Listen to “Gov't Leaker Prosecuted, Mexico Confronts Caravan, Twitter & Farrakhan” on Spreaker.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud the Justice Department for prosecuting a Treasury Department employee for giving sensitive information to the media.  They’re also pleasantly surprised to see Mexico getting serious about screening the caravan of Hondurans hoping to reach the United States.  And they slam Twitter for it’s absurd double standards, as conservatives get suspended or banned on a regular basis but Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan gets no punishment for referring to Jews as “termites.”

Listen to “Pastor Brunson: Dramatic Exit, Powerful Testimony” on Spreaker.

Most Americans are aware that American pastor Andrew Brunson was freed from Turkey last week and is now home after a weekend meeting with President Trump, but many do not know the dramatic story behind the hours leading up to his freedom.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is also a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.  He visited with Brunson prior to Friday’s court proceedings and accompanied him back to the United States.

Perkins says there was no pre-arranged deal for Brunson’s release and Thursday night Brunson was deeply worried that the court would force him to spend the rest of his life in prison.  Brunson’s spirits got a boost after Perkins presented him with letters from President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence as well as a Family Research Council petition in which 16,000 Americans vowed to keep praying for him.

On Friday, Perkins was struck by the pathetic case the government had against Brunson, noting that the evidence used to hold Brunson in prison since October 2016 wouldn’t be strong enough to get a search warrant in the U.S.  In addition, two “witnesses” recanted their testimony, which was nothing but hearsay anyway.

Prosecutors called for a 35-year prison sentence on charges of espionage and terrorism but the judges instead convicted Brunson on a lesser charge.  The sentence was for three years and one-and-a-half months in prison.  Brunson had already served two years and one month.

“Nobody knew exactly what (the verdict) meant because there was still this one year remaining.  It was kind of like the jail cell door was left open and they just kind of turned away for a moment,” said Perkins.

“But they removed the house arrest and the travel ban.  So it was at that point that the chargé that was there – the highest official representing the State Department – immediately realized we had to get him out of the country quickly, before the verdict might change.  It still could be appealed.

“Arrangements were made to fly out immediately, as soon as a military aircraft could get there,” said Perkins.

“It was a very fluid process of trying to line up the transportation, trying to get everything arranged so he could get out of the country.  It was very tenuous.  It was almost like one of those things you see in the movies.  We had no idea what was going to happen.  It was changing every 15 minutes.  We just knew we had to get him out of the country while the opportunity was there.

“It wasn’t until we were actually in the air, leaving Izmir, and had crossed out of Turkey’s airspace that I think he really began to realize that he was free,” said Perkins.

The plane stopped for a few hours in Germany, where Brunson famously kissed an American flag presented by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell.  Fewer than 24 hours later, Brunson was on worldwide television with President Trump in the Oval Office.  While there, Brunson prayed for Trump and profusely thanked the administration for its “unusually” vigorous pursuit of his freedom.

But what was different about how the Trump administration approaches this case and others compared to previous administrations?

“[Trump] is putting America first in our foreign policy and this is what it looks like: we do not sacrifice the well-being of Americans or the human right of religious freedom on the altar of globalism anymore,” said Perkins.

Perkins also says Brunson’s steadfast faith throughout the past two years and trusting that God had a plan through his suffering is also a powerful testimony on a number of levels.

“I think he is an inspiration.  He has no bitterness, no animosity toward the Turkish people.  He still wants to pray for the Turkish people.  In fact, he’s looking forward to someday being able to go back and continue ministering to the people.  That’s what the gospel is about and he wants to share that gospel.

“We need to realize that religious freedom and the ability to share our faith is always at risk and we have to defend it, we have to uphold it, we have to protect it.  But we also have to use it.  We have to share the gospel with as many people as we can, both here in the United States and around the world,” said Perkins.

Listen to the full podcast to hear more of the dramatic exit from Turkey, the visit to the White House and more.

