Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - The O'Reilly Update, August 21, 2023

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Tropical Storm Hillary hits the west coast, Trump bails on the debate, DeSantis targets Truth Social, and a new demographic experiments with marijuana.  Plus, Bill’s Message of the Day, why are Americans despairing? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bill O'Reilly here. You are listening to the O'Reilly Update. Coming up next, the news with Mike Slater. Thank you, Bill. It is Monday, August 21st, 2023. You're listening to the O'Reilly Update. Here's what's happening today in America. Tropical storm Hillary hits the West Coast.

Donald Trump bails on the first debate. Ron DeSantis targets truth social. And a new demographic is experimenting with marijuana. That's all coming up. And then I will be here with the message of the day. But first, tropical storm Hillary hitting the west coast of America. Forecasters expect the storm to enter the history books as the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years. Meteorologists predicted rainfall more than three inches an hour. The deluge causing flash floods from San Diego to Los Angeles. A report from New York Times claims Donald Trump will skip

the first Republican debate. Instead, the former president will likely take part on a Twitter or X broadcast with Tucker Carlson. The debate scheduled for Wednesday night in Milwaukee, which is going to get higher ratings. Donald Trump interview on Tucker Carlson or all the candidates in Milwaukee. The candidates on stage, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramoswamy, Chris Christie, and Mike Pence. Trump said on truth social, why would I debate? People know my record. I'm your man.

And speaking of truth social, Ron DeSantis, targeted users on Trump's platform during a recent interviews that the governor, quote, if all we are is listless vessels that are supposed to follow whatever happens to come down the pipeline through truth social every morning, that's not going to be a durable movement. Ultimately, a movement can't be about the personality of one individual. By the way, Donald Trump was asked why Ron DeSantis is not having a super successful campaign. And Donald said it's because he has no personality. A surprising demographic is experimenting with marijuana for the first time.

The fastest growing number of marijuana users are those over the age of 65. Seniors smoking cannabis has tripled since 2009. Back then, 9% reported smoking marijuana, in the last year, that figure has risen to 32%, one third of people over the age of 65 have smoked marijuana, like recently in the last year. And the slightly younger 60 to 64 demographic, half reported marijuana use in the last 12 months. This ties in perfectly to the message of the day. Coming up next, we'll talk about why it seems that Americans are more sad and mean than ever before. That's coming up next after this.

Let's face it, the U.S. economy is under stress. National debt rising, trade war, shaking the markets. And meanwhile, China is dumping the dollar and stockpiling gold. That's why I protected my savings with physical gold and silver. Tharu, the only dealer I trust, American Hartford Gold. And you can do this. Get precious metals delivered to your door. or place in a tax advantage, gold IRA.

They'll even help you roll over your existing IRA or 401K, tax and penalty-free. With billions and precious metals delivered thousands of five-star reviews and an A-plus from the Better Business Bureau, you can trust American Hartford Gold as I do. Please call 866-326-55-7576 or text Bill to 9988-9-8-9. Again, that's 866, 326-5576, or text Bill to 998899. Hey, I'm Mike Slater, filling in for Bill O'Reilly. Now it's time for the O'Reilly update message of the day.

David Brooks recently asked the question, why are Americans so sad and why are Americans so mean? Rates of depression and deaths of despair at all-time highs. People who say they have no close friends, the number of, people 25 to 54 who are unmarried, more than half of all Americans say that no one knows them well. Forty-four percent of high schoolers, high schoolers, report persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. And then when it comes to people being mean or rude, nurses are quitting their jobs because patients have become so abusive. Teachers can't take teaching anymore because students have become violent towards them. Also, Americans are less generous. In 2000,

and two-thirds of Americans gave to charity today, it's less than half. So what's going on? A couple potential reasons. First, we're obsessed with technology. We all know that. It's changed our brains, changed how we interact with people,

how we see the world. Also, we're more isolated than ever before. Less connected to our neighbors and community than we've ever been. Another reason we're more diverse than ever before, and we're told that diversity is our strength, but no one ever says why exactly. Japan doesn't think so.

