Speaker 1: Well with the coming pain, my pain, the money, my ray.
Speaker 2: Oh why think alone when you can drink it all
Speaker 2: in with Ricochet's three Whiskey Happy Hour, join your bartenders
Speaker 2: Steve Hayward, John Yu and the International Woman of Mystery Lucretia.
Speaker 3: Where it stopped it up and David A.
Speaker 1: Beb on the show tap out a giv.
Speaker 3: Welcome everybody to the new and approved three Whiskey Happy Hour,
Speaker 3: now sponsored by the Civitas Institute of the University of
Speaker 3: Texas at Austin. Henceforth, we'll be adding Texas barbecue to
Speaker 3: our list of culinary obsessions along with the new mcarch
Speaker 3: this super Gumonga st Hamber. I actually think that we
Speaker 3: get McDonald's advertising because I was listening to the podcast
Speaker 3: and there was a McDonald's aad. Really then I noticed
Speaker 3: that was an ad for all the podcasts.
Speaker 1: I was listening to, So maybe.
Speaker 2: N Yeah, I think you have the wrong microphones selected
Speaker 2: to Oh yeah, I'm too loud.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, wrong microphone.
Speaker 3: There we go.
Speaker 1: How's that that's way better?
Speaker 3: You know what actually against thee lesson so liter thing
Speaker 3: is uh you want me to redo it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you did a crap job of reading a
Speaker 1: script I gave you. What do you think?
Speaker 4: I know what. I'm sorry everyone, Jesus, you.
Speaker 3: Know again, the actor is only as good as the writing.
Speaker 1: Come on, go ahead and over again, John, what do
Speaker 1: you want to leave? Maybe you know what? I take
Speaker 1: it all back. He was your wrong microphone. That's why
Speaker 1: I thought that.
Speaker 3: Oh man, go ahead, Okay, ready, Okay, here we go again.
Speaker 3: Pretend you didn't hear anything. Okay. Welcome every buddy to
Speaker 3: the new and improved three Whiskey Happy Hour, now sponsored
Speaker 3: by the Civitas Institute of the University of Texas at Austin.
Speaker 3: Because of our new sponsors, henceforth, we will be adding
Speaker 3: Texas Barbecue to our list of kulinary obsessions, with new
Speaker 3: libations to come depending on whether the advertisers send Steve
Speaker 3: Hayward more money like McDonald's and the big new mccarth.
Speaker 3: How's that? That was pretty good? I tell you I
Speaker 3: was going, I was. I'm really excited about this new Uh.
Speaker 3: You know this is me Robert F. Kennedy agree on
Speaker 3: something at last, which is more meat patties and less
Speaker 3: bread and our burgers. It only came out this week
Speaker 3: and I haven't been able to get to McDonald's to
Speaker 3: get one because I've been eating too much Texas barbecue
Speaker 3: here in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 2: We but you also again, Yeah, but also John, you
Speaker 2: lost your BUCkies virginity this week, right, You went to
Speaker 2: your first BUCkies in all my great that was crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I went to my first BUCkies, and I have to
Speaker 3: now confess that I think that they do beat Wahlah.
Speaker 3: I think i'd ever lived in this wow, but I got it.
Speaker 4: An apology, John, I gotta.
Speaker 1: Tell you this.
Speaker 3: This beef jerky bar, I mean, have you I can't
Speaker 3: believe such a thing exins I was soap fee. There's
Speaker 3: twenty five thirty different flavors of beef jerky, and it's
Speaker 3: almost like they combined Wlahlah with Costco. I could go
Speaker 3: and ask for free sample tastes of any of the barbecue,
Speaker 3: any of the beef tokey. It was amazing.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised we even got you back from the place
Speaker 2: I thought you would just like camp out.
Speaker 3: Now. The weird thing is this is very Texas too.
Speaker 3: I suppose you guys explain this to me. There's so
Speaker 3: much food, drink, and as you guys predicted, the cleanest
Speaker 3: bathrooms of any rest stop I've ever seen, but no
Speaker 3: place to sit and eat. What's the deal with that?
Speaker 1: They just want you out? I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting question. I think I think they want
Speaker 2: people to take stuff to go and you know, eat
Speaker 2: in their cars and their rbs, or go someplace else.
Speaker 2: And I'll bet there's a theory on that.
Speaker 4: It's one of the I was just gonna say. One
Speaker 4: of the things that differentiated our time in Europe from
Speaker 4: what we experience in America the conveniences of paper cups
Speaker 4: and uh get get you on the road. You can
Speaker 4: have uh tablecloths for your lap, sort of things you
Speaker 4: can eat while with both hands while you're driving. In
Speaker 4: almost no place at least in Germany or Switzerland or
Speaker 4: Italy that I visited, ever even had so much as
Speaker 4: a paper coffee coffee cup or a disposable coffee cup.
Speaker 4: You you stop at roadside gas station and you sit
Speaker 4: and you drink your coffee out of porcelain. And that's
Speaker 4: and so.
Speaker 3: They don't understand. They don't understand.
Speaker 4: The rest stops and and a lot of they may
Speaker 4: be different now, but the German cars don't have cup.
Speaker 3: That's Mercedes and BMW we're very late in adding couple.
Speaker 1: Holders in the United States. Huh.
Speaker 3: Interesting because of because I didn't think you.
Speaker 4: Should get a bit different attitude.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Or I.
Speaker 4: Just think you should sit there and take some time
Speaker 4: part of your thirty hour work week. The other ten
Speaker 4: hours you can spend in a gas station drinking coffee
Speaker 4: out of course and cups.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3: So my good friend, our good friend Phil Munos, who
Speaker 3: was I was talking to on the phone. He wants
Speaker 3: to join and the live chat, but he says, I
Speaker 3: refuse to pay Steve Hayward forty dollars a year. He doesn't.
Speaker 4: He doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: He's not paying any attention, right, Yeah, he's not paying
Speaker 2: any attention at all.
Speaker 4: I don't and he can pay me, but he doesn't
Speaker 4: need to pay Steve.
Speaker 3: Look, if all it takes fifty bucks for us to
Speaker 3: get philled to shut up, I'm happy to put the
Speaker 3: whole barrier up there.
Speaker 4: Very nice. Our friend John Sound also joined.
Speaker 3: Oh right, So John Fund and I have a secret
Speaker 3: of side together, which is we are huge fans of
Speaker 3: The Prisoner, the English show of course TV show, which
Speaker 3: is amazing. And uh I sat there with him for
Speaker 3: an hour to conference where he explained all these secrets
Speaker 3: to the show I had, which I had seen many times.
Speaker 3: I had no idea. It was amazing. He is like,
Speaker 3: well this is He's like a wizard guru of the prisoner.
Speaker 3: It was astounding. I learned so many things about the
Speaker 3: show from him. And for those of you who know,
Speaker 3: it is about a spy who's kidnapped, but he doesn't
Speaker 3: know which side kidnapped him, and he's put in this
Speaker 3: little village, which I think is called Port Marion. Is
Speaker 3: that what's called in England? Which is like this strange
Speaker 3: it looks like a Disneyland. It's like an Englishman's version
Speaker 3: of Disneyland. It's like fake city, fake things. But now
Speaker 3: after talking to him, I actually want to go visit
Speaker 3: this town which exists, which you can go visit and
Speaker 3: hang out in, so I want to.
Speaker 2: I think it's uh, I think it's down on Cornwall
Speaker 2: or Devonshire. But John, I mean, this is obvious. You
Speaker 2: wouldn't know this. And why John fun does is that
Speaker 2: that was that was an early, very big hit with libertarians.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's it's part of the libertarian it's part
Speaker 2: of libertarian it's part of the libertarian canon.
Speaker 3: John, so oh, I didn't know that. Of course you don't,
Speaker 3: so I know nothing about it. It all up, Phil
Speaker 3: is this joint which means he cought for No, we didn't.
Speaker 2: Anybody quit giving disinformation, John, Okay.
Speaker 3: First issue of that, of course, is the Iran War.
Speaker 3: And I want to defend Steve and I because we
Speaker 3: made a prediction at the end of the last podcast
Speaker 3: when we were asked by Lucretian whether we thought that
Speaker 3: there were the nicest to attack Iran, and we were criticized,
Speaker 3: I'm told because I don't read the comments, but people
Speaker 3: say my co host said we were criticized for getting
Speaker 3: it wrong. We did not get it wrong. Steve and
Speaker 3: I said that we would attack Iran within the next week. Well,
Speaker 3: I thought I attack Iran within the next week.
Speaker 1: But I.
Speaker 2: Thought I was pretty far out on the limbs saying
Speaker 2: I don't think it's gonna happen imminently.
Speaker 1: I think it's got another few weeks to play out.
Speaker 1: But I did say that wasn't it.
Speaker 4: Actually happening as we were actually giving time. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: like in the morning.
Speaker 2: In the air from the era we were talking, so that,
Speaker 2: by the way, that's why I thought this week we
Speaker 2: should offer our stock market picks.
