BREAKING: Senate Passes Radical Left Wish List

Breaking news today on Sekulow as the U.S. Senate passes the Radical Left's Wish List. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. This weekend the Senate passed what they're calling the Inflation Reduction Act. Of course all the analysis and reports done on this show that we'll have no impact on inflation, might even have a bad impact on inflation because of course this is more government spending to the tune of doubling the size of the IRS employment-wise.

So we'll go through those numbers in just a minute and we're going to be joined by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to talk about this legislation too. And I remind you last week when he said, remember the Chinese look at too, how are we domestically? Is it or do we have riots? Do we have rampant crime?

Do we have rapid inflation? Are the American people feeling down on their luck? Because that impacts of course how the decision making of the Chinese Communist Party. So you don't just divorce the issues of what's going on internationally and yeah the U.S. is a superpower from what's going on right here at home.

So we're going to walk through this. Now it hasn't gone through the House of Representatives yet. The group that would most likely be the ones to scuttle any of this would be the far left members, the squad type members of the House of Representatives but they've got a lot of their green new deal in here. So maybe they're okay with the private equity investors getting a pass on the tax increase because of their green new deal. This should be the largest government spending bill ever in the United States when it comes to climate issues. But at the same time they're saying that Joe Manchin got, now it's not in there, but he got approval for more drilling in Alaska and but that's of course not here I can see that legislative tax and hasn't gone through any of the federal government's red flags and a pipeline in West Virginia which remains unbuilt.

So I think again they always use those as kind of issues that they kick the can down the road on that never get approved by the federal government. This is this is again a massive increase in the amount of people who will be audited by the IRS. In fact that's how the Democrats are saying it's an interesting year to run on to say we're going to pay for this legislation that you're going to love so much by auditing more middle-class Americans who can't rely on big law firms and accounting firms to do their taxes and have and shouldn't have to.

It shouldn't be a process that difficult for them. Small business owners again that fall under this is always that four hundred thousand dollars a year more number they throw out is bogus. You start cutting it through that you start realizing a couple hundred thousand dollars a year it includes small business owners as well as they pay taxes. So we we're opposed to this but we also have to deal with the realities that it looks likely that unless Democrats scuttle it themselves in the House of Representatives this is going to go to the President's desk and we're going to have to deal with a with a super-sized IRS. You know it's you're talking about super-sized you're talking about eighty seven thousand more agents. Now you're talking about an agent an agency that's incompetent to begin with giving them more money makes them more to spend more money to be incompetent. So Americans are getting more of their paycheck taken out in taxes to fund IRS to audit middle-income Americans.

I mean you think about that for a moment. There's also something else the Wharton School of Business evaluated the the inflation reduction act and said it actually has zero impact on inflation in fact inflation may raise a rise under this act. So I think the part of the problem here and I think we have to be clear on this is that they put these titles and names to these bills to make it sound palatable but at the end of the day it's not only not palatable it's dangerous what they're proposing because it doesn't have a coherent economic base and that is the fundamental problem that exists here. Our economic team's looking at it right now but again likely to pass in the United States Congress it looks like at this point.

Yes I mean again it would be Democrats that have to defeat this there's not a Republican vote enough Republican votes to do that obviously in the house right now. So you've got to say will it be those the the squad who think this is not enough green new deal but it is I mean this is the first largest spending on during a during a time when people are calling a recession inflation is high very high they are spending more on climate than they've ever spent in the history of the federal government. We'll take your calls your comments at 1-800-684-3110 we come back we'll be joined by former Secretary of State our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs Mike Pompeo and I encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ at aclj.org that's aclj.org we'll be right back on Secular. All right welcome back to Secular we're joined now by our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary Pompeo we have Democrats celebrating passing what they're calling this quote inflation reduction act to the senate over the weekend and now moves to the house and could ultimately move to President Biden's desk it would take Democrats scuttling it to to stop that you call it a cover for more government spending. What do you think the impact's going to be because they you know on the American people they try to sell these usually as you know you're going to get influx you're getting a check you get something where people kind of give it a pass but in this trying to find