Since nineteen ninety seven. I've outlived everybody. Put them all in the grave.
Ask not what your country can do for you, as what you can
do for your country. Mister Gerbertshaw, tear down this wall, read my
lifts. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and lag Wan. I'm James
Lylenx. Today we just talk about a lot of stuff and eventually get around
to our great guests at zev Hornstead of the City of David in Jerusalem.
So let's sabrasels about guest. Well. Speaking as someone who very strongly does
not want Donald Trump to get the Republican presidential nomination, I'm extraordinarily distressed by
this document. I think this is even weaker than I feared it would be.
We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get
bored with winning. Welcome everybody into the Ricoche Podcast number six hundred and thirty
seven. Why don't you just mosiano ricochet dot com and see what all the
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get access to the member feed where the real fund happens. So yes,
ricochet dot com. My name is James Lenx. I'm in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
where it was like tan above and snowy and it's gonna be seventy degrees
in a few days. Can't wait? Is it really? Oh great?
I know, it's extraordinary. Is that what happens? Spring just hits the
curtain goes up and it's just there. It's like a bag of sand on
a stage that just falls from above and thuds on the floor boards. It's
quite wonderful. But you know, we had a blizzard and on the first
day of May, I found myself knocking the snow off these bent arbor vitae
which we're all cowtowing to the steps and trying to take off the Christmas light
and having a snow whipped down my back and my neck and the rest of
it, and cursing why I live here. And six or seven days later
I'll be saying that there's absolutely no way I could ever leave. Rob in
New York feels the same way. I'm sure as a good New Yorker he
can't imagine why anybody would want to live anywhere else than the epicenter of the
universe. And Peter in California, of course, is still suffused with that
Golden State glow that makes him happy that he calls it a home, even
though each one of us would like to radically redesign the places in which we
live. True Chicago, if you lived in Chicago, for example, I
would love to live in Chicago because architecturally it is an absolutely fantastic city.
I love to walk around. The museum is great, that the lake is
yeah, It's just it's it's this vision of urbanity that I've always liked.
And now I'm thinking Kurt Russell ow to make a movie out of escaping from
at some point in the future. Because they've they've voted in a new mayor
who brings to mind the old adage that the voters have spoken and now they're
going to get it good and hard. Gentlemen, what do you think about
the Chicago mayoral results. Well, what we see is the power of the
teachers unions and we see, we see the effects of Donald Trump. The
candidate who was in favor of backing the police, the candidate who had the
endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, if I am naming it correctly,
was portrayed by his opponent, who had plenty of money to spend because of
the teachers unions, as a maga sympathetic Democrat, and the reverse the race.
The teachers unions and the taint of Trump and of the Republican Party was
enough to flip the race. The man who lost finished the primary ahead,
as I recall, by double digits, and then the teachers unions weighed in
and began smearing him, and the race flipped. So what do we got?
Another great American city that doesn't quite doesn't quite work, doesn't come close
to working. The new mayor elect has said that he's going to raise taxes
to increase social programs. It's that old liberal notion, progressive notion, that
we don't attack crime, we attack the root causes of crime. And the
root causes of a crime are that certain people, certain constituents, don't have
enough money or schooling or social programs. So we'll raise money on the rich.
And yet as ken Griffin, the most successful hedge fund manager of the
last decade and a half, demonstrated last year, the rich can up and
leave. Ken Griffin and Citadel his hedge fund are now headquartered in Florida.
After decades in Chicago. They got up and left. There's not a reason
to suppose that things in Chicago aren't about to continue to get worse. That's
what I think. Wow, that Rob will find the laughs. Yeah,
No, I mean, I mean I would just say, first of all,
I find Chicago politics so fascinating and baffling, Like there's just this it's
just hard to know, um what what what actually happened in Chicago or why?
Um, I think it's I think that Peter's probably correct in that it's
a kind of an unholy perfect storm of enormous amount of money from a teachers
union that Will was desperate because there's educational form all over the country going on
all over the country, and they've never been at there, They've never been
less popular. They certainly are not delivering value to their customers in Chicago,
that is for sure. So they are desperately trying to protect their little um
monopoly, their low quality monopoly that they have in certainly in Chicago. And
then I think there's this ability in Chicago, certainly among many voters in Chicago
to sort of use Donald Trump as the gigantics of you know, um,
you know, graffiti engine just graffiti and the side of any politician, you
know, maga and you're probably gonna get a little points there. But I
also feel like there's a little bit of despair here, like there's a little
bit of like, uh, I mean, even people who are Democrats were
surprised by this, because it suggests that there are a lot of people in
Chicago who have not only given up, but as Peter said, is left
have left that no one really has the stomach for the fight anymore. There's
a kind of a throw up your hands quality to this election result just really
sad. Not just that you know, the moron one, because the morons
are gonna win. That's gonna happen no matter how wouldn't matter what happens in
the countries, You're gonna have terrible mayors in big cities. That's sort of
what you get in a lot of ways. But there's also a quite I
think there's a sense Chicago and I think New York and other cities that like,
well, you know what, why why even bothered? Why even bothered?
They want it to Suela to have it this way. If the machine
politicians can convince enough people to just pull a stupid lever and live in crime
ridden a hopeless urban hellscape, then fine, you know we'll get And I
don't think it's could be just the rich. It's gonna be what the middle
class did in the fifties and sixties is just leave, just leave. You
know, if you have a lot of dollars, you have a lot of
votes, you can vote yourself to Florida. If you don't have a lot
of dollars, you can vote yourself in Wisconsin. You can vote yourself to
outside the city. You can vote yourself out of an urban environment you don't
like. I mean, I have a don't I know, we want to
keep talking about this. I just have a segue that I think somebody happened
to be on Sunday night. On Sunday night, I'm walking downtown from church,
if you must know, and I'm walking down on Madison Avenue, Fancy
Pantcy, Madison Abey, and I walk by this a little you know,
like all these fancy stores. And in the doorway of a fancy store,
that was the nighttime, so streets an up very crowded, I mean crowded.
At really the doorway of a fancy store, there is a gentleman crouching
on his knees, clearly shooting up something I didn't stop to ask, but
shooting up on Madison Avenue on the street. And then I walked it down
a little farther and I crossed over down a Fifth Avenue and and Fifth Avenue
in front of Trump Tower. This is Monday night. All of the on
the on the west side of the street or police barricades everywhere, ready to
go for Trump's arrival, not I think it was the next day. And
tape on the sidewalk already boxed off for the various networks and where they're going
to place their people. So there was a CBS taped off square, and
BC taped off square, and c an N taped off square in a w
NBC and all of the media had there taped off squares in front Trump Tower.
And then I walked a little bit farther down Fifth Avenue just just below
just Create Town, so just below the Empire State building and there's an obese
man wearing a shirt teach shirt and nothing else. Now I assume he was
a man. He was of the size where it's hard to tell, if
you know what I mean, But he was wandering around and then people will
kind of walk by him, and you could see people like maybe ten steps
ahead thinking, wait, wait a minute, what was that on Fifth Avenue
in New York City, in Manhattan. And it's just something to me that
those three points are actually connected because you have a district attorney in Manhattan who
is more concerned with some obscure hard to prove quasi I don't know, indictment,
I guess, although people have a hard time finding the crime in those
indictments and utilizing the resources of the NYPD for a circus, whereas where there
are actual things, the quality of life are all New Yorkers, no matter
who you are, better who you voted for, that need to be taken
care of and are utterly ignored by a politician who is more interested in show
trials, immediate circus, playing to his far left base, getting an MSNBC
show or whatever. And it was just it was in space of forty minutes,
you saw everything you need to know about the problem with urban progressive politicians.
