Point of View July 19, 2024 – Hour 2 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:00] We can get into some other issues and one of those kind of relates back to First Liberty which is why we're so grateful that we have Holly Randall in studio with us today but of course also Dr. Merrill Matthews and Holly this is a

[00:00:32] piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal written by Ed Meese for people that are younger and maybe do not remember that he of course was in the Reagan administration and is certainly an attorney general that can speak to

[00:00:45] this with some credibility of course everybody I think listening to Point of View knows who Kelly Shackelford is but it's called the left's war on the rule of law the reason this came out is of course a couple years ago we talked

[00:00:57] about the attempt by those of individuals primarily in the Democratic Party but not exclusively but certainly a lot of those on the left have been very critical of the Supreme Court and Ed Meese and Kelly Shackleford say that

[00:01:10] for decades the left was able to get through the courts things that they could never get through Congress but now that they can't not only not get things through Congress or the Supreme Court they're really upset with some of the

[00:01:23] decisions coming down and so as I've said before you put together this idea of a supreme coup and in some respects it almost seems like it was two years too early it was important at the time because there was a study that the

[00:01:38] president put together to evaluate this but now there is a full-throated force against the Supreme Court from a group of individuals that include everybody from some of the leaders in Congress like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez or Chuck

[00:01:57] Schumer or groups like the ACLU and they take on some of the attempts that have been used to actually change the nature of the Supreme Court so what can we talk about here in terms of understanding what the issue is and the

[00:02:11] threat is? Kelly Shackleford my boss at First Liberty Institute has really been kind of on the forefront like you mentioned of alerting people to what is going on with the Supreme Court and the games that the Democratic Party is using

[00:02:23] to try to politicize it and of course Ed Meese is just a intellectual giant in his own right so this is a great article I think for people to check out to see how

[00:02:32] you know the issue of the Supreme Court and the next you know the way it looks for the next four years is something that's really important to this election and you know Donald Trump had a lot of success in 2016 by sort of making

[00:02:45] justice selections an issue in politics I think that really encouraged people to have that security you know he posted the list of people he wants to put on the Supreme Court and it encouraged people that are gonna vote for him to

[00:02:56] say he's gonna select good you know Constitution focused judges and since then the left has really seen the court as something that they should try to go after we know Donald Trump got three picks while he was there and that really

[00:03:09] instituted a big shift in jurisprudence on the court and like you said that has meant for a lot of you know what may be seen as conservative wins but what they really are wins for a correct understanding an original understanding

[00:03:24] of the Constitution and that sort of grounding principle that we like to see in our you know rule of law and appreciating that and so the Democratic Party is doing all sorts of tricks they've discussed court packing they've

[00:03:37] you know now proposed things like term limits for Supreme Court justices they've got all sorts of different kind of nouveau mechanisms of trying to play games with the court and make it something where they can win again at it

[00:03:49] again and I think that's a shame it's something that's absolutely opposed to what the institution of the Supreme Court as an in you know an independent judiciary and the design for our country and how it should be and so I think this

[00:04:00] article that Kelly and you know Attorney General Meese wrote is incredibly important and something that everyone should look at and just educate themselves maybe if they're not you know thinking about the Supreme Court every

[00:04:10] day at their desk at work like my colleagues and I are but something that's so important in November to be paying attention to well again if you want to understand the difference we have the current pick that was on the court

[00:04:22] Katonji Brown-Jackson and if you don't see a difference between some of her actions and Amy Coney Barrett or Brett Kavanaugh or somebody like that well I can't really help you because obviously it is very different and we have already

[00:04:38] noticed how again how an individual might vote and what I thought was kind of interesting Holly is that there are those who have been recognizing that Joe Biden might not be the best candidate we'll see whether he gets replaced or

[00:04:52] not but the decision has shifted to say let's just talk about even if you don't like Joe Biden what's at stake in the Supreme Court so on the Democratic side there are funders now that are saying let's do what we can to help the voters

[00:05:08] realize that if you want more Katonji Brown-Jackson's or Elena Kagan's on the court then you need to get Joe Biden back in the White House or whoever his replacement is and so they're taking it off of personalities and focusing on

[00:05:23] policy right now aren't they? Right and there's groups like Demand Justice and other things like that are spending a ton of money right now to try to influence the election so that they can bring judges you know to the Supreme

