Point of View June 5, 2026 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View Radio Talk Show. Anderson. Thank you for joining us. This is our Weekend Edition. We are grateful that you can join us. We're going to spend some time, obviously, talking about religious liberty because, of course, we have Jeff Mateer here with First Liberty Institute. We're going to be talking about some very important issues involving fraud.

[00:00:34] One of those articles by Dr. Merrill Matthews is also in studio with us. We'll talk about the Iran War. We also have, of course, midterm elections and some candidates that certainly have come under fire in that regard. Before we're all done, we will certainly get into a couple of other topics, including a very interesting one from Dr. Merrill Matthews about whether we're going to have a $250 bill and who should be on it. So we will have lots of things to talk about.

[00:00:59] Dr. Merrill Matthews, of course, with us and Jeff Mateer, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer for First Liberty Institute. And, Jeff, I thought we'd start off with one that, again, just causes me to kind of shake my head, roll my eyes. A church cannot have religious activities inside of a church building.

[00:01:17] And nevertheless, as bizarre as that sounds for people living in Windsor, Michigan, you've had to actually file a case because they were prohibited from having religious activities inside the church. Yeah, this is one that I thought when the team first brought it to us, I thought, I mean, clearly we're going to send a letter and the city will respond and say, oh, yeah, we're sorry. You're a church? But that's not what happened here.

[00:01:46] And so this church, they purchased a building that had been a church in the past, and it was in some disrepair. But they have gone through all the renovations. So they brought what was otherwise a dilapidated building back to life, a historic church, brought it back to life. And shockingly, the church actually wants to use it as a church. And so they began using it as a church. And the city has decided that, well, you can't do weddings.

[00:02:17] Like, that's something like that it's not like the church hasn't done. Well, no, those are events. You know, weddings are events. And therefore, you need to be, no, you're not properly permitted in order to have events. And they told them, oh, no, you can only have 60 people at your church service. And God forbid that you go past 9 p.m. at night.

[00:02:45] And so, yeah, it's one of those you just think. And so, yeah, I mean, the letter wasn't enough, and we've had to actually file a lawsuit. So what is the city's justification for this? I mean, they're very confused on what is a church. They think that the church is holding events and that it's an event center. And they're unfamiliar with – and again, this is Michigan. I mean, it's not California or New York.

[00:03:13] Although Michigan, maybe in some parts of Michigan, it's becoming more like California or New York. But their view is, and there's some speculation, and so I probably shouldn't say it, but we're on the air. And we're here just between friends, is that there is an event center that doesn't like that this church is holding what they're describing as events. Because in the past, you would have to go to the event center.

[00:03:37] And now – and, of course, the church is not taxed because churches shouldn't be taxed and can't be taxed. But they are a church that holds – I mean, the church does have weddings, and they conduct – I don't know. There are no allegations yet that they're somehow shutting down funerals. But who knows if they thought they could do it, then they would. And I've seen a picture of it. It looks like a church, too. It's a church. Because some people might think, okay, I've seen some churches in like a strip mall or a shopping center or something like this.

[00:04:07] This is obviously was built as a church, always functioned as a church. They revitalized it as a church. But somehow because it's a church, church building, and you got – because the church is the people, not the building – but the people that are Christians in a church building are doing ecclesiastical functions, and somehow that can't be permitted.

[00:04:25] Right, and one of my first cases – I think my second case that I ever did with Kelly Shackelford was a case here in Plano in which a group of Plano Vietnamese – they're not Plano, they're Vietnamese who are living in Plano – Sure. Vietnamese Baptist bought an historic property in the middle of downtown Plano, not too far from where we're sitting. It had been a church historically, and then it became something else.

[00:04:55] But these people bought it back, and the city of Plano did not want them to occupy that building and use it as a church because in the city's wisdom, it should be other higher purposes for it to be used, which usually translates they wanted it for tax dollars, use it for tax dollars. And we had to file a lawsuit in that case. We sued the city of Plano. Again, one of the cases that I tried before I was an employee at First Liberty and working with Kelly and Hiram Sasser,

[00:05:24] and obviously I wouldn't be telling the story if we didn't win, but we won, and that church is there. It's been there now for over a decade. So it's shocking, but it's not rare that this is happening. I seem to recall there was one that y'all were handling maybe two or three years ago. Jeremy was handling it. I think it was a synagogue that a group was trying to bring back to life, but it was in a neighborhood.

[00:05:50] And so I think the neighborhood was pushing back because they didn't want people in the synagogue. You didn't have parking all up and down the streets and so forth. Are the neighbors in this Michigan thing pushing back also? There's some of that. This isn't a residential, and it's always – we're for it unless it's next door, and you have some of that. But, look, historically in America, churches have had a right to exist anywhere.

[00:06:18] And, of course, we all know that churches – whatever harm or things that could occur, churches bring so much more to a community. And these – I mean, they're a church who wants to reach out to people. They want to be good neighbors. I mean, the whole idea is they just don't come in and look at themselves. They want to reach their neighborhood.

[00:06:43] They want to be good neighbors and working with them parking and traffic and things like that. That's not what they're saying here. They just don't want them to be holding what they call events in which the church says are religious activities because, you know, having marriages, that's a religious activity. But the people in Windsor, Michigan need to learn that lesson apparently. Just before we take a break, let me just mention that if you go to your website, firstliberty.org,

[00:07:12] or if you go to Restoring Faith in America, RFIA, one of the things you have been announcing on a pretty regular basis is the posting of Ten Commandments. So at a time when we're talking about some of those negatives, we can talk about some of the positives. And there is a whole resurgence back to some of those issues, isn't there? There is. And I'm proud because my home county – so I'm a resident of Rockwall County. The commissioners and the county judge there after a little – you know, had a little meeting,

[00:07:42] and we encouraged them to do that in following Tarrant County in Texas. So Rockwall has now unveiled – I believe it was two Saturdays ago – unveiled its Ten Commandments that are right outside the historic courthouse in Rockwall. And so I'll give you a little breaking news, and I know the commissioners won't care that I share this, but they got a little love letter from a group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

[00:08:06] And so we might hear a little more about a response to that on a future episode of Point of View. Yeah, well, let's take a break. When we come back, we have a lot more to cover, and we'll get into the issue of fraud, and we'll talk about that because, indeed, that has been in the news for some time. As a matter of fact, I might even hold up the latest issue of National Review. It talks about, again, the cost of fraud and what to do about it. Well, we have some very good suggestions, one coming from the Wall Street Journal,

[00:08:34] another one coming from our good friend here right here, Dr. Merrill Matthews. By the way, here is his book that addresses some of those issues as well. We'll come back, talk about that right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:06] Years ago, a doctor wrote an article entitled, What's Keeping David McCullough From Sleeping? This noted historian and award-winning author had trouble sleeping because he was worrying about what was happening in the country. He was concerned that our leaders have forgotten about history. They're unaware of the past and uninterested in how they would be remembered in the future. Timothy Gagline, who was a special assistant to President Bush, opened his article with a story to remind us how ignorant students and adults are about history.

[00:09:32] One study from years ago by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute surveyed more than 2,500 Americans. They found that only half of those adults could name the three branches of government and only 36% of college graduates could do so. 18% of students tested could not name a single right or freedom guaranteed under the First Amendment. Turns out that the highest performing school on this civics test was Harvard University. But even this prestigious school did not do that well.

[00:10:01] Harvard scored 69%. You know, most teachers would consider that to be a D+. In other words, it would be a failing grade. A more recent study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that half of all college graduates did not know how long the terms of their representatives and senators were, and 43% did not know the First Amendment gave them freedom of speech. A full third could not identify any rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

[00:10:30] So I would suggest that you remember that all those students surveyed are now a voting age, and some may be running for public office. Yes, that can keep you from sleeping at night. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net.

[00:10:59] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, we're going to talk about fraud for a while, and there's a couple different articles we've posted. First of all, a couple days ago, the Wall Street Journal talked about Obamacare fraud update. Now, you might remember the very dire forecast that millions of people would lose their health care coverage after those enhanced subsidies for Obamacare expired. Well, that didn't exactly pan out.

[00:11:29] Actually, just the opposite, because at least one group, Paragon, estimates that it needs at least 6.2 million people this year are improperly enrolled in the heavily subsidized Obamacare plans. Very little has changed there as well. Enrollment in Obamacare exchanges has doubled in recent years, and if you want people to be dependent upon the government, maybe you'd feel good about that.

