Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 379 ｜ Texas Is Open, Cuomo Is a Creep, and Rand Paul Is Based

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Today we're going to talk about a few stories.

00:00:14.700 We're going to talk about Texas opening up completely after the announcement of Governor

00:00:20.100 Greg Abbott. We're also going to talk about these Andrew Cuomo allegations and we're going to talk

00:00:25.460 a little bit about Rand Paul and his exchange with a person who is called Rachel Levine.

00:00:35.240 And the theme that we are going to tap into is the idea of the government being under the authority

00:00:42.980 and under the moral standard of God himself and why it is so important to view government as an

00:00:49.180 institution that is in submission to the God of the universe, to the ruler of the universe.

00:00:55.460 As we've said on this podcast before, actually, I think it was a guest who said this on the podcast

00:01:01.420 that Jesus is King is very much a political statement. So we're going to talk a little bit

00:01:07.300 about what that means. First, let's talk about Texas opening up. So Greg Abbott, the governor

00:01:13.200 of Texas, he's a Republican. He announced on Tuesday of this week yesterday that, quote,

00:01:19.520 effective next Wednesday. So I think that's March 10th. All businesses of any type are allowed to open

00:01:25.580 100 percent. The governor said this. This is according to The Blaze at a news conference announcing

00:01:32.540 an end to restrictions imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19. Abbott said declining hospitalization

00:01:39.080 rates across the state and increased distribution of virus vaccines were reasons to end the coronavirus

00:01:44.840 restrictions. So this is a very good thing. Now, obviously, most conservatives are very excited

00:01:51.020 about this. I would say there are probably some people who are moderate and even liberal who are

00:01:56.340 secretly excited about this. But because COVID and COVID restrictions have become so unnecessarily

00:02:02.340 partisan, there were some negative reactions. I would say a lot of negative reactions, in particular

00:02:08.920 on Twitter. And of course, CNN, the regular suspects coming out with fear mongering headlines saying

00:02:15.740 that this is so irresponsible. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of of California, tweeting to

00:02:24.020 Greg Abbott that this is completely reckless. This is totally irresponsible. Now, mind you, Gavin Newsom

00:02:31.820 is the same governor of California who was caught maskless several months ago at this very elitist

00:02:38.900 restaurant, the French Laundry in California. And so he has been hypocritical. I think a few times

00:02:45.900 he's been caught doing something similar to that while he has locked down, shut down his state in a way that

00:02:52.060 doesn't actually correspond to any kind of science or data. Gavin Newsom does not have any kind of moral

00:03:00.560 standing, any kind of authority whatsoever to be criticizing any leader of any other state, particularly the

00:03:08.020 state that Californians are moving to, to try to flee his tyranny. So as I said on Twitter, when Texans start 0.99

00:03:15.580 moving in droves from Texas to California, then maybe Gavin Newsom would have a place to be able to

00:03:23.120 criticize Governor Abbott. Now, the reason why some conservatives aren't exactly jumping up and down

00:03:28.860 and saying thank you so much, Governor Abbott, is because of the belief that this should have always been a

00:03:34.720 choice, like the mask mandate, for example, or closing down your business. A lot of conservatives

00:03:41.040 assert should have always been a choice or it should have at least been made on the local level. Wearing a

00:03:47.760 mask should have been made, according to a lot of people, by businesses themselves, by local authorities,

00:03:54.760 or even just by individuals. A lot of people have argued that there really is no constitutional power

00:04:01.460 for the governor or for state authorities to be able to kind of enforce something like this. And so

00:04:09.020 there are a lot of people, a lot of conservatives who have been disappointed in Governor Abbott. And of

00:04:13.840 course, we know that he has been in a very difficult position because, of course, liberals are never going

00:04:19.400 to be OK with what a Republican governor does. And they are saying that, of course, he's killing people

00:04:24.840 that, like Gavin Newsom said, this is completely reckless and irresponsible. And I'm just going to let you

00:04:30.920 know, like I don't really understand that mentality after all of the data that has come out about how

00:04:37.880 economically this is harming people and consequently how this is harming people mentally and emotionally,

00:04:43.860 how this is putting a strain on children, being locked down in some places, how people can't

00:04:50.300 celebrate this at the same time that hospitalizations are going down and the vaccine rollout has been going

00:04:56.920 very smoothly in places like Texas and Florida and West Virginia, other red states. Why isn't this

00:05:03.760 something that is applauded? Did you think that we were just going to lock down indefinitely? Like at what

00:05:08.460 point did liberals think that we were going to open back up when the virus just went away completely?

00:05:14.520 Because what from what I've seen from scientists, from doctors, from the data is that we don't actually

00:05:19.880 know if coronavirus is ever going to go away completely. It might be something like the flu, which is

00:05:24.780 really unfortunate. But that means that we are going to have to figure out how to live life pretty

00:05:30.600 regularly and pretty normally at some point. And now seems as good a time as ever to do that. And so

00:05:38.160 I think it's, you know, it's good for Governor Abbott to make this decision. And look, if you still want

00:05:43.540 to wear a mask, if you still want to wear your cloth mask, plus your surgical mask, plus your face shield,

00:05:49.720 plus your gloves and your hand sanitizer on top of the gloves and your scrubs inside your house,

00:05:56.040 along with the hazmat suit, if you go out and check your mail, no one is stopping you from doing

00:06:01.240 that. You are totally free to continue wearing a mask. And of course, I understand that not everyone

00:06:07.120 fits that hyperbolic description. But if you are someone who is hyper wary about this, or maybe you live

00:06:13.040 with a vulnerable person, you can you can wear a mask or you can keep ordering your groceries or you don't

00:06:18.880 have to go out in public or go out in crowds or anything like that. You can make your own decisions.

