Point of View July 1, 2026 – Hour 2 : Midweek Headlines

[00:00:04] Across America, live, this is Point of View. And now, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, let's see if we can talk about what is happening politically, and a lot of that has to do with the issue of socialism.

[00:00:27] As I've mentioned before, one of the ways in which you have supported this ministry in the past has allowed us to redo our website. One of the things I like about our website is if you scroll down past our guest, it has a section called Show Materials. And I love that, because I can see all the way across. I'm going to have a piece that we're going to talk about from Cal Thomas, one from Gerard Baker, one from Victor Davis Hanson, and a couple of others.

[00:00:52] And each one of them kind of shows you a picture, gives you a little bit of an understanding, and that gives an opportunity for me to kind of understand the flow of what we'll be talking about in any program. It makes it easy for you to sort of follow along if you have access to a computer, or if you go to it later and want to find some of the news and information. But the big issue right now has been socialism, as illustrated by what most people expected, and that is last night you have another socialist that was elected.

[00:01:22] Again, this isn't the primary season, but given that this is a democratically controlled congressional seat, most likely if you win the primary as a Democrat, as a Democratic Socialist, and defeat an incumbent, as what has happened in Colorado in the first congressional district, you will most likely be serving in Congress. That socialist candidate is Milad Kiros. She won her primary in the congressional district, the first congressional district of Colorado.

[00:01:52] She defeated an incumbent who has been there for nearly three decades. In other words, when she was born, the person she defeated was actually serving in Congress. So that gets me into gerontocracy a little bit later, but that's at the end of the program. But if you are not familiar with her, and I saw an interview that she did the other day, I think it was with Newsweek, and I was shocked at how radical she is.

[00:02:19] Given the fact that many of these Democratic Socialists, let's call them what they are, communists, have Marxist-communist ideology, they're even more radical than the very liberal, progressive members of Congress that they've defeated. And I think that's a fair statement. They would say that themselves. So that is certainly the case. And so Milad Kiros is virulent.

[00:02:48] This article that I've got here calls her a virulently anti-Israel political newcomer, who has been backed, of course, by the Democratic Socialists of America. She is a 29-year-old Ph.D. student, a barista. But I'll get into that in just a minute, because she at one point was actually fired from a Manhattan law firm because she was criticized in the law firm's stand because they weren't critical enough of Israel,

[00:03:16] even though the firm's response to the pro-Palestinian protest would be something that most of us around the table would say, well, that's pretty strong. That wasn't strong enough. And so you can kind of get the sense of where these individuals are going. She is from Ethiopia. She's kind of the latest member of Gen Z now, hoping to join Congress. There's no reason, probably, unless you can come up with some independent that decides to run against her

[00:03:46] and was able to pick up not only some of the more mainstream Democrat votes, but all the Republican votes in that area, which is always a possibility, but I don't see it happen at the moment. And she joins, in a sense, three other Democratic Socialist candidates. That would be Darylisa Civalier, which we talked about before, Claire Valdez, and Brad Lander.

[00:04:09] These were the individuals in New York that were actually sponsored by and promoted and boosted by the New York City mayor, Zoran Mamdani. So with that as a background, I thought it would be good to, if nothing else, help you understand, first of all, what she says. And that is in the interview that she did recently.

[00:04:31] She said that the attack by Hamas on Israel and even the 9-11 terrorist attack were inevitable consequences because of the United States' actions in the Middle East. We've heard this before. She supports Medicare for All, universal child care, abolishing ICE, as well as ending all wars,

[00:04:53] and also tends to be very opposed to AI data centers comparing the expansion of artificial intelligence to the apocalypse of the robots. So we can maybe get into some of that a little bit later. But my first article is from Cal Thomas. And Cal Thomas really reminds us that these are not the typical Democrats. The title of his piece is Democrats Now and Then.

[00:05:19] And points out that the Speaker of the House, this would be Mike Johnson, who's been on the program with us many times before, read what many of these far-left, democratic, socialist, communist, whatever phrase you want to use. Mike Johnson said across the country, Democrats have candidates winning primaries and rising through the ranks. He talked about, for example, one Sacramento City Council member and former candidate who was refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:05:48] He talks about another one in Arizona that wants to decriminalize trans prostitution. Then another one talking about how he wants to apologize for being white. Of course, you've had that from a number of those as well. Other Democrats have said that they want to erase the border, empty the prisons, abolish ICE, pack the Supreme Court, and do everything they can to assure that Democrats will always hold power.

