Point of View July 2, 2024 – Hour 2 : Foundation of American Liberty, Supreme Court Decisions and more

[00:00:00] Transcripts from the Providence Forum

[00:00:43] Seminary, we have a link to Providence Forum, and then also if you scroll down a little bit further you have a link to the Foundations of American Liberty film series on America's Christian roots. And if you'd like to know more about that

[00:01:00] all of those links are on our website at pointofview.net. Jerry Newcomb, as always thank you for joining us today here on Point of View. Oh thank you Kirby, and happy Fourth of July. And that's one of the reasons we wanted to get you on, well

[00:01:15] two reasons. Number one, I always like to use the Fourth of July and other times of the year to educate people about America's godly heritage, but also there is this series that we have been talking about. This most recent post that I put

[00:01:32] up there was put up I guess late June, June 26th, so it seems pretty appropriate given the fact that we're just on the 2nd of July, and that is the film series. So remind us again, we have talked about the various documentaries and the

[00:01:49] Foundation for American Liberty series, but you have many more for people to watch. Tell us more. Sure, this is a seven-part series of one-hour documentaries, and by the way the DVDs contain lots of bonus footage, little clips that didn't

[00:02:06] make the final cut, and yet they're still very, very informative. Anyway, bottom line is it tells the American story, and it doesn't leave God out of the picture, which is too often what happens even in, you know, nice documentaries and so we're

[00:02:21] dealing with American history, they'll often leave out the God factor, and the God part is a huge factor. I mean, well what is it we celebrate for example on the Fourth of July? We celebrate the final approval by the founding fathers

[00:02:36] on July 4th, 1776 of the final wording of the Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration of Independence makes a very important theological statement. It says that God is the source of our rights, and that's, you know, that's what

[00:02:52] they were getting to, and so I think it's really important that we tell about the true history of America, and that's why I made this whole series including the parts about the Constitution, George Washington and his faith, the road to

[00:03:06] independence, how the Great Awakening helped prime the pump for independence, and then also education, how important that was, and it was based on the Bible in the early years. One of the things I want to talk about is the

[00:03:20] Pilgrims just for a minute, although we'll get to the Fourth of July, and the reason for that is I'm holding up our booklet on socialism, and we just had David Arnot in studio. He's a Christian economist, and we were talking about the

[00:03:33] fact that this idea from each according to their ability, each according to their needs, some of those ideas were actually there in that first year of the pilgrim colony, and you have written about, and of course have a very good DVD on the

[00:03:50] pilgrims. Matter of fact, people can watch the trailer where you show, first of all, people pulling down the statues and saying, really the country started in 1619, not 1620, and we'll get into that in just a minute, but there is a really good

[00:04:05] economic lesson because William Bradford recognized that actually having everybody work for the common stores, basically implementing kind of a type of socialism, didn't really work very well in the Plymouth colony, did it? No, it did not, and it was essentially something imposed upon them by their money source

[00:04:26] back in England. In other words, the people that funded their voyage and then they had to pay them back and so forth, stipulated that they would have this common store. So like you say, if

[00:04:40] somebody worked a 12-hour day, he would get just as much grain or food or money out of the deal as someone who worked maybe four hours a day. It was like, wait a minute, this is grossly unfair, and Bradford, you know, with his boots on the

[00:04:57] ground, if you will, said no, no, this is not working, and so he divided the land properly and then allowed each person to work their own land, and this was land that they paid for, by the way, to the Indians. They did not allow any land in

[00:05:14] Plymouth to be settled in by anybody, you know, without the express approval of Massasoit, the chief with whom they made a treaty of peace. But here as they tried socialism, which was again imposed on them, it did not work at all. It was a

[00:05:31] disaster, and you know, Steve Moore, a great economist in our time, he once said, wow, if socialism didn't work with the Pilgrims, you know, because they were very, you know, very godly people and so forth, if it didn't work with them, who can it

[00:05:48] work with? Nobody. Let's, if we can, then talk about what preceded the 4th of July, because you have a very good series that you talk about, A City on a Hill, and the fact is, is that oftentimes, as you've pointed out on this program, Connecticut

