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I really believe there's this dynamic in
politics, and that it happens all the

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time, That it happens all the
time in local politics, national politics,

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that people will say words, experts
will talk about certain kinds of words and

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terms, and a lot of people
will sort of nod their head about it

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but not actually understand what it is. One of these terms that I bet

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if you went to one hundred California
citizens, one hundred California legal residents,

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voters and well citizens, hopefully in
voters. Being a legal resident is not

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enough to be a voter. You
got to be a citizen, all right.

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If you go to one hundred California
voters and I put them on the

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spot, I stick a microphone in
their face, and I ask them,

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can you define for me what a
bond is? I'd bet that a lot

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of them, I don't know,
maybe the majority of them, maybe not

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quite the majority of them, I
don't know. I'd say at least thirty

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of them would not be able to
define for you what a bond is very

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clearly. And yet it's a major
vehicle. The bond is a major vehicle

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that's used by both local government entities
and it's going to be a massive thing

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statewide coming up. We're gonna,
apparently, according to news that's been broken

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by Ashley's Valla, who's a great
Sacramento area journalist who's constantly breaking things at

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the Capitol, there's going to be
a ten billion dollar Climate and Environment bond

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that will be presented to the voters
of California as a ballot initiative, along

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with another ten billion dollar bond ballid
initiative for schools for new construction, modernization,

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testing for lead and water and remediation
for charter schools, and career slash

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tech education. A bond, let's
let's define it. I want everyone listening

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here to be able to define it. A bond. It's not very complicated.

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It's alone. A bond is a
loan. It's a loan made to

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a governmental entity a city, a
county, a school district, or a

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state. That's what a bond is. It's alone. So it's made to

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a governmental entity. But how does
a governmental entity get money to pay back

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a loan, Well, it's pretty
straightforward. They get money to pay back

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alone through taxes. Your taxes.
Now, with any loan, it's not

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just that you know, here's you
know, It's not like when you're getting

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a mortgage and you buy a house
for three hundred thousand dollars. It's not

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like the bank says to you,
Okay, here's three hundred thousand dollars to

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buy a house, you gotta pay
me back three hundred thousand new you have

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to pay back interest. Theory goes
that your use of this money right now,

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in the here and now, your
ability to enjoy this house in the

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here and now, is worth something
to you above and beyond that principle that

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three hundred thousand that you just paid, so you gotta pay me back,

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not just the three hundred thousand I
loan. Do you got to pay me

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a little extra something something, And
that is in the form of an interest

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rate. We bought our house with
a three point five percent interest rate.

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Nice deal in twenty nineteen. If
we were to try to buy a house

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now, maybe it's more like eight
percent. Bonds are no different bonds loans

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made out to a government entity.
Bonds have interest rates, and when you

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think about this in the context of
the bang for your taxpayer buck, a

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bond is actually a pretty inefficient and
over the long haul onerous way of having

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taxpayers pay for stuff. Why Well, because if you're taking out a ten

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billion dollar bond, and most of
the time bonds that are made out to

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governmental entities, it's a loan that
has a thirty year repayment cycle. So

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most of the time with a thirty
year loan, so most of the time

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the loan is thirty years, and
you're paying a certain amount of interest on

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that loan. Well, the amount
that you are going to pay an interest

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is going to be much more than
the amount of money that the government receives

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for whatever service. Okay, when
Clovis Unified, for example, had one

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of their you know never end every
ten years or so, they builk the

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voters in Clovis Unified into a four
hundred, five hundred million dollar bond measure.

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You know, oh it gets it
gets message to the public as this

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is a five five hundred million dollar
bond measure, all five hundred million dollars

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for Clovis Unified. Hooray, who
could vote against it? It almost becomes

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like a good like it's a sign
that you're just a good neighborhood citizen that

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you voted for a bond initiative and
you have some nice attractive yard sign that

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you put in your yard and oh, it's so wonder Oh, five hundred

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million dollars for unified. What no
one says is that with interest, over

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the course of thirty years, we're
going to have to spend maybe nine hundred

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million dollars to get this five hundred
million dollars. So over the course of

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thirty years, taxpayers are going to
have to pay nine hundred million dollars so

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that we can have five hundred million
dollars right now. Oh and by the

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way, with Clovis Unified, with
President Unified, with all these school districts,

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these bond measures stack up on each
other faster than we pay them off,

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so we're still Clovis Unified. Area
residents are paying in their property taxes

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for like the last two or three
cycles of Clovis Unified bond initiatives. So

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it's a scam. And I think
what I despise about these bond initiatives is

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that they're just presented to voters and
it's almost like it's kind of like a

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gun to your head. Approach ten
billion dollars for schools, for example.