[00:05:37] Court and I think they're hoping that their money that they spend to support Joe Biden is something that gives them some influence if you know you were to get elected on their kind of people that they want to choose for the court so

[00:05:47] that's really the game that's being played right now it's the court has become and you know I can get on my kind of lawyer spiel that where you know I talk about the institution of the Supreme Court and how I think it's a

[00:05:58] shame that it's something that's become such a political football because it really is supposed to be an independent you know branch of our government that's built and on you know upholding the rule of law and seeing things like let's toss

[00:06:12] around term limits for our justices so we can play games with Supreme Court decisions just kind of breaks my lawyer heart a little bit I think and so I'm glad that you know the word is getting out and we're exposing sort of what

[00:06:23] these games are and how can we stop them. You know if we if Donald Trump is reelected to the White House he could Justice Clarence Thomas may decide it's time to retire there's been Samuel Lito, Samuel Lito, Justice Thomas is oldest

[00:06:39] Samuel Lito's next born Justice Thomas in 48 Lito 50 Sonia Sotomayor has been mentioned out there and I think she was born in 54 so she's not she's not as old as them but it's possible he could get another two possibly even three in

[00:06:57] the next four years and that would that would drive Democrats even matter. That will change it for a lifetime let me just mention as we go to a break because I want to come back and get some other thoughts because this article also

[00:07:09] reminds us we're not just talking about whether or not well the Supreme Court nine they need some help so we need to add at least six or seven more court packing I want to get a historian's perspective on that but also they have

[00:07:20] filed sweeping legislation to add 200 new judges to the lower court so we're talking about a lot more than just the nine Supreme Court justices and we come back I want to talk about this because this may be a very key issue it's one

[00:07:35] that I'm thinking of right now because we're already putting together our comparison for the outlook magazine of the difference between the Republican platform which is now established and the Democratic platform that will be soon and certainly the issue of abortion which we haven't even talked about today

[00:07:52] but the issue of the court religious liberty all sorts of other issues with a different court I suspect you would still have abortion legal you would still have a lemon you would still have a Chevron deference we can go through

[00:08:07] the long list of issues that the court has changed and so anybody that even is only a casual observer the Supreme Court has to realize that who you elect as president and who you put in the Senate is going to have a really profound

[00:08:23] impact in this country and that may be one of the biggest issues it was in 2016 I think it's going to be a big issue in 2024 let's take a break though we want to get into a couple other aspects of this and then we're gonna move

[00:08:36] on because we have other topics to talk about including a very good piece by Dr. Merrill Matthews on government disinformation I know you're shocked but we'll get into that as well as many others right after this this is viewpoints

[00:09:00] with Kirby Anderson it's time to have a meaningful conversation about tipping for two reasons first there is a significant reaction to the expectation of tipping second tipping may become a political issue Donald Trump declared in

[00:09:14] Nevada when I get to office we're going to not charge taxes on tips why do we tip well historically it goes back centuries Andy Kessler talks about London taverns in the 17th century that suggested tipping to ensure

[00:09:28] promptitude or to put it in modern terms to ensure prompt service frankly many customers tip today because the percentage is already on the credit card screen it is easier to add a tip than to zero it out and then feel guilty

[00:09:41] now most of us are glad to tip people who perform an important service the frustration comes when we are asked to tip at a fast-food restaurant when we must pick up the food take it to the table refill our own drinks and then

[00:09:53] throw away our garbage the social and economic consequences of tipping are significant the IRS reported 38 billion dollars in reported tips a few years ago that would likely mean a loss of income in taxes but what might this do to human

[00:10:08] behavior will employers pay less because they assume that workers are getting tax-free income will other professions start asking to be paid in tips here's another question if we no longer tax tips will they go up or down according

[00:10:22] to the Fair Labor Standards Act employers receive a tip credit between two dollars and thirteen cents per hour and the federal minimum wage in a sense your tips now pay part of the workers base salary will that increase or decrease I

[00:10:36] think America needs to get ready to have a serious conversation about tipping I'm Kirby Anderson and that's my point of view for a free copy of Kirby's booklet a biblical view on loneliness go to viewpoints.info loneliness that's viewpoints.info loneliness you're listening to point of

[00:11:00] view your listener supported source for truth. Back once again focusing on this very good piece by Ed Meese and Kelly Shackelford appears in the Wall Street Journal now if you don't have subscription to the Wall Street Journal

