Well, whiskey coming take my pain, my brain. Oh whiskey, don't
you let me whiskey? Won't you help me? Hide whiskey go, don't
let me go where they slapped it up and live it? Ain't you easy
on the soldier time guy to give it and let that whiskey blow where you're
feeling lost, down and low. Well, all right, guys, Shark
week is long over. But just when you thought it was gonna be safe
to go back in the water, to ignore politics, ignore the news,
and maybe have some fun with some other more thoughtful subjects, everything blows up
at the end of the week. No such thing as a slow newsday Friday
anymore. And I may have to have a lie down with a glass of
screwball peanut butter whiskey, which is what I'm sampling this afternoon. It's very
sweet. I wouldn't know. I don't actually like it, but but that's
what I'm having. After a screwball week like this, I need screwball whiskey.
So how are you guys? Before we get into the news headlines,
I'll go, I'll go. John. John, Poor John is so busy.
It's late in the day and he's just barely getting lunch. And you
can imagine how grumpy John gets when he doesn't get lunch. So it's so
sad. I'm seeing eating a Jersey Mike sub in Newport Beach, California.
So one, why would I eat anything from New Jersey? But why would
I eat fake New Jersey food in California. That's how desperate I am.
That's very sad. And this explains why McDonald's stock is down this week,
is you're not doing your normal consumption. So well, they have McDonald's in
New Pork, not close. There's a bunch, there's a there's a bunch,
but I wasn't near one. I was near the Jersey Mike sub on
my way off to the podcast. Not whiskey, I'm having whiskey. I'm
having my afternoon whiskey, which is Irish whiskey, espresso and row whip cream.
H Well, this, I'm happy. The Scootball peanut butter whiskey is
like sickly sweet and really awful. So I'm going to switch to Lefroy because
I have some handy just because I need it. I told you mix it
with Godiva chocolate liqueur, and it tastes like a Reese's peanut butter cups,
just saying Okay. By the way, Lefroy is having a sale a costcode.
If you buy two bottles, you get something like ten percent off.
Oh I will, I will mention John when those royalties start coming in from
the politically you're incorrect guide to the Supreme Court. I did spot my local
liquor store a thirty five year old bottle of Lefroy or a thirty five years
I'm here twelve hundred dollars. Wow. I know that might even be beyond
my reach. But in any case, let's get to the news and put
it behind us. You know, we've been talking the Biden business and the
Trump business to death, but then new things really happened of importance, starting
with we're finally getting John a special counsel you wanted for the Hunter Biden investigation,
although I'm not sure you really wanted. We'll talk about that some,
along with the news that the deal that he thought was going to get patched
back together that the judge rejected two weeks ago is still not coming back together.
And then maybe he's going to face an actual courtroom criminal trial on the
charges. And that's kind of interesting. And then on the other side of
the street, Judge said that Trump. Judge rejected the Department of Justices demand
that Trump essentially be gagged and talking about the case, with one little caveat
that you know, he's not free to divulge I guess classified information or something
like that. We'll see how that all plays out. So what a scene,
John. But so first of all, specially Council, my first question
is, I'm not sure this is actually great news. I mean, I
wonder about the timing. Just as the House investigation looks like it's really gaining
momentum, now suddenly by a hunter, Biden's people get to say, well,
I can't really send anymore. I can't testify to the House committee because
it's an ongoing investigation. And doesn't this now give a pretext for interfering.
I'm with the House investigation and delay getting to the bottom of all this.
It's a good point, I think there's First of all, I've been calling
for a special counsel for I know, months and months, because I don't
see how the Justice Apartment, which reports to the President could fairly investigate the
son of the President and that sweetheart pleat bargain it was an example why you
need a special counsel. Yeah, because right the peer you have as the
just farmer is going to go easy on the president or his family. And
it's actually been the you're right quiviously House investigation that's really moved things along because
of all that information that's been brought out about President Biden's potential involvement in all
these business deals by the president, and a minimum is a witness, if
not a beneficiary, if not an active participant in what looked like could be
illegal schemes of the Violet federal law. So the question, so one thing
is I think a special council is better than what we had before, which
was a very weak US attorney in Delaware who reports to Garland. It's the
same weak attorney. So this is the problem. Yeah, I think that's
the special Council actually could have been a great move for Biden, but they
screwed it up by keeping the same guy as the special counsels actually not in
compliance with the regulations. The special Council actually supposed to come from outside the
government, so that I think there's upside and side. So I think the
upside for Biden is that you describe Steve. But all the you know Biden,
Hunter, Biden, all these people are going to say, I'm gonna
take the fifth. I'm not gonna testify before Congress or help the investigation because
it could be used against me in criminal court. Now, this is what
happened in the Reagan Bush years when all you know, the Ali North investigation
are on contra, people refuse to testify until and this is interesting, this
is how it does change a little bit. Congress could grant them immunity from
prosecution if they if they tell the story in public. So here's that's one
interesting thing that arises now is can I reference to sell John only because you
mentioned the older wrong contra and the Ali North immunity of grant that later on
the water prevented certain indictments against him. I learned over the weekend at the
Reagan Library conference that are our friend, you know, our former student,
Joseph Ledford, who has written the book Forthcoming a ron contrapt brought up something
I didn't know about, which was the House Committee begged Lawrence Walsh to indict
Oliver North before the hearings in the summer, and I said, look,
you've got we've got all the information you've got, you know, why don't
you indict him now? And then? I don't remember the technicalities of this,
but that's solved some of their problems of the immunity apparently, or his
testimony to the committee. I'm not sure how that works, but that's the
claim that Joseph Meigs and I think he's been pretty careful about this, and
Walsh wouldn't do it, you know, he wanted to play this thing out,
which ended up being one of five or six year, ridiculously long investigation.
Not just that, but the immunities. They screwed it up. So
actually North and Point Dexter, their convictions were reversed on appeal and they could
not be prosecuted because right, Congress did say, this is how it works.
Congress said, we'll give you immunity. So suppose Congress says toonder Biden,
we'll give you immunity. Yeah, everything you testify, everything you say,
can't be used against you. So what Lawrence Walsh did, which was
stupid, is he pretend like he kept the prosecutors in some kind of bubble
where they could not hear or learn of the investigation. And the hearings and
so they could still proceed. Of course, the appeals court threw that out.
That was so stupid. So essentially, what would happen really is that
Congress, here's the thing. If you're Comber, Congressman Comber in the chair,
do you grant a Hunter Biden or Devin Archer or this Bobolinsky guy who
know, or the head of Barisma or the prosecutor over there, any number
of these people? Do you grant them immunity because you want the American public
to know about the corruption so that it can be taken by the voters into
account before November. Yeah, that's what I would do. I think that's
a great political move. We don't, I mean, we don't really care
for Put it this way, who cares if Hunter Biden goes to jail?
