Hovindologist Down The Flat Earth Rabbit Hole

Lamar Smith is back from an assignment.  I asked him to look into the odd interaction of Kent Hovind and flat earth.  The way this connects with tax is kind of intriguing.  The people who are commonly called tax protesters, a term they dislike, have a pretty preposterous belief. It is that most people who pay federal income tax are being deceived into paying a tax that really does not apply to them.  The grandfather of the movement and possibly the inventor of many of the arguments is Irwin Schiff.

The movement lives on with, among others, Joe Bannister - Agent of Truth.  What is preposterous, besides the arguments themselves, is that they always lose in court except for the occasional criminal acquittal using the Cheek defense,  In order for them to be right, there would have to be a conspiracy involving the entire federal judiciary among others.

What I finally realized is that conspiracies of that scope and much larger are part of the world view of Kent Hovind, who while claiming not to be a tax protester, played one in court and prison and the continual promotion of his innocence narrative.

And Young Earth Creationism, the notion that real science supports a hyper-literal reading of Genesis that allows you to arrive at the age of the universe by summing up begats and tacking on six days requires an even grander conspiracy.  The biology, geology and astronomy departments in every university have to be in on it - just for starters.

There is a continuum that comes with using the Bible as a science textbook.  Form YEC, you move to geocentrism.  And the next step is flat earth (Usually a disc sort of shape).  I'll spare you the scriptural argument, other than to note that it is pretty compelling.  The people who wrote the texts that eventually became the Bible probably mostly believed that they lived on a firmament supported by pillars to the extent that they thought about the issue at all.

The scale of the conspiracy to deceive us into believing in a roughly spherical earth revolving around the sun if that is not true is mind boggling. It's not just the professors,  There has to be a lot of technology like GPS and even pre electronic aviation and maritime navigation that works differently than we think it works.So the moon landing was a fake.  Maybe.  But GPS really works because of ground stations not satellites and nobody is talking about that?

Regardless, it turns out that geocentrism and flat earth are bridges too far for Kent Hovind,  And that has the flat earth Christians very upset because he is such a solid guy on evolution and creation that it is so disappointing that he does not take the next obvious step into a biblical world view.

To end this perhaps too long introduction, that is what I asked Lamar to look into and here is his report. - PJR

IF YOU’VE GOT A PERFECTLY GOOD RAZOR THAT DOESN’T CUT, MAYBE YOU’RE USING IT WRONG

I have returned from down the rabbit hole. Now, if I tell you that up is still up and North is still North, I’ve done you no favors because, since I’ve now told you this, you can rest assured it’s a lie because the rules of the game state rather clearly that everyone is always lying when they say something. The only real truth you can count on are YouTube videos.....

Unless you can’t.......

Who can know?

Peter Reilly gave me an assignment to look into and it has taken its toll on my time and sanity but Kent Hovind is now more embroiled in the FE debate than ever.......

Unless he isn’t.......

I’ll get to who I hope is Lenox’s most controversial resident shortly but my research has entangled me even more in the Flat Earth movement and I’ll get to Kent through them.  

First, though, two simple observations; Kent has dropped the word ‘literal’ from his description of what “the crew at Dinosaur Adventure Land” believes about the Bible and the calls for a Presidential Pardon are conspicuously absent for several weeks from his videos.

I’ve spent my time with the Flat Earthers and it’s been utterly confusing and exposed me to statements where I understood every single word in a sentence or question but have no idea what they collectively meant.  Please read a very abbreviated list of my transcriptions of direct quotes from Flat Earth debates and discussions that utterly confuse me but do not ask me for an explanation of their meaning. I remain as confused by these pronouncements and questions as you, most probably, will be:

“Even your eyes are lying to you, why can’t you see that?”

“Which direction of South are you talking about heading, right now?”

“NASA’s budget is a quarter of a billion dollars. Do you know how much of that is being spent on proving the shape of the earth is round? None! You can go look that up!”

“Sunlight isn’t daylight, most people don’t know that.”

“Well, how flat is a pancake, anyway?”

“The inner hemisphere of stars turns counter-clockwise and the outer hemisphere of stars turns clockwise.”

“I don’t have any idea what video or photo you’re talking about but I already have a video on my channel debunking it.”

“You have to understand that ‘Pac Man’ has two meanings and you have to be clear which one you mean.”

“No, you don’t understand, there’s a barrier above us. It’s invisible and can’t be detected in any way but we know it’s there.”

“People back then could just add to or take away from their calendars a few hundred years, if they wanted to. How would anyone know?”

“They have removed huge sections of the ocean and that’s why we can’t find the downed Malaysia flight.”  

“Oh yeah, I looked at that NASA footage. Do you know how easily I could have faked that? You give me a couple of thousand dollars and I could bring you an image just like that in a week. If an image looks easy for me to fake, it’s fake.”

“Occam’s Razor says ‘Do not unnecessarily multiply assumptions,’ therefore the only logical conclusion is that a conspiracy to control all of us has been underway for half a millennia involving every branch of every government of every country and almost every major company for the last 500 plus years. Nothing else makes sense!”

These are the sort of things that have assaulted my brain for weeks. To say that I’ve discovered some issues with the Flat Earth movement is the equivalent of saying the sky is blue but even that has been questioned. The label ‘Flat Earth,’ though is increasingly problematic, though a replacement isn’t immediately obvious.

The sub-sets of positions that currently fall under the ‘Flat Earth’ umbrella are truly manifold and, it seems to me, are truly testing the carrying capacity of a single term to describe them.

I think the best way to represent this is by posing questions that different members of the movement would answer in different ways:

1) What is the basic shape of the Earth? 

Kent Hovind has had conversations and done videos with Dr. Robert Sungenis that have gotten Kent off the sidelines and offered debate challenges to FEers. Both of these men agree that the earth is round but Dr. Sungenis holds that the earth is round but fixed and the entire universe revolves around it. Dr. Sungenis is Catholic and has many YT debates against Protestants of different stripes. He claims expertise in many ancient languages and claims that FE assertions from the Bible are unfounded or, at best, are very selective translations. 

Kent’s alliance with Dr. Sungenis is, on the face of it, somewhat strange, given their discrepant views on so many scientific and theological points outside of the shape of the earth and at least one FEer has attempted to drive a wedge between them. More on that shortly.

2) What is above the atmosphere of the Earth?