out like what is this how is this benefiting an everyday average American it's tough to figure out. Jordan it is tough to figure out and I actually think while they seem pretty celebratory today they should be very careful about what they celebrate this will prove to be a victory without any that'll be very hollow because it will all come back to harm the American people average ordinary families who are trying to live their lives go to church do the things we all do will be punished by this there are deeply buried in this huge handouts to the union bosses the union cronies that advantage union work against small companies all across America if anybody thinks for a second that the new 86,000 IRS employees are going to just go after the couple hundred billionaires or a couple thousand people worth a lot of money they're crazy they will come after citizens of every stripe who are just working people but this will impose huge cost on the American economy and even you know even even the CBO doesn't think it's going to do a darn thing to lower inflation I can't imagine that government spending would for the first time in history ever actually lower inflation. You know Mike the I'm going to focus on the IRS aspect of this because my first job out of law school was the Office of Chief Counsel Department of Treasury Internal Revenue Service I was a trial lawyer and things have changed a lot in the 40 something years I was there but the problem is you've got an agency that is unbelievably incompetent and I've said institutionally incapable of self-correcting and at the very same time they are given this tranche of money to increase their agents and it's going to be audits on the middle class because that's what always happens here so it's as if the American people are spending more of their money to get IRS agents that are are not properly trained and an agency that you still have to fax information to to audit middle-class Americans that's what this bill really does. Well that's absolutely true a couple things one you know they the claim is that they hire these agents and they'll more than pay for themselves I saw somewhere somebody figures they'll cost 250 000 for every additional IRS agent that might be right the chance of them generating more than 250 000 is zero so this will be a net cost not a net gain but Jay you've been so much at the center working on these issues at the IRS don't think that this won't even make it more politicized you remember when they came after conservatives everybody remembers the famous Lois Lerner the risk that the IRS now almost double in size will continue to not only be incompetent but political increases dramatically and it wouldn't shock you to know that I'll bet the Democrats know that too. I am holding in my hand actually Mike the consent order that we won in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia it's up on the screen now linchpins of liberty versus the United States of America and the two aspects of it that are really interesting one is the IRS had to acknowledge the first amendment generally prohibits the government from discriminating against citizens on the basis of viewpoints especially when involved protected speech but the other thing is the IRS admitted that its treatment of the plaintiffs and these were these non-profit conservative organizations during the tax exempt determination process including their screening their applications based on their names of policy positions subjecting those applications to heightened scrutiny and inordinate delays and demanding from some of the plaintiffs information that the tax inspector general's office TIGDA determined was unnecessary to the agency's determination of their tax exempt status was wrong for such treatment the IRS expresses its sincere apology that's in the consent decree which I wanted it in there because I wanted to show the nature of this but the problem is the whole policy here doesn't address the need that the American people are really feeling and that is the increase of inflation at record rates higher than it has been since at least 1981. It's impossible Jerry your point's exactly right and the work that the ACLJ did to help conservative organizations protect themselves when they are should never be forgotten now now you'll have twice as much work to do but your point about this bill there's there's not a single provision that you can point to in there that you if you're a family living in in Iowa or your family living out in Minnesota it says boy that's really going to help me make sure I can afford energy instead it's going to give a bunch of money to somebody who wants to build a windmill or a solar panel instead of doing the things that would actually impact your life this is the disconnect that the Biden administration is trying to voice on the American people as they celebrate this victory it's going to drive cost to the average consumer and I think people will be able to see right through this. You know one thing I'm most nervous about is that the again it's it's the the wealthy can afford their attorneys and accountants to handle interactions with the IRS we know that that this new group of IRS agents is being tasked with finding as you said find more money so we can pay for our green new deal and I just have this concern they're going to be going to the people who are doing their best to follow the IRS rules and pay their taxes on time and pay their right amount of taxes but don't have a lot of professional assistants who are going to be hit with these audits and it's going to be a lot it's it's a lot different experience for them than it will be for the people in the topper earning top earning brackets who can rely on professionals to handle their taxes.

