Well Whiskey 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. Gotta give where loud down, good
grief. I feel like James Stockdale. Where am I? What am I
doing here? I'm so jetgged out of things? Uh but oh that's right.
It's the three Whiskey Happy Hour and Steve's gonna get as many votes of
Stockdale too. Ouch, It's the three Whiskey Happy Hour and uh, your
fearsome threesome are finally back in the same time zone after several weeks of chaos
and confusion. So hello John, Hello Lucretia, and I guess John,
what we ought to ask is Lucretia to fill us in on what we've missed,
because I think we've missed some things. You missed one about you miss
well, you guys while you were in Europe probably saw it just as well.
There are two controversies going on over social media by trolls and a serious
people alike. The first one is whether Biden was simply looking for a place
to sit down in an imaginary chair, or whether he was actually engaged in
some other activity, which I won't mention because this is a family show and
you do not do scatological humor. By the way, can I just interrupt
to say that the technical term you're looking for, which comes from Jay Leno
thirty years ago, is geeks, mutants and trolls. That's what I always
go with. But anyway, continue, okay, except there are serious people
on this whole thing. That's thing one. And then you know the fact
that Jill blew with him to France. She flew back to hold Hunter's hand
and intimidate the jurors for one day, and then flew back to France so
that she could be there to hold Biden's hand and make sure he didn't sit
down or do something else in his pants while he was with the President of
France, all at taxpairs expense. So that's thing one. Thing two is
speaking of trolls, that it came out I think it was late last night
or yesterday afternoon that a social media post by some person I think named Michael
Anderson, who claimed that his cousin was a juror and had been on had
been told by the juror before the jury even went in for negotiations, that
Trump had been found guilty. And okay, the guys claims to be in
fact a troll. I don't know how you claimed it. I mean,
I think wait, there's more. Okay, he uses a different term for
it again, family show. I won't use it. But Judge Merchant sent
to uh Trump's attorneys some you know, some letter about this particular troll as
if he was being forthright and above board and was actually seriously taking a look
at the fact that maybe there was something not entirely uh oh, sure about
this jury verdict. But of course now it's coming out that the guy's probably
just a troll. So those are the two. So was Biden sitting or
was he not? And is Michael Anderson a troll? Or is he not?
And is one Merchant a despicable excuse for human being? That one is
not under discussion. We have it. Yeah, we've also just about entered
World War three because we are making very clear and obvious and in your face
plans to invade Russia through NATO, and so you know, it's been an
exciting week. Well then you want to add to that, John, before
we turned to Ukraine. So basically nothing happened. Okay, this is going
to be like this is like two weeks during the future Trump presidency. This
is going to be like tea time and nothing happened for Trump for president.
It'll be like it'd be like vacation time for Fundits right. The Fannie Willis
traull is indefinitely delayed because the appellate court in Georgia. Joan is that it
the pellet Court in Georgia is actually seriously looking into her malfeasance. Okay,
that's I think that'sretty much. And so we're back to the brag trial to
keep Trump off. Yeah, So two thoughts on the U Cresha's trial developments.
One is, yes, Georgia of Pellicourt did the right thing. Of
course, if they're going to hear a claim about the DA bringing the charges
basically for corrupt purposes to benefit herself and her boyfriend, then they couldn't let
the trial proceed below they had to stay it. This is the interesting thing
about it that I think world arguments are scheduled for October. That means there's
just no way that that trial could happen before the election. And you got
to wonder whether that trial will ever occur at all, now, whether Trump
wins or loses the presidency. I mean that was I do confess error,
as we say in the bar, when Kreshia first raised this idea many many
moons ago about Fanny Wills's you know, romantic interludes causing the whole prosecution to
go down, So I was so dubious. So I confess Aria Lucretia was
right on that one, the one on the Brag trial. The thing.
There has to be an investigation. I would think that the judge has to
at least put off the sentencing until he can run down whether there actually was
inappropriate contact with the jury. I mean, right now, you don't know.
I mean, yeah, any crazy person can put something on the Internet.
But I would think, given the importance of the trial, what it
means for the constitution, past president and current leading candidate for the presidency being
the defendant, you'd want to make sure there's no doubt that the jury wasn't
tampered with. So he would have put off a little bit and have somebody
run down whether this actually happened. So that leads me to a question John
that came up in the Twitter feed that Steve sent us from a professor Jed.
I'm going to get it right, Steve Rubinfeld from yl Amy's husband,
the Tiger Amy Chu that that it's you're not a convicted felon because of a
jury verdict. You're not convicted until the judge enters a judgment of guilt against
you, and this happens. My understanding is on July eleventh, when he
does a sentencing. Is this all true? I'm assuming that's true. So
far, yes, so far, and so so there could be some kind
of intervention. Rubenfeld seems to indicate this would be an avenue for appeal based
upon a whole lot of things we'll talk about momentarily, but that what you
said could actually delay the whole thing too, if there's an investigation into it.
Right, It depends how you do it. So I only this morning
looked at Jed Rubenfeld's argument. I think that route he's proposing is very low
probability but possible. I think there fast there stronger ways to get to the
Supreme Court if that's what you really want to do. So what he's talking
about is basically suing that Trump should file a new lawsuit in federal court against
the prosecution and Judge Merchon saying that this whole thing was made up and was
an effort to interfere with the election a federal election. So you know,
basically federal courts are very reluctant to entertain what this would be called a collateral
attack, you know, an attacked by the federal court system on a state
criminal proceeding before it's finished. But you could see parallels like suppose, for
example, I'm trying to give a good example, like supposing the segregation South.
