Thursday, October 8, 2026

0:00It's Thursday, October 8, 2026. I'm Albert Moller, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. As is so often the case, once the story begins to unfold, it continues to unfold. Once an investigation begins, it often brings in information you didn't even know to expect. One of the items of information that has come to us after the intervention on the fly Dubai flight in which it now turns out the co-pilot struck the pilot in hopes of incapacitating the pilot and then eventually flying this jet airliner with about 180 people on board into the airport at Tel Aviv, a major terror attack. But what we know now is that this fly Dubai co-pilot had intended to take this action in a flight back in July. But he didn't. The Wall Street Journal says he didn't because he cared for someone who was on board. Another member of the flight team.

1:00That's just very interesting. We're looking at this, and by the way, here's some of the big questions that come to the fore. I think most people are already on these big questions. How did a man with this kind of troubled past end up being hired by a major airline? How is it furthermore that the state of Israel allowed the flight to take off when they do have rules that they can be no flight crew like this. There can be no pilot in particular, an commercial airliner that would land there in Israel, who is from a country that doesn't have diplomatic relations with Israel. And Oman does not. And so you look at this, you recognize the Omani authorities. New he was a problem. They had already taken action. He had already been sent to some educational programs. He had already been released by the Omani airline. And then you also have the reality that when you are looking at the fact that this man is flying, he had posted all kinds of things that were, we'll just say, flashing red lights of warning about the fact that he had been militarized and radicalized.

2:03And then you look at the most vented security system in the world, which is generally what's conceded to be the state of Israel. And also you have multiple failures here. Now there was heroism at the end. The heroism of the pilot was able to get the cockpit door open. The heroism of passengers who were able to take action. And so this really is a huge moral drama, a huge human drama. And the reason we come back to it is because when there are significant twists in the tail, so to speak like this, when there are significant revelations, it tells you once again that human beings not only have the capacity to do great evil, human beings have not only the capacity to do great good. Human beings have the capacity to fail to connect the dots. And that's a big issue. It turns up in almost every major terror account. It turns up in big spy stories as we have seen with the arrest of the former head of the German spy agency. There were dots there to be seen. For that matter, the dots kind of demanded somebody needs to connect these dots.

3:04And yet in so many cases, they were not connected. The man was hired by fly Dubai. And as they were significant concerns already, Israel has this incredible security system. And Israel already had the right policies in place. It would appear that everything was supposed to work right until of course the moment when it turned out it didn't. But once again, I think it's important for Christians to understand that it is a part of our fallen and finite human nature that we are capable of missing the obvious. Once the obvious is made clear, we understand we should have seen that. Authorities in Israel should have seen this. Authorities in Oman should have seen this. The airline that hired him, fly Dubai, should have seen this. And now we're looking at a situation that by any estimation was a very near thing. airline authorities say that by the time that those who were rescuing the situation were able to get in the cockpit, including at least one pilot who happened to be on board, it turns out that there were only a matter of seconds in which your recovery was possible.

4:08That doesn't mean by the way that the copilot would have been successful in flying the plane into the airport there in Tel Aviv. No more likely this a give-get-dive the airplane was experiencing would have just turned out to be a fatal plunge there into the desert. Once again, we're just so thankful that didn't happen. You look at the people who landed in Tel Aviv. They were on that second flight that was sent to get them from where the plane had conducted an emergency landing. You see them getting off. You see the families and you see people singing. It's such great relief that this disaster was averted. But you know the closer we see it, the closer run thing it turns out to be. And once again, it is a sobering reminder, not of our ability to connect the dots. That's important too. But of our ability to miss the obvious and not connect dots that were right there ready to be connected. Another principle here just in terms of Christian worldview analysis is that by the time you understand this and by the time something like this happens and then you come up with

