Consider This! | Conservative political commentary in 10 minutes or less

A look at some of the executive orders of the Biden administration.

The attack on the Capitol building in Washington, DC was wrong and anyone involved with it should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Vast majorities of both Democrats and Republicans agree with that statement. But if we distill it down to it’s base argument — mob violence is always wrong — the opinions diverge. In this episode, I talk about why that is, and suggest who might be to blame for normalizing mob violence. Mentioned links: US Capitol secured, 4 dead after rioters stormed the halls of Congress to block Biden’s win Whataboutism [Wikipedia] Show transcript It was January 6th, 2021, and I was in the middle of my workday when I got a Facebook message from Listener Barb. “You watching this!?!? Unacceptable.” All that I knew that was going on politically that day was that the Electoral College votes were to be certified in the Senate, and there were Republicans that were going to request that there be a commission to review the results in some of the close states. So I replied, “Is it the Electoral College thing?” Her reply didn’t seem possible. “Protesters have broken into the Capitol building. Congress being evacuated. Turn on your TV.” Well, it turned out that on that particular day I was working at the home of a friend who does not get broadcast TV but has a great Internet connection. What I found out made it one of those days where I believe I will remember where I was when I heard the news. It was January 6th, 2021, and terrorism entered the halls of our nation’s Capitol. It was at once unthinkable, horrifying, sickening, un-American, evil, heartbreaking, and insane. Feel free to add any adjectives of your own. Make no mistake; this was, at the very least, terrorism; violence committed in pursuit of a political goal. In this case, it was a goal almost guaranteed to not be arrived at. It may have temporarily stopped the procedure that would ultimately declare Joe Biden and Kamala Harris President-elect and Vice-President-elect, but the violence did not stop it, partially because the American system of government is so very resilient, and partially because it is so very stubborn. But not achieving their goal is beside the point. What their goal was or why they were pursuing it is beside the point. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what they did, and what they did were acts of violence. The place that they committed these acts was uniquely dangerous to our constitutional system of government, and may likely result in stiffer penalties, but their violence was the core of what they did wrong. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for what they did. Some are calling what they did “insurrection” or “sedition”. Technically there might be a case for that, but guys taking selfies in the Senate chamber with horns on their head, or with their feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, don’t come across as those trying to usurp the government; more like rebels without a clue. Maybe that’s just me. But there were some other consequences of their actions that they do need to answer for. At least one person that I heard about died of a heart attack during the event, and a Capitol police officer was killed. Those must be a component of their prosecution. So now let’s zoom out a little from the protesters, and as we do that we see Donald Trump. I’ve been so dismayed at President Trump for fanning these flames of the idea of a stolen election, and that it was really a landslide for him. I hear people talking about evidence for it, but his legal team either didn’t present that evidence in court or presented it and then withdrew it. Some suits have been thrown out, many by Trump-appointed judges. We’ve heard people talk about what they saw, but never in court.

A boycott backfire, a very "personal" gift, and a listener suggests a balanced news site.

