Point of View July 31, 2026 – Hour 2: Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, we're going to be focusing some of our time and attention on all the socialist candidates, and you might pay attention to what's going to happen in Wisconsin this week, because some more might actually be on the docket as well. Dr. Merrill Matthews with me, as well as, of course, Kelly Shackelford.

[00:00:34] And Merrill Matthews, can a democratic socialist candidate truthfully take the oath of office? I remember, as soon as I saw that, I said, what a great piece. Hadn't even thought about that, because when you take the oath of office, it is to support and defend the Constitution, the Democratic Socialists of America. And their convention is starting today, isn't it? Yeah, they are starting today. They want to just get rid of it. And so I'd love to get your comments on this.

[00:01:00] Well, they have recently changed their platform, and it has apparently gotten much further left, because now they call for getting rid of the Senate. They want the Supreme Court and the Presidency to be essentially appointed by the House of Representatives. So you'd have one legislative body, the House of Representatives. Yeah. They would appoint the President and the Supreme Court, which would make decisions, but they'd be answerable to the House of Representatives.

[00:01:28] So any system of checks and balances and so forth would be out the window. And, of course, the first three articles of the Constitution, the first article has to deal with Congress, how it's elected, what its roles are, what its purpose, and so forth. The second article is the President, how he's elected, what his duties and responsibilities are. And the third is the Supreme Court. It's how it's appointed or nominated and confirmed and so forth, and the federal judges and so forth.

[00:01:55] And so if you do what the Democratic Socialists are suggesting, you're not just amending the Constitution. You're essentially scrapping the first three articles of the Constitution. And so my point is, can you can you take a truthfully take an oath of office if your if your whole point is to get rid of the Constitution? And I don't think you can. But I say in there, I suspect any of them who are elected will keep their fingers crossed behind their back and take that oath of office.

[00:02:24] And interestingly, I so I went looking, can the can the Speaker of the House not give them the oath of office? Because I refuse to do it. And apparently they can't. They can't. They can't. They they can postpone it, but they have ultimately have to give it. But the Congress can say the Congress has the ability to be able to say both the House and Senate. We will not accept this person by a majority vote. They can refuse to seat somebody. And so that's an important thing. I don't think that would happen. But they do have those powers.

[00:02:52] That is recourse. Kelly Shackleford, you know, you have been warning us for years that some of the Democrats wanted to pack the court. But I think some of the Democratic Socialists saying you guys are just amateurs. We're just getting rid of the court entirely. Yeah. Yeah. They I mean, a couple of things come to mind here, because not only pack the court, which is totally, you know, you just basically the rule of law is over as a political body.

[00:03:17] It's just so now your rights are whatever everybody would do a majority vote to at that moment. So which is kind of the opposite of why we have a constitution, the constitution's there to protect you, even if you're not in the majority. So that would be. But the other thing. Think about the fact of these people who wanted to get who wanted to change the Electoral College. Right. All of these. They want to get rid of. Yes. And it's the same thing.

[00:03:44] So and so when you say when these people were saying they want to get rid of the Electoral College. And so a number of states have actually passed laws that when as soon as they get to fifty one percent, they're going to throw all their votes for, you know, whoever wins the majority vote instead of, you know, the the the approach of the of the Electoral College.

[00:04:07] Well, for those who don't understand the Electoral College, you get one for each House member, which is more popular vote because your House members are are, you know, designated based upon popular vote. The Senate gets two senators for every state, no matter how big or small. So that's that's the only difference between popular vote and Electoral College is the Senate.

[00:04:37] Well, in this, they're saying abolish the Senate, get rid of the Senate. So this this is exactly. You know, we saw this coming. These are people who just want really what our founders thought was the worst form of government, which they referred to as a mobocracy.

[00:04:56] So it's like whatever majority wants at that moment, even even your death, they get it's just total majority vote. No, no restraints. Get rid of the police. Get rid of prisons. Get rid of the Senate. And we get, you know, get rid of the Supreme Court. And the rule of law is over in the Constitutional Republic is over. Yeah.

[00:05:25] So they as you mentioned, they are having their meeting coming up. It's they're calling it the Socialist Summit starts today. And and it goes through, I think, like three days or so. So they they are starting that and they have how you can apply for it and come and be part of it. And it mentions in there all comrades comrades are welcome. Well, well, what about this?

