Point of View April 24, 2026 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, live, this is Point of View, Kerby Anderson. Thank you for joining me, it is the Friday Weekend Edition and we are so grateful that you can join us today. Going to be covering a lot of issues, the Fifth Circuit Court upheld the Ten Commandments Law, we'll get into that. Talk a little bit more about the Supreme Court as time goes on.

[00:00:34] Southern Law Poverty Center, we certainly have a lot of things to say about that, but then do we have an out of control federal deficit, you think? And what about that? And spending controls, gerrymandering in the state of Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia, disapproval of Congress at an all-time low, 10%. Can you believe that? That's just really bad. And even some comments by Alan Dershowitz. So we have a lot to cover today. We will do our best to cover as much as possible.

[00:01:02] A little bit later, if you'd like to join the conversation, that number is 1-800-351-1212. Dr. Merrill Matthews, as well as Jeff Mateer. Jeff Mateer, of course, is the Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer for First Liberty Institute. And, of course, Dr. Matthews has been a co-host and a public policy analyst and a writer for Newsmax Magazine, for example. So quite a number of things. But, Jeff, I thought we'd go to this for just a minute. And that is we've talked about this Ten Commandments law.

[00:01:32] Candy Noble has been on the program with us as one of the people that actually pushed that through. And it seems to me pretty obvious, but nevertheless, another victory that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals looks at the Ten Commandment law and says it's constitutional. Yeah. I mean, obvious to us, but maybe not obvious to people on the left. So the Fifth Circuit this week is sitting in its entirety. So that's all 17 judges. Amazing. Sitting together.

[00:02:02] And you would think, well, first off, we did win. So the Fifth Circuit said that Texas's law, which requires schools that receive donated Ten Commandments posters, must post them in classrooms. So if someone donates posters to a public school in Texas, then they are required under this law to post them.

[00:02:26] That law was struck down by a district court in San Antonio in a just a crazy, crazy opinion. And that was appealed to the Fifth Circuit. And the whole court sitting in Bonk ruled that the law is constitutional. So then the punchline is, well, what was the breakdown? And this is what's scary, Kirby. Yes, it's nine to eight. Yes. And in that early and in that eight included some Republican appointed judges.

[00:02:53] And if my boss, your friend Kelly Shackelford was here, he would tell you. I mean, this is this is why judges are so important, because you can have even though they're appointed by Republicans, they will rule against the posting of the Ten Commandments. And now what's good is the the more recent appointees to the Fifth Circuit, the Jim Hose and Kyle Duncan's, et cetera, ruled in favor of this.

[00:03:21] And actually, it was Kyle Duncan's majority opinion that holds the day that says the posting of the Ten Commandments is constitutional. And of course, Judge Ho agreed with that and wrote his own concurring opinion. So, I mean, the short is this is this is great. A great victory. It makes sense. What's troubling is it was nine to eight because that's concerning, especially in the Fifth Circuit. You know, you expect something like that in the Ninth Circuit.

[00:03:47] Well, I mean, on this and I mean, on this issue, I would even think that you should get some of the Democrat appointed judges. And as Judge Duncan points out and as Judge Hose pointed out in the past, I mean, there's nothing more central to our American tradition than the Ten Commandments. And so if you accept the left's argument, it would be religion has to be purged from public schools and and you can't teach what is such an essential element.

[00:04:17] And our view of First Liberty is and I think it's the Supreme Court's view is that's all nonsense, because if you look at the original understanding of the First Amendment, it clearly did not require the purging of religion from our public society. It does not require the purging from our public schools. One of the things that has been taking place this week is America reads the Bible. And that has been at the Museum of the Bible. And President Trump even had a special statement about one of the first laws from America was the Northwest Ordinance.

[00:04:46] This says religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. Yet this idea of posting the Ten Commandments in the classroom, Dr. Matthews, is enough to cause many people to decide that it's time to take them off the wall. You know, so I'll ask you a question, Jeff. Is this does this apply to just the Ten Commandments?

[00:05:11] Or could another group come up from another religious background and say, if we have the Ten Commandments here, we can post something else from our religion? No, the law applies to the Ten Commandments. What the legislature did, the Texas legislature did was permit if someone donates Ten Commandments posters and the law says what type of posters are permissible, then they must be posted.

[00:05:36] It does not apply to other things. And this is where I would go back to and sort of like, well, what's I mean, what's to prevent someone from posting? Because we have this issue of if it's Christian, if a Christian club gets to meet in a school, then we have to let a Muslim club or an atheist club or others. So that's been the debate in the past. Yeah. And this is this is deemed to be government speech. The government can choose its speech and it can limit its speech. And in this case, it's grounded again in history and tradition.

[00:06:05] Well, there is a history and tradition of American society represent recognizing the importance of Ten Commandments. And so, I mean, it doesn't open the door to anything. It doesn't open the door to anything. And I think it was cool is in this case, I mean, we're proud at First Liberty because the opinion cites four of our cases. And so we kind of and Kelly and I, Kelly Shackford and I were reminiscing and said, you know, what if there hadn't been a Coach Kennedy case?

[00:06:35] Well, if there's no Coach Kennedy's case, there is no Fifth Circuit case defending the Ten Commandments. And so it's kind of neat. And again, a tribute to Coach Kennedy for willing to stand up. But, you know, we got three other cases and what's not a long opinion that support that. One of the things that I thought was interesting is, as you said, there were some Republicans that said, well, maybe that's not appropriate. I know when this was being debated, Representative James Tallarico had real reservations and he is a seminarian.

[00:07:03] So he said, well, I don't think we should post the Ten Commandments. And I believe he's running for office these days. I mean, yeah, he is. But I really question where he went to seminary sometimes based upon some of his public statements. I know this. He's not a constitutional lawyer, so he has no sense of that. And, I mean, the argument that the left makes is that somehow careers his children. Well, you know, again, this is the Ten Commandments. What's the basis of our law? And what's the worst thing?

[00:07:31] They're going to look up and they're going to say, what does it mean not to steal? What does it mean not to lie? What does it mean not to commit adultery? I mean, I hope my teachers can answer those questions. Well, anyway, I just thought it would be a victory that a lot of people maybe had not heard about. And certainly is the case. And as I mentioned just a minute ago, this last week has been America Reads the Bible. And that has been where all sorts of individuals, including the President of the United States,

[00:08:00] and a veritable who's who of individuals that went to the actual Museum of the Bible and indeed quoted that. And at the time when some people are wondering whether or not it would be possible to post the Ten Commandments, I remember back not so long ago, I guess some of us old enough to remember, in 1983, Ronald Reagan called it the year of the Bible. So certainly that is the case. We'll come back, though. Just another comment or two about the court.

[00:08:26] Earlier this week, we had a guest on that was spent some time talking about the speech by Clarence Thomas. And I thought just piece that Kelly suggested, the war on the court continues. We might talk about that. And then on to the Southern Poverty Law Center and all sorts of other very interesting things coming up. We'll be back right after these messages.

[00:09:00] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Artificial intelligence poses a problem for the Chinese Communist government. That is why Cameron Berg wrote in the Wall Street Journal that AI is bound to subvert communism. Now, in China, AI needs to pass an ideological test. If the chatbot fails those tests, they are quietly pulled from circulation. These large language models pull information from a vast array of human knowledge, such as science, history, and philosophy.

[00:09:28] They must follow logic and use critical thinking skills. Cameron Berg explains that you have a system that has absorbed enlightenment epistemology as a byproduct of learning to model human reasoning. That includes honest inquiry and logical consistency. That is why China has heavily censored chatbots, because the leaders cannot allow thought outside of the Communist Party's ideological boundaries. When a team of European scientists stripped the censorship from the AI model entirely,

[00:09:55] they found that the underlying system answered freely about every topic Beijing had tried to suppress. AI poses two problems for China's leaders. For decades, the Chinese government has used the Great Firewall to screen information from the outside world. This has included blocking websites, filtering search results, and monitoring social media. These AI tools threaten their ability to continue to screen information.

[00:10:20] Second, there is the obvious performance gap between Western models and Chinese models, at least on politically sensitive questions. Cameron Berg concludes, You can't build a mind that thinks rigorously about everything except the things you'd prefer it not to. AI development in China will fall behind simply because it won't be allowed to honestly deal with reality. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:49] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes. Since we've been talking about the court, I thought we would for a moment talk about the Supreme Court.

