July 17, 2021 - The Political Cesspool - James Edwards
50:45
20210717_Hour_1
|
Time
Text
You're listening to the Liberty News Radio Network, and this is the Political Cesspool.
The Political Cesspool, known across the South and worldwide as the South's foremost populist conservative radio program.
And here to guide you through the murky waters of the Political Cesspool is your host, James Edwards.
All right, and welcome, everybody, to tonight's live broadcast of the Political Cesspool radio program.
I'm your host, James Edwards, this Saturday evening, July the 17th.
And we had a great week last week, God knows, in South Carolina with so many wonderful people.
But it's good to be back home, and it is good to be back with none other than Keith Alexander the Great and back to, well, I would say a regular show, but this is really going to be anything but that.
Regular is good enough by our standards.
But tonight, what we're going to have for you, what we're planning to have for you, and we're working on it right now, is having Charles Bosman, the editor-in-chief of Russia Insider.
He's going to be joining us live from Russia.
And as a matter of fact, Keith, we have him right now.
This is the first, even after all these years, to have a Russia Insider live from Russia joining us now.
And he's here, Charles Ballsman.
Now, give me credit, though, James.
I'm the one who I said, we need to get Russia Insider, somebody from there.
Yeah, I got to tell you, Charles, it's the truth.
Keith is a big fan of your work.
He reads it religiously.
It's a daily read.
And it's a real honor to have you all the way from Russia staying up so late burning that midnight oil.
How are you tonight, my friend?
I'm doing good, James.
Thanks.
It's always so such a compliment when people say, hey, I know Russia Insider.
I think it's a great site.
So thanks very much, guys.
Mr. Producer, he's coming in a little bit light in my earpiece.
I don't know if it's going like that over the air.
It's on mine, too.
But we'll try to pipe Charles's volume up.
But yes, indeed, Charles.
No, listen, it's fantastic.
And yes, you do great work.
And tell us a little more about that work.
So, Russia Insider, you're an American.
You're in Russia right now.
But tell us the name of the website, how you came to that name, and the sort of work you're doing there.
Okay, well, you know, I just felt that there's a different, obviously there's a lot of anti-propaganda in the American media.
And the only sort of serious voice speaking out against it was the Russian state television called Russia Today, or RT.
And I just felt they weren't doing a very good job.
They weren't really getting to the truth of what was really going on and that there was a demand for people who really wanted to know what was happening in Russia.
And so we started this site, and we thought it'd be this small little thing, you know, and it turned into this really popular thing.
And it was kind of like the right thing at the right time.
This is back in 2014 when the Ukraine war was starting.
And, man, people from all over the world were just eating this stuff up.
And there's this huge fascination with Russia all around the world.
So interesting.
Charles, this is Keith Alexander.
Explain the difference between Russia Insider and Russia Today.
Russia Today, is that an officially government-sponsored media entity?
And compare that with Russia Insider.
It's a massive government-run operation.
It was Russia's attempt to have the equivalent of like a CNN that would view events from the Russian point of view.
But it made a strategic decision to go after a liberal audience because they were trying to have influence on liberals in the West.
And so it wasn't speaking to conservative issues.
It wasn't speaking to Christian issues.
And obviously, there's a huge demand for that kind of view in the West about Russia.
And so we're a totally reader-funded organization and people send in donations and made the money available for it to work.
So that's the basic story.
Charles, do you think that Vladimir Putin understands that his basic core of support in America comes from the right and not from the left?
I think he must understand that, but it seems to me a huge strategic mistake on the part of the Russian leadership not to have a media outfit that would speak to that group of people.
And I think that has to do with internal Russian politics and power plays in the Kremlin and people defending Turk.
It's a real shame because missing a few people.
We're going to talk a little bit more about the Russian president as this hour goes on.
And we do have Charles live from Russia for the entire hour.
And I'm going to give you that website.
I'm going to give it to you now.
I'm going to give it to you throughout this program, Russia-Insider.com.
Right now, I'm looking at the latest article about Tsar Nicholas.
And I was telling Charles just yesterday when we were doing a little bit of choke that two of our most popular programs we've ever done was when Sam Dixon went to Russia for the 100th anniversary of the murder of the Tsar when they had this celebration in his honor.
And people do have, as you said, Charles, this fascination, this longing to learn more about Russia.
And I was fascinated when we had the opportunity to bring you on tonight to talk.
