Massive Wake-Up Call: Details that Should Change Your View

Hi everybody, this is Jay Sekulow. We're going to give you an update on the fight for school choice. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. All right, welcome to Sekulow and we all will take your phone calls if you got questions and comments about this at 1-800-684-3110. We have done a lot of work on school choice at the American Center for Law and Justice and one of the big barriers to school choice that's been in the States for decades has been this issue of if we have a school choice program that allows parents to decide to send their kids, whether it's a voucher or tax credit, to a private school, can it also go to a private religious school? Going so far as to say can it go to a private religious school, but what about the religious class and issues like that? Well the Supreme Court has really clarified now for the second, really third time, over a series of cases. This one originated out of Maine and again this is Carson versus Macon, six to three out of the U.S. Supreme Court. The opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts and it says very clearly if you are going to have programs that allow parents to choose to use the money to send their children to a private school, you cannot exclude religious schools from that parental choice. So a huge win because it opens the door not just in Maine but again clarifies from the Supreme Court, this is the second time in just a few years the Supreme Court has again clarified that when you do these programs you can't exclude religious schools.

Well what's interesting about this is Maine had a situation where they did not have secondary schools in a lot of the rural communities which is a large part of Maine. So what they did was they gave an option of tuition assistance but they said the school had to be non-sectarian and as you said Jordan, Sixth Justice of the Supreme Court said that violates, what's interesting here is the free exercise clause. It wasn't a speech case, it wasn't an establishment clause case, it was the right to free exercise of religion and the court said as we've explained in other opinions interest in separating church and state more fiercely than the federal constitution cannot qualify as compelling in the face of an infringement of free exercise.

So this case elevated the free exercise clause of the constitution, that's good. It also says that you cannot target religious institutions for exclusion from otherwise available programs. It noted that the state need not subsidize private education and nothing requires a state to provide for subsidies for private schools but once the state decides to do so it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.

Now we've been arguing that for a long time, there's a case I had Locke versus Davie where the court ruled against us, that case has now been severely narrowed, almost narrowed out of existence basically overturned in the way that they're now interpreting it. So what you've got is a big win for parents and this has been a big issue for us in parental choice and education. Yeah, this is again, you know, make sure that when states are crafting school choice laws they have great, now solid Supreme Court precedent about making sure that they can include the full plenipia of schools. And again, remember none of this is states saying we're going to send money to Christian schools, we're going to decide to do that. The parent makes the initial choice and that's very important here and that's why it's about the free exercise clause, the violation of the free exercise. This is about the parental choice. No one forces states to have school choice programs, we certainly support them at the ACLJ. In Maine it was a necessity because there were just not enough schools in some of these rural areas that were close by and yet they still were trying to exclude parents from being able to make the choice to send their kids to religious schools.

But that may have been the school that was the closest school to them that had the least amount of travel time that made the most sense and the Supreme Court six to three said no. We're in a matching challenge campaign. Jordan's gonna let you know how to do it, makes a big difference on how we can proceed ahead. Yeah, it's very easy to do. You go to ACLJ.org, that's ACLJ.org. Right on the home page there you can do it on your phone, you can do it on your tablet, you can do it on your computer. Very quick though, I mean by the time we again we come back from this break you could have easily done it made the donation and you see you'll see matching challenge or donate either one of those take you to the right page put in your info choose the amount you want to donate you can also choose if you want to make it a recurring monthly donation that will still be part of the match people ask that all the time and that will be part of the match so you go to ACLJ.org. This is a great time to support our work as you said we're grassroots uh you know a $25 donation is a big deal for the ACLJ. All right welcome back to Sekiro so again in a big victory some will say it's a religious liberty victory some will say it's a it's really a victory for school choice because ultimately it's about parents deciding where they want to send their kids to go so we know that these programs have are popping up all over the country some have had that some states have had them for a long time other states are just starting to tinker with with how to set them up but what they're always looking to is not having a constitutional crisis by setting up these school choice programs so the supreme court has again clarified for the second time in two years first out of we saw it out of Montana now Maine that if you set up these school choice programs you cannot exclude religious schools from the schools that parents can choose from right remember it's not just saying we're going to fund religious schools it's saying the parents that get the voucher they get the tax credit from the government for the for whatever reason the state has decided to set up a school choice program then you cannot exclude religious schools or it