The World and Everything in It: April 18, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. My name is Abby Burk, and I live in Louisville, Kentucky. I was introduced to WORLD by my mom and my sister, and I like to listen as I do my daily workout. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Telehealth makes getting healthcare easier. But does it undermine state laws that protect children?

AUDIO: I got testosterone shipped to my door in 24 hours after a ten minute quiz and a thirty minute phone call.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also, what Iran’s attack on Israel means for the United States. And a rancher in the Texas Panhandle returns to her land after the Smokehouse wildfire.

AUDIO: We’re land stewards. We love this land. We're trying our best to make it the best it can be. And losing our pastures, it is a big grieving process.

And WORLD commentator Cal Thomas on the burden of paying taxes.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, April 18th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. Good morning!

REICHARD: Time for news now with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Mayorkas impeachment latest » Republicans are blasting Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Senate Democrats after they voted to dismiss impeachment charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

AUDIO: On this vote, the yeas are 51. The nays are 49. The motion is agreed to. The Senate, sitting as the court of impeachment, stands adjourned … 

Schumer argued that the House’s impeachment of Mayorkas was unwarranted.

But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell:

MCCONNELL: It doesn’t make any difference whether our friends on the other side thought he should have been impeached or not. He was. And by doing what we just did, we have ignored the directions of the House which were to have a trial. This is a day — It’s not a proud day for the Senate.

Senate Republicans said the chamber just shirked its constitutional duty to convene a full and fair trial.

Foreign aid funding » President Biden says that he supports a proposal from Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. His backing betters the odds of bipartisan support in the House.

Johnson is taking growing heat from his right flank particularly over a measure to fund more aid for Ukraine. But the speaker said the House will demand answers.

JOHNSON: We’re going to require within 45 days the White House to deliver to Congress a meaningful plan. What is the endgame here? And how are we going to accomplish this and bring this conflict to an end?

Still, Johnson could lose his job over this. A small group of House Republicans has threatened a push to vacate the speakership for the second time in less than a year. Speaker Johnson said his philosophy is to “do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may.”

Boeing hearings » Boeing is under the microscope on Capitol Hill as Senate committees held back-to-back hearings on recent safety problems with its airplanes.

Boeing quality engineer Sam Salehpour testified that when the company fell behind on aircraft production it started taking dangerous manufacturing shortcuts.

SALEHPOUR: I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align. I call it the Tarzan effect, among other improper methods.

But he says when he brought these concerns to Boeing management …

SALEHPOUR: I was sidelined. I was told to shut up. I received physical threats.

No Boeing representatives were at the hearing, but the company disputes those claims, saying employees with safety concerns are encouraged to speak up.

Venezuela sanctions » The White House is putting the squeeze back on Venezuela’s government amid fears that the country’s disputed president is rigging another election. WORLD’s Mark Mellinger has the story.

MARK MELLINGER: The White House re-imposed sanctions on Venezeula’s oil and gas sector Wednesday. The move comes after disputed President Nicolas Maduro’s regime barred top opposition candidates from running against him.

He has also maintained tight control over the country’s electoral council. And he’s accused of threats and violence against critics.

Maduro has scheduled elections for July, and polls show he could very well lose a fair election, but there’s no indication that voters will get one.

The Biden administration eased sanctions against Venezuela in 2022, saying it hoped the move would spur democratic reforms.

Some Republicans accused Biden of working to open access to Venezuelan oil to relieve political pressure over supply shortages.

For WORLD, I’m Mark Mellinger.

RAISI: [Speaking Farsi]

Iran president warns of ‘massive’ response » Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is threatening a larger attack against Israel if Israeli forces retaliate over last weekend's air assault with “the slightest act of aggression” on Iranian soil.

President Biden and some other world leaders have urged Israel not to respond militarily for fear of a widening war in the Middle East.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Israel’s allies on Wednesday.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

He said he appreciates the advice, but—his words—“I want to clarify that we will make our own decisions.”

Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel over the weekend.

Israel says it will respond but has not said when or how.

Hawaii fires report » As Maui burned last year, the island’s emergency management director was slow to respond and communications broke down, adding to the chaos. That’s according to a new report from Hawaii’s attorney general, Anne Lopez.

ANNE LOPEZ: A few days after the wildfire, I was speaking with the governor, and he and I were asking the same questions that everybody else was, which is- How could something like this have ever happened?

