Point of View July 1, 2025 – Hour 2 : History of Independence Day

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. This week is of course 4th of July week because at the end of the week is the 4th of July. By the way we'll be playing a tape which we've already recorded in the past on that particular day.

[00:00:30] And I thought it would be very appropriate to bring back an individual who's been on the program so many times, William Federer, who is an individual who has been able to really dig out and ferret out all sorts of incredible stories about our history. He is the author of more than 20 books, about a half a million copies of his book, America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations,

[00:00:54] has been featured for many years and you perhaps have heard his radio feature, American Minute, also his TV program, Faith in History. And I also posted on the website here, Miracles in American History, which really are a compilation by Susie Federer from his American Minute. Because as we go through some of these stories you might say, well is there some place where I can read some of that? And that is certainly one of many books. Of course we have a link to his website.

[00:01:23] And Bill Federer, always great to have you on the program. Kirby, great to be with you. Let's, if we can, just let you sit back and tell us the history of Independence Day. I was sharing some things off air with the death of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and a variety of other things. But I think it is a great story and it's one that of course is recounted in Miracles in American History, isn't it? Well, it is. And when we look at the big picture, the king of England was a globalist.

[00:01:53] He was a one world government guy. The sun never sat on the British Empire. He had India, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, British China, Canada, Barbados, Bermuda, Jamaica and America. And America's founders decided they didn't like a globalist king telling us what to do. So they broke away and flipped it, made the people the king. And so kings have subjects who are subjected to their will. Republics have citizens. And the word citizen is Greek. It means co-ruler, co-sovereign, co-king.

[00:02:18] So America is an experiment of a bottom up form of government where the norm for world history is a top down form of government. And from the beginning of recorded history, you have the Nimrod, Pharaoh, Caesar, Kaiser, Sultan, Czar, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Tilda Hunt. But it's all kings. And if you're friends with the king, you're more equal. If you're not friends with the king, you're less equal. If you're an enemy of the king, you're dead or you're a slave. It's like, and a king is a glorified gang leader.

[00:02:47] So it's this gang structure that keeps getting bigger. And America's founders broke away. And then, of course, where did they get their idea? From the New England pastors. And their little congregational covenant form of government who got their idea from the Reformation, who got their idea from the Bible. And you can't remember what part of the Bible that first 400 years out of Egypt before they got a king. It's called the Hebrew Republic.

[00:03:11] There's this anomaly in world history from around 1400 B to 1000 BC of millions of Israelites and no king. And it worked because every citizen was taught the law and they were personally accountable to God to follow it. And so it worked in Israel until the priests went woke and stopped teaching the law. And every man did what was right in their own eyes. It turns into chaos. They go to Samuel. They ask for a king. Why is this story important?

[00:03:37] The kings of Europe looked to the Bible, but they looked to the King Saul and on part of the Bible. And the Puritans that founded New England looked to the pre-King Saul part of the Bible. There's millions of people, there's Hebrew Republic. And so when you look at the founders, they realized they were doing something unique in world history. And even, you know, there's the George Washington during the revolution when the soldiers hadn't been paid for a couple of years. There's the Newburgh conspiracy.

[00:04:07] And they were going to talk about going into the capital of New York City and taking over the government. And Washington shows up unannounced, pulls a little piece of paper out of his pocket, puts on his glasses that nobody had ever seen him wear before. He called them his spectacles. And he said, excuse me, while I put these on, I've grown blind in the service of my country. And then he talks about how all their friends bled and died. And if they go in there and storm and set up a military dictatorship, all of it will be for naught.

[00:04:37] We'll be back where we left with the king. And so he pulls up the paper, puts it in his pocket and leaves. And that Newburgh conspiracy dissolves. They knew that they were doing something unique and letting the people be in charge of their lives. Kings have subjects who are subjected to their will. Republics have citizens. And the word citizen means co-king.

