Well, Whiskey coming Pain, My Pain, Dory's Brain, Whiskey, Don't
You Let Me Go? From Powerline blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot
Com. This is the three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders Steve Award,
John You and Powerlines International Woman of Mystery Lucresha give me let that while where
you're being in Lost, Down and Loan. Welcome everybody to the three Whiskey
Happy Hour, or, as I'm told by UM one of our loyal listeners,
it's really known out there in UM podcast land as the Lucresha Hour.
I like that, but I don't think that's fair anyway. We're very excited
to be together today. We have a lot of really exciting things to talk
about. But first I have to ask you guys, all right, are
you drinking anything? Because I just want you to know. I just opened
a brand new bottle of Glenn fittich Are Clara fifteen warm and spicy single mold
is matured for fifteen years in Bourbon, new oak and sherry casks before harmonizing
in our unique Clara vat. I don't have any idea what that means,
but it's really nice. So are you guys talking. I'm going back to
whistle pick, so I'm just opening it. I'm gonna pour a little bit.
Well, although I'm not taking a double because Lucretia is not one of
the speakers today. It's just a host. Oh yeah, right, I
can tell you what. I'll tell you what. I am drinking a whiskey.
It's been a long busy week. More on that maybe along the way.
I can tell you, though, what I'm not drinking. A listener
sent me a link to something that I didn't know existed, even though Lucretia,
you apparently told me about this some time ago, and I forgot or
wasn't listening, of course, peanut butter whiskey. I didn't know there one
such a thing. I forgot. I know, I know there's there's So
the first time it was screwball and a friend of mine who's an HSI agent,
came over one night and he would he would bring over bottles of whiskey
and we sit and drink them together. He's actually a friend of my son's,
but anyway, um, and so one night he brings this peanut butter
whiskey. Some people actually like it, and if you pour it in with
like Godiva chocolate liqueur or cream to cocoa or even in say Tia Maria Um,
you kind of get the sense of having am like you know, the
TITSI roll shot, it's like a Reese's peanut butter shot. But what I
decided to do with it was make my world famous tier messoux. But instead
of using the typical rum of brandy, I used peanut butter whiskey, massive
amounts of peanut butter whiskey and massive amounts of Godiva chocolate liqueur and made a
Reese's peanut butter cup tier massou, which was the hit of which is the
hit of every event I take it to. I'll just say that much what
happens if you have a peanut allergy? Can you drink peanut butter whiskey?
I don't give a damn about Sorry, people with peanut allergies. Well I
am. I'm having some finn Loggin again, which I haven't had for a
while. It's that, you know, I think it's a second label for
Lefroig or somebody on the I like right where because it's very peaty and and
it's not expensive. It's only nineteen dollars a bottle of Trader Joe's. I
mentioned, by the way, you can get Screwball peanut butter whiskey for nine
ninety nine, So well, what else have you got cooking for us?
That's what I was going to ask, I'll put it that way. So
I sent Steve a text early in the morning the other day and I said,
Damn, I have to. I have to say that I'm happy with
Kevin maccarthur again weeks in a row, for weeks in a row. But
then of course I had to, you know, because of the whole what's
her name? I can't I permanently cannot remember that ugly woman's name. The
Palestinian can't use the word I want to shed talib is that it? That's
it? Right? Yeah, okay, something like that. Anyway, she
wanted to it's the what anniversary of the found of the founding of Israel,
and she wanted to hold an anti Israel rally with a bunch of you know,
pro Palestinian anti Israel groups on the capitol in the Capitol and McCarthy said,
Nope, we're not doing that, which made me very happy. Yeah,
I'm a little curious. I would love to know exactly how that went
down, because what the way the world first heard about it was a tweet
from McCarthy saying, this event is canceled. I'll be hosting a celebration for
the seventy fifth vership Israel, a bipartisan celebration. And I don't know John
what the rules are, but you know, when I was an intern on
near Capitol Hill a million years ago, you know, members would hold receptions
and it also reserve a committee room where an interest group could hold a reception.
I think all the new ethics rules have killed all that, but it's
where interns used to go to have good, cheap or not cheap free meals.
You know, used to be this phone tree in the afternoon. Where
where are the best receptions tonight? Stock your way in and I don't think
goes happen anymore. But anyway, I'm wondering if they still do they still
do? Okay, well, that's good, I'm you know, you want
that kind of petty corruption going on. I wonder if McCarthy called up Rashida
to lead and said, no, I'm canceling the event, or if he
just announced on Twitter it was canceled. Either way, I would love to
have known how that all went down. But yes, I was very pleased
to see that that was good. Yeah, I want to ask you guys
a deeper question about that. But first, I think there's a great rule
I think it's still exists that says that you can still have these options as
long as they're not sit down dinners. Yeah. So you've got all these
interns struggling with these little plates piled high with food, right, you know,
and trying to pretend they're real full time staffers when they talk the lobbyists.
And then I think you have to generally open it up to you know,
certain classic employees, so they've got to be kind of open. So
I yeah, But anyway, I want to ask you guys this question,
what is with the sort of anti Israeli, anti Zionist agenda with the left?
I don't understand it. Actually, why the Democratic Party fosters these kinds
of john I mean, this has been bubbling up for a long time now,
by degrees, but it began campus it's look the actually you know it
was Aaron Woldovski first started writing about this in the late eighties, saying,
I notice that, you know, Jews were always considered a minority, a
marginalized group, somebody who'd been considered an oppressed group or discriminated against. This
is what I noticed now is that the left is starting to single out Jews
as oppressors. Why because they beat the Arabs in every war of the Arabs
picked with them. And he says, this looks ominous to me. Now
that's you know, thirty years ago Aaron was writing that, and I mean
he laid it all out, and that's what it is, is that the
Palestinians had become another favored victim group of the left. And who are the
oppressors well as the Jews? So now the Jews Israel's an apartheid state,
right, They're practicing genocide against Palestinians. And you know, and the Democratic
Party is has no resistance to this kind of claim, and so, you
know, anti Semitism. Well, what I think it's Glenn Reynolds who says
the corbinization of the Democratic Party has been underway for a while now, and
it's preceding step by step. Yeah, it's still hard. I get what
John is saying though nothing personal when I say this, Steve, but that's
all obvious kind of stuff. It's still you know, it's when all of
a sudden, I something, is there something deeper sense? Yeah, that's
what I mean, is there's something deeper about leftism or progressivism that forces them
to be anti Semitic or and then at the same time, so many Jewish
people deciding to us there a lot with the left and the Democratic Party.
We did discuss this a few weeks ago when you said you were going to
write your book that said why are Asians so stupid? Remember that podcast?
Yeah, we discussed this once before. It's still but I guess my point
is it still doesn't quite make sense to me, other than there's a certain
amount of arbitrariness to who's up and who's down with the left. But you'd
think that given the support from um Jews in them to the Democratic Party and
to the left, that they'd be a little bit more circumspect about it.
But I guess, you know, I get, I get the whole thing
about the last thing, that one is a functioning democracy in the Middle East.
