Point of View January 17, 2025 – Hour 2 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, we have, of course, Pennextra Kelly Shackelford in studio and one of the other articles we posted here, Ben Shapiro, A Breath of Fresh Air.

[00:00:28] He's talking about Pete Hegseth. And again, let's talk about just for a minute, the Washington Post looks at the 15 nominees and only two did they actually give a thumbs down. A thumbs up for everybody else. That's Marco Rubio, Pam Bondi. You can go through this long, long list of individuals. Thumbs down on Robert F. Kennedy. But that brings us to Pete Hegseth. That was 13 out of the 15 they actually endorsed.

[00:00:54] So what about Pete Hegseth? And certainly the back and forth Pennextra is really significant. And this quote from Ben Shapiro shows a little bit about the fact that he wants to change the Department of Defense in very significant ways. He does. And, you know, we've talked for years on Point of View with people like Elaine Donnelly about how the military has been used for social experimentation. And it's gotten so bad that they're having trouble with recruitment.

[00:01:23] If you're if you're a Christian, if you're white, if you're just kind of from a normal rural American family. I mean, they don't even want you because they only want these woke philosophies. The philosophical sort of sort of I don't know where their heads are in the brass in the military has been in a terrible place not to be the most lethal and the best fighting force,

[00:01:49] but to make sure that you've got all these, you know, kind of quota boxes checked. And so, you know, this is how bad it's gotten. And so when Pete Hegseth's name came up, you know, a lot of people had like so many reservations, you know, a television host, really Department of Defense. He's never run anything. But Trump had another idea, as he often does. He wanted it to be disrupted. He wanted a person that could go in there that, yes, they have military experience.

[00:02:16] Yes, they understand the military. And even though Pete Hegseth isn't a general or anything, he's written books about the military. He's had an organization for veterans. And so he knows in and out inside and out. He knows what's needed because he's such a conservative. He's also smart, Harvard and Princeton educated and and he served. So he's coming in there with ideas, ways that it needs to be changed.

[00:02:45] And, you know, the military has it needs saving. It's like dying. It really is. And so you need a radical move and you don't need the same old, same old. And that's why there's no general in there. Not that generals are bad, but we need we need generals that really want to, you know, go in and do the mission and leave, not change the whole organization and make it more woke.

[00:03:11] Yeah, I think part of the problem is that we have so politicized the military and I've talked to four star generals about this, that it really is hard for a real military leader to make it through that. You know, I mean, think Patton. Yeah.

[00:03:35] Patton's not going to make it through that process today because it's so politically sensitive and all this stuff instead of who's the best, you know, fighting leader. It's not. It's all about all these other things, because even if you've got a Reagan or or somebody who's really strong pro military, maybe four years later, you're probably going to have somebody very different.

[00:04:01] And their main thing is, you know, getting, you know, gays in the military or having women in combat or whatever. And you're if you're just a regular person who wants to win wars, you're going to say that's really irrelevant. You know, whoever's the best. Let's get them. Veritocracy. And that's that's unacceptable. Your career is now over. Right.

[00:04:30] Right. So the result is that we end up with these people at the top are no longer necessarily our best people. And so we do need a shake up there. We do need to change. And somebody who's I think, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't Pete have two bronze stars? And so, I mean, this is somebody who served served us in the country, who understands it, who's had to pull buddies of his who were dead.

[00:04:59] And out of the hole. And he gets it. And and he's written on the whole what his book on the whole woke attack on the military and what has happened to our military. And, you know, if you listen to his hearing, I mean, what he was saying was we're just going to return to to merits.

[00:05:18] Hey, I don't care who you are. If you can run the time and the time in the amount you're supposed to run the time, if you can do the fitness says if you can pass our standards, we're going to keep the same standards for everybody. And believe it or not, that is that that will be a dramatic change. But that will have a huge impact on our military. You know, I've been against every ever since I've been looking at this against women being in combat. And he was he made statements early on that he was totally against that.

