Welcome back everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong with Molly Hemingway and David
Harsani. Molly, I have not seen you in like a month. I
know what you're doing. Wow, But it's great to be back. A
lot's been going on as usual. I was off last week myself, so
I wasn't paying close attention to what, uh, you know, what was
happening at DC. But I'd like to start with a story that intrigues me
quite a bit. There was apparently some cocaine found in the White House.
The press doesn't seem really that interested in knowing who's cocaine it was, but
I am very interested in knowing who's cocaine it was. And I have a
theory that it might have been a certain somebody who has had drug problems in
the past. Now we don't know that for a fact, but Hunter Biden
was at the White Eye. Is it wrong for me to speculate in this
way? I don't think so. We're just we're just trying to We've got
a real who done it here? Yeah, And the reason we've got the
cocaine in the White House. It's important to track this person down is because
if if I believe if Hunter Biden was caught doing drugs, this plea agreement
would be null and void, right, I believe so, Yeah, I
mean, I say I believe so. But I assume the Department of Justice
would figure out a way to, like, I don't know, indict Trump
for the cocaine rather than hold Hunter Biden accountable. Didn't read another story this
weekend if you saw this where I had my theory on this too, but
Access I think reported that Joe Biden gets really angry sometimes behind the scenes and
yells at people and curses at them. Now, I don't really know how
cocaine works, but you know, I'm just wondering about that as well,
right, like such, Just so Biden has long had a temper, it
does seem to be getting worse in a way that a lot of people tie
to his general mental decline. You know, people who suffer from dementia frequently
get frustrated that they can't recall things, or they get frustrated by obstructions to
like what they want to do, and they lose some of their impulse control.
So while he has long been videotaped like challenging voters to IQ test fights
and push up contests, you know, from like the eighties to the twenty
twenty campaign called that fat. Remember when he called that guy fat? Actually,
Mark Hemingway reminded me, do you remember why he called that guy fat?
He had brought up something about Russia Ukraine, right or Ukraine maybe,
or he brought something up about Ukraine, but specifically said, like, I
like you, I want to vote for you. I'm a little concerned that
Republicans could make hay over your son's involvement with Barisma, and Biden's response was,
look, fat, you're a dummy. I'm smarter than you, I've
got a higher you than you, and I could beat you up. You
know. It was like some crazy thing he said. And that's when I
think everybody was like realizing, Oh, his temper and his impulse control is
getting worse. We got to keep him off the campaign trail. Will just
let the media run the campaign for him. It was a total disaster.
Well it related to you. They on that story, the bag ban of
the Biden family business. Yes, my theory is that the White House drop
that story because he sleepy Joe, as it were, doesn't seem very engaged,
doesn't seem like he's a vigorous, healthy person, and I think that
that story was meant to make him look like someone who is super involved behind
the scenes and not just being led around by others, which is like when
I talked to conservatives at least, they're always like, well, Joe Biden's
not in charge, you know, there are people behind him in charge.
And I think that that kind of story, and that's probably something that independence
also kind of believe. So I think that story tried to make him look
like he was actually quite evolved and quite you know, quite angry about what
was going on, you know, because things aren't going totally reasonable. And
also because like the way the corporate media spun this was like, actually,
people think it's a badge of honor to be called a dumb you know,
idiot by the president, because that means he knows your name, you know,
and like it was a weird spinning that they did. But I don't
I think that's overthinking it. I love the level of skepticism that we have
at the Federalist about literally every story that comes out, But I'm not sure.
I think probably it's very hard to work for a dementia adult like eighty
year old with impulse problems. I saw one of the view people said that
it was kind of cute that he got mad and that you like, yeah,
I assume that was Elisafera and that's so cute. I don't know.
I will say I do get annoyed at these young people complaining about mean bosses,
Like I've got some me mean bosses, and I don't go around complaining
about it. And I think it's just weak too. I'm not saying that
people should yell and scream and cuss out their employees, and I think it
is not great. But this is a stressful job, the presidency. You
know, he's got a World War three he's walking us into, he's stumbling
us into. He's got a lot on his plate, you know, a
destruction of the world, destruction of the country. It's a lot to handle.
So maybe they could calm down. Yeah, I know. I thank
you for bringing that up. I hadn't thought of that until now. You
know. One of my first bosses was actually started as an internship. Was
literally I thought he was going to kill me, like I thought he would
violently attack me. He threw a shoe at us one time because we weren't
doing something and he just demeaned us all the time. And I think that
that helped me be a better, better professional, right and better at what
I was at my job. So yeah, you should be expected to be
yelled at by the president. It's obvious. Has anyone ever read a book
about Lyndon Johnson in their lives? I mean, be happy with I mean,
I hope Biden's not like exposing himself, but I'm thinking, be happy
thinking of Lyndon Jucohnson that he's not exposing himself to you, although that probably
is happening, because when you get to be eighty, I'm sure things just
can you imagine and you notice that there's no like tell all book or any
kind of what was that guy's name who wrote about in the New York Times
anonymous, you know, or someone like that in the Biden administration being like,
yeah, you know, he wears a diaper or whatever. You know
it's going on behind the scenes. I mean, there's no one Why does
that? Why why don't Democrats have any kind of okay, just two things
that you brought up, Anonymous. I think that remains my favorite story of
the Trump era. How the New York Times said trust us. This is
an extremely high level person who is reporting these firsthand things. This is so
high level, it might be Melannia, Like, it's so high level,
and so all the media, we're asking every single cabinet official and member of
the the Trump family, are you anonymous? And then when it came out
years later that The New York Times had put its entire credibility on the claim
that they had a very, very very high level person, the name of
the dude was literally Miles Teller, the fourth Did I just make up?