[00:05:51] Because these claims, Kelly, are really far beyond anything that has ever been proposed before. I mean, we've had occasionally a socialist run for governor or even president, and they've always lost. But these individuals are asking for some things that I don't even remember the socialist decades ago calling for because you really do get rid of everything from the borders to the Department of War.

[00:06:18] They call it Department of War, by the way, as well as any kind of police prisons and, of course, the whole constitutional structure. You just in a sense are tearing everything down. And I don't hear really what is going to be replacing it either. Yeah. Well, you know, I think what what's remarkable, remarkable about what what's happening here is that they are actually telling you what they're going to do. Yes, that's the difference.

[00:06:45] Yeah. I mean, typically in a the overthrow of countries through communism and socialism, they they will you know, they won't talk about this. Right. It's just we got to overthrow this, you know, corrupt government we have without saying, oh, and when we do, you're going to get rid of the Senate. We're going to get rid of prisons. We're going to get rid of they don't tell you all these things. So this is actually, I think, very helpful.

[00:07:14] And I think the Democratic Party has a real problem on their hands, you know, I had one person disagree, saying they could take the oath of office because there is a. Article five convention of the states, which could completely change the Constitution. And my response to that is we've never had an article five convention of the states. There have been some that have moved forward. But Congress usually steps in and addresses the problem that's being so that we never had one.

[00:07:43] There's also Rob Nadelson, who's a former who's a law professor and worked with some of the think tanks, conservative think tanks, written extensively on this. And he argues that you really can't come in and completely replace the Constitution. The article, the article five convention of the states is to make a change in the Constitution, but not replace it. So, again, that fallback position, but doesn't work very well. But, again, I think you've looked at the numbers. How many Democrats today accept this? You just mentioned a minute again.

[00:08:12] The Hill is reporting and you CNN report. Poll says a third of Democrats identify as Democratic Socialists now. A third of them. And these are just crazy positions that Americans are not going to stomach. And you've got a lot of Democrats, James Carville and others, saying that this is like... Rahm Emanuel, Josh Shapiro, a number of them are pushing back on this, trying to say we can't go in this direction. Well, again, we've talked about socialism. We'll continue to do so.

[00:08:42] But Dr. Merrill Matthews helps us out. Can a Democratic Socialist candidate truthfully take the oath of office? Don't think so. Let's come back and talk about the Smithsonian. That's an issue we've talked about earlier in the week. Let's come back right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:06] With a whimper rather than a bang, the world has become a different place than it was in January 2021 when Donald Trump left office. That is how Victor Davis Hanson begins his commentary about the world that has been made anew. Here are just a few of the significant changes around the world. In this hemisphere, not only has Venezuela changed, but several Latin American countries have swung from communism with pro-American administrations. And China is no longer attempting to control the Panama Canal.

[00:09:34] Many commentators simply refer to the Middle East as a quagmire. But Victor Davis Hanson reminds us that Israel has been providing intelligence and missile defense to the Muslim Gulf states. As I've mentioned in previous commentaries, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis have been weakened economically and militarily. Russia lost its last client in the Middle East with the fall of the Assad regime. And the Strait of Hormuz remains a choke point.

[00:10:00] But its significance will diminish because existing pipelines are being expanded and others are under construction to bypass the Strait entirely. The war in Ukraine continues with U.S. has been allowing the country to manufacture Patriot missiles and to strike targets inside Russia. And it is worth noting that Russia is now in its weakest political, economic, and military condition in decades. China is also stagnating.

[00:10:25] It is burdened by a dangerously low fertility rate while importing three-fourths of its daily oil consumption, nearly half of its natural gas, and a third of its daily food. In many strategic ways, the world is very different from what it was five years ago. We shouldn't lose sight of these differences. 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. Back once again, I wanted to go around the roundtable for just a few minutes because our two guests certainly have been watching the midterm elections. Of course, those of you in Wisconsin may be figuring out who your next governor might be.

[00:11:18] But whether you look at members of Congress in New York, in Pennsylvania, in Colorado, just to mention a few off the top of my head, there are certainly socialist candidates, but how many of those will win in the general election? Some of those are so skewed Democratic, maybe they will. But it's a good question about what this looks like in the midterms. It is.

