Live TV’s Comeback, UPS Cuts, GOP LGBTQ Shift, Health Warning

Foreign. The Senate buckles Trump's Brazil tariffs five Republicans cross over and the separation of powers fight takes center stage. Broadcast networks double down on live live sports and specials and must watch moments as streaming scrambles to keep up. UPS slashes 48,000 jobs to please Wall street while insisting its strategic shift will pay off. The Supreme Court weighs whether to revisit the Kim Davis saga even as today's GOP openly elevates gay conservatives to top post. And a health Wake up. Severe colon disorders are rising in younger adults. What that means for you and how to lower your risk. All that and more today on Filtered. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Hi and welcome. I'm tj. Thanks for joining me today. We're going to start as we always do, taking a quick recap on the markets from Yesterday. S&P 500 closed at 6,890.89. That's up 4. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 23,827.49, that's up 0.8%. Always keep in mind the long term here at Filtered, we want to really foster long term thinking. Over the last 25 years, the S&P 500 has gone up on average 7.4% a year. Nasdaq 100 has gone up 9.73% per year on average. So please, please keep the long term in mind. Let's hop right in to the top story of the day. Senate moves to end Trump's Brazil tariffs with rare GOP crossover so here's what happened. The Senate voted 52 to 48 to terminate President Trump's tariff, 50% tariffs on Brazil. A handful of Republicans crossed over, signaling bipartisan frustration with sweeping trade powers claimed under an emergency declaration. Now this is new. This is what's exciting. According to the Times, this is the first of three votes planned to challenge the president's tariffs on Brazil, Canada and a global rate affecting more than 100 partners. Senator Tim Kaine, the lead sponsor, framed it as a constitutional stand. He said, are we just going to allow the trade power which is handed to Congress, or the war power which is handed to Congress, or the appropriations power which is handed to Congress, or the nominations, advice and consent power which is handed to the Senate? Are we just going to allow those powers to be taken over by this president or any president? That's what Tim Kaine of Virginia said. Republican Senator Rand Paul, the sole GOP sponsor and that is significant, hammered the emergency rationale. He said, quote, emergencies are like war, famine and tornado. Not liking someone's tariffs. It's not an emergency. It's an abuse of the emergency power and, and its Congress abdicating their traditional role in taxes. Five Republicans, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, Thom Tillis and Rand Paul, joined the Democrats. The measure now faces long odds in the House, but the message is unmistakable. Congress wants its trade authority back, or at least some members of Congress. So what's the real message here? Donald Trump no longer has an iron grip on every Republican senator. Some of them are starting to fight back and saying, hey, we're the Senate. We're not lamp posts, we're not dish rags. We have a role in this whole thing called government. And that's why they are voting against his tariffs in Brazil. Let's dig a little deeper here. To be clear, this vote is, I won't say it's completely meaningless, but it's not going to have an impact because there's no way Mike Johnson is going to even allow a vote on something like this unless he knows in advance Team Trump will win. So there are a few, and I'm going to use this gingerly and lightly. There are a few profiles of courage in the U.S. senate. Rand Paul, every time he speaks up against Trump, he's inundated with hate mail, hate threats, threats on his personal freedoms and health and his family. It happens every time to really almost anyone of public note in America, but especially if you're a senator. Tom Dilles did it once and it drove him out of his seat. He had to announce he wasn't running for reelection the last time he did it, but now he feels a certain level of freedom. He's not running for reelection. Lisa Murkowski has openly talked about the fear of ever crossing TRUMP. And Mitch McConnell is now 110 years old. And by all accounts, I'm exaggerating. By all accounts, he cannot stand Trump. So this is kind of a way of sticking it to Trump. So what is the real significance here? I think it's showing some cracks in what was just an ironclad wall of support for anything Trump does regarding tariffs or anything else. I do think it's significant that not one, not two, but five Republican senators voted to oppose Trump. Now, it was a fairly safe thing to do because they know the House is is not going to pass this, but it's sending a clear message. Part of it is I think a number of Republicans are putting their finger in the wind. They're looking at the polling data and they are sensing whether it's through things like no Kings Day or other aspects of our broader culture that there is growing opposition to this administration and its attitude of breaking all norms whatsoever and doing whatever it wants. Let's look at some more of the facts of the story. Again, the vote was 48 to 52, voting to end the 50% tariffs put on the country of Brazil. This is one of a handful of votes that are going to come up on tariffs. Some of these senators have already said this is the only one where they are going to oppose Trump. But again, it is a sign. It is a signal. Mitch McConnell, the former Republican Senate leader, is backed curbing tariffs. He's warned trade wars rise costs for builders and buyers. Not a lot of disagreement there by economists, whether they are left, right or center. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, my home state, said he's only going to support the rollback for Brazil. He's not going to vote against the tariffs in other places. So again, how did this all start? This all started with Trump saying he didn't like the fact that Brazil prosecuted their former president who kind of took a page from Trump's playbook and had his own version of January 6th and tried to steal an election. And say what you will about Donald Trump, he does have an extreme amount of loyalty in one capacity. If you are a fellow dictator wannabe, if you are a fellow autocrat and you commit some aspect of criminality, Donald Trump's there for you. He does stick by you. And that's why he is sticking by Brazil or by the former leader of Brazil and trying to punish Brazil with these tariffs. So it's kind of a bizarre, bizarre situation we're in. I'll be following this closely. I hope you will be as well. A lot of, a lot more big stories to come today. Please stay tuned. Back in a moment. Want to communicate like a Pro? Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com Millions have already transformed their speaking skills. Why not you? This show doesn't run on a lot of corporate sponsorships or big media backing. It runs on caffeine and your support. If you like what you're hearing and want to say thanks, you can buy me a coffee. Really? Just go to buymeacoffee.com tjwalker it's quick, it's easy. And yes, it helps cover editing, hosting and staying relatively ad free for as long as possible. Buymeacoffee.com tjwalker your 395 makes a real difference. Welcome back to Filtered. I'm your host, TJ Walker. If this is your first time here, thanks for joining me. We are just coming up on our two month birthday here as a podcast on video and audio formats, so still relatively new. I'm having a great time. I appreciate how many of you have reached out to me to say you like the show. You like it either on a podcast platform you can listen to in your car while going for a walk. You like watching it if you're on TikTok or YouTube or any other video format. So thanks so much for all the positive feedback. As always, I'm open to your suggestions on stories you want us to cover here and your opinions and your analysis as well. This is a community. Some of you join me on my substack newsletter and people can write comments and have text debates there. Some prefer the audio, some prefer the video. I'm platform agnostic, but I do start all of this content by coming live to you. And that's the subject of our next story here. Live is the Moat TV and shopping Race Back to Real Time According to the New York Times, broadcast TV is reorienting around urgent viewing, specifically live sports and big specials, because it's the one thing streaming can't timeshift. NBC now devotes Sundays and Tuesdays to live sports. Fox is stuffing Fridays with college hoops, even MTV's VMAs jump to CBS. CBS's George Cheeks said, quote, broadcast is still the greatest reason reach vehicle. Netflix's Ted Sarandez says live has a hugely outsized impact, and NBC News Matt Strauss calls it a shared community experience. Nielsen show September broadcast viewing topped all of cable. Commerce is going live too, so it's not just the broadcast world, the Times reports. Whatnot raised $225 million at an $11.5 billion valuation after surpassing $6 billion earlier. Viewers watched 80, 80 Plus Minutes daily. Co founder Grant LaFontaine said live and social shopping fills that gap. Emarketer sees slowing growth by 2028, but the momentum is unmistakable. From primetime to storefronts. Live wins attention and ad dollars okay, so what's the real message here? Media can continue to be sliced, diced in a million different platforms, but if you have unique rights to something live sports, something exciting, something captivating, you can attract an audience no matter where you are that will always make broadcast and cable and any other platform relevant. If they can deliver interesting stuff live. Let's dig a little deeper. So here's the theory. Live equates to scarcity. Live means there's a chance that someone's dress or pants could fall off. You see something before any of your Friends do. You're a part of something, so that's a part of live. And certainly with sports there's the surprise element. It's just not that exciting to watch the super bowl or the World cup if you already know who won. So that's one reason why sporting events are so are so popular for live. But it's not just live, it's excuse me, it's not just sports. It is live selling online with that platform whatnot I talked about. They are selling tchotchkes and who knows what else. Like crazy every day. Amazon, TikTok, they are intensifying their live commerce rivalry. US live shopping nears. It's expected to near $60 billion a year by 2028. I mean that is huge. Let's look at some more facts here. Specifically we've got a situation where the World cup is going to be on Fox, broadcast live 69 matches. You're going to have more and more live events that make it impossible for people to skip ads. That's a part of the beauty as well. Viewers are watching. This is shocking to me. Viewers are watching 80 plus minutes a day on this platform. What's not Now I've never been to what's not. I'm not an expert on it, but they do live selling. Certainly anyone who's followed what's going on in China the last few years know that live selling on China has skyrocketed. There are countless people who have quit their jobs and created in entire careers selling stuff through live feeds on various platforms on on China e commerce sites. Now I've dabbled in this a little. I'm a so called Amazon influencer and I've gone live on Amazon and hawked books and interviewed guests. So it's been around but it is seemingly getting bigger. The other part is just live is really the only way to be truly interactive. Now of course it's true if you're watching this video right now, but it's a day after I recorded it, you can post a comment or a question and I try to get back to you. I might see it, I might not, I apologize. But when you're posting it live and you do have a mechanism for doing that right now, if you're watching or listening to this show live, I can see your comments and I can respond and call them out. I'm happy to do that. So feel free to do that. People like that. That's why for really important conversations you typically don't text a marriage proposal or anything else you want to talk to. The person, probably in person, if it is a marriage proposal. But if it's a really serious business deal, you're asking someone to invest a million dollars in you, it's got to be live. Now, it might still be mediated through Zoom or some other application, but you're not simply going to email a video clip of you giving a presentation asking for a million dollars. You want that ability, even if they don't take you up on it. People want the option of true interaction. You cannot do that without live. And people like seeing mistakes. There's this myth out there that everything has to be perfect, like a movie. Well, it is true. People do enjoy going to movies. And if you're a director of a movie and all of a sudden it's the big climax of the movie and a loud truck goes by, you're going to and messes up the sound, you're going to redo the take. But if it's a live football game and all of a sudden a streaker runs out on the field, you see it and everyone is sort of laughing about it, it's being commented on, it's not airbrushed out. There's a part of that that simply makes life more exciting. Now, I'm often asked by friends, colleagues, professional associates what should be the format of doing their own podcast, their own YouTube show. I do recommend doing it live. Not because you're going to get a giant, giant audience. I get 98% of my audience who either watch, listen or read the content from this show on demand later. The beauty of doing it live is for people who do show up and do participate, it creates a much stronger connection. So that's a part of it. The other part of it is it's much more efficient. If you play a football game live and broadcast it, it's over in two hours or three hours. If you make a two hour movie, you can spend a year reshooting, re editing, tweaking. It can go on and on and on. Same for a documentary. You could spend six months editing a 30 second TikTok ad if you wanted to. Or a 30 second video clip short form on YouTube. If you tell you, if you give yourself that freedom, I don't recommend that. But that's why I actually recommend, when you're creating content, do it live. Because if you do make a mistake, guess what? Most people don't care. It makes you human. I make mistakes all the time. I've made mistakes already in this broadcast. And it's only 18 minutes and 34 seconds into it. I'VE already made mistakes, nobody cares. That's all right. The other beauty of going live is it can motivate you as the speaker, as the presenter to up your game. It forces you to rehearse a little sometimes, or at least review what you want to say. Think about it. It also gives you more energy if you know, hey, people are watching you. I know right now that across various platforms that there are going to be at least 10,000 people, maybe 30,000 people who at some level are going to see or hear or read something that comes out of my mouth from what I'm saying right now. So knowing that there are tens of thousands of people who eventually will hear or see some part of this, it motivates me, it gives me energy, it gets a little bit of adrenaline going. And if I thought, okay, I'm just going to record this, see what it looks like, and if it not perfect, I'll do it again, I'd be here all day long, I might lose the energy in my voice. So that's. This is a perfect example of how I think this show is different. We try to talk about big news in the store, in the world. This is a story from the headlines about the rise of not only live broadcast tv, how well it's doing the live of online shopping, but how it