After our show yesterday, the New York Times rushes to delete. their report. 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, Logan Secula. You may remember yesterday, by the way, it's Logan Secula, Will Haynes in the studio. You may remember yesterday we did the first half of the show at the New York Times. About their report over in Israel, one of their senior journalists was there saying, you know what, still.
After three years, something doesn't seem right to these Israelis. They still seem to think they were the victims of the October 7th attack that killed 1,200 of their people and kidnapped 250 and led to a lot of war that led beyond that. Again, of course, those weren't military people, those were people at a music festival, people in their local communities. That grotesque sentence, that sentence that really did not only just state and imply. That Israelis still think, and how dare they, still think that they are the victims of October 7th.
Well, you know what? We made quite a stink about it yesterday. We spent a good portion of the show talking about this. And we said we doubted, actually, we would hear from the New York Times that the New York Times probably not do anything about this. They'll just let it slip by.
But you know what? It must have gotten to the right people because later yesterday in the evening. The New York Times Made an adjustment to their article, Will. That's right.
So if you remember, specifically it said, but. Israelis, but the Israelis still believe. Largely, that they are the victims of October 7th. That is the original post that was in that article.
Well, they updated it with an editor's note, September 16th.
So two days after this article went up. Two days after the article went up, by the way, but only hours. After we did our show, right? They have this editor's note. Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article included a statement that was intended to convey Israelis' perception of the government's military response to the October 7th terror attack in relation to the attacks, but inadvertently suggested that Israelis' experience as terror victims was a matter of perception.
It has been removed from the article.
So, not just a note clarifying, but actually removing the sentence. From the article. I have to applaud for a moment. We gave him a lot of grief yesterday. Rightfully so.
And someone in that newsroom agreed with us. And I have to give them a bit of applause here and say, you know what? Because you could have just made an adjustment to that sentence. You could have just quickly made a hey, new version of the article is up. Or just let it slide by.
Because you know what, we can make a stink, a lot of people can. It doesn't necessarily mean the New York Times is gonna listen.
So I have to say thank you to whoever it is. On staff in the New York Times that put out this statement, even though I doubt it was inadvertently, I will say that's probably being very light on that word. But the fact that they admitted that it said in there that this. Was the fact that how Dare Israelis essentially considered themselves The victims on October 7th. In fact, they even said it in pretty clear English.
Borderline apologizing. Can we put that statement back up again, the statement from the New York Times? Let's get it up if we can get it back up there. Again, the last sentence of that, you know, that says, no, this was the original. I meant the new one that we had up there.
Yeah, there it is. Because of the editing error, an earlier version of this article, including a statement, was intended to convey. Let's skip that. It inadvertently suggested that Israelis' experience as terror victims was a matter of perception. It has been removed from the article.
Good on you, editors of the New York Times. I don't say that a lot. But I will say there are moments where this audience should Shows up. It answers the call and you did it. And we got a response from, you know.
The only news is fit to print, well. It's all the news. It's not the only news that's fit to print.
Sorry.
Sorry, sorry. I said it wrong. Democracy dies in the darkness. One of us. is a subscriber.
One of us used to pay for the games only. That being said, phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We're not going to spend the whole hour on this, but there is a lot to cover in this, including some. Who's my friend Hassan Piker? We're going to discuss that coming up.
Phone lines are open for you, like I said, 1-800-684-3110. Thank you to all of you. Who made an earthquake of noise? After this show, the New York Times had to respond. We'll be right back.
Welcome back to Sekulow, my brother Jordan Sekulow, joining us in studio.
Now, let's reset a bit of what happened. Yesterday, we came on the show. We talked to you about the New York Times report. It was covering a new documentary that was out of the Venice Film Festival about Gaza called Naza, of course, talking about the situation from a point of view that surely paints Israel as the villain in this story.
However, The New York Times, they've been talking about it. And in this report, from one of their senior reporters from the Middle East, from Jerusalem, who is stationed there, said, Hey, In pretty much the exact quote, and I think we can pull it up here. That quote did originally said that Israelis in general largely still consider themselves the victims. Of October 7th. That's the quote, but Israelis still largely view themselves as the victims of October 7th.
We made a stink about this because, of course, they do. You can have a disagreement, by the way, at the Israeli response to October 7th and still see that the victims of October 7th as an isolated incident. Was of course the Israeli people, as 1,200 people were murdered, innocent civilians were murdered, and of course, you had hundreds more. kidnapped and captured and held as hostages. Nobody disputes that part of it.