You know that this was I'm sure this happened. Unfortunately many times,
like a city or county DA basically trumped up criminal charges against somebody for being
black, and do not go to federal court and try to stop them from
egregiously violating the civil rights of that defendant. That is basically the same thing
Rubenfeld is proposing, except he would make it it's not that the individual right
of Trump is being vindicated. It is federal government's control vers election system.
That's the part I've never really heard of. That would be unprecedented. The
easier thing, I would think is going to federal court and saying there's lots
of problems with the way the trial was done, and there's an important federal
interest because of who Trump is, and not make it about the federal electoral
system, but make it about Trump's individual rights. The federal courts still don't
and I'm sorry for gangs. So technical. This is really like there's a
there is a whole course in law school about this about when federal courts are
allowed to intervene into state courts and their procedures. But still federal courts are
going to say most judges with lower court judges would say, we let the
criminal proceeding finish, there is a sentence, appeals are exhausted, then federal
courts will review it. So I thought of something I mentioned, uh from
Hungary actually, which is the Supreme Court has always allowed actions for habeas corpus
directly to it and it's original what's called original jurisdiction. This is really interesting.
Most people don't know this. Any American can go directly to the Supreme
Court and say some state government is holding me against the constitution. Supreme Court
I think is like granted maybe one or two of these, and it's what's
the standards John for their decision to grant uh access, what's the right word.
It's not a grant. You can't grant you you you make a petition
for a habeas corpus and it's called the original jurisdiction of the Supremi origin.
You can go there directly. Well, the standard would be, is the
defendants constitutional rights being violated? Is it really something that demands immediate Supreme Court
attention rather than letting it go through the lower courts. Then you can make
the claim, well, because there's this election coming up, this is the
leading candidate, this is right, So put you make it harm Yeah,
make the facts more extreme. Suppose New York didn't have a trial. Suppose
that they just grabbed Trump and threw him in jail right and prevented them from
campaigning, and then said we're going to have this trial, trumped up trial.
It's going to take months and he won't be able to go anywhere.
You know, you could see the Supreme Court exercising original jurisdiction there. That's
not what happened here, But it just shows there's a there's a there's available
opening if you if you make use of that. Now the reason I know,
can I tell the story, Steve has full authority to cut this all
out and put a McDonald's ad over it. Hungarian McDonald's at But actually comes
to the reason I know this that comes from this personal personal involvement with this.
So in nineteen ninety six, I was working in the Senate General Council
of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and we put up a bill which became known
as the I think it's it's called ADEPA, but the formally sent like the
Act for the Effective Death Penalty and Anti Terrorism and the main point of the
bill was to stop the abuse of habeas corpus, you know, like state
prisoners. Based on the outline I just gave a state prisoner could file twenty
different habea's positions once they're in jail. And this was being used by people,
particularly California death people on death row right to stop their executions, and
so Congress put an end to it. And so this one guy challenged the
whole bill and said, yeah, you could do all that, but I
can still go to the Supreme Court directly. And so this was a big
deal at the time. There was a fast track case went right to the
Supreme Court within within a few months, just like we're talking about here.
I remember Senator Hatch wrote in Amika sprief signed by himself, and I remember
taking Senator Hatch personally to watch the oral arguments and the justices box, which
are very close to the bench, and it was so funny. I remember
Steve Brier, who had just been confirmed a few years ago, waving from
the bench at Senator Hatch, which I thought was entirely inappropriate, but achieved
the political purpose of sitting there on the bench, sitting in those seats in
the first But but the Supreme Court then ruled no matter how much Congress changed
Abe's corpus, you could still go directly to the Supreme Court. And so
Trump could do that here. I haven't heard his attorneys talk about this,
but they could definitely do it. They might think it's a low probability that
it would work. But one element of Rubenfeldt's argument that had not occurred to
me before is pointing out that, look, Trump has a strong case to
win this on appeal, but the appeals are going to take us a long
time, passed the election, and then if the federal courts, after exhausting
all the state process, says that yes, it was all wrong. There's
no remedy. He will have h he will have lost the election because of
this trumped up lawsuit. And that's why it's a different circumstance than the ordinary
process you describe. Right, I thought that. I thought that was a
very important point. The thing that's interesting is right now under the way the
law works. Again. I apologize to listeners for this, and consider free
legal advice. Free legal advice to the many listeners who Lucretia riches who are
behind federal bars right now, by the way, before you finished, John,
I have to tell you you've become the most popular member of the three.
