transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] How will the war with Iran affect your wallet? My dad is here to break that down to us, as well as the conveniently timed scandal of Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell. What's really behind that? He'll explain it all to us today. It's a full episode. I will also be talking to Finnish mother, grandmother, and parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen. She is a Christian who has been convicted by the Finnish Supreme Court of Hate Speech. And Alliance of Defending Freedom is defending her. She is here to tell her testimony of courage and what is ahead for her, so we can share the arrows. First, I'll be talking to my friend, Bunni Pounds, and this crazy, incredible Holy Spirit-empowered endeavor that I got to be a part of called America Reads the Bible, where 500 people, both in politics and out of politics, even in Hollywood, out of Hollywood, are reading through the Bible for seven days straight. That's happening right now. We've got all of this and more on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Olive. Download this app so you can see what is really in your food when you go to the grocery store. There's all kinds of hidden ingredients that you don't want to feed your family. Download the Olive app today. Bunni, thanks so much for joining me. Okay, tell me about America Reads the Bible.

Speaker 2:
[01:21] Allie, we're having an Ezra moment, just like the Israelites needed to be reminded of who they were and their national identity. Ezra stood up with the scroll, and he read the books of Moses and reminded them of the call of God on their life, the law of God. We're doing a similar exercise here in Washington, DC as almost 500 of our national leaders from all spheres of influence, all demographics and denominations humble themselves in front of the American people and remind them that we need the Bible and scripture, specifically for our 250th birthday of America. It is really an epic moment for seven full days, 84 hours from the Museum of the Bible. Wow, it's been amazing.

Speaker 1:
[02:07] Yeah, so this comes out on Wednesday. So this morning I got to read from the Book of Esther. I got to read Chapter 2 and then part of Chapter 3, which was such an honor and so cool for me to go back and just re-study that myself but then also to get to read it to the country. And President Trump was also a part of this. Yesterday evening, he read from, was it Second Chronicles?

Speaker 2:
[02:28] Yes, he read Second Chronicles, Chapter 7, verses 11 through 22. It's the first time in our history that a president has read an uncensored full length of scripture, two and a half minutes from the Oval Office. Really amazing that he would be willing to read this passage that we all have been praying for like 50 years of National Days of Prayer. Really, it's global prayer. God spoke to Solomon in a very turbulent time in Israel's history and said, If my people that are called by my name would humble themselves and pray and seek my faith, turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sins and heal their land. So for the president, we've been praying for the president to potentially read this for over a year. We've had a little group of prayer warriors praying that he would be willing to do it. And knowing him and knowing how authentic and real he is, whether we agree with him every minute or not on the things that he does, I've been praying that he wouldn't read it if it wasn't real to him. And I think it's a real important moment for our country because he's mixed in with, you know, normal Americans. My friend Jason Hershey, who's led Prayer and Worship from David's Tent in the National Mall, read right before the president. And then Ben Carson and Candy Carson right after it. And then our friend Heidi St. John from the West Coast. So we're just mixing the president here as a person that, you know, a created being, we're all American citizens, whether we're rich, poor, powerful, not powerful. You know, it's just a kind of a beautiful picture of what God does. He's the equalizer and he brings us all into his kingdom.

Speaker 1:
[04:20] Yeah, gosh, that's absolutely true. What an incredibly audacious goal to get 500 different people, as you said, some of the most powerful people in the world, like President Trump and then everyday people. That's how you want to describe them. But of course, same value and same importance to God, which is part of what you're talking about. But how in the world did you reach all of these 500 people and get them to agree to read part of the Bible?

Speaker 2:
[04:48] Well, we started, Allie, last February. I counted, I did about 200 Zoom meetings with ministry leaders across the country. We strategically reached out to Bible-believing ministries across the country that we felt we wanted to partner with on this. A John 17 moment across denominations. We were strategic to reach out to all 50 states. I think we're almost to all 50 states being represented. But we have 122 national ministries signed on to participate. They not only blessed us financially to help us do this event, but also signed marketing agreements to help us push this out. So really a real moment of unity. And then we had about 20 hours of the Bible that we saved for elected officials and celebrities. So we had to start the whole process again, reaching out to agents and managers and staffers to work on getting all of these people signed on. It has been the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Our team would tell you it's the hardest thing any of us have ever done. But as we're living out this week right now, seeing the presence of God filling our capital, filling the music of the Bible, and seeing the response online with hundreds of thousands of people accessing the live stream at any one time, just to hear the spoken word, it's all been worth it. It has all been worth it. Yeah. Amen.

Speaker 1:
[06:07] And tell me how people can watch.

Speaker 2:
[06:10] We're so thrilled. Great American Pure Flix is streaming this and producing it for free. So just go to americareadsthebible.com, and you can access the live stream at any time, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. We're going all the way through Saturday night at 9 p.m. Franklin Graham will do the Gospel presentation at the end of the Book of Revelation. And we've got amazing worship leaders that are here throughout the week filling in prayer and worship at the end of each hour. But play it in your living room, play it in your business, play it in your churches, play it in your universities. I really believe that God is moving a momentum here that we will treasure His Word above every other voice. It's a powerful moment and we're just honored to be a part of it.

Speaker 1:
[07:00] Thank you. And just so people know for sure, start date and end date. Can they access right now and watch it?

Speaker 2:
[07:06] Yes. It started April 18 with our opening celebration that you can go back and watch. That was just a powerful night and it goes all the way through Saturday night, 9 p.m. Eastern time as we end the Book of Revelation and have Franklin Graham give the Gospel.

Speaker 1:
[07:23] So good. Well, thank you so much, Bunni, and God bless you and this incredible, incredible Holy Spirit-empowered endeavor. It was an honor for me to get to be a part of it. So thank you so much.

Speaker 2:
[07:33] Thank you, Allie. We're so blessed to have you apart.