You can dispute what came before, you can dispute the response, but you can't dispute the fact that October 7th, again, was what was considered the Israeli 9/11. I mean, this is something where thousands of people I mean, and the reverberation around the world that happened from it. But of course we know nearly three years later how History has changed, how perception has changed. But we came on here, we made a stink about it.
Some others made a stake about it. You all. The listener, the viewer, when on your social media channels you shared that you found this to be disgusting and vile. And inappropriate. And look, for the New York Times, a lot of times you don't feel like you're going to, maybe you're talking up against a brick wall.
But we made noise. And this is why it's important to make noise because the New York Times had to respond. And the simplest explanation of this is they took the sentence and deleted it from the article and put out a statement. That is a victory, folks. Even if they want to caveat it in some word salad post that they're responding to.
This is a victory for those of us that stand up for truth in journalism.
Well, and once again, when we talk about what's the solution, how do you combat bad speech? It's with more speech. It's pointing out the bad speech. This isn't censorship. This isn't some sort of canceling the New York Times.
What this is is pointing out the errors and them having to respond because it's so obvious. You know what it also vindicates what we said yesterday of the arbitrariness of putting the sentence in. Like you didn't have to say. But Israelis largely view themselves because that's a given when it comes to the massive terror attack that happened on them on October 7th.
So there, even they didn't have to change the sentence. They just deleted it and the story stood as it was. It shows that it was a biased sentence, that it was never supposed to exist in real journalism and news. And this was their response. Editor's note, September 16th, which by the way, the article, which probably not a ton of people were going to go read, had been up for two days.
So it was after the outcry of a couple days later that they did take action. And they said this because of an editing error already there, the editing that, yeah, we should have taken this out. The editing right probably was no one read it before it went up. An earlier version of this article included a statement that was intended to convey Israelis' perception of the government's military response to the October 7th terror attack in retaliation to the attacks. Word salad.
That sentence there means nothing. They could delete that sentence. Yeah, that one also. Editing error, editors. But inadvertently suggested that Israelis' experience as terror victims was a matter of perception.
That's the one you need. It has been removed from the article.
It shows everything that we said yesterday, Jordan, about this is ridiculous. This is disgusting. This is, imagine if they said in an article about the war in Afghanistan, said, but Americans still largely consider themselves the victims of 9-11. That's the equivalent here. It is, you have to celebrate the wins when you get them in institutions like the New York Times.
You do. And the fact that the New York Times admitted it was a terror attack on Israelis. And when you are attacked by terrorists. What is the international community okay with when you respond? And for the most part, the U.S.
has set the precedent that when you are attacked by terrorists, you have every right to go in and kill every single person, destroy every single piece of infrastructure you need so that that terrorist group is never operable again and never harms one of your citizens again. And Israel hasn't even done that in the Gaza Strip. If you look at, again, what the United States has done in these multi-long efforts that still existed, even in the post-bin Laden world, to take out terror groups that threaten the United States of America. And we have understood as a world that when a terrorist attack, you can respond and you don't have to respond proportionally. What?
Would you like Israel to go in, kidnap a few hundred Palestinians, rape a few Palestinians, put it on camera, and then kill a thousand? And then say, okay, eye for an eye. That's not how the world works. When you're a terrorist and when you elect a terrorist regime to run your terrorist. you will die like most terrorists.
Ultimately, at the hands of a stronger party, which is what is still going on in that conflict, which doesn't get as much news. It's the same message to the Iranian terrorists and the Iranian people. If you don't ultimately stand up, what will your government look like in 20 years? Probably not a place your children are going to want to live. Right.
And I think that's if they're even alive at that point. That is one of the big notes we need to take from this: that. Just because clearly the media has decided which side is good and which side is bad here. You still can't change history. You still can't go back.
Even if... You have a point of view that says Israel is doing too much. It's not this attack, not that attack. But you can't take a terrorist attack and then decide, oh, because of three years later, if they did exactly what Hamas did, whose side would they be on? Because they can be on Hamas's side, so they're okay with raping and killing women on camera.
They're okay with uh killing children. Parents in front of them. killing them. Bodies being destroyed, giving dead bodies back, playing like they're going to be turned alive, those who were kidnapped. Would the world say, okay, you know what?
Let's celebrate Israel in this struggle, free the Israelis. Is that who would be on stage at concerts and these mass rallies in London and all over the country? Would Antifa endorse Israel? Because they said, you know what? We're just going to do exactly to the Gazans.
What they did to us.