What you feel to understand, rob is that the man who wasn't wearing
anything but a T shirt is there because we have given up untreating the mentally
ill ever since Ronald Reagan personally incinerator to every mental facility in the country by
himself. You know, he had a little dribble, a little stern o
light a match. Reagan did that, and since then the Republicans have steadfastly
refused to be acknowledged the existence of mental illners. So that's the problem,
and New York is powerless. There's absolutely nothing New York could do about that
man. The other thing you have to realize is that the man who was
standing in the doorway shooting up has every right to do so because he was
driven to that by the despair that comes from income inequality. He was walking
down the street in a bad one day, or smiling perhaps, and then
being hit by a heroine stick. That's precisely what happened. A torrential rain
of needles came down from the sky, and the guy was dismayed because all
of his life he tried to avoid hero when he'd seen would have done to
everybody else, and so he decided, I'm never going to put that needle
in my arm, because I know what happens from that. But he was
struck by the by the needle from the sky, just as many people are
hit by that pregnancy bolt that comes and all of a sudden it just makes
them pregnant. Nothing you can do about that. So there's what we must
do, is to focus all of our efforts not on making sure that the
doorways in the streets are clean, but to attend to the needs of the
people who, through no action of their own whatsoever, have become shooting up
in pump type people. We have this argument here all that I know that
sounds cold, but we have this argument here all the time, and various
conversationals settings online and otherwise about the condition of our late rail because our light
rail here in the Twin Cities is in dreadful condition. It's a rolling homeless
shelter and people are shooting up and doing meth and all the rest of it.
It's just appalling, it's filthy. Nobody wants to go there, even
the people who are running the things that. You know, we need some
more cops here because This is really kind of biting into the revenue. But
every single time the argument comes up, nobody can do anything about it until
we address the problems that cause people to be in this situation in the first
place. And of course we've never addressed them. I've gotten out of the
blocks when it comes to these things. You would think that we spent absolutely
no money whatsoever on homelessness and shell But unless we solve those things, it
is it is we are required to be inconvenienced at every possible turn in order
to rub our noses in the inequity of this capitalistic health question. For Rob,
you've been watching New York for a long time. You and I both
grew up. I grew up in Upstate. You grew up in New England.
Largely you were out here some, but you grew up in New England.
You attended Yale, you went to perhaps all the whole scene where New
York, Boston was a marvelous place, Philadelphia, Baltimore, all these had
something to be said for it. But New York was the town. New
York was the town. And I have the feeling this is true of you.
But because it's true of me, and what's true of me is true
of you only about a year and a half earlier. That when you're growing
up and you're trying to figure out how things work, you begin to realize
that there are a couple of secret New York's. And one secret in New
York was the mob that the Godfather wasn't made up. It's dated, it's
old. No, But there was a secret New York where Union's got run
in a certain way by certain kinds of people. But the other secret New
York was the rich guys, and they would let things get out of control
so far, and then they'd say, wait a minute, we've got to
find a candidate, we've got to raise money, we've got to do something.
The phrase city fathers actually made sense for decade after decade when I was
growing up, and the reason was that it was their town. It was
where they did business, and it was the only place they could conceive of
doing business. There were patterns of life. A house on the North Shore,
your apartment in the Manhattan. They couldn't conceive of life any place else.
And for many of them, there was family history that attached them to
New York. The Jewish experience, where the immigrants had arrived dirt poor,
and then they conquered the world by establishing by taking over the Coldman, Saxes
gets established because the biggest operation. All right, So the question is does
the rise of Florida really just change it all? It is it Florida that
permits people to say to each other, you know what, we don't have
to do business here. I was talking or our friend Andrew. Andrew Guttman,
who is doing a podcast for us on starting schools, left Manhattan and
moved to Florida. And when we had him on this podcast, I can't
remember whether he said it on the air or during the little bit of chit
chat before we began recording him. He's the way he put it struck me.
He said, everybody's here. Everybody said, and that's what you used
to say about New York. You were in because because everybody was there in
your in show business, of course you had to be in. But he
said, everybody's here. And I'm thinking to myself, if that's the case,
that the big guys, the people who in previous generations would have been
city fathers, now city father others and city mothers. If you want to
use the terminal attempt to update the terminal. I suppose we should just retire
it. In any event, they don't have to do business in New York
anymore. Ken Griffin just left Chicago. It that's that's a change, isn't
it. Yeah, well, I think it's it's like a specific kind of
change. I mean, I think the rich great people can always leave,
and they kind of did for a while because the taxes that which I clearly
understand. Um, but during the high I mean, in general, crime
in New York as reported isn't I mean, it's down from seventies, eighties
and nineteen ninety was the high water marker a water mark? How do you
look at it? For murders? Um, it isn't crime. People don't
have you know they're there, but most people can avoid I mean most people
don't aren't worried about crime. But they don't like is the insanity on the
street. They don't like the facts happen and the end of the day,
there's some guy sitting on the subway and another night comes up to him and
just clocks him in the face for no reason, And they don't even he
didn't even know it. There's no way he wasn't asking for money. He
was just an insane person who was high, who then of course was arrested.
It isn't as if there's there was, There were transit copis you could
go to, but just that there's a sense that in New York City now,
it's not the people who are going to mug you, it's not the
people who are going to steal your car radio. And that was happening.
You had plenty of rich people in town. No one wanted to move to
Florida. Moving to Florida was the worst thing in the world. Right,
That's when you go to die. That's God's waiting room they call Florida.
Right. But there is something specific about the bedlam that's happening here that no
one who is literally tasked with dealing with it, like a district attorney wants
to deal with thinks there's an upside to dealing with or felis compelled to as
opposed to you know, grandstanding, you know, a former president downtown like
that. That to me is like to me, it was it's not even
it's dereliction, but it's just also a sense of vastly mispriced priorities. And
I think that is kind of where the right now is missing their argument.