It isn't that Miles Teller as an actor. If it was Milesteller, that
would have been amazing. It was like, I don't even remember his name.
And on the day that the thing was written, he was so low
level at the Department of Homeland Security that his name didn't even appear on the
list of like the top sixty officials at the Department of Homeland Security. So
he's like, at best sixty first at a department, And that was who
the New York Times said this high level. I love that stright because it
just shows how insane, how bat guano insane and duplicitous and delusional our corporate
media are. But having said that hasn't been any like tell all yet.
I was talking with this reporter also about cocaine, because this is you know,
clearly in DC, it's definitely the topic everybody likes talking about. And
she was saying that she did think we would get to answer someday, and
it would probably be in the form of one of these secret Service tell all
books that we got like after the Clinton administration, where they were all like,
oh man, this was crazy working in the White House with Bill literally
Bill Clinton, like, here's the stories, here's the women, here's the
whatever. So we might find out someday the details. I want to share
with you. Another high level person in DC told me her conspiracy theory about
the cocaine, and I love it. I just and I want to make
it click. This is a conspiracy theory. This is not This is not
someone actually saying that this is what happened or what they you know, But
she thinks that the cocaine was moved from a first location to a second location.
And did you notice how the the stated discovery has changed all the time,
Like, you know, they started out saying it was the library,
which was clearly a misreading of the scanner. Then they said it was in
this like um sort of high profile visitors center area, and they said it
was actually this like sort of traditional entrance on the lower level, you know
where that awning is. I don't know if you remember familiar anyway, So
it's kind of like had different locations and they keep moving, you know,
they keep claiming it's like in a different place, and we still haven't.
I don't think had like the official word on where it was actually found.
But her theory is that someone discovered it in a location that would have clearly
implicated Hunter Biden, Like it'd be like Hunter Jill, Joe or Ashley,
you know, whoever are the Biden's living there, And they knew what it
was, and they moved it to a location that had a little bit more
foot traffic. But the person who discovered it there had no idea what it
was. King it might be Rice in or something like that puts in the
all call and they clear the building and all that. I like this conspiracy
theory. I think it's you know, I don't know, it makes sense
to me. Obviously, there are cameras everywhere in the White House, and
if they really wanted to figure out who had the cocaine. They could do
it very quickly, right. Is that a conspiracy or is that reason?
No? No, no, it's we live in an interesting world where if
you were within two miles of the capital on January six, you're going to
be in prison. But that if you have cocaine in the White House,
we couldn't possibly figure out even a small group of people that it could belong
to. Do you remember when Donald Trump was sniffing during one of the debates
and people were all like, he's on cocaine, and Howard Dean's like he's
on cocaine. I looked at the sort of you know, the behavioral problems
people who do cocaine have, and a lot of them are very interesting.
You should read it. They're mind me of someone who's was president right now
anyway, Well, yeah, no, like the short temper, the anger,
like the obsessions, bursts of energy. Yeah yeah, now, I'm
just kidding. I don't think he's o ka king. I do think they
probably inject him with some kind of I don't know, upper I know,
I hate this like so much what I'm about to say, but it does
need to be said. Can you imagine, I know, Can you imagine
if this were the Trump White House, you would have already had like Ben
Sass and Mitt Romney and Mitch McConnell calling for impeachment of the current president.
You know, like it would have been so crazy. It would have been
front page news. We would have had like Zap Brewer like analysis of everybody
going in and out, Like you would have had gossip printed as fact.
You would have had that conspiracy theory just said, like printed as if it
were fact sourced to FBI officials, you know, like it would have been
so in saying. And it's just like you watch even when sometimes like go,
oh, the White House Press Corps got a little testy with Kareem John
Pierre today, and you watch it and it's someone saying, kind ma'am,
if we may, could we could we I'm so sorry, but could we
bother you with like the tiniest little question. And you remember where it was
like during the trump erad where it was like people standing on their seats screaming,
you know, coming up with the crazy ideas of shouting and being so
disrespectful and mocking, and like now they're like, oh, it was a
tough day at the White House, and it's like the gentlest questioning, you
know, that would make North Korean's blush. Yeah, they would stand up
and quote from the New Colossus, the poem on the Statue of Liberty to
talk about like immigration and today that you can't even ask the White House anything
about any They will not answer a question about basically anything that matters. Do
you know there's this guy, right, I was just reading about this yester,
this guy Rob Malley, who is the like Iroqadal envoy but all so
he's supposed to bring back kidnapped Americans. He literally was stripped of his clearance.
He's being investigated by the FBI. No one will tell us at us
a word about why. But other Americans will go to jail for the same
thing, right or they'll be you know, we'll know everything about There'll be
pictures of Trump's home with you know, splayed out folders of classified documents and
all of that. But I don't know Rob Malley, who hates America,
by the way, who is you know, a Middle East envoy for US.
We literally don't even know why he was stripped of his classified Well,
you know, if you needed to know documents, if you needed to know
our law enforcement and intelligence agreencies would tell you, Okay, David, anyway,
I just want to stress that I don't actually think Joe Biden's doing cocaine.
I think everyone's a suspect and until such time, like I know,
what's going to happen is they're going to take some intern and pin it on
him or her in exchange for like a cash advance, you know, or
something. Sorry, did that sound cynical. I know they're gonna come up
with some explanation to make it go away. But I do like Sean Davis's
theory that it'll be like murder on the Orient Express, where it's everybody's cocaine.
There's no one person, it's just everybody's cocaine. But I also just
reasonably think everyone's a suspect, so I don't think you can rule out anyone.
