Point of View February 5, 2025 – Hour 2 : Mid-Week News and Updates

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Back once again, second hour today and it is only Wednesday, February 5th and Donald Trump's only been in office a little over two weeks. He did his amazing all the things that have taken place.

[00:00:31] I certainly do want to get to what yesterday I said we'll talk about, sports gambling and some of the issues like that. But I think it is appropriate to at least talk about two issues and there's so much more. Each day we try to cover some various topics that are relevant in our maybe front and center in the news cycle. But at the same time, I recognize sometimes we can postpone some of them to our Friday weekend edition. I'm already looking forward to that. But let me talk about this issue of Gaza.

[00:00:58] First of all, I'll give you my bias. I think this is a really bad idea. But nevertheless, of the interesting press conference and joint press conference with President Donald Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he announced that the U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. Love the hyperbole here. We'll own it. We'll be responsible for dismantling all the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.

[00:01:28] Level the site. Get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for people of the area. Do a real job. Do something different. OK. How has that worked for us so far? Do you remember when President Joe Biden tried to build a pier in Gaza and all the disaster that unfolded there?

[00:01:53] Now, again, in order to do this, first of all, we're talking about enormous cost. The United Nations Development Program Administrator, Akim Steiner, estimated the rebuilding cost at $80 billion. $80 billion. Now, at a time when Elon Musk, oh, yes, I'm going to talk about Elon Musk in a minute.

[00:02:16] That's their second point, is around actually causing heartburn on the part of some people by wanting to cut this program or that program. The programs you want to cut aren't even close to the $80 billion that we could very quickly have to spend if we all of a sudden decide that we're going to be rebuilding Gaza. So you can see why right off the bat I'm a little bit skeptical. Of course, you've heard Donald Trump say this before. Remember, I was going to build a wall, but Mexico will pay for it.

[00:02:46] Well, here in this case, other countries in the region will help pay for it. This can be paid for, he says, by neighboring countries of great wealth. It could be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12. Look how he talks. Could be numerous sites. And then was asked about whether one of those could be Saudi Arabia. And he said Saudi Arabia is going to be very helpful, and they've been very helpful. They want peace in the Middle East. It's very simple. The problem with all of this, you can step back and look at a couple of issues.

[00:03:15] One of those is what I sometimes refer to as the utopian temptation. We've seen this on the part of government, big government, especially the Democratic Party. And that is, if we build nice buildings, it will change people's behavior. We build these Section 8 public housing, and as a result, behavior will change. No, it won't. We could bring Ben Carson, former head of HUD.

[00:03:42] Or we could bring in our friend Scott Turner, who's now heading up HUD, to say housing and urban development has built these wonderful buildings. Hasn't worked very well. Or if you don't want to look at that, how about the various migrants that are now being put in these nice hotels, New York and Chicago and other places? Do you think that they're going to really do a good job of taking care of them? Part of it has to do with human sinfulness.

[00:04:09] Part of it has to do with whether or not people have accountability and ownership and all the rest. A lot of this is what I call the utopian temptation. It comes ultimately from Karl Marx, comes really from kind of a liberal philosophy. You change the structures around individuals, you'll change the human heart. Does anybody really believe that if you're a Christian? No, you change people from the inside out. Second Corinthians 517.

[00:04:35] And so whether you look at building new buildings or not, you would hope ultimately that this would work. There was a time when, for example, Beirut, Lebanon was a wonderful place to go. After all, there's always been the hope that that whole western shore, which is Lebanon, Israel and now the Gaza Strip and even part of Egypt, this could be, you know, the Monaco of the Mediterranean.

[00:05:05] But it has to do with the people that are there. Because now if I mentioned Beirut, remember, the other issue is we're going to be sending in military. And I am old enough to remember when there was a bombing of the Beirut headquarters. The Beirut headquarters of the Marines killed all of them. And we've gone from some of these places that had the real potential to be developed, to be really elegant places, wonderful places on the seashore.

[00:05:35] But it has to do with the hearts of the individuals. And I think it is very naive, to put it mildly. It is back to the mistake I think the Bush administration made of, well, nation building. You can't grow a republic on Muslim soil. Sorry, it doesn't work very well.

