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With the announcement today of Senator JD Vance of Ohio as Donald Trump's running mate, I decided to go back into the archives of my old podcast and pull out an episode I published about the status of the white working class in America. A lot of what I said at the time came out of reading Vance's book Hillbilly Elegy, about his life growing up in Kentucky and Ohio and the struggles of his people there. I thought it would be interesting to go back and remember what I thought then and compare it to where we find ourselves now.
As you listen, keep in mind that this was recorded more than two years ago, before Vance won his Senate race in Ohio.
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Many people are talking about how the Democrats might replace President Joe Biden, both in the White House and at the top of the 2024 ticket. Yet such a thing is not as easy as you might think.
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If there's one major problem on the right, it's in how we communicate our ideas to the public. How do we message our timeless conservative values without closing the eyes and ears, hearts and minds, of the voting public? Letâs talk.
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I return to the microphone to talk about free speech, anti-Semitism, and the dangers of outsourcing law to third parties.
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Tens of thousands of people are migrating to Idaho from states like California, Washington, and Oregon. Are they going to upend our way of life? Or will they help us preserve Idaho values?
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The removal of the reconciliation monument at Arlington National Cemetery is the latest incident of our ruling regime attempting to rewrite history. Why are they doing this? What can we do to stop it?
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The Greater Idaho movement seeks to allow the counties of eastern Oregon to join Idaho, moving our border from the Snake River all the way to the Cascade Mountains. Is this a good idea? Does it have any chance of success? What would the effects be on Oregonians as well as Idahoans?
I had a long conversation with Matt McCaw, spokesman for Greater Idaho, and we discussed all of these things and more.
I will be writing more about this issue in the near future. The conversation is just getting started. To learn more about Greater Idaho, click here to visit their website.
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A rhetorical bomb exploded in the Legislature this week when the Idaho Freedom Caucus released letters of reprimand sent to two of their members by the Senate President Pro Tempore. Join me as I discuss what that, and the reaction to it, revels about the fractures in the Idaho Republican Party.
Read the IFC post: https://idahofreedomcaucus.substack.com/p/an-attack-on-elected-representation
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Dustin Hurst has been a mainstay in Idaho politics for a long time. If you only know him from his epic Twitter battles, you only know half the story though. In the nearly two years Iâve known him Iâve found him to be not only fiery and zealous, but also knowledgeable about political strategy and a gifted communicator.
It was a pleasure to spend an hour with him recently, learning what makes him tick. I hope you enjoy the interview.
Follow Dustin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HurstforIdaho
Check out his work at People United For Privacy: https://unitedforprivacy.com/
Watch the Freedom Bros Podcast Dustin cohosts with Greg Pruett: https://rumble.com/c/FreedomBrosPodcast
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Reading history is like a superpower in a world of ignorance. Learn how you can defend yourself against gaslighting and manipulation by cynical political actors.Subscribe to Gem State Substack at https://gemstate.substack.com
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Here is the audio podcast version of my interview with the new chairman of the ACRCC:
Thad Butterworth was elected Chairman of the Ada County Republican Central Committee at a special meeting on October 24, 2023. In this interview he shares the experiences that led him to this role and his vision for the Republican Party going forward. To learn more about the Ada County GOP, or to volunteer, visit their website: https://adacountygop.com/
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The protests on behalf of Hamas terrorists and the destruction of the statue of Robert E. Lee both reveal something about the nature of our civilizational battle.
Watch the Podcast of the Lotus Eaters, from whence I clipped Carl Benjamin's statement:
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The reaction in the west to the conflict between Israel and Hamas has revealed that we have lost the courage of our convictions. Americans on the right who passionately stand for Israelâs right to defend itself (as I do) find it harder to advocate for America to do the same thing. We have lost something, a sense of our own greatness and moral authority, and it is something must reclaim it if we are to have any hope of saving our country.
Bonus video: I discuss the history of Israel in the Middle East and what that conflict says about America here:
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I recently listened to an episode of Auron MacIntyreâs show in which he discussed the idea of there having been five American republics with his guests from the Good Olâ Boys podcast.
