Well, whiskey coming fame my pain does Horney's the brain Whiskey don't you let?
From Powerline blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com. This is
the three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders Steve Hayward, John You and Powerlines
International Woman of Mystery, Lucresia's gotta give me and let that whiskey blow where
you're being in love down and low. Hey, everybody, it's the three
Whiskey Happy Hour as usual. It's Steve Hayward. I'm in the host chair
today, so I'm gonna make things go along snappy and try to keep some
discipline which will fall apart with Lucretia's first intervention. Lucresia John Steve, Hey,
what are you drinking today? So I'm glad you John in a classic
three whiskey happy hour glass that we still have to get you one. I'm
drinking? Oh, I have I had one? You do one? Mine's
the classic glass? Yeah? You have the the Waterford Yeah, the second
rate stuff for me. I didn't touch anything until this water If this class
could knock somebody out, it's so heavy. Lucretia got us this back at
the beginning of things I am drinking today Templeton Rise since I live in Templeton,
California temporarily, although it's actually after Templeton, Iowa. But it's aged
four years and as American Rise go, I kind of like it. I
have to say, I'm drinking this, Oh, the Balveini American Oak twelve
year old. That is some pretty good stuff because I feel like I feel
like siding with Lucretia tonight. So I decided to go back to real Scotch
and I not that, not that Japanese stuff he tricked me into drinking last
week's Teeth. I still think it's hilarious that you didn't like it, John,
or No, that you were that you found it um characterless, characterless.
Yeah, that Balvini has more character, right. So I haven't had
it yet. I just poured it. Steve, I seem to recall that
you tell me that what good? Sorry? Sorry, I was just coughing
from the strength of the Balvini the beau Morey. You said that, Yeah,
that's what I'm drinking. Oh nice. Yeah, it's a little bit
too smoky for me. But I a couple of things in the news before
we get We have three topics tonight listeners, and before we get into them.
Uh So, first of all, I can't resist this because Kamela Harris
now has competition, and it's Congresswoman Rosa de Laura. Is that her name
of Laura from Connecticut? De Laura? Yeah, who was praising Secretary of
Transportation pee Wee Herman and hearing this really, I mean, I'm so gladman.
He looks like alfredy Newman. All those things work. Rosad Laura?
Who was She's kind of crazy. She always has the pink hair, and
he's crazy get ups that look like somebody escaped from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
She was praising Secretary pee Wee Herman for using female crash test dummies in
some of their for not using no. I thought it was no for not
using enough of them and not enough about the safety of women in car crashes.
So yeah, he needed so I have watched it. Well, it
seems at least somebody has an idea of what a woman is. It does.
Remember that it's it's it's odd that it would be her because I told
you these guys beforehand that I have to revise my character as a of Randy
Weingarten as the world's worst female impersonator. I have to give that one to
Rosa Deloro. Oh my god, but you know, I thought I thought
the peak nonsense on. This happened in the nineteen eighties when the FA I
think was the FAA, decided they wanted to use a controlled plane crash to
test air safety and survivability of crashes and stuff like that. And they took
an old seven twenties I think it's like nineteen eighty five or so eighty six.
They took an old seven twenty seven, if you remember, the old,
crazy old planes, and in remote control they're going to crash the desert
and they had remote controlled cameras inside. There was one problem. Somebody noticed
as they were about to take off that they had the first thirty rows were
white dummies and the last thirty rows were black dummies. Oh no, you're
titty, you know. You know what happened next? Which which which one
was? Rosa Parkson got moved from Oh my god, Oh my god,
this may news for the usual reasons, and you think, god, you
know, you think they can't get a stiller than that. But here we
are today, which is what about trans dummy? Is it Okay. The
other thing, John is one of our regular listeners who comments every week without
fail on our podcasts. Wants to know what is the Roman law perspective on
the Clean Air Act? Jesus's that's like, you know, that reminds you
this Seinfeld, this classic Seinfeld of the two George worlds, Independent George and
relationship George. That's like being on Law Talk where I'm tormented by Richard about
Roman law and this podcast where I'm tormented by the Clean Air Act. George
says, George says, you can't let the worlds collide because George, divided
against himself, cannot stand. The commenter who posted that question is in fact
named George. So there we go. You're kidding, No, I challenge
him to Festivus. I will challenge him to festivals. And you know what,
frankly, George will know what that means. Yep, he will.
Oh No, he's yeah, quite erudite, not only learned in political philosophy,
but it also in pop culture. So you're in trouble, John,
So, yeah, yeah, he's wrong on a lot of things, not
everything, But but um, I don't hold that against him because he always
has a good argument. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, all right,
George, last out there. We we love you. So all right,
um, let's get into god. A lot going on this week. The
I want to talk first with you guys about the Fox News settlement with Dominion
and Board has a lot to say here, but I want to concentrate on
just one thing. Lucretia, you're shaking your head. You think it's bored
with it already. All right, Let's see if I can energize you in
it. So here's the point, John, I was when the settlement was
announced for seven hundred and eighty seven million dollars. That's roughly half of what
Dominion was demanding in their initial filing. Yeah, and that's I think I
didn't hear. I didn't check this out, but I've heard it's like larger
than the market capitalization value of the company. So it's so much larger.
Yeah, like an absurdly high figure that Fox settled for. And people are
saying they didn't want to be embarrassed with what would come out in the trial.
I am so old that I remember, because I followed it very closely
and I wrote an article about it that I didn't have time to find in
nineteen eighty five, the Westmoreland versus CBS case smore case, very similar case.
It was, you know, trying to test the limits of New York
Times, ay Sullivan, which I'm going to have you explained in a moment,
John, And that case went through the trial to a very late point.
I mean it might have been ready to go to the jury when CBS
settled with Westmoreland. Similar terms, I have to go back and look,
but similar terms, not admitting any wrongdoing, but paying west Moreland some money.
So now Fox is paying out a lot of money. And here's the
question in my mind which people were ignoring, although it has come out in
the last twenty four or forty eight hours since the settlement was announced, which
is we were on our way to testing the New York Times to be Sulliman
Sullivan libel standards, which were very favorable to the media. And I thought
the cognitive dissonance here is fantastic because here is all the left wing media who
hates Fox News. But if the case went all the way up to the
Supreme Court, as I think it might have, it would have rolled back
the very narrow restrictions on New York Times to be Sullivan and made CNN and
everybody else vulnerable to libel suits. In other words, the major media,
all media should have been on the side of Fox News on this case.
And isn't that that would have been an interesting cognitive disonance. That would have
been the one priceless part of the case if it got to the Supreme Court,
was with the New York Times and with CBS and CNN file on the
side of Fox. Right, their irrational self interest is to side with Fox,
but they probably couldn't have brought themselves to do it, because when it
comes to Fox, when it comes to Trump, people lose all principle.
I mean, they just they can't resist, they can't resist temporary partisan advantage.
But I think that Fox made a mistake. I really do. I
mean, as you are suggesting, the First Amendment standard is so high,
right, it is not just that you said something untrue, but that you
said something untrue, either knowingly or so recklessly that it was basically knowingly.
