VA Medical Center Orders Bibles Removed From Missing Man Tables

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That's legacypminvestments.com. Live from the Liberty University Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's conservative blowtorch. Todd Starnes. All right. Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to the Todd Starnes radio program. Happy to have you with us today. I do not mean to be ill-tempered today, ladies and gentlemen, but they're sending me in for a nuclear or if you're George W. Bush, nuclear, a nuclear stress test a little bit later on today. And I'm not allowed to have any coffee, not allowed to have anything to eat today until after this is done. So don't mess with me, liberals. That's all I can tell you. Don't mess with me today.

Wow. We've got a lot going on today on the program. A lot of crazy stories and one just dropped in. And I'm very curious to get your thoughts on this one. Not a lot of people are going to be talking about it, but these kinds of stories are very important to me. And I want to explain.

You'll understand why once I once we get into this story. But this is actually this is actually coming from the V.A. Medical Center. And this is in Kentucky and they have a medical center and they have a health care system. So no matter where you are, no matter where you live in the Commonwealth, if you are a veteran, if you served our great nation, if you put on the uniform of this great nation, then you can go to this V.A. health care facility and you can be treated for whatever might be ailing you.

Well, in in every one of these V.A. health care system facilities, there is a missing man table display, and it's a really moving thing. And it is a sobering reminder of the price that freedom brings with it.

Now, the missing man displays, if you have not seen these before, they're just beautiful. The display is meant to honor service members who are either prisoners of war or missing in action. It's it's basically a table setting. And there are various components to this. One of the components is a Bible.

And in many of these health care systems, the Gideons, our friends over at the Gideons, will gladly donate a Bible to be placed on the missing man table. It is a long time tradition within the military. Well, there's a problem in Kentucky. There is somebody apparently complained. We don't know who it was, but they reached out to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

This is a group run by a guy named Mikey Weinstein. And this guy is just a very mean person, just a very unpleasant person. And he claims that his organization represents overwhelmingly all of these Christians who want to keep Christianity out of the military. Nobody ever calls this guy out on it except for us. I have a hard time believing that there are people out there who are Christians who are openly attacking their own faith. So anyway, somebody complained about the Bible on the missing man table display.

Instead of telling this person who complained to go pound sand, all you know what broke loose. So Weinstein said that, oh, and by the way, these people are always anonymous. You see, I just don't think they exist. I think they go lurking on the interwebs, these people at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

I think they go lurking on the interwebs. And when they see like a baby Jesus, a nativity scene on a military base, or they see a missing man table display and they see a Bible, then all of a sudden they come up with these victims. But this guy is very powerful. This Mikey Weinstein, during the Obama administration, he actually boasted about having a literal red phone to the Pentagon. They gave him a special number. And whenever he came across some version or form of Christianity on a military base, he picked up that phone and by the end of business day, poof, the baby Jesus was gone, raptured right off of the military base. So anyway, this Weinstein guy fired off a nasty letter and he said that the military, the missing man table is a part of the military and he said that the military, the missing man table is a partisan display to promoting proselytized Christianity, is an atrocious and singularly ignominious act of illicit unconstitutional Christian supremacy, exclusivity, triumphalism, and exceptionalism.

Okay, what's wrong with that? It's God's word, pal. Anyway, they demanded that the VA center remove the quote illicit unconstitutional Christian proselytizing material. The guy really needs to edit himself.

Way too many words here, sir. Oh, by the way, the Bible in this particular case was in fact a Gideon's Bible. And so look, instead of instead of doing the right thing, which was ignoring Mikey Weinstein and his anonymous minions, the VA health care center, first of all, remove the entire missing man table display. But then they put it back. And in place of the Bible, they removed the Bible.

By the way, they sent out an email. They ordered the Bible to be removed. And now the Bible has been replaced with a journal filled with blank pages. Dear diary, we have a copy of the memorandum that went out.

All table displays within the VA Lexington health care system will contain the following small table, white tablecloth, single rose, vase, yellow ribbon, slice of lemon, salt, bread, plate, glass, candle, empty chair, and a journal. I don't know about you folks, this kind of stuff really gets to me when you have these outright attacks on good and decent people, honorable men and women. And the fact of the matter is that Bible is there for a reason. You know, it's a good thing Weinstein wasn't around during the days of George Washington, because he would have gone up to George. He would have gone up to General Washington as he was on bended knee beside his horse, praying to the almighty, excuse me, excuse me, you can't do that. You can't do that, sir. Shame on you. Tell the guy to go pound sand.

I mean, it really is that simple. Give him a Bible too. Maybe highlight some of the verses he needs to especially read and say the New Testament. All right, so that's one of the stories we have up on toddsterns.com. We even have a photograph of the missing man table for you to observe. All of that again, and we want to get your thoughts on this.

