Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong with Me. David
Harsani and my good dear friend Molly Hemingway. How's it going, Molly,
It's going great. How are you doing. I'm doing very well. We
got to hang out a little bit last week, so that was fun.
We never really see each other in real life very often. It was awesome.
We had our annual staff retreat. We just hung out, talked,
shot some skeet, played some basketball. You played. You played basketball against
one of the staff whom is like six foot eleven. It's not six foot
eleven, but he looks that tall to me about college ball, and he
played college ball, and he could have like vanquished everybody. But but in
fact your team won. Yeah we did. We did. But I suspect
that he took it easy on us. I think he took it say yeah,
I have to say, like I told you at the time, I
think I had two heart attacks. I laid down on the floor after I
was beat red. Days later, I still felt it, and I thought
I had like turned a corner and gotten back into good, really good shapes,
you know, for the first time since COVID. But apparently that was
not the case um be in training for next year. I was telling your
husband Mark that I'm going to like show up and pretend that oh yeah,
you know, like it's some nonchalant game. But me all being to train
an all year just take three pointers that could show up like Michael Jordan.
I don't think I can do that anymore. Anyway, it was fun,
it was great. I loved I was you know, I loved seeing everyone.
So yeah, So today we have this breaking news that two high profile
members of Congress are demanding information from the Department of Justice about a scandal involving
Joe Biden himself. So you have James Comer, who's on the House Government
Oversight and Accountability Committee, and then you have long time whistleblower hero Senator Chuck
Grassley saying that they have information that there is information within the FBI and Department
of Justice alleging criminal wrongdoing by then Vice President Biden involving a foreign person and
the Biden family business and so or that's what it seems to be. I
mean, it's like it's a little interesting because they're actually trying to get documents
preserved and get them into House and Senate oversight without revealing too much information,
but it sounds fairly explosive, right. The wording and the press release says
that there's a form somewhere that's classified that describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then
Vice President Biden in a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy
decisions. Now, I haven't had time to sort of digest this. I
mean, obviously, if the name on this or Donald Trump, this would
be the biggest story ever, it would have blown up. I doubt this
is going to get much coverage, probably from the mainstream media. Oh my
gosh, establishment media as yes, they're not mainstream, but go on.
And it's sort of a reaction that I say that with you it perfunctory way
of describing them. But well, first of all, we don't know much
about this yet, Like we don't know what it, which country it involves.
We don't know a lot. So I think that people always need to
take it easy when something like this drops, and note not immediately assume that
we have some kind of smoking gun and stuff like that. I'm just saying
it's it's good to be vigilant and not overreact, right, disagree, I
mean, we have I think here's the scenario we have. We have a
Department of Justice and it's FBI that will launch an investigation into any Republican who
is good at the drop of a hat, even if the predicate is preposterous
and ridiculous. And we lived through that, We've experienced it in multiple ways,
and we have seen this standard of justice that's applied to people who are
not allies of the Democrat Party. And then you have seen repeatedly, you
know, just to give a recent example, the investigation of Hillary Clinton's mishandling
of fied information through the creation of an illicit secret server to manage her email
as she did as she was Secretary of State, involving you know, also
the she was running a foundation that took large grants from foreign governments in exchange
for favors to be named later presumably, and likewise you have this Biden family
business. There's one theory that Hunter Biden is a business mastermind who everyone in
the world wants to throw piles of money at just for morsels of his wisdom.
That's certainly a theory. The other theory is that people were giving Hunter
Biden bags of cash in exchange for and not just Hunter Biden, but James
Biden, the brother of Joseph Biden, and other family members, that they
were getting and securing bags of cash from foreign governments, foreign oligarchs, shady
figures in exchange for their proximity to Joe Biden. There's no reason to give
these Biden family members money other than the access to the person who actually handles
government policy. So, while yes, of course I'm curious what the actual
details are, what I'm hearing already from this document alleging criminal wrongdoing involving then
Vice President Joe Biden and the Biden family business is that it's just another example
of how if that person even had the letter T in his name, much
less Trump, we would have had a massive special counsel going explosive reporting leaks
from the FBI, and instead, what happened in this case is apparently they
had reason to start an investigation or credible evidence of wrongdoing and it got buried.
So I think my tolerance for having a wait and see approach so that
the FBI, Department of Justice, other hacks the media can all like suppress
a story, my patience for that is just gone. So I will just
go ahead and assume, well, go ah, didn't assume if we even
have this type of information that the actual reality must be like a million times
worse. Well, I'm not saying this shouldn't be an investigation and we shouldn't
know. I'm just saying we don't know what it's about yet. That's all.
