Point of View August 28, 2026 – Hour 2: Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View. Kerby Anderson. Second hour today, if you'd like to join the conversation, we'd love to hear from you, 1-800-351-1212. Do want to talk a little bit longer about socialism. I'm holding up right now for those of you watching online

[00:00:30] the August issue of Outlook on the Rise of Socialism and the first piece is by Penna Dexter on Blue City Socialism. My piece is on the failing claims of democratic socialists and that goes on for quite some time. I have a section here by Liberty McCarter on understanding the Marxist worldview and then Gary Bauer on socialism and anti-Semitism. I do want to go around the round table in just a minute to talk about there seems to be hand in glove socialism and anti-Semitism

[00:00:59] and you guys have defended a lot of Jewish synagogues and individuals. But Kelly, just before the break, I thought it was helpful that you mention that piece. The co-chair of the Democratic Socialist of America, her name is Megan Romer. Now, Shannon Bream, you know her very well. You've interviewed with her many times. Actually took the time to go through every one of the planks of the DSA platform.

[00:01:24] I won't bore you other than just to say that yes, absolutely, or we're going to get to that. And if that's not bad enough, about a week later, a writer with The New Yorker, which has kind of left to center, asked some of the same questions and really pressed her and that was certainly eye-opening as well. And so Charles Cook, who we've quoted many times, said, you know, I've got to give her credit for her thoroughness

[00:01:48] because she says in the space of a minute she managed to demand the abolition of every load-bearing structure in America. For example, to abolish the Senate is not only to abolish the states, but to abolish the Union too. To abolish the Supreme Court is to abolish the rule of law. To abolish our borders and our military is to abolish our sovereignty. To abolish prisons is to abolish ordered liberty.

[00:02:17] And to abolish private property is to abolish our economy. That's pretty thorough, don't you think? Yes. It's a complete overthrow of our country. It's unbelievable. And this is why, you know, again, I think it's a gift to the Republican side, which otherwise I think would be looking at a very, very, very, you know, hopeless situation in the election.

[00:02:41] But I think there's this other thing that's going on that's probably more important than the fact that the economy is a little, a little worse than it was because of the Iran war. Again, most of the difficulty that those that are experiencing from the economy came from the Biden administration. It's just, you know, it's I mean, it bumped everything up. Right. Dramatically. 30 percent, not 4 percent.

[00:03:11] But, you know, Trump's not helping by the Iran war. And so it's still going up a little bit. Not not like Biden. And so. So that's that's bothersome. But if every American really caught on to the fact that they're voting between this new approach, which basically throws off our constitutional system and that this is not a theory of somebody running, there are literally candidates running all over the country and there is a fight within the Democratic Party,

[00:03:40] they might have the majority. Then I think that would change the people that aren't voting. But I just don't know. I mean, similar to Ken Paxton versus Tallarico, is there going to be any money to run ads for people to even know who Tallarico is? Tallarico is not having to run any ads on Paxton, really, because Cornyn ran 100 million of them. And so. So that the issue is people are busy.

[00:04:09] They're raising their families. They're working. Sure. They're not keeping up with this. And if somebody didn't get the message out to them, they're not going to know. Let's take some more phone calls. I am in Wyoming. Thank you for calling today. Hello. Hey, how's it going, guys? We'd love to hear what you have to say. Yeah. So, I mean, we're here and we got you live on the phone here. We've been listening. And yeah, it's a shame. I think people turning away from Donald Trump after what's been promised and the inflation here.

[00:04:40] We're paying a lot more money for things. And the college student, I don't have it in the budget. So seeing seeing promises made and let down again, another disappointment by politicians. It's something we would hope to change soon. And you know, all these talks to releasing Epstein files, to fixing Iran, to getting out of wars. None of them seem to fall through. And we always get told it'll be happening later or later. And I'd wish to not see that from our leaders in this country. I think you've got a good point.

[00:05:08] There is a real disappointment. And, Garrett, since you're the youngest around the table, let's talk about the younger generation that says, I've heard promises and I haven't seen them fulfilled. I were hoping that this issue of affordability, which again is one of the articles that we've got right here, would be better. Now, I think some of that has to do with something even beyond the control of either Republican or Democratic presidents. The value of the dollar keeps dropping every single year.

