Good day, Thomas Jefferson Hour podcast listeners, as always, thank you so much for taking the

time to listen to the Jefferson Hour.

We do appreciate it and also we have to take a moment to thank those of you who have decided

to support the show.

We really appreciate it.

We need it and we use it judiciously.

We're glad for your support.

We take no personal income or stipend from what we do.

All of your contributions help perpetuate this conversation that we're having about America

and although it's anchored in the life of Thomas Jefferson and in the era of the founding

of the country, the early national period, that's not fundamentally what the Jefferson

Hour is about.

It's about civility, careful argumentation, playfulness, a realization that the past is

prologue that we have a unique destiny here in the United States, which is in some jeopardy

at the current time.

The letters that we get, David, are wonderful.

But the ones that I love most are those that say this is kind of an island of civility

in a world of partisan bickering and I really hope that that is the style that we present

to our listeners.

And now we're having a couple of new series in the program.

Well, you walked right into that, the partisan bickering.

That's what the conversation is sort of about this week and just to set it up for people

...