Point of View October 14, 2024 – Hour 2 : For Such a Time as This

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Across America, Live, This is Point of View, Kirby Anderson.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I have a question for you. Where were you October 7th last year? I know where we were. We had just returned from our trip to Israel where we brought a number of the listeners to Point of View and in horror hearing about what unfolded.

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And in just a minute, we're going to be talking with Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, where he and his wife were at that time, because it begins his book for such a time as this on being Jewish today.

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Fifteen chapters broken into three sections. What was, what is and what might be.

[00:00:53] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll focus on a few issues, obviously looking at October 7th.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Anti-Semitism. As you well know, we've published two booklets on that one years ago on anti-Semitism.

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_02]: But after October 7th, it began to be obvious that there were sort of different arguments being used to justify that in terms of critical theory.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, we point to books like a Barry Weiss's book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism, Dennis Prager's book, The Reason for Anti-Semitism.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll certainly get into that.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But then also the whole question of, as he talks about a little bit later, what might be the day after a generational divide.

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_02]: So we will certainly get to that.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Dr. Elliot Cosgrove is a senior rabbi and the senior rabbi of the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Ordained in 1999.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Might just mention he earned his doctorate from the University of Chicago Divinity School.

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Is also a senior Hartman Rabbinic Fellow.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Also sits on the Chandler's Cabinet of the Jewish Theological Seminary on the editorial board of various organizations.

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Might also point out, if you'd like to hear more from him, he's the host of Conversations with Cosgrove,

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_02]: a podcast featuring sermons, conversations, and selected programs.

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_02]: This book's been out about a month, but if you can't find it in your local bookstore,

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_02]: we have a link so that you can get a copy of it as well.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Dr. Cosgrove, welcome to Point of View.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Kirby, it's such an honor to be with you.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for welcoming me.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you get the conversation going, because as I opened up the book the other day, it goes,

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_02]: are you going to get that?

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And you're talking to your wife Debbie's phone.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, when you honor Shabbat, you oftentimes will not take phone calls,

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_02]: but sometimes it's an emergency.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But it was a real emergency in this case, because it was her sister Nancy calling from Israel about the attack.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Can you kind of walk us through some of the experiences of that day?

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Look, that was a wake-up call in so many ways, both literal and figurative.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_00]: So as a congregational rabbi, as an observant Jew, I do not, generally speaking,

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_00]: except for a pastoral emergency, use the phone, email, et cetera, on the Sabbath.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And on that morning, the phone kept ringing by my wife's side of the bed,

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_00]: and I finally said, are you going to get that?

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's actually the story that I begin for such a time as this talking about.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And it was that this was not just a red alert, you know, these things happen in Israel.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: There's some sort of moment in time.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_00]: But this was clearly some form of an assault by air, by land,

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_00]: that we had not seen before coming out of Gaza.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And my nephew was home with his family, and what he was called immediately to duty,

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_00]: the entire country was thrown onto its heels.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't even know at that moment of time the extent of the atrocities that were being, you know,

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_00]: perpetrated against the Jewish state.

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_00]: All we knew that this was horrible.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And we talked oftentimes about the notion of a global Jewish family.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_00]: But in this case, it was literally family.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Aunts, uncles I have serving in the military, called up to military service in the line of fire,

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_00]: a truly traumatic day, which, as we'll get into this, because this is really what the book is about,

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_00]: not just taking place in Israel, but also its effects on the American Jewish community,

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_00]: that we were thrown into this moment of trauma as our brothers and sisters were assaulted in the most horrific way on October 7th.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, a dark hour, a dark day.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I could have been there, it turns out, because I had a speaking engagement in October.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_02]: We scheduled that for just two weeks before.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, we would have been one of those groups trying to get out.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_02]: The individual, the guide we used, his son was called up and is in the tank command and heads to Hamas,

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_02]: and you know all the rest of that story.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_02]: But some of the book here is really an attempt to talk about how this maybe has kind of rekindled

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_02]: a deep connection with the community, the culture of Jewish people.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And your first chapter really talks about this idea.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_02]: First of all, let me just make the obvious statement.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Queen Esther, for such a time as this, is, of course, the title of the book.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_02]: But you talk about being kind of living the hyphen.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Can you explain that to us?