[00:05:00] And so when you look at the revolution, the founders realized that we were breaking away from the most powerful king on the planet. Earlier this week, I was speaking in New York and met a guy from Bengal. And I said, hey, did you know there probably wouldn't have been a revolution if it had not been for a famine in Bengal in 1770 that killed 10 million people? He's like, what?

[00:05:25] I go, yeah, the British East India Company took over Bengal, rearranged their entire economy, and they shifted it up so that the people hadn't planted and prepared for their monsoons and famines. And 10 million people died. And the British East India Company was going bankrupt, so they appealed to the government for a government bailout. You know, we're familiar with government bailing out businesses. And so the king said, okay, yeah, you can make it up in taxes to the British people. And the British people said, well, we don't want the taxes. And the king says, okay, tax the colonies.

[00:05:54] And then cut out the middlemen. And then we'll confiscate ships of those trying to smuggle stuff into the country and not going through us. And we'll stop the country from printing their own currency. And we'll leave the troops over there left over from the French and Indian War. And since there's no barracks, we'll put the troops in the people's homes. And then we'll read through all their e-mails. Of course, they didn't have e-mails. But it's called the Ritz of Assistance. They could read through everybody's mail. And they could confiscate anybody's property on suspicion.

[00:06:23] And then it started to heat up. And America's founders, they had about a century of practicing self-government because, you know, Europe was the chessboard that the kings were fighting over. America was a losing investment. I mean, you know, 500 people died in Jamestown, Virginia. We didn't have gold. We had tobacco and dried fish and beaver skins. It wasn't a moneymaker. And so the king of England was like, don't bother me.

[00:06:53] Just stay out of my hair for a century. Well, we got a chance to develop this self-government. And so when the king decides to crack down, we had enough taste of freedom that we pushed back. And so Thomas Jefferson, when he penned the declaration, he lists about 27 reasons why we were pushing back. Mm-hmm.

[00:07:19] And so people say, well, you know, well, were they rebelling? Well, no, actually, the king's the one that started it. He had a two-tiered justice system, made judges depend on his will alone, erected a new – in other words, imagine going to the judge, and the judge was part of the deep state. And he wouldn't give you fair justice because his paycheck was coming from the king.

[00:07:44] And then the king incited natives of the frontiers to do terrorist attacks. You know, General Johnny Burgoyne meets with the Mohawk Indians in New York and promises money for scalps. And so that's listed. It says the king has excited domestic insurrection among us, endeavored to bring the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

[00:08:11] Let's take a break real quickly because I do need to come back real quickly because I do want to get into where did Thomas Jefferson get his ideas? Some of that came from John Locke. Maybe some of it came from the Virginia Declaration of Rights and maybe even the Mecklenburg Declaration and some of that. So we'll get into the aspect of the declaration. And then even later on, we have certainly some other great stories about this.

[00:08:37] But again, we are coming up to next year will be the 250th anniversary of this country. And that's why we thought you'd like to hear from William Federer. We'll continue our conversation with him right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Here's an encouraging statistic.

[00:09:06] The murder rate in our country is plummeting. We still have about half of the year left, but if the trend continues, FBI Director Kash Patel says the U.S. is on track to have the lowest murder rate ever. John Lott is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and has been on the Point of View radio program many times. He has two explanations. First, law enforcement matters. Second, deporting criminal illegal aliens has an impact. The FBI director has been telling law enforcement, I'm going to let you, the agents, the police officers, the sheriffs,

[00:09:35] go out there and do the work you badly want to do, and I'm going to give you the resources you need to do it. He decided to move a third of the FBI agents in the D.C. area to places across the country where crime is occurring. This is different from the previous administration where FBI agents were sometimes focused on non-criminal activities of conservative Catholics or parents speaking out at school board meetings. John Lott has a simple explanation. When you let law enforcement catch criminals, it makes it riskier for criminals to commit crime. You end up getting less crime.

