Erick Erickson uses the Callaway Golf and Good Good Golf blowup, a bad driver ad, a public apology, and a canceled partnership, to make a much bigger point about a country with no adults in the room, and he tells his own story of the tweet that nearly cost him CNN and how Rush Limbaugh became the mentor nobody else gave him. Then caller Randy asks why data centers do not go into empty strip malls and factories, and Erick gives the zoning and contamination answer from his Macon City Council days, plus the Effingham County build that is actually pushing Georgia Power rates down. He closes with hard advice for Flock Safety on license plate readers, facial recognition, and the abuse stories piling up.

• Callaway Golf, Good Good Golf, Matt Kendrick, and the Obsession themed driver ad that blew up, with Dude Perfect as the counterexample of growing up right
• Where the adults went: Erick on his own infamous tweet, apologizing for years, and emailing Rush Limbaugh at three in the morning for advice
• Caller Randy from Macon on repurposing empty big box stores for data centers, and why blank slate land at three to four thousand an acre always wins
• The Effingham County, Georgia mega data center, reportedly for OpenAI, and Georgia Power cutting rates because the facility pays its own way
• Flock Safety under fire: the Texas town that voted the cameras out, license plates versus facial recognition, and the mandatory minimum Erick would write into law
• Personal: daughter Evelyn's 21st birthday, his parents' 62nd wedding anniversary, Leif Erickson, and the great kitchen hardware negotiation

Erick Erickson closes Open Line Friday with major Iran news, reporting from Axios and Barak Ravid that the United States has broken Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz, plus the full CENTCOM update from Admiral Brad Cooper on the minesweeping operation, the naval blockade, and the 750 million barrels of crude the Navy has escorted through. He breaks news live that Chevron and Halliburton are investing billions in Venezuela's oil fields and directing that flow to the United States, a huge win he credits to President Trump, then covers Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh at Jackson Hole warning that rates could go up in September. The hour ends with a long, moving tribute to Dolly Parton, the only American with 80 percent approval from both Republicans and Democrats, and a hard word for the Christians online claiming she is in hell.

Topics:

• Iran and the Strait of Hormuz: Alireza Tangsiri's mine order, the US and UAE reopening the shipping lanes, and only 11 real mines out of 200 objects swept
• Admiral Brad Cooper's CENTCOM update in full: 50,000 troops, 20 warships, 1,500 commercial vessels escorted, zero Iranian oil exported since the July blockade resumed
• Why Erick does not believe Xi Jinping or the Russians will cut Iran loose, and the theology of why secular communists and radical Islamists ally against America
• Breaking: Chevron, Halliburton, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips circling Venezuela's oil fields, with all flows directed to the United States
• Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh at Jackson Hole, inflation still above target, and markets falling on the odds of a September rate increase
• The Dolly Parton tribute: Appalachia, the literacy programs, turning down the Presidential Medal of Freedom from both Trump and Biden, Tressie McMillan Cottom and Peggy Noonan on her legacy, and the Hitler exception
• Callers Al in Oklahoma on pulling data center water out of the air, and Jim in Orlando telling the president to stop acting like an idiot before November

CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a surprise trip to Moscow to warn Vladimir Putin off any attack on NATO, and hours later Latvia declared a border emergency and sent troops to its frontier with Russia and Belarus. Erick Erickson walks through the Wall Street Journal exclusive, the near extinction of America's Patriot missile batteries, and why the Pentagon never told Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman to ramp up production. Then a blistering segment on Mike Collins, the Georgia Senate race, and a Republican campaign staffed by white nationalists and Holocaust deniers while John Ossoff cruises.

• John Ratcliffe in Moscow, the Wall Street Journal exclusive, Steve Witkoff, Dmitry Peskov, and the NATO warning to Vladimir Putin
• Latvia declares a border emergency as Russia probes the Baltics, with Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, and Sweden all watching
• The missile shortfall: Patriot batteries nearly gone, the defense primes never told to ramp up, and Ukraine outproducing all of NATO on drones five million to under one hundred thousand
• Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea learning how to learn from each other, with Ukraine as the axis test bed
• Mike Collins, the Nazi twink consultant, the Holocaust denier group chat, and why Erick says the GOP handed John Ossoff a second term
• Ben Domenech on GOP infighting, plus Ken Paxton, James Talarico, Rick Jackson, and Keisha Lance Bottoms

Erick Erickson maps the midterm Senate landscape after President Trump tells voters to "pretend I'm on the ballot," with Karoline Leavitt's last day as press secretary, a $400,000 a head Houston fundraiser for Ken Paxton, Abdul El-Sayed scrambling to distance himself from Hassan Piker in Michigan, and a democratic socialist surging against Chris Pappas in the New Hampshire primary while the GOP sleeps through it. Then a raw, emotional hour on the Lindsay Clancy trial, where Erick refuses both the men who deny postpartum depression is real and the women online insisting a mother could never strangle her three children. Callers Carol, Dwayne, Liz, and Krista weigh in on Andrea Yates, Susan Smith, and where mitigation ends and responsibility begins.