Speaker 1: Since we were so lusty.
Speaker 3: We will run. Jesus, I know they're so lack confidence. Well,
Speaker 3: we're totally right.
Speaker 4: And you guys didn't even respond to when you started
Speaker 4: in on your South Korean stock market nonsense, and I said,
Speaker 4: you can't even even come close to the Lucretia investment strategy.
Speaker 4: I kept telling mister Lucretia, I want my own gold bar,
Speaker 4: and I wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do it. He
Speaker 4: wouldn't do it, so I wouldn't bought my own at
Speaker 4: twenty one twenty one hundred dollars an ounce about a
Speaker 4: year ago. And guess how much money I have now
Speaker 4: in that nice little gold bar. So I'm very happy.
Speaker 4: One fifty three sixty announced the last I saw.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually down this week.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure howth which is kind of a surm No,
Speaker 2: but you would have thought it would have gone up
Speaker 2: along with oil prices.
Speaker 4: I still made a lot of money.
Speaker 3: Look, investments are going to be gold bars, ammunition and
Speaker 3: like that one years worth of freeze dried food.
Speaker 4: Now again, I'm like you. The one thing I've ever
Speaker 4: agreed with you about John is I'm not too worried
Speaker 4: about having more than a month's supply of food because
Speaker 4: one way or the other, I'll get it because I
Speaker 4: have it.
Speaker 3: Okay, So the war, Oh yeah, Lucretia, do you think
Speaker 3: this is a big mistake? Aren't you the most mega
Speaker 3: person on the podcast? And isn't Mega up in arms
Speaker 3: about this neo comperson president who's achieving everything Tick Cheney
Speaker 3: wished we could have done in the first the second
Speaker 3: Persian administrations. Christian, what do you think about the Iran War?
Speaker 4: I do think that Iran is It's certainly an existential
Speaker 4: threat to Israel. We have been at war technically, I
Speaker 4: think you could say, at least from Iran the writing
Speaker 4: point of view, since nineteen seventy nine. I'm old enough
Speaker 4: to remember watching our hostages, watching the United States be
Speaker 4: humiliated by those Muslim islam skum people in Iran, and
Speaker 4: I'm very glad to see them go. And the fact
Speaker 4: I don't see a lot of people commenting about this,
Speaker 4: but the fact that they are that Iran is attacking
Speaker 4: all of those other Middle Eastern states seems to me
Speaker 4: to be really stupid on their part. I don't really
Speaker 4: quite follow what the idea behind that is. Do they
Speaker 4: expe fact that they'll just cower and say, oh, we're
Speaker 4: going to join back up with you or something. Maybe
Speaker 4: you guys can explain that one to me. But I
Speaker 4: am I am one hundred percent behind Trump and hag
Speaker 4: Seth on this, and I do not believe that this
Speaker 4: is a Neocon attack. I hope it doesn't last a
Speaker 4: long time. I don't think it's a forever war. I
Speaker 4: do believe many of you saw my ex posts that
Speaker 4: this is that forever wars are a choice. Choice is
Speaker 4: made by by corrupt politicians to make sure that they
Speaker 4: can the funnel millions and probably billions of dollars to
Speaker 4: their friends. This is not one of those.
Speaker 3: You might have seen today that the President demanded the
Speaker 3: unconditional surrender, which he qualified a good IDEA big mistake.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you mean he qualified in the sense
Speaker 2: of saying I want to have a say in it.
Speaker 4: He qualified by saying he qualified by saying that an
Speaker 4: unconditional surrender did not necessarily mean that a non existent
Speaker 4: current leadership would come down and raise a white flag.
Speaker 4: It meant that their military capabilities would be completely destroyed.
Speaker 4: It will not he qualified it by saying it would
Speaker 4: not require someone whoever, whomever that might be, to come
Speaker 4: out and say we unconditionally surrender.
Speaker 3: Plus yeah, well he said something in the same treat
Speaker 3: about wanting to pick the next leadership of Iran in
Speaker 3: there too, which is kind of like unconditional surrender.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think if yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think that qualification means it's not really unconditional surrender, or
Speaker 2: certainly not the way it was meant in World War Two,
Speaker 2: which there's a live argument now about whether it was
Speaker 2: a mistake to do that back then. Now, I do
Speaker 2: think it should be said two things. One is, there's
Speaker 2: several surveys out showing overwhelming Republican support for Trump on this.
Speaker 2: But I think beyond that, if you go back ten
Speaker 2: years now, Trump was of course a great critic of
Speaker 2: the you know, Iran and Iraq war, stupid wars overseas,
Speaker 2: but he's never been a total non interventionist. He never
Speaker 2: joined with the hardcore MAGA people about being down on Ukraine.
Speaker 2: He was always conditional about that right, and of course
Speaker 2: we sawt in the first term, especially with the killing
Speaker 2: with Solo money. He says, a man not averse to
Speaker 2: using some force in the matter. So I think we
Speaker 2: shouldn't be surprised. And I don't think the Iranian should
Speaker 2: have thought that they could have bluff Trump through by
Speaker 2: stringing him out as long as they did, even although
Speaker 2: I think now what we know is it took time
Speaker 2: to prepare this operation. It's really quite impressive. And I'll say,
Speaker 2: to me, the most significant thing of the week, and
Speaker 2: I'm trying to pick on things that what won't be
Speaker 2: rendered obsolete by events in the next twenty four hours
Speaker 2: or so. But to me, the most significant thing of
Speaker 2: the week was the sinking of the Iranian destroyer out
Speaker 2: in the open ocean. What a couple thousand miles away
Speaker 2: from the battle for right?
Speaker 3: Why is that important to me?
Speaker 4: That?
Speaker 1: Why is that significant?
Speaker 3: Game? That's just because I can see in your bookshelves
Speaker 3: you have the game Battleship back there you put the
Speaker 3: little things? Yeah, too far you hit my battleship. Heyward's
Speaker 3: a big fan of that game. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I think why you're thinking about.
Speaker 3: An Iranian destroyer out near Sri Lanka important?
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's important for this reason.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, they we easily could have said, and
Speaker 2: I think by the way any other administration would have
Speaker 2: sent some message through the Indians or somebody, you can't
Speaker 2: sail that ship back to your country. You need to
Speaker 2: be quarantined in uh, in India or straight Lanka for
Speaker 2: the duration of whatever, of however long this goes on.
Speaker 2: We did that kind of sort of with a couple
Speaker 2: of German ships in World War Two. You know, they
Speaker 2: steamed Harguay and stayed there for the whole war. Uh Instead,
Speaker 2: the signal it sends is we really do mean it.
Speaker 2: We're not gonna We're not pussy footing around here. We're
Speaker 2: gonna do absolutely everything to degrade your military, and if
Speaker 2: that means shooting your your your top line brand new ships, practically,
Speaker 2: I understand that we're gonna do all that. It reminded
Speaker 2: me I've been you know, I thought to myself, I
Speaker 2: haven't had a good analogy for a while to annoy Lucretia.
Speaker 1: But it reminds me. It's not identical, but it does
Speaker 1: remind me, and I dusted off my old Churchill old
Speaker 1: books to look it up. You know.
Speaker 2: In July of nineteen forty till only three weeks after
Speaker 2: France had capitulated the Germans and The terms included the
Speaker 2: French fleet was supposed to be surrendered to the Germans
Speaker 2: or Italians, and a lot of the French navy said,
Speaker 2: we won't do it, We'll defect to the British. We
Speaker 2: don't want to do that. But some stayed loyal to
Speaker 2: Vischi and said they were going to submit. So what
Speaker 2: did Churchill do? He told them, you either submit to
Speaker 2: us or we sink your fleet. He didn't want to
Speaker 2: do that. In fact, even though Churchill was cheered for
Speaker 2: he did that, he did sink the fleet in Iran.
Speaker 2: Many hundreds of French sailors who weeks before were Allies
Speaker 2: were killed in that raid, and Churchill was cheered in
Speaker 2: the House of Commons. He was personally very upset and
Speaker 2: depressed about it because he really didn't want to do
Speaker 2: it but thought he had to.
Speaker 1: But most important was what he called later the moral
Speaker 1: effect of it.
Speaker 2: And it emerged later that Franklin Roosevelt took note of
Speaker 2: that and said, ah, that was the moment we know
Speaker 2: that Churchill meant it about winning, and that was the moment.
Speaker 2: By the way, Roosevelt turned on his ambassador to Great Britain,
Speaker 2: one Joseph Kennedy, you remember who kept saying anyone's finished,
Speaker 2: We shouldn't try and.
Speaker 1: Help these guys.
Speaker 2: It's hopeless, right, And that's when Roosevelt said, no, these
Speaker 2: guys are actually going to win, and they just showed
Speaker 2: me why.
Speaker 1: And so I think there's something like that.
Speaker 2: I think the moral effect of thinking that ship is
Speaker 2: quite dramatic, and you got to be.
Speaker 1: A signal to everybody that we really mean business.
