Well, whiskey coming same my pain. Harney's the Brain Whiskey 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 Powerlines International Woman of Mystery
Lucresha's gotta give it and let that whiskey blow where you're fling low down and
low well. Welcome everybody to the three Whiskey Happy Hour. It is I
Lucresha, the International Woman of Mystery, as host tonight and very happy to
welcome my co host Steve Hayward and also a bit of a man of mystery,
John You, because every time we jar him is he's in some new,
undisclosed location, in a bunker deep beneath I don't know what. Although
today he says he's in a prison cell, so I'm going to leave that
one alone. He says he's in a prison cell smaller than the one Donald
Trump is going to be in, and he's going to give us. However,
are you drinking whiskey or is it they don't allow it in your prison
cell? John Oh? So I'm at the University Club of Chicago, which
is an amazing place has three restaurants, three bars, and so I had
wonderful Eagle Eagle rare. I think Bourbon really quite good. But the great
thing is on a terrace, outdoor terrace on the eleventh floor, overlooking Lake
Michigan in a Gothic style. I think early turn of the century skyscraper really
something. But the great thing about being in Chicago is I gave a talk
at the Federal Society today for lunch, and at my table were two devoted
listeners of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, one and I promised to protect their
anonymity, but one was a judge. One. This judge said, so
I asked them both, when you think of the podcast. This judge was
very eager, very eager to give us a little advice. In fact,
so eager he wrote it on the back of his business card so that I
would not forget his advice. This is a judge. He said, you
must drink Jura j u r a Jura is a single malt whiskey from the
Isle of Jura in Scotland. And he says the reason why, he said,
I bet you don't know the reason why? Does anybody know why?
The reason? The reason why Jura would be of special interest to the hosts
and listeners of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour. No, is it the birthplace
of Adam Smith or something close. It is where George Orwell had a small
weekend house and apparently wrote in nineteen eighty eighty four, and or animal farm
there. Oh right, I think I didn't know that. Yeah, I've
had yours. It's very good. It's very good whiskey. Yes, okay,
So that's the first. Then the second listener, who, let's admit
it, like most of our listeners, is a fan boy of Lucretia and
is wonder it's been apparently from all I can tell swiping on match dot Com
to find Lucretia as yet the finder that will you guys tell Lucresia to lighten
up on Edmund Burke. You can't pay for that. You can't pay for
that kind of time. So those are my two listener comments from the people.
The friends I met today at lunch, we heard lighting up on Edmund
Burke. Can't do it? Lighten up on Steve, but I thought it
was too Yeah, but I think Edmund Burke is classic. Yeah, but
picking on Edmund Burke since you're such a fanboy of Edmund Burke is picking on
you too, Steve. So there you go, yes, yeah, yes,
it's a bank shot. I get that. Yeah, right, So
I have to start the first major topic today with I do have to pick
on John a little bit here because this is now the like the fourth major
cultural phenomenon, cultural war phenomenon that we had to inform John about last week.
It was the target, the bud light and the Disney thing, right,
that's what happened last the last time we met. He didn't know about
those. We had to tell him this week. John knew nothing about the
debacle at the White House when Biden decided to have a Pride celebration. But
of course, and what I invited? These just vile people, and two
of them decided, so if I'm going to have to get this straight.
So there was a man who had had a radical mess sect to me standing
next to a woman, excuse me, a trans woman, a woman who
had had a radical asssect and made pretending to be a man, and a
man who had had breast implants pretending to be a woman, and both of
them bared their breasts for the camera right after the one. The woman spoke
to Biden and it got huge all over the place, everywhere. I mean
even the mainstream media covered this. That's why I don't understand how John didn't
see it well, and the White House then dis about it, you know,
the Koreean, Jehan, Pierre, Paul Sart, whatever you say is
appropriate behavior right only after it became so obviously just foul and people were just
I mean people were shocked. Yeah, something like that would happen. That
the total lack of decorum, of protocol, all those other things. I
mean, there's a lot of protocol that even goes along with being in the
White House. I mean usually you have to go to you know, Market
Street and Sandrancisco to see a display like that. But now, yeah,
but you go there expecting that to happen. You don't go to the White
House lawn expecting that to happen. Well, I'm surprised, or maybe this
on your dance card, Lucretia that the other thing was, you know how
the the south part of south or is it you know, the rounded portico
on the one side of the White House facing Okay, we'll go you want
to tell no, no, please go ahead. So what they did is
they draped two American flags on either side of the Pride flag in the middle.
Now, apparently flag protocol is the American flag is always center and where
and highest and maybe largest too, probably, and they didn't do that.
They made the Pride flag and someone asked Karan John Pierre Paul start about it
in the press office, and she just waved it off and said, we're
proud of what we did to have this Pride event. And that's well,
I don't know it. Maybe like the Presidential Records Act, it's purely civil.
There's no criminal penalties. But we'll come to that too, right anyway,
So anyway, John, this thing happened, and uh, you know,
I don't know. I think part of it is, uh, you
know, they're is. I'm convinced where you now live in Marin County there
is some kind of like invisible shield over the county that that filters out any
of this kind of cultural news from getting to that county at all. And
that's why you never hear about these things. I do find it interesting,
John, because it's not like you're not a well informed person. Look,
why point of view is, I sometimes think we're overreacting to all this lbgt
Q plus. I think I got them all in. No, you didn't
even come Why do you see there's another proof of you don't know what the
plus is not good enough? Well, I don't even actually know what the
plus means, frankly, I just I see it there. I see like
polarization of an electron, because I remember that from high school science. Some
version of plus or minus pronouns can be which in Warlock they can be penguin.
And I mean there's so many genders now that have their own pronouns.
There's thousands of them. Job well, sometimes it will say plus plus,
which is that? Is that? What's the old negative or positive? Well,
that's the old thing, right is uh? Is that? You know,
there's the famous old story of the philosopher. You used to hear this
from what Cohen or one of the Cohens, who said, you know,
uh do a double negative makes a positive. But there's no such thing as
a double positive making a negative. And some heckler in the audience says,
yeah, yeah, which I think so. My My my serious point is
I think there's a difference between you know, these sort of symbolic things that
these companies and even governments too. I don't really think they hurt anybody.
Um, you know, if it's you know, if companies like Target or
Disney or bud Lee want to try to appeal to this you know, demographic,
however small it is, or what they're really doing is appealing to write
the people who are sympathetic to the demographic, who want to pretend they're very
tolerant and liberal lives, you know, the let them try, right,
Let them try, and the marketplace will judge them. I don't see why
people are getting so upset about that, because we have a choice. You
know, we don't have to shop at Target. We can shop at Walmart.
The ones I think people should be worried about is, you know,
when the compulsion of the state is evolved, like high schools h you know,
teaching things, or high schools getting rid of uh, you know,
bathrooms based on sex or you know, the nub and you don't see the
relationship, you don't. I could always see companies and culture in institutions trying
to encourage people in the culture to have the positive view of these groups.
But I don't see the compulsion of the state in that. I think that's
I think it's people if you think they're misguided, they're but they're these corporate
executives, educators, journalists, and people movie stars. But we don't have
to listen to them. Maybe that's why I don't read the storice because I
just see it. Oh, here's another stupid thing that some celebrities said.