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And let me tie that into the title, because that's actually one and the same conversation.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_00]: That the biblical book of Esther, towards the end of the Hebrew Bible, describes a moment of time where Queen Esther thought that she was going to be able to hide her identity as a Persian woman in the house of King Ahasuerus.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And she conceals her identity, and she rises to the very highest ranks of power.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And it is the moment when Haman's decree comes down on the Jewish people of Shushan in ancient Persia,

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_00]: that Esther's uncle, Mordechai, by way of an emissary, reaches out to her and says,

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Esther, who knows?

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was for such a time as this that you arrived at your position of authority.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And we know how the story ends, that Esther stands up as a woman, as a queen, as a proud Jew,

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and the Jewish people are saved and Haman's dastardly plans dashed.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So I use this as the sort of literary spine of the book because I say it's akin to the hyphenated identities of American Jews.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_00]: There's been a process, to the great credit of America, that we are a nation of hyphenated identities.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_00]: There's Christian evangelicals.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_00]: There's Asian Americans.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_00]: There's African Americans.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: There's Jewish Americans.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's that sort of valid symphony of American life that makes us a great nation that we are.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Having said that, we thought that it was a little more comfortable than it actually turned out to be.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And on October 7th, we woke up to a world, and I imagine we might get into this, Kirby,

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: that turned out to be not as hospitable to this hyphenated American Jewish dream that we thought was ours.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And this idea that we could be proud Jews, proud Americans, Zionists, all the things that we took for granted, like Queen Esther, maybe it ain't so.

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And then this resurgence.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_00]: So on the one hand, a terrifying moment, right?

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of our truths shattered on October 7th.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00]: On the other hand, there's been a resurgence of identity that Jews have been prompted by way of the hatred of others to ask what their Jewish identity means on their own terms.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Not by way of the hatred of others, but as a positive point of Jewish identity.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And I see this in the pews, in activism, in philanthropy, people getting engaged.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's take a break.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll continue our conversation about this new book for such a time as this on Being Jewish Today.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll talk about that right after this.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_01]: This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_02]: The authors of their book, The Sovereign Individual, explain that we are entering into the fourth stage of human society.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_02]: First, there was the hunting and gathering societies.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Then came the agricultural societies.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_02]: More recently, we've had the industrial societies, and now we live within informational societies.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Although the book was written in the 1990s, there are sections of the book that are quoted even now in the second decade of the 21st century.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_02]: The authors predicted we would use our phones for news, information, and financial transactions.

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_02]: They predicted more people would be learning online.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_02]: More and more people would be working remotely.

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And they predicted the rise of cyber cash and privatized money.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But let me also add that they were also like a typical baseball player and had both hits and misses.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_02]: But we should appreciate the predictions that were on target.

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_02]: The accuracy of these predictions resulted in part because of the pandemic and lockdowns.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_02]: The last two years accelerated the trends of remote working and online education.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_02]: A federal government that printed so much money increased consumer interest in cryptocurrencies and digital cash.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_02]: The authors say we can learn lessons from the past as we see what happened when the agricultural revolution changed society.

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_02]: We can see parallels between the decline of the church and what they predict will be the decline of the nation state.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Mass production of books ended the church monopoly on scripture and information.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_02]: They predict that the information revolution will destroy the power of the nation state and allow people to change locations if laws, taxes, or regulations are unfavorable.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Although the book was written two decades ago, it predicted many of the changes we're seeing in our world today during the fourth stage of society.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Kirby Anderson and that's my point of view.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_01]: For a free booklet on biblical reliability, go to viewpoints.info slash biblical reliability.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Viewpoints.info slash biblical reliability.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_01]: You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to be in our conversation today with Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: The book is entitled, For Such a Time as This, I'm Being Jewish Today.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you'd like to read it, learn more about that, we have a link to it on our website.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Also a link to his work there at the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned, of course, some of the challenges.