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Okay, so we're gonna have a
ballot initiative this year ten billion dollars for

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schools in California. Wow, that's
a lot of money. And let's think

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about it. I mean, especially
with interest rates nowadays are higher than they

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were in like twenty nineteen. I
mean, I did look. Interest rates

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are around eight percent. I found
a loan calculator online Google loan calculator,

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and I put in a loan amount
of ten thousand dollars a loan term of

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thirty years. I put the interest
rate at six percent. I think probably

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these bonds that we'd be voting on
for the state, it wouldn't be six

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percent. I think it'd probably be
more like eight percent. So I said

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it at ten thousand dollars rather than
ten billion, just because there's only so

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many, so much room for so
many zeros on this on this calculator here.

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So if you do payment every year
with a total of thirty payments,

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if the loan is ten billion dollars, we're gonna wind up paying an additional

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twelve billion dollars in interest. So
when it's proposed to you, hey,

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we need the schools need ten billion
dollars. Oh do you not like schools?

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Are you voting against teachers? You
know, as if every teacher is

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mother Teresa. You're voting against teachers, You're voting against students, You're voting

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against schools. What are you,
Adolph Hitler? You are a monst ow?

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Could you You hate teachers, you
hate schools? You're gonna vote against

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Yeah, you're asking me to pay
twenty two billion dollars or whatever the amount's

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going to be. I know it's
gonna be way more than ten. You're

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gonna ask me to pay twenty billion
dollars over thirty years in taxes to get

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ten billion dollars worth of benefit right
now? No, No, And it's

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being foisted on us as if what
are all of our tax dollars paying for

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right now? What are all of
our property tax dollars paying for right now?

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If not? Our local public schools
aren't our public schools are all doing

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these local bond measures just a couple
of years ago, within me starting the

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show in twenty nineteen, Like there
was one year where Clovis Unified, President

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Unified, Central Unified, all had
a ballot measure, all had a bond

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ballot measure within two elections that all
passed. But this is the way that

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direct democracy works. In California.
I mean probably it's this thing of first

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of all, if you don't own
your home, you're not really seeing the

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property tax that you're paying. If
you're renting, then you're indirectly paying for

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the landlord's property tax because that's probably
baked into the rent he's charging you,

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but you don't see it. So
you think, ah, whatever, yeah,

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just another increase in property. Oh
it's just a couple percentage points.

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Who cares? You realize those percentage
points add up. So and I think

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again, though, when people introduce
these bond measures, they are playing off

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of the ignorance. They're banking on
the ignorance of the average California about understanding

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what a bond measure is. I
almost wish I think using the word bond

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almost makes people more confused. I
wish these kinds of measures were called a

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loan in interest measure, because that's
what it is. That's all a bond

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is. A bond is just a
loan that's made to a governmental entity that

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there's nothing different about it. It's
a loan that California or Clovis Unified School

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District or President Unified School District.
Essentially, whoever gets they get all the

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money up front, and then they
got to pay it back over the course

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of usually thirty years with interest.
And if you've got a five percent interest

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rate, even then you're going to
be your interest amount is going to be

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as big as the principle. You're
going to be paying back two dollars for

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every one dollar you get. And
again, it's not Clovis Unified paying that

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back. It's the taxpayers who happen
to live within the Clovis Unified map who

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are paying that back. It's the
taxpayers of California who are going to have

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to pay this back in a state
that is already the most taxed state in

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America. And I just hate hate
again the way this is going to be

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presented, the way the teachers unions
are going to message this teach and let's

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remember the teachers unions they got more
money, they got more power than any

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other political entity in the state.
They're the most powerful lobbying entity in the

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state. They're going to present this
as, oh, this is here to

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support our teachers, are heroic teachers
and give them the resources they need.

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You already have the resources you need. The idea that the resources we are

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expending in California, where we're spending
at least ten thousand dollars per it's more

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than ten. It might be twenty
thousand per kid. At this point,

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I need to look up what's the
average cost of tax dollars per kid for

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public schools in California? Okay,
look in this up. According to an

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article from the California Policy Center,
this is back in twenty twenty that California

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is k through twelve spending exceeds twenty
thousand dollars per pupil. This is right

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before COVID, So we're already spending
over twenty thousand dollars. We can't make

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this happen. Why can't we Well, because teachers' unions are really powerful.

