Well, whiskey, come and take my pay the moneys Lorain, 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 flow when you're feel in love, down and low. Well,
welcome everybody to a very very special edition of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour,
live with all of our favorite loyal listeners. Uh and of course the
three of us Steve Hayward, John You, and me Lucretia, the International
Woman of Mystery, and we are very excited to have this podcast. I
think it's going to be lots of fun. We have lots on the agenda.
Fortunately, we have a world renowned legal scholar, constitutional scholar in our
mits who is going to explain to us all of the legal happenings of this
past week, and so all of us will leave here enlightened and understanding the
world much better. Thank you, so, John, how was your week?
It was great. It's very very busy. Let's see on Monday,
the Colorado Supreme Court tried to disqualify Donald Trump. So I was busy on
that, writing and commenting on that, and then we had the Supreme Court
just today issued a smack in the face, a lump of coal in the
stalking of Jack Smith, a special counsel. So I've been busy commenting and
talking about all that this week, plus trying to do my scholarly work too.
Can I ask you, John, do you do you do you think
think that I was surprised that we got from the Supreme Court this quickly,
the rejection of Smith's petition to weigh in on Trump's criminal trial. Do you
think the Colorado decision may have angered enough justices of the Supreme Court? But
they said, quit dumping all this into our lap at once, And I
mean, I think that's the decision they were going to make anyway. I
thought they were likely to reject Smith's petition, but I didn't think they'd do
it within two weeks. But I don't know. If i'm the court right
now, I'm I'm pretty grumpy about everybody trying to force this onto their back.
Well, first, okay, we have our legal scholar here just in
case people are not fully cognizant of what's going on. Briefly, I think
the Colorado one is pretty simple, and we've had a lot of discussions about
how the fourteenth Amendment might actually apply in this particular case. But can you
give us a wrap up on the Colorado case first, please, John So
Yeah, Colorado Supreme Court four to three said that Trump was disqualified from the
ballot under the fourteenth Amendment because he had participated in some way in an insurrection
or rebellion, and since he had been Officer of the United States and January
sixth, twenty twenty one, he's prohibited from running again for federal office.
It was four to three decision, although all seven justices are appointed by democratic
governors. And oh, here's the other interesting thing. The Colorados Supreme Court
stayed its own decision, which means that it's said, we will not put
the decision into legal effect, so that the process of printing the ballots and
so on with Donald Trump's name for the primary can go on. And there's
plenty of time for the US Supreme Court to decide whether to hear the case.
I can't believe they won't, but for them to hear the case and
not have to worry about if they don't decide within a week or two,
you'll have these primary ballots without Donald Trump's name on them floating around Colorado and
explain that it's actually the primary, not the federal election. Would the Colorado
Supreme Court have any jurisdiction over to decide over who could be on the ballot
for the actual general election. I get a little confused about the whole You
know, there's no constitutional US constitutional sanction for parties, but of course most
states have laws and constitutional provisions governing parties, primaries, caucuses, and that
sort of thing. Would they be able to make that ruling if we were
jumping ahead to the general election and the ballots for the general election. So
this is interesting. There's a difference because, if you may remember, a
few weeks ago, the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected this claim because they said,
we don't have any power over primaries. Primaries are up to parties party that's
how parties decide who they run for the general election. Colorado different here.
Colorado said the Colorado Supreme Court said, we have power over both the primary
and the general election. And so they said, since we just find Trump
is disqualified under the Constitution. It applies to all elections, primary and general.
Okay, and we have a question quick about is the president and an
officer? Because you've spoken on that before. What did the Colorado court say
about that? There's actually so there's actually three different grounds, three different issues,
and we haven't talked about the other two as much. The first one
is does the text of the fourteenth Amendment even apply to someone who was president
or is running for president. The second question, which actually dissenters in this
case in Colorado spend a lot of time on, is doesn't Congress have to
pass a law defining, for example, what's an insurrection. Doesn't Congress have
to set a procedure to decide who participated in insurrection? So this is a
company called non self execution. Sorry for the technical language. And then the
third issue, and this is also what the dissenters went off on, is
how can you decide Trump's a insurrectionist when he never there was no trial,
he never had a chance to actually put on a defense. The district judge
here just basically read the January sixth Committee report and decided that Trump was an
insurrection So on the first, I think the first issue is the one that's
going to be most attractive to the Supreme Court, because if you do that,
then you don't have to do any of the other stuff. You don't
have to look at whether even January six is an insurrection, whether Trump participated
in it, if the constitutional text. I think the Calorad Supreme Court was
wrong on this. The constitutional text just doesn't say the word president as someone
who's covered, and it doesn't list the presidency as an office that you're disqualified
for, just as officer of the United States. And the reason why I
don't think that phrase includes the president is that the Constitution repeatedly in lots of
other places, says president, and then it says officer of the United States.
In fact, the Fourteenth Amendment itself does because the fourteenth Amendment says you
can't be an elector for president if you elector right, Yeah, an elector,
right, So they use the word president in the actual sentence. So
it shows that the famers knew how to put the word president. They wouldn't
have just said officer of the United States. Well, is the mean president?
And one last thing, and then the impeachment clause says you can you
know you impeach presidents, vice presidents, or officers of the United States.
It would be you can't read anything in the Constitution to be a redundancy,
and that's what the Colorado Supreme Court's view does. It reads officer of the
United States and President to mean the same thing, so then it makes all
those mentions of president redundant. Well, I think I read somewhere, maybe
it was one of your articles, John, that in the legislative history of
the fourteenth Amendment, which is extensive because that was a huge, protracted debate.
But the president was I think name in an early draft or someone's early
draft and removed. Yes, But except there's no apparently no record of why
it was removed or what arguments might have been made about the removal of it.
But it seems to me the architecture of it that you've just laid out
as pretty iron plat. Now here's the fly in the ointment is I've heard
talk that the Colorado Republicans have said, fine, if this decision's upheld,
we'll just have a caucus caucus instead of a primary. Now that's definitely a
party doing, you know, privately, Caucuses are done all around. How
would the court possibly then keep Donald Trump off the ballt in November. I
suppose the same logic, they'd have to do it on the general election.
Balt you have to be a whole new lawsuit. Yeh, So I have
to ask both of you then. I'm sure you saw, as as I
did. Numerous numerous commentators, both in writing and the talking heads, talk
about the fact that this all this is going to do is propel Donald Trump
forward even farther, and in fact, he's actually up even more in the
polls. They're sort of death now trying to pretend that Nikki Haley's within striking
distance in New Hampshire. Oh oh, my gosh, I'm so excited.
But really, I mean, are if the Colorado Supreme Court had an agenda
here, does it make any sense for them to have pursued it the way
they did. I guess I'm asking both of you. I don't have an
answer. I really I don't know how leftists think, and I can't put
myself in that position, so they all just seem like morons to me.
But oh hey, can I offer an observation for John to reflect on as
he ponders his answer your question. It's been widely pointed out that all seven
judges on the Colorado Supreme Court are appointed by Democrats. The four it's a
four to three vote. The four and the majority three of them are from
Ivy League law schools. The fourth is from the University of Virginia, which
is IVY League adjacent in some ways. I think the three no votes,
not Republicans Democrats all went to the University of Denver law schoo more evidence that
we should refer to the IVY League as the poison IVY League. I mean,
I'm not surprised at all than Ivy leaguers who spin off all these theories,
but of course embrace this kakam Amy theory of the fourteenth Amendment. But
there you go. You know, there's a lot of academic discussion out there,
even some never trumpers. I've read never Trump or never Trump or legal
scholars. I think this is wrong and think that Officer of the United States
does not include the presidency in terms of political agenda. I mean, you
know, state supreme courts are more political. I mean there's a plenty like
in California where you actually vote for them, right, they're actually run elections,
so they're not as you know, divorced from politics as the federal courts.