Here's what I'd like to know. Obviously we should, we should see
this document, and we should hear from the whistleblower. There's no reason why
that shouldn't happen. A and you mentioned Trump. You know, if this
had been Trump, if there would be a tea in their name. Any
Republican? I mean you don't you know any Republican had this kind of document
existing, and a whistleblower, you know, in out there in the world
who had quit, who had a claim that they had been involved in a
bribery scheme, this would be a front page, top of the fold,
all the paper, New York Times piece, for sure. I can't even
believe we haven't heard about this since this is how long ago as a VP,
like, so over ten years ago. Sure that is interesting. But
one thing that kind of impresses me about this rash of whistleblowers that are working
with Grassley and other high caliber members of Congress. They're really doing everything by
the book. You saw this with the IRS whistleblower, who before he or
she even gave information to his or her own attorney, made sure to get
that congressionally approved so that nobody could say that they violated IRS protocol or guidelines.
Like they're really being careful, and Grassley has released a bunch of information
that points to this significance and high caliber of these whistleblowers. There is also
the situation that the media and the FBI are sort of if I've been reporting
on this story a little yet to publish anything, but my reporting indicates that
there's this sort of coordinated campaign within the FBI to completely take out any one
who's blowing the whistle. They're working with corrupt members of the media to disparage
denigrate anyone who's coming forth with information. Now, the result of that is
that all of these whistleblowers are just being extremely, extremely careful and making sure
they're doing everything by the book. It's not just one whistleblower, it's a
ton of whistleblowers, and they all have different levels of information and different aspects
that are coming out sort of related to this. I think it's interesting that
we are getting more information about Hunter Biden's finances out of this like court in
Arkansas that's hearing a custody dispute than we have from our own corporate media or
any of the like years long investigations on this point. During the Trump era,
we had nothing but like NonStop leaks and innuendos from anonymous intelligence officials,
all of which came to nothing. We've had years of Hunter Biden investigations where
they're just handling it very responsibly and not letting anything get out and just like
not indicting, even though we all know that there are crimes ranging from like
guns to drugs to tax issues, you know, and presumably like a lot
more that we that we get a little hints of. But Hunter Biden is
pleading poverty in this Arkansas court, which is, you know, either he's
lying, which would seem to be the case because we know that he's been
given bags of cash by all these people, or he's telling the truth.
And what's interesting about that is he has some of the highest paid attorneys in
America. So if he's poor, who's paying for those attorneys? Is it
China, communist China, is it Ukraine? Is it corrupt oligarchs? Like
who's paying for his high paying, highly paid attorneys? What do you think?
I don't know, I don't know paying for it? All? I
know? You know this is I guess. I guess. I don't have
anything definitive to say so far in this podcast because I don't know what all
this stuff is really about. But I will say that the case against Hunter
Biden is oh. I read a story about every month about how indictments are
coming any minute now they have never come. And we know so much about
his criminal activity from like you say, a clear and gun charge like that.
I haven't seen any disputed evidence for where he dropped a gun near a
high school and led on his background check forms. These are the kind of
criminal This is the kind of criminal behavior we should be focusing on if we
want to stop gun crime. So, which is a big, you know,
issue for Joe Biden. But I don't know who's paying for his lawyers.
How the hell should I know I was paying for his lawyers. I
don't know. The whole thing is extremely shady, and we you know,
and those post stories and his laptop. It's clear that he's involved, and
you know, he's up to no good criminal behavior, and it's clear that
he was only able to engage in that behavior because of who his dad was.
And it's clear to me at least that his dad helped him. He
took him to China, he introduced him to people, he got Joe Bon
got involved in Ukrainian investigations that involved a company that was connected to his son.
So obviously this is corruption. I don't know what the you know,
how illegal it's going to be, but it is corruption, and it's you
know, I just don't see how they get around indicting him. At some
point, you do say that Joe was helping Hunter, but it seems also
that Hunter was helping Joe. You know, we all kind of like make
light of how people come to Congress and they're really poor and then they leave
multi millionaires. But part of the way that happens is through arrangements like this,
where family members serve on boards in exchange for their proximity to the powerful
politician. And there is indication from the material that's come out thus far,
from emails of family members, that Hunter was paying for part of the Biden
family existence and so I think it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. And it's
kind of sick and sad that Joe Biden acts like he's this like wonderful father
who loves his addict son without taking responsibility for the pressure he put on his
son to raise a ton of money so that the family could live high on
the hog. Yeah, sorry, since we're going Since I'm going off on
Joe Biden, I just want to say I think his refusal to acknowledge his
own granddaughter because of the circumstances of her birth is reprehensible and just horrific.
And I do not say that as like a conservative who doesn't like Democrats,
but just as a human. That is so wrong. That is not that
little girl's fault how her parents met or how they conceived her, and every
child should be welcomed as a beautiful gift from God and particularly from the grandparents.
And he, you know, this week, was denying her existence.
They're denying her. The use of her family name is just awful. Children
need to have relationships with their mothers and fathers and the grandparents if they're around.