00:06:24.580 And I guarantee you that most big businesses, most corporations are probably going to keep

00:06:30.400 some kind of mask mandate or at least strong suggestion in place. I have a hard time believing

00:06:36.520 Target or Kroger or any of these, you know, these big stores are going to allow the people inside

00:06:45.940 their stores to not wear masks. Probably hospitals are going to keep asking their patients to wear

00:06:52.960 masks. I'm guessing that this is going to be in place for a while, according to what the businesses

00:06:58.000 want to do, stores want to do, even, you know, communities want to do and districts want to do

00:07:04.980 something that I don't understand about the liberal mentality is the idea that anything that

00:07:10.280 is possibly good needs to be enforced from the top down. I don't understand the absolute resistance to

00:07:19.820 any kind of localization or any kind of choice. Even if you think wearing a mask is, you know,

00:07:27.440 a sign of virtue and a sign of loving and caring for your neighbor. Why can't you allow that to be a

00:07:35.640 choice among individuals or a choice among families, communities and businesses? Why do you believe

00:07:40.800 that has to come for them from the governor? Even more than that, why do you believe that it has to

00:07:44.500 come from the president? Like, why does all power and why do all decisions, according to so many

00:07:49.780 liberals, have to be centralized and come from the top down? Why can't people and areas be free to make

00:07:55.840 the choices that are best for them based on the information that they have? That's always kind of what

00:08:00.840 I've said. Not that the virus shouldn't be taken seriously, but that people, for the most part,

00:08:06.400 should be trusted to make the decisions that are best for them and best for their family.

00:08:12.340 Going back to what I said about conservatives, not exactly being, you know, jumping up and down

00:08:18.400 and clapping about this because they actually felt like Governor Abbott went too far in the restrictions

00:08:23.100 in the first place. The conservative mentality about all of this is kind of what I just described.

00:08:30.000 The freedom of choice, not that the virus doesn't matter, but individual freedom, the freedom of

00:08:36.440 businesses to do what they want to. And that is because we believe that rights come from God,

00:08:42.360 not from the government. And therefore, they can't be arbitrarily taken away by the government either.

00:08:48.640 And we believe the ability to provide for yourself and to provide for your family by keeping your

00:08:53.840 business open and continuing to serve people and make money so you can put food on the table

00:08:58.800 is a God-given right. And we see the infringements on that right as something that is and has been

00:09:07.980 disastrous for the past year. And so, of course, from the conservative perspective, we are very

00:09:13.300 disappointed in how, unfortunately, so many people's lives have been ruined by the government

00:09:18.760 because we don't think that that's the government's place. The government can only do so much to keep

00:09:23.640 you safe. I'm not against all government restrictions. I'm not against the government's

00:09:27.960 place in everything. I think the government has a very important role. And I think it's debatable

00:09:33.180 what the role of the government is in all kinds of things, including in pandemic response.

00:09:38.980 But I'm not going to be on the side of compromising our constitutional rights, especially or even or

00:09:47.300 especially when it comes to times of crisis. I just don't want to see people's lives and

00:09:53.820 livelihoods devastated by this kind of thing again. So good job, Texas. I'm sorry, I guess,

00:10:02.500 to the Texans who are disappointed in this. Move to New York. They seem to be doing great under the

00:10:08.220 leadership of Andrew Cuomo, which we're going to get to in just one second. All right, let's talk

00:10:19.020 about Governor Cuomo. I'm kind of tired of talking about Governor Cuomo. I've been talking about him

00:10:25.160 for the past year a lot because of how center stage he has been in the media coverage of the virus.

00:10:32.360 And I'll put a link in the description to this podcast from last to last Monday's episode where

00:10:40.660 I interviewed Fox chief meteorologist Janice Dean and her fight to try to raise awareness about the

00:10:50.240 corruption of Andrew Cuomo as the governor of New York and how his nursing home scandal led to the

00:10:55.760 unnecessary deaths of thousands and thousands of elderly New Yorkers. But it's not just

00:11:02.340 that scandal that we are now talking about. We're now talking about him embroiled in a Me Too

00:11:08.000 scandal. So there have been several former female staffers who have come out and said that they were

00:11:13.400 sexually harassed in some way by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The New York Times is reporting on this.

00:11:20.680 The title of the article is Cuomo must admit to his predatory behavior, accuser says. The Times says this.

00:11:27.920 In a series of interviews with the Times, Miss Bennett, 25, said that Mr. Cuomo had asked her

00:11:34.300 questions about her sex life, such as whether she was monogamous in her relationships and if she had

00:11:39.840 ever had sex with older men. Miss Bennett, who had served as an executive assistant and health policy 0.98

00:11:47.880 advisor before leaving state government last fall, said that the governor had also inquired if she

00:11:52.940 believed that age made a difference in romantic relationships and had said that he was open to

00:11:57.560 relationships with women in their 20s. Comments that she interpreted as clear overtures to a sexual

00:12:03.520 relationship. I am just like holding back my gag. I feel so bad for this girl. There was this picture

00:12:11.080 going around and we can put it up on the screen if you're watching on YouTube of his interaction,

00:12:19.320 of Andrew Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo's interaction with one of these accusers. He's got his hands like kind

00:12:25.200 of behind her head and he's looking at her and smiling and she just looks so uncomfortable. And of

00:12:31.460 course, we don't know the full context of the picture. We don't know exactly what was going on

00:12:36.600 there. But that in coordination with some of these accusations that have been made now by multiple

00:12:42.460 women, you just kind of get a sense of what kind of person Andrew Cuomo is. This in addition to former

00:12:50.400 staffers and state legislators who have said that he's a bully, like he just bosses people around.

