Point of View January 15, 2025 – Hour 2 : Mid-Week News

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, and now, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, if you'd like to join the conversation, that number is 1-800-351-1212. As I mentioned last hour, let me just mention it again, and we will probably get into it more tomorrow as we know more,

[00:00:32] but we do have multiple officials saying that it is quite possible that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire that will also result in the release of hostages. We will see what that brings, but these hostages have been held there for more than 15 months. I think some of us have to be skeptical how many are still alive or in good shape, but we will see.

[00:00:56] When would this deal take effect? Well, even if the plan is completely ratified, and maybe some of that has happened even while we've been on the air, but I suspect much of it will happen when dawn breaks there tomorrow in Israel, that even if it is accepted, then you would have to have approval from at least the security cabinet of our minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, and then his full cabinet, but we will see what that would bring, and then if indeed that is the case,

[00:01:23] the argument is there may be a hundred people still captive inside Gaza. Israel's defense initiative and the idea, I think, maybe a third have not made it, but we will see, and we'll see where that takes us. And of course, we have a situation in which this war has been going on for some time. Just whole sections of Gaza are just reduced to rubble.

[00:01:52] The rebuilding and even the displacement of so much of the population, the possibility of famine and disease, very great. So we will be watching that, and maybe as we know more, we'll cover that tomorrow. I thought it would be good to mention that, of course, we are in the midst of these confirmation hearings. One last time, just to mention that Pete Hegseth spent a lot of back and forth yesterday with a number of Democratic leaders in the Senate.

[00:02:22] And of course, whether it was, of course, the one, I still love the Peveillon Bee, Pete Hegseth awarded a Silver Star for enduring a room full of hysteric women. But then there are also pictures of Senator Tim Kaine or even Senator Richard Blumenthal. There have been a lot of people that have made a point, and it's worth mentioning since we have a younger audience,

[00:02:45] that this is an individual who many years ago actually talked about what we learned since I served in Vietnam. And I'm actually reading right now from a piece by the New York Times where they outed him because he claimed that he had served in Vietnam. And even the New York Times made a point about showing that Mr. Blumenthal, I'm quoting them,

[00:03:13] a Democrat now running for the U.S. Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war. Now, these deferments allowed him to complete his studies at Harvard and do a postgraduate study at England and a number of other things.

[00:03:35] But even though it was revealed many years ago that he actually claimed to have served in Vietnam and never served in Vietnam, the so-called stolen valor, that didn't keep the voters in Connecticut from electing him. And it didn't keep him yesterday from putting, again, when you think about all of this with Pete Hegseth, you would think that there would be some sense of shame saying, you know,

[00:04:05] I really shouldn't even be serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee since I have misrepresented my lack of military service. Or if at least when I'm going to be doing an interview and asking tough questions of a person to me who will be nominated, has been nominated as Secretary of Defense, maybe I just need to back off of that. But that didn't happen. And that has created perhaps as much of a flap as anything.

[00:04:34] And I'll leave that to you to figure out what you think about it. But the other issue is not only do we need very quickly to get somebody in this position of Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State, and I think really most people believe Marco Rubio is a done deal, but the other one is to get an attorney general in the Justice Department. And that's where, this morning, Pam Bondi made her case for the fact that she has certainly qualified,

[00:05:04] and I think certainly has been the attorney general in the state of Florida. So, again, she could serve as the attorney general of the United States, and was led by the chairman, Chuck Grassley. Chuck Grassley said,

[00:05:35] Went on to add that when confirmed, Pam Bondi will take the helm at a turbulent time. The Justice Department's infected with political decision-making, while its leaders refuse to acknowledge its reality. And if you go to our website, pointofview.net, you'll notice that we do have a take-action item. And I quote from two individuals, one, a Republican, Judd Gregg, who is a former senator,

[00:06:03] who made a point of the fact that the president has a right to choose his cabinet, but also Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, who made the point four years ago that we need qualified Senate-confirmed people in national security positions, and that would be Secretary of Defense, Homeland Security, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. So, we will see how these votes go, but nevertheless, that's where we find ourselves in right now.