[00:11:12] then I would encourage you to go to point of view because then you can get it sometimes these have a paywall and all that and one of the reasons why we post these is so you can read it I would encourage you to get a prescription a

[00:11:24] subscription to Wall Street Journal but if you don't this is where you can read it and of course I suspect is probably on the website at firstliberty.org but nevertheless I mentioned just a minute ago Holly all the things that

[00:11:39] would never have happened the Dobbs decision the decision of course about Chevron deference of course some of these decisions coming down on of course presidential immunity and just of course the whole idea of religious liberty and all the cases that you've had that would be everything from the

[00:12:02] changing and the rejection of the lemon test on things like coach Kennedy and even various posting of the Ten Commandments all the way down to school choice none of that would happen without the three Supreme Court justices that

[00:12:16] Donald Trump put on the Supreme Court is that fair right the the Roberts court has focused a lot on the First Amendment and free speech issues free exercise issues they really want to you know they I'm speaking as if I know them from

[00:12:32] reading the tea leaves on the outside as a lawyer it seems like they really saw a lot of opportunities for law to influence our freedom as Americans and things that needed to be corrected in that sense and I know you mentioned

[00:12:44] before we went to break that Joe Biden also wants to add a bunch of lower court seats as well and I think that's important to mention because we think so much about the Supreme Court and what they're doing and that's really what

[00:12:57] gets a lot of news coverage but for the most part a lot of litigation takes place in our federal district courts and our federal appellate courts and the Supreme Court only takes a fraction of the cases that ever get to them so you

[00:13:10] know I think it's worth paying attention to those I mean we always talk about you know you need to pay attention to down ticket items you need to pay attention to what Joe Biden is doing sort of down court from the Supreme Court and seeing

[00:13:21] the type of people that he's placing in district court nominations and he's placing an appellate court because those judges have a ton of influence on freedom of speech and freedom of you know religion and government oversight

[00:13:34] things like that and the Supreme Court a lot of times does rely on the words of those lower judges if you read the opinions they'll say well judge so-and-so said this and you know judge so-and-so on the appellate court said this and so

[00:13:46] those are really important too and yeah I think the the difference in what you know if Donald Trump is not elected if Hillary Clinton wins in 2016 I think the difference in our freedoms as Americans is especially on speech and religion is

[00:14:02] we're existing in an entirely different world we are falling out of the coconut tree on freedom as you might say but you know it's been important to see those picks that Donald Trump made and how that affected us and you know I'm hopeful that

[00:14:15] four more years would lead to much more excellence from Corbett I agree it's a the a lot of people voted for Donald Trump because of the Supreme Court yes they didn't care for him in many other ways but they voted for him for that and

[00:14:30] they've got what they voted for in the sense that they got three justices you have and you might get he might get a chance to get a couple more if he is elected again so I would think it's possible the clearance Thomas who there's

[00:14:43] been reports over the years that he's thinking about retiring if you're going to retire and you've got Donald Trump in you don't know who the next person is going to be it would be a good time to think about doing that even if it's late

[00:14:54] in the session so you might have a chance to put a stamp on at least maybe a couple more what about the other part of this calls the left's war on the rule of law because in this article it also talks about that the fact that you have

[00:15:07] representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or AOC telling people that they should just disregard federal court orders now there is a time when we could not have imagined somebody saying that and we couldn't even imagine when a president

[00:15:25] would do that but starting with Barack Obama on the Marriage Protection Act and more recently on a variety of issues President Biden has basically done I think I think that's exactly right I think they have suddenly disregarded a

[00:15:40] lot of the Supreme Court things in fact I think I heard was it today or yesterday that Biden's new student loan forgiveness plan that he just announced a few days ago or recently that a judge has said no we're putting a hold on that

[00:15:53] because of this what the Supreme Court had said so the Supreme Court had ruled against his big student loan debt forgiveness plan so now he's been coming back with various smaller aspects of doing it and so I would argue that they

[00:16:09] have and that's why when you talk about the rule of law you are not following the rule of law if you say well the Supreme Court says I can't do this so

[00:16:16] let's figure out another way to try to do it that maybe we can either slip it in or we can get it going or maybe things will change and we can get this done and that's that's what Biden administration has done time and time again EPA as well