Listen to “America on Top, Heitkamp’s Horrible Idea, Beto’s Bogus Story” on Spreaker.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America celebrate the United States being named the world’s top economy for the first time since the financial crisis.  They also shudder as North Dakota Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp tries to attack her opponent by running an ad listing women who are assault victims. But several of the women were never asked if their names could be used, some of them were never assaulted say the publicity has “ruined their lives.”  And they get a kick out of Texas Democratic Senate hopeful Beto O’Rourke saying his “lifelong Republican” mom is voting for him, but a check of voting records shows something very different.  They also discuss why the University of Michigan has one too many football fans.

Listen to “Not in Vein: Documentary Links Porous Border, Opioid Crisis” on Spreaker.

Ending the opioid crisis in the United States and securing America’s borders are two critical parts of the same fight, and a new documentary shows how drug cartels are running roughshod over efforts to stop them and how the deadly poison they peddle directly leads to tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the U.S. each year.

“Not in Vein” is hosted by investigative journalist and Fox News Contributor Sara Carter.  It’s a non-profit project and can be seen in it’s entirety at notinveinusa.com.

Carter says little attention was paid to the cartels as the opioid crisis exploded. Americans focused instead on the pharmaceutical industry and effective treatment programs.  The reality, she says, is that we’re losing the battle at the border at “an unprecedented level.”

“I’ve been covering the border for decades.  When I started my career, that’s what I started doing – covering the gang associations and border association, which led me into covering terrorism and terrorist organizations and the nexus between those organizations and terror groups.  I thought that was damaging enough.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing in this film,” said Carter.

In 2017 alone, statistics show 72,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses.  She says some morgues in Ohio have brought in extra freezers to handle the bodies of overdose victims because they’re running out of room in the usual facilities.

While heroin and other addictive opioids are relentlessly pushed across the border, the even greater danger now is fentanyl, a drug so powerful that just four grams is enough to kill someone.

Carter says fentanyl is being mixed with traditional opioids in shady laboratories in the U.S., China, Mexico, and elsewhere, and people are ingesting it while thinking it’s only a painkiller like oxycontin.

But fentanyl is not just endangering our kids and adults.  Carter says it could be used to target many people at once.

‘That fentanyl could actually be used as a weapon of mass destruction.  If you release fentanyl into the air at a movie theater, in a mall, you’re killing people that come into contact with it,” said Carter.

She says the threat is more global than many realize.  Drug cartels are now doing business with terrorist groups in Africa and Carter says that type of collaboration could result in cartels smuggling even more things into the U.S. that could kill Americans.

But there are ways to fight back.  Step one, says Carter, is for the U.S. government to declare drug cartels to be terrorist organizations.

“Once these guys are targeted as terrorists, we can unleash the best at them, whether that’s Delta Force, whether that’s Navy SEALs, and taking them out,” said Carter.

But Carter warns the front lines of this fight are much closer than the border.  She says kids at almost every school in America are likely to be offered opioids, some of which might be laced with fentanyl, so parents must always be vigilant.

Listen to “Why the Big Fight Over Kanye?” on Spreaker.

Musician, businessman and Kardashian family member Kanye West visited President Trump at the White House Thursday and his televised monologue in praise of the president left many conservatives cheering and many liberals fuming.

But why are people so invested in this story?  Why did this presidential meeting trigger shock waves throughout the media landscape?

Longtime syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock is also a founding member of the Project 21 black leadership network and thinks the meeting is very significant, and that’s why the criticism of West was less about what he said and more about the fact he was there at all.

“People didn’t come out and say, ‘Kanye is mistaken,  He has his facts wrong.  Gee, he should have thought about this and he didn’t.’  The attacks are so much more personal, so much more deep, so much more profound, calling him a token negro, ‘this is what happens when negroes don’t read.’  Don Lemon at CNN said his appearance at the White House was like a minstrel show.  I mean these are awful, horrible words,” said Murdock.

Murdock says we never the same vitriol when white commentators say controversial things.

“They’ll explain the disagreement but they won’t say, ‘Oh, you’re a bad white person,’ or ‘You’re letting down the Caucasian race,’ or “You’re white trash.’  You never have that.  They just disagree with your ideas.  In this case, the concept was to eviscerate Kanye West completely, from head to toe and inside out,” said Murdock.

