Point of View February 21, 2025 – Hour 1 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Thank you for joining me, it is the Weekend Edition. We're so grateful that you could join us and we're going to be spending some time today, as always, as we do on our Friday Weekend Edition, talking about some religious liberty cases.

[00:00:30] Yesterday we talked about one that had to do with free speech on campus, which of course was with a different organization. We'll be talking in just a minute with our friends at First Liberty about this. We have a lot more information about DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, and some of the legal issues surrounding that.

[00:00:48] And since it has now been a full one month, 30 days since Donald Trump actually was sworn into office, I thought some of you might want to know, well, what would a Harris-Waltz administration be doing? Joe Conce's, you know, placed tongue in cheek and having some fun with that one. J.D. Vance's speech in Europe. But also we'll get into the issue of Ukraine. And most importantly, there is a very interesting desire to maybe study the abortion pill safety.

[00:01:16] And as we have mentioned before, Liberty McCarter is, of course, the expert on this. This is her booklet that came out a while back and we are actually going and she's going to be updating that. So there's all sorts of things to talk about in that regard. We also have Pentatextrous commentary, so a lot to cover. Jeff Mateer is the executive vice president and chief legal officer for First Liberty Institute.

[00:01:39] And Liberty, of course, is the writer for the organization known as Point of View, but also the host of the Know Why podcast. And so, Jeff, let me put you on the spot. We already announced that it was very cold in Ohio. And yet we also have a pastor that has criminal charges against him. So give us the update. Yeah, I think there's a turn occurring. I mean, we've been battling on behalf of Pastor Avelle in Bryan, Ohio now for months.

[00:02:09] And if the listeners will recall, we've talked about him a lot because it's just, again, it's so outrageous what is occurring there. He has a church that's down in the downtown area, and he's seeing the need that there were these people on the streets at night with no place to go.

[00:02:30] He made the decision to open his church 24-7, get them off the streets, get them out of the freezing temperatures, and let them come into a place where they can be warm and be ministered to. That sounds like the gospel, right? That sounds like what we want churches to be doing in America, taking the burden off of the government to actually, you know, to be the hands and feet of Christ.

[00:02:55] Well, the city doesn't like that for a lot of reasons, and they've decided to enforce a fire code that they don't enforce against anybody else and prosecute him, not just civilly, but to file criminal charges against the pastor.

[00:03:14] And a few weeks ago, they convinced a judge in Ohio to hold him to a criminal conviction and to fine him and sentence him to jail for 60 days. And so the latest development in the case is we immediately saw a stay of that, a permanent stay of that jail sentence.

[00:03:40] I mean, we don't want pastors in America going to jail for taking care of people to getting them off the streets when, I mean, the wind chill was below zero in Ohio. And the Ohio Court of Appeals unanimously agreed to grant that stay. In order to grant it, they had to make a determination that we were likely to be successful on our appeal.

[00:04:08] So a major, major victory for us. And again, I can't say enough about the attorney general of Ohio, David Yost. I don't know if there are listeners in Ohio, but if there are, you've got a great attorney general. He's now supported us in three separate filings, and he's going to bat for Pastor Evel. And so that didn't hurt our chances at the Ohio Court of Appeals.

[00:04:33] Yeah, I just every time you tell this story, it blows my mind. I remember the first time I heard about it, and I literally said, what? He was, you know, charged for helping homeless people. But we've had some crazy, you know, unseasonably cold days for Texas recently with a below zero wind chill.

[00:04:53] And just imagining somebody not wanting the pastor to be able to do something like that, the cruelty of not reaching out to help. So, again, really, really encouraged by, you know, what looks like a future victory for somebody. You know, obviously, the Coach Kennedy case, they made a movie about that. I think the problem with Pastor Evel's case is if you went to make a movie, they would say, oh, that's just too unrealistic.

[00:05:23] I mean, no one. I mean, this would never happen. That's one of those cheesy Christian movies that would never actually happen. It would never happen. No, there is this mayor whose intent on shutting down a ministry that's taking people off the streets who otherwise would be freezing. Wow. Crazy. Crazy. One of the other ones I thought I'd just mention real quickly is how a change of administration, which we'll get to later, makes a difference.