Listen to enough FE debates and discussions and you’ll hear some really far out theories about what’s far and out. Some hold there is an actual barrier, a canopy, a ‘semi-sphere’ above us. Weather balloons don’t pop at the end of their life-span, they deflate when they hit this barrier. Planets and stars are just projections on this, some hold. This barrier is why every rocket launch, every satellite is fake, except when they fail and, on those, ‘they’ knew they’d fail.

3) What is the proper and provable relationship between the sun, the earth and the moon?

Oh, man. If you have the guts to ask this question to a single flat-earther, bring a chair and get a snack and an adult beverage..... or six....  Throw this out to a group or panel or convention of them, buckle up and watch the show! Just the sun question will consume hours and hours. FEers claim to love Occam’s Razor and then consistently propose ad hoc solution after ad hoc solution in direct contravention of it. They can’t quite get away from direct observations anyone can make. When it’s daytime where you are, unfortunately for FEers, it seems it’s night somewhere else. The sun, then, must be small, close, have a shade like a lamp and the shade must, somehow, change shape throughout the day and year.

Even after they get the sun sorted out (they never really do) the audience may be astounded by the claims about the moon. Some hold that while the sun emits “hot light,” the moon, according to some, also is the source of light, but it’s “cold light.” Some FEers have done ‘scientific’ research with store-bought laser thermometers and ‘discovered’ that on the night of a full moon, temperatures of objects in direct moonlight are lower than objects in the shade of the moon. Their methodologies are questionable at best.

As far as the moon goes, though, virtually all FEers are in agreement that no person has ever actually been there, though a very few will concede it might be possible to go. Former stuntman, limousine driver and current gubernatorial candidate for California ‘Mad’ Mike Hughes, a very prominent figure in the FE movement, has already launched himself in a homemade steam-powered rocket, a few thousand feet in the air to gain attention for his cause of building and launching a bigger homemade rocket high enough to actually see the curvature of the earth. AronRa asked Mad Mike on a panel on a Non-Sequitur podcast, “So, if you’re able to launch yourself as high as you intend, won’t you have proven that if the US had put all its technical expertise to the task of going to the moon, that it, in fact, did? I mean, aren’t you proving yourself that it could have been done?”

After a long pause, Mad Mike gave one of the most honest and telling answers I’ve ever heard from a Flat Earther: “No, I can never believe that that happened or is possible no matter what evidence I have.”

Aron tried to press him: “But, Mike, you will have proven it’s possible.”

Mad Mike pivoted to his gubernatorial platform of disbanding all standing military forces and returning to a militia-based system and spoke no more of the moon landings.

There are many other questions that don’t have simple binary responses that divide the FE movement. There is no map of the Earth that all support, they just know the globe Earth is wrong.

I shared a link in an earlier post that is the most commonly accepted FE map. It posits a disc shape with Antarctica ringing the outside. Observations that this arrangement means that Antarctica couldn’t experience 6 months of daylight and 6 months of dark,” are currently met with “I’m ok w/the Arctic getting 6 months of sun and 6 months of dark but that doesn’t happen in Antarctica. I don’t see that from where I am.” The name of this particular projection is the Azimuthal Equatorial, or AE, map.

The closer you get to the North Pole the more accurate this map is but distances in the Southern Hemisphere are badly distorted. Australia appears to be something like 2 1/2 times as wide as the US. Some FEers have proposed cutting slices out of the Southern Hemisphere to fix this and this debuts the first of two references to Pac Man. Cut a slice out and you’ve got that lovable video game icon from the ‘80s. Please don’t ask me “What’s happening in Pac Man’s ‘mouth,’ I don’t know.

The other problem with the AE map is it puts Antarctica on the outside and makes its coast line on the order of 75-80k miles long. It’s actually only around 12k. 

Another map and another Pac Man appearance follows the diamond projection. Supporters of this projection point out that the dimensions of the diamond match the angles present in the Great Pyramid if you put a mirror image of itself directly under itself. Why that’s important remains beyond me. The problems with this image are that oceans are at the edges of each diamond edge. “What happens when a boat or airplane gets to the edge?”

Well, those of us of a certain age actually played Pac Man and remember that in fleeing from Inky, Blinky, Pinky & Clyde (Why do I remember that?), you could steer Pac Man into a couple of tunnels on one side of the board and then immediately appear on the opposite side of the board. I know I never wondered “Hey, how did that happen anyway?” Advocates of the diamond don’t know either but they’re claiming it actually does, not in Pac Man’s world, but right here on earth.  Any solution, for Flat Earthers, is better than admitting we’re on a globe.

Beyond the question of what they believe, many Flat Earthers really think the question of why they believe what they believe is important and  this, actually, divides the FE camp. Most of the FEers I’ve heard admit to being Creationists but only after long conversation and prompting. The diamond-earthers have to at least believe in the supernatural or their Pac Man’s tunnel to the other side doesn’t work at all. 

A Flat Earther named Rob Skiba states directly and immediately that he holds to the Flat Earth model because he understands a literal reading of the Bible to teach that fact. Skiba was and is at the point of attack when Kent Hovind decided to get involved. Skiba considers himself a ‘student’ of Kent Hovind though it’s not clear this is literally true. Skiba’s videos are full of praise for Hovind’s ‘knowledge’ of evolution and even mild chiding that “Kent, you’ve showed us there are ‘Lies in the Textbooks,’ I’m simply challenging you to realize that they’re not just in the Biology textbooks. They’re also in the Geography textbooks, as well. You say you believe the Bible literally......”

I spoke directly to Kent by phone after he released his Sungenis video and issued his 4-part challenge to the FE community. I tried to warn him off trying to debate Rob Skiba or others like him who hold to the Flat Earth for theological reasons. I foresee that a debate between Kent and a theologically-minded FE won’t be a debate about the shape of Earth but just a debate over Biblical interpretation that no one would actually win but Kent would come off appearing to be less Biblically literal than his opponent and that wouldn’t benefit him.

My world has become so bizarre that I was trying to help Kent Hovind not lose credibility or face with his own followers. Whether the world is flat or round, it certainly seems upside down to me right now.

So, Kent Hovind’s set to debate, right? He’s done  well over 100 with opponents supporting evolution.  No foreseeable problems, then?

Well........