[00:11:43] I mean, normally you'd look at the midterms, and you would say, and especially you've got Trump also, which always adds more energy to the other side. You've got a normal backlash that pretty much has always occurred except for, I think, twice. And so you would see Democrat pick up seats in the House and the Senate. But you've got a couple of curveballs here.

[00:12:08] You've got the redistricting, including the Supreme Court decision that said you can't draw lines based upon race, which I think that deals a blow to like 18 or 19 districts. So that's something to watch. But then this whole thing with the communist, socialist, this craziness, and it's a third of the Democratic Party. You've got all these people running, and people are seeing it.

[00:12:35] And the demographics of the group in the Democratic Party that's doing this, these are well-educated white liberals. Okay? And the working class looks at this and goes, you people are nuts. Right? And so that could very much influence turnout and elections. And so we just don't know.

[00:13:04] We don't know what's going to happen. But it definitely throws some curveballs into a normal midterm situation. Yeah. You'd normally expect Democrats would probably take the House, might take the Senate. But, as you say, the redistricting, Larry Sabato at the Center for Politics in Virginia, University of Virginia, thinks the redistricting, as it stands right now, probably favors Republicans, even though Democrats did some redistricting.

[00:13:28] But he's also been moving some of various elections in the House, giving them a tick towards the Democrats in several of them. So you wouldn't want to make a big bet on how this thing turns out. But probably still goes to Democrats, just following history, at least in the House, maybe in the Senate. But you've got Maine. You might have had Graham Plattner win that seat.

[00:13:53] Susan Collins, typically, the last time she ran, she was down by six or seven points in the polls going into it and ended up winning by three or four points. Just one day, you shift over one day, and she ends up winning that. But Texas, don't know. North Carolina could pick up. But North Carolina could be a pickup for Democrats. So it's a real toss-up right now.

[00:14:21] And I've got to say, I don't know that Trump is helping with the Iran war and the tariffs and some of the other things, because it gives the Democrats the ability to be able to say, you're spending all this money on a war rather than helping out Americans. Inflation is still high. Not as high as it was, but it's still high. And the GDP that came out this week, I think it was 1.5%. That looks like a slowing economy when we're trying to get the economy boosted.

[00:14:47] So it's very unpredictable right now. Yeah. No interest rate hike at the moment. We'll see where that goes. It might go down. And the reason I mentioned Michigan is some people say if you do end up with a socialist running in the state, then maybe a Republican could be a pickup. So some could go one way. Some could go the others. I'm not predicting that. But let's, if we can, for just a minute, talk about history, because this is, of course, the 250th anniversary of this country.

[00:15:14] And, Kelly, of course, you have been very much involved in not only dealing with these court issues, but also teaching history. You just had a group that went to Boston, and you had other individuals on your staff. Mark David Hall, we've mentioned him and others. But here, this is a piece by William Galston. Now, this is an individual that was in the Clinton administration, deputy secretary, I think, of the domestic policy. And, as a result, is not necessarily looking at this as a pro-Trump person.

[00:15:42] But, nevertheless, as you know, Trump has a point about the Smithsonian. And, of course, we've seen some of the cross-examination by Representative Brandon Gill of the head of the Smithsonian. And I also have a piece here from my good friend Jerry Newcomb, the battle over history in the anti-American Smithsonian. So here you have an individual that's pretty left of center, one that's obviously right of center. But they're all saying the same thing. And something's going on at the Smithsonian. What's going on?

[00:16:09] Well, I mean, they're trying to totally change history, you know. Rewrite history. Yeah, rewrite everything. And they're awoking everything. And, you know, a number of years ago, one of my marketing staff said, you know, I'll tell you what the theme is for the year. I said, what's that? He said, it's kind of easy in marketing. It's either I love America or I hate America. And this is the I hate America crowd.

[00:16:35] So we want to put as much negative, you know, attacking things as we can. And good for the Trump administration for trying to get back to American history and to have the Smithsonian not be something that's there to attack and try to make sure that Americans are not proud of their country. That doesn't mean you hide information and talk about things.