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And, of course, that gets us into the Chapter 5 on anti-Semitism, which I love you call it a modern look at the world's oldest hate.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Because you tell some of your own family stories.

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And, of course, when I first published a booklet years ago on anti-Semitism, we talked about some of the things you talk about in the chapter.

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Everything from the Pittsburgh Tree of Life to the Charlottesville chant.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Going all the way back to ancient times to the blood libel and the rest.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_02]: But what I've noticed is really since October 7th, this is why we produced a new booklet.

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Because now there's kind of this idea that, well, Israel is strong and the Palestinians or Hamas or Hezbollah, the Palestinian Authority, are weak.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we have to support the weak over the strong.

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it has sort of been an additional argument for anti-Semitism.

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And you, of course, address that in the chapter, don't you?

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I do. I do.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that was one of the most disorienting parts and alarming parts about October 7th, Kirby,

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_00]: which was when Israel was still literally counting their dead.

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_00]: We were still making sense of what took place on October 7th in the United States and around the globe.

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_00]: A victimized nation was being portrayed as the aggressor.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And American Jewry felt a sense of whiplash.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_00]: How did this happen?

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_00]: How is it possible that this wasn't just a crime against Israel or a crime against the Jewish people?

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_00]: This was a crime against humanity, the atrocities that were perpetrated that day.

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And that really made clear that this wasn't about a policy difference, about this or that Israeli government,

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_00]: or where this border should or shouldn't be.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_00]: This was a fight between those who believed in Israel's right to exist and self-determination

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and those who sought out the existential destruction of the Jewish state.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_00]: To be a Jew is to be connected to the land ever since Abraham's promise in Genesis chapter 12.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's not just a faith.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just a peoplehood.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a connection to a land.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And what I do in that chapter in my book is I talk about how, of course, there's a vulgar,

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, whether it's online hate or, God forbid, someone getting physically assaulted.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, those are the anti-Semitic acts that just stand open.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_00]: But there's also what I call the higher anti-Semitism, which is the marginalization of Jewish voices,

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Jewish kids on campus who are told that they can't express their Jewish identity because their Jewish identity is tied in to engagement with the land

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and the people of Israel, people who are sidelined from cultural festivals, from film festivals, academic conferences,

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_00]: that Jews, because they're Jews, are disinvited, disallowed, and alienated.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_00]: There's an incredible sense of loneliness right now.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's a different anti-Semitism than, you know, the ancient varieties or certainly the Nazi varieties.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_00]: This is an anti-Semitism that would seek to – that places a hatred of the Jewish people by way of the state of Israel.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, and I hate to jump over a very, very insightful section on what is,

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_02]: but again, I mentioned that there is a chapter on the generational divide.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And I like that because you talk about an individual, call her Maya, asking some questions.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And, as a matter of fact, even have, I think, scheduled somebody who wants to talk about this idea of supporting Israel,

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_02]: even if I don't necessarily support every action of the IDF, supporting Jewish people,

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_02]: even if I might recognize there might be some concerns about Zionism.

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_02]: But there is very much a generational divide, and it almost seems like the younger you are,

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_02]: the less likely you are to support Jewish people and the nation of Israel.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_02]: What do you find?

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a complicated question, but the gist of what you're saying is spot on, Kirby.

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_00]: A young person was alienated twice over.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Not all young people, but the chapter in my book, For Such a Time As This,

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_00]: talks about an actual conversation I had with such a young person, let's call it a Gen Z-er.