I have never thought Joe Biden was a good person at all because a
person who acts the way he acts in politics is not a good person.
The way that the things that he said about Mitt Romney wanting to put black
people into chains even just to talk, you know, as a sand he
ran the Clarence Thomas hearings. He is the one he had so much to
do with the degradation of that process and the smearing. He is not any
kind of good person anything else. On this topic. I was a long
prepared. I was a long prepared because it just happened, and I don't
know what to think. I'd like to take a day to mull it over.
Actually, I was just doing TV and they usually give you a heads
up about what you're going to be talking about. And one of the people
that I was is like, on around he was given this topic, but
he learned he was given this topic when they asked him the question on live
national television and he was like, I don't know, but he did a
great job. So I mean these are serious charges. Yeah, well yeah,
and it is serious in like the most these would be the most these
are you know, this is the bribery is bad enough, but bribery and
a foreign national involved in US policy, you don't get worse than that.
By the way, imagine if this involves bribery and Ukraine, given the first
impeachment sham thing we went through, and like, what if the FBI had
knowledge prior to that of actual shenanigans involving Ukraine and a government official. Oh
boy, Weirdly, weirdly, I think that the Russia collusion hoax affects me
here or somewhat in that I just don't want to immediately do what they did,
get hysterical, you know, about something that I don't know, I
don't have the full picture on. And I'm not saying there's someone in the
FBI trying to undermine Joe Biden. That seems highly highly unlikely with you know,
spurious stories whatever. But it does make me want to not get hysterical
like they did. Well, here's what I think you can reasonably surmise or
reasonably understand that our FBI will open investigations at the drop of a hat against
someone right of center who's a threat to the establishment, and they will go
out of their way to not do the same for an ally of their preferred
political party. Now that doesn't mean that if you were to open a full
fledged investigation you might find exonerating evidence for the Biden family business, but we
can at least know that we have two standards of justice. That people who
are friends of the regime are allowed to just basically get away with anything,
and that people who look askance from the other side might end up in prison
for like the silliest of process crimes. All right, I'm done with that.
I want to move on. Um, here's some what has really This
is what really grinds my gear. This has grinded my gears this week.
This is I like to say, chap, chaps my hide. Did this?
Chap your hide? This did the So this has been ongoing for a
long time, the various degrees in different ways, but there is a coordinated
effort to undermine the Supreme Court and to undermine the rule of law. And
the reason that that that this Supreme Court, this iteration of the Supreme Court
is being undermined, is because it is one that upholds some sort of constitutional
governing principle. Right that it is the thing that stands in the way of
progressivism. It's, in my view, maybe the only thing that stops them
right now in many places. So there was a story about clou Clarence Thomas
had been essentially had conflicts of interest because he has a rich friend. Then
there was a Neil Gorsuch story about how he had not reported the sale of
his house and it tried to hide it. Incidentally, that story is complete
junk person didn't know how to read a disclosure form or did and lied,
probably the latter. And yesterday there was another story. I'm not going to
get into the specifics too much, but it's about the Federalist Society and other
groups like it who are interested in furthering let's just say originalist judicial philosophy that
they were that this guy Leonard Leo was involved in raising money in a way
that was sort of corrupt whatever. Another just idiotic story. But this is
my This is what I just want to say. I was watching Chris Murphy
yesterday on MSNBC. I saw a clip I wasn't watching MSNBC. I think
it was with Mecti Hassan, and he was just gleeful, gleeful and happy
that the court had been delegitimized in the eyes of the American people, which
was what they wanted to do from the beginning. And he was basically laughing
that and claimed that conservatives make law through the court. He literally said this,
and that He literally later brought up abortion, which was row was unilaterally
thrust on the American people. It caused this abortion debate to be the way
it is because a bunch of guys decided to invent a right and then force
the American people. Even gay marriage was thrust upon the American people unilaterally,
not democratically. What he's saying is completely ridiculous. But it's always cabin ball
with these people, and I think what they've done to the Court is an
insurgency. As I read this, I can't Michael Smith is this guy's name.
He wrote this wonderful substack could look it up. It's called the real
insurgency, and he is right. Chris Murphy is an insurgent that is far
more dangerous than the Shaman of January sixth or any one of those people who
acted, in my mind, despicably. But this is the worst attack on
our institution that I can think of, worse than anything Donald Trump did anything.
And I don't think there's any way back from this once they've destroyed the
Court. I really don't, because once they start ignoring the Court, which
they will do, which we even have what's her name, Nancy May saying
ignore courts if you don't like it, just ignore the court on abortion and
abortion pills and whatever you want. Then you don't have a country. Then
you just have anarchy, and then that's that's going to be the end of
it. I do want to know that makes sense. That makes sense.