Do you have a problem with the Bible being removed from these missing man tables? Our telephone number is 901-260-5926 as we start off the day. That's 901-260-5926. Got to check that out. 901-260-5926.

Got to take a break. We'll be right back. Legacy Precious Metals has a revolutionary new online platform that allows you to invest in real gold and silver online. Hi, this is Todd Starnes and in just a few easy steps, you can open an account online, select your metals of choice and choose to have them stored in a vault or shipped to your door. You'll have access to a dashboard where you can track your portfolio growth in real time, anytime. And you'll see transparent pricing on every coin and bar. This puts you in complete control of your money.

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That number again, 866-649-0304 and start investing today. All right, Dylan, Dylan, tell the Memphis Fire Department to stand down. We've figured out what the issue was. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Tom Starnes Radio Show. So during the break, we had like our engineer Chuck, who's our chief engineer. One of the best in the business was in here. You know, you get that smell when maybe wires get hot Dylan and you just think there might be some sort of like electrical fire.

We've got a lot of equipment here in the palatial studio here. Yeah, we do. It's a concerning smell. Yes, especially when you're live on the air.

I mean, we all saw what happened with the NFL Red Zone show, right? Yeah. You don't want that to happen. You can't hear it. You smell it. So we were trying to figure it out. Now you're getting ready to I mean, you've been in a long relationship.

This is true. All right. So you're getting, you know, you're getting yourself all put together. And I understand that you broke out a new cologne today. Yeah, I did. No, I mean, I came up here and I'm like, wow, it smells like a field of lilacs or great meemaw. And so it's your new cologne. Yeah, well, it is branded as a men's cologne.

I will say that. You want to say what brand it is old spice or not old spice. It's called gray flannel. It doesn't sound like a woman's cologne or a woman's perfume, if you will. It's very ladylike to me. It smells me. I don't know. So to you, it smells manly.

Yeah. So I so all that to say we thought we thought that might have been the odor. We because nothing's on fire. So we're good.

We're running around. But it turns out it's not your cologne, which is very nice. It's someone asked me that somebody I had no idea what was going on. And deep in the throes of preparing this national radio program and talking about the big issues of the day, someone comes down and says, what does this smell like to you? Yeah. Oh, it's Ben Dieter, the morning show host.

Yeah. And I said, this smells like my mother's underarm deodorant from like the 1980s. Well, he came into the control room in here and he like, you know, turned his nose up and sniffed. He was like, what is that? I was like, it might be me. What do you think?

He thought the same thing. Anyway, the good news is the building is not on fire and it is not your cologne. Yeah, thankfully. Absolutely. It turns out to be the printer paper and the Sharpie.

It has an unusual smoke like smell. It should change that. There you go. You never, you never know what's going to happen around here, ladies and gentlemen. All right. Thank you, Dylan. Let's go to the phones here. Rodney in Cordova, Tennessee, listening to us on KWAM wants to weigh in on this missing man table. All right, Rodney, what say you, sir?

Well, first off, I'd like to say thank you. Thank you for coming to the East Memphis Republican Club meeting yesterday. Sometimes it's difficult for us to get speakers, but you touched on this in your speech yesterday in regards to the drip and drab system when it doesn't seem like a big deal or it doesn't seem like something to be concerned about when people start stripping away religious liberties, whether it's in the, you know, civil society or whether that's in the military. And this is just seems to be one of the beginnings of the drip system.

And it's just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and snowball into a situation to where you can't have anything that references Christianity or supports Christianity in the military, whether that's a missing man table, whether that's a cross, a rosary, a rosary or anything like that. It seems like the beginning of something bigger or an agenda that's more complex. You know, Ronnie, first of all, I had a great time last night, big crowd out, great gathering of Republicans and had a big potluck dinners, a lot of fun. It was just really a nice evening. And you're right. I did touch on the drips and the drabs. And of course, here locally, we were dealing with that with the local community and their holiday tree.

If you do not draw a line in the sand and say, no, this is not going to happen, then it, you know, you're just going to start yourself down that slippery slope. And I would continue have to go all the way back to when the pilgrims landed in the new country. And why were they here? And what was the purpose of all of that? And it has been so diluted over the years that the narrative has been able to change.

I mean, it was very simple. They wanted to come here because they were under religious persecution in England. So this this country was founded under the basis of Almighty God. And you can have the debate of whether or not we are a Christian country, but we were meant to be a Christian nation.

Right. I definitely agree with that. And, you know, people do like to debate that all the time. And I do believe we were founded as a Christian nation, but that's, you know, it's coming under attack more aggressively now. And one thing I find a little bit concerning is people who. I'm not going to necessarily say moderates or establishment or things like that, but it just seems like people are more concerned about the fiscal policies of the way the country is going, the economic policy and stuff like that, and they don't pay any attention or they're not concerned with the social issues. And the quickest way to break down a country or any type of organization is taking out the, I guess, the moral factor and creating a society where people lack morals or there just are no morals. So people have no moral compass.