[00:11:10] And this last week, we had Justice Clarence Thomas, who is on the way to maybe eventually becoming the longest-serving person on the Supreme Court. But he spoke at the University of Texas at Austin. And I just thought for a minute I'd do a real quick roundtable comment or two from Jeff and Merrill, because he contended that the early part of the 20th century, the progressivism,

[00:11:33] and we're talking about, of course, Woodrow Wilson and many others, Christopher Kendall Langdell, and all sorts of other individuals at that time, certainly all were, in a sense, developing a worldview that denies some of the key principles of the Declaration. And he said it was the court that was one that was pretty congenial, the World War II generation. But when asked about the current court, he made a real difference between,

[00:12:03] we used to get along pretty well, and we don't now. And here's one of his quotes. I think this generation of kids, they're in a different world. It's the world of Marxist political theorist Herbert Marcuse, who would be happy with his own tolerant view that the people who disagree with you are your enemies. And, of course, then this piece goes into what happened when the Dobbs decision was leaked before it was actually given, and a variety of others.

[00:12:28] And so, in some respects, I think Clarence Thomas is saying the court had a little bit more congeniality than it has now, and you can kind of sense that sometimes in some of the oral arguments, can't you? No, you very can. You very much so can, and especially on the far left wing of the court. I mean, Justice Jackson, who we now know speaks the most in argument, she clearly has an agenda, and it's the agenda of the left.

[00:12:58] Sotomayor is not far from her. I think Kagan's put in a place where, I mean, she's strategic and smart, but then she's left with, you know, the two people on the left who are not being smart and not strategic. I do, and I think, you know, Justice Thomas spoke at the University of Texas in a wonderful long talk, and then including answering questions from the audience and from the moderator,

[00:13:25] and just a beautiful, I mean, it just makes you, obviously, as a conservative, love Clarence Thomas. I did think, and so this is a history lesson for us, I mean, yes, the court is that way, but isn't everything that way? I mean, if you think about it. Of course. Isn't our society less congenial? We've got to, I mean, think about Congress. I mean, I remember, I mean, I remember, you know, Ronald Reagan would call Tip O'Neill, and Tip O'Neill would come to the White House, and they would hammer something out.

[00:13:56] It doesn't seem like Congress anymore, I mean, are you going to AOC to the White House to hammer something out, or work deals? So I think our society is more divisive and more just at odds. I think if I'm correct, Ruth Bader Ginsburg used to have dinner with Anthony Snelli. Yes, yes. Very true. And they enjoyed each other company and had dinner together and so forth,

[00:14:22] and just they disagreed on an awful lot of things, but they were able to work together. And, you know, I've mentioned here, Kirby, a couple of times, I was on the Texas Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for 17 years, and I was the chair as a term limited out last September, but we had roughly eight Democrats, eight liberals slash Democrats and eight Republicans slash conservatives, and we got along great because we picked issues that we could work on,

[00:14:49] but we never had a problem that you would see now in so many areas. So it can happen, but I don't know that it does happen much anymore. I think we will probably do some interviews. Of course, you're talking about doing one with Molly Hemingway, right? And, of course, I just saw an interview the other day on Last Branch Standing, which was looking at some of the court cases. So the point is, is that, Jeff, we're going to have to recognize that more and more,

[00:15:16] especially since the courts have to take on issues that the legislature, in particular Congress, doesn't want to address, they're quite content to push abortion and busing and tariffs and just about everything. And so the Supreme Court, it just becomes more and more important every year, doesn't it? It does. And then you've got, you know, everyone takes their position, even as a Supreme Court justice. I think the big thing that's happened most recently is the leak of the Dobbs opinion.

[00:15:47] Yes. There's no longer any trust. Yes. And I think, and you mentioned Molly Hemingway, her book, she has a new book out that came out this week on Justice Alito. And in that book, she talks about just that completely, because you know it was someone, it was either a justice or it was a law clerk.

[00:16:15] And they don't know. I mean, is what the official word is. Now, the official word is they couldn't make conclusions. They do have some suspicions. Of course, we don't know their suspicions. And there were some at the time, I mean, there's some, I mean, the liberal justices have put as law clerks just some wackos. Yeah. And that's a Latin term, if you didn't know that. I learned that in law school. I learned that in law school. Wacko us. You have to have a Latin name.

[00:16:45] That's right. That's right. Or I. Wacko-ee. Wacko-ee. But, and so there's some speculation about them. But then there's also some, some really good strong that it perhaps was a justice. And I have to wonder, you know, during the Biden years, we had the Democrats, especially in the Senate, just attack the Supreme Court time after time, accusing them of doing unethical things, of just parading things, pushing things through,

[00:17:13] and wanting to do several things, pack the court, impose term limits and other things of that nature. And I wonder if that just sort of settled in and made it harder to be on the Supreme Court, made it harder for them to be able to work with each other. I think it's really hard. And you hear the stories about the attacker who is now in jail, who went after Justice Kavanaugh. I mean, we can't say, oh, that was, no, that, that like was a real thing.

[00:17:38] He could have been assassinated, which then would have changed an opinion of the Supreme Court. And the fact that, and I think this is the breakdown of the trust, the fact that Kagan Sotomayor and Jackson slow played the dissents instead of getting it out, and that Roberts wouldn't publish the opinion right away because these guys were really, their lives were being threatened. And it was real. It wasn't just words. It was serious threat.

[00:18:07] So think about it. You're working on it. And we're, so colleagues are taking actions and either they have done it or their clerks have done it, which, which not only threaten your, your, your judicial opinion, but they're actually threatening your life. So I get why they don't get along. One of the things I'll bring up, given the importance of the Supreme Court, there has been discussion over the past few weeks that maybe Justice Alito or Justice Jackson, excuse me, Thomas should, can go ahead. Justice Jackson should resign.

[00:18:37] I support that 100%. So they're in Kagan as well. And Roberts. And let me just say, Roberts should go too. And if you read the book, you will not be a fan of Chief Justice Roberts. Go ahead. Sorry. One of those two of the oldest justices right now should go ahead and consider resigning so that you have a president who could appoint somebody new

[00:19:00] and you still have a Senate that is run by Republicans so you could get it through at least up to January of next year. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, that's it's a great it's a great it's a great question. If if I if you would allow Kelly Shackelford to pick the next Supreme Court justice, I'm for either one, either Thomas or Alito retiring.

[00:19:22] The problem is Justice Thomas and Justice Alito are by far our best justices who think and believe the way we do as conservative Christians. And I will tell you, reading Molly Hemingway's book, I my conclusion was that is I want I want Justice Alito to have a long life and to serve on the court. He's seventy five, I believe. I think he's seventy five, maybe seventy six. Just a youngster. Yeah.

[00:19:53] And but I get I mean, my my fear would be that Justice Alito comes off the court and and and and Donald Trump does not make a good pick. The other problem is you could have the Senate becoming Democratic next January. You could have a Democratic president come two thousand twenty nine. You could be looking at at least six years before there is a chance to nominate.

[00:20:16] And if just if the health of Justice Alito or Thomas were to fail in those six years, then you might have a somebody else like Kentucky Jackson being appointed. Yeah, I wouldn't want a Jackson. And I certainly wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't want another David Souter. For sure. And sometimes it's unexpected. Remember, Antonin Scalia is out there hunting and doesn't wake up. So we'll leave it at that. We come back, though.

[00:20:44] Let me talk about the Southern Poverty Law Center formed fifty five years ago with a noble cause to fight things like the Ku Klux Klan to advance civil rights. Gary Power pointed out something about later when some of the individuals that were more interested in attacking conservatives that a lot of the legal staff resigned. I've forgotten about that. But it then began to be something that is attacked.

[00:21:09] Alliance Defending Freedom Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council. Certainly a variety of others. Turning Point Moms for Liberty American Family and many others. So we'll get into some of the great revelation this week about the SLPC right after this. Who can you trust?

[00:21:36] Years ago, many of us could probably have provided a fairly long list. But today, well, today it seems we almost can't trust anyone. Educators don't even know what a woman is anymore. Many so-called public servants have shown all they care about is themselves. The FBI has been accused of bias, law-breaking, betrayal, and journalism.

[00:22:00] It's largely corrupt with no Clark Kent standing up for truth, justice, and the American way. All of this is why Point of View Radio is more important than ever. And your part in supporting us is more needed than ever. Do your part today in supporting trustworthy truth. Stand with us and help push back the lies and the darkness. Visit pointofview.net. Don't put it off.

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[00:22:54] You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kerby Anderson. Back once again in studio with us, Jeff Mateer, Merrill Matthews.

[00:23:19] And talking about the Southern Poverty Law Center, of course, an organization that we've known about for some time. Done some different programs on it. But just to make the case that, again, an organization that's been around for 55 years now is facing indictments. We'll go into some of the details. But the connection between the last conversation and this one I think is significant.

[00:23:40] Because as we pointed out, when Justice Alijo's draft came out, then you had an individual on June 8th that wanted to try to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh because he disagreed with what could actually come down from the Supreme Court. And if you are familiar with the fact that there have been the hate maps posted, one of the hate maps identifies the Family Research Council.

