Well Whiskey coming game, Pay Money Don't From Powerline blog dot com and produced
by Ricochet dot Com. This is the Three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders,
Steve Hayward, John You and power Lines International Woman of Mystery Lucretia.
Thank gotta giving. Let that whiskey clone when you're feeling in love, down
and load. Good morning everybody, and welcome to the Three Whiskey Happy Hour.
It actually is morning uh in three Whiskey Happy Hour Land for uh John
You and Steve Hayward and Lucretia, the International Woman of Mystery. Because we
are actually recording on Saturday morning. Uh, first time we could get together.
We need to have different co hosts who have no live so we can
schedule this at the same time every week. Well, we were all on
the road this week, right, so it was every Good morning, gentlemen.
Yeah, good morning, right, good morning? What a week?
Good grief, which that also means that I'm drinking coffee. I thought about
putting some Irish whiskey in it, but I'm just drinking coffee this morning.
What about you, guys? Same. I got too much to do today
to start off with my usual glorious Irish whiskey coffee. Unfortunately, you know,
I'm I'm enslaved to this German coffee machine that was built into my house
by the previous occupants who were their typical San Francisco over caffeinated but a teetotal
ink couple who probably were yoga teachers and you know, you know, abuse
instructor, abuse counselors. So there's this machine made by this German company.
All it does is give me orders. Ali wants coffee, but says clean
this empty wash this every like five I've cut. But I gotta admit it
makes the best coffee I've ever had in a house. I have a Swiss
Swiss one that does the same thing. Or but you know, if you
think about it, if it's an automatic coffee machine, and it does make
coffee automatically, you know, grinds the beans and makes you whatever you ask
for and all of those sorts of things. I get mad, like you
do, but being ordered around by it. But at the same time it's
actually you know, when you want a cup of coffee, you push a
button and you get a cup of coffee. Right, Is that how yours
works? Yeah? Well, it gives you ten different options of coffee.
You know, I wish they had a voice command so it could yell at
me in German accent at English. So then you know, but then I
think Steve's BMW does that. So so the three hoidy toyy coffee break,
that's what we're going to be from now on. Okay, back to back
to real important stuff. Start off by talking about the s FTU, I
mean the state of Yeah, shut up, he explained, Yes, all
right, what do you guys have to say about that? Well, first
of all, Hunter Biden now knows what happened to his stash at the White
House that disappeared. His dad took it for the speech. I thought,
maybe he got that. Biden got a hold of whatever it is that that
John you takes to be the super superman that he is. Seventeen squash games,
forty law review articles, and time for a three whiskey happy hour.
That's that's just his extreme youth and the experience that that's what comes from that.
You mean coke zero zero zero? You know, Steve, Steve and
I were at a we were in heaven because we were in Florida together right
last week, and we went to Chick fil A and they had coke zero.
They had That's Heaven Chick fil A and the unlimited refill Coke zero.
Yeah, I went to a Chick fil A in a restaurant, I mean,
and excuse me in the airport on the way out to Pepper and U.
It was terrible. The chicken was burned. I couldn't even chew through
the It's the only time in my entire life I've ever gotten bad Chick fil
A. But is the airport? Yes, you know, something must be
going wrong because I actually had, for the first time ever, some bad
fried chicken from Popeyes not long ago, which stunned me because Popeyes is usually
the best in the verse. Probably right, Well, that gets back to
right. Yeah, I do have to ask you question opening with Ukraine even
Okay, let's just leave aside our differences on that whole thing. Does anybody
think that Americans first concern is whether or not we fund Ukraine? I mean,
seriously, guys, why who on earth said open with that? I
mean, if I'm the average voter, I'm turning it off at that point,
if I had any interest in watching it in the first place. I
think there's two reasons. Well, the main reason. Forget two reasons.
The main reason was he pivoted almost immediately to an attack on Trump and told
a lie I'm going to make a broader point about rampant dishonesty at the end
of the show if we have time. But you know, he said Ukraine,
and what did my predecessor say. He's told Putin just do whatever the
hell you want. That's not what Trump said. What Trump said when I
was president and I was telling these guys that they're not making their commitments to
spending for NATO, that if they don't do that, then I'm gonna just
say, Putin. These guys aren't defending themselves. Do what you want.
Now, maybe a reckless and dodgy thing for Trump to say. Correct,
that was past tense, and by the way, it worked, most of
the NATO companies countries have stepped up and are starting to pay their commitment of
two percent of GDP. And you know that Trump's like that, we sort
of know that this was a completely dishonest distortion, not for the first time,
like you know, Biden's been going on for years about the fine people
on both sides lie about Charlottesville. Okay, but the point you be in
with though there are opinion polls that show that a decent majority of Americans support
giving a to Ukraine. However, I think that's probably weak support, and
you see other surveys that give you a different result. If you really wanted
to take seriously the FDR parallel, you would go back and note that in
the late thirties Roosevelt was concerned about the growing menace in Europe, but he
also could read the early opinion polls. He was quietly consulted, very quietly.
They snuck in George Gallup, a very young polster, then right unannounced,
not on the White House logs, to talk about what Gallup was finding
on public opinion about our involvement in Europe. Our public was very wary about
that, and so Roosevelt tried something old fashioned persuasion. We still haven't had
a speech from Biden or any of the senior people, not even from Blincoln,
who can't persuade anybody. I don't think we haven't had a serious speech
or statement about what is the strategy, why is this in our interest?
Why do we need to do that. Our opinion is irrelevant to the fact
that if a president makes a case, sometimes you bring the public with you,
and then Congress will respond they don't even do that. This is just
malpractice. I think in additional before John, before I let you go,
Steve, you should explain that for our listeners, or I will explain quickly
that it's pretty obvious that Biden has an FDR complex, that he somehow believes
that he, like FDR, is going to save the world from Hitler.
But now Hitler is putin and you know that silly nonsense in the speech,
belied it all. But just in case anybody didn't make that connection, John,
I agree with you guys that he's trying to compare himself to some great
past president. But I think the better model for him is not FDR.
And I was trying to remember if Biden, yeah, Biden would have been
alive for this speech. I think what he was aiming for totally fail.
But what he's aiming for is Truman. Right, So if if who is
he like? He's like Truman? After World War Two, America also wants
to reduce spending, wants to you know, why are we fighting in Europe
anymore? And remember Truman gives this a speech to call for aid to Greece
and Turkey, right, and you know, the American people were sick and
tired of war. But you know, I wasn't around for the speech.
I think Biden is a kid. You know, of course he probably didn't
have TV, but he might have read about the speech is like what he
would have been like four or five. And historians say Truman really helped turn
the country around, and you know what led to the beginning of the Cold
War, but we had to stop the Soviets. I bet that's what his
speech writers were thinking of. I don't think Biden Biden. I thought you
were going to say, modeling himself after Pee Wee Herman. Yeah. No.
And I also think about the election, right, like he hopes,
he hopes this is like the forty eight election. Right, He's way behind,
people don't like him, and somehow, somehow he squeaks out a reelection
that no one anticipates. You know, you could see Biden in a famous
picture. You know, it'll be like the Chicago tribute. You know,
Trump wins. Yeah. But by the way, John, I mean,
let's work with that per minute though, because I think I think you have
pointed out the right model. I don't think that's what Biden's people have in
mind, or they would have really followed it. Here's why I say that.