So we'll kill just as many people, we'll kidnap just as many, and we'll kill just as many that were kidnapped, we'll put some videos up of us doing it and worse things, and then we'll turn some over if you make concessions to us. Then what does the world say? I mean, is that how they'd like us to start conducting military action?
Well, and once again, when they use these faux terms of proportional response, that's the very question you're asking. Is that what they look for when they say proportional, meaning something proportional to a terrorist attack? And once again, proportional response is you have to kill the terrorists. And the terrorists, they hide behind women and children and in hospitals. We know this.
I don't know why the world won't accept that as just a fact that terrorists are bad people. Don't wave their flags. It doesn't mean that you have to agree with the other side 100%. It means don't jump in bed with terrorists who ultimately would make you, if you're part of the LGBTQ community, the next enemy. I mean, these leftists just don't understand who they are dealing with.
And unless you've been in that part of the world, you'll never understand. And yes, they will take your support now and they will cut your head off next year.
Well, and that's exactly what we even talked about yesterday: it's not even as ridiculous as the statement is, it reveals all. The bias, but it also the New York Times has created a framework. The New York Times, as well as the people on the left that have been marching around saying to the river, to the sea, and things of that nature, and the protest on campus, they've created an environment where violence against Jews has become normalized and okay. And you've seen the spike in the hate crimes against specific people. And it really does stem from creating these narratives by using old tropes of saying, Look, the Israelis see themselves as the victims.
You almost it's comical if it weren't so serious how much they fall into the traps of history that we have seen over and over and over again. The way that people decide, you know what we're going to do? We're going to blame the Jews again and make them say, oh, they just are seeing themselves as the victims. They fall into these traps over and over and they make it seem like culturally it's okay for people to go. even further.
They were caught here. It was called out. They had to correct. And I also think it's interesting. We had a fun time yesterday morning trying to gift the article to each other because I am the account holder, as you mentioned.
I'm having to send the gift article to everybody because, you know, they've got their paywall. They made their corrected article that they put out open to everyone. They personally gifted it to the world to show how good they are, pat themselves on the back. They corrected this because of their editing error. Yeah, I want to hear from you now, though.
We have a few lines open for me at 1-800-684-3110. And look, you know that this has been a part of our fight here at the ACLJ for a number of years, decades at this point.
So, when you support the work of the ACLJ, that is also what you're supporting. We're also going to talk a little bit more about some of the work of the ACLJ coming up. And how you can get directly involved. If you want a little spoiler on how you can get directly involved, go to aclj.org/slash sign right now and sign the petition. Join us here at the ACLJ.
This is a really interesting fight. Maybe get yourself a little bit engaged with it. Understand what we're going to talk about even before we get to it. A little bit later. on the show.
Again, that's at aclj.org slash sign. Phone lines are open for you. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back with more on Sekulow Don't Go Anywhere.
Just a moment. Welcome back to Sekulow. I do want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. You're on Hold, Stay on Hold, we'll get to you. I do want to pivot just a little bit here and talk a little about the ACLJ work.
This is a story that made a lot of news, and you may find yourself having a lot of questions about it. And the ACLJ has decided to get involved as well. I'm going to let Will kind of set up the origin of this story and then how you can get involved. Again, I encourage you to go sign a petition and said, go get yourself educated. Because, look, this is a heavy topic.
I will say, if you're listening to small children, we've already talked about some pretty hardcore topics already today.
So you may have already changed the channel. But this one is just one that's very nuanced and is, we got to really think about it. But of course, it involves a fight for life. That's right.
This involves an individual, a nurse from Alaska that agreed to be a surrogate for a California family. They was going to carry their child. Uh and during that Course of that pregnancy, there was a diagnosis for a heart syndrome that could have been possible as they do tests and things through the normal course of that. Parents in this situation, those that had contracted with this surrogate, then were pointing to provisions in the surrogacy agreement. That if there were severe fetal abnormalities, they asked this individual to abort the child, to end the pregnancy.
And she bravely refused. and said uh that she believed that the child deserved to live to move forward and now there is a dispute that is uh headed towards the supreme court yeah over this entire situation they were trying to get essentially damages from the nurse for violating their agreement it's a very complex story but at the heart of it it's the work that we do here and that is standing up for the unborn and that's why we're engaging this jordan right and i mean there's jurisdictional issue here about should it be in alaska should it be in california courts so that's why it's on emergency appeal to the supreme court but what is really at stake here is this you might hear the word contract in the united states of america and think well if you make a contract with someone it's all good you cannot contract things that are illegal you also there's um you can't do it when someone is under duress including financial duress so there's a lot of things you can argue to say you know i signed these provisions i didn't understand what i was even signing i didn't have the correct information i was under duress and pressure that there was no issues to deal with With here, and that that would never really happen. And again, I add a fourth point, which in many states, if you walked down the street and shot a pregnant woman and she died, as well as the child growing inside of her, you are charged with a double murder.