Undoubtedly Jordan 86,000 new agent 86,000 that's a massive company in its own right and this will fall the small companies trying to comply trying to figure out the complexity of the internal revenue code or a family who's got a second business that they do after work hours those are the folks that are going to suffer those are the folks who the IRS will end up coming after and they won't have the time the resources to actually defend against what they did that they thought was right and they may even have it right won't be able to produce some document that some government official says you must have now this is tragic it will impose enormous costs and it will benefit it'll benefit big government and big business at the cost of ordinary families and small businesses all across our country. Let's go to if we could change topics for a moment and go to China and that is you have a piece up at aclj.org the Biden administration displayed weakness during speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan this morning reporters asked President Biden if he thought Pelosi's trip was a mistake and replied that was her decision which is not exactly a ringing endorsement of what she did what's your sense of where we are with this? I saw President Biden's comments for no that basically says we didn't want her to go she went against our wishes and the most important audience for that comment was Xi Jinping he now knows that he has the capacity in this administration to push back and bully President Biden and that's dangerous we've seen the exercises they've been conducting as the Chinese have been conducting all around Taiwan they've done it with minimal response from the United States this is this is the kind of thing that creates the conditions for real risk for war right conflict follows weakness strength deters and this administration even this morning's comment saying well that was her decision suggests that he didn't think she should go he thinks he thought that she should allow Xi Jinping to drive her travel agenda that's bad for us. We've got a new piece up from secretary Pompeo's just up at aclj.org titled the Biden administration displayed weakness during speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan though President Biden has made this prediction secretary Pompeo so I encourage people to go read that aclj.org we'll share it all over social media platforms but he says he doesn't he said they're concerned the way they were moving but he doesn't think they'll do anything else I mean it's a pretty bold statement to make fairly casually from President Biden that that he doesn't think they will take any more action. I pray that he's right it's not an independent determination part of what Xi Jinping will do will be the way he sees America respond if it is through weakness if it is timidity if it's backing off even the simplest things no one wants war but we have allowed the Chinese communist party to walk all over us for decades and it looks like that is the continued plan of this administration and if that is the case Jordan if we continue to show weakness then there's more risk more trouble ahead from the Chinese communist party. All right as always we appreciate our senior counsel for global affairs former secretary of state Mike Pompeo who has overseen two agencies one which is being compared to the IRA will now be outdone by the IRS in size already was the state department was already a thousand staff smaller than the IRS which will now double it currently has 78,000 they're adding an additional 87,000 it will be one of the largest government agencies especially if you take out the armed forces themselves we'll go through some of these staggering numbers when we come back but just the size of this bureaucratic. You can't even get your phone answered refunds ran months and last year they were running a year behind this year they ran months and months behind if you're dealing with agents you're still being told to fax the numbers those fax machines are oftentimes what we're understanding going to people agents houses which is not taxpayer security so as I said the problem here is you've got an agency that is basically incompetent and now you're giving them more money to be more incompetent so this is just throwing money more money at this doesn't fix this problem that's the reality throwing more dollars at this doesn't solve the problem challenging them is how you solve it and that's why I put that consent decree back on the wall back on the screen so our audience can see it this was what we got against the internal revenue service and district court and in another companion case we got the money to our clients so you got to fight them and that's what we do at the ACLJ we're the matching challenge campaign we encourage you for this august matching challenge campaigns if you're able support the work of the ACLJ jordan let you know the details yep it's a great time to do it we have back-to-back july and august where you can double the impact of your donation to the ACLJ so if you make a 25 donation you've heard me say before that is equivalent of a 50 donation for us all your charge is at 25 but triggers a match from a group of donors saying we'll match all those donations through the month of august so it's a really important time for us at the ACLJ if you can support our work financially at aclj.org we'll be right back on secular all right welcome back to secular we're gonna start taking your calls now 1-800-684-3110 that's 1-800-684-3110 we'll start first with bill out in wyomi online too hey bill hi thanks for taking my call i'm asking a question this business was hiring the extra agents in the IRS does that include resurrecting this business requiring banks to report deposits of 600 or more in accounts it's not in this that was in build back better it's currently not in this legislation now this has got to move to the house but that's a good sign things could change that would impact a lot of people get to make a lot of that's happening digital transaction now through places like venmo and others tipping going through that as well but i but just to understand this i think they feel like they don't really need it in their joint committee on taxation that's bipartisan it's congress's official tax scorekeeper says if 78 that's the baseline to 90 of the new money raised from uh increasing the size of the irs and more audits will be from under reported income from people making less than 200 grand a year so this is what that is right at the middle class right at the small business owner and that's who this bill's targeting at so the american people are especially middle class are paying their tax dollars to encourage to double the size of the internal