00:12:56.700 The mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, hates Andrew Cuomo and loves to talk bad about Andrew

00:13:03.080 Cuomo and is very excited about this whole scandal. He has probably helped fan the flames of all of this

00:13:09.580 because they don't have a good relationship. Yes, they're both Democrats and they're both totally

00:13:14.500 incompetent, by the way. So they have a lot in common. And yet maybe because of that,

00:13:18.680 it's just too much incompetence for one state. They just don't get along very well. So Bill

00:13:24.040 de Blasio, I think, is probably loving this. This New York Times article goes on to say

00:13:29.580 that Bennett's lawyer said he was not acting as a mentor to her and his remarks were not misunderstood

00:13:36.600 by Miss Bennett, said Miss Katz, a Washington-based specialist in harassment and employment

00:13:41.520 discrimination. He was abusing his power over her for sex. This is textbook sexual harassment. 1.00

00:13:49.220 I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared,

00:13:53.920 Miss Bennett said, and was wondering how I was going to get out of it and assumed it was the end

00:13:59.100 of my job. After reporting her and her interactions, the New York Times says with Mr. Cuomo in early

00:14:05.980 June to his chief of staff, Miss Bennett was quickly transferred to another job in an office 1.00

00:14:10.720 on the opposite side of the Capitol from the governor. No disciplinary action was taken against

00:14:16.240 Mr. Cuomo, who has ruled New York for more than a decade. And so I agree with the lawyer's

00:14:23.540 assessment. I'm not a lawyer, but this does seem to be textbook sexual harassment if her account is 1.00

00:14:29.220 true. And of course, like all accounts and like all accusations, we don't know for sure what

00:14:35.200 happened. We don't necessarily have any reason to disbelieve this person. But just like I would

00:14:40.840 say to anyone who is accusing and anyone who is being accused, we have to look at the testimony. We

00:14:48.420 have to look at any witness testimony, any corroborating testimony, any kind of other factors,

00:14:56.000 any kind of consistency among other accusers. And I think that there is a lot of consistency among

00:15:02.080 other accusers, which means these these allegations are probably very credible. They're probably very

00:15:09.120 true. So I do think that we have to kind of sift through all the details to ensure that we're not

00:15:14.780 just latching on to some kind of witch hunt or some kind of gossip. But just like we would do for any

00:15:20.500 Republican politician, just like we would do for any other scandal. We listen to the testimony.

00:15:25.500 We kind of we we look at the details. We listen to the witnesses. We listen to what the lawyers have

00:15:33.040 to say. And then we make the best decision that we can. Now, Andrew Cuomo has already come out with

00:15:39.320 a statement saying that, oh, you know, I'm just kind of like a personal guy. I thought that I was just

00:15:45.420 having friendly interactions with these people. But now I see it it went too far. And of course,

00:15:51.200 Governor Cuomo has championed or says that he's a champion of women's rights. He says that he is,

00:15:57.680 you know, for women within the Me Too movement and all of that. And it's so interesting how male

00:16:05.720 feminists or men who describe themselves as feminists so often end up being these kinds of creepos. 1.00

00:16:12.520 And I think it goes back to what we talk about a lot, that people use liberal activism or their support

00:16:19.420 of liberal policies, liberal issues to try to insulate themselves from future criticism or

00:16:26.940 condemnation of things that they are guilty of. And so they kind of think that they can shield

00:16:33.100 themselves by being a faithful Democrat or being a loyal leftist. And really, it ends up never being

00:16:42.400 enough. Like you can't be you can't be woke enough when it comes to this kind of stuff. It's going to

00:16:49.480 end up fighting you out, finding you out. There was another accuser, Lindsay Boylan. She worked for

00:16:55.800 the State Economic Development Agency from 2015 to 2018. She published an essay on Medium.com talking

00:17:02.980 about many of her uncomfortable interactions with Governor Cuomo, that he would go out of his way to

00:17:09.400 touch her on her lower back, her arms, her legs, that he gave her an unsolicited kiss after a one-on-one 0.91

00:17:17.200 meeting in his Manhattan office, which is really crazy and disgusting. There is Anna Roosh. I don't

00:17:24.720 know if that's how you pronounce her last name. She said that she encountered Mr. Cuomo at a wedding

00:17:30.480 they attended in September 2019. They began talking about a toast the governor had given, but Mr. Cuomo put

00:17:36.560 his hand on her bare lower back, she said, that he seemed aggressive and that she was just made

00:17:44.160 uncomfortable in the midst of all of this. And like I said, Cuomo said, you know, I never intended

00:17:51.240 these interactions to be anything more than anything more than friendly. But you can certainly see how

00:17:58.260 these women would be made uncomfortable by a man in this kind of position of power, treating them in this 0.97

00:18:04.320 way, and then thinking that they can't say anything about it. And I know the question is always why

00:18:11.180 now? Why did these women wait so long to come forward? Well, the first lady that we talked about, 1.00