And so I just sort of or the Dodgers, right, the Dodgers can't
make me. I mean, I already hate the Dodgers anyway, so this
is just piling it on. But I don't have to go to Dodgers.
I don't have to agree with them. Okay, So I don't know what
I'm asking is why did people on the right get so use People on the
left have been boycotting and complaining and shutting down the speech of anybody. I
mean, remember Chick fil A is my best example. Chick fil A,
you know, Christian company closed on Sundays. That was enough for the LGBTQ
nyp x x q Q plus plus people to boycott them. Okay, so
they had a lot of support from people on the right, and that seemed
like a really good thing, and then all of a sudden they decided to
go the other direction, and they no longer support any sort of Christian values,
and they're courting, courting the left in many many ways. And oh
you know, I won't. I won't go there anymore. I won't.
The left was really good at those boycotts, and they worked, and they
forced people throughout the culture to do things their way. And let me one
last thing, Stephen, and I'll let you go. But Richard Samuelson sent
us an email he got this past week from AT and T celebrating Father's Day
for your father and their happy day. I forget exactly what it said,
your father singular and their happy day? How is a father not a his?
How is a father not a his? Why do they have to shove
it down our throats? Are you sure that wasn't just a gradical Well maybe
maybe it was. Oh it was very obvious. It was done several times.
You didn't you see it? He sent it to YouTube. But anyway,
So if I want to not shop at AT and T, which I've
been for with whom I've been a customer for years, it's it's a pretty
major thing. I just don't want AT and T to shove that down my
throat. I don't want I don't want to turn on my own podcast and
here for breeze. Tell me how their month is so important and isn't that
let's be our owners. We're here. We're here from a lot of a
lot of listeners saying, hey, you guys, can't believe the ads I'm
getting. Of course, the listeners you should understand to say a public service
announcement. Uh, the ads are not in our control. They're localized.
John seems to get McDonald's ads because that shows their spot. I know,
I get McDonald's Dutch, I get like these great American company ads. I
don't know why you're listening to the creature that causes the the AI to give
you for precess. But here's the thing, John is, Yeah, you
don't have a culture war bone on your body. Okay, that's fine.
Oh I'm Mike. I mean, like, what's the big deal? That's
what I think. Michael, You're like, it's a big deal. We
shouldn't be fighting about a lot of so five years normal for teachers to force
little children to put their pronouns down or to choose different pronouns, or to
groom them into becoming a different sex, and to have a school district officials
past rules that say they have mandatory they have to hide it from the parents.
That only becomes acceptable when all of those corporations and so on. Yeah,
well push this agenda. So that's my belief. This week, the
Secretary of Health and Human Services but Sarah here from California, has said that
the my dedministration is preparing to cut off grants to hospitals in any states that
ban or restrict, you know, hormone treatment for children, for people under
eighteen. So the point is this, the Left is the aggressor on all
this. If this was simply a matter of saying live and let live,
leave people alone, give them, you know, support them to the extent
that I feel they need to support something. But instead they are the aggressors
and all this. And there was an interesting moment into hearing this week,
and I posted a little clip on Powerline on this and it was some very
powerful testimony from a Oh, by the way, that's the other thing is
if you raise a criticism about what's going on, well you're a bigot and
a hater. And there's this great moment in a house hearing this week where
a very I forget the moment's name, but very qualified doctor going through that
there is very a little serious scientific evidence on behalf of treating children with hormone
blockers and all the you know, really radical things that have to take placed
to do this. It's one thing to say, you know, you're gay
or lesbian or something. It's another thing to say, we're now going to
give you chemical castration, essentially in life waltering surgery to change at the age
of fourteen. And so she was going through, how all the European nations
that have now stopped this, Cold England, all the Scandinavian countries, and
I got to thinking that nobody had the wit to ask the question that I
would have asked, which is, you know, we always hear from the
left how enlightened and tolerant and open minded those Scandinavian socialists are, and see
yet they have all slammed the door very hard on all this. My question
would have been to one of the defenders of this, So are all those
Scandinavian socialists so they now suddenly bigots and haters. So there's part of it
is the recoil against being told that, you know, if you have reservations
about this, I think you're well founded. That you're a biggot and the
hater and by the way, you know, and then you get hyperbole about
supposedly banning books in Florida, which isn't true. And so here's the thing
about I'm kind of with. I mean, the marketplace is speaking about Target
and bud Light and all the rest of that, but only only because of
the outcry. Yeah, there's lots of people not I was standing behind somebody
in line at a different store the other day and they're saying, you,
after this, we'll have to go to Target and see what they have.
And I wanted to tell them what kind of people go to Target? What's
wrong with you? Are you just? Are you groomers too? Are you
pedophiles? I mean, that's how angry it makes me, because you know
what they sell at Target. Well, oh, well that relates to another
part of this, which was, you know, the female athletes. There's
another one now from University of Pennsylvania's come forward and said, you know,
we were told that we would lose our scholarships, we risked being it maybe
even expelled from the college if we criticize Leah Thomas swimming in the women's swim
team. So that kind of thing is going on. So then along comes
Target and okay, it's one thing that they want to have Pride Month and
a rainbow banner, but they were advertising and selling. They withdrew these,
by the way, but they were at the beginning of this selling you know,
Tuck Friendly quote unquote women swimwear for and that just sort of inflamed that
whole controversy, and I think Target thought better of this. They still have
those displays up, but they've withdrawn some of the merchandise. So the marketplace
is speaking. And by the way, there's evidence in the last couple of
weeks that corporations are starting very fast to back off on all of this because
they realize that there's a market punishment for it. So there maybe I'm with
you, John, and that's where I agree with you about that part.
John. What I don't agree with is that it's harmless. I don't agree
with you that it's harmless, and I don't I guess what I see is
the left's cultural war, as Steve says, though the aggressor has been so
radically successful in such a short amount of time, where on television they can
put I know I've talked about this before. But they can put a professor
from a university who says, why shouldn't adults Why shouldn't it be lawful for
adults to force children to have sex with them against their will? Because we
force children to do things all the time like go to their sister's recital.
That guy's mainstream now because all of these corporations celebrate it. We see it
on TV or I don't know, I don't watch TV anymore, but you
see ads everywhere, and that has an effect on people, making them think
this is normal. I guess if I'm going to be normal, if I'm
going to be hip, if I'm going to be up with the times,
I have to go along with this too. I have to take my kid
to drag Queen's Story Hour because if I don't, my suburban mom friends are
going to think I'm a bigot or something. You know, that's the problem
with it. They win if we don't fight back hard. That's what I
believe. Can I add one, we're early beating up on you now,
John, there's been beating up on him. I'm really not trying to.
I didn't notice. Well there is a philosophical angle to this too, and
and partly I'm thinking about Pat Pat de Neane's new book about the post liberal
order. Part of what's going on here is we supposedly have this epidemic of
gender dysphoria, and I'm dubious that it's really a truly an epidemic among young
people, that it's a sword in the last decade. It does remind me
a bit of anorexia thirty years ago and other things of this kind well,
and social media. There's a contagging effect of all this. But at the
back of all this is something much more serious that we don't talk about,
which is the premise of this from the left is unlimited individual autonomy to define
yourself, including that you know, the really crazy people say, well,
I really I'm a furry. I really want to be an animal, and
you know, people will dress up. Really do they see how they do
that? People want to be animals? And are they at some point?