relates to you. Because I know if you're like most people who watch this show or listen to this show, you're ambitious, you take your career seriously, you're working hard, you want to understand technology so that you can get ahead. And I do want to give you this tip. Think about doing something live. It could be Facebook Live for 60 seconds or TikTok Live for 30 seconds. It could also just be recording a short form video, telling yourself in your own mind, I'm doing this live and then posting it elsewhere without obsessing over it. The number one problem most people have, professional people, smart people, educated people, ambitious people, have the reason 95% of them never create content for the world and never speak to larger audiences is they never hit that on button in the first place. They never hit that camera on button the first place. They never hit that go live or that record button. I want to get you over that. I understand it can seem a little scary, it can seem a little intimidating. But if you want to record first, do 3 or 4 hit delete if you don't like them and do a fifth one that you like with to start, that's okay. But long term, I am a huge, huge fan of just go live. It allows you to connect with people. I appreciate so many of you who stop by here on a daily basis and share your thoughts and tell me what you like, don't like, what you agree with. If you think I got my facts wrong, that's great. You can be fact checked in real time, which I appreciate if you're doing it live show live streams of any sort, talking to guests live can't be fact checked in real time if it's recorded. Look, there are plenty of ways of doing it. Mr. Beast doesn't go live very often. He's still wildly successful, but he's in the entertainment realm. If you are a professional trying to talk about what's going on in your industry, your niche, your area of expertise, you're probably not going for 10 billion views the way Mr. Beast is you're probably not going to spend $5 million on a video and I don't want you to. That's the other beauty of live is it's much cheaper. You're not even tempted to spend 10 hours of editing time or hiring editors to spend 20 hours on your time. So it's often much less expensive than the old fashioned movie making way of shoot. Look at it, do it again, do a third take, a fifth take, a 20 take and edit, edit, edit. So I do want you to think about the opportunities for live creating a video content in your own life. And also understand when you find yourself watching live sports or the video Music awards show. Ask yourself why and realize you're like everyone else. People like things that are live, fresh and new. And that's what we try to be right here every single day on Filtered. Back in a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the following get the deeper takes. I don't post anywhere else. Subscribe now@substack.com jwalkersuccess and stay in the loop. For years people have asked how they could get one on one coaching from me. Inexpensively. Well now you can. Anytime, anywhere. With the TJ Walker AI clone. It's like having me in your pocket, ready to help you prep for a speech, polish a pitch, or calm your nerves before a big meeting. You talk to it. It responds like I would based on my real world coaching of thousands of leaders and communicators. Check it out at tjwalker AI. It's not just smart, it's personal. UPS cuts 48,000 jobs to appease Wall street and reshape its network. So here's the headline. UPS has eliminated 48,000 jobs in just the last year. About 70% in driver and warehouse roles as part of a profit push that sent shares up 7% on Tuesday. Pretty big jump in their stock price. According to the Times, the company reported $1.3 billion in third quarter net income on $21.4 billion in revenue, both down year over year, but highlighted a 10% jump in US revenue per package. Chief Executive Carol Tomei said, we are executing the most significant strategic shift in our company's history designed to deliver long term value for all stakeholders. Please note that she didn't say designed to create long term value for employees. More about that in a moment. She also said UPS is in compliance with the terms of our contract with the Teamsters, who previously warned they'd fight improper cuts. UPS cited tariffs, fallout China to US parcels fell nearly 30% and said it trimmed unprofitable Amazon volume. Surprise there. It's hard to make money if you deal with Amazon because that was down 21%. Even with today's stock bounce, the stock is still off nearly 25% this year. It's lagging. FedEx and the broader S&P 500. Okay, so what's the real message here? UPS, like everybody else, has found out if we fire a bunch of employees, our stock price goes up and we, the owners, the managers, the shareholders get richer. This is not a trend that's going away. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. Now, UPS famously was a place where people without college degrees could make a nice living, could get perks, benefits, get a good paycheck without having to be highly credentialed. You don't have to go to law school to get a job at ups. So they've been a backbone of a middle class economy for a long time and they're an old company. And what they are finding is very hard to compete with the Amazons of the world because Amazon does not have Teamsters contracts with its delivery people. So again, let's look at some of the facts. There have been also management reductions, 14,000 in the last year, 48,000 cuts in just the last year total. So when you reduce headcount, even if revenues go down a little, you become more profitable and you are rewarded. So am I saying this is an unbridled good thing? No, it's good for shareholders. It's not good for the 48,000 people who lost their job. So what's the real message for you or me? This is yet another sign that our economy is changing. This was one of the few places left in our economy where it was unionized and it Wasn't the government? Yes, teachers are still unionized by and large, but federal government employees are still unionized by and large. But the percentage of private sector employees in America who are represented by a union and therefore have a lot of benefits and good pay is smaller now than at any time in the last 80 years. And it's only going down. So the real message, unfortunately for you and perhaps your children or other other family members you care about is you cannot count on the Teamsters or any other union to keep your job. You cannot count on government protection to keep your job. Because companies, especially big companies every single day are going to ruthlessly try to cut cost, automate, use AI and robots, or AI robots to reduce headcount. That's just not going to stop. And there's no legislation that's going to make that stop. Certainly not in today's current political environment. So here's the ugly, ugly reality. America, we used to have a time, and this is a part of the mystique about people who want to make America great again. They want to go back to, to the 1950s, 60s and 70s where it was possible for you to be a man, typically, and typically a white man, play football in high school, not really study, barely get out of high school with maybe a C plus average and then go right into a factory job or a union job or a job delivering for UPS and down and have a nice middle class existence and keep that job for 30 years until you get a pension or enough retirement where you can have a house, your house can be paid for. Quite often your spouse didn't have to work, they didn't want to. You can have two cars. That is the reality for many Americans in the 50s, 60s, 70s. The neighborhood I grew up in, Charlotte, North Carolina, Starmount. Most of the parents there did not have college degrees yet they had a house, maybe 1800, 2000 square foot house, half an acre, two houses, two cars. Not