Speaker 1: Well whiskey, come and take my pain, the money, my ray.
Speaker 2: Why think alone when you can drink it all In
Speaker 2: with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, join your bartenders Steve Hayward,
Speaker 2: John Yu and the International Woman of Mystery Lucretia.
Speaker 3: Where they slapped it up and David, ain't you busy?
Speaker 2: On the should taps got a giving.
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to another issue episode of the Three Whiskey
Speaker 1: Happy Hour on a day that will live in history
Speaker 1: because it is the day for the first time that
Speaker 1: an American has been elected? Is that the right word appointed?
Speaker 1: Appt chosen by the hand, chosen by the hand of God.
Speaker 2: To be Pope?
Speaker 1: Pope? It used to be right. He even went by
Speaker 1: Bob right, Bob pre host Now Hope, Oh Bob, Bob
Speaker 1: now Ope Leo amazing And so I'm hoped we will
Speaker 1: have a very interesting, deep discussion about Pope Leo and
Speaker 1: the meaning of it with my two co hosts, Steve Hayward, Steve.
Speaker 4: Where are you?
Speaker 1: How are you? How's your whiskey?
Speaker 2: I home? And by the way, we are the perfect
Speaker 2: podcast for this subject, at least if you're a Graham
Speaker 2: Green reader. I was having flashbacks through the last couple
Speaker 2: of hours to the whiskey priest of the Power in
Speaker 2: the Golden So I'm not legend anything about Father Bob
Speaker 2: except he used from Chicago. That's is just awesome.
Speaker 1: Yes, the South side of Chicago.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Less, I wonder if he ever played basketball with O
Speaker 1: Barack Obama. And of course we're joined by the international
Speaker 1: woman of mystery, Lucretia. Lucretia, how are you. How's your whiskey?
Speaker 3: I'm drinking Italian wine. It's I don't want to say
Speaker 3: it's a protest drink, but protest drink.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's get right into it. Lucretia, what is your
Speaker 1: beef with the new pope? What do you think about
Speaker 1: the new pope? You know i'd be your listeners can't
Speaker 1: see your face full of disappointment.
Speaker 3: No, it's not. I shouldn't say that. I'm going to
Speaker 3: try to withhold judgment. I wish he were a pope
Speaker 3: who had stayed out of politics altogether. I wish all
Speaker 3: of them would stay out of politics altogether. I have
Speaker 3: I have priests in my church. I have several of them,
Speaker 3: both of whom, actually many of them. The two senior priests,
Speaker 3: the senior pastors I know quite well. But we've had
Speaker 3: a you know, it's pretty steady stream of younger priests
Speaker 3: coming through, and they've all almost always been really conservative.
Speaker 3: But you only know that when you have private conversations
Speaker 3: with them and they go out of their way not
Speaker 3: to be overtly political about things, and because you know,
Speaker 3: because that's what that's not what the Catholic Church should
Speaker 3: be doing. And the Catholic Church should not be telling
Speaker 3: the American president or the American vice president what they
Speaker 3: should be doing about immigration or about climate change. Those
Speaker 3: are the two things that actually worry me a great
Speaker 3: deal about this one.
Speaker 1: What is lucas What has the new pope said about immigration?
Speaker 1: Are about climate change?
Speaker 3: I think it's a little bit less and Steve can
Speaker 3: probably back me up on this, a little bit less
Speaker 3: about what he personally says and what he decides to
Speaker 3: repost or retweet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is everything who uses oh.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, quite frequently. And he has been critical of JD. Vance.
Speaker 3: He has been critical of the failure of church members
Speaker 3: of the Catholic Church not taking their responsibility for Mother
Speaker 3: Earth much more seriously. And it's a reciprocal relationship and
Speaker 3: even though the Bible says that we should have dominion
Speaker 3: over the earth, we shouldn't really look at it that way.
Speaker 3: And we're going, you know, just dumb stuff. So that
Speaker 3: bothers me on the other hand, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: try to be as balanced as i can about this tonight.
Speaker 3: He does seem to have about issues that do matter.
Speaker 3: Who cares about climate change? If God can't fix the world,
Speaker 3: If God can't fix the atmosphere or the rising oceans,
Speaker 3: God can't do anything, and so shut up. If your pope,
Speaker 3: you shouldn't be talking about that. But anyway, on the
Speaker 3: other hand, what you should be talking about are things
Speaker 3: like abortion and denying biological sex and the natural order
Speaker 3: of things that God put on earth. Those are things
Speaker 3: that are appropriate for popes, and I don't consider them political.
Speaker 3: They're moral issues that find their way into our political discourse.
Speaker 3: And he seems to be slightly better on those issues.
Speaker 3: Thing I'll say is he came out with some more
Speaker 3: kind of conservative vestments on I guess, Pope, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm a convert. I'm not a cryio Catholic, so some
Speaker 3: of these things are a little bit lost on me.
Speaker 3: But Pope Francis would sort of shun all of the trappings,
Speaker 3: the traditional trappings of the of the papacy. And this
Speaker 3: guy came out in some traditional vestments, traditional garments, and
Speaker 3: gave a fairly traditional blessing. So maybe there's hope. Maybe
Speaker 3: he'll just stay away from that nonsense. And you know,
Speaker 3: when you're when you're just a bishop, you can probably
Speaker 3: have especially if you're a US Catholic bishop, you can
Speaker 3: probably have opinions about politics, but once you're the pope,
Speaker 3: you should stay out of it. Opinions.
Speaker 1: What do you think you think, Pope?
Speaker 3: Really quick, John, I just want to say one last thing.
Speaker 3: I became a Catholic because of the witness of John
Speaker 3: Paul the second I really, I mean that was what
Speaker 3: sort of got me intrigued by it all. And you
Speaker 3: know his politics were not politics, they were His anti
Speaker 3: Soviet was was because the Soviets were atheists. And anyway,
Speaker 3: you guys know that I don't have to go in it. Sorry,
Speaker 3: go ahead, Steve, I just want to get that out.
Speaker 2: There, Steve.
Speaker 1: Your view on pop Leo the fourteenth Is he going
Speaker 1: to do better than the first thirteen? What is with
Speaker 1: you Catholics?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a non union Catholic. Remember I'm Eastern Orthodox.
Speaker 1: Although what really, I didn't know that I am, because
Speaker 1: that's okay, we're gonna have to find a new coast
Speaker 1: co host.
Speaker 2: No, it is the most conservative branch of Christianity.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They stay assiduously out of politics. Okay, Look, several things
Speaker 2: to be observed about him, just to statements of fact.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize until a couple hours ago. He's only
Speaker 2: been a cardinal for two years. He's really new to
Speaker 2: the rank. So Francis elevated him. That's interesting. He spent
Speaker 2: almost twenty years down in Latin America in Peru. Now,
Speaker 2: of course, now Francis Francis had been buddy buddy with
Speaker 2: some of those liberation theology folks back in the eighties
Speaker 2: and nineties in Argentina. I always said liberation theology was
Speaker 2: just Marxism with salsa, and that was all very bad stuff.
Speaker 2: But I do think that the ranks of bishops in
Speaker 2: Latin America had been divided and the clergy there as
Speaker 2: they have been in a lot of places. By the way,
Speaker 2: on the climate change business, yeah, he had one retweet
Speaker 2: of some stupid thing on climate and I remember Lucretia
Speaker 2: and you will too. Professor Jaffa picking up the Catholic
Speaker 2: bishop's statement in the early eighties saying the existence of
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons calls in the question the sovereignty of God,
Speaker 2: and he said, when did Catholics stop believing in the
Speaker 2: omnipotence of God? Right? Just swap out climate change for
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons and you have the same thing. And I
Speaker 2: think the much lower intensity of the climate issue with
Speaker 2: the Catholic clergy and bishops sort of shows you it
Speaker 2: doesn't have a lot of staying power there. Yeah, they'll
Speaker 2: say stupid things, but they were really a very bad
Speaker 2: force in the eighties on those issues.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I do remember a couple other observations. It is a
Speaker 2: curious thing that Pope John Paul two was made pope,
Speaker 2: the first non European pope and well ever right, sorry,
Speaker 2: non Italian pope in four hundred years. Francis was the
Speaker 2: first non European pope ever. And I kept thinking, well,
Speaker 2: it's going to be maybe African, That's what I was
Speaker 2: hoping for.