[00:11:55] But again, it is just showing that the reason some of these things are happening is because these subsidies are really generous, and we'll get into that with Dr. Murrow Matthews. And then just again, since these sort of overlap a little bit, Dr. Merrill Matthews also has a quick and easy way to stop Medicaid fraud. But Dr. Matthews, you are our expert, so I'm just going to turn it over to you for just a few minutes because waste, fraud, and abuse.

[00:12:23] Everybody says they're running against it. The other day, there was an attempt to try to bring various attorneys general to the White House with the vice president. The Republican attorneys general showed up. Democrats did not. And so I didn't know this was a bipartisan issue, but here we go. If we are really concerned about fraud, it is our tax dollars. What can we do about it? Well, this really took off starting in Minnesota with the Somali community,

[00:12:51] apparently saying they had kids centers and so forth that there were no kids in, and they were getting lots of money for that. So that sort of got the Trump administration going. And I have to say, the Trump administration, especially Dr. Oz and J.D. Vance, is supposed to be sort of head of the anti-fraud tax force. But Dr. Oz appears to be taking this seriously with regard to Medicare and Medicaid. He recently mentioned, I think the fraud that goes on here is widespread,

[00:13:19] especially with children with autism and with hospice. And what they found with hospice in California is there were all kinds of, I think I had this number here a week or so ago, something like the, well, the number of companies claiming to provide hospice care in California, especially the Los Angeles area, increased by 330% over a 10-year period. Were there that many more people going to hospice?

[00:13:48] What Dr. Oz says is they have cut off funding for some 700, 800 of these organizations and just stopped paying them. And they've only gotten a handful of companies coming back saying, wait a minute, you stopped paying us. And his notion is if you were committing fraud, you probably were not going to be complaining about that. But it just gives you an indication of how much fraud there is out there. What the Paragon Institute found in Obamacare, and I need to explain this a little bit.

[00:14:16] When they passed Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act in 2010, what they did was they created Obamacare, and it was supposed to take off basically if you had too much income from Medicaid. So you had Medicaid up to a certain point. They were requiring that. And then if you had too much income, then you could go into Obamacare and get the subsidies. Right.

[00:14:36] Well, the Supreme Court, Obamacare was going to require every state to adopt the Medicaid amendments in there. And if they didn't, they would lose all their Medicaid funding. And the Supreme Court said that's not appropriate. You can't do that. That's just extortion. And so a number of states did not expand on Medicaid. And what that means is those states that did not expand on Medicaid, they may have lower limits that you would have for going into Medicaid.

[00:15:06] And so let's just say you have 100. They may provide Medicaid for up to 100 percent of the poverty level, but they may not do above that. Obamacare kicks in around 138 percent of the poverty level. So you might have a gap in there in which people would just be, they'd have too much income from Medicaid, not enough for Obamacare. So what's happening, what Paragon is alleging, is an awful lot of these lower-income people are claiming more income than they actually have. And you could do this.

[00:15:36] I mean, if you're going to somebody who registered, well, are you getting a little money over here? Do you have this? And so they're claiming a lot more income than they supposedly have, and that that is making them qualified for Obamacare. And then the subsidies come in, and if you're low-income in Obamacare, you get very generous subsidies. A large percentage of them pay no premium at all. And just about everybody, I think 85, 90 percent, get some premium paid in Obamacare from the taxpayers.

[00:16:04] And this can be up to over $100,000 in income. So that's where they're seeing what they think is a problem. They say Florida is one of the biggest states. Florida did not expand Medicaid. Texas didn't. About 10 or 12 states did not expand Medicaid. And so you have that gap, and you have more people caught in that gap between the Medicaid limit and the Obamacare limit. It's just very complicated. But, again, it's back to the bigger issue that we can talk about,

[00:16:33] the quick and easy way to stop Medicaid fraud. By the way, in there you point out that some of the places where there have been the most graft are where there are limits to the work requirements, and that's in places like autism and hospice care. So, first of all, that's the case. But let's get back to the incentives, because we sometimes talk about perverse incentives, but here's one. If you are going to have the federal government provide this,

[00:17:00] the state provides it, you start matching it, there's no cutoff. And so you're suggesting, why don't we go to what the Republicans have talked about for decades now? Decades. And that is block grants, and then you do with it what you want. Right. And then the Republican idea for a long time, which I don't hear much about right now, is to say we're going to give a state X amount of dollars, flat amount of money. Here's your money. You can take that from Medicaid, and then anything else you decide you want,

[00:17:28] any other benefits you want to provide, you get to pay for it. Anything else, you're going to have to cover the additional amount. So people understand Medicaid is a federal state program for low-income people. The federal government provides a matching grant. For eight or nine or ten states, it's about 50-50, so the state pays half, and Medicaid, the federal government pays half. But in some of them, it gets much more. I think in Mississippi, it's over 70%. The federal government pays over 70%.

[00:17:58] So if Mississippi spends a dollar, U.S. taxpayers are paying over 70 cents of that. So as a state, you don't really have the incentive to try to catch the fraud and graft because you're not paying the whole bill. And the states have figured out other ways to be able to try to game the system so that they can say hospitals can pay taxes. That way the hospitals say they paid more. The tax money goes to state.

[00:18:27] The state may reimburse this hospital for the tax money. But it makes the figures look bigger, and the federal government comes in and provides more. So they've tried to stop some of these ways that the states can game the system. Some have been somewhat affected but not completely. So the idea is that the federal government says to a state, we're giving you this amount of money. That's all you get. There's still a couple of challenges how many people are in Medicaid.

[00:18:52] So you want to have a fair number, a realistic number of how many people are in there, and then it might grow a little bit. The finance, you might bump it up with some inflation rate a little bit over time. But that's go back and say, state, here's what you have. And that puts the burden on the state then. Right. If any extra money is going out, it costs the state. So they would actually have an incentive to try to make sure that they're getting rid of this fraud.

[00:19:20] Now, nothing may help Minnesota or California, but I think most states would actually try to cut down on the fraud then. And, again, in those two states that we just pick on for just a minute, Minnesota hasn't really wanted to address the issue because it would then look like they were anti-Somali or anti-Muslim in the same California, sometimes anti-whatever. But all of a sudden, at least the incentives work the other way, and that requires the state to clean up the problem. Right. And this goes back for decades.

[00:19:47] I point out in the article, you can go back to 2005. I have a link to it. New York Times ran a series of articles back then where they were looking at Medicaid fraud in New York, and they came to estimate that roughly 40 percent of the money that they were spending in New York City was fraud on Medicaid. And they cited, I put these in there, they cited dentists who provided 991 procedures in one day. We've always talked about this on the air,

[00:20:13] but you've got the examples here from the 991 procedures and working out of a Brooklyn storefront in a nursing home, taking a $1.5 million salary. Of course, the issue of age patients, special education. The examples are huge. Of course, you've talked about that in the past in terms of entitlement, cliffs and fraud and all this. And it just – we hear people saying waste, fraud, and abuse.

[00:20:39] But the reality is, if nothing else, Jeff, it's time to clean up the fraud. No, absolutely. It reminds me when you talk about the dentist 991 procedures. I remember there was a case once in which they had gone through the records of a filing of an attorney trying to seek fees, and they determined that he had billed more hours than 24 hours in a day. Now, he had a response. He said he had traveled, and he had picked up time, and therefore he could bill 26.

[00:21:07] So maybe the dentist had flown and was able to work more than 24 hours in order to get $900. Only if you're going from the east to the west. That's before you lose. Yeah, exactly. Well, we're going to take a break. A lot of other things to talk about. And if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. We'll be back right after this. Who can you trust?

[00:21:36] Years ago, many of us could probably have provided a fairly long list. But today, well, today it seems we almost can't trust anyone. Educators don't even know what a woman is anymore. Many so-called public servants have shown all they care about is themselves. The FBI has been accused of bias, law-breaking, betrayal, and journalism. It's largely corrupt, with no Clark Kent standing up for truth, justice, and the American way.

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[00:23:05] 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. Back once again, perhaps you would like to join the conversation today. 1-800-351-1212. We are privileged to have in studio with us today Dr. Merrill Matthews and Jeff Mateer. I wanted to focus some time and attention, maybe for about a half an hour or maybe less, depending on how the conversation goes. But what's going on in Iran?