And then the rest of it just falls along the wayside. Yeah, I mean, it's a great point you raise. And really, you're right, Rodney. And I get into a routine here on this program and I talk about, well, you know, now we're down to fiscal responsibility within the Republican Party because they're ready to shed a lot of these culture war issues, but we're not even fiscal conservatives. At some point, you have to ask yourself, what exactly are we?

What is the point of all of this? But the ultimate issues we need to be focusing on first are the social issues, these culture issues. And if we do not get a hold of those kinds of things, we are going to be unmoored. We're going to be untethered from our roots as a nation.

And then you get chaos, which is what we've got a whole mess of. Rodney, we got to run. It was great seeing you last night. And thank you for calling in. And folks, our telephone number, 901-260-5926.

That's 901-260-5926. So this is interesting from Chicago. Mayor Brandon Johnson is dealing with a massive crisis and it's pretty enjoyable to watch as all of these black citizens are rising up and they are furious because Mayor Johnson is bringing in all of these illegal aliens and he's shoving the black citizens out of the way. And people are outraged. I mean, it's been, oh, what is the word I'm looking for?

Ah, yes, delicious. It has been delicious to watch as these lifelong Democrats are rising up and raising cane. And so the mayor, who has been running away from all of this, finally held a press conference and he wanted the people of Chicago to know who was truly to blame for their crisis. You know, what we've seen is a very raggedy form instituted by right wing extremism. Everyone knows that the right wing extremism in this country has targeted democratically ran cities. And quite frankly, they've been very intentional about going after democratically ran cities that are led by people of color. And their whole motivation is to create disruption and chaos because that's what this, that particular party has been about, right? This is the same political party that did not want to accept that President Obama was actually an American. It's the same Republican right wing extremism that stormed the Capitol.

It's the same right wing extremism that refuses to accept the results of the civil war. It's raggedy. It's disrespectful. It's mean spirited.

It's an unclean spirit, quite frankly. Raggedy? Who you calling raggedy? Who you calling raggedy, mayor? Who you be calling raggedy, sir?

Calling me raggedy. All right. A lot to unravel in that nonsense. I told you I haven't had my coffee.

So you know what? Let's just, can we just put it, Dylan, can we put a disclaimer on the entire show today? Todd is just in a bad mood. Scratch that. Todd's in a raggedy mood.

Raggedy. All right. So here's the deal.

A lot to unravel. He says that the whole problem in Chicago are all these far right extremists who are running the city. So I went back into the annals.

Yes, I said annals of history. And I was just curious, when was the last time they actually had a Republican mayor of Chicago, of the Windy City? So it turns out the last time Chicago had a Republican mayor was back in the 1920s. That would be of the last century, over a hundred years ago.

Democrats have controlled Chicago for generations. And what is he talking about the Civil War? What is this all about? Folks, we're going to get into this right after the break. 901-260-5926.

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Promo code Starnes. All right, by the way, this question is for all of you lady listeners. All you lady listeners out there have a question about yesterday's funeral for a former first lady, Rosalind Carter. First of all, what a classy Christian lady she was, and she mandated that all the former first ladies be gathered for her funeral, Republican and Democrat. I think that's a pretty classy thing. Anyway, the former first lady, Melania Trump, was among those in attendance, and she looked stunning to me in this beautiful outfit.

I don't know how you ladies would describe it, but it was gray in color. And apparently that has set off some sort of a raging debate, and the mainstream media is attacking Melania Trump for wearing gray to a funeral. And they say, she should have been wearing black. That's such disrespect.

Really? Is it really disrespect, ladies? So all the other former first ladies were wearing versions of black.

You had what? Well, I will say this. Laura Bush was wearing a lovely black dress. You had Hillary Clinton and her traditional typical black polyester. And then you had the former first lady, Michelle Obama, wearing a pantsuit. My apologies. Words got tangled up there. Michelle Obama also wearing a pantsuit.

Polyester we do not know. And then you have Melania Trump, who looked stunning in her outfit, her funeral attire. So I'm curious, ladies of the Tom Starnes radio program, do you have a problem? Did she break some sort of funeral protocol by showing up and not wearing black? 901-260-5926.

That's 901-260-5926. They say Melania Trump disrespected Rosalind Carter by what she wore. By the way, did you see Jimmy Carter?

They wheeled him in. Not looking good, folks. Jeez-a-loo. The New York Magazine says Melania Trump adds awkward touch to Rosalind Carter's funeral.

Really? The Daily Express Melania Trump slammed for a disrespectful outfit. It's not like she was wearing a bikini top.

