Well, whiskey coming thing, my pain, moneys a ray, Why don't
you let me? From power Line blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot
Com, this is the three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders Steve Hayward,
John You, and power Lines International Woman of Mystery Lucretia. Have you gotta
giving? Let that whiskey float when you're being in loud, down and load.
We welcome back everybody to the three Whiskey Happy Hour where you're all still
I'm sure recovering from last week's cage match. People are fanning themselves. They're
fanning themselves after they fainted watching all the blood and gore and neo conservative winning
again. You did have a couple of people who took your side, John,
but it was probably something like one to ten. Yeah, well,
you know, and those are people that Lucretia calls losers, right, I
call them losers. I don't even call John a loser. He's just wrong.
But I still love it. Well, look, let me say this,
John, A lot has happened in the last week since we recorded that,
and I think we ought to return to it, but we missed so
many other stories, which which you I think was what's on your mind.
So we'll just let's mention to listeners that we will do cage Match too,
Rumble in the not Rumble the Jungle, I know something probably next week maybe,
I think, Yeah, it's a holiday special, just like they have
the Cowboys and the Detroit Lions play on Thanksgiving. It's going to be New
Conservative versus whatever Lucretia is for a Christmas time. Please tell me I at
least get to comment on the wonder of Congress not voting any more money for
Ukraine. I think that was really great, by the way, or at
least leaving town without voting any more money for Ukraine. Well, yeah,
there's all that. I'll leave it aside for now. But that, and
you know, January sixth looks like some of those court cases you're going to
talk about this John, are going to fall apart. So it just looks
like everything's turning the direction of Lucretia on this team. Lucretia will be happy,
all right, John, Well, let's see wait a minute before we
get going though, John, can I first of all, I think we
ought to give a little bit of a clarification for listeners. Our last several
episodes have begun with conversations about breakfast meets. And there's a reason for that.
You know. This is the three Whiskey happy hour. And normally,
when things are going right, we record on a Friday evening with Whiskey and
that's when we give our whiskey reviews. But because of our unusual schedules,
we're often having record in the morning, as this week, and so that's
a little too early for whiskey. But of course it's prime time for or
you breakfast sandwiches and John. You know, I'm working on an article for
the Journal of Spurious Correlations about the fact that you have left the conm us
again. You're in Hawaii this week. Tough life you have, and what
you told me in a text that there were no mcribs at the McDonald's that
you patronized in Hawaii, And sure enough, McDonald's stock is way off this
week in the middle of a huge stock market rally, and it's your fault,
that's all I'm going to say. Well, you and I are both
long term holders of the stock. So I'm running the shock because I went.
I actually walked by the McDonald's on Wikiki Beach. I couldn't stop I
keep going. I had to stop and go in and I tried to use
the app and it's it's a McRib out. But maybe it means that McRib
is sold out. Maybe not just not available, but sold out. Who
knows. Yeah, we think they'd have it there. You think it'd be
popular. I hate the people love pork products here. Yeah, I already
had sweet pineapple. You don't. You don't like them? Should be looking
for? Is spam with subie? This is? This is I've already had
three of them. I think this should be the next edition to the McDonald's
menu for its quest for world domination. It's sushi, but instead of raw
fish on top of the rice, they put a slice of spam. Oh
it's so man. And then there's also the other thing you only get here,
kimchi fried rice with spam. It's heavenly. I don't want to leave.
Yeah, all right, well, speaking of deep kimchi, John,
but you've got a whole bunch of nasty stories tea that for us today,
right, that we've neglected. But like kimchi, it is good for you.
Eat it you can stand the smell exactly like the stories we have today.
I mean, as he said Stephen Lucretia. A lot has happened in
the last week, so we've got a number of stories to talk about.
The first first one is the growing involvement of the Supreme Court in the January
six cases. Two things happened this week, momentous things, I mean really.
One is Jack Smith, the special counsel who's prosecuting Donald Trump for his
alleged involvement in the January six attack on the Capitol and, according to him,
his effort to stop the peaceful transfer of power. He called it that
in his papers today this week asked the Supreme Court in an emergency petition to
seize the case up out of the trial court where Judge Chuckkin has just denied
President Trump's quest for immunity, and so you must decide this. This is
just like the Watergate tapes case. The Supreme Court must seize this case,
skip over the normal procedures and levels of appeal, take the case and immediately
deny Donald Trump's quest for immunity so that we can get this trial going.
And then at the same time, the court just granted cerp just decided it's
going to hear the case involving several January sixth defendants about whether their conduct actually
violated federal law at all. The statute they've been prosecuted under is the same
one that Jack Smith is using against Donald Trump, and it claims that they
have obstructed Congress. This is not a crime. Yeah, there's not a
crime. That appeared until two thousand and one in the Dodd Frank Bill,
and everyone at the time thought that statute has to do with destroying documents,
preventing witnesses and so on from appearing in congressional hearings and investigations. So this
is really interesting. I went and looked at the facts. The person who
brought the case as a person named Fisher who's been prosecuted along with several others,
and he brought the case based what's called informal pauperis. He was so
poor, it was like he wrote it himself. It was it's like,
you know, look out of the movies like this guyon Trumpet. Yeah,
exactly, like Gideon versus Ring Ring. He did it himself basically, and
the court granted it. It's really interesting, but this raises the possibility that
the court could hear case this upcoming term that knocks out one of the three
charges being brought against Donald Trump. So either way, the Supreme Court has
now even though you know they're like Michael Corleoni and Godfather three, every time
he tries to get out, they pull it back in. And then what
I had a question for you lost little Supreme Court tidbit that we could get
to this later is there's a big story out in the New York Times this
morning about the inside scoop on Dobbs, and so we'll get to that.
Oh I missed this. There's a few tidbits in there that are worth talking
about. But Lucretia, what do you think about Jack? I have a
question for you. I don't remember who said it were I read it,
but it was basically that the Justice Department totally screwed up by appealing fishers.
Whatever happened in the courts below, that it's very likely that the Supreme Court
is going to say, no, this law was never intended to be used
the way it was used for these people. That had they not done that,
the Supreme Court might have very well stayed out of the question because it
does involve them getting involved yet again in Trump's politics. But in this case
they could make a ruling and claim that the ruling is across the board for
anybody currently convicted of the destruction of official proceedings or whatever the heck it is
obstruction, and that it was a really big mistake on the part of the
Justice Department to appeal that case. Does that make sense? Yeah, you
could say maybe the Justice Department overcharged because they could have just gone after people
for trespassing, for being where they're not supposed to being in an unauthorized place.
But if you try to use this law, which clearly was not written
with this in mind, they went too far. Well, but that's actually
not prodized as the prosecutions. That's not my question. My question is why
did the Justice Department itself appeal that case? Oh? No, so in
the Fisher cases, in the January sixth cases, the defendants appealed. It's
in January. The emergency appeal on the Trump case, yes, was brought
by the Justice Department, And that is really unusual. In fact, I
think the only other time it's really happened was the Watergate tapes case with Nixon.