Speaker 4: Well, I think the more important thing that happened this
Speaker 4: week is it proved what an absolute moron, idiot, incompetent
Speaker 4: white lily lily livered boob what Barack Obama was.
Speaker 1: Evidence of that.
Speaker 4: So now, yeah, now, not only has his signature domestic
Speaker 4: supposed a chief been proven to be an unmitigated disaster
Speaker 4: Obamacare if you're not following that, one his supposed great
Speaker 4: uh international Florid affairs achievement, you know, dropping literally hallets
Speaker 4: of cash, millions and millions of dollars on the Iranians
Speaker 4: in order to keep them from pursuing their nuclear weapons, which,
Speaker 4: of course you know he was just what a patsy
Speaker 4: he is? What everything about that man is despicable, including
Speaker 4: his choice of wives.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, I'll be done so Okaya. You know
Speaker 3: when when you remember Missus Obama said something like when
Speaker 3: they go low, we go high, but then dragged them.
Speaker 4: That is high. That's the highest phrase I can think
Speaker 4: of for either one of them. I'm done.
Speaker 3: So, Lucretia, let me ask you this about what's going
Speaker 3: on in Iran because it ties back to your question
Speaker 3: of what does Iran do? They start buying off missiles
Speaker 3: at everybody, even people trying to help them. Is it
Speaker 3: the Iranian strategy just to try to destabilize the Middle
Speaker 3: East as badly as possible and the hope this will
Speaker 3: put pressure on the Trump administration to end the war
Speaker 3: earlier than at once. And is it that a worry
Speaker 3: that the Mega Wing that you used to be a
Speaker 3: member of what seemed to be no longer was mostly
Speaker 3: worried about, was that this would just drag the United
Speaker 3: States into, you know, another quagmire in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: Is this not going to be another Iraq that We're
Speaker 3: going to have to come in and clean everything up
Speaker 3: and in all these destabilized countries and as a result,
Speaker 3: we're going to get stuck again.
Speaker 4: No, I don't believe that's going to happen. Number One,
Speaker 4: Number one. I refuse to be put in dumb categories.
Speaker 4: I am not going to be put into a neocon
Speaker 4: or non neocon or any of those dumb categories. I
Speaker 4: don't know about Mega. I do believe in making America great,
Speaker 4: and I do believe in America first. I believe that
Speaker 4: our actual in Iran are America first. I also believe
Speaker 4: that if how do I say this differently, if you
Speaker 4: think about the culture, the religion, the societal situation, environment
Speaker 4: atmosphere in Iran and compare that to Afghanistan for instance,
Speaker 4: or even Iraq, I mean, there's possibilities for the Persian
Speaker 4: people that were probably never possibilities. Let me give you
Speaker 4: this example. Trump didn't go in there saying, oh.
Speaker 5: Whatever we do, we can't have people be islamaphobes, and
Speaker 5: Islam is a religion of peace, and whatever you do,
Speaker 5: don't go around these prejudicial against Islam and Muslims.
Speaker 4: You know he knows better than that. That was George
Speaker 4: Bush's stupid, moronic Oh I think even But anyway, no,
Speaker 4: I don't think it's that. I think I do think
Speaker 4: America's security will be enhanced by regime toppling. I don't
Speaker 4: know that we have to do that all ourselves. I
Speaker 4: think the Persian people are and I'm gonna call them
Speaker 4: the Persian people, Steve, are going to take that on themselves.
Speaker 4: And you know they're they're closer to Western people than
Speaker 4: or were than probably anybody in the Middle East other
Speaker 4: than the Israelis. Anyway, I think I'm gonna support Trump
Speaker 4: throughout this. I know you're gonna go on to the
Speaker 4: next question, so I won't. I won't preempt you about it.
Speaker 4: But I think the Democrats' responses to this are not
Speaker 4: just disingenuous, lying and all of that, but but I
Speaker 4: think they're harmful. I think that they're an American and
Speaker 4: that I can't believe that they hate Trump so much
Speaker 4: that they're doing what they're doing. But I'll but Steve
Speaker 4: made a couple of faces at me, So.
Speaker 1: Let me Steve.
Speaker 3: One question, maybe to prompt more from you, is does
Speaker 3: the Trump administration really have an endgame here that's achievable?
Speaker 3: President Trump seems to think that there will be an
Speaker 3: uprising by the Iranian people to overthrow any government. We
Speaker 3: don't really, but was that really going to happen when
Speaker 3: all the guns are in the hands of the regime
Speaker 3: and you have. Of course, millions of people clearly would
Speaker 3: like to be free of this regime, but they have
Speaker 3: no means to carry it out. And if they can't,
Speaker 3: then what's the What is the endgame without any kind
Speaker 3: of rebellion? Are we just going to keep bombing them
Speaker 3: and bombing them until what happens? That's the question? What
Speaker 3: is the end game here? Steve?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, well there, I mean, there is this question,
Speaker 2: a live question about whether we can affect regime change
Speaker 2: from bombing alone.
Speaker 1: And Hegseth said he hasn't rule out.
Speaker 2: Boots on the ground, which I do wish heg Seth
Speaker 2: would think decaf sometimes. But anyway, it's well, you are
Speaker 2: hearing that we might be mobilizing the Kurds.
Speaker 1: Who are they? You'd be happy to sweep?
Speaker 4: We know it might be we are well.
Speaker 1: Look, I know it's in the news, but I think
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure.
Speaker 2: Look, you always take all these news reports with a
Speaker 2: grain of salt, because I bet our news people don't
Speaker 2: know what they're right.
Speaker 1: Well okay, well maybe.
Speaker 2: Well maybe you have their sources, but look, I mean,
Speaker 2: mobilizing the Curds is not going to please the Turks
Speaker 2: or the iraqis right. Although I've long thought we ought
Speaker 2: to establish a Kurdistan. I don't know what the hold
Speaker 2: up is anything.
Speaker 4: Anyway, Turkey is a whole other crazy situation. Sorry, it
Speaker 4: didn't mean to interrupt, but well, I.
Speaker 3: Write the country Lucretia wants to bomb. Oh wait, no,
Speaker 3: she says again.
Speaker 1: Well, look, I mean act, but don't go back briefly
Speaker 1: do that. We didn't.
Speaker 4: Oh oh, now, now this is awesome.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's talk about the next thing, which is the
Speaker 3: legal issue related to the So you you said you
Speaker 3: wanted you were previewing it there just a second ago.
Speaker 3: But Lucretia, what do you think about the president's U
Speaker 3: support without any congressional approval? And then this week, just yesterday,
Speaker 3: the House failed to block the war. The Senate failed
Speaker 3: the day before, but you saw Rand Paul and Representative
Speaker 3: Massey voting with the Democrats to stop the war. What
Speaker 3: do you what do you think about the constitutional issue?
Speaker 4: And so let's yeah, let's talk about that because that's
Speaker 4: something you and I both sort of focus on. I
Speaker 4: teach the War Powers Act to my students in the
Speaker 4: Presidency class and the con lag you know, Separation of
Speaker 4: Powers class and here's the point. Leave aside whether or
Speaker 4: not the War Powers Act is unconstitutional for a moment.
Speaker 4: That's a secondary issue. The first issue is every president
Speaker 4: since it was passed, starting with Ford, has used the
Speaker 4: War Powers Act to its advantage. It has ended up
Speaker 4: being in almost every president. It has ended up being
Speaker 4: a grant of power to the president. And you know,
Speaker 4: Congress has come along and then passed other kinds of
Speaker 4: authorizing statutes and so on. But right now Trump is
Speaker 4: perfectly within his War Powers Act powers in what he's done. Now,
Speaker 4: if sixty days goes by and Congress doesn't do anything,
Speaker 4: and he pushes the issue, But anybody who might not
Speaker 4: know the War Powers Act requires before a president introduces
Speaker 4: troops into areas where there our hostilities or hostilities are imminent,
Speaker 4: he must get the approval of Congress. But if he
Speaker 4: does it without the approval of Congress, he has to
Speaker 4: make a report within forty eight hours of said introduction
Speaker 4: of troops into hostilities or areas of where hostilities are imminent.
Speaker 4: Trump did that, and that starts the sixty day period. Now,
Speaker 4: I mean, I heard Reuben Diego, who maybe dumber than
Speaker 4: Horano and AOC and the guy with the Puerto Rico,
Speaker 4: tipping over Guam, tipping over put together. I could not
Speaker 4: believe bretbar put that idiot on to actually try to
Speaker 4: defend the democratic position. But Trump has done what is
Speaker 4: legal under the War Powers Act, and again, why are
Speaker 4: they complaining about it? Repeal the War Powers Act and
Speaker 4: then you do. Then Trump has a whole different constitutional
Speaker 4: argument to make. But right now, statutorily, according to Congress,
Speaker 4: he is perfectly in the rights doing what he's doing.
Speaker 4: Am I wrong about that?
Speaker 2: John?
Speaker 3: Well, actually, you know you're quite writing or reading of
Speaker 3: the statute. It says presidents need the approval of Congress
Speaker 3: to have troops and air of hostilities when they there
Speaker 3: past sixty days. So as you say, there's a sixty
Speaker 3: day clock, and.
