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Foreign It's Thursday, June 4, 2026. I'm Albert Moehler and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, there are so many things going on, but certainly the primary election that was held this past Tuesday, most importantly in California, given the fact that it's the nation's largest state and its governor's seat is open, that has attracted a lot of attention. But it's also attracting a lot of frustration. And the reason for that is quite simple. California's very liberal, very bureaucratic voting process means that ballots are counted. Absentee mail ballots are counted, even if they're postmarked on the day of the election. And so that means that you have to wait for something like two weeks to make certain. That's a commentary on the postal service and all the rest as well. You have to wait an inordinate amount of time until you have the ballots, the ballots are counted. But it does mean that under certain circumstances you could be say, looking at a month before anyone knows exactly what the fall, the November gubernatorial ballot is going to look like in the state of California. There's another reason for that. California has what is called a jungle primary. I think you should think of this in Darwinian terms, the survival of the fittest. And so what that means is that it is not party based. There is not going to be a Republican and a Democratic nominee to face off. Not note the question in the primary is which two candidates receive the most votes regardless of party affiliation and they will face off in the November election. Okay, so here is where the Democrats in California found themselves in a very strange predicament. Two big issues. Issue number one, there was no absolutely clear front runner. Then there was, then he was out and then there was another front runner. But we don't know even at this point, we might not know for a matter of weeks if the front runner was actually out in front. Okay, so let's just deal with this. You had all these Democrats running. And by the way, because it is an open ballot, there were all kinds of people who qualified for the ballot. But nonetheless, you had Representative Eric Swalwell, who was considered to be the front runner. And he did politically in numbers look like he was out front. But then there were sexual abuse allegations, all kinds of things that came. He eventually not only had to withdraw from the race, he also had to resign from his congressional office. This left some other also rans. And one of them was Javier Becerra, who was the secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration. He was also formerly an attorney general in California. So he's the only candidate in terms of the primary race who had already been elected on a statewide basis in California. But he wasn't all that popular. He wasn't all that popular inside the Biden administration. He wasn't all that popular in the polling. But when Representative Swalwell dropped out of the race, all of a sudden people were saying, well, who in the world can we get who could be a choice among the Democrats who might be able to face off against a Republican? And that's because there was the possibility, given this jungle primary, as it's called, this nonpartisan primary, there was the chance that there would be two Republicans coming in at the top of the ticket, number one and number two. And that would have meant there wouldn't even have been a Democrat on the ticket and in what is frankly the most populous Democratic state in the union. So Democrats were in something of a panic. Party leaders were calling for a consolidation behind one, at the most two candidates. But here's where things also just got very, very interesting, by the way, in terms of the balloting that took place, as so far we know right now. And again, these numbers are extremely preliminary. We're talking about 54%. So we're talking a long time after Tuesday. And already we're just looking at something like 54% of the votes counted. Javier Becerra was first at 35%, and then Steve Hilton, Republican at 28%, and then Tom Steyer, an extremely wealthy Democrat and businessman. And he, by the way, he violates a lot of the tripwire issues for the Democrats. Number one, he's extremely wealthy, he self financed his campaign, and we're talking about an incredible number of millions of dollars. And furthermore, he made his money in terms of investments and a lot of things the Democrats say no one should now be investing in. But you know what? It may well be that he ends up within the top three candidates. And of course, what he's hoping is that Steve Hilton drops back and he can move up so that there is a November face off between Javier Becerra and himself, that is to say, again, Tom Steyer. But this is really interesting. The point is right now, this is no way to run an election. This is no way to enhance and build confidence in an electoral system. And that's absolutely essential to our Democratic form of government. So it is a mess in California. It's not the first time it's been a mess, but we expect there probably will be if the trends Continue. A Democrat running against a Republican, because it will be a Democrat and a Republican who came in number one. And number two, at least that's the way it's looking right now. Javier Becerra, former California Attorney