Now, I know in the United States where we have states that do allow abortion, we have laws on the books that make no sense. Because, on the one hand, the murderer gets charged with a double murder, but the abortionist in a state where abortion is legal does not get charged with murder at all. In fact, it's legal.
So, in the same situation, you know, inside the womb.
So, in this case, can you contract murder? Can you contract the taking of life? Is that something that you can then force someone to go and have to follow inside a contract? Or is that something that, again, a contract should not be able to force? And at issue here is: is there jurisdiction?
It's a reminder for everyone in the United States. Read the when you sign contracts that involve lives, involve baby children, you don't just do that on your own. And in fact, that's why I bring up that duress argument as well. But here, I think what's at stake is in the future of this is to make sure. Uh, in the United States, it that it's clear that uh, if these provisions are allowed, so that those out there may be considering uh being a surrogate know that at any point in time and under U.S.
law, they can uh tell you you have to go have an abortion and get rid of this life that you've been growing, or we're going to say, No, that that's that's fine, this is a treatable. Illness. This was not a life-threatening illness that was found. And you know, a lot of these tests they think. Yeah, it's a yeah, but this was something that could have been treatable for their whole life, totally normal life.
So, not a serious medical complication at all, and yet still. That these parents said, abort, or we come after you. Yeah, and that's what's happening, and that's the precedent is going to be stated because right now the baby has been born. I want to make sure that's clear. Correct, right?
But there's disputes there, too. There's disputes of who has custody and all of that.
So, what this is going to do is this at least will, because these are very complicated and very 21st-century, if you will, rules that need to be set. This will at least have, like Jordan said. Ruling potentially from the Supreme Court of the United States that says this is what has to happen.
Well, and once again, as we even said, it's not just one issue at stake here. There's jurisdictional issues, custody issues, contractual issues. All of those are being kind of laid bare here. We are engaging at the ACLJ by filing a reef. We filed it this week, this Tuesday, actually, at the Supreme Court.
This is what we think is very important work. It is pro-life work, but it is one of those things that. You can go read the article up at ACLJ.org. It's titled, She Said No to Abortion. ACLJ Files Emergency Supreme Court Brief in Surrogacy.
And you can get involved. Right, exactly. These are issues that are very complex. And that's one of the reasons why it's amazing that we have such great attorneys here that are able to look at this and be like, this is the way we need to engage this. This is the way that this topic needs to be addressed.
And you are helping that by signing petitions, by supporting the work, by donating. All of that goes towards things like this. I want to take a quick call. Let's go to Bill in Wyoming. Bill, go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my call. Uh could you help me get uh take care of my confusion?'Cause I see signs and hear these women say, Hands off my body, stay away from my body.
Now I'm talking about when this gal was carrying the baby. And yet uh this is happening and w where the women's groups and all this kind of deal, you know? Could you help me with that confusion? Course, there's hypocrisy always in the fight for life. It feels like it is something that we have to deal with.
All the time. When you actually get down to what it is, because it never and rarely is a fight for life, it's a fight for abortion. But Let's You know, take this moment to realize that we live in a very, very complicated society where you can have a contract that says you can end the life in some states and not in another.
Okay, well, what does that look like? How does it play out? We know morally where we stand on this issue, of course. But there is always going to be a difference between the morality of which we believe in and the law of the land.
Well, and once again, as Bill's saying, my body, my choice is the mantra in this one. That is completely broken because it's more like your body, our choice is the way that they were trying to make this play out. And in this entire discussion, the surrogate who was carrying the child was thinking of the life of the child and wanting to maintain that, wanting to save that. The child has been born, had surgery immediately for that heart defect. And then it is always remarkable then also when the parents are like, okay, well, now we want custody as well.
So there are so many issues, but it is, it's complex. It's not something that you driving down the road are probably like, you know, I wonder about the complexities of a contract law when it comes to surrogacy if there's a birth defect. Setting new standards. But these are important, Jordan. We have to engage these types of issues.
Yeah, I mean, surrogacy itself can be very controversial. We know it is to a lot of our listeners.