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And I make the point that, on the one hand, they saw their own brothers and sisters being assaulted on October 7th,

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_00]: but they were further marginalized because the policies of the present Israeli government don't represent their views.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_00]: The present Israeli government is not forwarding a day-after plan, a plan for Palestinian self-determination.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Proud as I am to be a Zionist, I also believe that everyone deserves a place to call home,

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and no one knows that better than the Jewish people.

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that for young people who grew up seeing a policy of settlement in the West Bank,

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_00]: who grew up with only one prime minister, Netanyahu, who grew up seeing Israel as a Goliath to the David of the Palestinians,

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_00]: whether that's right or wrong, that's their reality, and people's perception is their reality.

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And so that generational divide is very real.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And what I say in the chapter is that we have to find a way that we can have dialogue, disagree without being disagreeable.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_00]: That we all are born into the time in which we live, which is to say that their points of reference are different than my points of reference,

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_00]: but we all are part of the Jewish conversation.

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I might just say that, of course, you have a whole chapter on the day after towards a dialogue of peace,

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_02]: and you really give us some of the historical understanding of how we ended up to where we are,

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_02]: and everything going back to the U.N. partition plan, and, of course, the various wars,

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_02]: whether it's Yom Kippur and some of the others that took place,

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_02]: and, of course, bringing us all up to date to October 7th.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But in some respects, I want to, just before we run out of time in this discussion,

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_02]: to maybe talk about how people can benefit from this book.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Because, first of all, for our Jewish listeners out here,

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it would be one that has been very well received,

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_02]: and the number of accolades on the first couple of pages illustrate that many people have appreciated the time and energy,

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Elliot, that you've put into this book.

[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think for our Christian audience, and so many of the listeners probably are Christian,

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_02]: to really understand what it is like right now to live as a Jewish person,

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_02]: wondering where am I safe?

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_02]: What can I do?

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_02]: What can I say?

[00:18:59] [SPEAKER_02]: How can I support the Jewish people?

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_02]: What can I do to end anti-Semitism?

[00:19:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I think you've given us some very practical suggestions,

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_02]: and at the same time some emotional reasons to stand with people that are Jewish people in this country

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_02]: and certainly around the world.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Kirby.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And let me just say, if I haven't said it, how deeply honored and excited I am to be a guest on your radio talk show,

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_00]: because important is this message is to the Jewish people.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's for those who are curious and concerned about what is taking place in the Jewish community vis-a-vis Israel,

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_00]: but also general, how we got here, where we are, and some of the possibilities where we're going.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a conversation that people of faith across the spectrum should be stakeholders in.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_00]: We're all created equally in the image of God, and we all share our common concern for our human condition.

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think right now is the time to ask those questions of concern of your Jewish neighbor.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I believe right now is a time that we have to have hope.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I think right now is a time that we have to encourage dialogue.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I think now is the time that we have to reject the false binaries of the hour.

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I think we have to find a way that we can affirm and assert Israel's right to self-defense and self-determination.

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I think Israel is fighting an existential war of existence on multiple fronts right now.

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And I also think that we have to think about the day after, and we have to plant seeds for that day after because we are fighting for peace.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_00]: We want peace.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_00]: We want brothers and sisters to find a way to have shared society coexist.

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's one of my criticisms of the moment, that I think Israel needs to prosecute this war as if there's no day after, and they need to prosecute this war in order to arrive at a day after.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_00]: That's right.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And we have to pray for, you know, no different than the end of World War II gave rise to the greatest generation.

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_00]: We need a greatest generation to arise from this moment of conflict.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, thank you for being with us.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, the book is entitled For Such a Time As This.

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll take a break.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Come back with more right after this.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_01]: In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas.

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_01]: London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_01]: London was in many ways the center of the world, economically, militarily, and intellectually.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers.

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It is truth for all of life.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today?

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_01]: 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.

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Every weekday in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_01]: It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash signup right now.

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[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Point of View will continue after this.