It's got to be a rich person, because where people don't just leave
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I did see this thing that said, usually when you find cocaine in someone's
house, it makes more people come over. It was about how they'd cleared
the White House, you know, in response to the cocaine um. It's
a very seventies thing. Cocaine, you know what I mean? Don't you
think around around the right, like there's probably a bowld are with all keys
in it. That's a really old school white House. It got going on,
so like if we had, if we had a comedy um enterprise in
this country, you could imagine that there would be quite a bit. Oh.
I did love this babylon be thing I saw recently about like the top
things Hunter Biden has been searching for on Google, and it just got increasingly
ludicrous, but it was really fun to read. I love that we have
at least the babylon By job. Yeah. I had one other thing I
wanted to say about the classified mishandling for this iron en boy. I was
talking with someone last night at Fox. We were just kind of joking about
how much effort was put, how much effort in Washington, DC was put
into making the latest indictment on Trump. Seemed like different than all the other
attacks on him, Like, okay, so we did some really unfair stuff,
accused him of being a traitor and all, you know, and then
like when he got mad, we claimed he was obstructing justice, Like that
wasn't cool. But this one's for real, and everyone you had, like
people trotted out to make it seem legitimate, and the mood of the country
was like, are you kidding me right now? Like, if you're already
a Trump pater, you were like, yeah, this proves that I'm right
to be delusional in my Trump patred. But if you're not, you were
just like, I don't really find this to be real. It's just kind
of funny. Like they really tried to make it real, and nobody really
bought it. I mean, I'm not thinking it's not in real trouble,
but he Yeah, they've done this since twenty fifteen, right, so even
if they have some sort of legitimate claim to some wrongdoing, they immediately blow
it up into something fantastical and nonsensical and ridiculous, And of course the credulous
Trump addled mind and all those people will go along and believe it. But
it not only is it politically stupid, it undermines any kind of real legal
or political case you have against Trump. I just don't understand why they think
it's a good idea. But I don't think things are going to change.
Okay, speaking of let's get off the cocaine and talk a little bit about
So. I've been following the story. I've written a numerous numerous, like
I think at least, debunkings of the concerted effort to smear and delegitimize a
Supreme Court that is very different, as Chuck Schumer I believe said, and
it's different in that it upholds the Constitution occasionally. But anyway, there was
one last week or was it this week? It might have been this weekend
that made me laugh because there's kind of like diminishing returns on just taking this
opo research and pretending it's a new story. And the New York Times this
weekend had a story and the language is very dramatic about how Clarence Thomas belongs
to this dubious syndicate of wealthy Americans who are named after a Gilded Age author
named Horatio Alger and that he you know that he this is is like into
the rich star chamber that makes all our decisions. So anyway, it turns
out that the Ratio Alger Association gives out like three hundred has given out like
three hundred million dollars in student scholarships to students, like I think it was
thirty thousand students, and this piece is dressed up as like him doing something
bad. I mean, I literally I don't even understand how a New York
Times reader could take anything like this seriously anymore. And yet you know everyone,
let me, first of all, let me name you some other people
are part of this group just the top of my head, Wayne Gretz,
Oprah Winfrey, Leo DiCaprio, Michael Bloomberg, Maya Angelo as a member.
But yet if Clarence Thomas joins this group, he is now doing something corrupt
and nefarious and undermining the American democracy. Anyway, I just want to point
out how ridiculous these stories are getting, and it just shows that the entire
crusade to undermine the Court is concerted. It's done by people behind the scenes.
Probably these dark money groups are spreading it, and I just hope at
least that the impact of them starts to diminish as well. Yeah, I
also got to kick out of the Ratio Alger story. It was funny.
It was like, we're trying to show you how evil Clarence Thomas is.
He helps underprivileged children, and you're thinking, like, who could fall for
this? Like you said, but I do think the New York Times reader,
the average New York Times reader maybe one of the least informed people on
the planet. And it embarrasses me when people identify as I mean, I'm
embarrassed for them when they identify as New York Times readers and act like they
are being informed. I read a story this week that was just so riddled
with errors and falsehoods. I just was like, I should have been shocked,
but I'm I should not have been shocked, but I was. But
it is very worrisome that the entire left is running this attack on the court
to delegitimize it. It is you know, we live at a time when
you say, if people were frustrated and angry about the twenty twenty election and
how it was handled, that's like the biggest and they had outbursts at the
capitol and riots and all that, like the worst attack imaginable. And let's
say you grant that, then what would you say about this widespread, heavily
funded, coordinated attack on the Supreme Court there's actually been going on for decades
with a goal of destroying its legitimacy and threatening the country. Like if a
day of rage or whatever you want to call the day of rage is the
worst thing ever, wouldn't like a decades long plan to subvert the legitimacy of
the court be much worse when it's coordinated by the highest level officials. It's
got corporate media backing, it's got billionaire backing, it's got senators actively promoting
this attack on the integrity. Might remember that during the Kavanaugh confirmation there were
senators giving seats limited seats to activist groups who interrupted the constitutional proceedings of the
confirmation hearing, and nobody ran an investigation of these people, Like nobody didn't
ethics investigation of these Democrat senators who were part of the attack on the legitimacy
of the Court and the effort to subvert the constitutional process. You had Chuck
Schumer calling for attacks on Justice members, culminating with an assassination tempt on one
of the justices. Like this is even if you take the hysterical approach on
the January sixth riot, like, shouldn't you be doing everything in your power
to round up these people? Well, yeah, I agree that these groups.
The person who writes this story and the editor who allows it to move
forward is a far bigger danger to American democracy than a January sixth rioter.