So that issue alone is controversial. But this then gets into that next level of controversial, which is what are you going to be allowed to contract if we are going to allow surrogacy to move forward in our country and the world? Can you contract that a surrogate has to terminate the life that her body is growing? At any point. And is that a good contract?
Is that a con or is it void? Is that a contract that you can't contract to do illegal things? That's not that contract, you can't just contract anything you want. They get thrown out.
So, that is also part of the argument here, which we hope is made loud and clear ultimately as these kind of cases progress. Yeah, we're going to continue this conversation. Of course, go back to sort of the fight against anti-Semitism that seems like a daily topic here. Phone lines are open for you: 1-800-684-30-110. Second half hour comes up.
If you don't get on your local station, find us broadcasting. Wherever you get your podcasts. or on aclj.org. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Sekulow.
And now, your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. We got a lot of topics going on right now, and phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110, Will Haynes' studio, Jordan Sekulow in studio. We're going to be taking your calls and comments throughout this next half hour. Again, we just talked about the ACLJ's work and that really complicated issue where a surrogate was asked to abort her child or their child that they would, you know, she was contractually.
Yeah, at this at this point. Contractually said that she would need to abort the child. She didn't want to do it, felt like it was wrong. Went to another state. Whole fight ensued.
There's a lot. To go and talk about this. And the ACLJ is getting involved.
So we can talk about that if you want to call in. At aclj.org or 1-800-684-3110. We also talked. Remember, yesterday's show, we opened with about a half an hour talking about the New York Times and how they were saying, How dare the Israelis still think they are the victims of October 7th? Largely, they still believe that.
Well, you know what? We made enough stink about that in that sentence that the New York Times answered back, deleted the Senate, and offered, you know, a word-salad apology, but honestly, more of a word-salad admission of guilt.
So there are times where you, the viewer of this show, Can make a big stink and get the response that you need.
So, I want to say thank you to all of you. And then, honestly, thank you to whoever that editor is of the New York Times that made this decision.
Now, would I have loved maybe a little more specific of a response, a little bit more of taking the blame fully? Yeah, sure. But you know what? A win is a win, and I think this is a win. There are moments that have been happening in this fight against anti-Semitism, whether what's happened with McLemore, whether it's what's happened here at the New York Times, where now it's not that the tide is turning, but at least there is enough.
On the other side. On our side, at least right now. To push back and get some answers.
Well, and once again, we talked about this yesterday. Also, with we had a caller that was bringing up the fact that the woke right, as people like to call it sometimes, the influencer class that has become so anti-Semitic has embraced this anti-Israel, anti-Jewish language, peddling in a lot of the bad tropes of antiquity. Right. And even yesterday, you brought up Macklemore. This was Tucker Carlson's.
Broadcast his podcast yesterday. Here's the title. Tucker on McElmore's cancellation and the so-called conservatives championing censorship. And then the description is: McElmore says he loves Jewish people but opposes genocide. Fox News and Bob Kraft call him an anti-Semite.
This is the party we elected to fight cancel culture. I think there's a very big difference between calling out speech, as we've seen, or someone saying, I don't necessarily want that in my venue, and cancel culture making something persona non grata. If anything, McElmore is more popular. Because of this, cancel culture than he's ever been. No, I mean, and let's be.
Honest about speech here. You again, you have freedom of speech in the United States of America, but you also have to deal with the consequences of the speech that you say. I mean, it doesn't mean that freedom of speech doesn't mean there won't be any consequences to what you say. That even if you believe in a robust, there is no such thing as hate speech, you can say whatever you want. That doesn't mean that there's no financial consequences.
There might not be legal consequences since you're not going to be put in jail by the government. Can private industries and companies say, we don't want to do business with you because of the speech that you are engaging in at our venues or even as you are heading to our venues? That's not about McLamore's freedom of speech. It's about whether or not a venue has the right to choose on its own the kind of people it wants to have at that venue and the messages that it's okay or not okay with having. It wasn't.
Even Ed Sharon doing it. You know, it was these venues saying we're not going to put the money behind it. This is not what we're okay with. And again, McElmore called out Robert Kruff said, I'm donating all of my million dollars that I made from this tour, which, good for McElmore, made a million dollars on that tour. And I'm going to donate it all.
I think he was donating it to UNRAP, but to Palestinian relief. Robert Kraft said, Fine, I'm going to do $2 million. And Sharon said, I'll do it too. You know why? Because it was never about humanitarian relief.
Right. And that's what they're showing in this right now.