The American people need to know if their president is a Kruk. Wouldn't that
sort of undermine the left favorite narrative, which is they're only after poor poor
Hunter Biden drug Wouldn't that undermine it in a way? That would Yeah,
we're we're not really after Hunter Biden. We want to know, But what
makes you think that Hunter Biden wouldn't just do the same thing Hillary did.
I don't recall I was on drugs. But this is the thing, This
is the thing that immunity does, is you get immunity for the things you
say, and not just because you agree exactly. You don't get immunity,
well there's you could get the broader meauty, but no one ever gives it
anymore, which is like immunity for anything you could have done, you know,
the crimes. So usually once you get immunity, Hunter's incentive is to
actually say as much as he possibly can because any of that stuff then can't
be used. It's his dad. I don't know. That's the interesting thing,
isn't it. I don't know if I but Joe Biden, I don't
know, I would trust hunted. You're still vulnerable to a perjury charge if
you can be proven that you lie, though, right, Immunity doesn't Republicans,
well, I don't know, that's what it's gonna just say that.
But the downside for Biden. So the upside for Biden is this is a
response. It's interesting. I think this is a direct response to Republicans and
conservatives saying there's two tier justice system. So the answer his the Biden misions
answer is Okay, well, we're not gonna make it to Tier because we're
gonna stick a special counsel onto Hunter, just like we did with Trump.
That's their answer. So that's their upside as they can now say, you
got questions about the investigation, you want to criticize us, talk to the
Special Council. We don't even control him. The downside is now they can't
sweep this under the rug that fast. This is guaranteed to be an issue
that's going to continue through to next November, and it's gonna this is what
happens with Special Council investgation, right, there's gonna be drip drip drip information
motions pleading, you know, like they will not be able to stop the
ongoing damage politically to the Bidens from this case now. But honestly, John,
will there be damage? I mean, I'm sure you've seen the memes
for the last two or four days. They'll show the mainstream media three hundred
and thirty five minutes on these three days on the Trump indictments, two and
a half minutes on the Hunter Biden congressional hearings, the you know, all
of the different revelations. Can they drip drift drip and count on the mainstream
media to cover this The way the drip drip drip has had this benefit,
Biden has been able to say, I knew nothing about it. I knew
nothing about my son's business. I never spoke to him about well, I
spoke to him about it, but it was about the weather. I spoke
to him about a little bit more. But you still can't Nobody can show
where I got a direct payment in my checking account directly from one of these
corrupt you know, Kazakhstans or whatever oligarchs. So they've actually managed with the
drip drip drip to continually minimize the import of all of this. That's kind
of my theory. I don't know if that's true, you know, because
I read different. I'm not the average person reading just the New York Times
in the Washington Post. Sorry, guess I'm just teasing you, But do
you see my point? I wonder if the drip drip drip will matter?
And maybe this is this is what I think, like Comer and people in
Congress fear, is that actually a special counsel will be a unaccountable way to
squelch the whole thing, and no one will care or pay attention. One
thing I would point to, and even agreeing with Lucretia that the media,
mainstream media is you know, not covering the story fully and sympathizes with the
Biden administration. I don't know, it kind of reminds maybe I'm wrong about
this. It kind of reminds me of Clinton and Whitewater, which seemed to
be, you know, this minor financial irregularity in Arkansas. Once they appointed
Kent Stars special counsel, now he started digging. All kinds of stuff came
out, and it really it didn't make any residency well, I mean,
he couldn't leave office. But I think Clinton, you know, his effectiveness
as president was kind of over. Well, this is the point I've been
making about all that is the Clinton strategy was to brazen it out and delay
the lay and slow it down, and that you're not to be right.
I mean, you know, again, there were rumors at the time,
and I think some version of this is true that senior Democratic senators were sitting
around early in that process, and you know, January February when it was
really blew up, wondering should we now go down the White House and tell
Clinton he has to go, and they decided not to, and then Clinton
toughed it out. I mean, you got, in a certain way admired
that he decided, I'm just going to defy this, and Biden's trying to
copy that because I think that's the formula that you know, we talked about
this before. Since you're going to bring up the same point every week,
I'm going to bring up the same point every week. The point is really
that I haven't brought that point up for at least two weeks. No,
it's not true, but anyway, Clinton's all in all, Clinton's you know,
it just showed him to be kind of a sleazy guy. Honestly,
the Whitewater stuff was never what actually got Clinton, Bill Clinton in too much
trouble the white Water stuff, right, it was the Lamonica Lewinsky blah blah
blah. That's I mean, yeah, he lied, Okay, we know
he lied. Biden's been lying since practically since the day he was born.
On record, it is, you know, incontrovertible, so lying wouldn't be
enough. But what Biden is accused of, of course, is so much
more serious than anything that Hillary Clinton was accused of. Richard Nixon was accused
of. Bill Clinton was accused of Donald Trump was accused of very serious,
serious, potentially very seriou and stuff. Again, if for no other reason,
the two major foreign policy issues confronting this country national security today are Ukraine
and China. And we now know that Biden family crime syndicate received money directly
indirectly through shell companies from Ukraine and China. And we have been spending billions
of dollars, sending billions of dollars worth of weapons, etc. To Ukraine.
I can't even start on China. That one's it's so confusing, I
can't even go there. But but there are serious ramifications for the fact that
Hunter Biden was in bed with Barisma and Ukraine, and that maybe Biden likely
is too, and that I think is what makes it different, a lot
different. And that's why I'm surprised, honestly that we don't see the mainstream
media saying, well, this maybe as a problem, but they're not so
these two things. One is, I think I put both of them into
silence. Guys. No, no, I no, I got one point
is I think you know you don't know where special Council investigation would go.
That's the thing that's interesting about it is that and a problem with it is
that it's you know, targeted at a person. So you know, if
you look at the order today, it says the Special Counsel is allowed to
investigate the things Hunter Biden's being investigated on now or anything connected to it that
or that might arise. And that's what happened with Clinton and Lewinsky and many
charges in any venue he chooses, which could be California for one of the
times, or New York. But the other thing is, but you are
right. I think Lachristian makes an excellent point, which is, if you
keep this same guy who has been uh, you know not, I know,
I'm not pursuing the investigation with the full you know vigor. He should
this guy Weiss? Then what you really need to do, and this,
I think something the House Republicans can really make applical Impactice start their drump beat
to replace him with someone else. People forget with the Whitewater investigation, there
wasn't a special Counsel who was doing it, who was thought to be too
slow and too weak, and then they replaced him with Ken Starr and that's
when it really got wrapped up. And so I think that's something Republicans on
the House side who have been you know, in a way, they should
declare victory because it was because of all the information they produced in their hearings
that you couldn't have that pleet bargain and that you couldn't claim there was an
end to any investigation, and so they might be able to force a new
special counsel rather than this current guy. I have some I have some lawyer
questions for you, John. The first one is if it is actually violating
the statute to appoint a special counsel inside of government instead of out, why
is that not a problem. How does that not become Oh, it's just
a regulation. It's not actually a statute. Okay, so you know people
regulation. Yeah, Okay, it's hard to enforce because it's just the Attorney
general z own regulation. But and then my second question is going back to
that whole idea about the Special Council uh not really having a clear mandate,
shall we say, or a very very open ended mandate. It almost sounds
a little bit like you know the famous cliche, show me the man,
I'll show you the crime, and at what point, because we've had this
conversation, I've been listening to a couple of our past podcasts. We've had
this conversation now a few times about you know what the Founders really intended as
ways to reign in prosecutorial power, because in many ways, the prosecutorial power
of government is the most awful, terrible power that government has, right and
we have an entire Bill of rights, most of it designed to keep that
government from from becoming too tyrannical that aspect of government, the prosecutorial aspect.