violates the U.S. constitution and specifically the free exercise of religion which we have seen over time for many decades meant very little to the supreme court unfortunately they would overlook that part of the constitution and kind of go to other provisions of the constitution but for the last three four years we've sought this new life being breathed into that to the point where listen the liberal justices are taking notice and justice Sotomayor's dissent uh she she wrote in 2017 now in 2017 i want you to understand what she's talking about here with all the serious issues we deal with as a country and that the supreme court deals with it was a playground case a playground playground reimbursement program to make playgrounds safer the state of missouri uh so one of these of course was a church playground and she wrote in 2017 i feared that the court was leading us to a place where separation of church and state is a constitutional slogan not a constitutional commitment today the court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation so i you see the anger there i like to put into context that her anger started because she didn't want the church playground to be at the same level as a public school playground safety wise which you think the kid playing on the playground or who falls on the playground cares about the doctrine at that point of their age of where they fell or you think their parents will really you know of where it's safe but that's where it starts with them that's how insane they are on the on these issues and and their their commitment to the idea of separation of church and state over actual constitutional protections like the free exercise of religion so the court said we have repeatedly held that a state violates the free exercise clause when it excludes religious observers from otherwise available public benefits harry that does not sound like a difficult concept to grasp but yet the supreme court for are we i've been litigating this issue for four decades i think they got it right now uh and we're getting in the right framework but you cannot penalize the religious school simply because they have a sectarian base i think you're precisely correct and i think the progressives on the united states supreme court are precisely wrong they fail to understand that this particular decision issued by the united states supreme court arguably advances religious freedom why because the money follows the neutral or independent choice of the parents it is this program at least as amended by the united states supreme court does not advance religion but the progressives fail to understand that so if you look at justice briars dissent he argues that this particular decision advances religious strife he is completely wrong he's got it backwards it advances the concept of neutrality as opposed to religious strife and i think at the end of the day the american people will agree with it their version of neutrality though the dissent and this has been consistent with the left side of the court their view of neutrality is exclude religious participants that's how they they don't view neutral as we'll treat everybody the same neutral they believe neutral is you disqualify the religious advocate this way the government is neutral as to religion but here's what the chief justice has been issued by john roberts signed by all five of the conservative justices while a state need not subsidize private education in other words you can't compel a state to subsidize private education once a state decides to do so it cannot disqualify some private school s solely because they are religious in other words the free exercise clause does not allow a burden to be placed on the religious participant simply because they are religious and that's important to point out yeah and again this is just it's it's up to the parents here as like harry was talking about this is not the state saying we're going to favor religious schools or or you know the idea is to really think about it this way why is it okay for the non-sect the non-sectarian private schools to get the money i mean it's not this is not a but this is an idea is that the left doesn't like school choice and anything that could be a barrier to school choice programs they support this was a barrier this idea that if we open this up is it going to be some constitutional fight that we have to take all the way to the u.s supreme court because uh in some areas the only choice that people are going to have is potentially religious schools or they might want to choose religious schools and so we just won't have a school choice program but the supreme court is making it clear and clear you hopefully don't have to have another constitutional crisis whether it's striking down the blame amendments which they are now which they have been doing for a couple of years which which were anti-catholic amendments put out in the 1800s that started and now we started to see really the opening of school choice so while they want the left wants to make it couch it in oh this is favoring religion this is what this is doing is it's hurting teachers unions exactly right and the major teachers unions groups because people say you know when they have the choice they're going to choose the uh probably not the public school let's put that way if they have a choice of some other schools including uh private schools that might not be religious at all so the court also said by conditioning the availability of benefits in that in a manner that the state maine's constitution does like the programs and then it says in trinity which is a previous case effectively this penalizes the free exercise of religion so in other words harry if you exclude the religious institution simply because the sectarian meets all of the other accreditation requirements the northeast association of colleges and schools yes checks that box has the significant uh curriculum that they needed checks that box but the fact that they were religiously affiliated meant an automatic disqualification and my view is here and i know you've written about this i have too is that kind of targeted discrimination is exactly what the free