revenue service so they can audit them to raise to raise revenue now i'm glad the 600 issue is not in there we were right on top of that we did a congressional hearing um it was during covid we did it from the studio next door we obviously we briefed the issue we briefed congress on it we were able to defeat it but when you look at the fact that the irs uh harry is institutionally in my view incapable of self-correcting and then you're just throwing more money at it as if that's going to solve this problem and the target of this is jordan just said is middle-class americans absolutely and in many cases that has always been the target so it's important to keep in mind that over the last 20 years we have seen the greatest transfer in wealth from the middle class to the rich in world history and and the biden administration quite consistent with its preference for the rich has created a scheme involving um adding 80 000 more irs agents they've created a scheme to essentially target the middle class and so jordan is quite right to point out that up to 90 of the new money generated will come from people making less than 200 000 while loopholes continue and while democrats favor and vote in favor of additional loopholes yeah and those loopholes by the way give the carried interest the the you also have so that where you have income coming in these hedge fund managers ends up coming in at tax at long-term capital gain rates but you need to understand the size and scope of what's being proposed here and andy you work with the irs i worked i was an employee of the department of treasury my client was the irs you are the department of justice you also represent the irs things are a lot different now than when we're there but this is making this the pretty much the largest agency other than the military in the united states well if you combine the pentagon the state department the fbi and the border patrol those four agencies then you've got the equivalent of what the irs is going to become under this so-called inflation reduction act and again i think it's a misnomer i think it's a uh and uh given a name in order to make it sound like it's going to help the people it's really not going to help the people whatsoever what it's going to do is bestialize make a behemoth and a monster out of what already is a monstrous organization an intimidation organization an organization that's going to go after not the people as harry said who are really the tax cheats and the tax violators but really under people who are making less than 200 000 a year and only four to nine percent of the money is going to come from those making five hundred thousand dollars a year and they're not the targets of what the irs is about to do under this new law j no no i mean let's say senator ted cruz by 31. the democrats are making the irs bigger than the pentagon plus the department of state plus the fbi plus the border patrol combined all the democrats say they're worried and want to lower gas prices they all just voted to raise gas taxes and to raise your price at the pump and and look let's look at the border patrol the border patrol from a policy perspective right now needs the assistance they need more agents on the border they get pittance and that shows you the priorities of administration spending shows priorities yeah that's right i mean i want to go back to the phones at 1-800-684-3110 william in north carolina on line one hey william hey guys thanks for all you do and especially thanks for taking my call absolutely uh i am the epitome of middle-income america i mean you know no big savings account and here's my question it's pretty simple now that this laughable inflation reduction act is going through if or when the republicans take the house and senate in november is there anything they can do to waylay this travesty very difficult even if they took the house and the senate because they don't have the presidency and when you don't have the presidency the President can decide not to sign a bill and i think you that would be the risk i would think andy and harry you would run i think that's true because the President sets the initiative the President sets the goals of the administration the President has the power of the veto they would have to override him by two-thirds vote that wouldn't happen once the irs gets this power it's well nigh untakable in terms of reversing it and taking it back again yeah yeah i think at best you could maybe slow down some of the because these happen over a year 10 years yeah that's where you probably get it is is that you come in and you stop you don't release the money somehow yes slow it down through a mechanism but reversal harry's not likely i mean the President's not going to sign this is what he wants President biden loves two groups immensely government bureaucrats and the rich and both of these groups benefit enormously from this legislation and so i think at the end of the day he will be disinclined to go along with let's say a republican congress how do you think the we're going into the midterms they're getting pretty close now we're in august they're going to be here in 12 weeks how do you think this the inflation issue plays gas prices have come down a bit yep so how does it does it start fading as a political issue you know i don't think it's it's done because i think people are worried about the next crisis so it's whether it's china ukraine is still going on uh it's back to school for a lot of places we're starting that process over these next few weeks so covet is still an issue uh that schools are dealing with and how your school district might deal with it compared to or state it might even deal with it and how different that might be from a neighboring state so i think all of that combined if if we uh we just don't know everybody has gotten used to getting bad information bad news um whether whether it's the inflation whether it's been disease whether it's been uh you know how do we get back to uh normal we're not there yet this will be the this is like the test of this back to school years is this get people back to normal if not i mean i think that all this combined no people are not going to be excited about giving democrats more power uh the question will be is republicans coming together now that these primaries are coming to a close and some are still going on in other states but they'll all be done by you know early mid-september you've got to have the party be the republicans have to come together conservative voters have to reunite even if it was a tough primary because that's the baseline you've got to get your voters out and uh there were a lot of tough republican primaries uh around the country you can't let that divide up your