It did. Oh, since I'm sometimes critical of Mitch McConnell, I will
note that he also made this point that the Left is always claiming that they're
in defensive institutions, but they're besieging of the Supreme Court and the in federal
courts in general, shows that they are They have no regard for institutions.
Can you imagine Dick Durby and sitting up there lecturing the Core, trying to
get John Roberts to come down for this clown show hearing he had the other
day a guy who I listed it in a piece if anyone's interested, but
I listed went through the Judiciary Committee and listed some of the things that these
these senators have done in the way they you know, speaking of the way
they make money while in office. This is definition insider trading. I will
say when I when I wrote the Cabinet Book with Kerrie Severino, we interviewed
several justices and one thing that was very common among those we spoke with was
the how offensive it is to be sitting in front of a group of completely
corrupt senators having your ethics challenged in confirmation hearings, and they just have to
kind of sit there and take it, even though they know that these people
are some of the most corrupt people on corrupt and unethical people in society.
But I do want to say that nothing about these attacks are meaningful except as
a way to see that the Left feels that it has gotten control of every
single institution except for the Supreme Court, and so they are doing their best
to seize control one way or the other, delegitimize it in the case that
they can't, and that includes lying. And to put a fine point on
what you said about the Dabs ruling. Rov. Wade was legislation from the
bench. It was seven men dictating to the country that even though abortion was
nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, that you could have no say in it.
You had to just accept that it would be legal and there was nothing you
could do about it. Dabbs Alito's decision is the one that says, actually,
since it's not mentioned in the Constitution, it can be it can be
handled by the people at the state, local, federal level. It returns
to the people the right to decide how to do their abortion law. So
Chris Murphy and others are just straight up lying or completely ignorant, and neither
is good. No, it's it's because listen, I would love for one
of these guys to sit down with me or anyone who will ask them a
tough question and then answer this one. What is democracy? Define what democracy
in your mind means, because I can't understand because it's just Calvin Ball.
Really everything I like is democracy. I think it just means things that match
the Democrat agenda. Yes, Like, can you believe that they have the
goal to say that someone who wants to ask a voter for an idea to
make sure that they're the person who's actually voting, is an enemy of democracy
because it's so sacred that you can just have anyone do it and you know,
without any kind of laws dictate governing it. And then it's fine to
say, as Richard Blueman Paul did that Clarence Thomas should be investigated by the
DJ for criminal activity because he failed because he had to amend a disclosure form.
And I'm not even sure he actually really had to amend it. I
mean, it is an attack on one of the go on. I think
he did have to. He does have to amend it. But the thing
is that's actually common occurrence anyone who covers judges no, like Katanji Brown Jackson
had to amend like twelve years of forms because she forgot to mention her husband's
employment or some such people amend forms all the time, and it's a pretty
regular thing because of how complicated these issues are. But this is not about
actual concern over Clarence Thomas, who's one of the most frugal members of the
court in history, having a wealthy friend who he sometimes goes to his house
or goes on his boat. This is just about what it's always been,
which is a belief that Clarence Thomas does not have the right to be an
originalist justice and a black man. Such amur are also amended her filings and
Justice Stephen Bryer had traveled paid for by I forget the family's name. Some
real some billionaire family. Oh yeah. Also, like they're all upset about
these trips that Clarence Thompson, there's nothing compared to what Stephen Bryer took,
something like two hundred and fifty trips. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was taking trips all
the time. But with Ruth Bader Ginsburg was giving signed copies of her abortion
decisions as fundraisers for pro abortion groups. None of these jerks had a problem
with that because they actually don't have a problem with the underlying issue. They
have a problem with people not towing the line on leftist jurisprudence. I mean,
I'm all over. But you had Donald Trump on January sixth. I
think it was cless speech. But does any of everyone remember Chuck Schumer threatening
the Supreme Court justice is in front of the building. I forgot the words
to use something. You reaped the whirlwind, or you're going to rape the
whirlwind. You sewed the wind, You're going to reap the whirlwind. He
threatened, threatened justices that if they did not follow his pro abortion philosophy in
contradiction to the actual Constitution, that they would face physical repercussions. And by
the way, they have justice Kavanaugh has had assassination attempts. All of the
justices physical, all of the justices who were not on the left side of
things on abortion law have to have massive amounts of security. They can't really
go anywhere they like, just this week, have had their houses threatened by
protesters by the way, you know, since it's illegal to do this in
attempts to change judges or justices ruling. There are all sorts of things that
the Department of Justice could do to go after these people. They have gone
out of their way to not do anything. Like moms at school board meetings.
That's the threat to the republic, you know, moms expressing their views
that are in contradiction to what Merritt Garland's views are. That's something where you
need to bring the full force of the FBI against them. But people making
assassination attempts against sitting justices or threatening them and their children, but it's a
free country. They can protest. I give you another example. Across the
country there are state legislatures and they're trying to pass laws, and a bunch
of leftist goons, which is what they are, shut down those proceedings.