[00:05:37] And so it takes more dollars to buy assets. So you get this K-shaped economy. Supreme Court, excuse me, I should say the various aspects of the financial system today and the various stocks and other things are going up dramatically, whereas people's wages are going down. I think I probably represents a number of others that said, hey, I did everything right. I went to school. I got a degree.

[00:06:06] I've got this enormous amount of student debt. I can't buy a house. Maybe he can. But some are saying that I feel like I'm not being employed at a level that is there. So stock market's going up. My wages are going down. And I think that's another one of those headwinds that any elected official, whether Republican or Democrat, is going to have to address. And this election. Yeah, I think some of it comes down to a little bit of illiteracy when it comes to economics.

[00:06:36] People my age and younger thinking that, OK, things aren't working right now. They're not attributing it to the fact that the administration caused massive inflation with stimulus checks. I mean, decisions by the Fed to lower interest rates to 2 percent. I mean, the housing market is an absolute mess because no one wants to move. Why would I lose the 2 percent interest rate? And obviously the price of homes bumped up by, you know, large percentage points and hasn't come back down.

[00:07:05] So I get all of that. But where where we're in danger is socialist people running far left progressivism or socialism. They are it's grievance politics, right? It's about grievance. It's about bitterness. It's about a lack of gratitude. Yes, things are harder for me. I have two kids. And, you know, we can't do as many things as we want to do.

[00:07:28] But I look around my neighborhood, you know, suburbs of North Dallas, and I'm looking at these homes that have stone and turrets and, you know, some incredible architectural detail. Like, this is what kings had. You know, this is what kings had centuries ago. We should enjoy it, yeah. And a normal middle class American can afford a home that looks like that on an acre. You know, bathrooms that are that are, you know, 2,000 square feet.

[00:07:57] I mean, it's incredible, right? And so I think that we have to educate the educate people my age on gratitude. Like, look, look what you have gained. Yes. From a system that that encourages productivity. Don't listen to these people that just simply want to abolish or overthrow everything. That's that's thought terminating. They're not thinking through. They're just saying a jargon word.

[00:08:19] We can take a break and come back and get some other comments when some more phone calls to kind of a couple of suggestions on maybe how people could maybe bring in some key people in campaigns to make a difference. So if you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212. I think we'll stay on this a little bit longer. A little bit later, we will get to an interesting study, left wing violence and transgender ideology. Who would have guessed? Well, I think we would have figured that out a long time ago. We'll talk about that right after this.

[00:08:47] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Lack of commitment is one of the biggest problems in marriage and relational formation. J.P. DeGantz has been on my radio program to talk about what the church needs to do to build strong marriages and strengthen existing ones.

[00:09:17] In the past, we've talked about his initial research. This time, he talked about two factors that are hurting marriage commitment. Cohabitation is the first negative factor in marriage. As I've mentioned in previous commentaries, we discussed also on the radio, cohabitation has gone from being rare to routine. He reported that most engaged couples seeking premarital counseling are living together. That mindset changes from till death do us part to as long as love shall last.

[00:09:43] His latest statistics suggest that couples that cohabit have a 60 to 80% higher divorce rate. The other negative factor in marriage is dating apps. The linked article has the sensational title, Dating Apps or Treating People Like Shoes on Amazon. He argues that these apps are not neutral tools. They are structurally harmful to the kind of relational orientation that healthy marriages require because they treat potential partners as commodities.

[00:10:08] It is essentially becoming a business model of cost-benefit analysis that has become optimized for consumer choice and frictionless exit. This is not the mindset you want to have if you want to build strong marriages and families. These apps train users in habits that work against commitment. The subtitle of the attached article is, Here's What That Means for the Church. That is why I raised this issue. Pastors and Christian leaders need to warn young adults of the mindset that develops once you use these dating apps.

[00:10:37] If you want a congregation of strong marriages and stable families, we need to address this issue. 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. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:07] Back once again in studio with us today, Kelly Shackelford, Garrett Bell. And let's see if we can go to, I believe it is Karen in Reno, Nevada. And Karen, thank you for joining us today. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I was thinking as you were talking that candidates would do well to enlist the voices of people who have lived under communism or socialism

[00:11:31] and give them their one firsthand experience and let them know that they were made the same promises that they're hearing now, and those things totally failed them. I think that's a great illustration. And, of course, we've had Ted Cruz's father on to talk about what it was like in Cuba. We've had a couple of guests that have grown up in Venezuela and told us about what was being promised by Hugo Chavez.