[00:06:04] is referred to as the Constitution State, but even with the, not so much the Pilgrims, but with the Puritans, you had these Puritan covenants. So a lot of ideas that we take for granted now, either in the Declaration of

[00:06:20] Independence or the Constitution, actually were begun long before, more than a hundred years before, in some of these church covenants and things of that nature. Can you explain that? Yeah, that's a really, really great point. In

[00:06:35] fact, in our documentary called Endowed by Their Creator, which is the one based on the 4th of July, it's based specifically on the Declaration of Independence, the late Marshall Foster, who was a terrific guest on these things,

[00:06:52] he made an observation that a lot of people talk about America as if it just began in 1776 and there was no history before that, and that's absolutely incorrect. You had this great incubator for freedom that where they were

[00:07:08] experimenting, you know, through the whole process. So this was a really important point and I think that, you know, let me, in fact, if you don't mind, how about if I just quote him a little bit? Sure. Marshall Foster. So many

[00:07:25] people treat this as if, okay, it's like America started in 1776 and nothing happened before. By the time you get to the founding fathers, by the time you get to the colonies, they had this wonderful miracle of having 150 years

[00:07:38] during the colonial era to use as an incubator of freedom separated from the tyrants of Europe. And he said, you know, the foundations of liberty have always been the Bible. You will not find a free civilization in history without biblical

[00:07:55] roots. So again, that's the late Dr. Marshall Foster in our video in the foundation of American liberty series. Let's take a break and when we come back my commentary for Thursday's on the origin of the Declaration, but I'll come

[00:08:09] back with a quote that I use on Friday's commentary which I've already taped which comes from Michael Novak's On Two Wings in which he makes some of the same statements. And if you find yourself saying, oh this is a series that first of

[00:08:23] all I'd like to watch because I know a lot of adults say, you know, I must admit I didn't get this teaching in my school and I am certain my children and grandchildren did not receive that. That's why we have this link so that you

[00:08:38] can find out about all seven of the series. And I might also mention at the end it also mentions a book I highly recommend, Sacred Fire. We'll talk all about that with our good friend Jerry Newcomb right after this. This is

[00:08:59] Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. The other day I saw a TV commercial for the March of Dimes which reminded me that I should do a commentary and what has been called the March of Dimes syndrome. In my government classes we often talked

[00:09:12] about it as a textbook example of goal succession. The March of Dimes was created in the 1930s to combat polio. By the 1950s we had polio vaccine, but instead of going out of business the March of Dimes transitioned to other

[00:09:26] causes. John Tierney wrote about how the March of Dimes syndrome manifests itself in many social causes today. He argues that the better things get, the more desperately activists struggle to stay in business. We've seen this recently

[00:09:38] during Pride Month. If you didn't know any better you would think that homosexuals are facing massive discrimination. After all, the human rights campaign declared a national state of emergency last year for LGBTQ people. Anti-sodomy laws were erased decades ago. Same-sex marriage was

[00:09:55] legalized by the Supreme Court and is supported by a majority of Americans. Gay characters can be found on TV, movies, and in commercials. And don't dare you decline to bake a cake for a gay couple. Another example he mentions is civil

[00:10:08] rights. There have been significant successes since Martin Luther King Jr. and others marched for equal rights and against segregation. The Southern Poverty Law Center used to sue members of the Ku Klux Klan, but then there weren't many to

[00:10:20] sue, so it began labeling all sorts of Christian organizations as hate groups. There are many other examples. You can tell when a group is getting close to reaching its goal. That's when it increases its apocalyptic language and

[00:10:33] tells you the sky is falling. That's why you need some discernment during these polarizing times. 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. You're listening to Point of View, your listener

[00:11:01] supported source for truth. Dr. Jerry Newcomb with us as we are talking about this series which again is part of Providence Forum and we were of course talking just a minute ago about one of the episodes endowed by their creator

[00:11:14] which I want to come back to but also in the one on We the People really helps us not only understand the Declaration and the Constitution, but you quoted from an individual just a minute ago. I thought I'd quote from Michael Novak in my

[00:11:26] commentary that we will air on Friday. I quote from Michael Novak. I got to meet him when I was at Georgetown University and he of course has written a number of books including one on two wings, the million-dollar Templeton Prize for

