Very shy and retiring types. For those also watching online we remind you, youre welcome to send questions or comments also any time, simply email speaker heritage. Org and we will process the post the program on the web site and we have copies of the book available for signing signing signing and purchase afterwards. Leading our constitution and opening the program is becky dunlap, our Ronald Reagan distinguished fellow. She serve as chairman of the conservative action project, advocates for heritages american conservativeth and advances energy and Natural Resources policy in general. Also an active board member of numerous Public Policy organizations and associations. Here heritage she was Vice President of external relations and recently led our restore america project. Prior to joining heritage in 1998, mrs. Dunlop served as secretary of Natural Resources for the commonwealth of virginia and she also served numerous positions in both re Reagan White House and the department of justice and interior. Please join me in welcoming becky norton dunlop. [applause] well, let me add my words of welcome to each one of you who have braved this very cold day washington, dc. Im sure this program will bev replayed many times and sometime in the dog days of august, when its being run, nobody is going to believe that it was, was, 15degree with a choice fact or a wind chill factor of nine we came here. Were delighted have todd starnes. Some people might ask, why would you have a book event on the deplorables guide to making America Great again when youre ave search and Education Foundation . Well, the main reason is because todd talks about in his book the importance of having people be involved, and hes going to good into a lot more detail about all of this, but let me just say, an educated consumer is the best citizen. And because were research and Education Foundation, we do research on a lot of the issues that are going to come before the congress and the president and state legislatures in upcoming years, and in order to be a truly effective deplorable you have to be knowledgeable about the issues that were going to be dealing with in our country in the next upcoming days and months and even years. As you all who were here know, heritage is based on key principles. Individual freedom, is the key principle. The Free Enterprise system. What solves the problems, the needs, the wishes, of the american citizens, not just americans but people around the world. Well, the Free Enterprise system does. Constitutional governance. Wont it we nice to get back to constitutional governance . Laws. Traditional values. You know, its very important when you think about Economic Freedom that you think about what goes into making Economic Freedom work. Well, things that happen within a family. Values you learn about in a family. Integritiy, hard work, respect, and the important traditional values like religious freedom, the freedom to live life according to what you believe. These kinds of Cultural Values are enormously important in order to have Economic Freedom, prosper in our country and our world. And then, of course, the Strong National defense. Now, i mention this because when you hear from todd today, youre going to hear a lot about things that american citizens should do and why they need to engage in these battles. And my point to you is the Heritage Foundation agrees with this, and believes that we can be helpful to you and to all of those who are watching this and reading todds book, become informed. Be knowledgeable. So that you know what you believe and why you believe it. Why are you fighting for these things . That todd it going to talk to us about. And then you can go out and make your voice heard in a way that will command respect, and hopefully the elected leaders we have will follow the advice and counsel of the deplorables who are informed. So, todd starnes is here, with fox news radio. Most everyone in america has heard of todd starnes. He is often on fox news and fox business. The fair and balanced channel. He is the author of four books and his latest one, the deplorables guide to making America Great again is what bring him to our podium today. Please welcome todd starnes. Well, thank you very much and it is an honor to be here the Heritage Foundation, and i just have to say Heritage Foundation, you have indeed stayed the course and have been a beacon of light to the conservative movement in and our great nation and i do, too, want to thank you for coming out on this very cold day. Its actually colder in washington, dc than in new york city where i came from this morning. So thank you for braving the elements as you came out. And before i get into they heart of my remarks id like to encourage you follow me on facebook and also we can make beautiful tweets together on twitter, todd starnes. Want to share my brown before we get into the text of my comments this afternoon. Im originally from memphis, tennessee. I am also a christian man, and my faith flavors everything that i do in life. Im one of those people that president obama was talking about, back in 2007 who clings to his guns and clings to his religion. Im one those of folkses that Hillary Clinton called a deplorable. And i am proud to call myself a guntoting, bibleclinging, constitutionloving son of a baptist and im not bitter, im blessed. I live in brooklyn yucker, in the indigenous population, not could too familiar pham far from income Hillary Clintons campaign headquarters. Among other things they dont serve too much sweet tea in that neck of the woods as they say. I want to