In the same way the insurgents of January sixth did and no one has a
problem with it. I hope you're using air quotes for insurgents there. No,
I always have disagreed with you on that. I think there are some
people who were not and there were some people who acted violent. No,
I'm just but yeah, I am. I'm saying it's sarcastic. I'm not
I'm not defending anyone taking over any capital. I'm just saying the overheated rhetoric
is silly. So like I would not have called them insurgents before before right,
um, I would have called them, you know, thugs and idiots
and people who are shutting you know who are who who should be arrest Oh
my gosh. Shutting Shutting down capitals is a leftist specialty going too decades.
Exactly, you can't go to a if you're a conservative and you go to
a college, you're going to be screamed at and shut down. This is
this is the leftist way of mode of operation and it's been happening forever.
Or they're shut down highways or during the BLM thing, they would shut down
cities like I mean, or just set up in tense city in the middle
of Seattle or Portland or wherever. Um? How many? How many is
anyone? And yet when you see this happening like you didn't in Um in
Tennessee or was it Nashville in Tennessee? Uh? How does the how does
the press um frame these people? They frames them as protesters, as heroes,
not as villains as they did with these as January sixth Folk. Now,
okay, but David, it's not hypocrisy, it's hierarchy. They never
believed the arguments that they were using against conservative protests. They just don't like
threats to leftist power and leftist policies. And so if you're in favor of
those, you're good. If you're opposed to them, you're bad. So
they're actually not being hypocritical. They're just believing quite strongly that the right doesn't
have the right to exist. That's exactly right. So let's then let me
go back to the story on the Federal Society or others who raise who you
know, who are written about the conservative legal movement, who are written about
as if they're somehow corrupt. The wording is constantly dark dark money groups,
dark money networks, dark money, this, dark money, that, and
then I went and I looked at the same reporters have they reported dark money
groups on the left, and they never mention those words. It's always activist,
you know whatever kind of used even to use an example, we're in
the midst with quickly, sorry, one quick quick word. The point is
conservatives aren't allowed to raise money. That's what bothers them. The existence of
these groups bothers them, not anything they actually did. Just like you said
about you know, these protests. Sorry, no, just that we are
in the midst of a dark money operation. Like obviously, anybody with an
IQ over room temperature understands that there's a coordinated attempt to attack the Supreme Court.
They are coordinated attempt to go after the non leftist justices on the Court.
So different media outlets are used as willful co conspirators in this operation.
Sometimes it's the exact same hack reporters who ran the anti Kavanaugh smere such as
Heidi Prisbella, and they are all working together in the latest anti Supreme Court
operation. The dark money funded groups will like Demand Justice and fix the Court
are being quoted in this but rather than you know, when someone comes to
a reporter and says like, hey, I want you to take part in
this operation. A good reporter would be like, tell me more about this
operation and then expose it. But that's not what we have. We have
people just being look, sure, I'll help you with Kavanaugh two point zero,
and it's infuriating. Also, here's another infuriating thing. Really quickly,
Ruth Marcus ran the anti Kavanaugh smir for The Washington Post. It was a
despicable, disgusting, reprehensible operation just because they love abortion so much, and
even for people who love abortion. Ruth Marcus is special because she once said
that not only does she think that people who children who weren't perfect should be
killed, she would have killed her own kid if her kid had been determined
not to be perfect in utero, so like her bloodthirstiness is intense. Anyway,
while she thought that the Kavanaugh smir meant that justice, then Judge Kavanaugh's
life should be overturned and he should be investigated to within an inch of his
life, and that she believed these allegations despite the fact that there was not
one scintilla of evidence in support of them, and like a million pieces of
evidence against them. She says this week that she's really upset at Justice Alito
because he says he thinks he knows who the leaker was, and yet he
offered no evidence in support of it. Are you bleeping kidding me right now,
Ruth Marcus, are you kidding me? You who thought that it didn't
matter that there was no evidence in support of destroying the life and threatening the
life of a really respectable federal judge, Like, that's okay. Now you
want evidence before someone can say simply, I think I know who the leaker
was. He didn't even like say I think it's this person. He just
said he believes he knows who it is. That's a good point. I
saw that. Now that's a righteous rant there. But I have to go
back a little bit and just say you mentioned how listen, I've been in
journalism a while. People try to sell you APO research all the time.
