The World and Everything in It — January 13, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Fallout over these last few weeks of the Trump administration may change things. We’ll talk about how and why.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also, World Tour.

Plus we’ll meet a woman rescued from human trafficking.

And commentator Ryan Bomberger on what is right and what is wrong.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, January 13th. 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: Now it’s time for the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: House resolution calls on vice president to invoke 25th Amendment » Lawmakers in the House passed a resolution on Tuesday asking Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare that President Trump is no longer fit to serve. 

AUDIO: [VOTE]

The resolution is non-binding, but if the vice president does not invoke the 25th Amendment—and there’s no indication that he will—House Democrats will move to impeach Trump for a second time. 

The articles of impeachment would charge Trump with “incitement of insurrection” for encouraging supporters to rally at the Capitol last week to protest the election. 

President Trump responded on Tuesday. 

TRUMP: The impeachment hoax is a continuation of the greatest and most vicious witch hunt in the history of our country and is causing tremendous division and pain. 

He added that now is a time for peace and for healing and said he wants “no violence.” 

The president traveled to Alamo, Texas on Tuesday to mark the completion of nearly 500 miles of the border wall. 

U.S. prosecutors weighing sedition charges in Capitol riot » Prosecutors have already criminally charged more than 70 people in last Wednesday’s riot at the Capitol. 

And the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin, said he expects that number to grow into the hundreds. He said the range of charges against suspects is unlike anything he’s seen. 

SHERWIN: We’re looking at everything from simple trespass, to theft of mail, to assault, to the theft of potential national security information or national defense information, to felony murder.

Some could also face charges of sedition. 

At a news conference Tuesday, FBI investigator Steven D’Antuono directly addressed those who stormed the Capitol. 

D’ANTUONO: Even if you’ve left DC, agents from our local field offices will be knocking on your door if we find out that you were part of the criminal activity at the Capitol. 

D’Antuono said some suspects have already come forward and turned themselves in to authorities. 

U.S. shifts to speed vaccine distribution » Top U.S. health officials shifted gears on Tuesday, moving to speed up delivery of coronavirus vaccines.

General Gustave Perna heads distribution for Operation Warp Speed. He said states can now make use of a network of pharmacy chains to help administer the shots. 

PERNA: We have opened it up for states to utilize the over 40,000 pharmacy providers that are enrolled. And we want to expand it up to 70,000 providers that are enrolled.

Both of the vaccines now in use require two doses. But the federal government will no longer hold supplies for second doses in reserve. That will practically double the number of doses shipping out to states. 

But some states have enjoyed smoother rollouts than others. For example, North Dakota has used 74 percent of the doses it has received while Arkansas has used just 15 percent. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said each state’s performance will now factor into how many doses they receive going forward. 

He said the country’s on track to begin vaccinating a million Americans each day within the next week or so. And he added that we now have enough doses to offer the shots to a broader range of people. 

AZAR: We are telling states today that they should open vaccinations to all of their most vulnerable people. That is the most effective way to save lives now. 

The CDC is urging states to offer shots to anyone age 65 and older and well as younger people with certain health problems. 

Michigan plans to charge ex-Gov. Snyder in Flint water probe » Prosecutors in Michigan plan to charge former Gov. Rick Snyder and other former officials in connection with the Flint water scandal. That according to a new report by the Associated Press. 

Two people with knowledge of the planned prosecution reportedly said the attorney general’s office has informed defense lawyers for Rick Snyder and others that they are being charged. 

Investigations have continued for years after lead-contaminated water apparently led to a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in 2014.

No word yet on the nature of the planned charges. 

Pompeo hits Iran for al-Qaeda support » Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said al-Qaeda has found a new safe haven.

POMPEO: Al-Qaeda has a new home base. It is the Islamic Republic of Iran. As a result, bin Laden’s wicked creation is poised to gain strength and capabilities.

Pompeo heard there speaking to the National Press Club in Washington.

He cited newly declassified intelligence suggesting Tehran harbored al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, Abu Muhammad al-Masri. The New York Times reported that Israeli agents shot and killed al-Masri on the streets or Tehran last summer. And Pompeo said Tuesday…

POMPEO: Today I can confirm for the first time his death on August 7th of last year. 