Of course, well, they don't want to functioning democracy if net and
Yaho's going to keep winning. And that's what I was pointing out a week
or two ago. Is that if not that? And yahoo, the center
right parties are they going to be the dominant already are the dominant political faction
in Israel, And boy does the secretar left in America, both Jewish and
non Jewish, hate that right. So yeah, OK, even though it
puts them in bed, as it were, with the most repressive, horrible
regimes from the you know, progressive perspective, and you want to look at
a part of the world where there's no gay rights. So I think I
think there's a clue. There's a clue in that. John Actually, because
you know, Steve always likes to joke that the left doesn't care what you
do as long as it's mandatory. I'm going to sort of take move that
out of joke realm and say that perhaps what it is that intrigues the left
the most about the anti Israel, what would it be a group of people,
group of interests, is their authoritarianism. Because you know, so I
think they probably care more about being authoritarian than they do for instance, gay
rights. For instance, they don't care about gay rights or transsexual rights,
or women's rights. We know that they care about forcing views on people and
doing whatever's necessarily necessary. Authoritarian speaking to force those views. And that's probably
why they have much more in common with the Palestinians and with the Lebani,
with the all the different horrible groups over there. I don't know, what
do you think, Steve, you're laughing at me. No, I'm not,
I'm I'm I'm laughing in agreement. I do think. I mean to
see how this goes. It used to be thought that anti Semitism came from
the bigoted right and its historic roots going back centuries. Was I mean,
the really horrible was that, you know, the Jews or christ Killers actually
heard the Middle Ages and stuff, and uh, and that's there is a
little bit of basis in that. But today, but then let's think about
a parallel case, which is Protestants and Catholics didn't like each other. Well,
it turns out Protestants and Catholics now vote the same way, and they're
more often aligned, and those theological differences have disappeared politically because of politics,
right, Catholics and Protestants are both being assailed by radical left. Now Catholics
have also embraced Judaism. Yeah, yes, across the board. And I
think we're going to see here the old line of I think Milton him larb
Gutrude's older brother was that Jews live like Episcopellians, but vote like Puerto Ricans,
right overwhelmingly Democratic vote. And I wonder if that's going to start to
change along with the Asian votes starting to change as they come to see the
Democratic Party is not just different to them, but is increasingly hostile. So
and I read an interesting article and actually sent it, thought about sending it
to Amma girl, and then she sent it to me first about about young
Jewish women, Orthodox Jewish women in places like Los Angeles becoming sharpshooters in order
to protect their synagogue and to protect you know, different activities in the synagogue
and so forth, and that you know that of all ethnic groups, Jews
actually have the tiniest percentage of people who own firearms. But that's changing,
which kind of goes along with what you just said, Steve, that we
were likely to see a change as they become more and more victims of of
of the anti Semite, semi anti Semite hate that's out there, that's becoming
violent and truly ugly. Yeah, So I think I don't know anyway,
I do get your confusion about it, John, because even though we can
explain all those things, it still doesn't deep down doesn't make sense to me.
Why hate Jews? There's just no reason for it, you know.
Anyway, all right, cheers for Georgia football. Are you sitting down?
John? I have to give a show, I know, but brace yourself.
I have to give credit to Steve Wow Wow because way back McCarthy.
Steve McConnell's next. Because way back after the Bulldogs won the national championship,
uh and Biden went down and gave that awful speech where he called anybody who
didn't support the what the heck was his name? The Lewis Voting Rights Act,
Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis. I forget anyway, Jim Crow got that
horrible speech that that remembers Stacy didn't show up for Stacy Abram Tank didn't show
up for because she was getting her tires rotated anyway, um on her tank
um anyway. So he's down there that what was it two days a day,
two days after they'd won the championship, and he didn't even mention it.
And we talked about it, and I said, because there's a bunch
of um pansy boys that you know, millennials working around uh Biden who don't
even know what college football is. And then Steve said, if they're smart,
they won't show up when they get invited to the White House because of
their championship. And that was months ago, like February, wasn't it,
And lo and behold they got invited and they said, guess what were busy?
They didn't even say they were getting their tires rotated. So anyway,
three cheers for that too. Okay, I want to get John's opinion about
a legal issue before we get down into the dirty politics of it. The
Supreme Court last night put a two weeks stay on the Biden's administration's policy.
You talk about not understanding the whole jewicing, This one is just so bizarre.
I'm not sure I can explain it. So Title forty two is ending
so they can't keep out huge numbers of people who storm the border and cross
illegally. They won't keep them out, I guess is really the point.
They won't keep them out. And so the Biden administration had suspended a rule
that requires anybody that's apprehended to be detained, identified, fingerprinted, etc.
Etc. Given a court date and all those kinds of things they're saying,
and a background check is done to see they're not criminals or sex offenders and
all those other things terrorists from countries all over the world. They suspended the
rule that requires them to do that background check detainment, and the court last
night, and I believe it was Texas, decided to put a two week
stay on that policy. So now the policy at the border is if they
cross and they're detained, they have to be piled into these already incredibly full
detainment centers. Is that right, John? Do you understand it that way?
Yeah? And I hope we get to quickly what's going on at the
border with the end of Title forty two, which is what you're witnessing where
you live. But basically the way it works is people can come to Unite
States, and if they're basically economic migrants, you know, they're looking for
work and they don't have any visa, they just have no right to be
here, right, and they should be removed immediately. But then there's another
way you could come in, which is asylum. And that's where all of
the fighting that everyone's reading about with immigration is going on. Because under American
immigration law, someone can come show up at the border and claim asylum,
and the rules for asylum are just are just very different and in some ways
much easier, because if you have what's called a well founded fear of persecution
in your home country, then you can seek and receive asylum to stay in
the United States. So obviously what happens is all these people who are wanting
to cross the border, who may be coming to better their lives and seek
work they know or someone's telling them. Just claim you're want to claim you
want asylum. Don't claim you're coming for a job. There's no question that
people are gaming this, right, Jo's right, interrupt John, But yeah,
I mean, you know you're supposed to be fleeing a political persecute or
you know real well, look, I mean most of them are coming from
Central America, where things were a lot worse than the eighties, you know,
in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the other countries, and so there's there's
no logical reason the numbers will be surging except the people have figured out and
the word has been passed around. I think a lot of this is organized.
Yeah, I'd also add one other detail, Uh, we are.
If you don't know how overwhelmed this asylum system is. My understanding is is
that if you actually a processed properly now under the system Lucretia describes, right
now, they're assigning court dates to hear your asylum claim in twenty twenty seven.
That's right now. The calendar the court, the asylum court counter for
the immigration courts four years out from now. You know, the problem is
that you're supposed to be held, you know, detained by the government while
you're pending waiting for your hearing. But the Biden administration is saying, you
know, there's no we have no resources, we can't do that. So
we're just going to release them in the general popular you know, just release
them to the country on the promise that they'll show up for their court date.
Now, most of these people right like here is Steve said, these
are we're talking about court dates are four or five years from now, and
so in the meantime, they're going to go to work, you know,
work without permission, stay here without a legal visa, and then who knows
if they ever going to show up. There's no way to force them to
show up. We don't keep track of them, and so h that's that's
the problem. So this federal judge, as I understand it, said,
you know, the by administration has to stop just releasing people willy nilly who
show up at the border claim asylum, have no legal right to be in
the country and just turn around and let them go. So I have another
legal question. I think it is could given how much the immigration policy is
affected by executive orders and practices that come down from the administration, and you
know, either laws and regulations enforced or they're not, depending on you know,
which way the administration wants to go. Would it not be a very
simple thing, for without comprehensive immigration reform, for if the Biden administration had
the will to do so, and I know they don't, for them to
say, these are the countries that we will accept that we will accept asylum
seekers from, and you must come. You must wait in line and come
through a legitimate border crossing. You cannot just show up at the border and
say help me, help me and turn yourself in. All of that could
be made without any change to law. Correct. Yeah, And in fact,
if you want to see this puts this is why the Biden administrations,
claims Frank Hollow is that under President Trump he basically did that. He basically
did use executive power which were upheld by the courts to establish rules to how
to handle the asylum is one of the biggest ones what was called the Remain
in Mexico policy, which said, Okay, if you show up at the
border at the Mexico border crossings and you claim asylum, you'll wait to Mexico
because actually you had to enter Mexico from somewhere else, So you're just going
to stagimize. We're not going to turn around and release you right into the
population. As far as I know, no courts actually the Supreme Courts certainly
didn't strike that policy down. So there is a lot of discretion in the
immigration rules, which you know, could allow if you wanted to, if
he wanted to President Biden to handle this crisis. But Steve said, instead,
the word is out that you should come and say you're coming for asylum,
and they nothing's going to happen to you. And if nothing happens to
you, then it's just going to encourage more people. So I want to
ask Steve an analysis question. But before I go there I want to mention.
I think I read in the New York Post yesterday yesterday or this morning
probably was this morning, long day, that they had a whole article interviewing
asylum seekers who'd gotten into the border, gotten across the border and were now
being detained. They were being in many cases handcuffed. They were there.