At what point is somebody going to challenge the actual special counsel and the ability
for special counsels to just start digging and digging and never stop. It used
to be when I would talk to my students, and I really am almost
done, Steve, I promise when I will talk to my students about some
of the problems with independent counsel special counsel, one of them would be the
fact, of course, this is a while back that you know, one
of the less lofty checks on prosecutorial power, of course, is their budget.
You know, a local district attorney has to make choices that about what
is going to be prosecuted and what isn't And that's, you know, one
of the things that we can politically kind of hold them accountable for. What
are you what are you looking to prosecute? What are you looking to overlook?
That kind of thing. In the case of a special counsel who is
looking at a person and has essentially no limit on their budget, they can
hire as many damn attorneys as they want to do whatever. When is somebody
going to challenge that as problematic? And here I am, I mean,
you know, I feel I'm glad, but at the same time, I'm
just I'm asking a deeper question. I guess, Well, this goes back
to I mean, first of all, remember the distinction between an independent Council
under the old lap Statute and a special Council who is still legally accountable Attorney
General and the President and can be fired and their budget can be restrained.
The independent Council got to set their own budget pretty much. And I mean,
I guess there was emotionally oversight by the Court of Appeals that selected the
independent Council, but that was never really came into play. So tell me
how that worked with the Robert Mueller Special counsel. Well, look, I
mean Trump could have fired him at any moment if he wanted to, in
the same way Nixon fired Archibald Cox back in nineteen seventy three. So it
has happened once that a president fired a special counsel that he thought was out
of line. So now to the extent that I think for the public at
large, they think special counsel is just like the old independent I know the
difference, but I don't I don't necessarily see practical evidence that there's a limitation
on the budget. Yeah, I really don't. And and maybe that's not
as important as I think as I used to think it was. We see
that that partisan hackery is a much more important driver these days, and not
not just at the federal level, not just at these important national questions,
but district attorneys now decide they're going to go after white collar crime and they're
gonna let murderers get out on cash free bail, right, I mean,
so, so it's you know, it's a little bit of a moot point
from that point of view, But I still think that the resources, never
mind just the money, but the resources that a normal prosecutor has to bring
to bear to decide what cases to prosecute and what cases not to prosecute are
not really controlling in the case of a special counsel, and I think that's
problematic. I'm I'm not feeling sorry for a hunter, and I'm not feeling
sorry for Joe Biden. I'm trying to be a little bit principled about this
and ask that question from that point of view. Johnny one of the last
word on this. Yeah, I first of all, I think these regulations
about special counsel are primarily political and designed for external consumption by the public.
Because Lucretia's point is correct. Without a statute, there's no real law that
says there has to be a special counsel. There's nothing that forces the just
Department to give him her an unlimited budget with as many prosecutors as they want.
It's just a promise by the Atterney General saying I will to reduce the
conflict of interest in investigating a president and his family, give this person an
unlimited budget and give them as many prosecutors as they want. But they have
no legal right to it. And as Steve said, Trump could have fired
Mueller any day they felt like it, because that's the constitutional power that the
president has overall prosecutors. So one thing is, you know, the special
counsel is a you know, has these problems the Cretia mentions, although it's
not clear to me that's not a problem you have if you have a you
know, a US attorney who's out to get somebody anyway, even without special
counsel. But it's really designed to deflect attention away from the fact that the
president is still constitutionally charge of law enforcement. There's still a fundamental conflict of
interest if he is the one or his close associates are the ones who might
violate the law. Special counsel is a kind of way to escape that problem,
but it's not satisfactory. Is in Congress than a better A better Jane.
I mean, you could say the founders thought the real solution to that
kind of thing is political impeachment, and that you know, what's going on
with the House Republicans is actually right, maybe not surprisingly, yielding way more
information for us than the prosecution of hundred. I know Steve wants to move
on, but just really one quick point on that, and we saw the
exactly what you just said. Maybe the outcome somewhat reversed with the January sixth
committee. They investigated, they investigated, they investigated, They got nowhere without
investigation, they produced nothing if without investigation, other than impeachment inquiries, and
those went again went nowhere. And they for all intents and purposes, it
had no political impact. It didn't really didn't. Didn't persuade anybody who wasn't
already on one side or the other. That would be my argument. So
anyway, Sorry, produced some primetime TV shows, man me, I didn't
watch them. The whole scene, the whole scene reminds me summed up with
an old, old old cartoon. I won't even tell you where it's from,
but it's a two skunks talking to each other, and the one skunk
says to the other one, who are you doing these days? And like
I says, oh, I've been appointed to a commission to investigate the source
of that strange odor around here. So that's what this scene reminds me of,
a little bit of a bunch of skunks in a justice department. But
let us move on to the other side of the street, which is,
first of all, a trial set for the Trump January sixth trial beginning January
fourth. I think it is the proposed day. Just second, yeah,
it seems unlikely if it did happen that it took, say, four to
six weeks, that would be in the time of the Iowa caucuses in the
New Hampshire primary. I don't know. Yeah, we'll see about all of
that. But then second, there was a motion by the Justice Department essentially
to a muzzle Trump, and the judge mostly said no, you know,
I can't imagine how they can enforce any of that. I think, first
of all, Trump would run the Supreme Court or something like that. But
I missed this little detail and Jonathan Turley talked about it that apparently somebody made
an argument at some point that Trump might be a flight risk. It's a
little more complicated than that, but we won't go into the deal, right,
but they used it as as a rationale for being able to shut him
up, to be able to But yeah, the whole thing is it's too
common complicated and take too much time to go into. But nobody actually believes
he's a flight risk. It's yet another slide of hand by by Jack Smith,
who, by the way, is it just me or does Jack Smith
look like he's part of a cartel somewhere. I think Trump called him a
crackhead. Yeah, well there's that, but but but I mean, look
at him. He guys. Guys in government are supposed to be clean shaven
and comb their hair. They're not supposed to look like drug cartel bostles,
you know. As you know, he spent some time in Europe. So
once he went over dimension just quickly on Steve's point about the what's going on
with this judge? So, uh, one thing is he's kind of what
they're called protective orders. It's not a gag order. The gag order would
be outrageous and extreme anyway, which would be to say Trump can't even talk
about the case, and that is a problem. But what she issued is
asked to as a protective order, which just says you can't publicly disclose that
the evidence of the evidence that the government gives you, because you have a
right. It's called Brady it's a Brady right. When you're being prosecuted,
digitally, the government has to give you all relevant evidence about you that it
found, including evidence that might show your innocence, which is interesting. And
so this kind of order is not unusual because you don't want someone for example,
reading all them in tone, releasing the addresses of witnesses, or trying
to embarrass people by what they said before a grand jury. But I think
this judge is making a mistake because this is not a run of the mill
case. This is a highly unusual case where the defendant is running for president
and his prosecution is a subject of the campaign, and so the judge should
actually be more flexible on the protective order to recognize Trump's legitimate free speech interests.