[00:10:05] Now, deporting criminal illegal aliens also has lowered the crime rate. Many of them already had criminal backgrounds but were nevertheless released into society. He also mentions that deportations are forcing illegal aliens to lay low. When you fear an ICE Roundup, you're more likely to stay home. John Lott concludes, reducing crime isn't rocket science. If you make it riskier for criminals to commit crime, you get less crime. No, it isn't that complicated.

[00:10:32] If you want less crime, put more police on the streets and take more criminals off the streets. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net.

[00:10:57] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. William Federer with us. And again, if you'd like to know a little bit more about his organization, we have a link to AmericanMinute.com. There you can find out about his various books, all the media that is available there. You can sign up. And I would certainly encourage you that if you would like to educate, especially as we come into this 250th anniversary of this country,

[00:11:25] and maybe like to have him come to speak to your church, your civic group, he will certainly, just as you've already figured out, provide so much news information, commentary, biblical history tied into what's happening today. Because so many times he will point out that what we're dealing with today are similar to some of the things that they were dealing with in the 18th century. But, Bill, if we can, I thought it would be helpful for you also to talk about, because I know you do,

[00:11:53] about where these ideas of the Declaration of Independence came from. And also, just one of the questions that believers had at the time, because, you know, we're in Romans 13, supposed to be in subjection to governing authorities, but they said that they were not going to break from England for light and transient causes, because they were suffering a long train of abuses and usurpation.

[00:12:20] So, this was not something that the colonists came to lightly, but we today enjoy the freedom that we have because of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. Yeah, they actually, you know, Romans 13, let everyone be subject to the governing authority, for there's no authority except that which God is established, the authority that is just established by God. It's like, well, who's the governing authority in a monarchy? Well, it's the king. Well, who's the governing authority in a republic? Well, it's the people. Well, the people are the king.

[00:12:50] The politicians are our servants. So, it would be silly for the king to have to obey his servant, right? And so, the founders understand, wait, we're empowering the people. So, about 32% of the signers, or 32 of the signers of the Declaration were Anglican, 13 Congregationalists, 12 Presbyterians, and then you had Quakers, Baptists, and one Roman Catholic, Dutch Reformed. But the Presbyterians, they were known as the resistance party to the king. So, we back up.

[00:13:19] You have the king of England, right, Henry VIII, and then you had the Puritans trying to purify the king of England. You had separatists that turned into the Baptists and Congregationalists, and they were sort of withdrawing. They had a covenant form of government, but they weren't really involved in politics, per se. And then the Quakers, you know, they definitely weren't involved in politics. But the Presbyterians, they were in Scotland, and they resisted the king.

[00:13:45] You know, Jenny Geddes was a market woman who, when they read the first time the English Book of Common Prayer in St. Giles Cathedral in Scotland, she hurled her three-legged stool, and it whacks into the minister, and people start throwing stuff. It turns into the bishop's war. And then the king sends his army up there and has the killing time, starts killing these Presbyterians. And so they were known as the resistance party to the king. And so you began to see John Witherspoon.

[00:14:15] He is the Scottish guy, comes over, and he teaches at Princeton. And he teaches a good percentage of the signers of the Declaration and Constitution. And so they're taking this covenant form of government, and they're saying, wait a second, we want to have a government without a king. They actually did have an American experiment in England for 15 years called the English Commonwealth. Oliver Cromwell died, and they couldn't keep it together, and they brought back, you know, the king, Charles II.

[00:14:44] But in America, we were the afterthought. We were the 3,000-mile ocean away, and so we were allowed to develop this. They did get ideas from John Locke, but he sort of drew his ideas sort of removed from the Hebrews Republic. Even Os Guinness said how covenantal ideas in England were the lost cause, but they became the winning cause. In New England, covenant-shaped constitutionalism.