[00:11:40] Progress in Religion, author of more than 30 books. I've spoken at and taught at all sorts of prestigious universities but in the preface to this book, Jerry, I thought I was interested and he said, although I've wanted to write this book for some 40

[00:11:53] years my own ignorance stood in the way. It took me a long time, time spent searching many byways and neglected paths and fighting through a great deal of conventional but mistaken wisdom to learn how many erroneous perceptions I

[00:12:09] had unconsciously drunk in from public discussion and he says most people are really ignorant of the hundred people most responsible for leading this country into a war of independence and then a little bit later he points out

[00:12:23] the fact that of course in my commentary on Thursday I talk about where did these ideas from the Declaration come from? Well, Thomas Jefferson was honest enough to say a lot of them come from John

[00:12:33] Locke but even there Michael Novak says before John Locke was even born the pilgrims believed in the consent of the governed, social compacts, the dignity of every child of God and political equality and the point he's making is

[00:12:48] these secular historians have missed part of this partially because they're looking through a secular lens and that's really one of the reasons why you've put this series together because even individuals that maybe have studied American history if they were to go through the seven series that you have

[00:13:08] on the foundation of American liberty I think they would be shocked at all the things they never learned in class or never read in some of their textbooks. I think you're right. I think the Christian faith played a much greater

[00:13:22] role than is being given credit for quite frankly. In fact in 1892 when the US Supreme Court reviewed all the evidence and by the evidence I mean the different political charters, the colonial charters, all these different

[00:13:38] documents that were very important in the founding or really I could say this we could say the settling era and then the founding era you see God and the Christian faith all over the place and so therefore they concluded this is a

[00:13:53] Christian nation and we could add because America began as a Christian nation people of all faiths or no faith are welcome here but they're not the ones who created the country it was Christians who did that and I think they should be

[00:14:06] given you know the credit for that and even for example let me just give a couple of examples okay the Declaration of Independence is when we we celebrate the 4th of July because that's when they finally approve the the final wording

[00:14:24] of the Declaration of Independence and in effect what the founders did in that document July 4th 1776 is that they declared independence from England but at the same time dependence upon Almighty God and so there are four different references to God in the Declaration of Independence the most

[00:14:46] importantly it says that our rights come from the Creator and what God gives us you know it's not up to man to be able to to take away and in fact in our documentary called Endowed by their Creator which is all about the

[00:15:01] Declaration of Independence our closing section the closing scene is actually just a short little clip from John F Kennedy's inaugural address from January 20 1961 it's an amazing he says and this is the actual quote and yet the same

[00:15:16] revolutionary beliefs which are forbears fought are still at issue around the globe the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God it's amazing and again if you think about just the

[00:15:32] way in which maybe some of the secular historians miss this I was researching this because just recently I was teaching to Exodus 18 and I of course have heard David Barton and many people talk about the fact that this idea of a

[00:15:46] Republican form of government which you can read about and of course the what it'd be at article for section 4 about being a Republican form of government really came from that idea of Exodus 18 but Daniel dries back who you know actually points out that exodus 18 Deuteronomy 1 Deuteronomy 16 were

[00:16:05] actually very instrumental in developing that idea and during the election sermons interestingly enough oftentimes they'd say the qualifications for a civil magistrate would be number one a person who's an able man number two who fears God number three is truthful number four hates covetousness that is

[00:16:25] almost a complete direct quote from Exodus 1821 in the King James Version or in the gen of the Geneva Bible and yet if you're a secular person and you are biblically illiterate you'd read that and you just read right past it because

[00:16:40] there are times when for example in locks to treatises of government he talks about the law of nature and nature's God will he's referring to the book of Romans but if you're biblically illiterate and sadly some secular historians are they

[00:16:55] miss all of the obvious allusions to spiritual principles don't they absolutely I mean even just some of the phraseology you just said in the last couple minutes election day sermons wait a minute they would have sermons on the

[00:17:11] days of the election and by the way they had the elections in in colonial America in Puritan New England for example far more frequently than we do so in other words it would be an annual event it was an annual office and so but

[00:17:26] even have that idea of having sermons being preached you know extolling what the Bible says about government and so forth and those who run the government but even the word election I learned this in your great state of Texas I had