So, you know, good on all of them for standing up for this, but it is at least a glimmer of hope. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110 to have your voice heard on the air. We'll be right back with more on Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow.
We do have some phone lines open at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Will, you want to hold these calls? You want to take the calls? Let's hold them for a minute.
Maybe, I mean, we could take Alex on line one. I've been holding for a long time. It's a totally different subject. But, you know, before we get to the next subject, maybe we could take his. You've been holding for like 40 minutes.
Alex, go ahead. Listen on SiriusXM. fast guys thank For being there, prayers for the lady in Alaska that did the right thing and gave birth to the baby. I'm sure that she's probably. Yeah.
contemplating keeping the baby. Second, Israel will never act like terrorists. They were the victims.
Okay. covertly to protect themselves. And for a great example. to take out Let's look. at what they did with the cell phone.
incident. How they turned the cell phones into bombs. Hats off to Israel. And taking our terrorists and not taking out Innocent. people.
Mm-hmm. We're all hurting in this country. Families are hurting in this country. in relation to gasoline and diesel fuel. I'm a truck driver.
at one time I own my own truck and it had Yeah. 300 gallons. That would be a $2,100 fill-up in today's prices. not more. I firmly believe Da da.
Donald Trump, I'll vote for him. A hundred times over, but I think.
Okay. He could Using tariffs as a valuable tool for domestic putting. Taking our domestic product and And I think Because we're on the global trademark. and I hear this all day long that is because of the global trade market. You hear it on Fox News all day long.
Okay. What they're gonna make off the global trade market Kell Trump, okay.
Okay. thousand dollars a barrel for every gallon every Every barrel that you trade And The global Market. Stop hurting the American people. When you stop hurting the American people, we'll take the tariff off.
So, Alex, one, thank you for your work as a truck driver. We even talked recently, we've had a couple of broadcasts. Jordan and I were talking about the issues where some of the states have been issuing the CDLs and all the investigations that are going in from the federal government trying to crack down on that. But we always mention you're the backbone of this country. But I think it's a very interesting take on that.
And one, I think there are things that are helping, such as even well, we saw the big move with the Venezuelan oil, that that will help with supply issues in the short term. The President can't tariff domestic producers. The tariff would be effectively a tax on the incoming goods.
So the fact that our goods would be domestic, that would just be a tax on oil production. That would have to go through Congress.
So the President couldn't unilaterally levy a tax on the oil producers domestically if they were to sell that. But once again, that goes to your point of, yes, our oil producers are on a free market. It isn't exclusively for the United States when they produce.
So if they can sell it other places, they're going to. But we are mostly in this country energy independent. That has been its shift since the President. But it is really hard to just say. To a private company, we're shutting you down.
You can only produce for the United States. I would say this too: the Suez Canal, which a lot of people have talked about, the Strait of Hormuz, Suez, and all this. If you combine that region, it's only about 20% of what we consume when it comes to gas and power for the Western world, the United States, is through there.
So that's not really the reason why the prices are up because of instability in the world and in the markets. For instance, the Saudis getting, you know, some of their oil facilities and refinement facilities getting hit. That scares the market, so the prices go up. But yeah, I filled up my wife's SUV. We have two SUVs.
And within just about three days different, same gas station, and we have about the same size gas tank. It was $7 or $8 more. I mean, I think to fill it hit about $108. And this is in Middle Tennessee, which where we don't have high gas tax prices, and usually gas prices are fairly low. And I will tell you.
Doesn't matter how much you make when you go over that 100 mark and it's not just like 101, when it gets like 108, you start imagining 125 and 130. Oh, shit, California last week's bought 300-gallon tank, $2,100.
So many of us that live in kind of the urban, suburban areas that rely on those delivery services. I think Postmates and Instacart have been to my house probably three or four times in the last day and a half and twice today, I know. And, you know, for them, I always am making sure to add more tip now because even if they're only driving five or six miles to a place and five or six miles to your place, that's another five bucks out of their pocket in just gas money. And so, you know, I'm glad that those companies still exist, but because we've gotten so reliant on them, but you could imagine a time where that becomes. Unsustainable.
I mean, and that's why you've seen so many pull their resources trying to do the electric car thing with the Tesla 3 when it came out as a lower-cost option. But, but again, then I just want to remind people: they try to blame the price on the conflict. It's not the strait of Hormuz, it's not the reason why U.S. got it's the international market itself, the response to instability. The oil market doesn't like instability.