Both Hovind and Skiba have burned much time and many electrons first saying “I really don’t want to debate this!” Skiba claims this because he says he’s too busy, he’s said everything he needs to say on the matter, he respects Hovind too much and he has a bit of a precondition. Skiba has proposed that Hovind and Sungenis debate first on the issues that divide them and he’ll “take the winner.” Both have spent so much time posturing before a debate has happened that they could have held numerous actual debates in the time they’ve spent.

Sungenis has already agreed to this proposal by contacting Skiba directly.

Hovind has yet, as of this writing, to respond.

In the videos flowing back and forth between Hovind & Skiba, anyone can watch snippets and reasonably conclude that Skiba doesn’t want to do it and Hovind doesn’t want to do it. You can watch other snippets from the exact same videos where Skiba sent emails months ago that he was eager to debate and Hovind is ducking him. Hovind, too, of course, claims to be both the reluctant quarry and the bold challenger all at the same time. Both end up asking the camera pointed at them “I’m not sure how you could possibly have mistaken my intentions,” when an objective observer could watch their videos and still come away wondering “So, do they want to do this or not?”

I’m not sure if I’ve fulfilled Peter Reilly’s original assignment or not. I’ve entered a world where compasses are probably in on the conspiracy, words don’t mean what they’ve ever meant before, to really know is to have no idea and to try to head south could mean any direction at all, all at once or none at all.

Peter, please find enclosed a bill for all the therapy I’m going to need to recover from this.

Here is an incomplete list of my sources but they cover most of my claims. I highly recommend no one spend the time to view them that I did. Take a walk, visit an old friend, knock yourself in the head with a ball peen hammer, all are better uses of your time:

https://youtu.be/b4udC2FsguU

https://youtu.be/C3cv8Ihtys4

https://youtu.be/1Ak7Qy_dHmk

https://youtu.be/l30_UNwR32M

https://youtu.be/uAKUZy4tTe

https://youtu.be/yo2Q_7IS5Bo

I need a shower and a shave rather desperately. Has anyone seen my Razor?

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Peter J Reilly is a CPA who has become a writer of sorts.

Lamar Smith has taught high school history and is now a regular contribution to Your Tax Matters Partner,

Hovind's Hypothetical Pardon

Lamar Smith asks Kent Hovind what he hopes for in a pardon. 

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I had two brief phone conversations with Kent Hovind this morning. He said he was pressed for time .The sound of work in the near background was plainly audible.

I shared this brief history lesson with him.

In 1829 George Wilson and another man robbed a mail carrier, were caught and both sentenced to death. Wilson’s compatriot was executed on schedule but George, apparently, had some influential friends who petitioned President Andrew Jackson for mercy. President Jackson signed a pardon but George Wilson refused it.

The case of the rejected pardon was heard all the way to the Supreme Court who ruled that no, Wilson did not, in fact, have to accept the pardon.  In not formally receiving the pardon George could enjoy none of its benefits and he met his fate at the executioner’s hand shortly thereafter.

So, the Constitutional issue of "Does someone have to accept a pardon, if offered (even signed)?" has been argued and decided.  No one can be compelled to accept a pardon and can refuse for any reason but it does seem to be an all or nothing and take it or leave it proposition.  Wilson never really gave an answer as to why he didn't accept clemency and never, apparently, spoke of it before he was executed.  Even had he accepted it, he still would have served 20 years in prison for his crime but would have been spared the gallows or however they did it in 1829.  So the idea that the pardon is some sort of absolute return to Status Quo Ante is completely falsified.

I posed the question to Kent, after relating the above, "Would you accept a pardon on the structuring and ONLY the structuring?"

He replied "Yes!  But then what they'd have to do....." and I cut him off with "No sir!  No sir!  The historical rule of pardons is that your name is cleared and that's it.  No return of property, no interest, no compensation, just your name cleared of structuring." My sensei subsequently taught me not to ever interrupt someone I’m interviewing and I stand corrected and offer my apology to Kent Hovind for my zeal and rudeness. I hate my fingers just a little bit right now.

I steered Kent to my piece on Peter’s blog and suggested he do some research on pardons.

Kent responded, "The question was, ‘Would I take the pardon?’ and the answer is 'Yes, but I would consider that only the first victory.  I will fight this until I die!’”

As so often happens, the minute I hung up, another question occurred to me. My sensei also urged patience when interviewing anyone and his grasshopper will strive to remember that lesson, as well. After girding my loins I dialed Kent back and posed the question “Would you be willing to formally waive all other monetary considerations if you received a pardon for the structuring?”

Kent asked “Is that something that’s normally done?”

I replied by saying “Think of it from the President’s, any President’s, point of view: why would they offer a pardon if the recipient would simply turn around and sue the government for more? Pardons are seen by the President as a final conclusion to a matter. So, do you think you’d receive a pardon to clear your name if you had to forfeit all other claims?”

I don’t know why the next thing Kent Hovind said surprised me. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

“Well, what does just clearing my name do?”

His ultimate answer to the question was a resounding “I don’t know, I’d have to think about it.” It was clear to me the scenario I had sketched out was not one he’d considered and definitely not one he liked very much.

So, Kent just might become our nation’s second George Wilson if he will not be satisfied with a Presidential pardon in exchange for waiving all other considerations, although it seems unlikely the pardon would even be offered without knowing it would be accepted. Kent felt free to interpret tax laws as he saw fit, why would it be surprising that he’d feel the same about Constitutional law and Presidential pardons?

My conversations indicate that Kent isn’t primarily interested in clearing his name. He really wants to refill his coffers first and foremost.

Kent has his convictions and clearly feels the world should reshape itself around them. On this, absolutely nothing about Kent Hovind has changed.

Lamar Smith taught high school history in Texas for twelve years.  He is a regular contributor to Your Tax Matters Partner.

Kent Hovind Pardon Hopes - Not Likely But Not Impossible

Lamar Smith talks about pardons and Kent Hovind's hopes for one.

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Peter Reilly has given me another assignment!  Kent Hovind wants President Donald J. Trump to issue him a Presidential pardon.  Peter Reilly has asked me to look into this matter and, good historian that I am, I’m researching the History of Presidential pardons and seeing how they might or might not apply to whom I sincerely hope is Lenox, Alabama’s most controversial resident.  Would it have been bad form for B’rer Rabbit to laugh out loud or exclaim “whee” as he was airborne headed for the briar patch?  I can certainly sympathize with him, if he did.

WHEE!