[00:05:56] Because if you have a Muslim worldview that says Muslims deserve more rights than non-Muslims, men deserve more rights than women, you don't have equal protection. You don't have equal rights. Same thing. You can't put beautiful buildings when individuals are dedicated to destroying Israel and actually have voted in Hamas. So I think this is a bad idea. You might want to join the conversation in a few minutes to talk about that as well.

[00:06:24] But let me move on because this article that came out from the Wall Street Journal, Hurricane Musk, that's Elon Musk, and the USAID panic. Now, first of all, we have to recognize that there are some people, I think, raising some legitimate concerns about how much authority will Elon Musk have. And just turn it around. I saw somebody do that the other day that didn't like Trump and didn't like Elon Musk.

[00:06:51] He said, imagine if a Democratic president, Joe Biden, had a major donor, also then became a confidant of the president, who's also a government contractor, and is an individual given a significant amount of power. Imagine how people would have reacted on the side of the Republican Party. And so you can understand some of this.

[00:07:13] And, of course, you've actually, if you've turned on the TV at all, seen all sorts of people saying, you know, the American voters didn't elect Elon Musk. True. True. But he has been given the task to identify certain things that could be changed.

[00:07:30] And the one that has been perhaps the most controversial is pointing out some of the ways in which the USAID, which, again, we've talked about this organization before, USAID, which has sent money all over the world to various countries, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria.

[00:07:50] And some of it has been really questionable, not the least of which is to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia, the transgender clinic in India. And, of course, the one that probably most people have been quoting, developing a transgender comic book for Peru. Okay, that's not really a good way to spend some money. So after the break, I want to come back and talk about the fact that he has identified some key issues.

[00:08:16] And if, indeed, he has given the authority to close down an organization, that's unconstitutional. But I think there is also an overreaction. It's legitimate to say, what kind of constraints and guardrails do we have around Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency? A reasonable question to ask. At the same time, when they point out some of the misspending of your tax dollars, I think that's a service that we should applaud.

[00:08:46] We'll take a break and come back with more right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. As I mentioned a week ago, President Joe Biden warned of the rise of oligarchs in one of his farewell speeches before leaving office. Apparently, the issue of oligarchs and big tech leaders is a theme that some in Congress plan to use this year.

[00:09:15] Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Michael Bennett sent a letter to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. They criticized him for contributing to President Donald Trump's inauguration fund. The senators reminded him that big tech companies have come under increased scrutiny from federal regulators. They expressed to him their concern that your company and other big tech donors are using your massive contributions to the inaugural fund to cozy up to the incoming Trump administration. Sam Altman was quick to reply on X.

[00:09:45] He said, funny, they never sent me one of these for contributing to Democrats. He went on to explain that this was his personal contribution, as you state, which is why he was confused about the questions given that my company did not make a decision. Both points are relevant. He didn't remember that any of his contributions to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris triggered such a letter. In fact, the editors of The Wall Street Journal reminded us that President Biden's 2020 inaugural brought in $62 million.

[00:10:13] And the presidential campaign for Kamala Harris raised over $1 billion. Second, he was making a personal contribution to the inauguration and had nothing to do with his company. Of course, the senators knew that but wanted to bully a big tech leader who has changed some of his giving habits. When most of big tech lined up behind Democrats, the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress were thrilled. Now that some are reconsidering their previous support, they're likely to get similar letters.

[00:10:41] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. For a free booklet on a biblical view on big data, go to viewpoints.info.com. That's viewpoints.info.com. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:03] Pick one skin, and I'll get into this in just a few more details, and then we may cover it again on Friday because we have other topics to address as well. But again, you're going to hear a lot of people say the American voters didn't elect Elon Musk. No, they did elect Donald Trump, and if you go and look at some of the statutory regulations, and if this is still going to be a big issue by Friday, I'll go into that in some detail. You can create, and the president can create, various temporary agencies, and this has been done before.

[00:11:32] We've had times in which there have been individuals looking at the overspending that has taken place. And so, of course, that is something that is going to generate pushback, not surprising, but it's reminiscent of the old phrase in West Texas, if you throw a rock in a pack of dogs, the one that yelped is the one that got hit.

[00:11:55] And obviously, there are some people that are convinced that we cannot either completely eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, or we shouldn't even reform it. And I think anybody that's looked at some of these numbers know that at least you should reform it, if not end it. And I guess I'm a little surprised that the pushback has come over the USAID.