Speaker 1:
[07:41] First sponsor for the day is Fellowship Home Loans. People might not realize right now, but now is a really good time to refinance. It's also a good time to buy a new home. If you bought a home in the last few years and you feel stuck right now, higher rate, PMI, debt piling up, then you've gotta hear from my friends Mike and Brian from Fellowship Home Loans. They're offering a free mortgage checkup, and it might be the most valuable phone call that you can make this year. For 20 years, Mike and Brian have helped families not just buy homes, but make smarter decisions about the ones they already own. They'll look at your whole picture, your rate, equity, debt, and tell you exactly what your options are with rates lower now than they have been the past few years. Refinancing, home equity loan, these can be a game changer for your finances. Everything is done in-house. You can really trust this team at Fellowship Home Loans. If you go to fellowshiphomeloans.com/allie, get $500 back at closing. You have no payments also if you use my link for two months. That's incredible. fellowshiphomeloans.com/allie, Fellowship Home Loans, Mortgage Loaning by The Book, Nationwide Mortgage Bankers, DBA, Fellowship Home Loans, Equal Housing Lender, NMLS number 819382.

Speaker 3:
[08:56] Well, good morning or afternoon, whenever you're listening or watching this. Don't usually see me in the middle of the week, but Allie Beth is in Washington, DC., and she is part of the 500 people that are reading through the Bible, which is something that our friend Bunni Pounds and her organization is doing, and she'll be doing some reading, so you can probably go back and find that somewhere online if you want to watch that. She asked me to step in for her today, and we're gonna have a great show. It's gonna be a lot of good. First thing I want to remind you of, though, is don't forget to get your tickets to Share the Arrows coming up in October. It's gonna be another great event. Last year, she had 7,000 women sold out the arena, and it was a lot of fun. I was able to listen in on a part of it, and it just did a great job, and I know they've got some great speakers and great entertainment coming, so hopefully that you already have your tickets. If not, please get your tickets to Share the Arrows. Look at some of the speakers if you're watching this. You can see some of the speakers on the screen right now. It's just going to be awesome. And the singing people, it's so funny, Allie and I ran into one of the Shane and Shane's at the airport a couple of weeks ago when I was with her flying to go to a speech. And just super nice people. You're going to really love them. I'm sure that a lot of you already know who they are. So anyway, make sure you get your tickets to that. We're going to talk about two or three things. And then at the end, there's going to be a video that you're not going to want to miss that Allie did an interview with a Finnish woman that has been persecuted pretty severely in my opinion for her faith. And you're not going to want to miss that. But first of all, we want to get a little bit of an update on a few things that are going on. In fact, as we're recording this, the vote in Virginia to redistrict, meaning to redraw the geographical lines on where their congressional districts are is taking place. As you know, Virginia has a Democrat governor and a Democrat-controlled legislature. So what they've done is they have passed a bill. Now we're not even sure that bill is going to pass constitutional muster. It'll be challenged in court. But right now they've passed a bill to redraw the districts. And it would essentially go from, I think they have six Democrats and five Republicans for their congressional delegation. It would go to ten Democrats, ten Democrat districts, and one Republican district. So talk about gerrymandering. You remember I explained to you where the word came from. It came from a congressman, I believe it was in Rhode Island, who originally drew a district that looked like a salamander, you know, kind of a squiggly line, to get all his right voters in his district. And they ended up calling his last name was Jerry, so they called it gerrymandering. But redistricting happens generally every 10 years after the census taking place. And that's what most states do, and they adhere to this. Now the challenge with using the census as it works today, and this is why blue states want so many illegal aliens to be in their states, because when you're looking at the census, it doesn't ask the question, are you a citizen? And therefore, they just count numbers. So if there's a whole lot of illegal aliens in Southern California, and they're doing the census, they'll count those people, all right, in the census, and the population amounts in the census determines how many congressional seats each state gets, you know, because it's based on population in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, it doesn't matter, because every state has two senators. But in the House of Representatives, it's based on population. That's one of the main reasons that Democrats want to have an open border. So don't ever forget that, all right? Please make sure that you're remembering that. We tried to change it. I think the Supreme Court a few years ago did not allow us to include the citizenship question on the census. I could be wrong on that. And some of you listening, if I am wrong on that, you can email us back to correct me on that. But anyway, Virginia is going through that. Their voting today is the last day of voting. So by the time that this comes out, we'll know what happened in Virginia. It's kind of a 50-50 toss-up. There's the yes vote, which means, yeah, we want to redistrict, is a little bit ahead. But the strategy that the Republicans are using are using the same strategy they used for Governor Yonkin to win the governorship. Is there is a whole lot of the Virginia landmass is actually those people vote Republican in the southern parts of the state. And so they're trying to run up the score. The Republicans are on the no vote in order to overcome the Washington DC suburbs. We'll see how that works out. But just remember that they are doing this. And it's so funny, we're going to listen to a video here in a few minutes, a few seconds that their governor's talking about. But they're telling you that it's temporary. All right. Listen to these words when she talks about it in just a second. And then I want to come back and talk about what it really, really means. So we can play SOT 1.

Speaker 4:
[14:11] First, it's temporary. Second, it's directly in response to what other states decide to do. Third, and most importantly for me, it preserves Virginia's fair redistricting process into the future.

Speaker 3:
[14:28] Okay, now that lady, she will lie when the truth sounds better. So what they want to do is make it so that 90%, actually 91% of the congressional districts are Democrat, and 9%, which would be one, are Republican. Now think about that, how that works out. Kamala Harris only won Virginia with 52% of the vote, but yet they want to have a 90% congressional delegation. That just doesn't add up. There's nothing fair about that redistricting. The reason they say it's temporary, because they say, well, we're going to just put this in now, and then after the census in 31, we're going to redistrict again as we normally do. So this is really going to allow us to cheat for just a couple of terms is what they're saying, if you want to read between the lines on that. Of course, some of this is they are talking about, well, we're doing this because what Texas did. However, Texas redistricting was based on voter registration. It wasn't racially discriminatory, like people said, and it was upheld in federal court. So it's already been tested in court and it's been upheld. Now that's in contrast to Virginia's redistricting, which is taking a 10 to 1 Democrat favoring map. The Texas redistricting only does a few districts. Under the new maps, the Texas Tribune, which is a pretty liberal newspaper, the Texas Tribune reported that Trump would have won three more districts in 24 out of 38. So not a big change in Texas, like they said, but look at what, if you're watching this, look at what it's going to end up being on the proposed map. Basically, everything except the lower southwest corner of Virginia is going to be represented by a Republican, and they're, what they're, I mean, by a Democrat. And what they're doing is they're putting suburban Democrats in almost every district. That's how they're allowing it to be so controlled by the Democrats, which is, that's going to be a problem. This all kind of goes really a little bit as entwined with what we've been talking about, the Save Act. You know, the Save Act has not yet passed, and Senator Kennedy from Louisiana has been one of the main proponents of, hey, let's get that passed. Let's hear what he has to say.