Speaker 4: You can go to ninety to bring them back, seat
Speaker 4: to bring.
Speaker 3: Them back again, another thirty days to bring them back.
Speaker 3: But Trump's within the sixty days, in fact the first president.
Speaker 3: And now what people have observed is it's almost like
Speaker 3: a congressional admission. As you say that the presidents have
Speaker 3: this discretion, and as you say, also most presidents never
Speaker 3: conceded the legality of the Act, but acted within the
Speaker 3: sixty days. It's actually Bill Clinton, who was the first
Speaker 3: president to actually just outright violate the clock. The air
Speaker 3: war in Kosovo went on for longer than sixty days,
Speaker 3: and Congress never authorized it. And that, by the way.
Speaker 3: One other thing about your point about legality is there
Speaker 3: was a lawsuit brought by Tom Campbell, Stanford law professor,
Speaker 3: expert on separation of powers, who represented the Palo Alto District.
Speaker 3: And there's a case called Campbell versus Clinton, which I
Speaker 3: teach in law school because it's the highest court, the d. C.
Speaker 3: Circuit is really the highest court to ever write way
Speaker 3: in on this. In the DC Cirkus said, deciding on
Speaker 3: war and Congress versus the president is a political question,
Speaker 3: and it's outside judicial competence. Let the Congress and president
Speaker 3: fight it out. And I think that's actually accurate, that
Speaker 3: that's really what's happened. The other thing about whether one
Speaker 3: way to read the law is that it doesn't have
Speaker 3: an enforcement mechanism. It doesn't say what happens at the
Speaker 3: end of sixty days. It says the president has to
Speaker 3: pull out the troops.
Speaker 1: What happens if he doesn't.
Speaker 3: So I've always read it as it's Congress promising, it's
Speaker 3: going to do something at the end of the clump,
Speaker 3: but then they never do anything.
Speaker 4: Well, isn't there one more issue, John, And that's the
Speaker 4: legislative veto, which is which you know, essentially the requirement
Speaker 4: that both houses of Congress in order to when they
Speaker 4: have already authorized the president to do something when they
Speaker 4: must act in order to keep they passed the law,
Speaker 4: and now it requires their action once they've authorized the president.
Speaker 4: It's essentially a legislative veto, which the Supreme Court declared
Speaker 4: to be on constitutional in I ins versus Chada. Nobody's
Speaker 4: made that argument specifically, probably because they use the legislati
Speaker 4: veto all the time anyway. But again, it mixes up
Speaker 4: the way the Constitution wants congressional and executive power to work,
Speaker 4: especially in the area of foreign affairs. The whole point
Speaker 4: behind the War Powers Act was to make sure that
Speaker 4: something like Vietnam didn't happen again, you know. But they
Speaker 4: had authorized the president in Vietnam with the tonkuin Golf resolutions.
Speaker 3: And they didn't need the War Powers Resolution because they
Speaker 3: ended the war by cutting off funding.
Speaker 4: And that's hadding off funding, which is their constitutional power
Speaker 4: they should be.
Speaker 3: Your argument has always been that the real check on
Speaker 3: the president's war making power is not declaring war or
Speaker 3: not declaring war, but just cutting off funds. And one
Speaker 3: piece of I think why this is historically true is
Speaker 3: because before nineteen forty five we didn't have a large
Speaker 3: standing army. So anytime the president really wanted to go
Speaker 3: to war, he had to go to Congress and say,
Speaker 3: please build me the military to fight the war. And
Speaker 3: the funding check this draws more of my time working
Speaker 3: in Congress. The funding check is a perfect check because
Speaker 3: if you do nothing, nothing happens. If you do nothing
Speaker 3: and pass no bill, the funding ceases.
Speaker 1: So it's only the check.
Speaker 3: Actually is overridden only when Congress decides to pass the
Speaker 3: law to add more money to the military coffers. And
Speaker 3: so if you have a fifty point one percent majority
Speaker 3: of the House that doesn't want this, or the Senate
Speaker 3: that doesn't want a war to go on, just they
Speaker 3: just have to not pass the law, not pass an appropriation,
Speaker 3: and modern warfare will come to Hull because it's so
Speaker 3: expensive and we are drawing down so severely on our
Speaker 3: munition thoughts that they have to be replenished. That apparently
Speaker 3: President Trump is going to come to Congress in a
Speaker 3: week or two and ask for more funds or they around.
Speaker 1: War will stop?
Speaker 4: Will it stop? I mean, we do have the appropriations
Speaker 4: through September thirtieth.
Speaker 3: Remember you need the ability to reprogram, so you have.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's limits on how much money you can
Speaker 3: move around within the Defense Department budget.
Speaker 4: The other anyway, I just think I'm sorry. My only
Speaker 4: point is is that I am constantly amazed by the
Speaker 4: gas lighting of Democrats on this issue. And a few
Speaker 4: were about to ask you.
Speaker 1: That the consistency issue.
Speaker 3: Where was everybody when President Obama launched an air war
Speaker 3: in Libya? And actually, if you want to call if
Speaker 3: the Venezuelan intervention had a parallel in the nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: nine Georgia hw Bush invasion of Panama, this war has
Speaker 3: a closer parallel than people think. In twenty eleven, without
Speaker 3: a declaration of war offation, President Obama launched an air
Speaker 3: war in Libya which was designed to overthrow the regime
Speaker 3: of Kadaffi.
Speaker 4: And it did, and it did, and of course it
Speaker 4: made Libya much worse place. But that's a different story.
Speaker 4: I I you know, actually you should be the one
Speaker 4: challenging me to tell me what national security interest we
Speaker 4: had in toppling Kadaffi in twenty eleven, I think we
Speaker 4: were still in our make the Middle East safer democracy
Speaker 4: sort of mindset. I don't think there was any American
Speaker 4: national security interests, you know, central national security interest in
Speaker 4: the same way that I believe there is in Iran.
Speaker 4: I mean, we can You've seen the memes where they
Speaker 4: list what do we ever do to you? And then
Speaker 4: you know it's just time after time after time where
Speaker 4: Iran is behind killing American citizens, killing American troops, et cetera,
Speaker 4: et cetera, both directly but mostly of course through their proxy.
Speaker 3: Well, this is where I think international law has in
Speaker 3: a way corrupted our domestic arguments, because you heard several
Speaker 3: members of Congress say, uh, there was no imminent threat
Speaker 3: from Iran. That's not a requirement in the Constitution for
Speaker 3: military action that there will be an imminent threat from
Speaker 3: another country. That is a standard from international law. There
Speaker 3: is this idea that to adequately I'm sorry, to have
Speaker 3: an adequate justification for the right to use force and
Speaker 3: self defense, there has to be an imminent threat of attack.
Speaker 1: This is actually a natural law question.
Speaker 3: The cretiation this is This is the puzzle me, this
Speaker 3: great natural law scholar trusts. The thing that's interesting to
Speaker 3: me is that so the natural law of self defense
Speaker 3: between two individuals, between you and me, is governed by
Speaker 3: the idea of right.
Speaker 1: You can you can use.
Speaker 3: Force, violent force, deadly force to defend yourself, and you can't.
Speaker 3: You don't have to wait for the attack to fall
Speaker 3: upon you. If you see the other person coming at
Speaker 3: you right, pulling the gun out of the holster, you're
Speaker 3: allowed to shoot first. You don't have to wait for
Speaker 3: the other person to shoot you before you respond. That's
Speaker 3: called anticipatory self defense. Why does that rule? Why should
Speaker 3: that rule apply between nations? Has the same roots in
Speaker 3: the natural law. The international law is probably the purest
Speaker 3: form of natural law still in use, I think, But
Speaker 3: why should that govern between nations? It makes total sense
Speaker 3: to me as governing between people. But why should natural
Speaker 3: law principles like that government between the US and Iran.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure that they do, John, I don't think so.
Speaker 4: I you know, I mean, it takes a lot of
Speaker 4: stretch to get to the point where one sovereign people
Speaker 4: becomes an entity that possesses rights they don't. I think
Speaker 4: that what has happened over time is that this is
Speaker 4: how I would put it, and I'll try to do
Speaker 4: this quickly. A sovereign people in a country, based upon consent,
Speaker 4: based upon the idea that it was put together for
Speaker 4: the safety and happiness of the citizens of that sovereign nation,
Speaker 4: recognizes that the decision to go to war, the decision
Speaker 4: to attack another country, or the decision to provide for
Speaker 4: their security is you know that decision has limitations, you don't,
Speaker 4: you know? I mean, I suppose you could say, if
Speaker 4: you're the most powerful country in the world, as the
Speaker 4: US has been many times, we could have just wiped
Speaker 4: all the other nations off the planet and then we'd
Speaker 4: have been fine. But we don't operate that way because
Speaker 4: there are prudential considerations. John that I.
Speaker 3: Think my life, he just ruins such a beautiful discussion.
Speaker 4: But you know what I mean, we and we see that.