Speaker 3: I wanted Robert Sarah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, or another conservative person from Asia. Right, So
Speaker 2: in picking an American I really can't get past the
Speaker 2: fact that is it really a pure coincidence they picked
Speaker 2: an American, which they said they never didn't say they'd
Speaker 2: never do it, but it was always assumed you'd never
Speaker 2: have an American pope because America runs the world, and
Speaker 2: why give them the Vatican two. So the fact that
Speaker 2: is a pure coincidence that you have an American pope
Speaker 2: who has dissented on immigration issues in his retweets at
Speaker 2: the very moment that you have Donald Trump as this
Speaker 2: world historical force arriving on the scene, it's hard to
Speaker 2: rule that out as a pure coincidence. You don't want
Speaker 2: to dissect what they were really discussing there behind closed
Speaker 2: doors of the Vatican. But you know, my sense is
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people who think I'm one of them,
Speaker 2: that Trump is worldwide, is going to outlast Trump. I mean,
Speaker 2: the pope will be here for what twenty years, maybe longer,
Speaker 2: but Trump has gone in another three and a half years.
Speaker 2: But I think trump Ism will live on in various
Speaker 2: forms because I think he has changed the world and
Speaker 2: the Catholics want to be part of that action. Maybe
Speaker 2: they do, I don't know, hard to rule it out.
Speaker 3: He went out of his way to not be American today.
Speaker 3: That's for sure.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, he did.
Speaker 2: By speaking Italian.
Speaker 3: She spoke Italian here. Well, there was nothing that would
Speaker 3: indicate that he and he hasn't lived in America all
Speaker 3: that much. Most of the time he's been in Perune.
Speaker 3: He's been in the Vatican for the last few years,
Speaker 3: since ever since he became that Bishop of something something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, okay, but I do know how he's going
Speaker 2: to get canonized as a saint in the fullness of time.
Speaker 2: John turns out the poor man is a White Sox fan,
Speaker 2: and it will take a miracle for the White Sox
Speaker 2: to ever compete well again in Major League Baseball in
Speaker 2: the next decade.
Speaker 1: So now I've seen this on the internet that people
Speaker 1: say he has a Costco card, which impresses me. But
Speaker 1: I know why why do people say this. Have they
Speaker 1: seen him in Costco?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: But he won't be excited about seeing an Ammo bag
Speaker 3: in Costco because he's also my gun.
Speaker 1: I know that I sent that picture. So I was
Speaker 1: in Costco. I'm in Texas, and I went by the
Speaker 1: Costco in Texas to see the difference, and they had
Speaker 1: Ammo bags for sale. I didn't even know what they were.
Speaker 1: I've never seen one, so that all these kind of
Speaker 1: new compartments and fancy and all kinds of things like that.
Speaker 1: But let me let me ask you, Lucretia, what are
Speaker 1: the challenges that face Pope Leo the fourteenth? And I
Speaker 1: see these headlines as say, Pope Leo to take over
Speaker 1: divided church or to take over church under stress or
Speaker 1: church under pressure? What are they were fraying? I'm glad
Speaker 1: I'm the host this week because I'm not Catholic. I
Speaker 1: don't really I don't see all the why it's so
Speaker 1: important who the pope is. But then I'm a Protestant,
Speaker 1: so I don't understand it. What what are these challenges?
Speaker 1: What are these divisions? What are these right obstacles?
Speaker 3: So let me put this to you in terms that
Speaker 3: perhaps makes sense to a Protestant if one believes, as
Speaker 3: Catholics do, that this is the two hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: seventh Vicar of Christ. This is the heir to Peter,
Speaker 3: to whom Jesus said, you are Peter, the rock upon
Speaker 3: whom I build my church, and the gates of Hell
Speaker 3: shall not prevail against it. And then, you know, gives
Speaker 3: to the Peter and the apostles, certain divine dispensations. You know,
Speaker 3: who you forgive will be your sins will be forgiven
Speaker 3: all of those things. If you are a traditional Catholic,
Speaker 3: you have certain ideas about the Church that come not
Speaker 3: only from the Bible, but of course from the long
Speaker 3: history of Catholic theology and Catholic dogma and so forth.
Speaker 3: And now where we are in the modern day, in
Speaker 3: the modern secular Western world, should the Catholic Church stop
Speaker 3: being so strict about things like not giving the sacrament
Speaker 3: of communion to someone who's divorced. Should we be more
Speaker 3: open to the idea of women fully participating in every
Speaker 3: aspect of church life, you know, bishops and things like
Speaker 3: that that you Protestants like to do. Should we have
Speaker 3: Latin Masses? Is there anything about the traditions of the
Speaker 3: Mass that have been handed around down for centuries that
Speaker 3: are valuable? And the reason that's important, John, is because
Speaker 3: in America, at least in the United States, where Catholicism
Speaker 3: is having a revival among young young people, it's not
Speaker 3: in the Oh yeah, go ahead and be transgender. Go
Speaker 3: ahead and have your same sex girlfriend or boyfriend and
Speaker 3: have sex with them outside of marriage and all those
Speaker 3: other things that you know, some parts of the church
Speaker 3: are insisting the Catholic Church embrace instead. They want they
Speaker 3: want the certainty, they want the tradition, they want the rules,
Speaker 3: the regulations, the outlines by which they can more easily
Speaker 3: live their lives in this time of CERVI. So that's
Speaker 3: true not just in America, but around the world. So
Speaker 3: the real divide in the church, to short shorten my
Speaker 3: answer and get to the point that you asked, is
Speaker 3: between those people who think the Church should bend to
Speaker 3: the ways of the world versus the ways of the
Speaker 3: world would be better off bending back to the church.
Speaker 3: That's really the question I think, And that's the divide
Speaker 3: that is in the church today. Sure there's there's other
Speaker 3: minor issues. But if the pope is infallible when he
Speaker 3: speaks in what's it called in u, there's a certain
Speaker 3: way that I forget, I forget the word.
Speaker 1: But speaking in tongues, no, no, no, no, no, no, I know.
Speaker 3: I just they have it in Catholic churches too, Steve,
Speaker 3: they have they have charismatic groups in Catholic churches.
Speaker 1: Oh really, I might convert. Now that's the best part
Speaker 1: of the ceremony, the speaking in tongues having been miracles
Speaker 1: and gospel music.
Speaker 3: Right, all of that. No, but really it is a
Speaker 3: In many ways, the Catholic Church is at the same
Speaker 3: sort of crossroads that Western civilization in general is is
Speaker 3: are the traditions. And I've seen people say this about
Speaker 3: Pope Leo, that he may be the person who can
Speaker 3: restore in many ways Western civilization that Christians he believes
Speaker 3: can and he has said this and gives me some hope.
Speaker 3: Christians are the ones who can restore the moral foundation
Speaker 3: that made Western civilization great. And what's happened, probably since
Speaker 3: Vatican too, is that the Church has looked for ways
Speaker 3: to embrace modernity and even secularism, to bring supposedly bring
Speaker 3: be more inclusive. Pope Francis was absolutely foul about all
Speaker 3: of that. I'll just leave it there, and I don't
Speaker 3: think Pope Leo will be that bad, but he does
Speaker 3: have a challenge there.
Speaker 1: What's the Steve Steve d c it the same way.
Speaker 1: This is a church that's divided between one camp that
Speaker 1: wants to modernize the views of the church to be
Speaker 1: more harmonious with where I guess progressive society is going
Speaker 1: versus how would you put it, people who want the
Speaker 1: church to return back to earlier principles. Maybe a more
Speaker 1: conservative direction is that, well, look, that's pulling the church apart.
Speaker 2: The way I always put it is it's between a
Speaker 2: modernist and the traditionalist. And that's true. And by the way,
Speaker 2: most denominations, it's not just a Catholic church. Modernization or
Speaker 2: modernists are usually bad. But here's some interesting things about Leo.
Speaker 2: One is, you know, he was a math major at
Speaker 2: Villanova and he even published a book.
Speaker 1: When I grew up near Villanova, when I was in
Speaker 1: eighth grade, I could have gotten a BA in mathematics
Speaker 1: of Villanova. You know that.
Speaker 3: Not only does he know sin, he also knows post
Speaker 3: sign right, yeah.