[00:05:48] And of course, he's I thought, is he walking that back lately before these hearings? But when I heard his answers, it was just exactly what Kelly just said. We have standards. And I mean, if you look at the IDF in Israel and you have women and men and I've seen that. I mean, the women have to learn to do the same thing as the men. And, you know, it's not quite the same.

[00:06:13] But you have to be in our military. You have to be very, very physically fit because of the country, the kind of combat we have. It's so diverse who we have to what country we have to go to, what the terrain is and all of that. So these people have to meet high standards. And they have just continued over the decades recently to water the standards down for certain people, for women. And so his answer talked about standards. He was able to make, I thought, a very convincing answer.

[00:06:42] And it kind of makes you made you think, well, there aren't going to be very many women in the military because it's mostly going to be men that kind of meet them. But so and then another part of it that he talked about was the rules of engagement, which have inhibited us from being, again, a lethal force. So he talked about lethality versus legality. And so he will be on that issue also. And I think it will be very good.

[00:07:07] I think the idea that he is for the warfighter, he kept using that word, the warfighter. That's who he's that's who he's looking out for. And, you know, they need to be looked out for. And that's always been the purpose of the civilians to work out, to look out and strengthen the environment so the warfighters can do their best. Instead, they've been hindered and hampered for the last many decades.

[00:07:35] And I think one of the great things about Pete, except that I wasn't necessarily I knew a little of this, but in his his opening statement, the first thing he talked about is Jesus Christ. That was impressive. And his wife. Surprising for a lot of people. And how she had basically saved him from, you know, going in a direction that was destructive. It was very humble and and really very, very reflective of Christ and what he did.

[00:08:04] So you've got somebody who's also a really strong Christian in this in addition to all these other things. So it's unusual. Your average point of view listener is going to go, man, this is my type of person to lead the military. Somebody with integrity. You know, they go after the fact that, you know, he was a womanizer. He drank too much or whatever. It's like, well, that's unusual in the military. You know, somebody just gets out of the military. But that whole part of his life has changed as well.

[00:08:31] So I think I don't I don't think they're going to get very much on him. I think he's going to do fine. And we need to change like that. And high compliments to a pen of dexter and Elaine Donnelly. Been covering this for decades. The social experiment in the military. We'll take a break. Be back with more right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] When I first started writing this commentary nearly two decades ago, the average woman in the United States had 2.1 children in her lifetime. This is what many demographers call the golden number. To sustain a population in any country, women on average need to produce 2.1 children. If that number is higher, the population increases. If that number is lower, the population decreases. Years later, Lou Dobbs devoted an entire chapter in his book, Upheaval, to the subject of demographics and destiny disturbed.

[00:09:31] He was on my radio program back then and talked about the fact that the fertility rate in America has now declined to about 1.7. He also lamented the abortions of over 60 million unborn. But if you think America is facing a problem, consider Japan with a fertility rate of 1.39. It is imploding. By the end of the century, Japan's population will be less than half of its current population. Japanese consumers are buying more adult diapers than baby diapers.

[00:09:59] Other countries also face incredible challenges because of declining fertility rates. Greece has a fertility rate equal to Japan's fertility rate. Spain's fertility rate is 1.12. And the fertility rate of South Korea and China is also 1.12. China's one-child policy meant that as many as 400 million Chinese children were not born. By the end of the century, the country will have about one-third of the population it has now.

[00:10:25] It has moved from a one-child policy in 2015 to a three-child policy in 2021, but the birth rate continues to fall. Declining fertility rates illustrate once again that demography is destiny. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:47] For a free copy of Kirby's booklet, A Biblical View on Critical Race Theory, go to viewpoints.info.com. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, we're talking for just a few more minutes about the cabinet. And this is one of those times where sometimes maybe we should have kept the microphone on during the break

[00:11:12] because we talked about the current cabinet and whether or not any of those individuals might run four years from now for president. And it's hard to imagine any of those individuals. And what a difference between the two cabinets, Kelly, because whether it's Marco Rubio at state, really giving very good answers about China. My commentary yesterday was about Marco Rubio in China, Scott Bessett and the Treasury back and forth.