Most of it is risible, most of it is laughably thin. You would
never attach your name to it because you would immediately be called out and embarrassed
to do it. These days, well let me let me let me read
from my own piece the other day. These days, though with a little
quality control, virtually no consequences for spreading false partisan attacks. A person without
any journalistic ethics can probably build a career on this stuff, which brings me
to Heidi Principala's new piece at Politico. I was literally gonna be like,
and you're talking about Hidi Pricipal by the way, we eviscerated her Kavanaugh reporting
Injustice on Trial, and you can look that up in like chapter ten,
I think, But go on, yeah, she'll She'll repeat anything that they
tell her to you. She's just terrible. She's at Politico now, so
anyway, she was the I don't even want to it's I have to be
honest with this last hit piece of hers. It couldn't even decipher what the
action accusation was like. It was so difficult to understand. It was just
a bunch of words that sounds scary cobble together to try to insinuate something,
but it was just vacuous, David. That reminds me of the second phase
of the anti Kavanaugh operation, which was the New Yorker had rowan pharaoh and
Jane Meyer telling a story that I have read literally like thirty times, and
I cannot tell you what the problem was like if you actually tried to nail
it down like what the allegation was, It was impossible, but like it
was supposed to be really explosive, all because they used like salacious words and
salacious scenarios and they kind of put them one after the other, but ultimately
came up to like a woman thinks, but isn't sure that maybe someone who
might have been Brett Kavanaugh might have done something. I was like, this
isn't this is not journalism, and yet everyone went wild with it, and
Senate Democrats said that it was a reason why he should he should step down.
Yeah. I struggle to come out with a name for that. I
call it like Petempken. Journalism is just kind of dressed up with all this
journalistic verbiage and like words that sound very you know, damning, but actually
don't mean anything. Let me just read you the lead of that story by
Heidi Prisi Well. Leonard Leo, who helped to choose judicial nominees for former
President Donald Trump, obtained a historic one point six billion dollar gift from his
conservative legal network via an introduction through the Federalist Society, whose tax status for
bids political activism. That is one sentence and it makes zero sense. Oh
wait, can I just read chilling components Donald Trump one point six billion and
Federalist Society, and that's all you need to know. This reminds me of
something I would like any of our listeners, particularly those with money, to
know, which is sometimes people will come up to me and be like,
oh, congratulations on the one point six billion dollars. There is no relationship
between the Federalist Society and the Federalist other than a shared love of founding documents,
and we certainly publish people who might be members of the Federalist Society,
and you know, I wrote a book on the Kavanaugh confirmation. But there
is no relationship. So if anyone out there has one point six billion dollars
and wants to invest it in quality journalism, please give me a call.
Or even if it's just a tiny fraction of that, please give me a
call. Okay, commercial one point six million dollars one point six thousand dollars
one hundred and sixty thousand would be great. I could hire a reporter two.
But yes, sorry that that got me off track there, But yes,
yeah, I know everyone always thinks we're the Federal Society lesson. I
don't get too mad over that. Because of our name. But yeah,
we are not connected with them in any way other than we were fans generally
of I think they're legal philosophy. So another thing that was big this week
involved the or it actually happened last week, is that Kevin McCarthy, against
all odds, got the House to pass an increase in the debt limit in
the debt sailing. And this is just like a fascinating story because the entire
calculus in Washington, DC, or the one that Joe Biden was operating under,
was that there was no way the Republicans could come together to pass an
increase on the debt limit, And so when Kevin McCarthy was asking him for
months to negotiate with him, Biden just kept saying, I'm not going to
negotiate with you because you're not worthy of negotiating with All of this hinged on
the Republicans not passing an increase, and then they did. It destroyed the
media slash Democrat argument against negotiating with Kevin McCarthy. Now, all of a
sudden, the only person who has passed something or who has done anything to
save the country from default is Kevin McCarthy. And now the Senate has to
go along or be responsible for the failure there, or Biden has to go.
You know, it's like it's actually kind of a hilarious turn of events,
and it really does point to how wise it was to have that fight
about speaker early on, where the Conservatives demanded some some things in exchange for
their vote for Kevin McCarthy. Thereby bonded them together very closely. And now
they're actually working together under really difficult circumstances, like the margin they have is
so small, and yet they managed to do stuff like this. That's a
good that's a good point and a good story. And I have to say
a couple of things. There was a Wall Street Journal story on this fight,
and they literally again I'm using the word literally correctly, did not mention
the House bill had passed, like they spoke about like the disagreement, but
not mentioned that the has a bill passed during the Obama years. If the
House pass if the Democrats passed something and the Senate didn't move forward, it
was called obstructionism or vice versa. Now they don't even mention it. They
don't even mention it in their coverage, just like it doesn't matter, do
you remember Chuck Schumer every day going where's your plan? Republicans, It's like,
show us your plan. Well, they have a plan now, and
you know it's it's amazing to me. The death seal, Like, I
just want to put out that you said that about the Wall Street Journal,
which is the only paper I subscribe to, and I do acknowledge that it's
better than most other papers, but stuff like that happens all the time,
and it's infuriating. I think they just have a bunch of like leftists working
in the news side, and it's really delegitimizing the paper in ways that are
not cool. I do also read the Wall Street Journal and like the Wall
Street Journal and subscribe to the Wall Street Journal because I think it's serious,
a serious place with serious journalists. But yeah, there are plenty of left
wingers and there's plenty of bias in the news pages. I don't know if
people realize that. I think because a lot of investors and stuff read it,
they're they're more I don't know, anchor to factual reporting the New York
Times, but yeah, it's problematic. But yeah, anyway, I think
you know you have the you have the debt ceiling, and basically Democrats argument
is that you ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist. You're not allowed to
make any demands, You're not allowed to do anything. And then there,
you know, and then they pose, they say, like, we pay
our debts. We're Americans, we pay Yeah, but if you don't do
anything to lower your debt moving forward, you're never going to be able to
pay it that they don't want to. You do have to pay your debts,
but you do have to also be responsible. I mean, it was
a good move because usually Republicans lose this vote. I know, I know
the Republicans in the House are going to disappoint us mightily very soon. But
just like, it is May and they have done all right, so they
should get that credit. I don't wonder if anyone really cares about cutting spending.