And I want to learn more about that.
So let's just get down to that right now.
For an American, for our listening audience, what can you tell us about what it's like to spend extended time in Russia?
It can be one of the most enlightening and fascinating and rewarding experiences of a lifetime.
And I very much feel that was the case for me.
You have to approach it with an open mind and love in your heart, and you'll discover things here.
It's one of the great cultures of the world in terms of their intellectual achievements.
It's a very Christian country.
I think that's a very important thing for your audience to understand that people don't really know.
We're going to talk more about that.
Yeah, so I should definitely go into that more in detail, explain why that's the case.
And it's the people are fun, they're warm, they're decent, they're fair.
They're none of the things that are so commonly represented in our media.
They've got a fantastic sense of humor.
And many of these qualities, there's so many similarities with Americans.
A lot of Americans come here and say, hey, Russians are our brothers, really.
I mean, they're so similar to us in so many ways.
Well, I've never been over there, but I have that feeling too.
And let me just ask this to you.
It seems like the American regime, the American establishment, has a very visceral and a bad feeling towards Putin's Russia.
And it seems that they are also very schizophrenic about Russia generally.
They didn't care for czarist Russia.
They loved Soviet Russia.
Remember when Hollywood made its 1966 movie, The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, where anybody that didn't like the Russians was a hick and whatnot.
And now, exactly 190 degrees polar opposite.
What's going on with America's establishment response to the Russians?
Well, you know, they, that would take me a long time to explain all that.
Going over, you know, back into the czarist days, but basically today, why they don't like Russia is because they can't control it and Russia won't go into their, won't join in with their, you know, world system.
They can't control Russia.
And Russia really blocks them.
Fantastic way to wrap up this first segment with Charles Balzman, the editor-in chief of Russia Insider, Russia-insider.com.
We've got it for the rest of the hour.
He is live in Russia tonight, and so we are there too.
By extension, stay tuned.
You know where the solution can be found, Mr. President?
In churches, in wedding chapels, in maternity wards across the country and around the world.
More babies will mean forward-looking adults, the sort we need to tackle long-term, large-scale problems.
American babies in particular are likely going to be wealthier, better educated, and more conservation-minded than children raised in still industrializing countries.
As economist Tyler Cowan recently wrote, quote, by having more children, you're making your nation more populous, thus boosting its capacity to solve climate change.
The planet does not need for us to think globally and act locally so much as it needs us to think family and act personally.
The solution to so many of our problems at all times and in all places is to fall in love, get married, and have some kids.
Have you ever been to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota?
Well, here's your opportunity.
This July 21st through 24th, thousands of liberty lovers are headed to South Dakota for the greatest libertarian show on earth, Freedom Fest, this time held at the Rushmore Civic Center in Rapid City, South Dakota, with a record-setting crowd.
Here's your chance to make new friends and meet the country's top political and business leaders, authors, and filmmakers in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Some of the star speakers this year, South Dakota Governor Christine Ohm, Dr. Drew, Larry Elder, U.S. Senator Mike Lee, U.S. Senator Cynthia Loomis, the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, Steve Moore, John Funn, Grover Norquist, Tom Woods, and the infamous pandemic mock trial.
Go to FreedomFest.com.
Use promo code WAR50 to get $50 off the registration fee.
That's FreedomFest.com with promo code WAR50.
Fly there, drive there, bike there, RV there.
Be there.
FreedomFest in South Dakota.
Get your tickets now at FreedomFest.com.
The Foundation for Moral Law is a non-profit legal foundation committed to protecting our unalienable right to publicly acknowledge God.
The Foundation for Moral Law exists to restore the knowledge of God in law and government and to acknowledge and defend the truth that man is endowed with rights not by our fellow men, but by God.
The Foundation maintains a twofold focus.
First, litigation within state and federal courts.
Second, education.
Conducting seminars to teach the necessity and importance of acknowledging God in law and government.
How can you help?
Please make a tax-deductible contribution, allowing foundation attorneys to continue the fight.
You may also purchase various foundation products as well at morallaw.org.
Located in Montgomery, Alabama, the Foundation for Moral Law is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501c3, founded by Judge Roy Moore.
Please partner with us to achieve this important mission.
morallaw.org It's time to jump back into the political cesspool to be part of the show and have your voice heard around the world.
Call us at 1-866-986-6397.
