that dynamic of perverse incentives might help explain why the conservatives have fumbled on a lot of these recent referenda on the abortion issue, and they've just let the left run with the issue.
Because I don't think it's just that public opinion suddenly changed and everyone supports abortion.
Can't help but notice these pro-abortion referenda were written in a really calculated way that was persuasive even to some people in the middle and used language that conservatives love like small government and freedom and personal choice and all the rest of it.
The pro-life conservative Republican politicians were basically nowhere to be found.
They've got to get their sea legs again.
They haven't had to actually fight on this issue.
The activists on the ground have, and a handful of elected Republicans have.
But the ones who just kind of check the box, oh yeah I'm pro-life, yeah give me your checks pro-lifers, yeah I'm sure I'm pro-life.
They haven't had to actually fight on the issue in almost 50 years.
Speaking of luxury, Little update on Mayflower.
You know, I did not expect to be making Mayflower a consistent part of the stories of my show.
I expected to read ads for it and sell cigars, but the cigar company has just completely exceeded even my rosiest expectations, which were already very high.
So all thanks to you who have ordered Mayflower cigars.
I'll give you the update.
We launched the cigars with what we had calculated to be four months of supply.
And we didn't just pick that number out of nowhere.
We were working with some of the biggest guys in the cigar industry, and we said, how much do we need for four months of supply?
And they said, this amount.
I said, even if we're being aggressive?
They said, yep, even if you're being aggressive.
We sold it out in 24 hours, which the CEO of our manufacturing partner said was astonishing.
You know, our distribution partner said he'd never seen anything like it.
So then we still had some product that was in Nicaragua.
We said we got to get that product, if it's properly aged, we got to get that product up here to America as quickly as possible so that people who want to get these cigars for Christmas at least will be able to get them.
So we brought that up, it went back live on the site, Instantly.
Instantly.
That was sold out.
We said, okay, what can we do here?
Because don't forget, this is a premium luxury product, so you can't rush it.
You know, this is made by hand.
Something like 300 hands touch a cigar from planting to delivery.
This is a seriously handmade product that requires significant aging so that the tobacco is just perfect, the flavor profile is just perfect.
That's especially true of the Dusk Cigar, but it's true of the Dawn Cigar as well.
So, we said, we can't rush that whatsoever.
Do we have anything?
My friends in the cigar industry, who are producing Mayflower, they told me that they were going to make me, just for my own consumption, a special kind of size of cigar that I happen to love.
And they'd made me many, many of these cigars.
And then I get a call yesterday, they say, hey, you're not getting those cigars.
We have to sell them.
We have to sell them because there's so much back order.
And I, of course, agreed.
I said, yes, I'd rather, I would rather the Chaim de la Chaim of the Michael Knowles Show audience be able to get these cigars and have them at Christmas or whenever.
You know, maybe send a few to me, but I totally understand it.
But even that has sold out.
So, the upshot of all of this is, Thank you for making this maybe the biggest cigar launch ever.
And if you would like the cigar, I'm really hoping that we can get you some for Christmas.
We might be backlogged even beyond Christmas now.
If you want your cigars, you've got to go to MayflowerCigars.com.
If there's anything on the site to pre-order, just get it.
Even if it's not exactly the box you want, I would say just get it right now.
Or, at the very least, even if you can't pre-order right now, sign up.
Give us your email.
You will get a notification the moment you can, because these things have been going so fast.
When you get that notification, just get it, because they'll probably be gone within hours.
We expect to ship in early December, so it should still be in plenty of time for Christmas.
Mayflowercigars.com today to get what has Become, apparently, the must-have gift of the Christmas season.
You must be 21 years old or older to purchase.
Some exclusions apply.
And now, I'm very excited to say, finally, finally, we arrive at my favorite time of the week, when I get to hear from you in the mailbag.
The mailbag is sponsored by Pure Talk.
Go to puretalk.com slash noelskin, N-W-L-E-S, today.
Hey Smokey Mike, here's a little story for you.
Three of the world's greatest spies all get caught at the exact same time.
One French, the other English, and the last Italian.
The Frenchman has his hands tied and is taken away to be tortured.
He lasts two hours before he cracks and is taken back to the cell.
Next, the Englishman has his hands tied and is taken away to be tortured.
He lasted for four hours before giving his secrets.
Lastly, the Italian has his hands tied and is taken away to be tortured.
He lasts for 11 hours until the torturer gives up.
When he gets back to the hotel, the Frenchman and the Englishman ask him, how did you last so long?
He said, "I wanted to give up after 10 minutes, but I couldn't get my hands unstuck." You know, I could see that coming a mile away.
I could see it coming a mile away, but I like it.
And I might have to use that joke in the future.
Next one.
Hey Dirty Mike, Bryson was taken here and I regret to inform you that my name is still taken.
I need you to put on your Nostradamus cap for my question.
Let's say the betting odds are correct and Trump is the nominee.
Given that Ron DeSantis cannot run for governor again, what do you think his political future looks like?
I can't imagine he plans to go gently into that good night after his term is over.
Yes, I think there is a future for Ron DeSantis.