It may be hard to identify exactly where that line is between, you
know, protecting the just or legitimate needs to have a criminal trial and what
it requires and free speech. But does basically say none, you know,
to say basically the whole protective order is good and there's very minimal free speech
rights of Trump is I think that's a serious mistake. On So is that
appealable? Uh? Not beyond obviously the DC circuit, because there are a
bunch of partisan hacks too, now, but all the way to the Supreme
Court. Is that appealable? Yeah, there's appealable, though usually the courts
don't like to hear these things until the trial is over. But here's here's
an interesting that Steve's also raised. Addition with this your question, there's what
happened if Trump defies it? Right? I think did any issue? Didn't
he say in Iowa or on Twitter that or X or whatever it's called now
that like he's gonna he's gonna just talk about whatever it feels like and let
them try to stop him. I mean, the usual I just can't imagine
this would happen. You know, the usual punishment would be a fine.
If they continue to do it would be contemptive court, which can involve,
under the inherent power of the court jailing the defendant. I just can't like
they really exactly because he defies the protective order. I find that hard to
believe. But that's what judges usually would do. Yeah, yeah, alright,
Trump could appeal that. Trump probably would love that, right, Trump
being on behind bars and then going to the Supreme Court, that would that
would win he win the nomination. Well, now, the other thing that's
roiling the waters late in the week related to this is this article that I
guess is forthcoming and what University of Pennsylvania Lower Review about by William bod is
that how you say his name and Michael spokes Paulson. I think those are
you know, there's a conservative guys, aren't they someone so and it's hold
on, let me just describe for listeners what's going on there. Article the
one hundred and twenty six page, single spaced article, so it's long.
And what it says is is that section three of the fourteenth Amendment, and
that was the one about barring essentially was written with qualification disqualification federal office.
It had ex Confederates in mind when the amendment was written in eighteen sixty eight.
But they're saying it's still enforced today that if you have participated in insurrection
or rebellion, you can't rightfully be barred under section three of the fourteenth Amendment
and now and also at the end they sort of weasel out about this because
they say, well, you can't do this lightly. It should be done
mostly through political means by the state, not by courts, but by the
states, by the electoral college, by Congress, through impeachment. I think
that's a that's a part of a criminal conspiracy to get the electoral college to
change their vote. They will be prosecuted. But there is this one little
deep till missing, which is I mean, they mentioned Trump, but they
say Trump's not the only person that might apply to. I'm not sure who
else, But on this Trump has not been charged with inciting insurrection or insurrection
rebellion. There's a sort of a missing fact to this case. And I
don't know what are we making. No, I mean, it's a stupid
article, and the fact that anybody's taking it seriously, I always want to
send it. So I'm on the same list of idiots taking it seriously.
But first of all, remember what actually happened after the Fourteenth Amendment with the
Reconstruction Congress and the Confederates who were involved in insurrection. They were so circumspect
about the people that they actually punished, And you know, it was very
much so those It wasn't your average major in the Confederate Army. It was
you know, just because you took up arms against the United States, you
didn't fall under the whole thing of insurrection. Okay, so let's let's start
there. Let's go to the second point, which which Steve made that you
know, I don't know that anybody's proved that this is an insurrection. Again,
my favorite meme is if this was an insurrection, a real insurrection,
Trump would be president and gas would be a dollar seventeen a gallon. It
was my line about, you know, if Trump are really Hitler, we
would have had the wall built and uh and other things. Right. Yeah,
I mean, these were people who were unarmed, and I don't want
to. I don't want to go into another battle with John on this,
but even John has whether there was an intention or not, whether it was
justified or not, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is as
insurrections go, this was really really lame. It wasn't really an insurrection.
It wasn't an attempt to have a coup against the government, which you've also
said. John, I'm not I'm not disagreeing with you here, but what
this stupid article by you're the only laws professor. I think. I know
that I never once in my life if called stupid John, and I'm not
sure I will actually I want to, so we think are not stupid and
see if they fingers hands. Jonathan Turley's getting up there these days. He's
making a pretty good decent job. But anyway, my point is that what
this did, and the article, I hope you did send it to John
too. The article that I sent Steve alerting him to the fact that this
Law Review article was coming out. The way they describe it is how it
changes the political game, not whether or not it has any kind of validity
or you know, there's anything to the legal arguments. It's these are conservatives,
and now it's going to give political impulse to the people who you know,
not just the mark elias Is of the world, but now we've got
everybody because two conservative idiot law professors said yeah, we should use this against
Trump. That's my folks, No matter what what, John, I'll let
you hand list if you want to. Otherwise, Well, I think I
think for sure the fourteenth Amendment is still there, and Section three is still
there. It doesn't say, uh, you know, this finding of insurrection
and then punishment by disqualification only applied to the Civil War. I agree,
so something that exists in the future. What the amendment doesn't say. I
haven't read the article yet, but what it's gotta take into account is who
gets to decide you committed insurrection? So I don't I don't see how a
state could just unilaterally start deciding who's allowed to hold federal office or not.
Like, what is so, could New York State's legislature new Mexico, John
but Mexico actually Donald Trump committed insurrection? Right Mexico did for a representative to
Congress, they I'll find the details of it. Seems to me, if
if if the New York State Legislature issued a finding saying we disqualified Donald Trump
from federal office because we think he was in insurrections, I gotta think Donald
Trump's got a pretty good case that that's invalid. But on the end,
so it seems to me there's two bodies I could do it. I would
think that the courts right if Donald Trump were actually charged with insurrection. But
you know, as we point out last week, that's the missing charge.
There is no charge of insurrection in this January six stuff. It's fraud,
obstruction of justice, of judging of Congress, and this weird deprivation is civil
rights. But there's no insurrection case. So even if Donald Trump's convicted,
I don't think a sentence could charge them with could include disqualification. The interesting
question is could Congress do it? It could the House and sent it by
simple majority vote disqualified people and find that people committed insurrection That's what I assume
was the Civil War question the Reconstruction era question, because they weren't going to
the courts to find people committed insurrection. I think Congress wanted to do remember
Dan, Congress and pass resolutions bar you know, refusing to seek people who
were sent back by the Confederate State. I mean, the you know,
the conquered states or whatever you want to call them after the Civil War.