And when I'm talking about that, it's Governments like Venezuela's, it's like Iran, and there's kind of instability there. And who's are they going to close the straight one day? And then there's, of course, actual conflicts that go on with Iran. It's still going on. You've got multi-party conflicts, and you still have got, of course, issues with not just Israel, but the entire Middle East.
And then, of course, you go into the Asian world as well, these mega producers. But again, for the United States, I think there is more the U.S. can do. A lot of this, I believe, you'll start seeing. I think like the rate hike, I think this goes to that too.
I don't know if you guys talked about it yesterday. I think the rate hike was a political move. 100% to hurt Republicans going into the election. There was no reason to raise it that other quarter percent when all the reports were it was going to stay the same or maybe go down. And they actually decided to hike it up a little more just to put a little more pain in people so they can try to make an argument that the Trump administration doesn't care about your economy.
How is that decision being made? That's the Federal Reserve. That's a big question. I'm talking about like if it is politically motivated.
Well, and to that point as well, the Federal Reserve raised it a little bit. This is the first time in three years. And a lot of that has to do with the Federal Reserve said we see inflation has not come down to the level that we would like it to. But President Trump did also, because this is his new chairman that he installed, this is his first move as chairman. President Trump said he did back up the decision of the Federal Reserve in that.
But we know that the Federal Reserve is that's a whole different can of worms we can open up. And I could talk for hours about the. The central banking in the setting of interest rates. But at the same time, To Jordan's point, there are things that are momentary inflation or for this year inflation that aren't necessarily baked in economically when it comes to things like, okay, the price of oil being elevated because of conflict and uncertainty and that trickling down, causing prices across the board. Just the uncertainty.
Right. So, does the interest rate raising, which is done to fight inflation, to try and push it down, is that even a necessary tool? That is a lot of the commentary when they're saying. If and when the conflict is over, this can reset. Do you even need the central bank to step in here?
So, I mean, that's it's a very heady topic. That's why we have a finance degree person. We didn't know we were going to swerve there today. You know what?
Sometimes things happen. We do have some phone lines open for you. I can do that part. I can read numbers. 1-800-684-3110.
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Last segment of the day coming up on Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow Time. For you to give me a call. Last chance, 1-800-684-3110. I do want to hear from you.
Look, we always try to go first to those who are also ACLJ champions, someone that gives on a monthly basis. Let's jump to Martin in North Carolina. Martin, go ahead. Thanks for being a champion. You're welcome.
Thank you, sirs. Jordan said it. And about twenty five years ago, a Carolina Panther player shot his girlfriend who was pregnant. He got charged with double murder.
So I don't know that there's a legal path. uh understanding or giving o um the The way of when does life begin. We believe that life begins at conception.
So if these people want to have the abortion with that lady in Alaska, they're essentially. Uh, putting a contract out on that baby, right? And how does that flow? That's exactly what this case is going to hopefully determine for the future, right? Is that if surrogacy will continue around the world, we know that, and we know it's controversial, but uh, it will continue, and contract law will continue.
But I, you know, contract law sometimes people think is kind of boring. This is when it's very important and serious because you might read through a contract and think, okay, well, abortion is legal in the place we're signing this, so we can put in a provision that says that if the parents here who are in charge of the decision-making process decide they want the child to be aborted, they can do that. And it's like you said, Martin, in a sense, they have a kill order within this contract, a right to kill. I mean, they call it what, a right to terminate? It's the same language.
And it is bizarre that we live in a legal system where you can be charged with a double murder if you shoot and kill someone who is or kill someone who is pregnant. And yet, that same woman earlier in the day could have gone and had an abortion. And not only is she completely protected, but so is the abortionist who committed the abortion. And I guess it is the consequences of. Road being overturned in some ways and it going back to the states.
Yes, so now we have new laws that have to be created. Right. And also the interstate laws.
So someone from Alaska, which has tighter abortion restrictions than a place like California. And then who does this child belong to when the parents of the surrogate parents who have wanted $250,000, probably what the cost that they paid was somewhere around that?
So if they want the money back, but they don't want to, do they want to raise this child? I mean, do they not want to raise it? All those issues come into play. This child right now has two different names based off what jurisdiction you're in. This is a whole new world.
So it's something, of course, where you pray ultimately is for this kid. The kid gets to loving parents, whether it's any of these people involved in this or not, and they don't get stuck in a system and they get the medical care. They need three medical procedures very soon. They've gotten one of them. The question is, would the actual parents who I think now have control?
Yeah. Biologically move forward with the other two procedures. Yeah, we'll find out. There was another call about this. I want to take it real quick before we move on.