[00:16:29] when they lost in West Virginia versus EPA the head of the EPA came up and said he was asked about this said look we're just we're gonna turn around try to do it a different way we're gonna keep on going to try to do this so I think

[00:16:44] they've sort of disregarded the Supreme Court for some time the best example I can come up with and I think it's apocryphal is didn't supposedly President Andrew Jackson said well John Marshall has ruled but let him now try

[00:16:56] to enforce it I think that's made the apocryphal but you don't have anything like this and it's happening all the time well I think you know if miss Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is listening I think she needs to remember two

[00:17:08] important things is that she as a you know representative of the United States to the Constitution that's very important but you did take an oath of office to disregard and then to she needs to do a little historical research

[00:17:20] and look at sort of the arguments that she's making here about disregarding or not abiding by court orders some very similar to what we saw segregationist governors making after the Brown versus board decision where they were saying

[00:17:31] well we want to party to that case so we can keep our school segregated and the federal government great argument no no so I think she needs to both pay attention to the oath she took and perhaps do a little Supreme Court

[00:17:41] historical research which brings me to my other point and that is it is amazing to me how many times I'll pick on the Democrats but it could be Republicans as well but Democrats lately have implemented things that the Republicans

[00:17:55] have said you're going to regret this and one of those is of course right here well disregarding just imagine if all of a sudden Donald Trump is the president he decides to disregard this that or the other but one of the articles in here is

[00:18:08] about the filibuster because don't you remember at one point there was a real warning that certainly the control of the Democratic Party and the control of the United States Senate was based upon the filibuster and yet all of a sudden

[00:18:25] the argument was no we don't need the filibuster and the Republicans were warning the Democrats you're gonna wish you hadn't changed that right they did away with filibuster for lower court appointees nominees and then the

[00:18:38] Republicans came and I think did away with the Supreme Court and and with the notion of don't and and I think Mitch McConnell another said don't do this because you're gonna open the door and there was during the if I remember

[00:18:49] correctly in 2016 maybe 2017 2018 Democrats sent around a note saying we need to keep the filibuster in the Senate because for various types of you know bills and legislation and so forth and then they came up and said maybe

[00:19:05] want to get rid of the filibuster now that we have control but we don't have very big control of the Senate so maybe we want to get rid of it so we can get our legislation passed so my goodness guys can you be any more transparent

[00:19:20] about how you're all about power and not about rules and laws but as soon as you change the rules and this is the filibuster that's again one of these issues there as well that has allowed for some and of course now we have the

[00:19:33] push for court packing in a variety of other things but again if one side can pack the other side can pack absolutely and if we go holly to supreme coup.com there are good examples of once you head down that road it's like pushing down a

[00:19:50] row of dominoes about every other year I go to Hungary and if you ever go to look at the Supreme Court of Hungary it really looks like a stadium of judges we're not talking about nine and yeah I think you've got some pictures there of

[00:20:07] our Venezuela and some other places where it just looks like individuals watching movie in a movie theater and that's how many judges you end up because one side does it then the other side does it and then eventually just

[00:20:19] it's completely out of control. Yeah and you hear the left talk so often about democracy and protecting democracy and Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and whatever their language they want to use is and I want to look at them and say

[00:20:30] and you want to put 15 people that are unelected and unaccountable to the Americans on the Supreme Court that means democracy is gone right? Court packing is where sort of freedom stops so definitely check out Supreme

[00:20:42] Coup see you know the story of what happened in Venezuela when they decided to have endless numbers of people in their Supreme Court just based on the political whims of the presidency and it really means that your votes don't mean a

[00:20:54] lot and you don't have a lot of say in what goes on in your country's laws anymore. How to ruin the currency and how to ruin the laws but other than that they're doing great let's take a break when we come back I'm gonna put Dr.