Just very briefly, you go back to nineteen seventy nine and Reagan was
giving speech as saying, Jimmy Carter's Salt Treaty reminds me of Neville Chamberlain tapping
his umbrella on the cobblestones. Reagan's political advisor said, Governor, I think
you shouldn't use that historical analogy. It's too long ago. People don't know
what it means. And Reagan, of course wouldn't drop it because I think
enough people did remember what it meant. Well, now it is forty five
years later and it really is too long ago. And by the way,
by coincidence, just this week, back at the Victims of Communism Foundation conference
I was at in Washington, we had a long discussion about Truman and Churchill
and the Iron Curtain speech. Just very quickly, if you know that story,
Truman took Churchill back to Missouri on the train. They're drinking whiskey by
the way, playing cards, Truman warning, what's that was it? Morning
morning? They were recording it tougher than we are well recording right, If
you count if you count morning as after midnight, I'm sure the answer is
yes. But look that Truman read the speech the Churchill prepared, said he
loved it, endorsed every part of it. When Churchill's giving that speech,
Truman is on stage smiling about it. The reaction against it from the left,
and I'll skip over that was so volcanic that Truman distanced himself from the
speech. And by the way, he didn't I didn't know that. Yes,
that's a very interesting story. And he did that for prudential reasons.
He knew that public opinion was not quite ready to commit to this broad Cold
War containment business, and so his major speeches came some months later. But
the point is Truman did understand, as I was saying of FDR in the
late thirties, that you need a sustained exercise and persuasion. If Biden had
given a speech that said, you know, we're the same kind of position
we were in in the after World War two with the rising tyrant, and
it changed landscape, and we have to think he could have done that.
He didn't do that. He used Ukraine. It's only to set up a
club to beat Trump with. And and then lie about it. So and
that was it all went downhill from there, right god mm hmmm. Well,
so back to Biden's speech, I thought, you know, everybody joked
on our side of the aisle about what the fact checkers would do. So
I went to the uh, you know, the obvious place to see what
the fact checkers would do. I couldn't even read through the political one,
but I did read CNN's or the PolitiFact. That's sorry enough, pardon me.
So. So their their overall summary for their fact check of Biden's SFTU
was it was mostly accurate, but there were some claims mostly accurate, a
smattering of claims were false, misleading, or lacking key context. Okay,
even CNN couldn't come out and say, this guy's telling the truth. He
talked, you know, he lied about the deficit, He lied about corporate
tax revenues being so great from his fifteen percent tax. He lied about COVID
nineteen deaths. Okay, lied, misled. Most of the deaths occurred actually
under Biden's regime, not under Trump's. He lied about all the money we're
bringing in from billionaire taxes, and you know, just on and on and
on the tripe about the border, and we can come back to the whole
issue about the border. But did he really think that he was going to
convince people that it was all Republicans' fault that we have the situation that's there
at the border, And then I want to ask that first question. Then
I want you, one of you guys to follow up on the whole The
illegal that killed lankoln Riley John were risk well, so, I you know,
if you read the press accounts of the speech, you'd think, right,
you saw that, oh, brilliant speech, he achieves his mission to
show he's vigorous. Again. God, that wasn't the speech I saw.
And as you say, Lucretia filled with I mean, just pretend you thought
everything in the speech was true, which is we're going through now is clearly
not the case. But just the delivery of it was terrible, Like he
you know, yeah, he heard these lines that he was supposed to deliver
and he would stumble and stop in the middle of him. I mean,
it was it was like a parody of a State of the Union address.
So I'm not surprised he got facts wrong throughout. It was embarrassing that when
he did, you know, deviate from the script. He couldn't get the
name right of the terrible of the young woman terribly killed in Georgia by illegal
alien, but then he used the word illegal, which you know, showed
that right. What he really does think is what most Americans think, But
he has trouble, I don't know, putting it into his sensitivity awareness translator
computer and the right thing out. The right way is that the Identity Caucuses
and the Democratic Party wanted to talk about stuff. So I want to get
what Steve has to say about that too, But I wanted to ask both
you guys. I sent this to Steve last week because I had never heard
it. Miranda Divine in the New York Post had a piece talking about what
seems to be much of our theme today, which is lying, and that
if they say one thing, they actually mean the opposite, and if they
say something about their enemies, it's probably something they're doing. But one of
the interesting things in her piece was something that I had never heard, which
was that when those Navy seals discovered all of those the trove of documents and
whatnot from the Obama excuse me, the Osama bin ladenray, that really wasn't
a Freudian slip. They discovered that that Osama had put out orders to all
of his minions that they were not to kill or to endanger Vice President Biden.
Why because they considered Biden such a moron and so incompetent that if he
became president, it would be the best thing that happened to their cause if
something happened to Obama. So that came out from the Did you ever heard
that? Yeah, No, I did not know that. I think I
thought i'd heard that maybe ten years ago when the first documents started coming out,
and at the time, I don't remember now, but I heard that.
I saw that story. I thought this is not new. I've heard
this some years ago. But add to that, if you want the cherry
on top of that, Sunday, since Biden likes ice cream, was Vladimir
Putin saying what sometime in the last three four weeks, Oh, I preferred
Joe Biden be reelected president of the United States. And I thought, he's
just pranking us now, right, And I would have thought Biden would have
I don't know, Biden probably can't process that because that's his low hanging pitch
over the plate. But I thought that's pretty funny, and he may believe
it, by the way, pot that wouldn't surprise me. Supposedly, the
quote from the documents is Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will
lead the US into crisis. And they were given orders to try to kill
Obama, and they were given orders to try to kill Petreus, but not
Biden. Yeah, unlike the fully prepared, mastered the universe Barack Obama.
Yeah, at least he could pretend to be competent, but I don't think
it worked. Steve, what was your thought about the speech? Did you
watch it? I did, because I, you know, like everybody,
the bar had been so low, I wanted to see if he could clear
it and if he didn't, how spectaculary he'd fall in his face and have
a crisis. And look, he was obviously hopped up on something. And
there's not much to say. I mean, you can go through it,
but you know why, bother, it's really shocking how partisan and ideological the
speech was. It's a campaign speech, and you know, I mean Reagan
gave pretty ideological State of the Union speeches, but he did them in a
much more careful and prudent way he actually could plause. Yeah, exactly,
and now and Biden was just angry and grumpy and picking a fight. And
yeah, I think Republicans would have been better, And you know, Marjorie
Taylor, Greeley, the others, I think they've been better not interrupting him
and heckling him. I think they should just let him go and finish.
But I wanted to ask you guys what you thought about that. So I
guess the beginning of the end of decorum was when you know, Obama talked
about how illegals wouldn't be getting healthcare. I forget that. Joe's something or
other, right, Joe Wilson, Yeah, Joe Wilson. But then you
know, okay that from from the gallery. Then there was Obama's huge breach
of decorum by calling out the the Justices on Citizens United right, yes,
right, and so you know, and then then we have Nancy Pelosi tearing
up right. Well, So Biden comes in and he instead of following the
decorum of allowing Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, to introduce him,
he comes in half an hour late and just starts bloviating. I mean,
should we just demand that this and it's a huge expensive thing. It was
a campaign speech. He didn't actually mention Trump by name, but how many
times did he refer to his predecessor. Yeah, and so I think we
should just we should go back to the Jeffersonian method of sending the State of
the Union address on a piece of paper to Congress and let it go with
that and stop allowing the State of the Union address to be used for these
kind of partisan purposes. I totally agree. Like, just a small miniature
of this issue is how he treated the Supreme Court justices and that long speech
filled with all these slips and slides and mistakes. I don't know how many
people focused on the fact that he basically right, he said something with all
due respect, and then he said it was weird. He said, the
Supreme Court you're going to learn how about the political power women. It's the
most bizarre, you know, attack line. And you know the justices.