5:11new policies, someone's going to be coming up with a yet now unimagined and perhaps right now an imaginable plan for evil. That's just the way it works and it's Christians who better understand the fact. All right. Now while we're talking about evil headlines, here's a big one. Coming from the Guardian in Great Britain, but it's about Australia. Listen to this quote. Abortion pill access jumps almost 50% after Australia eases restrictions for pharmacies. Okay. This is not just a big story about abortion and the abortion pill in Australia. It's a big story about how moral change happens. And I want us to note two big things in this article. One of the big things is that in this article, abortion is redefined as medical care. And that is one of the main ambitions and now one of the main strategies you see in the battle for life. There are those who are pushing abortion rights and abortion access and abortion right up until the moment of birth and they are saying it should be defined simply as a matter of a woman's health care period. Only the recognition of one human being involved, the woman and the only issue is her perception

6:16of her own health care. So it doesn't even have to be some kind of bona fide medical crisis. If she says it's a medical crisis, it is a medical crisis. So that shows up here and it shows up when one person celebrating this wider access to the abortion pill, Regimen in Australia says, quote, it means getting care quicker. Okay. Just hear that. It means getting care quicker. Now what it really means is killing babies sooner. But you know, if you can redefine that as getting care quicker, you can turn an evil into something that is well dressed up as something good. Okay. So what we need to see here is that when the logic of the abortion pill takes hold, then the expansion of that logic is virtually inevitable. And so if you decide we're just going to define this as medical care and we're going to reduce abortion now to a regimen of pills, a two pills in most cases or two medications in most cases, but the pills can be taken and there need be no medical visit, no doctor supervision or anything. The pills in the United States can be sent even in the mail.

7:17But now in Australia, the widening of all this comes down to the medical practitioners who are now and you'll notice the guardian is just enthusiastically happy about this, who are now able to be the agents for distributing the drug. Listen to this quote. Prior to the changes, GPs as general practitioner physicians needed additional training and registration to prescribe it. The requirement for pharmacists to be registered to dispense the drug was also scrapped and administrative hurdles were relaxed. So now we're told that the drug is going to be even more available and the use of it's gone up. We are told in Australia after this policy changed by 50%. Okay. So we're talking about a very significant increase in abortions. We are told that this came only after physicians no longer needed to have any kind of special training in order to dispense the drug. And then pharmacists also didn't have to be registered even. So once that's done away with, then all of a sudden, guess what? More pills are distributed, but that's not where it is. Listen to this quote. Appropriately trained nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives also became eligible prescribers.

8:21Okay. In the United States, that would be a big hurdle. You're talking about the authority to prescribe drugs, but I will just warn you that this kind of logic will not stay in Australia. It will cross the Pacific. The kind of logic is going to show up when we are told that in order to expand women's health care, you know, that's the giant moral change that they are. Stressing here, the redefinition of abortion is medical care. That's just a huge win for the abortion rights movement. And then if you can say in order to expand that medical care, you need to expand the people who can be the agents of distributing and authorizing the drug. Well, there you have it. And you can see in Australia, the fact that the numbers don't lie. We're told this 49% more pharmacies after the change in house talking the medication. Note, there were 2,228 pharmacies stocking it before the policy change rising to 4,107 by mid 2025. The number of post codes equivalent to zip codes in the US with a pharmacy stocking the medication

9:22rose from 915 to 1292 or nearly half of all Australian post codes like zip codes. Regional coverage increased on 23% to 35% of those codes while the proportion of stocking pharmacies in remote areas nearly doubled rising from 12.5% to 22%. So you see the insidious way the culture of death progresses. I just want to make sure we see it. It progresses in multiple ways, but two of the strategies are redefining abortion as a woman's health care and then redefining who can even distribute the abortion pills because after all, why would we treat that as a morally significant challenge? Okay, while we're talking about related issues, no doubt many of you have seen the headlines coming from Russia about the fact that a woman has died of the pneumonic plague and she has worked for one of those institutes in the Forersovii Union, now Russia that is known to be experimenting with biological agents like this form of the plague.