[00:21:04] Murrow Matthews on the spot because he says you know we have a little bit of problem with disinformation and this is coming from the government and it gets back to this issue of public trust and some of the issues on the table also

[00:21:16] you've got another good piece that case that you've won recently so we have a lot more to cover we will talk about that right after these important messages. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in

[00:21:35] 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

[00:21:57] we must not as Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War Two 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

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[00:23:10] And now here again is Kirby Anderson We'd like to join the conversation 1-800-351-1212 We have in studio with us today Holly Randall and Dr. Merrill Matthews Dr. Matthews you might remember back when we had this government disinformation board, disinformation governance board as you talk about here

[00:23:31] Dr. Merrill Matthews has written a very good piece that's on the hill Who's the real purveyor of disinformation? I know this won't surprise you Your government. And it does seem to me that a time when we're hearing about misinformation, disinformation, gaslighting, false facts, all sorts of other things

[00:23:49] Fake news We really need to come back to this issue and one of the themes that was surfacing in the Republican convention and we'll hear it again in the Democratic convention four weeks from now will be of course this idea that the other side is

[00:24:04] not telling you the truth, that the media is not telling you the truth But when you get down to it you've written a very good piece about first of all the difference between misinformation and disinformation and just the whole idea

[00:24:17] that when the government is trying to protect you from disinformation sometimes they're the purveyor of it You know and I think sometimes people sort of confuse misinformation with disinformation I know I do so I went the American Psychological Association has a definition

[00:24:31] It says misinformation is false or inaccurate information that is getting the facts wrong Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead intentionally misstating the facts and so I point out that all of us probably are

[00:24:48] guilty of misinformation every now and then we think we know something that's fact and we say something and mention it and then find out oh no I was wrong I had that wrong and so we're all guilty of misinformation but disinformation has intent involved

[00:25:03] and so you're deliberately trying to you're deliberately giving facts that are wrong to try to sway people's impression and so when I just found it ironic that Biden tried to create this governance disinformation board which it lasted for about three weeks

[00:25:25] because it got so many hoots from people Especially who they picked or headed up Especially who they picked and especially when you go back and you say well where are we getting disinformation now Now there is misinformation and disinformation on the internet some of that goes on

[00:25:41] but the government is a megaphone and just looking at we've had this discussion about Joe Biden and his health and the Wall Street Journal had a long article about AIDS and people who work with Joe Biden

[00:25:56] who have been deliberately trying to hide his health and status his acuity and mental acuity and so forth from the public and that has not gotten out they've been sort of saying no the president is fine he's doing well

[00:26:09] then you have the debate and Democrats are looking at this and I think some of this may be false shock but some of this is looking at what happened here we didn't know he was supposed to be like this

[00:26:21] you kept telling us he was fine and he's not so that was one of the major efforts to get disinformation then you have the Russian collusion hoax that was disinformation from the government initially it was Hillary Clinton and the Clinton campaign that created this thing

[00:26:38] she wasn't part of the government at the time but she goes to the government and she goes to the government and uses the FBI and others and the media to spread disinformation that's a real problem then you have Anthony Fauci

[00:26:52] you could take the initial when he initially said you don't need to wear a mask you need to be professional using these N95 masks they aren't really going to help you a few months later you need to wear a mask everywhere you go

[00:27:07] sleeping, wear two masks, it's all good we're all wearing masks all the time, we're going to mandate it maybe he was just wrong both times I don't know that he was intentionally trying to spread disinformation there

[00:27:22] but at some point when you're talking about the origin of the crisis of the virus where does that come from? and he apparently he had been giving money to the Wuhan Virility Institute and there's this whole debate about gain of function and other things

[00:27:40] but he kept saying well no we're pretty sure it just wouldn't have come from there even though I think now most people including the FBI and some of the others that have looked at this said no we think it probably was from the Wuhan Virility Institute

[00:27:53] whether it was purposeful or an accident might still be up for debate I noticed President Trump mentioned the China virus last night that was a vintage term I haven't heard that one in a while he wanted to get it in one more time

[00:28:08] and I heard the media today saying see he was spreading all this misinformation out there like the Wuhan virus, the China virus well no in fact we know it came from China and we're pretty sure it came from the Wuhan Virility Institute

[00:28:26] and we're pretty sure it came from the Wuhan Virility Institute but it's just amazing how many things like that come out that really are disinformation coming from our government and back to my favorite comment with Holly and that is you have a generation, everybody's generation

[00:28:45] but especially the younger generation saying can I trust anything? and there is a real skepticism right now the younger you are the less likely you are to vote because you just say what difference does the vote make and we don't believe that the government works for us anymore

[00:29:00] yeah I'll tell you quickly I grew up in Oklahoma where the state vegetable is a watermelon and so I moved to Texas and proudly announced to everyone that watermelon was a vegetable and realized that I was quickly wrong