Well, folks, when we come back in the second hour, we're going to do what we normally do at the top of the show, which is welcome you to the broadcast and sort of paint a picture of what you're going to be hearing for the rest of the show.
But with Charles Bosman doing us the courtesy of staying up so late over in Russia where he is right now, we wanted to go straight to him and we'll get to all of this.
How many hours is it between him and us now?
It's 2.20 in the morning over there right now.
And we were pausing right before the break with the question that Keith had brought up.
Why is Putin's Russia, or Russia in general, so hated by the American regime?
And, you know, it would seem as though, of course, Charles, that there are some cultural differences.
They have a different language and they have somewhat different heroes.
But obviously, they come from the same genetic material.
They share our faith, Christianity, or at least what used to be our faith here in America.
So it would seem as though there are many reasons why they should be natural allies, but that is not the case.
And I think you gave a pretty quick and succinct answer as to why that was before the break.
But I would like to ask you to go a little bit further now when answering this question.
How would you compare and contrast American culture in the present day versus that you're seeing in Russia tonight?
You know, Russian culture is very deep and goes back, you know, a thousand years.
And so when you start understanding it and getting into it, you really get that feeling, you know, the same way you might when you were in Western Europe.
American culture feels much more, you know, contemporary and something that evolved over the last couple hundred years.
And in that way, it's newer.
It doesn't be worse.
But there's the deepness here.
It comes through in the language.
It comes through in the Christianity.
It comes through in the architecture.
And you get a sense of a more ancient culture, I would say.
Charles, this is Keith Alexander.
Just let me ask you this.
Compare Christianity in Russia with Christianity in America.
We have, you know, there's what I consider an oxymoron, liberal Christianity over here.
It's like trying to mix oil and water.
What's it like in Russia?
Well, I think that this is a dovetail, Charles, and we were nibbling around this in the last segment.
So this segment will give us a little more time to give it a full and proper treatment.
I mean, it is difficult to separate culture.
Faith plays such an integral role in the culture of a nation.
The Russian Orthodox Church seems to be much more serious in its faith than what you see here in the Protestant denominations and much more faithful to the sacred text.
But let's ask a man who knows it better than we, Charles.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, it's so interesting.
I mean, the big difference, obviously, is that it's a one-church country, right?
And there aren't these various different denominations and people arguing about all kinds of stuff.
Everything's decided at the top, and it's run from the top down.
And there's no deviation from, I think, the things that you and I agree with.
You know, LGBT, Sodomy, all these things is an absolute, you know, unacceptable.
And so everywhere you go in Russia, it's the same, and everybody's on the same page, and it's really completely conservative with not bending on anything.
And so that's really the big difference that you notice.
And it's also an extremely, they've got this very ornate and sort of ritualistic way of doing their services, but they've got all these theological arguments about why that's a good thing.
But on the other hand, you know, it's oftentimes when I go to conservative parishes in the U.S., and I'm talking about conservative Protestants, I think like these people remind me so much of the Russians I encounter in the Russian Orthodox Church.
The priests, the monks, they're cut from the same cloth.
They're just coming at it through a different theological understanding.
But they're absolutely fantastic.
The people in the Russian church that I've encountered are just, you know, this most admirable, powerful men.
And there's a reason for that.
It's so interesting because what happened in Russia 100 years ago was that the Russian church went through a persecution of which, you know, it's hard to just even imagine the suffering they went through.
And it's, you know, they say in Christianity that the church is strengthened by the blood of the saints or purified by the blood of the saint.
And that happens so much in Russia.
And you can still feel it today among the people who are in Christianity because they directly interacted with all these guys who were sent to camps and tortured and murdered for their faith.
And, you know, it was a huge number of people who were either murdered or tortured in prison for not retaining their faith.
And it's an absolute miracle that Christianity has come back so strong in such a short amount of time because the communists stamped it out.
I mean, it was basically gone or underground.
And, you know, 99.9% of Russians knew nothing about Christianity.
And you would have thought that even with a non-atheist regime coming in, that it would be basically dead and might take like generations to come back.
Well, it came roaring back, you know, with this incredible power in just 20, 30 years.
And that's extraordinary.
That always blows me away when I see that happening.
You know, the Russians apparently have taken to their traditional faith like a duck to water once it's offered to them.
And I think we may have answered the question about why Putin and current Russian, the current Russian government is so hated by the American establishment.
And it gets down to something this simple.
We have a liberal establishment and a conservative establishment.