[00:06:17] You can go through the first two pages. It might be rather upsetting for some of you eating your lunch right now, but nevertheless, it's just a reminder of how radical these individuals are. You cannot be radical enough. You cannot be progressive enough. And many of these individuals who have been part of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are now being defeated in these primaries, which will be interesting to see how some of this plays out in the fall.

[00:06:47] But as the other part of the piece by Cal Thomas, he says, Now contrast all of this with the Democratic Party, and he goes back to John F. Kennedy, who was for lowering taxes and did so, and was an ardent anti-communist. He then points out the fact that there was a time not so long ago when public schools once taught the real history of America.

[00:07:12] Public schools opened the day with a pledge of allegiance to the flag, not foreign flags, and many times would even allow for prayer, maybe even Bible reading. And he, of course, points out how has this worked out? Well, as anti-capitalist teachings and poor achievement in math, science, and reading now become kind of the norm of the schools.

[00:07:37] And as we've pointed out before, if you go out there and ask a lot of these young people who are voting what they know about America's history, about its government, whether it's Jay Leno in the old days used to go out and what he called jaywalking, or now you have Johnny going out there with some of the Fox News individuals and puts a microphone in the hands of some of the, in the face of some of these individuals.

[00:08:04] They can't tell you why we fought the American Revolution, who we fought it with. They can't tell us, tell you when the Civil War took place. They can't even tell you who we fought in World War II. They can't even tell you the three branches of government. They can't even tell you what's in the First Amendment. But these people do get to vote. And many of them are now voting for Democratic Socialists. And if you think we might need to do a little bit of education, that's what point of view is all about.

[00:08:33] So even as we go to a break, don't forget, we still have a match on the table. And if you support what we're doing to educate America through radio and through our podcast, I hope you give us a call. 800-347-5151. We'll be right back. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:06] Lauren Valhusen asked a provocative question. Is the iPhone birth control? She cites a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that concluded that the diffusion of the iPhone accelerated the post-2007 U.S. fertility decline. The researchers estimated it could account for a third to a half of the percent drop. In her article, she makes it clear that she isn't saying the iPhone made women infertile. Instead, her article and the research study argued that the spread of the iPhone

[00:09:34] and constant access to it affected certain behaviors. I think we all know what the issue is. These smartphones hindered the formation of relationships and led to less intimacy. Of course, we didn't need a massive study to understand what has been taking place. Smartphones decreased the amount of face-to-face socializing, while at the same time increased the amount of time spent alone. They also make access to pornography and other visuals that are destructive to positive social relationships.

[00:10:02] She summarizes the technical conclusions with these simple phrases. Phones made us less social. As a result, fewer people date and fewer babies are born. That may have led to fewer teen pregnancies, but in the long term, it resulted in our declining birth rate. In previous commentaries, I've documented the social and psychological impact of smartphones on the youngest generation over the last two decades add declining fertility to this growing list.

[00:10:27] She laments that phones have turned us into awkward, antisocial puppies who can't handle eye contact, so we stand in corners at bars and don't talk to each other. This study is another reason why we need to put down our phones. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:55] That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Now, once again, one of the pieces I've posted for you to talk about, and I think this would be a good conversation starter as well when we have the next time we have a roundtable. Of course, I have a Next Generation Roundtable next week. Of course, we'll have, of course, not this Friday, but the following Friday, we will certainly have a weekend edition roundtable, and it would be,

[00:11:25] would we be better off if we had more choice in politics? Jared Breaker puts it this way, America is the land of endless choice except in politics. And first of all, if you have been watching, and I'm sure you have, if you go out on YouTube, you'll see this. If you go out on TikTok or Instagram, if you just watch the local nightly news, you're probably hearing stories about individuals that have come here from Europe,

[00:11:52] come here from Asia, come here from other parts of the world, who are just amazed at all the choices that Americans have. When you talk about consumer choice in terms of products, it is amazing. And they are amazed at the number of choices we have, the abundance we have, even the freedom we have. And Gerard Breaker put it this way, like most immigrants, I was astonished when I first came to America by the range of choices.