exercise clause was designed to prevent you are precisely correct jay many progressives claim to support the non-discrimination principle but in reality they oppose the non-discrimination principle when it comes to either religious schools religious institutions or religious insta individuals so i think at the end of the day if you look at this particular decision by the united states supreme court it upholds the principle of non-discrimination which means that religious institutions religious parents they are treated the same as other individuals and groups and i think at the end of the day that is what neutrality means but keep in mind that the progressives on the united states supreme court they are not neutral they oppose any form of religion within the public square they assume that christianity on one hand is a majority religion but then they rightly point out that there are 100 different religions in the united states so in reality there is no majority religion in the united states and so neutrality commands that we treat every single person equally within the meaning of a free exercise clause of the constitution when you point out that this is a parent's choice issue which is totally correct here's what the court said as noted in a neutral benefit program in which public funds flow to religious organizations through the independent choices the independent choices that would be the parents of private benefit recipients does not offend the establishment clause and the court goes on to say that they had in previous cases held that interest in separating church and state more fiercely than the federal constitution cannot qualify as compelling in the face of an infringement of the free exercise clause so this idea that well they could argue the state constitution gives more church state separation thus you could exclude religious groups the supreme court finally and by the way i've been arguing this for 40 years finally closes that hole and says no no a state constitution cannot be used we had this in new york with a number of cases i litigated the supreme court a state constitution cannot be used to override the free exercise clause which again sounds basic the supremacy clause but it took this opinion for the court to get there yeah it said this is discrimination against religion the main program is very clear by the u.s report take kelly's call very quickly in arizona online one hey kelly hi thank you for taking my call um i have a question i for my reading of the constitution i thought there was no such thing as separation of church and state i thought the constitution said the government shall not dictate what religion a person could keep so whenever they keep saying separation of church and state i do not read that in the constitution and if you'll answer that after it's not in the constitution uh the separation of church and state the idea though judicially is certainly in our laws we're in a matching challenge campaign georgia let you know how to do it makes a big difference it's very easy to do you go to aclj.org that's aclj.org you'll see matching challenge or donate either one of those take you to the right page so you go to aclj.org this is a great time to support our work as you said we're grassroots uh you know a $25 donation is a big deal for the aclj all right welcome back to secular we alerted the irs to our foyer back in july 23rd of 2021 i can hold that up for people watching the broadcast here that is right here from the aclj uh then we had to take the irs to court uh and that began again uh august of 2021 the irs tried to file a motion to dismiss and that motion to dismiss was denied just to read from your portion to from uh the application of law section that this group got i just want you to understand the extent the federal government the irs and these agencies are weaponizing against you uh they wrote this quote you educate christians on what the bible says in areas where they can be instrumental including areas of sanctity of life the biblical teachings are typically affiliated with the d party but the d remember in the uh legend that means republican there's so biblical teachings now happen to fall between partisan politics so the irs sees your faith only as political uh which is absurd they don't need to be in the business of getting involved in theology that is not the business of the federal government at all certainly not the irs uh and so because you're typically affiliated with the republican party and candidates this disqualifies you from exemption under the irs 501 c3 this again the idea that the irs was started to look into people's theology and say you know your theology is too conservative uh for us so it's going to favor conservative candidates so you're now uh not qualified to be a c3 organization i mean it's absurd but you have to then put it the big picture together the big picture is this do you feel like you were there's an attempt to silence you that's why i'm asking the question today for you to call in about 1-800-684-3110 to silence you about speaking out on the issues that you care about and then you get demonized immediately if you care about border security you're somehow inhumane even if you talk about the inhumane treatment of the people crossing the border illegally and how that's creating a humanitarian crisis if you ask questions about where is the baby formula going is it going to the border instead of into the american shelves because of the border crisis that's somehow inhumane no it's just a question where's the government utilizing its resources are we shipping it all to ukraine i mean what what is the issue when you've got to take care of the idea again that it's bad now to say take care of americans first harry i want to ask you this is director of policy when you look at this entire case it's good that we got our motion we beat the government back on the motion dismissed what do you see here well i see several things first the biden administration has launched an unmitigated attack on grassroots americans on christians on pro-lifers and this is all part of a war on truth and it is also part of the biden administration's attempt to eviscerate american's