It's not like she was Dolly Parton. Although, no, don't want to go there. Don't want to go there. Anyway, I did do some checking, though, on the funeral home. Believe it or not, there are funeral home etiquette sites. Did you know that? And they say that it is actually it's perfectly acceptable to wear gray or even blue to a funeral. So there you go. You're not allowed to wear casual clothing, so you can't wear, you know, a thong or beachwear or sporty shoes.

And also, they recommend staying away from blue jeans. Too casual. Let's go to Liz in Gainesville, Georgia. Liz, what's your take on all of this?

Well, I'll tell you exactly what it is. Rosalind Carter would not care what anybody wore. She just wanted them to be there, I think, for themselves and not necessarily for her.

She was a kind, generous woman. And, you know, here in the South, you're in the South, you're in the South. But here in Georgia, hardly anybody wears black to funerals anymore.

We just wear whatever we wear. So maybe I think if Ms. Trump's name had not been Trump, there would not have been a word said. Liz, I think you nailed it right there.

Yeah, I think that's all I've got to say, Todd. Liz, I'm with you. I think Mrs. Carter would not have cared one iota, but I will say this. Former first lady, Mrs. Trump, looked lovely and, quite frankly, very appropriate yesterday, in my estimation.

I thought so, too. And like I said, if her name were not Trump, they would have not said a word. If it had been one of the other ladies, they would not have said a word.

They probably would have commended her for breaking the code. I'm with you, Liz. All right, Liz, you're officially appointed our fashion expert on the Tom Stearns Radio Program. Well, yay me. Congratulations.

You got a battlefield promotion, Liz. Thank you. All right. Take care now. Well, there you have it. So there.

Yeah, it's all crazy. I wonder if she brought like a dish. You know, you got in the South for the funerals, you got to have you got to bring something. You got to have a covered dish. If you read our Daily Biscuit Devotions with a Draw, we actually have a great story in there about funerals and all of the great food that you bring to a funeral. But I didn't see the girls coming off at Air Force One holding a potluck dish. So that's so maybe they maybe they did. Maybe they just ordered ahead. Oh, by the way, yesterday I told you folks I was bringing the Chick-fil-A and it was the hit of the Republican gathering.

Man, they were scarfing those things down like a Hunter Biden at a crack. OK, never mind. It's I haven't had coffee today.

What do you want me to do? Oh, we've got to talk about Lizard Cheney here. Lizard's got a brand new book out and nobody's going to read this thing, but she's got a new book coming out and she's naming names.

No big surprise here. She and Mitt Romney are cut from the same cloth. And I don't think it's Republican cloth, but they are cut from the same cloth. So anyway, Lizard Cheney writes in this book and she attacks our good friend, Congressman Mark Green. Now, you may have seen the stories circulating around the interwebs that Liz Cheney was in the middle of a meeting. There are a lot of people in a room and she overheard Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee calling President Trump orange Jesus. And here's what she wrote in the secret excerpt that was acquired by CNN. Among them was Republican Congressman Mark Green, she said, as he moved down the line, signing his name to the piece of paper. Green said sheepishly to no one in particular, the things we do for the orange Jesus. And that's sort of a shocking statement, if it were true.

So nobody bothered to reach out to Mark Green. I was texting him earlier today and I said, hey, what's the deal here? Is this accurate? And so the Congressman tells me I was there. I heard somebody say it. We were in a crowded room, but it was not me because it's very out of character for somebody like Mark Green. So my question is, did anybody bother to verify this information with Congressman Green? Did anybody pick up the phone?

Did Lizard Cheney bother to pick up the phone? What about her editor? What about the fact checkers for the book? You know, I've got a fact checker for my new book coming out in March.

Did anybody bother? Because that's a pretty controversial thing. And here's why this is a big deal. Because Mark Green is presidential material. Down the road, this is a guy who could be a presidential contender. He is a good and decent man. He's a medical doctor, military veteran. The guy knows his stuff.

He is a great leader. And this smells like some sort of a political hit job. It could be the printer paper, but I think this smells like a political hit job.

So the problem is there's really nothing to do now, right? It's already in print. The book is coming out. And because Mark Green is a public figure, well, guess what? He has no legal recourse against Lizard Cheney.

But the good news here, and again, I think Congressman Green, and we'll keep reminding people of the truth here, but ultimately, do you really think anybody's going to read Cheney's book of lies? Do you really think that's going to happen? I don't think so. I think she's done. She's disgraced herself.

That's really sad. She could have been a contender. She could have been a contender! What are you going to do? All right, let's go to Bill in beautiful Dahlonega, Georgia, wants to weigh in on Mrs. Trump. Hi, Bill. What you got for us?

Hey, Todd. Yeah, if Mrs. Trump would have wore a black burlap sack, they would have maybe gave her some past, but she would have looked just as beautiful in a black dress and they would have gotten at her case the same as they did with what she was wearing. And if you saw Michelle Obama's puss looking at her with jealousy, that spells it all. That's what she's always looking at. Did you see did you see the photo?