[00:24:08] And if it weren't for the fact that you had a security guard, the goal there was to kill off as many individuals at the Family Research Council. So when you have this hate map that lists Alliance Defending Freedom and focus on the family and American Family Association, Family Research Council, Turning Point USA, Moms for Liberty, and many, many more, you can see there's some danger. So, Dr. Matthews, you've been following this for some time.

[00:24:36] The Southern Poverty Law Center at one point may have done some good work, but for many years now it seems like pretty much a money-raising operation. Well, we do need to change their name to the Southern Very Wealthy Law Center because they have a lot of money back there. And it's not clear that they actually achieve a lot other than the fact that the media go to them to find out who they support. But I have to go back. I mean, Morris Dees, I think, was a person who founded the group.

[00:25:01] What was this, about seven, eight years ago, he ended up getting forced out because he was being abusive to employees, using racial slurs, apparently getting friendly with some of the female employees there, and they forced him out. You just see these kinds of things. So many of these groups, Black Lives Matter and others, that come up and say, we're doing this great work out there for racial justice, and you find out there's people there taking huge salaries,

[00:25:28] doing all kinds of things, benefiting themselves, but not necessarily achieving the goal that they said they were going to achieve. Well, again, one of the things that we've talked about before, certainly, Jeff, is the fact that the previous administration, not this one, the previous administration oftentimes used SLPC, the Southern Poverty Law Center, to identify individuals that they would go against. And some of the hearings that you were having that Kelly Shackelford was a part of illustrates, again,

[00:25:58] that many times this got weaponized, didn't it? It certainly did. And one of the best examples is in our military. I mean, we were part of helping to uncover some of the training that under the Biden administration, in which we got people gave us slides that identified groups like Family Research Council and Alliance Defending Freedom and others as hate groups. And, of course, that came from the SPLC.

[00:26:26] And I think, I mean, the Bible verse that comes to mind is you reap what you sow. And it is, I mean, this is shocking. I mean, it's shocking to me. Go into the details. My head's about to get, my head's about to. Wayne, for your head to explode. Yeah, this is an explode. So this is a trigger warning for everyone. I mean, they were giving money to Nazis.

[00:26:50] They were giving money to the Klan, the Southern Poverty Law Center, who fights against racism. A historic. A grand wizard, I think. A historic grand. And they're giving $1 million to one of the leaders. Not just covering expenses. No, $1 million. $1 million to the leader of the Klan. Does that look like a scam to you?

[00:27:15] I mean, it's just, I mean, it's like, I mean, I probably shouldn't admit, it's like Borat. I mean, I don't know if you probably never saw that movie. But remember, he goes, I mean, it's like, I mean, it is just like, this is the most ridiculous thing. And then, I think is what the response has been, oh, no, you're crazy. We didn't engage in this activity. No, it's like, yeah, we engaged in it. But our position is it's not illegal.

[00:27:47] And I don't, and quite frankly, I haven't looked at, I mean, I know about the wire fraud. That's probably the best claim that they have against them. But regardless of whether the legal claim, this is, I mean, what kind of private group, I mean, First Liberty does not have informants. I mean, and I asked a couple of the colleagues this morning, should we have informants? I mean, should we like pay somebody at the Freedom From Religion Foundation to give us information?

[00:28:17] I mean, it just blows my mind that an organization like this, but you bring the biggest point is it's because they have so much money. And for so long, probably up until yesterday, they've had so much power. Yes. And so when you have an administration who basically runs everything by them, like the Biden administration did and the Obama administration before it, then it's, you know, pride goes, another verse, pride goes before the fall.

[00:28:45] I mean, they've gotten so big and so strong and they're so powerful. They think they can do anything. And therefore, that's what they think they're above the law. Right. And just so our listeners understand, if you're on the left, people on the right have similar kinds of things, groups that they want to try to make sure. Back in the 90s, Christian Coalition was an extremely powerful group. I would sometimes visit with a member of Congress about something and they'd say, have you talked to them to see if they're supportive of it? Because if you've got sign-off from some major groups, then it's helpful for them, for the members of Congress.

[00:29:15] But the Christian Coalition wasn't funding Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I just said they had this on both sides. But it's amazing that what they've done here, and it'll be interesting to see the legal aspects of it, because they created shell companies so that the head of the Klan couldn't get a check from these other poverty laws there. So what if Tucker and Candace are getting money? Yeah. Are they sending money? And that's probably a light-up. Well, they're all getting money.

[00:29:45] They're all getting money. They may be getting more money than the sovereign, very wealthy law center has now because they're getting so much. But it's interesting to see what happened. And I think one of the arguments they had made, you could say if you had somebody who was just a member or somebody noncommittal sort of going in and listening in and coming back and telling them, but they were funding some of the leaders of these various groups. Yeah. I mean, that's a million dollars. Mm-hmm.

[00:30:14] I mean, it's a comedy. I mean, right? This is like a Borat movie. Yes. And his – I mean, but everyone would say, well, that's ridiculous. That's not even funny. It's so ridiculous. I mean, the S would never give money to a right-wing organization. Oh, yes, they did. Oh, yeah, they did. Yep. And again, I mean, we're talking about National Socialist Party, the Imperial Wizard of the United Clans of America, the former chairman of the Neo-Nazi National Alliance. That's $3 million right there.

[00:30:43] Of course, they have enough because the estimates are $90 million in offshore accounts linked back to $90 million. Okay. In offshore accounts. They've got several hundred million, I think, in their bank account. Yeah. And they bring in an excess of $100 million a year and are endowment of $780 million. That's where that number comes from. So I'm just – And corporate – I mean, the big donors are corporate America. Right.

[00:31:11] And so, I mean, you know, all right, corporate America, here's who you donated to. You're funding the head of the Klan. But that's buying. You're buying the head of the Klan. Well, but with SVOC, I mean, these large companies sometimes give it to these companies so that they don't end up getting on the front page. That's right. Yes. That's absolutely right. But again, back to the point. Some people wonder, and this article we've posted for you to read, and you can read it for yourself.

[00:31:39] I'm not sure it's criminal, but the government's theory is, at the very least, it's defrauding its donors by failing to reveal the fact that this donor money was going to the list I just gave you a minute ago. $3 million dispersed to the white supremacists alone in 2015 to 2024. Again, I gave you those numbers real quickly, but let me do it one more time.

[00:32:01] $90 million in offshore accounts, $780 million in endowment, and bring in more than $100 million a year. And that is just breathtaking, especially when, at the very least, this is going to be very embarrassing. And just imagine, I can't imagine too many conservatives give to this, but I suspect a lot of liberal progressives do, saying, wait a minute. I could have been giving that money to some particular congressional campaign or presidential campaign. I thought you were doing some good work, and you're not at all.

[00:32:31] And, you know, with $780 million in endowment, you could live off basically the interest on that. I mean, you could have a very well-funded organization and not have to go out and ask for any money. So, anyway, it is something that has really gotten everybody's attention for very good reasons, and we have talked about it before. But just incredible indictments, and we wanted to cover that. And just as we go to a break, one of the other ones I thought about posting, but you can find this.

[00:32:57] There are so many memes out there, but you might look at Matt Vespa, Katie Pavlich, you know, I love this one. America wasn't racist enough for the SPLC to keep raising money, so SPLC decided to start sending funding to Stoke Racism and keep that alive. And then you have all sorts of pictures and memes and everything.

[00:33:21] This probably will end the possibility of them to raise a whole lot more money, but with $780 million in endowment, as Dr. Matthews points out, that could last quite a long time. Well, let's move on. There are just so many other topics, and we had a vote this week about gerrymandering in Virginia. I had to get some people's heads explode on that one, too, so we'll be right back.

[00:34:00] What should American universities do to get their good reputations back? Surveys show Americans are losing confidence in higher education. The late Charlie Kirk famously recommended against going to college. Gallup polling done last year found only 42% of Americans expressing a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in higher education. According to the Wall Street Journal, confidence has fallen especially hard among conservatives, many of whom believe universities give priority to social justice over the pursuit of knowledge.

[00:34:29] The journal published an article on the findings of an internal study done at Yale University that calls for changes to address everything from perceived political bias among faculty to opaque admission standards and crushing student debt. The journal points to the report's finding that across top schools within Yale, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 36 to 1. The report recommends that the university scrutinize the diversity of perspectives offered in curricula, hiring, and admissions.

[00:34:56] The rancor that's rising in our culture is due in part to radical indoctrination at our universities and our school's failure to teach America's founding principles. The committee that produced the Yale report recommends the school requires civics education for all first-year freshmen. Yale is not alone among universities in being seen as an intellectual echo chamber. Pursuant to a state law passed in the last legislative session, large universities in Texas will be implementing dramatic changes along these lines over the next five years.