00:18:16.060 as she actually did report this, remember, to the chief of staff, and she was transferred somewhere

00:18:20.500 else. I think that's also a detail that is in her favor as far as credibility goes. I also think that

00:18:27.500 people are just scared. Like, we can't discount the fear that people have in coming forward and

00:18:32.020 reporting allegations. I really don't like when people dismiss accusations and allegations just

00:18:38.240 because a certain period of time has transpired. A lot of people, depending on their jobs, depending

00:18:46.100 on what position they're in, depending on the scenario that occurred, depending on what power

00:18:51.720 the accused still has in their life, depending on just a lot of personal factors, may be too fearful

00:18:58.160 to come forward. The same thing is true of the Ravi Zacharias stuff. Like, people were asking,

00:19:03.300 well, why didn't the women at the spa ever come forward? If this is really true, why wait until

00:19:08.520 after he's dead? Because they were probably scared. Like, I think that the accusers are probably very

00:19:15.360 often worried that something is going to happen to them. Maybe something's going to happen to their

00:19:19.620 family. Something's going to happen to their employment. And so they might not feel like they

00:19:25.000 actually have the cover to be able to come forward until they're the person that they're accusing is

00:19:31.620 embroiled in some kind of other scandal. And they know that they'll probably be protected in some way

00:19:36.240 if they do come forward. And when one person comes forward, I think it also gives protection and

00:19:41.500 empowerment to other people to come forward as well. So that could very well be what is happening

00:19:47.660 here. Now, there are also some cynical theories out there about why the media is just now choosing to

00:19:55.400 come out and criticize Governor Cuomo after, for the past year, flattering him, saying that, oh,

00:20:02.540 I think it was Molly Jong Fast of the Daily Beast saying that people are crushing on Cuomo. There was a CNN

00:20:09.360 article saying that Cuomo should run for president. There were all kinds of complimentary articles,

00:20:17.640 about Governor Cuomo. And it's because, like we talked about last Monday, he served as a foil to

00:20:25.280 President Trump, a foil, as you guys probably know, as a literary device to compare and contrast to

00:20:30.200 another character. And so the media liked to be able to hoist him up as the competent and the

00:20:36.880 confident alternative to the buffoon of Donald Trump. That's why they saw him as useful. But now he's not

00:20:43.340 useful anymore because President Trump is in an office. So they can put up this facade of

00:20:47.860 objectivity. They can put up this facade of impartiality and they can report on him as if

00:20:53.700 they're valiant and if they're as if they're brave and as if they are on the front lines of truth

00:20:59.120 telling. When in reality, I guarantee you, a lot of this stuff was known by people around Governor

00:21:07.320 Cuomo and was known by the media for a very long time. I guarantee you that people sat on it until

00:21:14.080 President Trump was out of office. I have a very hard time believing that if President Trump was

00:21:18.600 still in office, that all of this would be coming out. Now, that's just my opinion. That's just a

00:21:23.500 theory. But conservatives have been talking about this nursing home scandal for a very long time.

00:21:28.020 And we were told that we were just conspiracy theorists about it. We had an episode on all of this last

00:21:32.520 April when he was still denying it and the media was still in denial, too. Conservatives have been

00:21:37.480 talking about the nursing home scandal and his incompetence and his corruption for for months now.

00:21:44.520 And the media just ignored it and they continued to flatter him and they continued to point to him

00:21:50.120 as the example that all governors and even the president himself should follow. And so I think it's

00:21:55.860 perfectly justified for some of us to question the motives of the media. Now, here's another theory.

00:22:02.520 that I talked about last week that I again, I do not know if it's true. This is just my opinion.

00:22:09.540 This is a theory. I heard a political insider talk about this. And that is the idea that the

00:22:16.320 Democratic establishment, along with the media, are actually trying to take Cuomo down because they do

00:22:22.160 not want him to be a presidential hopeful for 2024. And apparently some of the same people again,

00:22:28.780 this is a theory, are behind the Recall Gavin Newsom movement that's happening in California.

00:22:35.660 And apparently the purpose of trying to get Cuomo out of the running, try to get Gavin Newsom out of

00:22:41.460 the running, is to ensure that Kamala Harris is the presidential pick for 2024 because she is going 1.00

00:22:49.460 to be the vessel for every single policy that the Obamas and their ilk want to push.

00:22:58.360 And so apparently she is what the Democratic establishment want. And so they're trying

00:23:03.020 to elbow out Andrew Cuomo. They're trying to elbow out Gavin Newsom, anyone else who might consider

00:23:08.880 running on the Democratic ticket in 2024 to make the way for Kamala Harris. I don't know if that's true

00:23:14.920 or not. I think it's an interesting theory. Also, the AG of New York, she probably has her eyes set 0.95

00:23:22.180 on being governor after Cuomo is out. And so there's probably some selfish motivation there

00:23:29.060 because she is conducting an investigation into all of this. That is, the New York Attorney General

00:23:35.780 Letitia James reports the Washington Post. She will name outside investigators to head the probe of

00:23:41.440 Cuomo's alleged misdeeds involving two women who worked in his administration. The letter signed by

00:23:46.660 Beth Garvey, special counsel and senior advisor to the governor, was disseminated in a news release

00:23:51.800 later in the day. And that was reported on Monday. And so there's some politics going on here. Like

00:24:01.660 within the Democratic Party, there is something going on here. There is a reason behind why they're

00:24:07.480 suddenly being honest. Is it just because Trump's out? Is it because they don't like Andrew Cuomo? Is it

00:24:11.860 some secret reason? We don't know. But I'm not believing that this is just a matter of integrity.