I mean, at first I'm thinking, what is this like Civil War reenactment?
They're having fun being animals? Fine, but it does appear that some
people are deeply committed to this idea and they're actually serious about this in a
way that's incomprehensible. They get surgeries. They well, I don't, well,
go to mean surgery. Just send them to the Serengetti with no clothes
and implements and see how long they last. Ah. Now, see you're
bringing up the core point, John, and then I'll stop, which is
nature right there? Yeah, the core of so much of the left is
the denial of nature, human nature, and the bounds of nature. And
by the way, I mean, you know, I've started tracking this more
than ten years ago. Bringing up the subject of human nature on a college
campus can be a risky thing to do because it does introduce a challenge to
the premise of unlimited liberal autonomy. And that's what some of the national conservatives
like Pat nine are on about, saying we need to rethink all this.
This is a long running story. But I'll try to sort of stop there
and say this has got a lot of implications beyond just brag Queen's story hour
or you know, targets, bathing suits and things of that kind. It's
a serious thing going on here. So yeah, I don't blame you for
ignoring it, though, John, I try not to. I mean,
I really don't. It's not like it's clickbait for me. I don't want
to know, but I guess I just it's everywhere, you know, it's
just everywhere. So okay, change the subject onto something John wants to talk
about. You're gonna have to convince me on this one, John, because
I don't get it. So John has an answer for Trump's legal difficulties.
Yeah, outside the box answer about the indictment. So we probably we've talked
about on the show about the indictment already, and everybody else has problems.
It has, everybody else has here. But I haven't heard anybody says my
idea for a solution, which would be and it would be I think it
would be earth shattering for the political firmament. Would be what if Biden took
the high road, did the statesmanlike thing and pardon Trump. He would pardon
Trump and say, okay, your condition of you accepting the pardon is that
you admitted you did these things, but you're completely flee free and year no
prosecution. You can never be prosecuted, and now let's have a free and
fair fight. Monoamano. For the twenty twenty four presidential election, what did
that be the statesmanlike thing to do? It? Would you know? It
would aboard this idea of prosecuting former predent aboard the idea of prosecuting former presidents.
It would stop us from crossing that line into prosecuting the candidate of the
major opposition party for president. And I think it would restore the annoyman and
I think Biden would get big points from the electorate for being the statesman rather
than being the one who launched a biased, biased prosecution. I mean,
I mean, I think actually, in many ways that was one of the
greatest things for it ever did, was to pardon Nixon, and Biden could
have that sort of similar judgment of history. But anyway, yes, I
know the odds are very low, but wouldn't it be an unbelievably statesmanlike thing
for Biden to do. I also thought, I recommended in twenty sixteen that
Trump should have pardoned Hillary in the same way, but yeah, he never
did either. You know, I am going to be very interested to see
what comments we get from listeners on this idea, So all right, I'll
give you a couple of my observations. First of all, Biden has neither
the magnanimity nor the cynicism to think of the possibilities of that maneuver, because,
by the way I think it would be could be a genius political move
for some of the reasons you suggest, but he has neither the magnanimity to
present it the way you did, nor the cynicism to think through how it
might divide the Republican electorate or the risks to the look. Remember, there's
a lot of Democrats whose fondest things to see Trump go to prison, and
they would be very discipline. The MSNBC people will be out of their minds.
I can't imagine the partner would be offered without the condition Trump not run.
Trump would never take that condition. I doubt Trump would take the condition
that he admit to wrong doing because he doesn't think he did anything wrong and
he has to stick to that position and maybe he should. So I don't
think he would ever agree to that condition. Um So, I think it's
a mood point. But you know, I do think it would be a
genius moved to make a clear and unconditional pardon and then say what you said,
John, let's now go to the electorate on the issues and not on
this crazy business. And in what universe does Biden want to go to the
electorate on the issue. Oh no, I don't think. I think you're
right. He doesn't have any of the This would be a good plot for
a novel, I think, John, But it doesn't. It doesn't exist
in this world. Yeah, I mean the Nixon pardon, remember, hurt
Ford quite a lot. I mean, it arguably cost him reelection. I
mean, you know, liberating Poland and the debates was a blunder too.
But I didn't have time to check this today. But my recollection, which
I'm sure is incomplete and maybe wrong, is that the four people wanted to
get some kind of concession from Nixon, either that he admit guilt or not
contests. I forget what it was, and Nixon's people refused, and Ford
went ahead with the pardon anyway because he wanted to put it all behind us.
And it was only in later years that people like you know, he
got the John F. Kennedy profile and Courage Award, what twenty years after
he was out of office. Right at the time, everybody was after him
for it was corrupt and you might remember, John, Actually you won't,
you were too young. Ford took the rare step of a sitting president appearing
before either a house or Senator, maybe joint committee to answer questions about the
pardon, to clear the air that there was no corrupt bargain here. I
just thought it was the right thing to do, and the president does not
have to do that, but he did yes anyway, and you can't see
Biden ever thinking doing that either. So I love the idea. I love
listeners think it's because it's crackpot as usual. John Well, I no,
I get. I totally understand what John's saying. It's just like I said,
it's doesn't work in this universe. I do want to mention something Steve
said about dividing the Republicans. I have been never in my life, and
you know how much I despise Republicans most of the time. Anyway, the
bill bar thing the Republicans who are coming out and piling on. Here's what's
happening. The Biden administration, the powers in Washington. They need Trump to
go down something awful. And this whole scam of an indictment against Trump is
so ridiculous. But unless they can get the Bill barrs and the Mitch McConnell's
and the Paul Ryan's of the world to come out and say, oh,
Trump. What Trump did was treason. What Trump did it's not even in
the same plane as what Hillary did or what you know, and they go
on and on and on. Stupid asked Jonah Goldberg had a piece in the
LA Times the other day, and it made me just one to go shoot
him because, oh, you know, nobody's trying to defend what it is
that Trump really did. They're just talking about, well, Hilary did it
too. He is so full of you know what that is. I at
least maybe he doesn't count me as important enough. I there's absolutely perfectly good
reasons to defend what Trump did. And we talked about him last week.
I'm not going to do it again. But the idea that these Republicans are
coming out in their smarmy sort of way, oh yeah, well you know
Trump's really going to go down this time. I hate them all. I
hate them. I just want you to know that I feel better now,
thank you better. How do we get off on all this because you said
something about it, if if if John's proposed scheme actually worked, it would
actually tear apart the Republican Party because they wanted him to go down, I
mean, work the ounther side of the street, which is I think there
are a lot of Republicans who are in this sort of symmetrical cage match with
the Trump hating left, which is, they want Trump to fight this.
They kind of would like to have a trial. They want him to defy
the man. And I think there are some Trumpsters who would be disappointed if
Biden gave him a pardon. That's why. That's why. Also the pardon
thing is a good I mean, it's a useful thing to think about because
there's a story out this week that went right after the Mari mar Laga search,
Trump's new lawyers said, let's go have a lead deal with the Justice
Department. We could get you no jail time, a misdemeanor, maybe a
fine, and the whole thing will go away. It'll be quiet. And
Trump would have none of it. He's not interested in any compromise. They
said. She saw this as an opportunity to, you know, to fight
that. He wanted to have a fight with the just Department. And so
I think one thing the pardons part an offer, which shows that it actually
it actually helps Trump to be prosecuted. He doesn't want to have a pardon,
he might he wants to, he wants to win. He thinks it
increases his support in the Republican Party. Yeah, and I think it's institutionally
a terrible thing for the republic Yeah. Well, John, can a person
decline a pardon? I've never Yeah, sure, you have to accept it.