So I'm not surprised if there's something of a political agenda. This is
a state that Trump lost by ten points last time, and I can't think
he's going to contest it. I mean, it'd be a waste of Steve's
the xterron is. I would think it'd be a waste of king campaign dollars
for Trump to contest Colorado. So I actually think it wasn't political. I
think it's actually a close question. And I don't accuse the four in the
majority of you know, being partisan acts and the three in the descent of
you know being you know, true blue believers in the conscertion. I actually,
I actually think it's genuinely a close question. Really do I see?
I think? But I think it's obviously right that it's that does the president
doesn't fall within the fourteenth Amendment just based on the text. Well, that's
not a close question. And is it? If if we go back to
the twenty sixteen election and look at the behind the scenes machinations to try to
get electors to change their votes and do all those other things, and Hillary
Clinton continuously arguing that you know, she won and you know, Russia,
Russia, Russia. I was actually at the Trump inauguration, staying in a
hotel somewhat outside of d See because I got the I got the tickets from
my senator at the kind of the last minute, and they I was closer
to the gathering place of all the women who were out there the day after
the inauguration, you know where all those twits got up there, burned down
the White House. That whole thing. What was it was called something stupid
about women, but I forget what it was. Anyway, there was you
know, there was lots and lots of evidence that those people wanted to overturn
the election. They came just as close as anything that happened on January sixth.
Where's the difference there, John? I mean, but they didn't,
are we going to get into They didn't assault the Capitol Building. Actually,
I was at the Capitol Building and there were lots of people assaulting all around.
And that's and the Capitol Building has been assaulted other times. So I
don't know that that's definitive anyway. Sorry, I'll leave it alone. I'm
just saying I don't if we start going down the road of whenever somebody questions
the outcome of an election, they're an insurrectionist. That is light years different
from seceding well and taking up barmies. I agree with you, you know
that you know the answer to this. It's the old you know, the
old cliche that I love, which is, if liberals didn't have double standards,
they wouldn't have any standards at all. I mean, yeah, I
guess I'll do it quickly. I mean, remember that, John, you
were there, Downtown d C in November twenty twenty was boarded up. The
whole downtown was boarded up. And why that wasn't because they're worried that Trump
was going to win. Was that Biden was going to win the election.
They thought that Trump was going to win the election, and boy, was
there going to be a lot of trouble there. I mean, what happened
on January twenty, twenty seventeen, was you know that that the irony that
immigrant had his limousine burned on the street, and you know, lots of
store windows smashed and it was disorganized, but mostly peace. You know,
That's that the famous CNN person twenty twenty did. But look, I do
think though that you raised the question, and John, you second it that
people saying gosh, this helps Trump, except there is lucretia. You directed
my attention to this snap poll by the YouGov people, an online poll showing
that a majority of people say they think the Colorado Supreme Court decision is probably
right. Now. I'm very skeptical as to the quality of the poll and
the depth of that opinion on the public, but that certainly is an odd
thing. My explanation is, courts are, especially anything called Supreme Court,
starting with the US Supreme Court, is still the highest relative measure tallest building
in Wichita time, is the highest government institution in public respects. Still these
days, everything else is in the dumps. And you know what my explanation
is for just it really quick. Yes, sure, give me pussy hats.
I forgot that. Sorry, that's exactly who they were. Yeah,
right, So this is my explanation. I have a you know, I
run a program, a political science program, undergraduate political science program. But
it's a transfer only program, so we only got juniors and seniors. I
had to institute and fake an upper division introductory American government course because juniors in
college did not know the three branches of government. Juniors in college did not
know the three branches of government. There are idiots out there, and I
think you GOV managed to find every single one of them. Maybe they're more
sophisticated than you think, and they think there's four because they forgelo the administrative
state where they think there's three chambers, like our good friend AOC. There's
one point I actually I thought I thought of this after the podcast from last
week with Creche. I should have met because you make a group. I
mean, I think it's a really compelling point. You make that in twenty
sixteen, you know, conservatives or probably did not, you know, engage
any political violence. Twenty twenty, there was the attack on the Capitol,
but you point out twenty six seventeen, eighteen, nineteen twenty there was a
lot of you know, leftist violence, a lot of leftist rioting, and
you don't see the same kind of response from the Justice Department. But you
know the thing, I don't know if this is going to make a difference
to you, but I think federalism in partisan example, because all those riots
happened in liberal blue cities and the policing response is up to them, right,
they chose to let those riots go on. They chose not to prosecute
people. You know, there were people like Tom Cotton, remember who wrote
that op ed that caused all the New York Times editors to cry, you
know, he had You know, there were people urging Trump to activate the
National Guard and send them into the cities, which then would have given the
Justice Department the ability to prosecute people. But he chose not to for whatever
reason. What about like when they when there were a tax on federal courthouses
and whatnot, is that still within the jurisdiction of state criminal justice systems.
So the only I was thinking about that the one place where that did happen
was Portland. Yeah, well Portland, there was and I thought the Justice
Department was going to go after those people in Washington. D Sorry, but
I don't, But I don't. I mean, you were saying this was
you're you were suggesting or maybe just outright saying that this was an example of
bias by the Justice Department. But that was a time when when Bill Barr
was the Attorney General, and to be impressed that no, but there these
are people who who's running TI Trump, TI Trump, you know, deep
state Justice Department. This was a department run by Trump appointees, and they
chose not to bring these kinds of cases. Okay, no, wait a
minute, you have to take this. There's a good reason, I'll put
it this way, for people to doubt that we really have fair and impartial
justice from our national government these days. So remember the Ted Stevens case from
all the way back in two thousand and eight. Right the story this week
in the Wall Street Journal that caught my eye about fat Letter. He's this
guy that we're apparently getting back from Venezuela. And the Wall Street Journal story
is all about the federal judge chastising the Justice Department prosecutors for their bad behavior.
I think there was not ideological, but it was grotesque abuse. Well,
my point is is that you and we saw with the trial of Oh,
come on, you know the chief of staff, our Palette, the
Hudson student. It was Cheneese chief of staff, Scooter Libby. So here's
the thing is, and I don't know what to make right now. The
Rudy Giuliani verdict this last week for one hundred and fifty million dollars in damages.
I mean, that's more money than you would have got out of BMW
in a product liability suit if you want to go back to those And my
point is that I don't think I think it is a proposition A Proposition B
A is I think there's good reason for people to doubt the impartiality and ideological
neutrality of our justice department in large parts of our state justice justice systems today.
And part B is can a conservative get a fair trial in Washington,
DC? And I think the answer to that is very doubtful. Can I
make a distinction, but you can. When you say political, I think
there's two different meanings. And so I think obviously prosecution decisions are political in
the sense that they involve questions of policy on which ideology can play a role.
I mean, we elect a president. The Constitution gives a president the
job of carrying out the laws. So we've always accepted from George washington On
that when you choose a president, they have priorities about what to process,
cute and what not to prosecute. As hard that's political. But what I
resist is the idea that it's partisan political, that you know, the just
Harment goes after Republicans harder than they would go after Democrats. Now the Trump
thing is just unprecedented to that, right, Well, this is the thing.
We'll put it this way. Here's this is what I thought you if
you had reversed things. Suppose Trump had won in twenty twenty and it was
left and you have the twenty sixteen situation that Steve was saying people were worried
about, and leftists like Antifa and all those people tried to break into the
Capitol and stop the electoral count I think the Justice Department would go after all
those people just as hard on the same theories. I think you're absolutely wrong
about that. You don't have a way to sure, but there's but there's
the evidence that might lend some credence to my side versus yours. Is what
the Justice Department has done since then. Never mind the malicious prosecutions of January
sixth, but going after people like me who attend conservative Catholic churches, going
after parents in school boards and calling them domestic terrorists, the kinds of things
that they're no longer partisan. They are the agenda of the left that is
being wholesale pushed through the prosecutorial powers of the DOJ to make sure that the
left gets what it wants. I know that at the state level you have
the you know, you have the Soros prosecutors and so on. That does
not explain how corrupt our Department of Justices. And you know, it's I
imagine that there are good people in places out there, but for the most
part, they've gone to the Ivy League schools, of the Ivy League law
schools, and they're they're present company accepted, they've jumped the kool aid,
and they don't see that they're not being impartial. They don't see it that
way. So that far out agree with you. But they're partisan hacks to
the nth degree. And that's the reality, whether they see it that way
or not. I mean, I don't think. My guess is is most
people in the Department of Justice, like most people the New York Times,
they don't think they're ideological, they don't think they're partisan. They but they're
like fish in water. It's become such a monoculture in these bureaucracies. I
mean, what is the Nixon complained about this again about fifty years ago now,
about how the civil service as a general matter is about ninety percent Democrat.