[00:12:21] Even the fanciest European supermarkets typically offer three types of milk, whole, semi-skimmed, and skimmed. In America, our refrigerator door opens into a world of gorgeous diversity. You can have milk whole, or 1%, 2%. We have almond milk. We have soy milk. We have something called half and half, midway between milk and cream. He says, even in Europe, you don't really get many choices. Even if you go to a restaurant, he said,

[00:12:47] I ask a waitress in Paris for a medium rare steak. She complained, well, no, we can't do that. We either have rare or medium. And I just politely said, well, if the cook could leave the steak on the grill for somewhere between the time it took to make it rare and make it medium, that'd be good. And he says, she looked at me like I'd ask her to bring me a cow so I could introduce myself. But he says, when it comes to politics, it's the other way around.

[00:13:13] In Europe, you get short shrift for asking a barista for a non-fat, no-foam vanilla flavored double-shot latte. I didn't get that right, but I'm not used to saying that every day. But here, when you talk about consumer choice, we have lots of choices. When you talk about parties, not so much. He says, in Europe, you can have all sorts of parties, communist, nationalist, social democratic,

[00:13:40] Christian democratic, green, socialist, conservative, liberal, anything in between. In Britain, which in most things used to look a bit like America, you still have labor, conservative, reform, green, liberal, democrat. You even have nationalists in Scotland and Wales. But in America, you have R&D. Now, I'll be quick to admit that there have been some attempts to actually break up this two-party system.

[00:14:07] Of course, Ross Pro had the Reform Party, but it was so personality-generated that after he stepped down and tried to run for the presidency, I only can identify maybe two or three other people that ran on the Reform Party platform. Perhaps one of the most successful is one that we talked about many times with our good friend when he was alive, Howard Phillips. He established the Constitution Party.

[00:14:32] But the harsh reality was, and Howard Phillips, I remember telling me this years ago when he was trying to really get a viable Constitution Party going, was that there are just so many laws at the state level, and that's where elections really are controlled, that are just so constrained to force it into a two-party system.

[00:14:55] And I've oftentimes said that if we ever could get to a multi-party system, even now, I think we'd be better off if the Democratic Socialists would call themselves Socialists, rather than call themselves Democrats, because that's what they are. And there are a lot of Democrats that say, you have nothing in common with me other than you dislike Trump. But on so many other issues, you are much further away from the platform of the Democratic Party.

[00:15:23] But unfortunately, here we have what we call a binary choice, Republican or Democrat. And he says, of course, there's a virtue to some of this. To some extent, diversity is governing choice as an illusion, because ultimately your real choices are, I'm going to vote for this one, the Democratic Party or the Socialist Party. I'm going to vote for the Conservative Party or the Liberal Party. But at least you have some choices in Europe. You certainly do in Italy.

[00:15:51] You certainly do even in Israel. And we don't. And he says, in America, the coalitions exist within the parties. They shift from changing national priorities and political trends. And thanks, he says, to the genius of the Constitution that distributes power widely, the risk of some kind of tyranny or majority rule is dealt with.

[00:16:16] But he says, even so, we're becoming more sort of like a parliamentary system in which, in those places, the parties of the executive and legislative branches views together, because we are all complaining oftentimes about what we call the uniparty. And he says that this victory of these Democratic Socialists and their allies in New York right now signal a moment in this dissent,

[00:16:44] even into what he's saying could be a political dystopia. Now, he recognizes, let's not overstate this. New York is not America. But we've seen this in New York. We've seen it in Colorado. We've seen it in California. We see the possibility even in Utah. We talked about the other day. So this isn't, you know, just in one of the congressional districts. And so you do see that this could be of concern.

[00:17:10] And if you realize right now, even if you disagree with a lot of things being said by the current president, by even some of your Republican leaders, you have to say the alternative right now of Islamist-friendly party, an open borders party, defund the police party, kill the billionaire socialist party running the country,

[00:17:40] it does not look good. And so in some respects, we would really wish we had more than a two-party system. As I've said before, if you were maybe hold to some of the values of the Democratic Party, but you were pro-life, the Democrats say, well, sorry. Everybody in the Democratic Party is pro-choice. There's no pro-life here. And so you would not necessarily be able to find a home there.