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[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_01]: The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_02]: 10 and a half hour today.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's see if we can cover some of the issues in the news.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_02]: We are in the midst of a presidential campaign, so I might point that out.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Let me just mention, too, there's a piece that maybe I'll post tomorrow.

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_02]: In some respects, in hindsight, I probably should have posted it right now.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Very good piece.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_02]: One year after October 7th, American voters face stark foreign policy choices.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_02]: We were just, of course, talking about that just a minute ago with Elliot Cosgrove, Rabbi Cosgrove.

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And in some respects, the more we know about how dangerous the world is, the more we might want to think about who is your commander-in-chief

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_02]: and what can or cannot be done in terms of bringing about some level of resolution and making the world a safer place.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_02]: But let's, if we can, maybe talk about a couple of issues.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the articles I've posted here is entitled,

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Trump Sees Harris and Raises with More Tax Giveaways.

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Right now, you have Donald Trump and Kamala Harris almost in a bidding war for votes.

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's, let's just be very honest, it's time to have some skepticism, a little bit discernment.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Some of the promises they're making right now will not be fulfilled.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_02]: So don't go voting on the assumption that all of a sudden I'm not going to have to pay taxes on fill in the blank.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_02]: The list is getting quite large, I might mention.

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_02]: But before I get to that, and then I also have another article on the budget blowout,

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_02]: reminding us that no matter who the president is next year, there are going to be some real budget issues.

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_02]: There is a very significant story making the rounds, which looks relatively well documented,

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_02]: entitled Kamala Harris's Plagiarism Problem.

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, again, all of a sudden when people find something during October,

[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I tend to be a little bit skeptical because here she has been a senator for a number of years.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_02]: She's been the vice president for almost four years.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And now we find plagiarism, okay.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_02]: But the fact that this comes from Christopher Ruffo, who is an individual that I do respect,

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_02]: and an individual that actually has come upon this through some other research that people were doing,

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_02]: means that this is probably going to be a story that has some legs to it.

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Recognize that we've had a very prominent professor at Harvard stepping down because of plagiarism.

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_02]: This was something that derailed Joe Biden's campaign in the 1980s because of his plagiarism problem.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Will some of the people who were thinking of voting for Kamala Harris not vote for her because of this?

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: But nevertheless, it's just one of those stories you're going to have to swat down while all sorts of other things tend to be swirling around in a campaign

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_02]: that at the moment, at least for the Harris-Waltz campaign, seems to be in a bit of a decline.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But we will see how this plays out over the next couple of weeks.

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But just real quickly, I'll mention it.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we'll have some time tomorrow to go into more detail because I don't necessarily want to be always the first one out.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes we learn some things and say, okay, that wasn't as good as we think it was.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_02]: But this one looks pretty well researched.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I've got the piece here.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll post it, and you can read it in its entirety.

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_02]: But, again, she's become, that is, the vice president, become famous for kind of a unique rhetorical style,

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, talking about falling out of a coconut tree and the significance of the passage of time and unburdening what might be.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And so when you read her book, Smart on Crime, a career prosecutor's plan to make us safer,

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_02]: she and the co-author Joan O'Hamilton, I guess is how that's pronounced.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Isn't that interesting?

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But, again, individuals that are good at sniffing out plagiarism,

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_02]: one of those is a man by the name of Stefan Weber, who is an Austrian plagiarism hunter.

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_02]: He's actually been able to take down quite a number of people, for example, in the German-speaking world

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_02]: and also a couple of others in the English-speaking world,

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_02]: saying his book contains more than a dozen what he calls vicious plagiarism fragments.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Some of the passages he highlights appear to care, minor transgressions, reproducing small sections,

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_02]: insufficient paraphrasing, or in many cases just no footnoting at all.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_02]: But some of them are as bad as what you saw in the doctoral thesis of the Harvard president, Claudine Gay.

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And now there's been a very prominent professor at Harvard that has been taken down in the same way.

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So I will just mention that and move on, because there are probably other stories that will come out in the next few days.