00:24:18.560 I'm just I'm just not. This would have happened a lot earlier if it was a matter of integrity.

00:24:23.740 This is a reason this whole this whole scandal is such a good reminder to us of why we do not put

00:24:31.700 our hope in the government, like why we do not idolize politicians, whether they're on the right or

00:24:38.180 the left, because they are going to fail us. They are going to be a disappointment to us at some

00:24:44.300 point. And this is also what happens, I think, when power gets to your head, when media flattery

00:24:50.280 gets to your head and you think that you are insulated from these kinds of accusations. It's kind of

00:24:55.180 amazing how many men in particular have thought for so long that they were going to get through this

00:25:02.560 whole, quote, Me Too movement completely unscathed and just moved forward in their predatory behavior.

00:25:09.320 I guess ego and pride and power just does that to people. It blinds them to reality. It prevents them

00:25:17.200 from being able to humble themselves and to resist hypocrisy. Unfortunately for Andrew Cuomo,

00:25:24.400 his pride has gotten the best of him in all of this. The kind of swagger that a lot of people were

00:25:29.980 attracted to a year ago is now turning out to just be plain old arrogance and it's ugly. Now, I wish

00:25:38.100 that we were a society who could remove partisanship from these kinds of accusations and that we could

00:25:46.600 just look at the standard of objective morality that God has placed before us and that we could have

00:25:52.640 been having this conversation several months ago when some of this stuff was known about. Nevertheless,

00:25:58.460 I am always glad when it's on the right or the left when the truth comes out and when justice is

00:26:04.120 served. I pray in this situation that justice is served. Remember, as Christians, we believe that

00:26:09.540 justice is impartial, it's truthful, it's direct, and it's proportional. That's what the Bible tells us

00:26:15.420 that God's justice is. And so I pray for all of those characteristics to describe the kind of justice

00:26:23.120 that is executed in this case. But this is what happens when we are tossed on the waves of

00:26:30.140 partisanship, when we have to wait for cultural moments like Me Too to do the right thing and to

00:26:36.940 hold certain leaders accountable. What happens is really sketchy timing. What happens is journalists

00:26:44.420 sitting on a story until it's politically expedient to them. What happens is people denying that their guy

00:26:51.580 is guilty of things that they say they abhor. So as Christians, what we have to do is we have to stand

00:26:57.440 in the gap of all of that. And we have to say, no matter if this is a Republican or a Democrat

00:27:02.160 politician, I want the truth and I want justice. That is our responsibility in all of this. And

00:27:08.020 unfortunately, we're just not in a day and age in America where we can expect most of our elected

00:27:13.040 officials to operate under that kind of godly impartiality. But that doesn't stop us Christians

00:27:18.860 from doing so. We believe, as Romans 13 tells us, that the government is instituted by God. That

00:27:26.880 chapter also says that we are to submit to the government. Christians understand that in light

00:27:31.780 of all of Scripture to mean insofar as the government does not cause us to sin or does not tempt us to sin.

00:27:39.660 Uh, so, uh, we are supposed to submit to the government, but in that, uh, context and in that

00:27:48.800 chapter, the government is also to submit itself to God. And we see what happens when an elected

00:27:55.840 official, when a governor, which this has happened a lot, especially over the past year, when their

00:28:00.340 power gets to their head, um, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. And I think that's what

00:28:05.640 we're seeing with Andrew Cuomo. All right. I want to get to, um, this next story, which we didn't get

00:28:12.200 to talk about last week when we were talking about the Equality Act, and it is going to tie into all

00:28:16.600 of this. And that is the exchange between Rand Paul and the HHS assistant secretary pick, Rachel Levine.

00:28:25.280 All right. So last week we didn't get to cover this, uh, exchange between Rand Paul and Biden's HHS,

00:28:36.660 uh, assistant secretary pick. We talked about Xavier Becerra last week with Lila Rose. We'll put the,

00:28:44.220 the link to that podcast episode in this description, who is the, um, HHS head pick by Joe Biden and is

00:28:54.700 very frightening how rabidly pro abortion and anti pro life he has been, uh, when he was AG of

00:29:02.800 California, for example, we talked all about that. You really need to know who Xavier Becerra is. So

00:29:08.380 go back and listen to that episode from last week. But another nominee that has been tapped by the

00:29:13.560 Biden administration is a person who goes by the name of Rachel Levin, Rachel Levin. Uh, I think

00:29:19.520 that's how you spell her last name, or maybe it's Levine, um, is transgender. So the phrase that is

00:29:26.060 used is trans woman. This is a biological man who dresses as a woman, uh, Rachel Levine. And I don't 0.93

00:29:34.820 know what the original name is. So I'm just going to go, I'm just going to say Rachel Levine. Rachel

00:29:39.900 Levine is Biden's pick to be assistant health secretary. Senator Rand Paul brought up the issue

00:29:45.540 of giving puberty blockers to minors. So I'm going to play you a little bit of that exchange.