I mean, I'm sorry, but that's just the fact. And let me
let me read to you the key. So this is a four thousand word
piece, and I'm going to read you the when you finally get to the
claim of corruption or the insinuation of corruption. Clarence Thomas isn't a group end
quote includes that includes major donors to conservative causes with broad policy and political interests
and much at stake in the Supreme Court comma, even if they were not
directly involved in the case. To think about that, Clarence Thomas is not
allowed to join an organization that has all kinds of people from all parties who
are rich. Because the wealthy have the money to give scholarships to poor kids.
Okay, he is not allowed to join that group because they might have
not even directly something in front of the court. I mean, that is
insane. That's an insane standard. Are you telling me that Sotomayor doesn't belong
to any organization out there that has rich members who also have some kind of
stake in the Supreme Court. Don't we all have some kind of stake in
what the Supreme Court does? Of course we do. This is an impossible
standard to meet, but really it only exists so that someone could point to
it and say, look, these people are corrupt. It doesn't really even
matter what the claim is. And the problem is most Americans don't look into
the specifics of these stories. They just see it and it's working. You
see poles Supreme Court, the Supreme Court. Trust in the Supreme Court is
way way down. Yeah, anyway, And oh, one last thing on
this. The whole point of this is, of course, is not an
attack on the Supreme Court. It's attack It's an attack on the Constitution because
the Supreme Court is the only institution in American government that up holds the Supreme
Court that pulds the Constitution these days, not always by the way, in
my opinion, but at least regularly. So let's talk about this. I'm
always looking for segways. Let's talk about this. It's really quickly because I
never get a chance to say anything nice about Mitch McConnell these days, but
he had a funny line about Joe Biden's attack on the court. Joe Biden
said something like, this is not a normal court, and Mitch McConnell said,
that's right, it's the Supreme Court. Okay, it's not that great,
but I thought it was good when he said that. I I,
yeah, I point out it's not a normal court. It's a court that
upholds the you know, for a second, fourth, fifth, tenth Amendment
occasionally. But anyway, my segue is this, there's a case in Missouri,
so you probably know more about this than I do. So basically as
I see it there that the administration has created this censor infrastructure that works with
big tech too allegedly or ostensibly stop disinformation and misinformation, which is none of
its business, even if it was disinformation or misinformation by the way, but
basically is used to censor right wing views that they don't like that quite often
turn out to be the truth, like for instance, with the whand virus
and where it came from probably, But so tell me, so there was
a suit who sued who and what do you know? Yeah, the attorney
generals of Louisiana and Missouri brought suit against the US government and the Biden administration
for its participation in the censorship industrial complex. So it is, and on
July fourth, Independence Day, the federal judge overseeing the case issued an injunction
against the government, saying it cannot continue its role in the censorship industrial complex
until or unless the case is resolved in its favor, and that it's unlikely,
you know, the whole stay was issued because it's unlikely that the federal
government will win this case. And the Biden administration appealed saying that it is
like a huge problem if they're not allowed to censor Americans and attack their First
Amendment rights, and the federal judge said, no, that's not or I
don't know who it was appealed to, sorry, but that appeal was denied.
And I imagine this will be on a you know, on a quick
route to the Supreme Court whether the federal government can violate the First Amendment or
not. I have a theory that they will not be allowed to do it.
The government and the media are trying to say that they're not like that
if they're not allowed to censor people's political views that then they can't uphold their
legitimate law enforcement roles in fighting like trafficking of humans or law breaking. The
judge who wrote the injunction, I think the same as Dowdy or something like
that. He specifically said, this is not to deal with actual law breaking.
We're talking about censoring people's opinions that Democrats don't like. And he showed
that this has affected millions upon millions of Americans. This is not a minor
thing. The scope of what they have been involved in shaping public opinion,
censoring, and involving themselves in elections has everything to do with like as it
ranges from like COVID stuff, like they were censoring discussions about the efficacy of
the COVID response, how COVID originated. They of course censored speech related to,
you know, the Biden family business. And it's just like everything you
know, trans issues, like any topic that Democrats don't want to debate,
has been censored through the censorship industrial complex. And it's it's a wide array
of federal agencies that are working with big tech corporations to silence Americans and to
poison free speech and district free debate. A lot of them are at the
State Department, a lot of them are at Department of Homeland Security, a
lot of them are at Department of Defense. But it's like an unbelievable range
of federal agencies. I had talked with someone who worked on suppressing American speech
at the Department of Defense, and he had said something like, I would
be horrified if I knew how extensive, like how much of the work of
the federal government these days is about censoring American discourse. And I am horrified
every time I learned about it. And I don't even think we I don't
even think we have begun to understand how much they're doing. So this is
very good news for Americans. The stay was good reading for Americans on Independence
Day, and it's kind of shocking that it's taken this long to have anybody
remind people of the First Amendment. Um, yeah, obviously, I agree.
I think there's just a we probably disagree on how much government should be
involved in keeping open speech on like a privately owned platform, right, probably,
But this is not about that, I know. Yeah, Okay,
now I'm just prefacing what I'm about to say. But but when you have
the government involved with rent seeking corporations that need the government to make lots of
money or whatever, and then they're dictating speech and telling them what to do.
It creates a massive problem that is very fascistic, really in the in
the purest sense of that word. Right, you have the government and the
state working with giant corporations to dictate what we can talk about. I mean,
that is a massive problem. Now, even let's say if it wasn't
a First Amendment issue, if you don't believe in free speech, open discourse,
and debate, then you're you're a liberal person. You're an oratarian.