[00:17:01] But to skew it just off the charts the way they've done at the Smithsonian, it's amazing this story hasn't really come out yet until they did the study and released the report. Because this is something that I guess a lot and a lot of people go into the Smithsonian. And so they didn't see these crazy exhibits. But it definitely needs to be dealt with. There are several Smithsonian institutions. So you have the Air and Space Museum. I have that's one I used to always go to when I was in Washington.

[00:17:31] Yeah, I'd be surprised if they made any changes. There's there's the Natural History Museum, which would be the dinosaurs and stuff. So the just their history museum is where I think this is mostly happening. Right. But, you know, this the woke, the woke movement was having a minute for what, maybe eight or 10 years now. I mean, so many businesses felt like we've got to do this. We've got to adopt this, especially during the Biden administration. And if you're a business and the others, you sometimes look at this and say, where is the country going so that I may follow them?

[00:18:01] And so some of these things sort of take place. And then they appoint people that follow that. And then they implement those policies. Universities have been big about that. And there's been a change now. And even, you know, some of the American corporations, some of the companies, the automakers that were saying, yes, Mr. Biden, we present Biden. We are going to go to electric vehicles. And I think it was that was it Mary Barrow? I can't remember.

[00:18:26] I think it's Mary Barrow from GM was saying, oh, about 2021, that by 2025, 40 percent of the GM cars would be electric vehicles. They changed all that now. And they've dropped. They're dropping these or closing the plants that were doing that. And they're getting back to things. So things are turning back a little bit. And we'll see if they continue. Again, Kelly was talking about this. The executive order was entitled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. That came out a year ago from President Trump.

[00:18:56] But the one Kelly's referring to is there's also hearings at the House of Representatives rewriting American history, examining the Smithsonian's efforts to reshape the past. And I just mentioned Representative Brandon Gill. By the way, if you're going to be in front of the House of Representatives and Brandon Gill is going to ask you some questions, you better be prepared. Because I saw the head of the American Bar Association kind of stumble a little bit. We saw, of course, the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center stumble.

[00:19:25] But Brandon Gill just simply asked Dr. Anthea Artig, is politeness a good thing? Shouldn't we be polite? And she goes, yeah, well, you have on your document here, politeness is a sign of white supremacy. Apparently Mickey Mouse is racist. I didn't know that one. And you go through this list. I thought Mickey was black. Yeah. And the point is that you've got story after story here. And it's not just what they say. But, Kelly, this is one we've learned before, what's missing. Yes.

[00:19:55] This particular document points out that there is no major exhibit dedicated to America's founding era. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or other founding fathers, the Continental Congress, the Pilgrims, the Puritans, and major movements of the American Revolution, such as Washington's Cross and the Delaware, cannot be found. So sometimes you teach history by teaching it in a biased way. Sometimes you teach history by leaving some things out. And this is just so, so important.

[00:20:23] And Americans, I think, understand this. I mean, children aren't taught civics. Right? Right? I mean, and so if you don't know what our system of government is, you don't know what your rights are, it's really easy to have them taken away. It's really easy to change the system of government. And so they've been really keeping out the parts of the history that, again, not only how it works, but people like George Washington and who he was.

[00:20:51] And his faith was so strong. And it influenced so many of his decisions that really, you know, led to the country that we had. I mean, you know, the humility he had. They wanted him to be king. He said no. Right? I mean, there's just so many of these stories that would make you proud of the American heritage, knowing that you made mistakes, but yet proud. But they're not presenting that because they don't want people to be proud. We're going to take a break.

[00:21:20] We have some other topics to put on the table. We'll do that right after this. America's founding was shaped by a biblical worldview. But you will rarely hear that truth today. Think about this.

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[00:22:49] 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. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:15] Back once again, let me just mention that next week, as I've been mentioning before, I'm going to be out and about. I'll be in Philadelphia. I'll be in Boston. I'll be all over the place of New Hampshire. And, of course, we have Liberty McCarter coming in, covering the program Monday and Tuesday. I'll be doing a live broadcast from New Hampshire on Wednesday. And, Dr. Merrill Matthews, one of the topics we're going to talk about right now, I think, when you come in on Thursday, you'll be talking about, in part, what Trump didn't say about election interference. So you're going to be looking at elections.