[00:15:13] The American Constitution is a nationalized, secularized form of covenant. And he says, in other words, federal is Latin for covenant. So we have a covenant form of government where we, the people, can rule ourselves without a king. And they got this from the Bible. And, but, you know, one of the interesting things, I don't know if I got into it, but people in the colonies were trying to get rid of slavery. Yes. Pre-Revolutionary War.

[00:15:41] But the king of England wouldn't allow it because he was a part owner of the Royal African Company. And so Thomas Jefferson, who's 33, writes this about the king of England, who was 38. And he says, the king, this is in the declaration, he has waged cruel war against human nature itself and the persons of a distant people who have never offended him, captivating, carrying them into slavery, other hemisphere, incurable, miserable death, suppression of every legislative attempt to restrain this extensible commerce,

[00:16:11] to keep a market open where men could be bought and sold. South Carolina and Georgia wouldn't go along with it. And since they said the declaration had to be unanimous and they were all in panic because they got word that the British were invading New York, they went ahead and passed it without getting rid of slavery. How we wish they would have fought it out and gotten rid of slavery right at the beginning of the country. But at least we see that it was in there.

[00:16:36] Ben Franklin, after the Constitution, he became the first president of the first anti-slavery society. And in 1790, he introduced a petition for Congress to end slavery in America. But again, South Carolina and Georgia wouldn't go along with it. But again, they're taking on the most powerful king on the planet. John Hancock signed the declaration and then reportedly said, The price on my head has just doubled. The next design is Charles Thompson.

[00:17:05] He's the secretary. He was 47. Ben Franklin was 70. He said, we must hang together or most assuredly, we will hang separately. The declaration does mention God four times. Laws of nature and of nature's God appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions. Firm reliance on the prediction of divine providence. And with a all men are died by the creator with certain and able rights.

[00:17:35] One of the things I wanted to bring up, two months before they did the declaration, the same Continental Congress passed a day of fasting and prayer unanimously. Yes. Through the marriage and mediation of Jesus Christ. It's like, oh, they were all deists and atheists. Like, why would they unanimously pass a day of fasting through the merits of mediation of Jesus Christ just two months before they did their declaration? It mentions God four times. And so they were all Christian. And there's miracles.

[00:18:04] I mean, Battle of Brooklyn Heights, August 27th, 1776. The British found a loyalist, somebody in America, but they're not loyal to America. They're loyal to the enemy. I know it's hard for us to believe that type of person ever existed. But this loyalist shows the British how to march through Jamaica pass all night long and attack Washington from behind. I mean, they're shooting the Americans in the back. Only 300 British died. And then Washington's pinned up against the water.

[00:18:33] And the sun goes down. And he's probably thinking, you know, the next day I'll be hung and America will be another colony like Sudan or Kenya or someplace. But he gets every boat he can find and he's ferrying his troops across the East River. Gets about half across when the sun starts to come up. And he's only moved half his army. He's really a sitting duck. His chief of intelligence, Ben Talmadge, writes,

[00:19:21] And he's been in his senses ever. So Washington continues to move his troops. He's on the last boat that leaves. The fog lifts. The British charge. Nobody's there. It was the last chance the British had to capture. Again, one of the great miracles of American history. I might just point out that you have a Miracles in American History book and DVDs and all that. And since we're just coming to a break, let me just, if I can, mention one more time that your website is AmericanMinute.com.

[00:19:46] And I would really encourage people, if they've been listening right now saying, I've heard all sorts of things I've not heard before. Isn't it possible that somebody can schedule you to come and speak to their civic group or to their church? Oh, yes, yes. And thank you for mentioning that. Every week I speak all around the country. But I'd be thrilled to speak at any church and any group. Just contact me through my website, AmericanMinute.com. Again, the website is AmericanMinute.com.

[00:20:13] We certainly highly recommend, it's on my shelf, America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. Of course, we have a lot of the other ones as well, including Miracles in American History. You've heard some of that, God and Country, all sorts of great resources there. So I just wanted to kind of kick it off. And Bill Frederick, we'll have you on again because this 250th anniversary of America is kind of something we're going to talk about. But I want you today to talk a little bit about the Declaration and Independence Day.