Speaker 4: Even you have said on several occasions when when like
Speaker 4: the Venezuela, the bombing of the boats, taking the boats
Speaker 4: out of the water, the drug boats out of the water. Cartels, yeah,
Speaker 4: the drug cartels, even you have said the Trump administration
Speaker 4: could do a better job of explaining why they're doing this.
Speaker 4: You said that on this podcast. You said, and what
Speaker 4: that means to me is in a republican form of government,
Speaker 4: you do have to make the reasoned, rational argument and
Speaker 4: get support from the people. Now Iran doesn't have to
Speaker 4: do that, obviously, and that has to be part of
Speaker 4: our calculation. So it really becomes much more complicated, I
Speaker 4: think than just I won't. I'll shoot you if you
Speaker 4: look like you're going to be taking away my glass
Speaker 4: of scotch.
Speaker 3: Actually, that's such a good point because Steve was so
Speaker 3: eager to get us to talk about beef products that
Speaker 3: we didn't go through what we were drinking with creature.
Speaker 3: What are you drinking?
Speaker 4: I'm I'm about to get myself fired because I'm actually
Speaker 4: drinking a Glenn footage a fourteen year old in sherry
Speaker 4: cask that I've stuck to my drawer because I'm at
Speaker 4: my office at school and it's.
Speaker 3: I think your freedom of religion includes the right to
Speaker 3: consume alcohol. But I know Phil Lenez would disagree because
Speaker 3: because he's listening, he doesn't think any of these rights
Speaker 3: are enforceable in court for some reason. I, however, am
Speaker 3: drinking HB flavored. This is great chib, which is another
Speaker 3: thing I discovered in Texas along with BUCkies, has its
Speaker 3: online and basically everything. And this is sparkling water peach
Speaker 3: guava flavored. Oh I'm feeling fruitier just by drinking it.
Speaker 4: You're looking fruitier.
Speaker 3: We have announces for our listeners. I'm sorry, but as
Speaker 3: you may have noticed, the content of the podcast got
Speaker 3: so much better and more serious because Steve Heyward dropped
Speaker 3: out and so we have technical difficulties with Steve. So yes,
Speaker 3: Steve has started a new live stream. What we're gonna
Speaker 3: do is close this one down. I'm afraid Steve is
Speaker 3: going to send invites to everybody and he's instructing us
Speaker 3: all to rejoin the other one. So please close this one.
Speaker 3: I hope this works. Please close this one, and we
Speaker 3: will now.
Speaker 4: All hope to see you on the other side.
Speaker 1: Steve.
Speaker 3: You can tell what Steve was like as a kid
Speaker 3: when he was kicked out of the game. He took
Speaker 3: all the toys and went to his own treehouse, and
Speaker 3: now we have to go to his treehouse. Okay, bye.
Speaker 3: At the other live stream.
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Steve. I don't know what went wrong
Speaker 1: here today.
Speaker 2: A lot to learn still about how the substack platform works,
Speaker 2: but it certainly seems less flexible than zoom. In any case,
Speaker 2: it turns out the patch to our second segment coming
Speaker 2: up shortly is very abrupt. So I thought I would
Speaker 2: just stop and take the time here for a commercial announcement.
Speaker 1: Which is I want to thank.
Speaker 2: All of the listeners and readers who in the last
Speaker 2: several weeks have signed up to be paying subscribers. Now
Speaker 2: I'm totally doing a substack model wrong. Everyone is supposed
Speaker 2: to do some free content and then some paid content
Speaker 2: behind a paywall to drive people will like you to
Speaker 2: subscribe to get the third of the content that you
Speaker 2: can't get for free. I don't like that model. My
Speaker 2: content is going to stay free. But I'm really grateful
Speaker 2: to all of you who have signed up to be
Speaker 2: paying subscribers. It's a great vote of confidence. And by
Speaker 2: the way, from as near as I can tell looking
Speaker 2: at other substacks.
Speaker 1: The subscription rate of the total.
Speaker 2: Readership is as high or maybe higher than a lot
Speaker 2: of the mercenaries out there on substack who are trying
Speaker 2: to make a living out of it. I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to make a living out of it, but I do
Speaker 2: like to generate enough revenue so I can pay all
Speaker 2: the contributing writers like Ammogirl and Max Cossack and Lloyd
Speaker 2: and others for their regular contributions and support.
Speaker 1: So I'm very grateful for all that. Thanks a ton.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do a.
Speaker 2: Reader's survey soon, by the way, to see what you'd
Speaker 2: like to see. I've kind of backed off from my
Speaker 2: long and admittedly turgid academic ramblings, although there's a lot.
Speaker 1: Of people who like all that.
Speaker 2: All that, by the way, a number of people early
Speaker 2: on signed up to be founding subscribers, which is like
Speaker 2: two hundred dollars or something that's the default of substack.
Speaker 2: I didn't pick that, and those are.
Speaker 1: The people who really hate Bernie Sanders, and I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful for all of you.
Speaker 2: In any case, we're gonna get back right now to
Speaker 2: the rest of the show.
Speaker 1: It's very abrupt.
Speaker 2: I caught, for whatever reason, it catches John almost mid
Speaker 2: sentence saying we'll see if this podcast is like Godfather
Speaker 2: one and Godfather Too or something silly like that, because
Speaker 2: he is silly like that. So without further ado, we're
Speaker 2: gonna jump right back into it, very abruptly.
Speaker 3: Right now was Godfather too better than Godfather One? Was
Speaker 3: preveng that Jedi better than Is the sequel going to
Speaker 3: be better than the original?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 2: Yeah right, hot boy, that is really weird. Anyway, I
Speaker 2: couldn't see to figure out how to get back.
Speaker 4: You're getting buzzy a couple of times. So Steve, I
Speaker 4: was a little worried.
Speaker 3: I'll bet yeah, I can't tell you the live stream comments.
Speaker 3: I guess we've lost them.
Speaker 1: All.
Speaker 3: We're going on about how the podcast suddenly improved about
Speaker 3: ten minutes ago.
Speaker 1: You are so bad. People are like, what happened?
Speaker 3: This is the content just got so much more sophisticated.
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't tell me what we're gonna
Speaker 1: get even with you. Okay, So that was just strange.
Speaker 4: I mean, so Steve, let me pull you into it
Speaker 4: and ask you a simple question. Can you tell me
Speaker 4: what our national security interests were in boming Libya in
Speaker 4: twenty eleven?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Good question. I don't know, because you know, Lebya became
Speaker 1: very very.
Speaker 2: Quiet after literally after nine to eleven, when I think
Speaker 2: they were worried that we were going to attack.
Speaker 3: Them normally not they turned over their nuclear weapons right
Speaker 3: and their Nuclear Act because they were afraid we were
Speaker 3: going to bomb a month in two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, that's right, and and that interesting. I don't
Speaker 2: know what the problem was then, I think I don't remember.
Speaker 4: Now, well, I guess go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 3: You get an Let's move on to issue three, because
Speaker 3: actually there's a great segue between issues two and three,
Speaker 3: which was natural law. So I just want to put
Speaker 3: a pin in that last discussion. Steve was not present
Speaker 3: for Steve, you missed out on ten minutes of discussion
Speaker 3: of natural law. Oh man, we're not going to let
Speaker 3: you come in late on it.
Speaker 1: Sorry. Well, the first time I know this was great.
Speaker 3: For the first time when it was just lucretia, I
Speaker 3: finally understood what the hell you guys were talking about. No,
Speaker 3: you don't just kidding, No, I don't.
Speaker 1: But the pen in it is.
Speaker 3: I just want to put the pin in the issue,
Speaker 3: which is, why should natural law govern relations with states
Speaker 3: between states the way they government relations between individuals, Because
Speaker 3: the rules on self defense between nations is almost identical
Speaker 3: and it comes from the same source as self defenstration. Anyway,
Speaker 3: let's talk about that another time, but yet another I
Speaker 3: hate to say this, I hate to say this another
Speaker 3: victory for natural law, which I will describe now and
Speaker 3: ask for your commentary, which is this week, the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court in a sixty three vote a case called Mirrabelli
Speaker 3: Mirabelli Right Beautiful View versus Bonta Bonta the Anhi Mirrabelli.
Speaker 3: I just want to get that in before Lucretia attacked
Speaker 3: his looks with her look is on. The Supreme Court
Speaker 3: struck down a California law which have been causing a
Speaker 3: lot of controversy in California, which for Bay teachers, for
Speaker 3: Bay teachers from telling parents of children that their children
Speaker 3: were engaged in gender changes, name changes, pronoun changes. And
Speaker 3: the thing that's interesting is, uh. I think there were
Speaker 3: two challenges. One was this, I think the teachers were
Speaker 3: claiming they had a First Amendment right here to disclose
Speaker 3: to the parents. But the courts said, the reason why,
Speaker 3: this is really the reason why this protection for right
Speaker 3: transgenderism was unconstitutional, was that interfered with the right of
Speaker 3: the parents to raise their children. Now, this is not
Speaker 3: in the text of the Constitution, and the court admitted it.