00:29:51.620 American culture is now normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones to prevent

00:29:57.340 their biological development of their secondary sexual characteristics. Dr. Levine, you have

00:30:03.140 supported both allowing minors to be given hormone blockers to prevent them from going through puberty,

00:30:08.160 as well as surgical destruction of a minor's genitalia. Dr. Levine, do you believe that minors are

00:30:13.940 capable of making such a life changing decision as changing one's sex? Well, Senator, thank you for 0.97

00:30:21.000 your interest in this question. Um, transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field,

00:30:27.180 um, with robust research and standards of care that have been developed. The specific question

00:30:33.120 was about minors. Let's be a little more specific since you evaded the question. Do you support the

00:30:37.940 government intervening to override the parents' consent to give a child puberty blockers,

00:30:43.560 cross-sex hormones, and or amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia? You have said that you're

00:30:50.560 willing to accelerate the protocols for street kids. I'm alarmed that poor kids with no parents

00:30:56.220 who are homeless and distraught, you would just go through this and allow that to happen to a minor.

00:31:03.080 What I'm alarmed at is that you're not willing to say absolutely minors shouldn't be making

00:31:07.680 decisions to amputate their breast or to amputate their genitalia. For most of our history, we believe

00:31:15.020 that minors don't have full rights and the parents need to be involved. So I'm alarmed that you won't

00:31:20.440 say with certainty that minors should not have the ability to make the decision to take hormones that

00:31:26.540 will affect them for the rest of their life. Will you make a more firm decision on whether or not

00:31:32.440 minors should be involved in these decisions? Senator, transgender medicine is a very complex

00:31:38.400 and nuanced field. And if confirmed to the position of Assistant Secretary of Health,

00:31:43.920 I would certainly be pleased to come to your office and talk with you and your staff

00:31:48.100 about the standards of care and the complexity of this field.

00:31:51.980 Let it go into the record that the witness refused to answer the question.

00:31:55.700 So Dr. Levine did not want to answer that question, which is really troubling. Rand Paul

00:32:02.220 asked a very easy question, a question that should have an obvious answer when he asked,

00:32:11.840 hey, do you think that doctors should be able to bypass parental consent to give puberty blockers

00:32:18.460 to kids? And when you're talking about puberty blockers, you're talking about kids that are

00:32:22.720 8 to 11 years old. So you're talking about kids that don't even know what they want for lunch and

00:32:30.280 they can't even make any kind of decision outside of what is right in front of them. Now, kids are very

00:32:35.460 smart and obviously they are valuable and they have their own inherent rights and everyone believes in

00:32:42.700 that. Of course, we believe in that, but we believe in protecting them. And conservatives believe that the

00:32:48.160 family is the best place for that child to be protected and that parents are the only people

00:32:55.720 who really have the best interest of that child at heart. Their teacher might really like them.

00:33:02.700 There might be, you know, friends, parents that like them, but I guarantee you soulless bureaucracy,

00:33:08.900 random doctors do not care about the best interest of a child. There's a really,

00:33:14.700 really troubling movement coming from the far left that I guarantee you will become more mainstream to

00:33:20.360 try to strip parents of any kind of parental rights and to say that children, quote, belong to

00:33:25.260 themselves, that they should be free even at this young of an age to be able to consent to life altering

00:33:33.180 hormone treatment that could end in sterilization, that could end in depression, that could end in

00:33:39.860 unnecessary anxiety. And it's not backed by science, by the way, as we've talked about on this podcast,

00:33:46.340 most kids who are actually gender confused, who actually feel uncomfortable in their bodies,

00:33:51.780 grow out of that discomfort by puberty. And so going ahead and trying to stop their puberty is only

00:34:00.160 going to cause irreparable harm to their bodies and also to their mental health. And there are also so

00:34:06.340 many contradictions to this. Nowadays, apparently a little boy who wants to play with his sister's

00:34:12.240 Barbies or who wants to dress up in his sister's, you know, princess dress and crown, apparently we're

00:34:19.260 supposed to tell that boy that he's a girl and that he was born in the wrong body. When I was little,

00:34:26.980 I never wanted to wear dresses. I didn't want to wear a bow in my hair. I wanted to wear jeans. I wanted

00:34:34.100 to wear a white t-shirt. I wanted to rent books out of the library about snakes. I wanted to play

00:34:39.140 with worms and bugs. And, um, I am so glad I'm so glad that I wasn't raised in this day and age

00:34:46.680 where I would have maybe been questioned by a teacher questioned by a pediatrician or a child

00:34:53.140 psychologist, whether or not I really was a girl. Of course, of course, I've always loved being a girl

00:34:59.280 at the same time that I was doing all of those things. I thought that I had met the man that I was

00:35:04.000 the boy that I was going to marry when I was, um, in preschool. I had a boyfriend from the time that

00:35:10.380 I was two years old. Um, and so we have to allow kids to be kids. And the fact that we may have a

00:35:18.040 person in authority in health and human services who believes that parental consent should be bypassed

00:35:26.380 to give kids, uh, cross sex hormones before they go through puberty is terrifying. It's terrifying 0.52

00:35:34.480 that we've gotten here. I mean, this is a person who thinks that they're the opposite sex anyway. So

00:35:39.100 of course we should be troubled by all of this. Why is it, as I say so often that children are the

00:35:46.700 subjects of these progressive social experiments? Actually, I know why it's because they're vulnerable.