[00:11:41] I mean, nobody laid a glove on him. We just talked about Pete Hegseth. We mentioned Pam Bondi. We can go through a number of others. This almost sort of feels like adults are in charge. But when you think of some of the other cabinet officers, I'm kind of wondering. Well, I mean, you know, you ought to – I haven't seen anybody do this. You ought to just put up all the Trump cabinet folks and then put up Bidens.

[00:12:06] And, of course, Biden, you're going to have a man dressed as a woman in charge of HHS. There's another man dressed as a woman with lipstick on who's stealing suitcases, you know, at the airport. I mean, you know, it's embarrassing to look at the comparison of not all but many of these. And this is one of the major problems that – you know, it's kind of like what we talked about a little bit with the military, with the woke.

[00:12:36] It's Biden was picking people based upon their race, their sex, their sexual orientation instead of their merit. And that's – you know, you're going to get lots of problems. You're not going to get your best people that way. Pick the best person, whoever they are, and put them in that position. But that's not what he did.

[00:12:56] And, I mean, you know, even when it was time to pick a Supreme Court justice, you know, there are plenty of people of color and different backgrounds who might be considered. But when you say, I am going to pick a black woman, you've now devalued them when they get picked.

[00:13:20] I mean, you've not done any service to this, but this whole identity politics, which, you know, is antithetical to Christianity. There is no slave or – there is no Jew or – you know. There's lots of scriptures on the fact that – Colossians and Galatians really go into it quite a bit. Everybody is made in the image of God and is of equal value.

[00:13:43] This idea that you should give people, you know, benefits because of their race or their sex is not what, you know, you should be doing. But that's what they did. And so we had these – a number of bizarre cabinet picks, you know, because they weren't picking based upon who would do a good job. I think, you know, Trump might get them wrong, but he's trying to pick people who would actually do a good job at those things,

[00:14:10] including some things that really need to be changed. And I would love to see more publications put up the people that, you know, were in both administrations and those positions. Compare them? Yeah, compare what you think about those people. I think Babylon Bee's got an assignment right there. Well, you know, I mean, just one. Think of Secretary of Defense.

[00:14:36] We have Lloyd Austin, and he was not able to be found for several days because he was in the hospital. And he didn't choose to inform anyone. No one knew where he was. And, you know, there was never any talk of – I don't even think Biden talked to him about it. It just was – it was just part of it because I think, you know, there was just a special dispensation made,

[00:15:02] and you can't replace a black man with, you know, maybe a white general or something. What was one of the first things he did when he took the position? He said publicly the number one greatest issue or danger for our country in the military was extremism within the military. Now, he refused to define that.

[00:15:24] He created a task force full of radical left-wing crazy people and one guy who wasn't, Mike Berry, who worked for us. And Mike Berry kept raising his hands at the meeting saying, can we define extremism? Are you just talking about people that, like, have conservative beliefs? Because you can't do that. That would violate the First Amendment. So what is our definition? They refused. They refused. And so this is not what a secretary of defense is wanting to focus on, not somebody who's after – well, you talk about a difference.

[00:15:54] Let's look at that versus what Pete Hexf is saying he wants to do. And I think you could do that across the board with many of these people. Now, there are some in the Biden administration who I'm sure are talented, but most, they weren't picked because of their talent. And we ended up with a lot of things, like Penn is talking about. We've never had a secretary of defense missing for days where nobody knew who they were. Or a secretary of transportation with – Yes! Maternity leave? Yes!

[00:16:24] Was he the best person to talk about transportation issues in America? He had no expertise in it. Yeah, I mean – He's been the mayor. Yeah. And I – so I just – I think that kind of a comparison would be, I think, fruitful for people. Yes, it would. It would be.

[00:16:41] Which brings me to one other question, and that is – I know it's much too early to talk about the 2022, 2024, 2026, 2028, but here we are, 2025, so we're going to have to start talking about 2026 and 2028. I don't know who the Democrats put up for even some of these Senate races, much less for the presidential races here. Well, and I think they created this problem because they've been so – I mean, I don't know what the right term is. I mean, I'll use their term.