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So what do they do? They
create more jobs for themselves. And this

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is true across education, whether it's
higher ed, secondary schools, primary schools.

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Is that the number of non teaching
staff massively increases. Why well,

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if you're a teachers union, any
job at the school can be a teacher

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union job. And the more members
you have, the more power you have,

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the more money you get, the
more members you get, the more

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members. Yeah, it's that is
the self interest for a un union.

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That's people seem to confuse the role
of a union versus the role of a

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teacher is the role of a teacher
is to teach kids. The role of

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a union is to get more money, more jobs, better hours, better

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conditions for its membership. That that's
its end goal. That's the goal towards

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which it's oriented. That is its
te lose. What's the purpose of a

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knife. It's to cut things.
You can have a pretty knife. You

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can have a pretty knife with a
pretty damasked blade and a little elaborate ivory

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handle, and you know whatnot.
But the point of a knife is to

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cut. If it's good at cutting, it's a good knife. And so

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the teachers' unions are going to present
this as if California public schools aren't funded

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enough. I say, well,
this is this is for teachers. How

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could you oppose this kind of funding? When we return, connected with all

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of this, this is for the
environment, how could you oppose this?

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When we return, I want to
talk a little bit about teachers and all

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professions. Really, the kinds of
pious fables that we tell ourselves about certain

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kinds of jobs. That's next time
on The John Jerrardy Show. I have

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I think a good deal of filial
respect and piety for actual like religious stuff,

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for the stuff that's actually affiliated with, like the Catholic faith and Catholic

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belief and Catholic worship. I'd like
to think that probably I'm not as pious

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as faithful as I could be.
I want to be more so, but

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I've I'm super suspicious of piety,
sort of subservient reverence towards various kinds of

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human institutions, human institutions, and
human jobs especially. I've noticed this as

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a trend, and that you notice
this a lot when you're talking about education

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policy. You know, we're going
to have on the ballot this November a

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ten a billion dollar bond initiative,
which, again, let's remember a bond

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is a loan to some government entity, and like other loans, you have

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to pay it back with interest.
So we're going to get ten billion dollars

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for public schools around California, well
ten billion dollars worth of benefit for about

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twenty billion plus worth of taxes.
So to get the benefit of that ten

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billion dollars that will get right away, we the taxpayers of California, will

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have to pay twenty billion dollars worth
of taxes over the course of thirty years,

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because that's how bond measures work.
The government gets ten billion dollars of

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benefit right away, but you,
the taxpayer, have to pay ten billion

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dollars plus interest over the course of
thirty years. So we're probably gonna have

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to spend twenty billion dollars over the
course of thirty years to get ten billion

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dollars worth of benefit right here and
right now in twenty twenty four or I

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guess in twenty twenty five, whenever
that would kick in. But the messaging

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that we will get is we're doing
this for the teachers. These teachers in

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California, they're working so hard,
they're doing such heroic work for our kids.

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Do you do you not want teachers
to be paid well? Do you

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not support the teachers the teachers?
Think of the teachers? Now, First

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of all, a large number of
the union member employees of public schools are

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not teachers. So let's cut through
that little bit of piety. It's not

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like every single person who's gonna get
who works for our public school is a

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teacher, and therefore, you know, mother Teresa. Secondly, is this,

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and this is maybe the main point. I don't think teachers deserve the

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kind of universal societal reverence that they
get. Not to say that everyone needs

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to dump on teachers as being a
bunch of losers. And I'm not saying

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teacher is the easiest job in the
world, but it's a job. And

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I think, like with most jobs, there are some teachers who are awesome.

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I think there are some teachers who
are pretty good, fine, middle

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of the road. And I think
there are some teachers who suck. And

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I think that that distribution of awesome
mediocre suck. I think that's true about

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pretty much every job in America,
pretty much every job in the world.

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I think there are some doctors who
are great. I think there are some

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doctors who are mediocre or they're fine, and I think there are some doctors

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who suck. I think there are
nurses, Oh, nurse, nurses are

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the truths heroes. Well, I
don't know. There are some nurses who

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are awesome. There are some nurses
who are in the middle and pretty good

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or good at this or good at
that, not so good at this,

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not so good at that. And
there are some nurses who suck. There

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are medical assistants like that. There
are cops like that Paco bald Rama.