So this is what the article said, and they quoted one woman saying,
we just wanted to come here for a better life. They're treating us like
criminals. Okay, okay, you can look at that from from you know,
sitting in my lofty spot and saying, you know, you stupid person,
of course you're a criminal. Da da da da da. But what
Steve said was true. The word is out, not that you have to
come through and do it the right way, and we have, we do,
in fact have a very comprehensive system for dealing with refugees and asylum seekers
or we did you know, and I actually know people who do volunteer work
in that, etcetera, etcetera. But what has happened is an incredible crime
against humanity in my opinion, which is what I've said all along, that
the problem with an open border policy, which is Essentially, what we have
under the Biden administration is the incredible amount of human suffering that is perpetrated on
the asylum seekers and the illegal immigrants. It talked that particular article talked about
the journey through some jungle. I forget the name of it. They have
a horrible nickname for it because the women. You know, I think I
mentioned or somebody mentioned at one that there was a young a nine year old
girl who was rescued at the border who had sixty seven different DNA type center.
Yeah, yeah, And I hope you understand what that means. You
know, I'm not going to explain it. I mean that, so the
when you say the word is out, John, when you say that that
either it's organized or it's not organized. That we are encouraging people to come
here because and get here by any means possible, because your chances are pretty
darn good that you'll be let go into the United States and you can make
your way and whatever, perhaps get on welfare, perhaps you just work hard.
I'm really not I'm really not being so harsh on the people who want
to do that. Why wouldn't you if if you want to agree with you,
I don't blame them at all. They are trying to improve their economic
situation, but they are breaking our laws, and if we continue to allow
it, we will have destroyed any commitment we have to the rule of law.
Why would not every Americans say, if you can, if you can,
disobey those laws, I don't want to pay my taxes anymore. Well,
there's another problem. The biggest problem here from a liberal point of view,
if you want to credit them with sincerity, is it's going to wreck
the asylum system for legitimate asylum seekers. And I mean case in point is,
actually you might have met this kid, John, who just didn't know
it. I had a Turkish kid in my class and the presidency a couple
years ago. He was sitting in the front row and the class. You
visited John that one day you came to talk about national security and he's here
in the United States, he and his mother on the political asylum claim.
And he told me the whole story. You know, he was on the
wrong side of Urdawuan or whatever his name is in Turkey and speaks great English.
He's managed to get a work permit and he was just telling me that
his court case to get the asylum claim processed and ruled on to get a
green card. It just keeps getting put off year after he's been in the
country eight or nine years now. And so there's a legitimate case of asylum.
Someone could manage to get here from Turkey and so forth, probably applied
over there the way you're supposed to, and you can't get through the darned
system having to pay an immigration lawyer. You know, his work permit has
restrictions on it and whatnot. He teaches driver education is what he does to
make ends meet while he's going to Berkeley anyway. And what's going to happen
is this whole system is going to collapse upon itself, and maybe soon,
maybe like the next you know, several weeks or months, it's going to
collapse on itself, and everything's going to grind to a halt, and it's
going to be a disaster for people who actually do deserve asylum. Two points,
so two points about seasonally. One is I actually represent a client pro
bono who's being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party and fled China. And as
you say, Steve, what she would just want is certainty about whether she
can stay or whether she has to leave, but there's so much delay.
The system is completely clogged by all these people who are claiming asylum but really
aren't. That's it's terrible for her. The second thing is I think there's
something even more nefarious going on. Sometimes people on the conservatives side say,
oh, the reason that the Biden administration is doing this is because they want
to have more Aliens coming who are going to become Democrats, like they tend
to vote Democrats. I actually think this is like my question about Israel and
Judaism and liberals. I think liberals have this deep held belief that borders are
immoral. Yes, that it's wrong to actually try to stop people from crossing
a border. They think is wrong to be a nation state and exercise territorial
sovereignty. That's the bigger picture thin' going on here. Before you go on,
John, I agree with you, but I know that that's not the
case for the Biden administration because I think it's a toss up. I think
on the way, and it does seem a little bit far fetched to see
them doing this as a demographic to change the demographics of the country. But
we saw it happen in California to some extent, so maybe it's not such
a crazy idea. However, you're right, and I don't think it's just
the left. I think I've mentioned this before. I'll say it really quickly
again. The first time I taught a class, I teach on US immigration
and refugee policy. And most of the listeners know that I generally teach more
conservative students. They tend to be older. Often their veterans or active duty
military students are usually not the eighteen year old freshman, right, And so
I'm teaching this class and talking about border policy. Long story short, probably
eighty percent of the class was absolutely committed to the concept of open borders.
Yeah, absolutely committed to it. And my difficulty was trying to get them
to understand that all of the reasons why immigrants want to come here, asylum
seekers want to come here, it's the freedom we have, the freedom for
capitalism, you know, the ability to pull yourself up from nothing and make
something of yourself. All of those things, the American set of principles,
All of those things are what draws people here. But what we're doing with
this widespread illegal immigration and refusal to define asylum seekers and letting in literally millions
of people. So we're destroying that. We're destroying it. We're not requiring
what my immigrant grandparents had to do. Learn English, learn about the Constitution,
learn civics, and take a citizens ship test. Right, none of
that's even sort of expected anymore, except for those people who actually come and
wait in line for their turn to come legally. And I think that's really
the problem if you understand that, if we just leave open borders as open
borders, never mind the crime, never mind the destruction of our social services,
our city services, and so one, but we just won't have the
country we had. And to think I don't want to think that the left
just does it because they want more voters. But you know I've been wrong
on those things before. It's it's very sad and and in my city,
I'll say again that the problem here is not so much the problem I don't
find. I don't have the homeless immigrants sleeping out on my street yet.
But yesterday, by three o'clock in the afternoon, I told John and Steve
that the sheriff had had four tragic high speed chases. And when I talk
about a high speed chase, it's usually a fifteen year old kid who comes
and he's being paid by the Coyotes a thousand and two thousand dollars a person
to transport somebody who can cross the border because there's no longer any kind of
wall. There's no train cars, box cars down there. They just cross
and somebody picks them up. They don't stay here in the small town I'm
in because there's lots of law enforcement in the military base, but they go
to places like Tucson and Phoenix and Los Angeles and other places. It has
to take them there. And what will happen is it's very clear what's happening
when you got a car full of and so the border patrols start chasing them.
The next thing you know, they're going one hundred and twenty miles an
hour through a neighborhood, crashing into houses, crashed, you know, crashing
into other cars at intersections, and it's it's just really awful. So much
so then I'll end with this, You guys will appreciate this that my sheriff
has issued an edict that anybody, anybody caught driving fifteen miles an hour over
the speed limit will be arrested and jailed. I know, Oh my God,
another and yet another reason not to visit your town. But what do
you do? I mean, And most of the people that are in the
jail, I think I said this before, so most of the people that
are in the county jail for border related crimes are Americans who are aiding in
a betting because they're being paid to do so illegal border crossing. So all
right, um, it's it's a sad situation. And again I sound like
a bleeding heart when I say it, but it's just as sad for the
people who are being unfairly given the motivation to come here with the belief that
everything's going to be great. When they do, it's awful, and it's
it's, you know, it's truly awful. I wouldn't never tell all the
stories I know about what happens to young women, what happens to children.
It's it's truly horrendous. It's it's it's it's crimes against humanity. And we
are I can't believe that we're not clever enough as a nation to be able
to make those kinds of very very important moral judgments that it's more important to
keep those people safe than it is to just open our borders so that everybody
can who wants here can come. Okay, I'll be quiet now, I'll
get off my so box. But I do want to ask Steve one last
question. You say you think that will be Biden's undoing. How's that going
to happen? What's going to happen? Yeah? So, I mean you're
you know, talk about Schadenfreud alert. You're seeing Chicago, New York,
Washington, DCEE, other towns where Governor Abbott and others have the wit to
bust a lot of these migrants, and they're saying, oh, were overwhelmed.
This is a crisis. It's terrible, and I think what they should
do is send more of them. And because you know that's gonna every place
that says their sanctuary city should be made a sanctuary for them. Now,
why I think this might be as undoing is uh. You know again,
it's a historical precedent for it. You go back to nineteen eighty you had
the Mario boatlift from Cuba, and at first a lot of people out,
Oh this is great, We're gonna get a bunch of Cuban Ai communists.
You know, refugees really want get out of the country. Astro, being
cynical, emptied his jails of his worst criminals and a lot of people who
are you know, in their versions of mental institutions. So they arrive on
all these boats and we realized, oh, we've got a big problem on
our hands. We've just imported a you know, thirty or forty thousand criminals.