10:25Now, when you look at the history of various cycles of the plague and human history that have been so devastating, most of that, at least in its most virulent form is in bubonic plague. So that's another part of the body in which the plague cells begin rapidly to multiply. In pneumonic plague, that multiplication takes place within the lungs. Now you have the Russians saying nothing big is going on here. This isn't a bio weapon that's in development. We're just conducting medical research and by some freak accent, this happened. But I want you to notice that people aren't taking Russia at its word. So the United States State Department, it's used State Department kind of language, but it has raised a significant alarm. European countries, clearly, I mean, they're closer to this, the proximity of this bio lab to European nations is a lot closer than to the United States. And so some of them are actually putting on a pressure on as well. Here's the big thing behind all of this. And we'll talk more about this as we look at the future of warfare and future additions of the briefing. But it is known that even as bio weapons are understood to be some of the most evil weapons

11:30imaginable, there are countries like Russia who say, you know, we're conducting experiments in this area, but they're purely defensive. And you look at this and you go, no, that really doesn't make any sense. A purely defensive approach would not lead to much of the experimentation that is either known or suspected to be taking place in some of these laboratories. And unfortunately, we're not just talking about Russia. This is documented in Russia. We don't know how many times something like this has happened in a bio lab that we don't know exists in a country that it doesn't have the kind of access that even Russia has at this point. It's another warning of how technology, even the practice of medicine, can turn from a source of good and a force for good to a force for evil and a source of evil doing. By the way, even some of the language is used in this case is hardly as reassuring as is intended in a Russian statement. They said that the quote, sanitary and epidemiological situation was stable.

12:30How good does stable make you feel? You know, by the way, stable doesn't necessarily mean things are okay. It just means things are stable. In another statement that was released just yesterday, the Russian authorities said that there was no emergency situation at the lab. The World Health Organization and other international organizations are pressing for more information. It's just another reminder of the fact that we're looking at evil showing up in so many different ways, a bio lab that is dealing with this kind of plague agent. If that doesn't make you concerned, I don't know what would. All right. This week marks the opening of the new Supreme Court term and the court begins right away with oral arguments. And this week, oral arguments were held in a case that has to do ostensibly with environmental law and environmental damages, but also has to do with the basic shape of our constitution and the relationship between the national government and state and local governments, the

13:31system constitutionally we refer to as federalism. Okay. So this is a complicated case to be honest. It involves two major petroleum manufacturers, Exxon mobile and sun core energy. They are being sued by the city and the area of Boulder, Colorado for damages because they are being blamed for contributions to climate change with the eleterious impact upon Boulder and of course other areas. Now you might say, well, that sounds like what courts are for. You sue and you're able to make your case and either before a jury or before a judge, you eventually have some adjudication of the matter. And of course it can be appealed and it can go on and it at least at first seems to make sense. But then you understand there is a big argument against this case even being constitutional. Now that doesn't mean these companies are just in the clear. It doesn't mean that the city or the area of Boulder, Colorado doesn't have a legitimate concern. The issue here is climate change. So a lot of that is going to be debatable.

14:32The big issue is constitutional. And one of the reminders here of just how big this issue is is the fact that you don't have many cases make it to the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court is the ultimate court of appeal and it decides which cases it takes. And it has decided to take this case because it is a basic issue of federalism that is at stake. And you say, where does that come up? Well, it comes up with this. When you look at the regulation of the petroleum industry, the larger oil industry, most of the important strictures, policies, procedures, regulations, rules, even laws, they're promulgated at the national level. So they're on the authority of the United States government and they apply to all 50 states and to US territories. It is one basic set of rules. And this came out of the 1960s and 70s in particular. It came out of the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, but also an entire, you could just say an entire branch or multiple branches of the administrative state as well

15:37as legislation directly related to these issues. So if there were to be a successful lawsuit against say petroleum companies, where would that case be heard? And the most natural, the most obvious answer is that the right place to have this kind of case is going to be in a federal court in which case the substance of the case and the implications of the case are going to be mutually applied to all 50 states and US territories. But here I think the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal offers a real insight. If Boulder, Colorado is able to take this kind of suit against these petroleum companies and go for big damages, then we really have a return to a situation before federalism. So as the editor of the Wall Street Journal said, it's like a return, a step back from the Constitution of the United States and a step toward the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation, the very first kind of constitutional agreement that brought the 13 colonies together into one thing, it didn't go nearly far enough.