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Okay, And it's sort of this
thing where liberals have their jobs that they

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hold in such reverence and piety.
Teachers usually or you know, oh,

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social workers or you know, things
like that. Conservatives have their jobs that

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they hold with this kind of bizarre
reverence. Oh, members of the military,

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cops. And I just think that
across pretty much any job, there

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are some people who are good,
there's some people who are in the middle,

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and there's some people who stink,
and then everyone works hard. Well,

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really good people work hard, but
not everyone does. Not everyone works

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that hard. I know there are
people who work harder than I do.

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And by the way, I'm not
acting like I'm the greatest nonprofit director's ever

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existed. So in short, don't
get guilted into a ten billion dollar bond

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measure for California public schools on the
basis of but wow, could you be

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against the teachers? These teachers work
so hard? Okay, Yeah, I'm

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sure. I'm sure a lot of
teachers work hard. You know what.

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A lot of people work hard.
People working hard all over the place.

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Marketing managers work hard, lawyers work
hard, Doctors, the nurses work hard.

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Everyone's working. Everybody's working for the
weekend, all right, everybody needs

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a second chance. You want a
piece of my heart, get it right

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from the start. So everyone's working
hard. Stop acting like teachers are some

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combo of mother Teresa and you know
Florence ninety. I don't even flip and

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know they deserve respect. But this
idea that we're going to make this massive

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public policy decision, get spending twenty
billion dollars being taxed for twenty billion dollars

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to get ten billion dollars worth of
benefit as is going to be on the

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ballot this year this November, seems
like a stupid solution. Seems like a

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dumb solution for California public schools,
which already get over twenty thousand dollars per

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kid. Wait, in return,
I want to try to start to make

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heads and tails of the Supreme Court's
ruling on President Trump's official immunity for official

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acts, and I'll explain that after
the break. This is the John Jurarney

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Show on Power Talk. The Supreme
Court has issued a ruling just today and

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this is sort of the seems to
be the capstone of the whole term for

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the Court. The Supreme Court over
the course of June and into July,

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as they wrap it up in July, issues all their big decisions for the

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judicial term. So the Supreme Court
year runs from I believe it's about October

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through the end of June, and
that's kind of the schedule for their hearing

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and briefing and deciding major cases.
They get emergency appeals and things like that

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kind of throughout the year, but
this is the time of year when a

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lot of big decisions come down,
and perhaps one of the most politically significant

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is Trump the United States. So
this is a case about Trump's claims in

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the context of his January sixth prosecutions. Trump's claim that as president of the

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United States, when he committed the
actions that are the focus of the indictment,

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that he was president and he was
therefore entitled to various kinds of immunity.

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Community means someone can't prosecute you,
people can't use your conduct as evidence

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against you. So Trump is trying
to claim I'm the president of the United

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States and I have immunity as president
from criminal prosecution. The federal government prosecuting

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Trump in this case, led by
the Special Counsel Jack Smith, is arguing,

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no, there is no immunity that
presidents have for official acts. Now,

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I think this is a very convenient. It's very interesting how Trump is

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taking this super duper broad, expansive
approach to does the president have immunity for

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his official acts while he's in office. The Biden administration, really, through

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its Attorney General, who appointed this
special council, Jack Smith, is taking

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this incredibly narrow position that no,
presidents don't have official immunity, which frankly

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seems like a very myopic position for
them to take. I mean, they're

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representing, you know, the prosecution
here represents, among other persons, Joe

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Biden, it represents the It's it's
arguing for a certain precedent to be set

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for not just Donald Trump, but
for any president, any and every president,

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for Joe Biden, for whoever could
be the next president. Okay,

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And so I think I find it
interesting how the Biden administration has basically taken

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the pasture that there have been a
bunch of things like this where Biden has

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waived certain kinds of executive privileges and
things like that just in order to go

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after Trump in the here and now, in ways that seem like it sets

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for the executive branch being protective of
itself. Seems like it's setting a bad

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precedent down the road, like if
Biden were ever to be charged criminally with

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something. Uh, you know,
he's knocking down his all his own walls

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of protection basically in order to get
at Trump. So the Supreme Court issued

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this ruling saying that presidents have immunity
for their official acts. And basically,

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the the idea here is that and
this, by the way, patterns what

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has already been established in law about
presidents having civil immunity. So there's civil

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cases and then there's criminal trials.
Civil cases are I'm suing you for X,

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Y and Z. A criminal case
is you did something wrong and some