[00:05:47] Because last week we talked about the chaplain is Rusty Truby, I think is how you pronounce his name. And he was being punished for actually preaching on Romans 1. Okay, there's your problem. And yet the argument, instead of saying we're going to go to court, well, we'll just contact the secretary of Veterans Affairs, who, of course, we've known for many years. And that may be a way to resolve it.

[00:06:12] The one we talked about yesterday, instead of filing a court case, they said, well, we'll just contact the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Education. So in some respects, many times in the past, Jeff, you've had to go to court because you've had no other recourse, either because the federal government has been hostile or, in this case, again, we have listeners in Ohio. I don't want them to think we don't like the Buckeye State, but there have been a few problems in certain jurisdictions. And we gave a shout out to the attorney general.

[00:06:41] So sometimes you've had to go to court because when they wouldn't see the light, they had to feel the heat. Yeah. And I actually have this. I told our team at First Liberty this week, I said, if I had, like, a dream right now, I would love to see President Trump or J.D. Vance, who's from Ohio, go visit the church in Ohio. And the thing is, that's not – I mean, that used to be – oh, that would just be crazy, right?

[00:07:10] Well, not with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Not the man that went to the Super Bowl and dated him to 500, or even if he doesn't, how about Vivek Ramachwamy who's running for governor? Yeah, and so – J.D. Vance. But it is nice to have friends who are now in prominent positions in this administration, and to have an administration who's willing to think out of the box and really not just get bogged down in red tape.

[00:07:39] Oh, we'll get to it when we get to it. So it is – I think there's some really good opportunities for us in the religious liberty business to be able to advance our cause. Yeah. You know, one thing I was thinking about was in the speech that has caused major ripples by the Vice President Vance in Munich, where he was calling out European leaders for their lack of free speech.

[00:08:02] And he mentioned the gentleman that was praying outside of an abortion clinic silently or other laws around Europe where you're not even allowed to be seen praying in your own home if it's close enough to an abortion clinic. And so these – you know, that would be a religious liberty case. And so it's not – as crazy as this seems to us, which I know you talk about too, it's not far-fetched to think that that might happen here if we're not careful. So again, an opportunity for you to pray, and certainly you can find out more about First Liberty.

[00:08:31] We have that as our first article. We come back, though, we're trying to figure out where $4.7 trillion went since it is impossible to trace. A trillion here, a trillion there might be actually total real money. We'll be right back. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:04] Eight months ago, I wrote about the book The End of Everything, How Wars Descend Into Annihilation, written by Victor Davis Hanson. In his book, he provides four historical examples. The city-state of Thebes, ancient Carthage, Byzantine Constantinople, and Aztec Tenochalon. The leaders believed their illustrious past would be enough to prevent their destruction. Alexander the Great, Roman Scipio, Muslim Mehmet, and the Spanish conquistador Cortez proved them wrong.

[00:09:32] The book is a warning to us today, but I also realize that few people will read the book. That is why I would encourage you to watch his five-minute video summary produced by Hillsdale College. He says his book is about the existential destruction of the losing side in a war. This is very rare in history. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it should enlighten us how it does, why it does, and can it happen again.

[00:09:57] He explains that he wrote the book not just as a historical journey to document the rare cases of a targeted nation being completely destroyed, but as a warning that human nature doesn't change. We naively assume that globalization would create a common humanity and bring an end to global conflict. Instead, he noticed that there were more and more existential threats coming from autocratic regimes. He wants us to be aware that what happened in the past could happen in the future.

[00:10:26] We need to learn from the past and protect ourselves in the future. As I mentioned in a previous commentary, the world needs a strong America so that we can prevent the end of everything. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. For a free booklet on a biblical view of Israel, go to viewpoints.info.com

[00:10:58] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, let's see if we can talk about Doge. Everybody else is, so it's about time we get into that as well. And our second article is entitled, Judge Wants Doge Facts, Not Fears, which comes from one of these judges that was simply saying, look, you can actually cite a news report, but that cannot substitute for specific facts in an affidavit.