Isn't that kind of like the Congress finding someone was an insurrectionist and disqualifying them
from office. It was a kind of political mechanism rather than just prosecution and
courts. So that's what I would say here. But here's here's what I'm
going to say. First of all, because I brought it up. Sorry,
a New Mexico State District Court judge on about honor about September of twenty
twenty one, UH disqualified county commissioner and Cowboys for Trump co founder Coe Griffin
from holding public office for engaging insurrection at the US Capitol. On January sixth,
the judgment from state District Court piece of you know what, permanently bars
Griffin from federal and local public office. So a judge said, I judge.
I don't know. I mean, there was also the modern case.
It's very different because it was about how the House kicked out Adam Clayton Powell
back in the sixties, and I kind of forgot that. The point was.
I think they lost in court, though I think he went to court
and the court said no, Congress can't kick him out. For I forget.
I don't remember how it all went down, but I know it was
very controversial that he was kept getting reelected even though he never even went to
the apparently, like he went to the Bahamas and sat on the beach and
collected his paycheck and they reelected him. Anyway, Okay, let's take a
quick break for our sponsors and then come back and look at the wider political
scene a little bit, because I think this is the foreground. In the
background, there's some stuff happening that is probably equally important, all right,
you guys, So you know Trump and Biden, obviously they're going to dominate
the foreground for quite a long time to come. Yet meanwhile, a lot
of stuff is in motion, include something I didn't mention, you guys,
But we can do this quickly. Ohio, this week had this referendum to
change the threshold for amending the constitution by a popular vote from fifty percent plus
one to sixty percent. And it's been made by the media and others into
a proxy vote over abortion, because there's an a proposal to be voted on
in the fall that will lock into the Ohio Constitution essentially the regime of Row
versus Weight or even more more radical in Roe versus weight permit abortion up to
the time of birth essentially. And so this referendum went down hard. I
think fifty seven forty three voted no, not to increase the proportion of the
vote required to amend the Ohio Constitution. This is being seen and reported as
a huge victory for the pro choice cause I'm not so sure about that,
but the Democrats are saying we've got him now, we're going to run an
abortion next year, and so I don't know if you guys watched this,
I think the vote is a little more complicated than that. I think there's
of all bias against there's a small c conservatism comes into play here where people
say let's not mess with the state constitution even though there's a good case or
saying you want to have a supermajority for changing Let's say, you guys,
the stupid party again, the stupid party. Republicans made it about abortion,
which gave the other side all sorts of opportunities to grandstand about it. If,
on the other hand, they would have said, look, it's very
easy to get a simple majority all on the same page at one time and
get them to do dumb things. And if they would have done a good
examples and maybe talked about the reason why constitutional amendments should be done by a
supermajority because they they're contraditional amendments the same way. Uh, you know,
made an actual principled argument. But no, the Republicans made it about abortion.
And you know, if I'm if I'm the usual sort of you know,
have paying attention vote, yeah, I don't want somebody rigging the entire
constitution just so I could get somebody can get their policy preferences through. I
think it agrees with what you're saying, Steve, But I'm just saying it
was even worse because it was a dumb thing for Republicans to do in this
case. Yeah, I mean my prediction is the initiative about well, I
don't know, they may I'll bet the vote will be closer. It's not
going to be fifty seven forty degree. It might even lose, but we'll
just see. Well, An I was just gonna say they've lost any kind
of integrity that they could come to the voters with. Now, Well,
now they'll have to argue about and persuade a majority of the matter that this
is a radical I think you could win on this, by the way,
if you want after it. But if you weren't the stupid party, John,
you have two cents on this area. No, I don't get why
Republicans, right, we wanted Dobbs to return abortion to the states. It
did, right, So at one level, this is good that the states
are deciding for themselves whether what kind of abortion rights to have. What I
don't understand is right, there's this case, there was the one out of
Kansas last year. Why are Republicans not using the normal political process passing statutes
setting out abortion rights or not, and maybe shooting for the moon by trying
to you know, and you know, amend the constitution, gauging tricks like
this to try to prevent the Constitution being easily mended. There are other states
right where they're fighting about the Supreme State Supreme Court. Why not just use,
you know, have elections for state legislatures and pass statutes about this.
Yeah. Well, maybe the thing that's causing it all to get too gend
up is because the Republicans and the state level are trying to monkey around with
their state constitutions instead. Maybe that's a tactical mistake. I don't know.
Yeah, I mean this we have said before, and I'll just saying briefly
again before Lucretia reminds me my being repetitive and saying things over and over again.
Republicans in the pro life community were totally unprepared for the Postdobs world,
full stop. You know you're you're wrong, sorry, Steven. I think
you're partially wrong on that. They weren't unprepared. Their cowards. They're cowards,
and they don't want to have to stand on principle and try to make
the principled argument. They want to take the moderate road. They want to
talk about too much taxes, they don't want to talk about abortion. That.
I think that's what I mean. I don't mean think you're wrong.
You're not wrong at all, Steve, But I think that there's a deeper
reason other than simply being unprepared, because quite frankly, we're all we were
all unprepared. None of us expected anything like that three years ago, at
least, right, we haven't been planning for the demise of Row. From
that point of view, you're absolutely correct. But I've seen people who are
able to make principled, persuasive arguments. Most of them are not Republicans running
for Congress or state legislators. No, I give you that point. Okay,
can I give you your point? So John, to move on a
little bit here, Just something related to constitutional change. I figured out here
midweek that Lucresia is holding out on us. She's actually thoroughly behind Vivek Ramaswami
for president because I know he wants he wants to raise the mooting age to
twenty five. I mean, of course Lucresia will go well beyond that.
But I think, Aha, I told you, I'm not necessarily I'm hearing
that younger people are actually except if they're college educated, of course, they're
actually becoming more and more conservatives. I'm not necessarily it's their future. I'm
still on the whole repeal the Nineteenth Amendment thing. But you'll settle for that
right now. I had to tell these guys I've been asked to give a
speech and when it's Equality Day on the passage of the nineteenth Amendment, I'm
in a real quandary about this. It has in the ideas. You know
where to send them, Well, we'll send you bodyguards or the kevlar vest
and you know, an extraction team out there you go nearby? Yeah,
well all right, by the way. The point your the serious point you
race though, is you know, as the problem with politics, things continue
the way they're going until suddenly they change. And so you know, the
big assumption when the eighteen year olds got the vote and for the first time
in the nineteen seventy two election, is that they were going to vote Democratic.