Last August, the worst U.S. wildfires in more than a century killed more than 100 people and incinerated the once picturesque town of Lahaina.

Lopez says that the day the fires broke out, emergency management director Herman Andaya was off the island and opted not to return until the next day. He resigned 10 days later.

Additionally, the report said leaders did not use Hawaii's extensive network of emergency sirens to sound warnings.

LOPEZ: The underlying foundation of this report is not to place blame on anybody. This is about never letting this happen again.

It also described cell networks going down, cutting off communication for first responders and emergency alerts to local residents.

NPR Editor Resigns » A longtime editor at National Public Radio has resigned after the network suspended him following his public criticism of what he said was a worsening liberal bias at NPR. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: After 25 years on the job, Uri Berliner is walking away. In his resignation letter, he called the network a “great American institution.”

He added that he does not support calls to defund NPR, which gets a portion of its revenue from taxpayer dollars.

He said he respects the integrity of his colleagues, but added “I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cited.”

Berlinger did not expound on how he feels CEO Katherine Maher has disparaged him or which of her views he finds divisive.

Maher was politically outspoken and critical of Donald Trump before joining the network.

NPR says it does not comment on individual personnel matters. But the outlet’s top editorial executive disagreed with Berliner's assessment.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I’m Kent Covington. 

Straight ahead: mail-order hormones. Plus, finding hope and peace after a Texas wildfire.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 18th of April, 2024. This is WORLD Radio and we’re glad you’re along with us today. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. First up on The World and Everything in It: Telehealth and hormones.

A quick word to parents: this story deals with issues related to gender confusion, so you might want to listen before sharing with your children.

REICHARD: Twenty-three states currently protect children from accessing puberty blockers and so-called “cross-sex” hormones. That means 27 other states don’t. So a child who lives in a state that restricts use of those measures could travel to a state that allows them.

But what about telehealth medicine? Doctors can offer consultations online or by phone and then fill prescriptions that patients can have mailed to their door. Is it possible for children to get life-altering hormones in this way?

BROWN: WORLD’s Juliana Chan Erikson investigated the question and brings us the story.

FOLX HEALTH AD: Are you struggling to find hormone replacement therapy and don’t know where to look? Folx Health has your back.

JULIANA CHAN ERIKSON: Folx Health is one of a growing number of telehealth services that cater to people identifying as LGBTQ. And right now it can serve all 50 states because it omits a big segment of the population—children and teenagers.

As states and courts go back and forth over whether children should have access to cross-sex hormones, many providers are doing their best to stay legal and out of political hot water.

But telehealth is a relatively new industry, one with evolving rules, infrastructure and patients willing to test its limits.

EMELIE SCHMIDT: I want to start off by saying I did not use the transgender telehealth when I identified as trans.

That’s Emelie Schmidt. When she was in high school, she identified as a male and immersed herself in online forums where other users celebrated transgenderism. Somebody from the forum sent her a chest binder, and at school, teachers spoke to her using male pronouns. But by the end of high school, she realized it was just a phase and she went back to living as a female.

Schmidt never used cross-sex hormones, but she wondered how easy would it be to get them via telehealth? So a few months ago, she checked out Folx Health. The doctor who met with her over video call told Schmidt that she would not need to submit any blood work to receive hormones.

SCHMIDT: February 21, at 1:31 p.m. is when I was trying to get the hormones, when I started. And then February 23, at 2:08 p.m. is when I received testosterone at my doorstep.

That’s right. Just two days after first contacting Folx Health, Schmidt received a package of life-altering hormones. The experience made Schmidt wonder, could a minor do the same?

While most providers in the hormone business require clients to be 18 or older, I did find one, QueerMed, that offers hormone treatments for minors. That said, Dr. Izzy Lowell, a representative from QueerMed, told me in an email, “WE COVER 46 STATES AND WE TREAT MINORS IN ALL STATES WHERE IT IS LEGAL.” But she also admitted that it would theoretically be possible for an adult to order hormones and give them to a child.

While some states have made these treatments illegal, others are trying to make it easier for children to obtain life-altering hormones.

WES MOORE: When I proudly sign the trans health equity act, each and every one of you should feel proud because your fingerprints are going to be all over it.