So what what did the Carter administration do? Put them in camps,
refugee camps. One of them was in Fort Smith, Arkansas, where they
rioted and the riots spilled out in the local communities, and Bill Clinton lost
his reelection that year and blamed Jimmy Carter for it. And I'm thinking,
now, what if you're going to have fat In New York. Mary Adams
has said I'm gonna start sending some of these refugees asylum seekers out to the
New York suburbs, and the suburbs have said, no, you're not.
So you can see where this is going. I think the sheer volume of
it here, and if it is dispersed around the country, it's no longer
going to be just a problem for the border towns in Texas and California.
It's now going to be a national problem. And Biden's going to get blamed
for it that. I think that's one way it may play out. I
don't know. Can I pickyback on something? Yeah, pickyback a little bit
on that and call upon my respected elders here who were older than I was
in the nineteen seventies. But isn't this like the nineteen seventies all over again?
In another way, which is that this is a build on this feeling
that things are spiraling out of control, that there's a decline in law and
order. So um, the immigration border crisis just or further reinforces the right
feelings Americans had because of the right the sharp rises in crime we've had these
last two years, and the return of inflation, and the incompetence of our
you know, for national security leaders to manage our foreign affairs. This seems
like a replay of the Carter years. But I was yet a small young
pup at that time, so I don't remember it as well as you.
But doesn't this feel like the seventies as I've read about it? We want
to talk about deja vu all over again. I got to spend the evening
middle of the week with Arthur Laugher. He of the famous curve right,
And I said, you know, it looks great. By the way,
he's got to be in his eighties. He's eighty three. It's it's ridiculous.
I hate it. Yeah, I mean he looks like he's my age.
He's still unbelieving. He and Harvey Mansfield must be going to the same
taxi decence. You know, it's got they have the same painting in their
attic. You can't believe that that Art is, you know, a year
and a half older than Joe Biden. And it's you know, okay,
wow um. I was saying, you know, Art, I remember when
I was reading you for the first time. Inflation was running high. A
Democratic president was in the mid thirties in his approval ratings, he was being
challenged renomination by a guy named Kennedy. The Russian Army was on the march,
and the GOP front runner was an older guy coming out of the entertainment
industry with a slight orange complexion. As it wait a minute, I've seen
this movie before. Out of that end, but the more serious point is,
and I think that the other rerun we're seeing right now, you mentioned
crime John Is. It was in the eighties. I think it was eighty
four when that Bernie Bernie Guests he shot four muggers and he was put on
trial. People forget that he was acquitted from too many how many grand juries
before they would indict him that it was two or three? Yeah, I
don't remember that part. What I remember was he was acquitted of the primary
charge of manslaughter or whatever it was, or secondary murder. He was convicted
on the lesser charge of illegal possession of a firearm in New York, which
nowadays he wouldn't be. I think I'm not sure, right, um uh,
And so I think, yeah, I think we're about to see a
rerun of that phenomenon, because you know, Gets was you know, a
folk hero. It was you know, uh it was for years I used
Bernie Gets as the example of Bernie Gets when I would teach Hobbes at that
but as an example to try to, you know, students have a really
hard time placing the theoretical notion of the state of nature in a sort of
timeline that leads to the social contract. And so what I would say is
understand it like this. When Bernie Gets was in the subway and he was
continuously being mugged and his life was continue usly being threatened, and the government
was not protecting him as the social contract said it should, the consent to
the government said it should. He was back in the state of nature with
respect to you know, those people just like you would be back in the
state of nature if you're walking out to your car to night and somebody comes
up with a knife U and you know, tries to rob you or steal
your car, whatever. But if you're like me and you're carrying a pistol
and you shoot them, according to just basic social contract theory, the government
is not there at that moment to protect you, so you must do it
yourself. And you know that I would just use that example. But but
John is right. Maybe you said the seventies. I'm going to say the
eighties. Now New York was worse than many many places in the eighties.
And and you know until Giuliani came along, and and and so on who
was before him that fixed a few things before? Yeah, oh well though
there was oh I know he did fix anything, not thinking it was Ed
Coch Yeah right, yeah, yeah, it's just your clever way of transitioning
to the return of the state of nature on New York subways. No,
but but introducing, yeah, introducing um. Steven sent me something that he
was writing, and he had this phrase in there from from um, oh
what's his name? From Angelo Angelo Angelo Angelo Codavia that that police bureaucracies,
and police would become like bureaucracies, and so I let Steve explain, but
that the citizen who defended himself is now under the new regime public enemy number
one. Steve wrote that a couple of days ago before that poor marine had
to turn himself in today where they're charging him with what second degree manslaughter?
You know, he's a hero to everybody who was on the subway at the
time. Of course, I'll let you guys talk about that whole situation.
But how are we in this place? Yeah, I mean, what is
it? Remember? Let me say one more thing. Remember all the situations
in New York where you know, somebody would be stabbed fifteen times and ten
people would walk by, or ten people were watching and wouldn't intervene in any
way. They were all the raped in Central Park, And I don't remember
the specifics. N the ninth episode, Your match is actually from the sixties.
I think you're thinking of the famous Kitty Geno VC case where she was
screaming for help and nobody would call the police. Happened over and over.
Well, I think that the bigger I mean, that's the not isolated case,
but extreme in the magnitude of it. The more commonplace thing was people
who parked on the street and would put a sign in their windows say no
radio in car, because the big thing then was people would smash windows and
steal your radios. I know one very wealthy person who uh you know at
several residents, but he had his fancy cars out of his country homes and
he had a beat up, old Oldsmobiles when he drove into Manhattan, and
that's what he parked out of the street. I want to have a nice
so that those the kind of change. But it wasn't just this is time.
Well I know, but the point because is that people start changing their
behavior when you have the breakdown of law and order. And so one thing's
happening is is that, you know, public ridership of mass transit has completely
cratered. Some of that's COVID nineteen, but some of it is By the
way you mentioned New York, John, I just saw a story here Friday
morning of some guy with a sharp meat cleaver on a bart train under the
Bay. Yes, and you know, well, we don't need to go
to New York for the kind of thing we got in our backyard rights,
and this is spreading around in California. Human beings are the only things you're
allowed to use meat cleavers on anymore. John's certainly not on birds and pigs.
And right, right, can you just make one comment about this Penny
Neelye case? Right the Penny Daniel Penny is the name of the former marine
sergeant, and Jordan neely is the name of the mentally ill guy on the
subway that he who was trying to restrain. It's I think it's kind of
worse than the seventies in this respect. It's almost more like one of these
Batman movies Alvin Bragg. The dam Manhattan is withdrawn, the protection of the
government from people. It's not like even they're trying to fight this rise in
crime which was going on the seventies. He's participating in the rising crime by
So when I looked up the numbers, I couldn't believe them. So even
in a time period when the major felonies of New York in one year have
gone up twenty five percent. He's bringing fifty percent less felony cases. Fifty
percent less felony cases, an incredible drop. So he's almost prosecuting the person,
you know, Penny here, the marine sergeant who acted because of the
failure to maintain law and order. That's why I say it's like these It's
like these weird Batman movies where it's the corruption of these city officials. It
causes people to have to be vigilantes, and then they punish them for being,
you know, vigilantes because they're living in the state of nature. That's
even to me, even worse than what was happening in New York in the
seventies. I think it is because because it was a sort of a neglect
neglect back in the seventies. This is purposeful. But I would add one
more element to it, and that's called the aoc uh screeching mob rule.