[00:35:24] Texas Tech and Texas A&M are also emphasizing high ROI degrees and closing out low-value studies degrees. They are eliminating faculty senates, a form of shared governance that began in the 1950s and that has been instrumental in encouraging radical student activism. University presidents will play a lead role in directing civil literacy initiatives. Until 60 years ago, every university required civic education. Every college and university should bring it back.

[00:35:53] For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, we're going to be talking for just a few minutes at least about what's been happening in Virginia. This is gerrymandering or redistricting. Now, we've said this before, but we'll say it again. I really wish we did not have gerrymandering, but I live in the real world.

[00:36:19] But then this mid-decade gerrymandering has gotten out of hand, as we all know. But here in the state or the Commonwealth of Virginia, this particular meffrendum passed 51% to 48%, so it just barely passed.

[00:36:35] But what it does is it moves the potential of a 6-to-5 congressional set of seats to a 10-to-1 with some of the most creative kind of modern art restructuring that you can possibly imagine. I remind you that Donald Trump won Virginia, or didn't win Virginia, but got 46% of the vote. Republican candidates get about 47% of the vote.

[00:37:02] So to move from 6-to-5 or even 7-to-4, okay, 10-to-1, I just think it illustrates this. And this is because you have the newer governor, Abigail Spanberger, who ran as a moderate and immediately got about as liberal as you can imagine. And Barack Obama the other day hailed Virginia's standing up for our democracy when it moved from a 6-to-5 to 10-to-1. Merrill Matthews, speak to that issue for a minute.

[00:37:31] So I had to ask, did somebody not tell President Trump, before we started saying Texas needs to redistrict, that Democrats are much, much better at this than Republicans are. Yes. And when President Trump came out and encouraged, let's say encouraged, if not ordered Texas to redistrict, I thought, you know, there's blue states out there that might be able to do this even better than Texas could, and California is in the process of it, Virginia is doing this.

[00:38:00] We'll see if a judge upholds this now. I think they're going to challenge this, but the Republicans are. But, my goodness, you could end up with, before this is all said and done, you could end up with more Democrats benefiting from this redistricting in various states than Republicans, all in an effort for Trump to try to win, to keep the House Republican. I don't know. Again, there is a possible gain in Utah and Missouri and a few other places, but, you know, it might be a wash, but it could go the other direction. It could go either direction.

[00:38:29] I think it's going to go the other way. And I think the point you make, Dr. Matthews, is exactly on point because who gave President Trump this idea that this was a good idea? And not to think Democrats are so much, but first off, they're more unprincipled. Yes. And so Republicans at least have tried to stay with some – and if you look at what Texas did, I mean, it's defensible.

[00:38:59] What Virginia did is not – it's not – I mean, I would encourage the listeners, look on the article, look at the maps and look what they've done. This is the most creative one I've ever seen. Yeah. Yeah. This is like modern art. The problem is – well, the courts will strike it down. Well, we've been the ones arguing that you can't – you know, just – politics is fine. It's just you can't have – you can't do redistricting based – that have improper racial motives.

[00:39:27] And so if this – if there's no evidence of improper racial motives and the impact is such, I mean, this isn't going to affect minorities negatively. I think it's going to be – and I get there was a ruling in the court stuff, but I think it's going to be really hard for a court to strike this down. I hope I'm wrong, but I think it's going to be really hard. The result is we aren't going to catch up. Right. And this is going to – I mean, I think we were going to lose the House anyways. Yes.

[00:39:57] But now we could lose the House, and it could be a pretty wide margin in how the House flips. I mean, we could talk 20, 30 seats. And to your point, the Supreme Court currently allows you to redistrict for political reasons but not for racial reasons. Correct. So what happens when they did it in Texas, the Republicans said this is all political, and Democrats said, no, it's racial. And then when they went to California, Democrats there said this is all political, and Republicans said, no, it's racial.

[00:40:27] Yeah. And that's what they'll say here in Virginia. And that's what they'll say here in Virginia. But this is – I mean, this map is crazy. And I – again, I don't know who in the White House advised the president to start this and not realize where the end game is, but that person should not be in the White House anymore. Let's talk about the referendum for a minute. Why a referendum? Well, it turns out that the previous vote actually established an independent group.

[00:40:53] And that's something that exists in a lot of these blue states and some of these purple states, which sort of takes it out of the hands of the legislature. So that's why the referendum had to pass, because they were actually going to a point – and again, back to the whole issue. I wish we didn't have gerrymandering in the first place, because what this does is it makes everything even more politicized.

[00:41:16] As I've said before, the voters choose their senators, but the members of Congress choose their voters, because you draw the districts for Congress and even for the state legislatures. And so this gerrymandering is so that we can have safe districts. And so it's even less likely that you're going to vote for and elect certain moderates. We were lamenting the fact that Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan and others used to get along, and the Supreme Court used to get along.

[00:41:45] We are, because of this gerrymandering, have more politicization, don't you think? Yes. And because, to your point, the safer you make the district, the more likely you are to get to somebody who's hardline either right or left, depending on what the district is safe for. Right. So instead of getting people who are some districts that could go either way, where you get people who are a little more moderate in there and are willing to work with other people and so forth, that starts just being pushed aside because you've got safe districts.

[00:42:13] So I, as a Democrat or as a Republican, can sort of support anybody and do anything I want to do because the district is safe, and they're going to keep me in Congress. Yes. Well, and you see some of the members of Congress right now, which we'll get to the disapproval of Congress later. And yes, how did they get elected? Because they're running in safe districts. And I said this years ago, and I think it is still true, that the re-election rate is by percentage higher for Congress than it is for the Soviet Politburo when it existed.

[00:42:43] And there is something, sadly, about the fact that many of these elections are not even competitive anymore. Well, and it does, and it pulls, and when that's the case, I think it pulls people to the extremes. Right. And so we're going to have, we will have more, what we just talked about on the last thing, where we're going to have more divisiveness because you've got the two extremes. You have more AOCs and more, what's it, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

[00:43:12] Marjorie Greene Taylor, I get it. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marjorie Taylor Greene. You've got the two extremes. Marjorie Taylor Greene. And because we know in primaries generally are lower turnout. And so you have, you have that going on. I mean, this again, I mean, I think you mentioned the numbers, but so GOP candidates won about 48%. This now gives them 9%. Yeah. I mean, just look, that's thinking. Yeah, just think that. I mean, is that fair? Is that fair? But, you know, and again, Donald Trump started this.

[00:43:40] I mean, it's, I mean, we shouldn't be doing, we should not be doing redistricting in the middle. I mean, I get it after a census, you have to do it. Right. There's no reason. I mean, we should not have started this. And again, I don't think how, I mean, how they didn't think this wouldn't come back to hurt them. Because you've got Illinois, you've got California. I don't know if Virginia was even on the radar. Because when you think about it, Virginia is a purple state.

[00:44:10] Right. But this was the only one. Remember, Glenn Youngkin was the last governor who was a Republican. And the last lieutenant governor was a Republican. And attorney general was until this last cycle. There you go. We're going to take a break. Rick, let me just mention that we've been encouraging you on our Take Action to Support the Safeguarding Women from Chemical Abortion Act. And that is a piece that was introduced by Senator Josh Hawley. And we've talked about that before. So we certainly would encourage you if you haven't taken action on that.

[00:44:37] But if you find yourself saying, well, you've been talking about a lot of issues here. And we have posted at least those first four articles. And if you would like to read that. And as Jeff pointed out, just take a look for a moment at the previous 2024 districts. And then compare them to the 2026 districts. And try to, with a straight face, say, oh, that seems fair. There's just no way you can come to that. We come back from the break, though.

[00:45:04] Dr. Merrill Matthews has talked about out-of-control federal spending and out-of-control federal deficit. We have some other very important topics related to that coming up right after these important messages. Where does moral truth come from? According to 58% of Americans, individuals determine moral truth. A quarter of Generation Z says society determines moral truth. And morality can even change over time.

[00:45:30] Only 42% of Americans believe that truth comes from God. I don't know about you, but I find these numbers extremely troubling. It really is a crisis of truth. And that crisis has consequences. Look at society. Evil is called good. Good called evil. People with biblical beliefs are called bigots. Or worse, they're canceled. But there is hope. The Bible promises the truth will set us free.

[00:45:57] And that's why Point of View is relentless in our commitment to the ultimate source of moral truth, God's Word. At Point of View, we know that God's truth is eternal. And if we stand together, we can help more Americans apply His truth in their daily life. Help Americans find truth again by giving at pointofview.net. Or call 1-800-347-5151. That's pointofview.net.

[00:46:26] And 800-347-5151. Point of View will continue after this. Across America. Live. This is Point of View.