You know they're going because they support the country. But if you're gonna put
them in that position, I wouldn't be surprised if they go anymore. But
yeah, oh, I was about to come to that, John, I
mean, I would have wanted them to blurt out. Oh tell us,
mister president, what is a woman? No, I think they should stop
coming, because you know they do want to stand apart. Alita was quit
coming. You remember Alita was the one who who Now that's not true to
Obama ten twelve years ago that he would do that, right, Yeah,
being attacked, right, I think they shouldn't come. I think that would
send a signal up. Yeah we've been on the down by the way.
Yeah, Briar was there. He's retired, but he still showed. But
I thought that's surprised. I can't remember what they did the year after Obama
attacked them, but I think that you know, they could send one.
It would be like a designated survivor, right right, yeah, right,
like you they have to send anyone. No, No, I don't think
so. I mean they always done it. I think more out of respect
for the as I said, for the country and its institutions, and if
Biden is going to trample on, you know, our norms and traditions,
then yeah they should. Just what they should do is to send a signals.
Send the most junior justice. You know, it's like the way they
send the most junior justice to testify before Congress. To ask for more appropriations
for the Supreme Court building, which show them like this is the worst job
at the Supreme Court. So now that's how we treat the State of the
Union address. Yeah. Well, last thought for me is, uh,
we've went on a downward spiral for a while now. And I compare it
a little bit to you know, the House of Commons in Britain. I
love question Time and some of the other set pieces they have, and they
have had a long I guess you'd say protocol of their heckling and cat calling
in the house. It's expected. Yeah, people love it. I know
exactly. And you know, I mean one of the little features about the
design of the house that Churchill pointed out after it was bombed and all the
modernists wanted to do a new chamber, he said, now keep the old
one. Here's why. And one of them was is the width between the
facing benches is on purpose. It's it's just beyond the length to swords lengths,
so that you know, this goes back four hundred years. So if
you had a timbers they couldn't attack each other or have it, you know,
so uh, you know, I'd be nice to think that we could
reach some equilibrium where maybe a little bit of heckling or something is I'm not
sure what. We're not as good at as the British, but it isn't
bounds over there. If you go too far, you'll get censured. I'm
not sure too far. Is it's personal attacks or I'm not sure what it
is, but it but it's fun. Yeah. The last thing I'd say
about Biden's performance, you know, John mentioned that he whenever he went off
script, he you know, made some pretty big errors, either lies or
started screaming at people or you know. I actually heard somebody say that his
response to the crowd was meant he was clever and on his game, and
I thought, God, no, he just said he really did sound like
the grumpy old guy next door. But I thought that I never saw anybody
really discuss this when he said every American voted against Obamacare, did you guys
catch that right? And to say a Republican right, but he said American.
So my thought is that even though they hyped him up on whatever and
he was able to keep mostly to the script, every time he went off
is really the indicator of how incompetent mentally incompetent that he is, and that
would be my takeaway. You know, you'd be they They obviously gave him
something, hyped him up. I know he's an ugly mean man to begin
with, but it pushed him to the limits of that ugliness. And then
the next day, if you happen to see any of his very few public
events, he was back to his own mumbling little self. Right. So
you know, the left is patting themselves on the back thinking that he you
know, this is this is great. Everybody's gonna m remember how great he
was at the State of the Union address, and I don't think it's going
to work out that well for him. But you know, if I'm the
Democrat, I want to take any kind of uh, good news I can
get. I did want to mention because John talked about his his discussions about
abortion. You know, the first Catholic president or second Catholic president excuse me,
right, Kennedy, there is nobody in between, you know, but
he makes a very big deal about it. And I'm sorry, but whatever
else it is, if you're a Catholic, you don't get a choice on
the on the on the matter of abortion. It is a fundamental tenet of
Catholic doctrine, Catholic orthodoxy. Okay, that being said, I was really
pleased to see this last week that there's a Catholic group that came out with
an ad that they're going to show in the Swing States and it blames Biden
for the situation at the border. Now, this is, you know,
a little bit problematic because I I see these things all the time. There
are Catholic groups that are getting money from the federal government to provide services to
illegal immigrants. Moreover, some of the you know, the Pope and a
lot of other lefty Catholic leaders are very much in favor of open borders.
But this group is saying that Biden's policies. Essentially, they're saying what I
believe, which is Biden's policies at the border are inhumane. Because and it's
really horrible to watch this little ad that they're doing, because they taught they
interview a woman who the cartels put on a mattress in a room and let
men come in and rape her all day long, for days, And I
mean, it's just chillingly awful, chillingly off. I don't know, and
I do have to make a comment really quick I doubt that the person is
listening. But some idiot commented on our Ricochet podcast last week saying, oh
I heard buddy say we're gonna shoot someone. Click delete, never listen to
again. Put your big girls panties back on, and pay attention to what
I said, which was the first time is it would be the human thing
to do, It would be the humane thing to do, to do what
is necessary to stop what is going on at the border. And of course,
you know when I said that the stupid judge in Colorado, which is
gonna be my next lead in the stupid Judge in Colorado should be shot because
she's so inarticulate. That was kind of a joke. And if it violates
Ricochet's mural standards, too bad. Anyway, that out there, So back
to Colorado. Sorry if unless you wanted to comment on the Catholic group reaching
out in states with large Catholic populations to say Biden is responsible for this unparalleled
human tragedy. Yeah, well, just one thing. One thing that's interesting
to me is again my mind runs back to the eighties when the US Conference
of Catholic Bishops. So, first of all, you mentioned Catholic groups get
government money. That's been true for decades. A lot of very left wing
Catholic groups, and there's always been a left wing Catholic element, very much
on the agenda of the left. But in the eighties it is the US
Conference of Catholic Bishops, so that's pretty high up the hierarchy, pretty important
people. They were a huge problem for Reagan because they kept saying we got
to quit building nuclear weapons, we can't station missiles in Europe, and on
and on and on. And I'm kind of surprised that the dog that isn't
barking now is the I'm not sure what's happened at the US Conference of Catholic
Bishops, but I would have expected sometime in the last ten years or the
last three years, some kind of statement that's pro open borders, attacking Trump,
and I haven't seen that, or if they have, nobody pays attention
anymore. And so this group comes along and they're going to spend some real
money, and they're gonna get out in front of the left wing of the
Catholic Church, and that's always a good thing to do. Yeah, that's
my thought. Tell us about Colorado. I was going to say, this
is beyond my area. Yeah, that's fine, it's expertise. I'm always
happy to lend the I'm always happy to lend the Episcopalian perspective for something truly
radical and different. But John, can I ask you, let's just say
the way I want. I'm sorry, I'm John. You can't let that?
Can you name? Can you give me the name of a single Episcopal
bishop anywhere? The one in California? I know his first name is Mark.
Okay, I want to tell you he actually came to the church here
into Well in Martin Muren County, and he gave a sermon that was all
about global warming. Of course I was I was like, uh, did
God have an opinion about global warming? I remember the bit in the Bible
about you know, mastering the Earth and the animals, and you know,
I don't remember anything about God preferring a specific temperature for the planet. Yeah.
I was just like, the latest is you're beyond your It was the
late great Berkeley professor Paul Seabury and political science who wrote that classic article in
nineteen seventy eight, when the Episcopal Church called trendier than Thou the polk does
the same thing. I know and my argument back, John is, never
mind what it says in the Bible or or doctrine about it. If God's
omnipotent, he could fix the global warming crisis were actually to exist. He
could fix it. He's God, all right, Right back to the Colorado
Okay, So I didn't mean to be realized. I did have a really
quick question for John on the point I made, and wondering from the point
of view, who's someone who's not Catholic but you know, reasonably well informed?
Shall we say, John, reasonably that I've spent time in the Vatican.
I won't tell you why. Okay, all right, we won't want
it's a great story, but for another time. Okay. I was allowed
to wander back in the Vatican grounds once for a day. Me too.