So that's why usually you can say, to take the pardon, you
have to admit that you did it. Well, what if he didn't have
that stipulation, what if he just said, your pardon, that's it.
Period, You can reject, you can you can decline a parton And so
the second problem then, also John, is that you know, we have
these two other prosecutions uh in process. Right, you have Latitia James in
New York wants to bring I don't know, some securities fraud or something about
the New York business. And then there's the Georgia stuff, the Georgia Grand
jury. And and by the way, these things seem to be time to
drop every two or three months, so that there's a new thing, come
at Trump. It will generate in other weeks with the headlines from now till
the end of the year. And so even a pardon for this case I
would not get Trump. You know what, happens in the next two cases
were back in the same place we are right now. It doesn't have part
of federal pardon, does not relieve you of state crimes. So though I
don't find the state charges to be so, it wouldn't put an end of
this whole circus, is that? Yeah? So what about Trump's This is
why I think he wouldn't accept the pardon, because Trump's been very fond of
saying lately, and this is one of his more powerful arguments. This isn't
They're not coming after me, They're coming after you. And you know that
that that has resonance with people because because we've seen that they'll go after the
Daniel Perry's of the world, and they'll go after you know, they won't
prosecute just scum of the earth, and they'll prosecute good, decent citizens.
They'll put January six protesters in jail and solitary confinement. So people are beginning.
They'll you know, show up with a swat team at a preacher's house
and wait with his eleven kids or whatever it was. You know that on
and on and on, the stories get worse and worse, and when Trump
says it's it's this isn't me fighting. This isn't just about me fighting this,
because they're going to come after you if I don't fight this. And
I think that's powerful because I think it's true. I think that anybody who
supports Trump is in danger of being taken off after by the police state,
that is, the Biden administration and their their Adam cronies in state governments.
I believe that now it's it's pretty obvious the idea that they would do this
indictment or allow those state indictments and not just you know, somebody should have
come down hard on Letitia idiot she is and Alvin braggs is even. I
mean, the two of them together probably can't reach room temperature for an IQ.
Why doesn't the Democratic Party put us stop to this, because of course
they won't anyway. I'm I'm with John on the fundamental issue that this is
terrible for the Republic, but we may not have a choice but to fight
it out at this point. I agree with you, John, for once,
I don't think you are although you said you are. Now I agree
with the party. Where do you say this whole thing is a terrible development.
It's an absolutely I mean, we may never recover from it, is
what it comes down to. If you're if the Republicans were to get into
power, the only thing that's probably going to save us is the Republicans are
never going to do tit for tat because you know, they refuse to they
refuse to fight, and so they probably wouldn't go after Biden the same way
these people have gone after Trump. But somebody will someday. I mean,
the president's been set and it's just let's use the police state of the federal
government to take out our political opponents. Isn't that handy? Yeah, that's
really I don't care what you think about Trump. You can hate Trump and
still look at this and say this is this is just not acceptable. That's
my opinion. You guys know that I don't have to tell you, so
let me ask you, Steve Um. Well, it will be interesting to
see if we have any commenters who who agree with John that this would be
the great statesmanlike thing for for the pedophile, senile president to do. It'd
be great, um. And then then the mop head could tell us all
why why he did it? Um, And so yeah, they'd be wonderful,
wouldn't it Steve, you have a tribal adoption case you want to talk
about, Well, I don't know that. I mean, the only we're
you know, we're waiting on the big case of course, the Harvard and
unc an affirmative action. Then what else, John, do we still haven't
in our big cases? Yeah, we have the bigger not bigger, but
really big one is that canceling of the student loans. Oh right, the
student loan case. Right, so you know we were hoping here, and
then the wedding the religious wedding planners the third oh right, yeah, so
those three those three years still and you know, here we are middle of
June and we're hoping for another. You know, the Voting Rights Act case
last week was big case. Though we get maybe one this week and we
didn't. What we got was I don't think we should spend a lot of
time on this, but we got this case, uh involving an statute I
forget the name of it from the nineteen seventies and am being Child Welfare Act.
Was that the Indian Child Weelf reacted and what the court upheld by the
seven two vote was that the act was constitutional in particular it's stipulations that Native
American children who are up for adoption, the adoption agencies could be restricted to
placing the children with a family in the tribe or with another Indian tribe elsewhere
before you went to the more general population something like that, and it had
been changes. It's it's even worse than that. It how any in any
Indian tribe, not even the one the kid is from, to invoke their
right to force adoption of a child to go to an Indian Indian parents and
override all state law about adoptions. And states generally have full power over family
law. So that I didn't read. I didn't have time to read the
case, but from the news accounts I read in a couple of you know,
short analyzes here and there online, it seemed like the equal protection challenge
failed. What they said was this is not Indians have always been recognized as
a certain amount of sovereignty, and so that makes it not. I mean,
I've always made a lot about that, those little sentences people pass over,
those little clauses people pass over in the Constitution to talk about Indians not
taxed, and that's always an interesting phase that no one thinks about. It's
not much relevant anymore, but what it was was defining who was part of
the political unity. If an Indian, a Native American, you know,
participated in the New American society, you know, they had a job,
or you know, they moved into Philadelphia or so forth and became a citizen
and their citizen. But if they want to stay on with their indigenous tribes,
then we leave them alone. I mean that's the notion, right,
And so there seems to be a legacy that Indians were always considered a separate
people if they wanted to be, and that's kind of the way things have
fallen out in our history. So I don't know. I did notice that
the dissenters or Thomas and Scalia, who said, wait a minute, it
ought to be they ought to have strict scrutiny from equal protection grounds, And
I mean that it seems a good argument. But I think the majority opinion
John was written by Barrett Right, who who had died a Haitian child,
let us remember, and that attracted a lot of attacks from the race spaders
like Abrahm Kendy when she was nominated in really awful ways. Right anyway,
Well, I think this is one level more interesting and one level less interesting.
So the less interesting thing is that the you're right, the equal protection
clause argument failed, and an equal protection clause our argument could be how can
the federal government take race into account at all in adoptions? But it wasn't
that at loss. It's that the courts said, we can't reach the question
because this lawsuit was brought against the federal government by Texas, not by any
individual parent. It was brought by Texas, and the courts said, how
does Texas have a right to claim the federal government is violating equality amongst the
races because this Texas doesn't have a race, so they so Actually, the
equal protection clause claim just needs to be brought by say, non Indian parents
who adopt an Indian kid and then Indian kids taken away or they are not
allowed to get an Indian kid in the first place. But it's more interesting
because what the majority already did, and this is why Thomas and Alito dissented,
is a majority said Indians are different and so Indian. The power the
federal government over Indians is so vast that it can override all state family law.
And states are the power, you know, states are the ones that
regulate all FA divorces, marriages, adoptions, and so on for several reasons.