[00:06:30] Real quickly, I did post an article that I thought you might find interesting, and it comes from Sarah Arnold. Actually, I guess we didn't actually post it, which is just as well. I found some mistakes in the article, which probably are better that we didn't post it, because she said that the Washington Post has provided an endorsement of 19 of President-elect Donald Trump's judicial nominees. Well, these are not judicial nominees. They are cabinet nominees.

[00:06:58] I don't know how that typo got through there or that misinformation, but basically what she's talking about, and I have it in front of me here, since I do have a subscription to the Washington Post. Once again, let me give you some of the numbers. We have 15 cabinet positions, and they give a thumbs-up to Marco Rubio in state, a thumbs-up for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett, a thumbs-up for Pam Bondi, Attorney General,

[00:07:24] and you can go down the list of all the other very significant individuals there. But they do give a thumbs-down for the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and a thumbs-down for the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy. So those are the 15 cabinet offices, but there are also eight other sort of cabinet-level. They're not necessarily cabinet offices, but they're cabinet-level. And again, they give two more thumbs-down there,

[00:07:54] one for Tulsi Gabbart, Director of National Intelligence, and, which was the most surprising of them all, Russ Vought, who's been on the program with us many times before, who would head up the Office of Management and Budget, who's been there before. But let's at least give credit where credit is due. The Washington Post, definitely left of center, when they looked at these 23 individuals, 15 cabinet officers, eight others that are cabinet-level,

[00:08:22] they at least said 19 of the 23 should be confirmed. And if that trend continues, that's good news for the Trump administration. But we need to hit the ground day one, because after all, so far Donald Trump's picked 102 nominees, and so far only about 100 of them have gone through a confirmation process. We need to get going real quickly. We'll be back right after this.

[00:08:57] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. The recent Department of Defense report should concern all Americans. The authors conclude that China's engaged in the largest military buildup since Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Colonel Grant Neusheim, who once served as the Marine Liaison Officer to Japan and is also a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy. His book, When China Attacks, A Warning to America, documents Communist China's ongoing covert war

[00:09:27] against the United States and its allies. He gave a sobering interview with WorldNet Daily about China's military intentions. He explained that China's military buildup has been going on for over 30 years, regardless of who has been in the White House, Democrat or Republican. Now, it is true that the Chinese Communist Party has been emboldened by American weakness and perceived decline, and he added that the Chinese Communists certainly did not fear the Biden administration. On the other hand, Neusheim argued that the first Trump administration

[00:09:56] was the first one in my lifetime that actually frightened Beijing. But that did not slow down the Chinese military buildup. He warns that Beijing will not let up in its quest to be able to dominate and defeat, if possible, the U.S. and the U.S. military. He's not the only person warning Americans about China.

[00:10:24] Even leftists, like Martin Jacques, write about when China rules the world, the end of the Western world and the birth of a new global order. The Trump administration must be ready to face the formidable China challenge. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. For a free copy of Kirby's booklet, A Biblical View on Critical Race Theory,

[00:10:52] go to viewpoints.info.com. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, we're going to get to the California fires and some of the political fallout in just a minute. But since we were talking about the confirmation process, this is part of the transition from one administration to the next. Now, on the one hand, we can applaud the fact that we have,

[00:11:20] this time, a much more peaceful transition than we did four years ago. We all know that. But I think it is also fair to say, and I try never to give too much credence to some of the hyperbole being said, but I think it is probably fair to say that this may be the worst transition the Biden administration has ever provided for an incoming administration ever. And there seems to be a desire on the part of not only Joe Biden,

[00:11:50] but people in his administration to make this much more difficult for Donald Trump. Now, let's face it, there's no love lost between the two of those individuals. But most of the time, even when there was a substantial disagreement from one administration to the next, there was usually at least a cordial attempt to make the transition easy, if for no other reason for the good of the country. We are seeing just the opposite of this.