[00:23:35] We've been with an on-again, off-again ceasefire. There are some very significant long-term implications of the Strait of Hormuz being blocked, essentially, and what that might do in terms of affordability, the midterm elections, just your day-to-day life. But I did post two different articles. First of all, the other day I wanted to talk about one by Victor Davis Hanson. We didn't get to it, and I thought, well, that's good, because then I found one by the former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

[00:24:03] And I think these two help us understand. So let me start with Condoleezza Rice. Secretary Rice talks about what the U.S. has accomplished. And both Meryl and Jeff, when you watch certain news outfits, you would think that we were losing militarily what happened in the Middle East, and especially in Iran. And she, I think, wisely says that the war against Iran has been a limited war and its outcome likely to be inconclusive,

[00:24:32] because there has never been a desire, at least overtly, by the Trump administration to have regime change and get involved in a protracted war like we had in Iraq. But at the same time, it does, she does point out the fact that whether you look at the devastation of the Iranian military, whether the pulling together of some of the Arab states, I think there's some very significant things that have taken place.

[00:24:59] And so this is a piece which, given the fact she may not be necessarily completely supportive of everything President Trump does, I thought was a very fair piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Well, I think, yeah, Secretary Rice is not someone we would say as a MAGA person at all. But I think if I were in the White House and saw this, I'd be very pleased with it, because I think it does make the case that there has been at least limited success.

[00:25:25] And I think the one thing that I took away from it was if it's true that the nuclear ambitions have been, if the result has been this has delayed Iran's ability to have nuclear weapons, if that's the only result, and she obviously in this article cites more than that, to me that's significant. And Sarah, go back to it.

[00:25:53] I mean I remember when we first talked about it, it was before the operation was started. I think we all sat around the statement and said, well, what are the objectives? Like what are the objectives? And kind of you heard from Trump, he was talking about, President Trump was talking about regime change. Well, if that's the objective, that has not happened. And in a lot of ways, maybe the regime has been fortified internally if that was the objective.

[00:26:20] But if the objective was we need to make sure they don't obtain nuclear weapons, and that has been delayed, and whether that's been delayed five years or ten years or whatever it is, then that is something that the administration can be proud of. I don't know, Dr. Matthews. Well, President Trump has said we've wiped out their army and their navy, and that seems to be basically true.

[00:26:50] Seems to be. Completely, but pretty close to it. The problem with that is the army and navy weren't really threatening other people. Their real threat comes from them funding the proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. And Hamas is in a mess, but that's in large part because of Israel. We don't hear that much from the Houthis these days.

[00:27:13] Apparently, I think Iran is still funding Hezbollah to some extent through cryptocurrencies' ability to be able to do that. So I think there is some extent that that's still going. And Hezbollah says Israel and Hezbollah have been in discussions about Israel with Lebanon about ceasefire. I think that's all off right now. And Hezbollah says they're not ceasing, and they're still continuing to send missiles into Israel.

[00:27:41] So I think the biggest concern right now is we're just not hearing anything about negotiations as to whether we are. And it's been something like a week or so since we were hearing just about every other day or the other day. We're getting close to it, and it doesn't look like we're getting close to anything right now. And the concern is that if we just sort of move on from this and look at other issues, and the Strait of Hormuz stays largely blocked, I think a few ships have gotten through, but not many,

[00:28:11] then you just don't want the status quo going on forever. So I don't know what the plan is right now to try to get this resolved. You thought maybe some kind of negotiation would get it resolved, but it's not clear right now that we're in major negotiations. And again, let's just remind ourselves, as this does, talk about the fact that Operation Midnight Hammer back in June was the first thing to really take out the enrichment program. And then, of course, you have Operation Epic Fury, the one going on now,

[00:28:40] which is, I think, both have set back the nuclear ambitions. Right. So if that's your goal, well, then you've achieved your goal, and it's possible that eventually Trump says, well, didn't accomplish everything. Well, we accomplished what we set out to do and move on. In the meantime, she does mention something else, and I just have said this more than once. Think about what the Middle East was October 7, 2023, and look at where we are now. I mean, Hamas going into Israel. Hamas is strong.

[00:29:10] Hezbollah is strong. The Houthis are causing all sorts of problems. Iran is moving towards nuclear weapons of some sort. None of that is happening now. And also, at the same time, you have a number of these Arab states where they've talked about the Abraham Accords could eventually become the Abraham Alliance.

[00:29:31] A lot of these Middle Eastern countries, which you would never have thought would maybe lower their concerns about Israel to the point of working together. That is, again, another significant accomplishment. And she talks about that in the third paragraph. Yeah, the United Arab Emirates are working more closely with us because Iran is shooting missiles and drones at the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and some of the others in that area.

[00:30:01] And my understanding is the Saudis would like us to go ahead and just finish the job. Yes, well, I know that. Because they've had their own trouble with Iran, but the Saudis aren't coming in. And there are discussions that we've had bases in Iraq that we didn't tell Iraq about and things. So we'll see what happens here. But in some ways, I think it has aligned some of the Arab countries more with us against Iran.

[00:30:29] They were largely aligned with us in some sense, but not so much publicly. And now I think they're increasingly wanting to be aligned publicly just to be able to get Iran and make sure that Iran is no longer a problem to the world and to them. You know, I was just thinking, Jeff, that one of the biggest miscalculations Iran did was once they were being attacked by Israel and the United States, they started firing missiles at their neighbors.

[00:30:56] As John Stewart said the other day, you know, I've been in a bar fight, but if you start swinging at one guy and then you start swinging at everybody, it's not a real good idea. But, you know, one of the reasons why Hezbollah may continue to do this is because if you get a real ceasefire, then the other Arab countries may be more willing to work with Israel. So if Israel is still firing into Lebanon and trying to get Hezbollah, that makes some of the other Arab countries would like to see that end. And it puts pressure on them not to align with Israel.

[00:31:26] It's really a very complicated mess. Well, since you mentioned that real quickly, there is a bit of evidence, and he mentioned it the other day, that Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump had some words. And a lot of that was over the fact that Israel still keeps firing into Lebanon against Hezbollah. And apparently Donald Trump said, you need to just cut that out. But Hezbollah hasn't stopped.

[00:31:51] I think I saw well over 100 missiles over a short period of time into Israel. And, you know, I wish Israel and Hezbollah or Lebanon could at least come to some kind of ceasefire. But as long as Hezbollah continues to fire – and that's why I say I think it's fair to say that Iran is still funneling money to Hezbollah for the time being. Well, and I mean the other – to me, the issue, I mean, is the strait going to be open, right? I mean that has to happen.

[00:32:20] I mean we can't – it can't – you can't have Iran controlling the strait and then with the impact on not just the United States but for the world, the oil. I mean there are reports out of Africa that Africa is just absolutely being crippled right now because of the shortage. Other countries have been on fertilizer and other things that come out of there. Yeah. Farmers aren't planting because they don't have the fertilizer.

[00:32:45] One of my colleagues actually is in my Sunday school class has had all sorts of work that they do in India. And Americans go over there and get involved. And she told people the other day, if your rental car is at half full, drive to the airport and come home. Because they could not find gas stations open and there's no reason in keeping you over there. So it's gone from bad to worse.

[00:33:11] When we come back, though, I do want to talk a little bit about Victor Davis Hanson Iranian end games. What is the end game? Which is a good setup for what we'll be talking about next hour because we have, of course, midterm elections. I just had to get some comments around the table about some of these senatorial candidates in places like Maine and Texas and other places on that. Also, of course, we have some other coverage that we will get into as well. Just the whole idea of the work ethic going out of style, which gets us back to some of the issues of fraud.

[00:33:41] And maybe we'll talk a little bit about baseball and even a $250 bill. All that coming up right after this. There's one person who could have spared the country the disaster that was the Biden administration, Jill Biden. If only she had told the Democrats in 2016.

[00:34:10] No, I'm sorry. I can't put my husband through it. He's not mentally capable of undertaking a run for the White House and certainly not of being president. Or at least in 2020, knowing of his decline, she should have protected him from the ridicule and ignominy she had to have known a real campaign would bring. Instead, she betrayed her wedding vows, the Democrats and the country. A March opinion piece in The Capitalist bears the title, Jill Biden is the most evil woman of the 21st century.

[00:34:39] Writer Daniel Turner explained that marriage vows promise that no one, not even the children, no one will look out for you, my spouse, as much as I will. And if you are too incapacitated to make a decision like how do I walk off the stage, then I will try to take those decisions away from you. I will not give you more, larger, graver decisions because I cherish you. Jill Biden instead capitalized on her husband's incapacity. Her gain was the country's loss. Daniel Turner wrote,

[00:35:09] It hurts to revisit what President Biden left, the filth, the weakness, the wokeness, the depravity. What Jill allowed made us all weaker, poorer and worse off as a nation. When asked in a recent CBS interview what she was thinking during the humiliating debate performance that sealed the end of her husband's campaign, Jill Biden lied yet again, claiming she had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since. She had. We all did.