Kent Hovind has been asking his followers to petition President Trump for a pardon for many months now.  He’s even gone so far as to provide a form email on his website to ease the burden on his minions’ writing abilities.  He’s stated numerous times that what he’s after is “to be pardoned and for ‘them’ to return everything they’ve taken from me.”  I’m not sure if he’s overtly asked to be compensated for his time in prison but I feel very confident that he wouldn’t turn an arrangement like that down if it were on offer.

Pointing out instances of Kent Hovind’s hypocrisy is a childishly easy pastime.  One of Kent’s objections to the IRS seizing anything from his Pensacola operation was his repeated assertion that “none of it belongs to me, it all belongs to God!”  I’m sure Kent could provide some scripture that he could interpret to mean that God’s property needs to be returned to Kent Hovind, possibly with interest but I’m not sure it would hold up in a court of law no matter how many assertions Kent made that it most certainly would.  I doubt very much Kent will ever make up his mind as to whether property seized was his or God’s with finality, but it’s rather clear who he thinks should have possession of it.

Hovind’s pardon request may seem like a simple enough matter, no matter how unlikely it is, but, as with most things Hovind, it very quickly gets murky.  For instance, Hovind still owes a significant amount against a civil liability for failing to pay personal taxes or failing to withhold taxes from his employees, 

If Kent Hovind were to receive a Presidential pardon he would join a very interesting club.  Only William Henry Harrison, who died shortly after his inauguration of pneumonia and James Garfield who was assassinated shortly after taking office, gave no pardons.  Washington only gave 16 pardons in his two terms, John Adams just 21 and Zachary Taylor a meager 38.  

Andrew Johnson tops the list with approximately 7000 pardons.  I’m sure I don’t need to remind a readership as knowledgeable as this, though, that Johnson’s presidency immediately followed Lincoln and the Civil War, so quite a few former Confederates needed expiation.  The charge that Andrew Johnson sold pardons for $20,000 apiece might also have been a factor.  Bush 41 pardoned Armand Hammer for an illegal $54,000 donation to the Nixon campaign a surprisingly short amount of time after Hammer donated $110,000 to the RNC.  I’m not sure what the going rate for pardons is in the Trump White House.  The Chinese government got Trump to back off ZTE by supporting some of Trump’s building projects and granting Ivanka copyrights and licenses for cosmetics and, of all things, coffins.

Members of the Presidential Pardon club include the pirate Jean Lafitte and his brother Pierre, pardoned by James Madison based on Lafitte’s assistance to General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans.  Not all pardon recipients skulked off into obscurity after receiving them, either. James K. Polk pardoned John C. Frémont when a court martial found him guilty of mutiny.  Frémont went on to become the Republican nominee for President in 1856 and was one of the first two Senators when California achieved statehood.  

Kent couldn’t even claim to be the first religious figure pardoned by a President.  That honor seems to have gone to Brigham Young when James Buchanan pardoned him for his role in the Utah War.  Benjamin Harrison both pardoned and granted amnesty to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for polygamy.  William McKinley pardoned Charles Chilton Moore, dubbed the most hated man in Kentucky for his atheist views, after he was found guilty of blasphemy.  So, Kent would join the ranks of polygamous Mormons and atheists if he gets what he wants.

Kent might want to take a page out of Charles W. Morse’s playbook to sway President Trump.  While Morse was imprisoned for unethical bank practices that led to the Panic of 1907, he was able to secure a pardon from William Howard Taft by drinking a cocktail of soapsuds and other chemicals that convinced the Army Board of Doctors that he had Bright’s disease and didn’t have long to live.  Taft was informed of the deception after Morse’s release but it isn’t possible or political for a President to rescind a pardon once granted.

Richard Nixon pardoned Jimmy Hoffa.  Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, as well as Iva Toguri “Tokyo Rose” D’Aquino, the only US citizen convicted of treason during World War II to be pardoned.  Bill Clinton pardoned Patty Hearst.  I’ll leave it to the reader to decide who was the biggest scoundrel amongst this group.

It is no secret that Kent Hovind did not appreciate Barrack Obama’s presidency in the slightest but Ian Schrager, co-founder and co-owner of Studio 54 received an Obama pardon for tax evasion.  This particular pardon may be worth a closer look.

In January 1977, Schrager and Steve Rubell signed the lease for Studio 54—which was originally the Gallo Opera House and had last been used as a CBS studio.  They used the space's original theatrical infrastructure to constantly change the look and feel of the club.

In December 1978, Studio 54 was raided after Rubell was quoted as saying that only the Mafia made more money than the club brought in.  In June 1979, Rubell and Schrager were charged with tax evasion, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy for reportedly skimming nearly $2.5 million in unreported income from the club's receipts, in a system Rubell called "cash-in, cash-out and skim."  Police reports state that cash and receipts were in the building and were hidden in the ceiling sections of Rubell's office, where both he and Schrager worked.  A second raid occurred in December 1979.  The pair hired Roy Cohn to defend them, but on January 18, 1980, they were sentenced to three and a half years in prison and a $20,000 fine each for the tax evasion charge. On February 4, 1980, Rubell and Schrager went to prison and Studio 54 was sold in November of that year for $4.75 million.  On January 30, 1981, Rubell and Schrager were released from prison after which they lived at a halfway house for two and half months.

The two went back into the nightclub business but never recaptured the success of Studio 54.  Their pardons came in January 2017, so the wait for a pardon can be considerable.  I was unable to find any mention of any money being returned to them.  They didn’t get the nightclub property back and, so far as I could find, were not compensated in any way for their prison terms.  I am not a Constitutional scholar or a tax expert or a lawyer but my research seems to indicate that Presidential pardons don’t amount to much more than a clearing of a person’s name and this is what concerns me about Kent’s desire for a pardon.

He continues to make his DAL free of charge and has stated that it is his goal to maintain this as long as possible.  I have interpreted this in my earlier posts to indicate that Kent is not running his DAL, his organization, his speaking engagements and his online bookstore in a manner consistent with someone attempting to generate and then squirrel money away against the time when his liability comes due.  He certainly doesn’t acknowledge this liability at all in his videos and it’s not clear if he acknowledges this debt in reality, although the forgiveness of this liability may be a primary reason he’s seeking a pardon from Trump in the first place.