freedom of speech rights and free exercise rights the biden administration sinks to seeks to entangle religion with government policy contrary to the united states constitution and so if you subscribe to certain religious or political views then the biden administration seeks to use the entire weight of government to deny you your rights within the meaning of both the law and the constitution albert einstein has said a clever person solves problems while a wise person avoids them the biden administration shows that it is neither wise nor clever instead it invites problems leaving the courts to solve problems the irs unnecessarily causes this idiocy must stop i want to follow up on what you just said what the unnecessary causes now here they're on notice already the irs harry i mean they've been on notice that you can't do this targeted viewpoint discrimination we don't allow that in the united states yet they did it anyways they did it because they are political ideologues they believe in ideology over the constitution and so they see the constitutions merely as a stepping stone to power so they will utilize the constitution when it serves their interests but they will deny opponents the rights to deploy the constitution to protect their interest we have done this in court now with beating back the irs's motion to dismiss but we also went to the halls of congress well there was a hearing and they asked us to testify i did this is a question from representative then representative devin yunez now the head of truth social uh and my response take a listen what should americans be looking for what should congress be looking for and i look forward to uh you're just answering that providing information for for us but thank you for all for being here so congressman the problem is not just the individual agent i do not believe for a moment that an individual agent wrote a letter to christians united not reviewed with a legend including m equals the word of god you know d equals republican i mean and first of all just think about that for a moment the idea that they would even do that to me that still is the issue the fact that the irs thought they could do this that's what's so absurd they'll protect the liberal interest groups i i can't imagine a liberal group getting a letter like this a liberal religious group getting into their theology and saying well you know you're going to help the r's too much but the r means democrat and uh getting deep into oh well uh your kids go to a progressive school like they pointed out the homeschool mom in the letter so if they go to progressive school that must mean that you're a progressive group so you're not going to be eligible for c3 status the idea is political control so the silencing of your free speech rights is political control and if they silence your free speech rights they're silencing your right to organize your right to petition the government for redress of grievances they're they are silencing your religious freedom rights the free exercise of religion these are all the free and press all are based on the idea that we have the freedom of speech and that the government very very rarely gets involved and says this kind of speech is not going to be allowed and in those kind of situations the government even when it's criminal even when it's really vile speech the government and the the courts have been very weary of condemning that speech that's why when they start saying awful but lawful speech they have a very different view of what they think they think we should be the europeans who don't have real freedom of speech who rely on uh parliament and laws to say what you can and can't say that year what's interesting here of course is that the irs i keep going back to this thought they actually could do this and harry i think the dangerous thing here and i'm glad that we were able to follow this lawsuit and we're going to find out if this was a national campaign and i'm going to shut it down but the fact that they did it shows the uber shows the fact that despite a consent decree saying you can't do it filed in washington d.c by a federal judge they still did it anyways i think that's correct and so many of the bureaucrats in government many of the individuals who are part and parcel of the deep state believe that free speech is a luxury which we can no longer afford elites in america like prime minister justin trudeau in canada they admire china's social credit system and they seek political control as jordan suggests it's all part and parcel i would argue of the world economic forum's attempt to control rank and file americans and i think the american people should not stand for it we're in a matching challenge campaign jordan's gonna let you know how to do it makes a big difference on how we can proceed ahead yeah it's it's very easy to do you go to aclj.org that's aclj.org right on the home page there you can do your phone you can do your tablet you can do on your computer very quick though i mean by the time we again we come back from this break you could have easily done it made the donation um and you see you'll see matching challenge or donate either one of those take you the right page put in your info choose the amount you want to donate you can also choose if you want to make it a recurring monthly donation that will still be met part of the match people ask that all the time and that will be part of the match so you go to aclj.org this is a great time to support our work as you said we're grassroots uh you know a 25 donation is a big deal for the aclj 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 one hundred 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 keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is secular and now your host jordan secular hey welcome back to secular we are continuing to take your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110 this idea now i just want to get a sense from you do you feel like the biden administration is trying to silence you i mean it looks like by all efforts they're trying to scare you away from political organizing leading up to i mean we have elections going on all the time right