Because the normal course would be Trump shit appeal right, Trump lost,
Trump wants immunity. Judge chunkin chuck in deny. He lost, and now
the case is going in the normal course up to the next appeals court,
which is called the DC Circuit. And so, yes, Lucreatius completely right.
The Justice Department might have brought this on itself by appealing early, which
is not what you're normally supposed to do. I mean, usually you should
just let now the you know what the smith says is. But if we
had to wait around for the appeals court and then Trump lost to say,
and then he has to appeal the Supreme Court, that could take way too
long. It could take into twenty twenty five. We all right, So
I was going to bring up in the in our cage match overtime one particular
point that will not involve reopening all the major points, but interfering with the
official business of Congress or whatever the exact term is. I think of the
people who interrupted the Kavanaugh hearings. Right, you have a person stand up
every three minutes in Yale, and then after move them the room and slowed
things down. You had mobs in the lobbies of the Senate office buildings and
ennising senators getting you know, and off their elevators and I don't think.
I never never heard, but I don't think any of those people were ever
charged, or if they were charged, that were released immediately and then the
charges dropped. And so here's one of the questions, is you know,
the end of the unequal application of the law to different political circumstances. Now
we can hash that out in more detailed next week, but it does seem
to me that the Court might be saying, gosh, you know, they
may take cognizance of this asymmetry of enforcement, and at least to the related
question, which is, I don't think the Supreme Court likes cases like this.
They don't like to get in these political fights. But on the other
hand, and I think you said this in one of your articles, or
the way i'd restated is Supreme Court usually likes the DC Circuit to organize a
case for them. You know, here the issues give some rulings present problems
that the Supreme Court then sorts out. They don't always do a good job
of that. I know that from certain cases of a statute that shall not
be mentioned here. Oh, we we'll not hear. I'm not ruining everybody's
Christmas holidays anyway. The real question I want to ask John is what do
you think the chances are that the Supreme Court will hear this case and then
say no, sorry, it has to go through the regular process instead of
actually jumping the line and settling it. I think that's the smart thing for
the court to do. So you could say, if you're the court,
maybe I'm right. I think Lucretian wouldn't agree with this. But if you're
the court, you don't want to get involved in politics. The last thing
you want again is since they got so much crap for Bush versus Gore,
to say, oh, they did something that changed the outcome of a presidential
election. Although they didn't end up doing that in Bush versus Gore, but
that was accusation. So the easiest thing would be to just have all these
prosecutions kind of kick over to after the election. And so Steve's right,
Lay, if you let this go up in the normal course, I don't
see how the trial could reasonably take place and get a verdict and time for
the elections, because the judge here, the trajudge, has scheduled the trial
to start like I think on March fourth, like right before the day before
Super Tuesday. That seems way too fast. And then if you throw in,
the Supreme Court has to hear this immunity case, has to hear this
other case that the appreciate it brought up to us about the Fisher, the
other January sixth defendants. That usually takes months, if not years to decide.
That would I think inevitably push the case back. Yeah, And if
the Supreme Court and if Trump loses the election or whatever, it is not
the nominee, he's not the next president, then it's all moved, right,
it doesn't it's no longer an important case. So I don't I don't
care what ideology of justice I am on the court. I don't want to
have to hear this case before I absolutely have to. So so I'm finish.
Leonard Levy on you, John, and ask you if you are familiar
with Yates versus United States, which was a twenty fifteen case that the Supreme
Court decided having to do with the Sarbins Oxley Act, wherein the Supreme Court
determined that the term tangible object that criminalizes the destruction or can any record,
document, or tangible object to obstruct a federal investigation, that it has to
be a tangible object. And that was a five to four decision, and
now that's perhaps a sixty three majority. So do you think this case is
an I don't even want to say it creates a precedent, but is an
indication of how the court might decide that case. Well, one way to
think of that case. And then there's this other great case about throwing fish
back into the water. Whether that violated God from that's the case record.
Oh, this is That's why I thought Steve would be all over this,
because anything involving the seas, the air, this is. This is a
case where it is a very funny case. This is a case where the
government prosecuted someone for going beyond their fishing quota. And what the guy was
doing seems catching the fish and then when he realized it was the wrong kind
of fish, he threw them back in the water. And so the government
went after the guy under this lass and he had destroyed evidence even though the
fish were back in the water. So, yes, Lucretia's right in the
court, and this is I think part of the broader thing that's going on.
I think the Supreme Court is as it should. I think if you
believe in liberty. As Leonard Livy did, is the court's been narrowing federal
criminal law. It's been trying to pull back prosecutors, and it's been generally
opposed to creative interpretations of the law to get particularly at what we would think
of his white collar crime. So remember Jack Smith tried this before. He
tried to prosecute the governor of Virginia for being bribed even though there was no
quid bro quo, and the Supreme Court right the issued a decision where Smith
lost unanimously. It's hard to do when you're the government, but he's So
here's a question for the creature though, is I'll give you the Liz chainyview
of things, right, and Liz Cheney just you know, publishes long open
in the protecting tyranny. So this is the uh So, suppose Steve is
wrong. If you have the view that Trump might win, then all kinds
of terrible things happen because what the I think the list chaineyview is. Okay,
the Supreme Court doesn't hear this case. Case keeps going, prosecution keeps
going, but it can't finish before November. Trump wins, and then as
president, he orders the just Department to drop a valid prosecution against him,
or the worst of all possible worlds from the Liz Cheney point of view,
right undermines the rule of law and so on, and instead orders the Justice
Department to go after his enemies. Right, He's threatened to go after his
enemies, to go after the bidens to you know, and a long list
of other people, Liz Cheney and the long list of other people. That's
the right. That's the wrong For me to answer that, John by saying
what's good for the goose is good for the game, Well, right,
I actually don't believe that, not entirely. Anyway, there's certainly a sense
that across this country people who are at least inclined towards Trump, maybe not
you know, super Maga or whatever, Ultra Mega, but they see this
very obviously as a political persecution of Trump. And I think that that it'll
be a tough call for a lot of people to say, yeah, Trump
should go after them the same way they went after him, because I do
think you know where I finally come down on it, where I finally come
down on it, is that the rule of law is more important than anything
else, even though the context in which a statement is made is that I
think Republicans are always always cease sorry, and always always letting the other side
get away with things and not fighting back because they want to be committed to
things like the rule of law. They want to be gentlemanly that I don't
have as much respect for. They want to appear to work together, they
want to be bipartisan, and of course you know they're all tied to the
uniparty. That's a different subject, but it really is a tough call,
you know, on the If I were Trump, I would talk a lot
less about going after my political enemies using say the Justice Department and the federal
law enforcement apparatus, and a lot more about cleaning house. That's that's if
I were Trump. That's what I would do, if you want to know
the truth. But I take a little satisfaction in the idea that he'd go
after Uh. You know, the Hunter said just recently and within the last
hour or so from when we're taping this that if Trump wins, he's leaving
the country. Well, I would do if I was a corrupt all you
like him. We always get these promises from Alec Baldwin and they leave I
know this one's different. This is not the same Steve. This is I'm
leaving the country because you know what, I've had the sweetheart deal of sweetheart
deals in this whole thing all along, because my dad's been controlling the Justice
Department. If Trump gets back in, yeah, that's the subtext, right.