[00:29:12] and I had been told by the government in all of my time growing up incorrect information so it happens to the best of us right? however we must take a closer look at these claims that you're bringing up Dr. Matthews

[00:29:24] I think as young people hopefully we are all sort of empowered with you know everybody talks about access to information that we have and hopefully that's something that we really harness and take advantage of and look into all the claims that the government is making

[00:29:38] I hope we still continue to read Big Brother in our high schools across the country because when you talk about a government disinformation board that's immediately what my mind goes to so hopefully we are empowered as young people to look into things

[00:29:51] I sighed in there and I can't remember if it was Gallup or Pew but only 22% of the public actually trust the government now that's right that has dropped precipitously I looked at that graph the other day in looking at it the other day

[00:30:05] I think it was 16% the year before so it actually improved a little bit but this I mean if 22% of the public trust the government that is an unbelievably small number which sort of tells you an awful lot about the trust that the government has these days

[00:30:24] the reason I was thinking about that is I was watching this graph from they did it from the 1960s and then I was looking okay 1974 because that's when you had Richard Nixon resign you had Watergate and yet even there it was almost three times higher

[00:30:41] it dropped from 80% to 60% but now we are down to less than 20% and so you realize that it just keeps dropping but each time it's like a drip, drip, drip where we've gone through this pandemic and the lockdown and the viruses and the Russia hoax and all the rest

[00:30:59] it does kind of get to the point where next time we have some hoax perpetrated on Donald Trump how many people are going to believe it but back to the point you made a minute ago Dr. Merrill Matthews four years ago we were dealing with Twitter

[00:31:14] now called X controlled by a different group and we now know through Barry Weiss and Michael Schellenberger and a number of other people through the Twitter files that that was controlled but this time it won't be controlled will it? Right, and the government was going around

[00:31:30] trying to persuade Twitter, Facebook and other online sources to delete certain things and basically accept the government's view of things and it turns out the government was providing disinformation on a lot of things part of this went to the courts and the courts I think ruled

[00:31:48] really for the organization saying that this private information and Amy Coney Barrett was she the lead on this? I don't know who wrote it just didn't feel like the government was putting real pressure on that I'm not sure I agree with that

[00:32:03] the government can come in and say the government can put a lot of pressure on you without really saying if you don't do this we're going to hammer you you know the government is there with the power that it has I think traceability is what they were arguing

[00:32:17] and Michael Schellenberger and some others who you know because you've had him speak for your group actually said well the argument was only 50% of the time did they take the government's advice yes, well think about that ok so maybe they took the advice most of the time

[00:32:36] but not all the time and would you ever use that with a crime? as somebody said the other day if you tell a kid to go out and steal various breath mints and gum but they only steal breath mints well is that a crime?

[00:32:47] I mean that's the kind of mindset that you had in that decision that came down with Amy Coney Barrett on that so anyway it's just an interesting argument but nevertheless we've had people say well are our votes going to be more affected this time? and I said yes

[00:33:03] because first of all fool me once, shame on you fool me twice, shame on me I'm going to sound like George W. Bush fool me once, shame on you fool me twice, shame on me but back in the issue we have many more people taking advantage

[00:33:19] to going to the various places where there is elections and election judges and all those kinds of things but second of all we have better sources of information than we had last time it was easy to shut down Twitter wasn't as easy

[00:33:33] and won't be as easy this time to shut down X anyway let's take a break I'll get my voice back and we'll be right back after these messages 9 years ago the United States Supreme Court issued the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision that brought same-sex marriage to every state

[00:34:03] this despite the fact that 31 states had specifically defined marriage in their laws and constitutions as being between one man and one woman many Americans still hold to that definition of marriage especially people of faith during oral arguments in Obergefell Justice Antonin Scalia asked

[00:34:20] is it conceivable that a minister who is authorized by the state to conduct marriage can decline to marry two men if indeed this court holds that they have a constitutional right to marriage then he said I don't see how so far the government has not forced

[00:34:35] churches and pastors to marry same-sex couples but public officials who perform marriages often experience opposition when they refuse to do so one such official is Diane Hensley a justice of the peace in McLennan County, Texas she has refused to perform same-sex weddings and thus received a reprimand

[00:34:53] from the state commission on judicial conduct citing a violation of judicial impartiality she now refers same-sex couples to nearby officiants because of the public warning she currently does not perform any weddings but in order to serve her community she would like to resume doing so in Obergefell