now with primaries a lot of primaries tonight that have been in the news but there's gonna be primaries all leading up to and then there's the actual midterm elections in november and the idea of silencing you or making you feel demonized by being part of a movement that they this government disagrees with i mean the the way even saying that out of the words but they are demonizing uh the idea that we would put baby formula first for americans if we could figure out where those supply chains are they're not giving us information about how much is going to the border how much is going overseas instead of when we can't even fill our own shelves in many states across the country where that's becoming a crisis you think about these crises gas price crisis baby formula crisis do you think there's a reason why they want to shut you up they want to make sure you don't get involved in politics they i mean foreign policy has been a disaster to say the least i mean we've seen russia invade ukraine uh and become this kind of stalemate a horrible war and we're gonna get into some of that later other countries trying to join nato now because they're worried about russia uh invading them i mean this is this is real world issues but they don't want you engaging on there's a lot of domestic issues at play here the schools the curriculum as the irs is worrying about whether you're using the word of god and coming up with legends where d equals i mean t equals republican i mean this is how ridiculous they think we're they think we have no idea what they're doing here so we're going to find out who did this and that party could well end up being a target of a lawsuit frankly because here's here's the truth there's a 501c3 organization fine with me that they exist called religious coalition for reproductive choice they were in question 40 years ago for having views related closely to the r which would mean the democrat party and they even signed on to a letter from media matters uh sent to big tech advertisers on twitter to try and force twitter to keep their current content moderation standards or face a boycott so again the irs has no problem with these groups and if they treated everyone the same we'd have no problem with the irs but they aren't treating everyone the same it's a bureaucracy when President trump talked about draining the swamp uh it's a bureaucracy filled of left-wing democrats that's who controls washington dc and they're powerful because they remain when politicians come and go and when they when they think that they're getting signals like they got from President biden that uh you know people this is the most extreme political movement in american history that is their signal to go after conservative groups that's when all of our kind of antennas went up and we said you know what this is exactly how it started with lois learner she thought she was following the uh what barack obama wanted the irs to do as well as members of congress who were democrats sending the irs letters saying go after these groups what happens is they get nervous they they see the polls so they attempt a scorched earth political strategy and the scorched earth is republicans how do we disband them how do we get them uh uh un-unified how do we get them uh to stop speaking out how do we get them afraid to put the sign in their yard afraid to talk to their neighbor afraid to show up at a meeting or or attend an event how do we get them afraid to express their view period just their view yeah and by the way when they do express their view on social media platforms the new public square we will try and shut it down we will either de-platform them we'll put them in facebook jail and all these new terms that have come apart it is a full-on assault on your freedom of speech rights to try and silence you before an election so they can hope i mean they are hoping to maintain some power specifically in the u.s senate i will tell you like we're not like a lot of organizations and that we don't have you know we don't get a we get some and we're appreciative of everything we're not we don't get regularly 10 million dollar grants and million dollar grants that's very rare for us but it's because of people like you lots of people like you thank you without your support it doesn't happen and as we said we're in a matching challenge campaign jordan's gonna let you know how to do it makes a big difference it's very easy to do you go to aclj.org that's aclj.org you'll see matching challenge or donate either one of those take you to the right page so you go to aclj.org this is a great time to support our work as you said we're grassroots uh you know a 25 donation is a big deal for the aclj and welcome back to secular all right we want to talk about it's been brewing for a couple of months now and that is with the situation the war in ukraine what i call the war in eastern europe you have now finland who has not requested membership in nato before who has the longest border with russia in eastern europe uh in europe saying they want nato membership they want a session to nato and you ask yourself what does that mean and why now and does that escalate the situation colonel westmith is with his first west your reaction to this turkey by the way we'll get into this in a moment who is a nato member and has supplied ukraine with tactical weapons including very powerful drones is very hesitant on this they are you know sweden and finland both feel threatened by by putin and that's that's putin's own fault for invading ukraine finland also has bad blood with russia because stalin invaded finland in 1939 and slaughtered thousands and thousands of fins so they for their own national security both sweden and finland want to join finland in particular is a strong candidate they have a huge military they have the largest artillery of units the largest amount of artillery in all of europe they just bought 64 f-35 fighter jets from america and that 830 mile border you're mentioned finland has such a large military they will not require any nato troops to police that border they're already policing it themselves they also already spend two percent of their gdp on national