[00:12:19] And it used to be that when people would talk about transitions that were botched or intentionally ruined, most of the time the attention would go back to Bill Clinton. When he left office, there was the expectation that Al Gore would be the next president. Instead, it was George W. Bush. Well, there are a number of things that were done,

[00:12:44] not the least of which they pulled the W's off of all the typewriters in the West Wing. And so as a result, it was a little hard to use the typewriters and all sorts of other pranks. And first of all, the mainstream media hardly ever covered them. We did here on Point of View. Or if they did, they referred to them as pranks. But some of them really did great damage. That's the one that certainly sticks in everybody's mind,

[00:13:11] along with all sorts of rules, regulations and laws and policies that were implemented that made it just much more difficult for George W. Bush. But those, I would have to say, pale in comparison to the concerns now. Number one, the enormous number of pardons by Joe Biden. Yes, there were criticisms at the time, I think justifiably so, of some of the pardons that Bill Clinton dished out just before he left office,

[00:13:39] some of whom certainly should not have been pardoned. But then we've had the pardons. Now we've had the commutations of individuals that were actual terrorists or multi-murders, you know, individuals that had murdered multiple number of people that were just taken off of death row. We've talked on this program before about executive orders that have made it impossible

[00:14:03] at the moment to drill in very important areas that are going to be helpful with the, if you will, Donald Trump drill baby drill mandate. There have also been, and we'll talk about this on Friday, because Kelly's got a good article that he pointed me to, which we'll get into it, of the attempt to try to provide a number of judges in some of these federal jurisdictions where they were overloaded,

[00:14:33] and it passed both the House and the Senate bipartisan, and then was vetoed by certainly Joe Biden, because he recognized that the person that would be appointing those judges would be, well, Donald Trump. We have, of course, the conversation we've had here about the border materials, in which, in an effort to prevent Donald Trump from beginning to finish off the border wall,

[00:15:00] he wanted to sell off all of these border materials in auction, and the minimum bid was $5. So you could see that was something. Some more recent things. Cuba has been taken off of the terrorist watch list. This is a good way for the outgoing president, Joe Biden, to guarantee that Democrats will not win Florida anytime soon. Just think about this for a minute.

[00:15:28] You have a number of Cubans, primarily in Miami, but other parts of Florida. I certainly, when I've traveled to Florida, have run into all sorts of Cubans who have come from Cuba, who maybe have relatives still in prisons in Cuba, and when they heard that, were just furious about this decision, which I think Donald Trump probably will reverse very quickly. Something else that Joe Biden has done, by the way, are you wearing out just with the list I'm making here?

[00:15:57] I mean, this list goes on for some time. He also, this relates to Pam Bondi, has changed what is called the order of succession in the Justice Department. So if you don't have certain people in positions in day one, because the confirmation period is taking too long, the process is taking too long, it allows for various individuals sympathetic to Joe Biden to actually still be in the Justice Department and do damage

[00:16:24] or maybe even prosecute the incoming President Donald Trump. So those are all happening with Joe Biden. Lest you think that's it, and I didn't even give you the complete list, what's been happening at the vice presidential level has been concerning as well. Because coming next week, you have a new vice president. That's J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance and his wife, Shusha Vance, have three children.

[00:16:52] They will move into the residence for the vice president, which is what is called the Naval Observatory, who are the present residents in the Naval Observatory. Well, that would be Kamala Harris and her husband. And I think, as you might imagine, Shusha Vance, that is J.D. Vance's wife, wanted to ask a couple of questions. First of all, can we go about childproofing this facility? After all,

[00:17:21] I have three young children. This is something nobody's really had to think about before because the vice president didn't always exist in the Naval Observatory. It wasn't built for that. And so it's never been a big issue because you mostly just had two adults. You had Mike Pence and his wife. You have Kamala Harris and her husband. But now you have three children because he's the youngest VP in a long time. And they just completely turned a blind eye or a deaf ear, probably would be a better way to this.