Speaker 2: You saw my that's well. But he actually published, he
Speaker 2: published he published an article about Bayesian statistics and theology
Speaker 2: that that's kind of the Yeah, so I mean, oh,
Speaker 2: but then add to it. At first I thought, well,
Speaker 2: he's a you know, quantitative socialist, not really quantity of
Speaker 2: social scientists, but how many priests are literate and Bayesian statistics.
Speaker 2: I'm not even literate in Bayesian statistics. I mean, I
Speaker 2: can give me half an hour.
Speaker 1: So illiterate and you don't know pronoun.
Speaker 2: Well, I like Bayesian better, but okay, I.
Speaker 3: Didn't know what you're talking about it first.
Speaker 1: Okay, well now then, but Steve, we forgive you. Go ahead.
Speaker 2: The other thing that's interesting about him is that he
Speaker 2: is part of the Augustinian Order. In fact, I think
Speaker 2: he was.
Speaker 1: Significant.
Speaker 2: Well, he's a follower of San Augustine, who's you know,
Speaker 2: very you know, this is promising, I think, because if
Speaker 2: there's anybody who is an anchor to a traditionalist Catholic
Speaker 2: theology and philosophy, it would be Augustine as much as
Speaker 2: are maybe in some ways even more so than a quitness.
Speaker 2: In other words, he's not a Jesuit. The Jesuits are always,
Speaker 2: in my mind, very suspect, although I've known many very
Speaker 2: fine Jesuits, conservative theologically and philosophically, so they're always harder
Speaker 2: to pin down. And you know, the Benedictines and Transiscan Franciscans,
Speaker 2: they're always a little dodgy, right, They're prone to modernist temptations.
Speaker 1: And so we're about opus day, how do they fit in?
Speaker 1: Since I'm not a fan of the Dan Brown movies.
Speaker 2: Oh no. The only thing stupider than those movies are
Speaker 2: the ones where Nicholas Cage steals the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 2: Those are stupid otherwise so so.
Speaker 1: But Steve, see you see the challenge for the church
Speaker 1: going forward as a struggle which we use of modernists
Speaker 1: and traditionalness. How does the new Pope Leo fall on
Speaker 1: that scale? I mean, how do you think he's going
Speaker 1: to direct the church? And one towards the modernists side.
Speaker 1: I mean the tweets that Lucretian was mentioning make it
Speaker 1: sound like he's worried about climate change and immigration and
Speaker 1: maybe he wants to move things in the modernist direction,
Speaker 1: which it sounds like you're not in favor of.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, we'll see. I mean, skip the current
Speaker 2: headline issues with the newspaper for a moment. I have
Speaker 2: seen some data showing that the younger, the current generation
Speaker 2: of seminarians in the Catholic seminaries are much more conservative
Speaker 2: than the last generation. The future of the church appears
Speaker 2: to be from the rising ranks of the next generation
Speaker 2: of clergy looks to be traditionalists.
Speaker 3: Can I just add to that for really good second, Steve, So,
Speaker 3: there was a very important article that came out of
Speaker 3: the I think it was called the Oxford Review. It
Speaker 3: was a Catholic probably yeah, probably, yeah, probably, And it
Speaker 3: talked about how the especially the America and seminaries. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be a little cross forgive me, folks
Speaker 3: were hotbeds of homosexualism, and that, in fact, you were
Speaker 3: unlikely to be a successful seminarian if you came in
Speaker 3: being masculine. That they looked for. It was, you know,
Speaker 3: basically they were grooming priests at the seminaries.
Speaker 2: And well, yeah, I think it's worse than this. Oh yeah, no,
Speaker 2: think I mean, well, look I put it this way. Well,
Speaker 2: there were long rumors, I think, well founded rumors. This
Speaker 2: is thirty forty years ago that seminaries attracted people who
Speaker 2: were gay and or pedophiles, right, And we know some
Speaker 2: cardinals like Cardinal McCarrick was covered this up and participated
Speaker 2: in it. Cardinal Mahoney and Los Angeles was investigated by
Speaker 2: the Los Angeles Police Department. Do you know that I
Speaker 2: had looked this up earlier because I had forgotten the details.
Speaker 2: The Diocese of Los Angeles paid out eight high hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty million dollars in damages for the pedophile priests
Speaker 2: that they covered up and shuffled around. It was my
Speaker 2: late friend Kelly Clark who had a big hand in
Speaker 2: some of that those cases. And another lawyer is still
Speaker 2: a live I know, Orange County and.
Speaker 3: One of the the accomplishments of John Paul, the second,
Speaker 3: who you know is often accused of not being quite
Speaker 3: as hands on about this as he should have been.
Speaker 3: He is the one who actually got the seminaries cleaned up.
Speaker 3: And I will tell you I know quite a few seminaries.
Speaker 3: I support seminarians, and they are entirely different breed today,
Speaker 3: and I do think John Paul gets a lot more
Speaker 3: credit for doing that Benedict's Francis Nunn. Francis was terrible
Speaker 3: on that whole issue in a lot of ways which
Speaker 3: we won't go into right now, but that has made
Speaker 3: a huge difference. I do remember getting into a have
Speaker 3: to tell you guys this really quick, a dispute with
Speaker 3: my neighbor one time, who tried to tell me that
Speaker 3: the problem with all of the pedophile priests out there
Speaker 3: was because they didn't let the priest marry. And so
Speaker 3: I looked at my neighbor and I said, okay, Chris,
Speaker 3: if your wife Sue is gone for six or eight months,
Speaker 3: is the first thing you do look to a little
Speaker 3: boy to have sex with. That is the dumbest argument
Speaker 3: I've ever heard in my life. It don't start, you know,
Speaker 3: But but those kind of arguments made a difference. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: we need to let priest marry. I don't know what
Speaker 3: I think about priest marrying, but it certainly shouldn't be
Speaker 3: so that we can stop them from trying to have
Speaker 3: sex with little boys.
Speaker 2: Sorry, now, can I make a last comment? Don Johnny
Speaker 2: me when I moved on, But the last comment about
Speaker 2: popes and politics. So John Paul two, we know, scared
Speaker 2: the hell out of the Soviet Union when he was picked.
Speaker 2: The Soviet Union was hugely alarmed. I tell this in
Speaker 2: my book. But he was very prudent about it, you know.
Speaker 2: His his anti communist statements were always elliptical, subtle in
Speaker 2: direct but people understood what he meant when when he
Speaker 2: went to Poland in seventy nine and said, be not
Speaker 2: afraid when the whole country turns out for him. Right,
Speaker 2: And I don't know just one detail when when when
Speaker 2: John Paul went for that first trip in seventy nine,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union ordered all of its troops confined to
Speaker 2: base because they knew that they had lost control of
Speaker 2: the country for the week that the Pope was there. Okay, however,
Speaker 2: he but he didn't like leftists, so he knew liberation
Speaker 2: theology was a threat to everything decent and good. And
Speaker 2: I remember two things in particular. One was in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty here's an old name that a few older listeners
Speaker 2: might remember. You had father Drymen Robert Drynen, a congressman.
Speaker 1: From Massachusetts Georgetown.
Speaker 2: He was, well, he actually is from Massachusetts, but he, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe went to I forget. The point is he would
Speaker 2: wear his collar, you know, at committee hearings on the
Speaker 2: floor of the House. And John Paul two put out
Speaker 2: an edict saying, you can either be a priest or
Speaker 2: you can be an elected official. You cannot be both.
Speaker 2: And Drynan did not run for reelection and return to
Speaker 2: the priesthood, where he was promptly forgotten happily. Secondly, you
Speaker 2: know the Nicaragua business boy, I was following that right.
Speaker 2: That was a hotbed of liberation theology. And one of
Speaker 2: my vivid memories of the mid eighties was Pope John
Speaker 2: Paul going to Nicaragua getting off the airplane, walking across
Speaker 2: the tarmac to a bishop who had been suborned into
Speaker 2: the Santainista government. He was one of these lefty liberation theologians,
Speaker 2: and there in front of everybody, John Paul two poked
Speaker 2: him in the chest and wagged his finger at him,
Speaker 2: and it was clear he was dressing this guy down
Speaker 2: for participating in the politics of the Sandinista government. Again
Speaker 2: at not in private, out where the world could see it.