The murkiness lies in the fact that Kent was imprisoned for structuring.  It isn’t at all clear that if he were pardoned for structuring it would or even could reduce the civil liability he currently faces.  I feel comfortable stating that in Kent’s mind, that’s exactly what it would mean.  Slightly less murky is the notion that ‘they’ will return what they ‘took,’ or in some videos ‘stole,’ from Kent.  He never offers too many details about what, exactly, he’s referring to here.  He has said in the past that cash money was taken out of the safe in Kent’s office and I know the IRS had attempted to seize some or all of his property in Pensacola.  The way he discusses this issue seems to imply that he is expecting some sort of financial windfall along with tearing up the bill Uncle Sam currently holds.

Much ink and many electrons have been spent noticing that Trump’s preference for pardon recipients either carry some measure of fame themselves or are brought to his attention by someone famous such as posthumously pardoning boxer Jack Johnson for, essentially, having a white girlfriend.  Sylvester Stallone brought Johnson’s case to Trump.  Kim Kardashian managed to get Alice Marie Johnson pardoned when she met with Trump.  Kent is pals with Ray Comfort who is pals with actor Kirk Cameron, late of ‘Growing Pains,’ but I don’t think Kirk’s Q-rating is quite high enough to make much of an impact.

Hovind certainly knows Ken Ham who once debated Bill Nye the Science Guy at his Ark Encounter Theme Park but I’m not aware that Ham could or even would spearhead an effort to get Kent pardoned.  Ham’s got his plate full with his park living in the red.

Gloria Copeland meets frequently with Trump and she’s an evangelical but Kent has so often railed against preachers who so overtly profit from their ministries that it doesn’t seem like a very natural fit.  Speaking more broadly of the whole evangelical community, I haven’t seen any evidence of a huge groundswell of support for Kent from other fundamentalist Christians from when Kent was originally charged and tried and convicted and imprisoned.  I think his credibility and popularity amongst them suffers because he does stake out such a fringe position.  He isn’t as toxic as, say, the Phelps clan, famous for picketing fallen soldiers’ funerals whilst holding their ridiculously offensive homemade placards proclaiming, “God hates fags!”  I don’t think Kent is hated in the evangelical community, I’m just not sure how loved he is by those with their hands on or close to the levers of power.  I get the impression that he’s regarded as a sort of wacky young-earth uncle that lives out in the woods and pops up at small- and medium-sized churches a few times per month.

In terms of star power and celebrity it seems that Kent’s shot locker is empty of a game-changer.  If Kent had some heavy hitters, it seems he would have already used them.  Even his current approach is populist.  He just wants to inundate Trump’s inbox, wooing him with numbers rather than an individual approach in the hands of some glitterati.  Alex Jones might be Hovind’s best bet but Kent doesn’t claim to know Jones at all, other than appearing on his show no more than a handful of times.  If you haven’t been following the news, Jones has just recently been sued by the parents of children slain in Sandy Hook for the emotional distress of Jones claiming that the massacre that claimed 28 lives was a hoax.  Jones’ dance card may be rather full for the foreseeable future and he might be more interested in his own Trump pardon.

So many of those who have received pardons in our nation’s History were, sadly and predictably enough, men of means or holders of political power who could actually do something for the President that signed his name.  If you really boil down Kent’s strategy, he wants Trump to act altruistically, for no appreciable gain.  We can debate whether Kent deserves a pardon, if you choose to spend your lifespan that way, but it just doesn’t matter to my way of thinking.  Is our current President likely to do a favor for someone who can do nothing for him in return?  Kent’s YouTube account claims a following in the upper 80k range but I doubt all of those are true supporters.  Those that are, I would be surprised to find otherwise, are most likely already died in the wool Trump supporters, so Kent can’t promise a block of voters to Trump he wouldn’t already get when 2020 rolls around.

As I’ve seen so many times in the past, Kent Hovind gets a thought in his head and it takes a sizable chunk of explosive reality to dislodge it.  He thinks this Presidential pardon scheme is feasible.  He certainly feels deserving of it.  In a more honest moment, I’d say he feels he needs it both rather desperately and rather soon.  What struck me from my research was that the people who got them occupied some unique places in our nation’s History.  J.Q. Adams pardoned Native Americans who participated in the Winnebago war, George Washington and John Adams pardoned people who had led the Whiskey Rebellion.  Presidential pardons are most frequently made to illustrate a political point or to try to heal a wound such as Jimmy Carter pardoning Vietnam draft protestors.

I get it that Kent thinks his case is as important as those were.  I understand he wants his…… or God’s…….. or his stuff back.  It may happen.  Our current President is nothing if not unpredictable.  It’s a wonderful extension of all of our rights and exactly what the framers of our Constitution wanted that we have the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  After doing the research required for this post, I’ll actually borrow a saying Kent adores:  In my totally, totally humble opinion Kent Hovind and his case don’t belong in this unique club.

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Lamar Smith taught high school history in Texas for twelve years.  He is a regular contributor to Your Tax Matters Partner.

It's A Flat World After All

We defend the position that the Bible is literally true and scientifically accurate in every detail. - Kent Hovind

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. - Jehova (Job 38:4)

There is a pretty widespread view that whatever value the Hebrew and Christian scriptures might have, they are not a lot of use for scientific fields such as biology, geology and astronomy.  On the other hand, there are folks like Kent Hovind who insist that everything in their selection and translation (King James in Hovind's case) is "scientifically accurate in every detail".  

Hovind focuses on debunking the "lie of evolution" and argues for a universe that is about 6,000 years old (That's what you get from summing up all those begats and tacking on seven days).  On the other hand Hovind is OK with establishment science when it comes to the shape of the earth and the layout of the solar system up to a point (I don't know enough astronomy to pinpoint where it stops working for him).  Thus Hovind believes that the earth is shaped roughly like a globe and orbits the sun.

Because of that view he finds himself listed among heretics by those who find strong scriptural support for the notion that the earth is a flat disk. 

I've asked Lamar Smith to weigh in on the drama. 

(Go to 7:00 for beginning of flat earth discussion)

Peter Reilly has given me an assignment! In the spirit of transparency, though, I know exactly how B’rer Rabbit felt as he was tossed into the briar patch. I’m headed exactly where I want to go and where I would have gone myself, sooner or later.

There is a ‘movement’ across the globe by a small but rather vocal group that posits that the globe is not, in fact, a globe.  It’s colloquially known as the Flat Earth movement.

Now, Kent Hovind has actually spoken at some length about this collection of folks which might, at first blush, seem a little strange because every time he does so he can’t help but interject “I really don’t want to talk about this.” Then he does so on multiple occasions and for considerable lengths of time.