[00:12:23] We're talking about an agency that has about 10,000 employees, about $40 billion, which is kind of half of what they're talking about in terms of going back and rebuilding Yemen. But nevertheless, okay, $40 billion is $40 billion. But it doesn't seem to me to be the hill to die on.

[00:12:44] I think if you are a senator, and certainly we've seen Elizabeth Warren and others complain about this, that is going to actually say, we're going to dig in our heels and fight you on, I would think it would be like funding a Planned Parenthood or a variety of different agencies that perhaps are going to look out for consumer protection or something like that.

[00:13:09] But I don't think if you were to go out with a microphone and ask how many Americans or even how many members of Congress know much about the U.S. Agency for International Development, they could give you a very good answer. But nevertheless, that's the one that the fight is brewing on at the moment. And so the editors, the Wall Street Journal put it this way, Hurricane Elon is blowing through Washington, creating panic and pushback wherever he and his government efficiency minions appear.

[00:13:39] Mr. Musk, they say, sometimes blows hot air and he needs to be watched to stay within legal guard riles. But he's also hitting targets that have long deserved scrutiny and reform. I think that's a good balance, okay? Sometimes you can say some things that are just off the top. And he's actually said some of those. And yet at the same time, when you're talking about an agency that has 10,000 employees and a budget of $40 billion,

[00:14:07] and some of that is going for transgender clinics and transgender comics and is going to fund things in Afghanistan and Yemen and Syria, and you're going, I don't know, that doesn't seem like a very good investment. Let's give a positive. I believe the anti-AIDS effort, PFAR, that may have been one of the best in Africa. That happened under George W. Bush, but that was a long time ago, too. And so, again, this is part of the issue of trying to address this issue.

[00:14:37] And so one of the suggestions has been that instead of ending U.S. aid, let's reform or transform U.S. aid. And that might actually be what's going on. If you listened to the program yesterday, I mentioned that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has now been seen as the head of this. It looks like it might be subsumed under the Secretary of State and the State Department.

[00:15:05] And so that might be the answer, because, first of all, if you want to close it down, you would have to get, I think, if I understand this right, 60 votes in the Senate, because that's the issue of cloture.

[00:15:19] So instead of closing it down, making sure that these crazy grants that go out no longer go out, maybe begin to reduce the funding and allowing it to be used for a few things that might be helpful, okay, maybe so. My argument would be I'd rather get rid of it. But I also recognize political expediency for what it is, and maybe that will not take place.

[00:15:50] So that also brings me to one of the other articles I've posted for you today, because we'll then focus some time on the issue of sports gambling after the break. And that is Cal Thomas, who, of course, has written columns and has written columns for years and used to work for NBC, so really can look inside and outside the media world.

[00:16:08] And she talked about the fact that the White House Press Secretary, Caroline Levitt, announced last week that in the briefing room they're now going to open it to reporters for the so-called new media, including podcasters and websites. And she acknowledged, if nothing else, the power and really the reach of some of these outlets we've talked about before. Joe Rogan, my goodness, that podcast reaches more people than any of the legacy media.

[00:16:35] And so also we saw during the campaign, candidate Donald Trump, now President Donald Trump, has made himself available to some of those new media outlets. What is that actually saying? Well, the legacy media, as he calls it, or the established media, he says, are in decline. And the new media are surging. And he gives you a good example for maybe why.

[00:17:00] He points out that, dear, in the New York Times, you had one of these particular, I think it was an op-ed, if I remember right. It was a guest essay. Just two weeks after President Trump's inauguration had the title, Trump is already failing. That's the key to a big Democratic rebound. Trump is failing. Remember the list I gave you yesterday? What's happened in Columbia, Venezuela, Panama.

[00:17:25] The fact that there are 10,000 troops in the northern border of the United States from Canada. There's 10,000 troops to the southern border from Mexico. And, of course, we talked about a variety of other things. Airstrikes. Actually freeing American hostages in Venezuela and on and on. To say that Trump, number one, is failing. And then, number two, to say that this is great for the Democrats.