He also announced new sanctions on several Iranian officials.

Speaking after Pompeo’s remarks, two senior U.S. officials told reporters that Iran had facilitated al-Masri’s stay in Tehran. That included sending security guards with him on shopping excursions.

Pompeo claimed that ties between al-Qaeda and Iran vastly improved in 2015, when the Obama administration, along with several other countries, were finalizing a nuclear agreement. 

Pompeo’s comments appeared to take aim at President-elect Joe Biden’s stated plans to resume negotiations with Iran to restore the nuclear deal.

UK targets forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region » British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Tuesday announced new action aimed at human rights abuses in China. 

Under new government rules, companies will face fines unless they show that their supply chains are free from forced labor.

RAAB: No company that profits from forced labor in Xinjiang can do business in the UK and no UK business is involved in their supply chains.

Raab said officials have issued guidance to British firms with links to Xinjiang on how to carry out due diligence checks. 

Raab said mounting evidence supports claims of “harrowing” human rights abuses, mainly against the Muslim Uighur population. He said among the abuses: mass detention in internment camps, widespread forced labor and forced sterilization of women. 

RAAB: It is truly horrific; barbarism we had hoped lost to another era being practiced today as we speak in one of the leading members of the international community.

The U.S. customs agency blocked imports of goods from Xinjiang last year.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: fallout from the president’s final weeks in office.

Plus, Ryan Bomberger on a prophetic 1990s music video.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 13th of January, 2021. 

Thank you for joining us for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. First up, Washington Wednesday.

It’s been a week since an angry mob scaled Capitol Hill and broke into the people’s house in an attempt to overturn the election. Law enforcement agencies are looking for the perpetrators. Hundreds of people could eventually face charges for their actions. But they’re not the only ones dealing with the consequences.

BROWN: President Trump is spending his final days in office defending his ability to stay there. Democrats, and some Republicans, want him out of the White House immediately. They’re holding out hope the president’s Cabinet will invoke the 25th Amendment and force him to leave. Barring that, they plan to impeach him again.

REICHARD: What does all this political turmoil say about the state of our republic? And where do we go from here?

Joining us now to talk about those questions is Mark Caleb Smith. He’s director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University. Good morning, professor!

MARK CALEB SMITH, GUEST: Good morning to you.

REICHARD: Impeachment is at the top of everyone’s mind in Washington right now, so we’ll start with that. Given the timeframe, the Senate could not begin a trial until after the president is out of office. Does that follow constitutional rules?

SMITH: It certainly doesn’t follow typical procedures that we’ve seen before. The Constitution doesn’t necessarily clarify if you could have a trial, for example, after the president leaves office. I think that you could, honestly, but the goal then wouldn’t be to remove him from office. The goal then would be to bar him from holding office in the future. And so that would be a different kind of motivation to some extent. Also, the goal may be to send some warning to future politicians just simply to not engage in this kind of behavior and so there are lots of motivations working through here. But I think you’re right. It’s very unlikely they’re going to have a trial before the inauguration and, after the fact, we’ll see what they do then.

REICHARD: Before last week, political analysts speculated that President Trump would continue to influence the GOP for some time. Setting aside impeachment efforts, do you think last week’s events on Capitol Hill change that?

SMITH: I think they really did. It’s difficult to look into the future six months, much less six years. But I think that they really did have an effect. I think before last week, there was a wide sense that President Trump was going to be sort of the power broker to some degree within the Republican Party for at least the next two years, maybe the next four years, maybe the next eight years. After last Wednesday, however, I get the sense that his role is already eroding quite a bit. He still has widespread support amongst lots of Republican voters, but his support amongst the elite, those people who hold office, and those donors, and other people I think that’s slipped pretty dramatically during the past week. That’s going to negatively affect his opportunities, I think, to field challengers, for example in primaries where he doesn’t like the incumbent. That would be a real power broker right now in the GOP, if the president could say I’m going to support you in this House or Senate race or I’m going to support an insurgent against you. That’s true power. Right now, you get the sense that that’s waning a little bit. We’ll see what takes place over the next few weeks to see if we’re going to know more. 