[00:20:42] And it's been great to have you on the program. Let's do it again. I look forward to it, Kirby. Thank you so much. Let's take a break. When we come back, just a few follow-up issues. You know, while we talk about America's heritage, I do want to get into the need for us to maybe rekindle patriotism. And I don't know if you've seen this, but this just came out from Gallup Poll. I'd heard about it, but now I'll show on those of you that are watching online some of the graphs.

[00:21:10] We have the record low in terms of American adults and their pride in America. But I want to talk about that because I think somebody gets back to the need for us to talk about America's godly heritage and some of the benefits of being an American. We'll talk about that right after this. Many years ago, they began saying that we live in the information age. Well, today, there is so much information coming at us from every direction.

[00:21:40] The hardest thing is to discern which issues are really important and how can I make a positive impact without wasting my time trying to figure out accurate information. Let me give you a suggestion to help with that. Visit pointofview.net, look at the tabs across the top, find the one named Viewpoints. Kirby Anderson and others on our team are constantly watching for news to identify those issues that you really need to know about.

[00:22:09] They boil things down in a brief summary, and then you can decide if it's something on which you want to learn more and get involved. Again, when you go to pointofview.net, click on Viewpoints, you'll see exactly what I mean. You'll see the issues that we are covering right now. And when you like what you see, I honestly think you will, you can slide on over, enter your email, and get them automatically sent to your inbox each day. That's it. Take a minute now. Be informed.

[00:22:40] Pointofview.net. Click on Viewpoints. Point of View. We'll 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, we're going to be spending just a few more minutes talking about this fact that we're in the, if you might call it the 4th of July week, and of course Friday is the 4th of July, and it kind of focuses on the need for us, especially as we are now moving into a time in which we'll have celebrations, 250 years of America.

[00:23:33] And some of us are old enough to remember when we had, in 1976, 200-year celebration, the bicentennial. Some of you are too young to remember that, but again, I think it will be a time in which you'll probably have some who will talk about patriotism and want to talk about the greatness and some of the things that we should be grateful for in this American nation. But I do believe that the 250th anniversary is going to be very different than the 200th anniversary

[00:24:01] because there are so many individuals that are negative about this country, and that comes from the universities, it comes from the media, and it is best illustrated by this Gallup poll that just came out. I'm going to hold up some graphs. Obviously, if it had come a little bit earlier, I could have got them maybe to Karen. She could put them on her screen, but I'll hold them up, and if you can't see them, you can find them easily. We may even post it later in the week anyway, because I think issue of patriotism very significant,

[00:24:32] partially because if you don't hear about the evidence of God's providence, even in the forming of this country, and if you're unaware of how important Christian values and Christian ideas were in the beginning of this republic, if indeed Christian values were important in the creation of this republic, don't you think Christian values would be important in the maintenance of this republic? And of course so.

[00:24:58] But at a time when there is a rejection of biblical absolutes, even really a rejection of any kind of moral absolutes, it's not surprising that we see this. And I will hold this up. This is the latest Gallup poll that actually shows on a graph how when you ask Americans, and these are adults, are you extremely proud, very proud, moderately proud, only a little bit proud, or not proud at all?