[00:46:59] And now, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. And, of course, we've covered quite a number of issues, and those are still fair game. But we thought we would also look at the economic issues for just a few minutes. That is something that we've been talking about more and more because of out-of-control spending, as well as some of the impact, first when we had the pandemic and the lockdown and the rest.

[00:47:26] And so we have a piece by Dr. Amir Matthews, which is from the May issue of Newsmax. If you get their magazine, you probably can see it there. But we also have a link to his X file there where you can read it. Out-of-control federal deficit faces funding calamity. And then I found a piece by Veronique Derugy. We haven't had her on in a while, but probably need to get her back on. America has a spending problem, yes, but also America has a health care problem. And Dr. Matthews is an expert in that.

[00:47:55] So they are very related. But let's take yours first. I think most people, if you were to ask them how much is the government in debt, most of them would be close. They'd probably say $38 trillion, $39 trillion. They might know that. But you get us into the details on how much is owned by the public, how much is owned by federal governments, how much is intergovernmental debt. And we never like to talk about it.

[00:48:20] And most members of Congress never want to talk about it, which is why we're talking about it today here on Point of View. Help us out. Yes, well, we just crossed over $39 trillion in federal debt. If things continue as they are going, we'll be over $40 trillion by the time of the midterm election. President Trump has said he's been reducing the deficit. He has not been reducing the deficit. The deficit is how much we spend more than we take in every year.

[00:48:49] It was $1.78 trillion, I think, last year. The Congressional Budget Office, I believe, estimates we'll be spending about $1.9 trillion deficit, more than we take in this year. And that's not counting what we're spending in Iran now. So I suspect that will increase that some. So we may be well over $40 trillion by the time we get to the election. And so the government has to finance this.

[00:49:15] It sells treasuries, debt out there, because all of these are usually term limited. So you buy a treasury for 30 days or 90 days or two years or 10 years or something. So when that comes due, the government has to go sell it again. So we're looking at trillions of dollars the federal government has to sell regularly. There has been this sort of running notion that China is buying all our debt. That's not the case.

[00:49:41] U.S. companies, U.S. individuals, and the Fed buy most of it, about 80 percent of our debt. But Japan is our largest debt holder right now. Well, China is third or fourth, but if you add Hong Kong in with China, then it becomes the second largest holder of our debt. But China has specifically said we're scaling back. We're not going to buy as much U.S. debt. And the problem here is the day may come where they go to – in fact, it has come at various points.

[00:50:09] They go to sell the debt, and there's no buyers. And so they have to raise the interest rates in order to be able to get buyers to come in. When you do that, that means we're spending – we're already spending more than a trillion dollars in interest every year now. We're spending more than a trillion dollars in interest. And if you have to raise the interest rate for people to – companies, countries, and others to come in and buy it, then that costs us even more to do it. And the day may come.

[00:50:33] And there are some people, Jamie Dimon and some of the others at J.P. Morgan, I think, have said the day is probably going to come where somebody – where our people are not going to continue financing our debt. When that day comes, we're going to be in a lot of problems. Yes. And there's Paulson, who was a former Treasury Secretary, saying we're going to hit the wall sometime. I don't know when, but when we hit the wall, we need to have a break glass kind of emergency situation.

[00:50:57] Just to put this in perspective, if you think of these Treasuries like a moving conveyor belt, you know, they come on and they come off. But the ones that we put on 10 years ago, remember what the interest rate was? It was like virtually zero. And now it's like 5%. And so they have interest rate. And this is, I think, one of the things, Jeff, I want to talk about.

[00:51:17] When the interest on your debt is more than the Defense Department, when the interest on the debt is something that looks like somebody who should be declaring bankruptcy, we're not in good shape and we're not passing on a wonderful program and a country for our next generation. No, and I think we are going to hit the wall, and it may be sooner than many people think. Yes. Because it's clearly not sustainable. And I always go back to, I mean, it is impacting inflation.

[00:51:46] I mean, it does impact inflation. And, you know, we have another. So we had the COVID crisis. So we spent, you know, millions, billions of dollars because of COVID. Now we're in a war. And what are we doing again? And, you know, whether you're for the war or not, the reality is spending-wise we're spending millions, billions of dollars there. It's not – I mean, it's not sustainable.

[00:52:12] And so, I mean, I go back – I mean, you know, it's – we need to have a – we need to start with a balanced budget because we need to stop spending money we don't have. Now, I am enough of a realist that I know that we can't today say, Congress, you need to pass a balanced budget. But certainly we could establish something that said within the next decade you're going to have a balanced budget. And, yes, it may hurt.

[00:52:41] But with that, there's going to have to be term limits because there's right now no incentive. I mean, it's always kick the can. It's kick the can. Always is. It's the can. And it's going to take some very courageous leaders to address this. I'm not hopeful that we have those courageous leaders. And so I think instead it's going to take another very severe economic crash. And let me just say, it's not just the U.S.

[00:53:09] Most countries are borrowing a lot of money. Italy, I think, has just become the biggest debtor in Europe now. So other countries are all competing for this money that people or businesses or sovereign wealth funds can lend. In addition, we've got a new thing on here. As tech companies, big tech companies are going out to borrow money for their AI centers. And so I think it was just Meta is now laying off 8,000 people because they want to have more money to be able to build AI centers.

[00:53:38] And a lot of these companies are saying, we're going to go out and borrow $100, $200 million. So there's competition for that money. And at some point, you may say, you know, I think Amazon's a better credit risk than the U.S. government. Amazon is creating a 100-year debt bond. You can buy it and it takes 100 years before that actually comes to maturity. There's a lot of competition for money out there.

[00:54:04] And at some point, there's not going to be enough people putting the money out there. One of your quotes here from the New York Times, investors are increasingly sour on the United States, as illustrated by the declining dollar, the stalled stock market, although you would notice it at the moment, and rising government borrowing costs. And that's the thing. I mean, just think this through for just a minute. Let's take some zeros off.

[00:54:24] Imagine you're making $50,000 a year, but you're spending $70,000 a year, and you've got a credit card debt that's about, you know, $390,000. And that's where we are. You declare bankruptcy. You declare bankruptcy. And one more thing I'll mention. The senators who are getting elected today will be in for six years. That takes us to the point where Social Security says they will not be able to continue funding at full levels in six years.

[00:54:52] So somebody who's getting elected today is going to have to make decisions about what we do with Social Security. Such a bluebird of happiness over here, isn't it? Well, we're going to come back and talk about the other part because, of course, you're an expert even more so on the health care issue. And I think you probably agree with most of the things that Veronique de Rougie has on the same crisis wearing different clothes because, in some respects, the spending problem and the health care problem are related. Very much so. And that relates back to even the issue of entitlement.

[00:55:21] So we have more to cover. And then we'll get on to at least something else to see if we can cheer some people up. But we're talking about it because very few people are. We'll be right back. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:55:48] Artificial intelligence poses a problem for the Chinese communist government. That is why Cameron Berg wrote in the Wall Street Journal that AI is bound to subvert communism. Now, in China, AI needs to pass an ideological test. If the chatbot fails those tests, they are quietly pulled from circulation. These large language models pull information from a vast array of human knowledge, such as science, history, and philosophy. They must follow logic and use critical thinking skills.

[00:56:14] Cameron Berg explains that you have a system that has absorbed enlightenment epistemology as a byproduct of learning to model human reasoning. That includes honest inquiry and logical consistency. That is why China has heavily censored chatbots, because the leaders cannot allow thought outside of the Communist Party's ideological boundaries. When a team of European scientists stripped the censorship from the AI model entirely, they found that the underlying system answered freely about every topic Beijing had tried to suppress.

[00:56:43] AI poses two problems for China's leaders. For decades, the Chinese government has used the Great Firewall to screen information from the outside world. This has included blocking websites, filtering search results, and monitoring social media. These AI tools threaten their ability to continue to screen information. Second, there is the obvious performance gap between Western models and Chinese models, at least on politically sensitive questions. Cameron Berg concludes,

[00:57:11] You can't build a mind that thinks rigorously about everything except the things you'd prefer it not to. AI development in China will fall behind simply because it won't be allowed to honestly deal with reality. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net.

[00:57:42] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Once again, we, of course, have this very good piece by Dr. Merrill Matthews on out-of-control federal deficit. Also, this one on spending problem and health care problem, which has the title, The Same Crisis Wearing Different Clothes. And in case you're wondering, the one after this is from the Gallup poll, The Disapproval of Congress, which has reached an all-time low, or disapproval an all-time high, however you want to look at this.

[00:58:10] But, Dr. Matthews, let me come to you for just a minute because here she says America has a spending problem. It also has a health care problem. And, of course, you have a problem right now with the debt rising faster than the economy. And she talks about future taxes. That's not going to happen. Deeper spending cuts. That's not going to happen. So, basically, what you end up having is printing. But you alluded to something she gets to on the next page.