vote or if your preferred candidate didn't get one race that shouldn't keep you at home when the stakes are this high i will continue to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110 second half hour the broadcast is coming up that's 1-800-684-3110 as always you go to aclj.org support our work you have a matching challenge now this month of august as well you can double the impact your donation aclj.org at the american center for law and justice we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad for a limited time you can participate in the aclj's matching challenge for every dollar you donate it will be matched a ten dollar gift becomes twenty dollars a fifty dollar gift becomes 100 you can make a difference in the work we do protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family give a gift today online at aclj.org so keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is secular and now your host jordan secular all right welcome back to secular we are going to continue to take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110 that's 1-800-684-3110 next time we're going to get back into some life issues you might have heard the news out of indiana this positive news a pro-life legislation passing through the state legislature there onto the governor's desk it's signed it will go into law mid-september so we'll walk through that our team was involved in help drafting that through the process as we are in many states across the country working behind the scenes to make sure legislators are comfortable with the language they're using that it gets enough support and they're trying what they're trying to do in these states is make it as airtight as possible to legal challenges they know there'll be legal challenges coming i'm sure that there will be preemptive legal challenges to indiana's law before it even goes into effect in september so take you with the supreme court the supreme court decision in the dobbs case applying that to real life situations and these legislatures like indiana who have gotten out ahead or the early states uh we're already preparing we were tightening up their legislation and we were consulting with the legislature on this because we're concerned uh obviously since we're defending a lot of these we defend the government governor gnome in south dakota i feel very confident about that case by the way that's where we're defending an informed consent law they had which is being challenged under roe now with dobbs i feel like we we will clear the day on this so that that's one set of cases then you have the jordan alluded to another broadcast you have these trigger laws going to affect or new legislation kansas was very convoluted process very difficult process with that constitutional amendment and yes or no people don't even know which way to vote but indiana has developed more of a straightforward approach to this where they have the the ban on abortion except life of the mother rape incest and they have a health exception in there but it's only in the event of physical harm to the mother so it's that kind of situation those should pass muster but the question there is of course legislatively can they get that through and it sounds like they will yeah so we're going to take your calls on that as well too if you got questions about what's happening indiana or your state remember you go to aclj.org we have that map of the country so you can track exactly what's going on at aclj.org or what to expect in your staple take calls in as well that's at 1-800-684-3110 through some of these irs numbers too we you heard this be talked about a lot i just want to go through the actual numbers for you when you hear about the size of the irs so currently the irs has 78 000 full-time employees that makes it bigger already than the state department which has 77 000 bigger than the fbi that has 35 000 much bigger than customs and border patrol which is one of our huge crises in america which has 19 000 the pentagon itself so the the dod you know at the pentagon and that huge building is under 30 000 employees so you add up the irs the pentagon the state department and the fbi and customs and border would still be smaller than the irs which is getting a more than double staff increase so it's going from 78 000 adding another additional 87 000 to that list i mean it will be sized like the u.s military at that point that's what you're unleashing on the american people is a u.s military-sized bureaucracy and they're and they're not saying they're not going after the middle class in fact in the opposite they have to pay for this by going after it's going after the middle class with more audits now the irs as i've said and i'm an alumni of the internal revenue service department the treasury office of chief counsel is institutionally incapable of self correcting i've said that for 10 years i still believe that we went to federal court and one got and we could put it up on the stream we got a declaratory judgment and a monetary damage for our clients when they went after the conservative groups all that to say if we the moment joe bein was sworn into office there was a case that our friends at liberty council handled out of texas they're out of texas i don't remember where the client was but they went after that client for a pro-life perspective and biblical issues we filed a foyer request on that we want to get all the information about what happened there but that was there was already an injunction in place to prohibit that yet the irs did it again that's why i say institutionally incapable of self correcting but we're on top of it folks here at the american center for law and justice we're not only talking about it here we get to education on all these issues but we actually do something about it at aclj.org and at aclj action support the work of the aclj and our matching challenge month at aclj.org that means this any amount of money you donate to the aclj we're getting a matching gift and that is significant for our ongoing efforts to defend liberty and freedom and life and the first amendment support our work at aclj.org you donate twenty dollars someone else is going to match that aclj.org back with your calls 800-684-3110 in a moment all right welcome back to secular we want to update you too and we're going to continue to do this throughout the states as they move forward with legislation this post-row error for life so we saw the kansas which was i think is a wake-up call that you can kind of see coming through polling for the pro-life community in america about how to organize and how to how you've got to educate in the post-row world and there's this rush yes you want to be the first you want to do this and that but