General and President Biden's Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. And then Steve Hilton, businessman with a lot of background, frankly, in the Republican side. But when you look at the party registration, at least in terms of the numbers and the political expectation, no Republican can win that office up against a Democrat. When you look at the imbalance in party registration in the state of California, it becomes very, very clear it has been a very long time since any Republican has won statewide election in the state of California, and the Democratic Party is doing everything it can to keep it that way. At the very least, however, if it is, as it will turn out, maybe even a month from now, if it is indeed Becerra versus Hilton, there will be some real political fireworks and at least there will be a very clear conflict of political visions set before the California voting public. So that's going to be interesting to watch. Okay, There's a couple of other interesting angles in the California primary. One of them has to do with Katie Porter. Katie Porter was a Democrat who served three terms in Congress. Very liberal, very, very brash, very outspoken, and frankly, she violated a number of norms, even in the Democratic Party. But then she got into big trouble because a video was released in which she was just cruelly berating a member of her staff who she said was getting in the way of her shot in terms of a media shoot. Okay, so it was really abusive. It was really clear. And so Katie Porter came out and said, look, I have to deal with some of these issues, but who's not dealing with something? That's what it means to be human, et cetera, et cetera. So kind of like what you have with Graham Platner in controversy on the east coast in terms of the main race for governor, in Katie Porter's case, you're talking about a former member of Congress who was running and at one point was considered to be gaining momentum as a Democrat in the race. But she fell behind. And by the way, at least in terms of where the numbers are right now, she's standing at only about 4 or 5%. So at least one thing that comes out from all of this is, is that in California, as in virtually everywhere, people get to vote. They generally don't vote for people they think are just personally mean. And something like that will come with a pretty significant political cost, especially when there are alternatives on the ballot, as there was in this case. It's also interesting to ask the question, why hasn't California elected a woman governor? Now, I think there are a lot of women who would say it's just prejudice against women. But of course, you are looking at the fact that the Democrats are basically in control over recent decades of statewide elections. And given the fact that the Democrats are at least officially so pro women candidates, why hasn't there been a woman governor of California? A team of reporters for the New York Times puts it this way. California sees itself as a progressive trailblazer on many fronts, but it has never elected a woman governor. That puts California in the minority of states. More than 50 women have served as governor elsewhere, and 14 states currently have female executives, the most on record. Okay, quote, For a while, it seemed that California was poised to join that list. Former Vice President Kamala Harris would have been a heavy favorite to win this year's governor's race, but opted not to run. Okay, so I'm just going to stop there for a moment and say that that was the big issue. Had the former vice president, who of course was the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, albeit in very unusual circumstances. The fact is, however, that had Xi run, she almost assuredly would have won. And that's why it's really interesting, she decided not to. Why does she decide not to? And you could even look at history where that's the kind of alternative that certain defeated presidential candidates have at least thought of, if not taken, in order to get back in the political driver's seat, so to speak. But nonetheless, she didn't do it. And that is at least in part because she has indicated in more than one way she intends to run for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. And so she gave up what would have been almost certainly an absolutely sure thing in terms of being elected governor of California. But there may be another reason why she didn't do it, and that is because California is headed into an awful lot of big political and economic challenges. And it just might be that she took a look at that and decided that would not enhance her national possibilities. It might hurt her national possibilities. You know, this is going to be handicapped for any number of years. But the bottom line is it is interesting that California, this very progressive state, has never had a woman governor. This team of reporters for the time says, quote, women who have served as governor around the country say the reasons that California has never broken that glass ceiling look awfully familiar, quote, suggesting that some of the struggles that female politicians face across ideological lines, it is also striking, they say, that the states with more conservative voters have elected women to their highest office, while California, the trendsetter in other realms, has not. And then this