[00:11:27] And more importantly, they were arguing that Elon Musk and his Doge colleagues weren't lawfully appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate. And even if you accept that, the bigger argument that she actually made was that you have to show harm, and that gets back to the issue of standing. So there are certainly just a number of legal issues there, but the one that makes me smile,

[00:11:54] and I wanted both Liberty and Jeff to respond to this as well, they kept saying that Elon Musk didn't provide proof. Here's from the New York Times. At Oval Office, Musk makes broad claims of federal fraud without proof. And this got the Wall Street Journal, who also wrote this article we have here as well, so worked out that they said, okay, well, let's just go to the Government Accountability Office, for example,

[00:12:17] that estimated even last spring under Joe Biden that the federal government could lose between $233 billion or $521 billion annually to fraud. Or the fact is, is the Treasury supposed to be giving access to the Social Security Administration's full death master fraud file? And it turns out that we just keep paying people that are over 130 years of age, and we're pretty sure that is a fraudulent payment.

[00:12:45] So, you know, Liberty, when we get into this, when people say, I don't want evidence, I want some transparency, I'm going, just go on Google right now or just go on a website, type in D-O-G-E, doge.tracker, and you will see something that I've never seen the federal government ever provide. Wow. And that's what people need to see and need to do. I know a lot of people are, you know, concerned about some of the ways that things are being cut

[00:13:14] and their heartstrings are being pulled, and that's worth talking about, too. But it's easy to say whenever you're writing an article without evidence or he said, you know, allegedly. But like you're saying, you can actually look at the numbers. You can look at the money that we don't know where it went to or it went to something that the American people, I've seen some men on the street interviews, too, where people are saying, wait, what? The U.S. government spent money where? Supporting, you know, which project in which nation.

[00:13:43] And they're in agreement that, well, that's kind of crazy. We should probably not be spending our taxpayer dollars there. Yeah. I mean, this is, to me. This is your topic. Yeah. I mean, is this not just wonderful? I mean, it's not that. I mean, I. This is a guy that wanted to shut down. Yeah. I mean, and where have we come in our views of Elon Musk? Musk. I mean, I mean, I would guess three or four years ago. I don't know if I had a favorable view of Musk.

[00:14:10] And then he buys Twitter and it's sort of like, OK. And then he restores free speech on Twitter. And now, I mean, this is incredible. It's absolutely incredible. And again, I mean, have we we've never had a president like this? I can't imagine of another president taking this sort of aggressive. And, you know, when you said in the intro, Kirby, it's been 30 days. It's hasn't. I mean, it seems at least months.

[00:14:40] But I'm sure. Dog years. I mean, yeah. I'm sure the Democrats, it probably feels like decades that he's been doing things. I know. It's just because it was January 20th, February 21st. Do the math. And this is in a. And he was. Didn't he have the chainsaw or something? We were. We were joking. That was, you know, that's what we mean. We all need chainsaws to do so. I mean, I think it's I mean, there have been a lot of things that have been done the last

[00:15:07] 30 days, but the doge and at the pace. And then I heard somebody whining the other day about that. They're cutting the IRS. I'm thinking it needs to be eliminated. Who's complaining about that? Yeah. I mean, you know, IRS education. And so I just have this vision of these these these these government bureaucrats sitting in the in the in the in their buildings in D.C. and, you know, Elon comes knocking and they all scatter.

[00:15:39] I mean, just just awesome. And this court case is really, really interesting because these are the group of Democratic AGs who are suing to shut down Doge. And they probably were excited because they got an Obama appointed judge and they were thinking, all right, we're going to get a we'll get an order. We'll shut this down.

[00:16:02] And so even a Democrat appointed Democrat judge are saying, you know, you guys can't make your case. You have no and their cases. Basically, we are states of being harmed because you're cutting these programs might be harmed, might be harmed, but they can't even show. I mean, you know what what what they are. So this is one where the actually the standing rules sometimes on the conservative side, we've lost some cases because saying that that that we didn't have standing to bring.