[00:17:49] Then they wanted to see if they could actually get a tour of the Naval Observatory. And I don't know that they've been given even a chance to get a tour of what will be their new house. And then, if that's not enough, there was a desire to say, you know, would it be helpful if since I've got to move in, obviously, five people, and this is not just moving into a house, this is moving in with Secret Service protection, all sorts of other issues.

[00:18:19] Would it be possible that you could leave earlier, even just the day before? And, of course, the answer to that is no. And so at every level, it seems like there has been, and again, there's probably some animosity. After all, Kamala Harris was expecting to be moving into the Oval Office and living in the White House, not moving out of the Naval Observatory. But nevertheless, you start seeing how this has played out.

[00:18:47] It is really kind of a source of some real concern, and I think it's an illustration, again, of the fact that if you want to try to identify what might be the worst transition from one administration to the next in modern times, I think you have it right in front of your very eyes. And as I have mentioned on some of this, if you're dependent upon the mainstream media, the so-called legacy media,

[00:19:17] to actually find out about some of this, I hate to admit it, but you probably would not. You would only hear it on Point of View. While we're talking about Point of View, again, we have your action item today. Let me just mention real quickly, before we take a break, get into some of the fires there in California. My viewpoint's commentary today is about China, and it begins by pointing out the fact that we have a Department of Defense report that has come out recently,

[00:19:46] in which they conclude, these are people in the Defense Department, really primarily more of individuals that were placed there by the Biden administration, but nevertheless, actually concluding that we have China engaged in the largest military buildup since Nazi Germany in the 1930s. And so I give you some comments about that from Colonel Grant Neusheim.

[00:20:13] He was interviewed recently on World Net Daily. He's the author of this book, When China Attacks, A Warning to America. And just a reminder of the fact that this is a really sobering time to consider what China wants to do. I also take the time to also mention some other people writing about that. You have, of course, Gordon Chang, who's been on the program with us before. His new book, Plan Red, China's Project to Destroy America.

[00:20:43] And then I even mentioned that you have people that are very left of center writing about books like When China Rules the World, The End of the Western World, and the Birth of a New Global Order. So I might just mention that that commentary is there. You can read it. You can repost it. And I might just say that one of the benefits of supporting Point of View is that you receive every month our Outlook magazine. Next month, that one is on China.

[00:21:11] And it goes into incredible detail about some of the threats that we are facing as a country from China. So that's another reason to consider supporting Point of View. Let's take a break. We'll come back and talk about the political fallout of the fires in California right after this. In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas.

[00:21:40] 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. Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth.

[00:22:08] 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. 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

[00:22:38] slash signup right now. pointofview.net slash signup. Point of View will continue after this. 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

[00:23:08] of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Final half hour, let me just mention as a program note that tomorrow we're going to have our good friend Robert Knight with us for a while talking about some of his recent columns and we'll also be talking about films and a variety of other issues but give you an update on what is happening around the world. But one of the things I wanted to talk about is to get into this conversation once again about the fires, the wildfires in California. And one of the articles I've posted

[00:23:37] is by Noah Rothman called Equity in Misery. Now, the first thing I need to say is that there is a difference between the word equity and equality which is unfortunate because we used to see them as similar but, and as a matter of fact you can find most Bible translations that even use the word equity but equity is different than equality and it really gets back to this idea of D-E-I that's the E of course D-E-I

[00:24:06] and Noah Rothman puts it this way occasionally proponents of the concept of equity forget that they're supposed to emphasize the benefits of discrimination they advocate on behalf of America's allegedly marginalized minorities instead of highlighting their fraught with well-intentioned program of positive discrimination they sometimes let the mask slip and indulge in bitter avarice or if you will covetousness would be another way to say that that drives