especially when it goes to voters now legislators are a bit different because oftentimes in these states you've been electing somebody who's been running as pro-life for decades but they haven't had a lot of work to do at the state level because of the row decision that that hung over all the state state legislatures across the country so we saw in indiana the first state who's passed through new legislation and signed by the governor goes into effect mid-september to talk about and aclj worked on this to talk about kind of how what does this look like in indiana now that it's gone through both the house there the senate there and signed by the governor into law so what we're doing is we've taken a 50-state look at this and just jordan mentioned if you go to aclj.org on the website there's an interactive map you just click on it and it'll tell you exactly what's going on in the state you're looking at there's a we have it for folks looking on tv or through our social media applications now having said that indiana has made a move here to put in a pro-life legislation that will basically i think is is it it's hard to say which is a model because every state's different but i think the approach they've taken and we we consulted on this is the right approach cc hyles here is the senior council for the aclj is involved in a lot of these issues what did they do there i think that's important for people to understand exactly what has been approved right so the legislation bans abortion um the if except it makes exceptions except if the abortion is necessary to prevent any serious health risk of the pregnant woman or to save the pregnant pregnant woman's life or the fetus is diagnosed with a lethal fetal anomaly or the pregnancy is result of rape or incest and then they specifically go because we've seen problems where if you say a serious health risk they'll go with mental health and say the mother's just not ready or doesn't feel like being a mother they actually define serious health risk and they say that that means that in reasonable medical judgment a condition exists that has complicated the mother's medical condition and necessitates an abortion to prevent death or a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function okay so jordan i think that's model type legislation so here's the question politically there there's a lot of reassessing going on right now after the situation in uh kansas yeah because it went down with 30 of republicans voting to keep abortion in the constitution what what does this mean politically there's a good legend yeah good legislation there better chances to let uh right now is that we saw is that politicians who've been elected by the people like these state legislators are better situated currently especially the i'm talking about the speed because they are educated they do work on the nuts and bolts of the of legislation so they understand exactly what cc just walked through if you put that on a ballot initiative that's pretty confusing to explain i mean i and again i'm not talking about you to anybody after you've gone through all the voting for this voting for that you get to that you're like okay which way is this right or wrong so i think when it comes to ballot initiatives we need to spend a lot more time uh roe is gone let's spend time educating people i mean that means doing a lot of what the left does which is a lot more town halls a lot more community engagement we know in communities uh minority communities where republicans are starting to do a little bit better uh that they need education on these issues we have to be going into those communities and actually putting on events you can't just say it's pro-life it's not pro-life yes no that's not enough for people that it's too big of an issue and so well i think we're going to move forward in the legislatures that are pro-life that have pro-life governors and you'll see that moving forward or even legislatures where they're able to override a democrat governor's veto i think that we've got a few states that have got these ballot initiatives in november i think a lot of that will be based off the education so i don't think that's necessarily that the republicans won't win in those states but can those will enough voters be educated they should be voting yes on this or no on that and along with their votes for republicans as they kind of come out in opposition to biden so you got to make that very clear too and we'll start talking about more of those states as we get closer to november but you are starting to see states where it's in the legislature i think that's where it's it's a kind of a better place because they've gotten the education they've gotten the lobby we're also going to see though i think we've got to be clear on this we are going to see litigation cc in all of these states right conservative states liberal states the litigation is already hitting litigation will be happening we're prepared for it we know that it will happen i was in dc right after the dobbs decision and i literally was on a plane getting on a plane i was standing next to of course she didn't know who i was but she was one of the head planned parenthood people in maryland and they were scrambling they were like we have to get our on the ground people we have to get people educated she was flying from dc to california for meetings they were having conference calls so they are prepared they are organized and they're ready to hit it and we need to be the same on the pro life side and of course at the aclj we are we're watching all this legislation we're ready for any kind of um court battle that comes after it any kind of attack that comes after this legislation like jordan said we're watching ballot initiatives um you know we're helping people understand what a yes vote means what a no vote means because that gets so confusing on ballot initiatives uh we're just you know paying attention of what hap is happening in every single one of the 50 states and we're ready to act on behalf of life the question that i think it's on everybody's mind right now is you've got some states that are taking kind of a wait and see attitude right now or they're simply adopting what the court affirmed in dobs because you had their ban on 15 week and over abortions and the fact of the matter is that was actually as to that law it was six to three it was overwhelmingly there so how do you see that shaking out i think it's being more aggressive something too aggressive frankly yeah i think that again most people have trouble with ballot issues and so if if you'll notice your state where there's a ballot issue that's important to an interest group you'll see a lot of money spent on trying trying to inform you about