Speaker 5:
[16:44] The Democrats are not going to vote for the Save Act. We're going to have to do it with Republican votes. The FISA bill is one option, but we also ought to attempt to do it through reconciliation, which we're in the middle of right now.

Speaker 3:
[17:00] And I agree with that. The FISA Act is where they're just reauthorizing certain types of surveillance procedures and trying to actually, hopefully, I know a lot of people are against that, and I understand that, because essentially it allows the government, in theory, to spy on US citizens. Now, hopefully, they're just doing that on people that are violating the law or people that are here illegally or things like that, potential terrorists. But back on the Save Act, here's the four things it requires, all right? Documented proof of US citizenship for voter registration, in-person submission of proof of citizenship, continual voter list maintenance, meaning that when people move from one state to the other, we need to update those voter lists so that people can't vote in two different states, or if they passed away, or their name has changed, maybe they got married, or they got divorced, their names changed. And then also, when they go to vote, you have to have a photo ID to vote. And again, it's so silly that we're even talking about this. You know, almost every American, at one time or another, has to go through some security mechanism where they have to have an ID, whether it's on an airplane, or in a government building, or things like that. So us requiring that does not seem like much to ask. But I agree that we should try to pass that, even if it's through budget reconciliation, where we only need 51 votes. And I know that they'll try to stop that, but I think Kennedy's on the right track there. Now, there were a couple of questions that came in from listeners related to elections. And the first one from Betty Ann says, what needs to change for us to win the midterms? Well, we need to get the Iran thing taken care of, all right, so that gas prices will go back down. And we're going to talk about that in just a minute. And we also make sure that we're messaging properly. Remember, the midterms are not a national vote, they're an individual state, an individual congressional district vote. And so we need to make sure that in those particular districts, whatever issue it is, and most of the districts are not actually competitive. Most of them are either pretty far Republican or pretty far Democrat, but those in the middle, that will make the difference in the majority. We need to make sure we understand what those issues are in that particular district. What might be an issue here in the Dallas area may be different than it is in the Kansas City area or vice versa. So just make sure that the way that we win those is that we get our messaging out. Things like, hey, wages are up 6%, which is more than they have been in the last three years. Overall, the economy is doing very, very well. We do have the thing going on with the gas prices now, but overall, the economy is doing well. People that want to work are working, and the wages are up from what they have been. So that's the message we have to take. And then someone asked, and I feel bad for who I think is Linda, is that, should I just vote for the best Democrat if I live in a blue county in a local election? Well, first of all, if they have the opportunity to vote for a Republican, then you should vote for the conservative, right? The one that boasts fits your views, which I assume you're conservative. If it gets down to two Democrats, you don't want to stay home. I agree that you should vote for the Democrat that has, is most if at all, aligned with your views. It's hard to find a conservative Democrat these days, but sometimes because elections are binary, you have to vote for the lesser of two evils. Staying home is not the answer. Staying home is never the answer.

Speaker 1:
[20:39] Second sponsor for the day is Seven Weeks Coffee. I love Seven Weeks Coffee. Not only do we love the way it tastes, we love that it's organic, that it's completely clean, mold-free, pesticide-free, all of that good stuff. But I love even more the mission. They started this company because they care about babies inside the womb, and they thought, how can we wed our love of coffee, of great tasting coffee with our desire to protect babies inside the womb? So they started Seven Weeks Coffee at seven weeks, that baby inside the womb is the size of a little coffee bean, yet he or she is fully made in the image of God and worthy of protection. So 10 percent of every sale of Seven Weeks Coffee goes to pregnancy centers. They've raised well over a million dollars for these pregnancy centers, providing for moms and babies in crisis. So allow your coffee to serve a higher purpose. Subscribe, get that coffee every month, save 15 percent. Use my code Allie, save an extra 10 percent. sevenweekscoffee.com code Allie.