We're getting enmeshed in arguments that the left is forcing us too. We shouldn't
be arguing about or I mean, I think in some cases a lot of
a lot of the way we talk about cultural issues, but we should be
arguing about priorities. That was the thing that conservatives always had, right,
was the priorities. And right now it feels like we're all sort of running
around with their heads cut off. Meanwhile, a normal person can walk down,
I mean, a liberal Democrat could be walking next to me and would
have the exact same I guarantee you the exact same response I had, which
is what on earth is the Manhattan District Attorney doing? But that person will
turn around and vote for the day. If the alternative to somebody who abraids
their sensibilities in a general way on some particular social issues that make them feel
like they are the better person, they're going to vote for that person and
then just tut tut, what are you gonna do? Look, you gonna
lose elections anyway, right, you gotta have an election. He might might
lose it, but if you're gonna lose it, at least lose it by
by offering an alternative set of priorities. Well, I'm against that, but
an alternative set, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll drag the ex president
into downtown, I'll arrest him and I'll throw them in irons. Just as
soon as there are no naked men running around loose on Fifth Avenue and we
don't have people shooting up in doorways in the minute, we could do that,
you know what. Drag Donald Trump through the streets and irons, that's
fine by me. But my priorities are the law and order in the streets
of Manhattan. That is my job. That's what I would say. Well,
that was the feeling back in the sixties and seventies when the city had
been lost. It felt been lost to disorder, it had been lost to
crime. There's this sense of feral quality to it that nobody could do and
it was a helplessness that nobody could do anything about it. And it turns
out they could. What a surprise. But when you talk about priorities,
what priorities do you think the GOP is putting forth now that are misguided and
they should concentrate more on urban disorder because frankly, a lot of people TwixT
the coasts. Don't give a fig for urban disorder in these cities. They
figured they voted it, they wanted it, they got it. Go ahead,
this is what you voted for. And it's hard to appeal to somebody
in Iowa or North Dakota or Montana and saying that we need to get our
cities back. I actually, to tell you the truth, I think that
there is an argument that can be made for that on a national scale,
a pride in a a pride in national restoration returned to you know, the
good old days when we had thriving cities, etc. Think you can make
that point, not as your primary point, but as part of a general
renaissance in America. Why dare I say making it great again? But what
do you think the Republicans are doing now today that is misplaced in terms of
priorities? Well, I mean, so you know, it's been an astonishing
list of defeat since twenty twenties, so pretty much everything. I mean,
I don't think it's the positions they're taking. I think this is the way
they're taking them and how they're taking I mean, it's perfectly legitimate to say
I'm in here's a perfect example it's very clear to say parents have a right
to raise their children in the system of values that they have. They have
a right, they have a right to impose their values on their family.
That is absolutely that's a classic great Republican theme, right, so that a
conservative could get behind. I'm making distinctions. Of course, I know you're
about you're canceling me. I'm making distinctions in your Republican a conservative because I'm
one and off the other. Okay, So that to me feels like a
really clear thing. But then the minute you say, and I know it's
unpopular, I know people hate it, but the many you say, hey,
if you take your kids to a drag show, we're gonna call the
county on you. You're out, Like, no, you get to take
your kids to a drag show if you want to be your kids. You're
the parent. You have a right to impose your values on your family,
and you also have a right to keep other people from imposing their values on
your family in schools. That seems to be a perfectly legitimate, clean,
totally understandable priority that doesn't cross the line, and everyone can understand it.
I have I mean, as you must know, I have tons of liberal
friends, right, have tons of them. After a glass of wine,
I know, in behalf, maybe a sip, not even not even a
glass of wine, They're saying things like, well, I'm you know I
you know me, I'm a liberal Democrat. I'm a liberal Democrat. But
and then they say things like, but I don't think we should be teaching
this stuff in fourth grade. I don't think we should be giving children puberty
blockers. I don't think and it goes list to all the things. But
I'm a liberal Democrat that keep saying I'm a liberal Democrat. I don't.
I heard somebody just yesterday saying, I listen, I'm a liberal Democrat.
I hate Trump more than anybody hate Trump. I hate Trump, blah blah
blah, Right, but I don't think he should have been arrested and tuk,
this is this is BS. So there's this giant area of people who
share at least our top five priorities if they are articulated and not and not
part of this infection I think some people have on the right, which is
the most important thing, is to troll the lib tarts. If you do
that, it's funny and it's entertaining for some but it leads you to I
think, turning off a huge part of the country. That is, it's
like desperately wants you to be normal and to scoop them up. That's I
mean, you know me, I've always said this. It's in the far
right circles. It's considered it's considered insult to be a rhino. You're a
rhino. You're a rhino. I got news for you. If you want
to lead this country, if you want to change things in this country,
you better make friends with the rhinos. You need them. That is just
mass And if you don't like it, then you got to change the constitution
because that's the way it works. I think as culture is also entitled to
say that it is illegal to take a two year old to a bondage dungeon,
that this should not be done, that there are lines that can be
drawn that as apparent you can I mean, back in the days of X
rated movies, you know, you could not take your child to see an
X rated movie. Would seemingly be one of those cultural guardrails that is in
the beginning of some stazi like fashion state. So and I'm not a harmless
little drag brunch, oh yeah, I'm if it's not with somebody wearing the
thong and the toddlers are tucking the bills in the you know, in the
straps. I don't know, but what you get is what you're getting in
Canada right now, where Ontario is dealing with legislation that will make it impossible
to be critical of a drag event within a thousand feet or one hundred feet
or something like that. I mean, what they're saying is you can't protest
or the rest of it. But it makes it sound as if you cannot
utter a discouraging word within a hundred feet of this. So if we I'm
just saying that a lot of people think of it this way, that if
we don't put the guardrails up, they will take the guardrails that are already
in place and flatten them and insisted anybody who does not believe in their new
broad Road to Hell is a fobe and a hater and the rest of it.
They will continue to demolish every cultural norm if we don't stand up in
front of a few of them and put up a hand saying no, no,
no. So I see what you're saying, rob about that, But
it's kind of shading into the old David French blessings of liberty thing here,
which is, once you allow the government to tell you how to raise your
children, you better hope you win every single election in every single district,
in every single precinct, in every single county. Is that telling you how
to raise your children? Though? It is it saying that children are not
to be in adult spaces, and a drag show is an adult space.
And the whole point, the whole point of direct Time Story Hour is introduced
is to introduce notions of gender realignment and expression in the rest of it.
I mean allowed to do if you're a parent who those that conforms to your
values, you're allowed to do it. So Queen's Ford Hour, it probably
does not upbraid those but a drag If you say that you that this is
an adult cabaret activity and children are not too attended, that doesn't strike me
as that much of a break with where we've been as a culture for two
hundred years. Well, we say that you if you run, you know,
you can't be a kid in a bar right that the law as you
can't drink if you're under twenty one, so you can't have a kid in
a bar we have. I'm not saying we shouldn't have any rules, but
I'm saying that in abroad that if we're going to error, we need to
err on the side. If we're going to be conservative, we need to
err on the side of parental rights. You have the right to send your
kid to if you pay property taxes to any school in the area you want
to. You have a right to control what your children are learning and when.
You have a right to understand what the consequences are of If you don't
want your kids to learn that the Earth is millions of years old and there
were a dinosaurs on it, I think you're wrong. I don't think the
Earth is five thousand years old. But what am I gonna do? Am
I gonna tell you? Know? You can't. These are your value.
You are allowed to do it. And to the extent that we're going to
make rules, we have to make them. I think on the just on
the fundamental part of sort of health and safety. The minute we don't well,
we just got to win every single election all the time. And when
we don't win every single election all the time, which we don't, we
end up with people teaching two year olds and seven year olds that they're not
really girls, they're not really boys, and I just don't think that's a
world that makes any sense. Peter chime in on this year. Am I
right right? Are we both right? Or? Oh? Well, you
know, I'm not going to say that Rob is right. I just couldn't.