So that's what the absence of malice standard really means, is that you really
were doing it intentionally. And I don't think I mean, there's lots of
people, different people saying different things on Fox. There's lots of gets,
there's lots of hosts. They are allowed to have their own opinions. And
I'm not so sure Fox would have lost on appeal. It didn't sound like
they were going to lose a trial because this judge really had it in for
Fox, and I right, like, go on up on it. So
here's one other thing. Is for Fox to settle for that humongous amount of
money means it they thought they had a fifty fifty chancel losing. Right.
That's how you're fifty percent of the damages means you thought the probability was fifty
percent you were going to lose. I think that's a real mistake. I
think they should have gone through trial, and I think they should have gone
up on a peal of the Supreme Court. I think the law odds on
the law are really in their favor. No, I can't think of a
serious journalistic enterprise that has ever lost a case since New York Times versus Sullivan.
I think part of what can I don't want to say confuses me,
what intrigues me to the extent that it does, which it doesn't about.
The whole thing is when we say Fox you're saying it as if it is
a sort of unified entity, and I think that when it comes down,
who is what you said? John? There there are. There are opinion
hosts on Fox, opinion shows clearly identified as opinion shows. And now after
the loss of the terrible loss of Shepherd Smith, you only have idiots on
there like Haraldo and one Williams occasionally and so on. Who are who are
any who are leftists? The rest of them, I will grant, are
on the conservative side. However, Fox News itself is not any longer a
conservative entity or corporation. I mean, it's got Paul Ryan on its board
of directors for God's sake, Paul. Oh, come on, if you
don't think that someone like Paul Ryan wanted Fox not to be embarrassed by the
idea that maybe there were in fact hosts on the opinion side who were pushing
a narrative about election fraud. Absolutely, do I think that Tucker Carlson would
have um if he had to pay any of that out of his salary?
Do you think do I think Tucker Carlson would have agreed to a settlement?
Absolutely not. Oh shush woman, Sorry, no, don't hush. Woman
me tell me one good thing about Paul Ryan. You can't name, maybe
because he could do P ninety X or P X ninety there's nothing else foreating
about him. Nothing. Well, here's what I will say. I won't
say this is good about Paul Ryan. I will say that I'll bet he
is a marginal voice at best on the board of News Corp. I don't
think any say any of this stuff. In fact, why do you actually,
I've never heard this before. Why do you dislike Paul Ryan so much?
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to start this. Oh God, John,
now you've done it. You know, like he was for like tax
cuts, and you know he was, I thought, Joe Biden. Can
I just say, what did he do? Can I just say for short
day, he's an oldsmobile in the conservative movement? Does that work a little
bit lucretious? Not strong for you? I know he's Yesterday's News. He's
just one step better than than Mitt Romney. And that's right, all right?
Now, I want to I mean, since since he had left,
since he's out in the non political world, he's just been despicable. When
he had all the freedom to be a decent guy, he's just gotten worse
and worse and worse. So anyway, Okay, I just I was gonna
say, like his approach to I mean, he did want to reform entitlements
and he had this voucher idea instead of Obamacare. But there's pretty good ideas.
Yeah, but he never did anything tough enough to make any of that
happen. So the Trump taxs, go, I love the Trump taxs.
Yeah, get Trump text cut and he didn't do it. Infrastructure spending which
actually was good, and he didn't do it. Okay, John, Let's
get back to the main thread that I had in mind, which is explained
for listeners briefly. What are the standards of New York Times to be Sullivan?
Yeah, so New York Times versus Sullivan says, and when that was
the sixties I think, right, or in the mid sixties, Yeah,
like sixty five maybe, so New York Times versus maybe sixty four, But
New York Times versus Sullivan. It basically draws a higher standard to protect the
freedom of the press and freedom of speech to discuss public affairs. And so
the standard is when you're just so it's like, well, I could just
defame you or to fame lucretia. You are public figures, but as not
as you are private figures. This is the New York Times one doesn't apply
to you. It only applies to discussion of public affairs and what the quick
case calls public figures like politicians. And so the case says, if you
talk about politicians, if you talk about public figures, then just because you
say something that's incorrect about somebody doesn't mean that you can be sued for defamation.
Defamation usually means you say something false about somebody it harms them reputation.
And New York Times as selling. The court drew a higher standard, which
was absence of malice, which was that you knowingly purposefully said something wrong or
record you were so reckless, yeah something right. Yeah, And that's that's
what absence of malice kind of is a shorthand for that standard. So was
this is such a hard standard to meet because you know, you could say,
oh, so and so you know printed something untrue about me, But
you have to show that they knew it was untrue when they published it.
That's hard to a show, right. They could just say, oh,
it's a simple error, relied on something that someone else told US or something.
Now, that thing that my point is is such a high standard that
I don't think any major newspaper. I don't think any major network has really
ever lost a case, a publicly purported case, right, not a settlement,
but a case I went to the judgment. I don't think any major
mainstream publication she's ever lost. Well, there's your point. There's no one
and this is the tragedy. Maybe that's too strong word, but maybe not.
That's the problem with this case is there was the case seven eight years
ago. I forget the beef packing company that sued. I think it was
ABC. Maybe it doesn't matter. Want the networks about their stories about pink
slime on? Oh yeah, yeah, and they settled. The network settled
because you know, they can show by the way, unlike uh dominion,
they could show real harm. They had to close five meat packing plans and
so forth, and the network settled because they didn't want to test the New
York Times president. I think in court. The other case recently that where
this bears is the New York Times editorial page and editorial well three or four
years ago. It was about the Gobby Gifford shooting, which Lucretia helped me.
That was twenty eleven, I think, And you remember the Left said,
oh, Sarah Palin's responsible for this. She puts, you know,
targets on the back of and she sued them in that case was just missed.
Yeah, she that's I mean, like that's in a normal world,
with normal standards for defamation, she should win that case exactly because she's a
public figure. Oh but yeah, you know who did win? I thought
you were going to raise this case. The one that I know was was
Hulk Hogan. Oh yes, you remember. Yeah, But that's why I
said Bainstream because that was some kind of weird celebrity outing. It's not like
it was like a website that outing gay people basically, and so Peter Teel
got out of by them, so he fundid the whole Hulk Coogan litigation behind
the scenes. But I mean, Gawker, I think it was called it's
not a serious publication, right, So for just a moment, it's actually
interesting to consider the context of the New York Times versus Sullivan case. And
so what it was was an report I don't remember the name of I guess
was it the Times, But I don't remember the name York Times, Yeah,
the New York Times, but the official in Alabam Amma where it was
actually a reporting about Martin Luther King March or something like that. I'm forgetting
the tiny details of it, but um, the reporting was, you know
that they alleged that they got a bunch of the facts wrong, and um
that because of that, um this whatever the law enforcement was in Alabama alleged
what had happened was that, Um, what had happened was supporters of Martin
Luther King actually took out an ad in New York Times, which actually is
kind of interesting, but they took a full yeah, and the it criticized
the police Commissioner Montgomery, Alabama, who was Sullivan, and they got some
facts wrong in the ad about what had happened, although none of them were
really critical things wrong, like yeah, they were like how many students were
there at the protests? What songs they were singing? You know. But
he sued them on their own court here, he sued him in right over
Alabama and state court and just punish them with damages right there. Well,
you know, I mean Alabama jury. Of course they're gonna award huge before
you go on John, because I want you to finish the discussion about how
worked this way up. But the reason I often talk about it is I'm
going to excuse me, is that it was a a common practice, fairly
common practice for Southern segregationists at the time, to use libel suits to try
to keep too much publicity from being published about their efforts to maintain segregation in
the South. And so from how do I say this that the New York
Times versus Sullivan, On the face of it, the rationale seems a little
bit too far fetched and stupid, But the court reached in that case so
that, in fact they could stop that practice of um Southern segregationists, law
enforcement and so on. From from keeping that is, that's a beautiful that's
a beautiful point, because you could say New York Times, it's nineteen sixty
four versus Sullivan is of a piece with all these other cases, like the
voting rights at cases, like the commerce clause cases, where the court really
did stretch the law because the Confederate States had really right, they had built
like a little fortress in the South. They're using the law using federalism at
doctrines we generally agree with, but we basically give the court a pass because
they were trying to uproot segregation. Yeah, and so one way you think
about point, which it's not just a but it's not just free speech.