[00:17:10] They've been so anti-democratic within their party. If you'll remember Hillary Clinton, they wouldn't allow a real race, right? Right? They did superdelegates and put their thumb on the scale and all the – changed the rules, do all these things. So they didn't really have – they couldn't see a lot of candidates, right? I mean, Bernie Sanders and those who did come up, they said, ah, we've – at the top, we've decided who it's going to be, so we're not going to let you.

[00:17:39] And then the same thing happened with Biden. Nobody was allowed to run against Biden, even though everybody could see that he wasn't fit to be president another four years. They could see his disabilities, but they didn't allow that race. And even at the very end when they realized, oh, my gosh, we've got to replace Biden, instead of going to their convention and letting there be a race, they anointed Kamala Harris. I think they would have won if they had done it right.

[00:18:08] And the result is nobody's exactly sure if they have anybody who is – and people are saying Gavin Newsom. Right now, that's not looking so good for Gavin Newsom. I think we'll get to that soon enough. Yes. So I think they've really hurt themselves in not having contests.

[00:18:31] You know, that's the whole point of our country is, you know, allowing arguments on both sides, allowing there to be competition, you know, that we can see who can handle things and whose positions are better and who has the best argument. Well, they've cut all that down, and so they better learn from the lesson from what they've done.

[00:18:55] If they don't, they're going to anoint somebody else, and the odds are heavily against you when you do that because you're not exactly sure if that's the right person or not because they've never been through the rough and tumble of the contest. And so they have created a problem for themselves. I think so. Well, we need to take a break, but when we come back, we might even spend some time talking about one of our articles is LGBTQ activists all upset about free speech, which also gets us into TikTok.

[00:19:23] I think everybody around the table has some comments about that. But also did want to get some thoughts about this Israel-Hamas hostage deal. That's an important issue. And, of course, we have Pentadexter's piece here. We've been talking this week about what has been happening in Southern California with the fires. And, of course, you've already sort of alluded to that, whether it's Gavin Newsom or Karen Bass. I think their political careers are over. What do you think? I think so. I certainly hope so.

[00:19:52] We have a lot more to cover. But let me just encourage you to go to the website. Of course, we mentioned Kelly's particular material. It's available there. Pentadex commentary is up there today. And, of course, we have been encouraging you this week to contact your two senators about the confirmation hearings. And if you didn't get to that, I recognize we've gone through most of the cabinet confirmation hearings, but not all of them. And there's certainly a lot more to go.

[00:20:20] So if you still would want to express your opinion to your two United States senators, that is still on the table there as well. Pentadex commentary is about L.A. burning. Mine today just takes us back to some of these fertility rates which have already surfaced out of other countries. If you think we have a problem because we no longer have 2.1 children per woman, down to about 1.7,

[00:20:47] how about considering a couple of these other countries like Japan? And so right now with a fertility rate of 1.39, by the end of this century, it'll be a third of the size it is right now. Or even looking at China, 1.12, it'll be half as much by the end of this century. So we've gone from the golden number of 2.1, we've got problems in this country. But if you look at other countries around the world, they are absolutely imploding.

[00:21:16] So those are a few commentaries you can be reading as well. We'll come back and get into some of these other issues right after these important messages. The Bible tells us not to worry. And yet there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today. Thankfully, the Bible doesn't stop at telling us not to worry. God gives us a next step.

[00:21:45] He says we need to pray. But sometimes even knowing what to pray can be difficult. And that is why Point of View has relaunched our Pray for America movement, a series of weekly emails to guide you in prayer for our nation. Each week you'll receive a brief update about a current issue affecting Americans, along with a written prayer that you can easily share with others.

[00:22:13] We'll also include a short free resource for you in each email so you can learn more about the issue at hand. Will you commit to pray for America? Go to pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner at the top of the page to subscribe. Again, that's pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner.

[00:22:40] Let's pray together for God to make a difference in America. 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 of this station.