And that's what the What was that Ministry of Truth thing called that Biden set
up? I forgot it was Disinformation Governance Board or whatever. I mean,
these things are completely illiberal, unimaginably illiberal organizations to exist, agencies to be
existing in American life, and yet the media's out there defending them. It's
just the media said, which problem. Telling the government that they can't suppress
americans free speech rights is itself an attack on the First Amendment, Because don't
government officials have the right to say whatever they want, such as that that
company better shut down American speech or they'll be punished, which is a very
poor reading of the First Amendment and not actually how it works. First Amendment
does not exist to protect the government's censorship activities, especially if they're thrending them.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if they're Yeah, now,
go on. I would say Matt Taybe had this thing out where he wanted
to make sure the people involved in the cases, the Missouri versus Biden cases
had seen some of the emails that he'd uncovered in the Twitter files, which
are government officials saying things like it's so great as a government official to be
in partnership with big tech in you know, colluding to censor American speech,
like they're admitting to the crime, like openly in all these different emails,
and he posted them yesterday, So it was interesting to see. Yeah,
and you know, none of this even gets into the whole aspect of how
the state is often wrong. It should not be the arbiter of what is
true or not true. Anyway, I don't they you know, it's just
mind boggling that we have having these discussions. When I was growing up,
the left was the one who was constantly defending free speech the left. I'll
give you an example, Like you know when we were kid. When I
was a kid, they started putting stickers on albums, right, that was
led by Tippergore and all of that. I forget what that organization was called.
It was the big company working with the government to put warnings on records.
I don't even think it comes close to what they're doing. But everyone
was just completely like everyone on the left was just completely angry and up at
arms about that kind of relationship. But now they're saying that the Biden administration
can create a disinformation board. Can you imagine going to do it? Can
you imagine if Trump had a disinformation board and told big tech companies what they
could and could not put on their sites. I mean, it would be
you know, it would be the end of the world. That's my dog
barking. Did you hear that? I didn't really? All right? Have
you Have you heard Mark Hemingway coughing? I did, Okay, I thought
it was a sneeze. I said, God bless you or the people working
in my basement. Yes, so, Can I ask you a question?
Can we talk about what you have been up to for the last few weeks?
Sure you went. I went on a cruise from Istanbul or Constantinople,
as the president of my congregation said, don't give up, like keep calling
it Constantinople to Athens with Israel in between, well Greek islands. Yeah,
and that was not my first time to Israel, but it was the first
time for the members of my family, so that was fun. There was
so much, like, there's so much to discuss. I almost want to
have like a post cruise podcast where I talk about everything because I have so
many feelings about so many things. But did you see a guy who wrote
a letter instead told us to stop talking about our personal lives because it was
working anyways. Sorry, most of the most of the reaction to our AMA
podcasts were good, though I want to be like, maybe this isn't the
podcast for you if you don't want to Yeah, yeah, So what is
there anything in particular I should talk about with cruise? Wow? So let
me just say so going to Constantinople is that just amazing? It's an a
city. So you took tours of that city and then you went to Jerusalem
or where'd you go. I'll just go ahead and go through. Give me
they so okay. We flew to Constantinople, also names Istanbul. Then we
cruised to Izmir, which is near Ephesus. You know, the ancient Roman
city that's been destroyed. There's a lot to talk about there. Then we
went to wrote Oh. Then we went to Patmos, which I loved.
That's the island where Saint John wrote Revelation. We got to go to the
cave where he wrote that. There's a beautiful monastery there. It's also just
it's a very small island. I don't think it's the kind of island a
lot of people would like to go to, but I would like to move
there, is how much I liked it. And then we went to Rhoads
and then we went to Cyprus, and then Pathos, Cyprus, and then
we went to Israel. So two days we were docked in Haifa. One
day we were talcked in the Ashdote, and then we went to Crete,
and then Santorini and then Athens, and we spent some extra time in Athens.
So of these places, the only place I've been to is Israel.
That must have been amazing, really hot there right now, it was super
hot. I got burned. I have been peeling, it's not good.
Actually we met these awesome people on the boat. Okay, so the Hillsdale
cruise was so much fun. We loved the people we met. We actually
made friends on which you know, for Mark and me is quite that's not
normal. But we met like a bunch of people we really enjoyed and then
like we also just met like a bunch of people who were delighting, know,
utterly delightful and having dinner with and we would go out on the excursions.
We were on a cruise line where the excursions are included, so like
every guilting sort of wake up and in some cases you're like out there for
twelve hours, you know, in the in the hot heat, then come
back onto the cruise. But um, it was great. And there was
like one day where we did a day of lectures for with Hillsdale people.
Oh. Also among the amazing people that were on the boat were Chris Caldwell,
who's one of my very favorite people to read, and he gave amazing
lectures that were really interesting and provocative. And then a guy Victor Davis Hansen,
who's you know, if you've met him, you know, he's like
the most I could just like, sit there and listen to him speak for
hours and hours and hours. He blurred my last book. He loved it.
He's great. Like we rode in a taxi from like one location to
another. And the amount of history he was imparting about Turkey, you know,
in Istanbul and all this like was. I was like, well,
this has made the cruise completely worth And he's all he has like a PhD
in in in classical history or something, right, I forget exactly what his
say. He's a historian. His book Culture and Carnage and in the Spartan
way I think it's called art are amazing. I'm obsessed with ancient history.
I want to go and do what you just did very much. It was
so much fun and like it was great on multiple levels, Greek history,
Roman history, Christian history, Jewish history. Like I learned so much and
I'm not very knowledgeable on Greek history. My husband and kids are, which
was kind of funny. Everywhere we went they kind of knew the answer to
all the questions and I'm like, just they're eating it up. In crete.
We went to the Temple of Gnosis, Palace of Gnosis. Sorry,
Mark just whispered a correction to me, which is four thousand years old.