Last year, Maryland Governor Wes Moore enacted a law that allows the state to use Medicaid to pay for so-called “gender-affirming care.” And earlier this month, Maryland lawmakers passed a bill that would protect doctors who provide transgender treatments to anyone, including children who come from states where it’s prohibited.

Eleven other states already have similar laws in place.

Jonathan Alexandre is a lawyer and legislative counsel for the Maryland Family Institute. He says there’s one other issue where doctors in his state enjoy so much legal protection at the risk of harming patients—and that’s abortion.

JONATHAN ALEXANDRE: If we're following the track of the abortion pill and telehealth, that seems to be the same sort of path that the puberty blockers are going on. So one way to jump the gun and anticipate what the next avenue of fight is when it comes to stopping puberty blocking medication is really just by following a trend of what they've done to the abortion pill.

Still, even if telehealth providers manage to stop underage patients in protected states from getting the hormones, other people I spoke with say using telehealth this way is just not safe, even for adults.

AARON DIPIETRO: It’s not about making it harder or easier. It’s about making sure that people have full informed consent, and they know every aspect of what is going on in these procedures.

Aaron DiPietro is legislative director for Florida Family Policy Council. Last year Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law that requires adults to meet with a doctor in person and sign informed consent forms before getting hormones.

The forms say the signers are aware of the health risks before they undergo any transgender procedure. DiPietro says this is necessary because it’s likely many patients looking for cross-sex hormones—adults and children alike—are also dealing with something else.

DIPIETRO: Many of these people are dealing with mental health issues, they're dealing with, you know, trauma, they're dealing with psychological issues that need to be dealt with, in a completely different way. You cannot fix psychological issues with just a telehealth, you know, medical prescription.

Emelie Schmidt says she’s thankful she couldn’t access cross-sex hormones in high school, and she hopes telehealth providers raise the bar for medical intervention.

In the end, the treatment that helped Schmidt most didn’t come through a syringe, but a long conversation with her mom during a road trip.

SCHMIDT: So I started coming into reality after my mom took me on a beach trip, January of 2017. My mom was just telling me about how it's okay to be a girl that's not girly. So you're still a girl, even if you aren't girly.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Juliana Chan Erikson.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: A milestone in Middle East warfare.

Israel has promised to respond to Iran’s missile and drone attack carried out on Saturday. So far, they’ve held off on launching any strikes.

A multinational force that includes the U.S. and Jordan helped Israel shoot down almost all of the incoming missiles and drones. And they’ve also encouraged Israel to settle for a defensive victory.

But is a more proactive approach needed to prevent a regional war with Iran?

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Joining us now to talk about it is Will Inboden…he’s a former member of the National Security Council and now teaches at the University of Florida. He’s also a regular contributor to World Opinions.

Will, good morning.

WILL INBODEN: Good morning. Great to be with you.

REICHARD: In your World Opinions column on Monday, you say Iran crossed a significant threshold by attacking Israel directly. Why do you think Iran took the risk of a direct strike rather than act through one of its proxies closer to Israel?

INBODEN: I think it was a couple of things, Mary. First, Iran has paid careful attention to the Gaza war and Israel's, you know, ongoing assault to eradicate Hamas. And Iran has seen Israel's growing isolation, right? Iran has seen that international opinion, especially across the Middle East and most European countries and the United Nations had been turning against Israel. And so I think Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini felt a certain political moment here that now if we are going to escalate against Israel, we Iran, may have more international support to do that, because Israel is so isolated. Iran had also seen the growing distance between Israel and the Biden administration and thought maybe this is a chance to further drive a wedge between Israel and the United States.

The second factor is the more immediate one, which is just a couple of weeks earlier in Damascus, Israel had launched a remarkable operation to kill several Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders. So that's Iran's kind of main, if you will, terrorist supporting power projection arm. It's a very elite part of the Iranian Armed Forces, including Reza Zahedi, who was the commander of the IRGC for the region, and there's pretty strong evidence that Zahedi had worked with Hamas to plan Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel. So Israel, I think, was very justified in the operation that took him and his colleagues out. But that was a big blow to Iran, and Iran decided that they wanted to retaliate in turn. And so I think those are the two factors why Iran decided, for the first time in its history, and that's why this is so notable, to launch a direct attack on Israeli territory.

REICHARD: Well, Iran did take advantage of the political moment. It launched more than 300 missiles and drones, but Israel and its allies shot down 99% of them…so was Iran’s plan thwarted, or was it trying to accomplish something besides killing hundreds of Jewish people?