[00:17:44] the privilege to spend a few hours several years ago with dr. Donald S Lutz he has since died but he was a professor at the University of Houston he said look at the word even election like as we use it here in America that is

[00:17:59] derived from the Puritan tradition the idea was that there were two candidates on the ballot which of these two candidates seem to exhibit Christian behavior so well that we think that they're among the elect and so they would

[00:18:17] be voting in effect on their character based on well which of these are you know have been predestined whatever in other words I mean even the word election comes from the Bible and not vice versa of course it's not vice

[00:18:30] versa but isn't that a fascinating point it's like oh wow there's just so many aspects in effect the first ballot ever cast in America and I learned this in George Bancroft volume one of his six volume series on the history of the

[00:18:45] United States of America the first ballot secret ballot in America was in 1629 and the purpose was and it's what was be the city of Salem which of course later had some terrible unfortunate things during an evil seven-month period

[00:19:04] when the rule of law and God's law was disregarded and they had the same witchcraft trials and so forth but in Salem the first ballot was cast in secret and it was to determine well who was going to be the minister and

[00:19:18] Reverend Skelton is the one who won that he probably for all you know this is a guess but probably he was the ancestor of you know later that great comedian Red Skelton who used to love to give the whole expose about the you know the

[00:19:35] the Pledge of Allegiance and so forth he was very patriotic as a as an American comedian but you know just think about that the you know the godly principles were very very important you know you mentioned the Connecticut being the

[00:19:49] Constitution State well what's that all about well in 1638 when the Reverend Thomas Hooker led his Puritan followers into Connecticut they created this settlement he preached his sermon 1638 under a large tree and the text for that

[00:20:05] was Deuteronomy 1 a couple verses in that and the idea of it was that you should elect among yourselves those who will rule over you and submit to them well in 1639 they decided to write up a Constitution that's right it became the

[00:20:21] first fully formed of Constitution on American soil it's called the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut and it talks about the reason we even established this colony was for the purity and liberty of the gospel of our Lord Jesus and

[00:20:35] historians say that that written Constitution is a direct ancestor of the US Constitution and that's why to this day Connecticut likes to call itself the Constitution State even though the Constitution of course was written in Philadelphia let me again mention that we have the Foundation of American

[00:20:55] Liberty DVDs of course we mentioned Donald Lutz of course he wrote this book The Origins of American Constitutionalism and we quote him as well and Dr. Jerry Newcomb first of all happy 4th of July and as always thank you for joining us

[00:21:09] today here on Point of View oh thank you Kirby I appreciate that and thank you for all you're doing to help get the word out about America's godly roots again we have the DVD information there and again I thought I'd mention one more time Dr.

[00:21:24] Lutz The Origin of American Constitutionalism we'll take a break we'll be back right after this in 19th century London two towering historical figures did battle not with guns and bombs but words and ideas London was home to Karl Marx the father of communism and legendary Baptist preacher

[00:21:46] Charles Spurgeon London was in many ways the center of the world economically militarily and intellectually Marx sought to destroy religion the family and everything the Bible supports Spurgeon stood against him warning of socialism's dangers Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth

[00:22:08] it is truth for all of life where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the viewpoints commentary

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[00:22:41] dotnet slash sign up point of view will continue after 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 and now here again is Kirby Anderson

[00:23:13] final half hour and again as we were alluding to tomorrow we're gonna be talking about the arts and Steve Miller will be joining us as well as we talk about this book and then we'll get back into some of the issues in the news and

[00:23:25] maybe a little bit more on how to celebrate the fourth of July but let me just mention that we do have an action item for you today yesterday we did send out an email about it you may already have read it you may have already taken

[00:23:39] action on it if not let me encourage you to go to the website point of view dotnet the middle section there says take action protect minors online what are we talking about well this all really developed out of a story of a community

[00:23:54] just down the road actually an Alito Texas that had to do with this 15 year old young lady who actually was victimized by what you might call a deep fake pornographic image I won't go into the issues but took her face put it on a

[00:24:11] nude body and then of course embarrassed her and of course as we talk about pornographic images generated now by artificial intelligence are becoming more and more common and so you would say that okay sometimes these fake