[00:25:24] You can see one of the striking things is we had a record high back in 9-11, and we had a record low during COVID-19, and we now have a new record low. And so that illustrates again that patriotism has been on the decline. Two years ago, if I can read from one of my commentaries, and maybe I'll do it again, this one was from a study that was done by the Wall Street Journal and University of Chicago,

[00:25:54] and this one from a couple years ago asked this question, if you are in any particular way sort of patriotic, in other words, the question was, and it's the question that was asked over decades, and that is, do you feel that patriotism is important to you? And back in 1998, which interestingly enough, wasn't that long ago if you think about it,

[00:26:24] seven in ten Americans said, yeah, patriotism is very important to me. When this came out in 2023, only a third said that, and now if you look at these numbers, it's even lower even so. So you can see that patriotism and love of country are waning, and have waned rather dramatically. One writer looking at that, she said, well, it's pretty obvious. When you remove patriotism, family values,

[00:26:53] and hard work from society, and you add to it instead new values like multiculturalism, identity affiliations, and love of money, you aren't surprised that all of a sudden you see a stark increase in the deaths of despair, particularly among certain racial groups, and even intentional racial and gender identity divisions that are implemented by the elite class, and as a result,

[00:27:21] having more and more young people hate the country they live in. And when I show you this chart, what I thought was so interesting is, is that if you dig a little deeper, you'll recognize that there is a stark difference in patriotism. And I will hold up this chart, because this chart, for those of you that can see it, show the Republicans in the red, and really since 2001,

[00:27:50] over the last 25 years, their particular ideas about being proud of America haven't changed. Their current number is 92%. So why do we see such a precipitous decline? Well, that's because of Democrats, and then some independents. And if you then even look up the charts, you realize that that decline among Democrats happened beginning in 2016, 2016. That's the election of Donald Trump.

[00:28:20] It bumped up a little bit under Joe Biden, but it's gone down even further since then. And I think it illustrates again that it isn't universal that individuals in America aren't patriotic. It isn't universal that Americans are no longer proud to be in this country. It really goes down political lines. And as we were talking about this off air, I think part of that has to do with what is being taught in the public schools.

[00:28:50] But since this is adults, I think some of that has to do with the way in which the mainstream media, the so-called legacy media, continually runs down America. And so one of the projects I want to certainly implement over this next year, as we come to a celebration of 250 years of America, is to do more in teaching about America's godly heritage,

[00:29:17] because that has been poorly taught or not taught at all. We certainly want to talk about some of the times in which America has been exceptional, not American exceptionalism, but certainly times in which there have been points of pride in this country. And also teach, as we talked about just a few minutes ago, some of the really dark chapters in American history. Racism and slavery certainly fit into that category, the Indian Wars and others,

[00:29:46] and certainly get an honest and fair look at this country. But anybody that looks at this country today and says, well, it's just a terrible country to live in, please explain to me why very few people are leaving this country, and so many people are desperately trying to get into this country, and recognize that the kind of freedom that you have to criticize the government would not exist in places like Iran that we just talked about,

[00:30:15] or many other countries in the world. And if you wanted to practice your religious freedom, that is certainly something we are enjoying in this country, in large part because of some of the things that Kelly Shackelford and the people associated with him at First Liberty, as well as Alliance Defending Freedom, when we've talked with Lathan Watts and others, certainly give us a reason to be very encouraged about the future of this country. So if nothing else,

[00:30:43] let me just mention that that is something we are going to address, and if you find yourself even today saying, you've covered quite a bit of information, I'd really like to know a little bit more. Let me point you to the website, because first of all, we do have the information about the budget baseline con. We also have the information about the Iranian threat, one that I'll get to in just a few minutes on the imperial presidency,

[00:31:10] and then I even gave you an update on the African Peace Treaty, something you probably didn't hear anywhere else. And when we come back from the break, I do want to pick out this one on the imperial presidency, and also just the fact that we now have a number of individuals that have defected from China who tell us that we should be very skeptical and certainly have a very close eye on individuals

[00:31:40] that come to this country from places like China, because the only way they get a visa to come from China to the United States to be visiting scholars or to be international students at our universities is by signing a contract with the Chinese government and the communists especially, so that they would actually be able to steal

[00:32:06] some of our innovative developments and some of our entrepreneurial activities and some of the various resources that we have in this country. So we'll come back and talk about that threat as well, because it's just a good illustration of the fact that we live in a dangerous world, and we certainly have talked about that. And even as we go to a break, let me just mention one more time that those of you that certainly do support this ministry