[00:18:07] In the Republican Party, maybe you are concerned about, I don't know, some environmental issues or maybe dislike some of the issues about the tariffs or trade or whatever. But the Republicans say, well, what are you going to do, vote for the Democrat? And I think each party almost holds you hostage. And I thought this piece was really helpful to recognize what we are dealing with right now. Because what is happening is it's narrowing our choice down between, and these are his words,

[00:18:35] a rampantly corrupt, inept, ideologically and practically capricious personality cut, cult. You see, he's not a real fan of Donald Trump. Or graduate student activists, terrorist sympathizers, and people who are convinced that they can change the economy just by decree. And I think you have a reasonable choice there. But again, I have sympathy for why some of you have, when we've opened up the phones,

[00:19:04] complained that you only have a two-party system. And this is something I'm hoping still could change at the statewide level. But it has to be more than just something around a personality. Can we come up with an alternative party that has many of the principles, maybe Christian principles, constitutional principles, and the rest, and is no longer beholding to either of the other two parties?

[00:19:30] A multi-party system would be good, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. So, what we are faced with is this on-ramp of socialism. The rather dramatic increase in the number of people that believe in socialism. So, again, that's one of the reasons why I encourage you to support Point of View. As I've held up before, let me hold it one more time,

[00:19:55] the February issue dealt with this whole issue of socialism and how that relates to Christianity. We've had multiple booklets on that topic. And if you do value what we are providing every single day, not only on radio but in the books and the magazines, the videos, the podcasts, and everything else, can I ask you as we go to a break to consider what you might do to support this ministry. If you've already given, thank you very much.

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[00:21:17] When we come back, I'll mention my Viewpoints commentary today. And Victor Davis Hanson has a few more things to say about what's happening with all these new socialists. It's a fascinating piece. We'll talk about that right after this. Where does moral truth come from? According to 58% of Americans, individuals determine moral truth. A quarter of Generation Z says society determines moral truth. And morality can even change over time.

[00:21:47] Only 42% of Americans believe that truth comes from God. I don't know about you, but I find these numbers extremely troubling. It really is a crisis of truth, and that crisis has consequences. Look at society. Evil is called good. Good called evil. People with biblical beliefs are called bigots. Or worse, they're canceled. But there is hope. The Bible promises the truth will set us free.

[00:22:14] And that's why Point of View is relentless in our commitment to the ultimate source of moral truth, God's Word. At Point of View, we know that God's truth is eternal. And if we stand together, we can help more Americans apply His truth in their daily life. Help Americans find truth again by giving at pointofview.net. Or call 1-800-347-5151. That's pointofview.net.

[00:22:43] And 800-347-5151. 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.

[00:23:12] And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again, let me just mention that one of the things we've posted on our website every day is, of course, my Viewpoints Commentary. And that's an opportunity for you to hear a number of things that I actually put together in a two-minute commentary that goes out to about 600 radio stations, many more than even Kerry Point of View. And the one today is entitled, Birth Control?

[00:23:38] And really, it has to do with this very provocative question that was asked the other day. Is the iPhone birth control? Now, it doesn't mean that we actually see that as a contraceptive. The point being made is, is when you spend all your time staring at a screen, sometimes you don't ever interact with somebody of the opposite sex.

[00:23:58] And I saw Karen put together, it's a picture of eight young people of different sizes and outfits and even ethnic background. But they're all staring at their phone. And so I thought it would be a good piece for you to read because the study by the National Bureau of Economic Research has found that, in some respects,

[00:24:20] the decline in fertility and the decline in marriage, in large part, seems to match very much the expansion of the iPhone. So in addition to everything else we've talked about, Jonathan Haidt, of course, wrote the book, The Anxious Generation, in which he's pointed out all the other associated concerns with the production of first the smartphone and then social media.

[00:24:44] This is just one more, and I thought it would be helpful for you to find on the website at pointofview.net. Let me also mention, though, that one of the other articles I thought we might dig into is a rather extensive article, goes on for about five pages, by Victor Davis Hanson, which has the title, The New Socialist.