Whiskey happens. That's no, I'm serious. Strangers on the street walk
up to me and say I never thought that you could actually turned on you
into a right thinking sort of individual. That still doesn't beat the guy from
Finland who's thought me in the Frankfurt Frankfort Report lounge just by the sound of
my voice and saying, hey, who's Lucretia. I remember that? That
was weird. All my conservative friends are like, you didn't No, No,
I told it would happen. That is safe, shocking, different,
conscient. I can't remember what I was saying. I'm sorry choking on your
coffee there. Well, all right, the brag trial is going to be
with us for weeks, and so we can revisit the legal questions and the
news items that come up as they come up. But let's turn to what
I intended to be topic number one, which is Ukraine, which we've been
threatening to talk about for several weeks but keep putting off because we run out
of time. There's some real new news, as they say about Ukraine in
the last couple of weeks. First of all, I don't know, John,
while you were in Hungry if you took in any of the TV ads
for the parliamentary European Parliament elections happening tomorrow, But a lot of them from
Orban's party, the Fidees party, were explicitly anti war, pro peace.
And then last week I happened to notice I had the nose was coming.
But they turned out three hundred thousand people for a campaign rally whose emphasis was
let's stay out of a war with Russia. And then but then there are
these things happening, such as France sending military advisors and your troop boots on
the ground to Ukraine along with more Mirage jet fighters. Let's see, you
had to my mind. Really shocking to me was featuring Zelensky in such a
high profile way at the D Day observances in Normandy at the end of the
week, but not Netan Yahoo a right. I mean, Biden's speech was
all about how gee, World War two, the Ukraine, it's just the
same. But why wouldn't you extended that same logic to the war against Hamas
But apparently not. Oh and then finally, you know, we approved Ukraine
eight, but the news came out that we're saying, okay, now you
can't attack Russia inside Russia, but we're picking the targets apparently shades of Vietnam,
as I predicted more than a year ago would happened. So anyway,
this is what's going on, And you know, it's hard to resist the
view that I think Lucretia has argued that we're slowly but surely drifting into a
direct natal confrontation with Russia. And I'll stop there because I have more to
say. But so ill I think you put the question to me. So
I did see these campaign ads, but unlike Steve, I am not fluent
and Hungarian, So I had no idea what they were saying or what There
was more electioneering though maybe that's because they're in California than you would see in
a normal American election. And this is for the European Parliament, which doesn't
matter. I mean, they have some loose powers, but nothing like what
a state, you know, at a nation state government has its disposal.
But it's a sign of where you know, we're sentiment lies. So one
two things about home huh. So I hate to do this to you,
but there was the funniest comment on Steve's mention. He said something like the
European Parliament, whatever that is. And there's this troll that comes on all
the power line blogs and even on our three Whiskey Happy Hour and I won't
say his name because they don't want to give him the credit, but he
actually said, uh, you could at least look it up on Wikipedia what
the European Parliament is. Well, haven't actually taken European Union law and written
about the European Union. The part of the European in Parliament is like a
joke legislature. Okay, it's like like the articles of Confederation Congress. It
wishes I mean it's the real power is held by the European Commission, which
is a bureaucracy in Brussels that just has a power to issue regulation. I
mean, you know, be serious. Well, you know, listeners,
when you put these comments that Lucretia won't let me read out of my own
mental sanity, put on some high qualities like don't spread you know, don't
spread euro trash intellectual lies on the on our website. That's that's not a
good use of your time or the crecious time. But anyway, so well,
two things that came I came away with actually from being in Hungry that
I don't think the sense when you get there. First. I think in
the American media there's this kind of there's this message that some people put out
there that Hungary is are pro Russian. You do not get that feeling when
you're in Hungry. You're surrounded by constant reminders that the Russians whotal Buddha pest
when they at the end of World War Two and then crushed the nineteen fifty
six Revolution and kept their foot on the necks of Hungarians for the rest of
the Cold War. There is no maybe I'm wrong about this What I think
Hungarians have is a very strong sense of their national identity and very strong sense
of their nation state. But this idea that they're pro Russian that you see
constantly mentioned in the US media, I think it's just I think it's just
wrong. You will only get that sense when you were there. The second
point is, I think I just think they're saying openly. I know I'm
trying to put them in a good life, but I think they're saying openly
what I think sensible strategists back in the US would think, which is,
we now know, after we saw the failure of the Ukrainian offensive last summer,
that Ukraine is not going to be able to get back to its original
borders, that the change in technology military technology has reasserted the balance of power
towards the defense, and so sooner or later we're going to have to reach
an accommodation or reach a settlement with Russia that's going to allow to keep some
of that territory. But you can't say that politically, and you can still
chew up hundreds of thousands of Russian lives and destroy hundreds of billions of dollars
of the war material, which I think is great. I'm happy we're doing
it, but at some point we're going to have to reach a settlement,
and so our leaders should not be out there claiming we're going to get Ukraine
back to its original borders, because that's actually setting up unrealistic expectations. And
then the publics of all these NATO countries and US are going to be disappointed
when we have to reach that deal. Well, then they jumping right there
with the point something you know, I woud I've been to Hungary four times
now and I've learned a lot about the history, and it didn't occur to
me until this last week that Hungary is supremely and for good reason, unimpressed
with the idea that we must restore Ukraine to its previous borders. Why most
Americans are not aware of the fact that after World War One, Hungary got
screwed the worst out of the Versailles Settlement. They lost two thirds of their
territory and almost half of their population. Large territories they had for centuries got
swallowed up by Romania, Slovakia what became Yugoslavia. So when they hear territorial
integrity, they said, oh yeah, how about us, right, I
don't think there's any real revanism going on, although I don't know. You
know, they're going to territories back. Oh well, I don't know.