[00:35:38] Jill Biden told her interviewer she thought her husband was having a stroke during the debate. Instead of getting to a doctor, she took him to a rally. She addressed the crowd. They went to Waffle House. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:36:06] Back once again, Dr. Merrill Matthews, Jeff Mateer in studio. If you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212. Peace by Victor Davis Hanson. Oftentimes I put him in the second hour, but I wanted to put these together because he talks about how the Trump administration, he says, has bent over backward to negotiate an end to Iran's grand plans to develop nuclear weapons. And then, of course, talks about some of the issues there. But it really gets into what is the end game. There's a couple of implications.

[00:36:34] One, of course, as we just said around the table, but it's worth mentioning again, we cannot keep the Strait of Hormuz closed much longer. There are a lot of implications. First of all, of course, petroleum products and keeping an economy going is key. As I mentioned also, the fertilizer, there are all sorts of places around the world that right now farmers are saying they can't get fertilizer.

[00:37:00] So instead of saying, well, I'll just have a diminished crop, I may not plant at all. That gets to a food shortage of some sort. Or because the price is so high, I can't afford it either way. And then, of course, you have all the other issues of that as well. And so in some respects, what is the end game? And Victor Davis Hanson tries to give us some thoughts about that. But if nothing else, he says it's really, and I think he's wise by saying,

[00:37:25] unlikely the Iran is ever going to give up its pursuit of a bomb voluntarily. And for no other reason, it can look at how we don't ever militarily have any intervention into, say, North Korea. Because once you have the bomb, it is less likely that any kind of military will ever come against you. Yeah. I mean, this analogy probably breaks down. But, I mean, think about World War II.

[00:37:51] And if at a certain point the Allies had said, we're not going to go. I mean, we've pushed Germany back into Germany. And we're going to stop. We're not going to finish. I mean, that's not acceptable, right? And so, again, it goes back to me as what were the objectives? If the objectives were simply to delay their ability to get a nuclear weapon, and all you're doing then, of course, is delaying because, as far as we know,

[00:38:18] the reserves that they have, the uranium, that has not been found or impacted. I mean, I'm sure it's hidden somewhere underground and whatever. So the raw materials, the basic raw material, they still have. And so you're just delaying that. And so I think Victor Davis Hanson makes a pretty persuasive argument, although it's a difficult one, that if you started this, now it's time to finish it. Time to finish it.

[00:38:46] And leaving Germany alone, you know, retreating just into Germany without doing what we had to do. And I think you could also say the same thing with Japan. Would it just been acceptable just to push Japan back to the island and not do what we had to do? And this is, you know, I know I'm opening a can, but not doing what we had to do at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[00:39:10] And so, I mean, I, again, I was reluctant in the beginning because it was always unclear what the objectives were. But once we've started it, then, you know, shouldn't we finish it? And here's the problem Donald Trump faces. Trump and Republicans face elections. Yes. The Iranian regime does not, at least not real elections. Right. And so they can continue on.

[00:39:36] And you could say, and Trump said it the first, early on, you know, if the population rises up and takes over, Iranians don't have guns. And the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, does have guns and tanks and other things. And so it's very hard for the Iranian people to rise up. And so they're being forced to basically absorb most of the brunt of this that's coming in because the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, they know how to get some money in.

[00:40:06] And they're able to pay themselves. I mean, they've made themselves rich. I mean, Soleimani, you remember Soleimani? His nephew, our niece, was living here in Los Angeles. That's right. In a kind of luxury and along with her daughter. And they would go out and do the death to America chance, even as they were driving luxury cars and living in luxury places,

[00:40:28] based upon the corruption that goes on there in Iran and the ability to be able for people who are tied into the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to be able to get money and pass it on to other people. Trump has got a timeline that he's got to face where they're going to have pushback, and they do not. And that's a problem. One of the things he says here is the Iranian regime has never viewed negotiation as a path leading to an ultimate deal. And that is, I think, illustrated since you mentioned the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the IRG.

[00:40:59] Interestingly enough, Glenn Beck the other day came across a clip, and you had to watch the caption because it's obviously in Farsi. But this is back many years ago, the incoming head of the IRG, in which he was simply saying, we will always have an advantage over the European countries and over the United States, because these Western democracies, they always have to face re-election. Right.

[00:41:26] So even though we don't have the kind of military firepower that they have, we can just keep postponing and delaying. Matter of fact, of this comment, he says, all threats, ultimatums, and vows were really not credible because they just know that they can wait us out. And so, of course, a minute ago, Jeff used the World War II analogy. How about I use a different one, a Vietnam analogy, that we can wait you out long enough because you will have a pressure,

[00:41:54] and that pressure is building, as we'll talk about next hour, with these midterm elections. And, you know, I don't think people maybe realize that for a while they were talking about coming to an agreement. Now, lately, they've only been talking about coming to an agreement to sit down and negotiate these things over the next 60 days. So it's an agreement to try to come to get together to come to an agreement. So it is that part of it.

[00:42:19] And when people say Trump is losing in this, that part, you sort of see the point that they can make, which is we're not making any progress. And if it's a waiting game, they may end up winning unless Trump is willing to put boots on the ground, which so far he's not been willing to do. Well, or boots on the ground, or, I mean, an aerial attack.

[00:42:37] I mean, if you start, I mean, if you're committed, if you can, if you're committed to do actions that will result in tens of thousands of civilians losing their lives, which, again, I like my World War II better than Vietnam, but Dresden. That's right. I mean, it's not a great moment in America. I mean, we don't like to focus on that. We bomb civilians.

[00:43:07] Thousands of civilians die. We bomb civilians. And if that's the objective, then, I mean, you're going to have to do that. Where I think you have the problem is when you do now use your Vietnam is you're not willing to use every available tool that you have to win a war, then you end up in a Vietnam situation.

[00:43:29] Now, having argued for this sort of let's go bomb the heck out of them, then what do we do then? Then what do we do after the regime crumbles? Yeah. Because then you're going to have – I mean, is it like Afghanistan? I mean, what do you have? What's left? And we're going to have Americans. And then you really will have people on the ground trying to police.

[00:43:56] And Iraq will seem as like it was a garden compared to Iran. So, yeah, and as you say, Dr. Matthews, and you've got midterms coming. Yes, you do. We will talk about it after the break. But one more point that is made in here, and I really encourage you to read this because it's just very well said.

[00:44:17] In terms of size, population, resources, wealth, and military strength, Iran has the most formidable and has been the most formidable adversary the United States has faced in the Middle East. If you go and look on a map, you realize how much bigger it is, what the population is, what the military was. We have degraded it significantly, and as he points out there, probably ceased subsidizing Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthis, at least to the level of what has happened.

[00:44:43] Middle East is safer than it was, but the end game still a big question mark, which is, of course, why we posted this piece by Victor Davis Hanson. We come back, though, we've got some interesting candidates out there, and we are in the midst of the midterms, and I thought it'd be good to have a roundtable discussion, since some of the people here know some of the candidates a little better than others, and give you a sense to weigh in if you would like to as well. 1-800-351-1212.

[00:45:10] If you'd like to find some of the articles, they're on the website, pointofview.net. I'll be right back. Where does moral truth come from? According to 58% of Americans, individuals determine moral truth. A quarter of Generation Z says society determines moral truth, and morality can even change over time. Only 42% of Americans believe that truth comes from God. I don't know about you, but I find these numbers extremely troubling.

[00:45:40] It really is a crisis of truth, and that crisis has consequences. Look at society. Evil is called good. Good called evil. People with biblical beliefs are called bigots, or worse, they're canceled. But there is hope. The Bible promises the truth will set us free, and that's why Point of View is relentless in our commitment to the ultimate source of moral truth, God's Word.

[00:46:04] At Point of View, we know that God's truth is eternal, and if we stand together, we can help more Americans apply His truth in their daily life. Help Americans find truth. Help Americans find truth again by giving at pointofview.net, or call 1-800-347-5151. That's pointofview.net, and 800-347-5151.

[00:46:30] Point of View will continue after this. Cross America. Live. This is Point of View.

[00:46:59] And now, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, we're going to spend some time, at least for a while, talking about the midterm elections, because we're right in the middle of it. Of course, we had earlier this week elections in California. I think they're still counting the votes out there. Yeah, there's two counting the votes. Oh, my goodness. We'll get to that sooner or later. But I do want to talk about some of the candidates and some of the issues. We will get to this issue of affordability, because I've got an affordability tracker to give you perspective there.