defense which is technically required in the nato alliance although many of the nations don't do it so both of these countries are strong candidates putin said that his reason for invading ukraine was he was afraid of nato he didn't want to get any larger more powerful it is backfired nato is more united than ever because this is i'm gonna play contrarian here just for a moment it would seem to me that while you're trying to figure out the world is trying to figure out how to de-escalate this war in eastern europe and granted it hasn't gone well for the russians but as jordan has pointed out before the russians have something a lot of these other countries don't have nuclear weapons many of which are pointed at the united states exactly okay so you asked this question does membership and ascension to nato right now in the middle of all of this the situation is that going to inflame the russians give them more reason to do something unorthodox and dangerous like using a tactical nuclear weapon yeah and that's a legitimate concern i i don't think you can really base national defense policy or defense of europe based on whether or not putin will be provoked and but that is a legitimate concern why would you be i'm just playing an advocate why wouldn't you wouldn't you have to play nine-dimensional chess here you would think that you would think that if you're going to make them and believe me i think what what russia did to ukraine is i think they've committed war crimes i think they violated international norms and there was no justification for them going into ukraine having said that tens of thousands of people are dead yes children displaced from their homes it's horrible why wouldn't you look at as a military analyst in the pentagon aren't you thinking okay if we say yes to finland now versus three months from now when maybe this has calmed down maybe that's a better time is this sending the wrong signal from the united states because we're still the big thunder of nato to do this now yeah and again that's a legitimate concern i think part of the thinking though is that we we we really waited to arm the ukrainians we were very hesitant to do that because we did not want to provoke putin he invaded anyway and so i think we're a little bit gun shy uh in the west of trying to avoid provoking putin because he is so unpredictable and the fear is that if we don't let finland and sweden join at some point he he will probably invade one of those countries there's another interesting dynamic to all this jordan you mentioned that is there's a 40 billion dollar request right now for um money from the united states to go to ukraine and it has not gotten universal support no no it is still stalling in congress i mean i think the idea there is because uh there's questions about one how long it takes the money to get there our our own economy and and what a lot of elected officials are saying especially on the republican side is it's not that they don't want to assist ukraine against this russian aggression there's pretty much unified support for that but it's like we can't throw out the united states in our interest for that you got to take care of your own people first so when they're hurting at the pump when their mortgages are going up when prices for everything are rising at extreme levels when you can't buy baby formula in the united states of america do you send money to ukraine but you can do more than one thing when you're President so you'd secure the border so you wouldn't be sending so much the supplies the baby formula there uh you can also figure out how to get more european engagement in ukraine so you aren't the only country sending billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars to uh to fight this war which is which raises the next question which is are the europeans engaged you've been monitoring this for weeks now are they engaged at the level financially to make they made the commitments they need to be making wes for the most part our major players have but the thing about giving this 40 billion dollars as jordan alluded to is that you know inflation is so high and and federal spending you know actually increases inflation but the other thing too and ran paul brought this up about ukraine and that is they have a long history of corruption we can't just shove cash into ukraine and so what ran paul has suggested is we have an inspector general who will actually oversee where ukraine spends this cash but for the most part i wouldn't be shocked though if the ukrainians object to that i wouldn't be shocked if they object i agree because it's you got americans involved in their internal governance however i don't think ran paul's wrong i understand exactly yeah exactly folks i mean i think this is another issue and we could take your calls to this as well 1-800-684-3110 because these are issues that affect america greatly i mean we are the number one supporter of ukraine this does not seem like something that's going to be ending anytime soon unfortunately that's very unfortunate for the people of ukraine the isolation of russia but are we forgetting china as well we talked about that with secretary pompeo rick ronell every time they're on is don't pull your eye off what's going on around the the rest of the world and especially with china and taiwan and the situation there the genocide going on inside china i mean the these issues are huge our administration currently the bite administration just seems to play them all down it's like when you when you see him give a speech it's it's a horrendous speech and it's i'm not it's not just to be mean it's it's it's uh you know vice President harris saying 14 times we're going to work together in the same three you know 60 seconds and she can prepare for these moments she has a huge staff to prepare her for these statements that's all they've got to say i mean you know when you go to try to figure out the answer on the baby formula they blame one plant uh why not be working on opening up another plant getting the cut the red tape make sure it's safe but cut the red tape and fill the the the shelves this is this is absurd in the united states of america