Would that be an oversimplification?
No, I think that's absolutely correct.
And also, we've got an establishment that hates Christ and seeks to undermine him.
And the Russian establishment supports it and is openly and avowedly Christian.
That's the other big, huge difference that you see here.
The Russian government endorses the church, supports it.
There's this deep, deep cooperation between the church and the government.
And the top political leaders are overtly Christian and talk about why Christianity is important and is good for Russia and so on and so forth.
In fact, Christianity has become like the de facto ideology there.
You know how countries have like national ideas like ours is freedom and liberty and the Constitution and that we, you know, made history abstract.
It's abstract.
It's not spiritual.
It's organic.
It's not spiritual, organic, or blood-based.
It's abstract principles, yes.
Yeah, and different countries have different things that sort of identify them.
Like the Germans are like driven by the guilt of the feeling of guilt about World War II, and the French are driven by their ideas about their revolution.
Well, in Russia, there was no idea after the fall of communism.
Like the Russians were used to having this really strong ideology and sense that they were like a great people because they were building communism.
And when all that collapsed, they didn't understand like what does our country stand for?
Who are we?
And the Christian church moved in and sort of took over that idea.
And so the ideology of the country is Christianity.
It's their ancient Christian faith that goes back to the apostles.
It's really interesting.
You know, it seems like in Russia, the church and the government of the Soviet Union, the communist government, were at odds.
There was no blending whatsoever.
I think that our problem is that, as I've said before, that in American churches now, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have been replaced by the Gospels of Peter, Paul, and Mary.
They've tried to blend liberalism with Christianity, and it's just not working.
And it's like the Russians just went right back to where they were in 1970.
I want to ask Charles one more follow-up question with regards to faith, and then I want to continue this really riveting discussion as far as I'm concerned.
I hope you'll agree, ladies and gentlemen, as we continue to explore all things Russian with the editor-in-chief of Russia Insider, RussiaInsider.com.
Stay tuned.
He'll be right back.
Pursuing Liberty, using the Constitution as our guide.
You're listening to Liberty News Radio, USA Radio News.
I'm Brad Bernard.
With COVID-19 cases rising in all 50 states, health officials say it's clear that unvaccinated people are both driving the increase in cases and are most at risk.
This is Dr. Tyson Bell, Medical ICU Director at the University of Virginia.
I think one thing to really discuss is the misinformation that's really out there.
I think that's really been a pandemic in and of itself.
The fact that I think people are getting inaccurate information, information that leads them to believe that the vaccines are either unsafe, they're not effective or they're not necessary.
Dry, unstable, and windy conditions will keep fueling the bootleg fire, a massive wildfire in southern Oregon, as the largely uncontained blaze grows by miles each day.
And initial review Friday showed the bootleg fire destroyed 67 homes.
This is USA Radio News.
Energize health!
Awesome and amazing day, men.
This is John Jubilee with energizedhealth.com.
That's right.
Write that down after you get off of this at energizedhealth.com because this is your moment to change your life.
Intelligent men are skeptical.
I want you to be skeptical, but I want you to go check this out today.
We have a breakthrough science that is so powerful that hundreds of doctors have changed their life.
They recommend it to their patients, physician to U.S. presidents, leading scientists across the world because it works.
Intercellular hydration pushes all the toxins out of your body.
It pushes all inflammation out of your body.
Can cause your brain to have double the function, man.
Double.
Your testosterone level could rise 500 points naturally.
You can wake up every morning like a teenage boy again and lose 30 to 40 pounds of solid fat every month.
Be skeptical, but go check this out today at energizehealth.com.
That's energizehealth.com.
After witnessing violent riots and looting for almost a week, South Africa is trying to slowly get back on its feet, but now the challenge is meeting food demand.
The World is One correspondent is driving past a mall.
This is one of the mall called Alex Mall.
This is one of the mall that is opened up for communities to buy the essentials.
The mall is currently being manned by a private security as well as mall security.
You can see the cue here of people that are wanting to go inside the mall to buy essentials.
Three members of the Texas House Democratic Caucus who are temporarily staying in Washington after leaving the Lone Star State this past week to block passage of a new Republican-backed elections law have tested positive for COVID-19.
The three members of the delegation have all been vaccinated against COVID-19, but tested positive with rapid tests.
This is USA Radio News.
Welcome back.
Get on the show.
Call us on James's Dine at 1-866-986-6397.