West can be a loose cannon to put it mildly.  In 2005, he stood on national television during a Hurricane Katrina relief special and declared, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”  The intervening 13 years have involved interrupting awards shows, comparing himself to Jesus Christ, and other bizarre statements.

Even on Thursday, West offered ideas ranging from “time is a myth” to declaring his statements are not sound bites and must be appreciated like fine wine.

So is Kanye West really the person conservatives want to hitch their wagons to?  Murdock says that’s not the issue.

“I don’t think you need a full alignment.  I don’t think anybody says that Kanye West needs to become chairman of the Republican National Committee.  I’m not recommending that.

“I do think it’s perfectly fair for Republicans and people on the right to say he has a right to speak his mind without being attacked the way he was and being so personally disemboweled by the left,” said Murdock.

But what’s behind the fierce denunciation?  Murdock is convinced the Democrats fear West could cause many black people to reconsider their political loyalties and that is an existential threat to the Democratic Party.

“If eight out of ten black Democrats stick with the Democrats and two out of ten switch over and vote for the GOP, it’s absolutely curtains for the Democrats.  They cannot afford to lose that large a share of the most loyal part of their base,” said Murdock.

Listen to the full podcast to hear more of Deroy Murdock’s analysis and why he thinks just a small defection of black voters next month could make a huge difference in the midterm elections.

Listen to “Cherokees Slam Warren, O’Keefe Exposes McCaskill, Sinema’s Bad Week” on Spreaker.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America sip three good martinis for conservatives today.  They begin by highlighting Cherokee Nation’s slamming of Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test as being any sort confirmation that she belongs in its ranks.  They also discuss Project Veritas exposing the McCaskill campaign in Missouri for taking great pains to prevent voters there from knowing how liberal McCaskill really is.  And they chronicle the litany of bad press for Arizona Democratic Senate hopeful Kyrsten Sinema, including not caring if an American fought for the Taliban in 2003 and bringing in witches for an anti-war vote that same year.

Listen to “Red Cross President on Florida: ‘It’s Just Heartbreaking'” on Spreaker.

President Trump visited the Florida communities devastated by Hurricane Michael on Monday, but while the needs are great, the head of the American Red Cross says relief workers are up to the challenge.

Hurricane Michael formed off the western coast of Cuba last week and then roared ashore in the Florida panhandle at nearly Category Five strength, effectively destroying some towns.

“This is one of the worst that I’ve seen because it was a hurricane that sort of behaved like a tornado,” said American Red Cross President and CEO Gail McGovern.

The storm then behaved more like a hurricane as it moved into Georgia and Alabama and up to the Carolinas and Virginia.

“It’s just heartbreaking.  I have to say our hearts go out to anyone who was impacted by Hurricane Michael.  It was really devastating.  Schools are gone, homes are gone, businesses are gone,” said McGovern.

The Red Cross prepositions supplies in preparation for disasters like this and tries to shuttle in relief workers as well.  She says this storm is very personal for some of their volunteers.

“We have employees and volunteers who are in the impacted area year-round.  We don’t pack up and go home.  This is our home,” said McGovern.

While well-prepared, McGovern says there are pressing needs.

“The roads have debris on them, the power is out, communication is challenging because some of the cell towers are out.  It’s been quite a challenge on the ground,” said McGovern.

To date, the Red Cross is operating 27 shelters in the Florida panhandle.  At the peak, 10,000 people were staying in them.  More than 125,000 meals and snacks have already been given out.

Listen to the full podcast to hear more about the challenges in Florida and other areas devastated by Hurricane Michael and find out the various ways you can help those in need.

Listen to “Heller’s Momentum, Suspecting the Saudis, Warren’s Weak ‘Vindication'” on Spreaker.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cautiously welcome polls showing Nevada Sen. Dean Heller winning his race and House Republicans holding a one-point edge in the 66 most competitive districts.  They cringe at allegations the Saudis may have killed journalist Jamal Kashoggi and what it may mean for U.S.-Saudi relations.  And they roll their eyes as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s claims victory in the debate over her heritage because a DNA test showed she was anywhere from 1/64 to 1/1,024 American Indian.