I couldn't even wrap my head around it, and it, you know,
the foundation of it is pretty intact, and so then you can kind of
figure out where the different rooms were, like multiple stories, toilet systems,
amazing, amazing, like water systems, and it's four thousand years old,
and you're just like, how did these people have this? I don't even
understand it was that? Where was that on crete? This was like a
pre This was like a proto Greek people, I think, or something right,
Minoans or something. Anyway, Yeah, they're they're the Minoans and that's
like where the minotaur the labyrinth, and Mark was telling me it also has
believed that it might be where the myth of Atlantis comes from, because there
was the nearby I think Santorini was where the volcanic explosion was um and it
would have you know, the tsunami or whatever would have buried a bunch of
the island. And also I think we're a myth of a not a the
phoenix. I don't know, some some other myth about flying came from there.
But Icarus I heard us a lot of whispering already explained, I know
nothing about Creek history, but yeah, it was I loved that and I
just like it was great. And then the cretion food and people were really
great. We got some icons there, and that's where Titus was. I
think, like, just I have to actually take take notes on everything figured
out. Also, I loved Athens. Not everybody loved Athens. A lot
of people thought it was kind of like a grimy, dirty city. But
I feel like when you understand that they can't actually improve anything there without running
up against the fact that they're built on ruins, and then they can't.
You know, you can't. You can't like just do minor home improvements because
the moment you do it, you have to get a permit, and to
get a permit you have to make sure there are no ruins underneath you,
and of course there are ruins underneath you and all that kind of stuff.
But Athens I really liked. We stayed in the Placa, like the old
district right around the Acropolis. We went to the Acropolis Museum, which was
amazing, and then as we were leaving the Acropolis area, the guide was
like, oh, hey, look it's Areopaga or what I mean, Mars
Hill, and I was like, really, do you know Mars Hill where
Paul preached about the unknown gods and he just like brings it right to the
Greeks about the falsehoods of what they're preaching and believing. But to see that
he did it right there, like in the face of this absolute like behemoth
temples to deities and all this, you know, just like it just helped
to understand the significance of these things so much. That's amazing. I'm generally
very anti cruise. It looks like a horrible thing, but you know,
a cruise that like just goes out into the Caribbean, for instance, would
not be something I'm interested. But when you you basically it seems like you
have a moving hotel that takes you from one place to the next, that
seems like something that is beneficial, especially when you're in Europe in these places
where it's hard to get around sometimes. Yeah, have you ever read the
David foster ballas I guess his story about a supposedly fun thing I'll never do
again about going to and cruise, you would enjoy it. So I do
not love cruises. I get seasick very easily. But this was different.
Because we only had waves really one day, which we are, you know,
being on the open stare, or maybe like two, so I was
able to keep it in control. And Mark had told me that the best
way to understand a cruise is as it's taking you to places to help you
decide whether you want to go back there for real, and so you just
get this little taste of things. And then since I never really even thought
I wanted to go to Greece, and now I know I need to go
back there much more, like I'd like to see so many different parts that
I'd like to see the non An Island portion more. And how was in
stumbled Did you feel safe there and everything? What kind of city is it?
Yeah, it's got like twenty million people, it's easy traffic. We
really didn't get enough time there, plus we were extremely jetlagged while we were
there. We did go to the hoggiest of Fia, which just kind of
broke my heart to see how they'd taken down all the Christian art and replaced
it with you know, I understand that it's Muslim practice to not have beautiful
art you in your worship space, but it was just kind of weird.
They had these like large camel hair camel skin discs with Arabic writing on them.
But that was it, and so they'd covered up what a remnants of
Byzantine art was in there, like if there was something of Mary or Jesus,
they'd covered it up. But because Ridawan had only recently made it into
a mosque again, so it was like a mosque. You know, it
was obviously this great Christian cathedral, and then it had been printed into a
mosque, and then with the secularization of Turkey it was made into a museum,
and then a few years ago he made it into a mosque again.
And so during that like secularization period, I think they'd sort of exposed some
of the Christian art in there, so you can still see, like before
you go in there this beautiful mosaic of Jesus, but it kind of give
you a little glimmer of what it would have been like in its Christian incarnation.
And we also went into the Blue Mosque, which was actually a much
prettier thing, Like it just seemed like the Hagia Sophia had been a place
of destruction, whereas the Blue Mosque or whatever it's called for real, it
was designed to be a beautiful space for Muslim wernership, so it was a
more visually arresting place. We went to the Grand Bazaar. That's like,
I'm not into being I'm not into people pressuring me to buy things, and
so the whole region of the world is not a comfortable place for me.
So we just left and had the best meal of the week at a lovely
restaurant near the Grand Bazaar. It's like when I was in Israel, you'd
want to buy something, and like in America, there's a price and you
just buy it. But they are like everyone's negotiating everything. It's completely alien
to me to be involved in that sort of thing. Sounds like an amazing
trip. A mapp you went. I look forward to hearing more. Maybe
we can do a little segment next week on something you did, if people
are interested. I went nowhere. I stayed at home. I did.
Can I tell you a quick story about something that happened to me. Yes,
I was attacked by wasps for the first time in my life. Was
that so funny? I'm sorry? Oh in the yard? Yeah? So
I typically laugh at people like run away from bugs. I think they are
overreacting. So I get I'm bitten, and it really hurt, right,
and then all of a sudden, I'm bitten again on my back and then
on my leg and whatever, and just had a bunch of wasps chasing me
around the yard. I probably looked very funny running away from them. And
I'm still in pain. And this happened like a week ago. It was
one of the just horrible. Yeah, I have been attacked by wasps.