tell you about the book before we get any further. A lot of people say, todd, when did you start writing this book it . Came out just a few months ago and we actually started working on the project immediately after the election, and i really probably in hindsight, should have acknowledged mrs. Clinton in my book for fifthing me the giving me the title, the deplorables guide to making America Great again. We had another title in event that shed had actually won, it was called were doomed america, you guide to the apocalypse so we didnt have to bier that book. Back to living in brooklyn. Its an amazing place. My neighborhood is populate with a lot of vegetarian restaurantss and yoga shops and farm to table restaurants. I dont know if you have those here in washington the ones in brooklyn serve organic eggs harvested by amish mid wifes mitchell middle man says im the only member of the National Rifle association in the zip code and you get about a pound of mail a month from those good people, and you also get a really great looking ball cam and the nra ball cap, black ball with the gold hers, nra. Tell you the story because in my neighborhood on the weekend, right outside of our local market, all of the liberalled a sew cassy groups advocacy groups line up and theyre asking for money and you have the planned parenthood and green peace and human rights and the peta people are the worse. Theyre very aggressive people. The peta fundraisers. So i was heading to the market one digrabbed my nr aball caps Something Interesting happened. When theyve saw the ball cap it was a like moses parting the red sea. They let me through except for the peta woman. I was getting ready to smoke a port a pork butt because im from the south and she stopped me and i had my pork butt under my shoulder and she says, sir do you love animals . I said only if theyre deep fried and kept on going. The never bothered me after that. So it is what it is. I do believe that faith and freedom good hand in hand. And that concept, that idea, goes back to the very founding of our great nation. I tell a story in the become about a man named oliver hart, a american of the American Baptist denomination. Im a southern baptist. He was the pastor of a church in South Carolina before the founding of the nation the First First Baptist Church of charleston. In charleston theyre very particular about things so its not First Baptist church charleston. Its the First Baptist church, like the ohio state. So he was preaching comments about freedom and liberty from the pulpit. Such powerful communicator that word reached our Founding Fathers fathers and those organizing the army to fight the british to cure our freedom, and they had an idea. You see they were having troubling in those days trying to round up enough farmers and citizens to fight the british. And so they dispatched pastor hart into the upstate of the carolinas, along with several other ministers and their job was to recruit an army to fight for our freedom. I thought it was quite interesting when it came tike to fighting for our freedom, our Founding Fathers came to the church house for help. And i believe that is a lesson that we could draw from today and these very difficult days in our nation. You know nor past eight years americans have been told that we are the problem, that we are not a christian nation, we are not an exceptional nation, our traditions and our values have been ridiculed and marginalized. And have been mocked by hollywood dismissed by the academics. Bullied and be. Ed by the sex and gender revolutionaries. But all that changed on election day. With a man who promised to defend religious liberty, a man who promised to make America Great again. Now, i must confess that donald trump was not my first or my second or my third choice in the republican primaries. But on election day, he was the only choice. And i do believe that Hillary Clintons comments about that basket of deplorables, i believe that was the turning point in the election. And it wasnt necessarily the words deplorable and you might remember that moment. She was speaking to a gathering there in new york city, and she talked about the homophobic, xenophobic. It i dont think the word deplorable cause cost her he election. It was irredeemable. She was telling that people who i believe in contract traditional american val awes american sovereignty and believe in securing our border, that our belief system is so egregious that we are beyond redemption. And i think a lot of people woke up and said, wait a second. Something is not right here. And i believe that was the moment, thank you turning point that the turning opinion that put donald trump in the white house. Many conservatives understood what was at stake on election day. The Supreme Court and the lower courts were in danger of being lost for generations. Im willing to take the president at his word when he says he is going to defend religious liberty, put conservatives on the court. Ill take him at his word and i believe that he is taking steps in the right direction in these early dives his administration. And im encouraged by people like neil gorsuch, but die have a few questions about judge gorsuch, and im interested to see how the confirmation hearings will proceed. You say, why are you concern . Well, republicans have a really bad track record when it comes to putting judges on the bench. The democrats dont have this problem. They put a liberal up there me and says liberal, she stays liberal, but the republicans, theyre gavels good wobbly and i remember back when president eisenhower was