[00:25:04] He says, you know, when some blue state and blue city races and the cocky new socialist Jacobins believe that they have either already taken over the Democratic Party or will soon absorb it. He's trying to point out that, yes, you're going to have a few of these individuals. By the way, why do they call them Jacobins? Well, that goes back to the French Revolution and Robespierre. He uses that phrase. A number of others are. Matter of fact, there is a Jacobin magazine, so it's not like this is not a phrase they don't use themselves.

[00:25:34] But Victor Davis Hanson goes on to say it's fascinating, but ultimately depressing, he says, to watch the old-style Democrats, some of the people that Cal Thomas was talking about in your column we mentioned just a few minutes ago, say or do anything to avoid this new mob of Robespierres. Democratic candidates who recently begged for a Schumer-Pelosi-Jeffries endorsement now are telling them to get in line at the guillotine.

[00:26:02] Jewish Democrats are terrified of what would happen when they saw the primary and defeated Dan Goldman. And it's amazing that even individuals that have been very critical of Israel, if they haven't been critical enough, or if they are Jewish, because he mentioned Scott Wiener as well, want to be California congressman, that's enough to eliminate you in the primary. So he says,

[00:26:56] He's getting pretty concerned about what that might mean. And he says, In general, socialist challenge is to fundamentally transform America into what he calls a status inert redistribution machine. Perhaps, he says, even more nutty than socialist Europe, and one that has a very significant agenda. Let me mention all seven.

[00:27:26] Number one, new demography. Open borders. Massive, unaudited new immigration. Ending any real distinction between residence and citizenship. Number two, dismantling the system. Packing the court. Destroying the electoral college. Ending the filibuster. You heard the list. Number three, the Islamization of America.

[00:27:50] Ending our friendship with Israel and instead realigning with the West Bank, Hamas, Hezbollah, other Muslim regimes. Number four, old communism. The government takeover of housing and utilities. Even taxes on net worth and unrealized capital gains. Number five, statism. Massive new entitlements.

[00:28:13] We're talking about free college, canceling $1.7 trillion in student loans. Number six, reparations. We're hearing those again. Compensation for anybody that suffered under what was called white privilege. And number seven, globalization. Pledging solidarity with socialist, communist movements around the world. And again, you might say, well, that's a lofty set of goals.

[00:28:42] How many of them are being achieved? Well, he brings you back to reality. The mayor of New York City, Zoran Mamdani, has already begun promising to confiscate rental properties from landlords and to focus on many of these so-called white neighborhoods. He will no longer even try to disguise his innate hatred of the Jews. If you say, well, that's one-off. That's New York City.

[00:29:11] Well, let's move down to Virginia. The governor there, Governor Spanberger, actually dropped her moderate false face, he says, and began to radically ram through hard left executive orders to ensure more DEI, higher taxes, and all sorts of other things. As a matter of fact, my next piece, which we'll just mention in passing because we don't have a lot of time, is those of you that think woke is dead, no, it's still alive and kicking, and there's a good example of that.

[00:29:41] So then, Victor Davis Hanson points out, look, socialists oftentimes are able to hide their revolutionary anger with all sorts of pleasantries. We have all become really accustomed to what is now called the socialist face, the grin of Zoran Mamdani, the happy face of a senatorial candidate, James Tallarico.

[00:30:06] And he points out that sometimes we see they seem like nice people, and maybe I'll just go along with their policies until you find out what they are. He does point out that there are some that always are angry. He mentions, of course, Rashid Tlaib and some people like that. But he says the issue is that these new emerging socialists, who are right now congressional nominees, and I mentioned a few of those just a minute ago,

[00:30:35] can never explain to you why their parents left some of these socialist paradises in Latin America, he's being facetious there, in order to come to America. Nor do they explain why or how such a supposed toxic racist nation would extend such generous scholarships and preferences to both.

[00:30:58] Because he's pointing out something I mentioned yesterday, and many of these individuals come from their first generation here, or they were born there and have come here, find themselves almost ignoring why their parents left some of these autocratic and despotic and socialist countries in the past.