Speaker 3:
[21:39] Let's talk a little bit about the Iran War, and I just kind of give you a quick update on that. As you know, we're still in a ceasefire, although by the end of the day that this is going to come out, the ceasefire, the first 10 days of it will have been over. Now, whether or not they'll extend it, I'm not sure. They might extend it. I hope that they will go ahead and extend it. But the big talk lately has been about the Strait of Hormuz, which is the little area that connects the Red Sea and the Strait of Oman and all of that through the Indian Ocean, and trying to keep that open because that's a huge shipping route. Now, in the past, Iran has used blackmail against companies to be able to go through there, and they've charged them, and all these types of things. And so recently, what we did is we put a naval blockade on all of the Iranian ports so that Iran could not send their ships out of there. And the goal of that was to cut off their money supply. Well, of course, they hadn't liked that either. And so they've tried to say, well, we're going to close the Strait of Hormuz. Well, they don't have the capability to close the Strait of Hormuz. Let me explain this to you real quickly. The Strait of Hormuz does have some mines in it, you know, some mines in the water. They, Iran can fly some drones. However, the US. Navy has the ability to clean all of those things out. But what we're trying to do is to avoid further casualties. And not just for us, but we really would like to avoid casualties on both sides. And that's why we're trying so hard to negotiate with them. However, a lot of the reason that the traffic has slowed down, for example, there were, you know, 24 ships on Saturday, 30 ships on Sunday, only three went through yesterday. And the reason for that primarily is, is because insurance companies that insure these ships, they do not want to insure them going through that strait when there's danger there. And so Iran, I think, took some pot shots at a couple of the ships and what have you. And so it's been kind of halted. But never fear. We've done this before. As a matter of fact, the US Navy has had to clean up shipping lanes before, and we've done that in the past. And we will do that again in 1987-88. They call it Operation Ernest Will. The Navy, they reflag the tankers, they escort them themselves. And I think that's what you're going to have. We had to do that for a long time. I think that's what we're going to end up having to do. We do already have minesweeping ships in there, and we have the ability to take out their drones. But again, we're trying to do it in as least of an intrusive way, as possible. But it will get done. Iran doesn't control anything. It's in our capabilities to be able to get that open, and we will get that open, no matter what it takes, even if it does take us going back and doing some more bombing of some of their facilities. Now I noticed they came out yesterday and said, hey, we've got a secret weapon that we are, you know, another idea on how we're going to be able to fight back against America. Don't believe that. That's just rhetoric, okay? It's another red herring where they're simply trying to delay, delay, delay. And so they can build back up their forces or whatever it is they're doing. And that's just not going to happen. So it's going to be okay. Feel good. You know, nobody likes war, but you can feel good that we are going to be able to get that straight open and get traffic running through there. I don't think there's any doubt that that's going to happen. So we did have a few questions on the Iran situation. If you have any specific more questions you want to email me on, please feel free. You can email me on anything. Ron at ronsemmons.com. Ron at ronsemmons.com. All right. Here's a few questions. Let me answer these. This is about Charlie Kirk. At the end of his life, he said that we underestimate Iran. What are your thoughts? Well, I think that we have in the past. I don't think President Trump has underestimated them. I do think that President Trump thought that our allies would provide us more help. I do believe that, that them knowing that we were simply trying to remove their nuclear capabilities, and them knowing that Iran's nuclear potential had much more risk to the Europeans than it does to us, I think he probably felt like they would join us, even though we didn't give them a heads up. And the reason we didn't give them a heads up is because that we didn't think they could keep it a secret, and they wouldn't have kept it a secret. So I think that part is we underestimated our allies, not so much Iran. Because I think we have accomplished what we, I think we are accomplishing and have accomplished what we want to do so far in Iran. And there are two things left to do, as we talked about last week, is we have to remove their nuclear materials, a lot of that is going to be under the bunker that we bombed last June, I think it was. And then the other is going to be making sure that straight stays open forever, that we can't let them continue to be able to blackmail countries and businesses around the world. The second, the War Powers Act and Compares Between What Obama Did and What Trump Is Doing. Well, the Commander in Chief does not have to have the War Powers Act to protect America's interest and neither did Obama and neither does Trump. He is protecting America's interest. He felt and I agree with him and even the United Nations Atomic Energy Affiliate agrees that Iran had 60 percent enriched uranium, which would just take a few weeks to get that to 90 percent to make it available for nuclear warheads. So he believed that there was a threat to America, just like President Obama did and some of the things that he did and President Bush, all the presidents have done that. So I don't believe that the War Powers Act has to come into play there. Secondly, war on Iran and the effects on the economy. It's the third question by Kayleigh. The primary effect, I think, has been on gas prices. That's what most of us see because most everybody buys gasoline unless you're driving a Tesla or an electric car. And then in order for those generators to run to produce electricity, guess what it takes? It takes gas and diesel and all that type of stuff. So just so you know that at the end of the day, you're still going back to the petrochemical world primarily. So we're about a dollar a gallon above what we were before the conflict. If you take this, if you follow me for just a second, okay, so if it's a dollar a gallon more expensive, the average American drives their car about 15,000 miles a year. Some may, some of you may do more, some of you may do less. So if you drive your car 15,000 miles a year and you get about 20 miles to the gallon, which would be average, some of you get a lot more. If you drive a truck like I do, sometimes you get less. Then that's going to equate to costing you about $2 more per day, about $60 a month. So it's costing us now a couple of dollars more per day. Each family, now if you have two cars and you're both driving 15,000, that'd be $4 a day. But that's about what it's costing us, so nobody likes it. But that's not a huge sacrifice to get rid of a nuclear threat, in my opinion. The fourth question is, if Trump were to pull out of Iran, do you believe the US has won like Trump claims? I think we have damaged them, but unless we get the nuclear materials removed, then we haven't accomplished our goal. And so I think we need to do that. And unless the Strait of Hormuz is open all the time, then we haven't done that. So I would probably say no. We have accomplished a lot, okay? We have definitely reduced their ability to transact war. But I don't think we're finished yet. And I do think that we'll stay till the job is finished. I think we've learned our lesson from that in the past.

Speaker 1:
[30:02] Next sponsor is Good Ranchers. All right. Mother's Day is coming up. And you might not think of grilling and buying new meat as a Mother's Day gift. But if the mom in your household is the cook for your family, then she will love the gift of Good Ranchers. She doesn't want to have to worry about going to the grocery store, picking out the right cut of meat, worrying about where it comes from. If that sticker on the steak actually means made in the USA, or if it's just packaged in the USA, she wants high quality American meat, and she doesn't want to have to think about it. So order Good Ranchers. Subscribe. You'll get a box of custom meat right to your front door every month. It is all American. It's better than organic chicken. It's pasture-raised, no antibiotics, no added hormones. This is really good stuff. We love their ground beef. They're better than organic chicken. They're bacon. We eat this stuff almost every night in this ducky home. It's made our lives so much easier. So go ahead, subscribe to Good Ranchers. Do it for the related girl, the wife in your life for Mother's Day. Go to goodranchers.com, use code Allie. You'll get $25 off when you do this. goodranchers.com, code Allie.

Speaker 3:
[31:12] Tulsi Gabbard, our Director of National Intelligence, DNI, has looked into some of the impeachment things that were politically motivated against Donald Trump, and some of those dealt with intelligence. So that's how she got involved in it. About a week ago, Gabbard sent criminal referrals to the Department of Justice for two of the central figures in the conspiracy to impeach Donald Trump. Michael Atkinson, who served as the Inspector General, the one that's supposed to be inspecting what other people do of the intelligence community, and the unnamed CIA analyst, Whistleblower, who filed a complaint about Trump's 2019 telephone call with Zelensky in Ukraine. You guys remember that? They said they tried to do a quid pro quo on there related to Biden's son and all that type of stuff. But here's what Director Gabbard had to say.