INBODEN: Yeah, well, nobody can know for sure what is in the mind of Supreme Leader Khamenei and the Iranian leadership because they are so isolated, and so, you know, perverse in their Islamic radicalism. But I do think that Iran had intended, especially those ballistic missiles they launched, I think they had intended to try to kill as many Jews as they could. They were trying to calibrate it so that they could launch a damaging attack on Israel, but not so overwhelming that it would lead to an all out war, but I think Iran wanted to cause more damage and death and destruction than they actually did. I think in Tehran, they're pretty surprised to how effective the Israeli defenses were.

REICHARD: Will, what lessons do you think the U.S. should learn from this? After all, leaders in Tehran promised to make things painful for whoever gets between it and Israel.

INBODEN: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the bigger takeaways is we need to remember that, especially in the Middle East, strength and power are the most important currencies, right? I mean, Israel and the United States needed to show our adversaries in the region, especially Iran, and its terrorist proxies, including Hamas, or the Houthis in Yemen, or Hezbollah, that we will work together to to protect Israel's interests, to protect America's interests. And sometimes that does need a display of force. But we also do that best when we have partners in the region and with the Saudis and the Jordanians and Emiratis, and then our European allies acting together. That's also a very potent combination.

REICHARD: One nation watching how the U.S. helped Israel was Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has since voiced frustration that the Americans haven’t provided similar support for Ukraine against Russia. Why the different treatment, you think?

INBODEN: Yeah, I think it really comes down to a fear of Russia's nuclear arsenal. Iran is very close to having a nuclear arsenal, but doesn't yet. Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, and at least in the case of the Biden administration, I think that's why they have been more cautious or hesitant in what they're willing to do to support Ukraine. There's a certain amount of self-deterrence there. I think, you know, I personally don't put as much stock in Putin's nuclear threats, but he's gotten away with bluffing there. And so I think that's why you've seen a hesitation on the part of the United States to get directly involved. 

On the other hand, we hadn't needed to, at least up until now. Ukraine has shown a real willingness to do its own fighting as long as they're given the tools, as long as they're given the weapons, and they've been very effective at that. But now Ukraine is suffering some significant battlefield losses and losing territory and losing a lot more of its civilians from these unrelenting Russian attacks, because American aid has stopped, because Congress hasn't passed it. And so I can certainly understand, and like I said, I support President Zelenskyy's appeal. He's not asking for American troops there. He just wants the weapons that his people can do the fighting for themselves to defend their own freedom, to defend their country.

REICHARD: Final question here: Any other aspect of this story you think the mainstream media are missing?

INBODEN: Yeah, I think the mainstream media has been missing the connections between, what I call it in my WORLD article, this "new Eurasian belt of tyranny," that Russia and Iran and China and North Korea, those four countries are working very closely together. They're sharing intelligence, they're supplying each other weapons, they've got close economic ties. And so when Iran is attacking or threatening the existence of our partner, Israel, Iran is also supporting Russia's aggression against Ukraine. And similarly, Russia and Iran are both quietly supporting China in its threats against Taiwan. And so these different threats are connected and I think Americans, Christians, conservatives, we need to have a more sophisticated and realistic view of the dangers out there in the world and see how they are connected and how the best way to protect our own security is to, to have a stronger posture against all of them.

REICHARD: Will Inboden is a former National Security Advisor who now teaches at the University of Florida. Will, thank you for your time and expertise!

INBODEN: Thank you, Mary. Great to be with you, as always.

SOUND: [Splashing and laughing]

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Normally people don’t laugh at someone just paddling down a river, unless that person is floating in a pumpkin.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Wait, what?!

BROWN: Yep. A man in Australia won a blue ribbon for his almost 900-pound pumpkin. But it was his buddy Adam Farquharson who gained greater fame when he hollowed it out and paddled it down the river. Sound here from The Daily Advertiser:

SOUND: [Splashing and laughing]

Farquharson dressed up like Popeye the Sailor Man for his attempted paddle upstream. But he couldn’t beat the current.

REICHARD: Sounds like he should’ve eaten his spinach instead of pumpkin seeds!

BROWN: It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, April 18th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. This week on Concurrently: The News Coach Podcast, hosts Kelsey Reed and Jonathan Boes revisit a conversation about social media and the quest for influence.