But that's why I think people like Thomas, who has a right, special
privilege to talk about this, says maybe it's time for us to restore the
law back to normal because somergency is over in a way, and he's the
one who's calling for a New York Times versus Alvan to be reexitement. So
let me get out of here with one brief general comment and a story which
I think readers will like and maybe even you guys will like. So I've
been I'm working on a big book chapter for a collection. Michael Walsh is
putting together a sequel to his book on the Great Reset. And I'm taking
my line at my beginning from that passage in Toakville saying, gosh, a
democracy needs a vigorous free press. And my point's going to be what happens
when our quote unquote free press is aligned with one side. That's a crisis.
And that's why I think we need a junk, a revised New York
Times versus Sullivan to go after him. Okay, but it isn't that the
way the press was back then when Toakville was visiting. No, Well,
though it are on all sides. I mean that was the point you had
a newspaper for every day. Okay, yeah, leave that aside. We
can come back this. At some point. I got to invoke New York
Times versus Sullivan once in my own defense, because about ten years ago,
when I was writing an online callumn performance magazine, I took after the person
I think I called the worst elected official in America. The set well said
it was it was and was this important thing a local county supervisor out here
in Santosmisbo County and a guy named Adam Hill, and he was just it
was a horrible leftist. I mean, you know here, I want to
borrow all of the Lucrease's vocabulary to describe how vile as person is. He
His previous job had been as a teacher of creative writing in the local community
college, and he would write letters to the editor of the local papers that
they would print. I'm gonna give you one paragraph because this is just too
good. Here is a lecon official. He writes this to the local paper,
not only the superficially educated and narrow minded, not only Balkans with bad
breath and worse teeth, not only the gullible and agreed, not only those
who are nostalgic for a past that never was. Not only those who are
afraid of losing control, the fire breathers, the weapons collectors, whereas of
bespoke body armor, anonymous online trollers, lover's line rand novels, for whom
the gift of literacy is truly wasted. Not only the teacher's pets from cardio
prayer class, and the self appointed scolds of free speech and the memorizers of
paramous about power. Well you know what, that's where my article about him
in Forbes left off. So I just slammed this guy because i'd see him
in action. I can tell more about that. This actually sounds like those
FBI agents texting about Trump, right, So you know he uh, you
know, I was unformed and got a lot of traffic, and he was
like he So he got online somewhere I forget where. Maybe it was a
letter to Forbes. I forget what. He made a big fuss saying,
ah, this person, Heyward, he's in league with my political opponents,
which I knew his political opponents. It was not true. I was actually
living in Boulder, Colorado during my year there when I decided to write this
and says, and I'm going to sue you for libel. And that's what
I sent back a note saying, Okay, you might want to ask your
lawyer if you can find one to check on New York Time versus Sullivan.
Now there's a there's a PostScript of this story. I think I've established what
kind of person this guy is three or four years later, so it's four
or five years back from now. You wake up in the morning and find
out that the FBI has rated Supervisor Adam Hill's office on a corruption investigation.
It has to be pretty bad if the FBI is rating a supervisor in his
little podunk county in California. The next day it was announced, oh,
I'm going into rehab for my addiction problems. And then six months later he
committed suicide. I mean, the whole story he was mixed up at all
kinds of bad stuff. I mean, he was thoroughly corrupt, thoroughly vile.
Here, I'll just let Lucretia fill in all my adjectives that I need.
So but you know, I never heard another word about a libel suit,
right, and so there was New York Times versus Sullivan working for me.
That's all, okay, So thank you for that story, Steve.
There was a great story out. She beat me my historical analogies of all
that. So what I just wanted you guys to know that I just texted
you at an article believe it or not, from CNN that proves to I
think, at least to some extent, how much Paul Ryan did have an
impact on this decision and how much he wants to see Fox News turn away
from its current conservative leanings to what he considers better conservative leanings, which is
why he didn't resign from the board of directors after all this came out,
and instead decided he would do what he could to move Fox in a different
direction. You guys can read the article and decide for yourselves. All right,
Enough of that, All right, We're back now with a new segment,
Lucretia's featured Rant of the Week, which does not exclude other rants,
but this is the one that is most top of mind, as Kreean,
John Pierre, Jean Paul Sartre her name is would say, so go Lucretia,
you're on. So I told Steve that I wanted to rant about the
DOJ, which I do, and how Department of Justice for people who are
not in the watching him, everybody out there knows what the department of everybody
is then I and the FBI, and and that that just what he looks
like. Uh, he looks like one of those creepy owls Garland. OK,
I hate him, but anyway, unlike unlike the beautiful charming owls out
there, there's there are beautiful owls out there, actually there all of him,
all of them. Now, I think, uh, I'll leave that
aside. I'm not going to talk about Paul Ryan with you two anymore tonight.
No, But back to the DOJ. So, not only is Garland's
corruption, you know, with this whole thing that he set up a US
attorney appointed by Trump to investigate the Hunter Biden corruption. They say that like
it means anything. Oh, appointed by Trump, that must mean he's a
right wing mega conservative. Mattis was appointed by Trump. Bolton was appointed by
Trump. You know, you can go down the list for people who are
totally unsound and just because they're appointed by Trump doesn't make them suddenly nonpartisans above
the law anyway. That's a whole problem. But what we're now seeing is
that the DOJ's influence is reaching into the IRS, the Treasury Department, just
about anywhere they can manipulate, the federal law enforcement agencies, federal bureaucracy.
The DOJ is running the most incredible interference for the Biden administration. At the
same time, they're out there prosecuting not just right wing people who that guy
who said something on social media critical of Hillary Clinton or something. I can't
even follow it, but also there's a left wing group of black men who
are opposed to the war in Ukraine, and they're looking at putting them in
jail for five years. It's just on and on. I could list forever.
And I've been thinking a lot about what John said, that this is
what our founders intended the system they gave us, not that what they intended.