[00:11:58] So it does seem to me that maybe the best thing we can do is educate this next generation about socialism. Yeah, obviously a book we've talked about a lot that's great on that is Live Not By Lies by Rod Dreher. And he goes and interviews people that were in a lot of the communist countries and really learned and sort of laid out what it was like, how it happened, and how they defeated it.

[00:12:26] And, you know, these people now are like in their 80s. And to a one, they all said they're terrified at what they're seeing in the United States. And I thought it was a really excellent book. And this goes to the problem, you know, I just saw a few weeks ago that DeSantis in Florida had said that they're now going to start teaching.

[00:12:49] It's going to be required in all the schools, the public schools there, to teach about communism and socialism and what it really is. I saw that. And I'm like, why have we not been doing that? I mean, you know, a lot of us who are a little bit of age that are listening right now, they're like, well, yeah, I read that. But I think that kind of got moved out. And so many of the younger people don't know.

[00:13:14] They haven't seen the history of how so many millions and millions of people end up being murdered in these societies, whether it's Mao Zedong, whether it's Stalin, you name it. I mean, it's an incredible evil that follows these promises of nirvana that never show up. And it's always so weird because these systems are an anti-God system. They don't believe and they don't want to believe in God.

[00:13:43] It's atheism. But their system is is is is bizarre because what they say is if you'll just throw off and destroy the current system, a new, beautiful, wonderful nirvana system will just arise. Yeah, they don't have any answers. No, they do know how this is going to happen. It's just destroy what is there.

[00:14:09] And and so, you know, as Garrett was saying, it's a it's a grievance is what it is. It's it's it's I don't like what's happened to me. So I want to destroy. Now, those of your Christians who are listening, where do you think that that feeling, that thought comes from? Is it from God or is it from a different kingdom? And and so that's what's so fascinating about this is people don't even think through where this goes. And they're not being taught.

[00:14:38] They should be taught the history nowhere where this has been tried. Has it worked? And in fact, not only did it not work, it leads to murder of millions of people. It leads to devastation. It leads to poverty. It leads to the worst things that happen to people. And so but if people aren't educated, then they don't know. And it just sounds really nice.

[00:15:00] I just mentioned that again on our little booklet on social socialism, we actually have a quote from Dinesh D'Souza, who have had many times at our banquets and things like that. And he gives you the whole long list of different countries. And there's more than two dozen that have tried it. And of course, everyone is a failure. And so, again, you're thinking, why don't they learn that?

[00:15:21] Well, what they're learning instead, as we've talked about this week, is Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, who is a Marxist and spends most of his time not talking about the dangers of socialism, but actually the danger of the United States.

[00:15:37] And we even had a quote that we posted the other day by Dennis Prager, who one time had Howard Zinn say on his radio program that the world would be better off if the United States had never existed, which I think just shows you the kind of things that are not being taught in the schools. So three cheers for those in Florida that are now going to learn about some of the dangers of socialism.

[00:16:00] But just before we get to a break, I thought very quickly, this one we can handle pretty quickly, is a new study that's come out. And Matt Vespa asked the question, did we really need to spend money on a study like this? And Kelly, you've heard me say this before. I probably said it too many times that we spend millions of dollars every year to actually document what the average person through common sense already knows. And he said these findings are like, well, we found out that smoking causes lung cancer.

[00:16:29] What a surprise. This one is a study that found a link. Are you ready for this? Between leftist violence and transgender ideology. And all you have to do is, as he says, look at some of the things happening at the WNBA games right now. Charlie Kirk, of course, was assassinated by somebody who was flirting with transgenderism. The school shootings, you can talk about ones that were taking place in Tennessee and Minnesota and other places.

[00:16:56] How about the individual that wanted to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who we found out later was, quote, a transgender woman, if you want to use that phrase. And I don't think anybody's terribly surprised by finding out that there is a very definite link, which has been established by Rutgers University, the Manhattan Institute, and the Network Contagion Research Institute. That what a surprise.