That's a huge problem. It's the similar problem we have on the universities,
right, you have the absence of any significant or critical, massive descent
that would say, hey, wait a minute, we've ginned up a case
against Ted Stevens. Gee. You know all these protesters of the Kavanaugh hearings
who were trying to intimidate senators and trying to block the hearings. I don't
think any of them ever saw an hour in a jail cell or faced any
prosecution. And that's what I think. Why and then people say, gosh,
why do people not trust the government? You know, threats to democracy?
You know, this is the problem, John is I'll stop there.
So we had a back and forth on email, and I just want to
sort of leave it with this because I do want John to talk about the
Supreme Court case. We've had a couple questions about that too, John,
But I want to leave it with this and tell the listeners how I actually
how I left it with John, and that is if you put if you
take a bird's eye view of everything that's happened, say since twenty sixteen,
starting with the p dossier and the Russia Russia Russia hoax and the scams with
the FAISA warrants, and spuying on the Trump campaign, and on and on
and on and on and on, and then you know, lo and behold,
Trump somehow managed to win anyway, and they just doubled down on their
efforts to try to destroy Trump after that, And then you have everything that's
happened. Hunter Biden's been under investigation for things that would have landed anybody else
in jail for years. It's just so many things. But my argument to
John is, and this is probably the difference, he thinks like a lawyer.
I don't know if you could say I think like a political scientist.
I probably think like a blonde. But from my blonde point of view,
there are two sides to this. There are two. I think. I
actually find that you think like a hit man sometimes my my sorry hit woman,
hit woman, my pronouns should try me anyway. But I think that
what John, what I believe in, what John doesn't see from my point
of view now trying to be pick on him, is really that there are
only there are only two sides. There may be a few nice people low
down in the Justice Department or the State Department or what have you, who
are not exactly partisan hacks, really not partisan hecks. But for the most
part, we have we have a war going on in this country. There
are two sides, and everything that happens against Trump is not just about something
happening against Trump. It's for the left, on behalf of the left,
to ensure that the left remains in power. That's why you have to prosecute
to the fullest extent of the law and beyond the law, as we're going
to see in the Fisher case, anybody who participated in January sixth in any
way, because what we can't ever have again is anyone questioning whether or not
the left one, whether Democrats want elections. And that's where that's where there's
two sides to that. If you're in the middle, well, I don't
really think that fraud happened. I don't really think that there's enough evidence.
You're on their side. That's what it comes down to. You're on the
left side. Yes, absolutely, Well, I use as my example,
Sorry, Steve off just says one more thing, that guy, the Michigan
congressman whose name I've thankfully already forgotten after I wrote it yesterday, who made
a Republican yeah right, who voted this is going to be my lead in
for John who voted to impeach Trump. He was one of ten Republicans and
he's scandalized by the Colorado Supreme Court's decision. What the hell is wrong with
that idiot? How does he not see that his bypart isan't vote to impeach
Trump on the flimsiest stupidest of charges, was in fact helping out the left
and is part of the entire agenda, the entire movement, that the entire
program, whatever you want to call it, to destroy Trump and to destroy
constitutional government as we know it. So tell us about the Supreme Court case.
Well wait, let me just add this comment. I won't say that
I'm actually in the middle on this point. I think it is possible that
there isn't a deliberate, conscious, coordinated effort to say, we want to
do these prosecutions so that no one will ever dare question an election again,
because you're not gonna be able to stop that. I do think though,
maybe this is a more serious way of thinking about it. Trump terrifies them,
and January sixth terrified them because it's one thing to, you know,
riot the streets and smash them glass of windows, But when you know when
you have a large number of Americans descend upon the capital that shook them to
their core, and and then the fact that Trump's still out there, going
to run again, and of course they're they're way overwrought. I mean,
you know, even friends of ours, like you know Bob Kagan, who
John and I know a little bit, and and other people know Trump's going
to be a dictator. I mean literally think he's going to be Hitler or
fascist, which is completely ridiculous. But I think the real motivation of this
is they're that terrified of Trump, which is just as good. Anyway,
people are asking John about the I have a Ukraine question two from two weeks
ago, which we can defer, but people want to know about the Supreme
Court case today. John Smith, Ky, we'll do that before we talk
about you care. Yeah. So, uh yeah, this is a Trump
win and another loss for Jack Smith the Supreme Court, which makes him oh
for two, because you remember he unanimously lost his effort to go after the
governor of Virginia a few decades ago, where lost he lost unanimously. Yeah
yeah, so the court. So it's a small change, but actually it's
a small legal thing. But I think it has big political consequences, which
you guys would know better than me. Which is all the court did was
to say, we're not going to allow this case, the one about whether
Trump is immune from criminal prosecution over the January sixth attacks, whether that Jack
Smith wanted to leapfrog the normal process of appealing to an appeals court and then
from there going to the Supreme Court, even though he won. By the
way, so normally when you in you don't appeal, but he wanted the
trial court, the trial judge said Trump is not immune from criminal prosecution.
He wanted to go right to the Supreme Court bypassed to the usual process.
Although he never explained why. He just kept saying the case was really important,
which it is, but he didn't explain why the rush. And the
court today just gave it the back of the hand, didn't even issue an
opinion, just issued a one sentence order just saying the special counsel's petition is
denied. What does that mean in practical terms? So, in practical terms,
the case has to go up to the normal appeals court, which is
called the d C Circuit. Here where I clerked, I clerked on that
court in the Supreme Court both and then that'll take time, right, You'll
have writings of briefs, you'll have oral argument, you have writings of opinions,
you have that could take that process normally would take about a year.
I could see that happening in two three months. Two three months would be
incredibly fast. And then if Trump loses there, then Trump can go to
the Supreme Court and say I would like to you to hear this case.
I think the political consequence, though, is that it seems really hard to
believe this trial could start in March, because while this is all going on,
since this would dispose of the whole case if Trump is found to be
immune, all trial proceedings have stopped. So I don't I think the consequence
is that this case has to go. This trial can't start till the summer
at earliest, and maybe not even till the fall. Well, I want
to question Steve, and then I'll let you go ahead. The question is,
so it's a wouldn't a bigger win for Trump have been for the Supreme
Court to take it on and actually issue a ruling or would they have never
done that? John? Oh? Yeah, that one, I mean the
ultimate Yeah, you know, if Trump were to win it all, it
would have been the court where grants, sir, hear the case and say
Trump is immune. But I have a hard time seeing them doing that all.
The Supreme Court is never actually held on whether a president is immune from
prosecution later by the federal government, but there's a lot of lower court decisions
and stray comments from Supreme Court cases in the past makes it seem like presidents
are not immune. So if you think that's what the court's ultimate decision is
going to be, I think putting aside whether how you feel about Trump or
not, I think that's what the court will do just as a matter of
law. If they do that, then Trump's strategy makes a lot of sensuis
is just to push it as far back into the calendar as possible. Unlike
the Colorado case, where he wants to speed things up right, get the
Supreme Court to decide as fast as possible so he can go back on the
ballot. In the criminal trial, his interest is to just delay it as
long as possible. But I think this is really polpful. But this is
interesting because that means means maybe this criminal trial gets started after the primaries,
but before the general election, right right, which I keep saying, raise
is the remote But in these days, what's implausible anymore? A specter of
a campaign with one candidate locked in his basement, another candidate locked in a
jail cell. Oh, by the way, there are a couple of the
you know, usual wacko MSNBC lefties saying that Trump is Trump should be held
in jail and pre trialed attention because you know he's so such a danger.