But anyway, um yeah boiler alert, they do not. Okay,
um, I mean if you do, but okay, uh yeah. Any
have you been watching anything or reading anything interesting? I have? I might
have I mentioned this last week, but I don't think so. Or I
finished watching Better Call Saul the last season, which I thought it was excellent.
You know, I disagree with people say it's better than Breaking Bad.
I don't think it comes close, frankly, but the last season was it
really was fun to watch and just to see what happens to Saul. So
I think you are not a Breaking Bad fan. Really it was I want
to be. And it took me like six weeks of recovery after each episode
I watched because it was so intense. So like, I recognize that it's
great, it's just way too intense for my little heart to him. I
am usually not affected by things I watched on TV. I couldn't care less,
but when that show ended, I was like emotionally affected, like for
days. So yeah, it's super intense show. I think that's all I
really watched. I would mention one other other thing. Last week I had
mentioned to Martin Scorsese documentary about David Johansson, and someone wrote us a letter
reminding me or we're suggesting that I watched this thing called New York Doll,
which is about the basis from from the from the New York Dolls original basis
who fell into drugs and alcohol and will say what, became a Mormon and
moved out to Utah and it's an interesting and then he got very sick and
the New York Dolls reformed I think this was like in the early twenty tens
or something like that, and had a concert and kind of helped him.
And it's just an interesting story of redemption and stuff. And it's just a
super interesting documentary. It's called New York Doll. I actually have seen it.
I own it on DVD, and I would just if people are interested
in that kind of music and that kind of story, that's a pretty good
documentary. That's it. Okay, Well, I don't really have much because
we had our retreat, which was fun. I did finally. I've never
been able to shoot ski at all, and I made contact, like I
did it. I can. I like to shoot targets, but not I
can't do the like moving target. Isn't it gray when sid explodes or whatever
it's called. But yeah, it finally happened. And the guy who helped
me was like a zen master. He just spoke in my ear weird things
that got me to think the right thought and it was beautiful. I did
not go with you guys shooting, by the way, Oh no, I
went. I tried to go fishing instead. How'd that go? Not well?
Because it was raining like crazy. Also, our six foot eleven staff
are also caught multiple fish I think. By the way, speaking of impressive
people on staff, Kylie Zempele excelled at every sport she did, whether it
was shooting, football, baseball, or whiffleball basketball. It was pretty the
most fun one axe throwing. Oh yeah, okay, he is our best
athlete by far. I was very impressed. Yeah, super competitive. I
just love rewe on our team and say something about our team here. Yes,
it is interesting to see you really get a person to a person's I
don't know core when you watch them play sports. And when we started playing
basketball, you could see that we were like that. John Davidson and I
the older people on stuff. I'm much older than him probably, but I
would rather have died than not get him. My wall and trying to look
at John was the same way, even though I know our six foot eleven
basketball hero could have beaten us if he really wanted to. John's like almost
dying and he's just grabbing onto him, like done his back, like fouling
him, trying to win. But and then of course yeah, oh yeah,
she's Oh she was impressive. Um, I liked that Sean Davis and
I were playing table tennis, but there were no ping pong balls, so
we just used a variety of other balls to do it, and it all
like totally worked and including whiffootballs and tennis balls. And I liked that idea
that like, we will just make something work if we're committed. Yeah,
oh, it's interesting. Anyway, he just said a lot about us.
One of the people I was talking to said, you know, because he
hadn't met everybody, and he said that when you get a group of our
size together, there's going to be someone you don't like, and he was
just blown away that he liked everybody. Interesting. I like maybe fifty percent
of the people. Well, I also feel like I should mention that beverything.
I liked everyone. Yeah, no, yeah, I totally just blew
over. The Bedford got married this weekend to an awesome lady, Sarah Westwood,
and that was awesome as well. So we wish them our best.