that ballot issue then you might see three or four others that are on there where no one got behind it there hasn't been much education they're kind of leaving up to voters maybe the last person you talked to or you didn't talk to anybody about what this actually even does i know where i recently voted most of them were to increase the size of government but that's not what they said they said we want to split this agency into two different separate areas so that means they have to have double the staff so i vote no on these things by seeing that but on some of these life issues i think if we educate people like a rumble comment came in so if the balance difficult to understand it will cause voters to reflect that prompt here's the issue though the way that most legislative text has to be written in ballot initiatives there it's never going to be simple yes it has to follow you've got to go through the education you've got to do the tough work to know how to vote you will not it will not be handed to you on a plate just a simple vote if you didn't educate yourself before you went into well i think the mess i think that's the message of what happened in kansas and that is you can't simply and obviously rely on hey people are pro life here they're going to vote because as jordan said and cc's alluded to the fact is these legislative referendums are so confusing that your gut reaction is vote no right right exactly and that's when it's like if i'm for this do i actually vote yes or do i vote no it is completely confusing and so a lot of people could have gone in and voted no but they were really needed to vote yes it they're just ballot initiatives are confusing and like jordan has said over and over there has to be education you have to have read it and know what you're doing before you go in and a lot of times people don't the first time they're seeing it is when they're in you know the little voting booth and they're reading it and then they're confused of am i voting yes or am i voting no if i'm for it or against it it's confusing so education has to happen if you're going to do these ballot initiatives you know uh again folks we we're going to keep you updated if you go to aclj.org all 50 states so if you click on kansas right now it's updated based off the vote there that happened uh last week we we have all that updated moving forward as indiana if it you know it's signed into the law by the governor we'll have that updated as well you'll know we'll talk more about the states with ballot initiatives as we get closer to november and after you know the primaries are all finished up but i i think again education is going to be key if if you got it where it's going through your legislature and your governor that's one thing i think those will all move forward pretty easily on partisan lines it's going to be when it's a ballot initiative and people being confused especially if turnout's big so if turnout is really big you have a lot of voters who aren't as informed as they as they usually would be in a primary in a midterm that you know a lot of people stay home for those we've already saw in like kansas there were a lot more voters they were hitting almost Presidential year numbers so when you have that many more people voting you really have to educate a whole group means uh they don't they they are going in there maybe because of one candidate or one person they haven't been like they didn't go through the newspaper that's where aclj action comes that's right so our c4 will go in and educate people in kansas we had two weeks so and our aclj will litigate yeah that's right and but in the other states we have time to build up and i think it's going to be up to people they're going to have to fund these efforts to educate you're not going to have corporate spending to help you in fact they're going to be on the other side all major corporations will be on the other side of this issue so it's going to be up to grassroots americans to take the decision and do something with it especially at the at a national level i i think we're already starting to see that we'll see more of it as people get educated on it we'll come back we'll take more of your phone calls too on the sides of the government i know we've got questions about that at 1-800-684-3110 if you have questions about your state where it stands now on the life issue we can answer those as well and you can too by going to aclj.org forward slash abortion it's got the 50 state map that's aclj.org we're also be talking middle east we come back and what's going on uh in israel violence over the weekend uh there uh israel responded so again we'll take your calls we'll get into that as well aclj.org we'll be right back welcome back to second we're gonna dive back into the middle east and israel just a minute but i do want to take the caller barbara out of new jersey online one talking about the size of government this inflation reduction act hey barbara welcome to secular you're on the air hi thank you you guys are my favorite organization that i donate to eat once your work is just unparalleled um my question is with this government spending i don't understand how any politician or leader can justify spending this with our current supply chain issues my grocery store 40 years privately owned three in our area of wealthy mama's county in new jersey is closing on august 12th we can't get meat the aisles are empty but we're going to spend this money how is this justified are supply chain issues just going to be part of being an american it can't be we were in a grocery store this weekend i'm going to tell you something i and i don't have obviously my kids are jordan and logan have kids of their own but and baby formula we just happened to walk by that aisle nothing there i mean similac whatever it was called there was jordan literally nothing there i mean it was like one item yeah this is not to address that none of this this this is a big spending bill uh to pump money not into your pocket like some of those other stimulus checks were this is to pump money into the federal government's pocket to increase the size of a bureaucracy so i the irs will be double doubling doubling the size not just by money but by people yeah i mean they're going from under 80,000 just under 80,000 to an addition they'll be able to hire 87,000 new people that's not like replacements it's not like one for one ineffective person so a new person that's just doubling the size so i think it's gonna be a huge issue all right we've got jeff belevan here is their senior council for the aclj at our is office in israel he's back in the united states for a few days jeff israel is in the news because uh rocket fire in out of gaza into israel what's the