The movement itself is a loosely knit collection of people from internet trolls to NBA star Kyrie Irving to rapper B.O.B that espouses the belief that the earth is closer to the shape of a flat disc than a sphere. 

A moment’s consideration of all the things that would mean, if true, boggles the mind. Begin to dig into the incredibly long list of potential problems with this theory and you’ll be stunned at the cognitive dissonance on display. Every solution I will mention isn’t held by every member of the movement and confronting one flat-earther with what you know or have found often elicits the response “Oh, that’s just what THOSE flat-earthers think! My brand of flat earth, though, thinks something else about that issue.”

Common to most, though, is a general dislike and distrust of scientists and their findings. The flat-earthers, like young earther Kent Hovind, claim to “like science but distrust scientists” for no other reason than those pesky scientists disagree that the earth is either less than 10,000 years old, as Hovind believes, or flat.

Common to both groups, they’ve arrived at their conclusion then get on with the business of rejecting or twisting or cherry-picking all data to support their pet conclusion.  

I’m comfortable claiming that virtually every young earther is religious and holds their view for predominantly religious reasons.  I’m slightly less comfortable making the same claim for flat earthers. Proponents of the flat earth, it seems to me, have taken a lesson from the young earthers and don’t often talk about their religious views unless pressed. They tend to stick to data and apparent “inconsistencies,” knowing that if they cite the Bible, skeptics will dismiss them out of hand.

When they do cite scripture, the following are common:

1 Chronicles 16:30: "He has fixed the earth firm, immovable."

Psalm 93:1: "Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm ..."

Psalm 96:10: "He has fixed the earth firm, immovable ..."

Psalm 104:5: "Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken."

Isaiah 45:18: "...who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast..."

Again, not all flat-earthers agree but a significant sub-set believe that not only is the earth flat but it is immovable and the center of the universe.

If you find yourself saying “That’s what predominantly land-based people believed in the Ancient World through the Middle Ages!” Yeah, it is. Sea-faring people not so much. They’ve always had more direct access to evidence that counters the flat earth unless, of course, you listen to flat earthers today. It turns out, according to most flat-earthers, tall ships do not disappear hull first as they sail away from you. If your eyes have to lie to you to support their theory, they seem shockingly at peace with that.

There’s no way I can list all of the arguments I’ve heard (they’re really bad) or the rational counter-arguments. I want to discuss the intersection of flat earthers and young earthers especially in the person of Kent Hovind.

It is not safe to assume all flat earthers are also young earthers, but Kent indicates he thinks this is true and it’s certainly more true than not. If you hear a flat earther quote scripture then you can be practically assured both views are at least supported in that person’s mind by a hyper-literal interpretation of the Bible.

Of particular note is the video linked above of Kent’s summation and attempted refutation of the flat earth model. He claims the movement began in 2012 and was “probably by atheists.” In other videos he’s claimed the devil himself started the movement, though he never offers any evidence supporting either claim. The purpose of the movement, according to Kent, is to either divide Christians, make Christians look ridiculous or both. 

In this video he also shows a PPT slide saying “Flat Earth is a Jew Hoax” with a truly offensive caricature straight from the worst pages of Nazi propaganda. Even his disclaimer of “Now, I don’t know if the flat earth is a Jew hoax or not,” could be taken to imply that Kent believes that “Jew hoaxes” do exist and the flat earth theory just might be one of them.

I’ve pointed out how much I adore irony and what a target rich environment Hovind world is for irony. It is no secret that Kent is prone to see conspiracies even where none exists. His objections to evolution mean that the fact that evolution is the cornerstone of all biological sciences amounts to a massive conspiracy. Flat earthers, too, are squarely in the same camp. The promotion of the globe earth, to them, is the culmination of a centuries long conspiracy against what they see as the truth.

Some of Kent’s more ironic offerings coming from a young earther to the flat earthers:  “You can get people to believe almost anything. It is bizarre what some people believe.” He finds the belief in a flat earth utterly bizarre but an earth about 6,000 years old makes perfect sense.

“Do you know how much time Jesus spent on the flat earth? Zero! None!” observes Kent. Of course the question “How much time did Jesus devote to evolution?” never comes up. It’s the exact same amount, by the way.

In most of Kent’s introductions he’ll proclaim “....we’re the folks who believe the Bible is literally true.....” then he went on in this video to discuss how parts of the Bible should definitely be taken metaphorically. He criticizes the flat earthers for taking certain passages literally and not metaphorically then happily continues on doing the exact same thing with his favorite passages supporting a young earth.

Some of his objections in this video seem rather paltry to me. He jumps on the word ‘flat’ by pointing out that the earth has mountains and valleys and shows passages in the Bible describing the same therefore the earth isn’t ‘flat.’ I don’t see the value in quoting the Bible that mountains exist. One might come away with the impression that unless the Bible said there were mountains, Kent Hovind might not believe there were.

According to the Isaiah quote about the earth being a circle, Kent points out rather ridiculously that if the earth has depth it’s a cylinder. The flat earth argument is about the basic shape of the earth and Kent chose to give a geometry lesson. This is not the first time Kent sweats what something is called instead of what something is or how it behaves or what it’s nature is.

So, what is it about this movement that’s got the fearless Kent Hovind a might gun-shy? He believes they’re Christians, by and large, so I’m sure that plays into him not wanting to bash them too hard.  The flat earthers who do use scripture to support their beliefs seem to be staking out an even more extreme, more literal interpretation of the Bible and I’ve always felt that Kent prides himself on his already extreme views. His ideas relegate him to a fringe and it’s always seemed that that suits Kent just fine until, perhaps, folks more extreme than he is come along.

To see a fringe conspiracy theorist like Kent Hovind in a feud with even fringier conspiracy theorists is amongst the most entertaining spectacles I can imagine. I hope that the next time Peter Reilly gives me an assignment this enjoyable he sends along some popcorn. It was the only thing lacking to make this entertainment complete.

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Lamar Smith who has taught history in high school in Texas for twelve years is a regular contributor to Your Tax Matters Partner.