two houses, two cars, a spouse that didn't work. And they were able to do this. They either had a unionized job, some manual labor job where their labor through hard work, physical work quite often could sustain a middle class income. I'm sorry, but those days are gone because people simply willing to do hard work. You can find those in the rest of the world, people who could not compete because of transportation and communication challenges in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. Now, whether they live in Mexico, South America, Asia, Africa even, they can compete and they can work for a lot less than what it costs to give someone a middle income. Middle class income in America. So you're losing out on one end to them. If it's just about physical labor on the other end, workers are going to lose out to artificial intelligence and robots and the combination. Certainly when it comes to warehouse, Amazon is way, way ahead. But you have to think that UPS is leveraging the power of robotic workforces more efficiently than they have in the past. And maybe the people who are already in, who have enough seniority, the Teamsters was able to fight for them, keep them from getting fired. But you have to ask for how much longer? So the real message I have to you, whether you're looking for a job or you have a job and you're worried about being replaced by a computer, is this. You've got to figure out how to add value beyond what a machine can do or what a lower cost worker in another country can do. This means, unfortunately, always learning. There was a time again when Americans could clock out. You know the Fred Flintstone, if you remember that cartoon, the bell hit five o', clock, he ran off the bulldozer which was powered by a dinosaur, and he could just spend the rest of the evening and weekends playing, relaxing, doing games, sitting in the hammock with Barney Rubble and Fred and Wilma and Betty. Those days are gone and I'm very, very sorry. There are, there are political leaders across the world in various democracies saying they're going to bring those days back. They're lying to you. They say they're going to bring back the coal miners. They're lying. Coal mining isn't coming back for many, many reasons. And all of a sudden coal mines discovered that they have 50 times as much coal in America than they thought before and it's just an inch underground. Not going to result in more coal miners. It's going to result in more robots, more machinery, more technology, more AI guidance, figuring out where's the deepest vein. It's not going to create more middle class jobs. So is you may be thinking, well, tj, you're saying, well, everybody has to be smart and go to college and get graduate degree. And that's not my message. What I am saying is you've got to figure out how is it you can do things better than what artificial intelligence or robots can do. It could mean you focus on opening an electricity, an electrician business or a plumbing business and the wealthiest part of your town. Because there's always going to be some people who think, oh my gosh, I've got a leak, the ceiling's leaking, the refrigerator is Leaking. I got a crisis. I'm going to call a plumber. I'm going to. I don't care what they charge. I don't want to walk around in 3 inches of water in my house. And you can charge a lot there. It doesn't take a graduate degree in plumbing to have your own independent contractor's business as a plumber. The trades are going to be with us at some point. Robots will be so good, we might not need a plumber. I think we're a little ways away from that. I'm trying to help you figure out what is the best career strategy for you. And I don't have a panacea. All I can tell you is if you're in a job where there are a lot of other people doing stuff just like you and you're using the same skills you used yesterday, last week, last year, or even 10 years ago, there's a good chance you're going to be fired. So that a CEO can get another $3 million bonus this year and so the shareholders can get a another 5% on their stock price. And that is capitalism. It may sound like I'm saying that's awful. It's not awful in terms of our entire capitalistic system, but it's awful for you. If you lose that job and I'm on your side and I want you to have a job and maybe you're fine, but your kids or your grandkids are trying to navigate this. There's no one easy solution. Even the old advice of go to law school or go to medical school, that's not a sure thing anymore. And the advice of major in computer science isn't necessarily the surefire ticket to success anymore. The only thing that really seems to work is to be extraordinarily aggressive at learning new skills to solve new problems people have and packaging that with the ability to communicate the value you provide and to have. Whether you want to call yourself an independent contractor, a freelancer, start your own company. That's really the only way to survive. As I see it. If you have a better solution, let me know. If you lost your job from ups, let me know what you were doing. I'd love to hear from you. I'm even more interested in knowing what are you going to do next? Because if you're hoping the Teamsters get your job back or hoping to file a lawsuit to force people to give you a paycheck, I don't think that is going to be a winning solution in the long run. I'm TJ Walker. There's more Filtered to come. Filtered is brought to you by the following you don't need a new degree. You don't need another expensive coach. You need the right communication habits. And I'll teach them to you in just a few minutes a day. @mediatrainingworldwide.com I've created the most comprehensive library of online communication and personal development courses anywhere. You'll learn public speaking, media training, persuasion, executive presence, and more. These are the same. Filtered is bright brought to you by the following. Get the deeper takes. I don't post anywhere else. Subscribe now@substack.com J WalkerSuccess and stay in the loop. Filtered is brought to you by. Sorry, brief technical glitch there again. That's live TV. That's live YouTube. It's live TikTok. There's going to be little imperfections and that sometimes is what makes things interesting. I'm not perfect here, but I'm not afraid to share with you imperfections with the show or anything else. So I want to thank you so much for joining me today. Let's hop right into the next issue. The Supreme Court of the United States. It eyes the Kim Davis case as GOP projects a new stance on gay rights and and LGBTQ issues. Here's the context. The Supreme Court will privately consider on Friday, November 7th whether to take Kim Davis's challenge tied to the Obergefell and decision and her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. This was a public official who personally opposed gay marriages. It's her right to have any opinion she wants, but she was the person in charge of issuing marriage licenses and she refused to do it. So that became a big court case. If the justices deny review, that could be announced as soon as Monday, November 10th. According to the SCOTUS blog, the 6th Circuit rejected Davis's appeal, noting government officials can't turn personal opposition into policy and that the Bill of Rights would serve little purpose if it could be freely ignored whenever an official's conscience so dictates. Seems like common sense, but apparently not now the backdrop Today's GOP leadership isn't campaigning on anti gay rhetoric the way it once did. Trump's current team includes multiple openly gay appointees, most prominently Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, signaling a party that's fighting culture wars in other areas while normalizing high profile LGBTQ conservatives in government. Whether or not the Court touches Obergefell, the politics around LGBTQ identity inside Republican power centers have clearly shifted. Okay, so what's the real message here? There is a very real prospect that this Supreme Court overturns previous decisions and makes gay marriage illegal again. Are you ready for that? But let's be clear. The Trump administration has kind of swept under the rug the standard anti gay rhetoric we've heard from so called conservatives for the last 50 years. Let's dig a little deeper here. This is fascinating at many levels because you can look at so many things the current administration has done and said, wow, it's much further to the right than anything the Bush administration did or any of the Ronald Reagan administration did. It's really pushed things to an extreme level. Not on the issue of gay rights. Interestingly enough, I'd be willing to bet you could walk down the street of your town or most towns and ask people, what do you know about Scott Bessant's spouse? 