[00:24:27] pictures show up on social media you would think that that trauma would be bad enough and the social media organization would take them down and you would be wrong and this is why senator Ted Cruz has got involved he is at the

[00:24:43] press conference got a picture of him and the girl and some others and the bill which actually has bipartisan support and it's amazing we even have to have a piece of legislation on it but that's the world we live in it's called

[00:24:56] take it down act and it would require social media platforms to remove explicit images of individuals who have been victimized by pornographic deep fake images this is oftentimes referred to as revenge porn and so this is a

[00:25:14] piece of legislation that was introduced by Ted Cruz you have of course his press conference and you have an image of that as well he said we went to the school board to the school to the police trying to see if we could get some

[00:25:28] help and yet again this young girl's mom said there was very little we could do so after eight months of the mother and the family and the daughter trying to get some images taken offline they went to Senator Ted Cruz and now you have a

[00:25:48] bipartisan group of senators are advocating for a change senator Cruz said in the press release in recent years we witnessed a stunning increase in exploitative sexual material online largely due to bad actors taking advantage of newer technologies like generative artificial intelligence many

[00:26:09] women and girls are forever harmed by these crimes having to live with being victimized again and again so he says by creating a level playing field at the federal level and putting the responsibility on websites to have to

[00:26:23] place procedures to remove these images our bill will protect and empower all victims of this crime if you agree with that I don't see how anybody would disagree with that but then again we live in this world I wanted you to take

[00:26:37] action and so if you go to the website it says take action correct minor on minors online click on the button that says take action we give you some of this information put in your zip code up will pop your two United States

[00:26:51] senators we give you a suggested letter that you might want to send to those individuals and you can modify it any way you want once you've done so you can hit the word submit and you will have done your biddy business you have done your

[00:27:08] civic duty however you want to say it and that is the action item for you today pretty straightforward isn't it and again wanted to mention that just before we get into some other issues ok yesterday we had a Supreme Court

[00:27:23] decision come down before we take the next break let me try to summarize it and again we may get back to it later in the week if there's interest but the article I've posted comes from the editorial board of the Wall Street

[00:27:37] Journal in which they said partisans on the left and right are reacting to Monday Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity based on how it affects of course the fate of Donald Trump they go on to talk about some of

[00:27:51] the issues but it breaks down to the major opinion was a 6-3 decision issued by Chief Justice John Roberts in a case known as Trump vs. US and in some respects it's sort of a landmark case which is why they waited to the end

[00:28:08] yesterday to announce it it's also based a little bit on a 1982 opinion nix's versus Fitzgerald which said a president had absolute immunity from civil suits which are acts outside the outer perimeter of his duties and so

[00:28:27] this I think was important and it breaks down into three ways you want to take some notes here they are first absolute immunity the court rejected Donald Trump's claim that all presidents and all presidential acts have absolute

[00:28:45] immunity they reject that the chief does say there are certain aspects for absolute immunity for core powers but then immediately goes on to what is called presumption of unity so let's break each one of those down number one

[00:29:05] would be absolute immunity this would be absolute immunity from prosecution for actions taken in the exercise of his core constitutional duties the power for example that might be granted in article two of the Constitution gives

[00:29:23] that individual absolute immunity now as a caller pointed out even when you talk about absolute immunity for core constitutional powers you could still have an impeachment over that so there is still a check and balance to that

[00:29:38] issue but it rejects this idea that presidents on every aspect have absolute immunity not the case which brings us to the second and more important issue and that is what might be called and what they call presumptive immunity for

[00:29:56] official acts this is where an official act might really be outside of the normal actions of a president and because it's presumptive it would say that we would presume that the president whoever that might be and again don't

[00:30:15] just think Donald Trump think of future presidents that in some cases that still could be overridden but it puts the burden on the prosecutor to show that an official act does not deserve immunity one of the statements is at a

[00:30:32] minimum the president must therefore be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the

[00:30:44] executive branch and so again it's an attempt to address those issues and then the third would be no immunity for unofficial acts and that would make some sense because there are certain acts that you of course the extreme examples

[00:31:04] we use of deciding to kill one of your opponents and of course first of all that would be covered by everything from criminal acts to impeachment and all sorts of other things so the real question you have and I think many