REICHARD: If Democrats do proceed with impeachment, they might have to deal with some unintended consequences. What are the political pros and cons for each side of that?

SMITH: You know, the Democrats were really hoping to turn a page after the Trump administration and to embark on an agenda, at least to some extent, to unify the country. Certainly Joe Biden ran on a unity platform to some degree. And starting out the Biden administration with a Senate trial—even if it’s one that’s abbreviated and even if it’s one that’s delayed for a few weeks or a month—is really going to set a different tone than the Biden administration would have liked. It’s also going to resurrect, of course, divisions within the Democratic Party as well as divisions within the Republican Party. And I think everyone that’s listening probably understands how deeply divided we are as a country. If we go through an impeachment process, whether you agree with it or disagree with it, it is going to deepen those divisions. It may be worth it to deepen those divisions in the short term with the hope for long term healing, but I think we’re being fanciful if we think somehow an impeachment is going to solve anything, at least in the short term.

REICHARD: The power of the Executive Branch has really grown in recent years, and not just under President Trump. It accelerated under President Obama, who optimized the use of Executive Orders to get around legislative inaction in Congress. Do you think the events of these last few weeks might begin to reverse that trend? Or does a divided Congress make it even less likely that lawmakers will take back their constitutional authority?

SMITH: That’s a great question. What you described—the growth of the Executive Branch—it’s been a long process. Really, the last 100 years we’ve seen a radically growing executive. The last time we saw Congress really pull back a good bit of power from the executive was after Watergate, where massive Democratic majorities in both chambers were able to instill some safeguards, some guardrails so to speak, against the executive with the hopes of sort of clawing back some of that power. It is possible that after what we saw last week that we will see continued efforts like that to try to prevent the president from doing particular kinds of things.

I’ve seen Republicans already call for pulling back the president’s power of pardon—amending the Constitution, even, to limit the president’s ability to pardon people. And so, yeah, I think that you will see that. What we’ve lost, to some extent, over that 100-plus year period of executive growth is really a robust sense of Congress as its own branch of government. It is the first branch of government in our Constitution. If you look at the articles of the Constitution, it’s far and away the longest article. It’s the most time and space devoted to the three branches of our government.

Congress has really declined, I think, pretty significantly over that period while we’ve seen the executive increase. I think it’d be extremely healthy for Congress to pull back some of that power and to see Congress reassert itself as really the first branch of government. But, as you know, the obstacle of that is always partisanship. If the branches can work together and if the president and Congress are of one party, then those divisions kind of melt away. They get resurrected when we see a divided government. I’m still hopeful that maybe we’ll see Congress reassert its pride to some degree. You heard language like that last week. You’ve heard it somewhat this week. I’m really interested over the next couple of years to see what legislation comes forward.

REICHARD: We started this discussion with impeachment, but of course the other major post-riot development involves social media. All the major platforms have now banned President Trump. Other conservative accounts are suspended or permanently blocked as well. They call that an assault on free speech, and even the ACLU agrees! What effect do you think this move might have on the debate about Big Tech and whether Congress should regulate the platforms?

SMITH: It’s certainly going to bring that debate to the forefront, at least for now. But I get the sense, too, some of this debate is really an effort to shield the party from other things happening right now. Certainly if you’re a supporter of President Trump, you’d much rather talk about Google and Facebook and Twitter as opposed to what took place last week. And so some of this, I think, is an effort to really change the subject.

However, putting that aside, there are serious issues connected to a platform’s ability to take the president’s account and simply remove it from a platform. But we have to remember, these are private companies. They are not functioning under the flag of government. The First Amendment doesn’t really apply to them in the same way it applies to government and it’s a significant issue. These aren’t just sort of mom and pop bakeries, for example. These are billion dollar plus entities that control communication to some extent in our country and across the globe. So, they’re not the same thing as the Christian baker who decides not to bake the cake for the same sex couple that comes into his bakery. It’s a different thing altogether to a degree. But there are some similarities there, as you can see.