Is what's interesting is like, for one, there's an Indian Commerce clause
which is separate than the interstate commerce clause, and that seems this Indian Commerce
clause seems to be way broader than right the domestico because I don't think people
would say, oh, the federal government under the commerce clause can take over
all adoptions in the country, right, I think that would lose at the
court. But if it's the Indian Commerce clause, suddenly you can take over
adoptions in the country. Then the second point that the Court makes, which
I think is quite weak, is the treaty power allows the federal government to
do things it's not otherwise allowed to do. Than Justice Thomas says, Oh,
by the way, there's no treaty here. Okay, that's a great
point. Can I add that the fact that they're the centers in this one
more the only interesting case of the week. You may have missed this,
John, I don't know since you've been traveling, but Governor to Santis had
an interesting comment earlier in the week. He said, no, no,
I'm elected. Yeah, what'd he say? Well, we're gonna love it.
He said, if I'm elected president, I'm going to appoint justices like
Thomas and Alito. I'm not those squishes like Trump appointed. Did he really
yes, I didn't say squishes like TRUMPA. I forget what language you use.
But oh see, he had said that that would have been incredible.
Well, well, you know, it does take it back to uh.
I remember it was in I think two thousand and eight, and actually George
W. Bush had said the same thing in two thousand and two thousand and
eight. Rudy Giuliani, who I met early in this campaign, by the
way, to talk about energy. He said, if I'm elected president,
I'm going to point justice is like Thomas and Scalia. And I almost want
to post an article for the Washington Post because I knew the op ed editor
of Time it was now with the New York Times anyway, and it was
going to be really a marriage which one. You know, they're not the
same, you know, um right, And it goes back to that old
argument you had about the two of them. But so I think the Sandis
is actually onto something here. He's out ahead of you know. He went
on to pray. You know, he said he have Gorst and Barrett they're
you know, they're fine people. They've done some good things, but they're
not as good as Thomas and Alito. And I'm gonna make Mike sure mine
or as good as Thomas. I thought that was a lot of fun for
him. Yeah, yeah, good for him. So that leads me to
me, do you think though, that the Republican primary voters get that Oh?
Sorry, do you think that Republican primary voters will get that distinction?
Because you know, if you think about it, um, So, if
this is Barrett's decision, that's not you know, this is her Yeah,
I know one, you know, I I think like each justice gets one
bad decision. To me, if this is Barrett's course, such as is
Bostock the one that said right title seven sexual orient and his Indian case in
Oklahoma Havanah right just voted with Chief just as Roberts in the racial redistricting case.
So each of those have you know, each of them have actually have
at least one, uh, I would say bad vote in an important case.
So far. Yeah, I don't know if it'll be yeah, yeah,
I don't know. So this is my So here's something you guys aren't
very good at, which is how to think like a moderate. So if
you're a moderate about that one. So here's so for you guys, you
two, here's my how to think like a moderate one on one, which
is my hope. Is the reason they're doing that is they're giving these small
victories to the left before they strike the big victory for conservatives on the horror
Affirmative Act case. So my sense is the way Roberts or Kavanaugh thinks is
if I'm gonna, you know, give the Republic, you know, not
from the conservatives, a big victory, and I got to give some things
to the liberals so that it so that I look moderate and everybody doesn't hate
me too much. Yeah, So how often was that done, say by
the Warren Court. No, No, that's not a court of modest This
is how I kind of try to understand Justice O'Connor or Justice Kennedy. Who
wants to understand that? What I mean, it's you want to understand it
so you can stamp it out. Maybe we're just asking to get smacked around,
John. No, I mean, like this is how a lot of
people think, right, Like a lot of people in the country are moderates,
and they I think like, this is why I used to understand them.
Justice Kennedy or O'Connor would be like, well, the more they would
do something for conservatives, I'd be really worried, because I meant, there's
gonna be a big decision that they're going to give to the liberals because they
just feel the need to balance. Well, it is true that the Voting
Rights Act case did confuse the left. Last week. It was, you
know, the agree in the Guardian and the Republic that oh my god,
the court, what my goodness, they actually saved the Voting Rights Act and
we can't we can't explain this, but they're still terrible. So my point,
mac John is if that view is true, and I'm with Lucretia,
that's a terrible way to think about things and calculate things if you're justice.
But if that's true, then the Harvard UNC decision better be quirking strong.
In other words, we don't want another sequel tobacky. In the Michigan case,
it says, well, well, you can't have quotas, but in
a bunch of weazel words, it better be unequivocal like Brownbert actually brown sport
one that on a never mind. The point is to be unequivocal and lay
the ground so that every district court you walk into with a case challenging a
practice, the federal judge says, this decision is really clear, and you
can't do what you're doing otherwise it's not going to change very much, is
what I think. Okay, So here's here's my point. I wanted to
bring up John and that is uh, Steve. Actually, I guess had
a blog post and I read it. I forgot it was Steve's. It
was in my mind. Um, sorry it was not. But I had
a friend called me and say, you know, Kennedy versus Bremerton overturned lemon
Lemon. The lemon test was abandoned in that case. But you haven't seen
even the slightest difference. Will you tell people what you what you're talking about.
The lemon test was basically the one that says you can't pray anywhere where
you might Yeah, I hear it right where someone might hear it, because
somehow that's a and and so it was a three pronged test. I don't
remember the prongs off the top of my head right now, but um,
basically it destroyed the possibility in many cases of being able to say, for
instance, a prayer at the beginning of a high school or at the end
of a high school graduation. If there's ever a time when, even if
you don't leave a god, you ought to at least you know, that's
on that one, and pray when you're sending out a bunch of dumb high
school kids into the world. Anyway, That's always been my belief. But
so Lemon was a terrible decision, and the Chords abided by it after what
almost fifty years In Kennedy versus Bremerton, they said, we're abandoning it.
And they know there's some historical circumstances this and that, but nothing. Nothing
has changed anywhere. Nothing people. You know, I had to explain it,
Steve. It ought to have been a major decision. Think about the
New York case, the gun control case. Are you guys any freer Not
that you'd do it, but are you any freer to buy the fifty cow
I just bought? Are you are you able to buy suppressors for your guns?
Are you able to you know? On and on and on and on
and on. All of these things, not just state by state, but
the ATF is constantly looking for new ways to impose ridiculous rules on gun owners
And you know, so what happened with the Second Amendment cases, Every single
one of them has gotten progressively more in favor of fewer restrictions by states,
fewer restrictions on gun ownership, etc. And then we talk about the Harvard
case. How many of us really think that even if the Supreme Court comes
out with a very strong opinion, the kind Steve said that he wants that
it's going to make any difference. How many of us think it's going to
make any difference. Well, I mean, I understand the good reasons for
skepticism. Uh, and you know my post was about how they're already getting
ready to cheat. On the other hand, I think this is true,
John, And you can say more about it. You know, prop was
a propine what's the proper probably the one band affirmative action in California. It
has had some effect on it admissions in California. Oh yeah, what was
it, Prop one ninety eight? I can't remember the right name of it,
something like that. Yeah, any way, it had Now they have
it's a little hard to tell, uh, they have, but but it
didn't make some changes for the good. And uh, you know, Gail
Harriet has all the numbers on all this. By the way, John did
I got interviewed by that Michael Powell, reporter of the New York Times about
all of this. Did he talk to you? Also? I think no
he didn't. Okay, Uh, Well they were they were looking for the
moderates on campus. Well, he called me up. And anyway, he
had a big story about all this this last week. I was not quoted
in it, which is fine with me. I'm never unhappy if I'm not
quoted in a New York Times story. Uh. And uh, anyway he
was talking about active was a great story. He was talking about how liberals
were shocked when the attempt to restore affirmative action of the ballot box two years
ago failed and failed big and failed big among minorities. I mean, that's
totally smashed their whole worldview, right. Uh. And now we're waiting for
this decision. And I think he's gonna be more stories on this. I
think Pale's actually pretty good on the on these issues. Anyway, He's a
reporter of the New York Times who writes about cares well. He actually is
a dissident at the New York Times. You should actually read his work with
care of well, you should worth my time. Well, that may be
true, but it usually he's actually one of the renegades at the at the
Times and in the mainstream media, he's probably a moderate. Well about Smith
College, and I forget what the story was, but it was. The
story came out very harsh on Smith College is a year and a half ago.