Speaker 6:
[32:11] This is really such a violation of public trust and the responsibility that we expect all of our inspectors generals to have in that he didn't conduct a full investigation. He didn't even ask to see the transcript of the phone call between President Trump and Zelensky. And he admitted to Congress that he didn't have any firsts. He did not have any evidence that he was relying on. He had made a criminal referral to the Department of Justice based on this so-called whistleblower's complaint. Department of Justice came back and said, there's nothing here. This inspector general then went to Congress anyway and presented to them. All of this coming down to the bottom line of which this was a partisan political attempt once again to remind the will of the American people who elected Donald Trump as President of the United States.

Speaker 3:
[32:59] I'll tell you, whatever you think about President Trump, the witch hunt after him has been the most relentless thing I've ever experienced. And I know what the other side basically are thinking, because I have people in my, not my immediate family, but extended family, that I know what they believe. They believe that the ends justifies the means. And they believe he's such an evil person that no matter what you have to do to get rid of him, then that's okay. You know what? Even if you believe that he's an evil, evil person, which I do not, I think he's done a lot of really good things. Doesn't mean I agree with him on everything, as we've talked about before, but he's done a lot of good things. His policies have been much more in line with what I believe that any other president, maybe since President Reagan, the way that we have attacked him, or the way that he has been attacked, is absolutely illegal. It's not the way our system works. Our system, for sure, allows us to elect people that are not good people. And if you think he's a bad person, I get it. Don't vote for him. You didn't. But don't do methods like Director Gabbard talks about in here. And don't do all the other things that you tried to do in New York, that you tried to do in Georgia. All of those types of things are that James Comey tried to do. Right? I mean, it's just absolutely ridiculous. But look at the graphic that Director Gabbard put out. I want to talk about that for just a second. All right. So this is a graphic that she put out, which I think is pretty well done. It highlights the weaponized whistleblower process, observing that the inspector, the investigation, relied on secondhand evidence and self-declared Democrat whistleblower who lied about speaking with Democrats in Congress. So they were behind the scenes. This whistleblower was talking to Democrats in Congress. It also notes that Russiagate author was a key witness. So remember the whole Russiagate type of thing that they said Russia was helping President Trump beat Hillary Clinton, which proved not to be the case. Even Mueller couldn't figure that out, the special prosecutor. One of the key sources was co-authors of the 2017 Russia hoax. He was also a close colleague of the discredited and former FBI agent Peter Strzok. You remember Peter in the pictures and the text messages with he and his little girly friend. And then furthermore, Gabbard notes a false narrative was used for impeachment. The Inspector General exceeded its statutory authority and ignored DOJ guidance. In fact, when the Inspector General, as she said, sent it to the DOJ, they said there's nothing here. But then he went to Congress anyway. And so this matter has now been referred to the Department of Justice with potential charges including false statements, obstruction and conspiracy. I hope that they're able to put some of the people in jail over this. It's probably doubtful the way this seems to work out, but I sure hope so. We need to send a strong message on the types of taxes that you use against duly elected officials. Now, speaking of duly elected officials, we had a couple of resignations this week in Congress. And one of them, one of them was just awesome. Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat from California, resigned because of that, you know, he's running for Governor of California, and he resigned because of all the charges against him for sexual misconduct. And also Representative Tony Gonzalez, a Republican, Swalwell's a Democrat, and Swalwell was probably going to win the nomination for Governor. But man, bad guy. Remember he also was, had a girlfriend or a wife that was affiliated with Chinese government or something like that. Somehow, some, there was some link in there, I'm not 100% sure on that, but, but there was some linkage in there. But they, they both resigned because there were motions to expel them on the floor. And Gonzalez, if you remember Tony Gonzalez, he had an affair with a staffer, and the staffer ended up committing suicide, burned herself to death, which is, that was a troubled young woman, which is very sad. But we've got a video of their resignations.

Speaker 7:
[37:20] It has been my privilege to serve the residents of Texas's 23rd Congressional District, signed sincerely, Tony Gonzalez, member of Congress. I am deeply sorry to my family, staff, and constituents for mistakes in judgment I've made in my past. I will fight the serious false allegations made against me, however, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make. I am aware of efforts to bring an immediate expulsion vote against me and other members. Expelling anyone in Congress without due process within days of an allegation being made is wrong, but it's also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties. I will work with my staff in the coming days to ensure they are able, in my absence, to serve the needs of the good people of the 14th Congressional District, signed sincerely, Eric Swalwell.

Speaker 3:
[38:10] Wow, Swalwell. I mean, he kind of wants to admit it, but then doesn't really want to admit it, right? These sexual allegations go back to 2018. And I promise you, people like Nancy Pelosi and others had at least heard of this and through their silence had protected him. He reimbursed himself more than $200,000 in campaign funds for child care. I mean, I'm not sure you should be able to use campaign funds for child care. That doesn't seem right. And he had other expenses that were included, alcohol deliveries, hotel rooms, Ubers, paying his living nanny, who didn't have authorization to work in the United States. Who was protecting Swalwell? That's really the big question. And when did they decide he needed to drop out of the California governor's race? Well, I think what happened is, they were so afraid, if we don't get him out of the race now, it's kind of like they did with Joe Biden. If we don't get him out of the race now, then all these allegations are going to come out in the general election, and we're going to put a Republican in the governor's mansion, which they might do anyway. Steve Hilton could very well win that. It's not likely because California is such a Democrat state, but that could happen. And Tony Gonzalez, Republican, you know, a military veteran, really hate that for him, but he made mistakes and he needs to move on. We don't need to have people like that representing us in Congress, whether they're at the state level or the national level or whatever. We don't need that here in Texas in our Senate races. We don't need it in our House of Representatives races, and we don't need it anywhere in our government. Also, one final one is that Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez de Rimmer, which is hard to say, she has resigned. And she was Trump's labor secretary, and she stepped down from her position on Monday amid a probe into her alleged use of government-funded travel to visit friends and family, which again, innocent until proven guilty. But the allegations, she didn't, I didn't hear her denying any of these things. The report claims that Chavez de Rimmer had staffers falsify government trips and destinations she was to visit on her personal time. Also accused her of drinking in her office during work hours and having an extramarital affair with a security guard. And also talked about her husband having inappropriate conduct with some of her staffers. So I don't know what's going on in that relationship. But no matter what type of labor secretary she was, it's good that she has moved on. And now Kevin Sunderland will serve as the acting labor secretary. A couple of questions here at the end that relate from listeners, that come back to listeners relating to finances. But before I get into that, you know, here's the challenge. We need good people in our government. Because remember, in government and in politics, there's never a vacuum. It's always somebody's going to fill it. And if good people don't run, bad people will every single time. So I hope that some of you that are listening to this, whether you want to do it or your husband wants to do it, that you'll think about getting involved in your local political scene and becoming an elected official. And the best place to do it is locally, whether that's your school board or your county boards or your city council, those types of things. Think about that. Because we need good people to be involved in our government.