Private businesses can make these choices if they see fit. Right now, the law gives them this ability. If we’re going to change that, they’d have to be regulated more severely. The risk, though, of course, is if you’re going to regulate what is your most cutting-edge industry, the part of our economy that’s truly leading the globe in this sense, then you really run the risk of flattening your own economy and making America less competitive in the process. And so there are some real trade offs here no matter which direction the policy makers end up going.

REICHARD: Mark Caleb Smith is a political science professor at Cedarville University, a Christian college in Cedarville, Ohio. Thanks for joining us today!

SMITH: Thank you. It’s my pleasure.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with Africa reporter Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Uganda prepares to hold elections—We begin today here in Africa.

Uganda is preparing to hold presidential elections tomorrow. Observers with the Eastern Africa Standby Force have urged the government to respect the rule of law.

WINE: I insist on the respect of the rule of law, of the democracy and the citizenship and one man for one vote. And we are in confidence that all will be well.

President Yoweri Museveni has held power since 1986 and is one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders. Opponents accuse him of trying to influence the election by using government forces to intimidate challengers.

Opposition leader Bobi Wine has faced some of the strongest government action. His arrest in November for holding a rally in violation of pandemic restrictions prompted days of protests. At least 54 people died. Security forces have arrested dozens of his campaign staffers.

WINE: We call for the immediate release of our comrades that are being detained in a military prison. We call upon all human rights institutions to raise their voices.

Other opposition candidates have faced similar intimidation. A spokeswoman for the United Nations said it had received complaints of arbitrary arrest and detention, and torture.

SPOKESWOMAN: We call on the Ugandan authorities to protect the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and to ensure a free and peaceful election process that guarantees the right of the people of Uganda to participate in their country’s public affairs, including by taking measures to prevent instances of electoral violence.

About 18 million people are registered to vote in tomorrow’s election.

U.S. designates Houthis a terror group—Next we go to the Middle East.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Arabic]

A spokesman for the Houthi-led government in Yemen has accused the United States of undermining attempts to end the country’s civil war.

On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced plans to designate the Iran-backed rebel group as a terrorist organization. That could discourage aid groups from working with the Houthis, who control much of the country.

Pompeo insisted the State Department would work to reduce the impact on humanitarian work and imports of food and medicine into Yemen. He said it is the Houthis, not the United States, standing in the way of peace.

The internationally recognized Yemeni government welcomed the designation, saying the Houthis had created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Airline crash in Indonesia—Next to Southeast Asia.

AUDIO: [Sound of divers underwater]

Underwater search teams in Indonesia have recovered one of the black boxes from a passenger plane that crashed over the weekend. They hope the flight data recorder will shed light on why the Boeing 737 plunged into the sea shortly after takeoff from Jakarta on Saturday.

Based on the debris field, investigators believe the plane broke up when it hit the water and did not explode in midair. It had 62 people on board, and search teams have found no signs of survivors.

Record-breaking snow cripples Spain—And finally, we end today in Europe.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Spanish]

Spanish officials urged people to stay home and stay warm after a major storm dumped up to 8 inches of snow on Madrid over the weekend. It was the heaviest snowfall in the city since 1971. The blizzard dropped as much as 20 inches of snow in some areas.

The record snowfall complicated efforts to distribute the coronavirus vaccine and temporarily blocked access to regional hospitals.

That’s this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Voters went to the polls in suburban Houston in November, like most of us did. On their ballot, the people of Dickinson, Texas also had to vote for mayor. 

Thousands of voters then came back out to the polls last month for a runoff election. 

Officials did a recount last week. But in the end, the race was decided by a ping pong ball. 

Both candidates collected exactly 1,010 votes, and according to Texas law, a tie in a race for public office can be resolved by casting lots. 

So, a local official placed ping pong balls emblazoned with the names of the candidates into a black top-hat. Someone then reached into the hat, drew a name, and the winner was…

AUDIO: Sean Skipworth! [cheers]

Sean Skipworth will be the next mayor of Dickinson. He told KTRK news…

SKIPWORTH: I’m overwhelmed. This has been such a long campaign. It has been—and then to end like this, I’m kind of numb.