[00:17:52] As Cal Thomas points out, has anybody at the Times been paying attention to kind of the lack of direction right at the moment at the Democratic National Convention and the parties and all that? Well, anyway, it just shows why there seems to be so many people that are saying, I'm just not going to get my news from the so-called legacy media because they just don't seem to have a very accurate pulse on what's going on in America.

[00:18:21] And then he goes on to remind us about how the legacy media was engaged in quite a bit of the cover-ups. He picks just two, but the list is pretty long. One is all of the family business dealings of the Bidens and the Hunter Biden laptop, which is no small issue. And, of course, we've covered much of that here on Point of View.

[00:18:46] And the other cover-up, well, again, we know that one, is the cognitive decline and the lack of any kind of coherency for the Biden administration because of the cognitive decline of Joe Biden. And so he points out that we're in a time of cultural transitions. I may borrow some of this from his commentary in one of mine because he reminds us that oftentimes when you are having a cultural transition,

[00:19:16] they're the diehards who don't want to go and actually follow the transition. He talks about people who were opposed to civil rights legislation because they were, of course, entrenched into a variety of situations. There are those, he says, who resisted the transition from horses to motor cars. There are those who thought the telephone was a fad and that man was not made to fly.

[00:19:43] Some people in Hollywood didn't believe that television would last or be significant. He even goes on, and I'm going to look this up, people who opposed coffee and opposed refrigeration. And now it's people that don't want to get in driverless cars. And, you know, he gives you that list. And I think I'll see if I can put together, because I remember there seeing some things of people being opposed to actually electrifying homes, that electricity in the home was going to lead to fires.

[00:20:12] And, of course, there was all it took for one fire for everybody to be convinced that that was dangerous. And he says the one constant among resistors to change is that they're left behind when the change comes. And the legacy media hasn't figured out there are a lot more people that are going to listen to a talk show like this, a podcast like that, go to the Internet to find their information. And he goes on to then add the one disclaimer.

[00:20:37] That doesn't mean the media shouldn't be questioning the policies and pronouncements of President Trump or anyone in his administration. What it does mean is their approach should be not one of he can do no right, but rather to at least try to call, as we oftentimes say, balls and strikes. Anyway, this changing media landscape was interesting. He is an individual that has worked for NBC. He is an individual whose columns have been in hundreds of newspapers across the country.

[00:21:04] He has seen both sides of the media, and he has talked about this changing media landscape. And now when you have individuals in the press room, White House press room, that are part of the new media asking questions, you can see that the world is changing. And I think that's for the better. Let's take a break. We come back with more right after this.

[00:21:30] In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas. London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. London was in many ways the center of the world economically, militarily, and intellectually. Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports,

[00:21:59] Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth. It is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today? Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints commentary at pointofview.net slash signup.

[00:22:27] Every weekday in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time. It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash signup right now. Pointofview.net slash signup. 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. Final half hour, let's see if we can talk about sports gambling, sports betting, and we've given you quite a number of articles that you might want to read. First of all, one on the pros and cons of sports betting.

[00:23:23] We also have one that really is a week of radio programs I've done on just how to think about gambling from a Christian point of view. I also posted a commentary I did a while back on sports gambling, which was actually tied to a Supreme Court decision that came down. And I might quote a few others along the way. Why to do so? Well, first of all, this weekend is Super Bowl. And there is going to be an enormous amount of betting taking place.

[00:23:51] But it is disturbing, even if you read this article on the pros and cons of sports betting, to see why people bet. For example, the author points out that when a fellow student was asked how much money he planned on betting on the Super Bowl, he said he was willing to spend $3,000 on the Chiefs, that'd be the Kansas City Chiefs, winning, not because he has any expertise in football, but because he was convinced that the National Football League was rigged for the Chiefs to win because of Travis and Taylor. Okay.

[00:24:21] Well, and of course, you've probably heard a few other people recognize that there are quite a number holding on to various conspiracy theories that actually the refs want this to happen. And you've more than once probably seen a YouTube video or an individual said, well, I just bought a Kansas City Chiefs uniform. And he opens up the box and it's a uniform of a ref, NFL ref. So you can see that. There is another reason for it.

[00:24:49] And I am broadcasting today, as we do so often from Dallas. And Luka Doncic, some of you may know who he is, and many of you might say I've never heard of him. But if you follow basketball, you know who he is because he has been on a tear and is certainly one of the best players in the world. I think it is honest to say. Some people say maybe up to maybe the top one or one, two or three, maybe the third best player in the NFL NBA or something like that.