I couldn't force those words to form in my mind, let alone escape
my lips. Political, quite, you guys are making two different kinds of
arguments, and they're both very well worth having. One is a policy argument
what should be done, what shouldn't be done? And then the other,
of course, is the argument for democracy. How do you get elected?
What do you do to win votes? Okay? Two points? One is
that I believe, at least in part as a response to the lockdown of
schools, but set aside what it may or may not be in response to
school choice legislation is moving through state after state after state. There is a
lot of really important activity taking place out in the states. Florida, big,
Arizona, big big meaning really quite generous voucher programs and charter school programs.
Texas. I can't recall whether Texas hasn't but in the current legislative session.
I believe they're expected to enact it if they haven't already, and it's
going it seems to be there over a dozen states that have enacted very important,
quite sweeping Charter education bills Item one, Item two. When Rob says
Republicans need to wake up, my thought is to the scene outside the courtroom
the day before yesterday, when the only Republican of any note I could see
who had turned up was Marjorie what's her name again? She has three names,
Marjorie Green, Green, Marjorie Taylor, and also George Santos. Show.
Okay, so we so to show up. You don't get the speaker,
you don't get any prominent senator. The Republicans are just not so.
I believe there was a period when Republicans are scratching their heads saying, wait
a minute, this stuff seems to work for Trump. But as of the
last election, and then again as of last night, when candidates were just
the merest taint of associate, even though this man was a Democrat and had
been all his life, and it caused him to lose a race in which
he had been leading in Chica, Republicans want to back away from Trump,
and Donald Trump is sucking up every bit of media attention. So my question
here, I guess I'm just asking you to make a prediction. Are we
stuck? Is this man has he got a lock on the nomination? Is
it impossible to free up enough attention so that we can look at governors out
in the states. Well, of course de Santis hasn't announced, but he
seems to be running. Or here's an amazing thing. Nobody's uttered the words
Ron de Santis for seventy two hours or virtually all weak. Now there's a
guy who just a few months ago was leading Trump in the polls. My
point though, is that there are governors who have remarkable records, records that
would please Rob, because these are people who are trying to find out where
where can I get the votes? What can I win? What can I
do? Arizona? You might Rob may say to Sanders, is Tonally wrong?
He may say that Greg Abbott in Texas, but Governor Doocy in Arizona.
Arizona is a complicated state. I think tonally Rob would approve of him.
Nobody can get any attention, any attention because of Donald John Trump.
The further irritation for me, and I know that you're both champing at the
bit to come in and solve my freight nerves. But the further irritation for
me. I see Trump speak at maral lego Maraga, however it's pronounced,
and of course he has a case. He has an argument that man who's
doing so much to hold back the Republican Party to prevent the causes that we
believe in from finding a way to be articulated and fought for. He stands
up and says, they've been against me since the Russian hoax. They've done
this, They've done and I listen to this litany, and I find myself
saying, in eight out of ten claims, he's right, he has been
done an injustice. How do you say, Alvin Bragg is way out of
line that what took place in charging Donald Trump, because everybody knows that those
charges would not have been brought against a single other person on the face of
the planet. It was purely political, and that man Alvin Bragg, dragged
this great Republic in the direction of a Banana republic, and it was outrageous.
How do you say that without at least implying support for Donald Trump?
And perpetuating this inability of good people to break through. Oh, the test
of first rate intellect is to hold two competing ideas in your head at the
same time and still functioning. As Scott Fitzgerald said, as though that was
some brilliant observation, it's entirely possible to see this thing as being gendab and
say he doesn't mean I'm gonna vote for him. It doesn't mean he's entitled
to be the nominee. Jerry doesn't because he'd lose. And even though to
say that if he's not given the nomination, that that means that we are
rewarding, bragging the rest of them for using the state and weaponizing these things.
Uh well, if that result is four more years of Biden, Harris,
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that. Then there's Wisconsin if you want to talk about the trunk change,
because people are saying that one of the reasons that Wisconsin Supreme Court went the
way it did was that the guy on the conservative side was too closely aligned
with Trump because he'd been the R ANDC point man on the election irregularity.
Paying right, I may have been part of it. I think most of
it was abortion, which leads, you know, led to an interesting discussion
and on ricochets like well, so what was the point then of the conservatives
going against view? It was the point of the whole Prilight pro life movement.
If we lose, well, you're gonna lose in some places because they're
going to be places that don't want a total, complete and utter ban an
abortion. There was an eighteen forty nine Wisconsin law that they were worried that
this guy was gonna uphold and there would be no abortion. They can't have
that. I think it's important case to make, but you're gonna lose it
on it in some places. Right, Well, ye're gonna win, You're
gonna lose something. I mean there's a huge amount of energy and money and
effort and enthusiasm and you know, you know, surprise, surprise, And
in this case there's actually a lot of faith here. Uh. And what
Americans should do pro life Americans should be doing, um now that rov Wade
is not. The ultimate roadblock is convincing their fellow Americans that persuasion in America
is exactly how big things get done. And this is a big thing.
You got to change people's minds. I mean it. It worked in abolition,
it worked in civil rights. These are essentially religious, faith based movements.
And don't forget it. Don't forget that it worked. It worked for
a while with prohibition. To rob I was gonna say that, say they
do, but it also has its drawbacks. Prohibition that worked for a while,
and that was faith based. But you know, you know, Americans
are capable of changing them. I mean, I mean, the the the
prohibition is a good example because this is a country built on whiskey, and
they managed to get Americans to pass a constitutional amendment to ban whiskey. Didn't
really worked very long, but they did. They You know, people respond
to persuasion. That is the that is the gear that the pro life movement
should have shifted into very quickly after robi wave was repealed or overturned, and
they didn't. And I understand why they didn't. But you know, there's
a long runway here for them. But instead of worrying about state legislature,
legislature and worrying about elections, they should be worrying about their neighbor to the
left and neighbor of the right. And since this is essentially a Christian movement,
um, they should be reaching out to their neighbors and trying with compassion
and trying with their humility to know what I know what you mean, but
I feel bound to say that there are plenty of Jews involved in the pro
life movement. And Nat Hahntoff, absolutely, that's a great late Nat Hahntoff,
who wrote for The Village Voice and was a liberal in every other way
and an atheist as far as I recall, was was pro to life.
So I'm going to agree with every word you just said. That is extremely
rare on this program and in life, and just concerting to me. I
have to go now. I want to hear what I say. It's exactly
I will agree with me. Roe versus Wade was handed down in nineteen seventy
three. That is an even half century ago. That means we've had two
and a half. I don't know how you count generations, two and a
half, maybe even three generations of Americans growing up with the idea that abortion
is a legal and b implied. Isn't it sort of normal? Isn't it
kind of okay? At the very same time that church and synagogue attendance has
been drifting down over this half century. People have to be persuaded. You
can't just expect that because we got to a six votes out of nine on
the Supreme Court overturning Row, that two weeks later abortion will be outlawed across
the county. It just doesn't work that way, because the people you're dealing
with are people, they're human being. History has to be taken into account,
human psychology has to be taken into account, and we have to persuade
our neighbors that is still the way it works, who remain remarkably unpersuadable on
these issues. Well, in Minnesota, bone headed would would be. Yeah.