00:35:51.680 It's because they can't consent because they are convenient lab rats for these progressives who

00:35:58.120 want to be able to prove their, their theory about something like gender identity. This goes back to

00:36:03.100 where gender identity came from, which we've thought we've also talked about on this podcast,

00:36:07.140 which I will include a link to the biblical telos of gender in the description to, uh, of this podcast

00:36:13.700 episode. John Money, the doctor in the 1960s, who performed a sexual experiment on,

00:36:19.560 on two twin boys, uh, to try to prove his, uh, gender identity theory, gender being something

00:36:26.300 opposite or, uh, being something separate from, from sex. And those twin boys ended up committing

00:36:31.420 suicide. Like his theory has been debunked this idea that gender and sex are these two separate

00:36:37.180 entities and that we should be able to change and mutilate our bodies according to what we feel and

00:36:41.920 think on the inside. Like there has never been any data, never been any science whatsoever to prove

00:36:46.980 that that's actually what human nature tells us. And yet we're pushing it on vulnerable children who

00:36:52.040 cannot consent. They cannot consent. Um, and I'm very troubled by this nomination of Levine. I'm very

00:36:59.540 troubled by the nomination of Becerra. I applaud Rand Paul, um, for infusing sanity into this situation. So

00:37:07.960 often Republicans don't want to have these conversations. Like they're willing to talk about

00:37:12.340 religious liberty and protecting institutions. They might even talk about protecting the privacy

00:37:16.820 of young girls or the, the competition of girls who run track in high school and college, but they're

00:37:21.840 unwilling to say, uh, they're, uh, they're unwilling to actually talk about, uh, the merits of the issue.

00:37:29.240 Like so many are just unwilling to say, sorry, a boy can't become a girl or a girl can't become a boy.

00:37:34.560 And so we shouldn't be even having a conversation about changing the hormones of a child. I mean,

00:37:40.800 we can have a conversation about adults making a decision to be able to dress the way that they

00:37:45.720 want to, or to even have the surgeries that they want to have. Of course, morally, I'm going to

00:37:50.580 disagree with that choice, but legally, that's not necessarily something that, um, affects me.

00:37:57.740 But when we're talking about children and when Christians especially believe that it is the 0.76

00:38:02.540 responsibility of other Christians to protect the least of these, that we have actually been

00:38:08.420 charged with that responsibility, we can't just stand by and say, yes, it's totally fine for the

00:38:13.900 state to bypass parental consent or for parents to consent to a child irreparably harming their body

00:38:21.160 a decade or more before their frontal lobe is even developed. I mean, it's insanity that we're even

00:38:28.280 having this conversation. It's insanity that this is a pick by Joe Biden. Once again, all the

00:38:33.960 evangelicals for Biden that thought that he was going to be a moderate pick, that he was somehow

00:38:37.980 going to be morally neutral, as if moral neutrality even exists. I just wonder what you're thinking,

00:38:44.220 or are you even paying attention? Are you even paying attention to any of this? Do you even,

00:38:48.880 have you considered what this means for your child? Have you considered what this means for parental

00:38:53.500 rights? What this means for your school, for your church, for your pastor? This Equality Act,

00:38:57.980 and these nominations, these picks by Joe Biden's administration. It's really troubling. It's

00:39:04.940 really troubling. And good for Rand Paul. Good for Rand Paul for infusing reality into this conversation,

00:39:10.760 for not being afraid to speak up about this. Of course, the media was very angry about all of this,

00:39:20.080 saying that it is so transphobic that he even asked these questions. Apparently, he compared it

00:39:27.800 to genital mutilation. And people were very angry about that. But I don't know, what else do you call

00:39:36.340 it when you chemically castrate a boy before he goes through puberty? Or when you have a minor who is

00:39:42.040 15, 16 years old, who decides that she wants to have a double mastectomy because she now identifies

00:39:47.140 as a boy. And she can sometimes do that without parental consent. That is genital mutilation. Like, 1.00

00:39:52.640 it's not just genital mutilation when Muslim countries do it. It's genital mutilation, 0.99

00:39:57.000 even when it is approved of by the state and by the Democratic Party. It's still genital mutilation.

00:40:03.220 So people were very angry about that. But that's because they're angry at reality. They're angry

00:40:07.760 at biology. They're angry at human nature. They're angry by the truth. Of course, the more that you

00:40:13.580 insist that two plus two equals four, the people who insist that two plus two can sometimes equal five

00:40:19.080 are going to be very mad at you. They're going to be very frustrated. They're going to gaslight you.

00:40:24.260 They're going to tell you that you're the crazy one for believing what humans of all cultures have 0.82

00:40:29.100 believed for thousands and thousands of years. And by the way, this is like a very Western American

00:40:34.500 problem that we're having. It's so interesting how the people who say that they're on the side of,

00:40:40.220 you know, they're anti-Western, anti-white, anti-privilege, anti-rich. Well, this is a very Western, 0.61

00:40:47.340 Western, white, academic, elitist, rich issue that we're having. You don't see this going on

00:40:55.440 in other countries. And to the extent that you do see this going on in non-Western countries,

00:41:00.760 it is because of the influence of Western countries coming into those countries and saying,

00:41:07.300 hey, by the way, did you know a boy could be a girl and a girl could be a boy? So talk about

00:41:11.540 colonization and imperialism by spreading these kinds of insane ideas to countries that want

00:41:18.260 nothing to do with them. It is absolutely disastrous. Parents have to push back on this.

00:41:23.680 More people than Rand Paul in the Republican Party have to push back on this and argue it on its merits.