Guess that’s as good a way as any to settle an election!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Tuesday, January 13th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. 

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: A survivor story. 

Now, this is a story you may want to come back to later if you’ve got young children around. So this is a good time to hit pause if that’s the case for you.

BROWN: Always helpful to give a warning.

Well, January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Senior Correspondent Kim Henderson recently spent time with an abuse victim who is using her experience to help others fighting these crimes.

REICHARD: It’s not easy to tell painful stories about ourselves, and this is the first time this woman has done so. We’ve changed her name and her voice to protect her privacy.

SHARON: Something that will catch your attention, and you’ll over there and say: “Oh, I want that…” 

KIM HENDERSON, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: In her younger days, Sharon designed window displays at big casinos. At 56, she now employs her skills at a vendor mall. 

SHARON: And out here we did Valentines…  

But it’s not your ordinary vendor booth. 

AUDIO: [STORE]

The proceeds from its punch bowl and candle stick sales go to Advocates for Freedom, a faith-based nonprofit that fights human trafficking. Founder Susie Harvill remembers meeting Sharon. 

HARVILL: When she walked into our training and she sat down, I could look at her eyes, and I knew that she had been trafficked.

Harvill was right. Sharon’s story includes several layers of abuse, starting when she was 3. It began with her grandfather.

SHARON: He molested his children, and he molested some of us grandkids. I was one of them went on until I was 18.

Sharon married young to escape her situation.

SHARON: I thought Tony was that knight in shining armor. You know, that’s going to save me from everything. He wasn’t. 

Tony began abusing her a week after their wedding. It wasn’t long before he invited other men into their life to do the same. 

It’s not easy for Sharon to talk about it. Her whole body shakes as she describes her second husband, Jim, and their military stint in Germany. 

SHARON: That’s when he started with the computer. He would take pictures and send them. Advertise. 

They were pictures of her. 

Sharon takes long pauses as she talks. Sometimes she stares at the wall. Sometimes she closes her eyes. 

SHARON: Once we got back on American soil. That’s when he got bigger into getting guys to meet me.  

But even then, Sharon stayed with Jim. Abuse victims are often easy to manipulate.   

SHARON: He told me nobody would want me. 

Still, she didn’t think Jim would harm children. Then one day she noticed her young sons doing something shocking: a sexual behavior they’d been taught. 

SHARON: The boys sat there and said, “Well, daddy told us if we told anybody, that you would have a seizure and die.”     

Sharon decided to go to the police, and she had other information to give them as well.

SHARON: We had three cars. One of them, the trunk was locked and he wouldn’t let me have the key. Well, he also had a post office box that he went under the name “Sandra,” and teenage girls would write him back thinking they were talking to a woman. 

False correspondence is a tool human traffickers use. Susie Harvill explains why. 

HARVILL: To find out if they are lonely, and if they would come out of the house and meet somebody. At the mall, a park, a ball game, or wherever, then that child is gone and may be gone forever.

When Sharon managed to open the car trunk, she couldn’t handle what she found inside. It was full of graphic letters and photos. She later learned the stacks included pictures of her children, too. 

SHARON: The police stepped in and did a sting. And then they caught him with two girls.

A trial led to Jim’s conviction in 2001, but the long term effects of his abuse continue. 

Susie Harvill has worked with cases like Sharon’s for years. She believes there’s only one way to break the cycle.   

HARVILL: Someone turns to God. Someone says, “Help me, dear Jesus.”

Sharon says she spent years blaming God for all the pain she experienced. She wasn’t expecting to ever feel whole again.

SHARON: How do you find God in all that mess? Not very easy. Not very easy.

AUDIO: [STORE]

But she did, and she’s learning to get past her past.   

These days Sharon watches her church’s services on Zoom and spends time with Harvill and other volunteers at the vendor booth. It’s a big change.

HARVILL: I had no friends. I had closed off all my feelings towards people, so I couldn’t get hurt again.

Advocates for Freedom Founder Susie Harvill says she loves to hear Sharon pray at their meetings. Her words are simple and earnest. And they testify that for all the bad, God has turned things for good in her life.  