When Trump started his term, illegal immigration started to trend down. With Joe Biden the presumptive President-elect, what do you think that trend is doing now? Politicians make verbal gaffes; it happens all the time. But watch how the media coverage changes depending on the party of the politician. I’ve found a news source that lets you see how various other sources cover a story based on their bias. Mentioned links: Episode 175: Enforce The Laws We Have Illegal border crossings are surging as migrants anticipate Biden changes, DHS says Media Ignore ‘Devoutly Religious’ Biden’s Embarrassing Bible Gaffe After Freaking Out About Trump’s ‘Two Corinthians’ Remark Ground News Show transcript Back in April of 2017, just a few months after Donald Trump had been inaugurated, I noted that the number of illegal immigrants coming into the country had dropped like a rock. My explanation for it was that, since Trump ran heavily on enforcing our border, fewer people were willing to take the chance that they might get actually prosecuted rather than just get released into the country. Threatening to actually enforce our existing border laws caused, I believe, a drop in those trying to cross it illegally And today, this: Border Patrol agents are already seeing a Biden surge in illegal immigration at the southwest border, officials said Thursday, with the numbers surging 21% over the last month alone. Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan said worsening economic conditions south of the border are largely responsible for the uptick, but he also blamed “perceived and or anticipated shifts in policies” here in the U.S. Indeed, if you are having your own economic troubles, and the guy coming into the Presidency here is all about open borders, you’re more willing to take the chance and get forgiveness rather than permission. And all this while COVID-19 is still making the rounds. Oh yeah, this is just what we need. All politicians make verbal gaffes from time to time. For some of them, the time between those times is somewhat shorter than others. Here, for example, is candidate Donald Trump, calling a book of the Bible by the wrong name. [Trump audio, Two Corinthians] Now for the vast majority of Christians, the name of the book is Second Corinthians. I say for the “vast majority” because, in some places and based on age, some actually say Two Corinthians, but that’s a rare exception, and Trump doesn’t fit into any of those categories, so it’s a gaffe. And of course Trump got raked over the coals in the press. There’s a link in the show notes to a bunch of examples, some as recently as last year, over 3 years post-gaffe. The media would not let this go. I don’t think that Trump ever claimed to be particularly devout in his religion, but the media certainly like to remind us that Joe *** Biden is a devout Catholic. He’d never mispronounce something like…well… [Biden audio, Palmist] Yes, another gaffe, from this gaffe-o-matic guy. Anyway, the issue here for me is not about mispronunciations of Biblical proportions, it’s how the media will cover these things. Here we have two fairly similar situations. But I searched for “palmist” on Politico, CNN, and NPR, all of whom reported on the Trump version of the gaffe, and found absolutely nothing about Biden; surprise, surprise. Or not. Will Biden get a honeymoon from the press? Yes,

Down-ballot wins for Republicans. How do you choose your news station?

My thoughts on the 2020 election.

A shortened episode to mention just some of the good news of the last four years, and what to do in order to keep it going.

Yet another YouTube video was create of some guy claiming to be a doctor and claiming that lockdowns should not be the way we deal with this virus. But this is not just another crank. The nomination hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett went on last week and they demonstrated the stark difference between how Democrats and Republicans view the role of the courts. When Facebook and Twitter block posting of an article, there’s clearly something going wrong with social media (and clearly it’s an article worth reading). Mentioned links: WHO official: Stop using lockdowns as primary virus control method Twitter changes guidelines following Post censorship controversy Show transcript If you’ve tried to tweet or write a Facebook post or create a YouTube video these past months trying to get you thoughts out about how lockdown aren’t useful for stemming the tide of COVID-19, you’ve often found your opinion slapped down because of “misinformation” or “false news” or something like that. It’s been something of a badge of honor to get that particular action taken against you. Good thing we live in a country with free speech. Now I’ve been on the record that I would not have wanted to be anyone in power having to make that decision; to lockdown or not. There was too much we didn’t know at the start of this to be sure that leaving the status quo would be OK. Nope, don’t put me in that position; I’ll just snipe from the bleachers. After a while, though, there were a number of people deciding that these lockdown were, in some cases, a cure worse than the literal disease. Shutting down the economy and losing jobs was a major hit to the poor and the not-so-poor. Even now major store and restaurant chains, to say nothing of the local shops and eateries, are declaring bankruptcy to either reshuffle debt or go out of business altogether. Those disagreeing with this course of action saw this and said, and have been saying, stay home if you’re sick, quarantine the vulnerable, but let those who wish out of lockdown and keep the economy from crashing. But that was not the conventional wisdom. And now some other guy with a degree in front of his name (as if that means anything) has come out with another one of those videos telling all world leaders to “stop using lockdown as your primary control method”. Who is this crank? It’s Dr. David Nabarro, the World Health Organization’s Special Envoy on COVID-19; y’know, just another guy. OK, so what I hear people saying in objection to the way I’m characterizing this is, “We’ve learned a lot about this virus in the past 7 months, you can’t blame him for not knowing.” I understand that, but two things. One, a lot of other people (and not just little guys sniping from the bleachers) have been saying this for months and I just can’t believe all of them just got lucky making that prediction. And two, what will we see now in states and cities that are still on lockdown whose governors and mayors have said they were “following the science”? The science now says to open up, so keep track of those places that either remain or move back to lockdown and we’ll see how much science is in their decision-making. Of course, so much damage has been done already, it’s rather pointless at this point. But do we really think it took 7 months to figure this out? I’ve been listening to some of the confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett and I have to say, I like a lot of this new season of “Judging Amy” but I have some issues with some of the writing.  During opening statements and then the questioning of Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation hearings, it really showed how Democrats had the talking poi...