99% of and he's the Secretary of the treasury, considered by most to be one of the one or two most important positions in government in a president's cabinet. And I'd be willing to bet 99% of the people you talk to would say, I don't know what her name is. Well, it's not a her, it's a him. And it's not an issue in this government. So we're constantly told that America has shifted to the right on so many issues. Shifting to the right, shifting to the right. The issue of gay rights really is an exception. And the organizers of gay rights deserve continued praise for how they took a very strategic approach over decades, changing public opinion. Because it seems bizarre now, but as recently as the first term of the Obama administration, if you said you were in favor of gay marriage, that positioned you not in the far left of American politics, that positioned you as a part of the far left of the Democratic Party. Believe it or not, Obama had to publicly say he was against gay marriage when he ran for president and in his first term. And that wasn't really that long ago. So public opinion has radically shifted on this issue. Now the Supreme Court doesn't have to follow public opinion. They can, as we've seen recently, do whatever they want. Do they want to go ahead and basically say, all right, anyone who is in charge of marriage certificates in the country, if you don't like gay marriage, you don't have to give anyone who's gay in your community a marriage license. Do they want to go there? I'm betting not. They've got other. They've got bigger fish to fry. They've got enough controversies swirling around, but they could. I mean, that's the beauty of a lifetime appointment. You can do whatever you want. As Clarence Thomas and others clearly, well, I should say, as any Supreme Court justice relishes, you can do what you want. You don't have to follow just what's popular. You don't have to follow the winds. But make no mistake about it, supreme courts do what, whether they even realize it or not, factor in the mood of a country and the opinions of the country. Let's look at some more issues of some more people in this current administration. Richard Grinnell is special missions envoy. He's the interim head of the Kennedy center, and he is gay. And interestingly, Donald Trump loves to talk about this man's appearance, saying he really likes the way he looks on the international stage. You know, Trump, of course, always commenting on every woman's and man's appearance. Jacob Helberg is an under secretary of state. And these are all people who are publicly outed. I'm not outing anyone here. Bill White, U.S. ambassador to Belgium Tammy Bruce has been nominated to be a deputy UN Ambassador. She, she's gay. So you have to give some credit to this administration. They do not seem to be pushing the same old traditional conservative attitude, which is if you're gay, you're a sinner and you're a pervert and you're awful and you should be shunned from polite society because you didn't see previous presidential administrations, certainly Republicans, but rarely Democrats, even think of nominating someone who was openly gay to prominent positions of power. So I'll be keeping an eye on this Supreme Court decision. What happens, my prediction right now is they're going to let the previous decision stand. They're not going to open up a can of worms so that every single crackpot in every county who doesn't like something can enforce their way. So someone could say, well, you know, look, I'm the person who gives out marriage certificates. I believe only in traditional marriage. And I heard those people are living together in sin, therefore I'm not going to give them a marriage license. I mean, it really opens up so many possibilities if you just say anyone in government can make decisions on who gets certain rights because of their own personal preferences. I don't think anyone really wants to go there right now. It's too many people from all sides of the political spectrum could be harmed in that situation. We've got lots more to come today on Filtered. Don't go away. Don't, don't tune out. Don't switch to another live stream. We're live right here I'm going to show you a commercial for just a few seconds and then I'll be back live. We'll be right back after this break. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to TJ Walker.com advertise Most people can't afford a full time coach and even if you could, good luck finding one who's available when you need them. That's why I created the TJ Walker AI clone. It's built on my 40 plus years of real world coaching and training. You get my exact advice, style and frameworks instantly. Ask it how to handle a tough question. Get feedback on your elevator pitch. Rehearse your next big talk. This is the next generation of communication coaching. It's smarter than an app, more personal than a call course, and always ready. Start using it today at TJ Walker AI. You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Want to advertise to ambitious, upscale professionals who actually care about communication success and Results? Go to TJ Walker.com advertise and no, we don't take ads for crypto, supplements or junk food. If you've ever struggled with nerves, unclear messaging, or just not being taken seriously, this is for you. I created the T.J. walker Success Library as a crash course in professional level communication. You get five downloadable books for just $9.95 that walk you through public speaking, media training, persuasive communication, confidence building and daily practice routines. This is the same training I've delivered to presidents, CEOs and leaders in 45 nations, boiled down and instantly accessible. Go to tjwalker.combooks and download them now. Welcome back. I'm TJ. We're going to dive into the next issue, but first I do want to take your comments. Some comments have come in regarding the last issue that we just talked about. This one from Globalist Agenda. He says LGBTQ came from the APA Board of Trustees. I believe that's the American psychological Association in 1973 removing homosexuality from the official list of mental disorders. And that is correct. A lot of people don't realize as recently as 1973 and I was already 10 years, 11 years old. In 1973, homosexuality was listed as an official mental disorder. This divided the APA right down the middle and most churches as well. And continuing with comments. Basically all of America, I guess, divided all of America as well. So there was great division. Now there really is not that much division. Certainly there are people who still hate gay people and anyone in the non heterosexual community, I guess, is easier than saying than all the initials. So yeah, there's always going to be some hatred, but it's sort of going underground. It's no longer respectable to say that because it used to be. I mean, if you didn't like someone and you were a conservative and you disagree