00:41:29.620 Do not cede any ground. I saw some representatives that were mad at Marjorie Taylor Greene, who,

00:41:35.500 look, I have my own issues with Marjorie Taylor Greene, but she put up a sign outside of her

00:41:41.220 office saying there are only two genders, men and women. I even saw Republicans saying that that was

00:41:48.920 bigoted, that that was wrong, that was evil. Are you telling me that it is the official Republican

00:41:53.480 line that there are more than two genders? Tell me, conservatives, what do you think that you're

00:41:59.640 conserving? If it's not that? I mean, this is very, very disappointing. I am thankful for the people

00:42:09.680 who are willing to speak out about this very basic reality. I am even more thankful for the people who

00:42:16.240 are speaking out in protection of our children, who, like I have said, are always the unconsenting

00:42:22.820 subjects of all of these crazy, dangerous experiments on them. There was a representative

00:42:30.680 from Florida, Representative Greg Stubbe. He spoke out against the Equality Act, and he did exactly 0.98

00:42:38.160 what we have talked about, arguing this on its merits. He says, it's not clothing or personal style

00:42:44.880 that offends God, but rather the use of one's appearance to act out or take on a sexual identity

00:42:49.880 different from the one biologically assigned by God at birth. In his wisdom, God intentionally made

00:42:55.000 each individual uniquely either male or female. True. When men or women claim to be able to choose 0.99

00:43:01.460 their own sexual identity, they are making a statement that God did not know what he was doing

00:43:05.780 when he created them, which is absolutely right. Good job for him for invoking the name of God.

00:43:11.180 And this goes to the theme of this episode, that the government is an institution that was

00:43:17.460 instituted by God. God is the transcendent supreme moral lawgiver. He says what is right and what is

00:43:24.320 wrong, what's good and what's bad, what's true and what's false, what's male and what's female.

00:43:28.800 He is the one who dictates reality to us. He is the one who defines all of these things.

00:43:35.080 And so it is not theocratic, it is not Christian nationalist for people to acknowledge

00:43:40.480 what God has defined as good and right and true. The founders knew that politicians for the past few

00:43:46.980 centuries have known that. Remember, secularism is not a neutral ideology. To say that we shouldn't

00:43:53.980 invoke the name of God because Jerry Nadler, Rep. Jerry Nadler said in response to Stubbe's speech,

00:44:01.380 you know, God's will has nothing to do with what we're talking about here. God's will has everything

00:44:06.120 to do with what we're talking about here. Of course it does. And for people who roll their eyes and say,

00:44:10.800 oh, that's just theocratic nonsense. That's Christian nationalism. No, no, no. You believe that 1.00

00:44:16.700 your religion of atheism, agnosticism, progressivism, whatever it is, you believe that your secular

00:44:24.940 ideology, your so-called religion should be dominant. And so you are just as much of some

00:44:33.180 kind of religious zealot as you are accusing me of being. The fact of the matter is everyone has a

00:44:39.120 worldview. Every law speaks to a set of moral principles. People say you can't legislate morality.

00:44:45.320 Every single law has to do with morality. The question is who says what is morality? Who says

00:44:52.140 what is right and wrong? My argument is that God, the transcendent moral lawgiver, is the best person

00:44:58.780 to tell us what is good and what is bad. It's going to come from somewhere. Our ideas of right and wrong

00:45:05.800 or ideas of who is in charge and who is not, where our rights come from, all of those ideas are going to

00:45:11.440 come from somewhere. The people who tell you that it's dangerous to say that those things come from

00:45:15.680 God, they don't realize that they also have their own ideology, their own religion, their own faith,

00:45:21.620 their own value system competing against yours that is not neutral. I mean, as we've seen throughout

00:45:27.820 this episode, secularism isn't neutral. Secularism, according to the person who is called Rachel Levine,

00:45:35.000 means that parents don't have any authority over their child before their child decides to take

00:45:41.580 cross-sex hormones at the age of 10 years old. That is a secular idea and a secular ideology. That's

00:45:48.700 not neutral. That has tangible consequences on people's lives. And so good for Greg Stubbe, good for

00:45:55.560 Rand Paul, good for the people who are recognizing that there is an authority higher than them. That is

00:46:00.920 important in all of our individual lives, but that's so important for the government. If the government

00:46:05.640 is not tethered to something that is bigger than them, to a value system that is bigger and better

00:46:10.540 than them, then their own pride in their own authority, in their own elitism, in their own

00:46:18.320 self-righteousness, it ends to the kind of corruption and tyranny, the kind of infringing upon the rights

00:46:24.860 that we have seen so prevalently over the past year. And so we continue to pray for our leaders.

00:46:32.320 Let's pray for wisdom for the Biden administration and that they would be making better decisions

00:46:39.160 than their HHS picks and nominees. Let's pray for governors as they start to hopefully recognize

00:46:47.640 the constitutional rights of their citizens again. Let's pray for governors and leaders that are caught

00:46:55.000 in the same kinds of perverse temptations that we have seen Governor Cuomo fall into. And let us pray

00:47:05.920 that these leaders would start submitting to God and his authority and his moral definitions,

00:47:13.940 his scientific definitions, when it comes to things like gender, rather than inflating their own egos

00:47:20.680 and falling into a kind of corrupt leadership that unfortunately has negative repercussions for all

00:47:26.040 of us. All right, we will be back here tomorrow.

00:47:43.940 Thank you.

00:47:47.500 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 03, 2021

Ep 379 ｜ Texas Is Open, Cuomo Is a Creep, and Rand Paul Is Based

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