[00:47:26] But right now, we're in a weird situation, which oftentimes I refer to and others refer to it as the K-shaped economy. One letter of K is going up, and that's the stock market is going up, and people with assets are doing pretty well. It has been. And then the other is going down, and the way to illustrate going down is consumer sentiment is at 44. You might say, what does that mean?

[00:47:51] Well, the lowest was 50, and that was when people were in their post-pandemic inflation of 9 percent. So we're, in terms of consumer sentiment, worse than ever. So there are a lot of people. As a matter of fact, if you take the affordability tracker indicator, 49 percent of people in America, or at least American families, say they don't have the resources to cover essential expenses. That's going to have an impact, obviously. So I want to talk about that in just a minute.

[00:48:20] But the next article I posted by Joe Klein. Now, he's not necessarily somebody we'd have on the program all the time. But, you know, when you have somebody that's been pretty favorable to Democrats and referred to them as two dumb Dems, other than John Fetterman, who's been talking about some of that as well. What he's referring to, and we'll start with the state of Maine, Graham Plattner. You probably could not come up with a candidate who ends up with so much baggage that he needs porters just to carry it to the election day.

[00:48:49] Because this man has one after another of revelations, and they just go from bad to worse, don't they? They do, and apparently more revelations are coming out from women he was texting with on a thing called Tick Kick, K-I-K. And his wife has come out and defended him. I'm not familiar with that. I don't spend any time on that one either.

[00:49:12] But his wife has come out and defended him, saying she didn't marry a perfect man, and she doesn't want a perfect man. She got one. Oh, my goodness. An imperfect man. But, you know, I'll just mention this. The last time Susan Collins ran in Maine, Republican, the polls had her down 10 percentage points going into the election, and she won. Yes. That might happen again. I don't think you can hold your breath on that happening, but it might happen again.

[00:49:41] But even Bernie Sanders and some of these people who will criticize any Republican for almost anything is coming up and defending him. That's what surprised me. Yeah. And let's get into that for just a minute, because, again, if you're not familiar, maybe you don't know that this is a guy with a Nazi tattoo. He's an individual. Totten Kampff, I think. Totten Kampff. Yeah. Yes. And he's against Israel. He's against billionaires. He's against any kind of soak of the rich.

[00:50:09] I mean, you just go down the list, as well as just a number of sex scandals that would make Gary Hart or Bill Clinton go, whoa, whoa, whoa, this guy's even worse than I am. And so it is interesting. I always like to go to Jeff Materer, because he's from Pennsylvania. Who would have guessed that of the only Democrat to come out and speak out against Graham Plattner is John Fetterman? Yeah.

[00:50:31] And I just got back from Pennsylvania, and I will tell you, there are a lot of speculation that we won't be saying he's the only Democrat because he may be moving to the Republican Party. Which, just to think that, I mean, and I have many family members, I remember, because when he was lieutenant governor, I mean, he was a committed liberal.

[00:50:57] And to think that he is now the sense of reason, it's just incredible. But, I mean, you couldn't pick a worse candidate if you're a Democrat in Maine because, I mean, Susan Collins is, I mean, we sometimes, as Republicans, we don't appreciate Susan Collins. She kind of a little bit, but gosh, this guy, I mean, what else can come out?

[00:51:24] And if he can survive, then I don't know. I mean, you know, I don't know if the Republican can survive someone like this making it through. But, you know, it's actually taken us to a point now where people's past, if this becomes your candidate in a sense, and we just feel like, because what he wants to say is I'm real, I'm authentic. I'm a real person. I had a real past. You know, I wasn't a rich kid. It turns out that apparently was not the case.

[00:51:54] He did have a fairly easy upbringing. But people apparently are looking for that and willing to overlook all kinds of scandals. And I'll tell you, I just, and this is true, I would argue, with Ken Passon in Texas. Right. If you can be the attorney general, you can go out and you can file serious lawsuits. You can file frivolous lawsuits. You can file messaging lawsuits. You're your own person. You can do whatever you want to.

[00:52:21] When you go to the Senate, you've got to be able to work with 99 other people or at least the people in your party. And that becomes, and that's why I would have thought John Cornyn, John Cornyn was good at being able to work with other people in his party. If you go and you want to try to be a maverick in the Senate, you have problems. And Graham Plattner, if he goes with all this baggage, it's almost like George Santos, you know, who has all this baggage as a House member, as a Republican.

[00:52:51] Nobody wants to work with you because they don't want to be seen with you. And the other problem is anything that comes out, the media will go to you and say, you know, we just saw this new thing about your colleague Plattner or your colleague Paxton. Do you agree with that? And Republicans have to go around and try to avoid the media because they don't want to have to be put in this position of answering those questions. Well, we've been talking about Maine and at least in Maine, I think you have a good choice.

[00:53:16] And I know a number of our listeners are in Maine and Susan Collins may not be exactly who you'd pick, but I think that is superior. But now we come to the state of Texas and that one has been in the news a lot. One, because, of course, we just mentioned Ken Paxton and we'll certainly get to that after the break as well. But this other article is talking about two dumb Democrats and the other one is James Tallarico.

[00:53:39] The more this comes out about some of the really bizarre, woke kinds of things that he has said, when you again have an individual like Joe Klein or other fellow Democrats say, how did we end up with this individual? Because not that we thought that Jasmine Crockett would have been better, but I had no idea that just one statement after another, after another.

[00:54:07] And each day there's a new revelation about something that would be heretical or certainly just woke theology. Oh, he does remind me. I mean, because you do those type of things. Remember when Obama, after Obama had been elected United States Senator and they started to, you remember, he's a senator named Runs for President two years later, right? And one of the things they started looking at was Obama's church and some of the crazy statements and theology coming out of his church.

[00:54:37] This, Tallarico, in a way, reminds me of that because clearly, I mean, he is trying to wear his Christianity on his sleeve, which is interesting because he's wearing Christianity on his sleeve from the left. Yes. And, I mean, even, you know, describing himself as a divinity student and very much.

[00:55:01] But as we know, that theology is not the theology of most Texans and certainly not the theology of any evangelicals. I'll take a break and when we come back, I'll give you just a couple of the lines. If you've been watching news, you probably heard some of those. And then, of course, we'll get back to, of course, we just mentioned Ken Paxton, who's actually been on the program. And some of the people around the table know him pretty well. And that choice is going to be very interesting, but it may determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the Senate.

[00:55:31] We'll be right back. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Years ago, a doctor wrote an article entitled What's Keeping David McCullough From Sleeping? This noted historian and award-winning author had trouble sleeping because he was worrying about what was happening in the country.

[00:55:58] He was concerned that our leaders have forgotten about history. They're unaware of the past and uninterested in how they would be remembered in the future. Timothy Gagline, who was a special assistant to President Bush, opened his article with a story to remind us how ignorant students and adults are about history. One study from years ago by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute surveyed more than 2,500 Americans.

[00:56:20] They found that only half of those adults could name the three branches of government, and only 36% of college graduates could do so. 18% of students tested could not name a single right or freedom guaranteed under the First Amendment. Turns out that the highest performing school on this civics test was Harvard University. But even this prestigious school did not do that well. Harvard scored 69%. You know, most teachers would consider that to be a D+. In other words, it would be a failing grade.

[00:56:50] A more recent study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that half of all college graduates did not know how long the terms of their representatives and senators were, and 43% did not know the First Amendment gave them freedom of speech. A full third could not identify any rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. So I would suggest that you remember that all those students surveyed are now a voting age, and some may be running for public office.

[00:57:20] Yes, that can keep you from sleeping at night. 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-supported source for truth.

[00:57:47] Back once again, we've posted this particular article by Joe Klein. You can read it for yourself. And it's just interesting because he quotes from Andrew Sullivan. I quote him every once in a while and said, The Democrats actually think that if someone is a white male and goes to church, he has a chance in Texas. Well, not if you start saying that God is non-binary. There are not two biological sexes. There are actually six. Our campaign has become a non-meat campaign.

[00:58:13] White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus of racism, but we spread it wherever we go. Can I go on? I think you see that every single day there's something else that has surfaced. And so then all of a sudden you find yourself in a situation where some individuals say, Well, I maybe appreciate the fact he's trying to be a Christian, but he's just a liberal Christian, and he's got some really wacko ideas. So, well, now I've got Ken Paxton with more scandals than we can imagine.