You want to rule a bunch of Romanians. Come on, you know they
don't want book arrest. Well, the point is it, you know,
you have a lot of ethnic Hungarians who still live. By the way,
part of Ukraine was snatched out, carved out of Hungary one hundred and three
years ago, and they remember this, This is very much on. They
observed the Triana and Treaty as it was called, every year, as you
know, a day of you know, national humili and are angry about it.
And I kind of get that, and so they are not impressed with
any claims of any other Western nations. Of gosh, you know, Ukraine's
entitled to keep every inch of its territory from the Russians. That's part of
it. The other part is, I think I said a year ago,
was the Hungarians saying essentially, I'll paraphrase it slightly, some foreign ministry people
saying to me, gosh, you know, after watching you guys bug out
of Vietnam after you abandoned the Kurge in nineteen ninety one, after this most
recent bug out of Afghanistan, we don't we don't have much confidence that America
and its NATO allies will actually see it through, and or if it escalates
to nuclear war, we get the fallout. We're still in the neighborhood.
You guys leave, We're still here. It's our backyard, right. That
seems to be a very compelling argument. Is there an argument for seeing it
through? As in, is there a way to see it through so that
Zelensky could have all of his precious territory back short of causing the World War
three with Russia? There is not, because Ukraine is losing badly, badly
in that war, despite the fact that nothing is about that as being reported
in the American press. You really have to dig to know that. But
if you dig, you find out that, as a matter of fact,
it's an abominable situation over there. They're now taking people out of prison in
Kiev to put them on the front lines. I mean, if you dig
in the situation, it's impossible. So I wonder if we I mean,
it's kind of what John was said but saying, but from a different point
of view, we are going to have to have a negotiated settlement. Why
continue to allow Zelensky, for his own heady self aggrandizement to resist a negotiated
settlement. Biden too, when we all know that nothing we could do,
nothing that the United States could do or NATO could do, short of starting
World War three, would ever restore any of that territory to Ukraine. Why
are we doing this? I think even you, John have to say that
we have probably in some ways degraded the Russian military capability, but in others
the Russians have figured out way better than we have and can respond way better
than we can to the changing battlefield conditions that Ukrainian conflict has brought to the
fore do you know what I mean by that, John, I do?
I mean, I do see the point. I mean you could say the
negative, the downside to my preferred strategy here, which is continuing to wallop
the Russians, that it is drawing Russia closer to China and Iran and away
from Western Europe. They are becoming more self reliant and their ability to wage
war. They are still able to sell oil and get around our sanctions,
so they're building themselves up into a stronger military machine, but we also have
sort of I think they've lost their you know, first line, their best
troops, their best armor. I think this goes on for a little while
longer. They're not going to be a serious military threat to Western Europe if
NATO spends amount of money they're supposed to. And then one last positive I
think that's come out. I think, but then this is very hard to
measure. Is maybe it teaches the Chinese at an invasion of Taiwan is not
so easy anymore. And you see how with what Steve was talking about,
all this new technology that's come out, and this is the kind of interesting
thing. This is like to me, it's like the variety of Arab Israeli
conflicts we used to see in the sixties and seventies that we saw, you
know, a mat a tryout of new technologies. It's almost like, you
know, there are proxy wars just like the Arab bus Israelis every time they
were fighting war. We saw how American weapons and strategies did against the Soviets,
and now we're seeing how right American style, Western European style warfare does
against sort of Russia and China and the way they wage wars. China's military
has structured the same way Russias as they fight the wars in the same ways.
I would think if you're the Chinese, maybe you're saying, like,
maybe this evasion across water not such a good idea, given how easy it
is with drones and missiles to defend yourselves. Except here's the thing that concerns
me watching sort of day by day, the different briefings that come across my
desk. Our ability to be nimble about the changing weaponry of warfare is practically
nil. And that's because of you know, we have a huge industrial complex
backing up our military complex, as you know, but none of that works
quickly. And there's been this last week. I don't know if you guys
saw any of this. It's a bit obscure, big old debate about whether
we needed a whole new branch of the army for drones. That's what Congress
is pushing and of course the military is pushing back because we cannot produce drones
with the way our you know, the whole complex system works for congressional authorization
all the way to subcontractors out there and I use a bad word out there
in the Netherlands, the heatherlands, whatever it's called. There's they can do
it in Russia because they don't have they don't have democracy in the same way,
they don't have the same kind of constrictions on the way they spend money.
Same with China, and we're just not keeping up with those things.
And so much of what's happening with the hoodies and so on has to do
with this kind of drone warfare that has changed the battlefield entirely. I'm tending
to call I'm tend to call this this proposal should be called drones pushing drones.