Speaker 2: It was a very public statement he met. You couldn't
Speaker 2: hear what he was saying, but you knew what the
Speaker 2: substance of it was. I'm hoping that this pope will
Speaker 2: have the same disposition, even if the theatrics aren't quite
Speaker 2: as elevat as they were in those well least days.
Speaker 1: One last question, then, because I sense a difference between
Speaker 1: the both of you, because Lucretia started out saying, I
Speaker 1: wish popes would stop talking about politics, and Steve, you're
Speaker 1: praising John Paul the second for being involved in politics. Well, no,
Speaker 1: but he was, but still he was, But still he was.
Speaker 1: I mean, he helped the end the Soviet Union, so
Speaker 1: all the more credit to him for it. But does
Speaker 1: that what do you mean, what do you think this
Speaker 1: means for the future of the church and Pope Leo
Speaker 1: the fourteenth should you see pull back what from Francis
Speaker 1: was doing or from the other side, what Pope Benedict
Speaker 1: was doing?
Speaker 2: Maybe?
Speaker 1: Or is it even possible to have political neutrality in
Speaker 1: the church, given it's great.
Speaker 3: Right important, it may not be partible.
Speaker 1: Of members it has And sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 3: I just want to I want to go back to
Speaker 3: something I said probably didn't make clear. There is a
Speaker 3: difference between taking a a sort of crass political position
Speaker 3: like oh, climate change or liberation theology, even this idea
Speaker 3: that basically becoming a Marxist, which is what liberation theology was.
Speaker 3: It was Marxism. And of course Marxism and Catholicism can
Speaker 3: they cannot be combined. They cannot be synthesized Marxism, you know,
Speaker 3: the Christianity is opiate for the masses. So to say
Speaker 3: that Pope John Paul was political in recognizing that communism
Speaker 3: was the greatest source of evil in the world is
Speaker 3: not to say that he was outrightly political. He was
Speaker 3: pushing back against that political influence on the church. I
Speaker 3: will suggest to you two books John that I find
Speaker 3: I think you would find riveting if this interests you
Speaker 3: in the slightest in the political side of it. And
Speaker 3: one of them is our book by our friend John
Speaker 3: Sullivan on Reagan, the Pope and and Marcot Thatcher. I
Speaker 3: forget the actual name of it, but it's a terrific book,
Speaker 3: very very short, very easy read. The other book is
Speaker 3: Witness to Hope, which is is the autobiography of aoh yeah,
Speaker 3: biography excuse me, not auto biot. He didn't write.
Speaker 2: Right now. He was on the network news yes night.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it is like reading a novel. His life
Speaker 3: was so extraordinary and amazing, but you get you can
Speaker 3: really see the difference between someone who's just you know,
Speaker 3: playing playing politics with things like immigration policy or climate change,
Speaker 3: and someone who understands that that Marxism, Communism, Soviet for Stalinism,
Speaker 3: all of those things were a direct threat to humanity,
Speaker 3: and you can see the stark difference. And that's what
Speaker 3: I'm hoping that we can see out of Pope Leo
Speaker 3: the fourteenth, which is that he won't play the silly
Speaker 3: Oh I am going to be some lefty politician playing pope.
Speaker 3: I want, you know, he'll actually understand what's important for
Speaker 3: the Pope as a world leader to be stressing in
Speaker 3: terms of what's you know, the faithful expect out of him.
Speaker 3: That's what I would say.
Speaker 2: See, Nope, I'm done. No, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: Okay, good, well, I mean the there's so many things
Speaker 1: to talk about this week. I thought another interesting issue
Speaker 1: is we haven't taped an issue since Mike Waltz was
Speaker 1: removed as National Security Advisor and got a pro quasi promotion.
Speaker 1: He's now going to be the ambassador to the United Nations.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't myself consider that a promotion, but some people.
Speaker 3: Said, does anybody Well?
Speaker 1: I think the vice president of VANCE said it was
Speaker 1: a promotion because it requires Senate consent. But I think
Speaker 1: that's just trying to put a nice face on what's
Speaker 1: really a firing. But I thought it would be interesting
Speaker 1: to talk about not because of the removal of Mike Waltz,
Speaker 1: but because our friend Michael Anton has been appearing on
Speaker 1: many of the shortlists for the replacement, and so I
Speaker 1: thought it might be interesting to hear from your from
Speaker 1: you both. Michael Anton is a great fan and friend
Speaker 1: of the Claremont Institute. Got did he get his? He
Speaker 1: got his PhD from Claremont Graduate University. What would be
Speaker 1: the difference between a kind of Claremont approach to foreign
Speaker 1: policy that we would see in the Michael Anton versus
Speaker 1: say someone like Michael Waltz or even Marco Rubio. Who's
Speaker 1: That's the other interesting thing. Only Henry Kissinger and Marco
Speaker 1: Rubio have helped both jobs.
Speaker 3: Nine jobs, right.
Speaker 1: Funny meme, Yeah, very typical for hard working you know
Speaker 1: in the United States, would be that everyone turns to
Speaker 1: him when they can't figure something out. He's got like
Speaker 1: nine jobs. It's very funny. But maybe start with Steve
Speaker 1: this time. What do you think would be the difference
Speaker 1: between the way, say Michael Anton and the Claremont fellow
Speaker 1: would approach the job of national security advisor? What kind
Speaker 1: of ways of thinking would be different or distinguish him
Speaker 1: from say, Marco Rubio is holding the job now, or
Speaker 1: Michael Waltz or the prominent national security advisors we've had
Speaker 1: in our time.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, let me just push back what
Speaker 2: Lucretia just said about the u N being a stupid job.
Speaker 2: I mean, Pat Mornihan parlay that it was Senate seat.
Speaker 2: It did wonders for Nicky Haley's profile. Even if you
Speaker 2: don't like her, that's not the point. The point is
Speaker 2: is that.
Speaker 3: Job she's she's doing gangbusters these days.
Speaker 2: Well but wait a minute, that is that is not
Speaker 2: the right way to think about it. She would she
Speaker 2: wouldn't have even been a contender in the field she
Speaker 2: had not had that job. By the way, right now
Speaker 2: that the UN is apparently weeks away from running out
Speaker 2: of money to make payroll, and I would like, I
Speaker 2: would like, well exactly, I'd like our ru went ambassador
Speaker 2: to rub his nose in it. And by the way,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's actually decent of Trump to
Speaker 2: give the guy a job with a title that you
Speaker 2: may not like it, but look, he made the guy
Speaker 2: give up the guy.
Speaker 1: By the way. By the way, listeners, this is Steve
Speaker 1: is saying all this because as we all know, he
Speaker 1: always had the hots for Jen Kirkpatrick. You get.
Speaker 2: No, no, that's not true. But look, uh, you know.
Speaker 2: The point is is that our best UN ambassador has
Speaker 2: been the ones who went there to attack the place.
Speaker 2: Haley did some of that, you could have done more.
Speaker 2: But the point is, Uh, the Waltz gave up his
Speaker 2: house seat to go to work for Trump and then
Speaker 2: to be turned out right away. It's kind of cold.
Speaker 2: I think that's rather decent of them to say we'll
Speaker 2: give you a job with a nice title, even if
Speaker 2: Lucreatia doesn't care for it. But look the I think
Speaker 2: the first John has sorted out what's going on here.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons maybe that Rubio is the interim
Speaker 2: National Security Advisor, and maybe you miss this, John, but
Speaker 2: Michael was appointed to be the head of the Iranian
Speaker 2: nuclear negotiations that are going on right now. And I've
Speaker 2: heard some people criticize that. I'll come back to reasons why,
Speaker 2: but my first point is is ah, that means that
Speaker 2: as much as Trump likes this witcough guy, he wants
Speaker 2: somebody who's more tough minded than that to be in
Speaker 2: the room with the Iranians, and that would be Michael.