[00:25:19] We can get into a debate about that. But the Dallas Mavericks traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers. That is unprecedented. And there have been all sorts of fans, really not only fans of the Mavericks, but just people all over the sports world saying, why did this happen? And so one of the arguments is supposedly a tinfoil hat kind of conspiracy idea. But it relates back to this idea of sports gambling.

[00:25:49] Christopher Krettoff put it this way. By the way, I might just give you this summary of this. He's got 14 premises before he even gets to a conclusion. I'm just going to give you a handful. But first of all, the Mavs trading Luka, 25 years of all, one of the top three players in the world, for 32-year-old Anthony Streetclothes Davis makes no sense from a basketball point of view. So something else must be going on. Well, who owns the Mavericks? Well, the Adelson ownership group. And they are involved in gambling.

[00:26:18] A lot of people thought, well, Mark Cuban owned it. Well, used to own the Mavericks. But he didn't even find out about this trade until a lot of us found out about it. So it tells you that this was happening, obviously, behind the scenes. The Adelson group has been trying to change the laws in the state of Texas to allow this idea of having a Mavs-centered destination casino resort. And yet they can't get that passed in the Texas legislature.

[00:26:46] They've been hiring almost every lobbyist they can. And that hasn't worked. So the other idea was to move the Mavericks to Las Vegas. Well, up until a few days ago, that was laughable. But now, if indeed the Mavericks aren't going to be quite as good, that would be the case. One of the other premises in this argument is that this turned this so-called top-tier NBA team

[00:27:14] that went to the NBA Finals last year into one that's not so good. And already, this one said there were 700,000 followers on Mavericks' Instagram. Actually, now it's up to 900,000. And so here you have a plan A to actually build a Venetian Dallas casino resort in Dallas by now threatening maybe the legislature and really the troublesome part of that

[00:27:43] has to do with the Texas Senate and the Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and maybe even the governor, or else move them to Las Vegas. So that's kind of the theory. But nevertheless, it's a reminder of something I thought we might focus on for just a minute. And that is, gambling is so many different places around the country.

[00:28:06] But if you look it up, you can actually see that there are some states which do not really provide a great deal of access to sportsbook gambling. And those are states like California, Texas, and Florida. But we'll just focus on Texas for a minute. And there is a real desire to do so because there's a lot of money to be made, as you will know, in gambling.

[00:28:31] The numbers I have here, I was going to post this originally because it's a few years old, but 39 million Americans placed a sports bet within the last 12 months. I am sure that number is probably closer to 50 million as well. And you look at the amount of money, $220 billion, which was back in 2018. Well, yeah, we're actually quite a distance from there, so probably at least $300 billion.

[00:29:02] And so you can kind of see that gambling and sports have really been going together since the beginning. Our first article that you can read by Joshua Alvarez reminds us that the first Olympic Games took place in Greece. And there were already people placing wagers back then on the lives of the gladiators or on the chariot races.

[00:29:23] There's even a god known as Mercury that the Roman citizens later actually prayed to to help win their gambling bets. And sports betting, of course, is something that has been around for some time. And, again, you are a free individual. If you want to wager on the Super Bowl or on any sports team, you know, as long as it's legal, you're free to do so. Of course, you can do a lot of things online.

[00:29:53] But I think anybody listening to this right now is probably wanting to raise their hand and say, what about all the gambling addiction? What about, for example, if you are in a home where your parents or maybe you're in a marriage where your spouse is addicted to gambling and you've seen the devastation that has come from that, we can recognize that it isn't exactly the most positive phenomenon in our society.

[00:30:21] Hence, my article on gambling, which I try to work your way through each one of these questions, whether it's what about state lotteries, what it is about casinos, and a variety of others. And, of course, this is, I think, a great concern because, as this particular article on the pros and cons of sports betting point out,

[00:30:43] sports gambling can also act as a gateway drug in a way that gets other people to be involved in even more gambling. And you have seen so many young people that have wanted to hit and get it rich quick and hit the lottery or win something and horse racing or sports or whatever. And the addiction that that brings is really concerning.