[00:23:45] I know you have Dan Pilla on as well, so you have a number of both political and economic issues. But this, I think, gets into a distinction that you make early on in this piece between the difference in election interference and election interference. Influence and interference, I should say. And that's the distinction that most people don't make. Even in the media, they don't. They sort of go from influence to interference and just cross over that. But there's a difference.

[00:24:13] So is there election influence? Yes, foreign countries try to influence our elections. They do it in various ways. Sometimes they're paying influencers to try to do that. They're buying social media posts and other things of that nature to try to get you to change your mind and vote for someone else. Is there election interference? What President Trump was talking about was prior to the 2020 election, the Chinese were considering trying to interfere in our election.

[00:24:41] And that means somehow the changing votes, working in the machines, you could hack into a county or state election process, which might prohibit them being able to do things, count votes or something on a night. That's election interference. We don't have any evidence of that. In fact, the Intelligence Council that President Trump was citing in March of 2021, so right after the election, said, we've looked at this.

[00:25:09] We felt like the Chinese were considering it, but they decided not to try to interfere in the election. Influence, yes. Interfere, no. And so that's the difference is that we are, under President Trump, we are doing a lot of election influencing. As J.D. Vance goes to Hungary and say, vote for Viktor Orban, that is election influencing. There's no indication we interfered in the election. But those are two different things.

[00:25:36] And I think it's important to try to keep that distinction, at least with terms of interference. It would be very hard for a country to interfere in a major way because we have such a decentralized election system. So even if the Chinese were able to hack into the Texas system somehow or the other, that wouldn't affect all the other 49 states. So that's actually, I think, a feature rather than a bug because we have this decentralized system.

[00:26:04] If there are – well, we found out now that New Jersey – people going to the DMV, signing up. They said they were not citizens, but the software, we're told, shipped them over to say they were citizens and signed them up to vote. But it's still fairly contained now they found out they're going to try to go back and resolve this, we hope. But it's contained to that one state. It does not affect other states.

[00:26:32] So that's a good system that we have. Well, again, this gets back to making sure, Kelly, that we have the right people elected for your county chair, for your election officials and a variety of others because is election fraud taking place? Yes. And I'm sure you may be talking about that on Thursday. But the way to avoid that is to make sure all eyes are watching what's happening. Yeah, that's – I mean, people say this, but it's really true.

[00:27:00] Ninety percent of politics is showing up. And that includes at your local precinct. You know, I mean, in most states, you just go through a little training to be the local election judge at the polling place so that you can watch and make sure that things are done right. People don't like doing that. It takes some time, right? You got to – I mean, but thank goodness for the people who are doing that around the country.

[00:27:27] And what you really, really, really don't want is a precinct or a voting – a polling place where one party has somebody there and the other party doesn't. Mm-hmm. That's where all of a sudden everybody voted. Yeah. You know, you hear all these stories. You don't want that. And that just depends upon everybody who's listening to you and making sure that in your area that you are covering,

[00:27:51] that you are involved, that you are doing your good citizenship duty and making sure that things are done well. And since the 2020 election, a number of states have passed election integrity laws demanding that you have voter IDs. Some of them are wanting to say before you enroll, you have to register to vote. You have to prove you're a citizen and so forth. So a number of states have done that.

[00:28:15] And Florida, after the mess that it had in 2000 in that election, have passed things to make the voting very, very transparent, very well done. The votes have to be in by the election day other than – even though apparently the Supreme Court said you can let them go past the election day. That puts a question mark in this. If I can – if the election day is over and we're still counting votes and we don't have the full number for a number of three or four days,

[00:28:44] or in California maybe a month or two – I know. That's just unbelievable. That just takes away trust from the system. And so states can do this better. Many of the states can. Some of them just – election integrity is just not their thing. But at least it's that state. It's restricted to that state. It doesn't go over to other states. Now, we'll say, you know, everybody watched how – of course, the hanging chads and the debacle in Florida. Yeah. And then DeSantis came in. They passed a new law.

[00:29:14] And, I mean, they were like – Florida's a big state. And they had all their election results in. They had it right away. They can get it done. It's amazing what you can do when you really want to do it. And we talked about this earlier. I'll give Florida some kudos also. They just passed something because I saw it in the news where all the children in the schools are going to be taught about communism and socialism. And, you know, one of my first thoughts was, well, good for them, but why are we not already been doing that? Isn't that part of history?