[00:16:31] This is now coming back to to to to to catch them and and cause them not to be able to to proceed with a case. But I of all the things that that the president has done, this Doge effort is really shaking up. And and if I mean, if we're ever going to get a handle on the deficit, then I mean, it's it's this and who knows.

[00:16:58] And yeah, I get there are going to be some programs that perhaps after after they're cut, you would say, well, we really need that. But I go back to let's go back to zero based budgeting, which means let's start at zero. And let's what does what does the law say that your agency should be doing? And that's what you should do. And any of these extras? No. And let's start building building your budget from zero, not we need 10 percent or,

[00:17:26] you know, the fake cuts where we're going to cut part of the increase. But we're really not cutting any. Yeah. And one of the things that you are aware of, having worked with the Texas attorney general, is that in the state of Texas and any other state, you've got to balance the budget. That's right. Sometimes the best way to balance it is with zero based budgeting and saying just because you got that much money last year doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to give it to you this year because the assumption is we've got to spend everything

[00:17:53] before the end of that fiscal year because we want to ask for an increase. And so that's an issue. But I want to come to Liberty because I did this yesterday when we had Megan because she's computer literate. I know you are as well. Zelle, you are probably familiar with the payment app Zelle. And I love this line here. The Wall Street Journal decided to really stick it in and said, look, Democrats have lambasted the peer to peer payment app Zelle for not doing enough to prevent fraud on its network.

[00:18:24] You know what their estimated fraud is? One tenth of one percent. Which, as they said, is 99 percent lower than the goal of government programs, which many agencies don't even achieve. So if you're going to complain about Zelle as a payment network, maybe you need to go and look at those organizations, those agencies.

[00:18:48] And when you are standing in front of the Department of Education singing and holding hands, shaking your cane about the possibility of shutting that down or at least reducing its budget, you might want to begin to think about whether or not your complaints about something like Zelle, which has one tenth of one percent fraud rate, when the federal government we know has a fraud rate that is just enormous, isn't it? Well, yeah.

[00:19:16] Another thing people can look up is the debt tracker to see just how far in the whole America is, which is why some of these seemingly brutal cuts, I mean, they have to be made at some point. Otherwise, we're going to be losing a lot more down the road because we have no choice. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know what their intentions were. But if you're going to look like you care about fraud, then make it, I guess, believable that you're not just not a hypocrite.

[00:19:42] I did think it was interesting that the judge in this story, in this news story, was an Obama appointee because you can't really say, well, it was a partisan, you know, decision at all. That actually gave a little more credence, in my opinion, to say, okay, they really don't have any evidence or standing to say this as of right now. That's right. And, again, you mentioned the if you go to debt clock, you'll see they now have added a doge clock about the, you know, our savings. Wow, that's great. That's great.

[00:20:38] The value of the dollars in payments where the field for the TAS, the symbol, is left blank, meaning it is almost impossible to trace. Hence, Elon Musk said the other day that trying to even trace how the money comes from the Treasury Department to the Social Security, we'll talk more about this after the break, he says the logic flow diagram for the Social Security system looks insane. No one person actually knows how it works.

[00:21:06] If you have one of the smarter people in the world who can't figure it out, who else is going to figure it out? Anyway, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we'd love to get to your comments, because, after all, we're on doge, but we have a lot more to cover. And if you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212. We'll be back right after this. At Point of View, we believe there is power in prayer.

[00:21:35] 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.

[00:22:01] 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.

[00:22:29] 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.

[00:22:57] 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, we'll talk about Doge for a few more minutes and then get into some other issues. One of the things that we have mentioned before, but I thought it's worth mentioning again, and that is we've seen and we just even yesterday saw another confirmation.

[00:23:27] Kash Patel actually confirmed to the FBI. But one of the individuals who's in the EPA is Lee Zeldin, an individual that ran for office in the state of New York. And he talked about this video that circulated about two months ago in which a Biden EPA political appointee talked about tossing gold bars off of the Titanic. And what it was, was the rush to get billions of tax dollars out the door before Inauguration Day.