[00:58:43] And again, we can go into some of those. But that is, first of all, the issue of how you would make that choice. But more importantly, I want to look nationally since it's a national program. I believe the runoff here for the U.S. Senate was the most expensive campaign expenditures ever. And it's quite likely that this may be the most expensive Senate race in the history of this country.

[00:59:09] And that means it takes money away from other senatorial campaigns. So help me out with this. Well, I think what the media will do now, and the media has now discovered Ken Paxton and his baggage. And I think they're going to be doing a lot of investigating reporting because they'd like to see him go down, generally speaking. And Democrats are going to spend a lot of money looking into this. And I pointed this out last week on this. In 2018, you had a midterm election. Donald Trump was president.

[00:59:38] He wasn't very popular. I think he's less popular now than he was then at the midterm. You had Ted Cruz running for re-election. Ted was less liked among people at that time than he is now. I'd argue he's more liked now than he was then. That's true. And so he's running against Beto O'Rourke, who was a popular person, was able to speak, and Democrats really got behind him. Ted won, but by 2.6 percentage points. 2.6 percentage points. And there was concern that Beto could end up beating him.

[01:00:08] So when people say, I think it's unlikely that Tallarico wins, but I don't know that it's impossible. And especially as things move, if we find out more and so forth, it could end up being a real problem for Ken Paxton. Well, and the point you made, Kirby, I think is exactly true. And I agree. I do think more likely than not, Ken Paxton will win. But I do think it's going to cost a lot of money for him to do that.

[01:00:36] And it's going to get bloody and awful. And we're going to know things about Ken Paxton and James Tallarico that we don't want to know. We won't be able to watch, for me, a baseball game without seeing their face. And hopefully the Rangers are playing in October, and I'll be watching baseball and seeing all those ads and seeing all the horrible things they each have done laid out.

[01:01:00] But what I think important, and I do think the Corning campaign was good at pointing this out, and obviously Texas rejected it, as did President Trump. The money spent in Texas is being taken away from other races. Yes, it is. And there's other close races. There are going to be several other close races, which are going to be key to holding the Senate for the Republicans.

[01:01:25] And that is probably – I mean, to me, that's probably the – that's the biggest impact of the Paxton-Talorico race. Now, obviously, like Dr. Matthews says, there could be an upset. Talorico could win. I mean, I think that's on the table. I think if Corning had been the nominee, I don't think we'd be talking about any of this at all.

[01:01:47] But the other thing I think it's got Democrats fired up is – I mean, if you can take out Ken Paxton, you're taking out Donald Trump. Yes. I mean, Donald Trump decided for whatever reason, which I actually don't even think he needed to. I think Ken was winning that race. He didn't need the Trump endorsement. But Trump decided that he was going to put his thumb on it.

[01:02:09] And so now, I mean, Donald Trump owns Ken Paxton and whatever happens – I mean, and so Democrats to take out Ken Paxton is really – I mean, yeah, they don't like Ken Paxton, but they really don't like Donald Trump. And so it's going to be – the next few months are going to be really, really interesting. And like I said, we're going to see a lot of that, a lot of money spent.

[01:02:32] Now, I guess if you're in that world where you get revenue for ads and campaign consultants, this is going to be a great time to be on either side of those races. I'll just mention a couple of things. Number one, we don't register for – as Republican and Democrat in Texas. But there is a group that tries to ascertain based upon votes and so forth.

[01:02:52] And they estimate that you've got about 8.3 or 4 million Democrats in Texas versus about 6.3 or 4 million Republicans. So Democrats outnumber Republicans based upon that and about 2.5 million independents. A lot of independents would typically vote conservative here. So that's one thing that's concerning. The other thing is I've been watching the numbers among Hispanic and black voters.

[01:03:21] And those numbers in terms – Trump got a good bump from both of those voters in the last election. Those numbers are going down in support for Trump. And some of that is here in Texas. And if they're redrawing the lines thinking, well, this Hispanic group voted for Trump, so we're going to redraw these lines as they did the redistricting, thinking this will be a good Republican, they may find out that that's not the case if some of the Hispanics decide not to vote for Republicans.

[01:03:50] And the real concern is if you get Democrats coming out, if they're really excited going out, and Republicans are saying, oh, I just – oh, Ken Pax, I just – I'm just not even going to worry about it. I'm not going to go vote. That's where you get the change. Right. And that's part of it because we are going to be inundated, and not just in the state of Texas, but all over the country for all of our listeners, with negative ads. And the negative ads tend to lower the turnout because eventually people just – it's not like you're trying to convince people to vote for you.

[01:04:20] You're just trying to convince people not to vote for my opponent. And a lot of times they just simply don't vote. And we can have low turnout, couldn't we? Well, we can have low turnout. And then not only does that impact that race, but what about the – I mean, that's the race at the top, right? What about the races down ballot? Karl Rove has pointed that out. This could have a significant down ballot race here in Texas, and you could lose several Republican seats in there. And I'll just mention one thing.

[01:04:46] I saw Mayor Mandani on the Jon Stewart show, and he comes across very positive. I mean, he seems like a very likable guy. And most people don't look into their policies like we do. I had Tallarico testify before one of my panels when I was on the Texas Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. I was the chair of that. We had Tallarico. And he comes across as a very knowledgeable, decent person as he speaks.

[01:05:16] If you're looking at that image, you might think, hey, this is okay. I hear all that stuff. I don't know about that. But, you know, he just looks like he's a nice guy. No, and he'll run a good campaign. I mean, you know, one of the things that you were hearing, that he was a vegan or something. And so what he does, he goes to a Texas barbecue restaurant. There he is. He's got this big plate of barbecue in front of him. He looked like a really good Texan with that picture. I didn't see him put any of the food in his mouth, though.

[01:05:41] One other thing, real quickly, and that is I wanted to come back to you, Jeff, because if the Republicans lose the Senate, that has real implications. And can you speak to that? Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of implications, and foremost being judges. There are still vacancies in judges.

[01:06:00] And obviously, if something surprising happens in the next few weeks, and we hear there are lots of – every time one of our lawyers goes to D.C., they come back with a boatload of rumors. And this is out there, so I'm not sharing anything, and I don't think that people couldn't find online. The latest is the chief, the chief Roberts, is frustrated and that he's considering retiring. Wow.

[01:06:28] Now, I find that – I just – I cannot see that as plausible. I cannot see – I don't see that as plausible. But if you had – if a Supreme Court justice, then it would be imperative that the Republicans have to confirm their replacement before November because if you lose the Senate. But there are still going to be other judicial vacancies.

[01:06:51] And if you don't have 50, 51, 52 votes, then that's going to weaken the type of candidate. You're not going to get a Matthew Kazmarek confirmed, a Jim Ho's not going to get confirmed if the Democrats control the Senate. And then the other thing, and we're seeing more and more of this, and this is probably warrants a further discussion in a future episode of Point of View.

[01:07:22] Court packing is coming back. Yeah. I mean, the Democrats are – I mean, they're talking about it. Oh, my gosh. They're probably talking about it. And obviously, it can't happen with a President Donald Trump, but it can be put into process that – Two and a half years from now. Yeah. That when a president doesn't, you know, isn't there to veto it. But if the Democrats take control of the Senate, they take control of the House, and then they get the presidency, Katie, bar the door. Yeah.

[01:07:48] We have 13 different appeal courts' jurisdictions, so we really need 13 Supreme Court justices. That's the argument. Oh, that seems nice. And so we'll just add four more. It just works out that that would balance seven to six. Anyway, going to take a break. We have a lot more to cover. And again, if you'd like to join us or just sit back and listen, 1-800-351-1212. We'll get into some other topics right after this.

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[01:09:42] 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. Back once again, let's see if we can focus a little bit of time and attention on the 250th anniversary of this country. And I might hold this up. This will be coming to your mailbox if you are a donor to Point of View.

[01:10:10] It is a special edition that we've created of Outlook. I have an article in that as well as Liberty. But we have a number of other guests who are writing. For example, Dr. Jerry Newcomb, the largely forgotten founding father. Timothy Gagline, who was on with us the other day, sustaining the values of faith, freedom, and family. As well as one by Mark David Hall on America's founders and their inalienable rights. And one by Bill Federer on the Hebrew Republic.

[01:10:38] So, six participants in this special edition. One of the many reasons why I would encourage you to support Point of View. Because if you support Point of View on a regular basis, you'll receive the Outlook magazine. As we'll mention, as we get closer to our fiscal year and June 30th. We also, once again, encourage you to maybe give at a larger level. And the dollar a day or more, $30 a month or more, in which you receive the booklets and others.