Folks, do as we have done and make Russia-insider.com among your daily reads.
We are with the editor-in-chief of this wonderful web scene, Charles Balzman, right now.
He is joining us as we broadcast live at least at 2.30 a.m. in the morning outside of Moscow.
One more question about the faith, because this is a Christian program and it's something that's near and dear to our hearts.
And that is, you mentioned the suffering that the Russian people went through.
I mean, this is something that we come back to, and we have come back to it time and time again over the course of our career.
It's very stupefying.
On the radio, suffering brings people together.
Suffering can be a good thing.
When you take what happened with Russia, how much Russian Christians suffered, but now they have it forged them like steel.
And now here they are on the rebound, whereas Americans have been so relatively wealthy and complacent and lazy.
And nobody except the South has really had total war visited on them in America.
Well, the question is this.
As Russia begins to re-embrace the faith of our fathers, they are improving by all standards of measurement.
As America slips into this post-Christian dystopia, we are declining by every standard of measurement.
Is Russia the key to classic Western Christian survival?
No, I think the key to Western survival is actually America.
And I think, you know, it's biblically true.
If you turn away from God, things tend to go badly wrong in your country.
And so you're right.
I think that's very true.
One of the reasons why Russia is gradually improving is because of their turn to Christianity.
And in America, it's really so simple.
You know, people get things, they go into these long theories about how the world works.
And it's just very simple.
If you follow God and live by his rules, you'll be fine.
Your country will be fine.
Don't, you're going to have serious, serious misfortune.
And, you know, and it's interesting that Russia also turned away from God in the decades preceding the revolution.
And there were people in the church saying, hey, guys, if you keep doing this, there's going to be a catastrophe here.
So that's a fascinating thing.
And it's part of the film that I'm working on, the documentary film about parallels between what's happening in America today and what happened in Russia 100 years ago.
Well, you can't reconcile liberalism with Christianity.
There are Nazi moron and be like, liberal Christianity is like holy sin.
There's no such thing.
And Russians learned the hard way.
And it seems like we seem to be going down the same path they were going down a century ago.
It's an alarming situation.
And why Russia is not saying, go ahead.
Yeah, it's so interesting that when you study what happened in Russia 100 years ago, it's like a lab experiment.
I mean, it's a teachable moment.
And if Americans would look at what happened in Russia 100 years ago, they would see so many similarities to what's happening in their country now.
And, you know, I just, I guess I pray to God that Americans will wake up and say, oh, my God, we're going down this path, the complete disaster.
And we've got it in.
So Russia has a huge amount of success teaching us in this kind of critical historical moment we're living in.
Well, you know, Putin takes criticism from the American regime for being harsh.
But then on the other hand, look how Russia got into the 70 years of Soviet control by a leader, the Tsar, who was arguably too weak.
Rather than executing Lenin, he banished him, for example.
And really, Tsar Nicholas and some of his predecessors seem to be great examples of the truth of Leo DeRoche's famous comment, the nice guys finished last.
I wouldn't entirely agree with that.
Should I talk briefly about what this documentary film I'm working on is about and how it's sort of totally revisionist history.
There's all these Russian stories that have been talking about this now for the last 10 years, and it's something that you need to set out there.
That what we've been told about the Russian Revolution and the Tsar and what was going on in the country at the time is completely opposite to what actually happened.
And one of the important things to understand is that the Tsar was not weak at all.
He was a highly competent, successful leader who was basically making all the right moves.
And, you know, we're taught that, okay, this is what we're taught.
Russians' people were miserable.
The czarist society was corrupt and rotten.
World War I started.
This created an economic crisis that pushed the suffering Russian masses over the edge.
There were food shortages.
They rose up and they threw out the Tsar.
That's basically what we're taught, right?
Every single fact, every single word of that is not true.
Russia was a booming country where the workers and the peasants were thriving and had a good standard of living compared even to Western Europe.
The Tsar was a great leader who was very popular with the Nazis.
In World War I, the Germans did not defeat the Russians.
It was the other way around.
Russia was poised to destroy the German armies in the spring offensive and was going to roll right all the way to Berlin.
And what happened was that a bunch of people got together and said, let's go to pull a coup, like what we would today call a color revolution.
And so they fake food shortages in the capital and the Tsar was forced back to it.
And here's the key thing.
This is the thing where it's like the parallel with what's happening in America today.