Now, I agree with Luke. I agree with lucretious point though,
that the Supreme Court decision of the Harvard case standing alone isn't going to change
a lot. Yeah, it's gonna need a lot of follow up. There's
gonna just be like Brown. You know, people say there was not serious
desegregation in the South until nineteen sixty four, that it had to take dozens
of cases. You have to keep suing because all the schools are gonna do
what some are already trying in this k through twelve s them is just get
rid of all objective measures. Yeah, well, you know, get rid
of the SAT a lot of them. Mark Well, actually John and GPAs
have you know, like like what's a geographic geographic diversity EQUI and so you're
gonna have to you know, it's not it's not the end of the beginning.
It's not the beginning of the end. It's the end of the beginning.
So there's going to take a lot more effort decade, maybe try to
route this all out, actually go. I think I think that I challenged
a little bit. I don't think it was really sixty four. I mean
the Johnson illustration a little bit. But you know when school the segregation really
took off was under Nixon, and Nixon's Justice Department really said to time's up,
South, You're gonna have to do this now, and we're gonna be
after you. And I think you're gonna need something like the Trump Justice Department.
Remember they opened a case against Yale, which the Biden Justice Department dropped
immediately on taking office. And I think you're going to need the the a
next Republican administration if it's a strong decision to be all over all the colleges
and universities and just making so yeah, I know, the good the good
thing about it, tell me if you guys think I'm wrong about this.
The good thing about and why I'm ultimately optimistic that this campaign will succeed is
it has the support of a supermajority of Americans, right, Like most Americans
don't want race use. It's this small managerial elite and our colleges and universities
and schools, you know, K through twelve and all those people, all
Lucretia was saying, are in favor of LGBT. Whatever. Corporate executives,
the media, they're the ones who want to force it down Americans throats.
But if the American people and the courts want to do it, I think
the courts give cover, you know, to what the American people already want
to do because they have their right instincts. I agree that the American people
have the right instacts. I'm gonna bring up the one that's going to make
you think I'm crazy. But another Supreme Court case, which I think is
a great Supreme Court case. I think it was Justice Elito. Do you
know the case I think you say, Mattel versus Metal versus tam about the
slants. Do you remember the case about and remember the Patent Office said you
can't register that name because it's I don't know, disparages or brings into contempt
or disrepute persons living or dead, something like that, and the Supreme Court
Justice Alito said, there's no there's no constitutional restriction allowed on hate speech.
Hate speech is probably one of the more protected kinds of speech. We like
hate speech because you need to say that. But but my point is so,
I actually, when when I teach a couple of couple of lower division
classes, I sometimes do multiple choice tests to keep students doing the reading so
they actually do better a better job on their essays. I don't believe in
multiple choice tests, but that's the reason for it. And I inevitably in
my comm law classes put a question on there which of the following can be
under Supreme Court opinions, Which of the following can be restricted by the government,
And inevitably they will pick hate speech that it can be restricted. And
nobody believes that we actually can engage in hate speech, and certainly our social
media and all those other people like to say hate speeches and protected under the
constitution. You know. So it's just another example of it's a little harder.
You know, Hamilton was right. The weakest branch of government, the
least dangerous branch of government, and it needs the executive even to enforce its
decisions. Right, That's where I guess where we are, and I'm anticipating
that John and I are going to be right about this one, Steve,
even though they'll be massive because I think the elites have more power than they
should. Maybe that's the best way to put it. Yeah, well,
I mean the college administrations are rotten. My post about this this week was
a couple of college presidents who were already saying, you know, we anticipate
the court's going to hand down an adverse ruling, but we're committed to diversity,
which translates to we're going to figure out every way to cheat we possibly
can. And all these statements are written sort of the same, changed the
yeah no exactly, which is out of time of this di statement, which
explains to me too just briefly mentioned. It's not directly related, but close
enough. We had another episode this week of a university getting caught being completely
idiotic. So we remember back at Christmas, we were joking about Stanford's list
of troublesome words that you couldn't use, like America, right, oh,
don't don't forget. We had a contest to see who could use the most
words. Of course, Creasia Cresia one going away. She even won before
he even started the contest. I know, the first five minutes. It
was the week before. I wasn't even trying well. Johns Hopkins University had
a glossary of terms for Pride Month Bright LGBTQ plus and they defined lesbian as
a non man who likes other non men, and then it went on to
say gay as a man who was attracted to other men. So women were
raised completely. Well, they got caught, and they took the whole thing
down, just as Stanford did. Uh. And they have this thing posted
saying, well, that language was not reviewed and the whole process is under
review right now and realized this language is. So the point is they got
caught the way Stanford got caught. Oh that. My third example was the
the woman who gave the the viciously anti Semitic commencement address at City University of
New York Law School. Yeah, and the and the and then it got
a lot of press, whereupon the administration said, oh, we totally the
ploor the hate speech of that graduate. That's totally inappropriate. Well, you
can see on the video the dean of the law school applauding the woman after
she finished the talk, and I've seen reports again you don't know if they're
true, but that she had shared her speech ahead of time with the administration,
which seems odd to me. I don't know why you would do that.
But the broader point is they shouldn't be surprised at this language. They
know that there's a huge outside lobbying force and inside in the faculty promoting you
know, anti violently anti Israel sentiments, So why should they be surprised if
this happens. But they got caught. So the point is that I think
they like the self flagellation Steve, because if you'll recall, her speech also
included how oppressive the college administration had been and how amazing it was, but
they made it through considering how you know, those they were worse than the
worst of slave owners, because you know, they were so oppressive and they
had these these these amazing graduates practically had to clawl through broken glass their entire
time. You know, it's just and so I'm sure that when the College
administration, the Cooney administrations, so the Sunny administration, you get them confused,
saw it, they said, oh, yeah, that's us, we
made it so miserable for those those poor girls standard refuge Jesus. And you
know that's why they couldn't tell her she couldn't give her speech. So yeah,
that's my thought on the matter. Sorry. And then then then somebody
from some some tiny some community college in California decided to speech. Right,
yeah, yeah, good times, good times. It is good times.