So uh well, a question of history, John, It wasn't the Nixon
tapes case decided on accelerated argument in the summer outside the usual term of the
Supreme Court. This is actually how right? Yeah? I actually think this
shows why Jack Smith. I mean, there's many reasons why, but this
is a I think an important reason why he should not be the special counsel
is that he's really playing to the gallery. He didn't have real reason to
try to accelerate this case unless it really was because he if he was going
to say this, but he never said this to the court. His theory
must be I want to get a verdict in before the end of the primary
season. I don't even think that's possible. That could be his reason.
That's but what they did publicly was to end his allies were to compare this
to the Nixon case. Right. He wants this to sound like Trump is
like Nixon. And in the Nixon case, there was this leapfrogging of the
Supella Court, the d C. Circuit, and the Supreme Court. And
this was about whether Nixon had to hand over the Watergate tapes to the Special
Council in that case. And I think I went back and looked, and
in that case, it really took the Supreme Court. It's incredible took it
was able to take the case up and then issue an opinion within about two
months. Oh that's that, Okay, I thought it was. But even
so it still would have even if they took this case and had decided,
it still would have thrown the trial back because that would have meant that the
Supreme Court would decided in March at the earliest, and so you'd still need
time. Ok So I'm going to bring in really quickly a couple of comments
and not keeping up with them because this is too interesting to keep going on.
But Stan asked in the chat, John, what about Eugene Vollocks argument
that Jack Smith has no standing because he's only a private citizen. I don't
even understand that. But actually there's this question about whether Jack Smith is actually
properly appointed and whether he's allowed to be to be representing the United States government
because he's not actually a government. This is really interesting. The Court when
it denied today this is interesting. Actually, three never Trumpers, I think,
actually filed a special brief on this question and said this free court should
just deny this case because Jack Smith is not really a prosecutor. The whole
special Council things on Constitutional Court didn't mention that today, but that's an interesting
thing, or his particular, the whole, the whole, the whole system
is unconstitutional by the way. I mean, we're I'm saying one more thing
about the fact that it was a one line rejection today, John, I
mean, I guess that happens a lot. But I know that's a lot
of high profile cases. If there's a justice or two who wants to hear
the case, they quite often file the scent with the order and we'll give
a paragraph or two argument about why the case and that didn't happen today,
which I think is very priling. You know, I think that is telling
you. Actually, one of the justice I think who likes to do that
the most is the one I clerk for Clarence Thomas he Alto. Does it
something too right? Yeah? Yeah. They use it to flag issues which
they hope will come back again, and they're showing sympathy for the case to
be brought. But here, as you say, Steve, No, I
think I think that shows that this court, even maybe some of the Democratic
point justices, do not want the Supreme Court waiting into the twenty twenty four
election, right, They're thinking long term, you know. I this is
why I think is going on with this case and the caller. That's how
That's how I explain the Supreme Court acting fast and early in the Colorado case
while doing what they did to day and letting the criminal case go on a
slower track. Is in both cases the Supreme Court then doesn't have to be
the one picking who gets to run in twenty twenty four. That's what they
right, that's what they I think that's something that we unite all of those
justices is let the people decide what they think about Trump. You know,
we're not going to be the ones who decide Trump's an insurrectionists, and we're
not going to remove them from the ballot. The people can decide that.
Yeah, well, as I speculated, I think it was mey a week
ago or two weeks ago. If Trump is the candidate and loses the election,
then the Supreme Court doesn't have to deal with this and that would make
life easier, which is nothing exactly right. Okay, So David's iPad is
obviously a smart ass because David's iPad says, I hear that Jack Smith is
married to Rachel Maddow. No, and the reason we know that that's not
true unless Jack Smith is somehow a trans man. Rachel Maddow swings the other
way. Really, yes, oh yeah, yes, And it's not it's
not like I'm outing her. It's you know, it's sort of widely known.
It's public information, right, it is public information somebody somebody that I
mean about how Jack Smith resembles one of the NFL starting quarterbacks right now,
so you know, prosecutor by week NFL quarterback by weekend, something like,
I don't know. Don't be engaging in lookism. Yeah you want to talk
about that, I do, I do really quickly. It's okay, it
needs to be quickly, so I want people to I don't want to brought
this up, but go ahead, okay, I just want to really quickly
before we move on to the next When I make fun of someone's looks,
it is generally because I'm making fun of their soul, and they have a
lousy, rotten, ugly soul, and there's usually a connection, you know,
in the in the good old days, before Nihle and so forth took
over, we actually celebrated beauty. But what I find is that ugly leftist
people purposefully make themselves ugly. Like I'm sorry, but I'm gonna say it.
Claudine Gay, She's probably not all in all, if she wasn't such
so deep, you know, like you're a mean one, mister Granch.
Your soul is full of gunk. I think of her every time I hear
that song play, because she's just She's an awful person. But the left,
and especially the feminist left, has moved into this place where the last
thing they ever want to do is try to appear to be beautiful attractive.
They do everything possible. Clouding Gay shaves her head and wears these nasty,
stupid looking glasses that I don't know anyway, I don't understand all that and
goes out of her way to be anything but a feminine woman. And okay,
that's fine. But if I'm not allowed to make fun of that,
then hey, I won't make fun of somebody who's disfigured, sort of plain
or unattractive, but I will make fun of somebody who goes out of their
way to look ugly. And so there we I mean, isn't what you're
saying. I think as I understand what you're saying, is there is kind
of what I call a look on the left, and part of it does
connect the philosophy. Right. They want to be transgressive, they want to
reject the standards of beauty of the patriarchy, and you know, culturally determined
gender roles right. And I mean, I think of something Roger Scrutin said
to me one day that inventially startled me, but then I got to thinking
about it. The Roger, by the way, I should back up and
say, you know, he's written a lot about everything, but a lot
about esthetics. And aesthetics used to be a significant sub field in academic philosophy,
and it has disappeared almost everywhere altogether, yeah, and that's because it's
thought to be too subjective or whatever. It's just died. Well, we're
walking along on campus one day actually was Colorado, and he spent a few
days with me in Colorado. When I was there ten years ago, the
big fashion for the young ladies on campus, for many, not all of
them, but for a lot of them, was to wear the mirrored sunglasses.
Now, it didn't bother me. I mean, I remember mirored sunglasses
were big when I was learning to ski back in the seventies. But it
is true that you can't tell what anybody's looking at behind mirrored sunglasses. And
he used a particular word about it I thought was interesting. He said,
that's an aggression, and I thought, I don't quite understand, you know.
I asked him, what do you mean an aggression? And he said,
well, you can't see their eyes that they were looking at. There
is that you know, it's it's like a veil of the eyes, which
is one of human beings, but especially women, one of their most important
features. And anyway, he was really put off by that. Oh that's
an interesting observation, and it sent me back to I'll stop there. Well,
it's fine, Michael says, if you could be a stunning blonde,
you live it. If you are not attractive, how do you get attention?
So you still love to watch this show called Franklin and Bash and there
were two attorneys. John heard the show Rash Attorneys, and it was a
comedy. It was funny as hell, but in Los Angeles. But there
was this episode where uh, the assistant to the CEO was fired by the
daughter of the CEO. And she came to these attorneys and claimed that she
was fired because she was too attractive. She wasn't. She was kind of
dumpy, she was kind of overweight. There wasn't you know, she didn't
have any of this sort of traditional and the whole place was just it was
like a playboy mansion. Every woman who worked there was just the most attractive
woman you'd ever seen, except for this one dumpy woman. But through the
course of the show, what they did was they showed she had so much
confidence in her herself that she just made everybody around her in love with her
and think she was attractive. So Michael asks, how do you get attention?