I mean to hear you talk about your neighbors, James, but oh
mind, I have no idea. I can guess. I'm actually flanked by
a wonderful family and a Christian mortician, so I think they pretty good at
pretty good idea. But people tend to convince themselves over time and experience.
I'm not exactly sure how much we can bring to the table on that.
Well, we've got more, of course, and we'll be back right after
this. And now we're welcome to the podcast. Zev Orinstein, director of
international affairs for the City of David Foundation, which we're going to speak about.
Chef, welcome to the podcast. I understand from looking at your website
that you dug up the golden bell of what was called a loud man.
Well, among many things, we have discovered the golden bell of the biblical
high priest that the Bible says in the Book of Exodus that would have been
along the hem of the robes to the high priest. And the urban legend
has it that why did he have bells on the hem of his robe?
Because the one day a year when he was allowed into the Holy of Holies
atop the Temple mount inside the temple, if something should happen and they stopped
hearing the jingling of the bell, they would go to pull him out.
Yells had a rope tied around his ankle, so that was as long as
the bells were jingling, we knew that the High Priest was still breathing.
Ze Let's take just a moment to set the scene here. Zev is joining
us from Jerusalem. You grew up in the United States, but you now
live in Israel. You are part of the archeological team excavating one of the
most fascinating sites in all the world. Let alone in Israel or the Holy
Land. And Rob Long and I at different times someday, Let's hope James
as well. But Rob Long and I have both been privileged to receive a
tour from you and this site, which began to be excavated about a decade
ago. When was the first digging in this site? When the very first
digging goes back one hundred and fifty years ago to about eighteen sixty seven,
Queen Victoria of England. She wanted to discover the treasures of the Bible like
Dark of the Covenant. And so she sent a man to the Holy Land.
His name is Charles Warren. He wanted to go to the Temple Mount,
except eighteen sixty seven the Ottoman the Muslims are controlling the area and they
say not going to happen. And so Charles Warren says, if I can't
dig on the Temple Mount of big near it, He comes down the slopes
of the Temple Mount and inadvertently he ends up discovering that the original biblical city
of Jerusalem, the City of David, the place where Jerusalem began, is
not found inside the walls of the old city, but it actually found just
outside the walls. So the modern digging begins when minor digging, I mean
there's been going on during you have going back sixty seventy years already to archaeology,
archaeological excavations going on, but I would say the city of David really
begins to be put on the map. Two thousand and five, when doctor
a Latmazar, world renowned arch y'all, just she comes up with a theory
that she had discovered the location of King David's palace, and that just set
off one major discovery after the next, and today the city of David is
known as perhaps the most significant half mile on the planet. There is no
half mile that means more to more people then the half mile which is the
city of David. It's the place where the kings and the Bible ruled,
and the prophets of the Bible preached. And every single day we are unearthing
antiquities that are showing that simply as a matter of faith, that as a
matter of fact, that Jerusalem's biblical heritage is real. You could see it,
you could touch it, you could walk on it. I was lucky
enough to touch it and to walk on it, and thank you for helping
me do that. Just let me just set the stage a little bit.
So you go out the southern gate, one of the most southern gates,
in the closest southern gate in Jerusalem, what they call the dung Gate,
or I guess the Bob Bob al Maghareb, which Magarba, which is the
which because of the old Um North African quarter. There you go out that
gate and you've kind of cross a busy road and you're in a little part
of the East Jerusalem. I guess called Silwan, and there's the houses there,
and there's a little businesses there, and it's kind of a little village
there. And the thing about Jerusalem is that when you walk the streets of
Jerusalem, you're walking above the streets, the original streets. So if you're
a Christian, as I was, and you walk on the Via Dolorosa,
really the stations of the Cross, you're not really walking on the path.
You're walking about twenty feet above the path, because the path is below.
What you guys have discovered is from the very bottom of the hill of the
pools of Salom, which are ancient. I don't know why I'm telling you
this, I mean happy past off by the way, but for our listeners,
which is ancient, they all Mikva, which is a pureif Asian pool
um for the purposes of Christians. That is where Mary and Joseph brought Jesus.
They brought him into the pools of salone, and they carried him up
the path to the temple, which is you know, the second Temple,
to for the presentation to temp temple, which was what we call candle mess.
I think that's right between the candles. That sounds right yes, yeah,
so you can walk that and you've been able to walk the path.
But what you guys have discovered is that the actual road, the actual stones
are there, and they are underneath the existing road and some of the houses,
which is a little controversial. Um, but you can walk through a
tunnel. It's not that. It's you know, maybe maybe twelve feet high
where people are excavating the actual road, the actual stones that were there at
the time, and it's kind of gives you goose bumps. Um. This
was a busy road into Jerusalem. It is inconceivable that the adult man Jesus
didn't walk along that path if there's some scholars suggest that that is actually the
route he took in on Palm Sunday and not the route on the other side
of town. You know, on the it was now called the Lions gate
Um because that was the main route. And there's little alcoves in the strew
where the store the shopkeepers were, and there are stone sort of plints looked
like plints where preachers, especially at that time when there seemed to be preachers
on every corner, would stand and preach to the crowd. It is not
conceivable that Jesus didn't stand on those stones as an adult man. And it's
really the only place in Jerusalem that you're that Jerusalem, they always says.
When you're there, you're like, well it was you know, it was
either here or near right. It was either right here where it x Roy
happened or near here. But when you're in the tunnel in the in on
that road, it is not here or near It is right there, Zev.
The pools of siloam now uncovered the roadway those huge herodion I don't know
whether they were I don't know that you know yet whether those stones were carved
by Herod or by pilot, by the Romans or by the Jewish authorities,
these huge stones. Jews would come from all over the Mediterranean for which festivals
how many times a year, and this would be the ceremony. They would
wash in siloam, and tens of thousands of people for the great festivals would
then press up to the temple. Is that right? So the historian Josefis
says that two thousand years ago you would have on the three biblical pilgrimage festivals.
We're talking about Passover, Pentecost tabernacles where all of Israel has to go
on pilgrimage up to the Temple. The historian Josefis said that I'm passed over
two thousand years ago. You're talking about two point seven million people who are
going up on pilgrimage, millions of people. Now, the Pool of Slam
was the largest ritual bath. Before you can go up to the temple,
you have to cleanse yourself. Now, Rob you mentioned in terms of the
significance the Christians the Pool of Selam. The Christian scriptures referred to also the
story of the healing of the blind man, which takes place at the Pool
of Selam. And now I've been asked by many, many dignitaries and diplomats
and so on. You know the pilgrimage road that both of you had the
privilege of walking on that leads the half mile journeys from the Pool of Selam
all the way after the footsteps of the temple mount the western wall of the
southern steps. This road is the actual road that Jesus would have walked on.
Now, I've been asked many times, well, how do you know?