[01:11:04] But that brings us to a very interesting piece that Dr. Merrill Matthews posted in The Hill. If you're not familiar, there is talk about creating not only a $100 bill, but a $250 bill. And that is to, again, commemorate the 250th anniversary of this country. And the one that I have Scott Bessett holding shows a picture of Donald Trump on the front.

[01:11:29] Now, let me just point out, you're suggesting that maybe we could actually have a revolutionary era woman on that. And if you read the piece by Liberty McCarter, it's celebrating America's founding mothers. And it gives us some examples of some of those. And, interestingly enough, you picked some of the same. So, let's talk about this. Will we actually have a $250 bill? I'm not sure that we will. But, more importantly, why would we want the president on it?

[01:11:59] And rather not, if we could, have somebody from maybe the American Revolution? I almost certainly will not have a $250 bill because it has to be under federal law. It has to be a dead person. So, unless Donald Trump wants to meet that qualification, he probably would have to pass it through Congress. To pass it through Congress, it would have to be the House and the Senate. And Democrats are not going to let that get by with filibuster. So, even if every Republican wanted to do it, I don't think you could get it done.

[01:12:29] And have you noticed the picture of Donald Trump's hair in there? It looks really kind of like it's messed up on the top. It's his normal scowl picture that he really likes. But his hair looks funny in there. But, anyway, Scott Besson is promoting it. There is legislation in Congress to do it. But I don't think it's going to happen. And just for the background, if your listeners want to go and look at this, you can see some of the coins that we've done in the past. So, it's done in two things.

[01:12:59] The U.S. Mint does coins. Yes. And they're responsible for coins. Then the Bureau of Engraving and Printing does currency. So, there are actually two different divisions there. And there are lots of commemorative coins. We've done a lot of those. We did one in 1926. So, on the 150th anniversary. And that was a coin with George Washington and Calvin Coolidge and the profile there. And you see George Washington primarily and a little bit of Calvin Coolidge on there.

[01:13:28] So, we've done that in the past. That's not unusual for us to do that. We've almost never done anything on the currency except one time they put Martha Washington on there. Oh, I did not know that. Yeah. So, she is the only woman to ever appear on the currency. And that was in the 1890s under what we called the silver certificates then. You could take the bill in and you'd be given silver. But we have had other larger denominations than the 100. We've had a $500 bill. We've had a $1,000 bill. We've had a $10,000 bill.

[01:13:58] And we've had a $100,000 bill. I'll take one. With different presidents. And Salmon Chase, I think, was on the $10,000 bill, if I remember right. Who was Secretary of the Treasury during Lincoln's time. So, we have had larger bills, but we don't use them much anymore. At any rate, so you would have to have that vote. And I suggest that instead of putting President Trump on there, let's look at perhaps a revolutionary heroine. And that could be, I mentioned Abigail Adams.

[01:14:28] Molly Pitcher, who was actually involved in the war. Betsy Ross. Betsy Ross. There's debate as to whether or not she actually created the first flag. Her grandson said some years later that she did. But she went on to make a number of other flags. So, I mentioned some women. There's others that could be mentioned in there. But I would suggest if we go forward with the $250 bill, we put a woman on there. You know, like Sally Hemings or something. Well. No. That doesn't work. That came out of nowhere.

[01:14:58] That doesn't work. Well, it would. For some reason, I'm actually reading a biography of Thomas Jefferson. So, it was top of mind. That's a great line. I know my wife would very much appreciate Abigail Adams. I think that was my choice, yeah. If we did that, being the wife of the first vice president, second president, mother of the six. I mean, that makes sense. And so much involved. If we're going to do that. But I agree. I don't. I think this is going.

[01:15:26] And plus, I mean, we're sitting here in June. I don't see it happening. Yeah. You got to get it done by sometime this year. I don't see it happening. Yeah. Having said that, though, one thing Congress sometimes needs is not just the ability to say no. They need to be able to say, instead of doing that, let's do this. Yes. And so, this is meant to give the members of Congress, if they want to do something, an alternative to come up with a bill that might – that would be a commemorative bill.

[01:15:55] It would only last, I suspect, for a year. But currency, when it comes out, is usually going to be available. You can still use it forever. If you had a $10,000 bill, you'd still be able to use that. That's just amazing. I do remember. I remember in 17 – in 17. I didn't know you were going to remember that. I remember in 1976. Yes. The bicentennial coins. When I was in elementary school. I remember – well, I remember getting the $2 bill. Yeah. And the $2 bill. I remember because they reissued – the $2 bill was still made. Yeah.

[01:16:24] They reissued – and it was Jefferson and then a picture of the signing of the declaration on the back. And they did John F. Kennedy in 1976 as a remembrance of that. And I still got some Kennedy half dollars. Yep. I do remember that, too. The mint has produced a lot of commemorative coins. Yes. It's the currency that isn't done that way. Well, just before we take a break, I thought we'd talk about one other thing because in the next break, we're going to get into some of the cultural issues.

[01:16:51] And one of the cultural issues is you're wearing your baseball outfit here. And there is something that every year is forced upon the various sports teams to have a Pride Month. And this is Pride Month, although some are starting to talk about it in other ways. And there is at least one baseball team that has resisted that continuously.

[01:17:13] And I just can't imagine the kind of pressure that the Texas Rangers are under because they don't have a Pride Day during Pride Month. It must be incredible. And so the ownership willing, one, not to have a Pride Day, but also in response, also to have a Faith and Family Day. Yes. And so at the same time, rejecting the left-wing agenda of the LGBTQ community and most woke corporations.

[01:17:43] But then to we're not doing that, but this is what we're going to do. And, of course, that honors its fan base. And so I think it's truly incredible, especially, I mean, in light of today. And it's not that long ago that they took the All-Star game from Atlanta because Georgia had passed a law.

[01:18:05] And so, I mean, I think it really speaks well of the Texas Rangers' ownership that they want to be family friendly. Yeah, and you guessed exactly where I wanted to take that next because we have a lot of listeners in Georgia. And they remember how the plan was to have the All-Star game in Atlanta.

[01:18:25] And then because the Georgia legislature actually implemented what I think were just good common sense areas for voter integrity, which actually increased voter participation and did not do anything that all the people were complaining about and moved it to Colorado. Eventually, they tried to make it up by bringing it back to Atlanta.

[01:18:47] So let's just recognize that not so long ago these woke ideas just sort of dominated every area, including sports. No, absolutely. And you think, I mean, NBA, NFL, we're about to see the World Cup firsthand, right? I'm actually going to get to go to a game, so I'm excited about that. Very good. Yeah. But all those, all the other leagues, I mean, in the Major League of Baseball, with the exception of one team.

[01:19:16] Isn't that something? And so it's incredible. So it's, you know, I'm proud to be a Texas Ranger fan regardless. But at the same time, and, you know, the fact that they're willing to stand up for faith and family. It wasn't that long ago that football teams, professional football teams, were pressured to take a kneel, to take a knee at the anthem. Well, again, I just wanted to remind people not so long ago some of the things that were happening.

[01:19:42] And if nothing else, we don't have this as an action item, although it's crossed my mind. Just if you want to maybe post something about that or send a note or an email or something about at least one team said, you know, enough is enough, and we're not going to go down that route. I bet the Rangers would appreciate that. I think so, because can you imagine the amount of pressure right now in Major League Baseball on the Texas Rangers

[01:20:09] because they would not, again, take a knee to the LGBTQ issue. So I thought I would mention that real quickly. We come back. We're going to talk about the work ethic. It's gone out of style. Jason Reilly talks about that. And it kind of gets back to our issue of fraud. We'll talk about that right after this.

[01:20:42] There's one person who could have spared the country the disaster. That was the Biden administration, Jill Biden. If only she had told the Democrats in 2016, no, I'm sorry. I can't put my husband through it. He's not mentally capable of undertaking a run for the White House and certainly not of being president. Or, at least in 2020, knowing of his decline, she should have protected him from the ridicule and ignominy she had to have known a real campaign would bring.

[01:21:10] Instead, she betrayed her wedding vows, the Democrats and the country. A March opinion piece in The Capitalist bears the title, Jill Biden is the most evil woman of the 21st century. Writer Daniel Turner explained that marriage vows promise that no one, not even the children, no one will look out for you, my spouse, as much as I will. And if you are too incapacitated to make a decision like, how do I walk off the stage? Then I will try to take those decisions away from you.