And so we can talk about Lincoln for a moment. I know that'll make
you happy, John, but I mean, you know, Lincoln says if
if, if, if, our laws are held by no more than the
caprices of the mob, law abiding citizens are just they're they're going to withdraw
their support for the government. And I think that what you're starting. I'm
when I saw a whole shape of social media posts about the border situation,
and one of the things that the Border Patrol was told to do was to
drop off immigrants in any neighborhood or on any street corner where they were likely
to be safe, where they were likely to be safe, meaning again maybe
my frontyard, your frontyard, I don't know. But when that starts to
happen again in two weeks with any kind of frequency, there's enough Americans out
there who are going to say, you know what, and if enough people
decide to take the law into their own hands, call it on the right,
or call it decent middle class American citizens, Alvin Brooks can't prosecute all
of them, no matter how much AOC gets up in screams in her shrill
crow voice about murder and whatever else. She said. You know, well,
I think look, I mean, they think they're clearly trying to they
think this is George Floyd two point zero, and I'm not sure it's I
mean, I'm not sure that it's sort of like barking, you know,
working the barking work once right, and it didn't work again. They tried
it again with Thomas and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, and in this case,
I'm not sure that George Floyd too drill is going to work, but
we'll well, but it worked on the poor marine. That's the problem I
always have with you, Steve, when you make those swooping generalizations that guy's
in jail, that he's right, I mean, actually jailed him, are
just arrested him. I'm he's out on bel he's out on the Yeah,
I mean, I actually the ghost to your point about this being about self
defenses, when the jury looks at how he was treated, if he's such
a murderer, the police interviewed him and then they let him go and then
yeah, and then they let him out on bail. Plus if you look
at it, I don't know if you guys looked at the video, but
it's it's not just Tim who's trying to hold down this guy. There's like
two other people trying to help. Are they all murderers too? I mean,
that's well. I think the jury sees that they're gonna let the guy
out on self defense, non brag jury. I don't know. Well,
and then well, and then we will see if Oh, by the way,
the creation what I thought I should do is go to Florida and then
have Governor to sand To say I'm not signing the tradition order. You know,
that was like trout. Yeah, well, I guess he's a law
abiding kid. Yeah, he's a college student, now right, Yeah,
it's just I know you're right, Steve, it's probably going to backfire.
But in the meantime, my heart breaks for that kid and for other people
who who look at a situation and say I should help and then think,
yeah, right, I'm going to get prosecuted if I do, sure gonna
get prosecuted. And you know, it's another of the left tactics of fear,
where they want to make sure people like us don't even dare to try
to take the law into our own hands when they won't do it. I
think that's what it's all about. I mean, Brag's not smart enough to
know all of those things, but the people pushing him are. Okay,
all right, enough about that sad thing. I'm looking to see if I
have a happy story, Okay, I kind of, how about trump on?
All right, So tell me, what happens John about Trump on CNN?
You're asking me, well, so, so, this is what I
worry about a little bit. Is I think he has solidified his hold on
the primary election with this performance. I mean, he it was like back
to twenty sixteen. He was had a dominating performance. He started steamrolled over
the journalist, the crowd was really behind him. He on the other hand,
I think what he was saying will turn off moderates and independence who were
the ones who decide the elections, because you know, he to me,
the thing the mistake he made, I think was that he repeated that he
thought that twenty twenty election was stolen. And you know, we've argued on
the podcast whether you know whether we think it was stolen or not. But
it seems clear to me that independence don't think it was stolen. And if
there was one thing that Trump would do to lose an independent vote in the
next election, it seems to me is to keep hitting on that issue.
I think what he should because you know, why wouldn't have been better for
him to say, Look, I think what happened election was wrong, But
let's focus on twenty twenty four. Let's talk about Biden. That's over,
that's the past. But I have one point on that. The problem is
is that he's also got a lot of people on the right who believe that
no matter what, he cannot get a fair election the next time around because
they believe the corruption was so great and that it's only in many places,
in places that matter, like say Michigan and Wisconsin, the laws have been
changed to make it worse than it was in twenty twenty. He he's got
to have some focus on it so that he can keep his base motivated to
do everything to get out there and vote, and to do everything possible to
make sure that that they, you know, manage the fraud as much as
possible. That's I think that's why he brings it up. Well, go
ahead, Steve, Well see, I think I think that you know,
the issue about whether it's a good idea or not to talk, I think
that's beside the point. I think the amazing So what I was saying to
somebody is you remember that video from Trump ten twelve years ago when he walked
into the huge Worldwide Wrestling Federation in the giant arena and he walks up in
body slams Vince McMahon. He just did that the CNN. I mean,
that was and you know, the content of what he said is secondary.
That's my point to the fact that this show that Trump is back baby,
And the initial reaction of a lot of people has been, how is anybody
any other Republican I go to stand on the stage with this guy. He
more commanding than he was in twenty sixteen. And here I may be breaking
a little news if it turns out to be true. What I'm told is
is it's been reported that the Santis is not going to do the exploratory committee
stage and all that palling of the ground. He's going to just announce he's
a candidate for president. And I'm told it may happen in the next week.
And people say, how's the Santis, who's you know, does not
have the public personality of Trump going to stand up to him? And I've
got to thinking, you know, everybody's got it wrong about how to attack
Trump. If you're de Santis, people think, well, you know,
it hasn't worked to call him mean and you know, mister mean tweet or
you know, the peril verdict and all that sort of stuff. And I
think that's correct. Those are dumb attacks. If I'm de Santis or anybody,
we got these declared Kennedys who were not doing this yet. If I'm
to Sandis, I think I'm going to get up on stage with Trump and
say, why didn't you fire Anthony Fauci, Why didn't you fire Deborah Burkes.
Oh, and by the way, this diversity equity inclusion stuff in the
Pentagon that lucretiaized to talk about, it turns out this came out in a
congressional hearing last week. Most of those programs began while Trump was president.
The Santas can take off a whole bunch of crazy left wing identity politics grants
from the Department of Education under Betsy DeVos. I think the Santas can hammer
Trump on things that, if people think about it, Trump's massive failure was
the whole COVID handling, right, And I think he could be hammered on
those issues and peel off a lot of Republican votes and maybe take the nomination
away from him on the issues and go on offense. Because what's Trump gonna
say. I've heard that privately, Trump has said he was afraid to fire
Fauci, didn't think he could do it, right. I think that Trump
was very vulnerable on those points. Why did you approve of this this warp
speed for a vaccine that now you know we're doubtful about? Right? You
swallowed big I don't know if he wants to say you swallowed big farmers a
lot whatever. But the point is is I think there are substant attacks on
Trump and people always want to attack him for being Trump and mean and all
that sort of stuff. And that's the santas As strong suit, right.
You know our Pala Glen Elmer say that the Santasis problem is he's all action
and no talk. Why did oh? And the and the final one is
you didn't get that wall built. We have an immigration crisis right now because
you didn't follow through on your number one pledge in twenty sixteen. Why should
we believe you again? You had a Republican Congress, right. The problem
is is that that the people who support him know that. How do I
say this? Because he's not a politician. He didn't understand how to take
care of those things. But he can turn around and say I understand now
and he's working on him. That's how would be the answer. I'm not
saying that's going be a good answer. But yeah, I don't think it
is. That would be his answer. You know, Instead, he's gonna
if I had to do it over again, I'd fire Fauci. If I
had to do it over again, i'd you know, I wouldn't have hired
all those generals. What do you want to bet that what Trump's gonna do
is call him a pedophile? And you know, why are you picking your
fight with Disney? Right? I mean, He's only done a couple of
these things about about Santa's right. I don't know. I mean, I
don't think it's over yet. Um, you know, I mean I understand
if the differences, I don't know if the differences are that great between the
two of them. I mean, you know, obviously we would prefer either
of them to Biden. But maybe you haven't. You didn't mention the one
issue. I think there is a huge difference between the Twachs abortion and apparently
Trump, you know, he used to be pro choice, and he apparently
he's been saying this abortion issue is going to kill us. He's never he's
not said anything, actually, John, what he thinks is the right view.
Whereas to Santa, signed this pretty restrictive abortion bill. Yeah, but
the last few days, Trump not only claims credit for the Dob's decision,
but it's actually talked as though he wrote the decision. He look, he's
all over the map. But no, that's why it was leakedsible right,
yeah, he no, no, he look, he's all over the map
on that, John, And uh so, yeah, it will be interesting.
But if he's going to attack the Santa's on abortion, I think that
not going to work very well for him. But we'll see. I don't
know. Well, a lot more to be said about Trump and de Santis
in the future, So let's move on from that point right now. So
the other big story this week that of course John probably hasn't seen because he
doesn't read the anything, but he listens to MPR and read CNN, and
don't forget that there the New York Times in the Washington and the New York
Times in the Washington Post, yes, haven't been covering. Is the fact
that it does appear that everything that most of us have suspected all all along
about the Biden crime family turns out to be true in spades and evidence.