It's I believe that it comes from deep in your soul, and so
ugly people like Rashida Talib. She's not. I've seen a picture of her
too, where you know you don't want to throw up when you look at
it, but then I remember who she is, and I still want to
throw up. Well, now, all right, let me ask you.
I just throw in the thought just so I think I agree with something both
of you are implying, which is those college presidents and college administrators and professors
and students, they're looking that way intentionally. They're not like just slovenly.
They're adopting. They're adopting a certain look. And I don't think there's anything
wrong with that except the guess ex that they want to look like they didn't
care, but they do care. And one air you see that all the
time is in law. When you have trials and you're picking the lawyers that
you want, of course you consider the gender and whether they're attractive, and
how they look, their race, all kinds of things because you want to
get sympathy from the jury. Right, So all right, so you you
it's not you would be guilty of malpractice if you didn't think about those issues
when you pick who's going to do certain kinds of things. In a trial
because you want a certain look to appeal to your constituency. In there that's
a jury, and in the academy, these people look that way because their
constituency are these administrators and faculty who prize this appearent this kind of look.
Now, right, I think it's all intentional and it's unfortunate that it's unattractive,
but it's not. It's it's utterly deliberate. Yeah, and I'm sure,
I'm sure there's college presidents when they testified in Congress, they had consultants,
I mean, whoever, by the way, who There's all these story,
great stories within the belt about who's responsible for screwing up which law being
firms of law firms advise them because many people saying this was the worst Congressional
hearing like ever that one's ever seen in terms of witnesses. From the perspective
the witnesses, I'm sure they gave them all kinds of a vice about what
to wear and how to look and how to act, and it was a
total disaster because America doesn't like the way that college presidents act now and how
different professors are. Let me say one last things, and then it's time
to change a subject. But I'm finding John Fetterman much more better dressed and
attractive lately. I'll just leave it at that. Well, we all,
we all, we all, we all know you've always had a hankering for
bald, large white men. Careful there, Well I do, I do.
I haven't ask a question for you, Lucretian on this. I do
want to ask you about it. I think, what is a tough A
tougher slightly tougher case. But in some way we talk about a lot.
But I did run back to the famous article the American Spectator from forty years
ago. It's amazing. I can't remember wh my car keys are, but
I remember articles from forty years ago by the famous Taki who wrote an article
about why Jane Fonda was the ugliest woman in America. Forty years ago,
Jane Fonda was at the peak of her fitness craze. And she's not unattractive,
right, A very pretty woman. I had her damn video roobics video
I can't imagine. Well, here's one sash from the article that I think,
cannot imagine you doing aerobics. Oh, here's one sentence from the article.
Because I went back and found a fragment of it. And I think
this christ blizes the point. Take Jane Fonda and Shirley Maclain. That harshness,
those granite stairs, the shrillness of their rhetoric. It makes one want
to shriek at their ugliness. Doesn't mean literal ugliness. It means that it's
about It's about feminism, right, That's what's really ultimately gets down to feminism.
But the creation I mean here, you know, so what do we
call Jean Cree John Kream, Pierre Jean. I actually think she's a pretty
attractive woman, and then she dresses colorful hair, she's got pretty skin,
and she's got a good figure. She wears pretty dresses or she just has
aircraft carrier for her hair dube. Okay, but but but it fits because
you know, she's got inside the mop she's got you know, sort of
something holding the hair on. And that's it. Yeah, so moped mophead
is not really intended to be lookism. I just you know, it's just
I'm sure this was so it'd be so un pc now, but lucreatious comment.
Did you guys ever watch the Fat Albert cartoon series by Bill Cosby?
And there was a fact, a guy with a big afro when he was
constantly pulling whatever you needed at that second out of his hair. Right,
well, the key, the key, Yeah, like the key that you
needed to open the door, or like food soot. Steve was trying to
gently sort of move me away from my lukism and into more intellectual pursuits.
I accused him of sexism, I said, because nobody complains when you call
John carry lurch, or when you make fun of Jerry Nadler and his you
know belt that comes up to hear, because you know, nobody, nobody
has even that second thought. But if you call Cloutine Gay or Rashida to
leave ugly, which they are, you're somehow cheapening the discourse and whatever else.
I don't know. It just doesn't make any sense. I mean,
but isn't that an appeal. Isn't that double standard rooted in an appeal to
you know, patriarchal and no manners, right, I mean, old fashioned,
gentlemanly manners. I don't know, I don't you know. I buy
your explanation, Lucretia, but I do think it undermines the substance of critique.
Because Christine Gay is wrong for so many reasons, there's no need to
mention the way she looks. I mean, she's a plagious now. I
mean I feel like such a chump because I clearly worked as an Asian.
I worked too hard in college. I should have just been stealing stuff from
people. Why did I ever do any original research at all? I mean
I worked for you twice as well as Claudating Gay. I mean, so
you know this woman who wrote the pieces from whom Claudy Gay played, That's
what I was gonna say. But you know, she's a I actually don't
know if she was conservative at the time she wrote these law review articles.
You know, she wrote about you know, the Voting Rights Act and you
know, the new kinds of districts that were being drawn, and whether blacks
are getting more representation in Congress. She's become quite conservative, I think now,
but back when she wrote the articles, I don't know if she was.
And she says, this is not just like simple miss quotation that Clentigate
copied whole pages like page is long. I mean, that's just outright There's
no way you can defend that. That's just outright plagiarism. If it goes
on for that long. It's not like a sentence here or a sentence there.
Well, I think the most embarrassing thing here is not necessarily I mean,
the pleasurism itself is bad on its face, but when you think about
it for a minute, what it really tells us is how unimportant and unoriginal
Gay's work is. If her work had been sort of promised, this would
have been spotted years ago, and it would have been as scandal years ago.
But nobody cares about the stuff she wrote on your race questions. I
mean, we know that so many of these articles are written not to be
read by anybody, and so that's even more Larry, somebody pointed out,
Larry Summers, say what you want is a very important scholar, and he's
published a pile of books, and you know, the hundreds of articles and
treasury set. People think he might win the Nobel Prize and you cannot watch
someday, you know, ahead of the World Bank. And it's like and
then Claudia Gays published eleven articles, half of which are plagiarized, and all
the rest about subjects no one takes seriously except the woke. Okay, there's
no there's no like my test is very simple, which is, is there
any kind of thesis that you can associate with this person? You know,
like, is there like the you know, is there like the Hayward thesis
about Reagan? Or is it right? Like, there's no theory or thesis
that's associ because she even the article she wrote or so they're just descretive,
right, Yeah, they're derivative descriptive. They make no interesting, challenging argument.
Carol Swain has written, you know, wrote that long piece. I
know her. I've been to things where her. I found it compelling,
like I found it conclusive and damning. Actually, she wrote one of the
early books fifteen years ago on white nationalism, which was not a leftist screen
but it was like, in other words, analyzing and predicting all the things
that suddenly everybody was interested in when Trump came along. Well, I'll give
you my summary for the week, and then I want to do one more
of a common theme before we run out of time. Who's in charge here?
Yeah, well I'm usurping the I'm can see if I get away with
this, John. My summary of the week was, let's see what we
got here. We have gay sex and the Senate gay plagiarismal, Yeah,
don't wonder the left last year trying to get ahead of all this with their
their slogan of don't say gay. You know that whole thing out of Florida,
Right, John, Where did you read about or hear about now the
second episode of filming gay porn in the Senate? Where'd you hear about it?
I don't remember. The reason I asked is I saw a bunch of
people on Twitter saying if you didn't see it on Twitter, you didn't see
it, and I just no, no, it was it was like in
one of the newsletters. I think it was like I, I, you
know, lucreature is really gonna dump on me now. I read the Politico
usually Politico newsletter in the morning. I think it was yeah, it was
extending. It was actually in Politico. Okay, yea fair enough. That's
where I thought I read it. And the second one, I guess,
and then I think I got it from the gay porn newsletters I sign up
for ten Yeah, yeah, yeah, well you know opposition there much better
photos on Politico. I'll tell you well, you know, I I was
trying to do a common thread today with my questions about January sixth. Then
also Lucretia volunteered on lookism and I want to revisit one aspect of Ukraine.