Listen to “American Pastor Freed from Turkey” on Spreaker.

American pastor Andrew Brunson is headed home after two years of detention over what his family and the U.S. government say are trumped up charges of espionage and terrorism.

And a leading organization assisting persecuted Christians is applauding the Trump administration for its handling of the Brunson case while warning that religious freedom is eroding in Turkey.

Brunson was actually convicted in a Turkish court Friday and sentenced to three years and one and a half months of prison. However, the judge released him because the years in detention amounted to “time served.”

A tearful Brunson thanked the court. Earlier he made an emotional plea for release.

“I am an innocent man. I love Jesus. I love Turkey,” said Brunson.

Open Doors USA President and CEO Dr. David Curry says these were bogus charges from the start, trying to tie Brunson to the failed coup against Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

“(Brunson) has been a part of Turkey for over 20 years.  He been a faithful pastor there, great part of the community, good citizen.  This was a political issue.  They tried to use him as a pawn in a larger political game that did not work.  We’re grateful that the administration really held the line on this and was able to get him released,” said Curry.

Curry says the prosecution of Brunson was over politics and the pastor’s Christian faith, and the obvious mistreatment allowed for many different nations and groups to pressure Turkey for Brunson’s release.

He also says the Trump administration’s refusal to hand over another figure allegedly tied to the failed coup attempt is a major win.

“We can’t send a signal that hostage diplomacy is going to work.  It was a very good move not to give into that,” said Curry.

Since the failed coup in 2016, Erdogan has shown far less tolerance for Christianity.

“The increased raids on churches and these kinds of things that are happening in Turkey are sending signals that the environment is changing there,” said Curry.

However, Curry is most gratified that Brunson remains firm in his faith after this difficult ordeal.

“I think we take encouragement in that.  I think it is also a signal to us to really take the lessons of people who go through harder things than we do when we face discouragement or opposition or even  some sort of resistance or persecution.  Stand in Jesus.  It is the solution.  It’s the medicine we need for a broken heart.  I think Pastor Brunson is an example of that quite well.

Listen to the full podcast to hear more of Dr. Curry’s analysis of the Brunson case, the reality for believers in Turkey and more.

Listen to “What Next at the UN?” on Spreaker.

Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney says Nikki Haley is cut from the same mold as the most successful American ambassadors to the United Nations and says President Trump must find a successor who truly believes in his foreign policy.

Haley announced this week that she will step down at the end of 2018. Trump says he hopes to nominate a successor within the next few weeks.

Haley says the great accomplishment of the past two years is winning back respect, noting that other nations may not like our policies but they know we will keep our word.

Gaffney says Haley’s tenure at the UN reflected the Trump agenda very well.

“She has been a tireless defender of America against all attacks. She has been a catalyst for really tough love for the United Nations and its various corrupt and malfeasant entities,” said Gaffney.

“She’s very much in the mold of some of the truly great UN ambassadors from the United States: Jeane Kirkpatrick, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (and) John Bolton come to mind,” added Gaffney.

“I would hope very much that the president will replace her with someone with both a similar capability and in terms of clarity of their admiration and, indeed, love for our country and vigor in willing to defend her,” said Gaffney.

Gaffney says it is imperative for Trump to find a successor who shares his vision for the world. He says hiring someone who clashes with Trump on policy will be counterproductive.

Former Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell was widely touted for the job until removing her name from consideration on Thursday. Gaffney is relieved Powell is off the short list given her performance at her previous job.

You don’t want somebody as an ambassador representing out government, representing this administration, representing this president who is at odds with the policies of the president.

“That was certainly true of Dina Powell during the time she served under H.R. McMaster, the National Security Adviser. I called them the insubordinate subordinates,” said Gaffney.

Listen to the full podcast to hear Gaffney’s assessment of how important the UN ambassador is and the three names he hopes are being considered to replace Haley.