[00:58:37] And that is these deficits are not evenly distributed. Social Security alone carries roughly $28 trillion in unfunded obligations. And so, first of all, when you look at entitlements, I know there are listeners out there that still believe that, hey, when I paid my Social Security, they put it into an account. And it had Mabel and John and Bob and Sarah. And it's just waiting to pay me. No, it's a pay-as-you-go system.

[00:59:07] And so, there is no money waiting for you there. And then when you add to that that we spend 18.5% on our national income on health care, and you start adding into all the issues of Medicaid and Medicare and the rest, we've got a crisis that's a problem now. It looks like it's going to be more of a problem in the future. And the Social Security problem is even worse because for most years we were collecting more than we were paying out because the money would come in, we'd pay it out.

[00:59:35] But we had a little extra, so we'd put it into an account. But then Congress would go and borrow that money and put an IOU in there. Pay it self-interest. So, when they talk about the roughly $2.7 trillion Social Security trust fund, which is supposed to run out by about 2033, arguably it's already run out because the government has to borrow money to put in the trust fund in order to take the money out of the trust fund to pay you.

[01:00:01] So, that's where we are right now on Social Security. Yes, the health care, because we're an aging population, we're spending more on Medicare. Social Security, by and large, people roughly get back what they put in. An economist at the Urban Institute has been tracking this for years, and roughly you get back what you put in. With Medicare, we get back a whole lot more than we put in. There you go. And so, as a result, we're spending a lot of money on Medicare,

[01:00:31] and we're spending a lot of money on Medicaid. The federal government's trying to cut that back some on Medicaid by getting people who really aren't eligible for it out of there. That will save some money. We also are spending a lot of money in health care in fraud. We found this out in Minnesota where they were spending – this was children's, but now in California, they have hospices, hospices all over the state that people are going to. Nick Shirley, who's been going, and there's nobody in the hospice.

[01:00:59] And so, the hospice is somebody who's supposed to be roughly six months left to live until you go someplace where they're taking care of your pain and so forth. There are hundreds of these who are not – there's nobody in the hospice. And so, the federal government, in fact, Dr. Oz, who's head of the Department of Health and Human Services, has said they have cut off funding. I think I saw something like 200 or 300 of these organizations that – hospices in Los Angeles that don't have anybody in there.

[01:01:27] And he said the funny thing is not one of them has complained about it yet. Yeah. We cut off the funding and they didn't have a complaint. I think you took a picture of one taco stand and said that's actually technically a hospice. It's a taco stand. When NPR did this several years ago, they went down and found broom closets in Florida that were registered as Medicare facilities that were providing care. Broom closets in an office building. That's just amazing.

[01:01:53] So, again, she points out that there are a lot of problems, not the least of which is waste and fraud. I meant to bring in your book and hold up again because he's written a book on that subject. But there's another issue, and that is that if you are insulated from the cost – and I'm hesitant to do this. Last time we had Holly Randall in here, and I said, just imagine if we all go out to dinner afterwards, and if I put it on the point-of-view credit card and Holly was ready for me to put it on the point-of-view credit card,

[01:02:20] I said, you wouldn't be paying much attention to the right side of the menu. You just look at what you want to eat because cost doesn't matter. But that's kind of where we are right now because most people don't know what it's going to cost for them to get a medical procedure. And the vast majority of our listeners benefit from that. You know, when I had to go pick up a prescription for my wife yesterday, no cost. It was covered by the insurance company. So I'm happy as a clam. I'm ready to go with that. I want my bucks back.

[01:02:49] I want a few bucks back because I'm subsidizing you, and I thank you for that. And, Jeff, that's kind of the problem. Whether you do the Holly Randall, hey, when are you taking me out to dinner kind of argument, that really is day-to-day. I've been in doctor's offices where I ask, what's it going to cost, and they look at me like I just grew a second head because they just can't even imagine somebody would ask that question.

[01:03:16] And there have been both the federal government and some states that said, we're going to pass legislation that will force the hospital to reveal what the cost of something is. And I said it doesn't make any difference. If I'm going to the hospital the last time I went for surgery three or four years ago, I had a $345 copay. I don't care if that surgery costs $5,000, $10,000, or $150,000. I mean, physically I sort of care. But as an individual, I paid $345, and I was good to go.

[01:03:47] So thank you, Jeff. I think your bill's adding up. Jeff is going to charge you a lot at the end of this talk. I appreciate it. Jeff would be driving a nice car if it wasn't for me. But that's not a 2016. We're insulated from the cost of things we tend not to carry, and that's the problem in health care. Obamacare insulated people even more. Well, we were trying to move people to be even less insulated.

[01:04:14] One of the things we've been talking about recently is maybe the thing to do is just to have insurance companies come up and have a what we call a DRG, a diagnosis-related group. They have that at Medicare. But if you're going to go in and get, let's say, a gallbladder surgery, the reference price for the insurance company is, I'll pick a figure, I don't know what it would be, $5,000. So we're going to pay $5,000. Maybe that's the average cost of this around the country. If you want to spend more on it, that's your problem. You pay for it out of pocket.

[01:04:43] We will cover up to $5,000. So if you had a reference pricing like that, you would have people at least asking the question, how much is this going to cost, and is this more than what my insurance is going to pay for it? Because if it is, I may want to either bargain with my physician to see if I can get that down, and some physicians, some hospitals, cosmetic surgeons sometimes do, or I can go someplace else. Well, and also my father was recently in the hospital, and so he got his bill.

[01:05:13] And it was, I mean, several hundred thousand dollars. Now he called his insurer because he has, so what, if you're over 65, you have Medicare. Yeah, Medicare. Medicare, and then he has a supplemental policy. And so he talked to a nice person, and they basically said, just throw it in the trash. Don't worry about it. That's because they've negotiated it this year. Yeah, don't worry about it. And so you have, and at the same time, you know, the system is broken. The system is broken in so many places.

[01:05:44] It's broken on the insurance side. But it's also, and I know this will probably, we can get some doctors calling us. It's really broken on the medical side as well. I mean, at some point, and me, and of course I wasn't there in person, so I'm talking over the phone to doctors. They want to run every test imaginable. And of course, every test imaginable, and trust me, that gallbladder surgery based upon

[01:06:11] his bill, did not, does not cost five, I mean, it may really cost five, but that's not what they're billing. Right. I mean, it's probably maybe another zero. It would not be unusual if there was a $70,000 bill, if the hospital and insurance company had negotiated a discounted price to say $6,000 or $7,000. That wouldn't be unusual. So you get the bill and you say, my goodness, look at this, but you see what the hospital's paying or the insurance company's paying, and it's significantly less. I mean, a fraction of that. And it's a game.

[01:06:41] It's a game. And if you have... Or a scam. And if... Or a scam. But if you had a free market, that wouldn't happen. It would not happen if you had transparency. And I know there's been a lot of efforts to have transparency. I think transparency is really, really important. But it takes, and you guys have probably been through this as well. We have, both of us now, both my wife and I, have elderly parents who are undergoing medical. And I mean, I'm a lawyer. I am...

[01:07:09] And my wife is Phi Beta Kappa. I can't even say it, how smart she is. And it is difficult. Yes, it is. And we're helping them, let alone them, you know, two people in their 80s. We're helping them go through it. But even us, as college educated, a law degree, going through, it is very, very difficult. We have a broken system. We do. We have some calls, so we'll get some of those after the break.

[01:07:39] And if you'd like to join our conversation, certainly have some other things we want to talk about. And that gets us into a conversation later, perhaps, of a disapproval of Congress. Because some of this can be solved. But transparency is just the first step. But if it's transparent and I still don't have to pay for it, it doesn't make any difference. So that's something we've talked about before as well. But if you'd like to join the conversation, we certainly have stimulated some conversations. So 1-800-351-1212. We'll be back right after this.

[01:08:15] At Point of View, we believe there is power in prayer. And that is why we have relaunched our Pray for America campaign, a series of weekly emails to unite Americans in prayer for our nation. Imagine if hundreds of thousands of Americans started praying intentionally together on a weekly basis. You can help make that a reality by subscribing to our Pray for America emails.

[01:08:45] Just go to pointofview.net and click on the Pray for America banner that's right there on the homepage. Each week you'll receive a brief news update, a specific prayer guide, and a free resource to equip you in further action. We encourage you to not only pray with us each week, but to share these prayers and the resources with others in your life. Join the movement today.

[01:09:14] Visit pointofview.net and click on the banner Pray for America right there at the top. That's pointofview.net. Let's pray together for God to make a difference in our land. Point of View will continue after this.

[01:09:36] You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. Jeff Mateer, Merrill Matthews.