I can't see him running for House or Senate.
Does he fall in line behind Trump after dropping out and hope for a cabinet position should Trump win?
I do think Trump's diehard supporters will soften on him similarly to Cruz after the 2016 election.
Do you think there's an avenue for him to capture the Republican Party in the future?
What's the pathway for that?
Anyway, thanks for answering my question.
Love the show.
Yes, I think there is a future for Ron DeSantis.
I don't think that people hate Ron DeSantis.
I think there are a lot of people like me who really like Donald Trump and really like Ron DeSantis.
I know that that's not represented in the media all that well.
I might be the only person with a show who's saying that, but I think that's a lot of people.
And they'll say either, oh, I really like Trump, but I'm rooting for DeSantis now.
Or they'll say, look, I like Trump.
Trump's the man.
He's running.
He can get these things done.
And Ron is good, too, but he needs a little time to cook and he'll have his turn also.
And I think, you know, if the relationship between Trump and Cruz could be rehabilitated, I think the relationship between Trump and DeSantis could, too.
I don't think it's personal with DeSantis.
You know, it's like that line from The Godfather, when Michael Corleone says he wants to go shoot the cop that beat him up.
And Tom Hagen and Sonny, the brother, they're laughing at him.
They say, oh, you're getting all riled up.
He says, it's not personal.
It's not personal, Sonny.
It's only business.
It's only business, Sonny.
I think that's the same thing here with Trump and DeSantis.
I think it's business, and then it could move on.
I could see DeSantis maybe running for U.S.
Senate, maybe.
I could see him going into private industry for a little while and then coming back and running again later, though that would be a little bit tougher.
But, look, he's a bulldog, and he's very good, and his views represent more the future of the Republican Party than do the views of the squishes and the libs, so I think he's got a pretty bright future, even though he's taken on Trump.
Next one.
Dear Michael, according to Catholic doctrine, can non-Catholic Christians go to heaven?
I haven't been able to find a straightforward answer to this online.
Thank you so much.
There is about a 10 hour answer to this that still would probably be unsatisfactory.
Operative term here, the operative phrase in Catholicism is extra ecclesiam nulla salus, outside of the church there is no salvation, which has been interpreted for some time now to mean not
Not exactly that, if you are not a professing, practicing Catholic, that you have absolutely no hope of salvation, but rather that salvation comes through the Church and from the Church, but that we can hope.
And I certainly do pray.
I have relatives and friends and loved ones who are not explicitly Catholic, and I pray for them, and I pray for God's extraordinary mercy.
There was a view, sometimes called Feeneyism or the Boston Heresy, that We took a much narrower reading of extraklasium nulla salus that some would argue was condemned as a heresy by the Vatican, though that's also a complicated issue.
So what is the upshot that I would suggest?
I would suggest that we pray in earnest for our friends and loved ones, for God's extraordinary mercy, and for their salvation.
But I would recommend, if it's your own life that you're talking about here, You know, I would recommend you avail yourself of the sacraments and the graces afforded from our Lord through His Church.
That's what I would do.
Okay, next one.
Hey Michael, I currently attend the Latin Mass, but what with the restrictions that have come down recently, our bishop has decided to move the Mass to a different parish.
Should we switch to the new parish, even though that would mean giving up on the very strong community that we have at our current parish?
And, of course, we stay at our current parish where our pastor has offered to do the Novus Ordo Ad Orientum in Latin with incense, chant, and all the rest of it, especially in light of the fact that at the new parish our bishop has said we are not allowed to have any Latin Mass gatherings or events.
I appreciate your thoughts on this.
Thank you.
That's a tricky one.
You know, I love the traditional Latin Mass.
For those who are not mackerel-snapping papists out there, The traditional Latin Mass is not merely different from the new Mass that came about in the 1960s and 70s called the Mass of Paul VI.
It's not merely different in that one is Latin, one is English.
Actually, what's even more confusing is the new Mass, the Mass of Pope Paul VI, is normatively done in Latin too.
But what the difference is, is that a lot of prayers are removed, very often the priest is facing away from the altar and facing toward the people, and there's some hippie stuff that kind of snuck in.
So it just doesn't seem as reverent and it's not as full and it's not the mass of the ages that endured basically without change for 1400 years at least and has some roots going back much further even than that.
If it were me, I'd probably go to the Latin Mass, the traditional Latin Mass parish.
I've attended many Reverend Novus Ordo Masses.
I'm not saying that that's not valid or anything like that.
I still attend them sometimes.
Great priests who do that.
Sometimes it's nice to work within the system to try to change it and bring it back to sanity and reverence and tradition.
You know, I would defer to your own prudence there, but if it were me, I guess I'd probably go to the The TLM pair.
I just think the traditional Latin Mass is just so beautiful, you know, so incomparably beautiful and reverent and proper.
Okay!
Written mailbag question from Joseph.
Hey Michael, I'm in love with a girl who I want to marry and I'm thinking about popping the question.
However, there's a mental block in my mind saying that my actual soulmate is out there somewhere in this world.
This thought has nothing to do with the girl I'm with now.