Well, look, I mean yeah, So a couple of comments.
One is, remember the twenty sixteen campaign and especially the debates when I forget
what the question was presented, but Trump said to Hillary, well, you'd
be in jail if I was president now, right, And he threatened that
he was going to have her investigated and died it and of course with no,
he didn't do that at all. I've never heard any evidence that there
was even thirty seconds of discussion with Trump or the first Attorney General, Jeff
Sessions, about investigating Hillary and prosecuting her. So now when you have Liz
Cheney and Jen Rubin and all the others coming along with oh my god,
Trump's can do all these horrible things, it really is like the little little
kid crying wolf. And I think I mentioned this. Did I mentioned this
last week or maybe it was on another podcast Ricochet where I keep showing up
like a bad penny. You know. Trump, But someone said, are
you going to be dictator? Says no, just for one day. And
I think Trump does this stuff deliberately because he knows it drives his enemies out
of their minds and makes fools themselves. But I do think to come in
between Lucretia and I don't know, maybe where you are, John, is
the smart thing for Trump would be, actually you did just say this.
The smart thing would be for him to say, we need to clean house
of the Justice Department, and we need to stop political prosecutions. It may
be too tempting for him to keep baiting his critics to make jackets. By
the way, but I do have to correct your analogy or your simile or
whatever it is, the metaphor the little kid your metaphor the little kid crying
wolf. It's more like the wolf and sheef clothes, wolf in sheep's clothing,
crying wolf. You know, these are not innocent people. These are
despicable, corrupt people willing to use all of the mechanisms of government to try
to bring down Trump. Liz Cheney especially, and the fact that she's worried
about it, she should be and I hope she is. I don't think
she really is. I think she's just pandering, but she should be.
That's my thoughts. Well, lukreshe actually provided us with a nice segue to
the next topic, because she's already got the enemy's list together and Hunter Biden
is at the top. And Hunter Biden is proving that he's well worth it
because he showed up. The background is he's under subpoena to appear before the
House committee that's been conducting and producing a lot of information about the Biden family
and all this money that's been coming in to their accounts and going out who
knows where. They've been doing a far better job than the special counsel in
Wilmington, David Wise, who really dragged his vat. So Hunter Biden was
supposed to appear this week in Congress for deposition by lawyers committee lawyers behind closed
doors, which is the normal practice, and instead he gave them a giant
middle finger. He actually showed up on Capitol Hill in front of the Capitol
Building and had the sentence yeah saying he wasn't going to show up. It's
important that he went to the Senate side and not the House side, because
maybe they could have said the House Sergeant of Arms after him if he showed
up there. Interesting, because he went to the Senate. The House Sergeant
of Arms has no jurisdiction on the Senate side. Oh interesting, So you
don't read that on the mainstream media. So Hunter Biden showed up and said
that the whole thing was a witch hunt and that his father had no involvement.
And this is a little bit of news in the in the financial right.
Financial is a new word that was thrown in there, financial activities,
of which everybody pounced on immediately. What a stupid thing to say. Oh,
they only pounced on it, they seized on it. If you notice,
by the way, I have a new head sat Yeah, well I
have a new entry I want to offer for the Oxford English Dictionary, and
the word is sounds. Because the copy desk right now can't decide I Republicans
pounds or Republican sees. Those are the alternate headlines these days, So why
don't we just go as sounds and solve their problem for them? But Republicans
sounds on that? Yes, that's sorry, I couldn't help it. So
I I want to go first, Go ahead, I want to let Steve
talk, but I want to I have one quick correction, John, I
don't actually think Hunter Biden is at the top of the list. I think
it's Joe Biden. Hunter Biden is not interesting outside of his relationship to the
person who happens to be President of the United States. He's not interesting as
he's just a drug addict, narcissistic, manipulative, corrupt. But he never
would have gone anywhere if he'd have just he probably never would have even graduated
from college, never mind gone to law school and become a lawyer, et
cetera, if not for Daddy along the way. So he's when people want
to make it about Hunter Biden, that's that to me, is a total
distraction. Just like Weiss's new charges. Wis no the other guy? What's
the other wis right? I give him confused? Why is the professional?
His new charges against Hunter have nothing to do and won't elicit any information about
the corruption of Joe Biden. And so you know, that's why why there's
nothing, nothing in that whole list of indictments that will actually bring out what
it is. It's about how he didn't pay his taxes. It's not about
where the money came from, and how it is that a incompetent person like
Hunter Biden is worth all of these millions and millions of dollars in consulting phys
et cetera, et cetera. Nothing about that in the indictment. I think
he's worth zero. Because what's the best line of the week was someone who
said, it emerges from the indictment that he spent one point five million dollars
on hookers and drugs, and the rest of every man I know is yellois
of that, and the rest of me just wasted. You step on my
punchline. Someone else's look the other thing again, you know, said the
media won't report about that little fine point of being on the Senate side to
evade possible detention by the sergeant arms. You do hear the line repeated by
the media uncritically. Well, this is happening, is Democratic Party talking point.
This is happening because Hunter is the son of a president. That's the
only reason. Actually, it's the opposite. If he were any other person
but the son of the president, he would have been indicted in throne in
jail for tax evasion years ago. Just ask what's his name? The Hollywood
actor, the black guy from Passenger fifty seven, Wesley Snipes, right was
the Wesley Snipes did eighteen months in federal prison for not paying a million dollars
in income taxes. Now Congress doesn't have hearings on it because you don't see
special treatment being given. You don't have the hint as lucreatiure suggests that there
is involvement of the big guy with this ten percent Takeular question, John point
two is since when witnesses get to stipulate the conditions under which they'll appear before
a Congressional committee, and you know, the depositions, That is a time
honored method of investigating for Congress to investigate, certainly in Watergate, certainly in
Iran Contra and the January sixth committee, which I think was a kangaroo court.
But nonetheless they use depositions, and all the targets, including targets represented
by Abby Lowell, the same lawyer that Hunter Biden is using right now,
submitted to depositions for that committee. So the interesting question now is whether the
Justice Department will move to enforce a congressional subpoena or I they're going to slow
walk it. I bet Lucasia think that's not even a question at all.
But Joe, I've seen what's been happening in with Biden friendly media. I'm
really disappointed in the Justice Department going after my son. Right, so anonymous
sources say, you know, and so it's been being made very very clear
to Garland that if he were to do something like that, the Biden,
the entire Biden machine would come out and destroy him. So and that's worked
on that's worked on Garland before, so I think it'll work again. Well,
yeah, to be too will be decided. What else, John,
I mean that what else was just to finish up on that to you know,
Hunter can't help but get his dad in more trouble because I think it
leaked out that Hunter called his dad right before he did this whole thing and
talk to him about it. So what if what if that's aid? Go
ahead, don't worry, We're not going to prosecute you for that. That's
obstruction of justice, right he's actually Joe Biden. Yeah, he's just making
it worse for his head, who's in charge of supposing to prosecute people who
violate the law. Hunters violate the law by defying a congressional subpoena. He's
going to get voted on contempt at Congress. And then his pure point us
out to the Justice Department. Whether the ketom Throman jail? Remember when Bill
and what was her name that, Steve says, I can't make look at
some comments anymore. I know exactly exactly. But anyway, what was the
what was the woman's name the attorney general? No, no, no,
no, the one that Bill Clinton met with on the tarmac in Arizona,
Loretta Lynch, Loretta Lynch and and oh we just talked about our grandchildren.
Everybody allowed that to go through. Bill Clinton should have gone to jail for
that. I mean, seriously, guys, that's that was a serious breach.
And yet nothing happened. Nothing happened. And so same with with Hunter
calling up daddy and Daddy giving some advice, and I mean, such a
joke. Oh it makes me sick. Sorry. Okay, let's pause here
for a commercial from hopefully McDonald's and other sponsors. Okay, oh, we're
back. You know last week at the beginning of my feed actually had a
McDonald's ad John, which was there we go to McDonald's. I've had McDonald's
Chevron safe way, you know, all the all the great wheels of capitalists
of capitalist destruction. It means somebody has somebody's listening into our show, because
you know the reason the Chevron ad would come up is because we talked about
the Chevron doctrine, right and the AI box just run with it and give
us ads. Okay, No, it's because you guys still have to buy
gas and I don't. But you know what I get all the time.
You got a recall for your tesla. That's what you've got. No,
No, you know what. We don't want to waste time with that.
But that's a funny story. Leave that one. I Getanish ads all the
time because I'm so damn close to the border. Ah right, all that
I get Spanish all the time. You get the Spanish ads for ied clearing
equipment. Did you see that story this morning that they found oh they found
ten I D's on the border. Wow. Yeah, that's incredible, sou
But there's so many other things to talk about. But let's let's talk about
this next issue, because we've been spending great deal time on and I think
they've been making a lot of points that you know, other people are making
later about the whole anti Semitism, free speech and free speech issue on campus,
because, uh, you could say that the first major uh you know,
head to fall, head to role occurred after our podcast last Friday,
which was Liz McGill. Liz McGill, the president of Penn had was forced
to resign and resigned for her testimony four Congress. So let me start with
Steve on this one. Steve, is she the first of more heads to
roll? You might have seen that Harvard's Corporation, which is the governing body
of Harvard, said that it's stood behind Yeah, flagging gray. But is
there still more to come? And second, and this goes back to the
debate we're having earlier, did ten do the right thing? Should she be
removed for basically saying I'm not going to punish people who call for the Holocaust
unless it turns into conduct. That was basically what she said at her testomony.
Well, good grief, I mean, where do you start with all
this? Look, we're removing a college President's always the right thing to do.
It doesn't matter what the reason is. I mean, for people who
haven't seen it, that is the thrust of Steve's New York Post article on
Yeah, Well, I mean the presidents are well. First of all,
the hypocrisy of the institutions was exposed, right, I mean, in particular
case of Pan, we know they're trying to throw out Amy Wax why because
she criticized affirmative action and has said some other things that go against campus orthodoxy.
And uh, you know we had Amy on when you were overseas,
John, and she couldn't talk about she can't talk about her case because it's
involved in going to go to court probably, But I've been in contact with
her, and I can't tell you what she said. But let's just say
that they're not letting up. I'll just I think I can say that literally
not letting up, not even a little bit. Uh. And and her
characterization of things I have to leave out, but let's just say that he
told me and it was beautiful. Okay. Amy has said that when when
it's finally all over having assuming she's up for it, she'd be happy to
do a long form maybe even John, a series of podcasts with us to
go through the whole story. And I think it'd be well. I did
one of my usual origin story things because sorry for the digression, but you
realize that she's not just a law professor. She was an emergency room physician.
He's a doctor from Harvard Medical School. Okay, all right, so
the Claudine gate is Look, the problem that was there's going to be an
asterisk attached to her. And the reason the board of Trustees did not decide
to follow Penn's lead on this as they were afraid that they would be giving
in to Bill Ackman and the least Stephonic and the right wing, and that
would be too embarrassing for Harvard. More embarrassing than backing an obvious affirmative action
higher someone whose plagiarism looks pretty blatant, someone who has picked clearly for political
reasons. Here, if I could just do a brief digression, you know,
the other person at Harvard I mentioned that gay as the dean of Arts
and Sciences or whatever. She was persecuted several non leftist faculty or even conservative
faculty like Rowan Fryar, the economist who exposed a lot of the mistaken claims
of Black Lives Matter and so forth. She pounded out a biologist who actually
stood for the idea of traditional understandings of gender. And then she sanctioned,
I don't know what, she led the jihad on campus probably the right term
for it against the law professor who signed up to assists in what's his name,
you know, the Harvey Weinstein's legal case, right, And you know
that was nobody ever went after Drshowitz when he did appelle at work for convicted
murderers. All right. The other person who was mentioned as a possible president
for Harvard was Danielle Allen, who you know I know pretty well because her
dad was one of my teachers, and I've known Danielle since she was fourteen
years old. And now she's a liberal. She supported Obama, but she's
not a leftist. She's a classicist. She writes about the Greek and Latin
classics. She does real scholarships, she publishes serious books. She also,
if you read her carefully, is not down with the narrow catechism of diversity,
equity, and inclusion, because she always emphasizes that true diversity must include
diversity of viewpoints in ideology. That's not what the campuses want to hear.
And so she was passed over to be president in favor of Gay because Gay
was fully, you know, the gay I want to do some Nietzsche and
gay science thing here somehow. Last point I'll make on this is of many
that could be I see Larry Summers signed on with the former president's backing gay.
Now. I happen to know for a fact that privately, for many
years now, Summers has been telling people, friends and you know, people
that know him that the problem with the universities and the Democratic Party is the
leftist progressives are wrecking them. And of course they ran him out because you
know, he'd said something insensitive about maybe there's a difference and aptitude between men
and women on math and science, and for that he had to go.
And so this just revealed him to be a coward, because here was an
example where he is going along when he knows he knows the full truth about
Claudine Gay, and yet he goes along with the liberal establishment to back her
up at this moment when really some changes might be made if you stood up
for you know, the old Harvard. I guess I put it that way.
Just the two points to fall up before it turned to Lucretia. One
is, yeah, what about Larry Summers. He was pushed out for statements,
he didn't do anything about it. In fact, he probe tried to
do the opposite. He tried to make things better because of his belief.
And then you also, one thing I forgot to mention is that clutting Gate
also been accused of plagiarism. Yes, and yes, serious plagiarism by I
think lagiarism. Yeah, that's why she should replace Kamala Harris on the ticket
I think is the all plagiarists ticket would be perfect for Democrats. Sorry,
but she You know, the Harvard Corporation also said, well, there should
have been some more quotations and citations to the work, but they didn't say
it depends on the context. That's what I thought they would go with.
Well, but they actually they did their own investigation after it was brought to
their attention, and of course you know, they whitewashed it. Oh,
I can't say that, can I? That was on the Standford list of
banned words. Remember we had that contest that you weren't easily against me instance
easily most band words and you weren't even trying. It wasn't there were words
I said that I that I didn't even know we're on there thoughts on I
want to go back first first to penn because, and forgive me for this,
I honestly don't remember John, if you made this comment while we were
on the podcast last week or after we got off, but you said something
interesting. You said that University of Pennsylvania has always been open to Jewish students,
much more so, say, than Harvard and so on. And then
the reason I'm bringing that up not to revisit that point necessarily, but also
the biggest surprise of the week has been Lucreasia's new fondness, new fondness for
Fetterman. Yes, I mean, what is that? Right? The guy.
It's not just it's not so much that he just agreed with me on
what he's saying about Israel et cetera, et cetera, and sticking up for
his very significant number of Jewish constituents. It's that he's willing to do so
in the face of some pretty serious criticism and you know, the etcetera,
etcetera, showing a kind of courage to go against his own party, to
go against you know, et cetera, et cetera. I would have never
expected. I know, Steve's going to remind me of his joke, which
is that after you have a stroke, you get smarter. Well, no,
I was just going to add that. In the last twenty four hours,
I think it's last twenty four hours, he's come out very hard on
stronger border security. You're not allowed to say that as a Democrat, but
he did so. And you know, maybe his unique position allows him to
be a little bit more what would the word be, a little a little
more courageous perhaps to do the right thing. I don't know, but anyway,
I just I think the whole Pennsylvania situation is really interesting right now,
John, And you're our Pennsylvania guy, so well, you know the governor
of Pennsylvania is Jewish, Josh Shapiro. He called right away for Lis McGill
to be fired. So I actually think in Pennsylvania you have to be reasonable
because it is a swing state. You know, it has been said Pennsylvania
is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh separated by Alabama. It's a very conservative state. It's
outside of the two major cities. So and I think you are seeing the
impacts of immigration now hitting places like Philadelphia, New York, and it's causing
a lot of disruption and social circles. But I want to ask you U
Chretia, because you might have noticed that our friends at fire are on Lis
McGill's side. If you've seen our friends from fire, they've been saying no,
no, don't fire these people, because all they were doing was restating
what our free speech rights are. And if we allow for universities to punish
speech because it might be anti Semitic, we're going to allow universities to punish
other kinds of speech that you might happen to like, which of course they
do, which of course they do. The other day, Steve actually convinced
me of something. Oh it really is Christmas. Remember I think it was
last week when he or maybe it was a week before, actually a very
compelling discussion about this whole concept of colonization and occupation and so on, and
that part of the reason for the fact that all of these idiot college students
who couldn't find their own state on the map, much less Palestine or Israel,
are now you know, thinking that when they're told Israel as an occupier,
Israel as a colonizer, whatever it might be, you know that that
sort of thing is reinforced by these ridiculously stupid virtue signaling Land acknowledgments right,
Land ignog We discussed it. So I don't want to go back back in
to that whole thing. But you know, every single meeting that now,
even if somebody had a meeting in my college the other day, I'm getting
this person fired and they started off with the damn Land acknowledgment. It makes
me so angry. But what can I say about that? Could I stand
up in the middle of a meeting and say I find this offensive and you're
throwing your virtue signaling at me. Of course I couldn't. I'd lose my
job tomorrow tomorrow if I tried to do something like that. So this idea
that you know, someone who's spouting incredibly ugly anti Semitic, anti Zionist,
anti genocide on Jews, all those sorts of things from the river to the
sea, deserves somehow more protection than someone like me who doesn't believe that I
stole any land from anybody. I bought the land I own. Thank you
that we could go into that whole thing, but we won't. Fire needs
to have a few more subtleties to their argument, and you know they haven't
done even a close to decent job of helping conservatives have freedom of speech on
campus, because they still don't. They pretend to. But why why do
they just want to look like they've got a balance here. Well, yeah,
so look that I mean before October seven, if you go back to
I don't know, maybe with September August. Sometime in the last few months,
Fire gave a yellow light on free speech to Hillsdale College. Now why
they do that. It wasn't because they had a speech code. By the
way, you talk to people Hillsdale, And by the way, Larry arn
tells me I've talked about this, that he gets a number of liberal professors
who apply for jobs at Hillsdale and they'll call him up and they say,
we're just sick of the conformity on campus. We'd actually like to go to
campus where you can really say what you think and you won't find any student.
Well, you maybe find one or two who are disgruntled for whatever reason.
But people Hillsdale can talk about anything they want. What Hillsdale has as
a code of civility, and that's what Fire Flagg. They say, oh,
that could be a constraint on free speech. That is a purely formal
thing, and I think they wanted to give a yellow light to Hillsdale to
protect their left flank. That's what that's about. This is what's bottomne about
fire for quite a long time, and I think the root of the problem
is manifold. One of the exchanges with Claudi and Gay before the House Committee
that got passed over a few accounts of this, but I think was equally
significant is when someone said, what's the proportion of a conservative Republicans on your
faculty? Said, oh, I have no idea. We don't keep data
on that. Well, the Harvard Crimson has surveyed this many times. They've
looked up all the faculty and their party registration and it's you know, three
percent Republican. So for her to say, oh, I have no idea
what it might be, and I think maybe the person who asked the question
mentioned the Crimson survey and she just you know, rambled. The point is
is that the root of the problem in our campuses is not speech codes.
It is the ideological monoculture of our campuses. And until that changes, this
problem is not going to go away. You didn't see maybe the law professor
at Penn probably one of the ring leaders against Amy Wax saying in the New
York Times or maybe it was the Washington Post, what we need to do
is have stricter speech codes to prevent hate speech across the board. Fire has
half a point on this that's correct, which I think is worth taking to
heart. But on the other hand, you either have to embrace which has
failed so far. My argument I've made a couple times and hasn't persuaded you,
John or anybody else from the sound of things, that there's a substance
of restriction on speech you could apply depending on whether it aims to deny the
natural rights of free speech for others. That arguments not winning. I acknowledge
all that, or you have to have the real diversity of ideologies and opinions
and methodology on your campus, and then it's a fair fight and you can
have unlimited free speech and all these colonizers will lose an honest and open debate.