It was great. That was before I was Catholic, I haven't That was
before the Jesuits found me tried to kick me out as a Jesuit. I
do actually want to ask, Oh, there's got to be a joke somewhere.
What's the difference between the Jesuit meeting and a faculty meeting. I don't
know what the punchline is, and it's got to be good time those snarky
women out there get mad because they say I interrupt too much. This will
now be the seventh time I've attempted to ask the question because you two interrupted
me. And I don't really mind, but I hate being accused of something.
You're back right. I want to know John, if you find the
argument compelling, if you're the average voter watching this ad, and you probably
haven't watched it yet, but basically, what it says is the poor and
the vulnerable are those who are hurt the most by Biden's board border policies.
And of course it is fully consistent with Catholic teaching, with the Biblical teaching
that we need to be worried about the poor and the vulnerable. We know
the kind of atrocities that are committed as a result of open borders, never
mind the fence and all and everything else. Do you find that argument compelling?
This is like the ad they ran during the Super Bowl super Bowl bilk
Jesus gets Us ads and like one of the most But that was the same
kind of ad, which is this. I don't know when I see that.
So one thing I think is is unrestricted immigration. Who's is hurting the
poor in the United States. Right, So, if you were to say
whose communities are probably hurt the most by aliens who are criminals or are you
know Cootes or bring the agent sex traffick, it's going to be the poor
communities here in the United States that are probably harmed by increasing crime. I
think that's the record just of crime in general the United States. It hurts
poor minority communities and cities of most. But I don't think the American people
are swayed much by these Marxist appeals. You could make that the punchline for
everything that Democrats want is here's something that happens. No, no, this
is why I think it's Marxist. Hell did you just say, oh,
sorry, keep John, keep doing them. No, no, no,
no. So all these all these ads, in my mind are kind of
like Marxist appeals. They're like, Okay, this is a really bad thing
and it hurts the lower classes. This is a really bad thing. It
hurts the lower classes. That that's I think that's going to be a theme
of all the democratic ads and the left wing ads this year. And so
if you try to sit but so if you try to say this and we'll
get it to this thiss came if you have an add so suppose we haven't.
Our side has an ad says one of Biden's biggest failures is crime,
and we should be doing a b and cedar restore law and order in the
streets. Their response is always going to be crime is really just a function
of poverty, and poverty is just you know, it's just a Marxist response
to everything. That's what That's what I mean. Oh oh, you had
me confused there. I thought you were saying that the argument Lucretian and I
are making that. No, no, no, oh, okay, now
I'm saying the argument of the left, oh ice making is like the response
to everything is inequality. That's their theme. You know, I don't think.
Yeah, that's what I meant. That's what I meant, And I
said, I don't think people buy that, But that's what you hear all
the time now on their side, what questions when we've flipped, when we've
flipped the socioeconomic classes and their allegiance to political parties such that the only people
who actually support the left now are are of course the elite rich, and
then the people too stupid to pay attention, which I know, includes many
people in the lowest socioeconomic classes, but the lower middle class is now,
if we believe the polls at all, everything says that they prefer Trump.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to say they completely prefer Republicans,
but they certainly preferred Trump because it's clear that despite all of their Marxist
rhetoric, as you would put it, the left couldn't care less about the
poor. The left couldn't care less about those who are struggling or suffering,
and they certainly couldn't care less about those who suffer because of crime in their
urban cities, in their You know, crime doesn't affect wealthy people, It
doesn't affect people in good neighborhoods. It affects people in the poorest neighborhoods.
So what happens to your analysis when we see that the actual political landscape is
changing in that regard. And I'm going to get to Colorado. I promise
you think it's so. Do you think it's like a lot of things in
politics, that the election is really decided by independent, middle class people living
in suburbs and they want to feel like they're doing something about poverty. Isn't
that what the political consultants say. It's like, you know, if you
talk to the you know, this is your fault of Christians women living in
suburbs who are deciding the elections. Ninety amendments kill it, and you know
they're they're not getting abortions all the time, but they want to feel good
that other people can have the right to an abortion, even though they want
to feel like it's okay not to have right fully intact nuclear families, even
though eighty five percent of them all have nuclear intact families. So it's strange.
It's like, isn't that what's really you guys? Should you know this
where than I do? Isn't this really about messaging to that small slice of
demographic as can decide the next election, And they themselves don't live those lives,
but they want to feel like, oh, there, I'm all for
rights. It makes it something I support, even though they would never do
these things in their own personal lives. So I think it is that you're
right that the good political consultants have figured out that they can appeal to white
liberal guilt, because guilt, of course, is the most self indulgent of
all emotions. And I mean, you know, nothing better, and to
pretend it. I feel guilty that I'm white and suburban and my kids play
soccer and I drive an SUV and that, you know, people in the
inner city are this, that and the other thing. I'm not going to
do anything about it, but I'm going to vote for somebody who says they
might. You know, I'd like to think we can do better than that.
I don't know, Steve, what's your thought. You're you're the polster
guy. Well, let's not do polls. You know. One of the
I was gonna mention this maybe later depending One of the hot books at the
moment is by this guy Rob Henderson called Trouble, and it's about you know,
this guy was a story similar to Jadey Vance's, by the way,
but he's the guy who came up with a phrase some time ago called luxury
beliefs. And he really explains how, you know, when he got to
Yale finally as a law student or something, he'd meet all these people who'd
say, oh, marriage isn't important, you know this and that, and
direct the opposite of how they lived. And I do think that's a real
thing, a real phenomenon and that's another way restating that. Yeah, a
lot of people. I mean, I've been saying this for a while.
My version is a lot of liberalism is a comfort mechanism for liberals to feel
good about themselves, and that's the most important value, right, Yeah,
I don't want to go in for forever. But one more question about that.
So perhaps there's an even uglier underbelly to that. And what it reminds
me of is the appeal after in the reconstruction of in the reconstruction period to
poor whites in the South. Oh right, that appeal you know, actually
ended up being Jim Crow legislation ultimately, where you may be poor, you
may be all these other things, but yeah, if you're if if we
lower blacks beneath your level, then what you buy that very action are raised
up in the in the classes of society, however you want to put them.
Not putting this very well, but you get my point. Yeah,
perhaps that's what this is about underneath it all too. I recognize that being
married and an intact family, and my kids going to good schools and doing
their homework at night because homework is now for boten, that all of these
things that I do homeworks verboten. There's nothing for Asian kids to do when
they grow up. They just play the violin. That's it. Well,
can I just I'm going to jump in and add to that. Then,
you know, the other book right now from the left that's worth taking note
of not reading is what it's this rural white rage. I forget the title,
but it's like the flavor of the month right now by a couple of
prong political scientists, and it's as bad as it sounds. It is.
You know, it's there's these rural white people who are the menace to America.
They're the you know, they're the the it's the whole deplorable thesis,
except now propounded seriously. And you know the point is is that you know,
the academic leafs to America, we really do hate you, but the
creature of that not to do it today. Some of the day we might
you. And I want to take this up as actual episode. That story
you tell about the South in Reconstruction is a forgotten chapter that's really quite important,
and I think you're now seeing a repeat with it with the left's attack
on the rural white America today. I think the best book on this,
I'll just mention it because I'm a pretentious intellectual. Is William Alexander Percy's Lanterns
on the Levee. He was Walker Percy's uncle who raised him after Walker Percy's
parent or dad at suicide. And he explains, and it was a great
writer, by the way, and he explains that, Yeah, a lot
of sort of you know, the old plantation class whites look down on the
blacks, but who they really look down on even more were poor whites.