[00:35:10] all nine justices affirmed that religious liberty should be protected this was a slender reed to hang on to Kelly Shackelford president and CEO of First Liberty Institute predicted that post-Obergefell religious liberty would come under attack now the organization he leads is representing Judge Hensley in her quest

[00:35:29] to win the right for any justice of the peace in Texas to opt out of same-sex weddings while still performing other weddings the Texas Supreme Court recently ruled that Judge Hensley can challenge the warning in court on the basis of her religious freedom being violated

[00:35:44] she's fighting an important battle for Point of View I'm Penna Dexter You're listening to Point of View your listener supported source for truth back for just a few more minutes let me just mention that if you were listening on your computer you would be right now

[00:36:06] having listened to the piece by Penna Dexter and it's entitled Judge Hensley's Quest and we'll talk about who she is and why that's very significant especially one of the many victories that First Liberty has been able to obtain but if you don't already receive our Viewpoints Commentaries

[00:36:21] you'll see a banner right now that says Viewpoints Commentary subscribe now and you will receive mine in your inbox Monday through Friday my one today is about whether or not we should tax tips we'll get into that in a minute if we have some time

[00:36:35] but Penna Dexter's commentary appears on Sunday or Saturday and then right now we have it posted on the website and I think you will certainly benefit from that but let's see if I can for just a minute to talk about the fact

[00:36:45] that this is a very important case because nine years ago in the Obergefell decision of course we have the legalization of same-sex marriage and then very shortly thereafter anybody that did not want to perform same-sex marriage we had all sorts of people forced out of office

[00:37:03] and so we're going to talk about that and then we'll talk about the people forced out of office well one of those individuals is an individual I guess she's a justice of the peace Diane Hensley and she said look I can't really perform those

[00:37:16] but I can certainly give it to someone else to do so she received a reprimand but now you have a victory talk about that yeah Judge Hensley is an incredibly kind woman and just so courageous she was in it for the long haul

[00:37:29] as many of our clients are to get to victory and the decision in her case kind of got swept up a little bit in some of the big Supreme Court end of term things but she is like you said a justice of the peace in Texas

[00:37:40] and didn't because of her sincerely held religious beliefs didn't want to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples but was incredibly gracious and arranged an opportunity for those couples to go to someone just down the street it was going to not cost them any extra money

[00:37:56] and she knew that marriages at the justice of the peace were a lot of times a cost conscious choice for people and so she wanted to make that available and she was hit with a judicial complaint and we took her case to the Supreme Court of Texas

[00:38:08] so this is technically binding on Texas law but the Supreme Court of Texas is really an important state Supreme Court that a lot of other courts look to for how they reason through these issues and so we were incredibly thrilled that the Texas Supreme Court

[00:38:23] decided to rule for Judge Hensley and add additional sort of religious liberty protections for citizens of Texas and hopefully that inspires other state Supreme Courts to think similarly about their state religious freedom restoration act The issue had been could you force a minister

[00:38:39] and that had been the initial question to provide same-sex marriages but then the question was okay if they can't do that can they force justice of the peace justices of the peace and apparently we've got a good answer on that now Yeah, that's exactly what it is

[00:38:55] and hopefully this is something that people across Texas now feel like if they have a similar objection and they're in this kind of role have the freedom to say hey I'm not going to perform that I'm going to make a way

[00:39:07] for you to be able to receive that service if that's what you're interested in but I don't have to be the one performing that because it conflicts with my religious belief There was another issue and it seems like it was in Tennessee

[00:39:18] where a lady did not want to do something Was it justice of the peace or was it... There was a court clerk in Kentucky Right, how'd you remember that? Can this eventually sort of that reasoning sort of move down to something like that? It's a different state

[00:39:31] but can that same reasoning be applied? Right, I'm not familiar with necessarily some of the nuances of her case however it would seem to be the logic of protection of sincerely held religious beliefs for someone in that sort of position is persuasive from Texas to Kentucky to Washington

[00:39:48] and so we're hopeful at First Liberty that Judge Hensley's case does have an effect for people across the country in situations similar I might just mention you have a couple of other cases coming down so next time when Dr. Murrow-Matthews will be hosting next Friday

[00:40:02] you might have a few more that she'll talk about but one other one I thought I'd bring up real quickly is you've had a number of successes on the issue of school choice Our September issue that will be out obviously in another month or so