[01:10:05] Let's go out to Barbara listening on the Good News Network in Georgia. Barbara, thank you for calling today. Hello. Yes, I'm calling about the health care system. You know, I'm over 70. And I remember when people took care of themselves. You didn't run to the doctor. And you could trust them because they really were more interested in your health than in their pocketbooks.

[01:10:32] But I am pre-diabetic right now. And not because I don't take care of myself and not because I don't eat a bunch of sweet stuff or even fried stuff. But because for over 20 years, my tests have been showing a slow increase in blood sugar, right? A slow increase. I wasn't told anything until it got out of control.

[01:11:00] And then they wanted to put me on medicine. Of course. You know, I was a bodybuilder. My diet was healthy. It didn't get bad until, you know, they did a procedure on me that changed my entire constitution. And even then, they didn't tell me what was going to happen. That procedure was going to put me on medicine for the rest of my life. And I don't have a choice to take it. It's thyroid medicine.

[01:11:27] You know, so it's a failed system all around. And doctors are more concerned. And I don't care where I've been. I've lived halfway around the country. You know, prime military, traveling. But even now, you know, my needs are starting to go bad. Of course, I'm over 70. You expect that. But I went in just a month ago. And I said, I really need a rollator.

[01:11:54] Something that's going to help me get around and take the stress off my knees. They wanted to do surgery. Well, there's more money for that. Dr. Matthew, speak to that. Because obviously we have some other topics I want to get to. But she's raised a couple of issues. Number one, you get pooled together with people that aren't taking care of themselves. That's not fair. And then oftentimes if there's a solution, well, it's always pharmaceuticals, right? It's always pharmaceuticals, generally speaking.

[01:12:23] But yes, one of the things we've done is when we insulate people from the cost of care, we take away a notion for them to take better care of themselves. You know, in auto insurance, if you have a son who's out there driving wild and your insurance rates are going up, you go have a talk to the son. We're going to change your behavior so that my rates don't keep going up. In health insurance, because so many people have health insurance either through an employer, through the federal government and so forth, or subsidized through Obamacare,

[01:12:53] they don't really have that incentive unless it's just natural they want to stay healthy. They don't really have that incentive. And so if they end up getting too much weight and they want to go on the GLP-1, well, insurance will pay for that in many cases. And so if I overeat, I've got something, I've got a pharmaceutical that can help me do that. So it's a problem that we have right now with the incentives in the system.

[01:13:17] This article also talks about the FDA's monopoly over drug approval that keeps medicines already available in Europe, Canada, Australia, off the American market. And then, of course, the other thing, which Barbara can relate to as well, well, if the answer to every problem is a pill or a drug, sometimes those drugs are much more expensive in the United States, too, for a lot of reasons. They are, yes. We have a fairly rigorous process to go through the FDA.

[01:13:44] There have been some concerns that the FDA has not been approving some drugs as quickly as they should. This happened with pancreatic cancer here just this past week or so. So, yes, we have that problem. And one of the things you could do is you could say if it is approved in some of the other European Union, then it's automatically approved here. We probably won't do that, but you could do something like that to save on some of the drug tests.

[01:14:08] The drug tests, and I spent 10 years on a medical school committee approving various kinds of human protocols. These drug tests are very, very expensive when they're trying to move them through the process. You could have a handful of academic medical centers with 3,000 or 4,000 patients in each one, the doctors. You've got the drugs and so forth. It becomes very, very expensive. And if you could sort of move past that and still ensure the safety of the drug, that would help.

[01:14:36] Well, if nothing else, this reminds us again, as this article says, America has a spending problem and a health care problem. No, I was just going to say on the drug issue, we do know there is a way to expedite it when they want to expedite it, because we saw that during the COVID vaccination fiasco. So there are ways to do it. And I mean, my daughter's in that industry, and I will tell you the FDA, I mean, the FDA is like, I mean, that's like on the target, on the dartboard,

[01:15:05] because some of the things they're just, some of their requirements are just ridiculous. And just so people, because the FDA is bureaucrats, and a lot of these are good people, but they're bureaucrats. If they get something right, they don't get any praise. If the FDA gets something wrong, they'll get all kinds of blame. So you have a certain incentive as the bureaucrat moving this through to make sure that what you're doing will not have this kickback on you. There won't be a problem with it.

[01:15:31] And occasionally a drug does go out, goes out there, and they have to pull it later because of some problems. But it's the incentive of being in a bureaucracy. Well, let's, if we can, get into another call real quickly here that I would like to go to Martha in Texas. I think you have some questions about what's affecting maybe doctor's care as well. Can you speak to that issue? Hi. Hi. Yes, thank you.

[01:15:54] My son-in-law is a doctor, and what I haven't heard you all talk about is the private equity firms that have bought individual doctor's practices and grouped them together in this big group. And then the private equity firms are the ones telling the doctors what they have to charge. And, you know, you only have 15 minutes with a patient. And so we've allowed private equity firms to really take over the doctor's practices. Yes.

[01:16:24] That is absolutely the case. It's not just private equity firms. There had been a long-running trend of hospitals merging with doctors' offices, doctors' clinics, so that the doctors, if they were doing certain procedures, could refer them to the hospital because the insurance paid a whole lot more if it was done in the hospital. So there had been this consolidation going on. And Obamacare really exacerbated that. But in addition, you have private equity firms coming in and buying, as she mentioned, practices.

[01:16:53] And sometimes it will be things like anesthesiologists or something like that who are in a group, and then they'll private equity come in, put the money in there. People get to put money in their pocket. But then it's controlled by an organization that's overseeing this. And there's some pluses to that, but there's also some minuses. And that's just some of the consolidation that's going on in the health care system. Well, and again, if you're going to want to go through patients as quickly as possible in the day of,

[01:17:20] well, let me spend some time getting maybe beyond the symptoms to some other thing, those kinds of conversations aren't happening as much, are they? Right. And they do. One of the trends going on right now is doctors becoming what we call concierge. Concierge are direct pay doctors where they say, we're not doing the same thing with insurance anymore. You give us a set amount of money per month or per year, and then we will be there for you, but we're not going to charge you when you come in.

[01:17:46] You're essentially paying up front, and the doctors become then personal doctors. They will oftentimes give you their phone numbers and so forth, so you can text them anytime. And a lot of doctors feel like that's working much, much better for them, and it's taking a lot of good doctors out of the general practice as they're moving to these concierge practices. Interesting. Well, again, other topics we can get into, but one of those that I thought was related is the disapproval of Congress.

[01:18:14] Because, again, both your article talking about this and her article, Veronique de Rougie, both talk about the fact that we could certainly try to cut spending or we could try to revamp the health care system. But that gets back to Congress, and you were the one that pointed that one out to me, Dr. Matthews. It says, Gallup poll, the disapproval of Congress ties a record high of 86%.

[01:18:42] Can it get any worse? Maybe so. And we're in midterm elections right now. I'm hoping that some of our listeners go to their elected members of Congress or somebody running for Congress and saying, what are you going to do to solve some of the problems we're talking about right now? And that lead line into the Gallup poll says, Americans' approval of Congress has fallen to 10%, barely above its all-time low of 9%, with the disapproval at 86%.

[01:19:10] And I sent out a tweet at the time saying I'm kind of wondering. I'm surprised it's actually 10%. But here's a good illustration of this, and it's what I call the Lake Wobegon. You know, all the children are above average. You remember that line? And you run into this time and time again. Congress is a mess. I don't believe that Congress can solve any of the problems. But my member of Congress is doing pretty good, and I'm going to reelect him. I'll vote for that person again. And I don't know, Jeff.

[01:19:39] It's maybe time to say, maybe it's time to hand out some pink slips during this midterm election. To me, those type of polls are proof of the need for term limits. Yes. Just for sure. This is unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, a 10%. And, of course, I'm thinking, who are the 10% that actually like Congress? I haven't met those 10%. You know, it is a do-nothing Congress. That's for sure. And it's even worse if you look at the partisan breakdown. Yes.

[01:20:09] The approval among Republicans is at 20%. Approval among independents is 11%. And approval among Democrats is a 3%. So there you go. Well, we have a lot more to cover. We'll do that right after these important messages.

[01:20:42] What should American universities do to get their good reputations back? Surveys show Americans are losing confidence in higher education. The late Charlie Kirk famously recommended against going to college. Gallup polling done last year found only 42% of Americans expressing a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in higher education. According to the Wall Street Journal, confidence has fallen especially hard among conservatives, many of whom believe universities give priority to social justice over the pursuit of knowledge.

[01:21:11] The journal published an article on the findings of an internal study done at Yale University that calls for changes to address everything from perceived political bias among faculty to opaque admission standards and crushing student debt. The journal points to the report's finding that across top schools within Yale, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 36 to 1. The report recommends that the university scrutinize the diversity of perspectives offered in curricula, hiring, and admissions.