And that created the toxic dynamic that led to Jim Crow. And I think
that is now replicated with different terms. But by the you know, Harvard
for shorthand, right, And that's a very big story. And you just
actually give me inspiration the Cretia for a column, So thank you. Well
give me credit for once, would you. Okay, So John, tell
us about Colorado. There was so much other news I'd forgotten that this was
the Colorado case was just this last week. And what's your analysis of it?
Yeah, I mean I thought it was the most important thing that happened
this week. Actually it was on Monday and the Supreme Court unanimously overrule Colorado.
Now there are different reasons and you know, we can get we'll get
into the differences, but the important thing is nine to zero. The Court
said Colorado was wrong and that Donald Trump could not be excluded from the ballot.
One just side noticed. You would think the people who pushed this idea
would be embarrassed. The people who predicted the Supreme Court would actually strike Donald
Trump from the ballot in all fifty states. The people who you know,
these are Larry Tribe, you know, former Judge Michael Lutig, you know,
very prominent, respected people who are out there saying every word of the
Colorado Supreme Court was brilliant. It's you know, be odd reproach and the
Supreme Court, yeah, uphold them, and it was right. How often
do such distinguished luminaries lose nine to zero. That's their job, if any,
is to help us figure out how what the Supreme Court is up to
I understand constitutional law. So that's one. Two. There was a difference
of opinion. I wouldn't say it was five to four, but there was
a window of difference. Not on this question, but it's an interesting question
that we've talked about before, which is what is the role of the other
branches and enforcing the Constitution. So interestingly, the majority opinion, which was
written procureum, which means no one signed it, basically said Congress must pass
a law to implement the fourteenth Amendment. If Congress could pass a law saying
Donald Trump is an insurrectionist and is to be removed from the ballot, well,
can I ask before you go on, John, I want to ask
you about that. Congress can't pass a law saying Donald Trump should be removed
from the ballot. Congress would have to pass a law that would in fact
define what insurrection would be, and it couldn't even be retroactive. Could I
mean? Otherwise it becomes both a bill of attainder and an exposed factor law?
Or am I wrong? No, the majority is a little bit unclear
about this. I agree with you, it wouldn't be a bill of attainder.
But it could be the case that the majority thinks this is not a
violation of the bill of a tainder clause. But I'm not sure it's all
in the Court was very ambiguous about that. The Court also yeah, yeah,
coll Here's the other interesting The Court did say that Congress did implement the
Fourteenth Amendment by passing and insurrection statute. One thing that was interesting about the
opinion is that, you know, we have a criminal law right now,
federal criminal law that prohibits insurrection. It makes insurrection of crime, and it
actually traces its history all the way back to Congress passing a law right after
the Fourteenth Amendment is enacted. So the Court suggests, well, you could
implement the fourteenth Amendment by prosecuting someone under this insurrection statute. What they didn't
say, but which we all know, is that the Special Council chose not
to indict President Trump for insurrection. And in fact, the only voice of
the federal government on whether Donald Trump committed insurrection is that of the Senate,
which acquitted him of that charge in the second impeatriant trial. But here's a
difference. It's an important difference. Although I think it does show you that
the dissent is too aware of too worried about the politics of it is.
They say the majority went too far. They would leave open the question of
whether the other branches could implement the disqualification. So they all the three liberal
justices Kaigan, Sodo, Mayor, and Jackson maybe agreed with by I just
can't think she would. Yeah, I just think I can't think she would
agree with this, but she didn't. You know, she was sympathetic to
them. I don't know why this was be a man woman thing, but
yeah, Amy Cooney Barrett. But that's that's weird, right, That's the
line of difference was men on one side, women the other. The three
dissenters, they seem to suggest, well, other branches of government could do
it. And this is where I think it opens the door. Although it's
only the liberals I think sometimes don't realize they're contradicting themselves. Maybe they do.
Is the possibly only possibility I could think of is that when the electoral
votes are counted right in January, they're opening the possibility that Congress, members
of Congress, or even pray tell Vice President Kamala Harris could rule that electoral
votes for Trump violate the fourteenth Amendment and cannot be counted. That's actually the
one hympathetical question. That's the only thing I can imagine that dissent is actually
referring to when they say, oh, other branches can still implement the disqualification
mechanism and without falling the foul of the Bill of attainders, as Lucretia says,
then the only way I could think of that it would be to reject
electro votes this January. If Trump wins. But it says in the fourteenth
minute, why is that not controlling the execution clause? You know, the
Congress of the power to enforce the enforcement clause by appropriate legislation. How is
that not Trump? All of those arguments. So here's I do my hypothetical,
John, which was this, suppose Trump wins the election, but Democrats
win both houses of Congress. Yeah, and remember they're sworn in and take
office before January twenty, which means Democrats would have a majority before January sixth.
And during the day they certify it. And you know, you remember
twenty sixteen when there was this big public campaign to try and get electors to
not cast their votes for Trump. If that happens, there's gonna be huge
expression of Democrats in Congress to I don't know what's retroactive or however you want
to classify it, to declare it Trump an insurrectionists and therefore ineligible to take
the oath of office on January twenty seems to me that's what was held open,
but I'm not clear on that, but that's my scene for it,
Yeah, which I think is quite possible. Yeah, I totally agree the
effect. So I'll just be you know, average self advertised one of my
Larview articles. So I wrote an article that came out in case Western Larva
about the twelfth Amendment counting the votes. And this is actually where I said,
I think John Eastman's theory was half right on the law. I just
disagreed them on the facts. And I started out with the hypothetical suppose in
twenty twenty four, Vice President Kamala Harris is reviewing whether to count Donald Trump's
electoral votes. Do we think that she could just on her own just say
I think Donald Trump's an insurrectionistn't toss him out? And you could see that
the three liberals on the court, I think, were suggesting that that could
in fact have been And what and if she had right and the Democrats take
the House and senate it, right, what's going to stop? I thought
that the dissent by the three Democratic justices were trying to desperately throw a bone
or a slender lifeline to the left, which was outraged by nine to zero
decision. You saw they freaked out about it. But my final thought on
it and that could you satisfy me about this? On the merits? My
final thought is is you know, we beat the Lucretian I at least beat
the hell out of a broad in Paulson when they first posed this idea a
year ago. And now I'm wondering, gosh, I wonder if it was
all a ropodope operational along. I wonder if they were geniuses secretly on setting
up the Liberals to make fools of themselves. Come on, well, only
John would think that way. I actually even thought it was a great idea.
How did how did? How did Steve figure it out? I just
let the secret out. I wish I had enough confidence in conservative law scholars
other than John. I don't watch enough for the original House of Cards series
to appreciate these kind of intrigue. I watched enough. I just never underestimate
the power stupidity. I never forget that true. Yeah to ask you got
both of you as neither of you are. Steve's a native Californian, but
you've been a Californian for a long time. And I actually think the most
interesting thing to come out of Super Tuesday was what happened to California. And
I'm not just talking about Steve Garbie, although I think we should discuss that
a little bit. But my understanding is down the ballots, including some congressional
races in the hotly contested Orange County area of California, actually are showing some
real strength for a change for Republicans in this god awful jungle primary that the
left imposed upon you, poor you, poor feckless Californians, and you allow
it, Steve Buddy. I mean, I've defer to Steve on this.
You know, the races I saw, Yeah, it looked like we're you
know that there are none of these races where it was two Democrats knocking out
all Republicans and the ones that we cared about. That's that's what I saw.