[00:23:56] And of course, then when Donald Trump came in and put a pause on that, then everybody's hair came on fire. But Lee Zeldin said the gold bars were tax dollars. And tossing off the Titanic meant that Biden administration knew they were wasting it. And then trying to recover the gold bars was more difficult than they imagined because they'd actually parked those dollars to an outside financial institution. I don't know much about law, but you're a lawyer.

[00:24:26] That seems to me to be a criminal act. Yeah, if it's not criminal, it should be criminal. Yeah. Because you're deliberate. I mean, it has to be a criminal. It has to be a criminal act because it's the definition of fraud, waste and abuse. I mean, you're doing it. A lot of times fraud, waste and abuse is just because people are incompetent. Yes. This is not incompetent. This is deliberate, deliberately taking tax dollars and misdirecting it for whatever.

[00:24:56] I mean, we don't even know what purposes, right? But not the purposes that the money was intended for. So, I mean, I'm hoping that some prosecutor somewhere is looking at this, investigating it, and figuring out what federal laws have been violated. Yes. Pam Bondi might look at this a little bit differently than Merrick Garland. What do you think? Well, yeah. That goes without saying. Understatement.

[00:25:25] But, again, just another kind of important issue. Unless Donald Trump did it. Yeah. And then it would be different. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's move on because, as I pointed out, even though some people haven't thought about it, a month ago was the inauguration of Donald Trump. And Joe Concha, we've always enjoyed chatting with him, and, again, he's having a little bit of fun at your expense, said, well, what if? Because, after all, Donald Trump won in the state of Pennsylvania by about two percentage points,

[00:25:53] about 1.6 percentage points in Michigan, about one point in Wisconsin. You move some of those around. He won all seven of the swing states, but suppose he didn't. And we're talking about a Harris-Waltz administration. So, Liberty, let me come to you because, you know, he's got some things here that President Harris signs executive orders giving transgender athletes the right to compete, I guess is the right word, biological women's sports. Gives us a cabinet.

[00:26:22] And, again, he's being a little bit using some hyperbole there. Chief of Staff Alex Soros and Secretary of State Susan Rice and Gavin Newsom, FEMA director and all that. Money continues to go to Ukraine, which we'll talk about a little bit later, and then tries to push through price-gouging legislation. Doesn't go so well.

[00:26:45] Tries to push out maybe something on unrealized capital gains, which is actually defeated because of Nancy Pelosi, but declares America a sanctuary country and all sorts of different things, including voting laws, are federalized. It gave us an idea that even though some people in this world still say, hey, it really doesn't matter whether I vote for Republican or Democrat,

[00:27:08] it would be stark difference right now in February if indeed Kamala Harris and Tim Walsh were the president and vice president. Oh, it would. And, you know, a lot of people have been, you know, complaining how President Trump is signing so many executive orders, you know, records of numbers. But I think a President Harris would be doing the exact same thing.

[00:27:31] And we would be, I think that list highlighted to me the reasons why Trump was elected. You have a lot of those cultural things. Those executive orders would be signed. I mean, I think that's one of the realistic things that's there on that list that the majority of Americans did not support.

[00:27:53] And then you would have, I think, a continuing problem where immigration, there's no solution being forged at all, which is another one of the big issues that Americans really wanted to have dealt with. And so I think you would have a country that in a lot of ways was just very unhappy because all of the things that they were upset about in the first place and the reasons that they elected Donald Trump, those issues would just be continuing or worsening. Yes.

[00:28:21] You know, the other day we had some comments about the raging Cajun, James Carville. Remember him? You know, and he has been saying to the Democratic Party, it isn't just that Kamala Harris lost, but you lost on issues that are difficult to defend. And he was on last night with Sean Hannity and saying that actually Donald Trump has some real problems. And I would agree on some of those on inflation, Ukraine, whatever it might be. We'll get into those in just a minute.