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But sometimes when I travel, as I did last week, people say, well, have you seen this story?

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And I wanted somebody to know that, yes, I've seen that story.

[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_02]: You can read it for yourself.

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll try to post it if it hasn't already been posted.

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_02]: It's quite possible Karen already has posted it up there.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_02]: If not, we'll post it later.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's already posted at the bottom of the list there, so you can read it now.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And we'll probably talk about it some more tomorrow.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But I want to come back to this issue, because right now, as we are seeing,

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, which again illustrates, first of all, how tight the race could be

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_02]: and how panicked maybe both sides are because you had Vice President Kamala Harris pitched a Medicare home health care entitlement.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, boy, that would be expensive.

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And Donald Trump then countered by pitching tax breaks for auto loans and for U.S. citizens living overseas.

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_02]: The other day at a rally in Detroit, he said,

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_02]: We will make interest on car loans fully deductible.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So he's obviously trying to woo auto workers harmed by inflation and by the Biden administration's electric vehicle mandate.

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_02]: But you also see that higher car prices and interest rates are hurting car sales.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_02]: No surprise there.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Car makers are laying off workers, cutting shifts and the rest.

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But, of course, there would be all sorts of issues related to that.

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_02]: It could actually increase the number of people buying a car, which would increase the number of people buying fuel and all the rest.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_02]: It also could increase car defaults.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Right now we have some of the highest in history.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And, of course, the larger problem is that Donald Trump's proposals could make a mess out of his tax code

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_02]: and couldn't possibly be paid for if he wants to extend the 2017 provisions,

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_02]: which he actually was able to implement when he was president but will expire next year.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_02]: So, again, some concerns.

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And the piece that I've written here comes from the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_02]: It could be setting voters up for broken promises, maybe even higher tax rates.

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's of concern.

[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I have a commentary coming out just pointing out what this might mean.

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Because right now the Congressional Budget Office says,

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Look, we aren't going to continue to fund Social Security unless we can raise the payroll tax rate by about 35 percent,

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_02]: from the current about 12.4 percent to 16.7 percent.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And that would only take place if you could elect members to Congress that would be willing to do that.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, you also recognize that members of Congress might not want to do that because the next time they have to run for the election,

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_02]: they would be accused of raising taxes.

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And it gets worse because you have, on the one hand,

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Kamala Harris would like to increase Social Security benefits,

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_02]: which would mean that then to even come close to paying for Social Security,

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_02]: we'd have to raise it more than 35 percent.

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And on the other hand, you have Donald Trump actually saying that he would like to eliminate the income tax on Social Security benefits.

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_02]: As appealing as it might be to people receiving benefits,

[00:31:40] [SPEAKER_02]: the CBO estimate from the Congressional Budget Office is based on the fact that there would probably be a decline in payroll tax revenue,

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_02]: but it might hopefully be offset by an increase in income tax revenues from beneficiaries,

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_02]: which Donald Trump would like to eliminate.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So the point I'm making is who you elect for president and what he or she does as president.

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Also, who you elect to Congress, both in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_02]: We have 435 races for the House of Representatives, 34 races for the U.S. Senate.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_02]: will determine whether or not anything will be done about Social Security,

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_02]: or whether both the president, newly elected president, and the newly elected Congress decides to do nothing

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_02]: and then kick the can down the road.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So the point that I'm making is pay attention to some of this.

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Also be ready to be disappointed because this bidding war that has sort of broken out

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_02]: between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris makes a lot of news and might even attract a few voters.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think I can say with some degree of certainty that some of the things being said from these podiums

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_02]: by both the presidents, presidential candidates, and by some of these congressional candidates,

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_02]: will not actually happen simply because members of Congress and even presidents

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_02]: don't necessarily always want to face the voters again.

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Donald Trump has one advantage in that he will be a lame duck president,

[00:33:21] [SPEAKER_02]: and so he would not have to face the voters again if he was elected.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_02]: But that doesn't mean he wouldn't find some ways to try to actually cut taxes on tips

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_02]: and auto financing and auto loans and a variety of other things.