[00:31:22] And he says, once the second generation socialists joined the privileged elite classes of America, these Baroque radicals decided to tear down the very system that nurtured them, without ever expressing a wish to return to the socialist paradises of their parents' households. He's got some great lines in this as well. And of course, he then points out all the other aspects.

[00:31:48] But again, this idea is that they are wanting to certainly change America, but they also benefit tremendously from the American good life, from conscious consumer consumption. We talked about some of those yesterday that were being in Heiken Packer and some of those. The merit badges of success of being Ivy League graduates, some of whom are.

[00:32:15] And even having the right letters, titles, and even living in the right zip codes. But never seem sort of the irony of what they want to tear down as something that they really enjoy. But again, he says part of that has to do with the issue of envy. And so they are still able to control some areas, more the academy. But the real issue is what will they be able to change in the future.

[00:32:45] And so I think on the one hand, we have to recognize that we're going to hear more of this socialist rhetoric from Congress next year because of some of them that were elected during these primaries. But at the same time, maybe some of that can be limited. And more important than anything else, as I mentioned yesterday, the need for the great relearning.

[00:33:08] Just as there has been a need for people to learn every generation the problems with socialism and the benefits of capitalism, we need to teach that again and again because each generation somehow thinks that you can have utopia because they're absolutely convinced that money does grow on trees. Let's take a break, though. We'll come back and finish off with a few other real quick comments.

[00:33:35] But for those of you that maybe just joined us, we have been able to extend the match. So if you have been wanting to support this ministry and have a dollar-for-dollar match, it's still available. You can find out more by going to our website. We'll be right back. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:04] As we're winding down the Wednesday edition of Point of View, tomorrow on Thursday, we'll be talking in the first hour in studio with Dr. Eric Willis and Byron Barlow. We're going to be talking about this book, Rooted and Resilient, A Minister's Guide to Thrive. Now, this would be certainly appropriate for anybody involved in ministry. We're talking about pastors, Sunday school teachers. Of course, all of us have a ministry, so that is certainly applicable.

[00:34:28] But this is really to apply to all of us because the argument they make is that we really need to rekindle gratitude. We need to have positive emotions. We need to involve ourselves in meaningful relationships. One of the things they say is every practice you implement, every relationship you invest in, every moment of gratitude you cultivate, every act of forgiveness you extend,

[00:34:55] every hope you nurture, and every optimistic reframe you choose contributes to your overall capacity for sustained, joyful ministry. So it is, I think, a great reminder of what we can do in the Christian life. If you're in ministry, this is absolutely essential. But I think for all of us, we can learn some really great lessons from it as well. So we're going to spend some time talking about it in the first hour, and then get back to a few more issues that are in the news.

[00:35:24] One last article. I won't spend a lot of time on it, but I just thought I'd mention that this is an article that came out of Real Clear Investigations, and it's entitled, Alive and Kicking, News of Woke's Death is Greatly Exaggerated. Okay, borrowing from, of course, Mark Twain. But he points out, the author, John Morosky, points out that a few years ago,

[00:35:48] wearing a sombrero on Halloween could get you banished from polite society, polite society, I should say. You had, of course, the social crime of cultural appropriation, I should say. Nutrition experts argue that preventing obesity was a form of fat phobia. Even scientific names of songbirds were purged. Again, each one of these has a link to it.

[00:36:15] Meanwhile, there were all sorts of studies and papers and articles arguing that punctuality, excellence, success, even professionalism were systemic, institutionalized, centered on whiteness. Well, fortunately, some of those crazy DEI woke ideas have been somewhat banished. And he even points out that universities have been in the process of dismantling their DEI bureaucracies,

[00:36:45] in part because of force that comes from the Trump administration. But they then go on to point out that, if nothing else, what we've been talking about over this last hour, the success of some of the candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, looking at some of the races for Congress, for the mayoral races, and a variety of others, have suggested that, you know, we still have a lot of woke ideas out there.