[00:17:23] Leftist ideology and especially transgender ideology leads to violence. Yeah. I mean, not a shocker. Not a shocker. It's, I mean, what are the number of transgender people in the country? I know. It's just a fraction of a percent, I would think. Yeah. What is the percentage of these shooters who are transgender? And, I mean, immediately it's just off the charts compared to that. So, kind of obvious.

[00:17:53] And, again, I think it goes back a little bit to something that I thought is it's just so cruel, right? People that have – it's gender dysphoria, right? I mean, they've got a mental issue that, you know, some people can work through and come back. Some people need help.

[00:18:13] And the idea that you take people that have a problem and you start chopping body parts off and you start – especially the young children and do this. How cruel is that? How evil is that? Instead of helping people, you almost put them in situations that they can never come back from, certainly on the physical side.

[00:18:36] And so this is a lack of courage of people speaking the truth, of loving people by helping them, not by feeding whatever they want you to go along with. It's something that we used to be better at. But now I think people have really lost their courage to speak the truth in love, which sometimes is not easy, but it's what's required of every Christian.

[00:19:02] We'll come back to the transgender issue a little bit later because we have the D-Trans Clinic that Penna Dexter has written a commentary about. But I thought just for a minute, Garrett, the study looked at six potential targets, killing Charlie Kirk, killing Donald Trump, killing Brian Thompson. Of course, he was the health care issue. Arson of ICE buildings and damaging wealthy people's property and violence against police.

[00:19:27] And unfortunately, for a number of individuals, not just, of course, those who have transgender beliefs, but younger people, they sort of have seen that normalized. And so, again, this is not only an ideological issue. It's becoming a little bit of an age issue as well. Younger generation almost feels like they are justified in supporting and cheering on some people that have actually committed murder.

[00:19:55] Yeah, I think generally there are a few studies showing that the younger generations are overall supportive of acts of violence in order to accomplish an outcome. I think you're right to say transgender ideology. Ideas have consequences. And there is an ideology wrapped up in this. It's not isolated. It's very much connected to Marxism. Right. Marxism was about economic concerns.

[00:20:20] But then there's cultural Marxism, which was elevated to say, well, you know, there's a reason that, you know, the proletariat isn't revolting. It's because the elites are, you know, oppressing them and holding them down and they can't think for themselves. But generally, I mean, what we're being taught in schools is that there's no human sin. And in that ideology, there's no moral compass. Right. It's just conflict.

[00:20:47] There's conflict, conflict, and the synthesis of that. And it's just there's no direction to humanity. It's just what is is. And so if there's no moral component to it, then why is violence wrong? If it leads to the conflict that leads to the outcome you want. Again, ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims. And that's one of the things we're seeing there. Let's take a break. When we come back, I did want to talk a little bit about Iran, the Iranian deal. We also, of course, have Penna Dexter's piece.

[00:21:17] And as always, we like to end with some prayer targets. And actually, when we talk about all these nine cases before the Supreme Court, I think that'll be our prayer target for today. And we might even put it in our Pray for America email that goes out. Let's take a break. We'll be right back. I'm sure that you've noticed that social media is now filled with information generated by AI.

[00:21:40] Dramatic descriptions of politicians and music stars supposedly making statements about a current issue. Leaning into the microphone, looking into the lens, opponents silenced. It's powerful. It's riveting. And it's all lies. Even several national television networks were recently found using enhanced pictures, meaning manipulated, falsified, literally not giving a true picture. So many liars.

[00:22:10] So much deception. Where can we turn for truth? Right here. From Kirby and the team at Point of View. We need your support. Please join the Point of View Truth team today with a monthly gift of $30 or more. Together, we can shine the light of truth and dispel the darkness and deception of this day.

[00:22:33] Give now at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151. Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:23:01] 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, let me just mention this week we've spent a fair amount of time talking about Islam and even Sharia law. And that's certainly something that has surfaced not only in this country, but I want to go back to Iran for just a few minutes because we've posted a piece.

[00:23:30] It comes from our friends at Newsmax, pointing out that the Prime Minister of Israel, of course, that's Benjamin Netanyahu, said that he really doubts that any kind of diplomatic agreement can be reached with the Iranian leadership. This is why you've had the Economic D-Day that was announced this week by the Secretary of Treasury, Scott Bessett. And as a result of the economic pressure, military action and the rest may be the only way to achieve that.