China, Denmark, or Kenya, they don't think diversity is their strength. Diversity is fine if you all believe the same things about what a society should look like. But David Brooks says the best answer as to why we're more sad and rude than ever before is because we no longer train people in moral formation. The biggest dividing line between progressives and conservatives is this. Progressives believe that people are born good and conservatives believe that people are born sinful. We became the greatest country in the world because our founding fathers knew

that we were born sinful and therefore needed to work very hard and purposefully at becoming virtuous. Ben Franklin wrote to a friend in 1782. He said, men, I find to be a sort of beings very badly constructed. They are generally more easily provoked than reconciled, more disposed of to do mischief to each other than to make reparation and more easily deceived than undeceived. So our founders were obsessed with moral formation. Noah Webster said the virtues of men are of more consequence of society than their abilities. And for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more focus than the head. All the way up till the 50s in 1951, the National Education Association said that the unremitting concern for moral and spiritual

values continues to be the top priority for education. It's not true today. Today, the top priority is racial equity and transgender kids and all this nonsense. So we stopped focusing on moral formation. And what has resulted? Well, we have no longer agreed upon shared universal truths. No objective right and wrong can be agreed upon. It's not about right and wrong. It's about personal taste and who are you to say what's right?

And oh, don't judge me. Morality today is whatever feels good to me in the moment. Whatever feels good to me in the moment. And the result, of course, is going to be. kids who feel lost, confused, and angry, and hopeless, and selfish, and therefore, sad, and mean. Hurt people, hurt people. This is all very depressing, but the good news is we know how to turn this around.

We need to all recognize that we are sinners who need to focus on moral formation and building the virtues back up. And we don't need to reinvent the wheel. It's been done before we know the virtues that made America the greatest country in the world. We just have to get back to doing it again. I'm Mike Slater, builder for Bill O'Reilly. Something you might not know. Next.

Hey, I'm Caitlin Becker, the host of the New York Postcast, and I've got exactly what you need to start your weekdays. Every morning, I'll bring you the stories that matter, plus the news people actually talk about. The juicy details in the worlds of politics, business, pop culture, and everything in between. It's what you want from the new. New York Post wrapped up in one snappy show. Ask your smart speaker to play the NY Postcast podcast.

Listen and subscribe on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mike Slater, feeling for the great Bill O'Reilly. Now it's time for something you might not know. Alexander Hamilton Federalist Paper 65. This is in relation to, well, geez, all these indictments, but specifically the one in Georgia, where Trump said in an hour-long phone conversation, which you can hear on YouTube, by the way. It's the whole thing's there.

He said, I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is very different than, hey, Georgia officials, go out and fraudulently create 11,700 votes so that I won. Everyone's acting like Trump's team forged tens of thousands of signatures and hacked the voting machines themselves to change the vote totals and illegally harvested ballots and created some grand plans to have a corrupt post office captured the ballots in heavily democratic areas and destroy them before they even get to the registrar's office.

That's stealing an election. Not the chief of staff asking the Georgia election office. If there's any chance, you can get that signature verification process done by January 6th. That's one of the things in the indictment. Alan Dershowitz made the point that these types of phony racketeering charges are what Alexander Hamilton warned about in the Federalist papers. He was referring to Federalist 65. Alexander Hamilton made the point that there has to be a very high standard to impeach,

or in this case indict someone. If not, then everyone's just going to impeach everyone all the time forever. And that's a very bad road to go down, where every election, it's not only who's getting impeached, now who's getting prosecuted. We've got DAs indicting every political opponent. that's where we're headed? And Hamilton said this will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community and to divide us into parties. And there's such a great line. He said, it's going to get so bad this constant prosecuting everyone that this will be worse than whatever

crime anyone is accused of. And it won't even matter if anyone's guilty or innocent. It's just about who has the most power in the moment. He said there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of the parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. This is not justice. And in Washington, D.C., where 94% of people voted for Biden, there's no chance for a fair jury there as well. That's not justice. And our founding fathers saw it coming 250 years ago. I'm Mike Slater. Building for Bill O'Reilly. More coming up. Next. It's Sean Spicer from the Sean Spicer Show podcast, reminding you to tune into my show every day to get your daily dose inside the world of politics. President Trump and his team are shaking up Washington like never before, and we're here to cover it from all size, especially on the topics the mainstream media won't.

So if you're a political junkie on a late lunch or getting ready for the drive home, new episodes of the Sean Spicer Show podcast drop at 2 p.m. East Coast every day. Make sure you tune in. You can find us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. I am Mike Slater from the podcast, Politics by Faith. I'm filling there for Bill all this week. I'm grateful for you being here. We'll see you tomorrow.