And here's here's the common thread, which is, you know, we get
tangled up a lot, the three of us on questions of fact. Is
it true as the Wall Street Journal says that of the Russian army has been
degraded, they've lost half their tanks. As a true British intelligent British intelligence,
I know, But the point is, you know, it's hard to
know what's going on in the battlefield and how corrupt are they on a scale
of one to ten, and a lot of all the rest of that,
and those are important things, but we can easily get bogged down on disputing
those. I want to raise questions of judgment. That's why the question about
January sixth, there's a reason why people distrust this, and the serious reason,
you know, look is not about whether you find somebody physically attractive or
not. And then on Ukraine, lucretia'sism. Lucretia's okay, just to be
where we're deficient at this John, because okay, on Ukraine, the question
of judgment was this, let me, first of all give the give the
question that popped into my head a week or so ago, which is,
how come you know we're hearing constantly from the left there has to be a
ceasefire in Gaza. How come no one is calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine
except actually someone is. You know, Victor Orbon has been calling for a
cease fire and his allies in Eastern Europe, but he gets all the attention.
Victor Orbon has called for a ceasefire in Ukraine for since nearly the beginning.
And of course what people says, well, you're pro putin. You
know that that was a favorite putin. None of the left saying that about
ceasefire in Gaza, that it would be pro hama. Actually the Biden administration
people do to their credit rhetorically, at least to their credit. But then
the judgment question is this. I ran across a Sarah Berlinsky substack, you
know, Claire's in Paris, and I used to have a crush on her
until she became kind of I think she kind of lost your way. But
she had an article posted on her substack by some European named Nicholas Tenser,
and he had two sentences to share with you, and then I'll pose the
question. He wrote this, It's quite simple. If the United States stops
giving Ukraine military aid, it won't be able to keep up the fight for
long. Europe, which is far from having grasped the scale of what a
Ukrainian defeat would represent, has not taken the necessary precautionary measures to be able
to replace the United States, even if only partially and for a few months
now. My point in reading that is not to do the adult truth.
That's all fault true, true, And this is my point about a question
of judgment. You mirthfully, but I think half seriously accused Lucretia being a
neo conservative a few weeks ago debate US bait her especially. I'm so old.
I remember a time in the late eighties when the neo conservatives were saying,
you know, one of the problems with Natos that exists today is that
we are subsidizing the European welfare states. This is like completely foreign to what
we think of as neoconservatism in the last fifteen years. But the social health
things change, and they were saying, you know, we really ought to
threaten that threaten. They weren't quite the way Trump did it. But they
say, we've got to change this. This is bad, it's bad for
Europe, it's bad for us. That seems to me even more operative today.
And so I guess what I'm asking about here is it seems to me
that whether you're pro Ukraine or not worried about some of the issues that Lucretia
raises, we're going about this all wrong. I'll just put it that way.
That's the nice way of putting it. I can put it a hard
shall what's your questions, Steve, Well, my question is is that we're
my assertions more than the question is that we're totally blowingness from whatever point of
view you want to have. I mean, if you think so, no,
no, no, so, I think you could say there's a short
term, mean term along. I agree. The long term what we want
is Europe to pay for more of its own defense and for us to have
to bear less of that burden Ukraine. And the long term doesn't help that
because the Europeans, you know, they could, they are, they've made
promises to start spending more on their defense. But you know the bigger countries
like Germany, you know, Germany is really the key has not have not
come through. Yeah, this is this is something as you say, Nel,
this is something that Nixon was talking about and Kissinger there was a Remember
there was something called the Nixon Doctrine which was designed to engage a burden sharing
with all this around the world, Asia and Europe. So this has been
something that American foreign policy has not been able to figure out. But we
got to do it. We have to. It's almost it's like the Europeans
are addicted, right, they have relied on us for so long that we
have to figure out to reduce our commitment to Europe again payper. But this
that doesn't mean in the short term that you cut off Ukraine. I mean,
you know, that's you know, that doesn't necessarily follow. I mean
the short term seems to me is destroy the Russian army, which we're doing
pretty successfully, even though the Ukrainians are you know, suffering and dying and
they're very brave, but no Americans have had to die in this and we're
just spending money. It's had the great effect because of advancing the Mangold NATO.
Remember the main gold NATO was to stop the Russians from coming into Europe.
So if we have the effect of, you know, reducing the combat
effectiveness of the Russian military fifty seventy percent, whatever the number is, it's
a bargain. That's a short term. Once you can do that, then
you can start figuring out, how do we get NATO to reform, how
do we get the Germans and the French and all those countries to pay more
for the defense, and how do we right Because I do I I mean,
I do think the main threat to the United States is China and we
have to rebalance. I mean, so you essentially acknowledge my premise, which
is we've been talking about this problem for decades and nothing much happens. And
you know, if you do want to compare it to an attic, I
think that is a good analogy. Sometimes what you have to do in attic
is cut them off. And it seems to me that this is an opportunity.
By the way, who knows what's going on behind the scenes. That's
the other thing that you know. I know, historical research is sometimes things
are happening that we don't learn about until years later. I doubt it with
the Biden administration that, yeah, I have all this cleverness and I have
no part of my problem is I have no confidence in them to prosecute any
coherent strategy. But leave that aside of what's unknown, then you know Rumsfeld's
phrase, maybe this is a time for us to say to Europe, Okay,
a year from now, if you're not matching us two to one in
a the Ukraine, we are out of here and you guys are on your
own. I mean, I'm not trying to put it that way, but
you know, I think at some point this is a time for I hate
that they're pretty lot of They are putting a lot of money into it.
It's just not money that's relevant to winning the war immediately. In Ukraine,
they're putting a lot of money into the non military, non right non lethal
assistance. They still rely on us to right to provide the main munitions,
weapons systems and so on. I mean, for example, Germany has a
lot of tanks that they could supply. They're kind of supplying some, but
they had to wait till we decided they weren't going to do it. But
there's this great can I throw this great line, there's a great line about
NATO. And the great line was said, of course, buy a brit
because there's it's their language. So he said, the point of NATO is
to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans stands down
now, and so yeah, we should think more, you know, we
should think harder about, you know, whether we want the Germans to really
have a large effective military. But right, that's the Russians out and the
Americans in. I think are still valid goals for NATO. We just want
us to pay a little less for Yeah, yeah, I don't have no
comment. It's Christy, come on, what do you well, what do
you what you want us to pull? So this is an actually an interesting
constitutional question, right. I didn't realize this, but apparently Congress slipped into
the last National Defense spill that the president cannot terminate the NATO treaty. Yeah,
I mean, would you go so far as saying, as Trump has
talked about, that we should actually withdraw from NATO and let the Europeans just
no, no, not at all. Okay, good, but that's not
there's so much complicated there. Let's try to keep let's just keep it to
Ukraine. Ukraine is losing the war. Zelenski wants five hundred thousand additional recruits.
Those recruits are going to come from guys your age, John, because
there's nobody else left there what they are doing, I want them to be
Steve's age, but yeah, sure that'll happen to wait. So that's a
way to reduce social spending. I called I have a Medicare card. Sorry,
I know, it's like, that's a good way to reduce social security
Medicare spending. Russians are treating the Ukrainian soldiers better than the Ukrainians are.
If Ukrainian soldiers the words surrender, white flag, surrender to the Russians are
treating them great. On the other hand, if the Ukrainians are finding out
that Ukrainian soldiers are surrendering, they're bombing them, They're killing them. And
I mean, the whole thing is so ugly, and the whole reason for
us being against Russia is so thin, so anorexically thin. I'm thrilled to
death that Congress went home without providing another scent to Ukraine. I saw something
today that the Biden's going to do something. Biden administration is going to do
something sneaky and awful in order to get that money behind the scenes flowing somehow
back to Ukraine again because they can't wait around for Congress. But across a
student alone, I think it'll be a student And no, it wasn't that.