[00:29:44] And I think, obviously, when you see the young people, we haven't been doing that. They don't understand. And they think that it's something different. And so good for them for at least making a very intentional effort to make sure that they're taught. And I will say this. This isn't to condone it, but most of the states that have a lot of election problems, our blue states are going to vote for Democrats anyway. So even if you went and got the thing straightened out, you're still probably going to have Democrats winning those states.

[00:30:14] But Pennsylvania, we want to make sure – that's a purple state. We want to make sure that that election system works well there. Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and some of those states, we want to make sure the election system works very well because that could throw an election one way or the other. Well, again, we've given you action items. One is support the SAVE Act. And, of course, that is something we've suggested for you to contact your two senators. But if nothing else, just an illustration that you will be talking about it again on Thursday. So that is the case.

[00:30:43] Real quickly, I just thought we'd mention that we have a piece by Victor Davis Hanson, but it also correlates with – of course, we'll be talking about Pennist's commentary in just a minute. But my commentary today is actually from a previous one by Victor Davis Hanson, The World Made A New, in which he just reminds us again that things are very different than they were. Normally, I say what happened since 2023 in October.

[00:31:08] But if you go back to January 2021 after Trump left office, Venezuela is a very different place. Likely, I think Cuba is going to be a very different place. China is no longer attempting to have an influence in Panama Canal. So that's just the Western Hemisphere. You go to the Middle East, and again, you recognize, well, Israel is helping the Gulf states deal with this issue. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis are weakened economically and militarily.

[00:31:36] Russia used to have a foothold there. It doesn't have one in Syria. Yes, the Strait of Hormuz is a choke point, but now they're building other pipelines and strengthening other pipelines. Yes, the war in Ukraine continues, and we still have the war with Iran. But in some respects, you're seeing some remarkable changes. And, of course, Russia is at its weakest point politically, economically, and militarily.

[00:32:02] China is stagnating because it has a low fertility rate and imports three-fourths of its daily oil consumption and nearly half of its natural gas and a third of its daily food. And they have a problem in China that consumers don't want to consume. So they have to try to export these things to try to keep the economy going. I will say, from Trump's standpoint, one of the best things he did, goes back to the first administration, was Abraham Accords. Yes.

[00:32:27] Trying to get other Arab states, Middle East states to sign on and be partners and have an association with Israel. It hasn't – there's not that many in the Abraham Accords yet that may get bigger, but that was a very good step. Yeah, and again, I think there's a possibility someday maybe Saudi Arabia and some others will join up. Mm-hmm. So when we take a break, we'll come back. We do have Iran war at the crossroads. Also, Penna Dexter's piece on Texas Tech, which kind of gets us back to the conversation we started with,

[00:32:56] and that is the whole DEI issue. So if you find yourself wanting to know a little bit more about some of the articles that we are talking about today, they are available on our website at pointofview.net. And also, I encourage you to scroll down. If you click on the picture of Kelly Shackelford, you can find out more about First Liberty Institute. And I'm sure they're going to have some other great announcements in the next week or so, and you heard one today. We talked about some of the changes there at the University of Michigan. Let's take a break, though.

[00:33:25] We'll come back and finish off the program and encourage you through next week to listen to some of the co-hosts as well as a live broadcast on Wednesday that I'll be doing. All that coming up, but let's take a break. We'll finish off right after this.

[00:33:59] Last November, the Texas Tech University System got a new chancellor, Brandon Creighton, who promised dramatic changes pertaining to academic freedom and woke Marxist course content. In keeping with these plans, Chancellor Creighton issued two memorandums, one in December and one this past April. The first specifically states that the Texas Tech System will not permit course content that promotes the idea that one race or sex is inherently superior to another. Included in this ban is content that presents individuals as racist, sexist, or oppressive

[00:34:28] simply by virtue of their race or sex. The second memorandum states that the Texas Tech System will prohibit coursework related to gender identity, including teaching untruths like gender identity is a fluid spectrum, or there are more than two genders, or gender can be different from biological sex. Now, a national professors union has sued the chancellor and board of regents over these memorandums, saying they violate professors' First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Mr. Creighton laid the groundwork for these changes when he served in the Texas Senate.