I mean, there's all this stuff going on So there's the investigation, James
Comer's investigation, and they're going deep into bank records and they're finding the usual
you know, money laundering scheme through different banks and shell companies and this and
that, and then the payments to the Biden family. But but there's there's
even more to it than that. And it appears the you know, Biden
was worse than Hillary when it comes to just you know, using the office
to just sort of reap in millions. What do you guys think? What
do you think? Steve? Can you indulge me for a minute, not
not too long. I won't go on too long about this, but I've
suddenly thought back to twenty sixteen for a moment, And what do we know
about twenty sixteen is that Obama. This has been why they reported Obama went
to Joe Biden or you know, the word was sent out, Look,
you can't run for president. It's Hillary's turn. You got a back Hillary,
We're all for Hillary. Don't run for president. And the more I
think about that, I thought, you know, that's actually a bit of
a surprise. And here's why the Clintons hate the Obama's Why because Obama took
the nomination for Hillary in two thousand and eight, it was her turn.
Then Obama did the shrewd thing, you know, the old Mokei belly in
line of keep your friends closer, enemies closer, makes your secretary of State.
Okay, But if you're Obama and you know, one of the lines
right now is is the Biden is stration to Obama two point oh, he's
calling the tune behind the scenes. And who knows how really true that is.
But if it's twenty sixteen and you're looking at your legacy, who are
you going to have the most influence with as your successor your own vice president?
Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton, if she had won that
election, would have turned out all the Obama people with prejudice, the same
way the George H. W. Bush people kicked out all the Reaganites in
nineteen eighty eight with prejudice. That was a very bitter transition. And you
know, so, if you're Obama, you want your own vice president to
succeed you? Why Hillary? My hunch now is that, you know,
we talked about this once before. The Biden General Counsel office raised their eyebrows
several times about the hunter being on the board of Barisma and other things,
and apparently Vice President Biden threw a fit and yelled and screamed to people and
said, how dare you question the honor of my family? And they all
backed off. I'm wondering, pure speculation on my part, whether Obama actually
knew that Biden was so thoroughly corrupt he was disaster waiting to happen. Uh,
and that's one reason he decided, you know how, better to go
with Hillary than with Biden. I'm just that's just speculation on my part,
but it makes me wonder because I'm sure Obama knows all the dirt on the
Bidens, including all the dirt we still don't know about yet. What do
you think, John, before you John quick, Steve, if you're gonna
be the pretentious intellectual quoting things, quote the right person who who Sunsu and
your enemies closer? Odamn, that's my move, man. I've been I've
just been a boomerang man, I've just been I've just been shamed by my
own move. Okay, Um, I was gonna say, for fans of
Seinfeld, always thought Steve's move was to stop short. But nobody's gonna but
the Uh So, I'm not sure whether I believe all the things that I'm
seeing in the conservative blogosphere about Hunt and Joe Biden, but it seems undeniable
to me that you got to appoint a special counsel here. Two reasons.
One is, there's way more evidence than about Hunter, at least potentially committing
federal crimes regie, from corruption to tax evasion and so on, than there
ever was for the Russia hooks. Right, And so if you're going to
point Robert Muller in the Russia hoaxes, you have to appoint one here.
And then to make matters worse, right, President Biden gave this. So
we talked about the Trump interview. You know, we didn't really talk about
President Biden's interview with MSNBC, I think because nobody watches MSNBC. Right,
you know, he did this, and in the interview he said that the
Hunters did nothing wrong, has committed any crimes. That's almost like per se
the reason now you have to have a special counsel because President Biden's the chief
prosecutor of the federal government under the constitution. He's already declaring that his son
is innocent. So unless you have a special counsel. Nobody is going to
break charges against Hunter Biden. And so at the very least, it seems
to me, just as a process question, you gotta have a special counsel
here. Okay, So I do have to put a little spin on what
you just said, John, because quite frankly, if you just want to
make this about Hunter Biden, it is secondary. Now. Of course,
if it was Eric Trump or anything like that, you know, they would
have brought out the wolves a long time ago. However, there are a
lot of people, especially a lot of Democrats, who say Hunter Biden's just
a troubled guy, and this and this and this and this. The point
of what came out this last week is really that this is not just a
Hunter Biden's scheme. This is a Biden crime family scheme. And the only
reason, the only reason Hunter and hunters. Let's see Hunter's ex wife and
Hunter's brother's widowed wife with whom he was sleeping when he was still with the
ex wife, and you know on a gut that families vial. But anyway,
um, they all received payments from different companies that were shell companies that
were removed from this bank that we're shell companies of this and so on in
the millions and millions of dollars. If if Biden is not implicated in all
of that, then there's you know, there's going to be a whole side
of the left that's just going to excuse him for it, at least long
enough for Biden to serve their purposes. You have to point out that the
only reason Biden or any of those other wits in the Biden family, they're
all dumbest. I mean, I don't even how is that possible? How
are how are relatively smart people um sitting you know, trying to pay their
bills and Hunter Biden made millions upon millions. It's well because of access to
his his corrupt and saying okay, I'm gonna stop, and okay, can
I make a constitutional politics point and compare this to the Clintons and to Trump,
and that I predict because of all this, it's hard to believe,
but Biden will become even more leftist because remember what happened to Clinton when he
Clinton had to go on the defense on impeachment. The only people who right
circle the wagons was the far left, and Clinton could no longer Yeah exactly,
Yeah, So Clinton couldn't make those moves to the middle that you know
he had companded on twice. The impeachment basically caused him to become a leftist.
I noticed, though, that didn't happen with Trump. I don't think
Trump going through impeachment actually caused him to be more conservative, and you know,
sort right as far as I can tell. You know, though,
we went into the COVID thing right after the impeachment acquittal, so it's hard
to tell what would have happened, but I think that's what's gonna happen.
I think Biden, I agree with you the cretia. It's not just Hunter,
it's whether Hunter and the activity of Biden's brother. We're bringing in money
that ended up in Joe Biden's bank accounts, and if they did right,
then there'll have to be an investigation. Maybe there'll be some kind of proceedings
in the House and Senate, but it'll cause Biden to have to right to
wrap his arms around the left in order to prevent any of this from going
further. I have a technical question to oh, so sorry, my dogs.
They're protecting me. You'll be happy to know. The technical question is
if they can show that huge amounts of money flowed illegally from foreign countries who
are especially those that are our enemies. Whatever, two members of the Biden
family. Isn't that in and of itself problematic under the law, Or is
it perfectly okay for there to be corruption that benefits your immediate family as long
as you as long as they can't tie the money directly to your bank account.
That's a question, believe it or not. Even though it was framed,
I mean you could you, I mean, prosecutors could investigate President Biden
for conspiring in bribery, right if he was helping them in any way,
like you could even remember, there are these claims. I don't read these
websites, so I'm not sure about them. But right they say, right
Hunter Biden would go on trips with the Vice president over to other countries,
and that right Hunter would then get appointed to these fancy boards and receive these
million dollars consulting contracts. Right if right if if, if the Vice President
at that time is making is facilitating this, if he has any knowledge of
what's going on, then he's a co conspirator in bribery. Yeah, I
mean, look, there maybe some violations of say Phair, the Foreign Agents
Registration Act depending on what the contracts said they were supposed to be doing.
That's what one of the things that tripped up Paul Maniford, right, he
was getting a million dollars a year from Ukraine. The big question, to
my mind is still the line from the one time partner of Hunter Biden a
ten percent for the big guy. Well, we know who the big guy
is. Now, can you trace that ten percent transferring to him? You
know? I mean there are I'm missing my question Steve, though, do
you have to do that in order to see the corruption there? I mean,
not one of those people have a single dime from China, from Ukraine,
from on and on and on. If Joe Biden weren't the corrupt,
I'll give you this. If you give my family, I mean, yeah,
that's clear and would be in any other case. Oh look, I
agree with you entirely from the perspective of a citizen looking at all this,
and of course it stinks. From the narrower legal and political perspective, Is
this enough to drive him from office? That's what I'm saying. It is
like Watergate or like a mafia prosecution. You've got to get that last step,
you need a forensic accountant. And I've known a couple of good ones
have worked on things like you know, and Ron and World Common all those
things to years ago. Uh. And you've got to figure out how the
money was transferred into Biden's pocket. I doubt it was done in bags of
cash, but who knows. And a lot of I think a lot of
records are still not yet on earth. But it's something people put him in
the trunk of his corvette because it was very secure. It couldn't be I
wouldn't you know, wouldn't be at all surprised. Uh. And it was
a longer or something. Uh. And that's you know fact what that's what
would finish him off instantly if you can prove that. And you know the
problem with Special counsel John is that that often slows things down, right.