The whole thing is worth watching if you have an hour and a half to spare, but I break it down in 15 minutes and explain how it affects us here in Idaho.
Auron's livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOnsCgZoq4o
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Hello, welcome to the Gem State Podcast. My name is Brian Almon.
Goodness, I have been busy. Last week was the Republican State Convention, and I have covered that extensively with six separate posts plus a video, so I donât need to spend any more time on it here. I also have the Great Reset series to finish up, so stay tuned for that. I intend to write about ESG and Modern Monetary Theory and then do at least one more post to wrap it all together.
Today I would like to start a new series called Civics 101. I find that schools have done a pretty poor job of teaching citizens how our government works, or at least how it is supposed to work. Turn on the TV and you can see people who expect the president to overturn a Supreme Court decision or some who think Senate seats can be gerrymandered. I understand that most people just want to live their lives, and spending time learning about such dry subjects as the role and function of government sounds like torture.
For that reason, I thought I would start this series of short, ten-minute discussions on various issues related to the constitutional structure of our government. Today I would like to talk about the US Congress, specifically the differences between the House and the Senate.
The idea of a Senate comes from ancient Greece and Rome. The upper classes of each city would elect from among themselves representatives who had governing authority. In Rome, only the patrician class could vote or hold senatorial rank â these were the descendants of the original founders of the city in the days of legend. Eventually the lower classes got representation as well.
The idea of a bicameral parliament can also be traced to medieval England. The House of Lords was filled with representatives of the noble classes â dukes, earls, barons, leaders of the church, etc. The House of Commons represented the lower classes, including landed gentry and merchants. The idea was that the Lords would naturally be more conservative, so as to act as a brake on the progressive nature of the Commons.
Today our House and Senate are very similar to each other. Representatives are apportioned to states by population and elected for two year terms, and there is a cap on the total number of representatives at 435. Senators are apportioned two to each state, regardless of population, which means there are currently 100 members of the Senate. Both representatives and senators are elected by the people â representatives are elected by voters in their district, and senators are voted on by the entire state. Here in Idaho we have two representatives - we have the 1st District and the 2nd District, and we also have two Senators.
It did not used to be this way. In the early days of the American republic, Senators were appointed by state legislatures. Why is that important? Because they were never meant to be simply uber-powerful representatives, rather they were supposed to be the voices of the sovereign states in the federal Congress. You can see this in the way the Constitution assigns different roles to the House and the Senate. The House, which was always meant to represent the people, is where spending bills originate. Did you know that? The Senate does not write bills appropriating money, they only vote on whatever the House sends them. Also, there is no filibuster in the House. The majority party can pretty much do whatever they want. This means that the House is naturally going to be more progressive, most of the time. They are going to want to move forward making changes in our society.
On the other hand, the Senate is tasked with confirming presidential appointments and ratifying treaties with foreign nations. Why the difference? Because originally this gave state governments a voice in how our nation operated. State legislatures, by appointing senators who represented their will, had a say in who the president appointed to run the executive branch as well as in how we handled international diplomacy. Of course, the Senate also has a filibuster, allowing the minority party to exercise some control, some restraint on legislation.
The interplay between these two very different houses of Congress was how our legislative branch was supposed to operate.
When Abraham Lincoln famously debated Senator Stephen Douglas across Illinois in 1858, they were not asking people to vote for them directly. They were instead stumping for their political parties. If the Republicans won a majority in the Illinois state house in Springfield, then they would appoint Lincoln to the Senate. If the Democrats retained their majority, then they would send Douglas back for another term. That is, of course, what happened, though Lincoln had the last laugh, winning the presidential election two years later.
It was Idaho Senator William Borah, among others, who pushed for the 17th Amendment more than a century ago. Some states had already switched to direct election of Senators, but the 17th Amendment made this the law of the land throughout the entire country. The feeling at the time was that state party bosses wielded too much power over the US Senate. This was the era of populism, where men like William Jennings Bryan traveled the country giving fiery stump speeches about the power of the people against the entrenched interests in government. Sound familiar?