BOES: We can even end up sacrificing real good things right for the sake of attention. And it makes me think of when I was a kid, everybody wanted to be like a rock star or an athlete or an actor. And I think there's a similar heart behind those desires to the desire to be an influencer. It's you know, it's those are fame positions. Those are positions that come with influence and celebrity.

But one difference, I think, is that all of those categories involve some sort of craft or skill, athletic training or learning instrument. But today, we kind of have all that realm of craft stripped away to just the bare thing of influence online fame for fame's sake. And we actually see people sacrificing their skills, like being a classically trained violin player, for the sake of this raw thing of fame, right, stripped from the real fruit of a good vocation.

REED: Right? And another thing that to challenge here to try to do it succinctly and clearly is that idea of seeking glory, and we're really not made for glory in that sense.

You can hear the entire episode of Concurrently today wherever you get your podcasts. And find out more at concurrentlypodcast.com.

REICHARD: Coming next on The World and Everything in It: recovering from the Smokehouse wildfire.

Ranchers in the Texas Panhandle lost more than 7000 cows in the wake of the one- million acre wildfire in February. Keeping the surviving livestock alive with limited resources makes recovery even more difficult.

BROWN: WORLD reporter Bonnie Pritchett continues our coverage from the Texas Panhandle with the story of one rancher.

BONNIE PRITCHETT: For rancher Roper Cox and her son, Rhoan, February 27 began with new life.

ROPER COX: And we're sitting there looking at the neighbor who was calving out his first calf heifers there, and we're watching these baby calves buck and play and it was peaceful…

The calves played on the other side of the barbed wire fence separating her house from the rancher’s spread. Cox lives in the Texas Panhandle about 30 miles from the nearest town. Hardly a tree dots these grass and dirt plains that offer a horizon-to-horizon view of the sky and the wildfire smoke that frequently blurs that horizon.

On February 26th, fire broke out northwest of Cox’s ranch and headed east. Pop-up blazes dotted the region around her place. She figured the big fire would avoid her. And the volunteer firefighters controlled the others.

COX: But we sit there and look down this road here and all of a sudden we see all the fire departments leaving us. They're all leaving…

One truck turned up her dirt drive.

COX: And they said, “Well, you might want to think about evacuating.” To me, you might want to think about evacuating is not the same as, ‘Get out right now.’

Still Cox and her son decided to heed the warning.

COX: So just in a matter of just a couple of minutes, you know, we pull here and the sky’s already turned red on us…

They scrambled to gather their two service dogs, a friend’s dog, and a kitten.

COX: And I grabbed the kitten and had got back almost to the door and I hear him scream. And he said come on and I look up and all I see were flames just across the yard. The wind was on fire.

AUDIO: [WIND SOUND]

The service dogs panicked and ran back toward the flames. With the fire already singeing Rhoan’s beard, rescuing them wasn’t an option.

COX: It took me four tries to get out of the yard because I couldn't see the cattle guard because the flames were so thick on us. I promise you I've never prayed so hard in my entire life as I did…

They left behind their dogs, one bull, a heifer, and an old stud horse.

Cox grew up on a Florida ranch and is accustomed to the hardships that come with living off the land.

She moved to the Texas Panhandle for school where she met her husband Ronnie. They had about 2000 acres where they raised their two boys and cattle. They bought more grazing land in New Mexico and Florida. But the Texas ranch was home.

Then disaster struck – one Cox couldn’t run from.

COX: My husband committed suicide six years ago. And he left me with a lot of debt we didn't know, I didn't know about…

About two million dollars in debt. It took two years and the sale of all but 18 acres of their ranch to climb out. She leases grazing land for her cattle. Just days before the fire broke out, she moved them to New Mexico.

The day after the wildfire, Cox and her son returned home not knowing what they’d find.

COX: It did pick and choose what it decided to take out. You know, it took the house, it took the greenhouse, it took the camper…

AUDIO: [SIFTING SOUND]

Volunteers with the Texas Baptist Men sift through the remains of the house she shared with Rhoan.

Her dogs survived. So did the cattle and horse.

COX: It didn't take everything. And what it took was a lot of stuff that had belonged to my husband. You know, people go, “Oh, it's stuff. You can replace it.” No, you can't. But that's okay. Um, you know, I wasn't meant to hold on to that, I guess. It was almost like losing him again…

There’s another kind of grief that the ranchers share.