And I say it's very simple. Jesus was a Jew, and he
would have gone with all the Jews to cleanse in the pool of Selam and
then walked up the Pilgrimage road through the city of David, coming out at
the temple atop the Temple Mount. The pool of Selam was the same pool
from two thousand years ago. The Pilgrimage road running through the city of David
is the same Pilgrimage road. And I've asked many pastors, many priests the
Via della Rose to the station to the Cross, do you believe literally those
are the actual stations? And I've received the same answer every single time,
which is, well, not not exactly, but what we're unearthing in the
city of David, whether you're Jewish or Christian, this is as close to
one hundred percent as you're going to get. You are literally walking in the
footsteps of the Bible. And I think it's it's for that reason that a
few years ago the previous administration recognized the city of David as a heritage site.
And I think probably you both saw it in the entrance of the city.
Dad. It's a big plaque with a large American flag on it.
And the question is why is America recognizing the city of David not as a
Jewish heritage site, and not as an Israeli heritage site, but as an
American heritage site. And the reason was that they understood that the bedrock of
the Judeo Christian heritage that America was established upon actually has its ruth in Jerusalem,
in the City of David. That the heritage that we're unearthing every single
day, like the police Law, like the Pilgrimage Road, and like so
many other antiquities from the Biblical period, are affirming not just the heritage of
the Jewish people and Israel, but also of America. And when people,
whether it's the United Nations or elsewhere, denied Jerusalems heritage, well they're also
denied the heritage of America. I mean, could get into the just the
politics of it, right, because I think about Jerusalem is you can't get
a cup of coffee, you can't get a little you know, baklava without
a little bit of politics involved in everything. So there's a little controversy because
some people were displaced the way they often are when you do archaeological digs um.
And there's also a little controversy because the Pilgrimage Road goes all the way
up to what some people call the Second Temple and some people call the Mazar
al Sharif the Temple mount where um one of the holiest places in Islam.
And there's a lot of worry that, Okay, well, there's there's this
plan by far right Israelis to sort of dynamite the Mosque and put up the
third now the Third Temple, So you kind of have to take it on
faith that what you're doing is a matter of faith. But isn't there a
part of it that's a little bit like politics. Well, I would say
the irony is actually the opposite, because I don't think there are very many
it's certainly not mainstream position within Israel or the Jewish people denying the significance that
Jerusalem has for Islam, the deep feeling that Muslims have for Jerusalem. But
if you were to ask Palestine and leadership about the Jewish heritage in Jerusalem or
even the Christian heritage of Jerusalem will deny it. So the irony is not
that there's a fear that, oh my god, you know, Israel's going
to do something that will threaten Islamic feelings towards Jerusalem. But the reality is
is that whether it's the United Nations, the European Union, Palestine leadership every
single day is denying the Jewish and Christian heritage in Jerusalem, including resolutions pass
by UNESCO and other eyes. And as far as the archaeology goes one in
Jerusalem, everything is political, whether you sneeze to the writer to the last.
But I actually, I actually said. I had a group of EU
officials who visited the City of David, and I said to them, I
said, do you want I said, They said, what do the Palestinians
think about the City of David? And I said, well, honestly,
their leadership hates it. And they said, well why is that? And
I said, well, very simple, because the story that they've been telling
for the last century is that Jews and by extension, Christians have no heritage
in Jerusalem. You're a bunch of colonizers, occupiers, thieves, You stole
this land, You have no business being here. Now. The problem is
that, of course, is the City of David, because every single day
we're unearthing antiquities that are showing not simply as a matter of faith, but
as a matter of fact, that the Jewish people and by extension Christians have
been in Jerusalem for thousands of years. And I turned the officials and I
said to them, but you know what, you want to depoliticize the archaeology.
I had a full proof, guaranteed way how to do that. And
they were very interested. I said, I said, all that you have
to do is one thing. You can keep calling for your diplomatic solutions,
you can call for your divisions of Jerusalem, whatever you want. All that
has to happen is that you and leadership Plistinian leadership and European Union leadership have
to acknowledge one thing, which is what that the Jewish people and by a
sensing, Christians have been in Jerusalem for thousands of years. That's all.
Once you acknowledge that archaeology is no longer political, because then when we find
something that affirms the biblical heritage, whether it's going back to the time of
Jesus, are going back to the time of David, it's oh wow,
that's really cool. It's not. Well, you see, you guys said
we were never here and now we're here, and that proved this, and
that proves it's just archaeology. And what did these officials say to me?
They said they'll never agree to that. What do you want? What do
you want from us? I mean, what's it gonna ask for the moon
as well? Or ask asked them to state the Jews were on the Moon
two five thousand years ago. I know, I'm just surprised that EU officials
weren't there in the first place. It was off the record, so believing
they weren't posting on social media about it. One thing. I mean,
it's a remarkable place, and I think if you're if you're you know,
I have my own person solution to the issues in the Middle East and the
West West Bank. I think they need more Christians there. Um. Christians
are now a tiny, tiny minority and they we just need to go there,
just more of us there is probably a good thing. Um. But
so if you're listening, this is you know, this is Mondy Thursday.
A lot of people are gonna listen. It's on Good Friday if you're Jewish,
right, smack dab in the middle of of Passover, if you're a
Muslim, or right, smack dab in the middle of Brahmadan. Because other
issues and we're in the middle of a Holy week or near the end of
a week. Well, right, we're in the middle whole week. Um,
if you could go there, go there, because I do. I
mean, look the Hebrew Bible. You know a bunch of that's also in
the Quran. Same thing with the New Testament. But I look at the
wall. If you look on the wall of donors at the City of David,
you see a lot of American names. You see a lot of famous
American's, famous rich American names, a lot of famous rich American Jewish names.
Um, this is if this is a world heritage, what would be
nice I think to see a lot of Arab names, to see a lot
of like you know, I mean if you were also also if you're off
the tablets of the Islam maybe if you that don't don't let him off.
I think also Episcopalian names. Rob is going to write you a check the
minute. The minute. We yeah, that's right, we don't do that.
You know what. One of the things that that is beautiful and I
think not not focused on enough. If you said it's it's Holy week for
for Christians, the middle of Ramadan for for Islam, Passover for the Jewish
people, and in Jerusalem. As complicated as things may be, Muslims are
ever to go to their heritage sites, and Christians are going to their heritage
sites, and Jews are going to their heritage sites. And it's very easy
in the United States take for granted values like freedom of worship, freedom of
religion, freedom of access. Uh in the Middle East, don't take those
values for granted because virtually, once individual, they don't exist. And as
much as people may say, well, Jerusalem, you have this issue or
that issue, the fact that that during this this week where you have for
billions of people is at the center of the world. Everyone is able to
access their holy places, their heritage sites, to connect with their history,
their heritage, including it the city of David. And I think that's something
that oftentimes gets overlooked with all the focus. And if I made just sixty
seconds on it's difficult to explain, but sixty seconds on the effect that visiting
yu ZeVA, the City of David, had on me. That at the
top of the archaeological works, there are thick walls and they look out over
the valley and it fits the Bible. David was here, David was here,
and then you were kind enough to take us down to Siloam and then
the tunnel partly excavated where we could stand up, and those huge stones which
are as big as the stones and what we call the whaling wall, and
my feet were on those stones that two thousand years ago. Sandals were treading
across those stones, Jews from around the world, including a Jew called Jesus.