I'm just forgetting exactly what it was. It was sneaky and corrupt and
the usual Biden thing. But why do you suppose so many people are are
losing their support for the Ukrainian war when it used to be the most popular
thing. You went on Twitter and everybody had a stupid Ukrainian flag on their
avatar. And you know, when we were in Italy together, I don't
know if you saw the every day on the you know, in front of
the Duomo, there was some sort of pro Ukrainian protest or whatever going on,
and it just makes me sick. Well, other people are starting in
very large numbers to embrace the Lucretia view of the matter. What yeah,
actually, I'm actually I actually wanted to ask about this. I don't understand
why the polls have shifted so hard against Ukraine. Where okay, so it
costs one hundred billion dollars, no more so far, that's a drop in
the bucket compared to our defense budget or you know, a federal budget where
we're clin to run a trillion dollar deficit pretty soon. I think it's a
bargain. And no Americans have died. We're destroying the Russian military. I
agree. I don't actually understand why. Americans, and actually it's a partisan
thing, right, because it's now a large it's a super majority of Republicans
now don't think we should keep floating. Yeah, that's what I saw them
last one. And Democrats, it's a supermajority of them are supporting Ukraine.
As you say, it wasn't like that at the beginning. But I don't
understand why actually Republicans have turned so hard against the Ukraine war. It's such
a gush. I think it's the Biden corruption, it's the Ukrainian corruption.
It's the fact that there doesn't appear by Putin to be looking for some sort
of expansion or anything like that. Okay, but but when you read in
those rags that you read John that we're decimating the Russian army, that's not
true. We're decimating the eighty army and it's decimated, no doubt. I
mean, the British Intelligence Service thinks that ninety percent of the of the person
who started the war. Well, they've replaced the replaced them. See now
we're back. I know details you didn't want to talk about it, but
I mean the estimates are that they've suffered from two hundred thousand to three hundred
thousand battle casualties. That's incredible. This is an enormous victory. This is
fact to where we are are quarreling about which facts are true and which are
the relevant things. But even if it was have that, it would still
be a great pargain. Okay, I think there's reason this is. Let
me introduce two. I think why this is happening goes back to two fundamental
things. One is Americans don't like long wars, even if we're not fighting
them. John, I think that connects the second point, which is Republicans
I think have for a while now been reverting to the historic mean, remember
the Republican Party was historically it's too strong to say they're isolatedationist, but you
know, Robert Taft righted, they were skeptical, yes, and and you
know, I mean if you look again at what I was reading very carefully,
my mentor Stan Evans, who was very much an old right kind of
guy, just beneath the surface, you could see that he thought that the
Cold War and the Soviet Union was an exception to what ought to be an
American rule of not having a lot of foreign tanglements, very much the old
Washington's farewell address. So we're reverting to that now, I don't I mean,
I I have a hunch that if they were Republican president, if Trump
had still been an office and the war started, I think it wouldn't have.
But never mind, we don't know. I think that there'd still be
a higher level of Republican skepticism about the war than there is Democratic skepticism because
you think, actually, can you say so? You think the Cold War
was an exception, yes, but then you also think the reaction to Vietnam
was an exception because after Vietnam it was the left that was isolationist. Yes,
And if it had been for the Republican Party, I don't think we
would have win the Cold War because we and have maintained the strategy right,
because if the Democrats had gotten their way after Vietnam, we would have pulled
out of everywhere. I know that's correct. I think there's a lot more
to be said about that. The left, The lefts hate. The left's
dislike of NATO and the you know, the Cold War was because they were
leftists and they decided they hated the colonial pressers right here the Israel on a
global scale. For Republicans, it's in their DNA to say, wait a
minute, this is a mistake economically, I see, I disagree with it.
One hundred billion dollars of dropping the bucket, you know things. What's
the old everd Dierksi line updated on A hundred billion? Here a hundred billion.
There is real money, right, I think that's question though, Okay,
I actually I would take it back to what Steve asked way back when
at the beginning of this conversation, and that is, why do we demand
a cease fire? I know not everybody is, but there's enough. There's
enough, even people within the Biden administration. And again, okay, here's
here's a confession. I was actually pleased by what b Lincoln had to say
about it the other day. Whether he believes it or not, I don't
know. But he was very pro Israel, very pro We've got to destroy
himas and credit where credit is due. I just want that John Kirby guy
has been spectacularly good in the statements, I have to say, sorry,
I throw one. Maybe you're right, but I have I thrown one more
factory issue because I just looked up at the Treasury Department. I know the
creature is not going to leave what they say. But in this last year,
we spent six trillion dollars and we brought in four point four to four
trillion in taxes. So the deficit was one point seven trillion last year.
And in just twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three, the deficit increased three
hundred and twenty billion dollars, So one hundred billion dollars. There is a
lot of money in there. That's this a rounding error when our budget deficeit's
one point seven trillion dollars. Okay, but you know what, this is
how we got there. John was exactly that, thank you. Well,
I'm sure we're wasting the money and all kinds of domestic spending, but were
destroying the Russian army for one point one trillion dollars. I help soldiers get
food stamps. I help American soldiers get food stamps. Think that one through.
When you're talking about your hundred million dollars to the corrupt pieces of you
know what in Ukraine. Okay. The reason though, back to my point
that people are starting to get upset about it as they see the the hypocrisy
of demanding a ceasefire from Israel and just bundling money like it's going out of
style, and knowing most of it's handing up for another yacht or another house
for Zelenski and its top people, and maybe not all of Maybe we shouldn't
be thinking of those things when we're thinking in global terms, you know,
the big picture. But people are seeing it and they're starting to say,
yeah, and what about that whole corrupt thing with Biden and Ukraine and getting
that prosecutor fired and bragging about it. And it's starting to come together for
a lot of people that maybe there's a lot more going on. Russia is
not looking to take over Europe. We don't have evidence of that. It's
not the Soviet Union. So maybe these same people who don't know that there
are three branches of government are still capable of some common sense looking at this
and saying we have no business being there. None. None is saying the
money none. Can I just say that some of those stories about the Zelensky
houses in Palm Beach and the yachts have been debunked as you know, disinformation.
But by snow saying that, I'm not saying Ukraine is I'm saying that
Russia is going to do this tomorrow. But your logic would mean suppose Russia
We're going to invade Poland, you wouldn't care. You'd be like, fine,
let the Poles fight for themselves. Nothing to do with the Poles.
Russian invade, They're going to get their nose bloody because Poland is spending big
on defense. Yeah. Yeah, but we, according to Lucretia's logic,
we wouldn't care if Russia invaded Poland, Hungary, Germany. I mean,
it's just not our fight. Why do we care? Can I at this
point waste of money for us to help defend them? Can I at this
point? Yes, begin to draw a veil over this to the moment by
paraphrasing the famous money Python scene, Let's not get worked up about who killed
who? Can't we have some Christmas here? Can't it? Isn't it?
Yes? Maybe it's because the soft woman's side of me just can't stand it
to read the horrific stories coming out of Ukraine. And again the horrific way
that the the Ukrainian corrupt government treats their people and treats their soldiers and leaves
them to die. And it's far worse with the Russians are doing to the
Ukrainians civil popular though. I mean, the stories about the Russians have been
doing in Ukraine to the civilian population. I believe those have been debunked a
whole lot more than the Zelensky corruption story. Well, all the all these
mass graves of people in these villages and Ukraine is all made up. You
don't believe that. I don't. I never know what to believe anymore.