I mean it's done purposely, right, yeah right, I mean you know
a point of special counsel Now, they're not going to finish their investigation till
oh, I don't know, twenty twenty five after the election's over, you
know, I don't know. Oh, it's more it's more the I think
the Special Counsel investigation will just do Biden because of right, all the media
will just focus on the scandals and the trip trip trip. A lot of
people don't. Yeah, no, I think that's what the special counsel has
a politically would be terrible for Biden, even if they never get a conviction.
And contrast, geez, yeah, but he has a special counsel on
him. Now about the the um not the bags of money, but the
bags of classified documents in his que bed. Remember there is a special counsel.
What did that do? Absolutely nothing? Um, you know that that's
the problem. I mean until I think, until there would be some uh
prosecutorial entity of the federal government willing to actually go after Joe Biden and go
for the truth. Besides, you know, um, House committees. I
don't think you're going to get enough public outcry to do anything about him.
That's what worries me. I mean, am I am I wrong on that?
Well? I mean I think the place actually you want to go first
is Congress. I mean, I think we relied too much on the criminal
justice system to take care and prosecutors to take care of this one. Right,
The real answer is, if you really believe this to be true,
then right, the House should start an impeachment investigation, right and lea,
And that's that would be the constitutional justification for demanding president's tax records, and
you know, the business records, banking record, that's what you would need
to prove all this. Get get Hunter before the Congress to testify in a
House Committee oversight hearing. I do want to go back to something John said
to lead into something really quick as we're wrapping things up about you know,
who should be prosecuting the president of special counsel and so on. The DOJ's
obviously somewhat compromised because in fact, you know, Biden is the chief prosecutor,
etc. As the President of the United States and the head of a
singular executive department. However, we were talking before the podcast started about Supreme
Court, two Supreme Court cases, and we're just going to concentrate on one
um that came out the day before we recorded this on so it came out
Thursday night, having to do with the overturning of a conviction of one of
Cuomo's campaign people, I think is what it was, John, right,
and he took a thirty five thousand dollars payment and they they found him guilty
of um violating the law against honest services. So explain that a little for
our listeners, because it's a bit calm. This is. Yeah, this
is a really interesting case that really didn't get much notice and the press,
but it's also got some really interesting, deep constitutional issues to it. So
this is a case of a felon a Percoco. I love the name.
It sounds like a McDonald's drink. So this mister Percoco art styles I was
going to say, okay, sorry. So Percoco was one of the top
officials for Cuomo, and so he left office for just a short time and
in that short time period he was paid money by a developer to help basically
get the New York State government off his back. And so then right before
I think it's like the day or the day before, Prococo went back end
to government in the Governor's operation. Magically, all these regulations and requirements that
were being opposed on this developer were lifted, and so he was prosecuted under
the mail and wire fraud Statue. So the Mail and wild Frauds statue just
says it's a federal crime to use a mail or the wires which includes telephone,
the Internet as well as telegraph. To commit fraud seems like a you
know, pretty bland the NILA law. But what happened, and this is
the backstory, is that this statute has been used by prosecutors and lower federal
courts to try to police state politics. So it send you what happened here,
right, is that federal prosecutors didn't like the way mister Percoco or mister
Governor Cuomo, we're running things in New York. So they said, oh,
you're really committing fraud. This is not normally fraud for lobbyists essentially to
pay money to a state official to get them to do something. So the
lower courts for many years had said, oh, fraud includes the right to
the honest services of government officials. Then in the statute it just says fraud.
Actually, this is to its credit, the Supreme Court ultimately rejected this,
but then Congress overruled the Supreme Court immediately, this is the nineteen eighty
seven eighty eight and added the phrase honest services to the statute. So now
under the law, it is a crime to use the mail or the interstate
you know, interstate telephone and the internet to commit fraud, and then the
statute says fraud includes not providing honest services. I've always thought this was unconstitutionally
vague actually for today's right and in fact, in today's yesterday's case, Justice
Corsage and Justice Thomas agreed that Percoco should be set free. But they said
this whole statute should be thrown out by the courts. Well, what does
honest services mean or not mean? The main court just said, whatever it
means, it can't apply to private people. This guy, Percoco, to
the extent he was, you know, paid money to influence the government.
He wasn't in the government when he got the money, and when he was
essentially a lobbyist, he was a lobbyist. He was a private citizen.
And so the quarterbacks you made this next point, he said, if this
is true, then all of these I and my Pronoesses Eminence Greece, you
know, these powerful behind the scenes brokers, would be subject to criminal prosecution.
They didn't say it, but immediately the first thing I thought of,
Henry Kissinger would be in jail, that the prosecute of the federal government was
pushing here. But here's the larger picture is I'm not sure where in the
Constitution the federal government gets the right to police state politics. So some states
have more corrupt politics and other than let the people those states fix it.
And this is part of I think this general withdrawal of the Supreme Court.
The Supreing Court has been trying to get out of the business of policing state
politics. This is very much a product of the progressive here right this state
politics are broken, the federal government should sit on top of it and force
it to be ethical or clean it up. So think about in terms of
all the other things that the Court has done, citizens United, the Court's
not going to police campaign finance contributions. There's another case involving the governor of
Virginia. It's called the McDonald case, where the courts said, we're not
going to enforce the bribery statutes against state officials unless there's an exact quid pro
quo you can show that you got the money and the governor actually did something
for the money you've got. Even I think like the case about redistrict thing,
where the court said we're not going to review how state's redistrict. So
I think this is a great example to me of a conservative court that's trying
to restrain itself from restrain the federal government and get out of this sort of
progressive error business of activism where they thought they could impose this vision of political
morality on every state and local government in the country. So I want to
throw a curveball at you, then, John, both cases when you talked
about in a similar case, we're nine zero. Yeah, and the left
is freaking out about that because they're first of all, they're freaking out saying
that the Supreme Court has just made it impossible to prosecute any kind of corruption.
And you know, I don't know if that's because they're afraid it's something
like Bragg's case if it goes before the Court will get thrown out or something.
I don't know, but it's interesting that you had nine nine justices agreed
to that. That doesn't happen very often anymore, and especially on something where
the left screams about it. The last one I can't think of is when
the Court unanimously decided that Obama was violating the First Amendments freedom of free exercise
of religions, right, yeah, yeah, and the religion cases you know,
way back when nine zero case, what do you think about that?
Were you supervised it was nine zero? Actually what I what I also like
about these cases is that I think it puts a lie to the claim that
the conservatives are Conservatives on the court are partisan. They might be ideological about
the Constitution and the way to read it. But I was thinking about this,
who which party actually loses more out of these cases? I'd say the
Republican Party. You know, if there's ever if there's any place where the
Democratic Party has a fortress, it's in these corrupt cities and corrupt places like
Albany. If there is, yeah, any party that was going to benefit
from federal prosecutors rooting out corruption in cities and states, it's going to be
the Republican Party. The Democratic parting machines. They feed on this stuff and
they benefit from the kind of things you read about in the Percoco case.
But I so I thought, but I think, you know, you have
this marriage of two different on the right. I think you have this desire
the federal government and the courts should return to the restrained role they had for
most of our history. We're not in the business of policing politics. I
think the left on the court. They just like striking down federal criminal laws
because they think we're overcriminalized. So it's this weird meeting of the right and
left. Don't get used to it, Kresa. It only happens once in
a little while. You know, I may I may disagree, I may
disagree with you, John, or at the very least, I think we
got to split this into two different issues. One is the separation of powers
question, come back to that. And the first one is you know,
the honest services business and you know, policing certain kinds of transaction relationships that
people. So here's the problem that gets back to the really important one,
which is the separation of powers. You know, the Prococo guy, I
hadn't heard about, but I do know. They also convicted Sheldon Silver and
a bunch of other office holders in New York who totally corrupt people. And
there have been these cases over the years where the FBI has gone gone,
gone in and done stings. Now again, this is back when you were
a pup, and I think, Luke Kreshia, you were living in Davis
at the time. But back in nineteen eighty eight, yeah, yeah,
okay, that's right, you were living in so Back in nineteen eighty eight,
there was a big sensational FBI sting in Sacramento, and it snared a
Democratic state senator who they caught on videotape taking twenty thousand dollars in cash in
an envelope, a plain old fashioned bribe. But they also snared two Republicans.