[00:37:13] Matter of fact, I've just finished writing a booklet on woke Christianity, how to identify that, because we're going to see a lot of that during the campaign and the rest. And so this goes on to a quote from John McWhorter, who is a professor at Columbia University, arguing that we still have a lot of this around. So anybody that thinks that woke is dead, well, it probably isn't working very well for Bud Light

[00:37:38] and for a variety of other particular institutions like Target. But we still have to address these issues, and that's the kind of thing we're going to talk about so often here on Point of View. But before we go, I just thought for a minute I would talk about one of the reporters for National Public Radio, because as we were announcing yesterday, you had many of these Supreme Court decisions coming down.

[00:38:07] And for those of us that listen to NPR, we also were shocked to hear that the Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was going to retire. Except he wasn't. Now, the story behind that is kind of interesting. Jim Garrity had some fun at the expense of Nina Totenberg, who, by the way, has spent 50 years reporting, which maybe tells you a little bit about maybe it's time to retire. But nevertheless, she's the NPR legal affairs correspondent.

[00:38:37] She was there in the Supreme Court. And somehow she had in her mind that there had been an announcement in the Supreme Court by the Chief Justice, Sean Roberts, that Samuel Alito was going to retire. Now, maybe it's wishful filling it, because he is really one of the more conservative justices on the court. And so she spoke to her intern, who was at the court with her,

[00:39:02] and then interacted with the NPR executive editor, Krisha Devev-Kelishmur, which is a hard name to say, but nevertheless, and said that, well, we are convinced that Samuel Alito is going to retire. And oftentimes, I'll just tell you behind the scenes what they sometimes do, is when they think somebody's going to retire, they already write the piece. So the piece was already written. I'm sure they got a piece written for Clarence Thomas, for certainly Samuel Alito, maybe for a number of others.

[00:39:32] And so as a result, they come out with a story. And so if you go to the NPR's website yesterday, you have that Samuel Alito is retiring from the Supreme Court. Now, the first cue might have been, if you just clicked over and looked over at NBC, CBS, how about Fox News? You know, they tend to be a little closer to Samuel Alito, because he's conservative. Nobody was saying that, except NPR was saying that.

[00:40:01] And there's, of course, some lessons to be learned about that. Number one, just because they say it in Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and Rural Report, just because CNN says it, just because MS Now says it, just because NBC, ABC, CBS, NPR says it, doesn't necessarily make it true. Just because I say it doesn't make it true. There is a need to back up what you have said.

[00:40:29] But the other point that Jim Gearty was pointing out is, we are talking about an individual that is older than I am. That's old. Older than Donald Trump is. That's real old. Older than Joe Biden is. That's really old. And she's been covering the Supreme Court, he says, since I was born. So think that through. As a matter of fact, many of you are younger than 82, obviously,

[00:40:59] but even younger than a person that's been doing it for 50 years. And so when you think about the current president who is 80, Chuck Grassley, Bernie Sanders, Mitch McConnell, Dick Durbin, Angus King are all 80 or older. Maybe it would be also wise to say, just because you thought you heard it, and I've had some people say, I need to check my hearing.

[00:41:23] Well, she needs to check her hearing because they went with the story with not really checking the fact that Samuel Alito was retiring. Now, some of you might say, well, what does it matter? Well, it's just a one-off. But you can imagine how monumental it would be if one of the conservative justices in the Supreme Court said he was going or she was going to retire.

[00:41:48] And it, again, just illustrates that just because you hear it in the news, just because you see it in a newspaper, just because you read it on a website doesn't make it necessarily true. And if nothing else, maybe when you're in your 80s, maybe retirement is something to think about. I'm not there yet, but I pay attention to those kinds of things, and I think you should as well. Just before we run out of time, let me just mention, as we talked with Jana Weidler about, we still have money on the table.

[00:42:17] I haven't been able to check to see where that is, but I suspect there's still an opportunity for you if you would want to support Point of View, and I would encourage you to do so. You can go to the website, pointofview.net, and click on the banner there that says Give Now. Or, of course, even though we're going off the air, you can give us a call. 1-800-347-5151. We've extended the match through the end of the week, and that means it's a dollar-for-dollar match.

[00:42:45] And if you have been waiting until now to give, well, there's a great opportunity. As always, I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the program. Hope you'll join us tomorrow. It's going to be a very interesting program. I think it will really encourage you in your Christian life, and so you can join us tomorrow right here on Point of View.

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