[00:23:09] And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again, let me just mention real quickly that, of course, you can find Penna Dexter's commentary, which we're going to be talking about before the hour is up. I was just looking up here. If you type in Penna and ERA, resurrecting the ERA is a commentary she did a while back. So, again, those are the kinds of things you can find. My commentary as well. But I thought it would be appropriate to talk about free speech for a few minutes. TikTok is in the news, and the Supreme Court has ruled on that.

[00:23:40] And, Penna, let me come to you first. We also have posted this piece by Brad Palumbo in which he's basically saying that the LGBTQ activists have let the mask off. They say they believe in free speech until it says something they don't like. Yeah, they don't like it that Mark Zuckerberg is now going to allow free speech and not censor things.

[00:24:02] And so now somebody can say something about their opinion about LGBT, you know, about the transgender agenda, about gay marriage. You know, maybe they don't agree with that. But, you know, so can people – I mean, I guess it's been the case that, you know, you could kind of be in trouble, canceled for saying things like that. It was hate speech. And, you know, maybe hate speech will no longer be a thing. What do you think?

[00:24:33] Yeah, well, this is the beginning of that, certainly. Look, our whole philosophy as a government is you respond with speech that's false or bad or whatever with more speech. And so that's, you know, that's the only way to do it without having the government now controlling what people say and don't say.

[00:24:55] And so the dangerous thing here is these private tech companies could control it themselves, which, you know, is I think why that's a real problem. I mean, the idea is right now you can defame somebody on these platforms and the federal law protects them. But if the newspaper did it, they would be responsible because they printed that.

[00:25:21] And so – and the tech companies have really harmed people's businesses. Any conservative kind of a business, especially media or whatever. I mean, they have really discriminated against them. Now, we know now in part it's because the Biden administration was telling them to do these things. But it's – this is really important to our whole – you know, they always talk about democracy. Well, number one, we're a constitutional republic.

[00:25:49] But in order in this type of a free country to do any of the things we want to do, there has to be the free exchange of ideas. And you don't have that if you allow – and this whole word disinformation, you know, stuff like that. It's like, you know, run from the room screaming when you hear that word because something bad is about to happen. So it's an important issue, and it's an issue that I don't know that there's a lot of great answers to now.

[00:26:19] But I think that just because of what's happened in this election, you've got Zuckerberg now kind of taking the same approach as Musk and X is. Yeah. It's kind of almost happening just through the culture, which is shocking. But I have a feeling when other people get in power that want to use their power to squelch free speech, we might be back to where we were.

[00:26:48] So I hope that what will happen over these years is that people will so expect and demand this from now on that they won't accept any changes. And, in fact, they'll leave those platforms. But I don't know if – I don't know if that's possible. So what's happening is good, but I have a feeling this is going to be a battle we're going to have to fight for a long time. Well, what about the Supreme Court?

[00:27:13] They upheld a law banning TikTok, and it's one of those situations where because of the way it was – the particular piece was written, Sunday, January 19th – Yes. – is when it all closes down. Now you've got Kevin O'Leary and Elon Musk and others talking about buying TikTok. But where are we in that particular debate? It has to be sold apparently by the 19th if it's going to remain online.

[00:27:41] And, you know, it was done, I think, with the court. I'm just not – I didn't listen to the arguments. I haven't followed it blow by blow. So – but it was a national security issue, really. And so the court decided that because it's Chinese and the Chinese can actually have access to all information that's gained from users.

[00:28:03] And so it became – and just to have a Chinese media company with such influence in the United States just wasn't a wise national security situation. That was – I mean, I think that's basically really the reason for that. So – but it is kind of sad in a way for free speech because many people do exercise their free speech rights on TikTok, and it's mostly young people.

[00:28:32] So if something free market-ish, like somebody buying it, happens, that would be the best outcome. Yeah, it's – you know, it was a law that Congress passed that said that we shouldn't have companies that are foreign-owned, that are subversive to our government essentially, gathering everybody's private information.