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governmental entity is prosecuting you, either
a state prosecutor like Lisa Smith Camp from

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Fresno County prosecuting you for violation of
California crimes, or a federal prosecutor the

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US Attorney for let's say we live
in president where within the where within the

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boundaries of the US Attorney who governs
the Eastern District of California, Okay,

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so he could prosecute us. It's
been well established that presidents have immunity from

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civil lawsuits already within the context of
their conduct. As president. Trump is

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trying to make the argument, well, it's not just civil immunity, it's

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also criminal immunity. I have criminal
immunity. I can't be prosecuted for the

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actions I take while in office,
for my official acts. And the court

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wound up largely agreeing with President Trump. So specifically, in Jack Smith's and

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Diamond, he was charging Trump with
various kinds of discussions. Basically, he

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said Trump had this scheme to unlawfully
overturn the results of the election. He

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had conversations with It wasn't Bill Barr, I guess it was whoever the acting

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attorney general was after Barr quit,
that he had conversations with the acting attorney

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general to see if he could convince
state legislatures not to certify their election results.

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Jack Smith is charging Trump here that
those conversations were part of this unlawful

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scheme or constituted this unlawful scheme to
overturn the election results. And the court

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is saying, well, no,
you cannot prosecute the president for conversations he

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has with executive officials. And the
reasoning is, well, the structure of

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the constitution demands that we have a
vigorous, independent executive branch that is able

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to vigorously engage in conduct without constantly
being afraid that its conduct is going to

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be the subject of criminal prosecution five
minutes later. So the separation of powers,

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arguments and all kinds of things militate
towards this conclusion that presidents in their

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official acts are so object to criminal
immunity. But that is distinct from non

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official acts. Okay, So official
acts would be something that arises from the

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president's own constitutional powers. Non official
acts would be something different. If it's

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Trump talking with say, his campaign
manager and strategizing something, then that would

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not be something that's protected by presidential
immunity. And what the court's going to

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do is send this case back down
to the district court. In this case,

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it's the district court in the District
of Columbia the federal district court in

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the District of Columbia. To have
the federal district court suss out you need

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to determine which of which of Trump's
actions are official acts and which are not

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official acts. So a bunch of
Democrats are acting like this is the absolute

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end of the world. But it's
kind of remarkable to me the way that

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Democrats, I mean, I guess
I admire the Democrats as far as what

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they want is their end goal achieved, and they don't care about process,

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they don't care about precedent, they
don't care about anything other than their end

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goal achieve. And what is their
end goal that they want achieve. They

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want Donald Trump convicted. They want
Donald Trump convicted of this January sixth stuff.

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They want a scalp or a combover. They want a scalp pinto their

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wall, right orange scalp. So
they don't care about president at all.

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They all they are myopically, myopically
focused on in the here and now is

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can we get Donald Trump for this
stuff right now, right now? And

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Conservatives constantly just take this attitude of, well, we need to think about

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president, and we need to think
about structure, and we need to think

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about uh, you know, up
up, up up bah. It kind

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of impresses me how Democrats just don't
care about that, but it also sort

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of astonishes me, like you want
to knock down here are all these walls

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that protect Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, whoever, whatever future

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Democrat president X state your name.
We did, and the Democrats seemingly just

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do not care about those walls of
protection falling down, and maybe they just

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think, you know, we we've
so effectively captured so many institutional sort of

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areas of power, whether it's you
know what, you know, eighty percent

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of federal employees are super duper liberal. You know, they just don't feel

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they just don't fear repercussions the way
that conservatives do. They just don't.

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I mean, they talk about the
idea of, well, we should have

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a Department of Justice that's independent from
the presidency. That's insane. If you

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have a free floating, free wheeling
and dealing department of Justice that isn't really

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accountable to the president, do you
realize what kind of a tyrannical thing that

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could be? How much power the
Department of Justice has. The Department of

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Justice can prosecute people, they can
throw people in jail, they can they

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can tap your phones, they can
investigate, they can do all kinds of

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tyrannical things against you without some political
accountability, which is what the president gives

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the Department of Justice. Because the
head of the Department of Justice is the

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president who appoints the attorney general,
without some the Department of Justice being dependent

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on the president. It's this free
floating entity that can do all kinds of

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stuff. The military is the same
way. Well, we need to have

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the military to be independent from politics. No, I want the military to

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be sort of attached to politics,
namely in that it has a commander in

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chief who is politically accountable, who
runs for elections and stuff, has to

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keep the American people happy. I
don't want an independent military unaccountable to political

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actors. But Democrats just don't fear
that because they feel like they've sufficiently captured

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a of these officials in the DJ
all up and down, all the career

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people, mid range, all up
and down. They've so thoroughly captured the

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military all up and down the chain
of command, that they think, well,

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yeah, I have it be independent. It'll never hurt us. And

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maybe when Trump's in power, they'll
hashtag resist what Trump wants to do from

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within. I don't know how it
got on this topic at any rate.