[00:32:35] probably will receive or have already received in the mail, as I'll hold up for you right now, the July issue of the Outlook magazine. And in there, of course, one of the key articles is about this growing axis of evil, and that would be Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Of course, also we mention, of course, as the supreme leader in Iran. But we live in a dangerous world, and we should not be motivated by fear,

[00:33:03] but we live in a country where we have a greater opportunity to prevent some of the kind of abuses that we were talking about earlier with Lana Silk. And so I think, again, we should celebrate this country, as you heard William Federer talk about, and I think we need to not only encourage our children and our grandchildren, but even our teachers and other role models to really talk about in this 250th year

[00:33:33] of the anniversary of this country to focus on some of the good things that come from this country here in the United States of America. We'll be right back. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. For three more minutes,

[00:34:01] let me just mention that we started the program today by talking about this big, beautiful bill, and we've just had a vote to advance the legislation. It ended up being a 50-50 tie in which the tie was broken by J.D. Vance, so 51 to 50, and we'll follow where that takes us. And, of course, you have now an updated draft of this mega bill, and, of course, we'll probably spend some time talking about that tomorrow and over the next couple of days.

[00:34:29] Of course, Friday will be a vacation day for us and a time to celebrate this country because, as I said, a year from now, July 4th, 2026, will be 250 years, and that will be something we will want to build towards as well. Okay, I just mentioned real quickly, but it's worth mentioning again that we have some real concerns coming out of China, something we talk about in our latest issue of the Outlook magazine. This particular article says,

[00:34:59] wait, many Americans are concerned about national security right now. Of course we are, because the foreign spy who defected to the United States has unveiled, certainly, some jaw-dropping anti-American scheme brewing. That's the writer's words, but I think it's appropriate. This is a Chinese doctor, Li Ming-Yan, who fled her homeland after exposing back then the controversial COVID-19 research claims that were being made by scientists there in China.

[00:35:29] And, of course, also she was saying that at the time, there is a systemic attempt, a systematic attempt, to steal intellectual property from the United States and turn it over to the Chinese Communist Party. She said scientists getting visas from China to the U.S. say they are visiting scholars, but they have, in order to do that, signed contracts with the Chinese government to go back to China, serve China with whatever they can get from the United States. She says that this is one of the reasons

[00:35:59] we should be concerned, and the Trump administration is taking this very seriously, because they've been rigorously vetting all sorts of foreign scientists, particularly those from China, who were granted visas with the assistance from some of the federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health, NIH. And so, again, Li Ming-Yan says that's why they get visas from the Chinese government. So, from the beginning,

[00:36:29] they have already made a deal with the Chinese Communist Party and to become communists themselves and to become agents. So, China has these people come here, grab your intellectual properties, grab your technologies, compromise your people, and that, she says, is like a tumor, like the parasites go into your body and into your country. Now, if you are looking for examples, the most recent one I can think of happened at the University of Michigan right there in Ann Arbor,

[00:36:59] which you had two individuals that had been caught and were caught smuggling a toxic pathogen into the country there at that university. And so, that is one of the real concerns about that. Li Ming-Yan also argues that these incidents are part of a deliberate Chinese strategy to weaponize U.S. research capabilities. She claims that these bioweapons that are being brought in are really targeting agriculture

[00:37:28] and are seen, in some cases, as a poor man's nuclear weapons in ways to disrupt America's food supply. So, again, as I mentioned before, the Trump administration has a vetting initiative launched it just a few weeks ago and now have targeted about 1,000 scientists in this country who come from what are called countries of concern with especially significant focus on China. and this is,

[00:37:57] if you know, nothing else, a marked departure from some of the lax oversight of previous administrations that I think in many cases failed to screen researchers for their ties to the Chinese military or the Chinese Communist Party. Let me give you just one other quote from Gordon Chang and I'll leave it at that. Gordon Chang's been in studio with us also by phone. Gordon Chang said, we know that with the open border thousands, tens of thousands of Chinese came,