That's my view of Congress. Right, Okay, sorry, But one
last point about what the Lucretius said, which I think Steve will love this
because this is a I'm name dropping a history book now, but there's a
great book about you know, if you look at the US in the nineteen
thirties, what a lot of the criticism of Lucretia way levied against our military
and our industrial compleat you could levy against them woefully unprepared for war, you
know, our weakness invited other countries to take advantage of us. And there's
a great book by this fellow I like very much named Arthur Hermann, a
wide variety of different books, like you know one I doubt seriously how the
Scottish made the modern world, stuff like near Hayens to various ethnic groups like
the Scots, like they need any of that. But he wrote this great
book about how when World War two started. You know, there's this common
trope, historic trope. Oh, the federal government organized everything, got everything
moving, And he said, no, Actually, the secret is that all
these capitalists who FDR had waged Holy War on during the New Deal all patriotically
stepped up and used you know, free market economics to build you know,
I'm looking out at the bay right now, build liberty ships won every three
days or something. Incredible, right, But that's because they the federal government
basically turned it over to private enterprise to rebuild our industrial base, and they
figured out how to do it, not the government. That's I think our
main problem is it's still too much government led, too much government. But
also those corporations are not the corporations they were in the nineteen thirties. I
mean, do you want vowing making our our fighter jets this time? I
want them to make the fighter jets for China. Yeah, exactly. And
the other thing is, do you think that any that any corporation could make
a liberty ship one in every three days? No way, I mean,
it's just like they could build Hoover, damn and how much time and it's
gonna and how many years? As Steve is going to soon tell us that
what we need as environmental waivers to get it all. Well, well,
though, look at me down unions. Well I can say a lot about
this since my dad was both a defense contractor and a NASA contractor back to
years and correct. However, well, if that's true, how come you're
not so much richer than you actually are. You should have been a fact
you're one of those fact defense contractors. Well that was actually those were those
were Oh gosh, those were really tough businesses to be in back then for
a whole bunch of reasons. But see the thing about I mean, here's
a general point you can make from NASA. Remember that Kennedy says in nineteen
sixty one, we've got want to go to the Moon within nine years,
when we had nothing, really, I mean very little. And so what
I've by the way, Charles Murray, who who He and Charles Murray and
his wife, by the way, wrote a terrific book about the Apollo program
and interviewed all kinds of people. It's one of the more interesting books that
you wouldn't think of anyway. But I've talked to him a lot about that.
But something I know first time as a kid, but I remember asking
my dad a lot about it afterwards, is there wasn't time for NASA to
become bureaucratized, and they did all kinds of you know, my dad was
constantly changed. You know, can can you make this part? I will
rack a little bit. My dad's company designed and built the parachute release timer
and relays for the Apollo capsule. You know, if the parachutes have come
out when they're coming back down the ocean, and those are not the parts
where they have to stop the whole watch like days just to swap it out.
No, no, you couldn't. You couldn't get to it. But
I mean he, he and his engineers were up all night long for you
know, twenty four to seven during the whole Apollo thirteen business, because they
wanted to rerun tests of you know, can this thing still work? At
below? The specs for amperage and things like that, and and the darn
thing today would be the size of you know, thumb drive, but back
then it was the size of you know, two cigarette boxes or you know
packs, and with like forty wires sticking out of it, because you know,
it's a little low tech back then. But they adjusted stuff very quickly,
tested things very quickly. And NASA, I won't say that, well,
we know, we do know about the three astronauts killed on the pad
of course in Apollo one. But they cut a lot of corners and did
a lot of stuff that would never be So today NASA can't get anything off
the ground. It costs ten times as much. It's bureaucratic, and that
goes. That's just a metaphor for the whole defense process that Luke Creas is
talking about. I'll bet we could be nimble if we had to be,
but we don't have to be. Then there's the problem. Well, I
wonder, I wonder if we could be as nimble as we had to be,
if we had to be that way. I'm not quite as convinced as
you are, Steve, because I see they see the ugly sausage making process
unfortunately, and it's bad. It's very bad. I mean, it's hard
to imagine that you could you could do this in a worst possible way.
Oh well, that you know, back in the sixties is when you start
to see a divide there. We're in a hurry to get to the moon,
where we're going to just go fast and bureaucracy be damned. At the
same time, my dad was and his company, we're working on the F
one to eleven fighter, which was this great design of Robert McNamar and his
whiz kids at the Pentagon, and it was going to be a fighter that
all three services could use. And the problem was it did not work for
carrier landing, so it was too heavy. So okay, we'll make a
version just for the name. And then suddenlys why are you doing trying to
make one fighter for all the services and it's only gotten worse sense then,
I mean, John, what is the F thirty five cost per unit?
It's just some astronomical figure. And I went down in New Mexico last week.
Well, yeah, anyway, and so my dad, I think they're
over thirty five million of pop. But the whole program is yeah, you
know, D five Yeah, nes five thousand dollars. I'm gonna break protocol
here and insert a Babylon B because it'll be more appropriate. Here. Report
reveals, and it's a picture of Howdy Duty. What's his name, Pete
Boudhage Edge report reveals seven point five billion in government EV charger spending has purchased
one four pack of energizer double as. That's almost correct. Sorry, all
right, I think I think enough of that because we do want to get
to one more big topic for the day. And uh, and we're going
to run long, I mean, any last thoughts on the Userkraine business.