Speaker 3: What they said is this is the substance of due
Speaker 3: process right of parents that has been recognized for the
Speaker 3: Court for about one hundred years.
Speaker 2: Now, well, yeah, the Oregon case, right, the Oregon case
Speaker 2: from nineteen twenty here here here.
Speaker 3: Yeahs the most famous. There's another one called Meyer. This
Speaker 3: is seriously that you know. For example, the Meyer versus Nebraska,
Speaker 3: if I remember correctly, was a state law that prohibited
Speaker 3: did parents from teaching their children German. Yeah, that was it, right,
Speaker 3: which seems to me a very sensible law. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's more languages other than German. Yes, why should we
Speaker 3: love them learn of the language of our enemies. But anyway,
Speaker 3: so the Court has always said that there is some
Speaker 3: kind of natural right of parents to control the education
Speaker 3: upbringing in their children.
Speaker 1: But it's not in any constitutional text.
Speaker 3: So, Steve, how do you reconcile this idea that parents
Speaker 3: have this right with the text of the Constitution, which
Speaker 3: doesn't say anything about parents or children, actually doesn't use
Speaker 3: the words are we Are.
Speaker 1: We really doing this again? I can't believe it. We
Speaker 1: make no progress with you, John, we just did. Well, Okay,
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I wasn't there. I wasn't I didn't see it.
Speaker 2: Well, look, well, let me work backwards here. I think
Speaker 2: think for the left The most terrifying part of this
Speaker 2: decision is not specifically the issue itself, it hasn't worked up,
Speaker 2: but the fact that somebody was it. Gorsuch said, actually
Speaker 2: used the phrase substance of due process. Yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 2: if that's going to come back from the new semi
Speaker 2: conservative lucretious grimacing, she doesn't like this idea, But the
Speaker 2: point is is that that suggests that the Court is
Speaker 2: ready to say, wait a minute, there are principles, deep
Speaker 2: principles beyond the Constitution anchor a natural law that leads
Speaker 2: to an easy result of saying, if we're not going
Speaker 2: to respect parents' rights over their own families, then something's
Speaker 2: gone badly awry, right. I mean, this is like the
Speaker 2: debate over the expost facto clause we've talked about several times,
Speaker 2: where James Wilson others.
Speaker 1: Said, we don't need to put that in there.
Speaker 2: It's kind of obvious the Constitution did not need to
Speaker 2: put in something about parental rights, because no one in
Speaker 2: seventeen eighty seven would have thought a statute such as
Speaker 2: the one you have in California made any sense at all.
Speaker 1: And so I don't know, I don't think it's that
Speaker 1: hard result to get to.
Speaker 4: I think it cretybody who studied a little bit of
Speaker 4: Aristotle understands that there's no basis for a political community
Speaker 4: that doesn't start with the family, and a good political community.
Speaker 4: The best regime, of course is the tilos. It's the.
Speaker 3: End.
Speaker 4: But all political relations actually start with the family. And
Speaker 4: the relationship between parents and children is well outlined there
Speaker 4: and has been understood again, probably more than expost facto.
Speaker 4: That's why cringe just a little bit when you said
Speaker 4: that until you sort of clarified, you meant that it
Speaker 4: didn't need to be included in the constitution discussion at
Speaker 4: the convention. But I think that it is part of
Speaker 4: the agenda of the left, the project of the left,
Speaker 4: among other things, completely to destroy the family. We know
Speaker 4: that the Communists did that. All you have to do
Speaker 4: is read Witness by uh Whitaker Chambers and and and
Speaker 4: all sorts of other things they abs or Elena. Elena
Speaker 4: is the name of the the nonfiction work about the
Speaker 4: guy's mom in Greece. When the Communists take over. All
Speaker 4: you have to do is read that. You can see
Speaker 4: that what what cop think about ilia Ilian Gonzalez. The
Speaker 4: idea is to destroy the family structure and replace it
Speaker 4: with well whatever.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: In the case of our leftists, they just they want
Speaker 4: to destroy Western civilization. That's the reason for promoting trans
Speaker 4: It's the reason, you know, for all of those things.
Speaker 4: And so I don't know when you're when you're a court,
Speaker 4: you always want to be careful how you do those things.
Speaker 4: I hate to see them go to the substantive due
Speaker 4: process clause. But since the cat is out of the
Speaker 4: bag that we're now originalists, they have to have something.
Speaker 4: I prefer the Privileges and Immunities clause.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's right. No, I'd like that one better too. Look,
Speaker 1: I'll sort of add this way, you don't have to
Speaker 1: even read actually, just read.
Speaker 2: The communists themselves, going back even before Marx, right, and
Speaker 2: and and this is kind of in Plato a little
Speaker 2: bit of though he's probably mischievous, but today it's well
Speaker 2: understood that the yes, but I don't want to do
Speaker 2: that now.
Speaker 1: It takes too long.
Speaker 3: The point is was joking when he talked about the
Speaker 3: kids away and raising them, you know, yes, for now
Speaker 3: service to the state.
Speaker 1: You had to do it, didn't you.
Speaker 3: Really, How are I supposed to know which parts of Plato.
Speaker 1: Or no, no, oh God, here we go again. Talk
Speaker 1: about Plato.
Speaker 3: Literally, he doesn't want that was what I.
Speaker 1: Was gonna ask next. Ye leave Plato out of this
Speaker 1: for today.
Speaker 3: Look, you're talking about Aristotle. I thought we were that
Speaker 3: there was a social contract in the state of nature.
Speaker 3: Where did this family is the structure of all politics?
Speaker 1: Oh that's modern. Never mind.
Speaker 2: Look, the point is it's clear from social science, which
Speaker 2: is maybe we'll get to maybe we won't, is that.
Speaker 1: The family today is the.
Speaker 2: Greatest engine of inequality as the left things of it right.
Speaker 2: They want straighted galitarianism, and you know, you go back
Speaker 2: to feet playo, just go back to the early socialists
Speaker 2: of the early nineteenth century before Marx does the Dialectic,
Speaker 2: and they all said, yeah, if you're going to have equality,
Speaker 2: we have to nationalize the children. And I do think
Speaker 2: that's the animating principle. I think I agree withly Creciate
Speaker 2: about the left hatred for our civilization. You know what
Speaker 2: Roger Scrutin called the culture repudiation.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to go that far.
Speaker 2: The family is the obstacle to every egalitarian design today.
Speaker 4: Yes, doesn't want to do force childcare. I mean that
Speaker 4: that's sort of like his number one policy initiative is
Speaker 4: this free childcare. And I see, I mean, I couldn't
Speaker 4: give a damn New Yorker's are so stupid they get
Speaker 4: what they deserve.
Speaker 3: Any Thai family, he would say, that's pro family, wouldn't he.
Speaker 4: No, it is that not Crow family. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 4: little bit like what Plato talked about. And I'll leave
Speaker 4: it at that.
Speaker 3: But he was joking. I hear, gosh, I didn't not know.
Speaker 3: Plato was so funny.
Speaker 4: Hilarious, and you know what Strauss says about it, It
Speaker 4: was the greatest tragedy of history that that Plato resurfaced
Speaker 4: amongst the Germans with their cosmic lack of a sense
Speaker 4: of humor or something.
Speaker 3: Almo, So let me ask for one follow up, Steve,
Speaker 3: wait a second, I just have to stick in here
Speaker 3: that Lucretian and I have been saying for years.
Speaker 1: Let me notice our teachers that the problem with Marx
Speaker 1: is he read Plato and didn't get the joke. Turns
Speaker 1: out that John Hugh doesn't. John Hugh doesn't get the
Speaker 1: joke either.
Speaker 3: I don't get the which you guys are gonna have
Speaker 3: to get me. Like the edited version with the parts
Speaker 3: that you think he's joking highlighted and then the other
Speaker 3: stuff not highlighted.
Speaker 1: So why don't we do let's do a whole half
Speaker 1: episode about that sometimes? Yeah, wait, could they be fun educating? Right?
Speaker 3: But one more question, though, is suppose I agreed with
Speaker 3: you that more as a matter of morality, we should
Speaker 3: not allow the government to dictate or interfere with the
Speaker 3: way parents raise their children. And this is really I
Speaker 3: think the Scalia point is why is it the job
Speaker 3: of the courts to do that? If it really is
Speaker 3: a matter of such strong universal morality, then we should
Speaker 3: allow the states to decide. For example, we do that
Speaker 3: now with abortion right. That was the great argument that
Speaker 3: conservatives made against abortions. Why should the courts intervene about
Speaker 3: abortion right? So let each state decide it for itself.
Speaker 3: And look, I live in California. If my crazy co
Speaker 3: residents want pass this stupid bill then and they want
Speaker 3: to destroy the family in California, then that's the mistake
Speaker 3: of Californians. And people can leave or change the government.