They didn't. They went for Nixon, and then the eighties, the
younger voters went heavily for Reagan, to the point where Pat moynihan said,
what the heck is going on here? Turns out we're the old fogies now,
meaning we liberal Democrats, right uh? And then Obama Obama. Yeah,
but it could flip back, you know, is what I'm saying.
And that brings me to the next. Can I just ask one more question,
Why should we assume that people should vote as a block by generations.
Why shouldn't it be overwhelmed by the other things people think, like what they
think is good policy or you know, there's no I would have I'm surprised
actually that, but you guys would know the data. I mean, do
people vote by generations all these other things? Yeah, the college educated versus
the non college educated. Income, yeah, predictor yeah, an income,
all of those kinds of things. Yeah, I have to go back and
look. I mean I think over very like over century. I think there
are some It's never black and white or you know, all one all the
other, but I think you can see some general you know, the New
Deal, the New Deal generation right, that was heavily democratic until they started
affecting a way. And one other thing. One of the thing is if
you were voting by generation, then youngsters should totally vote conservative because the federal
government is engaging a huge wealth transfer from young people to old people. Like
that's what all the entitlement programs that are crushing the deficit, I mean,
creative deficit are all driven by these you know, income redistribution from the future,
which is the current generation going to old people. Now, most of
them weren't. Most of them weren't aware, aren't really aren't aware of that.
Although you know, there was a pole the nineteen nineties. I got
a lot of press where they asked young people, or do you believe more
in the existence of the security of your social security benefits or in UFOs?
And they all sit UFOs. Hey, guy, I'm almost and I don't
believe info. Right, Well, we'll see. I'm actually gonna I'll plant
this and come back to it later because I want to get to intermediate points,
which is a couple of articles this week that caught my eye and readers
kept passing along. I actually think we might be on the custom of some
chain. I'll tell you why in a minute. But in the meantime,
you had Victor Davis Hansen, had I thought or one of his see if
I really want to discuss that, But you made a comment about Obama,
and I just wanted to throw out there the whole what's been big in the
news from time. Yeah, the tablet article, which is an article interviewing
the biographer of Obama. That and and every single piece that I read about
it or saw about it. It was a little all confusing actually if you
ask me, but it all the whole point of it was, you know
what, Obama's exactly the guy that right wing conservative thought he was, and
he certainly wasn't the person that was mister hope and change and everything he presented
himself as. And I just wondered what you guys thought about that, if
that's going to make any difference. So many other presidents get a kind of
rehabilitation after they leave office, and Obama looks to become he might get downgraded.
Yeah, I just I don't want to spend a lot of time.
I just wanted to ask before you moved on, did you see that article,
John, I've only seen the discussions of it. I have read them
correct in the discussions characterizing him that way. Yes, yeah, yeah,
I mean a lot of people, uh. And Garrow it's David Garrow,
right. He's a very serious historian and one of the I think the Pulitzer
for his book about the civil rights hero right. And he's a very serious
historian. And uh, I guess did a number of interviews with Obama and
exactly yeah, yeah, No, I mean I think I I'm not so
one. I think he is much more hardcore ideological than people thought at the
time. I mean we might have thought, but a lot of people in
the public didn't think he was. I'm not sure whether that will raise or
lower his reputation in the future. I mean, is you know, they're
of course Democrats, who are much happier now. I wonder because they also
showed character flaws. Yeah, character laws, right, So I mean for
listeners who aren't, we'll try and find us some link in the show notes.
Because it was a stunning interview with Garrow, who, as you say,
John is a very well respected mainstream I mean, this is why Obama
read to sit down and be interviewed whatnot. And what Garrow says is not
so much that he was ideological, that was there, but actually it was
just egotism and self seeking in other words, I don't know, he didn't
say that. What he said was he just had no He would get excited
about something and then you know, minutes later he was bored with it and
he had no stick to it. Uh yeah, stick to it and listen
that, you know, and as he just couldn't be counted on to do
anything. I mean, it's a very understated article, and that Garrow's never
directly critical, but it's absolutely devastating as you read through it patiently and realizing
he's painting a very negative picture of Obama. And I think that's gonna land.
And yeah, I mean, we'll see how future historiography goes on this.
As other people, but one of them was this. So how is
it that Garrow is the only With all these opposition researchers and other people in
the media, how come none of them ever actually identified and talked to any
of Obama's old girlfriends. Now the number one old girlfriend, the one he'd
asked to marry him twice, who was white, and and the way Obama
described her was a a composite and be lied about her, lied about her
saying that, you know, she was somehow upset about his his black whatever
it's called. Because there was a you know, despicable farrakhanite Chicago pole who
was you know, just anti Semid and this and that, and she was
her parents had hidden you know, Holocaust survivors in their home. Her parents
are grandparents in Finland, Finland, Finland or Sweden, Finland, I think
Norway one of those places anyway, she was, she was Scandinavian and Japanese
and she was really offended by this sort of anti semitism that he wouldn't disavow
and that's why they broke up. But he asked her to marry or twice
and she said no, and he made it seem like he needed a black
wife instead, or there's just a lot of it's a very very unflattering portrait
and we'll see if it stakes and we get off the podcast. The headline
in the tablet was something weird like not only was I'll have to find it
because it was something like he's not even a person's Yeah, yeah, just
not a good It was weird, very dismissive. Yeah, yeah, anyway,
Sorry, sorry about that, Steve. I just I forgot that.
I wanted to mention it when he asked, Yeah, the portrait if for
literary listeners, I know at least one will get this reference heat he makes
them out to be kind of like Rex Mottrum in Brideshead. Yes, if
you remember that that characterization, it's a pretty good parallel there, I think
in some ways. All right, So Victor Davis Hansen had a really great
article where he said when somebody going to stand up and say this is crazy.
And the example used was and it's one of the climax as the whole
Churchill story is Leo Amory standing up on May eighth when Chamberlain's at essentially the
end of his rope, and Amory quotes Cromwell saying, you have stood here
too long for any good you have done in the name of God, go
let us be done with you. And it was absolutely devastating in the house
from all the eyewitnesses there. And he's saying, really, what Victor didn't
say it this way, but he was really saying, is when are some
Democrats going to do this? They nobody seems to be wanting to break with
the progressive orthodoxy, let alone point out that Biden is hopeless. And it
is true. And you know, I know this history. You know,
back in the late seventies you had a lot of Democrats breaking with Jimmy Carter,
breaking with where the party had gone. Some of them became Republicans,
like Jean Kirkpatrick, and some of those stories are really interesting, and a
lot of the others, including Pat moynihan, went to Ted Kennedy and said,
you have to run against Carter because he's going to kill us. Not
that Ted Kennedy was a great alternative, but still that's not happening here.
And it's really stunning to me. Uh and then uh, my pal sort
of I've never met a person, but Jacob Howell and who have talked a
lot on the phone, has this article out and unheard, which is that
really interesting site. I think about America has got this zombie stake going on.