[00:34:58] He authored a bill enacted in January 2024 that takes aim at DEI mandates at Texas public universities. Mr. Creighton also authored SB 37, which went into effect last September. A Daily Signal article says the law requires governing boards to review general curricula, restore classical liberal principles, and spend taxpayer dollars responsibly. The professors' union lawsuit claims Chancellor Creighton's memos violate not only the U.S. Constitution,

[00:35:25] but the fundamental idea of what it means to be a public university in America. Tom Lindsay, policy director of higher education at a division of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, told the Daily Signal this lawsuit is a sham. He said both of Creighton's memos and SB 37 explicitly preserve factual teaching of history, civil rights, biology, and other core subjects. This lawsuit is the union's temper tantrum that Texas taxpayers will no longer be funding their Marxist ideology. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter.

[00:35:59] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes, again, Victor Davis Hanson. The Iran War at the crossroads. We're now in stage three of the Iran War, it says. The familiar monotony of bomb talk bomb. I think some people are ready for a little bit more bombing, but nevertheless, the war has finally revealed, he says, the full extent of Iran's vast conventional arsenal nuclear program missile and drone industry.

[00:36:27] And it does seem to me that this is an ongoing issue, Kelly, and as we've pointed out, it's perhaps one of those things that is preventing some of these Republican candidates from having any kind of momentum because people look at the price of oil, which affects everything else, food and heating and transportation and the rest, and it's really affecting people's bottom line, and a lot of people tend to vote their pocketbooks. No doubt.

[00:36:57] And I think when the president did this, I mean, obviously you don't – if there's anything that's been proven in this whole time is that these people are insane and they do not need a nuclear weapon. So obviously that – but I think the president's idea would be that would be done fairly quickly. But again, these people are insane, so they just seem to want to lose everything in their country, and so he has to keep going.

[00:37:25] And of course he doesn't want to do ground troops. It seems like there are a lot of other things that are available that he's not doing, and I don't know if Merrill knows why, but I have been a little bit perplexed as why he doesn't do some of the things he could do. Maybe he doesn't want to hurt the civilians. I mean, you could take it out of their water source pretty easily. Obviously, Carg Island, there's just a lot of things where he could just kind of shut them down.

[00:37:54] But he's bombing a lot of things, and slowly but surely, but he's trying to give them time. But I just don't think it matters how much time you give these crazy people that are in charge. I think if you let everybody vote, it would be a different story, but that's not what you do there. You have this very extreme minority that – they want a global conflict, and so they're never going to agree to anything and actually stick to it.

[00:38:22] So we'll just have to wait and see, but it doesn't seem to ever go away. And there may seem to be some PR ability to say that it had the great Satan attacking the Islamic Republic. So I think that they feel like that works in their favor. They now feel like the Strait of Hormuz works in their favor. They have come up and said they're not making any agreement. They are going to control the Strait of Hormuz, and so that's going to be a problem because that's just come out the last day or so.

[00:38:51] So they're willing to share a little bit of it with Oman, but they're going to control it, and they want to be able to charge totals in it. And I think – well, I've seen the reports. President Trump thought this would be a Venezuela kind of situation where you go in, you take out the leadership, you do some bombing, and all of a sudden they say, we give. He said uncle, so they'd say uncle, and we'd go in and help them sort of rebuild. And to your question, you know, if you're concerned that you've got to come in and replace and rebuild everything that you take out now,

[00:39:21] you take out a lot of infrastructure, the water and so forth, then you've got to come back and redo that. And that may turn the people even more against us if we do that. So it's a mess, and I'm not sure that I see a resolution to it any time soon. No, but I just thought I'd post this one. A lot of people wonder what's going on and around. Well, we've covered it there. But during the break, we had a conversation about Spain. And usually when you're talking about Spain right now, you're talking about winning the World Cup.

[00:39:49] But I think all of you probably, if you've been on television, have seen this horde of individuals, mostly coming from Morocco. You can look on your map right now and see how close, really, in the Strait of Gibraltar. Again, this is really a very significant choke point, but it also is very easy for individuals to actually leave from Africa into Spain. And given the fact that they've had sort of open borders, it reminded me of some of the things we saw there on the southern border of Texas.