[00:23:57] And since we've been talking about the midterms, I thought for just a minute we would point out that indeed this economic pressure is having a significant impact. The oil is making its way through by using different routes. There are also various kinds of pipelines that are being developed so that the Strait of Hormuz will be less of an issue. But that's in the future.

[00:24:23] As a matter of fact, if you look at fuel futures, especially for oil futures, three years from now it's actually lower because they're actually, I think, convinced that these pipelines will completely make the Strait of Hormuz insignificant. But for the moment, it's still going to affect an election, Kelly. And so that's one of the reasons why this week we spent some time talking about what's going on in Iran.

[00:24:47] Yeah, and obviously for most people it's the economy, right? And when you're in a war, you know, there's issues on the economy. And it's really somewhat amazing to me that it hadn't been worse than it is. I mean, if you look at the inflation level, I mean, yeah, it's not great where we want it to be.

[00:25:13] But it's not 30 percent. It's not 10 percent. It's not, you know, it's it's just eking up as somewhat normally it would. But the point is, it could be better. I mean, Trump could be riding on like a great economic comeback because a lot of the policies they did do, you know, have been helpful. But you add that and you add the tariffs and some of these things and it's it's just kind of eat things up. So he he doesn't have a positive there. And some people, that's all they're focusing on is the economy. Right.

[00:25:43] But, gosh, what do you do? You know, you you can't let Iran have nuclear weapons. Right. I mean, they would they would wipe out Israel and the United States and they wouldn't wipe out the United States because we support Israel. They just wipe us out. They've always hated us anyway. They've been killing our people for, you know, decades. So what do you do? Because they're they're just they don't seem to care what happens.

[00:26:11] So I think this is the latest, you know, whatever you think of Trump, man, he doesn't he's got 50 million different negotiations and strategies and tactics. And now they're on the strangling tactic, which is I think probably the it's the safest for the United States. It doesn't cost a lot of money. It it definitely has an impact. It's obvious we've decided that the people of Iran are innocent.

[00:26:41] I mean, you know, they they slaughtered 40 or 50,000 of them when they said they wanted their country back. And so because if we wanted to, we could cripple Iran. Right. We could take out all their power. We could take out all of their their water. We could, you know, bomb their dams. We could we could just decimate the place. But they're not going to do that. They've decided they don't want to do that. There's a small group of Islamic radicals who are in control of things.

[00:27:09] And so how do you get rid of that small group? And I don't know. I don't know if anything works, but at least this one is more of an economic pressure. And maybe it will bring I mean, I don't know if it can, but bring the people to take back their country. I just wish regular Iranians had control of their country. I do, too. 90 million people that are facing economic devastation that has come.

[00:27:34] Now, what's so interesting is, is that just the other day, our ambassador to the United Nations made the statement. He says, I've been around enough Iranian leaders to know that they're more fearful of the secretary of treasury, Scott Bessett, than they are fearful of the secretary of war, because they recognize they can endure the loss of various kinds of military apparatus and even some of the destruction of the infrastructure.

[00:27:59] But they cannot endure and you cannot keep the RGC going when you are not getting any kind of funding that is coming in. So it's having an impact on Iran. It's having an incredible impact on China, because the number one purchaser of Iranian oil is China. Yes. And again, just Gary, for just a minute, we earlier in the week had a lot of soak on. She wrote a very good piece in The Washington Times. But she told the story on the program about growing up in Iran.

[00:28:28] And every day you would go out into the schoolyard and then you would chant, death to America. And then, of course, becoming a Christian in the midst of that, leaving that and being in this country. She says, don't ignore radical Islam, not only over there, but even what's happening here in the United States. So this, I think, is a lesson that we need to pass on to the next generation. And I don't know that it's going to have an impact on the vote.

[00:28:58] But I would certainly say that we are safer in the Middle East than we were back in October 2023 when Hamas was actually going into Israel and killing all those people. Hamas is weaker. Hezbollah is weaker. The Houthis are weaker. Iran is weaker. And because of that, the Middle East is safer. Right. Yeah.

[00:29:19] Part of me wonders if going into this, I mean, I'm sure the best minds of the country were in a room together before launching the war. But part of me wonders if there was an underestimation of the culture of Iran and how that would contribute to how easy the negotiations would be. Right. There's this obstinance that maybe we don't see in Western countries in dealing with negotiations that they don't want to be humiliated.