[00:40:14] is on the issue of education and of course we've done some programs on school choice We've talked about the videos by John Stossel We've talked about some of the Supreme Court cases and during the Republican Convention we heard a number of speakers mention school choice

[00:40:29] I guarantee you won't hear school choice mentioned at the Democratic Convention or if it is only in the negative so in some respects the school choice movement is really starting to make some headway around the country and part of that has to do with some of the cases

[00:40:44] that you've been involved with Yeah, and just we talked a lot about what the Supreme Court looked like in the last three years A lot of that has been movement on the school choice issue There's been a series of three cases We call them the free exercise trilogy

[00:40:55] at First Liberty that began with a church in Missouri that wanted to receive federal or state money to renovate their playground There was a case out of Montana that was about participation in tax credit programs for school choice at religious schools and then First Liberty Institute

[00:41:16] had a case, Kirsten v. Macon in Maine where the state excluded religious schools from school choice programs So kind of all three of these taken together really stand for the proposition that religious institutions religious schools can't be excluded from any sort of government grant or government funding

[00:41:33] which really is the crux of most school choice initiatives whether it's tax credits or school vouchers or education savings accounts you know, all the creative ways that policy makers are coming up with providing school choice opportunities First Liberty has been sort of on the forefront

[00:41:49] of fighting to make sure that religious schools and religious families are able to take advantage of that and use it in exactly the same way that you could take a student to a secular academy So again, school choice making a headway as well

[00:42:01] My commentary today is about tipping I thought just for a minute I might talk about that because I first of all talk about the tyranny of tipping Andy Kessler says you know every time I get something they pull up a screen and it's already got

[00:42:13] the automatic tip percentage there and you sort of feel guilty about that but there's a bigger issue, Dr. Matthews and that is and he mentioned it again last night Donald Trump is talking about removing taxes on tipping and again, that is kind of interesting because the IRS reports

[00:42:31] about $30 billion in reported tips tax coming in and that would be a significant change but it certainly appeals to a lot of people that live on tips Certainly appeals to a lot of people that live on tips and you know, I

[00:42:45] because I still like to pay cash most of the time when they the issue of the automatic tip comes up when you put your card in and offers that so if I pay cash I don't typically have that issue and I can make that decision

[00:42:58] and I don't know what I think about that because I like not taxing things but on the other hand that's part of their income It is and so I struggle with that a little bit I think it probably will not go anywhere I'd be surprised

[00:43:10] if that actually goes anywhere he just picked it up from a waitress he said I don't have to pay these tips pay tax on these tips it'd be better but I just I'm of mixed mind on that right now Yeah, I think so

[00:43:23] Yeah, I think it's an interesting way that maybe he's trying to reach out to a younger crowd you know, I made snow cones and received tips back in the day and so I think he's trying to think it's on the you know in the real world thinking

[00:43:36] he's trying to be creative I applaud it like you said whether it goes through or not it's hopefully an effort to extend to young people When most of it was cash I suspect a lot of it wasn't recorded in That is a question I have Well anyway

[00:43:49] let me just mention the next week of course we have Raymond Harris with us Mark Krikorian will be talking about the whole issue of immigration We have June Hunt and of course as I just already alluded to Dr. Murrah Matthews will be hosting on Friday

[00:44:00] so we have a very good lineup If you find yourself wanting some more information obviously you can go to the website pointofview.net It will have the links to everywhere from firstliberty.org supremecoup.com ipi.org and of course all the links as well to everything from

[00:44:18] the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal to The Hill and many others so lots of great resources Both of you thank you for joining us today here and Dr. Murrah Matthews thank you for covering for me yesterday I enjoyed it

[00:44:31] And you will be here on Friday Let me just real quickly mention that we do have a lot of the material we've talked about on the website Take advantage of it It's available at the website at pointofview.net Also if you would like to listen to it again

[00:44:43] click on that button that says watch or listen Of course we also have the Point of View highlights on Spotify and you can click on that button and those are produced by of course Megan and Megan thank you for engineering the program and producing those

[00:44:56] Steve thank you for producing of course our program and enjoy the weekend We'll see you back here on Monday right here on Point of View At Point of View we believe there is power in prayer and that is why we have re-launched our Pray for America campaign

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[00:46:27] Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries