Well, whiskey, coming game, my pain, money, my brain,
Oh whiskey, don't you let Me? 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 power Lines International Woman of Mystery Lucretia has gotta
giving let that whiskey bloat where you're being in loud down and low. Well,
Hi everybody, and welcome to it. Really is a night at the
improv episode of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, because we weren't even sure we
were going to try it. This week. John is in South Korea.
I've been away behind enemy lines in Irin County trying to not drink the kool
aid. Lucretia has been busy as heck, except we've been getting a lot
of Twitter notes another notes from people saying God, I hope you guys will
tell us what to think about these Supreme Court cases and a couple of other
issues. So here we are. I've got not Scott's but a martini in
hand. John has a thirty year old whiskey somebody in Korea gave him.
Lucretia has a cat. Lucretia has a cat. Guess. Anyway, John,
I have found a new way to annoy you because at this really terrific
conference of believe it or not smart progressives, I had a fascinating conversation about
the nitrogen cycle, which is gonna be you realize that half the listeners just
turned the podcast off. Nitrogen cycle. Well, now, I mean,
without saying too much, it's a long story, but I was. I
actually go meet every year for the last more than ten years with these very
smart progressives who are dissonanced from the party line. That's why I like them.
And a couple of them came up to me and sort of quietly said,
you know, I listened to the three whiskey Happy Hour. I don't
want to know that, but I love you guys. Hope. That's unusual
because because I mean, look, I did give a talk this morning where
I did a land acknowledgment to upset them, and you know, I pointed
out that ninety percent of the audience I'm to the right of ninety to ninety
five percent of the audience who was there, which I'm sure is right.
And anyway, it was fun. So I poked him a bit and wait,
so what was your land acknowledgment, I'm grateful for the land that I've
taken from the Indians. I was attempting to do that. Now it's something
else. It takes too long to explain, but the joke landed. Did
I did use the long story. It's the last one of these annual meetings,
and I said, you know, and I was the last speaker after
three days. And I said, you know, I told these guys was
a bad idea to have me on last, because I'm going to go full
Ricky Gervaise at the last Golden Globe Awards and I'm going to say, right,
I know, well, that was the greatest eight minutes in television ever.
I think if you've never sew I've never seen. I got to watch
that. Oh oh my god, it's fantastic. He just totally flayed Hollywood
pretensions. And so I don't care. It's the last time. And so
that's why I said, this is the last meeting. I'm the last speaker.
Are you guys? Are you guys have any idea how reckless you were
letting me go last? And I said, but I can reverse one thing.
Ricky Gervay said, some listeners will know this. John it is famous
on YouTube. And I said, I'll reverse what one thing Ricky Gervay said,
which is, all of you in this room have more education than Greta
Thunberg, which is true. It's a lot of really smart graduate from high
school. Right. Well, no, that was Ricky Gervasis. No,
all of you shut up. You have less schooling than Gota Thunberg. If
you get your ward, come up, get your ward, thank your agent,
and then f off. It was brilliant. This is anyway. He
made great jokes about all that. It was okay, But but back to
the point. Unless you want to brag about your whiskey for a minute,
John, Well, no, I have the story related to your nitrogen cycle,
I guess. But yeah, I'm here in Korea. I'm actually about
to head back home. But I was headlining a meeting of the Berkeley Alumni
Society here in Seoul, which is for some reason, maybe the strongest alumni
club that Berkeley has abroad. And it was a great time. And you
know, I haven't really been able to visit because of the COVID lockdowns,
so it was great to see everybody and see generations and generations of students.
But the other interesting line. I'd like to mention about what you said.
Was I taught a class on strategy. I teach a summer class at Berkeley.
So I taught a class on strategy, and one of the sessions was
on political movements, you know, strategy like political strategy, legal strategy,
and so I talked about the civil rights movement perhaps is being the most successful
underdog strategy. These it's about thirty five summer students. They all wanted to
talk about why, in their minds, the campaign for climate change has not
worked. Oh, they think this is a great failure. And they were
going on and on about what a great leader Greta Thumberg was and how in
Europe this has had enormous success but has been total failure in the United States.
And I said, I can't believe you guys have had the success you
have because you don't deserve it. It's a totally terrible public policy that's bankrupting,
going to bankrupt the country. But from their perspective, the whole thing
has been a failure. Yeah. So, by the way, that's not
even true about Europe. I mean all these I keep calling the smart progressions
and actually mean that, And they all have complete contempt for Greta Thunberg.
They realized what a farce that is, and they're all realist about the policy.
I mean, that's why I liked them as and so actually you should
have zoomed me in or zoomed my talk, because I talked about well,
I had a lot of fun. I compared the climate change movement in some
respect to the temperance movement. I said, look, the temperance movement succeeded,
but then they passed the twentieth Amendment and we all realized there was a
dreadfulness and we got rid of it as fast as we could. And my
punchline was, you know, Will Rogers in the nineteen twenty said I love
this from Will Rob. Bill Rogers was the Bill Maher of his time.
You know, he was the someone who sympathized with progressivism but was a critic
of it, and he what it was. His great lines was, well,
at least prohibition is better than no liquor at all. And my update
was, well, at least nets we're gonna say, twenty thirty years from
now, we're going to say, well, at least net zero was better
than no fossil fuels at all and I actually got a little bit a chuckle
out of the audience about that nearly, I'm sure. Well though they laughed
big at a couple of my other jokes, but like my land acknowledgement to
couple anyway. And so yeah, it's uh too bad. I wasn't there,
John, and send me next time you stay home. And I don't
know, but okay, oh, I guess say, South Korea great food,
and you know they're I mean, they're constantly amazed at how Korean culture
has become so popular, you know, right, a Korean language movie won
the Academy Award. That's a mind blowing in this tiny little country of forty
million people. And the other thing about Korea that's interesting is always changing so
fast. I mean twenty five million people, which is you know, more
than half the country's population live in the capitol, and it's constantly changing quickly.
But unlike other cities of this size, like Mexico City or South Paolo,
the city is run extremely efficiently, right, even though it's in a
democracy, and so it's really it's a really interesting thing to come see.
I mean San Francisco, which has not even a million people, is dysfunctional.
Right, What wasn't that k pop video? What was it a few
years ago? Gangnam Style? That was like the number one video on YouTube
for a long time. Maybe, Oh yeah, Oh you're so out of
it, Steve. There are all these Korean boy bands and girl bands,
which are you know, they're just as big as Taylor Swift in the world.
My assistance. My assistant is Mexican and she her cousin, learned Korean
because she became a huge fan of that what's it called again music in South
Korea? Hey pop? K pop the letter K and Korean pop? Yeah
for Korean. She speaks fluent Korean. Now, well you oh my god,
she's doing better than me. I was gonna say, how many you
should start listening to it? How many words of Korean do you know?
John? I think like two. I have like the vocabulary of a three
year old and that's an and that's in English. I say, look,
the vocabulary of a three year old Korean might be pretty good. I'm just
just saying. Did I don't think I inflicted this bad joke on you guys?
As you know, the news story a week or two ago was North
Korea was sending balloons full of excrement more South and then South Korea responded by
blaring K pop music. Thought, oh great, this is kpe pop against
Katee poop. You know it's your fault, John, because you sometimes stupid
jokes. I never I know it. We we released the Kraken well,
and of course you know both their violations of a certain statute. I will
not mention here, and we'll use that to move on to our main subject,
which is the Supreme Court is in its final innings and we're still waiting
for some of the really big cases. But a couple came out this week,
and I was going to pile them up and discuss them next week or
the week after. But we have a lot of listeners and readers at power
Line write in yesterday and today I said, oh, well, you guys,
you know what to think about this tax case? What did to think
about the two gun cases that come out came out this week? And so
I don't know who wants to go first. I know Lucretia thinks that all
confusion about the tax case did it actually erect the fireworks? Me? Why
don't know? Why didn't I start about the text? Yeah, explain it
please, because that was actually the request. John was free ye talking about
it, not me. Yeah, I know, I'm happy to explain it.
But it's actually, I think, really important case just in terms of
policy, but also in terms of how you interpret the Constitution. It's a
very interesting test case. And I filed, just in full disclosure, I
filed an amigas brief for this group called Freedom Works, which is a fairly
libertarian group down in Georgia, with Richard Epstein, my law Talk Hawk cast
co hosts. So, in the tradition, somedays Steve and Lucretian I are
destined to file an amigas brief in a Supreme Court case, probably a case
defending Linda and I probably went ticket case defending someone within with multiple AR fifteens
shooting up a copy of the Clean Air Act. You said it, Oh,
so this is this case. The text case is really interesting. It
was called More versus the United States. And so the sixteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, which is a one of the great Progressive era changes to the Constitution,
authorized an income tax. So the question is what is income The amazing
thing is that the Supreme Court really has never told us. So one thing
we all know is income is when you get a salary, and maybe when
you get rent from land, right, but doesn't include and now and most
people agree although the true the Biden administration fully agrees with it that property is
not income. Right, that the states can tax your property, and they
do almost all of them, but the federal government can't tax your property.
So, and this is really prompted by Elizabeth Warren and all these people,
you know, like Piquetti writing this book on Capitol, who are all claiming
there's a huge imbalance of wealth in the country. What about changes in the
value of your assets stock primary if your stock in Nvidia, which has gone
up I think like five hundred percent in the last year or two, Yeah,
goes up. Can the federal government claim the increase in your assets the
value of your assets that is income? Is that income or do you have
to then this is the legal phrase, do you have to realize the change
in value in otherwise do you have to sell it the stock? And then
once you get the value of the increase, that's income. Can that be
taxed? So for by put practice and tradition, for almost the last hundred
years, the irs generally only taxes you when you sell your stock, not
when the stock goes up in value, but you don't do anything. But
there is and I'll just stop her here. There was in the Donald Trump
twenty seventeen Tax Reform Act there was a small provision, and fairly technical one
that for a very small number of people taxed an increase in the value of
an enterprise abroad. This one was in India, even though the stock had
never been sold. So that raised the constitutional question. And the government consider
income to be just your asset prices going up and down, and not just
when you sell the stock or get a salary. So let me ask before
I have a very simple question for the simple minded here. So if they
were to say that, yes, you can tax an asset, and I
know that they tried to make all of these so they started to circumscribe the
reach of the case and all that. I'm sure we'll come back to that.
But so I know that if you go to Las Vegas and you lose
money, you're a professional gambler and you take the losses that you also have
to take your winnings and vice versa. So if they decide to tax assets,
who, I mean, what kind of regime. No excuse me.
If they decide to tax unrealized assets, unrealized gains on stocks or the value
of a company, which this is, that part doesn't make any sense to
me. Do they also give you a tax break if you still haven't sold
it but you've lost in the stock market? I mean yes. So theoretically,
if you were, if you were to do this properly, and you're
going to tax people when their assets went up, you should allow them a
corresponding reduction, a credit or a deduction when the prices go back down.
But this would be you know, so, the one thing this raises is
the massive costs of compliance with this, right right, like every seven thousand
new IRS agents. Well, so, first of all, I mean a
couple of points here, because I'm you know, an old economics and kind
of an accounting geek. Is first of all, the creatia maybe you must
have a tax person and don't know this stuff yourself. You can only do
I look like on taxes, well, I don't know. I used to
be I have the most amazing tax accountant. As a matter of fact,
here's the point on you will get taxed on your gains, but the federal
government will only allow you three thousand dollars deduction on your losses even if you
lose a million. Now you can catch right now, that's right. Now
you can you can lose a million and carry it forward for you know,
twenty years or something against gains and stuff. But that's not very much so
right, fairness would dictate. I think, John, you hinted at this
that it ought to go it would be a full hundred percent both ways.
But second, I think one thing you until you left it out, John,
but I think you want to be precise about this. The amount in
question this case was not an increase in the value of the company like a
stock value going up. It was the it was booked income that they declared
as a profit on their you know, profit and loss statement, and the
fact that they didn't pay it. And I think it was a closely held
company, not a publicly traded company, right, that's that's right. That's
also that's also important. I think for a publicly traded company it gets more
complicated. But the point is they did not distribute that income to the shareholders.
And the irs said under the new law, yeah, but you know
what, that's your share of the income and you owe money on it,
whether they send it to your bank account or not. Okay, yes,
that's right. I mean theoretically that should produce the share the share price should
go up, yes, because of that. But they're not, as you
said, they're not traded right, right, exactly. So So here here's
the so here can I throw in? Here's the I think interesting constitutional question
is there's a constitution question deep one, and then there's a question of interpretation.
The interesting constitutional question is at the founding, the framers allowed the federal
government two kinds of taxes, what they call direct taxes in the constitutional text,
and then people say indirect taxes, although the Constitution doesn't use that phrase.
Direct taxes were thought to be of basically two kinds, tax on property
and tax on bipopularly by person, you know, just tack a poll tax
or head tax. And so the constitution is interesting. It says that when
the federal government imposes a direct tax, it has to allocate the tax based
on state population. This is very strange because it means, like suppose the
Federal Garment went attax everybody's houses, it would still have to say, okay,
California pays x amount of tax based on their population size, even though
the houses in California might be way more valuable. And so then all the
other taxes, these what are called indirect taxes, are like tariffs, excisex
excise taxes like gone whiskey, which caused a rebellion right properly, So I
would say, actually, in my travels this summer, I actually was in
the town where the Whiskey rebellion occurred, and in the town where they actually
tarred and feathered the tax inspector. There's a little monument actually to it out
in West Pennsylvania. David aka the Gora, I blame you for this,
Okay. So here's the interesting thing. So that's one interesting thing is the
constitutional question is what the founders actually had this very limited view about what the
federal Garment should be able to tax, and they did that way. It's
obviously tied up in slavery, I think, because this part of this original
deal made it very difficult to tax, basically made an impossible to tax the
ownership of slaves, although it would allow the taxation of the you know,
I think the sale of slaves across state borders. But then here's the other
interesting thing. How do you interpret a constitutional amendment that's added in nineteen fourteen,
Yeah, right, hundreds of years after the founding that changes that right,
that the income tax basically creates an exception to the direct tax formal?
How broadly do you read that? Do you? How do you use the
founder's understanding of seventeen eighty seven and then map onto it the understanding of the
ratifiers of the sixteenth Amendment in nineteen fourteen. That's very difficulty. You remind
yourself that they were willing to have a revolution over a stamp tax. That's
what I think what you ought to be informinga which is the thing that bothers
me most about Kavanaugh's stupid ass opinion, this idea. He says it.
Let me see if I can find it that somehow if they were really to
look at the issue in this case, which they said they were going to
decide and didn't, because they decided it more narrowly, because if they were
to overturn this particular tax based upon its un constitutionality, that would lead to
a really horrible outcome, which would mean that a whole bunch of other taxes
imposed by Congress might also be unconstitutional and then they might actually have to cut
important programs or tax you know, regular people like you. I might just
want to slug him so hard in the face till his face is pulp.
It makes me so angry that he could say something so asinine and stupid and
still be on the Supreme Court. Of course, Congress should not be taxing
anything that is not clearly constitutionally authorized. So I was also equally disappointed.
I was totally disappointed in the opinion too. And part of the if you
look at the lineup, it's Roberts and Kavanaugh and then the three liberal justices.
Kevanaugh wrote the opinion, and he said, we're not going to decide
the constitutional question at all, even though that's what we granted sert on,
even though that's what the Ninth Circuit below held on the Ninth Circuit said,
and the Biden administration argued that the government is allowed to tax asset changes.
There is no requirement income that it be realized. Yeah, they were going
for the you know, the body adminstration was going for the full, the
you know, the full Elizabeth Warren on this one, because you know,
I know, you guys, I know don't know, I don't know if
Steve you know, absorbed these vibes, that is progressive conference. But progressives
really think that the only way out of the financial straits were stuck in because
of their overspending is that they got tax wealth that the income tax, believe
it or not, the income tax, massive as it is, does not
generate remotely close to enough to balance the deficit now, which is in trillion
dollars a year. So they've got to go to wealth tax. So Kevinaugh
said, oh, we're going to avoid the question and just say Congress is
allowed to tax you when the corporation gets the money, or they can tax
you on the assumption that you, the individual shareowned shareholder, can be we
can attribute that to you individually. So this is what's done with partnerships.
I'm sorry to get into this kind of tax law stuff, but partnerships,
when you're a partner in a partnership, you get text as the partner on
your fair share of the partnership's profits, even if you never get them,
even if it stays in the park. So Kavanaugh just says, well,
this case is easily solved by just saying that's what happened here, and so
we don't have to decide the constitutional question, very lame. Doesn't really look
at the history of the sixteenth Amendment, doesn't really take into account practice and
tradition, you know, the things you're supposed to look at now when you
want to understand what the amendment meant, and you know, leaves for another
day Elizabeth Warren and her buddies to try again. So to one observation and
one bit of news. The observation is, so Brett Kavanaugh really is the
successor of Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, right as we clerk for it.
So we realize and look, as we know Kennedy left all these he's
just Kennedy with He's just Kennedy with a slightly better hair. Yeah, right,
the same, he's leaving a mess behind. And second, the news
flash for today is Lucretia has signed up in the Christina Blossie Ford fan club.
Jesus because you both agree that he shouldn't be on the Supreme Court,
but for different reasons. Especially, I wouldn't say I'm the fan club.
I would just say that I'm probably giving a little additional respect here. I'm
just wait, let me before you go on, John, let me take
this a little bit deeper for a moment, and not so that people don't
think I'm just a crazy, violent person. I believe in my heart of
hearts that the the real point of the The reason that the Founders were so
careful to proscribe the taxi, the federal government's ability to tax wasn't because you
know, they threw tea in the harbor. They through tea in the harbor
because they believed that your property was your right, and just like the government
taking away your other rights, the government taking away your property is a violation
of your natural rights. That's the first part. The second part, in
my opinion, is even more important, and that is every dollar that the
government takes from me, and their damn taxes they used to take away my
liberty. They used to make my life miserable. They don't fix roads.
They don't do anything good with money anymore in the government. They use it
to make my life miserable. Well, wait a minute, they fix roads.
They put these nice rainbow stripes on them this month. Right, What
do you okay from a fund from a foundational perspective, John, do you
get what I'm trying to say? And that's completely lost on the Court.
Yes, I think that the way the Court majority looks at it is very
consistent with the Progressive Air Review that there is no natural law right to property.
It's just the government lets you keep some and take some back. It's
it's you know, you didn't build that village. But to make me wonder,
John about the question we've we've discussed before, which is, could you
repeal the thirteenth Amendment? I guess you might say that sixteenth Amendment, I
mean the thirteenth Amendment slavery. Yeah, if those idiots from that idiot mayor
from Chicago and all these other people got together and decided that, Yeah,
retribution is really the thing, as we talked about last time, Steve,
and the best way to get retribution on white America is to reintroduce slavery.
But now whites have to be the slaves of blacks. Would there be any
reason why you could not repeal the thirteenth Amendment. I wouldn't say there is,
I mean I would It would be an unjust society, but you could
have a constitutional society slavery we had before Civil War. Well, let me
introduce two more thoughts answer my question. First, Steve, wait, just
don't ignore what I say. What did you say? I guess here's my
real Could you repeal the thirteenth Amendment? Could you repeal the thirteen men have
slavery again? Questions? Ill event, No, I want to do it
the other way around, which is someone could bring a thirteenth Amendment challenge saying,
hey, you're making me involuntary. I don't actually get the income,
but you're making me pay the government. Anyway, I was going to come
to this point, well in this order, first, a textual point,
never mind original public meeting and all the rest of that. John and and
you know, I think that the whole direct tax question at the founding is
interesting and important. But look the look what does the text say here?
I become a text us like Scalia. The sixteenth Amendment says the Congress shall
have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived. Now,
the Moors did not derive the income from the company, by the way,
and public companies and elsewhere, it's retained earnings. We used to call
that, which is capital for the company to continue to grow. This totally
screws up the incentives for companies, I think, And that makes my second
point which is not a legal one, which is if we open the door,
however small to allowing the government to tax unrealized gains. The incentive now
is for inflation to go wild. This is back to bracket creep in the
seventies before kemp Roth and Reagan came along, because the incentive of the government
now is you want to inflate people's asset value so you can capture the taxes
out of it even if they don't ever sell their assets. That is a
path to Argentina. That's what we're heading with this. That's the that's the
effect of this decision. Now, let me give you the silver aligning optimistic
view that I actually hold, which is this. This is this. This
opinion might be the most important income tax opinion the Supreme Court has ever issued,
more than because they really right. Yeah, well, Pollock was overruled
by the sixteenth Qualify the way for people listening. It was the case that
first struck down the income tax and is actually overruled by the sixteenth Amendment.
But the interesting thing is it's the Lucreasia's toy, right. The majority opinion
is really not a good opinion. But what's interesting are the other opinions.
So Justice Barrett wrote an opinion joined by Justice Alito, which basically said,
we should have answered the question presented, and we both think no, the
sixteenth Amendment does not allow the government to tax assets and changes. It only
allows you to tax like salary and rent and so on. And then Justice
Thomas wrote a dissent joined by Justice Gorsag which said, and I think he
has the best view, which said, the original understanding of the income tax
Amendment is that you have to sell, you have to have realization. And
everyone knew it at the time, and if anyone had gotten up at the
time this six tieth Amendment and said otherwise, the amendment would have failed.
So right there you have four justices who think that the income tax has to
be read narrowly and can't reach you can't have a wealth tax. And so
that's amazing. I think that's actually a major step forward. But you know,
you never know where Roberts and Kavanaugh are because they're very principles Well,
but in my mind, if they, I think they secretly agree with the
four conservatives, because if they didn't, then why invade the question with this
narrow, weird claim that oh, it's just about like partnerships. I actually
think it's because they should believe that the government should have basically unlimited means to
tax, except if there can be carved out some tiny, sub circumscribed limits
on it. I mean that, to me is the most obnoxious thing said
by a Supreme Court justice in probably the last five years. That we can't
say that this should be, that this particular tax should be ruled unconstitutional because
it would open the door to telling Congress you might not be able to tax
other things that they really need to tax because we got to spend all that
money for God's sakes, don't you know. I mean, what an idiotic
thing to say. If you're if you could say something like that with a
straight face, you're no conservative, That's all there is to it. And
I'm not even a libertarian conservative. But what a I don't care about paying
taxes. I care that the government gets my money. I'd happily give that
same amount of charity and a heartbeat, I guess is really the point.
Well, and I hate it. And my only point about the sixteenth Amendment
is I wonder if it's actually not consistent though with the principles of the founding,
Steve. That's what I was trying to get at. Yeah, I
think you're right. It's not it's a progressive era. It's it's actually the
high point of the progressive era is the income tax amendment. It is a
rejection, isn't it. I mean the whole progressive area is a rejection.
Yeah, well, I mean remember three amendments passed. I think it was
nineteen thirteen. Actually three amendments. Well, wait, two amendments and the
Federal Reserve. The other amendment was direct collection of Senators, of course,
and which changed things right. And the Federal Reserve is that was statutory.
But that's a I'm not sure about that. I don't think it has doubtful
constitutional status, but it has doubtful status as a institution of political economy,
or at least one that can be roundly criticized. Let me draw us out
of here with an exit observation and then go on to guns, which is
the right My old mentor Stan Evans used to love to secure liberal cliches,
and one of his was in the sixties was you know, in the sixties
you always heard the newspaper editorial people say, any country that can land a
man on the moon can solve x problem, you know, crime in the
cities. Whatever. His line was always any country that can land a man
on the moon can abolish the income tax. Perfect, right, Okay,
you guys think let's oh you've told that joke a thousand times. Oh,
yes, you have only five hundred times. Now. I do think we
should start a repeal the sixteenth Amendment movement and see how far it goes.
Yeah, along with the nineteenth. Well Trump did say, you know,
I'll write, yes, Trump here what the last week says, let's abolish
the income tax and have to go back to tariffs, and thank you.
Yes, that was great. I thought that's a great political I want to
know if you guys have written that on any of your receipts when you've gone
to a restaurant. Oh, I haven't yet, but that's a great idea.
Yeah, oh it's it's a it's a thing. Steve, you go
in, you write, if you voted for Trump, you could keep one
hundred percent of your tips. Yeah, right right. You know what I
do. I always I try to make sure I always have some cash in
my pocket so that I can put a tip down on the credit card receipt
and then if the waitress or waiter was really good, then I hand them
a twenty or you know something and iced to get you know, said put
this in your pocket, or why not give them the skim flint in Me's
like, why not give them no tip and say this is what life is
like. If Trump loses, Oh well it's a they have to pay regardless
of how much you tip them. Well, you know what is it?
I don't know. It depends on I think it depends on the establishment.
But the crackdown on tip income. By the way, a tip is supposed
to be a gratuity, a gift, which ought to be in technically speaking
exempt under the gift you know the gift tax limits, right, uh,
and since none of us actually go over whatever it is, thirteen or fourteen
thousand dollars, it ought to be tax free. It was the Clint Skates
might not well, all right, but the part it was it was the
jokes will all right, but you interrupted me. But it was the Clinton
administration the directed the IRIS to crack down on tip income and go after restaurants
and service industry people. They never really did it very well because he can't,
are you kidding, this is stupid. I find tipping the very difficult.
I think they will very fun to understand because Steve and I were in
Hungary and there the tip is just a symbolic recognition, right of a good
effort. They don't expect like fifteen to twenty percent. I was told you
should only tip like five percent. And here in Asia, I've actually had
people I've given tips to run after me to return the money because tipping is
not is just not part of the norms out here. So I feel like
I left behind a five dollars bill or something so much they did that to
me more in America. Here's the thing, though, we're told that tipping
is a relic of slavery, right, and so I do it on purpose
just because I don't I don't know why. Why would it be a relative
sleevery? Then, I don't know. I couldn't read the dumb articles.
But well, no, but I do believe that that that they are now
taxed on a percentage of their sales for the night, regardless of whether they
got tips. And I don't remember what the percentage is. So if you
don't tips, that sounds like something IRS would come up with. Yeah,
of course. Well no, Look in Europe, John don't know if you
look at those re seats carefully, but they always have a service charge.
In other words, they include a tip in the That's been true for years.
And I remember traveling around Western Europe in the eighties and they didn't watch
to tip, and my dad would always insist, and it was always very
difficult. And now they're getting well, you know, they love Americans because
they realized, oh, I've got an American, I'm going to get a
tip. This is great. And so we're corrupting them, right, We're
and again American imperialism again as usual. But look, you guys, we
we've already gone a long time, and we still have to get the gun
cases in. I don't even remember the name is, but you have the
bump stock case. And then Rahimi was that the gun bump stock case was
called the bump stock cargo. Yeah, okay, and then and then Raheemi
was here Friday, and it's the one that look, I haven't looked at
either one of these. I've been you know, talking to progressives, uh
and having my brain rotten, but it was it has I guess it casts
some shade on the ideas of restrictions on gun ownership by felons. But one
of you guys, yeah, let me, let me describe Rahemi and then
Linda can weigh in. So Rahimi was a fellow who was under domestic violence
order, and he did, if you look at the facts of the case,
he did. He was a little loose with his use of a gun.
Basically, anytime got angry, he shot at something. But he did
threaten his girlfriend and the mother of his child. Uh, and did engage
in violent use of guns in all kinds of settings. Uh. And that
is a violation of federal law. It's actually is illegal to possess a firearm
if you are subject to domestic violence order. And so this is it was
eight to one, and only our man, Justice Thomas was in descent,
and the argument was basically both side. Both Thomas and Chief Justice Roberts for
the majority, agree that the Second Amendment is not unlimited. And the question
is how do you identify a constitutional restriction on gun ownership? So the issue
is how, I would say this is the issue is how broadly do you,
how generally do you state the restriction that's allowed on a gun? On
gun rights do you say, and this is what the majority said. The
majority said, basically, the Founders would have allowed restrictions on ownership by people
who threaten violence to others. Just as Thomas would say, I want to
see actually the specific restrictions that were held back then, and is this really
similar to one? Is this really analogous, whereas Roberts is making it very
broad, right, it's just like anyone who might threaten violence of harm to
others could lose their right to have a gun. Right in law, we
call this a level of generalities issue. Roberts is stating his principle at such
a broad level of generality that all kinds of restrictions could fall into it.
Whereas Thomas is saying, I want to see restrictions at the time of the
Founding that are very similar, very analogous to this one, and if I
don't see it, then I'm not going to allow it. And so Thomas
says, I don't see one for domestic violence or anything like that, so
I'm not going to allow this. In fact, he points out that you
know, maybe this is like, you know, the kind of restrictions on
people having guns who are drunk, And he said, you would you know,
you go into a saloon and you you would have to hand over your
guns, but then when you left, you would get the guns back.
You know, it was temporary. It wasn't permanent like these saws. So
that's that's the that's what the case. That's the big dispute in the case.
So I do believe that from the beginning, even as much as I
applauded Heller and then McDonald and then the subsequent cases, I believe they've been
but no, no, yeah, okay, but I mean back to Heller
and McDonald Chicago McDonald. The first I mean D. C. Heller what
was it two thousand and eight was the first Second Amendment case decided by the
Supreme Court in however many years, which actually to some extent, resolved what
the meaning of the Second Amendment was after it'd been you know, debated all
these idiots out there. Oh, it means you can have a militia dumbesst
argument ever in the history of the world. But anyway, I won't go
into that right now. The real point of the Second Amendment is tied exclusively
to the right to revolution. It's not simply a personal safety issue. It's
not simply the idea that you have a right to own a gun because it
provides for your personal safety, and the courts. I'm not saying it's not
that, but it's so much more. And because the Court has never been
willing to articulate the actual principle behind the Second Amendment, lots of people get
it. I mean, to some extent. Even our corrupt, pedophile,
disinterred president gets it when he says he says, well, you know,
if you want guns to your Second Amendment, guns to fight the government,
you need to have sixteens, right. He gets it that the idea behind
it, the Second Amendment is not just personal protection and personal safety. It's
a citizenry without guns is at the mercy of a totalitarian government right, and
so the right to revolution it has no effective meaning without it. So when
Thomas, who you know, I love, my favorite justice. Ever,
I rarely disagree with him about anything. I disagree with this whole historical nonsense
that he imposed on us in Bruin. I don't understand it. It doesn't
make sense to me. And these kinds, all the kinds of cases by
the lower courts that came after Bruin that are completely all over the map.
Nobody gets it. Else gets it either. I don't think it's a principle
to be found there. Sorry, Steve, go ahead. Well, no,
what I was going to say is one of the things about the Heller
case, and I remember listening to the oral argument, which is what it
is more than fifteen years ago. Now's because you didn't have the usual line
of cases for the clerk, so the justices to parse out and say this
case A said, this case B said that, case C said the third
thing, well, tweak it this way and settle here. Now, they
didn't have that for the reason you stated that, No, there had been
no cases taking it up. So what I remember the old argument was as
lots of arguments about old British common law that informed the Second Amendment, and
lots of discussion about Blackstone and you know, other things of the founding.
I thought, Aha, this is how Kates ought to be argued. This
is true originalism and practice. It wasn't really narrowly speaking, I think,
John, and now I'm going to toss to you, it wasn't really original
public meaning as much as what's the logic behind this? Based on deeper principles
of a long legal tradition and philosophical tradition. Right again, the Blackstone bits
on self defense and all the rest I thought was quite striking. I thought
it was a very different argument from the traditional Supreme Court oral argument and briefing.
How well to see it, Steve, You'd love Robert's opinion then,
because it goes it relies the authority of priories on the most as Blackstone.
Really yes, he Roberts thinks that Blackstone shows that, yes, you have
a right, you know, you're right to firearm for hire arms, to
to carry a firearm can be limited by what he calls like threats to the
king's peace. And so he says, there's this discussion in Blackstone. I
wasn't aware this discussion of Blackstone that seems to give great leeway to the government
to take firearms away to those who threaten the king's peace. Now, but
I wanted to respond a little bit to what Lucretia said. I don't think
what she says is inconsistent with originalism, because if you think the right to
revolution is part of the rights that the Founders were right defending, then it's
right. That's the Second Amendment implements that right. You know, in the
Second Amendment cases like Heller, actually Justice Scalia could not his response to this
argument that the Second Amendment is just about the militia's right to have a gun,
which is really you know, the right about limiting the central government,
Scalia said, the real right here is the right of self defense. And
you need to have a gun to defend your right to self defense. You
know, the originalists could say it's not just the right to self defense,
it's also the right to revolution, which is repeatedly stated by the founders.
So I don't think your point is inconsistent with this sort of the court's focus
on history. Now, what you might not like is uh, and there's
there's you know, this is this opinion is also weird that Gorsich, Barrett,
and Kavanaugh all have little concurrences about originalism. How to do it right?
I find Kavanaugh's, you know, really start tedious and actually inconsistent with
what he did in the tax case itself. But they would all probably say,
but you have to I think all three of them, Gorsich, Barrett,
and Kavanaugh would all say, but that right of revolution or whatever right
you're talking about, even for self defense, has to be a parent at
the time of the ratification of the amendment, and isn't one that can kind
of emerge as a principle in Steve's words, after the ratification of the constitution.
So in that sense, they're originalists, not I think what Steve was
calling, I guess rational principle people. I was going to just say really
quickly, Steve that, hmm. The reason that I was able to celebrate
Heller and following that MacDonald for getting the argument wrong in my opinion, the
justification wrong even though the decision was right, is it actually goes back to
Jefferson's discussion, sorry John, of prudence, and in some ways, I
don't know if you actually want the Supreme Court of the United States to be
articulating in a Supreme Court opinion clearly and forcefully, and the idea that the
citizens have a right to own guns so they can fight against a tyrannical government,
not because they might not think that the government's tyrannical. I'm sure Alito's
seek in that these days. But but you know, there's some things that
you just have to be a little bit more subtle about if you are the
Supreme Court of the United States. That was always my kind of way of
rationalizing why they didn't do what they needed to do in that case. Can
I can I point out to the listeners who can't see this, that Lucretia,
like a James Bond villain, is talking about where we're finding the government
while stroking a cat, just like just like we're bro fell the James Bond
movies. That's right, that's right, yeah, or or well you know
what's his name, don like Myers? Yeah, yeah, ours movies.
She's not hairless. Well. Look, so so two things emerged from this,
and I want to get to the briefly the last gun case. But
one is is that we have demonstrated, once again, John that you were
allergic to the term jurisprudence. You hate that second syllable taken two syllables of
that term. But okay, I don't even know what that means. Yeah,
well we're going out. Well. But the other thing is there's a
serious points up. Clearly we need to add Blackstone on guns and the point
you mentioned in the King's Peace. Well, but yeah, I actually think
I actually think Lucretia's right on this. Then really Blackstone can be two pro
government. I mean, part of the Revolution is against Blackstone, right,
right. Sometimes blacks is useful, it helps to fine legal words. But
I don't know if I would trust Blackstone on the relationship between the government and
the individual at the look. I mean, his his doctor Deparliamentary supremacy is
somewhat rejected by the American skin, I think again, and that's this is
still kind of okay, all right. So the other case was the bump
stock case, and that's not really a Second Amendment case, right, No,
It's really more of administrative law case, isn't it. And so I
don't know there as much to say about that, which is, you know,
Congress can pass a lot tomorrow saying bumblestocks are legal, and the cart
will say that's fine, right, and end of story, I think,
I mean the left, well, you know, the good The one thing
about it is that this is not a court that is necessarily hostile obviously to
Second Amendment rights, because you have a decision where if they were, you
could see them upholling the bump stock regulation. Yeah right. And and by
the way, the bumpstock regulation is probagated in the Trump administration, which was
generally very favorable to gun rights. Well, that's the that's the fun part
this week is oh, we're so mad at the Supreme Court for overdoing something
that wait wait, well the Trump administration didn't. And I don't think leftist
don't care about that, I know, but it's still it's still I think
it's fun, which is the same thing I told you last week when we
discussed it. Steve, Well, okay, well I wasn't listening, of
course, so I know that's all right, it's all right. I actually
want to know John that I think I even said in the podcast that I
wished you were there so that we could ask you if you thought that that
refusal to allow the ATF to to stretch the meaning of the word machine gun
to include a device that still that makes you shoot faster but still requires you
to pull the trigger for every shot, if I mean that it really is.
It's not a Second Amendment case, it's not a gun control case.
It's a bureaucratic overreach case, is it. Yes? I think I think
you know, I would think so. I think next week we'll find out
for sure. But if this Court was going to pull Chevron and all its
glory, then the bump stock case should have come out the other way.
Yeah, all right, it's uh, it was nine zero. Was that
the bump stock case was nine zero? No, no, it was six
three. I think they're three liberals. Oh, that's allowed the regulation which
were the unanimous ones that people are so upset about. The abortion case was
unanimous. Right, Oh, that was outstanding. Yeah, yeah, right,
yeah, we're standing and we talked about last week regulation. I remember.
I'm just trying to you know, because what we did talk about last
week, John, was was the attacks on the court, and the very
serious attacks on the court from a variety of different angles. But if you
look at what the Court has been doing lately, it's very hard to categorize
them except in the most ideological way. I suppose. All right, all
right, let's get out, because for one thing, it's almost lunchtime in
South Korea where John is, and I think, first of all, lunch,
Greg. I have one comment about Bragg, who refused to bring charges
against most of the scum who what they trespassed into and what's the word they
held the hall in Columbia, Yeah, Hamilton Hall, Hamilton Hall. And
people have been saying, you know, this is a really bad look and
two tier justice and I agree with all that, but what I took away
from it today was in the middle of a presidential season and where you know,
the left has a pretty big interest in after seeing you know, people
give more money to Trump, Trump going up in the polls. Bragg doesn't
care. He doesn't care, and it's an in your face kind of attitude
by a Soros you know, protected leftist. And that was the thing that
actually shocked me about it, that they wouldn't do even the slightest political thing.
Wow. Can I yeah, helping exactly. I'm glad you said that
last point because I'll bet right now the leadership of Columbia, as bad as
they are and the trustees as bad as they are, are fuming about brag
dropping those charges. The reason I think that I was talking to all drop
names. I was talking to Victor Davis Hansen about this this morning. Victor
thinks there's going to be a northern front against Hesbald opened up by Israel,
by say August or so. And I think that that is going to cause
a campus eruption in the fall. The pro Palestinian crazy people, their aim
will be to shut down some college campuses. Bragg has just made that infinitely
more likely to happen to Columbia in the fall by doing this now, of
course, that the cowards are run Columbia, they're hoping Bragg would do their
dirty work for them, and they won't. By the way, today or
yesterday Stanford said they are going to charge criminally charge and and rest for jail
sentences for people who invaded and vandalized the president's office. So we'll see how
that plays out. I ridick by the way, that that the campus protests,
which all the cowardly administrators hope would go away with the end of the
school year, is going to come back with a vengeance in the fall.
They are going to succeed in shutting down some campuses and state too. If
they could easily. They could just easily end them. If they expel all
the students who participate, of course, and you know how many of you
do, that thing will end. Yeah, and nobody nobody's done that.
Hopefully we'll come to that, and they may have to by right, you
know, sometimes forced people, they have to do the right thing. Two
things to that one. And I don't know what how much stock to put
this in, but I actually heard the opposite explanation. I don't know if
the person knew what the heck they were talking about. That the reason that
Bragg didn't pursue charges against most of them is that they're all they're all the
rich kid, you know, white privileged kids of the of the major donors
number one. That was the reason. I don't know that that's true.
I really really don't. I'm just throwing it at you. And the second
thing is I attended a meeting today where we actually discussed intelligence that says they're
planning a takeover of a major a major hall on on my university in the
fall when classes starts. So you're you're absolutely did you tell us when that
happened? So Steve and I can come watching. I'm going to go wearing
my Israeli American Israeli pin, and I'm going to go to the last time
I was there, they had they had the protests the day after I was
there because they were so upset that the President didn't didn't come out in their
favor in his announcement that they had to have a cry day, so they
didn't protest, and I missed them, and I didn't get to go out
and heckle them. I was ready to sorry anyway, I just wanted to
put that out there, see, but I don't know that could Now.
I'll bet the pressures on the administration from you know, A yeah, I'll
bet they're immense. And you know I have no sympathy for them, one
little tiny speak either way, either way, exactly right. So now all
right, do you have any Babylon bes for us up imagining that? Imagine
that right? It's so hard, it's not fair. Somebody needs to shut
those people down, John, I said last week that it was I think
that that the Babylon Bee was something about Garland promises to prosecute anybody who says
that the FBI is corrupt. Yeah, right, And I said, I
said, wait a minute, somebody needs to contact Seth Dillon and remind him
they're due satire, not they're not a news organization. But anyway, So,
speaking of d o J opens new tip line for criminals to report whistleblowers.
Thok, you guys a second, why now you know? In keeping
with my last point before this, White House asks migrants to hold off on
raping and murdering any more Americans until after election. It's been bad, John,
it's been bad. The FBI firearm training facility replaces paper targets with copies
of the Constitution, and actually the pictures great. All right, back to
the well, don't you have the one about Biden and the Pope. Biden
mistakes Pope for giant ice cream cone. That was last week. I say
I used it. Remember, I told you you, because up until we
had our podcast, Steve, you hadn't heard that. Biden went, yeah
to the Pope, put his head. He put it. Johnny put his
hands on the Pope's shoulders who he was sitting down the Pope was and head
bumped him. It was like little kid or something. I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know. KGP claims. Mophead claims video where she had
where she said Biden video was a deep fake, was also a deep fake,
and then white House then claims that the Terrible economy is just a deep
fake. I like this one. Has nothing to do with our show today,
but I still like it. Trump pulling at one after hosts warn he
would cancel the view. I saw that one wait wait, wait, wait
one more. Since John had all that fun time with climate change in South
Korea, scientists torn on whether to blame heat wave on climate change, Trump
or white supremacy. Well that's true, Yes, that's right. Yeah,
okay, John, send us out, Okay, always drink your whiskey.
Neat, let's go, Brandon and Steve. God save the queen man.
Although I got to update that sometime soon. Allright, Bye bye, everybody,
see you next week. Too much cobbon monoxide fool me too, too
much cabon monoxide fool me too, Bill Leesy les where Ricochet Join the conversation