[00:28:56] I mean, TikTok doesn't just gather your information that you're posting. It gathers, like, all kinds of other stuff, your contacts, all kinds of things that it gathers. And it is controlled by China. Now, by the way, I was hearing some people were, like, saying, oh, they're going to take TikTok. I'm going to go on over to Red Note. It's like – it's communist, you know? Are you insane? They did it to protest, yes. And – I know people that have done this, by the way.

[00:29:26] So anyway, but the argument was, well, you're violating free speech, even though it's owned by China, really. Well, no, what the court said is we're not – this is ownership, number one. We're not saying you can't say something. This is just a matter of whether a foreign country can own something and do something in the United States.

[00:29:50] But since it is a sort of First Amendment-type entity, we're going to go the next step and say – let's say there is protection for expression here. I mean, the way all fundamental constitutional rights work is if you might have a right to free speech. You might have a right to freedom of religion. You might have a right to – you know, these fundamental freedoms.

[00:30:11] But if there is a compelling governmental interest that overrides that, then you're – whatever that right is in that situation falls. Well, national security is pretty much at the top of that list. So what they've said is they do – this is something that Congress could pass, which they did, so it will go into effect. Now, the Sunday night – or Sunday is the deadline.

[00:30:41] The Biden administration has announced they're not doing anything on this. They're going to let this fall right in the lap of Trump, of the Trump administration. Which is what Donald Trump wanted, I hear. Yeah, and I think they both wanted it evidently because I don't think Biden wants to deal with this. There are a couple things that can happen, but I'll just say one thing.

[00:30:59] If there's, I think, a 90-day provision where the president can delay this for 90 days if there's a deal coming together that looks like it's going to – you know, somebody's going to – a U.S. interest will buy the U.S. part of this and be able to do that in the United States. So we'll see if there's a delay. And there are people like Mr. Wonderful, you know, the – Kevin O'Leary. Kevin O'Leary.

[00:31:28] I think he said they've offered $20 billion in cash for this portion of the – the U.S. portion of this. If not, what happens under the law is starting Monday, there is a fine every day. And if you look at the numbers, the fine per person, it's over a billion-dollar fine a day.

[00:31:58] If you are Apple or, you know, if you're carrying this, which is how people get it, right? They get it by carrying it on their phone and stuff. So you cannot risk if you are these groups. I mean, you know they're all getting ready right now how to totally disconnect from this because they don't want a billion-dollar fine. And so I think the question is – the ultimate question is will American interest buy this and run it in the United States themselves?

[00:32:28] And the other sort of short-term question is will Trump do this 90-day deal to kind of give some time or not? So with TikTok, another interesting fact about it is that they do have TikTok in China, but it's very different. It's more for educational learning trades. The way it's operated in the U.S. And, you know, another problem with TikTok here for many people was just what is the material.

[00:32:56] Sometimes the material can be very graphic sexually. And so they don't allow that in China. It's completely not allowed. And yet they control and own this company that puts it into the U.S. So it's sort of downgrading the morality of our young people in a sense, which is a nice, you know, kind of goal for an enemy country to have.

[00:33:24] So that's another piece of all of this situation, although I don't know that it was considered in the court arguments. Well, I got a feeling that Monday when you're going to be covering the inauguration, you'll probably be talking about TikTok a little bit. We'll see what happens. Let's take a break. You can hear Pentatextra's commentary if you're online, and we'll be back right after this.

[00:33:54] I love living in Texas, but by birth and upbringing, I'm an L.A. girl. Born in Pasadena, raised in a beach town, and educated at a university near downtown. I'm mourning the massive damage and destruction to life, homes, businesses, and landmarks in places I've loved. I remember dreading the Santa Ana winds, which sweep down from the deserts. They come every year, and because California is dry, they bring fires. The L.A. Fire Department has over 100 years' experience fighting these fires.

[00:34:22] Each year, when the devil winds came, they'd be on it. Lately, the job is taking much longer. What's making things harder? Neglect, leftist environmental policy, and poor leadership. Decaying power lines have been a huge problem, now supposedly being addressed. California promised to do better at keeping forest floors clean to burnable fuel. But green pushback prioritizes the ecosystem over humans. Voters have demanded new reservoirs. None have been built since 1979.