It wasn't for taking a bribe and taking cash in an envelope. It
was for arranging some changes in the law. It sounds like the prococo business,
for arranging some legislation to change some regulations. So this phony shrimp company
it became known as Shrimpgate, could do business in California and then return they
said, oh, we'll give you some campaign contributions, and one was to
the Republican leader Pat Nolan, the no money in his own pocket. Now,
the story was always going around at the time that the FBI originally was
targeting Speaker Willie Brown, who was known as a notorious shakedown artist. And
one story went around, and who knows if it's true or not, is
that they tried to slip him an envelope or under his door to his office
inside his office with ten thousand dollars in cash, and he didn't take it.
It was too smart for that sort of thing, and ended up snaring
Republicans instead. And you know Pat Nolan, who I knew pretty well to
do a plea bargain rather than face a long jail sentence is the way these
things go. But I thought the time, well, wait a minute,
talk about honest services company goes in says could you please help us with legislation
to change the law so we can do business in the state. And by
the way, we'll give you a campaign contribution. Lots of companies will do
that perfectly, willingly all the time. Business of Congress. Where's the crime
here? Right? It was, you know, a phony in other words,
entrapment. Right, So the problem there is where's the corruption? I
wonder if it isn't with This is when I first started wondering about the FBI
and the government and the problem though, John I have is you know,
when you do have really corrupt people like you have in Illinois, like you
have in New York in Albany, if the federal government can't do it,
who can I don't you know, the voters don't know the stuff's going on.
One last anecdote on this is Gray Davis before it was recalled. He
was notorious for having someone ask a favor, you know, the state he's
dealing with him, And within forty eight hours, Great Davis will be on
the phone asking for a campaign contribution. And I remember talking to Dan Walters
about this. Lucretia will remember him. He's still around. He was the
leading political reporter in Sacramento with a Sacramento BA And I'm having dinner with him,
you know, thirty years ago, during all this stuff, and I
said, why don't why don't more people in the media, by which I
meant him right about this as well. You know, we can't prove it.
We all just know it's going on. So in other words, the
remedy of the you know, it's up to the people to hold these people
accountable. I think in practice doesn't work. So I'm not saying you're wrong,
but I'm not. I don't know. This is a tough problem,
but it goes It takes me back to something John said last week and wrote
a nice little article about in Fox News. It alight with a slightly different,
slightly different tilt, but still it's the same idea. And he talked
about it last week. What do we do when we try to enforce basic
decency and morality with complicated ethics rules? And and that's really what's going on
here, because on the one hand, you should be able to say,
yeah, you shouldn't be able to shake down somebody for a campaign contribution in
exchange for doing them a favor which benefits them, which automatically means it detriments
someone else. I mean, that's it's I go back to the Jesse unrest
statement, and I hope I'm not going to get Steve don this one.
You know, if you can't, if you can't take their money, drink
their liquor and sleep with their women and still vote against them, you don't
belong in politics, right right, right? John's laughing. John always laughs
at me when I make those jokes. But but but it doesn't that kind
of speak to why they're funny. They're funny, That's why I laugh.
They're funny. Okay, But doesn't that kind of speak to part of the
point that you were getting at that at some point when you just when you
have absolutely no commitment to morality, to goodness, to decency, to doing
the right thing as a as an elected public official. There's only so much
the law can actually do about it because there's so many ways to get around
it. And maybe back to your original comment about the court on this case,
just prosecuting these kind of nitpicking sort of things isn't the way to enforce
anti corruption and it really, you know, if the the people get the
kind of government they deserve, right and we got Biden? Thanks, what
does that say about us? Boy? I know? Okay, I mean
I do you disagree with that, John, because I'm putting words in you
know, so no, no, I agree with you. I think that
what's happened in Washington it's as I say with the last time about Justice Thomas
and these ethics forms, is that people are you know, not people.
The government, this progressive government we have tries to replace basic moral questions with
ethics forms or using the criminal law. That's you know Nixon, you know,
you know so Ni Nixon, in a weird way, was the old
school. Like he retired, he resigned before there were any criminal proceedings,
before he was impeached because he said he thought he did the wrong thing.
It didn't require criminal prosecution. But now that's Clinton, I think is where
the turning point right, a moral president would have resigned, but Clinton was
not going to be driven out of office unless it was a you know,
unless it was a legal impeachment or prosecution. Well, I mean, you
know, he was a good and decent guy without a scando in his past
when he got there. That all right, Um, I'm I'm promised Steve,
I'll try to be a responsible host tonight and get us out of here
at a decent time. So I'm going to ask you John first, Um,
if you have been drinking the whiskey we have been drinking, and if
you've been drinking it every day, and if you have a communism for us,
I do I do? The problem I initially had was that I only
had it on video, and so I had to watch this dreadful video over
and over again to try to write it down. Only after I did this,
did Steve then send me a transcript, You bastard. You could have
sent me the transcript initially, but he didn't. He sent me a video
club. But here it is, and it was actually interesting because the vice
president was speaking at some strange d EI ceremony and it's all on the White
House website. If you want to look at it. Here's the quote.
Everything is in context. My mother used to give us a hard time,
and she would say to us, I don't know what's wrong with you,
young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree, and
then says insert cackles here in the transcript, you exist in the context of
all of which you live and what came before you. You know, I
gotta say, this is really interesting, how sad this is. So if
you're you know, if you're a junkie of the White House website and you
see the transcripts they do of when the president speaks and he tells a joke
and then the audience laughed, it'll say laughter yeah. But in this case,
if you read the White House transcript, it doesn't say laughter from the
audience. It just says laugh yeah, and that she's the only one who
laughs. That's sad, right, even even the White House transcribes trans guards
aren't trying to make her look good anymore. Yeah. And also, I
can't I can't read. I'm sorry. Lucretia criticizes me from my failure to
imitate the Vice presence tone of voice. But I thought I detected her trying
to do make fun of people with the Indian accents. When she was talking
about the quoting her mother with the coconut tree. So I couldn't reproduce the
code. Yeah, I could reproduce. So then I looked up online what
does this mean? Is this some kind of phrase and there's no record of
this being an Okay, no, it's some bizarre thing she said. I
bet her mother never said anything about falling out of a coconut tree. The
depressing thing I read about her this week and it just it's Steve even mentioned
it earlier. It reminds me of just how very pathetic our military has become.
That she's actually speaking at West Point for the graduation. So so the
good news is that there's probably going to be plenty of fodder for you next
weeks. John from that, because after we saw her at the at the
Howard game and oh anyway, I do want to say we had talked about
doing this, but we couldn't do it. Justice. Today I'm going to
put these guys on record that we're going to be discussing again one of John's
favorite favorite subjects, which is the concept of unenumerated rights and a really interesting
book that's come out about that, So, so be prepared. That's going
to be interesting because what's going to happen. Let's see, this is the
tomorrow when the plays, It'll be the thirteenth of May. Yeah, we've
got just what six eight weeks at probably six weeks at the most of uh
anticipation for all of the Supreme Court opinions that we've been breathlessly awaiting, right,
uh. And so so that's going to dominate our conversation, I think
for a good portion of the summer. So in the meantime, we're going
to have one of John's favorite philosophical uh discussions in a little bit more modern
context about the concept of the Ninth Amendment and unenumerated Right. So, John,
you want to send us out? Okay, always drink here whiskey.
Need let's go, Brandon and I don't have the camialism already gave it.
Yeah, that's all right, that's okay. You can say whatever you you
can say, goodbye, it's okay, and bye bye bye bye bye bye
bye. Right, oh my god, oh killing me on your way,
and make sure that you're certain it's not the wrong day. Once you have
people are lost in their flight to become mon presented when they are. Why
am I searching gun? When will I know? All the years and I
waited with nothing to show. I'm ready toss, and I'm ready to win.
But I can't wait much longer before we begin. Ricochet joined the conversation