The people who did this, all right, they were the Russian elite.
They were not like, you know, Jewish bankers in New York and London.
It wasn't the German government.
It wasn't the English speaker service.
It was the Russian elites who basically committed national suicide.
And the reason they did it is because for like several decades leading up to the revolution, there was this massive media campaign full of lies convincing the elites that they had to be more liberal, they had to be more European, they had to give up their Christianity, they had to give up their monarchy, and that they had to get with the program of being like a liberal democracy.
And so they did it themselves.
Nobody else did it to them.
And that's what's happening in America today.
I mean, when you look at it, right, it's Apple, it's Boeing, it's Coca-Cola, it's the top politicians.
They're driving the country into a pay.
And they're committing basically national suicide.
I think that is a fascinating assessment.
That's very interesting to hear put that way.
But, you know, the question still is, how did this group of chronic societal malcontents like Lenin and whatnot gain power if basically the czar was doing all the right things?
Okay, so what happened was the revolution happened in two stages.
So first there was when the Tsar was overthrown, that was done by the rich capitalists in St. Petersburg, basically.
And these were very successful, wealthy men, Russians, not Jewish, not some other group, who hated the Tsar and wanted him out.
And in fact, you know, it's an amazing thing.
Even a majority of the Russian aristocracy was against the Tsar.
They had become infected with this problem.
Even the church had become accommodating to these ideas coming from the West that, hey, you know, we shouldn't be so monarchy isn't maybe the best way to go.
And so they started this woke revolution in Russia.
And here's a great, here's a little like fact that's just amazing.
You know, it was a popular idea at the time in Russia was to abolish the police.
Sound familiar?
Sound familiar?
Well, guess what?
History does repeat it.
Yeah.
So when they had that first revolution, one of the first things the government did was they abolished the police.
And it was a complete disaster.
Total chaos occurred.
And the reason the Bolsheviks then came in and seized power ten months later was because those nutty, woke, liberal, rich guys created a complete catastrophe, an economic disaster, a military revolution.
Well, that sounds exactly like America today.
Yeah.
And there's a reason to believe that it was deliberate.
There were people embedded in those wealthy people who were saying, look, let's drive the country into a pit, then we can take it over with like a real hardcore leftist dictatorship.
Hold on right there, Charles Balzman, Russia-insider.com.
I have just been listening to this as a fan and learning more about Russia.
It's as he said before, there's a lot of fascination with Russia, and rightly so.
We get two sides of this question through our media, but you're getting it here.
Thanks to Charles Balsman.
We got him for one more segment next.
The spirit of the American West is live and well in Range Magazine, the award-winning quarterly devoted to the issues affecting the American West.
Each issue contains informative articles, breathtaking imagery, as well as the culture of cowboy spirit today, and gift ideas like the 2021 Real Buckaroo Calendar.
Order online from rangemagazine.com.
Loving Liberty Network salutes the spirit of the American West at rangemagazine.com.
Well, my mom smokes and my dad smokes, and I saw them smoking, so I tried it.
They're telling me not to smoke, but they smoke themselves.
When it comes to smoking, are you sending mixed signals?
But when you teach someone a certain way to do things and you go back on that certain way, it sends mixed signals to the person that they're trying to teach.
The parents need to be a good example.
Smoking, if you think you're old enough to start, you're smart enough to stop.
A public service message from this station and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
What do you wish your parents would do to show you they love you?
Take me to Montana, that I would have a huge slumber party with all the girls there.
Play with me more often.
My mom's so busy with the board meeting.
To spend more time together as a family.
Do more out-of-the-house activities.
This is a tough one.
My parents, they do everything I am.
If it wasn't for them, I would have a roof over my head.
They don't need to show it to me.
They just know they load my letters.
Well, not yelling at me very much.
What do you wish?
What do you wish?
Raise my allowance.
To not argue together.
Have my dad be home more for dinner and stuff so that it could be even closer.
Family, isn't it about time?
Buy me an ice cream and kiss me to love me.
From the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Okay, let's all know.
Roe versus Wade has resulted in some of the most permissive abortion laws anywhere in the world.
For example, in the United States, it's one of only seven countries to allow elective late-term abortions, along with China, North Korea, and others.
Right now, in a number of states, the laws allow a baby to be born from his or her mother's womb in the ninth month.
It is wrong.
It has to change.
Americans are more and more pro-life.
You see that all the time.