I become a shoe leather empirisist, does I you know? Okay, But
this is why I try to recur to questions of judgment about the grand strategy
of the matter and not let it'll sounds like you say, not let the
facts guide my decision. That's not what I mean. You know you're right
about that negotiated settlement. Let's just let me ask you that question. Why
not let why not encourage that could be in the end we do, Yeah,
that could be in the end what we do because it is a it's
a stalemate right now, and it may be that in the end it is
it's going to be like North and South Korea or something where Ukraine loses like
one eighth of its territory to Russia. That doesn't turn out too bad for
Ukraine actually in the long run. Yeah, and again those borders are somewhat
poorous to begin with. Those lines are not ancient. And uh, anyway,
I don't want I want to talk happy Christmas stuff now because I'm I'm
in the mood for happy Christmas. I don't want to fight with John anymore.
To know, no one's going to believe that, But go ahead and
give it a dry true I love Christmas. I love Christmas. By the
way. The reason I told Steve my favorite Christmas song far and above everything
John, is Snoopy's Christmas. You know why? It has everything it has?
Of course, it has all the great Christmas themes, Peace on Earth,
that da da da dad. But you know the story, right,
do you do? You know? Snoopy? I've just seen this. I've
seen the Snoopy Christmas, but I don't remember the music. No, no,
no, this one's this is a war song. So Snoopy's Christmas.
That's why she likes it. The Red Baron. It's in World War One,
you know, and Snoopy right on his house, his doghouse. So
the Red Baron's out flying and he's killing, you know, Allied pilots all
over the world. And so they call on Snoopy because he's their best pilot.
The Allied forces call on Snoopy to do it again. And he goes
out and he gets and it's forty below and he has eyes on his wings
and the Red Baron spies him and he's gonna shoot him down, and Snoopy,
you know, knows this is the end. And then the baron doesn't
shoot and pushes him behind enemy lines on the Rhine. Okay, and then
he gets out. Snoopy, sure, he's just gonna shoot him or whatever.
And the baron walks out with two glasses of champagne and says, Merry
Christmas, my friend, and Snoopy and he they toast each other. They
get back, they fly away in their planes, knowing they'd meet on another
day. It's like the story of the First Christmas in the trenches of World
War One, exactly, John. And it's in Snoopy's Christmas and it's my
Christmas. I've never seen that one. Yeah I heard, I don't know
that they ever did a video of it. But Steve will play it at
the end as the exit bumper music, won't you, Steve, I will.
I've been this week. I can. I can no longer get away
with uh, with uh putting these guys up. I love the way,
Well, who are the people in the middle who are ruining the wrath of
kan this way? It's Genesis. See I've been doing that to annoy you
guys. Yeah, Sele's now I'm in the position of the guy at the
bottom, the con at the bottom. I don't believe you put Genesis the
band with Genesis from Raches mostly do annoy Lucretia because I've you know, we're
doing this for she doesn't know what either of those are. I like Phil
Collins. Yeah, see this is the all right, We're not going to
do that. I'll tell you what. I'm thankful for it because it's really
fun. Is the United States set a record in oil production this year,
the largest oil production country in the world. We have said to Biden,
that's the fun part, you see, is that despite this just shows you
how brilliant our fossil fuel energy sector is that even with all the hostility of
Biden, they were able to set a record for oil production and it's shattered,
opek. And imagine what we could do if we didn't have a hostile
administration? Right, Really something It should be said that most of this is
occurring on private land or on old legacy offshore oil leases and so forth.
And you know, eventually, if the Left has their way, they'll strangle
all that too. And you can't build a pipeline anywhere, et cetera,
et cetera. But what an amazing thing. And as I was saying,
I won't go on too long because at some point, John, it might
get us close to that certain statute you can't mention on the show. If
Washington had known fifteen years ago that the fracking and oil rev Remember John Carey
used to say, and obrac Aloma, we can't drill our way out,
We can't drill our way out. Right. Guess what? We drilled our
way out. And they never say that anymore. Remember they mocked Sarah Palin
for saying drill, baby, drill. Well, if they'd known that this
technological revolution was leading this they surely would have stopped it, but it all
happened quietly, mostly on private land, and was faya complete and what an
amazing So yeah, I mean that revolution is just getting started here and around
the world. So oil is here to stay. And it's really fun because
we just had only stupid sort of fuck cop meetings. But anyway, okay,
John has an important dinner to get to, so I have to give
a lead into the first Babylon Bee. I just finished teaching a con law
class, had about two dozen students in it. And I don't know if
you guys ever told this joke as professors about you know this semester. Wow,
I had ten grandmas because you know, students would try to get out
of doing their work by claiming that they had a dead grandma. Right,
some of them had fifteen dead grandmas, nice sort of thing. Well I
didn't have a single, not one single dead grandma this time. What I
did have was half of the class, literally half of the class, at
one point or another, claim mental anguish, emotional anxiety, or depression as
a reason not to turn in their assignments. Oh that's ridiculous, isn't it
ridiculous? So that's ridiculous. There's more to it, but I won't share
more of that right now, just because we're over time. But my first
babylon be then to follow on that is parents take gen z kid who doesn't
have anxiety or depression to therapists to find out what's wrong? Is that?
Since you are up on the news about the goings on in the Senate chambers,
John god agrees to fair DC from destruction if he finds just ten staffers
without a gay sex tape. Sorry, last one for this week. Investigators
beginning to suspect Clauding Gay's novel Larry Potter and the Sorcerer's Rock may have been
plagiarized. You have a camelism. I believe I do, But wasn't there
Also some someone was sending around a babbylon b headline about Colorado ordering Jack Phillips
to make a cake to celebrate this qualify Trump from the ballot. Charles Libson
did that one? Yes, that's very funny. The most popular one,
it's a little old though, but really quick was Trump declares if he wins
presidency, he will legalize running over bicyclists. Yeah, that's right that one.
Oh, cyclists are the rudest most of not get on the planets.
He'll make it legal to run them over. Oh I thought it. Whoever
it was legal, lucky thing, it's not. So here's a kamalism.
So Kamala Harris interviewed on MSNBC about the Israel Hamas war. We do also
need to focus on what is happening now towards what is possible. It should
be possible the day after we call it. What does that mean? I
don't know. Actually, you know what this is an improvement of from what
she's been saying about the war in the past. Right, yeah, that's
true. Yeah, what did she say about the war in the past or
Remember she's one who's been saying, uh, you know, the war has
to change. We can't have these kinds of casualties on the part of the
Palestinians. Yeah, so you can't. You can't kill people. You know,
killing people is bad, and yeah, you can't have that in war.
Yeah, you can't have fights in the war room. Remember that's right.
Okay, So let me do the traditional yea, she said, Merry
Christmas, everybody, it was a great year. Thanks for letting me onto
the podcast. I hope that they'll keep me on in twenty twenty four,
twenty twenty three is a great experiment, right, having three people, it
was wonderful. John. Yeah. And I want to say I want everyone
to see that being on the podcast Lucretia has affected my whiskey purchases because I
bought I'm drinking a whiskey which I think is lucretia. It's wild turkey,
but a rare breed of wild turkey. Oh I'm doing today, But go
ahead, John, Yeah, Okay, We'll always drink your whiskey. Need
let's go Brandon and Steve. God save the queen man because someone has to
Merry Christmas. Everyone, Merry Christmas, everybody, thanks for joining us.
The news had come out in the First World War, the bloody Red Barn.
He's flying once more. They all a command to ignore all of it
men and calling on Snoopy to do it again. Was the night for Christmas
to ford it Below, the Snoopy went up in search of his phone spy
the Red Barn. Seriously they bought with ice on his wings. Snoopy knew
it was called Christmas. Christmas right up be so all over and the thrill
that the parent had Snoopy did in his sights. He reached for the trigger
to pull it up tight. Why he didn't shoot, well, we'll never
know. Or was it the bells from the village below Christmas now no stairs
rain, raining peace to the wall, the world and to land. The
baron made Snoopy flight of the riot and forced him to land behind the enemy
lines. Snoopy was certain that this was the end when the baron cried out,
Merry Christmas. My friend Ricochet joined the conversation.