[00:24:35] their ideological crusade and he quotes then from the San Francisco Chronicle that in a story actually says that what was happening in the fire raises questions about equity how so a fire is pretty indiscriminate well it turns out that there were a few wealthy individuals that hired their own firefighters and so as a result the San Francisco Chronicle or at least the article in the Chronicle

[00:25:04] makes it seem like well that's not right because if anything they should suffer and the article says the rich suffer zero consequences if anything even cataclysmic natural disasters and the implication is well they should be suffering too well again imagine if I were to get a fire hydrant near my house and I were to be able to hook up with my own hose to a fire hydrant because the

[00:25:34] firefighters never made it to my house and I was able to put it out or if I was able to put together some high pressured water system so that the next time there was a wildfire I could get out there and actually prevent my house from burning down the implication from the Chronicles is well that's not fair you should suffer the same way everyone else does and of course I recognize that having the financial ability to do

[00:26:04] so puts you at an advantage over someone else but the whole issue that Noah Rothman is talking about is kind of what he calls the covetousness instinct this is something which I've really thought about over the years because I put together a number of years ago a sermon on covetousness you know if you think about this it is one of the seven deadly sins I was thinking you know I've never actually heard a sermon on covetousness

[00:26:34] and yet envy and covetousness are in the scriptures matter of fact quite a bit and I've never heard one on envy never heard one on covetousness what does that really mean and all that and of course there is a whole kind of if you will cottage industry of covetousness because he goes on moving from the fires to the bigger issue he says this poisonous idea has been applied by its advocates to so many aspects of society

[00:27:04] during the pandemic he points out public health officials toyed with the notion of grounding vaccination access in the issue of equity which means providing potentially life-saving medical care first to American minorities then maybe to civil servants and to people that do not have access to housing certainly white people would then suffer even if their demographic traits put them at greater risk

[00:27:33] because as one ethicist of the University of Pennsylvania put it the older populations are wider and thus they would be the ones most likely to benefit from vaccination and they would be put further down the list because we wanted to use the principles of equity by now you either have to be rolling your eyes or shaking your head but that's exactly what was being proposed and so this was one of those ideas the same

[00:28:03] idea of equity is found in the issue of education reform he says the elimination of standardized testing requirements and specialized schools for gifted students were marked by his proponents as a way to actually get rid of or they wanted to get rid of testing and specialized schools because they wanted to give Hispanic and black Americans access to more opportunities and of course then goes through this whole series of

[00:28:33] how that has played itself out in the area of education well I'm holding up now for those of you watching online a book by Heather McDonald she's been on the program with us before and we're going to see if we can get her on again because this of course is her classic book when race trumps merit how the pursuit of equity sacrifices excellence destroys beauty and threatens life in this book how for example

[00:29:02] this is shown up in medicine and medical schools showed up in education how it's shown up in science interesting enough how it's shown up even in the arts there's making Beethoven woke can opera survive the culture wars crusade against classical music the swamping of Swan Lake I mean there really is something to be said about this so we're hoping to get her on maybe sometime in the future just to point out that this idea of equity

[00:29:31] is really very toxic and it's showing up even in certain situations of of course the fire in California this leads to some really bizarre things and I'll end with this and move on to our next article and that is this led to the former mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot who for a while refused to take any questions from white reporters which she presumed would be deemed noble by her

[00:30:01] social justice advocates and activists in the press corps so if you put up your hand and was going to ask a question of the former mayor of Chicago if you were white if she saw a white hand she would ignore you if she saw a brown or tan hand she would call on you and that shows just in some respects the absurdity of equity and again who would have guessed that that would surface in the wildfires of Los Angeles which brings

[00:30:31] us to our other article and this one is by Cal Thomas in which he points out that you're hearing politicians right now saying don't politicize what took place in Los Angeles County and he says really that's just a good bet of people trying to divert attention and really shield themselves from the consequences of their action he points out that the Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass went to Ghana for a wedding and for an inauguration even while the