They were all the former first ladies were just glaring at Melania. Exactly. And in addition to that, President Obama should have set an example for the black community, turned in his birth certificate like every other president did to show he was born in the U.S. and it would not have been an issue. But what did he do? He did what he teaches everybody else to do.

And that's that's a problem. You know, he wasn't a good example to us. He wasn't an example to the black community.

And look at what you do. My son was a cop. He has such a hard time getting somebody to produce something as simple as a driver's license, you know, and it just it doesn't set a good example for the black community. Why would you say that about the black community? I don't understand that, Bill.

Because he's a black man that's represented in the black community and he wouldn't even produce. No, you see. No. Well, are you requiring are you expecting I mean, are you out there demanding that Vivek Ramaswamy show his birth certificate or Nikki Haley or white people?

I may be wrong, but I thought that it was required for any any president. Right. And I'm just not sure why you made it. Yeah. I'm not sure why you're bringing up the racial component.

Look, I look I hear what you're saying. But ultimately, Barack Obama did not represent the black community. And that's the problem, by the way.

He completely ignored them. He used that community to get elected, but he did nothing for the black community, which is why they went out and voted for Donald Trump in record numbers. But again, this has nothing to do with skin color. And, you know, Obama said, you know, he was born in the eye.

And again, I don't know if if people have to show their birth certificate or not. Certainly, people are checking all that information. But you know what?

That's that's almost a decade ago, well over a decade ago. Bill, appreciate that call. Got to take a break. We'll be right back.

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Red balloon dot work. Oh, Christmas tree. White House Christmas tree.

When winds began to blow. Oh, Christmas tree. White House Christmas tree. You fell down just like Joe. With all your pagan ornaments.

Perhaps a message has been sent. You're a Christmas tree, not a holiday tree. This lack of Christ must go. Will you snub him again, Joe? Drop that Christmas tree at just like Joe.

Yeah, big, gusty winds blew down the White House Christmas tree yesterday. Wow, we've got the I think we had the photos up at Todd Stearns.com. Thank you, Jim Gossett, our White House correspondent, normally performing nightly in the green room here at the Todd Stern Show. Want to go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line, honored to have with us from the great state of Iowa, Congressman Zach Nunn, who also served for two decades in the Air Force. Congressman, hope you are doing well.

John, so honored to be on the show with you. And I do want to note that the congressional Christmas tree held up just fine last night and the mighty Iowa tree is also doing well. So our best poor President Joe and his flaming birthday cake he had last week. This has been quite the week of memes for the President. Yes, they just keep on coming. They write themselves, Congressman.

They just write themselves. Congressman, on some more serious notes, we know that you guys passed some legislation yesterday demanding the hostages, the American hostages be released. And later this week, you guys going to be voting on legislation not to return that six billion dollars to Iran. I just have to tell you, I'm shocked that you're going to have to vote on something as common sense as not giving Iran a single penny.

You know, Todd, this is a really frustrating part. I've been 20 years in counterterrorism, counterintelligence operations, and we know for a fact that Iran not only is the leading sponsor of state terrorism, but that they've been making 80 billion dollars in selling oil illegally, largely to our biggest adversaries, when Biden has had the tools and the sanctions responsibility to stop it. In fact, in 2020, oil sales to Iran have gone up 400% and we have seen that money filter back into Tehran and be used directly to fund terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, and the Houthis in Yemen, which just this weekend launched multiple missile strikes at U.S. destroyers off the coast there. So this is money that's being turned directly on U.S. forces. We've seen 40 members of the military and our contract force in the area injured and casualties, in addition to what Hamas has done with the over 1200 innocent Israeli civilians who were killed and the hundreds that were taken hostage.

So you're absolutely right. These are things that everyone in the Western world, everyone around the globe should be looking at. Terrorism is not only a bad thing, but being able in Congress to hold the Biden administration accountable for not enforcing the sanctions regime. And the six billion dollars is just the latest in money that they are trying to filter back through the country to be able to use for the training, the equipping and the execution of terrorist acts against the U.S. and our allies in the region. Do you think that the Hamas leadership knows that we have weak leadership in America? I mean, when Reagan took office, the day he was sworn in, given the oath of office, the Iranian hostages were set free because they knew what was about to happen. Todd, you're exactly right. Look, the U.S. does not negotiate with terrorists.

I've done two combat tours in Afghanistan, another in Iraq directly as a result of it. But when we have John Kirby, the president's own national security adviser, saying that we are going to wait and we're going to hope that Hamas is going to do the right thing, that does not send any signal of strength or fortitude. It puts the ball entirely in the terrorist court.