Listeners write about their pandemic experience, defunding the police, and a group supposedly preparing for violence from the Right if they lose the election.

The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to take her place has turned DC more upside down than it already was.

"Systemic racism" is a phrase we hear a lot of these days. What is it and how can it really be dealt with?

For episode 300, I asked for questions about the podcast and me. I got a response with many good questions, and I’ll be answering them in this episode. Then I go on to answer questions about me that I didn’t get asked but that I thought might be interesting to you. Mentioned links: Episode 15: Decoding DC, Romney’s Taxes, and Some Speech is More Free Than Others Episode 22: Listener Feedback – Calling Me Out on Ban Ki Moon Geocaching What’s neXt? Show transcript For this special episode, I had said that I was going to revisit some past episodes and update you on the people and policies from those stories. But you know what? That takes a long time, so I’m going to put off that idea for later, maybe episode 400. I also put out a request for you to ask me some questions about me or the show. I got one listener to take me up on that, and they are some good questions she asked. You’ll hear those, plus my wife had a good ideas to expand on that and answer some other questions I didn’t get asked. I figured I’d make this episode one where you get to know this guy behind the mic a little more. It should come as no surprise that, for this special episode, the time limit will go out the window. So here we go. Listener Barb is a long-time listener to the podcast, and I’ve actually met her once when she and a bunch of other podcasters from the Golden Spiral Media network came down my way. She sent me some good questions to think about and answer. First question: When you began Consider This, did you expect to hit episode 300? Well, I hoped I’d at least get past episode 100, so when I started naming the podcast files I left 3 digits for the episode number. But 300? Well, I think a better question would be did I expect to be still doing this 8 years later. If you’d asked me back when I started this I would have said, “No.” I wanted to have some staying power, but I didn’t think I’d still be at it for this long. This is basically my creative outlet so I’m sticking with it. But a lot has changed during those 8 years, and I don’t just mean politically. Some of you know (and now all of you will) that I have Multiple Sclerosis. I’ve had it since 1986, but I had the kind that would come and go. Later I started having the progressive kind that’s been taking out my legs. In 2012, I could still go downstairs to my office, produce the podcast, and get back upstairs. Since then I went to using a cane to get around, these days I use a walker (and the office was moved upstairs), and in a few weeks I’m getting fitted for a motorized wheelchair for when I’m out and about. Fortunately, podcasting is a hobby that you can do entirely seated if you want to. So yes, changes. The next question from Barb is what story has surprised you the most over the years? That’s an easy one, actually. Of all the events and stories I’ve mentioned, the one that got an actual surprised reaction from me was the election of Donald Trump as President. I believed the polls that said Hillary Clinton was a guaranteed the win that night. Trump was my last choice in the Republican primary, and yet he beat Clinton against all odds. The next morning I asked, “What have we done?” This was a guy that spoke conservative values, but really hadn’t demonstrated them before. I had no idea what the next 4 years would bring. I will say that I was both pleasantly surprised at how he’s governed while being unpleasantly dismayed at his personality and his tweets. So yes, surprised. Next up,

Large study of transgenders reverses its conclusion. Last of a political type is gone. The problems with mass mail-in voting.

The Black Lives Matter organization is starting to make demands of businesses. Also, getting history books out of school until they are "fair".

Can we have that honest conversation about race? And what is the price of an accountable media?