Steve, I think you're losing on the substance of that argument. You're
losing on the application of it. And that's John's point every single time.
I think John could even probably acknowledge that speech that destroys the possibility of freedom
of speech and the rest of our rights that are protected in a republican society
doesn't deserve the same level of constitutional protection as other kinds of speech. But
the problem always becomes who determines that, how is it determined, and what
is done about it? And that's where it gets tricky, and that's where
fire has half a point. But then what you said, I agree with
the second part of what you said. Until we have true diversity of opinion
lay off of people who are saying, hey, don't allow students to get
so caught up in their free speech right that they're marching in and forcing Jewish
students to have to hide in addicts. Yeah, you know that at some
point we have to be able to make moral clarity here. I mean,
the latest at Harvard is they told, I know, is heil how for
who, that they should take down their outdoor menora every night because otherwise it
will be vandalized. I guess Harvard police aren't able to provide protection or won't
or something, but the fact that they had to consider that is astounding.
So John, what about Iowa. I'm assuming you've been display all right?
Oh yeah, Iowa, you can ask actually me, you know, with
your with your bright red sweater on the Christian you kind of look like the
statue they put up. Shut up, tell us with my crucifix on.
Well, why don't you please tell listeners what you're talking about. I will
I'm going to hold I just wanted to say, I'm from Iowa. And
Steve can tell you that when he first knew me, I was a somewhat
I was a little bit of a moral prude. Maybe you might say,
I mean I came from a conservative background. Had this is tantalizing to the
listeners, what is she? Well, anyway, I came from Iowa.
I grew up in a Pentecostal church. I mean so so the Iowa to
me is a much more repressive kind of place, you might say, than
some that that that would ever have something like what happened in the Iowa State
Capitol. They removed the statue of Thomas Jefferson. I don't know if they
were placed in the same spot. They removed the statue of Thomas Jefferson because
of course he was a slave owner. And what is now in the capital
in Iowa, the state capitol in Iowa is an altar and a graven image
of Satan, Satanic Satanic temple worship icon or some darn thing. Right,
So there were some people who were sort of trying to pin this on Kim
Reynolds, who Steve likes a great deal. I'm not really following all that
stuff. But the answer is sure, it wasn't a statue of Ron DeSantis.
It was actually it's chilling. But anyway, the answer was that you
know this, it was the legislature who did this, and it's because they
have they have a value neutral, a set of rules about which access laws.
Right, yeah, yeah, and so now we have a Satan.
Well, I can't I can describe what the First Amendment law is, but
I'm curious to hear what you both think about whether it's wrong, whether it
should be changed. But the idea of it is it goes back actually to
these cases about whether a government can allow any religious displays at all on public
land. And so actually a lot of these cases came up in the late
seventies, early eighties and early nineties. They were about Christmas displays, and
so a lot of jurisdictions would allow, you know, some kind of Christmas
nativity scene and then maybe something for Honika and then all these other groups sued,
particularly the ACLU, and said you got to ban it. And so
what the court said is, no, we're not going to require a ban,
but you have to instead allow, as you guys were kind of saying,
open access, other groups should be allowed to speak in that space,
and so you could have Christmas Nativity, you could have Menora, but you
also have to allow other religious groups to put up there so that the government
doesn't take a side as to any individual religion. So actually conservatives thought this
was a victory because it was better than a complete ban. Instead, you
allow some religious display. The government can support religion in this minor way as
long as it doesn't pick an individual religion itself to support. This is actually
the creation of renquest and it continues to be the court. Conservatives on the
Court like this view. Think I think Lucretian and I are two conservatives who
don't think this was a victory. And I mean, by the way,
I'll bet we're going to get a long comment chastising us from Phil Munoz,
who's a frequent listener of the show because he's the expert on this. I
think a lot of those cases were incoherent. I mean, one reading of
a couple of them is, well, you can have a Christmas creche as
long as you're not too serious about its Christianity. But now there's a sequel
in this Iowa case that Lucretia mentions, which is somebody went in and smashed
the darn thing up, and they're calling it vandalism. And my question is,
how do we know it's vandalism. Is it vandalism consonant with Satanic religion?
It might be just part of their ritual. Who can say it's my
truth? My truth is that that was a sequel and a part of the
pagan Satan worshiping thing, and so it's perfectly fine. So Steve, I
want to ask if it was you that smashed it so that you can have
the lived experience. Well, I do you know. I know when I
was listening to phil Well last year when he came and visited us John,
I realized how much I've lost track of a lot of this line of religious
liberty cases. I used to know a lot about it back in the eighties
when I was hanging around with Leonard Levy, who was really quite bad on
these issues. He was very much was oh he was very much a strict
separation of church and state. Oh yeah, he's uh. I mean it
was very good at it, and he liked to argue about it. I
mean, that's the nice thing about it is he would admit there was another
side to it. But I do remember Pat moynihan pointing out that this may
be the cases from the seventies or even the sixties. So you had one
case that said, no, a public school district cannot loan books to a
Catholic parochial school. That violates the First Amendment. But then a separate case
that had to do with bussing. Yeah, it was. It was it
was bussing, and it was, you know, can a public school district
provide maps to a parochial school that's running you know, transit for their kids,
you know, the private school bussing? And the court said, yeah,
that's okay, And I think they probably had a public safety rationale.
Whereupon Pat moynihan asked the saline question, and what about an atlas? What
would the court think of an atlets? And public school district give an atlas?
It shows the incoherence and the improvisation of this whole line of cases,
and you know I didn't ask you, guys, what would you do about
the holidays displays? Would you allow only Christmas and Christian and Jewish religious symbols
but no other religions or would you just say no religions at all? And
this is the problem. It's kind of like my question about implementation of speech
codes, is we get into actually applying it, how do you decide it
consistent with whatever your principles are? And I think that the problem is is
that maybe that's the wrong question, John that after years of bad Supreme Court
decisions, trying to okay, give them, give them some credit, trying
to find a way to articulate how the First Amendment really the free exercise of
religion in the anti establishment clause, how you actually make that reality in in
a pluralistic society. It's a difficult problem. I'm going to acknowledge that upfront.