In fact, only 12% of Americans support abortion on demand at any time.
Under my administration, we will always defend the very first right in the Declaration of Independence, and that is the right to life.
Welcome back.
To get on the show, call us on James's Dime at 1-866-986-6397.
We've got one more segment with Charles Balzman of Russia Insider.
And Charles, with time beginning to become more fleeting, we're going to ask these questions of you as quickly as we can.
We have about a half dozen questions.
If we can get to them all, I will consider it a great victory.
So we'll try to keep the questions and the answers as short as we can so we can get all of this covered.
But I just wanted to come back with this.
What we're doing tonight is trying to learn more about Russia from somebody who has knowledge that we don't.
We want to know what the people are like, what the culture is like, what the faith is like, what it's like to spend time over there.
But it seems that there is this unspoken, what's the word I'm looking for?
This unspoken feeling of being uncomfortable to ask questions like this, as if an honest inquiry into the state of this foreign power is talented to treason in the eyes of our media.
If you don't swallow the official narrative on Russia that they're bad, that they're subversive, that they meddle in our elections, if you try to find out the truth for yourself, you're doing something wrong.
Do you pick up on that?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
But, you know, that's just coming from the media.
And the media was a passion.
I mean, it's really psychotic, really.
And, you know, it's a sound of like accused on Putin personally, like year after year.
And the way he just sits there and smiles and is like, you know what?
I'm not going to get bent out of shape.
I mean, another person would just be like furious, right?
That guy has really got a Christian attitude.
I thought he, the way he handles this stuff.
He's a strong man.
He presents and projects strength.
Our American partners are, you know, are good people.
You know, I have faith that they're going to come through, but that's his response to every vicious attack.
It's very interesting to watch it.
But it's the media.
Charles, you're coming a little bit in.
I mean, I know you're out there on the outskirts of Moscow, and you said it may be problematic over the cell phone.
So we're going to let Keith ask a quick question or make a quick comment while we hope that the connection improves.
Go, Keith.
Okay, this is just a quick one.
You know, in some ways, we're reliving Russia's experience 100 years ago.
In some ways, they're reliving ours.
And what I had in mind for that is that Russia still seems to have a problem populating its wilderness and conquering it, something we did in the 19th century.
And you've got a hostile power that is no shortage of people on its eastern boundary, the Chinese.
What problems does that pose to the Russian government and the continued viability of the Russian regime?
Well, that's a theoretical geopolitical problem for Russia, but for now, the Russians and the Chinese are actually very close.
And they're forced to do that because of the aggression coming from the West.
So, you know, the West is basically driving Russia and China together as allies.
And so for now, their relationships are very warm and friendly, and there's no hostility and no, you know, territorial disputes or anything like that.
That could change in the future at some point.
But for now, they're very strong together.
And, you know, they're very similar regimes.
I know there's this very strong anti-China message coming through the MAGA media and conservative media.
And when I hear it, I'm like, geez, this sounds just like the kind of stuff they say about Russia.
And maybe it's coming from the same places.
So I would say that.
Well, there's some grounds for saying it about China, but with Russia, Russia is not trying to dominate us economically or anything else.
Basically, Russia is kind of like Greta Garbo.
They just want to be left alone, it seems like.
Well, I'm sure that they would like to be engaged in a diplomatically positive way like any other nation.
But let me ask you this, Charles, because we are running out of time, and I want to be sure to give you plenty of time to talk about your current project.
So I want to ask you this.
If they do so happen to be Americans who look at a nation like Russia who reveres its ancestors and appreciates its culture and its faith, and they may not be interested in seeing how much further America descends into this Orwellian death spiral.
For people like that, is it possible to go to Russia for a visit or perhaps even something more permanent?
We've seen actors like Steven Segal and draw that.
How much is the language barrier?
Is it real?
Are there a large number of Russians that speak English or not?
All right, so if you want to go to Russia, how can you do it?
Yeah, okay.
So in terms of going to Russia, until this whole COVID thing started, it was just easy and relatively inexpensive.
Like it was a $500 round trip ticket from New York, you know, and you could come as a tourist and stay for a long time.
And if you wanted to, you could emigrate.
And the Russians were welcoming people from the States and Europe to get permanent residence in Russia.
That all changed with COVID, and we're sitting here with these closed borders.
And the only reason I was able to come here is because my wife is Russian.
And so if you've got a close relative who's Russian, you can come during the COVID restrictions.