It is good times. John, I have to ask you, do you
have a favorite satirical novel? So my we were doing satirical books, so
Mike, there's so my first nominees, why not sure if they're satirical,
would have been um, Animal Farm by George orwell maybe I'm not sure if
nineteen eighty four a satirical But then I you know, just for fun,
I mean there's satirical society. I don't think they really have any deep political
message that they're not as interesting as Animal Farm would be. The Jeeves and
Wooster books. Wood House, Yeah, yeah, PG Woodhouse. Those are
really funny and they are a satire of the English class system, you know
because the lord you know, uh Worcester, I mean obvious. You know
you're just looking at the names. You don't need to know you can tell
like like Seinfeld goes, who is naming their kids Jeeves? Would you ever
name your kids Jeeves? Like you guys making sure that the guy's going to
grow up to be a butler. So Wooster um right, it's just like
a foppish, shallow English lord of some kind who just goes about from day
to day trying to figure out how to borrow money from friends or as relatives,
and wasted on drinking and buying clothes and driving around a nice car.
And Jeeves the butler is, you know, the soul of the working class,
sensible, reliable, always thinking of the right thing to do, even
before Wooster gets in trouble, always finding that, you know, the clever
solution at the end of book that resolves all the you know, the many
scandals that could befall Wooster. And so they're really funny, but you know
they're kind of shallow too, and that they don't have any really I don't
think I don't find maybe I'm missing any sort of deeper meaning than just making
fun of the British class system. Now, they sure are funny. Well,
So, first of all, John, you may have seen this new
story a month or so ago. There's a big push to bold the Rise
the Wooster or the Woodhouse novels in print because they're politically incorrect. And that's
really they are more political than you think. They're not like the troll up
novels about you know, Parliament and all the rest of that. But I
do think, especially on nowadays called gender questions, there's a lot of political
content to it. And by the way, like what you know, like
what like what I because I this was, I this all over my head?
Well, I mean I don't know. I mean, you know how
Lucretia likes to say women shouldn't vote in any woman who can't get her husband
vote the way she wants is not worth womanhood. How do you put that,
Lucretia something like that? Right? Are you still there? I'm still
here that I say that. Why don't you see her mocking suspicious face,
Well, looking at you, funny, she's looking at this is what I
think the youngsters called. She's giving you the side eye. Well, you
see, when I when I read through Woodhouse, I stumbled across lots and
lots of passages of Bertie Wooster's descriptions of Woodhouse, deceptions of of well,
I'm not soufragists, but of women who remind me of Lucretia. Ohoh oh,
let me that is low, not as low? What's here? How
about let's see ye here, I'm gonna give you a couple. It's been
I had to dust off of you of these and I couldn't find the one
particularly thinking of. But here too that see. If this doesn't listeners remind
you of a certain co host here. Uh wait a minute, where is
it? Uh? Shoot, here it is? You know how it is
with some girls. They seem to take the stuffing right out of you.
I mean to say, there is something about their personality that paralyzes the vocal
cords and reduces the contents of the brain to cauliflower. Well, Steve,
I think just saying a lot more about you than Lucretia. Well, let
me give you one more here. This one's kind of fine, except for
the last person the last day. It's about Anria Glossop, who shows up
as one of the Boh yeah, you know, I love interest that the
ants always want to fix up Birdie with. Honoria, you see, is
one of those robust, dynamic girls with the muscles of a Welterway and a
laugh like a squadron of cavalry charging over a tin bridge. A beastly thing
to have to face over the breakfast table. Brainy. Moreover, the sort
of girl who reduces you to a pulpe with sixteen sets of tennis and a
few rounds of golf and then comes down to dinner as fresh as a daisy,
expecting you to take an intelligent interest in freuds against Steve. Against Steve.
This says a lot more about you than Lucretia. You fear, you
fear, you fear, smart athletic women's Steve. You have a lot in
common with Worcester. Well, I think, yes, that's probably true.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Okay, Actually, can I just make
a comment about the What'ster's treatment of women in his books is so one class
of women are his aunts, you know, these older women who control all
the money in the family and strike fear into Worcester's heart because they're always scolding
him. But actually I love to actually have a very clear eyed view of
reality, and they're constantly telling him to get a job, stop you know,
lazing about, you know, borrowing money, and at least you know,
lead a responsible life, right, I actually think the answer the you
know, sort of the voice of reasonable society. Yeah, and then you
know, they're the Greek course of the books. And then they're various women
who are who want to marry Worcester who does Most of the books are about
Worster trying to avoid getting married, right and then um, and then they're
the women who Worster really likes but he can never get together with because they
have a better taste than men. Yeah. Yeah, so I actually think
women has treated pretty well. And though I mean, like, you know,
you don't want to be Worcester, right, you don't want to be
Jeeves because he's the butler, even though he's the smartest guy in the books.
Actually, women are the ones who are treated best in the books.
That's why. That's how I read it, as if she yeah, what
is it? What is it? Hoosti attributes geez brilliance to reading Spinoza in
the morning and eating lots of fish. I think, great stuff. All
right, do you have any others or you want to wrestles? Okay,
well I have I have three nominees, um, two modern and one uh
more back in the Woodhouse Sarah. So if you want a contemporary comic novel
that I think it's very good. It's not deep, but it doesn't need
to be. And it's Christopher Buckley's Thank You for Smoking, which is what's
that. The movie's not bad, The book's better. The movie, of
course has to shorten it down. The movie wasn't bad, but the book,
I mean, I think what is good about it is it does really
prick the pretentiousness and the soup of the superficiality of the political culture of Washington.
Uh. And the movie gets a little of that, but it really
is fun. In the book, him dealing with the Hollywood people about how
to make the movie about killer of cigarettes, and then especially him discussing him
standing up to the Senator Finnis Stare of Vermont, who was complaining about the
health hazards of cigarettes, and he says, what about Vermont cheese? Think
of the cholesterol? I think of all the heart attacks that you go.
It's brilliantly done. Chris Buckle was really good at that genre. Some of
his other books I think are pretty good too, but that's his best one.
The other modern one that I think really deserves to be a serious classic
is John Kennedy O'Toole's Confederacy of Dunce's from nineteen eighty one. I think it
was that was the book about the character in New Orleans, this big fat
guy named Ignatious Riley who was right out of the fourteenth century and thought Thomas
Aquinas and media Locatholicism was the best regime that we should bring back. And
it's a very funny book, kind of a tragic book. He committed,
the author committed suicide, but he couldn't get it published, and it wasn't
until twenty years later that Walker Percy read the manuscript and said, this is
genius and must be published. And you've never read it, You guys have
never heard of it. Or it's a book you could not make a movie
of. It would not unlike Thank You for Smoking, It would not succeed
as a movie. But it's it's really funny. But I think the one
I'll settle on finally is how many books are you going to get? I'm
just three options. John gave two. My third one is kind of not
quite Urweld Territory, but it's G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was
Thursday, and his original title was The Man who Was Thursday, I'm a
nightmare. And you know how we've talked a bit about the controlled opposition of
modern times. The plot of The Man Who Was Thursday, which is now
more than a hundred years old, was about an anarchist group but turned out
to have been penetrated and run by the government. And boy, doesn't that
start to sound familiar? Right? And Chesterton was, you know, one
of my favorites, right fact, if we do theology books, I may
name his little book Orthodoxy is the best one we should read. But I'll
say that another time. Those are mine. Yeah, come on, no
more pretentious intellectual stuff here tonight, Steve. This is you got your time
last week. Next week you could know whatever, so mine. I'm only
going to pick one because people are going to actually go out and read the
one. Actually, they'll probably read a. P. G. Wood House
too. But my favorite satirical novel in ever is Joseph Heller's Good as Gold,
and most people don't know it. They know Catch twenty two. To
give you some context, Good as Gold is the academia slash Washington DC equivalent
of Catch twenty two. It's so so if imagine that your context in Catch
twenty two is the Army. This is so Gold is a Bruce Gold is
a professor, Jewish professor at Columbia, Okay, who is vying for a
position in the White House. And an old friend of his that he helped
write his papers back in undergraduate days. I think Columbia knows wherever they went
to, Yeah, it was. Columbia is now a big deal at the
White House. So he's going to get a job at the White House,
and it is. He's also just a little bit from the back. He's
a professor who hates teaching. His favorite students are the ones who dropped the
class before the semester starts. That whole thing about his teaching is hilarious.