with their policy, the first thing that would come out of your mouth is using a slur implying that they were a homosexual, because that was considered the worst thing you could call someone. You don't hear that as much anymore. And I would say that's all in all a good thing. Let's move on to our next issue here. Severe Colon Disorders rising in younger adults. Here's what's new. According to Reuters, hospitalizations for serious diverticulitis are climbing among Americans under 50. Reviewing 5.2 million cases from 2005 to 2020, researchers found the share of under 50 year old patients with severe complications rose from 18.5% to 28.2%, a pretty significant jump. Younger patients were also more likely to need invasive treatment, with 29% higher odds of surgery and 58% higher odds of catheter drainage than older adults. The study leader from UCLA said we're seeing a significant shift in who is being hospitalized for severe diverticulitis. While overall colon surgery rates for younger patients fell over time, the trend mirrors broader worries about earlier onset. Colorectal disease treatments have improved, but the causes of the rise require further research. Reuters also notes a separate milestone in relatively healthy patients with aortic stenosis. Minimally invasive TAVR performed as safely and effectively as open heart surgery at seven years, reinforcing a shift toward less invasive care. Okay, what's the real message here? Young people are destroying their colons and they're getting divertediculitis in more severe cases than ever before because of several factors. All the junk processed food we're eating constantly is ruining our body. Drinking too much, not sleeping, not getting exercise, being obese. All of these things are destroying our colons. Let's go a little bit deeper here and look at some more of the facts, because this is sad in many respects. And I do mean this seriously, and I don't mean to sound like I'm blaming the victim. I have many friends who've had this disease, but it is largely preventable through lifestyle and it's hard to change after the fact after a lifetime of abuse. But things like eating more fiber, eating more fresh fruit, eating vegetables, maintaining a healthy weight. Oh, T.J. you're boring. Yeah, it is boring. You Know what's not boring is having to go to the hospital and get surgery on your colon. It's not boring, but that's not excitement that anybody wants. So according to health experts, if you want to reduce your odds of certainly colon cancer, as well as other colon problems like diverted ticulasis, the things you should do, first of all, start getting screening at age 45. Colonoscopy is still the best way of going about this. Do not. And this is not pleasant to talk about folks. But neither is dying of colon cancer. Don't ignore any sort of rectal bleeding or bowel changes. That is a sign you need to get checked out. There could be bigger, bigger problems. Eating more fresh fruit, more fresh vegetables, salads. And I don't mean salads with 2000 calories of gloppy sugary salt filled dressings that you get at McDonald's. I mean maybe with a little oil and vinegar on the side, eliminating not just red meat, but the processed meat, the deli meats that have all the salt, all the sodium, all the preservatives put in, do even more damage to the colon. Exercising at least 150 minutes a week. Reducing alcohol, avoiding binge drinking. By the way, these are all things to do to make you healthier. Even if you don't have any worries about your colon, you don't have a colon. These are all good safe things to do. Avoiding smoking, keep your vitamin D in a healthy range. And that means not sitting home inside staring at your phone all day long. And I appreciate you if you are watching me on a phone right now, but maybe you want to go for a walk and listen to it on a podcast format. Get some sunshine. As soon as this show is over today, I'm going to be outside getting some sunshine, walking. Although I will be leaving my phone at home because I want to have a digital detox every day. So if you have diabetes, really managing that, making your sleep a high priority and checking out your family history. I do believe if I'm not mistaken, my grandfather did have a colon cancer. Now he was 90 I think at the time of diagnosis, but it is something I mentioned when I go to the doctor every time. So know your family history. Get regular primary care visits because, because this is just not a fun thing. It's not a fun thing to talk about, but it's not a fun thing to get. And it is a shame when collectively around the world, not just in the United States, but around the world, we are a wealthier world than ever before. There are fewer people living in extreme hunger than ever before. There are more people who have some access to healthcare. And believe me, I'm not under the illusion that health care is fully accessible to everyone in America easily. But still, there's a lot of healthcare. We spend more on healthcare than any country in the world. We have more food than any place else. By all accounts, historically, that's how diseases go down and your life expectancy goes up, up, up. And yet we are seeing life expectancy go down in some years because people are destroying their body intentionally. When you eat garbage food, you don't exercise, you become obese, you live off processed food. There's so many different ways you're harming your health. The colon is one of those ways. So please, I'm not a health expert, I'm not a medical doctor, but these are ways, well known studies available to you that it's easy to get glossed over. When looking at the most recent shocking soundbite, some politician said, but it's really important to your life. And that is one of the premises of this show. I want to give you information that isn't just interesting but also useful to you and helpful to you in actually living a longer life life. So that concludes the main section of our show. Typically each day we try to look at the top five issues or five issues that I think are big are important. That could either be really helpful to you to know or that you do need to know. Then we also look at what I call grab bag issues and these are issues where maybe it doesn't dominate the headlines, but it's still important. So let's switch now to the grab bag. Truth Social rolls out real world betting. According to the afp, Truth Social will let users place event bets via a new Crypto.com partnership on elections, interest rates, inflation moves, commodities and major sports. The company frames it as a prediction markets overseen by the CFTC rather than state gaming boards. That means the gambling regulators the rollout lands AS TMTG posted $1.7 million in revenue against 51.7 million dollar loss in the first half of 2025, raising questions about monetization versus moderation and youth gambling risk. Okay, so I'm not going to bash Truth Social is somehow being the worst thing out here promoting gambling. I can't do that in good faith given that the NBA and the NFL and Major League Baseball, everyone is in bed with gambling every second of the day. And there are all these other things cashy and other prediction sites where they can say, oh, we're not gambling. We're a predictions market. It sounds scientific. It sounds like what a bunch of PhDs in mathematics from MIT do on Wall street all day long. Well, it's not. It's people like your friends, maybe you, I would say me. But this is really one area where I do stay away of gambling and making predictions. Now, these days, what's gotten so many people in trouble in the last week or so with the NBA is revelations that players and coaches were in on it and saying things like, hey, I'm going to leave early in the fourth quarter so you can make a prediction, bet on that and make money. We have gotten to the point where it is so easy to make bets on everything in life. Not just games, not just blackjack, not just online poker. But, and full disclosure, I have been hired before by casinos to do media training and by some of the world's largest online poker companies. So no one's particularly clean on this. Sorry. But I do believe in transparency with you. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and I'd like to think I'm better than that. But, you know, I do, I do teach people communication skills generally, regardless of what sort of industry they're in. If it's a legal industry, and it is legal, that's the problem. Everything is legal to gamble on now. And we're living in a world where it's not just young men, but it is especially young men who have the highest risk levels, the highest risk tolerance, who get up in the morning, they don't even have to get out of bed. They can place bets for every kind of sporting event going on. Table tennis, women's bad bet. You can place bets on everything on a gazillion apps. Then you can place bets now on Truth Social, I guess, on whether it's going to rain tomorrow and how many soybeans are going to be grown or sold tomorrow. It's betting, betting, betting. Here's the thing I do know with absolute certainty, and there's plenty of things I don't know, but here's the one thing I guarantee you. You don't know the future. I'm sorry. Now, you might guess correctly, once, twice, three times, ten times. But you don't really know the future. How do I know that? Because nobody really knows the future. There are some people who are lucky. Some are luckier than others. Some have lucky streaks. But in the long run, these online casinos, these prediction markets, they get you in the long run. That's how they can afford to run advertisements on the super bowl and the World cup. They bring in more money than they give out. And you may think you are smarter than most people and you might be, but you don't really know the future. And if you want to be wealthy, truly wealthy, my recommendation, yeah, Have a little humility and realize you don't really know who's going to win this game or beat the spread. You don't even know who's going to win the next election. Even though your gut tells you one thing and the polls can tell you other things, you still don't know if you can beat the spread. Now here's the dirty little secret most people don't even know about all the sports gambling sites. If you do win regularly, they kick you off. They have stacked the deck so that they are going to make most of the money most of the time. Yeah. Is it possible to go in, make two bets, make a thousand bucks and never bet again? Yeah. But they're counting on you liking that taste of that victory so much that you come back again and again and again until you've lost 2,000 at least, or more. And yet you keep telling yourself, oh, I'm so smart, I made $1,000 my first time. That's a huge, huge problem. Okay, this whole make a bet on everything, every second of the day is having other corrosive impacts on our society. Are there middle aged women and senior citizens who bet on and bet too much? Yeah, it happens. But it's especially a problem for teenage boys, boys in their 20s who've not yet really figured out a way to navigate their way through life. And they are bombarded all day long with images on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook saying, only a sucker works long hard hours to learn an important skill and uses that skill to help you. That's a fool's errand. That's for suckers. The smart guys are in the private planes by betting on crypto going up, by betting on some meme coin going up. Because there'll be another sucker in the Ponzi scheme to pay a higher price. So if you just buy enough crypto, if you just place enough bets on all the big games this weekend, if you just place bets on what politicians you like, who are going to win and who's going to quit eight days before the election. If you just place enough bets, you'll be rich. No need for this work stuff. You'll be in the limo, you'll be driving the Lamborghini, you'll be in the private plane, you'll have the really hot babe next to you, that's the message that America's young men are receiving, and they're hearing it louder and clear every single day. And now it's coming from Truth Social. Again, I don't mean to bash Truth Social for this issue. Plenty of other things I think are very sketchy about it, but they are now embracing online gambling. It's called it's gambling. They can say it's not gambling. They can say it's not gaming, that it's a prediction market. But isn't that what every bet on every football game is? You're predicting what happens at the end of the game. You're predicting what the final score is. So this is yet weaponized, using the most advanced technology, weaponizing the most brilliant psychologist in the world to hit people at their moments of weakness, their moments of vulnerability, giving them the dopamine hits, telling them, hey, you're smart. Hey, you can make more money than these fools doing a shift of work at the construction site or billing hours at the law firm. They're suckers. They're saps. You can make money in bed. Just place this bet here on Truth social or on FanDuel or anyone or Kalshi or a million other sites. They seem to be popping up every single day, and it is corrosive to our society. So my challenge to you is to really think about being humble. I don't believe humble people gamble or participate in prediction markets. Now, have I ever placed one coin in a slot machine? Yeah, not in the last 20 years. Just for fun and sort of for silliness. And if you tell yourself, oh, I just gamble for fun, fun, and you really do pull out some amount of money that's totally meaningless to you. Let's say it's $500 if you really like and enjoy going to a casino, going to Atlantic City, going to Macau, going to Las Vegas, and you say, I'm going to spend $500 tonight, I don't care if I lose every penny of it. I enjoy it. And to me, it's better than going to see Cirque du Soleil show. And I'm going to do it no more than once. If that's your attitude, great, do it. That's not how they build the big casinos. That's not what pays for the TV ads on the World Series or the super bowl or the World Cup. It's the people who lose their shirt who lose thousands of dollars. I mean, the amount of bankruptcies that happen every year because of betting and things like prediction markets and sports betting. It's astronomical. It destroys lives and doesn't have to. It's one thing if you have a reading disability and you're not able to make it through high school and you don't have certain credentials and you're not in able to do certain jobs that require reading, that's sad. I understand that that's a genuine defect in our current economy. Now, many people do end up with good jobs. They do things that don't require reading. But at least there's sort of a rationale for why you didn't really become wildly successful. Perhaps if that were your goal. But to go bankrupt just because you were predicting who's going to win a game or whether it's going to rain tomorrow, that to me is a true tragedy because it's 100% preventable. Just don't give your money to these prediction markets. Don't give your money to these gambling and don't call them gaming, it's gambling. Don't give them to these gambling sites and. And you're going to be a lot wealthier. Whatever money you were going to spend on that, invest it in a real business. Now real businesses can go bankrupt. I understand that, but at least they're creating something real. A prediction market isn't creating anything. It's a scam to take money out of your pocket. That's what it is. So if you want to take risk, do so. But do it where the odds are at least stacked in your favor. That is why I start every day show with not only talking about how the stock market did yesterday, but