[00:28:51] But he also was very quick to say Donald Trump has been pretty good finding the 80-20 issues. And when you come in here and file and sign an executive order saying there are only two genders, male and female, when you say that men cannot compete against women in women's sports, and the next day the NCAA says, you know what, we will actually ban that as well. Well, you're on a lot of these 80-20 issues.

[00:29:16] And another reason why Kamala Harris and Tim Walsh lost is that they felt the need to defend some of those issues, which only a fraction or a small percentage of the American people really hold to. And because the Democratic Party is being held hostage by this small, very hard left minority. And that's why I love that AOC was going to be the hate speech coordinator or whatever, which, I mean, that –

[00:29:45] I didn't read them all because they just don't make you – Yeah, I don't know that well. It could have happened on some of these. That's what's so hilarious. And Joe's being pretty – on this, he's pretty clever, I mean, in sticking in some things that, for instance, Jim Acosta would be the White House secretary, press secretary, I mean, that – yeah, that – I mean, this is – yeah, this is worth a fun read because it does remind us,

[00:30:11] even if we get frustrated at President Trump and the Trump administration for a few things, what would the world look like 30 days after a Harris? And it would have been a continuation of a lot of bad Biden policies. But more importantly, she is a creature of the hard left.

[00:30:34] And we would have seen – I think this is actually tame to potentially what a hard left Harris administration would have done. And a lot of the things that President Trump has done by executive order is to reverse executive orders made by the Biden administration. Someone was reminding me last night about Speaker Johnson's conversations.

[00:30:59] I think we talked about it at the time about saying, well, you signed this. And no, I did not. Well, yes, you did. No, it didn't have to do with that. Well, yes, it did. And I don't think we have that problem with President Trump. I think he knows exactly what he's signing and has an objective in mind. Again, we may not agree with him 100 percent of the time. But my word, what would 30 days of the Harris administration look like?

[00:31:28] And, again, for those of you that have buyer's remorse or just wouldn't have a little bit of a laugh, I think, again, Joe Conch has got a great sense of humor. And that is certainly the case. Which brings me to the fact that we don't have Tim Waltz and we do have J.D. Vance. We don't have Kamala Harris. We have J.D. Vance. And so one of the other ones that I posted is – I'll mention it and then we'll come back from the break.

[00:31:50] Because this week I took the time and I would encourage you to because it's very easy to see both of the speeches by the vice president, J.D. Vance. One of those was a speech having to do with AI. And he gave that one in Paris. And interestingly, there's President Macron in the audience and a number of others. But he used the time not just to talk about the technical aspects. And I was very impressed. It's very obvious he's been in Silicon Valley and understands high-tech issues very well.

[00:32:19] But then used that to talk about this issue of censorship. We don't want to use AI to censor. By the way, I'm holding up our November issue, our booklet on censorship, because we really think that that's one of the big issues there. And then goes to Munich, oftentimes known as a place where appeasement took place. But nevertheless, spoke to these high-ranking officials about security.

[00:32:45] But again, probably surprised them because instead of just talking about security, he said, the greatest threat is not Russia or China. Now, he wasn't saying they weren't threatening. But he says what he thinks the external actors are. The most significant one might be an internal one, the retreat of Europe from its most fundamental values. So I thought we'd come back from the break. Nicole Russell, writing for USA Today, has actually said that this was a very good speech.

[00:33:14] You can find, and I gave you some articles earlier in the week in which some people were more critical. But I think you can get the sense that if we really honestly believe in free speech, in the booklet I'm holding up right now is one where I even kind of try to make the biblical case for free speech, why we believe in that. That is something that we are going to have to stand for. And I thought it was kind of interesting some of the examples he used, as Liberty mentioned just a minute ago. So we'll come back and talk about that right after this.

[00:33:54] Who or what is to blame for the scale of the wildfires that destroyed massive swaths of Los Angeles this winter? Some politicians point to climate change and fossil fuels. Two California legislators have filed a bill to allow insurers and homeowners impacted by the fires to sue oil companies for their losses. Lawmakers hope to cover damages the state is liable for through its underfunded insurance, the last resort for millions of Californians, as state-imposed price controls have driven private insurers out of the state.