We have not only you know, old presidential candidates, one obviously senile
and the other one with all his baggage that we talk about endlessly. But
you know, Diane Feinstein, Mitch McConnell, I don't Luis Shall want to
say you probably liked the Mitch McConnell stopped talking there the other day in mid
sentence. But I'm so terrible, right, I know you are. But
look, I mean, the point is we do have this now about the
impeachment stuff, because I get he's right that the whole impeachment stuff that happened
with with Trump, maybe even with Clinton, all of that was probably a
misuse of the impeachment process. He's right about that, But the fact that
he's unable to make the distinction between what happened there and be more. This
is so typical Mitch McConnell be more interested to make sure Republicans look like chentelmen
who follow the Constitution. They're not like those democrats. He's so wrong on
this, He's so so wrong. All right, che woman, you're you're
missing the point I'm trying to get me. Ever, come on, I
will never be quiet if you try to shush me. Very wrong about that,
Steve, ste if you so little understand women, You can never tell
a woman to shush yourself. We just had a skiing for abuse. I
had to try it, you know, of course I had to try at
least once. Uh No, here's the point, is uh. I mean,
they're they're they're right about this. I think that we're looking kind of
decrepit. On the other hand, is what I was coming to and hinted
at a moment ago. I don't know, and you know you call me
the infernal optimist of lucree Ship. But just pick out a couple of things
happening right now. One is, you know, we saw the guy who
was named I Forget, who was subdued the crazy amount on the subway.
It was being charged with manslaughter in New York right. Well, then last
week, I'm sure you guys have seen the clip it's all over Twitter and
social media of the seven to eleven owner in Stockton, California, who said,
I'm not going to let a shoplifter clean out my store, and he
and one of his employees got out a couple of broomsticks and beat the crap
out of the guy. And the city said we're going to investigate. And
the city investigated for about twenty four hours and said they're not going to be
charged. Ah, that to me is progress. And you know, Stockton's
kind of an old democratic, working class city. It's not some right wing
place. There's a few other things, like you know, you're seeing these
blue states New York City, Massachusetts declaring emergency over all the illegal immigrants that
are streaming into their cities. This is twenty years overdue. I've been saying
Republican states should be sending illegal immigrants to Malibu, Marin County, Hyde Park,
Illinois and so forth for a long time to make them bear the cost
of the virtue signaling. And this is interesting to watch on a broader scene.
Just take off a couple more quickly on the broader scene. I don't
know if you're I pay attention to this stuff, of course, because I'm
a nerd, an energy nerd, but I won't mention a certain statue.
John, Don't worry. The whole net zero agenda is falling apart in real
time in front of us. The both political parties in Britain are trying to
back away from their net zero pledges. Germany and the other European states are
all following in line. The new head of the UN's Climate Change Group said,
you know, we need to dial back the climate panic rhetoric. This
is not helpful. France has said, you know, we're not going to
go for green energy. We're gonna have a new generation of nuclear power.
Canada announced it's gonna reopen possibly a nuclear power plant it closed ten years ago.
So I'm I'm adding all these ups saying reality is starting to intrude.
It's got a long way to go yet. We have to relearn all these
lessons, as you know, the old Tom Wolf phrase about the great relearning.
We actually have to get back to broken windows policing. We have to
get back to actually locking up criminals. It's going to take time, but
I think I think the force of reality and public opinion is pushing that way,
and even some Democrats won't be able to resist this, and they might
even lead it. And then finally, I'm taking a heart that we're finally
our team fighting the university wars for real, and you know, it's a
horrible, huge battle, but we're actually striking some blows here and there.
The news out today is that New College Florida, which all the lefts that
was going to fall apart, is going to have record enrollment in the fall,
and applications are way up, and they've eliminated this week their gender studies
program completely and you know, I'm going to file out a way as a
win, and more things like that are coming, I think. So that's
why I'm somewhat optimistic today that you know, we're not routed everywhere. And
now you can tell me why I'm an infernal optimum. Let's just speak with
the latter one. The latter one is, that's nice. It's one little
college out of we know, Hillsdale's in the same boat. People don't want
to go to big universities that are totally woke, et cetera, et cetera.
But there aren't that many choices, and there's not going to be that
many choices. I mean, you read the chronicles Steve every single day.
It's, you know, this horror. They're never going to be able to
hire faculty because nobody wants to be in that horrific environment, you know,
the what's it called toxic work environment that anyway, So well, that's why
I want you to be president in one of these places. But I don't
want to be president anywhere. All right, Well, all right, you
know, I just think there's reasons to Oh, the Wall Street Journal has
this terrific article out Friday on they've really gone a deep dive into flagship state
universities and they're profit like at spending and it's absolutely devastating, makes them look
terrible. And I don't think lucreation. They mentioned your particular university, but
I don't remember now anyway, No, but we're we're in debt except from
my college of course, right my college, by the way, I just
have to mention, Yeah, all right, he admissions up sixty and it's
a new college, so sixty one percent over last year. Wow, sixty
one percent? Yeah, I mean, is your college member of the Pack
two. I got the funniest comment last week on last week's podcast from Mike
Anonymous, who's my favorite commentor because he's the one who said I was hot,
That makes him my favorite commenter. But he said he said nice things,
mean things about you, of course, John, and the nice things
about me. But then he said that treasonous cow college you belong to.
Why are you leaving? Why are you leaving the Pack twelve? And what
are you gonna do about it? It was great. I read it to
like a dozen people. Well, while we're talking, while we're talking sports.
The other great fun story of the week was the supposedly US women's soccer
team, not clear they're Americans right, losing at the World Cup in ignominious
fashion. Right Megan Rappano watching a penalty kick. That was really fun.
I enjoyed that thoroughly. I did too. We had we had some laughs
about that too, and all the people who were having angst about it,
like even Franklin Graham was having angst about it on Twitter. I don't know
it, yeah, because he can't he can't bring himself to root against any
United States team, but he actually was rooting against them and was happy when
they lost, which was pretty much everybody's all right about it? Sorry,
all right, let's uh. You guys may or may not have nominees,
but I do want to try and keep up with our rolling book list.
And my suggestion was what's a good book for a general curious readership on politics
or political science? And I'm a huge fan of Kenneth Minogue's book Politics A
very Short Introduction. It's part of that the Oxford series of very short introductions
that are mixed bags. Sometimes are excellent, sometimes not. And I think
even Lucretia you would like this book. I want to read just a little
bit from the very last chapter called Kim Politics Survived the twenty first century,
and he says this, in an egalitarian world, everyone is equal, except
perhaps the managers of managers of equality. And certainly in the foreseeable future,
there will be endless and not unprofitable work for those whose business it is to
spell out an ever greater detail the rules of the game of life, and
to adjudicate conflict, and to teach the benighted what thoughts a just society requires.
Politics will have died, but everything will be politics, And don't stop
stop be yawning there, Lucretia. That is that is a that is great
stuff. That this book is entirely this book would be a great preface to
reading a more serious and difficult book like natural writing history, for example.