[00:31:18] people have since only about a minute or two before the break is does that mean the president is above the law justice Roberts to justice Roberts said like everyone else the president is subject to prosecution in his unofficial capacity

[00:31:32] but unlike anyone else the president is a branch of government the Constitution vests in him sweeping powers and duties accountability for that reality ensuring the president may exercise those powers forcefully as the framers anticipated would does not place him above the law it preserves the basic

[00:31:49] structure of the Constitution from which the law derives the counter comes from justice Sonia Sotomayor who was joined also by Elena Kagan and Katonji Brown Jackson who makes this statement and I'll talk about it after the break

[00:32:04] she says the president of the United States is the most powerful person in the country and possibly the world when he uses his official powers in any way under the majority's reasoning he will now be insulated from criminal

[00:32:17] prosecution this is where I think she comes off the rails orders the Navy SEAL team six to assassinate a political rival immune organize a military coup to hold on to power immune takes a bride in exchange for a party immune immune immune

[00:32:32] I'll take some points after the break but I think this is where it gets a little bit crazy and even there she admits even if these nightmare scenarios never play out I pray they never do she says the damage has been done and argues

[00:32:51] that this now makes the president king above the law I don't agree let me come back and talk about that because when you actually take a very extreme hypothetical cases to prove your point I think that's sort of a logical flaw

[00:33:10] we're talking about we're gonna have Steve Miller near tomorrow to talk about art used to teach logic I'm having come in but you know when you take an extreme example misrepresent a person's perspective don't we call that a straw

[00:33:22] man argument anyway I want to come back and talk about that briefly but again this is what the Supreme Court has dealt with on the issue of immunity it is something which we probably won't be talking about again but I did want to at

[00:33:37] least dig into the opinion to give you both the point and counterpoint from the two Supreme Court justices let's take a break we'll come back with more right after this you're listening to point of view your listener supported source for

[00:34:01] truth back for just a few more minutes let me just mention as a program no we've already been alluding to the fact that tomorrow be talking about the artistic sphere with Professor Roger Henderson and Steve Miller my producer be in

[00:34:12] studio will be talking about how to think about the arts from a Christian point of view I think you really appreciate the conversation there as well let me just real quickly kind of pick up on that and get to my next

[00:34:23] article and that is when you are certainly are trying to use extreme examples to prove your point we've seen this before and I've seen it on both the left and the right you know you'll have people saying well we can't decriminalize

[00:34:37] marijuana because eventually then you're going to legalize heroin no that doesn't happen or people saying we can't allow somebody to have a rifle because if they have a rifle then they're gonna want a bazooka pretty soon a cannon or you know

[00:34:49] I mean and again even Sonia Sotomayor acknowledges at one point maybe this is a little bit extreme you think but this is still dangerous her argument is and my argument would be that Congress and the judiciary still provide many checks

[00:35:08] on the president and the Supreme Court has shown that these extreme hypotheticals usually never pan out and so it's probably a good thing to maybe set some of those aside and it gets us back to one of the comments I like to

[00:35:25] make from time to time the need for some sense of common sense and maybe even some discernment it relates to my commentary today about the March of Dimes if you haven't read it you might want to because I point out that John

[00:35:37] Tierney referred to it as the March of Dimes syndrome that is when the March of Dimes basically fulfilled its need that is we got rid of polio the bottom line is then they transition to another cause and he says we have that same

[00:35:53] syndrome when it comes to example homosexuality you would think that this would be a really dangerous time for homosexuals if you were to just read the human rights campaign declaring a national emergency last year for LGBTQ

[00:36:10] people really or the argument about civil rights that this is a more racist country than it was in the 1950s how can you even try to say that with a straight face and of course I use the example of the Southern Poverty Law

[00:36:24] Center used to sue members of the Ku Klux Klan then when there weren't members of the Ku Klux Klan around they started labeling all sorts of conservative and Christian organizations as hate groups and you can understand that sometimes

[00:36:37] when people go to those extremes that might be a better time to maybe not pay attention to what they're actually saying but the other article that I wanted to post also relates to the debate and it is written by Phil Klein

[00:36:53] it's entitled the cover-up of Biden's mental decline isn't just a political problem it's a scandal ok here's how he makes the case he says a presidential debate is a political event and so it makes sense that the immediate discourse and discussion