[01:21:38] The rancor that's rising in our culture is due in part to radical indoctrination at our universities and our schools' failure to teach America's founding principles. The committee that produced the Yale report recommends the school requires civics education for all first-year freshmen. Yale is not alone among universities in being seen as an intellectual echo chamber. Pursuant to a state law passed in the last legislative session, large universities in Texas will be implementing dramatic changes along these lines over the next five years.

[01:22:06] Texas Tech and Texas A&M are also emphasizing high ROI degrees and closing out low-value studies degrees. They are eliminating faculty senates, a form of shared governance that began in the 1950s and that has been instrumental in encouraging radical student activism. University presidents will play a lead role in directing civil literacy initiatives. Until 60 years ago, every university required civic education. Every college and university should bring it back.

[01:22:35] For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes, let me just mention Penna Dexter's commentary. We might get to that in just a minute. Of course, mine is there as well. But I did want to go around the roundtable, especially come to Jeff, because he knows a good story or two about Alan Dershowitz. And he posted this the other day, why I'm becoming a Republican.

[01:23:04] He's a lifelong Democrat. I've campaigned for John F. Kennedy as a college student. Can count, really, on one hand, the number of times he's ever voted for a Republican. Disagrees with the Republican Party on abortion, separation, church and state, immigration, whatever. But he says, I still decided to bite the bullet and register as a Republican. Why? Because the Democratic Party has become the most anti-Israel party in U.S. history. And that comes from Alan Dershowitz. Yeah, incredible.

[01:23:31] And so I met him once, and he's exactly the way you see him on TV. Actually was meeting, of all people, it was then Ken Saar, and was meeting him for coffee at a hotel in D.C. And he said, you know, we'll meet in the lobby. And so Judge Starr had gotten there before I had arrived. And so I walk into the lobby.

[01:24:00] I'm looking around, and I see across from me Judge Starr, and he's sitting down talking to this man, just hands flying every direction, loud. And so I walk up, and of course I'm just focused on Judge Starr, because he was there for the meeting. And so, hey, Judge Starr, how are you doing? And he shakes my hand, and he turns and goes, well, Jeff, I'm sure you know Alan.

[01:24:30] And I turn around, and there I look, and it's Alan Dershowitz. And of course I say, well, I know of him. I mean, he's not my friend. And then Judge Starr introduced me, and he happened to mention that I did religious liberty work. And Alan Dershowitz goes, oh, you're one of those. Yeah, I'm one of those. So welcome to the Republican Party, Alan Dershowitz. Okay. Now you're one of those. I'll tell my story. Oh, you've got one. Okay, good. I did.

[01:24:58] I got to interview him about, oh, seven years ago or so during the first Trump administration. He had written sort of a pro-Trump book. And so we had him in for a conference, and I was interviewing him after he made some comments. And I said, you know, you're saying this about Trump and this other. I said, is the time come where you're going to move from being a Democrat to a Republican? He said, never. It will never happen. And then he went on to say, I have to say, though, I am on what he called the liberal diet.

[01:25:27] He said, that means my liberal friends don't invite me to dinner anymore. But he's 87 years old, and he's extremely sharp. I mean, he's very sharp, still understands his stuff, and still out there. And he's a good voice to have. Whether you disagree or agree with him, he's just a very bright person who brings a lot of background intelligence to the debates. I think you need to have him back on and say, you said, so what happened? And I think his article tells us what happened. We've had him on twice on Point of View, and we can probably get him on with you or anybody.

[01:25:57] But it raises another question, which is if you're looking at potential Democratic presidential candidates, people talked about Andy Beshear from Kentucky, governor of Kentucky, a red state where you have a Democrat who's governor. But you have Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania. And you have Rahm Emanuel, who's held a number of jobs. And these are all very sharp people who have managed things, been able to show that they have leadership potential.

[01:26:27] They can do complete sentences, unlike some Democrats we knew of. They're very good candidates. But you have to wonder, could Josh Shapiro or Rahm Emanuel get a Democratic nomination, both being Jewish? I don't see how. No, I think they're outside the mainstream of their party. I think it would be very difficult for either of them. And look, I think at the end of the day, the reason Harris didn't pick Shapiro was he's Jewish. That's the general thinking. Because she needed Pennsylvania. Yes. Obviously needed Pennsylvania.

[01:26:55] And I think they just made a decision that he would be a liability other places. So, well, I'm excited. Welcome, Alvin Dershowitz, to the Republican Party. Well, again, let's talk about why. Because he says, I believe that the Democratic Party's hostility to Israel represents a deeper and more dangerous shift away from the center and towards a radical approach that is bad for America and the free world.

[01:27:21] So, for whatever you may think about some of the Alan Dershowitz statements about religious liberty or about abortion, whatever, on the foreign policy front, especially what has to happen in the Middle East, you are starting to see more and more Democrats. And Bill Maher is another one and some others that are as liberal as they can on what we might call the cultural issues.

[01:27:45] But they're just saying to the Democratic Party or, in the case of Alan Dershowitz, a former member of the Democratic Party, you guys are on the wrong side, not only of history, but of freedom and of the Middle East, right? Yeah, that's absolutely right. So, you do have a few outspoken liberals. And you have on various things, some on cultural issues, some on transgender and so forth, J.K. Rowling being one. Most of them have continued to stay in the Democratic Party. But, but, things can change.

[01:28:14] Well, what about this? I just have said this before, just to get Jeff's reaction. Who would have thought that John Fetterman would be the conscience of the Democratic Party? And Josh Shapiro. These are all Pennsylvanians. No, they are. We weren't sure after his accident he had a conscience. I mean, yeah. I mean, John Fetterman is my favorite Democrat today. And I don't, but that just tells you where the party, where's the party of Joe Lieberman?

[01:28:44] Where's the party of Sam Nunn? Sam Nunn. I was just thinking of Sam Nunn. Yeah. I mean, I just, you know, they have gone so far left. And this, I mean, this hostility to Israel and to the Jewish people, when you have people like Alan Dershowitz leaving, I mean, I don't think it's a publicity stunt. I think it's a sincerely held belief of his.

[01:29:09] And then in this article in the Wall Street Journal, it even talks about, I mean, he wants to help elect Republicans. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I'll make a prediction. In 2028, at the Republican Presidential Convention, we will see Alan Dershowitz give a major speech. I'm sure so. And he'll probably do a very good job at it. Hey, see Fetterman give a speech. I wonder about Fetterman. I always wonder now. He might as well just come. He's voting with the Republicans so often.

[01:29:36] He might as well just for his own re-election, perhaps, because he's got his own rivalry with Josh Shapiro. So, interesting Pennsylvania politics. But here's a good illustration. And since we're running out of time, we might not get to Penn's commentary, but I'll cover it next week because I've been looking at some of that in terms of what Yale University has been doing. I mean, we used to have at least some that were in the middle.

[01:29:57] Yeah, we look back at Sam Nunn, but not so long ago, Senator Manchin, Joe Manchin, and really the only person that even occupies that middle now is John Fetterman. Because Sinema's gone and Manchin are gone. Yeah, and there's nobody. And then you say, okay, can I find somebody else sort of like John Fetterman? And I'm having trouble finding another Democrat like John Fetterman on even a couple of votes. Yes.

[01:30:24] That really shows how divided and polarized the country has become. And so it's just a good way to illustrate some of those points. Anyway, we have done a pretty good job of covering most of the articles, but if you would like to read them over the weekend, let me encourage you to do so. So, Jeff, if people want to contact you at First Liberty Institute, we're getting closer to graduation. And sooner or later, you're going to have some valedictorian saying you can't mention Jesus in your valedictorian speech.

[01:30:54] Or you're going to have some other issues like this. Or you can't post the Ten Commandments. They can contact you, can't they? Yeah, firstliberty.org is the best way. Just go on and you'll see a request for legal help. And we'll get back to you. Frank Gaffney will be with us on Monday in studio. I think we'll be talking about everything from Sharia law to the Middle East and China and foreign policy and a number of others. And then we have a whole lineup of guests all through the week that I think you will really appreciate.

[01:31:22] So let me encourage you to go to the website, pointofview.net. There's a take action item. Our viewpoints commentaries will cover some of Pena's on Monday. And if you would like to know more, you can certainly find all of that at the website, pointofview.net. As always, I want to thank Megan for her help engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the program. Enjoy the weekend. Take the time to go out there and enjoy the weekend. And we look forward to seeing you back here on Monday right here on Point of View.

[01:31:57] It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority. They say men can be women and women men. People are prosecuted differently or not at all depending on their politics. Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel like giving up. But we can't. We shouldn't. We must not.

[01:32:25] As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II, Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. And that's what we say to you today. This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos.

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