• Trump's "pretend I'm on the ballot" plea to Trey Gowdy, Karoline Leavitt's exit, and the Houston money chase for Ken Paxton
• The Senate map: Republicans confident on Michigan, Iowa, Susan Collins in Maine, and Florida against Angie Nixon, worried about Ken Paxton, Michael Whatley in North Carolina, and Mike Collins in Georgia
• Abdul El-Sayed versus Hassan Piker, Mike Rogers, and why Democratic strategists are telling donors to stop funding Florida and Texas
• New Hampshire's overlooked opening: Chris Pappas collapsing against John E. Sununu as a democratic socialist rises, plus Mark Short on Trump's absence from the trail and the Dallas midterm convention
• The Lindsay Clancy verdict, postpartum psychosis as mitigation and not excuse, Matt Walsh, Andrea Yates, Susan Smith, and Jonathan Hamby in Atlanta as the case for reopening mental health institutions
• CNN's rough week, from misspelling Erick's name on air to apologizing for running a Vegas impersonator's photo as Dolly Parton, plus Trump's executive order renaming Lake Ontario to "Lake America"

Erick Erickson closes the show with the most personal monologue of the day, previewing his Atlanta Journal Constitution column on Johnathan Hamby, the psychotic man who stabbed a stranger to death on the Atlanta Beltline, and arguing that deinstitutionalization was cruelty dressed up as compassion. He walks listeners from his hometown of Jackson, Louisiana, where the state mental hospital's steam whistle set the town clock, to Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia, once the largest mental institution in the world with 12,000 patients, and asks what is actually more humane: a bed, three meals, and enforced treatment, or a bridge in Atlanta. Callers Linda, Susan, Sharon, Pat, Lynn, Tony, and Kathleen close out the Lindsay Clancy conversation with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, the timed errand entered into evidence, and the over medication of patients by non medical prescribers.

Topics:

• Johnathan Hamby, the Atlanta Beltline stabbing, and Erick's Atlanta Journal Constitution piece on how we failed him, plus anosognosia and why you cannot force a schizophrenic man to accept treatment he does not believe he needs
• Growing up in Jackson, Louisiana, in the shadow of the state mental hospital, Dixon Correctional Institute, and the case for reopening Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia
• The death penalty, abortion on demand, and euthanasia: Erick's argument that a society that stopped punishing the willful taking of life has itself stopped valuing life, with Genesis and the fare gate jumpers in Los Angeles as evidence
• Lindsay Clancy callers: retired pediatric nurse Linda on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and DFCS calls, ABC News reporting that Clancy timed her husband Patrick's errand, and retired clinical psychologist Kathleen on non medical therapists stacking psychiatric medications
• Defending Patrick Clancy against the online mob, and Erick's mass psychosis thread: COVID isolation, doom scrolling, screens rotting brains, and why breaking bread with an actual human being is the fix
• Erick's cooking videos, touching grass, and why real world friends beat social media friends

Erick Erickson opens with the Coldstream Guards playing "9 to 5" at Buckingham Palace and turns the death of Dolly Parton into a sermon on the second great commandment: she died with $650 million after giving away $600 million, refused the Presidential Medal of Freedom from both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and told Tennessee to feed the poor instead of building her a statue. Then Erick breaks down Meta's $18 billion settlement with 48 state attorneys general, calling it a shakedown that makes Mark Zuckerberg your child's mommy and daddy. Also, the death of Tim Curry, and a night at the Braves and Dodgers game at Truist Park.

• Dolly Parton dies at 80, the Buckingham Palace tribute, and loving your neighbor without carve outs or caveats
• The River Phoenix photographer Dolly Parton flew to Nashville, the anonymous band uniforms, and the Helene rebuilds in Western North Carolina
• Tim Curry, Clue, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Muppet Treasure Island
• Meta's $18 billion settlement with 48 attorneys general: night mode, school mode, and real age verification on Facebook and Instagram
• Why TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat are next, and how the tobacco settlement playbook hands Meta a competitive advantage
• Erick on parenting, screen time, and the parental override that guts the whole deal

Erick Erickson reads the extraordinary public apology from the family of Jonathan Hamby, the mentally ill man with more than thirty arrests who stabbed a stranger to death on the Atlanta Beltline, and turns it into a hard argument that closing the mental institutions was never compassion. Then billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller goes to the Wall Street Journal to tell his own protege, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, that doubling long dated bond buybacks is price management, not liquidity management, with the national debt crossing $40 trillion and net interest passing $1.1 trillion. Plus the SEC follows the Big Ten on NFL players returning to college, and Apple sets September 9, which sends Erick into Rush Limbaugh memories.