But I didn't look, for example, the state legislative races or anything
like that where it's hopeless. Still I still assume it's hopeless. I mean,
the Democrats have a super majority. But I think my impression is we
did well in the congressional primaries that getting Republicans to the finals in November,
which is they're not primary they're not. Yeah, the primaries because of the
jungle primary, we actually have a bunch of Republicans who are the second choice
or even in some cases the first choice, which hasn't happened in very often
lately. Anyway, Steve, you're you're well right. Let's see I mean
a couple of First of all, for listeners who don't know what we mean
by jungle primary, is California fifteen years ago now adopted the system for all
races except for president because they can't do it for that one where everybody's together
on the ballot, not by party, and the top two people go to
the bout in November. So Republicans have not had all of said why is
there a beauty beauty queen from the nineteen seventies on our zoom turned off camera?
Are like not to use these other like very Cheryl t the big haird
hair, and I should have a screencap with that. So wait, wait,
wait before you go on, Steve, I actually know somebody at my
university who has who is more attractive in person than and she's beautiful, more
attractive in person than the picture that her avatar that she puts on zoom.
No, I'm seeing that happen a bunch actually, but yeah, haven't really.
I don't think people know what we're talking about. But I think Lucretia
had to step away for a minute and then appeared in her little zoom box.
I swear was a photo of Olivia Newton John from Let's Get Metaphysical,
Let's Get Right, by Sir Isaac Newton John. Right, Okay, we're
clearly California, Steve. Look what happens when we don't have our whiskey.
So I mean, Republicans have not had a cent candidate in November for fifteen
years now. The last two cycles have been two Democrats running against each other,
you know, a moderate liberal against the far left person. And it
looked like that might happen this year. Katie Porter raised a ton of money
and she's a big celebrity on the left. And then Adam Shiff is Adam
Schiff and Steve Garvey, the old Los Angeles Dodgers baseball player running but didn't
have any money, didn't run a campaign, but Shiff ran these ads that
gave Garvey twenty million dollars a free publicity blank of the state with ads that
said, by the way, the pictures of him were all very handsome.
He's a handsome guy, even at age seventies, very handsome still. But
they weren't the grainy kind of usual attack ads that make a person look bad.
No, they use these very handsome pictures of him, and the message
was Steve Garvey's too conservative for California. He voted for Trump twice. Well,
is this an attack or is it telling Republicans wink wig and gun nudge
who's here you want to vote for? Cause a shiff wanted to knockout Katie
Porter and he did. He did so well that Garby now has uh look,
I mean half of California wasn't here when he played baseball forty years ago
or more. Yeah, oh, I'm sure that's true. Sure, Oh
yeah, I'm quite sure that's probably likely. You know, Steve John Oh
yeah, because I was. I'm a Philadelphia Phillies fan. I still of
course as a Dodger. As a Dodger, they beat the hell of us
out of us in the Pennant, I mean not in the Pennant, in
the in the playoffs in the late seventies. Yeah, seventy eight killed us
two years in a row. Yeah, so yeah, I still hate him.
Anyways, still just because of that, I'm going to vote for Adam
Schiff. No you're not. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna take
a picture of the ballot and send it. Well, yeah, politics is
important, but being loyal to Philadelphia sports team is preemptive. Well, anyway,
it it's thought that this drove up Republican turnout because it generated some enthusiasm
among Republicans for Garvey, who finished first, by the way, got the
most votes because you really had Barbara League was a third Democrat running some support
from the black community. So here's what I think. I think actually Garvey
has a distant outside chance of winning, and it would depend on two things.
He needs to be a good candidate and run a good campaign and have
no idea yet whether how serious, if he's got a good team, if
he's any good on this stump, and so forth. The second thing is,
I think Democrats are going to be split, especially with the progressive hatred
of Israel right now, because Schiff was backed very vigorously by Apak, the
Israeli American Public Affairs Pack, and I think so the anti the Prohamas left
is going to dislike him. And if you're Katie Porter or any other ambitious
Democrat, and you look out the world now and you say, what's better
for me in the party? One term of Garvey, who's probably only going
to serve a term, but in any event, you'd beat him in six
years or twenty years of Adam Schiff, because that's the model in California.
If you win as a Democrat, you're in as long as you want to
be. I wouldn't be surprised to see a conscious, although a whispering campaign
of Democrats to sit on their hands and not support shift. And depending on
how the national mood goes, you know, neither party is going to contest
the presidential election here much. I don't think you know. He could sneak
up on this, and that would be the ultimate revenge on these reformers and
the Democrats who think they can play around with these jungle primaries to pick their
opponents, and that would be a fun day. Steve can ask me a
question. I don't remember the rules in California. So Barbara Lee and Katie
Porter, when they put their hats in the ring for the Senate race,
did that disqualify them from running for their congressional seats? Yeah, yep,
they're out. They're not. That's that's actually what I want to talk about.
Was for me, the microcosm of what's going on here was Katie Porter's
seat because I spend a lot of time there because of the Claremont Institute.
We go down there and do the fellowship programs in that district, and I
have a lot of friends there. This is where you see Irvine's campuses.
So Katie Porter, you know, had to vacator seat. And so it
was an interesting three way race between a fellow named David min who's a professor
at Ucrvine Law School. So he's like many Katie Porter and he I think
he actually ran against maybe Katie Porter in the primaries long ago when she won
the seat, but he's in the state Senate. And then the challenger is
a guy named Scott Baw who is a I think the head of the Republican
Party in Orange County. Lost to Katie Porter by it looks like three points
last time, and she had to spend an enormous amount of money. I
think she spent like, yeah, could this be possibly twenty million dollars on
a sea Yeah, but uh so he won, I mean he won the
plurality, so right, it was just amazing. So he won thirty two
percent. Men won twenty five percent. But the interesting thing, and I
think Lucretia would enjoy weighing in on this, is the third candidate was a
woman named Joanna Weiss, and she came in third. But what happened behind
the scenes, and Steve correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what
having nice scenes is that the Jewish groups tried to stop in Yeah, because
he's pro Hama Proceedspire and Gaza. Sorry, I didn't mean to say pro
hamas progue, he's part in Gaza, and so there was a real split
in the Democratic Party. They metz yeah, and because of Gaza and they've
tried to stop men. And so I wonder, and this is for the
November, whether Jewish votes are going to shift to baw you know, shift
to the Republican candidate uh and lead to you know, a healthy margin.
Actually one can the way it used to be, right, way it used
to be showed up. That was a Republican seat for a long time.
The other thing about that race, John, is that the Republicans together garnered
forty eight percent of the vote. Whereas the Democrats together garnered only forty three
percent of the vote. The two the two top gets forty That's it.
And that's you know again, this is where there are many Lucretia's living,
you know, the suburban suburban women you are then ie today there's really only
one right. You know, when you started attacking Chick fil A, it
really brought the brought the A game out of me. No, but this
is right. This Orange County is the exact kind of county that Trump will
need to win to win the election. It's you know, it's the perfect
suburban but upper middle class, upper middle class. They care about crime,
they care about immigration. If Trump's gonna prevail anywhere, it's gonna be there.
Okay, So I have one more to bring up about that, and
it goes back to something you said earlier. So one more Orange County district,
the forty fifth district where Biden won. I don't know remember how many
percent of the vote, but the incumbent Republican got fifty seven percent of the
vote in the jungle primary. How because or despite you might say that she
supported extreme anti abortion legislation, a national ban, some illegalization of IVF and
she got fifty seven percent of the vote. All I want to ask about
that or put, you know, kind of put on the table. I
guess, more than anything is whether this somewhat belies those special elections we've seen
lately that Biden even talked about in his State of the Union address. It
says, Oh, how did you put it, John, We're going to
see the power of women voters. I wonder if this whole obsession that the
left has with the fact that abortion is going to be the biggest issue coming
up in the twenty twenty four election. I think Biden camp is clearly counting
on that. I mean, Orange County is a little different. I get
I understand in the country as a whole, But I'm just wondering if maybe
maybe the abortion issue is not going to be the thing they think it is.