Speaker 2: I think, by the way, I'll remind readers that back
Speaker 2: before you joined us, John, so it's five or six
Speaker 2: years ago, we had Michael on a couple of times
Speaker 2: on the three Whiskey Happy Hour, and I may go
Speaker 2: back and try and re listen to those because he's
Speaker 2: not a he's not an isolationist, he's not a never
Speaker 2: intervene anywhere. He does regret his support twenty some years
Speaker 2: ago for the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War, but
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that he is one of the lines
Speaker 2: going around right now as well. Waltz was turned out
Speaker 2: because he's too aggressive on Iran, and you know the Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think this is wrong. I think I'm not quite
Speaker 2: sure all the reasons might be, but I don't think
Speaker 2: that's it.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And but I also equally think that the people to
Speaker 2: say that Michael is part of the cabal who wants
Speaker 2: us to never fire a bullet at anyone outside our
Speaker 2: own borders are equally wrong, right. I think that's a mistake.
Speaker 2: And too Yeah, that's right. I mean I I I've
Speaker 2: talked to a few people said not too sure. But
Speaker 2: I think they're actually believing, oddly enough, what the left
Speaker 2: is saying about Michael, which is all wrong. And I'm
Speaker 2: very disappointed that some people who I normally think are
Speaker 2: pretty sound and sensible are skeptical. No, no, no, I well,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to name names. I'm talking about some
Speaker 2: very hard core.
Speaker 3: That a new one Stevens.
Speaker 1: That's the best part of the show. That's why people
Speaker 1: to in they want you to list the names so
Speaker 1: Lucretia can stab him in the wrong with the Knight.
Speaker 3: Well, but I do want to say that that one
Speaker 3: of the things I've always appreciated about Michael is that
Speaker 3: I think Michael may be one of the few people
Speaker 3: who has as hardcore as I am about most things.
Speaker 3: He is he and he like me. He doesn't care
Speaker 3: in many ways, who's offended by you know what he
Speaker 3: has to say. He's probably less actually concerned about that
Speaker 3: than I am. Once in a while, I only like
Speaker 3: to offend my friends because I know they'll forgive me.
Speaker 3: But no, Michael's wonderful. I have so much respect for him,
Speaker 3: and I think that what it really comes down to,
Speaker 3: I would say more than anything, John, I don't know
Speaker 3: that I could tell you exactly what his foreign policy
Speaker 3: views are, what his national security views are, exactly what
Speaker 3: he would do in any given situation. What I do
Speaker 3: think is that the training that he got from Jaffa,
Speaker 3: from others at Claremont, the education he's given to himself
Speaker 3: over the years, has has given him incredibly good judgment. Remember,
Speaker 3: he's deseus. He's the guy who wrote what was it
Speaker 3: called the Flight ninety three election. He was saying stuff
Speaker 3: before before anybody else. He was recognizing what the problems
Speaker 3: were and what needed to be done about them. And
Speaker 3: you know, gosh, if I was very disappointed when that
Speaker 3: scumbag Bolton pushed him out last time, I get that's
Speaker 3: the way those things went in the first term. But
Speaker 3: if Trump is smart enough to bring him back, more
Speaker 3: power to him. That's what I say, And go, Michael,
Speaker 3: I'll be cheering you on every step of the way.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm an old Neil Cohn, and I don't think
Speaker 1: Bolton's a scumbag, but I think that a trainer. The
Speaker 1: view of Bolton is a very traditional Republican approach, and
Speaker 1: I think Anton and Claremont in is tutor. Trump represents
Speaker 1: something very different. Although by the way, John, it goes
Speaker 1: to what you say, it goes to what Steve said.
Speaker 1: You know, Trumpism may survive Trump. I still think in
Speaker 1: foreign policy it's still harder to say this is trump
Speaker 1: Ism compared to domestic policy. And I get that sense
Speaker 1: from both of you. Both. You stress Michael Anton's qualities
Speaker 1: of thought and character, but it's harder to say this
Speaker 1: is what right the Clermont or Trump form policy that
Speaker 1: Michael would pursue these are its pillars, these are its principles.
Speaker 1: It's still right for me, perhaps.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because prudence tells you you shouldn't have these theories
Speaker 3: that define every way that you look at the world,
Speaker 3: whether it's economic theory, international relations theory, national security theory.
Speaker 3: Those theories are but they're just they're binding in all
Speaker 3: the wrong ways. You need to be.
Speaker 1: Against the scientific method. Now, I mean, come on, you guys,
Speaker 1: make funny guys. Prudence is just this elastic term you guys.
Speaker 2: By the way, on since you, since you are the
Speaker 2: O g n C original gangster neo kon, exactly what
Speaker 2: do you call it? When Bill Crystal and John Bolton
Speaker 2: get together to pick a new godfather to neo conservatives,
Speaker 2: you call it a neo conclave.
Speaker 1: That's right. I told him, just encourage him.
Speaker 3: I've heard them.
Speaker 2: I've got a worse one than that. But I'll say, look,
Speaker 2: I mean a couple of declarations which hopefully will horrify you, John.
Speaker 2: I think Michael is the closest successor we have to
Speaker 2: Angelo Codevilla, and.
Speaker 1: Oh I agree with that. That doesn't harm me.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, whether's that whether you.
Speaker 1: Want that Angelo to be national security advisors. Another question, Oh,
Speaker 1: I very much do I agree. I see lost, I
Speaker 1: think that that Michael would like to be the heir
Speaker 1: to Angela.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and uh, the other thing was is you
Speaker 2: were just saying maybe Lucretia was saying theories of this
Speaker 2: and that. So both Angelo and to Lester extentton Michael
Speaker 2: because at this point Harold Rude was near retirement. But
Speaker 2: they were both proteges of Harold Rude, who had no
Speaker 2: use for theory. Remember, as I mentioned in another podcast,
Speaker 2: Rude was a tank driver for Patent in the Third
Speaker 2: Army in nineteen forty four. And he would in class.
Speaker 2: Now listeners can't see this because he was he would
Speaker 2: say this is a theory. He'd wave his hands in
Speaker 2: the air and then he'd go knock on the wall.
Speaker 2: He says, this is reality. You know, he'd bang it.
Speaker 2: You can feel the wall. You have to go through
Speaker 2: the wall sometimes to kill your enemy.
Speaker 1: And anyway, and Steve Lee, look, can I see is
Speaker 1: because the thing that I like about the Claremont Institute
Speaker 1: actually is that you have a lot of political theory
Speaker 1: about domestic affairs. Why are you guys so critical about
Speaker 1: having theories about international.
Speaker 3: Affairs because we don't you have a theory about the No, No,
Speaker 3: we learn we learned the history of political thought. We
Speaker 3: don't have political theories that inform what we do. We had.
Speaker 2: Really this gets back to the argument we had several
Speaker 2: weeks ago, John about why to the extent there is
Speaker 2: a theory and I will agree with Lucasia, it's not
Speaker 2: a theory. Step one in your foreign policy analysis is
Speaker 2: what is the character of the regime that you were confronting.
Speaker 2: That's why Churchill was right about It's why Lincoln was
Speaker 2: right about where the South was headed. It's why Churchill
Speaker 2: was right about Germany when now all sophisticated opinions said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, these are just their value crap like that.
Speaker 2: And likewise, I think, just as Trump proved in his
Speaker 2: first term that he has no hesitation of killing General Soulamani,
Speaker 2: I think Trump, and I think Michael with him, has
Speaker 2: no hesitation on bombing Iran if they think that is
Speaker 2: the necessary step to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 4: So, you know, I'm reminded of you first folks, why
Speaker 4: is that that is based on that that is based
Speaker 4: on the characters wanted to do too?
Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, but they want to do it for stupid reasons.
Speaker 2: You know, we're going to build democracy and fix the
Speaker 2: Middle East and all the rest of that. The fact
Speaker 2: that they might coincide on this point is it does
Speaker 2: not It does not mean that they actually had the
Speaker 2: same first step on how you decide how you're going
Speaker 2: to do this.
Speaker 3: I want to go back for just a moment before
Speaker 3: we lose this topic entirely because I didn't get a
Speaker 3: chance to defend myself against Steve. Of course, I think
Speaker 3: the two United Nations, I mean I I don't disagree
Speaker 3: that that putting him that that to some extent a
Speaker 3: being ambassador to the United Nations is at least uh
Speaker 3: you know what do you call it a well no, no, no,
Speaker 3: but but a second place prize?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you get the.
Speaker 2: Guy.