And as a result, they've been the one driving the action against Israel, the response from the United States, even the negotiation on providing a cease fire, which Israel is holding up its end of the bargain, while Hamas is using it as a window to resupply, rearm. And sadly, we're going to see him re-attack if they're not extinguished at this moment. Well, and thank goodness for Speaker Johnson and his leadership on this and for you guys in the House. And I'm glad to see some common sense approach here moving into 2024. I'm hoping that we're going to have a situation where we give Trump not just the House, but the Senate, and let's see what we can really do as a country. Well, and here's where we are, Todd.

You know, I go back home and talk to Iowans. They talk a lot about, you know, what we are doing in Washington to actually make our country more secure. And Speaker Johnson highlighted it correctly. The greatest national security threat we have doesn't come in Ukraine or in Israel. It's in the fact that we have a runaway deficit that hobbles our ability to support our men and women in uniform long term and creates a larger challenge for national security for the U.S. I'm happy that in this Israel package we put forward, it's $14 billion for Israel's defense, that none of that's going to come from taxpayer funds. This is not new funding.

This is reallocating what would have gone to hiring Biden's, you know, army of IRS agents. We've taken that away and we've said, let's support Israel so they can defend their southern border and then let's get to the business of defending our southern border right here in the United States. That's another piece of legislation we're taking up here before Christmas. I believe that's probably one of the most important things we can do, not only to help our own country, the people who want to come here legally, but prevent exactly the type of threat that Israel has faced this last month of somebody coming into the country illegally and threatening our friends, our families, our communities in this lead up to the holiday season.

So I could not agree with you more. We have got to act on this. I'm proud that members, at least in the House, have led on this with Speaker Johnson at the helm. All right. Well, Congressman, that music means we've got to scoot out of here for the top of the hour.

Appreciate all the great information. Thank you for the great work you're doing in Congress. And to tell all those folks back in Iowa, we said hello. I will do. Salute to you, Todd.

Thanks and see you soon. All right, Congressman Zach Nunn, everybody. Stick around our two of the big show coming up next.

Live from the Liberty University Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's favorite cun-totent Bible-clinging deplorable American. Todd Starnes. All right. Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to our two of the big show broadcasting border to border, coast to coast across the fruited plain.

Hope you guys are doing well today. By the way, that we were. You got to love you got to love the PR folks. They tell us, keep this quiet. We don't want you to tell anybody until we break the big news.

So anyway, a couple of days ago, I guess they broke the big news and forgot to let us know about it. So exciting news for folks in the Houston area. We will be launching the first of the year on the Patriot radio network there in Houston, Texas. And we're excited to welcome you, a great listeners to the program. And of course, also welcoming all of our great Newsmax listeners listening to our simulcast. It is a lot of fun to hear from you folks all over America.

All right, folks, we have a very special guest. There are two authors in particular. I do not read a lot of fiction, but when I do, I typically read Joel Rosenberg and John Moody, who is one of the best writers in America, also a former boss of mine. He was the former executive editor and former executive vice president of Fox News Channel. He was the guy that made Fox News, Fox News.

And he is just a great American and a great author, has a brand new book out called Just Another Country. And John is on the Patriot mobile news maker line. John, hope you're doing well today. Todd, I am. I hope you are too. Congratulations on expanding into Houston. Well, thanks. We're excited.

They're good people in Houston. So we're excited about that. And it's really fun to see where the show has been going. And congratulations to you. I'm just curious, how long does it take for you to put together a novel like this? Well, the first of the three China books that I've written, I started in early 2020 because I was so angry at what was going on with China denying that it had anything to do with this virus that we're all supposed to call COVID.

So that took just a little bit less than a year because I was putting some steam into it. The second book, The World We Wish, was a little bit longer in taking shape because I had to learn about the metaverse. And that the metaverse is this different kind of world.

You put a headset over your eyes and you pretend that you're someone else and somewhere else. And you can fight dragons and rescue damsels in distress and be a sports star and be a famous actor, anything you want, except none of it's true. And then I wanted to finish the trilogy on a climactic note.

And I believe that what is going on with artificial intelligence and the Chinese Communist Party is a clear and present danger and a real danger to the United States. So that was a little bit more than a year. And now the trilogy is done and your listeners get to decide whether it's any good or not. Well, and by the way, folks, Just Another Country, we have a direct link to it on the live show blog and you can get it wherever you buy your books.

But head over there and we have a quick link for you. Just like Rosenberg, it's like your stories come right from the headlines. I mean, this is, and a lot of times it's hard to figure out fact from fiction here. I want to read the description, folks. In Just Another Country, Moody brings an emotionally shattering, politically infuriating conclusion to his fact-based trilogy of China's relentless attempts to destroy the United States. So, John, you truly believe this is our greatest threat. This is the greatest enemy we have right now, China. I think China is the leading threat to American democracy right now. One place after Americans who don't love America.