I don't want to put the wrong words in your mouth, John,
but they gave us a system that doesn't guarantee that people will be prosecuted fairly
and without respect a person. There's nothing in the system that forces that that
and that jury trials and politics in the largest sense, are the only or
the only checks on the awful powers of prosecutors and the awful power that the
government can bring to bear to prosecute people, and to refuse to prosecute those
who truly deserve it. Politics is our only choice, right, Well,
I thought, John, I'm gonna well, all right, sorry, Can
I wait to see what I'm saying? Yeah, no, I do.
But my point was the founders were familiar with the possible oppression that could be
wielded by prosecutors and then executive branch. They suffered that my only point was
the ultimate defense is the jury. They thought that, right if the executive
branch, when I control jurors who were supposed to represent the community, would
stop them, right, because you still need a jury to convict anybody to
deprive them of their freedom. And so even I don't know these other these
cases, the one, the case that doesn't really bother me that you raised
before was the but you well, to put someone in jail, you can't
has to be a jury trial. So the thing that I think that the
point you made that the example I don't know these examples about putting in people
crossing people for speech. But the case that you raise that I do agree
with you on was the investigation of the school board moms who were just engaging
in speech and protesting critical race study and US and in their kids' schools.
And the idea the just Department go after people like this, as you know,
domestic terrorists was ridiculous. But I think ultimately we elected Biden Biden appoint
attorney general. I disagree with him. I disagree with the attorney general.
I disagree with the prosecutors and what they're being told and what they're being told
to do. But the jury is our defense, ultimate defense, all right.
So any way, I second. So, by the way, Lucretia,
I on the ten point scale, that was about a six as far
as rance goes. I thought you were gonna I thought you're gonna bring up
Sorry, I thought seriously, I thought you're gonna bring up was the story
breaking late in the week of an IRS whistle blower. Yeah, that's why
I mentioned the IRS. Yeah, okay, But the point is is that
let's for listeners who may not have followed this in the news, an IRS
whistle blower and Jonathan Turley, I think you know, it's a good job
of these things, saying that the IRS and the Justice Department have blocked that
special counsel in Delaware from investigating Hunter Biden's you know, outside the state of
Delaware, which looks like obstruction of justice. This looks like Nixon are are
kind of cover up and obstruction. Uh. And you know that's a pretty
serious matter. And what I want to ask you about, John, on
a general point, not this particular one, is you know, you worked
in the Department of Justice, You worked in all three branches of government.
You are like our you know, our Article one through three person and I'm
I'm this this worker in the gardens getting my hands dirty. Y YouTube guys
sit up in big fancy mansion espousing philosophy. Yeah, so, I mean
I do know some stories from the Reagan years, because you know, so
let's research on it. And you heard about this sum during the Bush years
and the Trump years of career employees in the Reagan years, it was,
you know, the entire Civil Rights Division. Clear career pointees or career employees
would say, we're going to resign on mass if you do X and Y
on civil rights. And my view was always go ahead, them. Yeah,
they should hit Yeah. So the point is in this case, it
does sound like likely we'll see how this unfolds. Likely the political unfair interferences
from you know, the political appointees in the office, but it could be
the career people who are probably perfectly in sync with the Biden Justice Department.
But you were there, I mean, you tell us something about either in
general or specific, if you have stories, what their system these are of
the ferment employees. Right, Yeah, there's this constant tension. It's not
unique to the Justice Department between the political appointees and the career the career civil
servants. Yeah, but I started to erupt John. It's I mean,
it's one thing, and that's Department of Education or EPA. In the Justice
Department, that's more serious, I think in the constitutional yes it is.
It is more serious. And it goes to Lucretia's uh, you know,
sort of halfhearted rant or quasi rant that because you know, the Justice Department,
unlike other branches, other agencies like agriculture, it could take your freedom
and liberty away, right, Like if they could go after you and they
win, you go to jail, right and they could take your money away.
I mean, if they win a judgment against you and they find you,
you take your money, your livelihood away, so you know it is
You're right, It is much more serious I think that. I say,
so there is there is this tension because we don't have people. I bet
listeners don't realize how few people you get to a point when you win the
election and basically ninety nine point whatever percent of the people working in the government
are there for life and there's nothing any there's nothing Trump can do about it
or any president can do about that would be fine if the bureaucracy really was
neutral and impartial. But the bureaucracy, my experience of it, was that
the civil service or generally liberal, and in fact they're probably more liberal in
the Justice Department than they are, you know, in something like the Commerce
Department, where their main goal is just to give away money to comprise.
Yes, and so that is so I agree. I agree with both you.
It is true that you might have a bigger ideological gap at justice between
Republican political appointees and that. And just to give you an example, like
the Office of Legal Counsel where I worked, which is one of the more
politically sensitive offices had basically thirty people, of whom twenty six were political.
I mean, we're civil servants and four and that's a very high percentage.
And like the Criminal Division, which is responsible for taking people's freedoms away,
for punishing for crimes, you know, hundreds and hundreds of civil servants,
maybe three or four political appointees overseeing. All I want to add to that,
John, is what you didn't say. You said that that civil servants
are are overwhelmingly liberal. We know that based on just things like where they
decide to contribute their money in political campaigns and so on. We know all
of that. And so when you are a Trump administration or Reagan administration or
Bush administration coming in as those top level political appointees, it is of course
very difficult to make great strides to change whatever whichever agency you're talking about,
but especially something like the Justice Department. My point would be that when you
have those political appointees who share the same political and ideological beliefs and goals as
those career civil servants, you have a recipe for abject tyranny. And I
think that's what we're seeing with Garland, That's what we're seeing with the irs.
That's what we're seeing with the Treasury Department. That's what we're seeing with
Janet Yellen, who you know, for the longest time, absolutely refused to
release all of these uh what do they call them? The financial the hundred
financial what are they called? The financial systemically financial institutions? Is at that
No, No, the thing that if you have a problem, you've done
something unethical financially, because as a public servant you get this thing. Well
most people are, are you ruined if they get one? And the Biden
administration, the Biden family has like a hundred of them, their investigations into
corrupt practices, and there's a name from it where you're talking, I know
you're talking about the financial transaction reports. When you move around too much money
in certain ways, you get flagged by the system. Yeah, it's a
law. Usually you have to be moving around a lot of money and suspicious
patterns to get fled. Here. Here here is the let me restate the
general problem, which will actually set up our next discussion, our next topic.