Speaker 3: The guy's a bit of a rhino himself. He's a
Speaker 3: bit of a vishy and that was some of the
Speaker 3: in the background, the signal thing. Okay, But to say
Speaker 3: that somehow we can compare putting someone in the UN
Speaker 3: today with say, putting Gene Kirkpatrick in the UN back
Speaker 3: in the nineteen eighties, that's ridiculous. The UN was never
Speaker 3: a good idea It was always a terrible idea, but
Speaker 3: it has become, with every passing day, a worse and
Speaker 3: worse idea, and it is such a joke. I agree
Speaker 3: with you guys. I can't wait till it runs out
Speaker 3: of money. I think that they should kick the UN
Speaker 3: out of New York and reclaim all of that valuable
Speaker 3: property in New York. If they think it's so important,
Speaker 3: put it in, put it in Somalia, and tell ilan
Speaker 3: Omar to go there with it. I mean, nobody cares.
Speaker 3: It's never done anything good, at least not in the
Speaker 3: last forty years. And so you know, again, I don't
Speaker 3: think that the job is without prestige, but I think
Speaker 3: that the UN is a worthless organization. It's worse and worthless.
Speaker 3: It's you know. So if he goes there and does
Speaker 3: a little bit of slamming it. John Bolton did a
Speaker 3: little bit of that too. It's about the biggest thing
Speaker 3: I give him credit for. Then I'm okay with that
Speaker 3: that I wanted to get out there, Steve, Not that
Speaker 3: I think it's a dumb job. It is a dumb
Speaker 3: job because the UN's dumped.
Speaker 2: Well, all right, I'd have been with you. You said
Speaker 2: that it would be better if Trump said no ambassador
Speaker 2: that you had, that would be a good statement. I
Speaker 2: would agree with that.
Speaker 3: And no more un in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of New York City and other institutions that
Speaker 1: should be disestablished, We've got news out of Columbia University.
Speaker 1: Columbia University rocked again by pro Hamas protests, and this
Speaker 1: time the pro Hamas protesters took over the main Columbia
Speaker 1: library while students are studying for exams. Police, the NYPD
Speaker 1: came in made several arrests. Yeah, who knows whether any
Speaker 1: of this dudents will actually be disciplined or suspended or
Speaker 1: even god for a bit, expelled.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: But it seems that Columbia has not solved the problems
Speaker 1: that for which the Trump administration is cut off its
Speaker 1: federal funding.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: We started the CIA, Steve lasson U Cretia. What should
Speaker 1: happen at Columbia continuing failure of you know, university administrators
Speaker 1: of which you are one, to handle this, to combat
Speaker 1: anti semitism, to stop racism on their campuses. Do they
Speaker 1: deserve what the Trump administration is doing with the Is
Speaker 1: this a reminder that are college?
Speaker 3: Of course they deserve it. And I do believe. My
Speaker 3: understanding is John that there was a little bit more
Speaker 3: pushback from the administration on this one than there has
Speaker 3: been in the past. Not a great deal. Again, I
Speaker 3: don't know will they expel these students, but they did
Speaker 3: arrest them, they did send the police in. They didn't
Speaker 3: just let them get away with what they were doing.
Speaker 3: I heard on my way to work early this morning
Speaker 3: some one of the Fox people interviewing a young man
Speaker 3: who is in the master's program, a veteran and was
Speaker 3: in the library when this particular takeover happened. And he,
Speaker 3: you know, he was saying that it is really tough
Speaker 3: because for all their obvious reasons, but he also said this,
Speaker 3: this in some ways, this really sucks. He says, because
Speaker 3: it was my dream to go to Colombia, prestigious school,
Speaker 3: this and that I worked hard, blah blah blah. And
Speaker 3: he says, and now, quite rightly, all of these employers
Speaker 3: are saying we're never going to hire anybody who graduates
Speaker 3: from Columbia. And now hopefully maybe he'll be you know,
Speaker 3: an exception to that rule. But that's I think what
Speaker 3: is going to ultimately, along with along with Trump taking
Speaker 3: away their money, eventually that's going to have an impact.
Speaker 3: But if they can't get their people hired. We saw
Speaker 3: that happen a little bit with Yale Law School. Remember
Speaker 3: or was judge who said he wasn't going to do it.
Speaker 3: I forget all of the details of that, but that's
Speaker 3: going to make a difference. Bill Ackman saying, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't want any of your damn Harvard graduates, and
Speaker 3: on and on. So there are a lot of forces
Speaker 3: in society that are finally pushing back on what just
Speaker 3: you know, you feel like you're in Alice in Wonderland.
Speaker 3: You feel like you're in some sort of weird nightmare
Speaker 3: when you you see these people in cafeas and masks
Speaker 3: and they're these stupid twit women. If they spent one
Speaker 3: day in Gaza, Uh, we all know what would happen
Speaker 3: to him. And you know, they're just these spoiled, rotten,
Speaker 3: little entitled brats. And I just hope they get the
Speaker 3: book thrown at him and that maybe, you know, other
Speaker 3: students will learn that this this ugly anti semitism, uh,
Speaker 3: is not really the best path to go down. I
Speaker 3: don't know how else to say it. They just make
Speaker 3: me sick. There you go Steve brings the some some
Speaker 3: logic to that whole thing.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll try a couple of things. You mentioned.
Speaker 1: He's going to defend the free speech rights of the.
Speaker 2: Well no, well no, first of all, slight aside, but
Speaker 2: Lucatia says none of these women have actually been to Gaza.
Speaker 2: There was a major air this week by the Israelis
Speaker 2: or somebody, somebody attacks some relief ship bound for Gaza
Speaker 2: in Malta somewhere. Greta Thunberg was on that ship. Greta
Speaker 2: Thunberg was on her way to Gaza, and I think
Speaker 2: they should have let her go there. That was okay, that's.
Speaker 3: Just the way to be rescued.
Speaker 2: I'm sure exactly by the ship the ships look. A
Speaker 2: couple of things. One is, uh, you know, there are
Speaker 2: all these old laws that's on the state and federal
Speaker 2: level that banned masking in public except for medical reason.
Speaker 2: They were done for the Klan years ago, decades ago. Right,
Speaker 2: Why aren't theyse being enforced The minute someone steps foot
Speaker 2: on the Columbia campus, they should be intercepted and arrested
Speaker 2: or told to take their masks and things off. Kudos
Speaker 2: to the police when they wanted to get out of
Speaker 2: the library, saying no, you can't leave unless you show ID.
Speaker 2: So they're gonna take names and we'll see who gets
Speaker 2: punished and so forth. I do note in passing that
Speaker 2: news out this week is that the Trump administration has
Speaker 2: stripped thirty seven student visas from students at Johns Hopkins
Speaker 2: University for who. By the way, they didn't just suspend
Speaker 2: federal grants. They canceled some very large ones because Hopkins
Speaker 2: gets a ton of maybe number one sometimes in federal
Speaker 2: receipts for medical research and so forth. Did you know, finally,
Speaker 2: in the factual basis that there are now fewer Jews
Speaker 2: at Harvard as a percentage of the student body than
Speaker 2: there were back in the thirties when Harvard had quotas
Speaker 2: against admitting Jews, And that is you know, I think
Speaker 2: this is again another reason whyther Trump people should be
Speaker 2: absolutely pressing them to the wall about this. And that's
Speaker 2: the final thing Columbia they're really after, and they're using
Speaker 2: something the left has been using for fifty years, which
Speaker 2: is a consent decree. We want to enter a consent
Speaker 2: decree with Columbia that you're going to do one, two, three, four, five, six,
Speaker 2: and maybe that some of these demands are legally weak.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but the point is the alternative is always, well,
Speaker 2: then let's go to court, and that's going to cost
Speaker 2: you a lot of money. And by the way, Harvard,
Speaker 2: your track record in court isn't very good lately. And
Speaker 2: Columbia is apparently playing ball on this because I think
Speaker 2: they're in a weaker position than Harvard is financially and otherwise.
Speaker 2: But I kind of like, once again, I like it
Speaker 2: that this administration is using the traditional tools of the
Speaker 2: left against the left. So I want to see consent
Speaker 2: decrease every five hours every day.