359
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When we return, I want to
talk about how maybe this case won't be

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as big a deal as Democrats are
making it out, or as Trump is

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making it out. That is next
on the John Girardi Show. I'm not

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sure that the Supreme Court's immunity case
is going to be quite the seismic political

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event that it's going to be made
out to be in the media today.

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And I'll give you my reason.
So here's why Trump's lawyers during the oral

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argument of this case. And by
the way, what this is about is

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does the president have criminal immunity for
his official acts that he takes while he

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is in office? The court says
yes. But what the court says is

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there's official acts and there's unofficial acts. Unofficial acts is stuff that the president

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does that doesn't directly arise from his
constitutional powers. Okay, So does the

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president have immunity from criminal prosecution for
his unofficial acts? Oh, the president

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does not have such immunity. Trump's
lawyer's at oral argument conceded that a bunch

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of the conduct Trump had done in
the context of the January sixth litigation was

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official was unofficial conduct. So we're
gonna see how smart, slash practical,

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slash impractical Jack Smith is. And
he's been fairly impractical, frankly, with

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some of Trump's criminal prosecution stuff.
He's gummed up a lot of stuff relating

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with Trump's prosecution down in Florida for
having all the unlock the classified documents.

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Smith could have gotten Trump convicted for
stuff out of the mar A Lago documents

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if he had not waded into the
whole. If if Smith had just said,

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I'm not going to charge Trump with
retention of documents, I'm going to

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charge him with obstruction of justice because
he was asked by the court to provide

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all the classified documents he had,
He gave some, he said he gave

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them all, and then when we
looked, we found he didn't give them

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all. If he just did that, he could charge Trump with obstruction of

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justice. But instead Smith wants the
whole hog down in Florida. He wants

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everything. He wants to get Trump
with retention of all these different classified documents,

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and he wants a bazillion gazillion gazillion
years. But that's a trial.

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It's going to take a really long
time. The election will be over by

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then, and clearly Smith is running
up against the clock. He wants Trump

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convicted of something before the election.
Clearly that's his marching orders, or the

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00:36:36.719 --> 00:36:39.480
marching orders he gave to himself,
because we're going to pretend that Merrick Garland

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is not at all wink wink overseeing
this anyway, Trump conceded. His lawyers

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conceded of the oral argument that a
lot of the stuff Trump's being charged with

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in connection with Jason with January sixth
were unofficial acts. So, from what

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I'm hearing from some legal folks,
there's possibly a possibility that if Smith just

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cuts out a lot of his indictment
and just says it's a loss, I'm

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not gonna have the judge suss out
what stuff is official and what stuff is

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unofficial. There are some charges I
can bring right now if I just cut

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this away and don't make the district
court spend all this time trying to suss

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00:37:22.639 --> 00:37:27.039
out what parts of Trump's conduct were
official, what parts of Trump's conduct were

400
00:37:27.079 --> 00:37:30.679
unofficial. If I do that,
it's going to take too long, and

401
00:37:30.679 --> 00:37:32.719
the election will have happened already,
and Trump will either win or lose.

402
00:37:34.760 --> 00:37:42.559
But if Smith just charges the stuff
he has left, he could have a

403
00:37:42.599 --> 00:37:49.639
trial, he could maybe even have
a conviction prior to election day. And

404
00:37:49.679 --> 00:37:52.880
of course, looming all over all
of this is July eleventh, when Trump

405
00:37:52.880 --> 00:37:57.239
will be sentenced for his Manhattan conviction. So, by the way, that's

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00:37:57.280 --> 00:38:00.760
why I didn't really talk much about
Biden's debate performance and whether Biden's going to

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00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:02.519
be switched out. I don't think
any of this matters until we know whether

408
00:38:02.599 --> 00:38:06.960
or not Donald Trump's going to jail
on July eleventh. That'll do it.

409
00:38:07.039 --> 00:38:07.920
John Dierlady Show, See yall next
time on Power Talk