It was a particularly newsy week, so in this episode, Blake discusses the dead-on-arrival border deal, retaliation towards Iran proxies, and Trump not having immunity in his federal prosecution case.

Will Republicans be blamed for claiming the border is a crisis and then refusing to even vote on a border deal? Is the border deal only dead because Trump said it should be, or are there legitimate concerns? Is Biden scared of anything more than potentially upsetting Iran? Let's talk about it!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

03:23 Border Deal and Immigration

24:06 Retaliation towards Iran Proxies for the attack on Tower 22 that caused three U.S. soldier deaths

37:08 The D.C. Circuit court's unanimous decision that Trump is not immune from prosecution

Note: We're discussing sexual abuse of minors by adults in this episode, hence the explicit rating. We do not discuss graphic details, but what we do discuss could still be disturbing to some listeners. While it is certainly a conversation I think parents should listen to, maybe use the ol' Airpods for this one.

Would you be shocked to hear that 1 in 13 kids will experience sexual abuse by a teacher before they graduate high school? That means something like 300,000 kids are being sexually abused each year - and yet we hardly hear about it. We are simply not doing near enough to protect our kids from these predators.

My guest, Faith Colson, is a survivor of sexual abuse who has become an advocate for student safety. After making a delayed outcry, she turned her pain into action by reaching out to a state lawmaker in Illinois, resulting in Faith’s Law being passed. She now supports advocates in other states who are working to promote similar legislation.

Notes:

Other state laws

Join Blake and his friend Kris for a deep dive into the Nikki Haley's New Hampshire primary loss and what the short and long term impacts of a Biden vs. Trump rematch will be for the country. We get into some seriously ridiculous "what if?" scenarios in this discussion.

Ron DeSantis has suspended his campaign just days after the Iowa Caucus. So, it's officially (barely) a two-person race between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. It seemed appropriate to talk about DeSantis' exit as voters go to the polls Tuesday in New Hampshire, so you get a bonus episode of the podcast this week. Hooray!

The Republican presidential primary voting officially kicked off in Iowa this week. And almost nothing was interesting about it.

Trump won by a gigantic margin and I'd argue neither Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis gathered any momentum heading to New Hampshire next week. Will anyone drop out? Will either DeSantis or Haley change their strategies to try and actually win the nomination? Or are they just trying to get 2nd place and run again in 2028?

These are all questions I don't know the answer to, but let's talk about them anyway!

00:00 - Intro

I talk with Will Reusch, a high school social studies teacher, about what we’re not properly teaching Americans about civics.

Will has his own podcast, Cylinder Radio, and you can find him on Instagram and YouTube. He is also working on a homeschool curriculum that will be released for the Fall 2024 school year. You can find more at williamreusch.com. 

Takeaways

Chapters

05:48 The Growing Popularity of Homeschooling 

07:31 Will Reusch's Teaching Approach and Building Relationships with Students 

13:29 The Need for Civic Education and Responsibility 

16:50 The Lack of Civic Education in K-12 Schools 

18:19 The Importance of Application and Real-World Connections in Education 

19:44 Teaching Rights and Responsibilities in Equal Measure 

25:43 Teaching Rebellion and Critical Thinking 27:25 The Expectation of Government to Solve Every Problem 

30:33 Encouraging Critical Thinking and Persuasive Argumentation 

33:33 Developing a Sense of Rebellion and Skepticism 

35:40 The Obedience Model of Education and the Need for Application 

39:23 The Importance of Dialogue and Conversation over Debate 

46:13 The Consequences of Political Polarization in Dating 

50:22 The Importance of Healthy Political Engagement 

57:23 The Cult of Personality in Politics 

58:44 The Long-Term Consequences of Political Decisions 

01:01:04 Where to Find Will Reusch and His Homeschool Material

Full disclosure - I suck at making predictions. Politics just has too many variables to possibly be very right about predictions made months or a year in advance. Or, at least that's what I tell myself. So this is less of a list of things I think will happen, and more a list of things I think will be important to pay attention to in 2024 leading up to the November elections.

I don't normally talk about things as fresh as the news that the Colorado State Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump can't be on the Republican presidential primary ballot, but this seems consequential enough to do so.

The terrorist attacks in Israel over the weekend are completely inexcusable, but that won't stop some on the Left from making excuses for Hamas' vile war crimes.

As if Donald Trump wasn't up by 40-50 points in early primary state polls, the other 4 candidates fighting for second place (for which there is no trophy, it should be noted) got together to debate the important issues last week during the 4th Republican presidential debate. Unfortunately for them (Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Vivek Ramaswamy), Republican voters don't seem to care about issues or policies. Like, at all.