[00:40:19] Only different people. And they're able to give out. And I mentioned this earlier when we were talking, that when Muhammad died and the new caliphs came in, they went into the Middle East, took over most of the Middle East, went into North Africa, took over it, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, and went over into Spain and got about half of Spain before they were finally stopped. So this is sort of a natural pathway for them, for better or worse. That's one place they want to go. But going into Spain just is a mess because the country is run by socialists

[00:40:49] and is not in very good shape right now. I think that's part of it, right? You've got a liberal president who's like Joe Biden and attracts this. The first thing I saw when I looked up and I saw all these people from Morocco going towards Spain, I thought, boy, they're really upset that they got knocked out of the World Cup and Spain won. But I figured it was more than that. But the thing that's always amazing to me when you watch these things,

[00:41:15] with the Muslim countries especially, is it's never the women and children. It's never even the older men. It's almost like it's part of their military mission to send the young men to invade these countries by going into these countries. And so look at those pictures. Look at what you see. It's not diverse in any way. And so you just immediately think. It's an invasion. There's something. This is intentional.

[00:41:45] There's a goal here. But, again, under their current leadership, Spain won't wake up just like Joe Biden wouldn't wake up. And there was a time when the European Union was trying to welcome them. Germany and other countries were trying to welcome in. That's become a real political problem for them. And a lot of people have lost their positions because of being too open to immigration and getting too many people that you can't handle. Great book on that, Suicidal Empathy by Gassad. And, of course, we're going to have him on. We've had him on before. We're going to have him on again.

[00:42:15] But just that is the danger. Empathy is a virtue. But when it's practiced to its extreme, it becomes a vice. And we saw that in Germany and other places. In the U.K. Yeah, we certainly have. Real quickly, I just want to mention that we did post also Pennexter's commentary today. It's called The Texas Tech Battle. So, if nothing else, this is a reminder, I think, Dr. Matthews, of what we just have found. And that is wokeism used to be really big.

[00:42:39] But now some of these DEI mandates in some of these universities are finally going the way of all flesh. And you find some of the people who will say, you know, I never supported girls and men in girls sports. May I wouldn't have done that. Colin Allred was one. So, yes, they back away from some of those things, including Gavin Newsom and others, because they know they're going to have to face the voters now. And, you know, we talked about the Smithsonian situation earlier.

[00:43:09] And if you look at some of those people that were leading that effort, you look at their past. They were DEI people. So, it doesn't surprise you that they start changing history and doing the things that they're doing there. But that, again, it's something that really America didn't like, but they were kind of going along with because they didn't know what to do, including all the corporations, by the way. Yes. Right? And I think that's gone now. Yes. I mean, you know, even if you hate Trump, give him credit for that.

[00:43:38] I mean, that's a good thing for the country. Well, let me just, before I run out of time, mention that we do have a link to firstliberty.org. You've got a banner up there. Where does your state rank on religious freedom? And we talked about that last week, and I thought we'd mention it again because not everybody's tuned in every week. But we certainly gave an award to Arkansas, and we're still trying to see whether or not Arkansas can keep its Ten Commandments monument up there.

[00:44:03] But, again, if you'd like to see where your state is on this issue of religious freedom, you'd like to know more about that. If you'd like to sign up for their newsletter, just scroll down to the bottom, and you can find out a little bit more about First Liberty Institute. So, Kelly, it's been great to have you here today. It's been great to be on. And Dr. Merrill Matthews, two very good articles by you today that people can read, and you'll be on Thursday. Be back Thursday, and then Friday with Liberty. Yeah, so, again, we'll get a chance to pull all of that together.

[00:44:28] Just about out of time, but let me, again, encourage you to go to the website, pointofview.net. Gave you an action item, which, of course, was the idea of support the SAVE Act. If you did not take advantage of that, please feel free to do so. You'll find all the viewpoints, commentaries there, all the articles, and it's all available at the website, pointofview.net. As you go there, don't forget there is a banner there that says Restoring America's Godly Heritage. That's the place where you can click on the button that says Give Now.

[00:44:57] And if you would like to support us, especially during the more lean summer months, we'd greatly appreciate that as well. As always, I want to thank Megan for her help engineering the program. Karen, thank you for stepping in today and producing the program. See you back here on Monday on Point of View. In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas.

[00:45:24] London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher 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.

[00:45:52] 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 at pointofview.net slash signup. Every weekday, in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time.

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