I don't understand how they know how to get inside your clothing, don't you
know? Or I mean, are they stinging from the outside of the clothing.
I don't know. But it hurt initially and then I'm like, oh,
it's all right. But yet a week later, I'm like trying,
I'm just itching all over. I don't know. I've been taking benadrel.
I know. I just went to share what I was up to. It's
a great, great update, David. Thank you. I mean, you're
welcome. You're welcome. So that's all that happened to me. I did
see. I spent some time with family. I love Independence Day quite a
bit. It's my favorite American holiday. I guess. Oh, so we
were in Athens on Independence Day and I've been out of the country before,
but usually to Mexico and where my in laws live. In Mexico, they
just like celebrating everybody's holidays. And so we celebrated Independence Day in Mexico and
that was like fireworks and it was great. Yeah, But in Athens they
did not celebrate American Independence Day. But I was walking with my daughter late
at night, Mark and everyone else was like back at the hotel, and
we were just singing patriots. We were quietly singing our patriotic songs, and
she read the Declaration of Independence, you know, for us, and then
we heard a lone firework go off, and I was like, oh,
there's an American here. It was nice. That's nice. You were on
the boat, you were amongst Americans, right, So yeah, but we
were we were done at that point with the cruise. Oh yeah, you
just hung out in Athens for a while. Um, I assume you didn't
do any television watching or culture culture on your trip. Well, not television
watching or movie watching or anything like that. I kept up my track record
of not knowing how to turn on televisions in the cruise room, like just
didn't figure out how to do that. But when in Athens. They do
have They have like an interesting music culture in Greece that Mark was telling me
about, like heavy metal bands are always touring there and they're really into guitar
music. Oh, Like everywhere we went there was just like actually good what
do you call those street buskers or whatever, like you know, music playing
sit down for dinner and there were people playing nice music. But we went
to a few record stores there and the record stores were really good, slightly
overpriced, but really good. And I got some good records. I got
the soundtrack for the mission. Do you know that movie the Annie Morricone soundtrack
with DeNiro and Jeremy Irons, was it? Yeah? And when we had
been in the Nazareth, we went to the Church of the Annunciation or the
Basilica of the Annunciation, and they had been playing one of those songs or
someone had been singing as Gabriel song from that soundtrack. So it was like
in my mind, like I need to get this. And I also got
this thing it's called Durand Jones and the Indicator Indicators Indications. It's like this
really interesting little band. American love their songs. It's like at that And
then we discussed some other records. What about you? Oh, I watched
a lot of TV. Actually, I don't even remember all the stuff I
watched. Most of it was garbage. But I will note that I watched
the I started watching the second season of The Bear, a show I really
like. Did I tell you to watch The Bear? We both liked it?
I don't know, Okay, if I remember, we both liked the
first season. Now, I what I love most about the show is that
it just shows a bunch of regular people who seem to be normal people doing
working really hard towards a goal, and like suffering but working and overcoming obstacles
to take something that they do very seriously, like their vocation seriously. It's
very rare that you have shows like that. It's you know, It's just
there's a lot of tension in the show. Sometimes it's a bit much when
the families are arguing, because it reminds me of like growing up a little
bit, but with my brothers and so on. But it is I think.
I highly recommend it. I just think it's an interesting show. It's
got a lot of heart. Then, don't make fun of me. I
started watching something called Married at First Sight. Have you ever heard of this
though, no no idea. They pick like five couples I think it is,
and they match them up like you do, but not you know,
not like you, but you know what I mean. They're matchmakers, and
they these people promised to get married without ever seeing each other, go on
honeymoon and live together for eight weeks and see if they can continue. So
basically, you're on this journey with these people who don't know each other but
get married. And I have to say it was pretty addictive. But there's
like eleven seasons it is. I honestly believe it's really interesting. I'll tell
you why. I don't mock me here either, but I like watching it
because it makes me feel like I'm not that abnormal in how I deal with
other people, like I always am, like, do normal people not want
to talk to their neighbors or do normal people not know what it's to say?
Or normal people always awkward? And these people are quite often so awkward
that it makes me feel more normal. So anyway, I recommend it.
It's kind of interesting, I think, that's all I think. Also,
it says like you get eight weeks to decide if you really want to be
married or something which doesn't seem like actually marriage. The whole point of marriage
is that you don't well anyone like right, No, it's so they'll get
together. And sometimes the match is perfect, like seemingly perfect. So you
have someone who's kind of nerdy and like some kinds of weird weird things or
you know, and as a doctor, and they were matched up with another
nerdy person who is you know, intellectual, and and you assume that they'll
work out, or you have like, you know, they match them up.
I would say that like half the matches seem like they might work.
And then some people get very close, very quickly. They go on a
honeymoon. Some people engage and you know, they get very you know,
they get intimate together, and most people do not, and they take their
time and and try to build on it. And sometimes they don't get along.
Sometimes they do. They get into arguments this and that. So it's
just interesting watching because they're real people. I don't know, I don't know
why I watch it. I gotta be I feel embarrassed even saying it,
but you know, it was just addictive. I like seeing how people interact,
almost like for me an anthroppological study of the normies. But I don't
know. That's what I did, just being honest and letting you know that's
great. I'm reading a story right now about the sixteen or twelve couples of
the sixty four who've been matched who are still married. Are they really sixteen?
H that's not terrible? Twelve or sixteen? I can't remember. It's
a few paragraphs ago, and a lot of them have had kids. Like
I just feel like, I don't know, I don't really believe that you
just you know, this romantic notion that you you happen upon the right person
for you. I mean, I think there's a lot of work involved.