[00:29:47] You know, and they're not going to back down near as easily as we would expect them to. Yeah. And, again, Donald Trump is a dealmaker. You've been with him more than a few times. He's a transactional president, more than any president I can remember. Yeah. And that's some of it. And you can't – I mean, how do you negotiate with pathological liars? Yeah. And people who – you know, it reminds me of the old Monty Python movie with the knight that says you can't pass here. And they knock his leg off.

[00:30:16] And they knock his other leg off. And he keeps fighting. And they knock his arms off. And now he's got no arms and no legs. And he says, you know, I'm not moving. I'm going to bite your legs off. And it's kind of like Iran. Just a slough. Yeah. And it's like – it's like what does it take? What does it take? You know, everything's been taken away. Your navy's at the bottom of the sea. Everything else. I mean, what other country have you seen that is like that? I mean, it's – so obviously I think what Garrett was saying, they must have miscalculated.

[00:30:44] But at the same time, as you say, I mean, Iran was funding a lot of evil around the world. Hamas. You know, the Houthis. I mean, you know, we could go on and on and on. I mean, they were the source of the funding. And the fact that we've kind of taken Cargillin, we've kind of blockaded that, the Strait of Hormuz where there are oils coming through. And I think I saw just the last day or so that we're going to start confiscating their oil, I think.

[00:31:14] And, I mean, now this – you know, this is having an impact. And whatever happens between the United States and Iran and how that works out, that's saving a lot of terrorism that would be going on, you know, around the world from these groups that get their funding from Iran. And so, I don't know. We just need to really pray for – pray for the Middle East. Pray for wisdom for our own leaders. I mean, I hope there's a way to get out of this.

[00:31:42] I hope this stranglehold – I've seen some articles in the last week or two about how this has been a strategy that has been very successful in past battles in the United States where, you know, that was the real solution. And so I'm hoping it is a solution. And, of course, the greatest of all things, which, you know, maybe it's a little optimistic, but would be for the Iranian people to be able to take over their country. That's really what you would hope.

[00:32:08] And I would also add, you know, praying for – like people in the United States that are being influenced by propaganda. Yes. Right? You mentioned yourself that, okay, there's the on-the-ground strategy over there that we have to win. We have to win a war of ideas that is taking place here in our country. Yes. And there are absolutely people who are intervening to try to influence thoughts on Israel and Iran and the Middle East. A couple prayer targets even for that. That, of course, one is, of course, Operation Economic Outcast.

[00:32:38] That's the Economic D-Day. Another is, as we've talked about on two different occasions this week, the fastest-growing church by percentage is the church in Iran. And more individuals – and we had all sorts of stories from both of our guests over time in terms of them seeing visions of Jesus or meeting Christians and reading the Bible. And, of course, they don't have established church, but there are certainly so many of those individuals.

[00:33:05] So, again, I feel sorry for the people, the 90 million people in Iran that didn't ask for this, but they are not well served by their leaders. But, nevertheless, that is something to be praying about as well. We take a break, though. When we come back, one of the things we always encourage you to do is, if you're on the computer, you can listen to Pennedexter's commentary. We'll always air it right now. It's on the D-Trans Clinic. We talked just a minute ago about transgenderism.

[00:33:31] And this whole issue of transgenderism has changed dramatically, in part because of some reports that have come even from the Trump administration. So we'll talk about that right after this.

[00:33:45] Texas Children's Hospital is the nation's largest freestanding pediatric hospital. Located in Houston, it ranks number one in Texas and in the top tier of children's hospitals in the U.S.

[00:34:11] The hospital was investigated for conducting a secret transgender medicine program and for committing fraud against Medicaid. The clinic was prescribing and performing gender transition treatments to minors as young as 11 and was miscoding procedures to conceal them from outside scrutiny. Concurrent with the 2023 investigation, the Texas governor signed a bill which codified a statewide ban on providing gender transition interventions, the drugs, the drugs, hormones, and surgeries that were devastating the bodies of confused young people.