[00:38:27] most of them desperate Chinese wanting to live in a free society. We understand that. But also, he says, especially towards the end of the Biden administration, there were lots of packs of Chinese males coming in from groups of 4 to 15. We saw them with an identical kit and that was to actually do what they can to smuggle in and even possibly be another one of those concerning sleeper cells as we just talked about a few minutes

[00:38:56] ago with Iran. So, anyway, I just wanted to bring that particular story to you as well because I don't know how often that particular story is getting coverage in the mainstream press. But I thought it in with Charles Cook. He takes on one of the writers in the New York Times because as hard as it is to believe, at a time when we've had all sorts of presidents that have, in some cases, wanted to violate the law, there has been

[00:39:26] a willingness on the part of even people, in this case, a person writing for the New York Times, to turn a blind eye to anything that Barack Obama has done or anything that Joe Biden has done and to focus almost exclusively on Donald Trump. This is Charles Savage who talks about this issue of the imperial presidency and points out that really presidential power historically has gone from ebbs and flows. It's been, he says, sometimes on an upward path from the middle

[00:39:55] of the 20th century and that's why Arthur Schlesinger, the historian, referred to the imperial presidency. And that was a phrase that was tagged to Richard Nixon but even, interestingly enough, Charles Savage acknowledges really during the 1970s that didn't last very long because we had the Watergate scandal, we had the end of the Vietnam War and certainly Richard Nixon even, say, Jimmy Carter. But then he starts arguing that, well, yeah,

[00:40:25] but with Ronald Reagan and especially after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, we've seen something else. And so, like Charles Cook says, you got it? after a nameless and faceless phenomenon led mysteriously by the growth of the administrative state inside the executive branch, the presidency grew imperial only at the hands of Republicans. This imperialism began an upward path under Eisenhower, came so bad under Nixon, the other branch felt they had to do something about it. It increased in severity under Ronald Reagan,

[00:40:54] George W. Bush, and, of course, under Donald Trump. But nowhere else. And then goes on to talk about how Congress has failed to really control this so-called imperial presidency. By the way, I partially would agree the Patriot Act under George W. Bush and some other abuses along the way, I certainly would figure some of that is appropriate. But then Charles Cook ends by this. Naturally, of course, this is great news for Times readers who will now have the confirmation they've had all along.

[00:41:23] It's the Democratic presidents when they try to spend half a trillion dollars without legislative approval or decree changes to immigration law which they previously insisted they were unable to make or illegally order vaccine mandates and eviction memoranda in defiance of a statute or use the EPA to achieve aims they could not get through Congress or go through Libya without permission. Well, that's all different. But we should, under no circumstances,

[00:41:52] allow some of the things that are happening under Donald Trump. And again, I always want to say to some of these writers, if you would even acknowledge that some of these abuses that Charles Cook pointed out happened under Obama and Biden, then I think I'd be a little more open to some of the criticism you have about George W. Bush or Donald Trump. But given the fact that it's always the Republicans that are bad

[00:42:21] and there's never even an acknowledgement that some of this abuse happened under Democrats, that makes it hard for us to take seriously some of those arguments. I gave you just a short summary, but it is kind of fun. Charles Cook is really having some fun poking out some of the hypocrisy and inconsistencies in an article in the New York Times. And I thought it would just be a good way to remind you that it's important to read widely and just because it's in the New York Times

[00:42:50] doesn't necessarily make it true. That's all we have for today. Tomorrow we're going to get back into some of the issues in the news. We're also going to talk about biblical interpretation. I think you'll appreciate that as well. So first of all, I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the program. See you back here tomorrow right here on Point of View. 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.

[00:43:19] 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. We must not. As Winston Churchill said to Britain 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

[00:43:49] 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, 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

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