[00:31:01] National Weather Service was citing critical fire conditions and a potential dangerous situation which was developing he then goes to talk about of course the Governor Gavin Newsom who tried to shift the blame for the lack of water to local authorities and said that if anything what we're going to do in this next special session of the California Assembly and Senate is to keep working on Trump

[00:31:31] proofing the state and then of course you can see some of the problems again Cal Thomas gives you a long list I'll just mention a few first of all placing caps on insurance premiums which is what caused many of these big insurance companies to leave the state you also have the fact that he points out here that the city's chief of water Janice Quinones knew about the empty reservoir

[00:31:59] and broken hydrants months before the fire started and you even had where the voters approved a measure allowing the state to borrow seven and a half billion dollars to build reservoirs to store water so far they have not been built that was ten years ago people are still waiting and he goes through a pretty long list of all of those and then ends by actually quoting from a couple of actors James Woods by the way it looks like his

[00:32:29] house was left standing but still very critical about Gavin Newsom and Kevin Bass actor Mel Gibson whose house was completely destroyed telling Joe Rogan that again the politicians didn't know what they were doing and then the star of Shazam as well as what was the other one the special film about football Zachary Levi who again was talking about mismanagement and Cal Thomas ends by saying

[00:32:58] this is Los Angeles now but we have the Olympic Games coming to Los Angeles what will happen to the Olympic Games what will happen to the political careers of the mayor and the governor and others too soon to tell but as he points out there are a lot of people to blame for Los Angeles's ring of fire so again that's an article for you to read in its entirety we come back I want to talk briefly about this

[00:33:28] important case before the Supreme Court on the issue of pornography again three cheers for the court considering it we'll see what happens after those oral arguments have been finished and they write their opinions we'll be right back

[00:33:59] back for a few more minutes let me just mention one of the other articles this comes from the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal porn sites age verification and the Supreme Court and again all through the program today I've been talking about booklets that we like to make available to you which we've actually sent in the past to our donors but you are welcome to get them as well holding up this booklet written by our Warren Kelly on pornography which really came out

[00:34:29] five years ago and I think we will update it but it points out that pornography is mentally harming to individuals physically harmful emotionally harmful and socially harmful came out in 2020 and I think it's really a good summary of some of the dangers we might update it in light of this case before the Supreme Court in terms of what can we do to control it and the reason this is coming to the fore is because of a

[00:34:58] lawsuit that is now made it's all the way to the Supreme Court and the question before the high court is simply this does the

[00:35:49] or three to hcase verification methods now that's a lot of legalese for simply saying if you have a porn site you need to see whether or not the individual on that porn site is at least 18 years of age

[00:36:12] And the argument, of course, coming from those who want to attract young people to these porn sites, is that that would be a violation of the First Amendment. Now, in case you're wondering, this particular bill passed the state, House, and Senate by a combined vote of 164 to 1. I'm not sure who the 1 was, but if you're not familiar, in the state of Texas, I should say,

[00:36:41] the Texas House has 150 representatives based on 150 psalms, and it has 31 senators based on the fact that there are 31 chapters in the Book of Proverbs. Just one of those little footnotes that most people don't know. So the lead challenger in the case is what is called the Free Speech Coalition. It's basically an adult entertainment, that's a euphemism, industry,

[00:37:09] which says it agrees that protecting minors has a compelling state interest, but it argues that this age verification is too great a burden on the First Amendment to the rights of individuals who actually might incur privacy or security risks. In other words, by having to show that you are 18 or years or older, that is the burden on the First Amendment.