And you know, when you look at those polls, the ones that
say that in the list of topics issues that Americans actually care about when they
cast their vote, I mentioned that despite whether you people think we should fund
Ukraine, it's not an important issue. On the list of topics, abortion
comes in at eleven percent. And that includes, by the way, people
like me who will actually vote for an anti abortion candidate as an important indicator
of their other politics. But so it includes both pro and against abortion.
So if it's only eleven percent, are we going to see that maybe that
that stick of the left isn't really going to get them as far as they
think, what do you think ill the polls I see say basically it looks
like the economy and immigration are tied. And people who say to pollsters,
I assume that they're going to vote on abortion, their votes are already long,
long ago committed to one of the two parties. They're not. If
you're voting on abortion, you're not the votes that are up for grabs that
are going to turn the election. It seems to me, you're just pro
life, pro choice, you're already duck firmly in the base of the Republican
or Democratic parties. And so I agree with you. I don't think it's
going to make a difference in the election. And I maybe I misread it,
but I think that when Biden makes such a big deal of it in
the State of the Union address, it makes it seem to the average voter,
as you're saying, that he's appealing to sort of elite progressive values and
elevating them over the things that regular middle class Americans care about, which is
killing off inflation and you know, shoring up the border. So but I
think it does show you the bubble that the Biden White House is living in,
or that Democratic consultants or living in, and so I hope they keep
at it. Yeah, this is political malpractice. I mean, for all
the shade we've been throwing at Republicans for being inept on the issue, which
I stand by all of that, and it's correct. I think that Democrats
were usually better at figuring this out. Don't understand that. Yes, if
you put the issue up as an up or down vote just on the issue,
or if you tie an elected office like the Wisconsin Supreme Court to the
issue of abortion, then they're going to win on that issue. But when
you get to other offices, absolutely, people have many more other things determined
their vote than abortion. And you know, I sort of remember you go
back to twenty fourteen, so ten years ago now, when the Republicans took
the Senate back finally and the Colorado race. I was living there then.
It was the incumbent Mark you doll and I forget the Republican congressman who knocked
him off. But you do, all would go around and that's all he
talked about, was I protect a woman's right to choose, and even Democrats
got tired of him talking about it. Of course, that's before Dobbs,
and that changes things some. But the point is is even then that appeal
was stale as an appeal for broad spectrum audience offices like Senate or House or
governor and so forth. And I don't think that's fundamentally changed very much.
So you know, go ahead and try and do this, and people are
going to say, yeah, but you know, I want you know,
I'm still mad about not getting the extra three chips in my Dorrito's bag.
And you want to talk about abortion, Well nonsense, Okay, enough of
that, Okay, all right, So we were going to talk about our
article of the week and we're not. Steve says we're not going to have
time. So I mean a quick, quick topic. I just want to
ask John what he thinks about the fact that Harvard has appealed to the I
think it's the local local government for a loan bond issuance that Harvard would have
to pay back to pay for some of their ongoing construction. The richest,
the richest university in the country is asking for government bailouts. What do you
think about that, John, it's your alma mater, It's my alma mater,
and so it shows you. I think that the harm from the disgraceful
performance of President Clauding Cay is having a really serious effect, far beyond what
Harvard wants to admit, because you're in most universities they have these big endowments,
but it's tied up in you know, building or facilities, land,
or it's committed right. You can't like, you can't spend the money on
anything. But so and so's you know, on the Harvey Mansfield's fancy chair,
so you know whoever it's named for, and so you know, the
cause of actually keeping things running from day to day requires tuition and donations.
And it's better experience than you ever more evidence you ever needed that Harvard is
suffering. Yeah, can I say one of the things, I don't get
the impression Berkeley, which I actually think strangely until you know, I didn't.
We did to talk about this week there was an ugly anti Semitic protests
at Berkeley since we take lass. I actually didn't know it was the event
was going on, or I would have gone to it. But Berkeley and
Berkeley, I don't think this is a probably this has happened with us because
I think actually our chancellor has been pretty trying to be pretty downline, has
not sent out these messages, did not testify, and in fact, one
interesting thing is, you know, there was an effort by these pro Palestinian
groups I'm not even sure how many of them were students to disrupt an event
here at campus and actually force the event to be canceled. You know,
threatened, maybe assaulted some of the pro Israel students and broke, tried to
break into the building, destroyed windows and so on, and tour credit.
The chancellor sent out a message to the campus saying that they have launched a
police criminal investigation and people will be expelled and if people are not students they
were just coming from the city, they're going to be prosecuted. I mean,
I didn't see anything like that happen at Columbia or m I T or
the other places where you've seen these attacks on pro Israel student groups. Yeah,
no, absolutely, John, props to our chancellor I mean, we
put a lot of shade at Berkeley, deservedly so, but not in this
instance. Although we'll see, you know, how it goes. Hopefully they're
really going to catch some people and identify them and so forth. The back
of the creatius question about Harvard, it's actually a little worse than you present,
Lucretia. There they want a billion they want to borrow. Well,
no, it would actually be yeah, but you'll like it though they won't.
They're trying to borrow a billion and a half dollars with a fifty billion
dollar endowment. And what John points out is an awful lot of those assets
are tied up in private equity and or not liquid. But the point you
raised, Lucretia is they're asking local government to be the agent for these bonds.
Why it's expensive to borrow right now if you're Harvard, But if you
can make the municipal bonds in the City of Cambridge or some other local government
unit, you get a lower interest rate and it's tax deductible for the people
who buy it. So they're asking for you know, a special deal and
tax deduction or tax preference for it, right which you know, typical of
these people right, and yeah, it's sort of fun to watch that happen.
And by the way, John, I did just see a headline that
I don't know if it's Berkeley or University of California as a whole, but
they've just concluded a seven billion dollar capital campaign that's been going on for several
years. I mean, that's pretty but I'm kind of abstounded at all that.
And you know, good grief, why would you well, never mind,
Well, a lot of it was from me, so in kine contributions
through all my labors. Right, Actually, do they actually count what you
and I do, the money we bring in for what do you think?
Yeah? Okay, question? Actually no, no, I'm sorry. Steve
was asking about money we raised for our programs at Berkeley. I'm sure they
count that. Oh, I'm sure they count that, right. Okay,
So I guess according to Steve, I've talked too much. I gotta why.
No, No, he said we can't talk about articles. He said,
we can talk about it, Yeah, we can. We have time,
Yeah, we'll wrap it up. Well, no, we don't have
time, but he said we can't. Okay, So John, do you
have one ready or do you want to just yeah, so actually I thought
it would be fun too to go back and look and this is you know,
I just sort of obliquely referred to go back and look at the articles
that were written about the fourteenth Amendment disqualification issue. So people who want to
dig into this, the first article was written by William Bod and Michael Paulson
Bod as a professor Chicago. I think, yes, still he is a
Chicago Mike Paulson very distinguished the originalists. And this appears in Pennsylvania Larview,
but it's available online. I think it is the most It's got to be
the most downloaded Larview article in the history of the internet, like not even
close. But then the thing people might not have realized that there are two
responses by also original scholars. One is a fellow named Kurt lash In which
on the fourteenth and is also available online. And Kurt and I actually used
to sit next to each other in law school classes. We're in the same
class, of course. Yeah, we would sit in the back of the
classrooms listen to a kill Amar spin his wild theories about originalism. But that's
where we met and first started working on these things. So I was so
glad to see him. I think he's at the University of Richmond. And
then the Josh Blackman, who's a very well known conservative commentator, and Seth
Tullman also wrote an article about whether the president was an officer of the un
I say so, I encourage people if they really want to get behind the
Supreme Court opinions and really decide for themselves the right answer on this disqualification provision.