It is somehow staggering to remind yourself to standing there. You're reminded of
the basic fact that we all believe somehow, even if you whether you believe
Jesus, whatever your view on the divine aspect, but we all believe somehow
that the root of Western civilization is those people. And when you stand where
they stood, they were real. They were real. I just have two
impressions there. One is you cut into the earth, and of course archaeologists
know all that stuff. So you cut into the earth and twenty ft down,
twelve whatever it is, eighteen feet down, and so there's layers.
They can see the layers in the cross section of the earth. And one
of those layers not that that thick, but it's entirely black. It's like
charcoal, and like that shouldn't really be there, except that in the year
eighty I think the Romans burned it all down. They burned the city down,
they burned the temple down, they burned it all down, and over
whatever it is two thousand years that soot, the actual ash of the city
has been compacted and compacted into I don't know, it was like eight inches
maybe twelve inches, maybe not that much of black soot that you can take
your index finger and swipe it through and you are carrying out your finger is
now black with the soot of the ancient city of Jerusalem, of the houses
and sheds and wooden structures that line that road when Jesus walked it. And
it's just sort of extraordinary to the think, oh no, this is And
I say you one other thing, it's like, you know, I read
about this my column this week for Washington Examine, or like if you go,
you know, you go Eastern Sunday is Sunday and then good at piscopalions
like me, we go, we put on a fancy pink bow tie and
we kind of dressed at a little wild, and we think, well,
this is how we're going to celebrate Easter. Right in Jerusalem, they go
a little crazy. There's like candles and flame everywhere, and people are running
around, lighting each other on lighting canils on fire. It's amazing. No,
no one's actually self immolated there, so it's easy for us. And
you know the West, you know here to like, you know, everything's
kind of contained and simple and in a box and kind of historic, kind
of almost hypothetical, imagined imagination. But when you're actually standing on the rocks,
the actual stones, it just takes on a different a different feeling.
And I think that's that's kind of maybe I'm trying to your mouth kind of
what you're trying to say is that this isn't just faith, this is fact,
and there is something about the modern mind that needs that. And if
you're looking for that, you can find it right there underneath the city as
the you can hear the traffic rumble over it. You're underneath underneath the street.
It's pretty amazing. So so like let's get when the when is it
going to be open? When when can people actually go and see this?
Well, there are portions of the First of all, the City of David
is open. We have over a million visitors a year. Poula side Lam
as we mentioned, you can go see it, the King David Palace excavation
and go see it. And there's a portion of the Pilgrimage Road right next
to the Pula sid Lam that visitors could can also go see the area that
you mentioned with the ash that probably about two years from now we're hoping that
we'll have the north south connection from the pool all the way up through the
city of David, that half mile journey coming out of the footsteps of the
Western Wall and the Temple mount. And one of the things that I think
is special about the ash that you make a reference to from when the Romans
destroyed Jerusalem in the year seventy is that represented the period of the destruction right
of Jerusalem at that time. And yet when people walk on the Pilgrimage Road
today, it's the same descendants of those people who walked at two thousand years
ago. This is not the terms of the College Fum where it's once upon
a time the sharaohs of the Great Roman Empire that are today in museums and
history books with some monuments left behind. That the people who walk through the
city of David at the Pool of Seidal on the Pilgrimage Road from thousands of
years ago, it's their descendants who are going to walk on it in a
few years time, many of whom works at the same God haven't then cuts
some traditions, festivals as their ancestors did from thousands of years ago. And
where else do you have that? And I think the symbolism of the ash
is in the one hand, that represents destruction. But on the other hand,
when you look at that ash today in twenty twenty three, and you
look at you're standing in Jerusalem, in the city of David, the capital
of the State of Israel, is that, yeah, in the year seventy
that seemingly was the end of the story, except that it wasn't, because
two thousand years later, Jerusalem is thriving and the Jewish people and Christians are
coming back walking in the footsteps of their ancestors, of their heritage. And
when you look at the challenges that I think both of our nations today,
whether in Israel or the United States, that our nations are facing, I
think the ash symbolizes that it does not have to be the end of the
story. That sometimes you know, the Passover a festival, the Stater that
we celebrated the other night. One of the things we eat is the bitter
herbs, and we make a blessing on the earth, thanking God for giving
us these bitter herbs, and saying, well, why are you thanking God
to eat the bitter herbs? And it doesn't Sometime you go through a hard
period, but if you can endure, you actually come out sharg on the
other side. And I think that's the legacy of Jerusalem. The City of
David is lots of ups and downs, lots of shortcomings, lots of destruction,
but we keep coming back and we keep rebuilding. And I think the
heritage that both of our great nations are both upon, that's our story,
which is, yeah, we're gonna step back sometimes, but we're gonna keep
going. A virtual three hundred sixty degree tour can be found at City of
David dot org dot i l and there'll be a linkold Rigochete dot com where
you can go and take a look. Zev thank you next year in Jerusalem,
even this year in Jerusalem. Lots to see you guys again soon.
Happy pass Over, if that's the right way to put it. Christians say
Happy Easter, Happy pass Over, that's right, and happy Holy Week,
God bless thank you. We'll be right back after this when Rob mentioned prohibition,
though, for some reason, my mind went back to one of my
favorite things about prohibition, which was this grape brick they used to sell.
You could order this brick of compressed grapes, and with it came with it
came a set of wonderful instructions that told you everything not to do or it
would turn into wine. This was to make. This was to make just
juice. But it's like, don't put it in a glass bottle with sugar,
with sugar, don't put that bottle in the dark, and don't leave
it alone for two to three weeks. I mean, it's just great.
And you know, the government did try to do what the good about it.
Maybe that's what we should do when it comes to some of these positions.
It just phrased them in the negative. But I heard somebody draw breath.
I was about to no, No, I'm just I have There's a
little touch of a family story there that my mother grew up on a farm
and my grandfather operated a water powered sawmill, and every autumn that sawmill was
rejiggered. The pulleys moved around to turn it into an apple press, and
farmers from miles and miles and miles around, brought apples to be pressed right
so that they could have cider. And it wasn't until years later that I
tweaked to what was going on there. At least in part. It was
a pretty Protestant group in that area of northwestern northeastern Pennsylvania. But there but
so you'd think there may certainly my grandparents were teetotalers, but there were there
were some hard cider being drunk in those summers and winters there in Montrose,
Pennsylvania. It wasn't just whiskey. It was cider that helped the American Revolution
in the American culture spring up. That's right, rob is the the drink
that you would associate with New Orleans. It would be the Sasarek. That's
probably the first cocktail ever invented. It was invented in the pace showed by
Antoine pay showed who was a pharmacist at an apothecarist. He had an apothecara
on Charter Street. And it is you rinse your rinse a rocks glass,
old fashioned glass with herb saint just rinse. It put some retain in so
you get the scent a little bit of a little bit of sugar um ice
rye and a dash of pace showed bitters, which turns it which is a
red red bitters and you kind of swirl around the glass and maybe garnish it
with a lemon peel if you're that inclined to that. It is a delicious,
delicious drink. And I will, by the way, understanding and responding
to your segue, James, I will actually be having one, well at
least one, probably several in New Orleans in two weeks with the Ricochet meet
up. So if you want to come to New Orleans, I think of
the big day is is that Friday, April thirteen. Um, really,
so it's a week away, says I say two weeks only momently it's a
week away Friday, April thirteen. We are all meeting in New Orleans.