He never shows up to any department meetings, he doesn't read any of his
mail, he doesn't talk to any of his colleagues, and they all think
he's incredibly important because of that. You know, it's just those kinds of
catchtween two things. But this is so he's about to get his job,
which he actually never gets, but he's always at the verge of it,
and they're making announcements about it all the time. So he shows up for
a press briefing. I have an announcement to make. As you know,
the president conducts and this is the press secretary, this is the moob head
equivalent. I have an announcement to make. As you know, this president
conducts an open administration and is committed to total truth. In keeping with that
policy, I have to announce that I have no announcement to make. Nothing
happened since yesterday. There was a dumbfounded pause in the room before a veteran
newsman up for a nast nothing that is correct. There is no news today,
no news, no news, not a thing, not a thing worth
talking about. Is that just for Washington or is that for the rest of
the country as well? Just for Washington, we don't care about the rest
of the country. You don't care about the rest of the country, that
is correct? Does that mean there'll be nothing in the newspapers about the president?
That's right, unless you want to make a story out of that.
Can we move along? And it goes along those those very same lines for
forever And then finally he says, is there anyone in the administration who does
know what? Anything? Would you repeat the question anything? Is that a
question? Is that an answer? I don't know. I forgot my question.
I'll will throw my answer, and then somebody at the ends jumping ahead.
Thank you. You're to be congratulated. This has been the frankest and
most informous informative press briefing I've ever attended. Oh I don't know. It's
hilarious. You have to go buy it and read it tonight, and you
will never go to bed. You will spend the night up laughing. See.
No, this is a surprise, because I never think of you a
similar reads contemporary novels, because usually I've read that probably forty years ago.
Oh but but you'll see what you guys. The listeners can't see. But
you guys can see how how awful this poor little paperback looks now, because
there have been more more than one time, especially when things are just haredness
at the University, that I pick it up and read it just to make
myself happy. Yeah, so I can see that. Yeah. Well,
a couple of loose ends before we close. One is John Philadelphias. Can
I just say I usually do that with we usually do that? What's that?
I'm sorry? I think I was mute about Youphiladelphia. Oh oh yeah,
when I ninety five blew up. Ye right, oh yeah. So
I was there and I was heading back to Washington. So I woke up
early in the morning, turned on the TV, saw that I ninety five
blew up. So I was like, Mom, get me to the train
station. I'm out of here. I left immediately because I knew it would
be traffic armageddon. So I have two Philly jokes here, because so one
is I didn't know Wilson Good was living under the I ninety five overpass.
So the reason that's funny for people might remember is that Wilson Good was the
mayor who in the nineteen eighties decided to try to arrest this black nationalist group
called move that had barricaded itself in a townhouse. Was heavily armed. It's
a strange little cult, like they changed everyone and it changed our last names
to Africa, so like John Africa, Jeff Africa, Baby Africa. Anyway,
so they had kids in there, and they were armed. They they
barracue themselves. So Mayor Wilson Good, the city's first black mayor by the
way, authorized a dropping up a bomb on their house, which burned down
about eight or nine city blocks. And so that's why I say, whatever
happened to Wilson Good? Oh he was living there under the then. And
then my other slightly serious joke is because apparently what happened is a you know,
some Philly truck driver with fuel oil fuel oil, like just blew the
truck up but smashed into that you know, crashed into that underpass and exploded.
So it's like only the Philadelphia classic Philadelphia truck driver could do what the
Confederacy could not, which is to cut DC off from the north. Oh
those are my two Philly jokes. When that happened, Yeah, so nobody
third no, no, but I think maybe one person died maybe actually anyway,
so my third Philly joke of the week was, um, why Donald
Trump is a Philly guy? So after he goes to Miami Federal Courthouse,
leads not guilty, and then leaves heads to the airport, but he makes
a pit stop at Versailles, the famous Verse side cafe in downtown Miami,
to pick up some Cuban sandwiches. So I think he's a Philly guy because
only Philly guy would be on the way after getting arraigned in criminal court on
his way and then stops to get a Hogie. That's a Philly guy on
his way to the airport. That's why I did so well Pennsylvania in twenty
sixteen. Yeah, okay, well that note, I don't think we need
a camel Is m tonight, Steve doing. She still on her a witness
protection program. I'll just mention that there was a new story the other day
Nashville with a nice writeup of it of leftist groups who are upset with the
White House for not showcasing or more and they're demanding They've sent they've sent demands
to the White House that they showcase Camela Moore. And I'm thinking, showcase
Camela or what what are they going to do? Vote for RFK JR.
I mean, it's ludicrous, But she does seem to be in the witness
protection program. So there's that. Are you sure that wasn't the Republican National
Committee was complaining that they weren't showcasing Kamela More because I think that's one where
the Republican Party is in full agreement with the Democratic leadership. Well, and
I was going to make a really off colored joke about the fact that Planned
Parenthood is plant is planning to spend ten million dollars to try to improve her
image and make her appear more electable. And I told Steve that I thought
that the all one would really draw from that whole thing is that she's like
the best argument there is for their number one service. They provide the mood
a little. You heard that there was a major cyber attack today right on
the Yeah, some major cyber you didn't hear about. That's interesting where it's
shut me up? No, no, no, it's it's because several people
I know who are cyber experts didn't hear about it either. So quickly it
was a across many federal agencies. They're blaming it on the Chinese, but
that's ridiculous. I have no way of knowing yet who did it. But
as Move it is a secure collaboration app that moves sensitive data that a bunch
of the federal agencies were using. There was a huge vulnerability. Hackers got
into it and that was that. But anyway, so that leads me to
my Babylon be for the day. Just it's lighthearted. Hero Trumps saves government
secrets from cyber attack by hiding them at Maralago. On that happy note,
always DRD your whiskey neat John Uh, let's go, Brandon Steve, I'm
gonna pick on you guys. Don't forget to milk the soft Power dividend,
and don't forget to milk the soft Power dive. And Linda Lucretia. Okay,
it's been a long night, everybody, by everybody. Bye. Well
that was all very enjoyable. Geez, most philosophic I say, like that
whole thing wasn't switched all day. Very fortunate to say. Now, all
those chaps with violin students, you know, I really couldn't see you.
I'm looking lot still. I think I'd better go and have a bit of
a lie down. Now, do you use before I slog over to the
groves for gussiping Mottles burst it out? You may have been over doing it.
Well, Christ use the daily grind, you know, and good work
tomorrow. Ricochet join the conversation.