So the problem is the as we call the administrative state, permanent bureaucracy
is the partisan tool of the Democratic Party. So you have right now is
the political appointees of the president in perfect harmony with the permanent employees, whereas
when John is appointed the office of Legal counsel Or in the Reagan years,
you're you're have a fight with these people. There's more of them. They're
going to be there after the president has gone. That can outlast you all
kinds of tools. It does remind me of that great line from Churchill's very
controversial speech in the nineteen forty five election campaign, And I think it's perfect
for our age, which is we have a civil service which is no longer
civil and no longer our servants. Now. The problem is, you know,
John Marini, our palace been talking about this for forty years, and
no Republican will argue about it sensibly, just as no Republicans seems to want
to argue sensibly right now about abortion, which is our next But can one
last point. I hate to drag this out, but I think this is
something where if Trump had won a second turn, you could have seen some
serious form. Yeah, yeah, he so he was going he was going
to make the claim that he had the right to fire any civil servant who
had any policymaking authority, which would have been hundreds and hundreds of thousands of
the very top of civil servants in the executive branch. If he had won
a second term and done that, that would have gotten the attention. And
why do you think he didn't earn a second term? Well, yeah,
why do you think no? But my point is, why do you suppose
every single entity in Washington, d C. Brought everything they could to bear
to make sure he didn't win re election, Because that's that's the biggest explanation
of all. Well, I would argue, though, you remember Obama's nonsense
about he had a scandal free administration. So it's not just the marriage of
the political appointees with the career of civil servants. It's also the complicity of
the media in all of this, of course, every single time. And
so I think that the situation with Biden is just so egregious, it's so
over the top, beyond anything we've seen before that it's trickling out and you're
actually seeing a few, a very very few, but a few like that
irs whistleblower, who has a conscience, who's and it's really funny. You
might have to explain this to me. I guess the law is such that
because he's talking about the particular thing is Hunter Biden's tax problems, shall we
say, and that the law makes it so that he cannot actually even tell
his own lawyers what he knows until he gets the permission of Congress. And
so that's what he's doing first, is he's going to Congress to ask for
he says, in a bipartisan way, to ask for permission to be able
to tell what he knows about the cover up at the IRS and in the
Treasury Department about Hunter Biden, so that he can converse with his own lawyers
about how to proceed. That's right, because it is a crime to release
the you know, to make public in any way personal tax information, so
that if it was the other side of it, it wouldn't well publica exactly
that you know, we tax returns of the richest Americans, and nothing happened
to anybody about that, league right, all right, you guys, we
need to move on to our next topic. All right, you guys,
last week we introduced but too late to develop it, and we're actually already
running along today. We won't be able to develop it very far. But
there's a subject of natural law, and so by the way, John,
I'm gonna let you and the audience in on a secret, so it won't
be a secret any longer. Lynda and I are going to listen to your
entire Hobbs a presentation you did for Preger University, and we're going to take
out snippets of it and we're going to deconstruct it with a tomistic commentary.
Oh, this will be awesome. This is so awesome. I want to
watch while you do this. I'm gonna buy like ten Big Max and I'm
just gonna sit there and eat them. Oh. I want to run a
video of me eating Big Max and French fries and Diet Coke's watching you guys.
All right, I'm coming to Big Max. But here's the thing that
I also do this on with the natural law argument. I mean, that's
a huge subject, and I think, by the way, lucretition, I
are talking about doing a whole power line university, you know, four or
five or six segment, uh know, classroom on this. So here's the
thing about abortion. Is um the problem right now, like the problem with
the administrative state, I said a few minutes ago, Republicans seem to be
incapable of making the argument that the bureaucracy is the partisan tool of the Democratic
Party. They don't do this. I mean, you know, people like
Reagan and Nixon understood it, but they don't say anything about it. The
Bushes never understood it. Trump as okay, never mind Trump. A lot
of good stuff happened there, and a second term would have been very interesting
and probably productive. But it does parallel the abortion discussion. Now, I
did John you mentioned last week the public opinion seems to be against the Santas
signing the six week heartbeat bill. I get all that. I didn't see
a new survey that was quite interesting, and like I say, the surveys
and it just depend a lot on how the arguments are presented. The survey
I saw this week was which is the more extreme position? This was the
set of questions presented in the battery that abortion should be restricted to ten weeks
or less or some very restrictive framework, or there should be no restrictions on
abortion right up to the time of birth by a sixty forty majority. The
Pole respondence. It was a pretty good Pole, I forget who said the
essentially the leftist position that abortion should be legal up to the time of birth.
That was the extreme position by sixty percent of the people. Now I
am old enough to remember that. Ronald Reagan used to again, Reagan was
artful. People forget this, but you know there were three candidates in nineteen
eighty. You had John Anderson, the third party candidate, hard to refuse
to do a debate, so Reagan to debate with Anderson. Abortion came up,
and Reagan, with a typical one liner, said, you know what
I noticed is all the people who are four abortion have already been born.
Boom right. Well, if that's not a hard argument to make, it
is now Steve, you're wrong about that, by the way, So I
have to interrupt you before you carry on the new what would you call it?
Stick of pro abortion people is I would have I wouldn't mind it if
my mother had aborted me and it was which I always wanted to get serious.
Yeah, I know, and of course you know what I want to
reply. I'm sure you probably do. They can always cure that error,
exactly right. I used to insult people that I would have debates about abortion,
especially if they were sort of formal kinds of things, which seems to
happen. I used to say you know, it's really too bad your mother
wasn't more liberal, but they would never get it. Yeah, but you
know, I remember also, you know Reagan as president, and this is
worth bringing up because, by the way, someone could dust off his book
in nineteen eighty three or early eighty four. He was the first sitting president
and still the only president to publish a book while in office. And it
was abortion and the Conscience of a Nation. There's a big fight about publishing
them. But you never you didn't know this, John, You were a
little kid, right. Oh gosh. It was a big controversy and he
drew. It was a short little book. Our pal Mike Huhlman had a
hand in getting it written. I was gonna say, who really wrote it?
I might have been Mike Hulman. Actually I never asked. My Mike
was always never said, of course not that was Mike, right, I
mean, he saved the Electoral College. And but there's a big fine about
it because of course James Baker and probably Nancy Reagan didn't want him publish that
book, and you know, Mike Deaver and all those other miserable people.
But Regan said, now I want to do this, and you know it
drew the direct parallel between the dread Scott case and Roe versus Way. I
mean, it was a fantastic book. I have a copy somewhere. And
the point is this, Hello Reagan. You know, in late eighty three,
when this book was being done, I'll just put it this way,
it was still kind of iffy whether Reagan was gonna be able to be reelected
because he was. Approval ratings were down at eighty two because the economy and
all the rest of that, and he said, darna, I'm gonna do
this. So that shows you that there is a model of argumentation on the
issue from our not too distant history. And you know what's wrong with people.
They can't do it. Okay, So it says I can get a
hardcover copy of the original edition for fourteen dollars and also should get it.
It says, yeah, I'm going to. I'm ordering it right now.
This is awesome. I didn't know. It has an introduction by James McFadden
Judge Clark afterward by see ever Coop right, Yes, I should laugh.
He was an interesting guy. Yeah, Malcolm Muggeridge. Yeah, there you
go, man, I'm totally buying this. Oh, you should. Yeah,
and then and then you'll stop talking a rot about abortion and public opinion.
I mean not really, but okay, Um, so this is this
is the point I want to ask you about abortion and natural law is,
Um, what do you make of changing view? If natural law is permanent
and eternal, but what people say natural law is on abortion changes, So
how do you take account of changing? Right? So this is where this
is where I differ slightly. So well, you know, so I think
this gets so this is I get into with originalism. So I think if
the writers of the Constitution at the time to found the time reconstruction amendments are
natural law lawyers, which I totally accept because there was no other school of
thought back then. So we have to understand their words against the backdrop of
natural law. So suppose at the time of reconstruction of the Ford teh Amendment,
natural law of viewed human life not to start with the fetus until quickening,
which is however the baby starts moving, I guess, or you know.