[00:31:10] In my piece that we've posted on sports gambling, I point out one of my chapters in my book, Christian Ethics in Plain Language. Suppose a team was picked to win by more than three points and was leading by one point with less than a minute left. Even if the team was on the 20-yard line, the coach might just say, you know, I'm not going to kick a field goal because there's always a possibility of a blocked kick.

[00:31:36] And so can you imagine if you, especially this time, see that one of the calls from the ref allows Patrick Mahomes to complete a pass or a penalty is brought against the Philadelphia Eagles, people are going to say, yep, I mean, it's all rigged. And that's, of course, what we're finding more and more people talking about. So this idea of sports gambling is not something we talk about very often here on Point of View.

[00:32:03] But I thought just because of a couple of the events in the news, and we're talking about quite a number, interestingly enough, not just, of course, the Super Bowl and all the conspiracy theories about whether or not the refs are in on that. Because if the Kansas City Chiefs win on Sunday, it'll be the first team in the NFL to win three consecutive Super Bowls. And so there's something with that.

[00:32:30] The whole question of why would the Dallas Mavericks trade Luka Doncic, one of the best players literally in the world, for some, maybe not has-beens, but certainly less considered types of individuals, unless there was some connection to the fact that this particular franchise is owned by a gambling ownership. And so there are some really important issues to think about in that regard.

[00:32:59] And, of course, I've even come across this interesting article came out, What does the Bible say about fantasy football? Well, actually, nothing. The Bible doesn't say anything about gambling, but somebody quoted me in that particular piece about fantasy football, which, again, reminds us that sometimes when we look at gambling,

[00:33:22] we've got to recognize that it isn't really based upon the most valuable virtues that we would want people to have. And so I did want to at least spend just a little bit of time talking about sports gambling, especially with the Super Bowl happening on Sunday. And we'll come back with more right after this.

[00:33:55] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, let me just mention as a program note that tomorrow we're going to have in studio with us Ted Edwards of Valor Vets. And it's really a program to help campus veterans become Christ-centered, lifelong, multiplying disciples of Christ. Lots of great material there. And, again, we'll be talking about the military. And, of course, we always want to honor those people that have served our country. And so Ted Edwards will be with us.

[00:34:25] Also be then talking with, by phone, Katie Daniel. And we'll be talking about what is kind of the future for the pro-life movement under the Trump administration. Yes, we're not thrilled by some of the things that Donald Trump has said about the pro-life issues and about abortion. But I think there are some great opportunities. We'll be talking about that with her tomorrow. Just before I get to my last article here about welcome news from Panama, I thought since I did talk about gambling, some of you might say,

[00:34:54] Well, okay, if the Bible doesn't say anything about gambling, are there any verses? And I do quote a couple in the various articles. For example, in 1 Corinthians 10, 23, All things are lawful for me, and not all things are expedient. All things are lawful for me, not all things edify. So you might just simply say, you know, is this something that's really going to be helpful to me? I've had people tell me I love to play golf, and then when we started having a dollar a hole,

[00:35:21] it just changed the whole element of that. Or when people were playing other kinds of sports and there was gambling. I think in many cases the influence, I think the very negative influence of sports betting and sports gambling is not positive. And as I said before, I think the very first time I was ever on the McNeil-Lair television program, I was supposed to debate Jimmy the Greek, for those of you might remember who he was,

[00:35:49] and ended up debating one of his associates. But I pointed out all sorts of negative things that are beginning to transpire right then in terms of how sports gambling is. Everybody tells us, for example, what is it right now? Kansas City is supposed to be up, I think the betting line is one and a half points, something like that. I don't even remember what it was. I've seen that the other day, and I don't pay attention to it very much, as evidenced by the fact I couldn't tell you what it was.

[00:36:19] But why is that the case? Okay, you know, if you know anything about gambling, we want half on one side and half on the other. And why is it always .5? Because they don't want to run the risk that it's a push. So, again, even going into these games, we end up talking about gambling, even when we talk about the teams. And I think we've so taken that for granted, it's not a real positive idea.

[00:36:44] In here, I also, of course, point out the core values of what we would be considering a Christian work ethic would be such things as hard work and thrift and investment. And gambling actually corrupts these values and sometimes replaces those with greed and selfishness. You know, your success oftentimes depends on hard work. Gamblers depend on luck and chance.