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So we'll see how that plays out.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Just illustration again.

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Use some discernment when you go to vote.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll be right back.

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_01]: You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Back for a few more minutes, let me again encourage you to find some of these articles on the website.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_02]: One of these is called Budget Blowout.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I will get to that in just a minute because, again, it's a reminder that it is your money.

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_02]: The government does not generate income of any sort.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_02]: A little bit to excise taxes, but most of it, the government doesn't make money.

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_02]: The government gets money from you.

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Your taxes go to actually fund the government, and your taxes are not enough to fund the government

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_02]: because the government every year spends more than you send to them in terms of taxes.

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So each year, the government has to find a way to fund the deficits, which are huge at this point,

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_02]: and the only way they ultimately fund them is by printing money.

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Actually, they don't print it.

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_02]: They just add ones and zeros, and thus that leads to inflation, and we can talk about that for some time.

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_02]: But just before we go back to some of these economic issues,

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_02]: one of the big issues that is starting to surface in especially the senatorial campaigns

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_02]: is the issue of transgender sports.

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I live in the state of Texas.

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_02]: That has been a very significant campaign theme that the current senator here, Ted Cruz,

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_02]: has used against the challenger, Colin Allred, because he voted against this idea of protecting women in sports.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that has been something that may help Ted Cruz win re-election,

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_02]: but it is something that also might help Republicans in a couple of other states

[00:35:47] [SPEAKER_02]: defeat existing individuals who are in the U.S. Senate that actually are serving there right now.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_02]: The examples that the editorial board of the Wall Street uses is Senator Brown from Ohio,

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Senator Tester from Montana, and Senator Baldwin from Wisconsin.

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And so you have right now the ad running against Senator Brown in which a narrator says,

[00:36:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Mr. Brown is too liberal for Ohio, he voted to let transgender biological men participate in women's sports.

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, some media fact-checkers claim that that is false,

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_02]: but when you get right down to did you actually vote for or against a particular opportunity

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_02]: to ban men from participating in women's sports, well, I think that's pretty clear.

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So, again, we can go into the details about that,

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_02]: but what I think is so interesting is now ads are starting to show up, for example, in Wisconsin,

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_02]: saying that, again, Senator Tammy Baldwin, quote,

[00:36:57] [SPEAKER_02]: voted to let biological men into women's sports.

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And whenever that is mentioned by the challenger, Eric Hove, that usually leads to applause.

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And then in Montana, I think it's probably fair to say that Senator John Tester might lose for other reasons as well,

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_02]: but, again, you have one of those ads that John Tester, Senator Tester,

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_02]: voted to let men compete against our girls, and those are not Montana values, I should say.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And so a lot of this, of course, is the decision that says, well, we're going to redefine Title IX,

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_02]: which certainly would provide an opportunity for people to participate in sports based on their sex.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_02]: But now what you have are the administration saying that sex, which we knew what it meant back in 1964 when the Civil Rights Act,

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_02]: and even later in 1965 and 66 when you had the other particular related pieces of legislation,

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_02]: what that meant, sex meant sex, boy and girl.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Now they say it means gender.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, if you look at the latest polls, this is a sleeper issue that the editors of the Wall Street Journal say

[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_02]: because the last poll that I can come up with for Gallup shows that 69% of Americans in this Gallup poll agree,

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_02]: that transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete, I should say, on sports teams that conform with their birth gender.

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's kind of the issue that is surfacing right now.

[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_02]: It could be a real sleeper issue, and when people write the story of the election of 2024,

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_02]: one of the stories might indeed be that the transgender issue and transgenderism and transgender athletes in sports

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_02]: actually were losing issues for many of these people that are part of the Democratic Party serving in the United States Senate.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But let me come to my last piece here as well called Budget Blowout,

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_02]: because it reminds us once again that no matter who we elect as president,

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_02]: we are going to have some really important issues surfacing pretty quickly.