COX: We’re land stewards. We love this land. We're trying our best to make it the best it can be. And losing that and losing our pastures. It is, it is a big grieving process…

AUDIO: [SOUND OF SKID TRACTOR]

National attention of the Smokehouse Creek Wildfire prompted donations for livestock. Some landed at Cox’s ranch.

COX: We're looking at cattle cubes. We're looking at deer corn, deer feed protein, horse feed here. And a lot of hay that's come from all over the United States. Absolutely all over the United States…

Her place became a distribution site for 17 neighboring ranchers who otherwise would spend half a day traveling to and from the closest donation site.

COX: I don't even know how it happened. It just kind of, “Here, we're dropping hay.” And I'm like, “Well, okay. My neighbors need hay, and I realized they needed hay, they needed feed. They needed this. And so, it just kind of started coming together. And I didn’t need much.

By mid-March vibrant green shoots of grass softened the land’s black burn scar. But the new growth needs time to mature before livestock can graze. That could extend the need for supplemental feed into next spring.

If there’s not another fire. Or tornado.

Cox is learning to find peace between the storms.

COX: You know what? You know how I can tell you how I can see peace? Every day that sunsets right over there, and you see it. You didn't look anything great now. But right at sunset tonight that'll be the prettiest sunset you ever laid eyes on. And if you were here really early this morning, I'm horizon to horizon up here on my little hill.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Bonnie Pritchett in the Texas Panhandle.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday April 18th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: tax day. Like many Americans, you may be glad April 15th is behind us for 2024. But WORLD commentator Cal Thomas says the worst is yet to come, unless we act.

CAL THOMAS: Was it as bad for you as it was for me? Sending Washington money we need, but Washington doesn’t, I mean?

It’s not just the fact that only 40% of the nation pays taxes that bothers me. It’s the waste and unnecessary programs and agencies that have long outlived whatever usefulness they may have once had. And still President Joe Biden’s proposed budget would raise taxes without cutting a single dollar from our unsustainable $34 trillion debt.

As The Washington Times reported: “[Biden] wants to impose a 25% minimum tax on all income not currently taxed — including unrealized gains on assets — for Americans with a net worth of $100 million. Mr. Biden has also urged Congress to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% up from 21%.”

No American should be forced to endure the annual torture of compiling records and filling out tax returns. Many other nations have far simpler systems. Even the instructions for filling out forms for the IRS need instructions to understand. It is why so many must hire tax attorneys, who fulfill the role of language translators.

Here’s one example: Enter your gross farming and fishing income reported on Form 4835, line 7; Schedule K-1 (Form 1065), box 14, code B….” It goes on like that for another line, but in case you don’t follow, the section ends with the helpful note, “See instructions.”

The Congressional Budget Office predicts the U.S. will surpass $54 trillion dollars in the next decade. That’s debt. That’s more than $5 billion of debt daily, and more than $200 million every hour. If you want to get really granular, it means $3 million every minute or $60,000 every second.

If that’s not enough to make your blood boil, consider a tiny fraction of the misspending that occurs in Washington. For the past nine years, Republican Senator from Kentucky Rand Paul has published a “Festivus Report” exposing outrageous examples of unnecessary federal spending. In his latest report he writes: “I am highlighting a whopping $900,000,000,000 of waste, including an NIH grant to study Russian cats walking on a treadmill.” He also cites, “$6 million to promote tourism in Egypt, and $200 million to ‘struggling artists’ like Post Malone, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne.”

There’s much more. Google “Festivus Report” and be aghast at what we are doing to ourselves. Ultimately, this is the fault of voters who won’t elect politicians to restore America’s financial future and balance the budget.

If too many voters keep fueling the gravy train, the only option will be an Article V constitutional convention, provided by the Founders for such a moment we are now facing.

Our current oppressive tax system can be analogized to Dracula, who is never satisfied with the blood he sucks out of one victim, but constantly seeks new prey. We must drive a metaphorical stake in the heart of our blood-sucking government, or we will end up driving one in ourselves and the country we love.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet is back for Culture Friday. And, a docudrama about a computer system that ruined the lives of post office workers in Great Britain. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says, “as Paul was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, ‘Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.’ But Paul said, ‘I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words.’” —Acts 26:24, 25

Go now in grace and peace.

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