latest person we're talking about what makes this one kind of unique yeah this is unique j this case uh hamas which is a ruling force in gaza and also a terrorist organization that also seeks the destruction of israel but in this case hamas basically stayed out of it and this was launched an attack launched by something called uh the palestinian islamic jihad which is another rejectionist arabist or islamic organization that wants to destroy the state of israel in its entirety doesn't claim it wants a two-state solution which just wants to wipe out israel and they launched these rockets and in this case hamas stayed out of it uh and maybe even casually wanted to have palestinian islamic jihad uh wiped out and in fact the leadership was wiped out by israeli responses uh because it's a rival uh the iron dome as you know j the uh the uh the missiles that protect israel from missiles the missiles that shoot missiles out of the sky work spectacularly well in this case more better than ever before possibly because islamic jihad although it launched many many hundreds of rockets uh couldn't watch them all at once and at the same major difference here is that in this case there was some gazan civilians who were killed by rocket fire but they couldn't claim was israel because israel could show them the proof immediately that these were out of rockets palestinian rockets fired out of gaza that landed in gaza and killed gazans you know what so jeff because this is yeah we've been over there a lot of course we have the office over there and and we've been over there together but you know people need to understand and this is you got to think nine dimensionally here so here you have a conflict between coming out of gaza to israel but it's not hamas even though hamas is the controlling party i mean folks this is why we want to break this down for you rather it's the palestinian islamic jihad another group that's a terrorist but hamas would like to see them eliminated because they affect hamas's capabilities so what do they do they allow this conflict to take place hoping israel will actually knock out the palestinian islamic jihad's leadership which they did which they did and did spectacularly uh producing proof uh instantly with respect to gazan civilians killed uh by uh the palestinian islamic jihad missile but what this proves of course is that the middle east and especially the israeli situation is as you said jay multifaceted you've got hamas a terrorist organization you have palestinian islamic jihad a terrorist organization and you have the one true and only democracy in the middle east and that's israel with its iron dome effectiveness as jeff said higher than ever being able to ward off these attacks being able to succeed hopefully the united states will continue in its support of israel i do not wish the biden administration to lessen that support i want to see that support continued and extended jeff let me ask you this um we know that these like i said you got to think nine-dimensionally here but what is the what was the impetus for this particular action what what started the palestinian islamic jihad taking this kind of move and of course it's fascinating that hamas stays out of it hoping that the pij gets hurt in this gets their leadership taken out which they did but what was the impetus for all this so i've seen a lot of speculation um one is look there's there's a moment of opportunity according to the terrorists right they think they're testing the waters here remember these are iranian proxies iran is backing the palestinian islamic jihad by the way it's also affiliated with the muslim brotherhood which iran backs as has come up again nine dimensions hey you're right so so they're both iranian proxies but in this case kamash is governing so these guys are a little more wild west and it could be that they're probing for iran to see exactly what the reaction is going to be because remember joe biden just came back to the middle east where he sent some very negative messages about who he's supporting in that conflict there and so this could have been iran testing the waters and thank god israel's reaction seemed to have been just on the money it wiped out the leadership and uh and hamas stayed out of it because right now pretty much the whole arab world is a little bit sick of the iran-based terrorism that's attacking israel i think that is what unifies this kind of regionally pastures to israel and and why hamas wants out of it too is all their leadership was killed the entire palestinian islamic jihad from north to the south east to the west uh is killed uh they but they launched 900 rockets i mean there's 900 rockets in a short period of time uh again the iron dome working successfully and and because these are fired uh as jeff said it kills a lot of palestinians because they're they're they can be quite crude but remember the arab world uh is very united right now against the iranians and anybody who's a symbol of the iranians whether it's the hudi rebels and yemen whether it's the palestinian islamic jihad is seen as a problem not just as a threat to jews in israel but as a threat to uh arab uh regimes and governments and whether it's kingdoms whether it's uh again we saw post abraham accords these countries uniting not just because they wanted a good economic relations with israel and the united states but because they saw that they need to unite as a block against iran who they think is you know out of control radical islamist regime uh who funds a lot of these terror efforts inside their their countries too so the condemnation of israel is a lot different uh this time around i think that that speaks to again the highly uh uh targeted nature of israel's response and also the fact that hamas wasn't throwing 100 school kids in front of uh these these targets like they would have done if they were in charge of this operation but the reality is exactly right you have to realize the scope and nature of the complexities of the middle east which is by the way not new this has been going on since the middle east has played a significant role in world history which has been a long time and that nuance we have we've lived it we have worked it we understand it we have we've been there we've seen it we've done it in negotiations with the patriarchate of jerusalem we've done it in negotiations with all manner of things in the middle east including the international criminal court and the international criminal court which j argued before in the hag on the very matter of israel all right folks support the work of the aclj that's aclj.org aclj.org to support the work of the aclj and again we have a matching challenge 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