Speaker 3: But why should the courts be the ones to enforce
Speaker 3: morality rather than the legislatures.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, all legislatures enforce. All they do
Speaker 4: is enforce morality. Let's be very clear about that. Every
Speaker 4: decision they make is a moral decision. And this idea
Speaker 4: that you can separate law from morality is just stupid.
Speaker 4: But I'll leave that one aside. And it's not a joke.
Speaker 4: Some of the decisions made by say, pro life Catholics,
Speaker 4: to make it a little simpler, were, again John prudential decisions.
Speaker 4: Get as much good and eliminate as much evil as
Speaker 4: possible with the You know, so, if rather than a
Speaker 4: national right to abortion and all of the horrible things
Speaker 4: that that brings with it, you leave the question of
Speaker 4: abortion to the states where it's easier to push an
Speaker 4: agenda against it, leave it at that. It's every decision
Speaker 4: a legislature makes affects some moral question. Even if it's
Speaker 4: a taxation decision, it's it's who should be text and
Speaker 4: why should they be taxed? Is it? Do we have
Speaker 4: a moral favoritism for poor over rich? So we're going
Speaker 4: to tax the rich. We're going to tax it very
Speaker 4: wealthy in California because they're bad people for being so wealthy.
Speaker 4: I mean, don't kid yourself. Every single law makes some
Speaker 4: kind of moral judgment.
Speaker 3: Oh, I agree with you. I think the Sclia point
Speaker 3: is make the legislatures do it. For example, and every
Speaker 3: question like this question of the family, why is it
Speaker 3: the job of the judiciary to stop that from happening?
Speaker 3: With this issue of our transgender children and the family, Steve.
Speaker 2: Well, I could say a bunch about this, including you know,
Speaker 2: our friend Halie Arcis.
Speaker 1: By the way, if Phil Munoz is still back with us,
Speaker 1: he's having an embolism right now.
Speaker 2: John over the way he did that question, he's not
Speaker 2: okay because he had.
Speaker 3: The embolism during the previous session, so he could a
Speaker 3: sign on. Because Steve's screwed up the technology and feeling.
Speaker 1: That is no, and it was Irnian hackers. I think that.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it's they wouldn't have kept you. Steve, Well,
Speaker 4: you okay.
Speaker 2: I looked at you know, like our friend Hadley Arcus
Speaker 2: and Jerry Bradley, they were disappointed with the.
Speaker 1: Abortion decisions for not going far enough right. They they
Speaker 1: did it on very minimalist grounds.
Speaker 2: Because I think had the and others and I think
Speaker 2: the serious pro lifers say we ought to declare a
Speaker 2: personhood for unbrown children under the Fourteenth Amendment, and that's
Speaker 2: probably a bridge too far politically and judicially. It does
Speaker 2: remind me a little bit, in a different context of
Speaker 2: McCauley's great line about the Toleration Act, where you said.
Speaker 3: Oh, there, well, that it was not an analogy.
Speaker 2: I'm just, uh, you know what is Macaulay's line about
Speaker 2: the Toleration Act in sixteen eighty eight was it removed
Speaker 2: a great evil without disturbing a vast mass of prejudice.
Speaker 2: So what you have here is a public opinion that
Speaker 2: is confused, I think, but certainly a large plurality favors abortion.
Speaker 2: It's lumpy by states. California's probably seventy percent, Texas less so.
Speaker 2: And the point is is that you now have a
Speaker 2: nuptia put it well, I think reduced the number of
Speaker 2: abortions that you're going to happen, although so far un
Speaker 2: much for the numbers bear that out. But your question
Speaker 2: about the judiciary. Just this week I taught the old
Speaker 2: New York case of Rigs versus I forget Who. This
Speaker 2: is a case of a kid who had murdered his
Speaker 2: grandfather in whose will he'd been named as the heir
Speaker 2: before his.
Speaker 1: Grandfather could change the will.
Speaker 2: And it was of course sentenced to a prison for
Speaker 2: the murder, but he claimed his inheritance and the judges said, now,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, you can't.
Speaker 1: What's the old old joke about the.
Speaker 2: Person whos his parents and ask for orphan right, the
Speaker 2: court said, we're not going through that logic. Person is
Speaker 2: not A person is not entitled to benefit from a wrong,
Speaker 2: a clear wrong like this. Even though the dissent in
Speaker 2: that case said, wait, we can't do this. The statute
Speaker 2: says he's you know, a state law says he's the heir.
Speaker 1: We have to execute it that way. Right.
Speaker 2: So in an other cases like that usv. Kirby on
Speaker 2: the US attorney who arrested the sheriff in Ohio for
Speaker 2: arresting a murderer who was on a barge, a male
Speaker 2: carrying barge the Ohio River, and the charge was you
Speaker 2: impeded the mail. There's a statute against that, and it
Speaker 2: was pink. Court made quick work of that, saying this
Speaker 2: is silly, right. It was under Stephen Field opinion.
Speaker 1: Right. So I don't think there's that much difficulty.
Speaker 2: It's only a moral skeptic like you who think there's
Speaker 2: a problem with the court stepping up when they need.
Speaker 3: To, well, when there's a warm court in charge, I
Speaker 3: really don't want them to do it. Okay, one last
Speaker 3: issue though, Do we have time to get to it?
Speaker 1: I don't think we do.
Speaker 3: But no technical difficulties have atten to an hour.
Speaker 4: I'll bring up a topic that you you next, but
Speaker 4: I'm actually very much interested in, and that is the
Speaker 4: Texas Senate race. Okay, bye bye, Jasmine. I I won't
Speaker 4: have to ask you anymore questions. She's still complaining that everybody,
Speaker 4: everybody and their brother was either stupid or cheated. But anyway, Uh,
Speaker 4: I actually Tallaricoes. Oh my god, you guys can talk
Speaker 4: about him. I don't think he's worth the breath if
Speaker 4: he but I want to talk about uh. And you
Speaker 4: know when we're when we're recording this, Trump has not
Speaker 4: made his endorsement. Ken Paxton has come out, which I
Speaker 4: think is with a very statesmanlike proposal. I will step down.
Speaker 4: I will get out of the race if if that
Speaker 4: scumbag John Corny, and you know I despise him for
Speaker 4: a lot of reasons that if he Yeah, I do.
Speaker 4: When we talked about the Johns way back when who
Speaker 4: was going to take over from from the disinterred turtle.
Speaker 1: When boy, you're hit. You're hitting some new highlights today.
Speaker 4: Yes I am, and you guys write those down.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: But but John Cornyn had literally tens of millions of
Speaker 4: dollars spent as an incumbent to beat James Talerico by
Speaker 4: what one percentage point or something like that? You may,
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean Paxton. Sorry, sorry, that's what I meant.
Speaker 4: I am not sure that Paxton couldn't win that race.
Speaker 4: And if it were up to me, if I were Trump,
Speaker 4: I would say, Okay, here's your deal, folks, you Rhino
Speaker 4: senate Republicans, Stune and all the rest of those. Either
Speaker 4: you pass to say back this week, or I'm going
Speaker 4: to endorse Paxton. That's what I would do. And because
Speaker 4: I don't think Cornan is uh, everyone says, oh, he's
Speaker 4: the only one who could beat Tallarico, because everybody's gonna
Speaker 4: love this little cutie pie, dumbass minister God is non binary.
Speaker 4: There are six sexes, six genders. I guess there can't
Speaker 4: be six sexes. There can be a million genders. Because
Speaker 4: it's useless anyway. I'm done with those. I'm done with
Speaker 4: the John cornyings of the world. I'm done with the
Speaker 4: James Tallerricos of the world. Supposedly Paxton has some kind
Speaker 4: of uh scandal in his background. I don't know what
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 3: But scandal's plural scandal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't care.
Speaker 3: I don't get your thoughts on the Texas primaries before
Speaker 3: we and and just just throughout the listeners, what we
Speaker 3: were gonna plan to talk about was why do Steve
Speaker 3: and Linda hate social science so much? But that'll be
Speaker 3: for next week. But Steve, so your view on the
Speaker 3: Texas primary shouldn't shouldn't let me put this way, shouldn't
Speaker 3: Paxton just concede so that Republicans can rally around Cornyn
Speaker 3: and picked up an easy to win seat which they're
Speaker 3: going to need to keep for the majority when it
Speaker 3: looks like they're going to definitely lose the House this November,
Speaker 3: rather than having a Paxton, a flawed candidate, go up
Speaker 3: and potentially lose, and even if he doesn't, the Republican
Speaker 3: pier will have to spend millions of millions to win
Speaker 3: in the seat.
Speaker 2: Steve, well, look, I mean, I think Paxson does have
Speaker 2: a lot of baggage, but look that tall Rico.
Speaker 1: Guy he's veto two point zero times ten.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's the attacks on him are going to
Speaker 2: be delicious, and so I think he will not be
Speaker 2: a very good candidate.
Speaker 1: Look, there was a third candidate.
Speaker 2: In Republican primary, remember who got to a ten eleven
Speaker 2: twelve percent of the vote, And I.
Speaker 1: Think those votes would have gone to Paxton.