M Thursday, April thirteen, Friday, apricriening having a big party. We
want you to come, So a Ricochet meet up. That's the fun of
Ricochet. It's not just these brilliant podcasts. It's also the joy of getting
together in real life. So that's a little bit away. And then after
that, UM, on April twenty second, there'll be a meeting in still
Water, Minnesota. I don't know if you're going to be there, James.
And then there's one coming up in mid July from Winston Salem and that
stuff's being worked out. And Mike Baster just sent notice about an annual German
Fest extravagands it will be happening in Milwaukee in late July. A member she
not she liked the president of China, but she liked the member of Ricochet
is wondering members want to meet up for the in the Pittsburgh area for the
Willie Nelson concert, which is actually kind of fun. But look, if
you can't make these, they're too far away, whatever reason. Here's the
solution. You join Ricochet. You go on ricochet dot com. You tell
everybody your fellow members, hey, I want to have a meet up here
on these dates, and they'll come to you. Because Ricochet people travel to
get together, and I will be traveling to get sasarek. Great thing about
the members apprechie, by the way, is that if you post a meme
that's a bit mocking, you probably won't go to prison. As far as
we know, hadn't happened yet. President hasn't been set, but there's just
a horrible story. I can't get my head around this. There's this guy,
I forget his name, was one of your basic social media guys who
puts up the memes, and he put out a meme about you can vote
for Hillary Clinton online, text your vote two with a phone number. He's
facing prison. You know this story, right? No, I don't really
truly willing to win the story. I wish I could get the guy's name
off the top of my hand. But he put that he was charged with
election interference, trying to deprive people of their right to vote, etcetera,
etcetera, which is kind of like that thing that they also charged Trump with
with election interference that paying off Stormy Daniel. So the story didn't get out
was elected because people would be less likely to vote for him if they knew
about it. Really, Donald, I mean, we kind of knew this
guy was one of the shock all through the eighties and nine. This is
not a surprise. This would not change his my concept of his behavior.
But anyway, this guy's facing prison time for putting out a meme that said
call this number and text your vote to Hillary, as he was attempting to
capitalize, perhaps on the stupid, but it was obviously a joke. It's
it's that, it's how many times do you see that little meme on Twitter,
where well, it Democrats vote on Tuesday, Republicans you vote on Wednesday,
or some little joke like that that that assumes the other side is dumb
and does something like that. There was somebody who did it for Hillary as
well, or you did it for Trump, but since it wasn't as professional
looking as this troll guy's stuff, they have charged her. No, he
used similar typefaces and color schemes and he's facing jail time. Man, I
can't I can't last you can it? Well, it has to fall on
day. It has to be I mean appealed because he's found guilty. I
don't know what the sentence is going to be, but it has to be
appealed on just basic First Amendment rights. Unless people actually think that putting a
lame meme on Twitter is the equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater,
which itself isn't even illegal. All right, you guys don't have an opinion
on that, well, I know you do, and you're again the other
big story of the week of course, brace yourself. A lot of people
are saying, thank god, I have a reason to never drink bud Light
again. Do you know this one? No, I don't know that one.
Yeah, I do know this one. But I'll take any reason you
can give me. I should make this the quiz of the quiz at the
end of the week. Rob, Yeah, we should do that. Actually,
should we do thing? Rob explained it to Peter. Bud Light Budweiser
product has named a new spokesperson, a person I was not aware existed.
And when I said I was hard as to a bunch of people, I
was like roundly criticized for being in just completely out of it. A person
named Dylan Mulvaaney who is a trans activist and a controversial one because sometimes people
believe even people who are sort of um transpositive. I guess I don't know
if they were to be people who are not sort of already thinking this is
all nuts, are thinking that maybe this is some kind of horrible caricature that
this person is doing. But a bud Light is named dillamavanius spokesperson, and
it's gotten sort of has like I think, has a new trans trender pro
trans logo on some cans of bud Light. It's unclear to me that bud
Light. Uh, they're not for general company, not for general distribution.
It was a huge company though, right right, right, he thinks the
Bush family of Saint Louis anymore. They sold it a decade to go to
Yeah, what was the huge his beer? Right? They got a Yeah,
they got a million billion trillion dollars. They spend every day on marketing
and audience research and customer research. I think they need their money back.
I'm not sure that they're connecting with the bud Light drinker, but maybe that's
just me. Well yeah, And then some people went on to say that
actually, if you go to gate Bars, bud Light is the preferred beer.
This they know their market. It wasn't for general release. It was
just they made a few cans for him because he's an important trender influencer.
And I want to gag as I say those words. It doesn't matter.
It got out. People saw with the sensibilities and the these lade saw a
little TikTok the other day from good who was giving any Bush a message.
I got out his AAR fifteen and shot up about three cases worth of Budweiser
products and said he's never drinking it again, which is great. Travis the
Country Western Star said he's removing Anheuser Bush products from all of his concert writers.
A lot of people are just saying, Okay, I get it,
I get it. This is what you is, where your values are mine
or elsewhere. The reason that they're doing it is probably because in order to
improve their di score, in order to make themselves to be able to have
something to point to when the activists come around and say, nice beer empire
you have. You be ashamed if anybody picketed you for not being sufficiently diverse
and enthusiastic about multiplicity of things you're supposed to be enthusiastic about that they buy
off future trouble by doing something like this. It's inane if you ask me,
because what the end of alienating is remarkable. Jack Daniels is the latest
who have done our Jack Daniels Canada announced on their Twitter feed that they are
partnering with RuPaul in order to have a Drag Queen's Summer Camp. Now.
Jack Daniels is not exactly my go to whiskey, but the idea that a
brand with that sort of image and heritage and Tennessee and all the rest of
it would then throw its lot in with these creatures who are esthetically appalling hericatures,
the long nails and the Dolly Partney hair and the godly cosmetics. This
is Jack Daniels wants to be part of this click too, And I can't
help but think it's the same thing. You're trying to forestall future protests by
saying, well, look what we bought here. But the expanse to their
image amongst people who actually care about these things is enormous. It just is.
It's it's remarkably bad publicity, and it just reminds me. It makes
you think how many tone deaf young folks work in their social media area and
think, well, everybody loves drag, and only really bad, awful people
who have very close narrow minds don't realize how wonderful dragon. Well, anyway,
I've just been rambling too long. It's time to get out of here,
because you know, not every podcast can be ninety minutes, two hundred
and twenty and so forth. I have to tell you, fast growing trees
have probably grown maybe an interest. So since last I talked about them,
export them for supporting us, and you get a great tree in the bargain.
Take a few minutes sleeve as the five star review if you wouldn't mind,
And don't worry when I say that we'll see you at the comments at
Ricochet four point zero. It won't be four point oh forever. What do
I mean? Go there? Find out next week, guys, next week,
Thanks week, fellas. I am Andrew Gutman and I'm Beth Feely,
and we're a couple of accidental activist parents who woke up and started speaking out
about issues that we saw in our children's schools. So join us every week
on Take Back our Schools on the Ricochet Audio Network or wherever you get your
po us. Ricochet joined the conversation