This does not look very promising to me. Well, I think the AD
I think the eight package is important because you do have this one thing I
think we do need to fix, and it's a problem created by Biden completely,
which is and you mentioned it, Steve and the Christia both is we
are getting a reputation for cutting and running on our allies. And once you
make a commitment, we got to follow through, I think because we're I
think right now, if we were to cut off Ukraine, really no one's
going to trust us to stick around anymore. Right, So yeah, so
I think that I think we Look, I don't think it's a bad use
of money if we're going to send the Ukraine like one hundred billion dollars a
year or have very much a packages to continue destroying the Russian military until they
come to their senses that both sides have to and reach a settlement. I'll
add that one of the things that a lot of the Hungarians I've talked to
the last couple of weeks we're interested in is what would president what will President
Trump do if he's elected in November, And they're all much more confident that
he will do something sensible, uh than they are that Biden will ever figure
anything out. So let me ask you, guys, because your world travelers,
and I mean this, I know is there. I know you're talking
to both of you are talking to we move smart people. I'll just call
it that. But is there a sense that America it has a a foreign
policy, the leader of the free world, that that it's sort of unilaterally
the same regardless of who is president or is there really the belief because I
think that that's the other big story of the week is Biden's Biden's personal feebleness
is being called the reflection of the nation's feebleness, which we see in his
foreign policy. Of course, does the view of America change internationally if there
is somebody who's actually not a senile, corrupt, old pedophile in office,
you can't find his way out the door or figure out if there's a chair.
If we had somebody, you know, robust, anybody assuming Trump,
of course, does the view Does that view really change? What you just
said, Steve, that will or maybe strong will our allies or just you
know, people around the world recognize that this is not a president that would
have done what we did in Afghanistan, that would have cut and run on
the Israelis or hampered them, and that would have gotten us in Ukraine unless
we had an ability to win there is that? Is that even possible or
is it? I mean, I don't know from Adam If you know this,
I do a little bit. The new the new Chicken Mexico, we
expect things to change because there's a new Chicken in charge of Mexico. I
don't know, but I mean, I'm asked, I is my question making
any sense? Yeah? My short answer is yeah, I can make a
huge difference, and I can go through the history of it. But that
would take too long. Let me just say that if Trump is is elected
in November, he will be well advised to follow the strategy of Richard Nixon
when he took off as in nineteen sixty nine, which was two things,
one both with mixed success. One was adopted crazy man's strategy. He hoped
to terrify North Vietnam. It didn't work. But with Trump, I think
it can work. He's he's a better positioned to play the crazy man and
assassinates more Iranians and then ignore the State Department and work around them, install
your loyalists and the National Security Camp Council, and you might just well turn
off the telephones at the State Department. That's something Trump water to do.
So on one comment response to the Creature's question is I do think there does
tend to be abroad this belief that an American president can really make a big
difference in terms of what the American government can do, maybe more so than
what we think is possible. But what I'm not maybe this is not surprising,
but I was really impressed by how sophisticated the knowledge of people and Hungary
is about our politics. Like they are follow they were following the Trump trial
day by day, just like anybody back home. They have their very own
you know, sources and knowledge because of the Internet and their own views about
Biden versus Trump, and it's really I mean to them. And there were
some very interesting Israelis there at this conference, the Steven and the Israelis also
We're saying things like this might be the presidential election in the United States is
the most important political event in Israel this year or in Hungary this year,
because they'll have such a big effect on the fate of their countries. Yeah,
yeah, all right. Let's move on to a last topic for today,
and concerns the fact, John, that you are now writing openly about
a certain statute that we cannot discuss here happy hour. All right, we
won't actually do that, but we'll do with this sort of broader scene,
which is climate litigation. And I'll just mention and then toss to you John
that, uh. One of the topics I took up at the same rule
of law conference in Europe that we were at was how the European Court of
Human Rights just declared about six weeks ago that a stable climate is a fundamental
human right and sanctioned or censured, I guess is a better term the government
of Switzerland for not living up to the stupid Paris Climate Accord. Meanwhile,
our federal court, it's finally dismissed a parallel lawsuit here that have been grinding
along for ninety years by some children's crusade to declare a stable climate a fundamental
constitutional right under our due process clause. And it finally took the non circuit
of all circuits to tell the district court enough of this nonsense, however,
and then it must be one reset about all that. However, below the
surface, and this is what you wrote about, we have these state lawsuits
narrower in scope, but against the fossil fuel companies, you know, Exxon
and so forth, demanding damages. It looks like a shakedown to me.
But these look like they're going to play out a bit bit longer. And
so that's where you come in, John. Right now, it's interesting because
the Supreme Court has rarely decided in any cases that have to do with global
warming, and there's now a bunch of cases, dozens and dozens all around
the country, brought by cities and counties blue ones of course, claiming that
the fossil fuel companies are like tobacco companies, and that they've been selling this
harmful product, namely petroleum and natural gas, and not informing consumers about its
dangers and suing for billions of dollars. Now this is interesting because this case,
these cases, it's a case out of Honolulu, has no Supreme Court.
And so I wrote a piece saying, and you know, maybe people
won't be captured by this idea the way it seemed apparent to me, but
it actually linked to me with the Trump trial in this sense that you know,
conservatives, one of the major I think accomplishments of the conservative movement in
the last few decades has been a reinvigoration of federalism. Have been a restoration
of the proper rule, and not a restoration, because I don't think it's
been restored, but moving towards the right balance between the federal and state governments.
But in both the Trump trial and these global warming cases, you have
progressed using federalism, but in ways that I think are not true to the
princ principles of federalism, because what they're really trying to do in both cases
is change our national politics. So the Trump case is not really about maintaining
law and order in a state. It's about changing the outcome of the November
elections and these global warming cases. It's amazing Honolulu says, Oh, anyone
who's been selling or using petroleum to the public has been guilty of fraud because
they didn't tell people that using oil and gas might lead to climate change.