[00:39:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Number one, I've already alluded to the fact that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was passed in 2017,

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_02]: these tax cuts expire next year.

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's going to be a real issue for whoever the president is and whoever you elect to Congress.

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_02]: At the same time, you also have something in.

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_02]: You have what's called the American Rescue Plan Act.

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_02]: That was actually implemented under the Biden administration,

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_02]: and the benefits of that will end the end of this year, 2024.

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And you're going to have state and local governments that are going to, first of all, have to decide how to spend the money.

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And then, of course, when it runs out, you're going to have governors and mayors asking the federal government for more money.

[00:40:15] [SPEAKER_02]: We know how that goes.

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's illustrative of the fact that during this interesting ABC debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump,

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_02]: neither of them even talked about the issue of the budget or debt or spending.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Matter of fact, the words budget, debt, and spending were never mentioned.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_02]: The moderators never asked the question.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And yet, I think you could honestly say that Biden-Harris and Donald Trump are the individuals most responsible for this budget blowout.

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So they should have some answers, I would think, about how to clean it up.

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And that certainly is not the case.

[00:40:58] [SPEAKER_02]: As I mentioned before, the Congressional Budget Office has been looking at things like Social Security and Medicare

[00:41:05] [SPEAKER_02]: and the borrowing necessary to fund them and say that if we don't do anything,

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_02]: this could add another $124 trillion to the national debt.

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_02]: There are solutions.

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I mentioned one just a minute ago.

[00:41:24] [SPEAKER_02]: But you can't talk about solutions if nobody wants to talk about it.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And never in that debate did either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris bring it up.

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Neither in that debate did any of those moderators for ABC bring it up.

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And yet, this is, again, a budget blowout.

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_02]: If you'd like to learn a little bit more about that and begin to say,

[00:41:48] [SPEAKER_02]: these are some questions maybe I should ask my member of Congress,

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_02]: that's the last article we've posted on the website today up until, of course,

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_02]: the very, very last article I mentioned a minute ago,

[00:42:00] [SPEAKER_02]: which we just posted a few minutes ago about, of course, Kamala Harris's plagiarism problem.

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_02]: We have a lot more to cover.

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be a long week.

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll cover some more each particular day.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_02]: But I hope that you will take the time to look at some of these articles,

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_02]: use those to evaluate some of the candidates,

[00:42:19] [SPEAKER_02]: and certainly go to our election central section so that you can get some more of the information necessary.

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And as you go there, I hope that you might also click on the button that says join now

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_02]: because if you appreciate the kind of news, commentary, and information we provide,

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_02]: your financial support would be greatly appreciated.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Tomorrow we're going to have quite a group of individuals talking about a number of different,

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_02]: very important topics.

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So I hope that you will join us then.

[00:42:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I hope you'll also go and find my Viewpoints commentary today,

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_02]: the video about voting, your biblical duty,

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_02]: since we now estimate that maybe half of the born-again Christian population will not vote in this election.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_02]: We need to turn that around pretty quickly.

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_02]: But most importantly, I want to say goodbye for today.

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you back here tomorrow right here on Point of View.

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Who can you trust?

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Years ago, many of us could probably have provided a fairly long list.

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_01]: But today, well, today it seems we almost can't trust anyone.

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Educators don't even know what a woman is anymore.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Many so-called public servants have shown all they care about is themselves.

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_01]: The FBI has been accused of bias, law-breaking, betrayal, and journalism.

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_01]: It's largely corrupt with no Clark Kent standing up for truth, justice, and the American way.

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_01]: All of this is why Point of View Radio is more important than ever.

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And your part in supporting us is more needed than ever.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Do your part today in supporting trustworthy truth.

[00:43:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Stand with us and help push back the lies and the darkness.

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Visit pointofview.net.

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