Speaker 3: Can I ask you? Guys? I sent you a couple
Speaker 3: of articles, and I know we don't want to go
Speaker 3: into them in any depth, but there was a kind
Speaker 3: of dichotomy between two of them. One of them was
Speaker 3: by our friend Harvey Mansfield, where he was he was
Speaker 3: explaining that the humanities were this, the sciences were that,
Speaker 3: and typical Harvey, it was a little bit you know,
Speaker 3: esoteric and whatnot. But there was another article that I
Speaker 3: sent you, and I thought it was very interesting because
Speaker 3: it was a bit of a different perspective. And the
Speaker 3: perspective was this and We've had this discussion, especially about
Speaker 3: some of your science colleagues at Berkeley, and that is
Speaker 3: that this silly notion that somehow the sciences, the hard sciences,
Speaker 3: have been exempt from the DEI corruption of the last
Speaker 3: say forty years or so, is really a joke, and
Speaker 3: that in fact, the whole research enterprise that everyone's so
Speaker 3: upset about that Trump is you know, dismantling before their eyes.
Speaker 3: That it has been a really corrupt process now for
Speaker 3: some years, that innovation, that discoveries, that things that used
Speaker 3: to happen inside of universities, in the STEM programs, in
Speaker 3: the with the research scientists and so on, they just
Speaker 3: don't happen anymore because the peer viewed process just doesn't
Speaker 3: reward any kind of innovative thinking. And more and more
Speaker 3: it rewards the status quo. It rewards, uh, you know,
Speaker 3: the status quot thinking. And so the only place where
Speaker 3: you're actually seeing genuine innovation, whether it's in the medical
Speaker 3: field or the physics, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 3: is in private in the private sector, where it's not
Speaker 3: pure reviewed by other scientists who all have the same
Speaker 3: orthodoxy informing what they do. You guys may not have
Speaker 3: had time to read it, but I just thought it
Speaker 3: was a really interesting perspective. I see it all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is that Michael Culture's article in American Greatness? Right? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know Michael, he's he teaches. Well he went to Claremont,
Speaker 2: by the way.
Speaker 3: I know that, but I didn't say it.
Speaker 2: Steve Well, okay, but I you know, I know, well,
Speaker 2: I think it. But I think all things to be said.
Speaker 2: One is this look a lot of private industry. This
Speaker 2: is a problem with Jay baticharist I trying to sort out.
Speaker 2: They will tell you that NIH research grants, some of
Speaker 2: which go to university labs, some of which go to
Speaker 2: the big pharmaceutical companies. They're responsible for a lot of
Speaker 2: basic research, some of which I am persuaded has been
Speaker 2: useful for pharmaceutical development now, but then a lot of
Speaker 2: it is going to be politicized, and of course the
Speaker 2: Biden people added all the DEI conditions for grants. Okay,
Speaker 2: So that's one thing. Second is I think that the yes,
Speaker 2: one of the things that Harvey's again subtly suggesting, is
Speaker 2: that the scientists haven't pushed back on this, and in
Speaker 2: some cases have gone along with it. But I think
Speaker 2: that is and I'm just this is a hunch here.
Speaker 2: I'd have to look at real data, but I think
Speaker 2: this has been at second tier universities are the worst.
Speaker 2: My perception at Berkeley, and John, you can back me
Speaker 2: up with this is have got to know some people
Speaker 2: in the physics department. First of all, a lot of
Speaker 2: them are closet Republicans. Second, a lot of them are
Speaker 2: climate skeptics, I mean in a serious way. But third,
Speaker 2: they have better things to do. I mean, one guy
Speaker 2: who was really impressive, very conservative, he's off to the
Speaker 2: CERN super collider in Switzerland every couple of months. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's doing some really amazing stuff. And the other thing
Speaker 2: I know about Berkeley is they'll talk about the DEI stuff.
Speaker 2: They leave the physics department alone. Why. I mean, the
Speaker 2: fact is that the left on campus gives them a
Speaker 2: pass too, because Berkeley's administration, as bad as they can be,
Speaker 2: they are not about to mess with science departments at
Speaker 2: Berkeley that win Nobel Prizes, right, John, I mean that's
Speaker 2: my percentage.
Speaker 1: I mean that's my sense of it too.
Speaker 2: Is that but that won't be true in the University
Speaker 2: of Illinois or other places like that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna think like the DEI warriors and the mandates
Speaker 1: at Berkeley leave the sciences relatively on, although they are
Speaker 1: still subject to what Linda talked about, which is profession wide,
Speaker 1: the journals and the grant funding is starting to get
Speaker 1: conditioned on compliance with DEI principles, or they were until
Speaker 1: President Trump's executive orders. But that there's a kind of
Speaker 1: detent and our uned and the you know, the Berkeley
Speaker 1: campus where the scientists, the mathematicians, the hard you know,
Speaker 1: the hard social sciences, they aren't going to interfere with
Speaker 1: all this and madness as long as they get left alone.
Speaker 1: They're like, if the sociology department was to destroy itself,
Speaker 1: why are we going to stop them? By the way,
Speaker 1: you know, but they think it's all I think they
Speaker 1: think it's all crazy, right, They don't they don't use
Speaker 1: affirmative action for admissions to the physics.
Speaker 3: Actually, but that's where I want to stop you guys.
Speaker 3: I don't think you were there, John, but Steve and
Speaker 3: I were at something at Newport Beach, I think for
Speaker 3: the Claremont Institute, and we had.
Speaker 1: To We never get invited to the best Claremont parties,
Speaker 1: I think, But you were part you were.
Speaker 3: We hadn't, we hadn't asked you to join. But then
Speaker 3: but we had a whole variety of people that were
Speaker 3: at this event come and sit and be part of
Speaker 3: our podcast, and they came in and out, and I
Speaker 3: think Jeremy Carl was one of them. And anyway, but
Speaker 3: one of the things that Steve said at the time
Speaker 3: was now, I know it's probably not the case anymore,
Speaker 3: but that Berkeley had put out a thing that said,
Speaker 3: even in the stem fields, every higher had to be
Speaker 3: a Dei higher, even in physics, even in nuclear physics,
Speaker 3: even in and you know, space aerospace would go on
Speaker 3: and on and on, every single higher had to be
Speaker 3: a Dei higher that had to have some kind of
Speaker 3: negative influence on the intellectual integrity of those departments, even
Speaker 3: if it was a short term.
Speaker 2: I suspect at many universities that would would take hold.
Speaker 2: I suspect strongly at Berkeley, the physicists, the chemic department
Speaker 2: would have said, that's nice, go away, we're.
Speaker 1: Going to hire who they would I don't think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think they would tolerate it.
Speaker 2: And then the Dei dean, who is a total clown.
Speaker 2: Now it wasn't my first got there it could say
Speaker 2: more about that. It was a guy from the chemistry
Speaker 2: department who seemed physics. Was he an Oscar Dubon. He
Speaker 2: was fine, But then they hired some crazy woman who
Speaker 2: was a colone of Kamala Harris from Howard University. But
Speaker 2: the point is, I'm pretty sure those people, well the
Speaker 2: physics apartment says go away, we're not listening to you.
Speaker 2: They don't say another word. But again, but Berkeley's a
Speaker 2: special case because they went always Nobel Prizes and they're
Speaker 2: not believe me, the trustees and all the rest, they're
Speaker 2: not gonna want to mess with that. Now go down
Speaker 2: a step from there. So once you get down below Harvard, Yale,
Speaker 2: places like that, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, they're
Speaker 2: fair game for that. And there I think what you're
Speaker 2: pointing to has had a very bad effect.
Speaker 3: Yes, one last thing, because I don't want to beat
Speaker 3: this to death. But when you said go down a step,
Speaker 3: how about going down a step like this, which is
Speaker 3: who do they the PhD students they choose to work with,
Speaker 3: the graduate students that they choose to work with, and
Speaker 3: what they allow them to do their dissertations on and
Speaker 3: and where those what those students have to do in
Speaker 3: order to get published in peer reviewed journals in order
Speaker 3: to get tenure. So it's one thing to say that
Speaker 3: about your Nobel Prize Nobel Prize winning full professors who
Speaker 3: bring in millions every year in grants. It's another thing
Speaker 3: in the STEM departments to see how it's been corrupted
Speaker 3: down to the very you know, dregs of the bottom.
Speaker 3: I guess you could say that. And I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm not in a STEM department, and I'm definitely not
Speaker 3: at Berkeley. I'm in the as my friend Michael Lee
Speaker 3: calls it, this pathetic cow college in the middle of
Speaker 3: the desert.