Speaker 1:
[41:51] Next sponsor is Every Life. The sad truth is that many of these major diaper companies are donating your dollars to Democrat politicians to pro-abortion causes. You would think that that's not the case. Unfortunately, it is. You don't want to have to worry about that when you're buying diapers and wipes. You want to trust that the diaper company that you use is pro-baby and pro-family. That's what you're going to get with Every Life. I don't know any other diaper company that can guarantee that, that they're using your dollars to not only give you really good products, but to fight for families and to protect the unborn, to donate to pregnancy centers. They're the real deal. We love Every Life diapers and pull-ups and wipes, really good materials. They really were. Couldn't recommend them enough. Go to everylife.com. Use code Allie10, get 10% off your first order today. That's everylife.com, code Allie10.

Speaker 3:
[42:46] Okay, as we finish up before we get into Allie's interview that you're going to love, talk a little bit of a couple of financial questions. If we've been in our starter home for 10 years, should we move and give up a 2.7 interest rate? I wouldn't do that yet. 2.7% interest rate is probably the lowest that we've seen. There may be a few of you out there that got a little bit lower, but that's pretty hard to beat. So I would stay there for now. Now, if you come across a really good deal, just remember that your interest rate is going to double. Now, maybe you've made enough equity to where when you think about that, you'll not have to have as much of a mortgage this next time. And so the payment may end up being about the same. And so your total interest payments over your mortgage time might be about the same as what you're doing now. But I wouldn't be in a rush to do that. I mean, I think that 2.7% interest rate is pretty hard to beat. Housing is just so disheartening. What do you predict? Well, again, I think it will get better. And one of the reasons I think it will get better, even though we have like a 10 million unit housing shortage in America, I read the other day, because that we've shut off the border, the demand will just naturally go down. And that should lower, at least make more reasonable some prices. And I also believe that we're going to see over the long term, maybe not until we get through this Iran thing, we're going to see interest rates kind of come back a little bit. They won't be go back to like, you won't get any more 2.7% mortgages, I don't think. But they may come down to where it's around 5% somewhere in that for mortgage. And that would be a good rate, by the way. I know you can get between 5 and 6% now, but I think they could get back down to 5%. But it's expensive. And one of the things I tell you, if you live in a very expensive blue or in a blue state, or even some of the red ones in the suburban areas are very expensive, you really may need to consider moving to a less expensive area. I mean, between taxes and everything in the blue states, I would definitely get out of the blue states, if I'm you. I would definitely get out of there and try to get to a cost of living state that's much more manageable for your family based on the income that you make. And then, how did your kids show, how did you show your kids financial stewardship? Yeah, and, you know, we certainly weren't perfect at this as well. But I think what we tried to show them, first of all, that we don't own any of it, that it all comes from God, and that we're really just stewards of it. And we absolutely preach from day one that we give a portion of our first fruits to back to the kingdom, whether that's through our local church, which we believe in doing, and through other organizations as well. That's the main thing that we did. And then we also wanted to make sure that they knew that the money that they were given by us was not their money. And it's not something that they earned or had a right to. And that when they wanted something, we wanted them to earn that either through doing things or getting their own job or something like that. But I think what they watched us not live at the very top of our ability. We always tried to live under our means. And I think watching that has allowed, I'm proud of the stewardship that our adult kids have shown. They've done a really good job at that. Neither one of them that have their own places live above their means. And they kept a bunch of old cars and things like that. So I'm proud of them for doing that. They've been very, very good about that. But I just think you have to be, no matter the fact that you want to give your kids a lot, and we wanted that we invested, what we did is we invested in our kids through their Christian education, through their colleges, things like that, as opposed to just giving them stuff. We just weren't into that. It's been good being with you. Again, I want to remind you that if you haven't had the chance to buy Life Lessons from The Little Red Wagon, I think it's a great book that you'll enjoy. We told some real good stories in here and some lessons. There are lessons in here on, that may help you and your family and your life. We've got a lot of requests for these books. I'm happy to send you one that is signed by me, and I think the cost of the book is 20 bucks. You can email me to get this, or you can just get it off of Ally's website, Merchandise website. And, you know, Ally just did a great episode with David French and Ally of last week. You need to go watch that, because he evidently wrote a couple of articles in the New York Times that was trashing Ally's thoughts on empathy. And, you know, she had a New York Times bestseller book, Toxic Empathy, is something that if you haven't got, you need to get. But that episode is incredible, because Ally just, you know, she's so much like her mother in that she's kind, but she's also knows what she believes. And she, I thought she did a very, very good job. But if you have a chance to get that book, and then I think you're gonna really like this interview coming up right now with Ally and a lady from Finland. Thanks a lot, and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 1:
[47:57] Last sponsor for the day is Patriot Mobile. And I have some really fun news. If you live in the DFW area, if you are in or around Dallas, Texas, Patriot Mobile has a really cool thing going on on April 30th. They are going to have an America First Freedom 250 Rodeo and Concert. There will be a professional rodeo, incredible speakers, the Josh Abbott Band and more, courtesy Patriot Mobile, who is the exclusive concert sponsor. You can register at freedom250rodeo.com. There's going to be so many celebrations of America's birthday this year. Make sure that you are celebrating with people who share the same values that you do. That's what I love about Patriot Mobile. They're not just a wireless provider. They're a wireless provider that supports the causes that I believe in. Again, most cell phone providers, they just don't do that. They support left-wing causes that I don't want to send my money to. So the service with Patriot Mobile is great. The values are even better. Go to patriotmobile.com/allie. Use code Allie for one free month of service when you make the switch. patriotmobile.com/alliecodeallie. Päivi, Jeremy, thank you both so much for joining us. Päivi, just a couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court in Finland found that you were guilty of what they called hate speech. Can you just remind us of the substance of this conviction? What did you say that was apparently so hateful?