[00:37:36] And, of course, Texas, this comes from Ken Paxton, the Attorney General, goes back and cites a case out of New York in 1968, Ginsburg v. New York. Yes, that is the Ginsburg, in which the high court, the Supreme Court, ruled that an individual that was selling these magazines to young boys was in a violation of the New York law that required the buyer to be at least 17 years of age,

[00:38:05] and they were being sold to 16-year-olds. You also have, of course, the Free Speech Coalition citing U.S. versus Playboy Entertainment, that was in the year 2000, in which it said Congress had gone too far in trying to prevent the imperfect scrambling of adult cable channels from leaking discernible images with signal bleed. And I think you could honestly say that those two cases being cited probably aren't all that helpful,

[00:38:34] because if there's any place where technology has changed, we're not in the same world in 1968. We're not even in the same world in 2000. We're in the world of 2025. And we are in the world of smartphones and devices, where children have instantaneous access to hardcore pornography. And the Supreme Court has held, and this goes all the way back to 1973 in Miller v. California,

[00:39:02] the First Amendment does not protect obscene material. So what we're dealing with right now is a Texas law that is being challenged. And as a result, some are arguing that the website that contains 65% core political speech and 35% sexually suggestive content would be 100% subject to the restrictions. Texas isn't so sure.

[00:39:29] They're trying to deal with this in a way to not say what they really are thinking, and that is we want as many customers as possible. We want as many eyeballs as possible. And we don't care if a 4-year-old stumbles upon our site, much less a 16-year-old. These are things that we want to make available to as many people as possible because it is going to help our business.

[00:39:57] So nevertheless, that's where we find ourselves right now. Those who have brought the petition say that demanding an ID on the Internet, unlike at, say, a local stationery store or something like that, involves severe risks such as hacking. And what's so interesting is the state of Texas responded, yes. And as a matter of fact, that's one of the problems with your sites in terms of credit cards

[00:40:26] and things of that nature and all the rest. So, again, we do have digital age verification for all sorts of other sites. Those would be like draft kings for fantasy sport, betting, and a variety of others. We, of course, have other kinds of checks for people's ID, credit cards, and the rest. And I think it's interesting to see that if you want to find an issue

[00:40:52] where the American people are pretty much in unison, it's on this issue because the lopsided roll call in the Texas Capitol, remember it was 164 to 1 when you combine both the House and the Senate. It was about the same when you go to other states. Louisiana, for example, enacted an age law. And in that particular case, it was 130 to 1.

[00:41:19] Virginia also enacted an age law. That was 134 to 2. And then you've had age laws enacted in both Utah and Arkansas, and those passed unanimously. So I think it's probably clear to say that many parents are indeed concerned about the proliferation of pornography. And as a result, this case before the Supreme Court and oral arguments were heard today.

[00:41:49] We'll follow it and let you know what is happening. And I might just mention that we do have, of course, this booklet on pornography. We might, once this case comes down, talk about maybe producing another booklet on combating pornography and talk about what can be done at the state and local level and certainly what you can do as a parent. So again, lots of important issues taking place simultaneously. I wanted you to know that today the Supreme Court had to consider,

[00:42:17] and I'm glad they did, this issue of porn sites and age verification. If you'd like some more information, let me mention again that we've talked about a variety of topics today. We've talked about the CBMC, and this is an organization that you might want to know more about, the Christian Businessman's Connection. We also had Todd Nettleton on talking about the Voice of the Martyrs Global Prayer Guide.

[00:42:42] I did actually then post the fact that the Washington Post did endorse 19 out of the 23 most important nominees by the president. So there you go. And we have, of course, all the other articles that we've posted. So find them on the website, pointofview.net. I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the programs. We'll see you back here tomorrow right here on Point of View.

[00:43:06] At Point of View, we believe there is power in prayer, and that is why we have relaunched our Pray for America campaign, a series of weekly emails to unite Americans in prayer for our nation. Imagine if hundreds of thousands of Americans started praying intentionally together on a weekly basis.

[00:43:34] You can help make that a reality by subscribing to our Pray for America emails. 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.

[00:43:58] 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. 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.

[00:44:27] Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.