You know, they take the first prize. But China as a country and as a competitor is openly, they're not doing anything quietly about it. They're trying to destroy the United States economically, militarily, and politically. And I'm afraid to say they're doing a pretty good job of it. And you also weave in what's happening on the southern border as well with this massive invasion of illegal immigrants coming across the border. Yes, if I only had a handful of existential threats to the United States, what we're doing, what we're allowing to happen at our southern border would make the list as well.

It's just, it's unbelievable. You've been an observer of the political scene for a very long time. You've written books. I think you wrote the book on Pope John Paul II, if memory serves me correct.

So you're a good student of all of those things. And I just believe that ultimately the religious issue is so vitally important for our nation. It seems like we're coming under attack from all different areas of our country right now. Well, you know, Todd, I mean, I don't need to tell you, but this country was founded on religious principles, and it was founded on a faith in God to oversee this country as it turned into the world's greatest power. To pretend that that, to pretend that God has no role in any of this is just to ignore the reality that, you know, that our entire lives and our entire time on earth is a gift from God. It is.

It really is. John, where do we sit in your estimation as a country right now? I mean, you mentioned the threat here of China in the novel. We've talked about the illegal immigration coming across that border, but what is it that keeps you up at night when you see what's happening in our nation right now? Our failure as a nation to understand that not everybody loves us and wants the best for us. We have become, I hate to say it, I love this country and I love the people in it, but we have become fat, stupid, and lazy. We think that nothing bad can happen to us because, you know, there's something, there's some sort of a pretend guarantee that our government can protect us from all evil.

It can't right now because the government isn't looking at those evils and is not accepting them and is not planning to do something about them. John Moody is the author of Just Another Country. He is also former executive editor and a former executive VP of Fox News. John, what have you been doing? You've been out of the business for a little while now. Do you miss it? Do you miss the hustle and bustle of NYC? I wish I could say I do, Todd, but the truth is the business has changed, you know, so fast and in such a negative direction.

I'm mindful of Ronald Reagan's thoughts about, you know, when he became a Republican, he said, I didn't beat the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me. And so that's pretty much how I feel about the news business, or as I call it nowadays, the information industry. Even, you know, even our former place of employment, you can see the change.

I think there was a time where you could sense the change, but now I think you can see the change in real time. Well, yeah, I mean, I think if you are a constant observer of Fox News, you can see that there has been change in its message and in its mission. And I've learned not to, you know, speak ill of my former colleagues. But I think that anybody that's been a long time Fox viewer understands that they're doing things differently and they're doing it with different reasons. When you see the media at large and not just Fox, but everybody, what is the role and what is the responsibility of a press if it was functioning in the way it should be functioning? Well, Todd, you were kind enough to say I used to be your boss.

I'm not sure that was really the case. You usually did what you needed to do. But what I always told people at Fox when I was there, they would say, you know, well, what should we do? And I say your role is to report what you have seen happen yourself with your own eyes and what you have been told by people who you trust and have a track record of telling the truth. Other than that, you're speculating and, you know, going and looking at a headline on the Drudge Report and then saying that that must be true because it's on the Drudge Report is not the way to do journalism. And I'm afraid that a lot of news organizations have forgotten that. And they want their reporters to also be political commentators.

And the two are very different. Yeah, you know, going back to our days at Fox, one of the things I appreciated, at least in the radio division, the news side of the radio operation was literally on one floor and the opinion guys, we were on a completely different floor. And I love that, you know, because because you're right there, there has to be a separation and people need to know, you know, where you're coming from. Yeah, I mean, it's one thing to disagree, for instance, with with Sean Hannity or with Todd Starnes. And you can say, well, you know, I disagree with what he just said. It's a it's another thing and a much more serious failing in the news business to say, I don't believe the news that was just reported on a straight talking news report. And once you lose faith in that, once you can't believe a news person's reporting on what he or she has seen or reliably learned, that organization is in trouble.

It's a fair it's a fair point. Folks, the book Just Another Country, are you working on are you working on more books in the pipeline coming down? Got another one in the pipeline, Todd. Yep. Wow. This is awesome.

All right. We're going to get you I want to get you on the TV show as well, and we'll have our team reach out because I want to have a longer conversation about the book itself. Folks, you can get a copy over at Todd Starnes dot com. Just click on the link in the live show blog.

Get it wherever you buy your books. John Moody, always good hearing from you, sir. Glad you're doing well. Thanks, Todd.

Congratulations on your success. Well, I appreciate that. John Moody, everybody. A great man. And I can tell you, I would not be doing what I am doing now without his great advice and all of the things that he taught me when I was working at Fox News. Just a pretty pretty awesome individual and an incredible writer. I got to get a copy of this book.