Kent Hovind Supporters Gaining Ground

This post was originally published on Forbes Feb 13, 2015

My regular forbes.com readers might note that I have gone over two weeks without posting a Kent Hovind story here.  For those of you unfamiliar with Kent Hovind or Doctor Dino as he is sometimes called, he is one of the leading lights in the field of Young Earth Creationism, the notion that there is scientific, not just scriptural, evidence that the world is about 6,000 years.  Doctor Hovind has been in federal prison for over eight years on tax related charges mainly concerning the manner in which he ran Creation Science Ministries, the organization that distributed his videos and ran the theme park Dinosaur Advetureland (One of the implications of YEC is that dinosaurs and humans must have co-existed).  As his term ends, he is facing new charges related to the filing of  a lis pendens on property that the Government had seized from the ministry.  Trial is scheduled for March 2.

The Hovindicators

The new charges have sparked something of a Free Kent Hovind or Hovinidication movement, which I discussed here.  If you want to keep up with the Hovindication viewpoint, your best source is probably the webite #FreeKent.  #FreeKent will encourage you to avoid Kent Hovind and Jo Hovind v USA - IRS and Hovindology which in the view of some Hovindicators are likely run by disinformation agents who have the resources of the Federal Reserve behind them.  The most outspoken Hovindicator remains Rudy Davis, whose youtube channel LoneStar1776, which has covered many topics including geocentrism and the questionable citizenship of our President, has, for the duration, if you will excuse the expression, evolved, more of less, into All Doc Dino All The Time.  Kent regularly calls Rudy, who keeps him informed through the mail.

Letters From Three Tax Pros

The limitations imposed by Kent Hovind being in jail and not having access to the internet slow things a bit.  Among the evidences that Kent often cites to support the notions that he is not a tax protester, has not broken any laws and has paid all the taxes that he owes are three letter that he solicited from tax professionals that indicated everything he was doing was fine.  Up until now nobody has been able to find the letters and, as he told me, Kent can not remember the names of the tax professionals.

Earlier this week Rudy told Kent that copies of the letters that were floating around on the internet had come to him.  He had to print them out and mail them to Kent in order to authenticate them.  As of this morning's call that has not yet happened.

Owning The Internet

At this point, the main story is the efforts of the Hovinidicators to work their way closer to mainstream media.  A spike in traffic to my October post Government Coming Down Harder On Kent Hovind is a sign of their progress.  As far as I can tell the most prominent addition to the ranks of the Hovindicators is Coach Dave Daubenmire who leads his piece with

I have to be honest with you. I think about it often. Not a night goes by when I do not think about it as I craw in my warm bed beside my sweet wife of 35 years.

“Will this be the night that the black limos pull in my driveway? Is this the night that the SWAT Team goons bust down my door and haul me off to the slammer?”

I am being dead serious. I really do think about it every night because that is what they did to Dr. Kent Hovind.

There has been coverage by Pete Santili

Around the 23:00 mark Pete calls the office of Judge Margaret Casey Rodgers, who sentenced Kent eight years ago and is scheduled to preside over the upcoming trial.   I have to tell you when it comes to Hovindicators and Judge Rodgers, don't get them started.  Steve Quayle has also picked up the story.

Rudy has gone so far as to announce that they own the internet.   The great white whale of Rudy's media campaign is Alex Jones Info Wars.  Rudy has taken to calling their tip line every morning and has begun to think that Info Wars lack of attention to the matter may be a sign that Alex Jones is actually controlled opposition.

The Creation Hall of Fame has come out in support of Kent Hovind.  Their support is somewhat measured and does not embrace the entire Hovindication narrative.

To Me It Is About The Taxes Not The Dinosaurs

It is important for me to point out that this is a legitimate tax story.  It comes out of my routine reading of Tax Court decisions, finding a decision that had an interesting story behind it and sticking with it.  My coverage begins with the Tax Court decision in the case of Jo Delia Hovind on October 3, 2012,

  As the situation has heated up in the last few months I realized it was ovewhelming my coverage of tax issues that are of interest to people who are,what I call conventionally tax compliant.  You know,  The people who think most ordinary Americans with more than insignificant earnings are required to file individual tax returns.  The traffic spike, however, makes me realize that I am an important source for Kent Hovind coverage, most of which I have moved to my alternative blogs.

  Here is a partial round up of that coverage for the last few months,

God's Property Radio And Kent Hovind - Not A Great Source For The Whole Truth in which I discuss some dueling over arrangements for me to interview Kent Hovind.

Ernie Land Challenges Common Law Theorists And Others To Make Kent Hovind A Test Case - Kent and his supporters have not chosen to put on a conventional defense.

Between The Scylla Of Creation Science And The Charybdis Of Militant Rationalism I Steer A Perilous Course - a rather grandiose and self centered post in which I discuss my possibly unique status of from time to time being considered both an apologist for and detractor of Kent Hovind

Kent Hovind Finally Silenced? - Guest Post From Robert Baty - Robert Baty competes with Judge Rodgers for the wrath of Hovindicators

Latest Hovindication Developments  - As of January 25

Kent Hovind - Trial Delayed - Documents Uncovered - The documents are the tax pro letters mentioned above.  They have still not been authenticated by Kent Hovind, but I think it unlikely that they are fabricated.

Is Robert Baty An Agent Of The New World Order's Attack On Kent Hovind?

Kent Hovind On Prison Reform

To me the most interesting development has been the publication of Kent's parable on prison issues called The Kennel. I believe it was inspired in part by Animal Farm.  This is one area where I find quite a bit of common ground with Kent Hovind.  I wrote a review of sorts titled An Awesome Critique Of The Prison Industrial Complex By One Who Knows It Well.  My good friend, Tom Cahill, who is about as far Left as Kent Hovind is Right liked it too.  He wrote me:

Elijah Green's parable "The Kennel" is not just about the failure of justice in the USA, but also the failure of the entire United States Government.  More than ever before in US history, it is evident to many of us that our country has never, ever been a democracy.  Instead, since the "founding fathers,"  America has been a combination oligarchy and plutocracy.

Back To The Salt Mines

Absent a major development, I will probably be taking a break from Hovind coverage.  There are a couple of other tax stories I feel pressing and there are those tax returns, including quite a few accounting method changes to tend to.  I will close by once again reminding everybody that if something truly awful were to happen in your community the outpouring of generous support from across the country would include offerings from people who believe that Kent Hovind is a godly man persecuted by a godless government and others who believe creation science is an oxymoron.  So stay compassionate.

Lies In "Lies In The Textbooks"

Lamar Smith returns from watching even more Kent Hovind videos.  Here is the original "Lies in The Textbooks" if you have a couple of hours of lifespan that you can't use in a more edifying matter.