the long term S&P 500 over the long haul. The last 25 years, depending on how you calculate it, has done about 8% a year. And if you reinvest what you get every year, you can do even better. The other markets have done as well as 10%. Other indices have done 10% a year. So some years can go down. But if you invest in a basket of well known companies that actually make real products and services and have real customers and have real revenues anytime in the last 25 years, if you had just done that, you would make on average about 10% a year in the stock market at least some indices. The same cannot be said for anyone who gambles regularly on sports, games or other prediction markets. So if you take risk and everything in life is a risk, do it where the odds are stacked in your favor. The odds are in fact stacked in your favor. If you invest in real companies, especially if you diversify your risk and use some sort of Broad market index. I'm not here to give you financial advice. Don't sell or buy anything on what I'm saying. But I think I'm on pretty safe ground when I say stop gambling, stop giving money to these prediction markets. They're really preying upon human weakness and vulnerability in a way that is debilitating to our society and unfortunately to a lot of your own friends and family. I'm TJ Walker. This is filtered. I like to end our show taking your questions as they relate to personal development communication issues. That is my core area of expertise. Again, the premise of the show is I help you dissect the news of the day through the filter of communication skills and personal development skills. So when you look at all these ads, whether it's Truth, Social or NBC urging you bet, bet, bet, bet, speculate, you got to realize that's being communicated to you and you've got to fight that impulse. And you got to realize how you filter information to your own brain may be the number one determinant whether you are successful or not. So let's take a question now. This is from Wilbinson Leroy, who is a student in my online course leadership. You can speak like a leader. And if you're interested in any of my courses, you can always go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and check out the hundreds of courses there. The question is, how can I step out of my comfort zone, develop the confidence to project my voice, use effective body language, speak authentically and persuasively, and reduce filler words so I can express my thoughts clearly and naturally in any conversation. So great goal you have there. Will let me address. There's a lot to unpack there. The US and the ums I find with so many clients I work with around the world, face to face trainings, and I've worked with 10,000 executives in 45 countries. So many people are worried about the UMS and the UHS, the verbal tics, the filler words. And yet it's not really a problem for most people. You feel awkward if you do it or you see a video of yourself. But everyone does occasionally. The big issue is if you do make a mistake or you say, don't go, squint your eyes or beat up yourself or show any dissatisfaction in yourself, just smile and keep on going. If you forget your train of thought, stop, pause, keep going with another idea. Don't apologize, don't act embarrassed. That's what people do in real conversation all the time. I've done it several times today. Nobody noticed or cared. So part of it is you have to give yourself permission to be less than perfect. That's a part of it. A part of it is just do it more often. If someone asks you, where are you from? What's your favorite spirit sport? How'd you meet your spouse? For most people, it's really easy to just say it because you've said it a hundred times, a thousand times. For you to be more confident in your work world and to project leadership, you simply need to speak more often. People who golf every day or twice a week are generally better than people who golf once every three years, even though they may have received the same general training when they were young. It's when you do it more often, you're better at it. People often think of Martin Luther King Jr. As having been one of the best speakers of the 20th century, and the I have a Dream speech as being, according to some historians, the best speech of the 20th century. And what people don't realize is that was only one of more than 300 speeches Martin Luther King Jr. Gave that year in the early 1960s. Other great speakers, Bill Clinton, for example, often gives not one, not two, but certainly in his peak years and until recently, as many as five speeches a day. You build muscle memory. Anthony Robbins gives a lot of credit to his early speaking career simply because he gave more speeches. He knew a lot of other aspiring motivational speakers when he was starting out, the late 70s, early 80s, and they would give three speeches a week and pat themselves on the back for all their hard work. He would give at least three speeches a day. A breakfast speech, a lunchtime speech, an evening speech, sometimes even more. So he figured out by the by the first year, he already had a lot more experience than a lot of other so called professional speakers who've been in it for seven years or a decade. So that would be my advice to you will seek out more opportunities to speak. Because the more you do it, the harder it is to become nervous. When you're not nervous, you can actually be comfortable enough to think in front of people while you're speaking. Notice right there, I made a mistake. But if I hadn't mentioned it, you probably wouldn't remember it. Just keep going. I only pointed it out to make the point. So I want you to be a great communicator, but I also want you to realize anybody can be a great communicator. If you've ever had one interesting conversation in your entire life with one person, you already have all the skills you need. To be a great communicator in any situation. It's just certain things take us out of our comfort zone. I know plenty of people who are great giving a speech in front of 100 people, even a thousand people. But if I put a microphone in front of them and said, okay, just do a video podcast now for an hour, they'd be like, oh, I can't do that. What would I do? Where would I look? I would freeze. It's no different. You just have to get used to it. People often ask me, tj, how can you do an hour long podcast every day or a 75 minute podcast? How can you possibly do all the research? The reality is I don't do a lot of research. I do my thinking right here with you. It's a time for you and me to reflect and think. I have the ability to think on camera and to do it in coherent sentences. Guess what? Anybody could do it. You already do it when you're talking to your best friend Saturday night about the game you just saw. But for most people, you put a light in front of them, a camera and a mic in front of them and it's all of a sudden you can't think and speak at the same time. But it is a skill. I have no unique gifts or talents in this area. I've simply spent enough time doing it until it becomes second nature. And it can be to you as well. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks so much for spending time with me today. If you get any value out of today's show, please give it a thumbs up. Give it a positive review. If you're listening to this on a podcasting platform, please follow the show and subscribe to it. If you are watching me on TikTok, thank you so much for doing so. Leave Comments subscribe subscribe to my channel on any social media platform. Yes, I'm on Blue sky and Threads, but I'm also on Rumble and Twitch, so I'm all over the place because I want to reach as many people as possible. I'm here not as a political commentator, but as a sane, sensible centrist analyzing the top stories to make you more successful. Thanks so much. See you tomorrow.