16:41And there simply wasn't enough federal level involvement in which case you had 13 different colonies that were basically still conducting well, even when it came to foreign policy. There was the threat. Between different foreign policies for the young nation that claimed the identity is the United States of America. That's why the desperate need for a Constitution came. And so in the generation right after the revolution, there was a turn towards the ratification of what became the US Constitution and the clear delegation of so much of the government to the states, but some issues retained to the federal government, such as by the way, foreign policy and matters of the military. All right. Now, here's something kind of interesting. When you look at the issue of federalism, and that means so many of the issues should be left at the states, over the course of the last several decades, it has been constitutional conservatives who have generally been making that argument. So we have the Federalist Society. It's committed to federalism. And by the way, that's a very conservative group.

17:41And so no real surprise there. But now you have liberals joining in the same kind of argument, trying to use the same kind of argument. The difference is, when you look at this kind of issue, this is something that properly belongs to the federal government. You can't have 50 different sets of rules when it comes to these issues. We don't have 50 separate economies. This really is an issue that is going to be settled one way or another at the level of the federal government. All right. So put it another way. If Boulder, Colorado is able to move ahead with this kind of suit, and it appears at least some of the liberal justices were willing to concede that argument. If they're able to do this, then guess what? We're going to have national mayhem. And that is because if Boulder can do it, then Miami can do it. If Miami can do it, then Tuscaloosa can do it. If Tuscaloosa, you understand the problem. And then if the cities can do it, the states can do it. And then even collectives of states might be able to do it. And that would lead to a situation in which there would be absolute legal mayhem. And let me just say that some on the environmental left, I think, would be happy with that.

18:45I can assure you you would not be happy with that. So once again, it comes down to constitutionalism for which I'm just very, very thankful and thankful we have a constitution. And it comes down to how the constitution is going to be read and applied. And of course, there's so much debate about that. But it also comes down to questions as to what is the proper jurisdiction for this thing? And when it comes to this kind of lawsuit, it certainly doesn't appear that it's up to the city of Boulder, Colorado, to take this action on its own. If it's right for Boulder, then frankly, it's right for your town if they can claim to make a case. And it basically will mean, well, the legal system is going to be turned into an engine pretty much for this. One other interesting footnote about this case, there are nine justices of the US Supreme Court. There are by most counts six conservative justices and there are three more liberal justices. But when it comes to this case, it could come down to a four four tie. And that is because associate justice, Samuel Alito has recused himself from this case,

19:49not because he has a direct interest in either of these two companies, but because he has had investments in energy companies. And so to avoid any context of impropriety, he has recused himself from the case. So that means, whereas there were nine justices hearing this case, now there will be eight and you can do the math. That could lead to a decision that is a non decision for and for which means even if this case proceeds exactly to plan, it could be that by the time this Supreme Court term comes to an end, we have pretty much a non answer to this question. All right, turning to another big issue very much in the headlines, how many Americans are really open to say socialism as an economic theory is some kind of economic plan? The answer is we really don't know. What we do know is that something surprising has happened over the course of the last several years, even most particularly less several months. You are looking at the election of Zoram Mandani as the mayor of New York City openly identified

20:51with the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America. We've seen other DSA affiliated or adjacent candidates who have been elected or are gaining ground or are gaining their party's nomination. We're looking at it happening not only on the two coasts, by the time you look at California on the one hand with Oregon and Washington and then look at New England and some of them were liberal, mid Atlantic states. You look at that and you say, well, it's not just there. Now it's a Senate candidate in Michigan. You just go down the list. This is an expanding question. It is interesting to know that the Gallup Organization, about 16 years ago, began polling on the question. Here's one of the reports where told that at this point, about 43% of adult respondents to the Gallup firm's question expressed what was defined as a positive view of socialism. Okay. So 43%, according to at least the Gallup Organization, it's a very credible organization. You look at adults as the question, do you favor socialism or do you have a positive

21:54view of socialism? We are told that 43% of adults had, yes. Okay. I want to raise two questions. The two questions are not the same. The first question is, do they have a clue what socialism is? And the second question is, when they say socialism, what do they even mean? And so I think it is interesting. A part of this is just what we need to recognize as Christians sometimes is cultural chatter. And so you just listen to the chatter. You listen to the major news channels. You listen to what's going on in social media. You listen to YouTube videos or whatever you pay attention to. There's just a lot of cultural chatter. And some of that chatter is now, of course, about socialism. And you know, there are a lot of Americans who are just interested in anything different than what they know. And so there's the idea of novelty. There's also kind of a cool, chic image to socialism, which by the way, pertains only until you look under the hood, so to speak, and see what it actually is and what it actually does.