That will cost Honolulu billions of dollars. So that to me is really just
trying to force this oppressive regulatory system onto our energy policy, which I think
is also really up to the national government. So the Supreme Court this week
is going to decide whether to take that case, and really that could be
the biggest global war in case of the Supreme Court. Well here to date,
I think you love I should shouldn't say this, it's your argument.
But in your in your article, you also discuss the fact that a they're
going after these major energy corporations because of course you don't say it like this,
but you know they have deep pockets and they are not going after others
who use petroleum pocket products that are just as guilty. If the if there's
any truth to the whole ridiculous lie about petroleum products are ruining the causing global
warming, et cetera, et cetera. We all know that that's a scam.
But if they did that, they would have in order to be consistent,
they would have to go after everyone, and not just those with big
pockets. They would have to go part of the argument, yes, because
it shows that what they're really up to is punishing interstate oil company. We're
looking for money, Yeah, and looking for money exactly right, because otherwise
why not sue if you're Honolulu, who's causing more pollution? Right? Is
it the oil companies? Why don't you require disclosure by the guys drive around
those tourist buses that pollute all over Honolulu? Right? I think surfboards are
probably made from petroleum products, you know. Yeah, certainly everything made by
north Faces by the way, Oh yeah, that was right, my pow
Chris Wright, who blew the whistle on them. Can I mention the footnote,
John, that you may have heard about from one of the earlier suits
which may still be pending. I don't know. I think Oakland had one
of these suits three four years ago. Yes, and the excellent people did
something clever. They went and looked up all the municipal bond offerings from Oakland,
because you know, they sell thirty year municipal bonds and you know you're
supposed to disclose certain kinds of risks. There were no disclosures on climate risks,
and in fact, I think the opposite. They said, we don't
anticipate any future climate change risks to the City of Oakland, and so they
pointed out that look, if you're you're guilty of the exact thing, exact
thing you're accusing us of, which I thought was a very embarrassing moment for
all these plaintiffs, and maybe the same will be proved why, I don't
know, so I would I'm saying, go ahead, John, I mean,
the main point, if this is the part I thought was interesting,
is that how progressives are trying to use federalism against uh, you know,
to achieve their aims that they don't really have, I think, a principal
view on what the federal or state governments are responsible for. If they can't
win, you know, they want even more regulation at the federal level that
they're not getting right. They would like a carbon tax or something like that.
And this is essentially what this is right because if they were to win.
It would just you know, the oil companies would just end up putting
a you know, a tax basically on all their products to pay for all
these damages, which just means energy costs would go up for the average consumer,
Right, I mean I always want right, Well, yes, I
mean I was always cynical about the tobacco litigation, which of course was never
finally hurt in court. It was a big settlement, and the big settlement
made the state it's dependent on people continuing to smoke because all the tax revenue
is going to so called health programs. I've joked for a long time that
we're going to come to the point in America where one billionaire smoker is going
to be paying for healthcare programs in all fifty states, right, and the
tax on each pack will be fifty million dollars or something like that. One
little factoy that a lot of people don't know is that if you add up
all the major multinational oil companies, and they don't include the French ones like
Total and British Petroleum, Royal, Dutch Shell plus Exon, Chevron, et
cetera, I think they actually control and produce something like only five percent of
the world's oil maybe ten percent. Everything else is owned by state owned oil
companies. That's Angola, that of course is Saudi Arabia. I mean a
Ramco is now publicly traded. But the point is is that when are they
going to file suits in the World Court against those sovereign oil companies In Norway?
Right? You know, the Norwegian government produces all this oil and natural
gas. It seems to me this is pretty obvious what's going on here.
So my ambush of John on this one it goes back to what he was
saying about that was coming John. Yeah, the Conservatives have used or have
had successes in returning some of the powers of the states that properly belonged to
the states away from the you know, the New Deal period where the court
allowed the federal government basically to take over everything, all the way down to
whether a farmer could grow his own crops to feed his own his own animals,
his own livestock. My question to you, John about this is actually
I'm really not ambushing you. It's a serious question. You make some distinctions
about why it is in this Honolulu case that the law, the lawsuits against
the oil producers don't make sense because of all of those other secondary and tertiary
kinds of things, like you know, other people are using energy too,
and there's no proof of that. Over to the discussion we've had many many
times, and that's whether or not states can in fact have any role in
regulating immigration illegal immigration. That wasn't ambush, not really, I'm really not,
because you know, I feel ambushed every minute I'm on this podcast.