Cindy in Texas, go ahead. Hey, how are y'all? I just heard a couple of days ago a lady talk about this very subject and She said it in a way that I never thought about. She said, so many people, when you have a man who doesn't want to take care, doesn't want anything to do with their child. walks away, he's called a dead beat dad and everybody just trashes him.
But a woman who doesn't want her child can just abort it and It's accepted. It is such a double standard, and I don't understand how we got so far off the mark.
Well, I mean, I think, Cindy, even in culture, just a few weeks ago, there was that clip that resurfaced of Ann Hathaway on The View, where she said abortion is another word for mercy. I mean, that is the entirety of what around the ACLJ. They've been educated that way. Right. We call it the abortion distortion factor.
It's even in our laws, as we talk about the fact that there can be double homicide laws on the books, but for something that, as soon as you call it reproductive health care, is completely legal. And in many places, as we pointed out, they're celebrating. up until the moment of birth. In Massachusetts as of late. And again, like I said, it is because they've been educated to believe one way about this and not actually take a logical, even scientific approach to what's happening.
What a shift again. Topics, go back to some of the issues. Let's go to Jan. Jan in Texas, go ahead. Oh, hi.
say that um Sorry, I hated on speaker. I just want to say that McLamir did not say one hateful thing. In his speech. He was basically just saying, we don't have, nobody has the right to go in and wipe out an entire. area of people, including the animals, these poor people, they They rode donkeys to work.
They had dogs as pets. And there is no justification. For pretending to be Amalek. I'm not. There's a lot I can go through that.
One, I. In Gaza, I don't know if you're riding donkeys to work here in Gaza. It's a pretty, you know, Gaza City metropolis. It's a city.
So beyond that, You have to also look at the historic person that's saying it.
Okay. It'd be like if Roger Waters comes out right now and makes a statement, you go, Yeah, because you've been saying it out loud for many years. Remember what McElmore did just a few years ago? This is one of my very liberal friends, I'm not going to call him out by name, and someone said, Oh, you know, McElmore seems his heart. He's such a good person.
He responded, Well, remember when he wore an oversized nose, bold-cut wig, an acidic-looking beard while performing thrish-up, and then said it just happened to gather all the pieces randomly? Then maybe I'd give him a pass. Remember, you have to also go into context. Was there anything egregious about the speech? I don't know.
Maybe you don't want to lead the crowd. Chanting. Things about Palestine. Maybe there are a lot of people who find this issue a bit more complicated, maybe in New York City when you're doing this. But again, it's not about his freedom of speech.
He can say whatever he wants. But if the venues and the promoters and the other artists, who, by the way, are the ones selling the tickets with their name on the marquee, not you, they have every right to do whatever they want to do. And you know what? This is giving McAlmore a pretty big pop. I've not said the word McElmore this much in my entire life, nor did I ever plan to.
And this is someone who thought Fifth Shop was a pretty good song. And to that point as well, yes, he has a right to his opinion. And at his own shows, if he gets booked, he can continue to express those. It wasn't his show. He wasn't the headliner.
The dog. But as well. Amulets were being used. I mean, there was a lot going on. But I think I actually appreciate your call.
This point, though, even to Jan's point, is that he's actually, he's donating his million dollars. He's going to make a lot more than a million dollars off this publicity bump. He's gotten earned media. Through this, and as someone who has, as you said, not just said, I don't like Israel and I think that they are committing genocide. He has actually gone as far as to wear costumes.
Uh, to mock a people group, yeah, that's not okay. Yeah, so thank you for your call. I do really appreciate your call. Honestly, thank you for holding and thank you for commenting. No one is, by the way, downplaying humanitarian issues in this.
You have Michael Moriov, Robert Kraft, you have Ed Sheeran, all of donating, or freedom of speech. I think I've tried to explain it over and over to you: you have freedom of speech, but there are consequences to your speech. That doesn't mean there's legal consequences in the sense that you will go to jail, that the state, that means the federal, state, or local government will put you in jail. But there are consequences to legal speech, and that can be cancellation of a tour because the speech that you're promoting is hurting their bottom line.
Well, and you know where there is a place where what you say could get you killed by the government that that's elected? Oh, yeah, uh, Gaza. That's a place that can happen. It gives a lot of the world. With that being said, hey, Michael, I'm sorry we weren't able to get to you today.
I appreciate you calling in. Call in tomorrow and we'll get you up early on the show. That being said, this is it. I want you to be a part of the ACLJ team, be a part of the family. I want to become an ACLJ champion today.
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