So that's why I don't know how many weeks they would consider that'd be
past tie. Yeah, yeah, around fifteen weeks. It's short of viability,
but it's not, but it's not zero either. Nowadays, I take
it that many natural all people say life begins a conception. I would still
say we have to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment based on what they thought natural law
was at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment's ratification. But if you but when
I talk to my natural law friends like you guys, you guys seem to
think it's the natural law of today that is to be used to interpret the
Constitution. That doesn't make sense to me as an originalist. That's my question.
There's there's just too many premises that are faulty in what you just said,
John, that it's a little difficult to I don't mean that to be
insulting. I really don't. But first of all, it's not a natural
law of today versus if there is a natural law, it is permanent and
eternal because it is based upon a fundamental understanding of human beings, human nature
and the way human beings were created evolved. It doesn't matter what the way
human beings are has not changed. That's the difference between us and the progressives.
The progressives believe that there is no permanent human nature, which means that
there is no law natural or otherwise that governs what is good for humans,
what's the definition of human happiness, any of those things, And therefore we
can manipulate human nature and the conditions around human nature to reach that perfect utopia.
Natural law is this very different thing. It's look at human beings,
try to understand what their nature is, and when you do that, you
can discover what will make human beings happy, how to organize a political system.
So that's a really kind of loose and amorphous concept, very difficult to
put you to wrap your head around in some sort of real way, because
you can tell I can even explain it very well. The natural law principles,
however, of our constitution are the declaration of independence and the idea that
all human beings are created equal meaning only, meaning only that nature or God
or something else has not created some human beings as rulers and others as ruled.
There are no natural rulers among the human species. Where does that take
us? That we could get into your hobbs here, but I'll leave them
aside for a moment. Where that takes us is if there are no natural
rulers among the human species, then each human being is his or her own
natural ruler, and that means they have exclusive control over their own life,
life, liberty, and property or pursuit of happiness. Except that we know
we learned this from Hobbs. You learned this from Hobbs. Life and the
nature is a solitary, poor, nasty, Brutisian short. Without government,
without civil society, without some way of governing people's passions that get in the
way of their rationality. What you find are rights. Those rights which are
inalienable, as a declaration tells us, are insecure. They're not taken away,
but they're insecure. Doesn't do you any good to have the right to
life if somebody comes in the middle of the night and you know, bops
you over the head and steals everything you own. Right, So we recognize
that because we're rational and we form that social contract. You understand all of
this, John, But what about with the constitution? Yeah, I figured,
But what does that tell us about the constitution and how we should look
at the constitution? What does that inform us about something like same sex marriage
or abortion. That's where it gets a little more tricky. Go ahead,
Steve. You seem to want to interrupt, So go ahead, interrupt.
Stop interrupting me when I'm interrupting you as Sorry, Well, that was a
pretty mild, sober written So you mentioned the fourteenth a matter if you want
to do it sort of in narrower constitutional terms. But this way the definition
of natural right, natural law, natural right overlapping the same. But the
point is, the great definition from our teacher Harry Jaffat is natural right as
the search for the unchanging ground of changing experience. Okay, how do you
apply that in this case? At the time the fourteenth Amendment is written,
a woman could be pregnant for well lucreation, correct me, because I'm not
a mother. You could be pregnant for six or eight weeks and not necessarily
know for certain. Today you do, We've got the early pregnancy tests.
You can. But then we hear all the time about women who have babies
that didn't know they were pregnant. Broh, Okay, but you get the
point, right, I mean, nowadays we do know. And so then
the question becomes, what's a human being? When should the protection of the
law be extended to, by the way, from a liberal point of view,
the most vulnerable of all human beings. And the question, by the
way, you know Lincoln said not quite the way I'm going to put it.
But the question dred Scott that they muffed was what's a human being?
You know? The premise of dread Scott was that, and right directly in
cases like Douglas, where blacks are not fully human beings the way white people
are. The premise of Row versus Wade is is that the the thing I'll
just do out of neutral terms here, not what I think. The thing
in the womb is not a human being. So by the way natural law.
You know, I think of two very bright atheists, Christopher Hitchins and
Nat Hintoff, both sadly gone, who both were pro life from conception.
Christopher Hitchinson, what's that that we don't need potential intellectuals helping us? No?
No, well, all right, leave that aside. The point is
is Christopher hitchins line was he's an atheist, he's very anti religious. But
this point was there's no other point where you can say life does begin as
a matter of logic. That was natural law reasoning. Even if Hitchens himself
might have resisted natural law generally, I think that's not an insignificant point.
Lucretia that somebody like that can puzzle it out and say, you know what,
the pro lifers are right about this, so that you could agree with
you on a lot of these points, right that once you are human being,
you get you get accorded right the full package of rights. But the
abortion question is still about when does human when do you think a human life
really begins? You could have a variety of arguments about what that data is,
you know, conception, vibul whatever, Ye, six weeks, what
is it? The heartbeat bill? Yeah, but it isn't because Steven,
let me finish this. No, No, seriously, I don't think that's
the right question. I don't think that's the right question at all. It's
gonna be the political questions you'll have to answer it. But what you really
need to be looking at. And I was actually looking for my Mansfield,
but I can't find it right now. And Mansfield has this great line where
America's constitutional soul, where where he talks about the he talks about I don't
even remember the right words, but the how abortion on demand for the convenience
of you know, a certain lifestyle in society, and you know, so
women can be equal to men and all those other things we tell us we
need abortion for when we concede those things, we are such an amoral an
immoral society because we put things like convenience or I mean, we're killing an
unborn child so that you know, my career doesn't get when you concede the
abortion point, you can't any longer stop. You can't say, really,
it makes no sense at ten weeks or twenty weeks, or you know,
before birth versus after birth, I believe it or not. We have those
debates still. But the point of the matter is is in the same way
that many of the anti slavery people in the prebellum that the Antebellum period recognize
the harm that slavery does to the soul of society, abortion needs to be
looked at in that way too. Why because natural law teaches us that there's
a certain a certain requirement for human happiness, we don't and we see that's
how we bring natural law into it. Now, how does that help us
with the Constitution. The fourteenth Amendment says no person shall be deprived of life,
liberty, or property without due process of law. That would seem to
mean that you could deprive unborn children by just saying abortion is legal. I
mean, that would be the simplest way of looking at the constitutional provision.
But that doesn't take us back to what it is, the safety and happiness
of our society that our constitution is supposed to be bringing about. That's why
you have to oppose abortion, because you, in the same way that slavery
turned people into tyrants, you've turned an entire society into these narcissistic pigs.
No, but I could agree with you that abortion just because of the whim
is not right. That's not legal. Most Americans don't agree with that right.
Most Americans seem to agree with banning abortion after viability. So the question
to me is, I don't see how natural law answers the question of when
does the human life begin? And at that point, when human life begins,
then you get the full panoply of rights natural that there is a natural
law answer to it. And that's why I say natural rights. It's a
hard time answering the abortion question to me, because that's when that's the point
at which the natural rights attach. Now that's the point in which politics and
compromise decides the question not natural law in the same way that it was not
natural law that induced the Framers to have compromises with slavery in the Constitution.