I mean, you need to find someone who's right for you, you know
both, you know, in many ways physically but also you know, you
have to your personalities and so on. But you have to work at it.
There's no you know, these are these romantic movies always or just it's
ridiculous. So I don't know. Maybe that's what I find interesting about it,
But you're just reading about it. I think you should do some research
on this, maybe watch a season, and then we can have a long
discussion about it. You know how this is going to go. I'm going
to insist with Mark that we watch it. Then he's going to get angry
again. He's not going to like it. Do not insist that you watch
Do you ever watch stuff alone or do watch everything with Mark? No?
I don't know how to turn on the television. Okay, I do sometimes
watch things without him, meaning the girls and I will watch something else.
So one last thing, did you see? You know, I'm a big
fan of this Joel Studios, which makes the chosen because, first of all,
just like the startup nature of it. I like that they're competing with
big studios, and I like the way that they do business. Even so,
they have this movie out which I have not seen, probably will never
see, with Jim Caviezel about trafficking of kids or whatever or women or whatever
it's it's about, and it beat Indiana Jones and the Temple of Dials or
whatever what's called that I won't see either, just killing it right. And
all these reviewers in like Rolling Stone and elsewhere say it's like a QAnon movie.
Did you just see this? So first off, I will say that
I've talked with a bunch of people who've seen it, who loved it.
They thought it was great. They've all insisted that I have to go see
it, and some have You've been taken like older children, meaning like you
know, seniors in high school or college students or whatever. And they said
that the issue because I didn't want to see because I get very emotionally upset
about the topic this it has handled very delicately, and that you absolutely should
go see it. So I think I will go see it. I um,
I just want I just want to see it for myself and see what
everyone's talking about. And I love that it had a budget of like two
dollars and it's not really it's like a normal whatever thirteen million dollars film,
but it made so much money while the Harrison Ford you know, Woke Fast
or whatever it is, has not has not fulfilled expectations quite as much as
people would like. So I do think it's really weird. Actually, I
don't understand the media saying that if you care about child trafficking, that means
you're q and on like, of all the things to go to bat for,
I don't really feel like child trafficking is the thing I would go to
bat for. And I know that the Washington Post in New York Times and
all these like lefty media outlets are totally evil and rupt, but like they're
apparently at the we're going to defend child trafficking and say that if you care
about it and if you want to stop it, that means you're Q and
on. Like It's just so bizarre to me, isn't it. Yeah,
they had a whole But what's weird to me is they have a whole different
set of standards for this movie. Like, so let's say that this movie
and I forget what's called I apologize, what's it called something? Sound of
freedom? Sound of Freedom. So let's say that they overstayed the problem,
which maybe they do. Are you telling me that no movie made by all,
like no Mad Damon movie has overstated the problem or dramatized some societal issue
in some way to make it more exciting in movie form. I mean,
it just seems so ridiculous. I assume probably. I feel like maybe there's
a bit of scaremongering sometimes with these kind of things. I'm not saying trafficking
doesn't happen, but maybe it's not as big a problem as some people think,
or maybe it is. I don't even really even know, but the
idea that you can't talk at it without being QAnon is just, so,
how can a reactionary like it's reactionary like you because QAnon says that you know,
has this theory about kids. Now you're not allowed to even accept that
some kids somewhere has been kidnapped in traffic. I mean, it's just preposterous.
Mark was saying that the thing that annoys him is they say that if
you are concerned about global sex trafficking, that means you're a conspiracy theorist.
And he was like, by definition, this is the type of activity that
requires a criminal conspiracy to happen, Like at the very least, it's like
a conspiracy of a few people. But we all know, we all know
and have been told again, it's been revealed again and again that it's frequently
these like large criminal conspiracies. And to say that if you acknowledge these criminal
conspiracies that makes you a conspiracy theorist is like what is it even stupid?
I just I also wonder like are we being naive? Like is the Washington
Post? Are the Washington Post New York Times defending these things for more nefarious
reasons than we realize or I'm not. I don't think so. Like I'm
not a big fan of like calling people groomers and stuff like that unless they
are. And I actually think some people who want to bring sexuality to children,
I think it's fair to call them that. But I just I feel
like it's more probably for a writer at a Rolling Stone or The New York
Times, it's more like just a reaction to they hate Trump, they hate
conservatives, so anything that they care about, they immediately are you know,
they immediately react in a way that's negative or or poop poo it or say
it's a conspiracy theory. Maybe I'm being too Maybe I am naive. Maybe
I'm being Maybe maybe I should have you know, maybe I'm naive. I
don't know, But that's just how I feel like. I feel like there's
just this reactionary way that people act now where wherever I have to say,
I mean, I don't want to go. You know, Tucker Carlson's having
that guy Andrew Tad on his show or interviewed him, like that's a guy
I don't feel like I would want to defend just because liberals are I'm saying,
but just because liberals say he's bad. Maybe he is bad just in
the way that there is does that make sense? Child trafficking? Just because
QAnon says that that happens, doesn't mean I have to say it doesn't happen
at all. Like it's just a weird way politics functions today. Right by
the way, I I can't watch a two and a half hour interview.
I don't know how people have the time to do that. That's what this
podcast feels like, two and a half hours sort of the podcast with the
podcast you just referenced is two and a half hours. And I, you
know, I am I've already seen enough about that guy that I don't like
him, But I wouldn't not watch an interview with him. I actually would
be fine watching it, Like I kind of want to know more about why
do people like him and what's his deal and all that stuff, and plus
you know, Tucker's obviously a great interviewer. Yeah, I mean, I
don't know how he I don't even have twenty minutes for that. I will
talk to you next week. And for everyone else, please be lovers and
free him and anxious for the frag