Speaker 8:
[49:27] First, this has been a very long process. It started almost seven years ago from a Bible tweet that I published in regard of human sexuality. It was a Twitter update that was against the Evangelical Lutheran Church that had announced its support to the Pride event. So when this process started, there became more and more criminal complaints and charges against my views about, I would say, classical Christianity, what the Bible teaches about sexuality and homosexuality. And there was a pamphlet that I had written already 20 years ago, which was titled As Male and Female, He Created Them. And the Supreme Court found me guilty for authoring this booklet. The ruling was mixed. I was happy that it acquitted unanimously me for publishing the Bible Tweet, where I took a photo from the Book of Romans, its first chapter. So it was a mixed ruling, but of course I was disappointed for the conviction for my pamphlet, for the church booklet that I had.

Speaker 1:
[51:13] Yeah, go ahead, Karen.

Speaker 9:
[51:14] Yeah. I mean, people I think really need to understand that what's going on here is Christian views about human sexuality held by millions of people across the world have been declared hate speech under Finnish law. And so that's a startling outcome in the case. Another thing that's so strange about the case is how hard the court had to work to convict Päivi for a 2004 pamphlet. They convicted her under a law that didn't even exist at the time she published that pamphlet. So they had to retroactively apply the law to something she wrote years and years ago. It's like being punished for something you tweeted in 2020 or 2010, 2004. And suddenly you're held responsible for it because some law came on the books 10 years after your tweet came out. It's pretty audacious and very concerning for free speech.

Speaker 1:
[52:09] And Jeremy, can you explain why Päivi was acquitted for the tweet? Romans 1, very clear, as you said, millions of Christians around the world for 2000 years have held to the Bible, including what Romans 1 says about male and female and sexuality. She tweeted that Bible verse. She was acquitted for that. But it was the pamphlet that the Supreme Court found made her guilty of hate speech. Like, what exactly does that mean? Why did they go that direction?

Speaker 9:
[52:39] Well, this is exactly the problem with hate speech laws. They're completely inscrutable. Nobody knows what they mean. People who are subject to them, like Päivi, don't know what they mean. They don't know what they can and can't say. But the government officials applying it don't know what they mean either. And they're just like subjectively coming up with whatever they think they want to do. And using the law, which is completely vague and gives no direction to the enforcement officers or to the people who are governed by it, what they can do or what they can say. And so I think, you know, I can't answer your question, except to say, I think, you know, what we had here was three separate prosecutions of Päivi for her religious expression about human sexuality, and they were determined somehow to get a conviction against her. And unfortunately, they finally were at the Finnish Supreme Court. And the Finnish Supreme Court, as I described, had to do some pretty amazing legal gymnastics to even reach back and punish her for something that the law didn't even apply to. It didn't even exist at the time she wrote the pamphlet. So, I mean, it's a story of why we don't have hate speech laws in the US. And it's because they are just enforced at the whim of the government officials who are wielding them. And that's not a place where free speech can thrive.

Speaker 1:
[53:57] Right. And before we go back to Paivi, Jeremy, can you tell me what is the consequence of this conviction?

Speaker 9:
[54:03] Well, Paivi has been fined and it's a criminal. So this is under the War Crimes Code of Finnish law. So it's a criminal conviction under war crimes for ultimately hate speech. And essentially the conviction is essentially something like you've offended a protected group of people. And so that's like you can't even criticize people or express a view that people might find offensive. And that's essentially what's going on here. If somebody thinks that your expression is offensive to any person, any group of people that's protected under Finnish law, then you could be subject to free speech prosecutions for your freedom of speech as well.

Speaker 1:
[54:47] And have we seen others deal with this same kind of prosecutorial punishment? Does it seem to be Christians who are singled out? Have Muslims also dealt with this kind of targeting from the Finnish government?

Speaker 9:
[55:03] Well, I think you have to broaden the scope and maybe Paivi has something to say here too. But across Europe, this is a huge problem. In the UK, 12,000 arrests over the last couple of years, each year, for what people are posting online. That's led to thousands of convictions each year for people's expression online, whether they're opposing immigration policies in the UK or some other aspect of what the UK is doing. What we've seen across Europe is European officials don't want to be criticized. They don't want views that they find to be unpopular or that they disfavor, to be able to be expressed online. Or even in the public square of the streets and sidewalks of the cities of Europe. We're at the beginning, I think, edge of a existential free speech crisis in Europe. Paivi's case is one very extreme example of that.

Speaker 1:
[56:00] Paivi, do you have anything to add to that?

Speaker 8:
[56:04] Yes. I think that the main target of these processes, they have been really the Christian view of man. For example, we have had in Finland a case where a Muslim imam said in TV that homosexual people should be stoned if they have found, and they didn't prosecute or file up charges against him. But what I have said in pamphlet has not been anything cruel against homosexual people. I have said only that God has created all people as his own image and we all are equal. But it is the God's creation and intention that the human sexuality is between male and female, and the marriage is just intended between man and woman. And the Supreme Court has stated that if you say that the homosexuality is some kind of deviation from normal sexuality, then you think that these people are inferior to other people and it is hate speech. So this was the core of the ruling of the Supreme Court. And I think that it is against a Christian view of man. And that's why it is also a matter of not only freedom of speech, but also freedom of faith.

Speaker 1:
[57:45] Definitely. And here you are, again, saying the very things that have been convicted in Finland of hate speech. And so tell me why you have decided to push back against this, why you've decided to fight, why you've decided to keep declaring these things that God says are true, when you could easily just say, you know what, I'm going to go quiet, I'm going to back down, I'll pay my fine and this will all be over.