Speaker 2: I think if that person has not been running, people say, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, Cornan would have won and been horned.
Speaker 1: As the Lucretia points out, was only ahead of Paxton
Speaker 1: by one point.
Speaker 2: I've got to think that if those votes for the
Speaker 2: other person were split, Paxton would have won the primary.
Speaker 2: Because I think I'm not as down on Cornan as Lucretius.
Speaker 1: He's voted with Trump something like ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 3: He's very yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well look, all right, those can be misleading because
Speaker 2: there has not been a boat on the say back.
Speaker 2: So all right, I don't know if he's opposed to
Speaker 2: say back.
Speaker 3: But the question here is too he's pro SA, but
Speaker 3: he's against getting rid of the philibuster.
Speaker 2: Well, let's see, I thought Lucretia was two when we
Speaker 2: brought this up a few days ago, and so I
Speaker 2: thought I'm not.
Speaker 4: I'm against it too. What I'm in favor of is
Speaker 4: the talking philibuster. That's okay, Well, well they won't do it,
Speaker 4: they're too busy being on vacation.
Speaker 2: Well okay, fine, But point number two is if you
Speaker 2: start them out on a talking filibuster, Democrats are going
Speaker 2: to be happy to plan that out for six weeks,
Speaker 2: eight weeks longer. Fine, I mean we should. I think
Speaker 2: she'd make them sleep in their darn clots. And I'm
Speaker 2: for it, except remember, if you want a supplemental defense
Speaker 2: appropriation in three or four weeks from now for the
Speaker 2: war against Iran or something else, you will not be
Speaker 2: able to do it in the Senate.
Speaker 1: There is that trade off. Ways to think about. Well,
Speaker 1: if it wasn't we won't need it. But what if
Speaker 1: it isn't over what if you actually need the point?
Speaker 1: And what about judges?
Speaker 2: You know we're going to try and confirm some Pelic
Speaker 2: court judges between now an election day. What if we're
Speaker 2: you know, three months into a filibuster? Because I think
Speaker 2: the Democrats will lay down front of a train on them,
Speaker 2: well I'm not surely might they might give in because
Speaker 2: the polls show that even a majority of Democrats favor
Speaker 2: voter id But just remember the one't only making is
Speaker 2: it is not without potentially serious costs and trade off
Speaker 2: to think about.
Speaker 1: That's all. By the way, I think Cornyn was.
Speaker 2: A political idiot for not figuring out where the winds
Speaker 2: were blowing. I think he's kind of clueless that way,
Speaker 2: and so it's his own darnfall that that.
Speaker 3: At the same time, interesting when you saw Senator Danes,
Speaker 3: I think, right, retire and write Montana. Right, So you're
Speaker 3: saying he should Corny should have followed his example.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know, but fight and let.
Speaker 3: The Republican Party pick a new candidate.
Speaker 2: Well, but look the Montana thing, I mean, the fix
Speaker 2: was in there. I kind of like the fact that
Speaker 2: they put the fix into that. Sounds like the guy
Speaker 2: that kicked is going to be pretty good. But I
Speaker 2: don't think that's it's a different situation in Texas. I
Speaker 2: don't think the two states are equivalent.
Speaker 3: Well, that brings us to the end of our time.
Speaker 3: So the Krisha, what uh bab you have for us?
Speaker 4: I have to keep him uh a minimal even though
Speaker 4: I have a whole list. So let me start. We'll
Speaker 4: we'll work on the war once first, Biden asks why
Speaker 4: Trump didn't just bomb Iyatola in the leg Obama confused
Speaker 4: to see bombs falling on a ram instead of palletts
Speaker 4: of cash.
Speaker 3: Truth. True.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we didn't talk about Christy Nome. That's fine a
Speaker 4: lot of us.
Speaker 3: I know, I wanted to talk about it. If you
Speaker 3: guys didn't want to.
Speaker 4: I would have been fine. But I'll just go with
Speaker 4: the the new DHS nominee. DHS nominee Mark Wayne Mullen, who,
Speaker 4: by the way, is a former m M A fighter,
Speaker 4: which means in my house, he's very popular. DHS nominee
Speaker 4: Mark Wayne Mullen surges in popularity after vowing to deport
Speaker 4: liberal white ladies.
Speaker 3: I like that one.
Speaker 4: I like that one. Then you guys know that it
Speaker 4: was three hundred and fifty seven members of the House
Speaker 4: who decided not in the midst of this, this whole
Speaker 4: travesty with the Epstein What a you talk about wasting time?
Speaker 4: Nobody gives a damn about the Epstein files. Go into them,
Speaker 4: figure out what's going on, okay anyway, But they did
Speaker 4: decide not to release the records about how the seventeen
Speaker 4: million dollars that have been paid out to victims of
Speaker 4: sexual harassment by members of Congress. Go figure. Congress pledges
Speaker 4: to work tirelessly to expose all sex criminals who aren't
Speaker 4: in Congress. Okay, this one's for you. Steve America graciously
Speaker 4: converts twenty Iranian warships into new submarine means right, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: this one's for are the people who pay attention to
Speaker 4: popular global leaders warned that if what w W three
Speaker 4: doesn't end soon, it could disrupt Taylor Swift's wedding. Not
Speaker 4: in these sweetees, I almost think to get the reference
Speaker 4: in madonniae orders flags. Okay, two more Madonnie orders flags
Speaker 4: at one World Trade Center flown half staff to mourn
Speaker 4: the Ayatola. Yeah finally, Iranian generals kicking themselves for not
Speaker 4: just meeting over zoom or substances.
Speaker 1: Yeah done.
Speaker 3: I Before I do my normal stick, I just want
Speaker 3: to remind everyone that the Justice Department has put up
Speaker 3: all the Epstein files in a searchable database. And so
Speaker 3: I just put in Steve Hayward's name and got no hits.
Speaker 3: I put in a Kresha and I got hundreds and
Speaker 3: hundreds of hits. Chut yourself now, fears there's someone named
Speaker 3: Lucretia who was doing a lot of stuff with Epstein.
Speaker 3: But I leave that to the listeners to play the
Speaker 3: data based on the DNJ website. Always drink your whiskey, meat,
Speaker 3: buy more hot Barbaria Texas Barbecue.
Speaker 1: That's going to be our new sign off.
Speaker 3: Yes, Steve, what new closing do you have in development?
Speaker 3: To recognize our move to the Civitas Institute in Texas?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the thing to do is to say,
Speaker 2: if you if the listener's viewers are not following Cimotas
Speaker 2: Outlook where John mccreash and I are. Hey, we're all
Speaker 2: fellows now at Cimatas and b contributors to Cimotas Outlook.
Speaker 2: It's a place you should put mark. I think their
Speaker 2: editor Richard Brynch is really talented guy.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh so you know that's a place you
Speaker 1: should now look for things. Uh. Second, you know, we
Speaker 1: want to try and class.
Speaker 2: Up the join a little bit, and after we work
Speaker 2: out our technical difficulties from today.
Speaker 1: Uh but we well okay.
Speaker 2: But uh we we uh we should start doing some
Speaker 2: of the standard things listeners and say, would you please
Speaker 2: go to Apple iTunes or other others podcast source and
Speaker 2: give us a five star review.
Speaker 1: It helps us build our audience. Symbatos will like it.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's it for this week.
Speaker 3: I care less about the reviews or the stars. Who
Speaker 3: cares what they were doing?
Speaker 4: It for the art they promote it work, that's right.
Speaker 4: I have Well, I have a final, final, final word.
Speaker 4: And this one's for Jim who's not joined. He doesn't
Speaker 4: but he likes to watch it early in the morning
Speaker 4: when he can't sleep. This is for our listener, Jim
Speaker 4: or otherwise known as the Doppler. Oh, don't forget to
Speaker 4: milk the hard power.
Speaker 1: Oh hard power. See that's this is.
Speaker 4: A dividend dividend. I was thinking. I got rolled back. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I know, dividends. Don't forget it, just justice, Jean.
Speaker 2: Can I just say look for for for recent listeners.
Speaker 2: This is a throwback to Trump one when we ended
Speaker 2: the show. Then then there's just me and Lucretian in
Speaker 2: those days. But we ended the show with Samantha Power's
Speaker 2: famous remark on election Night twenty sixteen, when Hillary Laws
Speaker 2: saying I was looking forward to milking the soft power dividend.
Speaker 2: I thought, if that isn't the perfect encapsulation of flabby
Speaker 2: idiotic lydism. I don't know what is so we we
Speaker 2: ran with that for a long time to look got
Speaker 2: old but now more powered.
Speaker 1: Dividend right, yeah, power power.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm a big book that should be like the
Speaker 3: neo Khan anthem. Anyway, run it.
Speaker 4: Why don't you John up.
Speaker 6: God, Burger and Paradise to have my alder?
Speaker 1: Little don your slives. It's not too particular, non's impersize.
Speaker 1: I'm just a She's Burger and Paradise heard him out
Speaker 1: the old time sailor man. They eat the same thing
Speaker 1: again and again. Ricochet join the conversation.