[00:34:49] Construction on a new one won't begin for seven years. Fire hydrants started running out of water during the first day of this year's firefighting. Years of bad water policy means there's insufficient water to fill the reservoirs they have. In 2008, California began diverting 100 billion gallons of water per year away from Southern California and into the Pacific Ocean to save a fish. Governor Gavin Newsom has refused to restore the flow of excess rainwater and snow melt from the north to Southern California.

[00:35:18] L.A. Mayor Karen Bass knew of the huge fire risk. Recently, she cut department funding. And Kristen Crowley, L.A.'s first female and LGBTQ fire chief, has wide experience in firefighting. But promoting a culture that values diversity, inclusion, and equity is her stated priority. L.A.'s three top fire officials are lesbian women. Few males are hired as firemen. There's another sad reality. Insurers have been cutting coverage in at-risk areas.

[00:35:45] California needs a political reckoning and our prayers. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes, let me just again, as a program note, mention that Penna Dexter and Liberty will be actually doing the inauguration on Monday. I couldn't think of a better group to look at that and talk about the inaugural balls. And by that time, the inauguration will have taken place.

[00:36:14] Donald Trump will have given his inaugural speech. They'll be inside, so they won't be quite so cold and all of the rest. But, Penna, we also have your commentary today, L.A. burning. And although you live in Texas, I think everybody that has listened to you over the years knew that you grew up in California. And you lived in an area very close to or in the midst of, I'll let you explain, where these fires have been taking place. I lived in an area very close to where the fires are taking place.

[00:36:41] It was never an evacuation warning area where I spent most of my childhood, although my early childhood and where I was born was Pasadena, which everybody knows Pasadena. And it's up against the mountains. Altadena is right next to the part of Pasadena, Hastings Ranch, where I spent my first nine years. And in those years, I remember learning all about what those winds were called. My mom said, those are the Santa Ana winds.

[00:37:10] And they came in like usually September, late September, October. And they were hot. They made it so hot. And they were very dry. And usually you get fires. And we would have it so close that we would smell the smoke. And, you know, it would be awful for a few days, just awful. But usually the fire department would come and put those fires out. And they would not usually burn houses or very few houses. And so, you know, that was the way it was.

[00:37:38] But it's so different now. We had actually something that I like to call good government in California for most of the time that I lived there, which was up until I was in my late 30s when I moved to Texas. I guess I had a little five-year stint in Virginia. But it was good government. And it started going progressively progressive.

[00:38:00] And as it's done so, the environmentalists have had so much sway there that so much has changed. And most of the good government means to them that you do everything you can to save every creature, every plant, to get rid of fossil fuels and force an agenda on people that really makes their lives worse and more expensive.

[00:38:28] And that's where they are now in California. Another agenda that's been more recent has been the whole DEI agenda. And you know that the people that populate the government in Los Angeles, including the mayor and the fire department, are DEI hires. I mean, the mayor is so obviously incompetent. And she beat a businessman that built shopping centers all over who he may run for governor now.

[00:38:58] He might be running against Kamala Harris. Who knows? But and he's out there trying to help the situation right now and to, you know, help people and save his shopping centers around the area. So people that are left have a place to shop. It's a disaster there. Even if you didn't lose your home or if your neighborhood wasn't affected, the whole area of L.A. has been so badly affected that it's a terrible disaster because some of the things that have happened.

[00:39:25] Number one, there was a decision made back in 2008 to send water from snow melts and from more rain that happens up in northern California. Instead of putting it in reservoirs and building new reservoirs in the L.A. area, they sent it out to sea to save a fish, a small fish called the Delta Smelt. They weren't even successful in saving those fish. But this was it was a huge issue back in 2008.

[00:39:51] I remember us talking about it here at Point of View and talking with some folks out in California. So that's part of it when and that was done under Jerry Brown. But when Governor Newsom came in, he was given the opportunity to change that. And the fire situations were getting worse. He declined. He said he would fix it and change it. The other part, famously in California, they don't take care of the brush that's on the ground in the forest.