when i'm on my facebook page and you see pete families uh who have the money to buy it who are saying you know i'll pay double if you can pick it up for me if you see it at the grocery store i'll vidmo you the money and pick it up from your house i'll do everything and i'll pay you double for what's already very expensive and this is to keep their child alive wes and i will remember this you were not even born yet this is the jimmy carter era all over again i feel like we're the same thing couldn't get gas couldn't get fuel couldn't put heat on remember in your because of the the shortages this is unreal it is very unreal the american people have not struggled struggled like this since the presidency of jimmy carter both of them happen to be democrats and it seems like the viet administration is a bit tone deaf i don't think they understand the depth of the struggle or the depth of the american people's dissatisfaction 75 in a recent poll of americans saying the country is going in the wrong direction last question colonel smith where do you see the next what happens next in the ukraine do you think i think there needs to be a compromise and hopefully there will be i think the donbas region we're going to have to consider that a loss ukraine is and let russians keep it hopefully that will give putin an exit ramp because militarily russia is being defeated on the battlefields of ukraine right now but they couldn't long term though they could keep engaging probably longer than ukraine could oh absolutely yes yeah you know we talk about all the issues whether it's uh the free speech issues we talked about with rick earlier the week you created russia the u.n human rights commission our work at the u.n human rights council our work in jerusalem we just did that all of that is actual work so when we talk about all of these issues which are in the news for us and for you who support the aclj that is not just uh talking to talk and our broadcast has never been about talking to talk we've tried to continually make the broadcast more about something that even if you just tuned in for five minutes from that five minutes you can take something away that's different than uh talking heads on cable news or three-minute discussion understand the scope and nature of what's happening and we are in our matching challenge campaign so this is where you come in and i'm going to emphasize what jordan said this is only if you're able to do this if you're not in the financial position to do it please don't pray for the aclj pray for our team encourage others get side petitions share share you know engage on our social media i know everybody can't afford it with the with the price of gas and food and fuel and everything else but if you can we really would appreciate your support for the aclj we're in a matching challenge month march and april our matching challenge months jordan's gonna let you know how to do it folks yeah it's it's very easy to do you go to aclj.org that's aclj.org right on the home page there you can do your phone you can do your tablet you can do on your computer very quick though i mean by the time we again we come back from this break you could have easily done it made the donation and you see you'll see matching challenge or donate either one of those take you to the right page put in your info choose the amount you want to donate you can also choose if you want to make it a recurring monthly donation that will still be part of the match people ask that all the time and that will be part of the match so you go to aclj.org this is a great time to support our work as you said we're grassroots uh you know a $25 donation is a big deal for the aclj all right welcome back to secule we're taking your phone calls again 1-800-684-3110 that's 1-800-684-3110 this is a very interesting comment from josh on youtube yeah here's what josh says uh about the irs denial letter clearly they named it d to equal republican to try and throw off anyone reading it thinking d equals democrat they're pulling a sleight of hand deception right misinformation disinformation what is their possible excuse for saying d equals republican other than that no no it's it's ridiculous absurd i mean it is there is no other explanation except to throw people off when they're doing document searches yes so what they're what they're now what they're preparing their documents to make it tougher for groups like us to find the information exactly by using absurd legends you know like the legends what does this letter stand for what's this acronym mean absurd legends that wouldn't show up in a basic search so they'll say oh nothing came up in your search about that that is to try and again it's a tiptid deception and to deceive and to keep you from the information to me this again it's the biggest issue we face right now is an attempt to silence the opposition voices in the united states especially right now yes let's go ahead and take a call sure bill in montana on line one hey bill my question is what is stopping the u.s government from eliminating FOIA requests altogether that's a great question so here you have a federal statute that authorizes freedom of information act request came in the in the in the kind of the shadows of watergate what the government does and there's exemptions to where some things are exempt but what they do is when you file it starts with a letter so we send in a freedom of information act letter and then usually the government doesn't respond and this was the com holding this was the FOIA letter we sent in then they don't respond and then we've got to go to court and we file this a federal lawsuit and then they try to dismiss it so you're and not always the case but i would say 75 of the time we end up in federal court over this so what the government even though there's a statute harry that says get this information to the public and the idea of government transparency the reality is they don't want you to see any of this i think that is correct because you'll find out what happened i think that is correct but it's also important to keep in mind that the deep state leaders have a low opinion of the american people and they are