[00:34:23] Tom McClintock, eight-term member of Congress from California, says climate change is not the culprit here. It's the state's environmental and social policies. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Representative McClintock says California's once-competent fire management policies and infrastructure explain why fires became less threatening throughout most of the 20th century. He points to federal environmental legislation first passed in the 70s, which has been taken to extremes in California.

[00:34:50] Consequently, forest-thinning projects cost millions and take an average of 5.3 years to be approved. Brush suppression is made more difficult. Cattle grazing has largely been regulated out of use, and leftist officials neglected the region's basic water infrastructure in favor of wind and solar spending. The 21st century result? Devastating loss of forests and homes. There are fixes for aging water lines, pumping systems, water tanks, and even reservoirs, but they have mostly not been implemented.

[00:35:19] National Review's Noah Rothman describes a bombshell report published in the Los Angeles Times, which could help Angelino's hold leaders to account for their maladministration. This review of thousands of pages of records reveals how thoroughly officials in Southern California dropped the ball when it came to fire management. But officials and the press have mainly tried to persuade the public that the details revealed in this report amount to misinformation. Our country has bold new leaders. Californians should find some.

[00:35:48] For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again in studio with us today, Liberty and Jeff. And let me just mention that one of our other articles, as I mentioned, is from Nicole Russell writing for USA Today. Vance's speech shows VP's star is on the rise. I'm proud to be an American again. And, of course, it's an opinion piece, so you can take it for what it is.

[00:36:17] But I think, Liberty, one of the things that is striking is not only did the vice president go and speak at the Munich Security Conference and earlier, a couple days before, in Paris on AI, but this is one of those stories that they talk about in news that has legs, because even after the speech, you had Margaret Brennan, who is the host of Face the Nation, raise Vance's speech again when she was actually doing an interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

[00:36:46] So I think this is not only something that people in Europe are going to be talking about for some time. I think some Americans need to know about it as well. Yeah, I actually listened to the full thing this morning, and I recommend it. I think it has potential to be one of those historic speeches that, like you said, people talk about for some time. And so, you know, all the delicate dance that needs to be done to keep our allies happy on foreign soil, I don't really know all about that, but just taking what he said on its own merit,

[00:37:15] I really thought he actually epitomized the way that we should fight bad speech, because he gave several examples of how different countries and governments in Europe have suppressed speech. And I think in a lot of the examples, it probably was speech that a lot of civilized people would disagree with and say, yeah, that's offensive, that's racist, that's misogynistic.

[00:37:42] However, I think, and I think he hit the nail on the head with this, but whenever you suppress speech, even if it's bad speech, even if it's offensive speech, you often, it gives it more legs. And the best way to fight it is to just not be afraid of it and to say, well, this is why we need to talk about it. Let the good speech win out. And so he was, I think it was a call to say, let's return to our values of celebrating freedom and free speech.

[00:38:10] And then another point he made is when we're talking about these external threats like China or Russia, you're talking about these dictatorships that, you know, we want to stand up against. What are we fighting for? What are the values that we are trying to protect? And if freedom of the citizens here isn't one of those values, then you've kind of lost sight of the bigger issue. So I recommend it. It's on YouTube. Go look it up. A lot of food for thought there. Yeah. I mean, I think it, can I say this?

[00:38:40] It's sort of J.D. Vance's coming out party in a way. And I get that he's vice president and Trump picked him for that. But I, this is, you said it perfectly, Liberty. This is a very significant historic speech because one, the European allies needed to be called out. But it highlights so many important issues.

[00:39:06] And it's a, I mean, it's a warning call that the allies need. And I also like it because he's telling our European allies this, but he's also speaking to us at home. He admitted that it had been happening in America. And that, you know, really the birthplace certainly of modern liberty. And I get historically there are some arguments about that.

[00:39:35] But really thinking about as we're in 2026, we'll celebrate the 250th anniversary of the start of this American experiment. And it's sort of doubling down on a commitment. And I was, I mean, the thing that I'm most, when I was, and I had heard pieces of the speech. And then obviously, Kirby, you sent us in advance this article.