[00:34:40] A court settlement obtained by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton included a commitment by the hospital to never again carry out sex-rejecting procedures on minors. The settlement also requires that Texas Children's establish the nation's first detransition clinic. The clinic must provide free services for a period of five years for patients up to age 21 who have received gender transition interventions and now seek to reverse them. Sadly, a total do-over is not possible.

[00:35:08] Gender treatments, even puberty blockers, can affect undeniable changes. When someone starts taking cross-sex hormones or has sex-rejecting surgery, that person guarantees they'll be a patient for life. Attempts to reverse some of the damage will require access to multiple services and disciplines, including endocrinology, surgeries, and mental health. A cynical hospital spokesperson told the Texas Tribune, This simply provides structure and a name for the services we currently provide.

[00:35:36] Detransitioners face intense backlash from the very community that once embraced them. A struggling young person can get lots of support online to transition, but mostly condemnation for a decision to detransition. The Detrans Clinic opens in October. Let's pray these kids get real help. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:36:06] Back for a few more minutes, let me just mention that, first of all, Penna Dexter's commentary, which we've posted on our website, a detrans clinic. We'll talk more about that in just a minute, but also my commentary today. And if you would like to receive those in your inbox, what we do is you just give us your email, and then we send to you my commentary Monday through Friday, Penna Dexter's, which we just heard right now. If you were listening on the computer, we send to you on Saturday.

[00:36:31] Now, the point she was making is, is one of the examples here in the state of Texas is the Texas Children's Hospital, which had had, in some respects, the largest freestanding pediatric hospital, is also one that was conducting secret transgender medicine. Now, to broaden that, just a week or two ago, I had a chance to interview on this program one of the individuals

[00:36:55] that had actually helped write this piece, and it came from the Department of Health and Human Services. Yep. Wolves in white coats, how doctors and hospitals pushed and profited from the fraud of gender medicine. As I pointed out when we did the interview, usually government reports are kind of ambiguous and pretty benign. Wolves in white coats. Coats. I mean, that was pretty good. Yeah.

[00:37:21] And what they pointed out, and I'm just going to pick one example, is so that they could hide all of this, they would use medical codes like endocrine disorder or precocious puberty so that they didn't have to say, well, you're actually paying for gender transitions. And, Kelly, you're shaking your head because we know that once you transition a boy into a girl or a girl into a boy, it's basically, as they pointed out, a lifelong revenue stream. Right.

[00:37:51] So that 64-page report from the Department of Health and Human Services, or you can go to the U.K., the Cass report that comes from Dr. Hillary Cass two years ago, they're all saying there is no evidence that this helps individuals with gender transition, and instead it's become a money-making operation, and they've been committing fraud against Medicaid. Yeah. Well, there's a couple of things that are so obvious from all this that most people don't think about.

[00:38:18] One is we spent a lot of time earlier talking about Tallarico and Paxton. Okay. Whatever you think of Paxton's personal life and the problem he had in his marriage and all that, that's now gone. But public policy, this is what he did. Right. I mean, he did this law. He went after this hospital. He's the one that, so, you know, really you're not elected.

[00:38:46] You're putting people in office to do the public policy positions that you're for. And so that should be the comparison. Tallarico was in office as a state representative. What did he do? What did he propose? What positions did he – that should be. Now, you're not going to see any commercials about most of that. It's Tallarico sitting with his grandfather, right? I mean, that's – but this kind of thing, I mean, this affects real lives. Right. Right?

[00:39:14] A lot of children are not going to be mutilated now because of this. And I also think of, like, one of our interns years ago was a young attorney by the name of Jordan Campbell. And he and some other guys went out, worked at Big Law, you know, where you can make a lot of money at the big law firms. They left to start a law firm to solely represent these people. And this was before anybody was willing to do anything like that.

[00:39:44] And he was a part of that team in the Department of Justice that accomplished all this. So, you know what? You can really make a difference. You don't have to do the regular thing. You can actually be called by God to go and make a difference and help. You know, this is going to affect, you know, I mean, children all over the country.

[00:40:03] But it started in Texas and it started because of an attorney general who actually had a good policy position and fought for the right position for attorneys who were willing to not make as much money and go do something that would affect people's lives. And so I think we forget a lot of that in the process sometimes. And one thing she does talk about is the fact that we've had detransitioners. We've actually talked about this before. And Penna has sat here and done some interviews. So has Liberty with some of these individuals.