[00:40:17] They don't do a good job of that because I think it's, again, the environmentalists. They don't they don't think it's natural. They don't want controlled burning. Some of them don't want any burning, but they get burning. They get the worst kind of uncontrolled burning that we've had. So and then the reservoir part of it, the reservoirs, they should be building them to commensurate with the population. They haven't built a new reservoir since 1979. That's 45 years.

[00:40:47] And, you know, think of the growth. So they have some in the plans, but the seven years is going to be seven years before one is built. So I don't know how they're going to even prevent these kinds of fires coming up. I mean, they will figure out hopefully how to have a full reservoir because Palisades, the one near Palisades was also under repair at the same time. There's so much. And you all have probably heard most of this in the news.

[00:41:12] But I think the kind of the lesson here is is and I hope they learn it. I hope I hope they learn it. You can tell I'm passionate about this because it's my home. And I've seen so many places, although where I lived was not burned, so many places and landmarks and places that I frequented and loved gone, you know, destroyed.

[00:41:37] They need to learn, though, that you need to base your decisions on what's good for the people, your citizenry, not what's good for some totalitarian leftist woke agenda. And I know that even some celebrities, I know there are people that who are liberal Democrats now who are saying we need a new mayor.

[00:41:59] So if they could equate that with we need a whole new system here in California, we need to really basically replace everybody with somebody more conservative. I don't know if it will happen or not. But I also know that we have a lot. There are a lot of people that are out of their homes and the insurance industry has been pretty much destroyed there, too. So there's going to be a lot of need in California and people think everybody's rich out there. They're not.

[00:42:26] But Altadena, where the Eaton Fire was, that's not a wealthy area. There may be some really nice homes up there in the mountains, but most of that is not. So people need their prayers and even, you know, any kind of relief that you want to get involved in. Telly, I was just thinking, too, a while back we had an interview where we talked about the California Left Coast Survivors Guide, which was a book that was put out by the Pacific Justice Institute.

[00:42:51] And the implication is if this is happening in California, the problem is these ideas in California spread all through the country. And there are other people in other states that need to learn some of these vicarious lessons from what's going on in California, don't you think? Well, you hope. You know, I mean, really what we're seeing is kind of what we've seen in most American cities that get so democratic.

[00:43:17] By that, I mean the Democrat Party that there's no competition. And when you get to that point, what kind of happens, it's like a natural way, I guess, is eventually if it gets bad enough, the people say, ooh, I don't want this. This is not good. And you throw the leadership over and you finally bring that in. We've seen that happen in certain places.

[00:43:48] But, man, it's like, what does it take? Well, California is kind of testing this as a state, you know? I mean, they are losing, what, 100-something thousand people a year. There you go. And this is one of the most beautiful places in the world. And they are running people out because of their government. So this is another one of those test cases are the people who are there going to say, I've had enough.

[00:44:15] Hopefully they will and they can get good governance back. But as of yet, we hadn't seen that. Yes. In California, you don't have to have a Republican on the tickets for political office. It's just they have a jungle primary. And if two Democrats run against each other, so be it. That's a problem. Yeah. Well, it's a cautionary tale, and you can read about it. Penna Dexter's commentary is there. Penna, on Monday, the inauguration, right? Forward to it. Yes.

[00:44:43] So, again, those are resources that you can find on the website right now. We have just mentioned in passing the hostage deal, Israel and Hamas. We'll get to that in the future. But those are all materials that we've posted on the website. Most importantly, I certainly, of course, want to thank Kelly and Penna, but also Megan for engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the program. See you back here on Monday. During inauguration, right here on Point of View.

[00:45:07] It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority. They say men can be women and women men. People are prosecuted differently or not at all, depending on their politics. Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel like giving up. But we can't. We shouldn't.

[00:45:36] We must not. Written in the darkest days of World War II. Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. and that's what we say to you today. This is not a time to give in but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos. We can't do it alone

[00:46:04] but together with God's help we will overcome the darkness. Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151 pointofview.net and 800-347-5151 Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.