Populist reformers like Senator Borah believed that allowing the voters to directly elect Senators would bring Congress more in line with the will of the people. I am not sure that has been the case. Once someone wins election to the US Senate, he or she becomes extremely hard to dislodge. Our current Senate delegation from Idaho is made up of Jim Risch, who was first elected 14 years ago, and Mike Crapo, who was initially elected 24 years ago, and is running for a fifth term as we speak.
On the other hand, the voice of the states has become all but silent in national affairs. There is now nobody in the federal government to advocate on behalf of states themselves as sovereign entities. This is one of many reasons why state sovereignty has been severely eroded over the last century. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which was the last of the Bill of Rights, says, âThe powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.â That means that whatever powers are not explicitly granted to the federal government in the Constitution are the exclusive domain of the states. Yet today we have a federal government that has grown enormous and out of control, while states are made subservient to it.
One of the ways the federal government has done this is through appropriations. They started handing out our own taxpayer money as grants to various state agencies, and then said well, if you donât follow our regulations, then you donât get to have this money anymore. State governments became dependent on the federal government to operate, and the threat of taking away that money causes them to fall in line. Would this have happened if the Senate was still representative of the state legislatures? Iâm not sure, but it is a problem.
Our founding fathers created a beautiful system of checks and balances in this country. Unlike in the British Parliament, where the Prime Minister is a member of the legislature, our president occupies his own branch, and is charged with executing the laws, not creating them. Our legislature is charged with creating laws, while the judiciary is independent. Our legislative branch had its own checks and balances, and the House and Senate originally had significantly different characters. The House represented the people of America in general, while the Senate represented the sovereign states. The nature of the Senate was to be more conservative, slowing down the progress of the House and allowing our country to have the necessary debates before bringing about significant changes to our society.
Today, many of those distinctions are erased, all in the name of giving more power to the people. But the genius of a republican form of government is that it is not a pure democracy, it is not mob rule. Our founding fathers knew that mobs are unruly things, quickly fired up, and easily manipulated by nefarious political actors. They built a system that allowed the people to direct the course of our government while protecting it from democracyâs worst impulses. Unfortunately, that system has been systematically dismantled, both by nefarious political actors, but also by those who are good-hearted but naĂŻve about human nature.
The Idaho Republican Party platform calls for the repeal of the 17th Amendment and I fully support this idea. I doubt it will happen anytime soon, because anyone who suggests such a thing is denounced as wanting to take away peoplesâ rights. But it would be a good step toward the restoration of our republic.
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Today is Independence Day. 246 years ago, our Founding Fathers signed their names to a document that is enshrined beside Magna Carta in the annals of liberty. Why did they write it? What were they fighting for? What does our independence really mean?
Join me for a reading of the Declaration of Independence, and a reminder of what our liberties cost then, and what they mean to us today.
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It is finally official. This morning the Supreme Court released its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womenâs Health and has officially overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The right is elated. The left is mad. But what does it all mean?
Join me in the audio version of my live stream to talk about what lies ahead for the pro-life movement and America as a whole.
Links:
The Decision
Raheem Kassam at the National Pulse
GemStream: The End of Roe?
Gem State: What I Saw at the Pro Abortion Rally
Idahoâs Trigger Law
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The "deep state" or "administrative state" is the massive web of government bureaucracies that truly run our country. Where did it come from? How can we stop it? Join me as I take a look at the origins of the deep state, why it has so much power, and why it must be curtailed.
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On the day after our Idaho state Republican primary I sat down to look at how my own endorsements fared, and consider what we as a conservative movement can learn from both our victories and our defeats last night.
Listen to the audio or watch the video!
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On Friday, April 29, 2022, I sat down for a chat with Wayne Hoffman, president of the Idaho Freedom Foundation. We covered the IFF's new freedom, spending, and education scores, how this information helps hold elected officials accountable, and how we can wrest control of our government back from the establishment and special interests who run it today.
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