Now Sharon is using her suffering to help others. Along with Harvill and her fellow volunteers, she’s educating the public about signs of trafficking: bruises and burns. Gaze aversion. Sexualized clothing. Emotional distress.   

HARVILL: Something on TV or you’re talking to them about it, or we’re in a school situation. What will happen is they will start breaking out in hives on their necks and on their chests. They will start tapping a pen just as hard as they can on the back of a desk. They’ve got to get up and away…

And Sharon is praying for an end to the cycle of abuse in her family, especially since she’s helping raise a granddaughter. This time her eyes are wide open.       

SHARON: I stand at the door and watch to make sure she’s OK while she’s standing at that bus stop.  

But to really win this war, Harvill says the demand for trafficking must stop.

HARVILL: Women in this arena will do a lot to help heal and work for victims, but it is men that will stop human trafficking. They will stop feeding into it and allowing it and turning a blind eye to people that are doing it. They will cause the justice for the children who have no voice to come about.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in D’Iberville, Mississippi. 

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 13th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

Here’s commentator Ryan Bomberger on how the surreal fantasy in a 1990s music video became today’s reality.

RYAN BOMBERGER, COMMENTATOR: I never thought today’s racial climate would invoke a controversial yet prescient video from the late “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson. His “Black or White” hit music video foretold the absurdity that has become the leftward-hurtling society in which we now live.

Well-intentioned, the dominant message was “it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white.” Who could forget lil’ Macaulay Culkin rapping about how he’s “not gonna spend his life being a color”? Tragically, Jackson spent most of his life trying to erase his black physical features. But throughout the video, he dances with various people groups to promote racial harmony. But the inherent contradiction that was Michael Jackson and that crazy closing scene marred the project’s intended message. Morphing from a panther into his own image, Jackson proceeded to dance with disturbing sexual movements, smash store windows, destroy a car, and caused hotel signage to fall in a fiery explosion of sparks. The bizarre erotic gestures that followed added more confusion (and revulsion). So, the moral of the song apparently was riot for racial justice and make it sexual.

Just surreal.

This is how I see today’s #BlackLivesMatter protests. The initial message of “racial equality” is valuable and inarguable (well, unless you’re part of the tiny fringe of our American population that wants to return to the “good ole days” of Jim Crow). Like Jackson’s bizarre sexual gyrations and acts of violence, something gets insanely twisted in the unfolding of this movement. The fight against injustice has become rife with more injustice: protest-caused deaths, hundreds of injured officers, looting, terrorized neighborhoods, and massive damage to the tune of an estimated $2 billion dollars. 

Like Jackson, BLM’s too wrapped up in its own narcissism to care that it’s using a tragedy for its own satisfaction. It’s turned much of its focus on all things LGBTQ as it glorifies broken sexuality. It lures churches away from redemptive Scriptures and into the unforgiving gospel of Critical Race Theory. It’s ushered in million-dollar bestsellers about bridges, privilege, and being so-called “anti-racists.” Its “anti-capitalist” crusade has led Corporate America to pour millions into its well-funded struggle. It literally instructs us to spend our lives being a color. It decries racial inequality while working to establish a different racial hierarchy via “Black Power,” as proclaimed on the movement’s websites.

Michael Jackson slowly revealed himself to be a literal black panther in the video. BLM has revealed itself to be a political Black Panther, embracing the black nationalist ideology that Martin Luther King so passionately denounced.

It’s no secret. BLM leadership prefers Malcolm X to MLK. It’s why we’re being told to see everything through the broken prism of “race.” Every word, every action, every event (like the recent horrific storming of the Capitol) must be reduced to the destructive black versus white, us versus them binary.

If your means are violent to achieve a political end, I reject them. If your solution isn’t God’s written Blueprint for healing and unity, I don’t want it. I don’t care if you’re black or white. I only care if you’re wrong or right.

I’m Ryan Bomberger.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Tomorrow: A court ruling in the U.K. has doctors rethinking transgender treatment on children. We’ll talk about that. 

And, we’ll introduce you to a concert violinist who gave up the stage to teach young people.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

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 don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Go now in grace and peace.

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