Speaker 8:
[58:11] Yes, I have to tell that in the beginning, when the police started the interrogations, they gave me two weeks time to take away these writings. But I said that these are not only my opinions, this is what the Word of God says, it is what Apostle Paul has said. So it is not only my opinion. And I think that we are now living in that kind of time, that we have to be open about our faith, also in these contradictory issues. And what has given a big joy to me is that this has given a lot of possibilities and chances to tell about what Bible teaches about these things, but also to tell about gospel, that what is the solution to the problem of sin in the Bible. So I have had chances to testify about Jesus and about gospel. And I have got also many messages from people, also from gay people who have told that when they have followed this case, they have started to read the Bible, and they have found Jesus and salvation in their lives. So I think that this has been, there has been a purpose in this fight. And I think that this has been all the time in God's hands. And I trust that also in the future this is, if I'm going to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. So I pray that it would also be in God's hands.

Speaker 1:
[59:53] Yes. Gosh, it just reminds me of some of the final words that Jesus told his disciples of what it's going to be like when we go into towns and we share the gospel that will present the truth before courts, before kings, before all different kinds of people who may reject it. But then of course, God uses these acts of boldness through the Holy Spirit to grab onto the hearts of some people. And your testimony certainly has encouraged me. I'm wondering what it's been like personally for your family, for your friends to watch this. What has that support been like for you?

Speaker 8:
[60:27] I have been so, so delighted and blessed that my family, my husband, and my five adult children, and 12 grandchildren, they have all supported me during this process, and they are praying for me. And they have said that they stand strong behind these teachings. So this is a very, very big issue and big thing for me. And of course, I have also got a lot of messages of people who tell that they are praying for me and my family. And I believe that when God raises people to pray, he has some good idea and purpose. So I believe that God uses this process. There is a purpose for this fight.

Speaker 1:
[61:27] Amen. And if people in this audience want to reach out to you, tell you that they're praying for you, encourage you, how can they do that?

Speaker 8:
[61:37] Oh, I'm so happy to hear the messages of praying. And I have got a lot of messages to my, for example, to my email from people. But I'm also very thankful for ADF International, who has been supporting during this process. So I'm happy if people also support ADF International. It has had a very, very big important role in this case.

Speaker 1:
[62:13] Okay. And Jeremy, if maybe you can give us a way for people to reach out words of encouragement, we can put it in the description of the episode and people can find it and reach out. I know that my audience just is a very prayerful audience and they love to encourage fellow Christians. So I know that they'll wanna just like reach out and give a fortifying word. Jeremy, what should we here in America, while we're so thankful for the First Amendment, what should we be cautious of as we're looking to what's happening in Europe? And what can we do here to make sure that something like what's happening in Finland doesn't happen here?

Speaker 9:
[62:49] Well, this is a really important question because I think Americans think, well, I'm glad that's not happening here. But here's the problem. This ruling immediately threatens American speech and here's why. Finland is part of the European Union. The European Union's mechanism for exporting the hate speech laws of member states like Finland is called the Digital Services Act. And what that does is make it illegal now because Päivi's Christian speech about sexual ethics is illegal in Finland. It's also illegal on every US platform, Metta, Facebook, Google and YouTube, all of it, because of the DSA. The DSA, the Digital Services Act exports those policies to the American companies by directly regulating them and telling them, you have to take down illegal content, content that we deem illegal in the EU. And so the companies are under extraordinary pressure and coercive threat of coercive fines, six percent of their global revenue, you're talking billions and billions of dollars in fines hanging over their heads. If they don't do the European Union's censorship bidding. And so I think it's hard for Americans, sometimes they look at this like this is a terrible situation, but I'm really grateful it's not happening here. This, the DSA brings this ruling immediately to the US shores, to US speech on US platforms. And the EU thinks it doesn't matter where you live or who you are, if your speech reaches into the EU and somebody in the EU is offended by it, then they will tell the platforms to take that speech down. So this is, you know, the world is now governed and people speak, right, on a handful of platforms across the world. Our digital public square is controlled by a handful of companies and the European Commission is trying to make sure that those companies abide by European standards of free speech. Those are not the First Amendment standards by any stretch, as this case clearly shows. The EU wants to shut down speech they disagree with, whether it's Christian speech or speech-opposing immigration or, you know, they have speech that says you can't insult politicians in Germany. And so all those laws in the EU can be enforced against American platforms and American speech. And I think really critically important here, Christian speech affirming, you know, centuries-long ethics related to the sexual morality issues is now illegal in Finland. And so that gives the EU all the authority they need to go to the platforms and say, you need to ratchet this speech down on your platforms, or we're going to fine you 6% of your global revenue.

Speaker 1:
[65:34] Wow, that is insane. So can we advocate that our lawmakers help us out? I mean, are we completely powerless to do anything?

Speaker 9:
[65:43] No, we're not powerless, but it's going to take a partisan move. I think it's really at Congress to pass a law that says, look, these companies do not need to comply with EU censorship demands. The Trump administration is actually doing a lot of really good work here. They're trying to leverage trade negotiations and other things with the EU to make sure that some of the excesses of the Digital Services Act don't spill over and harm American platforms and speech. But the reality is the law on its face was written to govern US platforms and to force them to bend the knee to European censorship demands. We need laws in place in the US that say, our companies don't have to comply with that. We want US companies to comply with US law, and that includes US First Amendment standards.

Speaker 1:
[66:28] Yes. Amen. It's made me think as we're talking, I'm thankful for an administration right now that does care about religious liberty, does care about the First Amendment, very thankful for a Supreme Court and the makeup that it has. But to your point, we need a law that transcends the current Supreme Court makeup. We don't know how long that's going to last and also the current administration. It's not enough for us just to say, I'm thankful that that's not happening here. Clearly, Europe is a canary in the coal mine. Thank you, Paivi, for your bravery, for your courage. Thank you so much to Alliance Defending Freedom. Y'all are both on the front lines taking a lot of risks on behalf of the rest of us, especially us Christians. God bless you both and thank you so much.

Speaker 9:
[67:11] Thank you.

Speaker 8:
[67:12] Thank you so much.