However, it's impossible to imagine one hundred years ago. It's possible for
me to imagine today, but one hundred years ago that's Iowa. The state
capitol in Iowa would would even bulk at the idea that they could have a
crash a major scene, a Nativity scene and ban an altered to Satan because
some of those things have to be part of the culture, they have to
be part of the Republican virtue that is that in many ways was destroyed by
some of those court decisions. In my opinion that you know, there's a
lot of reasons for why we're not as a as a people in this country
practicing private religion in the same at the same level to the same measure that
we did one hundred fifty years ago. But the Supreme Court is part of
that. Now, you can't go back and sort of fix it by having
this value neutral, moral neutral approach to religion, any religion. I want
to make up and then use all of the protections that the Supreme Court has
given in the course of these many bad decisions to get Let me switch a
little bit. Remember during the Vietnam War, conscientious subjector status at one time
was granted to basically to Quakers. That was the only group of people who
could who could rely on conscientious subjective status to get out of a draft.
And then you know, usually they were often part of other sorts of activities
by the time that the Court got done with it during the Vietnam War,
I'm just not going to remember the cases off the top of my head.
You had will as long as you have a sort of commitment to some notion
of goodness or a set of principles by which you operate your life, then
you can tell you can claim conscientious objective status. I mean, there's just
bad, bad decisions by the court that led us into this confusion, I
think, and the idea one further point, and I'll be quiet that somehow
I have a right to be offended if I'm driving past a federal cemetery and
there are crosses in the federal cemetery. There's no guarantee in the Constitution against
your right to be offended. I'm offended by land acknowledgements. I'm offended by
altars to satan. I don't think that's what the Constitution is trying to protect
me from. And so that's gotten us off on all sorts of stupid things
because the Court was too dumb. I do think recent decisions have pushed that
back a little bit. Yeah, So the one area that's gone beyond I
think in a positive ways. And this open access idea has one upside,
one downside. The one upside it's meant that religious groups have been winning a
lot of cases lately where they've been able to say, why is the government
singling us out for not being able to participate? So this was the great
victory with school vouchers. If you were if you were the ACLU, I
think the thing that would freak you out the most is that school vouchers can
be used at Catholic schools. Right that they fought that up and down.
That's but the court said, taking from taking the principle from these minor cases
about religious displays, they eventually turned it to a big principle, which is
that religious groups have a right to their speech, the right to their views.
And if the government says everybody else can have a student voucher for their
schools except religiou schools, it's almost like you're singling out religious people because of
what they think for disfavored treatment versus Bremerton. What do you think of that
case? Well, that's an example. They're saying, well, if he
had gone this. This is the case of the football church who gave a
you know, gave us had a group prayer at the end of football games
on school property, which is public school. And I think the school the
go court basically said, look, if he had gone out there and given
the Gettysburg address, right guess it, gets made a speech that would have
been fine. So why can't he lead a prayer group at the end,
two voluntaries voluntary, because then you would be singling him out because he's of
his religious speech, his religious But here's the downside, which I don't think
the court's worried about, but I have seen in some scholars, like the
aforementioned philm Onnos, is when religious groups take this approach, they're turning themselves
just into like the ACLU or a union or an interest group. They're just
saying, we're the same as anyone else that has a view. We're claiming
free speech rights. They're almost denying or reducing the importance that they're a religious
group. And that's a different clause of the constitution, right, that's a
free exercise clause. So that they've won this free access idea has been successful
because it's really a free speech idea. It doesn't really have to do with
religion at all. That's not a downside to this approach. Yeah, I
can, by the way, is should being offended by being people being offended
reminds me of the Great Money Python line where the I forget John Clees is
I am sick and tired and fed up of people who are sick and tired
and fed up. There we go. You know, the practical side of
me says, look, we live in an age lots of spurious religion.
Crystal worshipers, right, you know, nature worshipers, tree huggers, all
the rest of that. This might not fly, and I could see it
being a roted very quickly. But what if you said, look to be
to have an actual display in a state capital on neut religious grounds that don't
discriminate, You've got to be an actual religion that pays tax or that has
a tax exemption, that actually has paid clergy, that actually has churches,
or a certain that Satianism doesn't. No, I'm not That's why I say,
I'm not sure this is ah well right in the Sierra Club. No,
I'm not. I'm not sure that works. This is a very tentative
suggestion on my part. And again you could see people going out. I
mean there had been over the years people who have tried to you know,
there are certain tax deductions that members of the clergy get in our tax code
in the possible also scientology. There you go. Scientology won the right to
get a tax exemption, right, and I could see people going out and
people have been trying to abuse those for years. I'm a minister of a
church that has only my wife as the parishioner. But no, no,
no, we all know your wife. She would definitely not join the church
at church. Okay, But but I think the I R. S Has
said I found ways of denying those kinds of clothes. We just a factual
point that there was and why couldn't stay capital do the same thing. That's
why there was a case a few years ago of a terrible case on the
facts where this basically small, made up religion of this one guy, and
I think, like twelve followers or shouting we're going to military funerals. Oh,
it's the Westboro Baptist Church people right of course, holding protests because they
said the soldiers were dying because of the immorality of America and that we'd allow
gay marriage. So it's a very conservative guy in a way. But you
know, he's doing a terrible thing trying to disrupt military funerals, and the
court upheld his right. And the funny thing is not as a religion right,
as a free speech right right. But but John, the funny thing
about that was all of the major establishment churches joined on the side of the
Westboro Church in that way because they recognized what it might mean if the court
had not. I mean, I still think the decision was probably wrong,
decided on some some on the wrong basis, not necessarily coming out on the
wrong side. But but if I'm if I'm the Catholic Church and I see
that the court is telling me I can't protest, the next thing, you
know, I can't protest my my parishoners can't protest outside of abortion clinics,
which I know is a whole nother, a whole other thing. But it's
always interesting to see who the amigas briefs are filed by in a court decision
like that, And it really was all the establishment churches on the side of
Westborough. And this is where this is where I missed the well, just
the one quick comment that I'm hoping I can even shock Lucretia by coming into
her right, which is really hard to do. This is where I missed.
The America of informal law once upon time, the Westborough Baptist Church protest
would have been solved not by an appeal to the Supreme Court, which deranges
things, but by calling up your local chapter of the Hell's Angels and saying,
which is what happen? What's that it did happen. That's the reason
you don't hear about it anymore, even though they won the court case is
you started having veterans groups, and many of them, you know, biker
type veterans groups, right, and putting them Yeah it no, I agree
with that one hundred percent. I was taking a slightly more extreme version of
the Hell's Angels got well, yes, that's right. That that actually that's
still work. I know people I had students who went to and put themselves
in between the Westboro and the Westborough Church people. They were really good for
a long time at at using that they would if people tried to stop them,
if law enforcement tried to stop them, they would sue and they would
use the money that they that they want in these lawsuits to continue to fund
their activities. And so it needed private people to go in and just you
know, just put the barrier up or worse. You know, I absolutely
agree with That is kind of the point I was trying to make even earlier
about the Satanic altar. I don't really have a problem with somebody going in
and smashing it. I have a problem with with a whole bunch of people
just getting out and protesting in front of it and exercising their First Amendment rights
and saying, this is what happens as a result of the worship of Satan
and whatever. That might be. So well, if you perform an exorcism
of the Iowa State capital, it might have collateral benefits for taxpayers. Who
knows. So let me let me wrap this up, because I think there's
a very interesting religion issue I love to talk about in a future podcast,
which is, does the Constitution allow the government to promote religion in the way
neo conservatives would like I'm haunting, I'm raising the right flag for lucretia,
or does religion in and of itself have some special constitutional status because neo cons
for example, you mentioned moynihan just a few minutes ago. Stee neo cons
many of them were atheists, but they love the idea of protecting religion because
it did good things for the republic. You know, we have Republican virtues,
good for society, stability, good values, families, and so on.