John Moody's Just Another Country. We've got to take a quick break here, folks. Our telephone number is 901-260-5926. Again, that number is 901-260-5926. This is the Todd Stern Show. So yesterday we told you about this portable kid over the Kansas City Chiefs game and the little boy, what is it, nine years old, maybe 10? Anyway, he's a young kid. And half his face painted red, the other half painted black. It was war paint and he had the big headdress on wearing the jersey. And it turns out there's actually new video that surfaced showing black players on the Kansas City Chiefs team actually doing the tomahawk chop with the kid. But Deadspin and this writer for Deadspin who is, and I only have to tell you a skin color because of what I'm about to say, he's a black writer. And he is tripling down now and saying that this is like a three-pronged racist issue with this child, the headdress and the war paint. Well, it turns out that somebody did some research and somebody on the Deadspin staff actually was in red and black face as well. And that individual has been attacking the kid. But anyway, we think we might be able to put this issue to bed because the parents have come out and I spoke with the child's mom last night. And it turns out that the little boy is Native American.

So he's actually an Indian. So we will see if Deadspin is going to have a retort to this. All that to say, the new owner of Deadspin could be a nine-year-old boy from Kansas City. Good for you, young man. Good for you. Oh, speaking of good for you, I've got to tell you guys about what's happening over at Newsmax and Newsmax+. Now, a lot of you folks have been watching our show on Newsmax and we appreciate that. But I want you to check out Newsmax+. More than 150,000 people have already signed up.

It is pretty awesome. Newsmax+, lets you watch the Newsmax channel on your phone or your home TV. You also get the N2 streaming channel, plus all sorts of great movies and documentaries. Newsmax+, by the way, just launched actor Jon Voight's new series on Israel. And of course, you're going to be able to watch all of the best Donald Trump shows ever on Newsmax+. By the way, it will not cost you anything to start.

And that's good because everybody's spending money on Christmas right now. So go to Newsmax+.com for your free trial. That's Newsmax+.com for your free trial.

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All right, I want to play some audio. This is from Oakland, California, and it's a pretty horrible story. So you've got a lot of people in Oakland right now, and they are riled up over Hamas. They're big Hamas supporters. So they are pro terrorist. And there was a big city council meeting to pass a resolution calling for a cease fire. And many of the residents here in Oakland, California, are actually defending the people who kidnapped a four year old American child.

Cut number 10. There's not been beheadings of babies and raping. Israel murdered their own people on October 7th. Calling Hamas a terrorist organization is ridiculous, racist and plays into genocidal propaganda that is flooding our media and that we should be doing everything possible to combat. I support the right of Palestinians to resist occupation, including through Hamas, the armed wing of the unified Palestinian resistance. As an Arab asking with this context to condemn Hamas is very anti Arab racist. The notion that this was a massacre of Jews is a fabricated narrative. Many of those killed on October 7th, including children were killed by the IDF. An amendment condemning Hamas is bald propaganda. Thank you.

Your time is up. To hear them complain about Hamas violence is like listening to a wife Peter complain when his wife finally stands up and fights back. Question. Did anyone else notice that those who oppose this resolution are old white supremacists? There's been a lot of atrocity propaganda ranging from claims of beheaded babies to macerate. Hamas is not a terrorist organization just because the U.S. and Israel deems it so.

Hamas is a resistance organization that is fighting for the liberation of Palestinian people and their land. All right. So, folks, that that should freak you out. That should freak all of us out. So this is this is the the culmination of a public education system. And and I suspect it's not at the high school level. These kids are being taught to hate Jews. I think that's happening at the collegiate level. It'll be happening in high school soon, if not already.

But I'm just I'm being generous here. I'm saying these people educated in American schools and American classrooms paid for by your tax dollars are being turned into radical extremists. Folks, we literally have and what you just heard was at a city council meeting in Oakland, California. What you have already in this country is an army of Hamas supporters. And those kinds of people out there saying it was Israel who that Hamas did not invade Israel, that it was Israel who went out there and killed all these people. They killed their own people.

That's insane. But anybody who can believe that would be able to pick up a weapon and turn against their own nation. And that's what concerns me here is we've got a lot of these people and we've seen them marching in the streets, shouting about, you know what, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, Infitata. And everybody thinks, oh, they're just clever little slogans.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Ladies and gentlemen, they wish to do us harm, great harm. That's what this is all about. So very disturbing situation there.

And if I were a Jewish person or as they called them, the old white supremacist, and I lived in Oakland, California, I'd be moving out of town lickety split. That's that's what I would be doing. That's what I would be doing. All right. Our telephone number, folks, is 901-260-5926.

That's 901-260-5926. They want to remind you about the brand new book coming out, Twilight's Last Gleaming. You can get yourself a copy right now by going to Amazon.com. You can now order the Kindle version. They're sort of rolling these out, these preorders. You can preorder a hard copy edition.

You can also preorder the Kindle version of Twilight's Last Gleaming by going to Amazon.com. All right. Stick around, everybody. We'll be right back.