But you know, you make the argument that that fraud, that you know,
the whole legal realm of fraud was always always belonged to the States up
until the New Deal, And then you make a good argument for why it
is that that energy policy should, in fact, regardless of whether you agree
with New Deal expansion of federal government powers, energy policy should in fact be
a federal government arena. Because people can read the article, I hope Steve
will link to it. But all of the arguments that you make up in
that piece make makes sense to me, but they don't all pertain in the
same way to the immigration argument. And that is because there is actually definable
harm that is done inside states to the safety and welfare of citizens by the
federal government's policy of illegal immigration. Do you see a distinction. Let me
just put it that way. Between your I think quite correct. The announcement
of using federalism in the Honolulu case or even in the brag case, and
what's been a really big topic lately because of the Court's decision in Texas,
that Texas does have some ability to control what happens inside of its state,
inside of the states with respect to illegal immigration. First, I think that
if an alien illegal or not commits a crime in Texas, a crime against
state law, Texas is certainly allowed to enforce murder, you know, violent
crime, that all the usual state crimes under the police power can be a
forced against aliens. I think the difference a second, the bigger difference I
don't think they're actually that different, actually, is that with immigration, you
know, I think that the Supreme Court has said the hour to decide who
comes in or not is up to the federal government alone. How you treat
them once they're in can't be different based on their alien status to the decision
about who is illegal already that I mean, that's you cross without going through
the proper channels, you're illegal. So yeah, but the but the courts
have said, but you can't treat them differently based on their status under federal
law about whether they're in the country legally or not. To me, that's
in a way the same as in my argument I'm saying, yes, states
have the right to enforce consumer fraud laws. That's part of the police power
too, just like the criminal laws. But they can't use that power to
interfere with federal policy over pollution. And I'm going to say the word the
Clean Air Act, Oh my god, interstate air pollution is something that seems
obviously federal right that you, particularly in the sp re Cord actually has offhandedly
said in the comment that obviously if there's anything that was federal, it should
be climate change, because you can't say, oh, pollution from one state
just across the border, and to noticate the whole theory of global warming is
you have these emissions and the temperature of the whole world changes. So to
me, actually they're they're they're similar. I actually think that I actually think
that the right balance is not that different in both cases, although they're totally
different and totally different contexts. You just lost all of the games you made,
John. You know, the thing is, you know, as a
you know, the Marines say, when you're ambush, you just keep going
straight. All right, Let's let's draw to a close with this episode.
Although let me let me just stick in a very quick story, since you
had a good one, John, I opened with a reference to James Stockdale.
I'll end my part of the day with a quick story about him.
I got to have a drink with him once. So it was twenty five
years ago before he died, but after running with Paro in ninety two,
and he's always been a hero of mine. I mean, you read his
articles and memoirs about being a prisoner at Vietnam. They're very moving and very
intelligent. And anyway, and I sort of asked him this, oh you
know how that all come about? And you know, I carefully asked about
the debate, and he said, oh, it was really funny. It
was a ramshackle campaign. And Ross called me up one day and or maybe
I called him and said, well, it looks like I've dodged the bolt.
I don't have to do that debate with Gore and dan Quayle. And
Paro says to him, Oh, I'm sorry, Jim, we signed you
up for that. Forgot to tell you. That's why he had no preparation
and it was pretty Okay, that was funny, wonderful. Yeah, okay,
you got some man, I'm gonna have to try to pick a few
because otherwise we'll be going all day. But at this point, Nation just
happy pageant winner is an actual woman. Okay. So then a little bit
about, uh, the debacle at Normandy. Biden admin hires NASCAR pit crew
to rapidly change Biden's diaper without anyone noticing. A little bit about and Biden
drops first bomb on Normandy in eighty years. As project back to the Hunter
Biden trial. By the way, is it just me or is the Biden
crime family engaging in just the worst kind of jury intimidation possible? I don't
know. I mean, you know, I've seen on at least on Twitter,
people say, you know, when when I was on trial, I
wasn't allowed to have people close to me sitting there in the front row.
Blah blah blah. I doubt that's true. But I mean, why is
Joe Biden there? They ought to be completely out of that entire thing.
But anyway, so as prosecution rests, Hunter Biden asks if this is a
good time to go out back behind the dumpsters for a minute or two for
no particular reason. Back to Biden's senility aids claim, Biden nailed a three
hundred and sixty kickflip mctwist on the White House halfpipe, but oh darn,
the reporters just missed it, and his ability to do his job is not
in any way affected by his rigamortis. Get back to the trial for a
second, the other trial. In response to Trump conviction, Republicans threatened to
fire off strongliest worded letter of all time. Right after seeing how much money
Trump raised, You guys know what it is up to now. I want
to say, I've heard three hundred and fifty one million. Yeah, it
could be, it's huge, anything like that. After seeing how much money
Trump raised, Biden called up Da Bragg to ask if he can get charged
with a felony or two. We never even discussed it because I don't remember
if it happened a lot before. But the whole stupid Alito controversy, you
know, oh yeah, gets to that point. Yeah. Democrats released demming
photo of Justice Alito reading the Constitution, to which they then respond AOC demands
to know where Alito bought an upside down US flag. And then finally,
because I got lots more, but I'm going to leave it here. Iranian
leader thanks college students for their support and says if any of them are interested,
he has a few white wife slots open in his hair. Jo Oh,
Steve, forgive me for this one more, because you know they Peter
Navarro, Steve Bannon in jail or in jail, This isn't all they actually
from a couple of years ago. When or to twenty twenty two, Yeah,
a couple of years ago. Bannon prosecutors warn that three hundred and thirty
million additional Americans with contempt for Congress are still roaming free. What's up right?
Well, hey you guys, it's great to be back together again in
the old fashioned way, the same time zone. And therefore, John,
it's now up to you to launch us out. Always drink your whiskey,
meat, let's go, Brandon and Steve, God save the Queen Man and
some other things too. Bye bye, everybody, Ricochet join the conversation,