[00:40:00] The thing to me that's most disturbing about this is Margaret, and you mentioned Margaret Brennan. And this idea as she attempts to ambush our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, taking a view of anti-free speech. Because that somehow, if you don't suppress free speech, then you end up with a Hitler and a Germany.

[00:40:29] Which is just such a, I mean. Just the opposite. I assume Margaret Brennan, she probably went to an Ivy League school. Anybody went to an Ivy League school? She went to an Ivy League school. I mean, I assume she's an educated woman. I don't know if I would recognize who she is. I know, I don't. But J.D. Vance was the one that said, frankly, Margaret, I don't care. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's come up, you know, she's already been on the opposite side.

[00:40:56] Yeah, but actually that someone who's a journalist who would come out against free speech, is she against free press too? I mean, that is just, it's mind-boggling. And, I mean, actually, I think CBS should fire her. If she believes what she said, they should fire her. I think it reflects a lot of the concern, especially among younger adults.

[00:41:24] Like, this is why education is so important, too, to be able to articulate these values effectively. Because I think a lot of people are legitimately concerned. If we don't stop people from saying hateful things, then we're going to turn into a hateful nation. And it's going to, and fascism is going to take over. Speech is violence. That's, we've talked about that. But I think people really struggle with this, and they don't understand the value of the free marketplace of ideas,

[00:41:54] and that the way that you fight bad speech is not by suppressing it, because then anybody who's in charge can suppress any speech they want. Yeah, let's shine light. I mean, you know, the classic case is, can the Nazis march in a Jewish community in Illinois? And the answer is, yep, Skokie, Illinois. And absolutely, let's shine light. And what you're saying, Liberty, is exactly 100% on point, because you counter hateful speech and false speech,

[00:42:24] not by suppressing it, but by countering it and encouraging more. More speech. More speech. And unfortunately, our European allies have been doing that, and obviously, even in this country, so-called respected journalists are advocating it. I mean, just to me, someone in the press arguing for free speech is just inconceivable and makes my head explode. Yeah, there we go. Makes my head explode. And again, if you...

[00:42:54] So I'm calling for her to be fired. I want it to be clear. If you go down and X, there are people saying, Margaret, get a history book, you know, and all that kind of stuff. By the way, she graduated from the University of Virginia, so we'll leave it at that. Well, Thomas Jefferson's university. Makes it even worse. I mean, Thomas Jefferson's university. Here we go. One thing I wanted to say before the break, and there was a great line by J.D. Vance, and nobody else got the humor of it, but I thought it was pretty good. Elon Musk had gone over to Germany, and he'd actually endorsed the Alternate for Germany part.

[00:43:23] He's kind of far right. And so all the Germans got their lederhosen knots, you know, not their knickers and knots, but lederhosen knots. And he came up with this line, and I thought it was a really good line, but you had to know the history. If American democracy can survive 10 years of climate activist Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk, you know.

[00:43:43] And that is we've been hearing some of the most bizarre things, and all of us that have been in college classrooms at times or gone to public meetings have heard people say just the most outrageous things, and we'll just sit there and maybe not applaud too much. And yet as soon as somebody on the left hears something they don't like, I mean, they want to shut it down. They're protesting. They're rushing the stage. They're threatening individuals, even off air. We were talking about people we know that have been getting death threats and things like that.

[00:44:13] And I just think it was kind of interesting that if we can endure Greta Thunberg, you probably can endure Elon Musk. I thought that was a good line. But we need to take a break when we come back. A couple of things. Donald Trump does have some issues. Inflation is one of those. Ukraine is another, so we'll talk about that. But also there is a study that they are talking about doing, again, newly confirmed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Department of Health and Human Services.

[00:44:41] If you told me this time last year I'd be saying that, I would say not a chance. But nevertheless, we want to study the issue of the abortion pill. And I want Liberty to share some of the things that she has in her previous booklet. But one of the reasons you might think about joining with us at Truth Team, she's got a new one coming out soon, and you'll want to get that one as well. Let's take a break. We have a lot to cover. We'll be back right after this.

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