Or does religion have something that's not instrumental to it? Right, that's
just thinking religion is an instrumental tool for the republic, or is it actually
does religion have some actual special right just because it's Oh, I think we
got talked, we got reserved that I just came to me because of discussion.
Now, but one, well, Lucretia, John has no idea how
many cans of worms he just opened up? Yes I do. I did.
That's why I'm saying. I got talking about it next time, Okay,
And I know I went. Look, you can't see if I actually
do have a little red flag I got to wave in front of Lucretia in
our next debate. It's really small. People can't see it. But I'm
gonna I'm going to try to get this emblazoned with some quyond. I want
to leave it for next time, But I want to leave you with a
quote from your not favorite American political theorist Thomas Jefferson, where he says,
can the liberties of a people be thought secure if we remove their only firm
basis a conviction in the minds of the people that they are of the gift
of God and that they are not to be violated by his wrath. But
he's mister Church and State. I mean, the wall something that's wrong.
But the author of a lot and he was he was not a well,
he was a I believe you could call him a religious man, a deist.
You know, he wrote his own Bible, caught up the Bible,
and took out all the mystical stuff. One of the things that the heart
of that quote, we'll talk about it next time, really is that when
self interest gets in the way of recognizing of human beings, recognizing the rights
of other human beings, and then when that finds its way into political society,
it really takes something more than just a commitment, a moral commitment to
some vague notion of virtue. You need to understand that God will And in
this case, of course, he was talking about slavery. There's no argument
against the self interest of slave owners other than the argument that says, someday
God's going to punish us for this, which Jefferson was very clear on and
so was Lincoln. By the way, I'm just gonna say mister Jefferson teared
down this wall. That's so, that's a great way to end our end
our episode. Although we've got several plan now we've got to hold based on
So I guess at the industry, do we want to have Lucretia's Babylon B
headlines first favorite Babylon B headlines of the work? Yeah? Just a few,
but there's some good ones, of course, as there always is.
Claudine Gay responds to plagiarism accusations by giving an inspiring I have a dream speech
at a bunch of those, right, Yeah, I know that a bunch
It's too easy, really. Harvard announces Claudine Gay will remain as university feurer.
H Republicans and Democrats finally brought together by another chance to spend your money.
Yeah, you know how much I like that. There's a whole bunch
of them that I won't read about how how die Hard is a Christmas movie
husband upset when wife won't accept John what's his name inflatable as a Christmas decoration.
But I do want you guys to know that an early Christmas gift from
my son was my own, my very own advent calendar of what's his name?
Fall? Yes? Really from uh from die Hard. Really it's a
Christmas decoration. Wow, and it's magnetic, so you push him down.
So I so I've got, unfortunately another string in serious cammalisms unfortunately, but
I think I have an odd b are kammalism to keep up the normal tradition.
So the serious kammalism is that, apparently, according to stories, Kamala
Harris is now merged within the administration as the one who wants to be most
restrictive on Israel's war and Gaza and calling for an early end to the fighting.
And so the quote I have is that apparently she's been saying inside the
administration that the United States should be quote unquote tougher on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Yahoo and that she's calling for a quote more forceful at seeking a long term
piece and two state solution unquote. So that's the serious that's the serious quote,
John, do you have their you're going to do the Hanukah messaged or
I just you know the Jill Biden's boyfriend, the second spouse or whatever is
Joe Biden's boyfriend. Remember the kiss at the station, right right? Yeah,
the second, the second gentleman. There's no first gentleman anyway. He
he popped, he tweeted or put Facebook, I forget social some social media
posting where he celebrated Hankah. He's Jewish by totally screwing up the story about
what really happened at Hankkah and the way he described it. I'm trying to
do this quickly is that you know, the the Jewish people were hiding,
and they were hunkering down, and they were hiding in hiding, and and
the oil lasted for eight days and that was the miracle, when in fact,
what Honkah was about was a great uh is Uh victory by the Israelites
and storing their access to the capital that excuse me, the temple in Jerusalem,
and being able actually to have their religious rituals inside the capital in Jerusalem.
But they only had enough oil to last one day, and the oil
the miracle is that they were able to carry on these rituals for eight days
with the oil that should have lasted only one day. The reason that significant,
of course, is that it's I mean, I don't know if he's
smart enough. Is he smart enough Steve to have sort of oh, let's
let's sort of rework this, this narrative, this story into something that says
that the Jews really should be back to hunkering down as oppose two having an
outstanding military victory. Yeah. I mean that was a lot of people said,
Gushad, he missed Hebrew school that day when they taught that story.
But yeah, well that's just it. I mean, you know, our
friend Richard Samuelson maybe the first to point out, but I heard the John
pot Hard and the commentary guy said, progressive Orthodoxy will not allow telling the
Honka story straight because it ratifies Jewish presence and sovereignty over the land two thousand
more than two thousand years ago, and the right of arm resistance of Jews.
And they're hoistic, but this is what the left is against right now,
so it goes and so they couldn't say that. But but because they're
they're panicking about, you know, defection of Jewish voters and Jewish money,
the Democratic Party thought, gosh, we better put out a hanok a message
to show that we're we still love them, right. Instead, they took
all that it was on Instagram and Facebook and they took all of them down
because they became a low Yes they did, right, I mean it was
so absurd that I think they got somebody must have called them up and probably
a lucky thing. Those two never had children together. I'm just gonna leave
it at them. Yeah, okay, right, all right, send this
out, John, I think that I think will bring this to a timely
conclusion. So always drink your whiskey. Meat. Let's go, Brandon and
Steve. God save the queen man. See y'all next week. A humbuck
last restaurant because it is my favorite holiday. But all this year has been
a busy. But I don't think I have the energy. Rad Am already
mad Ross cousins test the season. The perfect gift for me would be completions
and connections left from last year ta shopping counter most interesting as number, but
never the time most of anyone has along those lines of deck, those halls,
through those trees, raise off comes on Christmas. Here. I just
need to catch my brother Christmas by myself. This year held the picture of
frozen landscape, chilled this room for twenty four days. Ever green sparkling stone.
Get this ter over with flash back to the spring time. So again
would have been good to go for lunch green. We were both green.
We tried, he said, me keeping time. Ricochet join the conversation.