It wasn't commitment to natural law. It was a commitment to doing what was
necessary. But here's the other point of view. You could say the you
know, the fetus is not really human life until it can live on its
own unassisted. That's right, that's the one side definition that's up to viability.
So they would say no natural rights. I could have the same view
of as you as how broad naturalits are once you're a human being. I
could also say, but you're not really human being until you can live outside
the womb, and until that point you get no natural rights. Yeah,
that way, I don't know how natural ights answers that question. Doesn't wait
a second, John, I mean, so human beings are an unusual species,
uh, in that our infants take a long time before they can live
on their own, like what fifteen years? Twelve years? I mean,
Okay, the point is are you in your case Steeds sixty? But go
ahead, you grasp the point. I mean other species, you know,
you kick the bird out of the nest in five days or whatever it is,
and we're different that way, and that which is why there's there's calls
for abortion up to the age of at least well that was years. That
was Peter Singer's controversiality. All right, before you, I just want to
sort of make the opposite the same point, but the opposite one. You'll
see what I mean by it. So the big deal amongst the most radical
feminists right now and in their alliance with radical science, shall we call it,
is creating artificial wounds so that women don't have to have the horrible,
horrible burden of being pregnant and giving birth because we all know that it's such
a terrible thing that nobody wants to do it, which is why there's how
many billion people in the world as far as I'm aware, still we're born
from a woman. However, we don't want to keep doing that because it
places such a terrible burden on women and makes them unequal to man. And
so therefore we can now viability starts before I don't know, yeah, well
start like after a week. This was a point I was going to bring
up, is what if we have laboratory technologies that do what you say,
lucretia that you don't actually have to A woman does not have to carry a
feet is to full gestation, and how will that affect the argument when this
person would begin, Then let us draw a veil over that, as Madison
says in Federalist forty three. And I want to get onto other technological developments
after these messages. Okay, John. The important news this week, which
will seem frivole us, but we'll get to a semi serious topic is McDonald's
announced once again they're overhauling their hamburger line. And I guess they're gonna make
the burgers juicier somehow. I don't know what inject them with that I don't
know, but more pillowy buns. And I don't know what that means,
especially for guy my age, whose buns are pillowy enough. But there's another
But there's a story at the same time coming out, which was Mayor Adams
of New York, who seems a great disappointment. Didn't expect much, but
he's even worse, and he says, well, you know, we gotta
get onto vegan altar. In other words, they want to kill burgers.
They want to kill be for climate and all the rest of that. And
this all come at the fiftieth anniversary of the appearance of Soil and Green,
which I thought was a whole movie, right, the whole thing I will
skip today. People, it's people. I will pass over the story because
I already told one long story of having a drink at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel
with Charleton Heston and Rush Limbaugh once thirty years ago. Oh oh no,
you gotta tell that, n But if we didn't talk about Soilon Green,
we talked about other movies. But the point is, you guys never invite
me to the cool stuff. Well that was thirty years ago, John,
both you know, Heston and Rush are both along gone as we know it.
Okay, So here's the point. I got to thinking about wanting to
ask you something different. Let's do some culture because we're actually good at it
and we don't do enough of it. And I want to do a quick
round robin of your two favorite political movies. And I'll go first. I've
talked about it before, and I actually want to have John Marini on to
do this properly. But I use the man who shot Liberty Balance in the
classroom with students, because I think that movie teaches fundamental questions about the rule
of law and what is necessary. It's just a cowboy movie. It's a
cowboy movie, though you are wrong, Crat in Europe's thought a movie about
politics. Yes it is. Then you're going to say the Good, the
Bad, and the Uglies a good politics movie too. Well, it might
be. I haven't looked at it closely, but that's my first nominee.
And I will just stop there, and who wants to go next? So
I refuse to to sort of play the game the way I know, the
way you describe it, And I'm going to give you the one I often
talk to students about, just because it'll add a little spice to this podcast.
Um. When I would talk about, um, the First Amendment,
I'm tying everything together here in the First Amendment, and obscenity, I would
use the example of to try to illustrate to students what the um gosh the
Miller's standard was for obscenity. Uh. I would talk about The Devil in
Miss Jones, which is of course a morality play. I've never seen it,
but I have, And that's that's how I would. I would That's
how I would get students to sort of pay a little attention to me because
many years ago at my my undergraduate alma mater. And I just say,
I'm going to put my hands over my ears now because my Asian mother.
No, I'm not nothing bad. But but we had classes on on Mondays
and Wednesdays and Tuesdays and Thursdays and Fridays. There were just very few,
like if you had a language class, you had a lab or whatever.
And so Friday afternoons in the pub that was was owned at the time by
a private company, I came in and you know, dispense the beer and
so on. They would show porno movies in the bar on Friday afternoon in
the pub at my alma mater, And so a bunch of us would just
go in there drinking beer on Friday afternoon. And but I mean I saw
all the great ones, the Italian Stone behind the green door, the great
ones anyway, But that's it. But so you know, the story behind
the Devil and Miss Jones is that she's she's a nun or something. It
really didn't pay as much attention as you think I might have um. And
she she commits suicide, but she's never done anything sinful in her life,
but suicide is a sin. So she goes to Hell. So she makes
a deal with the devil to go back, and how should we say,
earn her eternity in hell? And so that's the that's the premise of the
movie. And so what's the political lesson from this? No, the moral
lesson, the moral lesson, it's actually not even a political it's a that
is indeed a moral lesson. Remember it's it's that. Um. The totality
of it has to be without artistic, lit rary I forget all the different
things off the top of my head right now merit, And I would argue,
certainly you couldn't say that The Devil and Miss Jones was without artistic or
literary merit, because it was in fact a morality play. Well, I
was not expecting that, not either me either. My my, my,
my, my, My. Impression of Storey Daniels has completely changed Now.
I don't think they have the classics. They don't have the standards of the
classics anymore. Tell so does does do. So many series don't count.
So I can't say like British House of Cards, Oh you could one of
the great political shows, the British one, but my very well think so
I couldn't possibly comment, Yeah, the British one is it is so great?
Um, I mean I think that is the best. I actually and
of course we talked about yes, minister, also great, but I think
one of the best. If we're can talk about actual American movies. Um,
the congressional hearing scene and Godfather too, oh yeah, is one of
the great all time political right political scenes in a movie. And I was
to just pistol a crush off. I was going to say, also,
um, the one about Watergated. You know, I like political movies so
much. It's part of the reason why I couldn't do it, because I
like watching political movies so much. It's one of the few genres of movies
I actually enjoy that. I don't even care most of the time if they're
if they're liberal, because I like Dave, I like Powering one with Richard
gear I like all of those movies. They have taste. It. I
just I like politics. Actually, yeah, they're terrible. Richard the Political
Consultant is really stupid. Or the one where Michael Douglas is the president.