22:55You look at 43% were told in this Gallup survey, 43% of adults who said they had a somewhat or generally positive view of socialism. It does show how much work we have to do in educating Americans about the issues that are at stake. And for one thing, even understanding what socialism is, you understand that when Americans are asked this kind of question, an incredible percentage of Americans just kind of pull something out of the air in offering the answer. I think most of us know this. This is why right after you have the statistics given from a survey, people come back and say, this is supposed to be a representative sample, but we don't know. You look at this, you also recognize that when you're talking about socialism, you could be talking about a range of things. And so just in terms of intellectual honesty, you could be talking about more liberal policies that would involve more stake control. At least some people would say that's moving in a more socialist direction. It's actually moving towards what in Germany or in much of Europe would be known as something like social democracy, that is to say, it is liberal.

23:58It is a move to the left, but it's still within the context of electoral democracy. And it doesn't mean pure socialism. It does mean more government control of an involvement in the economy. Then you have President Trump, who doesn't want to call it socialism, but calls it communism. And we understand the vocabulary difference there. The reality is that communism is a form of government of which socialism is the central economic policy. And so the president is not entirely wrong. It's not fair, however, to say that everyone who endorses some form of socialism actually endorses communism. But you know what? I'll simply say, I think the vast danger here is that there are Americans who say they agree with socialism and they don't actually have much of a clue about what socialism is. And I think one of the greatest dangers to the United States is that you could have something show up. And especially to younger voters and to many others, it can appear as something cool until you understand the problem with socialism is that it doesn't work. I think a very interesting comment was made by Michael New, a professor of social research

25:01at the Catholic University of America reporting and responding to this poll in an article published at the Washington Times. He said, quote, socialism is on the rise because a growing number of Americans are struggling financially and have no experience of the world before the Berlin wall fell in 1989. He said, and I quote, many Americans have no memory of the Cold War or of the poor economic conditions of socialist Eastern European countries. He said a growing number of politicians who self-identify as democratic socialists have given socialism legitimacy and credibility among Democrats and left leaning independence. I just want to say I think professor New is exactly right. There are a lot of people talking about socialism. And for that matter, saying it sounds cool to me. It sounds interesting to me. They have no experience with the massive colossal, deadly failures of socialism in the 20th century. Those of us who do remember those failures do understand what is at stake. But you know that reminds me of another basic principle we need to keep in mind. When it comes to economic proposals like this, we need to just think about the fact that

26:06the key question is not, is this cool, but does this work? When you ask that second question, the answer about socialism comes real fast and it's clear. Thanks for listening to the briefing. At Boyce College, we believe the Christian life is about absolute faithfulness in the church, in the workplace, the family, in the world. That's why we prepare students to know the truth, to follow Christ with conviction, and to be ready for whatever the Lord calls them to do. I want to invite students to experience Boyce College preview this coming October 15 through 16. So it's coming fast. I give you a last opportunity. It's going to be held October 15 to the 16th here in Louisville, Kentucky on this campus. If you're a high school student or a parent, you're praying about college. This is the best way to see what sets Boyce College apart. You'll experience firsthand how Boyce prepares students to think clearly, to grow in godliness and to live faithfully wherever God calls them. Your visit includes two nights of complimentary lodging and meals and the registration fee is waived when you use the promo code, the briefing. Here's me, I'll Boyce College prepare students for a lifetime of faithfulness, register at

27:09BoyceCollege.com forward slash preview. I hope to see you there. For more information go to my website at AlbertMovard.com. You can follow me on xr twitter, but going to x.com forward slash AlbertMovard for information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College just go to BoyceCollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the brief.