[00:40:33] And they faced, as she points out, intense backlash because you're not allowed to say, well, I'm going to change my mind. It's okay to go one direction, not okay to go the other. And this detrans clinic is going to open up in another month or two. And so we'll be talking about that as well. First one in the country. And it just is illustrative of these kinds of issues. But one of the other issues that sort of relates to this is that we've had Alexander Ocasio-Cortez say, you know, some of that just came from WOKE 1.0.

[00:41:02] But we're now in WOKE 2.0. But WOKE 1.0, they said, well, we were just a little bit too crazy with the pandemic and the lockdown. Well, we were also crazy by burning down police headquarters. We were maybe a little too crazy with some of this idea of promoting trans issues. And I don't know, but gender manipulation and WOKE 2.0 still seems to be around, at least at the WNBA and a few other places. What about that?

[00:41:31] Yeah, I don't – as far as the difference between WOKE 1.0 and 2.0, I mean, I don't see any difference at all, really. I mean, one, it shows me her statements about WOKE 1.0. So, I mean, words coming from her mouth, you know, like they are justifying these things. They were justifying those things back then, and now they're trying to distance themselves from it. You know, like that's – they were lying.

[00:41:56] But, you know, the concern is that with transitioning, I mean, one, there's the harm to the human person. Of course. The human person that is undergoing that kind of surgery or treatment, especially if it's a child. Two, there is the harm of those around them.

[00:42:11] And at First Liberty, we might see cases like this where it's, you know, someone who either, one, is speaking against transitioning and is being kicked out of an arena for it or being kicked out of a public place for it because we no longer have tolerance for reasonable views.

[00:42:33] There is the woman that can't feel safe in a shelter, a women's shelter, because now there's a policy of, well, we're going to be agnostic to whether or not, you know, a biological man walks in here or not. But then a bigger question is as a civilization, I mean, I think that we have lessons throughout history, including Rome, where if we can't call a duck a duck, that has significant consequences. It sure does. It's got deleterious effects.

[00:43:02] And so we've, there's a number of reasons that we have to counter it. Well, again, I love the fact that Bill Maher is talking about those issues. And in the Senate, well, we just at least have John Fetterman and a few others, but not too many. But just before I wind it down, Kelly, one of the things we encourage people to do is to pray for, of course, Pray for America. We have our Pray for America email that goes out. But I think this one would be a good one. And this is, again, the first Liberty Insider.

[00:43:31] I'm holding up my copy and you can get one as well by signing up. But you have, this one says seven. Now we're going to have to change it to nine cases before the Supreme Court, including one that you already have. And this, I think, illustrates again why we need to be praying, because right now these justices will be looking at these cases and deciding out of whatever, 50 or 60 cases, which ones will actually be used. Yeah, I would encourage people to pray.

[00:43:58] Number one, if they're not getting it, as you said, I think we have about 800,000, 850,000 people. It doesn't cost anything. You just sign up on the website, say, I'd like to get the email, the Insider on Fridays, and it'll update you. And it can help you see what to pray for. And this is something to pray for. We have got a good Supreme Court right now, right, especially on the religious liberty issues. We need to get good cases up there. And so really pray. We've got an opportunity like we've never seen. We've never had this many.

[00:44:29] And there's some real opportunity to create some really good decisions that will protect families, parents, religious freedom, churches all across the country. And just pray. We need prayer cover for them to grab the right ones. Well, that's all we have for today. And, Garrett, great to meet you face to face. And I hope people find out more about what is at First Liberty. We do have the link. You can click on the picture of Kelly or Garrett.

[00:44:53] And that will take you, of course, to firstliberty.org and all the other places where you would need to go. As always, I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program today. The other Megan for helping as well, Derek, with the phones. And we encourage you to enjoy the weekend. See you back here on Monday right here on Point of View. Where does moral truth come from?

[00:45:18] 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. 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.

[00:45:48] 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. 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.

[00:46:14] Help Americans find truth again by giving at pointofview.net. Or call 1-800-347-5151. That's pointofview.net. And 800-347-5151. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries. worldview is półt прод沒. How Glitch is open can He you. And has launched bogus relief and will bear Jesus healing among the sustenance left. Because of the things that they manage to er. The death of the world.