THE LIBERTY PODCAST - May 2, 2024

This week's Liberty Podcast includes an exclusive conversation with a former United States diplomat who was seated in the front row when history was made in 1975 during the signing of The Helsinki Accords, which prompted a surge of liberation across eastern Europe and foreshadowed the demise of the Soviet Union. Leo Reddy joins us later.

Student terrorists have dominated mainstream news coverage in recent weeks, bringing to the surface deep rooted college campus anti-semitism. Just as Hamas terrorists did not wake up on October 7, 2023, realizing they suddenly despised Israeli Jews, indoctrinated, radicalized students and paid rioters did not suddenly become anti-semites, chanting in support of the annihilation of Jews as "colonizers" or "oppressors". These vile impulses have been ingrained in campus youth, writes Carolina Journal's Amy Rosenthal.

At UCLA, raging anti-Jewish mobs were enraged by -- wait for this -- banana wielding counter-protestors. As reported by The Federalist's M.D. Kittle, a pro-Hamas, pro-death-to-Israel snowflake afflicted by a banana food allergy was targeted by defiant students who showed up at their encampment well stocked with with bananas. The twisted logic here is that a fragile child with a banana allergy must be coddled even if she desires the worst possible outcomes for those she demeans as "oppressors".

House Bill 6090 is a curious, ill-timed piece of legislation forced into passage by House Republicans. It essentially creates additional definitions of hate speech that could further trample First Amendment protection. Commentator Ben Shapiro remarked, "The solution (to campus anti-semitism) is NOT to pass a bad bill adding yet more free speech violations to the giant free speech violation that is Title VI (the Civil Rights Act of 1964)."

A Democrat-dominated circuit court shot down objections by North Carolina and West Virginia officials to mandated state health insurance coverage of so-called transgender surgeries. The 8-6 vote cast aside the contentions of North Carolina treasurer Dale Folwell, among others, who says state health insurance should cover the largest number of employees as cost efficiently as possible. "Gender affirming" surgery is sought by a minuscule fraction of state employees eligible for medical insurance coverage. West Virginia's attorney general says he will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. Twenty-two other states jointly have expressed support for N.C. and West Virginia.

The era of COVID is emerging -- as many suspected -- as an era of rampant deception. The Epoch Times' investigation of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds damning proof that the CDC insisted publicly that there was no evidence that so-called COVID vaccines posed health threats despite internal research that proved the opposite. Employees at profit-hungry Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were acutely aware that the jabs were inflicting myocarditis (heart inflammation) on unsuspecting Americans.

A British High Court, meanwhile, is hearing arguments related to a class action lawsuit brought against Astra Zeneca seeking damages in the aftermath of injuries and death caused by its experimental COVID jabs. In now public court documents, Astra Zeneca admits that its shots are linked to severe, sometimes deadly, blood clots. Fifty-one cases are represented by the class action suit, which seeks damages north of $100 million.

Finally, another mainstream Christian denomination appears to be heading toward irrelevance. The United Methodist Church during its recent general conference overwhelmingly ended its long-standing ban on LBGTQ clergy. The tide turned during the past five years as ideologically conservative Methodists fled the church. The cultural and religious erosion of our nation seems destined to continue until every institution has been compromised by the Left. Fortunately, the Left will fail at banning prayer.