interesting statement, quote, it is hard to know to what extent gender bias has played a role in California, never having elected a woman as governor, end quote. So what's really interesting about that is the acknowledgment. No one can answer that question. And you'll notice that this is on the Democratic side. So people aren't saying it's because of discrimination against women. It's because they're close to the idea of women being candidates. But the bottom line is California could have done this a long time ago, but didn't, hasn't. And frankly, given the numbers, the way they're coming in right now in California, it certainly looks like the year 2026 is not going to be when that happens. Okay, now, while we're thinking about big issues in the culture, one of the big headlines has to do with the firing by CBS News of Scott Pelley, who has been one of the most significant figures in the network for the course of the last several decades and was a full correspondent on the 60 Minutes news program at CBS. And so this is big news. And by the way, this was a fiery exit. So there's a background to this, and it has to do with Bari Weiss, who has become basically the leader there at CBS News. And this comes at almost the same time that the Ellison family and Paramount have gained control of the network. And so immediately people are saying, well, Bari Weiss is a conservative. She didn't have this kind of background in television. And she's was brought on to bring about changes at CBS News. CBS News, of course, was generally considered rather liberal in terms of its news coverage and political opinions and commentary and all the rest. That's not so much because it stood out from NBC and abc, but certainly if you go back, say, to the classic age of television, all three of the networks were pretty liberal. It was only with the advent of cable that alternatives came up. Most famously, of course, Fox News transforming the equation. But let's go back to CBS. 60 Minutes debuted in 1968, actually on September 24, 1968, as a news magazine. And so that's a TV news magazine. So what made it different was the fact that all of a sudden you have CBS pioneering what would be basically a one hour program. That's the 60 minutes with the iconic clock ticking, the watch there ticking, and thus you had a program that was a magazine, because very much like a print magazine, you could have longer articles. I mentioned the fact before that when you are looking at just a 30 minute national newscast by the big three networks for a matter of many years after the advent of television, what you had was just very brief news coverage. Because you only by the time you put in advertising, you're talking about something just over 20 minutes of actual news coverage in a 30 minute segment. And so this was an intentional effort to try to go deeper in many big stories. It actually, for one of the first times, brought in the opportunity of what is termed investigative journalism into the television context. The 60 Minutes program on CBS really took off like a rocket. And even right now, even just in terms of recent weeks and the ratings, CBS leads this kind of programming. In terms of the program, 60 Minutes. 60 Minutes is beating the competition. And one of the reasons is because 60 minutes is an iconic brand. Just a matter of weeks ago, Anderson Cooper, of course, also affiliated with CNN, who, who was a correspondent on 60 Minutes, he withdrew. He wasn't fired. He withdrew, but it was understood that that was likely in the context of Bari Weiss taking over. And now she has brought in a man by the name of Nick Bilton to be the executive producer. And that was the man who had the absolute confrontation with Scott Pelley in a staff meeting at CBS earlier this week. And you know, just looking at the news coverage, it was clear this was a belligerent, very antagonistic meeting. And you had Scott Pelley basically saying that Bari Weiss didn't know what she was doing. I think that's wrong. And he went on to say Nick Bilton was disqualified for the job. He wasn't equipped for the job. You know, I think that comes clearly from Scott Pelley with an understanding of what 60 Minutes is and must be. And he didn't want it to be anything other than that. And one of the things we're seeing here is that there are ideological issues that are very close to the surface you might have to scratch just a little bit. When you look at this. One of the things we see here is the fact that so many of these television personalities, they really do have a very clear worldview that's no surprise to Christians, but it is a worldview that they believe should not be checked or balanced by any other. And I think that's the big issue going on at 60 minutes. And so the people like Scott Pelley are saying it's all about competence and experience in the field. He went on to say that Nick Bilton wasn't qualified to hold the position he holds, which basically meant this was a correspondent who wasn't going to report to this person as a supervisor or superior. In part of the statement that Scott Pelley released, he said, quote, At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owe that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to keep up the good fight. Most of the men and women of CBS News, he says, are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well. End quote. So