Speaker 2: So you don't even have any cows there, do you.
Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, he calls it the pathetic cow College.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I love it. Yeah. Anyway, sorry,
Speaker 3: I'm done. I just I just thought it was a
Speaker 3: really interesting perspective that may maybe it's not just the
Speaker 3: humanities that have destroyed our educational systems. Are higher education?
Speaker 3: That that was all?
Speaker 2: Oh, No, I know, you're you're I mean, well, your
Speaker 2: general point, I'd put it this way. It's you know,
Speaker 2: Churchill's line about appeasement is this crocodile, and people will,
Speaker 2: you know, think the crocodile will eat them last. And
Speaker 2: that's what too many people and the sciences have thought.
Speaker 2: And then they went along with it, and it's too
Speaker 2: late for them to fight back on it.
Speaker 1: And so the interesting implication is that a lot of
Speaker 1: these scientists and mathematicians secretly like what Trump's doing.
Speaker 2: Yes, well yeah, although as they'd never admit it. They're
Speaker 2: the ones who are bearing the brunt of the funding
Speaker 2: cuts and to which I have little sympathy. Well, you
Speaker 2: should have spoken up and said no to this crap,
Speaker 2: but the faculty senator elsewhere and they, well I did.
Speaker 3: I will tell you I did have a friend, one
Speaker 3: of my dearest friends at the university who has subsequently retired,
Speaker 3: but he was one of those guys that discovered the
Speaker 3: black took the pictures of the black holes back about
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe it's been ten years ago now,
Speaker 3: who is an austrophysicist and as and and you know,
Speaker 3: his colleagues tried to shun him because he actually worked
Speaker 3: for a while like you did, John in the George W.
Speaker 3: Bush administration, and he probably has a paper mache a
Speaker 3: head of him out there somewhere too, But.
Speaker 1: You know, there's only me. I don't think that they
Speaker 1: went to the trouble for anybody else.
Speaker 3: But really, well, because you look so cute in paper mache,
Speaker 3: That's what it comes down to. Any So, enough of that, I.
Speaker 1: Think we've we've come to the end of our hour
Speaker 1: with many topics left unaddressed, which we'll have to say
Speaker 1: for the next episode. Uh, Lucretia, what are your favorite
Speaker 1: Babylon B headlines?
Speaker 3: I have to ask you first before I start with
Speaker 3: the first one, what you think about because I could
Speaker 3: be wrong on my geography, but I believe that you
Speaker 3: can get just a bare glimpse of Alcatraz from your house.
Speaker 1: Uh No, I can't see it from my house, but
Speaker 1: if I walk five minutes, I could see it clearly.
Speaker 3: Okay, from the other side, I get it. So what
Speaker 3: do you think about sending I actually want to send
Speaker 3: the Congress persons that they find guilty of this massive
Speaker 3: fraud that they're discovering. I want to send them to Alcatraz.
Speaker 1: But I guess to be purely self interested. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's good for my business because I can run out
Speaker 1: my house for Airbnb for visits to the convicts by
Speaker 1: their family members. This is great for me.
Speaker 3: You could you could even get a little, you know,
Speaker 3: a little craft, a little watercraft and ferry them out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I ferry people over, that's right, and then.
Speaker 3: Talk to them about sharks like you did our Italian friends. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: well yeah, you gotta love Trump when he does stuff
Speaker 3: like that, you really do. Uh. It leaves a lot
Speaker 3: of people scratching their heads. We're still wondering about the
Speaker 3: fifty first state. Never say never Canada, the fifty first state.
Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders unveils his new golden crusted beat the oligarchy dirigible.
Speaker 3: Here you go. Oh sorry, India retaliates hard me. We
Speaker 3: didn't even talk about that. India retaliates against Pakistan by
Speaker 3: scamming them out of millions in Amazon gift cards. Do
Speaker 3: you guys get it?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: All right, that's here's a picture of that despicable Somali woman.
Speaker 3: I don't know how they ever let her into Congress,
Speaker 3: but anyway, it's a picture of her. You know who
Speaker 3: she is. Woman terrified of white men, leaves Africa from Minnesota. Oh.
Speaker 3: This was sent to me by one of our loyal listeners.
Speaker 3: It's a picture of Corporal Clinger from mash. It says
Speaker 3: Corporal Clinger finally discharged from army after trans military band.
Speaker 3: Is that one gonna stand? John, You didn't write article
Speaker 3: about that one. What do you think?
Speaker 1: Uh, well, you know, the decision was just about you know,
Speaker 1: preliminary junctions and not on the mats. But you know this,
Speaker 1: the courts have always deferred to the president over the
Speaker 1: management of the military. Yeah. Always, I mean from Truman
Speaker 1: desegregating the military and even Bill Clinton's don't ask, don't tell.
Speaker 1: I mean this is I can't believe the judiciary would
Speaker 1: interfere with the president's decisions on management of the fighting force.
Speaker 1: They never have. The courts never have before.
Speaker 2: Well, there was that the first time. There was the
Speaker 2: case in the eighties and the soldier wanted to wear
Speaker 2: the yamuka and that was against regulation because it was
Speaker 2: a hat. I'm trying to remember how that came out.
Speaker 2: That's forty years ago now.
Speaker 1: But the free exercise case, Yeah, it's I have to
Speaker 1: look that one up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you know when it comes to you know,
Speaker 5: for example, the courts never ordered the military to change
Speaker 5: his view on women and come right, that was that
Speaker 5: was the president, but they would.
Speaker 1: Not overrule even though they required sex gender quality, sex
Speaker 1: quality throughout the rest of society. So that has always
Speaker 1: been the courts have always been deferential. But back to
Speaker 1: the being, I'm not saying this court will be the
Speaker 1: first one.
Speaker 2: Sorry. Now, Lucretia, you're going to mention the Babylon B
Speaker 2: item that I'm in the you're in the.
Speaker 3: Problem is that I have to read them all. Steve, Actually,
Speaker 3: I think I think I think Steve is. It could
Speaker 3: have been our friend David Diebel who put it in there,
Speaker 3: but there's they often use Steve as you know, it's
Speaker 3: not usually a picture of you. Yeah, remember I made
Speaker 3: a few of you not very long ago.
Speaker 1: So describe to the listeners what you're talking about it.
Speaker 2: They have an item that says ten people Trump ascending
Speaker 2: to the reopened Alcatraz, and it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, number ten with Steve. But why do you think
Speaker 1: that's you?
Speaker 2: Steve? He knows what he did well, because I think
Speaker 2: David people, who writes a lot for the B I
Speaker 2: think you wrote it, and I think it's it's been
Speaker 2: kind of an inside joke between him and me. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Maybe you.
Speaker 1: Don't think he has other people named Steve that he
Speaker 1: hates as much as you. Why do you think you're
Speaker 1: the only one.
Speaker 2: Well, I've asked him and he hasn't responded yet.
Speaker 3: So how about this one? Trump to expand Alcatraz by
Speaker 3: putting up fence around San Francisco.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: I saw that one. I was like, that was like
Speaker 1: the Remember there was the Escape from New York movie
Speaker 1: and there was an Escape from LA I mean, Escape
Speaker 1: from San Francisco is coming next, Yeah, but.
Speaker 3: You escape from there to Alcatraz. So it's a picture
Speaker 3: of Nancy Pelosi with a bunch of money in her
Speaker 3: hand saying Democrats offer illegal immigrants one thousand, one dollar
Speaker 3: to stay in US. I assume you know what that means. Yeah,
Speaker 3: how about we'll go off on a little sports here
Speaker 3: for I guess it's not even really sports. I'm not
Speaker 3: really following it, but there's so many headlines you can't
Speaker 3: miss it. Bill Belichick's girlfriend leaves him for Lou Holtz.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah, yeah, Okay, well.
Speaker 3: Last one Marco Rubio named interim long guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they stole our choke. Okay, Well, let me wrap
Speaker 1: it up with always drink your whiskey, Meat and Steve,
Speaker 1: what's your latest A I rhyme in praise of our podcast.
Speaker 2: It is three whiskey happy hour. Nothing sacred, All is real.
Speaker 2: Sip the sky, devour the flower, Chase the clock with
Speaker 2: zeal or steal. It's the hour you cannot steal. M
Speaker 2: Ricochet joined the conversation