• The Jonathan Hamby family statement, anosognosia, the three foot samurai sword in a Chamblee elementary school, and why thirty arrest cycles ended in a killing on the Atlanta Beltline
• Milledgeville, Jackson, Louisiana, and the case for reopening long term mental health facilities: homelessness as a drug and mental illness problem, not a housing problem
• Dolly Parton, loving your neighbor, and Erick on how society perverted love into leaving the sick on the street
• Stanley Druckenmiller versus Scott Bessent in the Wall Street Journal: $4 billion buybacks, the 30 year yield at a 19 year high, $40 trillion in debt, and letting the bond market speak
• Entitlement reform, means testing, and the two bucket argument for why a growing government bucket strangles the private sector
• The SPLC prosecution and Todd Blanche, the SEC and Big Ten barring NFL returns, and Apple's September 9 event

Charles Barkley goes on Michael Smerconish and says he supports his gay and transgender friends but that men have no business competing against women, and Erick Erickson explains why an 80/20 issue still gets covered as though the girls defending girls sports are the villains, with Sophie Cunningham, Enes Kanter Freedom, Adam Silver, and Cathy Engelbert all in the mix. Then Darline Graham beats Ralph Norman by roughly thirteen to one in spending to win the South Carolina Senate nomination, and Heather Long of Navy Federal Credit Union flags a 3 percent personal savings rate even as Bloomberg reports hobby spending at a record share of American consumption. Plus a caller on free enterprise versus capitalism, Calvin Coolidge, the Meta settlement, tariff carve outs, and the cinnamon roll recipe finally getting filmed.

TOPICS

• The 3 percent savings rate, the Bloomberg hobby spending boom, and Erick's argument that Americans have quietly gone fatalistic about tomorrow
• A Monchhichi doll, Penang, and the older sister who shaved it bald and threw it in the Persian Gulf
• Darline Graham defeats Ralph Norman in the South Carolina Senate runoff, why both parties keep nominating kooks in states they have written off, and the Colorado governor's race
• Charles Barkley, Michael Smerconish, Adam Silver, Cathy Engelbert, Sophie Cunningham, and Enes Kanter Freedom exposing the logic trap in gender identity
• Free enterprise versus capitalism with caller Steve, Calvin Coolidge as the level playing field president, corporatism, lobbyists, tariff carve outs, and the Meta settlement with 52 attorneys general
• Small business as the third largest GDP on earth, NFIB, and why the cinnamon roll recipe is finally being filmed for YouTube

Erick Erickson takes apart Abdul El-Sayed's disastrous Jesse Watters interview on Fox News, the Hassan Piker problem now swallowing his Michigan Senate campaign, and why the overwhelmingly white Democratic Socialists of America keep recruiting non-white candidates who cannot stop talking. Then the breaking story of the day: CIA Director John Ratcliffe lands unannounced in Moscow after flying in from Riga, and Erick explains why the most pro-Ukraine official in the Trump administration was the one sent to tell Vladimir Putin that NATO is not going anywhere. Plus Target's Halloween costume apology and the Big Ten shutting the door on NFL washouts.

• Abdul El-Sayed vs. Jesse Watters: circumcision, reparations, ICE, and a Democratic strategist admitting the party likes its odds in Texas better than Michigan
• The Hassan Piker problem: Politico's playbook lead, El-Sayed's statement on Jewish safety, and his refusal to condemn Piker by name
• Inside the Democratic Socialists of America: college educated, white, downwardly mobile, and coveting, with intersectionality and allyship as the recruiting tool
• John Ratcliffe's unannounced Moscow trip, the pause in Ukrainian strikes, and Russia touching the wires like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park across Poland, the Baltics, and Scandinavia
• Why Putin covets Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, plus Target's blackface-looking Halloween costume apology and the Big Ten banning NFL players from returning to college

Erick Erickson confesses he has been an original, card-carrying Canada hater since a French teacher at his school in Dubai told the class that real Americans should call themselves "United Statesians," then turns hard on President Trump for launching a trade war with America's largest trading partner 70 days before the midterms, explaining that the entire trade deficit with Canada is heavy crude oil and lumber and that Howard Lutnick reportedly blew up a finished deal from trade representative Jamieson Greer. Then Erick, an elections lawyer by trade, cuts through the panic over the Supreme Court and Trump's mail-in ballot executive order, showing that all the Court allowed was Homeland Security and the Postal Service to build citizenship lists while the lower court injunction blocking enforcement stays fully in place. The hour ends with breaking news from Variety that Dolly Parton has died at 80.

Topics:

• Why the U.S. trade deficit with Canada is really about oil: American fracking produces light sweet crude our heavy crude refineries cannot process, so we import Canadian oil and now gas prices go up
• Howard Lutnick blows up the Jamieson Greer trade deal per the New York Times, Steve Moore concedes on Fox that the pain is not worth the gain, and Trump spends the day trying to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America"
• Canadian lumber, electricity, and the housing affordability crisis, plus the political cost to Mike Rogers in Michigan and Susan Collins in Maine 70 days before the midterms
• What the Supreme Court actually ruled on the mail-in ballot executive order: DHS and USPS may compile lists, but the injunction barring the Postal Service from blocking absentee ballots was never touched
• Erick's elections-lawyer verdict: Article 1, Section 4 gives the president no role whatsoever in election law, and why American federalism is exactly why China's much-hyped election-shaping AI got the swing states wrong