And by the way, you say I probably recommend Calvin and Hobbs at this
point, well, you know the guy at Bill Waterston wrote that he meant
the actual John Calvin and Thomas Hobbs. You know, he was a political
science major at Kenyon College back when conservators ran the political science to play.
Except that there's nothing about either one of them that actually mirror those characters.
But all that against him. But that's kind of why I picked their names.
And there is one famous there's one I keep around. It shows the
two of them talking and I forget how it went. But one guy mentions,
oh, I'm gonna be a writer. What are you gonna write?
And he has some bunch of ridiculous jargon. He says, academia. I
put that on my my you know, my online class page on one of
the I don't want to hear your nonsense stuff when you write a term paper
for me, John, Do you have a favorite politics book? I was
gonna suggest I was gonna hold on a second. Oh, I was gonna
can you hear me? Yeah? Okay, sorry, I thought I had.
I was going to suggest either two books I really enjoyed reading in college
by Danielle Bell, who's more of a sociologist than a political scientist. But
he wrote a book called The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism that was very good book,
which is a kind of kind of answer I guess to the you know,
dark time and the Protestant this capitalism and Protestant ethic and his argument,
which I think it really interests that capitalism produces lots of start pluses and it
makes us lazy, and then it undermines right the work ethic you need to
have capitalism. And then the other book he wrote that I really thought was
very prescient, and these are the late eighties and I think we're still living
working through it now. It was book called The Coming of Post Industrial Society
and his argument, this is a book written in the at least the midst
seventies, where he said the economy is going to really be based on information.
Yeah and so and then he was he turned out to be totally correct,
and he tried to figure out what that would mean for society. But
he was you know, when the person who said, like the big conglomerate,
you know, mass production conglomerates will start to disappear, big unions will
not be that powerful, and you know, the people who can organize and
manipulate information will be the ones who do better in the economy, you know.
And he wrote this in the seventies, and I think what he said
turned out to be true. But we're still trying to figure out what at
all, you know, what it all means for politics. Yeah, if
he were still with us, Yeah, he was an interesting guy. His
work holds up pretty well. And if he were still with us, I
think he would completely sympathize with you might say, the Trump world. He
started out as a Marxist and by the end of his career he was a
kind of a Neil Khan, not a policy not form about welfare policy stuff.
But he said was he remained right. He remained a socialist in economics
but a conservative in culture, which that's trying to be more important. I
will add, because you know, I haven't annoyed Lucretia enough. In this
episode, he wrote one of my mind, one of the greatest short essays
everywhere about anywhere about Max Weber called First Love and Early Sorrows and Partisan Review
in nineteen eighty two. It's something to read every new I still reread his
essay every now and then because it's really quite moving, I think. But
Okay, since you guys got to talk on and on and on, I
get a whole bunch of Babylon bees because tell us no book about politics.
That's my book about politics today because I don't want to talk about it.
I wanted to. I want because we had so much politics. There's so
many Babylon bees. I can't but but since Steve brought up the soccer,
this was my favorite, and I really wish that we had time on the
podcast for me to read. You know, there's the headlines and then there's
the when you think what they actually say. So I encourage everybody to go
to Babylonbie's Fake News you can Trust website and read Trump indicted for mocking US
women's soccer. But it's I mean, the really funny part of it is
it's just on and on about just a little bit of an example. The
sanctity of women's soccer is never to be made fun of USAIDS Special counsel Jack
Smith after reading the charges, every one of those highly attractive and beautiful women
is both stunning and brave. We believe Trump violated the Constitution somehow by making
fun of them on truth social and we will prove it as soon as we
can figure out which law he broke. Yeah, that happened like an hour
after the thing came out. But now I won't do all of them that
I promised. I'll keep it short, but I like Democrats say, it'll
take a lot more than eyewitness testimony, bank records, audio video, complete
confessions for them to believe Biden did anything wrong. That one's good. Sorry,
there's there's so many study Okay, a little non politics for a moment.
Studies show everyone at the beach absolutely wants to listen to your crappy music.
So that baby up. And finally, this one's for you. John
Biden vows to sacrifice as many Ukrainian lives as it takes to defeat Russia.
Yeah, they have to actually kind of you know, mortally true. God,
I would every day. I'd love to have a seat on the periphery
of their writer's room. And they're sitting around cranking. You just have to
wonder. I mean, every day, every day they make me laugh,
so many needs to well, No, I laugh all the time. Steve
had a great meme. I think it was yours. I can never remember
if it's yours or commenters who add them, which is now bigger than your
memes on thinking pictures, but it was is this made me laugh? This
made you offended. That's why I'm happy in your man. Yes, all
right, John, you want to launch this out in the usual fashion.
Yeah, so I did have a commulism, but it's like only two words,
so I don't know if you saw. The Vice President Harris was at
a major gun violence conference in Chicago, and so she was asked this lengthy
question going through all the terrible shootings in Chicago, and then at the end
of the interviewers asked her, you know, does this weigh on your mind?
What should we do about gun violence? She turns this audience, which
has many victims of gun violence in it, I read and says, go
to vote dot com, and then starts cackling and laughing. It was just
so inappropriate and wrong. I saw a clip of this, and so her
the commualism of the day is go to vote dot com. That's the answer
to all serious public Paul. You know, John, we've given up on
our Bidenism. We for a while we had a Bidenism. And all I
want to say about that is Weather Channel and lead pipes. Did you see
that she got He got asked by the Weather Channel, bimbo. Does that
make you all, miss rush Limbaugh? Yeah, by the way, the
weather chim he you know, he gave after that all that stuff about the
weather and how they only talked about the weather with the oligarchs and so forth.
He actually gives his only interview to the Weather Channel, John, and
she asks him some deep question about why it is that, you know,
he hasn't more actively pursuing some something in this green agenda. And he says,
lead pipes really ships. Yeah, okay, that's better than my communism
might No, yours is pretty good too, because you know there's a different
standard, not much of a difference standard, but a little bit. So
yeah, all right, John, go ahead, John, Okay, always
drink your whiskey, knee and let's go Brandon and Steve God save the queen
Man. Next week, gang whist say that you cannot change your mind.
Do it once and you divide. Do it twice and you divide. It
doesn't happen to be that way, okay. They always said that you need
to have a plan. Doesn't matter, any plan, any plan. Don't
understand. It doesn't happen to be that way. Okay. I may be
wrong. I'll pay for it. I'll pay for it. Don't jump down
song. I'll pay for it. I'll pay for ends. You'll sing along.
I'll pavor it, I'll pavor it, I'll pavor it. They always
said, he must stay between the lines, be easily defined, or you'll
waste in all your time. It doesn't have to be that way, okay.
They always said that it has to be refined or you'll leave someone behind.
How the pages must be lying. It doesn't happen. Ricochet join the conversation.