there you see him saying, look, basically with this ownership of cbs, with this leadership and supervision of CBS News, with this new person coming in as executive producer of 60 Minutes, he says he's just basically out. But you know, as you look at that, you need to recognize the very statement that he makes indicates that, that he is just in fundamental disagreement with those who are the new owners of the network in the direction they want to take. Let me just remind you of something, and that is that just about everyone on planet Earth works for somebody. And so if you are self employed and you own your own business or whatever, then, well, you're in pretty good shape unless you fire yourself. But if you are in another job, you're working for cbs, then you answer to someone. And this is something that a lot of people, especially when they reach the pinnacle of their professional lives, they just don't believe should be true. And when it comes to 60 Minutes, one of the things you see here in so many of the professions and in so many of these cultural institutions is that the people who are running them, producing them, directing them, reporting them, etcetera, they believe they answer only to themselves or only to each other. When it comes to, say, corporate management. They think, well, that's an imposition. But of course, it's the corporate management that represents the owners of the network. This is the way business works. Now, the American people, they might decide they like the new 60 Minutes or they don't like it. But the fact is the owners of the network get to decide what 60 Minutes is. That's a stewardship, to be sure. And that's why I mentioned this is an iconic media brand and there is a long reputation. But by the way, that's not a reputation that has no troubled moments. There are some troubled moments in virtually any media history like that. And quite honestly, I think there needs to be a recalibration of the worldview and the ideological commitments in terms of these major media companies. And I welcome that kind of change. So it's just a reminder of the fact that there is combat to be had in just about every major arena of life. In recent days, one of the hottest scenes of battle is at CBS News with 60 Minutes. One thing we now know is that this controversy will last a lot longer than 60 minutes. Okay. While we're talking about the media, it is interesting to know that yesterday's edition of the Wall Street Journal had a front page article. Media mogul age 84, reinvents himself yet again. This is an article about Barry Diller. And Barry Diller was a studio executive in television. He was the CEO of Fox News at one time. He left about 1992. He went to start his own media company. And by the way, he was wildly successful. He basically began or took over companies including qvc, Ticketmaster. As the Wall Street Journal says, quote, he doubled down on digital buying dating site Match and travel site Expedia, and then went big on magazines by buying publisher Meredith in 2021. So he catapulted himself into the billionaire class. And thus he's been in different businesses. Broadcast television and then this widespread media empire. But at age 84, he's now getting into another big business in a very big way. And the fact that he's doing this at age 84 in such a big way tells us this just might be significant. What is the business? It's gambling. And in particular, casino gambling. This is yet another indication of how gambling is emerging as a bigger and bigger issue. With almost every turn of the calendar page, we are talking about a massive increase in the role of and the influence and I think the corrupting power of gambling in our entire society. There's some other headlines that have to do with this, but this does tell us something. If you are 84 years old and you're deciding now, now to get into a big business, you must really think there is a lot of potential in this business. And Barry Diller clearly does. And so even as the Wall Street Journal says he is reinventing himself yet again, he is reinventing himself not as a media mogul, but as a gambling mogul. He told the Wall Street Journal, quote, I'm willing to change anything on a dime if I see an opportunity. Clearly, he sees an opportunity in gambling, and that tells us something. He really doesn't need the money, but he does see it as A challenge. And he's seeing gambling, the vast expansion and enriching from casino gambling as a very big opportunity. Okay, so later in the article, we are told, quote, Diller's bid comes as the legacy casino industry is also under pressure from digital competitors, including sports platforms DraftKings and FanDuel, and prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket. But Diller noted that BetMGM has come a long way from a $440 million loss two years ago to being profitable. I don't mind competition, he said, we're going to do fine, end quote. And given this culture's turn towards gambling, it just might be a safe bet that he's going to do fine. At the same time, it is also very interesting to see that there are a lot of headlines on the prediction markets. And as we said, that's just a disguised form of gambling. And involved in these recent headlines are accusations of improper involvement in the prediction markets by an employee at Google and also by former Congressman George Santos. Yes, that