asked about his worst decisions in this presidency, and he said the two worst decisions he made were sitting on the Supreme Court. So, i just am cautiously optimistic and but we all have to play a part in holding our president and our elected heres accountable when it comes to these kinds of decisions. Even though donald trump is president and even though he is doing things early in his administration that are pleasing conservatives, we still face a very grim landscape across the fruited plain, folks. And over the next few moments i want to share with you some of the concerns i have regarding the state of American Values and religious liberty. The first is the military. Under the Obama Administration, the greatest fighting force on the planet was turned into a social engineering petri dish. Received an email from an officer at Lack Land Air Force Base in san antonio. And uheight have seen my column on this story. The email told airmen to stop using offensive words. And phrases. And among the words and phrases the military officers were told to avoid saying were things like, boy, and girl, and colonial, and the list goes on and on and on. There was a training briefing a few years ago that it reported on. Officers were told that the biggest threat of domestic terrorism were not coming from al qaeda or ham mass but were coming from roman catholics and evangelical christians. Think about that. Why they were teaching these young and impressionable many and women thats is happening the local Methodist Church is akin to what al qaeda and hamas are up to. Another military email labeled, organizations Like Family Research Council and the American Family association has domestic hate groups. So i have high hopes that general mad dog mattis will route of the antiamerican and antimilitary infestation in the pentagon and i believe he will do that quickly and i hope so. We have also seen issues involving radical islam in this country. And we have seen in our Public School system where islam has been given accommodation while christianity and other religions have been marginalizes. Titanly Public Schools have been turned into Indoctrination Centers for the left and i believe and i document this in book, that our Public Schools are being used against us. Not all of them. And not all teachers are bad. Hear me when i say that. But we have enough bad teachers and we have enough bad schools that is causing a big problem in our country. I believe the reason we have seen such a massive shift on cultural issues in such a short amount of time is because of what is happening in our Public School system. What is happening on our university campuses. And those safe spaces. Among the perpetually offended generation. The issue of religious liberty, though, is a key component of my book. You see, religious liberty is our first freedom. And i contend that if you were able to chip away, able to marginalize and diminish religious liberty, eve a freedom we have is in jeopardy. Look the evidence. A pew study shows that 40 of millen reallies now believe millenials believe there should be limitations placed on free speech. 40 . Look testify attacks on those who cling to our guns. And the attempts to take our guns away. Again, i believe that once you go after religious liberty, Everything Else is up for grabs. I wrote a story and ive been following this story for quite some time, involving a sweet grandmother in Washington State. I write about her in book. She iscould be a member of the liberty bells literary society. She is a sweet, precious grandma, and inherited her flower shop from her mother. One day some longtime customers came in ask asked if some would provide flowers for their upcoming samesex marriage. And she pulled them aside and, as gentle and as graceful as a white haired grandmother could do, she chanced their hand collapses their hands and told these two young men why should could not do that. The said it would violate her religious beliefs. And then she provided these young men with several other florist around town who would do a wonderful job with their marriage ceremony. But as we know that wasnt good enough. Because, you see, in Washington State, they expect full and complete compliance. She was brought up on civil charges of discrimination and to set an example they decided that instead of just going after her business, they would go after her personally. So this woman, if she loses, the court battle, she will not only lose her business, she will also lose her home and her life savings, every single thing she had she will lose. This case has been petitioned to the Supreme Court, again, it explains why it is so important that we put conservative justices on the bench. Because of her. I talked to her and said why didnt you just provide the flowers . Nobody would have known. And she told me, over the telephone, there in Washington State dish think she was wagging her finger at me. She says,young man, who would you rather obey . God or the government . Thats a question that many people around this great country have been having to ask themselves these days. The list of people goes on and on and on. Im reminded of star just a few emergencies ol from grand rapids, michigan, a family that owns a Meat Packing Company and the usda meat inspectors came by for a visit and they were in the break room and saw some religious materials on the counter, and one of the usda inspectors became offended by those materials and they summoned the man to his office. Can you imagine that . Government agents summoning someone to their own office and their own business . And i