1-29-25
Monologue:
Why Would They Not?
Triple Dipper:
1. Home Fries
2. The New DoD
3. Skynet is Coming
Guests
3pm: Stephanie Smith
4pm: Grand Council with Jeff Poor and Dale Jackson
Resources
1. Home Fries
https://www.beacontn.org/the-gift-of-new-educational-opportunities/
https://1819news.com/news/item/ag-marshall-calls-on-costco-to-end-dei-discrimination
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14327865/amp/costco-al-sharpton-dei-stunt-slammed.html
https://x.com/DeAngelisCorey/status/1884339192420859955?t=jhyJZpHAVOluS2CluCYWjA&s=19 (screenshot this please)
2. The New DoD
https://www.dailywire.com/news/court-battle-begins-over-trumps-ban-on-trans-troops
3. Skynet is coming
https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2025/01/27/tech/deepseek-stocks-ai-china
https://www.wired.com/story/deepseek-ai-china-privacy-data/
https://www.dailywire.com/news/did-china-just-drink-our-milkshake?topStoryPosition=5
Rightside Way Monologue
State legislatures are incredibly important…..I’ve said before that I only thought I
knew the impact that that a well run state legislature could have before I ran for the
State Senate myself…..but when I actually got elected and sent to the State Capital
I became keenly aware how much each state House and Senate body can
accomplish if they set their minds to it…..or for that matter, how much they can
screw up….This is that time of the year…..that season in nearly every state where
the members of the respective state legislative branches gather for the annual
Regular Session…..Florida is staring at a special session on immigration right
now…..Tennessee is in a special session on school choice right now…..and
Alabama goes into regular session next week…..laws will be passed, taxes will be
either raised or lowered or ignored, budgets will be debated and hopefully
balanced, and a myriad of other things that the state needs done…..we talk all the
time about what happens in Congress…..what the US Senate is doing…..but have
you ever paid attention, I mean really paid attention to the folks that decide
everything from your local tax laws, education funding, Medicaid, criminal
penalties and prisons, or whether or not your state will ban transgender treatments
on minors?.....all of that and more is decided for you every year by folks who live
and work in your home towns and then drive periodically to the state capital to
make it law…..and right now, every state in the Southeast has a Republican
Supermajority in their Statehouse and they are on the verge of blowing it!
Have you ever been in one of those “no-lose” situations……I mean we’ve all seen
the “no-win” situations……but sometimes the stars align and you find yourself
looking at your personal situation and thinking “why would I not?”….I’ll be
honest, that’s the way I pray sometimes…..when I’m seeking the Lord’s guidance
on something it often starts out with asking for wisdom…..sometimes those
prayers are “Lord, should I?”…..but sometimes the events on the ground swirl
together and I find myself having to switch my prayers to “Lord, why would I
not?”…..and when that happens, when the decisions seem really obvious I have to
measure them against what I know of God’s will, his character, his Word and make
sure that they are not just distractions….but then I find myself sometimes looking
it all over, honestly asking for God’s intervention, and then realizing it comes
down to “why would I not”
Sometimes big decisions are actually the easiest…..the facts and circumstances just
line up in such a way that you look at yourself in the mirror and realize there’s
nothing to lose, and everything to gain…..When I asked Charlene to marry me (39
years ago!) it was actually a no-brainer…..I had no money….no job…..still in
school…..only 21….but hey! I knew the upside. Why would I not?....
When I went to Army Ranger School I had no advance notice…..no train up…..but
a slot opened up with 6 days’ notice…..I wanted to do it…..it was the only shot I
would get…..why would I not?......
When the day came that I was asked to consider running for the State Senate….. I
reviewed the opportunity…..Charlene and I talked about it…..we believed in the
cause….why would I not?
When I decided to hang my shingle and open my own law firm…..that decision
was made sitting on the couch at home with Charlene and I trying to find a reason
why we would not do it…..we couldn’t find one and made that decision
overnight…..why would we not?