Yeah, that's a horrible Yes. Two comments, John, what is the
Godfather scene with a congressional hearing? I think What's amazing about that is the
technical uh presentation. It looks like a real hearing. I mean it reminds
me of the His Chambers hearings from forty which were the first televised hearings when
almost Noble on TV h the American President. So you know, I never
there. I have done for the years when I retired from doing this,
the parodies of the Hitler learns about seeing from Downfall. Oh yeah. I
actually went to the trouble of getting a copy of the American President that's in
Spanish, and I wanted to extract the press conference where Michael Douglas sang,
I'm gonna confiscate your guns. We're gonna end global warming. All that reduced
stopped watching. By that point I turned. I didn't get to that far.
You can see where I'm going with this is I was going to use
the Spanish language scene and then you know Dubby in the remarks at the bottom
of what he was saying, and try and start a new me you know,
a new genre of parodies. By the way, hard anybody seemed to
notice this, the critics, all the others were too embarrassed to say it.
That movie was a memo from what's his name Aaron Sarkin on the Hollywood
Left to Bill Clinton. Yeah, here's what you should be doing as president.
We're disappointed in you. What's the premise of the movie Hillary has to
be Dead? Yeah? Hillary dies and Bill Clinton gets to date right Independence
Day because it's sort of got a little politics in a butt back. For
one, you like the Force one executive decision because Stevens right at the beginning
and actually in line of fire in line of fire service agent and Lucretia playing
Renee Risso playing the secret Service. Annett Benning, I don't know, Benny
plays the squeeze in American President. Right. She plays Diane Feinstein in that
movie that m libels you, John, Oh, oh really yeah, she's
actually really good as Diane Feinstein. Although sure, girl, I feel worse
for in that Benning or Diane. Diane Feinstein comes across as from the time
when she wasn't seen Nile. Now, all right, you mentioned it that
you're much more handsome than the guy who played you, just so you know
i'd be upset about that, and I would consider that. Oh I heard
you was like twenty one years old. That's all I want was but he
doesn't doesn't look he doesn't look nearly as handsome as you, John. So
that's a promise. That's what I said out loud. Independence Day has a
scene Lucretia that you want to latch onto for I don't know. It expresses
the problem with your view of Paul Ryan. It's the when they have the
alien and the lab and the president is saying to can't we just talk about
you? What do you want? Can't we reach a deal? What do
you want? And the creatures we want? Well, that's the left,
right, that is that is the typical squish Republican negotiating with the left.
The left one I supposed to die. And I thought that was a great
point of that movie. I don't think that there is a good conservative politics
movie. That's why my standards, as John points out, are pretty low.
I like Patton, Patton County. Patton is a great conservative movie,
which is not a conservative movie. You know, if it was a liberal
movie that that they just are so work so clueless about well you mean they
thought they thought they were making fun of all of that. And yeah,
in fact, the patriotism really appealed to people. I really I didn't realize
was a massively Yes. Remember he was a very liberal guy. He wouldn't
accept the Academy award. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if it was
a liberal. I just didn't like the alcohol. Okay, well, all
right, imagine we were totally off the rails here. I was going to
the man Curian candidate. But I don't know if you guys have second movies
to mention or not. I really like the Man. I didn't really like
the Manchurian original one. No, not really. I don't really like Frank
Sinatra. Well I watched I watched that movie Gaslighting. I haven't seen it.
Oh, it's an old, old movie, the old movie, the
original movie. Yeah, it's actually quite Yeah, it's a great movie.
It's a great movie. It's where the term comes from. And that's why
I looked at me, what does this gaslighting even mean? And so I
know my that's where my investigations took me was to that movie. And so
we watched it. It was it was. It's a good movie. It's
a hitchcock, isn't it. Maybe, Well, all right, we're gonna
get John Marini back on because he's really good at this stuff, and maybe
tied us to Shara is also really good at this stuff. Happy one some
time, but I think we should draw to it. Steve, why do
you keep talking about replacing me in lucresition with other people? I just have
They can't talk about Devil and Miss Jones. Actually, that would be so
funny to watch John Marini have to watch the movie movie and then give explain
why it's a movie about politics. Yes, I would see my place on
this podcast to see that happen. See So yeah, you go ahead and
think that they're going to be so great? What's wrong with what John and
I just did? It was? It was good? Okay? Uh?
John? Do you have a camel for this week or not? I do?
I do because I don't know If we use this, I don't think
so. But this was what Kamala Harris had to say after she met with
the President of Poland about and this is what she said about Russia's invasion of
Ukraine. I don't think if this. If we have used this, I've
got a backup. It's a classic. But we all watched the television coverage
of Jess yesterday. That's on top of everything else that we know and don't
know yet based on what we've just been able to see, and because we've
seen it or not doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Oh, I didn't know
that one. Yeah, that's a new one. Right, we haven't used
that one. Right, that's a new one. Okay, now here's another
one. This is a new one. This apparently, she said, this
is not reported on the websites as a comimalism. This is just report as
our comments to down you know, so, you know, down in Tennessee
where the state legislature kicked out two members of the state legislature for basically trying
to prevent the debate from occurring on the floor. So she, of course
Harris went down their right away and said this to a students. She gave
a speech to students right there in Tennessee to talk about these two of state
legislatures. She said, we meet you all, and your leadership in this
movement is going to impact people that you may never meet, people who may
never know your name, but because of your leadership, they will forever be
benefited. We will not be defeated, we will not be deterred. We
will not throw up our hands when it's time to roll up our sleeves.
We will fight, we will lead, we will speak with truth, we
will speak about freedom and justice, and we will march on. It was
just so badly written. I mean, this is a prepared speech. Yeah.
If Hannah Rent were alive today, she'd say the banality of banality.
I think that she just needs to hire chat GBT, don't you wouldn't it
be better? She would do better? Yeah? Okay, So I do
have to point out that we didn't mention the fact that BuzzFeed went out of
business. Yeah that's a feel good headline. Yes, yes, another feel
good headline, and they're saying that vice media might go under two. Yeah.
Good. I do want to mention, after our discussions a few times
lately about d I E. D EI, that there was a major conference
of d EI university professionals where they all got together and kumbayad and cried and
yeah and yeah. It's been because they see themselves, how they do their
work in the midst of the kind of oppression they're experiencing. So that was
good. That was I almost send it to you guys with might feel good
story of the day, but the headline wasn't quite clear enough. So I
didn't bother you, but I do have a Babylon be um betterman felibusters Senate
for seven hours while attempting to say hello, but yeah, it is funny.
I know. I guess we shouldn't make fun, but I will leave
it with a um. Because you mentioned Ukraine. Biden warns that if debt
ceiling isn't raised, we might default on our obligations to Ukraine. That I
saw, I saw a very funny one, which was Fox News agreased.
It was Fox News agreased to pay Dominion Software with eight hundred million CNN pluses.
That was fun. That was good. Yeah, well, okay,
in here for you two married guys. Sorry, man daydreaming during wife's long
story, are praying it doesn't end with a question. All right, who's
gonna send this out with official salutation? Let's go, Brandon, I always
drink your whiskey. Neat. That sounds good. Okay, by bye you
guys. This was fun. Ricochet joined the conversation.