Could this is the place to go. These three articles all by originalists.
So let me ask you a question about that. Don do you think
that this is going to be an ongoing issue or do you think that once
this next twenty twenty four election is complete and Trump is installed into office successfully,
that the whole thing will die a natural death. Or do you think
that this phony charge of insurrection is going to be leveled from now on and
forever for any candidate. You know, we didn't charge the Hilary with insurrection,
but we should have by the same standards, you know. So for
this is the problem with what the Democrats are doing. I'm sure they think
everything they done is a one and they say this right, this is all
a one off. Because Trump is an unprecedented, unique threat to democracy.
But what they don't realize is that you Steve mentioned, they started off a
spiral now because they're going they invite retaliation. Yeah, so I think it's
going to be with us, right, just like impeachment has changed now,
just like we saw the appeachment of Cabinet secretary for the first time since the
Civil War period, and we've seen a right impeachment investigation at Joe Biden because
now peachment is going to be used much more broadly than it was before.
Yeah, yeah, okay, all right, Steve, do you have an
article? I do. I've actually going to go bring up a really old
one, but it's really salient now and I'm using it for class. You'll
recognize why. It was twenty five years ago now that Daniel Patrick moynihan wrote
in The American Scholar his article defining Devancy down and it was a big sensation
at the time, like you often did. And the title tells you the
whole story, right, I just think of the euphemism we use these days,
right, several years ago you started hearing it. Well, mo in
a hand wrote a lot about how in the eyes and now in Kennedy years
we talked about juvenile delinquency, and you know, we would have commissions on
the problems of juvenile delinquency. What's the euphemism we use now from the left,
it's justice involved youth. This has been heard this. Oh yeah,
you'll hear the that's what the progressive prosecutors, that we have justice involved youth,
like you know, there's a uh. And then of course we've seen
this in immigration. Uh you know, it wasn't illegal aliens, it was
migrants. And of course migrants because of what's happened, uh, suddenly in
the last three four weeks, So Lucretia, you picked up on this.
They're now calling them newcomers to our country because migrants has acquired some baggage,
right, and if the President of the United States calls them illegals, can
we do so again? Yeah, well he's catching a lot of flak for
that, right. And I didn't hear this newcomers is now newcomers. Yeah,
my administration what's your name, Kreem, John, Pierre, Start,
Paul whatever it has used that phrase and that's yeah, okay, they're going
to try and promote that one now along with you know, justice involved youth.
It's you know, this is not a new phenomenon or well flagged it
in that famous politics and English language say way back when about you know,
when you have these euphemisms, there's something really dishonest going on, and that
is uh, someone said, these days we'll not only find dev and c
down uh, you know, on the substance of issues, but we're also
now normalizing dishonesty. That gets back to Biden's speech again. Uh. But
beyond that, I mean, we're now sort of, you know, normalizing
dishonesty on a very wide scale. So deviancy dishonesty. Uh. And if
I can find an online link to the article, the mon article, I'll
do it. I have an old hard copy. But it's reminded me that
that's one of those that should we reread everything his famous Yeah, great choice.
Okay, so is it a little bit more current, which I guess
is a good thing. By contrast, and that's an Alex Bearnson article that
refers to something we talked about only briefly because we didn't have enough time left.
But that's the Markstein Michael Mann case. But the argument it's actually a
two part article, is that free speech is under attack because defamation law has
been weaponized against climate change skeptics, and I think that's a really interesting idea
that you know, you don't necessarily make it illegal to yet to question whether
or not there's anthropomorphic global warming, which we now have to call climate change,
because the global isn't really warming in the way that you know, we
were told it was going to. And there are still polar bears out there
in case you guys didn't know that, and al Gore is still alive and
not frozen to death, which is also unfortunate. However, that being said,
that the whole point of this is that with the kind of even out
of a DC jury, with the kind of incredible judgment that was brought against
Michael excuse me, mark Stein, in this this is going to be a
new weapon, first of all, probably for climate change to shut people up,
because who wants to go through what it was mark Stein went through.
I mean even that it's funny because there's a quote in Bearnson's article. This
is by sorry, Alex Bearnson writes this article, he quotes from the Washington
host My dogs are marking, just basically saying you have a right to say
stupid, mean things. You have a right to say stupid, mean things
if they are opinions. You know, the First Amendment protects that. And
of course nobody thought that Mark Stein would ever win this case. Do you
think there's going to be a chilling effect on free speech by this case?
Do you think others are going to come around and maybe sue Steve for his
entirely two factually based, evidence based articles against climate change alarmism. Yeah,
I mean, so look there. This is maybe a unique case, but
it does have a parallel, I think to some of the problems with tort
law that got sorted out to a large extent the last twenty thirty years.
By that, I mean Man chose a DC jury, you know, his
man's lawyer. In a summation of the jury, or maybe he asked Stein,
I forget, but he brought up that, oh, you've been the
guest host for Rush Limbaugh, haven't you, which and the judge granted objection
that I think that this was prejudicial, which is true. But the whole
point was DC jury was most likely to side with Man. And we talked
before about how the damage award is completely ridiculous by the way Stein might be
faulted. I mean I'm all four him all the rest of that. I
think he put on a good show. But he did represent himself, which
was probably a mistake. Great case to let lawyers do the work. Yes,
that's right, and now he does need to have a lawyer, I
think for the appeal on the mat anyway, No, you don't you yourself?
Well well all right, well yeah, okay, I think that he
didn't. Okay, I'm going to say right now, I'm willing to represent
him for free on appeal, but I don't think that's the game here.
He wants to represent himself, he can find people to represent them for free.
Well, what the thing is if I think there is a danger that,
you know, politicized parties can pick their juries and their jurisdictions to bring
these cases that happened with tortlaugh for a long time, and finally the Supreme
Court essentially said, correct me, John, or maybe statutes were passed,
but you know, we don't want to have national standards for damages for BMW
set by a little county in Alabama, right, and Texas did the same
thing. It used to bet with Harris County used to be maybe what I
forget some little county in Texas was always where planets lawyers would go for product
liability suits and they'd win before a sympathetic jerk, and we finally fixed that
problem. I think this problem is going to be fixed too, because it
is quite insidious. And I think at the end of the day, even
the ACLU as rotten as they are are going to come out. I think
they did by the way. I think all the lefty organizations were on Mark
Stein's side in this lawsuit, and I think this is not gonna But maybe
I'm being too cheerful again, as you frequently accused me, my infernal optimism
called eternal infernal optimism, right, Okay, So I guess Babylon b time
and most of them are because for the obvious reasons, are going to be
concentrated around the SFTU. The that you get a kick out of some of
them though they're quite clever, dementia meds met their match, or DC area
pharmacies all out of stimulants. Biden opened State of the Union address by saying
hello to Dianne Feinstein. Oh yeah, White House explains secure fence. I
don't know if you guys saw the security they built around the Capitol building.
White House explained. Security fence around capital is to keep president from wandering off
grounds during speed All right, that's probably enough because we're really long. Yeah,
have a camealism, John, No, remember we've replaced it with the
articles. Yeah. Well right at this point, it's sort of yeah right,
okay. You know though, by the way, Steve, you you
mentioned that we're you know, we've got to replace some words with others.
Are we now going to replace Republicans with the word Americans? Well you know
they're going to give it to us, sure, right, yeah, all
right, well Steve, you want to help you check us out, Stephen,
John always drink geary whiskey meat. Let's go. Brandon and Steve,
God Save the Queen, Man and the Little sad Ricochet joined the conversation.