And this radio show…..Rightside Radio…..which has now grown to a full blown
media company with podcasts and everything…..just like that…..the opportunity
arose….it ain’t easy….it involves change and getting out of my comfort zone…..
but essentially there was nothing to lose by giving it a shot…..why would I not?
Now you might look at those and say “well, those weren’t really no-lose
situations….they could’ve gone badly”……no, not really. Because if they had not
worked out…..marriage, Ranger School, Senate, Law Practice, this radio
show…..what would I have lost? I would just be back where I was before…..no
real changes…..but a life filled with experiences…..in the end each of those….and
other decisions like them have paid off more than I could have ever asked or
imagined……
But there are also times when the elected leaders of our states need to think along
the same lines….right now state legislatures are convening…..and they have been
given a golden opportunity….they are in the middle of one of the most dynamic
conservative movements in modern history….a time when the public sentiment has
swung decidedly in favor of conservative values, conservative principles,
conservative politicians…..what happened in the recent election cycle was not just
a wave, it was a tsunami!.....there is no doubt that any state Republican
supermajority could act in a decisive and deliberate manner to enact all the things
that they say that they stand for…..the things that their state voters gave them a
supermajority for…..and actually get some major things done…..in fact, I would
have to ask, “why would they not?”
But in Florida…. right now we are watching as the Republican majority is pushing
back on Governor Desantis’s call for state level illegal immigration laws to be
passed….they actually took the bill put forward by his administration and watered
it down….they even went so far as to strip the Governor of Florida of his
enforcement powers on state level illegal immigration and give it inexplicably to
the Florida Secretary of Agriculture!.....they have a mandate….they have an
opportunity….they can pass whatever they want to pass….but they choose,
apparently, to get squishy…..have they not seen the overwhelming national
sentiment?.....have they not heard their constituents calls?.....immigration reform
from the Florida capital…..why would they not?
In Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee has called the State House and Senate into a
special session to enact major school choice legislation…..Tennessee, like
Alabama, needs reforms to its education system….parents deserve to be given the
ability to determine what is best for their child’s educational needs without being
bound to a zip code or a bureaucracy….President Trump has signaled
overwhelming support for measures like those proposed by the Tennessee
Governor, calling school choice the “civil rights issue of our
generation”…..Tennessee House and Senate Committees have both passed the
school choice measures out of committee but the debate on the floor is set to be
dicey…..have they heard the cries of their constituents….have they seen the
movement around the nation…..school choice for Tennessee…..why would they
not?
Right now the Alabama Legislature is in that very same position……the Alabama
House and Senate go in next week…..there’s already talk about whether the
rarified air in the Statehouse will be consumed with gambling once
again…gambling bills that just reward bad actors and law breakers who have
flaunted our laws and corrupted our politics for decades…..meanwhile, easy layup
bills like the “What is a Woman Act” to declare Alabama a state that only
recognizes biology….or the bill that keeps porn filters in place to protect
children…..they remain somehow debatable….have they read the room?....do they
see the national mandate for a restoration of values?….are they aware of the
strength of their position?.....the Republican supermajority in Alabama could get
anything passed if they wanted to….lower your taxes? Done….protect children?
Done…..streamline government? Done…..Alabama restore illegal immigration
laws to the forefront of the state code? Done…..you have to look at the moment we
are in and realize there will never be another time like this one for conservatives to
act….to actually walk in the authority they’ve been granted…..Alabama
legislature, why would you not?
And what will the public think…. What will the public, who voted in these
republican supermajorities think when they see major steamrolls of state level
conservative legislation getting passed?.....they will see that you care…..they will
see that when they cried out that the legislature listened……so, do something
meaningful….not hollow….tell them all that the people of this state will be
protected! As long as your are in office”…….you’ll be a conservative warrior….its
a no lose situation…..
Why would they not?
And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way