And hopefully this COVID thing will blow over and folks can come here again.
In terms of the language, yeah, no, this is definitely a barrier.
Not many Russians speak English or speak English well.
And I'm good at languages, so I easily learned Russian and I'm fluent in Russian.
But I've noticed that a lot of other people have trouble with that and they struggle with it.
So that's something one has to be willing to work on.
Well, I know Keith has a follow-up question, but I want to be sure we work this in.
So let's just do it now.
We'll give Keith the final word on this hour, which has been really enthralling to me as a host.
Your current project, though, you're over there.
It's sort of, I guess, a working vacation or an extended trip.
Tell us about what you're working on.
Yeah, so just it was what I was talking about earlier.
I'm making a documentary film.
It's called Russia 1917 America 2021.
And it goes into these parallels between what was happening 100 years ago in Russia and what's happening today in America.
And I tell you, I mentioned that abolish the police thing, but there are like 20 things like that that are very, very similar.
And it's just, I just was studying the history coming from these Russian historians here in the spring, and I was like, holy cow, this is just extraordinary, the parallels, and it's so important.
So I'm making a film that draws these parallels, and hopefully it'll be helpful to Americans to find their way in this terrible situation.
It sounds interesting.
And it should come out at the end of the year.
I should say that.
That's the question I had.
When will it come out and how can people find it?
It'll be on Russia Insider.
So just read the site and you'll hear all about it.
And we'll have you back on to promote it when that day comes.
Keith?
Well, let me just add this to the end to put the cherry on top.
I have looked, I read Russian Cider religiously.
I think it's a much more reliable source than Russia today, for example, about what's going on.
And I think you have a true appreciation for Russia, the Russian people, Russian culture, and religion.
I really don't see why in the world, if people were rational, Russia and America could not be the best of allies.
And, you know, it seems like there are a lot of American people, particularly on the right, that feel that way.
But the American regime seems, you know, for example, Trump couldn't even dare to go to Russia or else the deep state and the corporate establishment would have just come apart at the seams.
Do you see anything changing in regard to Russian-American relations in the near future or the mid-future?
Or what would have to change in order to facilitate better relations.
All right.
We may.
Yeah, are you still there, Charles?
Well, if we had to lose Charles, that was a good time to lose him with only a couple of minutes left remaining.
When we were testing the connection yesterday, he warned me that it is a rural location that he's in outside of Moscow, and it was over a cell phone, and sometimes that has an issue, although we talked for about 30 minutes yesterday and had a perfectly clear connection.
But again, that was a good teaser, I guess, Keith.
Perhaps when we bring him back on to talk about this film project that he's working on, we can pick it up there and then get into the film.
But this is something I think we had a Russian economist by the name of Yuri Maltsev on years ago in the early years of the show, back in the mid-2000s.
But even he, I don't think, was calling in from Russia.
I think he was here in the States.
So, and of course, Charles is an American, a Pennsylvanian.
But this was, we don't really talk about Russia or rather with people who have a knowledge of Russia that are not.
Who have real experience, on-the-ground experience like Charles had.
So I really enjoyed that.
I mean, that was different.
That was something, you know, folks, we promised you at the beginning of this summer.
I've actually got the promise right here.
We promised you a summer full of excellent content and unique programming.
And the summer is not near over yet, but we have already delivered that.
I think last week in South Carolina, obviously that was a unique event.
This is a first-time guest.
We promised you some first-time guests.
Here's Charles Balsman making the first of what I hope will be many appearances to come.
So we are branching out and doing different things even after so many broadcasts under our belt.
We hope you're enjoying it.
It's something we try to improve every year.
We try to get a little bit better and do a little bit more.
And the producer just came back and let me know that we have lost Charles with only seconds remaining this hour.
We'll let him enjoy the rest of his night now approaching 3 a.m. in the morning in Moscow.
But Keith, as a longtime Russian Insider reader, did that live up to your expectations?
Yeah, I think that it's I think Russia Insider really fills an important niche in the American Informational Highway.
We need to get good, sympathetic information about Russia and what's happening over there and what our prospects for peace and alliances would be with the Russians in the future.
And we'll find that out.
We'll continue to explore and discover Russia with Charles Balsman, Russia-insider.com.
We come back.
It'll just be me and Keith in the second hour.
We've got a lot to talk to you about, and we'll tell you what's coming up the rest of the show.