[00:37:09] And, of course, I would be remiss if I didn't also mention 1 Timothy 5.8 that an individual that neglects his or her family is someone to be criticized as well. And oftentimes the results of certainly irresponsible gambling have certainly destroyed many a family. So you can come to your own conclusions about gambling.

[00:37:33] I would even say in the state of Texas, a majority of people would have no problem with having a casino here in Texas. But so far, I haven't been able to push that through the Texas Senate. And we'll see what happens now with some of those changes. But I did want to end with this piece here because we're starting to see something on, again, some of these talk shows, especially some of these more progressive talk shows that are disturbing.

[00:38:02] And that is when there's a success, instead of people saying, okay, I may not like Donald Trump, but let's give him credit for the fact that his tariffs actually have brought about some changes, like 10,000 troops in the southern border, 10,000 troops in the northern border, a willingness of Colombia to not only allow military aircraft to land, but even being willing to give aircraft, Venezuela releasing hostages. I mean, just go through this long list.

[00:38:31] Certainly, we have some question marks about China. But the other day, watching CNN, don't recommend it for the faint-hearted, this one particular reporter from The Washington Post said, Trump did these tariffs and he got nothing for it. And I'm going, what? Are you not paying attention to all of these lists that people have put together, including the press secretary? And again, let's just talk about Panama.

[00:38:55] Of course, when, again, this article we've posted here, in his inaugural address, Trump said he was going to take Panama Canal back. Well, we sent the newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio down to meet with the Panama Canal Authority administrator, Rukarte Vasquez. And they said, you know what?

[00:39:21] We were the first nation to actually join in China's global belt and road initiative, which we have talked about before. Maybe in the future I'll get into that in more detail. And now we'll be the first nation to leave. And so all of a sudden we've gone from a time in which, well, we're really concerned about China's influence in the Panama Canal to, well,

[00:39:48] we're going to encourage Panama to actually be an independent nation and for Panama to push the Chinese communist group out of the Panama Canal. And also some other concessions that come down there as well. And so this is just, I think, a reminder of the fact that whether you like the current president or not, whether you voted for him or not,

[00:40:13] I'm going to certainly try to talk about some of the concerns that we would have about some of the things president has wanted to do. I think you've already heard a few. The Gaza Strip makes no sense to me. And I think that if it does end up being successful, it's going to be because of a lot of negotiation with other countries. Because the Gaza Strip is very far away. We need to invest in American people first.

[00:40:41] And again, whether it's actually trying to ring some concessions out of Panama, maybe open up some markets in Greenland, or just a half a dozen other things that every single day Donald Trump or somebody's administration proposed. We'll keep track of those. Some might be good. Some might not be good. But it does seem to me that we are being now told in some of these talk shows that these terrorists were a disaster.

[00:41:10] And so far, they've actually looked relatively good. And I would also point out that this particular article that came from the editors said that Trump is absolutely correct to identify the Panama Canal as a vital interest to the United States. This is a number you need to remember. Nearly 72% of all the vessels that travel through the Panama Canal are coming from or going to a U.S. port.

[00:41:37] So we certainly can benefit from that. By the way, the Gaza Strip, they're talking about now doing a Gaza Canal that would be something that would be a rival of the Suez Canal. So like I said, maybe we'll get back to some of that on Friday. Maybe we'll learn some more about why we're talking about spending time and treasure and even deploying troops to Gaza. Maybe there's some things we've missed. And it's possible they know more than we do.

[00:42:04] But at the same time, we'll see what we can do to cover some of these really important issues in this regard. If you want to know more about marriage restoration, we have information about the book and the links to that website, Standing Supernaturally. It's on the website. If you'd like to read some things about sports gambling or gambling in general, the changing media culture, even some great news from Panama, it's all on the website, pointofview.net.

[00:42:33] And there's just a lot of things we haven't covered after two hours today. So that's why we're going to try to cover them tomorrow or else on Friday in our weekend edition. If you'd like to find some of the material we're talking about, simply go to the website, pointofview.net. You might click on that button that says Donate if you value some of the things we're covering each day here on Point of View. And most importantly, I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program today. Steve, thank you for producing the program.

[00:42:59] Go to the website, find out more, make a donation, maybe look at my commentary today, and we'll see you back here tomorrow right here on Point of View. 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.

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