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For weeks now Kent has been running a series of videos that are billed as a reboot of one of his original for sale videos “Lies in the Textbook.” I’ve watched the original and was unimpressed with it then and am even less so with the extended Director’s cut. 

I adore movies both old and new and think they can make wonderful analogies that help people understand as well as get them to think. Joe Pesci did a fish out of water movie about a slick New Jersey lawyer venturing down to Alabama, I believe, to defend a family member wrongfully accused of murder called “My Cousin Vinny.” Vinny, played by Pesci, has to convince Ralph Maccio to allow him to defend the young man and his traveling companion. Vinny pulls out a deck of cards and holds up one flat surface facing his cousin. He explains that the prosecution’s case is like a wall of bricks that appears to the jury both substantial and solid. 

He then explains that, as a defense attorney, his job is to show that those seemingly solid bricks are as thin and flimsy as a house of cards. Since his cousin is innocent, this will be as easy as that and makes the card disappear.

Given that Kent has produced so many of these “Lies” videos, I’ll not be referencing any single video or even any single claim he makes. Suffice it to say with a very paltry amount of research every single one of Kent’s facts and claims can withstand as much scrutiny and are exactly as substantial as Vinny’s card.

I want to focus on what I believe is a larger and more dishonest line that Kent takes. Time and time and time again when Kent’s claims are refuted he has a standard fallback position that everyone who has listened to even one of Kent’s debates has heard.

If a debater says “You make this claim and that claim is wrong for this reason,” invariably Kent will fall back on the following: “Hey, I’m not asking for my thing to be taught at taxpayer expense, but you are asking for evolution to be taxpayer funded as both research and curriculum.”

Given Kent’s past most people can laugh out loud at the irony of Kent worried about where other people’s tax money goes. Please continue, though, because the irony doesn’t stop there.

[To be fair since the original DAL was not recognized as an exempt organization, Kent likely paid property taxes and also sales tax - PJR]

One of the “lies in the textbook,” according to Kent, is that “creationism can’t be taught in the classroom.” I feel justified in saying that that statement appears in no textbook because no textbook would cover that. In what class would that be germane? What subject would give a test on that issue? Math? English? History? In no textbook I’ve ever seen has the author written “I can’t tell you why I think what I just taught you is true because I’m not allowed to do so.” If anyone has ever seen such a preposterous statement I will be both extraordinarily surprised and retract my last statement immediately.

Kent explains that the Bible and creationism can be taught in public school and, in this, he is 100% right. For some reason, though, he chooses to leave out any further detail and those details are important to a complete analysis of Kent’s statement.

I taught World History for 12 years and had students early in the year read the 10 Commandments and compare them to selections from the Code of Hammurabi. I asked my students what the difference between them was and never failed to have at least one student in each class notice that Hammurabi listed both the crime and the punishment whereas the author of the Bible doesn’t make it plain in that passage what the actual punishment is or should be.

So, yes, I suppose I “taught the Bible” and did so at taxpayer expense. In the same way many high schools offer an upper level elective course on the Bible that was also at taxpayer expense. If passages are read in a unit on Literature in an English class they, too, would be at taxpayer expense.

In the field of education what Kent and I are talking about is called pedagogy. It boils down to what is taught, how it is taught and why it is taught. The Bible can absolutely be taught in school in History classes, English classes or in an elective class. The Bible can not be taught in any context I can think of in a science class.

Please notice that in the context I mentioned the truth of the Bible or the divine authorship of the Bible isn’t promoted. When studying the 10 Commandments in a comparative way to Hammurabi, I never asked “Which one was written by God?” or which one was Capital-T truth? I simply had students read the two passages and analyze their difference. 

Science classes are prevented from promoting any supernatural event or causation or being. This is true mainly because all science is currently unable to detect or interact with anything supernatural. It is neither wise nor prudent to teach that some event or outcome was caused supernaturally when science cannot, at this time, even detect anything supernatural. When science invents a means to detect the supernatural, things may change. Until then......

The more stiff-necked amongst you may still not be satisfied. The following scenario may not worry you but it is extremely worrying. You’re concerned about the student who asks his science teacher “Yes, but, where did it all come from? Who made the Big Bang?” You’re more concerned that you believe the teacher is prohibited from replying “Oh, yes, God did it.” You’d really like it if the teacher could and would say that.

If you’re really considering pedagogy, though, would you be ok with the same answer to a student asking “Yes but why is it i before e except after c?” or “Why is A squared plus B squared equal to C squared?” Is “because God said so,” acceptable then? I’m sure many of you just might think it is. 

In each of his “Lies” videos, Kent attacks individual examples, evidence and statements in individual textbooks. He’ll usually conclude each section with “Now get that out of there,” as if that will do it.

In various videos he volunteers his minions to go to schools armed with scissors and cut offending sentences out or paste pages together.

All of this is utter nonsense, though. If anyone wants to change any course’s curricula you don’t do this by defacing textbooks. Textbooks are written to State standards. State standards are tied to State issued tests. Even in high school we all know the most common question students ask after you’ve shared new information with them: “Is this going to be on the test?”

That is the filter through which students and teachers operate.  Kent has promised to continue his “Lies” series for many, many more installments. He’s rapidly approaching 60. Every installment features an uncited quotation by Adolf Hitler saying “Let me control the textbook and I’ll control the State.” He’s admitted he doesn’t know where this quote came from and stated he’s not at all bothered by that fact. 

His series will not achieve his goal of making a single change because what is actually, pedagogically, taught is only tangentially tied to the textbooks. Even if Hitler made that statement (and how, exactly, Kent isn’t trying to do the exact same thing remains beyond me) and if it was true of Nazi Germany, it isn’t true today. The academic standards control the class and teachers and administrators purchase textbooks that cover those standards.

If Kent was serious about his efforts he would sit on a committee that decides those standards and have to convince the other members to vote his way. It’s a democratic process subject to oversight but also locally controlled. If Kent was serious he’d also print up his own textbook. Surely he was a teacher long enough to know what the finished product should look like. He’s written books. It doesn’t seem like it should be beyond him.

Hovind would rather sit amongst like-minded folk and show his card to his audience and claim it’s as solid as a brick and he’s constructed an entire, solid wall of them.

Just don’t look to closely or you may just detect how the magician’s trick really works.

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Lamar Smith who has taught history in high school in Texas for twelve years is working his way into being a regular contributor to Your Tax Matters Partner.