[01:21:38] I will not give you more, larger, graver decisions because I cherish you. Jill Biden instead capitalized on her husband's incapacity. Her gain was the country's loss. Daniel Turner wrote, It hurts to revisit what President Biden left, the filth, the weakness, the wokeness, the depravity. What Jill allowed made us all weaker, poorer and worse off as a nation.

[01:22:02] When asked in a recent CBS interview what she was thinking during the humiliating debate performance that sealed the end of her husband's campaign, Jill Biden lied yet again, claiming she had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since. She had. We all did. Jill Biden told her interviewer she thought her husband was having a stroke during the debate. Instead of getting to a doctor, she took him to a rally. She addressed the crowd. They went to Waffle House.

[01:22:32] For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Let me just mention real quickly that if you are listening online, you might have heard Penna Dexter's commentary. My commentary is entitled Historical Ignorance.

[01:22:57] It's based upon a piece that was written a number of years ago in which a doctor said to David McCullough, who of course is well known for some really great books on the subject of American history, what keeps you up at night. And part of it was the fact that he says, I'm worrying about what's happening in the country because most young people don't know anything about what is going on. So I quote from Tim Gageline, who we just mentioned a minute ago, a quote from a study by the Collegiate Studies and on and on.

[01:23:25] But whether you go back to Jay Leno days and jaywalking or you go to Waters World with, of course, Johnny going out there and asking questions, Dr. Merrill Matthews, it is embarrassing how little some graduates from high school, even graduates from college know about our history or about our structure of government. And if they've learned anything, they've probably learned the wrong things. And so, yes, and I've seen some of these.

[01:23:54] They do this on Twitter every now and then. You see a person who goes out of conservative, and I saw one who was asking a person who was a teacher, public education teacher in government, asking about the Constitution, and she knew nothing about it. I mean, it's just it is amazing how little some people know. And then here just recently we've had professors from UCLA, I think, is we need to bring back the SAT because we decided we didn't want to discriminate against anybody.

[01:24:23] So we got rid of the SAT and the ACT, and we've got people coming in who can't do remedial math, and we have to spend a whole lot of time and money just teaching people basic math that are going into a major university. We're not going to give them grades when they're in universities, so it doesn't matter. And then they just come out, and then the employers suck with them. Harvard has decided it's going to limit the number of A's it gets because of grade inflation at Harvard. Not everyone gets an A.

[01:24:52] Yeah, and Penta wrote about that a couple weeks ago. Are they going to take away trophies too? Yeah, yeah. But again, back to the fact that we're in the midst of the midterms, these people can't tell us what you call the first ten amendments to the Constitution. They can't even tell you what branches of government exist. They don't even know who won World War II, but then these people do get to vote, and that is not very encouraging as well. Anyway, I just wanted to end off on this one here. Jason Riley is quoting something we've talked about before,

[01:25:19] and that is he uses Chris Rock as an illustration. This may be the first time I ever mention Chris Rock's name on Point of View, but Chris Rock has a piece about how you can tell the difference between good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods. If you're in a neighborhood in America at 12, 15 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, and you see women in sweatpants coming out of the gym, pushing babies, riding bikes, chances are you're in a nice neighborhood. Probably even a Whole Foods nearby. But if you see men in sweatpants, smoking cigarettes, hanging out with the boys, lifting weights in the yard,

[01:25:48] riding children's bicycles as their actual transportation, you're in danger. And the sad reality is that if you take the Department of Labor statistics for certain, and I think they're pretty accurate, we find that one in three men are not only working, they're not looking for a job. And this is something we've talked about before with a book by Nicholas Eberset.

[01:26:13] And back to this issue of fraud and maybe the way in which you are finding more and more people that have figured out, Dr. Merrill Matthews, how to live off the largest of the federal government and the state governments. We hear it from friends frequently that some of their boys, teenage boys, grow up playing video games, and then they don't really want to go to school, they don't want to spend the time working, and they want to basically stay home and play video games.

[01:26:39] And that is a bad sign for a country. Yeah, I really don't understand it. I just don't. And I guess at some failure level, obviously it's a failure of parents, it's a failure of churches. I mean, one in three. One in three males are not working and not looking for work. I mean, and think about the drag on the economy. If those people were out in the workforce and they were producing,

[01:27:09] how much more and how much better things are? I mean, this is, I will say, rarely am I, shock's probably not the right word. I'm just completely surprised. I mean, I really, I did a double take because I thought that can't be true. But then, obviously this is a very, it's the Wall Street Journal. Yeah. And Nicholas Eberstadt, who is that. It's very solid. No, I just, again, I just, one in three.

[01:27:37] Mike Rowe used to quote him all the time, so I have lots of times which I'm quoting that book by Nicholas Eberstadt. And it just seems to me that that has been the case. And, of course, there's some other things. Family formation. Let's talk culture for just a minute. We all know around the table really outstanding young women who say, I can't find an outstanding young man because they can't support themselves, much less they couldn't support a family. And we recognize the fertility rate dropping and all the other things that are associated with this.

[01:28:07] And then when you start having individuals who maybe do step out beyond their comfort zone to get a job, and then they get laid off because of AI, you can begin to see that this is a real issue. And I've done multiple commentaries on it. I'm going to turn this one into another one because it's just something that we need to pay attention to. Government can't solve this problem, really.

[01:28:30] If anything, government is encouraging some of this with various kinds of largesse and benefits and things that are provided. But it seems to me that's the kind of thing that pastors and Christian leaders and others should speak to. And, of nothing else, as I've said before, if you can just teach your children and grandchildren how to work hard and show up at a job, they're always going to have a job because they are going to be competing against a lot of people that are going to be lazy

[01:28:57] and are actually practicing the worst kind of things in their lives. And one of the ironies here is that more women are going to college. They're going into STEM, health care, engineering, and other things. And I think there are more women in medical school now than there are men. So even as men are dropping out and playing video games, the women are stepping up and going into major jobs that pay very well. Again, just some great opportunities for us to, as a church, speak to those issues.

[01:29:25] Yeah, and I think the concluding, if we think we're proud that it's one in three Americans, well, guess what? It's worse than Europe. Europe. It's worse than Europe. They're even lazier in Europe. And I saw that, just having been in France. I was shocked. Middle of the day, work day, and be walking through an area, and there were all these men sitting. Just sitting around, drinking coffee or whatever. Drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. That's right. Hoping to find a good, ambitious wife.

[01:29:55] Wife is up there working. We'll provide for you. Let's think about next week. First of all, you're going to come back on Fridays. I mean, give us an update on what's happening up there in Michigan. Yes. And all sorts of other cases. Because you have another case where you're trying to get the Supreme Court to deal with the firefighters in Washington. We do. Yeah. Actually, we're going to have five requests before the Supreme Court asking to take cases. But, yeah, lots of, as usual, lots of stuff going on at First Liberty.

[01:30:22] Might just mention, too, that next week I'll be talking with an individual involved with this new film, The Young George Washington. And so we always like to point you to a film that will certainly be of help. And, of course, we've been dealing with the Middle East issues. So Gary Frazier will be on talking about various kinds of issues related to prophecy. Bunny Pounds has a new book out. So we'll be talking to her as well. And just it's going to be a good week. So we look forward to that opportunity.

[01:30:46] But let me just mention before we wind down here that many of these articles we've posted are things that you might want to read as we go there. Let me also mention one last time, even though when you go out there and ask people what's in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, they can't tell you. That's what we're making available. I'll hold it up right now. A copy of the Declaration of Constitution. It is published by Point of View. And it's something we've been making available free of charge. You can find some of the various articles we've posted.

[01:31:15] And I would encourage you to take the time to go there. And if people find themselves as we're winding down schools and beginning to think about what's happening in churches, if there's a legal question that especially threatens your religious liberty, then go to firstliberty.org, can't they? Absolutely. Best place. And don't forget, I also talked about restoring faith in America. Let's put up a few more of those Ten Commandment monuments. And that will be a great opportunity as well.

[01:31:41] So, as always, I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program behind the scenes. Steve, thank you for producing the program. Enjoy the weekend. And we look forward to seeing you right back here on Monday, right here on Point of View. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority. They say men can be women and women men.

[01:32:07] People are prosecuted differently or not at all, depending on their politics. Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel like giving up. But we can't. We shouldn't. We must not. As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II, never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never. Never yield to force.

[01:32:36] Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. And that's what we say to you today. This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos. We can't do it alone, but together, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness. Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151.

[01:33:06] Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.