George Santos, who. Who is actually charged with manipulating the prediction markets by involving himself in bets in terms of predicting his own behavior, as the Guardian in Britain reported, quote, disgraced former congressman said to have put his bet on whether he would be at Trump's State of the Union speech, end quote. Now, just imagine how distorted this entire thing is where this man can be involved in prediction investing, in other words, betting on whether he himself would be at President Trump's State of the Union speech. The accusation is that he tilted the table towards yes and then didn't go. Meaning that not only did he not go, he also won the bet. Okay, finally, something very, very interesting to me, I have to tell you, when I was a boy, I wanted to do science projects on things like snakes and sharks. And I'll just tell you, I've never outgrown the interest in either snakes or sharks. And sharks made the headline also made the front page of the Wall Street Journal this week. Here's the headline. No one agrees how to keep sharks out of new Club Med. The South African resort is opening in July, but a debate is raging about a protective net. Okay, this is a Club Med facility. Multi, multi. Tens of millions of dollars, this massive resort. And it is Dateline the story here from Bolito, South Africa. And then we are told, quote, club Med's expansion into South Africa has run into a problem. And this one's got teeth. Okay, so there are sharks and there are sharks. Most shark scientists for a very long time now that the three species of shark most likely to attack and kill human beings or are, and you could say basically in some kind of order, the great white shark, the bull shark and the tiger shark. Guess which three sharks all patrol the waters right off this resort. Ask yourself the question, what could go wrong? This article at the online site for the Wall Street Journal actually includes also a map showing the swimming patterns off the coast of the great white and the tiger and the bull shark. And let me just tell you, you look at that and I'll tell you what I'm not doing. I'm. I'm not getting in that water. Okay? The subhead of this article said that there was a debate about a protective net, these anti shark nets which have been put in in some places in the world. However, this article makes very clear. Here's the thing, they don't absolutely work. They kill a lot of sharks. But it is also true that they keep finding even these very deadly sharks inside the net area. So the big issue here is that in most legal jurisdictions, these nets are no longer in favor because they kill so much aquatic wildlife. And by the way, just the very thought of it tells us that there might be some kind of preventative effect of having this kind of giant netting in the water. On the other hand, if the shark swims on the wrong side of the net, guess what, your net means nothing if you're in the water. The other problem for this resort is that it has been packaging itself as being very eco friendly. And it's hard to square eco friendly with putting in these kinds of nets that would kill so much of the aquatic wildlife. And so they really are looking at a problem here. And by the way, it also tells you something, it tells you something about human interests that this very respectable, very staid, rather formal front page of the Wall Street Journal includes a graphic of a great white shark with a very deadly open mouth. So as Christians look at this, by the way, at the very least we should understand we are drawn to the wonders of creation, including the aspects and wonder of creation that have menacing teeth. I grew up in Florida, Let me tell you, I'm quite familiar with the danger of sharks. And it is true the vast majority of sharks in the world aren't really likely to attack a human being. The problem is there are some species that are far more likely to attack a human being. And quite honestly, we are the ones venturing into their world. They are not venturing into ours. The sharks are not showing up, walking into our hotels. Instead we are jumping into their water. And by the way, in this case, the danger of the shark is that the shark acts like a shark. And that raises another issue. In terms of the danger posed by a predator like a shark, is this theologically moral evil or natural evil? Moral evil means that there is a moral agent deciding on something where the choice is right or wrong. Obedience, disobedience, righteousness, depravity. And in that sense, the shark doesn't qualify. The shark in this sense is simply a shark acting out its shark nature in a fallen world. And given that we understand this comes under the category of natural evil. But I can assure you this in closing, if you are in the water and you see a fin in the water, your main concern will not be the distinction between moral evil and natural evil. I will just tell you at that point that debate is unlikely. If nothing else. By the way, for Christians, it is good for us to stand in humble awe at the wonders of God's creation, including those with very sharp teeth and very big appetites who just might mistake what of us for lunch? Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website@albertmuller.com youm can follow me on X or Twitter by going to x.comalbertmoeller 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 briefing.