[00:37:09] about the disastrous performance by President Joe Biden has focused on what political fallout how will this affect polls and fundraising will he drop out if so who could replace him of course there's all sorts of rumors right now

[00:37:24] about the fact that indeed there are people meeting with him about what his future might be we'll see how that unfolds in the next 24-48 hours but he says while there are all sorts of important questions like that the series

[00:37:38] of revelations over the weekend laying out a cover-up of Biden's declining mental health have moved a story into a different category that is the realm of scandal he says for example Alex Thompson of Axios has detailed how Biden's close

[00:37:56] aides have carefully shielded him from people inside and outside the White House since the beginning of his presidency I posted that article yesterday so go to the Monday edition of point of view you can read that article in its entirety by

[00:38:14] Alex Thompson Axios is a little bit more of a left of center reporting group in another article Alex Thompson reports quote from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Biden is dependably engaged and many of his public events in front of cameras are

[00:38:31] held within those hours but outside of that time range or while traveling abroad Biden is more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued well they're being gracious because basically he's almost difficult to

[00:38:47] discern and of course since the debate was in the evening we know the rest of that story but here's the other part it points out that representative Ro Khanna who is a representative from the state of California and a Biden surrogate he's

[00:39:00] referred to in that way was inadvertently revealing when he reassured the New York Times after the debate quote this is from Ro Khanna representative we have a great team of people that will help govern that is

[00:39:15] what I'm going to continue to make the case for unquote just think about that quote for just a minute because again Philip Klein says taking together this is all the more troubling portrait of unelected staffers trying to shield the

[00:39:33] public from Biden's declining mental health so they can preserve their access to power and ability to make policy he says for a party that is supposedly running to save democracy this is not how things are supposed to work he says

[00:39:50] last time I checked article 2 which I just referred to a minute ago of the US Constitution didn't say the executive power shall be vested in a great team of people that will help govern unquote that is not the quote it's vested in the

[00:40:05] president it said that power should be vested in the president of the United States and the presidency is not a 10-4 job so if President Biden cannot carry out his duties he needs to resign or be removed that staffers are trying to hide

[00:40:24] his true condition from the public needs to be treated just as a personal issue between Biden and his family or a political conundrum to be settled by Democrats but it's a major scandal Biden's declining mental health has been apparent to anyone intellectually honest who's been paying attention but

[00:40:43] now we find out that we're being reassured that there's a team of people around Joe Biden and that will help him make those decisions you know there was a scandal when Woodrow Wilson's health began to falter and some people really

[00:40:58] began to wonder whether Woodrow Wilson's wife was running the country if you want to go a little bit further Franklin Delano Roosevelt maybe had been in much poor health and many of us were led to believe at least you could sort of

[00:41:13] justified that because we're in the midst of World War II but again think through all of the implications of this the staffers have been trying to hide from the public something that was well known within the White House that should be

[00:41:29] considered a scandal and more importantly I'm not reassured when it tells me that a team of individuals who we don't know who are not elected are making decisions for the president of the United States it gets us back to

[00:41:45] many of the concerns we've had for some time about a deep state so again if you want to read all of this it gives you some of the links to articles one of which we posted yesterday and I think there is a lot more to this story that

[00:41:59] will unfold in the next few days and weeks and we'll see where that goes let me also mention some people wonder what does this judgment against the president mean we were supposed to get the final statements and even the

[00:42:16] sentencing to Donald Trump before the Republican Convention I've now heard through the grapevine that they sentencing by the judge there in New York will take place after president former president Donald Trump will have become nominated by the Republican Convention so hold on there's still a lot more to

[00:42:40] come and if nothing else we'll try to cover it every single day here on point of view again you can find our take action item my viewpoints commentary some of the articles we've mentioned and well as the very good podcast the

[00:42:55] Christian economist and of course the material from Providence forum all of it our website at point of view .net want to thank Megan for help engineering the program Steve thank you for producing the program and I hope you'll join us

[00:43:09] tomorrow right here on point of view the Bible tells us not to worry and yet there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today thankfully the Bible doesn't stop at telling us not to worry God gives us a

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