quite willing to engage in behavior which insults the intelligence of rank and file americans but it's also important to note that organizations like the aclj are equipped with lawyers who've actually read and litigated the statute and hence we are prepared to fight them at least on equal terms and to the extent that we have competent jurists who are basically reviewing these requests more likely than not we will prevail in the end but i think it's also important to keep in mind that the government objective beyond attempting to block us from gaining necessary information they are also engaged in a somewhat successful campaign to delay the disclosure of offending information and i think that to some extent is what's going on here and that i think is a central issue with respect to FOIA i keep on coming back i keep on coming back to this though for their entire audience somebody at the internal revenue service sat down at a keyboard or somebody up above them did and typed all this out put d is democrat m is word of god you're you believe in the bible you're pro-israel you you're pro-life you're a homeschool mom you're a homeschool mom they put that in a document thinking that was never going to see the light of day that's their hope their hope is that you you get your denial and you say you know what i it costs money i gotta find attorneys to appeal this then i gotta fight this and uh seems pretty bad when you get a denial from the irs to me it was a multi-page denial it wasn't like a one-pager uh that you know you filed something wrong fix that and resubmit this was this was like we really looked into you we know who you are then it gets people thinking do i want the irs involved in my life any more deeply than they already are at this point even though i did voluntarily submit this information they're going and looking at how i educate my kids deciding if my group is going to get uh political uh irs uh c3 status because i happen to decide to homeschool your kids or what sex if you just go to a christian school so again they would never do this if you're if you sit your kids over to some liberal private school there's no way that letter exists i guarantee you the letter does not exist it's never gone out but this coming from joe i think is really important because he said good work aclj the problem is and this is true it costs lots of money to sue the government while the government has a seemingly they do endless money pit an incredible amount of lawyers they do they have an entire department of justice but they also have endless resources they so you have to be committed if you're going to fight these battles and not just talk about them you have to be committed to the long-term fight you have to have donors that support your work you got to understand that it's not only and this is where this is a good question he talks about this endless pit of an incredible amount of lawyers it's not just the department of treasury has lawyers the department of justice has lawyers there is a foyer division of lawyers inside the department of justice so harry when you talk about deep state activists it's deep both in the legal part and in the compliance area and the fact of the matter is where jordan's right that means we have to be committed i think that is correct because if you look at the deep state they have been unleashed to go after for instance moms for liberty they've been unleashed to go after individuals who believe in the constitution who believe that the united states for instance is a republican form of government um so if you believe in the constitution it's very possible that the attorney general that the department of justice will come after you under the leadership of attorney general merit garland who basically suggested that parents were engaged in domestic terrorism by showing up at school board meetings and basically contesting the right of school boards to insist that kids wear masks or that skids uh kids uh study critical race theory you name it we have to be vigilant because at the end of the day the government particularly in washington does not have the best interest of the american people in mind you know nine years ago it was may 10th of 2013 when lois learner admitted in the law school classroom what the irs was doing uh just as a flashback to remind you that they are they could be back at it but we're getting ahead of it this time by 20 wow they used names like tea party or patriots and they selected cases simply because the application had those names in the title that was wrong the irs would like to apologize for that that was wrong the irs would like to apologize for that i want you to think about that one for a moment when you're audited next time you leave out a receipt oh that was wrong i apologize for that but here's what bothers me this is what she says they use names like tea party they selected cases simply because the application had those names in it that was wrong and then she said the irs would like to apologize she was the head of the tax exempt division of the internal revenue service stamping her name onto those questionnaires that we know that originated actually from washington dc that was remember she was still initially trying to blame cincinnati regional office for this uh problem in the targeting again i think where it's a reminder is when you put all these agencies together and you've got an administration facing bad poll numbers they start freaking out they start doing things that are wrong to try and save themselves politically and they're willing to do things that republicans never would be willing to do and they shouldn't because it's it's wrong and it's really illegal to weaponize these branches of government without your support it doesn't happen and as we said we're in a matching challenge campaign jordan's gonna let you know how to do it makes a big difference it's very easy to do it's very easy to do you go to aclj.org that's aclj.org you'll see matching challenge or donate either one of those take you to the right page so you go to aclj.org this is a great time to support our work as you said we're grassroots uh you know a $25 donation is a big deal for the aclj