I'm going to the yea, yeah, yeas tonight. Are you familiar with
that band? I am familiar with that band. They've been around a while,
right, and they were a New York band, I believe. Yeah,
actually, yeah, yeah. One of my best friends went to college
with one of the people in the band, so I saw him play like
in college. And then I have seen the Yaayas before and Karen Oh is
like a revelation live, so I'm really looking forward to it. But tonight
is their opening night on their tour this year, so I wasn't sure if
that means that they'll be like getting their kinks out or whether it'll be really
good, but I'm working for it. I'm sure they practiced before the tour
will be fine, okay. And then my other update is that I made
it through Exodus and I'm already in. I'm into Leviticus. We got some
mail on that that was interesting. Yeah, oh such, Yeah it was
good, and recommendations of things to watch or read that I will do.
But I'm really committed to just this. Is that like Joshua just killing it
and King I haven't don't spoil for me. I want to just experience this.
So right now we are just on like processes for sacrifices, and I
think we'll get to the you know, food and sex stuff later, um
whatever. I think I recall Aaron's kids get in trouble for something but I
just I want to read it with fresh eyes. So I really question a
theological question, do you have any qualms when you're reading the Old Testament about
all the violence that is that God commands the juice to participate in, including
the genocide of certain ethnic minorities and things like that. It just doesn't seem
very compatible with Jesus's message in the New Testament. Is this a good question
for this podcast? It's too big at this moment of the podcast where we've
got like a few seconds to have up. But no, That's one of
the things I like about it is thinking about the parallels between the Old and
New Testament and the consistency between it, even about how sin requires sacrifice and
how that is understood by the ancient Hebrews, and how that is understood when
Jesus talks about the New Covenant, even just that whole thing covenants and how
they operate and how, oh, I do have to say, one of
my favorite things is, so you know, Moses does all this work to
get the Israelites out of Egypt, and literally within hours they're grumbling about how
this wasn't worth it. But I also how God is grumbling back at how
loser all these people are, and how he just wants to kill them all.
And then they're grumbling back, and then Moses is like, could everyone
please calm down, We're gonna be okay. You know, It's just like
a very real situation. And I like the the personal nature of the relationship
between God and the Israelites, like Moses is mediating between the masses and God
himself, like you know us, especially with the golden calf story and all
that, right, is that that's what you're mostly talking by the way that
blew me away. Think about all that Aaron has done up until that point.
And then the moment the people get ye get a little like, where's
Moses, what's going on? And then he's like, well, let's let's
build a golden lf and worship it. It's like, what are you?
You've done so much? Why are you He was like, yea, let's
he was like, yeah, let's do this thing, like everyone give me
your earrings and stuff. It's kind of doesn't mesh with what you've heard about
him earlier in Exodus, right, I don't know, But I also like
how it shows that God is faithful even when his people are not, and
then to your question about like all the I mean, it's we've got a
lot of blood at this point, particularly where I am in Leviticus. But
I think again, it conveys the seriousness with which God takes this relationship with
his people, and also that He really is protecting them for this greater thing
which is revealed in the New Testament, with the incarnation of Christ, his
life, his ministry, his death, and his resurrection. But reading it
as a salvation history just makes a lot of sense. And that's what I'm
really enjoying and getting out of it right now. Thinking Aaron's kind of like
a pr professional, so he'll just do whatever he's told. Kind of Variety's
just a spokesperson. Oh, interesting way to think of it. Yeah,
No, I like that. If anyone has any kind of suggestion on this
topic or wants to send us a maybe book book suggestions on how to think
about the Old Testament violence in Christian ended and how they're compatible. Well,
yeah, and that's good. Sorry. Yeah. At Radio at the Federalist
dot com. Radio at the Federalist dot Com thinks this reminds me that my
friend that I've made through this podcast, the one who told me that I
had experienced a Lenten fast by getting sick, and who thereby inspired me to
do this project sent a note this week about how great Luther's commentary on Genesis
is and how like deeply Luther gets into it, and how what a fun
read it is. It's like eight volumes, it's verse by verse, and
I do want to read that. And I told him I want to read
it, but I really want to just like read straight through for now,
and he said, yeah. Every time I make a suggestion like that,
it's like saying to someone, hey, nice swim you're having, would you
like to carry this heavy rock on that swim? Like I just I want
to. I do want people's thoughts on Genesis and Exodus, but I can't.
I just have to keep a file of what to read afterwards. Right.
Our co worker, our colleague, John Davidson, recommended a book because
this is the kind of conversation we get into on retreats after a few drinks.
And the book's name was called. It was called The Religion of the
Apostles Orthodox Christianity in the first century. And this sort of thing interests me.
Historical dimensions of of of of of religion Anyway, I think we've we've
gone way off track here, but these are interesting topics. Perhaps will we
visit them next podcast, But until then, the Lovers of Freedom and Chios
for the play