She's great.
Just comes from my own weird form of paranoia.
Any advice getting over this?
If I'm thinking this way, does it mean my girl isn't the one?
Thanks.
No, look, everyone has doubts in romance.
You know, when you're dating, even if you're with the love of your life, you know, before you've made a commitment, especially as you're approaching the moment where you say, am I going to be with this person for my entire life?
Of course, it's perfectly natural, especially in our modern dating culture where people very often meet later, they meet on an app or something where you don't really know the person for so long.
It's very common for people to say, well, is this really the one?
I don't know.
What if I had swiped left on that person?
I swiped right on someone else.
Would that other person be my soulmate?
So that's perfectly normal.
I would not worry about that.
If you are thinking about an actual other girl, If you were thinking about an actual person and saying, should I marry this girl or that girl, then I would interrogate that question and come to an answer on it.
If you are thinking about an imaginary girl...
Then I would focus just on your prospective fiance and say, is there something here that I think is not going to work?
Am I imagining some other girl because there is something within this person that I suspect is just not conducive to a good life?
Am I only marrying this person because, you know, I just turned such and such age and I just feel it's time to get married?
And if so, how difficult would that be?
You know, if the issue is, I don't, you know, I don't like the way that this person, you know, washes the dishes, then you can probably move on.
If it's, I don't like this habit of virtue or vice and, you know, this person is a Zoroastrian and I'm a Presbyterian, well, that might be a bigger problem.
So, I would interrogate that, but I wouldn't let your...
Wondering, as a man, is there someone else out there?
I wouldn't let that be the reason you don't get married.
I mean, that's totally natural.
The question is, what's driving that?
From Dan.
Hi, Michael.
I'm a casual cigar consumer.
I went searching for your cigars as soon as I heard the news.
My question is, how do you recommend your cigars be consumed?
Cut or punch?
V-cut or straight?
Matches or lighters?
Details, Michael, please!
As a true connoisseur of cigars, I seek your advice.
I have a pack of five Dawn Robustos arriving soon.
Oh, good!
Congratulations!
I'm glad you were able to get some.
I want to enjoy them to the fullest.
Keep doing the Lord's work.
Thanks.
What I would do, especially for the Dawn Robustos... Let me see if I have... Do I have a cutter on me?
Of course I do.
Of course I do.
I would use a V-cut.
I'm sorry.
Don't listen to that.
This kind of looks like a V, but this is a guillotine cut.
There you go, just a little.
I would use a double-blade guillotine cut if I were to use any lighter at all.
I don't really like V-cuts all that much.
Sometimes on a Torpedo, you can use a V-cut.
It's not my favorite.
Even on a Torpedo cigar, I usually use a straight cut.
I don't really use punches all that much.
Sometimes if it's a little Corona cigar, I will.
But if you have too small a little punch on too big a ring gauge, then it's gonna mess up the taste and it might be a little too strong.
The real cigar guys...
Either bite it off or use their fingers.
Sometimes I use my finger if I don't have a cut.
I don't usually use my teeth, but a straight cut.
And make sure that the cut is smaller than the ring gauge of the cigar.
Not too small, but you know, people mostly cut off too much.
From Colby.
Dear Mr. Knowles, one of the biggest value changes I've come to recognize in life is how society values sex now.
Back then, sex, back then in the good old days, sex was kept sacred, and even if there was prostitution, it wasn't as common today as it is with OnlyFans and pornography access.
So, in your opinion, what do you believe is the cause of young men falling prey to pornography, like myself, and women turning to online prostitution as a source of income, even if they're married or mothers?
Was it just the rise of feminism, or the sexual revolution, or something even deeper than that?
I feel like there's a deeper cause to this sad reality we live in, and I wanted to get your views on the subject at hand.
I hope your analysis leaves me speechless.
Well, the cause is... There are many causes.
Thank you.
Going back many centuries.
The cause is theological liberalism, to begin with.
Theological liberalism, which loosens up the faith, which has animated our civilization.
Why is it bad to sleep around?
Why is it bad to not have sexual morals?
Why is it bad to look at porn?
It's bad because God says so.
Because the moral order is ordered against it.
That used to inform the state.
Even in private faith, theological liberalism has created schisms and dissensions and sects and all sorts of problems that have led to a radical skepticism that says, well, we can't really know religious truth.
There's no real authority that could tell us religious truth.
So that's the first problem.
Then the theological liberalism becomes a political liberalism that suggests all sorts of crazy things such as A firm line of separation between church and state, whatever that even means.
Or which suggests that we can't legislate morality, which is a completely meaningless statement and runs against everything we've ever known about political philosophy.
And it creates a skepticism and a secularism.
That leads to the rise of all sorts of crazy ideologies like feminism and all the rest of it, LGBTism, and ultimately a kind of selfishness that says that the state is not about the common good and being ordered toward a good which is conducive to all of our flourishing, but rather that the purpose of the state is just to protect my supposed right to do whatever I want even if it's disordered and degenerate.
So, that's it.
That's a short answer.
There's much more to be said on the subject, but the rest of the show continues now.
